[SPEAKER_04]: My name is Aram, and my pronouns are he-hem.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a designer, editor, photographer, and the creator of the Dunted and Dragons podcast, God's Fall.
[SPEAKER_05]: My name is Dylan, my pronouns are he-they, and I'm a physicist from Canada.
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to Kill Every Monster.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
[SPEAKER_05]: the one to hear described as humans who transform themselves into serpent folk through ancient rituals.
[SPEAKER_05]: Most you until you were corrupted into monsters by those rights, but some you unto instead became a new people who mixed characteristics of humans and snakes.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are joined by Sebastian UA, Sebastian is a game writer, editor and designer based in Canada.
[SPEAKER_04]: They like to explore queer monstrous themes and have contributed to TTRPGs such as Dagger Heart, the Cosmere RPG, Pathfinder and Apocalypse Keys.
[SPEAKER_04]: They are also the publishing coordinator and community manager for Hit Point Press.
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to the show Sebastian.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hello, thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a hell of a CV there.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it is quite a resume.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sebastian, what are do you want to?
[SPEAKER_06]: They are supposed to be these serpent people, serpent folk.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the multitude of animals says that they have like no humanoid emotions, so they don't have compassion.
[SPEAKER_06]: They don't feel things in the same way that other humanoids do.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it's kind of a cornerstone of their culture that it's kind of bound up in a religion as well.
[SPEAKER_06]: That they aspire to make themselves more sub-inteen and will serve them like.
[SPEAKER_05]: Every time I read through, there's a new, like, as is the way with the indie, a new explanation for where they come from, I've seen the idea that, like, some old reptile creator gods accidentally whipped them up into being, there's stories of wizards doing it, they did their own horrible rights.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know in, uh, two of annihilation.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a ritual your players can be subjected
[SPEAKER_05]: The really not sure where they came from, which, I mean, I do kind of respect in D&D, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: When you've got the options of gods and magic rituals.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I've noticed that in 2024 there's a lot of months to origin tables, so you can just roll for the origin, so they've kind of just said, oh, you know, just take an origin story and do whatever's most fun.
[SPEAKER_05]: Get honestly, doesn't matter, where do you want this to come from?
[SPEAKER_05]: What works for you today?
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, my favorite one is just the one that is, again, in the 2014 Monster Manual, and it says
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of questions there, but let's not answer any of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is of cool visual image though.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is very cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, low will because you can see magic and like, you know, snakes floating in the air and then we just kind of fade the black and then we got a people.
[SPEAKER_04]: What I don't get in that is that we always assume snakes don't have feelings.
[SPEAKER_04]: Every other animal, we give them some sort like we assume dogs have feelings, we assume cats have feelings horses, hippos, but snakes are just these emotionless creatures, these killing machines I just glide through the grass.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I mean, I was looking into getting a pet snake at one point and I just, I tried to do some research to see, like, could it love me back if I loved it?
[SPEAKER_06]: And the consensus seems to be that, like, the snake can feel an affinity for you.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, yeah, I'll think about it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if I still want a snake in, like, two years, then I'll get one.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're in the considering the snake phase of life.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know people who have snakes who swear that they are affectionate, so I'll buy that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not going to find out, but I will buy that.
[SPEAKER_05]: The thing is, sometimes you bring up stuff like that, and I'm like, yeah, that is sort of culture laws, Moses, and just like stories being hit.
[SPEAKER_05]: The thing you're describing is sort of like neurology, like they don't have the part of the brain that does that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, they actually don't.
[SPEAKER_05]: They don't.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's all hind brain.
[SPEAKER_05]: and i'm gonna i'm gonna get this wrong again i'm gonna put up the disclaimer i'm a physicist i do not know brains so please correct my science wherever applicable but my broad understanding of it is that while they are capable of emotions at large they are primarily driven by sort of your
[SPEAKER_05]: what you describe is like the hind brain emotions, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: You're your fear response, your hunger, you're very, very ego-driven.
[SPEAKER_04]: And is that unique for snakes or is that more of like a lizard?
[SPEAKER_04]: No, that's reptiles.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that whole thing is actually kind of based in science.
[SPEAKER_05]: You note that like all of the creatures you list off were like, we think these things have emotions and then you list it off a slew of mammals?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, there's an evolutionary biology thing there.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, all right.
[SPEAKER_05]: So maybe they're emotionalist killing machines.
[SPEAKER_06]: Maybe, maybe, the last risk.
[SPEAKER_05]: So there is a leg to stand on there in terms of just the snakeliness.
[SPEAKER_05]: Where we run into the problem is, of course, the fact that nearly everything in the yuantis aesthetic is then highly Asian-inspired, Middle East,
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a really confusing mix of cultures to be honest, because they have this like East Asian sounding name, but the maps of their temples look kind of Aztec inspired.
