Speaker 1: Hello, This is Robin from Stories from the First Watch
and you're listening to Tale of the Manticore. The following
podcast is intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome back to Tale of the Manticore Season two. 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 RPG paper and dice games with the
story craft of a dark fantasy novel. No character is
sacred and no character will be spared if the dice
decide their fate is at hand. According to lore, the
Tale of a Manticore is barbed with rule iron spikes.
There will be much pain in the days ahead. Last
time on Tail of the Mantigor, the last chapter begins
directly after the Succubas's retreat. The party is anxious about
a second attack, but it doesn't come, and they take
their reprieve to catch their collective breath and for Jace,
who has sustained a kind of spiritual injury, to try
and recover somewhat. When they continue further into the ruin,
they discover the circubist's lair. It's no more than a
chamber with manacles on the walls for her prisoners, a
bed of spikes, and a pit where she can dispose
of her leftovers. Caatsbin shares a theory with the Yellowfly
that the demon has recognized the silverthorn blade. He does
not share a second theory that it had avoided attacking
him specifically. After the party searches the chamber, they carry
on through an exit on the far side. Beyond is
a short series of home that lead to a cave
like mouth. This opens onto the lip of a pit,
illuminated at the bottom by three burning braziers. Bones and
bodies of fish and other aquatic creatures cover the floor.
Presiding over the carnage is a second demon, some kind
of gigantic half man, half toad abomination. Fortunately, it has
yet to discover the party's presence. Unfortunately, as Cat'spain points out,
it blocks the only way forward. Chapter seventy three, Part one,
Day one hundred and eighty four, Time unknown, Two hours
and ten minutes of lantern fuel remain Party status. Yellowfly
thirty two of forty four hit points. Shawney twenty eight
of thirty three, Jase thirty three of thirty eight, Cat'spin,
seventeen of twenty one, Basu nineteen of twenty one. Spells available.
Cat'spin has memorized detect magic, magic, missile, web, mirror, image, haste,
slow and dimension door. Basu has prayed for cure light wounds,
light bless, locate object and cure serious wounds. Yellowfly felt
sick in his stomach, his head, and his heart. He
signaled Shawnee to go back to the pit's edge and
keep an eye on the creature, before addressing his companions.
I think it's best turned back. I'm sorry. I urged
you all to come this far. It was a mistake,
my mistake. Cat's Bain shook his head. I'm not going back.
Speaker 2: You can if you wish, Yellowfly and the rest of
you as well, but I will stay.
Speaker 1: He felt terrible for having lied to his friends earlier
about how the door with the face had been opened,
and he still couldn't bring himself to tell the truth.
But one thing he knew, I must see this through oil.
Stave with you, God, spine, said Jase, still one and withered,
his newly white streaked hair was visible in the low
light that came up from below. There's nothing for me
back on the surface, snow Bah. Maybe I can do
some good if I stay here with you. Bazu was
also firm about staying a little while ago. I prayed
for guidance, and I thought my prayers had not been heard.
But it turns out that Saddan has answered. I know
I am here. He lifted up his holy symbol, the
metal disk with the sun symbol of Sadal emblazoned across it.
I am here to destroy things like that, he motion
in the direction of the fiend in the pit with
the symbol, and send them back to hell. Shawnee, nearby,
could easily hear their whispered conversation. She looked over her
shoulder at her friend's and nodded, and you, asked, Yellowfly,
do you wish to see this through? Shawney? The young
rogue nodded and followed that with an epithet she had
often used before, Live every day as if it were
the last, for you might not see tomorrow. Despite his
companion's desire to go forward, Yellowflies still felt as if
their situation was his responsibility. If he were honest with himself,
he had carried the guilt of Colfrey's raid on the
Warrens all this time, ever since their mission to plant
the medallion in the tower of the city Watch had failed.
If he had been more careful, how many innocents would
never have been thrown into Calfrey's dungeon and tortured. He
had been pushing his companions forward all his time, so
he could tell himself though sacrifices had not been made
in vain. He pursed his lips and nodded, thinking of
all his party had been through, not only the ruin
in the castle before it, but everything the tower, the sawmill,
briar patches, and the smugglers channel Lord Goddard. This wasn't
about him and his conscience. This was their story. It
settled in quicker forward. But Basu, I don't think we
should plan to fight this thing, not yet. It might
be better if we can sneak past it not detected,
and find the heart of this place. Will you be
satisfied with that? Basu considered for a second, then expressed
his accord. Could now, I don't suppose you can pray
for some divine intervention to silence all steps as you've
done in the past. The cleric bit his lip and
shook his head.
