MIKE: “Alright, let’s go over the facts of the case again.”
DARIUS: “I don’t want to jump to conclusions or anything, but it looks like this vic was a junkie.”
[MUSIC FADES IN].
CHRISTINE: Sometimes Jack helps me, no that’s bad. We don’t know exactly what Jack is.
THOM: Albion opened his magical third eye, took an immense amount of mental strain—
MIKE: “My name is Warden Beaumont, I’m with the White Council.”
DARIUS: “Hey, quick question buddy, if that’s cool with you.”
MIKE: “Oh yeah, of course.”
DARIUS: “What the fuck is your deal with me?”
MIKE: “You must be the friends that they were referring to, I presume.” Most of you recognize the werewolves that you met on a previous adventure a few months back, where you encountered some hags.
THOM: When you hunt monsters, occasionally they remember that and don’t take too kindly to it.
MIKE: “I kind of was expecting someone else.”
THOM: “He’s out of town for a bit.”
MIKE: “You’ve been palling around with suspected Warlock Marcus Wahlbrook?”
CHRISTINE: “What?!”
[INTRO MUSIC]
MIKE: “Marcus Wahlbrook. You’re associates of suspected Warlock Marcus Wahlbrook?”
CHRISTINE: “Just Marcus Wahlbrook. No suspected Warlock, as far as I’m aware.”
MIKE: “As far as you’re aware. I see. And you, Miss Ro, was it? Ro, right?”
GWEN: “Yeah, yes.”
MIKE: “Are you associated with this Marcus Wahlbrook?”
GWEN: “I am not, and I can say that with confidence this time, that I have no idea who that man is.”
MIKE: “Okay. You didn’t seem to react as strongly as Desdemona over here. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”
GWEN: “I do not. I am very new to this, sir Wizard man.”
MIKE: “Warden. Warden is fine. So, okay, spilling some beans over here, I guess. The council of Wizards has some laws. We live in a society with rules and laws. So, there are just some other ones that govern how you get to use magic. So, we have some rules, and if you break one of those rules, well, you’re branded as a Warlock, because you’re a lawbreaker. That’s just the term that we got for it. So, do you know what the punishment is for breaking one of those laws?”
GWEN: “Not sure, but Des, it sounds like you know a magic criminal. That’s cool.”
CHRISTINE: “Supposed magic criminal. May I ask what his supposed crime is?”
MIKE: “Well that depends. Des, do you know what the punishment is for breaking one of the laws of magic?”
CHRISTINE: “Honestly, I don’t. I didn’t even know that there’s such a thing as Wardens of magic until today, so.”
MIKE: “Well, the punishment’s death.”
CHRISTINE: Desdemona goes a little pale.
MIKE: “See, I’ve got this magic sword here, and if I were to, say, catch a Warlock in the act and we could either bring them to trial or I could just behead them right here and now. I kind of don’t like that that’s part of my job, but that’s part of the job of a Warden. This sword over here? It cuts through magic, so even if you are a magically empowered criminal—anyway, one of those laws is that—well the first one is pretty obvious, don’t kill people with magic, Marcus has broken. There’s also the one about where you can’t cross the boundaries between life and death, and that’s why we have kind of a problem here with a necromancer it looks like. That’s a law breaker right there if I ever saw one. Can’t be drumming up zombies and skeletons and ghosts and whatnot. No, that breaks a rule right then and there. That’s not what we suspected of him either. There’s one that says that the mind is sacred, and no one should ever violate the mind of another. Well, that’s the one that we’re pretty sure that your friend Marcus broke.”
GWEN: “And you can prove that how?”
MIKE: “Okay, well here’s the thing about that. He was arrested, and he was brought to trial and found that he couldn’t have done it.”
CHRISTINE: “So, that’s good.”
GWEN: “Yeah, so he’s not guilty, so why are you guys after him. That’s kind of dumb.”
MIKE: “We’re not after him. No one is hunting Marcus Wahlbrook. We just keep an eye on him, because all of the evidence that we had said it was him, and then suddenly when we apprehend him, he couldn’t have done it.”
GWEN: “So, you guys were wrong. It happens all the time, I’ve seen it before. It’s okay to be wrong.”
CHRISTINE: “So, he’s declared innocent, and yet you still refer to him as a Warlock?”
MIKE: “Suspected Warlock. There’s still suspicion. Look, there are things out there that we don’t fully understand, and sometimes we do, but we don’t fully know the scope of their powers, and something interfered for some reason that we don’t know. Who knows? It’s just the only person that could have done it, the only person who could have committed that crime was Marcus, but when he was brought in to stand trial, he had a weight of a reputation on him, his family is well known, and the White Council, they go back generations of Wizards, and they had a lot of hope for this kid. He seemed like he was going to be a pretty potent Wizard. All reports were that he had that magic deep and strong in him. Then all of a sudden we brought him to trial and he didn’t have enough magic mojo in him to actually pass the Council tests. He did not possess the necessary level of talent to actually have done the crime he was accused of. It doesn’t make sense.”
CHRISTINE: “Do you know where Marcus is now?”
MIKE: “No. The Council kind of lost track of him a few months back. Which, from the conversations we’ve had so far, it sounds like that lines up. We just don’t really know where he got to, and given that he was cleared of his guilt and was not executed, no one’s really worrying too hard about trying to find him. I mean, until this happened. I’m sure this is going to stir up a whole bunch of suspicion.”
GWEN: “But if no one is—“
CHRISTINE: “You can’t pin any of this on him.”
GWEN: “Yeah, if no one has seen him, not you guys, I’m assuming not you, Des, he’s not around. So, how could it be him?”
MIKE: “No one is saying that it is. I’m not the bad guy here, I’m just saying that people are going to be suspicious."
CHRISTINE: “But according to you he doesn’t have the talent or the power to do whatever it was that happened last night.”
MIKE: “And he’s also been completely disappeared for months. People commit crimes that they don’t necessarily have the “talent to do” quote-unquote. People can do ritual magic. Normal people. They just have to know how to do it. He was being educated, he was being trained, he studied, he had parents that were absolute hard asses. There was no way he didn’t learn a lot. He probably has enough cunning and knowhow to put something together. I’m just saying that’s why maybe they’d suspect it has to do with him. He shows up in Burlington for a little while, and then after he disappears, all this stuff starts happening.”
CHRISTINE: “What would you do if you found him?”
MIKE: “I mean, there’s nothing I can arrest him for.”
CHRISTINE: “But that sword doesn’t come out to play?”
MIKE: “Well no, it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t have to come out. I don’t want to think that he’s responsible for any of this. He seemed like a good guy. That reputation just got real soured with a Warlock trial.”
CHRISTINE: “So, what’s the next step?”
MIKE: “He kind of leans back in his chair and takes a long drag of the tea that you made for him. “Well, the next step is you do have an item here, and I can probably find something out off of that. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take this and do some investigation off of it. I would really like to try to pinpoint any sort of anything I can. I can do some divination on this and see what I can find. If you’re willing to work with me on this. Gods know I don’t need a Warlock running around in my—I don’t want to say jurisdiction, I don’t want Warlocks anywhere, especially not near me, okay?”
CHRISTINE: “That’s fine. The boom box is yours, the tape is yours, you have my house number.”
MIKE: “Okay. I mean, I don’t really want to touch it too directly right now. Could you put it in a bag, I guess? I don’t know how much you know, but electronics tend to get real bad around me.”
CHRISTINE: Desdemona goes to the kitchen and brings out a reusable grocery shopping bag.
GWEN: Does it have a funny saying on it?
CHRISTINE: It says “Live, laugh, love” on the side.
GWEN: Oh my god. [laughter]
MIKE: And then underneath that it says Whole Foods. “Yeah, that should be fine.”
CHRISTINE: So, she puts the boom box and the tape in the bag and kind of holds the bag out with the handles up to him.
MIKE: “I mean, nobody’s really had one of these since the ‘90s anyway, so it looks less weird if I’m carrying it this way, I guess.”
CHRISTINE: “I suppose so.”
MIKE: Yeah, so he takes the boom box and bag. The “Live, laugh love” and Whole Foods bag from you. “Yeah, if I find anything, I’ll get in touch with you and we’ll probably—I mean, Four Corners of the Earth makes sense as a place to meet, it’s neutral ground, and those are some goddamn good sandwiches.”
CHRISTINE: “Yes, you have one of my business cards in the bag too. It’s got my number.”
MIKE: “Oh, how proactive of you. Very good, thanks. Wait, do you just have a business card in all of your bags?”
