Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I'm Marek's, the Duke of
Astrology. I'm Max Moon.
And and today we're going to be looking at and playing the black
Spire packed from Max Moon flaming hand OSC month, where
it's another another month is upon us all, yet another one
and. I'm stoked for SO.
Everyone's stoked for at least one of them.
Most people are. But anyway, Max, how you doing?
I feel like it's been too long since you've been on the show.
I am doing good. I'm in that like we launch
tomorrow. So I'm doing good with the
caveat of Jesus Christ, so much to do still, but I'm this is
this is the the best place I could be right now.
This will be fun. Oh yeah, thanks.
For having me. We're stoked to have you.
Well, this will not. I know Max just said tomorrow,
but the odds are it launched many days ago by the time this
actually is podcast. So we'll see you when that
happens. But so if you're listening, go
back in. I'll make sure the links are
where links are. But so Max, what the heck?
What the heck's a Black Spire Pact?
All right, so Black Spire Pact is A2 player adventure game book
and it is essentially like a choose your own path.
I think I'm not technically supposed to say choose your own
adventure style game with dice that is.
Trademark, right? That's copyright.
Trademarked. Yeah.
Yep, Yep. So I have only said what I'm not
supposed to say. I didn't actually say it right.
So with Dice you it is competitive.
So player versus player, and each character gets their own
book and instead of having AGM, it's just like you're navigating
this dungeon reading passages to respond to what happens.
But it's all built on Old school Essentials BX.
So it's slightly different. It's a little streamlined and
adjusted for the game book style of play, but one of you will
play as Marax, the Duke of Astrology AKA Hunter, and the
other will play as Voth the sorcerer.
Voth is intruding on hell to try to find the 10th crown of Chaos
and Marax is trying to stop him. So you've got like sort of a cat
and mouse chase happening through this one of the seven
churches of hell. And yeah, different kind of
style of play, different take on sort of an OSC supplement in
that it's also stand alone. But yeah, that's I think the
Blackspire Pact sorcerer versus Demon.
I'm I'm Voth, he's Marex, you know, whichever, whichever, I
love this idea and I also love that you're like enjoying an OSC
month with you, like your own take of like a of a different
thing, you know. Thank you.
That. Yeah.
Like when folks talk to me about joining OSB month, I just like
immediately was like, cool, I'm going to do something weird.
And this is one I've been sitting on wanting to do for a
while. You know, me, I, I always want
to experiment and like, I love tinkering with, like doing
something outside of like, what? What's that like?
We've got a lot of kind of opportunities for playing
similar games. Yeah.
I'm always kind of trying to find what's at the edges.
That's like, also like matching up with like, whatever idea and
feeling I'm having because I'm like, I just try not to like,
limit myself to working within like the same kind of thing.
The downside of that, though, is I feel like I'm always like
experimenting instead of just like, really tuning something.
But whatever. I'm having a good time though.
What's? That is, that is what's
important and and there's other names attached to this project
as well. This isn't just a maximum thing.
So have we, have we talked? Have you been on the show since
like Maximum and Flaming Hand? Kind of like?
I believe so. I think we did because I think,
you know, for 12 years at sea, and that was kind of early in
the flaming hand stages. Yeah.
So me and my buddy John Kastucky joined up as Flaming Hand and
brought Maximum Games on as an imprint.
So we didn't like haven't let go of the Maximum Games brand and
process and stuff, but like it's a sort of the a smaller part of
Flaming Hand, especially for like the more handmade things
with like kind of screen printing is a whole sensitive
issue right now because I've almost completely lost the
ability to screen print because my hand issues.
We've talked about that over the years, I'm sure.
So it the plus side of doing like flaming hand too.
Part of it is like having that some more collaborative
infrastructure has helped with me to be able to like make more
things and not like, you know how much I love making stuff my
hands. So the issues I've been having,
it's been a struggle. So it's like nice to have still
have like tools and opportunities to create.
It's required a lot of shifting in the way I think about making
too. But yeah, flaming hand, it's
been wonderful working together. It's also like so Jonica is
going to be like Co writing black Spire packed with me.
So basically like I'm mapping out all of this design the game.
I've like written like a draft of this.
Jonica is a phenomenal writer outside of the game space.
He's an amazing occult poet and cool.
So like that skill set, getting to kind of layer that on top of
this work is like it's a super fun collaboration.
It's, it's awesome to watch him kind of like punch up the
writing and like find different things to riff on in there.
And then we're working with Eric Roper and Skinner for
illustration for Blackspire Pack, which is just like a dream
team. I'm like, I love those guys so
much and they're having a blast working on this and it's awesome
getting in like the two of them riffing on each other.
Also just like they're very different personalities and both
totally awesome. And I love like we've got Eric's
work that is like more like mystical theory.
Like more like, I don't know, like I feel like mystical is a
good word for it. And we've got Skinner just like
super chaotic. So we got like Eric really taken
the like sorcerer perspective and then Skinner bringing in the
like weird demonic vision. So it's it's been awesome
watching them work. Sounds like a Max Moon dream
team you know. It feels like it.
I feel really grateful, yeah. You just keep on bringing in
incredible artists for, for the project that you do.
And it's just, it's, it's crazy to see like Skinner, like I
definitely have some Skinner stuff in here somewhere.
I got a Skinner T-shirt somewhere.
Like their work is, is incredible.
And you know, we've seen, I get to see a little bit, a little
bit of stuff. We get to see some of the art
here. So I'm very excited for that.
And then and then OSC month is what's going on right now.
That's why that's why we're talking about this.
How I know you're doing the project.
We talked about that, but how did you actually get tied into
OSC month? Like when you're reaching out to
to OSC, I know there's like a, you know, EF and all that kind
of stuff, but like how did you get tied into it?
Well. I got a message from folks at EF
basically just saying OSE month's going to be demons
themed. We immediately thought of you
when we thought of demons and I was like, thank you.
That makes me feel good. So yeah, so I was like, and you
know, just like super stoked to jump in and put something
together with a demon focus. I spent a lot of time thinking
about demons. Sometimes I wear demon rings
and. Rings containing actual demons.
I mean, I sorry, my, my mind's going too many places with that.
No, but with the demons and sigils and stuff, you know,
it's, they're, it's meaningful to me.
I found a lot of value in thinking about the idea of
conversing with demons and the especially goetic demons.
And like, I love just sort of like we've talked about this in
other projects. I really think that there's like
nothing stranger than things that people believe to be true.
Like fiction is really not all that strange.
It's kind of like a Xeroxed copy of reality being even stranger
when we look back through history.
And the way that people have portrayed and represented demons
throughout time is so much weirder than how people portray
demons in fiction. And in like in gaming, we have
this kind of like it's kind of been it compressed over time to
be this one thing. Almost all demons look like
this, right? But like, when we look at things
like the dictionary infernal, it's like the demons are, like,
bizarre. Like, that one's just a Unicorn,
but this one has crow's feet and a face on its butt.
Like, that's the kind of shit that gets me really excited,
too. It's just, like, it tells us so
much more, I think, about, like, how strange humans are.
Yeah. Absolutely.
But. The darkest parts of their bad
imaginations have created, You know, you open up like, this
illuminated manuscript from, like, medieval era, and you're
like, what the fuck? This is terrifying.
Yeah, I think you have two Dicks, you know.
It's also fascinating like how some of the the like when we
look at how people engage with demons, Prius, like like Merak's
Duke of astrology, that does come from like old lore and
stuff. So like that's like, like it's
not like summon Merak's and then ask him to teach you about
astrology. Like, that's just not something
that happens in modern fiction with a demon.
It's like it's yeah. It's just also like 1
dimensional now I feel like. Yeah.
Yeah, like this. Absolutely.
So is so are you bringing a lot of that flavor to this thing
too? Because I see the picture of the
demon looks kind of demony, but what?
What's going to be weird and different about it?
Or are people going to have to play to find out?
Yeah, so that's one of the things I've been thinking about
with this. I'm definitely bringing those
elements into it. But I'm also really leaning into
this sort of like classic fantasy vibes and like kind of
like early 90s, late 80s on this project, especially with like
the choose your own path style stuff.
But yes, absolutely. So like one of the things with
like playing as a demon, right? So like the demon as a playable
character as opposed to the demon as monster, There
certainly is that in there as well.
