Speaker 1: Hi, this is Caesar from the YouTube channel Dungeon Master
Request and you're 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 Laura, the Tale
of a Manticore is barbed with cruel iron spikes. There
will be much pain in the days ahead. Last time
on Tail of the Manticor, in last chapter, the pieces
embark on a three day trip to reach Mirror Lake,
where they hope to find the entrance to the Golden
Path and after to locate out Ogzagog. To get there,
they must pass through the crystal Wood. Within it is
something called the Bloom, an unknown but dangerous thing. The
action then cuts to Blario, one of the occupants of
the Iron Tower, an owner of the second scroll of Galandal,
he has a breakthrough and now is very close to
learning how he too might access the Golden Path. Returning
to the pieces, as they enter the crystal Wood, the
surprised by how normal it seems, but soon after their
arrival they are being watched. The narration here gives way
to a bit between the lines segment in which the Bloom,
a custom creature, is developed. The result is a monstrous
sentient plant that can attack with numerous vine like tendrils.
These attacks can come from anywhere in the crystal wood,
as the bloom has the innate power to cast past
plant on its appendages at will. It has another special
power too, it can puff out small clouds of hollucinogenic
pollen at its enemies. All in all, the Bloom is
a nasty monster and very deadly. Achilie is lost in
thought working on the fourth stands of her poem The
Song of the Woods, when the creature makes its attack
The Song of the Woods verse four.
Speaker 2: In Evening's Hush, the silence grows a stony weight on
heart and breath that tells of dreams undone by death.
In secrets no one living knows as twilight limes, the
leaves inflame, the dying night, both fierce and one marks
the hour when day is gone and night resumes. Each
ageless claim.
Speaker 1: Chapter forty seven, Part one day forty three days from
their destination late evening mythic event meaning disrupt nature party status.
Achillee fifteen of fifteen, hit points, Court twenty nine of
twenty nine, Denni eighteen of nineteen ten, Tier twenty eight
of twenty eight, fair Wind thirty one of thirty three,
Flicker sixteen of sixteen supplies. The Companions have twenty portions
of food spells available. Achille can cast and large detect evil, glitter,
dust and dispel magic. Chord can cast, dangle, slow poison,
hold animal speak with plants, tree shape and pass plant.
Fair Wind can cast hold person. De Rennie had, like Achillia,
been surprised at how normal the crystal wood was. He
wasn't exactly sure what he had expected, but this wasn't it.
The leaves rustled, small animals scurried in the underbrush, and
the birds sang their carefree song from the tree tops
until he called a halt. Something's wrong, he said, moving
his hand or the helt of his sword. Fairwind made
a comment, but do Renni wasn't paying the cleric any attention.
His concentration was directed on the voice inside him, a deep,
instinctual voice that told him there was danger near. He
suddenly realized what was amiss the birds. They have stopped singing.
He began to draw his sword, pivoting in place and
scanning the woods, but he could sense no presence until
all of a sudden, vine like tendrils shot out of
the trees, attacking the companions from all sides at once
injury combat. The Bloom has been aware of the piece's
presence in the crystal Wood from the moment they entered,
but it allowed them to get several miles inside its
borders before striking, in order that none might escape its reach.
Since the pieces failed their surprise check, the Bloom gets
an entire free round of attacks, and this is really
bad because not only does it get ten attacks, two
of which are special, but it also enjoys a plus
ten to hit bonus for as long as it remains
at full strength. Between de Ready, ten Tier, Achille, Court,
fair Wind, and Flicker, there are six available targets to
expedite all the rolling I'm going to need to do.
I'll say that four party members will receive two attacks each,
and the remaining two, determined at random, will each receive
a single special attack. I'll roll a D six against
the order of names I just listed to find out
which PCs will get the special attacks. I've got five
and a one, so Akilia and der Renni will have
to deal with the Bloom's hallucinogenic pollen. But let's roll
through the mondaye attacks first. Ten Deer has an AC
of fifteen, so the Bloom, with a plus ten to
attack will only need to roll a five or better
to hit him. Here come two D twenties and eighteen
and a thirteen. Two vines shoot through the brush to
strike the elf four, rolling two D six ooof nine
points of damage. Ten tier doesn't even know what hit him.
