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 E14: A Mutant Year Zero Actual Play Podcast
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With Elson leading an expedition against the cannibals, Roach, Moss, and Caspian face a veiled mist upon the water. Meanwhile, among the exiled Lore Keepers, Cochrane waits, hoping for his friends' return. As alliances shift and unseen threats gather, an independent militia rises—a bold challenge to the Ark’s failed leaders.
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Welcome to Stories with
Welcome to Stories with Dice
SPEAKER_00Dice. 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_03Welcome back to Meeting Zero's Dark Blue Sea, our actual pay in uh Stories of Us. I am joined as ever by my faithful co-host. I say faithful, but he might be cheating on me, Marco. Faithless, I'm your faithless companion. Hi. We have Pete. Hi. And Douglas. Hello. Chris, unfortunately, also cannot join us this session. This was just us. Well.
Back to the Action
SPEAKER_03So let's get back to it. Right, well, where we left off last session, Cochrane was having a good old chat with Anwin, uh the leaders of the Norkeeper group, just kind of shooting the breeze and asking those unimportant questions like why didn't you tell us the uh the elder had died, etc. etc. Meanwhile, twenty-odd kilometers away, the rest of them uh are uh scouting a new zone when they got stuck in some horrendous fog, mist, the wind died, and unfortunately for them, they need to take a point of rot each. And if you can make a roll of a rot roll, which is the number of rot points you have in total, who was that that made the roll? That was Pete. Yeah. Pete. So for every for every one you get, you suffer one point of damage, which is damage to your strength roll, which hopefully will do that. I got nothing. Yeah. Nothing for you. So you don't take any damage, but you take one point of rot, temporary rot. And that'll continue to do every hour. Alright. So you uh hear the the sound of this bell in the distance. You hear the sound of a growl coming from the island. I'll say, Oh hoy there. You don't hear anyone back, but you do hear the sound of the bell dinging again, a little bit louder this time. I don't like this roach.
SPEAKER_01I think we should turn around. I wouldn't disagree with you there. Free if you wish to turn around. Yep, we're gonna turn around and brave the mist. And I'm gonna say, Fuck you, creepy guy with the bell.
SPEAKER_03You hear the sound of a bell ding, and you turn tail. Which way are you gonna go? Well, you can go north southeast or west? West. West it is. Right then, before you leave the the zone, and you all can you well, can you both make a uh a rot roll because you're gonna take another point of rot before you leave. Once again, I got nothing. And Pete.
SPEAKER_01Oh dear No, Pete. You're my muscle. Not anymore, I'm not. I'm just gonna roll a couple of times. I guess now would be a the a bad time to steal which point from you, Pete. Dear.
SPEAKER_03Poor old moss. Takes one damage as well. Okay, yes, you kind of make your way out of the zone heading west. What is west? That's a good question. Uh-huh. Okay. Yes, you uh you make your way into uh open water. Do I need to make a find the path? Uh if you can make a find the path roll. Pete, if you can in fact, uh Douglas, you can roll me a D6. And uh Pete, can you make a force roll for me, please? Well do. Okay, I have one success.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03Okay. It stays particularly quiet on the wind, so you haven't really put your back into it. How did you get on with your role, Pete? It doesn't seem to have registered. I'll try it again. Try again. One success. There we go. Okay. And then your other one came through as well. So Okay, that's fine. One success from you. And Mark, have you done a role for your Find the Path? Yes, I had one success. One success. Okay. Okay, yeah, you make your way into the path. And so you recall there was something going on here last time, and I will just get that. So yeah, it is again an it's it's calm. You kind of make your way out of the um the mist and fog, which is just laying sort of like over sort of like a 10 or 15 kilometer area, and you kind of make your way into the next zone. Again, it's really calm. There's a very, very slight breeze, but not enough to really kind of push the boat to its maximum. So you do need to kind of add the oars to kind of keep going. As you're kind of going through, you realize that you're kind of making your way towards this um open area. You remember last time you all started to feel a bit weird and and woozy when you were here last time? Uh I don't recall that. No, I don't. Okay.
