Episode 2
Before the Apocalypse: Decuma and Setting
Join us as we play Decuma to detail the setting Book and Ocean will inhabit. We learn about their tragic pasts, establish history with some NPCs, and introduce a few, hopefully memorable villans.
This one is all about mysterious glowing chasms, power corrupt warlords, and graffiti artists.
If Decuma seems like a great time (and it is), buy it here:
https://goldenlassogames.com/product/decuma
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Socials, Merch, Free Music, and Other Stuff: https://linktr.ee/oopsall
Transcript
Welcome to Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun, tabletop, role-playing games.
Speaker:I'm your host, Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by two of my good friends, Brady and Jacob.
Speaker:This episode was originally recorded at the same time as our Apocalypse in Characters episode, but we didn't want either episode to get too long.
Speaker:Because of that, past Stu here is going to jump in basically in the middle of a sentence, so try to keep up.
Speaker:Let's join him now.
Speaker:So the history questions are super cool.
Speaker:We got a little bit, we were limited by having only a couple players in this game.
Speaker:It's even more exciting when there's more.
Speaker:And then also the particular playbooks we chose didn't have a lot of different questions.
Speaker:A lot of the playbooks, there are like multiple questions you can choose to ask and you kind of go around in circles a few times.
Speaker:So ours was pretty quick, but to kind of flesh out this history more between all of y'all in the setting, we're actually going to play a game called Decuma, which is made by Kimmy Hughes for Golden Lasso Games.
Speaker:And it is a very cool game based on tarot cards.
Speaker:So there's a full tarot deck basically.
Speaker:And on each card, there are particular questions that are very similar to the type of questions you would find at the in the history sections of Powered by the Apocalypse games.
Speaker:We're all playing remotely here, so we're going to have to do a kind of a bridged version where I'm going to be drawing all the cards for everyone and reading them out.
Speaker:And you guys will be answering them.
Speaker:I have it set up already in the way they would be dealt if we're playing in person.
Speaker:And unfortunately, you guys can't see the very cool art on all of these.
Speaker:Next time I see you all in person, I'll show them to you.
Speaker:Man, when I got these for the first time, I like brought them to the next three RPG sessions.
Speaker:I was just like, look at these.
Speaker:This is so cool.
Speaker:Such a good idea.
Speaker:And they're so pretty.
Speaker:OK, so we're going to do that to kind of flesh out the setting.
Speaker:There are a few things we got to do first before we read the cards to figure out our futures and past, mostly past the overall setting.
Speaker:There's a few things that were called out, as we mentioned before, in the hard zone that are locations.
Speaker:I'm going to go read through all those.
Speaker:So we also we have some kind of reference points.
Speaker:If there's anything that you want to know, hey, we're kind of close to this.
Speaker:We're far from this.
Speaker:We've never heard of this thing.
Speaker:Those are kind of some kicking off points.
Speaker:But so my idea and of course, like always, love feedback.
Speaker:I think you're going to start out in a small society that's been able to sustain itself through the classic collection of misfits that may not have very strong roles, maybe not have very permanent homes in their past, but you've been able to kind of survive together in this location.
Speaker:Definitely doesn't mean you like them all.
Speaker:A lot of people you don't like, a lot of people that are dangerous, but you're part of a pretty small society.
Speaker:I'm thinking a few dozen, not much more than that.
Speaker:Maybe heading towards 100, but probably smaller.
Speaker:I think what would be narratively interesting is if you guys were not in, but very close to one of these large subterranean cities, like filled with skyscrapers, but just like falling apart, dilapidated, filled with dangers.
Speaker:That could be where Book scavenges.
Speaker:Yes, I think that would be a very good place for you to scavenge.
Speaker:What I was picturing in my head is kind of this outskirt town that is overlooking this massive, massive cave that is filled with this full city that is just overgrown, overrun, collapsing, rubble everywhere that you could explore for probably years before finding everything that's in this huge cavern that you can't even see the roof of.
Speaker:Can't even see those little slag tights holding on tight at the top.
Speaker:Just darkness.
Speaker:The very dumb name I came up for this little town that you guys are in is Hamlet Opening.
Speaker:Hamlet Opening?
Speaker:Yes, Hamlet Opening.
Speaker:I like it a lot.
Speaker:I kinda like it.
Speaker:Yeah, the little entrance sign to the town is an old dilapidated marquee where the night had fallen off for Hamlet Opening Night.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:I really like that.
Speaker:I was just thinking of lame D&D starting names, and I was like, Hamlet.
Speaker:I'm like, Hamlet Opening.
Speaker:But they wouldn't know what that is.
Speaker:Yeah, they have no idea what that actually means.
Speaker:But so Hamlet Opening is basically the last chunk of civilization before this massive opening that includes an entire city.
Speaker:So that gives you kind of some purpose for this being here, why people would collect here.
Speaker:A lot of people like to scavenge.
Speaker:A lot of people need a place of safety before maybe trying to travel through it.
Speaker:I don't know if you guys know what's on the other side yet, but it kind of would provide a good kicking off point.
Speaker:Any, any issues with that?
Speaker:Any?
