Ma’s making a break for freedom in her biofreeze mech suit! That could be bad, in my opinion!
And the party chooses some new names. So Aggie, Val and Milo become...
Housekeeping
- You can watch the VOD replay of Multitude Live! We have donated over $1,300 to the Black Lives Matter Global Network so far, and 25% of all VOD sales will be donated on an ongoing basis. Grab your ticket at multitude.productions/digitallive
- Looking for a great new podcast? Subscribe to Arden in your podcast app or ardenpodcast.com
Sponsors
- HelloFresh, America’s #1 meal kit. Get a total of $80 off including free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.com/jointheparty80 with the code jointheparty80.
- Twenty Sided Store, the best indie game store in Brooklyn. Pick up Masks using code JOINTHEPARTY for 20% off your online or in-store order.
Find Us Online
- website: jointhepartypod.com
- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod
- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod
- facebook: facebook.com/jointhepartypod
- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod
- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com
- merch & music: jointhepartypod.com/merch
Cast & Crew
- Dungeon Master, Co-Producer: Eric Silver
- Co-Host (Milo Lane), Co-Producer, Editor, Sound Designer, Composer: Brandon Grugle
- Co-Host (Val Vesuvio), Co-Producer, Editor: Julia Schifini
- Co-Host (Aggie O’Hare), Co-Producer: Amanda McLoughlin
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Join the Party is a collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast, powered by the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. That means a group of friends create a story together, chapter by chapter, that takes us beyond the tabletop to parts unknown. In the first campaign, we explored fantasy adventure, intrigue, magic, and drama. In the newest story, we tackle science, superpowers, a better future, and the responsibility to help others.
Every month, we sit down for the Afterparty, where we break down our game and answer your questions about how to play D&D and other roleplaying games at home. We also have segments at the beginning of each campaign to teach people how to play the game themselves. It’s a party, and you’re invited! Find out more at jointhepartypod.com.
Transcript
Amanda: Last time on Join the Party…
Eric: Did you know there was a secret hideout below historic laketown? No one did, not even Aggie. The party broke into the Nephews’ base of operations, cracking their password of BOOBS, making a big ruckus, and punching some doofuses. They pushed their way into the back room, which was as cold as a walk in freezer. Inside were pints and pints of ice cream, and Ma herself, held in a biofreeze containment chamber. Ma cryptically explained her situation and her and her children’s devotion to something called the People’s River, before busting through the ceiling as her biofreeze containment chamber turned into a mech. Man, this game is fun. Let’s get the party started.
[Theme music]
Eric: At that moment then you hear the mechanical running of the the Ma mech did you hear [buzzing noises] and The Knight of Mirrors uh is holding a hand out to you three.
[Suspenseful ominous music]
Eric (as Knight of Mirrors): What's the plan? Are we going after it?
Julia (as Val): I mean we gotta, alright.
Julia: And Val just grabs Milo by the shirt
[Brandon yelps]
Julia: Oh you don't even have a shirt on! By the back of the jumpsuit, just throws him up to the Knight of Mirrors.
Amanda: Yeah I’ll grab on to his ankle and Val onto mine.
Eric: Okay.
Amanda (as Aggie): Sorry brian see you later!
Julia (as Val): Take care of Yabby!
Eric (as Brian): Uh what?! What is happening?!
Eric: Yeah Yabby tries to make a break for it and Officer Roper moves after them. The Knight of Mirrors pulls over to I guess someone just has like a dirt bike that they left out like
Eric (as Knight of Mirrors): Hey who's riding with me? The other two can grab this.
Amanda (as Aggie): That's my truck across the street, anyone who wants you can come with me.
Eric: Alright so how do you want to split up?
Julia: I think I'm gonna go with the Knight of Mirrors.
Amanda (as Aggie): Milo with me.
Brandon (as Milo): Yeah yeah!
Brandon: And Milo's gonna follow Aggie and hop in the bed of the truck.
Amanda (as Aggie): I have a seat belt up here.
Brandon (as Milo): [Frantically] I'm already down!
Amanda (as Aggie): Alright.
Eric (as Knight of Mirrors): Alright let's go!
[Eric makes a vroom sound]
Eric: Alright so Ma’s just trucking down the highway out of town. Because historic lake town is the northernmost part of Lake Town City this is like a road that goes up north towards Canada.
Brandon: Oh yeah Old Canada Road.
[Everyone laughing]
Eric: Yeah! The highway that just leads out north. So she's just like trucking down this road, and now with the Knight of Mirrors with Val on their tron bike, and Aggie driving and Milo the bed, you just pull behind them. They're fast and they're gaining, so the way this is gonna work is you all get like a team action together, so you all do something together, and then Ma’s gonna do something, and then you're gonna roll to see the difference of how the chase goes.
Julia: Okay.
Eric: So this is your opportunity to do something.
Julia: I think Val is just gonna like
Julia (as Val): If you get me close enough, I can handle this.
Eric (as Knight of Mirrors): I can try, we can— we'll spend all of our time trying to go as fast as we can.
Julia (as Val): Yes please.
Brandon: I can also do spike growth which will make the terrain in front of Ma difficult terrain.
Julia: That'll be useful, you remember when you used that on us?
Brandon: No what are you talking about?
Julia: You're the worst
[Amanda laughing]
Eric: Alright so during the chase I'm gonna give the Knight of Mirrors advantage on trying to catch up, because you spend your whole time going fast, and Milo do that spike growth.
Brandon: So Milo’s going to cast spike growth and that gives a 20 foot radius circle around the point, any creature that moves into that area takes 2d4 piercing damage for every 5 feet of travels, and you have to make a wisdom check against my spell safety to recognize the terrain as hazardous before entering it. So what happens is Milo feels the energy sort of collected the center of his body, and then a disc of shadow energy radiates from his chest, and lands on the road and you sort of see it sort of melts like tar onto the pavement. But then it just becomes normal looking asphalt.
Eric: Awesome alright I'm gonna make a wisdom saving throw.
[Suspenseful music]
Eric: Yep I definitely do not pass!
[Julia laughs]
Eric: Alright so Ma just does not see this, and tries to run through it and takes a bunch of damage.
Brandon: It's 2d4 piercing for every five feet.
Eric: So the Ma runs forward 10 feet and realize that it's all stuck, and then whatever is controlling the mech is like
Eric (as Mech): [Robotic voice] Danger danger! Tough terrain ahead! Turn around!
Eric: And the mech turns around, and then runs back so that's 20 feet, and then runs right at Aggie and Milo and the truck. So it's going to do a bludgeoning ram with one of its arms against Aggie's truck.
Amanda: Yeah but my truck's a good truck.
Eric: I rolled. It is a good truck but, I rolled it on natural 20.
Julia: Oh boy.
Eric: So it hits and I'm doing ram, so it gets an extra 1d10 for each 10 feet it runs.
Amanda: Poor truck.
Eric: So I'm not going to do damage to the truck, I'm gonna just do it to you two to make it easier, so both of you take 20 points of damage.
Amanda: So now I have 2 HP!
Eric: Alright.
Julia: Oh boy.
Brandon: And uh… Milo fainted, so I'm down.
Julia: Seriously?
Brandon: Yeah…
Julia: Dang. Okay oh boy.
Eric: Alright so Ma did also travel back, so in the catching up to her portion it's gonna be pretty even. So Aggie you're still driving and The Knight of Mirrors is still driving, Milo is down so all of us are gonna roll dexterity roles to see how far or close Ma is going to run away.
[Dice rolls]
Amanda: I got five but I'm spending my final luck point.
[Dice rolls]
Amanda: Nat 20.
Eric: [Laughing] What!
[Dice rolling]
Julia: 17.
Eric: Alright so—
Amanda: Can I tell you what I want to happen?
Eric: Yeah you are almost catching up to Ma, you are now neck and neck.
Amanda: Well I would like to when I saw the mech start to double back, I would have slammed on the brakes so I didn't completely run into it, and I would like for the truck to kind of like skid around a little bit and for the mech to get kind of clotheslined, and land on its back in the bed of my truck.
Eric: I didn't roll high enough for me to be able to dispute this at all, so yeah that's 100% what happens.