CHRISTINE: “No, I just have business cards everywhere.”
MIKE: “You know what, fair. Reasonable. That makes sense I guess.”
CHRISTINE: “I’m a businesswoman.”
GWEN: Yeah, I found one in my tea last time.”
MIKE: “I’m just going to assume that’s a joke and laugh.”
GWEN: “No, I’m 100% serious, Warden. I drank business cards.”
MIKE: “Yeah.”
CHRISTINE: “I told you again, I apologize for that. That was an accident.”
MIKE: “Yep, yeah. Real good one, guys.” You both have definitely spent enough time with Warden Beaumont, that if you want to make an Empathy roll, you super can.
CHRISTINE: Why sure.
GWEN: I will do that.
CHRISTINE: Ouch.
MIKE: Oh no.
CHRISTINE: That’s a negative one.
MIKE: Total?
CHRISTINE: I’ve learned nothing today.
MIKE: Awesome, I love it. You guys are rolling so well.
GWEN: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: We made a really good impression.
MIKE: Let me also roll.
GWEN: Mine’s a one, so that’s not bad.
MIKE: Hey! No.
GWEN: We win!
CHRISTINE: Yay.
MIKE: What was your total for Desdemona’s Empathy roll?
CHRISTINE: It was a negative one, because I have an Empathy of three, and I rolled four negatives.
GWEN: Oh no.
MIKE: Oh wow!
CHRISTINE: Let’s hope that’s the worst roll of the night.
MIKE: Whew. Okie dokie. Ro, surprisingly enough, you’re the one that gets some information off of this.
GWEN: Hell yeah.
MIKE: Because you got at least one shift of success, so you get an Aspect of theirs. It may not be in precise detail, but it should paint a general picture of that Aspect. So, great. The info that you get off of this is So Over My Head I Need Scuba Gear.
GWEN: I love it.
MIKE: So, that is the read you get off of Warden Beaumont with your Empathy roll.
GWEN: Okay.
MIKE: Alright, after Warden Beaumont shows himself out, I think we can just sort of reconvene with everybody at Desdemona’s place. Sound good?
THOM: Sure.
GWEN: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Come on over, peeps.
MIKE: Alright.
GWEN: I don’t even have to go anywhere.
MIKE: Excellent.
THOM: Albion, I will say, would have spent some time real quick to go home and do a quick invocation to Odin, which I’ve been saying prayers to Odin, but you don’t pray to Odin, that’s more of a Judeo-Christian thing. You invoke the god. You sort of don’t prostrate yourself before them, you kind of speak to them and honor them and flatter them. Yeah, no, he invokes him. He says a quick thing honoring Odin and then just asks for guidance. Asks him to sort of guide his hand, guide his metaphorical blade and—
DARIUS: Guide my sword.
THOM: --give him the wisdom and the strength to know what he needs to do and where he needs to be to do it, and then he heads over to Desdemona’s. He’s a little shaken after what happened.
MIKE: Yeah, that makes sense. Cool. Can I get an Alertness roll from you with a target four?
THOM: Oh, me?
MIKE: Yeah.
THOM: Yeah, sure. So, that is one, minus two plusses, so that’s a five.
MIKE: Oh, wow.
THOM: I’m sorry, one, minus three plusses.
MIKE: So, it’s a plus one.
THOM: Yeah. No, plus two.
MIKE: Oh.
THOM: It’s a plus two, may Alertness is three.
MIKE: Oh wow. Incredible. I guess as you’re heading out to your vehicle after making your invocation to Odin, you can see on the roof a nearby building there’s a little raven kind of flitting about. Definitely the wrong time of year, and you don’t know how many native corvids there are.
THOM: Huh. No, I definitely notice that and I just kind of give it a nod as I head to my car.
MIKE: It notices you noticing and then just sort of flies away.
THOM: Alright.
MIKE: So, we find ourselves in Desdemona’s place again. Have you made tea for everyone?
CHRISTINE: Anyone who wasn’t there for tea before.
MIKE: I’m trying to remember, Sylvester, do you drink tea?
DARIUS: Sure, why not?
GWEN: He does now.
MIKE: Are you more of a coffee guy?
DARIUS: I mean, look, whatever’s caffeinated.
THOM: He’s from New York, of course he is.
MIKE: You know what? I like this. That’s valid. That’s fair. How about Albion?
THOM: Albion oddly enough tends to prefer highly caffeinated soft drinks, but he does love Des’s tea.
MIKE: Alright.
CHRISTINE: Heck yeah you do.
GWEN: He pours some Mountain Dew in a tea. Two worlds combined, it’s perfect.
CHRISTINE: I need two sticks to make into a cross now, thanks for that.
GWEN: You’re welcome.
THOM: Oh, I just realized, Albion actually stopped at his house to grab some of the old Noctis books to look through different case—I forget exactly how he has it stored, but he has a copy of older hunt files that he can go through.
MIKE: Okay.
THOM: So, he does have that with him.
MIKE: Okay. So, I’m just going to say that in this universe, the absolute tragedy of Mutant being cancelled never happened, so Albion, you can grab one of those on your way if you want.
THOM: Yeah, Albion is sucking down a red Mutant.
MIKE: Okay. Yeah, those were tasty.
THOM: It was like Vault if Vault had never died.
GWEN: It's a very good thing that I know a red Mutant is a soft drink, otherwise I would be very uncomfortable.
MIKE: [laughter] Yeah. I mean, Albion’s probably gay, but not for that.
THOM: Hey, only half. Moving on.
MIKE: You’re allowed to say that.
THOM: I am allowed to say that.
MIKE: So, yep. We’ve got tea and red Mutant and other things, so.
THOM: “Alright, so how’d it go with the Warden? Did you have yourselves a productive conversation?”
CHRISTINE: “Oh, I have something to tell you. Yeah, it’s not even juicy gossip, it’s pretty rough. You remember our friend, Marcus?”
MIKE: Oh my god, are you about to spill the tea?
GWEN: Ah!
THOM: Why’d you spill your tea?
CHRISTINE: This tea is scalding.
GWEN: You just pour the tea over him.
THOM: Albion says “Gah! Why?”
MIKE: Desdemona made you a cup of tea despite you having a red Mutant, just so she could pour it. Spill it, spill it.
THOM: Albion has set the Mutant aside and is drinking this very nice tea. “What’s the tea?”
CHRISTINE: “That’s a caffeinated sweet chai.”
THOM: “No, I mean what is—I’m trying to talk like the young folk do, Des.” [laughter]
GWEN: “Isn’t Albion like 23?”
THOM: “Yeah. Talking like them kids do, you know?”
CHRISTINE: [laughter] I’m such an airhead.
THOM: Albion is going to—
MIKE: I need to investigate this a little further. Sylvester, before we have this really great character reaction, and how much “like the teenagers” quote-unquote do they talk?
DARIUS: I guess they’re in their early 20s.
MIKE: Oh boy.
DARIUS: So, just enough.
MIKE: So, you definitely still have the crowd that might refer to Phineas Gage as how he got a railroad rod yeeted through his skull.
DARIUS: Yes.
MIKE: Okay, so I need you to—
GWEN: So, it’s the Vine kids, not the TikTok kids.
MIKE: I just really needed to put that into ‘time and place’ perspective.
DARIUS: Yeah.
MIKE: Let’s get back to the part where we’re playing a roleplaying game. This worldbuilding was all wonderful, but god it was so minute. We are in the weeds.
THOM: Yeah, we are in—I’m sorry, let me say it again. We have yeeted ourselves into the weeds.
GWEN: Oh no, I hate it.
MIKE: Alright, back to playing.
CHRISTINE: “Yeah, turns out the Warden and we have some people in common that we know, referred to as the suspected Warlock Marcus Wahlbrook.”
THOM: “I’m positive I misheard you. He’s a suspected what now?”
CHRISTINE: “Suspected Warlock. Our Marcus.”
THOM: “He can’t be a Warlock, that’s illegal.” [laughter]
DARIUS: I’m going to pour some scotch from my flask into the tea as this is going on.
GWEN: You can’t be a murderer, that’s illegal.
THOM: But murdering’s against the law.
MIKE: But people die when they’re killed.
DARIUS: Wait, that’s illegal.
GWEN: You can’t steal, that’s a crime.
CHRISTINE: You can’t commit suicide, that’s illegal.
MIKE: If you try to commit suicide, we’ll kill you. Thanks, England.
CHRISTINE: They hanged a man for trying to hang himself.
MIKE: Yeah!