Court is next, and he also has an AC of fifteen.
Rolling to hit on two D twenty A seven and
of fourteen means two more hits. The construct is bludgeoned
for eight points. Due to the suddenness of the attack,
Flicker has no chance to blink away. Here come the
rolls an eight and A two both poor rolls, but
there's still one hidden there anyway. A thorny branch breaks
across the blank Dog's flank four three points. Fairwin's new
armor class is actually quite good. It's sixteen for plaid
mail and a dexterity penalty that we haven't yet seen
in play because the Cleric says he has always been
the lowest the rules allow. But even with the sixteen,
the Bloom only needs to roll a six to hit him.
I have a pair of nineteens. The Cleric is waged
from both sides. He takes seven points of damage. That's
it for regular attacks, but the Bloom is not done
because it has a special attack that it makes with
a pair of flower covered branches. The blossoms have eyeballs
in their centers, which gives the Bloom a sight. They
can also puff out small clouds of hallucinogenic pollen. Both
Achillia and Deurni will need to make us save versus
poison to avoid the effects of these attacks. Weird eyeball
encrusted limp snakes up and coils in the air in
front of Derenni. He coughs out a cloud of dark
yellow dust. Durrenni needs to roll in eleven or better
to make the save, use the roll an eleven that
was close. He somehow senses the danger and dodges the
cloud that fills the space where his head had just been.
Achillia's check will be tougher. As a fifth level magic user,
the number to beat is a thirteen. A six is
a fail. When the bizarre ocular tendril rears up in
front of her, Achilia is taken by complete surprise. When
she gasps, the blossoms puff their pallen into her face,
and she inhales a quantity of the stuff right away,
reality seems to lurch and shift. There's a special table
for holycinogenic effects that I won't detail here, but I
will provide on my blog. A D eight will determine
what happens to poor Achillia. I got it. Two? What's that?
Woo oh? Brother? The Cilia had never seen an octopus
or a squid before, but if she had, she might
have said that the thing that suddenly appeared in front
of her resembled a tentacle from that kind of animal,
only woody and covered in blue and white flowers. She
had just enough time to apprehend that each flower blossom
contained a single staring eyeball at its center, before a
cloud of pollen erupted out of them and into her face.
Then her reality shuddered, distorted, and melted away in streaks,
until all that was left was a smear of color, sound,
and smell. That was when the itching began. It started
in her scalp, feeling as though hundreds of insects were
crawling through her hair. The feelingsped to her neck and
her back, then her arms. When she looked down at
her hands, she was horrified to see spiders pouring out
of her shirt sleeves. Screaming, she flailed around with a
kind of spastic dance, trying to fling the bugs off her,
but they coming, as though her very body had become
a nest of them. She wailed again and began to
stomp around, But for every dozen spiders she crushed, more
came to fill their place, until she was covered in
a quantity of spiders so numerous that she wore them
like a cloak. Achilius hallucinations will persist for Oh, she's lucky,
well not exactly lucky. But did I say that the
visions will last just one round? But that's settled, we
begin round one. The party A three the Bloom a two.
Lucky again and winning the initiative could make all the difference.
If the pieces can score a few hits and take
down some tendrils, they can seriously reduce their own chance
of getting hit when the Bloom retaliates. I'll begin with
de Renni. He turns and swipes his blade at the
nightmarish thing swaying nearby. He needs to twelve to connect fifteen.
