I'm Nick and we are here playing Mork Borg and it is a scenario I wrote over the span of four hours today and I hope it doesn't suck.
ah Yeah.
I'm here with Jimmy and Patrick who are rolling up characters right now.
Hello?
Thanks for running stuff at um four hours notice.
No, mean, yeah, I guess this morning eight hours notice, but yeah.
All right.
um Bellam and Vrac walk through a valley that's not a valley at all.
It's more like a gutter.
You wade through knee deep drifts, a pale pulverized bone and rusted, shattered iron from a thousand failed pilgrimages.
And the air is stagnant and heavy smelling of pennies or old copper.
uh
Either side of the valley rises like a rib cage of a Leviathan into mountains, but only one emits black smoke.
What's the mountain's name?
Hmm.
Mount death.
pretty lame.
Okay.
You see Mount Death on the horizon.
It's a sheer aggressive wall of necrotic basalt that violently blots out the sky behind it, which is jaundice yellow because this world is dying.
The mountain doesn't just stand before you, it leans and it radiates a crushing localized gravity.
If you had weapons, and I think you do, they would feel close approaching this mountain.
And you walk through this gutter.
What's your conversation like, Bellam and Vrak?
Well, you know, I got my hook whenever we summoned that horrible beast from our past.
It took my hand.
I, you know, I fought it.
Yeah.
poor.
Yeah.
I didn't really know him, but we were good friends.
He was, I was his best friend actually.
Uh, because one time, uh, you know, he needed a back scratch and I...
Well, it was right at the end, he, you know, I got the hook in the same event that he died.
But I used my hook hand to...
I'm really leaning into the Never Shuts Up.
If you want to cut me off at some point, feel free.
right.
Well, at any rate, I bet he'd want us to get up to the mountain and finish this off.
Actually, yeah, I imagine our trek towards Mount Death is in fact a long one-sided conversation.
Well, you know, there's just a lot of interesting things in the world.
Besides my hook, you know, I carry around my laboratory.
Do you want some potions?
I've only got two right now, ah but I can always make more ah if you want.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Yeah, that sounds great.
What do you got today?
Uh, well, I've got number seven and number four, which I keep a list of my potions.
I'll have to look at the menu.
Well, one makes me feel better, but it's addictive.
And the other one makes me really angry and easy to hit.
I get clumsy.
I think neither of those right now.
Thank you.
uh Okay.
I mean, you can always stand to feel better.
In fact, I might take a hit of one right now.
No, I should wait.
It's early in the day.
It's, you know, that addiction for the healing one, it gets you sometimes.
ah
Want some chewing tobacco?
Yes.
I give him a really large wad of chewing tobacco and hope that it shuts him off.
Yeah, yeah, so you know, sometimes when I chew tobacco, if I chew too much, oh, okay, all right.
Well, it makes my tummy hurt, but anyway.
Ha ha ha ha!
you're not smacking on disgusting chewing tobacco.
Okay, well you can barely hear a sound in the distance, a weeping sound it sounds like.
Now imagine you're in this valley that is, like I said, a gutter.
And in the distance you see not a village but a cluster of small buildings and this loud.
sobbing that is mixed with the whale is emitting from it.
I'm gonna be honest here, Nick.
My first instinct is to avoid that at all costs.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
give the uh whaling village a wide berth, but I understand that that might not.
be a functional choice.
Yeah, it's the wailing is an individual.
It's not like a cacophony.
Okay.
What could you steal from this sad figure, I wonder?
Sounds like maybe not much.
We rock up, I'm sure.
Brock, are you going too?
yeah.
Yeah, you crest over a small hill and through the wisp of bone white ash or dust or it could even be old ancient bone crushed into the ground, you see a fire in the distance
that's smokeless and a hut behind it and some goats.
And sitting next to the fire, you see a hunched over figure crying.
And she's perfectly still, but you hear the sound.
Is she normal size?
Yes, it's a human-sized thing, so yeah.
Great question.
But yeah, you hear.
And she's unmoving?
Like statues still?
You're a little far away, but you can get closer and check that out.
Hey, hey Bellum, hold on, hold on.
Yeah, all right, all right.
Thanks for the tobacco.
It was just a lot of tobacco.
But at any rate, ah you know, I like to, you know, kind of trick people sometimes and just being the kind of tricky guy I am.
You think this is a trick?
You think she's trying to lure us in?
She got her friends like behind a tree or something?
Yes.
Okay.
Or it's something not a people.
Yeah, Yeah, that uh
Bertrum or Bursum or whoever my best friend was, you know, so we can't digest yet.
Yeah, Belsum.
name, but with an S in the middle.
Oh yeah, yeah, he's kinda like a bell, but he's some bells.
Yeah, and it's...
Well, ah we can do one thing or we can do the other.
I guess maybe we engage on this quest.
Maybe it's, maybe we just shout from afar.
You guys can give me a presence roll.
Uh?
These are all D20s, right?
OK.
Oh.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
Bellum, as your paranoia gets the best of you and you start imagining this hut opening up and biting you in half, there is this overwhelming sense of, I'm wrong.
Like you look even closer and she is...
start, you do see her shoulders slightly moving as she cries.
Her cloak is just massive.
It's like maybe a weighted blanket.
Maybe she has some anxiety.
I'm not sure, but you look at your surroundings and you've set ambush ups before and cut plenty of throats in those ambushes.
There's not a lot of points other than the hut where anything would come out of.
You doubt that there's some sort of ambush.
Hehehehehe
What do you think, bud?
You getting a read on this?
I don't think she's a monster.
Okay, well, I'm gonna go check it out.
Hey, person or whatever you are.
from the ridge we're on?
Like, hey, lady!
Yeah, you can.
You do see the figure.
Yeah, perfect.
The lady, you see her sit up slowly and pull off a heavy cloak from her face.
Maybe it's even a blanket.
And her face from the distance is pale bone white.
You can't really see any, I guess, features, but the crying does stop and she...
You see her lips move and she's talking quietly, but you can't hear her.
YOU'RE TOO QUIET!
Yeah, you gotta speak up, we're far away!
Yeah, then you hear, leave me.
OKAY!
To my grief!
Okay
Yeah.
Are you...
Well, why you out here crying?
oh Do you care for
uh I don't know, she's here.
Maybe this is some kind of...
You know how in those old stories it's like an old man shows up on the side of the road on a quest and you think the quest is where you're going but the quest was actually the old
man and you gotta help him.
Maybe this is one of those magic quests like that.
Well, put it being easy out and you know how lazy I am, so...
up and starts to stumble towards you and she walks with a hunch and kind of just, yeah, again, stumbles forward and looks up and meets you eye to eye as she gets closer and
closer.
See, not a tongue.
Yeah.
You know, my dog here, Arby, he can go get him.
Hey, Arby, go check that woman out.
Are you sicking your dog on this lady?
No, not- I mean, he could if she gets violent, but I just want him to go get a closer look and then come back and, you know.
What's your dog gonna tell you?
well you know, one bark for safe, two barks for dangerous.
you've got a whole system.
right.
Yeah, he's a train dog.
She walks, the dog runs up, bounds up to her and maybe it gets down on its haunches a little bit.
And she just walks right by it as it's sniffing and her robe is dragging the dust.
The dog grabs the robe and starts jerking on it backwards, almost like playing tug of war and playing, but she just powers through it and is pulling the dog with her as she charges
forward to you.
And are you letting her get right up to you or are you gonna do anything before she gets to you?
Uh, hey lady, no that's close enough, you try saying the thing again.
Cause I...
I...
Yeah.
Yeah, as she's gotten closer, you see her skin is the textured of cured leather, which isn't uncommon for this, for where you're at.
It's painted white with ash and there's black makeup highlighting her eyes.
And when she speaks, it sounds like a shovel dragging across stone.
And she stops when you tell her to stop, gets down on her knees.
and then holds out her arms to you like this.
And she says, can you bring me vengeance?
We're actually looking for some ourselves, I think, so maybe.
thought we were running from the puzzle box.
Are we vengeance-ing the puzzle box?
Well, the puzzle box was a long time ago.
I...
We haven't really determined our...
vengeance also.
Who are you venging?
My lover.
I was his concubine.
Will you give me vengeance?
Uh, yeah.
Fuck him.
you're right.
Yeah, she beckons you forward.
Peace.
princes and kings and whatnot get concubines.
You don't get to kill a king that often.
Oh shit, yeah that sounds pretty excellent actually.
If I could just hook a king right in the face, I'd show those rich fucking bastards.
And she
is he?
I do not approach.
She's making like weird little graspy hands.
I don't like that.
Do not approach.
Absolutely not, no.
Hee.
here, ma'am.
She points to the smoking top of the mountain, Mount Death, as you aptly named.
And when you get a closer look at it, you see there is a trail, almost like a pilgrimage of sticks or timber something lining a road that heads to the top.
And she says, Ibram, he took my son.
And he means to kill him at the top of the mountain.
He was my baby, my only baby.
What's the baby's name?
YEEZEK
Hmm.
I don't understand how the concubine thing fits into all that.
The guy that you were concubineing took your son and he's gonna kill him on the mountain is all you're telling me.
He thinks a god told him to sacrifice him and his whore wife.
encouraged him.
Yeah, she's probably jealous.
name?
My name is Hagar.
Jimmy, what do you know about Abraham and Isaac?
Uh, well, uh...
They're in the Bible.
And,
is a question for Jimmy, not for Vrac.
You
we're the same person here.
ah well, you know, uh, what?
There was some like inheritance and like some moms want people to like different people to get the inheritance or whatever.
Am I thinking of the right thing?
No, I'm thinking of Jacob and Esau.
Yeah, I don't know.
You'll learn.
You please give me vengeance.
He means to take him to the mountain and cut his throat and burn him.
And he is my boy.
That whore Sarah will say that he is her, but she is barren of the womb.
Do not listen to her.
wait, it's coming back to me now.
Was he the one that was supposed to kill his son and then there was a goat?
Yeah, something like that.
You know, it's interesting, that story doesn't actually say that the sun came down from the mountain.
It just says the dad came down from the mountain.
That's kinda weird, yeah?
Anyway, I'm sorry, what were you saying ma'am?
He carries a dagger that is touched and divine.
if you pry it from his dead hands, you can keep it.
And I'm sure that is enough treasure for you to get your payment.
this.
What was his name again?
And Ibram, is he like a duke or a prince or, or,
You
oh Now you see his kingdom here." And then she points at the hut.
Do you really count as a concubine then if he's not like at least a duke?
I count as a slave.
He would call me a concubine.
They took me from where my lands are.
Yeah, okay.
you would fucking care.
Yeah, I mean, it kinda sounds like a guy worth killing and you don't really have much in the way of weapons.
I I got this cool hook, I got a sword, I got my rat, I got my dog.
You could use a cool knife.
We just go kill a dude.
I mean, we've killed lots of dudes.
and we're going up the mountain anyway, right?
So we may as well.
We'll do it on the way.
Yeah.
Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.
right.
Hey, lady, you got any advice for killing this guy?
Is he like blind in one eye or, you know, take snaps at 2 p.m.?
Yeah.
No, no, he's flesh and blood as I am.
But, his wife has a cold.
Beware.
HULK HULK
Yes, the Baron.
how many people?
I don't know, they live on the mountainside.
more or less than 10.
And she holds up a finger or a hand with three fingers and a hand with five fingers and...
about eight.
We cannot fight eight cultists.
Yeah, yeah, killing eight guys is a little bit, well, I'd be nine guys, I guess, because the eight plus the, yeah.
All right.
Well, okay, we'll see about this then.
I don't know about the old occultists.
Yeah, we'll do our best.
You guys wanna give me another presence roll?
19 plus 1 is 20 and whatever the DR is it's reduced by 2.
Yeah, you hear a strange whale in the distance that's like almost like a goat screaming and a human man yelling.
How old is your baby?
My baby.
No, no, no.
He's 12.
Okay, alright.
that sound like him?
never heard that sound.
Oh, fuck that.
All right, let's go.
Yep.
All right.
Yep.
You got anything in your hut that'll let us kill your...
...guy?
Hmm.
help us on our quest to kill the guy for you, our murder.
The assassination you requested.
I have advice.
If you see his barren whore of a wife, you promise her a child.
O-okay.
and the cult will leave you be.
Promise isn't like, I'll go get her one, or...
