A Knight of Shreds and Patches Transcript
Season 3 Episode 23: Blood Frenzy
Transcript by Cameron Robertson
Intro:
[hurdy gurdy music begins]
Nick: Welcome, listeners, to A Knight of Shreds and Patches. An immersive actual play podcast. This episode features the talents of –
Penn: Penn Van Batavia as Marathon Messenger and Gwendolyn Rozenthall.
Kit: Kit Adames as Birdie Foundling and Vaus Foundling.
Cameron: Cameron Robertson as Emma Blackwood and Janus Foundling.
Sydney: Sydney Whittington as Cassidy Shard and Winifred Foundling.
Nick: Nick Robertson as GM and Narrator.
Sydney: Hello listeners, this is your editor, Sydney, with today’s messages:
Happy Thanksgiving! Even if you’re not American, ponder the things in your life that you’re thankful for, and in the spirit of Turkey Day, let me be the first (and perhaps only) this day to give you a hearty [turkey noise]. Enjoy the little things, like we enjoy you being here.
And if you need any more [turkey noise] in your life, consider backing our Patreon, which gives you access to bonus episodes, campfire conversations, and other fun rewards. There are all kinds of silliness in our blooper reels.
And with that, we wrap up today’s announcements and head into Season 3, Episode 23: Blood Frenzy. And so…
“Join us, for now our tale to yours attaches
To carry hope: a Knight of Shreds and Patches.”
[hurdy gurdy music ends]
[electronic beeping]
[robotic powerup noise begins]
Distorted Robotic Voice: Power restored. Systems online. Reconfiguring audio connection.
[robotic powerup noise fades to radio frequency static]
[over radio]
Penn (as Marathon): [mouth full of gauze] Last time on a Knight of Shreds and Patches, we went down to the fucking stinky ass fucking Guts to find some fuckass thing for Opal. Where then I got fucking hit by a fucking piston and I got the fucking shit in my mouth that Birdie put here and fucking walked into a fucking octopus fucking nest and uh yeah now we gotta fucking deal with this shit. I fucking hate it down here. Fuck!
[radio static]
Episode Start:
Nick: The Patina has entered a large open area in the Guts of Sasnak Traveling. Maybe at one point it was a giant cistern for storing water or coolant, but now it serves as a domed arena with large ballast tanks around the perimeter. On the far side, you can see where part of the walls have rusted away to reveal a abyss, a void with some walkways criss crossing it, but much more immediately, you can hear the wet popping noise as octopuses emerge from mucus sacks on the ground and the walls and begin their slow plopping way towards you. And I'm going to need you all to roll Initiative, please.
Cameron: I'm rolling two yellows.
Penn: I'm rolling one green.
Kit: I'm rolling two green.
Sydney: I'm rolling a yellow and a green.
[dice rolling]
Kit: A success and an advantage.
Sydney: Two successes and an advantage.
Cameron: Two successes, an advantage and a Triumph.
Penn: And I got a wash on the dice.
Nick: Okay. So with that Triumph Emma, is there anything that you would like to use that on before these octopuses attack?
Cameron: Are there any other doorways that we can see, or is it just too gloomy in this room?
Nick: It is very gloomy in the room. With your mechanical knowledge, Emma, you would figure, since this is some sort of storage tank, there's probably not a lot of entrances in and out. There may be some hatches and things for various pipe access along the wall, but those would be up higher and you can't see that far. And then on the far end there's a big, sharp hole.
Cameron: So for my Triumph, I would like for just, right as we notice these octopuses start coming towards us, just right next to Emma, there's a light switch.
Nick: Okay.
Cameron: And she can flick the light switch and turn on lights in this room so that we can actually see.
Nick: Sure. So as this horde of cephalopods is making its way towards you, you flip a switch, and there is a bright spotlight that is above the door that you came in on. You cast long, reaching shadows in front of you, but you see the room a lot more clearly. The downside is you can now see the extent of how many of these things there are. They almost fill the room. It is rare that you can see the floor in these clumps of octopus, there are so many. So first up is a player initiative slot.
Cameron: Emma is going to take a large step forward in front of the group and just do a big sword slash, trying to slice as much surface area as she can at octopus height.
Nick: Okay, go ahead and roll me a Melee attack at Easy difficulty.