Julia: Eat those dice, Eric!
[Eric laughs]
Amanda: I'm gonna—so they land right next to Milo, who is now passed out which I did not notice,
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: I am going to haul Milo out to put him in the cab, and use the bungee cords that I obviously have in the back of my truck at all times to bungee the mech down using the like holds in the bed of my truck.
Eric: Yeah— um yeah I'm gonna try to resist the bungee cords, and try to get away. Yeah make a an attack roll to grapple it with the bungee cords.
[Dice rolling]
Brandon: For anyone that's curious my boxers did protect that region very well.
[Eric and Amanda laughing]
Amanda: They landed next to you, with a nat 20. They were next to you, not on you.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: I only got a 7.
Eric: Alright well I rolled a 3, so yeah I this thing is just like super top heavy because of—
Amanda: Because of the water and the body?
Eric: Yeah like it's also melting, because it doesn't have great coolant, as it's also running, and it's hot so it's super top heavy, so as soon as you push it over you're able to restrain the mech arms, yeah. You did it you you caught the Ma mech.
Julia: Sorry that was way easier than you were probably planning on it being.
Brandon: Aggie is really efficient.
Amanda (as Aggie): We need to get to Dr. Morrow's right now.
Julia (as Val): Let's go!
[Music ends]
[Traffic noises]
Amanda: I'm gonna strap Milo in with the seat belt, [emphasising] where he should have been in the first place! To the cab of the truck, and Val you can fit in the middle seat if you want to.
Julia: I do fit in the middle seat.
Eric: The Knight of Mirrors pulls up and says
Eric (as Knight of Mirrors): Do you— do you need me to do anything?
Amanda (as Aggie): You actually came in very handy, thank you.
Eric (as Knight of Mirrors): I told you I'm one of the good guys!
Eric: Yeah Aggie you slam on the gas ,and the truck like a fish tails a little bit in the mud, and you are driving into Lake Town City with your first big capture.
[Suspenseful techno music fades in]
Eric: Milo while you're passed out, you're laying on the ground and it's so soft and you look around and you're on orange shag carpet, and there's this orange shag carpet as far as the eye can see, and everything else is just white nothingness and standing in front of you in it's almost a robe but also like it could be a kimono with a hood up shadowing the face. You see that an arm is reaching out to you and it's the same ghostly arm that keeps messing with you during your spirit surge. You hear in a voice only from 1960s and 1970s horror movies say
Eric (as voice): [Voice reverbs as he speaks] We’re gonna spend a lot more time here.
Eric: And you wake up to Tuna on your chest being like
Eric (as Tuna): [Excitedly] So how'd it go?
[Julia and Amanda laughing]
[Music fades]
Eric: Wow we're now finally on the beach and January is hopping around with those frozen pina coladas on a little tray because we made it to the downtime portion! Our first one of campaign two!
Amanda: Ooo.
Julia: Can we go to a hot springs?
Eric: It's a metaphorical hot spring, it's like in your mind. Wonderful alright well we're at our first down time I'm very excited to do this because I have a lot of fun things planned for all of you. But the way that we're going to do this I really wanted to separate each arc into seasons, so this would happen during the fall this was happening during like the peak of fall I think in September when we first met in the first episode so—
Amanda: Oh yeah a field trip so early in the year? Those kids were so lucky in episode one.
Julia: Nice.
Eric: Like you gotta just get it out of the way early, it's mandatory. So we're going to move through the rest of the months of fall, and we're eventually gonna end up in winter. But I think first thing’s first: hey you all leveled up!
Brandon: Yay we did!
Eric: Everyone is level 5 so why don't all of you tell me the new hot shit that you have that make you stand out, let's start with Amanda!
Amanda: Yes so in addition to some ability score modifiers, I no longer have -1 charisma I’m now at 0 modifier.
Eric: Ayy.
Amanda: I got a couple of cool new things, I got 2 more ki points because you have a number equal to your level, so I now have 5. I got extra attack so in addition to being able to like use my martial arts thing to make an unarmed strike as a bonus action I can just fully do attacks without using up my bonus action which is sick!
Brandon: God that's badass!
Amanda: And I get slow fall so I can use a reaction when falling to reduce any falling damage I take by my monk level times five.
Eric: That’s amazing. So it's just gonna be a lot of Aggie jumping off of buildings in the next—
Brandon: I’m into that.
Julia: I’m so for it.
Amanda: I’m in.
Eric: Let's do Ghoulia!
Julia: Cool um so I took both of my ability score points, and put them into charisma so I have +2 charisma now! That's fun.
Eric: Ayy.
Julia: Ayyy the most charismatic little punk there's ever been!
Eric: Just a lot of intimidation happening.
Julia: There is! I have +5 to intimidation now!
Eric: Good!
Amanda: That’s awesome.
Julia: I also got an extra attack just like Aggie did, and I have fast movement which my speed is increased to 40. Boom boom.
Eric: Hell yeah!
Brandon: Nice!
Eric: And then Milo, what you got?
Brandon: I got all the normal stuff, I put my ability to score modifiers into wisdom so now my spell casting is a +7.
Eric: Dangerous.
Brandon: And my big thing is I get two new spells from my class, which are the first one is gaseous form which I transform a willing creature when I touch everything it's wearing and carrying into a misty cloud for the duration which is very cool so basically I get to turn people into a ghost! And then my second spell is animate dead which is fucking wild! I get to basically make a skeleton or a zombie and have it be my buddy for a little bit.
Julia: Yikes.
Eric: From what I understand of Milo, I'm sure he's going to deal with that responsibly.
Julia: Definitely.
Brandon: Yeah 100%
Julia: Definitely not going to be terrified of his own creation.
Brandon: Of course not! And he's definitely not going to use this guy to just antagonize Tuna the whole time.
Eric: Oh god yeah, there's definitely the time where you're messing around, and then you're like walking around in a park and all of a sudden like a skeleton like climbs out because it was like buried on an old graveyard, and Tuna is just like “AHHHHHHH!”
[Brandon laughing]
Brandon: Yep!
Eric: But it's fall and it's beautiful. Alright! Well we did discuss that you three are taking on a super heroic bent to how you are dealing with the rest of this story, so I think first things first and I am not privy to this, at one point I think Dr. Morrow calls a whiteboard meeting for everybody. She rolls out like a giant whiteboard that like fills an entire wall of a room she's like
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Alright well we can just go— let's discuss your code names, what you might want to look like, maybe I can bring in a brand consultant if you'd like, just how do you want to look as you reveal yourself to the public? We're not gonna have a press conference or anything because this is still a secret government experiment, but I think you could look cool we could try to make you look groovy.
Brandon (as Milo): Do I have to look “groovy”
Julia (as Val): Yes, you specifically have to look groovy.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Whatever the kids are saying you know if you're looking lit and fizzy. I don't know are the kids saying.
Julia (as Val): What is fizzy?
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): I heard fizzy, I heard one of the interns say fizzy. Like you're popping.
Brandon (as Milo): I prefer floofy.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): No that sounds like something that's not true. I wouldn't know—
Eric: I like the thing that this is in Dr. Morrow's study, so this is the one that's like a park an artificial park, so like you're sitting in a park and there's just like a giant whiteboard. And all of you are like sitting on really nice like outdoor chairs while someone else is giving a presentation. It's like you're in a really holistic high school.
[Everyone laughing]
Amanda (as Aggie): So um a little bit uncertain about this one, I never wore halloween costumes as a kid, because I'm nervous it'll be wrong. So my idea you know, if I didn't end up being the caretaker here I was gonna enroll in the national park service, so you know that that cut out of Smokey the Bear in in the road leading Tupper lake? I think—I think I want to be like The Preserver. Preserver if you want to get direct to it—
Brandon (as Milo): Ohh, that’s good!
Amanda (as Aggie): And um be here for making sure that our land, and our people are preserved from harm. I don't know, I was thinking like maybe like a jumpsuit, something like that maybe like forest green, some some kind of I don't know cool hat help you know on my my face shadowing a little bit, and um yeah I don't— I don't know that was just um that was just my idea so uh I just… Thanks.
