Introducing: Oxventure D&D (Wyrdwood)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry – Introducing: Oxventure D&D (Weirdwood)

Episode Overview In the premiere episode of "Oxventure D&D (Weirdwood)" from Geek & Sundry's "Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry" series, listeners are introduced to a new tabletop role-playing adventure set in the dark, mystical land of Heorth. Hosted by Amy Vorpahl and featuring cast members Jason Nguyen, Danielle Radford, and Dan Casey, the episode delves into the unfolding chaos caused by a mysterious shockwave that has destabilized magic across the continent. This summary captures the key points, character introductions, pivotal moments, and the dynamic interactions that set the stage for an epic quest.

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1. Introduction to Oxventure Weirdwood

The episode kicks off with Jane and Andy welcoming listeners back to the Oxventure D&D podcast—a companion to the actual play series. Jane emphasizes the cerebral thrill of engaging with "Oxventure Weirdwood," a new campaign designed by Johnny Chiadini that blends folk horror with intricate role-playing dynamics.

Notable Quote:

Jane [04:00]: "We're back. It's the podcast where we listen to episodes of Ox Venture Actual Play and talk about them. It's a critical hit to your brain because we're bringing that back."

2. Character Introductions and Backgrounds

The narrative unfolds as each player introduces their character, providing rich backstories that intertwine with the lore of Weirdwood.

• Happen (Luke): A human ranger from Balewood, Happen is part of a religious order worshiping Cadence, the goddess of luck. His departure stems from internal conflicts within his order.

  Notable Quote:

  Luke [19:52]: "Happen belongs to an isolated religious order that worships Cadence, a luck goddess... Happen has taken it upon himself to try and mend things by figuring out what the heck's going on."

• Willow Fine (Jane): A cleric from the western commune of Langtree in Fenfold, Willow Fine possesses celestial heritage evident through star-shaped freckles and white feathers adorning her arms. Tasked by her village's matriarch, she seeks to restore magic to her homeland.

  Notable Quote:

  Jane [02:13]: "She was being sent off by the village's great mother, who said Willowfine... You must find out what's going on and bring magic back to our village."

• Robin Oatcake (Andy): An amiable yet unlucky man from Wenlock, Robin is plagued by unexplained phenomena and seeks answers in the big city after a series of bizarre misfortunes, including losing his home to a possessed goat.

  Notable Quote:

  Andy [23:26]: "Robin has been waking up in strange places, unexplained fires, and people disappearing around him. He's set out for the big city hoping to find someone who can help."

• Lug (Mike): A Firbolg barbarian from Weirdwood, Lug is a seasoned guide with deep knowledge of the forest. Currently, he is being pursued by hostile locals who blame him for the magic crisis.

  Notable Quote:

  Mike [28:21]: "Lug is being pursued because people have taken exception to him being alive and near their homes. They believe he's responsible for the magic instability."

3. Setting the Stage: The Crisis in Heorth

Dan Casey, acting as the Dungeon Master, elaborates on Heorth—a continent rich in magic and diverse in its inhabitants. He recounts the historical peace between the common folk and the wild folk until a cataclysmic shockwave altered the very fabric of magic, rendering it unstable and dangerous.

Notable Quote:

Dan [09:20]: "Two months ago, a great shockwave split the sky over Heorth, causing magic to become extremely unstable. Infrastructure collapsed as magic, which powered everything, now threatens harm to its users."

4. The Folkmoot Gathering and Initial Conflict

As the characters converge towards Folkmoot—a central hub designed to address crises—the episode captures the tension and urgency of the situation. Upon arrival, the party encounters hostile locals blaming Lug for the magical disturbances, leading to a heated confrontation.

Notable Quote:

Jane [37:16]: "Magic is everywhere. It's so unpredictable. But clearly present."

5. Combat Encounter: Defending Against the Hostiles

The narrative intensifies with a combat scene where the party must defend Lug from ten armed men wielding rudimentary weapons. Utilizing their unique abilities and teamwork, the characters engage in a dynamic battle, showcasing their skills and the unpredictable nature of magic in Weirdwood.

Notable Quotes:

Luke [33:32]: "Praise Cadence. I want to just be in this aura. It's deeply satisfying to happen."

Jane [48:51]: "So, yeah, that's about it for us for Weirdwood Episode one. What an adventure we've been on."

6. Rising Action: The Transformation and New Threats

Post-combat, the party learns more about the severity of the magic crisis. The episode introduces Morven Helwain, a doppelganger inhabiting Robin's consciousness, adding layers of complexity and internal conflict within the group.

Notable Quote:

Andy [128:38]: "I'm trying to find out what happened and how I can be in control of this all the time."

7. The Folkmoot Elder's Directive and Team Formation

Agnes, the Folkmoot Elder, convenes the attendees to form teams tasked with investigating the source of the magical disturbances. The party pledges to work together, recognizing the stakes involved in restoring magic to Heorth.

Notable Quote:

Agnes [72:02]: "This meeting is for the people and of the people. I serve no official capacity beyond mediator. What is to be done about this crisis is for you to decide."

8. Conclusion and Future Directions

As the episode wraps up, the party prepares for their mission, acknowledging the challenges ahead. The session ends on a note of camaraderie and anticipation for the adventures to come, setting the foundation for future episodes.

Notable Quote:

Jane [139:07]: "That's root bound chapter two. There's a mysterious village. That seems nice. Is it?"

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Final Thoughts "Introducing: Oxventure D&D (Weirdwood)" serves as a compelling kickoff to a new campaign filled with intrigue, conflict, and richly developed characters. The interplay between the players and the unfolding plot promises an engaging journey through a world where magic is both a gift and a curse. Listeners can look forward to further developments as the party delves deeper into the mysteries threatening Heorth.

Stay Tuned For more adventures, deep dives into character creation, and behind-the-scenes insights, subscribe to the "Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry" podcast on your preferred platform and follow Geek & Sundry's website.

Resources Mentioned

• Sunday Morning Transport: A recommended email newsletter for captivating science fiction and fantasy stories. Subscribe at sundaymorningtransport.com.
• Nidhoggar Mead: Featured sponsor offering a variety of mead flavors. Visit NidhoggarMeadCo and use code OXVEN10 for a discount.

Transcript

[Andy]

Hey, Dan Casey from Sagas of Sundry Goblin Mode here, and I want to talk to you about something. Don't you wish you could wake up every Sunday with a great story just waiting in your inbox? The kind of story that totally sucks you in and transports you to another world? Well, if so, we share that thought and I recommend subscribing to the Sunday Morning Transport. It's an email newsletter that sends one great science fiction or fantasy story to your inbox each and every Sunday. That's it. That's. That's all they do. It's a weekly email newsletter with a great science fiction or fantasy story written by amazing and often award winning authors, delivered right to your inbox. Now, I've subscribed to Sunday Morning Transport for a while now and I look forward to my Sunday morning coffee and time to sit back with my Sunday morning story as well. Because I know a riveting science fiction or fantasy story is coming my way. Simply go to www.sundaymorningtransport.com that is Sunday morning transport.com. go sign up today. Bingo Blitz rules. If your bingo has ads in it.

[Dan]

That'S not a bingo.

[Andy]

If it doesn't have the coolest tournaments, mini games and the most breathtaking design.

[Dan]

Nope, not a bingo.

[Andy]

If your bingo moment makes you feel so excited that you just want to burst in joy and scream out loud, bingo.

[Dan]

Sorry.

[Andy]

So you're playing Bingo Blitz. Now that's a bingo.

[Dan]

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[Jane]

Hello and welcome to the Oxventure D D podcast. We're back. It's the podcast where we listen to episodes of Ox Venture Actual Play and talk about them. It's a critical hit to your brain because we're bringing that back. And I'm Jane, one of your hosts.

[Andy]

That's right. It's a D and D podcast again. Because D and D, we're talking about D D, our new DND setting. Weird Wood with a Y. Weird Wood.

[Jane]

Who are you?

[Andy]

Sorry, I'm Andy. Sorry. Hi.

[Jane]

Hi, Andy.

[Andy]

Hi, Jane. Nice to see you here in podcast world.

[Jane]

Nice to see you in the podcast.

[Andy]

Space in the podcast realm. Yeah.

[Jane]

Today we're listening to Oxventure D and D. Weirdwood. So Weirdwood, our new D and D campaign, Episode one, AKA Folkmoot.

[Andy]

That's right. Yeah. So this is a whole new setting devised by our illustrious DM Johnny Chiadini. It is folk horror. It's the dark woods, it's the Wicker Man. It's horrible things in the night going. Magic has gone. Magic has gone wrong. Somehow, as you'll discover if you listen. It's. It's very exciting.

[Jane]

Old magic. Once it's due, the, the old bonds have been broken.

[Andy]

Yeah. So we're about to crack into that. Before we do. Jane, How. How the heck are you?

[Jane]

I'm good, I'm good. It's. It's getting on in September and I know it's. It's approaching the Halloween season because you've been awarding me Home Depot lawn ornaments. Seasonal ones.

[Andy]

Which did you like best, the eight foot werewolf or the nine foot talking pumpkin?

[Jane]

Man, I enjoyed the sexy ab werewolf with an eight pack.

[Andy]

Not sure that's really what you're supposed to take from the werewolf.

[Jane]

They've put, he's got like a plaid shirt on. Like somehow that's remained intact while he became a 9 foot tall.

[Andy]

That's the classic werewolf outfit. Ripped jeans and a plaid shirt.

[Jane]

Yeah, I guess the fact that the plaid is hanging on in there is impressive. Yeah. What does he glow or howl or light up?

[Andy]

Howls and like, probably talks and stuff. Like the, the pumpkin one. You can't shut him up because that talks a lot about like stuff that's going on. It's great. This is not sponsored, by the way, but if anyone wanted to send us giant animatronic lawn ornaments, you know, then we can talk about them.

[Jane]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy]

Well, quid pro quo. We'll get a. You scratch our back, we'll scratch your situation going on.

[Jane]

Well, if you had a 12 foot tall home Depot, it's scarce getting.

[Andy]

It's getting larger every day. Oh, this is the skeleton you're talking about.

[Jane]

It's the skeleton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the. The viral Home depot skeleton. That's 12 foot tall. That could look in through your like first story window. Yeah. If you had all three of them, they should be able to like talk to each other. They should have.

[Andy]

Oh, they should Bluetooth link.

[Jane]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy]

Have a conversation about what's going on.

[Jane]

Yeah, exactly this.

[Andy]

It fully sucks because I live in London in the flat and I don't have a garden. And so I was literally measuring the height of my living room being. Like, could I put a werewolf in here? I think I could just about, but it would be very much the focal point of the room at that point.

[Jane]

It would be a conversation piece. And I think it would look all the more imposing because it would sort of be like scrunched up against the Ceiling.

[Andy]

Yeah, that's true.

[Jane]

It would be so tall.

[Andy]

It would certainly catch the eye, I think if you had guests.

[Jane]

Yeah, yeah, we all just gather round the animatronic werewolf and have a high time.

[Andy]

I was thinking I might get a Halloween wreath this year. You know people do Christmas wreaths for the door. Yes, they do Halloween ones as well.

[Jane]

Oh, that sounds like. Like a tasteful, rustic one that's like woven willow. Oh, you mean like a big orange, tasteless plastic one?

[Andy]

No, just covered in like famous movie killers and like.

[Jane]

Oh, that's kind of thing.

[Andy]

Yeah. Know as tasteless as possible really. Ideally.

[Jane]

Oh, okay. I was thinking something a little more, you know, natural.

[Andy]

Well, yeah, you can do that.

[Jane]

Like woven willow and. And berries.

[Andy]

Quite, quite folk horary actually is what you're suggesting.

[Jane]

Yeah, exactly. So with weird wood vibes. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy]

But yeah, we're almost in October now, basically.

[Jane]

Yeah. Weirdwood is premiering or it premiered last Friday on Friday the 13th. Which seemed appropriate. The sort of spookiest date and it runs until, I believe, just about Halloween. Because Halloween. Doesn't Halloween land on a Friday this year?

[Andy]

No, I think it's the Thursday is Halloween Thursday.

[Jane]

Okay. So yeah, okay.

[Andy]

November. So All Hallows Day, Halloween.

[Jane]

Boxing Day.

[Andy]

All Hallows Day.

[Jane]

Oh yeah, Boxing Day. Yeah.

[Andy]

No, no, no.

[Jane]

Okay.

[Andy]

But yeah, where you box up all your Halloween victims and.

[Jane]

But it makes Weirdwood the perfect accompaniment to the pre Halloween season.

[Andy]

You know, to run you all the way through the spooky season and then. Yeah, then we'll have something else for a little bit and then we'd would have come back and then and so forth. It's our new long running D and D campaign. It's going to go for years and years.

[Jane]

Yeah. Andy wants you to know that they're here to stay. So get used to Robin Oatcake everybody. Yeah, get rid of that. You don't know Robin Oat cake yet. Possibly.

[Andy]

To my popular new character, Robin Oat Cake.

[Jane]

Well, I mean there's been a lot on socials, so I don't. I don't know, listener. Maybe you do or don't.

[Andy]

Maybe you've avoided spoilers. Maybe you don't know what happened.

[Jane]

Robin Oatcake is not a spoiler. It's just a name. He's just an ordinary man.

[Andy]

It's a good name. Yeah. How did. Speaking of names, how did you come up with Willow Fine for your character?

[Jane]

Willow Fine is my character. She is a cleric and Willow Fine. So I was looking for a healer name, obviously being a cleric Willow Fine is the name of a sort of old timey, like herbalist treatment derived from the bark of the willow.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Jane]

Which means it's sort of a pain killing, soothing treatment. And what you'd call it today is like aspirin because aspirin is also derived from the bark of the willow or like a synthetic version of willow bark. So Willow Fine is. It's, it's a cute name. And also. And also it is a reference to. Yeah. An old timey medicine, I guess.

[Andy]

Very cool.

[Jane]

Because she's a healer. There you go. And that's what I was thinking.

[Andy]

Nice. Well that, that's, that's good. I was going through Shakespearean idiot characters names.

[Jane]

Okay, fine.

[Andy]

To sort of create a name mood board. I really like, I really like the name Robin.

[Jane]

Yeah, I like, I think that was.

[Andy]

Like my first sort of first choice.

[Jane]

It's kind of, it's sweet and it's young and it's like simple and good.

[Andy]

Exactly. And the others were like the others I had here. Well, I've got the list in front of me. I was like fridge poetry names together, like they're all a bit too medieval, I think.

[Jane]

Okay.

[Andy]

So I had like Theodoric, Osric.

[Jane]

Osric.

[Andy]

Elric. Dustin was one.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Cassian I quite liked. And Alaric.

[Jane]

Cassian sounds quite like like a prince. Not a knight prince or something like Prince Caspian. Yes, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah.

[Andy]

And then like a lot of these like Shakespearean surnames like Puckle and Mustard Seed and Peas.

[Jane]

Blossom Seed's quite good. It's very mid someone's dream, isn't it?

[Andy]

Starling, was it?

[Jane]

Robin Goodfellow is the other name for Puck.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Jane]

Who is a mischievous sprite. So there you go.

[Andy]

Yeah. So that was the sort of vibe I was going for and I settled on Robin Oatcake, which I think is, it's, it's. It tells you a lot about the character before you even meet them.

[Jane]

It's cute and it's funny and it's nice and it's relatable. I know why you didn't go for like the super medieval ones because they don't seem so kind of cute and funny that they seem sort of medieval and scary.

[Andy]

Yeah, yeah. I did use one of them later for like one of Robin's friends, I think, like Osric or something. I really like those, like Theodoric and stuff. It's very odd, very strange when are.

[Jane]

Those names getting a revival? You know how like baby names now we're all kind of like World War II. Like, old lady names.

[Andy]

When are we going to get back to Theodoric?

[Jane]

Yeah, exactly. When are we going to take it way back so it's not like Iris and Agnes and whatnot. I want to go back to like. Yeah, Theodoric and Osric. You just need some celebrities calling their kids like Osric to kick it off, I reckon.

[Andy]

Yeah, exactly. Get them rolling. You heard us, celebrities. Get on it.

[Jane]

Get on it, Osric. Make it happen.

[Andy]

All right. Should we let the people listen to weird words and then we can come back and we can talk more about the actual spoilers.

[Jane]

Yeah. All right, we'll get ready to meet our brand new characters in our brand new Oxventure D and D campaign. Oxventure Weirdwood. This is chapter one, Folk Moot.