Cameron: So for my Melee, I'm gonna have two yellows and a green, and I have the Quick Strike talent, so I get a blue die because the octopuses haven't done anything yet, and then one purple for easy.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: A Triumph, four successes, and a threat.
Nick: Wow, that's a lot. How much damage total is that?
Cameron: So 4 successes, plus 4 for my great sword, plus 3 Brawn, so 11. It's Pierce 1 and I Crit. How does critting on a group of octopus work?
Nick: So critting on a group of octopus, when you hit them, you are killing octopus because you're not really fighting individual octopus. You are fighting this nest of octopus as like an entity. So the crit will apply to the group.
Cameron: All right, let's see where we end up.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: I rolled a 70, which is Scattered Senses: the target removes all blue die from skill checks until this critical injury is healed.
Nick: Damn it!
Cameron: So they can't have blue die.
Nick: Okay, so because you have scattered this nest of octopuses senses, what does that look like? You have killed four octopus outright and pushed them back with the violence. There is bluish blood flying everywhere. How do you discombobulate the group?
Cameron: With the power behind the blow, as it is slicing through these four octopuses, it is throwing off other octopuses that were near the octopuses that actually got cut. So even though they're not injured from it, it does transfer some of the power to them and they fling off a little bit and I’ve basically disrupted their formation.
Nick: Yeah. So you disrupt the formation, Emma, and you realize, much to your horror, that part of the reason that you have disrupted their advance is because the octopuses that are covered in the blood of their injured compatriots turn and immediately begin pulling apart and devouring the injured ones and the dead ones are also quickly consumed. It appears that this nest is cannibalistic as well, and they get to go next. I need everybody to roll me a hard Coordination check.
Kit: I'm rolling two yellow, two green, and three purple.
Sydney: I'm rolling two yellows and three greens against three purples.
Cameron: I'm going to flip a Story Point. [laughs in uncoordinated] I'm rolling now with that Story Point flip, a yellow, a green, and three purples. [laugh]
Penn: I'm rolling three purple, two green, two yellow.
[dice rolling]
Penn: Just a wash. Sheesh.
Sydney: Two successes and two advantages.
Kit: Two successes, one threat, and a Triumph.
Cameron: A success, a Triumph, and a threat.
Nick: Huh. So with your advantages, Cassidy, would you like to spend those to assist Marathon and give her a boost on her roll? Because you are going to be diving out of the way of something, and Marathon failed, but with two advantages, you could give her two blue die to roll on top of what she already rolled and see if maybe it goes better for her.
Sydney: Yeah, that sounds like a great use of my dice.
Nick: Okay.
Penn: So since I was at a wash before I'm rolling two blue.
[dice rolling]
Penn: It is another wash.
Nick: So here's what is happening. You all become aware of the fact that above the tunnel you came in on and on the sides of the walls behind you, there were additional octopuses. They had been close enough to the wall that they were not illuminated by this big spotlight, and they, almost as one, began spitting big gobs of smoky colored mucus. It's like they inked into the slime that keeps them moist, and then have learned to shoot that out as some sort of trap for prey. Birdie and Emma are able to dodge out of the way. Cassidy is able to dodge out of the way and attempts to help Marathon, but Marathon is still going to be hit by this.
Sydney: As Cassidy notices these octopuses winding up, she tries to grab the pack on Marathon’s back and goes.
Sydney (as Cassidy): Marathon get back!
Penn: Marathon tries to jerk off to the side, following her pack back. And while it may not be obvious to the rest of the group, it feels to her as if the octopi bounce off of the spot where she was standing and continue towards her and Marathon's eyes go wide and her voice catches in her throat.
Penn (as Marathon): Dirt.
Nick: And you catch a big pile of mucus and it sticks to you, and you find that your footing is much less sure, almost immediately, as the bottoms of your feet have become more slippery. And you also find that your movement is slowed because it is sticking your clothes to themselves so you're simultaneously struggling with grip and stuck together. Mechanically that means you're going to have two black die on everything you do physically, until you manage to get that off one way or the other.
Penn: Marathons definitely gone incognito spy mode, like trying black turtleneck, black pants, and is now covered in mucus.
Nick: Having snared potential prey, the octopus are honing in on Marathon specifically at this point, and it is another player slot.
