RPX Rollup - Episode 22 - The Secret World SWADE

[00:00:19] Welcome to the Roleplaying Exchange. We are doing a rollup. So, last time on Rollup, we did the Secret World 5th Edition edition. The D&D 5e version. And now that my would-be character creators and players and bees have struggled through the hell that is 5e character creator, I've gotten the Savage

[00:00:46] Worlds Edition of The Secret World. So we're gonna give those rules a try to see how the character- see how easy or how hard it is to make a character in that setting, compared to the 5e version. So yeah. Also this is Chris or Crazon, Review Cultist. Nyarlathotep really. A man of many names. So. Wait a minute, this whole time you've been Nyarlathotep and you didn't tell us? I wear many masks. Did you not see him with a skateboard?

[00:01:16] That sounds like we're getting introductions and in Discord order. Damn it, I'm first again, Adam. So anyway, hi, I'm Brownie. That's it. You haven't talked about our characters yet. Yeah, he's Brownie. Not cupcake, not cookie, not bear claw, and never sprinkle. It's Brownie. What about donuts? I will accept cupcakes, the same number of letters.

[00:01:40] Also, Adam, I require you to have that pregnant pause that was like, hi, my name is Brownie. That's it. I won't prepaid it. It'll be fine. Yeah. If we're going in Discord alphabetical order, this is Jeremy. Yeah. D20 was rough. Savage Worlds seems like it's gonna be a lot easier so far, at least on its face. So I'm hoping so. We'll see what happens. Maybe this one won't take three hours. In Discord order, next is me, Joe.

[00:02:09] I have played Savage Worlds. I was not in a prior roll-up, but I'm in this roll-up. Yes, Joe is tagging out for, or Joe's tagging in for Darcy who could make it to this. That brings us over to David. Yeah. What? I'm not last? I don't know. Oh, God. It's those devil horns, Adam. Yeah. You and your emojis. Kids these days, I swear. Well, son of a bitch. The hippity hop music. You and yo hippity hop.

[00:02:39] So hi, this is David. I'm gonna be reprising the same role that I did in the other one of the barista who has no idea how this happened. And last, I, this is Adam. I have devil horns before my name in Discord. Therefore, I go last because apparently the devil goes last. So anyway, hey, how's it going? I am going to be redesigning Verne Gosden. He was a Ravanger and a Templar. So I'll just see how this goes.

[00:03:08] Brian, what are you going to be redesigning? I'm reprising my, my role from the last roll up as a damn octane, which is basically Vin Diesel from the Fast and Furious movies. And I decided to switch up mine because the D20 version and the Savage Worlds version have two different types of Punisher. So I switched from Punisher over to Gunslinger. That is interesting. I might have to like make a Punisher now for this. I wanted to make a Punisher.

[00:03:37] It said everything was, everything was hammer focused. So not so much. Yeah, I'm gonna actually make a character. Who's who's a guy was Rishaj in that? Is that mine in the in roll 20? I hold on. Let me take a look. I haven't been in roll 20 yet. That might be the once in future David. It might be. Okay, then I can make a new one. I'll make another character. Sorry. I bet.

[00:04:05] To be fair, I was. I've mostly been plugging into this lovely form fillable sheet that we've got from Pinnacle Entertainment. Oh, I know who I'm making. Oh, I'm gonna make the Turkish guy from from the Olympics. Oh, yes. Oh my God. Yes. He is being gunslinger dad. Oh, that's awesome.

[00:04:34] Yes, I approve wholeheartedly. No. You're not gonna use like a jeweler's glasses to shoot. No, I'm gonna roll out of bed and hope for the best. In fact, I, I, I, I require you to get make that your, your characters like his, his picture is his avatar. Yeah. I may even look up the anime version that they found that people drew of him. Oh my God. That's awesome. Chris, what do we need?

[00:05:03] It's so we already know the lore basically for those of you following at home. And you might want to listen to the first one since that covered pretty much it, but maybe an elevator pitch for Savage World real quick for those that haven't. Savage worlds or secret world? Secret worlds. Savage secret worlds. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, secret world. Like the pitches it's the modern day. Everything is true. Like folklore, legends, creep, creep pastas and, and, and conspiracy theories. They just have like, they're there.

[00:05:31] They may not be exactly how they were, how they are presented normally, but there is some inkling of truth in most, in most of them. The world is secretly governed by three large factions, the Illuminati, the Templar and the dragon. But that's really just on the surface of things because the world and reality itself is, is powered by Gaia, the immaculate machine, the, the world engine basically.

[00:05:58] Uh, and it is there to keep the dreaming ones, these Eldritch horrors in check and continue to sleep because if they wake up, they're going to eat. They're going to start eating stars, including our son. And they'll probably like destroy the earth, but Gaia, Gaia has a, Gaia has a sort of a backup plan.

[00:06:17] So instead of like just rebooting the world and get it going into, into the next age, she sends out these little like magical bees and, uh, that, that infect people are basically like people will ingest these bees while they're sleeping or what have you.

[00:06:32] And those people will become imbued with the power of Gaia anima, which is just the term, the settings term for magic or raw magic and are then certain hearing voices in their heads from Gaia, like transmissions in a buzzing format. And those people then are charged by this cryptic God machine to go on missions and, and deal with things to try and stop the, the, the corruption that is the elder ones and the, the dreaming ones.

[00:07:01] And then they usually end up getting picked up by the various big secret factions. So you have to kind of contend what your, your player is a B of this, the semi immortal being that has to contend with both a God machine in your head and orders from whatever secret society has picked you up for your powers and abilities. So this, in terms of the, their, their, their situation, the Templar are basically the big, bad, the big, bad secret monster hunters.

[00:07:31] They, well, I say big, bad, but they're really like, they're, they, they're, they see themselves as like paladins and, and just beings like doing it for the greater good. The Illuminati are basically the big corporation sort of like manipulators. They pull the strings from, uh, from behind the scenes. They want to run the world, but from, from the shadows. And then there's the dragon, which are a faction that wants to make change with small, with small seeds.

[00:07:59] So like set off one, one event that will cascade to a larger goal and event, uh, using chaos theory. Basically they want to control the world through chaos. And then there are a bunch of other little, like, again, a bunch of cults and secret factions that sort of just kind of mingle around as well in this secret world or, uh, ecosystem. And you as players find yourselves caught up in the middle of this new secret world for you, uh, for you to, uh, to navigate.

[00:08:29] So how's that for a pitch? I mean, we went up maybe to apply just an elevator, but we got there. No, it's a lot. It's, it's a lot. It's go, go check out secret world legends, a free to play MMO version of the secret world. The paid MMO from the 20, from 2012. There is hundreds. There's tons of lore online that you can find, uh, on either a Wikipedia article, a Wikipedia page or YouTube channels that have like secret legend lore and stuff of that.

[00:08:59] So yeah. Yeah. That sounds good, man. I am. I always liked the sounds of secret world when it was the MMO or MMR peach, whatever the fuck, you know, as a game. And so, yeah, one thing I actually will also bring up. So the, the tabletop RPG version is set 10 years after the events of the MMO, which was set in 2012.

[00:09:20] So we've got basically it's 10 year gap or 10 years of advancement in the, in the plots and stuff that from the previous game are from the MMO games like lore and world and such. So, but yeah.

