A Pint Of Cthulhu
Mappa Mundi Playtest Part 3
So our chronicles have finally reached the encounter phase of Root and Branch, the pre-written adventure for Mapamundi, and exploration and ecology RPG, as they have crested over the top of this rocky hill, and they find themselves in the deepest enclaves of the Azura Woods, and finally, you catch a glimpse of what it is you have been searching for. There is a patch of trees that seems to wave back and forth in the fog laden din, with the branches resembling fingers that beckon to you to draw closer. As you do, the fog parts and sinuous roots extend from those trees. Those roots encircle mounds of dirt and small boulders, and suddenly, an entire patch of forest is meandering back and forth before your eyes, as if the hill below it has magically come to life. But looking closely, it's not a hill at all, it is the helix shaped shell of a huge 50 foot tall snail peering out from a wide crack in the earth. You have confronted the helix car cull, the final card, in the journey deck. Now, I will provide some context as you undo players, and people are listening will also be new players. The encounter phase in Mapamundi can be thought about like a boss battle, but obviously in Mapamundi, which is a zero combat system, you are not trying to remove this monster's hit points and subdue it and kill it, instead you are trying to reveal its eight unique behaviors. Now, these behavior, the tolerance that this monster has to your presence is measured in a system we call threads. So for those of you that are playing, we'll see you on your character sheet in the bottom right corner, there is a monster behavior tracker on which are also eight threads. Now, you came through the journey phase with more cards, right wise than were inverted. There were a couple that were left inverted, but most of them were right wise. And that means that this monster's attitude is passive, rather than aggressive. So what this means is that all eight of its threads are intact. It means it's less likely to run away. It's less likely to lash out at you. It means you have the greatest number of opportunities to reveal these behaviors. The alternative would be if it was aggressive, some of its threads would be severed, some of them would be frayed, and that would mean that you were more likely to annoy it and have it flee the encounter. So thinking about it like a boss battle, you should think about your position in relation to your target, think about the environment that your target is in and how you can use that to your advantage. Also think about the skills that you have and the interactions that you have. Now interactions are primarily used during the encounter phase. Like the journey deck, if a journey card comes out and it's right wise, you are going to get an opportunity. It's an easier option to gain something. That is much the same as using an interaction in the encounter phase. It's going to be an easier means, assuming it's related to one of the behaviors you are going to more easily reveal it. If you don't have any interactions that are relevant or you've run out of interactions and therefore you, but there are still behaviors to reveal, this is when you can start using your skills and the environment to tell me what it is you want to try and discover. And I will set you challenges that will use your skills and we use when we use ability roles to help you unlock and reveal and unlock those behaviors. Does that make sense to everyone? All right, wonderful. So you find yourself looking down into this essentially crack in the earth. Now you are on the western side of this crack and it kind of dips down into a large bowl. Inside that this is a huge, huge landform. I mean, it's containing a 50 foot tall snail with a forest on its back. So it has to be pretty big. In the distance when the bowl comes up on the other side, there is a higher vantage point that you can see higher than where you are now. At the moment you can't see onto the top of the helix car coals shell, but you can kind of see across, you're looking kind of sideways at the shell. The vantage point on the other side seems high enough that you could look down on it equally. It also seems while the snail is moving back and forward, it's staying relatively close to the northern side of this crack in the ground, almost as if it's concealing something from view. So chroniclers, you are now in contact with your target. How is it that you want to go about dealing with this encounter? Can I bait it to see if it'll move? I think perhaps we should, if it's staying in one area, we kind of want to examine it before riling it up. Since getting it calm again might be a lot harder than provoking it. Yes, that is a good idea. I would love to take a sketch of it from that high vantage point, but I also have a thought. Usually when creatures are staying in one area, it's because there's either food source or eggs. If one of you is much better at traversing these areas than I perhaps get a little bit closer to find out if it's, perhaps we can even put a sediting or laying. I think I'm quite good at the