Kit: Given that Sasnak travels specifically around the Great Plains and there's a lot of crops with grains and corn, stuff like that - would you say that the most attainable fuel here would be ethanol, or ethanol based?
Nick: Well, Sasnak doesn't grow corn because it's not super efficient, but they definitely go past places that grow corn, and there are probably some settlements that distill that down into ethanol. I would say ethanol is like a seasonal fuel. You're not making enough that you would stockpile it for the year. If people are selling it, they sell what they have on hand.
Kit: So given that Birdie probably has purchased her own fuel slash flammable liquid to make things in Sasnak, would it be out of the question to use my Triumph to say that I have ethanol on me right now?
Nick: Yeah, you could have ethanol. You're not gonna be carrying, like, gallons and gallons of it, but you've got a couple of bottles for sure.
Kit: Okay, cool. So fun fact, the quickest way to anesthetize and euthanize octopuses is to use ethanol.
Nick: Interesting. How did you stumble into that?
Kit: Birdie remembers from a long time ago when Juno was still training one particularly ornery version of Biscuits and kept having to use a watered down ethanol solution to spray bottle it like a cat. It's mostly used as an anesthetic, but if you want to immediately painlessly euthanize an octopus, you dunk them in ethanol.
Nick: So with this new fun fact that I will never forget, you have probably two liters of ethanol, and you know that you can use that to knock an octopus out. You also know that the concentration is strong enough it would probably kill them, and you know it's flammable. So what do you want to do with that?
Kit: Birdie will take out both bottles of this ethanol solution that she has, and will basically shove one into Marathon’s hands and yell at her to start pouring it on the octopuses while she unscrews the cap to her own bottle. And will just start using the bottle to do a wide arc of the solution wherever she can reach. She's also going to pull out a lighter from her pocket, just in case.
Nick: Okay, these are fairly smart animals, and you happen to have the perfect tool to affect them, but also they are going to very quickly figure out what is happening and try to take it from you. So I need you to make a Brawl check at average difficulty. You can have two blue die because they are going to be going numb while they try to take this from you.
Kit: Okay, I'm rolling two green, two blue, and two purple. One success and four advantages.
Nick: Nice. So you do not have this bottle taken away from you. I think spraying this around as you are stepping forward and surrounded by octopi, you probably use about half of the bottle, but it is wildly effective. Anywhere this fluid touches after like a two second delay, you see that part of the octopus go pale white and just stop being able to move. If you get enough on their head, they just fall down. If you get it on their legs, they can't grab anything anymore, and you're able to keep the bottle away from them as they are trying to swarm you. What technique do you use to disperse this?
Kit: She's trying to just get in the widest of arcs as possible, so she's just swinging it around. And it looks a little silly, because ethanol is clear liquid, [laughing] so it looks like she's just pouring water on these giant octopuses, until, obviously, the effects are taking their toll. Unfortunately, she didn't bring a spray bottle head, nor is this bottle squeezable, so she pretty much is just trying to cast the widest net she can. So there's really no other option than that.
Nick: The good news is you don't get bitten or grappled or anything like that, which could have happened, so good move. And it's the octopus’ turn again. The group of octopus that had spewed slime at Marathon are coming in and just trying to wrap her up and bite her. Cameron, can you roll me a yellow and two greens with two blue die against average difficulty, please?
[dice rolling]
Cameron: Two successes, one threat.
Nick: Okay. So with two successes, Marathon, you are taking seven damage, mostly from the suckers just pulling at your skin, and a couple of them get close enough to try to bite you with their beaks, and for the threat, whoever goes next is getting a blue die, because they are very focused on Marathon. It's like they are fixated on her as a source of food for some reason.
Penn: As Marathon is bit by these octopuses, she grits her teeth and spits out the gauze as she brings her arms up in front of her and Soaks up five of this damage. Blood starts to dribble from Marathon's mouth.
Nick: And actually the octopuses are going again, so they are going to try to attack Birdie. But a lot of them can't move their limbs normally anymore, so that's gonna be one yellow and two greens at average difficulty, but with three black die.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: One threat.
Nick: Okay, the next person to go will have two blue die now. The octopus are ineffective. You can see Birdie, as they're clambering over some of the paralyzed octopus that anywhere that this liquid touches, they just lose control of those limbs, and that is something that is immediately very inconvenient for a creature made out of limbs. They are just not really able to get a hold of you or get even that close to you while you still have this ethanol anesthetic mix, and now it is a player slot.