Speaker 3: No, very well, we rely on us kill. Then the
thing down there is half blind, right, Perhaps we could
use that to our advantage, shrine. Weirdly, the young rogue
gave him a nod and crept ahead of the rest
along the corkscrew ridge that led into the pit. Earlier,
I called the monster the fiend in the Pit, but
this adversary is not an actual pit fiend. By the book,
Bozzi wants to send it back to Hell, but technically
it is from Hell either.
Speaker 1: So what is it. It's a Hezo demon, also known
as a type two demon. Let's learn a bit about
this monster and make a few necessary tweaks before we continue.
I'm mainly using the monster description from the AD and
D first Edition Monster Manual, but as I did with
the Soccubist previously, I'll be making some changes. While doing
a bit of research on the Hesro, I came across
a blog called Powerscore RPG. In a post from March nineteenth,
twenty twenty, the creator Sean collects all additions, info and
lore about the Heso on a single page, and I
must say it is a very interesting and useful read
without going into too much detail. Here's the brief on
the original ad and d Hesro demon. They have nine
hit dice and resemble seven foot tall quote unquote gross
toads with arms in place of fore legs. They can
create magical darkness, cause fear, levitate, detect invisible, these telekinesis
and can summon other types two demons. Right away, I'm
making a few nips and tucks here. Untail of the Mantigor.
The Hesro will be ten head dice, stand thirteen feet
tall and will lose their power to summon other demons.
So that's a start, but it's worth looking at how
the monstery evolves along with the game. In later editions,
the Hesro got a bunch of new abilities. What stands
out to me are its special stench defense and its
description as being quote impossible to surprise unquote. I love
the stench element and I'm definitely going to use that,
but the arbitrary impossible to surprise thing actually works against
the challenge I'm trying to engineer. I don't want combat
to be a foregone conclusion. It's much more interesting if
there's a chance for the PCs to sneak past it.
Further reading reveals that the Hesro are brutes used as
sergeants in Abyssal armies, and even the monster listing says
they're of low intelligence. Well, I could take or leave
the sergeant thing, but I can't have this demon be stupid.
This is the demon that at the beginning of the
story possessed Laris and then started and ran a whole
thieves Guilt. That guild was named for Laris's eye put
out with a knife by Roburn Geary as I'm sure
you'll have figured out by now. So that's the Hesro
sort it. But I can't go back to the narrative
to see how the companions will deal with it yet,
not if I want to give them their best shot
of success. That's because this episode is a double level
up episode. Both Shawne and Basu advanced today. How exciting
is that Basu achieves the level seven. Along with that
comes new hit points. A D six minus one for
his constitution penalty gives him ah nuts, I rolled a two,
but at least it stays a two because of my
minut rule. His new hit point score is twenty one
of twenty three. Basu's ability to pray for spells greatly increases,
even allowing him access to fifth level miracles, which are
the highest level of clerical spell available in Sadly, I
think it's unlikely he'll ever get to use one. There
would need to be some opportunity to rest and pray
for new spells, and that just doesn't seem like it's
going to happen. Of course, you never know. Okay, what else?
Saving throws will stay the same, but his ability to
turn undead and demons does improve. Finally, there's a chance
for stat increases. Let's get rolling for strength A three intelligence,
a five wisdom, a one dexterity, a five constitution. Now
a six here would be very welcome. No, I've got
a one charisma, a five. No stat increases for Bosio, Well,
that was a little underwhelming. Actually, maybe sean A can
bring the wow factor. She is now level ten ten.
That's ridiculous. Let's see what that means for her character sheet.
Looking at the rules, I see she no longer gets
a new die or even her constitution bonus for hit points.
She gets a fixed amount plus two. That's it. Her
new score is thirty of thirty five. Her thief skills, however,
do increase roughly five percent across the board, and that
brings us to chances for stat increases. Let's get into it.
Strength A five, Intelligence A six. Finally eight becomes nine.
Doesn't really change much, but it's nice all the same,
wisdom another six, thank you, dice God's seven becomes eight.
These little increases are appropriate given that SHAWNA use the
parable of the color of mulberries to explain an abstract
concept to Yellowfly recently. Now does this remove her penalty?
Alas it does not, she retains her minus one on
saving throws versus spells dexterity. Will this die continue its
haustrike A one? Nope, Constitution A four, Charisma A four.
You know, I really can't complain of the level up
like that. The rules are set up to basically cap
power when a character gets this far. After all, and
speaking of that, neither Shawne nor Basi will get an
increase in their basic attack bonus. In case you're wondering, Okay,
let's take a quick ad break. When we return, we'll
find out what happens with the party and the heso demon.