Julia (as Val): Well I love it, I think that like it's great because you preserve us, because you do that anti-punch thing—
Brandon (as Milo): OH I GET IT!
Julia (as Val): But also preserve because you punch the people who are doing bad stuff, I love it! It's great!
Amanda (as Aggie): Yeah okay thanks, Val, that's great.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): You know when you said Smokey the Bear I was worried because Smokey the Bear usually has no shirt canonically, just pants and hats.
Amanda (as Aggie): I'm also not a bear, so I thought we were going a little bit like artistic with these references. But yeah, like a mechanic meets Smokey the Bear is kind of what I'm going for.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): I do like the hat. It is interesting, we could turn that into a I can work on a sort of uh James Bond odd job situation where they could have a blade on it that could be interesting.
Amanda (as Aggie): Oh that could be very cool, that could sort of be like my version of darts and kind of throwing it and boomeranging or something like that, yeah.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): I think that would be really interesting. Would you like a Smokey the Bear style hat? Where it's like rounded on all sides so because that might give you the most amount of uh being able to throw it and then coming back and you being able to catch it as if it was a boomerang.
Amanda (as Aggie): I thought the wide brim would be good for kind of obscuring my face a little bit I could have one of those you know things over my eyes as well to to obscure that part of my face, but yeah I think the the wide brim it's it's important you get sun damage out every single day unless you put on your spf moisturizer, and most people don't!
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Yeah—
Julia (as Val): Would you like to add like a flannel aspect to this too? Because I think it goes with your whole look. I don't know.
Amanda (as Aggie): Maybe in like the the colder months, we can have like a flannel, you know external jacket or like a flannel lined overcoat maybe the jumpsuit is lined in flannel, and then we have a cotton version for the summer, with a little accent on the sleeves, and the the collar.
Eric: Listen that's just thinking ahead, that's just smart.
Amanda: It gets cold! Got to have your layers, long underwear!
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Alright yeah Preserver! Let's put it on the board!
Eric: And she writes Preserver up at the top.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Alright uh who wants to go next? Val you're already standing.
Julia (as Val): Oh yeah, okay I wasn't sure, I wanted to be polite to Milo in case he was very excited about his superhero gig.
Brandon (as Milo): I appreciate that you know presentations in front of people just aren't—like when it's not you know at a museum with an exhibit behind me that I've studied. It's not my thing.
Julia (as Val): I was gonna ask, because you literally had— like that is your job but it's fine.
Eric: Dr. Morrow is like looking down at a an iPad that she's switching through and she’s like
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Yes I've seen that according to my notes, you have a negative one to charisma.
[Everyone laughing]
Julia (as Val): So here's the thing, I do like leather jackets. I know that is like a surprise to everyone here. But I think that you know we could make a superhero that also has a leather jacket, I think that is like an appropriate thing, maybe we could have some sort of emblem on the front or whatever, and then I really like the idea— you know I have the little spikes on this one. But what if I had big spikes like big—
Amanda (as Aggie): I like that idea.
Julia (as Val): Big spikes on the shoulders!
Brandon ( as Milo): I love it!
Julia (as Val): Very cool right?
Amanda (as Aggie): No pigeons are gonna sit on your shoulders.
[Eric laughing]
Julia (as Val): Exactly!
Brandon (as Milo): no skateboarders are gonna grind on your shoulders!
Julia (as Val): Exactly! No one can mess with my shoulders! And also I can use them as weapons!
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): So Val what I'm understanding here is you want to look a lot like what you're wearing now, and also there's some sort of mask situation [laughing] happening.
Julia (as Val): I like that maybe like a utility belt? I don't know if I need a utility belt, that might be more of a Milo thing, he seems like he would have gadgets and gizmos, I don't know.
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: [Singing] I got gadgets and gizmos of plenty!
Brandon (as Milo): That is my middle name, Milo Gadget Gizmo Lane.
Eric: Milo's rooting through his bag and he's like “thingamabobs? I have 20!”
[Brandon laughing]
Julia (as Val): But like yes I i would like to look the way that I currently look, but like more badass so bigger spikes maybe we'll do red instead of black for the leather jacket, and you know just some pants I could go for leather pants too, my ass looks good. But I also don't want them to be super tight on me you know what I mean?
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): You can provide your own leather pants.
[Everyone laughing]
Julia (as Val): I wasn't sure if that's like a tactical thing that you could give me, like a cool tactical leather pants.
[Eric laughing]
Julia (as Val): You're laughing Dr. Morrow but that's a thing!
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): No you're— it will be harder to put pockets on them as opposed to Aggies situation but I think that there is something there.
Brandon (as Milo): You can make science space gadgets but you can't put pockets on other pants?
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Milo you know as much as I do that physics only goes so far.
[Brandon laughing]
Julia (as Val): Anyway I like this look, and then I was thinking because like I explode sometimes with anger, and also like things happen, I was thinking something like Vulcani
[Everyone ooo’s] Eric (as Dr. Morrow): As the name Vulcani.
Brandon (as Milo): No like you don't explode in anger.
Julia (as Val): Okay.
Brandon (as Milo): Nooo.
Amanda (as Aggie): But within you is the potential to level a city. If that's okay to say. I mean as a compliment.
Julia (as Val): Yes, I also all I have right now are my fists, and sometimes I have brass knuckles so if I could do something with that that would be very cool, but currently I am fine with just punching as I am.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Interesting yeah these are all definitely things we can work on in the future. I did see you had a note did you like draw any of these up just from—
Julia (as Val): Yes!
Julia: There's like a sketchbook that Val presents like
Julia (as Val): Here's my ideas— they're terrible drawings! They're awful drawings.
Eric: Dr. Morrow’s flipping through and there's just like a stick figure with sunglasses on, and it says like”disguise face?”
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Well what we could do is you could wear some sort of fake some sort of eyewear that would do a similar thing to a traditional domino mask which I think would fit more for Aggie who would have the hats in a basket combo there, I bet we can I'm sure we can put some eyewear together to disguise your your identity.
Julia (as Val): Very cool okay.
Eric: She writes all this down, she rips out your drawings and puts it in her pocket.
Julia: Very good.
Eric: And uh she writes Volcani I like that. Alright Milo! What do you have?
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Now Milo you have been sending me images every day, but you've really been bouncing all over the place. So I really just want you to you narrow this down, I'm not really sure which one I should refer to.
Brandon (as Milo): You didn't—I mean you shot down the Wolverine thing, so I had—
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Well that was just Wolverine.
Julia (as Val): You can't just be Wolverine.
Brandon (as Milo): Why not?!
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): That is that is copyrighted, and we would have a problem.
[Brandon laughing]
Brandon (as Milo): Um yeah so I was thinking like maybe I could you know hide my face a lot and body a lot.
[Eric cackles]
Eric: [Laughing] All three of you are my favorite.
Brandon: [Bashfully] So I—I just I just texted you some images that I think might work, there's um Morpheus from the Sandman series, he's got a big cool cape that I like a lot with a big hood, and then I forgot this guy's name and he looks kind of like a roman centurion with a little like logo like an Iron Man logo on his chest maybe that's I mean where you could I could control where my my ghost friend comes from. And then like Wiccan, he kind of looks more like me, I'm not really like these big tall powerful guys so maybe you know this like futuristic suit, but with like big cape and hood? You know Wiccan’s pretty cool.
Julia (as Val): He also has like that space thing going on that you're all about too, so that's kind of cool.
Brandon: Yeah thanks— [realizes he’s been complimented] hey thanks!
Amanda (as Aggie): Those like ombre gloves, I'm really into it, I like it.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Interesting, so I think we have two major things here for Milo: one is face covered, but two: chest portal exposed.
Brandon (as Milo): Yeah I think so, I like that.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Interesting the vibes I'm getting from all three of these are very different like one looks like you said a roman centurion, and the other ones are more are very flowy and chill, and some of these are a little bit gothic and I know you you do deal with— well I personally don't believe in ghosts, but spirits.
Brandon (as Milo): Wh—what? You've seen them, I've showed you them!
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Doesn't mean I—i there has to be a better explanation. What kind of vibe are you going for?