traversing. It is most definitely not me. That is one of my weaknesses. Then, of course, I can find some store samples and from there perhaps we can see how it does when a little bit furked. So who wants to do what in what order? And bear in mind, you can act simultaneously here. There's no initiative or something like that. For example, while Cathy is sketching, Philip can be moving down into the bowl to try and get closer to it, or to use traversal skills. All of these things can be happening roughly at the same time. I would like to do one thing. I have a skill, it's called intentions. Can I deduce the intentions of the foe? You can certainly try. Essentially, I want to try to predict this next move. You want to try and predict this next move? As your party are kind of standing or struck at what's in front of them, you as a diviner start to realize that the theory behind what monsters are is that they are incarnations of fate's will. At the very least, they are far closer to fate and understanding in fate than humans are. So as you quiet your mind and go into a sense of quiet contemplation, you try to let the threads of your mind connect with the threads of this 50-foot tall gastropod in front of you. And what reaches you is not an absence of thought, certainly not an absence of thought, but equally not a thought pattern that is anything close to anything you recognize. Think about it the way that you would describe this. Could you describe it almost like static? No, I wouldn't describe a static because static is almost the absence of information. What you are seeing is something you can't put into words. If you were to try, once you were almost bouncing off of its mind, and the way that you would describe this to your companions is that imagine if a regular-sized snail was trying to access your thought patterns to determine how you saw the world. These alien intelligences almost, you are so different from this being. I follow you, yeah, we have totally different thought patterns and totally different ways of thinking. Exactly. There is no way for me to interpret that. Exactly. However, you have tried to do it and what you have learned is that this is a very, very different intelligence to anything you have ever, ever encountered before. Unfortunately, fate in her capricious design, almost the one thing she does do is almost tickles the snail's mind as if it's trying to be intruded. And unfortunately, a thread has become severed in this instance. So if you were to mark a severed thread on your character sheet, I will note that once all threads are severed, the encounter comes to an end regardless of how many behaviours you've revealed. So that was a really good use of a skill there, Sam, but it's not all of them work, right? Not every tool has an outcome. No, I've got to try. I mean, I am the diviner. I've got to see what, you know, it's a beast. You know what, Sam? Give yourself a fate point because that was a good use of a skill to start. Can you remind us what fate points do? Fate points will, like, if you, for a minor decision or for kind of a minor to medium outcome, if you spend a fate point, I will change the direction or the trajectory of that outcome. For something really, really major that's going to kind of fundamentally change the direction of a scene, I will make you roll a fate dice as well, which is a D2. Okay. So, while Sam has been trying to read the mind and read the intentions of this nail, Jay, are you beginning to, is Kathy beginning to try and take her sketches? Yes, from the vantage point up high, trying to get her talked out. All right, so before we get there then, you are going to have, so you and I'm assuming, so I'm assuming as well that Philip is wanting to get closer to make use of the traversal skills. Both of you are beginning to move down this, down this kind of, this hill that leads into this crack in the ground. And as you get, you know, the terrain is difficult to get down, but you can manage it. It's not beyond the realms of possibility. As you start to get to the bottom, you are amazed by just how tall this, this nail is. Can you both give me an observation check, please? Sure thing. That is a six. A six from Kathy and Philip. An observation. That's default, so I'll be. Oh God, one out of four. One out of four. Okay. So, Philip is the guardian of this party and has sworn not only to protect the monsters and the wilds, but also protect, protect his companions. And so, what he is attempting to do is to have his body in between Kathy and the Helix car coal. Just in case it gets the idea that it maybe wants to charge. You don't know what it wants to do, but this is your training. You know to put your body in the way. This is what guardians are trained to do. And you are so focused on keeping your eyes on the Helix car coal that you are just about to put your foot down. Into this viscous, slippery substance that's on the ground. But, Kathy being the attentive, the attentive, the creative archivist that she is. She is not, while she is massively impressed by this nail, she's also looking where she's going. And just as you are about