Speaker 3: Roll for distraction with the paladins of podcasts as they
violdly entertain Grab your plus two headphones and tune in.
Speaker 2: We promise it's not a critical fail.
Speaker 3: Side quests available wherever you get podcasts. The best quest
have Detours.
Speaker 1: Chapter seventy three, Part two, Day one hundred and eighty four,
Time Unknown, two hours of Lantern fuel Remain, Party Status,
Yellowfly thirty two forty four hit points, Shawnee thirty of
thirty five, Jace thirty of thirty eight, Kat'spain seventeen of
twenty one, Basu twenty one of twenty three spells available.
Kat'spain has memorized detect magic, magic, missile, web, mirror, image, haste,
slow and dimension Door. Basu has prayed for cure light wounds,
light bless, locate object, and cure serious wounds. Shawnee unslung
her bow from her shoulder and gripped it in her
left hand. With her right, she drew an arrow from
her quiver. Thus armed, she crept along the corkscrew ridge
ahead of her companions. Although she kept to the cavern wall,
staying unseen was easy, for the light from the three
braziers at the bottom of the pit created plenty of shadow.
It would be more difficult as they descended, she knew,
but for now her only real concern was to remain silent.
The rock under her feet was hard and smooth, smooth
as the waxy pointed stalactites. Overhead. It was uneven and
grooves had been cut into its surface by eons of
dripping water. Slowly she made her way forward. The smell
was almost unbearable, but Shawnee knew that if she gagged
or worse wretched, her presence would be discovered. The fear
of that happening somehow allowed her to master her revulsion.
There was a noise then, but not from her. The
monster below was shambling about displacing the piles of bones
and carcasses. Presently, there was a wet, tearing sound, and
Shawnee knew it was feeding once again. She took advantage
of the noise to pat ahead a little more quickly
and cover some ground. She didn't look behind her, but
she hoped her companions were doing the same. When the
sounds of flesh being rent abruptly stopped, Shawnee froze. Had
the giant toad thing heard her, or was it merely
taking a break from its meal. Shawnee as a tenth
level thief has an eighty five percent chance to move silently.
I'm going to make that check twice before I allow
the party to reach the bottom. Unheard Unseen, however, is
something else entirely, But we'll figure that out in due course.
You know. I briefly considered giving Shawnee a bonus to
her role to account for the fact that the Hezro
is making a lot of noise. But then I think
of how Shawnee is not alone. Her companions are following
in her footsteps and copying her movements, but they are
not as skilled as she is. So actually, I think
a penalty is in order. Minus ten percent feels about right.
So the number to beat is seventy five percent, still
a very good chance to remain undetected. Here's the role
A fifty eight safe for now. At this point, I
think that Shawnee has covered about half the total distance
and her companions have gone about a third of the way.
From here on, it'll become much harder. Staying silent is
still a concern, but staying hidden will now be the
most difficult and dangerous challenge. As she descends to a
point where she enters the demon's field of vision, and
the shadows no longer provide as much cover. Eventually, Shawnee
descended to a point along the corkscrew ridge that gave
her a full view of the feeding monster, and what
a view it was. It was enough to make it
feel like her heart had turned into a fluttering bird.
From above, she had been able to appreciate its size
and strength, and she had certainly smelled it, but the
finer details of its face and body had been hidden
from view. Up close, she could see the pustule covered
skin of motteled olive and gray under a layer of
mucus and glistening slime. The lipless mouth was flecked with
blood and viscera hung from it like moss on a tree.
She was now twenty five feet above the cavern floor,
and she could feel the heat from the three braziers.
When the monster started to feed again, she found her
senses assaulted completely. The squelch and crunch of rancid flesh
and bone in her ears, the putrid, vomitous charnel house
stink in her nose, and now a vision of pure
horror in her eyes. There was another wet snap as
a rib cage collapsed in the creature's jaws, and then
the sloshing sound of fish cuts, sluicing and dribbling out
from the wide mouth. Shawnee had stopped on its blind side,
and the monster seemed intent on nothing more than filling
into maw. She took advantage of that and crept forward,
keeping to the cavern wall as much as possible. There
was little cover now, and she would need to time
her movements so that she was always in shadow. These
braziers were both a blessing and a curse, she thought.
