One little tied up ravage bear vs the entire party - what can possibly go wrong?Transhuman web series mentioned in the feedback can be found at - http://hplusdigitalseries.com/
Knights of the Night
KotN Actual Play Podcast - 152 Numenera - All Tied Up
[music] Hello, and welcome to Night's of the Night actual play podcast. This new manera adventure, Sandscape, was written and run by your GM Scott. [music] And now, please enjoy episode 152, titled, "All Tied Up." [music] Actual play starts 16 minutes 59 seconds. [music] Okay, before we get to the adventure, we have some feedback. From our KOTN Podcast.com blog site, Joshua Grasco, said, "I love this setting. I don't know why, but this setting easily forms in my mind's eye." KOTN scores again. So, thank you for... It is a very... It's a vast playground that you can definitely come up with all kind of different things. It's a very... What kind of episode is that valuable? Malleable is good. I just said valuable as you did. No, that's good. We also had some feedback on the KOTN site from Ranveer. And I'm not even sure if he's a listener, but he said, "Hi there. I read your blog from time to time, and I own a similar one. And I'm just curious if you get a lot of spam responses. If so, how do you reduce it? Do you use any plugins? Do you have any suggestions?" I get so much lightly that it's driving me insane, so... Any support is very much appreciated. Actually, this is a very specific... This is a very specific... And if you'd like to buy a Viagra, please call me... Obviously, he's not selling it, and he's curious. And since you run the site, mostly, you had to do it... [laughter] Alright, since you set off the site, did you set up any spam... Only what was part of the standard default package, I don't... It makes us a lot more popular than that. Usually, they generate more spam if you're actively linking to other sites, and you're up in the traffic, and... That's true. We only link to ourselves. So, if you start to do that, then that kind of puts you up in the ratings, and then that's why spammers latch on to... Spammers are all about latch on to coattails of any site. So, just be less popular? Come on, dude. I get your point that you're linking that draw to Google hits. I would argue that we are being exclusive, or targeting our niche market. From the RPG Crowdstock forums, we had Peter, formerly known as PAIP, who said, "Gents, really enjoying noumenera." But on an almost completely different subject... Sugar in. Looking back, I think you guys, and Scott in particular, were way too hard on the one long night plus flashback structure that was used. Listening to the feedback from folks just discovering it now, I put myself in the shoes of someone coming to Shagrin for the first time, knowing it is 32 episodes long. For them, the story structure is, I think, going to seem quite tight and elegant. Now, I admit that we all had made fun of the seemingly endless nature of it as we listened week by week, and no doubt the uncertainty of the destination made the journey a bit trying to the players. But I predict that as a performance piece, Shagrin is going to stand as a really strong chapter in the world of darkness story arc. Well, that's why we play these games as a performance piece. Exactly. So enjoy it. Keep pushing those boundaries, cheers. I just bled the whole trick. You spent the entire night bleeding. Also, where are those crazy videos you were talking about in the feedback section? For those of us who don't use Facebook. So for Peter, I posted on the site and gave him the two links to the different ones, and I just talked to Jason today, and he's working on a third, and let me see a bit of a preview of it. It's going to be a good one. It's one of our favorite scenes from shit luck, so... Just doing things from down by time. Is it weird when you think that people are kind of going backwards, if they're looking at the back catalog that they go to Shagrin and then... Then they go to shit like that? Yeah, it just seems like you're pre-quilling it instead of starting at the beginning and following it all along. I don't blame anybody starting anywhere because they tend to go to the newer stuff that they know the system. So if they're World of Darkness fans, they're going to go to Shagrin first. And if they get hooked and they go back, then that's great. They might not have got hooked if we started back at the shit luck stuff because of the sound quality in the first episode, which was just a recap of the missing episodes that we lost. So it's not the best place to start. We have the most downloads of that particular episode, but a lot of people don't go on from there because they either don't believe that it gets better. And that's weird, I mean, when I'm listening to a podcast, I don't... Take the first one and take that as possible. You want to listen to the most recent and then, you know, if you like it, then you go back and... Yeah. You hold your nose for the first one, if that's what it takes. Right. No, I agree. In my opinion, it does take that. It's not the best episode. But I think every podcast ever has said that about their first episodes. As we go on to Facebook, the reason Scott hasn't responded on this is he is once again running late getting here, so he's not here to respond, but I'm sure he greatly appreciated those. Did I run a call? You understood how ironic that statement is. It greatly appreciated those comments, Peter. Sometimes it's difficult to get down on time in your own house. Yes. So on to the Facebook feedback on the general discussion, Adam and Dongee said, "The Dresden Fowler role-playing question for hosts or someone else who knows these things. I'm running a Dresden file game and I don't quite have the maneuvers down. I know they create temporary aspects that grant bonuses or can be compelled but here's the thing. If you disarm someone as a maneuver, how does that work? A GM can compel and evoke so the guy without the gun can't shoot for X turns, but that can be bought out of. As I understand it, aspects from a maneuver is just a plus one plus two thing. Not something that restricts unless compelled. How do I get a minus two when you can't find your gun? I'm guessing that the action could be a block, but that doesn't make sense. Other examples are a zone of silence and fire hazards. So I think he's looking strictly at the Dresden book and there actually was a response from Richard Watts who said, "Adam, I just look over the roles on this in the Your Story book." And it seems like it's intended to be a short-term problem for the disarmed character, causing them to spend at least one move action to retrieve their weapon, giving anyone their attack an additional plus one or plus two. Do the difficulty of aiming for that turn. So when he goes to get his gun, he'll have a plus one or plus two to the defense of who he's shooting at, or a minus one or two to his own. It really doesn't matter which way you do that. So it's almost