Speaker 1: Hi, this is Craig from Third Floor Wars and you're
listening to Tale of the Manicore. 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
Manticre is barbed with cruel iron spikes. There will be
much pain in the days ahead. Last time on Tale
of the Manticor, in the previous chapter, the Chilia meets
ten tire Dorani's younger brother. He has, for all intents
and purposes, run away in order to accompany his sibling
on his mission escorting Achillie to the north Lands. The party,
now five strong, travel until they reach one of their
tribe sentry stations, where they plan to stop for the night.
The elf who lives there keeping watch over the surrounding land.
Is named Barn barrand tells his companions that the orcs
are acting strangely and are moving in numbers. He is
not sure what this behavior means, but it is unusual.
After spending the night in his tree top watch tower,
the companion's bid Barren farewell and continue on their way north.
The day passes with that serious incident, but when night comes,
it brings along with it new daney. Before I advance
the story and get into a scene I believe has
the potential to turn deadly, there's a bit of housekeeping
to take care of. Since she's of the magic user class,
Achille must go ten episodes before leveling up, unlike Court,
who needs only nine. But here we are at the tenth,
and so it's time to take this half elf to
level two to begin new hit points on a D
four A three very good, her new maximum is seven.
Unlike Court, the non magical members of the party, you
get the chance at each level startup for stat increases.
Here's how my house rule works. For each ability score,
I roll a D six on a six, that stat
goes up by one point. A while back, a listener
did the math for me, and so I now know
that there's a sixty six percent chance for a single
stat race and a thirty three percent chance to get two.
I can't recall if I ever got three, but it's
very rare anyway, Let's get to it. Will achillia strength
increase on a D six? I've got a five? No change?
How a bit intelligence A two? Wisdom a six? You
know that tracks? I mean, over the past eleven days,
this young woman has seen a lot. How could she
not be changed by it? Her ten in this stat
goes to eleven. Dexterity is next another six. Wow, how
great is that? For fourteen becomes fifteen. Now, neither of
these increases will affect the game mechanically, but they're nice
all the same, and they might turn into bonuses down
the road. Constitution A one and finally charisma afore. Of course,
there's still one more element to this level up, and
it's one of my favorite things to roll for. Achilia
will get a new first level spell rolling on my
table A six. What's that? Oh? This is interesting. She
has acquired the spell message, which allows to secretly whisper
to another person within sixty feet plus ten feet per level.
It's not glamorous, but it could be useful in the
right situation. Now, Achilia won't be able to memorize this
spell before the upcoming encounter. She needs to meditate before
she can do that. However, she won't need to write
the spell into her spell book. The reason is it
was already there. In fact, Achille's spell book is full
of spells. She just can't understand most of them. Dramatis personae.
Achillea two years ago that winter was the worst she
had ever seen. Even Oldve, who rarely complained, said that
it was exceptionally harsh. The two of them had not
adequately prepared for it, and so supplies were short. The
worst part was that for days on end, Achillia and
her master were forced to spend all their waking hours
indoors while diligently gathered firewood outside, unbothered by the low temperatures.
By midwinter, after a full three weeks of being cooped
up together, Oldvey apparently came to a decision. It is
a little earlier than i'd expected. Perhaps you are ready,
he said, mysteriously, Ready for what may. Achillie had been
busy writing a poem while daydreaming and looking out the
window at their snow covered valley. Put that aside and
come sit with me by the fire. Achillie obeyed. She
was stuck on the third stanza, and besides, there was
something about Aldvay's voice that made her think something momentous
was about to take place. She sat in her chair
by the hearth while Aldveay disappeared into their shared bedroom
for a moment. She heard him pull a volume from
his bookshelf before he came back into the living room
and took his seat with a little groan of effort,
as he always did. In addition to a book, he
held a pot of ink and a special looking quill.
It was jet black with a bright red stripe across
one edge of the feather. He handed her the book.
It was fairly small and bound in dark sagreen with
a burnished brass clasp. This is for you, said Oldvai.
What's inside, asked Achilia, filling with hope. She'd been wondering
when this moment would come. Open it and see, he replied.