to step into this, into this substance, she grabs the back of your cape and pulls you backwards. You fall down onto the ground. Your pride is a little bit hurt. But, Kathy then, before she even checks your okay, her archivist training takes over. And she bends down. Ooh, samples. And, but this is the thing, and touches her finger into this viscous substance. No, no. Kathy, remember lab tech rules. You have to use gloves. So you have, Kathy, you have the take samples skill, right? Yes. Okay, so in this instance, this is, you know, you're about to take a sample here. And you have discovered the first of the Helix car coal's behaviors for this encounter phase. You have discovered the slime trails behavior. So you will get to mark slime trails down on your monster behavior tracker. I like to think Kathy's got a little glass, wow, she's scooped some of the slime into it with her twig. Exactly. That's exactly what, that's, that's the way that I see the archivist as well. So the Helix car coal, it seems, produces a slick trail of slimy mucus to facilitate easy movement. This mucus, as you take the samples, Kathy, and you begin to study them and you get a little dab of it on your finger. It appears to be harmless, but does appear also to be infernally slippery. You have, there's enough slime from where you're taking samples to fill five bottles, five sample bottles. And it's, like I said, it's incredibly viscous. Now, as we, as we, you know, as you, as you shaped the wilderness that you came through, you are also able to shape the behavior that you have unlocked. So Kathy, you have unlocked slime samples. So you tell us about what this slime sample is. Tell us about these slime trails are. These slime trails are mostly just a natural consequence of something so big and so goopy moving through the area. But they also have an interesting secondary thing because they are so viscous and because there is so much slime, it actually sort of coats the area vaguely in front of the snail and also underneath it, meaning that there are any small sharp objects that perhaps get goopified enough that they won't scratch up the delicate mouth and not rub out the snail. Okay, cool. So, so actually then this, this, this slime, these slime trails are not just the means of locomotion. They are also potentially a kind of protective balm that is protecting the, the foot of the snail because they're just one big foot, right? Gattropod eats through their foot. So it's, it's protecting the skin of the snail. So I wonder then, Kathy, if, if this, if these slime trails might also have the same kind of protective effect when applied to human skin. Does anyone want to get the Vaseline? We can test it out here in the field. So, while Kathy is taking her samples, while Kathy is taking her samples and, and Philip is recovering his pride and, and getting back up onto his feet. Sam has obviously is, has been trying to do his, his, his study of the snails intentions. Matt, that leaves you. What is your, what's your, what is your plan here? What is your plan to engage with the, with the helix car call? My plan would be to gather what I would perceive as bait for when they get close enough to the area it's hiding something in to then pull it out of that area for a little bit. So to try and draw it out. Yeah, without. So whilst it's away, they can have a poke around and then leave before it gets back. Understood. Okay. So, um, while then, so, so at this point, Kathy is, Kathy is kind of finished collecting her samples and Matt is, not Matt, sorry, Philip is back on his feet. Kathy is beginning the process of moving. She kind of disappears from view as she goes out of the, out of the, the crack in the ground and starts climbing up towards this high advantage point. In the meantime, Matt, you are using your kind of resourceful fixer nature and your, you know, bit of a chance, a bit of a geezer, you know, is ready for all comers and thinking, right, what is it that a 50 foot snail is going to eat? And surely, if it's living here, or if it's here, temp, however, temporarily, there must be some kind of food source about, right? So, can you give me an exploration role, please? Exploration role. Oh, that's a one. Okay, so what you come across are, um, on the, on the, um, southern side of the, the crack in the ground, you see the only, what looks like the only real plant life that exists in this, in this kind of, what was otherwise a really thick forest, this, this place seems relatively bare and empty, and you see some plants and they look quite sharp, the leaves are quite sharp and they're oddly coloured. You pick them, and you know, you kind of have them ready to, to lay your bait at the, at the opportune moment. Sam, what is it that, what is it so after, after how kind of bouncing back off the helix car coals mind, what is it that you're planning on doing next? That haven't quite got there yet. I mean, I wanted to explore the mind of this beast, but now that has sort of, you know, been deflected. I'm too sure, I need to figure out his weaknesses somehow to try to figure it out, and obviously the guys have been