like it's a delay. Right. Or giving the arm attacker a plus one or plus two to attack the disarmed character, who can no longer defend themselves as well, which doesn't quite jive. How do I defend better with a gun in my hand? As for a block for the rules, you have to disarm them and then block their action to recover their weapon. You may be better off just grappling to impose a block on the action or attack at all. All of these rules seem slightly fuzzy in the book, which tells me that you need to fall back to rule number one, if it's fun rule. Whatever makes the game more fun, cinematic is a correct answer. If you and your players come up with a rule, you like better? Go with it. I have to agree with Richard. The core book itself, the core fake book, has a little different take on that. And basically they say if you do something like removing a gun, they simply can't shoot. They don't have a gun anymore. It's on the ground, they have to go get it. I mean, you adjust the fiction to fit what happens. Sometimes there aren't rules that explain that. You adjust the rules for the fiction. Yes. I learned to think that with the storytelling aspect of these games, that rule books are really more guidelines. And you have to be a lot more flexible instead of trying to lawyer or try to... Suggestions. Yeah. If you make a rule for every possible outcome, you end up with a much thicker rule book. Before we know, potentially 3.5 or... Along with the guideline thing, though, if you design your character on a guy who is like a melee, so he tends to smack weapons away, it can get a little abusive doing a maneuver just to pull it off. It's fun. But again, in the fake core and in Dresden, they both have a thing that says, "If you try to do something and everybody in the room groans and rolls their eyes, guess what? You can't do that. That's bullshit. Stop it." And that's the way all games should be played. Maybe that works the first time and then the GM gets wise. And says, "Alright, alright, you can't do my super move and I do my super move." And you can't say, "My name is London and just win." Learning experience, Michael. "My name is London and I am the law." But thanks for covering for us, Richard. And you... Because he handled most of the question. Right. I could have had that if the person who had his feedback could have told me to read the rule book. But... Oh, so I should have gave you some props so you can ask. Yes. You don't ask me a rule's questions like cold. What is it like three months since we've even looked at the game? Can I know your stuff covered a cover? I did. Comment on you guys to know the fake rules. Come on. And I will again... I think you're the only two guys that read the rules. I have all the rules too. We're probably going to... When we start playing Dresden again, I will know you'll have them down cold. And you also have the fake core because we're going to blend some of that in. All right. Back to Facebook, Ari posted and said, "Between the KOTN episodes up and hanging out with the DICE Heroes, World of Darkness, AP podcast from Down Under." I feel betrayed. That's them. Right. I don't even know who they are, but bitches. It was kind of nostalgic as in the last episode I listened to there was "Ages Kaiduru and Task Force Valkyrie making an appearance." It's a good AP cast though, sorry to say, not quite meeting the quality excellence of KOTN. So thank you for the compliment, Ari. Although I listened to the DICE Heroes, I think they're a great group. One more thing on Facebook we have from episode 151, Mr. Merck T says, "As for the case of transhumanism." Yay, more of that. This subject won't die. I had the feeling as if you guys were trying to refer to Isaac Asimov's sci-fi series "Robots" and "Foundation." Both "Foundation" relates in the fourth book, tackle the case of humans altering themselves in a way, making them a different race. Plus, some of Isaac Asimov's stories on the robots touch the case of "Is a highly advanced biological robot considered a human?" Cheers to the team as always. P.S. has Mike ever pondered on the idea of running Vampire the Dark Ages campaign. I don't know anything about Vampire the Dark Ages. I didn't either and I asked him and we were talking about it shortly. I guess it is set back in medieval times and it has a lot of court manipulation and intrigue and I think it would probably fit your liking as far as that goes. I know you love court intrigue or it's one of the things you enjoy. Anyways, I don't know if Scott has, I don't think Scott has those books, but it might be something worth it. The only problem with the court intrigue that I see with this group and this style that our play has emerged or evolved to is you'd have to be a lot kind of winging it to- Not more agile. Yeah, and I'm eventually going to get back in the hot seat and I was thinking that- People don't remember you being in the hot seat. You know how the players did. Well, I know, the players didn't. What I was going to say was just that I would probably come up with something a much simpler concept that I could control the branching or be able to respond easier and keep it a simple task. Not something as over elaborate with the planning of the world and all this. I think the way we hop and skip campaigns, that effort gets diluted because we never- Oh, we're going to go back to the world of the darkness and say, "Okay, we have to reset our minds to this." And in the new Monera, it's like the world building and the overall arch of the mission in my opinion, is almost become backseat to just the journey of even getting there. So, when I go through all the time and energy to I'll lay these enormous plans and plots and then I can't get out of the store. It was fucking where there. Oh God. Sorry. And on the subject of transhumanism, Richard Watts posted a link in which there's an actual web series that has probably a dozen episodes that run 10 minutes or so. It looks like that's the primary thrust of- It's actually- I watched the first episode and it looks really- The production value is really high. It's a video. I don't remember the actual name, but I will try to put it in the link in the comments of the- Michael, this episode. Was Psycho History meant to improve humanity? No, it wasn't that. It was that there was a separate race in which they were more mental as opposed to- I don't think it's like- I had a second foundation. All the second foundation there, there was the mental powers I forgot about. I remember the whole foundation series getting derailed towards the end because it was like, "Oh, look, something new showed up." The new one was the new one actually. The new one was- Well, that's true. You're right. But- At the end of the foundation series, something else related to the end of that history and it kind of just said, "Fucks, it all done fine." Well, he tied it. And on the fourth one, he tied it back into the robot. Which was sick. I think so. The first three were perfectly fine by himself. She really didn't need to include them into the universe. Or they could have existed in the universe without that heavily of a time. Except I did like the part where the- In my opinion. Kills the man in order to set the earth on fire. So he conceived of a zero law. Where that if we don't get off the planet, then the humanity will die therefore- All except one person. And making earth an uninhabitable would force humanity to go out to the stars and then force survive. And then of course he died. Because he- And I might cut all this because of spoilers. I don't know. Because it's a really old series. I mean, how long do you call spoilers? 