Live at the Table: The Skeletons Archive!
Transcriber: Addison @guccigarantine -00:00:00-00:06:39, MaxXM#5418 [0:06:39-0:36:00]
Editor’s Note: SYLVIA’s name and pronouns have been updated. A small 1 footnote has been added to the first instance with a re-explanation of this audio/transcript discrepancy.
[00:00:00]
AUSTIN: We’re doing this local right? This is just Audacity?
ALI: This is just Audacity. Can you record—
AUSTIN: This is just OBS is what I mean.
ART: We’re not Audacity?
AUSTIN: I’m gonna do an Audacity anyway, just in case. I like to future proof it, a thing I mentioned last time. Like what if five years from now we’re like hey, we should do a better cut of these? So, I actually have been having people do Audacities.
ART: Alright. Well, then I got none of our pre-recording. [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: That’s alright.
ALI: That’s fine.
AUSTIN: I think we’re live now so, there’s that.
ALI: I believe so, yeah.
ART: I do try to just not record when I am actively slandering a famous person, though so.
AUSTIN: Hm, I don’t know.
ALI: [laughs] You positive about that one?
ART: Well.
AUSTIN: Remember that time you said I punched Ellen DeGeneres? [ALI laughs]
ART: Yeah.
ALI: That was a joke on this show, huh?
AUSTIN: Uh-huh, sure was.
ART: That was you though.
AUSTIN: Yeah, a famous person.
ART: Oh.
AUSTIN: I’m on TV! [ALI laughs]
ART: You’re a U.S. Senator famous now. That’s what I’m hearing.
AUSTIN: Uh, ya know. I think people who like me like me way more than people who like Ted Cruz.
ART: Well, don’t say who it was! [ALI laughs] God, you’re the worst accessory to slander ever.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Is that a crime in America?
ART: I don’t know. I’m saying I’m bringing you down with me.
AUSTIN: Oh, okay that’s fair. We should do a clap.
ALI: Oh, I would love to.
ART: If it pleases the court. Austin, Austin did it.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh? If someone wants to note time.is got a UI change. Time.is has all sorts of special things. You can go in here.
ALI: Yeah, you can press it, it changes.
ART: What? I’ve been looking at the same time.is for three years.
AUSTIN: There’s a whole thing. Hold on, I have to find it.
ALI: We discovered the whole…
AUSTIN: Where’d it go? There’s like a whole settings button. Customize, there we go. Oh, wow there’s sound? Wait, is there sound?
ART: Where? What? [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: There’s a button here that says “sound”. I turned it on. [beeping sound begins]
ALI: You see on the side of the time where there’s the three numbers?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] [beeping sounds continues] This is bad. I’m turning sound off.
ALI: Why, does it like click?
AUSTIN: It’s like super— oh fuck. Can I not turn sound off? [beeping continues] Oh no. did I ruin time.is forever? Oh, I think it’s fixed [beeping stops].
ALI: There’s a thing that says “sounds”, specifically.
AUSTIN: Yeah, that’s why I clicked it, and that’s why it started making beeps and I clicked it again and it didn’t stop but—
ALI: Oh, I hate that oh! Oh my god I hate this.
AUSTIN: It’s so bad. But yeah, we did the whole bit around this didn’t we? About how like you could set Saturday as the first day of the week and I just don’t get it.
ART: Oh, I guess I just assumed this was some elaborate bit you were doing.
AUSTIN: Did you also think that time.is wasn’t real? Are you on your Jack shit right now?
ART: No, I guess just didn’t— I mean I definitely want Monday to be the first day of the week.
AUSTIN: Wait, do you?
ART: Yeah.
ALI: Monday?
ART: Sunday doesn’t make any sense. Monday is when the week starts. No one’s like waking up on Sunday like new week here.
ALI: No, we record on Sunday it starts on Sunday.
AUSTIN: True. We should clap.
ART: I have it in Helvetica I’m the worst.
AUSTIN: Yeah, me too, let’s do it. I have it in Helvetica and white on black, so.
ALI: Thirty?
AUSTIN: Yeah, let’s clap at thirty.
[three distinct claps]
AUSTIN: No.
ALI: That was nice!
AUSTIN: No. [ALI laughs] That was nice, but it wasn’t good. Let’s do forty-five.
ART: Three seconds isn’t enough time for a clap.
AUSTIN: Forty-five. Forty-five seconds.
[claps that sound closer on the recording]
AUSTIN: Hm
ART: That was much worse. [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: That was way worse. Let’s just try and do it at the top of the minute. Let’s try and reverse our fortunes.
ALI: We’re gonna do a third?
AUSTIN: Yeah, we’re doing a third. One for each of us [ALI snorts].
[an even worse clap than the two before]
AUSTIN: Oh my god. Well, good news we’ll hopefully never use these Audacity files anyway. Uh, okay. I’m gonna bring back up the other graphic I made. I didn’t make it I composited it. Uh, boom.
ALI: I made it, no.
AUSTIN: No?
ALI: That’s not the one. I thought it was the Patreon one!
AUSTIN: No, I did half of the Patreon and then the Skeletons logo from Jason Morningstar.
ALI: That’s so nice!
AUSTIN: Yeah! It’s all nice. Alright.
[00:04:29] Intro
AUSTIN (cont’d): Welcome to Friends at the table, an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interactions between good friends. I am your host, Austin Walker. Joining me today: Alicia Acampora.
ALI: Hi! My name is Alicia Acampora. You can find me @ali_west and yeah that’s it.
AUSTIN: Art Martinez-Tebble.
ART: Hey! You can find me on Twitter @atebbel.
AUSTIN: And I’m Austin Walker again, who has food in his mouth ‘casue he’s the worst. You can find me on Twitter @austin_walker. You can find the show @friends_table and you can support us at friendsatthetable.cash.
Brief note: I mentioned this last time, but– in fact, I had to mention this afterwards last time– if you’re watching this live that’s rad, thank you for watching this live; Can you please do us a favor and not link it out to other people who aren’t patrons? We had a situation last time where that happened and…
It’s just one of those things where it’s like, “Oh, all these other people are paying for the ability to watch it with us, and we wanna make sure we reward that.” So, please— It’s a different thing if you just have friends over. What you should do is just have friends over, like it’s a pay-per-view event. [ALI laughs]
ALI: Oooh, yeah!
AUSTIN: That sounds fun right? But yeah, please don’t put this out on social media, or in any chat channels or whatever, where there aren’t patrons. Thank you so much. Today–
ART: God, the day we do Worldwide Wrestling, I… [AUSTIN: Oh, man…] I just cannot be held responsible for my bullshit on that. [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: Okay, that’s fair. That’s totally fair.
ART: I’ll fucking do hype packages, and…
AUSTIN: [laughs] That’s exciting. Today we are playing The Skeletons, an RPG by Jason Morningstar, whose games we’ve already featured in the past on the show. We played Fiasco to kick off Bluff City and we really loved that, and The Skeletons is similar in a pretty big way, which is that it’s very freeform– in fact, I think it’s even more freeform than Fiasco is– and it’s very interested in characterization, moreso than anything else. I’m gonna read you just this little intro that Jason wrote, because I think it’s really good.
Years fly by like dead leaves. Everything is darkness. Everything is silence. You stand vigilant before the sarcophagus without thought or breath, such is your compulsion. You do not remember your name, and still you watch. The flesh has fallen off your bones, and still you watch.
And then, one day, there is light and motion, and you weigh your bearded axe and raise your shield, lusting for the fray, eager to measure your skill against these tomb-robbing children, so full of blood. You’ll never be alive again, but in this moment– in the chaos between violation and destruction– you truly live, and you remember what you once were. And you taste the sun.
AUSTIN: I am super excited to play this game in which we basically play as Dark Souls enemies [laughs] slowly remembering what their lives were. I’m gonna keep reading from the rules, just to get us… kind of up to speed on what it is, and what we’re doing.
The Skeletons is a meditative structured free-form game. It flips the script on the classic dungeon crawl, where you play, not the intruders, but the guardians cursed to spend all of eternity defending a tomb.
Gather the stuff you need. One to six players, with one or more hours to spend together.
AUSTIN: We got that.
A quiet place to play, that can be darkened. If you have neither quiet nor darkness, close your eyes instead.
AUSTIN: You too, listeners.
Printouts of these rules and the skeletons.
AUSTIN: Which we have.
A large sheet of blank paper–
AUSTIN: Which we have in Roll20.
–pencils or pens, a six-sided die, and a timer of some sort.
AUSTIN: Shoutout to time.is.
Optionally, sounds of the tomb, to be played as the years grind past.
AUSTIN: So, a quick note for people who are listening to the archive. There are gonna be moments in this where we are quiet for up to minutes at a time. I know that for some people who listen to podcasts that can be jarring, and I definitely get that if you’re on your commute you’re gonna wanna hit that fast– Excuse me. That fast– Excuse me twice! That fast forward button.
But if you’re in a place where you’re going out for a walk while listening, or you’re just as home, maybe doing dishes, I’m gonna say try to sit with us through those moments, because that’s– A big point of this game is these quiet, meditative moments that sort of simulate and condense years of silence in these tombs between major events. And so– And we’re gonna do that live. We’re gonna do the “sitting in quiet” thing. So let’s keep moving! That’s just a heads up. So first, we each choose a skeleton to play. There are eight.
Each has specific questions that you may answer during the game.
AUSTIN: We answer those questions during these moments when the tomb is being attacked, basically. As skeletons, we’re asleep for a long time, and then as tomb-raiders, effectively, come in to try to bust in, we wake up and, in the fray, kind of grasp at moments from our past lives.
When the game begins, you know nothing, just as they remember nothing, and each skeleton is a cipher. Over time, you’ll learn more.
AUSTIN: So let’s start there. Let’s talk about these skeletons. I’m gonna drag this skeleton book over here to the other screen so that people can see it! Check out this skeleton! What are y’all feeling in terms of skeletons right now?
ART: I looked at Roll20 before I realized you were dragging it onto the…
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah. But… [ALI chuckles] We just have these books. We could just look at these.
ART: Yeah, I know that. Yeah. Uh-huh.
AUSTIN: Ali, you were pretty excited about one of them.
ALI: Uh… Yeah. I called dibs on Headless.
AUSTIN: Your skull is long gone, but it doesn’t matter. You carry an iron mace and a holy symbol. Sketch in the details on the illustration.
AUSTIN: We don’t have to do that quite yet. We’ll come to that sketching in a second. [ALI: Okay.] Art, what about you?
ART: [crosstalk] Oh, my god. You have the best map question. That’s [ALI and AUSTIN chuckle] easily the best map question.
ALI: Oh, do I? I didn’t even look at them.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Well, we’ll get there. [chuckles]
ART: Um… I think I wanna be Tattered Cloak.
AUSTIN: Okay. Tattered Cloak seems really cool.
Scraps of once-red cloth shroud your bones. You carry a battle-scarred sword. Sketch in the details on the illustration.
AUSTIN: And I think…
ART: Everyone, adjust your sword expectations downward [ALI and AUSTIN chuckle] right now.
AUSTIN: Yeah, we’re– We did not bring Janine on for this, so we are not gonna have the most beautiful map, but we’re gonna have a special one. I wanna pick Silver Torc.
A beautiful silver torq decorates your collarbones, and you carry a blunt silver sword. Sketch in the details on the illustration.
AUSTIN: So as you hear– as you can see, there’s lots of sketching in details on the illustration. We… The next part is–
Work together to sketch the outlines of the tomb. It can be any general size or shape. It needs to be built around a central sarcophagus, and have north, south, east, and west walls. It’s fine to make the tomb visually interesting, but don’t add any elaborate details. Use a large sheet of paper– letter sized or bigger– and leave plenty of room for added information as you play.
Draw on the map where your skeletons each stand silent watch in the darkness, while the tomb remains undisturbed.
AUSTIN: Um… So… Where– What do you– What’s the general shape, do you think, of this tomb?
ALI: Hmmm…
ART: I kind of like… a northern hump.
[beat]
AUSTIN: Uh-huh? [ALI laughs]
ART: You know, like sometimes a building has a… Like a bay window, but not? But like… But like, you can stand there?
[beat]
ART (cont’d): Like, uh…
AUSTIN: Like– wait.
ART: Neither of you are gonna help me on this, are you?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] I am. I am. I am. I am.
ALI: [crosstalk] [chuckles] Like a porch? Wait… [laughs]
AUSTIN: So you’re saying, like…
ART: [crosstalk] No, like a…
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] …like, it comes up, and then over, and then down, but then it also kinda comes out? One second, I’ll– Do you see it drawing out? Like this?
ART: Yeah, yeah. Kinda like that. Yeah.
AUSTIN: And there’s this whole– this little hump.
ART: Yeah. Maybe round it off? But that’s a thing I’m looking for right there.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Okay. Listen, champ. [ALI laughs] Alright, I can round it off. Fuck. Okay. Um… [ART laughs] Freehand.
ART: [crosstalk] I can try to do it!
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Ay, you do it!
ART: Cool. I mean, I still want the lines. Um… [AUSTIN: Mhm!]
[loaded short silence]
ALI: Do you want me to try?
AUSTIN: I want Art to try.
ART: Oh, fuck! [ALI chuckles] What– Is there an undo?
AUSTIN: I mean, whatever you’ve done hasn’t been done yet. So…
ART: Oh, um…
[pause]
AUSTIN: But probably.
ART: That doesn’t super tell me how to get this to stop. I’m just– I’m just gonna… [chuckles] How? How do I make it just so you can see the shit I just did?
AUSTIN: Right-click somewhere else.
[beat]
AUSTIN (cont’d): [judgemental] Hmm! [ALI: Oh!] [chuckles] Hm-hmm! Is that what you meant? [ALI fails to stifle laughter] You meant that? I’m gonna fuck with that. Let’s see if we can turn that into something cool. One second. [ALI: Ooooh! Okay.] [ART: Yeah.] Alright, now I’m gonna use this [ALI: [judgemental] Hmm.] somewhere else. We’ll get there. Just let me pull this over here…
ART: “Hold shift to snap to grid…” Oh! Control-Z was…
AUSTIN: Yeah, how to undo? Yeah.
ART: …what I wanted there.
AUSTIN: Fuck with thing until I get a cool symbol. An occult symbol. [ALI chuckles]
[beat]
AUSTIN: There we go. It’s like a signature now.
ART: [lying] Yeah. That’s what I was going for. [ALI laughs]
[silence]
AUSTIN: Okay!
ART: See? Like that.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I got you! That looks good! Nice work, man. [ALI: Yeah!] What about the rest of this room?
ALI: It… This is top-down, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah, this is top down. Yes.
ALI: Okay. I was just making sure.
ART: I hope everyone brushed up on three-point perspective before we started [AUSTIN: Uh-huh.] [ALI stifles] airing.
AUSTIN: I’m gonna make this the same– I’m gonna make this the same, like, dark gray color. That way, we… It matches. Unless you think it’s– Is it that color? Is it a window? Art? [ALI: Hmm…]
ART: No, I don’t think so. I think [AUSTIN: Oh, okay.] it’s just, like, spooky up there.
AUSTIN: Okay. [ALI laughs] It’s spooky up there. Can you make that, like– Can you make a note on the map that says “It’s spooky up here”? Please?
ART: [crosstalk] Uh, sure. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Thank you. Just for accuracy, you know?
ALI: Right, yeah. So we don’t forget.
AUSTIN: Ali, what about you? Do you wanna add something to this? East and west walls seem…?
ALI: [sighs] [crosstalk] Um… They seem fine. [AUSTIN: Okay.] I’m wondering if we should just– [laughs] –if we should just, like, close the square?
AUSTIN: Just, like, straight, flat, square.
ALI: [crosstalk] Or if we should sort of, like… like, long hallway action? From here?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Yeah, what about this. Wait, one sec. Let me propose something here. What if it’s like a long hallway [ALI: Okay. [laughs]] that you– Art, thank you for using the COUNTER/Weight map font that we use all the time, too. [ALI laughs] Um… Like this? Ali? [ALI: Yeah!] Yeah, this is pretty good. I like this. And then what if the sarcophagus is like a diamond?
[pause]
AUSTIN (cont’d): Like this. [ALI: Oh, yeah.] Does that work?
ALI: Do we wanna do separate rooms in here? Or… [AUSTIN: No, it’s–] Are we allowed to do that?
AUSTIN: I don’t think so. [ALI: Okay.] I think it’s just a– It is a tomb. Let me just double check here. No, it needs to be built around a central sarcophagus.
ALI: Oh, okay.
AUSTIN: “The outlines of The Tomb.” Yeah, I don’t think it’s like… I think this is just The Tomb. Like, theor– Pretend that, down here, there are other rooms and stuff, you know? [ALI: Mmmm. Mhm…] That someone has moved through by the time they get to here. Um… Okay. I think we should… Do we now answer them? Yeah, we do. We now answer the questions about our– from our classes. From our skeletons. So, my question is–
What beautiful artifact is enshrined in the alcove above the northern wall?
AUSTIN: –which is interesting. That means, like– Is there, like, a secret pa– like, there’s a secret door behind there?
ALI: Oh, like an attic?
AUSTIN: Is it “above” as in north, or “above” as in… like…
ALI: Above?
ART: [crosstalk] Above?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Above? “The alcove above the northern wall…”
ART: Mine says,“Alcove off the northern wall”.
AUSTIN: Oh, it does say “off the northern wall”. I misread. Alright, so that means that… I’ll just delete one of these lines. [chuckles] Let’s delete this one. I’m just gonna draw that alcove. I don’t know what’s in there yet, but… So now I’m gonna do it like this. Boom. [ALI laughs] That looks terrible. I’m gonna hit undo. [ART laughs] That looks lewd. I don’t like it. [ALI: No!]
ART: Oh, it just kinda looks like a face with a nose! It’s like a beak!