I leave it to you.
Yeah, not very devoted, is she?
Okay.
Man, you really don't like this lady.
Let's go.
Yep.
Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm itching to get moving.
It's enough standing here.
Yeah, we we which direction did the goat man screaming come from man goat?
we're going towards the goat man screaming the man goat screaming.
Okay, that's suboptimal, I think.
ah
Yeah, gotta be done.
And yeah, she stands there and watches you walk by her and turns her entire body to watch you.
then she just starts bursting out into the laughter again.
ah She's not crying.
She's.
Yeah, that makes me feel good about this whole thing.
No.
Yeah, there's a little bit of sarcasm there, know.
Hell goes.
What do you think?
You think it's gonna rain soon?
um I Yeah, her skin was real dry
So in front of you, have this mountain and there is a village far, far down the valley behind some hazy smoke.
um Somebody wanna set that scene or describe some of the details of that walk towards the mountain.
Are we going to the mountain or the village from this hut?
I'm not, I'm not sure.
You would have to go, you wouldn't go to the village because the village is like further down the valley.
Yep, yep.
uh And there's fire coming off the mountain
smoke.
Yeah.
oh it was smokeless fire by the lady, but smoke coming off the mountain.
Yeah.
We ought to get them together.
um Make one whole ass fire.
um
Hey, uh, Bellum, you ever see a mountain like that?
It's got smoke coming out the top.
There's like this weird yellow sky behind it.
I feel like the sky's white.
You ever stare at the sky so long that the yellow kind of starts to seem green or other colors?
And then there's like.
through the drifts of ash.
Yeah, yeah, look at all it's getting it's getting in my potion equipment man.
This stuff is the worst Yeah, I know i'm gonna have to clean out my cauldron, whenever whenever I get a chance uh, maybe I need to fashion like a little a little mask for uh for
it's gonna rain?
I really need it to rain.
UGH!
Maybe if we find some water I can splash it up in the air for you?
Okay, alright.
Why do you need a terrain, Bellum?
maybe uh if we find a big enough thing of water, I can uh shoot a uh fireball at it.
Palms open, the southern gate, my scroll, and that'll make steam, and then the steam condenses and comes down as rain.
You think that'll work?
I think if we find enough water, I'm set anyhow.
gotta, I just, there's not really any sludge around here.
Yeah, I see.
You do like sludge.
really dusty, really dry.
ah And it just makes me feel exposed, you know?
How about this, every time we have to piss, we piss in my cauldron, and then once we got enough piss, we can mix the mud with it.
Or the dirt.
Alright.
beautiful.
you are walking and you hear that creature shout again closer, same goat sound, same human guttural uh vocal cords below it.
and you are getting closer to the mountain.
The mountain has, it's not barren.
There are stumps around, there's things that have been logged out.
It is not living necessarily, but there are things that like stones around that you could hide behind and there's briars that are dead and like hollow inside that.
would break if you were to snap them, but would probably hurt if you walked through.
And these briars lead up and you start to see that path up the mountain and these large timbered sticks that go along it straight up.
Are these sticks like vertical or are they like a hiking trail sort of stepping logs?
Yeah, Vrak, you used to have a crucifix.
They remind you of crucifixes.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Do they have horizontals?
No, just a straight stick, but yeah.
crucify someone on a stick.
Are there any attachments that could be used for crucifixion?
Any blood on them?
pretty far away still, but yeah.
Alright.
Bellum, you ever hear anything like that goat man sound?
Okay.
No.
Man go.
Yeah.
Yeah, man goat man.
Hmm.
All right, well, we've got our task.
ah I guess we keep our eyes peeled for anything we might find.
ah
Let's, Let's walk softly.
Yeah, sneakily, maybe we, it's a little barren, but maybe we can like creep from rock to rock once we get closer.
Yes.
roll agility.
from minus one to agility.
14 with a plus 3
15 with a minus one, but all DRs for agility are lowered by two for me.
Beautiful.
So yeah, you're both very quiet.
Like what is, I mean, you guys have been out there, you messed with some cube thing in the past.
Do you have a attack you take when you're trying to sneak?
we try to be quiet so that the thing we're sneaking up on doesn't hear us.
Yeah, I, I imagine I'm wearing like a big robe, you know, along with my occult herb master upbringings, kinda druidic almost, and I kinda put on my hood and I put my cauldron on my
back so it looks kinda like a hunch, and then I hunch over and try to pretend to be a stone.
And then when I think it's clear I move a little bit.
And I hunch down and I'm a stone.
Be the stone.
is consistently behind Vrak, with behind that, like scooting Cauldron.
Beautiful, yeah.
Yeah, it's like a military movement.
Like frat goes first, under cloak, bellum sneaks in, hides behind, little tap, and then you go forward.
As you're doing this, you get to the foothills and you see the first of these large timbers and there are, it looks like at the top, there is a spike through it.
and there's black remnants of probably dried blood as well.
ah That's what you see.
don't see a body on it or anything, but you know, the crucifix thing.
somewhere on it.
or a foot spike, so yeah.
And yeah, this mountain starts to go up.
You're no longer on flat ground.
Is it like scraggly?
Like a lot of scree and stones and like loose footing?
Yeah, so.
I start picking up small sharp rocks.
Yeah, exactly.
And so you get to there and you're able to definitely find jagged sharp rocks.
Some of them are yellowed and they kind of look like broken teeth.
They're not, they're rocks as far as you can tell.
And yeah, this thing starts to go up and they're, that line of things like points you straight up, but you see,
in the distance while you're sneaking a goat just sitting in the path and it's scratching at its body with its hooves and trying to knock something off of it.
And it's making a strange like bleeding that almost sounds human.
I say we get, can we get close enough so we can make out what it's trying to knock off?
Has it got a little saddle on it or what?
So with your earlier agility role, sure.
Give me a presence though.
Seven plus one is eight.
Okay.
no, just five straight.
If you were thinking of 10, it's minus 2.
Uh, my, wait.
So presence always has a minus two.
Is that what you're saying?
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You can't really pick up anything from this distance.
Hmm.
Alright, well...
We gotta keep going.
Let's...
Yep, sneak up on the goat, if we can.
Uh, I-
me a 2D6?
I'll roll one, you roll the other.
There you go.
Six.
I don't know if that's good or bad.
It's another six.
Yeah.
Yeah, you get closer and it seems like it's in pain and it's scratching at things and you're able to sneak right up on it and you see it pull out with a hoof in a strange
manner.
a spike with something hanging from it.
And as you've gotten closer, its entire body is full of these spikes with little tags hanging off of them.
And he's like, just bleeding and trying to yank these things out of him.
Well that's
I've never seen anything like that.
Uh, Bellum, you got any ideas?
I don't want those spike things to come after us.
This spike things, do they look like they're made of metal?
Wood?
Iron?
They don't look...
Do they move after it pulls them out or do they clatter to the ground?
Looks like it's yanked out how many?
around it?
Yeah, as you look at it, probably about six or seven, but it's probably got hundreds in its body.
You think that's from like some kind of trap?
some kind of spike trap.
The tags have letters on them?
Can I read?
Hey, hey, uh, Rat, can you go grab one of those and bring it back?
I like that.
Yeah, your rat sneaks up and uh give me a, give me an agility for the rat.
keep wanting to reach for my T100s.
ah That's a 19.
Okay, yeah, it grabs, you see it grab it and it's with its little teeth and scurry back and drops it on the ground.
And it's a small little iron spike that looks like it's hand Smithied and there's a little ring put through it and hanging from that ring is a piece of dried skin with something
written on it.
what's written on it.
I looked it up.
I am literate.
Okay, great.
You look at it and this one says...
This one says adultery.
Mmm.
Alright, let's go yank all the spikes out of it.
It's either that or sneak past and it keeps making noise, so...
Yeah, that sounds fair.
I have a feeling the other ones are gonna be, uh, sins of some sort.
I don't know that many sins.
Well, you know, I mean, what's a sin really?
know, it's just people making choices and sometimes...
what's a sin?
There's like a bunch of-
Well, it says who?
You know, like, if I'm...
Well, I mean, what do they know rea- Well, like, if I'm...
If I'm dying, and it's either die or steal some bread, like, you know, is it really a sin to survive?
and you pull out another one.
This one is murder and different handwriting, but it has a strip of flesh that has a little fresher than the other ones.
As you've gotten close and seen this go, it is actually a man who has.
been shaved down and his skin painted black.
And there are basically these almost like barbed wire iron ropes that are putting holding horns on his head under his jaw.
And his entire jaw is split in half and he's making a strange bleeding sound.
But he's covered in these things.
And he's weeping and bleeding, bleating as you pull one out.
pulling won't take that long with our hands.
You can have one of these, uh, these little healing potion boys I got.
No- Oh.
O- okay.
I don't know, that seems like that might complicate it.
What if it grows over it or something?
Yeah, well, yeah, that's I was thinking more like kind of calm him down and maybe he could tell us why he's this way but
okay, go for it.
Yeah, whatever.
Are you, while you're pulling these things out, are you going for speed or are you going for care?
Um, how difficult are they to remove?
I'm not like swiping my hand across it.
Yeah, I'm pulling them out one at a time.
Okay, yeah, go ahead and give me agility.
Is this something I gotta roll for?
I got a 13 minus one, so a 12.
So if the DR was 14, I pass.
Ew.
It, it, it, not him?
Okay.
It's pretty pathetic, so it at this point.
And Vrak, you're feeding the potion to this thing?
Yeah, are you gonna force feed it or?
I'm gonna like put it up to his mouth and be like, here you go little bud.
Maybe every time he bleats, I try to like splash them in there.
Like here bud, good little lamb, whatever you are.
Well, yeah, guy who with spikes.
You know, I had some spikes once, but sorry, sorry.
Yeah, you look at his hands and the same wire is wrapping them into hooves and his feet have been split down the middle and some ritualistic disfiguring.
Hey man, are you with the cult?
He can't speak.
He's like...
Yeah, fair enough.
healing potion starting to do anything or
Yeah, you see him calm down.
You see he's laid down and it's kind of moving different ways so Bellum can grab where he hasn't been able to.
So he'll like roll on his back now that they're out of his back and you're able to pull all of them out.
And they are sins laid out all over in front of you.
Looking at these sins, what sin would you have nailed to him?
Probably lying.
to see.
Yeah, you know, that's one that I do a lot.
You know, sometimes when you're trying to talk, I just have a compulsion to talk.
And when I talk, you know, sometimes things come out that aren't true.
And then you have to like, well, shit, that came out.
So I need to like cover for that.
And it just, gets out of hand real fast.
That's very funny.
I thought that you meant, what sin do I assume this man has committed that I would nail to him?
No, you mean what is my sin?
I wildly misunderstood the purpose of this exercise.
Like, I don't know, I guess he looks like an adulterer.
I don't know, hard to tell.
Yeah, what would you do if they were nailing sins on you that you did?
Which one do think you'd do?
I don't do any sins.
Oh, yeah, cause you like the church.
Got it.
Okay.
Oh, okay.
Oh, that's what I was trying to say earlier.
I mean, even like this guy we're going to kill, right?
Like they stick murder on this guy.
But like if we don't go kill...
Yeah.
Well, he's going to kill a kid, right?
Like, I think killing a guy who's going to kill a kid, not necessarily a bad thing to do.
Apparently I'm from Brooklyn now.
Brooklyn.
Forget about it.
Yeah, he's like, as you're doing this in Bellum, you feel you have no sins to unburden, but Vrak, like what would you do to unburdening yourself of your deceit?
Like would you nail deceit to this scapegoat?
Well, I was kind of just trying to make him feel better.
And even though I do deceit, which is some people say it's a sin, I can't really help it.
I have this compulsion.
Things come out of my head and then they come out of my mouth.
And after living with it for so many years, it's like, this is just kind of who I am.
I'm not doing it because I'm a bad person.
I'm not particularly sure that I'm choosing to do this.
This whole concept of free will, people act like I choose to say these things.
But like,
you know sometimes they pop in your brain and they come out and I can't stop that you know it's not okay yeah well then I won't yeah
You
So uh, hey, Guy, can you tell us anything?
You still can't talk.
I'm not sure how effective these healing potions are.
I'm not a great herb master.
Yeah, he just...
a d6 of HP.
okay.
Yeah, roll me that D6.