trying their best. And so what interactions do you have, what interactions could you use in this situation? Well, I've got whispers, but I don't know what quite that means. So whispers, whispers is, is one of your skills, your interactions are on your character sheet below that. Oh, yeah, no, that's just read and touch. Alright, so reading, reading it tends to be about trying to read body language, so it makes sense, if you couldn't get into its intentions, then read is kind of like, how is it acting physically, and touch is pretty self explanatory. Yeah, no, I read that the other way around. When you said read, I thought it meant like read as in you read a sign or you read the, yeah, no, no, so read is the bottom language. That's actually what I thought, because you said that the language, I thought, oh, read is going to be reading that language. Got you. No, in this context, read body language thing. Okay, no, yeah, that sounds like something I would like to do then. So you were going to try and attempt to read this, read the Helix car calls body language so getting a bit closer to it, you notice that it's posture and it's kind of, perhaps it's understanding or it's perception of what's going on around it is little. It hasn't really clocked any of your, like the presence of the party here it's, it's moving kind of back and forward it's kind of moving. I suppose the directions would be east to west and then kind of turning around and coming back it's staying at that, you know, relatively close to that northern end of the of this crack in the ground. But the, the vibe that you pick up is, is indifference. You're not, it's not really, and again, in the same way that, you know, how often do you notice a snail, a regular size snail when you're walking down a pathway, you tend not to, unfortunately, unless you step on them. And it's, again, in that you get the sense that this is much the same, that this creature is so big that it's, it's not really concerned with your presence. Now, that doesn't reveal any behaviors, but it equally doesn't agitate, it doesn't annoy the snail. So you will have frayed a thread here, if you change a thread from intact to frayed, please. But what you do notice is that there is something seems to be glinting on the top, right at the top, the sun seems to be catching something that is glinting off the light, right on the top of the snail. So you haven't revealed a behavior, you have frayed a thread, but you have also gained some, some information. Okay, but then hang on, let's switch this around a bit, because I've got this fate point you recently gave me. Could I maybe use that to get to, you know, maybe gain some more information to maybe not, you know, do you maybe keep that frayed more intact? So you can't use fate points to keep, to change the outcome of threads. Frayed, frayed is better than severed, frayed threads can be restored with, you know, like, if you're able to interact and engage with the target, with the target in a kind of restorative way, perhaps, or a calming way, then that thread, that thread can go from frayed back to intact. But in this context, the fate point wouldn't serve you much good because there's, do you discover the information that you can discover? No, I'll leave it there then, okay, thank you. Yeah, no problem. So, Kathy then, you have been trying to climb up this to this view point. Unfortunately, the going has been a little bit tougher than you thought. Can you give me a traversal check, please? Sure thing, traversal is 84. One. One. Okay, so as you are climbing this, as you're climbing this, this escarpment up to this viewpoint, you realize that actually the ground is far less stable than you predicted. Unfortunately, you are now part way up it. And the, the ground, the handholds that you're on feel like they're giving away. If metagaming somewhat, if there was a time to use a fate point, this might be it. Yep, go on. So, what I will allow you to do in that context is to reroll your traversal check. Oh, joy. Okay. Three. Three, okay, so as the ground feels like it's giving away, one of the handholds does actually fall out from under you, but you have anticipated this and you have kind of really clung. You've kind of flattened your body onto the, onto the rock face and you just like a bit like a snail. Yeah. And you were just about able to hold on. Climbing up to the top, you are flustered, you are a bit stressed, but you are now up on this viewpoint and you can see down onto the top of the snail. Are there any interactions you would like to use while you're up here? I have a, hold on. I have a sketch. So, sketch. So you want to take a sketch. Okay. So this is an excellent viewpoint from which to, from which to see the helix car call and its full majesty. You're able to see it's, you know, every, every piece of it from this, from this vantage point. And as you sit and calm yourself and start to sketch, your archivist training kicks in and you are making here what could be described from an outsider as a combination of kind of biological, biological field sketches. But there is an artistic quality to