The Patina continues to hold back the mercenary incursion in a very distracting way while they work to get the city back on the move.
The Patina continues to hold back the mercenary incursion in a very distracting way while they work to get the city back on the move.
Cast:
- Marathon Messenger is played by Penn Van Batavia. She can be found on Twitter at @acquiredchaste and in drag as horror king JOHN on Instagram at @john.is.risen. Penn is an indie TTRPG designer whose most recent work includes SLICE *IT* OUT, a grisly carving RPG about cutting pieces of yourself out to fit in. Check out faer other work at pennharper.itch.io.
- Cassidy Shard is played by Sydney Whittington. She is our wonderful editor. She’s also a contributing editor and occasional guest player for the Orpheus Protocol, a cosmic horror espionage actual play podcast. Find her on Twitter at @sydney_whitt.
- Emma Blackwood is played by Cameron Robertson. Find her on Twitter at @midnightmusic13 and on Instagram at @reading_and_dreaming. Cameron is also a player on Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars Edge of the Empire actual play podcast.
- Birdie Foundling is played by Kit Adames. Find her on Twitter at @venusvultures. Kit is also a voice actor and writer on Elevator Pitch Podcast, a queer genre-hopping anthology podcast that can be accessed on Spotify and YouTube.
- Our GM and narrator is Nick Robertson. Find him on Twitter at @alias58. Nick is also the GM for Tabletop Squadron and can also be found as a player on the Orpheus Protocol.
Music & Sound Credits:
- This podcast features the musical talents of Dora Violet and Arne Parrott. You can find Dora at facebook.com/doraviolett. You can find Arne at atptunes.com.
- old radio Channel search sound effect by Garuda1982. Link & License.
- ExplosionBombBlastAmbientE.wav by Zimbot. Link & License.
- "Ricochet" by ValhallaProject. Link & License.
- gunshot.wav by mark646. Link & License.
- Metal_heavy_punch_with_crunch_and_glass_debris_sounds_08242024 by Artninja. Link & License.
- "Flag of No Country" by Julia Kent. Link & License.
- Running Eiskrokodil (ID 01) - Remastered by Lobo Loco. Link & License.
Art Credits:
- The official artwork for this podcast was created by Rashed AlAkroka, who can be found on Instagram and Artstation @rashedjrs.
Find Us Online:
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A Knight of Shreds and Patches Transcript
Season 3 Episode 56: Mortal Brush With Gravity
Transcript by Cameron Robertson
Intro:
[hurdy gurdy music begins]
Nick: Welcome, listeners, to A Knight of Shreds and Patches. An immersive actual play podcast. This episode features the talents of –
Penn: Penn Van Batavia as Marathon Messenger and Gwendolyn Rozenthall.
Kit: Kit Adames as Birdie Foundling and Vaus Foundling.
Cameron: Cameron Robertson as Emma Blackwood and Janus Foundling.
Sydney: Sydney Whittington as Cassidy Shard and Winifred Foundling.
Nick: Nick Robertson as GM and Narrator.
Sydney: Hello listeners, this is your editor, Sydney, with today’s messages:
A volley of fist bumps leaves the crew today to congratulate our newest patron, Carson. A… carefully measured volley, so that each one can be met with firmness and receive our intended respect and appreciation, and not receive any black eyes, bruised ribs, or other unblocked fist consequences.
Perhaps to celebrate Carson’s new patronage, this past Sunday marked the hundredth blooper reel to go up on the Patreon. We’re always very serious in our recordings, and I’m sure they’re only full of dry, educational lectures that just didn’t fit the episode contents and nothing silly.
And with that, we wrap up today’s announcements and head into Season 3, Episode 56: Mortal Brush With Gravity. And so…
“Join us, for now our tale to yours attaches
To carry hope: a Knight of Shreds and Patches.”
[hurdy gurdy music ends]
[electronic beeping]
[robotic powerup noise begins]
Distorted Robotic Voice: Power restored. Systems online. Reconfiguring audio connection.