Brandon (as Milo): Definitely not the roman centurion vibe, I just like his like chest plate thing more than I liked a terrible billionaire playboy asshole Iron Man capitalist his dumb chest thing.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): [Laughing] It's fair. Milo I've read your Twitter. I under— I know how you feel about Iron Man.
Brandon (as Milo): So I'm definitely more of like the the Wiccan vibe just with a bigger cape.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): With a bigger cape and face, and full face coverage?
Brandon (as Milo): I think the hood's big enough, I don't have to cover my face exactly you know?
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Yeah we could do that have a big cowl yeah, that could be interesting yeah alright.
Brandon (as Milo): And I think if I have the big chest thing like it's gonna direct attention away from the face and towards the chest you know?
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): For sure.
Julia (as Val): That's true if you had a glowing chest I would look at that instead of your face.
Brandon (as Milo): Exactly.
Amanda: I wear green shirts for the same reason, I am told they bring out my eyes.
[Everyone laughing]
Julia (as Val): That’s adorable.
Brandon (as Milo): And then as for like a name, I mean like I'm just like spitballing here so please jump in. I was thinking something sciencey you know, like there's like a dark matter or like charmonium, or like I liked killanova a lot.
Amanda (as Aggie): Oooo.
Julia (as Val): Oh I like that one! That one! Yes.
Amanda (as Aggie): It sounds kind of like killer which is great.
Brandon (as Milo): Yeah!
Julia (as Val): And also like stars and stuff because you like the space.
Brandon (as Milo): Yeah you know it's a trend to an astronomical event that occurs in a compact binary system when two neutron stars or—
Julia (as Val): Yeah mhm.
Amanda (as Aggie): Yep.
Brandon (as Milo): [Still rambling] neutron star and black hole merge into each you know? And they emit short gamma—
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Yes Milo, we know what a kilonova is.
Julia (as Val): We definitely do.
Amanda: Val and Aggie make direct eye contact.
Julia: Just make faces at each other.
Brandon (as Milo): [Has not stopped talking] they emit gamma ray bursts like I burst things out of my chest you know.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Kilanova—
Brandon (as Milo): Kilonova was also they were just also just discovered after the ligo experiment so they're like you know a recent astrological phenomenon that we just discovered so like it's new and it's fresh you know.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Yes Milo we all know what a kilonova is, I said—
Amanda (as Aggie): I also bet you could get that handle on Instagram.
Julia (as Val): Yeah that would probably be pretty easy.
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Yes the only thing I was going to ask if Val please check into your database where you keep all of your band names, just make sure that's not taken. But other than that a—
Julia (as Val): Kilanova no cause I don't listen to fucking nerd bands.
[Everyone laughing]
Eric (as Dr. Morrow): Alright wonderful I love it.
Eric: So we have Preserver, Vulcani, and Kilonova. Oh those—
Julia: Oh that is a dope team name, I gotta say.
Eric: It is a dope team name.
Brandon: Oh do we need a team name?
Julia: No.
Eric: We could—yeah if you would like a team name, I don't know if we necessarily need one.
Brandon: The Y-Men!
Julia: No.
Eric: Well we can see—
Brandon: The Z-Men!
Eric: Terrible. We can see as people respond to you, you know we are not like I said we're not going to do like a formal thing last year yeah because this is going to be a little bit more under the radar, so I don't feel like you need to— we have to come up with all this ourselves.
Brandon: That's cool it'll also stick better when other people say it.
Amanda: I feel like making one might invite more speculation as to our origins and who we are, so I think just going out with our our personas would be a good idea.
Eric: Yeah wonderful I really like that.
[Transition note]
Eric: Hey it's Eric, it's August so you know what that means, It's heirloom tomato season! Just get those wrinkly boys they're green, or yellow, or red, and they look like your grandfather and you chop into them, and you salt them or you put them on a piece of crispy toast with like a thin layer of mayo, or you put it on a cheese sandwich, or put it on your eggs or any sandwich I just also love sandwiches and heirloom tomatoes, so just do that. Listen, August is usually terrible all therapists disappear, it's so hot and so muggy but at least we have heirloom tomatoes! Welcome to the midroll, just like salt them and the water comes out and it's just so good.
Thank you to everyone who joined our patreon over the last two weeks: Lucy, Sine, Curtis, Megaflare2, Timo, Anthony, Andi, Jess, Perpetual Platypus, Sian, Sarah, Kevin, Benjamin. We say it every week on the Multitude shows but we are so grateful for every single person who supports us on Patreon! All of us are full-time podcasters and that's large in part to what you do on patreon, especially as an independent collective trying to make it in this volatile industry during an incredibly volatile time. Being able to count on your support on Patreon is absolutely crucial, and thank you to everyone who stuck around and hasn't canceled after like two weeks after looking out of all of her stuff, we really appreciate that. And as a thank you we produce so much bonus content like bloopers NPC backstories and a thriving and wonderful discord not to mention an entire full campaign's worth of bonus material from campaign one! Today is a great day to join us for as little as $5 a month at patreon.com/jointhepartypod.
Our digital live show was an absolute blast, thank you to everyone who came out and watched us do stuff! We raised $1,300 and counting for the Black Lives Matter Global Network. We drafted pokemon we wish existed in real life, made an urban legend from scratch which was terrifying in a real place that really exists, solved Encyclopedia Brown mysteries in Meddling Adults, and heard why Tony Hawk’s Underground is the greatest video game of all time. If you want to watch the video and add to our donation to BLM, head over to multitude.productions/digitallive. You can just buy it, V O D baby, the world’s changing get on it. 21st century, bytes, boops, internet, wires, Wi-Fi, all that stuff. So head on over to multitude.productions/digitallive.
If you listen to Join the Party I bet you love serialized fiction that brings something fresh to a beloved genre. So if you haven’t listened to Arden, a comedy-mystery podcast loosely based on a different Shakespeare play every season. The first season followed a journalist and a detective as they worked together to solve the 10-year-old disappearance of a Hollywood starlet. Season two, which just wrapped up this week, takes the duo to Montana, where they get too close to the mystery surrounding the unresolved death of a rancher. Subscribe in your podcast app or go to ardenpodcast.com listen to Arden, it’s incredibly good!
We are sponsored this week by Twenty Sided Store in Brooklyn New York! Lots of you have been sharing pics of your hauls from online shopping at Twenty Sided, and we gotta say, they have some amazing dice in stock. If you need dice, and if you don’t need dice, you’re going to want to check out the selection at twentysidedstore.com. You can use code jointheparty for 20% off your online order. 20% off a D20! You gotta do it. twentysidedstore.com
Finally, we are also sponsored by HelloFresh. This is America’s #1 meal kit, and a great way to eat delicious food without adding time and stress to your day. They have vegetarian and family-friendly options, are super flexible so you can add extra lunch meals or even skip a week, and feature 22+ recipes each week that are all ready in 30 minutes or less. I love how their pre-portioned ingredients cut out a shopping trip and let me spend my time cooking rather than shopping, and reduces food waste by just sending you what you need. I recently made a Ginger Soy Noodle Stir-Fry, which was equally good fresh and as leftovers. There’s something about a cold noodle dish that is perfect for summer. So to try some yourself, go to HelloFresh.com/jointheparty80 and use code jointheparty80 to get a total of $80 off, including free shipping on your first box. That is HelloFresh.com/jointheparty80 and use code jointheparty80 to get a total of $80 off. Additional restrictions apply, please visit HelloFresh.com for more details.
And now, back to the show![Transition note]
Eric: After a few days Dr. Morrow like takes photos of all the notes, and writes some more stuff down, and I think that you all get packages that show up at your door a few days later. Aggie you open up your package I don't know how she got everyone's measurements but Dr. Morrow has them.
Amanda: Oh I'm sure she's got like a biometric scanner when you cross the threshold.
Brandon: Yeah that's creepy AF! Eric: But like in a nice way, it's for good things Aggie I think that you get pretty much exactly what you asked for, there was a tailored forest green jumpsuit with like secret pockets everywhere, like there are a few you can see but then there's like very small ones that lay flat on the fabric and these like black they're like somewhere in between an army boot and a working boot like it's a very sleek sturdy boot, and you get a a very small domino mask and there is a park rangers hat it might be even more a little bit more angular, like in the in my head of a park rangers hat is like really like puffy and like rounded but this one is like has like edges almost. It looks like if someone tried to render it in a video game, so it looked like sleeker and cooler.
