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Stories with Dice
Dark Blue Sea S1 E15: A Mutant Year Zero Actual Play Podcast
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When a horde of mutant crab men storms the beach, Moss, Cochrane, Roach, and Caspian must rally an untested Militia to defend the Ark. Outnumbered and ill-equipped, can they hold the line against these relentless foes?
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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 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_01Welcome back to Dog Blue C, our actual play from Soyuz of Us. It is us, as usual. I am joined by Marco. You are joined by Marco. Indeed. And I'm joined by Douglas. Yep, still here. Pete. Hi. And Chris.
The Crabmen Attack
SPEAKER_01Hello. I guess we'll get on straight with the uh the the session. Right, well, where we left off, you were all about to get into a into a boat and you had just created the militia. It was like probably a day old, if that, when uh you noticed that a load of these crab men that you had come in previously, probably I think they must have been about six or seven sessions ago, had taken a few people, now invading on force. And so I will switch you very quickly to our combat map of the shoreline where the boats sort of like moored just above you on the on the map. But yeah, you can see there is a whole host of these crab men. They are quite large, they are they're sort of like purples and reds, they've got big antennae, they appear to sort of have sort of like web feet as well. They're all chitinous, they've got sort of like claws. They appear to be coming out of the uh sea onto the land. So it is the four of you, plus a handful of other militia that you've managed to call towards you. Right. Well, I guess uh I'm gonna ask you each in turn Moss, what are you gonna do? Which no one's they haven't attacked you yet, they've no one's engaged in combat. They're just coming out of the sea en masse towards you.
SPEAKER_04So so yeah, the the situation doesn't look super hopeless or anything. I wonder if from when before they came and snatched a person or two, was there anything that we could have learned about these guys yet? Do we know if they, you know, like particularly say hate fire or something?
SPEAKER_01No, literally last time that they turned up, they took, I think, two or three people and took them screaming back into the sea before anyone knew about it. It was sort of like late at night. So you got a fleeting glance of them previously, and then they disappeared under the water, and you haven't heard from them since.
SPEAKER_04I mean they're they're they're pretty heavily armored, so I'm thinking attacking them is gonna be difficult. I'm thinking something like a like a flaming torch or something would be a nice try to, you know, at least get them uncomfortable. Okay. I'm checking my gear. I I'd I'd have three more bullets to cause it cause an explosion if I needed to. But I guess that that's not quite enough to really deal with such an amount of them. They're too far away for that yet. So I'll I'll just uh I'll set about making making myself a torch.
Preparing for Battle
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01What are you gonna use to make a torch, Elf? Um what's there? Uh well it's the sea, it's the seashore. It's mostly rock and sand.
SPEAKER_04That's unfortunate. No driftwater something?
SPEAKER_01Or uh you you could probably run back to the ship. So essentially you're you're sort of fighting on the sort of shore of the of the actual area around there. So if I was to drag you all to the ship, the combat is probably taking place around here on the map, which is probably about a hundred or so meters away from the from your ship.
SPEAKER_04Considering how heavily armored these guys are with the carapaces and all, I'm thinking a retreat might not be a bad idea. I'll I'll yell something to that effect. Like retreat to let's retreat to the ship. They're they're heavily armored. We need we need bigger guns.
SPEAKER_01Make a hmm, what should we do? Uh make a make a whitraw.
SPEAKER_04That sounds interesting. I was fully expecting manipulate as something, but maybe I'll realize something. Yeah, yeah, that's a success.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, you reckon they are, you're right, they're probably quite armored. And they are sort of they're not slow and cumbersome, so they do have they can move, or at least as they're walking out of the sea, they seem to be moving with purpose, they don't they're not sort of like lumbering. What else can I tell you about pump? Their shells and stuff seem to be quite forward-facing, and so you yeah, you're right. It can probably take a lot to kind of get through their armor. So it's it's uh it's a fair bet that that it would probably be difficult.