them. You're kind of capturing the splendor and the beauty of this as well as it's kind of, as well as the kind of finer details. And what you see is, as you, you know, you start at the base of the snail and you draw up and up and as you start to draw the shell, you notice that the helix, the drawings of the helix that both you and Sam found earlier on back in in gas car is the pattern on the snail's shell. And not only that, but as the shell is the further up the shell you look, and as you're sketching fine details, you realize that the shell is starting to petrify at the top that it's moving from a kind of shell texture to a stone texture. And you have revealed the stone spiral shell behavior. So you will get to mark that down on your character sheets. It looks like, it looks like the shell, the more of the, like the conclusion that you draw from this Kathy is that the more of this, the higher up the shell goes would suggest the older the shell is much like, you know, like a hair is oldest at the end or a fingernail is oldest at the end. It's seen that the shell is the oldest, the higher up it goes and that's why it's petrifying into rock and it's on these rocks that this beautiful living forest exists. So you get to shape this behavior again, you get to tell us what it is that Kathy is seeing on this stone spiral shell. Kathy is seeing something that initially she would think would be a shedding process. But she's like, wait, now this is insectoid, this isn't reptile, or not insectoid technically gastricoid, but soon enough. So it can't be that. And then she realizes she's seen parts of this before and had a zero explanation for them. She's seen little chipped off curled bits of stone snail shell that she at first thought would just odd geological formations. So every time she's like, lint against one, use a small section of one as like a bulb collecting samples when she's ran out of bottles, or to see those fragments scattered around as given new context. So that it looks like in this case then that actually the snail is far more ambulatory, has travelled around this forest and left bits of its essence and its physicality behind, far more than actually its current location might suggest. Is that where we're headed with this? Yeah, and its role in the environment isn't just a massive herbivore, but like the Shenandoah little cracked bits of stone shell would have acted as habitat essentially as little hiding places for all the zards and small insects or manals. Beautiful, so actually the snail, while something this big can often be assumed to be destructive. And while it may well destroy things as it moves through, but actually it's almost creating or providing opportunities for new life or new expressions of life, a new shelter for life as it moves around the forest. Beautiful, alright, so that's the stone spiral shell then, so Phillip, you are still down on the ground in the middle, right in the middle of this, you know, for what is all intents and purposes, an arena, you are closest to the snail, what is it that you would like to do here? I can use an interaction, can't you? You can, yeah absolutely. It might protect basically to give off the feeling of I'm here to protect, maybe even learn as to the nature and one for protecting and I just don't like that, but it's like I'm just here to observe. Okay, so you want to try and use protect to essentially communicate with the snail that you pose no harm to it? No threat. No threat, okay, so what would that look like, how would Phillip go about doing that? That's probably because he's in the arm as well, he's just basically just probably takes the helmet off, it's like the lower hat, like the rest of him, it's basically like mimics the shell. Got you, okay, so he's almost right, I understand, so he's almost trying to kind of mimic the body language of this snail, okay, all right, so from a distance, your companions, you know, Kathy is kind of engrossed in her sketching at this point, and so Derek is off gathering whatever foliage he can find in an attempt to feed it, but while you are, you know, Jay was, Jay had tried to read the snail's body language and kind of wasn't really, you know, was able to kind of see that it was staying in this general area, you and he's, you know, Jay sees from a distance, sees you trying to mimic the body language of the snail. Now, unfortunately, this doesn't reveal any new information to you, but what it does do is you kind of stepping in front of it and being kind of in its full view has highlighted your presence at the very least to the snail to the helix car coal. Now, unfortunately, it doesn't reveal any new information, but because it's now aware of your presence, that frayed thread becomes a severed thread. