1 - "I'm Your Friend, Now Eat Chair" - The Roots of Ruin

In a quiet seaside town, an evil lane to rest centuries ago has risen, an abandoned fortress deep in the swamp holds a secret that could save the village or destroy it. Now, a band of adventurers sets out to dig up the wounds of the past and bring the light of day to the roots of ruin. This is table top gold. Hi and welcome to Table Top Gold. My name is Lars Castine, I'm your co-host, I'm your game master. This is the very first episode of a tabletop role-playing game actual play podcast. If you've never heard an actual play podcast before, here's what's going on. I've got a group of friends here with me and we're going to use our minds to imagine a world of Dungeons, maybe a couple dragons in there. As the GM, as the game master, I'm going to be describing the world of the game and enforcing its rules and the rest of my friends are going to be playing characters embarking on an epic adventure. Like I said, my name is Lars, I'm a musician and out-of-work TV producer and a stay-at-home dad. I live in Queens, the borough of Queens and Beautiful New York City. As a kid, I used to read rule books of all kinds of role-playing games, learning about the lore and the worlds of different games, trying to wrap my mind around the rules, and just sort of floating away in my imagination, thinking about what it would be like to actually wrangle a group of people to play with. Well, when I finally became an adult and got some semblance of control over my life, I started playing in a weekly Dungeons and Dragons group and I've been running in playing games for a little over 10 years now. I have had so much fun with tabletop role-playing games over this last pandemic year, so I thought it might be a good idea to start a podcast that tried to capture some of that fun and to let other people, i.e. you, in on it. Whether you're a role-playing expert or if you've never played a game before in your life, I hope you give this show a shot. We're trying to make our game accessible and entertaining for everyone, so please stick around. Let's meet the rest of my co-hosts, who just happened to be the players in this game as well. Robin, laying. Robin, you know, a thing that I thought might be good to do is just to let people get to know who everybody is by, I'm just going to ask everybody the same couple of questions. Let's do it. And these questions are, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and about your relationship with games and gaming? So I also live in the beautiful borough of Queens here in the fantastic city of New York. I love board games. I also grew up always wanting to play games. While I am the youngest of five kids, all my siblings were in high school and I was born. So I essentially grew up like an only child, and I did a lot of puzzles because no one else in my family ever wanted to play board games with me. Yeah, that's not to irony the puzzle fans. I love puzzles, but it would say it's very, I love them, but it should a very solo thing. And so now as an adult, I think one of that joys is that agency that ability to go out and find people who have the same interest. And board games has been a great way to do that. Thank you, Robin. Let's keep going around the circle. Zoe Ternikoff, you are here. I have a couple of questions for you. They're similar to the questions I asked, Robin. I did prepare them today. Zoe, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and your relationship with games and gaming also? All right. So I hail from the great state of North Carolina, presently, actually currently remotely, not from our, our home in Chapel Hill, we're at the beach in our first post pandemic, you know, actual trip outside of the home of any meaningful lengths. Congratulations. I know it seems like such an accomplishment. It's been great in most ways. It has definitely been nice to get out of the house. So yeah, I'm in North Carolina. We've got two kids and one dog and a husband who you will meet shortly because he's also sitting here. I feel like I have a lot of feet in a lot of different things. I was a lawyer for years and a joke, it turns out that a lot of lawyers speak because lawyer jokes are bad. Now sometimes refer to myself as a recovering lawyer, but you think it's clever and then you like meet other lawyers who stop being lawyers and then they all say that. So you know, I'm honestly, I'm always tickled by that, not necessarily about lawyers, but the recovering anytime somebody says something that even if they say something that they still are, if they're like, well, I'm a recovering magician. I'm a recovering, exactly a recovering magician. I honest, I genuinely am amused by that joke. Basically, that's how I hear it. So I found my audience. But yeah, so you know, I'm here and I guess my relationship to gaming. So I'm also an only child. I grew up doing like the sort of, well, Robin, you're not an only child, but your gaming experience was as if you weren't only child. So I, we played board games in my house some. I have deeply scarring memories of Candyland as a kid, but I came into the world of board games. Honestly, Lars, partly through you and a couple of other mutual friends that we have, but post-college living in New York, you know, now over a decade ago, but this is something that I've gotten into in my adult life and has become such a fun source of, you know, camaraderie and puzzle solving and escaping from the horrors of the real world and all of that. But I am a relative newbie to the world of role-playing games. So I am, we've done a little bit of dabbling, but I'm I'm learning the ropes along with you, our viewer or listener who is learning the ropes. Yeah, I think that's that's something that I actually am really looking forward to with doing this show is there are people with a range of different experience playing games like this. And I'm excited that like part of I think what people are going to get from listening to this is sort of hearing your relationship with this kind of game developing and and people who are new to this kind of game learning alongside of you. I think that that is going to be fun. Here's hoping. Here's hoping. No, it's going to be great listener. Yeah, just thinking that. You know, speaking of going to be great, let's meet our Matt Humphreys. Let's get to know you real quickly. Can you tell the listener a little something about yourself and let's talk about your relationship with with games as