[Dan]

Hello, friends, and welcome to a brand new series of Oxventure. We've got a new setting, we've got new characters, and of course, the new players handbook. We're playing with the 2024 edition of the PHB, exciting new subclasses and all. Now our adventure begins in a land called Heorth. Long ago, before the common folk arrived and gave it a name, this was a land of giants. They ruled it for an age and more, and they are now gone. There are none who live who remember it. And the only signal that they were even here to begin with is a smattering of ruins kind of strewn across the land. After the giants passed from the world, the wild folk emerged to take their place, finding a land rich with magic. These creatures of myth, magic and mischief spread throughout Heorth, eventually settling and establishing their own regions, 11 in total, each unto itself to be governed or threatened by no other. In time, strange new folk came to humans, explorers from other lands. They were as diverse as they were stubborn. And soon they began to carve out a place for themselves in the wilds. Of the 11 regions, they were prone to mistakes, and clashes with the wild folk were common. But eventually they too found their place. They learned to share, as the wild folk learned to share with them. And some of the bolder species even took up residence with these new folk. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, Aasimar, Firbolgs, all ventured out into the wilderness to meet these new dwellers. They're still relatively rare, but but they are known to the common folk. All the folk of Heorth then began to coexist, more or less peacefully. Bargains were struck, settlements emerged, and a new age began. The old boundaries persisted, but the new world was changed forevermore. And for centuries, it's been this way. The common folk of Heorth live alongside the wild folk thanks to a series of understandings, deals and carefully made bargains that have been renewed generation after generation. However, two months ago, everything changed. A great shockwave threatened to split the very sky over Heorth. Doubtless every single one of our player characters will remember this. It was like an enormous sonic boom that seemed to split the heavens. The common folk all felt it rush through them and they just knew intrinsically that that something was different. Since that time, magic has been extremely unstable. Some of the most familiar spells have become strange and unpredictable, oftentimes doing great harm to their casters or the people around them. Now most people are too frightened to even use their magic, swearing off it for the rest of their lives. Or at least until this crisis has resolved itself. As a result, infrastructure across the land has collapsed because magic powered everything. It sped horses along roads that would magically repair themselves, allowing beasts to travel hundreds of miles without tiring. It helped the crops grow. It kept buildings upright. Almost anything you can care to think of magic was involved. Most of all, however, it helped the common folk keep their promises. The historical bargains between the common folk and the wild folk have long relied on magic. Only now, magic cannot be relied on at all. It is spring. The wild folk are waking up from the quiet torpor of winter and they expect the bargains of old to be honoured and renewed. Spring is here and magic will have its due. That's about where we're at. We're going to meet our characters very shortly as we get into the game proper. But first we should probably meet our players friends. Why not introduce yourselves? Can we start with you, please? Mike.

[Mike]

Hello, I'm Mike. Welcome to the Oxventure Weirdwood.

[Luke]

Hello, I'm Luke.

[Jane]

I'm Jane. Hi Johnny. Can I say well done, that was lovely, thank you. I'm so excited.

[Andy]

I'm Andy. Hi.

[Ellen]

And I'm Ellen. Hello.

[Dan]

All right, so we're very nearly ready to get started. But before that, Luke and Andy, you look like you have something to say. Do you?

[Andy]

Yes.

[Luke]

Yes I do, Johnny.

[Andy]

We do.

[Luke]

We do.

[Andy]

Yes. Trying to take over.

[Luke]

Take over the ad spot?

[Andy]

No, go for it.

[Luke]

No, it's my ad spot now.

[Andy]

Fine, go for it.

[Luke]

Let me tell you to hear it. Andy hates mead. Not like him.

[Andy]

Watch him fall on his face.

[Luke]

I love mead. Specifically I love mead. Hogger mead. Oh my gosh, this stuff. And it's brewed by genuine bonafide nerds. We're talking about real poindexters. We're talking about backpack on the roof. Head down the toilet lapers here, folks.

[Andy]

This man never drank a mead in his life. We're talking about Nidhogga mead. It is delicious. It is made out of Yorkshire water. You ever drink the water in Yorkshire, Luke?

[Luke]

I drink nothing else, so I'm so thirsty.

[Andy]

All it's like ambrosia.

[Luke]

It's amazing.

[Andy]

I go to Yorkshire every week just to drink the water.

[Luke]

It's delicious stuff. We have some bottles of it here and they are very, very kindly sponsoring this episode of Oxventure. Weirdwood.

[Dan]

What flavours are there?

[Jane]

I've got some raspberry and lemon mead here. Oh, yeah, Elderflowers right here.

[Andy]

Traditional mead. Traditional. Over here there's blueberry and BlackBerry.

[Mike]

Yeah, blueberry and blackcurrant.

[Andy]

Yeah, Black currant.

[Luke]

Sorry, Exotic meads for you to taste.

[Dan]

Yep.

[Andy]

They sent us over some meads to try. We've all had some and it's delicious. We would highly recommend it.

[Luke]

I meant what I said earlier. This stuff is brewed by people who are really, really passionate about geek culture. They know their stuff and they've got some really interesting and beautiful flavours that we urge you to try. And we have a code that will help you do just that.

[Andy]

Yep. The code is OXVEN10. That will give you 10% off your online orders if you're in the US. They also have the traditional elderflower and sour cherry flavors available on Vino Shipper and in select stores across the United States. So check them out. That's mead. Hogger Mead for your mead needs. That was good.

[Luke]

I feel the need.

[Dan]

The need for mead. The need for mead.

[Andy]

And you can find them all over the Internet, NeedHoggerMeadCode, on Twitter or TikTok or Instagram or any of those places and find them there.

[Dan]

Alright, so right now, all of our characters who we have yet to meet are in the region of Weirdwood, which is the centralmost region on the continent of Heorth. Each of them is roughly approaching a place called Folkmoot, which is a city absolutely everybody has heard of, but almost nobody lives in. Folkmut is basically this big collection of dry stone buildings that are or were kept safe from the elements, from dirt, and from unexpected dwellers by magic. Those traveling through are allowed to sort of stay for a night, but generally speaking, there are very few permanent residents. This is because it is basically, it's almost like a crisis center meeting place. Sometimes there is a threat which will involve several, or maybe all of the different regions of Heorth. And since there is no central government, anyone is allowed to call what's called a folkmoot or, you know, a people meeting. And at this point people will flock to folkmoot and everyone discusses the problem and if appropriate, they come up with a plan of action. As such, there is space in Folkmut to accommodate about 5,000 people under roof, with more space for those who want to pitch tents or whatever. So, yeah, it's this kind of staging ground with a permanent, a modest staff that live there in order to receive people. But how do you call a folkmoot? I hear you cry. Because obviously the content of Heoth is pretty massive. It is comparable to the size of Europe. Basically, they're called by a network of magically connected slabs called copestones. You'll all be familiar with these. The nearest city or town to where you are will have kind of like a bulletin board with these slabs of stone on them, and these are twinned to other stones. A lot of the time it will be like a stone from the next town over. If they need to send a message, they will literally chisel it in and it will appear on the corresponding stone. Every single town also has one that is connected to folkmoot. So if they need to call a folkmoot, they'll be like, ting, ting, ting, call folkmoot. And then the people in folkmoot will go to all of the other cope zones and relay the message. And that is how these things are called. A folkmoot was called about six weeks ago. Normally it wouldn't be anywhere near that much of a lease time, but as I say, infrastructure is balked in Heorth. So many of you will have been on the road for weeks because you just can't travel as quickly as you used to be able to. And things are just getting worse. So to be honest with you, numbers are expected to be drastically down at this particular folkmoot, which is difficult because it's unavoidably the most important one that's ever been called. But hey ho, you're not there yet. So it is a sort of spring afternoon, so the bite of winter is starting to relinquish its hold. The sun is kind of hanging low in the sky and you've got these sweeping moors dotted with sort of far off settlements and then the absolutely massive hulking form of the Weirdwood itself and we see a figure emerge from somewhere. It's up to you, Luke, could you please introduce your character, tell us anything you would like us to know at this stage and also give us a memory of you leaving home to go on this adventure?

[Luke]

Yes, well, most importantly, Emerging from the bushes is Happen. Happen, My character is a human ranger with the Swarm Keeper subclass, although there is a homebrew twist to that. So Happen belongs to an isolated religious order that live in the haunted forests of Balewood, which is a region to the northeast on the continent, quite distant and very, very rarely traveled and sparsely populated. So the order that Happen belongs to worships a deity that they call Cadence, who is a luck goddess. And this order rejoices in extremes of luck, both good luck and bad luck, because both are equally pleasing in their view to Cadence.

[Dan]

Love it.

[Luke]

And also surrounding Happen at odd intervals, you can see about 20 glowing fey sprites. They sort of occasionally orbit him, perch on his shoulders, crawl around in his clothes. Sometimes they go invisible, but they're always just around. They're sort of pale blue, they glow faintly, they have big eyes, many, many teeth.

[Dan]

Sounds wholesome.

[Luke]

Yeah, yeah, super wholesome. And as for a memory, when Hapen left the temple in which he dwells, it was in the middle of a huge argument between everyone in his order. And that was the reason that Happen did leave, because order in the order was very much breaking down. And Happen has taken it upon himself to try and mend things by figuring out what the heck's going on.

[Dan]

Delightful. Thank you very much. We're gonna keep going round the table for reasons that will become apparent. Jane.

[Jane]

Oh, right, yes. You see disembarking from a longboat that has been sailing down the closest sort of river canal to the Folkmood, you see a medium height, humanoid looking lady, Disembark. She's wearing light, rough spun sort of robes, more rustic than fancy, but somewhat, kind of, somewhat cleric looking robes, I'm gonna say. And as her traveling cloak kind of like shifts, you kind of get a glimpse of. There's a layer of light colored chainmail below the tunic, below the travel cloak, below the robes, and she appears to be human. If you looked a little closer, you might sense that she is in fact an asima. She has like star shaped freckles, and if she were to be wearing something sleeveless, you would see that she's got like a smattering of like white feathers across her upper arms and back, sort of like the sort of vestiges of her celestial, like, heritage, if you like. She comes from the far western land of Fenfold, from a little commune, a sort of village called Langtree. Quite a long time ago, because Fenfold is a long, long way away. She was being sent off by the village's great mother, who said Willowfine, for that is her name. Willowfine. You must find out what's going on and bring magic back to our village, to Langtree. Because without magic, we're nothing. Without magic, there can be nothing good. Nothing good can last. And then. So she left.

[Dan]

Delightful. Andy.

[Andy]

Hello. Yes. Walking up the road, you see a man. He's called Robin Oatcake. He is sort of normal human size. He has quite unusual hair like I've got here. It's half blonde, half blonde, half dark. He's carrying a sort of little traveler's bindle with his lunch in it. And he's sort of just looking around in sort of wonder at the strange sights that he's seeing, such as a large tree, a paved road, those kinds of things. Yeah. He's just a man called Robin Oatcake. Robin's memory of leaving home. For the last few months, strange things have been happening to Robin. He's been waking up in strange places. There've been unexplained fires and people have been sort of disappearing around him. It's been very, it's been a very strange few months for Robin. He went to the local apothecary. He's from a village called Wenlock in the east. Went to the apothecary and the apothecary did cast the sickness out into a goat. But due to a series of misunderstandings, the goat ended up moving into Robin's house and sort of taking over the lease instead of Robin. So now, with nowhere to stay in Wenlock and hoping to find some way of figuring out what's happening to him, Robin has now set out for the big city, hoping to find someone who can help.

[Dan]

That all sounds like it's probably going to be fine, Alan.

[Ellen]

Okay, so stumbling slightly ungracefully out of a traveler's coach, having been on an extremely long and bumpy journey that she is entirely not used to, a very otherwise glamorous looking elf comes out in a kind of like radiant looking blue dress, teal blue dress with vastly impractical sleeves, but imbued with lots of silver details. And she, she stumbles out and she, she is part human, part elf. But there's something else that is, you know, stands out and isn't usually found on a part human, part elf. And it's a pair of ram's horns that she doesn't look particularly happy about. She's got a purple traveler's cloak that she's constantly trying to kind of pull over the horns and hide and just kind of frame her face as nicely. As possible. She's obviously, you know, within the magical arts, a wizard. And she carries her spell book in a small, kind of purple leather satchel that she has swung across her, but she keeps the book hidden. She doesn't have it like when some wizards have it on a strap so that people can see it, she sort of like hides it. And she just has a stone pendant that she seems quite protective of. Her last memory before climbing into this awful carriage that she can't believe she had to sit in is back. Where she is from in Methansee is a port town, thriving businesses, and her family, for generations, have looked after the gold, the money of the people of that region. But when magic went all weird, all of the magical spells and things that they had in place went wrong. These happened when someone shouted at her. One of her very, very angry customers shouted at her, and suddenly she sprouted these. And so she just grabbed what she could, her cloak, got into her family's coach and left. And it's taken her that long to get here.

[Dan]

All right, now the four of you are making your way. As I sort of just described, you're all roughly in the same area, which means that all of you hear a rising clamor, you hear a lot of raised voices and sort of just general clanking of bits of metal. And those of you who are close enough can hear the creaking of leather. And if you care to look, you would see 10 men, all of them armed, all of them clearly agitated and almost certainly meaning harm to our final character, who is, well, running, presumably, apart from that, at speed.

[Mike]

His name is Lug. He is a Firbolg barbarian with the wild heart subclass, likes nature, dislikes being described as a furlbog, which people tend to do. Feels like a slur. And he is a denizen of the Weirdwood itself, lives out in the woods, sort of a kind of guide. The way he earns enough money to cover his modest sort of outgoings is by guiding people in and out of the Weirdwood. He's lived there for decades. He's got sort of intimate knowledge of the forest and its ways. And so, yeah, he will, for a small fee, guide people through the forest, but unfortunately, at the moment, he's being pursued.

[Dan]

Yes, because as I sort of mentioned, at the very top of this fur, bogs are not unknown, but they are also quite rare. And this group of people who all kind of emerged from a nearby hamlet, have taken exception to Lug being A, alive and B, anywhere near where they live and are currently Trying to run him down. You can just hear lots of shouts of like, get it. Like, don't let it get away. What's everyone gonna do?

[Mike]

Well, I'm gonna shout, little help here, folks?

[Luke]

Anyone?

[Mike]

That's fine. I'll do it myself.

[Andy]

Fine.

[Mike]

Brilliant. And if you send me the bill, I'll pay for you to get all my blood out of your clothes as well.

[Jane]

Oh, my, A sarcastic furbolg.

[Mike]

Come on, someone, please. I'm about to get absolutely decked.

[Luke]

I'm still sort of crouched in the hedge. Can I just. I just wanna do like a loud sort of whistle just to try and get Lug's attention, you know, it's like.

[Andy]

Yep.

[Luke]

To come across a battle, to come across murder.

[Mike]

I'm still running, but I am now looking in that direction.

[Luke]

I just want to like poke out a sort of little pale, wiry hand and.

[Dan]

And.

[Mike]

Okay, right. I'm gonna shift direction and start heading towards the only sort of somewhat friendly face I've seen.

[Dan]

Sure thing.

[Luke]

Yeah. When Lug gets close, I want to just try and bundle him into the. Into the hedge of relative safety and concealment.

[Dan]

Alright, I'm gonna make a roll on.

[Mike]

Behalf of 10 armed men.

[Dan]

10 armed men.

[Ellen]

How many 10 armed men are there? I'm sorry, I'm Sorry, I'm sorry.

[Dan]

3. We're off to a flying start. Great. They appear to have lost you. I mean, they are now combing the area. A lot of them have sort of. Their tools are kind of. They're more like farm tools rather than actual weapons. A couple of them have like cudgels. We're talking about sort of like scythes and like pitchforks and they sort of like, where's he gone?

[Andy]

I'd like to walk up to them and be like, I think he went over there down the road. Saw him run off over the horizon.

[Dan]

He's not that fast, is he?

[Andy]

Oh, yeah. He's had a clean pair of reels on him. He did.

[Dan]

Make me a charisma. Persuasion check. Oh, no, please. The DC on this is 11. No, it's 15.

[Andy]

Sorry, that's a three.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Andy]

Yay. He went over the hill and then I think he went up into the sky. Okay, what's your AC10?

[Dan]

You get a clip around the ear, but it is. It's unbelievably soft. Like this guy kind of. Just don't mess me about, boy.

[Andy]

Oh, all right.

[Dan]

Where did it go?

[Andy]

I didn't. I don't know. I didn't see him.

[Dan]

Well, then why did you tell us.

[Andy]

I thought it'd be funny.

[Dan]

It's not funny.

[Andy]

Quite funny.

[Dan]

That thing's the reason magic's gone wrong. It's been skulking around our hamlet.

[Jane]

I'd like to step between this fella and this lad.

[Andy]

I didn't realize he was the reason magic's gone missing.

[Jane]

What did you say about magic?

[Dan]

Listen, we saw that thing, wherever it's gone, skulking. Yeah. Firbolg. We saw it skulking around our home.

[Jane]

Okay.

[Dan]

It's unnatural. It is. Magic's gone wrong and then things like that start turning up. No good will come of that. I tell you, we've gotta kill it.

[Andy]

It was a while ago.

[Dan]

Back to normal.

[Andy]

It's a while ago. Has he been skulking around for months?

[Dan]

Has he knows how long it's been skulking around for? That's why we must find it and we must kill it. Right, they're gonna start, like, this guy is talking. The other ones are looking. They haven't found you. They are just, like, still combing through kind of the brush. They kind of picture you being on the border of the wood. Yep. They haven't found you yet. They are gonna keep combing the area to have.

[Luke]

How many are there? How many?

[Dan]

10.

[Luke]

10? To have 10 men try and murder you. What terrible luck. Praise Cadance. I want to just be in this aura. Yeah. It's deeply satisfying to happen.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Mike]

Right.

[Luke]

What would you have me do?

[Mike]

Well, let's stay quiet for the moment, maybe. Less praising, perhaps. Just for the moment. Until they maybe get bored and wander off.

[Luke]

Yeah. Let's press down.

[Mike]

Thanks. Let's press down into the woods with the touching. So much touching.

[Dan]

Lug, I feel, has sort of come out of the frying pan and into just a weird something else. Yeah. Cressida, what are you doing in this situation?

[Ellen]

Having like. She's trying to, like, not interact with anyone because she's like, these are not the sort of people that I hang out with. But she overheard them saying, he's the reason magic's gone. So she's like, okay, so she's gonna go up to one of the soldiers who's, like, looking around and she's gonna cast friends.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Ellen]

So this is a cantrip. And I have an advantage on all charisma checks at the moment.