Three, great.
He grabs a spike from the ground and carves in the dust.
Hello.
Oh.
Hi!
Spectacular.
And then he carves T-H-X.
Your text?
that your name?
Oh yeah!
It carves no name.
That's a cool name, Noname, got it.
Sounds like it's from the Sarkash.
Yeah.
Could be.
We don't have names like that in Shell Swig where I'm from.
Hahaha
little slice where?
uh
Yeah, I can't say the name so well, which is also why I didn't really pick up on Thanks.
He carves UR-er.
Just as are, he's just telling you where he's from.
Got it.
I heard U-Y-O-U space A-R-E-ER, U-R.
And I struggled.
I don't know where that is from here, but it seems like...
Yeah.
Are you part of this cult?
No.
And then he exits through the no multiple times in anger.
Yeah, it's not-
do they do- I think it's this iron wire around you, they use like pliers or you know where they keep them or-
Yeah, he takes his strange, hoved fingers and points up the mountain.
And as he does, he moves his hand over and past the trail of crucifixes.
And you see a jutting that is, excuse me, you see a crack through the mountain, almost like a gorge that has been split open.
by time and he points there.
Okay, well, uh, once we get all these needles out of ya.
If come with us and we find the pliers, we can get the...
Yeah, gives you a shrug.
Well, you don't mind the wire anymore?
Yeah.
You guessed that he probably doesn't remember a time before the wire.
Hmm.
Okay, well, I bet you you'll be a lot happier without it, but you do you.
Yeah, he nuzzles up to you and rubs on you like a dog would on the side of your leg.
And there's some tears coming out of his eyes at this point.
no, you're a people, don't, no.
Yeah, we've already got one dog.
Ol' Arby over here does a good job.
a lady.
You see that campfire over there?
Yeah, he looks where you point.
Yeah, there's a lady there that really hates the cultists.
She fucking hates them.
Maybe she'll help you out.
Yeah, you're sending him away.
yeah, he's act- I don't like that.
Yeah, he takes a few steps in that direction and looks back at you two longingly and then turns around and continues down the mountain toward Hager.
Hey, hey, guy, one more question, sorry.
ah You see a kid go this way?
You just thumbs up, thumbs down, or hoof up, hoof down, whatever.
He just points to the top of the mountain.
Alright, I'll take that as a yes.
Thank you, sir.
I'll send you a bill for the potion, alright?
Yeah, and he like is walking on all fours, but then you see him like snap his back and you hear it crack along his spine as he stands up fully erect and continues to walk down the
path toward Hagar.
And you have two paths in front of you.
You have the path that snakes around the mountain covered in crucifixes, or this gorge that looks like a shattered jaw opened in the side of the mountain.
Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, he seemed to imply that the cultists were up the Split Valley?
He kind of pointed up the trail at the crucifix way and then shifted to the cracked part after pointing there.
Yeah, take that how you do.
is just up the cracked valve.
No, the kid is up at the top of the mountain, which is what I thought was up the crucifix way?
That seems likely.
If I was gonna, you know, build a, you know, top of the mountain, it's important, right?
And you're gonna adorn it with your, with your killing devices, because these people apparently like killing and shit.
You know, if I was gonna, if I was a crazy cult person and I wanted to do some ritual, stacking a whole bunch of bodies on crucifixes all the way up to the altar at the top,
that really, you know, this whole thing's about getting hyped up.
And if I was that kind of crazy, that'd get me real hyped up.
Whole parade past dead bodies, up to the top.
Okay, yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
Jimmy, are you okay with me occasionally interrupting you?
I, okay, yeah, that I, it's very hard to like actually be like, you'll be talking for like a minute and I'll be like, yeah, fuck.
I guess I'm just, you know, that's one of my talents.
You know, I got a gift for Gab.
You know, I can tell us, oh shit, we're supposed to be going.
All right, dial it in, dial it in.
You go toward the shattered jaw chasm and you hear the wind funneling through it from a narrow choke point.
It doesn't howl, it like whispers in your ear.
It's like.
And there's down the, the goal of this thing.
It's continuous and abrasive.
There's a, just a cacophony, cacophony is not the right word, but a plethora of sharp jagged edges you could get sliced on as you navigated it.
But it is open before you.
Yes.
And that, I love it.
Yeah.
And you're.
boot step into the chasm, right?
Yeah.
As you're stepping.
Okay.
Yeah.
about monstrous tongues and teeth.
And I just want to pause for a second and.
Yeah, as you
this is a monster valley again.
Why, it looks a lot like teeth.
Alright.
I'm just...
It's very tooth-maw-like.
Yeah, very jagged, you know.
Maybe they should call this mountain like the Mountain of Rock Jaws or something.
Death Mountain's kinda lame.
Yeah.
Mouth mountain, mount, maw, maw mouth.
mount snaggle tooth I think that's a good one mount
have sort of the like, uh the gravitas.
Yeah, alligator teeth, shark tooth, razor jaw.
is not terrible.
He's like, can I interrupt you once in a while?
And then it's like, just goes down the rabbit hole with you this time.
Yeah.
do it.
I did say shark tooth, but sharp tooth is a lot better.
I think that's the, wasn't there like a, that a character from a, well, movies don't really exist in this world, but a long time ago there used to be, or maybe in the future,
I don't know.
Yeah.
I think it was a dragon or maybe like some kind of alien.
I don't know.
I straight up don't know what you're referring to.
there's a movie called The Land Before Time about dinosaurs and they called the T-Rex's sharp teeth or sharp tooth.
yeah.
land before time.
I forgot that they called the T-Rex's sharp tooths.
Sharp tooth, uh Yeah, so as you're walking through this strange geometry of jagged edges, you start to step and the ground gets a little mushy, Bellum.
Like, there's some moisture up here.
Yeah.
And you pay attention to the side of the walls and there is a trickling down of some sort of thing.
um
It's not water, but it does come to the soil and wet in it.
I sniff it.
Yeah, it smells kind of irony.
Taste it.
Yes, blood.
And you're proceeding in this small area and ahead of you, you see a strange little baby creature crying out in pain.
It's like, your dog kind of winds along with it.
Vrock the rat.
climbs up onto your shoulder and into your shirt.
And you look at this thing and it's got a strange oxen, a baby ox face.
And then its back is like white fur and it has a weird beak coming out of it where it's nose should be.
And it has a one wing that looks broken and it's flapping against the ground.
It looks sick.
You think this is another human with shit stuck on them?
Just more elaborate shit?
Probably not.
How big is this?
A foot and a half tall?
about a foot and a half tall.
I don't think so.
Yeah.
um
Do we get the sense that there's like anything else around, anything watching?
Is this another trap?
Someone trying to lure us in?
I'm always thinking about traps.
Yeah, give me another presence.
15.
Also a 15.
Yeah, you're looking around and there's not much to see but there's just jagged edges of like spikes everywhere above you and This thing is just sitting in the middle of the path
in front of you
All right, so there's blood trickling down the walls and there's dusty mud everywhere.
Is it easy to see how this thing got here?
Are there footprints in the dusty mud?
Did it get carried here?
Did it scrabble its own way here?
Did it fly and then land hard?
What's the?
Good question, Vrak, looking around, how do you think this thing got here?
What's the story you tell yourself?
Hmm.
Well, it's got a broken wing and there's like giant steep things on each side.
Uh, it, you know, I don't see any blood on it right out or do I?
There's no blood, yeah.
Okay, well, I'm guessing maybe it fell down and broke its wing.
I don't know.
Unless there's footprints going around here.
No, no footprints.
It's pretty sludgy.
fell from above.
Can I look up and see anything?
Yeah, with that presence check, not much.
Hmm...
Well...
Hey, Oxbird kid!
It doesn't respond to you.
just...
Well, I kinda wanna try another healing potion, but I don't know if this works on whatever the hell that thing is.
Yeah, I know.
Well, m
Tell you what, is there a stick nearby or can I peel uh a strip off of one of the crucifix poles?
can see you did that earlier, yeah.
All right, I'm gonna set its little arm, make a little splint.
Yeah, you approach it and you see that wing is out.
And as you reach down to pull it over, the underside of the wing is revealed and there are.
You can't count, I guess, with this with this quick view, but there are eyeballs that look up at you from the wing and some of them blink and they look at you and the thing hisses.
Let's go ahead and get a combat initiative role.
So who wants to roll initiative for you guys?
I'll do it.
I rolled a 19.
Okay, well for initiative you do a D6 plus your agility.
Yeah, sorry.
it then, Vrak.
I have a minus one to agility.
Yeah.
that's a five.
our initiative?
So you can choose.
So this just says if the monsters go first or you go first.
So A4, five and six, you goes first.
You can go first and then you can roll or split it up however you want between you.
So you go first and.
Yeah, I guess I would say Bellum probably goes first since he's like right there and he's like,
Ah!
Yeah, it hisses at you.
These eyeballs like open up a few of them blink and as you can see it's little claws that come out from the side of the wing and the wing snaps to attention.
It doesn't seem like it's actually broken and it does start to slash towards you.
What do do?
I'm gonna whack it with a crowbar.
Yeah.
Roll it.
a 15, which are we, is it a 12 to hit?
12 to hit?
Yeah, just a normal.
Yeah.
Give me some damage.
D4 for four damage.
space.
More damage.
Okay, yeah, you hit it where you just right in the beak, the wing.
You're gonna be like, I'll actually break that fucking wing.
Like, woulda.
ah I think promptly I'd be going for the head.
Okay, yeah, you smash it right in the head.
It looks a little disoriented and the claw or the beak opens up and some blood starts to sputter out as it like, you see the little bird tongue come out too.
Vrak, it is your turn.
Do I have a way to move back?
flee.
there's no, there's no, what do they call it in D &D?
uh Yeah, or reaction to like, yeah, yeah, you can, you can smash it in the head and then take a step, a few steps back, room distance away.
uh
Yep.
Uh, do my animals also get actions?
Do they have a, let's give your dog that that makes sense.
Your dog can bite and we'll give it a D4 for damage.
w- this is probably a waste of a turn, but I think Vrak reaches into his shirt, pulls out his rat, and goes, go for the eyes, rat!
And throws it at the wing.
To, get the wing eyes.
yeah, that's cool.
No, yeah, boo.
Yeah, so you unleash your rat.
And so I will let you do something as vrac as well.
Okay, um.
I guess...
Can I charge at it with my sword?
Yeah, so I roll a d20 for that.
That's a one.
Okay, give me one second here.
Yeah, ah you roll up on this thing and you pull out your sword and you hold it overhead and you don't realize there's just a huge rock out jutting above you and you swing forward
and it hits the top and shatters above your head and steel rains down on you.
uh Little shards fall all around you.
Go ahead and give me a agility roll.
13 plus three, so 16.
Okay, yeah, you know it shatters right when it hits and you're able to slink back away so none of the shards fall into you, but they do fall in the dirt everywhere around you and
your sword is now broken.
Son of a bitch!
That was my second favorite weapon.
I still got my hook.
Yeah, this thing, seeing the sword shatter and you running up on it, it lunges straight for your knees and tries to sink a beak into your knees.
Go ahead and give me agility.
That is a 11 with a plus 3.
That is a 14.
Yeah, how do you, do you hold this back from biting you right in the knees?
Like how do you stop it?
I think I'm still kinda falling back and I've got my hook ah and then Arby like runs up from the side and just knocks him out of the way.
Good boy, good boy, get him girl, get him.
Yes.
That's right, you're my trained dog.
Man's best friend.
Yeah, Arby's got into the wings.
ah Let me, oh, I can roll for the animals since I don't get to roll that much.
Not doing any damage with the two, but grabs the wings and, you know, a sense of security there.
And you see your rat, you see rat uh crawl up on the wings and try to get under to the eyeballs.
And.
With that Bellum, you're standing there and you hear a whistle from above of air.
And one of these things drops on your shoulder from the top of the chasm and starts to peck at you.
Give me an agility.
15.
Yeah, it misses.
It's like snapping in your ear, but it's on your shoulder.
The wings are flapping in your face.
Having those eyeballs so close to your face uh is disturbing and you might get pink eye.
And we go over to our players.
So now there's two of these things.
There are two.
One is on each of you basically.
We know they have minimum two damage reduction.
Yeah.
I do a D4 at best.
Yeah.
ah I heave the one that's on my shoulders into the jagged sharp rocks below.
