Speaker 1: Hi, this is Moses from Wilna's Cave and you are
listening to Tale of the Manticor. The following podcast is
intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome
back to Tale of the Manticor Season three. Like the
creature from which it takes its name, Tale of the
Manticor is a mashup, a cross breeding between two different
species of storytelling. Here you will find the unpredictability of
old school paper and dice games with the story craft
of a dark fantasy novel. No character is sacred, and
none will be spared if the dice decide their fate
is at hand. According to lore, the Tale of a
Manticor is barbed with cruel iron spikes. There will be
much pain in the days ahead. Last time on Tail
of the Manticor, in chapter twelve, the exhausted companions are
forced to abandon their pursuit of the three fleeing Orcs
and refocus their efforts on finding a place to rest
for the night. However, this proves to be more difficult
than they expected, partly because they are in hostile Black
Cloud territory, but mostly because of the flocks of noisy crows,
who harass them and threaten to draw unwonted attention. In
an effort to avoid the birds, the companions move into
a mist filled ravine where they discover a cave which
is occupied by something large. Judging by the sound of
snoring coming from within, dor Renni wants to sneak past it,
but Tentier wants to turn back, so Achillea breaks the
tie and sides with do Renni. While the party does
manage to pass by the cave mouth without waking whatever
is inside, they unfortunately encounter yet another group of crows
on the far side. With the bird's caw in alarm,
the monster in the cave wakes up. Now the party
must deal with momby the ogre. A brutal fight ensues
in which Chord's life is almost lost, but in the
end the party is victorious. The Song of the Woods verse.
Speaker 2: One with a whispers, soft and swaying, leaves the emerald
vault high above, where shadows dance and creature's love gives
everything the heart believes. Sunlight filters through the trees, a
golden touch on mossy ground, as secrets hide in silence found,
and every path a story weaves.
Speaker 1: I think I forgot to mention in the last episode
that the set piece encounter with Momby was actually the
result of the current mythic event meaning move stalemate. Over
the years, Momby was sometimes hired by the Black Cloud
tribe to fight on their side, and concerning their recent
dispute with the Blood Foot tribe, the intention was to
pay him to break or move the stalemate anyway. With
that event meaning spent, I need to roll a new one.
Let's quickly do that before we begin Part one Undy percentile,
the seventy extravagance and sixty one death extravagant death extravagance
of death. Humm, no idea what to do with this yet,
but that's a later issue, not a now issue. I'm
ready to move on with the story. Let's jump in
Chapter thirteen, Part one, Day twelve late night mythic event
meaning extravagance, death, party status. Achillia seven of seven hit points,
Chord one of eleven hit points, de Renni six out
of six, ten Tier five out of six supplies. The
Companions have eleven portions of food and six of water.
Spells available. Achilia has memorized message. Cord can cast locate
plants and animals. Achillia looked down at their fallen foe.
A pool of dark blood was spreading out underneath it.
Everything had all happened so quickly that from the moment
the crows raised the alarm to the moment the huge,
hairy brute had burst out of the cave, swinging its
immense club. She had barely had time to think. All
she had been aware of was an onslaught of savagery
and strength, and by aheya, it had been strong, so
powerful that when it had cord, it had almost Achillie
looked at her friend, who limply held his bloody battle
axe after wrenching it free of the monster's skull. Cord
was swaying like a sapling in the wind, or rather
like a pair of saplings. The Ogre's strike had split
his torso in two, and now his body was cleft
in a.
Speaker 3: V oh cord.
Speaker 1: She rushed over to help, pushing his two halves together
and frantically looking around for something with which to bind them.
Ten tears saw what she was doing and moved to
aid her. The dead ogre was naked save for a
leather thong it wore around its neck that was strung
with rat skulls. The young elf crouched over the dead
monster and undid it with shaking fingers. Once it was released,
he held it up by one end to allow the
skulls to fall off, and then passed it to Achillia.
She accepted the strip and used it to bind her
friend together. When she was done, she stepped back and
inspected her work. The leather would hold, but the wound,
if that's what it should be called, looked bad. Are
you all right, she asked, knowing he was not. Court
teetered drunkenly before managing a bow.