SPEAKER_04Yes, I I make no attempt to be, you know, sneaky or anything. I uh yell at the top of my voice, they will not be able to get through their carapaces without more heavy equipment. Let's let's go back to the ship.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Pete, I was broke to go. He's gonna get ready for battle if they're heading towards him purposefully. I think he is gonna use his mutation points to toughen up his skin, just in case. So I need to roll the eye for the uh spending the mutation points. Yours is uh is yours a reaction, or is it you do it beforehand? I do it beforehand. Okay. And I'll spend two mutation points. So effectively giving yourself what we call it two or two two armor or two two two armor, or is it no, hang on. No, it yeah, it reduces uh no, it is a redac it is a re it is a reaction, Pete. Oh right. So use your arm skin to reduce damage taken from external attacks, every mutation point spent reduces the damage taken by one and then in brackets it's an R for a r for from for as a reaction. So when you take the damage, you can spend the mutation points and it reduces that much damage. Uh right, so I don't need to spend it yet then. No, you can spend it as and when you get hit, essentially. Okay. So you you prepare yourself. What about you, Cochrane?
SPEAKER_03What's dumb Douglas, what's Cochrane gonna I am going to hold my action for the moment because I'm going to try something a bit different for this combat encounter. Because I can as part of the chronicler skill, I've got the inspire, which in conflict I can literally pull as long as I haven't taken my action, I can pull the inspir I can do an inspiration before any stated action of someone else. Right. Or to hinder any other action. So I am going to keep my action available until someone decides to do something, and then I can either buff it or I can debuff the enemy. Cool.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03I guess, Marco, what is Caspian? Caspian is going to use his assault rifle and fuck some shit up. I would like to inspire Caspian to shoot good.
SPEAKER_01I inspire him to fuck shit up. I like it. Okay then. Well, I guess Pete, as the nominal leader of the uh militia, what is your plan for the militia? My plan is to do a quick scan, see if any of them appear to be in charge of this encroachment. Well, so none of these crab men seem to be able to do that. No, they're moving. No, there's no one coordinating anything. Right. Yeah, so I'll just advise the rest of the uh people on the beach that I intend to not let them reach the the arc or whatever means necessary. Alright. Well, that seems like a plan. Well, cochrane, it looks like oh yes.
SPEAKER_03Just one sort of point, one detail. So I'm gonna for my maneuver I'll I'm gonna aim. Which will give which will give me a plus one modification. Okay, cool. And then my my action will obviously be to pull the trigger or
The Fight Begins
SPEAKER_03squeeze the trigger. Question though. So last I can't remember if it was last episode or the episode before. My wits is down by one. Did we rest?
SPEAKER_01Did you rest? Yes. Uh yes, you can um everyone can give yourself a a rest. So couldn't remember.
SPEAKER_04So I'll get my strengths back. That's nice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you get all your stuff back, so there's no problem with any of that. I feel this is going to be helpful shortly. Because none of you have any critical wounds or anything.
SPEAKER_03So and hey, if we all if we all die, we can start Star Trek next week.
SPEAKER_01I see how I see where we're going with that.
SPEAKER_04Holy crap, people, sure.
SPEAKER_01See where we go with an epic finale. Okay. Well, weirdly to say this, but uh, it seems that our resident chronicler is the one that seems to have the initiative. So Cochrane, you are first. I'm assuming you're gonna hold your action.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, so Marco has said Caspian's gonna shoot, so I will inspire him to shoot well. So I will that is eight dice. Are you gonna sing a fighting song?
SPEAKER_00Uh shoot it. Either fighting song or you know what, rhetoric might be quite a good one.
SPEAKER_03Go on for the good of the the go on, give your life. Anyway, so this is uh ten dice, so hopefully we can get something off this.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Uh and you want to do that for a mark-out. Okay. Nice. That's how many successes do you get there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think around three dice.
SPEAKER_03Three success. Three successes. You you still have to succeed, Marco, but if you do, you get three dice. Two.
SPEAKER_01Is it three or two? I can't remember if it's uh the first one gives you success, the other two give it give me the extras, I think.
SPEAKER_03Sounds good to me. Uh when I do it, I give all my ruled successes to the person. Very nice.
SPEAKER_01But you also then are involved in any repercussions that happen, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03If I fail or anything, yeah. Yeah, yeah, help or hinder suffer the at burst effects, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Wow. Nice. You start giving instructions. And uh, Caspian, you are next with your lovely little assault rifle.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I'm gonna shoot this guy right here. Are you firing full auto or are you just gonna Well, I only have five bullets, so I don't want to like my I'm not gonna. Yeah. So uh I have a plus one because I aimed. And here we go. Wish me luck. That is four successes. Plus three. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Four. That's uh seven successes. So six stunts, do I have that correctly? That would be correct. Six stunts. I'm guessing you'll do a lot of damage. Uh let me roll my armor.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so the damage is two, and then each of those other successes will give me an extra damage. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So I measure all two of my armor. But that is not enough. So the one that's actually coming out of the water closest to you takes around and he is down. Well, I thought you said it wasn't enough. No, no, no. Uh his armor wasn't enough. So okay. Yeah, I I I heard the same as far cut.