[00:09:32] And yeah, the, the studio that made star anvil studios who got the rights to make the tabletop RPG after they released the fifth edition version through Kickstarter, they then did a, they then immediately did a Kickstarter for the secret world savage, a savage worlds edition, which seems to be the one they really wanted to do first, but they did the fifth edition one to garner more attention. Yeah. Yeah. And that, and that was, that was the transparent from the get go.

[00:10:00] Like they told, they, they said they were going to do that for that reason. Yeah. So, but yeah. Awesome. So in our, in our roll up here today, we're using roll 20 because it has a nice little character sheet for us to build from. And I've been pouring over that character sheet while you were going through your elevator pitch. Yeah. And one of the first things that you select in making characters in the book is your archetype. And I do not see a place for that on the character sheet at all. I'm probably blind, but I do see a place for your character description.

[00:10:30] So under pseudo, I put Vin Diesel under size. I put Vin Diesel under weight. I put Vin Diesel under sex. I put Vin Diesel and under any age, I put Vin Diesel. There's also sexual call particular section called particular signs. I don't know what that is, but I also put Vin Diesel. I just put family. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Cause archetypes, it says in here, archetypes, uh, include starting attributes, skills, edges, and gear.

[00:10:57] So it's almost like a, like a packet of sorts. Yeah. And yeah, it says, remember these archetypes are merely a starting point. Characters can grow and adapt as they see fit over the course of their careers. Yeah. So for character context, I'm kind of stuck between two of them. There's the brawler because Vin Diesel. And there's also the monster slayer. Yep. Because later movies where the bad guy got more and more crazy overpowered. Yeah.

[00:11:27] And then they shot themselves into space. Wait, that happened. Yep. That happened. With only a classic Camaro and a supercharger. Yeah. No, I'm kidding. It wasn't much worse than that. It wasn't much better than that. I don't need a space suit. I need fat. Just like, just like exhales and dies in space. I wanted to say it was like an old school diving outfit that they launched themselves. It's bad. Oh my God. Okay.

[00:11:57] All right. So I picked like ex-con in the last game. So that's not an option here. It seems like con artists would be great, but I'm not quite a, I was wanting to make a brawler character. So I'll probably end up going with brawler if that makes it easier for you, brownie to go for monster hunter. Monster slayer. It is. Yeah. It should also be pointed out. This list is, is by no means exhausted and just like a starting point. So you could, this is just for, for character concepts.

[00:12:24] So this is just sort of like, get like what you want to play as. So it's, this isn't the end all be all like list. This is sort of just like a, like a general jumping off point for like what you want, what you were thinking for your character. No, I'm, I'm totally cool with, you know, aiming for the chupacabra on the highway with my car. That's fine. Yeah. Hey, they're there. They are statted in the secret world in the, in the RPG. So I can throw, I can do nice. Awesome. Jeremy, what were you thinking?

[00:12:53] Oh, for character concept. Yeah. Uh, former Olympic shooter. Got it be after he won the bronze medal or whatever he won. You know, I don't really see that in a book, but yeah, let's go for it. Oh, that's awesome. I, I made him legally distinct. That changed his last name. His first name. Joe, you, I think you mentioned it off Mike, but what were you thinking? Magis. Okay.

[00:13:23] I have magic powers. I don't have anything other than that. So were you a magician then? Or like. Yeah. Pulling rabbits out of hats. And then birthday parties. Yeah. Parlor tricks. And then, and then one day, oops, I can actually do magic. I didn't have a rabbit in this hat. I, this, I forgot the rabbit at home and I pulled the rabbit out anyway. Now, now you just pull a sawed off 12 gauges out of hats. Yeah. That's right.

[00:13:52] I just feel bad for immediately thinking. And now it goes the other way around. I pull hats out of rabbits. Love you, David. How does he keep putting them in there? Oh, that's awesome. You were a barista last time. What are you this time, sir? I'm going to stick with it. All right. So to represent the fact that poor Chaz has absolutely no idea what's going on. I'm starting with the hindrance of outsider. Nice.

[00:14:21] The minor level, which means that when I am rolling persuasion against any other B, I'm going to take a minus. But otherwise, I have just basically gone through and just done the basics for building an assassin. So that means I get to start with arcane background B. I am a blade conduit, an elemental magic conduit, and an elemental magic specialist. Nice. Okay. And that's my starting advantages.

[00:14:50] I'm actually going to start with a nice, fairly rounded set of attributes. So my agility and vigor are both at a D8. And then my smarts, spirit, and strength are all at D6. Which means, in simple terms, if I am going to be filling in skills, the highest that I can go on anything that is not related to agility or vigor is a D6. Without spending extra. Yeah.

[00:15:19] Like, I could theoretically take my fighting all the way up to D12, but it would be expensive as hell. So we're not going to do that. Yeah. So in the vein of getting into the archetypes, I'm going to stick with Demolisher, which has good agility, good smarts. They do mention a focus ability that doesn't exist on our character sheet, so we'll just add that at a D6. So there's space to write in your extra skills at the bottom. Okay.

[00:15:47] The skills that it starts with on the sheet are athletics, common knowledge, notice, persuasion, and stealth. But if you've got anything else that gets to be added, you can write it in. So I had to write in fighting and focus. And the roll 20 of D12 plus adds at the bottom as well. Looks like, I mean, I think it's going to be a little bit quicker than the last one. Now, I haven't played a Savage World game since Savage Tokusatsu and Kyle from, is it Best Power Brigade? Is that what they're? Best Power Brigade, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:16] He did all the lifting for me, so this is going to be like my first Savage Worlds experience like this. I kind of, I'm going to be mudding through this character sheet, but I think we'll be okay. So where do you want to start us at here? David, obviously, is going to be a great asset for us for having done this stuff before. I've got a little bit more recent experience with Savage Worlds, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. We're making characters. We've already got our concept.

[00:16:44] The ancestry, everybody's basically starting out as a human bee. And again, that's just like a human that has been infused with a bee of Gaia. So, yeah. Everybody basically gets like the arcane background bee in the start. And then as such, they begin to play with a free edge of their choice. And this edge can be of any rank, but cannot be an arcane background.

[00:17:14] So no conduit stuff? Is that what that means? I believe so. Yeah. Basically, you get to start with an edge of your choice. It can be anything up until you hit the arcane stuff. Now, don't worry about the arcane, because that's going to be covered by our background as a bee. Because you'll notice that once you get to your... Which one are you rolling up, Jeremy? I'm rolling up the gunslinger. Okay.

[00:17:40] So, if you take a look at the stuff that you've got for starting, your agility starts at a big D10, but nothing else does. Oh, yeah. He's real good at one thing. Yeah. That would be shooting. Your fighting is a D4. Your focus is a D4. But notice how your starting edges are arcane background B, pistol conduit, shotgun conduit, and two-gun kid. So, those are all related to your arcane background of B.

[00:18:10] You do not get to have two arcane backgrounds. So, the reason why you're limited in not getting two is because you've already got one. Yeah. Okay. It doesn't let you pick another one. So, we can still take something like blade conduit or assault rifle conduit or something along those lines? Or is it anything with arcane background B and it's off limits now? In the arcane background B, a B starts with two conduit edges, each of which gives them its own set of powers.