But the demon is also like Voth is really the villain and the
demon is like, I'm need to protect my home from this
sorcerer who keeps stealing people from our realm and like
is now coming to steal shit out of this church, right?
Like so those are sort of some of the the parts of that, those
ideas that I'm playing up in in this is that if there's anyone
to be empathetic to in this, it'll be Maracs.
Cool. And that like I like the feel
of. Expectation, you know.
What's that? I like to flip on expectation,
you know? Thank you, Mike.
Max Moon doing a flip on expectations.
Elsprigg the camp is a big influence to like the fallible
fiend was a great book and then from like the unbeheaded king
kind of got me thinking like really played up this like
humorous concept of like demons as being like way more logical
and way more kind than humans. And when you actually look at
how we're used to engaging with them.
So he plays that up really tongue in cheek, very dry, like
70s fantasy. But I get a kick out of it.
And like, there's there's a sorcerer with like a ring that's
got a demon captured in it. And he's like when he summons
the demon, he's like, there's stuff like, oh, man, I just got,
I was supposed to be having dinner with my family.
I just got sucked away. It's like there's that sort of
nerdy, like, I love it, Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's
interesting. And obviously, you know, if if
anyone that knows Max Moon's stuff throughout the years,
there's been plenty of demons in it.
So I'm very excited to see what we do here with with the Black
Spire pact. And Speaking of, as far as I'm
aware, the plan today is to play some black Spire pack.
So do you want to hop into that or is there anything else that
you want to let the people's know about the Black Spire Pack
and OSE Month? I'll just say OC month is
looking awesome. Like I've been looking through
other projects and I'm just like, I'm stoked about it.
Also the Demonic Grimoire. I'm super stoked.
Giving me a BXOSC book focused just on demons.
I'm like hell yes, thank you. It looks really good.
So I've been working with like a preview copy of that.
It's awesome. So a lot of the things that like
encounters in that actually cut in this are adapted from the
demonic grimoire. That's coming too.
So yeah, let's give it a go. I want to give the caveat that
this is very much in draft, and so the text that y'all are be
reading will be changing and I'm still making tweaks and
revisions to rules stuff. But yeah, I'll run you through
kind of the rules and everything and how we'll play.
Cool. Awesome.
All right, let's see here. So I guess the the main, this is
also like one of my first times explaining this to other people.
So this will be good practice for me in that sort of like
choose your own choose your own path style, right?
You'll be reading an entry, so your main your turn, we're going
to call it, it's called the exploration turns.
That's going to be you read an entry and then you decide what
to do next. It'll tell you what page you're
like, what entry to go to based on that description, but you'll
you'll go ahead and go there and just stop and that'll be your
turn. I also really love this like
gameplay style, just like ideally, like just sit in a room
with your friend with two books and just kind of like take turns
reading. It's just like, I feel like that
is exactly how I want to hang out with someone right now.
But that's the main core. Some entries might say this
entry does not take an exploration turn, in which case
you'll keep reading. And if you all have questions
about that, let me know. Then you'll read the entry.
There may be encounters, or it might ask you to check if an
encounter has been resolved. There's an encounters list and
you check it off if it tells you to.
Most all the stuff in the text is going to like instruct you
what to do when it comes up. The since this works off of a
core of OSE and BX, we've got like saving throws.
That's going to be exactly the same as how it works.
Yeah. So you're just like for saving
throw, your character has saves and you roll D20 trying to roll
over it. Cool.
And then there may be times where it calls for like an
ability check, in which case it's roll D20, try to get under
your ability score, that stuff. One of the big differences
though, I'm just going to kind of jump ahead to how combat
works because that's going to be quite different.
We're and actually, so there's the initiative table.
I'm going to pull that up and we still have like initiative that
you'll roll every combat for. Like after both of you go,
you'll roll initiative every single time.
So it's not once per combat, right?
It's every round. You're rolling initiative when
you are doing initiative before you're going to secretly decide
if you are fighting or fleeing and if you're fleeing, well,
once you've decided you're going to roll AD 6 for initiative at
the same time as your opponent and you're both going to
announce which one you do. So then the initiative tables
just like a little matrix of like here's what the outcome is
if one person decided to fight and one flee, if both people
flee, if both people fight, and then based on who wins
initiative and then it just gives you the outcome there.
And I'll just read some of those outcomes.
So like if both people decide to flee, it doesn't matter who wins
initiative or it does, I guess the winner progresses to the
next area. So you get a little bit of a, a
bonus. So you get like an extra turn
basically because you were faster, right?
And then, But when you're fleeing, you don't choose where
you're going. It's random.
So if you're in a room with four doors and you choose to flee,
who knows where you're going? And then if one person chooses
to fight, other person chooses to flee, and you win initiative
while you're fleeing, you get to avoid combat and you go to the
next area and you keep going on your turn.
So you take that. Then if you choose to fight and
you win initiative and the other person fled, they're still going
to get to fled flee, but you get to pull out like one attack
before them. If you both choose fight, the
initiative winner fights first, right?
The way surprise works in this is just if one of you rolls a
natural one and rolling over you rolls a natural 6 on the first
roll of combat, then it's surprise and there's a different
set of outcomes that are pretty similar, but you might get like
2 attacks or two extra exploration turns to run away.
So that's basically how initiative works for like combat
when you're fighting each other, that'll be pretty clear.
If you encounter creatures, then it's just the other player runs
the creatures for you. So that is, that's really the
gist of it. I'll run through.
Let's see here. I'm looking through.
Oh, there's for the mapping, because it can get kind of
confusing if all the mapping is in just in text.
There is a page that has room maps and you won't see the whole
map put together. But when you are in a room, you
are allowed to look at the map of just that room so you can see
exactly where the doors are. Cool.
I love that. Yeah, thank.
You that was one of the things in plague testing is like this
is confusing as hell. I just ran in and out of the
same room repeatedly because I was forgetting where things were
and adding this and help the ton and it's not.
Connected. So it's still a little
disorienting, but not too much, you know?
Yeah. Totally.
And I'd encourage you guys while you're playing, if you want to
like draw the map as you go so you have a sense of where things
are in case you're trying to get somewhere.
Let's see here. There's some secret entries,
item entries, there's some core skills in OSC that will also
keep that like opening stuck doors that is one of your skills
on your character sheets tells you like your chance for opening
a stuck door. It when you start you have at
least you have an ally, so you're rolling for you and your
ally. So you'd roll 2 dice if there's
two of you and they each have a certain chance to open that
stuck door based on your strength.
I did combine fine traps and searching room and stuffs into
one thing. So it's just search room.
And so you don't have a crazy amount of options in every
single room that you go to. So if you search the room, you
may find traps, you may find things that are hidden.
It's just anything that has to do with searching is combined
into that single role. Now.
Another big modification from OSC is that I got rid of armor
class and attack rolls because of the two player.
Like that initiative table we looked at.
This is is an auto hit thing so. No Thacko.
No, Thacko, as much as I really enjoy enjoy that the chance
element is going to be in the damage dice and in the like
story. It's it's got a little bit of a
rock paper scissors feel in terms of like how initiative
works, right, But you auto hit, you distribute damage among your
ally, you and your allies how you like.
So if Ryan, you're Marax, right. So if you do damage to Voth and
Oren, I think, or if it starts with you, that is, then hunter
gets to decide how that damage gets distributed.
I did replace all that though with damage reduction, so
something to kind of account for like armor and things like that.
So if you have armor, you're going to have a higher damage
reduction. Generally you'll have a damage
reduction of 0, and that can't reduce damage down to zero
though, as you always take a minimum of 1.
And then Voth has spells. There's a spell book in there,
and they're all based out like OSE spells, but modified a bit
for this for this style of play. So the description of each of
those spells is in there. In general, you can cast a spell
whenever you want. You can do it during an
expiration turn or in combat, but there there's at least one
spell that you can only use if the text prompts you like.
If you have this spell, you can use it.
All your spells are single use, so you'll check them off once
you use them. And then items, same thing.
Using an item is not going to like if you use it in combat, it
takes up your combat turn. If you use it in an exploration
turn, it's not going to take up any time extra.
So let's see here. I think that's probably the
essentials. I'm looking through other things
that I might want to mention. Oh, fighting.