I hurl.
I hurl it.
Yeah, as you the environment around you, like you think you could grab it and just stab it out to the side like there's Jagger Rocks coming off to the side.
There's like one nice one there, too.
swing it like a sock full of nickels.
Yeah, hit me with that uh strength.
13 plus zero, so.
Yeah, you're able to, let's see what you do.
Give me a uh D8, that's pretty nasty, right?
Give me a D8, yeah.
Okay, so you pin one of its wings against it and it gets impaled on there.
It is immobile, but it's coming at you with its other winged claw to slash your face.
Vrak, what do you got going?
Ah.
Yeah, I'm not so sure I'm strong enough to do what Bellum did there.
I'm going to try to use my hook hand and come in under the wing and get it in the eyes, the wing eyes.
Yeah, roll that D20 with your strength.
Oh, it's a strength?
Okay, that's a...
What am I doing here?
12 with a minus 2, so 10.
Okay, yeah.
So you, you know, you're trying to be precise with this hook, the commotion there is a lot as this thing is flapping its wing and your rat's trying to get in there and you miss like
a tender spot with it.
So.
I had a quick question procedurally.
Are these guys from a book?
And if they are, do they have perhaps a D2 of damage reduction?
Yeah, they have a D2 of damage reduction.
And they're a reskinned thing of the book.
So, yeah.
it.
I think you've like flip a coin each time.
Oh, to see like how much it reduces.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, cause you hit it with, yeah.
So when you do actually hit it, so yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, now the one on you Vrock, you're wiggling with your hook.
comes in with a claw.
Give me that agility to see if you can get out of its reach.
That's...
Man, I keep doing the D100, dammit.
That's a 12 with a plus 3, 15.
Yeah, yeah, you definitely lose that claw like as it slashes towards your eyes.
Bellum.
This thing is pinned against the side of the wall.
That other claw is coming straight towards your throat agility.
11 minus 1 is 10, not good enough.
Yeah, comes in for a deep.
Oh.
good enough.
Agility and presence tests are DR-2.
yep, exactly.
So yeah, same, same thing.
You juke out of the way as this claw comes tearing for the throat and it is over to you guys.
Why wouldn't they just give me plus two to agility and presence?
Yeah, they take the difficulty rating down instead, yeah.
Why would this be this way?
Anyways.
What are doing Bellarmine Brook?
that?
Hang on.
Cause if I did misread this, this could just out and out kill me.
Any attack has a chance to just uh get rid of me.
Yeah.
I don't think you misread it.
presence and agility tests have their DR reduced by 2.
Normal tests are DR10 instead of 12.
Yeah, you're lucky little shiteel.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Okay, it's over to you.
Stackful of nickels again.
This time I wanna, I wanna sway him towards the ground instead of the wall and maybe I can keep like stomp him or something.
Yeah, go ahead, give me that strength.
No?
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, you just can't get a grip on him as he's stuck against this one piece of rock.
Vrock, what do you got for us?
Yeah, I guess I kinda, maybe I missed him with the hook, but seeing how well the wall worked, it's like I imagine I kinda got the hook under the arm or the wing, but I didn't
stab anything.
I'm like, ah, and I just try to like yank him back towards the wall with my hook.
Yeah, give me the strength.
That's 16 minus 2.
So 14.
Right, yeah, give me a D8 of damage.
That's a six.
Okay, yeah, you impale this thing against the wall and you see it go stiff for a second and wiggle almost like it's like in its death throes and its nervous system is shutting
down and it slops like this as you've impaled it against the wall.
Right, you little creepy chimera bastard?
Sorry, lady.
Your knife's not worth it.
Wait, but it is.
Rich is beyond measure.
Well, it was, it always was.
It's what Nick, you said, right?
Like that was your, it is Rich is Beyond Measure.
Like legitimately, yeah.
So, no, don't, don't, don't, don't, we're gonna get it.
Don't tell us.
Find out.
That's what we're here for.
Exactly.
So where were we?
The combat.
I think there was one more.
Yeah.
And.
Patrick's turn.
I went, I think, right?
And then it was did the and I killed my ox bird.
It just attacked me and...
missed and you threw it on the ground.
had a 10.
So I think it's probably its turn.
Sure.
Do you know how morale checks work?
Yeah, when they, well, I guess when they lose half their buddies.
Yeah.
So this thing is flopping on the ground after you've thrown it and it's realized how much it's missed you and it screeches and goes and it tries to fly away.
Bellum, are you letting it fly away?
Yeah, fuck that.
I'm not tangling with that thing anymore.
These guys suck.
Yeah, it flies away and it's just screeching.
like just echoing through this canyon and it takes off.
And Vrak, the one that you impaled fully starts to turn into a strange, goopy material as it starts to just melt off of that spike.
And the eyeballs from the wings fall down on the ground like stones and they roll towards you like marbles.
Oh, well, maybe get some ingredients out of this and scoop some of this up in some jars.
eyeballs are rock hard, they are marbles.
And you think that if you put them in a sling, they'd be quite potent.
hey, Bellum.
ah These eyes are weird.
They're like little, almost like pellets or shots.
eh If they're not sharp, I'm not interested.
He likes sharp stones.
Well, I'll hold onto them in case you run out of shop things.
Maybe I can just throw them.
ah Or shoot them like marbles.
Maybe I could, I know, I'll put them in a pouch and whenever something's coming, I'll throw them out on the floor and they'll slip and fall on these eye marbles.
And it'll be a great trap.
I think that's the plan.
Yeah.
That's the ticket.
Little eyeball traps that are rolling around.
Man, have you ever seen one of these things before?
What the hell are these things?
ah
Yeah.
Hey Nick, uh morale rules.
It looks like you roll 2D6 and if you roll over their morale, it flees or surrenders.
Yeah, rolled over the morale for this thing.
Low morale.
Yeah.
Do you continue through the chasm?
Yes.
Yeah.
You...
see it start to widen, the jaw is opening as you start to smell cooking meat that is sweet.
The meat smell wafts in your face and it reminds you of a meal.
What meal does it remind you of?
Of course, from when times were lean.
Nay.
Vrak, what does it remind you of?
Uh, you know, my, my grandma, used to make, uh, what we just call the goop.
It was some kind of like grain mixed with like, you know how at the butcher shop after they cut up all the good meat and they got the stuff left that they can't sell.
and they put it out in barrels.
And if you get to it soon enough before like the rats get to it, then you can maybe turn it into something edible.
And so we'd mix like sawdust and these like meat bits, uh, and then, you know,
this other goopy ingredient that she had and uh, you know, it tasted like shit, but it reminds me of home.
Hey, these thoughts enter as you walk and you see this chasm disappear and in front of you, there are logged out stretches of.
hillside leading up to the mountain and you see a fire in the distance with a group of tents around it and a one large tent behind about four smaller tents and that smell is
delicious coming from the camp.
Does it smell like people meat?
Does that, that, does that, is there a difference?
I would know.
I feel like this is a smell that we have smelled before.
it smell like long pig?
Is that what you're talking about?
It's bacony.
Definitely smells like pig more than like a chicken.
Long...
Long pig's a slang term for human meat, so
Yeah.
That is gross.
you didn't know that?
Yeah, it's because if you uh prepare a human and put them on a spit, it looks like a really long pig.
Okay, yeah, I'll have to Google that someday.
Yeah.
other white meat.
Yeah.
you smell that and are hungry for some long pig and you're walking past ashen stumps and as you're walking the ground is really mushy and wet there is it's collecting moisture on
the side of the mountain and you do see clouds up on the mountainside coalescing
And on the mountain looks like there's a massive bonfire that has lit like it's almost like it's erupting and giant billets of black smoke are coming from it.
Now, this is not a volcanic mountain.
It's actually more of a hill than anything.
And the jagged rocks.
Like.
Peak up and then the smoke rises from there.
You're in an open cut.
and this impromptu village tent city is in front of you and you see shambling figures walking around the tents.
Okay, all right.
Do we, A, go in like, hello fellow cultists.
How do you do, or B, do we ah sneak up on the backside of that big tent, cut a little hole, and reach in and take their stuff?
You know, I, um...
I like- I like tricking people.
I like being deceptive.
I think if someone- if I was in a cult, I would probably know most of the other cult members.
we can be more like, hello, we're here to join the cult.
Okay, yeah, alright.
Is that how- is this that kind of cult?
They're like, want people- I- yeah, guess I'm good at lying.
like super friendly.
don't, like, they did that, they did up that one guy pretty good.
Yeah, yeah.
Hmm.
You know, I am kind of interested to see how that plays out though.
I think the other thing is if we get caught sneaking in, ah then we definitely can't, hey, we were here to join the cult by sneaking in through this hole we cut in your tent.
I don't think that story is going to hold water.
plan C, you are here to join the cult and I am here to cut a hole in the back of the tent.
Oh, I like that plan.
Yeah, that plays to our strengths.
I can talk a good cult game.
ah All hail Lord Abram, ah who nails sins on the people and turns them into goats by making their hands into cloved hooves and feeding the cloved hooves and barb-wiring horns
to their head.
I like that whole deal he's got going on.
about making up stuff theologically for these guys, but I think that's a good hustle.
But also, do have a knife?
Would I have a knife for like preparing my my potions and stuff like a kitchen knife?
You picked up shards of your blade and you could give him that, but he might cut himself when he uses it.
I got these little
off with a sharp rock?
Probably not.
I'll take the tip of his sword.
Yeah.
can't believe neither of us has a goddamn knife.
Yeah, I thought about buying one, but I got really invested in the dog and the rat, you know.
I bought chalk instead.
Actually, that's not true.
I bought a sling instead, which still, I still think that was a reasonable purchase.
Yeah, you know, if you do enough rock slings into the tent, you could punch little holes, like a little punch out, and then just kind of tear it open like a door.
I think.
time consuming.
Yeah, it's probably not effective, you know, for our purposes.
Okay, yeah, alright, let's go do it.
Okay, Bellum, you will give me a agility.
ah Instead, ah can I uh cover myself in mud and they have to make a DR16 presence check to notice me?
Yeah, do it.
You're able to get blood ridden mud and cover your body with it.
I sludge up, I sludge myself on over like army crawl up to the back of that tent.
the 12.
Thank goodness.
Yeah, give me the approach.
Like, are you going for the big tent?
Describe your subterfuge.
Yeah, it's Big Tent time.
And Big Tent is like staked down and stuff, right?
yeah, yeah, this is a permanent fixture.
I want to like be laying down on the ground.
I want to sort of peek under the hem.
What do you call the bottom of a tent?
Yeah, that's good enough for me.
Peek under the hem of that big tent.
Yeah, you peek under it and if you would go into the back of it or the side, just so which one back you see right up against to where you cut a small slit in the him and lift up.
There is a like a wagon wheel in front of you that is.
barbed wire to another wagon wheel to another wagon wheel and when you look up they've been kind of fashioned into a makeshift throne and you see a tuft of hair over the back of
the throne just hanging there some long dark hair
Give me a...
a presence.
Seven plus one is eight.
you hear some whispers and then somebody walk away from this figure on the throne and there is a shuffling somewhere in the tent, like maybe somebody else is standing in there.
Let's cut over to Vrak.
Vrak, what's your approach?
Is there anything that looks like a entrance to this encampment this town like a main thoroughfare
It's like eight tents and then a big tent behind those and people milling between campfires.
Okay, no guards.
All right.
Um, yeah.
Okay.
I think I kind of walk up to that since where it's like, I'm close enough, but I'm not so close to be threatening.
And I say, uh, hello, uh, fellow humans.
I, I, um, I heard about what you've got going on here and it sounded like a very close knit.
uh strong community and I've always felt like I needed a place to belong.
I had left my home a long time ago because I didn't really feel like I fit in there and I thought maybe with you guys being so inclusive we could
starts walking up as you have said this, he has strange runes carved all in all over his forehead and he has like a small little club and starts walking towards you with almost
like a marching.
says.
What you going on about?
Well, I was curious about your operation here and if I could join up, you know.
See if I could help and be a part of this community.
I can make potions.
I've got a well-trained dog.
I've got a grappling hook and a hook arm.
I could be useful.
up.
You talk so much.
Come here.
Okay, well, we'll eat the dog.
You can keep the rat.
Can you roll Presence to charm him?
