Goblin Forge Presents
Goblin Forge is a varietal ttrpg production group with a wide range of projects and GENERAL MAYHEM IN THE FICTIONAL FANTASY WORLDS OF OUR MINDSSSS!!!! Our first campaign, Shadows of Prophecy, uses DnD 5e mechanics and our current running show is Vaesen: Slovene Lands.
LGBTQIA Mafia!
Goblin Forge Presents
Vaesen, Slovene Lands: Lady of the Lake
Join our intrepid investigators—the seasoned hunter, Joseph Wolfram Fuchs, the ham sandwich-loving vagabond, Luka Koss, and the compassionate nurse, Akka Korolev— in a ceremonial ritual to summon Zoja, now turned Rusalka, with the aid of Gasper and Evelyn.
Ó vodný duch
vyzývame vás
odpusť nám naše previnenie
chceme upokojiť tvoj hnev
prosíme ťa
hovor s nami
TW: Discussion of domestic abuse
The opening number, Zrejlo je žito / An Dro is performed by the wonderfully talented Noreia
A Special thanks to our fabulous patrons, JayCeeAitch (JCH), Maggie Z., and Chris B.
Transcripts available at: https://goblinforge.buzzsprout.com/
The ¶¶ ¶¶.
Timothy (DM):Thank you, thank you. Thank you, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. To be continued, seekers of the unknown, to the shadowed realm of Vossen Slavine lands here, the whispers of ancient legends weave through mist-shrouded forests and babbling brooks, bringing to life the eerie and the enigmatic. I am Kitchi, your guide and game facilitator, leading you through this dark and mesmerizing journey. In the year 1848, within the rugged and mysterious Slavine lands.
Timothy (DM):We traverse a world where the boundary between the mundane and the mystical is perilously thin. As we step into this unsettling realm, we'll explore the shadows cast by industrialization and enlightenment upon a land steeped in folklore and arcane rituals. Here, amidst the daunting majesty of the Julian Alps, the placid mysteries of countless lakes and the haunting depths of vast forests, we shall uncover the secrets of the Vasin Trolls, selkie, fae and other mythical beings that defy human understanding. With the sight our investigators pierce through the veil of reality, confronting ancient spirits that have lingered since time immemorial, hidden yet ever-present alongside humanity. Join us as we rekindle ancient magics and face the uncanny reconnecting with a world of mystery driven by primordial laws. Brace yourself, for, in the land of the Vossen, the familiar and the fearsome dance an eternal haunting waltz With me.
Chris (Joseph):Today we have Hello, my name is Chris. I'm playing Joseph Wolfram Fox, a seasoned hunter.
Dan (Luka):My name is Chris. I'm playing Joseph Wolfram Fox, a seasoned hunter. I'm Dan.
Ellie (Akka):I'm playing Luca Koss the vagabond who is only motivated by ham sandwiches, and I'm Ellie. I'm playing Akka Korolev, the middle-aged nurse who is worried about everybody For good reason.
Timothy (DM):For good reason. For good reason, and now for a few disclaimers All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Religion, sexual and potentially explicit scenes, depictions or discussions of traumatic events and other adult topics that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Please take care while listening and if you find any of the content distressing, consider pausing or skipping ahead. Your well-being is important. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let us step forward into the shadows and begin Veliko sreće. Previously on Shadows of Prophecy.
Intermission:No, not again oh my gosh, it's really okay for four years four years.
Timothy (DM):That was the sentence that I said. But now things are different. We have moved on, we have let go of the past.
Ellie (Akka):Previously, on Slavian Lands, put a slitched bark collar on you.
Timothy (DM):Our investigators departed Nia's company to explore the cottage of Gaspar Kosher in the light of day, only to find the cottage empty. Determined to interrogate the hermit, joseph worked with Broody to track down the current whereabouts of the elusive man. They intercepted Gaspar at the cemetery and thus ensued a rather confrontational encounter with an inebriated griever. While Gaspar quickly became overwhelmed with a flurry of emotions, we learned that he and Zoya once shared an unspoken romance preceding her engagement with Jakob and ultimately her death. Gaspar places the blame on Jakob before becoming energetically and emotionally spent. Luca assisted this exhausted man back to his cottage, while Joseph spoke to Father Matej about Gaspar and discovered a letter he left at Zoya's headstone, although the body was never found.
Timothy (DM):We learned that the once artist and Zoya shared a kinship for many years, during which neither ever expressed the full extent of their emotions. Gaspar now expresses himself to an empty grave day after day. Before we closed our session, aka made her way back to the Lezik estate to find Evelyn, now noticing the signs of her victimhood. Aka spent the afternoon with Evelyn, providing companionship, support and ear In other words, a friend. So you all are closing out your day at the Legica seat.
Dan (Luka):We were going to.
Chris (Joseph):I'm sorry, no, go ahead. We'd finished dinner, dinner and basically I think where we left off was that jacob went to the study and we headed out yeah, we were going to bring eaglin to um gasper's cottage or cabin back to gasper's cabin, I think yeah, also I have here.
Ellie (Akka):We can't forget that we have lunch with mia tomorrow yeah, yeah Right, it's in the calendar.
Chris (Joseph):So.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah.
Timothy (DM):So, as the sun nears the horizon and Gaspar returns to his study not Gaspar, sorry, yeah Jakob returns to his study the four of you slip out into the dusk. The sounds of crickets begin to swell as you make your way towards Gaspar's cottage, the long shadows cast by the trees of the forest, an owl hoots in the distance and the smell of smoke begins to fill your nostrils, accompanied by that of homemade meals. Each of these cottages, lit by candlelight in the night, are amidst dinner or shortly after. You can hear the faint chatter of voices as you pass each house and then begins to fade as you dive deeper into the forest.
Chris (Joseph):It's so wild, you can do so much with fish that it kind of overrides the general salty fish smell of this area.
Ellie (Akka):Indeed a lot of creativity going on in these houses.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah.
Ellie (Akka):How confident do you feel you can get us back to this cabin?
Chris (Joseph):You know, hey, I know the front way in and I know the back way out, so there you go. At this point.
Dan (Luka):You all know the back way in. I was going to say can I recall how I brought the moat?
Intermission:I'm going to say at this point.
Timothy (DM):You've traveled this pathway quite frequently. We're not going to go get lost in the woods again, especially in a mystery that is water themed, and therefore there is no reason for me to spook you with noises in the woods it's the land fish, the obvious red herring ironically, a herring is a fish yeah, so is it.
Ellie (Akka):Zoe is a fish, I knew it wait a minute, it's all coming together for me yeah, it's like the numbers are appearing in front of you and registering. Yeah exactly, but it's just all completely fucking wrong. I've pieced together the puzzle pieces and it's like just so hard.
Timothy (DM):Um, it's that meme with like all the numbers and the angles and stuff yeah, except instead of all the numbers and stuff. It's just like red triangle, blue square yeah, Question mark, question mark. Some red string? Yeah Great.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, so we'll head to the cabin. I'm thinking you sort of like lead, because your whole premise was like you're going to come back and check on him to see how he's doing. Oh, yeah, like you're going to come back and check on him to see how he's doing. And then I think our idea was to maybe leave Evelyn there with him to keep him company and, like, keep her out of the house while we did some maybe shoreside investigation.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, and if we could get Gasper to tell us how he visits or communicates with Zoya?
Ellie (Akka):Yeah.
Dan (Luka):That would be ideal.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, evelyn, have you met? Have you heard about Gaspar, before in your time in town?
Timothy (DM):Why, of course, everybody's aware of Gaspar. I can't say I've exchanged many words with him.
Chris (Joseph):He is a little rough around the edges and just kind of she nods yeah.
Dan (Luka):He is a kind gentleman, though. I think you'll like him.
Ellie (Akka):A former artist.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, oh.
Dan (Luka):Of what sort Painter, I believe, based on what I saw in his home.
Chris (Joseph):And a poet, or at least he's got way with words too.
Timothy (DM):Well, I would love to see some of his works. Maybe I will preach the subject.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, I think that would be nice. I think he's a lonely man, a strange lonely man, but nice, a nice strange lonely man.
Dan (Luka):Nice, strange lonely man, strange lonely man, but nice, a nice strange lonely man Nice strange lonely man.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, maybe we shouldn't actually voice her off. Yeah, we'll stay there for like an hour.
Ellie (Akka):Make sure they're going to go longer, okay, yeah, and she feels okay about being left there.
Dan (Luka):I guess we'll get there and I'll knock so you knock on the door again.
Timothy (DM):the wood thuds, the decay has set in and moss covers the door. It's a soft door. You hear the sound of a chair scraping against the floor and some slow, heavy footsteps moving towards the door. It slowly pushes open and you see the solemn face of Gaspar and he weaves you in without a word and the rest of us are standing behind him.
Timothy (DM):Hi, we're here too. He nods and, like, acknowledges your presence, and then he pulls a chair out from the table and then realizes he has one chair, and so instead he stands and waits for the rest of you to filter in.
Ellie (Akka):Alright, I'll go in, but I'll stand it's good for my hips.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, yeah, let's stand.
Ellie (Akka):I'll gesture evil into one of the chairs. Yeah, oh please, Gaspar, no need to stand on our behalf. We've been sitting all day.
Timothy (DM):It's no bother, it's the least I could do for earlier.
Chris (Joseph):No worries.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, how are you feeling Better?
Timothy (DM):I'm feeling a little more rested. That's good About all I can say.
Dan (Luka):What do you? No, you go.
Chris (Joseph):What do you typically like to do in the evenings when you're not fishing?
Intermission:What a casual question I'm trying.
Dan (Luka):Small talk? Huh, we're definitely not fishing for anything.
Chris (Joseph):Well, joseph is not. He's trying to default back to common courtesy because he doesn't spend much time in civilized society. So he's just like. What do normal people talk about? Hobbies, I guess.
Timothy (DM):Sometimes I read, sometimes I like to just sit outside and look at the stars, if it's a nice clear night.
Chris (Joseph):Beautiful stuff I can sympathize. It's nature's tapestry.
Ellie (Akka):Do you ever go out on the water at night?
Timothy (DM):Yeah, I do that pretty often.
Ellie (Akka):Any particular reason that you'd like to share With?
Intermission:us Less than subtle. Based on some of our previous conversations.
Timothy (DM):He like wrings his hands a little bit.
Dan (Luka):Oh, we do have a guest with us. Maybe we yeah, she's us Maybe he's being pretty tight-lipped because of that.
Timothy (DM):She seems fine right now. She seems like she's in a listening state. Evelyn's cool yeah, she's chill she's trying to take in the situation at this point.
Chris (Joseph):She's looking at all the brown. She's like there's a lot of brown furniture in this room. Not a lot of furniture, but it's all very.
