Join us for a lightly edited episode of KotN. We meander our way through the creation of our Dungeon World setting. (I’ve even left a few jokes and puns in).EnjoyActual Play starts 15:16
Knights of the Night
KotN Actual Play Podcast 137 - Dungeon World - World Creation
[music] Hello, and welcome to Knights of the Night Actual Play Podcast. This Dungeon World adventure was designed by the entire crew. [music] And now, please enjoy Episode 137, Dungeon World Creation. [music] Actual play begins 15 minutes, 16 seconds. [music] I'm going to break in here really quick and explain something. Episode 136 and 137 should have been released in the opposite order that they were. It was originally thought that we lost the World Creation for our Dungeon World game. It turns out that the recording showed up in a incorrect directory. So, my apologies, but please enjoy Dungeon World Creation. [music] All right, we'll get into the feedback before we get on to our episode of Dungeon World. I'd like to start with a slight apology. The episode was released late because of a crazy week/weekend. Oh, wow. And, yeah. It's over. Isn't it every week/weekend? It is every week/weekend, but last weekend. It was exceptionally crazy. Two graduation parties, three birthday parties, and one baby shower all crammed into just a massive mayhem. So, anyways. That's why the episode was late and we will just get on with the feedback. We had two emails to the feedback@kyotendpodcast.com. One from Dan Crawford, who said, "I came as a Dresden fan and stayed for the world of darkness." I listened to all of the Dresden File Role playing game, Podcast First. And I loved them and was excited to start on Shagrin. So I could finally be current with your podcast. But after talking to Tom, I decided to go back and listen to this shitlock. And I'm really glad I did. I know others have talked about it before, but the podcast is great because it doesn't sound or feel like you're listening to a group of people playing a game. But you're listening to, like, a radio show or something. Anyways, I hope to get caught up before you start the next story, whatever it may be. And I'm looking forward to what's in store for Task Force Siren. Oh, and since I didn't get to vote the first time around, I am a Michael Clay fan. The poor guy gets written by a spirit to save the day and doesn't hear the end of it. Mayor's subtle knife and priceless leatherman skills guide you safely through cigarettes. Boy, what a word. It's three years ago episode. Come on. Isn't it seven years or something? There's a limit. You ever listen to your courtesy? I'm just fishing for endorsement. I want a free leatherman. Is there like an executive leatherman? Like, are there different questions? Oh, yeah, there are. Absolutely. This is... I was just at Walmart today in your territory. Let's hear this. I want to hear about the Walmart. And there was an entire wall of Leatherman's in Walmart. So, I'm new here. Leatherman's. It's a multi-tool. Like a Swiss Army knife, but so much better. It's crazy. I'm like... It's also a brand. I have a military grant. No. It was given to me as a gift. In real life? Why don't you bring it next week? We can take a picture of it up on the web. How are we supposed to know what we're talking about? It is. Whatever Michael says. We're going to try it in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nice. Nice. Leatherman with history. Anyways, porcelain llama also sent in some feedback. Porcelain llama said, "A steamed nights of the night." This is the trilobite. Anyway, it would be hard to overstate how much I enjoyed sugar in. And I am eagerly anticipating your return to the Dresden Files, as well as all the other wonderful stories you are sure to create in the future. I want to mention two things first. First of all, I'd love to hear your thoughts on my question from the earlier regarding character empowerment and disempowerment in a horror and action genre. As I recall, you intended to answer it during the wrap-up sessions, but I appear to have missed it. Or we appear to have missed it. We appear to have missed it. That's a plain way of saying, you guys, for answering my questions. Fuck up again. The original seems to have disappeared completely from my email, but I will paraphrase below for your convenience should you wish to take the time. Which, of course, we will. Shagrin seems to have been a mixture of horror and action elements. The action genre is often about empowerment, while the horror genre is usually about disempowerment. However, you, both storyteller and players, felt about finding the balance between the two opposites in this game and others. Secondly, I appropriated some of the ideas for Shagrin for my recent campaign, namely dumping the characters into the middle of the action in a bad situation on a farm and throwing some crazy obstacles at them. It went in a very different direction in my own game, but not the least reason being that the game is being run with fate accelerated. But the players accomplished the basic setup, and I made sure to tell them that I stole the idea from you. Hopefully, you'll get some much deserved new listeners. Once again, thanks for putting out an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable podcast. B, maybe seeing you the trilobite. Never good enough for those B-jumps. I forgot about those. Well, first of all, thank you for the kind words, and I'm glad he really enjoys. And sorry, that was my fault. As the moderator, I forgot to include his feedback into the ones we answered on the wrap-up. Okay, well, okay, you could take the blame. Yeah, sure. Cool, I'm sorry. Cool. Yeah, it's an interesting question, but I think that... I think most games I try to run have that dichotomy of helplessness and empowerment, but at different times, obviously, because it's very hard to achieve both of those simultaneously, but you try to have an ebb and flow to your story. If you make the characters feel helpless, you better damn well make them feel like they can actually accomplish something as well within the scene or two. To carry the story along, obviously, but also for the characters themselves, to not feel completely at a loss. I think one of the complaints that you guys had about "World of Darkness" mortals in Chicago was... I just want to fucking leave. Like, you know, it's so bad and we're so overwhelmed. Why would I even think of staying? Whereas "Hunter" at least allows you to fight back against "Darkness" to some extent. I think some of that, regarding your reactions to that first "Mortals" game, was my job of storytelling. You know, I was not nearly, I think, as... Fine tuned. Fine tuned into the system and into the genre itself as I am now. Long story short, if a scene has the characters feeling disempowered, then within a scene or two, I try to make sure there's empowerment. It's almost like a roller coaster, like a story should be. I don't know why you're feeling about that, but that's how, as a storyteller, I approach it. And I think that was going to be my answer as well, is you have to have joy to feel sadness. You have to have the empowerment and then to lose it, to feel the balance, to have it more of a potent reversal. If it's just continual disempowerment, then... Right. I mean, if you guys would have... I slipped my character's wrist and rolled my new one. Reminds me of the old sanctuary adventure going way back. Yes, we're talking early 80s there, maybe. Or at least we have to get the hell out. Yes, that's true. Well, maybe it also goes back to basic storytelling. You have to have an action and a reaction, and if you are affected by events and you can't react properly or you can't even react effectively, maybe that's maybe the better way to say it. Then you become hopeless and hopelessness needs to despair. Which is certainly, I think, part of the horror genre is that hopelessness leading to despair. But I think that you need to punctuate it with enough moments of victory. That the spiral down is not in a plane from 10,000 feet and you're falling at terminal velocity. It's warm a drain. You know, a slow wash around the drain where story to story, you have a chance of losing your morality and you have a chance of losing your humanity. But yeah, again, punctuate with moments of victory and hopefulness. It's just a really tough balance. Well, if you don't have those ups and downs, especially if you're not the ones, like you have these minor successes and major failures. I mean, at least, you know, you keep on trying to find options and your ideas work for a little bit, but ultimately fail. So you keep on taking one step forward, two steps back. It's more exciting but also more interesting because, like, despite your best efforts and you did have some power over the world, otherwise, it's just... It becomes, to me, more of a passive where my choices are almost irrelevant because it's only going to get worse from here until I just end it. So, and you can see that in stories, movies, where the character, you know, they just kill themselves because they're so helpless or powerless that they'd rather go out on their own terms than be eaten by a demon. Yeah, that's kind of Cthulhu, you know, in a sense of such utter despair. The game ends when you go insane. You have no chance of victory. You can only hope to... Yeah, I don't know where Stalin wants it. To me, yeah, it's even a little darker than World of Darkness because it's... There has to be, at least, the sliver of a hope of achieving a victory. And I think, again, it's a fine line. You just... You can't leave the characters totally despairing, otherwise, that's the worst game ever. Far as role-playing goes, unless the characters sign on for a one or two story, let's see where the madness goes, you know. Right. It's built in. There's a game like that. Yeah. John, you were going to say something? I was. I remember it. Okay. Was it about Fiasco? It would be about Fiasco. Well, I guess, one last thing about what Scott said, I would say that I would... I don't mind playing a game where I lose, but I would mind playing a game where, really, I'm just a victim the whole time. Yeah. I think I like the times that we get into shit, and we know what we have on hand, these tools, and these methods that we've been using to fight. Don't work. Because then you have to come up with something new and different and creative, and that's the... And I think Mike says something important there, too. Victim. You use a keyword there. I don't think it's fun playing a seven story chronicle about being victims. There has to be, again, that ability to... You destroyed the Queen Bee. Now, you lost a couple people in the battle, but you took out what you considered that time to be a big bad. And this particular story, you got the prize at the end. Gracie has something that's going to hopefully lead to the 12 missing Valkyrie agents. And, again, there was a lot of bloodshed. People died. Danny Rocklin being probably the most prominent, but also Daniel lost a friend who he knew from Task Force Valkyrie. And potentially a love interest as well in some weird twist of fate there, which is you have to be explained. So, you know, I guess, on horror, we try to make it so that the penalties are harsh, but not hopeless. You don't become a victim where you're just constantly just taking it. You know, it's bad, bad, worse, worse. There has to be moments of levity and... You can defeat evil, but at what cost? Yeah, at what cost. And there has to be a slim hope that whatever the major antagonist of this storyline is, this chronicle, you haven't even discovered yet, you know, the major antagonist. But there has to be the feeling, the antagonist at the moment that you know of, that you think is the big bad. It's not Benjamin. Needs to be at least defeatable at some cost. It can't be hopeless. If it's hopeless, then, you know, you're playing a different game, in my opinion. And that's not what World of Darkness is supposed to be. Well, the only thing should have vulnerabilities, and whether you can exploit those vulnerabilities is a different point. So, great question. I wish we would have included in the first feedback, but there you go. There you go. There you go. Just your mama/travel bike. Okay, we had some additional Facebook feedback. Episode 135. Most recently, it was two ago. Two ago. That would have been the round. The listener. Richard Watts said, "I really enjoyed you guys taking the time to answer those questions, even my superfluous ones." Especially interesting from my angle was a discussion by Scott of what he does to prep the stories. Thanks for that. Also, not sure who said it, but there is a word for characters acting true to themselves. Very similar to it. So, thank you, Richard. Thank you, Richard. You're welcome, Richard. For the answer before that you found it useful. And thank you for personalitude. Ari also posted excellent wrap-up and questions and answers. Thank you for opening up to the mysteries of your world. You're really waiting for your take on dungeon world and even more to the next part of Dresden's storyline. Same here. Yeah. And there was one comment on the Facebook general, just the general post from Darcy L, who said, "Just finished shit luck, all in all a very solid series." I found the denouement to be a teensy bit on the anticlimactic side, however. That's only a minor quibble. I really liked the bit of the wrap-up text at the end. It was very atmospheric. The whole time I was listening to the final chapter of the story, I couldn't get this stupid song out of my head. So now, I'm going to subject you to it as well. Here you go. And it's a YouTube link that reads to Grand Funk Railways Clean B song. No. I've got that premise right now. The girls made me join in just dance for. And there's a song. You bring it down? I did. And there's a song. It