Stories with Dice
Stories with Dice is an actual-play podcast where a fellowship of everyday gamers explores fantastical worlds, distant futures, and parallel realities through tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) from Free League Publishing, Chaosium, Modiphius Entertainment, and more.
Over the years, we’ve told stories around our virtual table in the worlds of Tales from the Loop, Pendragon, Mutant Year Zero, Star Trek Adventures, The One Ring, The Electric State, Forbidden Lands, Legend of the Five Rings, and Symbaroum. Going forward, we’re focusing on a smaller lineup of games, giving us more opportunities to return to each story sooner. As campaigns reach their natural conclusions, we’ll add new stories from the worlds of Twilight: 2000, Vampire: The Masquerade, The Walking Dead, and more.
We’re not voice actors, professional entertainers, or trained performers—just friends from around the globe sharing virtual dice, stories, and a laugh or two as the game unfolds.
Stories with Dice
Dark Blue Sea S1 E2: A Mutant Year Zero Actual Play Podcast
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Ten days after a cataclysmic storm, the mutants are stranded on an island. With their ship barely seaworthy and only one elder remaining, the group must explore the island for vital resources.
Please note: In this episode, we experienced an audio issue that we couldn't resolve. The glitch stops around the 18-minute mark.
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Welcome to Stories
Welcome to Stories with Dice
SPEAKER_03with Dice. This is the Dark Blue Sea, a Mutant Year Zero Actual Play Podcast. If you're enjoying our actual plays, please subscribe to Stories with Dice so you'll never miss an episode. Don't forget to rate and review us. It really helps others discover the podcast. Follow us on social media to stay updated, share your thoughts, and join the conversation. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to episode two of our Mutant Year Zero. Sorry, you'll be bear with me. We're sharing some screens, and Marco is just giving me the finger. God damn you. Yes, welcome back to the next episode. That's it. I will very briefly introduce you to the players, though. That's always good.
SPEAKER_03So we've got my fellow co-host, Marco. Hello, I'm Caspian, the uh unconscious navigator. We've got Chris.
SPEAKER_04Um, hi, I'm Moss, the slightly inapnote moving gearhead. Excellent. Um Pete.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Hi, I'm Roach, the thug. And Douglas.
SPEAKER_03I'm playing Cochrane, the surprisingly sure-footed stabby Arnold Claire.
The Journey Begins
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Somebody's gotta do it. So your library is kicking us. So where we last left off, there was a bright light, everything kind of went horribly wrong. Chris was seeing a bunch of people wearing blue uniforms throwing the elders off into the um into the boat. As that was happening, a bright explosion filled the night sky, filling the sky and the seas with this horrendously bright white light. It kind of pushed the boat off, everyone got thrown about. And that's where we left it last session. But this session, it's uh it's ten days later. Well, how's that for a jump? Unfortunately, Caspian still has a broken nose, and I'm going to let you see a map. Look at that. Hopefully, it should be a very dark map apart from one square that you can see because everyone goes, No, I can't see anything. I don't know what you mean, Ed. You've messed up all the things. Okay, and yes, so your vessel has run ashore on this island. All this landmass, whatever it might be, your ship is a bit of a sorry state. It now looks like this.
SPEAKER_03Oh cool, very cool.
SPEAKER_02It's it's crashed against the shore. The the nose of the ship has broken off. There are cracks, there is all sorts of things. For those that can remember it, the ship was in this large storm that lasted for days. And the the the the next thing you knew, the the ship had ground ashore. It's taken you all a few days to kind of get right. There is only one elder left, and she is currently not in a good way, probably, according to the dogkeepers and Anwin's gang, probably has no more than two or three days left, which is all the knowledge that you have of the past gone. Rhett's gang has managed to secure the um the ship and has managed to at least make it stable. It's not seaworthy at the moment. Of all the tenders, only one is now actually usable. The mechanics and Elson's gang have kind of tried to sort of study the loss, figure out what they can get, what the water source could be, how that will work. It still seems to be working to a degree, but it definitely looks like it could probably fail within probably weeks. Things are not looking good for the ship. Uh who wants to be brave and roll me 3d6 to determine how many of your 205 souls were lost during the storm and the capture of the elders? We don't. Pete's like, yeah, I can do that. Let's kill six people. Hooray! You are now down to 199 souls. But seeing as this is the beginning of the first session, would somebody else like to roll me a D6 to see how many other souls? Beginning of the second session. Beginning of the second session, sorry. Yeah, if you could have roll a D6 for me. Someone. And this is a number of souls that anyone? Yeah. Yeah. Anyone? Marco, why don't you do it? One D6? One D6, please. Ah, it's another four. Go down to 194 souls in the arc.
