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Dusters & Dragons Chapter One
284 Plays5 years ago
Join the crew as they are joined by GM Chris for a unique one-shot set in a western fantasy world known as Dusters & Dragons
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Darrin Katzska, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrell DeLaney, Jessica Smith, Charles Compton, Richard Cree, Nastasia Raulerson, The Kamm Family, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, Rebekah Miller, deviouspoptart, Eðvarð Arnór Sigurðsson, Michael Clark, and Dustin Troupe.
Theme Music:
Neo Western by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4114-neo-western
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Patron Acknowledgements
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode is brought to you by the generous donations of Elizabeth Clark, Darryl Delaney, Ryan Royce, Darren Katska, Irene Villarito, Laura Pickron, Jessica Smith, Deavius Poptart, Natasha Rallerson, Richard Cree, The Cam Family, Charles Compton, Dustin Troop, Rebecca Miller, Edvard Arnoff, Michael Clark, and David Scrams, along with all of our generous patrons.
00:00:32
Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
Episode Introduction: One-Shot with Guest GM
00:00:59
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Eberron Renewed, a tabletop role playing actual play podcast. I am your normally game master, Eric, and I just wanted to drop in to welcome you all to the episode. This is the first episode of our second one shot in the interim between campaigns.
00:01:17
Speaker
where we have GM Chris of the Order 66 and the Forge podcast joining us, and we are very excited to have him running us through his Dusters and Dragons setting, which he is actually allowing us to playtest for him.
00:01:34
Speaker
So normally we obviously have everybody here for the intro, but we recorded this just like a pure one shot and then I'm cutting them up into one hour chunks for you all to enjoy.
Character Creation and Backgrounds
00:01:46
Speaker
So without any further ado, we'll get to the episode and then I will talk to you all afterwards with the outro.
00:01:54
Speaker
All right. And we're going to have some fun together. We're going to take 15 minutes to flesh out your characters just a little bit. All right. Now, I've done my very hardest not to lock you guys into too many boxes. There's a lot from your, your choice of career, as well as your motivations, your strengths, your flaw, your desire, your fear that are on the back that should inform a lot about your character and what's important to them and why they are
00:02:24
Speaker
who they are and why they do what they do. You know, at a very high level, you know, Glorphin, you know, Glorphin is a gambler, okay? That's what he is, okay? He's a half-elf gambler. You know, Grum is a preacher, all right? Obviously, a very devout person, you know, with a bit of an anger management problem.
00:02:51
Speaker
Laelia is a patrician. Maybe not currently, but at the very least comes from money and high society. She also comes from the old world, but she is obviously a scholar. This is a person who's dedicated to knowledge, exploration, and understanding of the world. Matthias is a Cambian. You are a half-fae-blooded creature, and we'll come to that in a moment.
00:03:19
Speaker
But you know, you're a gunslinger straight up That's that's what you are. And then of course we have Mickey the lawman. All right So what I'm gonna ask of you now is each of you is going to get to dictate a Relational fact about another character kids on bikes It's Philip's least favorite thing
00:03:46
Speaker
I don't mind this part. No, this is not anything like what I just liked about Kids on Bikes. I'm dictating
Character Relationships and Dynamics
00:03:52
Speaker
something about a relationship, not something true about your character. Well, it could get that way. We'll see. We'll see. But we're going to start actually with Mickey and Jeff. Jeff, this is something you're going to dictate about Glorphin's relationship to you. Glorphin is one of your oldest friends.
00:04:13
Speaker
I want you to think about how. All right. Now you don't have to answer me right away. Just think about it. We'll come back to it in a moment. Great. How is Glorfin one of your oldest friends and what does that mean for your relationship? All right. Glorfin, Eric, this has to do with Randy and Grum. Grum trusts Glorfin. Trusts Glorfin implicitly. Why? What happened to cause that relationship? All right.
00:04:45
Speaker
I need you to figure out something about Laelia. Laelia's character is fascinated by you. Why is Laelia's character fascinated by you? Laelia, Matthias is attached to you. In what way and why? Tell me about that relationship.
00:05:09
Speaker
Oh, because I'm so pretty. And it could be something as simple as that. It could be something as simple as attraction. And lastly, Philip, Mickey is indebted to you. The lawman in the group, the sheriff in town is in your debt. Why and what happened? So we're going to at a very high level, we're going to go around the table and we're going to discuss this.
00:05:39
Speaker
So we'll start with Jeff. Jeff, tell us about Glorfin's relationship to Mickey. How is Glorfin one of Mickey's oldest friends? Okay. I think Glorfin and Mickey, Erica, this is all right with you. I think Glorfin and Mickey are both townies. They didn't roll in to this place. They both grew up here. I think given
00:06:10
Speaker
Okay, okay, I think that Mickey's dad runs the saloon that maybe Glorfin's dad or parent attended. That's where they went. That's where the gambling started. So these two as kids were always around each other. And then Mickey saw
00:06:33
Speaker
that going into law, it's actually a good way to ensure that her family business stays safe. And Glorfin saw the gambling path as something desirous, but they just grew up together. And just by proximity, they're each other's oldest friends, which causes some tension. But I think gambling is, if not illegal, certainly looked the other way in a town where there's a lot bigger threats.
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah. Gambling is legal. All right. Okay. Okay. Sure. There's no, there's no, they're not at cross purposes then with the fact that that's his chosen career or hobby or whatever it is. All right. So this is, this is a good relationship. Now, something I didn't tell you before that I'm gonna do now, after you guys describe it, I'm going to throw a wrinkle in. All right. So here's the, here's the wrinkle. Um, Mickey, your father died two years ago. Okay.
00:07:32
Speaker
and you are struggling still with the decision you made to not take over the inn and allow it to be sold. All right. All right. All right. Eric, let's move to Glorphin. Uh, why does Grum trust you implicitly? Um, so,
00:08:02
Speaker
Obviously, give me a lay of the land in terms of Grum being being orcish. Does that like create any kind of tension or is it?