[Dan]

Oh, lovely.

[Ellen]

So, yeah. Well, I magically emanate a sense of friendship towards one creature that I can see within range. The target must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or have the charmed condition for the duration.

[Dan]

Okay, what's your spell save DC, please.

[Ellen]

So my spell save DC is 13.

[Dan]

That's a Nat 20, I'm afraid. I'm sorry.

[Ellen]

She goes up and tries to smooch.

[Dan]

Darling, I must also tell you about a mechanic that is part of Oxventure. Weirdwood. All of you have an additional stat. This stat begins at 1. It is called debt. You may remember me mentioning that magic will have its due. Every time you cast a spell, your deck goes up by one. At the end of each session, you are going to roll this enormous, imposing, very heavy D100. If you roll equal to or under your number, I'm going to give you an envelope. Inside this envelope is a consequence. Some good, some bad, some mixed. This will then be opened the next time you cast a spell because magic is unstable. So your debt is now at 2.

[Jane]

2.

[Ellen]

Okay.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Dan]

Sorry. What do you say to the man?

[Ellen]

Oh, excuse me, fine gentleman. You said that this man, this creature that you're chasing, that he might be responsible for the magic not quite behaving as it should be.

[Dan]

That's right. Things haven't been right in our town for months now. And suddenly we got things like that just turning up, doing Lord knows what, working untoward magics. We gotta find it and we gotta kill it. And listen, they're starting to sort of get a little bit antsy here because they kind of feel like the chance is slipping away from them. They don't know. Like, the longer they spend jawing here, the further away that things probably get me. Like, you're either gonna. You're either helping us or you're getting out of our way. You're with us or against us on this one. Come on, let's find it.

[Luke]

Can I lean over to Lug and just go? Are you the reason that magic has become unstable?

[Mike]

Not that I'm aware of.

[Dan]

Also, don't move. You've got a thing on your shoulder.

[Luke]

Oh, it's one of my sprites. I have many more. Okay, Alicia, they might show themselves, they might not.

[Dan]

The width of teeth.

[Luke]

Yes, yes.

[Mike]

So many teeth.

[Luke]

So many teeth and large eyes.

[Mike]

Look, I eye up the 10 armed men and I'm like, look, I say.

[Luke]

One of them is just gonna crawl onto start just like, poking at your ear.

[Andy]

What should we do, miss?

[Jane]

Listen, look and listen. Look, I want Magi back as much as the next person, but this Firbolg can't be the reason that the sky tore in half.

[Dan]

You don't know that.

[Jane]

You don't know that either.

[Dan]

Better safe than sorry.

[Jane]

So you're gonna kill every Firbolg.

[Dan]

Well, as far as I'm aware, that's the only one I've ever seen. If another one comes along and it hasn't fixed it, we'll make our minds up then.

[Jane]

Well, what to say to that? This reminds me of a long story. I say.

[Andy]

I think Robin saw the bush that they went into.

[Dan]

Okay, sure.

[Andy]

I'm gonna be like, just gonna go over and check this bush over here. Help out looking in that.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Andy]

So this can be like.

[Jane]

Like I said, the origin of firbolgs. I imagine they are escaping, yanked into the bush. Apparently the origin of firbolgs is a long and interesting one.

[Andy]

Why have you yanked me into a bush? I was trying to cause a distraction so you could get away.

[Dan]

We're hiding.

[Jane]

And yeah, obviously there is no reason to believe that Firbolgs could be. They're a deeply unmagical creature.

[Luke]

In fact, will these men relent, do you believe.

[Andy]

No. They're gonna search the whole area till they find him.

[Luke]

It's gone south, I'm afraid, my new friend. Can I pop out of the bush and cast?

[Dan]

Sure. Yeah.

[Luke]

Webb.

[Dan]

Okay, yes. Increase your debt by one and then tell me what Web does. Also, could you. Willow. Fine. Please make me a charisma Performance check.

[Jane]

Oh, no.

[Dan]

This is to illustrate how compelling your story was and thereby how dull everyone.

[Jane]

Oh, okay.

[Dan]

Well, because I have an inkling this is going to become relevant very shortly.

[Andy]

Hubla.

[Jane]

That is 15.

[Dan]

Okay. Yeah. These like, genuinely people start like the ones who are even on the outskirts kind of shaking trees and looking all over for this fir bog are like, what's that? And they've all. They have genuine colour eyes. They're leaning on their tools and yeah.

[Jane]

If we call Firbolgs. And I knew a Firbolg. My best friend was a Firbolg. And he would never have stolen all the magic. So let's work together to find the real reason that magic is right.

[Andy]

Web.

[Luke]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy]

Web. What's happening?

[Dan]

Is it. Tell me about Web.

[Luke]

Web. You conjure a mass of thick, sticky webbing at a point of your choice, within range. Every creature that starts its turn in the webs must make a Dex saving throw. On a failed save. The creature is restrained as long as it remains in the webs until it breaks free.

[Dan]

Okey dokey. So that's a Dex saving throw on behalf of all ten of these men.

[Luke]

Yeah, that's right. Spell save DC is 1313.

[Jane]

Debt, debt, debt. Don't forget your secret debt stat.

[Dan]

Yeah, your debts. Have you recorded your debt?

[Luke]

Oh, yes. I'VE made a note of it.

[Dan]

Okay, so I'm going to make roll for the two strongest men. This is a three. That is a 12. What was your DC again?

[Luke]

13.

[Dan]

13. So two of them are unaffected. The other ones only get a one to this and that is a five. So that's a six in total. So eight of the men are now restrained.

[Luke]

Okay, cool.

[Dan]

The other two men kind of like sort of rush forward. You know when someone drops a drink on the floor behind you, like in a tavern or something. You're like, whoa. And you sort of take a step forward to avoid the consequences. They've sort of done that and are now like. No, I'm saying no. Sinners with willow. Fine.

[Ellen]

Would you look at that?

[Jane]

Magic. It's everywhere. It's.

[Dan]

So unpredictable.

[Jane]

So unpredictable. But clearly present.

[Andy]

He's standing up in the hedge. Probably see us now, Mr. Firbolg. All right. Do you want to stay in here or should we go on then?

[Mike]

Let's jump out and get involved in this ruck.

[Dan]

But I guess involved. Yeah. I assume it's time to roll Initiative.

[Mike]

Probably. Yep. Cool. Let's go.

[Dan]

Okey dokey.

[Jane]

Initiative.

[Dan]

Okay. Lug.

[Mike]

Sixteen.

[Dan]

Happen.

[Luke]

Six.

[Dan]

Six for happen.

[Jane]

Fifteen.

[Dan]

Robin.

[Andy]

Three.

[Dan]

Okay. And Cressida. Wow. Overachiever's table. Alright. The two men who escaped the web rolled an 18. So they're gonna go first. One of them has kind of like a sickle in his hand and he is going to go straight at happen. Actually, he's got a pair of sickles and he's going to huck both of them at you. Just kind of like.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Dan]

What'S your AC, please?

[Luke]

Fourteen.

[Dan]

Okay. I'll tell you, that was a Nat20. So why did you even ask for the first hit? It seemed polite. Well, the next one is 11 total. So we've got one miss. And we've got one unfortunately, very good hit. Which is. Okay, Well, I roll a one on the one D4. So doubling the dice. That's two. And then plus three, you take five points of piercing damage.

[Luke]

Ooh.

[Andy]

Ah.

[Dan]

So you get kind of like I imagine it kind of this sickle kind of. And then kind of like the tip of it sort of hooks in just behind your collarbone. It probably the weight of it carries it out again, but you just feel a sort of like snick. And there's a bit of a gouge suddenly just above your collarbone. Okay, the other one. Willow. Fine. What's your AC, please?

[Jane]

My. My AC is 16.

[Dan]

Okay. That is a 6. So that's not going to do it. And it's another 6, which. Plus 5, 11. This other guy, he's got a bailing hook and he's gonna like. And I imagine you just sort of step out of the way.

[Jane]

Picks a gash in my robe to reveal a silvery patch of chainmail.

[Dan]

Nice. You see his eyes kind of narrow. He's like. Immediately you can see him thinking, this is an ambush. You're a brigand or something. Cause he's somebody meek and mild as you, he wouldn't expect to be wearing chainmail underneath. So anyway, that's them, lug. It's your go. Actually, you're in a bush.

[Mike]

Okay. For my bonus action, I'm gonna look over at happen and just see if he's into this, the injury thing. I'm like, is it just because of the way he was referring to luck earlier? I'm like, is this. Is he. Is he into it? Is he into it?

[Luke]

That was. Well, it was an incredibly lucky throw. Praise cadence. It hurts very badly.

[Mike]

Those are into some weird stuff. Right? Fine. I'm gonna get my hammer out. I've got a great hammer. Sort of, you know, fairly hefty. Yeah, fairly hefty. Big hammer with some sort of like, kind of. You would describe it as like Celtic sort of, you know, sort of inscription carvings and stuff on it. Looks very, very hefty. I'm gonna use it to attack one of the. Whoever, the guy who was giving it all the. All the stuff against me, you know, all the rudeness.

[Dan]

That would be the one who just threw two sickles at Hampton.

[Mike]

He seems like a good candidate for a hammering, so I'm gonna hit him with my big hammer.

[Dan]

Sure thing. You need to exit the bush. Just wanna make sure you're.

[Mike]

Yeah, we sort of stepped out, didn't we, as we were rolling initially.

[Andy]

Speak for yourself.

[Mike]

Oh, I stepped out. We discussed it. Agreed we were going to step out. And then I stepped out.

[Dan]

All right. On three.

[Andy]

Rooting through my bin. Something that could be a weapon.

[Mike]

I'm out of the bush at the point where we.

[Dan]

This guy's about 15 foot away from me.

[Mike]

Okay, that's fine. I'll run towards him and. And take a swing at his head with the hammer.

[Dan]

Delightful. His Armor class is 15.

[Mike]

Got it. Okay, well, fine. So strength. And that is a. It's only 13.

[Dan]

Is there anything barbarian esque you would like to do?

[Mike]

Well, I've got an extra attack so I can have another crack at it.

[Dan]

Probably use that then.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So I'm gonna go again. And that is a Critical one.

[Dan]

Yes. I swing and a miss, and then.

[Mike]

I go for the backswing and a miss as well.

[Dan]

Okay, sure.

[Mike]

And I look at him again. Is this you? Are you doing this? No.

[Luke]

How wonderful. Yes.

[Mike]

Sure. Right. Fine.

[Dan]

Okay. I'm not gonna punish you for rolling the 1.

[Mike]

No more than I've already been punished by absolutely whiffing it.

[Dan]

Yeah. You know, you've already learned your lesson. Willow Fine, you're next.

[Jane]

All right. All the good intentions that Willow Fine left home with are, like, dissolving in the face of, like, violent reality. And she wouldn't normally do this.

[Luke]

Here we go.

[Jane]

She steps forward into the fray, you know, to kind of get in the mix with these guys. She raises her staff, her kind of walking stick slash staff, and casts word of radiance. It is a navigation cantrip, and a blinding kind of celestial light kind of bursts forth. And each creature of her choice, which is all the bad guys, must succeed on a constitution saving throw or take 1d6 radiant damage.

[Dan]

Hot dang.

[Jane]

2D6 radiant damage. Because we're level five. We're level five.

[Dan]

There we go.

[Luke]

Radiant isn't flammable, is it?

[Andy]

No.

[Dan]

Cool, right? The two burlier guys have rolled a five, so that's a fail from them. And then the other eight of them have rolled a five, which is a fail from them. Okay, so, yeah, everyone's taking a full whack here.

[Jane]

So everyone just gets a little taste of three points of radiant damage.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Andy]

From 2D6.

[Jane]

From 2D6.

[Dan]

Okie dokie.

[Jane]

Dok. D6. It's just a warning shot. It's a shot across the bows, pulled the punch. Just like a little sizzle of radiant damage. Just like you can smell a little bit of burning hair in the air.

[Andy]

Nice.

[Jane]

And I say more singeing. There's more where that came from.

[Dan]

I mean, I'll be honest with you. The two guys who are out in front, who are kind of like big, stocky lads who look like they can carry sort of a barrel of ale under one arm and another one up on their shoulder, it's not much to them, but from behind them come a chorus of yelps and screams and swear words as you've done a quarter, more than a quarter of their total hit points in damage there. And they are restrained by some sort of magical web.

[Jane]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan]

They are not having a great time.

[Jane]

These probably didn't need to actually hurt them. Didn't I? They were restrained, but what's done is done.

[Dan]

Yeah, well, exactly. Happen.

[Luke]

Yeah. Happon Would like to take the bow off the back and is gonna try and shoot the duty through the sickles with a bow. This is a good time to mention happens Homebrew tweak to his Swarm Keeper subclass.

[Dan]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Luke]

So if you're not familiar with Swarm Keepers, it's exactly what it sounds like. Feeling a deep connection to the environment around them, Rangers reach out through their magical connection to the world and bond with a swarm of nature spirits. In this case, it's obviously the 20 Fey sprites. As a result, three times per long rest Hapon can deploy an ability called Sprites Chosen. Any roll that demands a D20 can be swapped beforehand with this, which is a cadence D20. It has five 20s on it and five 1s for a 50% critical chance. Yeah, so I'm going to roll. Make an attack roll on the the sickle guy and. Yeah, I'll roll. I'll do that.

[Dan]

Please do.

[Luke]

Praise cadence. It's 20.

[Dan]

Okay. Alright. Roll Damage and double the dice. You'll remember I said to Lug, I won't punish you for rolling a one. I hope you know that with that die, all bets are off. Like if you roll a one, I will be punishing you.

[Luke]

Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And how are we into it Happened.

[Andy]

With like nothing more. Yeah.

[Dan]

Cadence.

[Jane]

Cadence.

[Luke]

Look, Cadence.

[Dan]

Just making sure we're all on the same page.

[Luke]

Cadence is loving it.

[Jane]

You luck pervert.

[Dan]

And that's our first T shirt. Fine.

[Luke]

Okay, so it's. It's 1D8 plus 3 piercing. So that's 4.

[Dan]

So 8 damage.

[Luke]

Well, not quite yet because I can also add 1d6 piercing damage from the sprites. Like from. Yeah, which is a Swarm Keeper thing.

[Dan]

Dang.

[Luke]

That's a four. So that's eight.

[Dan]

So eight on the dice.

[Luke]

Eight on the dice.

[Dan]

Doubled is 16. 16 plus three for your modifier.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Okay, so yeah, that's 19. Yeah, 19.

[Dan]

Alright.

[Luke]

Whenever happen uses this dice, it's always the sprites meddling. So in this case I'm thinking he looses off an arrow and one of the sprites basically sits on the tip and just steers it into. Yeah, yeah. Just like wee in and out.

[Dan]

Okay, where does this arrow hit him?

[Luke]

Eye socket.

[Dan]

He's not dead, but.

[Luke]

Oh, then Ice Auger's a bad place to be hit with an arrow. It doesn't kill you.

[Dan]

I mean it can still be that. If that's what you want.

[Luke]

I've said it.

[Dan]

Yeah. All right, great. Yeah.

[Luke]

So that's what the Sprites would do. Yeah, they are capricious, probably.

[Dan]

Yeah. He takes an arrow dead in one of the eyes and just hand over it. Blood starts absolutely, like gouting through his fingers. Right.

[Luke]

Second attack. Oh, that's a. That is a normal nat. 20 on the same dude.

[Jane]

Okay, the other eye.

[Andy]

That'S just two wiggling around.

[Luke]

Oh, no, two like a snail. That one's just 10 because I can't add the sprite damage.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke]

That's only once per turn. So. Yeah, 10.

[Dan]

Yeah. All right.

[Luke]

Wait, no, he's right handed.

[Mike]

He's right handed. That's some real role playing you're doing.

[Dan]

Really get into the character.

[Luke]

It's not easy.

[Dan]

I already dread to ask, but where does this arrow hit him?

[Luke]

Other eyes off.

[Dan]

Okay, you're right. Yeah, sure. He's now just like. He crumples. Please say he's dead and just holding onto like, he's. No, he's not. He's. Yeah. Now just sort of just screaming.

[Jane]

Ooh.

[Luke]

Anyone want to run this one over the finish line?

[Dan]

I was gonna say, like, I don't think these sort of. I don't wanna say country bumpkin esque people, but these sort of like small town xenophobes have already realized they've bitten off more than they can chew. So they probably won't have much fight left in them at the end of this round. But who am I to deny you an action on your first ever combat round in a new setting? So, Cressida, what are you going to do? Please, I came to ask.

[Ellen]

Well, after she's like picked her jaw.

[Dan]

Up from the floor and tried not.

[Ellen]

To throw up, Cresta is like, well, they just ignored me and the like.

[Andy]

So I'll kill them.

[Ellen]

Yeah. And I don't. I don't think they have the answers that I'm looking for. So what she's going to do is she's just gonna try and get them away and cast fear.

[Luke]

Okay, so probably already.

[Ellen]

They're already pretty scared, but she's gonna just try and like. Yeah, you know. So each creature in the 30 foot cone will succeed on a wisdom saving throw or drop, whatever it's holding and have the frightened condition for the duration.

[Dan]

Great. Okay, what's your spell? Save DC, please.

[Ellen]

So it's 13, okay.

[Dan]

And your debt is now three.

[Jane]

Yes.