SPEAKER_03Still too many mouths to feed. We need to kill more.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. So if I take you back to the map of the area that you're in, you've managed to explore the area within the last ten days, what it looks like. And so your area itself is surprisingly free of rot. It was going to be helpful for you, Marco. So there's no rot. There doesn't appear to be any kind of threats kicking around. There are sort of like you managed to land on what looks like probably was some kind of bay. And somehow you've managed to crash into some ruins which you found around. Somewhere just sort of like further on, there's a grand building that rises from the ruins. All the windows seem to have been broken decades and decades ago. There's loads of dust and dirt that seems to have kind of gone into the into the building. It looks like at some point before the fall, it probably held multiple food and drinks and various other things from the iconography you can see, because most of you can't read. And they show these sort of like prongs and little weird pictures of people on doors, all this kind of thing. It looks like this is a sort of place that has long since gone to ruin. You haven't been able to find any food or any water or anything like that that's that's in that's uh that's in your bit of area that you have. Off to the side, further to the north, you can make out a small island. You've not been able to get to the small island yet, and then the sea just continues off. Yeah. And that's what you have. So we're gonna just
Decisions for Survival
SPEAKER_02jump from all of your characters to decisions with the ark or the ship. So taking into effect the bosses that we have, you, if you want to, can make a decision. What would you like to do? What would you like the ark to do? I'm gonna take the initial decision that the three bosses decided first thing they need to do is to make sure the ship is fine, everyone is accounted for, and that all the utility systems that we're around are still working, so water is is fine. There is enough grub to keep you all going for a short while. How much is dependent on who's controlling the grub, I suppose. But at least at the present moment, you've got enough storage to last for a while, maybe a couple of weeks at most. And you reckon you could probably fish in the waters, and if you're to explore the islands some more, you could probably find other sources of food, perhaps. Yeah, it's definitely probably the biggest island or land mass that you've seen in a long while. What would you like to do as a group, or what would you like the ARC to do in regards to potentially starting a project, potentially doing something else? If you want to ask the bosses what they will do, I can happily give you their voice, and you can kind of make a decision about what you think you would like to do.
SPEAKER_03Uh Caspian thinks that we should organize people into expeditions to go into the zone and find food. So hunting parties.
SPEAKER_04I fully concur. I mean, I I guess it's good that we still have the boat and it's it's gonna give us somewhere to live, at least in the you know, for the for the near future. But if uh just right now I don't see how we're ever gonna get uh seaworthy again and and if we can't go out fish and all that, like that that's not gonna be tenable for you know our long-term future. So we better see what's out there and as as we go exploring and hunting, we we might just find something better.
SPEAKER_01Well, given the uh what just we just went through, probably uh aim to improve our defenses. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03That's on 104 ed if you want to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's fine.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah. Increasing the defenses. We've got hunting parties. Douglas, anything you might want to add?
SPEAKER_03No, I probably side with what Pete's saying. Like the ship is very vulnerable for the first time ever because it is not moving at all. And you know, some some people like Cochrane have probably never seen land before. You might seen it at a distance, and now it's like people could just like walk up to our boat. And we can't do anything about that.
SPEAKER_02This is true. This is a very odd thing
Planning for the Future
SPEAKER_02to do. Okay. But it's fine.
SPEAKER_04I mean, it's nice and big, but this isn't actually good housing, I presume. Like I presume that, you know, it's it's probably sort of you know sat at an angle and really uncomfortable now that it's beach.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean the the the cruise ship itself is big enough so that actually, yeah, you you it is it is now not going anywhere. It's definitely not seaworthy. But where it's beached, it's perfectly fine. You could you you could sort of like if you want to shore up it, you could probably do that. And that's I would say has already been done in sort of like the intervening period, just to make sure that it's not going anywhere. So, in a set, in effect, the arc that you had before was obviously a travelling arc. Now you don't have a traveling arc, now it's as well and truly fixed in this one point. And definitely, if you were to try and travel anywhere else with 194 of you, it's going to be very difficult because you have a you have one boat that is probably serviceable that could probably hold five to six people. PC is the amount of people that can stay in the boat. Funny how that works. Quite handy plotline. Okay, so we've got two things. We've got the hunting party and the defences. They're the two options that you've all put, and the bosses are more than happy with both. You can pick one or the other. They cost a certain number of points equal to So for the hunting party, it's one times the number of PCs. So there's four of you. So it's going to require four work points, which means you have to make some roles and you need four successes. If it's defenses, it's twice that number. And so that would require eight successes. Now you can work towards this, and I'm more than happy in the intervening period that you can do that. It requires specific things. So everything requires a certain amount of food, certain amount of culture, technology and warfare. Both of these require nothing because it's it's the basis of everything. But it does give you points. So if you go and set out hunting parties, it will increase your food supply by 2d6 if it succeeds. Um and obviously the same thing with defences increases your warfare by the same amount. But if anyone actually wants to work on any of these things, you are more than feel-free to do that. For those that do you need to pick one as a group. So is it defenses or is it hunting party?