00:08:13
Speaker
like not a big deal in this world, like what does that mean? So, okay. So in terms of subspecies in this game, when it comes to elves and when it comes to orcs, there are two types. There are new world elves and new world orcs and old world elves and old world orcs. The new world is the frontier. It's where you guys are, okay? It's the colonies. It's those colonists who three generations ago found a way to cross the rift, built the iron carriage, and now we have the frontier that's being colonized.
00:08:42
Speaker
When the Old World colonists came here, they discovered that there were among a bunch of crazy-ass fey creatures. There were actually native elves and native orcs that were actually living here, maybe distant, distant, distant, extremely distant ancestors, in some relational sense. Grom is a New World orc, meaning that he was born or his family was born here in the New World on the frontier.
00:09:10
Speaker
But obviously, with his chosen vocation, he has become an inherent of the old world ways. He wants to be a part of this society, not the raging horde that is his people. Now, I'll let you infer from that how people in civilized society might respond to him.
00:09:36
Speaker
OK, with love and happiness. So I'm going to say then the reason that Grum trusts Glorfin, I spent that whole time with that sentence backwards. My hand was like thinking why Glorfin trusts Grum. So Grum trusts Glorfin implicitly because when he first rolled into town,
00:10:00
Speaker
He was getting a lot of sideways looks, sideways glances because of being orcish and his faith and carrying that staff that he has as a symbol of his faith, then surely that would be a red flag for a lot of people. Well, let's be clear. He's a man of the cloth. He's not some barbarous shaman. He is accepted. I mean, this is the native who's converted, basically. Gotcha. Not only converted, but become a damn preacher.
00:10:29
Speaker
Okay. Um, well, um, is there any physical characteristic that would distinguish him new world versus old world? Um, honestly, those simple speech patterns. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Um, so let's say when grum first rolled into town, um, obviously the saloon being, um, one of the center points of this town being the, the social hub, um, Glorfin would have been there and grum probably would have, uh, at least,
00:10:57
Speaker
Come to check it out. And somebody in the saloon made the wrong remark about Grum being a savage or something like along those lines being a New World orc. And Glorfin being the the compulsive compulsive showboat that he is,
00:11:23
Speaker
was very quick to kick his chair out from the poker table that he was at and offer the individual making remarks that if he had something to say, they could go out in the street and settle it half-elf to man. And the person was very quick to back down and apologize before Grum
00:11:46
Speaker
what Glorfin has now learned Grum's anger could get the better of him. So just the fact that Glorfin was the first person to really stick up for Grum in the face of prejudice in this town built a great deal of trust on his end. Understood. So that's that relationship and Grum, that's why you trust Glorfin implicitly. Here's the wrinkle, Eric.
00:12:14
Speaker
Grum is a man of the word. He's a preacher privately. You find the entire concept completely ridiculous and have zero respect that you would, up to you, whether or not you would ever communicate that to his beliefs. Gotcha. All right. Okay. All right, Randy, we're going to come to Grum.
00:12:35
Speaker
So we have this scholarly high born old world elf, Patricia, who is rolled up into town and she is absolutely fascinated by you. Why is she fascinated by you? I think that maybe she's, even though she may be familiar with old world orcs, she's not that familiar with a new world orc, especially one of the cloth.
00:13:05
Speaker
And she's fascinated by what he believes as she's scholarly and maybe she doesn't quite understand what he believes. And she's fascinated by that. So a scholarly academic fascination that I, I'm all down for it. Um, so here's, here's, here's the wrinkle. And also, you know, she hasn't seen a new world orc. That's a preacher.
00:13:35
Speaker
Exactly. Absolutely. So this is definitely fascinating for her. Here's the wrinkle. Whether you're willing to admit it to yourself or not, you are harboring a tremendous amount of secret attraction and physical attraction towards Laelia. Okay. Every time Chris GMs for us, Randy, you just got to get involved with one of the other players.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yep, I guess so. But, you know, entirely up to you, whether you would keep that secret or not, it would definitely be an odd pairing. In the old world, orcs are very much very much a subclass, so. OK, Laelia, Trevor. Yes, Matthias is attached to you. In what way and why?
00:14:32
Speaker
Okay. So you tell me if this works. Um, I was thinking that Mattias was attached to Laelia because, um, uh, this is the part, I don't know if it's going to work. They've known each other for a long time and he feels protective over her. Like it's his job to kind of watch out for.
00:15:03
Speaker
I love it. I absolutely love it. So what we can do is we can say, you know, the town you guys are in, which the town is called Pixi Gulch, by the way. Nice. So Pixi Gulch is one of the last stops on the Iron Coach, OK?
00:15:22
Speaker
It's really a major frontier town, very small population. When Laelia arrived in the New World, she was obviously a lot further east. We'll say that she and Matthias met very early on and have maintained that relationship. Easy. Here's the wrinkle, Laelia.
00:15:46
Speaker
Without Matthias's knowledge, you have been chronicling your adventures together and are planning to become rather wealthy and hopefully famous through this hidden chronicle. You're basically writing a dinosaur novel. Nice. All right. But you have kept this entirely hidden from him. All right. And lastly, Matthias, Philip.
00:16:15
Speaker
Mickey is indebted to you. Why? What happened? All right. This being a Western, I would like to plagiarize the plot of a John Wayne movie. So at some point in the past, Pixie Gulch was, or maybe still is, but at some point in the past was also, Pixie Gulch was
00:16:45
Speaker
tormented by a notorious outlaw who somehow or another, perhaps through threatening the saloon or something like this, goaded Mickey into a high noon gunfight, which I presume is a somewhat extralegal activity.
00:17:14
Speaker
And everyone in the town thinks that she killed this notorious gunman and saved the town. But in fact, Matthias shot him from an alley and has never revealed it to the town. Despite being all apparently the fame obsessed, Matthias has never revealed
00:17:40
Speaker
All right, so let's let's let's let's let's let's kill the outlaw. So let's expand it then. I mean, because they're out there. I do have been a good reason for it. So well, I'm all down with this. So Mickey, this gunfight did not go well. You were literally about to be killed. And Matias saved your life and let you be the hero of the town. Well, OK, we'll we'll extend it even further. At that time, we'll say it was maybe a year ago. Mickey was a mere deputy.