SPEAKER_03I was like, oh no, maybe he's going to fall asleep.
SPEAKER_02We are so fucked. Alright. So one down. And I shout, kill them all!
SPEAKER_04That's how you do it. Yes, so I well, I mean, sure they can take them on with assault rifles. That's that's good, but we need something something better. So I uh you know, like I like I try to indicate by moving my token, I'm going towards the boat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay. Why don't you a move? Move? No, I don't want you to make a move roll. If you make a scout roll for me.
SPEAKER_04I did not see that coming. Let's see what happens now. Ooh! There's a success.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, as you're kind of crossing sort of like the the sand and and rock on the beach, sort of you're looking around and you can see sort of some old cylindrical kind of cans and some various other odd odd bits and pieces. You reckon maybe you might be able to, with these pieces and some of your stuff, jury-rig some kind of explosive.
SPEAKER_04Look, this is awesome. Would these be like oil drums or something?
SPEAKER_01No, no, they're small cans. Some of them are red, some of them are blue, and they're all really sort of faded. They're sort of they fit nicely in your hand. They've got some logos on. You reckon you could probably do something with that with some of your because you know, you you're you could pack some of the or can put the gunpowder and stuff inside and jury-rig something. That's what you've got, right? You know, you've got various other stuff.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, I I make sure that I'm, you know, sort of behind the front line, if you will, so that I'm not gonna get pincered from behind while I rig.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're further behind. So um you can kind of gather some materials up this this round, but it'll probably take you a number of rounds. In fact, I'll tell you what we'll do in the well what in the next number of rounds, depending on how well you do with your jury rich jury rig, you can determine how quickly you can make something. So I roach leaves you. Right, I'll step forward and take out my scrap axe, basically reach out in front and draw a line in the sand, and then shoulder me axe ready. Basically anything that comes well, basically anything that steps out of the surf, I'm I'm just gonna charge at. Sure. Okay. And what are you gonna w what about your uh your militia? I think they've got a mixed match of melee weapons and a couple of them have some pistols. Yeah, I'll I'll basically say, yeah, but if you know, if they step out of the water, engage and whatever you do, make sure they don't reach the arc. Ed, the assault rifle, it didn't come with a clip, did it? Uh yeah, it's got a it's it's well it's got a it's got a magazine that you can you can put bullets in. It didn't build any rounds for that.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. Okay, that's what I meant. Yep. Yeah, so then I I only have the bullets that I have, which is sad. Tard living in an apocalypse. Four bullets left and too many, too many targets. I may have to run.
SPEAKER_01There's about twelve of them, you reckon. Run away, run away. Well, one less. I mean, you seem to be doing quite well, you know. You when you look when you when you see the guys coming or the crab men coming towards you, or crab people coming towards you, none of them have any ranged weapons. They all appear to be using their pincers. Yep. Some of them have got one claw, some of them have got two claws. Ones with two claws seem to be a slop slightly more bulky than the one that just has one claw, and the other one has a sort of humanoid hand. It's not quite what you'd expect, but yeah, it's they could probably manipulate stuff with it very basically. Tell you what, Pete, why didn't you roll me three ability dice, three skill dice, and two equipment dice for me? So three, three, and two. I see two successors. Well, the guys that um are on your right hand side, both of them pull out scrap pistols and they take aim at one of the ones coming towards them, and it goes down in the water. Uh, but the others continue on. Uh and they can they just about come out of the water, just make landfall and just within arm's reach of you now. So we will go back to the top of the players, I guess. Cochrane, that's you again.
SPEAKER_03I'm going to save my action again until someone says something interesting, or someone gets attacked by someone and I can hinder it. Okay. You don't want to inspire me again? Well, you have to you have to say you're doing a thing before I can inspire. Uh okay. I can't but I can do it when you say the thing. Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I am taking aim at this fella right here. Okay. And I am going to hopefully send him back to the abyss. Okay. This guy's been doing pretty well, so I'll inspire him a bit more.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Off you go. Shooting shanty. Shooting shanty.
SPEAKER_03Shooting shanty. Shoot him well, fuck him up. Ooh, that is four successes this time. So. Four successes. No pressure there, Marco. I should stop doing combat and just sit at the back and just yell things. It seemed to be way more beneficial. I have two successes. Okay. That's gonna be So that is five stunts. Five stunts. So if I'm not mistaken, that is z eight damage.