Speaker:No, I like it.
Speaker:And I like the implication that this town under water, underground that, you know, it was once a functioning town had plays like Hamlet playing at the signs that opening night.
Speaker:Yes, no, absolutely.
Speaker:There was, I was going to say, why would a civilization in the new ground have that kind of thing?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:It says a lot about where they were at.
Speaker:Strange.
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:We may figure out one of these days.
Speaker:We just very well might.
Speaker:OK, I'm going to go through these lists of hard zone locations that are in the book because they're all so exciting.
Speaker:And these are basically going to be thrown across the map.
Speaker:Don't know where all of them are yet, but I just wanted to get them out there.
Speaker:But there's the Baffles, which is a labyrinthian tunnels whose inhabitants guard their wealth and secrets with violence and deception.
Speaker:The reason I'm kind of going through these, because I know you all can read, right?
Speaker:But when we start talking about the history of this area or of you guys or of any conflicts, these can be jumping off points for interactions basically.
Speaker:So this first one has inhabitants who guard their wealth and secrets with violence and deception.
Speaker:So if you if I come to a question that says, hey, you guys have some conflict with some other group, this would be an option you could easily pick.
Speaker:Or you can come with your own whatever you feel like.
Speaker:Another location is the Chanting Colony.
Speaker:People who have lived in the darkness for generations, newly returning to contact with outsiders.
Speaker:There's the gardens where a life cult is rediscovering hydroponics.
Speaker:There's the Long Dark, which is a central tunnel hundreds of kilometers long, winding and infinitely branching, traversed by wanders, trade caravans and bandits.
Speaker:I think that should also be very close to where you guys are.
Speaker:I think that's got to be close, because I imagine something like that is where ocean scavenges.
Speaker:Yeah, I was going to say add spider to the list of things that traverses that one.
Speaker:Traversed by Wanderers, trade caravans, spider and bandits.
Speaker:There's the Moonwell, which I'm going to go ahead and say is not right nearby because it's very interesting and would love for you to find it.
Speaker:I was about to say, that sounds...
Speaker:I love the concept of the Moonwell.
Speaker:This is a vast deep shaft, unplumbed, unscalable, in whose depths a strange light glows.
Speaker:Do we know about it, going into this?
Speaker:That's up to you guys.
Speaker:I'd say probably not.
Speaker:That's fine with me.
Speaker:Maybe stories about it, but I would say you guys have certainly not seen it yourselves.
Speaker:There's the Stew, which I think is what I called myself in high school.
Speaker:It's inhabited chambers named for their periodic flooding.
Speaker:So this is a place people live, but still floods.
Speaker:And the fact that it's named the Stew, I imagine it's not a very clean, crisp water flooding.
Speaker:I think you're getting a lot of detritus up in there.
Speaker:Good word.
Speaker:There's the Transfer, which I'm also, this is one thing I will be pretty strict on, is nowhere near you, but it's a series of surface access stations, air-locked, home to ventures outside.
Speaker:I would say that's probably your in-game goal to get there, Book.
Speaker:So that is, it's going to be a little different probably than what it says right there, and you probably don't know if it still works or if people actually use it or anything like that.
Speaker:Then there's the Waterlocks, a barricaded compound that controls interchange between barge tunnels and dry tunnels.
Speaker:So those are kind of the locations to start with.
Speaker:I think adding to that, so we have your guys' home base of Hamlet Opening, and then you have this large city right nearby.
Speaker:Any names you guys want to come up with for this big subterranean urban area, or suburban as they may call it?
Speaker:And our town overlooks it, is what you were saying, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So the precipice, because we're on the precipice of adventure, and we're on the precipice of the big city.
Speaker:But that would be, so, wouldn't our town be called the precipice then?
Speaker:I already came up with your town name, Brady.
Speaker:You can't change it now.
Speaker:Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker:Can we just call it Gotham City?
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:OK, what about Subtropolis?
Speaker:That's pretty cool.
Speaker:Why Subtropolis?
Speaker:Is that an agreement?
Speaker:I kind of like it.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:It's dumb, but I like it.
Speaker:Subtropolis.
Speaker:OK, so we got Hamlet opening on the edge of Subtropolis.
Speaker:You also have easy access to the Long Dark, the central hub that caravans would take to get to all these different kind of locations to share information about that is just these huge, massive tunnels.
Speaker:The actual central tunnel of it is probably like hundreds of feet across.
Speaker:I think it sounds like a good, interesting starting spot.
Speaker:And all the other ones we can start filling in as we go along.
Speaker:OK, from that little bit we got, we're going to start playing Decuma.
Speaker:I'm excited.
Speaker:Which is going to give us some more details about your guys' history, this location we're at, which in general, I'm going to say is kind of scope to the stuff we just talked about, like the area we talked about, at least.
Speaker:If you think it'd be interesting to have any other locations, that's fine, too.
Speaker:And then also the group dynamics of you guys.
Speaker:So it's more partner dynamics, really, if you think about it.
Speaker:So now we're playing Decuma, which we're going to go back and forth between you two, answering questions about alternating either history or the location.