Uh, that's, and yeah, that's just a straight 11, which yeah.
glad I called that before.
So, come on.
Alright, you know, this dog's trained.
He can be pretty useful.
Like if you eat him, he's just gone, but he can go hunt.
And he can bring back more food than he is.
You know what I'm saying?
Okay.
want rabbit, you want squirrels.
All right.
Okay.
to a campfire where there's a rock and he disappears.
And another guy comes out, a little less scuzzy.
And he sits down next to you and sizes you up, but doesn't say anything.
Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm new here.
I'm, I'm frack.
how's it going?
Uh, what can I do to help?
Is there like a pledge I need to sign or, you know, something like that.
Do I have to like strangle anyone to like get in?
Is that like an initiation?
Yeah.
From behind another two, grab your arms and hold your arms behind your back.
Do you struggle against it?
Uh, whoa, hey friends.
Uh, what you doing there?
uh, I don't probably fight, but I'm like, I mean, if it starts to hurt, I might, but...
Yeah, it doesn't hurt, but the one who sat down silently pulls out a small piece of flint that's sharpened and he walks over to you and he says, put your head back and grabs your
hair and pulls it back.
Yeah, if you want to join, you must carry the mark.
And he starts to stick it onto your forehead and carve symbols into it.
Are you letting this happen?
Like, well, if I want to be part of the gang, I guess I got to get the marks.
Those are some sick tattoos.
I feel like they would certainly, you know, add to my whole aesthetic as like an occult herb master.
I know I'm not here, but I'd like to ask a question.
Does the guy doing the carving have the marks?
Yeah, they all do.
Yeah.
none of them appear to be enslaved by the Mark doing zombie stuff.
Cool, fine, enjoy your new forehead tats.
Yeah, yeah, he goes to town on it.
Give me a toughness.
You're not gonna lose any hit points, but let's just see how you react here.
19 plus 2.
Great, you're tough.
Yeah.
channel my focus and I'm like, yep, this hurts.
It reminds me of the time when...
can stop speaking.
Do not solely the name and do not solely the mark with your blabbering.
O-o-okay.
Sorry, I just do that sometimes.
We can have a proper conversation now.
The blood's starting to run in your eyes.
You've been marked.
What brings you here?
Uh, you know, like I say, I've been looking for community.
Uh, I've been kind of on the road for.
You're not like bound together.
I mean, this feels like a whole like in group kind of thing that you got going on here.
And that's, that's what I'm looking for.
I want to be in the group in a group instead of like out wandering on my own, you know, all I got's me and RB and rat, just us three.
up the group.
Give up all of that for Sarai.
okay.
Tell me about that entity.
She's a woman.
Okay.
Oh, I have heard of her, actually.
ah People in the outlying area mentioned the name as I was walking up here.
They mentioned it in spite, in venom I suppose.
Yeah, generally they don't have nice things to say about her.
but you know, I mean, she's never done anything to me.
Uh, what, what do you guys do for her?
What's, what's her deal?
What's her goal?
Is she like looking to, I don't know, like ascend to like the ninth level of whichever plane you guys are interested in.
talking about?
I'm just trying to guess her motives.
Does she want a kid?
Like sometimes...
oh
her womb.
Fill it with
around and it's all males everywhere.
Hmm, so she wants to like have her own kid Like from herself not just like get a kid from somewhere No, sir.
I do not never never sired
I could, maybe, I don't know.
I guess I never really like did any alchemical uh tests on my own stuff, you know, to see like if it works.
ah
We'll find out soon enough.
Come.
You bet.
Now?
He takes you, Bellum, you hear the tent open up and you hear, yeah, yeah.
like to be scoping out a little bit more of this tent.
Specifically, these wagon wheels.
Can I see through them to the person on the throne and whether they are armed or not?
Yeah, I'll give you that.
It doesn't look like she's armed.
So, just a lady, yeah, elderly.
You do pick up whispers of her voice as she's talking with the people around.
A very motherly voice.
In fact, it kind of reminds you of the mother you never had listening to it.
It's soothing.
Any treasure.
Yeah, I mean those wagon wheels came from somewhere.
You see a chest off to the side that probably has something in it.
Yeah, but not a...
Not anything conveniently behind the wagon wheel thrown, huh?
Yeah, there's, it's utilitarian back there.
There's a skull.
sense.
No, I don't need a skull.
Yeah, you've got one already.
um Bellum, are you just gonna hang out and listen?
Are you gonna get into the tent more?
Well, now I need to wait to find out how I can extract frack.
Yeah, Frack, you, this tent opens up, that smell of meat comes out of here and you see, let me start that over.
You see atop a throne of broken rag, wagon wheels and small skulls from child to adult placed around them.
um There's a woman and she's wearing what used to be maybe fine gowns.
but they're beyond fine now.
They have the black tinge of old blood and her eyes are utterly vacant.
And she sees you as you come in and there's a smile on her face, but not in her eyes.
And just kind of looking at it, like makes your teeth ache when you see her smile.
And they bring you in and he kicks you to your knees.
He says, get down.
front of Sarai, the mother.
yep, I'm down.
You've sought to that.
And this is a windy mountain, right?
And you hear that outside the tent, it's like flaps, but her voice cuts through it, but it's so timid and small.
She says, hello, who are you?
Hi, I'm Vrac.
I'm new here.
Got the fresh cuts on my brow.
I'm just here to kind of see what I can do to help.
I heard you're looking for a kid.
Abram has taken my son to the mountain.
You know, somebody else told me a similar story.
Are you here on behalf of this other person?
not really, I'm here for myself.
But what did she tell you is happening to my son?
Uh, well, you know, since I'm part of this group now, I'm going to be honest with you.
She told us it was her son, but, uh, she said that he was going to like kill him with some kind of magic knife or something like that.
And that's, that's really as far as she got.
Um, and I was like, yeah, okay.
Well, I'm heading to that mountain anyway.
So, uh, I'll check it out while I'm on the way.
Like I said, I was coming here, uh, you know,
Like, and like I just told you, so...
Hmm, you are already coming to this mountain.
No one comes to this mountain, but we can deal with that later.
How did hearing about my son being killed make you feel?
Why, it didn't make me feel great, generally speaking, you know.
ah Ideally, kids don't get killed.
ah But, you know, if there's some good reason for it, you know, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine just the other day ah about, well, I don't really have
friends, you know, that's why I'm here.
But, you know, like, what is good anyway?
ah
And it's all kinda coming down to motives, you know?
I heard this guy was gonna kill a kid and I'm like, well that's not necessarily good so I'm gonna go kill him.
But if there's a good reason to not, then you know, I could do that too.
in this tent?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm gonna shoot one down with a sling.
Okay, yeah.
The lamp hits the ground.
It's a flame lamp, probably filled with human fat, and it spreads.
Vrak, what do you do?
Uh, holy crap!
That- Ah!
We gotta get outta here, man!
This thing's made of, like, what, fabric and stuff?
And wood?
It's gonna burn like crazy!
That looks like an oil fire, a grease fire!
We gotta get outta here!
I- I mean, can I run away?
I feel like I'm surrounded by these guys, so...
the old guy um like immediately stands up and runs to the fire and pulls off his cloak and grabs a blanket and they start trying to hit it at hit it.
And the one who was standing kitty corner when you entered the tent approaches Sarai and grabs her and tries to pull her out as well.
And the old man says, help me put this out.
Seems to have fallen.
Uh, okay, sure.
Uh, and I, uh...
take off my cloak and instead of putting it out I kind of try to like fan the flames like I'm doing it is this helping I think I'm getting it is this right
Yeah.
Maybe try to fan them towards any flammable goods in the area.
Great, yeah, you are able to start fanning a small section of it that's separate from where the old man was trying to put it out and it catches the door.
There's no way out behind you now.
Oh, go ahead, sorry, go ahead, Bellum, yeah.
No, no, no, no, keep going.
It's the one spot I really didn't want to be on fire.
Okay, yeah.
And it's just Vrak, Belham conceivably, and this old man in the tent as it's starting to catch on flames.
Should we get an initiative order?
wait, what about the lady and the other people surrounding us?
The guard grabbed her and pulled her out of the tent.
Yeah.
I can retcon that if you want.
So, yeah.
totally fine.
I'm gonna get that treasure.
Okay, yeah.
So let's go ahead and get an initiative order.
You guys can roll that.
So D6 plus your agility, VROC.
Yeah.
That's uh five plus three, so eight.
you just can't like not go first, I guess.
So we don't even need to roll that.
So yeah.
Wait, what?
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
That's very funny.
yeah, so I guess since I'm like right next to the action, if I can first, I actually have uh a torch or can I use like my torch or something else to like light this guy's clothes
on fire?
Like surreptitiously from behind.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I basically want to do it like so that he doesn't turn around and fight back.
Although if he's just going to burst up into flames and not fight back, then excellent.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, maybe I just push him at the flames, try to like, trip him a little bit as I do it, and then I run over to where Bellum is and I'm like, let's go buddy, let's go, out the
back, under the hem.
Strength.
Okay.
D20.
My strength isn't great.
that's a 10 minus two.
I'm pretty sure that does not do it.
Yeah, tell me how you sort of fumble this and miss the opportunity to knock him over.
Hmm.
It's as I'm picturing it's like when the thing fell down and exploded kind of like burning grease splashed everywhere.
And so there's a section he's working on and there's a section I'm working on.
And I imagine it's getting really smoky and it's hard to see.
And I'm like going to push him.
And instead I just don't see some like, maybe there's like bits of the tent that are now falling down and I just like trip over some wood that fell and I just fall like maybe with
my head like right between his legs, but like from behind just like face playing into the dirt.
Yeah, you fall down onto your elbows in the dirt, the fire starting to grow around you, Bellum, what do you got for us?
What?
I whispered what's in the chest.
you're gonna run over to the chest.
Yeah, yeah, you scramble through the tent I imagine on your hands and knees, rip it open and there's a decent amount of silver in there and a dagger.
Okay.
Okay, uh money into pockets?
Because I don't have it.
Is there a bag in there?
No, money into pockets.
uh
there's plenty of skin and tint material around, but you would need a turn to like cut like a square out to like start filling up.
Okay, so you're just like, okay, yeah.
as many coins into my pockets as I can without taking any sharp rocks out of my pockets.
Yeah, great.
then I would like to use that knife to cut a hole in the tent and step through.
And so this would be out the side of the tent.
the side.
Fuck that.
I go back to the hole I cut in the first place and uh sort of wave rock.
Okay, old man's turn now.
uh He has a club.
He wheels around on you after you try to push him, but fall over and takes a swing.
Give me agility.
That is a 17 plus something that probably doesn't matter.
Yeah, it doesn't matter.
Yeah, he comes barreling at you and his legs are starting to catch on fire and it spooks him a little bit and he stops to pat himself off instead of like even swing at you.
It's over to you, Vrak.
Uh, yeah, I think while he's padding, I just like do kind of a barrel roll over to the little hole and shimmy out.
Yeah.
Maybe as I'm crawling out I say, I'm burning, I'm dying in here, ah nobody look for me, I'm all burned to a crisp.
Yeah, both of you give me, we'll do agility.
See if you can get out of here.
Is this to be noticed or to like literally just get out?
uh They get a DR16 presence against me.
Yep.
Yeah, I got a 14 plus three, so.
to one, so, okay.
Yeah, the tint actually goes up in flames faster than you would think.
It must've been dried.
And that smoke is just blindingly giving you cover for all of them.
And you're able to scurry off like rats up the mountain or get back down the mountain at this point if you wanted, so.
Well, that's a quick action with ah the thing there.
I wasn't sure with the lamp.
I was uh kind of running out of ideas there and it seemed like maybe even if they were going to use me for something they would have killed me afterwards.
ah
was not looking good, not looking good.
Real, real bad vibes.
Sorry, sorry if you had a game plan and I messed it up, but it didn't, it seemed like you were playing for time there.
Yeah, I purely making that up as I went.
No final plan involved.
ah
up the mountain or back through the gulch?
Uh, is that knife THE knife?
No, I don't think so.
I look at the knife.
Look magic.
know, I thought I would ask.
So, know, untold riches.
amongst the rocks in my pockets?
Let's do a retcon agility to see.
It's very, very funny.
17 minus one is 18 and the DR is minus two.
18 times 10 uh or 16 actually, 160, I have a minus one to agility.