has not left my head in a week. I found that if you find it much worse. There's a song. It just knocked it right out. I don't know. This song is pretty bad. What is it? Crucified by Army of Lovers. Wow. Heaven. I don't even know what that is. The video is astounding. It is... So bad? It's bad. It can't be. It's made in a way in a way in a way in a way. She made you play a game. Yeah. And it was this really, really bad song that you had to dance to. Yeah. And then you went and found the video. It stuck his shit. It was stuck in my head and I'm like, "That's like self-abuse. What the hell's wrong with you?" Because I didn't resist it. I had to dance. I have to dance. Oh my god. All right. But if you heard the lyrics, you would understand why maybe you could dance to me. No. I'm going to avoid this. Entirely. I don't want this terrible song stuck in my head. Nor late at night being up YouTube videos. Don't you dare. Crucified. I'll throw a thing at you. All right. That's the end of the feedback. So thank you everybody for your submissions. Mike, stop dancing. You know, the video is so bad. It's awesome to watch. You've got to say the least once. Yeah, to help us all. I will let you know. Don't you dare. Turn that shit. Take that out. This is grand fun. Oh, okay. It's an antidote. I'll let you all get on with you, Dungeon World Adventure. Enjoy. Okay. So we are playing. Or we're setting up to play Dungeon World. So anybody got any questions about it or else you've got a chance to look at it? We're going to need to go through Character Creation. And then hopefully in doing Character Creation we'll also do some World Creation. We've played this once before and we found that is an enjoyable part of it is you can just totally make shit up. Make it fact in your world. The druid, which is played by my youngest son, made up some story about how his character was the only one that could ever do this. So he is THE druid in our world. And then John and Thomas both came up with ideas on how magic worked and how the political structure wasn't. They just went off and we have a whole structure on how the world. And it gives us a lot of fodder on how to create the world. Quick question about that. Do you have an idea of what you'd like the first story to be? None whatsoever. Okay. I didn't know there were some cans. Cancel. That doesn't work super. No, no, not so much. If you look itself maybe it had some basic story like plot outlines and then the characters just, the characters and the storyteller run with them. No, it's very similar to the druids and the world creation but much quicker and easier for those of us who have headaches. And what is important and I think that the boys here can help you a bit is when you're making your bonds for your character is to get that down. That is both helpful in creating the world and it's helpful in getting your character experience each time that we play. Okay, so we will start with Jim. You are playing a wizard. The wizard. Oh, and for those of our fans who have been longtime fans, we have two new players tonight. Well, one is not new but a return. Both are not new but a return. Well, from the recording. From a number of times. I haven't heard before it would be Ryan who has rejoined us for Dungeon World. I'm back. And what happened last time you were here, Ryan? We killed him. You were eaten by a werewolf. I was here for that. That actually happened off. Yeah, after. So once Ryan said he wasn't coming back, we ate him. Then we ate him but not until then. So don't fuck with a storyteller. That was the only character that was apparently upset about you being eaten by a werewolf. I was just like, "Hey buddy, how can we help you?" I'm sorry but if it would have been anything but a werewolf you would have gave two squads. You hate werewolves in that game, right? My line? I'm role-playing. The situation was a werewolf and I reacted appropriately. We're not role-playing right now. I know. So Ryan, you're next. Who are you playing? The thief. The thief. I can't find anywhere where it says what the abilities you like, strength, decks, constitution. Okay. It's like in a very small point in the black. I mean like, I'm a rogue. I'm assuming I want dexterity but. Yeah, and you're right you do. If you look down at each of the moves. On the front page there's start moves and then the start moves. The first thing, the way the game system works is you roll two six sided dice and you add a modifier to it. In your case most of your moves are going to say DX. It's role plus DX. So that's what you want your highest to be if you want to succeed the most. Now, six and under you fail but you get experience. So your character level's fine. Seven through nine you succeed but with a complication. Ten you succeed gloriously with no complication. So when you roll two six sided dice the most you're going to roll. You're going to tend to roll seven the most. If you add two to it you're nine. So you're going to succeed the most and whatever that is you choose to be a nine. So if you want your character to succeed a lot you choose dexterity. Okay. Mike, your character. My character is named Vera Fortes. Somebody's doing homework and got him all ready here. Go ahead. And he is the fighter. I haven't decided what race he is though yet. Okay. Scott, you're playing? I'm playing the Paladin who is at this point nameless and by... I don't have a choice. I think I'm human. Yep. I think palates are human palates. Right. So I am a human Paladin without anything yet. Apparently only humans do zealotry. Right. I'm Jen. I'm going to play a human wizard named Jared. Oh, you got a name early? Jared. And then returning to us but never been recorded previously is Michael. Mike and Michael just for the cleric. Go ahead. I'm playing the druid. I'm not sure the race or the name yet. Okay. Thomas. I'm playing the cleric. I believe I will be a dwarf. I don't believe I'll be a dwarf actually. That's why I look at him. Anyway, I'll be playing the cleric. He's a dwarf named Drummond. Drummond. I don't know. I like it. That's a good name. It's a good name. And Jon. I'm playing the bar to pick it up a couple of seconds ago. I haven't got a name about Dunwick. Dunwick. That's a fine name. It's a bar to name. It is a ball. Thomas. Who took Dunwick for? Thomas. How does... Close the bar. I don't understand like you got this. Choose your defense. Leather armor or a bag of books and healing potions. What do I do? Beat people with my books. The bag of books, Jim. It's something you can use like five times. And when you are spouting lore, like talking like a wizard knows everything about something, you roll and you add one to the dice and like check off one of the books. Decaturator isn't necessarily armor. It's just, if you choose armor, you can have the books. It's kind of a multiple choice. And armor works, mechanic wise, is that you remove the amount of your armor from the damage done. So if your armor is one and they do four damage, you only take three. So leather armor is one armor. I believe so, yes. Mm-hmm. So my HP, since I have no modifier in it, it's four. For me? No. Because it's not modifier. It's the actual constitution. See, that's where sometimes I didn't know it. It's only that. They're talking about modifiers. They're always talking about modifiers set for health. Alright. This is your actual constitution, not the modifier, plus whatever your class adds to it. That's why I originally had that in there, and then I started thinking about it like, "Well, maybe it isn't." So I took it out. I got halfling paper. How many uses is it? I think it's six. Halfling paper. Well, the only other question I have is that... We do what that is. Yeah. It's just, you know... Since I'm human, I can take a cleric spell. Yes. He casts it as a wizard. Any leveling wizard spell or... Well, you won't be able to cast it as a wizard. I can change it as I level up and say, "Hey, now I'm a second third level wizard." I understood it as... Can I take a second or third level cleric spell instead of the crappy first level one I took when I first started? I took it as... You can take a higher level one, but until you reach that level, you can't use it. And you have to pre-determine that? No. Yes. No. There's an advanced move for when you level up that you can pick a new spell if you want to, and it can be higher level later. So some of the advanced moves that you choose. Alright, on the back of your character sheet, I saw that one. When you level up, it'll have... Did we level up yet? Yeah. When you get leveled too, and the way you do that is you need experience equal to seven plus your current level. So you're starting with eight required because you level one. So once you receive eight experience, you have to camp, which allows you to level up at that time. And you can choose from the left column on the back of your sheet. The advanced moves. The advanced moves. And then on the left column is for higher levels. I think five, three, whatever. Six through ten. Well, depends I guess so. It might depend on the character class. So everybody go through the front of their sheet, choose most of my stuff I think. Figure it out. Oh, here's another question I have. First level plus one, which is two, which I get two spells that I get to figure out what I want to do. Unless I take an hour and switch them out to something else. Even though I have three first level spells, four, including the cleric one. Right. And we have two prepared at one time. Correct. But cantrips, even though they have the check marks by them, are spells that I can do all three of them. And it's just as if they're all, even though there's check marks on, I know all three of them. Right. That's true. You can carry them all the time because they don't have any thing that adds to the count. They're all zero effective. However, you can't forget them for a while when you want to repair them. If you fail to roll or something. They disappear but they come right back after you prepare your spell. That would make sense that you can screw them up and now it can't do that anymore. For a little while. I like how you can take an hour, get things back instead of taking a whole night of sleep. So you take damage and you don't have a cleric, how do you get damage back? Something a bit rusting, and you get half of your hit points back just by camping for an evening. It comes back pretty easily. It's not there in combat. It's definitely not there in combat. Now in your experience with the fighter and you choosing your significant signature weapon, is there something that you liked or that the... Am I going to ruin your fun? I'm going to tell you what you need to do. I just want to... I'm okay. Sorry about that. What about additional gear? The reason I said that Mike is we've never had a fighter in the game, so I don't know. What about additional gear? It just seems incongruous that if I'm trying to be a good fighter and I have serrated ages and hooks and spikes on my weapon... Well, alright, we'll discuss that while we're at it. Each character has a number of different alignments they can choose from. And if you look, each of those alignments have something underneath them. A second. And what that sentence is saying is if this occurs, if I do this during a session, at the end of the night we go through a list of things, and one of them is your alignment. If you've done that, then you get an experience, one point. So what is the statement for good fighter? To spend those weaker than you. You can do that with hooks and serrated blades. Fair enough. Fair enough. I get the impression that this game is made for a convention. It's quick and easy to set up your character because it really is. But again, without having read the rules, how do we know when... I think Ryan kind of briefly hit on this. When do we know when strength comes into play for our character and when it's a constitution and when it's dexterity? And I can go with the basic moves kind of tell you. Yeah, there's a basic move sheet plus for your character on the front. It has a list of things that say these are the basic moves for this class. Only your class could do the ones that are on your character. Okay. Everybody can do the ones that are covered under basic moves. So Scott, you're playing... I'm playing the paladin, so it looks like... Probably wisdom. Constitution for health strikes again. There's charisma too. Charisma seems to be a bit strong. I want to play a charisma character, though. I mean, I wasn't looking to... I don't want to be... Maybe my charisma is just in my... It's got to be different. You know what I'm doing. Right, I'm saying I don't want him to be outgoing here. I don't want to be a leader. You're just your force of personality and just as far as... In this point, I think charisma might be described as your conviction. Maybe. Gotcha. Is it convict? Is it convict? He's a convict paladin. A convicted paladin. Is he full of convictions? Or is he still a long record? Yeah. Okay. Unproven. Never convicted. I know. Seriously. We'll stop. I'm going to... I'm giving myself more editing. Is this should have brought my dice? Yeah. We do have dice. 8,000 of them I think. The only thing that seems slightly confusing to me, Scott, as far as a paladin one, is your... Oh, man. Oh, the oath. The oath is a little more complicated than some of the other classes. Is that part of the quest? Is it the quest instead? It's on the back. I don't know when it's gone. It's on the back. I think it's starting move. Not on the back of mine. It's starting move. Is it starting move? Cluster of... Quest. Okay. So the classes? The only thing I found was kind of complicated about that. A short story. It's cool. It's the quest. I really like it. Okay. It gives you some unique abilities, but at a cost. Of restricting your behavior. There's an ability of the cleric