AUSTIN: Oh, well, now it’s like a beak. Now we know what this actually is. Thank you, Art. It is. It is a beak. So now I can just– Oop. That’s not what I wanted. I can actually–
ALI: [crosstalk] It looks like a key to me.
AUSTIN: I– Well, maybe it’s both. [ALI: Oooh!] Because now I can just do, like, an actual beak. Like that! [ALI chuckles]
ART: There it is.
AUSTIN: Okay. So that’s mine. I’ll figure out what’s in there in a second. What are you, Art? You’re Tattered Cloak?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: You have–
Who are interred in the seven niches–
AUSTIN: “Nitches”? “Neeshes”.
–along the–
ART: I say “neeshes”, and I’ve discovered that that’s, like, one of those incorrect French-en-ings of a non-French word.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Ahh, interesting. Okay, so–
–the seven niches along the southern wall? Note your answer on the map.
AUSTIN: Also, figure out where they are on the quote-unquote “southern wall” here. [chuckles] Like, it’s probably these two southeast and southwest walls, right?
ART: Yeah, yeah. Like, three over here, and [AUSTIN: Yeah.] three over here? –and four over here?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Do whatever you feel like is right. And then Ali, yours is–
What scene is depicted in the fresco that covers the eastern wall? Note your answers on the map.
ALI: Ohh… Um… Man, “scene” is one of those words.
AUSTIN: What is?
ALI: So I’m wondering if it should be–
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Oh, “scene”. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ALI: [crosstalk] “Scene”. Because I was thinking, like, a school of fish, but now I don’t know if it should be something…
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Oh! That sounds… No, that works. I think that works. [ALI: Okay. Yeah.] I am gonna do, um… Now that I know that there is this bird-key situation [ALI chuckles] I think it is– the beautiful artifact is a big… It is a big bird– It’s like a duplicate of the actual dungeon. Like, it looks exactly– It is the same shape as the dungeon. So watch this shit. Boom. Copy. Let’s see if I can do this the right way. [ALI laughs] Let’s see if this just fucks up or not.
[beat]
AUSTIN (cont’d): Oop, that didn’t go right.
[pause]
AUSTIN (cont’d): Alright. Also wrong. [ART: Okay…]
[pause]
AUSTIN (cont’d): Nope.
[beat]
AUSTIN (cont’d): There we go. [ALI stifles]
[pause]
AUSTIN (cont’d): Let me make it… [ALI chuckles]
[pause]
AUSTIN (cont’d): What’s the hex color for gold?
ALI: Oh, um…
AUSTIN: I got it. I think I got it. F-F-D-700. Mmm, that’s too gold. I want a little less gold. [ART chuckles] Here we go.
[pause]
ART: How do you… How do I draw people entombed in the wall? [ALI laughs] Are they just there?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Uhh, you’re the artist.
ALI: Yeah, I– It’s up to you.
ART: Alright.
[pause]
AUSTIN: Delete that… Delete that…
[pause]
ART: I don’t know why my stuff defaults to this teal color.
AUSTIN: Uh, it’s because– See in the bottom of the screen?
ART: Oh, I’m teal.
ALI: [crosstalk] Oh, that’s your color. Yeah.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] You’re teal. Yeah. You can pick a different color.
[pause]
AUSTIN: I just realized other people see what I’m doing already, just you guys don’t. [chuckles]
ART: I’m excited, I want you to know.
AUSTIN: Uh, it’s– it’s… fine. It’s not that exciting. [ALI chuckles] It’s nothing special.
ART: Wait, are you the one over here?
AUSTIN: Over where?
ART: Hold on, I have to switch to… Are you here? Is this you?
ALI: No, that’s me.
ART: Okay.
ALI: I’m writing– I’m drawing my fish situation.
AUSTIN: Is it a competitor to Fishteen Minutes, or…? [ALI cackles]
ALI: Uh, it’s the movie, but okay. [laughs]
AUSTIN: [intrigued] It’s the movie?
ALI: Yeah!
[beat]
AUSTIN: Why is that set to that? That’s not right. Should be set to th– Aw, fuck off!
ART: Oh, fuck…
AUSTIN: Yeah, same. [ALI snorts] Let’s try this again. There we go.
ART: [crosstalk] What– But you said control-Z would undo it!
AUSTIN: It does, but you have to finish it first. You can’t just– [ART: Ahh…] You can’t just do it while– You can’t just undo it while it’s not a thing.
ART: Oh, that’s not true. That’s still there. Goddamnit.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Aw, fuck… That’s just not the right… [ALI snorts] Hmm…
ART: Goddamnit! [chuckles]
AUSTIN: Oh, this’ll work. It’s fine.
[silence]
AUSTIN (cont’d): I said it was fine, and now it’s– Okay, there we go. It is a tiny version– It is like a sculpture/key of this room, basically. I need to make it, like, different. One second. Let me lock these together… Nope. That didn’t work. [ALI chuckles] Fuckin’ Roll20, man.
ART: What the fuck! [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: How ya doing?
ART: I’ve been better! [ALI and AUSTIN laugh]
AUSTIN: Welcome to Friends at the Table, where we fuck around in Roll20 for way too long drawing maps.
ALI: This is the point of this game.
AUSTIN: It is.
ART: Fuckin’– I miss “blank spaces” already. [ALI cackles]
AUSTIN: There we go. What happens if I try to color this in. Let’s see if it just goes wild. Oh, that’s kinda cool. Alright! Yeah! Here we go. Alright, so it is a duplicate, in shape, of this key– or, of this room, this tomb, that is, like… the top of it is, like, ruby encrusted. [ALI: Oooh!] The bits that are in red are ruby encrusted. So that is the beautiful artifact enshrined in the alcove along the northern wall. Can I flip this? No. I like your fresco! This is nice.
ALI: Thank you! [chuckles]
AUSTIN: Where are your bodies, Art?
ART: They’re in these little– there’s little things I’ve drawn. [AUSTIN: Oh, okay.] Why can’t I make them another color? Great question! [ALI chuckles] Don’t know.
AUSTIN: I got you. What color do you want them to be?
ART: I was just gonna make them match the rest of the wall.
AUSTIN: I got you. You don’t have, like, a thing at the top? Where it’s like, “Just click this and make it a different color?”
ART: Yeah, I tried that, and I ended up with a line clear across the whole thing.
AUSTIN: Okay, well, now that it’s done, you can click on them, and then click the thing at the top to make it the same color. I’ve had a lot of practice drawing maps in Roll20. [ALI: Uh-huh.] Uh… Cool.
ART: But these seven people… these were bird handlers. [AUSTIN and ALI: Oh!] These were…
AUSTIN: Is that a thing we’re allowed to know yet?
ART: …special– That’s what it said. It says, “Who are they?”
AUSTIN: Oh! “Who are they?” Bird handlers! [ART: Yeah.] Sick! [ALI giggles] Man, we picked a game–
ART: [crosstalk] It actually doesn’t say we didn’t…
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] –with no bird– with no animals, and we still fucking wound up making an animal game. Friends at the Table.
ALI: [crosstalk] We love ‘em!
AUSTIN: What were you saying?
ART: This is what happens to bird handlers in this culture. [AUSTIN: Oh!] [ALI laughs] They get entombed in the tomb. [ALI: Oooh.] [AUSTIN: Hmmm.]
ALI: Gotta love the bird.
AUSTIN: Um… Okay! I think we also need to decide where we are, right?
Draw on the map where your skeletons each stand and watch in darkness, while the tomb remains undisturbed.
ALI: Oh… Does anyone have any, uh… dibs?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] I have a good one. I’ve got a dib. Even though Art came up with the north– Unless– Art. I– Art, actually, can decide. Do you wanna be in the spooky northern place?
ART: No, I don’t think I do. I just wanted there to be a spooky northern place. [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Okay. I think my skeleton is in the spooky northern place, and is looking at the wall as if it were a window. Now, watch me draw a bad skeleton. There’s a skull– Oh, fuck. That’s fine.
ALI: Oh, we can do, like, a copy and paste of the ones that are on the sheets?
AUSTIN: I mean, you can try. [ALI laughs] Does yours have a cool fucking necklace, or what?
ALI: Well, you draw the necklace on top of the skeleton!
AUSTIN: Mmm. I’m gonna draw– See, it doesn’t say that. It says, “Draw on the map where your skeletons each stand silent and watch the darkness, while the tomb remains undisturbed.” So.
ALI: “Sketch details in the illustration!”
AUSTIN: Where do you see that?
ALI: On the character sheet! [laughs]
ART: [crosstalk] Yeah, personally–
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Oh, no. That’s for you to do that, for the character sheet. You still have to add it [ALI: Oh.] to the map. It says, “Draw on the map where your skeletons each stand silent.”
ALI: Ooooh.
AUSTIN: Mhm. [ART: Aw…] That’s a good point, though. I’ll drag these…
ALI: [crosstalk] Well, I’ll just make a token of the– Yeah!
AUSTIN: [huffs] Fine. Give me a second to make a token.
ALI: Woah! [laughs] Okay!
AUSTIN: It just takes–
[windows error noise]
AUSTIN (cont’d): I just should have done that ahead of time, because it takes a minute, because Roll20’s bad.
ALI: [sighs] If I take– If I take croppings of all of them, will that help you?
AUSTIN: I’m already doing it. Take yours. [ALI: Okay.] Do yours. [ALI: [laughs] Okay.] Uhh… Cropped.
ALI: Here. I linked in the discord.
AUSTIN: There we go. Whoop! I just drew a thing… I– Fucking– [grrr] Hrrm. Roll20– See, the thing is, you can’t just– Agh!
ALI: Oh! [laughs] Okay, nevermind!
AUSTIN: You see? Do you see why I don’t fuck with Roll20 ever?
ALI: If this is a whole thing, then nevermind.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] It’s fine. It’s fine! It’s fine. [frustrated] Hmmmm-h-hm! I lost part of a tomb. [ALI laughs] [ART: Oh, no!] It’s fine.
ALI: You did not!
AUSTIN: I undid it. We’re fine. But I deleted half of the sarcophagus a second ago. [ALI stifles]
ALI: I feel like your “drawing your maps in Roll20” is my “still using Audacity”.
AUSTIN: Uh, I’ve started to fuck with other things, but… [ALI: Okay.] It’s actually mostly a meditative practice at this point. [ALI laughs] Drawing maps in Roll20 before we do a big thing is, like… bad? It’s bad. But, what it does do is allow me to think really hard about what the adventure is gonna be.
ALI: Oh, because you have to, like…
AUSTIN: Because I have to, like, think about– I have to, like, see it, in my head, and think about how to represent all bits of it. That’s part of why I think the September arc worked so well, was I thought really hard about it for a long time while I was doing all those things. [ALI chuckles] Alright. Let’s see…
ALI: [crosstalk] While you were drawing fifty triangles. [AUSTIN: Exactly.]
ART: [crosstalk] Can we get this– Can we get the second “spooky” up here off the… [laughs]
AUSTIN: Wait, is there double “spooky”? Where is– Oh. [laughs] That’s a good “spooky”!
ART: [crosstalk] …another “Austin”.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] It’s spooky life hours.
ALI: [crosstalk] Oh, and also, there’s another skeleton.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Oh, is that not… I thought that was– I thought that was on purpose. I thought someone stole that skeleton. I was like, “Oh, yeah. Me too.”
ART: I tried to, but then drew my “exed-out eyes, wearing a cool cloak” skeleton over here. Oh, the cloak’s supposed to be red! Fuck!
AUSTIN: Mhm. Alright, I got one [ALI: It’s fine.] [ART: Oh, no!] skeleton incoming. Ali, did you send me another skeleton?
ART: [crosstalk] How do I even…
ALI: I did.
AUSTIN: Okay. Is this yours?
ALI: Yeah. I have this one?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Cool skeleton. Save image as. Boom. Uh…
ALI: See? Look how good I look.
AUSTIN: One second. Let me make this one tiny… [ALI chuckles] Now that is a big old skeleton! Oh, boy. Alright, there’s one skeleton. It’s so– It’s so…
ALI: Alright. Can I move it? Wait…
AUSTIN: Can you do what? Is yours on the board?
ALI: [crosstalk] Can I move it?
AUSTIN: That’s mine.
ALI: Yeah! Oh…
AUSTIN: Do you see the head?
ALI: Right. I do. [laughs]
AUSTIN: [sighs] Oh, fucking… Let me just select this. Okay, delete that. Okay. Boom. I should note, if you’re listening, this might be one you wanna watch the video for, which you can find [ALI cackles] on the, uh… the Patreon.
ALI: [crosstalk] We should maybe cut this one down a little bit. [chuckles]
AUSTIN: That’s on you, if you want to. I don’t know. Where did I put your skeleton? Uh… That’s…
ALI: [crosstalk] Please find my skeleton.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] I’ve found your skeleton. Uploading. And then Art’s skeleton is the third and final skeleton.
ART: Wait, what? No, let me keep my drawing! [laughs]
AUSTIN: Oh, do you not want this?
ART: No, I want to be over– [laughs] I like my crudely drawn [AUSTIN: Okay!] skeleton!
AUSTIN: Okay, that’s fine. Alright– oop.
ART: I wish that I could make just the cloak red, but this is what it is.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] I think your skeleton got stretched weird. One second. [ALI laughs] I’m gonna repost. I’m reposting your skeleton.
ALI: Okay, thank you.
AUSTIN: Alright, that’s– [as if failing to balance on a tightrope] Whoo! Wah! When! Pshhew. There we go. There’s a good sized skeleton right there.
ALI: Can I control my skeleton please? [laughs]
AUSTIN: Umm… Hmm… [ALI’s really wheezing now] Edit? No… Layer? Hmm… Hahh… This isn’t how you do that, no. You actually can’t this way. I have to come over here. I have to make–
ALI: [crosstalk] Can you put me in front of the hallway?
AUSTIN: I have to make a character, and I have to– [ALI laughs again] Apparently it’s called [incantation voice] Efrokoes Inavee– Inavai! Which is not really what I expected for it to say… I’m gonna drop an image in there. I’m gonna put it in your journal.
ALI: In my journal? Okay.
AUSTIN: In your journal, Alicia. There we go. Okay, save changes. Let’s see if this just works, or if it’s gonna be a pain. There you go! You should be able to control it now.
ALI: This is me?
AUSTIN: Uhh… Yeah? “Controlled by (Determined by Character settings)”. Do you see it?
ALI: Yeah. [AUSTIN: Okay.] I have multiple… Okay. [chuckles]
ART: We should just not release this as a… [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: No, this is great. Oh, I love your cloak! What a good cloak.
ART: [crosstalk] …audio file. This should be a video only. Yeah, see? I’m a cool skeleton dude with a cloak.
AUSTIN: I should’ve had a cloak. Alright. Draw… Freehand. Wait, wait. Gimme that silver torq. A torq is like a choker necklace. Like, what if medieval people wore, like– were into goth. What if the Goths…
ART: [crosstalk] Uh, thank you for giving that exposition, because I did not want to admit that I had no idea what a torq was [AUSTIN: It happens.] and didn’t wanna spend thirty seconds googling it.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Okay! I love your skeleton, Art. It’s very cute. Um… Alright, we’ve all done that part of this. Alright. So, now we should talk about working together.
Unless you’re playing alone, you’ll need to cooperate to reveal the skeletons’ past and future. The game will ask you to make choices, so decide in advance how they will be made. Taking turns? By consensus? Sometimes something will happen to a single skeleton. The actions of intruders require similar cooperation. Consider giving different players responsibility for each group of intruders, and letting them make all the decisions for that brief slice of time. Their skeleton can be strangely still.
AUSTIN: [chuckles] We can do it that way. We can do it… I kinda feel like we should just do it the way we do things, which is just, like… be us, and be collaborative, and be willing to hand off narrative control when it makes sense, and suggest things? Or we can do it this more structured way. It’s up to y’all. What do you think?
ART: I think we thrive on a lack of structure [AUSTIN and ALI laugh] but I don’t know. Anarchists, they. I don’t know.
AUSTIN: Maybe this other thing that was cool, which is that in the bonus material, there is a thing that says–
Choose a different player to answer each question and introduce each new intruder. A simple way to accomplish this is take turns, rotating clockwise every time the game asks for a creative prompt.
AUSTIN: Maybe we just do, like, the intruder side of it. Introducing– Picking which intruders show up by doing it in order? Does that make sense? And then what they do when they get here can still be a fun big collaborative thing. That’s what I’m gonna suggest. If there’s no… It doesn’t sound like there’s any objections. [chuckles]
ALI: Yeah, that works. I’m trying to draw this maze and I can’t erase things. [laughs] It’s turning into a whole thing.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Oh, I see. I put two of them down.
ALI: That’s fine.
AUSTIN: You look like a Sailor Moon villain.
ART: [crosstalk] The problem is you can’t make your…
AUSTIN: It’s great!
ART: Yeah, and it looks like–
ALI: [crosstalk] Those are supposed to be chains. They’re not supposed to be–
ART: [crosstalk] It looks like your torso has a– has eyebrows and a mustache.
ALI: [laughs] I can’t make the lines smaller! [ART laughs]
AUSTIN: Wait, yeah, you can. Can’t you?
ART: I don’t think you can.
ALI: [crosstalk] I can’t!
AUSTIN: Thin. There you go. [ALI cackles]
ART: Okay, we’re not all…
ALI: [crosstalk] I’m playing the moon now.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Do you not have…
ART: [crosstalk] We’re not all Dr. Roll20 over here.
AUSTIN: [chuckles] Do you not have those controls?
ALI: I guess I don’t. I can’t get rid of them, though. Keep the– Keep the gems the same size– the middle part? [AUSTIN: Yeah.] But it’s just the lines. [laughs]
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] The thing is, it’s so tiny that I can’t even get in… What is– What’s this thing up here? What’s the thing above it? [ALI wheezes] What’s that? Is this something?
ALI: [crosstalk] Bagel. No, that was a mistake. [laughs]
AUSTIN: You don’t have a flying piece of chain above your head?