When you declare fight or flee, if you want to use an item or
use a spell, if you're doing anything other than running
away, you're just going to say fight, whether it's a defensive
thing or not. It's just like I'm engaging in
this combat. It's under the fight tree of
actions. Yeah, we talked about ability
checks, saving throws, using magic, searching rooms.
Listen, listen. Oh, listening at doors.
It's like such a core part. Listening at doors is going to
be a little different than an OSC.
There's no role for listening at doors in this one.
So you declare you're listening at a door.
It might give you some information about what's on the
other side. There's been listening entries
depending on what room you're in, and your opponent is going
to read those listening entries to you.
So if you're like, oh, I'm listening at this door, they'll
tell you what you hear. And it does take your
exploration turn to listen at the door, just like it takes the
exploration turn to search A room, open stuck doors, all
that. Dude I'm so backing this
project. I really love this idea.
Awesome. Thank you.
I just. Like, you know, it's like it's a
classic, you know, maximum out-of-the-box, like inspired by
something to know that is not the the norm now for play, you
know? Thank that.
Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate that.
So that is, that's essentially the rules with encounters.
There's also like if there's a creature, it'll have a modified
stat block. The stat blocks are just a
little bit shorter than like a typical OSC stat block.
And then, yeah, I think that is it for getting started.
Any questions from you guys? Yeah, is.
There a Cilligans tape with this.
OK, no, but. OK.
So this is something for you guys who probably already have
the album. It's not as big of a thing, but
we did a demon tape already. Oh yeah, I have it so.
We are making that available for our first 48 hours backers.
They're going to get the the digital Demon Lord soundtrack
for freaks. It's like, I can't not bring
that in. It's just like we did this.
Every song is a different demon Lord, like, you know, like, but
we're not creating a new one. That being said, keep an eye out
because like I think I don't know how much I can say about
other people's projects that aren't my own, but I would
expect some interest in music. We'll.
Look out for it. Yeah, cool, cool.
And I yeah, I mean, it was really fun making songs based on
Goetic Demons previously, so I'm very happy to bring that back
here. All right.
Any other any other questions? I'm sure I have many, but let's
play and we'll figure them. Out.
We'll figure it out as we go for sure.
So Voth goes first. I am Voth.
And so you each have your background.
And I was thinking for this the, the real, like one of the things
I'm still playing with a little bit is how much information to
share. It would be probably pretty
boring for listeners if you all just don't tell anyone what's
happening. So I think it's OK that you all
will know what's going on with the other person.
But we should probably just, yeah, share with each other,
like read the passages. Yeah, we'll do it for the pod.
I'm sure Hunter and I will play this together at some point in
the future and actually play it. But yeah, for the for the for
the pod, I think we can met a little bit here and I think
we'll get away with it, Yeah. If one of you wants to read your
back voth, maybe start with your background and then I'm going to
run to the bathroom. Mine.
You are Voth, You are Voth. No sorcerer has ever dared to do
such deeds as you perform daily, and though you have been an
outcast all your very long life, it has been worth it, for the
petty have long perished. And you live on.
Yes, you are living on borrowed time, nay, stolen time, brazenly
bargained from the clutches of demon who had no right to hold
it in the first place. And yes, you know that death is
near should you not complete your mission.
But what scares you now is knowing that should you die, you
must pay your dues to each of the demons you bamboozled,
entrapped, or offended. This is your last chance.
You feel the sands of time trickling through your clenched
fist. You must find immortality.
In the ages that have come and pass, you learned of an ancient
artifact which grants those who dawned eternal life the 10
crowns of chaos. For eons you have researched its
whereabouts and now you know exactly where it is.
Among the seven churches of hell there is one that beckons you
from beneath the shadow of dancing flame and architecture
car from the sulfur scorched black silica that makes the hell
floor. This fortification which you
must see just none other than the black Spire and in its bat
infested belfry rests the crown. But can you avoid the clutches
of the Duke of Astrology, the demon barracks who rules over
the forsaken sub realm of Hell? Today you will find out.
You have spent the past seven days summoning up portals you
need as confident as you are. You know the sweat beating on
your brow as you walk through the sulfurous miasma that makes
up the magical gateway. You feel your bones stretch,
your muscles ache, and your mind tear from one end to the other.
The smell is unbearable, you nearly vomit.
You aren't sure why. You hold back the regurgitation
while traveling to planes. As your head slowly stops
spinning. You collect your wits, clinch
your stomach. You realize you have stumbled
onto the Onyx plateau of the very region of hell you sought.
You look up and see the black Spire packed.
Recognize it from your donations.
But to see the apotheosis of nightmarish architecture in
person? That is enough to put horror in
the heart of any living thing, regardless of age or power.
Hell yeah, I can read good. Job buddy, I'm very proud of
you. Do you want me to read my whole
thing? I think mine's a little shorter
than Voths. Yeah, go for one thing.
I'm going to jump in and say is that normally when I'm writing
stuff, I'm like trying to keep everything so concise.
Writing this style, I'm like I can, I can expand more.
Go for a walk with it. But it's been a, it's been a
real shift in my writing. I'm so used to writing for games
like. There's parts where I write
dialogue now anyways. Crazy.
Yeah. The Merrick's background.
You are the Duke of Astrology, the holder of patterns, the
wielder of the abstract, the Bejeweled one.
For the past 10 years, your legion have been plucked from
their homes, dragged unwillingly into the physical plane at the
whim of that filthy taker, Voth the Magician.
And now he dares to enter your realm.
Your spies share visions of him lusting after the 10th Crown of
Chaos, which if he were to obtain, would give him power not
only over you but also over your entire realm.
Could a human truly usurp you? You chuckle and look side to
side. Though you know you are alone,
you cannot help but be wary of coming across as weak, letting
fear of a human take hold. You felt the ripple of the
portal held open. You smell the rancid stench of
human sweat and flesh, riding upon the winds of hell as it
takes you, as it takes into your nostrils.
Foth is here. He cannot be far if he knows as
much as your Legion claims. He can have but one destination,
the Black Spire. You will not let him desecrate
the unholy church. You will not let him live.
Though you have never risked visiting the Black Spire before,
it is now time. Hell's minions guarding the
crown won't bow to you willingly, but you are sure you
can best them with more ease than Voth.
There are two paths you may take.
One long unused leads to the back entrance of the Black Spire
and the front entrance across the Chasms Bridge will surely be
where both will arrive, but this will take longer for you to
reach. Will you approach the Black
Spire from the back to attempt to gain ground on Voth, or try
to cut him off before he reaches the bridge across the chasm?
Boom. I see Ryan Moore as a backdoor
guy, you know? Yeah, Yep.
Cool. Well, I think that that brings
it back to Hunter. You've got your first.
Oh, I forgot to. I forgot to to flash off my
little overlay for those in in that are can see what's
happening. There you go.
Boom. All right.
Nice. OK, so I read the first entry
right. Yep.
Did you did yours? I think yours sends you to a
specific spot. Yeah, before you have a choice.
Yeah, it's immediately turned to 21.
Yeah, OK. 21 The bridge across the chasm The only thing left
standing between you and the Black Spire is a massive chasm
and a rope bridge. Do you attempt to cross the rope
bridge or look for another way to get to the Black Spire?
I will my do. I read the options as well out
loud. I I'd say my guess is I say just
read the what your choice is cool which one you decide on.
Or you can read them all. As a person.
I am a hammer. Not necessarily both, but me,
myself. So everything's a nail.
I, I, I'm going to take the straight path.
I will cross the road bridge which causes me to turn to 22.
All right. And then back to Ryan.
Stupid bot is down again. I'm don't be like logging into
it. So my main text says if I choose
the back door I turn to page X area 11.
If I choose front entrance I skip blah blah blah.
So I'm going to click Area 11 behind the black Spire.
So I, I, I read this whole thing because this is what I'm doing,
right? Boop Let me, I don't remember
that Boop. This is me, Marex, Lord of
Demons. Marex.
Behind the LAX fire.
You beat your win one one, right?
Oh oh, the the hyperlink on that takes you to 1211 to the back.
Oh, you're right. I'll fix it.
You leap from your throne, run towards the window, and leap out
from your tower, flapping your wings to carry you across the
odious winds. You know that it is far better
to surprise your enemy than to be surprised by them.
Turn to paychecks 1-2. Do I keep going or does it just
go back and forth every time? Yep, goes back and forth back
to. Thunder.