SPEAKER_03So you had mentioned the state of our food supply. Can you repeat what that is?
SPEAKER_02So you've probably got a couple of weeks' worth of food that you that 194 of you would be able to ration out before you have to then start really kind of going to cannibalism.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Which is an option if you wish.
SPEAKER_03It is an option, yes. It's an option. Okay, so maybe the more pressing concern, maybe Roach is correct. The most pressing concern right now is defenses. Because we can go for a couple of more weeks with the food that we have, we probably can't handle getting attacked by somebody. And who knows where those people are who attacked us. So that would be my vote. Everyone, you know, I uh everyone feel free to disagree. Everyone happy with that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, I like that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, plant people are scary.
SPEAKER_02They are scary. So if anyone wants to help with this, otherwise it'll just tick over. You can make a false or a scout roll, and we want we're looking for for defenses, we want we want eight successes. So it could be all done now, or it could be next session. Feel free. If anyone wants to help out, you get a freebie. So you're gonna stay in the you're gonna stay in the in the ship, and you're gonna basically work to do that. So if you want to do that, you can make a roll now for any of your characters to do that. Yeah, I'll I'll do that. Yeah, I'll help as well. So it's a false roll or a scalp roll, whichever you and you cannot push these roles.
SPEAKER_01Has any healing happened in the um Yes.
SPEAKER_02You're all healed and everything's fine. I'll style that for you.
SPEAKER_01Apart from world markers knows.
SPEAKER_03I have one success.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I have one too.
SPEAKER_03Chris has got one. Yep. And Douglas had no successes.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Uh P. Well, we're rolling um in two or shoot, so I'll go from one. Force or scout, whichever skill you prefer. I imagine you're wanting to use force. So we've got three successes.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02So you're almost halfway there. Oh, I'm gonna give you one success just from everybody helping out. So I'm just gonna make a note here that you've had three successes. Okay, so when those three successes, so it's gonna be a whole session till that that might get completed next session. But it does mean that for this session, what would you like to do? You mentioned hunting parties, and while the decision by the whole arc is decided to sort of shore up the defenses, the bosses are more than happy for you
Exploring the Ruins
SPEAKER_02to go and explore. In fact, they're more than happy for you to do that because who knows what you might find. One of you, after all, is a navigator. How you navigate on land is up to you. But yeah, what would you like to do this session? I asked the players. So we only have one elder left, and they're you only have one elder, and they're very sick. They are very sick. They are currently in the care of Anwin's gang. Okay. As the um as the chroniclers and law keepers.
SPEAKER_03Was this the one that we saw like Bleedy out in the deck when we were
The Last Elder
SPEAKER_03there, right? No. This is a completely different one.
SPEAKER_02So what happened is once everyone kind of got together and found it. It turns out there was only one one left. The rest, it appears, the other these other people in these uniforms took the rest. No one knows why or how. And you've seen it firsthand. Chris Chris's character obviously saw that. But you've never you've never come across these people before, you don't know why they were doing that. So whatever happened, it happened during this, and and now you're down to one. And it's likely in the next few days that uh that elder is going to die. And with that, all of the history and all the all the secrets of technology will go, and it will just be down to you as the people to make your way in the world. Currently, the um the law keepers are taking down everything that the elder is telling them in her sort of last few hallucinated days of pain and suffering, but they are keeping that very close to their chests and they are not allowing other people to go to the elder, which has kind of ruffled Rhett and Elson's gangs. People are obviously in a bit of a quandary because before, obviously, the mechanics could basically down tools and the ship would stop running. Rhett's crew would turn around and say we're not going to navigate any further. So it shifts the balance between those two to being the law keepers being in charge. The law keepers are a smaller gang than than the others, so for them to hold all the power is quite a meaningful sort of like power play. But it hasn't really affected the day-to-day living currently in the arc at all. But it might do in the future.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Some so there's some people have gone a little bit out from the boat, but not too far. Is there anything particularly like landmarkish in visual range that we can see? Like you said, not just a buildings and stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so that that's that's um that that's what I was saying. So the the thing that marks out anything on this on this map is towards the southern, the southeastern side of this large building. That's the closest you kind of got as a as a landmark. But the build the land itself is relatively flat. It's slightly raised in parts, but mostly flat. And it looks like there used to be a lot of roads, or what used to be roads, perhaps, which kind of lead to various things. And definitely, if you were to follow these, how you kind of like came across it. You followed one of these well paved like paths that were quite large, and it took you to this large building that had lots of windows in and clearly had a lot of things going on in it. And so, to a degree, make a comprehend roll. If you have comprehend roles.
SPEAKER_03I do not, but I will have. Can I just do a pure if you don't have comprehend, you cannot make the role. No, then no, how can I make it do anything but that?