Timothy (DM):Everything is brown. It's just leather and wood and linen, which is pretty common Typical roof. The other houses you've been in have had some decoration and flourishes and his is very just simple, so it's just brown, yeah, um, so he wrings his hands a little bit and he like looks around a little bit and he like looks at each of you and you can you see that there's like the sadness in his face. I mean not really, but I feel like I owe you. After this morning afternoon I hear her song and I know she's out there.
Chris (Joseph):I know it sounds crazy. She died six years ago, but her memory lingers well, that's exactly what we're interested in.
Ellie (Akka):Can you share with us where you hear the song from? Have you ever seen her, or just hear the song?
Timothy (DM):Sometimes I like to think that I saw her out of the corner of my eye, just a passing blur, but I think I'm just lying to myself. The sound is always strongest along the eastern shore.
Chris (Joseph):Sort of where the inn is now.
Timothy (DM):No.
Chris (Joseph):Oh, the far east side of the lake. Yeah, it's a long, wide lake.
Timothy (DM):About where I put in in the evening. It's just Sorry, I meant west.
Chris (Joseph):Okay, yeah, I was confused because it's a two-mile-long lake.
Timothy (DM):I meant west Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Sorry, I've had a long day. I'm getting a bit turned around.
Ellie (Akka):And a lot to drink.
Timothy (DM):The western shore, just east of here, where I put my boat in. I can show you.
Chris (Joseph):We'd be interested.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, that would be great. All right Do you mind if evelyn stays here I actually am kind of having second thoughts about leaving evil in here alone with a person who we've established as a violent drunk yeah, I think the frying pan into the fire type situation yeah, I think it might be, if we can keep an eye on her.
Timothy (DM):I'll keep an eye on her I'll keep an eye on her, yeah, well fair enough, let's all go she's got a robust, she can handle it okay great so he gets, or he's not sitting, so he goes over and he grabs his jacket off the hook on the wall and he puts it over himself. And then he notices that, evelyn, she is wearing long sleeves but it's more of a delicate fabric. So then he takes it off and offers it to her, offers it to her. Um, she shakes her head and she tries to um reject it at first, but then he does that little like second, like nudge, and she takes it, um, she puts it over her shoulders it's very kind of you, gasper huh, I guess.
Timothy (DM):So, uh, whoa shall we?
Timothy (DM):lead the way so he picks up a lantern, he lights it. You see the swell of the warm orange glow build as the kerosene in the lamp alights, and he turns up that dial and he heads out into the woods, down the path that you've traversed before, towards the lake. You hear the crunching of leaves beneath your feet and then the view of the lake begins to approach. He makes his way out of the tree line onto the shore when the ground shifts from fallen leaves and dirt to stone, the sound of the waves lightly crashing against the shoreline as the water makes its way through the stones, stones, and you look out into the lake. You see a sky of stars, bright and clear, reflected on the clear, still surface of the lake.
Chris (Joseph):I wish I could capture this somehow, such a unique way of looking at the lake.
Ellie (Akka):Beautiful.
Timothy (DM):I used to love capturing the lake in my paintings. It truly is a beautiful place. It truly is a beautiful place. It's hard to put the joy in my paint strokes. Nowadays Everything looks sad.
Ellie (Akka):Nobody wants to look at that. I don't know. I think there's something to be said for sad paintings too. If the only purpose of a piece of art is to inspire joy, well then we'd hardly have any art at all. Haven't you ever heard a song so sad it makes you feel like crying at all? Haven't you ever heard a song so?
Chris (Joseph):sad. It makes you feel like crying.
Timothy (DM):I don't think I need anything else in my life to make me feel sad. I've felt enough for a lifetime and back again.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, alright. Well, shall we get out on the water?
Chris (Joseph):sure is there, gasper, is it? You have a boat nearby, or?
Timothy (DM):yeah, it's just in the bushes right over there, but are you sure that's advisable do? We hear men have been drowned in these waters as of late do we hear singing at the moment? No, it's just. You're like at dusk, so the sun has not fully set. There's the sky is like that deep, deep, deep red, just before it hits like night gotcha so the stars can shine at that level, um, but the sun is just like setting into night.
Chris (Joseph):Well, fortunately, Gasper, I open my bag and I pull out three of the life vests.
Ellie (Akka):There we go, the boys can wear them. She ain't drowned no girls yet. That is a fair point.
Chris (Joseph):Good observation, Aka.
Timothy (DM):Gasper rejects the life vest and says I've been out there pretty much ever night since the drowning started. If she ain't taking me yet, she ain't taking me Alright.
Ellie (Akka):If she ain't taking me yet she ain't taking me All right, All right Well then. Well then, maybe we'll pop the extra on Evelyn.
Intermission:Yeah, that's a good call yeah.
Timothy (DM):All right.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, let's borrow the rowboat and go hang out in the water until we hear singing.
Intermission:Yeah.
Ellie (Akka):And then maybe I don't know what our plan is. Try and talk to her. Be like hey, what's going on? What's?
Dan (Luka):up.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, it's like hey girl See, if we see anything, yeah, and then if we do have a confrontation, then we can always row back to shore, maybe, and yeah yeah I was gonna say maybe we should tie ourselves together so if one gets yoinked the others can pull them back in.
Ellie (Akka):But that might also just lead to all of us getting yoinked depending, yeah, on the strength of one person versus three life jackets.
Intermission:Not a person, though Not a person, not a person, sort of a creature.
Chris (Joseph):An entity.
Ellie (Akka):A wrathful spirit.
Chris (Joseph):But I think Can't hurt. This is a song that you hear, Gaspar.
Timothy (DM):You see, he's not frozen, but lost in Thoughts, giving himself almost entirely to the song, his full attention, his full range of being.
Ellie (Akka):Do we feel any pull?
Timothy (DM):towards the song. Is it a song we've heard before?
Ellie (Akka):yeah, it is the song that you've heard before.
Timothy (DM):It doesn't feel particularly enchanting in any sort of way, at least not anything like you're witnessing, casper. It sounds sad, it sounds dragging, as if the source is kind of stuck.
Ellie (Akka):Am I remembering correctly that there are some types of water spirits? I thought we had like a handout or we did some research that found that they can be lured ashore with like tobacco, yeah, so there are yeah, tobacco or they there's I don't have things that they like.
Chris (Joseph):Um, there's the voidian is tobacco, but I think there's another one. The taste, do you need? I have it?
Ellie (Akka):let me look at this it's the, it's the second one.
Chris (Joseph):Oh yeah, I'm asking as if I'm not the one in charge I think it's on the left page where it's like shiny trinkets or colorful bits of string yeah, let's see, void annoy are particularly fond of tobacco.
Ellie (Akka):Um, there appears a commonality within the stories of warnings against the warnings against the following of objects left along a water's edge ribbons, mirrors and other precious items have been said to lure people to their death by spirits yeah so it's less like those items lure the spirit out and more like those are meant to lure people in so yeah, never mind, because I was thinking maybe we could use, like her beads, the beads that you have to lure people in.
Ellie (Akka):Never mind, because I was thinking maybe we could use her beads, the beads that you have to lure her out.
Intermission:Did he give you this cloth.
Chris (Joseph):I think he handed that in the graveyard to you.
Timothy (DM):No, he was holding it. I handed it to you so you could see what it looked like.
Chris (Joseph):But he is holding it, like, but he is holding it. Okay, he is holding it. Gasper, have you had any conversations? Or well, I guess, never mind, you haven't seen anything. You've seen. You feel like you've seen something in the corner of your eye, but you've never actually communicated.
Ellie (Akka):You feel like you've seen something in the corner of your eye, but you've never actually communicated. Can we try to triangulate the source of the singing? By playing warmer, colder, basically, and rowing around and figuring out where it gets louder and quieter? That's kind of the only straw I've got. Maybe being like Zoya, hey Zoya, like splash the surface of the only strap I've got. Maybe being like zoya, hey zoya, like splash the surface of the water. I don't know if this is how you get drowned, but I don't know what else to do prep.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, I think that's a good plan, maybe if we hum the tune in oh, in harmony.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, oh, do a little barbershop quartet yeah, quartet, quartet, yeah, quartet, yeah.
Chris (Joseph):So I'll be bass. Great, I'll be alto Sure Okay, and then evil in a soprano.
Ellie (Akka):So there you go yeah.
Dan (Luka):An untrained quartet. What?
Ellie (Akka):would you categorize your singing voice? Contrabass oh yeah, great Perfect.
Chris (Joseph):He's percussion.
Ellie (Akka):Starting an acapella group on the waters of the lake.
Timothy (DM):So like he kind of like begrudgingly grumbles the tune, he's like very embarrassed of his singing voice.
Ellie (Akka):Oh, I'm sure it's just and very shy.
Dan (Luka):Luca will whistle Gotcha. Because I've done that before, I'll whistle along with the tune.
Ellie (Akka):I'll try to remember like a scrap or two of the words that we learned from Nia and like, put them in where I remember them. So it's like fox running through the woods.
Dan (Luka):Nobody has any tobacco on them, do they I?
Ellie (Akka):don't know, gasper would my man smokes yeah, I don't have any.
Dan (Luka):Does gasper evelyn have tobacco on them like?
Timothy (DM):gasper does have tobacco on him.
Dan (Luka):He has a pipe can we borrow a little bit of?
Ellie (Akka):it. Can we have some? Uh yeah sure You're on the crazy boat now, my man.
Timothy (DM):He hands some over to you.
Ellie (Akka):I'm gonna sprinkle a little bit at the very tip of the boat, like you know like it comes to a point and then there's typically a little flat spot yeah I'm gonna put a little bit right there cool and we're rowing around while this is happening trying to get close to, as close as we can to the source of the noise yeah yeah so
Timothy (DM):as you push the boat into the water and you hear the water lapping up against the side of the boat. You get in, you clamber about. The song stalls for a bit as you're moving around and making noise and as the boat settles back down into silence and you push off into the still lake, it takes a moment to chime back in Quiet, tentative at first, but then again the song begins to return and as you begin to sing, the five of you somewhat fumbling your way around the tune um, can one of you give me a manipulation roll?
Dan (Luka):That's me. That's my job Four Seven One success.
Timothy (DM):Alright. So as you are all singing along, you start to notice that, without going anywhere, the melody begins to grow louder, closer, louder.
Ellie (Akka):Closer Good, this is what we wanted.
Dan (Luka):Do all of us immediately regret our decision.
Ellie (Akka):Right, exactly as planned.
Intermission:Our plan was bad.
Dan (Luka):Evelyn just breathe.
Timothy (DM):You do notice that she's getting a little bit quieter. Evelyn is, as is Gasper, as they hear the singing closer and closer to the boat.