SPEAKER_01We're not in the right hotspot. You're not in the right hotspot, no.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So as you uh as you kind of come into this area, you all start to sort of feel sort of you start to get a headache, and you start to sort of just everything starts to kind of feel a little bit stressful. And and as you start, you kind of look at sort of like so Caspian, you look at Roach, and he's just not rowing fast enough. And Moss is basically not hardly doing anything. Roach, you can see Caspian just seems to be sitting around doing fuck all. All he's doing is just sort of like sitting down, and he's got his arm on the rudder and he's but essentially doing no work at all. So it really kind of like annoys you, no and yeah, it's just it's just annoying.
SPEAKER_01But you're back into it, Roach. What the fuck's the matter with you, you lazy twat? Me, lazy? You're the one who's sitting there doing nothing.
SPEAKER_00Doing nothing? I'm navigating, I'm making sure we don't drown and get lost. What the fuck is Moss doing sitting over there knitting? She'd say, I'm not fucking knitting. Well, whatever the fuck it is you're doing, be useful or go overboard. You go overboard and she said. What is happening to us?
SPEAKER_03You're like, what? What the hell? Can tell you what, of of you three or in fact of you two, who would like to make a scout role? I guess it's probably gonna be you, Marco.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, I can make I can make the scout roll.
SPEAKER_03Two successes. Yeah, you're kind of you're you're really kind of concentrating to you think, what the hell's going on? We're just arguing with each other. I just want to I just wanna get out of the area, I just wanna you kind of put your head down and you can see as you kind of like are sort of doing that. There's a whole lot of small creatures that have kind of bubbled up to the surface that you're on, almost like stringy, uh wormy kind of creatures. And they're getting off the sea. Spaghetti of the sea, that un that that that that unknown thing. And uh you can see they're giving off a very faint sort of green-ish tinge, almost the colour of the sea. And you can see there's it it's just sort of about, I don't know, a foot or so off the um off the water. But every now and then, sort of like it licks over into your boat. You can just barely register it. Because by the time it kind of gets to where you are on on on the deck, it's almost it's almost invisible. But you appear to be going through something that's uh causing this. Make a know-the-zone role, but take but take it at a minus two to your stone. That's gonna hurt a lot. I am no idea what it is.
SPEAKER_01I am not gonna push that. No. You have no idea what it is. Roach. Roach, uh look in the water. Those things, I think they're making us go at each other's throats. We gotta get out of here.
SPEAKER_03Fuck you. Turn me anger into Rowan. Okay. Make an empathy roll, both of you. This is not looking good. I don't see any successes. No successes.
SPEAKER_01Caspian's gonna eat someone out, principal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I y I'm I am literally gonna bite someone's head off. It Yeah. You you you yeah.
SPEAKER_03You're ver you're all very angry, but you kind of Roach just kind of puts this back into sort of like, I'm just gonna try and just row as hard as you can just to kind of get through it. I guess Caspian's gonna be what? Arguing and moaning at that no one seems to be doing anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna like get up from my position in the boat, go over to Roach, very foolishly grab the back of his head. Right. For turn it so that he's looking over the side of the boat at those creatures and be like, get us to fuck away from those things, you stupid, useless piece of withered muscle.
SPEAKER_02What's Rage playing? I'm concentrating on the Rhine, but I kind of like accidentally on purpose catch a crab that sends my elbows straight back into him. Oh, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you kind of go sprawling backwards. Okay. And when when when when he hits you, you kind of get a moment of clarity for just a brief second of that kind of like, oh, what the hell are we doing? You know, this is this is this is crazy. The pain almost kind of like dulls it a little bit. Uh and you just continue on that way for sort of maybe about 15-20 minutes. And you can see the moss is kind of like gone in gone in on itself and just really kind of trying to row, but isn't really doing anything to kind of help just really sort of shine down. And you eventually kind of get out of the area and that sort of subsides. Okay. Which way do you want to go?
SPEAKER_01That was horrible. Let's never go through there again. Can we mark that the map? We can.
SPEAKER_03We absolutely can mark that on the map
Into the Fog
SPEAKER_03for you. What would you uh which way do you want to go next? We're going to the island, baby. Okay, so you uh you head back south on the north end of the island, make a uh a navigate roll. I'm looking for two successes to kind of fly casual. Or in this case sail casual.
