The Road to PALISADE 05: Wagon Wheel Pt. 1

Transcriber: anachilles#0191 (Live at the Table version); thedreadbiter (intro and edits)

Austin:        The Road to PALISADE is a show about war, politics, religion, revolutionary violence, and the many consequences thereof. For a full list of content warnings, please check the episode description.

[Sounds of cameras]

[Slightly muffled]

Keith (as Kenneth Marian Colver):        Imperialism, colonialism, occupation: yeah, we hear it a lot, we hear it a lot.

[“Permanent Peace” by Jack de Quidt starts playing]

It’s ahistorical, it’s not—it’s a misunderstanding of what our relationship to this place, to these places. Now listen, listen—I will bet you—listen, I will bet you twelve, fifteen hundred, sixteen—I will bet you that anyone you know—your cousin, your brother’s cousin, anyone. I’ll bet with every single person in this room, if you turned to your neighbor, if you went to your neighbor’s door, you could knock and they would answer. And you could say, “Neighbor, where do we, where does the Divine Principality come from?” And they might say, “Well, we come from Kesh, and we come from Apostolos. And we come from…” And you could say, and you would say, not to be rude, but you could interrupt and say “No, neighbor, where do we come from? Where is our home?” And you know what they would say? They would say, the Twilight Mirage, of course! So, so… so how can it be colonialism? How can a man colonize his own home?

[Clapping]

[Audio clip cuts]

Austin (as Layer Luxurious):        That was the voice of the former Silk of the Curtain, Kenneth Marian Colver, now demoted and reassigned as part of the Peaceful Princept’s ongoing capture of power from the intelligence community. Disempowered, now Colver would simply be High Viceroy assigned to administer the occupation of Palisade by Stels Kesh and Nideo. And what a viceroy he would be! Somehow unctuous and self-aggrandizing, punchable and pitiable all at once. And today on Perfect Imperfect, we’ll come to learn exactly how a man like that tries to reshape a world in his own image. Stick with us.

[“Permanent Peace” concludes]

Austin:        Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical world-building, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. I am your host, Austin Walker. Joining me today, Arthur Martinez-Tebbel.

Art:        Hey, you can find me on Twitter at @atebbel.

Austin:        Ali Acampora.

Ali:        Hi. You can find me over at @ali_west on Twitter, and you can continue to find the show over at @friends_table.

Austin:        Uh, and Janine Hawkins.

Janine:        Hi, you can find me at @bleatingheart, and when you open PDFs in Microsoft Edge, you can highlight and mark them up and everything. It's really easy, it works really well.

Austin:        Oh, that actually sounds good. Today, we are continuing the Road to Part — I almost said PARTIZAN, see, I'm all thrown off. The Road to PALISADE, by playing Wagon Wheel, by W. L. Marigold Crow-Humphreys. Our principles, because Marigold gave us principles in this book, are to let small moments have large impacts, to build on what has been established, never reverse what someone else has said, to make bold choices, to ask questions of each other, and to think of the job skills as literally or figuratively as you want.

Art:        That's a very specific principle. Most of the principles —

Austin:        Are more general, but I think it's —

Art:        Are more general, but this is a very, this is a principle that came up.

Austin:        This reads to me — I mean, yeah, yeah. Like, came up in life, you mean, like it dug itself out of the rules text, like, this is important enough to be said in the principles section.

Ali:        Uh-huh.

Art:        Uh-huh. Yeah.

Austin:        Because probably it got buried in there, and Marigold ran it enough times to be like, “you know, this needs to be called out as like an important, real thing that we do.”

Art:        This needs to be on the first page of real text in this book.

Austin:        Okay, well there's, there's better — there's real text up top, like how many players you can play as, and, you know, what the game is.

Art:        Is that not all on that one page?

Austin:        No, it's on —

Ali:        No, that's like.

Art:        I'm going to level with you, Austin, I've only read this word — this book once.

Austin:        Okay, that's fair, don't worry about it.

Art:        Okay, no, no, it's on page 5. Okay. I'm just wrong.

Ali:        [snorts laughing]

Austin:        Yeah, but it's early. It's before the, the meat. It's, it's where principles go. Anyway.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Wagon Wheel is —

Art:        Before aesthetic and tone.

Austin:        Before aesthetic and tone, correct. Wagon Wheel is a high fantasy game of restoration that follows former adventurers as they find new ways to help. The evil has been defeated, the calamity is over, the tyrant is dead. Now, you and your fellow adventurers travel the land, repairing what's broken and helping folks find their way in a changed world.  

I know what you're thinking — Austin, this is not a high fantasy game, the evil has not been defeated, the calamity is ongoing, and the tyrants are resting well and feasting, currently in the world of, of the Divine Cycle. You're not wrong, and yet, I think the way we're going to frame today's game, give us a little bit of a space to breathe and to introduce the planet of Palisade itself, and some of the communities thereon. Here is, here is where we are in the Road to PALISADE season, as a quick reminder.

First game, we found out that members of — we found that the war between Pact and the Curtain was ongoing, and the Curtain was getting their asses whooped, and badly needed something to try to turn the tide. And one of the things they started looking for was a way back into the Twilight Mirage, where we know there is a great deal of technological power, a great deal of kind of — the sort of innovation that comes from a culture that takes care of itself and each other, where people are like genuinely looking to, to build the best possible world. You would think that that means very few weapons. I think that that probably does mean very few weapons, but what it does mean is like, a lot of support structure, a lot of very good infrastructure, the sort of things that maybe could be turned into weapons by nefarious people. Uh, and so the Curtain has gone looking for a way back in.

And the place that, that comes up in that first game is a place called Palisade, a sort of planet that rests at the edge of the Twilight Mirage, where the Divine Principality kind of got its start after leaving the, the Mirage behind, which it left at some point, and seems to have lost the location of. In our second — or, in that first game, we saw a Divine kind of betray the Divine Principality, having this, this knowledge and not wanting to give it to them, and wanting to be able to go warn the people of the Mirage, and potentially of Palisade, of what's to come.

The second game involved Millennium Break stealing a Divine, so that they could find the place, the location of Palisade. And at that point, the Curtain had already done as such, the Curtain had used that same Divine to find it. So it was more of a matter of, hey, can we get Millennium Break involved at this point?

            The third game was a picture of the Pact trying to stop the Curtain from colonizing Palisade, so they could do it instead, in their very [laughing] soft and coercive way, versus the kind of stompy, feudalist invasion that, that the Curtain involved, or, the Curtain planned. The Curtain winds up winning the day there, in events that maybe people listening to this live have not even heard yet, because we, we tossed a little addition on the end of that recording after we recorded it. Dre, Sylvi and I got together to be like, mmm, here's how we think this wraps up. And in short, the Curtain has, has, wins that war, does go on to colonize that planet or attack that planet, and spread its influence across Palisade, while the Apostolosean forces go to kind of lick their wounds in, in nearby, you know, asteroid fields and secret moons and et cetera. Not nearby, nearby. Not like, they're in the same zone as Pal- as like the same solar system as Palisade, but space nearby. Nearby enough that they'll probably show up in the season [chuckling], but not nearby enough that they'll show up day one, maybe, right? I guess we'll see how the rest of the Road goes, who the fuck knows?

Today, we are coming in to Palisade after that Curtain invasion. The Curtain who, again, Nideo and — mostly Nideo and Kesh, though there are, of course, especially for the Curtain, who are a bunch of spies, spies and media types, and church folks. Lots of cultural industry, you know, academics. Spread throughout the galaxy. But, primarily Kesh and Nideo. Uh, uh, invaded Palisade. Uh, and we are going to tell the game, a group of people from Millennium Break, who were reached out to by a community there, asking for help in the face of this invasion.

I'll say outright, and maybe this is a line and veil type thing for me, I — I didn't want to do a game that was just the raw invasion thereof, that we knew would be doomed to fail, because that's... or the invasion would be doomed to succeed, but the defense would be doomed to fail. Partly, not because I don't think there's a place for that sort of doomed-to-fail storytelling, but we know what this looks like, and it's not good.. Uh, it's, it's, it would be kind of lingering in a mode that I think would be pretty painful, and I'm frankly just not there right now, where I want to like, tell the story of a lot of innocent people being harmed directly. I think that, that sort of harm may come up today in abstract ways and in past ways. But, you know, I wasn't looking to tell a story about people being caught inside of debris and like, starving. You know what I mean? The stuff that happens during real war. Again, that's something that maybe we end up tackling in the full season. And today, we are very much playing a game about helping people who are dealing with the fallout of recent colonization, and potentially even building the first strands of resistance here.

But, but I hope that that makes sense for folks, why I didn't want to just like, basically play — because it's not Halo Reach, do you know what I mean? Like, these are not people who can stand up against a galactic empire, fundamentally. And the, the picture of what that looks like, I think is best, is best shown through people in its aftermath now trying to figure out how to live. Uh, I think that's the basic setup. Are there any questions before we get into like character creation and talking about what the game, how the game works, et cetera?

Art:        Yes. By adding a scene into an episode that had already been recorded live —

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Do you feel like we're now opening the door to some sort of George Lucas-esque special edition of episodes, where we just go in and put all-new things, without any explanation?

Austin:        Listen, Art, if it meant that our audio in the opening episodes of Autumn in Hieron sounded good, I'd be all for it.

Ali:        Also, we already do that.

Art:        I thought we determined that was impossible.

Austin:        Yeah, you know we do intros and stuff, right? That are recorded after the fact?

Art:        But usually not when people have already heard it.

Austin:        Yeah, but like, 150 people heard that episode that way. The vast majority of people will hear it in 6 months, because they are not patrons.

Art:        I'm just asking when we're putting dewbacks in the show, and you're taking it very seriously.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        When Disney signs the forms I sent them that says, “we are the true owners of all the cool lizard creatures in Star Wars,” they will be in the show.

Ali:        That's a fair bargain. Only lizards, please.

Austin:        That's all, just the lizards. I'm not asking for everybody. I, you can even keep the lizard people. I just want the lizard creatures.

Ali:        [laughing] Wow...

Austin:        The, the bestiary.

Art:        Wow, that's very generous to let them keep Bossk.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, Bossk stays, you know? That's, I wrote that exact thing down on the paper. I wrote, “Bossk stays.”

Ali:        [laughing]

Art:        Yeah, I saw it. It's just scrawled in pencil over the printed letter, yeah.

Austin:        I really wanted to emphasize it, so. All right, any other... any real questions about this?

Janine:        No, I just want to make it clear that I understood absolutely all of that.

Austin:        Great, you know...

Janine:        Top to bottom, totally followed it.

Austin:        TLDR, here is a planet, it's being colonized, it's being invaded by the Principality —

Janine:        No, I meant the, I meant the Star Wars stuff. [chuckles] I know the story —

Ali:        So there's a difference between men who look like lizards and lizards that are walking around, and we just want the lizards who are walking around [wheezes laughing]

Austin:        Yes.

Janine:        Yeah, okay.

Ali:        And out and about.

Austin:        I'll show —

Janine:        Yeah, I want to ask — want the — oh, dewbacks?

Austin:        Uh-huh. Yeah. It's these guys. See? Right there.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Big lizards, you just get on the back of them, and you ride them around Tatooine.

Ali:        Oh, sure.

Austin:        They're native to the desert planet of Tatooine, apparently.

Janine:        Okay.

Austin:        Anyway... no real questions about — okay, great.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        So...

Art:        My question — oh, there it is. I was like, where'd you put the dewback? I thought it was on the screen, then it wasn't...

Austin:        Hm. Given what we're doing, I'm not 100 percent sure we should do this aesthetic and tone exploration, but I'm not opposed to doing it, if that makes sense. The aesthetic and tone thing is, have each player choose a word or two, up to 5 total words, to help guide the aesthetic and tone. Use words from the table below, or come up with your own. These words show up in the world somehow, no matter how abstract. Write a sentence or two that conveys the world in a nutshell. And there's a cool list of words on page 6. Uh... there's stuff here that's like, you know what? I guess all this stuff is kind of good. None of this is too beyond us now. I mean, part of the thing about, about playing in Armour Astir and playing post the end of PARTIZAN is there is such a little, there's a little taste of fantasy in here now, so that some of this stuff... I'd say we probably shouldn't use Jurassic until we get the lizard license from Disney, but other than that... you know.

Art:        Yeah, so if you're still hearing that, we didn't get it.

Austin:        We didn't get it, right. If instead —

Janine:        God, they own dinosaurs, now, too? Ugh.

Austin:        They own dinosaurs now, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art:        Yeah. If you're listening to this in a feed —

Janine:        All those mergers, man.

Austin:        Yeah, consolidation sucks, this is what I'm saying.

Art:        Yeah. Jurassic Park is them now, right? That's...

Austin:        Where they, was it... mmm, is it?

Art:        Wasn't Jurassic, wasn't that FOX?

Austin:        Was that FOX? No, that was Universal, wasn't it?

Art:        Oh, sure, yeah, because the ride's at Universal Studios. Yeah, sure, all right, I guess that's...

Austin:        Yeah, no.

Art:        Disney doesn't own dinosaurs.

Austin:        No, but Disney did buy dinosaurs separately. They license it, I think, to Universal, I'm pretty sure.

Art:        Mmm, okay.

Ali:        Like the Spiderman thing.

Janine:        Because they've probably got like, Land Before Time, they've probably got like...

Austin:        Yeah, all that, yeah, yeah, 100 percent.

Art:        I think they made a movie called Dinosaurs.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        Yeah, I was kind of thinking like that bad dinosaur CG Dreamworks things. Yeah, anyway.

Austin:        Dinosaurs — I'm the baby. That one? Yeah. Gotta love me.

Art:        No, that's — [chuckling] not what we're talking about.

Austin:        No, I'm pretty sure that's Dreamworks. [chuckling]

Art:        [laughing] Dreamworks animated Dinosaurs remake hasn't happened yet.

Austin:        I hope it does.

Janine:        That Whoopi Goldberg movie where she's got the dinosaur cop partner.

Austin:        Oh, what's that called?

Janine:        I think it's called Dino Cop, to be honest with you.

Austin:        No, it's not.

Ali:        [giggling]

Janine:        Uh-huh, I think it is. I think it is.

Ali:        Why would you put anything else on that box? The people who are picking that movie up want to know what it — what's in there.

Austin:        Uh, Janine, it's called Theodore Rex.

Ali:        [laughing]

Art:        Oh my god.

Janine:        Oh, I'm very sorry. I'm so sorry.

Ali:        [cackling]

Janine:        My apologies to Theodore and Whoopi.

Art:        So does he like, he goes by his first initial? [laughing]

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh. That's exactly right.

Ali:        Oh, oh, okay. Okay.

Austin:        T. Rex.

Art:        Wait, what's this film about? Hold on.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        It's about a, it's about a dino- it's, okay, it's basically, you remember Bright, you remember when Bright came out?

Art:        Yeah, uh-huh.

Austin:        Oh my god.

Janine:        Will Smith's Bright?

Ali:        Yeah.

Janine:        It's basically that, but dinosaur, and it's got one of the puppets from the Dinosaurs TV show —

Austin:        See?

Janine:        And Whoopi Goldberg. But also it's like future, because I think there's like, laser guns.

Art:        Uh-huh. It is in the future.

Janine:        But it is basically Bright, uh, from what I recall.

Ali:        Even with all the weird initial stuff?

Art:        They had to sue her to get her to make this movie.

Austin:        Excuse me?

Ali:        [chuckling]

Art:        She agreed to make the movie, and then attempted to not, and they had to sue her to get her to make it.

Ali:        Mmm.

Art:        They threatened her with a 20 million dollar lawsuit —

Janine:        That's how you get a good performance out of someone.

Austin:        And she made another 2 million on it. She said, “I'll agree to star on it for 7 million,” 2 million dollars more than she originally agreed. Love it.

Art:        I'm going to tell you, I've only seen the poster, but it looks like 7 million represents a big part of the budget of this movie. [chuckles]

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, 100, yeah. That sounds right, that sounds right. All right.

Art:        So we're doing this? We're doing Theodore Rex?

Austin:        Yeah, we're doing Theodore Rex. Throw it out, throw Palisade out. We're doing Thenosaur — Thenosaur? That's my dinosaur name, Thenosaur.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Theodore Rex... uh, all right, I'm going to —

Janine:        Okay. For Bluff City Movie Club.

Art:        We can do both. It's in the future.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        We should pick words, we should each pick words from this list of words. Who has, who has a strong one?

Art:        Colossal.

Austin:        Colossal. Good one, good word.

Art:        Thanks.

Austin:        Uh...

Janine:        I want bicycle, but I want it to be like, speeder bikes.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Speeder bikes, love it.

Janine:        I want them to also be slow.

Austin:        Okay, well —

Art:        So, slowder bikes.

Austin:        So, slowder, yeah... slowder bikes. John Slowderbike.

Janine:        I just get a vision of like, two, like, really grimed-up, in bad shape speeder bikes, pulling like a wagon.

Austin:        I'm Janine, I've never seen Star Wars. Come on. You've seen Star Wars.

Janine:        I... played that MMO, and that's all I got. It took me, it took me 16 years of my life to get that speeder bike in that fucking cave.

Austin:        And it was pretty slow, you're not wrong.

Ali:        [snorts laughing]

Janine:        [laughing] It was the slowest!

Austin:        I went back to that last year and replayed — I beat my character story, finally, and I was shocked by how slow the speeder bikes were. And I had like a fast — I had one with like plus 20 percent speed or something that was still slow as sin.

Art:        I don't think the bikes are slow, I think that the worlds are too big.

Austin:        It's both. It doesn't have a sense of —

Art:        Have you ever like, sat around in that game... the stuff's too far apart.

Austin:        Yeah, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. Uh, so we have colossal, we have bicycles.

Art:        Slowderbikes.

Austin:        Slowderbikes.

Ali:        I'm torn between two.

Austin:        All right, what are your two?

Ali:        Overgrown or cliffs.

Austin:        I think we can get — it says up to five.

Ali:        [laughing] Okay.

Art:        Oh, you mean, you don't want to combine them. You're not looking for overgrown cliffs.

Austin:        I mean —

Ali:        Right, no. Well, I mean, those are two — two separate —

Art:        Yeah, I'm —

Ali:        Categories of being..

Austin:        Separate, right, right. Uh, and I'm going to go with.

Ali:        Anyway — but, the idea of like a space planet —

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali:        You're on your speeder bikes, there's canyons.

Austin:        That's a different — you can't say canyons.

Art:        All planets are space planets.

Austin:        I guess you said cliffs. All planets are — you got me there, Art, you got me there.

Ali:        Well, wait. Okay, wait. Why can't I say canyons?

Austin:        Well, because you said cliffs. I thought canyons was —

Art:        Yeah, two cliffs near each other are canyons.

Austin:        You're right, two cliffs near each other are canyons, that creates a canyon.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        And they're colossal, so that fits.

Ali:        And you need the different, you need the different —

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Heights of floor, [chuckling] you know?

Austin:        Yeah, I get you, I get you. And then I'm going to go with, I think foggy. I think I'm going to go with foggy.

Ali:        Wow.

Janine:        You're not going to go with squishy?

Austin:        I'm not going to go with squishy.

Ali:        [laughs]

Austin:        I don't even see squish — oh, there it is, there it is. Uh-huh. Yeah, s-loader bikes, that's good, that's great. That's how they got sloader as a name.

Janine:        Because they're for load hauling.

Austin:        Yeah. All right. The calamity. Decide together what type of disaster has happened. What are you helping people recover from? For example, this could be a wildfire, a war, a plague of ravenous miniature unicorns, or anything else. That's brutal. I don't know how to start on that last one.

Art:        Yeah, that would be so bad.

Austin:        I wouldn't have any of the faculties necessary to help people through the recovery of that one. I just don't have the training.

Art:        Yeah.

Ali:        We even have the cliffs.

Austin:        Right, that would help.

Ali:        They're miniature.

Art:        Yeah, sit on a cliff and a miniature unicorn, you'd see it coming.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Yeah, fair enough.

Art:        And you have time to leap to your own death to…

Austin:        Oh my god.

Art:        A fate better than being attacked by a miniature —

Ali:        They're so little that they can't come up and get you.

Austin:        It says they're ravenous, which means they're hungry.

Art:        They're ravenous, yeah.

Austin:        I hate it. I, I hate it.

Ali:        Get some carrots.

Janine:        I think — yeah, I think this is, this is like a plague of locusts, right? It's just mini-unicorns, but they're eating your crops, that's the problem? They're not like eating people, right? Right?

Art:        I mean, I think it's really open to the —

Austin:        I think they're eating people.

Art:        The observer, yeah.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        Horses can't eat meat.

Austin:        Unicorns can.

Art:        Yeah, that's what the horn is for.

Janine:        Although actually, didn't they —

Art:        For spearing their prey.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        They just — didn't they discover that deer eat bones, recently?

Austin:        Yeah, they did.

Art:        Yeah, right out from under your skin.

Austin:        [laughing] Oh my god.

Ali:        So, the calamity we decided was colonization, right?

Austin:        Yes, 100 percent.

Ali:        Do we have any [laughing] do we have any…

Austin:        I don't know that we have to go too much later than that, in terms of... I mean, you know, war came to Palisade. I have, what I will say is, there's a point at which we're going to have to make some towns up. And I have some regions ready to go. Because, we're going to have to go to a couple of different towns, because that's how the game works. And I wanted to get a little bit of control, but not that much control, you know what I mean? I know that there are some regions and some cultures that exist. But I'm really happy to let us invent some towns in there.

Uh, and I think I know the first region that called out to us, because I wanted to be able to identify which that was. There's a river valley called the Bontive River Valley and the Bontive people, [spelling] B-O-N-T-I-V-E, who got in touch with us somehow. Long distance, you know, communication. Maybe they sent a smuggler out with information. I mean, that might be more fun, if like a particular person came to get Millennium Break. Uh, and bring us back to help. That's also fun because maybe one of us could play a cool smuggler. Maybe that's me. I don't know. I'm talking myself into it as we speak.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        But the, but yeah. So I think that's where we're starting, and I think very much so, this is a place that's been — that particular place has been kind of pillaged for its supplies, right? It was a place that had its kind of bounty of food and other basic supplies taken from it. And I think it's a similar situation across the planet. Uh, this is a place that we've never seen on-screen before. And it exists at an interesting cross-roads, between the Twilight Mirage and the world of the Principality that we've seen before. Which is to say, there are echoes of places that we know from the Mirage, and cultures that we know from the Mirage. There are people who are descended from New Earth Hegemony people here. There are people who are descended from the Divine Free States, who stayed here and did not become part of the Divine Principality. There are people here who have ties to the kind of pre- Divine Fleet, kind of like true arrival on Quire. So, groups like Crown of Glass and people, the Mandati from Gift-3. But these are, but it's been thousands of years, right?