Achillia's fingers were trembling a little. When she did. She
held her breath and lifted the cover. She stared down
at the first page, and her brown knit. She turned
the page, then the next, then the next. It's blank,
she said, nonplushed. Not for long, beckne Oldvay was smiling.
There was a subtle confidence in his voice. Not for long.
Take the quill, take the ink. But I don't know
how to write the arcade, said Achilia. Doubtfully you have
onely forgotten Begley, but your soul knows. I just need
to remember. I don't understand. How could I have forgotten
something I never learned? The soul is eternal, Aechuilia, You
and I and all those who can wield the art
have lived a thousand lives before this one. But I
don't know how to remember. I will help you. Al
Jay proceeded to lead Achilie into by far the deepest
meditative trance she had ever entered. He guided her down
and down and down into the well of her mind
and lower still. When he decided that she was ready,
he told her to begin writing, and she did. While
her eyes stared blankly forward, seeing nothing, Her hand moved
on its own, dipping the quill and writing the complicated
rooms and sigils of the language of magic It took
her all day, but eventually she finished, and all they
brought her gently out of the trance. Achillie blinked. She
looked out the window and realized from the quality of
light that hours had passed. Looking back at the book
in her hands, she saw it was now bursting with text.
She blinked again, bit her lip and said, I cannot
read a single word of this. Oldve smiled at her,
pride now written across his features as surely as the
new words on the page of Achillee's book. That is well,
and all is as it should be, My dear, he said,
to understand what you have written, to hear the voice
of your soul, and to remember this part will take time.
Looks like I finally found a good use from my
mythic event meaning negligence. Whether now that it's spent, I
need to roll up a new one. Here we go
ninety and thirty. What does that give me? Let's see, Oh, okay,
that's kind of neat Chapter ten, Part one, Day eleven
twilight mythic event meaning failure, possessions, party status Achillia seven
out of seven hit points, Court eleven out of eleven,
de Renni six of six ten tier six of six supplies.
The companions have fourteen portions of food and nine of water.
Spells available. Achillea has memorized shrink cord, can cast, entangle
and locate plants and animals. The half moon, the color
of bone, hung in the star dusted sky. The companions
were footsore and ready to stop for the evening. By
the time they arrived at a rise with a single,
sad looking dogwood tree marking the top ahead, they could
hear the cawing of crows, lots of them, though they
could not see any. Robin adjusted her grip in Achillee's
hair at the sound crows mark the dead, said do Rennie,
giving a signal for the group to slow down and
approach the hilltop with caution. When they reached it and
looked into the veil beyond, they saw a great patch
of blackness in the middle of a landscape of otherwise
pale scrub and grass. There were shapes in that patch
of blackness, unidentifiable lumps and mounds. Some parts of the
black patch seemed to ripple and shift in the moonlight. Suddenly,
with a cacophony of squaking and flopping wings, a cloud
of black burst up and into the air. Hundreds of
crows took to wing, flying away in every direction. Then one,
and another and another of the many lumpy shapes rose
up to stand among the others, which remained motionless on
the ground. Look, said tintyr Auks, warned her any. He
was right. The companions could now see what before had
been hidden under a blanket of scavenging birds. There were
armored bodies all over the ground, perhaps two dozen of them.
The tell tale, dull glint of metal in the low
light showed where combatants had fallen or had dropped their weapons.
Clearly there had been a great battle here. The four
bulky shapes that had risen to their feet must be
the sole survivors, or else they had come into the
aftermath of this field of battle to loot the dead,
whichever was the case. The Orcs had spotted them. One
raised a heavy spear in the air and barked commands
at the other three. They responded immediately, with two of
them knocking arrows to bows and entering combat. In chapter nine,
I rolled up a wandering encounter with some orcs that
was supposed to take place at night. I also determined
that neither side would be surprised. Since the party has
been traveling through sparsely wooded hills, I figured visibility would
be quite good, and so I decided that it would
make sense for the two sides to discover each other's
existence at a range of seventy feet. As the PC's guessed,
these orcs are the survivors of a recent battle. They
were looking to their wounds and looting the bodies of
friend and foe alike when Achille's group came upon them.