SPEAKER_01No, I only have one success. That's you really don't want to push that. No, I don't want to push that because there are three biohazard symbols waiting to give me damage. Okay. I mean you can always push it if you wish, but you know. No, I only have three wits left. So that three damage will knock me out.
SPEAKER_03Right. Well, let me make a roll to see if anyone notices anything. Just roll behind this virtual GM screen. Okay. You reckon you've kind of come in under the radar instead? And you you make your way towards the northern end of the island. Yeah, if you remember, it's kind of on the sort of like northwest side. It's kind of got a bit of a sort of beach, but to the north and south, it's quite rocky. So you've kind of come towards the rockier area. But you kind of like pull in or pull in, you kind of you, you, you, you, you come to a stop. And you can anchor sort of to the north part of the island, which means that unless someone was directly above you looking down, they probably wouldn't see you.
SPEAKER_01And Moss, I'm really sorry about what I said back there. Those creatures, I think they were affecting us. Please stay here and watch the boat.
SPEAKER_03It's okay, I understand. These things happen, it's just it's just not it's just not good, is it? But we'll I know you didn't really mean it. Roach, that goes for you too, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01But uh, you know, mind those elbows, dude. Yeah. If I meant it, you'd have known. I'm sure I would have. Let's just make sure we mark let's just make sure we mark the maps.
SPEAKER_03So Cochrane, you kind of end up going for a lot longer here. They've gone for what, two, three, four, five, six, seven, gone for almost the entire day. So you kind of have lunch with with Anwin, or sort of like a late breakfast with Anwin, and then you're kind of expecting them to come back after a couple
Tensions Rise
SPEAKER_03of hours. You're kind of thinking, or maybe they've kind of gone round the side and sort of like snuck aboard the uh the island, but you haven't seen anyone, you haven't heard anyone, and no one's sort of like raised the alarm that they would kind of like stick in. But it starts to get towards the afternoon.
SPEAKER_01Well, now now another thought is niggling at the back of my mind, which is they went and had a conversation with Elson, which I wasn't there. That's true. And then Elson have been like, I don't like Cochrane, take him to the island. Because they said we Elson has given us a mission to go to the island. This is true. They have just been like, and then ditch Cochrane because he's a on the island. Yeah, that that that that that's absolutely feasible. Would that be some Roach might do that? Would Caspine do that? Fellowship is breaking. I don't know. This this is one of these things where it's like it's it's it's a little niggly thought at the beginning, but the the longer the day's going and the darker it's getting, it's like they might not be coming back. They said there'd be a couple hours, and you know, Caspine's usually pretty good sailor. I mean, you never know. So I guess I'll I'll go. I said I was going to speak with Victorum afterwards, so I guess I'll go for a walk around the outside of the island or not, and just discuss some stuff with her.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So, well, I mean, victims have a further chat. You kind of get the sense over the hours that you're there, but people are quite happy with what's going on. They seem to have a purpose. The law keepers, that seems to be the thing that they have. They've got all of the all the law, I suppose, from from from from the stuff they had in the ship. They've obviously got the other stuff that the elder has told them before she died. You kind of get the sense that when you talk to them, and they're quite happy to tell you, that she's been ill for a while, the elder was was ill for quite a while, and so she started to impart more knowledge to the lawkeepers. Essentially, their view is that out of everyone, the elder would like the lawkeepers to be the rulers and the people who kind of like lead lead the ship. Are they saying that it was her the last elder's wish that they take over? They don't say it's the last elder's wish, but they felt that that was something that the elder wanted. So you make of that as you wish.
SPEAKER_01So out of interest, after we exposed like the thing was dead, the elder was dead, what happened to like everything in the elder's room? There was lots of artifacts at the start in there.