[SPEAKER_06]: And there's just, you know, like the way that they dress, it's also very difficult to tell where that comes from.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's just mix of non-white cultures, and I'm like, okay, okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: In a game that didn't already convince me that there was very little thought put into some of its creative choices.
[SPEAKER_05]: I might be kind of interested in the idea that like it's pulling specifically in sort of a group of cultures white people have always said you know these are human sacrifice barbaric yada yada yada and like maybe there's a way to do that sort of gestalt of this is just like the embodiment of all of the times we've said those aren't really people.
[SPEAKER_05]: except this is something where, like I said, just even reading the fiction the way they're commonly handled.
[SPEAKER_05]: It all just reinforces it, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you said, it's as tech and it's blood sacrifice and it's simotars and cannibalism and which feels very emotional to me.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't see how that links up.
[SPEAKER_04]: That did like all that ceremony, all of that ritual around it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's incredibly emotional.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's also now consider the fact that it's invoking all of this imagery and then also explicitly standing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, that's all true.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like all of the things you are afraid of those people for, in this case, where we're going to evoke all of their personal imagery actually accurate, 100 percent.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, these snake people sometimes turn into regular people so they can sneak into your culture and do their barbaric horrifying rights and cannibalism to us.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's also kind of positive that they aspire to be to reach this heightened emotionless state because they see humanity as kind of a weakness, so it's, yeah, they just say that, oh, they aspire to do this, they're doing it deliberately, they enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're bad snake Vulcans.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the 2014 monster manual, you're presented with three types of Yonti.
[SPEAKER_05]: You've got sort of your baseline.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a Voldemort.
[SPEAKER_05]: Creepy eyes may be like a smaller, unusual nose, a little sneaky, but like fine.
[SPEAKER_05]: And those are the Yonti pure bloods.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you get the Yonti half bloods who are a little bit more, you know.
[SPEAKER_05]: creepy snake features, until you get all the way up to the UNT abominations, which are like the epitome, like these are the guys.
[SPEAKER_05]: The abominations are the best UNTs.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's no indication that these are the names that someone else gave to them.
[SPEAKER_05]: They looked at themselves and were like our best case scenario is a fucking abomination.
[SPEAKER_05]: God damn right it is.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think they kind of valid to just own that to be honest.
[SPEAKER_06]: It feels like maybe someone at some point called the mobile donations and they were just like, yeah, actually, sure.
[SPEAKER_05]: Maxing out an abomination, honestly, also checks out if it was horrible arcane rights.
[SPEAKER_05]: Cause that's just one of those things like scientists, like if you were to say, oh, well, this, this right, we've researched it, don't perform this evil right.
[SPEAKER_05]: It'll result in abominations.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then a scientist is going to perform that right and go like, well,
[SPEAKER_05]: it did.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm an abomination now.
[SPEAKER_05]: It said so in the book.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just objectively, this is a true fact now.
[SPEAKER_05]: So where are the abominations?
[SPEAKER_06]: It's also interesting because like these are also a player race like they were made available in uh, Volus Guide to Monsters, but interestingly, you can only play a pureblood as a player character.
[SPEAKER_04]: Which is a strange choice because who doesn't want to play an abomination?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I like I made it you want to get character a while ago and I was like okay, so I'm going to use the viewable stats but I'm just telling you I look like a snake.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm fully a snake.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's more fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: Why play them if you're not going to go big snake?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like that's that that's part of the whole aesthetic.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's amazing.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can kind of get why you would cut off the abomination in terms of like I wouldn't make sentars a playable race simply because the moment you have a horse's ass.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know unless, like, Central is just a common people in the world and you could just be one of them, like, like, like, it could be okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we just design stairs differently.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're just those, like, long steps, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's exactly to everything.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe everything's ramps.
[SPEAKER_04]: Who knows?
[SPEAKER_06]: Everything's ramps would solve a lot of problems, actually.
[SPEAKER_04]: Really would.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it makes a dungeon adventure a little bit more challenging, but I have to dungeons are goofy anyway.
[SPEAKER_04]: As far as the accessibility angle, I'm like, we figure it out.
[SPEAKER_04]: Or we just, we're just gonna hand wave this a bit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, we'll get there.
[SPEAKER_04]: You wanna play a horse, a person, play a horse, person.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, we will just make it work.
[SPEAKER_04]: And also, like, you could also say, well, you can't be the abomination because the stats are high and above, I miss Wendy and D.H.D.