            And so, you can draw certain lines back to those old ideas, but they don't need to be 1 to 1, and it's mostly theming, more than deep meaning, at this point. Again, I have some ideas and can introduce these places when we get there. But by and large, what's happened is a sort of, is a pillaging, right? The Principality showed up, the Curtain showed up. They took over some key places. They made allies with the sort of people who are eager to make allies with the powerful. Uh, and they swept over those who tried to resist, and took, and took, uh, what they wanted, and are in the process of using this kind of foothold to continue their stretch across the planet. So, that's the calamity, I think as clean as I can imagine, right? So —

Art:        I just want to interject that our chat has been very clear that horses eat flesh.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        That makes, that makes sense.

Ali:        Yeah... they're trying to get off bones, really.

Austin:        Ah, yeah.

Art:        Yeah, they're trying to clear the bones for their deer friends.

Austin:        It's an ally, it's an alliance.

Art:        It's a, yeah, it's a symbiotic relationship.

Ali:        I don't want to discuss...

Austin:        Yeah, I'm with you. I'm ready to keep moving.

Ali:        The eating of... [laughs]

Austin:        Yeah. Ali, it's a good thing you edit these. So...

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        For the final episodes, at least. The OBS'll just go up on — anyway... Note! Character creation. It's completely acceptable to share the same adventure or restoration job with another player. Feel free to make adjustments to jobs to make them fit your setting. For instance, if your game is set on a space station, you could think of the blacksmith as an engineer. So, the way we do this is, we start by selecting an adventure job. And from that adventure job, we pick three of the skills listed under the job and add them to our character sheet. Optionally, one of your three skills can be from a different adventure job, or even invented entirely by you.

            Now that we're going to start writing I'll pull over our sheets for people to look at. Uh, there are a handful of adventure jobs. Adventure jobs are bard, cleric, druid, fighter, ranger, rogue, swashbuckler, and wizard. And then, after we do that, we will be picking a, we will be picking a restoration job. And when we pick our restoration job, we pick one of the restoration skills. You will describe how you learned it during the first mini-game On the Road. Whenever you gain an additional, another restoration skill, take a brief moment to describe how you learned it. The way you learned the skill doesn't need to have anything to do with the scene you were just in.

I should note at this point, I thought I did up top, but I did not, that this is a hack of Stewpot by Takuma Okada, and that is an incredible game that we've played before as Life at the Table. And so if some of this language and some of this kind of general shape matches Takuma's game, that is why. It's because it explicitly is a hack of that game, [chuckles] and I guess to give you a little bit of fill-in on what is the shape of this game and what are we doing, so to speak, the basics of it are, we're going to make a character who has an adventure job and a restoration job. So like, maybe you were a fighter before, and then now you're a carpenter. At the start, we're going to have at least three adventure skills. As we play, we're going to cross off adventure skills and add new restoration skills. We'll do some background detail stuff as we play.

And then we will, the way the game is kind of structured is, we go to a town, we frame three scenes at that town. Based on how things go, which involves some coin flips and some resource spending, we will try to help the people in that town, and build community with them, and hopefully not build any suspicion. [laughs] Uh, then, after those three turns, or those three mini-games, we'll move on to a new town. And the game is made to end when you cross off that final adventure job skill. But you can also just end it when it feels appropriate.

So, you know, we'll see. My guess is, we'll get three or four towns in. My other guess is, this might take us two recordings. We'll see how it goes tonight, and maybe we'll just like, flow right into it and we'll just knock it out. But, you know, I'd rather us go in knowing we might, this might be a two-night game, you know? So does anyone have any strong feelings about adventure jobs? And also, some of these are like very deep in the world of fantasy, but I bet we could figure out how to make druid make sense here, you know? Just gotta be creative.

Art:        Yeah, druid seems to be the hard one. The rest of them, no problem.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah. Druid — become, turn into an animal. It's not easy, but I bet we could figure it out. We've got robots, we've got the Kal'meria particle now. We've got Divines.

Art:        Oh, I mean, if you're telling me I can be like a, a transformer...

Austin:        You know.

Janine:        You can only be a Transformer if you can make the Transformer sound.

Art:        With the —

Ali:        What's the sound?

Art:        The Transformer sound, or like the ones when they were animals? I think it was a different sound.

Austin:        Like [robot sounds]

Art:        Because you're thinking of [robot sounds]

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        [laughing]

Art:        But I feel like when they were animals it was different.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Janine:        I want to say it was like the animal sound. But some of those animals didn't really make sounds, so...

Ali:        When you say the animal ones, you guys are talking about —

Austin:        They're talking about Beast Wars.

Ali:        Beast Wars, right?

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art:        Yeah.

Janine:        Yeah.

Ali:        Because that's, I mean, that's different. That's a different —

Austin:        Ooh...

Janine:        [laughing]

Ali:        [laughing] Those are different.

Austin:        You've got strong feelings.

Art:        Does it have a different transform sound? Do you know it?

Ali:        I don't anymore, I'm sorry. I feel like —

Janine:        I have a memory of... Cheetor? Making like a cheetah sound.

Ali:        I believe it.

Janine:        But I don't remember, like a lot of those other ones, like, what's a rhino sound? I don't know. Snorting? I don't think that guy snorted when he transformed. Anyway...

Austin:        What's his name? I don't remember the rhino's name. Rhinox.

Ali:        Are we, are we supposed to be seeing character sheets?

Austin:        Oh, I'll pull y'all over, sorry. Yeah, here. Oh, wait, are you all... oh, I see.

Art:        The stream can see it, but we can't see it.

Austin:        I put, I... the thing that I did was mark the wrong thing the wrong thing in my Roll20. There we go, now we're good.

Ali:        That's nice.

Austin:        Yeah, it's fine.

Janine:        Yeah.

Austin:        There are things about it that I'm not happy about, but it's fine.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        Ain't that the fucking way.

Art:        Oh, I'm like, it's so small — and then, forgetting I can zoom in.

Austin:        You can zoom in, yeah.

Art:        And make it any size I want.

Austin:        Any size, pretty much — well, that's not true. There is a limit to how zoomed-in you can get. And that's kind of what I made it for. I made it for as zoomed-in as we could get, so...

Art:        Sure, well then I just put my face closer to the monitor.

Austin:        That's another way to zoom. That's another way to zoom.

Art:        Yeah.

Janine:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Uh, shoutouts to the new dark mode on Roll20. Uh, don't shoutout to the fact that Roll20 text, still fucked up for me. Anyway.

Art:        Oh.

Ali:        Aw, two thumbs down.

Austin:        One thumb up.

Art:        I think —

Austin:        Dark mode.

Art:        One thumb up —

Ali:        [chuckling]

Austin:        I love a dark mode.

Art:        But one thumb up one thumb down, not like —

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali:        Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        Yes, not on net, yeah.

Ali:        Anyone have any strong feelings?

Janine:        I'm thinking swashbuckler, is where I'm feeling.

Austin:        Mmm.

Ali:        Yeah.

Janine:        Woah, I — sorry [laughing] I fucked this all up.

Austin:        Uh-huh! Oh, wow, yeah, sure.

Art:        Wow!

Janine:        [laughing] I'm working on it, I'm working on it.

Austin:        It's big, it's big. Uh-huh.

Art:        It's so big! This is the problem with Microsoft Edge.

Ali:        [snorts laughing] Okay.

Janine:        I'm not using Microsoft Edge for this! [laughing]

Art:        Isn't that what you copied the text from?

Ali:        [wheezes laughing]

Janine:        [laughing] Shut up, how about that?

Austin:        Wow.

Janine:        [laughing]

Austin:        Ugh.

Ali:        So I'm feeling ranger.

Austin:        Oh, okay.

Ali:        [laughing] I think that ranger would be good to be like, a cool Millennium Break, like, scout, scanner type guy.

Austin:        Yeah, that's fun. That's fun.

Ali:        Walking around with my little...

Art:        I'm thinking Bard, but I'm worried that I'd just be doing ground that was already covered by... by Keith.

Austin:        When was Keith a bard?

Art:        Well, like... well, not like a bard, but like, what would be the futuristic version of a bard. Is just like an internet celebrity again, right? Like —

Austin:        Oh, you're thinking of Gig, yeah, I see what you're saying. Maybe. But you could be —

Art:        Yeah, going into the Gig zone.

Austin:        But again — [chuckles]

Art:        Or the Gig economy, as it's sometimes called.

Austin:        Oh, I [chuckling] have to leave, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us tonight.

Ali:        Good-bye...

Austin:        Bye. [pause] Unbelievable. Uh, I think there's other ways of doing that, especially in a world that doesn't quite have... like, Gig lived in a world where there was a broad internet across all of the Twilight Mirage, and everyone could constantly see his stuff. That's not true for the Principality, right?

Art:        Sure.

Austin:        Like, we have like, a bulletin board system that you can only get access to if you have a special terminal from this underground, Millennium Break-funded research group, you know?

Art:        Sure.

Austin:        Uh, so...

Art:        All right, I'm going to take bard, and I'll make it work. Uh, how many do I get again?

Austin:        So we've got a bard, a swashbuckler — three? No, four. Did I say four? What did I say?

Art:        Four... uh, I can just scroll up.

Austin:        You can scroll up.

Art:        Three. Three job skills.

Austin:        Three job skills, one restoration job skill.

Art:        One restoration skill.

Austin:        Uh... so we've got — wait, wait, we've got swashbuckler, we've got ranger —

Ali:        Ranger.

Austin:        We've got bard. Ooh, I've got to make one? Shit.

Art:        You can just tag out.

Ali:        Yeah, you can just facilitate, I guess.

Austin:        I could just, I could just hang. No, I'll make somebody. Let's see here. Do y'all have ideas for your characters at this point? Do you all — you were probably from the greater Millennium Break organization, right? None of you are people from this planet, I'm guessing.

Art:        Right. Or, that's not what I was thinking, certainly.

Austin:        Right. I'll be someone from here. So, I'm going to be a... uh… I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about this in the wrong way. I'm really thinking about it as like a video game tabletop, or a video game like RPG party. I'm like, we need a healer. We need a cleric real bad. But I don't know, maybe we need a cleric real bad. Let's see... share weakness through confession...            Love a skill like assassinate to be in a game like this. Just wild.

Ali:        [chuckles]

Art:        I feel like it's sort of in here twice. Because, magic, you major things quote/unquote disappear. That feels like you kill someone again, to me.

Austin:        Yeah, it also feels like you kill someone. But that's also just stealing, right? But you're right. But also you're right. Sorry, do I mispronounce cleric? I say cl-urr-ic instead of cl-air-ic, right? I'm going to blame that on South Jersey, for some reason.

Art:        I don't even hear the difference between the two things you're saying.

Austin:        Cleric, clair versus clurr. Cl-urr-ic, like a clerk, right? Which is probably where the word clerk comes from. Clerical.

Art:        Why I can't change this text, guys? What's happening.

Austin:        What did I tell you about Roll20?

Ali:        [snorts]

Art:        I like select the text, I move it to the thing, I click the thing, it goes away.

Ali:        Uh-huh.

Janine:        Yeah, I had to, I had to delete the thing I did and then basically pick the text size before typing anything, and then it was fine.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Okay, what's the right text size?

Janine:        But trying to go back —

Art:        What did you, what did you settle on, then?

Janine:        I went with 8.

Austin:        8 —

Janine:        And I'm also using Nunito, and if you're not using Nunito, then maybe that number's wrong for you.

Art:        I'll use whatever font you're selling here, I'm —

Ali:        8 works with Arial.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        We're moving on to restoration jobs?

Austin:        I'm still trying to figure out an adventure job, but yeah, we can do that. I'll read out the restoration jobs. Blacksmith, carpenter, chef, gardener, healer, mystic, rancher, recorder. I should note, this is where — this is partly where this game's idea comes from. I mentioned this story in our last recording, but I forgot to do it at the top of this one, which is, all of these games are coming from — not all of them, but many of them are coming from our list that we gave to crunchyroll.com, when the reporter there asked us what side stories we would like to do, inside of the world of Partizan, and the Divine Cycle writ large. And Art's suggestion was, quote, “I want a Lambic House adventure story. Going out and getting fancy beer ingredients from weird places.” And I stumbled onto this game, Wagon Wheel, while looking at Stewpot, Stewpot hacks, looked at other games that were more explicitly about just getting a dinner together and getting meals together. And, you know, there is — serve a meal is one of these things. There are things in this game about getting together ingredients for stuff. So, it's, it's — you know, what does the book say again, what was that thing about the principle? Read the job moves as metaphorical? I'm choosing to read your thing of, getting fancy beer ingredients from weird places, metaphorically. Serving a meal metaphorically, you know?

Art:        Yeah, go for it.

Austin:        Appreciate it.

Art:        Can you help me out a little bit?

Austin:        Always.

Art:        Can you move this restoration and job skills just down a little bit? My, my skills are too wordy.

Austin:        Your skills are too — oh, I see what you're saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha.

Art:        Bump that down.

Austin:        Okay, let me just, here's what I'm going to do. I have to hit enter here, and then I'm going to have to separately — this is the whole thing, Art. I'm going to move them over, then I'm going to grab this —

Art and Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Drag this down. Oh, boy, but I went too far down the other way, huh? Oop. You can't underline, you have to understand, here in Roll20. You can only, uh, you can only draw lines. [chuckling] Oh, now that — but wait, okay, I can just, I can just backspace that.

Art:        You're, you're so close, yeah.

Austin:        How's this? Is this good enough for you?

Ali:        That's gorgeous, yeah.

Art:        That's great, yeah.

Austin:        All right, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

Ali:        [giggling] Uh...

Austin:        What's up?

Ali:        No, we're fine.

Austin:        Yeah? Uh-huh.

Ali:        I was going to see if anyone was calling dibs on a... on a restoration job, but I don't want to... Austin, I don't want to piggyback you. I want to give you time to think about —

Austin:        No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You go ahead, you keep talking. I'll figure it out. I'll get there. I'm reading these descriptions.

Ali:        [laughing] Okay.

Austin:        I didn't get, I didn't get too deep into them. I was so focused on the big-picture stuff, you know what I mean?

Ali:        Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Austin:        You know how this goes.

Ali:        You're wearing two hats tonight, I understand.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Janine:        I, I got rancher down. I'll change, but that's —

Ali:        I'm thinking gardener.

Austin:        You're thinking gardener. Art, what did you you say?

Art:        I was just good-answering people.

Austin:        Oh, good answer, good answer. Yeah.

Art:        Good answer, good answer. Uh, I mean I'm torn between two that are very different.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        Which is, chef and mystic.

Austin:        Mmm. Those are very different. I mean, if you — talk to me about what your draw is for both of these.

Art:        Uh, I just think we need a chef. I think chef is really like —

Austin:        It's a key part of the pitch, right?

Art:        Really in the, yeah, in the theme. Yeah, it's bringing my thing into the thing.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art:        And, I just think like, little, like, small-town traveling mystics are very funny.

Austin:        Mmm, mm-hm.

Art:        Very like —

Austin:        And we already have the Lambic House, right? There's something fun — I think either of those fits the Lambic House, actually, if you wanted to be a Lambic House monk, right?

Art:        Sure.

Austin:        But, you're right, small-town mystics are fun. Why did this just double? Stop it. Okay. Uh... which of these skills do I want to get rid of?

Art:        I have three tabs, and I'm losing track of them.

Janine:        I'm on, uh, I'm on my, I'm on my name generator site of choice right now.

Austin:        How's that going?

Janine:        It suggested the name Polycarp, which is... like a Pokemon, so, no, I'm not going to... [chuckles]

Austin:        It does seem like a Pokemon, you're not wrong. You're not wrong.

Ali:        We're only choosing one new —

Austin:        Oh, oh... yeah, one restoration job skill. You'll get more as the game progresses.

Ali:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, it sounded like you were onto something.

Austin:        I am, I know who I'm playing.

Ali:        Wow...

Austin:        We're going hard. One second.

Ali:        Love this for you.

Austin:        Thank you so much. All right. [pause]

Ali:        Uh.

Austin:        I get three of these, right? Three is what we decided?

Ali:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Okay... what are our restoration jobs, so far? I caught a —

Ali:        I'm a gardener.

Janine:        Rancher.

Austin:        Gardener, a rancher... and Art, did you make a decision?

Art:        I think I'm about to take chef, but if you want chef, I want you to have it.

Austin:        No, all you.

Art:        All right.

Austin:        Hm, hm...

Art:        I'm sure it's very hard, what Roll20 does, but...

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        It's finicky.

Austin:        It is very finicky, isn't it? Hm, is that what I want? No, I think I want this. This feels more right. Sorry for dropping text on other people's — wow, I'm on the wrong fucking screen. I'm not on the wrong screen, but I'm in the wrong, like... it's fine, you know? The wrong layer. Okay, so I've gone cleric and mystic. I've taken your mystic, Art. Apologies.

Art:        Great, I think it's a, it's a fun one.

Austin:        Okay. All right. Do we want to move on to the next step? Are we all good to do the next one?

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        I believe we are.

Ali:        I think so.

Austin:        Okay. Uh... consider your character's appearance. For example, is your character a human, a ladybug person, a gnoll, or something else? What kind of things does your character wear? If you wear armor, what does it look like? Is your character's demeanor friendly, rough, carefree, rude, or something else? What size is your character? The size of a frog, a human being, an elephant? So, appearance — I would say, put this under background notes, or get ready to say it. We also need name, pronouns, how was your character involved in or affected by the calamity. My guess is, for the Millennium Break people, that answer is going to be, not directly, but has maybe experienced something else like it, in which case it's probably worth thinking about your relationship to the Principality and to colonization or war. And then finally, you have a weapon that signifies your adventurer job, and a tool that represents your restoration job. What are they?

Ali:        Wow.

Austin:        Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

Ali:        Oh, I have both — I already came up with both, that's great for me.

Austin:        Uh-huh. Very exciting.

Ali:        [laughing] Love that for me. Uh... okay, I'll go into while people are thinking.

Austin:        I appreciate it.

Ali:        Because I was like [laughing], I was like, okay, I'm going to be a Millennium Break scout. I'm going to be a guy in the future. But like, we were talking before about how the regular internet does not work at most places...

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Definitely not in Palisade, most places in the Principality.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        So I was thinking, to be a scout, what you have to do is have like a little machine or like a little droid or like a little roomba situation, that like maps areas for you.

Austin:        Mmm, mm-hm.

Ali:        And then you upload it, onto like [laughing] I'm imagining this person has like a, like a big computer on a cross-body strap, that's like the Star Wars briefcase, but as if it was like a little bag, that you can upload that shit, and then it makes the map for you, that you can then download.

Austin:        That you can download. Wait, is that your weapon or is that your tool?

Ali:        Okay, that's a great question. [laughing] Because I was thinking, I was thinking the droid would be ranger, and then the bag would be gardener.

Austin:        Hm. I think that that's fine, as long as you imagine the droid has — I think that makes sense, yes, because it's about those two roles. Yeah, okay. What's the, is the bag... does the bag do something by itself, is the question. Does the bag have a collection of other maps, or map data?

Ali:        Maybe, I guess so. I was thinking that it was solar-powered, which is why I thought that it worked for gardener, which is a stretch, but...

Austin:        It's a stretch, but I see, I see how you get there.

Ali:        Again, I came up with it before I knew this part of the game [snorts laughing] but...

Art:        Uh... I have, I have a question.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        And the answer can be no. But can my character be the size of an elephant?

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        Are, what type of person are you?

Art:        I mean, I don't want to just snap and say an elephant person —

Austin:        Sure.

Art:        Because I feel like that's, I'm just picking, I'm just like picking the thing I'm looking at.

Austin:        Right, but you're compelled.

Art:        Yeah, but, and elephants are cool-looking.

Austin:        I like elephants.

Art:        Have you ever seen an elephant?

Austin:        I have, in-person.

Ali:        [chuckling]

Art:        Yeah, they're... they're great. But I don't want to just like, give us elephant people, if I don't, if it doesn't help.

Austin:        Right, yeah...

Janine:        Describe why it wouldn't help.

Austin:        Uh... I could describe some challenges, but I couldn't describe how it wouldn't help, you know?

Art:        You know... what if something bad happens?

Austin:        Mmm. [pause]

Art:        And, the last time I introduced a vaguely animal person, and I was like... well, they're not really that much like this. It did not work out for me. Everyone who else went with that idea was like —

Austin:        Who was that?

Art:        When I introduced, like, Apostoloseans, I was like, they're not really fish people —

Austin:        Oh, I see. Yeah, uh-huh.

Art:        And then, everyone else who ever made an Apostolosean was like, they've got scales, and gills, and they're underwater right now, and they're, they've got one of those fish tails.

Ali:        [wheezes laughing] Are we [unintelligible] classes? I came up with something really funny.

Austin:        Oh my god. Okay.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Great.

Art:        So I, I worry if I'm like, well, they're not really that elephanty — then by the next time these appear, it's not even going to be a person anymore. It's going to be a talking elephant.

Austin:        But what's the person part of this that you're imagining, that's not an elephant?

Art:        Well, I mean, like, thumbs, and fingers, and feet that wear shoes. Maybe not feet that wear shoes, that's so boring. I would love to have an elephant hoof.

Austin:        See, you're just going to — you're the one. You're the one who's going to make them into an elephant person.

Art:        Well, it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's kind of... it, I mean, there's not a lot of examples of something that has like a hoof on the bottom and then a hand on the top.

Austin:        Mmm.

Art:        I'm sorry, I missed the chat, that's really chanting elephant person.

Austin:        Oh, that's fun.

Art:        Yeah. “Someone's got to show Art a loxodon.” I'm on it.

Austin:        This is too long. Who decided, who decided that these names should be so long?

Art:        Oh, is this, am I stealing something? Is this, this, this is a D&D. They've got elephant people.

Austin:        Ah, don't just do that.

Ali:        Final Fantasy has elephant people. People have elephant people.

Austin:        But different — I mean, human cultures have elephant people.

Ali:        Yeah. Yeah.

Austin:        Human religions have elephant people.

Art:        Am I ripping off Ganesh right now?

Austin:        Y- yes. Yeah.

Art:        Okay, but they do have hooves and hands. Uh...

Janine:        I'm now thinking I don't know what scale Ganesh is. I think I always assumed sort of like human scale, but I don't know that that's true.

Austin:        Huh.

Art:        I've never seen Ganesh next to someone.

Janine:        I've only — yeah, that's the thing, is you usually see depictions of Ganesh kind of in isolation, right?

Austin:        Sure.

Art:        I mean, I'm sure there are stories about Ganesh interacting with people, and you can probably infer some...

Janine:        Yeah.

Art:        So it's an elephant person, just a full-on elephant person.

Austin:        Okay.

Art:        Big ears, trunk...

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh... I love this.