SPEAKER_03Uh, there was some artifacts in there. It essentially got stripped. Just by everyone. By Rhett's group and by Elson's group. I mean, Elson probably got the majority of it. Elson's gang got the majority of it as the ruling gang. Yeah, so they pretty much got most of that stuff. Well, obviously the when you speak to sort of the law keepers, they they don't seem to mind that. They they knew what the what the items were, and it most of it was there to keep the elder alive or to kind of deliver medicine is what they they kind of say to keep her going.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'll mention to Victrum that I found on our travels we did find a an area that was full of pictures of things, whatever. Yeah. And I will describe the I think it was art gallery, was it? Yeah. And whatnot. And then also I'll point out to the when we're just talking about stuff, I'll also point out to like the Northwest and be like, oh, there's like a massive platform out there as well with a bunch of people. Really? Okay. Where about? I just sort of pointed the vague direction because I'm not not getting I'm like, I I know it's over there, but I can't see it from here. It's like seven hours, there's like multiple hours sail over that way. They had like tiny little zippy like skiffs, motorized skiffs. That they drove around on.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, I'm yeah, I'm what what do you do when so you kind of end up going around having a chat, but then you realise that it's longer than you even more expected, and it's starting to get dark. What's the plan then? I mean, Victor goes off to do his thing, and you're kind of like taken to a waiting area, or you can you can wander back down to the the dock. Yeah. Are they not just letting me wander around anywhere? Yeah, pretty much. They're not kind of like worry. People are sort of watching you as you go places, and the places that you can go when you're alone, there's nothing there to sort of like tape or do anything with.
SPEAKER_01So I guess I kind of just like head off to like maybe like the northeast of the island and just kind of sit there and wait. Okay. I just I just if anyone asks, I'll be like, I'm just taking in the pew. And and maybe just like try and compose a little sea shanty or something about like our journey so far.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they they they kind of like give you some like food and water for for your evening meal and kind of lead you to it. You can hear a couple of the sort of changing that the rest of your team have kind of like left you.
SPEAKER_01They're like, he'll get over it eventually. Just leave him to he's gotta go through the five stages of green. He's gotta write a C shanty about being abandoned. Yeah, they abandoned me on the sandbank and didn't even give me a pistol and one bullet to end myself.
SPEAKER_03Okay, well, you guys, you get it just just as darkness is sort of like falling. What's the plan then, Caspian? Leader now all of a sudden. Okay. Roach, what's the plan?
SPEAKER_02I guess we're here to pick up Cochrane? Do we just wander in from here or Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_01And so we had a message for Anwin, but we're assuming Cochrane gave her that message. Is that correct? I mean, it's been a whole day that he's been on the island.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we'll we'll move ahead toward I guess we'll go s you know due south.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Just before we set off, I'm gonna use my mutation to uh get back some strength.
SPEAKER_03So I think you don't forget if you've um if you've taken any damage, then that adds to mutation points.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it does? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so you you'll you're pro yeah, it will automatically cap me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's why I okay. That's why I have that's why you suddenly have loads of mutation points and you're like an aggot, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah, you head your way around. So you you you can just make out Cochrane, the ship, as it kind of well, the the boat as it kind of goes south around from the north part of the island. And you can kind of track it and you kind of make your way back down to the the jetty. And you can see there's a couple of other people there on GT this time.
SPEAKER_01Are they going to the jetty or are they going to the north part of the island? It's come from the north part and they're going south. Oh, okay, right, fine. So essentially coming to pick you up. Fair enough. We're walking though. We're not like on in the boat. Okay, oh, okay. So that's why I was trying to establish because they're not.
SPEAKER_03Okay, right, fair enough. Okay, we can you uh make a move roll to get onto the island because you're it's not a nice, easy place to climb onto whoever's going aboard. Sorry, whoever's getting off off of the boat, so that's you and Broach. Just need a single success on your move rolls. Yep, a single success. One success for me. And one success for thee. It means you just have to kind of like scramble over some rocks and stuff, and it's just not a nice, easy landing. Yeah, you kind of make your way out to the north part of the island. Weirdly, you come across Cochrane sitting there, just finishing off like a stew with um with a dri.