50 years of this movie. Yeah, 50 years of your old movie. 50 years of your old movie responsible for that in your phone. What is wrong with you and your spoilers, Mike? She's- The fucker. Can't wait to understand you. How dare you? Christ dies at the end. They belong to a cross. It sucks. He rises again. No, I mean, if you're going to go first- Oh my God. Enough. That was the- I meant Shyamalan ending there then. That was gonna- What? In addition to Richard Watts posting the thing on Transhuman, he also had a bit of feedback and said he loved the scene with the lift. He's also enjoying the inter-party conflict. It definitely makes things more interesting. I don't think we could ever play a regular adventure. I mean, we've done the- I mean, we've done the world- It's still conflict. We still had conflict, so I'm glad you're enjoying it. But I think the nice thing about our conflict is it's low-key conflict where it never derails the story. Usually it doesn't like completely derail the story. True enough. And then leaving Facebook and going on to Twitter, we had a tweet from Travis Mayes who said, "Woo! Got my KOTM podcast to listen to again. I fixed my podcast software." And my GW and Secret Weapons Miniatures both ship today. So it was a very good day for Travis. He was- Cool. We also had a tweet from Travis Mayes who said, "KOTM podcast. I'm listening to episode 147." That was a characterization in the world. I like the characters, but I didn't enjoy hearing the system. We still have a lot of people who listen to us for how to play the game. Yeah. I'm sorry that it bothers you. Yeah, I mean, it's clearly mentioned that it's a world creation and character creation. Right. We have plenty of people who thank us for keeping in the roles and how to play the game so that they can understand it better. In fact, an earlier piece of feedback was specifically, "How do I handle and trust in this situation?" So you have people who do enjoy the role. And to be sure, it does- Travis didn't, but- It does lessen. If we tell Travis it- Oh, absolutely. It does lessen to the game. It does lessen. We're not a regular player. And we're not. Yeah. But sometimes we sound like one. It gets pretty damn close sometimes. And to finish up, we will just say it's almost Black Friday. So kotmpodcast.com on the right hand side. We have an Amazon link. People have been using it and we appreciate that. And Black Friday, best time to use it because- Oh, yeah. Yeah. We also only need three more likes on Facebook for each 200. Woo! We care about- Michael lied to us. There is no iTunes review. We are still missing an iTunes review. And less of course, and I did want to mention this really quick. If someone from anywhere but besides the United States is putting your reviews out there, please remember, send us an email at feedback@kotmpodcast.com because the way iTunes is set up, I'm not going to know about it without going to those individual countries on a plane. No, there's actually a way to change the iTunes. But you got to go through 150 countries. Check each one of them and I'm not doing that. So send an email us know. And with that, we'll get into the Newman era adventure. This is the Newman era story, "Sanswept", chapter two. I'm your storyteller Scott. And with us tonight on my right is- Jim, playing Eschman who is a mystical nano who works miracles and will someday be a god. I'm Tom, playing Tila. I'm an intelligent jack who hauls at the moon. I'm Mike, playing Boz, a tough glade who fuses flesh and steel. I'm Michael, playing Nina, a stealthy nano who's just partially out of faith. Thomas, playing Felix, a strong-willed jack who hunts with great skin. John, playing Sig, a mutant nano who talks to machines. All right, here we go. All right, so- I have a separate set of clothing that are much, much bigger that allow me to not lose clothing every time. Right, because you don't want to be a naked ravage bear. So, Ichabod- I don't want to be a naked Tila. I don't give a shit about them. Do you got the bulk pants? Yeah, I got the bulk pants. Where are the whole purple pants? Ichabod knows a bit about tying things up. Strange, but okay. No, he just knows how to- That does the wrong thing- It does not like red. I'm used to getting out of sticky situations, so I'm sure I could tie a knot that's pretty effective if you guys want me to give it a shot. Not only that, but I'm sure that we're talking about the hog tie where you try to minimize their movement. So, yeah, I'm going to minimize your movements. All right, don't get pervy. Just- No, I don't mean it like that. I mean, I know how to hog tie something down. He's the only guy here who isn't, I guess. No, he's got a lady. And he wants another tie. I would so not go on that as if my brother weren't here. You guys, yeah, you're going to feel a little bit about your sister's skill. You better hope that Bosco never bites the big one, so I can get one of these stories because that's going to be unfortunate. Ichabod goes about and it's a hog tie. It's armed behind the back and then ankles together and then ankles to arms. Putting her in a very both uncomfortable and somewhat immovable state in a human state. I got it. I tie it with the scarf. It's unbreakable. No, it's unsolvable. No, it's unbreakable. No one can pick on it or shit on it. It's scarf that appears to be made of silk is virtually indestructible and can't be dirty or stained. Verge virtually. Well, virtually is better than nothing. Ichabod will take, said scarf, very dapper by the way. He's not going to tell me how we had experience with the scarf in tying people up as well. No, but the scarf is just another word for a rope. So he uses that to tie your hands to your ankles. When you're hog tied, that's the final one. I thought they were supposed to be. No, they're supposed to be. Believe me, when Money Cook wrote this game, he never thought that scarf would be used to tie a horse. Or that a music rackster would be used to suit that. Yes, I'm pretty sure. So we're using it for their intended purposes, which is to be used as esoteric in very strange situations. And this would certainly be an odd situation. So you're tied up. All my other equipment is in the wagon, including my slifers. I can't give them to anybody because there's actually a limit to the number of slifers you can