[music] Hello, and welcome to Knights of the Night Actual Play podcast. This World of Darkness story, Shagrind, was written and run by your story color, Scott. [music] And now, please enjoy Episode 106, titled, "Sent of Fear." [music] Alright, before we get started with the episode, we have a lot of feedback. Thank you, everyone, for sending it in, by the way. First of all, I'd like to apologize to all of our fans for my voice. It's a little bit of a suppression today. Rough week at work, not much later. We should also buy the episode as late, so sorry for that as well. But as far as feedback goes, the first bit is from our KOTN Podcast.com blog site. It was on Episode 105, but it really didn't have much to do with that from Baths, bruv. Ooh, the Egyptian god, I believe. Yeah, it was overcast. We've said I had been hoping Sister Kitty's backstory would be revealed at some point. The post on Facebook last week was fantastic. I would be interested if more of the PC's backstories were written up. This Episode 105 had a great flow to it. I'm eagerly anticipating the next one. Thanks for the consistent podcasting excellence. Thank you very much for the compliments and being the storytellers. Not so much I could do about PC backgrounds, but I'll put that near-player hands. I kind of left mine vague so that you could do that. I don't mind. And I think you could fit it easier in the story if I left it vague. But Michael Clay can write his name. Oh sure. Michael Clay has got a whole journal, journals, and... And you do like to write? You write some very good stuff? Yeah, so Michael Clay is going to open up his early diaries of the early days and... Okay, archaeological. Well, I'm sure that would be great to get some more out there. You know, John, as much as I appreciate the thought of writing your backstory. I said that I don't want you to have as much control over your character as you want. So I almost don't want to write the backstory because, from my perspective, because I'm trying to open up World Darkness more to be at least similar to the fate system in the sense that you have a lot of control over your character. Obviously, sometimes you're going to have a bad die role and there's no taking it back in the system. But that doesn't mean I should trample all over your backstory. I mean, if you've got some key points that you want to put out there, it's like Jim wrote an exhaustive thing where every single page of his life or her life was described. So there's more... I could plug in more than enough stuff. So if players want to... Since he does come from a Valkyrie background, there is potentially relationships that you would like to employ that he might... Absolutely. Those might be the areas where you leave a blank and a blank. But as this story went on, some of your backstory was fleshed out as well and I'm sure people would enjoy hearing about Jay's exploits both before and after his war duty. Yes, that's a possibility, but time constraints lightly have a little bit as much as well as... If I'm not editing, I'm seriously trying to get back into Dresden. The latest book has come out with Dresden's cold days and I've been reading it and that stuff's so far. I'm sure RNG. That's why I just saw the cover and I'm like, "Hmm, I wish I could retool the award in a bit and make it a little more balanced." And you can. If you need help with that, I'm fine. I know a lot about the characterization. If you need some help with this stuff. You always know the system quite well. I think it goes, too, without saying that Jim's not here tonight, but we appreciate Jim taking the time to write that. So that best breath could comment and tell other people, you know, it's kind of broken to the fore of, "Hey, we'd like to hear more about these guys before they became Task Four Cyber." We had some additional feedback from rpgcrosstalk.webs.com. This was in reference to episode 104 and it was from, "I've been practicing this, so it'll be much better." Mad Mjolnir. That was nice. Yeah, thank you. I was thinking of actually going to dictionary.com and getting how they say it and just cutting it in there and not fooling it anymore. Why don't I just get some, lift some audio from Skyrim and the Nord's just talking. And he says, "First, thanks for answering my in-name feedback in your roundtable discussion." Secondly, good to see that you're all okay post-Sandy, which was of course the, uh, Hurricane that slammed into the East Coast and we got a lot of wind and rain from that, but nothing too bad compared to New York. And he goes on, "I was generally worried that something had befallen a lot of you, given the lack of podcasts." We were a little late that time. Historically, us Aussies have taken the brunt of cyclones, but over the last couple of years you yanked Sir, giving us a run for our money. I had images of Scott's basement flooded with character sheets floating for looking like I had to see. Thirdly, to answer your question, why do we listen? The story, the characters, and the quality in that order. As a personal preference though, I found the Dresden character is much more interesting than the Dresden story. But the world of darkness is more interesting than the world of darkness characters. But I think this was only because the roster changes throughout the world of darkness story, and the Dresden story allowed the characters room to shine. Fourthly, I am in agreement with Scott that Dresden's social combat is superior to world of darknesses in general. Rules as written, most social combat is a single opposed role, not overly dramatic for some situations. My approach going forward after playing back some of the key social combat from Dresden is that I intend to introduce a new stat in my world of darkness campaign. Social health. It will be witch plus resolve plus willpower mimicking the actual health stat. Opposed role, extra dice can be awarded for things like a PA system, the weight of a mob behind you, or having an absolute brilliant comeback. Once it's exhausted, you are taken out socially, and while you could retaliate physically, you will be at a negative. And finally, I must also take Mach Umbridge with Scott. Not only was I going to use the song "Hurt" as the opening to the next season of my group's World of Darkness podcast, albeit the Johnny Cash version, but I too was going to attack the season non-linearly. Linearly. Linearly. Linearly. Linearly. Wow. Linearly. Yes. Linearly. Not linearlyly. Linearly. Linearly. Linearly. More linear. Did I mention I ain't worked really. A lot of hours this week. Sweet. But a lot. Yeah, just hand it over to someone else. I'm swinging me in all head. However, I was going to start in the wreckage left at the end of the session. On the first, I have a backup that probably better suits the mood anyways, thinking about it. And on the second, I remember how badly diverted the Dresden ending at the start of the run compared to when they actually got there, and we'll probably go back to the drawing board on that one anyways. My group are almost clinically enabled to take the planned route. Keep it up. Happy hunting. A little bit where the crazy lady is coming down the hill on an old bike. You can only get creepier from here. Wow. Well, thanks for that post, Mad Mulener. That was very impressive. And I apologize for obviously stealing its thunder with the song. Although the Johnny Cash version is a really strong version too. I weighed which version I wanted to go with, but I decided in the end that I thought the Nine Inch Nails version was a bit rougher and fit-hunter just a little bit more. We're in Cleveland. Yeah. And I'm sorry, but this is where rock and roll was born. It's rock capital of the world, not the country capital of the world. Although, again, Johnny Cash really does a great job of it. But Nine Inch Nails isn't rock, is that what you're rolling your eyes for? No, just the Cleveland spam, the context, and therefore won the whole rock and roll. The actual phrase was originated here by one of our DJs. Which I don't know. I mean, I understand it. Rock and roll. A tip to scales, man. I love the concept of the social health. It made me think of, I'm trying to think of some movies or cinematic scenes where a character or a person was socially defeated. Or just trying to think of... Oh, they exist. Yeah. I mean, I just as an example of when you don't have a good comeback or if you either horribly fail or dramatically succeed. I would say almost every pirate movie ever written, where Verbal banter is going on back and forth and you're trying to fluster your... During the duel. During the duel. Right. Could be an example. Well, it sounds like it's a neat concept. I like the idea. The usual combats were very interesting in both of the styles of the game. And that's kind of what I wanted to riff off of actually. Like, the point being, there's a lot of good social combats out there, whether it be the mirrors version or the dance macabre, which is a vampire supplement book. Or making up your own. Like, Mad Mulener did. So I think a lot of people would like to see social