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.
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Stories with Dice
Dark Blue Sea S1 E5: A Mutant Year Zero Actual Play Podcast
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Caspian, Cochrane, Roach, and Moss take refuge in an old cemetery as a storm rages through the night. At dawn, they return to the Ark, determined to build watchtowers and cultivate the island for food.
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Welcome to Stories with
Welcome to Stories with Dice
SPEAKER_02Dice. 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
Sailing into the Storm
SPEAKER_02the 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_03Hey everybody. It's uh episode five, I think. Yes, yes, episode five. We'll go to episode five. I'd just like to say hi to the whole crew. Marco's back. Hurrah! Welcome back, Margo. Thank you. We are uh joined as usual by Douglas. Pete. Hiya. And Chris.
SPEAKER_00Hi there.
SPEAKER_03Cool. Well, I'm guessing that you're not listening to this mid-podcast or mid-mid-episodes. So go listen to the other episodes and you'll catch up to where we are now. So I'm not going to bother doing that. So we'll get straight into it, apart from maybe where we left off for the last couple of seconds last session. So you are all sailing into a particularly nasty squall, and the water is hitting your uh catamaran, the waves are sort of crashing against it. It seems that uh the roach is managing to kind of keep it under control of some sort, and you're all kind of fighting against the uh water to kind of get it further. You can see ahead of you through the squall that the island that you know that you've seen to the north of your arc, and you're kind of trying to use that to sort of almost break the waters that you can to kind of move south to get to that channel between the island and and the arc. And to do so, Roach is gonna require a false roll because he is the one manning the ropes, is where we left off. So if you could do that for me, that'd be great. It appears. Uh that's obviously the uh the dice are with you this time, as opposed to last time. I reckon that Marco, there's uh someone you need to keep with you, you know? Lucky Rabbit's foot. Yeah, you manage to maintain control as the uh as the waves cons constantly hit the ship. But you're driven slightly off course and you end up making your way towards that island to the north. But you manage to uh maneuver into a small little inlet, and there you can take shelter from the storm until the storm passes. Yeah. What are you gonna do when you get to the uh the the inlet? Or do you make do I know anything about this little island? No. You've seen it to the north. What do you know? You have have you explored it? Sure, why not? Well, say you've explored it. In fact, some of the other parties went up there. And what do we know about it? We know that on the actual island it is potentially it is pretty much quite barren. It's got a little bit of a rocky shore, and then it kind of like r raises maybe sort of 10 or 15 feet above sea level. And up the top, there is a or so you've been told, there is a large garden where there is small game and little little birds and and sort of like small large rats. Do you want to talk about the rats? Let's not talk about the rats. Uh and that's what's there. And so people have kind of like managed to some of the some of the people from the ark have managed to get there and sort of like root around for some supplies. But you but you yourself have never been here. Oh, okay. Um which reminds me, does someone want to roll me a D6? Minus one, I think.
SPEAKER_02I'm happy to do it if nobody else wants to.
Discovering the Island
SPEAKER_02Minus one, eh? Minus one, yeah. That's a five. Five people die from the arc. It's it's fine. They were making their own decisions, it's their fault.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So thanks. Happy to oblige the Grim Reaper. Anytime. Yeah, so that's what you know about the island. You've never you lot have never been aboard the island or on board, landed on the island. It's raining, it's horrible, you don't really know how long the school is gonna last for or the rain is gonna last for. What would you like to think?
SPEAKER_00Did we hear that there was that there might be any chance of anywhere on the island to get out of the rain? You know, is there a building, shelter, a cave, anything like that?
SPEAKER_03Let's have a look. Once you make me did you speak to anyone? Let's have a look. Why don't you make me a either manipulate or sense emotion? It's the kind of thing you do to kind of like chat to people, that kind of thing. Basically, anything to do with empathy. Sorry, my fortress being super slow. Uh, that's right. If you want, I can do it.
SPEAKER_00I'm probably gonna roll five times now, but I still don't see a thing come up.
SPEAKER_03That's fine. Let me uh let me do that for you. I'll just roll for you the uh now now it'll kind of like link the others. So yeah. If you remember someone said there were some small houses on the um on the island.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, hey, I I heard there's a couple small houses we could get out of this shabby weather.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like a plan. We should tie up the boat boat, that's fine. So we don't you know lose it in the storm.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, the boat's got anchors and stuff, so it's all it's all fine to kind of be be moored up. Um you can kind of tie you can essentially tie the boat to the to the landmass. That's not a problem. Are you all gonna go ashore or are you just gonna only some of you are gonna go ashore?
SPEAKER_02No, we should all stick together. You know, we're not gonna split the party. That never ends that never ends well in horror movies. Did your friends must say where exactly these buildings were on the island?
SPEAKER_00I say what I recall, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Alright, let's go that way then. Okay. And I heard there might be there are some gardens. There might be edible plant life, there's game. We do have to watch out for giant fucking spiders. I mean rats, I'm sorry, giant fucking rats. And spiders. Anything giant. Anything giant, yes, on four legs. Or two.
SPEAKER_00I mean I guess we still have a few bullets.