SPEAKER_01Probably we heard his sea shanty. The writing of a sea shanty, uh, uh on the way, yeah. The sad, sad song of being left alone. Hello, Cochrane. What took you guys so long? I've
A Change in Plans
SPEAKER_01been here for hours. Sorry about that. We uh ran into some trouble in on the water. Nothing too bad, I hoped. I thought you had left me here for good. Some, you know, some creepy mist, another island, the bell ringing, a growl, some floating anger worms. You know, nothing we couldn't handle. Uh well I'm kind of done here. Whatever. I've Darwin. She wasn't particularly happy about the thingy things are. But then again, I feel like I'm not sure if the lore keepers even want to come back. They she took quite interest in like what Elson's up to and that sort of thing, especially with him being away. But they don't have any way off the island. So I've said when the time's right, we'll come pick her up to the meeting. But uh But uh asked her about uh whatchamacallit, the elder and that sort of thing, but they they're pretty unrepentant about that. Unrepentant, you say? Yeah, they said it was for the best for everyone, what they did. And yeah, they don't regret the decision. They don't she doesn't regret lying to us. No. No. No, no, didn't even hesitate when there was discussion when she said it was the best for everyone and that sort of thing. Can you take us to her? Do you know can you do you remember where she is? Yeah, yeah. She's it's set up in whatchamacallit? The the the dead people houses. Right, but do do do you know which one is hers? I know the one sh I met her in. I don't know if that's the one she lives in. Um I can certain it was um I'll I'll explain to uh Caspina which one was the one that I met her in. And then be like, Oh yeah, but they they've like a bunch of guard towers and they that sort of like guardy stuffed in there around the walls. Mm. Okay. People there are people right watching their stuff. Well then yeah. I'll have words with her when we pick her up for the meeting. Trust me, like I don't think you're going to make her feel bad about any of it. I might make her feel bad. I could think of a few ways to do that. Unpleasant ways. Now, shall we head back to the boat and get to the ark? Yeah. Like Is there any unfinished business here we need to attend to?
SPEAKER_02I mean if there's uh any spare food knocking around.
SPEAKER_01Well, they've got tons of stuff here. You d literally just pick off the branches almost. Well, I have some water and grub if you need it before we get back to the ark, Roach.
SPEAKER_02I've got enough to survive for now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean you guys would be able to get back to the the ark and have and have food today and that besides.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I'm I'm kinda getting fed up with Delia all these leaders at politics and that sort of thing. She was she was asking me a whole pile of questions about like how many people Elson had left on the ship and stuff, which seemed real suspect. But yeah, she's dangling. She's dangling up to something. They all are.
The Gathering Storm
SPEAKER_01We're better off with balance. Balance? Sure.
SPEAKER_02Someone's gonna lead no matter what.
SPEAKER_00Yes, we lead collectively.
SPEAKER_01All of us together lead. You, me, Cochrane, Moss, everyone else. The council is us. No one is above anyone else. An an interesting concept. Have to have to have to think about that. Anyway, let's go back to the boat. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you um you head back to the boat and you head back to the ship. It doesn't take very long to get across to the ship. Is there anything particularly you want to do when you get back to the ship? Pretty much people are kind of getting settling in for the night.
SPEAKER_01Caspian's probably gonna try to wash this rot off. Okay. And then he'll eat. And then I well actually I guess the first thing would be to find out if Elson came back. Uh Elson's still out. Elson is still out, okay.
SPEAKER_03Uh okay. If you want to wash the rot off, uh feel free to do so. If you do that, uh every time you're about to lose one point of rot, roll one base dice. If you roll a one, the rot point stays and becomes permanent. And just do that for your uh for each of your um temporary ones. I rolled a three. That's fine. Uh it disappears and you don't take any permanent rot. Unfortunately. Pete, unfortunately, uh you get another point of permanent rot.
SPEAKER_01And I've got another roll as well. Should have just come to the island. You'd have done yourself less damage and just and got fed. Um and I will do the same with horror old Moss.
SPEAKER_03Some of that. Yeah, Moss had a real bad time. Yeah, so she's got two rolls to make. Lucky her. So, let's see what happens to her. So she gets Nope, that's fine, and one more. But she loses both her rot, but doesn't get any permanent rot. Okay. Did you well know you back in the um back at the place? Any projects you'd like to look at? Which is the right one? Which projects are Are there any active ones? You currently have no active ones, and essentially with all the leaders not here, no one is actually doing anything. So last session we didn't do any because everyone's away. But because you're now in here, you have to play as a back in the in the arc. Is there anything you particularly would like to do as a as a collective that maybe and this is something that probably you will probably discuss, or kind of speak to general people as opposed to the bosses making a decision about it, while Elsin is gone, Rhett's group have kind of picked a leader, and they have picked Fronton, who is the navigator and one of the um underbosses that worked with um with Rhett, and they've picked French to sort of like be the nominal leader of the rugged crew.