combat in more than just one roll of dice and that was it. I certainly took that from Dresden myself, which just goes to show you. It's a great idea to play other systems because you really can learn that, wow, World Darkness does some things really good, but social combat really wasn't one of them unless you looked one of the tweaks, one of the toolboxes to tweak it up a little bit. I'm seriously looking at Dungeon World. Dragon World. Let's do Dragon Age. You think of it? We did try Dragon Age. Dungeon World was a Kickstarter in which I'll be getting the physical book, but I've had the PDF for a while that I've been reading and I kind of like it. It's back to fantasy, dungeon crawl, but it takes an entirely different spin on it as far as... I'm reading Dragon Age right now. No. Yes. Dragon Age is good too and it is different, but just talking about trying new systems. I might like to try to sneak that in there just for a couple of weeks. Just to kick cars and try it, but I know that a few of you like to return to the characters of old, like Dresden or the World of Darkness characters just to get a longer storyline going. You can try it at home. Yeah. You can try it at home as well. Was it Mad Mjolnik? He mentioned he rated Dresden characters above story and World of Darkness story above characters. He enjoyed it. From his point of view, I mean I'm not saying that's better than that. I just wanted to mention that I think that's mostly because in Dresden, the characters make the story. The characters are the most important thing and then the story is made from them and World of Darkness, which is not worse in this factor, I'm just saying, the story and the characters are who the characters are. The story is made before it. The system definitely lends into that and I think he's right in the sense of both those systems. Definitely do your aspects, which are descriptions of your character, become a vital and important key in how you play the game, but it's also how the GM is supposed to make the stories. So I agree with his statement and I agree with your description of it, Thomas. That's very true. Well, that was very, when I say long post by Mad Mjolnik, I don't mean that in a negative way at all. It just brought a lot of really good things. And then we will go on to Facebook, which we had a lot of feedback from there. Episode 105, our friend said that was a tight episode and somewhat troublesome, but in a positive way. Or can one say that? One can. You just did. Maybe more on that later though, no spoilers. Top decisions were and will be called from the team, I'd wager. Gun fire effects caught me totally off guard and actually I flinched in my car tight, very tight and well played. P.S., Happy Thanksgiving crew, which we thank you, Ari. We just asked Thanksgiving last week, which also contributed to not getting an episode. I just got one out before Thanksgiving and it was a long weekend of much happiness and joy. Both Scott and myself had a daughter with a birthday. That was a good Thanksgiving. Yeah. Had a great time. Ari did continue his post and said, "Getting back to the positive way coming above. I used to be a really nasty GM, throwing the ugliest things at the players, but now with age and kids, my attitude has changed." It comes to veils and limits. What to bring to the game in the first place, what to do to things, and when to fade out of a scene. The gun fight happened somewhere on the farm and the discussion of possible fighting parties was a good example of the above. Possibly a very ugly thing, but well veiled and faded out for now. We'll see about the results later, surely. Yes, time I'm getting old too. Next episode just around the corner, surely. Well, he was a little wrong on that. Sorry, Ari. A few days late. I have just had time to listen to the feedback section and thought I'd drop a quick word about the other podcasts and the role issues I mentioned. I agree with you that if researching a role might bog the game down too much, then as you noted, make a quick decision and research it later for the next time. In this case, however, the decision had impact on the outcome and the players knew the role that was called for in this action, had the role book in their hand, already had checked it out when the GM called no, that is what I mean by GM fiat. That is pretty harsh. That's pretty harsh. A good rule I've heard before is say yes or roll the dice. The rules are there in my opinion to make things fair all around, taking away possible abuses and whatnot. And of course, there are games that are rules light and those that are rules heavy. In this example, it was a traditional variety. So the rules were a major player in the outcome, not the story, which is sad. But as I've already noted, we often find ourselves balancing on the edge of story and rules, and we just have to roll with it as we can. And now I'm going to enjoy some first contact read with Tom's voice. Wait, you actually might be this just it first, yes, public apology to Tom for bothering him with a trivial question on Sunday morning, seven a.m. The internet has made a small world and he has he sent me a message and I happen to be up. And so I responded to it and he's like, Oh my God, the time difference. I didn't think about it. Sorry about it. I was like, I was up. Otherwise I wouldn't have responded. You're continued. First contact is done. Your production value keeps getting better and better and the wind was eerie and that bicycle pure creepiness. Excellent work. Oh, and those flashbacks, thumbs on. Well, they are. Well, they are. Well, they are for the feedback. Yes. Absolutely. And I was particularly proud of that episode. I thought it was it was a good editing job. Not only had great content from Scott running the story, but. And the players. Yeah. It just was one of our better episodes, I thought you generally lose something moving from the immediate table to the internet, but I mean, it was actually spooky when we were there without sound effects or anything. I think you did that rather well, because that's one of the few I actually listened to. Yeah, I had fun with that one. Enjoy it. So anyways, Anthony Ertmer on Facebook said, I agree with Ari. The bicycles were very creepy and when the forest went quiet, I became scared for silent. Great work as always. Thank you, Anthony. I appreciate that. Like I said, I'd be creeped. Yeah. With Ari, that was probably the most fun I had producing an episode in a while. I enjoyed that one. Episode 102. Matt Tim. This is our friend returning from his absence to the podcast. He was not a huge fan of Dresden. He was waiting for the World of Darkness to come back and it has. And he said, I finally got around to listening to this today. I loved it. I found the office space reference particularly funny. I think it was Bob. I also liked the intro song. As always, top-notch material, awesome editing, and now I'm moving on to the next episode. Thank you, Matt. Good to have you back. Great to have you back. Yeah. We're moving backwards in time as episode 101, Taylor McClure said, I just got done re-listening to the roundtable discussion and I have the following thoughts regarding Scott's concern that it's too easy to get anything you want by blowing away fake points on it. I noticed that throughout the campaign, the group seems to consistently accept rather broad interpretations of aspects. For example, I distinctly recall London tagging his "but I'm London" aspect multiple times. What I want it is where its appropriateness seemed dubious, perhaps a grim policy of sticking to a stricter interpretation of the aspects for the purpose of tagging might "moleate" this problem. Good use of the word "moleate". As opposed to "immolate" which would really take your problem. Is this ameliorate? Ameliorate. That's true. It's not good pronunciation by Tom, but yes, again, I'm tired. Taylor, we actually discussed this and I think it's even a rule in Dresden that says if the rest of the players go, "Oh, come on", which I think everybody's on a little bit. Well, we were kind of new to the system, so I was going to say we're on sure ground and how it should work. I think it was in the roundtable that we lost. The one that got deleted, we talked about some questions and we all talked about that. You know what? Maybe it could be more difficult. So Taylor, I think, is right in the wheelhouse there of the first time playing your own story. You were probably, in the first time, really running a real serious story in Dresden. I ran for the kids earlier, which included Tom and John, but also my youngest son Mark and my daughter. And it's a lot easier to wrangle younger, especially your kids. Yeah. They're not going to call it bullshit on me, I'm their dad. Right. Go to your room. So the first was just to kick the tiresight thing, that episode of delivery was the first full blown. But still, that was your first full blown with some older players too. Yeah, I didn't mention the first time I GM'd probably in, what, 20 years? Yeah, to the big group, yeah, at the big table, which is good to see you