SPEAKER_01Yep. And again, another one of these goes down as it kind of hits the beach. It clears the water, and again, you fire very precisely, and you hit it in its fleshy parts, and it hits the floor. Nice. Caspian is uh two for two.
SPEAKER_03That's how it's done, men. Kill kill them all!
SPEAKER_01Leave none alive. Caspian's enjoying this far too much. I think you're best to uh watch him for your uh Emperor Caspian. So yes, Moss. Did you know?
SPEAKER_04I'll take it. But yes, I'll drew rig and use my inventor talent.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. So what you're looking at is it's gonna take you three combat rounds to make this thing. And that's three successes. Very nice. So uh it can be one combat round. So this one and the next one, and then you're
The First Victims
SPEAKER_01ready to go. Awesome. Um so yes, you kind of like very quickly start to turn this can, cylindrical can, into a uh improvised hand grenade. I love it. Nice. Okay. Uh so you're doing that, and then we are uh off to broach. Yeah, I'm just gonna step forward to meet these two coming out and see how tough their armor is by taking a swing with my scrap axe. Have a big swing. Uh does your in can do you have anything from being an enforcer? Do you have any abilities because you're an enforcer? That's just yeah, what is it? I can suck a gun punch is the only thing I've got. Yeah, that doesn't Oh yeah, so it it means that you're unarmed just two instead of one, but you're presumably using your big ass axe. Yeah. Oh. Off you go. Well, that was just given the number of dice. How many successes was that? That was just the one. Did you want to push it? But you'll probably don't actually no, you probably won't want to push it because you damage your scrap axe. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's see how uh see how uh badly you um hit it. So it's a damage of three, correct? Okay. Yeah, you kind of zamp it with your axe and you take off one of its arms. Well, nice. Which you weren't expecting. And it doesn't shout or scream, it makes kind of low rumble in its gills. Cool.
SPEAKER_02We might be eating well tonight.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Could you uh make another three, three, and two roll for me? Just want to see what the rest of your militia do. It's not a good round for the militia this round. They missed. Okay. Haven't had time to drill them. Okay, well. So this one, so the one, in fact, Cochrane just in front of you, you can see one of the uh the crab people make its way towards one of the militia, and as they kind of like go toe-to-toe, the uh the crab man basically puts its claw around the head of one of the militia and just squeezes, and pop, goes the militiaman's head, and he falls down dead. The others end up having a bit of a bit of a fight, and you can see that down at the very bottom end of the combat, another one of your militiamen falls down dead. There is a crab person no more than sort of like maybe ten metres from you. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I can kill him. I can I can maneuver and do an action, can't I? Yeah, you can indeed. Yeah, you just need to inspire so you can, you know. Yeah, so I'll hold my action, but I will make I will get a bit of distance between me and the crab person who is now looking in my general direction.
SPEAKER_01I guess it is looking in your general direction, with his two bug eyes on stalks. Run away. I'll go closer to Caspian. Okay, cool. Uh um that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03I guess Caspian, you're next. Caspian is gonna shoot that guy who just killed one of our men and was about to eat my pal Cochran.
SPEAKER_02He so he aims and then he fires.
SPEAKER_03Cochrane, did you want to sing me a fight song? Not this time, because I think whatchamacallit. Roach might be needing more inspiration based on uh what his situation is at the moment. Or at least they might he might need some interim. Okay. No problem. I have only one success. Okay. The damage is two, and I will not push that. It's not a good role to push.
SPEAKER_01No, that's not a good role. You've got some damage to you take some damage to your to your trait or your attribute and to your your weapon, so not good. Okay. Well, the bullet hits with a satisfying thud into them, but it doesn't seem to do as much as you hoped, and the crabman seems to have his eyes fixed firmly on Cochran as he makes his way towards it.
SPEAKER_03See, how can we make a good team? See what happens when you think about the safety of others? To be fair, I can also use my talent to hinder the guy who's coming over to kill me.
SPEAKER_01So actually Moss, this round you um finish off the uh the improvised explosive. Next round you are going to be able to use sentence improvised explosive.
SPEAKER_04How much was I able to make? Just one?
SPEAKER_01Just the one. Um you can make two if you want to uh lose one of the successes, and so you won't have them for another round after this. So you can have two, but you're gonna end up with two rounds of not doing anything, or you can have one and next round you can do something.