Art:        So, uh, if I really want to move away from D&D, it's a five-fingered hand, I think that's the... elephants don't have hooves. What's an elephant have?

Janine:        Art, you thought elephants had hooves? Hang on, slow down — did I miss Art —

Austin:        You missed, yeah, you missed that. Yeah, you were doing your own thing.

Janine:        I was too busy thinking of my own shit. I would have blown up, dude. They got big toenails. They got big cartoon toenails —

Austin:        Those big — yeah, they do.

Janine:        In every cartoon. Did you never draw an elephant as a child?

Art:        I guess follow up question... what's a hoof?

Janine:        It's one, giant toenail.

Austin:        Mmm, hm.

Art:        Okay, I'm just trying to describe like a big, flat thing.

Ali:        [chuckling]

Art:        A big, flat animal... end.

Janine:        Well, they do have big, flat feet.

Art:        Yeah.

Janine:        But they have, like...

Art:        They don't have like, they don't have like, toes.

Janine:        They have toes, they're just like...

Art:        Well not like, person toes.

Janine:        No, they don't have person toes, because they're elephants.

Art:        And their feet are kind of circular.

Janine:        Yeah...

Art:        Far more circular than —

Janine:        I mean, the thing is, I don't know that this is true, but my, my thought on things like elephants — a lot of dinosaurs, like big dinosaurs, rhinoceros and stuff, is you get that sort of flat, sort of stump-looking foot, because they're so heavy that if they had toes that stuck out, they would probably shatter them when they walked.

Austin:        Aw.

Janine:        That's just a guess, uh, because the torsion or whatever on them would be a lot. So they're really short and close to the foot so there's not a lot of actual... just in case you want to make an elephant person who breaks its toes when it walks.

Austin:        No, oh my god. You're in —

Art:        Not a lot of quadrupeds have like, toe toes.

Janine:        I — well, well... I...

Ali:        [snorts laughing]

Austin:        There's just a lot happening here.

Janine:        They're just like, longer, or bent in weird ways. Or they walk on their toes, or...

Art:        Right. Yeah, I'm not saying toe toes as like a derogatory thing. I'm just...

Janine:        Human toes.

Art:        Trying to describe some toes.

Janine:        Not many animals have human toes. [chuckling]

Art:        Yeah, almost none.

Janine:        Is a true statement.

. Art:        I would say cats are the closest.

Janine:        … no.

Art:        Closest.

Ali:        Austin, you've got to — [laughing] Hey, Austin? [wheezes]

Austin:        What's up?

Ali:        Do you have a second to just, quick — because we have to think about backgrounds right now, right?

Austin:        Yeah, I'm writing them.

Ali:        Just a quick —

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's up?

Ali:        Uh, uh, uh, what the fuck — just a quick refresher on the five Partizan, like —

Austin:        The Stels?

Ali:        Stels, yes, that's great, yes.

Austin:        The — uh-huh.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Uh... all right, quick refresher. Uh, Stel Kesh — history, historic, past. Used to control, used to be Rapid Evening, used to be Stel Ke- used to be, you know, uh, uh, on Cycle, used to be space cops, right? Now, kind of academic, you know, old-fashioned. Stuffy. Nideo, the present. Church, big church stuff. Asterism, Received Asterism. Uh,, currently, uh, uh, control of, control of, kind of cultural institutions. You know, top 40 radio, whatever the most popular movie it is this year. Marvel movies. Uh, uh, you know, hot celebrities — schooling, education. The kind of like, superstructure, the kind of cultural backbone of, you know, making you do the right thing. Also they've got spies, lots of spies. The Curtain is Kesh and Nideo.

Then we've got Stel Orion, classic Stel Orion. Business, brrr, big business, corporations, a bunch of little assholes running their businesses, and they're all fighting each other right now. They're in a civil war against each other. You remember them from when they used to be called OriCon forever ago. They were OriCom in the middle. Now they're just back to being Stel Orion. They are not part of either the Pact or the Curtain. They're kind of their own thing. They have Curtain and Pact people in there, but they also have Millennium Break people in there, they've also just got randos who just want to be warlords or multi-billionaires or trillionaires, or both.

Uh... Stel Apostolos... fish people. [laughing] Regardless of what Art says.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Uh, militant, all about motion and dynamism and moving as quick as possible toward something, whatever that thing is, violently. Deep imperial culture, completely shot through with a culture of violence, but also of self-determination, of self-actualization, of being who you want to be. Uh, as a reminder, the way Apostolosean names and pronouns work has a system in this world, where for the most part, people in Apostolos chose an idolon, choose a sort of historical figure to shape themselves around, and they take part of their, their, they take a pronoun, basically, from that root name. So, in the last game, for instance, we had someone named Cor’rina, who was named for a character named a different Cor thing. I've already... I already don't have it written down here, because I'm looking at a different document. But trust me, we had it. It's on my — it's over here. I'm checking just to get it right. Corridor, was the name of the Apostolosean, who Cor’rina Corrine named corself after.            And finally, we have Columnar, the robot people. They were, uh, courted by the Divine Principality, kind of convinced to join through gifts and diplomacy, not conquered like most of the other places. They were a pretty stable and large society themselves. Synthetic people, but, but, uh, also kind of deeply neoliberal. These are our people who are like, their vision of, of the future — and this is also the Pact, the Pact of Necessary Venture's vision of the future, is one with lots of client states, with lots of like, we'll give you funding and supplies if you let us, let our resource companies go dig up all of your resources, or get first bid on all of this shit. Yes, you can have, uh, yes, we'll lift our sanctions, but only if you sign these documents that give us rights to broadcast all media in our company — or, in your nation, right? Uh, uh, only if you let us school your children for you, stuff like that, right? So that's the five, those are the big five.

Ali:        Okay. Thank you.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        [laughing] While you were doing that, I, uh, realized that the galaxy map was not in our Palisade chat, so..

Austin:        Ah, I see, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali:        [unintelligible] That makes sense.

Austin:        Gotcha. Estelle Ingris says, “is every member of Stel Apostolos a fish person?” No, just the Apostolosean in the, uh, in the kind of ethnicity, only the species of Apostoloseans. Apostolos was actually the most — we've talked about, I talked about this two years ago, I guess, now, the most, uh, kind of diverse in species, uh, of the five Stels, the least kind of determinist about genetics. And also, [chuckling] they worship people of their own genetic history. It's rare that someone becomes an eidolon who is not kind of culturally and ethnically Apostolosean. Apostolos is a land of contrast, right? So... uh... people who are interested and have not listened, they should go back and listen to the Drawing Maps episodes I did before Partizan, where I got deep into each of the five Stels and kind of what their vibes and background were. I'll probably do something similar for this season. I don't know what yet, exactly, but we'll get there. Uh, how are we doing, how are we looking? Are we looking good?

Art:        I've got a character name. It's, “Do you think the Babar people are litigious?”, question mark.

Austin:        Uh... who owns Babar?

Janine:        Is it Rabab? Because I don't think you should use that.

Austin:        [laughing]

Art:        It's just Babar. It's a coincidence.

Austin:        Oh. [chuckling] I bet they're more, they're more litigious than that.

Janine:        I'm trying to find a last name.

Austin:        Mmm.

Ali:        I came up with a joke, so I cheated tonight.

Austin:        You cheated... I see your cheating. I see it. I've not called attention to it, because I want you to be able to deliver it yourself.

Ali:        Thank you. Thank you for that.

Art:        Did we have a... there, there wasn't a strong Lambic House naming thing, because we sort of went at it from a lot of different areas.

Austin:        Uh, we had, what was our one Lambic House NPC's name?

Art:        I don't remember, and I'll tell you, it's one of the few things we've come up with that if you Google it, our show doesn't come up, because... because there are just lambic houses.

Austin:        Right, sure. That would make sense to me. It was the Blossom, was the name of our Lambic House. Uh, the Abbot of Provision. So we didn't have a, uh, we just had that title.

Art:        Sure. And that's, of course, also how Sovereign Immunity went, so —

Austin:        Right, yeah, uh-huh.

Art:        I don't know what I was really thinking about here, but I Googled “noisy plants,” and...

Janine:        [chuckling]

Austin:        Noisy plants?!

Art:        Yeah, it turns out there aren't [laughing] plants that make noise.

Austin:        There's not one plant that makes a noise?

Art:        Uh, there are like plants that make sounds that humans can't hear.

Austin:        Of course. Like — yeah, ultrasonic squeals, I see.

Art:        Yeah, tomato plants, tobacco plants.

Ali:        What do tobacco plants gotta say. [laughing] Sorry. I guess I really stunned everybody.

Janine:        [laughing] I thought of an answer that's like, terrible. And like, is just, is just like, not, not a good joke, it's just like... nah. But it made me laugh.

Art:        But yeah, Tobacco Plant is not strong enough of a name, I don't think.

Austin:        Tobacco Plant? No.

Art:        Yeah. Uh... tobacco... does it have like a cool Latin name or something? Nope.

Austin:        Well, our — we — plants, we know that plant names are actually our elect names in this current setting, so we should probably stay away from —

Art:        Yeah, and it's also Nicotiana. Nicotiana Tobaccum.

Austin:        Da-da-da, da da, da da, da, Nicotiana.

Art:        Tobaccum.

Austin:        Uh-huh. Tobaccum. Yeah.

Art:        Tobaccum.

Austin:        Tobaccum. Damn near killed 'em.

Art:        [laughing]

Ali:        Mmm...

Austin:        I think I'm done.

Ali:        [chuckling] I fit as much information as I possibly can —

Austin:        I didn't, I didn't go that hard. Y'all went harder than me, by a long ways. Wow. Ah, I like the different color stuff you've got going on, that's good.

Ali:        Well, I needed some sort of — it was really —

Austin:        Yeah, that's good. That's good.

Janine:        I'm really struggling. I picked a last — a first name, that like, I feel very strongly about, but also complicates last names in a strong way.

Austin:        Mmm, mm-hm.

Janine:        Ugh, everything I — don't take this the wrong way, but every time I try and give him a last name, it sounds like a Star Wars character to me, and that's not — and I think if I do that —

Austin:        This is the season.

Janine:        Then I'm committing to a slightly different, then I'm projecting a slightly different vibe than I want to project with the other stuff that I've chosen.

Austin:        I get you.

Janine:        A dude who like, wears leather and stuff, and has a Star Wars name —

Austin:        Is cool.

Janine:        And is like, a little bit salty and whatever. That is committing to something I don't want to commit to until I've actually played the character, and I don't know, you know?

Austin:        I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotcha.

Janine:        I'm, I'm just, I'm just picking — I looked at one and I'm picking it now. Uh...

Austin:        This is actually easier to do. I should have done this for both of you. Sorry.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        That one's super easy to do.

Ali:        Take it away. I did a great job filling [wheezes laughing] like really making —

Austin:        You don't want it.

Ali:        Like really making the most out of the space.

Austin:        Okay. All right, I'll get rid of it. Do you want me to shrink it down more — oh, fuck.

Ali:        And like, to re-do everything — [laughing] to re-do everything —

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotcha. All right, I'll take it — whoop.

Ali:        I've, I've done what I can to fit —

Austin:        Yeah, I gotcha. If you want me to make it as small as possible, down to the pixel?

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Do you want me to like, really squeeze — actually, you're pretty much right there, huh?

Ali:        I'm right there. [chuckling]

Austin:        I mean, I'm going to bring it up a little bit more, though, just for fun. Right to the edge of that, that lower... oop. And then, we're going to go there.

Ali:        Uh...

Janine:        No.

Ali:        Don't do that. No, no, no, no. Let's keep the headroom.

Austin:        No? You don't like that?

Janine:        What are you doing?

Ali:        I need the header. No, no, no, no, no.

Austin:        You want the headroom. All right, all right, all right, all right.

Ali:        [laughing].

Austin:        All right, all right.

Ali:        You know when you opened a Word doc and you've got your, what are they called?

Janine:        Margins?

Austin:        Uh, margins.

Ali:        Margins. I would like a margin, please, thank you.

Austin:        Mm-hm. Are we there? Are we good?

Ali:        Janine, I cannot stop looking at the words, “human guy.” [laughing]

Janine:        [laughing]

Austin:        Is that your character name, Human Guy?

Janine:        [laughing] This is — the words of someone who’s very comfortable playing male characters all of the time constantly —

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        Human guy.

Austin:        Human — human guy.

Ali:        [snorts]

Austin:        All right, are we ready to go —

Art:        [unintelligible] every morning I wake up, I look in the mirror and say —

Ali:        [laughing]

Art:        [unintelligible]

Ali:        True.

Austin:        All right. Who wants to go first?

Ali:        Hi. Okay. So tonight I'm going to be playing Ce Gul.

Austin:        C-E space G-U-L?

Ali:        Yeah. Ce Gul. Uh-huh.

Austin:        Yeah. Yeah.

Ali:        I thought it was funny, and I literally didn't think of anything else because I thought it was funny, so —

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Ali:        I'm playing Ce Gul tonight, Ce. I'm playing Ce tonight.

Austin:        Ce.

Ali:        Uh, [chuckling] Ce goes by they/he. Uh, I wrote down a back story, even though I don't know — I wrote down that Ce Gul was — grew up in a Nidean outpost that was destroyed by Kesh —

Austin:        They are —

Ali:        Then they found Millennium Break through vandalled signal feeds, I guess you're out there —

Austin:        Yeah, that I like. The, it's probably not Nideo and Kesh — they're on the same side in this war. That is, that is the Curtain.

Ali:        Oh, sure.

Austin:        I mean —

Ali:        I was thinking that.

Austin:        Yeah, mm-hm.

Ali:        I was like, I was like —

Austin:        Yeah, just —

Ali:        But, you know, sometimes there's...

Austin:        Maybe, it could have pre-dated this current conflict. It could be, it could be that your, it could be that your Nidean outpost did not join up with the Curtain, you know?

Ali:        Oh, sure.

Austin:        Maybe you had like a, some sort of local leadership that was actually like, no, actually fuck this. Fuck the idea of the fact that there was a secret group of superspies leading this entire Principality for all these years. It definitely happens, so...

Ali:        Or it was run by a guy who was like, “you know what? I'm commander of this outpost, and I'm going to attack this ship —”

Austin:        Sure.

Ali:        And then my outpost got destroyed and all these people were fucked because of it.

Austin:        Yeah, totally.

Ali:        Uh, as [chuckling] as mentioned before, I'm a ranger.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        My restoration job is gardener.

Austin:        Mmm.

Ali:        I've written here [laughing] in background and other notes, we've gone over some of this. I have a —

Austin:        What did you wrote? Could you —

Ali:        A little — [laughing]

Austin:        Well, mmm, that's not what you wrote.

Ali:        [cackling]

Austin:        You didn't write “little” did you? You wrote something instead of little. I don't see an L or any Ts in the word here. If this was Wheel of Fortune we'd all be yelling at the screen.

Janine:        There is, there is an L, Austin, there is an L.

Ali:        I wrote, a “widdle”, a “widdle” map droid. [laughing]

Austin:        Wait, there is one L, yeah.

Janine:        Ali didn't write “widdw,” ending in a W. [chuckles]

Austin:        Widdw, which would have been extremely funny. Widdw. Widdw.

Ali:        [cackling] Widdle map droid, rolling around. Because it has to be a weapon, I decided that it has a vibroblade.

Austin:        A literal Star Wars thing.

Ali:        [laughing]

Art:        We asked for the lizards and the —

Austin:        And — no, they gave us vibroblade. They said that's — that's, uh, —

Ali:        I mean, they can't own blades that vibrate. Like, you know, if you're in space, sometimes you figure out you need that to happen.

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh.

Art:        They might be able to own just the word Vibroblade, though.

Ali:        [chuckling] Sure, sure, sure. It's funny, because I think we... we did a recent, we did a recent Live at the Table where I like, asterisked out the word Jedi, because we [laughing], we're like, “we're ancient monks, and, you know,” it's kind of [laughing] —

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh.

Ali:        [wheezes laughing] It's kind of fantasy but Sci-Fi. Anyway...

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        A server that's in like a cross-body bag with little dog keychain, solar-powered.

Austin:        Wait, a little dog keychain, like there's a little dog —

Ali:        I decided that my — yeah!

Austin:        Just a little dog on it.

Ali:        Yeah, like a little keychain with a little dog on it.

Austin:        Okay. Okay.

Ali:        You know, you’ve seen them. [laughing] Uh, I've decided that my... I think that like, if you're in the future and you have things on battery powered, and you have a solar-powered important machine, you would carry around like a solar LED lamp.

Austin:        Yeah, sure.

Ali:        And then I was thinking that could be used for gardener stuff. I wrote down here [chuckling] helmet goggles guy vibe. You draw with your own mind's pen on that one, I think. [laughing]

Austin:        Yeah, I get you.

Ali:        Because, that's a version of a person in, in media.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        I love it.

Ali:        Uh, and then the personality choice type that I've written here is distracted.

Austin:        Mmm, okay. I've not written down a personality type. I should do that, I should get on that.

Ali:        [chuckles]

Austin:        Uh, let's go around counter-clockwise, since I'm next clockwise and don't want to go yet. So, Janine, I think that's you.

Janine:        Oh, I see, yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh.

Janine:        Uh, I'm going to play Caeso Ware. Pronouns are he/him. Adventure job, swashbuckler. The skills that I've picked are belay — stop something or someone in their tracks. Hold fast — expert use of knots. And, thunder — you still lug around your trusty cannon. The restoration job and skill that I picked is rancher. And, horse — like a dog you can ride. The cannon is strapped to the horse.

Ali:        Mmm.

Austin:        Oh, you got a horse cannon. You got a —

Janine:        Yes.

Austin:        Horse cannon. To be clear —

Janine:        Strapped — it's a cannon that is strapped to the side of the horse.

Austin:        To be clear, it's that you are... you didn't write that, it's not a dog that you ride.

Janine:        No.

Austin:        It is, it is actually a horse.

Janine:        These are, I just copied and pasted this out of the book.

Austin:        Okay, I didn't know if you were making a —

Janine:        It says, like a dog you can ride.

Ali:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        I gotcha, yeah.

Ali:        Wait, so —

Art:        They're editorializing about horses.

Janine:        [unintelligible] alien horse. Not a real horse. Ali, go ahead.

Ali:        So, the cannon is attached to the horse?

Janine:        It's like, it's like tied on.

Ali:        Okay.

Janine:        You know, like a saddle — like a saddle bag, but a cannon.

Ali:        Oh, okay.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is the horse all right with this?

Janine:        It's like, a weird horse. I don't know, I haven't decided weird and — it's not, it's not like a horse, horse. It's like an alien — or a robot horse?

Ali:        Can I, can I —

Janine:        I'm not sure.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        Yes? Question, yes?

Ali:        Hell yes. Okay. I was going to ask if I could head canon in springs on the part where the cannon connects to the horse —

Austin:        Oh yeah, sure.

Ali:        So, the like, rockback or whatever it's called when you fire a bullet doesn't...

Janine:        Yeah, or the horse could have like a, sort of, like a, like a, metal exoskeleton, sort of, not like, not born of the horse, but like attached to the horse as like, horse gear.

Austin:        Mmm, mm-hm.

Janine:        As like future horse gear? Kind of like a reinforcing exoskeleton in the way that like, sometimes in Sci-Fi people use those to like, lift heavy stuff or whatever. This is...

Ali:        True. True, true, true. Okay. Yeah.

Janine:        Like that, but for a horse with a cannon on him. Uh, I haven't thought of a name for the horse. Fuck.

Austin:        You'll get there.

Janine:        Background and other notes. Human guy. Salt and pepper hair. Smallish face with largish eyes. Sort of stubbly, does a lot of like, casual leatherwear, like leather coats and stuff, with like, the like, when they're sewn so it's like there's a pattern of like lines and stuff, a little bit padded.

Austin:        Mmm, yeah.

Janine:        Salty, but sort of kind. Just trying to get by in a way where he can sleep at night, mostly.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        Uh, I feel like this is one of those kind of guys who kind of like, just appears one day, and everyone's like, “weird, okay.” He feels like he's probably been with Millennium Break for a significant portion of his life, I would think. Or like, a significant portion – not his life, but a significant portion of, of time. He, uh... was probably, I think, a bad guy before that. Like just kind of a —

Austin:        Ah, yeah.

Janine:        Rough and tumble kind of, steal-your-shit dude, who had no particular allegiances, and then sort of, some sort of something happened, and he kind of found that, hey, what if I actually just chill out a little bit? And maybe, maybe I can still do the things that, that get my blood pumping, but without like, being a complete shit-head and ruining people's lives. His tools. So I'm going to say the word stinkpots. These are a thing that pirates used, real pirates —

Austin:        Yeah, sure.

Janine:        In history. And I like the idea of them being a thing in our, in this, also, which is just, it's like a grenade, except instead of exploding, it's full of stuff that makes people throw up because it smells so bad.

Austin:        Hate it.

Janine:        Yeah, and it's like sticky, and miserable, and it just like, really fucks things up. I picked this specifically because I already have a cannon as a power. I wasn't going to double up on that because it seemed like a waste of a slot.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        But I've already got, like, a weapon-ass weapon, so it's like, well, I want some other tools for this dude that's transitioning to the ranch life.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        And also, a — I wanted like a rope, but I want it to be like, metal braided. So it's a little bit like, heavy duty.

Austin:        Yeah, love it. Uh, confirming, both of you are playing humans.

Janine:        Yes. Also, I found a picture on artbreeder that someone had generated where it was like, yeah, that could be this guy. Uh...

Austin:        Truly wish that name was different.

Ali:        [giggling]

Art:        Yeah, I've never heard of this before, and I'm very scared of clicking on this —

Janine:        I know. [laughing]

Austin:        Oh, wow, look at this man. Sure, yeah.

Ali:        Yeah.

Art:        Oh, wow. Is, is he all right?

Austin:        You know?

Ali:        Oh, that's a guy.

Austin:        That's a guy.

Janine:        He was made by a robot so, not all right.

Austin:        He was made by a robot.

Janine:        And if you scroll down, you can see all the other things —

Art:        Oh, no.

Janine:        That have been made with him.

Austin:        Oh, I don't like that.

Janine:        Or from him.

Art:        Some of these are bad.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Not like, bad, but —

Ali:        These are his cousins.

Austin:        [laughing] Why does he have 7, 8, 9 — a bunch of these cousins are just identical, and they're also —

Ali:        [snorts laughing]

Austin:        All just variations on what's-his-face. Uh...

Art:        I think, Wheelie Redward 2017, all the way on the left, is Pete Davidson.

Austin:        That's the person, Pete Davidson, yeah. Uh-huh. That's what I was going to say.

Ali:        You know when your aunt and your four identical cousins come over, and you're like, “damn, I gotta hide my Xbox.”

Austin:        [laughing] I gotta tell you, I don't know this.

Ali:        [cackling]

Art:        I don't think Pete Davidson would steal your Xbox.