Ellie (Akka):We're professionals. I say it to reassure myself. As much as anybody else, we're professionals. I say it to reassure myself. As much as anybody else, we're professionals.
Chris (Joseph):This is exactly the plan.
Ellie (Akka):Yep, everything's going exactly as we planned. We're professionals.
Timothy (DM):And Gaspar still holds the lantern. He is at the front of the boat holding it out into the now darkness of the night. You see the flame flicker along the water's surface, still as glass, broken only by the bow of the boat. And then you hear the sound begin to pass along the side of the boat just far enough that you cannot see anything in the water, and makes its way around the back and it is now behind you.
Chris (Joseph):I stop rowing.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, and we all try and track it, I assume, or I turn to try and keep focus on where it is the boat rocks slightly as you shift about inside.
Timothy (DM):The rowing stopped. The boat becomes quieter and still the song continues to encircle. You now passing around the other side, still nothing in sight. Zoya, zoya.
Dan (Luka):Zoya, we'd like to talk Casper you try.
Intermission:Yeah, you guys were close yeah call to her speak your heart.
Timothy (DM):You see, he kind of stammers slightly, takes a deep breath and calls out timidly at first, takes a deep breath and calls out Timidly at first, but then catches himself and puts a little bit more gusto behind it. Zoya, it's, it's me, gasper. Zoya, if you're out there, please, I only want to see you one more time. I miss those eyes, the smile you always wore whenever you were around me, that contagious smile, please, zoya. The humming stops and is instead replaced by a very quiet tinkling of water.
Timothy (DM):All according to plan, all according to plan it drops along the surface and then, at the very edge of the lantern's light, you catch a glimpse of two eyes refracting the light back at you.
Chris (Joseph):Are they red oh?
Timothy (DM):they have like a tinge of yellow hazel. Her hair a dirty blonde, greened with algae.
Chris (Joseph):Hmm.
Dan (Luka):I'm going to usher Gasper to keep going. Okay, come on.
Timothy (DM):He begins to gasp. His emotions seem to be caught in his throat, swelling up inside him. You can see this energy building within him. And then the boat begins to jolt back and forth as he dives into the water. Oh no, dropping the lantern in the bottom of the boat.
Timothy (DM):You hear the splashing of water as he frantically, frantically, swims towards her, the light now darkened by the shadow of the boat's edge pick it up, thank, you, you clamber and grab the lantern, lifting it up in the direction, towards where you saw the woman in the water, and all you can make out is gasper frantically paddling towards that direction the woman gone I'm gonna get on the oar and start rowing in that direction so you pick up the oars and you start paddling. What's your? How are you doing this like? How is your paddling?
Timothy (DM):uh is gasper particularly good swimmer he looks okay, he's just frantic yeah, I'm gonna do it at a steady clip to like sort of get up beside him yeah, so you start following after gaspar in your boat Now, the boat rocking back and forth, the water disturbed, and you do make your way just within arm's reach of the man who just is continuing to go in that direction where he saw her. He's barely taking a breath, he's just paddling, his arms are splashing in the water and he doesn't seem to really be aware of his surroundings enough to notice you is.
Dan (Luka):Is she somewhere to be seen or is she gone?
Chris (Joseph):you cannot find her the song has stopped, she is gone casper, it might be best to get back in the boat.
Timothy (DM):Yes, she's gone he paddles and continues he is not aware of your presence I'm gonna jump in and get him do you think you can drowning?
Chris (Joseph):men tend to drown I do have a life vest on that's true, all right uh well, at least I'll row up beside him and see if I can sort of grab onto his shirt from over the boat yeah, yeah, if you physically, if you physically grab him, he becomes aware of you.
Timothy (DM):He was just, have you ever swum really, really fast and like, just like you can't. You can barely hear what's going on. You're not seeing anything because your eyes are like zoned covered with splashing water or even closed um. So the moment you like, grab onto him and you actually make physical contact. He whips around and just like clambers onto the side of the boat, panting I'll lean over the opposite side to counterbalance yeah, um, he is.
Timothy (DM):The emotions are all welled up inside him and they start to expel. He starts bawling his eyes out again, he starts gibbering about having seen her, that this time he's sure of it, that he is excited, he is scared, he is sad, he is angry. He has so many things at once.
Chris (Joseph):It's a lot to process. I know thinking that somebody had left you and you think you see them again.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, cry it out, you'll feel better afterwards.
Timothy (DM):Eventually he catches his breath, he begins to calm, his demeanor relaxes and then he starts to pull himself back up into the boat.
Chris (Joseph):We really lead to the other side.
Intermission:Everybody leads to their side.
Ellie (Akka):Nothing like a good cathartic cry in a lake, to just get you set straight.
Chris (Joseph):That was so good. Wet and tired yeah.
Ellie (Akka):Like exercise really, really hard and then just like something, a somatic switch inside you just flips and you start sobbing.
Dan (Luka):If we quiet down, does the song come back.
Timothy (DM):You wait in silence for quite some time, him still breathing heavily. You can almost make out his heartbeat thudding minutes. Everything falls silent the sounds of crickets in the shoreline, the hooting, the intermittent chittering of coyotes, but no song shoot.
Chris (Joseph):I whisper to the two other investigators should we talk to broach to evelyn who zoya is or why we're out on the boat?
Ellie (Akka):she hasn't asked yeah because I think is evelyn doing yeah she's still kind of taking it in.
Timothy (DM):She's been very much more of an observer all night than an active participant. She's quiet, she watches, watches, um, give me an observation I can do that one too.
Dan (Luka):We all do it, or should one of us do it?
Timothy (DM):yeah which one? All of you two successes none one success evelyn doesn't seem all that surprised by the events that are taking place she was the one who not in an insidious way, but as in, she kind of has put the pieces together.
Dan (Luka):Yeah.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, I mean, she's the one who called for us. Yeah, exactly.
Dan (Luka):So she suspected something mystical, supernatural, yeah. To begin with, so that makes sense.
Ellie (Akka):She's a smart lady.
Dan (Luka):Should we bring them back to shore?
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, yeah, we're probably done out here for tonight.
Timothy (DM):So you row back to shore, you take the sopping wet gasper back to his cottage.
Ellie (Akka):Let's get this man a hot tea and a shampoo.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, change him into his other pair of rags.
Timothy (DM):Evelyn will begin to light a fire in his fireplace thank you and we could all use a warm-up.
Dan (Luka):I think yeah she will also.
Timothy (DM):Unless one of you prompts him, we'll sit him down in front of the fire yeah, push up the chair.
Intermission:Yeah, yeah, I like that evelyn's doing it, though.
Timothy (DM):The four of you can like, tend to him in any way that you want to, but like she is very much like, she'll go get a blanket if you haven't already gotten one. Um, she'll go get a stool from the other room, prop up his feet, help take off his boots. Um, she sees a very, very sad man in need and she just wants to help.
Ellie (Akka):As long as he's in dry clothes and drinking something warm, I'm good.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, and not alcoholic, not alcoholic. Yeah, we lock that cabinet and get the water bottle.
Ellie (Akka):Oh yeah, like some hot tea or coffee or something yeah great well this was informational yeah.
Dan (Luka):So what do we think? Um, we could maybe like have a little get together of our own another room while they're like yeah yeah, sitting by the fire.
Timothy (DM):You can leave the two of them by the fire. One they're npcs and I don't have to have a conversation between the two of them um, but also they seem to be almost kindred bonding in a sort of way that's a quiet bonding.
Chris (Joseph):That's nice, a gentle nature shared amongst the two of them so, based off of that green hair, I know rizalki have green ish hair I think there were two, and the ors talked about having green hair. Or Zernitsa, or Zernitsia.
Dan (Luka):It does say the Rusalka in some folklore are spirits of young women who died tragically and violently. So I'm like, and are bound to water, but that didn't say anything about green hair, did it. Yeah.
Ellie (Akka):The Rusala.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, Rusalka have green waterlogged hair.
Dan (Luka):Yeah yeah, rizalka have green, waterlogged hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rizalki are often portrayed as young women with long flowing hair, which is often depicted as green or waterlogged.
Chris (Joseph):So you know waterlogged hair Vengeful spirits Tragic drowning.
Dan (Luka):I wouldn't be surprised if she was a vengeful spirit.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, otherworldly beauty.
Dan (Luka):Hard to tell from the distance that we were at, but yeah, I could see it saw eyes and blondish green hair but nothing in here talks about how to deal with them.
Ellie (Akka):It says bound to the water as a form of punishment or unrest, or they could be vengeful spirits.
Timothy (DM):Did we? Yeah, refresh my memory, have you seen a picture of Zoya?
Ellie (Akka):I think wasn't there one in the newspaper article.
Chris (Joseph):Was that her? There is an angel. I don't think it showed Zoya's picture, though Did we see one in the Herzog household? You know how they have, like family portraits.
Timothy (DM):yeah, they are rich, yeah, you absolutely would have seen a picture of her in the herzog estate. Um, they would have some painted portraits, and so, as you are, because the glimpse of her that you got was pretty fleeting before gaspar jumped into the water. But as you're sitting with that vision in your head, it does very much resemble her. She was a rather beautiful woman Very symmetrical features, a very soft face.
Timothy (DM):Nothing going on up there features a very soft face nothing going on that's a callback to something we were talking about before not just being mean for no reason um, just like slightly rosy cheeks, um, these like hazel eyes that have this like flex of gold in them, and so the while the woman that you saw in the water did have like algae hair, they also seem to have retained a lot of her humanity in appearance in our research before we came.
Dan (Luka):Did we, did anybody or any of us stumble across what to do about a vengeful spirit?
Ellie (Akka):yeah, because other information about yeah, I guess it's too late now, would you?
Timothy (DM):like to do a learning role I don't want to, but I can good at it. Oh, we're both supposed to be yeah so because, as you like, start to put pieces together like I, will help fill in the gaps with learning roles.
Dan (Luka):Successful learning roles two successes, one success he's learning how to read good job okay.
Intermission:So like picture of girl did you say two, one, one yeah, two, one, one, yeah two, one one.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, okay, two one, one. Okay, cool, cool, cool cool.
Dan (Luka):So I will give you a couple, yes, yes, all three of them.
Timothy (DM):Gorgeous. You can have this one, Ellie. So now that you're pretty confident it's a Rusulca, so that's going to come to mind. It's this postcard that you saw of the picture there was a sketch of a Rusulca on it, Nice, nice oh is that the same Also?
Ellie (Akka):you're also going to recall coming across some sort of ritual relating to sorrowful water spirits.
Timothy (DM):Okay, I guess sorrow and anger. Joseph can recall something about combing a water spirit Ooh, oh, hiccups. And then what else do we got for you?