SPEAKER_04I mean at the at the rate that the guys are killing them, I think it's gonna be worth having two. Carry on working on the other one. Yes.
A Grenade is Born
SPEAKER_01Okay. Roach. Toast over this guy. Now they have not attacked yet. They've kind of like just come out being really defensive and they haven't swung at you. What? They still haven't No, they've literally come up to you, you've kind of like smacked them and they've kind of like stopped for a second. Well he cut one of their arms off. You cut one of their arms off, but it hasn't slowed it down massively. Okay, and they've stopped doing something. In fact, why don't you make a scalp roll? Comprehend roll. Actually, comprehend roll. He comprehends not a Okay. Yeah, you the the the one that you've cut its hand off of, it appears to sort of like be healing itself over. It hasn't grown a new hand, but it's just kind of like the stump seems to be quite quickly healing. Right. I'm just gonna mistake their pausing for my extra speed and yeah. I'm just thinking that I'm in a fight and uh yeah, I'm just gonna take us another swing. Cool then.
SPEAKER_03So can I give him a bit of inspiration then? Yes, you can. Alright. Let's see if he can make use of this. This is still to fight, so still get the f 10. And that's only one dice for you to play with. And I got two, so.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So you get two more stunts, so that's five damage. I'll just max out the damage. Okay, correct. Let's see what his armor does for him. Yeah, you kind of feel the it kind of lifts up his his good arm and the carapace, the axe skids along the carapace, but then it kind of leaves his arm and it catches into his body, and you carve upwards into the fleshy part underneath the armour, and something bursts, like some with some water and some roe and some stuff just kind of like comes out of it, and it hits the floor with a very large thud as it lays down dead in front of you.
SPEAKER_03Well done. Oh, so that was that was a really gruesome description. I was like making a face. Yes.
SPEAKER_01I like that. Rach, did you want to roll for your uh militia again? Right, yep. So what I'm doing is just getting you to roll to kind of figure out, you know, which way the wins of the fight are going. Mirrored. Mirrored lost.
SPEAKER_02This militia sucks.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I haven't had a chance to train them, have we? Two. Yeah. It seems that the they're kind of like going toe-to-toe with them, but no one seems to be a clear winner. They um they're just sort of surrounding them and and trying to deal with them. It's kind of a a backwards and forwards right on the waterline. It's not it's not going in anyone's favour at the moment. Okay. It's uh Roach. It's their turn to hit Sorry, no, no, no. It's their turn to do something. Sorry, mate. Right. Well, let's uh see what this one's gonna do to you, sir. Do you have any armor? I will react. Okay. So it kind of like swings its very large claw at you. Actually, parrying's probably my best bet. Well, I thought it was. Oh my god. Goodness. Was that no successes? That was no successes. With how many dice is it? Oh my god. 11 dice. Our muscle is failing us. Did you want to push that? I mean, there are two ones, which means you're gonna take some damage. Yeah, I'm not gonna.
SPEAKER_03It might be less damage than if the crab gets, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's true. No, I'm not gonna push it. I'm just gonna brace my mutation. You've got your mutations. Okay. Okay. Cool. Alright, well, uh, it's gonna be uh before damage. So uh how many mutation points do you want to spend? How many mutation points do you have? Oh, I have lots. Okay. I because yeah, I've done you've done a lot of badly quite a lot. This is where you can spend it all. Yeah, I can actually probably afford one round of trying to prevent the full lot, actually. Okay. Yeah. So what does that look like with that sort of thread? Kind of like just tensing and then the the skin, you can just hear it crackle as it kind of ruffles up and hardens and almost apparently thickens in front of you. Okay, you you you you guess you well you reckon that if you hadn't have done that very quickly, that the um the the armor would have just you you he would have just like cut through your skin without team edge trouble. But yeah, as it is, he kind of like runs its massive claw along your um stomach and chest and it just kind of like bounces off your uh hardened army that you've just created. Do I need to roll some dice to see if it worked properly? Nope. Nope. Nope. Automatically it does it. Uh totally good. That's the nice thing about meditation points. Caspian, you see just out of the corner of your eye, while you are sort of like focused on there, that a crowd person has kind of made its way towards you, sort of like running. You're like, oh okay. That's fairly close. Yeah, that's a little too close. Right. Well, I'm afraid uh Cochrane, it's back to you.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Uh sh question ed. Yes. We're treating the militia as a single entity at the game one. Yeah, they're kind of just, you know. So could I inspire the militia as a single person? Yeah, you can't. And use me. Yeah. Then I may forgo all my companions and just save my inspiration to maybe not let the militia die so much or possibly start winning.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Because if they all die, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_03There'll be a lot more people attacking just us.