ALI: I might, now that you say that.
AUSTIN: What about this one over here? Next to the mace?
ALI: No, that’s also a mistake.
AUSTIN: Okay. I almost deleted the whole thing! And that would’ve been bad.
ALI: And so is that yellow mark on the top.
AUSTIN: Oh, this… [ALI: Yeah.] There?
ALI: Thank you. Thank you!
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] You’re good! Good.
[silence]
AUSTIN (cont’d): Okay.
ART: Oh, I didn’t check your list of aliases to see if you already had a doctor, and I’m… It really should’ve been, like, “Roll20, PhD” or something.
AUSTIN: That’s fine. Don’t worry about it. [ALI chuckles] Um… It’s…
ART: It’s important to keep kayfabe.
AUSTIN: It is. [wheezes] I’m dead, kayfabe, though. Remember? [ART: Hmm.] So. [ALI chuckles]
ART: I mean, you still have a name.
AUSTIN: I guess that’s true. I still have a lot of names, technically. [ART makes a sound of acknowledgement] [sighs] Okay!
[silence]
AUSTIN (cont’d): Let’s… keep going. Stephy Elaine says, “It’s really bothering me that there aren’t an even number of tombs in the walls.” Yeah, seven. Seven is what it is.
ART: Rules said seven.
AUSTIN: Rules said seven.
0:35:24.6
Austin: Uh... so, when you are ready — or when you have skeletons and a map, turn out the lights and take a moment to breathe. Feel the silence. Imagine the weight of countless years. [sighs]
Art: All right.
Austin: When you are ready, turn out the lights and say, “arise, and protect the tomb, skeletal guardians!” An intruder is breaking into the tomb. That second part isn't in quotes, so I didn't use like a big voice.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: When an intruder violates the tomb, the skeletons spring into action. They are cursed to defend the tomb against all comers with as much ferocity they can muster, forever. It is the only time when they can move, think, and feel. All else is darkness. During an encounter, the skeletons can communicate with each other telepathically, discuss matters, make plans, and otherwise exhibit a limited form of agency. They must always act to remove threats to the tomb, and they are incapable of any action that contravenes this goal. They can be clever – remaining still to orchestrate an ambush, for example. But they cannot ignore or aid an intruder. While an intruder is present, skeletons may also remember bits from their past. Their minds are their own for the duration of the encounter, provided that they are busy removing threats. Once the threat is removed, they must immediately return to their watchposts, and be still.
0:37:03.4 Skeletons win encounters with intruders — tomb robbers, wandering beasts, and other pests are driven away or killed, until finally, they are not. The rules change when you reach the third part of the game, with the desecration, and it is there that the skeletons will, likely, be defeated. When is it time for your first encounter, choose one from the unsealed tomb and mark it off. Do whatever the instructions say. So... the unsealed tomb has... a bunch of possible encounters. Choose an intruder and mark it, follow the instruction. When two of the intruders have been checked off and dealt with, go to the time of dust — which is the second stage of the game. So our choices here for intruders are grave rats, an amateur tomb robber, a spirit of place disturbed by the newly-built tomb.
0:37:49.4 So I guess one quick question — have we been here awhile already, or is this a new tomb?
Art: We've been here long enough that we're skeletons.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Okay, but I mean like, is it, I mean, in the, has it been a decade, you know what I mean? Or has it been a thousand years?
Ali: I like to think that we were like, defending it alive, and then, we're skeletons and we still do.
Austin: Well, we'll answer those questions when we —
Art: [unintelligible]
Ali: Okay.
Art: Oh, damn. [unintelligible]
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: I'm just saying, a lot of these things are things like... why are you here? You know?
Ali: Oh, okay. Fair fair fair. Okay.
Austin: Uh... why don't you have a head? [laughs] For instance.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Um, but I, just because I, if it's, if it hasn't been, if it isn't a newly-built tomb, then it can't be the spirit of the place. Uh, but if it's a newly-built tomb, it could be the spirit of whatever's here. Or... it could be rats. And we're, I'm going to pick rats as my first thing. It's going to go me, Art, Ali, because that's the order that it is on my screen. So, I'm going to pick the first intruder. Grave rats. How do you drive away such small, agile creatures and prevent their return? Everyone can answer one question, if they wish. Choose once on either The Glory Fades or God's Laugh table, which I'll get to in a second.
0:39:05.0 Uh, the rats get in through, I think it's just like, we're just sitting here for a long time. [chuckles] And then, uh, rats start spilling through these, uh, the, the alcoves. No, the, the niches in the bottom of the, of the room, of the southern end. Whoever built the bird — what are they, birdwatchers? No, birdkeepers, the birdkeeper tombs did not seal them correctly, and rats have gotten in. And they begin to spill in en masse into the tomb. How do we keep them out? How do we, how do we defeat them, and then how do we prevent their return? I'm curious.
0:39:42.3
Ali: Oh, two... two parts, okay.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: [chuckles]
Austin: Ali, you're like, the closest, so I wonder what your, what your skeleton does, as soon as [possible].
Ali: Yeah, I, uh, hm. So they're coming out, like, alive, not like, just like, tomb mice, like, “hey, what's up?” [laughs]
Austin: No, they're big, they're big, gross rats.
Ali: Mmm. I don't like that. Uh... I have this mace.
Austin: Yeah?
Ali: I could just... [laughing] I can like, try to hit the holes with the mace, so like, as they're coming out, they can't, sort of?
Austin: So like, blocking on top of the things? Yeah.
Ali: Like they're getting hit at the — yeah. And then like, killing them as they're coming through.
Austin: Gotcha. Uh... Art? What about your skeleton?
Art: Uh... I do think that's like a good strategy. Plugging the holes with dead rats is certainly going to discourage new rats.
Austin: Ugh... gross! Are you like, picking up the dead rats and stuffing them in?
Art: Yeah, we're... we're skeletons. I mean, we're...
Ali: [chuckles]
Austin: Yeah, but you have your mind, is an important thing to remember.
Art: Sure, but like, I don't have, I don't have hands or germs or...
Austin: Right. Fair, fair.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: You have hands, you just have bone hands. You're not of the handless.
Art: Right. I [unintelligible] the skin, I'm not going to eat...
Austin: Uh... okay. I think I'll come over and, uh, probably begin to help with that. Uh... I'm trying to think of there's anything else. I think also, you know, the other thing I do here is I think, uh, maybe there is like... because there's other things in this tomb that we just haven't drawn in yet. Uh... maybe I just also start to like, mix that in with other junk that I'm just like picking up huge handfuls of. But, by junk, what I mean is like, huge, like, piles of gold, of just like gold coins, that I'm mixing in with like, gross rat corpses, to like... because it's heavy, and they can't push past it. Whereas, yeah, they would eat the other rats, eventually. The rats that are trying to get in would just eat through the, the other rats. So like, we end up stuffing these things with gross rat corpses and gold. Uh... okay. We also get to each answer a question, one of other questions. Uh... who wants to go first?
Ali: I can go.
Austin: Uh, okay, which question are you answering?
Ali: Oh, I get to choose? It's not like —
Austin: Yeah, it's from, it's from your character sheet.
Ali: Uh... okay. Should I read out the options?
Austin: [unintelligible] these questions — yeah, go ahead.
Ali: Okay. So my options are: What was your name? Whom did you once love? What byname did you earn in a life that describes your greatest accomplishment? What thing in this place did you lovingly craft with your own hands? Choose from one of those already introduced if you are able. Uh... [laughing] who claimed your head, and why? Uh... what connection do you have to those you've just killed or driven away? What memory did they invoke? Ooh, that's a heavy one, okay.
Austin: That is heavy one.
0:42:55.0
Ali: Uh... hm. I think my name was Rohan.
Austin: Ooh, Rohan's a good name.
Ali: Yeah.
Art: All right.
Austin: Uh... Art, what about you?
Art: I think we, I think we all have the same first three questions, so what was your name, whom did you once —
Austin: Yeah, I think we all do.
Art: Love, what byname did you earn in life that describes your greatest accomplishment — my last three are, what area in this place are you forbidden to set foot in?
Austin: Ooh, that's good.
Ali: That's a good one.
Art: Choose from among those already introduced if you are able. Note your answer on the map. Who here among the skeletons richly deserves this fate, and why?
Austin: Ooh, that's really good.
Art: Yeah. What connections do you have to those you've just killed or driven away? What memory did they evoke? I guess that's another —
Austin: That's some shared... yeah.
Art: Uh, I am not allowed to set foot in the, the beak.
Austin: Okay. So do you want to add that to the map? Also, Ali, do you want to add your name under your skeleton?
Ali: Oh, sure.
Austin: I'm going to add gold coins here, and also then blood/rat junk.
Ali: Just the blood, please. [wheezes laughing]
Austin: You don't want rat junk?
Ali: [continued laughing]
Austin: Just the blood please, actually, can you just add the blood, please? Uh, please just the blood. One order of blood, please.
Ali: [laughing] Just blood clean.
Austin: Some of it spilled out here... just like lots of gold coins now all over this place. Uh, and then, yeah, let's get some blood. Some nice little blood to add to the map here. Doo-doo-doo... oh, Rohan. Doo-doo-doo... blood blood blood blood blood, blood blood blood, blood blood blood, blood blood blood blood blood...
Ali: Do you want some help with that blood — oh, no, you've got it covered.
0:44:40.1
Austin: I've got it, I've got it fucking covered, let me tell you. I've got some blood in here.
Ali: [laughs]
Austin: Some blood dripped out, oh, no... there we go. Okay. Blood. Blood it up. Uh, “no Art,” good. I'm also just going to write The Beak up there. Uh... ch-ch-ch... is that [patch panned]? The Beak. That's... spelled way wrong. There we go.
Art: [chuckles]
Austin: And... no. There we go. The Beak.
Ali: Oh, no.
Austin: Nope. Up here. Hold still. There we go. Cool. My questions are... yeah, what was your name, whom did you once love, what byname did you earn in this life that describes your greatest accomplishment... uh... what thing, what thing you once owned can be seen among the bones of would-be robbers that litter the floor. Note your answer on the map. I'm not going to do that one yet. Who here — who here among the skeletons is kin to you, and what is your relationship? Uh... what connection do you have to those you've just killed or driven away? What memory did they evoke? Uh... I'm going to say... that... the... hm. Hm. [laughs] Who here among the skeletons is kin to you, and what is your relationship?
0:45:56.4 I'm going to do that one, and I'm actually going to say that, uh, uh, hm... I have like 3 ideas, and I'm trying to figure out which one I like the best.
Ali: [laughs]
Austin: Uh... I think Art and I are brothers.
Art: All right.
Austin: I didn't get the red cloak, for some reason.
Ali: [gasps]are
Art: Well...
Austin: Uh, okay.
Art: Should have studied harder.
Austin: Damn. Owned. Uh, and then, we, uh, go to the — oh, then we have to — choose once from either the Glory Fades or God Laughs table, which I don't think I put over in the hand-out sheet, but it's in the book. Uh...
Art: Uh, yeah, it's down here, isn't it?
Austin: It's in the book, but it —
Art: Yeah. Oh, it's in the book, we have the book, okay.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not like — I thought I did do a copy, let me just check my, my, uh, pictures really quick to make sure I didn't just not put it in there. Skeletons, okay... yeah, I don't think — oh, there it is. Tomb tables. I'm going to upload it right here. Handout. Drop a file. Tomb tables..
0:47:07.9
Art: Oh, it's... I'm looking at the wrong one. Uh...
Austin: Yeah, you have to make sure you're not looking at one from you've the, the, this game also ships with like, uh, extra, like, tables and stuff to represent different settings. Uh, all right. So, we have to choose from the...
Art: Glory Fades or God's Laugh.
Austin: So, Glory Fades has the options: The magic compelling one of the skeletons to service, but not its undead energy, begins to fade — something — or, is beginning to fade. Something the skeletons was protecting is lost, stolen, or simply missing, what was it? A memory that a skeleton had previously regained is false, and the truth asserts itself. Which memory, and what truth?
Art: Ooh.
Austin: Uh... the place where are a skeleton stands watch is covered in debris and impassable. A skeleton loses some bones permanently. What bone part is missing? Note it on the character sheet. Uh, something the skeleton's protecting is damaged. What and how? And then God's Laugh is: a skeleton's weapon is broken, bent, or rendered useless. Don't forget, we have weapons. I had forgotten that. Even though Ali just used her mace. [laughs]
Ali: [snorts]
Austin: Uh, a skeleton's appearance is altered in some way. Perhaps they are marked by fire or magic. A memory that a skeleton had previously regained slips away and is lost forever. Which one? Something the skeletons are protecting is destroyed, what is it? Something from a skeleton's past has been accidentally revealed, what was it and why was it hidden? Note this on the map. And the magic animating one of the skeletons, but not its compulsion to service, is beginning to fade. What do y'all think?
Art: Oh, is that the truth — so you know that we're brothers, but I don't —
Austin: But you don't know. Yeah. Correct.
Art: You — you know.
Austin: You know.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: No, you know.
Art: No, you know.
Austin: No, Brendan's character knows. Okay. Uh...
Ali: [still laughing]
Austin: [chuckles] God. Welcome to Friends at the Table, a home movies tribute podcast.
Ali: [wheezes]
Austin: If we ever go completely Friends at the Table with our entire lives, then we're launching a, a home movies rewatch podcast, I hope you're ready.
Art: Home movies at the table — no, wait.
Austin: No, doesn't work.
Art: Friends at the, friends at the...
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Uh-uh. Bad.
Ali: Friends at the movies?
Austin: Friends at the movies — friends at the movies is just our movie watch podcast. All right.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: What do you think? Which of these? I think, I think stick Glory Fades, maybe? God's Laugh gets rough. Uh...
Ali: Yeah, this doesn't seem too wild.
Austin: Uh... what if one of us loses a hand, because it's friends at the table, while we're packing —
Ali: Hey!
Austin: While we're packing the, the, the crypts on the bottom with gold. “Oop, my hand just got fucking stuck in there.” [laughs]
Ali: True.
Art: Sure. I would also accept that as, I'm doing it with rats who could theoretically —
Austin: Have eaten your hand.
Art: Just like, take my hand. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, fair. Do you want to lose a hand?
Art: Sure, yeah.
Austin: All right. Uh, here's the thing, is I think you need to draw hands, so that you can lose one hand.
Ali: [laughing]
Art: Oh my god.
Austin: Just draw like a little hand, one hand sticking out of the bottom of your cloak.
Ali: Yeah, just draw one, yeah.
Art: All right, hold on, I'm going to zoom way in for this.
Ali: Yeah, that, that helps.
Austin: It does. And then, when you're —
Ali: That's how I did my whole mace situation.
Austin: When you're drawing, there should be a thing that says, small, regular, large... it might just say regular right now, on the top left.
Art: Oh yeah, okay. That's what that's referring to?
Austin: That's what that's referring to, yeah.
Art: And I'm not going to draw this in teal.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Ugh. Okay. Let's, uh, so now... as you're drawing, we now move on to Time Passes. After each intruder is driven away or killed, choose one of the options and mark it off. Sit in the darkness as indicated. Think about the endless silence and unfathomable darkness. So, either no time at all, immediately begin a new encounter. A day, turn off the lights and sit in silence for 5 seconds. Then say, “arise, and protect the tomb, skeletal guardians,” and begin a new encounter. A week, which takes 10 seconds, a month, which takes 20 seconds, a year, which takes 40 seconds, or a decade, which takes 1 minute.
0:50:52.8 How long do we want to wait for? Before something... before another intruder comes in, like... these rats are here, how long do we want to go next?
Ali: Uh...
Art: A, a month?
Ali: Oh, I was going to say the same thing.
Austin: All right. A month. Two people say a month.
Art: All right.
Austin: Okay, I'm going to turn off the lights.
Ali: Same.
Austin: Uh, my light. I have one light on. Uh... and then... it's, it's like a desk lamp.
Ali: It is.
Austin: And then I'm going to start a stopwatch. So, a month.
Ali: It is so dark in my room. [laughs]
Austin: Is... 20 seconds. Ready? [20 seconds passes]
0:51:47.8 Arise, and protect the tomb, skeletal guardians.
Art: God, 20 seconds is forever, did anyone every notice that?
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Uh-huh. Imagine a month! All right, so Art, you're up next. Who is our next intruder for the unsealed tomb?
Art: I think our next is an amateur tomb robber.
Austin: All right. Describe this person. Well-prepared or in rags? Confident or frightened? Who among you slays the tomb raider — robber — and how? Everyone must answer one question. The killer or killers may answer two.
Art: Uh... I sort of want this to be someone who like, really thought they were good, this is like —
Austin: [laughing, a mix between “ha” and “aw”]
Ali: Yeah.
Art: This is someone who like, like, not watched a lot of Indiana Jones movies, because I don't want this to be contemporary. But like... heard all the tales of the explorers, and like... got, like, got the, got like, got ready and was going to do it, but they really, they really don't know what they're talking about. I'm realizing just now that I'm describing Grand Magnificent...
Austin: Uh-huh!
Ali: [tittering]
Art: And I guess, uh, uh, you know, kind of fold that into your...
Austin: Mm-hm.
Art: Fiction here.
Austin: They haven't heard the next episode yet, but... there's a skeleton situation.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: With Grand Mag, so...
Art: Yeah...
Austin: Mmm. So how do we deal with it?
Art: Oh, do I, this is, this is, this is all of us.
Austin: It's, this part of it's collaborative, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: So I'm just positioning us to say that question. What do they have? Like, what sort of equipment do they have as they come in here?
Ali: Yeah, do we know how they came in?
Austin: Yeah, do they just come in through the front door?
Art: Yeah, I think so. I think that's how you know they're not, super, like, good at it.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: [laughing] But are confident.
Art: Yeah, they're like... just walking into the front door, this is easy. Open the door, walk in.
Austin: Uh... again, Rohan, you're the closest to that front door. What happens when this person comes in?