carry. And I make you a student. Can you go hunting Felix? Do you want me to? It probably wouldn't hurt to have something to appease her. What kind of the hunting skills do you have, Thomas? Tracking and survival. All right, give me a tracking and survival role. Three. Give me this. It kind of sucks that you have to spend all your time as the only viable warrior in the group, calming down the other viable warrior viable warrior in the group. Are you're-- Do you have any-- I'm not a viable warrior. I'm trained. You're trained, but not specialized. Excuse me. You spend an hour coming to the cold desert in the dwindling light, which actually is hampering your ability to track effectively. After dinner, after the hour-long conversation, and what to do with Tila, you go out and you do not find any success. Tracking. You soldier on? I mean, you're staying within sight distance of the caravan, I would assume, because you're in a cold desert in a inhospitable climb, where creatures that you don't know could just come burrowing out of the sand in each of your face. So not too far away, or are you going to extend the range here for the second attempt? Don't go too far because we don't want to get you lost or-- Don't get back in time. I might not be the only dangerous thing ever. Right, I'm going to stay in this general area this time, not so much stretching around looking. This time, I'm going to stand perfectly still with my crossbow. When something walks into my sight, I'm going to shoot it. That's the plan. Okay, go ahead and make your roll your trained. Not specialized. You're not specialized, but are you giving it any effort at all or anything else? Yeah, this time I'll get a bit of effort. That's intellect, and that's minus three, right? It is unless you've got an edge. I don't know, I applied it to speed. Okay, go ahead and make your roll. Two, even better. Wow, that dice is not kind to you. We're eight hundred. That dice is not kind to you. You do see, exactly, it is a desert. You see some movement, but the movement that you do see in the hour that you try to stand perfectly still is too far away and too fleeting of movement to free you to be able to react to it. It seems the main type of creature that you're finding is what's referred to as a dust scurrier. And their large rodents may be the size of half a meter in length and quite flee to foot. And they're very good at burrowing into speed. They burrow up real quick, and then they burrow back down. So you're not having a lot of success because although Twilight is their normal feeding time and they are not eternal creatures, they're just not burrowing anywhere close to you at this point. One more time. One more effort, one more try. Okay, you marked off the two intellect. Yeah. Okay. But I may be helped by being stopping you moving in one direction and then making noise on purpose to try to drive something into your area that you're looking at. Uh, you know where to drive? Try. He certainly hasn't had any success up to this point, so anything would be better than what's going on. There you go. I think I'm not rolling in again, I forgot. Oh, robbery. I think I ruined the die. It was a 20, and then it was a record too. So she tries making noise. It doesn't have any appreciable effect. This time I'm actually tracking. I follow all the way to the den. Wait patiently and do all this stuff. Okay, go ahead and give it a shot. You're trained, so it's minus one step, and you're not putting any effort for it this time, or you're going, gotcha. So another three intellect gone. Six. It's better. Well, that's actually the number you were looking for. It was level four, and it went down to step two because of your use of talent and a effort. So you do put a cross bubble through the head of a dust scurrier, and you have a nice plump rodent to bring back to camp. I never quit. Here's your fucking rat. Thanks for nothing. You know what, I feel like she got out on all fours and was crawling around the dirt, trying to get out the creatures and get them all distracted. It might not have been useful, but it certainly was worth the price of admission. Thanks. He's trying to get along on the animals. He doesn't really interact socially with her. That's probably why I was growing so low, and he's distracted. All right. So you return after three hours of tracking and hunting, all within site range of the caravan, and you have the dust scurrier in hand. You hand it off to Bosco. At this point, it's 10 o'clock in the evening, so it's getting close enough where Ichabod will start to procure the ropes, asking you if this is, you think it's close enough at this point, because they certainly doesn't want to make you uncomfortable any more than he has to. I don't know how on you take you, but I'm guessing it's pretty damn accurate. 45 minutes, I'm going to need, you know, three quarters of an hour to make it happen. We're cutting it fire. It's comfortable. We'll have some popcorn for this midnight move. Well, you do have rations, so you could definitely enjoy. Start a fire. Well, there might be some dust scurrier left over when we're done, so. Right. Well, enjoy. The time passes. Ichabod does a seemingly good job of resigning her and restricting her. And everyone, as midnight starts to drop closer, I'm sure everyone's talking and sharing stories about where they've been, what they've done, and what it's going to be like. And so you start to move on to the actual wagon to get up and away from her, when we let Bosco put himself between. Go ahead, John. Does Tila wear the chronometer? You don't want to tear it apart when you tear it. No, she's taking it off now, and it's kind of sticking it down to the rock near her, or if you want to pick it up. She's kind of tight, you can't prevent you. Keep track of when it is about to start so that I can strain the noumenara scent. Also, just other precautions, we make sure that the anneas hobbled and blinded. So it doesn't freak out. Yeah, it doesn't freak out. It can't possibly get away. Well, if it runs away, then. Everyone's on it, and that sounds. Yeah, it can either rear up and knock us all on the ground. And it's panic, it can hurt itself. Right. Or it can flip over. I can see disaster all over this scenario. And a typical thing, when you hobble a piece of bird or a drain or like the anene. You break a slice. Well, no, that's misery. You would disconnect it from the wagon. So it doesn't do exactly what we're going to be driving. He's not the god of anene. We got that one. Right? That we know, that we know. Okay, so you hobble the anene, you put the blinders on. Fortunately, the anene's going to be able to hear the roar and smell the... Yeah, but... The beast you go... It's the best we can do with an... I mean, if I can't, I won't be able to hear that. I won't be able to be the one you care for the anene since I will be feeling... If someone goes with the make-up bottle, take the anene around a doom. So there's some distance between... Can