[SPEAKER_04]: had the stat blocks of monsters that you could apply as a template over,
[SPEAKER_04]: a character, a player that would just boost your level a cop.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if it's like everyone else's level seven, maybe you're a level three vampire or whatever because it's got that level four boost for the temp for the template, I miss when they used to do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: It made it made making them into a player character so easy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sebastian, did you play it all in 3.5 era or like how's your familiarity with that sort of rule set?
[SPEAKER_06]: I've never played 3.5 but I do own some 3.5 material, which so I've read it but not played it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I like they get a lot more granular with the kinds of abilities that are available to you and I do appreciate that about it.
[SPEAKER_05]: You basically could play as any monster you wanted as the base case and it's just you don't level up until you gain more levels than you have hit dice.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the abomination I've gotten front of me is 15 hit dice.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's just for the first 15 levels of the game you're playing as the thing you are.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then at level 20, everyone would be, you know, level 20 paladin level.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you would be a fucking snake monster with five levels of whatever nonsense you want to do apply on top of that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you just got to wait a while.
[SPEAKER_05]: While Liam Bell is through the first little while today.
[SPEAKER_06]: I do think that the playable pure blood race is also very powerful because you get immunity to poison.
[SPEAKER_06]: uh... that was great because uh... i went into taverns doing drinking contest and then eventually the dm had to say like listen like i'm i'm going to look this culture is now okay like the city is now aware that you want he can just win at this because there are new to poison and now there's a sign in the tavern that says you want he abandoned from drinking contest and i was like okay well i already made like five hundred gold so fine
[SPEAKER_04]: You were just Wolverine and everyone.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just walking from tavern to tavern with it.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's having to have your DMs sit down like, please do not put me in a circumstance where I have to have bars say no, you're not.
[SPEAKER_05]: We don't want your kind drinking here.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like that scene from Baldur's Gate where you get the option to drink the sleeping potion and the person gets all pissy at you because you're at elf.
[SPEAKER_06]: But look, look, I was level one and we had like no money, so that was actually a great idea in retrospect.
[SPEAKER_04]: But you pull it the seventh time.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and then people are like, mmm, suspicious.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just for the sake of describing the middle ground, because we've talked a little bit that the you want to hear bloods are, of course, just folks.
[SPEAKER_05]: really nothing remarkable except that they have that poison immunity and some charm effects.
[SPEAKER_05]: The abominations get fear once a day as a spell.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is one of those times where I look at and I'm like, why is this spell and why is this not just an effect?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, same thing with the poison, a spray.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're just shooting poison at you.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not a spell.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: They have poison.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, like dragons have frightful presence.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have a specific mechanic we give to monsters to represent the fact that holy shit.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's a, you know, 10 foot tall snake monster.
[SPEAKER_05]: It implies that you could look at it and then it would just wave its hands and then you
[SPEAKER_05]: like you weren't frightened initially.
[SPEAKER_05]: I looked at that and I was like that was fine until magic started happening.
[SPEAKER_05]: My concern wasn't the muscles or the big sword.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was it was the wizard shit.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's interesting because they give you like three different types for the for the malice and yeah, you have like a human body with snakehead a human head and body with snakes for arms which bizarre and a human head and upper body with the 17 lower body instead of legs so that's the one I want yeah that's the one I want to but but I'm just I'm just stuck on like the snakes for arms.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm just like that is fascinating to me.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is such a weird choice, and it would make things so difficult.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Dornops, really hard.
[SPEAKER_06]: Don't know if it's fragile, and I bid it off with my snake by accident, and now what, like?
[SPEAKER_05]: The alternate name for the halfbloods is the Malisons.
[SPEAKER_05]: uh, which obviously like just sounds like malice, the latin for bad, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: So having the peak be a bombination, but the second tier is just, we did this wrong.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sorry, really feels good to me if it's just like, suddenly you've explained why these guys have snake hands is just sometimes the ritual puts them out.
[SPEAKER_05]: You didn't believe in snake cheese, this hard enough when we baptized you in the blood of the innocence.
[SPEAKER_05]: So now you came out with snake hands instead of being a cool snake centaur guy.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do love the idea of the whole ritual happening and they pull off the sheet and you're on the snake arm once and they're like, Trat, still better than if you were just one of those people with snake faces.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that kind of makes sense in some way.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, it kind of rocks like, sorry, I meant the, uh, the peerbloods like with just snake-esque face.
[SPEAKER_05]: Right.
[SPEAKER_05]: I made the mistake because, of course, there is the variety with literals.
[SPEAKER_06]: Literally just a snakehead, yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you look at that, and you're like, that's at least a step in the right direction.
[SPEAKER_05]: We just gotta get that snake to continue downwards, but at no point should your hands have been mouths.