[robotic powerup noise fades to radio frequency static]
[over radio]
Cameron (as Emma): Last time on a Knight of Shreds and Patches, we arrived at the Ramp which was crawling with mercenaries and were welcomed as reinforcements by the Ramp Girl in charge. Winifred went off to start her climbing adventure to reach the device that’s blocking the city restart with Cassidy providing cover fire and spotting, Birdie set up to toss explosives at scary looking bad guys, and Marathon and I ran down the Ramp to start clearing out mercenaries and to give the Ramp Girls a bit of breathing room. Marathon is still yelling out actions for the exo-suit to do and it’s not doing anything extra, but at least she’s enjoying her bonus strength and mechanicalness I guess? She does seem to think that it should have greatly improved her strength rather than just beefing her up a little bit - she tried to lift a big armored truck after watching me toss a few jeeps off the Ramp, but I don’t think she’s taking the Knight’s size into the strength equation here…I did flip the truck for her though afterwards so mission still accomplished.
[radio static]
Episode Start:
Nick: The battle for Sasnak Traveling continues as mercenaries attack the city, both on the Ramp and from below. Winifred is attempting to make her way across the city towards the device that has stopped it in its tracks. Cassidy has found a bird's nest with which to try and protect her friends as much as possible. And Emma and Marathon are now mechanized dealers of death working their way under the city to cause a distraction. Birdie has already begun throwing her explosives, and even though you all have just joined the fray, you can almost feel the tides turning as you lend your aid to the Ramp Girls. Emma just finished smashing a truck with the Knight and, wreathed in flames, gets her first good look around the Ramp to the rest of the city, seeing dozens of vehicles and enough mercenaries that you can't make a clear estimate of their numbers right away. If your goal was to be a distraction and draw fire, you have succeeded. More and more attention is turning your way, and more and more weapons are beginning to point towards the Knight. And~ it's someone's turn.
Sydney: So Cassidy, knowing that she just got shot at and her current position is compromised - are there more angles off of this side of the Ramp, or is she gonna need to run around to cross the Ramp and go to the gantries on the other side to get to something that isn't in the exact same spot?
Nick: You have two options, I would say. So there is enough gantries and twisted piping and everything that you could work your way sort of in the direction that Winifred went and find a new covered spot that they might lose track of you. Or you could run across the Ramp and go to the opposite side. It would be faster and easier to stay on the same side, but it would be more effective of getting rid of people having a bead on you if you switch to the other side of the Ramp, but the other side of the Ramp too, you're further away from Winifred and the crew, so you wouldn't have as good a view over there.
Sydney: Yeah, Cassidy's gonna stick to the current side that she's on then, because if something happens and she needs to go physically out and help Winifred, it's more important that she's in a position to help than losing the mobility to go to the other side to lower the risk a little bit more in this case. So with that math, Cassidy takes a deep breath and then breaks into a sprint across the gantries looking for a place that's still covered, that gives her something to hunker down on and have an angle out across without being where she previously was.
Nick: Go ahead and make me a hard Athletics check with a black die because you are currently under fire, which makes it a little bit harder to do any sort of acrobatics or feats of athleticism.
Sydney: Cassidy does have A Knack For It for Athletics, so I'm going to remove that black die, and that'll take me to two yellows and two greens against three purples.
[dice rolling]
Sydney: Four successes and two threats.
Nick: Hey, threats. That's fun. So those threats will be you're gonna have a black die on your next action that you take. I would assume it's because you're having to go all out to get out of people's line of sight, and that raises your heart rate and puts you in a little bit of a compromised physical position where you are, but otherwise you're really good at getting a new nest. So describe finding a new spot, and use this time just paint out a little more what the underside of the city looks like.
Sydney: So Cassidy takes off, sprinting across the first gantry, and immediately to stay out of open lines of sight, she's forced to jump to a pipe that's running alongside a large, couple of feet diameter pipe, and as she's scanning, looking for what could be a short term stable spot, as she has changed her trajectory to get a little bit broader of an angle, what she's looking at is a lot of pipes. There's one random gantry that must have been for loading cargo to a hatch that's been sealed over and distributed around are many large pipes and protrusions coming down from the outside of the hole. And she, while running along this thick pipe, she catches sight of an L shaped protrusion where there's a segment coming down, and then there's a big ventilation fan on the edge of it that comes out a couple of feet, and behind it is a small service platform, probably for having access to that fan and jumping from this pipe down to a narrow walkway and then vaulting a second pipe, she's able to make it to this small maintenance platform, and she slams into the corner of it with her shoulder to bleed off the momentum really quick so she doesn't overshoot, because she, while actively being under fire, did not have the time to secure herself to anything here and drops down to a knee to begin scanning to see if she can locate where the fire she was taking previously was coming from, hopefully in time to interrupt either that fire coming to her or now that she's moved and hopefully a broken line of sight, to interrupt any fire going to Winifred, whose mission is the most important. And she is breathing heavily - normally, she prefers to get into her sniper's nests or lookouts long in advance of the conflict, so that she's had a chance to let her heart rate slow so that she can shoot calmly and accurately, and that preferred circumstance has been stripped away from her, but there's still a mission going on.