Secrets of the Cemetery
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, you all kind of train to the shore and head towards the centre of the island. As you kind of like crest sort of like the rise, the the island itself is relatively flat. There are trees and stuff on here, and you kind of make your way towards the centre. As you get towards the centre, there's like a wall around an inner part of the island, and the wall kind of encompasses like a central part of the island. And there's various gates, large sort of like archways that you can kind of go through. And inside you've got all these partitioned off areas that have all got overgrown trees and bushes and plant life stuff in it. It's almost like the walls have kind of like protected it from the storms. It's kind of got its own little microclimate, if you knew what a microclimate was. And it's gutted around the entire place are lots of small buildings made of material from before the fall. And all over the place are stone effigies, and there's writing and stuff on all of these little things. Douglas. You can read, can't you, Douglas?
SPEAKER_02Uh yes, I can read, but I can't necessarily comprehend what I'm reading.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um well, it appears So I can I can tell people what they say, I might not necessarily understand the context.
SPEAKER_03Essentially, all of the sort of like stones sticking out from the ground are all markers of people's death. So let's the names. You're in a cemetery.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But uh I don't get what these these landlubbers' sort of obsession of putting their people in the ground is. They seem to do that all the time. Seems a very inefficient way to do things. We just chuck them into the war. And it happens and sinks to the bottom and then you don't have to worry about it. But you know they seem to like to remind themselves of the dead all the time. It's very odd. Last last I knew bodies floated Cochrane, but they float away. We we put the stones in the in the material we wrap them in, and that's what makes them sink. Yes, I know. And then they become fish food. And then we eat the fish. So we should just cut out the middleman, is what I'm saying. You really want that project, cannibalism, right?
SPEAKER_03Um Okay. Yeah, you you're in this really lovely cemetery, which is kind of like protected. It's quite a large cemetery. If you could probably count more than more than to 30 or 40, it would be a lot of those. Yeah. It it it's quite large. It probably would have been if this was a city, it probably would have been the city's cemetery. But it's um yeah, it's uh very, very, very kind of sheltered in here. As soon as you go into one of these little houses, absolutely you're sheltered from the storm. Much better already.
SPEAKER_02Is there more writing of names and stuff in this little cellar as well?
SPEAKER_03Yep, yep. There's definitely more writings of names. When you go into one of the little houses, there's more squares sort of like carved into one of the walls with lots of names, and there's probably about eight or nine people in turn here.
SPEAKER_00Can we read the the years or the the death dates, I guess? You can do, but it means nothing to you.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well it looks like they very these people must be very fancy, because they build like houses for their dead, which is very extravagant, because nobody's like if you're dead, you don't need a house. So these must be very important people.
SPEAKER_00And to parking all these stones, who's got time for that?
SPEAKER_02Well the ancients had time for many strange habits. They had far too much time on their hands, if you ask me.
SPEAKER_00Are there things you could build if you had that much time?
SPEAKER_02And look what it got them.
SPEAKER_00Fancy houses for us to shelter in.
Exploring the Garden
SPEAKER_00I'm down. Thanks, ancient people. Well done.
SPEAKER_03Is there anything you want to do on the island or are you just happy to like take refuge and then wait for the storm to pass?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, you you said there was lots of plants and all I meant, probably a pretty wide variety of plants. Maybe it's good for forage. I don't know. I'm not great with plants, but I don't think I've ever seen that many different ones in such a small space.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean there's the there is a there's an awful lot. And lots of varieties as well. I mean you'd probably yeah, you've probably not seen so many different varieties of plant in one place. It might not be a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_00Maybe these are the plants, you know. Maybe that's what the dead ancestors give you if you build them houses.
SPEAKER_02It's a nice bit of reasoning there, Moss.
SPEAKER_00You're used to my strange inventee ideas.
SPEAKER_02If we're going to do that, I think we should still wait out the storm before before we venture out. I mean the still the storm is pretty is pretty horrendous, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it it's it's probably like blowing a proper gale. It's it's not nice out. Yeah. We should wait it out. Yeah, yeah. I mean you're protected in the garden to a degree or in the cemetery to a degree. But obviously it's still raining and it's still cold. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We don't want to get whacked in the head by branches or flying debris.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah. You um you wait it out. It probably by the time you you got there, it was getting dark. So you probably wait overnight as it rains and howls outside. You can all hire uh take off a uh a water and a food off your um of the couch sheets.
SPEAKER_00Hey, it's I mean there's lots of lovely nice rain. Wouldn't that be good to gather as fresh water?
SPEAKER_03Do you want to gather fresh water? Or do you want to gather water from the from the storm?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I I'm sort of thinking if it's rain it can't have rot, but I don't I'm not 100% certain on this.
SPEAKER_02Sure, that seems like a plan. I love it when he says that. It could be acid rain, couldn't it?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00It could be it could very well be.
SPEAKER_02Like we would have noticed at this point. I have no room wandering through the storm for like an hour.
Gathering Fresh Water
SPEAKER_02I suppose that's true.
SPEAKER_03Yes, if you wanna if you wanna if you want to collect the rainwater, you can do you can you can collect enough rainwater, which means you won't have to spend one of your um your your waters, if that's what you would like to do instead. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like a good idea. Okay. These these fancy house dwellers, the dead people, they must be very like well off if they have houses for the dead. Can I try and like crack open one of these sarcophagus things? I assume it's just like a stone box of some sort.