THOM: Bring it back in, real quick. “That’s—I mean, Marcus may not have always been the most forthright son of a bitch, but I do not think he was a criminal.”
CHRISTINE: “Supposedly, he did some bad mind magic and then when they went to test him in court, he did not have the powers or the talent to have done it, and now he has disappeared. So, have you heard from him at all?”
THOM: “I have not, but that’s disturbingly line up with his power when I first met him compared to the second time. When I first met Marcus, we went on a hunt together. We kind of ended up hunting the same thing and we backed each other up and he was throwing down all kinds of intense stuff. It was Wizard level shit. The second time we ran into each other was in that diner a few months back, and I mean you were there. You saw he was not nearly half that kind of power level, so I don’t know what happened, but he did lose something, so that’s—“
CHRISTINE: “You haven’t heard from him at all in the last few months, have you? I’m worried about him.”
THOM: “Not since he left, no. Well shit, now so am I. That’s a time too.”
CHRISTINE: “Man. So, yeah. That’s the most productive part of the conversation, I would say.”
THOM: “Dandy. So, he’s going to get back to us on that boom box, yeah?”
CHRISTINE: “He has my number.”
THOM: “Alright, so he can also go bring you your business card and get a discount or something.”
CHRISTINE: “Yes, that’s Four Corners of the Earth.”
THOM: “Alright. Yeah, Ro do you got anything off him? Did you find—“
GWEN: “I mean, I learned a lot about magic today, so that’s one for Sesame Street. It does seem like he definitely has no idea what the hell is going on. He seems to be a little in over his head.”
THOM: “Ah, well, great. That’s exactly what I want to hear about the Warden, the local authority, is that he’s in over his head!”
GWEN: “From what I can tell, this Marcus guy that you guys seem to know, it seems like if he shows up again, whether or not the Warden is openly saying he thinks he’s guilty, we might want to just watch out. I would be worried that the Warden would get a little too sword happy.”
THOM: “Yeah, well that’s something I always keep an eye whenever there’s Wardens about. They tend to be a bit sword happy. Alright, Sylvester, how was your trip to the slab?”
DARIUS: “It was educational.”
THOM: “Great, you mind sharing with the class?”
DARIUS: “Yeah, sure. Apparently, whatever the hell is causing all of these new murders might have something to do with where we were at before.”
THOM: “Alright, how so?”
DARIUS: “The bodies have kind of been killed in a similar fashion, but a much more brutal fashion. There’s actual arms and shit ripped off. Anyway, I got some photos here if you want to look. Just a heads up—“
THOM: “I mean, it’s probably not anything I ain’t seen before.”
DARIUS: “Probably not, no.”
GWEN: “Are they like the pictures at diner?”
DARIUS: “Yes.”
GWEN: “Alright, I’m going to not, because that fucked me up, man.”
DARIUS: “Alright, then look away.”
THOM: “Welcome to the world.”
DARIUS: Anyway, I put the phone on the coffee table or whatever the shit’s around and show the photos so whoever wants to look at it can look at it. Whoever don’t can turn around.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, nope.
THOM: Albion’s going to take a look, see if it follows up his previous assumption that it’s probably a wendigo. Do I need to make a roll for that, or?
MIKE: Yeah, I mean, you don’t really have to because this is very similar to the last time that Sylvester went to Ms. Berhow’s and took a picture of a corpse. It is similar enough, but yes, like you said even more brutal than last time, but it’s definitely something where it’s “Yeah, okay, this seems right.”
THOM: “Alright, so one of the things about monster hunters is that we sometimes compare notes, so I have some notes here that I’m going to look through and see what I can find about wendigo. See if we can get ourselves a plan of action. Oh, and my therapist might be a monster. That’s fun.”
DARIUS: “Yeah, what?”
THOM: [laughter] “Yeah.”
DARIUS: “Yeah, what the fuck?”
THOM: “Yeah, there was something weird. It’s hard to describe, but I mean it seemed similar in symptomatics to, say, an emotional vampire, White Court. Oh right, Sylvester, I should probably explain.”
DARIUS: “That’d be nice.”
THOM: “So, there are several kinds of vampires. There used to be more, but a Wizard from Chicago threw a death curse and wiped out the entirety of the Red Court vampires, which were essentially bat people wearing human skin, that drank blood, and their saliva was addictive. They were a mess, I tussled with them a few times, they ain’t fun. There’s also the Black Court, which are—Woah boy, they’re even worse. You ever read Bram Stoker’s Dracula?”
DARIUS: “Yeah.”
THOM: “Yeah. That’s essentially a how to kill a Black Court guide. They are the living dead, they feed off death, and they are just all fucking sorts of nasty.”
DARIUS: “So, wait, you can like slap them in the face with garlic and it’ll hurt, or no?”
THOM: “Oh yeah, no, garlic fucks them up.”
DARIUS: “That’s funny.”
THOM: “It’s hilarious.”
DARIUS: “Ah man, that’s great. Anyway, go on.”
THOM: “Yeah, then there’s the White Court. They’re a little more complicated. So, Ro and I actually ran into one a while back when I first met Ro. They tend to feed off emotions, and they have some sort of a literal demonic shade with it, and that fuels them and they got to keep it fed. Now, they feed off of different emotions. There’s different subfactions within the group, like some that feed off of lust, those are the Raith family, those are all sorts of fucked up. Those that feed off fear, which are worse. Stuff like that. It’s nasty. So, yeah. They tend to be able to feed off of emotions and feel emotions from their surrounded folk a little more keenly. They have sort of a low key empath sort of thing, I think.”
DARIUS: “So, the psych student I set you up with is a vampire, but not one of the fucked up vampires, one of the maybe more chill vampires, but you’re not that sure?”
THOM: “I am not that sure, but yeah. White Courts are almost civilized compared to the other kind, but they’re also still fucking vampires.”
DARIUS: “Alright.”
THOM: “I mean, I heard there’s another kind of vampire, but they don’t leave China, and I don’t know nothing about them.”
DARIUS: “Are those the ones like Hsien-ko?”
THOM: “I have no idea what the hell that means.”
DARIUS: “Okay, you ever play Marvel vs Capcom? Darkstalkers? Street Fighter?”
THOM: “I played that in an arcade once as a kid. Is that the zombie girl?”
DARIUS: “Yeah. She’s a Jiangshi.”
THOM: “Oh. I mean, maybe. We don’t know nothing about them other than that they call themselves the Jade Court. I don’t know shit about them.”
DARIUS: “Okay, because Chinese vampires are like—“
MIKE: And if you leave a bag of rice out, they have to count every single grain.
THOM: “Thanks, voice from the heavens, that is a superstition that’ll get people killed.”
DARIUS: Yeah, what the fuck was that?
GWEN: I need to do that too.
DARIUS: “Y’all heard that too, right? That was weird.”
THOM: “That was very weird.”
DARIUS: “Desdemona, you should get the house sprayed for whatever the hell that was.”
MIKE: It’s not the weirdest thing that any of you have experienced so far.
DARIUS: Hey, shut up, voice.
CHRISTINE: “Just a regular day for me. What?”
THOM: “Yeah, Sylvester, I kind of—don’t let Cagney know that I think they might be a vampire, but also, maybe keep an eye on Cagney.”
DARIUS: “Do you think they’re a threat to the other students?”
THOM: “I mean, if no one’s turned up dead, I don’t think so.”
DARIUS: “Alright.”
THOM: “But I don’t know. Look, I have been seeing Cagney for months now. If Cagney wanted me dead, I’d be dead.”
DARIUS: “That’s a good point.”
THOM: “They have had ample opportunity. I don’t know what their game is. I don’t know even if they are a monster, I might have just been seeing things, but it’s enough of a suspicion that I don’t want to close the door on it.”
DARIUS: “Alright. I’m assuming maybe they just want to, I don’t know, live their life, I guess, if nobody else has been dead or drained of blood or some shit.”
THOM: “I mean, White Courts don’t drink blood, I’ve established that.”
DARIUS: “Right.”
THOM: “I will make you a flowchart if you’d like.”
GWEN: “That’d actually be helpful for me, thanks.”
DARIUS: “I think the funny part is you—“
THOM: “Ah, I was joking, but now I’m obliged to do it.”
DARIUS: “Actually, now I’m curious. I want to see you make a flowchart.”
THOM: “I went to school, Sylvester. I know how to make a goddamn flowchart.”
DARIUS: “What school?”
THOM: “Public.”