SPEAKER_02So anyone's got comprehend. They may make the roll. He did you roll? No. No, who was that? That was me. So Chris rolled, but she's not for some reason.
SPEAKER_03I think something screwy is going on then because she can hear us, obviously. So for the folks at home, one of our players, Chris, our our new player. Looks like there's some technical difficulties happening. She's not in the recording studio, but she is apparently in Foundry. She can still hear and see us. Well, that's really weird. Well, I I I'm assuming so because she made that rule, and we had just talked about comprehensive can make that rule.
SPEAKER_02So that's why I'm like It's a good question. Should she restart Riverside? Right. Because do we have like a there's no pause button.
SPEAKER_03There's no pause button. I would have to just stop the recording and start the whole new stuff. She must have been texting. Okay, we have we have we have Moss back in our studio for the folks at home.
SPEAKER_02Hey, welcome back. Okay, so we had the people that rolled, so I think it was just it was just you, Chris, who has comprehend what we were trying to comprehend before we got completely just roads or Bill James, I think it was. So, yes, the the you know from the things that you have either read in books or or not read but have been explained to you by the elders in the past, that there were places where people went to go and purchase things, and they were these big things on the side of these large throughways where old vehicles used to travel, and people would used to turn off of those and they would stop and spend like a whole day in these large buildings where they would eat, they would basically purchase things, there was vast amounts of food, there was vast amounts of gear and tech and various other things. And that's what this building was. You hear tell that it used to be called a mall.
SPEAKER_04I mean it it probably was looted a million times over already, but I think there was so much stuff in there, it might still be worth having
Discoveries in the Zone
SPEAKER_04a go.
SPEAKER_02So I suppose to start, you can have a wander out. It's a relatively safe zone, you can go for a bit of a wander.
SPEAKER_04Actually, um, there's one thing I was wondering about. Those guys in the blue uniforms, did we manage to capture one of them or maybe even search one of the ones we killed, or were they all washed overboards before we could give them a closer look?
SPEAKER_02No, no, they were all gone. There was no one left for you to capture or look at. I think that there was nothing for you to take.
SPEAKER_01Literally.
SPEAKER_04Shame, their uniforms looked so neat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I had the choice between uh catching Caspian and the revolver that was dropped, so uh I thought I'd better go for Caspian. I just threw them over the edge anyway.
SPEAKER_04Come on, none of them had the like basic colours need to wash up in our holes.
SPEAKER_02Afraid not. Uh how dare they!
SPEAKER_04I hate them even more now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you want to if you want to go exploring, you can indeed do that. So you guys can as a group have a wander round the area and look around. I guess this is a good time to explain how you explore the z the zones in and around you. First of all, what you need. Instead of like blindly wandering through zones, what you need is a navigator who can help you figure out where you're gonna go and what you're going to do. Now, if only there was some such type of person in the screen. Who could it be? Who could it be? Who could it be?
SPEAKER_04Who could it be now? Well, so lucky we've got a navigator.
SPEAKER_02We do. To do that, you need to uh roll to know the zone. So find the path is what you need. What this will allow you to do will allow you to not only find out where you need to go, but it will also allow you, had you got any more extra successes, to look for things. Maybe you spot artifacts, perhaps maybe you find a good place where there's there's water, there's food. Three successes. Excellent.
SPEAKER_03So first of all and three biohazard symbols, what are those?
SPEAKER_02mean uh that's three failures you you wouldn't want to push this role so that would damage your agility by three which probably is bad right
The Artifact Hunt
SPEAKER_02yeah yeah yes okay Mr. Chronicler is gonna basically explain to you how to basically look through rubble and what to look for and how to find it which you already knew but it does give you two extra successes so you've got five successes on your role which is crazy amounts so with my question my question for you Ed is do you want me to use the the navigate skill in the in the deep blue sea zone compendium or because we're on land do you want me to use the five Because you're on land find the path for me that's what I thought okay so one success allows you to you know uh find a safe path and spot any threats from the zones before they spot you which is great so you don't find any threats so that's all good but you do get four other successes so you can pick of those lists what would you like to know sir?
SPEAKER_03Okay. So we've got artifact assess the rot, D6 bullets, d6 rations, water, half in the time of exploration, rush through which will avoid all threats but we don't actually explore anything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah so when you explore a zone it takes about six hours for you to kind of go through the the the the thing so it takes a while to go through it. It means you can go through it a lot quicker so you can rush through it. Obviously this is fine when you're in the same zone as your R the further away you go obviously the more time it takes to get there. Which means you might have to spend evenings out in the zone for example and you said I have four you've got four extra successes.
SPEAKER_03Okay so I want to find an artifact in the sector yep if it's there to be found. I definitely want to find D six bullets.