SPEAKER_03So in the in the houses, they're they're basically like a looks like a plaque on the wall. That's what it looks like. There could be something behind the plaque.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'll try and pull off the plaque, why not? You know, some more metal might be useful for slapping to the boat if we break it again.
SPEAKER_03Could uh so roach, loss, you're both gonna drink the the water collected by the um by the rain?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Both of these make a strength roar.
SPEAKER_00I'm so gonna die off rot.
SPEAKER_03Is Cochrane gonna do that as well?
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, no, no. I mean, uh I'm sorry, Caspian is Caspian is gonna drink his own water.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02No puffed.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02Thanks.
SPEAKER_03Okay. But it seems fine. Meanwhile, Cochrane, so you say you want to kind of lever it open.
SPEAKER_02If I think there might be something behind it. Like I assume there's it feels like there's more of this place from the outside, you know, it's not like a TARDIS.
SPEAKER_03No. Okay. Yeah. Alright, but that's fine. Can I you've got a whole night to do it in, so in which case I'm not gonna make you make a roll. Yeah, you can pop it open and break it open, and inside there is a what's left of a body, like some bones and and a whole bunch of uh dirt and dust. Do you want to do me a favor and roll me a well, in fact, I will. I roll it. So I haven't rolled it in for a while.
SPEAKER_02Private roll, my favorite.
SPEAKER_03Well, did you enjoy the uh the the the role I made public the other day?
SPEAKER_02I enjoyed hearing about it, but I was pissed. I didn't see it.
SPEAKER_03That's what do you find?
SPEAKER_02Lots of rats.
SPEAKER_03Kind of like break open thing, you find this body. You're gonna rummage around the body or are you gonna look for anything specific outside of the body itself?
SPEAKER_02Like, okay, I'll g I guess I'll have a rum stick my head and rummage a bit. Okay. Because it's quite dark.
SPEAKER_00And it's I mean it's this is interesting. I I don't think I've ever seen bones because we, you know, we we toss our dead. We don't look at them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean you you just fish bones. You've yeah, you've kind of you kind of know the bones of a person you probably would have had you would have you would have been to places where they string out uh people who have committed crimes and you would have seen like bones and stuff. But yeah, so you kind of like rummage around and you can find like there's this hard little glass tube. And inside the tube there is a bunch of different sized and different shaped type. There's a 20, there's a ten, there's a twelve-sided, there's a six, there's a four. And they're all kind of there's got this weird sort of like luminescent pearl kind of look to it. Congratulations, you found yourself a tube of dice.
SPEAKER_02Polyhedral dice. Anthony Anthony would have been so happy. Okay, yeah, that's what you find.
SPEAKER_03Have we come across dice? Do we use dice like? Oh, yeah, you probably use you probably use sort of like D6 dice kind of thing when you're gambling that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02It's like a D6, but it's higher numbers, so I can
Unearthing the Past
SPEAKER_02win even better.
SPEAKER_00So many different things. I wonder what they did with those. Fancy game for fancy people.
SPEAKER_03There is also uh on this person some slightly off-yellow colored bracelets. Well defended a bar of off-yellows, yeah. It's very similar to the the the other off-yellow bars that you found.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So while Cochrane is grave robbing and Moss and Roach are collecting rainwater and then drinking it. I don't like being in a cemetery. I don't like being in a a house of the dead. So I'm most likely hanging out by the door, and if there's a window, I'm just like gazing out the window. I've got my gun handy, you know, and I'm just like waiting for the ambush to happen that I feel is probably happening.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, you you you look out for the ambush that's probably gonna happen. Do you want to make a scout roll, please? It's raining and stuff, so uh minus two from it. It's quite squally weather. So how do I do the minus two? So when you go into rotting for your scout, you just put where it says skill, just put minus two. So tell me how to read this result. How many successes do I have? So you've got one success because you've got one radiation sign?
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03That's it. One one one one one if you'd push, you'd you do damage. Right. The explosion is bad.
SPEAKER_02Got it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Then what's the biohazard symbol? So no, the biohazard symbol is the is the uh is the bad thing. Oh, okay. So biohazard bad, radiation good. Got it. Explosion is for uh if you were if you had any equipment, if you rolled that, then they'd be done.
SPEAKER_02Oh got it. It's like a gear die. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so in the black any black dice that you roll would be gear dice. Yeah. You look around through the rain and the you you you know, you kind of like your you think your mind's playing tricks on you. You're pretty sure there's someone out there. When you kind of like stare and look, there's definitely no one out there. The sort of you've got no real lighting except for sort of like the the lightning that kind of goes off in the in the sky. Yeah, it just pretty much goes like that, and you end up being on edge for quite a bit of the night. Yep. By by early morning, it the storm has blown itself out and it is replaced with a relatively warm morning. The sun comes out and it's just relatively clear. What do you plan on doing? Well, we're here.
SPEAKER_02We might as well have a look around, as Moss had suggested. Scavenge for plants, scavenge for stuff or explore. Now that it's clearer, can we see the arc from here?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you kind of if you go to the edge of the island, you go to sort of like the southern part of the island and look across. Yeah, you can make out the arc. You just make out the arc. And does the boat seem fine? Yeah, the boat seems to have weathered the storm. Good, good, good. Marco, Cassian wants to rummage around. So if you want to make a uh rummage around roll, so I guess that's the find the path for you.