Amanda: Cool!
Eric: And as you pick up the park rangers hat you nick your thumb on the brim, and as you look at it there's just like a razor's edge.
Amanda: Aggie whispers
Amanda (as Aggie): Fashion.
[Eric laughing]
Amanda: I wonder if the edge can be almost serrated so that like parking spikes, like if you go around it counterclockwise your fingers are just smooth over the burrs and then if you go the other way they cut.
Eric: Oh yeah!
Amanda: So if I throw it and it's going clockwise as I throw, then there you go but if it I like drop it and Sushi licks it like it's okay.
Eric: Yeah no that's great I love that yeah. Val you take it out and you're like “did my dad drop this off again? Like he's always just buying me stuff from New York City” and then you realize you're looking at this like a blood red oxblood leather jacket, there's just like really defined spikes on them.
Julia: Oh I'm so happy!
Eric: And it's like a new pair of leather pants with a note in like a pocket that says “feel free to wear your own, but here are some new ones if you want to break them in!”
Julia (as Val): Tight, thank you.
Eric: And looking around in the bottom there's a black glasses case and you pop them open and they're like if there was a way to make Oakley's look cool, this would be the way to do it.
Julia: Hooo, sick burn on Oakley's and everything in the late 2000’s.
Brandon: Got em!
Eric: Well we're in 202X, so they're definitely out of style. It's like it has the reflective lenses and you can whatever color you'd like—
Julia: Yeah I was thinking red to yellow to purple.
Eric: Yes!
Brandon: Nice.
Eric: It was like when you are on PowerPoint when you do the sunrise color gradients.
Amanda: [Laughing] I know exactly what you mean!
Eric: Bang bang yeah Amanda! There are a bunch of people that's like “oh fuck yeah dude!” Alright and then Milo you open up your package. And Milo wears t-shirts, and he wears jeans, and converse, and this is just like this is something else this is a new choice for you.
Brandon: Oh no.
Eric: There's—it's very flowy I think that there's there's an opportunity for you again to wear your own clothes underneath, but the things that you pick up are just this heavy midnight blue almost black, like when you look up into the stars and you see that you know there's the presence of no light but you catch like little glimpses of color of like really dark dark purples, and blues, and like there's even like bruised green in there. So what you really have is this cowl that gives you a very like deep hood for you to put your head in and then reaches all the way down to your waist and like dangles a little bit below that and there's also like there's a tactical shirt underneath, it kind of just looks like what could be an under armour athletic shirt, but you can tell you there's like actually some weight to it and there's a hole right in the center for where your ghost portal might go. You look at the cowl you can see that like on the hood there's also some fabric ,and even like some like glass or some sort of reflective bits in it so as you put it on and you look at yourself in the mirror it's like it's refracting some sort of light so your entire face is just covered in shadow.
Brandon: Sick.
Julia: It's very cool.
Eric: And in every single one of your packages, there is a very like ornate place card. Like you might find for yourself at a wedding, there's these incredibly gaudy like loops and calligraphy swooshes to it, with your names on it with Preserver in dark green, with Vulani in dark red, and in dark blue Kilonova. And then as you open it you'd be like January made these he really wanted to try out some new calligraphy pens. I think it came out pretty good.
Amanda: January!
Julia: Yeees!
Brandon: January is the hero of this entire story.
Eric: Alright hell yeah! Well you are now unleashed onto the city to go fight some crime, so I want to give you some chances to build out some people to rough and tumble with!
Brandon: Eric, I do want to say just for everyone who is curious in the listening audience, the first thing that Milo did was put on his hood, turn into a ghost, and scare Tuna.
Julia: Excellent
Eric: Very good, thank you for canotically hitting that. I appreciate it. Alright, wonderful so we're going to do something that I’ve come up with that I think I want to do every single down time, which is called the Enemy Entanglement Chart, where you're going to get a chance to go fight some crimes! So they're going to be some very quick interactions with some villains that are coming down onto Lake Town City, so everyone is gonna get a chance to lead one of these, but all three of you are gonna be together during one of these entanglement conflicts. So the way that it works is that I have a table here, and the person who's the leader is going to roll a d10 three times, and then I'm going to set up the entanglement and I'm going to roll on behalf of the villain, and you three are going to swoop in with your leader, and then do an action to fight that villain. Depending on who wins this contested roll, you're gonna have narrative control of what happens. So basically depending on like what happens if it's like a 1 to a 2, the winner narrowly wins if it's like a 4 to a to an 8 it's gonna be a successful win, and like 9 or above it's gonna be like a runaway win, you really get clobbered and whoever wins like wins cool.Amanda: Gotcha.
Eric: Okay so is everybody ready? Yeah alright who wants to go first?
Julia: I'll go first alright so the order here is the first roll is going to be the villain, the second role is going to be the place, and the third role is going to be the scheme they are doing.
Brandon: This is very cool!
Julia: I'm weirdly nervous rolling this.
[Upbeat arcade music fades in]
Julia: Okay first roll 4.
Eric: Okay.
[Dice rolls]
Julia: 5, and another 5.
Amanda: Colonel Mustard, in the library.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: Amazing.
Julia: Oh god I'm so nervous.
Eric: It is October, and the NHL schedule is in full swing, the Mountain Lobsters are playing the Nashville Predators and the Mountain Lobsters look real good this year, they're already up to a 2-0 lead, and it is the intermission in between the first and second period. Usually— I wonder what song they play, I guess it's just like top 40 hits, like people are off like getting food they're going to the bathroom. But then it all goes silent and the the arena goes dark—
Amanda: And you can hear each other peeing in the bathroom.
Julia: Oh no!
Brandon: The truest evil!
Eric: And a giant spotlight points down right in the center of the ice, which is strange because there is no giant spotlight that would be in there, and then another spotlight points down and another one, and there's just like now 10 spotlights are pointing down into the center of the ice. And there's a man with goggles and a white coat holding a what looks like a qualcomm tablet, and is holding like an oversized glowing stylus pen. He draws on the stylus which then creates a microphone, and then he draws more and there's just like sketches of speakers behind him, and he that grabs the microphone he's just drawn and says
Eric (as man in goggles): [Voice echoes through the arena] Everyone bow to the power of Professor Transform! No one has taken me seriously before, but I will destroy this to demonstrate my own power! Everyone cower at the sketching ability of Dr. Transform and his magical photoshop program!
Brandon (as Milo): Maybe it's because your name is Dr. Transform…
Julia (as Val): I was gonna say that's a terrible name, of course no one took you seriously.
Brandon (as Milo): A terrible name.
Amanda (as Aggie): Maybe we should become superhero persona consultants, it could be a good side income! I don't know, supplement your pension!
Eric: So Julia how do you how do you all three run in and burst in?
Julia: Dom Five is the biggest Mountain Lobsters fan of all time so Val heard about the thing over like the radio or whatever because he was listening to the game at the the pizzeria.
Eric: Yeah!
Julia: So we come running in, and oh god the ice is so slippery but—
[Amanda and Brandon laughing]
Julia: The ice is just so slippery and Val's just like “how am I gonna how am I gonna fight on ice that's gonna be terrible” and then um Val uses the charger feat, so just zips forward and like slides directly past this dude, but ends up like bouncing off of the walls of the rink, and then like whacking him from behind. Because I'm going so fast he can't follow.
Eric: I love that. Alright so Julia, Professor Transform has a tablet that can warp the fabric of space and time, so he has a +5 to this roll, but since you're using the charger feat I want you to make an attack roll, and can use your proficiency bonus.
Julia: Great.
Eric: Remember you have +3 now to your proficiency bonus.
Julia: Yeah I do!
[Dice rolls]
Julia: That's a 24.
[Eric laughs]
Amanda: Oooh baby.