[Dan]

Okay. All of them have failed.

[Ellen]

Great. So now they just like drop all their weapons. And I think like all the people in the web are just like trying to scramble to get away from the direction I'm in. I'm sort of on the Side, I think I've just been watching on and you guys are all there. And I'm just like.

[Dan]

There is a man screaming uncontrolled.

[Jane]

Is it a cone of fear?

[Ellen]

A cone of fear.

[Jane]

Oh, okay, good.

[Luke]

You know those machines that pull taffy? That's what I'm imagining the web looks like with them on sword.

[Ellen]

It's getting like more opaque.

[Dan]

The guy who has an arrow in each of his eyes is just trying to scrabble backwards now while sort of crying and screaming and generally making uncomfortable noises.

[Mike]

I still cry at least.

[Luke]

Robin. Yeah, you should slit his throat. Get him, Robin.

[Dan]

Robin, it is your turn now.

[Luke]

It is a kind of finish him off.

[Dan]

Robin.

[Luke]

When a beast is wounded, it's the right thing to do to end its suffering quickly.

[Andy]

That's what I would do.

[Jane]

Listen to this madman. We can heal this man.

[Andy]

Robin's very frightened. He doesn't really know what to do. He's going through his bindle looking for something to use as a weapon. He has a sort of half a baguette which he's been carrying with him for a couple of weeks. And it's got very hard.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy]

Very stale. And so he's like, I would. Robin is going to walk up and try and bonk the guy with the arrows and the eyes on the head just to knock him out because he.

[Ellen]

Is tap the arrows in a bit further.

[Andy]

Not to tap the arrows in further, to bonk him on the head so that he goes unconscious.

[Mike]

Robin, this is not the time for lunch.

[Dan]

Like people do to fish when they catch them.

[Jane]

Oh, yeah, just.

[Andy]

Just to stun him so you know, he's. He's hurting, isn't he? Maybe he'll feel better after a nap.

[Dan]

Okay, make me a strength. Strength attack, please. You've got advantage on this because he is prone.

[Andy]

Okay, that's a 19 and a 16.

[Dan]

Probably take the 19 then, eh?

[Andy]

Yeah, probably.

[Dan]

Yeah. Okay. You have hissim and can't quite believe the damage. Of course I can. What is the damage on a baguette? An improvised weapon, really, isn't it?

[Andy]

Yeah. 1D4 bludgeoning damage, I think.

[Dan]

Yeah. 1D4 plus. What's your strength modifier?

[Andy]

Zero.

[Dan]

Oh, great. So 1D4 plus zero.

[Jane]

What is this? The killing blow?

[Andy]

It's a three. Hey, if it's with a blunt weapon, I can choose to knock him out.

[Jane]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan]

It's not the killing blow, it's just.

[Andy]

Oh, no.

[Mike]

Is he evil unconscious?

[Dan]

No. In fact, he reacts. He's terrified because he doesn't know what's going on. For all he knows, this could be someone trying to grab hold of his hair before then doing further untold horrors to him. So he just tries to flinch away. Unfortunately, the angle you came up on him is kind of directly in the path he was trying to take to get away from Cressida. So now he's just trying to weave around you, and he's sort of just screaming and wailing, and we're out of combat initiative now, because, like I say, these people want no more of this.

[Andy]

I want no more of this.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke]

This man will not recover from these wounds.

[Andy]

Maybe he will.

[Jane]

He will. I run after. How fast is he retreating at this?

[Ellen]

It's a dash, so it's not massively far.

[Jane]

I'd like to dash after him.

[Dan]

Okay. He is effectively crawling, which is the same rules as, like, difficult terrain. So for every. Every foot of movement, he has to spend two. Okay. So the most he can go in the next six seconds is 15 foot. But may I remind you he is heavily wounded.

[Jane]

Yes. I'd like to run him down and clasp him around the shoulders.

[Dan]

Yeah. Okay.

[Jane]

Okay. And then sort of wrestle him into stillness.

[Dan]

Please don't hurt me. There's no more.

[Jane]

Hold still, I say.

[Dan]

Just make it quick, whatever you're doing.

[Jane]

I'm here to help. I settle him on the ground, and I cast cure wounds. I'm like, now this is going to hurt. And I yank both arrows out.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Jane]

While casting cure wounds on his eye sockets.

[Andy]

The eyeballs on the end.

[Jane]

Let's roll for it.

[Mike]

Let only the dice know.

[Jane]

Okay. Okay, let's do this. He's badly hurt. He's a badly hurt.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Dan]

He's taken 32 points of.

[Jane]

Oh, all right.

[Andy]

Three points of bread damage.

[Jane]

Let's upgrade the spell of the three were bread. Okay. I am going to heal him for 4d8s. Okay, so plus plus plus plus 2hp for every spell slot. So I'm casting this out of a second level spell slot. So that's four extra HP on top of four D8s.

[Dan]

Amazing. Great.

[Jane]

Here we go. All right.

[Dan]

I'm gonna count this guy as a friend.

[Jane]

Yeah. All right. That is 8 plus 5. That is 13 plus. Another 20 plus 4 is 24 points of healing damage. All right, so I grab the bloody arrows.

[Dan]

Yeah. Feels like it.

[Mike]

That's how James sees the one.

[Jane]

There's so much healing damage. When I yank these two bloody arrows out of his eye sockets, and. And a healing radiance spreads.

[Luke]

His cataracts are gone.

[Jane]

Okay.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Jane]

Do his eyes reform or like, what.

[Dan]

Do we get for 24 points? They are heavily bruised. Like, he looks like he's. I mean, he has been in a fight, but he looks like he's been beaten up. There's still, yeah, blood sort of coming from his tear ducts. But he can see again and the.

[Jane]

First thing he sees is me clasping two bloody arrows. I'm like, you're welcome. I would get out of here. Go.

[Dan]

He turns and starts running. He and his mate, they've already dropped their weapons. They are fleeing for their lives. The ape men caught in the web, I'm gonna say, are sort of like they're managing to extricate themselves one by one and they're kind of just. They go fleeing over the moors screaming and I don't think they're going to be any trouble for you again. Ring, ring, ring, ring. Hello. What's that? There's a whole plethora of quality Oxventure merchandise available now and I can get that merch from store.outsideexbox.com and I should open my phone. Wow, what a quality set of loot lake inclusion dice. I will use these in games of Dungeons and Dragons. What about you? What will you be rolling? Will you be rolling these dice? Not if you don't go to store.outsideexbox.com and get em, because that's where they are. Enjoy. Oh, hi there. You're about halfway through the first ever episode of Oxventure Weirdwood and hopefully you're enjoying it. If you are, or even if you aren't and you have a bone to pick with us, go to patreon.com oxclub that's the URL O X C L U B. That's the one. Patreon.com and you can find me and our lovely producer Zach talking all about some behind the scenes stuff with. It's a lovely series, we think, called Unwinding Weirdwood. We'll see you there.

[Andy]

You'll enjoy it.

[Jane]

I think these are yours. You shouldn't hurt people.

[Luke]

Thank you. That was incredible.

[Mike]

Yeah, thank you everyone. That was incredible. Weird, but incredible.

[Andy]

What did you do? Why were they chasing you? Nothing.

[Mike]

Nothing. Literally nothing. I was existing.

[Luke]

It was just very unlucky.

[Andy]

Hey. You two know each other? You seem very familiar.

[Jane]

You seem very close.

[Mike]

One of us is very familiar. The other one less familiar.

[Luke]

This is the unluckiest creature I've met on my long travels.

[Mike]

Great.

[Luke]

I believe I am fated to follow you.

[Mike]

Got it. Brilliant. So we're hanging out now, are we?

[Luke]

I think that is Cadance's will. Right.

[Andy]

You're headed to the folksmooth, yes? Yeah, good idea. We could walk in together if you want.

[Jane]

What about you? Are you lost? Are you coming to the folk meet?

[Ellen]

Yes, I'm hoping to get some answers there.

[Luke]

Are you also hoping to get some appropriate shoes? You should not be dressed such in the wild.

[Ellen]

I will dress how I please, thank you.

[Andy]

Fair enough.

[Ellen]

And, yes? I don't think you're the only unlucky person around here, sir. I'm looking to try and reverse my misfortunes at the hand of all this magic. Not quite working how it should do.

[Mike]

Yeah, I think, on balance. Well, have you got a horn more unlucky than me?

[Ellen]

She's like. Pulls the. She's like. Ah, dang, the clone. Ton of.

[Andy]

She's got horns. What have you got? Horns.

[Ellen]

Oh, well, that they are, I suppose, a present from whatever happened. And a client of mine who was rather annoyed at me for losing all their money.

[Jane]

I like them. They suit you.

[Ellen]

I don't. I'm doing my best there. I've got two things I need to do, so try and get the. The vaults that my family have owned for generations working again and get all the money back in it and get.

[Mike]

Rid of these things.

[Ellen]

So two things to tick off.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Andy]

Have I got any food? Sorry? Any food? It's just this bread. Quite hard.

[Luke]

Yes, I have food. I've got. I think I've got a traveller's pack. I think it's got rations in it.

[Dan]

Sure.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Yeah, it's like strips of dried meat and stuff from, you know, weeks of punting and traveling.

[Andy]

Thanks. Much obliged. What was your name?

[Luke]

Happen.

[Andy]

Nice to meet you, Happen. I'm Robin.

[Luke]

Nice to meet you, Robin. And what was your name?

[Jane]

I'm Willow.

[Andy]

Sheila.

[Jane]

And you?

[Mike]

Lug.

[Jane]

Lug. A pleasure.

[Ellen]

Cressida Blackwater. You might have heard the name.

[Dan]

Maybe.

[Luke]

That's a long name.

[Andy]

Think I'd remember a name like Cressida Blackwater. Very fancy.

[Mike]

Yeah. No idea. I live in a forest. We didn't get much news on my forest. In fact, the only reason I know about this is because people were passing through the forest and mentioned it.

[Jane]

We should hurry or we'll miss the folk.

[Andy]

You're named after Cress.

[Ellen]

I am not.

[Andy]

It's nice in a sandwich, I have heard.

[Ellen]

Yes, but it does hurt.

[Andy]

Shame to be named after Cress. It's delicious. Well, I'm not.

[Ellen]

It's Cressida.

[Luke]

You've never tried Cress.

[Ellen]

I have. It gets in my teeth. No, I'm Fine. Please keep it away from me.

[Andy]

You'll offer some cress?

[Jane]

Actually, I march in the direction of the folk.

[Andy]

Maybe Cress in the fountain. Wait, wait, Willow. Fine, I'm coming too. I want to see if there's crests.

[Ellen]

Oh, come on then.

[Andy]

I'm going, I'm going.

[Dan]

Okay. So you sort of head out of the moors and more into what feels like an enormous clearing in the Weird Wood. Because Folkmoot is nestled in kind of a bit where the wood snakes around, almost forms a tail. And Folkmoot is. It is bizarre. It looks like a ghost town. Cause effectively it is one. There are lots of sort of long dormitory halls. As I said. All of the. The walls are kind of dry stone, so sort of the thin bits of slate just slotted together painstakingly to be incredibly strong and to last for a very, very long time. You do kind of notice that, actually they don't. They are starting to show some wear and tear, which, from what you've heard of Folkmoo is unusual. But of course, everything's unusual right now. So you've got no problem chalking that up to basically the magic spells that keep this place upright not working so good. As you head in, you see other people have sort of joined. They're sort of really. The numbers are pitiful. There's at most 200 people here from across the entire continent of Chaos.

[Luke]

Have you ever seen so many people?

[Jane]

Never.

[Andy]

Not me.

[Ellen]

This is nothing compared to the ports.

[Andy]

Wow.

[Mike]

I live in a forest. What do you want me to tell you? Don't see a lot of people.

[Dan]

Yeah, actually.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Dan]

There you go. Yeah. For four of you, this is a mind boggling number of people. I think, Cressida, you're like, oh, we're in trouble.

[Ellen]

Yeah.

[Dan]

You see some people moving around the place and they have trays on which there are sort of bowls of thin watery soup with some vegetables in it and sort of heels of bread. And they're kind of circulating and welcoming people. And they appear to be staff. They're part of the acolytes who live in Folkmoot year round. And moving among their numbers, kind of like saying a little word here and there and sort of placing our hand on people's shoulders and thanking them is a woman in the same kind of robes. It's more her bearing that gives her a sense of authority. She's got like iron gray hair. She's got quite a deeply lined face. Although you can tell from around her eyes and around her cheeks, the lines are more of laughter than of frowning, which is always a good sign when you're in a place like this. And as you approach, she turns to you and says, ah, more people. Thank goodness. Welcome to Folkmoot. My name is Agnes. I'm the Folkmoot elder. It is my pleasure to welcome you here.

[Andy]

Is the soup free?

[Dan]

Yes, of course. She gestures. Hear that, Chris?

[Andy]

Soup's free.

[Dan]

A young man kind of steps up. He sort of bows to Agnes and then kind of offers you all some food.

[G]

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[Luke]

Let'S dig in.

[Andy]

Yeah, I'd heard Tale of the City, but this is incredible.

[Mike]

Can I.

[Luke]

Can I make a small retcon? Yes. Earlier when I gave Robin some food, I still want that to have happened, but I forgot that one of the tenets of happen's order is that you're not supposed to carry more than one day's food on you ever. Because it's sort of like it's too much like trying to manipulate your chances of surviving the next day. It's like it's trying to take control of luck. And that's. You're supposed to surrender to it, so.

[Dan]

Sounds well adjusted.

[Luke]

So you did get food from me, but it was fresh, all your food. Well, yeah, I suppose it probably would have been. Most.

[Andy]

We got soup now. Happen.

[Luke]

Fantastic. Wonderful.

[Ellen]

Do you have anything else available?

[Andy]

Oh, my God. It's got carrots in it.

[Dan]

I could see what we have. What do you mean? Something just.

[Ellen]

Just a little bit more substance. Maybe some fresh fruits and some. I know we had this wonderful thing at home where we would get pineapple and we'd carve it into like swans. Anything like that.

[Mike]

What's a pineapple?

[Andy]

What's a swan?

[Luke]

You shouldn't carve anything into swans. They are vicious creatures.

[Dan]

I'm afraid this is about the best we have, really. We've used the last of our dry stores.

[Ellen]

Okay. Thank you.

[Dan]

You're welcome.

[Andy]

Best soup I've ever eaten.

[Mike]

It's pretty good, actually.

[Luke]

Hearty fur.

[Andy]

What are we, lords?

[Ellen]

You most certainly are not. She says that under her breath.

[Dan]

Please make yourselves comfortable. I will show you to our dormitories where you will be staying overnight. And the moot will begin shortly.

[Luke]

Why? Has magic broken?

[Andy]

Oh, yes. Wanted to ask that too.

[Dan]

Well, that is what we are here to discuss. Because right now I'm afraid we don't know. Hopefully the answer will come from somebody here and we.

[Mike]

Oh, and this again. Sorry. We just had a thing with a bunch of guys. They were blaming me for the magic thing.

[Dan]

Oh, no. We seek not to ascribe blame. We more hope that as in times past, the people of Heorth will come together and work out what is going wrong and come up with a plan of action that will benefit all of the realms.

[Mike]

That sounds much more reasonable.

[Dan]

Yes. You must be weary from your travels. I sense pretty tired.

[Andy]

I'm Robin.

[Dan]

A pleasure to meet you, Robin.

[Andy]

Nice to meet you.

[Dan]

I'm Agnes.

[Andy]

Did you say there's a dormitory we don't have to sleep outside?

[Dan]

That is correct, yes. In fact, I'm sorry to say we're going to have rather a lot of space for you all. I'll show you myself if you follow me. I believe you're the last to arrive for the moot she shows you into. She pushes open a heavy wooden Door. And there's a very long hall with just sort of fairly simple, disgusting, vile, awful, unthinkable pallet for you to sleep on with sort of bedding and stuff like that. You know, it's kind of. It is very functional. But these are clean, dry beds for you to sleep in.

[Andy]

How many to a pallet?

[Dan]

One.

[Ellen]

Are there any.

[Andy]

Get our own pallets.

[Ellen]

Are there any private quarters?

[Dan]

Well, ordinarily no, but I imagine one of the bunkhouses will be free. If that's what you prefer, I would.

[Ellen]

Thank you. I've been on the road for two months and I need my personal space.

[Jane]

Away from the drivers.

[Dan]

Of course, yes. We'll see to that immediately. In fact, if you follow me, Agnes and Cressida leave the room. She leads you off to another bunkhouse. It is exactly like these ones. But this one, she assures you is all yours. So you can, you know, I don't know if she'd be pulling them all together to make like one enormous bed or something like that.

[Ellen]

She puts one against the door so no one can come in, just in case, just as a temporary lock. And then, yeah, she pulls like two or three of them together to make like a king size bed.

[Dan]

The rest of you are left to kind of pick your bunks. What would you. Where like, you've got a lot of space here. Are you kind of like trying to find a dark corner by yourselves? Would you be bedding down sort of nearish your newfound acquaintances? What's the vibe?

[Andy]

Robin's unpacking his. His bindle. Just sort of chatting happily to everyone. He can't believe his luck. This is amazing. It's like, oh, we get our own pallets. This is amazing.

[Jane]

I drop my pack on the nearest bunk and say, looking at rows and rows of empty beds and say, I wonder why more people haven't come to this meeting.

[Andy]

I know, it's so nice.

[Jane]

I feel like it might be a bad thing that more people haven't arrived.

