Speaker 1: Hello, this is Tom Masters, longtime fan and listener of
the podcast, and you are listening to Tale of the
mantic Core.
Speaker 2: 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 Manticore 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. Acording 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 eight, the
party leaves the Giant Centipede's cavern through a newly discovered exit.
The Orcs, still guarding the spot where they entered some
distance away, are evaded with ease, and the party members
once again find themselves traveling. They hope to reach Doreni's
home in the at Heavy Marsh before hunger and thirst
begin to truly threaten them. By the time they do
reach it, they are suffering, and while do Rennie says
he cannot bring Achillea the rest of the way, he
does manage to find water and some edible plants for
her to consume while she awaits his return. When she
sees him again a few hours later, he is not alone.
One of the tribe's elders has come to meet her.
This elder, Valkem, has a lot of questions, but he
also brings an answer. He has recognized one of the
places in Audoc's sketchbook, and while he doesn't know the artist,
he is able to tell her how far to the
north she needs to go in order to find it.
That's not the only good news. He has also given
Durani permission to escort her there. After Valcum departs, Durnnie
tells Achilia that he has a surprise for her. It
turns out to be a person who arrives at their
camp after nightfall. Chapter nine, Part one, Day nine midnight
mythic event meaning negligence whether party status. Achillea four out
of four hit points, Court six out of six, de
Renni six out of six. Supplies the companion have twenty
portions of food and fourteen of water spells available. Akilia
has memorized shrink. Despite the bright moon, it was dark
where they were sitting at the pond's edge.
Speaker 1: Here he comes, announced.
Speaker 2: De Rennie, getting up. The approaching figure was but a
shadow moving among the rushes. Here who comes, asked a Kilia,
also rising to her feet. Now she could see the
stranger's face. It was another elf, younger than do Renni,
but similarly appointed with sword and bow.
Speaker 1: The newest member of our group, replied the other, my
little brother.
Speaker 2: When the newcomer entered their camp, de Rennie stepped forward
and met him with an embrace.
Speaker 1: Did anyone see you leave? No one, replied the other,
grinning you're certain.
Speaker 3: Do not worry. They won't realize I'm gone until late
morning tomorrow, then will be miles away.
Speaker 1: I am so glad to have you with us, my brother.
Speaker 2: Said Rennie. He turned to the others.
Speaker 1: Call Achillia, this is my brother.
Speaker 2: Ten Tee Cord bowed stiffly. Achillie waved and said, I'm
happy to make your acquaintance, Tentyr. I am also grateful
for your company as we travel, but I do not
want to cause any trouble between you and your tribe.
Tentyr was looking at Achillia and Cord with unconcealed wonder
and excitement. Not for the first time in the past week,
she felt self conscious, as if there was something wrong
or strange about the way she looked.
Speaker 1: Be at ease.
Speaker 3: There will be no trouble.
Speaker 2: Replied the young elf, mistaking the source of her discomfort.
Speaker 3: I've left a note with my parents. They wouldn't have
let me come had I asked, but they won't come
after me. They wouldn't stop me from helping the person
saved my older brother's life. My thanks for that.
Speaker 2: By the way, Achillie blushed in the dark.
Speaker 1: Come then, she said, let us all sit together and talk.
Speaker 2: Just like that. We have a fourth member in the party.
I won't say he's the final member, as that would
tempt the dice gods. Ten Tier is Derenni's younger brother.
He's forty five years old, barely more than the equivalent
of a teenager in human years, and his personality is
quite different from his older sibling. Before I get into that,
I'm going to go ahead and roll him up. Let's
begin for strength. I've got a ten intelligence ten again
wisdom oh a six, Oh dear, that's going to come
with a penalty minus one on saves versus spells. I
suppose it makes sense, though ten Tyr did just essentially
run away from home. After all, he's reckless and a
little inconsiderate. Dexterity thirteen. Well, here's a bonus plus one
to ac and in using missile weapons constitution, I've gotten
eleven charisma A fourteen humph. You know, his stats are
remarkably similar to his brothers, and I think ten Tier
is probably of the same class a fighter, so he'll
have six starting hit points. This is where his similarity
tod Renni ends. Ten tiers personality is quite different. Whereas
his brother is reserved, ten Tier is outgoing or dour
Renni is a planner, ten Tier is a doer. I'm
sure the nuances of both their personalities will clarify as
the game proceeds. Speaking of which, let's get back into it.
I'll just make the rolls for tomorrow's hex crawl before
we do. For weather ten a fair day, for stumble
Upon A nine, no special encounters. Will there be a
wandering encounter on a D six A five means there
will be will it happen at day or night time?
The high low, with high being day, it'll happen at night.