back. Taylor McClure also posted, "I can recommend a burning wheel. It's certainly a challenging system, but it's very rewarding. If you can buy into the idea that failure and hardship can be fun, then you should definitely give it a shot. Among other things, burning wheeled advanced system forces characters to take risks, because you never learn anything if you don't push yourself beyond your limits." Wouldn't have we encountered anything other than failure and hardship? Yeah, it's true. So you were perfect for this. Additionally, the system lends itself very well to improvisational player driven stories. And while the rules can often seem daunting at first, yes they can, they are organizing to a simple and elegant core rules, the hug, and a set of modular systems that can be plugged in as needed, the rim of the wheel. And I'm currently working on some notes and commentary on the rules for my players, where I'd still some of the advice that I've gleaned both from running the game system and from reading the official forums on the burningwheel.org/forms, and I'd be happy to share them with you guys if you're interested. To that I say, hell yes. I'm interested. Taylor, I would definitely read that, as well as John Wood. I read a portion of the burning wheel, a couple of the burning systems. I really like that system, but it is daunting. In truth, so I was drowsing when it first came up. He was drowsing and I learned that failure can be fun though. Right, right. I really love to give burning wheel a try at some time because I think it would fit this group really well. It do. Go for it. But. Is it a fantasy set? It is. It can be anything. But it is primarily fantasy. And further back in the way back machine, we go to the episode 82. Which is delivery disagreement. Which one? This was the one that the game. It was the whole story. And this is during Dresden, and this is the game gets back together and has a meal at the armies in Coventry. But are they really back together or are they about to split apart? Oh my god. How do I have a common theme in all of these disagreements? Taylor McClure, again, said, so I've been re-listening to delivery. And while I initially voted for London in the favorite character poll, I gotta say that this time around, the character that I've been enjoying the most is Maxwell. And this is the episode that really sold me on him. So there you go, Maxwell. You get a shout out for your role playing. We had one post, and this was from Ephraim who said, "Great to have the task force back in action. I have missed this podcast since the days of Vitamin B and Side Street Billy. One of the best actual play podcasts out there, and a great way to spread the gospel of Hunter the Vigil. Good job, guys. I really like how you started up the news story, jumping right into the thick of things. I think this type of storytelling has been done really well in your story so far. And I think the way both the tense action together with the flashbacks make for a really good story. I'm looking forward to following your story, Shugren. What we appreciate the feedback from Ephraim. I didn't say that one of the reasons it might reply to him on the boards, one of the reasons I chose to start in the middle was because I wanted the players to feel what their characters might be in the middle of a wilderness, kind of uncertain and not knowing what was going to happen. I think it kind of set everyone off on edge a bit, and that's part of it. And then also, the things that happened to Danny to get him to move out to this compound or bunker or farmstead in the hinterlands of the city. I think it happened so long ago, a decade ago, that it just lends itself well to flashbacks because a lot of things that are happening happen a long time ago. So although even though your character sometimes would be in flashbacks just a couple weeks or months back, I just thought the convention lent itself well to the story. It also left us a little bit off-balance as players because we didn't know what was going on. You know, we were just thrown right at you in the new guys. Right into the middle of it with no idea, and it gave an uncertainty in that, I would think, would be a good conveyance of the actual situation the characters were in. Right. Unknown and confused. Because we know so much at the table, metagaming wise, you know, where it's, again, in this kind of game, it's really hard to, I don't really try to create fear because it's almost impossible to scare someone at the table, but to make them uneasy or to creep them out a little bit. Right. The best you can possibly hope for, I think, you know, and... And I saw you mention something about asking if you gave Dresden a try. I did. Asking that. Yeah, we've got some fans who like World of Darkness, and we'll wander off when Dresden comes up. And I think we have the same with Dresden. Dresden added a lot of listeners to us, and I know that World of Darkness did as well. We are not going to stick with one system, it's just not going to happen. We're going to switch back and forth. We enjoy it. We will probably add others into the mix. I know, new one there. I'd like to try. I just mentioned Burning Wheel, I'd like to try Dungeon World as well. But I don't know if we're going to go into these long, lengthy campaigns, which each one of those, we might just try a little hit skip where we play two or three weeks, and then move... Yeah, like a little story, a little vignette out, try it out, and then move back to what we're comfortable with until that time, and then something else comes up the ground. Yeah, there are others out there that do one shots, and they try all kind of different systems. That's not us. Yeah. And we, like I said, we've had... Self-characters. Absolutely. It's a big part of what everyone here enjoys around the table. An important aspect of what people enjoy, yeah? Yeah. All right. So, just about wraps up our feedback, we've got one more. This is from Kel Ordo, and this is from our feedback@potnpodcast.com email. He says, "Kel Ordo here." I was very happy to hear my comments, Eric, and thank you for honoring what I do. I do it probably. Episode 104 and 105 had me ranting to the wife about the groups over the group's contact response, small unit tactics, and field medicine for your information, you cannot turn a kid at a chest or a shoulder wound. LOL. Yeah, which I was actually joking about, you know, it's shot in the head where I'm going to put a tourniquet on it. I could go on, but personally, I like it. I think this is the first time the group has been in the firefight, and it shows. She has a lot of work ahead of him, and this group has to continue to deal with the Valkyrie fire team. I came to a sniper fight with a knife. Yes, I do. Also, if you do continue to get into firefights, I recommend that the group get a collection of small SMGs. I know it kind of seems like overkill, but the extra firepower can make a big difference in close-quarter battles. H&K has a short barrel, an MP5 that hides quite nicely in a jacket. I was going to say MP Fitness. Yeah, he's our tech expert. Thanks. Thanks, sort of. He's like an unofficial member of the sports balcony. Yeah, I think he is. Like for the movies, when they bring in the military guys, he's our cue, he's our weapons guy here. Well, in this case, the movie "Toughman" are really all just very delicate flowers that wouldn't survive a paper cut, let alone a firefight. Tom, with the way you use J, I would recommend an M4 carbine. It's small, and you can mount down any kind of optics. By all means, keep the PSG1 for when you want to ambush somebody or observe like you did in the first story. But for clandestine apps like Y'all are running, Y'all are running means a rapid changing environment. Being able to go from Overwatch into the woods to mixing it up indoors can save plans, times and lights when it counts. Anyways, that's my two cents, and if you need World of Darkness stats for any of this stuff, please ask. I can't wait for more, but I guess I'll have to. Take care. Roll well. Yeah. Y'all should come up with a task force device for military patches, but that's just my two cents. Hmm. Oh, no, I have to invent our own swag. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, we do need a logo. So, is Calordo, I can even say his name, Calordo. He's actually becoming our first kind of like techie fan, where he's actually challenging us on which we're going to, he's going to win. Well, absolutely. We've all the time. I'm sorry, but I'm apparently carrying a turded weapon. Sure. We learned everything from books, TV, and movies, and you're saying that we're inaccurate? How dare you say it. I'm going to possibly be. Anyways, that's the end of the feedback. I'd like to thank everybody that used the Amazon link. We got the pay for this month, which is the first time ever. Yay. Yippee. Thanks. Anything extra, we'll go to next month because I'm sure it'll drop off, but Christmas is coming. The votes are out there on the site as well. Who's leading? Apparently it is tied between the two and Jay. Everybody else has a vote. I think the second place, well, third place would be Sister Katie, who has the. You want a backstory, all right? Well, he wrote the backstory. Oh, that's right. That's right. He wrote his extra credit report, so he gets a little extra credit for it. But with that, we thank everybody and we will now go on to, you know, wait a minute. We won't go into the episode. We will stop for a moment because I want to ask people, from the listeners, I'd like to hear, do you want the feedback move to a separate episode? So we had this discussion before. I don't mind putting it in the episode, along with the actual, because I haven't complained recently. No, but we're getting more feedback and they're getting lengthier and they're taking half the episode and I don't want to get too crazy. Well, why don't you? So do we release it as a separate episode? Do people want that? Are they? Well, I'm still included in this episode. We give the point where you go forward too, so it isn't really affecting people. It isn't. So I'd like to hear from the listeners on what they think, but for now we're going to keep it in there and now we will go on to the episode. This is the World of Darkness story chagrin, part of the Vanishing City Chronicle. I'm Scott, your storyteller, and to my right is… I am Jim Plain, sister, Katie O'Connor, non-crazy driver and escar enthusiast. All right. We raise the stones. We raise the stones. The wheels, pistols. Stushy and polypences. In which you have it. About playing FBI Special Agent Chew Park, member of the Vescue conspiracy. I'm playing Jay Alton, member of the ascending one. Mike, playing Michael Clay, the academic adventurer of the Aegis Kaidor. Thomas, playing Edgar Montes, a voodoo practitioner from the lay mysterious conspiracies. John, playing Daniel Morgan, mountain man turned mercenary of the test course, Walker. Jenny Matt, you had to preserve Desi for a while until the sister could work her magic. Yes. I had three turns to do that. I waited one to scope the area in case someone needed to be shot to see. You think she has ten seconds left to live? You went to the top of the hill and did an investigation across the scene to see what was going on? That was three seconds right there. So, as I understand the map currently, we've got, on the top of the hill is Jay. At the bottom of the hill is sister Katie, who is cradling the dying and moaning Desi right in her arms as she expires. To the south of the path, or to the left, as you're looking towards the farm's dead, we have, I believe, Edgard still in some heavy cover. You've kind of moved along the perimeter trying to- I was getting ready to move forward. Right, but hadn't yet. But hadn't yet. As I understood it. Edgard is hiding in the woods, as is Michael, as is Chiu. All of you are on the south side of the road. I believe unless I'm missing someone who was on the north side of the road, then I'm unaware of. Katie, can you make a width plus composure roll, please? Do I know why I'm rolling this or not? No, you do not. Five seconds. Five seconds. Good enough. Three. Successes. Edgard, what is your current emotional state? How would you describe it? We just got fired upon, right? Got it in the roll. Yeah, she came down, got shot, certainly shots were ringing out. I believe Daniel got up in return fire, a volley of fire, when you step into the clearing, or at least out of the woods. All the crickets and birds and all the night creatures, you completely stop making noise. So that's kind of the general feeling right now. What do you think your character is experiencing? Just before he answers, we did go through a ritual of voice-trans- That's a great reminder. System-wise, I mean our old lack of composure, and I believe it's exceeded. But otherwise, I mean my character's not military, he's getting shot at, people are shooting back and everything just went super naturally quiet. If not panicked due to the- Calm voice of your voice, probably at least in your own own time. Okay. I'm nervous. I'm nervous. Definitely. Are you in the zone? Not worried at all. Kind of in combat mode, or what's your character's thoughts? No, he's seeking to save some people. He made some shots, and he knows there's going to be trouble down there because people are dying. What would you say his overriding emotion is right now? Urgency. Urgency. Excellent. What's true feeling right now is he waits in self-preservation. Self-preservation? How is that manifesting itself? Is it fear? Is it like my fucking job to scream? Yeah. Which was the first story as well. We'll eventually get, by the way, to choose job description, but right now I know these are not your- Right. Well, we're getting shot at- We're not stressing serial killers. I mean, I have been shot at before, but you know, there are some strange things going on, and I do hear cries for help, so I guess it's definitely an adrenaline rush right now. A little bit of nervousness, caution, definitely cautious. That's why I'm prone. Something behind the hillock. Got it. Trying to get a view of what's going on with my camera, so trying to observe, see what's going on, but- Great. Um, Michael? Well, I've been shot at before, too, but right now I'm confused and scared and probably feeling vulnerable because I don't have a weapon that can match the range of anything that's being used against us. I'm nowhere near able to help medically, or I do have some medical skill, but I'm nowhere near where the woman is, so I'm kind of just falling back on- Or the screaming innocence. Yeah, and I'm not a fan of that, but I'm- I'm a big fan of screaming innocence. Well, I'm also falling back on trying to be disciplined and waiting for orders from my boss. Okay. Katie, how would you describe your character's disposition right now? Right now she's just concerned for the life of the girl that she's trying to save right now, and that's it. I mean- How would you describe that concern? Is she anguished? Is she, like, oh my gosh, is this innocent person dying? Oh, she's just worried she's going to die, isn't it? Right, okay. Let's go. And Jay. We're out of combat situation. And he's a combat veteran. Great. So, now it's concerned about the squad making sure everybody's doing everything right so that we get- I can't get things done without getting hurt. Focus. Everybody, well, you already did, Katie. You made it with plus composure roll. I like everyone else to make a with plus composure roll with the exception of Jay and Daniel. And if I don't- No. Straight up. Oh, with plus composure, I'm rolling seven dice. Nice. I got two successes. Okay. Great. I had originally five dice, I rolled zero, so I had a total of five successes. Wow. Exceptional. And- I rolled a total of five dice in that field. All right. In that case, can you step away for a second, please? Okay. Okay. So, two of you, Jay, and Daniel, you can just ignore this because you will not hear this until they actually announce something, three of you, feel darkness, brush you in some way. Katie, you're over Desi's body. So it's like your shoulder. You feel a brush of darkness against you. And when you buy a brush of darkness, it's literally like a piece of night. It's pitch black out here for the most part, but it's just a little bit darker than the darkness. And it brushes against you in a way, and shoe, you know, you're crouching down, you might feel something against your back, and at first you think it's maybe a branch, you know, a leaf blowing in the wind, what little wind there is tonight, but there is some. But then you start hearing like this low, suscerous, this whispering of voices, and they sound almost maniacal, but again, very low and very wispy, tasty, tasty, I can taste the fear. You know, that kind of thing. And for Michael's same thing, you're crouching as well, and it could be a shoulder, it could be anything, but you're basically hearing the, you feel a brush and you think again, it might be just anything, a bush, a branch, a leaf. But then you start hearing this low whisper that this has almost like an evil tone to it that's frightening. And then right after that, before you can act though, because it's, I don't want to go ahead and remind you that I have a incense block of my spiritual. Yes, it doesn't apply here, which will give you some, some, some feedback just because it doesn't apply here. Okay. You see, in your case, Katie, it's about four pairs of yellow eyes that seem to be circling around you and Desi. They're low to the ground, maybe a foot off the ground. Again, all you see is a black shape. It looks almost canine, but then it's not canine, then it looks almost like it slithers for a second, like a snake, and then it moves like a canine again. And it's these points of light, these yellow eyes that are moving about you in a very predatory type manner. And so same thing. You see two sets of eyes like winding around you through your legs. Like I said, almost goes from like a canine shape into a snake and it winds its way around your leg. And then it's, it seems like it's talking to you or it's talking to the other creature