Good job to Rennie. His sword will do a D
six of damage A three. He cannot hack all the
way through the branch, but he manages to shear off
several flowery eyeballs with a splatter of vitreous gel. Ten
Tier is next, needing an eleven to hit A twelve. Wooh,
just made it. A D six plus one damage for
the Sword of lear Hain four plus one is five,
meaning ten Tier severs the thorny branch in twough Fair
one is next. He needs a fifteen to hit, rolling
a four. No. Good, can Flicker do some damage? A
thirteen is required fifteen This is going pretty well. Damage
for the bite attack will be oh six points. Flicker
crushes one of the branches in her jaws. Cord is
up next, but he will not make a normal attack
this round. He's going to try something different. The spell
speak with Plants specifically says it works on monstrous plants
and it is a fourth level spell. It's on par
with Polymorph and Wall of Fire, so it should be powerful.
Chord reaches out and some kind of communication takes place
between the Man of Wood and the monstrosity. What that
might sound like? Who could possibly say. But on a
game level, I'm going to allow a reaction roll to
see if Cord can somehow convince the bloom to leave
them alone. Normally I introduce situational modifiers with reaction rolls,
but my heart tells me that this time I should
just chuck two D six and see what happens. Here
goes nothing. I got a six. That's not a high roll,
but it's not a disaster. The BX rules advice uncertain,
monster confused. So I'm going to make a second roll,
and this time I will lay out the goalposts clearly.
Chord will need a nine or better to succeed. Here
we go an eleven, whether by a threat, bargain, or
a call for mercy. Chord manage just to bring the
combat to an end. In that one excellent role, the
Bloom's tendrils recede back into the trees all around, leaving
behind one severed tendril that flops and squirms on the
forest floor like a worm. When the final tendril disappears
into the woods, a Chilia is released from the grip
of her temporary madness. She stops stomping about, blinks her eyes,
and looks around utterly confused. You know you're playing D
and D when you plan an elaborate encounter stat at
a custom monster and then the whole thing is over
in minutes due to a single roll of the dice.
I think I spent five times as long preparing to
battle the Bloom, and I'm actually spend in game with it,
to be honest. After I determined that the pieces would
be surprised, I started to get kind of worried. I mean,
eight attacks at plus ten in addition to the special attacks.
I thought things might go very badly, very quickly. It's
like the Giant Forest Troll all over again. And when
disaster didn't happen, it made me step back and wonder,
am I a pessimist. Do I actually expect things to
go poorly? Or am I just mentally preparing myself for
the potential loss of a character? I do care about
every one of them. If I am a glass half
empty kind of fellow, why is that? Is it confirmation bias?
Like I only really remember the bad luck and forget
the good. To be honest, the pieces have a history
of being exceptionally lucky in the face of extreme danger.
Maybe I need to adjust my attitude. What were those things?
They came from out of nowhere, but they're gone now,
Cord called them off. I think Tinty regarded Court, who
somehow managed to have a far away look in his
painted on eyes. He held his body rigidly upright, leaning
slightly back, as though he was concentrating on a sound
no one else could hear. Then he relaxed. Is it
gone for good, court, fair Wind asked. Cord bowed in confirmation.
Snor bless you, man of wood, Fairwind declared, and snal
bless this armor too, he added under his breath, checking
the places where the thorny branches had struck him, and
realizing how much worse it might have been had he
only had a robe for protection. Akuria, are you all right?
Dernni looked concerned. His friend had been acting mad, but
she seemed herself now, I think so. She patted herself
down and pushed her fingers into her hair until they
reached the ponytail, feeling around on her scalp for anything alive.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm all right now.
Speaker 1: She was beginning to understand that the spiders had not
been real.
Speaker 2: I'd like to get out of here.
Speaker 1: Though, another Creek from Court conveyed his support for the idea.
Whatever he and the Bloom had agreed on, he knew
they should not linger.
Speaker 2: In fact, I don't think we should stop until we're
clear of this place.
Speaker 1: Everyone agreed, and with only the moonlight shining through the
treetops to guide their way, the companions resumed their track
to the northeast, making haste Chapter forty seven, Part two,
day forty three days from their destination, late evening mythic
event meaning disrupt nature party status Achillee fifteen of fifteen,
hit Points, Court twenty one of twenty nine, der Anni
eighteen of nineteen ten, Deer nineteen of twenty eight, fair
Wind six of thirty three, Flicker thirteen of sixteen supplies.