Ali: This is true. I think that... uh... I think that that, like, rock that I have above my head, like, floats into the middle of the hallway.
Austin: Oh, holy shit. That, that, that is like, a real thing.
Ali: [laughing] It's the power of storytelling. I can say that —
Austin: Wow. Word. True. Sorry, I'm drawing a sword, also. Go ahead, keep talking.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: I forgot that I had a sword. So, it floats. Then what?
Ali: Yeah, it goes into the middle of the hallway, and I think it's more of like a trip-wire than it is, like, anything else.
Austin: Like, where you can like... like, it, it goes off to let us know that this person's coming?
Ali: Right, yeah. I think that like, once their like, shoulder hits it or whatever as they're walking past. Because it's just like a little rock thing.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: Uh... I think as soon as —
Austin: I'm making it bigger but also — woah, that's not what I wanted to do. Uh-oh. I lost it. Fuck.
Ali: [laughing] Oh, it's gone now? It's — it's right there.
Austin: No, it's right here but it's like the wrong size. I don't know what happened there.
Ali: Oh, maybe that's what happens, it gets bigger.
Austin: Okay. Boom! It gets bigger.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: And it's here now. I've stretched what was — for people listening, I stretched what was a very, very, very small, um, uh, line, very small line, into a big block. And now it's just like, out in this, this entryway to the tomb. I guess we, yeah, we could, for people, again, listening, this, this looks sort of like a bird or a key.
0:55:31.3 There's a long hallway going north — going south to north. But then opens up diagonally, up left and up right, northwest and northeast. Uh, that then goes straight north, so it kind of like, it, like, flutes out and then goes up. On the eastern wall there is now a fish mural. On the, right in front of the entryway is Rohan, this, this headless skeleton with a mace. Uh, uh, in the northwestern part is, is Art's skeleton with a single hand. In the center is a diamond-shaped sarcophagus, and the top is this kind of bay-window-shaped, uh, alcove, where it is very spooky. I don't know what that means yet. I'm up there, and to the east of me, there is a beak shaped like a sharp triangle that has a, a simulacra of the same dungeon, is like a big metal, big golden, uh, ruby-encased, or ruby-encrusted, rather, uh, uh, like, artifact. Uh, so that's, that's the picture here. And now, there's a big stone floating down the middle hallway, interrupting this adventurer. Uh, what, uh, so what's this, what's the rock do?
0:56:40.3
Ali: Uh... well, it's like a big wall now, I guess. Um, but not like a full wall, probably, like maybe like... maybe like 4 feet high?
Austin: Okay.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: [unintelligible] he climbs over it, so what's he do after he climbs over it?
Art: [laughing]
Austin: Or is it just too tall? Is he like, “Ah, fuck! Got me! I guess I'm done.”
Ali: I don't know, I mean, I don't know, maybe... [laughs] they can't climb over it, or vault over it or whatever? But since they can, I'm still there with that mace...
Austin: Uh-huh.
Ali: And you guys have maybe, like, known what's up at this point. You have time to get over while they're... dealing with the wall.
Austin: I see. You can hear him like, it gives us the time to — if it was just one person, if it was just you and... I'm going to lose the sword, fuck. If it was just you and the —
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: And the wall, maybe he would get the drop on you, is what you're saying.
Ali: Right, right right.
Austin: But thankfully, it isn't. It is, in fact, that gives us the time to kind of like, team up as a group.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: My sword fell apart. Fuck. I hate roll20. [pause] I don't. I don't. We wouldn't have a show without roll20, I don't hate it.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Unfortunately, my sword fell apart. All right. I'm going to group these. Advanced... group. There we go. All right, so, yeah. I move away from my wall. Mmm... I move down towards you.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: [laughs] Uh, and so when he gets over it, do we just like, jump him?.
Art: Yeah, I think — hold on, let me see if I can get all of me. Nope!
Austin: Mm-hm.
Art: Oh, shit.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: [laughs]
Austin: Welcome.
Art: How do I...
Austin: Mm-hm.
Art: I need to... I need to get the head, too!
Austin: Yeah. This is the dilemma, isn't it?
Art: What do I gotta — oh, this is too big, I'm going to get something. Okay. Nope, that's like getting the wall...
Austin: Ungroup. There we go.
Ali: May — maybe like, throw your cloak... so your whole body doesn't have to move.
Austin: Oh my god. Your whole cloak moved — okay, I got you, I got you. I'm going to move your whole body. Get ready. Oh, I got it. I caught it. Where are you moving to? Tell me where you're moving to. I don't want to drop this.
Ali: [wheezes laughing]
Art: Uh... I was going to move like, here.
Austin: Okay. Boom! There we go.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: So now we're all just gathered down by the southern thing. Uh, what's it, what's the — when he sees the three of us, what is his reaction?
Art: I mean, I think you're ready, could be ready for a lot of stuff in a tomb, but not, oh, these skeletons are all gathering around this opening.
Austin: I also like the image of like —
Ali: Right?
Austin: He peeks over, and he's like, “this — fuck, okay. There's a skeleton right there. All right, I'm going to get ready... hoo... “ And like, he gets out some sort of anti-skeleton device, like a, like a...
Art: [laughing] What kind of anti-skeleton device...?
Austin: Baseball bat, I think? Like a baseball bat.
Art: All right.
Austin: Uh, uh, he like, he has that, and he has like a backpack on. And he like, hops over. He's like, all right, and he like, dusts himself off and gets ready with the baseball bat, and then he sees like, “oh, there's two more skeletons here now, fuck.” Like...
Ali: [laughing] And we're ready to go.
Austin: And we're ready to go.
Ali: We had all that extra time.
Austin: We're ready to go. All right. Who gets the killing blow on, on him? That way we know how many questions to answer.
Art: Oh, there's no like, he just books it?
Austin: No, he dies. The skeletons win.
Art: Okay. I mean, we win if he runs away.
Austin: True. It says...
Art: Or not.
Austin: It does say, who among you slays the tomb robber, and how?
0:59:58.3
Art: All right. Well, I guess it's not me. I'm the one here being like, let's just chase him off. So I'm, I think I just excluded myself from that.
Ali: [laughs]
Austin: Mm-hm. Uh... what if I cut off his head? Oh, I can't, my sword's blunt, I can't cut off a head.
Ali: Oh. I have this big mace.
Austin: Okay. Do you want to just like smash —
Art: That's really bad for head-cutting.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: [laughs]
Austin: Both of those are really bad, but you could like, just like —
Ali: I can beat him up.
Austin: Just, just beat him up. All right. So [unintelligible]
Ali: My, the like, the rat blood hasn't even dried on my mace.
Austin: Oh, gross.
Ali: And I'm beating this guy up. [wheezes laughing]
Austin: Gross. All right.
Art: God, how much blood is on there, that it like stays... for like —
Austin: I don't want to talk about it, it's gross.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: All right, so, that means that we all choose, or that means you choose two, and the rest of us choose one, question to answer.
Ali: Oh! Okay. Uh... let me, I [unintelligible] okay. So... hm. I have to choose two of them?
Austin: You get to choose two of them, yeah.
Ali: Okay. Wowee. All right. Uh... okay. I... I'm going to answer, who claimed my head and why.
Austin: Ooh.
Art: Oh.
Ali: And... [giggling] it was that I... was trying to sneak into this place, let me look at this place real quick, hold on. I was trying to sneak in from the, the back?
Austin: Mm-hm.
Ali: That like isn't a window, but could be, maybe?
Austin: Mm-hm.
Ali: [laughing] Uh, and I was beheaded out there, because I was trying to sneak in.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: And then the person who killed me took my body and dragged it inside.
Austin: Oh, wow, okay.
Ali: Yeah. So now I'm the skeleton in its place.
Austin: Okay. So you were another —
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Intruder coming to loot this place?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Okay. Cool. So that's one question. Uh... what's the other? Is your head still outside?
Ali: Oh, maybe. I don't know.
Austin: You want to draw a head up to the north, to be like, “oh yeah, my head's up there.”
Ali: Oh my god. [wheezes laughing] Okay. Do you guys want to do your questions, and then we'll come back?
Austin: Yeah, sure. Art, what question do you want to answer?
Art: All right.
Austin: Tattered cloak.
Art: I'll answer whom did you once love.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Art: And I'll answer, Freya, one of the bird handlers, now entombed...
Austin: Well... now covered with rat blood and gold. Can you mark —
Art: No, only the —
Austin: Freya's name?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: [laughs] Uh, and I will answer... um... what byname did I earn in life that describes my greatest accomplishment? And I think it is, uh, hm... I'm trying to think about what our society is like now. Uh, I think it's, it's, they call my, my person, uh... the Runner. Uh, this, this like, silver necklace around my neck is like literally a reward for being very fast, for winning races, uh, but was also, like a messenger, like, like a messenger in the military who would run messages back and forth between, uh, you know, encampments and, and platoons and whatever else.
1:03:26.1 Not platoons, knights didn't have platoons. Ranks? Whatever. Uh... I was the Runner. Uh, there was probably a degree of like, sarcasm there, too, of like, “he's real good at, at running. Not as, not as good at fighting.”
Art: Is there a way to put this in a box that isn't just in the top corner of the [unintelligible]
Austin: Yeah, yeah. Hold Alt while dragging a thing and it'll go anywhere, instead of being placed. [pause] There you go.
Art: All right.
Austin: Okay. What's your second, uh, question, Rohan?
Ali: Oh, I was drawing this whole time, I wasn't even...
Austin: Oh, I didn't see your head — oh, look at that head! That's nice.
Ali: [laughing] Yeah, like a brain... [unintelligible] just add different colors.
Art: It's probably, that, that's probably, unless there's some magic up there...
Austin: I have a question —
Ali: You don't know that.
Austin: Is that to scale?
Ali: [outburst of laughter]
Austin: Because, there is another class named Bighead, that you could have been, if you really wanted to be —
Ali: This is true.
Austin: If you wanted a big head, you could have been Bighead.
Ali: I... don't think that's to scale. I wanted the audience to see the head.
Austin: I gotcha. It's a good head. Nice hair.
Ali: Uh... thank you. Thank you. Uh, I think the other question I'm going to answer is, what connection do you have to those who you've just killed or driven away? What memory did they evoke?
Austin: Ooh.
Ali: I think that this is the time that I remember what happened to me.
Austin: Ah, ah, okay.
Ali: That I'm like, you know, it wasn't, this isn't my mission.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Ali: Uh, but I think that I'm like, I think that I'm like really sad about it, because this person came here for nothing. Like they came here just —
Austin: Mm-hm. And they don't even get to —
Ali: Like they came here just —
Austin: To be a skeleton now.
Ali: Right. Yeah, exactly. They were just coming here to rob this, and I was coming here for like, a reason.
Austin: Mm-hm. Uh... I'm trying to see if there's like a cool token for us to use for this dead guy. I typed “dead guy” into the search, and it just didn't... there's a premium asset. If I want to spend money, I could buy this dead guy for 5 dollars. I'm not doing that. It's not happening.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: It, it ain't —
Art: 5 dollars?
Ali: 5 dollars?
Austin: Well, it's not just — okay. It's, you know...
Ali: We can just draw a dead guy.
Austin: Draw a dead guy.
Ali: Do you want me to just draw a dead guy for you? Okay.
Austin: Totally. I mean, I'm still going to look at these goofy things, like this Wall Street Dragon. Uh... [laughing] it's good.
Art: Wall Street... like a, like a money dragon?
Austin: Yeah, it's a money dragon.
Ali: [laughing] I love him! I love [breaking into more laughter] him. [laughing]
Austin: He's very good. Uh-huh. I want to run this game. This looks good.
Ali: Yeah.
Art: Yeah, that's Shadowrun.
Austin: Oh, you know what this is? This is where halfling skater is from, that's where this is from.
Ali: Oh, right...
Austin: Yeah.
Art: Wall Street Dragon is Shadowrun. They make [unintelligible]
Austin: Yeah, I know, I know. Like, this is a cleric, and it is also just Shadowrun, like...
Art: Yep.
Ali: Wow. Wowee.
Austin: Still, though. Ugh. Bad. Bad. Bad!
Ali: It's [unintelligible] again.
Austin: Bad.
Art: Nope! Nope!
Ali: Uh-uh. No, no, no, no, no. None for me, thanks.
Austin: Nope, changed my mind. Uh-huh.
Art: Gee... whiz.
Austin: I just dragged a quote, uh, blinged goblin, onto the, onto the, onto the track here, just as a heads-up for people listening and not watching. Oh, good dead guy.
Ali: Thank you.
Austin: Do you want me to raise his head above the blood, or is there just no head under there?
Ali: Uh... you can leave it under.
Austin: Oh, boy. His head got all smashed up.
Art: Uh, is there some way we could —
Ali: [laughing] Have you seen my mace?
Art: [unintelligible] dragon that isn't...
Austin: Shadowrun?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: It's Bluff City.
Ali: Oh...
Art: Oh.
Austin: We can do a business dragon. I don't know. We'll figure it out. There'll be a time when there's a dragon, I'm sure.
Art: I would be like, dragons are out of — but what if we just did — oh, we haven't done that yet, never mind.
Austin: No one's heard that yet, Art.
Ali: [giggling] Mm!
Art: [nervously] Mm-hm.
Austin: Mm-hm-hm, ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha.
Ali: [laughing hard]
Austin: All right.
Art: [weakly] Ha-ha... ha-ha.
Austin: Next episode of Bluff City is dope, by the way. Get ready.
1:07:31.3
Ali: There's no dragon!
Austin: There's no dragons. There is maybe the most Austin Walker name I've ever come up with, though. Uh, okay. So, that's two. Uh... after, when two intruders have been checked off with and dealt with, go to the Time of Dust — all right, to we have to do a Time Passes again, briefly. So how long should this be?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: We did a month last time. How long between this and us moving on to the next stage?
Art: I want to do a really long one, but it might be too soon.
Austin: Uh... it doesn't matter, is what at least say. [laughs]
Ali: [laughing]
Art: Oh, we're about to move into a new era, we're about to go to the Time of Dust.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah. So maybe it's a year or a decade. Maybe it's a decade. We kill this guy, and it's like, you know [sighs] uh, uh, let me look at my list of good names from this game. That person's name was, uh, uh, Thembo. Uh, [laughs] Thembo.
Ali: Mmm... [laughing]
Art: [laughing]
Austin: It's in the list. Here are some names and people and, and things. Thembo... Thembo is child, and the town is miserable. Like everyone, everyone loved Thembo. And... [chuckles] people are just devastated, they're like, “no one go to that fucking tomb ever again.” And a decade gives us enough time to where someone forgets that lesson.
Art: All right.
Ali: Okay. How long are we waiting?
Austin: We are going to wait for... a decade. Which is... 1 minute. Ready?
Art: Yeah.
Ali: Mm-hm.
Austin: Uh... I'll get a new lap — not like that, fuck. Uh... what do I do — oh, there's a lap button, I see, I see, I see, I see, I see. Uh... ch-ch-ch... one second. I'm going to keep talking, because I need to reset this for that first 20 seconds to be back on the clock.
Ali: Okay, yeah.
Austin: Otherwise it doesn't count. Uh...
Ali: Yeah, just tell us when the minute starts.
Austin: Get ready... 3, 2, 1, quiet. [1 minute passes] Arise, and protect the tomb, skeletal guardians. [deep breath] Okay. It has been a decade.
1:10:48.9 Choose an intruder. Mark it and follow the instructions. Ali. The Time of Dust.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Three options here.
Ali: Uh... yeah, my options are... a family seeking shelter, a pair of professional tomb robbers, or giant tomb spiders.
Austin: Mmm.
Ali: Hm.
Art: Oh, giant tomb spiders has some interesting questions. I am absolutely not trying to influence you...
Ali: [laughs] Uh... we can start with tomb spiders.
Austin: Great.
Art: Again, if one of those others speak to you, I don't want, please don't let me nudge you.
Ali: How many of these do we get? I wonder if —
Austin: Two. We get two.
Ali: We should do that second.
Art: We only get, so we get two, yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Up to you.
Ali: Uh... I don't want to make both choices, but I would like to do tomb spiders second because I think that's more interesting of like, if somebody else comes in, then they get like, shaken up.
Austin: Right.
Ali: Then come in, right? So...
Austin: Uh... wait, what do you mean if someone else comes in and they get shaken up?
Ali: So like, they're spiders, right?
Austin: Yeah...
Ali: [laughs] And like, someone else comes in, and they like, die, or like, you know, they break branches, they move doors —
Austin: Mm-hm.
Ali: And because of that, the giant tomb spiders wake up.
Austin: Oh, I see. You're saying that they've been here already.
Ali: Right. Right.
Austin: I see, I see, I see. So you're saying like — they — in that decade, the tomb spiders have been, have been set up, and now —
Ali: Yeah, they're like, they're like in the trees outside or whatever.
Austin: Okay. But that hasn't happened yet, they have not come in yet.
Ali: Right. Yes.
Austin: Instead, one of these other things happens. I'm, I'm willing to say giant tomb spiders on my next one, if you're willing to say, a family seeking shelter, now.
Ali: Sure.
Art: [laughs]
Austin: Uh... so are they refugees —
Art: The chat was, the chat knew Austin wanted the family and did not want him to —
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Of course, are you fucking kidding me? Are they refugees, or are they monsters? Everyone answers one question if they wish. If someone slays the matriarch, they may answer two.
1:13:07.2 Uh... I think that... I think that they are quote/unquote monsters. I think that it is a, a family of, of ogres. Um, uh, and, — no, trolls, trolls, not ogres. So they're like, fire-resistant and they're like really hairy and tall, and like, have big, um, like, gangly arms? Is that the word I'm looking for? Gangly?
Art: Um, they're like lanky?
Austin: Lanky. Yeah, but is gangly the same as lanky?
Art: I don't — uh, are we looking this up?
Austin: Another term for gangling, a tall, thin, and awkward in movement and bearing. Yeah. Gangly.