00:18:10
Speaker
Um, that event of saving Pixie Gulch from the notorious outlaw is what allowed her to be elected as sheriff in the first place. Okay. So entirely built on a lie. Um, here, Oh God, that was, yeah, that's going to be, that's going to be my wrinkle. Okay. That's going to be my wrinkle. Yeah.
00:18:40
Speaker
All right. OK, so now hopefully we understand a little more about our characters and our relation to each other. I hope that exercise was somewhat enjoyable. Yeah. All right. Well, other than that, guys, we're ready to get started playing. We've gone through a lot of housekeeping. I apologize for that. But do we have any other questions before we begin? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. All right.
00:19:07
Speaker
All right, well, welcome all.
Game Setting: Pixie Gulch and Dusters and Dragons
00:19:10
Speaker
Thank you all again so much for joining me for this initial play test of something exciting I've been working on for Genesis, Dusters, and Dragons. My take on Weird West or Wild West Fantasy or whatever you want to call it using the Genesis role-playing system. So why don't we very briefly go around the table and tell everyone who you're playing?
00:19:38
Speaker
All right. Well, I'm, uh, this is Jeff. I'm playing Mickey Westwood. She is a human. Uh, she is the sheriff of the town, Pixie Gulch. And you want more than that or just that we go. Whatever you'd like to do if you want to summer, if you want to do a quick, I wouldn't recommend reading your motivation entirely, but if you want to summarize something about the character. Um, she is a brain over,
00:20:08
Speaker
She likes to use her brain in her police work. She's not averse to pulling a gun. But one of the things that I liked about the character when I was reading the sheet is that she prizes logic and she prizes rationality, which is very cool. But that also kind of makes her overly tenacious sometimes.
00:20:35
Speaker
because she can't let it go. She needs to solve whatever it is that she's up against. So that's Mickey. All right. This is Eric and I'm going to be playing Glorphin Spurbottom, half elf gambler. So Glorphin was a very independent individual. He has a lot of a large circle of friends because he's a very affable person, but he's not. He doesn't like to be reliant on other people.
00:21:05
Speaker
But he is a compulsive gambler, which is also an interesting wrinkle because he also is terrified of poverty having grown up begging for scraps. He never wants to go back to that. So he he is a very independent person who seeks a lot of recognition and fame, primarily through his gambling and through his silver tongue. All right.
00:21:33
Speaker
I'm Randy. I'm playing Grum. Go Randy, do it. I'm playing Grum Crag Hollow. He's a new world orc preacher and he is fairly devoted to his beliefs and he wants to be accepted by the community in which he lives. Something else about him is
00:22:04
Speaker
He has quite the temper at times. As is fitting for a new world orc. This is Philip and I'm playing Matthias Sixkiller. Matthias is a Cambian. So he is a, you said a half fey-blooded creature, Chris? Okay. Yeah, that's correct. And he's a gunslinger.
00:22:34
Speaker
He is quick-witted, sharp-toned, and loves the spotlight, and has a pair of extremely fancy bluestone pistols.
00:22:52
Speaker
And this is Trevor, and I am playing, um, Laelia Danfield. Uh, she is an old world elf, uh, Patricia. Is that how you say it? Yeah. Perfect. Hi. It sounds better than highfalutin.
00:23:09
Speaker
Well, she is very curious, especially when it comes to learning new things and gathering knowledge, but she's also a little bit reckless. So we'll see how that comes into play. Excellent.
00:23:32
Speaker
So in the setting of Dusters and Dragons, to put a few things in perspective, without any type of expositional dump, you guys will be able to infer a lot, and we'll play as we go. The first colonists from the Old World came to the New World a few generations ago, building the Iron Carriage shortly afterwards.
00:23:51
Speaker
Crossing the Great Rift to explore the New World was originally a very treacherous and difficult proposition that early explorers risked life and limb to do. But with the comforts of modern convenience and its wonderful iron tracks, the iron carriage can take anyone seeking a new life out to the New World and its wild frontiers with amazing opportunity, amazing prospects, and wonderful natural resources along with no small amounts of threat.
00:24:19
Speaker
Those in the Old World had a lot of history, a lot of legends, things they thought were myth. And upon coming to the New World, discovered that their histories may be a lot more accurate than they originally realized. Creatures of myth, legend, and very, very old provenance exist openly in the New World, causing no small amount of unusual situations for those colonists, settlers, and frontiersmen who are now calling the New World their home.
00:24:47
Speaker
Additionally, as was pointed out earlier in the character descriptions, you know, Randy is obviously playing a new world orc.
00:24:53
Speaker
Orcs are one of the species that exist natively in both the New World and the Old World, as do the elves. As a New World orc, your native peoples are very, very barbarous, often referred to as the Horde, going around and doing a lot of damage and other carnage. Whereas New World elves are very naturalist, very shamanistic peoples.
00:25:22
Speaker
compared to the very high born and noble old world elves.
Saloon Scene and Town Tensions
00:25:29
Speaker
Our setting is the town of Pixie Gulch, population 93, founded
00:25:36
Speaker
Founded a little over a generation ago as a mining town with its primary export being bluestone, which is one of the many amazing natural resources on the frontier. Can do a lot of very interesting arcane things when it's used metallurgically, but most people in the frontier prize it because of its deathly capabilities when it comes to any creature with fey blood. So bluestone being one of the primary exports of pixie Gulch.
00:26:06
Speaker
So as the day wears on and the sun is growing late in the sky, a lot of the residents of Pixie Gulch find themselves in the town's saloon with its owner, Greta Hammerfist, its current owner, Greta Hammerfist, polishing glasses behind the bar and laughing with her patrons. It's been a good day. It's been a couple good weeks. And the five of you find yourselves sharing a drink and a quiet word with some of the locals here in the saloon.