because it's answering back and the voices are slightly different. They're not exactly the same. The voice is audible or like they're in hex. They're audible. Okay. So it's not something just in your head. In Michael. Same thing. Give me your fear. Give me your fear. You know, I want to taste your fear. And again, winding his way around you and just hang out for one second. Okay. Time to start. You roll on exceptional success. I think Thomas is the main course. Yes. So I'm not sure if this applies, but the subtle knife. That's. Here it goes. Chapter three. For the note. One nine fifty six p.m. The knife can do all. It allows me to perform in a femoral revelation as a reflexive action. Does that mean I can immediately respond to something? It's just I can't act as I can't like attack anything. It's just letting me see if I succeed at a role and spend a willpower, then I can see spiritual entities. Spiritual entities. It's as spiritual entities. Well, to be fair, you can see it. But I see what looks like eyes. I would like to see it as a, you know, like reveal what type of thing it is. God. Yes. Go ahead. Mental support for an entire scene, primary actors roles are edited, hunters resist and trade for purposes of counting mental and emotional supernatural attacks. Great. We had three successes. Three successes. Good to know. And everyone should note that in case you get supernaturally attacked in a mental or emotional way, which very well might happen. This might be a really good scenario. Okay. If it doesn't apply, that's fine. I can move on. Hold it up. No, I just want to be fair. Go ahead. You spend a willpower. No, I have to spend a willpower. But to be fair, I don't have my knife out yet. Now if you need me to draw my knife first, I don't think the knife has to be in your hand. You have a empathetic connection with that knife. Oh, it's okay. If you ask it to respond, then it will be spent all the time. I guess you're probably drawing it on any one. It is probably. All right. I have six dice to perform this check. I don't know what would be considered a success or how many successes I need. Just one? Okay. This is always one success. One success. Okay. Everyone else doesn't know this just yet, but there's a small outline, the tiniest glimmer of an ephemeral type light that reveals their nature to you, their shape. And the shape is very similar to what you felt, you know, how you saw patches of darkness. For a second, it was canine, and then it turned into a snake. So it's like flowing like water or smoke. Yeah. And then you felt exactly exactly. There's a time when it's completely smoky and to beat the word up, but it's a femoral in nature. And then it kind of forms into a canine, but no canine of this earth and then a snake or serpent. But again, none that would, you could draw any of the two. Does the canine, the snakes, or does it have animals? No, but then another time, you know, again, these are fractions of seconds. One is on your shoulder, you feel it on your shoulder, and it's like, took a really large crow about the size of a baby. About 12 to 18 inches high, and it's perched on you and it cocks its head like a bird, and those two yellow eyes look right into you, and it continues to whisper as it just opens its feet. But words come out. Do I suppose? If it's on me, do I feel it? Am I cold? Oh, yeah, you could feel it. And right now it doesn't feel anything. You could feel like a little bit of weight on your shoulder, but it's not commensurate with how much it should weigh. It's just almost like just a little touch, like you feel two fingers touching your shoulder as opposed to this 18 inches. I'm telling you, I'm raving. If I look at some of these on my shoulder, I'm going to do the old, like a spider at your heart. Right, I'm sure you are. When it's your turn. This is just all that happened on their turn. Good, okay. Thank you. Sure enough. And let's go with the next person, which is Michael, your next in the initiative order. If I see the thing, and then I find it's on my shoulder, let's be honest, I'm going to wig out like a little girl. Right. Understand. The first. The first. The first. It's not a butter knife shoulder. It's better. You were being baited there. Come on. Just don't rise to it. It's a butter dagger. That's what you know. Oh. You're. I'm just. Well, yeah, but I didn't have the knife in my hand and I've had the gun in my hand. I'm not going to shoot myself in the show, but I'm probably going to try to smack it with the gun. Like a pistol whip it or like get it off. Yeah, the safety. Yeah. Yes, I did. I know. I had the knife. Yeah. I wouldn't give him a gun until. Go ahead. Go ahead and roll. And I would. I have a pistol whip of baby sized bird on my shoulder. Come on. Why do you have to use baby? He's just going to do it as a measurement. Sorry. I just, it was. What was like, you know, a little cuddly. Three babies tall. This fire is about three babies worth of fire right there. It doesn't. I don't like that. Okay. So what did he do? I've got a brawling skill. Look at. Help. I'm trying to hit something. Well, no. Brawling weapons. Um, this would be. Well, I'm trying to pistol whip it. So. And it's a metal. I think I'd be like red. Press knuckles. But it provides weapon. Sure. Brawling with an equipment modifier on go. Okay. Yep. Go ahead. It's strength. Yeah. You would definitely want to use strength plus brawling. You've got to use brawling. All right. I'm going to put a total of strength in my brawling means I have five. You will subtract its defense. Its defense is two. And then you will subtract one for the improvised nature of the weapon. One success. I'm too. That's bashing, obviously. Right now I'm just more trying to knock it clear. Can we actually. Right. I don't know if I know. Well, when you hit it, it dissolves. But it doesn't go away. It just dissolves into kind of an amorphous swirl of myths. I don't feel resistance when I hit it. It just dissolves. It's a little bit of resistance. All right. And it doesn't react negatively to the metal of the gun. Oh, it just went. That's pretty negative. I punctured it and it's leaking air. Yep. Or it just hissed at you and is very, very angry. One of the two. Okay. My name is J Alton. I am not afraid of your spirit. You did an action, but you haven't done anything for movement. I was told to stay put, so I'm just going to try to stay. I'll strike a defensive pose with the gun too. Okay. I'm thinking I'll take aim at the other pair of eyes and if they're still working there. Okay. They're moving. Right. Okay. Yes. J. I slide back down the hillock and perform first aid on that manly looking thing on Disney. I'll make a quick width plus composure. Width of two composure of three and one success. One success is enough to see the eyes swirling around Katie and Desi. So you turn around and go back down. It's pitch black. Whoa. But you see four sets of eyes swirling about them and can't quite pick up the whispers yet because there's still the reports from the gun fire echoing through the hills and you can still go down, obviously, but it's a different situation. I go down. I slide down the hillock and I wave my hands above, "What the fuck are these, sister?" I'm starting a prayer, trying to heal. So I don't want to... Bizzy. Praying long. I heal. Desi. I patch up. I try to make her survive. Okay. So you wave my hands above. Shoe way the flies that are these black things. Right. And then you hear the whispers as you get down there, you know, pissing and whispering about feeding and getting a little taste and be gone fall piece. Go ahead and roll your healing or your first aid, excuse me. Right. First aid would be medicine plus. It's not intelligence because you're not in an operating room or in a clean hospital setting, so it's dexterity plus medicine. I'm also going to spend a willpower to entry. Since my dexterity is four, I will choose that one. My medicine is one and three, so that gives me a total of eight. All right. Due to the darkness, which I don't think anyone's solved, meaning no one has a small light right now. Right. And the sister's got that halo thing on that forehead that glows a bit. That would be really nice if she did. I'm going to say minus two for the darkness. Oh, okay. Are you, by the way, you're spending willpower? I'm spending it right now. Okay. Minus two for the darkness. And I'm going to say once you get down into trying to heal her, those things are very distracting. They're in your ears. They're going around your neck. They're swirling about. They seem to be agitated by your presence, more so than even the sister's presence. I have a man of faith. Yes, you are. I don't know what that means. I would think the sister would be, you know, a faith also. Right. Or perhaps there's some reason that they're upset. So I'm going to go with minus one dice for the distraction of the entities. So that gives me five. Yes, she's dead. Um, one success. I didn't see any success at all, but one. One success? Okay. So, enough to stop the major... The most vulnerable. Yeah, the most from me. Exactly. Fertilizing