called Divine Cadence. So when you petition your deity according to the precept of your religion, you are granted some useful knowledge or boon related to your deity's domain. The GM will tell you what. Great. Yeah. It's like here's a really difficult thing. Here's a really difficult thing. Let the GM handle it. Right. And I get to choose the precepts of my religion. What are the precepts of your religion, Tom? There are options. I will read them and then I will tell you what I thought was interesting, but we could change it if you don't like it. Well, it's just some of the ones you think are interesting. There's only like five. Okay. But I'm just going to go over an entirety because no one's talking right now. Your religion bridges the sanctity of suffering. Add petition suffering. Your religion is cultist and insular. Add petition gaining secrets. Your religion has important sacrificial rights. Add petition offering or your religion believes in trial by combat. Add petition personal victory. So which one do you like? I like that last one. It's a weird cleric, but I was thinking that he worships the dwarven god of battle and war. That would make you friends with the warrior and that would end probably. One of the things I was looking at was putting my constitution really high so I could use the defendability. So it says when you stand in the fence of a person item or location, roll plus a constitution. And then if you succeed, you could choose to like stop someone from attacking it or damage them whenever they do or have the damage or something. I felt it made for an interesting protector class. So if we had like some spellcaster that dies a whole lot, I don't know what kind of visit you're going to be. It would be one that dies a lot. Alright, cool. I could do it during your combat. Roll to defend the wizard while he casts a spell from a place of protection. Okay. What was your character's name? Drummond. D-R-U. Another D-N-M-O-N-D. If it's necessary, you have a lot of D-Names. Or are you just talking about... Let me get all my D-Names. Drummond done... Daniel, did you find any mirrors? They get suggestions on your character sheet. You picked one of the D-N-M-M. Sketch. That's not a D? One of the options. Did not sketch. In the look area, one of the options for clerics, the head is tonshire, strange hair or bulb. Tonshire. Tonshire. I don't know what tonshire is honestly. I figure it's like the bring of hair around your head. Tonshire is the traditional practice of Christian churches of cutting or shaving their hair from the scalp. Very good. Leaving some parts on cut. I'm talking the ball. He's talking the ball. He's talking the ball right here. It's so easy. They didn't even watch that... He's on history channel like this. I know, yeah. They rated England and captured a couple of... Pretty sand and hair size. Tintured, pretty sand. Wow. That's embarrassing. I have some area of Bartaglora than I'm knowledge one. That's really cool. Legends of Heroes Past. Legends of Heroes Past. That is quite the Bartaglora. Mike, you have a special weapon. Is that like a historical one? I have a signature weapon and it's not... I guess I could choose a look where it might be ancient. I just chose unblemished. It's a whip, isn't it? It is not a whip. I decided to try to do something different and go with a spear. It's like changed sweet. It's not different. It's not different. It should be like a fighter from... It's like an ocean boat fighter. It's probably pronounced wrong. What are you? Me? I'm a fighter. My signature weapon. This is my weapon. There are many like it, but this is a dagger. Is it a dagger? Oh, you know what? If that had been an option, I would have taken that. No, it was a... Wait, wait, wait. Is it a Leatherman? I do have adventuring gear, so I'm sure that there is the medieval equivalent of a Leatherman. One of our... It's a Leatherman strap to stick. One of our fans pointed out the fact that in World of Darkness, when you have an item and you treat it as a relic and you treat it as holy, that eventually it can take on the aspect of a... Like a bus is a relic. So, you're going to turn your Leatherman into a relic. So, at some point, you could have a whole Leatherman of clay. The clay Leatherman will become a... Even more than just yourself. Yes. It's already holy to him. Sure. It would be everyone. I was experimenting today with some backstory, you know, kind of writing, doing it right up. And I had the idea that... I gotta say, you seem to be upset about your account being hacked and... I am. I am still furious about it. But it's fueling your role playing fire again, Mike. I've never seen you invested into a character as heavily. I am... What happened? My... This game I've been playing for the past three years... I'm RuneScaper and stuff. I was hacked and apparently whoever hacked it used it to gold farm. And so now it has been banned. And... It is an infuriating process trying to get anyone to respond that isn't some type of auto reply. And I had, you know, millions... About 100 million in gear and gold and... Excuse me. Is this the... That RuneScaster in the light? Oh, so... No. It's an open escape. And it's one of these things where I realized that, you know, I was kind of... I was kind of a pretty high level. I had like 2, 2,200 skill levels in the game out of... I think I put possible 2,500 that you can get up. So I was up there. And I started to think of like... You know, where am I going to go with this? And, you know, I pretty soon... Yeah, I gotta hit the cap here. Yeah, I'm going to hit the cap. So, you know, I like it. I enjoy it and I've been doing it for... So... It's such a long time. What is there left to do? Well, yeah. I had some quests left. And the thing is I had done some really pain in the ass quest and gotten some really hard to find gear. But I was already thinking about, okay, I'm probably going to have to move on from this. And then the choice was taken away from me by some stupid key logger or... I don't know how I even got hacked because I don't talk to anyone. And so... Now I feel like I'm 14 years old being broken up with this girlfriend for the first time. And I'm just like, I wanted to leave on my own terms and not have this situation. No, no. I'm open with you! And now I try to like, well, I'll stick up this free character while I'm trying to sort out this account mess. And I forgot how awesome I was with all my travel spells and transports and all my access to everything. Going back to the old way where the peons, back to the peon level of having to walk all over this world with no ability to quickly get where I want and get all this... to be able to buy whatever I need to handle something. Hang around with the unwashed mask. Yes, it sucks! I'm so furious. When your password is the word password? Well, I tell you, it's one of those things I'm really kind of concerned and I've been monitoring my other accounts. Sure. I'm not clear on how I could have gotten hacked in the first place. And if I, you know... I mean, it could technically be a weakness on their side. But it might be. I mean, let's do some type of masking there. Well, they're handing these things out. They went through some massive update recently. And I know that they're trying to deliberately go after bots and macro people and stuff like that. And maybe I got swept up in something, but I don't macro. I don't, you know... You know, me. If I was doing something, I'd be cracking under the pressure confessing my crime. I don't cheat. You deleted the Skyrim character because he killed someone that didn't do it once. That's right. I forget. Did I tell you about that? That's right. I can't be the sass I had to lead to. You're taking... Maybe just load like a previously said game. Two said. We played a game once. I have to tell this. It's a great story. We played a game once. World of Darkness, like mortals. No hunters, no souped up characters. Just mortals dealing with crazy shit going down in Chicago. It was our first exposure to World of Darkness. I want to say foray, but I want with exposure. But thank you. I was just wondering. So, the character is an attempt to save people they love and solve the mystery. They broke some laws. And at one point, the character was a female. It was so bad guy that we took him out and he was on the ground. In the middle of a Chicago street. I just walked up to him and went boom. Three shots in his head. He's not getting up from this. I don't care what the fucking law says. This is over now. If this is cold blooded murder, so be it, I'm doing it. So she ends up getting hit by a car or shot by one of these. I was barely standing. At the time. You got knocked out and taken to the hospital. Got taken to the hospital. So Bob, who's, I think it was, was it Bob? Probably a character or something. I thought he would play mortals. I drag him into grandpa's office. I say, all right. We know it didn't go down like he said it went down. Yes, I started interrogating him. Pretty harshly. He's like, I don't want you talking about it now. No, no. We didn't do it. No, no. Fuck you. No, no. And I'm like, all right. You're out of here because they have nothing to hold them on at this point. They don't have evidence. So then I drag whoever else that was back there. Might have been Jim. Might have been, you know, someone else playing at the time. Interrogate the shit out of them. Nothing. I take Michael. Mike. Into the back room. And I sit him down. And I do this. And this is what happened. He's like, absolutely hit it. He hit it. I'm folding my arm. He cracked. What game was it we were playing? It was, oh my gosh. It was so funny. I know. I'm not involved. Was it Bellstar Black? Yeah. We had the Bellstar. It was really hard. It was just like five minutes. It was the same thing. We're playing Bellstar Black. And you each get sent cards. And I would say it's more of a silon, right? It could tell you that. And you just the same thing. You're like, look at his card. And he starts giggling like a school girl. And I was like, Mike, everybody's like, do you hand? I have no poker face. I just don't. I just don't. It's so I want to join. You're the paladin, right? I'm kidding. I thought he was going to do it. Oh my goodness. Who played the wizard last time? Me? John did it. What's the deal with rituals? Free armor. Basically, if there's something you don't, your spells can't do, you're like, I want to do this. He says, well, you can, but you have to find a place of power. And one of these other things. Yeah. All right, guys. Yeah. John brought up an interesting question. The wizard has a move that he can do that's called a ritual. A ritual. So if he's got other moves that are spells and he's got spells that he can do. But if there's something that isn't covered by the spells or any of his other moves, he can do a ritual. So virtually he can do anything in magic. But when he does that, it requires him to have a place of power. There's seven bullets of, like, he can limit you. You can do this, but it's going to take you a day, a week. You can do this, but first you've got to go here and find this. Or you can do that, but it's going to cost you a ton of money first. Whatever. He can put limits on it. But one of the things I wanted to discuss with everyone that's playing is how is magic going to exist in this world? Do we have ley lines and that's what he has to tap into as a magic source? Or is there a certain, you know, does it come from the ground? Does it come from alternate universes next to us and just seeps in? So there's an overall ambient level of magic. It's certain places. Yeah. At certain places, the two realms are closer and that's where the magic is a power source. That's the best of both worlds and Michael likes the ambient, which is true. I think it's a good one. And then you could have sources of power where the two worlds are closer. Maybe nothing that's predictable, though. Maybe it's like, wow. No, it's not on the ground. It could be floating in the air. It could be in the middle of a mountain. I think it's everywhere, but only certain people can access it. Or do you want to know? Like, would you consider it? Well, I think it would have a effect on everything around it that is magical in nature. Things that feed off of magic would be more prevalent in those situations. Real quick, do attributes go up in the system? Yeah, every time you level up, you add one. So when you start, you have 16, which is plus two. Another one is 15. That has the ability at level one, or the first time you level at level two, to instantly give you an additional one to something. Would you consider magic an alien force or a natural force? It could be either, but if we're describing it as... Well, you said it was a novel set of a world, kind of... So maybe it's part of the spiritual world, and the druid, and some others are more of a natural world, or do you want it to be... I like Laylines and Ambient, and maybe it's stronger on places with power. I mean, if you get someone similar to Dresden where there's a world that is the fey, and that's just an alternate reality that's leaking into here, then the magic is of a natural level. Okay. And the connections to that world is, at certain places, they're more emotionally... And it doesn't leak, it was torn, asunder a while back. The veil was torn between the two worlds? Just because then we can make some more of a knowledge... And the rip in those vails, where it's completely asunder, it's a strong, magical... How long is it? Point. That Jim would need to tie into to do ritual. So would you then treat it as like a rare commodity that you almost have to, like, charge up your batteries and prepare it? No. It's low enough. It has an ambient level. I think there's an ambient level that he can always do magic, and Michael's character can always transform. Well, there's areas that are jealous of the garter that have a higher degree of secrets... Right. ...through. The tear is greater there. So where there's a huge tear is where you'll find the Wizard College. Now, John asked great... Or a wizard stronghold. Or a storage where there's none at all in here. Oh! That has not been ripped between them. Almost like dead zones. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to be in dead areas. That's good. I like that too. John had a great thing where he's like, "How long ago did this happen?" Yeah. Is magic a new force when people view wizards as, like, untrustworthy? Or is it... Or is it something that's been getting progressively worse? Ooh, climate change. It's getting progressively worse than the magic level is rising because the veil is ripping more and more. Magic used to be pretty... I like that one. Magic used to be pretty ambient in, like, the same everywhere. But certain places that used to cause... Cause the rips to happen. Sure. Then there's a school there. They're working on trying to actually make that rip bigger because they want more magic to come from there. Why not necessarily be a good thing? Right. And if you and so they're drawing magic away from other areas, they're just causing dead zones. And that would definitely cause the populace to be very wary towards them because... Well, those are what the effects are. They want to bring more and more magic through, and I don't think they're doing it for all touristic purposes. The effects of rampant magic would have to be negative then. Right. Well, obviously creatures are spawned through strange magic fluids. Which could exist if it wasn't for this damn magic. Okay. That's certainly what they think. That gives magic users a bad name. Maybe Druids a little bit less, but maybe there's even a little bit of tension between... Nothing that's going to define the whole story. But tension between Druids who are more naturalistic, like, "Hey, we shouldn't be amping everything up. We should just keep everything level the way it is." But, eventually, that's your character, though, I don't know. You know, this reminds me a little bit like something of a story I was trying to work on too long ago. Where a magical world and the mundane world kind of exist and in parallel next to each other. And that was by choice. In the Dark Ages, a choice was made that, "Okay, all the magical stuff on this side and all the mundane stuff on this side." And here, magic reign, but they have really no technology. And here, no magic, but there's technology, but then that... Did you ever bury your fellow part? Do you ever read The City and The City by China Mayville? No. Is that it? No, it's not exactly. No, but it's parallel... It's parallel to the parallel story. It's a parallel story. One is, like, more magical, sophisticated one is, like, no magic at all. So it's a little bit like that, but... You ever read China? China Mayville? No. The Scar. Give it a chance. Give it a shot. It's a good one. The Scar is one of my favorite novels. The Scar is one of my favorite novels. Yeah, he really is. He's got great. Do you ever read his kid's book? No. Are you young adults in London? No. Which is in London. It's about, like, loon like the moon. China Mayville is a fantastical writer in a sense that he creates, really... Vivid. Vivid worlds and doesn't live by any contrived that I can see. No, I mean, the one was, like, creatures that would spit and they would create art out of it. Oh, that was... Yeah, I read that one. China Mayville, that first one was... Or Ellie? Oh. Perdido Street Station. Perdido Street Station. That was steampunk with a really unique take on some of the characters. Yeah, I mean, some of the characters are the creatures you created were like, what is this guy? Did you read the scar? Funny chance? No, we're all the boats. There's a whole city with boats just slashed together. I never finished it. I never finished it. I started reading it, but the thing had sidetracked somehow. It's like a Terence McKenna thing that was on MDMA. He described dwarfs, singing objects into being. Drugs? Drugs are definitely... A good part of it. Yeah, China Mayville, if you're ever looking for something to use. Good news for creative. So, to read, I'm a big fan. Do we have some of that? Mayville? At all. I have it in audio form. Yeah, yeah. It's literally one of the best fantasy/science fiction books I've ever read before. And I know you weren't thrilled with Perdido because it was a little dark for you. But if you give the scar a chance sometime, man is that a great story. Anyways, I'm sorry. A sidetracked. Having read the book several hours ago, I read a piece that said magic is common and expected. Oh, okay. I mean, that's not like written in stone, but I think that's their suggestion going in the room. That's my game. I would prefer everybody coming up with an idea and investing in it. Mechanically, if Jim were in a dead zone, would he be able to cast spells or be able to not prepare new ones? That one. I like that. I like that. I like that he's already charged up and has some battery stored up, but then... That doesn't damage him too much then. The story doesn't... The world that we create doesn't damage him too much. I would hope those would be fairly rare. Right, yeah. I would be like a story. I would severely be crippling his character. He'd have to walk a hundred yards. But that could also be a story like some of the places like that could be exploited by people who maybe... This is the city of... That's untruses. You can't come into your investigation. Can you scry into whatever it's dead zone? Switch on. No, no way. So people who are definitely anti-magic would definitely be using those dead zones. So they're gonna be... And I think... Or actually, maybe it's good stuff. The promise of our world would live in the... But what Thomas said, it was a good idea, that it's the accorded neutral territory. That this is where we have our... We can come together and have our negotiations. Well, that's not how I go to your husband. Does that mean... I understand what you're saying. If you're having secret meanings, you won't find a place like that. Okay, yeah. It's a magical switch to them. Totally neutral. Like a lot, I think. Bloodville. Right. And a comet to bloodville. So who's gonna join maps? You are. No. No, not. What kind of maps like a world map? Yeah. I mean... I could do that a little bit. I mean, eventually we're gonna have to make one of what they suggest is... You want to give it a first shot time? Leave it open and fill it in as you go along. What looks interesting. Okay, we'll put that there. So it's gonna be something that's gonna be growing as we go along. I'm gonna let Thomas take first crack at it because he probably has a little bit more time than I do on his hands, I would think. And then if he's not liking it or having trouble with it, I'll jump in at that point. Because I do like making maps. The wizards used by other nations as weapons, like during war time. Well, that's definitely what you're to ask. I mean, a lot of other stories. Well, and I'd like that. The fact that the wizards were almost used as political chips. Or do they have them so separate because... I mean, do they even want to answer to a government? But then... No one wants to answer. Well, they kind of formed their own conclusion. Do they need to listen to governments? Aren't they stronger? Or maybe they're almost like their own little... They're like Quebec. Or a little embassy. Some would, some wouldn't. Yeah, that's true. Like, they want to be there on an entity. Yeah, they are. Like, they're on a nation's day. Maybe they're split. There's some that affiliates themselves with kings and... It's gotta be safety and having a patron that watches over you. Yeah, 'cause I don't get the idea that Jim is more powerful than anyone of us. Which would mean that if we were all level 15, Jim still wouldn't be any more powerful than anyone of us. So, saying that a wizard could just be their own thing, they would need a political structure, they would need cities and land and everything else. Which doesn't sound like they could get without having some sort of patronage. Or why couldn't we be in the early days of that, even forming the world? It would be. Like, okay, you know, it's... That would make magic fairly new. As a bard with legends of heroes past as my knowledge, I wouldn't have wizard heroes who established... No, not necessarily, because it would be the reason why they kind of want their own is maybe... Like, if you were an artist, and you were gonna... Like, I'm gonna patronize you and give you our money, and you make what I want, and then you're gonna be living under my thumb for a while, you get kind of sick and tired of that, especially if you become really good at what you do. Wizards would make good slaves if you wanted someone under your thumb to commit war. I mean, they might be under their slaves. They would send you a thumb that can charm you. Not for long. Well, then, you know, while they're young, they've brought us... They can't charm everybody. They can charm one person at a time. Yeah. I'm throwing it out there, but I would think that it would be where, in some cases, there's entire nations that are like, "We can't stand magic." And they literally, here at which, burn them. And there's other nations where they're sought after, and prized, and they're esteemed, and they're basically put on a pedestal because they can bring things into being and do things that no one else can do. In other places, there may be a little bit more feudal in nature, and a little more backwards. It might be like, you know, if they see a witch, if you perform magic on the streets in that type of kingdom, you'll be able to kill them. I would say a real good dichotomy there of choices. To build up that, having a court in magician is like a status symbol. It is a high-end status symbol. In the nations that love magic. Yeah. But even nations that maybe don't like magic still politically recognize that, "Look, you got what you wanted, Ed, you got leadership on some Ed." But maybe it's one of these also situations that, okay, if it's a magical issue, it falls under the purview of the Magi. And it's like, "There's got to be a training, I would think." Well, it's almost like where, like diplomatic community. It's like, "Okay, if you're a master of French or a training facility, we'll think of this." Either again. Yeah. That was thinking that what happened with this guy is he was training somewhere, and they were telling him that he had to be destructive offensive magic. And he didn't want to. Okay. And they got pissed off and kicked him out, so he went on. So in this universe, we have more of not, there's no academy. It's just, well, it could be mentors. Yeah. Okay, sorry. That's a different situation. At least that's where he came up. Right. But where I came from, those mentors. Right. Maybe a different angle, but what Jim said is, it's not that they wanted to learn destructive magic and he didn't want to. Maybe it's something like, he was generous with his abilities, and he wasn't charging for it. And it's really profit-based, that, "Look, you're doing something for free." No, no, no, no, no, no. We pay for our services. So if he's, that's why maybe he is. Well, he was going more with that mentor wanted him to be doing offensive or harmful spells and he didn't want to. His character won't have magic missile or fireball. He wants to have the utility spells. He doesn't want to be offensive. He doesn't want to have any burn, someone, or destroy them or kill them. He's not saying he doesn't. He's a pacifist. Because if someone's trying to kill him, he's going to buck him on the head with whatever weapon he's got. But he'd rather not be the aggressor. So we decided that magic was maybe at least several hundred years in the past. The tear, where the ambient link occurred, it was a couple hundred years maybe. It's not going to be too much time to hunt for nations. Before then, there was magic people out there, but they weren't super powerful. But since they all started to learn how to use the tear and make the tears bigger to give them more power. And now that's why there's a lot of fear. So they're becoming more powerful. But in the last, whatever years. It's always a possibility. And some people that, let's say, lived on a tear could be historically significant. Would you consider that these tears treat almost like a natural resource and then there's people who will... I think they would become so, yeah. Well, yeah, that's what I mean. I want to just keep it the way it is and don't mess with it. And then there's the conservationists or the other ones who were like, "We're running this country, we're building a whole city around this world." And really make use of this profile. And so, yeah. So the idea would be then, if there's people who are out there trying to make bigger tears and bigger rips. And now every man's user is going to believe that that's the right thing to do. It just never happens like that. There's going to be some that say, "No, it's a bad idea." It's funny if people think that's bad. Let's talk about the political version. I want to get into just really briefly. And then John, if you want to... I don't know if that's where you're going or not. But if someone's causing tears in the ether and causing more stuff to flood in, that there is a empire or there is a nation or there is a group of countries that have banded together. It says, "No, no, this is bad." That's good. And it's just an empire that is either the big bad or the big good depending on how you view it. And everyone else has little feudal countries and city-states. I'd like to actually spend that because that's not say it's been done before. Virtually everything's been done before. But