well? I am coming to you tonight from Texas. I just moved out an international crowd we've got here. We have United States and the Republic of Texas. I just moved out here at the beginning of pandemic. I'm in Austin now just settling in. I'm finishing my degree in creative writing. And before that. Oh, thank you very much. Before that, I was a sort of on and off again comic book editor. So funny story. I actually worked very briefly on the Pathfinder comics and kind of got hooked right there. Similar to you, Lars and and you Zoe. I was an only child. So I grew up reading. I just got to say I'm not I'm not an only child, but you can keep going. I'm only five. Yeah, I do. That's no, that's true. I'm alone. I'm alone. I was a lonely child, for sure. Sorry, Armad, please continue. No, no, I can I can relate. Anyway, I loved reading D&D source books and whatever source books I can find and daydreaming about the characters I would make if I could get a group together to play a game. And I'm delighted now that as an adult, I have been playing in a board game group with you for the last year or two. And it's it's every bit as good as I thought it was going to be. If not better, frankly, let's meet our final player David Ternikoff. David Zoe mentioned earlier that the two of you were married. Is that true? I can confirm. What else can you tell me about yourself and your your history, et cetera, with gaming? Yeah, well, Zoe did Zoe very ably, characterized our lives. And actually she and I had a similar introduction to you know, at least Euro style tabletop board games, which was as she said, Lars through you, you came over to my apartment in I guess it must have been 2008 with PowerGrid. Ah, interesting start. Well, it was it was a it was a winner. I love that and and was a great entry into this world of games. I've always loved games and puzzles, you know, like you were saying, it's been kind of a lonely year being so far away from people and now being able to all jump on together and and make some new friends and tell a new story is Super exciting. I love it. I couldn't I feel as though I could not have said it anybody myself I completely agree with you and I am so excited You've met all the players you've met all the various hosts of this podcast so let's get going the game That we're playing for this campaign is called Pathfinder second edition if you're not familiar with it It's similar to Dungeons and Dragons in a lot of ways. The game tells stories about Venturers monsters dungeons traps and so on players are fighters rogues wizards and just like D&D You know you roll a 20-sided die anytime you want to do something difficult or risky and the direction of the story is Determined sometimes by the role of the dice There are a few big differences between a Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons that make me really love this game But you'll pick them up as you listen So well, you're about to hear is episode one of what we're calling the roots of ruin our production of a long-form Our production of a long-form adventure path Published by pizzo incorporated the company that created this game This big published campaign is called Obamination Vaults and is broken into three books So we're about to break into book one. The ruins. I'm so many proper nouns in this in this paragraph I tried so hard to write this in a way that made it make sense. I'm gonna have to so I'm gonna simmer this down once I'm done talking to the listener will let the listener like visualize all the capital Draw a map. Okay, we're about to break into book one the ruins of gauntlet That's the final proper noun actually now. It's not written by it and here comes the final proper noun James Jacobs And this adventure is in my opinion just a great classic adventure So to sum it up the production that we're doing is called the roots of ruin We're doing a production of a pathfinder event adventure path called Obamination Vaults and book one what we're about to start is written by James Jacobs I am so excited to get started is everybody ready So here we go the roots of ruin episode one It's a brisk spring morning and the Giants wheel of Tari's famous lumber mill is running at full capacity Just as it has for nearly 400 years As the seasons first blooms appear around town Logs stripped of their branches drift lazily down the log flume toward the enormous water wheel that powers the mill The men and women of the town's workforce occasionally nudge each log to help it find its way from the flume On to the mechanized treadmill the logs passed through a series of automated saw blades that each drop down with precision Cutting each log smaller and smaller as sawdust rains down into the water below Next a trio of 20 foot-long blades swing back and forth Their momentum maintained by workers on an elevated platform who gently nudged them to make sure they cut the wood And to evenly measured lengthwise pieces at the end of the mill the lumber falls easily into a second flume That carries it further down the hill towards otari's docks At the waterfront watching the sunrise as workers lift the wood onto waiting ships Is a tall woman dressed in robes adorned with intricate gold leaf patterns She pulls her cowl back over her head revealing flowing white hair two pupilless eyes and long pointed ears leading up to a pair of horns rolled back like a rams This tiefling elf woman is Rin Savingsie the proprietor of otari's only magical curiosity shop she turns Towards the walking path leading back up the hill through town An hour or so later Rin is at the entrance to otari's most extravagant building a beautiful waterside temple and library built by the church of saran ray goddess of fire healing and truth Her eyes search for a moment and then find a person waiting impatiently for the doors to open looking particularly out of place among all of this grandeur David what does this person look like? She is a strikingly tall broad-shouldered muscular woman With a heavy steel shield and a flail strapped to her back She has sun-darkened tan skin and some lightened brown hair cropped short at the sides bound up on top in a single braid that drops down between her shoulders Her unexpected size no funny business weaponry and coiled nerves give the impression that she could crush anyone in view Which presumably she could though her reasons for visiting the library today are peaceful and academic She has spent most of her life as both the most obvious person in the room