Dan (Luka):What picture book did I look at, yeah, what picture books I mean?
Timothy (DM):oh, this is the one that I kind of had flagged for you, just because it was found in a grimoire and I know that you were specifically looking at grimoire, and I know that, oh yes, I was looking.
Dan (Luka):I was looking specifically looking at grimoires.
Timothy (DM):So we have lots of things. I think the rest of these are all red herrings, but let me double check there's a lot of. I made a lot of handouts for this um and quite a few of them are just red herrings from the beginning of the mystery, um, but yeah so. So, now that you are kind of like narrowing in on risolka, narrowing in on the state or conditions which created this vasana, created this tormented spirit, you're starting to piece together potential tactics for how to how to either banish or subdue, sedate or even just put the spirit to rest, because, again, there's many ways to approach an encounter with a Vossen.
Ellie (Akka):What did you guys get?
Chris (Joseph):Mine is a potion with various naturely ingredients to basically summon the creature. We have to make a potion, dress up an altar, ring some handbells and say a chant.
Ellie (Akka):Okay, and that a chant Okay, and that will summon her.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, it'll call them to the area.
Ellie (Akka):Okay.
Dan (Luka):What about you? I weirdly remember this passage from one of the witch books that I was reading. I don't know if it's terribly helpful, but it's a blessing that we can do on the water for us.
Chris (Joseph):We would just bless ourselves.
Dan (Luka):Oh, I yeah I don't know, help us yeah, I'm not sure with what, to be honest. Okay, but it definitely feels like a blessing.
Ellie (Akka):Hell yeah, good I have um a spell to banish a sorrowful water spirit but we could potentially adapt it to banish an angry water spirit.
Dan (Luka):You can be sorrowful and angry. Yeah, Probably honestly.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, oof, and then I have a little description more about just sort of the background about the Rusalka and how they move around and what they do. They leave wet footprints where, if it comes on land, she leaves wet footprints that provide unnatural growth to nearby flora. So if we maybe look around and see anywhere that looks overgrown, weirdly overgrown, incongruously overgrown, we'll know that she walked there. They are a malevolent spirit with a deep, unseated hatred of man yep, that well, I'm a malevolent woman with a deep unseated.
Ellie (Akka):So we have that in common conjured spirits yeah, it says. When a rusalka is not singing or waiting, wailing to lure in curious passerby, they can be deathly silent within their waters, preying upon those that watered her too close to the shore and reenacting their drowning on the unsuspecting victim. But she didn't do that today.
Chris (Joseph):No, she sensed a friend on the water.
Dan (Luka):I guess, so I think we're safe with Gaspar.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, so we could summon, bless, summon banish in that order.
Chris (Joseph):Well, I guess this is more it is titled. What I remember of this coffee recipe is that it calms a water spirit.
Ellie (Akka):Oh, it calms, them.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah.
Ellie (Akka):So that maybe we could like talk to her and be like hey, would you like us to go get Jacob and kill him, or?
Dan (Luka):give him to you to kill. Maybe we could just talk to her if we calm her, because I'm an uncalmer we call upon you, forgive us.
Chris (Joseph):We wish to appease your anger. We beg of you, speak with us.
Ellie (Akka):I like that.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, and I will note that this blessing, quote, quote, unquote it was in a weird book with, like weird leathery, a weird leathery book, um and it, and it refers to a vila. It's like you're making offerings to a vila, the beauty of the wild. I'm not quite sure who that is, to be honest, um, maybe we shouldn't go maybe a little too far past our depth you summon a witch, instead she's like oops, we accidentally pledged our you know, service to some sort of nature god yeah, well, so maybe a last resort.
Ellie (Akka):Okay, nothing else, that's right I like the idea of summoning her and trying to talk to her, calming her down, yeah, okay. So do you think it would be helpful to have Gaspar there, or do you think he's going to lose it and derail the whole thing?
Chris (Joseph):I think he would probably be very emotional, yeah, although he is the reason why she showed up in the first place. We'll see if this works on our own and then, alternatively, repeat the performance with Casper. What do we need? So we need mugwort, willow bark and chamomile flower.
Ellie (Akka):You're a hunter. Do you do any gathering or just hunting? I?
Chris (Joseph):dabble in the small garden. At least I did whenever I lived in a permanent location. But yeah, I can probably find most of the stuff. Or at least I did whenever I lived in a permanent location. But yeah, I can probably find most of the stuff. And, like chamomile, they probably have stuff in the. Maybe somebody has a small garden or they trade in. Some of these Is there. We don't know if there's a doctor in town or not, but these seem like rural healing, like making tinctures and ointments, and would I have any of them in my doctor's bag already?
Ellie (Akka):chamomile maybe it's a good idea because in my equipment. It just says doctor's bag with medical equipment also maybe the local aspirin
Dan (Luka):yeah, and gasper might have some, just because he lives out here on his own.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah.
Dan (Luka):He would need some kind of medicine if he got hurt.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, so chamomile would be a very common tea ingredient. Yeah, especially in this region, german chamomile is abundant and a very like it was a preferred tea in this region. And yeah, willow is an aspirin and then mugwort mugwort's probably the most difficult to find it does have. I think it's used in poultices a lot, so it would be used in more like folk healing. If I'm remembering correctly, it has a numbing effect, but that could be.
Timothy (DM):I could be completely misremembering that um, but anyways it's it's usually more in like a folk healing kit, however, um, because you have yours, uh, just do a medicine roll and we'll see if you have mugwort I am an herbalist I do have an herbalist that, oh wow, that has no effect on mechanically it has no effect, but it has
Chris (Joseph):a like I know herbs so I'm like, oh, I yeah you can identify that.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, if we. If there is one we need to collect, is that your um talent yeah, that's my only talent.
Dan (Luka):Two successes, two successes.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, we're gonna say, you have the willow bark um, and then you have the mugwort.
Ellie (Akka):Is that your talent? Yeah, that's my only talent, that's two successes, Two successes.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, we're going to say you have the willow bark and then you have the mugwort as well.
Ellie (Akka):Oh, willow bark and mugwort, I've got those in my bag with me. They're great for poultices and tinctures and chamomile is literally everywhere in the woods.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, there we go Easy to find, easiest shopping trip.
Ellie (Akka):Should we do it tonight, or do you think we should do it tonight? We have to dress an altar and stuff.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, we have to bless an altar and put it in the location on the lake. On the shore Well in a location of the anchored water spirits, so probably at our launching point. Yeah, we need jasmine incense and hand bells, oh this changes things well hand bows, like I don't know what churches that you go to, but there are handbell choirs in certain chapels, so maybe father matei can help with both the incense and the handbells.
Ellie (Akka):Jasmine incense, though that's so exotic.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, yeah. I've never heard of Jasmine before. What's Jasmine, jasmine?
Timothy (DM):would absolutely be an imported product.
Chris (Joseph):Oh, so we gotta get maybe the. Hercog or yeah.
Ellie (Akka):Do you?
Dan (Luka):think we could just do regular incense and see if they have handbells.
Ellie (Akka):You know, like honeysuckle is a relative of jasmine oh we could just do regular incense and some honeysuckle I'm sure there's some substitutions you can do. Yeah, but then if it doesn't, work, we'll feel like I mean we could always do it, and then, if it doesn't work, we can really go try and get some jasmine incense.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, and where are we going to find a hand bell at this hour?
Chris (Joseph):I suppose we could try to make one.
Ellie (Akka):Maybe it just needs to be like a ringing. Maybe we could like beat on a pan with a spoon or something. Does it have to be a hand bell? I've never done a ritual before.
Dan (Luka):Does um? Does uh Gaspar have glass cups at all?
Timothy (DM):Or is it all like tin? And yeah, he does not have glass, no glass bottles. I mean, tin is like yeah oh, glass bottles.
Dan (Luka):Can I like put a like a little bead or something a rock inside a glass bottle?
Timothy (DM):perfect shake it handbells how do you feel? Hand handbell close enough. You can do that. I'm gonna let you do a learning role. Everybody can do a learning role around this.
Ellie (Akka):Time to learn about how stupid we are.
Chris (Joseph):Nope, oh, I got one success.
Timothy (DM):One success, okay. So with a success, you notice a common theme with all of the ingredients and components of said ritual, um, and that is that they are, um, they're all very calming, they're all zen, peaceful that's what I said earlier.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, chamomile willow bark, they're all very calming, they're all zen, peaceful. That's what I said earlier. Chamomile willow bark they're all anti-inflammatories, or?
Timothy (DM):uh, sedatives, speaking slightly meta um, if you can create something that is bell-like but is peaceful and pleasant so not the bottle of the rock, that is a wind chime potentially sufficient. Yeah, okay, um, but yeah, it's really just like the ringing of something pleasant, some sort of pleasant sound that can be repeated. Can I whistle?
Dan (Luka):what if I just whistle her song?
Ellie (Akka):do you think that agitates her or calms her?
Dan (Luka):it was.
Ellie (Akka):It was used to calm her as a child, right that's true, yeah, and and maybe like instead of incense, because I don't think we have any incense like handy right now.
Chris (Joseph):We could try burning like some tobacco, because oh, I mean smoking is calming yeah, evelyn, do you have any scented candles or perfumes?
Ellie (Akka):On you.
Intermission:In your pocket?
Timothy (DM):Well, it doesn't have to be right now. Well, I do have some things, because you've been kind of having your side conversation in the other room, you come back in.
Dan (Luka):I dig through their stuff looking for a glass cup.
Timothy (DM):I do have some things at home. What is it that you're looking for?
Chris (Joseph):Pleasant smelling things.
Dan (Luka):Something to burn, though, something that is pleasant when you burn it.
Timothy (DM):I do have some lavender oil.
Ellie (Akka):Oh, very relaxing, oh yeah.
Timothy (DM):If you're looking for, I have teas. Teas are potentially. Oh yeah, if you're looking for, I have teas. Teas are potentially. That works too.
Ellie (Akka):What about the thing where you like fill a glass with water and you like run your finger along the edge of it and it's like?
Dan (Luka):We would need a fancy wine glass. Do you have any?
Chris (Joseph):crystal goblets.
Timothy (DM):Thin-walled crystal goblets yeah, I actually do. Oh yeah, bless walled crystal goblets yeah, I actually do. Oh yeah, bless from my wedding recently.
Intermission:They were gifted by my great aunt. Oh, wow, wow, um so crystal is actually actually crystal.
Timothy (DM):Slovenian crystal is actually a really big import export yeah, how about that you did? There are really big crystal mines.
Dan (Luka):Isn't that Slovenian crystal?