[SPEAKER_06]: But also, like, you get two snakes, and I think that maybe, like, that is an argument for maybe it's going in the right direction as well, because, you know, two snakes are better than one, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: What if I was not just snakes, but more snakes?
[SPEAKER_05]: Wouldn't me being more snakes be a further improvement?
[SPEAKER_04]: If we're just going to do the snakehead, I want some of the neck too.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want it to be kind of like a giraffe.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, like, like, like, you got a little extra room with the neck.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe go five feet out.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I want, I do think they have reach.
[SPEAKER_05]: I could be mistaken on that one, but getting back to just the sort of things where as a DM, I just go, like, I don't want, like, if it's really important to you, we can have a conversation, but I don't want to deal with this shit.
[SPEAKER_05]: Please don't put extra brains and characters that I don't want to think about it for.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like a chimera or an Eton where you sort of expect the heads to be at odds?
[SPEAKER_05]: Great.
[SPEAKER_05]: That guy's hands have brains in them.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do his hands want things.
[SPEAKER_05]: Are his hands hungry?
[SPEAKER_05]: Do his hands have their own unique fears?
[SPEAKER_05]: Does the people bed go like, I'm not troubled by fire, but my hands are primitive reptiles, so they are very afraid of open flames, and I can't carry torches.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're head just shoots out and grabs a mouse.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey, I'm having a serious conversation here.
[SPEAKER_06]: Can I get bitten by one of my own heads?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, is that- You think it's a matter to you?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can, but you're immune to the poison?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, it's true.
[SPEAKER_06]: Still, it's not immune to the piercing damage.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like, just don't get bitten.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, yeah, I guess if you've got teeth, the size of fingers, maybe there is a side problem.
[SPEAKER_04]: There are some fun role-playing things there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, if you're trying, if you've got a robot and you're trying to hide yourself, you're in a back alley, and then all of a sudden when your arms just lash out and grab a rat, that's fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd allow it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because they are frankly supposed to be sort of higher level mooks to the abominations.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I do kind of love the idea of just like standing there as the tough bodyguard is we're having this big standoff.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're meeting the big bad for the first time.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then one of the mooks just arm shoots out, grabs the rents.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sorry boss.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's fun.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're new.
[SPEAKER_05]: Haha.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we put them through the ritual three days ago.
[SPEAKER_05]: He hasn't got a handle on the hands yet.
[SPEAKER_05]: We can't keep talking about the handbrains.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, no, no, we have to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re
[SPEAKER_06]: in the sense that they are written to be like a monolithic evil race.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, but also, I mean, there must as they're designed to be forged, they're designed to be evil.
[SPEAKER_06]: But also, I think that the number of ways that you could like become or be born as a Ywante, like there is no, I don't buy that they're all evil.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like we don't really have the kind of the
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, like, the contrarian story in the same way that we have, like, I don't know, like, the drought get drizzled, but like, we don't have anything for the one team.
[SPEAKER_06]: So there's no evidence that there has ever been, like, the one good you on T. So, but like, there's got to be.
[SPEAKER_06]: And because you couldn't be adventurers, then, like, yeah, you 100% have heroic you on T.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's also very much the trouble of like generations.
[SPEAKER_05]: If these are something that, you know, some evil wizard was like, let me show you how snake like I can be.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then did that before he turned into a big red genie.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure, that one was probably definitely evil.
[SPEAKER_05]: But like once you start having generations upon generations where some people are born as you want to, some people are converted to it unwillingly, you must have some that have these outside ideas.
[SPEAKER_05]: They were initially occult, but now that they're creating this sort of weird religion empire, you almost can't have that remain true.
[SPEAKER_06]: I also think that, like, on the face of it, they used to be humans, they, you know, they basically are people who saw a snake and were like, damn, that's cool.
[SPEAKER_06]: What if we could do that, too?
[SPEAKER_06]: And I actually think they're correct for this, like,
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, who does not want to be a sneak person?
[SPEAKER_06]: I also wish I didn't have legs.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think the greatest thing in me is in my life has been knees.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_06]: But you know, it says, you know, they loaded the serpent's sinuous flexibility.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's calculated poison.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's deadly strike.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm like, well, when you put it that way, sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they are sexy.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm half sold.
[SPEAKER_06]: Stakes a fucking cool.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I just, you know, maybe they're just people who kind of actually managed to get like, you know, they're like furries who have managed to like manifest their foes own.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think they're correct for this.
[SPEAKER_04]: No one's mad at the Albert.
[SPEAKER_04]: No one is mad at the where bears and the where wolves.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, this is not a far off thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Although now with Dylan's neat comment, all I'm thinking about is a snake with arthritis, and that just sounds awful.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, there are so many joints, so many places that it's so many places it could hurt.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you have back trouble and your spine is everything south of your head, well, that's just not a good day.