and the most overlooked She is Magda Runa lace-wing skullfish Rin follows her through the cathedral and up a set of marble stairs toward the library's collection The woman spends the next hour or so pulling books with progressively more dire subject matter Toms on subjects including swap zoology grizzly unsolved murders and monstrosities that loom in the dark pile up on the reading table Her eyes grow larger and her fingers flip more quickly through the pages as she loses herself in the grizzly reading material Doesn't matter what mag is seen no one ever listens to mag Well, maybe if I find some kind of proof she's interrupted by a tap on her shoulder as Rin brings her back to the reality of the library She lifts to the table an ancient book with a gold embossed rose on the cover and Nod's before gesturing to the nearby window Tonight Look to the lighthouse. She suggests before disappearing down the stairs Shortly after noon Rin crosses onto a bridge and approaches a restaurant Just at the moment that a man steps out Zoe, what does this man look like? He's silver haired, but obviously youthful and his upright stride gives you the impression of someone confident and friendly You might call his cut jawline and fizzy cancum if only you could remember him in any meaningful way even moments after he's walked away In fact, the only thing clearly you've note about him aside from his too early salt and pepper hair are his brilliant gold eyes and his matching cape ee His Norman core He removes a pair of examination gloves and tosses a gold watch he'd been hiding in his palm Into the air before tucking it into his breast pocket and then he ducks into a nearby alleyway But when Rin turns the corner The person closely examining this freshly stolen watch doesn't look like the same person Zoe, what does this person look like? The figure is crouched down back covered with the same gold fabric seen moments ago on the handsome humanoid figure But the silver hair is now thickened and covers the entire form revealing a young fox with a proud snout Clever eyes and a considerably more nervous demeanor Her eyes glow with intensity As she stares at the watch and it too begins to glow and lifts out of her hand She is Ayo Ukiyo Rin clears her throat to make her presence known Rin you startled me I was afraid that someone around a town was going to suddenly realize who's responsible for all these watches that have been disappearing Then giving a rye smile Ayo glances back at the watch and her palm and watches it slowly levitate higher and higher Until suddenly it flings itself up and over the nearest building gone Rin lets out a quick loud laugh Before her expression darkens Tonight she whispers again Look to the lighthouse she points over the rooftops and continues her walk through town Shortly after the workers finish their day at the Giants wheel Rin arrives at the fishery on Otari's waterfront Passing through a crowd of children held in wrapped attention by a song There's a performer who glides around the audience looking each person in the face for a brief moment While continuing a soft but unsettling tune Robin what does this person look like? She's your average 20 something gnome in that there's nothing normal about her Her skin has a glowy quality to it her hair is blue and purple and her clothes clash brightly demanding attention Standing at about the same height as the children around her she strums her harp as she sings into their eyes Warning them of the terrors that lay beyond the city limits She is trillthus, how to lob, but everyone knows. calls her "trill". She steps backwards onto the steps of the fishery and takes a deep breath resting her harp at her leg. With some trepidation, she uses the opportunity to give her captive audience some words of warning. "When the fog is creeping and the moon is low, when the town is sleeping, Godlight starts too glow, that's when the moon she arises for her midnight lunch, naughty kids are prizes for her teeth too crunch, but if you obey me and obey the rules, you're safe from Belchora, she just eats the fools." The song is one that only the oldest Atari resident would recognize. It's an ancient rhyme meant to scare children into obedience, dating back before the founding of the town itself. This song, although it's been out of favor for over a generation, still holds the power to shock some of the children to tears. The few parents standing watch rush forward to pull their young ones away, casting scornful glares in trills direction. A moment later, the crowd awkwardly disperses, leaving only Rin behind. She approaches and says with a nod, "For third time, tonight, look to the lighthouse, before she too leaves." As the sun starts to set, Rin walks along the path toward Atari's graveyard, overlooking the town. She sees somebody among the monuments wielding a sword. Armat, what does this person look like? She sees an aged elf with steel gray hair, he wears a tarnished iron breastplate, heavy and protective, decorated in a style decades out of fashion. Over the armor, he wears a simple red tabored beneath it, a leather and male jerkin, a twice-wracked swordsman's belt, elk leather trousers, well-made and well-worn leather boots. His black eyes are serious, brow furrowed, and though his still-unlined face has the focus of a scholar, he holds himself with a martial poise. The sword he carries is a bastard sword, ready in its sheath, out loosely in his left hand. The elf's name is Thalon Haplovel-Valus, around Atari, known as Haplov the historian, or to his friends, simply Haplov. It's quite a name, Armat, it is a lengthy name, Thalon Haplovel-Valus, is that how you pronounce it? Yeah, precisely, I got it. You nailed it. For a long time, he does not move. The only sound is the sea in the distance, the wind in the trees. Then, in a flash, he draws the blade, drops the scabbard, and delivers a swift downward slash to an imagined foe. Then, with his other hand raised, he barks out in an incantation, and lightning surges from his palm, shattering two empty bottles of crows' cask ale, placed on nearby mausoleums. Not bad, not bad at all, yet I must still do better. I'll try that case again. Rin approaches this old elf and places her hand on his shoulder, directing his attention to the woods behind them, tonight. Rin whispers for the final time. Look to the lighthouse. Long after the sun has set, Otari's residents extinguish wooden torches and head home after a night out at the waterfront, or