Yeah, 160.
Love that.
Yeah, you're rich compared to where you started now.
I jingle.
My money does not fold.
You sound like a reindeer over there, just jingling along with all them silver bells in your pockets.
Hell yeah, brother.
Anyways, do we want to follow these guys up or go back the other way?
Uhhh...
You know...
My life's kinda shit.
Maybe if that knife we get uh makes us untoardly, untoldly rich, ah you know, maybe it'll make it less shitty.
Oh, no, I meant like, you remember where the paths split?
We could keep going up on that side of the mountain.
Or-
because, you know, the guy isn't here.
So maybe the guy's up the other path.
Well, didn't they all go up the mountain this way?
Did I misunderstand this, Nick?
Are there two paths up the mountain, one through the gulch, or is the gulch a dead end?
No, the Gulch let out into this clearing and now you just have the path that curves up around the mountain now.
So we could get on a path to the top of the mountain through the gulch, or we could go back to the first path we were on, which still goes up the mountain.
they would meet here.
they meet here.
Got it.
Great.
One path.
Problem solved.
you could scale like and come up instead of taking the path.
to get the drop on him.
I do have this grappling hook that I bought before we left.
grappling hook!
I was waiting for it.
So yeah, when he said I got a grappling hook, I was like, that's gonna come in handy.
Damn.
Alright, onward and upward.
Maybe this will let us bypass some monsters or more cultists or whatever.
I am now concerned that I let that bat thing go.
Bat-ox-crow.
I kind of wondered about that, but, you know, what's done is done.
No beating yourself up about it.
We'll do our best.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're good in a pinch.
So far, we've been doing all right.
We killed one of them, and then I was in the tent, and you did the thing with the lamp, and then I think I tricked them pretty good by shouting that I was dying and burning up in
there, so I don't think they'll come looking for me.
ah
hear you talk and they attack.
just kidding.
So going up the mountainside with the grappling hook.
Okay.
So let's do some skill checks here.
We will do, let's get some agility for the grappling hook throw.
automatic fail if it drops.
hope do your men have?
What's that?
Nothing in Warhammer 40k.
I can't remember if it's in one of the actual books, but ah my friends always used to yell if you drop your dice off the table, like if you can't keep your dice on the table, what
hope do your men have?
I like that.
Yeah, it was a 15 plus three.
So 18.
Yeah, you get a good lock in and now both of you give me agility to client or excuse me, give me agility or strength.
15 agility again.
is still technically better for me.
8 minus 1 is 7, dr minus 2.
Still not great.
Yeah.
Okay, so Vrak, you go first or does Balam go first?
I think I have more hit points and if there's something up there I'm like, yeah, okay, you know, if there's something up there I'll kind of, you know, I'll hold them off until you
catch up.
Yeah.
Bellum, give me a presence.
2 plus 1 dr minus 2.
Okay.
Yeah.
Without agility and your lack of presence, you have just started and you grab on and you're starting to climb and you hit your elbow on an outcropping and it fucking explodes
with pain through your body and you start to lose your grip and fall.
Vrak, give me a presence.
14 with no modifiers.
Okay, you see this happening, you see Bellum slipping.
What do you do?
Hmm.
my elbow.
It's more like, ahhhh!
um
Yeah.
If I can, very quickly with my hook hand, because I don't really have to use strength for that, I wrap that around the rope so that it would just like hanging by my hook hand.
And then I kind of slip my backpack off or my pack and hold it down with my other hand to kind of like extend it farther and I'm like, grab on buddy.
I got you.
Cool, I'll reduce your DR by two for that.
Go ahead and give me agility to make that happen.
Vrak.
Sorry.
Well, it's a 6 plus 3, so 9.
And then you said you'll give me a minus 2, or like a lowered 2.
one below.
Bellum, you fall a short distance.
Give me a coin flip for damage.
Have it be a D4, coward.
ah Heads, the basilisks are heads, two-headed.
ah What do you think, does armor protect against fall damage?
How about this?
Give me a toughness and if you survive, if the toughness is a success then it does.
I do not succeed at toughness.
got a seven minus one is six.
So you lose two points.
I have a hit point left.
my elbow!
Ah, my back!
my neck!
Hey, you okay buddy?
Hold on.
Well, I'm not dead, so I-
And uh here, hold on, I uh lift my bag that I was holding down for him up and I bite into one of the straps to hold it with my mouth and I rummage around and then I drop down my
medicine box.
I'm like, here, use one of these.
I think it has five uses.
Where is this?
Medicine box?
That's what it was called.
equipment.
Yeah, Medicine Box, 15 silver, stops bleeding, infection, plus D6HP.
for uses.
That's pretty cheap.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good investment.
full health there.
Probably.
Yeah, he drops down the medicine box and.
ace me with it by dropping it on my leg.
Yeah, and kill you.
It's like hit your toe and you die.
Yeah, I start bandaging up my elbow and bandaging up my back and bandaging up my neck.
So you're you're starting to bandage yourself and Vrock you hear a strange Crying sound and you see the oxen thing come swooping in Toward Bellum as he's been injured um You can
yeah, just give me that initiative role just in case you roll a one So a d6 plus your agility
3 plus 3 6.
Okay, you see this happening and it's coming in.
What do you got for us?
Hmm.
I think I'm gonna wait until it's like kind of under me and then I'm gonna just undo my hook from the rope.
Actually, no, I'm gonna like try to loosen it so it kind of slides down like the rope, you know, it's like wrapped around my hook and it kind of, yeah, like a little rappel line and
I just want to drop straight on them.
Just squish that little bastard.
Yeah, it's coming down and give me strength for that one.
So this is kind of a grapple.
Yeah.
That's 19 minus 2.
Wow, yeah, you fall straight on it.
It's between your legs kind of, and you hit on the ground.
How much is VRAQAWAY?
You're lazy.
Yeah, I'm lazy.
I imagine he he's probably kind of like I don't know.
He does a lot of gardening, I guess, if he's an herb master.
So he's probably like average weight.
But I've also got, you know, a bunch of shit in my bag.
I guess I don't actually have that much shit in my bag.
I would say he maybe weighs like 165 pounds.
Just average dude.
Okay, yeah, give me a D4 minus one.
It's a two, it's a one.
Okay, one.
Yeah, you have it grappled though.
It is under you and it's going to try to claw your legs.
Go ahead and roll agility.
13 plus 3 so 16
Okay, it is cutting into you, but it's not making purchase.
It's being squeezed under you.
Bellum, you're healing yourself.
Yep, well, I could stop, probably.
that's really up to you.
Do I think it'll take longer than two full rounds to finish up what I'm up to?
I knock it off and go in with the crowbar.
Okay, it's between Vrox legs and.
Don't move!
Okay, all right.
Strength, critical fail.
kidding.
Five rock.
Okay, yeah, what's the damage on that?
It's like a D4.
Okay, D4 minus two.
minus your D2.
So a minus is two, so one.
yay.
A little bonk.
Yeah.
All right, Vrock, go ahead.
Uh, yeah, so I imagine I kind of got him like pinned between my knees with his head going, I guess in front of me.
Uh, I just want to take my hook and swing right down into his mouth.
Yeah, strength.
That's an 8 minus 2, so 6.
Yeah, you know, with a cold shot like that, you're kind of like rooting for something specific, but you just like wiggling around like a blender, but it's not really cutting
into it.
glance off of his beak maybe.
Yeah, yeah, and the beak reaches up straight for your crotch and tries to bite.
Give me agility.
that's a nat 20 if that's a thing in this game.
It sure is.
Yeah, so it comes up to bite your crotch and you stick your hook in its mouth and it can't bite down and you can get a free attack in right now, yeah.
Yeah, I think I, ah
Maybe take my torch and I just...
Well, it's not lit.
Never mind.
I take those eyeball marbles and I'm like, choke on your own eyes, you bitch.
And I just pour them in his mouth.
So he chokes.
just like, you're holding it open with the hook and you, yeah, shove them in.
Give me strength for that.
Nice to meet you.
No!
That's 16 minus 2, so 14.
Yeah, you shove them down.
He's like choking on him and probably take a second to choke.
So we'll go over to you, Bellum.
Have you played Bloodborne?
Me?
Yeah, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Just thought of that just now.
Hell yeah.
Um, I give him a, I give him a bark.
Maybe.
it.
I miss, I got a three.
okay.
You come dangerously close to Vrock's knee and smack the ground.
um It's still choking.
It's gonna get negative two on its CR, but it's going to try to dig its nails into your thighs again, Vrock.
Give me that agility.
I know that's a nine plus three.
I guess that's 12.
Yep, so you are able to fend it off.
All right, Vrak, you have one last round probably here.
Yeah, I, uh, I think I, uh, you know, I still got my hook in his mouth.
Those marbles are in there and he's kind of trying to gargle them up.
And I just like with my free hand hit the bottom of his beak, shove it up as I like twist my hook out.
Uh, and I just try to hold his mouth shut so that he chokes on them for final, for real life.
Beautiful.
Give me the strength.
it's a 15 minus 2, which is still a 12.
Yeah, I'll let you hold that as a grapple and you hold his beak shut as you feel the life drain from it slowly and it's thrashing and then the thrashing it intensifies for a second
and then disappears and under you he starts to turn to black goo and these eyeballs and his wings hit the ground.
Sick.
is like, you know, you're never going to run out of eyeballs if I just keep killing these guys with more eyeballs.
There you go, there you go.
It's a business.
Yeah.
Man, if you could farm these things?
Holy crap.
Domesticated?
Man, you can make a killing on whatever these weird eyes do.
With that noise, um you do see the camp start to materialize and people come running towards your location.
And in front of them, you see Sarai sprinting your way.
That doesn't look good.
I think it's time we beat it.
I guess we beat feet.
The whole camp comes running back because one of the bad things makes noise.
I mean, it was screaming.
They always screaming.
They live here.
Not the whole camp, just Sarai, how about that?
And she's screaming.
Yeah.
You have your grappling hook still in set up there.
Yep, Bellum, it seems like your strength and what-all ain't so good.
Uh, can I get a sense of how many grappling hook things we'd have to pass to climb up?
I would only make you do one for the whole thing, so.
Okay.
Uh, what do you think?
My strength is not good, but we can also use agility and mine is excellent.
I think you are.
Yes.
I see, so that was a condemnation of the entire party.
Yeah.
you know, just, if we try to climb up and don't make it, we're kind of screwed.
But if we uh run up the path, I imagine we can...
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Up the hook.
All right.
Let's roll.
Let's do it.
Heave-ho.
I fail.
I got a nat 20 on agility or strength, whatever.
Okay.
You are able to bring Bellum up with you.
Like you see him struggling.
Yeah.
Buddy, you're kind of small.
Just hop in my pack.
We'll see if I can pull this off.
You know, I'm not so strong, but I'm pretty dexterous.
I think I can like stretch my feet around and get good footing on these, these little outcroppings.
Maybe that one that you busted your elbow on.
Uh, I think I can do it.
Let's, let's go.
you climb up and then you hold the wall and I'll grab the grappling hook and put it up one.
Okay.
Yeah.
together like a little dig, dug type thing or whatever those ice climbers are.
And yeah, you get up there and you look down as Sarai gets to the edge of the cliff, your dog sitting next to her now staring up at you, wondering why you abandoned him and.
around boy, go around.
Yeah, the dog stands there.
She doesn't do anything to the dog, but she shouts up at you.
hell, well, she's always whispering, but it's loud.
It's like, why did you burn down my camp?
Well, technically the fire did it.
we didn't really...
Oh, okay, yeah.
Alright, alright.
Sorry, I can't answer.
Don't have a go- Yeah.
Yeah, she just starts ranting like a mad woman down there.
She's like, speak to me of mother's love.
You spoke to me of what is right and good.
We've ascended past that.
You seem to understand and you run away.
Shouting at you, Vrak.
But...
Yeah, it seemed like you were gonna do something bad to me, so...
Oh, okay.
And she starts screaming, the world my son is already a corpse.
We are all corpses.
It's a dying world.
Leave them be.
Yeah, Vrak?
that's true, I just want the knife though.
Yeah, yeah, Vroc can't not respond, but he's like, okay, and he starts like whispering to himself.
He's like, look lady, I know you can't hear me, but I, and I kind of agree with what you're saying, but I don't like the way you're going about it.