Speaker 2: You just need to rest a while, said.
Speaker 1: Achilia, trying to muster a smile.
Speaker 4: You'll be fine.
Speaker 1: She heard herself saying the words, and knew she sounded ridiculous.
What would she do if she lost Court? The thought
was unbearable. If she hadn't been so tired, she might
have cried. Dorani and Tentier were right beside her, but
they were looking at their fallen enemy.
Speaker 4: I think this is an ogre, said de Rennie. I've
never seen one before, but well that's what I think
it is.
Speaker 1: Let's roll it into the ravine, suggested tantyr. It took
all three of them to do it. The brute must
have weighed over three hundred pounds, but luckily gravity helped
them with the job, and before long a Killie and
the two brothers had managed to roll the corpse all
the way out of the cave and down to the
bottom of the gulch. We need rest, said Deray, panting.
He looked ahead to where the crow filled tree had been.
It was empty of occupants. Now all was silent and
still save for the companion's labored breathing.
Speaker 4: Robin, where are you.
Speaker 1: Called, Achilie, The little taxidermied bird responded immediately to her voice,
flitting over from a nearby tree. My little Robin, Achillie said,
holding the little construct on her index finger.
Speaker 2: Tonight, I need you to be brave and alert. Can
you look over us while we sleep? And while cord rests.
Speaker 1: Robin tweeted out something that sounded affirmative, and whether or
not the little bird truly understood Achilia's instructions. The rest
of the companions laid down on the cave floor and
let sleep engulf them. Before I can continue the story,
I need to make a few rolls for the next
day's hex crawl. Here's a D twenty to roll for
the weather. I got a fourteen. That's a good day
for travel, nothing out of the ordinary, just a nice
summer day. I'll roll the same die again for stumble upon.
A one or a twenty will mean something terrible or
wonderful will be discovered. Here's the roll before no result there.
Next is for wandering encounters. I think the companions will
break free from these woods as soon as they're able,
if for no other reason than to escape the flock
of crows that has brought them so much trouble. That
means on my D six, only on a five or
six will they encounter anything. Here comes the roll before.
All right, they can pass through a good bit of
Black Cloud territory unhindered, and I think just one more
day we'll see them clear of the York Lands. While
I have my dice andy, I also want to roll
to see if the party finds any special treasure in
the Ogre's layer. I'll use this D twenty one more time.
The highigher the number, the greater the reward. Let's say
that on a nineteen or twenty there's something really significant
to be found in Momby's cave the role oh at nineteen.
I was really not expecting that. Okay, this is going
to require a bit of thought, and I wonder if
I could use my new event meaning to figure out
what it should be. I'm also wondering if the treasure
could be magical. Had I rolled a twenty, I'd say
yes for sure. But with a nineteen, I'll say it's
fifty to fifty and roll a high load check. Hi
means yes on a D twenty an eight. So it's
not magical, but it is still valuable and possibly significant
in other ways. No good ideas are coming to me
right now, though, I think I need to go away
and think about this for a few hours. I'll be
back in a bed. Okay, I ended up sleeping on it,
and I've got this idea that in addition to several
boxes of coins, Momby has gathered together a small colle
of skulls. To him, they are more precious and more
interesting than gold and silver. One of the skulls in
his collection happens to be a relic from the not
too distant former land of the cay Moors, who were
the cay Morse. They were a race of men who
eventually discovered and founded the kingdom now known as Camertine.
I went into some detail about that civilization in season two,
but there's no need for any lore now, at least
not yet. All we need to know is that one
of Mamby's skulls is the jet and turquoise encrusted skull
of a long dead prince. After his death ages ago,
he was honored by having a skull transformed into a
work of art, extravagant death, if you please. Over the centuries,
this treasure got lost or stolen, perhaps changed hands many
times over, and somehow it eventually ended up in Mambi's collection.
Whether or not this relic will have a part to
play in Achillia's story going forward, well that's anybody's guests.
Before I returned to the story, there's one last thing
I need to do. Having used at my current event
meaning and anty replacement, here we go using my deepercentile.