at the town's handful of taverns. But far away, past an ancient ring of stones, across a forest dotted with a logging camps, on the far side of an untamed mile of swamp, where unknown creatures are crawling and slithering under a persistent layer of fog, there's an ancient building. A lighthouse that has always been there, looking down upon the town, even though the residents know better than to gaze back up at it. Compared to the ruins surrounding it, which have been gradually retaken by the hungry swamp over the last several hundred years, the lighthouse is oddly intact. The marble stones leading up the body of the lighthouse look as though they have been diligently washed and repaired by some unseen caretaker. Most nights, the area surrounding the lighthouse is still, aside from the occasional howl or moan coming from whatever creature, might be lodging inside the otherwise abandoned keep. Tonight though, and maybe for the last fortnight or so, it's hard to say exactly how long this has been occurring. The iron cased crown, at the top of gauntlet keep, is dead quiet, and then, slowly at first, so you're not sure if your eyes are playing tricks on you. There it is, a faint, otherworldly, blue glow. The branches of the forest below shake viciously as a sudden wind rips through the swampland, threatening to tear the trunks of the trees themselves from the ground. But the roots hold tight. They extend far down, past the murky water and the mud beneath. These roots reach down through the dirt, through layers of rocks, through the fossils of countless days just like this one. They continue down an impossible distance, connecting the branches and the leaves above to nutrients from centuries past, until suddenly they end. They end in a cold, empty chamber, a chamber with a floor marked by seven small holes arranged in a loose circle, and in this place where the roots stop, nothing ever grows. Robyn, when we were recording episode zero, you were like, "That sounds like Twin Peaks," and I was like, "Does it robin?" "Does it sound like-" "Did you not notice me that dying as you were describing it?" "Yes, yes." I knew that you would appreciate that. "I really did. I loved it. Thank you so much for that." "Yes, yes." "Well, we'll see who, we'll see who, who in the audience appreciated it, and was maybe completely irritated by that." "It was great." So to recap, each of you have independently been alerted by Rinse of Inxie, the eccentric but friendly owner of the local magical curiosity shop about a strange light in a ruin outside of town. For whatever reason, she's decided that the four of you would be well-equipped and well suited to head out to and investigate the ruins of this ancient lighthouse called Gaunt Light. All set out on the trail leading northwest out of town, through the forest and swamp toward the ruins of Gaunt Light. The further you get from town, the more overgrown the trail becomes, but it's still a simple matter to keep on the right track. The air becomes overwhelmingly humid by the time you're halfway to the swamp itself, and the trail only gets more strenuous from there. So I want to ask you guys, what is this walk like? I don't have a great sense of how well all of you know each other. You're all relatively local to Otari, like you're all from the area around this town. So what is this scene like as the four of you head out from town through this path leading to this mysterious location? I think haplow is chattering a little bit about the Rose Guard and how they founded the town back in, I believe it was 424, 424, there we go, AR. And just explaining a little about the order and things like that, in the way that old people just kind of strike upon a topic and sort of start to claiming, that's sort of what he's doing. And how does everybody around know haplow as he's sort of going through the history of this location? Like, I really just want to get a sense of what the dynamic is like. Trill's seen haplow around. She knows he's this guy who's super smart and does all this research, but she doesn't really, she's not too interested. She's got her harp in a sling kind of slung on her back in a device she's created to make it easier to carry. She's trying to kind of skip along because being a gnome, it takes her a little longer to walk the same length as all of these tall people around her, but she's just humming to herself and thinking okay, going off on another adventure, let's go see, but keeping her eyes out and she keeps looking into the wood, just to be sure, she's looking into that darkness, she's glad she's around other people at the moment, even if everyone around her, she knows too well, she's seen them all around, but none of them are people she's close with. So she's keeping people at arm's distance sort of? Well, I think she's open to getting to know people, she just hasn't had the opportunity, no, she spends most of her time singing in bars and taverns, singing or singing to warning songs to kids during the day. Okay, who else? Norman is walking through the woods, he is sort of, I guess would say, egging Haplow on, you know, he's a half step behind him and if you're paying attention to him, you'd notice his eyes are darting around, he's trying to take everyone in and get as much information as he can, but everything Haplow has to say, he at least, you know, half attentively sort of says something along the lines of, you don't say old sport and what happened after that? And, you know, I assume Haplow is more than happy to continue sharing, but we'll leave that to him. Oh, yes, in 43, Ted, the cobalt who had come from the town and attracted too much attention. Incredible, man, incredible. And, you know, Norman gives him another pat, but you get the sense that Norman's heart is good at getting people to talk, but that he's, he's actually sort of looking around and trying to figure out what's going on while coming off to the others is affable. David, how is Mag reacting to this? So just to sum up, it sounds to me like, like Haplow is sort of like rattling on about historical things that are of questionable interest to some of the others, but you have just been given a book that you have read through with this rose on the cover of it, which just happens to be about the very thing that Haplow is describing. The cobalt situation? No. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sorry. I'm just saying that in 43, 10. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. So I wasn't able to give track of all that myself, but that is the only piece of information I've retained. So I'll basically, Rin, Rin gave you this book describing the exploits of a group called the Rose Guard, which are the four heroes that one founded the town of Otari and two did this raid on the very place that you are going right now and defeated a powerful sorcerer there hundreds and hundreds of years ago. So it's questionable why exactly this applies to anything that you are interested in necessarily. But I'm just sort of wondering what it is that Haplow going on this historical tangent that kind of touches upon something that you just read. I'm just wondering what that conversation, what that interaction is like. Yeah, yeah. So Mag has been up here in the swamp before. She has sort of ranged around in this area in the process of sort of like owning her craft as a warrior and she's also local and has spent a lot of time alone sort of roaming and scouting area. And she's seen some mysterious things. She's asked around town if anyone else has ever had these experiences and gotten the response that she so often does, which is people not really listening to what she's actually saying and just kind of dismissing her. And when she hears Haplow mention the Rose Guard, which she just found in this book as she was trying to look into the sort of the history of the swamp and these fens in this area, she always figures she's going to ask a direct question and get ignored since that's sort of the story of her life. But she decides to give it a try. My friend, you mentioned the Rose Guard, how do you know of their exploits? Oh, well, I've been interested in gauntlet for nearly what? 50, 60 years ago. I've done a little delving in some of the runes around here, but I've never been able to go to gaunt light and really make any expedition satisfactorily. The way is treacherous. I've made my way through most of it at one time or another. Friend, what do you know of the adversary who, who had is keep there in bygone days? Just to, just to fill in this a little bit, what it is that Haplow knows just to let you know, Armett, is that there was a, actually a sorceress, a, a, the doctor was a woman, David, named Belcora, whom it just so happens. Trill is singing about in her song. She just eats the fool. Is, is this the same as the sorcerer you said in the intro? Yes, it is. Got it. The thing that everybody I think knows about this location as you're going up to it is that it's been abandoned for hundreds of years and that the founders of the town, the, the Roseguard, who were a, like a, a band of adventurers out of the nearby city of Absalom, which is a days or two days journey from, from the town and is also the largest city in the world, they sort of went on a quest, 400, 500 years ago and emerged from that victoriously defeating this sorcerer, Belcora, essentially ensuring the safety of the region around the lighthouse so that they could found this town. So it sounds as though the, the conversation, the, the, the, what's, what's happening more or less is that the four of you have this sort of like tentative, you know, you, you, you've seen each other around town, you know each other more or less, but you all have your own individual reasons for being drawn out in this direction, basically. Yeah, and it's worth noting that in the, the few moments while haplow and mag are chatting when Norman senses that they're distracted, he's sort of doing a quick, he's not taking anything, but he's doing a quick pat down as he can get a swipe in here there just to see what he can learn about these people, he's seen him around town, but he doesn't really, he's heard of mag the most, but he's curious about this haplow figure in particular and does a sort of quick swipe of his pockets just to see if he can get any, any more of a sense of who he is. Does, I feel like Trill is spending plenty of time at taverns might notice this, does Trill notice this? I don't know, does Trill notice this, she's not going to say anything is, you know, between Bards and Rogues, I feel like there's, there's a friendship there, I'm going to give up each other's secrets and understanding, yeah, she kind of notices it, she kind of doesn't say anything, but no, it's to keep an eye out now for Mr. Norm, for roaming hands. So, so the four of you walked together, mag and haplow locked in a, in a, in a conversation about sort of their experiences around the area and their knowledge of the history of the area, Trill and Norman sort of connecting over their mutual connection to the more rough and tumble side of town. We both seen things. Yeah, there's book smarts and there's street smarts, I think happening right now. The gangs have been formed. The sound of frogs and mosquitoes mixes with water sloshing against muddy shores, all muffled by the ever-present mists that linger in the aptly named Fogfen. As the mists clear, a shadow looms from the cloying swamp vapors. A sprawling ruin of stone and wood squats atop an island in the soggy marsh. The upper floors have largely collapsed, leaving only the stone walls of the ground floor intact. Of these ruins, towers, an out-of-place monument, a colossal lighthouse whose painted walls and iron-cased crown have resisted the corrosive effects of the surrounding swamp. Trill for one, she kind of gives an audible, not audible, but like you notice her, her shell as they come out of the swamp, her shoulders just relax a little bit more. She really hated walking through that swamp, and now that they're getting to the shore and the fog is starting to lift, you see her getting her bravery's coming back again. Meanwhile, in a contrasting manner, Hathlow has grown a little bit more agitated. He sort of breaks off mid-discussion of the rose guard with mag, and you see him pop his sword from the scabbard, and we should keep our eyes out. Perhaps there's something lurking. One of the other ruins, I went to Shadow Crag Cave. Well, I saw some very unpleasant counties there. Mag has been having the same instinct, and so she's more on her guard and more watchful as well. And Norman, if he's nervous, which he probably is, he doesn't show it at least much, and you get a sense he's excited. His eyes are glowing a little more. He sort of rubs his hands together and says, let's go find some treasure. What do you say guys? Yeah, let's go in. Adventure, adventure. Just a set the scene. You guys have just walked up to the front door. You're standing about 