Boom, I'm now at 22, which is Wait, what?
This section does not count as an exploration turn.
As you approach the bridge, you notice something strange.
Check if encounter 21 is cleared.
If not, turn to page 2. Three.
I assume that encounter has not been cleared.
You're correct. And.
There's an encounters checklist you can share like look at, but
I see you would look so like Ryan would check his encounters
checklist and you would check yours as well if you need to
because you may there could be encounters that Ryan clears that
you don't know about, right? OK, took me back to the top.
Where is the goblin guard? Yeah, 2-3 The Goblin Guard.
A small and laughably heavy armored goblin sits in the
center of the bridge, suspended across the great chasm.
It says the amp. I think it means the goblin
trembles, clutching its knees to its chest.
I think I will. I wish to speak with the goblin.
That's the end of this entry. Yep.
So back to Ryan. So I am behind the Black Spire.
You beat your wings against the sulfurous, steamy air, taking
great strides across the charred landscape.
Taking the most direct path, you quickly reach the back of the
black Spire, which towers before you through.
The Cyclopean Masonry is magnificent.
Though. The Cyclopean Masonry is
magnificent to behold, it shows its age underneath the vibrant
red creeping plants that obfuscate its walls.
If Encounter 1A has not yet been cleared, turn to page XI.
No encounters have been cleared yet so I'm going to go to 1-7.
All right. Which is store behind the vines
all right. Damn it, I keep forgetting to
switch. Switch dudes, boom, me and we're
back. All right, Hon, Are you muted?
I don't. Know what you're talking about.
I was just mouthing words, you know I was practicing goblins.
You approached the cowardly ampitatively with your hands
raised to show you mean it no harm.
You tell the goblin you wish to cross the bridge and pause as it
looks up, grinning at you. A goblin must make a reaction.
Roll 2D6 and add the highest charisma modifier of your party.
OK so I'm going to roll 2D6 and I rolled A5 and then the highest
charisma modifier of my party. I would assume it's probably me.
I think I put the modifiers in there.
Did I'm going to grab my? That's OK, it's a, it's a -1 I
don't need to. Oh wait, no it's not.
This is OSE. Fuck, I don't have memorized
anymore. Are you in the dice roller?
Oh, did you post a dice roller? I opened triple D dice just
separately. I did.
I sent your link. Cool.
What's your charisma hunter? 9. 9 It's no no modifier.
Cool. So just A5 and I'll use the dice
roller from now on. Oh, there we go.
Thank you, Ryan. OK, so I rolled A5.
OK, so for three to 11, turn to two 27.
Cool. Ryan, your turn.
OK boom I remember to switch to Marex.
That's me, I AM 17. The door behind the vines.
You can tell there is a door to your right, but it will take
work to free it to the chaotic mess of vines.
I have three options here. If you give up and walk around
to the front entrance, skip an exploration turn.
Yeah, let's just do that. Let's just skip this whole
thing. Go back to the front now.
If you attempt to clear the vines from the door, turn to
page, turn to area 1. Three if you attempt to search
for 1/3 secret entrance. Don't do it. 1/3 secret
entrance. That is some poor language
choice on my part, because that implies that there's two other
secrets. There's two 1/3 entrance that is
secret. Yeah, I can go back to the.
I can go back and write on the. Man, do I clear the vines or do
I search for what clearly must be 1/3 secret entrance?
Yeah, the legendary third secret entrance.
Yeah, the. Legendary third secret entrance.
We got to go all three. You know it.
Brings you to the hidden temple. Well, I mean, in that case I'm
going to have to go to Area 1 Four and attempt to find the
third secret entrance. And back to Voss.
Yeah, the greedy goblin. The goblin implies you may cross
up a bridge but but it will cost you kindly.
Any gift will do. And the goblin extends his open
hand and looks up wantingly. OK so I can give the goblin an
item and mark it off my character sheet from or the
character sheet of whichever person?
Sorry, I just got a message and I can't read two things at once
because I'm dumb. That sorry that wasn't for you.
That's OK. Perfect.
Great. I'm gonna keep going on you.
Don't fuck this goblin. I refuse.
Refusing the gift. I refuse the gift.
That's the end of my entry. Ryan is back to Merrick's.
Back to Merrick's as Merrick's kind of heading towards what
might have been the secret entrance, he said.
You know what now? Fuck it, fuck these vines.
So he is actually going to just go after these vines, which
takes me to here. So you easily hack the verdant
creepers away from the door with your magnificent sword,
revealing an ancient door with damaged hinges and swollen
planks. The door is clearly stuck.
Oh, I get to check off an encounter.
I get to check off an encounter. All right.
Check off encounter 18. Where?
Where is that again? Oh, America's encounters.
Check off encounter. And just check one.
AII don't have edit access so I can't check it.
Oh, let me change that real quick.
No. Trying not to look ahead, but
there's a lot of encounters on this list here.
Yeah, that's one of the things I got to.
I'll be rearranging entries and stuff and I got to figure out
how I'm going to handle that with the encounters list.
OK, Marek's main text. Let's go back to where I was at.
I was at area 1/3 I think, clearing the vines.
Yes, you easily hacked through. Oh, I did that.
I I there's swollen doors and magnificent swords.
So check out the kind of 1A you use your open stuck door skill.
I have a specific skill for open stuck door so that'll be more.
Character. Sheet OK, or if you give up and
walk around the front entrance, man, you give a lot of options
to just say fuck it, let's go to the front.
If you attempt to search for 1/3 secret entrance, OK, so we're
not doing that. So I'm going to attempt to use
my open stuck door skill. I constantly practice opening
stuck doors so that I can gain significant skills in this, so
I'm gonna go to my character sheet here for Marex. 2:00 and
6:00. I have.
Where would I find OH open? I do have an open stuck door
option here. It's a 5 and 6.
Five and six Wow 5. And six, I told you, man, I
practice constantly. I'm an ancient demon that
decided for an entire millennia just to try to open stuck doors
so that I can master the art of, of really tearing into these
swollen planks, you know? So I'm going to roll AD 6 here,
which you people should see on the screen.
That's going to be a three. You got it.
So in five and six, that means everything but a 1 is a success,
or everything but a six is a success.
You know, I always play everything except a six is.
That's how I play it as one. 5 out of 6, because why would you
do one? Yeah, makes sense.
So I succeed, right? I'm I'm, I'm I utilize my
mastery and open these doors. You did it.
I did. So it says I would then go to,
if you successfully open the door, turn to area 31.
If you failed, boom. OK, so I'm going to go to area
31. There's no hyperlink, so I will
find that all right. Now it is Voth.
Cool. The goblin attacks.
Infuriated by your refusal the imp attacks, you run Encounter
21. Cool, so encounter 21 Hunter.
You don't look at the encounters list for this one.
OK, Ryan. Will Oh, right, Ryan, I'm
fighting you. Technically.
You're fighting you technically, yeah, OK.
He was a goblin. Encounter list?
Is it Voss encounter list that I go look at?
I have put them in. They should be like it under
Marak's encounters, like that's basically like all your content
that's going to go in your book because each person gets one
book. So you'll go to your encounters
that's in your book basically. And then so that's all actually
4 of off. Like it sounds clunky but then
when it's actually it's just. Yeah, when you're holding the
other book, yeah, you're going to have a blast.
Sad thing this you. Know what this reminds me of?
Have you ever? Did you ever play the Warhammer
game where you have like 2 books between each other?
No. Remind me to show you that.
Yeah, I need to check that out. For sure.
OK, so 2A cowardly armored amp. Is that what I'm doing?
Yeah. Or yeah.
All right, so we got our first combat, huh?
Boom, let's do it, yeah. All right, so this is currently
Hunter's turn. It's during Hunter's exploration
turn that this is happening. So we're going to remember whose
turn it is right now, and it'll switch to your turn.
That's more important if you encounter each other, because
when you encounter each other, there's possibilities that you,
the turn order could end up switching.
But here we pull up the initiative table.
You all each get AD 6 ready to go and decide what you are going
to do. Ryan, you get to decide for the
Imp Hunter, you decide for Voth and Oren.
I will also say with allies, they just go wherever you go.
Like whatever you do, there's not going to be like a splitting
up your party thing. Yeah, cool.
OK, I will roll my D6 and. As you all roll, then you should
announce whether which thing you're doing, fleeing or
fighting. K Ryan, you're ready.