I've got a twenty two befriend and twenty four tension. Okay,
I can work with that. But you know what, I've
just had a notion. Instead of going back to the PCs,
I'm going to do something a little different Chapter thirteen,
Part two, Day twelve late night mythic event meaning befriend tension. Otote,
the dream shaper was ancient by the standards of his race,
having seen over eighty winters. The orc Shaman's body was
shrunken and frail. His spine was bent like a question mark,
and his wrinkled gray skin sagged limply from the bone.
He was blind, in fact, he had put out both
of his his own eyes long ago in sacrifice to
the all powerful deity Gruche. But otot was not without
vision of a kind. His rats and his crows, especially
his crows, watched for him and spoke to him. They
were bound to his soul and did his bidding. He
was also a gifted dream shaper and saw much in
his waking visions, but it was the crows who provided
him with information. Tonight they whispered to him, and Otos
whispered back rus der doso do bo. There were new
intruders in his lands, not the troublesome bloodfoot Orcs, but
a different kind of trespasser, the folk. The crows had said,
four of them. They had slain some of his warriors,
and they would pay for that. It had been easy
enough for his crows to drive them down into Mambi's ravine.
There they would find death. There could be no other outcome.
Perhaps I now they already had Otote. The dream Shaper
smiled a toothless smile. Chapter thirteen, Part three, Day thirteen
Mourning mythic event meaning befriend tension party status. The party
status is unchanged, with the exception of Cord and ten Tyr,
who have gained one hit point through natural healing and
now have two out of eleven and six out of six, respectively.
Achille's eyes flicked open and she awoke. De Rennie was
gently shaking her by one shoulder.
Speaker 4: Get up, Achillee, he said.
Speaker 1: She sat up and looked around.
Speaker 4: Is everything We are safe?
Speaker 1: Can the else reply?
Speaker 4: But we need to be going soon.
Speaker 1: Achillea knuckled sleep from her eyes and looked around the cave.
Ten Tyr was already up, looking at something deeper inside.
The layer smell out strongly of urine, and there was
another bad odor too, sour decay. She knew where it
was coming from. They'd rolled the Ogre's heavy corpse down
to the bottom of the ravine, but that wasn't very
far away. The flies would find it soon, or else
the crows would the crows thinking of them, she felt disquieted.
Those birds were not normal, and dere Any was right.
They did need to get moving soon. She got up
and stretched her stiff muscles. She'd been too exhausted the
night before to bother unrolling her bed roll, so there
was nothing to put away. She'd simply used her pack
as a pillow and slept on the cool stone floor
of the cave. Suddenly she remembered what had happened to
Cord the night before. She turned to him, how are
you healing? The construct did not look good. He was
making an awkward attempt to tighten a leather binding that
held the two halves of his sundered torso together.
Speaker 4: Let me help, she offered.
Speaker 1: Cord allowed her to retie the knots and make the
very snug, but he still looked bad. How he could
ever recover from this wound she could not imagine. When
she was done, she looked at to Rennie.
Speaker 4: I'm ready, she told him.
Speaker 1: Thinking the brothers were probably waiting on her.
Speaker 4: We leave in a moment. Ten Tier is just checking
the back of the cave in case there's anything all
over here.
Speaker 1: Give the younger ELF's voice right on Cue ten. Tare
discovered some things deeper inside the cave. There were numerous
scattered animal bones, big and small. He also found several
dung heaps. Some were fresh and pungent, while others were
old and had dried into hard patties. There were no
exits or tunnels inside the cave, but there was a
small cavity into which the Ogre had piled his valuables.
This treasure included four boxes that looked almost identical to
the coin box carried by the companions. Three of these
boxes were empty, but the fourth still contained some coins.
Tent Tyre counted out twenty five gold pieces and forty
five silver. He put the money in his belt pouch
and left the boxes behind. The final item in the
cash was a filthy leather sack that made a hollow,
rattling sound, as though it were full of wooden bowls.
When Tenter picked it up, he opened it, looked inside
and made a face.