Art: Oh, yeah.
Austin: Um, uh, uh, there's, there are 5 of them. No, that's too many, we would, we would lose. There are 3 of them. [chuckles] Uh, it is, it is, a mother and, uh, her 2 children. Uh, the, uh, rest of her clan was killed by, by nearby, uh, hunters. And she is fleeing. Uh... she still has arrows in her, and you can see that they have burnt away part of her, her like shoulder skin, because they seem to have been chemically-treated arrows. They're arrows that are somehow alchemically treated to explode on contact. Uh... and you see that there are two of them in her, uh, she's like, she's covered in, her like whole back is covered in arrows. Uh, and wherever they hit, they're, they've burnt, uh, because they've been specifically treated to kill trolls. Um, I think, she's also in the process of regrowing one of her hands, because that's a thing trolls can do. Um, and she has one of her kids, the, the smaller one, on her back. And then the younger, or, the, the bigger one, is like carrying a tree branch, and is like, acting like a hero, is acting like a protector, but she's only like, 15 or something in troll years, do you know what I mean? She's not, she's not like a professional — she's not a big adult troll. She's still a little baby troll. Uh...
1:14:58.4
Art: You know what the worst part about the next 5 minutes of my life is?
Austin: Mm-hm?
Ali: [laughing]
Art: Is that you just did all this work making this, this sympathetic family of trolls, that we have to murder.
Austin: Uh-huh!
Art: That's what this game — we can't lose. And then —
Austin: Mm-hm.
Art: I'm going to murder one of these trolls, and everybody's going to be like, “Art's a monster.”
Austin: [laughing uproariously]
Ali: [laughing]
Art: You're the monster!
Austin: [laughing] [sighs] Mmm? Mmm? Mmm? Mmm? It does say... if someone slays the matriarch, they may answer too. It doesn't say whoever slays the matriarch.
Ali: [deep exhale]
Austin: So this is different, in this way, than the —
Art: We made a mistake.
Austin: Uh-huh?
Art: We did not do Glory Fades or God's Laugh.
Austin: Oh, shit, you're totally right, good catch.
Ali: Didn't we?
Austin: No, this last one we did not do that. We should do that right now.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: Goooood catch. We'll put that in handouts. Thank you. We should do one of those. Uh, they have green blood, Knightpool, they're trolls. Obviously.
Ali: Duh.
Austin: Uh, which, uh, so what do we think? Glory Fades, God's Laugh, what, what, do any of these break out, or, uh, stand out to us?
Ali: For the...
Austin: For the, the, the guy whose head we smashed in?
Ali: Oh, right right right, yeah. Uh... I mean, we did reveal my head, but that seems like cheating.
Austin: Yeah, that's cheating. Because it's from a different thing. I think — what about this? What if the magic compelling you to service, Rohan, is beginning to fade, but not your undead energy.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Uh, because it's like, oh, you killed another thing. You killed the rats. You killed this guy. And it's like, with each kill, you get closer to being relieved from service.
Ali: Oh...
Austin: Do you know what I mean?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: It's like, whoever threw you in here, they only cast a curse on you that — it's not like an eternal curse, it's a curse that, with each kill, is slowly freeing you.
Ali: Okay.
Art: Mmm.
Ali: Yeah, I mean, I can go with that.
Austin: Okay. Related, there is now this family here.
Ali: Ha-ha-ha! Cool, thanks.
Austin: Uh-huh!
Ali: Man...
Art: I mean, okay, we should all go back to our starting places, too.
Austin: Wait, why?
Ali: Oh, same.
Art: Because that's what it says.
Austin: No, but — wait, where's it say that?
Art: Uh... oh, shit. I —
Ali: [laughing]
Art: I [unintelligible] it up again.
Austin: Wait, does it say that somewhere?
Art: I think it does. Uh...
Austin: Let me see.
Art: They must immediately return to their watchposts and be still —
Austin: Gotcha.
Art: The end of the second paragraph, under —
Austin: Thank you.
Art: But I can't, how do I make my thing a group?
Austin: It's a pain. I'll just do it.
Art: Oh, fuck, I grabbed the —
Austin: Fuck. Me too.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Hit undo. Let it go and then undo it. Oh, boy, your face. Oh, no! [laughing] I brought back the goblin
All: [laughing]
Austin: I brought back the goblin by mistake, that was not what I wanted. Okay.
Art: Oh, my mouth! I'm leaving my mouth behind —
Austin: Your mouth is gone...
Art: [laughing]
Austin: All right, I did mostly a good job of mine.
Art: I can hear Jess cackling.
Austin: Oh, good. Good.
Art: At my misfortune.
Austin: [laughing] Ha-ha-ha!
Ali: What happened to your whole face?
Art: The eyes got moved up into the head [laughing] and the —
Austin: Oh my god, brutal. All right, I'm going to help you. I got — one of your eyes.
Art: That's half of one of my eyes.
Austin: What is this other thing?
Art: They're full Xs. They're little Xs.
Austin: Oh, they're Xs.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Oh, fuck — I'm going to move your head away for a second. I've just got to get a look at what these are. All right. That's an eye? These are eyes?
Art: The Xs are eyes, because he's, because, because I'm dead.
Austin: Okay. What is that black mark now that just showed up?
Art: That's my mouth.
Austin: Oh, that's your mouth. Oh, I put this, I put those eyes too low.
Art: [outburst of laughter]
Ali: [cackling]
Austin: [sighs] Fuck. Okay, I think it's almost there. I think we're almost there. I'm going to make these smaller... you know, so they're easier to deal with. [chuckles]
Ali: Right.
Art: [laughs]
Austin: All right, that one looks like an X now, to me.
Ali: Okay, yeah.
Austin: Almost there. Boom! Mmm... boom. Boom! Boom.
Art: Boom.
Austin: All right.
Ali: Was the cape behind your body, or that's how you've looked?
Art: That's, that's — basically it.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: There. I moved it a little bit. All right, cool. Uh... Rohan... trolls.
Ali: Anyway, I think I'm going to — yeah. I think that I'm going to say, after the, the, the God Laughs from last time, I think that what I do from now on is that, that like weird floating rock that I have, I hold in my hand instead.
Austin: Mmm, okay.
Ali: So we don't get the heads-up that they're coming yet, and they're able to just come in.
Austin: Okay.
Art: All right, so move your giant rock-head.
Austin: I'm going to try to grab it, unless you can. It's not letting me. Oh, fuck. Well I won't — nope, you just drew blood on it. That's kind of cool.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: To be honest.
Art: I can't grab it, either. Whose object is this?
Austin: I got it. I got it. I got it.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: All right, where — is this going in your hand?
Ali: Yeah, I guess so. Good luck.
Austin: Well, I'm going to get like a big shield, how's that look?
Ali: Ooh, okay.
Austin: That was kind of dope, actually. It's like a big vertical shield with like a splash of red blood across it in a horizontal stripe. All right, cool. So the trolls roll in.
Ali: Yeah.
Art: Yeah. Do we have... troll figures? We should wait until they're, they're, should we wait until they're dead?
1:20:54.8
Austin: I mean, you know, you tell me. Do we have troll figures? [pause] We got troll figures, all sorts of troll figures, let me tell ya.
Ali: [laughing] I do have this mace.
Austin: Uh... so I think it's like, I, I think this one's going to take all of us. Trolls are like, I don't know how we're going to kill these trolls. Trolls regenerate damage.
Ali: Right. Uh...
Art: What kind of trolls are — what kind of trolls are we talking about?
Austin: They're like cave, no, they're like forest trolls.
Art: But are they like the, are they the like, sunlight turns them into rock, trolls?
Austin: Yeah. Sure.
Art: All right.
Austin: That sounds cool.
Art: Is it day?
Austin: It could be.
Art: I mean, that's — oh, can we leave? Are we allowed to leave the tomb?
Austin: Uh, sure, but then we have to return to our posts in between, remember?
Art: Sure.
Austin: So, yeah, you could.
Ali: Mmm.
Austin: But also no, because you have to defend, remember? That's like, part of the, the rule, is you [unintelligible]
Ali: Yeah.
Art: We can't, we can't offence these trolls out.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: We could, we could push them out.
Art: I mean, is it the [unintelligible] to like push them out?
Austin: Yeah.
Art: I mean, at least we should find out what the, what, if it's day or night?
1:21:53.4
Austin: Yeah, but what if we do it a different way? What if we just break the fucking ceiling?
Ali: Yeah, or one of the walls.
Austin: And like bring in a stream — yeah, or one of the walls, what if we destroy one of the walls, and then sunlight pours in?
Art: I mean, I'm not an engineer here, but taking a wall out seems like a bad...
Ali: [laughing]
Art: Way to defend the place.
Austin: Maybe this is a situation where we're gaming the system? I don't want to be here. Maybe I do. Maybe I want to be here. I don't know.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Uh... I'm just not convinced we can —
Ali: We can just —
Austin: Push these trolls anywhere.
Ali: Yeah.
Art: I don't know, we're, we're, we're skeletons. We're, we're...
Austin: Yeah, skeletons are the first thing you fight in every game. Because they're pushovers, right?
Ali: Yeah, but sometimes you lose to them.
Austin: Yeah, I lose to trolls way more often.
Ali: [giggling]
Art: Yo, that, this, this, this, that — you're making this troll look like a badass.
1:22:45.4
Austin: That's, that's mama troll. And then this is the daughter, who has like that big stick.
Ali: So — [laughing]
Art: I mean, I don't think —
Austin: And here's baby troll.
Art: I don't think troll children are going to easily stand up —
Austin: No.
Art: To, to, skeletons.
Austin: We could definitely kill these babies, is that what you're suggesting?
Art: I'm just saying we can move these babies, we could — I mean —
Austin: Yeah, but what about this mom who has two axes?
Art: Just, just snatch that, that baby, and run with it.
Austin: Is that what you do? Do you just jump on this troll back, grab her baby, and then run?
Ali: [laughing]
Art: Yeah, run toward the door to see if it's day or — oh, it's probably night, because they came in through the door. [laughing]
1:23:25.3
Austin: Well, again, I'm imagining that this —
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: That to the south is this whole big facility. Like, this is the tomb at the end of a dungeon, you know?
Art: Uh, I mean, I guess — I mean, it feels like a stretch to like, I'm going to drag this... I'm going to outrun this troll all the way to the entrance with the baby? I mean —
Austin: Well, okay, well — oh oh oh! Okay, well maybe you grab the baby and then Rohan blocks the path back with her big weird black magic box.
Art: Sure.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: And then it's up to me and Rohan to like, hold them off, while we try to break down —
Art: Because we can communicate telepathically, so while —
Austin: Right.
Art: By the time I'm outside, I can be like, “oh, shit, yeah, it's — “
Austin: It's daytime.
Art: It's daytime. Or, oh, shit, it's nighttime. I'm going to... be in trouble here.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Ali: [chuckles]
Austin: It's daytime. I definitely think it's daytime. And then, uh... I think that's the point at which we begin to like, uh... I just have Rohan like, hold, hold the baby, or hold the, the daughter and the mama off, while I begin to destroy the northern wall, where it's spooky.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: I'm just like, slamming my blunt sword at it, over and over and over again. Uh... oh, no, you know what? This is where I, you know what I do? I just go over to the, to this, to our weird artifact, and I like twist the top, I twist the beak from one side of the, of the head to the other side. And when I do it, it reveals this northern wall's fake. And, sunlight streams in, making it not so spooky up here anymore. Wait — bring that back, got to write, not so spooky up here.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: And the sunlight streams in and immediately starts to burn these trolls to death.
Art: All right. So you killed the matriarch.
Austin: Hell yeah. Uh...
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: I'm mean.
Art: I kidnapped a baby and burnt it alive, so —
Austin: Ha-ha-ha!
Art: [unintelligible] moral high ground here. While Ali like, stopped the mother from helping.
Austin: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. [laughing]
Art: It's a real mixed bag.
Austin: Always — always a good time. We got two dead trolls now. Uh... boom. I'm going to tint them. Tint color, come on. Come on roll20, you can do it. Come on. Let's see how that looks. Yeah. There we go. Because they got burnt, to be clear, that's why a tinted them red. This one's orange. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool and good and happy. Uh...
Ali: You've done it. Thank you, Austin.
Austin: Thank you for helping.
Ali: [snorts laughing]
Austin: Intelligent, graceful, their... da-da-da-da-da. Choose — all right, so now we should choose one from Glory Fades or God's Laugh.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Always a good time.
Art: Or is it questions first?
Austin: Oh, it is questions first, you're totally right.
Ali: Oh, okay.
Austin: Yeah, totally.
Ali: Sorry.
Austin: I'm going to do one and then I'll pass off, the same way that Ali did. Um... uh, let's see. What is, what is, da-da-da... uh, what connection do you have to those you've just killed or driven away? What memories did they evoke? Uh... I saw myself in the daughter who I killed, because, that was also, um — you know what, I didn't see myself in her. I wish I had seen myself in her. The, the, the person in the sarcophagus, unless this is something I can't answer — I'm going to see if...
Art: I don't, I don't think you can't.
Austin: Uh... no.
Art: Great use of negatives there.
Austin: There is, there is a sheet, Rusted Shirt has a thing which is like, whose bones rest within the great sarcophagus, note your answer on the map. Uh... if that was one of us, I would not answer this. But since that's none of us, I'm going to answer it. Uh... my — the, the matriarch, the, the queen, or the whatever, I don't know, I don't know who she is. I don't know who she is yet. A powerful person in this sarcophagus, uh, was our mother, Art. And when it came time to defend her, I did not have the ferocity that that troll girl did. Uh, I, I did not stand and fight, I did not push our enemies to, to the brink. I ran, and let our mother be killed, uh, and so, that is the connection that was evoked for me, was this moment of, uh, I don't know. Like, was our mom like, a queen, or like, uh, a necromancer, like a vampire lord, or like, just like a, a mayor?
Art: I don't know, but I really want their title to have been like “The Avian Empress.”
Austin: Yeah, the Avian Empress, of course. Yeah. Well, now we know what she was. She was the Avian Empress, and I failed to save her. That's my first question answered. Who's next? Tattered cloak?
Art and Ali: [laughing]
[pause]
Austin: Tattered cloak? Or... headless?
Art: I'm working — I'm thinking, I'm thinking.
Austin: Okay.
Art: Uh...
Ali: I can do mine if you have some time, if you want some time.
Art: Okay. I think I'm like, right on the verge, but if you're ready you should go.
Ali: Okay. I'm going to answer, uh... whom did you once love.
Austin: Mmm. Mm-hm?
Ali: Uh... I think that I had... like, a... a mentor.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Ali: Who... hm... who was the one who told me... he didn't, no, he didn't, they didn't tell me. They didn't tell me to come here and steal a thing or come here and like destroy this place, or whatever. But like, they had always wanted to do that.
Austin: Oh, okay.
Ali: There was like a thing here that they wanted to steal. And they died suddenly. They were like sick, like halfway — or just a mess or whatever. So I came here to try to take it.
Austin: Gotcha. Cool. Cool. Cool and good. [chuckles] And now you're headless.
Ali: [laughs] Yeah.
Austin: Uh, tattered cloak.
1:29:44.6
Art: I'm going to do, what byname did you earn in life that describes your greatest accomplishment? And that byname is, Slayer of the Traitor Prince.
Austin: Ooh, that's so good.
Ali: [laughing] Okay. All right.
Austin: Oh yeah.
Ali: [laughing]
Art: Uh, there's an extra Runner over here? Oh, that's, I see what you did.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm working on it. Uh, cool. Cool. Where'd that baby go? Oop, there it is. Delete it. And replace it with a third baby.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Here we go. And I'll leave this one out here. Doop! Little tiny one. Okay. And we return to our places. Now we do the, the, God stuff, right? The God stuff?
Art: [laughing] Yeah, now it's God stuff.
Ali: Mm-hm. Yeah.
Austin: Glory Fades or God's Laugh.
Ali: You know, that old Friends at the Table God stuff.
Austin: The God — hashtag God stuff. Just God stuff.
Ali: [giggles]
1:30:42.8
Austin: What do we think? Uh... maybe the little troll, maybe the baby troll took something with it.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: On the way out. Or broke something?
Art: Yeah, maybe like —
Austin: Or the troll —
Art: [unintelligible] maybe a seal on the sarcophagus —
Austin: Yeah.
Art: Or one of the, the side, the side people.
Austin: Let's do the sarcophagus. We're getting into it now, right?
Art: Sure. Yeah, we're only a few away.
Austin: Yeah, we're three, three away. Uh, so maybe it is... I thought there was one that was like, is broken. Yeah, something the skeletons are protecting is destroyed, what it is? Yeah, maybe it's like the seal of the sarcophagus, which is probably also this bird, right?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Uh... but now it's cracked. So I shouldn't have just drawn one to add.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Because it's a fucking pain to delete things. All right, let's zoom in here. Yeah, so it's like, it's cracked in two, let's say. I'm just going to draw a big crack through it, is what I'm going to do.
Ali: Yeah, okay.
Austin: I'm also going to change this color. Please let me change its color, roll20. Thank you.
Ali: [chuckles]
Austin: And then I'll do a polygon. And then I'll do... okay, cool. Here we go. [soft explode noises, pew pew] that was the sound of it cracking in half.
Art: Hee. [laughing without enthusiasm]
Austin: [laughs] All right. After each intruder is driven away or killed, choose one of the options, mark it off, and sit in darkness as indicated. Think about the awful, grinding passage of time. A month, a year a decade a century? Centuries? A millennium. I think we actually already answered this in a sense.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: I think it has to be a month, right? Because, those tomb spiders come in.
Art: I mean, or, who knows how long it takes tomb spiders to wake up. But yeah, one of those.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: But a month is probably, gives us that sense of urgency.
Austin: Yeah, let's do —
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Let's do a month. We're like, “hoo, boy, those trolls were sure something else.” And then...