SPEAKER_02I do have a scavenger talent, which gives me a plus two to my find the path. Excellent. You can absolutely add that one to your role. And that goes on the skill? It goes on the skill, yeah. Sorry for being stupid.
SPEAKER_03It's kind of it's always fun to remember what what it is that you're doing. Okay. So you've uh looks like I have one it looks like I have one success. Right, okay. Which pretty much means you can do one thing. So you can either try and look for artifacts, which is what you're doing, I'm guessing. Or you're trying to find bullets, you're trying to find grub, you're trying to find rod free water. They're the sort of like three things that you would want to kind of look for by look here. Yeah. So you get to pick one of those and you can do that I'm gonna find an artifact.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'll let you roll this. Please let it be an atomic bomb. Please let it be an atomic bomb.
SPEAKER_03In that case, let me roll that.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, I want to roll it. Please let me roll it.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, if you want to roll me a D666, there you go. 354? Or 534 if you want. What would you like? I don't know. Can I see the list? If you Yeah, if no. What would you like there? Three three five four. Okay. So three five four, and if you roll another D6X6, that'll give me the other one. Okay, this time I'm gonna do it one at a time. Okay. 412. Okay, then. So you're sort of like rummaging around, and as you sort of like are looking around, you notice that there's something half buried in the corner of the cemetery. You make your way over there, and you can see that there is one of the vehicles that the people from the time before love to sort of like drive around in. And as you sort of like rummaging around in it, you kind of like start to unearth it. And inside you can see the vehicle's actually in relatively good niche, considering most of the vehicles you've seen are rusted through or burnt out or whatever. This is kind of in sort of okay shape, but then you kind of like find that the actual back end of the vehicle is still intact. And so you kind of the back of the vehicle. And inside there is a like a red plastic bottle, quite a large one, and there's probably a whole bunch of liquid inside. And then plastic bottle of liquid inside. Is it clear liquid? Is it you wanna o you wanna open up the Oh the bottle's not clear? No, the bottle is red. It's a very plastic red large. You can't see through it, got it. It's a very large, mm, we'll call it a jerry can, shall we? Just for To get an idea of what the sort of shape it is. Got it. And there's liquid inside. There is also a bag, and inside, and there is some stuff inside the bag. What's inside the bag? You open up the bag and you can find you find what looks like a very hard wearing hat and also a hard wearing chest thing. It looks like it's armor. Ooh, fancy schmancy. Fancy schmancy. I will put the armor on, thank you very much. Okay. Yeah, the the the hat kind of like clips in place around your chin, and the armor has kind of got these big chest pieces. And on the back of the armor, there's like hardly any armor on the back. There is some. There is a picture of a couple of crossed weapons, sort of like L-shaped weapons. And there is also some leg armor as well.
SPEAKER_02So uh I don't know if you want to add that to my sheet or not. Yeah, I'm gonna use it. And then I'll I'll open up the cap to the container and sort of sniff to see what what uh liquid smells like if there is a smell.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, it's it's a horrible smell. You really know what it is. It's it's a it's it's it's petrol. Is this something that we have use for? Do we use petrol? You have you have used petrol before in the art prior to the big storm, you would have used it to run generators and stuff. It's really difficult to come by. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, and it burns so well. If we if we ever run into more of those rats, this is gonna be amazing.
SPEAKER_03Fuck yes. Yeah, because you will armor up with a chance if we want to stay out of this way. Yeah, the rest of you are sort of like, you know, rummage around and you don't seem to
The Aftermath of the Storm
SPEAKER_03be that he seems to be the one who's found everything.
SPEAKER_02This gas, this petrol will come in handy when we need fuel to start our cannibalism barbecues. Right. Well. No reaction from anyone. Wow, okay. So like, what? No. Like, yes, that's normal speed, that's normal for him. Yes, he's got a lot of people. I went on a trip with Caspian once before. He has a very strange sense of humor, if it is a sense of humor.
SPEAKER_00I mean that that's why he slept in the boat last night. Uh before last.
SPEAKER_02Maybe he just has strange cravings.
SPEAKER_03We're getting there. Um yeah, you kind of figure that you kind of pick the island clean. Although this would make a great place for a garden or a place to grow vegetables or anything like that, if that's something that you that you you felt you needed to. Yeah. And it kind of is quite protected. And it's quite a quite a a big size area.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because that that soil didn't that didn't leach all the chemicals used in embalming at all. No, no.
SPEAKER_03No, no, I'm sure it'll be fine. Absolutely no problem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Right? Well, Ed. I was wandering around on the southern part of the beach. Yep. Now, moss spotted there was like underwater buildings. Do they like appear like up on the southern edge, like the buildings, I think, walked underwater, like where she was swimming?
SPEAKER_03No, there's there seems to be sort of like more hard or more sort of like broken ground that kind of like sort of comes towards the water's edge. So the actual uh cemetery parkland is actually outside of the um the walls as well, but it kind of slowly gradiates down into sort of like the broken rocks and the old kind of blacktops that sort of like are crushed up. There are sort of like bits of ruins here and there, but it's not really what you would say packed with sort of like ruins.