Eric: Alright well I rolled a six so I got an 11, and you got a 24. So tell me how you thrash this dude.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: I—[starts laughing] I think I just like kind of push him to the ground like a bully,
[Brandon and Amanda laugh]
Julia: And then I stomp on his tablet—
Amanda: Oohh no.
Eric (as Professor Transform): OH NO, I’M NOTHING WITHOUT MY TABLET!
Julia: And then I and then I kind of like grab him by the coat, and spin him around, and slide him into the goal.
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: And then the goal alarm goes off.
Eric: And the alarm goes off [makes weew weew weew noises] because it's just programmed whenever there's a goal, it goes [singing] “we are the champions my friends”
Julia: And then Val just kind of jams to that.
Eric: And the entire crowd is just like “you suck, you suck!”
Brandon: And then maybe the zamboni comes out and just pushes the guy across the ice.
Amanda: The next day the newspaper headline “Score One for the Home Team!”
Eric: Oh yeah there's like a local tv station like a channel seven and a half that's just like
Eric (as news anchor): [Muffled through a tv] The Mountain Lobsters home team got an assist from another masked hero!
Amanda: Good good.
Julia: I need to know his name.
Eric (as news anchor): I'm Marjoram Sweet!
[Julia laughing]
Brandon: Oh jesus christ.
Eric: His name is Marjoram Sweet, everyone just covers a Marge. Who wants to go next?
Amanda: I'll go next!
Eric: Alright Amanda, roll 3d 10!
[Dice rolls]
Amanda: 6, 7, and a 3!
Eric: This is on Halloween, and unfortunately it's a Wednesday, so everyone is going to work in their costumes. Even the Skytram it’s just like a constant costume party, including former Vice President Al Gore who is going as—
Amanda: Oh no…
Eric: Who is going as Captain Planet.
Julia: Oh my god I'm so happy right now.
Eric: He still goes to work on the Skytram because he is a—
Amanda: Man of the people!
Eric: Man of the people, and he goes from his house to downtown, as he gets on the Skytram he says
Eric (as Al Gore): Wow it's lucky for me nobody's on this one!
Eric: And he walks onto the Skytram.
[Everyone starts saying no]
Eric: Five tall men run in after him and all of them are wearing white basketball jerseys, and shorts and as former Vice President Al Gore looks up, they all have ski masks on. So one of them pushes him up against the wall and is like
Eric (as Masked Man): Vice president Al Gore, I didn't vote for you. I'm not a hanging chad, and we're kidnapping you. Cause we're the Crime Jam Family!
[Everyone laughing]
Brandon: What?!
Eric: And what and one of them gives former Vice President Al Gore a basketball that has like a comically oversized wick on it, so it's just like one of those like cartoonish bombs that are is painted like a basketball.
Julia: Oh my god.
Brandon: That's very good.
Amanda: Oh no.
Eric: So you three you're going up against Crime Jam. [Singing] Come on and slam! And do a crime and jam! Amanda how do you find out about this? How do you bust in?
Amanda: I think either us, or Dr. Morrow has some social media alerts set up, and so when we see the kids exclaiming about like— Skytram's one of the search words, and there are a lot of complaints that we feed to the appropriate offices and make sure that all the stops are served properly. Yeah but we get wind of this happening, and it is a short emergency skytram ride away, so all of us hop on the tram— it's so efficient why doesn't every city in America have this? And we get to the stop that the tram is going toward fairly quickly.
Eric: Absolutely I think that at this point like Vice President Al Gore is tied up and now they're trying to record a ransom video like
Eric (as Crime Jam thug): If you don't put up points, and by points I mean money, right now Vice President Al Gore is gonna get slammed into the ground. Aggie what do you and the team do?
Amanda: So this is the order of operations, all of us are at the stop that the skytram is coming towards, so it's like you know a few feet away, it's coming in to the station, and Milo is down by like the access point to the tracks like right closest to where the tram will start to pass them by. Milo turns former Vice President Al Gore into a gaseous cloud so he is less vulnerable to damage, and busts out the bonds. And I yell at these hooligans and make fun of their jerseys, so they throw more smaller baseball painted bombs at me, and being a monk I use my deflect missiles to stop them by holding my hand out they freeze in midair, and then turn right around and fly back into the skytram where they all kind of like hit them in the heads and then poof to the ground.
Eric: Wonderful alright so I'm gonna roll on behalf of Crime Jam, who are just some tall dudes who have access to bombs so they're not that great. Please do a ranged attack roll to throw the bombs back at them.
Julia: Val turns to Milo and is like
Julia (as Val): Did you know that Aggie’s got like telekinesis? That's pretty cool.
Brandon (as Milo): I had no idea.
Julia (as Val): It’s extremely cool, right?
Brandon: Eric is there an average height guy who's just extremely accurate with the bombs?
Eric: Yeah there's one guy there this guy who's who's five six with the name Mugsy written on his jersey who's uh pointing everyone in the directions it seems like.
Amanda: That's only a 12.
Eric: Okay I rolled an 11, so you succeed but narrowly. So how does this go down?
Amanda: I think I got all but one of the bombs and one of them does explode near my feet and kind of knocks me sideways, and Al Gore is understandably surprised and sort of like isn't sure where to go, and the guys are stunned, and the cloud is there and eventually we get them sorted out where Val and I are able to go in there tackle them to the ground, tie him up and Milo takes care of making corporeal again the former vice president but it's a narrow thing and there was a real chance that the skytram could have fallen off the tracks, or that some of the bombs would have killed either the attackers or me.
Eric: Yeah this was pretty dangerous, and skytrain is shut down for like a week, and it's really bad. People are kinda pissed. On News 7 ½ Marjoram Sweet says
Eric (as Marjoram Sweet): The skyway to the highway is blocked for now, because of some basketball bombs, and we're not talking about the NBA here, we're talking about crime!
Eric: I think this one is not even credited towards you, I think they focus more on Vice President Al Gore being safe, and the destruction and backup of skytram.
Brandon: I mean that's the real story Al Gore turns into ghost, that's the story.
Eric: Al Gore magically gets out of bonds.
Amanda: I think it really gave him incredibly even more compassion for global warming, and the plight of the oceans, yeah being a cloud really understands the whole water cycle in a way he didn’t before.
Julia: I’m proud of Al Gore!
[Everyone laughing]
Eric: Alright Brando! Roll them d10s!
Brandon: Okay!
[Dice rolls]
Brandon: 2, 2, and 9!
Eric: This is now like mid-November, we're coming up on Thanksgiving, and it's another day in downtown LTC, and we see a armored van going to First National and then driving out to another bank to deliver some cash theoretically, and there's just like a retired police sergeant who is like 70 and working for the armored truck company, and it's early, he's drinking a coffee but he's done this run like 15 times before. So he comes up on an intersection there's a pedestrians that walk by and he takes a sip, and he looks up and there's one particularly strange looking man who's just like seems to be made out of dirt or clay, and he was “eh, weird things happen downtown.”
[Everyone laughing]
Eric: And then he has a buddy and there are two of them, and then he takes another sip of his coffee, and he looks up and there's four, and now ten and they're not clay, it seems to be like terra cotta. Like they're terracotta warriors, and then surround the armored car, one throws open the door and throws them out on the street, and they bust open the back, and you see that there is like in traditional shogun armor with a mask and a katana walks up between the army of terracotta warriors, and throws open the back door and he takes off his mask and it's just like a 35 year old white guy.
[Julia groans]
Amanda: Not again.
Eric (as katana guy): The Emperor has always known there are secrets here, secrets that have been buried in First National Bank! But I, The Emperor, with my traditional chinese knowledge—
Amanda: Oh that's not— oh those don't even go together.
Julia: Oh boy…
Eric (as The Emperor): I'm gonna learn it!
Eric: And he roots around in there, and he like throws there's like piles of money that he'll just like throws off to the side, and then he picks up a manila folder, and he kisses it, and he’s like
Eric (as The Emperor): Ah yes, the crown jewel. I knew it was here.
Eric: Milo how do you three bust in?
Brandon: So the three of us are planning our Friendsgiving, and we're at the grocery store next to First National, picking out the heritage breed turkey that we're going to have.
Eric: Yeah you called ahead—
Julia (as Val): Milo you have an antipasto platter, I don't know what to tell you! You have to have one!