Nick: Well, I'm gonna go ahead and say, since you spent your whole action relocating, you're not gonna get shot this turn, so good job. But that leaves me with a mercenary action that I can spend on something else. So, Marathon, you are specifically on the lookout for people who would be trying to flank the Knight or attack the Knight from an angle where Emma may not see, so go ahead and make me a average Perception check, please.
Penn: Because of Emma's Heightened Awareness talent, I get to add a blue die to my pool, so I will be rolling three green and a blue against these two purple.
[dice rolling]
Penn: Five successes and a threat.
Nick: Another threat you say? Interesting. So with five successes, what you notice Marathon, as you come around the side of the Ramp to protect Emma's flanks and get a good look at this battlefield under the city, you notice, probably about 50 yards away, there is what looks like a school bus that had the top carved off of it, that's being used as a troop carrier. And you notice that somebody pulls a large tube up from inside this school bus and puts it on a shoulder and is aiming towards Emma and the Knight. And somebody has a rocket launcher that they are working on getting a lock on the Knight. They have not fired it yet, but that is happening right now.
Penn (as Marathon): [over radio] Radio on! Emma, rocket launcher behind you! Over!
Penn: And Marathon, as she shouts that, starts rushing the rocket launcher, hoping to induce some panic, or at least be a more nimble target.
Cameron: Emma spins and turns towards behind her in the Knight to try to get eyes on this rocket launcher that Marathon has called out, while trying to kick out at anyone who's near her in the process to just cause as much destruction as possible.
Nick: Yeah, luckily, the heat from the flames and your dramatic entrance has cleared off anybody that would be under foot, so you have a little breathing room, but you do see this rocket that is about to go off. Marathon gets a check before this thing goes off, because she was so perceptive. So are you trying to run to the bus before they shoot?
Penn: I'm trying to rush them, yes. I don't know if that's feasible, but
Nick: If you spend two Strain to do a double move, I think you could make it to them. And then that gives you an action at the bus, whether you're going to try and attack them, or dump the bus over, or whatever you want to try and do from there.
Penn: I will use two Strain in order to double my movement while I'm dealing with this gunshot wound in my leg, but heavily assisted by the combat suit. Marathon is going to rush towards this rocket launcher holding goon in this perversely adapted school bus. As she gets close, she wants to send a punch directly into this rocket launcher guy to just totally break it out of somebody's hands, or at least interrupt his aim.
Nick: Okay, go ahead and make me a Brawl check then please. It'll be average difficulty.
Penn: So my full pool with the combat rig equipped will be five yellow and a blue against two purple.
[dice rolling]
Penn: Three successes, an advantage and a Triumph.
Nick: Nice. So three successes is enough damage to take this guy out. So you can use the Triumph on something else, if you would like. But yeah, you're able to pretty much completely remove this guy from the table. So you're aware, there are other people in this bus and they are going to immediately start trying to attack you, so
Penn: Marathon, as she rushes up, she punches this guy and while she's getting more used to the strength of this suit, she's still not totally used to the damage inflicts, and as she punches him his body goes flying through the bus to the back, maybe taking somebody else out with it. And meanwhile, this rocket launcher stays in place, in the air as he's gotten punched, and it falls down backward and falls onto the floor of this bus, firing it to the back of the bus.
Nick: Okay, we can say that the rocket misfires and blows the back off of the bus.
Penn: As the bus begins to explode in the back, in fiery flames, Marathon has stepped back and is holding her hands up in the combat rig and just apologizing.
Penn (as Marathon): [over radio] I'm so sorry! Oh god. Oh dirt.
Nick: And that managed to take out most of the contingent of people who were in this bus, but somebody who has been down in between the seats stands up and attempts to slide a saber in between plates of your armor and stab you. So two yellows against two purples, please Cameron, but add two black die because they are trying to go between armor plates and ignore some armor here.