the grass with your blood. It stops the bleeding in one major area for her, which is probably going to give her a little more time. That takes a few more minutes. Yeah. All right. It looks like it. You did a quick field dressing using probably your shirt or jacket or whatever you happen to be working or her shirt, right? Ripped off, part of her sleeve, et cetera. Okay. That takes us to Katie. How many of our turns does two minutes take? Three seconds per turn. Lots. Yes. You're talking about a 20th of 40 for two minutes. So going into a healing 20 is going to be basically taking me out for two minutes. The answer to that is yes. This is a combat situation, so it's really time as of an essence. Is there any other way you can stabilize her? If it looks like she's stabilized, I might peel her later. If it looks like she's definitely needed and she's going to go anyways, even with... You don't have any Monday medicals can do what I need to do. Do I need a roll to figure that out or can I look at her and notice it or what? Do you have medicine? I have no medicine. You don't know. Well, since I haven't started, I can ask you to extract this or not. Two minutes. Yeah. I mean, right next year. I can give a roll on whether I think I bought her seconds or minutes. Go ahead and make a width plus medicine roll and minus one for the darkness. Two days or two successes? You think you've staunched the major flow of blood. She has time now. Maybe... Does she have minutes? Yeah. I'd say maybe at least 15 minutes to a half hour before she really starts to, assuming that she stays in exactly the state she doesn't get shot again or stepped down or anything like that. Do you think you gave her minutes, not hours, not days, not seconds? We're staying or going? We're not running away. Can I run on one of them? It says. Sure. I mean, you're probably running away. Okay. I'll run stealthily. So, Katie, it's your turn. What do you decide to do? I'm going to try to put up a protection circle around us. How big is the circle? As big as I want to make it. Do what I said. I can draw one. As big as I can draw in the month and a half. Actually... Three seconds you can draw. You can find a stick laying on the ground and draw a circle around the three of you. Right. Okay, what are you doing while, because Katie's going to do what she's doing. Am I getting molested by a spirit? They're bumping against you and whispering too, yes. Okay. As much as Michael. Mike just let out a small curse and staggered back and bit from a crouch and you see him like kind of swinging madly about with his pistol. Things look like they're not normal. Yeah. It seems pretty weird. Yeah, I hate these spirit things. Well, I am prone laying my stomach and I try to flip over to my back and see what they look like in the camera. Ultraviolet light time. See if I can see what they look like. Okay, sure. Infrared, there we go. Go ahead and make a quick investigation roll, which investigation plus wits. Which if you can't make that. Your character can't stop. That's going to take too much. Yes. And we're rolling eight bit. Two successes. You see something very similar to what Michael just saw but did not enunciate to anyone else because of his own situation. Panic. No one's actually talked over the headsets in a few seconds here. Well, if their voice activated, they heard, "Ah!" Yeah. We said there was a cry. There was a cry out from your location and then you were kind of winging your pistol about, you know, trying to strike something. Well, I'm assuming everyone sees this except for Daniel. He's out for someone or herself. Daniel, yeah. He seems further away in not being frustrated. Well, you probably don't know where he's at right now to be perfectly honest. The darkness he's too far away. But when you roll over on your back and pull up the camera, again, you see a shape that looks like a snake. And then just as it's kind of moving by, it almost like springs two back legs and there's a little bit of a gallop, if you will, as it changes shape and it's all of a sudden it's a dog. And, again, not anything of this necessarily like, "Oh, that's a German shopper," or anything like that. It looks like almost like a concept of a dog from a very, very horrible nightmare. All right. Its fangs are pronounced. You can't see them in regular light, but the eyes are terrifying in the way that they look. It's a very nightmarish, jagged looking dog for a few seconds again and then it's, again, morphing into something else. All right. I just wanted to record. Yeah. Yeah. It'll take a minute to put a water around and I don't know if we're going to be around here. Knowing these guys, we're going to be around here in a minute from now. Right. It might be for three seconds from this. So I was going to throw this armor up, but it doesn't say whether or not I can fill the armor up on multiple people, one person, or is it just me? It just says the hunter gains the... Oh, she's doing that. It says the hunter gains an armor rating equal to whatever... That's just your armor. So I said to Jay, what do you want us to do with these things? Am I allowed to make like an occult to see if I even recognize what this might be? Is that a free action for now or shall I wait for my turn? An occult roll? See what they are? Just to see if I even have any. Because I am about the scroll and they just guide our room. You certainly are. But I think unless you're using the nice power, which has... I've already used it though. Right. So you couldn't use it last turn and you chose to strike at it with... I mean, you were kind of putting your focus on using your gun to defend yourself. Right. So I'm going to see if the way to you turn is to do an occult roll. Everybody's saying these creatures? Yes. Yes. You're doing reports back into the affirmative. What? Except for Daniel. Are they damaging anyone? Did you seem to be annoying Nats? I give you a thumbs up. What? Okay. I'm going to try a... She's right. Let me see what she says. She's serious. Fucking Nats I've ever missed with. I'm asking if they're damaging anyone. I guess they wouldn't do it. Anyone been doing it? No. They'll ignore them. They'll work to do. What? I have the meditative mind of Merritt, which allows me to enter a meditative state. Instantly. No. Mike used it. It's all written down right here if you want to see the bullet points. If you have Cliffs nose versions, sure. Okay. Your action is turned as meditative mind, correct you? And I want to do the opposite of fear. So I'm just going to be angry with them. Just laugh at them. Well that's... Just try not to be... Just try not to be... Emotions. I'm trying not to be afraid. So whatever the opposite of fear would be. Talk to you there. Someone calls that a phrase. Come on. I don't know how it'd be very brave. But yeah. Just be brave. Just kind of laugh at them. Okay. Just mentally. Excellent mental attack on that. Go ahead and make your role for a meditative state. It would be with Swiss composure. Yes. It should be written right here. In the bullet notes. That Mike gave you. Try to give you some props, Mike. That's awful. Keep running the notes. I just wish I would have realized. Yeah, I had that civility. It's called my mind. It's... Why, you two are like bodies. No. No. Just use that friend with anyone. You went back by notes, bitch. You're getting cheetered. I failed anyways. Okay. I was probably showing them in ice. Yeah. There's no success there. So. Well, obviously these things came up on you very quickly. It's hard to meditate in a gunfight. Yes. Unexpected. Good spirits. That's your action. I am pulling out my little expandable hula hoop. You ever see those things where it's a... It's a circle. All the things. Then you pull it out and you go... And it expands on to a larger circle. Sure. I can spin it and hold it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I own two. Right, everything. They have those four, like, puppets and stuff where the bars are kind of... You have this on? Yes, I do. Well, it didn't. What's it for? You guys are related to that. I use it for what I need, a circle like this. That's portable. It's a portable circle. Okay. So, if you have a... I just want you to have a portable circle. I pull it out of the hula thing and go through it. You have to do it, bitch. Sure. Damn it. I start doing my... What? I start doing my one minute of horror. Sorry. Sorry. I put that addiction for it to get it started. Okay. So, you place a circle on the ground? Yeah. And start in the prayer. Okay. And it encompasses right now you and Desi. And probably... Che as well. All right. But it's going to be a while. Which section? Can I ask the intent? Do you wish to make a portable thing? Yes. Okay. I just want to do... Do you have an understanding? An instant... An instant portable circle. Gotcha. I like it. It's my idea. Okay. Are you standing up or staying prone? I would stay prone and... Try to meditate and... Okay. Right. And trying to film what's going on. Just so we have it. You know what? Roll one more dice because I'm going to give you a plus one to your meditative