[SPEAKER_06]: No.
[SPEAKER_06]: So monsters in a mechanical sense, you're supposed to fight them.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're really not supposed to question whether, like, you're not supposed to actually ask the kinds of questions that we're asking, we're just supposed to see a snake person and go, all right, time to kill you.
[SPEAKER_06]: But, you know, like many of the monsters on this show, I don't believe that they're all monsters.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, wanty at the core of people, and they're just people, and they make decisions like any other people.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, I could imagine, I could imagine very much in the same vein as, you know, any of the other monstrous races, there is now probably a variation in how they think.
[SPEAKER_05]: But frankly, I think like if you put
[SPEAKER_05]: Human level intelligence on D1T, like, it isn't going to actually make them all evil.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, maybe it doesn't feel love in the same way that people do, but at the same time, it's going to see others around it as useful.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the idea of lawful evil society, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: It wouldn't crumble.
[SPEAKER_05]: Lex Luther doesn't go around blowing up the world.
[SPEAKER_05]: He knows that other people have value and are helpful.
[SPEAKER_05]: you don't wind up with these horrifying kidnappings and cannibalism you wind up with just corporations snake companies and shit
[SPEAKER_06]: It's just that, you know, that you want to kind of want to, you know, supplant and donate all the other races and then make themselves gods, which, you know, who does it?
[SPEAKER_06]: They're, they're working on it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, plenty of people wanted to do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, yes, examples of that, just from their origin, like they saw the snakes, the beauty, the magistrate, the
[SPEAKER_04]: slitheringness just the way that they move and they fell in love with that.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is passion.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's an emotion.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's an emotion.
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't turn yourself into something else by glimpsing it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was pre-snake, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: That was pre-snake, but that was pre-snake, sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: But they still clearly like it, or they wouldn't keep doing it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Again, I think that that is very, very correct.
[SPEAKER_06]: And honestly, a gender euphoria
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think they feel very queer.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's just something about them that feels very queer, especially.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it just that they're hot?
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, that also, but like there's just something inherent about like, around just looks at anything.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if it's a little bit hot, he's like, that's one ours.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: That can't be straight.
[SPEAKER_06]: Snakes cannot be straight.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like they literally cannot be straight.
[SPEAKER_05]: Picture the last time you saw a snake just laying in a line.
[SPEAKER_05]: Never.
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not monsters.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're just people with different agendas.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, but their their agenda is also cannibalism.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, let me some of them.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just I just feel like that's a spot I got to push back on is maybe there maybe there's a line here.
[SPEAKER_05]: People, people, I'm not saying it's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just saying people.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, so I find the line about cannibalism really interesting because there's all this work being done to like, you know, to like cost these like these people as monsters.
[SPEAKER_06]: But like you wouldn't say that the alabair is accountable because it eats people.
[SPEAKER_06]: But like, and so I'm just like, so you recognize that there's humanity in there because humans, humanoids, humanoids, humanoids.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so I'm just like, that's really fast at aging.
[SPEAKER_06]: They are people when it suits you, but also not when it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_06]: So.
[SPEAKER_05]: There are also very much making the nature of the humanity subspecies, sort of subclass, nebulous.
[SPEAKER_05]: the malecinous monstrosity and the pubulid is a humanoid is it okay looking at it yeah yeah so like if a if an abomination eating a person is still cannibalism taxonomy is hard and it's harder indeed next one of me is biased yeah i mean you want to you to defend
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're going to use imagery, do it pointedly, serve a purpose with it like be doing something and consult the relevant people, or just like find a different way to decorate this.
[SPEAKER_05]: If it's just a decoration, please for love, God find a different way to decorate it.
[SPEAKER_05]: But then all of the things they described in that saplot key, again, you just need to make it like this is Jen one you want to, like out to maybe Jen three where we're actually still a cult ruled over by a psycho wizard.
[SPEAKER_05]: But once you hit like enough that you want to are actually a people with an empire, most of them probably aren't looking to like kidnapped people and put them through dark rights to make them more snakely.
[SPEAKER_05]: Right, there does have a kid.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're like, they're not looking at dwarves and going like, well, that's, that's gross.
[SPEAKER_05]: That doesn't slither enough.
[SPEAKER_05]: We got to fix that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Follows kind of says that they do do that, but yeah, fair enough.
[SPEAKER_05]: To be fair, Volos also makes everything very bad.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I mean, fellow is also extremely biased.
[SPEAKER_06]: He is not a reliable source of information.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, you know, does that also?