But would she have had the courage to do this
in the dark. She didn't think, so. She looked past
the creature, and a dark, oblong shape on the cave
wall caught her eye. It was roughly the height of
a man and twice as wide. This was the exit
and their goal. If they could get to that, the
monster would not be able to follow. It would be
too big to fit through the opening. She made a
split V hand signal behind her, telling Yellowfly, who would
be watching, to hang back and let her scout ahead.
It would be best if she could go a little
further before they followed. When the time was right, she
would create a distraction and they could run for it.
She took control of her breathing, found her courage, and
when the monster began to shovel in another rotten mouthful,
she made for the next patch of cover. Things are
going to get harder now and more dangerous. Shawnee will
need to make two successful checks here or else draw
the hezero demon's attention. On the plus side, her move
silently roll will no longer have a penalty applied. This
is because she is arranged for yellow Fly and the
others to halt while she goes on ahead. So her
chance to succeed is eighty five percent. If she makes that,
she'll still need to avoid being seen. But first things first.
Here comes the roll to move silently. I got a
sixty three. She almost steps on a loose rock, but
she sees the hazard in time and goes around it.
Next up is her chance to hide in shadows. A
tenth level thief is pretty good at this too. She
needs to roll under seventy five on deep percentile to succeed.
Here's the roll twenty one. She makes it, and now
the pieces are positioned as follows. Imagine the cavern is
shaped like an upside down bottle top. The PCs are
all moving around the screw thread, with Shawnee quite near
the bottom I'll say about fifteen feet off the ground,
and her companion's halfway or twenty five feet from the bottom.
The demon is now in full view of Shawnee, who's
managing to stay hidden by keeping to its blind side.
The exit is about thirty feet away from Shawnee. If
it were only her, she would risk it and feel
confident she could outpace the lumbering hulk, which she can't
do that while she has for other people to think about.
She needs to create a distraction, so instead she crouches
down and oh, I know, remember that loose rock she
avoided earlier. I'll say she picked it up along the way.
Shannie Cock's back her arm ready to throw it. But
that's when her plan goes to hell. If the stench
hadn't been so overpowering, and if the companions had had
their attention on anything but the creature in the pit,
they might have seen it happened before it was too late.
At the top of the corkscrew path, just inside the
cavern's entrance, a cloud of black smoke puffed into being,
along with it accompanied by a waft of brimstone was
the succubus. She was in her half demonic form, using
the body and face of the beautiful Savon, but with
her one remaining bat wing pulled in close to her side.
She was badly injured, nearly unable to stand. Black acre
seeped from the stump of her severed wing, and her
usually gorgeous countenance was twisted in a complex mix of emotions.
It showed hatred but also exultation. She lifted something aloft.
It was the severed head, a brother lego, gripped by
the air. With a wicked laugh, she threw it at
the cluster of pieces halfway down the ridge. The hesro
spun about, fixing the gaze of its single good eye
up at the laughing Savon, and then at the dull,
wet slap of the severed head as it struck the rocks.
A moment later, it belched out a roar of challenge,
letting fall a torrent of saliva and half chewed meat
to the floor as it did so, and then stood
up to its full height injury combat. I would not
have put the pieces in this much danger if I
hadn't made that reaction role following the defeat of Sevon
in the last episode, but I did make the role
and the result was a three on two D six,
a clear indication that Sevon would stalk and hinder the
party if she could, with her any powers of esp
and clare audience. I'll say that she was able to
follow the party and knew their intentions without making any rolls.
Of course, she is aware of what's beyond her layer
and that it presents an opportunity to put her enemy's
in tremendous peril, all at a significantly small risk to
her own life, something she certainly concerned with preserving. This
is why she waited as long as she did to
expose the party. As to why she didn't wait even
longer when the party was closer to the Hesrow, that
will become clear soon enough. Before we really get into
this encounter, some basic prep work is required. First, I
need stats for the Hesrow. I've tweaked the eight and
D Monster Manual one version a bit, giving it ten
hit dice rolling for that, I got a forty four.
That's over the half way minute of forty, So that
is the number I'm going to use. What else? The
armor class is listed at minus two descending. Yikes, that's
a twenty one ascending if I'm doing it right. The
hes Row gets three attacks per round claw claw byte
for one to three, one to three, and forty sixteen
points of damage, respectively. It can cause darkness or fear,
detect invisible, levitate, or use telekinesis as innate powers, and
it has a fifty five percent magic resistance. It's vulnerable
to attacks by non magical weapons, however, and I've cut
its ability to try to git in another demon. I've
replaced that with this dench power from a later edition
that forces anyone who enters into melee with the demon
to save or become violently ill, losing their action to nausea.