[Luke]

The circumstances could hardly be more dire.

[Jane]

Right. How are we going to fix this? When there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[Andy]

Plus you know, someone at the meeting will know what to do. Some clever clients will turn off and have a solution. Probably we'll vote on it.

[Luke]

I've already seen many wonders today. So much wonderful luck. I have to believe that we will see more.

[Jane]

You're right. No, you're right. We'll fix this.

[Mike]

But it could be bad luck.

[Luke]

Yes. Well, so it could be.

[Mike]

Yes, extremely bad luck.

[Luke]

Yes. But we mustn't get our Hopes up because we don't know what's going to happen.

[Jane]

I moved my pack. A few bunks. That is fair.

[Luke]

I'd like to. I'm just going to clean, I think. Happen. Probably sleeps in a stone cot in the sort of abbey. Ruined abbey back home. So, like, not on a pallet. You'll make it clean, you know, and then just stretch out on the floor, I suppose.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke]

Is the moot tomorrow or is it later on today?

[Dan]

Later on today.

[Andy]

Oh, okay.

[Luke]

So we're just resting?

[Dan]

Yes. You're just getting set up.

[Luke]

Long rest.

[Dan]

No, you'll get a long rest. Don't you worry.

[Mike]

There are two reasons why people might not be here. One is that they're afraid. The other is just that the traveling is no longer as easy as it was when magic was more readily available.

[Andy]

So I just walked. Like, I just walk everywhere. It's fine.

[Jane]

How long have you been walking for?

[Andy]

Oh, a few weeks.

[Luke]

Can I look at Robin's feet?

[Mike]

What are they like?

[Dan]

What are Robin's feet?

[Andy]

What are Robin's feet like? Long, slender toes.

[Dan]

Succulent arches. I moved my pack.

[Jane]

Another few puns.

[Dan]

I spent months making a folk horror fantasy setting and this is. This is what happens in EP one.

[Luke]

Well, forgive me. I was expecting some colorful description of old calloused walking feet. Whatever you're into, buddy.

[Mike]

Whatever you're into.

[Andy]

You know, like a spongebob. Sudden, like incredibly detailed close up. It's been a bit of a walk, to be fair, but, you know, no.

[Mike]

Plan survives contact with Oxventure.

[Luke]

Where do you hail from, Master Robin?

[Andy]

I live out in Wenlock. Do you know it?

[Luke]

No, I have only ever been northeast of here. No, Northwest. Sorry.

[Andy]

Okay. Well, it's only. It's a little village. We've got a lord. I used to work as a spit turner up at the castle, but they replaced me with a dog. But I don't mind. You should see this dog, the way he turns a spit. Oh, it's masterful. So, yeah, it's fair enough. Did a better job than I could.

[Luke]

What brings you all this way?

[Andy]

It's been weird things happening over the last couple of months. Like the magic? Yeah, well. But unexplained things. Like I keep sort of waking up in strange places and. Don't. I've got no memory of huge.

[Mike]

Do you drink?

[Andy]

No, I don't drink at all. Only, you know, beer and mead and wine.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Andy]

Not an odd.

[Mike]

I do like a mead from time to time.

[Andy]

Yeah, it's strange. And like none of the. None of the apothecaries or the healers know what to do about it. So I thought maybe, you know, all the clever clogs is up here. I would know what's going on.

[Luke]

Madam, you demonstrated incredible healing prowess before. Might you not try and heal Master Robin?

[Jane]

You want me to touch his feet?

[Luke]

No, I didn't say that.

[Jane]

I didn't say that either.

[Luke]

That's what everyone's attached to each other's feet?

[Andy]

Yes. Good.

[Jane]

It is my highest calling and my greatest privilege to heal any in need.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Jane]

I learned from the wisest women of my. Of my village.

[Andy]

Well, okay, so, for example, went to bed one night after a shift, standing outside the room with a spit in it, looking at the dog for tips. They let me do that. I don't get paid. No tips basically, you know, keeps me busy. Went to bed after that and then I woke up in the forest and I was surrounded by all these exploded wolves. What's that about?

[Jane]

And you and yourself, how do you feel?

[Andy]

I feel fine. But then, you know, three in the morning, I'm all covered in wolf blood. Explain that.

[Jane]

I can't. Have you been hit in the head?

[Andy]

Oh, yeah. A lot. By the laws when I don't turn the spit fast enough. Not recently. Not since the dog took over.

[Jane]

Oh, okay.

[Andy]

He's a good dog.

[Jane]

I pass a healing hand over Robin, but I suspect there's nothing to be healed. Can I. I don't really. Just my. My healing senses tell me there are no. There's no dearth of like hit points here.

[Dan]

Yeah, you sort of strange. Okay.

[Jane]

There you go. No, no, you. You're perfectly healthy in your. In yourself. Robin. Young master Robin.

[Luke]

One luck.

[Jane]

Apart from your feet. And I'm not touching them.

[Andy]

Oh yeah. You can touch my feet if you want. No, no. Okay.

[Jane]

They'll heal on their own.

[Andy]

Yeah, I'm sure they will. Yeah.

[Luke]

He will not recover from those wounds.

[Dan]

Okay. Mercifully, you all hear a horn, like calling you to. You expect the folk mote cressida. You also hear this if you're willing to unbar the door and step out the plebs. Again, the folkmoot. You sort of see people filing toward the very center of folkmoot, the city. The meeting takes place in a large sort of bowl that has been sunk deep, deep into the earth. It's sort of just covered in grass like a natural just. Well, really, it kind of forms an amphitheater. The slopes of the sides are shallow enough that you can sit comfortably, but steep enough that you should. Wherever you sit Be able to hear people talking. There are, as I said, Scarcely 200 people here, so this place feels dramatically underfilled. This is meant to be able to hold thousands. And again, it's sort of a stark reminder that not many people have turned up during your time indoors, where you were picking bunks and talking about things. A light drizzle has started. Some clouds have sort of rolled in, and you can see there is an acolyte sort of wearing the folkmoot robes. He's kind of standing there looking very uneasily at the weather, like, really trepidatious, as if it is not just an omen. It's like there's something they ought to and they aren't, and they're afraid to do it. This kind of becomes clear when Agnes, the folkmoo elder, steps into the circle, sort of appears at the very bottom of this amphitheater and notices that it is raining. She kind of looks towards this young man, sort of gestures up at the sky, and you see him sort of raise his hands, looking very nervous, sort of the penny drops. You're like, oh, okay. The reason this is an outside meeting place is that the weather doesn't really matter if you've got magic and you can just hold off whatever it is that's coming down. This young man casts a spell, and in the instant he does it, there is just this explosion of force right in front of him. He's catapulted backwards and knocked over by this sudden blast of just raw magic energy. You kind of see purple tendrils shoot off and turn almost into smoke. And then you see blooming sort of these blossoms of blood on his robes where he's clearly been injured. He's alive and he's conscious, but he's just sort of moaning and insensate. Swiftly enough, some other acolytes step in, and one gets the legs and another one gets under the arms, and they sort of start carrying him off. And a third steps into his place and raises her hands again, looking very nervous, and she casts a spell. And you see relief flood her features as it goes off as planned. And sort of. You can't really see it or even sense it, but there is a dome formed over the very top of the amphitheater that is keeping off the wind and the rain. And suddenly your hearing becomes a lot clearer in this space as Agnes looks at the young man being carted off, presumably to a healer, and she says, that's a stark reminder of why we're all here, my friends. Magic has changed we don't know why. Although at this stage I assume everyone has reached the same conclusion I have. That it began when that frightful boom tore across our skies.

[Andy]

Turn and look at Lug.

[Mike]

What's it doing me?

[Dan]

There are some general murmurs of agreement from the crowd. She continues. Two moons on. It is clear that the crisis is only deepening. Most people are too afraid to use their magic and it's difficult to blame them. But without action things will only get worse. And so I welcome you all to Folkmoot. My name is Agnes. I'm the Folkmoot Elder. This meeting is for the people and of the people. I serve no official capacity beyond mediator. And what is to be done about this crisis is for you to decide. I would like to open the floor. A woman stands up. She's sort of very broad shouldered. She's got thick hair and a braid that kind of comes down to one side. She's wearing woolens that are unseasonably warm for Weirdwood Cressida. You probably could hazard a guess as to where this person is from. She's from a region called Iarveth, which is very mountainous. It's very hard to live in. But it is well known for its finer goods, like fabrics that are woven. And many of them are sent to Mitzi to then be exported to other countries. They're in great demand. They're artisans, basically. She begins talking. She introduces herself, says, I'm Sofia. And our situation grows dire. We don't have enough people to sustain the mountain passes. They're deteriorating so fast we fear even to travel. Our supplies are dwindling. Trade is nonexistent. Our people are going to starve under the summer sun if our wild folk don't cast us down first. We. We cannot meet our bargains with them without the use of magic. You hear another voice kind of start up. The minds of Stonewield are in similarly bad shape. If they will collapse, we'll be without iron for generations. One woman rockets to her feet and goes, before we get into any of this, I want to know what they think they are doing here. She points at some There's a trio of people who have very recently arrived. They're literally just sitting themselves down. It's a woman and two sort of henchmen behind her. They are very obviously dressed as raiders. They're kind of wearing boiled leather armor with studs. They are festooned in weapons. Even in Fenfold. You will have heard of these people. They are from the 11th region. It's actually an island off the main coast of Heoth. It's called Weregild. And their whole deal is they raid and they pillage and they have been harassing one particular region, the nearest one to it, for centuries. And as this woman who stood up is kind of railing against them, she starts saying, they're just. They've been raiding us for centuries. And now that magic's gone, all bets are off. It's constant. They're gonna kill us all. And I tell you, they are not here for anything but profit. She starts really going off on one.

[Andy]

Jump to my feet. A dog took my job.

[Luke]

I jumped to my feet. My order is falling apart.

[Dan]

A lot of people have had the same idea and they are all jumping to their feet and the whole folkmoot is descending into. To anarchy. Basically everyone is talking over one another. Near to you on a sort of a hillside, you can see there is this man who looks sort of like rake thin. And he's wearing this suit that seems to be of just like hundreds of different bits of leather, patched and, you know, like those hats that are like. It looks like someone's just taken a flat disc of leather, put it on their head and tied a thing around it so the brim is like really raggedy and stuff like that. He's loving. He is just laughing his head off, like slapping his knee, just kind of like pointing. He's missing teeth. He's got blackened gums. Robin, make me a perception check.

[Jane]

Okay.

[Andy]

12.

[Dan]

You can't put your finger on it, but this man is familiar. You have seen this man somewhere before in your time. The hubbub is only growing until suddenly there is sort of a blast from. It's not the same horn that was used to call this meeting. It's a carnix, which is kind of like the metal. It's almost like a trumpet. It's like a metal thing that ends in the head of an animal. And this guy just gives this blast. It just completely cuts through the noise. And this guy says, look, this is all very good and well, but if all we're doing is just standing here and talking about our grievances, we may as well return to our homes and wait to die.

[Andy]

Oh, yeah, the dog would love that.

[Dan]

What? This guy. Sorry, I misspoke. This man is not a. Is not a man. He's a dwarf. And from his accent, he's from Weirdwood itself. You know him when you hear him?

[Mike]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan]

He's speaking in weird, which is effectively the equivalent of the common tongue. All of you speak Weird. That's all. Not the first. No, it is the first. It's not gonna be the last time we hear that. But he says, look, we need to act. I know we're all scared, but we're gonna solve nothing if we spend this entire moot just complaining about our lot. Here's what I think. My name is Cedric. I've come from. Well, not far. I'm from Chetford, under stone. But from the looks of you, some of you have come from a very long way away indeed. Which means that if you made it in time, I'm guessing you're not afraid to use magic. And I think that's a good thing. I think we need people. Bold people, fearless people. People who are willing to do what others won't. Because there's one thing we don't have right now, and that's information. And we need to find it. It's almost like we need to have a folk mood about the folkloot we're going to have when we know what's happening to Chaoth. So this is my proposal. We organize teams, we make search parties, if you will, These bold folk, people like. Like you all, who aren't afraid to look closer. We spread out and we do our damnedest to find out what's going on in Heoth, Help those who need it and find a way to put a stop to this. Agnes. He calls to the. To the elder. Does folkmoot have more copestones? Portable ones. Smaller. She kind of nods. Yeah, sort of cottoning on to what she's picking up, what he's putting down. Right. We form teams. Every team stays in touch with folkmoot. So we're all connected in a way, and we can cover more ground that way. And the sooner we find out what's going on, the sooner we can stop all of this. People are? Yes.

[Andy]

Does it matter if I can't do magic?

[Dan]

Are you willing to go?

[Andy]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Dan]

Then that's. That's all anyone can ask of you.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Dan]

See, it's people like this brave man here. That's a man of potential.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Dan]

That's a man of action. That's a man of courage. That is the kind of man we need to save Chaoth. This is my idea. What says the folkmoot? This is the first of two sort of call and responses. It's basically all in favour, yea say aye. All opposed say nay. Says what? Says the folkmoot. There is a general like, aye, aye, Aye. What? Says the folkmoot. And there is just one dissenting Voice hear a man go, nay.

[Andy]

Look at that horse in here.

[Dan]

God. Shoot.

[Andy]

Get out of it, you.

[Dan]

Robin, you die. No.

[Andy]

Okay, good.

[Dan]

Just in. Just in the very.

[Luke]

Disease neither named nor understood.

[Dan]

Your head pops off. Make a new character. Take your time. No. You even just in that short utterance, you recognize the accent on this guy. He's from the same region you are, which is called Galleopheld, which is to the east, and it is full of zealots. This guy stands up and he is wearing sort of some robes of a very strict religious order. You don't know too much about it, but you know that they are inquisitorial and to stay clear.

[Andy]

Yeah, because.

[Dan]

It'S simple. He says magic's gone wrong. Cause there are base elements in our society. There are ne'er do wells, deviants, people of malfeasance. And all we need to do is we find them, we put them to the sword, we put them to the pyre, and we restore what's good in Heoth.

[Andy]

I found him right here. It's you and your zealot lot. When you shut up, I shout, make.

[Dan]

Me a charisma performance check, please.

[Andy]

A nine.

[Dan]

Okay. The crowd does like. Basically the crowd does start shouting, this man down. They're like, silence, people. The moot has spoken. You definitely sort of got this ball rolling, but you do not get the sense that people are behind you. Specifically, sort of all of. The dwarf being like, this man is a man of action. This man is. You should admire him, etc. Etc. That good feeling in your tummy you had before is sort of. Someone's poured cold water on. On that. Oh, yeah, sorry.

[Andy]

Sorry.

[Dan]

Okay. But anyway, he is kind of. There is a. He gets sort of told to shut up, basically enough, because the protocol is that there's been a motion carried. Agnes kind of raises her hands, says, well, we've come to a decision. The folkmoot will continue until sunset, so other voices can be heard. But for now, anyone bold enough to volunteer for the task suggested to us by Cedric from Chetford under stone, would you please report to the dining hall. We'll take your names and begin to assemble teams. Some people start standing up. Do you go with them?

[Andy]

Yeah, let's go. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

I want to do whatever that jerk isn't doing.

[Dan]

Fair enough.

[Andy]

That's right.

[Dan]

Well, he's sitting down, so up you get. Okie dokie. You proceed to the dining hall, where some people are kind of. Oh. The air is thick with steam from the same soup you had earlier. Mmm. The ovens are kicking out fresh loaves of the bread you had earlier, doing a rough head count. There are 40 of you in total. To the intense displeasure of the woman who stood up and objected to the people from Weregild. The three people from Weregild are also there. They're kind of standing apart in that. Kind of like they're sizing up everyone. They're leaning on a beam. They're looking unsavory, to say the very least.

[Jane]

In a cool way.

[Dan]

Or in a kind of cool way, they're imposing, put it that way. Everyone feels very uneasy about people from Wergild because you remember I mentioned that the boundaries of the regions have stayed the same since they were formed before people even came to Heor. There is an agreement of non aggression between the territories. If a territory invades another one. The wild folk of the region doing the invasion will not help. They'll be like, absolutely not. Whereas the wild folk of the region being invaded along with the common folk will rise up and put those people to the sword. There was one time, a long time ago, where the people of a region now called Balewood rose up. You would definitely know this. They rose up and invaded Fenfold. And not only did the wild folk and the common folk of Fenfold rise up, but the wild folk of Beewood rose up and murdered their own common folk. So to all intents and purposes, every single one of you would know this. No people live in Beylwood. No one does.

[Luke]

Some do. I do.

[Dan]

Well, we can investigate that through role play later. But the people of Weregild seem to have got their wildfolk onside. Their wildfolk either don't exist anymore. Troubling. Or they are totally fine with the people of their island raiding the mainland also.

[Andy]

Troubling's not theirs.

[Dan]

They are like. They are villainous on a continental scale, basically. So I think everyone is keeping well clear of this trio.

[Andy]

I'd say we've already got a team here. The way we dealt with those fellows earlier.

[Luke]

Yes.

[Andy]

With your webs and the arrows.

[Luke]

Yes.

[Andy]

That hammer would have been good if you'd done it.

[Jane]

Yeah, all right.

[Dan]

Fine.

[Luke]

Yes.

[Mike]

Next time it'll be fine.

[Luke]

And your incredible power to put right pills and wounds.

[Andy]

All the glowy light that came out.

[Jane]

I think we've been brought together to do just this. I'll be honest, I had been hopeful that someone at this folkmuot would have had some answers, but looks like we're gonna have to go and get them for ourselves.