Austin:        I do. I fully do. And I'm like, that dude's never been in, in better — like I've never felt more for that dude right now. I'm worried for him, frankly, so... I still think he'd steal your Xbox.

Ali:        He'd think it was funny, and that's —

Austin:        Yeah, that's exactly it. That's — yeah, he's a comedian, you know? You know what I'm saying?

Ali:        [laughing] Oh, Austin, lore note, I chained Kesh to Orion, which I felt like was more...

Austin:        Love it. Yeah, that makes sense.

Ali:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Thank you.

Ali:        I didn't want that hanging over the game.

Austin:        It would have been fine. We would have lived. We would have made it.

Ali:        [giggling] I know it would have been fine, but in my heart of hearts…

Austin:        Also, so, Ce Gul — and Janine, can you pronounce your character's name one more time?

Janine:        Uh, Caeso Ware.

Austin:        Caeso Ware, C-A —

Art:        That's a Star Wars-ass name.

Janine:        It's like, it's like Kai-zo, but Cay-so.

Austin:        Yeah. C-A-E-S-O W-A-I-R.

Janine:        Yes. And yeah, this is, it's a very Star Wars name. It's a very Star Wars name, or else I'm making a video game joke. I caught myself between two lanes where I was like, I don't know.

Austin:        Oh yeah.

Art:        Ooh.

Janine:        Yeah.

Austin:        Art.

Art:        Uh, I'm going to be playing Broadleaf.

Austin:        Mmm.

Art:        Uh, Broadleaf's pronouns are he/him. Elephant person.

Austin:        Mmm.

Art:        Wears dark blue robes that are kind of fussy.

Austin:        Oh.

Art:        You know, like, like layered. There's a lot going on.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Yeah.

Art:        Yeah. Wears a big ring with a bejeweled hop flower.

Austin:        Oh, love it.

Art:        Weapon, guitar. I had to... I don't really know what bards have.

Austin:        You'll figure it out.

Art:        So I just reached into professional wrestling —

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Where people just hit each other with guitars all the time.

Austin:        You're — this is a Jeff Jared and Elias situation.

Art:        Yeah, yeah. And it's a tradition that goes back years.

Austin:        Right.

Art:        I'm sure the Honky-tonk man did it. Or why was he the Honky-tonk man?

Austin:        At least once, right?

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Did you know that honky-tonk is an onomatopoeia?

Austin:        That makes sense to me.

Art:        That's like the sounds that come out of a honky-tonk [unintelligible]

Austin:        [singsong] Honky-tonk, bow wah wah... yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Art:        Yeah. Mm-hm.

Austin:        Great.

Art:        Tool, a portable spice rack. I'm imagining like, something slung on the back, with a bunch of just little containers of spices.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Oh, hell yeah.

Austin:        Love this for us.

Art:        But maybe not that little, because he's big — he's big. So, you know.

Austin:        Right, right.

Art:        But, do whatever you need to do, in your mind. They'd be little for you.

Austin:        I see. They'd be little even for us. So it's a huge spice rack.

Art:        Yeah, I guess it's a huge spice rack.

Austin:        It's a spice wall.

Art:        Yeah, but it's just like, slung along the back of a —

Austin:        I love it.

Art:        Of an elephant person, yeah.

Austin:        Incredible. Uh, all right. Uh, I am playing the, the Excerpt Wine, Excerpt of the Divine Bounty. My pronouns are they/them, my full name for my Excerpt name is, The News of Her Arrival Flowed Between the People of the Village Like Wine, Rich and Intoxicating. I was a cleric. I am becoming a mystic. Uh, I have dark skin, I have a long braid down my back. I have a kind of cream-colored robe with a collar and kind of like a skirt. You know, it's a robe, so it's not literally a skirt, but you know, it kind of flutes out a little bit at the bottom. Uh... it's not like a particularly tight robe.

Uh, and I have as a weapon a, a sharp spade. Uh, which, uh, as the Excerpt of, uh, Bounty, you can imagine how that may be, uh, connected. But also, it's a weapon, which means I've used it as a weapon. As a tool, I have a thick book. Who knows what's in that book? Who could say? Probably some religious stuff, but maybe also some gardening tips. Maybe some mystic shit, just some stuff you quote. Uh, I am quiet and emotionally taut. I tried to find a, I was trying to find the right word. Because it isn't like, inscrutable or indifferent or cold. What, what they really are is like, dangerous. They have that feeling of like, they are holding something back. Uh, and my relationship to, uh, the Principality and its violence is that I survived the Bontive Valley invasion. Yeah, it's a cy- yeah, right. Dakota says, “cybertome.” A classic, a classic cybertome.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        Uh, uh, so, yeah. That is my relationship to, to the past and to the Principality and all of that. Art, real quick, what was Broadleaf's relation to, how did you get involved with Millennium Break?

Art:        I think, I think he was on Icebreaker. I think he came in at that time and left probably in the middle.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        It's not, it's not his deal. He's a more, a more chill person.

Austin:        Right. Less, less military stuff, more — yeah.

Art:        Less military stuff, more, more hearts and minds.

Austin:        Right, gotcha, gotcha. Uh... all right. I think that that's, that's this. So, now we have to build our Wagon. Decide together what our wagon is. Is it a giant reanimated [chuckling] skeleton with rooms built inside? Or perhaps —

Art:        Not that one.

Austin:        A log cabin on runners, pulled by a team of winter jackalopes. Summarize the big-picture idea of your wagon in a sentence or two. It's got to be like a spaceship, right?

Ali:        Wow...

Austin:        Or like a... a slowder, but real big?

Art:        I think it's a big slowder.

Austin:        Probably a big slowder.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        Right?

Art:        Or like, uh, uh, or, you know, to use the idea, maybe it's pulled by a bunch of slowders?

Austin:        Oh, that's more fun.

Janine:        That was going to be my [unintelligible]

Art:        That was Janine's, yeah, I am just repeating it, it is not new, this information.

Ali:        Oh...

Austin:        Yeah, that was your idea. That was, yeah —

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, Janine, good job on that one, I love it. Uh, what's the actual... what's the body of it? Is it just a big, it's a big thing pulled by slowders, but what's the actual thing? Is it just a wagon?

Ali:        I feel like I'm getting street cleaner vibes.

Austin:        Mmm.

Ali:        [snorts] Just like, this big truck —

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        The bottom of it is flat, and instead of having wheels, it has like circular, the wheels are like, on their side instead of the other way —

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        So like [chuckling] it can go over like terrain — I mean, wheels are better for that. They invented the wheel for a reason. But just imagine this [laughing] is a better idea.

Austin:        Well maybe —

Art:        Yes, it could be like a hover thing.

Janine and Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Yeah, it could be a hover thing. I think it's a hover thing.

Art:        Yeah, like, what if those little broom things in front of a street sweeper were little hover things?

Austin:        Yeah. Yeah.

Ali:        Mm-hm. Yes, thank you, thank you.

Janine:        Like a fan.

Austin:        Like a fan.

Ali:        For taking the baton there.

Austin:        Yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, god, what's a good, uh, what's a good — [chuckles] what's a good, what do you call it, collective animal noun for what this is? What's the name of a, of a, is it just a herd of oxes? Is that what that's called? What's, what's the collective noun for like, oxes?

Art:        I don't know, but I'm excited to, to Google collective animal nouns.

Austin:        Yeah. That's a yoke. We already used that. We already used the yoke. The yoke is a, is an Adamant Arms and Artifice mech already. It's a sick one. It's the Oxblood Clan's mech.

Janine:        I — uh...

Art:        I've got the 76 best...

Austin:        Yeah? Uh-huh.

Art:        Collective nouns.

Ali:        [snorts]

Janine:        I just, I, sorry, I don't want to derail us, but, Ali, do you realize you invented something from Gundam Wing, for that truck?

Ali:        Oh, I bet I did.

Austin:        Wait, what did you invent from Gundam — what was it?

Janine:        I like, I Googled hover truck, just to be like, I wonder if this exists?

Ali:        [snorts laughing]

Janine:        And, a thing that's like, basically what Ali described... [laughing] it has been released — I don't know if it's in the show, but it's in like Gundam Wing model kits that a lot of people have posted pictures of.

Austin:        Mmm.

Ali:        Oh, sure.

Janine:        Uh, just like a big —

Ali:        Oh, look at this. Yeah.

Janine:        Truck with like, wheel, like fan wheels, sideways wheel fan feet, kind of things.

Austin:        Mmm.

Janine:        This is a nice-looking model. If you're into model kits, and you're into Gundam, and...

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Janine:        You're also into hover trucks... congratulations.

Austin:        Uh, is it really a parade of elephants?

Art:        Some of these are fake.

Austin:        Is it a parade of elephants? That's fun.

Art:        Uh, I'm hearing...

Austin:        I could imagine —

Art:        This says it's a cupboard of pandas, which doesn't seem real.

Janine:        No...

Art:        A lot of these, so I, I went deep into this last year when we were doing this. So, all of the Adamant Arms and Artifice machines have collective animal noun names. That's where you get the Troop, the Herd, the Murder, the Yoke, et cetera. And uh, a lot of them are, “a poet called them this once,” and that's now, we've decided, is the collective noun. And that's not enough. You need at least two poets to agree [chuckling] to call it, what did you say, a cabinet of pandas? A cupboard of pandas?

Art:        A cupboard of pandas, yeah.

Austin:        A cupboard. I need a second —

Janine:        A shrewdness of apes. I found a list of these, it's like a whole long list.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah.

Art:        A scurry of squirrels is good.

Austin:        But that's not the name of this big —

Ali:        I like cupboard.

Austin:        You think it's the Cupboard?

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Of pandas?

Janine:        A gray of squirrels, I love that.

Ali:        Well, it doesn't have to be of pandas.

Austin:        No, no, no, but I'm saying...

Art:        What about, but what about a Parcel? A Parcel?

Austin:        A Parcel's not bad. A Parcel would make sense for what is basically a big, you know, warehouse on hover wheels. What's a parcel?

Art:        It's a parcel of hogs, for —

Austin:        That's very funny.

Ali:        Wow...

Austin:        I don't mind that. This can be the AdArm Parcel.

Art:        A parcel that I don't want to be given.

Austin:        You don't want a parcel of [laughing] hogs?

Art:        I feel like they're very big.

Austin:        All right, then don't answer the door when the, when the bell rings tomorrow, Art. I had a surprise for you, but I need you to just ignore it.

Ali:        [chuckling]

Art:        I can't just leave it there!

Austin:        They'll find their way home.

Art:        Ha!

Austin:        Trust me. [pause] All right. We don't have an actual name for it, but it's an AdArm Parcel unit, S-loader. So...

Ali:        Yeah.

Art:        Yeah. Still needs a real name, too.

Austin:        I mean, yeah, you can come up with a real name, I think that's fine. Uh... we do need other stuff here, which is, we have to upgrade it twice. The way a wagon works is, a wagon has, uh, stats. It has a combination crew, utility... and for each point we put into those, they get better. So like a combination zero is, “you sleep under the stars.” Crew is, “what crew? It's just you doing your best,” at level zero. Utility is, “your wagon is really good at getting you from place to place, but that's kind of it.” Uh, uh, and as you add things to utility you get different things. As you adds things to crew, you get some other NPCs to help. And as you add to accommodations, it'll give you a place to actually hunker down and sleep, you know?            Uh, I imagine, it sounds like, given what we've described, we probably want at least one level of accommodations?

Art:        It would be weird to have such a big thing, and then just go and [chuckling] have to go sleep outside.

Austin:        Well, like, it could, we could, I could imagine it's like, we're all seated on the bikes, and then the, our stuff —

Ali:        Oh, yeah.

Austin:        Is inside of the — or, or, Broadleaf is inside of the big interior, because Broadleaf is the size of an elephant, you know?

Art:        Sure. I mean, but if you have space for an elephant to sleep, you have space for 3 people to sleep.

Austin:        Only if the elephant sleeps outside.

Art:        Well just like, there's got —

Austin:        It's too dangerous, I'm not sleeping next to an elephant. I love elephants —

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        But all it takes is, “I've got to roll over real quick,” and I'm done.

Ali:        How do you think cats feel? And they sit next to you all the time.

Austin:        I guess that's true. This is the difference between me and a cat.

Janine:        So, what you're saying is that we should be under the blanket, and then the elephant should — no, wait. The elephant should be under the blanket, and we should be on the blanket —

Austin:        On top, yeah.

Janine:        And that way, if the elephant rolls over, we just kind of get like, squeezed [chuckling] a little.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Janine:        And then can kind of like shuffle out and meow and go downstairs.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Yeah. Uh-huh

Austin:        Uh-huh. You got it.

Ali:        Yeah.

Janine:        Okay. [chuckling] Okay.

Austin:        Cats are good.

Ali:        [chuckling]

Austin:        Anyway, we get two upgrades, what are we thinking?

Ali:        Where are the upgrades list?

Janine:        As I read the descriptions of these.

Austin:        It's all on —

Art:        Upgrades are on page 11 and go to page 12.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Thank you.

Janine:        As I read these, the thing... I... it does sound like level one for accommodations, and then it's kind of like a toss-up between crew and utility, which sounds right for what we're doing.

Art:        A thing I like about crew is like, hiring someone that's, that's been onscreen.

Austin:        Like an actual, a character from Partizan.

Art:        No, I mean —

Austin:        Oh, later.

Art:        In this game, yeah.

Austin:        Yes. I would like to hire someone in from a scene, yeah. I would love that.

Art:        So like, leaving level one crew for that.

Austin:        Mm-hm. And starting with —

Art:        And taking —

Ali:        Oh, sure, sure, sure.

Austin:        One of these utilities.

Art:        Yeah, uh, a crane.

Austin:        Or a gym.

Art:        Or a, or a fish hatchery.

Janine:        You don't want a chicken coop?

Art:        I'm trying to make sure we're narrowing on the essentials.

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh. Not a garden, we have a gardener. We have no garden, though? What were you saying, Ali?

Ali:        I said workshop.

Austin:        Workshop could be useful. I'm partial to a library, but, you know.

Ali:        [sighs] Yeah, that sounds... yeah.

Art:        Should we roll like 1d4 and whoever wins gets to —

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        No, no.

Art:        Gets their thing?

Austin:        We should decide. I'm, I'm happy to give this to anybody. I don't, I'm not, I don't have a real…

Ali:        We could also just make something up.

Austin:        We could make something up. [pause] Uh... I feel like our needs are pretty —

Janine:        Seed vault.

Austin:        Did you say, what did you say?

Janine:        A seed vault.

Austin:        A seed vault.

Art:        Oh, a seed vault.

Ali:        Hm.

Austin:        I think that's garden, right?

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        I think it'd give that to us.

Art:        I thought you said meatballs, which was just a...

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Just meatballs on there.

Art:        Just meatballs.

Janine:        Things you need for a functional garden is very different than the space you need for a functional seed vault.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        And also the requirement, like, garden doesn't need to be refrigerated. Seed vault does.

Austin:        Sure.

Ali:        Hm.

Janine:        Anyway, that's not... it can be whatever, I have no attachment.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        Uh, Dakota in the chat asks, “how do you gather Kal'meria particles?” Do we have some sort of portable generator that lets us like, give people power? You know? That could easily be the sort of thing I could imagine Millennium Break, like, brings, as like a very clear thing to help people, do you know what I mean?

Ali:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Uh, what's the other stuff Millennium Break has access to? We already have the internet via, we already have the Strand via, uh, Ce Gul's backpack situation.

Ali:        [laughing] Oh, sure.

Austin:        Uh, what —

Ali:        This is probably, I mean, like, a big part of the Millennium Break, uh... I was just going to say holiday special — the Millennium Break arc is what I'll say.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah.

Ali:        Was like making cell phone towers and like, building communication there.

Austin:        Communications, yeah. Communications equipment isn't a bad idea. I kind of like that. [beat] I kind of like that. I would go communications equipment.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Everyone else —

Ali:        As our utility?

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        Like, like, and not just, not just, we can call home, but like, we have the stuff to, to explicitly give people ways to contact us and anybody else on this network, basically.

Ali:        Right, yeah.

Austin:        That's such a part of what we've built Millennium Break as like a thing they're doing, right? So... uh... all right. Uh, we should write these down. Can someone, can someone write these down under the big notes section?

Ali:        Sure.

Austin:        Thank you. Here, wait. I'll do a, I'll add a wagon section. There we go, just write it under wagon. Thank you. Uh... as I scroll up and continue to read, uh... name your wagon. All good wagons have a name. You'll be able to upgrade your wagon later on during the Move On mini-game. Uh, we need a name for this thing. I feel like... whose wagon is it, who owns this? I feel like this is either — actually, here's a question. Were Ce, Caeso, and Broadleaf — Cay-zo? Kai-zo. Janine. Did we lose Janine? Did we lose everybody?

Janine:        Yeah, sorry, hi.

Austin:        Hi. Kai-zo or Cay-zo? I already forgot.

Janine:        Cay-zo.

Austin:        Cay-zo. So it's not like Kai-zo.

Janine:        It's based on what I think is supposed to be the correct pronunciation of Caesar.

Austin:        Of Caesar, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kai-zar. Yeah, uh-huh.

Janine:        It's supposed to be Kai-zar, yeah.

Austin:        Yeah. Uh, uh, I was asking if Ce, Kai-zo —Caeso —

Janine:        I know.

Austin:        It's hard. And Broadleaf, are... were you all a crew in Millennium Break? Like, is this your slowder? Your slowder? Or is this something you were assigned, is this is the first time you're working together? Et cetera. I'm trying to figure out who should name this thing.

Art:        I think it's easier for us to have an existing relationship.

Austin:        Yeah, I think so, too. [pause] Uh... we need a name for the wagon. Dance card.

Ali:        Wait, what were we deciding before when —

Janine:        Wagon...

Ali:        When we were thinking about...

Austin:        We didn't get a name before. We were deciding the model number. I was trying to figure out a model number for it, because that's who I am.

Ali:        Oh...

Austin:        But it's not my wagon, so I don't want to name it. We have that list of ship names.

Art:        Just make sure the gunpla is… gotta have… yeah.

Austin:        Exactly. This is exactly right, Art. Yes.

Janine:        Fantasynamegenerators.com has a vehicle name generator. However, they seem to be —

Austin:        The Mallard.

Janine:        On the purpose of it, in that half of these names are things like The Mallard, or The Dragonfly, or The Outlaw, or The Imagination. And the other are just like, names of like, like, external combustion pulse plane. Or [vacracraft]...

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        Things that could be like Soviet ekranoplans. All of that stuff. Chemical supersonicopter. That could just be a thing.

Austin:        That's a G.I.Joe toy for sure. Uh... this generated me The Fortune Prize, which is very fun.

Janine:        Cog-propelled altimobile.

Austin:        I'm not on the one that you're on —

Janine:        I don't think that would work very well.

Austin:        I feel like, I feel like I'm not getting the things you're talking about. Mine are not much better. One of my was Canada, so...

Ali and Janine: [laughing]

Ali:        We got our name...

Austin:        Uh-huh. The Canada.

Janine:        I got Gecucar or Clatibus. [chuckling] Which are both Pokemon in the next Pokemon game.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Janine:        These are, yeah, this is not...

Austin:        What about something with a star? The Blue Star, The West Star, the... Big Star.

Art:        The Big Star. Great.

Austin:        The Big Star — wait, that might be from Beam Saber, one second. Did I steal that from Beam Saber? Is that the name of —

Ali:        We've played enough Beam Saber that I feel like —

Janine:        [laughing]

Ali:        A Beam Saber vehicle could exist in this right?

Austin:        It's — yeah, yeah.

Ali:        That's what it is, right?

Austin:        That's what it is, you know?

Ali:        I mean, that's what we would be using.

Janine:        I — this is, I was trying to find a better vehicle name generator, and found my way onto a birthday wish generator. And I'm just going to put this in Bluff, because we don't have time to deal with it right now.

Austin:        We don't. We don't right now, but I appreciate it.

Ali:        [chuckling]

Janine:        But, just a list of like, it's a list of, not wishes you can make on your birthday, but a way to wish someone a happy birthday. [chuckling] It's randomly generated.

Austin:        Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Great.

Janine:        Just going to save that for later.

Austin:        Incredible. Uh...

Janine:        Wishing you a happy birthday and a happy day for all other days.

Austin:        Mmm, good. Mmm.

Janine:        [laughing] Anyway.

Austin:        That's kind. Uh... what did I, what was it we decided that we said — the Big Star, right.

Art:        The Big Star.

Janine:        Wasn't it Great Star?

Austin:        No, it was the Big Star.

Art:        It was Big Star.

Janine:        Oh.

Austin:        It wasn't good.

Janine:        Uh...

Austin:        All right. Uh, can you write down The Big Star, Ali?

Ali:        I got this, yeah.

Austin:        Ah, thank you so much. All right. Travel and the passage of time. Time is a funny thing. Sometimes a moment drags on and it feels like it will never end. Other times you blink and it's been a year. Consider how long you linger in each town. Perhaps one town holds you for several months, while you leave another after just a few days. Between each mini-game, decide how much time has passed. Think about what happens during times we don't see. You might be accomplishing tasks and getting to know members of the town. It's okay to introduce NPCs you already have a relationship with.

NPCs — as you travel, you'll meet many different people. It's good to keep track of those who stand out. It could be interesting to introduce NPCs you knew before the calamity. Whenever an NPC feels important, write down a few details about them. This especially goes for your crew members. Anyone can play an NPC.

So, it's about time to start this first mini-game, so I'm going to read these mini-game mechanics. Uh, the first mini-game does not have many mechanics, but it has lots of questions, because it's about us coming to town, basically, and getting on the road. Uh... but, let me still go over these mini-game mechanics so that we are on the same page.

Uh... one, multiple players may select the same mini-game on their turns. Two, you don't always have to act out a scene. You can narrate what happens, if you prefer. You must play your character in the mini-games that you select. So you can't pick a mini-game and be like, “and I want to play an NPC.” You're picking your mini-game for your character. You can flip coins at any time that you're playing your character in a mini-game, unless the game specifies that no coin flip is required. Most mini-games require a coin flip, and that will be what determines how things are going. Maybe not the narrative outcome, but the framing. I think — it'll get into this in a second. Each player may only flip coins once during each mini-game.

Coin flips are the primary physical mechanic of Wagon Wheel. A standard coin flip, without checking a skill, uses two coins. Checking one of your job skills lets you use three coins and take the two best results. If you get a heads, you get a community point. If you get a tails, a suspicion point. Failing a flip doesn't necessarily mean you fail the task, but rather that you somehow lost trust from at least part of the community. For instance. In a game of Protect the Town, you're able to keep the bandits out, but you got two tails on your flip, so the town residents were frightened by your methods and are beginning to fear what you might do to them. You can invoke the mini-game A Montage once per town, by spending a community point in order to forego flipping coins. After three mini-games have been played in a town, play Move On to leave one town and go to the next. Your group can also choose to leave a town sooner by playing Move On.