Cameron: Does Marathon have Defense?
Penn: I have one Defense in each Ranged and Melee.
Cameron: So it's two yellows, two purples, and three blacks.
Nick: That sounds right, yeah.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: Two successes and one advantage.
Nick: So that's two for the successes, two for this person's Brawn, and a sword is plus two - so that is six damage, Marathon.
Penn: Well, that doesn't break the Soak unfortunately.
Nick: It almost made it. So how do you avoid getting stabbed to death here?
Penn: As this sword tries to get wedged in between the plates of this armor, Marathon, because she's stepped back with her hands up, has thrown off this person's balance a little bit, and the saber gets caught in between the shoulder joints and plates of the Exosuit. And as she steps away, it pulls the sword with her a little bit, keeping it kind of trapped in the plates, and it has a slight immobilizing effect on her in the short term, but she does not realize that yet.
Penn (as Marathon): [over radio] [scoff] Joke's on you I'm wearing - don't you see the fucking metal suit?
Nick: This guy is so distracted he doesn’t even seem to hear you. So that was the enemy's turn in this round, we still have Birdie and Winifred to go.
Kit: Can I use my action to ask Emma over the radio - ?
Kit (as Birdie): [over radio] So I know the last time we played this you were in the mech suit, but do you want to play more extreme baseball?
Cameron (as Emma): [over radio] Depends on how high you can throw the baseball.
Kit (as Birdie): [over radio] I'll do my very best.
Kit: Birdie is going to run a little bit back up the Ramp to give her the height that she needs in order to just lob a straight shot. Birdie is pulling out a metal canister that she was using to previously store fuel in and is going to use her explosive goop to coat some of the inside with the dregs of fuel and whatever else she can put in there to make the explosive as damaging as possible to who it's exploding.
Nick: So go ahead and make me a Ranged Attack light to throw this to Emma in a location where Emma can serve it up further afield. It's gonna be hard difficulty, because you're hucking it quite a ways and over a Ramp and over a robot.
Kit: Okay, I rolled three yellows, a green and three purples, and got two successes and two advantages.
Nick: Nice~. Emma can baseball bat for free, since you're spending your action loading Emma up on stuff. So that's successful. It's Blast, so it's going to do damage to multiple things. The question is, what does Emma hit it at? There are groups of mercenaries that are starting to make their way towards you, Emma, there are multiple vehicles that are around. Do you want to try to blow up a vehicle or blow up a group of people?
Cameron: It would probably end up being centered around a vehicle, because I'm probably aiming for the area that is the most densely populated, so that I am most likely to hit something if I get it in that general area, versus being like, fuck that one guy with a baseball cap in particular.
Nick: Cool. I marked a truck as 'sploaded'.
Kit: Birdie gives a count off and a very obvious underhanded throw that anyone should be able to hit, but is a little bit more difficult because of the difference in size between the Knight and Birdie's equipment. And as Emma delivers a beautiful swing and a hit, Birdie keeps her eye as much as she can on this glinting metal bottle to time her explosion to detonate exactly before the bottle actually makes contact with anything.
Cameron: While in theory this is baseball, and Emma is batting with the sword - due to the size difference in the explosive we're working with, versus the Knight with its sword as a baseball bat, it is less swinging at full strength and more just hitting it to get it going a direction, because if she hits it at full strength, it might just explode based on the pressure right then. So it's more like a sword tap than a full on baseball swing with the sword. So less upper body involvement, more shoulder involvement, so like tennis - and so Emma angles back from where she had been watching Marathon explode a bus to back towards where she has Birdie in her sight range on the screens in the Knight, and then gently for the Knight, which translates to not so gently, bops the explosive with the Knight's sword and sends it towards a truck with some mercenaries clustered around it that is advancing towards the Ramp.
Nick: So just before this explosive hits the truck, it detonates, just as Birdie had intended and scatters shrapnel into this group of mercenaries who are grievously injured or dive out of the way, and this truck is rattled on its wheels and stops rolling. So, Birdie and Emma have cleared an obstacle before it ever even got close to the Ramp.
Kit: Birdie goes,
Kit (as Birdie): [over radio] Yay~! That actually worked. I'm really glad that that worked. I kind of wasn't expecting it to.