we not? You know what, Ichabod? Not that I trust Ichabod announced, but hopefully he won't run away with it and left. No, he wants someone to come with them. He doesn't want to go alone, because what if something attacks me? Why am I out there? It's like someone to be with me. That's me. All right, I'll take the... Unconscious when the transformation comes around. It happens anyway? I don't know. Does the ravage pair sleep? I don't think anything stops this transformation, but I don't know much about it. I'm human and I'm not... I imagine she's been asleep, possibly the first time. I have a cipher that induces sleep, but that didn't work before. I don't want to say I'm going to be helping him, helping her learn more about... I use the same box. By it as it works. Okay, sure. So Ichabod and Felix go about, we'll say, an eighth of a mile away, behind a dune, just with the anine, not with the actual wagon itself, try to keep the anine calm, so that it doesn't freak out and break its leg or something when it's while it's hobbled. Wait, what was I about to go? At this point, we'll say by 10, you're on a 10 minute countdown at this point, and it could be 10 minutes if we want to be. Okay, sure. Oh, by the way, guys, we have to do this for the next four nights. Right. Just one minute. It's just five nights in a row, that's all. I just... I was... I'm not there, but I would... I have a horse nodule in my hand that gives me a plus two armor. I hand-track the chronometer to the gauze, and I'm like, "Well, I need this later." Okay, we open this out of a pattern. I'm going to hold onto this for now. All right, but when we're all done, it goes back to this instrument. Very important. Yeah, this... I gave you the chronometer. For my system. How large is the ravage bear when you become it? Bear size. I really don't know. We can check the book. Grizzly bear size. Yeah, but just to let you know on the stats as well, my mite pole increases by eight. My speed increases by two. The edge in both of those increase by one. And my character doesn't know any of this, and she certainly doesn't know that after one hour of being a ravage bear, she can start to mentally try to change herself back. Right. She's never known that because it's never come to that. She usually kills something, then falls asleep, and then wakes up and she's human. Right. In that particular case, I believe that Ichabod needs to leave a lot of slack in the rope, trying to anticipate the growth. Right. Otherwise, the rope would just snap while it grew. It doesn't have a lot of size. Oh, I'm sure you could be asking, "Boz, how big..." You've seen her big, she gets. So how big... Her arms are really, you know... Right, yeah, he talks. I describe it as... A ravage bear is a hideous... Sorry about that. A hideous mammalian predator that hunts entirely by sense of smell. It is blind and nearly deaf, but it still tracks and senses prey easily. It's very protective if it's young, and if hungry, it is extremely dangerous. Otherwise, it gives most creatures wide birth. A ravage bear grabs foes with its powerful arms, holds them fast, and squeezes and tears at them until they are dead. It can hold only one creature at a time. While a ravage bear is holding a creature, it can attack only the held creature, and each round that a held creature does not escape, it suffers four points of damage, in addition to damage from attacks made against it. A ravage bear can move very quickly and sure it sprints. In combat, it can go into an insane fury, and will fight to the death. If it takes 10 or more points of damage, its defense is reduced by one step, but its attacks are increased by one step. Ravage bears are immune to visual effects, such as illusions, however, all factory effects can confuse and blind it temporarily. Ravage bears are animals and act like animals. That sounds so bad. I'm just waiting on top of the dune with Gabriella waiting for everything to go terribly, terribly wrong. So is your graviness if you tried like a fork meal before? Well, see, stop a tackle bell. I'm not hungry right now, but the bear is going to be. And something my character doesn't know as well is the fact that if this works and I'm forced not to change, I spend the next day feeling like total shit, and minus two on every roll for up and death. Minus two or minus two steps? Minus two on the roll. The actual roll. Yeah, that's about right. It's not. It's not two steps bad. Because that's two steps bad, it's two thirds of a step. How do you spell resignation? Yeah, so how do you spell I quit? You gotta post the picture of that though on the line. All right, so we're in one minute to midnight. All right, places everyone, places. So everyone I would imagine is crawling up into the cart that's still there, which would be Eshman. I have my armor. I have my magic box. I have my liquid speed out. No, Nina. Nina, Eshman are in the cart. Are you in the cart? No, I'm standing right behind the balls. No, I feel it's sick. You're right behind the balls. And then Felix, you're with the anine with Ichabod behind the dune. All right, I'm behind the stick. I'm staying relatively high up on the dune, so if everything goes wrong, I can see her coming and also probably kill her. Ichabod decides that's a great thing as well. Good luck with that. 10 feet. That's a big crossbow. The highest dune in the area right now is about 10, 12 feet up. And Ichabod stands up there with you. He's holding the reins to the hobbled anine just in case it tries to pull away. All right, the clock hits 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And right at that point, you see her convolutional senses on the noumenera senses, so you know. Okay, I game metagame real quick. Is there any reason that this would be a noumenera effect, as opposed to a simple case of like enthrapin? Like enthrapin? No, not that I know. I mean, you could be interpreted any way you want, but perhaps it's powered by the curtain. I don't know where in the book that I read it, but the idea that they try to address transformations like this, scientifically, that basically she's hyperdimensional. So this increase in mass from a young woman to the size of a grizzly bear monster, they account for the increase in muscle mass and strength and power, that it's almost like she's the tip of the iceberg in this dimension. And now that creature is squeezing into our dimension, which is why she gets bigger and stronger. Let me read the description for the focus. No, we'll get about that. Sometimes the noumenera is a double-edged sword. You are cursed and blessed to be able to transform to a powerful creature, drawing additional mass from a trans-dimensional source. You in the GN should sort out the exact nature of the creature and its appearance, but it's a wild beast for rage and blood, at least until you learn to control it. Creatures like this are often called lichen throws, style and appearance, whatever whatever. So in this game, in this world, it seems