Start your journey with the mini-game On the Road. So again, there is this thing called suspicion points, and this thing called community points. Fictionally, points represent the general feeling of the town towards your whole group. The town's perception of you should be as mixed as the results you're getting. For example, you could have three suspicion points, on the verge of being asked to leave, but five community points. You could interpret this as, most people in the town being happy you're there, but the mayor and his goons feeling threatened by your presence. Mechanically, when suspicion points get too high, you'll be asked and then forced to leave the town. Community points are what you'll spend to upgrade your wagon and invoke a montage. At four suspicion points, you're asked to leave the town. At five suspicion points, you are kicked out. [chuckles] Once you get to four suspicion points, finish the mini-game you're playing, then whoever gained the group their fourth suspicion points should describe how the group gets asked to leave. This could be a scene, if you'd like. For example, if someone that the group has bonded with warning them that their welcome has been worn out, or is it the mayor “asking nicely,” quote/unquote.            Suspicion points reflect on the whole group. If one character is approached and asked to leave, it's still the whole group who is expected to leave. However, the character approached may decide not to tell the group that they've been asked to leave. If you choose to stay longer and you get five suspicion points before you leave, the mini-game you're in gets interrupted immediately. Whoever gained the fifth suspicion points describes how your group is kicked out. This can also be a scene. Suspicion points clear when you leave town, but community points stack from town to town.

Uh, memories are how we remember our stories. Record a memory whenever you feel so inclined, but especially when you have a skill or have a significant moment with another player's character. I did not leave us space to write memories. I'm going to just add a whole new section at the bottom that says collective memories. And if we feel like writing stuff down there, I say go for it. I think that that's the way it's got to be, because that is how hard it is to change stuff in Roll20. [chuckles] So just going to add a big section here and add a note there.

Finally — ending the game. You can end the game whenever you need to. The game typically ends once every character has checked off their last adventure job. Take a moment to consider and discuss what you've experienced and created together. Mull over all the stories you've told. Now, take turns describing one last scene each. Show how your character has changed since first we met them. You can even mention where they're headed from here. Uh, and then finally, we can spend community points on top of doing montages to get out of needing to do, uh, coin flips. We can also save them up and spend them to upgrade our wagon. That's the rules of the game. Uh, it's time to do our first one, if we're down, if we're ready, to do On the Road.

Ali:        Yeah, let's start this.

Austin:        Folks feeling pretty good? Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm going to write memories, and I'm going to — oof. I tried to underline it, and I opened a new fucking tab, because there's no underline here in Roll20. Memories. That font's not — that's pretty when it's all zoomed up, huh? How about, how about... now it's not changing. How about —

Ali:        Oh, it's changing.

Austin:        Is it? Okay.

Ali:        Uh-huh.

Austin:        Good. How about, how about goblin 1. That's a great name. These are all meh. Some of them are just not changing for me. I'm going to leave that one there. All right. On the Road. Play this at the beginning of the game. Everyone plays their own character. No coins are flipped. Together, answer these questions. How long ago was the calamity? I think this was, how long did it take Millennium Break to like, get here? Do we think this is months after, weeks after, years after? Probably not years after, right? Too far.

Art:        No, probably not years. But, but, I definitely don't want it to be weeks, so I guess I'm in months.

Austin:        Mmm. Yeah, let's say months. Months is interesting because it gives the Curtain time to set up shop a little bit. I can image a shot of y'all arriving in whatever is carrying the Big Star, the Bigger Star, the name of your ship. Uh, uh, sees all of the Curtain's constellations set up. You know, they have the sort of mobile satellite constellations that circle every single planet in the Principality that's been colonized and they're doing it here already. Uh, I think they probably still show the constellations for the Pact, uh, months. They haven't totally been erased from the history books quite yet, so those are still there. Uh, how long have y'all been, have we been traveling together? I imagine that I joined you once you got here, but... oh, no, that's no true, because I would have come to get you. So, this journey would have taken a little while. I guess also, months is all four of us, but for the three of you traveling together before that. Or were you put together by Millennium Break? I guess, Art, you already said it makes sense to start together, right?

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Uh, and we know —

Art:        We could have been together as like a larger, you know, we could have been picked from a bigger...

Austin:        Right. You were three people from a team of 15, or something.

Ali:        Oh, sure sure sure, yeah.

Art:        Yeah, so it's not just kind of a three-person —

Austin:        Crew the whole time? Yeah.

Art:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali:        Have we said how much time has passed since the end of Partizan?

Austin:        We know that it's at least a couple of years.

Ali:        Okay.

Austin:        I'd been saying between 1 and 5, but with each successive game, it gets closer to 5, which is to say —

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Maybe we're at year 2 or 3 here, right? I think, I think based on that latest game with Sylvi and Dre, that was happening 2 years after, based on when they first met and where we ended up. And so, I could imagine this being 2 and a half years, or maybe 2 and a half years after Partizan, that would make sense. Each player should ask one of the following questions of another player. Make sure that everyone gets asked a question. It can be nice to record the answers to these questions as memories. Uh, looking at these questions now. I'm not going to read them all. I think we should all just pick one, and decide one to ask each other.

Austin:        Caeso. I was once in mortal peril, but you saved my life. What happened, and why did you risk yourself?

Janine:        Uh... would this be on this trip?

Austin:        Yeah, maybe like, on the way back here after I went and found, hooked up with y'all, you know? Lower-case h, hooked up.

Janine:        [chuckles] Right. Uh...

Ali:        Yowza.

Austin:        [laughing]

Janine:        I... [laughing] I'm thinking, I'm wondering like... I don't know how high to aim, because my first thought is that your robe got caught in the fans on the BigStar, the like fan wheels —

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Janine:        And you were going to just... like, maybe you were, you were on one of the, the leader bikes, the lead slowderbikes or whatever.

Austin:        Mm-hm. The sleader, the sleader slowder.

Janine:        [chuckling] Yes. Uh, but your robe got caught, and you were going to kind of get sucked in the middle of them, where you’d have a very bad, bad time, probably die, if you got sucked in the middle of that thing. Uh... and then it was just, it was a, it was the thing of like, you know, uh, not lassoing you, but I do have a very strong rope.

Austin:        I don't know, swing big. Lasso me.

Janine:        And a strong horse with an exoskeleton.

Austin:        It's very funny, yeah.

Janine:        I wonder if I just kind of like, lasso you and tie you to my horse and then like, cut off a bit of robe, and was like —

Austin:        Yeah, sure.

Janine:        “Maybe, maybe raise the hem line a few inches, sister.” Something like that.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Yeah, great. Fantastic.

Janine:        Or what's — not sister, I don't know —

Austin:        Not sister, I'm they/them. Uh... yeah, what is our...

Janine:        I was thinking of like nuns and stuff, but that's not, that's not 1 to 1 at all.

Austin:        No. What's a good, what's a good, uh...

Ali:        Okay, wait, wait, wait. Okay, back up. But imagine like, a swashbuckling cool guy, sarcastically saying, “The News of Her Arrival —“ [breaking into laughter]

Austin:        The full name, yeah. The News of Her Arrival Flowed Between the People of the Village like Wine, Rich and Intoxicating? Yeah.

Ali:        Uh-huh.

Art:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Ali:        Maybe... maybe get some shorts, or whatever. [laughing]

Austin:        Yeah. I don't — yeah.

Ali:        The thing Janine said was much better than that. [laughing]

Janine:        [laughing] Maybe get some shorts.

Ali:        [cackling]

Austin:        Ugh... just grimacing and looking back at you. Ugh.

Janine:        Invest in some capris.

Austin:        God. Uh, that's mine. The only word I could come up with was, priesto, and that's not right. You probably didn't call me priesto.

Ali:        [giggling]

Janine:        No. Priestron. Priestron.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        Mmm.

Janine:        Minist... rar. Ministrar.

Austin:        Ministrar.

Janine:        [laughing] I don't know. I don't know.

Austin:        Yeah. Uh-huh.

Janine:        Uh...

Austin:        Deek, short for deacon.

Janine:        No.

Austin:        No? Okay.

Janine:        Strongly overruled.

Ali:        Is there like a your honor equivalent for religious types?

Janine:        Your holiness?

Ali:        Sure.

Austin:        Oh, well now you're Han Solo.

Janine:        That's like, that's like, Pope-y, though.

Ali:        Yeah.

Art:        Yeah, that's like the Pope and not like a judge.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Uh...

Austin:        It can't be father. Oh, faither, faither. I misread. Yeah... a lot of these are just gendered, in ways that are just not what this character is, so... maybe it's what it is. We'll come around to it. Who's up next, who has a question?

Ali:        Uh, Broadleaf.

Art:        Yeah.

Ali:        I once came to you for advice on something that was really bothering me. What did I [laughing] need advice on, and what did you tell me?

Art:        What did you need advice on?

Ali:        This is a tough one, I'm sorry.

Art:        No, no, it's good.

Ali:        [laughing]

Art:        I, I, I just, I need to... I guess like, more importantly, when was it? Uh... I think you were in, like, a bit of a rut, you know? You were having like a bad job time, you know? Like, sometimes you just like, you're going and you're doing your stuff, and it's going badly. And I don't really know what that's like for a ranger, because that's not a job anyone I've ever known has had.

Austin:        [chuckling]

Art:        But like, I'm just not shooting good, I'm just not — you didn't take animal companion because you took a droid, but like —

Ali:        [laughing]

Art:        Uh, you know, I am getting lost. I'm like, I'm just like, I don't have my head in it, and I think the advice that I, that I gave to you, was to like... really be able to shut out, like, I feel like this is kind of cliché advice, so I'm sorry for giving it to you in the future, when it's going to be even more cliché, I think. Although maybe that kind of goes in cycles, right?

Ali:        [snorts]

Art:        But the, like... that you have to be in the moment you're in. That you can't think about the last time it didn't go well. You can't be thinking about what it means for the next time, [unintelligible]

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        You can't be thinking of, what am I going to have for dinner. It's got to be like, you should try to be in the moment as much as you can, because that's when you, you do the best for yourself, now.

Ali:        Mmm. Yeah, true.

Art:        But I do feel like this is like, just one thing before being like, “you should just live, laugh, love, you know?”

Ali:        [laughing] Well, I have a distracted personality type —

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        So I think maybe that's — [snorts laughing]

Art:        Right. So don't live, laugh, love. Do, try to be in the moment.

Ali:        Listen, man, you've got to focus.

Art:        Yeah.

Janine:        Die, frown, hate.

Ali:        Hm.

Janine:        [chuckling] Uh... uh... I have a question for Ce. I think?

Ali:        Yeah?

Janine:        I once got myself lost, and you're the one that found me. Where did you find me, and why didn't you give up looking?

Austin:        Mmm.

Ali:        Ooh. Hm... we're Millennium Break guys. We're out and about, we're doing missions... okay, all right. Let me [snorts] think about it.

Austin:        [chuckles]

Ali:        Maybe it was some sort of like, breaking and entering situation, you know? [laughing]

Austin:        Yeah, sure, listen.

Ali:        [still listen]

Austin:        Caeso was described as being up to no good before Millennium Break, so...

Ali:        Uh... yeah. Maybe like, maybe it was like, where... you know, Millennium Break is planning an engagement. And we were the B team sent to like, go turn off the system over here, so we could attack over there.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali:        And it was like a thing of like, the power generators were down, the warehouse was really dark. [laughs] We got, there was backup that we didn't expect there would be.

Janine:        Oh yeah.

Ali:        And it was like, well, I feel like I can find my guy. So, I'm going to go find him before we leave. [chuckling] I know that the mission said just shut it down and go, but I'm not going.

Austin:        Mmm.

Janine:        Yeah, gotta extract together.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        It's the rule.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        Burn thrones, build tables, extract together.

Ali:        [wheezes laughing]

Austin:        It was one of the 9 things that we agreed upon.

Ali:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        It's part of looking sick as shit, is leaving, is extracting together.

Ali:        Right, coming — walking back in into the, uh —

Austin:        Yeah, that's looking sick as shit.

Ali:        [laughing] You know, into the, the, you know, what's that called? That ships fly into?

Austin:        That the chips fly into?

Art:        The... the bowl?

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        The motherboard.

Ali:        If you were in a video game, for instance —

Janine:        When the chips are down?

Ali:        And it was like, oh, I have to go to this location to get onto my spaceship, what is that called? Like the flight — it's like, a garage but you call it —

Austin:        Oh, ships! Ships.

Art:        Ships!

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Not chips — you did mean chips?

Art:        You didn't mean chips?

Ali:        No, I'm thinking of like a garage for space ships, the big like —

Art:        Like a hangar.

Austin:        Like a hangar.

Ali:        Like a hangar. Like a hangar. [wheezes laughing]

Austin:        We thought you said chips —

Ali:        Okay.

Austin:        Like a potato chip, or a tortilla chip.

Ali:        Oh, sure.

Art:        Or a computer chip, you know, or —

Austin:        Or a computer chip, or a chocolate chip that flies in space. Yeah.

Ali:        [laughing] Well, then, I would be talking about a cupboard again. But what I was trying to say is that walking back into the hangar with all, with your whole crew is sick as shit.

Austin:        Yeah, it is.

Ali:        [wheezes laughing]

Austin:        You're not wrong.

Art:        No one in the chat seems to have heard “chips,” so...

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Yeah, everyone, I think we got chips on the mind here, Art.

Art:        Yeah.

Ali:        Yeah.

Art:        I am hungry, so...

Austin:        Yeah, fair. Same.

Art:        Uh... speaking of which.

Janine:        Austin, where's your memory?

Austin:        What?

Art:        What?

Janine:        Weren't you typing in a memory?

Austin:        No?

Janine:        I thought you were typing out your question — there was all that typing.

Austin:        That was not me. I've not typed. I was typing in —

Janine:        No one else is writing their memory down? [chuckles]

Austin:        We're recording it into a microphone.

Janine:        I know, but you made this whole memory thing and said we should write this down, we should maybe write these down in memories, and I was like, okay, type type type.

Austin:        Sure. That's fine. You're allowed. Memories are for the entire game, so it's important moments. I'll write mine down. What I was writing was in chat, I realize now, which was me trying to, talking about how I thought I found a name from when you said “sister,” and I was like, that's not right. But then I, I was wrong, I didn't — I was going to suggest cousin. But that doesn't have the same... it's close.

Art:        No, that kind of has a different —

Austin:        Yeah, it does, that's the thing.

Ali:        And sibling doesn't work?

Austin:        Sibling doesn't work, sibling doesn't feel like —

Ali:        It sounds too formal, yeah.

Austin:        It's too formal, it doesn't have that, you know... that thing of, it doesn't have like the communal, institutional relationship stuff that sister and brother does. That's why I was thinking cousin, but like, that's not right either. In a world where people used it, it would feel right to our ears, you know. We could just insist it does, and we could just say sibling or cousin. But... it is what it is.

Ali:        Oh yeah, that would be a world-building choice that we would make.

Austin:        Exactly.

Ali:        People here say sibling and it's fine.

Austin:        And it's fine, and it has the same kind of like —

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        Chill, you know what I mean?

Ali:        Uh-huh.

Austin:        Sibling, you know?

Ali:        Right.

Austin:        Yeah. Watch yourself there, sibling. You know, you could do it.

Ali:        Yeah. See?

Austin:        You just have to put your, your back into it a little bit, you know what I mean?

Ali:        This is critical world-building, we're being critics of —

Austin:        This is, this is what we're fucking talking about out here.

Ali:        Of how we as people cannot say sibling casually —

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        But Caeso out here, living his life —

Austin:        Doing it.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh. Anyway, we can keep moving. Art, I need you to ask somebody a question.

Art:        I think it has to be you.

Austin:        I think it has to be me. I didn't want to say that.

Art:        Uh, and I lost my... there's only like six of these, how did I lose my... I once prepared your favorite dish for you. Are

Austin:        Ah.

Art:        What was it, and how did you respond? And I know that asking a space person to come up with their favorite dish is very hard, so, you know...

Austin:        Mmm, mm-hm.

Ali:        It had to be done.

Austin:        I want to say it was some sort of, uh, it was like a... I, I, it's a, a sort of ramen with a bunch of very fresh ingredients. And the thing about it was — wait, was the second part of your question? How did I respond? I think the thing about it that blew me away was your spices, right? Like, you have all the spices, and they're from off-world. I live on Palisade. Palisade is not part of the galactic community, right? It's awash in the edge of the Twilight Mirage, where years are not years, but sometimes are decades, right? Where no one has been from the Principality, nor, really, from the Twilight Mirage's kind of home worlds of the Quire system. In, in millennia. I know the spices I know, and you knew the spices that I would know, and somehow made the right choices. Maybe this was soon after we landed, and you like, got a sense for what type of spices that people here were used to eating, and you found something that was like, it opened up new vectors of, new highways of flavor for me, but not so new that it was offputting, you know what I mean? It's like, you did the work to say sibling in the casual enough way that you sold it to me, but with food. Uh, and I was deeply appreciative. And it was one of the rare times that I think you've seen me kind of drop the, the kind of, not the charade. It's not like I'm faking being restrained in the way that I am. But it's the first time you've seen me both kind of untense and be open about how tense I was to begin with, versus just kind of trying to hide that under a veil of quiet. So, I was very appreciative.

Art:        Great.

Austin:        Yeah. Uh... each player should take a moment to describe a short scene that shows the kind of thing their character does while traveling between towns. I mostly think that you see me in prayer a lot. Prayer and/or communication. I think that there is a lot of questions as to whether I have a Divine or not. And if I have a Divine, where is it? This is not a thing I'm talkative about. You might think, hey, if you have a Divine, couldn't you have helped defend these people? And if you've asked me this, I always deflect it. In general, I am, uh, I am more, uh, uh, in reflection than outspoken, on our kind of between-places trip, trips.

Art:        I think you see Broadleaf walking, a lot. I think that like, the slowders don't move that fast, you know —

Austin:        On account of being slow.

Art:        Axiomatically, yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art:        And so, with the longer legs that an elephant person would have, they can, you know, they and, and specifically Broadleaf, can keep up with it, just kind of like walking at a brisk pace and a little bit of like, stopping and looking at something, you know. What, what's, what's going on with this rock, what's growing in this patch, you know. Just like a more, uh, connected kind of approach to the, to the journey. I don't mean connected like, if you don't do it, you're bad, but, you know.

Austin:        [laughing] Yes.

Art:        But now that I've said that, I think it feels like I do think that, but I don't.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        I get it, you think it's bad to not be — yeah, uh-huh.

Ali:        Yeah, get off your phones...

Austin:        [laughing]

Art:        Kids are always on the damn phones.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        Ugh.

Janine:        Uh... so, so Caeso started as me being like, I want to play someone who's like really into logistics, like shipping logistics —

Ali:        Oh, sure.

Janine:        Like, making sure that everything is packed up to maximize space, and that everything is like battened down properly, and like, isn't shifting around, and that like, nothing's going to get broken. So like, you know, he's got this, he's got the pirate stuff, but also, to be honest, when he was doing the pirate thing, he was probably primarily interested in like, well, how do we safely stow all this booty, and make sure it's not like, a hazard while we're traveling? If you leave the pirate-ass pirates to it on their own, that, that shit's just going to be rolling around loose in the hold, and people are going to get hurt. And you're not going to make the most of the space, because people are going to just... use too much packing peanuts, I don't know. So I think, a lot of what he does, sort of on the journey, in addition to riding his horse, who I still need a name for, alongside the thing, uh, I think is kind of like, periodic — when there are, when there are, you know, breaks to stop and like, rest and stuff, a thing that he's doing a lot of is like, checking in on, on their, their cargo and stuff, and like making sure that the supplies they have are still in good shape, that like, nothing's leaking, that there aren't any like, pests getting involved. Like, I think he's very invested in that kind of stuff. So that's what he's mostly doing —

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        He's very fixed on that.

Austin:        That leaves us with Ce.

Ali:        Uh, yeah, I think Ce, like, keeps to a schedule in a way that's sort of surprising, especially like, being on an unfamiliar planet. But, like, is a person who's up first, is always uploading the map data at X time... and it's not like, Austin, you said before, like, time is weird here. But like, we experience hours the same way.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. We experience hours the same way. People inside of the, the waves of the Twilight Mirage, the... you know, always experience stuff second to second the same.

Ali:        Right.

Austin:        It's just that it was removed from time in a strange way, and Palisade is kind of occasionally in the reach of the Mirage in that way, right? Enveloped in it, in ways that change its time internally. But not felt internally, you know what I mean? Yeah. You get it.

Ali:        Right, yeah, exactly. So like, every 10 hours I'm, I'm connecting my little droid to the...

Austin:        Right.

Ali:        To the, the, to my bag. And like, I'm waking up first, and like, I don't have the coffee going, but I turn on the generator —

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        So when Broadleaf is up, he can do it better, and yadda-yadda-yadda.

Austin:        Yeah. Love it. All right. Each player should describe how they learned their first restoration skill. For example, did you learn it on the road? Or perhaps in your younger days, before turning to a life of adventure? We've not read our skills out, I think probably because we are trained to save that for moments, uh...

Janine:        I, I read mine out.

Austin:        Oh, did you? I'm sorry, I missed that.

Janine:        Uh-huh.

Austin:        Uh, I did not.

Art:        Well, Janine had the best one.

Austin:        That's true. It, that's true.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        It's also good that we're coming to this, because I have thought of a name for my horse.

Ali:        Mmm!

Austin:        What's your horse name?

Janine:        Doppler.

Austin:        Doppler!

Art:        Come again?

Austin:        Doppler.

Janine:        Doppler.

Art:        Doppler, okay.

Austin:        Like the — like Doppler radar.

Janine:        Like the Doppler effect.

Austin:        Or the Doppler effect, right, sure.

Ali:        Wow.

Art:        Great, yeah, no, love it. I just, there was a little, there was a little Discord skip in my...

Austin:        Mmm.

Janine:        Doppler.

Austin:        Doppler. Love it.

Janine:        Uh...

Austin:        How long have you had Doppler?

Janine:        How I in…

Austin:        Yeah?

Janine:        I've had Doppler probably for, I think a little bit longer than you've been with Millennium Break? I kind of like the idea of Caeso starting to mellow out, and part of that being like, just vibing with an animal a lot more. And like, just, you know —

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        Having that influence in his life of like, oh, I'm taking care of something, and this thing like, needs me, but is also really useful to me. And like, we're, you know, we understand each other, and that kind of like, either... I don't want to say that's the thing that like, catalyzed the change for him, because I think that's a little bit cheap.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Janine:        But I think it's project part of that change having already been catalyzed, where he was open to the idea of having a horse instead of a bike, you know —

Austin:        Or a slowder.