[SPEAKER_04]: Every single representation of Volo just points to his utter fallacy and everything he does.
[SPEAKER_05]: We went through the Hag entries.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think most of the Hag entry actually had to get like fully was pulled out of the book, like deleted paragraphs of stuff because it was more kind of anti-Semitic and misogynist content.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't like giving wizards the out when they write something that is racist or sexist or whatever.
[SPEAKER_05]: They can just blame the load.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, to be fair, that entire book was written by VoLode, and you see his name on the cover, like, no, no, no, no, no, you presented this as a book.
[SPEAKER_05]: You cannot have possibly written 300 pages of information that we were expected to read and go, well, that's not true.
[SPEAKER_05]: Right.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not how source books work.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is not like just supposed to be a relic that we hand out at the table and go like, look how foolish this fictional man is.
[SPEAKER_05]: They wrote that in the book and gave them the out of this man as an idiot so if we don't like his car is writing, we don't have to, you know, pay attention to it.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I think that in its writing, 90% of Volos was meant to be interpreted as accurate.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do have a player in one of my games right now who is a researcher scientist writer.
[SPEAKER_04]: And their entire goal is to go out there and correct Volos book to just disprove all of Volos well held theories and correct them and write the proper book.
[SPEAKER_04]: But you're right, it just gives the Indian out.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and I mean, in the fiction of like, you know, like, into of an islandation, if you're at Port Nianzaru, then you can actually go there and you can meet Volo and you can buy his book and to invite, I should give the DM the instruction to if they bought the book.
[SPEAKER_06]: You can share law from the book.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so like, it's in, like, it's an existent text in the fiction.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I do agree that it is supposed to be taken as true, because then you can learn some stuff about the monsters and be like, oh, I recognize that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've read it in Volo's book.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's gonna do this to us.
[SPEAKER_04]: And fortunately, that's the only problem with Tomb of an Eyelash, no other issues.
[SPEAKER_05]: They also describe the UNT in Tomb of an Eyelash, and you're supposed to interact with them one of the major antagonists of Tomb of an Eyelash is a UNT.
[SPEAKER_05]: And one of the first things you notice when you're going through those areas is, Volos Description is right.
[SPEAKER_05]: You cannot hide behind, oh, well Volos just a big big dummy, also look at all these pyramids full of blood sacrifices and horrible snake monsters.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's what the book said.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, you can't fall back on, oh well, broken clock when he described them to a T. That you want to, if you will.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
[SPEAKER_05]: I feel like we've been dancing around this one for a minute, so we'll make an official Sebastian.
[SPEAKER_05]: How would you change the UNT?
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that they need to kind of be focused on one particular thing, whereas like the layers of evil that are described are kind of like they're bad to the point of being comical and I no longer believe in any of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it's just like because there's just okay, we're going to transform ourselves into serpents, we also do cannibalism, we also do slavery, we also do humanoid sacrifices, and we also raid villages, and then we also do, and it's just like a list of every single evil thing that there is possible to do, and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that it would give them a more like a more solid identity to just like, you know, pick maybe one or two evil things, focus on those and like really kind of drill down, like, you know, we can keep the whole, you know, we worship snake gods and we want to become snakes, like that's great.
[SPEAKER_06]: Love that.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I think that like just the layers and layers of evil, aren't really necessary.
[SPEAKER_04]: Keep everyone having three S's in their names.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_04]: But maybe peel away some of this Voldermort like thing for every single one of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but basically I'm not saying they shouldn't be evil like I like the fact that they're evil.
[SPEAKER_06]: I like the fact they own that they're evil, but you know, just have a brand of evil right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just think that they need a bit of a they need a brand manager is what I think.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know, there's a potential for a lot of sexy snake women, like there's going by the yacht, you know.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're not wrong, but regardless of the gender of your initial snake, if that is sort of your angle, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, then the initial goal being, oh, and we'll conquer everything and turn everyone else into sexy snakes, and then we'll have the sexiest snake party.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're going to go out all the way to UNT empires and there are natural born UNT, then like, okay, well, now you've just the Romans now, I guess?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, you, you made a society.
[SPEAKER_06]: Congratulations.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're going to have to give them a little bit more varied beliefs and also make the things they're doing, something that's sustainable under the conditions of empire.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, a lot of the other races and cestries, they have information on what their opinion is of like other races and what it's like when they visit each of the settlements but you want to, I kind of simultaneously expected to like be expensive but then like they conquer without any kind of like interacting with other races doesn't impact them at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think they're just kind of expected to expand without
[SPEAKER_06]: you know, no curiosity or whatever, and I guess you can blame that on like the lack of emotion.