Penn: Marathon, who now has one of these bottles of clear liquid tucked in one of her armpits, gives a little shout as she tears her arms from in front of her face, and while these octopi are scrambling on her, unscrews the cap of this liquid and peers over to what Birdie does and just starts shaking out the liquid onto the octopuses like she's throwing her drink on them.
Nick: The ones that are near you and are attacking you immediately start trying to reach the bottle and get it out of your hands.
Penn: And I think as Marathon realizes the octopi are catching on to this idea, she just takes a quick moment to douse herself over the head with some and I think it's then that she realizes that this is some sort of alcoholic mixture.
Nick: So Marathon, this is going to be a average Brawl check to keep them from taking the bottle from you, but you have two blue die as well.
Penn: I'm gonna be rolling two purples and two black against two blue, four yellow, and a green.
[dice rolling]
Penn: Five successes and an advantage.
Nick: Nice. So not only do you keep the bottle away from the octopus, but Marathon is wildly successful at impacting the number of octopuses that can attack her or her friends. So even despite being slimed with octopus mucus, you lay a swath of destruction.
Penn: Marathon, almost maniacally, starts tromping around, throwing this ethanol on octopi as she sees the power it has over them. She's wide eyed, and the corner of her mouth is kind of drooly dripping a little bit of blood as she marches in towards these octopus with this ethanol. As she taps into the adrenaline rush, she shouts with a twist of laughter,
Penn (as Marathon): I think it's over for these fuckers, y'all!
Penn: And she goes into Berserk, her eyes dilating just a little bit.
Nick: And up next in the order is Cassidy. You see Birdie throwing some sort of poisonous liquid around, Marathon has doused herself in it and is destroying a chunk of the octopus group, and the front has been very carefully kept clear by Emma and her very large sword.
Sydney: Cassidy's bow had appeared in her hand as soon as the conflict had started, but with the doorway being crowded full of people, and especially as they pulled back, she couldn't really get a shot out until everyone ran in. And now she's seeing that apparently Birdie brought poison that works on octopuses, and Marathon has dumped poison on herself, and somewhere in all of this, there are questionable decisions being made, and she's just going to shoot the octopuses that are approaching her team until the threat is gone, and then she can figure out how this situation occurred. And she grabs a big handful of arrows. I'll spend two Strain to activate my Rapid Archery talent, which lets me spend advantages to get multiple attacks, and then I will attack with my bow. What range are they at?
Nick: You have them from close to extreme range. You have plenty of targets.
Sydney: Okay, we'll go for the close range ones because it's easiest. So I'm rolling four yellows and a green against two purples.
[dice rolling]
Sydney: Three successes, five advantages, and a Triumph.
Nick: Okay.
Sydney: And each pair of two advantages gets me an additional hit with my Rapid Archery talent, which gives me Linked my Ranged Light skill, which is four, so I can do it up to four times. In this case, I'll do it twice.
Nick: Okay, so how much damage is that total with three attacks going off at once?
Sydney: So my bow has 8 base damage with my 3 successes, that's 11 damage. Times three is 33 damage.
Nick: That's pretty good.
Sydney: And I Crit.
Nick: Cool. Yep, that does a lot of murder.
Sydney: All right. And I'll go ahead and roll my Crit. That's a 40. And then plus 10, because they've been Crit on once already, is a 50 for Head Ringer: which increases the difficulty of all Intellect and Cunning checks by one until those critical injuries are healed.
Nick: Hmm. Made them dumber. Interesting. So the Head Ringer Crit is that one of the arrows that you shoot pierces through some of the targets and strikes off some of the extra tanks along the walls and starts a high pitched reverberation that seems to impact the octopus and make them more frantic. Otherwise, you are able to lay death in front of you.
Sydney: By waiting until her team was out of the way and whatever this poison is seems to be effective, and the octopuses start slowing down - it almost turns into just target practice for Cassidy as she works her way across the field like she was just hitting hay bales with arrows. One after another, these octopuses are impaled and drop. And the biggest threat to anything here is that she puts out such a volume of fire uncontested that her stock of arrows drops lower than she would have expected for how long into the fight they are, and she will need to make sure that she retrieves her ammunition before they continue past this room, because there are bodies with holes and arrows on the far side of the room where they over penetrated, because octopuses were a lot squishier than humans or hay bales. And fortunately, too, all of her rehab exercises to re-strengthen her shoulder after all of her gunshot healing, everything seems to be doing well, and while she hasn't done a combat exercise since everything has pretty much healed up, it feels good.