Janine:        Like, really mechanical, or — [chuckling] yeah. Just, just a vehicle.

Austin:        Or a fastler.

Janine:        Uh...

Art:        Mmm.

Janine:        Mm-hm. [chuckling] Uh... anyway, uh, and I think, uh, I think it's probably a thing of like, he... uh... it was probably like, this, this horse was like, in a, like, a town or something that got abandoned, probably because the area he was operating in was so hostile to just normal people.

Austin:        Mmm.

Janine:        Uh, that the people were like, fuck this, uh, we've got to go, and kind of ditched a sort of smaller, like a really — not even a town, but like, you know, a remote ranch kind of thing, and they took what they could and left, and then just kind of abandoned everything else. And he probably felt shitty about that. Uh, and ended up just with this horse, that, uh, that he still has with him.

Austin:        Hm. Uh, I have mine, if anybody else, if other people need time.            Uh, I think mine's really new. Mine is gratitude. You recognize the good in a situation and invite others to do the same. Uh, I think that Wine is someone who is really, up until, up until the recent calamity, has been, uh, you know, a little, a little set back from daily life. Is therefore — you know, the harvest festival, is there to perform services as, uh, the sort of town cleric. But they are not, they have not been a people person. I explicitly did not take, uh, the skills that are about like, sharing personal vulnerability as my adventure skills from cleric, right?            Uh, but after the calamity, that distance needed to go from being part of impersonal rituals and, you know, kind of... monthly and weekly, you know, uh, duties, to being, “I'm here with you now.” And, uh, I'm not good at that part yet. What I am good at is, recognizing that when the sun comes up and it's a good day, that we should feel good about that, and we should take what joy we can in those things. Uh... and so that is where my gratitude comes from. It's like, I get a nice meal. I didn't, I almost didn't have any more meals, let alone a good one. I, I take that very seriously. And in some ways, maybe too seriously, but, but that is the, that is the one thing that started me down this path as, as a more personable religious figure.

Art:        Uh... I think discerning is sort of like a lifetime, you can't really, I don't think you can learn this in a short amount of time. I think it's, it's a lifelong journey that I think does sort of fit with Broadleaf's whole deal. Oh, you just moved all my words —

Austin:        Don't worry about it, I'm fixing it, I'm fixing it. I'm trying to give you more space for additional moves.

Art:        Sure. Uh, but like, being in a, in a group of monks that do brewing, you learn to taste stuff, and being in political situations, let you do the, parse the ingredients into a situation. It's just like, it's sort of a, it's a lifetime goal.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        Or not goal, but, you know.

Austin:        Yeah, you, you learned it without even noticing you were learning it, in a sense.

Art:        Yeah, and then, and then once, once here, it's like, oh, I should start cooking.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        But I didn't take any moves about actually cooking, so we're not there yet.

Austin:        It's not, it's not — it's a thing you can do, but maybe not a thing that you're quite there yet as a —

Art:        Right, yeah, we're —

Austin:        As a skill you can count on.

Art:        Yeah, this is a, it's a, it's a good home chef.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        It's a, a Master Chef contestant, not a... not a, a, a Top Chef contestant.

Austin:        Right. Ce?

Ali:        Uh, yeah. Sorry, I was having some radiator issues.

Austin:        I heard.

Ali:        I think, uh, oh. So, my... sorry. My current gardener skill is prune. Uh, some things have to be removed before real growth can occur. Uh, I think Ce learns this in the like... initial, this like first scene traveling bit that we're doing, and we have to like move, like a piece of —

Austin:        Oh, that's fun.

Ali:        Shrapnel or something. Uh, that like, either intersected with like a tree, or like a bush, or whatever. And like, through having to remove that, and like, checking on the plant afterwards, noticing that, like, some of the pieces that were teared off were like, starting to root again, because that's a thing that plants do. Or like, from where those pieces were cut, from like the mother tree, quote/unquote, there are like, there's new growth trying to spring from right before, where the cut is, which is another thing that like, plants will do if you cut them back, in terms of being like, I — okay, don't hurt me, I would like to grow some more. So just being like, oh, huh, and being like, oh, plants are interesting, I guess. Uh...

Austin:        Not a thing I figured out, really, before, while I was a ranger.

Ali:        [cackling] You're like, oh, damn, you know, growth both ways.

Austin:        Right, wow.

Ali:        The, the original part of this that was like, oh, I've been wounded, is like, from this wound I can now create more growth.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        And then the stuff that's cut off is like, “no, I want to live!” And is like sprouting roots from the tips of where it was cut from is like, damn.

Austin:        It's a metaphor.

Ali:        Shout outs.

Austin:        Yeah. I'll work that into a sermon, for sure.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        That's, that's, that's that real metaphor shit. Yeah.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        “Just the other day, my friend, the ranger Ce Gul, was telling me about how they learned to prune.” Uh... all right.

            As we arrive to a new town, discuss the following questions together: what is the name of the town? How big is the town? How many residents are there? What kind of area is it in? For example, it could be in a swamp, the mountains, a high desert, the ancient undead, uh, bone fields. What is the weather like? What kind of people live here? What is your first impression of them? What seems to be their first impression of you? My only note on this is that it is, it is the Bontive River Valley, which has, in years past, been blessed by the Divine Bounty. Wherever that Divine is here or not, I don't know. Wherever that Divine even has a physical form that we can touch and see at this point, I don't know. But I do have adventure skills that reference it, so it's probably here in some way.

Uh, uh, but beyond that, I don't have like, names for these people. I guess what I know is, they are people who would have been with the Divine Fleet and then the Divine Free States, but not the Divine Principality. These are people who've stayed behind — and not literally these people. These people's great-great-great-great-great-great-great, great grandparents stayed behind, uh, when the Principality left to go off and become an empire. Uh, why they left the planet behind, who could say? We'll have to find out in the season, probably. I don't know, I guess there's something gets there in the, in the pregames, we'll get there. I have some ideas, I'm not 100 percent sure yet, uh, as we'll see.

But, what I do know is, these people lived in kind of quiet isolation. There's a sort of echo of the Divine Fleet, uh, where it's, it's kind of easy to live in peace and harmony when you're not touching anything else. And so, the only thing I know about this, this valley is, by and large, it wasn't interacting with the other communities here on, on Palisade. Uh, and I guess I should, I should note a couple of other big-picture things, which is like, as you approach Palisade from the distance, it reflects all of the lights of the Mirage, so it has, you know, some — sometimes it looks like it's kind of deep purple, other times — or bright purple. Sometimes it's green or orange, or even kind of, uh, kind of, uh, colorful blues. Uh, but as you get closer and closer, it becomes duller and duller in places. It becomes increasingly, I mean, especially post Principality invasion, bombed out in places. It's, it's, there's lots of, uh, areas that have fallen into disrepair.

Uh, uh, and then over that is where you get your kind of, like, green overgrowth, right? There are lots of... you picked words that were already in my mind what we were thinking about here. Janine, you joked the other day that I would get a lot more Sangfielle material from Elden Ring, and I think I replied by saying that Palisade was already going to be Souls-y in my mind. Uh, because like, big, abandoned temples. Strange, you know, overgrown facilities. Uh, the Principality, and before them, uh, Advent, and before them, the Rapid Evening, uh, and before them, probably other parts of the Divine Fleet, have used this planet as a staging ground many times, and have built things and then left them behind. I think a lot about things like the Nidean statuary that, uh, uh, uh, you fucked up, Janine, that Thisbe fucked up in that one arc of Partizan.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        And I think it's a lot of things like, just big statuaries, just big statue gardens. Uh, uh, a lot of that kind of Neoclassical grotesquery that we know Nideo has, is spread throughout this place. This is Nideo and Kesh territory, before it was, before, you know, they were even the Divine Principality as it stands today. And then also all the Rapid Evening stuff, and there's some New Earth Hegemony stuff here. So it's a big mix. But this particular group that we're flying towards — or moving, not flying towards. That we are [chuckles] slowdering towards, uh, all I know about them is, they're in this river valley, probably between some cliffs, as we talked about. It's probably foggy here. But I don't have names besides my own, I don't have anything except, they lived a quiet, isolated life of peace, uh, and presumably there are a number of towns and villages and communities throughout the river valley, because it's a river valley, and those tend to be sizable, you know? So, any thoughts on what's up with this place? Any ideas for a fun name for a little, a little town at the center of this river valley, or at the edge of this river valley?

Art:        I just drove for four out of the last seven days, so I feel like I've seen every town name that's ever been.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        What was your, what was your —

Art:        Because I did a different route one way, and then a different way back, so —

Austin:        Can you think of a favorite one?

Art:        No, they're all bad.

Austin:        What was the worst one?

Art:        I mean, the worst ones are just like, things that are just like, vaguely descriptive. Like I was in Green River.

Austin:        Right, I'm like —

Art:        And it's one of those, like, you can't even look up Green River because there's like five Green Rivers.

Austin:        Yeah. That's a Sangfielle name. Color-place, is 100 — is all of our town, all of our Sangfielle stuff. Or color-thing. Blackwick.

Art:        Oh, another — I, I went to, I think it was Richfield, Utah, which is a place that has the claim to fame of being the birthplace of the man who invented the frisbee?

Austin:        [laughing]

Art:        Which is also like... no you didn't! People have been throwing —

Austin:        Discs, forever.

Art:        Things forever, like, you just invented plastic, and you didn't do that either, you know?

Austin:        [chuckling] That's fair.

Art:        Anyway.

Austin:        Also, we know the frisbee was invented by Marty McFly in Back to the Future 3.

Art:        Yeah. Stolen valor from Marty McFly.

Austin:        Richfield's a little on the nose by a place blessed by Bounty, you know?

Art:        Yeah, uh-huh.

Austin:        Poorfield.

Janine:        Is there a special word for... bone dust? [chuckling]

Ali:        Why do we keep talking about bones today?

Austin:        I don't know, I don't know. Ali, I'm with you.

Ali:        [giggling]

Austin:        I'm not going down this road, but Art and Janine are just really focused on bones.

Ali:        We're in space now.

Austin:        It's hard to shake off the bone dust.

Janine:        Okay, so, but the thing is that bone meal — I guess it's just —

Art:        Hard to shake off the bone dust.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        I guess it's just, I guess bone meal is what I'm thinking of.

Austin:        Bone meal.

Janine:        Is good to mix into the soil.

Austin:        It is.

Ali:        But you don't advertise it... you don't put that on your name, you know.

Janine:        Why not?

Austin:        On the town name, you're saying.

Ali:        Yeah. So, I had to grind up some bones to put them in my soil, but that's not my whole life.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Yeah. That's really...

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        Well I did a search, just, just to be like, ah-ha, here's where you're wrong! I did a search for towns with the word Bone in the name. And —

Ali:        [cackling]

Janine:        [chuckling] So, nothing actually came up of relevance, but...

Austin:        Mmm.

Janine:        There is a place called Monkey's Eyebrow in Kentucky.

Austin:        Monkey's Eyebrow? Weird.

Ali:        [unintelligible] for that.

Janine:        Mm-hm. There's also —

Art:        Fun fact, not a bone.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        There's a, there's a French town that's got a name that's based vaguely, maybe kind of debatably, on — no, never mind, this is just British people being rude to the French.

Austin:        Ah, hm, ain't that the way.

Janine:        It's one of those things, it's one of those things where it's like, in a territory that went back and forth between the two.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah.

Janine:        So it's like, which came first — calling it Gnawbone, or it just being called Narbonne. Uh, and, this doesn't, this doesn't matter.

Austin:        Okay, but what if we talk about, what about Peat, or like Peat Moss, or Mulch, or... there's other types of like, fertilizing, you know what I mean?

Janine:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Uh, those are the two that I got, that aren't bone dust. Uh... what's funny is, I have names for other places. I was like, I'll leave this first one open, so it doesn't sound like I'm railroading people into my shit.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        But you want to ask me about a name for the place, for a place in the second region I have, that I got.

Ali:        Oh, wow.

Austin:        Ain't that the way.

Ali:        Wow...

Austin:        Uh...

Art:        I guess one of the favorite places I went was also not good for this, which was, the favorite town name was Needles, California.

Ali:        Ooh.

Austin:        Needles is not bad.

Art:        Yeah. It's — don't go there.

Austin:        It's pine needles.

Art:        If you, if you ever have a — I hope so.

Austin:        [laughing] We could call it Pine Needle, we could call it Tree Needle, we could call it Green Needle. That's a, that's a color, fuck. Doing it again. Green Needle is a Sangfielle place.

Ali:        [snorts]

Art:        They — Sangfielle doesn't own colors.

Austin:        No, but we've done like six of them. So I need to not do it, do you know what I mean? I have to get out of that head space. I can't just do that, the next six months, you know? Year and a half. However long, it's going to be — it's not six months. We're not going to be done with Palisade in six months. We're going to be done with the Road in six months. Loam? Loam isn't bad. Who said loam? Someone said loam.

Janine:        You did. [chuckling]

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        I meant someone in the chat.

Janine:        Oh, okay [laughing]

Ali:        Oh.

Austin:        [laughing] I didn't just like —

Ali:        The only suggestion that —

Art:        Oh, and this wasn't a —

Austin:        Loam! Oh, who was that? Who said loam?

Ali:        [laughing] Uh, I would say —

Janine:        Go ahead, Ali.

Ali:        Oh, the only, I was like, we could make up words.

Austin:        We can, totally.

Ali:        And I was like, Eversin? [laughing] This is me playing wordle.

Janine:        [laughing]

Ali:        This is me just typing —

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh. Eversin, Eversin, Ever S-I-N? Or Everson, ever S-O-N — or Eversun —

Ali:        S-I-N.

Austin:        S-U-N? Eversun.

Ali:        S-I-N.

Austin:        Eversin, like, do you ever sin, before?

Ali:        Right, right.

Janine:        [chuckling]

Ali:        Not like, but it’s just fun to say.

Austin:        Sibling, sibling — you ever sin before? Yeah, uh-huh.

Ali:        You, it’s just, the E, you start strong with the E —

Austin:        Yeah, I like it, Eversin.

Ali:        And then the V [chuckling] and the S, it just flows.

Austin:        Eversin, you got it.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        Well, that's good, because the next thing I was going to say is, we drove something called Catfish Paradise, and I don't think that's gonna get us there.

Janine:        [laughing]

Austin:        Ugh. Got it. Great, great great great. All right. Uh, let's go with Eversin. Uh, I'm going to raise this —

Ali:        Oh, are we doing that?

Austin:        Yeah!

Ali:        Okay.

Austin:        We got to keep on moving, out here.

Ali:        [laughing] Okay.

Austin:        Eversin. And I'm going to make it tiny.

Ali:        Sorry to the three other, better ideas that could come in the next —

Austin:        Guess what? There's some other towns. You say them.

Janine:        I, yeah, I'm gonna put this link in the thing so I have it later, because there's a lot of good words in this link that I have.

Austin:        Love it. All right. What's the weather like, what other people are here, what's your first impression of them, what seems to be their first impression of you? This is the place that called us, you know what I mean? I'm from here.

Ali:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        So I think this is, we start on a positive, in a positive way. Although I do wonder, do we think that like, the Curtain has left people here? To like, basically occupy it? Like, I left, and in the time that I've been leaving to come get you, there are troops here. Effectively running the town, administering the town. Some sort of like, appointed bureaucrat, that we have to like, be careful around, you know? But everybody else it's like, oh, thank god, they're back.

Ali:        Mmm...

Austin:        And I imagine we're immediately in fog zone. I guess it's a foggy river valley, you know? Maybe a little rainy the day we pull up. Uh, and I would love to do at least one game before we call it, here, that we, we get to play a little bit.

Art:        We get to do the thing before we do the classic Friends at the Table, realizing it's taken us three hours to get started?

Austin:        To make characters? Yeah, uh-huh, and start the thing?

Ali:        [giggling]

Janine:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        There are a bunch of different games to play. We've done On the Road, that's the play at the beginning of the game, what we've been playing, I want to be clear, ontologically I believe that everything we've done tonight is play. But you know what I mean. Uh, uh, there's A Montage, which is a thing that we can do by spending a community point. I believe we don't start with any community points. We earn community points in play. Uh, uh, we can Get Acquainted, connecting with the town and its residents. We can Serve a Meal, preparing a meal for a group or just one person. We can Protect the Town, becoming aware of an imminent threat against the town and protecting it. Mend What's Brought, something small but important is brought to you, to repair or mend. We can Pass On Knowledge — you know something that a group or a person could benefit from. A Rest. You can't work all the time, sometimes you need to take a load off. It Takes Two. Someone gets you on your feet and moving to the beat. Rebuild the Town. A prominent structure in the town has been gravely damaged. Accept Instruction. An NPC takes the time to teach you something. Friend to Friend. Internal tension has risen and needs to be discussed openly. A Dream. After a long day, you drift off to sleep and have the strangest dream. Root Out Corruption. There's a corrupt element in the town. Tend the Hurting. Someone in the town is suffering and you do what you can to help. And then Move On. This game takes you from one town to the next.

Art:        Okay. So, I know that we've been going for almost three hours, and that it's very late where, uh, everyone but me is. Uh, can we do two?

Austin:        Sure. Unless you have, I mean, I'm, I'm down. I, I'm a night owl, and it's Friday night.

Art:        Sure. I just think the, the dream one sounds really fun to like, end on.

Austin:        Mmm, sure.

Art:        But also that we shouldn't start with it, because —

Austin:        We should not start with the dream.

Art:        Yeah.

Ali:        Oh, sure.

Art:        But we could also, we could save dream for next time. I don't want to...

Austin:        Yeah, I gotcha. I'm good to go. I just didn't want to be the person who insists that we play after 11 PM. Anymore, ever again in my life. I did that during COUNTER/Weight era, and have done my best to stop being that person.

Art:        It's not even, it's, it's barely 8 for me, so it's —

Austin:        Yeah. Ali, what were you going to say, sorry.

Ali:        I was going to say, we could, if this is like a night one situation —

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Ali:        We could do like a get acquainted, and then end on the dream.

Austin:        Right.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        But then it's hard, because it's like, damn, only one more, and we've done this first town. And that's how it gets in my fucking brain, you know?

Ali:        Oh, sure. [chuckling]

Austin:        Did you have an idea for your other, for a different scene, Art? Or is a dream the one you really want to do?

Art:        I mean, doing the ones that are, I mean, uh, uh, Get Acquainted feels like the very logical first...

Austin:        Yeah, yeah. A game for any number of players. The game picker should, should play their character in the first scene. Other players may play whomever they want from scene to scene. A coin flip is required. Connect with the town and its residents. Show two scenes of how you get acquainted with the town. Each scene should have at least one character and one resident. Remember to do a coin flip during at least one of those scenes.            Use the characters — use these questions to help create the scene. Character — where do you go? Each scene should take place in a different location. Resident — who are you? Each scene should introduce a new resident. Together, set the scene, show where this is happening, use as many senses as you can. Who else is there, if anyone? Uh, how do the characters and residents begin talking to one another? Uh, and then there's a list of questions that we can kind of go through. Uh, I can choose this as my scene, that way you still get to choose a dream, Art.

Art:        Yeah, and I mean, I, I also don't want to box anyone out of any scenes they're dying to do.

Austin:        Mm-hm. Uh... so I will play my character in the first scene. Uh, does anyone want to play a resident or be in the scene, uh, as their current character, as we kind of like — I'm going to paint a picture of like, we've arrived at dusk, you know, the sun is setting, uh, and, uh, the constellations are not visible, because the — they're, they're burning through, somehow, the cloud cover. And we can see the fucking — their fake constellations, even on rainy nights.

Art:        Mmm.

Austin:        Truly miserable, that they would invent technology to make that true. Uh... [chuckling] and, uh, we, uh, we, we hook up the, the, uh, what did we end up what was the — [chuckles] The BigStar, at the outside of town, maybe. We don't want to necessarily show all of our special radio gear up, we kind of make sure that it's, it's protected and quiet and maybe stealthy or something, we cover it with a tarp, uh, very expensive. Uh, and, uh, where do we go? Where do we stay? What's our, what's our first stop? Do I just like, go to some sort of town mayor's house? Or a... some other leader in the town, or someone I know in the town?

Art:        Like a, a general store person, or like a saloon...

Austin:        This is, this is still Sangfielle, but also, you're not wrong, you know what I mean?

Janine:        [chuckling]

Austin:        What about like a, what about just, for, uh, what if it's like a clinic, or, you know, a, a saw-bones, doctor?

Art:        The general store transcends, uh, setting.

Janine:        A medic? You could just say the word medic and then —

Austin:        I was trying to get to a, I was trying to be as Wild West as I could, with saw-bones. Uh, I was trying to do my own, I fucked up and I'm still in Sangfielle. Yeah, uh, a medic right? We go to a, we go to a place that like, I, I don't just mean we're meeting that person. I mean like, we're at the clinic, seeing how people are. Are people recovering from when they were attacked? Are people still hurt? Et cetera. So that's, that's my suggestions. Anyone want to play someone at this, somebody wants to play a medic or someone at this clinic? Or play their character in this scenario?

Janine:        I could do —

Art:        Does this have to be one on one?

Austin:        No, we can have other characters.

Art:        All right.

Austin:        What were you saying, Janine? You were trying to think of —

Janine:        I was trying to think of who I wanted to, to play, in terms of — I want to play someone from the town, uh, because I think that — [yawns] Sorry.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Janine:        [laughing] I think, I think that Caeso would be a little too business, just like, you know, putting the blocks under the — well, there's no wheels.

Austin:        Under the fans.

Janine:        You know.

Austin:        Yeah. Under the —

Janine:        Putting blocks under the fans. Doing all the... stuff. There's probably like, holes you have to plug up to make sure that little animals don't crawl in there to stay warm or whatever.

Austin:        Sure.

Ali:        Mmm.

Janine:        Uh, but I do want to play a person.

Austin:        There's also going to be a second scene in this get acquainted game, that won't be whatever this clinic scene is, right? So... so, if you have a different non-medical related scene —

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        You get to have someone there, too.

Art:        Yeah, if you want to hold on for the second one, I can just play like, the weary medic, you know. I can, I can, I can do a tired, a tired medic.

Austin:        [chuckling]

Janine:        What's the second part of it?

Austin:        There's just going to be a second scene. But I don't know what it is yet.

Janine:        Okay.

Austin:        There's two scenes, the next one's in a different place, basically.

Janine:        Okay.

Ali:        Yeah, I was thinking of playing Ce, so me and Janine can tackle —

Austin:        The second one. Okay, sounds good. Uh, then yeah. I, uh, I... think, do I meet you inside of the clinic, uh, Art? Do you have a name idea for this doctor?

Art:        Yeah, uh,... uh...

Austin:        I'm just going to call you Doc, it's fine.

Art:        Sure. I really want like a J name.