00:26:35
Speaker
People are kind of on a high. The iron coach came in last night and it'll be here probably for another day before it departs. And anytime the iron coach comes in, we have new travelers, new goods, new supplies. So there's a fresh stock of whiskey, a few other interesting things and bits and baubles that have come. And so the locals are enjoying it. Furthermore, it's been an interesting couple of weeks. There's been just unusual quiet
00:27:04
Speaker
In fact, as you guys are sitting around one of the local ranchers, actually, Greta Hammerfist's cousin, Bourne, Bourne is saying that it's been surprising. There's been no rustling of his herd for nearly two weeks. And Mickey, that doesn't sit quite right with you. It's a little worrisome because there's a local bandit crew called the Scale Gang.
00:27:28
Speaker
that have been notoriously rustling from his owlbear herd over the past several months, causing a lot of damage and stealing quite a bit of good owlbear meat. Overall, the townsfolk are pretty happy. The scale gang is silent. They've got some new goods in from the iron coach and you guys are just enjoying a wonderful afternoon. So are you saying that we are all sitting together right now or we're just all in the saloon?
00:27:58
Speaker
I'd say you're in the main room of the saloon, it's not too terribly big. Okay, okay. Just wondering. Well, Laelia's gonna go order another drink. Gretto, would you fix me up with another mint julep, please? Ah, yes. That famous Wild West drink.
00:28:17
Speaker
Gretta Sighs gives you a wink, pours a deep goblet of bourbon, and adds a few leaves of local sage to it, since mint is... Sage you look like. Yeah, says, you know, here you go, darling. Well, I guess that'll do. Thank you.
00:28:42
Speaker
I've got a really bad Western accent. Thank you. Excellent. That was an excellent like Western movie accent is what that was. Any y'all want to play cards? I'm bored. Mickey is just surveying. Like she's clocking the new people, the ones that look more suspicious, those that look less, letting them have a little bit more freedom. You know, obviously she,
00:29:12
Speaker
knows all the town people and seeing who's present and who's not. But every time the iron coach comes in, a new sense of vigilance comes over Mickey for at least that day or two when everybody's new and moving around a lot. So she's in the saloon, but she's not necessarily there for downtime right now. Maybe 20 minutes things slow down or whatever, 20 minutes game time.
00:29:42
Speaker
But right now she's got her hackled up a little bit. If there's if there's people in the saloon, then Glorfin is absolutely trying to wrestle up a card game, like trying to get people to edit table. Absolutely. It's not even going to be hard. You you can be playing cards while all this is happening. Not not not an issue at all. Well, then as you're asking, lately, it's walking past you and she says, well, sure, I'll join you for a card game. All right, darling, go and take a seat.
00:30:13
Speaker
What are we playing? Is the currency fantasy currency gold, silver, copper? Are we talking dollars? What's the currency? The currency is money. We'll call it dollars. How about that? Okay. Now the buy-in is $5. Well, that's no skin off my back, darling. All right.
00:30:38
Speaker
All right, so, yeah, glorifing deals. Meanwhile, the bartender, the saloon owner, Greta, is, you know, hurriedly filling drink orders. You know, there's probably about maybe eight or nine new people in town, which is a lot for Pixie Gulch, you know, that came in. There's a handful of prospectors, and they're coming in after buying some supplies.
00:31:02
Speaker
and, you know, eagerly quenching their thirst. And Greta calls over her shoulder to her cousin, Born, and says, you know, so Born, you ain't had no rustling going on? And he says, wait, I'm sorry, I lost Greta's voice. So Born, you ain't had no rustling going on? And he says, ah, no, no rustling going on.
00:31:25
Speaker
He says, my owlbear herd is safe and sound. He says, but I'm quite worried. It's just not right having a day go by without having to fend off one of them damn bandits, you know? So what do we know about the way in which this is strange? Obviously, this is something weird. But what do we know about the why is this weird?
00:31:53
Speaker
Well, I mean, honestly, at least every day or every other day when he's up here, Bourne comes in to complain about the fact that he's lost another, about, about, he's lost another owl there. And, you know, like last, like last month he came in, he'd lost a dozen of the hurt. All right. Um, and that was, you know, I mean, and wrestling is not uncommon. I mean, Mickey, it's one of the more common things you have to deal with out here. Sure. How many run-ins has Mickey had with this, the scale gang scale gang, right? Yeah. Specifically over.
00:32:23
Speaker
Albert wrestling. Um, well, they're, they're, they're, they're a smarter crew. They, they tend to branch out quite a bit. Um, they make a fair, good money, a bit of money wrestling. I mean, it's hard to pin it on them, but over, over your time as a deputy and then sheriff, you've probably maybe made half a dozen of arrests of different members of the gang, um, having to do with, with wrestling in general. But I mean, hell there was rumors that they pulled off an iron coach robbery last year. So, I mean, they, they, they, they branch out. Sure.
00:32:53
Speaker
Even if even if even a bit of bluestone smuggling at one point, I Mean it's important to diversify your portfolio. I understand that especially crime. Absolutely. Mm-hmm I think that Mickey overhears that and Goes over and she says them
00:33:13
Speaker
Well, you know, I haven't seen hide nor hair of the, uh, scale gang for a while. It's, it's possible they moved on to greener pastures as it were. Um, I don't, I don't, I don't know. Congratulations on the stability of your albedder herd. Um, that's great, but, um, I suppose that is something I could go, you know,
00:33:38
Speaker
I've seen a few places where they bed down and I know where I've heard rumors, like their hideouts and things, and maybe that's something I could look into. If they're abandoned, I think maybe we could chalk it up as them moving on to their next venture. Well, one can pray. One can pray, Sheriff, one can pray, Greta says. Meanwhile, Bourne also makes the sign of obedience. Huh?
00:34:08
Speaker
instead of crossing himself because they're obviously not Catholic. Yeah. Gotcha. Mattias, since this is a busy day, Mattias always stands as if someone was going to draw him or take a picture of him or something like that. Mattias has got himself
00:34:37
Speaker
sort of leaned his back against the bar with a drink next to him. And he's got his duster sort of pulled open to show off his gilded gun belt and the bluestone pistols.