Art and Ali: [chuckling]
Austin: Ready?
Art: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Okay. 3, 2, 1... [time passes] Arise and protect the tomb, skeletal guardians.
1:33:31.1 That was way shorter than the minute.
Art: Yeah.
Ali: Uh-huh.
Austin: Like a lot shorter.
Ali: Have you guys been like, turning your monitors off and doing the whole thing?
Austin: I close my eyes.
Art: Yeah, I've been closing my eyes and turning off the —
Ali: Okay. [wheezes laughing]
Art: The light.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: I had just moved a lamp down here, so [unintelligible] lighting.
Ali: Aw. Oh...
Austin: Uh... I also have to peek every now and then because I have to check the timer. So I don't [unintelligible] it.
Ali: Right, fair.
Austin: You know. It's dark in here. You know. So. Giant tomb spiders, intelligent and graceful. They are stubborn, clever, and hard to dislodge. Do you destroy them? Do you reach an understanding? How? Everyone can answer one question, if they wish. Choose one — so either the Glory Fades or God's Laugh, take one. Big ol spiders show up.
Ali: This is true.
Austin: Uh, the first one comes in with like... no, that's too far.
Ali: [laughing] Okay.
Austin: I was going to go too far. I was going to go too far. I do think —
Art: You were going to make [unintelligible]
Ali: A whole [unintelligible] family.
Austin: No, no. I was going to come in with it eating... the body — the baby troll. Uh, but I think that's too far. I do think they're coming in to eat the remains of these dead trolls, though. For sure. Also —
Art: That sounds like a... a really easy path to an understanding. [chuckles]
Ali: Yeah, can that just be our bargain?
Austin: Like, do we hold them off and we say like, “listen, we'll... we'll give you these trolls — we'll feed you —“
Art: We'll feed you anything that comes — feed you anything that comes in here.
Austin: Oh... yeah.
Art: But don't fuck with the stuff in the, in the things.
Austin: Right, right.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: And also —
Ali: Can they fix the hole in the wall?
Austin: No, I think they come in through the hole. Oh, like with webs?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Oh, that's good, too. I like that you're negotiating.
Ali: [giggling]
Austin: You're playing hardball here.
Ali: Yeah, I mean... you know.
Austin: Yeah... yeah. That's good, yes.
Ali: Everyone wins.
Austin: Yeah, let's cover it up with webs.
Art: And they can hang out here, if they want.
Austin: Right, that's the thing. And like, they don't want to be outside. They saw what happened to the, to the, um, uh, the trolls. The trolls got — the trolls were being killed, you know?
Art: Yeah, it's safe in here.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Mm-hm.
Austin: Uh, yeah, let's do that. That sounds good. I think that was an easy one. Because of how we're good negotiators.
Art: [chuckles] Yeah.
Ali: [giggling] Right.
Austin: Uh...
Ali: Well, we have all these bodies to offer.
Austin: Exactly. Uh... a lot of them are probably rotted already, but we'll offer more, is what we promise them, and —
Ali: The spider guys love it.
Austin: We're liars, is the thing, because it's like... the next one of these is going to take a decade. Oh, but maybe this is why it takes so long for them, for us to wake up again. Is like —
Art: Because they do some of it.
Austin: Because they do the work, right? Like this is a good...
Ali: Oh...
Austin: Uh... like maybe when we get to them, they're like [spider hissing noise] you know, like [breathy spider voice] “we don't want to be fed... we're hunters. But this is a good hunting ground.”
Ali: Ooh.
Austin: You know, like that sort of thing. And it's like, all right, shit, cool, I'll take a nap. You do you.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: As long as no one takes our sarcophagus or our weird... fucking... whatever this is... I'm good with that.
1:36:20.4
Ali: And the spiders definitely don't want that no.
Austin: Uh... maybe they look at it greedily. But they're like... but like, that's part of the deal, is like, no Art, and also...
Ali: [laughing]
Art: No spiders.
Austin: No spiders.
Ali: Right.
Austin: That's the rule. Uh...
Ali: Also, no one would negotiate with them like we do —
Austin: Exactly.
Ali: So if they stole it, what would they do with it? They would be shot.
Austin: Exactly. Unless they've gone up the thief's guild quest line already, in which case they have access to fences, and then they can sell it to the fence in Rifton, or whatever the... that place was in Skyrim. Uh... okay.
Ali: [sighs]
1:36:54.3
Austin: That's easy. That one's easy.
Ali: That was fine. We did it.
Austin: Uh... yeah. We did it. All right. Glory Fades or God's Laugh.
Art: All right. Do we want to do like... a century?
Austin: Well, we have to do the Glory Fades/God's Laugh thing.
Art: Oh.
Austin: We also have to answer questions. We all have to answer a question if we want to.
Ali: Yes.
Art: Yeah, all right, let's, let's... okay.
Austin: Let's [unintelligible] oh, I think I name myself, finally. Um, uh... my name is Vellum. Like the sheet of paper. Uh, and I, I, I hear it for the first time, and I remember it, because the, the spiders show up, and the first one is like, you know— [spider voice] “My name is Morgoth, the Spindled,” or whatever. And I'm like, “oh yeah, cool, I'm Vellum.” [chuckles]
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: “I'm Vellum the Runner. Uh, you know, the second in line to the throne. Uh, but also I'm dead now, so probably not so much that.” Uh... does vellum take two Ls? Does the, does the woman, does the, the, what's her name, the Avian Empress?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Does she have a last name? Is there a name for the entire, uh, dynasty?
Art: Oh, probably.
Austin: What's good bird names? Or like bird words? Hashtag bird words. I'm checking Google, don't worry, I'm on it. Bird vocabulary. Here we go.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Glossary of bird terms. Winglet... bad.
Art: Yeah, because I'm like... beak. Foot. Feather. [laughs]
Austin: [laughs] Uh... what about, what about... [wheezes laughing] the one that — like, oh, axila. Axila, that sounds good... uh... the armpit of a bird. Good. Great.
Ali: Oh...
Art: Ugh.
Austin: No.
Ali: [laughing] Yeah, she's like the wind beneath your wings...
Austin: Uh-huh. I gotcha. Uh-huh.
Ali: [wheezes laughing] Hey.
Austin: Uh-huh. Is there like a good, is there like a good synonym for feather? Other than plumage? Plumage is okay, but....
Ali: Plume.
Austin: Plume, yeah, Vellum Plume. Yeah. Good.
Ali: Vellum Plume isn't bad.
Art: Not bad.
Austin: No, it's not bad. That's not bad. I'm just going to look up if I'm spelling vellum right. I am. Boom. Cool. I'm also going to, I guess we already marked it, but... awesome. Okay.
Ali: You can't double on questions, right?
Art: That's my...
Austin: Not on this one, no. So what's yours?
Ali: Okay. [sighs]
Art: I have one if you need a minute.
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Art: Who here among the skeletons richly deserves this fate, and why? I do.
Austin: Mmm.
Art: I killed my brother.
Austin: [gasps]
Ali: [gasps]
Austin: Wait! Oh, no! It's me, the traitor prince! You killed me, the traitor prince!
Ali: [laughs]
Austin: Or is there a third brother?
Art: No, it was you.
Austin: Oh, the traitor prince. [chuckles]
Art: “But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs in the community!”
Austin: [laughs] Yeah. The second — uh... also, there we go, I got to do this. Boom. I'm collecting AKAs over here.
Art: [laughs]
Ali: [cackling]
Austin: It's ya boy, Vellum Plume, AKA the Runner, AKA the Traitor Prince. Approach me like an ursine mammal.
Art: [laughs]
Ali: [exhale] We have fun here.
Art: Ah, we do.
Ali: [laughing] Uh... [unintelligible]
Austin: What? Fun?
Ali: No, I'm sorry, I was, I was going to go answer my question, which is —
Austin: Oh, okay.
1:40:40.5
Ali: Uh, what byname did you earn in life that describes your greatest accomplishment?
Austin: Ooh, okay.
Ali: Uh, I think that I was known in the town that I was from as the Mediator.
Austin: Ooh, okay. Nice.
Ali: Yeah, I would be like a person to like, deal with people's, like, negotiations and troubles and stuff.
Austin: Is that what you were like, in school for, is that what you're —not in school for but was that, like, your, what you were being mentored? Or were you being mentored in some other —
Ali: Yeah, I think so. I think I was like, being trained in like, deescalation, basically.
Austin: Interesting.
Ali: But this guy had that one, like... burden. This tomb.
Austin: Awesome. Yeah. I want to know why, I want to know why that person had this burden. But we'll get there, I'm sure.
Ali: [giggles]
Austin: Uh, okay. Time passes again.
Art: Uh, oh, wait, we need to do, we need to do God's.
Austin: Oh, we do need to do God's. Thank you.
Art: And, uh, —
Austin: Do you have one?
Art: Is it spooky up there again?
Austin: No. [beat] Yeah, yeah —
Art: Because the spiderwebs closed it off?
Austin: Yeah, one second, you're right.
Ali: Oh, mmm...
Austin: That's a good point. Uh, uh, one second. Back to being kind of spooky. Spooky up here. Keeping it a capital S, that's how Spooky it is. Okay. Uh... I think it's a while. I think it's like a century. Like for the next century, spiders got it.
Art: Sure. But our Glory Fades/God's Laugh.
Austin: Well — oh, right, we should do that first, right right right right right.
Art: Yeah.
Ali: Right.
Austin: Okay. Uh, hm.
Art: I like playing with the memories.
Austin: Okay.
Art: I like, I like the one where it's, something we think we know is false, or something we know is lost forever.
1:42:21.1
Austin: Uh... right. I like something we thought was false — or something that we previously regained is false. Uh...
Art: Sure.
Austin: Uh, mmm, maybe we don't have enough there though, yet.
Art: I mean, we — I mean, we're... we're running out of time if we're going to do it. [laughs]
Austin: True, true, true. Yeah, let's do that, then. What is false? What truth asserts itself? Uh... Ali, maybe it isn't as simple as we've made it, with your character. Maybe —
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Maybe it isn't just that you were like, coming in for the sake of your mentor. Maybe there was something else here for you. Maybe you were —
Ali: Yeah, maybe.
1:43:04.3
Austin: Let me propose a thing, which is, you are... so you're younger than us. You're from like the next generation down from us.
Ali: Mm-hm.
Austin: And you are like our, our niece or our cousin or something. And the reason you were being trained for mediation is because you were like... the last remnant of the line, the Plume. The line of the, the Avian Empress, who was being like, uh... who was being like, not kept as hostage, necessarily, but like, the, the dynasty had broken, or it was the end of the dynasty, but you were being put to work, basically, as like, you're serving duty as someone who came from this, from this royal lineage. But your mentor was like, “no, if you go back into the fucking... beak dungeon, and recover your mother's power —“
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Or, your, you know, whatever, your aunt's power, your, your, the empress's power — you will become the new empress of, of, of the Plume. The Empress of... Whatever. The Bird Empress.
Ali: Oh... so I was trying to get back, what, like... was owed to me, essentially.
Austin: Right. Right. And the person who threw you here literally wiped that from your memory. Oh, and maybe the spiders just recognize you. Maybe that's why it happens.
Ali: Oh...
Austin: Like, in, in, like, when we announce ourselves, when we say like, “oh, I'm Vellum Plume,” and, and, you know, Art says, “I'm the Slayer of the Traitor Prince over there, that jerk.” The, the spiders like, bow their heads, and, and call you your highness, [spider voice] may you return to your throne, or something.
Ali: Oh...
Austin: And you're like, “uh, word?”
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: And it all comes rushing back. Does that work? Are we on board?
Ali: Yeah, that works. Yeah.
Austin: All right. How — I think a century passes. Does that work?
Ali: Okay. How long is that, in real time?
Austin: Is that is... 2 minutes. We could also do...
Ali: Ooh.
Austin: 3 minutes, or 4 minutes.
Ali: I'm fine with any —
Art: I mean, I like... centuries, that's a real amount of time.
Austin: That's a real amount of time. Centuries is a real amount of time. Uh, uh, one second.
Art: People born at the first one of these are... still alive.
Austin: You're right. That would shift us to a place where it's like, no, no one is — we've shifted into a new era of life, basically. Uh... I want to see something really quick. Uh... uh... yeah, let's do centuries.
Art: When we wake up, it's going to be in, uh... oh, and then we have to do Worlds Crumple, or Time Devours.
Austin: So let's do that first, then. So, Worlds Crumble, Time Devours. I'll go over these options really quick. Choose and mark, for anything affecting the tomb itself, note it on the map and adjust accordingly. A wall comes down, blocking part of the tomb; which part? Adjust the map. A tomb robber is successful, what object do they steal? Choose from among those already introduced. If you're able, adjust the map. The great sarcophagus splits open, spilling out its contents. What is within? Adjust the map. The tomb is flooded. What is ruined, mold-covered, or decayed, after the waters recede? Adjust the map. Gold and silver dull, iron rusts, color fades to a supple — supple — hm — sepulcul — mmm. Sepulchural gray. Note this on the map. A thick layer of dust covers every surface. Note this on the map.
1:46:24.1 Or, Time Devours. Choose and mark, or anything affecting the tomb itself, note it on the map, [laughs] and adjust accordingly. I'm not going to say note this on the map again. The webs of tomb spiders form an intricate filigree over the walls and ceilings — that one might just be the one. Uh, the tomb is infested, what signs of vermin remain long after the infestation ends. A crack develops, creating an opening for robbers and other vermin. Something collapses, leaving a large pile of debris. What has failed? Wood, cloth, hide, horn, and unenchanted all turn to powder. Note this on the map. An earthquake rocks the tomb, drastically altering its shape and utility. Many things are destroyed.
Ali: [whispering] Wow.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: I mean, I also like the tomb is infested, because then the tomb spiders could have just handled it, like...
Austin: Right.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: And like, maybe it's just like, now they're — the remains, or the thing, the sign of the vermin, is just like — this place is covered in tomb spiders now. Like, it has been good for the tomb spiders. [chuckles]
Art: Yeah.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Like, this stops being the, the tomb of the Avian Empress, and starts being the tomb of tomb spiders. Like... Tomb Spider Tomb, is what people just call it, when we wake back up.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Uh... and like, our memory of — not our memory, the world's memory of the Avian Empire falls away. It's like a metaphor. Okay. Does that work?
Art: Yeah. Yeah.
Ali: [snorts laughing]
Art: How do we adjust the map to show... that?
Austin: Uh... I don't... uh, I know how, real quick. Here we go. I'm going to go up top here, I'm going to write down...
Ali: Ugh.
Austin: I'm going to go up here, I'm going to put it into this handwriting. I'm going to change the color to one that I don't mind looking at, I'm going to write down, “the Tomb of the Avian Empress.” And then, I'm going to like leave it up there for a second. And then I'm going to take it and go... “the Tomb of the Tomb Spiders.” [chuckles] There we go. And that is the name of this place now. Uh, no one remembers what this was once. No one — you know, for years, maybe there had been devotees who came and left feathers on the outside of the tomb. People who still believed that we would come back one day. And all of those feathers have disappeared now. But I'll add some on the inside, to be like, these are the last ones. That's not where that goes. It's over here. Give me a feather, come on, that's not — neither of these are feathers. Oh, you're fucking killing me here. Okay.
Ali: [chuckles]
Austin: It's fine, it's fine. I've added some feathers, I'm going to put them down here... I'm going to copy them. I'm going to just drop some feathers in near the entrance. There we go. All right. So it's going to be 3 minutes.
Art: All right.
1:49:13.9
Austin: I'm going to evoke... evoke, not evoke. Invoke, an optional rule, uh, here. Which is, that, I am going to, uh, uh, have — you can play music or sounds for these slow periods. I'm going to play a song, for just this next 3 minutes. It is called Seaweed, it is by Mount Eerie. I'm not going to put it in the... you know what? Mmm. We're going to play it. We're going to play it and see what happens. And if we get sued...
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: It has been nice knowing you. Uh, we're not going to —
Ali: [laughing]
Art: Wait, if we get sued, are we not allowed to be friends, then? Is that —
Austin: Yeah, it's been nice. Uh...
Art: Oh.
Ali: Right.
Austin: But in prison you're not allowed to be friends with people, because of... gang law. And they don't want us to be a gang in prison, because they know that we would be the best, the best one.
Ali: Right.
Austin: And it's unfair, it's like, not allowed. It's like, you can't, you know how in like, NanoWriMo, you're not allowed to have a pre-written script before you start writing your book during national novel writing month? It's like that, but for prison gangs. Uh, [laughs] all right. Ready? To be quiet?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: All right.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Y'all, I'll link you this song, so you can also sit in quiet.
Ali: [laughing] Okay, please.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: It's good, it's really good, get ready.
Art: Okay. [3 minutes pass]
1:53:33.9
Austin: Arise, and protect the tomb, skeletal guardians. You know, just a song about, like, a dead person, that's all.
Ali: [wheezes]
Austin: NBD.
Ali: [sighs]
Austin: Uh, that is off of the album, uh... A Crow Looked at Me, by the way, if you're interested. It's a very good album. It's like a super good album, uh, about, about, the lead — the songwriter from Mount Eerie, uh, dealing with the death of his wife. It's super fucked-up. Uh... and I realized while playing this, we built a bird tomb. And it made... about a dead empress. And so I felt like being sad.
Ali: [chuckles]
Austin: Okay. Also, consider this a test-run for Ribbon Drive, which is going to fuck us up if we ever play it. Uh...
Art: And if you're listening to this on the podcast feed, I hope you enjoy the... the cover we made Jack record over [unintelligible]
Ali: [laughing]
Art: He's quit.
Austin: He quit. That's it.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Uh... heh-heh. Okay. It's time to advance the next stage... the desecration. Uh, I believe Art is up.
Art: Uh, yeah, I guess I am. Um, some choices here —
Austin: Uh... go ahead.
Art: Are an army of plunderers.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Art: Some of your descendants.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Art: A necromancer, and some mercenaries.