[SPEAKER_06]: But again, I don't really buy that they would be completely unwilling to interact with the people that they're rating.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't have something with that potential of evil and no one's been affected by it.
[SPEAKER_04]: If they're rating entire communities, then other communities would have it a pinch it on them.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think Sebastian was trying to get at the opposite direction though, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like if you've conquered an entire colony of dwarves, even if like physically that hasn't changed you because your magic ritual turns all the dwarves into tall slender snake ladies.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not saying your first snake person couldn't have been sexy snake lady.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I'm saying if you've got a magic spell that turns everyone you meet into sexy snake ladies is probably due to figured it out.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm just going to choose not to believe that, but yes, I understand what you're coming from.
[SPEAKER_04]: In general, female snakes are larger and more aggressive.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it makes complete sense.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but essentially what I was getting at is that, like, you know, empires, like, they, like, they do in fact view the people who they're trying to conquer as, like, people, they look at their tactics because they study them to be, like, well, then, I need to, like, outsmart them.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then, but, like, the one, he just don't seem to have any of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So unless we're completely buying into you on to you, some super messy here, then it doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_05]: This was trying to drive out before the fetishes and view on tea really suck in again sucked me in again.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, you conquer all the dwarves and then they come away with nothing dwarven.
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't suddenly see you on T swing and war hammers.
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't see you on tea doing new metallurgy techniques.
[SPEAKER_05]: No mining.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, they're just still snakes.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're just conquered, but they're doing it without the cultural appropriation, which, you know, fascinating.
[SPEAKER_05]: Strip out this weird sort of orientalism that we've slapped on the snakes, make them Romans, make them incorporate little bits of the people they conquer, but like,
[SPEAKER_05]: This entire vibe, the way they describe the UNT right down to will everyone should be UNT, you want to be as the peak form of thing to be.
[SPEAKER_05]: That feels a little Caesar-y to me.
[SPEAKER_04]: It feels boring to me, frankly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Emotionless, conquering everything around you, adapting all of the strongest traits into you, minus the cubes.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I think we're good.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just for place a cube with a triangle and we're all set.
[SPEAKER_05]: Cubs are sort of the antithesis of snakes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: A gray.
[SPEAKER_05]: Very much the opposite of slithery.
[SPEAKER_05]: Maximum coroners.
[SPEAKER_05]: No motion to that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Snakes don't do 90 degrees.
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not what other things.
[SPEAKER_04]: They'd write a cylinder.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, that may be the silliest thing we've said.
[SPEAKER_06]: Honestly, we could probably talk about the one to you all day, but there's just a lot to them.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, it seems like there's a lot to them, but when you kind of break it down, it's mainly just like a list of various atrocities.
[SPEAKER_06]: And again, please focus the atrocities, rebrand.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you said, the idea of conquering and taking over people and making everyone like them, great.
[SPEAKER_05]: The idea of them, like, having become stakes in viewing everyone else's prey, making them sort of sweep over countries and consuming people?
[SPEAKER_05]: Great, okay, focusing on cannibalism.
[SPEAKER_05]: Any one of those angles works fine.
[SPEAKER_05]: All of those angles at the same time sit down.
[SPEAKER_06]: But, you know, again, first of all, I do genuinely think that they were valid for that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Whatever happens afterwards, then, well, you know, I can't control the evolution of society, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: We had the same conversation with the Drow.
[SPEAKER_05]: You saw us fight her lady and you were like, fuck yeah, sign me up.
[SPEAKER_05]: You saw us staked lady and you were like, I'll do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Deep in the jungles of child.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a small you want to outposts.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's been established long enough that it's functionally just a small village.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's no longer serving that really like military capacity.
[SPEAKER_05]: Often times they don't serve incoming cultists or, you know, potential accolades.
[SPEAKER_05]: Simply given that it's not with the infrastructure, therefore we shift them on to the major temples.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're here to, you know, sort of do our job, live our lives.
[SPEAKER_05]: Some people don't listen, so we continue inward into a nice, well-appointed hut.
[SPEAKER_05]: It is function, it's an apothecary, basically there's a Yuanty alchemists at work.
[SPEAKER_05]: A mallison, the form with the snake hands, who is moving around the hut.
[SPEAKER_05]: mixing ingredients where sort of more gross manipulation, gross in terms of size and but also you have snakes for hands also just gross.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're occasionally milking your own hands for ingredients for like vannums and stuff moving big pots and when fine manipulation is called for she calls out for her assistant to bring smaller vials, smaller ingredients work the mortar and
[SPEAKER_05]: Recently, we have a new self-appointed acolyte taking up that post, or um, would you like to introduce your character as they enter the scene?