Speaker 4: Oh it's full of skulls.
Speaker 1: He said through a frown, and it stinks.
Speaker 4: Put it away, ten tier, let's go.
Speaker 1: Said de Rennie. The older elf was removing the coins
from the box. He had been carrying, so he could
be rid of the extra weight. Hold on, there's something
else in here, replied ten Tyr. He put his hand
into the sack and fished at a round black object.
He held it up and regarded it, cocking his head
in a bemused manner. What in Cheuchin's name is this?
He put down the sack and walked over, holding forth
a strange object for the others to see. The thin
strip of morning sun had penetrated the canopy and fell
across the mouth of the cave in a beam. Ten
Tyr entered it and held the thing up in order
to see it better. It was a skull, but strangely
decorated with shiny black and green stones.
Speaker 2: That's a human skull, I think.
Speaker 1: Said Achillia. She had never seen one before, but she
had known three humans, and this seemed to be about
the right size, if a little small, perhaps a child's.
It's strange. I don't much like it, said ten Tyr.
He was still frowning. I'll keep it in, said Achillia simply,
and held out her hand. Ten Tears seemed glad to
be rid of the macob treasure. He gave it to Achillia,
and she tucked it into her bag. Then, with nothing
left to do, the companions left the cave, stepped over
the dead Ogre's corpse, and exited the ravine. On the
far side, they crested the rise after a few minutes
of hard effort. Each of them had the same thought
as they climbed. It had been wise to stay and
fight the night before, as the incline was both steep
and treacherous. At the top, more arrows of sunlight pierced
the tree tops and slanted down against the forest floor.
Birds chirped merrily, and a light wind made the leaves
above hiss pleasant As it was Dorannie commented that it
would be best if they left the woods as soon
as they were able. Everyone agreed, and they made their
way single file, and the direction of the Elfin brother's
guest was north. After a couple of hours, they were
free of the forests. Now in front of them was
an expanse of hilly scrub and the large jutting shards
of bald rock. Far in the distance, Tenu noticed a
dark cloud wheeling through the sky as though were alive. Look,
he said quietly. Everyone knew what it was.
Speaker 2: Should we go back into the woods, asked to Killia.
Speaker 4: We can't stay here forever. Let's wait and see if
they go away, and then move ahead.
Speaker 1: Came Dorannie's reply. After a few minutes, the crows did
fly away. I was lucky, remarked ten Tear.
Speaker 2: I wonder if that's where the Orc tribe takes his name.
Speaker 1: The Chilian mused.
Speaker 2: The crow's gone is the way a head safe.
Speaker 1: Far from it, conceded dour Renni.
Speaker 4: But like the Orcs say, pikno and sadarama drob.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you spoke lowkish, said Akilia. He doesn't,
laughed tent t here, but every help those are that saying? Well,
I don't, said Achilia, reddening slightly. Tinto's a goofy smile,
welted it means, began Dourrenni in a flat voice.
Speaker 4: The fastest way out is through.
Speaker 1: He walked away from the tree life, followed by tent Tire,
and then Achilia, with cord behind her and Robin perched
atop her head. Dramatis Personae de Renni twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: The fastest way out is through. Joe, tell me, the
only way you'll ever fix your shot is to practice
until the problem goes away.
Speaker 1: This advice came from Dornny's archery mentor, the patient demanding
an amiable elf of just over eighty years of age.
Elmir loved a good proverb and never passed up a
chance to use one.
Speaker 4: So now we take our advice from the orcs.
Speaker 1: Yes to Rennie Rightley, He sighed and knocked another arrow
to his bowstring. Humphm. Elmir is one of those people
who left with your mouth closed.
Speaker 3: Don't lose heart. Try again. Remember your legs are just
as important to your aim as your arms. Shoulder with
a part knee slightly bent.
Speaker 1: As we practiced, de Rennie did as he was told,
but inside he was beginning to wonder if he would
ever develop this skill any further.
Speaker 3: Very good armed straight.
Speaker 1: Elmire tapped him unto the elbow with his fingertips, and
Drannia locked his arm.