Austin: Wait, together, or separate?
Art: A necromancer and some mercenaries is one option.
Austin: Is one thing, okay. You know what I have these here. There they are. Uh,
Art: Uh, now, I want to talk to you guys.
Austin: Uh-huh. There's a special thing here that I want to add briefly before you talk to us, which is, uh, that... we, uh, are getting towards the end of the game, uh, and I thought it said it on this page, but maybe it doesn't. Does it not? Where's the time check thing?
Art: It's up on and under intruders, right? When you feel that you've spent 10 or more minutes —
Austin: There it is, right right right, yes, yes yes. When you feel that you've spent 10 or more minutes in the dark across the entire game, the next intruders will defeat you. We are not there yet. We are at 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Currently.
Art: Okay.
Austin: That's what I wanted to say. Uh, that said, if you get all three of these, we also still fucking die. So...
Art: Right. Uh... I, I don't know, I have a, I have a strong feeling about who I want to win.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Art: But like...
Austin: Fair.
Art: One of you are going to get to pick it.
Austin: I think we're linked, though. I know who we are.
Art: All right.
Austin: Maybe I do. Maybe I don't.
Art: All right. Well I'm just going to pick one.
Austin: You can just pick one.
Ali: Go ahead.
Art: And then you'll know that the one that I was thinking is not that one.
Austin: Yes
Art: Uh... and I am going to pick a necromancer and some mercenaries.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Describe them, illustrating how much more interested the necromancer is in you than the treasure. Surely, this person will use their knowledge to try and control you all. Will they succeed? Everyone answers none, one, or two questions as they prefer. Choose one each, each, from the Glory Fades and God's Laugh table.
Art: Okay. I mean, the necromancer looks like a necromancer. You've seen one necromancer, you've seen... you've seen 90 percent of necromancers.
Austin: Oh, cool. Good.
Art: They're not an original group, I don't think.
Austin: Great.
Art: Uh...
Ali: Are you sure? What do necromancers look like?
Austin: Good question.
Art: You know, they got like, black and purple robes, and like, they got, they got not a lot of hair on top but some hair on the sides, and they're like thin, and it doesn't look like they've ever gotten, like, a real amount of exercise or sunlight. Uh... they got, like, you know, they got magic, you know what magic looks like. Everyone knows what —
Ali: [laughing]
Art: What magic looks like.
Austin: Oh, right, of course, magic.
Ali: Yeah.
Art: The magic look.
Ali: [cackling]
Art: You know, a necromancer. [laughing]
Austin: Oh yeah, a necromancer. I think I can find that for you. One second. I'm just —
Ali: I didn't know the, the sides, the hair on the sides part, that was a little flourishment there.
Austin: Mm-hm. Uh... here we go. No, that's a nightclubber, that's not a necromancer. Uh...
Ali: Two different things, Austin Walker.
Austin: That's an illusionist, that's not really what I need.
Ali: [chuckles]
Austin: Uh...
Ali: I feel like you were trying to look for a necromancer in Marielda and didn't find one.
Austin: Boom, right there. Necromancer. What. There we go. Necromancer.
Ali: [laughs] Oh, right, yeah.
Austin: That's it, right? That's a necromancer?
Ali: Yep. Mm-hm.
Austin: That's what if Mako was a necromancer.
Ali: [laughs]
Art: [chuckles]
Austin: All right. Uh... and then, what about the mercenaries?
Art: Uh, the mercenaries are like, kind of like a ragtag band, like, you know, there's the... there's the archer, and there's the, the... you know, this is the D&D party.
Austin: Actually, this is — definitely an actual necromancer.
Art: It's like...
Austin: Yeah.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Okay. All right.
Art: That's a lady necromancer. And I guess I should say that like, lady necromancers probably have a little more hair.
Austin: Right. Of course. That's the archetype.
Art: Less hair than normal.
Austin: I see.
Art: Lower than average hair.
Austin: Sure.
Ali: All right.
Art: Necromancy does some shit to you.
Austin: Right. And then our mercenaries —
Ali: Right, you've got to give out your hair.
Austin: Here, this soccer dwarf that I've just placed down, and —
Art: Yeah, they got soccer dwarf, and, uh... baseball elf.
Austin: Yep. And bard here, which is just someone with a, with a, saxophone. So they just have a D&D party, is what you're saying.
Art: Yeah. Cricket hobbit.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: What was that? Cricket hobbit?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Right there. Boom. Well, I guess that's —
Art: Yeah, wow.
Austin: Not really a hobbit, but wait, let me make it shorter. There we go. Cricket hobbit. Boom. Done. There's an elf here with a baseball bat that I've shrunk down to be a cricket hobbit. Uh... and they're just like, coming in. Can I propose something?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: I want this necromancer to win. Like, we win, like —
Ali: [gasp]
Austin: We stay here, but like, the necromancer completely controls all ofs us.
Ali: Oh...
Austin: Replaces our old curse with a new one, and, and like sets up shop here. Like, we kill the party. Uh... but the necromancer, the party is protecting her as she's casting this spell. Uh...
Art: But what happens to the tomb spiders?
Austin: Fucking, they got killed.
Art: Aw!
Ali: [gasps] Oh, that's why we woke up. Because they're dead.
Austin: Right. Because they're dead. They've been killing all the tomb spiders. Or maybe there's like, uh... they're replaced with skeletal tomb spiders.
Ali: Oh...
Austin: Which is like, just the, the carapaces of the spiders, uh, like, uh, minus like the big, fleshy, middle bits, or like, it's like, it's like the shell of the middle bits, but they're not, you know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's not, they're not big tomb spiders. They're not, they don't have big bulbous parts. And sometimes that means like, combining multiple tomb spiders together, carapi, carapaces, together to make one tomb spider. It's gross.
Art: I'm almost certain it's carapaces.
Ali: [laughs] I was going to —
Austin: Carapods?
Ali: I have a suggestion, I don't want to break your idea apart.
Austin: Please, give me your suggestion.
Ali: But I was going to say that like, maybe my, my holy artifact makes me immune...
Austin: Oh, true.
Ali: From his spell.
Austin: That's — her spell, I put down a lady. Please.
Ali: Her spell. Sorry sorry sorry.
Austin: You can see she has a skirt on, and like — a cool punk jacket.
Ali: I —
Art: You can trick her.
Ali: Mmm?
Austin: Oh, you could. You could trick her.
Ali: Oh, I could like... [interested] oh, okay...
Austin: Yeah, because she thinks that she's got control of you. But she does not. Also, remember, you've been slowly being freed from your curse — or from your, the servitude part, anyway.
Ali: Right, what am I, just going to go into a different curse?
Austin: Yeah, fuck that.
Ali: Hell no.
Austin: Hell no.
Ali: Hell no!
Austin: Hell no!
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: So yeah, she, maybe she almost gets us, and then you're like, psych! I got this big ol mace.
Ali: True.
Art: Ka-thump!
Austin: That's the sound it makes. Right. I gotcha. One second. Let me just copy and paste, and then write, ka-thump!
Ali: Yep.
Austin: Boom. Ka-thump.
Ali: [Ouch-ya]. Got 'em.
Austin: Uh, and then you get her, and that's it. And then she's dead. And so are the rest of them.
Art: But is our previous curse back? What, what's the —
Austin: I don't know. Are we caught between curses?
Art: Talking about our curse —
Austin: Maybe that's it, like, we're slipping back, we're slipping out of consciousness. And I think, we're all connected telepathically, right?
Ali: Right.
Austin: Do we choose to stay? Also, we should answer questions as we have this part of the discussion.
Art: Yeah.
Ali: Okay, yeah.
Austin: We can each choose to answer a question. None, one, or two questions. To
Art: Oh... I'm running out of questions.
Ali: Yeah. Uh...
Austin: Uh, what thing, once owned by you, could be seen among the bones of the would-be robbers that litter the floor? Uh, I think that this necromancer, uh, do you see this chain that she has in her hands? Uh, that was my chain. Uh, I used to, or, or maybe it's like the chain that I used to, to, either capture the bodyguard of our mother, who I, who I assassinated, or betrayed. Uh, or whatever, whatever I did as a traitor prince.
Art: You betrayed by running.
Austin: Oh, right. Well, maybe I tied... tied her up so that the enemies could get to her. And then, ran away. This, this necromancer has to have something on her that is like, “oh, this is, this is mine.” Maybe it was like, maybe it's —
Art: Or one of the mercenaries.
Austin: Or one of the mercenaries, sure.
Art: That could be your soccer ball.
Austin: It could be my soccer ball, or my baseball bat, my cricket bat.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Or my saxophone. I always cared more about playing music, than being a good prince. Uh... or my shoes. [laughs] you know. My fast shoes, my running fast shoes. Uh, I think it's better if it's something that has to do directly with — you know what? Maybe it's like the map to... well, no, it can't be the map here, because this is not where our empress was killed. That doesn't make any — where she was buried, not killed. Uh...
Art: Maybe it's some necromancy junk. Maybe you, maybe you're the reason that we're all cursed.
Austin: It could be.
Art: You were fooling around with some 'mancy.
Ali: Ooh, necromancer prince.
Austin: Yeah, the traitor —
Ali: Necromancer bird prince...
Austin: Necromancer bird prince... there we go. Uh... yo, maybe it is, maybe it's a version of my necklace, or maybe it's like, something that goes in the necklace, uh, like a gem or something that fits into the necklace, and she has it. It's just like, on her own necklace. Uh, but like, I can't just go get it, because it's not what, what my servitude says, right?
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: And it's something that like, offers control or freedom from this curse. That's what I'm going to say it is. It's like a gem that slots into this necklace. That, if we could get it slotted in there, we would be free from this curse. Art — you know what? It looks like you're puking blood. I'm going to move your head, Art.
Art: Yeah, please.
Austin: I'm going to move your head.
Art: Or maybe just move the cloak?
Austin: I'm moving the cloak. [laughs] Nope, that does not look like it's going to work, because it's two parts. I'm going to move... ugh, I hate this.
Ali: Just add a body.
Austin: There is a body. Just under —
Ali: Like on top.
Austin: No. There we go, it's fixed, I fixed it. Okay. That's my one question. Uh... also, I probably once loved some, someone from the other kingdom, right? That's the other answer I'll say. I did this all for love. I was the guy who was like, like, deeply in love with a prince from another kingdom and was like, oh, I'll, yeah, sure, I'll betray my, my family, my dynasty. It was a bad move.
Ali: Wow...
Art: Please pick a name from your name list.
Austin: Sorry. Uh, yeah. I almost said Beta, but that's not happening.
Art: [laughing]
Austin: It's on this list. It's like Bheta.
Art: We were okay with Thembo.
Austin: Thembo, it was Thembo. Uh, Girond, Girond was my lover, who was from the, the kingdom of necromancers, who hated the kingdom of birds. No, let's do another animal. What's the good — what's the best necromancy animal?
Art: Possums?
Ali: Uh...
Austin: Is it?
Art: They play dead.
Austin: Oh, they do play dead. That's not the same thing as playing with the dead, though.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Necromancy animal...
Ali: Are there any like, animals that die and come back to life?
Art: [chuckles] I don't think so.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Animals that resurrect themselves...
Ali: You're positive that that's not...
Austin: I'm on it, I'm on it. Probably some sort of insect, right? Deextinction... that's not the same thing.
Ali: Ooh...
Austin: Would God resurrect animals, uh... 10 animals that shockingly came back from the dead. That's probably not actually the thing, right?
Ali: [laughing] uh...
Austin: Roadkill — no, I'm not going to scroll down this page, this page is going to get depressing.
Art: Oh, someone in the chat said, “cats, cats have 9 lives.”
Austin: Cats do have 9 lives. It's cats.
Art: And they hate birds.
Austin: And they hate birds!
Ali: And they hate birds!
Art: Thanks, totallyawesomefoe, you're a total awesome... ally, now.
Austin: Thank you. Yes.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: And so, here's the thing. The thing that is on that necromancer's necklace that fits into my necklace is, uh, a cat, is like a cat jewel, like a little onyx cat. I'll reuse this one — uh, that would fit on my necklace and like, free us from this terrible curse. There we go.
Ali: Mmm.
Austin: Uh, so those are the two questions I'm answering. How about you, tattered clock and, and Rohan.
Art: I only have one question I want to answer.
Austin: What's the question?
Ali: Yeah, same.
Art: My name is Klaudius, and it's with a K.
Ali: Ooh.
Austin: That's not on your list, but that's fine.
Art: Yeah, what was your name. That's the first question on everyone's list.
Austin: No, I'm saying the name isn't on your list. I was hoping to get —
Art: Oh, I didn't think we were taking names from —
Austin: We're not, I didn't, but I really wanted to just hear you say Thoo, or Beethe.
Art: Okay. Here's my name, it's... Pauls.
Austin and Ali: [huge outburst of laughter]
Austin: But we call you Klaudius.
Art: Yeah. Because Pauls sucks.
Ali: [more cackling]
Art: Klaudius was going to be my Reginald name.
Austin: I gotcha.
Art: But I was never... throned.
Austin: Right. Exactly. How about you, uh, Rohan?
Ali: Uh, yeah, so my last question is, what thing in this place did you lovingly craft with your own hands?
Austin: Ooh.
Ali: Choose among those already introduced if you are able. Note your answer on the map. This is a tough one for me, because we established that I was, like, younger than y'all.
Austin: Yeah. But it takes time for a tomb to be put into place, right?
Ali: This is true.
Art: Yeah.
Ali: Right. Hm... because I was going to say, like, maybe I made that necklace. That seems like a little much
Austin: Yeah... because it's what set this curse up, right?
Ali: Right, yeah.
Austin: Or maybe, did you like bring us back to life with that necklace? Like, you and your mentor worked on that necklace and like, placed it around my fucking corpse to... fucking bring us to life?
Art: Uh... we did not work enough with these observations, there's some good shit in here.
Austin: There is. There's just not that many —
Ali: [laughs] Wait, are there?
Austin: Yeah, there's good stuff in there, there's just not much — I mean, that's where I got, like, the thing with the gold, to put where the rats were, was one of my things, like piles of gold, silver, and jewelry.
Ali: Oh...
Austin: It's not too late. [pause] The thing that's tough is like, it starts by like, does, like, develop the dungeon — and then like... don't get intricate, though!
Ali: [laughing] Yeah. Uh, hm... because I don't think it was your necklace. Maybe it's like, well, it wouldn't be the thing that's like, encased, right?
Austin: It might be.
Ali: Because that would have already been there...
Austin: Oh, right, true true true true.
Ali: It might be...
Austin: Uh, could be the mural. Maybe you came here and made this mural when you were a little girl.
Ali: Perhaps.
Austin: Or it could be something new. Oh, wait, it's something that you found on the bodies of these people, right? Or, no, was that — that was my thing.
Ali: No, it's, it's, what thing in this place did you lovingly craft with your own hands?
Austin: Right, okay.
Ali: Uh...
Austin: I do kind of like the notion of it being these fish. Because, like, where do they fit in, in this bird/cat dichotomy?
Ali: [laughs] Where do they fit in?
Austin: I don't know.
Art: We're trying to ally ourselves with the fish kingdom, because cats also don't like fish.
Austin: Exactly, that's what I'm saying, that's what I'm proposing.
Ali: Maybe... I don't know.
Austin: Was your mentor from the fish kingdom? Were you protected, like —
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Were you brought in by the fish kingdom?
Ali: Yeah, maybe. After like the siege or whatever.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: After my like, whole family killed each other.
Austin: Right.
Ali: [laughing] The fish kingdom came in and was like, “we'll take the young princess, because she's not going to rule, obviously.”
Austin: Exactly. But maybe one day, she, she could rise back again, and we could destroy these shitty cats.
Ali: Right.
Austin: Don't let, don't the fish know that birds also eat fish sometimes.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Or like, maybe that's part of it. Is like, for years, there was this like — we and the cats ate fish, like no big deal, that was our way of not hating each other. But then, we — the cats betrayed us, because I fucked up and I was a jerk, and the fish are like, “all right, we — all right, now is our chance to rebuild the bird, the bird empire on our side this time.”
2:11:54.8
Ali: Right. Yeah, maybe it was like a bird/spider situation, where we were like —
Austin: Yes.
Ali: We'll watch the seas for you.
Austin: Right. Yes.
Ali: You'll keep the skies good.
Austin: So now we've got a picture of you and like, your fish mentor coming in here and like, slowly putting this mosaic together. Maybe it's part of a ritual. Like, if our empress is ever resurrected, and she sees that mural, she'll know it was the fish people who saved her.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Or something. Or maybe it's just a pretty mural of fish.
Art: [chuckles]
Ali: I mean, yeah.
Austin: Could be. It's deep lore. It is. It is.
Ali: [snorts laughing]
Austin: All right. Uh... is that it for questions?
Ali: I think so.
Austin: All right. It's time to sit in quiet again.
Art: No, we need to do one Glory Fades and one God's Laugh.
Austin: Oh, we need to do – fuck, one of both. Okay.
Ali: Oh, woah, okay.
Austin: Uh, and we're marking them, which means we can't redo the old ones. I didn't actually mark any of these, but I remember which ones. Uh... I think my sword broke, in that one, for sure, in that fight.
Art: Okay.
Austin: There was just too many of them, and it was like, it was already blunted, and at some point I got it stuck in someone's armor, and it's like, it snapped off in there. Uh... so that's my God's Laugh. If somebody else has a Glory Fades.
Art: Uh, what if something we're protecting is damaged? What if, in that fracas, uh...
Austin: I think we already did that one.
Ali: We did that, with the baby. The baby troll hurt it.
Art: Oh, that was the... oh, shit. We've done the memory, we've done...
Ali: But we could do lost or stolen instead, or simply missing.
Austin: We could.
Art: Or... debris?
Austin: Oh, we could.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: We could block off the... the, uh, beak. The beak could be blocked off by debris.
Art: The beak could get blocked off.