if we spend that a little bit around and say what is trying to tear the holes and grab as much power, maybe it's the barbarians. Maybe there's a barbarian tribes and each one of them is fighting for their own supremacy over the others and safety. And they're not following the roles that the other nations have set off. What the fuck? Why are you guys just trying to rip and let loose the magic and make themselves do their own things? Well, kind of, yeah. But the German barbaric tribes, you know, there's lots of them and none of them are following their roles. It's not just one crazy. John, did you have some? Well, I like the nation that was at war against magic because my character was conscripted. I had to pick something for my musical instrument and I picked a horn, but they each have a description and it's stolen. So I was conscripted in the army and I was organizing people blowing horn and such, but I escaped. I was it deserted. And I was hoping that you might have been conscripted with this army as well. But there's no reason I mean that your army might be from a nation that's trying to stop the barbarians, to tame them, to make them stop ruining the magic. So maybe I think it's always good in threes and you've got the barbarians, you've got city states and small nations that are not banded together. But they're bordering the barbarians territory? Yeah, and they're futile. They're fighting for land. It's petty stuff where they're fighting over rivers and valleys and rich resource areas and magic tears or not. And then there's a larger entity where some nations have actually banded together to say we need to stop this threat. So you've got threefold. You've got one ripping and tearing. You've got some that can't agree on anything. And they're mostly city states and smaller to mid-sized nations, but faced by this big empire between them and the barbarians, they're in the middle. And that's where the most dynamicism is, is the fact that there's this middle land that might be the size of a couple of states in the current day of the United States. And these are a bunch of city states and nations that are small, small little territories. And then off to the east coast is an empire that says this has got to end. And they're focused, but they need to go through those city states. And those city states are bickering, but they might pull together to stop the scenario. And then on the west side are the barbarians ripping, tearing, shredding, causing havoc for the most part. And what do you think it's a bad idea in our inner warring and fighting with each other? Where are we in the middle somewhere? I think it's a little bit interesting because where do you guys want to set up? You want to start in a town? Is it a big town? Ryan's character is a rogue. He's got to have training somewhere. He's got to have a city to be able to fight for too. And what is the situation with rogues? Do you belong to a guild? Did you ever belong to a guild? I haven't thought of any of that. It's a disc world where they're actually licensed. I think we work on the bonds between our people. Yeah, that's an important part of tying you guys together. So what's stopped the world building for a second? Need to work on the bonds for a little bit? Just as an aside, in our world, that the boys made up, it's pretty whacked. They went with some interesting things. This is a little more standard. They went with John's character. Thank you. This is an orphan. That's exactly what I was thinking. I know whose parents are a lineage, but he's a wizard. And all of the wizards in the rest of the world are very family oriented. Because each of the families, they have a hereditary move. They have a special spell or their own type of magic that each of them can do. He doesn't know what his is because he's an orphan and nobody had taught him. So the training college is really families of magic. And each of them have a unique type of magic that can do in addition to all the rest of it. They each have a unique spell that they can all do. And it was just a totally different path that they took to the world building that I thought would actually kind of interest you. Because there's a lot of Machiavellian ability to go with family politics and interfering. I was going to say, how about a city state? An independent, fairly large city state is maybe on a river that is the spot where we start. Potentially big enough for Ryan to be able to pilfer and do his second story. It's a free city. It does a free city, which means it's not a line of empire or a feudal in any sense. So maybe there's where you and I escape from. Parents that are fighting each other over control of certain parts of the cities and whatnot. They add a little bit of political intrigue and families and Machiavellian mischief. What about if this spot is a new terror has been discovered? And so it's that's a reason why a lot of cities are really interesting. Yeah, like strategically, this city having a terror here is not a gem. Jim, what did you do? Why is there a new terror? And it's maybe it's on the river closest to the empire so that it's the one area that they might be going through first to get to these disputing, fighting, smaller countries they need to get through to the barbarians. And we're right on that cusp of what happened in the Middle East where you were a bunch of tribal nomads that were fighting each other a lot. And then you discovered that you have enormous wealth on your land that you're walking around on. You're important now. So yeah, all of a sudden you have what we want. And you're going to be on one hand exploited by the older, more powerful. Actually, if you're too close to the empire and they just want to stop or regulate magic. Wouldn't it be more interesting if you're closer to the barbarians? Well, potentially. Or maybe this is maybe this is a city that's close to all in a sense. It's where it doesn't look like it's rare always. Yeah, it's a narrowness route and you get all three influence in the city. But it's still an independent city state. And the empire is trying to, it's an empire. It's to turn its head and get everything focused and they've got their own wars and things that they're at their borders. Maybe it just marks right through. Maybe the emperor died recently. And again, going to North Korean example. Yeah, you got a new one. The emperor died and new ones in control. Nobody knows what to do. No one knows what's expected. He's a wild card. And so the empire can't save the day right now, although they're feared. And if they do turn their head and they're focused, they're in trouble. Yeah. Right. Okay. I mean, he wants to learn about exactly what these tears are because he's heard a lot of people saying they're safe. A lot of people saying they're bad. They're created, what keeps them going, what keeps them. And he wants to know the truth about them so he can decide what really needs to be done with them. Okay. I need your friend. Who wants to know what are you? Okay. First off, let's deal with the bonds because Ryan brought that up. And it is an important part of character development. But the bonds they have on there, it's kind of like ideas and they don't have to be them. What we have found in the times that we've been playing is much shorter, more focused is better because you can easily achieve them within an evening's play and get some experience. You know, if you take something that's too grandiose and it's going to take you six sessions, you may never get to it. Right. What's your character's name? How come somebody has three or four? Drumming. I respect the beliefs of drumming, but hopefully it will someday see the true way. Dude. All right. See, I had the ideas for what kind of climate the continent is, tropical, temperate. Scott, I would probably rewrite that at bond into something a little clearer. And more. If those of us... More specific. If those of us that have backstories could... Give the others in on that. Maybe, yeah. A cliff notes version, maybe? Alright. Well, first of all, I need Mike, your word. The machine today, I just painted it up. I don't know. Mike, I need your word, your name? V-E-R-I-R, let's say Fortis, but you can just call him V-E-R-I-Z. Scott, your character's the same G-U-I-N-U-S. Bloody. What kind of... He works with... He works with... Human. S-A-N-G-U-I-N-U-S. Evil blood. No, no, no. Good luck. Flop it. Or good. Coursing through our bodies. Did you have one? Life-giving. Michael Blood. Zebiratel. Z-B-E-R-A-T-E-L. Zebiratel. Oh, that it is. Exactly how you brought it. It's actually Slovak for herbalists. Oh, nice. Does anyone here at L-O-M-E-Z or something like that? Are you an L-O-T-E-R-O? Yes. There you go. Jack. L-O-F. L-O-F. I was wondering... Are these all human... I have hires and... I'm a door. Oh. Barvarian tribes. Barvarian tribes would be next, but no. Just don't give a crap about all that city stuff anyway. Right. Well, there's big parks in the city state. Huge. Like Central Park. Central Park. Central Park is huge. Every time I see an overshot picture of it, I'm like... It's like three city blocks. It's just full of trees. I've been there too. It's nice. It's a really quick round table. Human, human, human, human. Halfling. Halfling. Nice. Oh, there's also... There's descriptors under... You know, and they're just suggestions. You could make up different ones. But sometimes they help you get in a role-playing mood, you know, and... Some of the ones for the thief are kind of racist. You know, you've got to be sneaky-eyed and, you know, you might want to be... For looks. Yeah. You're talking about looks. Yeah. Yeah, shifty-eyed. And cutting and... His choices are shifty-eyed or... What? Criminalized. Criminalized. Yeah, so that's... Criminalized. Criminalized. Look at this. Look at this sunken eyes of a murderer. Or you are a criminal. Or the ones with springs of them. Ooh. What do you want? A crackhead or you're a criminal. Okay, I'm going... I'll go with a little bit back story that I'm going to totally make up now because I don't have any. But I'll just lay off. Sanqueness worships to God of Blood. The God of Blood is not an evil deity. It is the life-giving blood. It is the blood of, you know, that gives life and brings life. And if you're... What are you talking about here? No, no. All good blood. So it's a deity of life. And it's symbol is blood. So he was named by his father who was a paladin as well. Sanqueness in order to show reverence to that deity. He is now an older gentleman. In that old sense of... Human? You know, 70. He's human. But he's probably in his maybe early 50s to mid 50s. In a fantasy, you know, medieval type setting. That's pretty old. He's balding his kind eyes. He's not rich by any stretch of imagination. He's getting thin in his older age as he ages. He's not... He's like wiry and sinewy tough. That's what I got so far. That's not a lot. But that's just... That's the general idea of where I was going for. I thought I got a blood that was evil would be a little bit different. But of the alignment, lawful is denied mercy to a criminal or unbeliever. That sounds a little bit harsh for me. So I went with endanger yourself to protect someone weaker than you. I wanted a true paladin, not a vengeful paladin. Who are the anti-london? I am the anti-london deals, correct. I think he's got a really good heart, but I think he's also seen a lot in his 50+ years. So I just think he's a little bit worn down. And he's not the most intelligent individual either. He's got a intelligence of 12 and a wisdom of dying. So he's not horrible, but it's one of his lowest characteristics, his wisdom. So although he's passionate with a charisma of 16, does anyone else have a charisma of 16? I have a charisma of 13. Okay, so the bar guy might be good at leading and inspiring this group. People will be like, will feel inspired by him and go, but we need to change that plan a little bit because it's not so good. So I think that people actually understand that he's a great leader and they respect him for the fact that he can speak passionately. But his plans sometimes are a bit lacking, which has caused him to not achieve the highest rankings in the church or wherever else. And I'm sure he doesn't really realize that that's the reason he just thinks that. He's not adverse to other, he takes other people's input. Well, I guess I do want him to think that he doesn't know everything. So he will take, he's like, what do you guys think? Because he's always unsure of himself and he's making maybe a bad decision. But he knows that he can rally people around and get them to follow his banner in a war or a small pitch battle. But he's not a leader in the sense that he also has good ideas with his charisma. So if anyone wants to follow that, go ahead. My guy is a bard and he's done wick. He had been conscripted into the army that was marching against the witches and sausages. So he's probably out there? He was a citizen of it until he was conscripted. Well, in the name of the soldier. But he saw a couple battles on the way there and decided that war was not for him. And he started... Who ran them? Ran them? Yeah, people could die in, you know, just a straight arrow. Socks, worse socks. Also, the umpires just squashing places they find terrors and people they suspect are wizards. So he started to outrun the army behind him and he's made it to whatever the city-state is. Right. And he's evaded the... Who are the people who... Hey, maybe the umpires elfish. So they're baking them the second class citizens all the time or the humans are racist against the elves and the elves are... Did they say something about elves though being... Second nature to magic? We're gonna get the detect magic. Sure way we can change that. But they detect magic. They're like... That's it. That's it. I'm just sort of not... Maybe the humans are the minority in the city-states human. Oh, that's called the elevator domain. Those talking about fucking... Those guys. Also the empire, then they would have good reason to... To work with humans if they were the ones doing most of the magic. Because maybe all of the humans are barbarians. Humans are preparing to end their ripen apart to magic and they're fucking things out. No! That's not bad idea. But the humans maybe... Oh, I'm not. That's what I'm just saying. That's their racist point of view. Yeah, their racist point of view is... Yeah, we've got a disturbing city-state... Because they're gonna rip the universe apart and they're... Yeah, that's different. I've got more change uses of magic. I've got questions about Reddit for later. Yeah, I don't know if that was mine or not. What are slave-cutchers but for soldiers who ditch? Military. No, yeah. Usually I know what you're talking about. In our world... They have no idea. You're called like wardens. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So they have wardens who... He's managed to evade so far and in a free city-state he has a better chance of doing it. Sure. So he decided to stop here and land with its own law and the hopes that he can... I don't care for wardens. We can do any term. Yeah, I'm saying. But if you've got an elf and he's hunting down a deserter... Something to go with tracking and we've got the SARS. Yeah, why don't you come like maybe an article of clothing like a red cloak? You know, that's how they stand out of office. Yeah, there's not an office. Red cloak. Sure. Okay. Or blue coat. Yeah. Denmark's managed to dodge the red cloak so far and has made it to the city that really needs a name. Sure. What city do you live in? Part of what the councilors do. What city do we live in? Anybody have a name or one of your own? Tresbo? Tresbo. Well, it has part. Schumhola. No, Schumhola. No, Schumhola. No, Schumhola. We're going to do that. So, if it's a city state and it's human... I know who got to go to name store. I named everything in our other game. Yeah, he did. Many of them. She's a terrible... Well, three different things are coming to play. You have there's to be something with, you know, with tracking. It could be Trinity. It could be something even less than... That's over here. But you've got the Empire. You've got the Independent City States and small country. The Tri-State area. And the Barbarians. So, I was just going with something to do with three. How about with something with five? Like, pet something. Five what? Maybe it's where five rivers come together. Who knows? It's a lot of rivers. It's a lot of rivers. They call that a swamp. They call that a swamp. I'll go with Lake, but okay. Look at me. That's it. There could be five regions that kind of... Maybe two of the rivers are magical or part of the... The magic stream. That's pentagram. Oh, about rifts. Oh, it's a pentacle, yeah. Pentagram. Because grad is city in so many different languages. Pentagram. I'm just throwing it out there. I'm not saying it's good. I'm not just doing it. But it's like a magical pentagram or, you know, like, Glen and grad, but pentagram. Pentagram. That's not a bad idea. Tentative. You're just, yeah. I'm not sure I'm even sold on pentagram, but... John Darm's military police in John Darm's. I like the red cloaks. Very close. It's fine. Do you go red sash or red belts or are they red? No. Well, they are elves, so you can say, you know, like, red gardens or whatever, you know? The pink ones have been coming for you. Two by two hands of blue. Red person. These terrors. Are they from another plane that the magic comes in from? Nobody knows. I think there's... I'd say there's no one hundred percent. They can each be from a different one. But my question is, the worse the tear becomes, does it become more like the area that... They're tearing into, say, the plane of growth that would... A tear there would... I'd say just more magic is coming in, but then there's rumors now that other things besides magic are starting to come through. Well, I thought that's where the monsters came from. The tears happened 200 years ago, and then... I think monsters kept seeping in. But at the very least, that's what people think. All right. Yeah. Who knows, 200 years ago. Let's refocus on bonds. Yes. Bonds. Very bonds. Not very bonds. Or bare bonds, either. Did we have a name for the city? Or a pentagrad, but we don't really have. Five rivers? Mike, have you finished two? Actually, five rivers would be interesting, especially if there were only three. You could have been in this army before. I was and done your estate. But two of them are magical. On the ground. So you don't have to be a fugitive. Yeah. No, I don't think I'm actually going to do anything else. What I was working on was... Vere has been kind of that class of the empire where you're kind of born into the military and you die in the military. You're never an officer, but more of a NCL. You're born to be a sergeant. You'll die a sergeant. Hard-eyed Sean Hare. He's scarred and ravaged. I mean, he has endured campaign after campaign. Is he fighting against the employer here from five rivers, otherwise? Well, I think what's happened is even though he was kind of born into this warrior life and he's still kind of fundamentally good. He doesn't subscribe too much to the violence. The army was doing things before it was stomping on natives. Well, you've been running and fighting on another front. Yeah, but he also kind of always, maybe he's the voice of restraint. And otherwise, drug or not, that's just been tearing up the land. But that has... Conscientious objective. That... I don't want to go that far because... No, there's honor and battle on the skill and it's ingrained into it. So maybe you served one of the barons that is currently buying you control of five rivers. You know, maybe five rivers named with the city. There's only three in Pentograd or whatever the other name is. A baron kind of took charge for the last couple of years. He has the most power right now. And he renamed the city because his last name is whatever. You know, just... Everyone's saying his last name was Pentograd or something. But it also could be into the rivers. He renamed the cities and no one calls it that. They just hate it. So everyone just says five rivers. Yeah, what came through my head when I just thought of it. I thought it would be interesting. It's what if it was called like two or three rivers, but there isn't any. There's no rivers whatsoever. And the reason he's... Well, either wishful thing or it's because there's magical streams that nobody can see. And it's got, you know, but it's everybody's like... There's not a river within a hundred miles of here. What is the water on this? Yeah. So anyways, it was just a thought. Well, I think what's happened also is that he has recently been kind of... Mustard out, you know, to the empire's eyes. He's... He's done. He's done. And so you served the elves? Yeah. Well, I'm not sure. I was trying to tell him. I was conscripting with the empire as a citizen. If you are an empire, that's up. But then actually, maybe that would make sense why he was kind of in that lower class of shock troops. You know, that you were kind of working for the elves as... The elves are your officers. Right. The campers are the fathers. And you're just, you know, you're the grunts and you're shock troops to fudge your own people. And he's kind of been disillusioned by that. And because the elves, that's why he still got a little bit of that warrior poet angle of him. What's left to him is his personal honor and obligations. What? Yeah. And his weapon and his armor and stuff. But for a human you're too old. Because do elves live long in this world? Sure. Okay. So, you know... Hey, how many elves are tied into magic? Can you treat you live in this world? Well, they're looking like a dog or a pet. Like, okay, your dog is ten years old. Oh geez, he's long in the tooth. And okay, we need... We need new dogs. So... But maybe you had a bond where, okay, you left. Well, one of my bonds... My bond to you is that you keep my secret. And we've been through things. I've got a bond here. I've sworn to protect X or part of my alignment is defend those weaker than you. It's probably work of an IAM and how I'm sworn to protect you. See, I've sworn to protect is easy. Because you can cash in on that and get an experience for it. Just by having a combat and throwing yourself in front of... Right? To protect his secret, it's a little harder to get an experience for that. So that's what I'm saying. Some of the bonds aren't perfect. Scott, what was yours again? My bond. That you picked to go with some of the... I just... I didn't even solidify 'cause I want to force Thomas into it. I have blanks misguided behavior in dangers that are very soul. Blank is stood by me in battle and can be trusted completely. And I respect the beliefs of blank, but hope that they will someday see the true way. And the last one is... See, I can't hear about that. I mean, seriously. I mean, I guess you could roll places. One of those things are cashable. Right. One of the options for claiming it done is the situation has changed. That is no longer irrelevant. If both characters agree that that situation is done with, you can mark XP for it. You can mark XP for it or you can get rid of it. You can start a new one. It doesn't have to resolve that he succeeded. Merely, they had a conversation about it and the character made his views plain. I'm just saying, I think some of the bonds could have been better. Yeah, I know that. Certainly. And good thing you don't have to stick to him because I hate mine. You can make up new ones. Who's next? We got... So far we've had... Mike, did you have... Mike, you did a little... Mike, Mike did his. Did you have a history? Zeb is a druid who... Kind of an anti-social guy. Doesn't live in the city. He was in the woods. A farmer, sort of. Not really, he just grows things wild and his hair looks like things. Braded hair looks like branches are in it sometimes. They look like branches. And the only reason he's here doesn't want to really have much to do with cities or anything is he's really young and he's got this girl. And her father wants her to marry this other guy who's got a little bit of money and I've dirt poor. And that's my excuse for dealing with the... I could be the father. Who's translation? I'm like in my mid 50s, so I could see myself having a daughter who's in their early 20s. Don't you so a little bit? Or so, and maybe... No. His father was a paladin too, so apparently that's not... There's probably been this particular branch. Maybe you offered to adventure with me to prove your metal. And I'm seeing how that works. And you can put it on, like I will do something that impresses or shows. What would I put? You used to see the light. What was your last? I just want a few gold pieces. Blank is a brave soul, I have much to learn from them. Yours could be the opposite. Yours could be the opposite. I respect the belief of what's... You showed me that he isn't worthy. But hope you all someday see the true way. No, I'm saying you don't have to stick to this. Right, I was going to do something with the daughter, maybe. I said the opposite, that every time he does something that proves he isn't right for your daughter, because nobody is, then you get... Well, I do want to see her married, because she's a burden on me and my wife. We're not rich by any stretch of imagination. We certainly... Yeah, we certainly didn't want her wrong. Go get married. Aren't you gone yet? Well, the women work, traditionally. Yeah, they do. It's in the middle ages. I'm sure. Yeah. When you have a son, they can work. They can work. Well, that's a decent. I mean, I think of the diary somewhat decent. I've got some coin from my adventuring days. So, I guess I could have two bonds. You didn't have any number of bonds? No, I meant one is he fails to impress me. And I do not grant him the hand of marriage to my daughter, and the other is he does. He does. Long term. See that, yeah, that seems long term. I would be sure to say... Oh, sure. Does something too? I will point out something that he did, which proves that he isn't worthy of. Why? Why am I negative? I don't want to be a mind game. My point of view is that's not long term, because I'm making it happen today. Okay, so... You could marry tomorrow. Yeah. Short term. Just say. You could have long term bonds as well, if that's going to help you with role playing and considering how your player makes choices. But you should still have ones that are shorter, where you can cash in. Well, somebody like Zeb has approached me about my daughter's hand in marriage. I want to see him prove his worth. Do they have to be a character? Decent enough? I can't be doing what you're trying to do. Or maybe this is the trout period, like this is where you're taking them out and spending time with them to kick the tires. Yeah, see if you're worth it. Jim asked a question if it has to be about a character and it does not. It could be a boss. You're just telling. You don't bond with a tear. You could have it. Yeah. Well, there's going to be somebody here that says the only way you take out a foe is to kill them or to beat them down. And every time I show them, that's not what you have to do. Look, I did it without killing them. Sure. What do your bonds could be? If I show the party that you don't need to kill to remove an enemy, one of them could be, I want to find out an interesting fact about the tear. Yeah, which is, I was thinking that too. Yeah. I mean, that would be a perfect. Instead of enemy, I would say obstacle. He's a charm person, but I mean, that would not serve the enemy, but a challenge. Anyway. Ryan, do you have your character? Background at all? Or just make