00:34:55
Speaker
And his hat, you know Pulled down low as such as it can be he's got you know horns running along the side of his head So that probably makes wearing a wearing a cowboy hat off He spent a lot of time working on getting that getting that tilt right with the horns And he just sort of looks over his shoulder And says Sounds like maybe you just don't know how to take good news born
00:35:30
Speaker
Well, you know, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And that's really important when you're shoeing owl bears, let me tell you. What? Just to clarify, are you saying owl bears or owl bears? Yeah. Owl bears. You know, owl bears. And bears. Oh, Trevor. Welcome to D&D. Somebody send him a picture of an owl bear. Gotcha.
00:36:00
Speaker
This is all a learning experience, step by step, day by day, my story. Born for the longest time, I've wondered, there's got to be easier livestock, right? Alberts, they pretty much take care of themselves, you know? Oh, jeez. Pretty handy to take care of themselves, you know, but it's the taste, you know, I get top dollar for the meat. Well,
00:36:28
Speaker
And you guys know, like, owlbear steaks, that's like prime rib, you know what I mean? When you come into a little bit of cash, that's some pretty prime stuff. Well, now that I see them, yeah, I can imagine. You still selling the feathers to the old welders? You go, eh, not so much anymore. They seem to take offense to it, you know what I mean?
00:36:55
Speaker
Meanwhile, one of the one of the new arrivals, one of the prospectors, looks to be a kind of a human, smells like he hasn't showered in about three weeks, has come into the bar and he's staring at you very, very, very deeply, Matthias. And with no small amount of awe, it's a little bit of awe. And he's staring at your gun belt. He says to that, he goes, tarnation. Is that their blue stone? Yeah.
00:37:26
Speaker
It just gets a little chin-jerk up. But, but, ain't she one of them cambions? And there's just a little loss of smile. I am. Well, you're a brave man. You're, you're, you're, you're quite a brave man.
00:37:53
Speaker
Alright, so you're gonna have to clue me in a little bit. So Bluestone... Am I farmed when I touch? I mean, I know the Bluestone has banging properties, but... Yes, if you were to get shot with one of your own guns, you would have a series. I mean, it's the equivalent of a fairy carrying a coal iron weapon, basically. Right, right, okay.
00:38:14
Speaker
as much about your mythos as anything else. Here's a fey-blooded creature carrying a weapon that is designed to take down fey creatures. Okay, so he sort of looks at him and, well, ain't dangerous unless I let someone else get their hands on him. He says, well, ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth?
00:38:41
Speaker
Meanwhile, Randy, obviously, Grum is, you said outside on the corner. Yeah, he's outside on the corner. Take a look around. I want you to go ahead and give me a perception check, if you wouldn't mind, with the difficulty of just one purple dye, which I have set. Perception, that's too green. So you're,
00:39:01
Speaker
So with that perception role, it was a
Strange Occurrence: Elijah's Actions
00:39:03
Speaker
failure. You have no net successes, but you did roll three advantage. So you failed to spot anything unusual, but you did get three advantages. So something beneficial happens. So here's what you're able to see. Walking at a rather stoic pace down the center of the street, walking through horse manure and mud and everything else is the town blacksmith, old Elijah.
00:39:31
Speaker
Now, you know old Elijah well. You wave at him. He doesn't appear to wave back at you or even acknowledge your presence. He doesn't like what I'm preaching. Well, now, typically old Elijah is one of your better patrons, actually. He shows up for service most Sundays.
00:39:52
Speaker
Um, but you know, he, you, you're familiar with him. You wave at him. He does not wave back. He appears to ignore you completely. And he walks in a straight line through the middle of the mud of the street. Um, and then he stops in front of the saloon, makes a sharp right turn almost exactly 90 degrees and then walks into the saloon. Um.
00:40:11
Speaker
Nearly taking the doors off the the double doors off their hinges when he walks through You know just without without any grace or finesse meanwhile the other four of you in the bar see old Elijah walk in You know completely He just doesn't look Quite normal um honestly all of you guys can give me perception checks as well one purple difficulty I have the difficulty set if you're using the digital character sheet
00:40:43
Speaker
For advantage. Failure with for advantage. Oh my. Oh.
00:40:51
Speaker
Okay, so Laelia and Glorphin, you guys both failed with some advantage, Laelia with one advantage, Glorphin with four advantage. You guys, you know, are kind of nod to old Elijah as he comes in. You see that he seems a bit, it's a bit unusual to see him here in the saloon, you know, at this time of day, usually he's working. You know, there's a lot of animals to be shoot, a lot of other work to be done. So that's a bit unusual. Mickey,
00:41:19
Speaker
and Matthias, both the tiny hairs on the back of your necks both raise up immediately. And I will tell you that for your successful checks that you've made, old Elijah just does not look right. Something is wrong. He does not look like himself in any way, form, or fashion. Now, Philip, Matthias rolled a triumph as well. What would you like to do with that triumph? I don't know.
00:41:49
Speaker
feels like an awkward spot to do that. Would you be open to a suggestion? I would love a suggestion at this juncture, yes. Yeah, maybe you could notice something. I mean, I'm willing to provide extremely more detail than I just did, basically. I think that seems right is
00:42:12
Speaker
probably Matthias prides himself on his capacity to read a person's stance as a gunfighter. It's not just that Elijah doesn't look like himself. Matthias knows what looks wrong.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah, the last time you saw a man look like this was shortly after a major gunfight that happened in another frontier town. It was about six years ago. You barely got out by the skin of your teeth and you were severely wounded.
00:42:51
Speaker
there were about 37 men and women that died in that confrontation. It was massive, massive, massive between a group of hired mercenaries, military, law enforcement, and several others. It was one of those sensational things. Those that survived had this look about them that was almost glassy-eyed when they would sit at a bar in days to come as if they're staring off into nothing, almost as if they're outside of their body. It's almost like they're
00:43:20
Speaker
Their body was there, but they weren't. Almost an extreme shell shock kind of look and feel. Does that make sense? Yeah.
00:43:28
Speaker
Um, and you, you, you suss that out immediately. Um, additionally, you and Mickey both see, um, you know, the bartender, she calls towards Elijah. Elijah does not respond. Instead, Elijah walks up to the rather smelly prospector, um, that was commenting on your gun belt earlier. Um, he walks up to the guy, gets within four inches of his face, stares down into him and old Elijah is a big dude.