SPEAKER_01I remember what we were supposed to do. We were supposed to secure the food supply from the island. Oops. I knew there was something up in the air that we hadn't nailed down. Let's just say he forgot to tell Greta part. I think I implied that by said that would be part of their discussion, I imagine. Yeah, because without that extra food, we don't have 25 food, which means we're farther below the requirement of of our ARC project that we were discussing off offline. Okay. So we have to get more food. Yep. What what what are you what are you thinking, Pete? You have any preferences on anything?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think the talks with Anwin will dictate what action we take over securing more food.
SPEAKER_01Well we'll wait until that happens. We want to work on the assumption that it will go successfully or that they'll go badly. Because there's two ways we could do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm I'm worried about their seeming confidence about their position and they're talking about else not being here. I think we ought to talk to the rugged crew and make sure they're on side and are aware that Enwin was maybe possibly thinking of uh making a bid to take the ship back. And so maybe um I'd be extra concerned about maybe getting everybody to work more on the defences again, just in case. Okay. Okay, so we have watchtowers.
SPEAKER_01We've really got those. So what would be another fancy thing?
SPEAKER_03So militia will be another one, an armed force to protect the arc. You've got warfare of ten, so you can do that. That's the uh requirement.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I might suggest that we have a neutral from the game. Here's the thing. What should we call it? Persuading the military on side with a particular ideology usually leads to that becoming the like yes, the militia might work well for their plan if there is an independent militia force.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, if you ask any of the general people, so so Franton is very keen to set out and scout the rest of the island. And so he's pretty much like, well, we don't really know enough about the area that we're in, and it'd be really helpful if we did that. And then hopefully, if that's the case, if there are others around, maybe we can find some way to trade with them. And so maybe if we set up some kind of marketplace where we can kind of all the stuff we find out in the in the island, we can kind of like put together and start trading amongst ourselves. So his view is he would very much like a marketplace so that all the groups can kind of like trade with each other. That's his plan.
SPEAKER_01You want to trade with these cannibals on the island, you want to eat the f the trials. It kind of worked.
SPEAKER_03But kind of set up so that because at the moment all the kind of like gangs are sort of like out for themselves, as it were. So he wants everyone to kind of trade with each other so they can kind of work with each other more, setting up a marketplace to kind of allow each other to sort of share resources.
SPEAKER_01Unfortunately, there is one problem with his idea. We're too low cultured to even have a concept of trade because you need to culture up tent. So that concept is almost beyond us. So and we're like trade, I just beat with club, take.
SPEAKER_03So he's very much kind of that's the sort of thing he would like to do, but but he understands that people are just not going to do it at the moment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay. Fair. Okay. So malicious one idea. I was thinking if we wanted food, if we were planning on things going well, mill would be making use of the cropland. But if not, there's like smokehouse, which uses fish. Because I think we've got the hunting party already done from a pre- I think that was the first thing we did.
SPEAKER_02I suppose I should get my head around the suggestion that we all we're all equal and should all roll.
SPEAKER_01I think militia's a good idea. I do too. Yeah. So I do too, but it needs to be a militia that is not beholdened or no one boss is the commander-in-chief, as it were, of the militia. That would not be okay. Are you saying we pick the most skilled person for the job who it does not have a lot of people? It needs to be someone who's not a boss, who has the power to command the militia, to organize the militia, to decide, you know, when, where, and how the militia is to be deployed. We have some sort of election? I don't trust that. That's a good point, actually. I don't even know what that means.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03That's a weird word. Frampt is happy, because he's the only technically he's the only boss here, even though he's like brand new, he's happy for someone other than one of the gangs to kind of arrange that. Although if you discuss it with him, he's kind of worried that whoever he gets to do it will end up building their own gang. Well, it's not his choice. So he says maybe if we get some from all of them, like a few from each of them, they could all work as one independent thing.
SPEAKER_01Right, but it can't so the person in charge of the militia, you can't appoint that person because then that person is beholden to you. So how do you pick him? I think we all a show of hands, we all need to decide collectively, I think, who this Maybe it's maybe it's not one person, maybe it's a council.