to be somewhat noumenera driven. I think that should be a default position. Yeah, I agree. That there's no... Something really hard of it. Right, yeah. We're not playing a fantasy... Well, we're not playing a typical fantasy game. It doesn't necessarily have to be the case. I mean, we talked about the fact that some of the people that used to live on this world were trans-dimensional. They could have poked a hole through, and there's stuff creeping from that dimension into this one through me. How is that not noumenera? Well, it's not mechanical in nature. It's more... I mean, you're right. It's valid. It is noumenera because it's from a past. But this might be the beginning of the clue that he detects that will teach you to control it as we get him level. I was claiming noumenera as being... Can I describe what I imagine would happen? Sure. This is something that wouldn't make me be able to just switch it off. Oh, no. That'd be way too easy now. They're not very fun for the story. It starts to percolate each and every nano spirit, which is what the eon priest is called, the nano machines that occupy the world. It starts to link with another nano machine in this trans-dimension that you are connected to. It starts trickling in, and it starts pouring on flesh. I can't turn off each and every nano machine. I simply cannot do it. And so I flip, flip, flip, and it just keeps pouring in, and I'm like, I can't handle that. It's a giant noise to me because so much noumenera is going on all at once, so I can fall to the ground holding my head, and the beast just pops a new existence. Sounds fair enough. I like it. I lose a couple. You wait until I find anything. Yeah, we'll work on it together. We'll tell the story together. No, he's met. He's, okay. I was trying to shut them off. I got you. It could be half like a throbbing half noumenera where... Can't repeat. One couldn't exist without the other. Once starts the other thing. Potentially, yeah. Okay, well, what happens is as a chronometer hits midnight, Tila's goes into an incredible spasm where her muscles can tort, her face just ends up in a mixture of rage, shock, and pain. You could actually see blood vessels just thrusting out of her skin and pulsing as she just absolutely convulses and her body goes through these spasms that are somewhat held in check by the ropes. But again, there's enough slack to allow for you to be able to move so that the ropes don't shatter upon your growth. My eyes are filled with sadness and pity where there's a probably horror. It's a very disturbing vision. At that point, Sig, your senses, just the white noise just absolutely erupts in your ears. It's almost like there's a thousand bees buzzing inside your head. You buckle a bit, kind of take a step back, maybe drop to one knee just by the sheer volume of new manira that's being processed. You start to fight back as best you can, shutting off the thousands of nano spirits that are just racing into her form by the millisecond. It's just it's a deluge and you gather yourself and you start to shut them off and then you find yourself overwhelmed again. A wave of nausea comes over you and you start to wretch a bit. Tila, for a lack of a better term, her muscles start to rip and tear. There's an actual noise associated with it that's sickening. You can actually hear muscle tearing and being rebuilt and tearing again and being rebuilt as her body builds up. She starts to scream and the scream starts as a young female screaming and within 10 seconds, it somehow devolved into an animalistic snarling as her body continues to contort and conform. Shape shift, grow, rip, tear, it is without a doubt. I would think for most of you, one of the most disturbing things you've ever seen in your life. See, you gather yourself back up again after retching for a few seconds and start again trying to pour all of your energy into shutting off this flood of nano spirits and once again, you find yourself absolutely overwhelmed to the point where you start to black out. Still, you're fighting it while you're blacking out. You're fighting it as best you can, turning off as many as you can, but you're turning off maybe 10, 15 a second, which is amazing. But there are literally probably millions flowing into her per second as her body continues to change. Within 30 seconds, she is no longer Tila. She is an absolute monster. Straining against her ropes, howling in pain, anger, absolutely terrifying. The anene, you can absolutely feel it from the eighth of a mile away. It's simple to hear. It's just a horrible roar and the anene bucks and you see Ichabod start to wrap some rope around his arms and he's trying to hold it as it's bucking against the rope that's holding it and the hobble that's keeping it within range and allowing it not to run off. Each of you could have your own reaction to what you've seen, but after 30 seconds, she is literally writhing on the ground, rolling, straining, snarling, snapping, clawing at the sand. She's doing everything she possibly can to get free. Okay, Bob, you can shut her down now. You need to then at this point. At the first turn, I will attempt just to straight up because I think, at the very least, I'm confused. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You don't have your full animal instincts with you at this point. You're confused. You were in a sense, you were just born like last couple of seconds. I would attempt to escape the second one. I would attempt with as much as I could throw at it, as far as effort goes, but the first one is just as straight up. Right. I'm going to say that the target number, the difficulty level of this would be that a ravage bear would have a challenging time escaping from the holds that Ichabod put together. Difficult is trained people have a 50/50 chance of success. I don't think the typical ravage bear would have a 50/50 chance with as much effort as Ichabod put and with the numeneric that was used for one of the final bindings. I think that at this point, we can take it from the difficult up to challenging, which is even trained people often fail. That sounds like the right description here. That's a target number of 15 for being a ravage bear and having strength. I would say that maybe you get to decrease it by one step, just based on what I was saying, that I don't want to do that yet, because I have edge in strength and I have effort that I could spend. And I could see the first turn the bear is confused and say, "I'm sure I'm going to go eat one of these guys. What the fuck?" Yeah. And so the first turn, it's just tried to... It's trying to be a regular escape, but my second one is like, "Oh, fuck no. I'm using everything I can to get out this way." She goes from zero to 100 in one turn. So the first turn, go ahead and make a regular role. The difficulty level is challenging. Even trained people often fail. That seems right to me. That's a 15. I'm playing the music box and that helps issues, because that's the thing that... But you didn't start until midnight. Like, you didn't start... Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. As the role stated, it's not that song. It is so not that song. As the role state, he's got to do it for three turns. If this is my first attempt to escape, that's one turn. Right? I just mean, I'd have been rolling that thing for about five minutes before. One more. You're going to start it. I was waiting to... I was waiting to be there. He's opening it and little musicians, their holograms come out and their plan is on. I thought it was your mother. Listen, we get the needs that we get everything all set up, we get our ten up. I didn't forget the one thing that... No, I didn't mean that. But you didn't start playing it until she turned. Well, that's because I didn't explain it, because I knew what he just said, which was it takes me three turns to do it. Right. So it makes no sense to start before him. This is turn one when he does his thing. That's what I'm like... You're going to have to come up with a real call. Anything with that would be really cool. Okay. Isn't it your mom? And now it's one thing we just got. That's the thing, mom. I think we have no justification to make, but it was mom's jewelry box. But it's a new Madeira. The vibrations of the music box either bring her consciousness or she can fight it better and get out of it or... That's space to our human inside. Or it does go into the new Madeira to make them withdraw and go back to where they were. However you want to play it. But regardless... I'm going with challenging. Part of me wants to say it's intimidating and it's 18, but I think challenging is fair enough. Okay, I'm going to fuck this. You guys up if I break those here. So, here's the role of the brightness. You need lower than a 15. Below 15. Yes, I don't want to succeed. You do not want to roll a 15 or a high 15. It was 16, but then it came a six. So the first turn, I successfully... You're string, yes. Fail. And howl. And the howl is... It carries across the desert in a very disconcerting way. Like everyone kind of looks at each other besides the tension for what's occurring. It's like, oh fuck. You know, like that was loud. It was, it was an epic roar. Like the sound you couldn't even imagine a beast making the sound she just made. I know that the ravage bears can't hear a little, but not much. So I'm screaming, I'll clap on my lungs to teal out a... Come back to us and, you know, get control of this. I'm trying to... Real quick, Felix. Yeah. It could buy digs his heels into the sand and he's got this rope wrapped around him. And he starts sliding down the hill. He's like, Felix, Felix, Felix! As he starts getting pulled down the hill and the... Neen, it starts to hobble off, actually, at a slow pace. But it's trying, it's straining against the hobbles and it's trying to break them. And it's becoming somewhat disoriented because that roar just absolutely freaked it out. And he's starting to slide down the hill and he's calling out for help. Yeah, good thing this is only one night, right? I think I'm fine. You guys don't know yet? No. It's not too far away. It's not too far away. Now we don't have to do this all the time. Consider this a practice run for the next four nights. You get that, man. I can't fucking help you. I don't know if you understood just how small I am. I'm not exactly the strongest motherfucker here. Just grab the rope, he screams. I am spending... I'm sick. Do you need any first aid? Right. Oh, wait, you're asking a lot? Yeah. 'Cause I'm ready to run and give it. One second, Ichabod has a... needs to make a might roll of 12. Train people have a 50-50 chance to succeed. So I think a Neen handler would have about a 50-50 chance of rating this a Neen in these under these circumstances. He is nothing close to trained person, but it has been hobbled and there's some other things. So I think that kind of falls right to where I want it. Are you... I pulled the crossbow up on my back, like, real, slow, and exaggerated. Like, another fucking guy. Because I don't think he's gonna have that big a problem, but I'm fast. Well, I'm gonna say that that's your first turn. Uh-huh. So he has to do it alone the first turn and does not have the help. And he screams out and ends up on his ass, and he's literally now sliding down the hill. The Neen starts to half-gallop, and the hobble snaps a bit and starts to break, but it's not broken yet. And that's the five seconds that occurs there. So he's cursing and screaming as he's sliding down his hill on his back and his stones and sand. And he can tie up a ravaged bird, but he can't tie up a... He's not... He's trying to hold it. I'm a little worried about the... Hey, you see how big that thing is? All right, very enough. Yeah. And, yeah, I gave him a shot, but... You rolled the four. He rolled the four. I'm running for it. Yeah, I don't know that he would even have the time at this point to really throw any effort he took, because he's stunned and surprised as well. So his might role failed. But I take this back to everyone else. I'm not gonna go with initiative just yet, because no one's really free. I mean, she's not free. If she gets free, we'll do the initiative. There'll be a problem. But right now, it's still not a... How far from the wagon are you to die? Through my past experience of how she is, I don't know. I figured 1050, see? I was close, and that way, because I want to cut the angle down. Like, I don't want to have to run or move too much. Yeah, the farther you are away, the farther you should get around you. Right, no, I'm trying to keep a very... But it takes the echement tree. Like a goalie, you know, I'm trying to keep it focused. I, uh, begin to run towards the wagon. Okay. It's probably because you have Sig, and then you have yourself after, and then Vasco, of course, in front. You finally have five feet, so you turn around and just basically, it's almost a immediate distance. You just leap into the back of it and start clamoring up towards by the end of the driver's seat. Now, uh, we should have the Neen attached here. We should be taking off. [laughter] We should be whipping that Neen into our... [laughter] Sig, what about you? At this point, you're nauseous. You're almost blacking out. You've been overwhelmed by the amount of Numenira flowing into her body in close proximity. The white noise is a white scream in your ears. What do you choose to do? You should have, just to remind you, been doing GM intervention. I got them set up for the... Someone that you dragged, dragged down the hill? That's one right there. Right. Good call. I had it for the battle, but I didn't think to improvise here with him. Good call. Sig tries to get up, but since he's blacking out, that's not really much of an option. Instead, he lashes out with the dandel spirits at his command and does a push against the ravage bear. Okay. And what's the push normally accomplished? Like, literally, is it pushing