Timothy (DM):Yeah, if you grab that glass. That is Slovenian crystal, so that was gifted to me by my grandfather. So for those of you who are just listening on the audio, it's a rather heavy crystal. It's got some weight to it. It's not rather heavy crystal, it's got some weight to it. It's not typically particularly thin and they really like this diamond crisscross pattern that they like to incorporate. But each of the grandchildren have one of those glasses and my grandfather had the decanter that matched them so we all had a piece of a matching set, so and you guys are a matching set
Ellie (Akka):um so yeah, okay, well, great so yeah, crystal's actually pretty common.
Timothy (DM):It's a pretty common wedding gift as well.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, okay, so it seems like we're covered from most of these perspectives.
Ellie (Akka):If there's anything else calming we could add it in.
Dan (Luka):But I feel like we're probably good. Do we want to split up our efforts to get this done, or at least to do it tonight? I can go with Evelyn back to our house to get the stuff that we need from there. We'll need chamomile from the forest. And then we'll also need to set up the altar.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, I can set up the altar while you look for chamomile Sure.
Dan (Luka):It's probably safest for you to be close to the lake than us. Yeah.
Ellie (Akka):I'll maybe wear the life jacket, just in case, but yeah and maybe. Well, you could also ask Gaspar if he has chamomile tea.
Chris (Joseph):If we don't want to look in the woods. I don't know if he would, given the state of his house.
Timothy (DM):Maybe he does. Evelyn will oh yeah. Since you are going back to her house for the crystal.
Intermission:Oh right, you can pop and get some tea.
Ellie (Akka):She does.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, she does have chamomile tea.
Ellie (Akka):Just try and grab everything relaxing from her house.
Dan (Luka):Evelyn understands the assignment. She'll, yeah, she'll be, she'll be good.
Ellie (Akka):Picture like spa day, picture like you know treating yourself, calming down, pampering cucumbers for the eyes candles evelyn is she understands a very big proponent of all of this self-care, self-care. Queen Love it Great, so yeah, she will.
Timothy (DM):It is getting rather late at this point. So, like you've been out, so you set out around just before sunset, so probably 630. You arrived at the cottage around seven, go out onto the lake, come back and you're drying off and talking and planning. So it's about 8 pm at this point. Um, so late, yeah, um, if, but in terms of like, uh, who's going to be awake? Awake or at each of these locations at night, to give you a sense.
Dan (Luka):Evelyn, will Jacob have normally gone to sleep by now?
Timothy (DM):No, he usually stays up kind of late. To be completely honest, it's usually about 10.30, 11 when I hear him come to bed.
Dan (Luka):So we could probably get in and out while he's in his study.
Timothy (DM):Yes, okay, I mean he might come out to ask us what we're up to. We should probably be a little quiet.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, we can be quiet, I can be quiet.
Ellie (Akka):Very good at being quiet.
Dan (Luka):I am very good at being quiet.
Timothy (DM):But, his study is on the second floor and so everything you're going to be grabbing is either in the entryway or in the kitchen? Yeah, so it should be pretty neat On the first floor, and she would typically be doing her own thing at this time of night as well so cleaning up after dinner, getting herself ready for bed, so it's not abnormal for him to hear her in the house and think nothing of it Sure, I just want to avoid him at all costs, yeah. I understand, fuck that guy yeah all right.
Timothy (DM):So, um, y'all are going to evelyn's house. Who was going to the church? Was somebody going to church? Nobody's going to church, were we?
Chris (Joseph):keeping with the crystal calming? Uh, because I imagine father mate's sleeping at this point yeah, I don't think not at the church.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, he'll be.
Chris (Joseph):He'd be at the person replacing the handbells, the whistling and the crystal.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, I think we'll be fine on that perspective so you're gonna go gather chamomile from the woods and I'm gonna set up the altar yeah, in case you don't have chamomile tea at her house. Oh, oh, she has chamomile at her house. Well, do you want to just come help me set up the altar? Yeah, I'll help you set it.
Chris (Joseph):I'll clean it up. I'll try to make it look pretty.
Ellie (Akka):We'll like hoist some rocks into a stack or something.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, we plan for dressing the altar.
Chris (Joseph):Dressing the altar Do you need a linen. Maybe you guys can get a linen at her house and we have candles Get candles, yeah, candles, linen.
Dan (Luka):Let's have a shopping list of things.
Chris (Joseph):Maybe we could convince Gasper to put her necklace there.
Ellie (Akka):Okay, yeah, but then you're the one who's going back with evelyn and I feel like you have the best rapport with gasper I don't think either of us are going to be able to convince him to put the necklace there oh, give it a try.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, we can try okay yeah, all right, so it's just luca going back with evelyn yeah, yeah, I think it makes sense, because I am the sneakiest yeah the group. So you've got your shopping list um. Are you sneaky? I am sneaky, oh unless you're.
Chris (Joseph):I am slightly worried that yakov is going to be like sitting at the door noticing that his wife is just not there and we're not there, and he's gonna connect the dots. Well, I'll go, I'll go with you, just because I'm a little nervous, and I'll wait outside in case something pops up okay.
Dan (Luka):Do you think you could be okay with the altar on your own?
Ellie (Akka):yeah, I can dress an altar okay, what is this grade school? Um, and I'll try and convince Gaspar to put the necklace on it, although I don't think he likes me very much we can wait until we all get back alright, we're off. I'm gonna go do rocks, stack rocks gorgeous.
Timothy (DM):So let's just do some rolls. So let's do a stealth roll, luca yep and then, oh gosh, what is the the role for making an altar and putting together a ritual? I have no idea. It's like um medicine I'm good at medicine, wait, what is inspiration? We've not used inspiration. What is it?
Ellie (Akka):what I have no idea um. Like so it's not like inspiration, like oh, I get to ask, it's like an emotional thing, yeah oh, empathy, oh yeah, so inspiration is a skill that nobody is all that interested in using.
Timothy (DM):It is the ability to address a crowd, encourage and guide your friends and create or understand works of art. Whoa, I think this is inspiration.
Ellie (Akka):Great, I'm okay with this. I have a feeling that nobody's agree at this, because no successes, nobody's bad altar.
Timothy (DM):Okay, so you start setting up a pretty basic altar. So like that's the situation that we're we're doing with you for the time being. Yeah, looks like you start, you go you collect a lot of the main materials and you go to the water's edge and you start like building a cairn of rocks crooked hey, cover it with a linen, it'll be just fine put anything like on top of the board.
Timothy (DM):It just kind of starts sliding slowly off and then you like put, you're just like trying very desperately to throw like some cloth over it, and everything is just kind of like slowly shifting out here in the middle of the freaking fucking altar. My ankles are all wet we can also do a manipulation roll to get that necklace from gasper I think I should wait until the others come back yeah, I can try, I'm not gonna.
Ellie (Akka):I see you just work on the altar.
Timothy (DM):I did cool, I did roll a success for stealth okay, cool, so um, and then give me a uh observation.
Chris (Joseph):Uh, joseph okay oh since you're just outside looking nothing, nothing well, is that observation is about people?
Timothy (DM):oh yeah, sorry, in uh vigilance, probably because yeah, let's do a vigilant. All right, let's do a vigilant. I really like that's that does throw me off a bit.
Chris (Joseph):Two successes I need to like relearn what observation is?
Timothy (DM):Observation is social. You said two successes, yeah, Okay for vigilance.
Ellie (Akka):Observation is kind of like insight, I guess.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, observation is the D&D insight With two um with two um. So you don't see or hear anything particular around, like jacob's not, not like they're waiting for you as you approach and you're like listening in um you can actually just like you see the light of the candle in the study on the second floor. Occasionally you hear like the creaking of his chair on the boards on the second floor. You can be pretty confident that he is up there, gotcha.
Timothy (DM):So, then Luca and Evelyn, they sneak into the house, they slink around the kitchen. You gather all of your things. You've got um, chamomile tea, crystal glasses, uh. You pick up some linens, some candles, um, and then, like evelyn grabs a bunch of other things for like safe measures. So she grabs some, um, I think we said lavender oil, rose water, all of these like really nice little floral um extracts.
Ellie (Akka):We're about to pamper the shadows, she of Zoya. She shows up and we're like sit down.
Dan (Luka):Oh, tobacco too. Can we grab some tobacco while we're here?
Timothy (DM):Yeah you can pick up some tobacco. Jakob is a smoker as well.
Ellie (Akka):Although that's more specific to the boy, Danoy, but can't help.
Timothy (DM):You also got some from Gasper.
Ellie (Akka):Oh, yeah Well, but that's on the boat Now you got fancy tobacco.
Dan (Luka):You got the good shit. Good good, okay, sneak back to sneak out, run back to the house get one of those like flower petal joints, you know and you all reconvene at the house um, or I guess you two reconvene the house with gasper and evelyn um.
Timothy (DM):You're at the as in aka is at the lakeside constructing the altar yeah, my hair is all like coming out of its braid, you know your sleeves are rolled up.
Ellie (Akka):My skirts are all. The hems of all my skirts are wet.
Timothy (DM):The rocks are still fine still so, uh, luca, give me manipulation to get the necklace from gasper can we borrow this I got one success one.
Timothy (DM):Um, he's very hesitant, but he you like explain what you're doing and that this is to give him time to talk to her. This is an opportunity he he eventually comes around to seeing, like this is an opportunity for him to talk to zoya after six years and upon that realization he will absolutely give you the necklace. He also gives you the like, the rag. Um he, I don't know if he had anything else, I think that was it uh, he also is like do you want the painting, the paint he goes over.
Timothy (DM):He goes into the side room where you saw the painting covered and you see that he, like, pulls off the white, and it's a picture of the two of them sitting at the edge of the water oh yeah, it's like a sunset. It's the most gorgeous fucking. It's like probably the last thing he painted before she died like it's this gorgeous sunset, the two of them sitting by the lake and just talking like they're facing each other. You can tell that they're talking and smiling. It's like a slice of life.
Chris (Joseph):Portraits joseph hides his tears as they roll out of his eyes um.
Timothy (DM):So he's like do you want this?
Chris (Joseph):yeah, obviously yes, yeah anything that could connect her to you.
Dan (Luka):I think would be important yeah yeah, anything to help her remember who she is yeah, gorgeous.
Timothy (DM):Um, and then that brings us.
Ellie (Akka):We all travel to the shore and we meet up with akka and now everybody is together as we see this don't say anything about my altar. I'm telling you right now.