SPEAKER_02Because the only way you'd be able to do that is if you were to kind of like go swimming in the um Is there like black tarmac bits that just go off to the south and then just disappear into the well as and like they just ends? Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so at some point you clearly are on the top of a hill. If this was a large landmass, and obviously the water is rushed in either side and created this sort of like channel of water. You knew that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02Too bad I didn't take my uh C far tubes out of the boat to see where the other end of this road might target might be. But they're a bit heavy to haul around by once.
SPEAKER_03You you imagine that the buildings that you've seen sort of like going south, and then if you were to go southwest, there's that whole section of um building where the large antenna was or the large building was, that's pretty much would have connected if you kind of use your imagination. You could quite easily see that connecting.
Plans for the Future
SPEAKER_03Interesting. Right. Any other plans for any of you or you want to get the hell out of Dodge and go back to the art?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm thinking I'm thinking one of the one of the bosses might really like to know about this place. If we're stuck here, we need to figure out uh how to get rubbed. This place might be good for that.
SPEAKER_02I agree, I agree. We should definitely sort of um uh designate this little island as food a food production place. We can start growing some some crops here, assuming that we have seeds, assuming that someone on the ark knows how to do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they're all seeds and stuff on the ark. Because you you were growing food and stuff on the actual ship, so you could potentially transplant it across here.
SPEAKER_02Always good to have a backup supply.
SPEAKER_03It's true. It's almost like you want to look at perhaps something like cropland or or a project that kind of has that sort of thing. You make your way back to the ark in that case. It doesn't take very long. You sail around the south part of the island and you make your way back to the ark. All right. By the time you get back, you guys are back in the ark. So I'm gonna ask you, uh, does anybody want to look at any more projects? Currently, you have got two projects that you have now completed. You set everyone out on for hunting parties, and the defenses around the ship have been shored up and have been new priests. You've found some artifacts. Is there anything else you would like to do as a group? What would the arc like to do next?
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_03Any way to start like patching holds? So what do what is it you would like? So there's at some point we're gonna want to like leave this place on the boat. So the day if someone has got any kind of gearhead skills, they've got the gearhead, jury rig, can you make a jury rig roll? Please.
SPEAKER_00I feel massively emboldened by the fix that we gave our little boat. I mean, I can do this on any scale, this is fine.
SPEAKER_03How did you get on your roll?
SPEAKER_00That's two successes, I think. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you reckon and you know, you've you've got a modest skill in in being able to fix things. The ship itself potentially could be fixed, but it would take, I mean, probably half a year, maybe a year to fix that ship with the scrap that you have. It it's gonna it would and it would be uh a very large job and very difficult to do. But eventually it could be done. But it would take a long period of time.
SPEAKER_00Do I do I realise where the biggest bottleneck is? I mean, is it is it how many gearheads that we have? Is it how much material we have? Is it the sheer size of the ship?
SPEAKER_03I mean, let me uh take you to the ship. We'll give you an idea of what the ship looks like now. So as you can see, it's missing the whole of the front of the ship. So that would have to be rebuilt. And that is over five or six stories. There's also multiple fractures and breaks in the base of the ship, which means you'd have to work inside, and you would need to be welding and doing various other things. So you're gonna need to get all of those things to be able to do that, which means you'd have to you're gonna have to go searching and probably end up trading with multiple other pupils to get the goods you need to be able to do that. And right now, you're barely surviving.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, maybe this shouldn't be our first priority. Maybe she's never gonna say it again.
SPEAKER_02There's no way that boat is uh is gonna be seaworthy. Well, we're just gonna live on land now forever. Well, don't see that happening. Everyone'll go stir crazy in a week. The first order of business is survival. Then we worry about that particular like some people are looking a bit twitchy from the lack of rocking going on because they can barely keep their too steady, you know, they can't keep their balance anymore. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Well, we know there's other big boats out there. Maybe at some point we might be able to tempt one in the room. In the distance.
SPEAKER_02There are big boats out there in this area. So in terms of projects, I do think looking at the list of projects from the book, I do think cropland should be one. We can set aside the land on that little tiny island, start cultivating some food. As as Ed said, we're barely surviving, and that'll certainly move the needle.
SPEAKER_03So currently, if you look at the development levels, food is actually your highest at the moment on 14. Yes. Culture, not so much. You're all pretty much, you know, not really kind of moving that forward. You're all still kind of fighting into fighting with each other. Technology is kind of like progressing, you're just about to hit the next level. And warfare is you're still sort of fairly, fairly low-key in being able to protect yourselves. But absolutely. If you were to go for cropland, it would increase your food supply quite a lot, and you'd start to be living, you know, rather than hand to mouth every day. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Because then we don't have to worry about that. We can start worrying about warfare and other things besides just hoping that we have to lift because we're gonna have to take the new cropleton. Exactly. Exactly. And I think one of the things we should do when we get there is a watchtower.
SPEAKER_00I like that thought. That that would be quick to actualize, materialize compared to the other guy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean there's uh multiple things that you could do. All right. So are you all in agreement that uh croplands is your
Cropland and Watchtowers
SPEAKER_03next thing to do?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, sounds good.