Speaker:And while we consider these questions, we're also going to have group dynamic questions that will be kind of hovering above you, weighing down on your mind, that we will then come back and answer after each round.
Speaker:It may sound a little more complicated than it is, but I'm basically just going to be asking you guys questions, and you're going to answer.
Speaker:You ready?
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Okay, so the first group dynamic question.
Speaker:This is a major arcana.
Speaker:This is the hermit card.
Speaker:Our group was given information that we acted on.
Speaker:What were we told and what happened?
Speaker:So that's just, we're not answering that yet.
Speaker:You're going to kind of think about that while we answer a couple more questions.
Speaker:And then we'll come back to it.
Speaker:So that's kind of like the theme of what we're slowly going into.
Speaker:Yes, but you definitely don't need to force it in.
Speaker:If it doesn't tie into your question very well, you can kind of just still keep it in your mind.
Speaker:But yeah, that's kind of the theme we're answering.
Speaker:And then we'll go back to that and pull it in.
Speaker:So once again, our group was given information that we acted on.
Speaker:What were we told and what happened?
Speaker:So I'm going to start with Book.
Speaker:The ambition you see in someone scares you.
Speaker:This can be obviously Ocean.
Speaker:Any character we talk about throughout this, it can be conceptually a character that would be in this society.
Speaker:It could be someone related to any of the locations we talked about, or it could be something you entirely come up with yourself.
Speaker:So right off the top of my head, I think unfortunately I'm going to go for the obvious here, and I'm going to say that Ocean's desire to go deeper scares me.
Speaker:His ambition is...
Speaker:It's like the polar opposite of what you want, so that makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm just totally freaked out.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:I think that adds some good tension to it, because so far we've only talked about fun bean times between you.
Speaker:But if we make it more concrete, that the ambition you see in him, what he wants to do scares you.
Speaker:For some reason, I didn't even consider that while I was reading this card, and that makes so much stupid sense.
Speaker:Ocean, you did something to help someone get ahead.
Speaker:What did you do?
Speaker:Did something to help someone get ahead.
Speaker:Since you started with giving one to Ocean, I'm going to start with giving this one a book.
Speaker:I'm going to say that I found a lot of your books.
Speaker:A lot of your knowledge that you have is from books that I bring up and give you.
Speaker:I dig it.
Speaker:I knew you liked them.
Speaker:No, I think Jacob's answer really makes a lot of sense, and if that wasn't his suggestion, I probably would have jumped in there and said something similar.
Speaker:I think it's just over the years, maybe that's how our friendship started, is that I found some books, like one or two books, brought them up and you express interest in them, and then every time I've gone down, I've found more and I'm just like, Ocean likes these.
Speaker:I see no use in these.
Speaker:I don't even know what it says.
Speaker:And just give them to you.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe that's our exchange, is if you find books, you drop them at my doorstep, and if you don't know what something is, I tell you and I help you fence it.
Speaker:Yeah, I bring you books, and you tell me what this stuff is.
Speaker:I'm writing these questions down, and with you being Book, it's becoming very confusing because I've written, for my question I wrote, you help someone get ahead, who and how?
Speaker:I wrote, Book, Ocean brings him books.
Speaker:It's just like, I can see this getting very confusing.
Speaker:Yeah, we've got to emphasize the capital B.
Speaker:Books.
Speaker:We emphasize that, book.
Speaker:Or you can call me Mac, if book gets too confusing.
Speaker:I like book.
Speaker:Yeah, I like book too, sorry.
Speaker:Almost no one's going to call you Mac.
Speaker:No, no, that's fine.
Speaker:Mac was my father.
Speaker:That was the first history round.
Speaker:So now we're going to go back to that Major Arcana question from before, this group dynamics question, where our group was given information that we acted on.
Speaker:What were we told and what happened?
Speaker:So it doesn't have to tie to those two things we just talked about, but if you can, it's usually going to be better.
Speaker:I think I heard about somewhere to explore, like where there might be stuff for Ocean to collect, and I think that I told them about it.
Speaker:And we went on a little adventure to grab stuff and see what we could find.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe that's how we found the Long Dark.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, interesting.
Speaker:Maybe there's, or we found some central tunnel in the Long Dark that's kind of like our go-to scavenging place.
Speaker:So Book, how do you think you learned about this?
Speaker:Was this just part of some trade or something you found in one of your books?
Speaker:I think that one of the things that I...
Speaker:No, I think this was word of mouth.
Speaker:I think one of the benefits of being under the radar is that people aren't paying attention to when you're listening, and they also might be willing to tell you things that they wouldn't tell other people.
Speaker:So I think I either overheard a conversation or maybe one of the kids that I tutor, one of the few kids that I tutor, told me that they were exploring and came across this really cool thing, but it was too big for them to move or something.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Well, what did you find?
Speaker:If it was too big, was it the spider?
Speaker:Oh, I like it being the spider.
Speaker:We found a junked up vehicle looking thing, somehow dragged it back, and then using your knowledge and my brute strength, we slowly learned how to repair it.
Speaker:And now we got this little contraption.
Speaker:I like that a lot.
Speaker:I think that tied together pretty well with the other ones too.