00:43:55
Speaker
He reaches down, literally with his shoulder and one arm, grabs the prospector around the waist and hauls him over his shoulder like a sack of flour, and then begins to try and turn around wordlessly and carry him out of the saloon. Uh... M-M-M-Meki? Yeah, uh, I think...
00:44:21
Speaker
I think, can I get myself between them and the door? Sure. I mean, to try and stop him, basically? Yeah, yeah. Well, to get in his way, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely, sure.
00:44:39
Speaker
Mattias senses something potentially awesome and dramatic about to happen. And so he's going to position himself to make sure that he is conspicuously a part of it if it goes down. And so he sort of pushes away from the bar, tucks his coat behind one of his guns, which he wears cross tucked, and just rests a hand close to one.
00:45:07
Speaker
sort of behind Elijah, who's I guess now moving towards Mickey.
00:45:13
Speaker
OK, I mean, while everyone in the saloon is either staring open mouthed or going, hey, hey, the this the old prospector is like, as you can imagine, he's flailing, he's screaming at the top of his lungs at this point, you know, crown me down and, you know, and you hear so Randy Grum, you hear this screaming coming from inside just mere moments after you watched old Elijah walk into the saloon.
00:45:40
Speaker
Okay, well I assumed since I would have known he was walking a little, like not himself, it was pretty obvious. I would have probably followed and be entering about that time.
00:45:52
Speaker
Makes sense. So I'm envisioning you're coming up to the double doors of the saloon. You can see Mickey's back as Mickey moves to get in between. What you can now see is the hulking form of old Elijah, literally carrying this random person over his shoulder who's flailing about as the Elijah starts moving towards Mickey. Well, I'm going to basically block the doorway. What's going on here?
00:46:20
Speaker
What are you doing Elijah? Put him down. So Jeff, since you're closest, I mean, Elijah, Elijah just walks straight towards you and literally is going to just try and shoulder straight past you. Not, not, not like a linebacker or anything, just slow plotting, pushing you past. Um, so I, there's no, there's no, there's no talking like he's up on me right now.
00:46:49
Speaker
Wait, that's just, he's not even looking at you. His glassy eyes appear to be staring off into the distance. It's almost like your scenery. Okay. I think I'll just try, you know, clap, snap, make some big popping noises, try to see if I can literally snap him out of whatever weird trance it seems like he's in. Because I don't know what Matthias knows, right? Not unless Matthias is going to share anything. I don't think you have, Philip.
00:47:20
Speaker
Okay, then I'm thinking that he's just in some weird fugue thing, I guess, if I really can't see just the glassiness in his eyes, I'm going to shout his name, say, you know, well, what the hell are you doing? Okay, then I'm going to call for a leadership check. This is going to be difficult. This is going to be a three purple difficulty leadership check, which I have set. But yeah, go ahead and give me a leadership check on this because you are trying to exert your authority at this moment.
00:47:49
Speaker
Okay, here goes.
00:47:53
Speaker
Wow. So that is a success with one success. Um, and for the barest of moment, barest of moments, you're, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're hollering at him. You're, you're doing what you said. You're snapping your fingers, Elijah. He like, and he, he's got a good eight inches on you. All right. Sure. And, and, and his head just kind of dips down and these glassy eyes gain a brief moment of lucidity.
00:48:19
Speaker
And he looks at you and you see confusion. And just as quickly as you see that look in his face and that return of some semblance of conscious thought, it's back to a glassy-eyed stare again. And at this point, he's fully proceeding and trying to push past you. I don't know how to say it, but something's not right with him.
00:48:43
Speaker
I don't think that I'm going to try to exert any sort of physical to try to stop him if he wants to get past me because I can't. So I think what I'll say is, is Crag Hollow, is that right? Yeah. Crag Hollow, do you know what is going on with your boy, Elijah? I don't know. He's acting very strange. Yes, I diagnosed that as well.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah. And Grum would have seen the interaction that happened and seen the look in his eyes as well. You would have had a clear view over Mickey's shoulder. And at this point, yeah, if you're going to let him go and the prospector is like, like, help, help somebody help me. I'm blocking the door. I mean, I don't want to try to hurt Elijah, but he needs to put the prospector down. Well, Elijah is going to try and push past you, man. I'm going to say this is going to be an opposed athletics check on your part if you want to try and stop it.
00:49:41
Speaker
Yeah, I wanna try to stop him.
00:49:43
Speaker
OK, so you succeeded. Yeah, so he tries to push his way past you, and he's got this dude screaming for help all over his shoulder right now. He tries to push his way past you. You are successful. However, you rolled two threat that was successful with three successes and two threat. So in other words, you succeeded on the check. He can't push his way past you, but you've got two threats. So something bad does happen. All right. So while he doesn't necessarily get past you,
00:50:12
Speaker
Randy, he kind of looks at you with frustration and he is going to take a swing at you. Ooh. One arm, you're in his way. He needs to get past you. He can't get past you, so he's going to try and knock you down. At this point, I'm going to get one swing off at you and then we're going to move into an initiative because violence has now ensued.
00:50:38
Speaker
So he is going to take a swing. Give me one moment. I would just like to point out real quick how incredible it is that even on Randy's messed up role with all those extra negative dice, he still succeeded. I think a meteor was going to fall on us with that amount of threat.
00:51:04
Speaker
Okay, he failed with two advantage. So he takes a swing at you and misses. You literally are able to just kind of move your head, dodge back out of the way. However, he is barreling ahead of you trying to get ahead of you again. He seems emboldened. I'm going to stick those two advantage in my pocket. They're going to help him out later.
00:51:26
Speaker
At this point, you guys watched old Elijah just take a swing at the orc preacher. Everyone's going nuts. People are jumping up, reaching for weapons at this point. It's initiative from everybody. I need either a cool or a vigilance role. It is your choice. This is in weapons, talents, and powers to make it work. If you're using your digital character sheet, it would be under weapons, talents, and powers. Yes. It's right next to skills.