Speaker 5: Don't squeeze the bow so hard. Better now, draw, but
not that far. That's where you're going wrong, de Rennie.
That's why your aim is off. Your draw should match
your intended distance. You don't always want to pull the
arrow back all the way.
Speaker 1: Der Rennie steadied, his breathing insided down the shaft. Before
releasing the string from his fingertips. His arrow streaked towards
its target, a practice dubby set up at a distance
of sixty feet with a red flower placed over the
heart as a bullseye. The missile struck the target, but
four inches to the left of the flower. De Rennie slumped,
but Elmer was not disheartened.
Speaker 3: Practice, de Rennie, you only need more practice. There's no
way around it. No elf ever mastered the bow when
they first picked it up.
Speaker 4: I didn't just pick it up.
Speaker 1: Sneered Dernni bitterly.
Speaker 3: It takes years to master, replied Elmir, unfaced. The Orcs
have the right of it in this case, my friend.
The fastest way out is through.
Speaker 1: Orcs are nocturnal, and so while the party travels, most
of the Black Cloud tribe is asleep. Otote, the dream
shape paper is too, but the shaman is never really unconscious.
He just drifts between two different modes of conscious awareness.
When Otot sleeps, he dreams, and his dreams bring the
power of clairvoyance. In some cases they even give him
the power of divination. During the day, Otot sees through
the eyes of his crows. But Killie was right to
guess that this is where the tribe takes its name.
By midday, the birds would have discovered Mombi's corpse and
reported back to their master. Otote would also learn from
his spies that none of the four trespassers had fallen
to the Ogre, and he would deduce that they must
be a formidable enemy. Presently, Otote is using his crows
to look for the companions, but the birds, and therefore
he can't see everything at once. I wonder what the
chance would be that he'd find them now. I've already
rolled for wandering encounters for this day, and I determined
that there would be none. But this is different. In essence,
Otote is casting a kind of spell. With that in mind,
I think a saving throw for the entire party to
see if they can avoid being spotted is in order.
I bawling all my character sheets. I see that the
average saving throw against bells among the pieces is sixteen.
So that's what I'm going to use. If they fail,
Otote will see them. He might even learn something more
than just their location. If the pieces succeed, they'll manage
to avoid the shaman's winged spies. Here's the role I
got an eight. If they'd critically failed the role, I
might have given Otote a little extra divination power, but
that did not happen. So the shaman will learn where
the party is. But that's about it, and that leads
me to wonder what can he do with his information.
By now, the pieces are seventy five percent of the
way through Black Cloud territory, having been in it for
one and a half days. By nightfall, they'll be clear.
If Otote's layer is located in the middle of his
tribe's land, then the party would have passed it by now.
It's going to come down to this, at what time
do the crows spot the party. If it's early enough
in the day, Otote will be able to take some action.
If not, it'll be too late to intercept them. I'm
just going to roll a D ten. Whatever number shows
on the die. That's what o'clock it is in the
game when the pieces are spotted. Here's the role. Whoa
A ten. That's pretty conclusive. The dice gods have decided
that by the time Otote's spies find the party, the
sun has already set and the trespassers have more or
less already left Black cloud territory. Otote will not pursue
there'd be nothing to gain by that, but he will
assign one of his crows to watch his northern border
for the next few weeks. If the four intruders should
try to return this way, he'll be ready for them.
Chapter thirteen, Part four, Day thirteen evening mythic event meaning
befriend tension party status. The party's status is unchanged. Since
they traveled in single file in the Elven manner, there
was little conversation between the campaign onions as they made
their way north. The sun still shone and the wind
provided a cooling breeze, so the going had not been
so difficult despite the rough and hilly terrain. Achilia's white
gold hair was bound up at a ponytail, and it
bounced against her bag in time with their steady steps.
As they hiked, the companions maintained a brisk pace, stopping
only for short breaks to rest, drink water, and scan
the skies for the dark cloud of crows they wished
to avoid. Eventually, the sun began to set and the
sky above the horizon became banded with washed out hues
of indigo, salmon, and orange. Before the light of day
had completely disappeared. Tentyre pointed out a copse of stunted
pines in the distance. They would make for a decent
shelter for the night, they agreed, much better than sleeping
out in the open. Before they reached the cover of
the pines, they saw the dark miasma of the crows
darken a patch of distant sky. One last time. Tantier
was confident that they had not been spotted, but de
Rennie wasn't so short.