Yes, Where's the initiative table here?
Well, I'm just picking what I want, right?
And then I have AD 6, so we're going to go like on three.
Yeah. So on three, we will click the
thing and say what we're doing, yes.
So obviously after three, I guess because then I'm talking
and then so 1233 fleet. Fight.
Did you say flee or fight Ryan? Fleet, I'm a cowardly armored
imp. That's very true.
I like the the way this played out is the imp start like goes
to attack and then changes his mind, runs away.
Yeah. My my big dwarf Oren walks up.
So Ryan rolled A5 and I rolled A3.
No, vice versa, I think. Yeah, you're the bees.
Oh, I rolled A5 and Ryan rolled a three.
I apologize, other way around. So the 51 initiative and you
chose to fight, right? And the loser of the initiative
chose to flee. So we're down there in the
fight, slash, flee with initiative, winner fighting.
So you see the outcome there. No surprise on that because it
wasn't a one and a six. So fighting player resolves
their attack before the fleeing player gets to move.
And this? I am also realizing that I
didn't talk about this, but that creatures aren't intended to
actually flee. This is a player decision.
I have to. Like.
Make note of this for updating, but that is OK.
Cool. No, that's perfect.
That's what this is for, you know.
We'll just have this is also outside the dungeon, so like the
the cowardly imp can just flee off the bridge back and like
just be gone. Gotcha, Perfect, but you get to
hit me first. I do 2 attacks right?
That's for surprise, So. Yeah.
OK. Gotcha.
Yeah, that's OK. So attacking here, it works
differently. There is no it's just the damage
role, right? That's correct, and then the imp
is armored so probably has some damage reduction.
Oren swings his battle axe. And you actually so for
attacking, it's the whole party. Oh.
So you both get so Voth could cast a spell or just fight, but
you just you're going to resolve everybody at once.
Cool so but it's just one attack so it would just just Oren
swinging his axe would be the one attack.
Nope, it's it's the whole party attack.
It's like each. Party member gets one attack.
Yeah. So you can just like put
together a little dice pool if you want, or roll them at a
time. I don't see me using a spell
right now because I just I don't.
So it says battle axe 1D8 and then comma +2 strength under
oren. So that's one D 8 + 2.
Correct. OK.
And then the dagger is going to be 1 D 4 + 2, so that makes it a
+ 4 all together. That's 12 damage when added up.
Like that's probably going to be enough to to do bad things to me
do. You see the you've got the stats
there, Ryan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I am going to remind myself what all of them mean.
So I have a saving throw. I got deep saving throws.
What? That's saving throw D12.
You don't have anything to roll here, it's just he hit you for
12 damage and so what's? My what's my Which one of these
is armor? The Dr. is the the damage
reduction, so you'll subtract that amount from the damage.
I don't have AD Oh, DR2. Yeah, so so I only take, I only
take 10 damage and I have 4:00. So you murder the fuck out of me
so as I turn to flee I'm just like sliced in half by this
fucking dwarf or something. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
And stabbed at the in the in the side the exact same time.
You know, perfect. One thing, because we're not in
an actual book where you can just like put a bookmark
remembering which entry you are on when we switch between tabs
can be a little challenged to make sure you make note of that.
But yeah, so you, you killed the goblin and then what happens
next? I believe, I think we're still
on your exploration turn. If you defeat the goblin, you go
to 2:14, so that should be the end of my turn.
Yes. Back to Marex, yeah?
I'm just going to have two of these open because I'm not going
to remember that shit. So I was on 3/1, I believe the
corridor. OK, let me just sort of
highlight in here real quick. So you're in a long corridor.
Wait, wait wait. Boom Marex.
You are in a long corridor with a floor of large alternating red
and black tiles. The hallway is lit by evenly
spaced braziers on either wall. They glow with a dancing black
flame. So looks like I could either
search the room. I could.
If you wish to enter a door, choose one below and turn the
indicated entry. So there's a northernmost store
at the end of the corridor, A northeastern door, northwestern
door, a middle door, southernmost OR and southern,
northwest or and southern northeast or.
So there's 12345. There's 6 doors that I could
pay. Ryan you This is where you can
look at the room maps and go to room 3 to get a visual.
Boom. All right, room maps.
Open this up and go to room 30. Damn.
OK, so it is a it is a long corridor and it's already like
door, door, door, door, door, door.
SO22 near yeah, 2 near one in the middle, 2 at the far end of
the corridor is what it looks like.
And for your sake, I will tell you, Do you know, are you clear
on which door you just came in? No.
Cool. You can't believe.
That probably that one. Yep, that's it.
All right order, man. It's not quick and easy to just
copy paste this into the thing or I would put the maps in here
for the stream as I go, but I'm not gonna do that because that's
a pain in the ass. So that's not one of the
options. The other option was to search
the room. So search the entire corridor.
Or is it just pick a room? Like that's what search the room
means, right? Yeah.
And I'll, one thing I'll, I'll mention too is as you all are
making decisions, one of the things you might have to
consider because this is also a certain extent like you have to
consider the time it's taking you to do your things versus the
time it's taken to the other. You all know what each other are
doing. So it's a little less of a issue
there. But I mean, yeah, searching, I'm
not trying to influence this decision.
I'm just thinking this is something I probably didn't
mention earlier. There's like trying to find
resources and stuff to help you as you prepare for the two of
you to battle and dealing with stuff in there.
But yeah. OK, so what's a good choice here
to search the room before I pick a door?
I mean, whatever you decide is going to be the right choice.
I'm not going to listen to that door 'cause I'm a fucking demon.
I don't give a shit. I could just barge into a door
or I could at the very least I could, you know, if I could
listen to it. I'm going to at least search the
corridor and see what the fuck's going on before I just like
barrel into a door. I I'm a demon, but I'm not dumb
if I search the room. Make a skill check.
If you are successful, turn to page X turn to three, two or
three, three. So I'm going to do a skill check
with my guy and I'm going to use my search room check which is my
search room skill because I spent another millennia
searching rooms and my search room skill is also 5:00 and
6:00. I'm a pro with this shit and.
You do get to roll for each of your because you have an ally
that's a little imp with you or a gremlin I think.
So you get to roll 2 dice, one for you and one for your
gremlin. OK, my yeah, I do have a little
gremlin guy with me. He's my familiar.
His name is Cruxism. Yeah, and their search room is
one in six, so I will roll 2. I guess the first one will be,
you know, Marex and the second will be the imp.
So 3 for Marex and three for the imp.
So the OR the gremlin. So the Gremlin doesn't see shit
and Marex sees all. So I search and I'm successful.
So I go to Area 32 for a successful search and then that
is the end for me, right I? It does 3 two say it does not.
Some of them might say that it doesn't require an expiration
turn. If it does say that, then.
Doesn't say anything about. Nope.
So then you Yep, you you spent the exploration turn searching
and stuff. Yep.
So. Cool.
All right, Voth. The I'm on 214, the fall of the
gob of guard as you slay the imp.
You know this. That's that's a tumultuous,
tumultuous fighting has damaged the bridge and it is about to
collapse. I can cast dimension door or
Wall of ice if I have them available, which I do, or make a
dexterity check to attempt to run across the bridge before it
collapse. Let me look.
Let me familiarize myself with my deck scores.
OK, great, very good, not great. So I think in a perfect world
where I have this book in front of me, I would actually try to
dex check, but in the in interest of keeping this going,
I'll go ahead and I'll I'll use one of my spells.
I cast wall of ice and I turn to two. 15215 does not count as an
exploration turn, so I continue to do this entry, correct?
Correct, and you'll check off Wall of Ice from your spellbook.
Check off wall of ice. Where is wall Check?
There it is. OK cool, it's not checked but I
don't know if I can. Oh try refreshing because I
changed permissions so it should let you know.
Reload. OK, cool.
Yeah, There we go. Looks like I have permission now
it is checked off. No more wall of ice for or Voth.
He used it, and now I got to scroll back down because it
refreshed everything I was at. Bridge of Ice.
Yeah. You instantaneously recall the
gesture, the language and the spirit needed.
You feel the cold spread from your fingertips through the rest
of your body as the vapors beneath you freeze, creating a
bridge of ice encasing the collapsed remnants of the rope
bridge. As you walk ahead, you think,
oh, how glorious it is to be such a powerful sorcerer turned
to 217. Is that the end Divine?