[00:18:40] So, and that's basically like for like assault rifle conduit, elemental conduit, magic conduit, and stuff like that. Or like blood magic conduit and such like that. Okay. Can I trade out blade conduit or vehicular manslaughter conduit, please? I don't think that's a thing. We could maybe homebrew it down the road. Here's a very specific type of blade. Yeah. Well, it's more like a big hammer, so. I think then that would be the hammer conduit.

[00:19:08] Which I already have. Okay. I feel like it's just a busted Corona bottle. Yeah. I'll keep it, yeah. Yeah. All right. So, I guess for my edge, I'll put a blade conduit since I have bladed wrists, unless there's a fist conduit that I am unaware of. There is a fist conduit. Yeah. Now, you said con man, right? Well, it was kind of roughly, yeah, con man, ex-con, really. So, yeah. So, which of the archetypes are you going?

[00:19:38] Ravager. Ravager. Okay. So, as a Ravager, you start with arcane background B, blood magic conduit, and fist conduit. Also, frenzy. Ooh. So, you do start with fisting. Sure, that was happening. Yeah. Yeah. I love how one of the edges is library card. Yeah.

[00:20:03] Well, because that's for, again, effectively, you have access to the Innsmouth Academy's extensive occult library. I just love the way they present it is all. Oh, yeah. For sure. Sometimes the names that are attached to the edges can be rather wild. Keep in mind, I'm coming off of rifts. Yeah. The rifts edges. Some of those are just wildly named, but it's still kind of glorious.

[00:20:33] Yeah. I've got my edge. Family. Bound weapons. Name up the two weapons of choice. One of them is my car. Yeah, of course. It could be magically so. Oh, God. I have a feeling there's going to be a slight similarity between my previous campaign of the secret world and this campaign with Brownie's character and his car. Vehicular monster slaughter. Vehicular monster slaughter. Yeah.

[00:21:01] And my other weapon is a big adjustable wrench. Nice. I approve. Bringing some road salt back into the world here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So we'll see. We've got factions. All right. So ancestry, human, archetype. We went through those. We mentioned them. Faction. I'm just going to be a Templar again. Yeah. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out this sheet, so I apologize, guys. It's okay. Yeah.

[00:21:30] We're using the base character sheet. I don't know if Star Anvil has made a custom one for SeaWorld, although I'm sure it's on its way because they've done one for the fifth edition. If you listen to the Star Anvil, please make one. We really like this game. It's very cool. Cool. I absolutely love this setting, and I want this to be more known. So please, like, advance it as much as possible. Please don't thank you. So, yeah.

[00:21:57] After factions, which is basically like, yeah, choose between who picked you up when you suddenly had powers. Was it the Dragon, the Templar, or the Illuminati? I'm sticking with what I had last game with you, just Templar, because I was with the Night Knights. Yeah. Street Racing Crew. Yeah. Yeah, the Night Knights. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it looks like, and I'm just trying to get the order correct here.

[00:22:22] So after I wrote down all the flavor text, it looks like when you go to your actual class, like Rappager, it looks like it's giving me some starting stats and starting skills, which I do like it. So there's no rolling or anything like that. So I've got like a D8 and a D6 for starting attributes, and then go down to the skills. So I'm just kind of plugging things in right now. And I do see what David was talking about starting gear. So I do do this. I guess everything else is a D4.

[00:22:53] Basically, for my agility and strength, I don't see anything yet that modifies that, but that's fine. You must say distribute three points among your hero's attributes. Mm-hmm. I mean, like three dice promotions? Yeah. Yeah. So all of your attributes start at D4, unless it says different for your class. Yeah. So it's best to go through your class, grab whatever you get, and then you can spend three points to change.

[00:23:20] And then each hindrance will give you two points, so you can take a hindrance to get another one. Yeah. Basically, take a penalty to get a boost. Yes. It's similar to like the negative and positive qualities in Shadowrun, where like you can, you hamper yourself so that you can then get like some cooler things, or some cool things.

[00:23:47] I do like to row 20 in that, like, so I don't see athletics listed under skills. I may be blind, but I do get that nice little plus here, so I can manually add that. Yeah. And I guess that goes with agility or something? I don't know. Which one are you looking for? Just athletics. I was just kind of going through this slowly. Yeah.

[00:24:07] The one thing that I would like to double check as far as what skill is tied to what attribute, that's a thing to double check at the secret world. Mm-hmm. Excuse me, because sometimes they do change from game to game just a little bit. Yeah. I'm trying to put the... The trait summaries are on page 58 of the Savage Worlds adventure book, or whatever it was called.

[00:24:33] See if my special edition of the adventure edition has that. Adventure edition? Yeah. What was it? What page was that? 58. Cool. That's the trait summaries? Yep. Mm-hmm. Okay, cool. Yeah. Agility. Yeah. I see. We're not stuck with the hindrances and edges that are available in the new one, because there's the old... That's why they were calling them new edges and new hindrances, because we're supposed to be basing it off the old one as well. Yeah.

[00:25:04] Yes. The old one's got our primary list, but then we've also got a couple of them that are specific. Yeah, because that's how Savage Worlds goes, is you get the core book for the core system, and then there's all these different setting books that have new mechanics and stuff. Or new god edition. Yeah. And one thing that I will give credit to the Rifts setting for... Plug. Plug. I know.

[00:25:30] But the Rifts sheet actually has on it each of your skills that are available within the setting also has in parentheses after it what the attribute is based off of. So it'll say, academics, smarts. Yeah, looking at the basic character creator in Savage Worlds versus the Secret World one, it looks like archetypes are basically like, here's a packet of stuff. Yes. Yeah.

[00:25:58] Basically, for the most part, it's here is your packet. Just plug in these in or plug this information in and then grab your edges, which give you specific things and polish up this part of the packet. So I know we started talking about attributes, but I figured out what my hindrances are. Okay. So since my background is as monster hunter, I'm a monster magnet. Yeah. And I also have a code of honor. Okay. Yes.

[00:26:28] Oh, I could actually have fun with that. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, when you say family, you mean like your, your, your, your old racing gang? Well, no, code of honor is just like, don't be an asshole. Okay. The way they describe it. But I'm just saying family. That's why I chose code of honor. Fair. That's, that's fair. But you could also play with it if you want, because I wrote it on the sheet. Yeah. I just, I just like, I could either have it as like, it's like now, it's like now, now, now, now Brownie, you're the Templar. You're family.

[00:26:59] Aren't going to like this very much. I know what you're doing. Well, I don't have friends. I have family. So all these new people that I'm working with, eventually they're going to be family. Yeah, exactly. I'm impressed with this so far. I mean, the character sheet, while not explicitly designed for it, like in row 20, it's doing a really decent job of doing this. And I've got everything that David had spoke of. So why don't we go ahead, just kind of take us to the next step here.

[00:27:26] So like the abilities that they gave me was strength and agility for a Ravager. My starting skills is athletics, fighting, and focus. As mentioned by David, I have arcane background because I'm B. Blood Magic Conduit, Fist Conduit, Frenzy. And then I'm going to start with a Bladed Cessus and a Blood Magic Charm, which I'm kind of thinking is one of those creepy little vials of blood. Blood that, like, uh.