[Andy]

Yeah, we'll go out and Investigate. What do you say, Chris?

[Ellen]

Fine. At least I sort of know your flaws and your positives, at least a little that I should be able to deal with them.

[Andy]

That's the spirit.

[Luke]

To have met the four of you is, I believe, exceptionally lucky. Whether good or bad, I am happy.

[Andy]

Yeah, it's up there.

[Dan]

An acolyte comes around, they sort of, they got a sort of a wax tablet on them and they're taking names and sort of asking people sort of what they consider they can, you know, what their assets are on any adventure and they come around. I think we can hand wave this bit. Unless anyone has anything particular they would like to say to this person. But they come around, they take your names, what you're good at. They do mention that everyone's gonna be sorted into groups tomorrow morning. But if anyone has any requests to travel with anyone else, then they'll do their best to accommodate that.

[Andy]

We'll put in a request for us all to travel together and if it's.

[Luke]

Not granted, we could just do it anyway.

[Ellen]

I'll agree. But then I'll also say an aside of if there's any other finer.

[Jane]

Do you have anyone richer, anyone you.

[Ellen]

Know who might be. I might be able to travel a little bit more.

[Dan]

I'm so glad you asked. Follow me to the other studio. Ellen, let's go. Okie dokie. Right.

[Mike]

A whole other D and D room.

[Ellen]

I put the request in surprise.

[Luke]

That's how Ellen joined Critical Role. She was very nicely to go to a fancier group.

[Dan]

Matt Mercer is just been texting me, like, seriously, you said it would be 10 minutes.

[Andy]

Anyway, I'm gonna need a few days for this new loaf of bread to get stale.

[Luke]

Oh, Robin makes a good point. We should fit him with arms.

[Andy]

I got two arms. Do I need more arms?

[Jane]

Do you have an outfitter? Do you have an armorer? I say to the acolyte, yes, if.

[Dan]

There'S anything we have.

[Jane]

This boy is unarmored.

[Andy]

Be fine in a few days. Once the bread's gone stale, it's just.

[Jane]

You can't send him out there with bread.

[Dan]

We can't.

[Andy]

I can hold my own with this bread. You saw me bash that fella.

[Dan]

She sort of pulls a lady pulls a tape out of her sleeve and just very quickly shoulders there, looks you over, goes and just leaves without saying anything. You are left to your own devices for a few hours. There is an evening meal. The soup course is predictable also the only course. And then you are sort of left to all of you bed down. Is anyone doing Anything in particular of the evening? If there's any conversations you'd like to have, obviously now is a perfectly good time.

[Andy]

I'll ask this fellow. What's all this about?

[Mike]

What's all what about?

[Andy]

I've never seen anyone that looks like you. I was just wondering what's. What's your deal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you're called.

[Mike]

Yes, it is. That's what I am.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Dan]

It's great.

[Andy]

It's great. It's really cool.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Mike]

We're not common around these parts, but we do exist.

[Andy]

Oh, obviously.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. I've always been like this. It's just me.

[Luke]

What brings you to the moot?

[Mike]

Well, I heard some people talking about it in the forest, and obviously the instability of magic is something that people have been discussing for a while, and I thought I'd just come out and find out for myself. Just curiosity, really.

[Jane]

Are there many like you?

[Mike]

Not many. Not that I've seen in many years. But, yeah, I keep myself to myself for that reason. Live in the forest. Got my own little place there that I, you know, and I venture out occasionally to help people find their way through the forest. I'm a guide.

[Andy]

It's lovely to meet you. Never met a Furbolg before.

[Mike]

Nice to meet you, too.

[Luke]

Have you ever met a human before?

[Mike]

Yes, many times. Yep. Not one quite like you, but otherwise, yes, I have. Yeah. But I hopefully can be of help to this group. You know, I know the forest well. I know the wild world a little better than most. So hopefully I can help and we can find out what's been happening.

[Andy]

All right.

[Jane]

Could I step outside to get some air? Because it's very steamy in the soup kitchen. It is the trio. The trio of raiders. Are they anywhere to be seen.

[Dan]

Or.

[Jane]

Are they dining still?

[Mike]

No.

[Dan]

I think it's reasonable that, like, one of them, the woman who's sort of the leader, has stepped out. She's sort of smoking a pipe brutally.

[Jane]

Well, that's. Yeah. I step out on the pretext of getting some air away from the soupy. The soupy miasma of the dining hall. And I would like to kind of linger nearby and eavesdrop if there's any eaves to be dropping.

[Dan]

All righty. Make me a stealth check, please.

[Jane]

Oh, no. All right. Oh, 11.

[Dan]

Okay. You're seen quite swiftly. However, you do catch sort of a few words. You hear one of the underlings being like, this is just a waste of time. Why aren't we just raiding? Well, if we find out more about what's going on, we can tell who's weak. There's a Psst.

[Jane]

I sort of. And then mortified, I sort of.

[Andy]

Slide backwards. Backwards.

[Luke]

What did I come in here for doing that?

[Ellen]

Lovely.

[Dan]

Sort of like one of the guys, like, come on. She taps the ash out of her pipe and they sort of skulk off into the darkness. Unless there's any more for any more. That's probably sort of getting on for the hour where people start bedding down.

[Mike]

Yep. Ever a practical sort. I've made sure I'm fed and then I'm gonna go and get as much sleep as I can.

[Dan]

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

[Jane]

Furbolog needs a lot of soup.

[Mike]

A lot of soup and a lot of sleep.

[Dan]

Yeah, gotta get my beauty soup.

[Jane]

I don't get eight hours of beauty soup.

[Dan]

There's so many hours of soup. So kind of. There are. There are sort of some torches and some of them get extinguished so that you know there's light in the room. But, you know, it's not so much that it's gonna keep you awake. Cressida, obviously, you know, you set up your one however you like. A lot of the people sort of dotted around. You get the feeling you're the only people who have formed a team so far. So nobody's kind of bunched together. Everyone's kind of of like in dribs and drabs, going off down this long hall. The nearest person to you is sort of like a young looking man, sort of. He's sat up on his bunk, sort of like feet folded over the covers, arms folded, sort of back against the headrest. He's like, ah. Personally, I think all this magic stuff he says start just monologuing to everyone, basically is kind of, you know, like. Well, he's just espousing a view, like assuming everyone's gonna listen and agree with him. Cause he's holding court. But he's not specifically talking to anyone. He's like, I think it's all nonsense. I think people are just scared. I think that's what it is. They're just scared. So we're gonna have to go out there and do all the hard work and what are we gonna get for it? Probably nothing. I mean, it's all nonsense, isn't it? It sort of sounds like just carrying on, just being like, well, if they're not gonna talk, I will.

[Jane]

It's like, you saw the guy earlier, he got exploded by magic gone wrong.

[Dan]

Oh please. He's probably just bad at his job. Look it's fine magic. He conjures a flame on his finger. He's absolutely fine. I could do this all day. You see, he just goes like.

[Jane]

Is everyone sort of backing away?

[Andy]

I certainly am.

[Dan]

He goes. And his wrist just snaps back on itself and he screams. You hear this?

[Ellen]

Cressida, btd take off the cucumbers from my eyes, please.

[Dan]

Inspiration. Unfortunately for this guy, he is undergoing a dreadful, awful, very snappy, poppy transformation. He sort of screams and then his screams get sort of lower and more distorted and he goes like. And kind of if you imagine his hips and his shoulders kind of like go back. So he's kind of like doing a nightmarish bridge. But his feet have turned around, as have his hands, and his torso just crashes open. And this torrent of flesh, it's like the bits of him in have been remolded and made to form this enormous like. It's like a head but there's no features. Just on sort of. You see bones sticking out and bits of spine. It's just on this neck. And it seems to sort of look around. And then he starts skittering across the floor towards the four of you specifically. And I'd like you to roll initiative.

[Mike]

Here we go. Lug 19.

[Luke]

Happen 18.

[Dan]

Will. I find 15.

[Andy]

Robin 5.

[Dan]

And Cressida.

[Ellen]

That is 14.

[Dan]

Lug, you are first.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Dan]

There's a giant thing. What do.

[Mike]

Well, first of all, I'm gonna get Raiji. I'm gonna use my bonus action to get ragey. And the way Lug's rage manifests itself is. Is. Is more. More pass ag than like ag. So that's his. That's what happens when he, you know, feels the rage feel. And it's just a sort of. So he's like. Would you like to do some more magic? Maybe. Shall I sit down? Have you got more tricks you'd like to. I'm fine. I mean, I'd love to see it anytime you like. You know, why don't you do that little finger thing again? And then I'm gonna hit him with the. With the hammer.

[Dan]

Amazing. Yeah, go for it. You're looking for an AC of 14.

[Mike]

Great. Alright, so that is a critical one again. This hammer Praise gate.

[Dan]

Okay, but you've got two attacks.

[Mike]

I've got two attacks.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Let's hope finally I'm gonna get to use this dang hammer. Okay, that's much better. That's a 22.

[Dan]

Okay, fantastic. Roll that damage, please.

[Mike]

Alright, cool. It is a 1D12. And then do I add my proficiency bonus Because I've got.

[Dan]

You don't add your proficiency bonus, but you add your strength modifier.

[Mike]

Right, fine. Even though I've got proficiency in martial weapons.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Dan]

The proficiency is added onto the attack roll, not onto the damage roll. Good.

[Mike]

Good. Okay, let's go.

[Andy]

Let's drop this.

[Mike]

Okay. That is only a nine.

[Dan]

Okay, well, nine is something, isn't it?

[Mike]

Yep.

[Dan]

I imagine sort of your first swing, you kind of go for what passes as the head of this thing.

[Andy]

You're like, ah.

[Dan]

And on the back swing, you catch it good and, like, good and solid in the side of its human rib.

[Mike]

Cage where its ribs used to.

[Dan]

And it kind of just does, like, barely does anything. It's like slapping a massive bag of grain.

[Mike]

Wow. Okay.

[Dan]

Hardly does anything.

[Mike]

Ugh. Sorry, am I inconveniencing you?

[Jane]

Happen.

[Dan]

It's your turn now.

[Luke]

Well, this thing doesn't have an eye socket that I can discern, so I will spend another Caitn's dice and I will try and send an arrow through one of its skittering legs, trying to slow it down.

[Dan]

Nice. Don't forget your debt.

[Luke]

Oh, Yep. Well remembered. 20.

[Andy]

Woohoo.

[Dan]

Roll me that damage, please. And don't forget to double the dice.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Dan]

Two.

[Luke]

One is three, plus one is seven.

[Dan]

So you got seven.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Luke]

Ropey.

[Dan]

Sorry. You catch it? Sort of the arrow sort of pushes into sort of the meat of one of its legs. Kind of like divides the two sort of big muscle chunks of its thigh and you. It sort of gives. Like the whole thing kind of quivers more in irritation than anything else. And it sort of gives up this guttural hiss. It is going to.

[Ellen]

Come on, Mufasa, let's get in some trouble.

[Andy]

Tomorrow, destiny awaits you. You can grab your friends and experience Mufasa the Lion King in 3D.

[Dan]

Everything the light touches belongs to me. You'll have to take it. Don't miss the perfect family Christmas movie.

[Andy]

Now ain't swimmingly, if I say so myself. Disney's Mufasa the Lion King. Oh, yeah, that looks good. In theaters tomorrow. Pretty pg. Parental guidance suggested it gets on sale now.

[G]

This episode is brought to you by.

[Jane]

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[G]

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[Dan]

Razz flavor with soft top and shimmer.

[G]

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[Jane]

Download the Dutch Bros. App to find your nearest shop, order ahead, and start earning.

[Dan]

Rewards come straight after. Well, lug is right there, though. Contact Lug. What's your AC, please? Lug.

[Mike]

Only 12 meets.

[Dan]

It beats it.

[Jane]

What are you wearing? Leather.

[Mike]

Not loads. A little bit of leather and stuff.

[Jane]

A little bit of leather and stuff and stuff. The armor class of stuff.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's 12.

[Andy]

So much rolling.

[Mike]

A lot of adding and rolling. I don't like the adding and rolling that's going on.

[Dan]

How much HP do you have?

[Mike]

43.

[Dan]

Okay. You take 30 points of bludgeoning damage. Basically this thing, you hit it and you kind of look up and it just.

[Mike]

But I'm raging. Let me tell you about how I'm raging.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Mike]

While I'm raging, I have resistance to bludgeoning damage. Also piercing damage, also slashing damage.

[Dan]

Okay, well, that's 15 points of bludgeoning damage. That's a first. I've never had anyone cheer a player character taking 15 points. Basically, this thing kind of like up at the top of the head, you can sort of. You can clearly see, like, the lungs, the liver, the punchiest organs, if you will. And it just kind of like, just slams this whole column down on you. I kind of imagine you half get your hammer up and like. Like you take a good knock, but it. It kind of springs back up and seems annoyed, like, seems visibly confused, actually, that you're not dead.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Dan]

That is. It's go. Which means after the beast, we have got Willowfine.

[Jane]

I size up this beast, the man who it once was. He's long gone.

[Dan]

So long gone.

[Jane]

He's dead.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Jane]

Would you call it an undead creature or an abomination? It's abominable, isn't it?

[Dan]

It's an abomination.

[Jane]

Fair. All right. I cast. I back up behind one of the. Behind one of the pallet beds and grab my stuff from where it's leant against the wall and blast it with a guiding bolt, a bright burst of light in its facial area.

[Dan]

Okay. That's a ranged spell attack, isn't it?

[Jane]

Okay.

[Dan]

Yes. So that is AC14 you're looking. Looking for.

[Jane]

That is 18.

[Dan]

All right.

[Jane]

Have it. Have it, I say. And, yeah, push a bolt of white light to the tune of 11 points of radiant damage.

[Dan]

Lovely stuff.

[Jane]

And obviously, the next attack. Roll on it has advantage.

[Dan]

Lovely. Good stuff. Well, after Willow, fine, It would be Cressida. But Cressida isn't in the room yet. No, she's kind of moving the chest of drawers and sprinting out.

[Ellen]

What the hell is going on?

[Dan]

Which Means that the next attack that's going to have advantage is Robin.

[Jane]

Use it wisely, young man.

[Andy]

Okay, so Robin's trusty hard bread has been all used up. His new bread is too soft.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Andy]

To hit with. He's all panicking looking around him. I think what Robin would do in this situation is try and raise the alarm. Try and get help.

[Dan]

Sounds great.

[Andy]

So Robin's just gonna run to the door and go, help. There's a horrible monster in here trying to kill everyone.

[Dan]

You hear feet start like pounding the dirt to get over to you.

[Andy]

Alright. As a bonus action, I'll throw my soft bread.

[Dan]

At the thing.

[Andy]

At the thing?

[Dan]

Yeah, sure. Its AC is 14.

[Andy]

That's a three. Okay.

[Dan]

It sails off into the darkness past the beast. You hear a huh? From somebody back there.

[Andy]

Sorry.

[Luke]

Never throw your weapon, Robin.

[Andy]

Okay, remember that for next time.

[Dan]

We're back round to the top of the order. Cressida is now. So I'm gonna say at the end of that combat round, Cressida kind of like bursts in the door. So lug, it's you.

[Mike]

Yeah. I need to keep my rage rolling and I can do that by attacking again.

[Dan]

Fantastic.

[Mike]

So I'm gonna do exactly that. And I'm like, ugh, I hope I haven't tired you out from hitting me. And then I'm gonna go again.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Mike]

Again with the big hammer. Let's go.

[Dan]

AC14.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Jane]

Advantage.

[Dan]

We're gonna say throwing bread didn't count.

[Jane]

Oh yeah. Should have had advantage on the bread throat.

[Andy]

It counted in.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Andy]

In Robin's mind.

[Mike]

Okay, that first roll is only a 13.

[Dan]

It's not a nat one though.

[Mike]

It's not nat one. That one is though.

[Andy]

Are you serious? Praise cadence.

[Mike]

All right, well, I'll take the 13 then, please.

[Dan]

Yeah, the 13, unfortunately is a miss.

[Mike]

All right, fine. Second attack.

[Andy]

Yep.

[Mike]

Give it another go. This one's not with advantage though, so it better be good. Yeah, that'll do. That's like a 24.

[Dan]

Oh, a 24. That'll do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Roll me the damage, please.

[Mike]

Alright, roll that damage. That is a 2 plus 2 plus my rage damage.

[Andy]

4.

[Mike]

So that's 6.

[Dan]

Alrighty. So that's lug happen.

[Luke]

I've got one more expenditure. I'm going to call upon the sprites again and use the cadence D20. Okay, so that's a debt for.

[Dan]

Yeah, a debt.

[Luke]

Praise cadence. One.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke]

Yeah, so it's an this is. That was just another attack roll.

[Jane]

So.

[Luke]

Yeah, just trying to send another arrow through another leg.

[Dan]

Sure. I did Say, I was going to punish you for rolling once with the cadence die.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Dan]

And for that I'm gonna say that it does go through a leg.

[Luke]

Yep.

[Dan]

But 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. On a D8, that is a 6, you shoot Robin in the leg. Well, actually, sweet fave Robin. Oh, wait, hang on.

[Luke]

I shoot like kind of near Robin. And then a sprite, sort of like a couple of sprites grab the arrows and he's like. And just sort of swing it into.

[Dan]

Yeah, you're firing at the monster. Right. And then they're like.

[Luke]

And then the sprites, which I believe to be messengers of Cadance.