SPEAKER_02Okay why don't you roll me why don't you roll me D six bullets? That's how many bullets you find bullets congratulations you find two bullets in your uh in your wandering round now it's obviously you stop and look in one place as you're searching the zone you're kind of looking around and you you find two bullets.
SPEAKER_03And that's great because I used two bullets in that fight so that's helpful karma two left to the arch in a second two left let's see do we want no like the general level of rot in our home area? Yes yes we do.
SPEAKER_02The general level is there is no rot here at all it is an oasis you will not take any rot for as long as you want to be it's completely frot free for the moment. Let's find some rot-free water. Okay So because this is in your you won't have to make a roll for this what you do find is a source of rot-free water that the ark could use. Oh excellent so as as you explore what you do find is there is a or was some kind of old building that old building probably had something above it but that is all since gone but you do find essentially a large which has access to an underwater water source. So cool. It does mean that there is probably about an hour's trek between the arc and the location but essentially you now have access to fresh running water for as long as that water source lasts because you obviously have no idea how long that will be but for the moment you have an extra source of water should your filtration system kicks breaks or something.
SPEAKER_03Excellent water is important. It helps it helps the meat go down when you're cannibalizing your people not quite there yet I was about to make a roll privately well that can't happen can it yeah artifacts it was the other thing you were after right should we get some artifacts for eat you'd like some that's a lot of rolling it is rolling a lot of dice that we can hear but we cannot see the results of and he knows that it's driving me insane.
SPEAKER_02Well as you make your way through this very large broken down building you're kind of like sticking your nose into sort of like crevices and looking around and you're just trying to sort of like find things. It takes quite a bit of time which one of you let me let me because I know Marco hates it roll a dice so Cochrane you're basically sort of like rummaging around in one of these places and you find this this book. It seems to have it's quite a thick book and there's a lot of lot of pictures in it but you can read it as you're sort of looking at it you can see book is roll me a deep but roll it privately so he can't see it.
SPEAKER_03Do you want me to go physically go get my dice and then I can just roll on my desk. Yeah go for it. Like he rolled a seventh lucky number seven it is typing.
SPEAKER_02It is typing okay okay that's interesting yeah so you you sort of like rummage around you kind of like find this large tone of a book there's loads of pictures in the book it's got the name of some odd company which is kind of like smudged and all the kind of wording is sort of written out but it seems to say something and what's electrical engineering something. When you flick through the book it has a lot of diagrams as well as pictures of various electrical connections there's essentially is an electrician's guide on how to fix electrical systems.
SPEAKER_03This will allow you to get a dev bonus when you bring it back to the uh the art to your technic technology skill so what you're saying is it's a really boring book that Cochrane does not know anything about look they misspelled what on it A-A-W-A-T-T-W-H exactly that's exactly it but it does mean that you're it can add to your uh your the pictures aren't even of things interesting it's of things I see down in the engineering deck.
SPEAKER_02Yep it's yeah picture of an engine I just go down and hang out with moss but you continue to sort of like wander along Caspian you kind of like pick your way through one of these darkened rooms that all the kind of ceiling seems to have collapsed in and you're sort of like picking your way through and you come across a box with a strap on it. Box with a strap on it like a weird shiny weird material box with a strap on it. Is the box locked? It is not it's like a little simple pop mechanism. I will open it the box. You open it there are two cylinders that are connected to each other with glass on either side of the cylinder. If anyone wants to make a cobry handroll I think that's only moss that can do that. Certainly curious enough to have a look at it. There's also another strap on both these cylinders which are connected oh I have an idea uh an idea let me let me have a look okay what do you think this moss what is this thing Chris what do you reckon it is I have I I have no idea glass cylinder yeah yeah so glass on either side of each of these cylinders and there's a strap that connects both the cylinders together the cylinders are both joined together but they fit into this box just right and you realize that the glass cylinders there's little caps on each of the little glass cylinders when you look through the um the glass from one side to another it makes the detail further away look like it's closer.
SPEAKER_03Congratulations you found some binoculars this is amazing yeah that is totally I did not get that from glass cylinders now if only we still had a boat nicely done seafaring I mean to say I remember being a kid playing Gamma World and having a lot of fun doing exactly that it's fun isn't it coming up with ways to describe everyday ordinary objects and having the players go what is that you could give this in to um to the Law masters and it again would also add a D6 to the technology or ultimately you can keep it if you were to keep it it gives you a plus three to scout and find the plus skills.
SPEAKER_02It gives a plus two to scout and does what?
SPEAKER_04Plus three to scout and find the path skill that is going to be so cool you need to hang on to that.
SPEAKER_02Yes I think I will hang on to that. I guess I guess you're gonna keep it so I'm just gonna throw that in the well I'm not gonna tell the bosses you keep
Uncovering Secrets
SPEAKER_02it. Yeah you can put it in your carrot sheet as I mean the boring book so yeah you've got the boring book.