On day ten. I'll stick with my current wandering encountertable,
but I'm going to double the chance to encounter orcs
rolling a D eight an eight. What's that? Oh okay,
Well that's going to take some thinking and some prep
but I'll do all that off Mike, so we can
get back to the story. Chapter nine, Part two, Day ten,
sunset mythic event meaning negligence, weather, party status Achillea four
out of four hit points, Court six out of six,
de Rennie six out of six, ten Tier six out
of six supplies. The companions have seventeen portions of food
and eleven of water. Spells available. Achillea has memorized shrink.
The day was cool and overcast, and the party, now
numbering five including Achillea, Cord Robin, Durni, and ten Tier,
covered a good distance by the time the sun completed
its dark and touched the western horizon. Along the way,
the landscape had consisted mostly of mixed light woods punctuated
by stretches of grass covered hills. As planned, they had
veered somewhat to the northeast, and it now became clear,
as the daylight turned into twilight, that do Renni was
looking for something in particular.
Speaker 1: It should be somewhere close.
Speaker 2: He muttered for the third time in the last hour,
and then.
Speaker 1: Finally, Ah, there it is. What d you see?
Speaker 2: Asked Achillia. Was Dorani's eyesight so much better than hers?
While she saw was a thick line of dense and
dark forest ahead, Look up into the tree, Dorannie instructed.
Speaker 1: No, not there, Over to the right and up up
into the upper boughs. Do you see it now?
Speaker 2: She did. Sixty feet off the ground, there was a
wooden structure built right onto one of the trees. As
they drew closer, she saw it was really just a
platform of logs resting across thick boughs, with some large
animal hide suspended from the branches above it like a tent.
Dorrennie put two fingers in his mouth and gave a
trilling whistle. Robin, sitting atop Cord's head at that moment,
gave an accompanying peep. A few seconds passed, and then
an answering whistle came from up ahead, almost certainly from
the tree platform. Good, said Dornni, mysteriously right echoed, tent tire.
Speaker 3: My legs are tired.
Speaker 2: A few minutes later, the companions found themselves at the
base of the tree, a towering redwood with a trunk
three times as thick as a man. Upon their arrival,
a knotted rope dropped down from the structure. Above you first,
exclaimed tent Tyre, and he dropped his pack before grabbing
the rope. With arms flexing, he began to climb straight up.
Dorennie held the rope steady for his brother during the ascent,
and when he reached the top, tied ten to his
pack to the end of the rope. This was hauled
up course, and then the rope was lowered once again.
Ready aster ready looking at Achillia, I don't think I
have the strength to do that, she said, for an
absolute fact, she knew she didn't.
Speaker 1: Not a problem, replied the other.
Speaker 2: He made a loop in the bottom of the rope
and tied a knot above it.
Speaker 1: Put your foot in here.
Speaker 2: She did, and soon found herself clinging to the rope
for dear life as she was pulled up and up
and up. At long last, she reached the platform. Ten
tears hand reached down to grasp her under the armpit
and held her up, and a second pair of hands
received and steadied her. Achillia found her balance and then
looked up into the face of another elf. This one
looked like the brothers, but the face was older. It
had a flat, low brow, a small nose, and thin lips.
The skin was browned by the sun, and there were
lines and creases around the eyes.
Speaker 3: This is Barren. He's the northern century Barren. Meet Akilia.
Speaker 2: Baron smiled politely at her and did not make any
sign that her appearance surprised him, but Clia guessed that
Tantyr had warned him in advance that she did not
look as they did. Well, met Barren, she said, then
she made the mistake of looking down. The world seemed
to pinwheel beneath her, and her stomach filled with butterflies.
She couldn't help but let go a little cry, but
Baron's strong hand reached out and steadied her once again.
It takes him getting used to, he said, with empathy,
though Achillia noticed that ten Tears seemed as comfortable up
here as he had on the ground. By now, the
rope had been dropped back down and Cord had his
foot in the loop. A short whistle signaled that he
was ready to be pulled up, and the three on
top did so. Once Chord was up, and he too
garnered no extreme reaction from Baron. The rope was lowered
a final time and Durannie climbed to the top, drawing
it in after him. Once he reached the platform, Robin
did not join them and had flown off to get
lost in the branches of another red wood. Barren's sentry
platform was quite spacious, and the five of them had
ample room. Achillie marveled that the logs making up the
floor were not nailed down, but instead had been carefully
cut and slaughtered into place, presumably with great difficulty, so
that they held simply by force of gravity. Cord was
extremely interested in the construction of the platform and spent
some time looking closely at the various cleverly designed joints
and fittings. We need to spend a few minutes and
talk about Chord. I was thinking about his status as
a player character and what that might mean for him
over the long term. I've already decided that Robin, who
is more or less a pet will not really change
over time. Perhaps as her bond grows with Achillie, the
little taxidermied bird might one day be able to follow
sub basic commands, but that's about it. Cord is different though.