periwet? Yeah, it does. It's not an attack. It doesn't do damage as far as I understand. It just pushes things away. However, there's a caveat that it has to be smaller or equal size to you, and the ravage bear is not. I'm not sure how that would work out. Would you try that I pushed or...? Yeah, I think that's... I think in this particular case, you push out with it, and you find yourself stumbling back, and you end up on your ass. Maybe about three foot backwards, you stagger back, and there's no... If it's lessons, the noise I've accomplished, would I? There's no Nina there to grab you, because she's scrambled away. You add up taking three steps back, and you fall on your ass, which is probably the best you've felt in a while, because you don't feel quite as dizzy as you were standing up. Go ahead, Michael. Stensively looking for the first day of getting away. Okay. But I'm not sure about that yet. I just might be running my ass off. Well, I think you can scramble up and start to look for the quip. That sounds like five seconds of action to me, because you're pretty close to the wagon. And that leaves us with Bosco. You're just... I'm playing the music. And I'm talking to her. Telling her the story of our lives together, and trying to bring her out of it. Okay. Bosco, let me know if you have been hit her with a mental attack. No, just let me know. I didn't say I'm gone, huh? I mean, I know I feel unusual. I'm kind of laughing, because I know, but I'm the only one that's safe. Second turn. We'll go with Tila first. You realize I have been restrained. Right. So I spend the one effort that I have in mics to break the lose. That cost me two mic points from my pull, and it reduces the difficulty by one. Right. From challenging down to difficult. Twelve. Slightly over 50/50. Twelve or higher. She... Look. Look. Look. Shatter. Look. Look. Look. Oh! Oh! Twenty! It was a three. That then ever so slowly rolled over to nineteen. Oh, that's a good one. I don't think you break the scarf. You just managed to pull. No, even the scarf is slippery. So it just slides out and then that comes out. Yeah, okay. A nineteen is a minor effect, correct? Yes. If I'm not mistaken. So you shattered the ropes, and because he was closest to you, you knocked into Bosco. Bosco, as a GM intervention, she stumbles into you, the Ravage Bear, and knocks the music box from your hand. There's your experience. Probably ready to get. No, I'm giving you two. This is with two. I give you two. You give one to somebody else, or he can refuse the two of them, and hand back the one that he just got from playing for last week. He's the one experience point he actually has. Or you can re-roll. What's the chance of course of rolling a 20, but only a 5% chance of that? Maybe it works. Yeah, but I'm a beast. And it's more interesting in the story if I don't. Yeah, I agree with it. The more interesting you are. But I don't re-roll, and then it's up to Mike. You either give up the experience point you have, or you take the GM intrusion, and you get to keep it, so you have two experience points that, and you'll be able to give one experience point to someone else on the table, so that they would have two experience points. We can handle it. All right. So then is there any value to giving Tila? I'm trying to determine what, if I give Tila an extra experience point, does this enable you to do something? Yeah, rip you up some more. I'll go then rip me up. No, you can't rip. I'm the only one you won't rip up. Well, rip up the rest of the group. If you don't want to get over the extra experience point, you're affecting me indirectly. Right. I think you don't want to give it to me, because in my current form, or I'm just going to end up using it to... I don't want to re-roll what I successfully attacked. It's like kind of cheesy. All right, I will. I might need it to survive. Well, are you trying to fight it? Wait a second. Oh, I can say I am, but I don't even know that option, until an hour goes by. Tila can't even attempt it. I think you made the right choice. You don't re-roll. Right. So, you also, when you give it to someone, there's got to be some justification on why you're doing it. You can't just be like, "I like him the best." No, it's got to be some game reason. I'm going to give it to Zid, because he's there with me. He's also Zid. Just so you know. Oh, Zid. Not Zid. Oh, Zid. A lot of people mispronounce it. I don't blame you for writing it down wrong. It's my metal mouth. That's what you call him. All right. All right, so I give it to Zid, with the idea that he maybe we're also connected with this. Now, had you rolled a 20 GM intrusion for that major intervention, would have been, he actually broke it. It could be repaired. But he couldn't do it like, couldn't start it up again really quick, which would be more. That's not my fault. That's the route written in the rules. I'm just being sure to the rules. Then I scramble and get the box, and make sure that I am between Zid and... Because the music box drops, we'll roll for initiative next week. Pick it up there. I did a good job. And it's restarted three times. Thanks for listening to the Knights of the Knight actual play podcast. Visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures, where you will find character stats, photos, storytelling props, and even a forum for comments and suggestions. Or you could email us directly at feedback@kotnpodcast.com, or contact us via Twitter, or leave a message on Facebook. All music for this podcast was created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom professional music created for your podcasts or business, please visit ZenaudioSmith.com, and please join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. So what do you say that we appear as characters and someone else's story? No, he just had to order a taskforce. Valkyrie are world of darkness things. We're taskforce siren, Mike. And for the audience, Mike has had a head cold, and he's being a trooper by showing up tonight, but I don't know what's going on. I don't know where he is. I'm so confused. But he's a bit confused. Oh, goodness gracious. It's okay. It's okay, Mike. No, we did not show up in the restaurant. That's our equation. That's our stuff, right? That we invented. We own that, right? We have rights, right? We get they are paying us 50% of their Ravi. Well, thank Ashwin. She was there for you. So we did that. Any name tags for the two? He looks sick, which sounds so much alike. Right. It's just amazing. Isn't it your mom? And that is one thing we discussed. It's the thing, mom. I think we have no justification to make, but it was mom's jewelry box. But it's new Monera. It's doing something. As I heard it, she opened it, and that's when she started falling ill and became sick. And then it was her or the box? No, it's the- That's so much cooler actually. Vibrations. Oh, I think that one better. That's one of the options we discussed. But anyways- Hi. Where's the SPs?