Because they were recently in a fight. When I roll
up their hit points, I won't apply my usual min
out rule. Some of them might be badly hurt and
under the half max threshold. Another break from my usual
practice is that I'm going to roll for their hit
points individually. Normally i'd roll once and apply that number
to all enemies, but this is a special case. Let's
see orcs get a D eight for hit points rolling
four times four four six, five. Okay. The leader with
the spear will have six hit points, the two archers
will have four piece and the last one wielding a
broadsword five. They'll have the same armor class of fourteen
for studded leather and shield, or for the archers chain mail.
Their tactic will be to put bow fire on the companions.
Will the two melee fighters curve around the flanks to
come in with a pincer movement. I think that's enough
information to get started, so let's begin round one initiative.
The party six the Orcs a one wow. That is decisive.
Clearly the Orcs were slow to organize. Before they can
get very far, the Elven brothers loose arrows in their direction.
I'll say that Durni is aiming at the leader while
ten Tier is hoping to take at one of the archers.
Each has a plus one to hit with their bows
due to their high dexterity scores, so they need to
roll a thirteen or better. Deretti fires then eleven misses
and ten Tier lets his shaft fly a twelve just miss.
That's too bad, but it's still early in the fight
and the pieces have the advantage of high ground. Court
and Achillie will not take an action this round, so
it's the Orc's turn. The leader and the sword wheeler
both run a distance of thirty feet, curling around to
the companion's flanks. As mentioned earlier, the two archers return
fire one arrow for each of the eleven brothers. They'll
need a fifteen to hit the one aiming for de Renni.
The six means the arrow falls short, and one more
for ten Tier eighteen. Oh no, that's a hit. Ten
Tier could possibly die right here if the arrow does
max damage? How much will he take on a D
six A two? That could have been much worse, But
that first round definitely goes to the orcs. It is
round two initiative, the party a six again, the orcs
A two. I think the ground must be deceptive steep,
and the charging orcs lose their momentum when they hit
the inpline. Winning this initiative is very good luck for
the PCs because it allows them to take good advantage
of the terrain. They'll pull well back of the hill's
crest and break line of sight with the orchish archers.
Now neither side can fire upon the other. However, I'm
going to allow the pieces to automatically win the initiative
next round. When the two melee orcs come into view,
it makes sense to me that they'll assume the companions
are fleeing. Orcs aren't especially smart. Therefore, we jump to
round three initiative. The party automatically wins. The orcs automatically lose.
As soon as the two orcs come into view, both
Durani and ten tier let fly. Deurni's role A fourteen
hits the leader will take three points of damage. He's
down to half hey con ten tier score A hit
two A thirteen or better is required the role A five.
The orc gets his shield up in time to block
the shaft. A Chillie will throw one of her daggers.
She needs a fourteen or better A one. Oh no,
that's a critical fumble. She throws her knife, but it
strikes the lead orcs shield and the brute steps on it.
As he charges forward, his iron shod boot dens the knife,
ruining it. Additionally. For her failure, a Chilie will lose
her next turn. The court, surprising everyone, possibly even himself,
reaches out his free hand and casts the spell and tangle.
The dogwood tree responds. Its branches become supple whipped like
appendages that snake out to wrap around the sword wielding
orc's wrist and ankle. The save is allowed to cut
himself free, but even if he makes it, his movement
will be slowed and it's no easy save. A sixteen
or better is needed. The roll a nineteen wow. The
Orc savagely slashes at the intag all ranches and wades
through the roots and grasses that try to grab his legs.
This is one tough Orc. We are on to round four.
Initiative the party a six. That's three in a row
for the PCs. The orcs A one. I guess the
entangle spell was not only a physical deterrent, but a
real spectacle. All allowed ten Tier to fire his bow
once more before the sword wheeler can reach him. He
needs a thirteen A three no good. I think the
younger Elf is just as shocked by Chord's magic as
the Orc, and his shot goes wild. De Renni and
Cord now both face off against the leader Orc. Durnni
needs a fourteen to hit with a short sword, which
he drew after casting his bow to the ground. His
role nineteen sweet. The blade does a d six of
damage A four. It's a clean thrust up and into
the monster's throat that brings it crashing down, gurgling out
its last breath. Cord is not positioned to be able
to engage the other Orc who's delayed but not help
by the entangled spell, and Achillia has lost her turn,
So we are onto round five initiative the party the
three Well, those sixes couldn't last forever, right the orcs
A two makes sense. The entangle spell is still in effect.