Yep, cool, Ryan. Cool all right, back to Marek's
so successful search of the corridor with six doors.
As you scour the room, you notice that the black flames of
the braziers burn cold. As the cooling flames catch your
attention, you also see a tarnished key jammed behind one
of the braziers, noticing that the northernmost door on the
east wall is locked. If it seems likely this key is
meant for this door, check off item 5 all right.
And there is an items like item entries tab where you can check
that and that should be per player.
Item entries. There it is, tarnished key.
Boom, I checked it. OK, so but check a final five.
If you use the key to unlock the northernmost door on the east
wall, turn to this other page. If you do not use the key, turn
back and immediately make another choice without taking an
exploration turn. Oh, you know what I'm going to
do? I'm just going to, I'm going to
find a key, use it, right? So I'm going to do that and I'm
going to go to 13-1 and that should be the end of my turn.
So we'll go back to both as I Scroll down to 13 one.
Amazing, fantastic about two 17217 The gates of the Black
Spire. You approach the black and iron
gates of the Black Spire could be so simple as to merely reach
out and pull them open. You approach, reach out your
hand and pause. I feel like my sorcery is so
like overly proud and confident that searching for traps is just
not a thing that he would do. So I'm going to muster my
resolve and open the door. Turn to 2:23.
Yeah, that's the end of my turn and it's going to end exactly
how I think. So.
Oh, Eric's is sacrarium. Sacrarium which is a sanctuary
or sacristy of a church. Sick.
Never heard that word before. It's a good word.
We were inside a small room that appears to have been used in
preparation for services. An effigy of Capital I in
Furnace, Lord of Hellfire, sits upon a golden throne sculpted to
appear as if it is made of flames.
The effigy is crudely painted and badly worn, it's right hand
erect and empty as if it once held some weapon.
The throne is surrounded by Imps, incubi, and succubi carved
out of the Onyx floor. Priestly robes of chartreuse and
black with fine embroidery are draped over a counter.
Chartreuse is a drink I really wanted to love and I just can't.
There are two doors on the N wall, 1 central and one to the
east. The central door is a jar.
Thought it was a door. There is a door on the South
wall if you place an item in the effigy's right hand, Decide
which item now, then turn to a page.
If I search the room, do some other stuff and then there's
other doors. So this is room 13.
Yep, so you can pop over the room maps.
OK dude, it's so it's so nice having two open.
I don't know if you have it open on her, but it's nice.
I have one to keep my spot and one to bounce around in.
OK, so I'm in 13 so there's 3 doors.
OK, I see what's going on right? So the effigy has a hand and it
is empty. I could stick an item in it.
Excuse me. So let me see what?
Well, my what what what kind of items do I got on me?
Let's see what I got here. Allies and characters me.
Let's see what I got. Inventory.
I got fucking nothing. Let me see what my my little guy
has. He's got literally just a
dagger. Yeah, I'm just going to the
gremlins probably sitting on my shoulder, picking his nose or
something, and I'm just going to snatch it off and then just
pluck the dagger from his little gremlin hands.
And I'm going to stick the the gremlins dagger in the the
upraised the erect but empty hand of this effigy.
All right. So then it says go to 13 two
which is which is here and but then it goes to Baath, right?
I think does it say this entry doesn't take an exploration
turn? Where this entry does not take
an exploration turn, it does say that.
So if you placed a weapon in the hand of the effigy, turn to a
page. If you place anything else in
the hand, it immediately erupts into flames, dealing you D6
damage before it is destroyed. Turn back to page X.
OK, so I did put a weapon in there.
I put a dagger in there. So I get to go to 13 four and it
doesn't say this doesn't dig an entry.
So this does go back to both. Boom, both you up.
And I'm so sorry, my last entry, opening the gate is not an
exploration. It just takes me immediately to
Seven one. So I opened the gate and I'm now
in Seven One, the antechamber. You enter what appears to be a
foyer, Crimson light escapes from cracks in the stone floor.
It dances upon the golden embroidery of the curtains
covering all four walls, and the center of the room is a golden
circular rug. The curtains on the N wall are
parted, revealing a central door decorated with devilish mocking
faces, tongues intertwining and lips curled with cruel laughter.
Do you enter the north door or take time to search the room?
I, I think I'll search the room. So I'm going to pull up my
character sheets. I don't need that.
Thank you. Google Docs.
I have a one in six or A2 in six.
Oh yeah. So we'll just say that the first
one's going to be voth 1 and 6. Nope.
Second one is going to be orin two and six.
Also Nope I don't find shit. So let's see if you search the
room, make a skill check for so slow turn.
So too if you fail, your turn ends and you may make another
choice on your next exploration turn.
That is the end of my turn. Well I just kept love.
It just stayed in this room for the rest of the time we streamed
and just kept searching it so I found something.
When I played with Kyle, I he escaped me while I was fighting
him, but then he went to the next room, tried to open a stuck
door and I think he even maybe surprised me.
So he got like extra turns, but he just kept trying to open the
stuck door repeatedly and failing.
And so I just like then caught up with him.
It was great. Nice.
That's funny. Nice.
If only they had spent a millennia learning how to
unstick doors. I know, right?
So here with Marek. So in Furnace is pleased.
A fiery pentagram appears on the floor surrounding the effigy.
You watch as your weapon begins to glow as metal in a forge,
though it doesn't seem to burn or become more malleable.
You reach out to touch it and notice that though hot, it does
not hurt you. You take the weapon from the
effigy's hand, feeling its new found magic as if a current runs
between it and your skin. While holding this weapon,
cursed by in furnace, your damage resistance is now
increased by +2. You wonder what this boon may
have cost. You turn back to page 13 one.
Let me go to 13 one, see if it cost me an exploration turn.
It does. So that is the end of my turn
and now I have the +2 damage resistance.
And it are you, is Marax taking that or are you giving that back
to the gremlin? Now fuck that guy.
Yeah, fuck the gremlin and. You have your sword, right?
Or did I leave that off your inventory?
No, there's this whole sword. Yep, I just have that.
OK, cool. Yeah, that was definitely not
something I was going to stick on an altar.
Yeah, I get that. That would be risky.
Yeah, I mean, it would have been cool if I did, but man, if if
that would have sucked it up and disappeared with my favorite
sword, you know? Yeah, yeah, that have sucked.
OK, so I am back in seven. I'm still in seven.
One because my searching failed. So there's a door to the north.
I think I'm going to try to listen at the door, the northern
door. All right, so for then you it
should tell you what listening entry to tell Ryan to read.
For Ryan, please check listening entry one.
Listening entry Are you doing a skills?
Check for that. You do not listening indoors
that one. That's one of the things we
modified instead of having to be a skill check.
If you listen, then you'll. Hear something?
Yeah. So I still look at the Merricks
stuff for him. And which door is it again?
It's. Going to be listening entry one.
So if you are in room 12. OK, I just Yep.
And that part you'll Yep, there's.
Yeah, I'll let you read that. Oh, you know what?
How about this hunter? close your ears.
Wait a minute. No.
Oh, yeah. Wait.
I don't get the last line of that.
So the you refers to you, your character Ryan.
I'm not there. Correct, you're not in.
You don't hear, so you don't hear shit.
Yeah. All right, Val, if you don't
hear anything amazing, yeah. OK perfect then sorry I don't
know why it all the scrolled me back down.
You're my turn ends now. So that was it.
I listened to the door. So now it's.
Turmerics. All right, merics.
Boom. All right, so I'm back at the so
I'm still in the sacrarium of in Furnace, Lord of Hell Fire.
Do I can I now place a sword in the effigy too?
Or do I feel like it's pretty much done what it's going to do?
Did it instruct you to check off an encounter?
It did not. OK, that's something I should
add in there because for things that are.
One time. Yeah, or it doesn't necessarily
mean that it's one time, it just is a way to track whether you've
done it or not. So sometimes there may be
multiple encounters to allow me to have like sequencing of
different events, like you can do something a second time.
Yeah. So we'll say that's a play
testing thing I need to fix for that entry.
I'm going to make a note of that for myself.
OK, so I'm going to say I get the sense that I can't do that
again. So the other options I have are
that there are doors. What's that?
What's the time at right now? Where it's 935 for us.
Do you have a hard out Max because I I see these room
numbers. Yep.