15 feet away from the front door of this of this structure. However, there is we're close to the shore here. We're right on the shore. So there is water encroaching on the right and the left as you look up at the front door of this imposing structure. Mag wants to take a look around the building or see what else is off to the right side and see how things look over there. Sure, so you step forward into the right and feel free to move your token. We are playing on a virtual tabletop called Foundry VTT. So you can go ahead and move your token if you'd like to to get a sense of what it is there able to see. As you approach the structure that the front door is on, swaths of mildew and mold cover the damp surfaces of this watch tower appearing as green and black smears on the dull stone walls. To your immediate right as you are sort of peering around the edge of this building, you see that there is another building or a continuation of a similar structure across a short inlet of water about 15 feet across. You do not see any doors on that structure though and that's what you're able to see from there. Trills at the door. Trills like, okay guys, let's see what's next. Okay, I'm ready guys. So you sort of break off in different directions. Trill heads straight to the front door. Do you want to open that door? What do you want to do? Trill is ready to open the door. Trill has no compunction about waiting. Let's go. That's the spirit! You know, I'm little. I can duck. It's fine. My heart is very strong. You push the door open and it is damp to the touch. The rot that has set in on this building from just being out here in the swamp for for hundreds of years. Yeah, it's the creek of the door. It's the it's all of that as the door swings open. You're looking you're looking into a structure at this point. It's this watch tower. But as you look as you scan around this room, you can see that a few collapsed chairs lie on the floor amid small heaps of foul-smelling gray lumps. Thick sheets of dusty cobwebs hang from above, obscuring any view of the ceiling. Are these aeroslits here? So Haplow takes a look around this structure and does notice that there are four aeroslits set up. This was at one point a defended keep. Cool. Can we see anything on the walls? You do see like maybe a bit of graffiti scribbled on the walls, but before you're able to take a too close a look, you die. Thank you for listening to our podcast. It was a good one. Yeah, I figured let's let's leave them wanting more, right? You do hear a trio of high-pitched voices calling out in a language none of you understand. Oh, they're minions. Then there's a moment of coughing and then they just burst into laughter. And you hear the sound of somebody's face getting slapped. Oh, trills is like this. It sounds like cousins when they're drunk. So that sound is coming from above. All of you except for mag. When you look up, you can see crouched on top of a plank as though to hide a small grinning blue creature. It's clawed toe curled around to stabilize itself on top of its on top of its perch. Oh, he does look like my cousin. As you shout up to it, this small blue creature opens its tiny yellow eyes wide and starts screaming in fear as do two other unseen creatures. A moment later, you see them scramble up further into the cobweb clutter at the top of the room, pushing debris out of the way to escape out of the ceiling, casting a ray of sunlight into the cobwebs above you. At the same time, you hear the sound of something small heading right in your direction. Roll furnishing. Yes, my favorite words. It has begun. I want to get a sense of what everybody's initiative looks like. Let's go first to Norman. Norman has a 15. All right, pretty good. How about Trill? Trill has a 16. Okay, and mag. 18. Okay, and haplow. 25. So haplow getting the quick jump as you hear these creatures scramble up through the roof and one of them has thrown something is on the verge of throwing something directly at your head. It is right now, haplow's turn. All right. Get him. So you see this creature. Essentially, you're looking up at this cobweb ceiling. You see a creature 10 feet up above you. There's one creature that is escaped out of the rooftop and then another creature that you have not yet seen. At the beginning of your turn, though, you do notice that there is something else hiding up above you up here to the to the northwest. Oh, but they are, but they're all elevated above you. Well, aren't we friendly and welcoming? He raises his left palm and a flash of lightning blasts out of it and then arcs to hit both of the blue little creatures with their sharp jagged teeth and daggers drawn. So they try to dodge out of the way as lightning jut up towards them. One of them rolls a 23 and one of them rolls an 18 to those succeed or fail. Those both succeed. He has a DC 16. So they take half damage. So they are going to take two because I rolled five. Each of them winds up taking two points of electricity damage and start shrieking in pain. He's just going to step forward and past turn. So haplow blast electricity upwards jumps forward to get between the two these two creatures suspended above above you on this buttress. It is now mag's turn. So mag looks up at the preach above her and she flies into a rage. So she tenses her arms and her legs and blood begins pumping and pulsing through her veins. With her free hand, she grabs a javelin from her back and then she wants to throw it up at the nearest one of these irritating little critters. So go ahead and give me an attack roll as the javelin flies up into the ceiling. That is a four on the die for a nine. You hear your javelin clatter around on this and all the things up above, like the planks and cobwebs up above you and it falls harmlessly down to ground as this creature just starts laughing. And in a raging frustration at the mishat and the taunt, mag to let's out of. Trill, you just hear mag scream at the top of her lungs and you figure that now is the time to take your move. What do you do? Here's a question. So I'm looking at acid splash. Look at some of my fun cantrips. And acid splash, acid splash just says nearby. It doesn't give an actual distance. Yeah, acid splash has a range of 30 feet. Great. So she's going. So she's going to splashed some acid at this guy above because she's always, you know, she's so trill all we even though she's got her harp on her back right now because she's you know has to move and has to be