Achillie now has her turn back, but it doesn't make
any difference. She gets out of the way to let
the fighters handle the Orc. It's three on one ten
tier sword now in hand, tries to duplicate his brother's success.
A four is not even close and his sword is
easily blocked by the Orc's shield chord swings his woodman's axe,
needing fourteen. A six is a miss. De Renni will
hopefully have better luck oh No. One. The Orc faints,
then kicks the elf in the groin, dropping him to
the ground like a sack of grain. Durenni will miss
his next turn. Now the orc can take a proper
attack A high low to see who he targets. High
is ten tier on a D twenty HI. That's unfortunate
ten tiers. Armor class is A fifteen, though he's not
easy to hit. Ha another one. That's the third crit
fail of this battle. The orc overreaches with his blade,
and ten Tier takes the opportunity to drop the pommel
of his sword on its hand. Yeah, it howls in
pain as it drops the weapon. Before we go on,
I need to see if the archers will have followed
and caught up by now. Hi low to see if
they show up this round or next HI will mean
this round. At twelve, the tide turns once again, and
they do. As the Orcish archers fire into melee, I'm
concerned that their companion is vulnerable should they miss. Actually,
I need to make a quick ruling for this kind
of thing. What's realistic on a miss? I'll say there's
a one in six chance for each ally in the
fight for friendly fire to happen. This rule will apply
to pieces and enemies alike. Going forward, Targets will be random.
The first shoots at cord and needs a fourteen or better.
A seventeen hits an arrow thunks into chords torso four
two points. The second archer targets de Renni A ten.
Thankfully we'll miss is their friendly fire? A one on
a D six means there will be rolling oh A
one and the sword wielder is shot by his own
ally four just one point. The arrow clips his ear. Four.
That's the end of round five, so we are on two.
Round six initiative. The party two, the Orcs one, the
pieces winned by the skin of their teeth. Let's hope
they can score some hits. Ten tears blade flashes out.
A nine means the Orc deflects the blow with his shield.
Once again, Chord strikes with his axe. A fourteen is
just enough. The axe will do a dec of damage,
rolling six points. Chord splits the Orc's head like a
piece of firewood and the brute goes down. That leaves
ten tier free to attack the archers. They aren't so
far away, so he can get to them. This round.
His short sword sings out at nineteen chain mail is
short as the Elvin blade inflicts oh wow, six points
of damage. The orc is completely disemboweled in loops of
blue guts spill out onto the ground before the creature
falls over dead. It's the sole remaining Orcs turn and
there's a very good chance it'll run. Orcs have a
morale score of eight, but given the circumstances, I'm reducing
that to five. That amount or more on A two
D six means it will flee, rolling an eight even
without the modifier, the orc has lost its taste for
this battle. It turns and runs. Combat is essentially over,
but I'm going to allow ten tier one chance to
grab his bow from the ground nearby and send a
missile after this orc as it tries to get away.
It's a clear shot, so the target number remains the same.
A fourteen or better will hit. Hah, fifteen. Will it
be enough to make the kill? There's a fifty to
fifty chance since the monster has four hitit points, pulling
a D six for damage a five. The arrow streaks
from the ELF's bow and slams into the orc's back,
punching through chainmail and rupturing one of its lungs. The
orc falls on its face, and by the time the
companions have run down to give it a coup de gras,
it has already drowned in its own blood. I used
up my event meaning during that combat to say that
one of Achillia's daggers was ruined when the lead Orcs
stepped on it, So it looks like I'll need a
new one, rolling fourteen and fifty five. Okay, got it?