Austin:        Doctor J. [chuckles]

Art:        Doctor J.

Austin:        [chuckles] Doctor J is a famous basketball player, everybody.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Uh...

Art:        Oh, but there's a, there's a thing about introducing yourself, so I will —

Austin:        There is. Yeah, so — take turns asking the questions below. Each character can ask two questions. Uh... is that where it is? Or is there another bit that I missed where it says introducing yourselves?

Art:        No, yeah, it's one of the, the character-exclusive questions.

Austin:        I see, okay, yes. So then, then yeah. I'm going to open with that, actually. I introduce myself. Do you return the courtesy? And I say to you, I think I speak in, in, a kind of formal tone, and I say, uh...

Austin (as Wine):        Doctor, I've finally returned. I hope you're well.

Art (as Doctor J):        Uh, yeah, it's been, it's been a little rough. People have been getting, getting a little sick. Maybe it's all the off-worlders.

Austin (as Wine):        [sighs] I hope not, as I suspect working alongside other offworlders will be a key part of how we push past this.

Art (as Doctor J):        How are you feeling?Anything in your throat, any —

Austin (as Wine):        Uh... ahhhhhh.

Art (as Doctor J):        Nah, nah, that's, that's all right in there. Don't you worry about that.

Austin (as Wine):        I think I'm okay. Uh, I had some wonderful soup recently, and it, it cleared me out. Any — anyway.

Art (as Doctor J):        That's great, I haven't... yeah.

Austin:        [chuckles] I think now you have a question.

Art:        Uh... it's a little tricky because of the existing relationship.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        Uh... all right, I make a comment about something you carry with you. Does my comment offend you or make you smile? Uh, what have you got? What are you carrying that's weird?

Austin:        I got this book, I got this sharp shovel, this sharp shade. Presumably, at this point, I probably have a backpack... like, I think I'm probably in that space where it's like, I'm dressed very formally, because I have my robes on, but also I have traveling gear with me that's more... it's the sort of stuff that like, Caeso and Ce would have provided for me, so it's kind of rough and tumble, swashbuckler ranger type gear, you know? [chuckling] So is that what you reference?

Art (as Doctor):        Yeah you're looking a little, uh, I don't know quite how to say this. Uh... sloppy?

Austin:        I'm very clearly taken aback, that you would think that, let alone say it.

Art (as Doctor J):        I'm very busy, I've got a lot to do. You gotta talk quick.

Austin (as Wine):        I haven't had time to refresh myself in some time, doctor.

Art (as Doctor J):        You going to go home while you're here?

Austin (as Wine):        If I have time. I would... I would love to be in my own space. But people need tending to, I'm guessing. Is there anything —

Austin:        I'm now going to ask you one of my questions here, uh... uh, I state our purpose and ask how we can help. What need do you tell me about? And I think I just say to you, uh —

Austin (as Wine):        We wanted to stop here first, because we thought maybe the need would be most severe. Is that true? Is there anything we can provide for you immediately?

Art (as Doctor J):        Uh, of course it is. I mean, I could just use a set of hands if you want to come in.

Austin:        I drop my backpack off and move over towards wherever you're leading me. What do you, where do you lead me to?

Art:        Uh, I think that like, I guess, there's, there's just like a flu going around, you know? And it seems bad, bad it's not so — I don't want to like, linger on illness after the last couple years for everyone on earth, but like… it's a small town, a bug got around, and it's going around, you know?

Austin:        Yeah. Bad living conditions make it hard to — to, you know, a lot of people huddled close together.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Limited food, weaker immune systems.

Art:        And it's not so much offworlders as it is just like...

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        The postman came in, you know? And, once a week or whatever, I'm imagining —

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Whatever mail is like, I don't know, I don't want to get bogged down here. Everyone's, people are a little sick, and because there's only probably like, two, two or three beds here —

Austin:        Right.

Art:        When there's five patients, it seems like a madhouse, you know?

Austin:        Yeah, yeah. Uh, then yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to spend a skill, I'm going to spend my healing touch, set the body right. Which allows me to... set the body right. I believe if I spend a skill, I get to flip two coins is that right? Uh, I flip an extra coin, I believe. Let's see. I'm going to triple-check what this book says. I should have, I should have waited to do this until we were flipping coins. Uh... mini-game mechanics, here we go. You can flip a coin at any time —

Art:        Without using a skill, you get two coins.

Austin:        Okay. And then with a skill, I get three coins.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Heads, I'm going to say heads are —

Janine:        And you pick the best two.

Austin:        And you pick the best two, you pick the best two, correct. Three coins. Uh... I have that skill, so I may as well use it. Healing touch, uh, are we saying one is heads? Or two is heads? One is heads, two is tails?

Art:        Yeah, I think that's right.

Austin:        All right. Rolling three coins here. Uh... 3d2. Uh... I just have to mouse over and see what these are. Uh, so that's two heads. Look at that. Heads, tails, heads.

Art:        There you go, great.

Austin:        So that's two community points, uh, no suspicion points. I'm just going to make a little number, and we can update it as we play, under community. Two, boom. Uh, yeah. So, I do my best to attend to the people here. I think it's a lot of, uh, I think actually what it is is like, I actually just bring a lot of off-world medicine. Presumably a lot of our medicine got used immediately after the attack, and we were attending to people who like, just needed painkillers, and just needed stuff, and we have not been able to make more in a matter of months. Uh, so I show up with like, painkillers, and decongestants, and, you know, some basic stuff for, for helping people fight, uh, like antiviral and antibiotic stuff. And, you know, we have — we had a stockpile of these things, but we went through it. And I think part of the picture you're painting is like, a community that's, that's made vulnerable gets hit harder by smaller things. Uh, and so, you know, I manage to provide what we need there, to, to help people out. And at that point, I believe now, I cross off healing touch, and I get to add a new restoration, uh, thing. A new mystic thing. Uh, flexible. Your body bends in ways that boggle the — [chuckling] no, I'm not taking, I'm not taking that one.

Ali: Hell yeah…

Austin: Uh... I'm going to take read the signs. Provide insight into things to come. Or do we want listen? No, I don't think I'm at listen yet. I want read the signs, provide insights into things to come. And it's me, like, studying people here, and like, talking to them as I, as I provide care, and trying to piece together what, from their information, what they may know about the situation that kind of lies between, between the facts, do you know what I mean? About like, oh, supposedly, another group of, of, you know, Principality folks responded over the mountain, by my cousin, and then somebody else says, you know, something similar but from, you know, a week away in the other direction, and lets me know like, okay, they're not actually coming this direction, they're going north-south and not east-west or whatever. Uh, so... read the signs, uh, in this case, I'm not using that skill, I'm just getting that skill, so. Provide insight into things to come. I think you still have one more question, Art.

Art:        I scrolled away to look at other rules.

Austin:        How it goes.

Art:        And for a small book, I sure can get lost in this one. What page are we on?

Austin:        Uh, we are on...

Ali:        21 and 22.

Austin:        Thank you.

Art:        Oh, see, I thought it was before this.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        I give you a tour of this place. What insight do you gain? What do you learn?

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        I just like...

Art (as Doctor J):        3 beds, and we got the medicine cabinets. Mostly empty. I'm so glad you could bring us some supplies. We've been out of, uh, just basic, uh, decongestants and anti-inflammatories for 6 weeks now. Shipment's supposed to come in two weeks hence, but who knows.

Austin (as Wine):        Who knows.

Austin:        Uh, I think I pick up that there's something that you couldn't have used all of, that has still been taken, right? Something that wouldn't have been — uh, I don't even know what that would be. What's something that's just valuable, but, uh, isn't necessarily something that would have gotten used up a lot of, right? Maybe you had more... particular, maybe you had something expensive, like some sort of scanner or device, you know? And it was just straight up taken from you, from, from the clinic, right? And I go —

Austin (as Wine):        Wait — didn't you used to have a body scanner here?

Art (as Doctor J):        Used to.

Austin (as Wine):        The invaders.

Art (as Doctor J):        I presume.

Austin (as Wine):        You showed up one day and it was gone.

Art (as Doctor J):        Like you say. Could have been the invaders, could have been... you know, someone pretending to be an invader.

Austin (as Wine):        Opportunists.

Art (as Doctor J):        You never know. You know, you... you get suspicious, you do this long enough.

Austin:        As you say it, my eyes narrow and look at you, in a way that's not particularly... uh, generous.

Art (as Doctor J):        Yeah... get the fuck out of here.

Austin:        [laughing]

Austin (as Wine):        I'm sorry. It is hard to see the best in people after... everything.

Art (as Doctor):        Yeah, I need the body scan — why, who, who am I selling a body scanner — I'd be selling it to me. I need it.

Austin (as Wine):        I've heard stories from out there, what people do when the war comes to them. They sell things that you would not believe, to get a ticket away.

Art (as Doctor J):        Yeah, sounds great. Ain't what I got, though.

Austin (as Wine):        I apologize, doctor. I hope we can continue to help you in the days to come.

Art (as Doctor J):        Yeah, yeah. Of course, of course.

Austin:        I see my way out. If you checked off an adventure skill during the game, take a new restoration skill. I guess I've done that now, so... uh, all right. That's my scene. Ce, you said you had, you may have had one here? The second one here, in this game?

Ali:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, I was planning on being Ce in the scene, so —

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        I'm willing to like, lead a second scene for this prompt. Uh, Janine, I don't, I don't know if, in the time you have developed... strong feelings about who you'd like to be? I was thinking like a social space, though? Like a...

Janine:        Mm-hm..

Ali:        Like a coffee shop, or like a...

Austin:        Saloon.

Ali:        Like a noodle bar.

Janine:        I was thinking on the question of like, did they leave a force here to, to like, manage things? And the thing that came from that was like, do they have enough people to occupy every single little town that they come across, and like, if, if yes, okay. But if not, what does that look like?

Austin:        Right.

Janine:        And that led me to thinking of, well, what if they, for towns that were too small to warrant an occupying unit, they would have maybe like a unit that patrols between those small towns —

Austin:        Right.

Janine:        And then within the town, they appoint a local as a kind of like seneschal. And, upon them, place the responsibility of like, you have to make sure people behave, and that nothing bad goes down here. And we're going to come and we're going to check in, and we're checking in with you. [chuckles] Uh, so that person would be under a lot of pressure. Like, you know, maybe that person's loyalties are questionable.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Janine:        Maybe that person, they just have them by the ear, basically, and that person's kind of fucked. There's a lot of very broad motivations and feelings that could be attached to that.

Austin:        For sure.

Janine:        So I was thinking of, of, if that made sense for this town, then maybe in one of these scenes playing a sort of seneschal figure for this area.

Austin:        I like it, and I like using seneschal, since it's a cool word. And also because there was a —

Janine:        Like house keeper, in a sense, or like a house manager, almost —

Austin:        Yeah, there was a —

Janine:         But it tends to like get expanded more in like diplomatic stuff.

Austin:        We used it in Twilight Mirage, there's a planet named after it.

Janine:        Uh-huh.

Austin:        Seneschal's Brace. So it has some extra little, whatever. And I like it as a setting thing, of like, the Curtain leaves seneschals across these towns as like, their eyes and ears, right?

Art:        Of course, shoutout to Vampire: The Masquerade, the first time.

Austin:        Yeah, of course, of course. That's where they invented the word, actually.

Ali:        [laughing] Uh, yeah, but I —

Janine:        You know what, I was thinking of — thinking of Seneschal Brand from Dragon Age 2.

Austin:        There we go.

Janine:        Uh, who is an asshole, but is trying. Anyway.

Ali:        Uh, then yeah. I, I mean, I think that it makes sense in the scene to like, either have it be a situation where like, Ce stops off at like a counter to get like a coffee equivalent, like iced drink situation, getting off the ship, and then like, either noticing, uh, Janine's character, because they feel like an authority figure, because they're like, holding themselves in that space, or like —

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Ce has either approached — I guess, Janine, if you [chuckling] have a strong feeling of what your character would do there. Uh... but the question that I wanted to start with was, uh, I comment on something in our immediate surroundings. Is there a story behind it, or is it something ornamental? Uh, I think maybe like, you know, hi, hey, how are you doing, and then Ce is like, notices like an archway or something in the town that seems part of the, the, the, uh, the view of the like rest of the planet from a, a point in this town. To be like, oh, that's really nice — you know, what's the story there?

Janine:        Uh... uh... so I think... uh, so, I, I was getting hung up on like the question of like, how is this person like identifiable?

Ali:        Oh, sure sure sure, yeah. [laughing] Well, I guess it was a question of like, whether you think that character would like, see new people arrive and like immediately approach Ce, or if it would be the opposite?

Janine:        No, I, I agree that they're probably identifiable, I was just trying to think of how.

Ali:        Okay, great.

Janine:        I think it's probably a thing of, like, you notice this person, because they are one of the only people who's in that space, but isn't like engaging with it, is not there for coffee, is not there talking to people —

Ali:        Oh, sure, yeah.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Janine:        Is just kind of like, surveying in a really awkward way. Uh, and like, maybe, you know, has, has like a patch sewn on the front of their jacket or something like that. And I think it's like a woman with, uh, with... long, uh, I don't know, kind of like, purplish brown hair, like pale, uh, hair, and like, tied back and like sort of well-dressed, but not too weirdly so. So like, definitely would stand out, but also fit in at the same time a little bit. Like, they are local. Easy to approach. Uh... and I think they sort of, she, I should switch to she now that I've decided [chuckling]

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Janine:        She looks, she sort of looks you up and down and looks at the arch, and it's really easy to tell that she's kind of like... assessing you deeply, like, okay, this person is not from around here, uh, what is their business here, I wonder? Like, that kind of, you know, drawing all the natural thing, conclusions, they could draw. Uh… [chuckles] And, uh, I think, very curtly just says like, uh,

Janine (as seneschal): It was, it was put up here so long ago, no one knows why it was built. It's just there.

Ali (as Ce):                Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. That happens.

Janine (as seneschal): There might have been something it was pointed at, at some point, but no one really... knows, anymore.

Ali (as Ce):                Nice. It kind of ties the place together, you kind of notice the, uh, you walk through it, there's the tables here. It's inviting.

Janine (as seneschal): [sighs] I, I guess so. I guess it's inviting.

Ali (as Ce):                I'm Ce. Ce Gul, by the way. Nice to meet you.

Janine (as seneschal): I'm Lishan Charles.

Ali (as Ce):                Oh, nice to meet you, Lishan. Or Miss Charles, I'm sorry.

Janine (as Lishan):        Either one.

Janine:        She's like wringing her hands, she has like very —

Austin:        [laughs]

Janine:        She was very thin hands, where like the skin is drawn really tight over the joints. Uh, they're like, in that space between, oh, these are nice, feminine hands, and like, oh, these are a little creepy.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        Just like, very long, and like, you know... I'm describing someone [chuckling] someone in my life's hands, to be honest, but...

Austin:        Damn.

Janine:        Uh, no, no, no. It's, it's just, I don't know, hands are weird.

Ali:        Yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, sure.

Janine:        If you ever like, look into hands, it's... you don't think that hands can look that different, but man. Uh, uh, anyway, she's like wringing her hands. Uh, my turn for a question?

Art:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        Mm-hm.

Janine:        Uh, I politely ask you to leave the vicinity. Do you humor my request, or do things get ugly?

Ali:        Yowza. Uh...

Janine:        [chuckling]

Austin:        What's that ask look like?

Ali:        [snorts laughing]

Janine:        That ask is some like, nervous hand-wringing, and then some like —

Austin:        Ah.

Janine (as Lishan):        You shouldn't, you need to... you can't be here. I don't think this is a good place, for, for you to —

Janine:        Well, no, it wouldn't be, “I don't think this is a good place for you to be.” It's just, uh...

Janine (as Lishan):        You need to go, because if you're up to something, then, then... it'll be bad.

Ali (as Ce):                Oh, I'm, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm not up to anything. Uh, you know, me and my, my, uh, companions here came through with Wine, who you might know, and we just, you know, wanted to reach out and see what was up, see if people needed anything. We're with, uh, Millennium Break.

Janine:        [laughing]

Ali:        Wait, am I not supposed to say that? Are we undercover?

Austin:        I mean, I mean...

Janine:        [laughing]

Austin:        You're saying it to a cop! You don't know, you don't know that she's a cop, though, I guess. You don't know that she's —

Ali:        Right, this is like a team-building... people meeting...

Janine:        Uh, civilian deputy, thank you.

Austin:        Okay.

Ali:        Support mission...

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh.

Ali:        I'm supposed to, I'm, you know, we're supposed to — Millennium Break is a public thing, that reaches out to people...

Austin:        We're a terrorist organization.

Ali:        That actively, that actively...

Janine:        The public terrorist organization that reaches out to people —

Ali:        [snorts] That's true, okay.

Austin:        We're criminals.

Ali:        Sure, okay. This is, the end of Partizan did happen.

Austin:        Yes.

Ali:        You're right about that.

Austin:        Maybe we should have gone over that. We decided... burn thrones.

Ali:        We did do that, that's true. You know, the, the, the, the vibe of the game was, was, it was different from the vibes of the organization.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Ali:        Which is true. It's not like we're not here to help people.

Austin:        No, I know that.

Ali:        And it's not that I wouldn't think, like, oh, people think that Millennium Break is a terrorist organization, and I'm here to build maps and give people medicine, and people should know that Millennium Break does that too. But maybe everybody on the call is right. [laughing]

Janine and Austin: [laughing]

Austin:        I think you can —

Art:        You just have a bit of a history with, uh...

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Ali:        Just deciding that things are public knowledge.

Austin:        Yeah, I've, I've been looking at, uh, the Twilight Mirage, uh, uh, transcripts lately for prepping for this, and I can't help but remember the time on the Milk run, you made some decisions about what you told someone, just out in the open.

Ali:        Milk run, different situation.

Austin:        That was flirting, you're right, that's different.

Ali:        Histories, established trust... vulnerability.

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh. I will say, I will say — uh-huh.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        You might draw a relationship here between, uh, what Millennium Break is, and what you could see as like, you know, moments of decolonization, where you have either, you have like pan-African or pan-Latin groups, pan-American groups, people who like, help, you know, fight a revolution and then go off somewhere else and help another nascent revolution get kicked off, get kickstarted, et cetera. You know, Che obviously did this a lot, post-Cuba, and, and, you know, across South America. This is a thing that just happens, right? It happens, even —

Ali:        Sure.

Austin:        You could even think about the American and French revolutions, if you want to go that route, right? And think about the ways in which people who helped with the American revolution would go off to, to take those lessons and apply them to the French revolution, let's say.

Ali:        Sure. Well, what's the, what — I guess there's like a neutral, there's like a neutral version of saying like —

Austin:        Yes. I'm not saying you should — I'm not saying you should say anything — you should say whatever the fuck Ce wants. Ce should say whatever they want to say.

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        But I just want to make sure we're clear on what Ce would know the opinion of Millennium Break is.

Ali:        Sure, sure.

Austin:        You're right that people here wanted Millennium Break to show up. I just didn't know if Ce had figured out that they're talking to a deputy, to a seneschal.

Ali:        Sure. [laughing] Yeah, that's fair, that's fair, that's fair. And I guess if there's like a group, if there's like a... if there's an institutional vibe of like, [laughing] keep this to the chest...

Austin:        I guess, I don't know, maybe there isn't. And I, you know, for what it's worth, I didn't know about the seneschals, right? I meaning, meaning Wine, didn't know about them.

Ali:        Oh, right.

Austin:        So I couldn't have warned you about this.

Ali:        Oh yeah. I mean, yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, I left before this was instituted. So, that's, it's fun if you, if you do this. But, I want to make sure you mean to do it.

Ali:        Sure. I mean, I mean I definitely mean to do it. And I think in the context of like, Ce knowing that Wine specifically reached out to Millennium Break, is from this town, you know, thinks things are Gucci, coming here —

Austin:        Wait, Gucci's here?

Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Because that changes a lot.

Ali:        Gucci isn't here. I mean, Gucci in the okay sense.

Janine:        Gucci's a seneschal now...

Austin:        She would.

Janine:        Don't worry about it.

Ali:        Good for her. Good for her. Uh, but yeah, things are, this is getting off the plane, this is taking your coat off, this is chatting it up with somebody that you see. I think, I feel like this might be casual —

Austin:        Yeah, yeah. All right. Let's do it.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        So, is, is that —

Austin:        It is being said, yeah. Uh-huh.

Janine:        Okay. Uh... I —

Ali:        Sorry for ruining the [laughing] rest of this.

Austin:        No, it's great.

Janine:        Lishan's eyes go wide, and like, she takes an audible breath, of just like, “oh, fuck.”

Austin and Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        I wonder, like, I, I suspect she maybe like, suspected something along those lines, but like, wouldn't have necessarily actually leapt to, it's Millennium Break, all on her own.

Austin:        Yeah, this is like the thing they tell you is going to happen, and you're like, “that's not going to happen.”

Janine:        Yeah. You have to watch out for members from these groups, because they're dangerous and they'll come and they'll kill you all.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Janine:        You know. They... you know.

Austin:        God, yeah, I actually forgot to paint a particular picture of this town, that I thought of while walking home earlier. Which is, as we arrive to town, I think being broadcast on like, little, you know, holocubes around the city, around the town, are sermons from fake Gur Sevraq about how dangerous Millennium Break is, and how important — you know, it's a double focus, it's a double thing here. Because the people here have never heard of — I mean, though know about Millennium Break, but they don't know who Gur Sevraq really is, right? And they probably don't even know what Asterism is. So there's like, this extreme, like, using faith as a, as a colonization tool, thing, happening here. [chuckles] And it's their, I don't know if people remember this, but the Curtain has like, a Gur Sevraq body that they use to, to make fake Gur Sevraq sermons and use him as a, as a tool of, of their kind of imperialism. Uh, and so I fully believe that this, you know, your seneschal — what was your seneschal's name again?

Janine:        Lishan Charles.

Austin:        Lishan, Lishan Charles, uh, has been like, hearing about the horror of Millennium Break for weeks now, not only from your initial training, but literally, literally Gur — fake Gur Sevraq, uh, uh, giving these sermons about the dangers of dissent and discontinuity, and how, how, you know, terror is coming.

Janine:        Yes.

Ali:        I’m, uh.

Austin:        So, what do you do?

Ali:        I guess things get ugly — [laughing] I don't know what the question is, do you mean by your question, do things get ugly?

Janine:        Yeah, I... I... I have mixed feelings about the, “do things get ugly,” part, because I feel like it kind of shuts things down, even though, I, like, I wanted the first part of that strongly enough to contend with the fact that maybe the second half shuts things down.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Janine:        But also I think, I would encourage flexibility there, because I don't think Lishan's going to like, pull out a gun. Uh... and I also don't know that Lishan is going to like, call the real cops, either.

Austin:        Maybe not this second, right?