physical. She's always got her heart picks on her fingers ready to go. She uses those as part of her components and is able to pull up all of her tricks and parts of what makes her a bard and with a quick slip of her fingers is able to spew some magical acid up at these blue meanies or the one blue meanie who's closest to her specifically. Great so acid splash is an attack so why don't you go ahead and give me that attack roll. Could have been better it was a nine. Nine is not going to hit. The creatures above you are still screaming from from having been zorched with electricity just a couple of seconds ago. One of the creatures that you have heard continues to howl in pain as it utters a quick incantation and casts a spell in your direction. So what I need is for trill, mag and haplow to each make a will save as you find your mind being affected by this magic spell. Oh Jesus. So what did you guys roll? Trill rolled a 22. What better than her attack? Mag roll the natural 20 for a 25. Okay what a haplow roll. Haplow also rolled a 22. All three of you managed to sort of shake off the the sort of creeping sound of this strange language that's in fade that's invading your mind. None of you are affected by this spell. The creature that did that then scampers up through the hole in the roof and disappears. It is now Norman's turn. So two questions I assume you can't flank someone who's 15 feet above you. There's no flanking happening even though on our screen it looks like we're flanking it. Yeah they're up way above you. You're you're not next to it. Okay and it doesn't seem to me like looking around here. There's anything to hide behind in this realm. Let's say Norman wanted to go do a little hiding. That doesn't seem to be an available option to him. It seems as though these creatures have set up set themselves up with a vantage point to give themselves a perfect vision of the entire. Just making sure I knew be understand things correctly and there's a friend up above the blue friend who we can't see. Right? There's somebody up on a shelf. So you heard three creatures. One of them dissiped, poked this hole in the roof and disappeared. The second one has now also escaped. So maybe there was a fourth unknown entity but all the remains is this blue friend. If you'd like to you can do an action called the seek action to scan around and see if there's anybody that you're not seeing that you would like to see. Okay, Norman will do that first. Okay. I'm going to roll a perception check for you then. This is a secret check in this game. You don't know if you succeeded or didn't succeed. You just know if you saw something or did not see something. But I'll point out again he has really good eyes though. Just consider that. You spend a moment sort of scanning frantically around the cobwebs and these planks up above you and you do not see any other creature up there. Okay. So detecting nothing else and seeing one foe remaining Norman looks up and says friend it doesn't have to be like this and then hurls. He's standing near some sort of debris. Yeah, there's like a broken chair right next to you. He tries to throw this broken chair up at it using his telekinetic projectile powers. The perfect one to punch of I'm your friend now eat chair. Let's see how it goes. I mean that's how all my game nights start. All right, that is a 15 on the die for a 21. So that is a hit as this chunk of chair collides with this creature this blue screaming creature above you. So you can go ahead and roll damage now. All right, and that is a six on the die. So that is enough to clunk this creature in the head. It tumbles back and falls down on the ground in front of you dead. Friend, I hardly knew ye. And with that, combat has ended. Ooh, nice. It's child is really fast when you miss entirely and everything gets away. No, no. I mean, I'll be face and I'm sure I'll just be spewing more badly aimed acid very soon. A moment after this creature hits the floor in front of you, you hear the sound of cursing and screaming of the of the other two creatures receding into the distance. And a moment later, you hear the sound of something thud like on to the ground outside like a wet disgusting thud. Well, that sounds promising. And then let's go eat it. And then there's only silence. You're standing in this room. There is this blue creature, this little blue humanoid with enormous ears has fallen onto the ground. And you're here in this room that is like a watch tower at the entrance to this keep covered with mold and other sort of gross things. What would you like to do? Norman swoops down and says didn't have to be like this little bud and does a pat down of our blue friend just to see if there's anything on him. Norm is faster than trail because she holds like a tiger dagger out and just kind of like poke at him to see what's what's there. So he has this creature had a or has on their body a homemade looking shiv that can be used like that it seems to be using as a short sword and it has one dart tucked into its belt. But it's clothing is you know made from the skins and the leaves and things like that recovered from the swamp. This is not a creature that has valuables of any sort on it. Can I use a dart? I can't dart too small for my shortbow, right? No, but you could take a dart and then throw it basically. Yeah, I'll take a dart in your shortbow, but you but you can just grab it. Okay, I have children grabs that dartly handy for her projectiles later. Yeah. While she's doing that norm quietly pockets the shift. Can Haplow do recall knowledge check about it? See if he knows anything about what it is? Yeah, I'd say do you have nature? I do in fact have nature. Okay, so we're rolling a secret check. This is a check that I'm able to see that Armad is not able to see. Okay, so you take a look at this creature and you do not have much of any idea what it is. It seems as though it's some sort of natural creature, but you don't have any experience in all of your years of delving through ruins and things like that. You've never interacted with anything like this curious. Yeah, it pokes you with this sort a little bit. I've got nothing. Mag wants to have a look through the back door and see if she can see where these little Remlins have run off to. Yes, capital idea, mag. Let's move on. Mag takes a walk up to the northern door at the end of this small watchtower. This entire room is only about 25 feet across and she opens the door carefully. So you're looking