[00:27:57] The Angelina Jolie? Yeah. I got really blood of Thornton's blood around my neck. The blood of, yeah, the blood of Thornton. Yeah. Can that be canon? I'm serious about that. I mean, I'm fine with that. Honestly, like in the setting, I think they're pretty, they can, oh, here is a note. Chaos Magic Charms resemble shields that are worn on the back. Technically, we'll, uh. What's blood? Yeah, honestly, they could, they could be, I'd allow for that to be. Yeah. Billy Bob Thornton's blood. Billy Bob Thornton's blood. Yeah.

[00:28:27] You have, you have Billy Bob Thornton's phylactery. I actually, let's see what Charms are in Secret World. Like, what they look. Because the, the, the game does have, like, like, they're kind of modeling off of, like, again, the game. So. They, they sometimes have, like, like, cosmetic kind of accoutrements for what they look like. But I'm, I'm also down for, like, making it your own. Or, like, flavoring it to be different. So. Yeah. And. Yeah, it's usually, like, a book. Or something like that. But I'm totally down for, like, a. Again.

[00:28:57] You just have, like, a little vial of blood around your neck. Yeah. Walk around quoting. Not quite, but. Oh, Sling blade's great. I enjoy Billy Bob's cameo in Teamstone. Because. I like playing cards with my fucking brother's kids. And Joe, what do you, what are you, what about you? I'm working at stuff. I'm working at stuff.

[00:29:22] So I start with a D6 in smart and a D8 in spirit. A D6 in occult. D8 in focus. And a D6 in persuasion. So what I'm, and arcane background B, like everybody else. Chaos magic conduit. Elementalism magic conduit. And wizard. Wizard. Wizard. I also decided to take the hindrance arrogant, which is a major hindrance.

[00:29:51] Nice. You're the Criss Angel. You were the Criss Angel. Or what was the other guy? The other street magician that's like. David Blair or something? David Blaine. David Blaine. Yeah. But yeah, well that he is now. Originally he was just a regular magician. But now that he figured out real magic. I think says shit doesn't stink. As they say. He still does that thing where he levitates by standing on his tiptoes. And you can't see that he's on his tiptoes inside of his big shoes.

[00:30:21] But you know, he does all the magic too. Yeah. But occasionally he'll do like, he'll just like use some anima and just like walk up a wall. Just to freak people out because he's a giant dork. Yep. So how thick is your eyeliner? Yeah. The thickest of eyeliners. And he's given himself this terrible magic name. Oh no. Craig Kuma. Which is the name my character started with. That's awesome. Thank you.

[00:30:49] Random name, like random word generator. But his real name is just like Jake Smith. Yeah. And now I'm just picking up skills. I'm going to grab. Somebody should know how to heal. Let's get one of those. Put that at a d6. Yeah. I put four raises into dry. Because that's how you can raise it. Yeah. See, arrogant gives me two extra points. I'm going to use that in skills. Let's make that a d8. Oh, you have nine points of skills. Okay.

[00:31:18] And that's in addition to the ones that you get to start with from your stuff. So just to run through what I've got mine at. Athletics of two. Common knowledge of one. Notice of two. Persuasion of one. Stealth and fighting both at d8. So that's three. Two in focus and two in arcane.

[00:31:39] And so I feel like since I started out with blade conduit and elemental magic at specialist as opposed to at just conduit, I figured I might as well take a little bit extra. I feel like the elemental magic manifests itself through coffees. So for the most part, when I do things like I'm going to blast, it's going to be coffee from across the room. Yeah.

[00:32:09] Also, now just picturing it's like whenever you're making coffee, you just add a little bit of honey and you're just adding, imbuing it with a little bit of anima, a little bit of magic. Tiniest bit. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. And to break down what our edges do in terms of those arcane edges. Yes. Just a little bit. So for the elementalism magic conduit. Let's see. The requirement is novice level.

[00:32:37] So anybody can take it in arcane background B, which we all have while wielding an elementalism magic type of conduit charm. The B can use the following abilities of the following ranks. So at novice, I can do electrical storm. Sudden winds create a localized tornado that crackles with lightning. So I have the havoc power. Flame strike. A gout of flame slams into the target. The B has the bolt power. Those hit by the bolt may catch fire. And mind over matter.

[00:33:07] The B knows flame and heat and can sense it through doors, walls, and other obstacles. The B can spend a power point to gain infrovision until the end of the encounter. Have the illumination penalties when attacking warm targets. So basically you get access to anything that is under novice. Under that ability. Now once we make it to seasoned level, which is a couple of promotions, then we get access to the next tier. Yeah.

[00:33:34] But we don't have to do anything special for those. Now there is a power edge that shows up a little bit later that says, you know, whatever type of magic. Specialist. So blood magic specialist, chaos magic. The elementalism magic one. Wielders of elemental magic have discovered how to add the sting of fire, ice, or even electricity to their magic attacks.

[00:33:57] When a caster with this edge successfully uses a power on an enemy, that power deals 1d4 damage to that enemy in addition to any other damage the power may deal. So for me, it's going to be a splash of hot coffee. So that gets us into, we're talking about our attributes and skill increases here. Yeah. So in my case, I used points from my hindrances to pump up my attributes. So I ended up with a d10 in agility, d8 in strength, a 6 in smarts, a 6 in vigor.

[00:34:27] And I left spirit at 4 because family. I don't know. And so just coming up off the peg on the gauge, everything that's above a 4 for me in skills is a 10 in fighting, a 12 in driving, a 6 in repair because, again, family. I mean, Vin Diesel. 6 in streetwise for that reason, a 6 in taunt because that came from my character generation shooting because shooting. And with the added skill of focus still on a 4. That sounds Vin Diesel-y. Yeah.

[00:34:57] Damn Octane. Mm-hmm. I just like that your first name is literally just a swear word. Just damn. It's also close to Dom. It is, yes. Yeah. Which is where that originally came from, the inspiration. Yeah. You could also... See, for one quarter... You also could have been Dim Octane and it's Dimitri. I like Dom. I'm just going to be smarts on that, yeah. Yeah. I like how Dom was like, is short for Dominic. But yeah.

[00:35:26] True, but we are where we are. I'll go with Dan Octane. That's fine, yeah. It's your name, but you have another name, like a real name, but this is your gang name or your family name. A professional working name, sure. Yeah. David, what was your character's name again? Or I guess I couldn't look... Sorry, I gotta look that up. It's Chaz. Chaz? Yeah. Right, Chaz the Wombat. Chaz the Combat Wombat.

[00:35:54] Looks like we could probably go ahead and call a break then, so we'll go ahead and do a little bit of the setting out, and then when we come back, we'll tell you all about what our characters have.

[00:36:19] So, guys, we've kind of decided between our little impromptu break here that we were using the wrong character sheet on row 20. It was kind of like jam-packing us with all kinds of skills and stuff like that. It was pretty awesome. No, I'm not blaming you. But I went back and did the PDF stuff, so I just want to kind of re-say some stuff. So, with my Ravager, you know, I've went ahead and picked out skills. So, it's pretty interesting with this.