MIKE: [laughter] Not to shame people that go to public school, but that—okay, Sylvester, there was something particular that you found when you were investigating the body at Ms. Berhow’s. Do you remember what that was? Track marks, and you related that to a memory of when you were finishing up your investigation of the hags that ran the diner, that you found some drug paraphernalia, I believe at the garden where you fought and killed the hag.
DARIUS: Right. “So, where the hags were, there might have been a drug lab, and whatever this new thing is that is killing people, it might be killing drug addicts.”
THOM: “That’s oddly specific for a wendigo.”
DARIUS: “Yeah, that’s why I thought it was weird too.”
THOM: “We should probably check out where you thought there’s a lab. That might could be a bit more illuminating."
DARIUS: “I mean, we could just check where the hags were, because they had all sorts of drug shit in there first.”
THOM: “Yeah, I think we’re talking about the same thing. I think we’re talking about the same thing there. I’m going to get to my note checking, and when we’re ready to head out, you let me know.”
DARIUS: “Okay.”
MIKE: Alright.
THOM: Albion’s going to start flipping through them notes, try to find some ideas about them wendigos.
MIKE: Alright, so Albion, I’m going to have you make a Lore roll, and I think because you have set yourself up with having a notebook of clues and things from past cases, I’ll give you a temporary Aspect to tag on that of Background Research for a plus two. And your target is six.
THOM: Alright, so that is barely enough. I got two successes.
MIKE: Okay.
THOM: Because I got three pluses and a minus, and a Lore of plus two, so the plus two brings me just enough to six.
MIKE: Sweet. What you recall from notes that you’ve shared with other members of the Noctis Vigilia, which is the Noctis—I don’t think we’ve introduced that organization formally on the podcast yet.
THOM: Yeah, no, Albion hasn’t told anyone about them yet, because they’re supposed to be a secret.
MIKE: Oh, that’s true, but they’re not a secret to the audience.
GWEN: They’re not a secret anymore.
THOM: No, he presented these notes as just being other hunters’ notes, not part of a clandestine organization of organized monster hunters.
MIKE: Oh, hey, sword and shield, or do you prefer hammer?
THOM: What?
MIKE: Please tell me you’re not a hunting horn main.
THOM: Oh, Monster Hunter.
MIKE: Yeah! That’s a joke that—
THOM: You fucking turd.
MIKE: I’m a nerd, that’s fine.
THOM: I called you a turd.
DARIUS: He called you a turd, good sir.
MIKE: Oh, I heard what I heard.
THOM: Anyway, you heard what you heard, you nerd, you turd.
DARIUS: You may have heard nerd, but he actually said turd.
MIKE: I was really hoping you’d pick up on my deliberate rhyme! Anyway, the Noctis Vigilia is yeah, a monster hunting organization, and you’re part of it.
THOM: Yeah, sometimes the White Council will actually literally call on them to be like “Hey, this is something we don’t have the time to deal with, or this is something we’re too politically tied up to deal with, there’s a monster, we need it dead. Kill it, please.” So, they are an organization. Some of them have magical abilities, some of them are changelings, several of them are people who are just trying to fight back. Albion is a little mix of the magic and the normal, so he is part of that group and often contacts them to sort of let them know what’s going on, or if they need him to go somewhere else, but so far he’s been stuck in Burlington, and he’s not sure why. But yeah, he’s got a set of notes from other hunts that occasionally gets updated by missives that the Noctis sends out.
MIKE: Alright. So, for those not in the know, you’re basically just looking through a notebook of stuff, but if someone were to be paying attention, they might notice that there are scraps of paper with other people’s handwriting sort of mixed in there amongst your own notes.
THOM: Yeah.
MIKE: So, what you have picked up from your research and others, and what knowledge that you do have of sort of the myths and realities surrounding wendigos. Well, the Algonquin people seemingly considered wendigos as both a metaphor and a reality. The metaphor being hunger and the fact that hunger sometimes is never really truly satisfied. People have sort of put that on like “Oh, it’s an expression of the hunger of capitalism, or of imperialistic expanse, manifest destiny,” whatever it was. All we know is that at its root, it represents a hunger that can never be satiated, and the idea is that when a wendigo eats a person, it grows by the amount that it has eaten. So, it is never truly satisfied and is always hungering for more. Now, imagine that you have combined a preternatural unsatisfiable hunger, with a person that is currently addicted to drugs and has drugs in their system and the nature of addiction.
GWEN: Holy shit.
THOM: Yeah, that’s bad. “Yeah, that is a bad mix.”
MIKE: Alright.
THOM: What do I know about how to kill them?
MIKE: Oh, that’s the tricky part. With your high Lore roll, you do know a thing or two about wendigos and how they can be killed, and how they can be killed is: hit them very, very hard. Make it stick. It probably won’t.
THOM: I got a trunk full of bullshit, something’s got to stick.
MIKE: Hey, that’s one of your Aspects! The primary thing that you know is that since they have started consuming the flesh of others to satisfy their cannibalistic hunger, they have basically given up a lot of the weaknesses of their own humanity and they are extraordinarily hard to hurt, and the fact that sometimes they will keep running well past the point that they should be exhausted, and if the myths are to be believed, they will run until their feet literally fall off, yeah. Think about something like that and how hard it is to kill that.
THOM: Yep.
MIKE: You do know that they’re not fae creatures.
THOM: Yeah, no. So, bullets will hurt them, you just need a lot of bullets.
MIKE: That also means that they’re not susceptible to, well, the typical fae weaknesses.
THOM: Yeah, no, cold iron ain’t going to help. Gods ain’t going to help you, son.
CHRISTINE: Does that mean we can’t kick this thing to death?
GWEN: So, I have a question real quick. With a wendigo—
MIKE: Wait, was that a Bastion reference?
THOM: Yep. Anyway, what were you saying, Ro?
GWEN: Yeah, well real quick, this is more for like Gwen to know, but with the wendigo we’re talking about, I know last time we mentioned the Until Dawn one, is it more like that, so they’re completely feral, or are they like a shapeshifting type of creature.
THOM: No, they’re feral.
GWEN: Alright, I didn’t know, because—
MIKE: With Albion’s Lore roll he would know that it could actually be both.
GWEN: Okay.
MIKE: Where they could potentially present themselves as a mockery of something that they have encountered, but they have typically a feral animalistic drive to feed and consume and try to satisfy that hunger that is impossible to satisfy, but when it suits them and it is to their advantage, they can lean in on the shapeshifting manipulation element, which makes them extremely dangerous, but it’s not something that can sustain itself forever, so it’s not like anyone in this room could be a wendigo right now.
GWEN: Yeah, okay. Just so I didn’t suggest something like “Oh, let’s go to an AA meeting and scope it out,” because it’s basically a wild animal with superpowers, got it.
DARIUS: It could be you, it could be me, it could even be—
MIKE: Blam.
DARIUS: Well it was obvious, he was the wendigo. No wait, that’s blood.
THOM: So, we still have wendigo.
GWEN: You just got to fire and miss a bunch.
MIKE: Yeah.
THOM: Anyways, so Albion actually does have a photo in one of the notes. It sort of like one of those blurry cryptid photos, so it’s this photo of this—I’ll let you describe it, DM.
MIKE: Yeah, it’s a blurry cryptid photo of something that appears to be leaping impossibly high, and where feet should be, there seem to be none, and fortunately for the photographer and how the photograph survived, it appears to be leaping away from the person who took the photograph. The darkness of the—it’s not totally night time yet, which is why you can see more clearly that it does not have feet, but it’s one of those “Oh god, this is so impossible to explain” it just sort of becomes creepypasta on the internet type photos.
THOM: Yeah, I mean, we’ve hunted the Slenderman before.
MIKE: [laughter] Slenderman. Oh man. Okay. I don’t think you have.
THOM: He prefers to be called Saul Slendarmen.
MIKE: Saul Slenderman?
GWEN: Oh my god.
MIKE: No. I’m putting my foot down right now on the idea that the internet can believe Slenderman into existence. That movie sucked.
THOM: Anyway, that might happen later. No, anyway, Albion puts the photo up and sort of tacks up the notes about them on a—I mean, you’ve got a billboard, right Des?
CHRISTINE: A billboard?
GWEN: Like a cork board.
DARIUS: A bulletin board.
CHRISTINE: You know what I have? I don’t have a cork board or a bulletin board, I have discarded signs from the front.
MIKE: Hey!
THOM: So, Albion hangs one of those up and—
MIKE: Oh, we haven’t established that yet in the actual recorded sessions yet.