Speaker:Okay, we're moving to the location round.
Speaker:So now we're going to draw another major arcana first, and you guys got the lovers in the reverse position.
Speaker:The question that we're going to consider and then come back to answer is, there is another group who are our rivals.
Speaker:Who are they?
Speaker:I really like that one.
Speaker:That's a good one.
Speaker:It gives me a lot of conflict I can bring pretty easily.
Speaker:Book, your first location question is, our location has a tragic past.
Speaker:What tragedy occurred here?
Speaker:And that is the Tent of Pinnacles in the reverse position.
Speaker:Okay, so my kind of initial concept for this character is that he was abandoned when he was a kid, and I think that that is sort of the impetus behind all of his idiosyncrasies, the way that he behaves and the things that he believes.
Speaker:And I think that it all boils down to that his parents left him as a kid in search of the surface world, because they also believed that it was fine, and that's sort of where he discovered that mystery.
Speaker:So I think for this location question, I'm going to say that the tragedy was him being abandoned by his parents.
Speaker:I think my little cave is where I grew up.
Speaker:Where you grew up alone or grew up with your parents?
Speaker:I think it's where I found refuge and I can't leave it because of the emotional attachment that I have.
Speaker:So they were here and left you here.
Speaker:That is a tragedy.
Speaker:Spoiler alert, Book got a lot of cards in the reverse position.
Speaker:So his are all going to be very sad.
Speaker:Okay, moving over to Ocean.
Speaker:Who controls the resources in our location and are they honest?
Speaker:This I'm going to say is probably going to be a new character.
Speaker:This is definitely a new character.
Speaker:And it's someone I'm going to enjoy playing.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So first of all, before I come up with it, who they are, they are definitely not honest.
Speaker:Okay, thank you.
Speaker:I appreciate that choice.
Speaker:They're just a real piece of shit, is what I know for sure just from that question.
Speaker:There's a kind of like a baron that like all trade has to go through.
Speaker:Like he runs the market here, he inspects all the goods.
Speaker:He's the one that people go to if they want to put out like requests for things.
Speaker:I think it would also make a lot of sense for him to have his little band of goons that control the market.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, he's definitely got some like gang.
Speaker:So maybe he's like a mafioso that runs the markets here, that was maybe one of the first people to come across some of the like a valuable loot hoard and this slowly accumulated so much wealth that he's the one that is kind of in charge for all the trade.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe that's our rival group.
Speaker:Maybe the mafia is our rival group.
Speaker:Maybe we are the black market and we are trying to, you know, introduce free trade and keep people, you know.
Speaker:Because these are definitely not honest.
Speaker:I imagine they're basically borderline mafia.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So maybe we're a Robin Hood type gang.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, I like that.
Speaker:Like we want what's best for our group and these guys are nickel and diamond and everybody, breaking legs and taking debts and that kind of thing.
Speaker:Are they like trying to collect taxes?
Speaker:I guess my question is, are these people, they seem to be in charge.
Speaker:But is it like in an official capacity?
Speaker:I don't think it's an official capacity.
Speaker:I imagine it's like they're just so necessary for the town that the people who are actually in charge are kind of like more puppets and have to do what this person says because he's the one line in their pockets.
Speaker:I'm going to come back to that in a second.
Speaker:I want to ask kind of a side question.
Speaker:So wealth in this town, since we're talking about this person, has accumulated wealth and power associated with it.
Speaker:What does that look like?
Speaker:So a question I normally ask pretty early back before they had these really cool hard zones and I had to come up with the apocalypse more myself is what does currency look like in your society?
Speaker:And that could be nothing.
Speaker:It could be just bartering.
Speaker:It could be favors.
Speaker:A thing that I've liked in the past, which is probably stolen from Fallout in some way, is some sort of item that there's a lot of that has some sort of related use or related use to the theme of what we're going for, the towns going for, what you do.
Speaker:So in the past, I had a frozen apocalypse world where their currency was just big lighters.
Speaker:Like that's like six lighters for a day's food.
Speaker:And it's beneficial because gas and heat was important, but no one really cared how much the lighter was filled.
Speaker:It was a token to represent an amount of money.
Speaker:Imagine something that's light source.
Speaker:I think that's real good.
Speaker:I think a light source.
Speaker:We're in a bottom.
Speaker:We're in a dark, dingy cave.
Speaker:I think you who has the light to see.
Speaker:So do you think like kerosene or batteries?
Speaker:I guess that depends on how modern we want of this city, this ancient civilization to have been.
Speaker:It can still be shitty batteries.
Speaker:Shitty batteries.
Speaker:I mean, there's a shit ton of batteries.
Speaker:If you think about it, like we throw away battery batteries by the dozen.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that would be an interesting kind of tokenized thing because like a particular battery no one cares about, right?
Speaker:Like that's something you could trade and no one's checking the charge on it to make sure it works.
Speaker:But it's something there's a lot of.
Speaker:And it is something that in mass is useful, right?
Speaker:Yeah, even dead batteries, you can find some use for them, scrounge them from parts.
Speaker:Are you thinking people are like trading 9 volts?
Speaker:Or is this double A's or watch batteries?