He's fully sentient and he can learn and grow. If
I don't allow him to improve over time, a gulf
will eventually develop between him and the other PCs that
will make balanced gameplay difficult. So I've decided that Chord
will level up just like any other character un tail
of the manticor. I don't use experience points. Instead, I
level up characters after they've survived a certain number of episodes.
Getting treasure and defeating monsters is not a factor. The
only requirements are that the character be part of the
story and be exposed to some level of danger depending
on the given class. The character's advancement occurs after eight,
nine or ten episodes. That raises the question, what class,
if any, is Chord. My first impulse was to treat
him like a monster and simply raise his hitdae every level.
But then I had another idea. Hear me out, what
if Chord was a druid not a real druid in
the sense that he worships nature and receives power from
a deity, but a creature with druid like powers. Here's
a bit of the class description from Old School Essentials Advanced.
A druid gets a D six for a hit dye.
No change is needed there. They're limited to a choice
of club, dagger, sling, spear, or staff. But I don't
see any reason why Cord can't keep his axe. Druids
protect the land from both the forces of law and chaos.
I don't think Chord has any such purpose. His powers
come from being highly attuned to nature, that's all. So
what powers and limitations do druids have. At seventh level,
they become immune to the charm abilities of fay creatures,
and they can shape change. They cannot wear metal armour.
They get a plus two bonus to saving throws versus
electricity and fire. At second level, they gain the ability
to communicate with fay creatures. At third level, they can
quote unquote pass without trace, moving through natural terrain without
leaving tracks. Let's consider each of these points in turn.
I'll keep the charm thing, but drop the shape change.
Cord won't wear any armor but instead has a natural
AC of fourteen. Instead of a plus two bonus to
saves versus electricity in fire, I'll say he instead has
a minus two. He is made of wood, after all.
I like the ability to communicate with Fay. That might
be interesting, but I'm foregoing the pass without trace power.
I'm setting Chord's level up requirement and nine episodes, so
to day he will achieve level two. I won't bother
rolling stats for him. I will roll for new head
points on a D six A five excellent. His new
maximum is eleven. Finally, as a second level Druid, he'll
get two first level spells. I'm going to roll for
these at random, instead of allowing him to choose daily.
Rolling on a D eight, he will get a three
that's entangle that's cool, and six Locate plant or Animal.
I'll rule that Chord must take one of each of
these spells and cannot double up. I won't bore you
by going into the spell descriptions at this point. We'll
get to those when anf Cord actually cast them, and
with Chord's character she complete, it's time to return to
the story. It turned out that Baron's Sentry treehouse consisted
of not just a single platform, but several. There was
a ladder built into the trunk of the redwood that
went up to a second and third level. Baron pointed
them out. When Achillie asked where he kept his supplies,
Derenni wanted to talk about the Orcs.
Speaker 1: I was captured by a scouting group, he began. Achillea
saved me. If she hadn't come along, i'd be ork
food by now.
Speaker 2: Achillia blushed and said nothing. Baron seemed impressed, however, especially
after Dorrennie explained how she had done it.
Speaker 3: The Orcs are far more active this year and acting strange,
he said. Usually a warman will march southwest, passing through
those grasslands there.
Speaker 2: Baron pointed at a land achille already had traversed to
reach the spot.
Speaker 3: You're lucky you didn't run into any Have they not
already passed by?
Speaker 2: Asked ten Tier. That's what's so odd.
Speaker 1: They've been sending parties in both directions. I can't tell
what they're up to.
Speaker 2: The group continued their discussion into the night, exchanging guesses
and theories as to the orc's purpose. Eventually, a Baron
stretched and said he was going to sleep. He wished
everyone a good night and climbed the ladder to the
second level in order to make more room for the others.
The Chilie insisted on sleeping in the dead center of
the platform. Even then, with ten feet a floor in
every direction, she feared rolling off in the middle of
the night. She even considered tying a tether to her ankle,
but perhaps out of embarrassment, did not do so. In
the end, Before long, Drani and Tentyre were storing softly,
and she was alone with her thoughts. Trying to sleep
so high in the air was a unique experience for her,
as her body maintained a constant thrill simply from the altitude,
and the air here was different, almost pungent, with the
rich smell of the foliage. As she always did when
she needed to calm herself, she meditated, allowing her breathing
to slow that her mind to empty itself. Eventually, her
eyes closed and she fell into a deep slumber. It's
time to make the rolls to see what day eleven
will bring. For weather an eleven so the mild weather
will continue. For stumble upon a nine no result. Next
is for wandering encounters. I needed D six for this one,
and I think as we go further north and the
terrain changes to become less wooded and reducing the chance
for an encounter from three and six to two and
six and still just rolling once per day. So a
five or six on the D six will indicate there
is one here's the role A six? Well, all right,
then this time I'll determine the encounter details on mic
rolling on my table gives me before What's that? How interesting?