[00:36:45] So, to get shooting, my character didn't have shooting by default, so I spent one of my points to get it at a D4 and then spent another point. I can take it up until, like, the base skill it's based off of before I had to start spending two points. So, with my character sheet, I went ahead and just much more stripped-down skills. Just bumped my—I've got my athletics at eight. I've got my common knowledge. I put them at six.

[00:37:15] My notice is eight because I know Chris likes to, like, do notice checks all the time. My persuasion's at four, which I think was the default with our characters. I took myself up to six because I'm not super stealthy, but my fighting, I bought it up to a ten. And I have a focus of six and a shooting of six. And, yep, and kind of tapping in with the hindrances or edges, excuse me.

[00:37:44] I went ahead and on top of having the arcane background, blood magic, fist conduit, and frenzy ability, I like the idea of bound weapons. So, I have a pair of throwing axes or hand axes that I can throw that I can summon. Oh, that was—yeah. That weapon. That edge is really fun. That seems like it's going to be really cool with that. They're walking around calling everybody boy.

[00:38:11] I love the description, and it's like, perhaps the weapons are physically implanted, or they can magically be summoned from a pocket dimension, or manifest at will from a cloud of nanites. My car totally shows up like that, yeah. Yeah. I will say there is some advanced tech in this game, or in this setting, because there's a megacorp that has an umbrella of smaller megacorps called Orochi. He's called the Parasol Corporation. Yeah.

[00:38:41] Well, they're called Orochi because they have multiple heads. But it's basically the same thing. It's umbrella. Yeah. But they have a lot of tech. They have a lot of weird, crazy advanced tech. For reasons. I like the idea that I'm summoning them out of a hardware store somewhere. Somewhere somebody's looking for an axe and it just— Yeah, I do like that. You think you're somebody from the axe dimension,

[00:39:07] and really you're just somebody from Ted's hardware store in Tennessee. It's got price tags. I get off of it as a slinger. Oh, God. And then if it sticks around a crime scene that you've left, suddenly somebody's like, Hey, this comes from a place in Tennessee. We've got to go investigate that. My axes keep disappearing. Yeah, there's just like online,

[00:39:37] there's just some random guy on a Reddit forum just bringing up something about spontaneously disappearing axes in his hardware store. I made that goofy. Would anybody else like to jump in and share their core skills or their skills that they've selected and edges or anything else we've added since then? So, realizing that I had some extra points, I also picked up thievery at D8 and shooting at a D6.

[00:40:06] Now, to be fair, Chaz doesn't know that he has shooting at a D8 or at a D6. Chaz has never actually touched a gun before in his life. Well, being a barista, when you say pulling shots, he thinks you mean of espresso. Yes. And so, I was also looking through the Secret World book and one of the fun bits that's in here is that the dragon agenda.

[00:40:36] So, agenda for your different factions. For the dragons, the very first one is sowing chaos. The dragon thrives on chaos and smiles on those who slip it between the gears of any orderly system. So, this doesn't necessarily mean blowing up buildings, though it can. It also includes deleting random files, spreading misinformation, or offering very specific advice. I love the idea of the dragon as an organization going, okay, we love this guy.

[00:41:04] He has no freaking clue what he's doing. He's the perfect avatar. And, like, there's dragons who are dedicated to watching and going, get a load of this guy. No, look at what he did this week. No, really, check this out. We've got spy cam footage. Oh, God. I love how you're Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean. I'm thinking more like Bill Murray from The Man Who Knew Too Little. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:41:34] But, yes. That adds a little bit more comedy to a very dark background for that faction. Right. Their deeper set things is pretty dark, but I'll get into that in a later thing. All right. Who's next on the roster there? I suppose I'll go next. I ended up going with my starting agility was 10 because he's a crazy ninja gunslinger guy.

[00:42:04] I ended up bumping my spirit up to 6. My strength's down to a D4. It's still a D4. My spart's up to a 6 and my vigor's up to 8. I ended up taking... It ended up giving us a few skills right off the bat for skills. It gave us athletics, common knowledge, notice, persuasion, stealth, and fighting. But my background gave me a shooting and focus along with normal fighting.

[00:42:36] So, I ended up doing those at my athletics at a D8. My common knowledge is still a D4. My notice is a D6. My persuasion's a 4. Stealth is a D8. Fighting is a D8, which I actually think is going to be a D10 because I already had it overlapped. And shooting's a D10 and my focus is a D8. Or a D6, sorry.

[00:43:02] I ended up going with the hindrances secret as a minor and wanted as a minor because he is the international man of mystery. If he is the shooter that everybody thinks he is, everybody thought he was an assassin anyway because he just rolled out of bed and started firing bullseyes. For edges and advantages, my class gave me arcane background B, pistol conduit, shotgun conduit, two-gun kid, and I took secret identity as my free edge. All right.

[00:43:31] I still, again, I still love the fact that your character is that, or basically that one gun, that one shooter in the Olympics. Oh, yeah. No, he got his B after the Olympics. Like, that game's the medal. That's part of the care. The guy was like, ooh, I like that one. He's got moxie. To be fair, I didn't mention my free edge. I just took Gaia's blessing because I also feel like Gaia just took a shine. It's like, no, no, I like this one. Yeah.

[00:44:03] Not that one, Bob. I kind of like it. Gaia moves in mysterious ways. So, Brownie or Joe? I can go. So, and then my cat just jumped up on my keyboard. So, come on. All right, hold on. Let me move this over. See faster. The constant struggle with pets. Yeah.

[00:44:25] So, I increased my spirit up to, or my smarts up to D8 and my vigor up to D6 in the attributes. Skills, I bumped up arcane to D6. Gambling to D6. Notice to D8 because I also assume we're going to need to see stuff. Oh, and I pushed my, yeah, smart and spirit up to D8. So, that's the core thing. Let's take a look here.

[00:44:55] Persuasion, D8. Investigation, D6. I haven't heard that yet. Streetwise, D6. Taunt, D8. Because that sounds fun. Healing, D6. Focus and Occult, D8. Performance, D6. Makes sense. And my added the hindrance of arrogant. I think I mentioned that before. I think I'm going to go with the Illuminati. Okay.

[00:45:21] As Craig Kuma slash Jake Smith has been on the outside so long the way you would be if you were, say, a street magician. Yeah. Really wanted to be on the inside. And they're the guys on the inside. It's funny because, like, Illuminati, they're kind of also, like, the show busy. Like, they're the headhunters. It's like, hey, it's like, they're the actor, like, headhunters.

[00:45:43] So, like, you may have even at first, like, thought that they were just, like, they were, like, a big, like, movie studio or, like, or, like, entertainment studio thing. And then it turned out they were way bigger and deeper. Like, oh, good. Good. This is better for me. Yeah. You just have to go to New York occasionally to their headquarters. Right. Yeah. From birthday parties to New York. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a good time. I love it.

[00:46:09] I get just this Criss Angel character working for the secret government, the secret, uh, the secret American government or shadow government. Yeah. Has not changed his look from real slime ball yet. Yeah. No, that's fine. Like, you'll just get some glaring looks and some passive aggressive remarks from your, from your corporate overlords. No. I'll get used to it. Why does he keep wearing capes? That's so nut last century.