Nick: So the horde of octopus have reacted to this sudden onslaught of violence in that they are changing tactics. They also seem to have woken up and are starting to approach this differently after so many of them have been killed so quickly. So now what is happening is the close area in front of you all has been cleared by a combination of poison and sword swipes and bow shots. And then the area towards Marathon's edge of the group has also been pretty much completely cleared and partially up the walls has been completely cleared because of Marathon’s efforts with the ethanol as well. And we are back to the top of the order. The vibrating of this tank that is causing the octopus to be more frantic is joined by a high, keening wail from this group of animals in unison as they begin to pile up on top of each other, rolling towards you in a horde. And it's a player turn.
Kit: Birdie is just going to weigh her options really quick. Look back at Marathon, realize she's covered in very flammable liquid, and then weigh her options again, flick open her lighter and toss it.
Nick: Okay~.
Kit: She'll try and toss it at least six feet away so that she can have time to back up.
Nick: Yeah. So this will be a Ranged Attack, just to factor in where this needs to land compared to if there's a trail of fuel leading back to you or to Marathon. I am going to flip a Story Point to upgrade the difficulty of this so it will be average, but it'll be one red and one purple.
Kit: I'm rolling three yellow, one green, one red, and one purple. Three successes.
Nick: So how much damage do we think fire does?
Kit: Molotov damage - plus six.
Nick: So that's nine damage. That's pretty good. And I'm gonna go ahead and say that their Soak isn't effective against fire. Seems like they would probably not do very well against being set on fire. So
Kit: She throws her lighter down and manages a considerable distance from herself, but still hopefully, where she was splashing the ethanol solution. And it takes a second to catch and Birdie panics before all of a sudden, about three octopuses just go pfoom and it starts catching very quickly, and Birdie has to move a little faster away than she thought she would have to. She's mostly focused on trying to get Marathon out of the line of fire, quite literally, that's about to very quickly encroach on them.
Kit (as Birdie): Gotta go. Gotta go, Marathon. Marathon!
Penn (as Marathon): [frenzied] Yeah?
Nick: So there is now a large circle of fire close to the middle of this room. There is suddenly the smell of burning seafood and oily smoke begins to fill the space, not enough to block your vision, but it is unpleasant. And you hear the sound of tearing metal and a screech and out of one of the tanks that is lining the side of this much larger tank, you see a section being peeled back and an octopus that is roughly 10 times as big as all of the other octopus comes splurging out. You didn't think octopus could roar, but if it could this one would. Many of the smaller octopus begin to pull back as this much larger one is slapping them out of the way and charging at you. You are reminded of the bison that you helped to herd with the Rust as this octopus that must weigh several 100 pounds, begins to charge all of you, stomping through the fire as though it is no big deal. You can see bits of its skin turn white as it steps into parts of ethanol that aren't burning, but the amount that is touching it isn't enough to slow it down, and it is the giant octopus’ turn now. It goes tearing across your battle formation, passing everybody in an attempt to grab Cassidy and pull the bow out of its hand. I need you to roll three yellows against whatever Cassidy's Defense is.
Sydney: So I have two Melee Defense, which is two black dice, and then I'm also gonna spend two Strain to upgrade the attack twice with my two levels of Dodge.
Nick: Okay, I will flip the other GM Story Point to also upgrade. So it'll be three yellow and a green versus two red and two black.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: Two successes and three threats.
Nick: Okay. Cassidy, this large octopus jumps at you, which you've never seen an octopus leap before - that's new, and latches onto your chest, pinning your arms to your sides, and does eight damage to you.
Sydney: I Soak a whole two of it.
Nick: Ouch. And your arms are currently restrained, so you are going to have to break free before you can do stuff with your arms. As it's latched on to you, Cassidy, with those three threats, its most vulnerable parts are exposed to the rest of the group and if someone wanted to take a shot at it, they would be able to get it real good. They would be able to significantly damage it. So it is now a player slot. This giant octopus has latched on to Cassidy, and there is still a decent sized horde on the other side of Cassidy from the rest of the group that is starting to rally around this much bigger octopus.