00:51:56
Speaker
And if you can go ahead and roll either cooler initiative, your choice. Dang. I know. Phillip, you're using up all your triumphs early. And on an initiative. Yeah. Nothing. Which I think Rules is Written gets you nothing. Nothing. Rules is Written, yeah, but I hate that rule, so I do it a little different. Yeah. We'll talk about that in just one second.
00:52:25
Speaker
We appreciate that about you. Well, I was winning the card game. That's what your advantage is, is you were winning the card game. That you were. So with initiative rolled at this point, I have three PCs. So also Trevor, Randy, as a reminder, the way initiative works in this system is unlike Dungeons and Dragons where you have an initiative and you roll it and that's your initiative and this is your turn.
00:52:49
Speaker
in the initiative order, when you roll, that goes into a PC slot. Every NPC rolls and there's an NPC slot. So round by round, you guys get to decide who goes first when. A little more flexible.
00:53:05
Speaker
So I've got three PCs that are going up first before Elijah is going to get a chance to. So yeah, the saloon is going crazy at this point. The prospector screaming his head off, he's screaming for help. You just watched Elijah take a swing at Grum, miss, but at this point is still trying to barrel out the door. There are patrons and others reaching for guns at this point. Yeah, I'm afraid you're right. Okay.
00:53:33
Speaker
Not out the door yet, right? Not yet. Okay. I think the first thing Mickey's going to do is try to exert her influence over the other patrons in the bar to not turn this into a 37 person shootout and just, and just say. I've been through one of those, man. You don't want to, you don't want a piece of that. Well, do you want me to say, or do you want me to roll whatever I want to roll and then say what happened? Talk to me and we'll figure out what you're going to roll.
00:54:04
Speaker
Okay, fair enough. She wants to ensure the people who are reaching for guns that are not either law enforcement or Matthias because he's Matthias and she knows what he did. Or Grum because he's the preacher that this guy goes to the church of. Literally anybody else, including right now. At least, I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name.
00:54:31
Speaker
Laelia. Laelia. Sorry, I wanted to say Laeliana, because, you know. Right. To ensure them that we've got this covered. You don't need to grab your guns. This is not a time for vigilanteism. That's the point she wants to get across. All right.
00:54:51
Speaker
I would say that I really like that the way that Mickey has decided to pay back his debt is to let Matthias draw guns whenever he feels like it. She knows what's up. Okay, so I really like this. It's very well within character. I'm going to give you a boost eye for that which I've already worked into your difficulty.
00:55:11
Speaker
This is going to be an average difficulty, so two purple dice that I have set. I'm also going to go ahead and spend one of my story points on this, which is going to upgrade that difficulty. Because quite frankly, despair might make things pretty fun right now, so I want to see if it's rolled. This is definitely going to be a leadership check on your part. I have your boost set, I've got your difficulty set, one purple, one red, just roll me a leadership check. You got it.
00:55:39
Speaker
Okay. Wow. So that is a success with three advantages. So with the success, um, yeah, you, you, you stern worded out there. Um, all the local Johnny's, uh, who've gotten up ready to draw iron, um, are, are, are keeping their hands off their holsters and some of them are slowly sitting back down. Um, you've got three advantage. What do you want to do with it? Um, I can't direct a boost, can I? Sure. Okay. So that'll cost you two advantage.
00:56:09
Speaker
Okay. Um, can it be, can it be, I don't think I've ever done this. Can it be a vague direct? Like the next person who tries to subdue Elijah as opposed to a specific character. So for, for two advantage, for one advantage, you can, you can just say the next person, the next player character to ax gets a boost on their check period. For two advantage, you can be like Mattias gets a boost on his next check, whatever that is.
00:56:37
Speaker
Now, if you want to, I'll tell you what, if you want to spend all three advantage to get very specific and say, then a boost died to the next check to subdue Elijah, I would let you.
00:56:48
Speaker
I think that's what I want to do. I do not want to kill this man, and we do need to get the prospect off of his shoulders. So I think that's going to be my decision with the advantage that I have. Also, it's early in playing Genesis, and the juices aren't flowing properly yet. So I can't think of anything cool. No, that's totally fine. It's totally fine. Also, at this point, you guys have six story points. I would like to point that out. Yes. OK, that's that action. I have somebody else up next.
00:57:17
Speaker
Glorfin sighs as he stands up from the card table, seeing things escalating, even though Mickey's words seem to have calmed down the locals.
Conflict and Resolution with Elijah
00:57:27
Speaker
But a lot of people seem to have a lot of strong opinions about this random guy being taken out of here. So Glorfin feels like it's a time for him to shine. So I'm going to use my maneuver to walk over to Elijah. I'd like to pull my gun.
00:57:46
Speaker
Um, and I'm going to be making a deception check because I have no intention of shooting Elijah in this instance. Um, but glorfin sidles up, uh, next to Elijah with his gun. Not, you know, like he's not putting it up to Elijah's temple, but you know, he's, he's got it ready. And glorfin says now Elijah, uh, I don't know what your coral is with this gentleman, but, uh,
00:58:13
Speaker
Just before you walked in here, he was at the card table playing cards with with me and he owes me a good deal of money. So before I can let you take him, I got to collect. I can deliver him wherever you like once I've collected my money. But I'm afraid I can't let you take him just quite yet. And you said you also spent a maneuver to pull your pistol.
00:58:33
Speaker
Yes. Okay. So that would be two strain. So a little bit, little bit more, uh, system learning for, for Randy and Trevor. Um, when you're in a structured encounter and it's your turn, you get one action and one maneuver. Okay. Now an action is, is what you might think of from Dungeons and Dragons. It's making an attack, making a skill check. Okay. Of any kind. That's an action, including the deception check that Eric's character has just made. In addition, you get a maneuver. A maneuver is things like pulling out a weapon or an item, moving your character one range band. Okay.
00:59:03
Speaker
You can also downgrade your action to a maneuver so you can take two maneuvers. If you take an action and you take a maneuver, you can also take another maneuver for the cost of two strain. You're basically pushing yourself to get that extra maneuver in. No matter what happens though, you can never take more than two maneuvers on a turn. The other action type in the system is called incidental, which is basically a free action.