[00:46:40] Ugh. All right. And then we have brownie. Or as we, family. Family. Yeah. So, uh, some of this stuff is from my architecture. Some of this stuff is based on spends later. I did take some hindrances, which gave me some bonuses that I pumped into my attributes. So I ended up with an agility of 10 because that's the one that's tied to the driving skill. I left spirit at four. Strength is an eight. Uh, smart is a six and vigor is a six.

[00:47:07] Uh, as far as the things that are coming off, up off the peg on the gauge from the D4 in the, uh, skill section, I've got a fighting at 10. A driving at 12. If you try to raise your skill over the base attribute that it's tied to, you actually have to spend two points, but driving is very important to me. So I did repair at six because that's part of the whole, uh, lore of the character, uh, streetwise again, because of the lore of the character taught because again, or the character shooting because guns.

[00:47:37] Uh, getting into edges. Yep. How can you not? Yeah. Getting into edges coming off, off the, off the archetype. I got obviously the octane background of the B blade, time with hammer, conduit provoke. And for my free edge, I chose bound weapons. You can have up to two. The first one I picked was of course my car. The second one was a big adjustable wrench, which I'm going to use in place of the battle hammer that I get as, as gear off of the archetype. Yeah. And for hindrances. Yeah.

[00:48:05] And for hindrances, I chose monster magnet because I'm a monster hunter and code of honor because family. Family. The Vin Diesel memes are going to be very strong in this set campaign. There's so many movies. I have so many gifts to select from. It's, it's just, it just worked out. Absolutely. I know that some things are going to turn pitch black on us. Uh, I, I did take a peek, peek at those shades. Yeah. So I think that covers everybody for attributes and skills, right? Yeah, I think so.

[00:48:35] Looks like it. Dari's stats are a little weird with the character sheet we're using because it just has pace equals to six. Parry equals to two plus half the character's fighting die, which doesn't calculate properly on there, even though it automatically calculates for you. Toughness comes out to two plus half of the vigor die, which is, I guess what that's hit points, right? Basically. Yeah. It's more like armor. So basically we get three wounds and once you've received three wounds, you're out of the scene. Gotcha.

[00:49:04] But if something hits for say 10 damage, you subtract your vigor from that attack first. Okay. And so if it's less than your vigor, you're not wounded. So say it's a four point wound and you've got a vigor of six. Okay. You just shrug that off because you're too tough for that to actually hurt. I got to bleed. Is it vigor that it subtracts from or toughness? Toughness. Okay. Because doesn't, does armor increase your toughness?

[00:49:34] Yes, it does. Okay. That makes sense. Theoretically. I, when we played in rifts, I just maxed out my toughness to the point where I didn't wear armor. And just for like some clarity. So pace is your speed basically, right? And then yes, Perry would be your like dodging and like, or Perry is your ability to deflect a weapon. Yeah. Okay. So if we're trying to hit you, they have to hit over your Perry.

[00:50:04] Gotcha. And if they do hit you, the damage has to go over your toughness. Gotcha. Okay. And if it does both of those things, then you take a wound. Yeah. Unless they get a raise, in which case you take two wounds or they get three raises, in which case you get, just get knocked the fuck out. Yeah. Now you can spend a Benny or spend one of your power points to soak a wound. And for that, you would roll your vigor die plus your wild die.

[00:50:32] And if you're able to succeed on a vigor check, uh, you can soak that much more off of the hit. So you can actually focus and go, no, I'm going to actually not take that hit, but it's going to cost one of my pennies in this scene to do it. We'll get into that during actual play. Yeah. Since these are just derived and they're just easily checkbitted out, they really need to go too much beyond, you know, how we're using them, which I think is useful, which would take us down to edges.

[00:50:59] Now, most of us have covered our edges when we were talking about our statistics and attributes, but did anybody not cover their free edge? I mentioned what mine was, but I didn't actually say what it does. But other than that, uh, so Gaia's blessing. Basically allows me to use my PowerPoints to do a couple of extra things. And I thought that it definitely fit with barista because I can use a PowerPoint to cancel the effect of hunger, thirst, or lack of sleep.

[00:51:26] I can cancel any amount of falling damage, or I can also magically refill the magazine of a firearm that I'm holding. So I can pass your gun to you, spend a PowerPoint on it. And then it's like, huh, this thing is full. I didn't expect it to be full. So you're, you're, you're helping the thirst or hunger of your guns too. Yes. That is amazing. Nice. Not just mine.

[00:51:54] I can cancel the effects of hunger or thirst on anybody. Like, it's like if Joe is like, I haven't eaten in three days, I'm just starving. It's like, oh, don't worry. I got you covered here. What is this? That's a septuple espresso. It'll keep you awake for days. I would also, for, for brownies sake, I would also allow that to happen for, like, you can also use that for, for the car. Yeah. Putting gas in the tank. Yeah. If you want.

[00:52:24] I'm fine with that. Perhaps have to spend two PowerPoints because that is a lot of gas in that tank. Yeah. It is. It is a muscle. It is a muscle car. So anybody else? Sir. Sir. Yeah. No, exactly what crazy. I was saying. Anybody else that needs to share a free edge. I wanted to actually, I didn't mention my hindrances. I just like to mention that real quick here. I did take from the book, smart mouth because of, and I think I did mention that to you all.

[00:52:52] It leads on or off mic that, you know, it gives me negative, you know, I took it as a major. So, you know, but there's a point in my life where I've started more fights and I've finished with my mouth. If you know what I mean? And I also like the idea of having, cause I wanted more points to spend. I took code of honor. So despite being a smart ass and things like that, that he tries to be an upstanding guy and exude the virtues that he thinks that he was raised on.

[00:53:21] And, you know, so I kind of got those and it gives me a little more wiggle points, which I thought were cool. And again, I just have bound weapons that I'm summoning from a hardware store in Tennessee. Nice. I like how none of you guys took a secret identity. I took secret identity. Why would I take secret identity? I'm just a barista. Yeah. No, I took it. Oh, you did? Okay. Sorry. Yeah, I took secret identity. My bad. I just took brave because I figure we're going to run into a lot of horrors.

[00:53:51] I was like, yeah, advantages for that is. Yeah. Way to game the system too. I've seen one of these before. Yeah. I can't have a assassin turned Olympic shooter. Would you rather me get rid of code of honor and take monster back to Chris? No, I would. You do you, bud. Yeah. No, I already got monster made. That got us covered. Yeah. Okay. That which was bumping the night shall, in fact, go bumping the night.

[00:54:21] Under the wheels. So, I mean, I don't think the gear as far as the next step. Like, I mean, it mentioned what I had beforehand. I don't have anything in particular. I mean, it'll be I'll just pick a gun or something like that because I need something. But I'm not. I don't have anything special. Yeah. I do want to touch on one thing. And we kind of touched on this when we were on our break. Their costs are stupid. Yeah.

[00:54:49] So, and that if you have someone who's never been to a store before decides to pick some some dollar amounts out of the air. So, a battle hammer. Okay. That's $500, which is more expensive than an assault rifle. I'm going to go to Harbor Freight and get a cart full. Okay. And they'll serve me well. Yeah. I'm glad that like this. This is annoying. Not just my my gun fondling gear, gear shopping 5e character 5e players.