Timothy (DM):With that we shall take a brief intermission to allow the shadows to deepen and the mysteries to simmer. For the next 15 minutes, immerse yourself in the atmospheric embrace of our interlude, whether you are watching our video, where enchanting fog scenes will drift across the screen, or listening along to the haunting strains of Slovenian folk tunes. Take this time to refresh yourself. Sip a glass of water, stretch your limbs and perhaps indulge in a small treat. Let the whispers of the land call to you as we prepare to delve back into the enigmatic adventure. Return soon, as the shadows await and the veil back me is foreign, foreign is Venite rošce moje zapustil fant.
Intermission:Je mene srcimi. Tuge vine, venite zdaj z mene. The rose-headed. And then everything went wrong. The whole world was going crazy. You're crazy, you're crazy. And the moon is in the clouds. You're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy. If there's nothing left to do, foreign. So the Cvice mi polje pokrylo Aj cvice mi milo drago pokrylo is. Oh, my dear, my dear, come to me, my dear, come to me, my dear. Come to me, my dear, come to me. My mother will fall asleep. No-transcript. The I will not forget you, I will not forget you. I will not forget you, I will not forget you. And when you come back, and when you come back, no-transcript, dance on fire, nobody else is.
Timothy (DM):Oh my gosh, wow, wow okay, this hurts. You're welcome a little prop comedy multifaceted over here again for those of you who are listening at audio.
Ellie (Akka):Dan had lit a lighter in front of the camera well, when you describe it like that, it doesn't sound funny it was very cool.
Dan (Luka):It was so cool, it was so cool.
Timothy (DM):So so, so cool, all right, hello, welcome. Um, we are back. We're so back with this actual play that we are focusing on. All right, all right. So Aka has done a wonderful job making an altar. By definition, we have collected a variety of calming spa day commodities, so we have chamomile, we have crystal glasses, we have willow, bark, mugwort, linens, candles and a gorgeous necklace a tattering of a dress found at the shore maybe not the most calming thing maybe not it could like remind her of her beautiful painting beautiful painting.
Dan (Luka):So, yeah, I think we'll'll set up all the things nicely on the altar, light the candles, I'll put a little lake water in the glass and start doing the. Is there like a thing we have to do?
Chris (Joseph):Yeah. So Joseph sort of guides the folks in the preparation of the calming, sleepy time tea. So you gather the leaf of the mugwort, the bark of the willow, flower of calamamil, so all those are crushed together and then steeped in water, place it in a bowl on the altar.
Timothy (DM):Would one of you like to take over the altar crafting?
Ellie (Akka):and Aka can do a medicine roll for preparing ingredients. I could try my hand at the altar, crafting yeah shore up the altar a little bit, because right now it's just gonna all fall in.
Chris (Joseph):We'll throw in some mud to sort of fill in the gaps between us. Do you want to help me and give me an?
Dan (Luka):extra dice? Sure, because I have four. What's your inspiration?
Chris (Joseph):Not to steamroll you, you just I have three. I'm very unsure that you're crafting.
Ellie (Akka):Well, I didn't get any successes, so I just I did get a success on the.
Timothy (DM):Thank you. All right, so that definitely does. I'd just like stick one rock under there to balance and be like it's great and then, just like the layout starts to come together a little bit more, you start to like put things in places and it all starts to feel more like an altar. It starts to have a cohesive vibe, the feng shui comes together, it starts to feel very aesthetically pleasing and balanced and it becomes a calming process in and of itself. The preparation of the ingredients is rather rudimentary. Sorry, akka.
Chris (Joseph):But she does it with aplomb. I'm not good at anything you learned twice today.
Ellie (Akka):Akka needs to retire retire I can use to go to the old folks you got still so much left to to do?
Chris (Joseph):apparently not we're not well anyway,
Timothy (DM):um, and then joseph is kind of guiding the whole thing. So sorry I cut you off, but what were you were telling everybody?
Chris (Joseph):oh, I was just. I was rehearsing with them the lyrics, the slovenian lyrics, of what this chant says so all right, yeah, what does it?
Timothy (DM):so what is the chant? Oh, it's actually in slovenian.
Chris (Joseph):Well, it's side by side. Oh okay, cool, cool, cool. Bizi, ame vas ad pus nam nač previnje, či je me obkojit dvoj kinev prozimta avor snami.
Dan (Luka):It's so Catholic. That was gorgeous, oh my god, it's very much a reading of verses?
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, it was pulled from the fresh print of some hymnal somewhere.
Timothy (DM):Okay, so let's do the English translation. And then I'm going to ask you to do that one more time without me interrupting you, because it was really pretty.
Chris (Joseph):Oh, water spirit, we call upon you Forgive our trespass. We wish to appease your anger. We beg of you, speak with us.
Timothy (DM):All right, and now Slovenian.
Chris (Joseph):Jump, monkey jump. I can only mispronounce these words so often. Fine, fine, okay.
Dan (Luka):I'm sitting there with my crystal glass. I'm also whistling the lullaby.
Ellie (Akka):I'm wafting the smoke from the candles.
Dan (Luka):Look at us. We ritual.
Ellie (Akka):This feels very ritualist For our first ritual. I feel like this is going really well, guys.
Chris (Joseph):I do think we're doing well joseph is dancing clockwise around the altar while he's singing oh great and we'll have evelyn and our evelyn, and uh, what's his face there as well gasper gasper, yeah, I think evelyn did. Evelyn came back all of her stuff is there.
Timothy (DM):She's in it for the at this point she's like she's like in it. She's like, wow, this is actually kind of cool. She's like really looking up to all of you. She's like this is exciting you can tell that?
Dan (Luka):she has this excitement joy behind her eyes. These guys really are professionals drop that man, like a hot rock, come work for us. I'm telling you joy behind her eyes. These guys really are professionals. Drop that man, like a hot rock, come work for us.
Ellie (Akka):I'm telling you right now all the ham sandwiches you can eat.
Dan (Luka):It's true.
Chris (Joseph):Dogs we got them. We got two of them.
Dan (Luka):Room for more, if you want, do we summon a terrifying water spirit?
Timothy (DM):okay, so, to set the scene, we've got a chant being repeated, um, and I think evelyn would be very happy joining in on that. So after you've said it a couple times, she starts to um, her voice adds to yours and if anybody else wants to add him as well, um, gasper is kind of sitting, not literally sitting, but like sitting at the edge of anticipation, like he is. He's like sitting at the edge of anticipation, like he is. He's like lost for words. He's wide-eyed, looking everywhere, like almost overly excited about this moment if he chases her off, I'm gonna be so pissed he does look like he's ready to spring at any moment.
Chris (Joseph):Maybe I can grab his hand.
Timothy (DM):So, yeah, you grab his hand and you kind of squeeze it a little bit and you see his posture relaxes a bit as he looks at you and then he begins to chant with you. He finally gets pulled into the ceremony and he's like okay, fine, I will participate.
Chris (Joseph):We gotta focus.
Timothy (DM):We'll focus. There's an array of aromas wafting through the air, the smoke just starting to billow up from this cairn of rocks, and then you have that all being overlaid with this sound of um ringing crystal, just like very quietly at first, building up into a resonant tone, just like a singular tone. That kind of becomes the like base of the chant and everything starts to kind of form and meld together with the melody line of the song. Melody line of the song and the sounds of crickets fall silent. It's as if nature itself has parted and this ceremony starts to become this all-consuming tide undertow of energy, kind of pulling you energetically towards the water.
Timothy (DM):All of your attention begins to turn towards the lake and it's like tunnel vision for the, for the five senses. All you see is lake bohemia. The stillness, the darkness, the chant and the tone and the melody line of the song fill your ears. The smoke of the burning herbs fills your lungs and your nostrils. It reaches out into the tips of your fingers and your feet. You feel it filling your body like a vessel and you can taste the sweetness of the honeysuckle on your tongue. Oh, I forgot, we did that, yeah.
Dan (Luka):Closest thing to Jasmine we can find. Yeah, pretty close Close enough, I think.
Ellie (Akka):I don't know if it's native.
Timothy (DM):And from the waters of Lake Bohemia you start to see a small ripple approaching the shore Gracefully, slowly and measured, until you see the surface of the water broken slightly by the crown of a head. The blonde hair streaked with algae begins to crest above the surface of the lake. Her forehead lifts the water beads down her brow and then the two hazel eyes, flexed with gold, begin to reflect the candlelight. Reflect the candlelight. Her form continues closer and closer to the shore. As she continues to rise, the water graces her neck, her clavicle and breasts, dripping as it. You see, her stride is slow and as she gets to the water's edge, the water lapping at her ankles, she stops, her chin tilted up slightly, her eyes almost mesmerized by the altar. You see the flicker of candlelight dance in her pupils and she stays there in stillness.
Dan (Luka):Casper, casper, it's your turn. Talk to her Calmly.
Ellie (Akka):Calmly.
Timothy (DM):Reserved. You can feel his hand clasped on yours, joseph, firmly. He gives it a squeeze. As he takes in a breath, you see him close his eyes. As he exhales, he swallows. You can hear the gulp in the back of his throat and as he opens his eyes, he begins to walk slowly towards her. Chris, do you have the letter he wrote? I do. Can I have that for a moment? Thank you, zoya Zoya.
Timothy (DM):Zoya, zoya, have been struggling to express how I feel and how I felt about you Six years ago. I thought I lost this opportunity forever, that I was reserved to capturing my feelings between the pages of paper in my notebook, in folded letters, in bouquets of daisies. The world feels so much colder without you here and my heart aches with a sorrow. Words cannot express. Words cannot express. I miss the days in which I felt as if I could express and capture the that your soul brought mine in the paint strokes of my canvas. But the love that I felt for you and feel for you cannot be destroyed.
Timothy (DM):I have waited for years to see your face again and now you stand before me. But it's not you. You are a reflection of the woman I love, corruption, of who she was. I miss you, zoya. Not a day passes that I don't long to see your smile again. Not a day passes that I don't long to see your smile again. Please Leave this. Let this go, and he falls silent. You watch as his cheeks become wet, with the moisture of tears brimming from his eyes. He reaches a hand out to the Rasulca that now stands before you all.
Chris (Joseph):What should we do?
Ellie (Akka):Let's wait and see what she does.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, you start to see glimmers of emotion build behind her eyes. She blinks and you notice her eye darts towards you. Akka, joseph Luca, evelyn Gasper. You start to notice signs of the charm cast upon her beginning to fade away and her autonomy returning. But then her eyes fall to.
Timothy (DM):Gaspar locked on him, a large teardrop begins to build in her inner corner of her eye, and then it slowly rolls down her cheek and more begins to build, until there is a steady stream of tears rushing down her face. And then and then she grabs Gasper's hand, presses it to her chest and smiles, her eyes still wet with tears. Before then, she begins to walk towards Evelyn.
Ellie (Akka):On guard, but yeah. Let her for now.
Dan (Luka):Yeah.