00:59:32
Speaker
So Eric, to that end, to strain, to move, to sidle up next to him, and also get a maneuver to pull your strain. And go ahead and give me your deception check. Your difficulty on this is going to be the same as the leadership check before, which is three purple dice. And I would like to use a story point to upgrade. All right.
00:59:55
Speaker
Well, you've clicked use the story point, which you did. And I have your upgrade noted. All right. So deception, which is down here under social skills. Okay. All right. To success. Nice. Um, all right. He looks at you very confused and you appear to have snapped him out of it very briefly.
01:00:25
Speaker
Um, and we'll get to what that means on his turn. Okay. But you were successful in that regard. All right. I have one more PC up going before old Elijah does. If it's okay, I would like to, uh, go next. Go for it. I want to put a curse on old Elijah. Ooh, talk to me. What do you, what do you, what are you thinking? Um,
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, so like using the curse spell like yes. Yes. Absolutely. I guess he's in range. He's right next to me. It's a short range spell. I just want to reach up and just touch him and just decrease his ability and skill checks. All right. Do you want to add any additional effects on it? Um, let's innovate him.
01:01:20
Speaker
Oh, OK, that's going to be a three purple difficulty that I've got set for you. Could I spend a point to knock that down? Not knock it down, but you can you can upgrade your own dice pool. OK, let's do that. I've got your upgrade noted and I've got your difficulty set. This is going to cost you two strain and yeah, you're going to try and curse him. Go ahead and give me a divine skill check.
01:01:50
Speaker
It'll be in the magic section of the skills. Okay, here it goes. Ooh. That is a success that is a triumph.
01:02:05
Speaker
Awesome. Um, so that's, that's quite impressive. Um, so first of all, you, you are successful, which means that, that you've not only cursed this poor guy. Um, and talk to me, do you, do you mutter a prayer? Do you put a hex on him? What do you do? Um, I just, um, I would just like to, cause he's a, you know, he's a member of the congregation.
01:02:35
Speaker
And I just remind him, Elijah. Be the light. Do not be the darkness. Put this man down.
01:02:47
Speaker
and the divine power of your words flows as this sort of divine energy kind of settles on him, and he seems to sort of shrink just a little bit. Now, this effect is going to last until the end of your next turn, Randy, but it's also, as noted in the spell description, a yes on concentration. What that means is that next turn, if you want to spend a maneuver to continue concentrating,
01:03:15
Speaker
This effect will continue to persist until the end of the next round. So when you cast a spell that has concentration, you can spend a maneuver each round to concentrate on it and it'll just keep lasting. That makes sense. Yep. Sounds good. But the instant you let it go, it's only going to last till the end of your next turn. Got it. You're going to suffer two strain, but you got a triumph, man. You got an absolute triumph. What do you want to do with that?
01:03:40
Speaker
can what I said influence him enough to make him put the prospector down? I think that's completely reasonable. If you want to do that, do you guys also have any suggestions for the triumph? I do not. I'm so bad at it anyway. The worst with triumphs.
01:04:03
Speaker
So yeah, I think putting the prospector down is totally reasonable. And Randy, I'm going to go one further on this. I actually think that's not enough for the triumph. I want to do a bit more, okay? Because a triumph is a crit effect, okay? So don't forget to take your two-strain. So you've suffered two-strain from this. It's now going to be old Elijah's turn.
01:04:24
Speaker
So we had the successful deception check earlier that came from the gambler. So Elijah is literally going to put the gambler down. He is going to grab the gambler's money pouch directly from his belt and he's going to throw it at the gambler.
01:04:43
Speaker
All right, because he took you, he took you at your word that, you know, okay, they'll let me leave if he has, if he has this money. So you have this, you literally in the center of your chest right now, uh, um, uh, is, um, is, is this money pouch? Well, this day is going better than I could have ever imagined.
01:05:03
Speaker
Meanwhile, with that triumph, the power of your divine magic has had a major impact. He falls to his knees, he drops the prospector, and he starts coughing. I'm going to take us out of initiative at this point. I'm going to say that triumph has effectively ended this effect on him.
01:05:29
Speaker
And he starts coughing and it is a horrible, nasty, disgusting, wet cough. And it's right, right at the lintel of the doorway, right? You know, the sun's going down, those red rays are kind of shining in and they really glint off at this point.
01:05:47
Speaker
the greenish yellow mucus that is now pouring out of this big blacksmith's mouth. And you watch as he proceeds to cough up what looks like about a four or five inch long slug. What? It is shiny, purple skinned, wrinkled and has a tiny mouth with rows of sharp teeth.
01:06:13
Speaker
End of episode. Thank you all so
Episode Conclusion and Credits
01:06:15
Speaker
much for listening. If you want to be part of the conversation, head on over to the Facebook group, the Geek Pantheon. We are also on the other social medias at the Geek Pantheon, like Twitter and Instagram. We also have an incredible Patreon community. If you want to head on over to patreon.com slash the Geek Pantheon and check it out over there. We have all kinds of tiers and a great active Discord community that is always looking to expand and have new voices added to the conversation.
01:06:42
Speaker
We are also proudly part of the d20 radio podcasting network. If you head on over to d20radio.com, you'll find the best little gaming blog on the interwebs with new articles that go up daily, as well as all kinds of podcasts underneath the podcast tab, including the featured podcast this week, What Comes After. It is one of the newest additions to the d20 radio network.
01:07:04
Speaker
If you enjoyed our kids on bikes one shot, then what comes after might just be what you're looking for. It's an actual play show using Genesis. So using the same system we just used here in this episode. But basically a cataclysm brought an apocalyptic event in the mid 80s. And this is five years later with four survivors trying to do some good in the world. So definitely go give them a listen and check them out.
01:07:30
Speaker
as well as checking out all of our social medias and all the other podcasts on d20radio.com. Once again, I have been one of your hosts, Eric, and I'm sure all the other ones would say their names here if they were here, but they're not. Hope we will see you next time.