SPEAKER_03So next we'll temporarily hold on to it until we get back to the boat and then I will fob off on someone who cares about that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02Caspian let me throw you the uh the oculars should appear in your gear now.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Thank you sir not a problem.
SPEAKER_02Right so that leaves two of you left to find stuff. Okay. Chris one, two or three pick a number for me three okay well as you're picking your way through this very large thing you you come across another of these rooms that sort of had a lot of stuff in. A lot of it seems to have perished and broken but you kind of come across this this large cylinder that's got different colours on the cylinder is quite big. It's probably is probably about almost the size of your half your leg and probably as wide as your thigh. It's got some weird like nobbles and stuff on the top and there's some weird sort of tubes and stuff that run from from those knobs another weird metal kind of bit and along with that it appears that there's also some weird feet like frog's legs like frog's feet that have all kind of like connected with that. And as you kind of like move that around you also see what looks like a Mars or a pair of glasses.
SPEAKER_04Oh like diving equipment or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah you've seen it before you've seen it on the ship it is indeed it's a diving gear. It will give you a bonus of plus three to your move skill underwater it also protects you against gases if you should show have them. Feel free if you would like to have that you can do but you could also take it back to the um to the arc and if you were to hand it in it would eventually give you a development bonus of plus d6 to your technology.
SPEAKER_04What would you like to do with that item I'm thinking just right now it would be really good if we could you know explore the area around where where we've beat you know maybe maybe there's something great underneath the ship and we you know can't see it.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Which then leaves Roach as you're looking around you too also find something this has clearly never been well if it has been looted these have obviously all been missed. You find something sort of like in a box there's like sort of like a metal box that's only partially open it looks like it probably had a key in at some point but the key had broken off. So inside the box you can see a revolver an honest to goodness revolver from the past times not a scrap pistol but a revolver. There was also some kind of large metal egg in there with a handlon hey anybody know what this is I'll hold up the large metal egg no idea that it might explode any moment. Chris if you want to make a comprehend roll but I would like to take away three dice. Okay let's see I think you can do it in the game yeah I think so well look to you knowing everything that's going on I'm so smart clearly Moss spent a lot of time with the uh with the elders it's called the hand grenade and it explodes when you pull the handle or something like that. You've kind of you'd seen it in a in a couple of things that they were talking about but you're not really massively on how it probably works.
SPEAKER_04Maybe maybe don't drop the thing on I hear they're dangerous.
SPEAKER_01So it's uh it's a good day's searching it appears and I assume Roach you're happy to keep those things well yeah I'm not not quite sure what I'll do with the explosive thing not knowing exactly how it works so I might hand that off to someone else with more technical abilities.
SPEAKER_02Okay I'll put it on your car sheet anyway. Right so I think that's all the stuff that you found
A Day of Exploration
SPEAKER_02Marco but yeah you you you explore the area quite fully throughout the whole day and you can't see there's any kind of threats you you don't see that there's anyone's beam here as you kind of sort of make your way towards the the sort of like northeastern side of the zone as you kind of make your way around you come across sort of a group of four shallow graves each each grave marked with some scrap in a sort of like cross shape and there's a bunch of scratchings and stuff on the thing.
SPEAKER_03But is it in a language that we understand? No what do you suppose those are?
SPEAKER_04Not not even Cochrane. I I thought I thought all those letters you knew them.
SPEAKER_03No well I don't even know that it looks like something's buried here. Does it look like it's a fresh no it looks like it's been here for a very long time. On the boat we don't bury people we throw them overboard. So so why would you bury people? So this is why he can't really comprehend like what this is. I like that or we eat them you don't bury people you commit them back to the sea you do like the throw them overboard or we eat them it depends on how thick they are.
SPEAKER_02I'm feeling that that Caspian is definitely on the cannibalism sort of like spectrum. Hey if I'm hungry and we don't have any food you are the food yeah you do a full circuit and it appears this zone is rot free you have some running water you probably looted it for as much of the artifacts as you can find this seems like a very safe zone to be in and indeed it is it's your arc zone and it is now fully explored but there is a zone to the south there's a zone to the west and a zone to the east oh and north but you know you need to probably take a boat to go there. Are you saying that we can press on into an into an un Absolutely so I'm I'm more than happy for that to like be the thing that you did you know when when you kind of like got here you made decisions you kind of like explored so absolutely if you want to press on for this session as a specific session to any one of the other zones you may do. Which way would you like to go sir? I think we should go south directly south we can do it. So for anyone who's listening to this podcast because you're not watching it that's for sure um each of the each of the there's a there's a large map which we'll share
Into the Unknown
SPEAKER_02as this kind of gets published with the map of the of the zones I think probably we'll we'll do that as we as we do the meet session. And so there are hex marks across the um across the map each one's got a box so each box is roughly 10 kilometers by 10 kilometers and each time they go into a new zone players will figure out what's there. So at the moment it's just here be dragons as it were it's all dark on the on on their map and they don't know what's going on there. But we're gonna go to the next one.