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's become aggressive with you, but it's now aware that it's not alone. So if you guys want to mark that frayed thread as now a severed thread, so you should have two severed threads at this point. Matt, this seems like a time for you to maybe step in and try, you know, now that the snail seems aware of, aware of at least one of your presence. Is this the time maybe to try and offer your bait up? Yeah, seeing things are going hardly wrong because it just seems to be going a bit awry. Maybe I don't shit somehow or get its attention with it somehow. Okay, so you want to kind of, I mean, it strikes me that, you know, a snail eats through its foot, hence the term gastropod. And so maybe like the bait in this instance would be making it aware of your presence and kind of laying the food down on the ground. Does that sound like a reasonable thing to do? Yeah, sure. Okay, so what you do is you walk past Philip who is pretending to be a snail and you're a little bit confused as to why he might be doing this. But hey, they're guardians, they're all, you know, they're all a little bit weird. The green eyed are all a little bit weird. They have to be to spend that much time in the wild. So you're going to let him continue pretending to be a snail and you get very close, relatively speaking, very, very close to the snail. And you look up and it is possibly the largest thing you've ever seen, certainly the largest natural thing you've ever seen. Or at least the thing, you know, a moving thing. You might have seen trees that are this height or taller, but this thing is moving. It's got trees on its back for God's sake. It must be big. And you lay the food down in front of it and back away slowly. You've kind of given it an offering, but obviously your intention is to bait it out. Now the snail does pull forward. And its foot, which it tastes through, touches these odd, dark, green, slightly purple leaves that you found. And almost as soon as the foot touches the leaves, the snail pulls back. It retracts itself into its shell. It's clear that whatever you've tried to give it is not to its taste. And it's withdrawn. It's kind of, it's looking out of its shell, but it's withdrawn straight into its shell, severing a third thread there. Will you skip the withdraws into its shell behaviour? You don't. You do not get that. But there is, this is leading towards another kind of behaviour that you are, you know, it's clear that things will make it retreat. It's clear that it can feel threatened by things. And in this way, it's whether you could say it's disgusted by the food or it's threatened by the food or the food poses some kind of potential danger to it. Then, yeah, then it's, those are potential options. Sam, you've bounced off this snail twice in your attempts. And I get the sense that like, diviners, when confronted with monsters, diviners are the ones that almost understand them more innately because you are close, you are closer to fate than your other human companions are. Yeah, or our snail. So, I get the sense that there is maybe some frustration coming from your attempts here. How is it that you'd like to kind of reconcile this and contribute to your mission as a map among the chronicleer? Yeah, all my attempts have seemed to, as I said, be deflected. You've still got one more interaction, though. Yeah, I could touch him. I could touch him and try to see what I could feel his energy for. Yeah, sorry. I think it's something it's behaviour that creatures do sometimes. You can go provoke that one. So, in that case, then, Sam, would you like to roll me a traversal check, please? Okay. A six. Okay. So, as you, the world seems to quiet down around you as you move towards the snail. And your mind is again reaching out and trying to understand the patterns and the threads that are swirling around this snail. You are opening yourself up to being guided by fate here. And as you approach this snail and you lay your hands on the shell, you get an intense feeling of both power and energy, but also a chilling cold emanates through you. But as you're able to kind of quiet yourself, you're able to reflect that energy and power back and find a balance between you and this colossal monster. Now, what you have done here is you've unlocked the cold-blooded behaviour. So, you guys can write that down in your character sheet. Now, Sam, as you are reflecting this power and energy back, the helix charcoal starts to withdraw from its shell again. And it's not, if it's physically aware of you now, but it's now almost like metaphysically aware of you. You have made, the connection that you saw through your other attempts has now actually almost ironically a spiritual connection as ironically made through a physical connection. So, what is it that you are feeling as you reveal this behaviour, as you realise that this cold, this intense cold, is emanating from the snail as you touch it, but also this sense of connection and energy. What is it that you're feeling and experiencing as this is happening? Yeah, that's a tricky one because I'm feeling, as you said, it's a bit cold from the actual monster himself, but the environment, it sort of sequesters himself in, is quite a tranquil, peaceful environment. I guess I would interpret that as he is almost like an unbalanced in the environment. So that the snail is unbalanced in the environment? Yeah, yeah, there's a reason why that coldness exists, and that should not be present