Cameron: Um hello, I would like to slice this giant octopus off of my friend, please. I did have a Triumph previously, so what I would like to request my Triumph have ended up being is, pairing it along with Birdie’s, where my sword has been covered in ethanol.
Nick: Yes, so I will let you do basically a damage multiplier for having your sword covered in ethanol, and you can do that as part of this action for sure.
Cameron: So as this fight has been ongoing and ethanol has been being flung about by both Birdie and Marathon, Emma has just been continuing to try to keep the field in front of them fairly octopus free. So has just been swinging her sword essentially back and forth like a lawn mower taking out octopuses. And as a result of this, the blade of her sword has ended up with quite a bit of ethanol just getting splashed on it as she happens to cut an octopus as ethanol hits it, and as it’s being splashed everywhere, but as she notices this massive octopus come out and latch on to Cassidy, she turns away from her basically just keeping the minions down path to go and try and free Cassidy and and as it's latched onto her front, kind of just gonna try to slice its fat head off. So just a swing from tall down.
Nick: Okay, let's see how that goes. You will have three blue die on your attack, because this thing is very exposed.
Cameron: Just to try to be as effective as possible, I'm going to flip a Story Point to upgrade my check, because this octopus is perfectly placed for not being able to do anything to me based on what I'm about to do. So I will be rolling three yellow, three blue, and two purple.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: Three successes, a Triumph, and a threat.
Nick: Okay. How much damage is that?
Cameron: 10 damage, Pierce 1, plus whatever my ethanol multiplier is.
Nick: Yeah. So, because you are now basically applying ethanol internally, you are going to do double damage on this blow. So that is 20 damage, Pierce 2 which doesn't kill this thing, but it does knock it loose from Cassidy, and it is bleeding profusely. You can see that its legs are not moving cohesively anymore, as this octopus is now basically two smaller octopuses, both trying to fight you.
Cameron: And I am also going to Crit on it. Does this octopus count as part of the other octopus, or is this a separate octopus entity?
Nick: This is a separate octopus entity.
Cameron: All right, I got a 56, Agonizing Wound: the target increases the difficulty of all Brawn and Agility checks by one until this critical injury is healed.
Nick: That sucks. Okay, so that octopus is not doing well, that feels very appropriate, and it is weaker now. And now the horde is going to go, and the remainder of this hive of octopuses is not interested in getting into the personal space of this big one, and they swarm around Emma and Cassidy and the large octopus like water around a stone in a stream and pile towards Birdie as she is the next one closest to them, ignoring the ethanol around Birdie on the ground and attempting to subdue her.
Kit: I have two tiers in Dodge, so I'm going to spend two Strain to upgrade the check twice.
Nick: So it'll be a yellow and two green versus two red.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: A success and a threat.
Nick: Okay so that is going to be six damage coming at Birdie. And these octopus are starting to try to take your backpack from you and your patches. They're biting at all of the straps they can reach. So the big octopus is going to take the last slot of the round. The big octopus is going to try to attack Emma now, since she almost cut it in half. It is attacking you and it is not as strong because you Crit on it earlier, so it will have two yellows and a green against your Defense.
Cameron: So I have two Melee Defense, so that's two black dice, and then I have two ranks in Dodge, so I'm going to suffer two Strain to upgrade this difficulty twice for this octopus.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: One success and three threats.
Nick: Gosh darn it. It is going to do exactly to you what it did to Cassidy a second ago, and it is going to launch itself at you. You see its wound tear open a little more as it leaps. It is not comfortable, but it hits you for six damage, but it is wrapped around you and you are restrained.
Cameron: So I have the Parry talent, so when you suffer a hit from Melee, after the damage is calculated, but before Soak is applied, I can suffer three Strain to reduce the damage by two plus two- my ranks in Parry, which is two.
Nick: Okay, so you're taking no damage.
Cameron: Well, yes, because I am setting myself up for the other thing I want to do.
Nick: Okay?
Cameron: So then we go to my Parry (improved) talent. So I use Parry to reduce damage, and then I can spend a Despair or three threats from the attackers check to automatically hit attacker once with Brawl or Melee, hit deals base damage plus damage from talents and abilities.
Nick: God damn it. And you still have that ethanol bonus.