SPEAKER_01Okay. That's fine. Yeah. You're all on your own this round, guys. If you want to make a uh a roll now, or in fact, no, don't, because you're not doing it yet. That's the plan of what you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I'm saving my action technically until you declare the.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Right. Well, in that case, it is Caspian.
SPEAKER_03Caspian, Caspian, Caspian. How far can Caspian move? Uh you can move a number of meters, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Like how many of these squares can I move? So you can move ten. Yeah, no, five. Sorry, not ten, five. Five squares. Unless you wanted to peg it, in which case you can you run ten squares.
SPEAKER_02I can do that, but then I can also still attack, correct?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so if you move five, you can you can then attack, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I just forego my aim bonus. Okay. Yeah. Castrien is gonna move to here. Correct, you've suddenly got two bearing down on you.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_03And he's gonna shoot this one. Okay. So he's taken several steps back because that crab man got uncomfortably close. And hopefully I have two successes. So that is three damage. That's a problem.
SPEAKER_00Three damage. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Is your assault rifle has got a damage of two, correct? Yes. So you got three successes, that's that's four damage. No, I have two successes. Two successes, sorry, okay. Sorry. That's just me not listening.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02That's three damage. And I only have one bullet left, so we fucked.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah, you you fire, it kind of like puts its shoulder down, and one of the bullets kind of like hits its armor and it kind of like suds into the armor, but you don't see anything else happen. And you're like, yeah, it seems to have kind of got the measure of you right then.
SPEAKER_04Well Am I done building my things?
SPEAKER_01Uh you are not, but you can see that you need to spend this entire combat turn continuing to jury the last one. Or you can use your your thing now. Um But I'm just I'm just giving you the option.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I think I think with the two advancing, so they're ever closer. But the trouble is, I since I've obviously not tested this before, I'm not sure how how big the explosion is going to be. So I'm I'm really, really hoping that it isn't gonna get roached. So I I shout to him to, you know, maybe dark into the next to hollow if there is one. Okay, behind that dune before I shout before I throw the thing at the at the two crabs advancing on him.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_04Like I I give him, you know, three seconds to to make his escape.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Did you want to uh make a I think we worked out last time that it's a shoot roll? I'm still crap at that. Sure. Where would you like the explosive to land? If you'd like to mark it on the map, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_04How do I do that?
SPEAKER_01Like so, right? Okay. Yep, that's fine.
SPEAKER_04So you've indicated between the two that heading towards Cochrane, okay, which means that over shoot and it gets too close to Caspian and you know undershoot and I'll get too close to Roach.
SPEAKER_01Feel free to make your role.
SPEAKER_04Remind me to, you know, with an XXP, put a point in shoot then.
SPEAKER_01Would you like to uh push that?
SPEAKER_04I would very much like to push that because there is no one's rolled in this.
SPEAKER_01That's uh not a lot of stresses there. Okay.
SPEAKER_04There we go.
SPEAKER_01You kind of you pull something, but you you you you throw the you throw it and it lands right between the two crabmen. How many bullets worth of gunpowder and stuff did you put in there? So one and a half, I guess, if I divided it between two charges. Alright. Well, it lands right in the middle of between the two of them, and then there's a loud bang as Cochrane in front of you, the the sand and rock rise up, and you can see both of the crabmen get hit with bits of shrapnel, but it kind of mostly deflects off their armor. But you can see that the one on the left that was going originally for Caspian has taken a couple of lacerations to the fleshy parts of its body, and they're kind of oozing and dripping stuff, but they seem to still be on their way towards you.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's bloody disappointing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'll take a swing at my remaining episode. About time. Three success. How many successes? Three. Nice. It's five damage. Yeah, you kind of like lay into it with with your axe, it kind of like lowers its sort of shell shell, and you kind of skitter off the edge of the shell, but just catch a part of the fleshy part, but it doesn't seem to do a huge amount to it. It seems to have absorbed most most of your blow by the um by the shell. At this point, I'm gonna ask Pete to make a role for the militia. If Cochrane wants to inspire them, I'll let him do it.
SPEAKER_03Inspire the role for the Yeah, you can do the rolling.
SPEAKER_01I've I've I've not been doing very well so far.