really, it should be an equilibrium, I should really say. Okay, so the cold is almost, again, to return to a feeling that you had earlier on, that the cold is almost alien to the environment, almost like the snail doesn't belong here? Yeah, a bit like that, it may be not the snail itself, but it could be something inside the snail, but it's resonating and energy resonating. I feel that, yeah, there is, as I said, there's almost a cancer that needs removing. Interesting, okay, so actually you're almost, you're getting a sense that there's something is out of balance and out of whack and out of kilter, that there's something wrong here, that while the snail is evidently cold, blooded, there's something feels disrupted with its energy, right? That's it, yeah, I mean, it's hard to be exact, as I say, you know, I've only just got this connection out, but I feel that this coldness is just untrue to the tranquility of the area, and that has to be removed to hopefully bring us back to the equilibrium. Interesting, okay, all right, so Kathy, let's go back to you from your vantage point. So one of the things you've noticed as you were sketching is that up in the forest, up in the forest on the snail's back, you saw something glinting up there as well, and it might well be that Sam has shouted this information to you from the ground and asked you to take a closer look, or maybe you've just noticed it yourself from the vantage point. What do you think, like, is this worth potentially running a risk of getting up close and personal with the snail? Is this something you'd maybe like to try and avoid? It's a good way off this vantage point to try and get there, but it is something that has caught your eye. So you said it was on the snail's back, right? It's on the snail's back, up in the wooded section on the snail's back. I'd have to literally climb that thing, and I'm not, Kathy is bad at that. Like, specifically, Kathy sucks at traversing things. That seems like it might be better to leave, like either our dear guardian, perhaps, to handle since they're actually skilled at that specific thing. However, one thing Kathy does have an interest in that might not require so much grappling and free-hand climbing, the sheer close side of a snail, is sample collecting, and Kathy has a suspicion about what the snail might be, because you said it was pacing back and forth, essentially, around a small area. Kathy suspects there might be a snail eggs. So, how is Kathy going to try and determine whether this is there or not, but then when these are there? So, Kathy's up top right now on that higher bit. The snail's currently preoccupied, and the snail eggs, I think, are leading like clumps, so given the size of this fucker, they should be fairly visible, even from the distance. Okay, give me an observation roll, please. Six. A six. Okay, so that's a success, obviously. So, what you, while you don't, while Kathy does not see eggs, what Kathy does see is that there is a significantly sized cave behind the snail. That it seems to be protecting, or is at least remaining close in the area of. So, as the snail kind of retreated back into its shell, which you saw from the distance, this has revealed the entrance to this cave. What that has done is revealed the subterranean behavior. It does look like this. The snail is actually a subterranean creature that nests or lives below ground. It's difficult for you to confirm what's down there from your current vantage point, from anyone's current vantage point, but you have unlocked the subterranean behavior. Can you give us a description of what this cave opening looks like? I think the cave opening has to be fairly ginormous. Maybe it was originally a canyon, essentially, but the top edges of the canyon claps together to form almost a roof. For it to house, it's absolutely going on through the snail. I think probably it's pretty dusty, pretty barren, rock horns moved by these, probably many animals for shelter or some kind or another. So, does this cave, does it go like, is it a horizontal cave, or is it like a vertical cave? It's kind of vertical. The snail won't care. It can climb walls. What there is then is there is a significant black hole, like dark hole behind where the snail is. I'm assuming Kathy from her vantage point would shout down to the rest of the party to alert their attention to it. In that case, Kathy is so excited is she by this discovery. I think I said you guys can write subterranean down as a monster behavior that you revealed. So excited is Kathy by this discovery that she's shouting while also going to start climbing down from this viewpoint. She now knows the way up, so she's going to know the way down. It's going to take her a while to get down. But as she, as the snail has kind of retreated back out of its shell and now aware of the presence of all of the chroniclers, it does turn around and start to descend into this cave, almost as if it's retreating out of out of view of the chroniclers. It's a party on the ground, so that's the remaining rest of the party except Kathy. What do you want to do here with this cave? Do we