Cameron: Mhm. So I’m gonna say when it jumped at me, it caught my sword up against me. I'm going to push my sword out to slice at it, so the base damage of it will be seven, plus the ethanol.
Nick: The ethanol is used up on your sword on this one, because you have bathed it in the octopus’ blood, but you do kill it. By it attacking you, it has died. So that's great. That's cool. You have killed this octopus as it leaps at you. How do you finish it off?
Cameron: So it leaps at Emma, doesn't fully make contact with her chest yet, but latches arms around her back to where it would then just be pulling itself forward to hit her chest where it could do damage, and Emma's sword is between her and the octopus, and the octopus pushes the sword towards her as it comes, and so before the octopus makes contact with her chest, she pulls the sword down in a forward motion to just detach it from its arms on one side, and then just pushes it off of her, disgustedly.
Nick: It slumps to the ground. The frantic motion of the remaining octopus in this room increases yet again. You can feel a hum in the air as they are whipped into a blood frenzy. Some of the ones that were streaming around you all to avoid this big octopus now that it's dead, start gorging on it, and after they've taken a few bites, have stood up on the tips of their tentacles rather than laying flat like they were, and are now moving faster. And it is another player slot.
Penn: As this big octopus goes down, Marathon flicks her head with a mad grin over to where it has fallen, and sees these little tentacled freaks start to rapidly approach the rest of the Patina, and still reeking of ethanol, she just abandons the few octopuses she's still bullying over on her side of the room and just dead sprints over to start soccer kicking these octopus against the wall. She gives herself a little bit of a speed boost on the way, letting her grav skates take care of a lot of this distance involved in getting over there.
Nick: Yeah, so go ahead and roll that Brawl attack. It is at two difficulty, but with two black die and it is upgraded because these octopus are in a feeding frenzy right now. So it'll be one purple, one red, and two black.
Penn: Okay, so I've got one purple, one red, two black versus four yellow and a green.
[dice rolling]
Penn: Because my Berserk gives me an extra success and two advantages, I have an end result of one success, two advantages and a Despair [said despairingly]. Actually, with my Natural talent, I can re-roll Brawl once per session. Re-rolling my pool.
[dice rolling]
Penn: Five advantages with my Berserk talent, two successes and a Triumph.
Nick: Okay, what is the Crit rating on your brass knuckles?
Penn: It is Crit 4.
Nick: Okay, so with that Triumph, you could Crit plus 40 because you have enough to do two Crits, and it's already been this horde has been crit on twice already. And then how much damage is that? It’d be your successes plus your Brawn plus your knuckles.
Penn: 2 successes plus my Brawn is 6, and then my brass knuckles are plus 1, so that's 7 damage and Disorient 3.
Nick: That sucks. Okay, so you could either use three of your advantages to activate Disorient and then have two more advantages, or you can spend the four of them to have another plus 10 on your Crit.
Penn: Let's just Crit these octopus
Nick: Okay, so roll that crit plus 40.
Cameron: So I rolled a 60. So if it's plus 40, 100 - this Crit is one that we have renamed Debilitating Wound: one of the target's limbs, selected by the GM, is impaired until this critical injury is healed. Increased difficulty of all checks that require use of that limb by one.
Nick: Huh. Well, that's a little bit different when it is a group of eight limbed creatures. As it applies to this a decent portion of this group breaks under the onslaught and the poisoning and the death of their alpha and scurries up into the shadowy recesses of the ceiling where the light doesn't quite reach and appear to have run away. There is not as many of these left.
Penn: Right, we see very kinetic frames clipped of Marathon connecting with many different octopuses in various ways in front of the toe of her boot as she kicks, on her heel as she stomps, and plenty going flying as she performs uppercuts, and at one point we see her comboing an octopus a couple times in the air as she punches it before sending it away, streaming slime past Cassidy.
Penn (as Marathon): Messenger’s back, baby!
Nick: So Marathon, as you have removed yet more of this population, these wild animals have realized that this is not a meal, and even though you have invaded their nest, they have decided to run and live to fight another day. So you all see the rest of these disengage and start to crawl up into the vents. Cassidy, one thing you notice is that one of the octopus has wrapped its tentacle around one of your arrows and is dragging it after them and pulling it into the vents.
Sydney: As this one tries to take this arrow away, Cassidy pins it to the wall with another shot.