SPEAKER_02Maybe once the uh members of the militia are nominated, they can sort it out amongst themselves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe there'll be a natural-born militia leader who will be like, when we take the militia, we'll be like, oh, that guy's really good at militia. Maybe it should be Roach.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Could be Roach. But tries his best to look humble and you know, maybe not. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Fred says, I like the idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, why why not Roach? Roach is a stand-up guy. Yeah, I like that. He he even sits down on occasion. And I've seen him fight things before, and you know, Caspian's horrible attempt at humor.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so maybe when Elson's gang gets back and we have a No, no, he says, um, let's not wait till Elson's gang gets back, because I I think they might want to decide on something a bit different. While we're here and there is no leaders, I mean I I'm only I'm literally I'm new, I appreciate this. But why don't we I'm happy for you to do it? It means that it's someone completely different to us. You pick who you want and you can then figure out how many people you need and do it that way. How about that? Or why don't what how about why why don't you all yeah, why don't you all do it? Collectively.
SPEAKER_01Why? Yeah, you guys do it. We're independent and trustworthy. And trustworthy. Yeah, why don't why don't you do that? I love this idea. This guy's more trusting than rare.
SPEAKER_03He says, I I'm I'm happy with that. Technically, I'm I I'm supposed to be the one gang leader here, and I'm happy with that. Why don't we ask some of the others? And so he kind of like gathers the kind of older of you together. So there's probably about twenty or so of you, though the eldest by about a year or two. And says, look, he'd he'd quite like to have Pete and Cochrane and Moss and Caspian. I said Roach, Roach, C Cochrane and Caspian and Moss kind of like put put their heads together and kind of help to put the militia together. And that way it's not just any of the gangs, they're a completely different group of people. That makes sense. And essentially, general consensus is that seems like a good idea. And if you're happy to do it, they're happy to do it.
SPEAKER_01I'll say, like, look, we need to we need to defend ourselves. We were taken by surprise, and that's you know, and stranded here, and now our people were being kidnapped and used for food by another group on the island. We don't know where Elson is, we don't know what happened to him. He may or may not return. We have to start looking out for ourselves. Dare I say, all of our leaders have
Building the Militia
SPEAKER_01failed us. We need an independent, defensive organization to stand up, step up, and defend us when necessary. They'll pretty much look around and go, Yep, it's you guys. One that is unbeholdened to any of the existing power structures on the arc. We all agree that. We like that. They're susceptible to the idea very easily.
SPEAKER_03You've you've done quite a lot for the uh for the for the for the um for the ship in the short time that you've been stranded here. So absolutely, they're more than happy to that. You've you've also exposed, obviously, the Law Master, you've exposed Rhett's gang. They were going to take over. You know, you've kind of worked with Elson's Elson's gang, but they're a little bit unsure about whether or not Elson wants to kind of take over as a leader. So having you as independents, you've kind of got in between all of them, you've kind of like carried messages across. So they're more than happy to do that. So everyone who wants to get involved in the militia can make a fight or a manipulate role to see how well you get on.
SPEAKER_01Are we all going in on this? Caspian failed. Caspian rolled manipulate. Okay. Hey, one success. Take it we can't push this one.
SPEAKER_03I can't remember if he didn't push or not. I think you I'm not really sure you can. Let me just double check.
SPEAKER_01Caspian made that great speech and he still failed. That's bullshit. Yeah. If you if you want the inspirational speeches, do you turn to Cocker? You can indeed push your role.
SPEAKER_02I got no successes from my You got so many dice. Yeah, oh one. I got one. I'll just I'll just do that. So there's two successes. Trying so hard.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um okay. Well, yeah, you kind of you give it a go. Um, it's probably gonna take you longer than you think. But yeah, you I think you manage to get a couple of sex successes between you. I'm going to not add Moss to the role unless you want me to.
SPEAKER_01That's okay.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Uh yeah. So uh you kind of end up getting back, you kind of you wait while you're uh setting up the militia. Uh I assume you're gonna pick some a random a bunch of people, or I mean who are you gonna pick anyone from any of the gangs? You're gonna pick them f specifically not from any of the gangs, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Uh we'll definitely have a few representatives of the gangs, but we'll know what their affiliation is. But yeah, the rest of them we'll take from unaffiliated.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think the majority will be unaffiliated. Do you do you want me to get up and make like an inspirational speech to get volunteers? Yeah, go on then. Like and you know, be like for the good of the common man and whatever.