I believe that edition said that even if they do save,
they still fight with a penalty. But given that the
Hesro's already daunting armor class makes it near invulnerable on
striking that part, okay, I think that's a good start.
But even before round one begins, I think it makes
sense to roll for surprise for both sides. Neither the
Hesro nor the Pieces expected this interruption, So let's ask
the dice gods how it will play out. A one
or two on a D six indicates surprise rolling for
the hesrow oh A one, it is surprised. How about
the PCs. Here's their role A four interesting. That means
they are not debrist. This is very fortunate for the
PCs because if the situation had been reversed, the Hesra
would have used its Telekinese's ability to yank Yellowfly and
the three pieces with him off the ledge and they
would have all potentially taken falling damage. It could have
been devastating, but that does not happen. Instead, the pieces
get a free round to do something. Kat'spain turns to
Savonn and unleashes a barrage of magic missiles at her
from his third eye. There's not to hit role required,
but and this is something that didn't come up in
their last encounter. Sevon has a magic resistance of seventy percent.
I'm not sure what the rule is concerning multiple magic
attacks and magic resistance, so I'm just going to roll
three times once per bolt to see if they get
through rolling D percentile. I'm looking for anything over a
seventy The first bolt the thirty six. Sevan's wats away
the arcane bolt with a sneer, but there's two more
headed her way. The second bolt, the thirty seven. It
is also deflected harmlessly to the side. The third ninety three.
This one breaks through and it will do five plus
one is six points of damage to servan. Is that
enough to kill her? I needs check by notes. Okay,
I've checked, and it turns out she only had four
hit points. This means that the single bolt does indeed
slay her, or more precisely, it banishes her back to
the abyss for one hundred years. Kat's bin watches as
she teeters and then falls face first off the ledge lip,
but the only part of her that hits the ground
is a blackened, horned skull. The rest of her is
consumed in a violet fireball before it reaches the bottom.
Back to the PCs, Wazu lifts up his holy symbol,
about to command the demon below with righteous power. Jay
sprints down the ledge sword in hand. He will not
be able to enter melee until next round. Perhaps in
a fit of recklessness, perhaps propelled by his growing sense
of guilt, launches himself off the edge, directly overhead the demon,
sword in hand and screaming a battle cry. When Shawnee
sees Yellowfly do that. She makes a snap decision of
her own. Knowing the demon's attention is now fully on
her leaping companion, she dashes up behind and goes for
the backstab. Now, I just looked at the runtime for
this episode and saw that I'm already almost at the
twenty seven minute mark. I really should stop here at
this picture perfect cliffhanger freeze frame of Yellowfly leaping, Bazu
raising a simple high Jase flanking, and Shawnee sneaking up behind. Heck,
you could make a player's handbook cover out of a
scene like this. Of course, I'd have to be a
real jerk to stop the action here. Thanks for listening
to Tale of the manticor if, unlike me, you are
not a jerk. You can support the show in several ways.
You can recommend it online or differends. You can like
and repost episode announcements on social media, pick up a
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or Encyclopedia Manicorica on drive through RPG, and finally, you
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I'd like to read one of your kind reviews at
this point. This one was left on Apple Podcasts by
the Orc of the Lake. Work of the Lake Rights
Manticor is a podcast I found late, binged hard and
now wait for. Every two weeks, I found myself walking
the dog a little further to finish an episode or two,
or taking another lap around the block after dropping the
kid off at school to try to finish the episode
before work. I don't have the time for RPG in
my day to day life, but this fills the need
until I do. Glad to be contributing to your steps
count work. Seriously, though, I am thrilled to be keeping
the RPGs alive for you until you can find the
time to game. This is exactly what the Iron Realm
and the Adventure Zone did for me before I returned
to the hobby. I hope you don't have to wait
too long before you do find the time to join
a game and hopefully in person. Those are the best.
Thanks very much for your review. At this point, I'd
like to tip the hat to my fabulous voice talent.
This episode brings together the whole Tumbled Dye team, Kylon,
Andrew and Kevin Playcat's Bane Bazu and Jase, guys. As always,
your contributions are such a vital part of the show
and I can't thank you enough. For listeners who'd like
to get in touch with me, I'm at Mantacore Tale
on x or Tale of the Manticore podcast on Instagram,
and there's always email Tale of Themanticre at gmail dot com. Finally,
I keep a blog where I post all kinds of
show and RPG related things like art, maps, tables, crafts,
and show notes. You can find it at Tale of
Theemanticore dot blogspot dot com. The adventure will continue on
the next episode of Tale of the manticor the story
for Chaos Roles.
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