some shit up. I got it. You're a half thing, all right? You're a half thing rogue. I was thinking I like poking fun at the Paladin and sort of being a thorn in his back when he tries to preach his Paladin ways. Okay. Probably a younger character. He spent a lot of time in prisons and being caught with steaming and larcinating. Very good society. I'm a feat. Just a very good one. In a human society, though? Maybe instead of that he's a bad thief, maybe he's got a routine where he gets caught on purpose so he can run information, messages, and numbers in and out of the... If you want your character to be a little more of like a second story man, you could work for one of the barons vying for power in the city. One of the higher ups in the city and you're part of the thing that you've got to go steal information. They've got to get espionage. They've got to get data. And every time you're throwing in the jail, your patron bails you out. I kind of like once I deal with him. Okay. Actually doing it on purpose to get information in there like he's, you know... Right. Okay. And he's going to keep me there long, but he works both sides of small... I could hook it up with him because I can't get into places to find information out, but he can't. Sure. In a bond you described, Ryan could be as simple as I want to make sing when looked foolish. A bond as simple as that. Like you just want to make him abutted one of your jokes. Hey, you got to tell him he laughed at him and then you get to get left at him. That's real. I don't know why Ryan has something to get you, Scott, but he just does. I kind of seem to look at the opposite of the... Yeah. Of the people. Not anything serious, just like foolish. Right. Right. It's just half though. Well, it could be full if you want. He was saying I was... I love that. And he's in love with my daughter, so I said my wife is... My wife is now enough. From the empire. You're right. Your wife is enough? Yeah. No, he is an elf. Why was he after my daughter from human? So I just made my wife a elf. So that she's maybe... Half-elf. Instead of saying half-elf, I always said that it was ridiculous. You've got half-and-half. You don't automatically be a perfect 50% blend of each is ridiculous. So my daughter is much more elven than she is human. By far. People died for parentage. Yes. I'm sure they didn't. It's quite the thorn in yourself. And my wife's... Not really, but... It is a word for it. Yeah. It hurts you. Right. That's a good one. Fertility? No. Fertility would be for me. Fertility. Okay. I got one bond here with somebody. I don't know much about the warps. Like... What are the warps? We haven't really designed the warps in this universe too much. Right. But we're done with Ryan. That's pretty much history. I mean, you have anything else you want to add? So why is he going into the prisons to get information in there? I don't think we ever... I think he's a contemporary man. Or he's a... He's a go-between. He's the one who... I mean, I'm just throwing it out there so you totally... If someone important gets arrested, I think you have information or help them. Well, you're probably bringing... You're probably smuggling in stuff through ways that only you as a halfling can know. Maybe you're... Maybe halflings are marsupials with little hidden pouches. I don't know. One of the descriptions is a flabby body. So maybe I can... You got one of your rolls. You got things tucked in your rolls. Pick up a flap. I don't know. I'm not rich yet now. Yeah. Is the cleric in your church? I don't know. I worship Helferth, the god of... The personal combat and bloody conquest of blood. The dwarven version. Uh... The same with the... Blood God. Right. Well, I'll have to put the different name for the blood God, because my name is Singleness. So we'll have to come up with something for it. But it could be the dwarven version. If you really want to tie us together. Sure. I mean, why not? His is more war and blood, because the dwarves are obviously a more barbaric race in general. Obviously. Obviously. I'm trying to... That is a sort of racist. We can expand him anyway. Right. Well, we said the elves are, you know, are the Empire. Maybe the dwarves and the humans are... In the elves' eyes, rabble. But the humans' eyes, the dwarves are still kind of a step down. I haven't heard of Fezia. Except for those of us who appreciate it. Not like two steps. Down from an elf. Right. Whatever. You don't think they're just the same. You do like being a victim of racism? You guys are long enough too. So... There's competition there. Yeah. For resources. Diarly dwarves. Diarly dwarves. Just die. Are there mountains that they live in, or are they just totally out of the blue... Yeah. They're brown and brown. They're brown and brown. Why not? Sounds wrong. Or... Well... Sewers. Maybe they'd make, like, two of us. Two of us. So maybe we're like gophers. We're trying to shoot. Spoke them like a Jewell. Yeah. You're born there, right? You're born there. You're born there. You're born there. Yeah. That doesn't sound weird at all. Thomas, you're a dwarf. Thomas, you're a dwarf. I'm a dwarf. Is anyone else not... Human? Is anybody else's non-human? Michael is. Michael is a noun. Thomas is a dwarf. Brian's a half-ling. And that's it. Everyone else is human. So Michael's off once the date of human- Oh, fuck. No, you weren't. You weren't. The Bart's human? I missed that. Yes. My wife is clearly an elf. His half-elfish. No. She's not half-thelfish. She gets almost all from her mother. She is almost a pure elf. You're almost a pure elf. She's not his daughter. When you look at her, she doesn't look half-elfish. You're a human. She's mine. She's definitely mine. I don't know if people want her. My intelligence is twelve. My wisdom is nine. What's your age? What's your negative form? Um, dexterity. So I'm not... I'm not thrilled with the bloodthirsty version of our God that you worshiped. Well, it's a desperate time. And our allies come from everywhere. Doesn't mean I don't like you as a person. It means I, or a dwarf. I don't like you, your version of our... You're just some old person. Our spirituality. So, maybe one of my bonds could be the fact that I want him to see the more enlightened version of whatever this blood God is. As opposed to the planet Warburg. Okay. To say that he sees that, I'd say it would be a very hard to achieve bond. Long term. I would say a short term would be something like "I want to show him" or "I want to..." So you could demonstrate one thing that shows him. And there could be a second time it says "I'm actually influenced." I don't have to reap the blood to worship the God blood. I want to show him, you know, the peaceful side of this God. So then... Let's go people's lives blood. So then you're not required to make him convert to get one living experience point right now. Alright, I think anyone not a good alignment here. We're trying to avoid that. I'm a long neutral. A darkness is about a drain on your psyche after week of... I think. I'm good. I think we were trying to do that to have a fun story where everyone actually got along once instead of being beset by demons. And the victory of the game is actually just surviving. I'm actually neutral though. My guy, I'm neutral. I think it's good to avoid conflict and defuse a tense situation. I still like the empire. I still like the empire. I'm trying to get away from their fight. He's not politically neutral. He is neutral and... Jim, what's a neutral wizard doing? I'm just trying to discover something about magical mystery, which is basically what he's doing. That's why I said it. I think dwarves are heavily polytheistic. They believe in a whole array of gods. And due to their living so long, one might... What's the word? A chief? No. Oh, the gods? No. Desiccate themselves. That's a goal. I think this long term. One might dedicate themselves to one of the gods for a really long time. I've got one experienced boy. Twenty years is something of their life. If they really, really wanted to become a priest of that god, they say, "Oh, it takes time off. I'm not going to mine. I'm not going to farm. I'm going to be a priest of... I think the name right now is... Help Earth. The god of bloody conquest. What's yours? I don't have a name yet, but I was kind of thinking it may be on the human side of thinking there's only one deity. We're monotheistic. The god of blood encompasses all of it. There's a lot of reasons. Wow. So the god of blood is your god? The god of... Well, not god, but a similar... Yeah, I know me. Our Christian belief of god in our world. Right. But it is the god. The god. There is one god. He's the god of blood. He's the life giver. He is all that there is. It is all that keeps us alive. Like some god. It is a blood god. It is a blood god. You're talking about god. Yeah. That's my god. Maybe. That's maybe... There's some bond there. I don't know what kind it is, but yeah. So, I'm sort of out there. The humans don't have to agree with that. I just want to... Well, all humans don't agree on any religion. So, your belief of your paladin is that it might be widespread in this world. It might be some weird little sack that lives just in your house. I don't know, but... What else? Are they all nation worshipers? Yeah, I don't know. They could be nature worshipers. They could have a polytheistic version. They could have... The earth mother is their one true god. And everyone else are spirits that revolve around her. How does magic fit into your... Oh, that's right. You're an elf. I was going to enforce something at you. All gods think that they're... Or elves think that they're a god. They are all the god. Together. Together we elves are god. I don't remember how they're waiting nor... But as an elf, doesn't it? Well, he's a druid. They believe in him. Weird shit anyway. Everything is part of god. Not only just the elf race, but the world. But the world! Even... Tell them other things. Ooh. Ooh, even dwarves. Nice. And dwarves disagree. There's a... It rocks and rats in the end. Everything is part of it. Everything is part of it. Everything is part of it. Celiology. She comes out of it. The dwarves of this shit. Celiology. No, that was a good one. And I've heard through the allergies since, I think... How much? I think philosophy 101. Teleology. The basic... Everything is part of it. Everything is a piece or a component of a greater machine. A machine in the philosophical sense, not any mechanical sense. Oh, what's the... To achieve a purpose? Oh. The answer. Like that. Before you could ask it. Well, it was an evident question, I believe. But apparently you do. I mean, I wasn't thinking the line of lines, but that's a good question. Yeah, well, so there's theism for the world, maybe. Definitely some fodder to create a situation, sure. Where does that put dwarves? So what do you think on the political spectrum? How many bonds are we supposed to have? Real quick, just in general. They suggest picking at least one of the ones that they list, but you can pick all of them. I would say two or three. Okay. Okay. I've got two. Drummond, I want you to see that this particular deity doesn't have to be... Well, it should. Yeah, it doesn't have to be about wanting. Wanting. What? Well. I'm not leaning through everyone. Give me the script. If I got it again, please. He is all for... The god of bloody conquest in personal victory. Bloody conquest. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. That's why I want you to help me. You give it? Take it away. I mean, it's... I'm the guy who's in charge of taking away. So come over here. I want to chop your knees off. Come on. Now, am I following your... Am I finding... To your bars? Because I feel like I owe you a life debt. So I'm kind of hanging around to try to save your life at least once or defend you or protect you. Oh, but not. Oh, okay. Well, wait a minute. You said you escaped, right? Yeah. He was in the army. Maybe he helped you escape. Like there was a time where it would have come down to you would have been caught and killed. And he did a distraction of something that kept him busy enough for you to actually get away safe. I already have a bond for something like that. In the beer? The V-I-R. Right off a cliff? Beer. Okay. Or a beer on your choice. The beer is worthy of my trust and that I'll try to repay... What? He owes it worthy of my trust. That I'll stick by him today. And I'm not really bound to the rest of this group, but if he gets involved with them, I'm helping him out. I'm a pal that can do a quest. Is that where we started out? Does someone else have something really cool that they can do to get us? Why we would all be together? Because right now I've got ties to the druid and the cleric. And if people can get some type of tenuous ties to these two, then if I have a quest, you want to prove your worth, you know, for the daughter. We're buddies and arms. You've been relocated to the city state. Yeah. Go ahead. I've got an idea based on that. Those are mostly, though independent. A lot of them decided to join the barbarians when they went about crazy magic, busting up whatever the fuck they're doing over there. So, I heard about the rift that had just opened and whatever the hell this town's name is was still happening. Yeah, it's been five rivers for yours and pending. Brendan Brad Brad. We don't really have a name. Maybe it has many names. I headed here of my own volition to check it out and then relay information back. But I discovered Jim, who was here, interacting with the terror. I want to convince him to open it up further and discover some more things to further the agenda of the barbarians over to the east. You have an idea? Yes. West, actually. West. I've got it backwards. That's right. You know what, they're east now. They're east now. I see them on the knee map. I