SPEAKER_03You'll have to remind me what that role is, but I'll do the I'll do the inspiration first. Do the inspiration first. And then see what so that was all garbage, that one. You know what? It's empathy. I doubt I doubt I'm going to be I'm gonna push that role.
SPEAKER_01Okay, you've you're gonna take two damage to your empathy.
SPEAKER_03To my empathy, but yeah. I think if I get mauled by if I get mauled by crab people, it's probably not gonna be damage against my feelings.
SPEAKER_01Nice. So you then converted that to three more successes? Three successes. But two damage, two damage. Yeah, I mean you start to panic. Things are set panic is saying now that you know these two things are kind of catching up with you. You're shouting and screaming and trying to inspire the rest of them. Could you make role that's three green, three yellow, and two black? There's three attributes. Three three skill and two black. Okay, three, three, two. My goodness. Your militia are definitely untrained. Yeah. Can he push that? No. No.
SPEAKER_03It's not my role technically. Unfortunately, so I've wasted that.
SPEAKER_01Go on, you know what? Push it. What the hell? Go on, push it. Okay. One success. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So that's four successes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So all you needed was that was the main thing. You just needed that one success. Okay, yes. So you see that the guys to your left hand side have managed to take out another one. And the two with the two scrap pistols have again kind of stuck with just attacking one at a time. They seem to be sort of like quite broken and damaged, but they're sort of holding their own against the one more that's left. Okay, well, it was it was a brave sacrifice, Cochrane, as the two uh crab crab people get to you and are going to attack you.
SPEAKER_03It's nice knowing you, Cochrane. I'll have you know I have ten mutant points, so I might survive this. Probably only this round.
SPEAKER_01Right, well. Did you want to do anything? They are both kind of like bearing down at you and they are swinging with their uh large claws.
SPEAKER_03I guess I'll try and hold my ground and parry. Can I parry two people? Or is that? You can only parry one. Okay, I will attempt to parry one then. What are you using to parry with? I've got a scrap knife. Okay. Like, it's not much, but it's been a little bit.
SPEAKER_01You're lucky it might. Go on, then make a parry roll.
SPEAKER_03Okay, is that just a scrap knife roll with it?
SPEAKER_01Yes, just your normal scrap knife roll.
SPEAKER_03That's gonna help much. Did you want to uh push that?
SPEAKER_01Or well if you push it, you'll see.
SPEAKER_03If I do push that, I have no scrap knife anyway. I have two scrap knives and I'm happy to give you one. Yes, but you would have to come over and give it to me, and you have expressed your permission of not being close to the crowd, people. I could throw it. You know what that would be a strength. I'll probably need my strap to get out of this situation, so it won't be shit. I'll just have to list.
SPEAKER_01Right. So you kind of like hold your uh your knife up as the one on the on your right swings down and you manage to deflect it just about. You can feel sort of like all the muscles in your wrists and stuff strain from the the other one on your left hand side swings wide and misses, much to your very happy amusement. Well, worried amusement. I don't know. Did I just take no damage on that? You just took no damage on that. I'm not sure how many I could pull that off again, but right. Well, they seem to you seem to be getting a handle on these things, but Cochrane, you're you're you're at first. You're now in hand-to-hand combat with two of these things. Can I disengage or you can try to, but they might, I think, get a uh attack in you, yeah. I think so. It's a good question. If you if you are in combat, you want to try and get away out of combat.
SPEAKER_03Well, if he's gonna f is he fleeing the conflict or is he just taking a step back? Yeah, so if you flee the conflict, you run out of and that's it, you're gone. And that's and that's a move roll. That is a move roll. At a negative two, because minus two, because you because it's yeah, you're in hand-to-hand combat. You know what? I might just hold my ground.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna hold my ground and hopefully someone else can do something to come help me, and I can use my inspire to hinder one of them. Okay. If like we're scaring, so I'll save the action, but I'm not moving. That's fine.
Cochran's Stand
SPEAKER_03Caspian will take aim.
SPEAKER_02Cochrane is Caspian's buddy, by the way. He'll take aim and shoot this guy right here.
SPEAKER_03Did you want to inspire me, Douglas? I think I'm gonna have to save it, unfortunately. This is my last bullet, so after this, I am useless. Okay. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. I will I will hopefully give you a Hail Mary so that hopefully it will reduce it to like ah, something like go send this foul beast. I'm also working at with less inspired dice, but Okay, let's see. Okay. I will inspire him to save my life. Okay. There's two dice if you get one. Okay. Dungeons is that basically screaming, get it off me, get it off me. Yeah. Pretty much, in an inspirational way. Okay, I have three successes, so that is three, four, five, six, and seven damage.