So I have a hard out, but also not all of this thing is ready
for you all. So I think like my heart out is
probably like 12:15 or something like that.
But I think we're in a good, I think we're getting close to
like we'll see what happens, but I have a feeling you all are
maybe approaching each other. Yeah, you know what?
I really like this South door. Yeah, I think I'm going to, I
think I'm going to turn to page X and and there's listening
entry one. You're listening to the at the
door, no? It just says South door turn to
page X12 one or listening entry one.
Oh yeah, so I can listen at the door.
So if you listen at the door, it will take your exploration turn
if you go through. And I think I should clarify, I
changed the link where I was writing this later on to be a
little more clear, but just to make sure it's clear because I'm
noticing it's not as clear as I wanted.
If you want to go through the South door, turn to 12/1.
If you want to listen at it then you will do listening entry one
and that will end your turn. I'm not a listen at the door
kind of demon. I just go to 12/1 cool and that
will be the end of my turn. Awesome.
Great. My turn.
I'm still in the antechamber and I'm going to open the northern
door. So that takes me to 12/1.
Now in this circumstance, since you have entered the same room
as each other, you can read the listen, read the entry Hunter,
but before you resolve the entry any of the choices, you all
encounter each other. OK, you enter the nave of the
church, a large chamber scattered with overturned pews.
Strewn about the pews are the corpses, or at least 15 armored
soldiers decayed beyond recognition.
A set of steps lead up to the open chancel.
Chancel with a centerpiece of of a stained altar.
The room's walls are white marble, almost completely
covered with gold. Guilt, release of demons, amps,
goblins, gods, and every prophet known an Onyx Maxigon.
Braxton that. That's a creature from the
demonic grimoire that's coming. Oh cool, nice wig.
A little cross promotion, you know, brand synergy.
A statue stands in these, each of the four corners and one in
the middle of the black chancel wall.
There is a door to the South which I just came out of so.
Yep, all right. And now you all encounter each
other. So also in this room is the
demon Marax the Great, the Duke of Astrology.
So when you all encounter each other, you decide.
We go into that initiative table and you will decide whether you
are fleeing or fighting and you'll roll initiative D6.
So we both kind of like charge into the room together and I'm
just like human scum. And then it is currently
Hunter's exploration turn, so we'll remember that for once.
Combat. Is it over if Hunter survives?
If both survives. Yeah, Yeah.
I think in the like, normally I would narratively run, but I
think for this, given the circumstance of the show and our
and our limited time, I'm fighting.
Oh, I'm not supposed to announce that.
Whoops. Hey, guess what?
I'm going to fight too, all right?
Roll initiative. Oh.
I rolled A5. I rolled A3.
All right, so we're at both fight declaring action.
OK, so I will do some things. My very simple dwarven buddy is
going to swing his axe and I think Voth is going to cast a
spell. Nice.
Yeah, Voth is going to cast a hold monster, which I believe
will work on Ryan because it's pretty high level.
Wait, will hold monster work on Ryan?
You'll find out by doing it right.
That's true, yeah. Excuse me though, I have a
chaotic present presence that says the first time an opponent
and their allies see Merricks, they must save versus paralysis
or spend D4 combat rounds paralyzed with fear.
Any allies who fail their save have a one in six chance of
switching their ally ship. Fuck.
OK. I'm going to.
Saves A roll over in Osei. Remember how to play OSE.
OK so Voth has I have to roll. Is it?
It's just roll over. It's not roll out or over,
right? I think it's.
It's equal to or over equal. To over.
So Voth needs to roll an 8, Oren needs to roll above or add a
four. So here's Voth's roll who a
nine. Nothing was there.
And then Oren's roll a 20. Shit.
No, wait, wait, wait. So what happens?
Any allies who fail their save have a one and sick chance of
switching their ally ship. So roll AD six.
Yeah. And on A1.
He does not switch ally ship. He's he rolls a three.
But he's paralyzed by fear. For how many rounds?
D4. OK, I will roll AD 4. 4, maybe 3
rounds of. Fucking might as well be a
goddamn 4. And that pisses.
Himself. That ally role should be rolled
each round that he's paralyzed. Oh, so he's a one in six chance
each round to switch turns or switch teams?
Wow. And I think that can include him
switching back to your team too, no?
OK, cool. He's just very unsure of what
he's going to do. OK, so now Ryan, I guess it's
your combat turn. No, no.
Well, unless the save takes up your whole turn because you're
not parallel, so you need to attack me, right?
Yeah, so. Leave Oren out of it.
Yeah, OK, great. Well then I guess I'll go with
my original original hold monster.
So duration 10 turns. The spell causes one or more
creatures to be paralyzed if they fail a saving throw versus
spells any mayor. A monster paralyzed this way
cannot move or take into action. If the your opponent is
paralyzed, they must skip their expiration turn and or combat
turn and may be cast in two ways against an individual -2 to the
target saving throw or a group of up to 1D4 individuals.
So I just cast it against Ryan. I don't really care about his
amp and they get a -, 2 to their saving throw.
Cool, so save versus spells, Ryan.
Am IA monster, is that going to work on me?
You are a monster and so you can save versus spells, which I
guess in that as a high level demon you probably have a good
save versus spells. Before I even need to worry
about saving versus the spell, I have magic resistance which
gives me a 50% chance that it fails even before I have to make
a save. Yes.
So do I roll that? Yep.
So 5050 chance I guess I'll roll AD 20 so it's one through 10
will be I resist it. Your shit doesn't do shit and 11
through 20 your your shit does stuff to me or odds and evens,
but we'll just do one through 10.
Nothing happens to me. That's the easiest way to do it.
All right, 15 so I don't resist it, but now I can save against
it. Is my save ADAWAPAB or an SSS?
Why? Spells.
Yeah. What are the other ones?
Defense. Death ones, paralysis and breath
and it spells. Here's a.
Little quirk too is that poison is a death save.
Poison is also death, yeah. It'll say save versus poison,
but it'll be death I. Ain't got to worry about that.
We got to. Play some some BX or OSC Ryan.
Dude I it's been so long since I really have done any like actual
BX so I just have to roll over A6.
Yep, but you got a -, 2. So.
Real quick question though. So but your guy Voth oh is more
powerful but Oren has you. You fail for against the
paralysis. What is the P?
Paralysis, yeah. Oh, they're specific to
paralysis. Why would why would Oren's?
Oh, I guess he's a dwarf. So he's just more resistant to
it. But he because it's a roll over.
Got it, got it, got it. So I just need to roll over an 8
basically. Cool.
Oh, good luck. -2 to your role though.
Well, it's a 6 + 2 would be an 814.
Baby shit don't do shit. But I'm not held, all right.
I I really wanted you to pass that save because otherwise that
would have just been like, all right, 10 free turns for Hunter,
which would be cool, but like not would.
Be cool. But now it's my turn.
So what I would like to do? Can I?
I don't have a dagger. Can I just like, slap with my
gremlin? Can you smack around unhandedly?
Oh yeah. Hold on, let me look up the OSE
unarmed combat. Yeah, good call.
Could could I just steal stuff? You declared fight, so you all
are fighting so. He's going to be fighting, Yeah.
Yep, Yep. He doesn't you, you know. 1D2
damage modified by Strength. Yeah, and.
Then so the gremlin literally just like runs over to Oren
who's like cowering and piss himself and just like smacks him
across the face. So here with the the way combat
works. So you'll basically be saying
this is what like this is what my side is doing.
But hunter gets to decide on the how the damage just is
distributed. So if he wanted he could
basically tell Oren to like be in front and take that hit.
Or he could, so it's like he'll control how damage gets the.
Gremlin The gremlin races towards the other group, raring
to smack someone. Yeah.
Boss like steps behind paralyzed Oren.
So sick. And then the other thing that
I'm going to do. OK, all right, I could do.
I could hit with the soul sword or I could I could cast spell B
Max which would be kind of funny and fucked up all.
Right. Let me take a look real quick.
Which one you can tell? What's the name of that spin of
that power? Flesh 2 riches.
Yeah. Yeah, please do that.
Please do some fucked up shit. Don't just hit with a sword.
I mean, do whatever you want, I guess.
But yeah, make it, make it hurt, you know?
Yeah, but the sole sword is my favorite weapon.
See, it's my favorite possession.