SPEAKER_03The other things you can do from from the supplement we're using is to actually uh build scrap other scrap vessels so you can make smaller boats, although I do not think that you have sufficient amount of technology yet to do that. Um all in good time. All in good time. The technology is 10, which means that what's the lowest that you can build? So for ships, yeah, you need to double it for to build some scrap ships or other things like that. So you could probably make some rafts and you could probably make make a small catamaran, that kind of thing. So but that's pretty much what you're looking at. You wouldn't be able to do anything that would survive any kind of deep water kind of bite saving. Okay. So I shall stick cropland in. And then after cropland, you're thinking of Watchtower? Watchtower.
SPEAKER_04Sure.
SPEAKER_02Now, should the watchtower be on the boat or should it be on the island? And can we put something on the island? Can we like extend that? Can we consider the arc to be like part of I mean, can we consider the island to be part of our arc?
SPEAKER_03I mean, you could do. I mean, you just then start building out from the ship. Yeah. Yes, you could quite easily do that. I mean, uh ideally you could build like a separate watchtower from what's left of the funnel to kind of uh w when we're talking a watchtower, it could also be sort of like smaller towers around around the arc. So that that would also work. It wouldn't just have to be just one watchtower. Okay.
Dividing Tasks
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, do any of you want to help with with the cropland? Or are you gonna leave them to themselves or or do you want to help with the watchtower? I mean something.
SPEAKER_02I'll help with the cropland.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So you either need to know the zone or skills.
SPEAKER_02I have no I have know the zone and I have endure, but no, I don't have endure, I just have no the zone. Sorry. I lied.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so you're gonna you're gonna help with uh with the cropland. Is crocking gonna help with anything, or are you gonna Are we doing them simultaneously?
SPEAKER_02Yay, you that's fine. Then I'll go do I'll go to the watchtower then.
SPEAKER_03So that requires endure or scalp two.
SPEAKER_02A useful skill for my experience, which means bad omens, which means I can now use my empathy for my scout roles.
SPEAKER_01Nice, cool. So Pete. What is Ranch gonna do? Yeah, I'll help out with the watchtowers. And what's must gonna do?
SPEAKER_00The watchtower seems smartly more in my wheelhouse. I think that's sort of constructy.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Right. Well, in that case, leave the cannibal wannabe to make crops, that's good. Okay, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00It's all gonna taste a bit fleshy, but it's gonna be nicer.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, the lettuce helps the human meat go down.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah. Mark, do you wanna make do you wanna make it in a know the zone role? One success for Caspian. Right. One success, so that's eleven more successes you're gonna require. Right. Okay. And for the watchtower, do the rest if you want to make an endure or scout roll to construct the watchtower.
SPEAKER_01No successes.
SPEAKER_03Not going well, so it's all down to you, Chris. Okay. Right, well. It collapses.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well just doesn't finish it, but it well, you just don't really kind of basically there's a lot of in-citing between the cropland and watchtower, and the people that are doing the cropland that go to help with that are the wrong people, which are the right people you need for the watchtower. The watchtower people are you basically cross-purposes and and and and the gangs aren't really talking
The Struggles of Survival
SPEAKER_03to each other. But you do get to make a start on the cropland. There's a little bit of clearing. You just don't get all the people you possibly could need. You realize it's gonna take quite a while to to to to get where you need to be with this. But that's just the way it goes. So in the game itself, really you only take one project. Well, I don't really mind having two projects, it just means it divides the players to roles. If you wanted to each pick a project, you could do that. But obviously, it just means you're gonna take eight just to go through things. So in this case, say for the cropland, it's three times the number of PCs is the number of successors you need. So and then for the watchtower, it's one times the number of PCs. So although you you could have potentially done that at this this this session. It doesn't go to unfortunately. Say mistake party.
SPEAKER_02We made a mistake.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so but it does mean that you guys spend sort of a bit of downtime, sort of three or four days kind of doing all that. And F1 kind of continues on. You don't need to roll for any kind of food or anything while you're in the yeah, while while you're while you're in your um in your rot. Um but the an event does happen.
SPEAKER_02Does my debuff recover over that time?
SPEAKER_03Uh yes, all of you can recover. I don't think any of you else have any criticals, but you're all I don't think so yeah, no, you're you're fine. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Try and get rid of uh rid of my rot though. Oh the rock. Oh yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03Yes, so we do the rot then, that's always fun. Okay. Oh, the joys of rot. Let me just get the uh rules for you for this. The people listening, while I I look through the uh the wonders of my butt, because it'd be too easy otherwise. We're recovering from rot. It's always fun. So you get it obviously when you you take damage when you when you take it, potentially, depending on how well you roll. When you go back to scrub it off, you uh it can potentially become permanent. So when you go back in the yacht or take refuge in some other rot-free area, one rot point will leave your body every day. If you wash your body in clean water, half of your rot points rounded up go away immediately. When you're contaminated by the rock, there's a risk that you will stay in your body forever. Every time you're about to lose one rot point, roll one base dice. If you roll a one, essentially, the rock point stays and becomes permanent. So, yeah, that's where you push your little uh little yellow button on our on our gain mechanic, and it'll give you that. Well, I take it no one actually got permanent rot out of all that.