SPEAKER_03What we'll do, how about if you make an you make an inspirational speech? Every success after the first will add, I guess, a bit more motivation and maybe a little bit more skill. So the more skilled will come through. So the more successes you have, the more skilled your your militia will be.
SPEAKER_01Now, here here's a bit of a jammy question. Because I've got the the talent agitator, which allows me bonuses on motivating people to fight. Would that be fighting in general or fighting as in fighting roles? Are we talking about?
SPEAKER_03No. So I I I'm happy for that to be sort of like an inspirational thing, because you know, you want to get up, protect the arc, yeah. You want to make sure that things are, you know, we can't just have any one leader rule this the So yeah, so that gives me a plus two, which is is that just two more dice?
SPEAKER_01Is it it's two more dice to your skill, yeah. Okay. And it's just inspire, is it? We're saying for this. So that is ten dice. It's almost like this is what's what you do. And that's three successes, I think. Yeah, three. Deal with that, do you want to push it? I'll live with three. That's a pretty good start.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you get sort of like, you know, a good couple of handfuls of militia to start with. They're not incompetent, you know, you've got two extra successes, so essentially they're more gonna have like fight or shoot at level two or three. So they're actually fairly competent. And and they they're yours. You know, that if you were to give them orders, they wouldn't necessarily unless it was for the good of the art, but they'll tend to follow your your joke, your general direction.
SPEAKER_01I'm sure Roach will be able to get them into shape.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, to hit things shoot good. Yeah, I mean, so it you gonna is Roach gonna have an active sort of like training them to understand what what to do and how to fight and Yeah, yeah, he'll yeah.
SPEAKER_02Whatever tactics and ways of working together and everything, yeah, he'll try and make sure that they're they know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, so they're not sort of like, you know, master fighters. I mean, there's a few of them that are really good at what they do, but it's not like a massive standing army. It's it's a smaller militia of them. But yeah, you you kind of get them sort of like training. And then a couple of days later, Elson turns up. Elson is a little bit shocked as to what's happened, but seems to go along with it. Couple of days. How long was he away? He was away for a couple of days. How many people came back? So you're missing a couple. So if you want to roll. Yeah, Robbie a D6.
SPEAKER_01You can minus two from that. No, we want this as high as possible, because staff of them are out. So then Pete should roll. Eight. Go with Pete. You rolled to six last night.
SPEAKER_03He lost no one. I think that's your very first role since we've been playing the game where no one has gone that far. So yeah, he comes back. They they they say they've cleared the cannibals, they followed them all the way back to their to where their their lair was where they were staying. When they did that, they they they mentioned that just off the coast here, if I show you on the map, there is a large wrecked ship they could just see on the uh the edge of the zone. Just off the off the point, they could see that there was something there. And they think there might even be an island further along, some information that they kind of like had found. Elson wants to know how it went with Anwinth.
SPEAKER_01It went as you might expect. Once you tell us when you want to have the meeting, we'll go fetch her. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he says he'll he'll have a meeting uh in a in a day or so. So if you want to go and pick her up tomorrow, that'll be great. And then they'll have a have a meeting. Uh he finds out that the review of crew have got a new leader. He seems quite happy with that. Uh he doesn't seem too fussed with it. And he's he's I guess while he's shocked about the the militia, he is uh more or less happy to kind of go with it. He seems okay with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll I'll suggest that we each of the gangs provides an enforcer to the militia as kind of like the intermediary between the gangs and the militia.
SPEAKER_03He seems think that's a fair thing to do, especially when he realizes that the majority of the people in the in the ship are sort of like on your sort of side for this. They like the idea of an independent militia to help them. And so uh yeah, he's uh very, very happy with that. And uh, I guess I'm going to make a roll before the end of this session, because I haven't rolled a threat against the arc.
SPEAKER_01Now is a good time.
The Calm Before the Storm
SPEAKER_01Okay. Is it the fine young cannibals? It is the fine young cannibals. They drive me crazy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, a day goes by and everyone's getting ready for the meeting. You're all asked to kind of do that. And when you kind of prepare yourself to get on the boats, you notice that there's something going on in the water between you and the island. And not long after it's some more of these crab people come out and you appear to have an invasion, it looks like you might have to put your militia to the test.