And if there's no right, then like, I'm not really wrong, right?
So like, you know, you don't really have a leg to stand on.
You're philosophically undermining your own argument here.
Uh, yeah, yeah.
All right.
Okay.
I think that, that got the mental pressure off and out.
Let's, let's keep going.
Yeah, she's like, Isaac does not weep.
Isaac does not weep.
The absolute requires everything over and over and over again.
And then the people come out after her, the cultists, and they start shouting along with her.
And she drops to her knees and just says these things over and over again.
And you hear them echoing her almost in a chant and you ascend.
I think maybe they're cheering us on.
That's how I'm gonna tell myself what's happening.
Get some motivation.
Yeah.
Those clouds before they do start to trickle some rain.
It's acid rain here, of course, like it sizzles and it hits your skin.
This atmosphere is dying and the sky's rotten, basically.
uh The bruised looking clouds peel back and you do see that sickening yellow behind it every once in a while, but it's getting a little darker and darker as you get to the top.
There, the rock is a void at this point.
It's blackened so much by who knows, like the fire, maybe it's volcanic, but it's like you're climbing a void.
It's even hard to figure out where to put your hands at times because it's so obsidian-like.
And you get to the top.
Do you just crest over?
think we do a...
What was that World War II meme with the little guy with the...
Killroy, yeah we Killroy it.
Okay, you peek your head over one second here.
Let's see.
pasting rules in Google Docs with descriptions is a bad idea.
Just like, where is that?
Okay, yeah.
You peek over the top and the summit is flat.
It's like a plateau on the top.
The expanse of blackened rock is there.
You see a massive bonfire and silhouetted in that bonfire is a towering large figure in some sort of...
robe and he holds a dagger at his waist and there is a 12 year old child standing next to him holding his hand.
It looks like they're conversing and the dagger nervously flips in his fink between his hands and he's kind of wiggling it a little bit like with some anxiety.
Frick.
Can I get one of those addictive healing things?
yeah, sure.
Thanks.
What do you want to do?
We gonna?
I chug that thing.
Okay.
since the medicine box, not gonna have time to do it on this sheer cliff face.
I gained six HP back.
Nice.
eh It's really good man.
Like, it's so fucking good.
I cannot wait for my next one.
Maybe I'll be a little clumsy in this fight just to make sure I can get a little.
You
You, yeah, as you sip that you see Isaac uh sit down in front of the flames and Abraham leans over his body and ties him to a wooden brace.
And it's hard to see because it's silhouetted.
You can't see their faces or anything.
Ibram holds up the dagger and it's shaking in his grasp.
Hmm.
You think he can, like, sling that thing out of his hand?
Awesome idea.
ah You got any of those eyeball marbles?
yeah, and I hold out a little leather pouch and I just kinda hold it open.
are- I do the thing.
Yeah.
Give me the agility or sorry, presence.
an important presence roll.
What's the DR on this?
It's a little tiny thing.
Yeah.
16.
All right, I reduce it by two.
And I get a 13 plus one.
So at it, you see the marble flying through and it hits his hand and the hand explodes.
He didn't have a good grip on this anyway, not like his hand explodes, it opens and the dagger falls down and sticks into the stone.
And when it does.
you see cracks illuminate from earth, just spiral out like a spider web from where it hits the stone.
And you hear a wh- almost like lightning.
And.
The sky above the fire tears open and a strange yet red glow emits from it.
And through it, there is a massive grinding intersecting rusted iron wheels.
And there's a pale fire in the middle of it that peeks through this hole in reality.
And the wheels are turning and the eye opens up and it's actually thousands of other smaller eyes and they dart frantically around and a voice erupts into your head that you
do not quite understand at first, but it knocks you over.
Can you both give me a toughness?
Does it say be not afraid?
Fuck, I got a 12 with a minus one is 11.
Okay.
Yeah.
ah No, sorry.
No, please continue.
I got a 10 with a plus two, whatever that means.
Okay, you pass.
Vrak, this thing addresses Ibram and you hear it rumble through your body.
Belham, it's too loud.
You're in the fetal position now with your slinging your hand and the sharp rocks are poking into your thighs.
And in a strange voice that almost sounds like a trombone and trumpets um singing says,
Isaac is safe.
Your new ram is here.
And the eyes point towards Bellum and Vrakh.
And Isaac turns to you, illuminated by this strange eyeball, and you see his face and you see elation on it that he no longer has to sacrifice his son.
and he bends over to pull the dagger from the earth.
Can you roll your initiative?
That's a D6, right?
That's a 6 plus 3.
Okay.
Vrak, what do you do?
ah
Hmm
Uh...
Can I try to grappling hook the dagger?
Yeah, of course.
Is ah that strength or agility or?
presence.
Yeah, I guess.
says grapple for strength because like grappling somebody, but let's just say, let's call it strength.
Strength or agility.
Okay.
Well, that's a two, which is a fail on either one.
So.
Yeah, you throw wide and it clatters to the ground.
Do you maintain hold of the rope?
Okay.
say, yeah, I meant to do that, sir.
Mr.
Ebram.
Uh, it's all right.
I was trying to.
Shit.
I don't know what I'm saying.
I need to stop talking so much.
Yeah, he looks at you, he says, you!
My new lambs!
And he starts trying to get the dagger out and pulls on it.
Bellum, you have blood running out of your ears and your nose and your eyes, but it is your turn.
Catch!
And I underhand lob my bomb at him.
that's that's definitely a presence.
really like to pass this chat.
A 16 plus one with a minus two DR.
Yeah, you chuck it center mass or in front of him.
I want him to catch it.
He's down pulling this dagger up and you throw it and reflex he grabs it and it's like in his hand and does this have a fuse I'm assuming as well.
Yeah.
a sealed bottle, it says.
So I'm imagining like a milk can with a whi- with a fuse coming out of the top.
Yeah, he grabs it.
uh Give me some damage.
Okay, yeah.
It blows up and you see him fly backwards and hit the same pile that uh Isaac is bound to and he lays next to him for a second and he has shrapnel all over his body.
His face is blackened.
Now the eye thing twitches and blinks a bunch and
He stands up and let me see.
I'm gonna give him a toughness to see if he can like even go.
Actually go ahead and roll the toughness as a part of that Bellum.
You got a seven.
Okay, plus zero.
So he does not have a turn, Frockett is your turn.
um I'm gonna uh yank the grappling hook back and try to catch the knife on the way and see if I can pull the knife towards us.
Just go get it.
yeah, guess I could, can I?
I'm not quite sure about like the geog- Okay, well yeah, I'll just go try to grab the knife then.
Yeah, you run over, slide in maybe like uh you're sliding into a base.
Yeah, Destiny slide exactly.
And then give me a strength to see if you can rip it out.
so strong.
Uh, yeah, that's a one.
Okay, you go up and yeah, you grab the blade instead of the knife and you lose your hand, um your other hand.
So now you just have a hook and give me a D6.
Uh, two.
And I have, I think my light armor, it says D2.
Does that do anything?
Or no.
for critical failure.
Yeah, probably not.
gets him on the armored bit of his hand?
Okay, Okay, you slide in, it hits your wrist and then it slides up and degloves you instead of taking your hand and the skin on your palm is torn asunder.
You can still grip a sword, but I will need a toughness roll to bear through it if you want to do anything with that hand.
Yeah.
Yeah, armor's not gonna.
Yeah, but you don't take any HP damage.
Alright.
That's a fair compromise.
More than fair, I feel like.
Yeah, it was pretty funny.
wild like, I mean, we're at the end of this, right?
Like, yeah.
for a second he was real excited about having two hook hands if he lives through this, but.
It's fine, we'll do the tea club.
Yeah, yeah, you were stands up and you see him chanting to himself.
Sorry, go ahead, Belham.
Yeah.
yeah, yeah, yeah, it is your phone.
It is balance.
My bad.
I would like to do the same thing, but I want to slow down a little before I get to the knife.
Okay, yeah, let's see if your roll lets you slow down.
I own chalk.
It's in my pockets.
Can I chalk my hands first?
Yeah, yeah, I'll give you, yeah, that'll reduce it by one.
Should have done that before the rock climbing part of our show, but whatever.
You know don't always think of it
And that one.
Are you fucking joking?
Jesus Christ.
Okay.
You're going for the blade as well.
Okay.
Yeah.
Do you have any armor?
Okay.
Give me a D6 as you slide into this blade.
6
minus one, the D2.
Minus two, so still um totally lethal.
Yeah.
So you, do you want to narrate how this happens, Bellum?
Yeah, so Bellum is running over and he's chalking up his hands and um as he pulls the chalk out of his pocket, he spills maybe a dozen of his small sharp rocks on the ground
and slips on them like ball bearings.
And as he does this, he baseball slides basically into the knife that is sticking out of the ground that
cuts him from uh between his middle and uh ring finger up through his shoulder.
Just the whole way up like a bandsaw.
And he sort of looks at that.
and then just bleeds out, like then and there.
Okay, well, let's roll on the broken table for me.
Give me a D4, okay.
Oh, okay, yeah, so.
omen do?
I have one omen.
Yeah, you call upon the omen.
yeah, I probably should have called upon the omen for this not to be a critical failure.
Omen omen omen.
What page are the omens on?
Uh, page 38.
So here's a question.
Omens, deal max damage with one attack or, well, I should have done that to fucking that guy before when I threw a D10 bomb at him.
That would have solved our problems.
Uh, or, yeah.
Or reroll a die roll, yours or someone else's.
Or lower damage dealt to you by a D6.
or neutralize a crit or a fumble or lower one test's DR by four.
Here's my question.
Why is neutralize a crit or a fumble on the table when you can reroll a dice roll?
Well, because you could just reroll another crit.
Right?
Okay.
Yeah.
that I just band sawed myself like a butcher.
Yeah, so I imagine Bellum imagines this.
He's chalking up, getting ready.
He just saw what happened to Vrak and he sees himself doing the same thing and then slicing his entire arm up to his shoulder.
And then that bad omen is like, wait a second, maybe there's another approach.
All right, rerolled it.
get a 15 plus zero.
Great.
You get over, you slow down and get a good grasp on the knife.
And that was a agility, right?
That you're rolling or strength.
Yeah.
And you pry it up and it breaks through the stone.
You have the knife now.
I have the knife, let's go!
Go go go!
Do we cut loose the kid?
Do we have to?
No.
What?
Okay, so you grab the knife out.
Are you helping Vrock up?
Okay.
I grab them by the hook.
Yeah.
What page were the scrolls on again?
you
35.
Let me know which one you want.
Oh, you didn't use any of your scroll, Jimmy.
Yeah, I was...
Yeah, I should have probably used it more, but I was gonna use some this fight, but you just got the knife, and I figure running away is maybe better than, you know, fireballing
him, unless I have to.
Yeah, if you wanna send me.
the kid.
Just kidding.
Yeah, good.
I got four of them.
If you send me eyelids of the blind mind or eyelid blinds the mind, I will read it.
Is that the invisibility one?
No.
Creatures fall asleep for an hour.
I should have labeled these better.
You can just give me any of them.
I could do the death scroll if you prefer.
No thanks.
For some reason, it's very hard to find this um chat, this thread.
where?
You can just put it in Riverside, right?
no, it doesn't take pictures.
You can put it in any channel.
you got it already.
God.
I'll try to read that.
I made these and told my players that they had to read them in six seconds or else the spell-
Cool, okay
So they were like shouting these like at their top speed.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, he starts standing up after getting this explosion all over him and like he's smoking too and he breathes heavily and he's like, I lights the blind mind that holds the
band that covers the noise of the dreams yet.
undreamt by those sleepers in the darker waters of the lake of mud.
And he's at the end and he can do a d4 of people.
He gets three, so.
um
say up to D4.
Yeah, so you are the two that he's trying to put to sleep.
oh
Is he picking himself?
No, I'm kidding.
I'm sure it does not work that way, but I'm doing my best here.
Yeah.
So give.
as an idea though, that it does mean exactly that many.
That's funny.
That would be funny.
And you would have to make yourself fall asleep if it's just like, yeah.
Yeah.
Like, oh, fuck.
Well, we all just wake up together and resume.
yeah.
Yeah.
Can you give me a strength or a toughness?
That's a 15 plus 2.
Okay, you do not fall asleep.
I got a 12 minus 1.