[00:55:17] I'm glad this is also affecting the normies. A battle hammer costs as much as a biohazard suit. Excuse me, sir. It's so ridiculous. This is an Arby's. Yeah. This is the fantasy of this game. Is this this delusional fantasy? The maximum everything costs is $500. Also, I like how like enhanced by the way, enhanced cell enhanced smartphone not available cost.

[00:55:45] Well, not applicable because everybody has a cell phone, right? I guess that is what they're going with for that. Yeah. Yeah. This is it's just so ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Holy water for 20 bucks. Yeah. They didn't know how to price stuff, but they still wanted to have a montage. I'm a grappling gun is $1,000. I think that's there just to make sure that you can't buy it to start unless you take wealthy. I guess. Yeah. Or, but an assault rifle is 450.

[00:56:14] I mean, okay. Maybe that might be the, might be the card at $500. And so you can start with an assault rifle, but it's going to cost all your money. Yeah. And it's going to have been used in a crime previously. Yeah. I'm going to have to throw a Robert Downey Jr. Level. I roll at that. Yeah. Because if you'd like a grapple gun, let me know what I'll make you want. Yeah, exactly. And then I don't think they go with like any kind of cost for like the talismans.

[00:56:43] It's kind of left for me as a GM to kind of give you guys a cost for like, oh no, there's a blood talisman. Those are charms. Those are different. Oh, charms. Okay. Yeah. Charms, charms are from a charm. Yeah. Well, shotgun, whatever. The difference. So the charms are like, again, like the, like a thing that's personalized for the archetypes or for certain archetypes. Talismans are like more like magical artifacts and such that like give you a boost in certain

[00:57:13] things and help. So it's like when you go to a nice restaurant and a lobster's market price. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. So I will probably, I, I did actually have to homebrew a sort of a an equation for pricing for talismans in the, in the other campaign. I ran, I will probably use the same thing or I will like toil around with it. I'm also noticing something that they kind of seem like they altered. I don't know if you guys are fine for it.

[00:57:40] So as bees, you guys can resurrect after you've been killed in game though. The speed in which you resurrect to me always seemed like it was too short of a time span. Like it's in, in, in the original rules, it was like 2d6 rounds. Well, it's two minutes, you know, just like when you die in MMORPG. Yeah. But like we, so like our, my, my 5e guys didn't really care for that. Like we wanted to have a little bit more of a consequence.

[00:58:10] So you're not just like, oh shit, he's down or he's bleeding out. Like we can either spend like a couple of actions trying to heal them or just cap them and let him come back late, like afterward. And I was like, that's really callous and that's really like gamey. So we, we did alter it to be like 2d6 hours. So that like, yeah. And that way it also gives you more incentive to like, maybe you do need to get back in the fight. So maybe you are more willing to like make a deal with one of the outer powers when you're a micro transaction. Yeah.

[00:58:39] Yeah, exactly. So it gave you a little bit more, it gave a little bit more consequence to killing or to, uh, to the, to death, even though you are basically a semi-immortal. Being now, it looks like, uh, I thought they had actually changed that in the 5e version, like from the play test rules. And it looks like they've gone back on that and done it 2d6 rounds in the Savage Worlds version. So if you guys want, or if you guys don't mind, we can alter it. So it's 2d6 hours rather than 2d6 rounds.

[00:59:08] That makes sense to me. Just moving forward. So yeah, it sounds fine. We need consequences. Yeah. Like I, I always liked it because it felt like a, almost like the eclipse phase thing of like, Oh, your character goes down, but you're not dead, dead. You just, that iteration of you is dead and you have a backup kind of thing. Yeah. But the way they, the way they initially did it, and it looks like the way they've done for Savage Worlds, it looks like it's going back to the more gamey, like, Oh, we'll just respawn in a few rounds. It's fine. And it's like, no, I don't like that. Get back in the raid. Yeah.

[00:59:38] Basically. The MMO came first. Yeah. Tells me so much more than, than what I'd learned previously about this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, the MMO was first. And so they, and they tried to add, they, they wanted to like, they, they didn't want to make it fully simulationist to the game because that's like, why bother? But they wanted to like add some things from the, from the game into the tabletop version. So, but yeah. Yeah. So I probably missed this and I know you've explained it, but you know how you can basically

[01:00:08] sell a little bit of your soul to one side or the other to get back in the fight more quickly. Yep. So is that like, like a set of scales where you're putting stuff in the bad side and you're putting stuff in the good side? Let's just oversimplify. It is actually, I can pull up the rules for that if you want. And what I'm really thinking is again, gaming the system. Yeah. I do one bad and one good and one bad and one good. Do I stay in the middle? No. Further and further down. That's because it's also very Jamie, Jamie logic.

[01:00:35] Yeah, no, there is sort of a slippery slope. So sacrificing a bit of free will in exchange for power has its downsides too. So it's all about like the, this is from like the destiny, the, the, the, the, the destiny mechanic they've added to this setting. So when your character dies, you have two choices. You can either embrace freedom, which you reject selling a bit of your soul to the luminance or the shadow, which is like the, the dark side of the light side.

[01:01:03] Or you can give a bit of your, to the light side or dark side. Once a bee has three or more points of either shadow or luminance, they are, they can no longer embrace the opposite destiny. And they have already chosen their fate. The only question remains, how quickly will they meet it? So eventually, so once you, once you've given like three to one of the facts, one of the, one of the sides, you can't do the other side.

[01:01:28] You're kind of like locked into one side and eventually you're just going to become a, like an, a thrall to that side. If you continue down that path of sacrificing your destiny. Got it. Yeah. Ooh. But it does offer like, and again, like destiny points aren't just for resurrection as well. Like they, they do allow you to, uh, you can actually make the deal to, to gain extra things.

[01:01:56] I believe you can actually like once per rank when it's a hidden potential, once per rank, when a bee is granted an advance, they may embrace a destiny to take a second advance invigoration. Once per turn, a bee may embrace the destiny to immediately gain three bennies, refresh all their PowerPoints and, uh, and, and unshake if shaken. And then the last one is a speedy resurrection.

[01:02:22] So like when you're dead, uh, they'll just like, they'll resurrect you immediately rather than having to wait for Gaia to resurrect your body. Yeah. So it's, again, it's sort of like deal with the devil, like slippery slope. Like you first one's free, but then like the more you do it, the more, the more you're selling your soul to, to one side or the other. And honestly, either, like neither side is really good.

[01:02:45] Like there's like, there's the angelic host, which is like the light side stuff, but like you become a zealot to their whim and their will. So that, and that may not be the beneficiary to like, to what you were doing previously. So it's, it may not be as any better than like being a, a cultist, like an, an unwavering cultist to the old ones. Hmm. Yeah. But I hope that helps out with that. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:13] So looks like we're pretty much good to go. Then our background details are, you know, I do appreciate the five E kind of the rollable tables on this stuff here. This is very much more free form. Everyone comes from somewhere before your hero was a B. They were a person of hopes, desires, and dreams occupying the world, et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, yeah, this version has like more of like, come up with the background yourself. Yeah.