want to try and explore it or do we want to leave the snail be? Leave it be. We still have a few more behaviors we need to find. Not there. Kathy just hollows down on top of her voice, alert the snail fully. So at this point we want to bring the snail as retreated from us, and so we want to bring the encounter to an end. It's almost as if the snail, you're kind of responding to the snail's implied wishes that you're going to leave this. It's decided it wants nothing more to do with you, so you're planning to respect its wishes. That's the end of the time limit. In that case, as Kathy finally reaches the ground, you see the snail slowly maneuvering itself into the mouth of the cave, and as it descends down into the darkness, the last thing you see is the swish of trees descending down into the foggy depths. And you're one of a kind encounter with this utterly rare, majestic monster that for all you know is the only one of its kind in existence comes to a conclusion, and that brings us to the end of root and branches encounter phase. Congratulations, chroniclers, you revealed, I believe, five of the eight behaviours there, is that right? Of course, four, well I haven't had three written down. Let's have a double check, you reveal cold blooded, stone spiral shell and subterranean, so four out of eight. That's a pretty decent return, well done. Okay, so the encounter phase comes to an end. You are all acutely aware that you have borne witness to something very special here, that you are almost certainly the only people in living memory beyond Pierre who evidently had an encounter with the Helix car coal as well. You are likely the only people currently alive who have gotten up close and personal with the Helix car coal, so congratulations, you have completed root and branch, which is the first pre-written adventure for mapamundi and exploration and ecology RPG. Well done. Would you like to hear the little epilogue based on the things you didn't discover? Okay, so, root and branch has reached its conclusion and all that is left is for the chroniclers to return to gas car and wrap up any loose ends. As you leave the crack in the ground, you go back and find Elodie and Anais. Elodie has, while you have been busy with the snail, Elodie has built a stretcher to transport her mentor home. Anais has become slightly more conscious. She continues to slip in and out of consciousness as you move them back through the woods. As you return home, Anais, Mayor Hugo puts Anais up in a room at the yawning mastiff and Sylvie comes around to bestow prayers and to try and help treat her old friend's wounds. Anais, you spend three days in gas car recovering from your experiences in the wilds, gathering any additional information that you can. On the last day, just before you leave, Anais is awake and talking in her room, she's still very tired, she's still quite hurt, but she is awake and talking. As you go to visit her, she weakly grasps the hands of each of your chroniclers, thanking you for assisting Elodie and helping get her back to safety. It's clear that Anais has a deep respect for Mappa Mundi's work, and she whispers the following to each of you before drifting back to sleep. You hear her say, "The monsters, they're not bound by the same rules as us. They can move freely, unrestrained by fate, and they bring these ecological shifts in their wake. We need to watch their movements, acknowledge their habits, and then disseminate that information. Only then, only then will the world open up once more." Mayor Bastian Hugo is very, very grateful for your assistance, especially in bringing back Anais and Elodie when questioned about whether Pierre ever returned to the inn. Bastian says he didn't, and you can see he's still a little bit angry about missing out on the rent that was due on the room, but he's otherwise happy that Elodie and Anais are safe. Sylvie and Bastian both ask for reports regarding the route and branch monster, and when you inform them not only of the monster's true name, but also of its non-threatening nature, it's determined that you have gathered enough evidence to prove that the giant snail is not a threat to gas car. Rather, like most other entities in the world, it merely wishes to find a suitable place where it can live peacefully. Mayor Hugo calls the Helix car coal "a very human monster" in response to the idea that it just wants to find a home, and Sylvie breathlessly wonders if its arrival is a blessing from fate. Positive word of mouth spreads throughout the town regarding the gentle giant in the azure of wood, and there is hope that perhaps the snail will one day bring fair tidings to the region. As stories of the route and branch monster continue to spread, the Helix car coal is eventually painted as a benevolent guardian, watching over gas car from a distance with the trees on its great shell swaying to and fro in the fog. And finally, chroniclers, it is time for you to write your report and return home to the Mapamundi Institute, and enter the Helix car coal and the village of Gasgar into your chronicle, thereby sealing their place in fate's design.