SPEAKER_01Okay then. Well, that's that's that's the way you do it, I suppose. Let's roll for some armor.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01I hope his head explodes. You shoot him in his little cranium spot where his eyes are on stoops, and yeah, it goes right into the middle of the soft bit, and there's a noise as a lot of eyes and juice and some gills come flying out of the hole that you have just made. That's how you do it. Yeah, kill him. And he goes flat. I'm gonna go now.
SPEAKER_03Bye. Cassian, just leave. Yeah, Caspian is out of bullets.
SPEAKER_02He's gonna have to start like raiding these dead militia bodies for bullets. Moss.
SPEAKER_04Um, yeah, I I guess I'll have to finish that last grenade. So do I think that Cochrane's gonna hold off the thing that's closest to me for another round?
A Last Resort
SPEAKER_01He's probably he's done it for one round, he's managed to hold his own technically. I mean, so if you want to spend another round constructing the uh improvised explosive, you can do.
SPEAKER_04I mean, my the alternative would be I, you know, abandon that project because I mean that sucked. And I just rushed the guy that's attacking Cochrane and, you know, bite him. I guess so.
SPEAKER_03I just want to say an improvised explosive is probably not gonna save Cochrane because he's in hand-to-hand combat with the crab.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I've not used it yet. I'm not sure how, you know, if this is gonna do anything on something that has a carapace. But one of my mutant abilities is bite an enemy at arm's length with your numerous small and very sharp teeth. It inflicts damage equal to the number of mutation points, and I I have a bunch.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, you could do that. Do you think I can get through get through the carapace? Yeah, yeah, probably. I mean you'll well, you'll try and find like a squishy part, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'll I'll just you know grab a joint or something where I can get in with my mouth.
SPEAKER_01Okay. If you want to make a fight roll, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_04If you hit. I guess. Would you like to push that?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Oh, okay. Ooh, very nice. Here we go. Apparently, if you uh moss too far. Yeah. Okay, well, so that's one damage that you would caught that you would do plus two more, so that's that's three damage. How much how much more damage do you want to do? So for every mutation point you spend, you do an extra point of damage.
SPEAKER_04Do I have any idea of how much he I might need to finish him by biting his armor for something? They they have an armor of six. Um sure I'll spend three.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so uh let's sprawl for the guy's armor. Yeah, you you kind of like grab onto something hard, you start biting, but you can feel the sort of like really hard chitinous outer shell, and you sort of, I guess, go into sort of like a soft part of it of the body, and then you start just chomping into some brown or maybe white crab fish, I don't know. Which part of the crab do you want to eat? And you start growling and biting, and you puncture something because you get a taste of salt and roe and something, and you pull out some black veiny thing that kind of falls to the floor as the whole crab man falls down dead. Sushi.
A Hard-Fought Victory
SPEAKER_01That did not suck. That did not suck. That was very good. I guess that leaves you, Roach, to uh finish off the guy that you're fighting. At least attempt to. I think, Pete, you've got the unluckiest virtual dice in the world. So that's no successes with all your dice. You gonna push that? I'll give it a go, yeah. So you're gonna take one damage to your attribute. Your scrap axe, though, breaks as you whack it for four damage. Lucky for you, my armor roll was rubbish. And with the last part of your axe, you bury it deep into uh its chest, and it falls over, gurgling and spluttering row, kind of filling the sea as it kind of hits the floor. Caspian is going roach, roach, roach, roach, roach. To your right hand side, you can see the two militia have basically rounded on the last remaining one up there, and they're just firing their last remaining bullets into it, and to the left of you, the three militia that are left are just pounding on this one that's just writhing on the floor in the surf until it stops writhing. Then you realize there's no more left.
SPEAKER_04Wow, I guess that's good eating, but what at what a price?
SPEAKER_01You've lost two of your uh militiamen, and three of them look badly hurt. Question The ones that are dead, do they have bullets? I mean, harsh, but you know, practical. It's a harsh world we live in. No, the ones that were to your left hand side all had had weapons. It was only the two to your right that had the scrap pistols. This one and this one, okay. And they have no more rounds left. But as as you kind of like stop seeing that they're all they're all dead, you hear more people from the arc coming from behind you, and we will leave it there for the session.