The companions have twenty portions of food spells available. Achillia
can cast shrink and large, detect evil, glitter, dust and
dispel magic. Cord can cast entangle, slow, poison, hold animal,
tree shape and pass plant. Fair Wind can cast hold person.
The companions walked through the crystal wood for hours, each
mile taking them further away from the monstrosity that had
attacked them and that Chord had saved them from. Weariness
made their steps leaden, and despite the chance that danger
might return, fatigue crept into their muscles. Their eyelids began
to droop. No one spoke. There was only the imperative
of placing one foot in front of the next. Cord
was in the lead, with Dournnie close behind him. In
the rear of the pack, with Flicker loping along beside
her was Achilie. She was grateful to have them guiding
the way. In her condition, she would probably only have
succeeded in getting them lost and marching them around in circles.
The small hours came and went, and still they walked.
After what felt like an age, the sounds of night
slowly began to retreat, and the stirrings of forest, animals
and birds advanced in anticipation of the coming dawn. When
daybreak came, they brought with it a miraculous discovery. Waits,
said Dournnie in a voice of wonder, calling a halt.
Achillea's hand went automatically to her wand but it soon
became apparent that the elf was not preparing for danger. Amazing,
whispered Tentear in awe, just look, there must be a
million of them, it was obvious. With the als were talking.
Speaker 2: About the crystalates.
Speaker 1: Achillia breathed. They were surrounded by trees of all varieties,
oak and sycamore, maple and fur. Their leaves sparkled with
not dow as one might expect to dawn, but something else,
something wondrous. Each leaf, whether large or small, broad or needle,
had clinging to it a number of sparkling diamonds, real diamonds.
They twinkled like stars in the gloaming, and turned the
entire forest into a constellation of celestial beauty. Looking up,
Achilia saw that the canopy was likewise festooned with jewels.
And when a gentle breeze stirred the treetops, they produced
a soft chimelike sound. The companions gazed about them, dumbfounded.
Durani broke the silence. Touch nothing, he warned, with doubt
darkening his features. Tantier agreed. He recalled their time, and
the came or crypt, still un certain if it had
been his touching the treasures there that had awakened the
queen's spirit. Therefore, while he admired them, he did not
disturb the sparkling leaves. Fairwin didn't understand the Alven tongue,
but even if he had, he would not have obayed
do any He plucked a jewel from a nearby leaf
and held it up to examine more closely. Miracles of sadol,
he breathed. The diamond was faceted on one side and
flat on the other, just like a cut jewel. But
this gem had knocked been ground by the hand of
any mortal jeweler.
Speaker 2: Well, probably they belonged to a Han.
Speaker 1: Said Achilia, standing beside him and overhearing. Hmm, said Fairwind,
still looking intently at the diamond in the palm of
his hand.
Speaker 2: This close to the golden path, I think these lands
belonged to a han, she explained, So these are probably
her miracles, not dolls.
Speaker 1: Huh. Perhaps perhaps you are right. Fairwin's words were limp,
as though we were not really paying Achillia any attention. Indeed,
as he continued to admire the diamond in his hand
and then looked up at the millions of jewels that
surrounded them, he could not stop a smile from spreading
across his face. After arriving in the kym Or Lands
and losing Harlow among other hardships that followed, Fairwind had
made a promise to himself that one day he would
lift the curse of moroc and restore the Caymore Church
of Sadal to its original glory. With these diamonds, with
all this wealth, he could actually do it. Did fair
Wind take one? De Renny's voice suspicious Faerwind, who was
facing the other way, hurt his name, but did not
understand the rest. He didn't really care, Yes, Achillie replied,
he did flicker bart, which startled Robin the bird led
out a tirade of tweets in protest.