Speaker:Well, I think any kind of rechargeable would be the most valuable.
Speaker:So maybe there's like tiers of it.
Speaker:I was about to say maybe depending on how much charge the battery has, like how much charge they can hold.
Speaker:It's like the little watch batteries are like pennies and the double A's are a little bit more valuable.
Speaker:And then the big nine volts are more valuable than that.
Speaker:Duracells are like cream of the crop.
Speaker:If you get a mint condition duracell, that's basically a bar gold.
Speaker:Energizer for life.
Speaker:And then the rechargeable batteries, these lithium ion ones, those are like super valuable because you can almost always have those charged up.
Speaker:So how does that tie back to this guy?
Speaker:So this guy's accumulated wealth.
Speaker:Is it him literally accumulating batteries from people?
Speaker:And he has the most.
Speaker:Well, I think he has a little bit of most, but I think he has all the I think that's probably how he started.
Speaker:He probably found a treasure trove of energy, and then he's able to light up all these places for the town to see.
Speaker:And then that's just spiraled into.
Speaker:So OK, so he's in charge of the light.
Speaker:Yeah, I think the light.
Speaker:He's the light bringer.
Speaker:Oh, that's an interesting name.
Speaker:The light bringer being a negative condensation.
Speaker:I also like that being sort of his his moniker.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, he like what he's talking about is importance.
Speaker:He's definitely calling himself the light bringer.
Speaker:Is there any chance he has like some people on bikes trying to generate electricity?
Speaker:Like just he's just a really garbage person.
Speaker:Maybe that's a way that people make money.
Speaker:I was going to say maybe that's a way that he like.
Speaker:That's the way he could punish people.
Speaker:I know he said he wasn't like the authority, but oh, you you you can't pay.
Speaker:You have to do 90 hours on the bikes.
Speaker:I say it's just shitty jobs.
Speaker:Yeah, it's his shitty jobs that he gives the poor people because they have no other choice.
Speaker:But come and do the charges and batteries.
Speaker:Yeah, but that's that that's maybe like it's a form of indentured service.
Speaker:Like if you get caught stealing a battery, you got to you know, you got to pedal.
Speaker:You got to pay back what you took.
Speaker:You got to pedal it off.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Pedaling it off as a term of like punishment.
Speaker:Yeah, you got to pedal off.
Speaker:You've got to get on the peloton.
Speaker:So his real name, his non lightbringer name, I think it needs to be something real sleazy.
Speaker:Yeah, it needs to be something real, real grungy.
Speaker:Hickory Fleek.
Speaker:That sounds pretty sleazy.
Speaker:That's a pretty sleazy name.
Speaker:Now, let's go back to our original question, which I cannot remember.
Speaker:It was who controls the resources in the location and are they honest?
Speaker:And it sounds like the answer is Hickory Fleek, who came probably by chance upon a large collection of batteries to accumulate wealth.
Speaker:Batteries are the token currency of at least this area, but the real currency and the real thing people need is light.
Speaker:So Hickory Fleek is in charge of the light.
Speaker:That was actually my first unintended pun.
Speaker:He's in charge of the light, and he kind of has a grasp over society because of that.
Speaker:And he is a dishonest man.
Speaker:Just a real shitty human being.
Speaker:Piece of shit was the word.
Speaker:Yes, piece of shit.
Speaker:Okay, got all that down.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:And now let's try to tie those two things.
Speaker:Again, we don't have to.
Speaker:Particularly strong.
Speaker:But so the tragedy of the past, which was books abandonment, Hickory Fleek to another group that are rivals.
Speaker:Who are they?
Speaker:So I think the clear line to be drawn is that Hickory Fleek and his band of goons that he uses to kind of strong arm the people in the town, I'm definitely against them.
Speaker:Are you right with being against them, Ocean?
Speaker:Oh yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker:I mean, they control the trade and everything, so I'm definitely against them.
Speaker:And I do, I really like the idea that we are kind of running an underground market that kind of circumvents their system.
Speaker:That's why our barter is so low, yeah.
Speaker:That's why we're so difficult with bartering because nobody wants to trade with us.
Speaker:Now, how do I tie it back to the tragedy of my parents' departure?
Speaker:Maybe...
Speaker:He killed your parents?
Speaker:Well, I don't know.
Speaker:I don't think my character, I don't want my character to know what happened to his parents.
Speaker:I think I want that to be a mystery.
Speaker:And I might add that to my list of mysteries.
Speaker:But I think maybe they were...
Speaker:Maybe they were partners with Hickory Fleek?
Speaker:And maybe when they left, it gave him kind of the...
Speaker:It took away the checks and balances that allowed him to really take over the town.
Speaker:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker:Maybe that's why you're an outcast.
Speaker:It's because he knew that you're the family of this fairly well up person in their society.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:I think that all came together very well.
Speaker:See, this has already been so good.
Speaker:Man, back to Book.
Speaker:But first, we have a new major arcana card.
Speaker:We have a Reverse the Magician.
Speaker:What does the group, so you guys, believe is the punishment for evil deeds?
Speaker:That's what we're going to think about while we answer these questions.