THOM: Yeah, explain that.
CHRISTINE: Desdemona, on her three season porch, has a bunch of painting supplies and discarded signs for previous business name ideas that she has discarded because they are bad.
GWEN: So, every week, there’s a new name.
CHRISTINE: Yes.
MIKE: So, yes. You’re going to use those as your sort of scrap material to hang things on, is that correct?
CHRISTINE: Definitely. Yeah, it’s made of soft wood, you could definitely get some pins in there.
THOM: So, Albion put those up, puts the photo up “So, this is our likely suspect. This is a wendigo. So, yeah, as you can see, it’s creepy as hell, and the best way to kill it is to keep on hitting it until it don’t get up again. Now, I know we don’t have some sort of secret weapon like we did with the fae, and that sucks, and yeah, so I—Sylvester, Ro, if y’all don’t feel comfortable throwing yourselves at this thing, then absolutely I understand if you guys want to stay on the sidelines, because that was a hell of a risk, and Des and I are far more equipped to deal with this kind of thing, but this is kind of what we might be dealing with.”
GWEN: “I mean, I’ve got nothing better to do, so if I can be of any help, sure, why not?”
THOM: “Alright, I guess.”
CHRISTINE: “She could actually be rather helpful, especially if we don’t want to be seen.”
THOM: “There is a point there.”
GWEN: “Oh yeah, I got that magic shit I guess I do.”
THOM: “That is right, you do have that. Sylvester, if you don’t want to put your life on the line against a cannibal monster, that’s absolutely fine.”
DARIUS: “Eh.”
THOM: “Somehow I expected that to be your response. I mean, in your defense, you did kick a hag to death, so.”
DARIUS: “Yep.”
THOM: “So, that’s very fair. Alright, so I think we need to go check out the old garden where we set a bunch of friggin Mandragoras on fire. That was fun. Yeah, anyone got any other ideas before we go to do that?”
DARIUS: “Nope.”
GWEN: “No.”
THOM: “Think we should get the wolf pack in on this? Because I wouldn’t mind having them back us up.”
[MUSIC FADES IN]
DARIUS: “That’s not a bad idea.”
THOM: “Alright, I’ll give them a call.”
[MUSIC; EPISODE BREAK]
MIKE: Hey everybody, it’s Michael again, your game master, your friend, your recent convert to liking Carly Rae Jepsen. That’s not a joke, she’s actually pretty great. I just realized this, and I’m 32 years old. I’ve been missing out. Thank you so much for listening to episode three of Green Mountain Mysteries. You’ve somehow put up with my voice for three whole episodes. You should be so proud. I’ll tell your parents about it, they’ll give you a gold star. We’re so happy to be on the Pocket Podcast Network with other great shows like STEAMpunks, No Dice, and The Ghoul Tank, and if you want to support the network and our show, there are a couple of options there. If you’d like to donate to the network, well first of all, you’d be a beautiful hero person for doing so, and I would love you. Only if you wanted me to. You can visit the website at pocketpodcastnetwork.com/donate. If you’d like for me to read a message on air, well good news, I can provide that service. For a mere $30 for a personal message, and $45 for professional messages. For as little as $30, you can make me say all kinds of stuff, like “dookie, omniscient, predisposition.” Or you could make me say that I love Twilight or something, it’s totally your call. A huge thanks to everyone who has been tweeting about the show using the GMMCast hashtag including Cat Faber, who played mandolin on the main theme, that’s CatSittingStill on Twitter, and my buddy Jason from the Rule of Cool Podcast, who you can find on Twitter @ThisIsJayC_. We don’t pay to advertise, so we live and die by your word of mouth. Really dramatic way of just saying “Hey, please tell your friends about our goofy mystery show, we’d love that.” So, just please post about the show with that GMMCast hashtag, you can follow us on Twitter @GMMCast as well. Thank you again, and enjoy the rest of the episode.
[MUSIC; AD FOR THEM’S THE FACTS]
JOHN: Hi, I’m John.
GABE: I’m Gabe.
CHRIS: I’m Chris.
JOHN: We’re three friends who went to college together. Hey Gabe, did you know that Akira Kurosawa has a writing credit on Star Wars?
GABE: I didn’t know that.
JOHN: Good, because I made it up.
CHRIS: I have one. The creator of the Frisbee made his ashes into a commemorative run of Frisbees.
JOHN: I don’t believe you.
CHRIS: That’s 100% real, my dude.
GABE: Them’s The Facts is a show about fun facts and lying to your friends.
CHRIS: Every other Wednesday.
JOHN: On the Pocket Podcast Network.
[END OF BREAK]
THOM: Albion’s got a very well locked and loaded shotgun just slung over his shoulder, carried open at this point.
MIKE: I mean, you are in the middle of the woods. Alright.
THOM: He’s got his trunk open, but if anyone else needs to root through it for weaponry, that’s absolutely fine.
MIKE: So, all of you remember this place, except for Ro. Ro hasn’t seen this place. You’ve all seen it, but none of you have seen it covered in snow. So, you all are standing in a small clearing in the middle of some somewhat dense forest. There is a shed on one side and the snow has covered up the evidence of the torching and scorching that occurred when Sylvester and Marcus and Desdemona and Albion put the torch to a bunch of mandragora plants, and that’s not quite visible at the moment. You do also see the four werewolves show up. John, Wesley, Phoebe, and Annie, and they all look around and John looks to you, Albion, and says “You know, I didn’t really want to ask over the phone, but—“ Wesley jumps in “Yeah, why are we meeting here? Last time we met here wasn’t so great.”
THOM: “Yeah, so we might be dealing with a wendigo, and apparently they might be killing drug addicts, which might be feeding into the whole never-ending hunger aspect of a wendigo. It’s a feedback loop of fuck off.”
MIKE: Phoebe gives you a very narrow-eyed look. “There is no other explanation?”
THOM: “I mean, when we were here last time, Sylvester spotted some drug paraphernalia, so we figured this was as good a place as any to start looking.”
MIKE: “Oh, I would very much prefer it to be some other explanation, not wendigo.”
THOM: “Yeah, wendigo is the most primary suspect we’ve got, so.”
MIKE: “That’s okay, great.” Says Annie, “Why the hell are we all out here then? If we think there’s wendigos, why are we out in this?”
THOM: “I mean, y’all have good noses in stuff. I figured you could help us look around and find some sort of trail to head on. I mean—“
MIKE: “Okay, first of all, that’s racist.”
THOM: “It’s speciest if we’re getting technical.”
MIKE: “Yeah, it was a joke, trying to break the tension.”
THOM: “I mean, I appreciate it there, bud.”
MIKE: Wesley gives you a little furtive thumbs up.
THOM: I give him one back. “Alright, and also y’all are some of the toughest sons of bitches I know, so if there’s anyone that was going to back us up, I’d prefer it be you.”
MIKE: “Yeah, not me,” says Annie. “You may notice the moon? Not exactly full right now.” At which point, John looks and says “Yeah, to be fair, I think we’d be in more trouble at that point?” “Oh, don’t remind me.”
THOM: “I mean, I did mention over the phone that there might be a fight. I thought you were just going to stay home and watch Netflix or some shit. Or Disney+, I’ve heard The Mandalorian is real good.”
MIKE: “Oh yeah, no, The Mandalorian is fantastic. That little baby Yoda, I love it, adorable.” She pulls out a shotgun and needlessly cocks it. “I didn’t come unprepared, okay.”
THOM: “Hey, shotgun buddies. See, I knew I liked you, Annie.”
MIKE: “Yeah, yeah. Feeling real good. Real good about this situation I find myself in right now.”
THOM: “Look, guys, there is an option to opt out if you would prefer. I know this is nasty shit, and if you would prefer to not be involved, I understand.”
MIKE: “Well what about you, the doctor guy?”
DARIUS: “Yeah, what about me?”
THOM: “I gave him the option. He said ‘Eh.’”
MIKE: “Okay.”
THOM: “I mean, I’ve said this several times today, he did kick a hag to death.”
MIKE: “Yeah, you know, fair.”
THOM: “Alright, let’s get to looking.”
[MUSIC FADES IN]
MIKE: The scene feels supernaturally quiet at the moment. The freshly-driven snow, of course, doesn’t help with the sort of stillness and isolation except for when you’re taking steps, which seems in the moment painfully loud. Alright, everyone make me Investigation rolls. Your target is four.
THOM: Alright, that is only a two for me, so I’m going to tag I Saw What Was Behind The Curtain, Now I Hunt It to put myself up to a four.