SPEAKER_03So south you say south so with your newfound binoculars you get a plus three indeed now how do I use the binoculars on the die roll so if you you just add plus three to your thing to gear to the gear. Yep okay got it with all that rolling all that dice rolling got me absolutely nothing no successes and one explosion symbol which I think means if I push the roll the binoculars break correct if it's a black dice and yes so if you were to push this roll it gives you a bonus of three so if one of those would break which means it would then give you a bonus of two if it was to break again well I'm gonna push this okay that's fine.
SPEAKER_02Well there we go um one success. Got one success you've broken the binoculars a little bit you've also the the the the the gear well sorry the gear the uh the attribute that you used is also damaged right which hopefully should automatically do that for you it did it has uh I don't know if it did for the gear let me check no probably because it wasn't linked so yeah no it hasn't hasn't done it for the gear. That's okay it was I'm gonna change it on thing to now and it gives you a plus two to it. Okay but yeah you succeed. What can you find in the next half? So firstly as you make your way south towards into the zone again as you make your way from just behind the large building in the previous zone you kind of make your way into what looks like woodland or or sort of like trees that have long died. Big sort of like quigs in the ground is the best way to probably describe them. You probably had seen sort of like trees perhaps in sort of like in some of the islands you've been to but they're very kind of small very kind of curated little trees and forests this is a lot bigger than that and it takes up the majority of the zone you can see what looks like buildings kind of scattered around in the trees they look like small cabins probably the best way to describe them I think it's it's safe to say that a lot of the uh a lot of the area itself is covered in this fine thin sort of like webbing you have know the zone of the giant spider attack I have one in know the zone do you like me to roll it?
SPEAKER_03Oh yes please and it's just a strip roll one success sir?
SPEAKER_02One success. Okay so you've heard of these things they're called zone spiders large mutated spiders that have grown to absurd sizes they live underground in decaying old tunnels in roofs and they feed on pretty much anything they can get their hand and it's the first sign that there is something amiss with the area around what would you like to do? I don't like spiders especially giant mutated spiders you could push deeper into the um the zone if you wanted to but it seems to across all the trees.
SPEAKER_03Yeah if I um no let's turn around that's this this area is not safe it looks like some giant spider webbing that we should avoid we should tell everyone at the arc to avoid this area this is a no-go zone for us unless the roach wants to wants to proceed and then then then the roach is on his own maybe we can eat the giant spiders now that we can't go fishing that easily anymore? Do I know if they're editable? If they're edible no but I mean how giant are they? Probably dog sized dog sized spiders I don't even like dog sized dogs. I mean you could try and I I prefer cats how many of these spiders are there?
SPEAKER_02You have no idea we have no idea quite a lot it seems to cover it seems to cover the forest in front of you in the world no we should back we we don't even know how many there are we could be overwhelmed we should we should avoid the area and make a note of it so that people from the ark avoid it and that you kind of take a look at this large setting of spider webs and decide it's time to turn back to maybe find a different place to help you. And you turn back the first day of actually exploring the island and you turn around and make your way back to your ark as the sun starts to set behind you through the haze of sort of like all the spider webs as you make your way past the large building and back to the relative safety of your arc. I think we'll call it there for this evening. See his last last session was oh my god what's going to happen? This is we'll just happen to go back and ease into it. How about we give you some XP so people understand how the XP works in this game. Excellent always good it's nice to always end with um experience doesn't it so did you participate in the session? I think you all did. Yes so we'll give you one XP for that did you perform a day's work on a project in the R yes you all did. You could have an XP for that excellent did you explore at least one new sector of the zone? Indeed you did one XP for that. Now we haven't quite done this yet but on your characters there is ways that you kind of work with the other players so you're asked in your actual character sheets to pick one of the other player characters as a buddy. Now I don't know whether you've truly figured out who you might want to be as your buddy but feel free to figure out who your buddy is.
SPEAKER_03So Caspian because his dream is to venture deep into the zone and find this place called Eden he really holds in high esteem the lore keepers and chroniclers people who you know maintain the knowledge of the past and the knowledge of the people of the art I have chosen Cochran as a buddy. Okay cool. And I wrote in our relationship that he sailed with me once in the zone and lived so that's that's the extent of
Experience Points and Reflections
SPEAKER_03our relationship.