Janine:        Yeah, that's — I guess that's the thing, is like, will things get ugly in the future?

Austin:        Right.

Janine:        Uh, because Lishan will, will tattle. Uh...

Austin:        In a sense, I wonder if this is a moment where Ce could try to like save that from happening. But, I don't know.

Ali:        Uh... hm. I was looking to see if a question felt like it was relevant.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        Uh... because there's like, I state our purpose and ask how we can help. Or something like, offer encouraging words regarding the state of the world post calamity. Do you agree with me, or say something sarcastic or biting? Uh... which like, we're zoomed out a little bit here, but it feels like the, the like, natural progression of this conversation of like, Janine, what was your character's name again? I'm sorry.

Janine:        Lishan Charles. I will put it in the —

Ali:        Okay, Lishan. Where like, either, with Lishan, like, repeating the request to leave, or getting more defensive upon hearing Millennium Break, it would be a natural response to be like, “no, no, no, we're here to help, you know, I came here with an excerpt.” Like...

Austin:        Uh... the author in the chat, Marigold Weston Humphreys, says, “you can — coin flips are always an option.” This could be a moment where we flip a coin to see, hey, does this break bad or not?

Ali:        Oh, sure.

Austin:        Does this lead to suspicion, or does it lead to community?

Ali:        Uh... yeah. I mean, it feels like a question mark enough that we should roll it, and then play out the rest of the scene. Get that.

Austin:        Yeah, I like that. Do you have a skill you want to check off? As a note, you can, and correct me if I'm wrong, in the chat, I believe you can also, you can use your restoration skills. Not that, uh, some things have to be removed before real things — [laughing] growth can occur, is the peaceful option.

Ali:        [cackling] I don't think that's, that's my impulse right now.

Austin:        No, no.

Ali:        I guess sometimes I do have to be, being removed.

Austin:        So maybe it's a straight flip? Maybe it's just an up and down?

Ali:        I could use, I could use sharp eyes here, in being like... there's like a negation of the, or there's an attempt...

Austin:        Right.

Ali:        For there to be a negation of the, like, the anxiety that's being noticed.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Ali:        To like, you know, just kind of bring the heat of the conversation down [laughing] a little bit. But in terms of just, like, I, I guess that's what I don't understand about the coin flips in the game. Do you coin flip ever time you use an adventure? Or does it like get you an extra...

Austin:        Every adventure — not every adventure. Many of the games require a coin, a coin flip, uh, and then you can, I believe, use a coin flip as many as times as you want, I believe.

Ali:        Okay, so it's not like, an action in the game is affected by —

Austin:        What do you mean by an action in the game?

Ali:        Well, like, it's not like I need to use my skill to do the coin flip.

Austin:        No. Your skill just gives you a bonus on the coin flip. So you can always just call a coin flip. A coin flip is two, you flip two coins. Heads are, are, heads are community points, tails are suspicion points. And if you check a skill off, then you get a bonus, uh, flip, and you take the two best ones.

Ali:        Okay. Let me do 3d2, then.

Austin:        Okay. What skill are you using? You're using sharp eyes.

Ali:        I'm using sharp eyes, yeah.

Austin:        All right, perfect.

Ali:        I feel like that's all narratively...

Austin:        Okay. In the chat, the, uh, Weston says, “each player can flip once during a game.” Yes, it does say that, I forgot that. Yes, it's in the book.

Ali:        Okay, cool. [Roll20 boop]

Austin:        Presumably if your character is there. Look at that. Again.

Ali:        Same old roll.

Austin:        Same one, that's good. That's two more community points. So whatever you — so, you pick up on something, presumably, and make it kind of, reel this back in.

Ali:        Right. Yeah, I guess, I guess it's still, I guess in that way... with a win there, it feels like the question would be more centered in terms of the, I state our purpose and ask how we can help. What do you need to tell me about?

Austin:        And that goes well.

Janine:        What do you mean?

Austin:        Sorry, say that again, Janine?

Janine:        I said, sorry, what do you mean?

Ali:        [laughing], uh, well I, I, you know, again, with the impulse of being like, “Millennium Break isn't a bad organization, or, you know, there's bad news out there but we're here to help,” you know. I... I feel like I'm sort of leaning on Wine here, but I think being like a ground Millennium Break person here with an excerpt from this town, in terms of just being like,

Ali (as Ce):                We're here to help and we were asked to help. And, you know, if there's any, anything that you need, that's what we, we brought all this medicine, and we're here to just kind of... [snorts] This is just a mission in, in community support.

Janine (as Lishan):        I need to know that you're not going to get me in trouble. Because, like, if you... set up shop here, and word gets around that you you've set up shop here, I'm eating it.

Ali (as Ce):                Oh! Oh, sure, yeah. Okay, I'll let, I'll let my crew know that we shouldn't be... uh, public, in that way.

Janine (as Lishan):        Yeah, like, the more discreet — it's not like I don't want people to, you know, we need stuff. It's not like I'm saying we don't. But, it just can't be known that it was you.

Ali (as Ce):                Okay. Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll keep quiet about it. I didn't mean to upset you there. Uh...

Janine (as Lishan):        You did just announce that — it makes me feel like you're not very discreet.

Ali (as Ce):                Well, I, you know, I just, I've, I've, the work that I think that I've done so far has been good, I think, usually. So I'm proud of that. And I'm sorry to — I know that, you know, the news is crazy, but, you know, I'm here, and if you have any questions, anything I got to clear up. When you say discretion... [laughing] are there any specifics? Should we not be going places? Besides, I mean, besides this, this smoothie bar that you're upset that I'm standing in, but that's, I'm sorry about that.

Janine (as Lishan):        Just... don't say those words. Or, I don't know if you people have, like, special hats or something, but if you do, don't wear them. Or any —

Ali (as Ce):                [unintelligible] —

Janine (as Lishan):        Just, just be, just be some people. Just be people.

Ali (as Ce):                Okay, yeah.

Janine (as Lishan):        Who are here, and then are gone. Okay?

Ali (as Ce):                Well, nice to meet you.

Austin and Ali:        [laughing]

Austin:        Feels like a scene, to me.            Uh... all right.

Ali:        Uh, I'm taking, I'm taking the gardener skill of — this is not, I should not be able to — okay, no. Okay. I was going to take [giggling] I was going to take, so you know, just the right time to plant seeds and ideas —

Janine:        Ah...

Austin:        [laughing]

Ali:        And that is not the truth, uh, unless it's like, you know, a hindsight is 20/20 situation.

Austin:        It could be. Yeah, it could be a hindsight is 20/20 situation.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        Yeah.

Ali:        But I'm going to, I'm going to instead go with patience — let time play its part —

Austin:        I think these are the same. I think these, both of these are hindsight is 20/20 situations. You've just got to pick which one.

Janine:        [chuckles]

Ali:        [snorts] I'm going with patience, let time play its part.

Austin:        Okay. Yeah.

Ali:        Because I think, I think you walk away from that being like, yeah, I fucked up.

Austin:        Yeah.

Ali:        [snorts] Maybe you've got a, maybe you don't come out with that one right away, just saying how much I love being in a terrorist organization, and how proud I am of being in a terrorist organization.

Austin:        Love it.

Ali:        Which, you know, happens, it, it happens to all of us. Uh... and scene. Anyway —

Janine:        Also, labels are, labels are fake, and, and —

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        Lies.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        Is a thing we should acknowledge. [chuckling] But...

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Uh... at the end of Get acquainted, I guess we've already done the bit where we get our, we get our skills. Uh, if you take a skill or had any significant moment with another player's character, consider recording a memory. I wrote mine down. I wrote that I helped the people of the clinic in Eversin. The doctor seemed suspicious at first, but I suspect it was just my paranoia. Art, you want to —

Art:        I mean, he could have done it if you want, I mean...

Austin:        Nah, no. Let's leave it, let's leave it vague. It's fun for it to be vague, you know?

Art:        Yeah. He was offended, but I don't mean, need that to be truth.

Austin:        Right, exactly. Exactly. Uh...

Art:        Uh, just for like... I was going to, it's even later than I said this last... but we could do a montage, maybe that's the best...

Austin:        Well, a montage is a that thing you do in place of a coin flip, I believe, right? Yeah, during another mini-game.

Art:        Oh, it allows you to... during another mini-game, okay.

Austin:        Yes. It's a freebie.

Art:        Well, I can't do a montage in a dream.

Austin:        I mean, I guess you could, but that seems... like a waste, since there's no coin flips in a dream, right?

Art:        Oh, there's no coin flip, okay.

Austin:        I believe. No coin flip required. I guess you could still do a coin flip, but... I think ending tonight on Broadleaf, what have you been doing while we've been doing all this stuff? Have you been helping Caeso like, unload the van, so to speak, set up our little mobile shop?

Art:        Yeah, unloading the van, making a, making a big pot of soup.

Austin:        Ooh, yeah, can't wait to get home for that soup.

Art:        Yeah, it's like a, it's like a... I want to say chicken and rice, but I don't... I don't know about chickens.

Austin:        Yeah, we don't have a chicken coop, so... But we do —

Art:        Well I think, I might have bought, bought, bought or bartered from the town.

Austin:        Right, sure. We'll say, we do have enough.

Janine:        We made that wheat gluten chicken.

Austin:        Oh, sure. We do have —

Art:        Or it could just be stock, stock from the last town.

Austin:        Mmm. We do have enough points to get an NPC, if we wanted to recruit somebody. Maybe next time, but, level, 3 community points is what you need to get from level zero to level one, and 4 is what you need to go from level one to level two, so we could even do that, but that would burn all of our community points, which seems —

Art:        Yeah, it feels like we should have some, some in the bank.

Austin:        A little, a little bit — yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        So, you settled in for this dream, is that what's happening?

Art:        Yeah, settle in for this dream.

Austin:        You want to read us the dream rules?

Art:        Yeah. Uh, a game for any number of players. The game picker should play their character on it. Other roles can get assigned during play. No coin flip required. After a long day, you drift off to sleep and have the strangest dream. Use the below tables to build your dream. Each table should inform the next. Let the dream build on itself. You can find the results of the all the tables before constructing your dream, or you can describe each section as you go. Choose an option or roll a d6. I’m gonna be rolling for everything. I don't want to —

Austin:        Oh yeah. Mm-hm.

Art:        Uh, besmirch the actions of others. But, uh, you never get to control your dreams. I don't.

Austin:        Some, some people do. I don't, but...

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Maybe I do in like an unconscious way, but not a...

Ali:        Mmm.

Art:        I'm going to roll these in chunks of 3, and we're just going to go 1, 2, 3, across, right?

Austin:        Sure, yeah. I like it. So this first one is... uh, find out what kind of —

Art:        The theme.

Austin:        Yeah, the theme of the dream. Feeling, atmosphere, and familiarity.

Art:        That's a 6, 4, and a 5.

Austin:        Sure.

Art:        Uh, a great baseball triple play. Or a double play, sorry.

Janine:        Spooky. Spooky  theme.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        So it's a worried feeling —

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        An alternate atmosphere, that's —

Austin:        That's fun.

Art:        An interesting one of those.

Ali:        Ooh.

Janine:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        And...

Art:        And, “you know, but are unknown.”

Austin:        Interesting. What's this mean? I guess that's the theme. So —

Art:        That's the theme. I think we should at least get to location before we —

Austin:        Yeah, let's get to location. Yeah.

Art:        Do another three.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        4, 3, 3.

Austin:        Oh my god.

Art:        The place is a camp. The environment is current environment. The time, yesterday.

Austin:        This is yesterday as in the day we just had, or yesterday as in the day before we arrived?

Art:        I have to think it's the day before we arrived.

Austin:        Yeah. Are you seeing something before we were here, or dreaming of seeing something before we were here?

Art:        Yeah, I think the truth of the matter is really to be determined.

Austin:        Yeah. Characters.

Art:        Characters, uh...

Austin:        But our camp is here, which is fun, right? Our camp is there a day early.

Art:        Yeah, uh-huh, the camp is, the whole camp is here —

Austin:        Yeah, you set it up all day.

Art:        Yeah, probably why it's in my brain.

Austin:        Yep. Not because you rolled some d6s.

Art:        Right. Uh...

Ali:        Your brain rolled the d6s.

Austin:        That's right.

Art:        Here's a d6 for other people. 5.

Austin:        Fellow travelers. [chuckling]

Janine:        [laughing]

Ali:        Wow.

Austin:        Oh my god.

Art:        Travelers.

Austin:        I'm losing it.

Art:        Weirdness.

Ali:        Hello.

Art:        I'll do weirdness and we'll do, we'll, we'll, we'll play a little bit before we roll ending, right?

Austin:        Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art:        Weirdness, one more d6. [Roll20 boop] A 1.

Austin:        [laughing]

Ali:        “You can fly.”

Austin:        You can fly. You

 can fly.

Janine:        It's a fucking dream.

Austin:        Yeah.

Janine:        Good news, everybody. It's still a fucking dream.

Austin:        It's still a dream, you can fly.

Janine:        This is how, this is the dream, this is how dreams work.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        Uh, so I guess —

Austin:        But the mood, as a reminder, the mood is, worried —

Art:        Worried.

Austin:        And it's alternate atmosphere, and we are known — no, we know but are you unknown.

Art:        You know, but are you unknown.

Austin:        You know.

Ali:        You know.

Austin:        You know.

Art:        You know.

Austin:        [laughing]

Janine:        Do you know that — does that mean that you know you're flying, but no one else notices you're flying?

Art:        No, I think it's that like —

Austin:        I think it's more existential.

Art:        I know y'all, but y'all don't know me.

Janine:        Oh, okay.

Austin:        Right. Who's this big elephant we've got here?

Art (as Broadleaf):        It's... I'm, I'm Broadleaf.

Ali (as Ce):                Who?

Austin (as Wine):        Are you from the Curtain?

Art (as Broadleaf):        No, I'm, I'm one of you. [sighs] We'll be here tomorrow.

Austin (as Wine):        The, the Curtain is coming tomorrow. Caeso, Ce, uh, we should prepare for an attack.

Art (as Broadleaf):        No, you're not here yet.

Austin (as Wine):        Where are you —

Art (as Broadleaf):        We should see the things we don't know.

Janine:        Are you flying right now?

Art (as Broadleaf):        [miffed] I am flying right now!

Janine:        Okay. Okay. I just needed to know.

Ali:        [laughing]

Art (as Broadleaf):        Thank you for noticing!

Art:        Oh, that wasn't... sorry.

Ali:        [snorts laughing]

Art (as Broadleaf):        Of course I can fly. I have this magic feather.

Austin:        [laughing]

Austin (as Wine):        I hate to make this suggestion, but... we should detain him.

Janine (as Caeso):        Oh, for god's sake.

Austin (as Wine):        We can't let him report back where our camp is.

Art:        I fly much higher up.

Janine (as Caeso):        Do you think anyone's going to take a flying elephant seriously.

Austin:        I can't believe we're having a Dumbo dream.

Janine:        [laughs]

Art:        Uh, and Dumbo has those weird, that weird dream sequence —

Austin:        Yeah, that weird dream sequence, I know. Disney is going to sue the pants off of us.

Ali:        Uh-huh...

Art:        We have vibroblades, we have dewbacks...

Austin:        We got Dumbo now.

Janine:        There's a — I believe there's a —

Art:        We're doing — we're doing Dumbo references.

Janine:        I believe there's a thing where Babar flies, I think that happens.

Austin:        The Babar people are going to sue the pants off of us.

Ali:        [chuckling]

Art:        The Babar people are going to have to get in line behind the Disney people. [chuckling]

Ali:        We're getting sued by Disney and Babar?

Art:        Everyone with an elephant.

Austin:        [chuckling] Uh-huh. Uh...

Austin (as Wine):        What's your goal? What are you here to do?

Art (as Broadleaf):        We're here to... to make, to join the communities, to make... I can't... I've known you for, for months now!

Austin (as Wine):        An outsider like you could never join these communities together.

Art (as Broadleaf):        Ouch, that's a little racist.

Austin (as Wine):        This isn't about you being a big elephant, it's about you being part of the Curtain.

Art (as Broadleaf):        I'm not part of the Curtain, and I am a big elephant, and you can't, you can't take these —

Ali:        Still, eh…

Art (as Broadleaf):        There's intersectionality with these things.

Austin (as Wine):        Okay, that's fair. That's fair. I hadn't considered it.

Ali:        [laughing]

Ali (as Ce):                How are you flying?

Art (as Broadleaf):        I explained that I have a magic feather.

Ali (as Ce):                Can I borrow it?

Art (as Broadleaf):        It wouldn't work for you.

Austin (as Wine):        Why?

Ali (as Ce):                It wouldn't?

Art (as Broadleaf):        It's for elephants.

Austin (as Wine):        Can you show us with another elephant?

Ali (as Ce):                This is getting more and more suspicious.

Art (as Broadleaf):        Do you know another elephant?

Austin (as Wine):        I'd suspect you would. I'm sorry, no, that was racist again, actually —

Janine:        And then — [laughing]

Art:        [laughing]

Ali:        [laughing]

Art (as Broadleaf):        Yeah, I know all the elephants.

Austin (as Wine):        I shouldn’t have said that. I, we actually truly apologize.

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:        I feel like the natural dream stem of this is someone else just is suddenly an elephant.

Austin:        Is an elephant. Yeah, uh-huh.

Ali:        Yeah...

Janine:        Right? Yeah.

Art:        Yeah, uh-huh. Which one of you wants to suddenly be an elephant?

Ali:        Me...

Art:        Okay.

Janine:        [laughing]

Ali:        I was the one who asked about flying.

Austin:        You were.

Art:        Yeah, okay.

Ali (as Ce):                Woah!

Austin:        So it worked.

Janine and Ali: [laughing]

Austin:        Or was that the “woah” of becoming an elephant? Becoming unto an elephant?

Ali:        [laughing]

Janine:         [unintelligible] never touched a feather before —

Ali:        I think I intended that as a flying “woah” —

Austin:        Mmm.

Ali:        But [laughing] I feel like if we want to rewind it, it works either way.

Austin:        The way dreams work, you could be flying one second and then not flying the next second. You could be flying —

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        And then Art could be like, “it doesn't work.” And the dream would be like, “yeah, that's — yeah. Mm-hm. Yeah.”

Ali:        Mm-hm.

Art:        You just jumped really high. One of those elephant leaps.

Janine:        Does anyone else have like, specific flying dreams about, uh, you're flying, but you control your altitude by some sort of awareness of pressing a button?

Austin:        No!

Art:        No!

Ali:        I’ve only had falling dreams.

Janine:        [laughing] That's the only kind of flying dream I have, is —

Austin:        Wow.

Janine:        Is the flying dream where it's like, oh, I have to press the button really hard, and then I'll go higher.

Austin:        I never have flying dreams. I've never — maybe twice in my like, dream memory, and I have pretty good dream memory. I would remember if I had —

Art:        Yeah, I have falling dreams, I don't have flying dreams.

Austin:        Yeah, I've had falling dreams, yeah, for sure. Ugh. We should roll to see what the vibe is here towards the end, huh?

Ali:        [chuckling]

Janine:        [laughing] I hope it's a good one.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Well, most of them are... basically fine.

Janine:        Most of them.

Art:        [chuckles] The 1.

Janine:        Yeah, that's what I was worried about.

Austin:        The tragic. Tragic.

Janine:        [laughing] That's exactly what I was worried about.

Ali (as Ce):                I'm falling out of the sky!

Austin (as Wine):        Oh my god.

Art (as Broadleaf):        You don't know how the feather works!

Ali (as Ce):                Oh, no!

Art (as Broadleaf):        Nope, you have to — I don’t remember —

Ali (as Ce):                This is a Curtain trap!

Austin (as Wine):        This is a Curtain trap.

Ali (as Ce):                Run away!

Janine (as Caeso):        It’s their new most powerful weapon.

Austin (as Wine):        The feather. The promise of flight.

Janine:        To trick you, yeah.

Austin (as Wine):        They'll lift us up... only to drop us.

Janine (as Caeso):        Damn. Makes you think. That's a fuckin metaphor.

Art:        It's like, it's the two of you like monologuing about this, while, while, while uh, Broadleaf is trying to catch Ce Gul.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        It's like,

Art (as Broadleaf):        No, you have to help —

Ali:        [laughing]

Art (as Broadleaf):        They're too big! I can't catch them by myself!

Austin (as Wine):        Are the hammocks made up? I think it's time to sleep.

Austin:        Walk away.

Art (as Broadleaf):        No, come back!

Austin:        Bad dream.

Art:        Like, you know, yeah, waking up before it happens.

Austin:        Yeah. And, you know, I think you wake up, and you wake up to the sound of like, distant gunfire, you know —

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Like a few miles away, you know?

Art:        Yeah, and then is like... kind of mad at Wine for like an hour or so —

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        After waking up.

Austin:        [chuckling] Yeah, uh-huh.

Art:        And it's like, I know it wasn't... but...

Ali:        [chuckling]

Art:        You must've done something for my brain to do this.

Austin:        It was your Divine, or the local spices, or something in the air.

Art:        Yeah.

Janine:        Can't believe you didn't trust me.

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        Yeah, I can't believe you didn't trust me —

Austin (as Wine):        Broadleaf, you know I trust you. I trust you with my life.

Art (as Broadleaf):        I — yeah...

Austin (as Wine):        Not as much as I trust Caeso, who saved me from that time with his lasso, but close second.

Art (as Broadleaf):        Okay, but I — yeah, I wasn't there.

Janine (as Caeso):        If Broadleaf had been able to fly, then, then I'm sure he would have saved you, too.

Austin (as Wine):        Mmm. I know that. And I'm sorry I didn't help you catch Ce Gul as they were falling.

Art (as Broadleaf):        But I know that it's all in my brain.

Austin (as Wine):        Maybe not all.

Art (as Broadleaf):        Maybe. I think we should really —

Janine:        No, [unintelligible] all of it.

Art (as Broadleaf):        Maybe the Curtain was here yesterday. [chuckling] Maybe I noticed something, that I didn't notice.

Austin (as Wine):        And in the old days, it’s said that Bounty would provide more than just sustenance. Uh... a different type of sustenance, maybe. Clarity of vision. Uh, a way to set expectations for future meals.

Art (as Broadleaf):        Hm.

Austin (as Wine):        If you know times will be lean, you ration better. And you... [sighs] you are more joyous for what you have now. But Bounty has not spoken directly in some time.

Art (as Broadleaf):        We'll get you there.

Austin (as Wine):        Do you have any of that soup?

Art (as Broadleaf):        Oh yeah, we got soup for days.

Austin (as Wine):        Pour me a bowl.

Art (as Broadleaf):        Of course.

Austin (as Wine):        And sorry again, for the... dream.

Art (as Broadleaf):        Oh yeah, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

[“Permanent Peace” by Jack de Quidt starts playing]