Chapter ten, Part two, Day eleven Twilight mythic event meaning
abandon suffering party status. Achillea seven out of seven hit points,
Court nine of eleven, de Renni six of six, ten
Tier four of six supplies. The Companions have fourteen portions
of food and nine of water. Spells available. Achillia has
memorized shrink Cord can cast locate plants and animals. Once
de Renni had confirmed that Tenier had not been badly
hurt by the orcheshero, he turned to Court and said,
you are truly a marvel, my friend. I had no
idea you could command nature. There was no accusation in
his tone. De Rennie was smiling broadly. From his perspective,
the battle had been extremely successful. He intent here conducted
a quick check of the Orcish corpse near by. Achilia
held Cord back for a moment before following. The construct
had an arrow sticking out of his chest, but it
hadn't gone deep. Achilia wiggled it free and threw it
on the ground. A marvel, indeed, she said, have you
always been able to do that? Cord? The wooden man
twisted his body back and forth, indicating that he had
not Almost every day. Since leaving home, Achilie had thought
about the nature of identity, mostly her own, but she
hadn't considered perhaps it was a more fluid thing than
she had thought. She touched the dent where the arrow
had come free. Well, that's going to leave a mark,
she muttered that. She walked back up the incline to
where her knife had bounced off the orc's shield and
tutted her tongue. It's broken, she said, Come on and
help me find a new one. As they descended the slope,
a flutter of wings from behind signaled that Robin had
left the safety of the dogwood branches. The little stuffed
bird landed on Cord's head and peeped. By the time
they joined Dorennie in ten Tier, twilight was turning to
night and Achille's dark vision was beginning to take over.
She regarded the tangle of armor, weapons and Orc flesh
littering the ground and grayscale. She had never seen death
like this before, but she found that she was not
frightened and set about searching for a suitable replacement dagger.
After a few minutes, she still hadn't found one, but
ten Tier must have discovered something of interest for he
suddenly called out to Rennie, come over here, look at this.
Thanks very much for listening to Tale of the mantigor.
If you're enjoying the show and would like to help
the support it, there are lots of ways to do so.
You can recommend the show online or to friends. You
can like and repost episode announcements on social media. You
can pick up one of my offerings on drive through RPG.
You can purchase a Tale of the Manticore T shirt
at www Dot bar Arms dot store, and finally, you
can rate or review the show on your podcatcher of choice.
I'm grateful for all of your kind support at this time.
Let's hear another listener review. This one was left by
Humanoid Clay on Apple Podcasts. Humanoid Clay writes, very recent
listener here came here from a recommendation from another TTRPG podcast.
I've been loving listening to Achilles's story in Zatia, and
I'm drawn to Tale of the Manticure's unique and compelling
style of storytelling. Although this is the first solo player
TTRPG podcast I've encountered, I can tell by the novel
like prose and clever through lines made to blend role
results into the story that this podcast is something special.
I'll certainly continue to follow along as this story is
further stitched together. Thanks very much, Humanoid Clay. There's so
much in your review that inspires me. I love that
you found the show via another pod. The community between
creators in the RPG space is so positive and so important.
I'm equally delighted that Tale of the Magic Or is
your first solo play pod. Again. It means a lot
to me when I see that the show is spreading
beyond the boundaries of the solo play niche. Finally, I'm
thrilled to hear that you are enjoying the show and
Achille's story. If you keep listening, I'll keep stitching dice
rolls together. Thanks again for the review. This episode has
a bunch of voice talent in it. The whole Tumbled
Eye team is back together this go around. Playing Old
Way Muog in a flashback is the amazing Andrew flen
Back in their respective roles of DORNI intent. Here we've
got Kayan and Kevin Barringer. Finally playing Orc number three
is newcomer more I by thanks to all four of
you and welcome to the cast. More of I. For
those curious to learn a bit more about TOTEM, 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 at Taleofthemanticre dot blogspot
dot com. To get in touch with me, I am
at Mantacre, Tale on X, Tale of Themanticre podcast dot Instagram,
or Tale of themanticor at gmail dot com. I would
love to hear from you. The adventure will continue on
the next episode of Tale of the manticor the story
We're Chaos roles