Timothy (DM):The tears turn to wails as she approaches Evelyn now, merely feet from her. Evelyn looks worried.
Ellie (Akka):Am I close enough that I can hold Evelyn's hand? Yeah, okay, I hold her hand.
Dan (Luka):Took the idea right out of my mouth. She got too high.
Timothy (DM):She got two hands so you clasp her hand and you give it a little squeeze, as this Rissoka now wailing at full volume, just inches from her face Zoya, wails of anguish, of sadness mixed with anger, mixed with pain, mixed with loss.
Ellie (Akka):Evelyn, do you know whose oil was?
Timothy (DM):I gathered as much. And then Evelyn begins to cry, her voice begins to tremble, her hands begin to shake as she collapses to the ground, to her knees, her body hunched over, her hand loose in yours, aka, and the wailing grows, joined now by evelyn, the two of them begin to grieve together, screaming out into the silence of the night. The sounds of crickets begins to return to you all.
Timothy (DM):The sound of the world begins to return, as now, the charm fully drops and you are now in the reality of their emotions. At the edge of Lake Bohemia, it is uncomfortable but cathartic.
Chris (Joseph):The two women grieve together for their shared loss and then you hear the sounds of twigs snapping in the forest behind you. Turn around.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, I reach for rosalinda I wrap my arm protectively around evil and you see, the moonlight hit the face of Jakob Lezik.
Dan (Luka):LFG, that's what I thought.
Ellie (Akka):This man is drowning the shoreline this man is fucking going into the lake and he's never coming back out you see he is angry, he has an offensive stance.
Dan (Luka):Oh, Luca's gonna get between him and everyone else.
Ellie (Akka):Thank you, Luca.
Timothy (DM):Alright, so we're going to do our initiative just for this scene, because this scene is going to get dicey. There's going to be a lot of moving pieces.
Ellie (Akka):I think we just have to get him close enough to the water that Zoya can grab him, and she'll finish her job for us yeah.
Timothy (DM):And everybody's going to have to make their decisions as we go Great.
Chris (Joseph):All right.
Timothy (DM):Aka, your initiative is that card Luca.
Dan (Luka):Nice.
Timothy (DM):Joseph Nice, oh nice.
Dan (Luka):We all go first.
Timothy (DM):Yay, we all go first On my right, I have a four for Jakob and a five for Gaspar, evelyn and Zoya.
Ellie (Akka):Great.
Timothy (DM):All right. So Jakob starts charging at the group. He is focused on zoya luca, you step out in front of everyone. Yeah, who? Who's gonna act first? Um, and as a reminder at the beginning of the round. You can swap to go in any order. It's really just like determining your positioning with the npcs I, luca, have taken the one card.
Dan (Luka):All right, because I'm number one um. The woods goes up to the edge of the um water right like is there like a small shoreline? That you're all standing on is there like a rock medium to big size stick I can pick up medium to big sized.
Timothy (DM):You can pick up a rock from the altar that feels a bit aggressive.
Dan (Luka):Luca listen, luca's looking to stop this man, not kill him.
Chris (Joseph):Joseph does not have the same thing well, that makes one of us.
Dan (Luka):I mean you do what you want.
Chris (Joseph):I'm gonna not be too hasty.
Dan (Luka):I mean, if not, I can go in with my fists.
Ellie (Akka):I mean we set up the altar around the point where, like we put the bow and maybe like one of the boat, oars is around.
Dan (Luka):Oh yeah, that makes sense oh yeah, can I grab an oar? Is that close enough to womp him with?
Timothy (DM):yeah, you can grab an oar.
Dan (Luka):Okay, I'd love to put him down implement um so it is attack with a melee weapon.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, because you didn't like. You are all like right at the same spot that you took the boat out. Um, so yeah, oh, you know the rules. You have an attack with a melee weapon.
Dan (Luka):Um, yeah, and I believe we realized last time that dodge is for ranged close combat is for it's um force or close combat to parry parry is the uh melee that's one success so one success so he can either use force or close combat to parry.
Timothy (DM):Okay, so he's going to use force. Jakob is a burly man, so he is going to roll four dice With zero successes.
Dan (Luka):Yes, he's getting whomped.
Timothy (DM):Oh my god die. Yeah, so you swing this oar straight into Jakob. What are you targeting on him? Are you targeting his head, the core of his body, legs?
Dan (Luka):We're going for the knees, knees, we're putting him on the ground.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, you're just trying to ground him. You are going to whack into Jakob. You're going to whack into Jakob right at the knees. He crumbles to the ground. You see his knees hit hard into the stones as you hear the stones crush into each other, his palms smacking into the ground as well, his palms smacking into the ground as well. Um, he is going to get a status of uh, battered hey all right, get wrecked. Who would go second?
Chris (Joseph):That's me, I. How do you feel, cause you, you, you need them.
Dan (Luka):Yeah, okay, I'm gonna try to rush in and tackle or pin them to the ground all right, sit on it.
Intermission:So you're gonna do a grapple, yes, and that's a force a grapple, that's my dude don't forget, pika helps you with your attacks right yeah, yeah, I got one
Chris (Joseph):success one success.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, okay, and um, I forget how these work. So do you only get one reaction per round? I?
Dan (Luka):that seems to make sense well we, we get one slow action and one fast action.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah reactions are a fast action it says when attacked, you can use your fast action to parry in close combat so because he already parried, he doesn't have another fast action.
Dan (Luka):He doesn't have another fast action. He doesn't have another fast action. Okay, cool.
Timothy (DM):So you tackle him now, pinning him to the ground.
Chris (Joseph):You said yeah, I got my legs wrapped around him, or I got my arms wrapped around him.
Timothy (DM):I was like we start doing some wrestling moves.
Chris (Joseph):I got pinned like a panther.
Ellie (Akka):Suplex half-Milson, full-milson which is banned Duplex half Nelson, full Nelson, which is banned. Whoa, in comes Yosef with that folding chair With the iron elbow. What's that?
Timothy (DM):All right, so you have him grappled. I think that brings us to Akka.
Ellie (Akka):Correct, yes. Yeah to aka correct. Yes, yeah, I'm going to try to get evelyn. I'm gonna. So the rowboat has been pulled up onto shore. I'm gonna try and get her behind the rowboat, like put it between her and like everything that's happening okay her away and be like stay, stay, stay back here we've got this we're professionals so she will go with you, but not after, like professing slightly she's like she does not want you to hurt yakub.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, so she goes to like she took to like call out to stop you, and then you kind of catch her off guard. She seems very conflicted in this state. She doesn't want a fight to ensue, but she also doesn't feel like she's in control of the situation, so she's kind of going with the flow. So you pull her behind the rowboat to safety.
Ellie (Akka):Stay here, stay low. We've got the situation under control. Remember when you did that insight.
Timothy (DM):You have advantage on strength checks oh, that's just strength checks in general yeah, when you worked out, yeah, yeah yeah, um, okay, so I'm gonna try to use or I'm, I'm not, I'm not jacob, please don't hate me. Everyone. Um, jacob is going to use his fast action to try to break free of your already.
Ellie (Akka):He already did it's now his turn oh well, let's see, oh, it's already around you get one fast action, one slow action per round and he already used his fast action okay, so he's going to use his slow action to break free.
Timothy (DM):So he will forego a slow action in order to break free. He does get two successes. Is that against my original one to grapple him? No, you will have to do another reaction in order to mean him. Hold him. Okay. Okay, there's a force again.
Chris (Joseph):Force, yeah, okay, yeah hold is a reaction so that will be your fast action now he breaks free.
Timothy (DM):Okay, so he breaks free. He rolls over in the the rocks um, and he stumbles to his feet. He now his, like he's turned to um, the three men that are in offensive positions against him, um, and he is kind of like crouched low. He looks like he's about to lunge um. And then a little color guard twirl of my fourar Gasper.
Timothy (DM):Gasper is actually then going to also charge at Jakob. So Gasper's gonna charge at Jakob and so that is going to be. They basically are two like evenly matched men in terms of physical stats on paper. Gaspar is going to actually roll zero successes. So as he charges at Jakob, jakob kind of sidesteps out of the way and Gaspar runs full force past him, tripping over himself as he has to catch himself from falling over. And then you see Zoya Zoya now, her hair almost flaring out as she whips around there's like a spray of water as her algae water logged hair just like whips water around. And you see these like sharp teeth reveal themselves as she shrieks and her claws almost elongate as she charges at.
Ellie (Akka):Jakob Get his ass. She's like unkillable, basically right.
Dan (Luka):Yeah.
Timothy (DM):Especially a human person. Yeah, um, so she's only gonna get one success but she rolled like 17 dice so but yakub is unable to react anymore at this point.
Timothy (DM):Like he's in this flurry of activity. He's being constantly targeted, he's spinning around trying to maintain his positioning and she is going to launch herself at him and she just latches on. You see her claws dig into his shoulder. He's going to get the wounded status. So that's two negatives. Yeah, yes, correct. So he's going to get the wounded status and you see blood start to form underneath his white shirt. So you see this red blotch around where she's clawed into each of his shoulders and she starts trying to like mash her teeth on him. Uh, that brings us back up to the top of the order. Would you like to do any treating?
Dan (Luka):I think I still want to go first yeah, I'm fine with that. Do I stop her not physically? How talk to her you can try I think we should try. What do you do? No, luca, what do you do? Oh?
Dan (Luka):sorry, we're in the middle of a fight, yeah I know oh okay, I'm gonna, I'm I am gonna try, um, I'm gonna walk up next to her put put my hand on her arm. I know she's latched into him right now and I just want to whisper in her ear he's not worth it. We will take care of him.
Timothy (DM):All right, so that is a slow action. Persuade using manipulation. So give me a manipulation roll. And that's what I love about this combat system is that there is so much more than just fighting actually baked into the combat system.
Dan (Luka):It makes a really dynamic play and I'm also going to say remember Gasper, leave with love alright, give me that manipulation.
Ellie (Akka):Two successes whoa, I can inflict her with a mental.
Timothy (DM):Yeah I frightened her who was so kind to me. Um, no, because the conditions are angry, frightened, hopeless or broken, I don't yeah those are going to actually set in with her no um, they're.
Timothy (DM):With father mate, it kind of made sense that he had a lot of stock in what you were targeting, um, but with her, those don't really make sense. So what you see happen is that she is going to grip into him even harder. But you do see this softness fall across her face, like a um, what? There's this, this like feeling when you want to just like destroy something, but you're like mentally conflicted and so you're like that type of emotion. I don't know how else to explain it. Um, but yeah, so you see her. She digs her nails in, but her face starts to soften. Is that Joseph next?
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, I kind of want to yell at Joseph what were you even trying to do here by sneaking up? I'm kind of flummoxed, you freaking idiot.