Cameron (as Emma): [over radio] Excellent timing on the explosion.
Kit (as Birdie): [over radio] Thank you.
Cameron (as Emma): [over radio] Very good job.
Kit (as Birdie): [over radio] Thank you.
Cameron (as Emma): [over radio] I do feel like I should be running bases.
Penn (as Marathon): [over radio] Hey, I just - there was another explosion. Everything okay? Over.
Cameron (as Emma): [over radio] Yep, did it on purpose.
Kit (as Birdie): [over radio] Yep, that was on our part.
Penn (as Marathon): [over radio] Perfect. Radio off!
Cameron (as Emma): [over radio] Not - nope, it's still on, babe, it's still on. [laugh] Carry on. It's fine.
Nick: So Emma, you notice a couple of things as this explosion goes off. One thing that you see is coming up the far side of the Ramp, basically the opposite direction of you, there is a group of mercenaries who are running from some rock outcroppings towards the Ramp, and look like they're trying to launch an assault heading towards Birdie from where you just flipped the truck. The other thing that you notice, the normally blue green lights of the cockpit of the Knight are dimming slightly, and at the edge of your vision, you can see that some of the lights are starting to turn a sickly dark purple, black color, and creeping in towards the center of the cockpit. You still have full control, but seems like whatever is infected the Knight is awake.
Cameron (as Emma): Oh, fuck.
Cameron: Emma says quietly, having turned off her radio quickly before saying that out loud, to try to not freak anybody out and distract them.
Nick: So last in this round is Winifred, who has not gone yet. I am assuming she wants to continue to make her way towards the device.
Sydney: Yeah, she's just gonna keep on running.
Nick: That makes sense. So make me a hard Athletics check, but you have a blue die this time from your previous advantages, and I'm going to flip a GM Story Point to upgrade the difficulty by one.
Sydney: So for Athletics, Winifred is rolling two yellows against these two purples and a red.
[dice rolling]
Sydney: A failure and three threats.
Nick: [evil GM laughter] So Winifred fails to make any progress, and actually, with those threats, tries to make a dynamic move and doesn't make it and ends up hanging by one arm.
Sydney: So as Winifred's making progress towards the device that is holding Sasnak in place, she hits a section of a longer straightaway. This is a long sprint with a lot of climbing and having to make decisions about pathways, even with at least for the first segment, Cassidy giving her instructions on what the easiest path is, but she is starting to run into the end of her aerobic capacity, and is getting out of breath, and has been pushing hard listening to the explosions and the commentary over the radio, but Cassidy had let her know that she was repositioning and then she hasn't heard anything for a little bit, and so she's just continuing sprinting across this long platform up to another access panel that's not of use to her. She starts to hear the sound of close ricochets as it seems like someone from the ground has taken an interest in her current activities. There's a ping very close above her as something makes it around the platform and ricochets off the ceiling. And her head involuntarily looks up at what that noise was, and she misses a step on the platform. Her toe snags the edge of a rusty slat, and she fully pitches forward, hitting the platform with her shoulder. But with the amount of momentum that she had from that sprint, she slides off of the top of the platform. Fortunately, there are suspension cables down slightly below it pulled taut to keep the platform in place, to provide support to the rest of the superstructure. But she ends up rolling slightly down the cable before threatening to slip off entirely, and manages to grab hold of the cable, leaving her dangling in midair, very open to the mercenaries down below and leaving her in a very challenging spot to be able to get back up. Over the radio, we hear
Sydney (as Winifred): [over radio] Shit.
Sydney: And Cassidy peeks around her cover to see the very threatening to their plan, sight of Winifred, no longer running and now hanging.
Nick: And that concludes that round. So we're back to the top of the initiative order. Anyone could go.
Sydney: Cassidy gives a very abbreviated glance above Winifred on the off chance that there was a very convenient ladder or something that could be dropped down with the shot.
Nick: Well, you could flip a Story Point.
Sydney: And I'm going to flip a Story Point that there is up on the side of one of the rectangular protrusions from the underside of this hole, there is a rusty, multi segmented ladder locked in place with a padlock that if she can make an impossible shot, would potentially drop down and land close enough to Winifred that she could get herself off of a cable and back onto some type of more stable standing position.