Brandon (as Milo): They’re out of buffalo mozzarella! What do you want me to do!?
Julia (as Val): Then do like the pre-order or get the burrata!
Amanda: Aggie's there eating like a green olive for the first time like
Amanda (as Aggie): This is pretty good! It's pretty good!
Brandon: And then we hear the like vague threats of a horrible white man from across the street, cause those can be heard at any distance, and we're gonna run over there to help, and I think
[Brandon starts laughing]
[Everyone goes oh no]
Brandon: Milo sees this situation where there's like these tons of little like uh terracotta warrior guys, and Milo's like
Brandon (as Milo): Oh there's so many of them!
Brandon: And he's gonna cast animate dead on all of the meat carcasses in the grocery store.
Julia: Oh my god.
Amanda: What the fuck?!
Julia: Oh my god?!
Brandon: [Laughing] And he's gonna call Tuna and have Tuna be the general for this army of the undead meat products,
Eric: Amazing alright Milo what is your arcana?
Brandon: +4.
Eric: Okay cool yeah, I think [laughs] for this up for this yeah, I'm gonna roll +4 because The Emperor is pretty has a lot of terracotta warriors, so you're going to roll your arcana. So we're going to go up against each other.
Brandon: Cool.
[Dice rolling]Brandon: I got a 12 +4 for 16.
Amanda: Okay!
Julia: Pretty good, it's pretty good.
Eric: Yeah, I rolled a nat20.
Julia: Fuck!
Amanda: Oh shit.
Julia: This is the one guy we didn't want to win!
Amanda: I know we could have made nice with Professor Transformer! Or whatever he was called.
Julia: I could have not bullied Professor Transformer.
Eric: Yeah so the entire I think like the entire meat aisle just like comes stomping through the grocery store.
Julia: Just thinking about those turkeys waddling, ohh.
Brandon: Yeah and I think there's a cow or two, too.
Eric: Yeah and I think that the terracotta warriors like are scrapping, with like the turkeys and the chickens, and there's like they had a bunch of pigs that they ordered like full pigs that they ordered just in case people wanted them for Thanksgiving to do something non-traditional. And like there's a pig just running through like barreling through a terracotta warrior, and I guess you're watching Tuna lead the charge.
Brandon: It's glorious!
Eric: But you don't see The Emperor slip behind the battle line, and get you one-on-one, and he has his katana, and you know for someone who probably bought it at an anime convention, he's pretty good with it, and it's deadly. So he moves quicker than you anticipate, and slashes you across the chest. Before you get a chance to react from this incredibly quick sword slash he's disappeared and eventually the terracotta warriors just kind of fall over and crumble.
Amanda: And the animal spirits go free to live a happy, and peaceful life in the fields forever.
Eric: And the animal spirits go free.
Brandon: Of course, that's the next order we give them. So Milo plops on the ground and sort of like heaving and is like
Brandon (as Milo): Oh I was gonna entangle, we were gonna lecture him about his choices.
Julia (as Val): Yeah we probably should have.
Amanda: Aggie does some healing hands on you and shakes her head.
Eric: That night on 7 ½ News, Marjoram Sweet is about to report on the story, and then there's a man in a suit like comes on screen and taps him on the shoulder, and whispers into his ear and Marjoram Sweet says
Eric (as Marjoram Sweet): No news today! Strange!
[Everyone laughing]
Julia: What!?
Eric: I said Julia I said it was government secrets.
Amanda: Yeah!
Julia: Very funny, alright.
Eric: So we are done with the entanglements, congratulations! You have three new enemies, you put away Professor Transform, Crime Jam they did get away but Vice President Al Gore thanks you, and The Emperor is still at large.
[Upbeat arcade music fades out]
Eric: Let's move a little bit forward. It is now Thanksgiving. It is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I think all of you can all be at your friendsgiving.
[Background party noises]
[Everyone yays!]
Brandon: Milo brought a pack of peanut butter chocolate stouts to share.
Julia: I'm assuming this is at Aggie's house because I have a studio apartment.
Amanda: Yeah totally
Eric: It's a really nice studio apartment though.
Julia: It is!
Amanda: And Tuna and Sushi are touching noses on my couch, as we prepare the food.
Brandon: Awww!
Julia: Extremely cute.
Eric: Just some cleaning up questions, so we haven't really touched on it but Ma and the Nephews, I think Dr. Morrow just said we'll take care of it from here as you drove up in Aggie's truck. Did you guys ever follow up with Emily?
Amanda: So I think—
Eric: You have to be honest but, I do I do want to know.
Amanda: Yeah I think Aggie the day after they met with Dr. Morrow, texted Emily and said like “listen, appreciate you getting us all together, I don't think we can work together, but I'm happy to stay in touch and I'm glad you texted me”
Eric: Emily texts you back and says “oh wow that's kind of surprising, I don't really see it the same way that you do. But I respect your opinion. smiley face”
Amanda: I think Aggie would have left it at that and just reported to the group thread what happened.
Brandon: At some point Milo ran into Emily at the grocery store and she confronted Milo and Milo was just like
Brandon (as Milo): Oh yeah, I dropped my— I broke my phone in a in a battle thing, and I had to get a new number…
Brandon: And then he turned into a gaseous cloud and runs away.
Eric: That’s fine.
Julia: [Laughing] You’re in a grocery store! What are you doing?! Mr. “The Ghost Didn’t Come Out of My Chest!”
Brandon: [Laughing] He like turns into like steam coming off of the hot bar.
Eric: Make a stealth roll for me bud.
Amanda: And then he smelled like broccoli for four weeks afterward.
Brandon: I got a nat 20!
Julia: Yay!
Amanda: Brandon, NOW?!
[Eric laughing]
Julia: Honestly, it’s fine, I get it.
Brandon: Whenever I have to get it out of an awkward situation, that's when I stopped.
Eric: I like that Emily's like: Milo disappears and she's like
Eric (as Emily): I really respect that guy.
[Everyone laughing]
Eric: Alright so Aggie I assume, how do you and your siblings keep in touch? We have a group Whatsapp because some of them live in different countries, and every permutation of siblings in their own group chats. So like I have one with each of them, and there's all three of us in all the combinations, there's like dozens, and dozens of group chats, and then one with our parents as well.
Eric: Cool I think that the main sibling group chat has just been blown up about like plans. I assume all of you are trying to meet up for Thanksgiving, yeah because it's a friendsgiving so this is before so you guys can do yeah you all have familial obligations, so I assume you were all going to do that. Also Hank deep fries a turkey so you're not going to want to miss that.
Brandon: He's only lit the lawn on fire once.
Eric: Aggie, the O'Hare sibling group chat blows up uh which quinn has renamed to “Bunnies” a few days ago and no one has had the heart to change it and Regan—
Amanda: Oh you mean my siblings Aggie, Danny, Cassie, Regan, Ryan, Kelly, Quinn?
Eric: Yes, those. Regan posts a link to an Average Bear Reports article.
Julia: Uh-oh.
Eric: And the the headline is Lake Town City Super for More Ways Than One, and it's written by Tegan Murphy.
Brandon and Amanda: Oh no.
Julia: Val is just oblivious eating some manigot at the table.
[Eric laughing]
Julia (as Val): Milo you want some? It's real good I made it myself!
Brandon (as Milo): Oh, hell yes! Fill me up! It's not Thanksgiving without manigot.
Amanda: I think Aggie looks at the message and then freezes, and puts her phone on the table for them to look at.
[Ethereal music fades in]
Eric (as Tegan): It's early November in Lake Town City when the compelling smells of hot apple cider, and a cold snap stalking down from Canada are perfumed throughout the city. The smell was everywhere in your clothes, your hair, your truck, but it could also linger in your cape, if you had one. I know this first hand as the cape of a Fly Boy tossed gently like a flag on a pole during a private conference in the auditorium of Lake Town City's tallest building. The Thornhill building flyboy hovered his feet constantly a few inches above the ground alongside a team of masked defenders.
Julia (as Val): Oh my— oh my god this is fucking Sour Anthony named himself Fly Boy?!
Brandon (as Milo): Fucking Sour Anthony.