More orcs? This part of Zaisha seems to be crawling
with them? I wonder what's going on? More rules? Does
the encounter happen in the day or night? Night? That
also makes sense? And finally, will either side be surprised?
A one to two on a D six will mean
yes for the party, a three for the orcs, A
five neither side is surprised. So how will all this
look in the narrative? You know, I'm gonna need to
step away from the game and sleep on this one.
Chapter nine, Part three, Day eleven, early morning mythic event
meaning negligence, weather party status achillea four at A fourhead
points court eleven of eleven, De Rennie six of six
ten tier six of six supplies. The companions have seventeen
portions of food and eleven of water spells available. The
Achillia has memorized shrink cord, can cast and tangle and
locate plants and animals. In the morning, the companions broke
their fast with food supplied by Baron, a cold broth
of mushrooms and wild onions that tasted better than Achillia
would have guessed and was quite refreshing. When it was
time to take their leave, they descended the rope and
then shouldered their packs as Baron lowered them. Achilia whistled
for Robin, who immediately flew to her, and then when
the party was altogether, they began the day's journey. They
cleared Baron's woods sometime around noon, and then found themselves
walking across an open landscape of scrub and crabgrass hills
showing patches of bald rock dotted the landscape so that
it rose and fell like an ocean of brown and gray.
Along the way, Achillia casually asked her annie how long
Baron had been a sentry for his tribe. She was
shocked when the other replied that he'd be in their
northern lookout for about fifty years. When she asked how
old Barrant was, dur Any guest about one hundred and
twenty years, and Achillea was deeply troubled. She wanted then
to ask her any how old he and ten here were,
but was too afraid to hear the answer and held
her tongue. She was just twenty one. If it was
true that she was a high alf as the others
had suggested to account for the difference in their appearance,
how was it possible that Baron could be so old
and yet look only of middle years. The colonel of
identity crisis that now lived in the pit of her
stomach seemed to double in size. She tried not to
think about it, but she couldn't help herself. She stood
over the mystery and its implications for the rest of
the day, growing quiet and sullen. She was still feeling
upset when twilight came and the brothers began to look
for a good place to make camp. But instead of
finding a sheltered spot where they might be hidden from view,
they found something very different. Thank you for listening to
Tale of the Manti Gore and Happy New Year. If
you're enjoying the show and would like to help to
support it. There are lots of ways to do so.
You can recommend the show online or to friends. You
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can pick up one of my products on drive through RPG.
You can purchase a Tale of the Mantegre t shirt
at www. Dot bear Arts dot store. And finally, you
can rate or review the show on your podcaster of choice.
I'm grateful for all of your kind support. As you know,
I love to read out your generous reviews of the show.
This one was left by Selden RL twenty sixteen. Selden
writes he's back, looking forward to seeing the next adventure,
also departure from how seasons one and two started. Thanks
very much, Seldon. It is different, that's for sure, But
I'm all about experimenting and I'm okay with taking a risk.
My guess is that some folks will prefer this sandbox style,
while others will prefer the tighter confines of season two
or the do it while I learn how to do
it quality of Season one horses for courses. Right, It's
all good. My favorite thing that you wrote in your
review is that you're looking forward to seeing this next adventure.
It's probably just a figure of speech, but I'm going
to tell myself that the podcast actually makes you see
the story unfold in your imagination. Hey, a writer can dream.
Thanks again for the kind words, Selton. This episode features
three voice actors. Kyelon returns in his role of de Renny,
while Kevin Barringer, who played Jason season two and more
recently voiced in Orc for Me, plays ten Tier, Dorenni's
younger brother. If two Elves aren't enough, there's a third.
In this episode. The Northern Century Barrend is given voice
by Maxim Lowe aka wax Ball On each other. I
thank you so much ky Ellen, Kevin and Maxine. I've
got such a great cast. If anyone out there is
curious to learn more about Tale of the Manticor, I
keep a blog where I post all kinds of show
on RPG related stuff. You'll find art, maps, tables, crafts
and shut outs there. Check out Tale of themandicor dot
blogspot dot com to get in touch with me. I'm
at Mantacre Tale on X, Tale of the Manticor podcast
on Instagram or Tale of Themanticor at gmail dot com.
I reply to every message I receive. Happy New Year everyone.
I hope you find adventure in twenty twenty five and
may you have a year where chaos rolls in the
best way possible