DARIUS: Yeah, I got a zero.
GWEN: Negative one.
CHRISTINE: Zero.
MIKE: Awesome.
GWEN: Oh no.
CHRISTINE: I was hoping I could do an Empathy roll to see if I can do a roll for something more supernatural.
MIKE: Well that would be a Lore roll.
CHRISTINE: A Lore roll, I’d be happy to do that too. Is that okay?
MIKE: Alright. Yeah, we can have you do a lore roll as soon as we resolve the investigation roll, so that you can extend your senses to try to find something supernatural.
CHRISTINE: Yep.
MIKE: Alright, Investigation roll with Albion. Albion.
THOM: Yep.
MIKE: Hold on, I need to put something really incriminating into my search terms before I tell you—
THOM: Open an incognito window, the fed will never know.
MIKE: Yes.
GWEN: That’s not how it works.
MIKE: Yep, that’s true. I misspelled the word paraphernalia. Albion.
THOM: Yes?
MIKE: You happen to spot in what when you point it out turns to be the same place Sylvester saw it last time, so apparently undisturbed. You catch a little bit of a reflection that doesn’t shimmer in the same way as the snow does, and it appears to be a glass pipe, and you also find some almost half-melted at this point, partially sort of ruined plastic bags. Very small plastic bags.
GWEN: So, you googled crack pipe and dime bags is what you’re telling us.
MIKE: I’m actually going to have—off of this, I’m going to have a Scholarship roll from our medicine guy.
DARIUS: Yay.
MIKE: And your target is going to be a five, or actually it’s a four.
GWEN: Oh my god.
MIKE: Woof!
THOM: Well, mister six Fate Points, you can fix that.
DARIUS: Yeah, okay.
MIKE: Yeah, that’s a minus three. So, your overall roll was a one to start?
DARIUS: Yeah.
MIKE: Okay. Have you got Fate Points that would justify why you would know what this particular paraphernalia is associated with?
DARIUS: I guess not really, actually.
CHRISTINE: Butt-kicking Butt Doctor?
MIKE: I mean, addiction is medical, and it is a medical thing that you might in fact have learned.
DARIUS: I guess Medical School Colleagues.
MIKE: Oh, okay. Ah, that’s a plus one to your Contacts roll to gather information. So, if you want you can opt not to necessarily learn what it is right now.
DARIUS: Okay.
MIKE: But you can make a Contacts roll later and you would be at an advantage because you do know other people that are doctors and such and maybe have a specialization in this. So, you can fail the roll right now—
DARIUS: Okay, sure.
MIKE: Alright, so you’re not totally sure what this leads to, but you at least have something that you can use for clue hunting later. Alright. In the meantime, if I could have Desdemona make a Lore roll while everyone else makes Alertness rolls.
CHRISTINE: That’s a one.
THOM: Oh, that’s a way better Alertness. That is a six.
GWEN: Oh, I got a two.
DARIUS: And I got a four.
MIKE: I would very much appreciate if Albion—
THOM: Yeah?
MIKE: -- if you would take a Fate Point so that I can tag your Trouble Aspect of Monsters Have Long Memories.
THOM: Oh no. Oh shit. Ah fuck. Ah beans. Aw I don’t want to blow my other Fate Point. Damn you Michael, I’ll take your Fate Point you dirty, dirty bastard.
MIKE: Okay. So, you take my Fate Point.
THOM: Yep.
MIKE: Great! I should kind of offer you what the actual stakes are, since that is the mechanics of how this works.
THOM: Yeah, you know what, yeah. I would love some context, please.
MIKE: Yeah, before you say yes or no to a bling Fate Point offer, which I cannot do. So, instead of blindly offering this to you, I will give you the option of you could continue to investigate this area completely uninterrupted and potentially find something. You did find some things, so your werewolf friends could try to sniff it and track it. Or instead you could have the whole thing disrupted by the arrival of a monster from your past, one that is maybe even very recent past.
THOM: Yeah, I’ll take that Fate Point.
MIKE: Alright.
THOM: It doesn’t necessarily need to break down into violence.
MIKE: You are correct, it does not necessarily need to break down into violence.
THOM: And also, we’ve got them super fucking outnumbered.
MIKE: Yep, that is accurate, you do.
THOM: Likely.
MIKE: So, can I have the Alertness rolls from everyone—just what the results were—read off to me again?
THOM: Six.
GWEN: Two.
DARIUS: Four
MIKE: And what did you get again Christine?
CHRISTINE: I’d rolled a Lore, did you want me to do Alertness as well?
MIKE: Oh no, you were in the middle of doing the Lore roll. Okay, unfortunately your Lore roll of one, you didn’t beat a three, so you weren’t really able to pick up any supernatural signatures in the area, and I’m going to say that leaves you sufficiently distracted so that it catches you very much off guard when this happens.
CHRISTINE: That is fair.
THOM: I mean, one moment, would she have a chance to spend a Fate Point on that if she wanted?
MIKE: I mean, yeah. If you wanted to spend a Fate Point on that, you could.
CHRISTINE: Considering how we might be entering combat soon, I’m going to hold on to my Fate Points.
THOM: Okay.
MIKE: Alright.
CHRISTINE: Such distraction, wow.
MIKE: Yes. I did introduce the potential distraction before—yeah you know what? I’m going to say that this works out because this is actually interrupting your potential to gain more information that way. Alright. Des is kind of occupied with trying to suss out more information from a supernatural level. Ro, you manage to see the problem before it’s too late. You definitely hear something as all of your werewolf friends sort of stand immediately alert and just the hackles raised on all of them. Sylvester, you can see this coming as well, but it is Albion who gets the clearest picture. You see, running toward you, Alexis. The hag from the diner.
THOM: “Oh goddammit!”
DARIUS: “Oh shit.”
MIKE: And so, you manage to see that she is running toward you, Ro. Sylvester, you clearly hear her saying “Oh goddammit, whatever, just—you guys?!”
THOM: “Hey, howdy!”
MIKE: Albion, you clearly see behind her, multiple figures chasing after her.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
You can definitely see the impression of this, Sylvester, but Albion, you can pretty clearly see that these people have a humanoid form, but they are moving in ways that human limbs are not supposed to, and they are chasing after Alexis.
THOM: “Hey, you mind putting a truce on the whole blood feud against us, because I kind of would love to know what the fuck is behind you.”
MIKE: “Get in the goddamn car, I’ll explain later, just—“
DARIUS: “Okay.”
GWEN: “Alright.”
THOM: “Guys, let’s roll.”
MIKE: Ro, you have never seen this person before, but you see running toward you a woman who has really nasty, hard looking, purplish skin with obvious warts and just claws, and this person is running toward the group and yelling to get the hell out of here and apparently seems to know the other people here.
THOM: “Alright, look, if you get in my car, you swear on your power there is no violence between us.”
MIKE: “No time!”
THOM: “There is always time for that!”
MIKE: She is basically in the clearing with you now, and the things are hot on her heels. What do you all do?”
GWEN: I run towards the car.
THOM: Albion is heading towards the fucking car. He’s probably going to raise his gun and lay down some suppressing fire.
MIKE: Alright, I’m going to have you roll Guns and I assume that you are using this as a maneuver.
THOM: Yeah.
MIKE: Okay. So, you’re trying to—
THOM: I don’t have a Stunt for that, but—
MIKE: No, you don’t, but basically you can try to put a maneuver on the scene with your actions.
THOM: Yeah.
MIKE: So, I assume you’re trying to put, let’s say, the Suppressing Fire Aspect on the scene.
THOM: Yeah, suppressing fire in Cyril Figgis’s voice.
MIKE: I think that that’s like a difficulty three, and since you have multiple targets, you’re trying to control a whole zone, put a zone-wide tag out, that’s going to be a plus two, so your difficulty is five.
THOM: Now, if I use guns akimbo, like two handguns dun dun dun dun dun, would that help?
MIKE: It’s still going to be—that would make sense, but it’s still going to be a five, the difficulty bar is five.
THOM: Yeah, because Albion’s not aiming to actually hit anything, he just wants them to back the hell off.
MIKE: Right, you’re just trying to buy some time.
THOM: Alrighty, that is a plus one, my Guns is four, so that hits five.
MIKE: Sweet. As people are racing to get back into their vehicles they arrived in, you can see Albion pull out two pistols and just start laying down gunshots. At first, the hag running toward you seems kind of alarmed, until she realizes that you are definitely shooting past her. For the moment, you have caused them to sort of alter their course from just the surprise of being fired on. So, you have bought just enough time for Alexis to reach the vehicle and basically dive into the car. She’s, by the way, taken shotgun.