roll because of the courage that you got from the earlier attack that you guys had used. I know. But it's only... This isn't an attack. It's something... Right, right. It's almost like a passive. That's something. No. True roll. 18 dice rolls in a couple of successes. No. It's only 17. Like... What? Your problem is that it's a meditative state that you instantly go into. Well, I have a thing that's what Bob was doing. He was trying to use that, that like his mind, and then take his mind from that state and push it into bravery. Oh, I see. That's where he failed. Oh, I see. Okay. So, is that the... It's... He achieved the state. He just achieved the emotion. I... Yes. Okay, right. Great. All good. That takes us to... Edgar. Here's a lot of chatter over the radio. Just ignore them. They're gnats. Keep on point. I want you guys to swing around to the south. I thought you already wanted me to start heading across the field. South and west. South and west. All right. How fast can I move also being relatively stealthy? Just one time speed? Yes. And if you double move, you really can't use stealth or there's going to be just a massive minus to it. And I'm a little curious. How long? I mean, I'm going for the colonial where we're getting a shot at it from. All the way across the fucking map. No. To the closest building to the south. Okay. The Morton Building. The state to the tree line is what you can and gets that building. Well just to be and start working towards the colonial building. This must be clear, Edgar. You had seen flashes of light from inside the Morton Building. There are two windows on the side facing towards you, which would be the eastern side of the building. And they were covered with some kind of curtain or something. And you saw a flash of light that were muted, but you definitely saw a flash of light from inside. Guys, you're mind that there's no one directly aiming out of the windows at us. And I question stealthily but slowly or get there as fast as possible because they're probably not shooting at us right now. Your choice. Be safe. Other than I'm sprinting. Okay. So you double move. Your speed, Edgar, is. 11. 11. Yes. Although you know, as tall as Daniel is, you certainly are as fast. I'm dexterous as fuck. So you get up from your crouch and you sprint double moving across that somewhat open field. Past the hillock to the south. And so you get up. You disengage yourself from these gnats as your commander calls them, and you go ahead and sprint across there. By double moving, you've lost your defense for the turn just to be clear. But you also lose your defense when you're being shot at. So pretty much a huge thing there, right? That takes us to Daniel. I had thrown myself to the ground because I wanted to take to get up. You are approximately 20 or 30 feet past the hillock. It takes a full turn to stand up. Can I take a shot off after I stand? Yeah. You still have an action, but your movement is standing up, which will put you very close to Edgar who is a little bit north of you. He was a little bit closer to the hillock, because you want a little bit deeper into the woods to the south before you sprint across long story short. He's probably when you stand up, he's running. So he's still dashing. He hasn't fallen down to a crouch or a prone position. And he is probably about 20 feet to the north of you as you stand up. Are closing one of the more than building in. You are, I would say it's a couple hundred yards at least. Are we using the scale? Yeah. We're using that scale. Oh, shit. Yeah. It's going to take like a ton of turns. Yeah. Well, starting from here, it only buys all segues, maybe 300 feet. So a football field. Camo, shit. Camo segues. Yeah. 300 feet now just across 66 feet. Right. Yep. Five turns out in that open. Good luck to you. Okay. You, you stand up, Daniel, stand up, you have a rifle and what do you shoot at? I take my second shot at the sniper in the colonial. Okay. The wooden boarded window at the top to put your sign. Yeah. Go ahead and fire. Daniel, what's your dice pull? I have three for the firearm skill and my specialty in rifles and then two for dexterity. And you're done? Oh, yeah. Three, two is five. I'm new to this system. I got five. Had five more? Yes, for sure. All right. We're having two. All right. You go ahead and subtract two because of the darkness and then two for the distance and have that. All right. Well, I may as well take away the rifle. It should be with my finger. It should be with my finger. It should be with my finger. Phew. All right. One, two, three successes. Why? Any time again? And a time again. Hold on. No, it's not. It's all. Does that rifle have nine again? You only nine? Yeah. One. All right. Indeed. It is nine again? The rifle? Yeah. The rifle is far. The seven success? Good. No. That's it. Okay. We definitely hear the sound of your bullet penetrating the wooden shutters that are boarded up over the window of the stone colonial. All right. I have either successfully drawn a fire or kept his head down. Thanks. There seems to be a bit of a lull in the firing for each second, but you'd still hear some screaming. Women. Women. No, children. Teenagers. And an occasional shout or two from a male voice from different parts. The farm's dead. Really tough to tell exactly in pitch black darkness except for the flash of light which kind of stun you anyways and this much darkness is tough to tell exactly where they're coming from, but there certainly sounds like the screams are coming from the full surroundings of the farm. So you're getting something from maybe we're on your map you thought the chicken coop was or maybe the building beyond the chicken coop. You're getting something maybe from the Morton building or to be outside the Morton building. Is there some from the stone colonial or maybe out in front of it? So you're, you feel like in front of you, there's mass chaos going on and then we go ahead to the start of the following turn. For where I was, would I hear any person in the Morton building? Go ahead and make a what's plus composure role please. Here for it's for your composure. Okay. Minus two for the report of your gun and there's and there's still going off all over the fields. It's like a fireworks display so it's kind of hard to get a clean listen and go ahead and roll back. Nope. So you're not sure. I'm just as close. Yeah, but you're not trying. No. Just the one that you got a quick picture of, you were in the infrared, I believe, spectrum. It curls back around on you and you see again what looks to me be like an owl-like face but with talons that reach out probably a good foot and a half on either side. So it's got falcon-like talons and its body just streams away looking like a snake and it spins around you what may be five or six feet away from you when you filmed it then it spins back around it comes at you and it's moving in for what looks like a strike. Did you? I'm fucking mad. Not touching me. So I try not to be scared but very good. What's your defense? So my defense would be the lowest of dexterity or wits. That's pretty low. Two. This is our first combat, first real combat. I would subtract two dice from the attack pull of... Oh, the defense is two and the catalog gets one, so I mean three. Be three. So I would subtract three dice from the attack pull of the entity that's attacking you. You can spend a willpower to add two to your defense for one attack or you can all out defend which doubles your defense. So if your defense is two, it would double it to four. Your capital hour would give you five for the first attack then you'd go four for the second attack, three for the third attack. As each attack comes in your defense is lowered one in order to show the difficulty of continuing to dodge and absorb blows when there's more than one coming at you. That's only for a lot of attackers that that's just a general rule for getting attacked. That's a general rule. So if you're in a fist fight and three guys are punching you your defense is two on the first attack if you're not doing anything, three with the armor but that's armor that's not defense. It's the same thing but it's not exactly because it doesn't all double when you're doing all out defense. So you don't get two capital hours. Sure. And the downside to all out defending is what you can't. When your turn happens all you can do is move. You can't do any attacks at all. You can't do any other actions. Your action is to move and move only. All right. Being that it's a supernatural being I'm going to all out defend for now. All out defense it is. Not really doing much anyway. It's. All right. Once at you and you defend a dodge I think is the actual proper term that it's called that all out defense. You dodge there by doubling your defense and it has claws and you were able to defend it off with you know your arm outstretched you got to push it off to the side it swirled pass whispering gibbering in that low voice as it goes by and then another one sweeps in from your left as your laying on the ground what would be the north. How many