Speaker:Okay, Book, you're up first.
Speaker:Someone harmed you once, but they don't know you realize it was them.
Speaker:Oh, it's a hard one.
Speaker:So let me ask you, do I tie this back to Hickory or do I try to introduce someone new?
Speaker:I think both are interesting.
Speaker:I don't want to start throwing everything on Hickory's plate.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So besides Hickory being tied to my parents and like playing a hand in me being an outcast, the first thing that came to mind is that there was someone, a girl in the village who I really, really liked and maybe even was like friends with, and we sort of had a good rapport.
Speaker:But I overheard her talking about me maybe in a negative way about how weird I am or how, because I'm not weird.
Speaker:Hold on.
Speaker:I got zero weird.
Speaker:Let's think about this.
Speaker:But me being an outcast and carrying my cane around and not being able to let go of my parents, and maybe she also ended up dating someone that I was friends with.
Speaker:So your heart was broken by a local girl.
Speaker:Maybe she doesn't know that I heard any of that or that I know that she's dating this person.
Speaker:Well, you're going to have to do the hardest thing in the world, which is give me a name.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:First name Calista, last name Furnace.
Speaker:Furnace?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Calista Furnace.
Speaker:Sounds hot.
Speaker:Please clap.
Speaker:Now?
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Remember, we're also thinking about how good, what do you think is punishment for evil?
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:That's what I was thinking.
Speaker:Okay, we're jumping over to Ocean.
Speaker:You and someone are working together on something important.
Speaker:What is it?
Speaker:So I feel like Book is too easy of an answer here.
Speaker:Well, this could tie into our first question.
Speaker:Who am I working with?
Speaker:I'm working with Book to try and undermine Hickory Fleet and his Shady Gate operation.
Speaker:Yeah, I think it ties into how do I believe evil deeds should be punished.
Speaker:Yeah, I was going to say, I think the only punishment for evil deeds is the punishment you seek out yourself.
Speaker:Or the punishment you enact.
Speaker:Like an eye for an eye kind of thing?
Speaker:Or just, you know, it's finding justice.
Speaker:You know, I think the concept I'm driving at there is there is no sense of external justice.
Speaker:There is no karma.
Speaker:It's only the justice that you, you know, that you have to, the justice that you find, you know.
Speaker:I'm talking about vigilante shit.
Speaker:I think it would be interesting if at this point we have like a differing, should I call it a differing opinion on this?
Speaker:Because I think it would be interesting if because of your parent's background, you're a little bit more harsh with how you believe these things.
Speaker:Like, you know, there is no justice.
Speaker:It's just us.
Speaker:We are the only ones.
Speaker:But maybe Ocean, because he's not very aggressive.
Speaker:He's very like weary and wide-eyed and more like everyone deserves a fair chance.
Speaker:And there should be like a consensus from like the those who are harmed on what the fair punishment would be.
Speaker:OK, so you're you're you're looking for more of a lawful approach.
Speaker:Yeah, OK, I like that a lot.
Speaker:I like that you guys have a differing opinion of this.
Speaker:But the question, I'm not saying this is a downside to that whole conversation.
Speaker:I think it was all good stuff.
Speaker:But the question itself is asking for what is the punishment for evil deeds?
Speaker:So what do you guys think, especially if we're trying to wrap this up in Hickory?
Speaker:Like, what do you think should happen to Hickory?
Speaker:Should Hickory die?
Speaker:Should Hickory lose all of his wealth?
Speaker:Should Hickory be forced to also pedal on things to keep the entire town?
Speaker:I do like some poetic justice, but I think the punishment should be, does it count to say using their system against them?
Speaker:Or using their evil against them?
Speaker:Well, so in that case, both of you would kind of think punishment should be just, right?
Speaker:I think actually in that case, we would agree, yeah, that it should be stripped of his wealth and forced to live the way he's forced others to live.
Speaker:Ocean, just with the way he is, with how weary he is, I don't think he would want more death.
Speaker:I think he would want more.
Speaker:Well, then I preemptively apologize for what we're about to do.
Speaker:Oh, we're now reaching the final location round.
Speaker:And after that, it's the final reading where we get three group dynamic questions all at once and try to fit them together a little bit.
Speaker:Oh, geez.
Speaker:Final location, we're going to start with Book again.
Speaker:Our location had a valuable resource, but it is gone now.
Speaker:What was it and why is it gone?
Speaker:Oh, I like this question a lot.
Speaker:I think the resource that we had was an alternate way to produce light.
Speaker:So, I'm thinking maybe we were sitting on a natural gas line or something, or not a natural gas, but naturally, maybe we were on a...
Speaker:Like bioluminescence?
Speaker:No, no, I'm thinking more like there was oil.
Speaker:It used to be not a mining town, but...
Speaker:I'm an oil man.
Speaker:What was that, Sue?
Speaker:I said...
Speaker:I'm an oil man.
Speaker:And I think maybe we were able to mine and capture some of that oil, but our old friend Hickory decided that he wanted to produce some artificial scarcity, so he closed that off, he made it inaccessible so that he can raise prices on other stuff.