SPEAKER_02I think everyone failed to pass, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Excellent, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that's all good.
SPEAKER_00All non-one?
SPEAKER_02Oh wait, was I supposed to I didn't roll anything? You see the boo, I don't think you're not.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, you didn't you didn't get any rot from the rats. So no, everyone is um rot-free. Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right. So while you do that, so you kind of work on your uh on your projects. Yes. Continues on. It's getting a little bit better, but it's still not perfect. You're still having to fight the food, you're still having to sort of send people out into the into the island, sort of like to rummage around for for food and um and water. You've got collectors and stuff on the ship which seem to be working fine for the moment. I think you're right. You said you all had sort of like a water filtration system. That all seems fine. Could one of you please roll me? Six D six.
SPEAKER_02I suppose I could do that, right?
SPEAKER_03Right. Um T4. I must roll the twenty-four. Your water filtration system starts to sort of like break down a little bit. And uh but it's still it's still usable. It now has sort of like a rating of five instead of six. And essentially you're you're starting to it's starting to get wear and tear. And because, you know, we've uh it's starting to just just break down a bit. There just isn't enough. Enough to sort of like keep it maintained at the moment. That's fine. I'll I'll might ask that sort of like every two or three sessions just to kind of see how it's going. It's it's going all right. You do have that random tap laid out on the the there is there is a random tap, yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Or it comes out a bit, how much of it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's up to you. And and sort of like the the day-to-day activities of the arc continues on. The gangs kind of try as best they can to sort of like get on with each other. It it's just a continual sort of circuit of trying to get food, make sure everything's fine, try and maintain as much as they can, and keep going as much as as the rest of the people can.
SPEAKER_04Did we miss scooters?
SPEAKER_03Uh morale's not great. It's kind of on a scale of one to ten, I suppose the morale's probably about a four foot. People are sort of like are unsure how it's gonna go. It's still relatively it's still relatively sort of like maybe two or three weeks into sort of being beached. You're definitely getting used to living on dry land, absolutely. People are starting to sort of like fracture a little bit. The gangs are starting to get a bit more sort of precious of the areas that they are in. It hasn't come to blows. There isn't sort of like a war or a fight or anything, but you can see if if things don't change soon that something's
Tensions Rise in the Ark
SPEAKER_03gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I wish one of the bosses had a clever idea.
SPEAKER_02Well, if Caspian ever gets a chance to make Rhett's life uh difficult and or make him dead, Caspian will definitely take that opportunity.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So so Rhett uh is the leader of the rugged crew. Rhett pretty much has a couple of underbosses, Jenna, who is a navigator, and Wanya, who is a fixer. And then he is Rhett is not very far behind, another navigator, another fixer, and a gearhead. They're the sort of the people that sort of follow them around, and then there are another 11 or so forces. And the thing with their gang is they're all armed with scrap pistols or rifles, and they're probably the biggest sort of like traditional sort of gang that you would expect to see.
SPEAKER_02Right, but now that we're stationary, they're sort of losing power, aren't they?
SPEAKER_03They are because they were the navigators, and although the fixers are still the ones that kind of find things, and they kind of like have little groups that go out into the zone to sort of like uh pick up the odd artifact here and that kind of thing. So if you want any food or anything stockpiled, you still really need to see the fixes, and their gang are the majority of the fixes. I think there's a couple from the other gangs. I think Elson has some, and Anwin might have one, but they're the sort of like people who you've got. Do you want to try and make their life harder? You can absolutely align yourself with one of the other gangs if you wish to, or one of the other bosses. The goal for for Rhett is Rhett basically wants to take over from the elder. That's pretty much it. Rhett wants to be the leader of the art and do the things that they want to do.
SPEAKER_02Well, Rhett killed my friend, and I think he's a homicidal maniac. So ain't no way Rhett's taking over the art over my dead body. Rhett is a she.
SPEAKER_03And there is a picture of I'll show you a picture of Rhett.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Just saw it. Looks very scary. I would like to put a bullet into that person's head.
SPEAKER_03By all means, if you'd like to do that, I'm more than happy for uh to start a bit of a war. Alternatively, how else would you like to kind of bother Rhett or I mean feel free if you want to Poison Rhett's food? Okay. Do you have any kind of poison or anything like that? I do would you like to sort of ask the rest of your crew if that's what you'd like to do, or do you want to keep it on the on on the download?
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna keep it on the download for now. Okay. I don't know what they think of Rhett. Okay. So every once in a while I might I might, since since Cochrane is a chronicler and the chroniclers are in with Rhett for the most part.
SPEAKER_03Well, the chroniclers are with Anwin. Oh, they're with Anwin. I thought they were with Rhett. No.
SPEAKER_02There is some chroniclers with Rhett.
SPEAKER_03There are a couple of chroniclers with Rhett, okay. But most of them are with Anwin.
SPEAKER_02So is it is it people like Roach who would be in with Rhett?
SPEAKER_01I know. I'm I'm well in with Elson's gang.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Elson's gang. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, same.
SPEAKER_02Cochrane thinks Elson is useless. Well, Caspian thinks that Anwin is the one who should be who should be leading us because she's the keeper of knowledge and knowledge will keep us alive. Speaking of knowledge, how is our elder doing these days?