[Dan]

Wow. Yeah. There's a burst of color and sort of a sprinkling of just high pitched laughter as this arrow bends impossibly and lodges itself in the meat of your thigh.

[Jane]

Grace.

[Luke]

Cadence, Robin. Truly, this is a great day.

[Dan]

Could you roll damage, please, Luke?

[Luke]

I think probably I should add the D6.

[Andy]

Does it get through Robin's homespun jerkins?

[Luke]

Four plus three is seven, plus two is nine.

[Dan]

Okay, you take nine points of piercing damage. Robin.

[Andy]

Okay, well, I've got four hit points.

[Dan]

So what? You have four. Four hit points?

[Andy]

Yeah. Four hit points? Yeah.

[Dan]

Okay, do you pop that? Yeah. That's all of your hit points?

[Andy]

Yeah. Okay, so what? Yeah, so what happens is the. The arrow goes through Robin's thigh. He sort of crumples to the ground. But then a sort of a strange change comes over his posture and he sort of just like lurches back up onto his feet. There's something very different about Robin's bearing now. He's standing a lot straighter backed. He seems to have a lot more purpose behind his eyes. And he's just sort of looking around like, not clear that he knows where he is. Robin, what's going on? Who are you people? Where are you? Robin?

[Luke]

You live.

[Andy]

The hell is that?

[Luke]

If the wound was Cadance's will, then surely this is two.

[Andy]

Robin looks down at the arrow and thigh just snaps the thing off and throws it. Did you do this?

[Luke]

Yes, Robin. I did.

[Andy]

Yes. Robin sort of settles into a fighting stance against.

[Dan]

Okay, right. It feels very rude of me to take this turn, but the beasts can have a good.

[Luke]

Robin. Robin, I apologize. Please try and see it from the point of view of Cressida's. Okay. All things are governed. You shut up.

[Andy]

You shut up. It's Morven, not Robin.

[Mike]

Robin's so weird.

[Luke]

Robin's changed his name to Morven.

[Dan]

What was that AC again? Mine.

[Mike]

Yeah. Only 12.

[Jane]

Okay, not now, Beast.

[Dan]

You take another 28 points of spell.

[Mike]

That's all my damage.

[Dan]

Okay. But it's not enough to kill you outright, is it?

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Calm down.

[Andy]

Is it bludgeoning?

[Mike]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I can half it.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Dan]

So that's 14 points, right?

[Mike]

Good. Yes.

[Jane]

Every time.

[Dan]

So when you said 28, I was like, sorry, 28. 28. But yes, then you halve it.

[Mike]

Okay, fine.

[Dan]

Yeah, it kind of just. Again, just like this, I'm gonna say, this time it shoves you back a good distance. Right, Fine.

[Jane]

How.

[Dan]

And that's it. Go. But really, the beast seems like the least of our worries right now. After the beast is. Cressida. Cressida. You've walked into the room.

[Jane]

Walk out again.

[Dan]

Your newfound friend seems to be able to.

[Andy]

Sit down.

[Dan]

There's an enormous, towering flesh monster. And also some of the people you met earlier today appear to be on the brink of killing each other.

[Ellen]

Well, I'm like, whatever. What's happening there?

[Mike]

I cast whatever.

[Ellen]

So I see this thing and I'm like, oh, God. So I would like to cast scorching ray, which is I hurl three fiery rays. One, one. I'm going to aim all three at this one thing. And if I hit, it's 2d6 fire damage per ray.

[Dan]

Great.

[Andy]

All right.

[Ellen]

Okay. Okay. So that's 10.

[Dan]

Oh, how many rays are you throwing?

[Ellen]

Three.

[Dan]

You make a ranged spell attack for each ray.

[Jane]

Ah.

[Ellen]

Okay, cool. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. That's a seven altogether. And that's a four altogether.

[Dan]

Okay. You mess with all.

[Ellen]

I'm so mad that I been woken up from my sleep that I'm just.

[Luke]

Like, you've all got the courgette I'm missing.

[Dan]

Oh, it's a depth perception issue. Okay. Yeah. You blast a hole in the wall of this dormitory and one in the ceiling. Right.

[Ellen]

Great.

[Dan]

You sort of see the night sky above you.

[Ellen]

And I take a debt.

[Dan]

You take a debt. You absolutely do. And the moon tastefully illuminates this hideous, hideous one. Well, after Cressida, it's. Well, it would be Robin's turn, but. What was that name again?

[Andy]

Morven? Helwaine. I look at this hole being blasted in the wall and then at a creature, and I would like to fling out a hand and use sorcerer's burst on the creature.

[Dan]

Okay, that sounds new and scary.

[Andy]

Yeah, See how it goes? What was the armor class? 14. Okay, that's a 13. But I'm going to expend a sorcery point to use seeking spell to re roll that. That is an 18.

[Jane]

Nice.

[Dan]

Okay. Yeah, that. I mean that definitely hits.

[Andy]

I'm gonna hit it with 2d8 psychic damage.

[Dan]

Uh huh.

[Andy]

Okay. I can re roll any eights. That was an 8. 7. 15. I rolled a 4 on the other one. I'm going to use another sorcery point for empowered spell and re roll that four. See, it can go higher. It's a five.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Andy]

18 points of psychic damage.

[Dan]

Psychic damage. Oh, that's my vulnerability. Would say the beast if it had a mouth. So 19, that's 2038 points. You take, you blast like a good chunk outside out of like the neck of this thing. What does it look like?

[Andy]

So held out my hand, I've still got one hand on happen and I just sort of went like a purple flamethrower at him. Just basically deleting part of the side of the of this creature.

[Dan]

Okay, just.

[Andy]

And then Robin.

[Dan]

Yeah, okay. Cause I feel that we've got bigger fish to fry here. And also rule of cool, I'm gonna say that after you do this through like the hole in the wall, just come lancing like other bolts of just like magic. And basically people have come to help. Oh.

[Andy]

Cause Robin called them. Yeah.

[Dan]

They are helped by blowing a horse rowing down. You hear a couple of people go like ah. As spells go wrong, you can't exactly see how. But as far as you can tell, no one else is turning into a massive abomination. Sorry, what? More than starts others kind of finish off. And so there is just this tower of burning ichor that kind of just like Kaiju, like just hits the deck of this. Now quite Rex, dormant with a sinking feeling in your stomach. Cressida, you may have to end up sharing.

[Ellen]

No, I'm like immediately no one's coming in with it. I run back out and I try and push bed against the door again.

[Dan]

Cressida's gone to barricade herself back in to her private residence. Everyone else is kind of too stunned to move. Partly because of that thing, but mostly because of this thing.

[Andy]

Robin, explain yourself. You.

[Luke]

You went to get help and help arrived. You are the hero of this battle.

[Andy]

Why did you shoot me in the leg?

[Luke]

I apologize. I'm truly sorry. That, that was Cadance's will, I assure you. Normally the sprites would simply point the arrow down at my own feet or, or my shins or, or you know, through my tongue or something. They've all happened before.

[Andy]

Um, yeah. I cast you wounds on my leg. The tip of the arrow falls out of my thigh and the wound knits itself Back together?

[Luke]

Robin, I must say, Morven. I'm not.

[Andy]

The name is Morven.

[Luke]

Morven. Then I am not the only one blameless in this situation. For you, in a desperate situation, did not disclose that you had such powers.

[Andy]

Well, he doesn't know about it. He's completely oblivious to the whole thing.

[Luke]

He. Look at the big ichor goo.

[Andy]

That village idiot that I'm forced to be carried around in most of the time.

[Mike]

So you're living inside Robin's head?

[Andy]

Well, that's one way of putting it.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Andy]

He's carrying my spirit around, I guess, is probably a better way of putting it.

[Mike]

And how did this happen?

[Andy]

Not entirely sure how this happened. There was some unpleasantness. I was executed, for want of a better word. And then I happen to find myself in this situation. Whenever he's conscious, he's in charge. If he loses consciousness, that's when I'm in charge. And I'm trying to find out what happened and how I can be in control of this all the time.

[Luke]

Oh, that's very bad luck.

[Andy]

It's enormously bad luck, yes. Why do you look happy about that?

[Luke]

It doesn't matter. Morven.

[Andy]

Morven? Yes, Morven. Hell, Wayne, how long does it.

[Mike]

How long does this typically last? How long do you tend to be around here?

[Andy]

Well, until I lose consciousness. It's one in, one out, right?

[Mike]

Okay. So if you go to sleep now, Robin will wake up?

[Andy]

Yeah. So is there any coffee around here?

[Mike]

Soup.

[Jane]

What were you executed for, Morven?

[Andy]

I mean, trumped up charges of witchcraft.

[Jane]

What kind of witchcraft?

[Andy]

You know, magic. The back. You know, purple blasts of deadly energy, that kind of thing.

[Mike]

Right. Okay, so in what way were they trumped up?

[Andy]

I mean, it wasn't really any of their business to pass judgment on, to be honest.

[Mike]

Right. Fair enough.

[Luke]

Morven, when you are living inside Robin's head, are you aware of all that passes for him?

[Andy]

To some things. To an extent, I retain some of his memories.

[Luke]

So you were present at the folkmoot?

[Andy]

Not a little bit. I recognized a figure there. I was able to sort of tug at Robin's subconscious. But it's hazy. I can't hear very much. I can see blurry images, that kind of thing.

[Jane]

And can Robin hear us now?

[Andy]

You'd have to ask him. I wouldn't know.

[Jane]

Robin? Robin, are you in there? Not in there.

[Andy]

Hope not.

[Luke]

It was Robin's will that he join an adventuring party that we had formed to try and root out the cause of magical disturbances that have been troubling the continent.

[Andy]

Yes, yes. I have noticed that. I mean, that is a good idea.

[Mike]

The goal is to bring stability back to magic.

[Andy]

If we can. Did anyone else see the man at the moot with the hat? I didn't notice he was laughing. He was. No, no. Okay. He had something to do with this. I saw. He was present at my execution. So if we could find him, maybe we could get to the bottom of why this is happening. Why I am the way I am.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Jane]

And you're not gonna blast us with Sorcerer's magic or.

[Andy]

Well, if you shoot me in the leg again, maybe I will.

[Jane]

Well, we'll try not to do that.

[Luke]

I make a face that says like, I wish I could promise.

[Andy]

I make a face like, maybe I'll blast you with sorceress energy.

[Dan]

Agnes, the Folkmoor Elder reappears and goes, oh, you're all well. Well, not all of you. Thank you for dealing with that. I suspect you've kept all of us safe this night. We're going to find you other accommodation. There's another dormitory just this way. I'm sorry that this happened, but it makes it all the more imperative that you go out and find out what's going on.

[Andy]

I won't need a bed.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Mike]

Do you have anything upside down from the rafters or something?

[Andy]

That'll have to do.

[Dan]

Okay, so you will sort of hand wave this bit. You're all shown to the dormitory. You access it after a while, sort of gentle pushing like. And you are all again given the chance to bed down for the night. You're not bedding down?

[Andy]

Nope.

[Dan]

Okay, don't.

[Luke]

If you chew this root, it will help keep you awake.

[Andy]

I would like to study the root.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Andy]

If I recognize it. Yeah.

[Dan]

Maybe a nature check.

[Luke]

Robin would not have been so distrustful.

[Jane]

No, he would have eaten it. He would have eaten that route.

[Andy]

It's an eight.

[Dan]

You can't be certain. He seemed sincere.

[Andy]

He seemed sincere. When he shot me in the leg.

[Jane]

I couldn't eat the root.

[Dan]

Okay, all right.

[Jane]

Eat the root.

[Luke]

I was sincere when I shot you in the leg.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Luke]

Complicated.

[Dan]

All right, so all of you bed down with the exception of Morven, who stays awake through like, I guess just hammering bowl after bowl of soup sustained by anger, I suppose. The morning comes and sort of everyone is gathered there are you notice, eight teams, seven of them with five people.

[Andy]

Four.

[Dan]

Well, sorry. One of them, for very obvious and transformative, bloody unpleasant reasons, is a person short. The Elder comes round and sort of gathers everyone and says, there are eight teams and there are eight points to the compass. You will each be given a direction and that is where your journey must lead you. I'm giving you all three copestones. A copestone to communicate with the team. One point clockwise from your position on the compass. One for anticlockwise and one to communicate with folkmood. I'd ask that you keep us informed as best you can. She kind of goes around and starts giving them out. Like she gives, you know, she passes the stones. Some people go south, southwest, west. She comes around to you, she holds out the copestones. She's sort of looking for the person to take them.

[Andy]

She doesn't know who snatch them out of the hand.

[Dan]

Yeah, that seems appropriate. Northwest. This stone is for the north team, this for the west, and this one for us. Good luck.

[Luke]

We are going northwest.

[Dan]

You're going northwest.

[Luke]

Homeward for me.

[Andy]

Good place to be buried.

[Dan]

You see, the folk in the Elder sort of narrow her eyes. She's like, bailwood's northwest. But she kind of doesn't bring it up. She goes, I wish all of you good luck and we'll end it there. Which means it's time for the rolling. Right, yay. Because, as I said, you have a debt score. Now, what's everyone's debt at, please? Probably still one.

[Mike]

Still one.

[Dan]

Brilliant.

[Luke]

I make it six.

[Dan]

Okay, four. Four.

[Andy]

Sorceress burst and cure wounds. So three.

[Dan]

Mm.

[Ellen]

And four for me as well.

[Dan]

Alrighty. Well, everyone's gonna roll this D100. And if you roll equal to or lower than your number, you're gonna get an envelope.

[Mike]

Number of ones I've been rolling. It's probably gonna end up being a one, isn't it? All right, my debt's only one, so I'd have to be extremely unlucky to to get a one, but here we go.

[Luke]

That is 72. Trying not to get six or below. Right? 84.

[Jane]

There's no way anyone on earth could roll a four. 46.

[Luke]

Hey.

[Andy]

All right, three or below, let's go. It's a six.

[Ellen]

Five or above is what I need.

[Dan]

77, that's fine. Okay, so the D100 didn't get anyone this week. But don't worry, it will eventually because the debt is cumulative. Although every time you get an envelope, your debt will be halved, so it will at least reset to some degree. But if you've gone past one, you can never reach that number again. So anyway, that's about it for us for Weirdwood Episode one. What an adventure we've been on. And thank you very much to Nidhoggar Mead. They're all over social media. IDHoggerMeadCo. There's a link on screen now.

[Mike]

And.

[Dan]

And do not forget, the code is OXVEN10 to get 10% off.

[Andy]

So what you can't see there, podcast listeners, is we are rolling a big enormous D100. It's like the size of a.

[Jane]

It's a tennis ball. Yeah.

[Andy]

It's got a hundred numbers on it and it's heavy. And we're rolling it into quite a wobbly wooden bowl.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Which also adds an element of. Of mystery and danger.

[Jane]

It's a visual element that probably works [e-mail] oxaventure if you were so inclined. You probably inferred, though, that we are each rolling a D100 to. To see whether we get under or over our magic debt. Right. That much is clear.

[Andy]

Yeah. Yeah. And if we get under, we get a. An envelope with mysterious consequences within.

[Jane]

Not this time.

[Andy]

Not this time.

[Jane]

Times.

[Andy]

Although I rolled a six nearly.

[Jane]

Probably never be a problem.

[Andy]

If I'd been casting magic all episode, I probably would have got an envelope. But luckily I was only. Only at the end there.

[Jane]

I mean, the. The magic debt is cumulative, so it'll only get more and more likely as we go.

[Andy]

That is true.

[Jane]

More to the point, chapter one, Folk moot. Bam. Weirdwood begins.

[Andy]

That was cool. Deal.

[Jane]

How are you feeling?

[Andy]

Deal with that. Good. Yeah, Good. It's. It's kind of quite a different direction for Oxventure, I think, but people seem to be enjoying it, which is good. I feel like it's. It's hewing closer to the kind of tone I was setting in Deadlands with the horror and stuff, which obviously is my bag enormously. So I'm. I'm made up. But I was pleased by how open, like, all the viewers were to that kind of, like, stressful horror, basically.

[Jane]

Yeah, we were. I don't want to spook on everyone's account, but I will. All slightly nervous, I suppose, about debuting our first new D and D campaign in like, seven years. And so we were watching along in the [e-mail] venture, we were watching how people commented on socials on Instagram and. And all the rest. So producer Zach's done a marvelous job. There are clips literally everywhere. There's so many clips. Yeah. So. And. And we're watching them all and watching the comments and. Yeah, it seems to have gone down pretty well, which is really, really nice. And relief. Yeah.

[Andy]

Yeah. People seem very taken with Willow. Fine.

[Jane]

Good. Yes, I hope so.

[Andy]

Good to have a dedicated party healer for once.

[Jane]

Yeah, I mean, I hope. I hope it comes in useful. I like to. I like to make myself useful.

[Andy]

Earning your place in the party, as you said, in that therapy video that we titled. Something about making our characters.

[Jane]

Yeah, yeah. No, I. I think it's. I think it's just a little bit of insight into the way I am.

[Andy]

Yeah. If you want to check out a video about how we made our characters, that's also on YouTube.com oxventure and it provides an interesting window into our various psyches, I think.

[Ellen]

Yeah.

[Jane]

I was talking about how I like when I play sort of multiplayer games to choose a. Like a healer, you know, like a mercy in Overwatch or a priest in World of Warcraft. Because I like to be useful.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Jane]

I like to do acts of service, and I like my. My place in a group to be attachment style.

[Ellen]

Yeah.

[Jane]

I like my place in a group to be unimpeachable, where it's like, well.