Okay, you feel like you're falling asleep.
It's a 14 test.
And you see Bellum as he's shouting for you to get your ass moving, Vrock.
He looks woozy and starts to fall over and hits the ground.
Pour some of that berserker potion in me.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Uhhhh
the dagger hits the ground again when it's in Bellum's hand and you see the spot it hits, cracks, and you hear lightning again.
It is your turn, Vruk.
Yeah, how come God didn't give me a target when I got the knife?
Hmm.
Yeah, I, uh...
Do I have, like, with my occult herb sense, uh any sense that the Berserker potion would work?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a powder.
Yeah.
It's, it's basically magic cocaine.
Uh, yeah.
So I, uh, you know, I have a little vial and I just like pour some right in your nose and I close the other nostril and close your mouth.
Yeah, it goes up, Bellum, you feel the life come back to you.
Vrak, that's your turn.
The dagger's laying on the ground.
uh We will, well, Bellum, I'll let you take a turn, yeah.
Uh, can I pick up the knife?
So there's three things I'd like to do.
are pick up the knife, resume running, and also whip a sling stone at this guy.
Uh, how many of those can I do?
you can pick up the knife and start running or pick up the knife and start swinging your sling.
let's get out of this guy's line of sight.
How hard is it gonna be to get back down the sheer cliff face?
Otherwise we're gonna run into um every cultist on the way.
you going back down the side, it's gonna be tricky with speed and then who knows what is gonna be thrown down at you, but there is the path too that you could take that would have
taken you up.
Yeah, but there's eight dudes in that lady on that path.
Seven, if we burned up that one guy.
Yeah.
choices.
What would your gut tell you, Bellum?
Okay, run down the path.
run down the path and maybe we can hop over the side of the path and like skid down the side of the mountain.
Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.
You start taking off, Brock, you see him taking off.
He gets a room's distance away, which is about 25 feet or so.
You're still in line of sight at this point though.
Real quick ah it is getting a little late.
Do you guys want to call it like 20 minutes?
Maybe 30.
I don't know where we are in the in the story Yeah, that's what I thought all right
Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm good to keep going.
it's, not that I want this to be the case, but it's Ibram's turn, right?
Like I use my turn for the snuff.
Bellum did his thing.
Yep, yep.
Yeah, Ibram pulls out a sling of his own and spins it around to you, Vrak, can you give me any agility?
That's an 11 with a plus 3, so 14.
Beautiful.
Yeah, you see one of those eyeballs fly past your head and he starts bounding toward where Bellum was running um for his dagger.
Yeah, I want to fireball him
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
What's the activation again for that?
Your presence.
the thing I think so and then I say the thing
Yeah, you should say the things.
Palms open the southern gate, knuckles close the northern gate, fingers close the eastern gate, nails open the western gate.
From Hell's Heart I stab at the kapow.
Yeah, give me the presence role to see if the activation goes well.
I have two omens if need be.
Can I use one on this?
Yeah, I got an eight which I'm pretty sure fails.
You can use your OMEN, yeah.
an Omen reduces the DR by four and it succeeds, right?
it succeeds, yeah.
okay, sweet.
So then I do the damage with the d8.
That's an eight.
Wow, you see Ibram bounding toward Belim and he's running past you and you give him some lead as you read this scroll aloud and the flames erupt from like your hand and hit him in
the side.
Yeah, give me a description of how he's consumed by flames and killed.
Uh, yeah, so I was picturing him in like robes and maybe like kind of a fancy hat.
Uh, and I, with my skinned palm hand, I kind of point my hook at him and my hook starts to glow red as I'm doing the chant.
And then just like, bam, and like fire shoots out and it's still kind of in the hook shape.
Uh, and it just like flies straight at him as this like fiery hook and like digs right into his back.
And there's a split second where he kind of jerks like, ah, like
hands up and maybe stumbles a step and then his robes just erupt in fire.
Yeah, he falls to the ground screaming in agony as he's consumed by flame.
He's like, ah!
Bellum, as you're running, you have the dagger in your hand still, right?
It gets to a point where you run and it stops midair and you get jerked forward and it will not move any further.
And the figure in the sky.
rings in your head.
We demand a sacrifice.
I turn around and start dashing towards ah Ibrahim.
What's?
Ibram.
Is he still alive?
Ibram?
screaming and burning.
can get there in time.
Also, I got a quibble for you, God.
Is it really a sacrifice if it's someone I don't know?
putting that out there.
I'm gonna go plant this in Abram's chest.
Yeah.
You're not really sacrificing anything, but something's dying.
Yeah, but it seemed to have counted because God said, oh, you can go sacrifice these mooks instead of your kid, so.
Yeah, at this point it's a guy I want to kill, I mean, hey, it's a win-win scenario, you get your dead body and we get this guy killed.
You mercy kill Ibram and he is on fire as this dagger comes into him and that lightning like resonance passes through him and splits him in half and one of the halves slops
around and falls off the side of the mountain and Isaac screams from there.
He's just like
Dad, father, father!
And he's screaming and lashing against his restraints.
Uh, yeah, I think we leave that kid there.
Someone will come up and get him.
Yeah, he seemed like he wanted this whole thing to happen and I don't even really know which mother he is.
Hey, you know what?
For funsies, maybe we could pull a whole Bible and like saw them in half and then each mother can have the half they want.
Okay, all right.
Yeah, let's get out of here.
Yeah, you take off down the path with the dagger in your hand.
And you hear, go ahead, yeah.
Is God still there?
God's still there watching.
Yeah.
You.
wanna do like a sorta like what the fuck gesture.
At God.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
You got your show.
uh problems with authority and blasphemous tattoos.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
You do the gesture.
uh Seems uncaring.
Standing in the sky.
um These whirling strange rusted circles and you run down the mountain and just take the path all the way down.
Where's the lady and the rest of the cultists?
at the end of the path.
And waiting, you see them in the distance.
They're all supplicated at the bottom of the mountain with the staring up at the strange eye in the sky.
ah You think we can just run past them?
They seem preoccupied.
I mean we did their sacrifice, so...
hold the knife like behind my back.
because I can't see it.
yeah, yeah as you run into view Vrak you notice that Bellum holding this knife is Glowing strangely It's like a like a dark obsidian blackness folds the shadows around him and an
anti glow almost and They noticed that as well and they start
They start bowing as you guys run up and turn towards you screaming prayers at you as you run by.
See, I told you they were cheering us on.
Yeah.
don't overthink it.
Just keep going.
Go, go, go.
Yeah, go, go, We, yeah, well, road runner off into the distance.
Like I don't think we stop running.
Yeah, where do you stop eventually?
Does God remain in place?
Mm-hmm, doesn't follow you.
Does it go away?
Yeah, after a while, it slinks back and...
Probably that's when Bellum stops running.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think I'm just following your lead at this point because you seem to know more about this whole god stuff than I do.
I'm just, I'm along for the ride.
got nothing.
I don't know what that thing is.
towards a village, towards wilderness.
you
Uh.
village.
If this knife can make us lots of money, ah well, I don't know, maybe we chop a tree with the knife and gold pops out and then, uh that's, don't know how this thing gets us money,
but yeah.
Yeah, you go to a village.
Take a night's rest.
Are we able to stop at the lady, like run past the lady?
Of course, yeah.
He's dead, goodbye.
Yeah.
Your son's still alive if you want to go get him.
bows over and over again, slamming her head into the ground as you run by.
Yeah, okay.
days.
These people are weird.
I mean, I'm not exactly normal, but like, I, you know, I wouldn't do stuff like that.
You know, I, yeah, it's, ah crap.
I still got these carvings on my head.
Well, maybe one of the healing potions will take care of that.
I so.
Yeah.
As a part of a, I guess, uh a epilogue, Bellum, you arrive in civilization and you cannot stop people from trying to follow you and bow to you.
You, against your will, have become a father of nations.
you gather more and more and more people everywhere you go.
You go into the wilderness to try to escape them.
People follow and then animals follow.
You have wolves, deer lying together in your presence.
I give Rack the knife.
That's fucked up.
Bellum is not okay with that.
Bellum does not- cannot become the authority.
Yeah, it's kind of your whole not thing.
It's a real, uh, you know, uh, Paul Atreides, I don't want to be king kind of situation, but you can't really stop it.
I don't know what happened.
him the knife.
Frack, you can't touch or lift the knife.
it falls.
Yeah.
You're unable to touch it.
Yeah, I'm okay with that.
I didn't really want it either.
I'm not King material.
I know that about myself.
I guess it, you know, even if I had like subjects to sit and listen to me ramble all day, I don't really like that I ramble.
It's kind of like a stress thing.
I don't really want to do it.
And if I had people stuck here that would listen to me all the time.
Bellum, you realize after a while that in your followers, some say that your nature is this, others say your nature is that.
None are quite right.
None really have a full understanding of you.
And then they start killing each other because they don't really understand you.
But you cannot stop this unless you have a creative way to.
I'm not sure he tried.
Yeah.
Hey, uh Bud, what if we take the knife back to the mountain and get someone else to kill someone?
And then they have the knife.
I mean, we got our wealth.
Why don't we just get rid of this thing and we can give it a shot.
Yeah, I think we trek back to the mountain with a horde of people.
Someone's gonna wanna be sacrificed, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, you get to the top of the mountain and raise the knife above.
Okay.
Someone else has to raise...
Fuck!
Can someone else raise the knife?
like on a fundamental literal level.
Like I give it to some guy, like here, hold this.
Yeah, no one can hold it.
What uh, about if you kinda hold it up and they do like the baseball and then...
Yeah, somebody else has their hand on it you let go and it falls into a person.
try to trick God.
Yeah, you stand up top this mountain doing strange rituals that are mimicked throughout the land now by your followers.
People drop knives into their own feet.
People try to hold knives up together in a large group and hurt themselves all the time.
And there's just strange things just around the land as this world's dying even faster now.
But.
You have temples built in your name.
You have access to gold and riches and men and women and everything in between.
Your desires can be met no matter what.
The world is honestly your slave.
Yeah, except to one desire to not be the person that has all this stuff.
The Monkey's Paw Curls!
Is that a monkey's paw?
I don't know.
The end.
yeah.
what I asked for in a way that makes me completely unable to enjoy it.
Sure, there you go.
Yeah, that's excellent.
Cool.
Yeah.
Vrock, do you have a prologue or just hanging out with Bellum?
Or not a prologue, an epilogue.
Yeah, I mean, I think I probably just hang out with Bellum.
but I don't, I don't want like any kind of spotlight.
It's more like maybe we're drinking buddies or something.
Uh, and I commiserate with you and maybe after years of this, I kind of learned how to shut the hell up.
cause he's the one with the problems and I find some inner peace from that.
Uh,
Problem is thus spoke for rock and everyone writes every little thing you say down and repeats it constantly throughout because you have the era of Bellum and your scripture and
testaments of Bellum are one of the only books that is rewritten and written over and over again.
Okay, well then I think that actually has uh unfortunate feedback for Vrak, because then he's like, one, he just is hyper verbose and says all this stuff, but then two, because
he's deceitful and kind of gets a kick out of it, he starts saying really dumb shit just to see how much people will write down.
ah Maybe sometimes he tries to like, you know, because he didn't want to see the kid get killed.
He doesn't like the people dropping knives in their feet and stuff like that.
He's, you know.
I mean, he'll kill a man if there's a good reason, but people just sticking knives in themselves because of some weird ritual.
That's just pointless.
he maybe tries to be like, no, don't with the knives and the dropping in the feet.
Maybe drop it next to your foot.
ah And it's like the closer to your foot you get, the closer you are to God.
But God doesn't want you to hurt your foot.
ah
If you make a mistake, then you gotta like give money ah to, I don't know, some kids who are in trouble or some of it to us.
But not, you know.
Yeah, I, yeah.
And then you also have to fuck off for a week.
That's how, more than a week, a year.
After you donate money to us, you have to go away for at least a year.
So thus spake Vrak, leave us the fuck alone.
Yeah, and Vrak's verbose like scripture is so confusing and archaic.
There are colleges and universities that devote their entire study to understanding and unpacking what Vrak has said, and they translate it into other languages and miss stuff,
and they try to retranslate it, and those are the testaments of Vrak.
people making themselves hook hands, is that.
In the monasteries, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's that's pretty sick.
For real life.
then