Speaker:Maybe when we ran out of that, when we mined it and couldn't get any more, that's when Hickory's dominance came.
Speaker:Previously, he was just another businessman, but then we became over relying on him once we ran out of the main resource of the time.
Speaker:It could be both, or both.
Speaker:Where Book thinks it was Hickory, and that's one of his fucking...
Speaker:Oh, it ties into it.
Speaker:It gives it a little hook.
Speaker:What's the truth?
Speaker:Yeah, but there's no hard proof of that.
Speaker:It just happened around the same time that Hickory showed up.
Speaker:He's saying, hey, there's no more of this, and you just have to trust me on that.
Speaker:Also, I forgot to do the Major Arcana card for this one.
Speaker:I was just about to ask, what is the main question for this?
Speaker:Yeah, I don't think it'll change that because I like that so much, but oh, this is a good one.
Speaker:There is someone whom everyone in our group cares about.
Speaker:Who is that person?
Speaker:This is in a positive way, not cares about as we all hate this dude.
Speaker:Positive care.
Speaker:This is the Empress card.
Speaker:So that would normally be strong feminine energy.
Speaker:Does not have to mean a woman, but feminine energy.
Speaker:Like I have a lot of feminine energy.
Speaker:Your question, Ocean, is actually my favorite question, which is what kind of art is popular in our location and how do we get to enjoy it?
Speaker:That's interesting.
Speaker:It's a common thing people do is like paint up the sides of buildings and walls, like basically graffiti.
Speaker:OK, graffiti.
Speaker:Yeah, graffiti is what I'm kind of picturing.
Speaker:Graffiti.
Speaker:That's very interesting.
Speaker:So maybe that's something they saw in the old city and everyone was like, Oh, that's cool.
Speaker:And now everyone does it.
Speaker:Everyone just does it.
Speaker:And it's it's fine.
Speaker:And it's not an illegal activity.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:People used to paint cities.
Speaker:Used to paint interesting things on walls.
Speaker:Now there's a potentially impossible connection here of tying those both those two things to there's someone whom everyone in our group cares about.
Speaker:Who is that person?
Speaker:Graffiti artist.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But what else?
Speaker:As far as the resource that we had that we lost, maybe the processes that we used to refine the oil that was nearest also allowed us to produce some paints.
Speaker:And now that that resource is gone, our ability to create art has diminished.
Speaker:And so maybe that mysterious graffiti artist is someone who relies on us to procure.
Speaker:What if the mysterious graffiti artist is like a Bank CS figure who we don't actually truly know?
Speaker:Right, but maybe we help them procure stuff to make their art.
Speaker:Maybe they're like, hey, I'm looking for this kind of thing.
Speaker:Do you think you could find that?
Speaker:And we're like, hell yeah.
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:And they post super political messages all around the town, like Bank C and that kind of stuff.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:I like that a lot.
Speaker:So why do you guys care about this person?
Speaker:I believe in their cause, yeah.
Speaker:You like the message?
Speaker:I was about to say, we believe in their cause.
Speaker:Okay, this is a guy who's like, fuck the hickory.
Speaker:Yeah, and we don't really know who they are, because they're anonymous, but...
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:I think that's good.
Speaker:Ed, do you guys have a name for them?
Speaker:It needs to be something catchy like Bank C.
Speaker:Something like super, like, one word simple.
Speaker:The first thing that popped in my head was Frida.
Speaker:Okay, I like that.
Speaker:We're down to the final reading, which is three group dynamic cards.
Speaker:The three questions, I'm going to give you all three, so you can try to kind of think how to piece it together, but then we can also obviously take it one at a time, whatever, how we want to do it.
Speaker:Our group had a streak of good luck and did something amazing.
Speaker:What was it?
Speaker:We were involved in a mystery that was never solved.
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:Why wasn't it solved?
Speaker:And our group broke something important.
Speaker:What was it and why?
Speaker:How did we break it?
Speaker:Okay, so for the first one, I am I'm picturing, you know, us working on the spider and first figuring out the grappling mechanism.
Speaker:Yeah, I would say that requires a bunch of good luck to figure something out like that.
Speaker:It lets us traverse these tunnels.
Speaker:And I think for the mystery, I think that we were does it make sense for that to be related to the loss of our natural resource?
Speaker:Like, we don't know what exactly happened, but it's something that, you know, we were both involved with somehow.
Speaker:Maybe previously we scavenged for it.
Speaker:Like, that was part of our job is that we processed or scavenged for the oil or whatever it was, and it started disappearing.
Speaker:And we tried to figure out like, are we just using too much of it, but we can never figure it out because it just seemed to suddenly stop one day.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker:Stu, did you have any inspiration on this?
Speaker:On these combos, to me, these all feed together like one big event, kind of, because you were on a roll, stuff went well.
Speaker:There was some sort of mystery involved in that.
Speaker:And during that process, but it wasn't solved.
Speaker:And then something was broken by you guys.
Speaker:Maybe if we got time all together, we are straight of good luck was that we made the spider and we're super impressed and like, okay, we can explore all these different areas.
Speaker:We found something.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Deep underneath or found something under in one of these tunnels.