[Andy]

Well, we can't get rid of the healer.

[Jane]

We can't ostracize Jane. We can't shun Jane because we need her.

[Andy]

So, yeah, we can't overlook or exclude Jane in any way. Yeah.

[Jane]

So anyway, this is how I'm dealing with my personality style with Indy.

[Andy]

Yeah. Nice.

[Jane]

Also. Also, I think it's. It's. It's a really interesting challenge. I have an array of spell cards, and they all do healing in. In interesting. Interestingly different ways. So that's what I'm getting accustomed to right now.

[Andy]

Nice. Various weaponized forms of healing.

[Jane]

Yeah. Healing damage. Let's go. Healing damage.

[Andy]

Very good, Very good.

[Jane]

How about you? How are you getting to grips with old Robin Oatcakes?

[Andy]

Yeah. And Morven Helwain, the other. The other character. Because now she is.

[Jane]

You got greedy and he's greedy.

[Andy]

She is revealed. No, it's.

[Jane]

I need two D and D characters.

[Andy]

No, it's thematic. It's thematically rich. Jane is what it is. It is thematically rich, thematically interesting.

[Jane]

And you've written a character who is. Is intrinsically, like. Whose identity is wrapped up in their central, like, conflict and motivation, which is extremely neat. And I. And I applaud it.

[Andy]

Exactly. And also I think hopefully is extremely suited to the folk horror genre because it's like the sort of the normal being corrupted by the. By the Eldritch and the unknowable and the dangerous and the evil, and that's the sort of like, Robin is like a walking village from the Wicker Man. Right. You see him and he's like, you're like, oh, it's just like a nice Scottish village, but then something dark lurking under the surface.

[Jane]

Yeah, he's just a nice kid with fluffy hair and. Wait, is he a kid? He's not a child. Right? He's like a young man.

[Andy]

Yeah, he's a guy in his, I guess, twenties probably.

[Jane]

Okay. He's just unworldly.

[Andy]

Yeah, he's unworldly. He's a young, young fella. Okay. He's like. I think the adjectives that I really wanted to use to like describe Robin were like, amiable, not ambitious, very unworldly, but like kind, enthusiastic and brave.

[Jane]

That's not. Oh, brave is so sweet. That is sweet. That's a sweet character.

[Andy]

Yeah, but then you've got like the kind of the opposite of. Not like the opposite of that, but just like a very. A character in opposition to Robin, who was a lot more ruthless and a lot more single minded and goal oriented and like trying to basically take over Robin's body. So I think like the draw for me is setting up a premise that I don't know how it's going to play out because that's how, you know, role playing works. I'm excited to find out, like, as we go and react to situations as they happen, what happens with these characters. Just. Yeah, to find out where they're gonna go and what they're gonna do. So, yeah, that's a big draw for me. I went with. I had another name list for Morven as well.

[Jane]

Oh, let's hear him.

[Andy]

So I was going with like, like magician names like Blackstone and Maskelyn and Mandrake initially and first names like Celestina and Odelgard and kind of very old, like ornate names. But I've got. There's a couple of friends of mine who have a daughter who they named Morven. The mother is Scottish and it's apparently a traditional Scottish name. And I thought it would be nice to. Because my family are all kind of Scottish. Going back, you can't tell from my accent, but like going back a few generations, my family are all Scottish, so I wanted something a bit Scottish, so I went with Morven. And Helwane is a Scottish term for something called a death coach, which is something that comes and takes souls to the other side. And it can't return empty. That's the thing. When the death coach is set out, it can't return empty.

[Jane]

Okay.

[Andy]

And I just like the.

[Jane]

So in Scottish folklore, it's, it's like, it's like the. The ferryman's boat for the river Styx. But it's coach and it can't be empty.

[Andy]

Exactly. So yeah, that's where. That's where the name comes from.

[Jane]

Okay, cool.

[Andy]

And of course we have everyone else's characters. We've got Mike's barbarian and the rest.

[Jane]

He said, waving our hand.

[Andy]

Luke's thing, whatever that was. And Ellen's, I think she was called Sarah.

[Jane]

She's. She's a, you know, wizard or whatever.

[Dan]

Sarah the wizard.

[Andy]

No, that's.

[Jane]

We should have them on, we should have them on to kind of like speak on their individual characters.

[Andy]

Oh, absolutely.

[Jane]

Yeah. But also you should check out the character creation [e-mail] oxventure and get the, get the real deep law behind those characters.

[Andy]

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

[Jane]

No, we've got Luke the Luck Pervert happen.

[Andy]

Luck Pervert is the official class. Yes. Luke has a special special dice.

[Jane]

Yeah, look it up. It's in the PHB 2024.

[Andy]

Luke designed that dice and I believe made it himself, which is very cool.

[Jane]

No way. Well then we, we have no proof that it's not loaded.

[Andy]

That's in some way true actually. Good point.

[Jane]

If it's a hand carved, hand weighted dice, I think it deserves some closer inspection.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Sorry. Yes, we have, we have Lug the barbarian, Mike's character who is a passive aggressive barbarian.

[Jane]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real shirty. Real shirty barbarian.

[Andy]

And we have Ellen's character, Cressida who is a rude banker.

[Jane]

A root. Well, yes, a posh rude banker who has. Who has been punished for her ways when magic went all wrong and now she's got horns despite being a human elf.

[Andy]

Yeah, well, yeah, a half. No, they're not human elf.

[Jane]

Call them now.

[Andy]

So we're playing with the new players handbook as well. So a lot of things are ever so slightly different as we go into in this character creation video that we, we are urging you to check out. But yeah, some of the backgrounds are different, some of the spells work differently. There are different subtleties.

[Jane]

I think human elf is a good way to describe it because half elf doesn't tell you what the other half is for one. And for two. I don't know how deep to get on this, but I saw a comment from Kettles, one of our regular commenters, and, and said that they were trying to get away from the implication that having. Having a sort of biracial parentage makes you half one thing. Of course, no one is half of anything.

[Andy]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Jane]

She is both human and elf. She is human elf. Not, not a half Elf or a half human. So I thought that was nice. Yeah.

[Andy]

So, yeah, so thanks for the comment. That's the. That's the new adventuring party. How will they all get on, I wonder? You can find out on YouTube.com oxventure first, because there's a new episode going up today. If you're listening to this on the day that it goes out, the 20th of September, rootbound chapter two. There's a mysterious village. That seems nice. Is it?

[Jane]

Oh, yeah, I bet. I bet they're nice. But it's actually nice, though. You know how those villages are always nice.

[Andy]

Yeah, well, we'll see, won't we? That's root bound. But you can listen to it here next week if you want to. If you want to wait, if you.

[Jane]

Want to wait, if you want to.

[Andy]

Be at the mercy of spoilers, then that's up to you, isn't it? That's up.

[Jane]

If you want to do that. I would sincerely like to request as a favor, as a favor to me personally, if you would rate and review and leave a comment on our podcast. Because it really helps. It's how the podcast people know that we're doing good podcast and to recommend it to other people.

[Andy]

Just manipulate the algorithm for us, please.

[Jane]

Just manipulate the algorithm for us because then it helps us make more podcast.

[Andy]

Yeah, so then we make more podcasts and then you listen to it and enjoy it. It's a virtuous circle.

[Jane]

Everybody wins, I think. But it's. We enjoy doing it, right?

[Andy]

Yeah. Yeah, we all just. Yeah, we're all just eating the crumbs from their table. But you know what delicious crumbs they are.

[Jane]

Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

[Andy]

Yeah, exactly. So that's. Yeah, so that's coming up.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And the response has been really great. Thank you to everyone who's commented on the. On the video, everyone who's been posting on Twitter and Tumblr and all the other social medias saying that they enjoyed the first episode. We've read as much of it as we can.

[Jane]

Really gratifying and pleasing and we hope you're really enjoying it.

[Andy]

Yeah. So, yeah, if. If you want to write a Spotify review for this episode as well, you can do that. That's another thing you can do.

[Jane]

And also just leave a comment that tells us what you're doing, because I can't. I still don't get enough. I'm just nosy and I want to know.

[Andy]

Well, yeah, it's got to the point where I think it's a bit. It's like something weird now.

[Jane]

It's a problem. It's a problem I have, but I'm not, I'm not going to address it instead. Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to share some of these comments. Todd Haig says I listen to the podcast while I craft wooden dice towers, GM screens and other accessories and stuff in my garage workshop. Absolutely love this series. Any chance of getting a Tales from the Loop miniseries? Oh, and you know, Tales from the Loop sci Fi show on Netflix. But also, I believe, a sci Fi, you know.

[Andy]

Cool.

[Jane]

A sci Fi text or maybe. Yeah, I mean we're always open to other TTRPGs.

[Andy]

Yeah, we've got, we've got our one shot wonders that we do in the off season, so we're always considering things. Yeah, we've got some exciting stuff coming up there actually, but can't talk about it just yet. But one, one that I'm very excited about. Little One Shot. That's something I've been wanting to play for a while.

[Jane]

System.

[Andy]

Yeah, something I've wanted to play for a while and I will be running it.

[Jane]

Dizadomh says I was listening to this episode while painting miniatures. The group's chaos is great to paint the trim of thousand suns to, you know, Thousand Sons.

[Andy]

Is that a warhammer thing?

[Jane]

Sounds right.

[Andy]

Yeah. Okay, great.

[Jane]

Okay, good. On last week's episode with Johnny Chiadini, comment from soggy Necromancer who says it's always such a treat when Johnny's on the podcast. Alas, I have no forests to walk to while I listen to the playlist. Only desert. Well, I mean, watched a little tidbit.

[Andy]

Sorry, that's pretty cool. That would be appropriate for Deadlands, so. Oh yeah, you know, if that ever comes back.

[Jane]

So keep an eye out. I watched a little tidbit they go on to say of the Weirdwood premiere last week as a teaser for the audio version, and my boss walked in about halfway through Johnny describing the new setting. She was quite distracted by the costumes and it derailed the whole conversation she came in to have. Lol. So yeah, show it. Show your boss. Share it with your boss. If you've got a good boss, share it with them. If you've got a bad bus, share it with them. Maybe it'll make better.

[Andy]

Yeah, share it with anyone. Please to share it.

[Jane]

Michael Lindell confirms. Yes, Odin does ride a horse. Its name is Slip, near meaning Slippy or the Slipper.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Jane]

Slip.

[Andy]

Slippy is so Slippy the Slipper.

[Jane]

Slippy the Slipper, Odin's horse. Michael Lindell goes on to say sleipnir has eight legs and its parents are Loki and Sval Dilfari, the stallion. I may be mispronouncing that, in which case I apologize. I apologize to the mystical, mythical stuff.

[Andy]

You're in trouble now.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Andy]

You're going to. You're going to Helheim. Bad luck.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Jane]

Slept is gonna get me.

[Andy]

Yeah. Thank you for letting us know what you're up to, everyone.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Jane. Jane really enjoys hearing about it.

[Jane]

Yeah. I just.

[Andy]

I just like knowing that you've. That you're listening and, you know, what you get up to in your.

[Jane]

What you get up to in your.

[Andy]

Spare time is really none of my business, so.

[Jane]

Well, I'll tell you what I'm planning on doing this weekend then, because maybe that's, like, you know, a fair exchange of. Of ideas I've got for reasons we don't need to get into. A bunch of applesauce.

[Andy]

Huh.

[Jane]

Huh. So I was looking up. I was looking up apple cake recipes. So I was gonna bake an apple cake because that seems, like, wholesome and autumnal, and it's just. I was writing on the Patreon post. I wrote that it's exactly the time of year where I start thinking that baking is a good idea.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Jane]

Which is a very narrow window in the year for me when I bake one thing which is like. Yeah, an apple cake or a pumpkin pie or something. So that's the exact window of time.

[Andy]

Yeah, I remember that year where you got Pumpkin Pie mania.

[Jane]

Yeah. It's a narrow window, Andy. And the baking can only happen in that window where I get a kind of urge to bake. Okay. Yeah.

[Andy]

All right. Well, if you make it, can I have some?

[Jane]

You certainly can have some. I. I also. I didn't give you. Speaking of baking, I didn't give you any moon cake. It was. It was the Mid Autumn Festival. The. Yesterday my Chinese mum left me a bunch of moon cakes when she was last visiting, and I also bought a bunch of moon cakes. So I have no end of moon cakes. And I was gonna. I was gonna distribute them to the other day in the studio, and I forgot to bring them. So I either have to eat them all myself or find a way to get them to Andy and everyone. So.

[Andy]

Oh, I have to eat them all myself. Oh, no, I forgot. Oh, I forgot to bring them.

[Jane]

Good. But they're dense little things, so I don't think I should or could eat them all myself. So anyway, it was a Big full moon on Wednesday, and that was the mid Autumn festival. So it's all. There's a lot of atmos going on at the moment. You know, pre Halloween, full moon, like.

[Andy]

A full moon, blood moon, super moon, like, combo. What I saw somewhere that there was like a combination full moon, blood moon.

[Jane]

Was it not the harvest moon? Is that not the thing?

[Andy]

I don't know. What's the one that brings all the enemies back to life in Breath of the Wild?

[Jane]

What full moon? Was it last night? Did it have a name, you know? Yeah, it was a harvest moon. Yeah, it was a harvest moon.

[Andy]

All right. Shine on, harvest moon.

[Jane]

Shine on, harvest moon.

[Andy]

Great.

[Jane]

Shine on, you crazy podcast listeners.

[Andy]

Yeah. Well, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed Weirdwood. We enjoyed making it for you and can't wait to keep going and find out where all these characters go. Will they find eventually become evil? Probably, yeah. I mean, it could happen. Yeah. And what's gonna happen with Robin, Morvyn and the other three?

[Jane]

Hey, now, just because you made an excellent character, just because you've got a good.

[Andy]

We'll get the others on to talk about their characters, like, as we go.

[Jane]

I think we should.

[Andy]

Yeah, it'll be a nice insight for the nice listeners.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Andy]

So check back next week and we'll get one of the others on and they can talk about how they made their character.

[Jane]

Yeah, cool.

[Andy]

Probably. Probably Mike. It'll probably be Mike.

[Jane]

What makes you say that?

[Andy]

I think. Yeah, I just don't think anyone else is around next week, so.

[Jane]

Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's busy week. Busy week.

[Andy]

Busy week. So we've got busy week coming up, but we'll try and nail Mike down. He's a busy. He's like an executive man. He's always racing around the city with a briefcase, getting with nails. Yeah, exactly. Or ambush him in his taxi with a microphone.

[Jane]

Then he'll have to talk to us.

[Andy]

Then he'll have to talk to us. Exactly.

[Jane]

If we doorstep, doorstop him. Doorstep him.

[Andy]

Doorstep, doorstop him. Hit him with a door. We'll hit him with a doorstop.

[Jane]

And when he wakes up outside his.

[Andy]

House, he's tied to a podcasting chair.

[Jane]

And be like, Mr. Channel. Mr. Channel. Do you care to comment on your Weirdwood D and character?

[Andy]

Comment on the allegations that you made a D and D character.

[Jane]

Yeah. All right, so that's the plan for next week's podcast.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Jane]

Thanks for listening, everybody. We appreciate you.

[Andy]

Yeah. Have a great weekend and we'll see you next time for more Weirdwood. Bye.

[Jane]

Bye.

[Dan]

If you're looking for a podcast adventure, check out Dum Dums and Dragons, a podcast where improvisers and comedians who've never.

[Andy]

Role played before journey into the world.

[Dan]

Of Dungeons and Dragons.

[Andy]

Dum Dums and Dragons has been featured on the official Dungeons and Dragons podcast, ranked number two of all fiction podcasts in America, and has been downloaded more.

[Dan]

Than 4 million times.

[Andy]

Dum dums and Dragons can be discovered anywhere hilarious podcasts can be found.

[Dan]

It's like Lord of the Rings if everyone was an idiot.

[Luke]

Greetings adventurers. Today we're excited to introduce you to a new story, Dark Dice, a horror podcast that blurs the line between actual play and audio drama, where the story is determined by the roll of the dice. Six adventures Adventurers embark on a journey into the ruinous domain of the nameless God. They will never be the same again. One of the players is not what they seem after a doppelganger, a creature that can assume the form and voice of whatever it kills, infiltrates the team as the players are picked off and replaced one at a time. Can they figure out who the monster is before it's too late? Can you? Here's a quick example of what our show sounds like the shambler with the jar of liquid inside of him, Soarin Arkwright, let loose an arrow that cracked the glass passing through the spine of the creature. The shambler still managed to maintain its forward momentum, but stumbled as it eagerly tried to bite and swipe at Soarin, landing near his feet. As Jeff Goldblum has now joined our cast, Dark Dice is available however you listen to podcasts.

[Dan]

Listening to a podcast should be time well spent, and I promise it will be if you'll give this podcast a try. It's called Something youg Should Know. I'm the host, Mike Carruthers, and in every episode I talk with leading experts on topics I know you will find fascinating from why people can't keep secrets, what your favorite music says about you.

[Luke]

Why your pet acts in strange ways.

[Dan]

And so much more. Something you should Know is designed to.

[Luke]

Give you information you can use in.

[Dan]

Your life and give you great intel that you can share with others. I'm told it's a binge worthy podcast and with over a thousand episodes, there's a lot to binge on. Something you should Know has been ranked in the top of the Apple podcast charts consistently for a long time. I know you're gonna like this, I just need to get you to try it. Something you Should Know. It's available wherever you listen to podcasts.