THOM: Not mine, but she’s taken that seat.
MIKE: Did anyone actually jump into the shotgun seat already, or were you all in the back seat?
DARIUS: Back seat.
GWEN: Ro was headed toward shotgun, but I think maybe like shit, I don’t know.
MIKE: Oh, she sits on you.
GWEN: Okay.
MIKE: It is extremely uncomfortable.
THOM: Oh no.
MIKE: Yeah, her sort of hard carapace skin is just completely unpleasant to be pressing you into the seat inside of Albion’s—what car is it again?
THOM: God, you’re going to make me google this every goddamn time!
GWEN: Every time.
CHRISTINE: Write it down!
DARIUS: Nissan Stanza.
THOM: Why don’t I write it down?
DARIUS: Pontiac Trans Am.
GWEN: Wasn’t it a Subaru?
THOM: It’s a Hyundai Sonata.
CHRISTINE: Oh, Hyundai.
MIKE: Oh yeah, a Hyundai Sonata, that’s right. A Korean classical music car. Yeah, so you’ve piled in and you can see the werewolves have piled into their own vehicle, and—
THOM: I yell at them to meet at the bar.
MIKE: Okay. They’ve already entered their vehicle and are starting to peel away, so Albion--
THOM: Yep.
MIKE: This is a contest that you have not been a part of before. This is a chase, and you are going to be rolling Driving.
THOM: Good, I have no points in that.
DARIUS: Oh shit.
MIKE: I know, and that’s the best part. So, the scene that we have right now is you have multiple wendigoes that are trying to catch you and were definitely chasing Alexis through the woods, and you are going to try to get the hell out of Dodge.
THOM: Alright, I am handing my guns to the folks in the back seat and I’m just going to say “Shoot at them.” Sorry. “Shoot at them, please.” There’s extra magazines—
CHRISTINE: Does your Sonata not have a moonroof? Just curious.
THOM: It does.
DARIUS: Yay.
CHRISTINE: Aw yeah, fantastic.
THOM: The shotgun and two handguns are in the back.
MIKE: So, what we have here is called an extended contest called the Race. So, in the Fate system, we’re going to set a base difficulty for everyone, usually mediocre, and each competitor rolls an appropriate skill against that target, keeping a running tally of won, or lost in the case of a failure. So, if you’re going to use a less appropriate skill, the difficulty should increase minimally. So, the appropriate skill in this case is Driving, and I’m trying to think of what other possible skills you could realistically use, so I don’t think—
THOM: Alertness?
MIKE: That may come into play. The pressure here is how long it takes to get to the finish line. The finish line is going to be a certain distance away, at which point they’re going to break away and cease tailing you, because you’re going to be in sort of too public a space, and—let me see. Oh oh oh, yeah, for a Driving—since driving is a very interesting broad skill, you’re going to need to get three. It’s going to be three shifts of success total, and then the race is over.
THOM: Alright.
MIKE: So, they are going to be using some very different skills than you are—
THOM: Oh, I’m sure.
MIKE: -- which I believe they’re going to be using Athletics. So, if your compatriots don’t find ways to basically mess up their ability to chase you, you’re going to get caught very fast.
THOM: Yeah, I’m just going to be like “start shooting, please!” I’m going to look at Alexis like “Glamours on in my car, damn it.”
MIKE: Alright, so everybody, I want to have you declare what you’re doing in the round, and then we’re going to resolve those in Alertness order. So, can I have—finally, we’re going to resolve with Albion’s Driving roll. So, can I have the Alertness totals from everybody, just what’s your base Alertness again? [MUSIC FADES IN]
THOM: My Alertness is three.
CHRISTINE: One.
DARIUS: One.
GWEN: Two.
THOM: Can I tell you what is playing on Albion’s speakers by the way.
MIKE: What song?
THOM: Deep Purple’s “Highway Star.”
MIKE: That is an amazing set of chase music for this scene, I am very into this. Alright, I actually need to look at the Alertness score for this NPC here. Oh, Alright. She has the highest Alertness score on the table. So, the car is speeding away from this particular scene and the nasties are bearing down on you.
THOM: I hand the shotgun to Ro and open the moonroof and say “Get on top and start shooting.”
GWEN: Am I still under the hag?
MIKE: You are!
GWEN: That was my concern.
MIKE: Yep. The first thing that happens is the hag is going to quickly move and basically with supernatural speed and strength, she lifts herself up through the moon roof and off of you.
GWEN: Okay.
MIKE: Because, well, there’s no point in inhibiting you, and also she needs line of sight to do what she is about to do. She expels a fire blast from her hands, taking a moment to basically straddle the edges of the moon roof with her feet and hope that you don’t hit a swerve. She throws a blast of fire to attempt to slow them down. I’m going to have to roll for her effectiveness, because it is a one zone blast of flame. Alright. So, it looks like she has slowed them down by some amount. You don’t know exactly how much she slowed them down by, but it’s definitely acted as some sort of minor deterrent. Ro, it is your turn. You no longer have a hag sitting on top of you, but she is occupying the moonroof.
GWEN: Alright. I’m going to roll down the passenger window and try to lean out and shoot at whatever I can then.
MIKE: Okay. So, my question is, are you trying to shoot for effect, or are you trying to generally just sort of get them to leave you alone.
GWEN: I’m going to try to shoot and see if I can not kill, but injure one of them.
MIKE: Okay, alright. What I’m going to do for this since you’re basically affecting the contest outcome is I’m going to say whatever amount of success you roll, instead of subtracted from them—yeah, subtracted from their successes.
GWEN: Okay.
MIKE: Because you’re acting as a detriment to them. Alright, give me that Guns roll.
GWEN: That is a zero total.
MIKE: Okay. You could spend a Fate Point if you wanted.
GWEN: Yeah, I’m going to do that.
MIKE: Alright. What Aspect are you going to use to justify shooting better?
THOM: Monsters Aren’t Real, Idiot.
GWEN: Yeah, I was going to say Monsters Aren’t Real, Idiot. That can be justified by that fact that this is, I think, officially the first monster I’ve seen that’s not in the form of a human, so I’m freaked the fuck out and I just want this thing gone.
MIKE: Okay, these do sort of look like deformed humans that are definitely running faster than they ought to, so yeah. They’ve lost some of their humanity, they don’t look like the White Court vampire that you saw previously, so definitely more monstrous than that.
GWEN: Yeah, cool.
MIKE: So, I’ll call that two shifts of success then. Sylvester?
DARIUS: Yeah?
MIKE: What would you like to do to either aid Albion or hinder the wendigos?
DARIUS: What guns are left?
THOM: There’s two handguns.
DARIUS: Okay, I’m going to take one handgun, and I guess I will take Aim Low, Then Go High, but could I also use the Stunt forensic medicine to, I don’t know, aim for vitals that are below the belt?
THOM: Shoot them in the butt!
MIKE: You know, it’s not totally what forensic medicine is for, but I really like that you can—I’m going to say that you can spend a Fate Point if you want to tag that for an extra two.
DARIUS: Cool.
MIKE: Basically just sort of use it kind of like an Aspect, because I really do actually like that justification.
DARIUS: Okay.
MIKE: Alright, so that is two quick old Fate Points, and I assume your Guns roll is a natural zero?
DARIUS: Yeah.
MIKE: Okay, so that is still four shifts of detriment to them. So, it turns out that everything added together managed to be a sum total of nine shifts minus—
GWEN: Oh my god.
MIKE: -- for the wendigos. So, Thom, Albion could roll a Driving roll, please. Oh gosh, Des, I’m sorry, I completely forgot. I skipped your turn.
CHRISTINE: I was like “Do we get away before she even gets to do anything?”
MIKE: No, my bad. What is Desdemona doing?
CHRISTINE: Is there any way she can get out of the moon roof with just half her body and cast Liganta?
MIKE: I mean, I assume that you can do that without needing—I assume if you can see them, you can do your spell to try to anchor them
CHRISTINE: Okay, I kind of assumed that Desdemona hopping into the trunk and closed it behind her, so she can see through the window to cast Liganta to anchor at least one of them to the Earth.
MIKE: Sure, yeah. Absolutely. That is a—
CHRISTINE: Or is that something that I can do a little more broadly to try to hit all of them?
MIKE: You know what, that’s three shifts, so if you wanted to make it—I’ll say you can throw that to try to slow them down generally, and since it’s a three shift maneuver, as long as you can control the power, that’ll be a three against their next roll.