just broke down. It's all good. It's all west in my head. Left. So, are you two kind of in hiding from the red books? I'm not in hiding. He did his stand to get out. I abandoned him. Yeah. And actually, I think you're the courage of your cowardice. You're the courage of your cowardice. I did my stint, but then I kind of got mustered out and, you know, there's not much for an old warrior in that society. So, you know, he needs gold for his retirement. I mean, he needs to support himself and so all he knows is soldering. But, at the same time, he still has that good core. Is there any reason why he needs good warriors? Yeah. Is there any reason that you would come to find him? I mean, if he... Yeah, because if he was the, like, the bugler and his company, that you were probably a bannerman as a bard. You were probably holding the banner. So, I probably know you from there. And I probably still feel in a spree decor to kind of protect the people I was with as a sergeant. So, I either know you or gravitate towards you. I still think that, whether you believe it or not, well, actually, that's not what I meant. We can't say that you, you, like, got out of the army and went looking for him. Because everybody's looking for him. How did you find him? It could have been that you were just wandering looking for adventure and you discovered him. Why would he be hiding for me, though? Why did they just go together? Well, he was mustard out and I granted that stuff about him. Yeah, but you're traveling to the same place. You find yourself in and you realize you have some history. You trust him because he seems like an honest sort. And you travel together for protection because if the red... Or he gets spicier. Or he gets spicier. Or he gets spicier. He got your first love. He can't be all that famous, you know? He got mustard out and was already started wandering. He desserts and on his running runs into him. And together they travel to this city. Right. And then my church perhaps or someone has a better idea. My church needs warriors. We are in a... It's a dangerous time. The barons are playing against each other. The empire is starting to turn its attention to us. It's a scary time. And the church being of the one God needs to... And it's really the one thing that goes through all of the city. You know, like all the barons that are human at least worship the same God. So, we're a force that actually tries to be apolitical although we're not. And there's a mission involved perhaps. So, I'm just talking now. You're going really strong to be petered out of the end. We couldn't focus the start on Jim's character. Because he's got a wizard who's interested in the rips and the tears. And this city has rivers of magic flowing through it. Where do these originate from? Pick the strongest river. Start tracing it backwards to find out where the original rib comes. That this vein of magic is flowing. Your character, Thomas, which would be drumming would be interested in this. Because that's the reason you came to town. It's going into unsafe territory. It's towards the barbarians. So, you're looking for... Will we increase it? Well, he's interested in finding out that, yes. But more about the rift and you are associated with Ryan's character. He's associated with those characters. So, we've got almost everybody tied in. If you're going on a mission or a journey that you think is dangerous, you'd want to have as many people go with you as possible. So, you've got the motivation. He's got a motivation to tag along to try to find out what's going on. That's at least two of you. And I told you about the Paladin. Because we are buddies in phrase. And he told to. How about the rift that opened here recently wasn't intentionally opened here by anyone. And they figured out it is an after effect from a rift that happens somewhere around here that nobody knows about, so they want us to go find where this is at. Church has got to be interested in what's going on. What's your church about it? That's right. I can't imagine the monotheistic religion and the most important one in this city, especially crossing this view. From the human perspective, excuse me. From the Paladin's perspective. Yes. That they wouldn't be interested in knowing more. But if this rift is recent, if it's ancient then wouldn't have been investigated already. I say it's recent. It's a recent happening in the city that is caused by something outside the city and they don't know where or why because there shouldn't be anything close by that could have caused it to happen. Okay. Church wants to know. Ryan is definitely involved with the church. He's at least like Mike Ver and John's done with the involved somehow. We need him for muscle. The church. Any warriors coming from the empire into the city state? Again, the church in the city, I see it as being a somewhat powerful entity that tries to be apolitical but can't be. But whatever his term is that rules the church of Asensia, which is the God I'm going to go with from the human perspective, the human version of Asensia is- But your God is God. Yeah. But it has a name. Okay. Can I be related to John's character? He came here because- You're both human, right? Yeah, sure. You get John, but- Brother, uncle, whatever, cousin, so from the mill. The church definitely needs as much able-bodied people as possible. They're dealing with Baron's intrigue and a city that doesn't have one true ruler. It's a city divided. We need as much manpower as we can get. So when he came as a former warrior, maybe he- I don't want to speak for Mike's character, but maybe someone who had known his own limitations, known that his time was up with the elves. Maybe he wants to do something good again, wants to get involved in something bigger than himself. And that would be the church this time, as opposed to- Yeah, Jim has an idea that I could tie it in as well. Okay, sure. I was just thinking that maybe we could be related somehow. If you're on the run, you go- Brother, cousin, uncle, I'm on uncle, you're on uncle, his, a friend, cousin, whatever. And you're on the run and you came here because you knew I was here and I can- He's a wizard and you're a bardic and you both do magic. So maybe it's- Possibly magic. Because we had this- Especially before, yeah. Oh. But I wasn't a bard, so did the- Sure. Jim, you might be a citizen of the Empire then. I'm a second-class citizen of the Empire and I escaped here. Well, it's possible- I think Jim lives in the community. You're both human, so- Right. It's possible at one point the Empire grew up from the place that you originally lived in, and you're part of the family stayed behind, but it- The wizard's a- Yeah, it's feasible. I was just wondering if he was or not. Right. Brothers are a very close tie. I don't know if you want to be that closely tied to Jim's character, or you prefer cousins, or you- Cousin just makes it seem like I could be from over there and he's over here. Okay. Just fine to me. Are you native to this town of whatever the fuck? Um, no, no, I- The town of many names? No. No, I just came here because of the news about the rift and came to figure out what the hell's going on. And you've been living here a couple years already? Doing some basic research and now finding your first real lead? How about a couple months? Okay. Sure. And your name? Jared. Jared. I can help keep you down the down low by like turning invisible into stuff too. Uh, anyone we haven't handed it? Anyone who feels they need to expand their character? I've got two bands, I'm fine. Let's go. I've got three. I have none. Shame. Mike. Mike. Jared. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. This is also confusing for fans at all. Are you conscripted as well? I guess you could call it conscripted and I was kind of born into it. I was in a warrior class that the elves, I'm like a second class citizen and in humans or a second, I'm imagining or a second class citizen in the elven empire and I grew up. Are you, I was bred into the military, you know, almost straight in. It's not that you were living in a place that was taken over and you were conscripted and taught at a very young age. Born and raised. Or what it sounded like you wanted. Yeah. That's ironic. Making another suggestion. I mean, I think I don't think that I have any particular love for the empire because you weren't, but you did find honor and camaraderie in the service. I imagine they treat their army relatively well. Most successful. Compared to the actual slave citizens who were there then. Okay. Yeah, it's fighting failings. Just wondering given that you use a spear would be a good flavor. I was thinking about that. That's, you know. Can you start with a shield? Yes, in fact I do. Is it an option on top of the armor? Shield and armor. I have scale armor and a shield. Sweet. Okay. So we definitely need to get bonds for Mike. Okay. And Mike. Mike lives zero. Also you have one. I'm sorry. It is one with Scott. Well, Ryan, you have one with me? Done, Mike. I find a black chair knows incriminating details about me. I'm assuming that's with the chair. I don't like slavery at all. So you're not a citizen of the empire anyway? No. You know, my bonds here say that I have sworn to protect X. Again, those, you don't have to choose. No, but that's a starting point. He likes it. He likes it. I'm worried about it. Your closest relationship to anybody here is with John's character. Right. So there's got to be a bond between them either. You still feel the need to protect him or. No, he always in my life. I think I own one. So that's one right there. It's a bond. He believes it or not or whatever. I owe each other. I believe that. So you could take that bond that you mentioned and just put it down as John's character, which is Dunwick. He could have multiple bonds with Dunwick. He feels it. Yes. He could say I must protect Dunwick. Yeah, I'm doing that too because I have a problem with the conscription and all that. Now you have a. He feels Dunwick's work. Okay. I have like, keep Dunwick's safe from the reds or whatever. Dude, nobody can touch you. Yes. You are the safest bar than ever. But I don't even trust his own. I'm your party. I have to save your ass. And maybe he has all sorts of stuff. Like with Sketch here, Sketch has got my mark. Which means that he either did something or helped me or helped me out here, Ryan. That you, however, because we're kind of. If you're holding a chip and you can call, he owes you a favor? Well, yeah. You almost have like a get out of jail free card with me for something. When you first came to town there was some possibility that Dunwick was going to get in trouble because he's a man on the run. Right. And there are patrols that come through. And a guy who knew the cities and the streets and everything. And maybe someplace to hide just as the patrol went by would be Ryan's character of. Sketch. Right. Right. Sketch. So he sheltered you guys long enough for the patrol to go by and so you kind of owe him one. So I owe Sketch a solid. Yeah. Yeah. And I hope you don't call it in on something that I call here, kill this motherfucker. I hope it's not that because that would be bad, but. Is that a good short-term bond for you? Is that something that's more? Yeah. It's Ryan on someone else, but that's okay. But then it's also, I have to make good eyes or. Yeah. It's something they can also recur. Right. Where's the people looking for Dunwick? The red shirts. The red cloaks. The red cloaks. The pink star. The red cloaks. The red cloaks. The red cloaks. The red cloaks. They're a trained elf. They're a ranger sub-class. They're elven marshals who hunt down fugitives. And that's what marshals are. They even go after fugitives. He's not really a high priority. Well, all deseratives are the highest priority. Yeah. So the red cloaks. Or coats. What's their job? Shirts. But we still need a name, but that's not important for the city. So we might finalize the character development as well as we can. Okay. And then we'll jump right into an adventure next time. It's very cool. I would say it's very good. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Nights of the Night at 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 podcast or business, please visit ZenaudioSmith.com. And please join this next episode for more mystery and adventure. I want to free Leatherman. That's not what I thought I heard you say. I want to free Leatherman is what I heard you say. Why are you doing things like that? I don't know. I'm like, what the fuck? Why are you serving against so many Leathermans? I want to free Leatherman. I want to free Leatherman. I have to dance. I have to dance. So thank you everybody for your submissions. Mike, stop dancing. Is it a dagger? It isn't. Oh, you know what? If that had been an option, I would have taken that. No, it was a second. Wait, wait, wait. Is it a Leatherman? I want to free Leatherman. I want to free Leatherman. Maybe it's all part of the stuff. What the fuck? Oh, yeah. I'm not going to turn that down. What's your phone that's gone, Jim? We didn't ever play World of Darkness. There's no more to shit than so. I did my stint, but then I kind of got mustered out and, you know, there's not much for an old warrior in that society. So I'm kind of... Do you relish the thought? I need gold for my retirement. Did you have to catch up? Oh, my God. You said you were mustered out, sorry. Seriously? I spread that shit from him. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. There you are. I had to go in the other room and do, like, three or four of them. I had to get a micro system. Cleaning up. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. This is quite a trickle. Really? What a hell. Come on. Don't worry about it. Get him in. He needs gold for his retirement. I mean, he needs gold for his retirement.