Nick: Yep. And the other octopus skitter away from your remaining arrows, and you find yourselves alone in a room with octopus corpses and empty mucus sacks and the fading echoes of violence that you have managed to actually keep very quiet this entire time, and the flickering blue flames of ethanol fire burning itself out on one side of this tank.
Sydney: Cassidy immediately starts going through the business of pulling her arrows out of these corpses, and is letting combat adrenaline bleed off before she has things to say.
Kit (as Birdie): Um. Nobody got on fire? Everyone's good?
Cameron (as Emma): I'm good.
Penn: Marathon walks over pretty quickly after having chased one last octopus as they tried to scribble away, and wipes some blood off of her mouth with the back of her wrist, while she's breathing really fast and deep.
Penn (as Marathon): Yeah, no, we're - I’m all - what is this magic octo repellent, Birdie?
Penn: And Marathon's starting to shake her head to try and get back to lucidity.
Kit (as Birdie): Well, it's ethanol, like, why did you pour it on yourself?
Cameron (as Emma): Can you not smell it?
Penn (as Marathon): I could smell it now.
Penn: And Marathon, her eyes flitter, and she falls to a knee real quick and she has lost six Strain now that the battle is over.
Kit (as Birdie): Are you? Are you okay? You good?
Penn (as Marathon): No, yeah.
Penn: Marathon pops back up and spits out some more blood.
Kit (as Birdie): Ooh~.
Penn (as Marathon): It's uh, all I can smell is ethanol, which is better than a lot of smells that I've had down in this stinky ass sewer. So
Nick: As you all are checking in, you hear the sound of boots on metal gratings and voices echoing down from one of the hatches further up the side of this tank, where, now that there is a spotlight in here illuminating it, it is very clear that there are other entrances further up, and one of these hatches is open, and you hear a voice say,
Nick (as Drain Boy): It looks like somebody must have aggravated that nest. We better go take a look.
Penn (as Marathon): Oh, shit. Dirt!
Nick: And it sounds like you may have been overheard by some patrolling Drain Boys.
[hurdy gurdy music swells]
Outro:
Penn (as Marathon): Welcome back folks, you’re tuned to Going the Distance: Traveler’s Guide on road dial 1558. That’s a wrap on today’s log and we’re set to loop after these considerations. Further detail for the following is cataloged in the show notes.
This has been A Knight of Shreds and Patches, an actual play podcast using the Genesys game system from Fantasy Flight Games. The show is edited by Sydney Whittington, and features the talents of:
Kit Adames as Birdie. Kit can be found on Twitter and Instagram @ venusvultures. Kit is also a voice actor for Elevator Pitch Podcast, a queer genre-hopping anthology podcast that can be accessed on Spotify and YouTube.
Penn Van Batavia as Marathon. She can be found on Twitter @ acquiredchaste and in drag as horror king JOHN on Instagram @ john.is.risen. Penn is an indie TTRPG designer whose most recent work includes SLICE IT OUT, a grisly carving RPG about cutting pieces of yourself out to fit in. Check out faer other work at pennharper.itch.io.
Sydney Whittington as Cassidy. Sydney can be found on our Discord server, which is linked in the show notes, and on Twitter @ sydney_whitt. She’s also a contributing editor and occasional guest player for the Orpheus Protocol, a cosmic horror espionage actual play podcast.
Cameron Robertson as Emma. Cameron can be found on Twitter @ midnightmusic13 and on Instagram @ reading_and_dreaming. Cameron is also a player on Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars Edge of the Empire actual play podcast.
And Nick Robertson as narrator. Nick can be found on Twitter @ alias58. Nick is also the GM for Tabletop Squadron. Nick can also be found as a player on the Orpheus Protocol.
This podcast features the musical talents of Dora Violet and Arne Parrott. You can find Dora at facebook.com/doraviolett. You can find Arne at atptunes.com.
The official artwork for this podcast was created by Rashed AlAkroka, who can be found on Instagram and Artstation @ rashedjrs.
You can follow the Patina on Twitter @ akosap_podcast or visit the website: www.akosap.com. To further support the show, consider joining the Patreon at www.patreon.com/AKoSaP, where we’ll be bringing you weekly content including bonus episodes, campfire conversations, and other fun rewards.
Until you tune back…
…stay bold and stay kind
Comments