SPEAKER_02Didn't eat me by the side I didn't I did not I did not eat him no there were four others that went out that day and no one else turned suspicious. Okay that makes sense and then so in those relationships is also other PCs so feel free right as you kind of like do that to figure out what they might be. I have no problem you can do that as we continue the game. Yeah haven't really figured it all out yet yeah that's cool. That's fine. So the the next question asks did you sacrifice or risk something for your Buddy. So if you go out of your way to kind of like put yourself in harm's way or risk something s serious, then that gives you extra experience. Which plenty of you have done at the moment, so that's fine. So figure out what you want to do. You might want to pick another buddy. So you don't have to be the same buddy as the other person, so you don't have to share the buddiness. It might be that you know Caspian loves Cochrane, but Cochran doesn't stand him and is actually friends with you know Reg, whatever it might be. So figure out what that would be. And I guess next session maybe we'll we'll flesh that out a little bit more. That might make more sense. So did you sacrifice or risk something for the NPC you want to keep safe? So as part of that, I'll use we'll use someone else unless they've done it. So what I'll tell you what we use, we'll use we'll use you, Douglas. Okay. Maybe not you because you haven't done it.
SPEAKER_03Well I have no one to protect at the moment, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you've got three things that that are asked of you for NPCs. I hate, pick an NPC of your choice. I need to protect, pick an NPC of your choice, and my big dream, which is the thing you would like to do. So obviously we really know what Caspian is. So think about that as well. So if you if you do something to risk something for the NPC that you want to keep safe, you get an extra XP. But none of you have got that. Did you sacrifice or risk something to maths with the NPC that you hate? So did you sort of like, you know, throw a wrench in the works that they're doing? So if it's a boss or something like that, that gives you XP. And then did you sacrifice or risk something to reach your big dream? You know, have you really kind of so that's the all all the sorts of things that kind of give you the experience points. Spending the experience points is pretty straightforward. Once you've collected five XP, which I think you might have done by now. Yeah, I have six. Yep, cool. You can spend five XP and you can raise a skill of your choice by one level, or you can learn a new talent. You can raise any basic skill you like, even if you've never had a level in it to begin with, but not a specialist skill from another role. So you can't ever learn. So, Margaret, you can never learn the enforcers thing, you can't learn the uh the chroniclers thing. You can only ever know your one. What page is this on? Uh this is on page 25 of the main rule book, if anyone wants to know. So once you've done that, you can also get a general talent. So there's general talents in the VTT, or there's talents from your actual role that you have. So as a chronicler, you might have picked one, you might want to pick a different as well. So you'd have two talents. Or you can pick the general, which is kind of like, you know, are you quicker, are you faster? You know, have you done something? Think about what the talent is, and as long as in the rules of what it says you can pretty much pick everything, come up with a very good reason story-wise for that, I'm sure it's fine. If if we never had any combat whatsoever, and all of a sudden, I don't know, if Douglas, you were like, Yeah, I want to learn how to fire an assault rifle, so I'm gonna take, you know, shoot. But you've never actually had that option to do that, so the answer to hell is no. But for example, you if you didn't have fight, but you've already done something like we had in the previous session, 100%, or move, or whatever it might be that got feel free to do that for a skill, and the same thing for a talent. So it's a really basic system because again, it was the first year zero engine. This is very similar to, I think Coriolis does it as well, like the older version with a couple of the others, you know. Straightforward XP, spend it, get the thing you want, keep suppressed straightforward. And then the other thing you do is develop your art. So the things that I gave you today, so for artifacts, uh if you want to, but at the end of the session, hand it in, essentially. So I'm not sure whether or not you would like to do that, Douglas, because you don't particularly want the book.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I will hand in my book to someone who seems interested by the book.
SPEAKER_02In that case, can you roll me a D6, please? Yeah. In which case, your technology goes up by six points. So it was on three, that's now on six. That's now on to nine. That's pretty good. So that's pretty good. Does anyone else want to hand anything in?
SPEAKER_03I spent five XP and put one in scout skill.
SPEAKER_02It doesn't take long to spend your XP in this game.
SPEAKER_01Anyone else? Have any thoughts before we go? I was gonna say, would handing my grenade over do any good? Uh that's how's that just be more than the side this step. Hold this.
SPEAKER_04What another hold.
SPEAKER_02Um it it will do. It will add plus one to the technology and plus one to warfare.
SPEAKER_04Nice.
SPEAKER_01All right, yeah, I'll I'll hand that in. 'Cause yeah, I had it explained to me the kind of thing it does, and I just can't visualize it really. Yeah. There we go.
SPEAKER_02Your technology has hit the next level at 10 and your warfare has gone to four. Okay, which means I think you can start accessing other things that you can make or build or do things with next time we look at the art. But I think that seems like a very good place to end this episode. Thanks for listening along. And I'm sure we'll edit out some of the weird kind of hiccups that we've had. Or maybe leave it in, because that's quite fun to listen to us and go, oh my god, Alec, Alec, what do we do? Quick, push buttons, help, help. Quick, type, type, type, type, type. Chris, are you there? What's happening? I don't understand. But yeah, so thank you very much for listening along. And as always, thank you very much, all of you, for joining in. And we'll see you next session.