Speaker 4: We should keep a careful watch tonight, just in case.
Speaker 1: He suggested. Achillia communicated the elf suggestion to Chord, for
it was upon his shoulders that the responsibility really fell.
Cord nodded, creaking as he bent to let Achillia know
that he would remain vigilant through the night, and the
others unpacked their bed rolls and slept under the pine branches.
Unlike the previous night, this time, Achillea dreamt in vivid clarity.
She was in a dark woods, but no place. She recognized.
The trees weren't the right kind of trees, stunted pines
and mossy oaks. Arranged rank after rank and receding into
the distance. As far as the eye could see in
every direction, and they were other things that were not
quite right. Her voice, even though it was just the
sound of her breathing, wasn't familiar, and she felt strange
in her own skin. Most of all, As it was night,
she should be seeing the forest in the gray scale
of infra vision, but this was not the case. Instead,
everything was bathed in a silvery sheen from the moonlight
where it penetrated the leafy canopy above. Presently, Achilie was running,
and she felt afraid, with something chasing her. No, there
was nothing behind her. She was running because she was lost,
lost in a forest labyrinth. Her feet pounded the ground
as she ran, while the wind made the leaves whisper
conspiratorially all around. There was no path to follow, just
endless columns of trees. Still she ran, even though she
had no idea where she was going and had no
sense of direction at all. More silver lined oaks, more
stunted pines, washed in moon glow so that they appeared
almost blue. This kind of vision was so alien and strange.
She couldn't see anything like the clarity she was used to.
Pockets of shadow and gloom filled her with dread. Eventually,
when her lungs burned and her heart was beating hard
in her chest, Achillie was forced to stop. She had
come to the edge of a wide pond and had
almost run straight into it. She faltered but did not
fall as she stopped just at the waterline, Breathing hard
in that voice that was not her own. She looked
down at the pond's surface. It was mere, smooth, and
reflected the surrounding tree tops in a perfect but inverted copy.
When she leaned forward, she gasped. Her reflection was not
of her, not her own face, but a stranger's. Achillie
raised a hand, and her reflection did the same. She
touched her face while gaping in amazement. The reflected image
gaped back at her. It was a child's face, the
face of a human boy. Thank you for listening to
Tale of the manticor if you're enjoying the show and
care to help to support it, there are lots of
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show on your podcatchery of Choice. I'm thankful for all
of your support. Here's another kind listener review. This one
was left by a thirty four k bro on YouTube.
Thirty four k bro writes, great work, John, I painfully
waited for season two to be over before I listened.
I know well that first D and D sealing I
headed back in Ontario in the late nineteen eighties. Your
show brings me close. I don't think I can wait
for season three to end. I'll start now. Well done,
old boy. Thanks thirty four k bro. Another Ontarian, I see.
I hope you're keeping warm this winter. If I have
helped rekindle that nineteen eighties flame in your heart, well
that's the best thing I can hear from my listeners.
Thank you for that. I hope you enjoy season three.
This episode features the voices of regulars Ky Allen and
Kevin Barringer, playing Drenni and Tantier, respectively. It also introduces
a new voice in the role of Elmere, the archery instructor.
Welcome to the show, Dan Greek of Legends from the Fireside,
another semi actual play that you should absolutely be listening to.
Thanks so much to the three of you for your
excellent work for listeners who are curious to learn more
about Tale of the Manticore. I keep a blog where
I post all kinds of show and RPG related stuff
like art, maps, tables, crafts, and show notes. You can
find it a Tale of the Manticore at our blogspot
dot com. To get in touch with me, I'm at
Manticore Tale on X, Tale of the Manticore podcast on Instagram,
or Tale of Themanticore at gmail dot com. I would
love to hear from you. The adventure will continue on
the next episode a Tale of the manticor the story
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