[01:03:42] And I do think that is at least partially related to the audiences they're speaking to. Yeah. Because people that play D and D might not have that same, you know, level of, of not necessarily creativity. I'm not talking down either, but like they're trying to give a crutch for expression might be needed. Yeah. So I think I'm going to still stick with my original core concept of American tourists that was a truck driver who accidentally burnt down Notre Dame. Yeah. Surprise.

[01:04:12] While you were in custody, you swallowed a B. Yeah. Or while you were like, yeah, like, cause I, the Templar probably took like, like, we're probably like immediately on your ass after that. Maybe I was actually helping the, like, I fought a car. I kind of like an idea. Like my first supernatural counter was near that. No, no. I was fighting ghouls. I swear. Cause that's, that's the thing. Cause in the pair, in the setting, Paris, the Paris catacombs are actually a Templar stronghold.

[01:04:41] And they're trying to like stop an insurgence of ghouls that are coming up from the depths. So burning down the cathedral was the only option to stop that. Yeah. So there's one other thing I've kind of been thinking about this setting and I haven't researched it. So this is an appropriate time to ask. Is there any kind of path to like, say, screw off guy, go away and get rid of your B? No.

[01:05:10] There's not something where you perhaps, I don't know, swallow a fly to then eat the bee and then swallow a bird to then eat the spider. That's not a thing, right? Guy is basically like, she's, she's kind of insistent. Cause like, I think in the setting, in the, in the system and in the setting, like if you, if you try to ignore her, that buzzing in the back of your head is just going to get louder and louder and louder. Until you do the thing that she wants you to do.

[01:05:35] Like it is sort of like, like she is for the most part, it seems like she is benevolent, but it's also kind of a, like, you're, you don't really have, you have to kind of like do what she wants or like do what it wants. Cause she's in your head constantly. You get where I'm coming from with this. You know, you might be a little old lady. I definitely do. Yeah. What happens when you swallow the washing machine? Do you keep yourself clean?

[01:06:02] I will say in the setting, there was an attempt to extract a bee from somebody. It didn't work in the long run. Does the bee just hang around? No, the bee, the bee basically melts into you. Like it becomes a part of you. Like you, it basically like attaches to your nervous system and basically just kind of fuses and like. Assimilates into your body, filling you with anima. So yeah, it's sort of as far as, as far as anybody's concerned in the setting, it's, it's sort of a one and done deal.

[01:06:32] Like you are, once you are chosen, you are chosen. Yeah. Brownie, if you're interested, if you're, if that's something that you want to like try and like do in a game, like I'm totally down for you trying to like trying to like exorcise your bee because you're done with this shit. We may get there, but I was going off of the song and there was a little old lady who saw it a fly. Yeah. I mean, hell that could, that could also, that could also tie to, to your, to the, to you guys like Nicholas Cage rival, the B-less.

[01:07:02] To be fair. Every time that I've seen the things about the bees being the way that Gaia talks to you, I just keep flashing back to the warriors and like the bottom half of length, Lynn Thigpen's face. Yeah. Speaking directly into the microphone going, Ooh, it looks like our warriors are moving their way through Gramercy Park. It's something like that. I actually did up a mock thing for a game. I was running of Gaia's signal.

[01:07:31] If you want to guys to want to hear it, they can do that off, off, like, like, like after the recording. It's another Reverend Coltista. It's, it's similar, but it's a little bit more fragmented because it's all about, it has like some, uh, like there's a lot of like witness, transmit, initiate, like that kind of like stuff. And then there's like little, yeah. Yeah. And then there's like little, like quoted captions of like pop culture, like audio usually in, in there as well.

[01:07:59] Like, cause it's trying to get the, it's, it's, it's trying to get its message across to you in, in a, in a way that might be familiar to you human brain. So it uses like, it's sort of, it's sort of like Bumblebee from Transformers, the way it communicates with you amidst it's like other it's, it's actual message. So. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:08:19] Cause it's like, it's this outer L itself, like guy itself is this like sort of cosmic force that is just trying to like stop the, the stop. Like it's, it's sort of a computer program that is like, it's going to have to rewrite history or rewrite the world again. If the, uh, the dreaming ones wake up and it doesn't want to do that. Cause it's done. It's been doing that a couple of times now and it's getting tired of it.

[01:08:44] So that's why it sends out bees to, so that the guy has chosen will actually, you know, go solve the problem, like troubleshoot the problem before he, she has to do a full on reboot of the, and back to factory defaults. Of, uh, of the world itself. So, but yeah, I think we're basically done though. I think for character creation wise. Yeah. Honestly, I'm looking forward to playing this. If we actually do play it instead of just rolling it up.

[01:09:13] Well, I have a campaign's worth of scenarios that I have, I have written. I have play tested at least once. Two of you have actually read through those scenarios, like a couple of those scenarios because I've passed them on to you to, to look over a few months ago or like a few months to almost a year ago. So. Pass the savings onto you. So, uh, and there's other, I, like, I have a few other like scenarios that I've pulled from other things that I've just kind of like brewed in because they were just, they, they seem to fit perfectly with the setting.

[01:09:41] So yeah, I've got, I can literally like, I can run, like since we have characters, like I can run this like whenever I have multiple scenarios for it. So. Well, that sounds good. But yeah, I guess that is it for this rollup. So Adam, how do we, how do we finish these off? Well, Chris, Krizon, Review Cult at the Man of Many Names. Thank you so much for taking time once again to take us into the magic world of secret world of wars, not worlds, secret wars.

[01:10:10] Well, there is a secret war going on, but that's not, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got it backwards there. But anyway, thank you so much for that. I do. I appreciate going through the slog that was doing the 5e characters and then this simplified version here. It just, it feels like there's a lot more freedom here. So yeah. Thank you so much. So Chris, even though we're neighbors on the Crittinite podcast network, where can people find you?

[01:10:36] Well, when I'm not hanging out with RPX, I have my, I have two of my own podcasts. First one is Al Dente Rigamortis, a creepypasta book review kind of web, kind of, kind of podcast where we, me and my co-hosts or my co-hosts and I take creepypasta every week and read it and then discuss it either like the materials or the grammar and editing and stuff like that. To the best of our abilities, we're, we're amateurs, but we, we try to don't hurt me, Brownie.

[01:11:07] It was my he and he was wrong. I can feel you judging. But yeah, we, we read creepypastas and review them and discuss them and recommend and offer our recommendations to them. So, and then when I'm not reading creepypastas, I also have an actual play podcast called One Less Die, a gaming actual play podcast. We started with Shadowrun and we have kind of branched out with other campaigns that I have run over the years and been recording and now I'm getting around to editing them.

[01:11:34] So we have Cthulhu D20 sessions, Monster of the Week, Dungeon World, Dungeon and Dragons, Pathfinder, Eclipse Faze, Eclipse Faze at some point soon. Coriolis, a whole, a whole smattering of, of, of game scenarios and systems. So yeah, that's where you can check my stuff out. Awesome.

[01:11:57] And you, you can also find us on the credit at creditinthenight.com and for role playing exchange, we're still at the role playing exchange.com. And then we are on Twitter slash X, which still sounds silly to me. And that is at RPExchange. Well, anyway, gentlemen, thank you all so much for joining me. And until next time, we'll see you all later. Goodbye. Bye. We'll be well. Family. Family. Family.