Speaker:But we caved in the way to access it.
Speaker:We couldn't.
Speaker:Yeah, we couldn't figure out what it was.
Speaker:Couldn't figure out how to activate it or something.
Speaker:And then we somehow sealed it off so we can't get.
Speaker:Yeah, I think when we when we or it broke, or what we broke led directly to the loss of our national resource.
Speaker:Well, so what was it?
Speaker:What was that?
Speaker:The moon the moonshaft thing?
Speaker:The moonshaft is eerie glowing light.
Speaker:Right, so maybe maybe we don't know it, but maybe what we found was a tunnel to the moonshaft.
Speaker:And the mystery was we didn't we know we don't know where that tunnel went, but we we caved in the entrance to it.
Speaker:Let's say we just saw a constant stream of light deep down in the tunnel.
Speaker:It was just like way brighter than we ever like we've ever seen.
Speaker:And we're like, wow, that seems whatever is down there could be that's where the light was down.
Speaker:Like whatever is causing that much bright light, it's got this useful.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:What do you so what you broke was the access to this area.
Speaker:OK, so you got your found this mysterious light.
Speaker:Maybe it was really hard to get to.
Speaker:And in the process of trying to get away from it, we like caved in the tunnel.
Speaker:So the mystery is whatever this mysterious light is.
Speaker:The streak of good luck is the fact that you're able to create your thing.
Speaker:That's that one seems a little weak to me, but not it's not a big deal.
Speaker:They can't all be bangers, you know.
Speaker:Well, I think I think there's the good luck also includes like finding that mysterious tunnel.
Speaker:And I don't know.
Speaker:Maybe you guys were trying to get to the bottom of what happened with whatever natural resource was providing light before.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, maybe that's tied to it.
Speaker:Maybe, you know, that that investigation, the good luck was, you know, we were finding leads and...
Speaker:Yeah, while we were like digging, looking for more like resources, like more oil, we were like, wait, what the fuck is this?
Speaker:I would.
Speaker:This is a hard one, and I don't have a big problem with it.
Speaker:But it would be nice if you guys weren't a bunch of oil barons.
Speaker:I don't think we're oil barons.
Speaker:I think we were trying to provide for our town, you know.
Speaker:I was about to say, I think we were trying to find an alternative source of...
Speaker:That's what an oil baron would say.
Speaker:Or you know what?
Speaker:Okay, can I like change four of the things that we just talked about?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think that we don't know where oil is.
Speaker:And I think that we are trying to find an alternate energy source to undermine Hickory's hold on the town.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:And we know that oil is a thing from my books, but we don't know what it is or how to find it or how it works.
Speaker:Okay, I like that a lot.
Speaker:That would then change a little bit previously about what was powering the town before, which I think is fine.
Speaker:Could it just be that we had...
Speaker:You know, it was...
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:This might be too far of a stretch, but just that the resource was the electricity that we all had access to.
Speaker:And then Hickory intentionally made it scarce so that he could take over.
Speaker:I was about to say...
Speaker:So actual electricity, because yeah, I think that's a great point.
Speaker:One point for some reason, and then just randomly the lights went out, and we don't know why.
Speaker:And he's going, oh, we're running out of electricity.
Speaker:I have to divvy it out in a smart way.
Speaker:Maybe one of the biggest position where he controls the power and he who controls the lights controls the frights.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And maybe one of the big twists is that Hickory was actually a good guy.
Speaker:He caught on early that he was like, oh, shit, we got to do something because the light's gone.
Speaker:But we don't know.
Speaker:Who knows?
Speaker:No, I still think he's a piece of shit.
Speaker:So first, yeah, no, he's a real piece of shit.
Speaker:Like, he's a real piece of shit.
Speaker:Either way, he's a piece of shit.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Maybe he didn't start out a piece of shit, but now he's a piece of shit.
Speaker:So the valuable resource we had is we had actual electricity that randomly went out one day.
Speaker:Yeah, because like I said, there is just like wiring for electricity throughout some of these tunnels.
Speaker:Like, people know how to do that.
Speaker:There's some sources of electricity that can be made.
Speaker:That's not that's not a bit scarce, but that's not a normal like, wow, there's lights type thing.
Speaker:So you guys probably had a society that was used to having electricity because it's a society and now it's scarce.
Speaker:I think that's very interesting.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Well, that's Decuma.
Speaker:And that gave us way more than we had before to go.
Speaker:I am so in love with the name Hamlet opening.
Speaker:I know, me too.
Speaker:I came up with it in a car.
Speaker:Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker:Please go buy Decuma from Golden Lasso Games.
Speaker:It's great for any RPG.
Speaker:Works especially well with Powered by the Apocalypse games, but I've used it in Dungeons and Dragons, or a lot of the Chronicles of Darkness games as well.
Speaker:It's just really flexible, covers anything.
Speaker:The music and editing was done by Stu Masterson, and the artwork and the logo were done by Brady McDonough.
Speaker:Next episode, we will finally get to play the game.
Speaker:So if you've enjoyed what you've heard so far, go tell your friends to listen to that.
Speaker:Thank you so much again.