Speaker 2: Tell him to drop it and not to touch anything.
Speaker 1: Else, said Deurnio in disdain. Come, we keep moving, no
more stopping until we are out of these woods. Achillier
relayed Renney's order, and Fairwind pursed his lips. Perhaps the
off was right. The sages of Siddhal held charity to
be one of the twelve true virtues. But charity was
not poverty. And besides, the Church of the Sacred Flame
and so Moral had been built by masons and laborers
and workers cost money. The Great Cathedral had taken years
to build, requiring a king's ransom in gold before it
had been completed. There was even a rumour that the
humble Church of the First Light had been built with
dwarf and silver. Great works required great wealth. As the
cool light of dawn began to infiltrate the woods more
fully and caused the multitude of jewels to flash in brilliance,
the companions resumed their track as they went. Fairwind so
repetitiously palmed several handfuls of diamonds into the belt pouch
hanging around his armoured waist. When more than enough wealth
to commission an army of laborers, enough to restore the
Caymore Church to its former glory, Fairwyin could not remember
the last time he had felt such pure joy. Between
the bloom and the weird diamond dew drops. I think
I've fulfilled the mythic event meaning disrupt nature, so I'm
going to need a new one using deep percentile. I've
got at twenty one and at twelve. I'll just look
those up real quick. Okay, they are release opposition. Huh.
To be honest, that accurately describes what just happened. I
mean cord getting the bloom to let them go free. Hmmm.
How am I going to use this going forward? No ideas?
Oh well, it'll come as the party gets close to
the far edge of the crystal wood. I suppose I
need to make some new hex crawl rolls. I'll just
trade my percentile dice for a D twenty and rolling
for the weather. A ten indicates a fair summer day,
rolling next for a stumble upon A fourteen means no result.
For the forging role, I will apply the usual bonus
from chord spell, even though technically the party needs to
rest first before you can cast it again. On a
D six. A four is a failure, so it doesn't
matter anyway, and the PCs will be forced to use
a third of their rations. The last role is for
wandering encounters. If I get one I think there must
reasonably be a small chance that the Blue mischanges its mind.
I would strongly prefer for that not to happen, but
the dice gods I have the final say. Once again,
I'm using a D six and this time hoping for
any result other than a five or six. The role well, okay,
then that takes care of hex scrawl roles for day
forty one, and looking at the runtime also brings us
to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening
to Tale of the Manticor. If you'd like to help
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everyone who supports the show. At this time, I want
to share a listener review. This one was left on
Apple Podcasts by Brian Faalfire Brian writes, listening to this
podcast feels just like sitting at a gaming table with
friends back in nineteen eighty two. The stories compelling the
characters are flushed out, just enough to care about them,
but not so much that it slows down the story.
The narrator has a pleasant voice, and the sound effects
are just right. The random nature of the encounters removes
any plot armor and gives it a Game of Thrones
feeling of danger. This is a must listen to any
fan of old school fantasy gaming. Thank you very much,
Brian for that kind review. Eighties nostalgia with Game of
Thrones danger is exactly the mark I am always aiming for.
If the show gives you at the table vibes, well,
I could not be happier. Thanks for Also due to
my fabulous voice actors, this episode features my core cast
of regulars, ky Ellen, Kevin Barger, and Dave Cooper Playdreni,
Tandier and Fairwood, respectively. Thanks for always being there for me, guys.
For those 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 sketches, maps, tables, crafts
and show notes. By way of example, as I'm finishing
the recording of this episode, I've just completed my twelve
days of Kitbash, a kind of annual DIY figure making thing.
I documented that on the blog, and it's the kind
of thing that you'll find there. If you want to
get in touch with me, I'm at Solo Roleplayers Network
dot com, Tale of Themanticor dot Bluesky Dot Social, Tale
of the Menicre podcast on Instagram, or tale of Themanticore
at gmail dot com. The adventure will continue on the
next episode of Tale of the Manticor. It's the story.
We're chaos roles, Okay,