Brandon and Julia (as Milo and Val): FLY BOY?!
Amanda (as Aggie):: That is the worst name I've ever heard.
Brandon (as Milo): Sour Anthony's a better name than that.
Eric (as Tegan): The leader, Emily Slaughter, leaned against the podium with her full weight and delivered a speech that it seemed she had practiced in the mirror for years.
Brandon (as Milo): Sounds right.
Eric (as Tegan): She touched on justice, peace, honor, and power but everyone's eyes were locked on the katana strapped to her back, radiating a soft purple glow, or maybe it was the perfectly trained moose, who she had introduced as Taxonomy—
[Brandon laughing]
Amanda (as Aggie): What?!
Julia (as Val): Oh my god. That’s a better fucking name than Fly Boy though.
Eric (as Tegan): That belched a “right you are!” a in a Canadian accent—
[Brandon laughing]
Brandon: This Milo laughing out loud.
Eric (as Tegan): When Slaughter hit a particularly prescient point, or once again it was the smell of leather from Fly Boy's bomber jacket and his fluttering cape.
Julia (as Val): Oh fucking—fucking Sour Anthony stealing my leather jacket! That's bullshit!
Amanda (as Aggie): Capes are so impractical! They are a risk!
Brandon (as Milo): Another jacket and a cape is tacky!
Eric (as Emily Slaughter): And that's why I've gathered you all here to formally introduce us: The Up Country Keepers anyone else of the powered variety who is here for the cause is welcome to join the Keepers and our cause.
Eric: Teagan then summarizes the rest of the conference, and there are some quotes from Emily the origin story of the Up County Keepers when they stopped a breakout attempt of the Nephews from jail and there's a quote of commendation from the Lake Town City chief of police, the mayor's office also gave a quote that said “we're not in the powered business we're in the city running business” but there was an emphasis Tegan notes to refer to the mayor as mayor Dr. Morrow.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric (as Tegan): The writing continues: there must be something in the water up near Lake Town City what was once a sleepy summering town only a few short decades ago, is now a bustling metropolis.
Amanda (as Aggie): I mean they're not wrong.
Eric: Yeah Lake Town City pride! Go mountain lobsters!
Brandon: We have the cleanest water in all of the United states!
Amanda (as Aggie): We provide New York City its water. They really ought to respect that more.
Eric (as Tegan): And it seems to be constantly churning out a number of famous residents. Doctor Mayor Cassandra Morrow, of course hometown hero Fritz Brightstone of the NHL team the Mountain Lobsters, and let's not forget the O’Hare siblings.
Julia (as Val): Oh it's you!
Brandon (as Milo): Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice!
Eric (as Tegan): Photographer and local resident Danny is a guggenheim genius, Cassie has over a hundred thousand followers on her Instagram devoted to impossibly realistic tattoo designs, twins Regan and Ryan have two number one hits, and two gold medals between them in country music, olympic swimming, and the X Games if you're counting, Kelly is a working model and frequent RuPaul Drag Race judge, and Quinn is finishing her run as Vola in the Twelfth Night in Shakespeare in the Park. And of course there is Aggie, oldest sibling and official representative of the Historic Laketon district in the northern corner of Lake Town City. It was said that this was the place that Dr. Morrow discovered diaphram, the element that is the basis of so much technology we see today. But does diaphragm just make better people? “All I know is it's very fortunate to grow up in a place like this” Aggie said with a size she drove me around in an old school pickup truck “my siblings are really fortunate to have found stuff, and that they're good at that makes them proud a lot of olympic athletes by the way come from this town, lots of famous artists there are a lot of people who've gone on to academic careers, I found something I'm good at that makes me happy.”
Julia (as Val): Did you say all that?
Brandon (as Milo): Aggie, you don't even sound like that.
Amanda (as Aggie): I— no I they they showed up at my truck and I wasn't gonna just let them stand there on Main Street, I just took them around, and I didn't know. That was months ago!
Eric (as Tegan): Some of her siblings had a different idea “yeah man I ran around in a zero degree winter cold when I was five!” Said Ryan as I caught him for a few minutes in between laps. “I got in a sled when I was two and a half that's why I'm the way that I am, not some Lake Town City stuff” at this point he popped his shirt off and turned towards the pool he would soon do 10 rounds in hitting a new personal best.
Amanda (as Aggie): That's Ryan.
Eric (as Tegan): “The swimming you know, maybe it was from the water either way, I'm a specimen. Whether it's radiation or whatever, I'm crushing it. It's good for the sport, good for the world, someone's gotta crush it.”
Julia (as Val): Aggie, no offense, but your brother kinda sounds hot.
[Brandon laughing]
Julia (as Val): Just wanna put that out there
Amanda (as Aggie): He— Val, he’s a tool. I don't know if you wanna go there, but we can have a discussion.
Julia (as Val): Listen, so are like half the people that I've dated. But what do you know?
Eric (as Tegan): “uh you should ask Aggie about all this.” Quinn replied via email “she's the best at explaining it, and ask her how I should fix my toilet it's running again. She hasn't texted me back” when I replied that she hasn't texted me back either she said and I quote “lol”
[Everyone laughing]
Eric (as Tegan): But it's not all good things climbing out of the water, crime is on the rise, unnatural creatures have been seen in Lake Champlain and the woods beyond, and it's not all of these powered individuals are taking Emily Slaughter's side, coupled with the government site that up and vanished right before Lake Town City's boom, and the years of persistent rumors in Little Italy of a resurgence of organized crime make for some mysteries that are still waiting for an unmasking.
Eric: Teagan then points to the rise and falls of the docks in terms of organized crime, and the mount when the mountain lobster started being preserved, and how that changed the recent bank robberies including the First National Bank auction hit, and how they were stopped by the Upcountry Leepers and now we're at the final paragraph:
Eric (as Tegan): Questions still remain: is there a connection between the new masked fighters and the tradition of excellence in the city? Are the heroes meeting the new villains, or are the villains meeting the new heroic demand? and is this what Mayor Dr. Morrow always wanted as a new tomorrow? Or is it just another experiment that got out of hand?
Tegan Murphy is a New York City writer who has written for Esquire, GQ, and Teen Vogue they live in New York City with their three cats and five hedgehogs.
Brandon (as Milo): Before I get intense about this, Teagan's a good writer.
[Eric laughs]
Amanda (as Aggie): Tegan is a very good writer, and this is extremely damaging, but I want to read it again, because it was good.
Julia (as Val): Aggie have you tried the manigot yet? It's extremely good.
Amanda (as Aggie): I don't know what that is.
Brandon (as Milo): The potatoes au gratin are also my dad's recipe, and he's real proud of them.
Julia (as Val): Okay I'll try some of those!
Amanda (as Aggie): I don't have to know what it is to enjoy how it tastes I guess.
Eric: Nice and you have your wonderful weird blended friendsgiving. If this was a comic book, it's like you get one panel like looking out from the street into Aggie's house of just you three chowing down on this food, and then we look up at the tree which still has a few like fall leaves on it, and they finally all fall and it's truly starting to become winter. On upstate New York, you don't ask if it's going to snow, you ask how much, you ask how long. It is inevitable like time and taxes, and the cowboy and black being the bad guy. It doesn't matter what you want, what you're planning on or what you have already, you are going to get this snow. Because it's for your own good like nature intended. It's winter so you get a metric ton of snow, happy December the weather knows better, we are just humans with our limited capacity and only five fingers, the snow freezes the fall decay into place which makes the environment so much greener and sweeter when the spring breaks through. It is a break nature has a bigger plan in mind, even if it looks bad now it's mandatory. I'm sure there is a metaphor here for being a hero people think and they get distracted with love, and parking tickets, and hunger, and board games, and justice, and which superhero would be the best dancer. As E. E. Cummings once wrote probably while wearing two scarves and those crackly little heat pockets in both gloves and boots: the snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches so stop asking it for empathy, and maybe this year you can receive it with open arms, and a ready written thank you card. And this year this winter for Lake Town City that big white everywhere there is a second present there is a big mouth growl a footprint to match and a splotch of sticky red on white.
[Music fades out]
[Theme music plays]