Ali: [gasps]
Austin: Like, maybe they came in through the — did they also get rid of these, these webs? Because like, maybe they came in through there, and like collapsed in the stones around the, the artifact.
Art: Sure.
Austin: Okay. How long are we going to be out for?
Art: I mean, the real question we're asking ourselves is, do we want to do one more or two more?
Austin: Good question. Uh...
Ali: I think one more. I think, we're, we're getting there.
Austin: Yeah. So let's do a long one.
Art: So then we have to do an epoch.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Ooh.
Art: Read three times on Worlds Crumble or Time Devours.
Austin: Yep. Okay. Let's look at those.
Ali: Oh, wow. Oh, boy.
Austin: That is a 6 minutes in silence. I don't have a 6-minute song ready, so like, we're just going to sit here.
Ali: I can probably [unintelligible]
Art: We're going to play that other song twice.
Ali: No.
Austin: That'll be great. I have, there's other songs on that album that are very good. What do we think? Worlds Crumble and Time Devours. We need three all of them.
Art: How about — wood, cloth, hide, horn, and unenchanted bone all turn to powder. Like, all evidence of this is just gone.
Austin: Right, I like that. Like all the bodies are gone. All of the —
Art: All the bodies are gone.
Austin: All right. Cool. Love it. I'm deleting them all. [clicking]
Art: I'm Googling 6-minute songs.
Ali: Uh, the first track on Awaken My Love is 6:19, but it might not be tonally...
Austin: Uh, yeah.
Ali: [laughing] appropriate. But it is instrumental.
Austin: Yeah, that's true. Do you have a link?
Ali: Uh... yeah, I can get it.
Art: Bohemian Rhapsody is 5 minutes, 55.
Austin: That is not a good fit.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: I appreciate the hustle... where did you link it?
Ali: Uh... I didn't yet, because I was trying to see how long the song “Yuri on Ice” from Yuri On Ice is.
Austin: Bad.
Art: The album version of “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Ali: That song's really good, so stop. Uh...
Austin: I'm not saying it's — I'm just saying, we're — mmm.
Ali: It might fit.
Austin: No...
Art: God, “November Rain” just goes on and on, doesn't it?
Austin: It's way too long. No one tell Dan [Rycord] I said that.
Ali: [chuckles]
Art: I mean, maybe, maybe for 6 minutes we just want to be...
Austin: Silent, yeah, that could be fine.
Ali: All right.
Art: What are we supposed to think about on this one, what's our...
Austin: We still have to pick the Worlds Crumble, we still need two more of those.
Ali: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Two of each? Or just...
Art: No, three total.
Austin: Three total.
Ali: Okay.
Art: But we've already done the one.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: But I actually have a good, I have a good 6-minute song, which is also just, just music.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Uh... so what are the other two? Let's see. We have gold and silver dull, iron rusts, color fades. Uh...
Ali: Uh...
Austin: I think it's time for the sarcophagus to split open, right?
Ali: Yeah, I was about to say that, because it's already cracked.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: What, what comes out? Could I propose, lots of feathers?
Ali: Sure.
Austin: Like, this whole place just gets flooded with feathers? I copied the wrong thing. I copied back [unintelligible]
Ali: And then like, moss grows on top of the feathers?
Austin: Yeah, totally. Like when you walk in here, it's like soft to the foot. Like if you walked in here without shoes on, which, one, don't do that.
Ali: Don't do that...
Austin: Uh... all right. That's probably enough feathers. Uh, so one more.
Ali: Uh, well that, wait, that's, that's three, right?
Art: That's two. We have the one clock hiding —
Ali: No, because the tomb is flooded, uh, what is ruined, mold-covered, or decayed after the waters recede?
Art: Oh.
Ali: The feathers are all moldy.
Austin: Oh, you're saying the — okay, I didn't hear that part. That part was [unintelligible]
Ali: Yeah. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Gotcha. Uh, okay. I am going to play... I'm going to see if this is actually available here. No, it's on Spotify. Here we go. It's also on YouTube. [singular moment of electric guitar before song is paused] Uh, I am going to now play a song by Gunsling Birds — no, no lyrics, just, “Heavy Metal Dust could end our Space Junk Odyssey.”
Art: You want to count us in?
2:19:11.0
Austin: Yeah, totally. Ready? 3, 2, 1... go. [ 6 minutes pass]
2:25:23.3 Arise, and protect the tomb, skeletal guardians. Uh, that is off the EP, uh, — no, the LP, um, uh, Bad Operator, which is a good fucking album. Uh, also birds again. I, I — in both cases, I made the pick and then I was like, “oh, right, birds, it's another bird reference.” It was both the, the Mount Eerie track from the album A Crow Looked at Me, and then this Gunsling Birds album. So...
Ali: [giggles]
Austin: The bird empire is real, it is here, I believe in it.
Art: We were supposed to be thinking, in that time, about, uh, think about all that has gone before and how it came to be.
Austin: I did. Did you? What did you think about?
Art: I mean...
Austin: Like, what were some of the thoughts of, of what came before?
Art: Well I mean, I, I, I guess I sort of started thinking about how these, like, totemic empires came to be.
Austin: Mmm.
Art: And, you know, why would you pick — how does the society — do they pick the cat first? Or do they pick necromancy first?
Austin and Ali: [laughing]
Art: Like they decided necromancy was the best way to like... honor the cat?
Austin: Right. Right. Or was it the other way, which was like... for whatever reason, cats were, were... here.
Art: Right.
Austin: Like, attracted to necromancy for some reason. You know, necromancers are inside a lot, I imagine, and like... they need, like, pets to take care of rodents. You know, they're dealing with a lot of stuff that's like... reanimating the dead rats and stuff while testing, and like, they need cats to keep their, their shit clean. It's dank, you know. Whereas for me, that, that makes me think that the empire of fish, like, is very coastal, is very —
Art: Mmm, sure.
Austin: Is very, uh, uh, caught up in like travel, and like, all up and down the coasts around the entire kingdom, or entire continent or whatever, uh, and is like, more about — or maybe they... are, are they keeping fish as pets but also are fishing? I don't know. And then birds are just like, I definitely imagine us as being open-air, and running, and like, not wearing shirts, you know? [chuckles] Those are the three things that birds remind me of. Open air, running, no shirts.
Ali: Yeah. Yep.
Austin: Like... hot brown people in like, mountains, you know? Very like, athletic, in my mind. Very like... uh... maybe individualistic, in a sense, which would explain why I was a fucking traitor. Uh, very like, driven by personal... achievement. Okay. We're here. Uh... when you feel that you've spent 10 minutes or more in the dark, cross the entire game. The next intruders will defeat you. Ali, there is a list. It is either, an army of plunderers, or some of your descendants.
Ali: [yawning] Oh, sorry, oh, sorry. Uh, I don't know if I have the same, like, line —
Austin: If you're on the wavelength —
Ali: [wheezes laughing] I think that I'm on the wavelength.
Austin: Come on.
Ali: I have been on this show for a bit.
Austin: Yes.
Ali: Uh, and I think that it's some of our descendants?
Austin: Yeah, I think that's what I had in mind.
Art: Yeah, that's the right answer.
Austin: There is an argument for an army of plunderers, which is like, Friends at the Table at its most nihilistic. Where it's just like... and then the empire falls away.
Ali: Yeah, I can see that.
Austin: Like, and then literally, there is nothing left of what was once this glorious empire. Now it is just like, a bunch of fucking bandits, who just come in and dig out all the, the feathers, and take all the gold, and like step on our corpses. But I think we're doing —
Art: They've never heard of any, they've never heard of any cats or birds or —
Austin: Right.
Art: They're just there, there...
Ali: Yeah, it has been an epoch.
Art: They're, they're [unintelligible] no?
Austin: Right, like this has been... Exactly. Exactly. They come in with like, a bulldozer, you know?
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Which is kind of great.
Ali: Yeah...
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Uh... or it's our descendants who follow an ancient treasure map penned by our own children.
Art: Which is still very old, at this point.
Austin: Yeah, an epoch, in, in this case, is — it goes, century, centuries, millennium, age, and epoch. So like, it is, just a different, completely different culture, right? Like —
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: This is not necromancers at this point, or if it is, like, their necromancy is something else completely.
Art: They got that science necromancy.
Austin: Yeah, this is like Destiny now, right? Like, some fucking Fallen kick down the door, basically —
Ali: [giggles]
Austin: Or whatever. Yeah, archaeologist, says [Squidstoles], and I kind of like that notion. But like, they're archaeologists, but, but, they are still descendants of ours, right?
Ali: Right.
Austin: So they follow ancient treasure map. Describe how you see yourself in them. Who among you will be the first to strike them down? Can you even bear it? Everyone answers none, one, or two questions as they prefer. [beat] What are they like, Ali?
Ali: [yawning] Uh... hm. I don't know, it's tough, because like, I think that we.... If this is really as far in the future as we're saying it is, it isn't like, the separate animal kingdoms anymore...
2:30:52.9
Austin: Right. Right.
Ali: Like... culture has kind of like, melded together in that way.
Austin: Mmm. Do you think like those, that... there's a point at which either one of those remaining kingdoms became the, the dominant one, or, like you said, they melded together to where it's like, oh, no, this is just, this is just a new culture altogether? Even, even that one culture, like, let's say the cats went on to rule for 1,000, 2,000 years. The cat empire was as large as it could be. And then like, okay, and now there's new factions inside of the cat empire that debated what type of necromancy was to be the powerful kind, or whatever. And then like, that all disappeared. And now we're like, we're just, 40,000 years later or whatever, 5,000 years later, and it's like, a completely different culture completely.
Ali: Right, yeah.
Art: And our stuff could be like the, the bird stuff could be like, because they're all descendants, but like, like, secretly handed down some Assassin's Creed nonsense.
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Sure. Yeah, there's bird stuff in that. Yeah, I guess that's my question.
Art: [unintelligible]
Austin: Is this a person, are these people, people who know what they're coming for? Or are these people who are like. Like, are these people, what is their goal? Are they here to resurrect the empire? Or are they here because this is a curiosity?
Ali: Uh, I don't think that they're trying to like, resurrect the empire. Because I think that it's more like, instead of being the kingdom of cats, it's like, the kingdom of animals or whatever.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: Like they all kind of like, blended together.
Austin: Okay.
Art: Ugh...
Ali: What? What?
Art: No, no, I just had like, a really bad thought, I just had... I just had a...
Ali: [laughing]
Art: That like, we see ourselves in them, and they just don't, they don't care about us at all.
Austin: Right. Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: I like that a lot, actually. What if it's like the chimera kingdom, right? Like, at this point it is literally, like, literally physically blended these different animal kingdoms' like, symbols together to be a culture that is about, like, like, positively about melding your different sides, and exploring a variety of options and not just being necromancers or people who run around with their shirts off, uh, [chuckles] and —
Ali: Right.
Austin: And I do kind of like that notion, Art. Like, what's that look like for Pauls? Pauls Klaudius, Slayer of the Traitor Prince.
Art: I mean —
Ali: [laughing]
Art: I mean, I think like, through the magic, that I like, know that like, this is our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandnephew, or whatever.
Austin: Right.
Art: And I, I see that they're, that this is, this is a descendant of our noble lineage, and I can't bring myself to harm them, because I'm still... I have such regret over killing Vellum. And they just turn me to dust, because they don't, they don't know or care.
Austin: Uh... what if they don't even try to — okay. I kill 4 of them. They look at me, and there is no revulsion in their eyes. There is this like, they, they have no guilt, they, they have no shame, uh, about me. They have nothing about me. And that is what kills me. Like, “fuck you, I killed the empress, or I betrayed the empress of the bird empire, of the avian empire. I brought down an eons-old kingdom in this world. I betrayed those who were loyalists to me for a man I loved. And you don't even care about it.” And it's just like this last gasp of like, deeply human, like, passion. And like, use what's left of my broken sword, and fucking kill 5 of — 4 of them. And then the rest of them are just like... no. Like, okay, fine we have to kill these skeletons. Rohan, do you fight back? Or do you, do you fight these people?
Ali: Uh... it's tough, because I think that my, like, spell broke before...
Austin: Right.
Ali: Yours did? Uh, so it's kind of a weird thing to like, see them and also recognize them.
Austin: Right.
Ali: But I think that it's like... there isn't really any recognition there. Because like, the symbols they carry and the beliefs that they carry are so far off from what we, we believed.
Austin: Mmm.
Ali: So, uh... I think that the answer is that, like, I don't see myself in them, and then that's why I attack them.
Austin: Okay. Cool.
Ali: Yeah.
2:35:39.8
Austin: And they kill us.
Ali: And we're dead.
Austin: Using future weapons. Like better swords. Or ray guns. Or wands or something.
Ali: Right. Yeah.
Austin: What type of stuff do they have?
Ali: I think they have like heat... knives
Austin: Oh, heat knives, oh, that's good.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. I like that a lot. It's just like — which could be just alchemically treated again. It's just like, oh yeah, we figured out — we're still using like, weird magic. But we just like, enchanted this shit to be like — not even enchanted, not magic enchanted, just like, we know how to make knives that are on fire all the time — not even on fire, just like, are hot.
Ali: [chuckles] Yeah.
Austin: Love it. Okay. Uh... the game ends when the seasoned group of intruders manages to scatter the skeletons' bones, or when you're content to leave your skeletons in a cold, dark place, forever. Take a final moment to sit in silence in the dark, and then turn the lights back on, have a snack, and talk about the experience you just shared. So let's do another 30 seconds in the dark —
Ali: Okay.
Austin: As these people pick through our bones and scatter our feathers and... wonder why there is a mosaic of fish on the wall. [30 seconds pass] Okay.
Ali: That still felt really long.
Austin: Yeah. I'm just renaming this to, “a tomb.” Uh... what did you think? What do you think of time?
Ali: [wheezes] It's tough.
Austin: [chuckles] Time. It's tough.
Ali: [laughs]
Art: Uh... yeah. Sure is.
Austin: I think it's interesting to think about that part of this, which is like, we don't... so normally in tabletop roleplaying games, you build out a... dungeons are really functional.
2:38:13.2 Uh... you think about, for me, as someone who's designed spaces like this before, it's like, what's a cool set piece, what's a cool visual, what's a thing that I want to impart, uh, metaphorically or thematically? Uh, or you think, what's a good trap? What's a good puzzle? And you rarely think, why is it like this? You know, this is something that was like, lampshaded, was kind of called out by the new Resident Evil game, where it's like, your main character is like, who the fuck built this place where I need to get a red crest to open this door, a snake statue to open this door? This is some bullshit. But, uh, I actually really liked this notion of doing it the other way, which is like, no, this place has a history. This place has a reason for the way things are. And the only way to know that is not to come in as an intruder but to like, be a fixture here.
Art: Sure.
Austin: Uh, I like that a lot.
Art: Or like, no game ever asks you to like, be the actual archaeologist, right? To like —
Austin: Right. To like, pick through the, like — an archaeologist would not, like, kick down the door, kill the orcs, and like, loot the place. It would be like, all right, time to set up shop. I'll be here for the next two years. I'm going to study every little bit of this one room —
Ali: [giggles]
Austin: Uh, to try to figure out what culture was like 30 — you know, 3,000 years ago, 300 years ago, when the last kingdom lived. And this is like archaeology in reverse, which is really cool. [beat] Uh, awesome. I think that's going to do it for us. I'm Austin Walker, you can find me at @Austin_Walker on Twitter. Where can people find you, Ali?
Ali: Uh, you can find me over at @Ali_West.
Austin: Art?
Art: You can find me at @atebbel.
Austin: And you can find everything we do at friendsatthetable.net. You can follow the show on Twitter at @friends_table. You can follow the show on Facebook, too, if you do a search for Friends at the Table. Uh, and you can support us at friendsatthetable.cash, which, if you're listening to this, you already probably are, or you're with a friend, and they're like, hey, wasn't that cool? They were those skeletons. You should listen to this more.
Ali: [giggles]
2:40:13.8
Austin: How about about give them 5 bucks a month, and then, if you want to, that'd be cool. Uh... we have a new episode coming up soon. Uh... I have rewards to get out to people in the next couple of days for, from the last month. That got held up because of Pax and Labor Day. Uh... anything else on the docket soon, Ali?
Ali: Uh... no. Okay, so, episode tomorrow.
Austin: Yep.
Ali: The Marielda zine, if anyone is interested in that, is up soon. I think that's... orders for that stop on the 17th, so...
Austin: Yep.
Ali: If you have not gotten a book yet, do that.
Austin: Where can people find out info on that?
Ali: Uh, it's cityoflight.rocks.
Austin: Good URL, good earl.
Ali: Yep. Mm-hm.
Austin: Uh... cityoflight.rocks.
Ali: Yes.
Austin: Right there. Wow, that's up to almost 9 grand. That's so rad. That's so incredible.
Ali: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: Uh, yeah, proceeds to that, uh, are not coming to us. They in fact are going to Avenues for Homeless Youth in Minnesota, which is a, a really great charity. So check that out. Uh... I think that's going to do it for us. So, thank you for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow with a new episode in the feed. We're back to the ground game, back to the planetside game on Twilight Mirage. It's a good one. I'm going to go...
Art: Is it the — oh, I can talk to you off —
Austin: We'll talk. We'll — are
Ali: [laughing]
Austin: Yes, we will talk, off the, off of the —
Art: I'm going to say what the new Bluff City is, I'm going to say what tomorrow's episode is, I'm going to —
Ali: Oh, uh, yeah, Tips probably next week, Bluff City the week after that.
Austin: Yep. Sounds good.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, and we're working on the next postcard, also, the postcard —
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Should ship soon, but we're already in, in production of the next one so that's exciting.
Art: Yeah, I've been a real asshole about that.
Austin: Okay. Good to know.
Ali: [wheezes laughing] Okay.
Austin: All right, everybody.
Ali: All right.
Austin: Have a good one. Peace.
Ali: [wheezes]