SPEAKER_03There was on the way out last time which she is currently still on the way out and or she out or she hasn't improved, but no one's seen the elder since since Anwin really kind of started to sort of like take care of her and make sure she's fine through her final days, as I would say. Yeah. So unless we find some sort of magical thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Those that went around last time. So here is Anwin. And here is so Elson's quite a tall individual. He's sort of quite quite slim, quite tall. And he is he has insect wings, which kind of like unfold. Anwin is sort of like average build, quite emaciated, speaks with a grunting voice. You have no idea what kind of mutation that Anwin has. And then Rhett has kind of got this weird sort of like pop-marked face. And you know that that uh that that that she is a human toe, which means that she also secretes poison through her skin. It's a very interesting dynamic that they have for, as I said, Anwin probably wouldn't have been in with much of a a chance. But because the uh because pretty much the elder is starting to sort of fail in her health and potentially
Power Dynamics
SPEAKER_03may die, she's managed to keep that quite close. And so she's actually gained a lot more power. But yeah, I mean if you want to, if any of you want to help alter the uh the dynamics of the art, you have every possibility to do so. Whether that's from a uh a scrap rifle that's sort of like fifty fifty yards as they wander past on a retinue, or it's you know, a bit of poisoning, feel free to go ahead and do so. I guess while we're kind of like talking about it, do you I know Pete you said that Roach kind of follows Elson. Uh does Douglas does does Cochran kind of like follow Anwin?
SPEAKER_02No really. I think uh the only one he really cares about who he gets along with is Victor, who I think is one of the chroniclers for anyone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so Anwin has Victon is the is is the underboss for uh for Anwin.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But he's kind of like just doesn't get involved with political stuff.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, so Victon is quite a sort of quite a young member of the people, and he's sort of like got this sort of like very boyish sort of like look to him, and he's got sort of like these little pot rocks on his face, and he's got bright red hair. And he's sort of like someone you get along with. And he his basically his whole thought is that if they can kind of like get as much knowledge as possible, eventually that they can him and those people around him can become the heroes, like hearing the stories of old, and basically bring the bring the art to sort of like a place where you can just multiply and have a nice life and everything ends happily ever after. You sail off into the sunset.
SPEAKER_02That's a nice post-timatude like Moss has a lot of the time, but to do with technology, how she's like technology will make everything better. He's he's speaking of Eden. He is, yeah, yeah, he is indeed speaking of Eden. Eden doesn't exist. Maui, on the other hand. Bite your tongue. Cochrane. Do you have any evidence? I have plenty of stories about old Maui, and that is paradise. Maui? Uh you see you have to study the old songs of the sea. Come by later, I'll explain it.
SPEAKER_03In a handy little shanty. Um you say it's to the east. You do say it's to the east. Nice plug. Okay. Yeah. So is it possible to speak to Anwin? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can you can speak to Anwin. That's fine. There's no reason why you can't. If you want to kind of like set up an appointment, as it were, you can do. Yeah, she's free. Yeah, you can do that. Are you gonna do that as a group or you just want to do it on your own?
SPEAKER_02Is it possible to do it with I with any of the bosses? You could do it with any of the bosses. I will do it with Rhett. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'd be interested in sort of I mean in I d I don't think I'm double crossy enough to really pull off some some big espionage here. But I think I'd like I'd like to speak to Anwin under the sort of pretense or, you know, whatever, suggesting how best to to run the gardens on the new island or something. But really I I need to I need to know what this business with the elder is. I I think she's hoodwinking us all here, and I'm I'm just thinking she's doing this to to keep us sort of living in in the old times. She's she's opposed to to uh innovation and I think she's like just telling us a load of crap about the the elders' wishes when it's clear that they no longer have any. Okay. What about what's Reg gonna do?
SPEAKER_01Uh if I got if I know a bit about Caspian the thing with Rhett Caspia wants to speak to Rhett, I mean. So yeah, as uh as as a school of humor. And if I know a little bit about his history, I will suggest to him that I'm in with Elson, in with his gang. We can't get involved in the inter-gang things at this stage, but secretly, if he needs any help, if he needs anything to back up, if he makes a move, just ask.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, I appreciate
Espionage and Alliances
SPEAKER_02it.
SPEAKER_03And uh what does uh Cochran want to do?
SPEAKER_02He doesn't get involved in any of this, so he'll just be off doing his whole thing. Maybe he'll be like hanging around like Victor, Victor and that, so he might be around the people. Oh, whatchamacallit? The uh chronicler. I forget what her name was, so we literally just said it. He's just gonna he's just gonna write the chronicle of how a no no-name navigator got himself killed. Yeah, this is gonna be like one of these like big irons or El Paso where it's just like, yeah, the guy got gunned down, but he got to the song.
SPEAKER_03As a warmate. So is Roach is Roach gonna go with Kra Caspian to go and see Rett? No, he won't get he doesn't want his face involved in it. Okay, well, in that case, we will we will end the session with Caspian going to speak to Rhett and with Moss going to speak with Anwin, leaving Roach to kind of like just chill out, relax, and Cochran prepare himself for a another evening of sea shanties.