Nick: Okay, I'm gonna say you're at long range, so that's three purples. And then I think it's upgraded by difficulty one, because you're trying to shoot the latch of a rusty ladder. [laugh] Oh, and you have a black die as well from your threat before.
Sydney: I'm going to use my Maneuver to Aim. My sniper rifle is Accurate 2, with two more blue dice. So that is an end pool of three yellows, two greens, three blues, two purples, a red, and a black.
[dice rolling]
Sydney: Four successes and two advantages.
Nick: Great. You are successful. How do you rescue Winifred with gun?
Sydney: So Cassidy hears Winifred's exclamation and lines up this shot. Her heart is still beating fast. She's still breathing quickly, but she rests the rifle across her knee, where she's planted against the corner of this and still takes a shot between breaths, if not between heartbeats. Winifred breathing hard, hanging from this cable, the high tension metal cutting into her fingers with the weight of her body, hears another close ricochet, but this time there's a following motion, and she looks up and over her shoulder to see a long, extensible ladder unfolding segment at a time as it goes tunk, tunk, tunk, tunk down nearby, and over the radio, she hears,
Sydney (as Cassidy): [over radio] Hopefully, that's close enough? That's the best I can do from here.
Sydney: And Winifred, knowing that there's something to move to and she's not just waiting to be shot, begins to swing her legs back and forth, and then pulls one leg up, over on top of the cable, and then the other, and with both legs and one arm on the cable, reaches out behind her and manages to grab the last rung of this ladder. It might have originally been intended to service this platform. And with a grunt and a strain, slowly pushes herself up onto the ladder and gets off of the cable and as she clings to it, her nearly mortal brush with gravity having passed, she begins to climb and goes,
Sydney (as Winifred): [over radio] [breathy] Yeah, that was close enough. Oof.
Sydney: Winifred is definitely starting to flag on energy and is being held up more by adrenaline at this point, but she's got a job to do here, and she won't let that stop her. And Cassidy goes back to scanning, looking for the people who are aimed upwards at their activities under the city, trusting that the rest of the Patina is going to be fine on their own for now, because this is demanding her full attention.
Nick: All right, so Cassidy is gone.
Cameron: I can go, having realized that my life is going downhill, wanting to take out as much as I can control to take out while I still can control.
Nick: Now, I don't think this is necessarily a good idea, but I would be remiss if I didn't say you could probably prevent the spread of this virus proactively, but it would take you out of the fight for now.
Cameron: Yeah, no, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I need to protect my friends. It's fine. So are the trucks underneath the city as a whole, are they moving towards the Ramp?
Nick: Some of them are moving towards the Ramp. A lot of them are just parked, and some of them have grapples or cherry pickers or things moving up towards the underside of the city.
Cameron: While I am still in full control, but everyone thinks I'm fine, so it's fine, don't worry about it - knowing that people are coming up towards the Ramp from behind me, with the goal of trying to make the biggest difference that she possibly can while she still is in full control of the Knight before she has to start splitting her attention towards keeping it kind of semi operational and not totally going on a killing spree that she is not in control of, that could potentially endanger her friends, Emma starts moving away from where she was parallel to Birdie's position on the Ramp, and continues down on the ground more towards the center of the city, and will turn her radio back on and say,
Cameron (as Emma): [over radio] Hey, Marathon, could you head back and assist in uh, Ramp protection?
Penn (as Marathon): [over radio] On it! Over.
Cameron (as Emma): [over radio] Thank you, over.
Penn: Marathon turns away from this burning bus, gives a salute towards the Knight, and then starts booking it towards the base of the Ramp.
Cameron: And as Marathon starts making her way back towards the Ramp, Emma is going to take off heading towards Marathon now, towards the center of the city to try and run around like a child with a stick trying to sever as many cherry pickers or connections to the city as she can from the trucks that are underneath it, to at least try to make it so that the way that people can get up there is through the Ramp, so that there are less mercenaries continuing to get into the city from the Guts to pester the populace.
Nick: Okay, go ahead and make me a I guess that would be a Melee check. Since you're trying to attack multiple things at once, I'll give you the choice - it could be hard and you will do some impact, or it could be daunting, and you will be able to disable a majority of them if you're successful.
Cameron: Before I answer that - on my giant sword for the Knight, it is Inaccurate one. If I am running around just with my sword out, hitting trees basically, can I get rid of the black die because I'm not actually aiming at anything in particular, I'm just hitting anything at sword height?