Dan (Luka):I wag my finger in his face. There were five of us.
Timothy (DM):Like what the heck he's like, screaming out in agony because he has ten nails digging into his shoulder deep enough to draw blood. Quickly, draw blood.
Chris (Joseph):I kind of want to pull him back out and try to like extricate him from Zoya's grasp.
Timothy (DM):Like, just like, rend him from her grasp. Yeah, give me a. Um, I think that's like a wrestle, push, grapple type of thing so force okay nope I don't do it all right, so you're like pulling him her nails.
Chris (Joseph):She's got those 10 inch nails.
Ellie (Akka):She got the mani. She's participating in.
Dan (Luka):Locktober. Because, she's locked on.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, we got the joke. Alright, I'll tell you. Would you like to save us?
Ellie (Akka):I hate, I want her to drown him. I don't want to be like, oh, maybe he can be redeemed.
Chris (Joseph):He's going to jail Through justice.
Ellie (Akka):Maybe he can drown that works too.
Chris (Joseph):It says as a slow action I can lure an enemy to a certain place. Who's the enemy that you're trying to lure?
Ellie (Akka):I want to lure jakob into the water all right.
Timothy (DM):Um, I think we're gonna have to figure out a way to role play that, but okay I mean I don't have to do it, I just saw it on the list but I'm absolutely.
Ellie (Akka):It's agility which I'm ass at, so, um, I probably won't do a good job anyway. Agility what?
Chris (Joseph):even is. There's not even that's a top one list.
Ellie (Akka):it's a top skill. Yeah, oh, I'm really bad at that, but I'm going to try because I want him to drown. I really really do.
Ellie (Akka):My goal is to improve public health, and I think the best thing possible to improve public health is for this man to die. Okay, okay. So I was just behind the rowboat with Evelyn and I sort of skirt around it. It's like the end of it is still in the water from where we pulled up on shore and I'm like in the shallows and I'm like come and get me, you coward, you're nothing, you're a fucking worm.
Timothy (DM):Okay alright, give me that agility roll. I feel like it's to be an agility roll.
Ellie (Akka):I mean, do you want to do manipulation?
Timothy (DM):instead because of what we're doing. I'm also not good at manipulation, but like manipulation might be what you do to get his attention and draw his rage and probably get Zoya's attention too, to get his attention and draw his rage, and probably get Zoya's attention too by just yelling.
Ellie (Akka):So no, successes.
Timothy (DM):So he seems unperturbed by your behavior.
Dan (Luka):He's also in excruciating pain.
Ellie (Akka):That's fine. Maybe I'll come stab him next.
Timothy (DM):So instead, what he is going to do is because zoya's claws are still in him. Um, he is going to grab them and try to pull her claws out with force. Um, and I think you said he has two penalty die yeah, so it's minus two to strength physical checks so he is screaming, he is in agony, he's just like he grabs onto her wrists and he's just like and he is going nowhere. Her claws are anchored in until it's her turn.
Timothy (DM):Oh gosh, yeah and she will like pull them out, and then you see that she just shoves him to the ground, or at least attempts to. Let's do that. Only one success again, but I think he has a reaction of only two die. He has a single success. So she pushes him and he like falls on his ass, but not enough to take damage. You see that he kind of like skids across the stones for a little bit. Evelyn is going to try to basically console and calm the situation by trying to talk to Jakob and talk Jakob down. So she's going to roll for manipulation, but he is in such a rage that her words do not resonate with him.
Timothy (DM):Alright back to you all.
Chris (Joseph):This is going to traumatize Evelyn.
Intermission:Uh.
Dan (Luka):Does anyone want to trade? Anyone want to go first?
Chris (Joseph):How do we defuse a situation? Uh, I don't know. I'm good with my position.
Ellie (Akka):I'm fine with mine oh great Okay. Maybe a little manipulation.
Dan (Luka):That, or I could just try and knock him out.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, that's true.
Dan (Luka):Give him a good bonk on the head. Yeah, good bonk on the head. Let's give him a good bonk on the head.
Timothy (DM):Alright, give him a bonk on the head. He really Um head. Let's give him a good bonk on the head. All right, give him a bonk on the head. He really um and you have strength I think one more knocks you out, is that how you have advantage on strength checks?
Chris (Joseph):is it three and you're?
Timothy (DM):down. What is it three? And you're down or do you have to go? I?
Chris (Joseph):think you have to get four total four, four total.
Timothy (DM):Okay.
Dan (Luka):Two successes. Two successes on a Double tapped A cat Close combat, so that's close combat right, yes, smack him in one side.
Ellie (Akka):the power around the other.
Timothy (DM):So an extra success on close combat is going to do a thing. You can decide to do one of the things your damage by one. Okay, outmaneuver your enemy, no, uh, which means you'll get to go again before he goes. Oh, no, it's okay, uh. Stress him creating causing a mental condition, push into another zone or make him, drop a weapon. If you want to just knock him out, you can by just increasing that damage by one, let's do it. All right.
Dan (Luka):Whack, whack.
Timothy (DM):He is. You just whack him over the head with a crack.
Dan (Luka):I like to think the orb breaks on his forehead.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, and he goes down with a thud and a clatter as the stones skid under his body. That was your turn.
Dan (Luka):That puts us out of combat, right? No, no.
Chris (Joseph):Because, Zoya's still.
Timothy (DM):Zoya's still kind of out for blood, oh, okay. Well, if she's, she's still in a pseudo-offensive state. Okay, she's softened enough well then she's not attacking uh-huh, but I want you all to continue with the round to navigate the situation.
Dan (Luka):I stepped back then.
Timothy (DM):At the end of the day.
Dan (Luka):it's her choice, Okay.
Chris (Joseph):Yeah, I'm going to say, zoya, I can't understand how much pain this man has caused you or this whole town or anything. I just know there are a lot of justified anger here. I I just know there are a lot of justified anger here. I support you in what you are feeling right now, but I think and I look to Evelyn this is a lot.
Timothy (DM):Can you give me a manipulation, oh goodness. And while you're doing that, Anka, what is your next course of action?
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, probably gonna slop through the shallows back over to Evelyn and support her.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, so you give her like an embrace and you.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, or just like grab her hand.
Timothy (DM):Yeah.
Ellie (Akka):Give it a squeeze, make sure she knows I'm like there on her side.
Timothy (DM):Yeah, she, um, there's like fear flashing before her eyes. There's fear flashing before her eyes. She is breathing heavily and almost like flight fight or fawn. She is fawn right now, where she's starting to hyperventilate. She's very unsure of her own course of action. Um, and you can give me a manipulation roll or or an empathy as well, yeah, so what is I got two, two successes on a manipulation. Oh my goodness.
Chris (Joseph):I'm learning the bad skills of social power.
Dan (Luka):No, they're not bad. These aren't bad. All skills are neutral.
Timothy (DM):You're helping someone feel seen and supported. Manipulation is a weird term for me to use.
Chris (Joseph):I'm assuming there's a translation thing it's like how charisma, like charisma translation, yeah um, that's.
Timothy (DM):That's something I have to keep in mind with all the way all of the words are chosen is that this is a translated text, so some of these are selected because they are the best um equivalency, but that might not be what they intended.
Timothy (DM):Um? So with two um, you can impose a mental condition again. We don't need to do that. It doesn't make sense in this situation. So you see that she now fully softens and she like turns to you with this sadness in her eyes, this like sadness as um, how did I explain this to myself? Sadness as a kind of like rigid kindness, or like a purpose, like a sense of purpose? So, like a sense of purpose. So she is feeling that sadness and she's letting herself feel it, but not consume her intentions. Uh, aka, what was your role?
Timothy (DM):no, success no oh my gosh, I'm so sorry that is what it is, if somebody wants to like, send Ellie some very baked dice for the next game she plays, please do these aren't even the green dice. I know we already switched out a set of dice.
Ellie (Akka):I need to buy a set of loaded dice and just put one in that's the name.
Timothy (DM):I don't know why I said baked, baked it. Well, you bake them to load them.
Ellie (Akka):Yeah, is that really yeah, you?
Timothy (DM):basically just melt them slightly.
Ellie (Akka):So that they so that they're weighted.
Dan (Luka):Oh, interesting, interesting.
Ellie (Akka):I'm about to start rolling a lot better.
Chris (Joseph):All six successes, oh my goodness, a lot better.
Timothy (DM):I'll say six successes. Oh my goodness, wow, you show up with like a flat puddle of decent. It's just a coin. They're all just on six, oh, anyways. So she is softening, she is starting to like pull her composure back together and I know we're like really coming up on that the time. I mean, we're a little over time for, uh, what we planned our session to be.
Timothy (DM):Um, I don't want to rush it, so I think we can have our resolution, our epilogue, next session all right so we are going to do, we're we're going to wrap it up here and we're going to do an epilogue next session. All right, um, because, yeah, we are right on the cusp, but I don't want to rush this resolution. I think this needs some, some breathing room.
Intermission:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, gorgeous, all right.
Timothy (DM):So yeah, yeah, yeah, gorgeous Alright, so let's say goodbye one more time.
Timothy (DM):As we close the curtain on this latest installment of Vossen's Slavinglands, the calls of the wild linger for next time. A heartfelt thanks to Free League Publishing for their steadfast support of independent TTRPG artists and creators through the Open Gaming License Rules and for crafting the rich tapestry of Vossen, especially to the talented writers Niels Hintz, niels Carlin and Richard Antoia for their exceptional setting guidelines. Our gratitude also extends to Tomas Herrenstram for the Year Zero game engine and to Niklas Lundmark for his crucial role in making this game accessible through translation. We also owe thanks to Nureya, whose haunting renditions of Jreyo, yijito and Andro have beautifully enhanced our intro sequence, and to our incredible players Ellie, chris and Dan, whose performances breathe life into their characters and craft the tales that captivate us. Finally, thank you, russell, for helping me prep for these sessions and for moderating our channel.
Timothy (DM):This project has been a profound journey, reconnecting with my heritage, a heritage disrupted by historical and personal trials, from the destruction of historical records during centuries of crusades and colonization and forced language barriers due to assimilation theory in the 60s and to the loss of my grandfather during the COVID-19 pandemic, my last direct connection to my homeland. My last direct connection to my homeland. For all of those like myself striving to reclaim and define their cultural roots. I stand with you. May you find grace, empathy and kindness in your journey. As David Mitchell eloquently wrote in Cloud Atlas, our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future. Thank you for joining us. Farewell for now, and may the echoes of the past guide you until we meet again next time. Nasvidanya Bye, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba next time, nasvidanya Bye.
Intermission:Bye ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶. Guitar solo ©. Transcript Emily Beynon.