A2 handed flaming sword, one D 10 + 1.
You know, Yeah, the odds of you doing stuff to me, man.
What's your? If you try to turn him into
gyms, I, I mean, I, I'm not opposed.
I. No, I think that'd.
Be great, do whatever. Yeah, I mean, he's got a, he's
got an ability to try to save either way.
Yeah, but your HP is like, how is your HP better than mine?
No, it's not. Never mind.
Oh, no. Fuck that.
Yeah, I'll, I'm going to. I'm going to try to cast flesh
to riches on you. Yeah, why not?
Let's see what happens. All right, so Gremlin tries to
smack and then. And then I'll at least try to
flesh to riches. So you can roll the damage for
the gremlin. What's the strength modifier for
the Gremlin 11? Still 0, right?
11 would be 0, correct? OK, cool.
So just one D2? Yeah, double D2 damage, so I'll
do a half AD four I guess. So 1, yeah.
And then damage resistance never brings it down to 0, so if you
have any damage resistance you still take one.
Yeah, he doesn't say. He like pokes him in the eye a
little bit. Imagine that little gremlin
jumping up there just. A little poke, Yeah, Just a
little pokey poke. OK.
And then yeah, save versus being turned into a pile of gems.
Now this one, you do get to pick a target because it's not like
you're fighting. I get to pick the target.
Well Oren is out for like 3 rounds.
Of course I'm going to try to turn Voth into a pile of Jim's
like greedy bitch. Got it.
This is save our spells. Yeah, save versus death on this
one. Save versus death.
OK, I got to roll above an 8. I kind of hope.
I don't honestly like, I think that kind of hope.
You don't too A6. What'd you get?
A six?
Awesome. Well, Meraks just turned you
into a pile of jewels. Wait, Oh my God.
It's it's 5D4 gems you you turn into 15 gems.
Oren is still here, but paralyzed.
But if you want to kill Oren, you can.
Or attempt to. We can also just call it.
That was a really beautiful, really beautiful moment.
That was great. I really am happy with that
honestly. I mean, I would like to to to,
you know, at least narrate out what I would do because there's
no way that you're going to beat my guy with my 98 HP as you're
cowering. Is would I be able to?
I'm fighting, but would I be able to color storm for a round
or two? Yeah.
So I would, as you're still having like 2 rounds left, I
would color storm for two rounds.
Neon Galaxial winds appear to all enemies, revealing D6 faces
of chaos each round. Save versus spell or take D4
damage per face. So basically as I'm like
swirling around my soul sword or like holding it up, this swarm
of demonic faces is what appears to you in like galactic lights.
And these faces are just like, basically like swarming past
you, causing damage to you as you're already like pissing
yourself on, cowering in fear. And after two rounds of that, I
get to then hit you with my soul sword, which does XD20 damage, I
believe with X's number of rounds I spent doing that.
Yeah. So it's it's 2D20 damage.
So it would take one round for you to do the the color storm,
and then if you wait two more rounds you'll do 2D20 damage,
but then Oren wakes up just in time to roll for initiative.
OK, well, I will just do the first roll then, which was the
17. So which is what's Oren's HP 67?
No, we're we're yeah, I'll, we I could wail on you for a while,
or you could run, or we could just narrate that we fight and I
murder you. It's up to you.
Well, I'm good with the. I think this is a fine stopping
point. It's a 15 minutes too early, but
I think that's fine, you know? Yeah.
So who knows what happens as the the camera rate like pulls out
of the room as as as Marax is still just has this like
swirling Galaxy of demonic faces around Oren swinging.
And like Oren comes back, you know, breaks from his paralysis.
And then all you see is this like these demonic faces
swirling and Oren swinging his axe and the soul sword clanging
and clanging as the as the camera like zooms out and the
and then sees the black Spire from a distance.
We did it, you did it. If this were really you could
continue playing as Oren and you could pick up Voth's quest.
I love that. So you could like keep rolling
with it. Oren has a lot more hit points,
is much stronger than the Voth, has spells and a lot of them
has. A lot of spells.
Yep, you're a level 14 magic user Voth.
You've got magic powers, but and those also get checked off when
you use them, but you only have a few, but they're way more
powerful. So it's like, yeah.
So I'm really glad though. I love the flesh to riches
thing. I had a great time.
I cracked myself up when I was like flesh to riches as a spell
name. I'm just like, so happy.
Yeah, truly a great insane demon spell.
You know it's a. Great spell it was.
That was really fun listening to you all play.
I appreciate appreciate you all doing that.
Thank you. Yeah, I'm super in.
Person, honestly, I really genuinely want to keep playing.
So I'm, I'm looking forward to like the, the full release
because I want to really run from combat and like barrel
through into potentially a worse situation, you know?
Yeah, yeah and yeah. This is all the first level.
There's 3 levels. I'll just tell you that there's
quite a lot of rooms. It's not Mega Dungeon, but it's
a nice, nice sized complex with a lot of weird shit that can you
can run into. I'm really glad that you fought
that little imp and tore down the bridge on accident.
That was something that I don't think has happened yet, so.
Perfect. Yeah, I.
Yeah, I love that. I mean, this is of of the more
recent kind of like choose your own path games that have come
out in the recent TTRPG space. This is so far my favorite SO.
Thank you. Yeah.
Really trying to lean into like keeping it feeling like close to
classic play in terms of just like the mechanics.
So like a lot of I love lighter weight adventure game books
where it's like real quick and easy mechanics.
But I also wanted something that's like I want to feel like
I'm playing BX or OSC still. Yeah.
Yeah, that was super fun in person though.
I think I would still like, do you, do you think like I would
want to still read the parts? Like I would read it beforehand
to make sure I'm not giving, giving away, but like I would
want to hear like the story of like what Voth is doing.
You could, I guess I would just like not say what room number
I'm going to. So I don't know where people are
or whatever and maybe like fine details, but I would still like
read out loud, you know, the whole effigy thing and stuff
like that. Is that what you expect players
to do or do you think it'd literally just be like sitting
in quiet going OK at church or now?
OK at church or now? So what I had envisioned was
sort of a mix of that of like sometimes like don't tell
people, sometimes do maybe you gauge what you want to share.
And I'm kind of, I'm still playing with like how much
instruction I want to give on that because there's some stuff
that it's like if it had been, if you knew what had happened,
it could influence when you get there.
But it's probably not worth the like holding that back because
it is really fun to hear what's happening with the other player.
So like I'm still kind of gauging just how to handle that.
And you do have to know if you're in the same room.
Like if you don't tell each other anything then you could
end up in the same room and not know it.
Walk by each other casually. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, the the logic stuff in this has been a massive
challenge. And like the meat of the work
that I've done on this was like all the preparation for
organization of information and tracking things and how it's
going to manage that. Once that got done.
And then I was able to like I'm like the the actual just like
writing goes way faster. But I was, I knew it was going
to be a lot writing this kind of like a web of stuff, but I
definitely didn't realize the extent to which it was going to
take time and mental energy. Like frequently I feel like I'm
going mad trying to remember where things connect and all
that. But.
How are you organized? Video.
Yeah. Or docs or what did you use?
I am just doing docs, but just like the hyperlinking was a tool
for helping me and just that system of like room slash
encounter number, like doing that and then having like the
encounters all be like room number ABC, like all that stuff.
Once I got that all down, I'm like OK, it's working well and I
just have to like scan each section when I think I've
finished writing a room. I just have to like go through
and check all the logic branching and make sure it
works. I think Ryan has a very good
idea for you. He's about to say cool.
Cool. No Obsidian, man, you gotta get
on the Obsidian. Have to, yeah.
We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about that post
stream. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That would be great. But but yeah, that was super
fun. I'm very, very excited for that.
So if you're listening it's live, go back it or if this is
way in the future, probably go find it.
On what websites Max can people find this stuff in the future?
Yeah, flaming hand.com. Yep, that's where it'll be.
That is where it will be flamingham.com and again, if
this is still OSC month happening right now, go back
this go back all of the other fun, cool stuff.
Demons are cool, you know, and fun.
There's a lot of cool projects going on in OSC month.
So another month comes and and and go back those things.
So Max, thank you so much for coming on the show.
You know, please come on more. Yeah, thank you.
And and I feel like I feel like that's it.
Go, go, go find the Black spider packed and we will see you all
next time. Bye.