Nick: Sure you could get rid of the black die. That's fine.
Cameron: So in that case, I want to be as dangerous as possible, so I will choose the daunting option of being more effective with my, we'll call it lumberjacking, but I would like to flip a Story Point. So my dice pool in the Knight for a Melee check is three yellows, two greens and four purples.
[dice rolling]
Cameron: Three successes and an advantage.
Nick: Oh, good job. So yeah, you are completely successful here. You don't take down every single cherry picker, ladder, or grappling hook, but you take down a vast majority of them doing this, which is huge.
Cameron: That's the goal. Emma takes off running with the sword at a height to where it is, high enough that she is not hitting humans on the ground, and she is missing most of the vehicles. But anything that was raised above the vehicles would be taken down. But she's not running in a grid - she is running wherever there is space for the Knight to get through, so she doesn't make it to all of them that are underneath it. Also this is a very large city.
Nick: Your other objective was to draw as much fire and be as distracting as possible to keep Winifred and Cassidy safe, so you are doing that.
Cameron: I am now running around wildly with a sword, I'm sure, causing a great amount of distress.
Nick: Chunks of ladders and cherry pickers fall to the ground in your wake with satisfying crunching noises as you zig zag across the battlefield, preventing more mercenaries from getting up into the city and drawing the fire and attention of a majority of the mercenaries still on the ground. You are perfectly executing your objective.
Cameron: [in denial] And everything's going totally to plan, and there's nothing wrong with any of the technology in this machine.
Nick: Yep. And we cut over to Birdie, who is standing on the Ramp. Birdie, you heard on the radio that Marathon is headed in your direction. As you are looking around to see what's going on, you see a entire squad of mercenaries rounding the far side of the Ramp. They are all armed with rifles or machine guns. They are charging up the Ramp attempting to create basically a beach head to help the mercenaries take down the Ramp Girls and gain the city through its main entrance, and between the Ramp Girls and these mercenaries is Birdie.
[hurdy gurdy music swells]
Outro:
Penn (as Marathon): Welcome back folks, you’re tuned to Going the Distance: Traveler’s Guide on road dial 1558. That’s a wrap on today’s log and we’re set to loop after these considerations. Further detail for the following is cataloged in the show notes.
This has been A Knight of Shreds and Patches, an actual play podcast using the Genesys game system from Fantasy Flight Games. The show is edited by Sydney Whittington, and features the talents of:
Kit Adames as Birdie. Kit can be found on Twitter and Instagram @ venusvultures. Kit is also a voice actor for Elevator Pitch Podcast, a queer genre-hopping anthology podcast that can be accessed on Spotify and YouTube.
Penn Van Batavia as Marathon. She can be found on Twitter @ acquiredchaste and in drag as horror king JOHN on Instagram @ john.is.risen. Penn is an indie TTRPG designer whose most recent work includes SLICE IT OUT, a grisly carving RPG about cutting pieces of yourself out to fit in. Check out faer other work at pennharper.itch.io.
Sydney Whittington as Cassidy. Sydney can be found on our Discord server, which is linked in the show notes, and on Twitter @ sydney_whitt. She’s also a contributing editor and occasional guest player for the Orpheus Protocol, a cosmic horror espionage actual play podcast.
Cameron Robertson as Emma. Cameron can be found on Twitter @ midnightmusic13 and on Instagram @ reading_and_dreaming. Cameron is also a player on Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars Edge of the Empire actual play podcast.
And Nick Robertson as narrator. Nick can be found on Twitter @ alias58. Nick is also the GM for Tabletop Squadron. Nick can also be found as a player on the Orpheus Protocol.
This podcast features the musical talents of Dora Violet and Arne Parrott. You can find Dora at facebook.com/doraviolett. You can find Arne at atptunes.com.
The official artwork for this podcast was created by Rashed AlAkroka, who can be found on Instagram and Artstation @ rashedjrs.
You can follow the Patina on Twitter @ akosap_podcast or visit the website: www.akosap.com. To further support the show, consider joining the Patreon at www.patreon.com/AKoSaP, where we’ll be bringing you weekly content including bonus episodes, campfire conversations, and other fun rewards.
Until you tune back…
…stay bold and stay kind