CHRISTINE: And that’s Conviction or Discipline?
MIKE: It is Discipline, because this is one of your Rote spells, you don’t have to gather the power, you just have to control it.
CHRISTINE: Ah, well how about six?
MIKE: Wow. Yep. So, that is a successful three shift maneuver. Alright. So, they’re actually going to be rolling at a minus 12 to try to catch you. Sweet. I balanced this encounter a-so-good.
DARIUS: You did well.
MIKE: So, Albion, if you could please roll me a Driving roll.
THOM: That is a whole 1 success.
MIKE: Amazing. So, I’m going to mark down Albion is at one—
THOM: Actually, if I tag an Aspect, would that get me away?
MIKE: You are going to have to justify an Aspect that lets you drive real good on roads that you are not super familiar with.
THOM: I would say in this instance, since I’ve got a lot of other people riding on it, particularly Ro, since Ro is the reason I have this Aspect, Protective Streak a Mile Long.
MIKE: Aw man, I do really like that. I will tell you though that at the moment, the wendigos have been at such detriment that they are falling real behind, so—
THOM: Yeah, I’m going to wait on tagging it then. I’m going to hold on to my Fate Point.
MIKE: Yep.
GWEN: Yeah, I might have something that’ll help for the next round.
MIKE: So, yeah. If I’m not mistaken, they are currently five shifts behind you. So, there you go. You’ve got one shift of success, they’re at minus four. They are seven shifts away from the end of the race, and you are two shifts away from the end of the race. So, back to top of initiative. Alexis is just sort of suddenly going to collapse into the vehicle. It seems like she’s actually pretty badly beaten up, and she threw a pretty strong blast of fire at them and sort of expended what she had left going for her, so she collapses into the vehicle and puts an Aspect on y’all that anyone trying to do actions other than steer vehicle are going to be acting at minus two due to the Aspect of Body In The Way.
THOM: Alrighty.
GWEN: Okay.
MIKE: Moving on to Ro.
THOM: “Someone get this goddamn hag off me!”
MIKE: She hasn’t fallen onto you, so.
GWEN: So, I’ma say that I’m All In, Baby, and I’m going to try to cast a veil around the car.
MIKE: Oh, interesting!
GWEN: My thought is that if they can’t see us, they can’t catch us. So, I’m going to tag an Aspect and hope that works.
MIKE: Okay, how powerful of a veil do you want to conjure? Because to cover the whole car it’s going to be a plus two.
GWEN: What would I have to roll? Just so I can kind of plan this out.
MIKE: You would be rolling Deceit.
GWEN: Deceit? Yeah, okay. I want to cover the entire car, so as strong as possible, please.
MIKE: Okay, so I’m just saying if you wanted to throw a strength four veil on there, you would have to hit a six, because covering the car makes it two more difficult.
GWEN: Okay, and I’m at a negative two, is that correct?
MIKE: Yes. You’re at a negative two because of the Aspect, but you’ve tagged an Aspect of your own to cancel that out.
GWEN: Okay. So I would have to do at least a four, or a six?
MIKE: If you want it to be four strong, then it would be a six. You can make it a two strength veil, it’s up to you. I’m going to say that whatever strength of vail you throw on here is going to be the detriment number that I give to them for their race roll.
GWEN: Okay. Let’s go with two, just because I haven’t been rolling great.
MIKE: Okay, and roll for it.
GWEN: So, that is a two, that’s perfect. Yeah, so that’s a two.
MIKE: Okay.
CHRISTINE: Well dang.
THOM: You did it, Ro.
MIKE: That’s basically a zero shifts of veil that has happened. So, unless you want to modify that any further, that unfortunately does not quite help.
GWEN: Can I tag a second Aspect on that?
MIKE: You can, you’re just burning Fate Points.
GWEN: Yeah, but I’ve got three now, I think I can do an extra.
MIKE: Okay, remember, this scene only netted your group a collective one.
GWEN: Shoot, I don’t know.
MIKE: Are you going to let it ride?
THOM: Go big or go home.
GWEN: I think I’m going to—do any of you think it would be any help for me to try for better. Or should I just leave it?
THOM: I mean, as the guy driving the car, I would say it very likely would help.
MIKE: As your game master, I think it’s pretty narratively interesting if you fumble it.
GWEN: Okay, yeah, I’m going to leave it as is then for now.
MIKE: I mean, spending Fate Points is your only currency.
GWEN: Yeah, I can try again next round. It’s okay, we’re good, guys.
MIKE: Alright, Desdemona.
CHRISTINE: Wasn’t Sylvester before me?
MIKE: I did it out of order, but you guys are on the same initiative, so whichever one of you wants to go for something.
CHRISTINE: I mean, can I cast Liganta again?
MIKE: You super can, it’s just going to cause you another mental stress. I forgot to mention that you do take the mental stress from using your rote spells, so this will be another one stress.
CHRISTINE: So, that will put it up to the two because I already had the one filled out.
MIKE: Yep, and also your Discipline roll is going to be at a minus two due to the Body In The Way Aspect.
CHRISTINE: Who’s in the way?
MIKE: The somewhat unconscious body of Alexis the hag.
CHRISTINE: Oh, okay.
MIKE: It’s a distraction.
CHRISTINE: Alright, so that would be a three.
MIKE: That is exactly enough, so you’ve managed to put three shifts of difficulty on their next roll.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
MIKE: Sylvester, do you have anything in mind?
DARIUS: I don’t know, I guess I could shoot more?
MIKE: Yep, and if you want to, I think we could use the same action supplemental action rules to say that you could try to clear the minus two penalty to take a minus one instead, and then it would remove that Aspect from you for the rest of the scene. Okay, so—
THOM: You’re going to get the hag out of the way?
DARIUS: There’s a hag in the way?
MIKE: Yeah, she’s just kind of flopped in there, so she’s just taking up space, making it harder for you to do stuff, so I’m going to say probably Athletics would allow you to sort of shift things around.
DARIUS: Okay.
MIKE: So, yep. Whew. Yeah, rolling Athletics at plus two is going to be good. What’s your total on that?
DARIUS: My Athletics is a two, so I guess that’s four, and I’m using the forensic medicine thing again, so.
MIKE: You don’t have to tag anything extra. That’s going to be enough for you to sort of get shimmied clear. So, yeah. Your supplemental action of taking some shots is going to be at minus one, so if you want, roll them guns.
DARIUS: Okay.
MIKE: Alright, so a natural zero, but if you wanted to throw down more Fate Points, that’s totally up to you.
DARIUS: Sure.
MIKE: Alright, which one are you tagging this time? Aim Low, Go High?
DARIUS: Yeah.
MIKE: Alright. Cool. So, now you’ve managed to as a group put four shifts of difficulty on their overall total roll. Albion, we’re competing.
THOM: Actually, question, Dungeon Master, since I invoked Odin, I have Guide My Hand, can I use the ability where I use Conviction instead of any other skill for one roll? The effect of the ability is that you may spend a Fate Point to use your Conviction skill instead of any other skill for one roll. This effect cannot be used for an attack or maneuver, but it can be used to bypass other kinds of obstacles.
MIKE: Oh, okay. You’re spending a Fate Point on that, okay yeah, that makes sense.
THOM: Yeah.
MIKE: That’s just a straight Conviction roll.
THOM: And that is a plus one Conviction, so that is five successes.
MIKE: Okay. Whew. Yeah, lucky you. They are very close to catching up to you when you have sort of a burst of divine inspiration, and you take an odd turn that doesn’t seem like it should lead out of the think forest that you’re in, and as the wendigos seem to be gaining some ground on you, all of a sudden, the tree line just opens up and they disperse back into the woods behind you, and you have successfully evaded the wendigos. For now.
THOM: Albion sticks one hand through the moonroof and raises a middle finger as he drives away.
[OUTRO MUSIC]
THOM: Odin ASL.
MIKE: Yeah, you’re like “I’m invoking Odin.” Odin’s like “Oh, I’m so busy.” You’re like “Oh, my parents aren’t home.”
CHRISTINE: Odin’s like eggplant emoji.
DARIUS: Peach emoji, eggplant emoji. Sweat drops.
MIKE: I like how we just turned that from being really good and sensitive to Odin to being actually more insensitive than if we kept saying “pray.”
[MUSIC] Pocket Podcast Network. Quality programming, right to your pocket.
Transcribed by Nicholas Johnson (https://draconick.com/)
Twitter: @DraconickGaming