other? Two that were around. Both attacks. Yes. He's got a camp. They can't let this be on YouTube. So your defense goes from five down. Spirit attack fail. And this one came at you with what seemed to be canine visage so it had fangs and it didn't go for a fly by it stopped and tried to attack you and you certainly were bending it off as you could but the fangs went into your arm and you take one lethal damage as just a rip open your flesh of your forearm and you start to bleed you see blood in its mouth as it's looking at you you can see it dripping on its teeth and it just starts to cackle and laugh and it's tongue which is way too long for its mouth. Starts to lick and whip all around as it's basically devouring your blood. It's fucking nuts have fangs. And that is. I have a question about how I took a bashing damage for using one of my abilities earlier. So I took a lethal. Yes. So you bashing becomes lethal right? Well no he's got a bashing. Leaf go would go to the right. So you go with an axe to the right or two square. You still have a bash and now you have a lethal. Two squares are sort of filled. If you took another bashing it would still turn that first one into a lethal it wouldn't go to the third one. Got your stand correctly on so just so I'm clear you tried mentally to not be afraid thinking that they're just feeding on fear but then they physically attacked you. Dick. You never succeeded being afraid. Okay. Well you wouldn't know that. I understand right? Right. I'm not brave. I'm not brave. I'm not brave. I mean you wouldn't know that he didn't succeed. Oh okay. Oh you didn't hear him whispering into his headset. That's true. They can't be thoughts. They can't be thoughts. I'm tough. I can take this. I can't take this. Rips open his forearm and starts to feed. Do I feel anything else? Any magical effects or mental attacks during this show? No. None yet. Seems like this is the physical attack. It was fangs to really long piercing fangs from its canines. What they do to dozen? Well that's coming up. All of them, all of these creatures are going to, they move at one initiative. Just make it easy for me so I don't have to have 19 different initiatives for each one of them. Can you enumerate them? Yes I can. Lots. The enumeration is there were four of them swirling about Desi and Sister Katie. Then Jay came down the hillock and so there's three, well two group members and one citizen and four of these creatures. There were two that brushed against Asgard in the bushes. There were two that Michael saw specifically and there were two that you saw specifically surrounding him, almost like sharks in the waters that he swam about and intertwine themselves. So yeah, what if you, Sister Katie, what's your defense? You should have it somewhere in your sheet three. I have right now. Nice. All right, Katie, are you doing anything besides defending normally? So what can I do if I want to keep an action? Just use your regular defense. It's passive. That's what I'm doing. Yes. Okay, it comes at you. One comes at you and this time it is a serpent with large fangs. So large serpent had large fangs in the body trailing back in the mist and its swooped by, it goes through your neck and you're able to fend it off with one arm as it bounces by and kind of swirls around your neck for a second and then spins off chattering into the darkness. Another one at this point comes towards you, you know, just a taste, just a taste. And this one has like a falcon appearance to it, large talons and its body ends in a canine. So it's kind of running up to you. It has talons out and it's just kind of swiping. Your body is attached to you. This time I subtract two from the dice pool as opposed to one. And this time this was able to rake across your midsection, your belly and you gasp, let out a gasp as it goes through your clothes and actually rip some flesh. And again with that disgusting tongue that comes out and it kind of like flickers like a snake at your blood and seems to be drinking it in and also be afraid, be afraid as it's attacking you and trying to work up your fear. But so far you're calling pretty steady. And there was a third one that was coming in from another direction, but it passes you and goes towards Jay. I'm not afraid of these things. I understand. Fucking that's with these two talons. So this one, Jay, that's coming at you, actually, as it comes towards you, it actually changes three times from a hawk to an owl to a, what looks to be like a large rat and it's floating in the air and sometimes the body of a bird, sometimes with just wispiness of some kind of magical etherealness and it comes at you as a rat and goes to attack you. What's your defense? My defense is three. It's three. And you have Kevlar. No, that's includes a Kevlar. That includes a Kevlar. And are you dodging to give it a harder attack and then thereby forfeiting your turn? No. Okay. That, with very, very large point in teeth, comes at you, flies your midsection, takes a bite at you and hits, but the Kevlar protects you and extracts its teeth from your vest, curses in some language that you don't recognize, but you can just tell from the sound of it to the face. Then, as it's floating away, it tastes bad, it tastes very, very bad. Is it swirls away? Oh, that bitches. Drug addl. There is another, a fourth, and that you see hovering over Desi and its tongue is just out and it's just running down the length of her blood-soaked body and it's just an ecstasy for lack of a term, feeding or absorbing something from her as it just cackles to itself. Now, maybe I'll do something I've got a sister do an exorcism? No. These are creatures of shadow and darkness, maybe they need a risk of light to help the spellum work you. Part of them? Maybe a chat. Or are you eating? I don't prefer. You're dashing across fields and they can move 66 feet in three seconds. I mean, I'm amazed I can do that. Make a Witz plus composure roll. You're kind of looking over your shoulder a little bit because those things freak you out a bit. Five minus for sprinting in darkness. Sprinting bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, minus one. Darkness doesn't affect you because they're glowing eyes in the darkness that you're trying to actually see and they don't mind being seen. So go ahead and just roll that minus one, please. Four. Two successes. One. Two successes. Okay. You see one seems to be following you. It has wings that are almost diabolical looking, if you will. Three babies across. Three babies across with, actually, it almost pictures that you've seen of some of the Christian iconography of succubus, or things along those lines. It's almost like leathery back wings, but it has the head of a dog and it's swirling it through the darkness towards you, but it seems to be behind you a bit, so it's not catching you. The other one you don't see where it went off to. There was another one it was by you, but you don't see it following you at this point. That takes us to Michael Clay crouching in the darkness, swiding at these creatures, hearing some screams from, actually, I didn't have any, sorry, that's what your defense, sorry, Michael. Yes, three. You had exceptional. Is this with the addition of Kevlar? No. Oh, did you just say that? I'm not wearing Kevlar. So three, you said? Why did that work? Was it part of our standard issue? If you wanted it. It is, good. For the job. Yes, I had Kevlar. The first comes at you, the first comes at you, it's a snake and it twines itself around your leg and then it's head expands and grows and these two huge veins come out and it just right into your leg and they rip open your flesh and you take one lethal damage as they split the skin above your knee, rake all the way down your kneecap and then it just starts to cackles wildly and it's staying twine around your leg as it's feeding off the blood. Then another one swoops in this one with the visage of a large canine with wings and what seems to be a spike tail and the spike tail whirls around and comes towards your neck. And you put your head down and the barbed tail, you hear a nasty sounding whoosh above your head as it swings and misses. Okay. Michael, you're up. Can I do a knowledge check with a cult to see if I have any idea of what these things might be? Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for listening to Knights 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 form 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 us next episode for more mystery and adventure. Let's be honest, I'm going to wig out like a little girl. Right. Understand. Hey, Dad, have a first. Butterny. It's not a butterny actually. It's better. You were being baited there. Come on. Just don't rise to it. It's a butter dagger. You know what? Why do you have to use babies as a measurement? They have to use three babies tall. This fire is about three babies worth of fire, right? I don't like that. It has wings that are almost diabolical looking, if you will. Three babies across. Three babies across. How big is this circle? It's as big as I want to make it.