outside again. At a wooden drawbridge, it's timbers gray with age and decay. The drawbridge spans the 20-foot gap between the outbuilding that you are looking out of now and the sprawling ruin on the island. Rusty iron chains hang from the ruins northern wall to the drawbridge's southern side. The chains look ready to fall apart, giving the drawbridge's structural integrity an extra layer of dubiousness. Guys, this is so cool. Norman quickly peeks out the door to see what that wet was. So Norman, you're sort of looking up, you're looking through the same door that everybody else is looking through. I thought something fell out the door we came in. It was like a wet, that eve. Okay, so Norman heads back out the southern door as mag looks out the northern door of this watchtower. Yeah. And you can see a chunk of meat that is grotesquely discolored that has fallen on the shore on the northern side of this inlet that you're looking at. Like a yummy piece of meat? Like a yummy grotesque mag sees this, right? No, it's the other direction. Which I don't look Looking up. I'm looking up. Yeah, I think both of you are able to see this. Norman essentially has to cross outside to see to see where the meat is up here. I see. Okay. And mag is able to see the meat directly directly through that door. Norman is currently on the southern side of this watch tower, sort of checking out the scene with this meat far to the north. And mag is looking out on this drawbridge. Probably not a barbecue joint. Now I write norm chuckles to himself. Okay, so what are you doing? He's he's walking around to the right. He sees the meat. Okay, so Norman starts wandering off while mag and the rest of the party are looking at this bridge. What do you do as Norman starts walking around the pond? A mag is going to try to join him through the northern door, maybe a little bit carefully with her first step, given the rickety looking nature of the bridge. Kind of like a, you know, her aim is to get out to the same spot as Norman, but she's how are you communicating with each other? Are you like shouting back and forth with each other? Like how do you know where she or where Norman is? Oh, all right. What do you see out there, Norman? Big old hunk of meat. Craziest thing I've ever seen. Just fill out of the sky. I'm going to go check it out. I see it too. I'll be right there. Trill just kind of shrugs her shoulders and she's like, well, there's a bridge. Guess we should cross it. The trail is just ready. You know, she's small. She's not too worried about her weight carrying everything down. She is ready to cross this bridge. Send the gnome in first. Okay. So, so Trill steps out across onto the bridge. What is Happlo doing? Happlo is going to go with her and say, yes. I think we should keep our focus on moving forward rather than unappetizing meats of unknown problems. Trill sees Norm on the, you know, as Norm's kind of wandering around and Trill leaves him over here on the bridge. And what is Mag doing? Well, I guess once the, once the gnome in the elf head across the bridge, Mag is going to go. Mag is going to go with them. Well, right now they're just, they've just each stepped out onto the bridge. All right. Well, how's the bridge looking? Is it holding up under the weight? You want to take a look at the bridge? I'm going to do a perception check for you. Okay. Yeah. I want to know whether, if she wants to know whether it's, it looks like it's going to hold her weight along with everybody else. It doesn't look remotely like it's going to hold your weight. You can see that the, you can see that the chains on this bridge have clearly been tampered with. And the moment, like, like you get the impression that this small gnome running onto it is okay. And this elf stepping onto it, but you see that the, you see that the chains are, are, are perilously close to snapping and that if you were to set foot on it, it would, it would break. All right. Thanks for checking. How do you respond, how do you respond to that information? I call out and I say, um, I say, Trill haplow, uh, Trill haplow, go lightly. This bridge is weak. It's fine. Charles just like runs the other side. At the same time, Norman is now approaching the sort of far shore where this meat has been dropped onto the pond. That's called the meat corner. Uh, he's reached what appears to be an impasse. I'm having a little bit of trouble telling there's water to his left. And then up in front of him, is this a tall wall? Yeah, there's an elevated bridge that you have crossed over to. Essentially, there's a bridge here that, that Trill and haplow are starting to cross me out of wood. And then elevated about 20 feet above the water. And the water is passing underneath is a bridge that Norman has found his way to. And is the, the, like, thing that he's on is how high above the water and how far below the bridge. You're right on the shore of the water about 20 feet below the bridge. And, and so this is about, uh, can use my little ruler, but this is what, like, five feet of water. Uh, it's about 10 feet across, five to 10 feet across, yes. I mean, would you like to take a look at the water? I would. I would like to take a look at the water. Tangles of reeds grow in thick clusters around the edge of this muddy pond. The water appears murky with algae and the half decayed body of a three foot tall, scaly humanoid, you notice, lies on the pool's northern bank, half buried in mud and leaves right next to that chunk of meat. It's at this moment that you hear the sound of something emerging from the water. Oh, hello. Coming out of the water, and equal extra little stepping forward towards the meat, shaking its throat back and forth to open up a wide enough passage for the meat to pass through. You see this beast that looks like an enormous frog. It punctures the meat with one of its long tusks protruding from underneath its amphibian lips and the layer of spittle and blood from this meat clings to a thick layer of mucus as it swishes its tongue around and swallows it whole. It then turns to look at Norman. This tusked frog stops shaking after a moment as the meat seems to have found its way through his gallet. It turns its head to look at you, rotating it nearly 180 degrees, blinks its enormous yellow green eyes twice and leaps straight at you. Its glistening tusks aimed squarely at your head and will pick up there. Guess it was a barbecue join after all. 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