[SPEAKER_04]: As they're working, as they're going around doing their, the tinctures and potions and mixtures that it's all this dark, smoky green atmosphere, there's one shelf.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a little too high, and that's where Suity comes into play.
[SPEAKER_04]: Suity is a little herring gun, a little rabbit with their little cloak, and their ears sticking up that they've died green to be more snake-like, and they come bouncing over, leap up that 25 feet, land on that top shelf, grab the ingredient that is needed and hop right back down.
[SPEAKER_04]: Here you go, mistress!
[SPEAKER_03]: Directly into the pot, Judy.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, of course, I hop up and I just poured it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good, the lambwood extract.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ah, yes, that's the dangerous one, yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I go hopping back up and I get the wormwood.
[SPEAKER_05]: You hop up, get the jug and the first thing you notice is that this jug is empty.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Mistress, we're out of warm blood.
[SPEAKER_03]: The X-stract is empty.
[SPEAKER_05]: She keeps slurring this S, and I want to make it abundantly clear that the hands are stakes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Her face is a normal people face, retonged as normal people things.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's clearly an affect.
[SPEAKER_03]: I must monitor this mixture.
[SPEAKER_03]: Retrieved for my duty.
[SPEAKER_05]: Be right back, Mistress.
[SPEAKER_05]: You go hopping out of the hut, deep into the jungles of chelts.
[SPEAKER_05]: As you leave, a very, very large snake, slither is by the doorway.
[SPEAKER_05]: The malice and licks out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let her get far enough that no one will hear the screams.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't need this in my life.
[SPEAKER_03]: If she can come back, then maybe I'm wrong.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, around giving a survival check, got a plus two to survival, which is not great.
[SPEAKER_04]: And as a 10 plus two is 12.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you get pretty deep into the woods before you start to really question like
[SPEAKER_05]: In real life, wormwood is common to North Africa, grows in temperate regions of Eurasia, and it's, you know, in Canada, the northern US, meaning that in a deeply tropical jungle region, that's probably not a thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a thing that would have to be purchased.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, I think before this kind of clicks for you, you get pretty fucking deep into the worlds.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now I want to know when you realize that this is a bit of a goose chase.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wait a minute, they said environments all wrong for Wormwood.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ah, the mistress must be testing me.
[SPEAKER_04]: They want me to procure Wormwood.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I would turn course and start hopping towards the nearest human village to steal their Wormwood.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sebastian.
[SPEAKER_06]: What's your plan?
[SPEAKER_06]: So, up in the tree above you, as you're hopping along, is a ginormous electric blue snake with kind of neon yellow patterning and a hood like a cobras, and it just drops down from the tree.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's as thick as like one of your legs.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you see it change shape right in front of you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like it, it, it, it rears up and like little kind of arms stuck to grow from its sides, but its tail doesn't change.
[SPEAKER_06]: And as neck kind of, and you know, the overhead stays, it looks at you.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it opens its mouth, you know, big fangs, full tongue.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's fully about to like eat you.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the lookout until definitely goes up,
[SPEAKER_06]: You're so valid, but, however, this, this you want to, is not impressed whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is your last rope orbit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ah, this is another test for mistress!
[SPEAKER_04]: Bring it on!
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, we're gonna roll furnishings.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, let's go.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, I have a ridiculous plus 13.
[SPEAKER_06]: How did you, yeah, whenever I'll novel it this later?
[SPEAKER_06]: Monks.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, Monks.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_06]: Socking Monks.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm gonna make you roll for an issue that disadvantage because you've actively decided you're distracted by the hot hot snake.
[SPEAKER_05]: Good, because my first roll was a natural 20.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, but my second roll's a 5, which only gives me 18.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I got it 19.
[SPEAKER_05]: This electric blue cobra-like snake in front of you, presumably has a whole, has some degree of equipment with it now because, on.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, it...
[SPEAKER_06]: It isn't transformed.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, okay, maybe I was hiding my simulator behind this jungle plant and I'm very fast because I'm a sneak person We're gonna have a quick moment of D&D as wrong.
[SPEAKER_05]: You get your equipment because if your entire thing is it can turn into a big snake But also it has armor that it might lose doing that.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's bad.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, like imagine if it's just like I'm gonna do this badass transformation
[SPEAKER_06]: Where do I leave that shit?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: The fake gets the sword.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have a sword I brandish it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have a long bow just kind of like slung over my shoulder.
[SPEAKER_06]: In case you try to run.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's your turn.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I'm going to try and constrict you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Does a 16 hit you?
[SPEAKER_04]: A 16 does hit me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're going to take.
[SPEAKER_06]: 15 bludgeoning damage and be grappled.
[SPEAKER_06]: So until this grapple ends, the target is restrained and the one-teacon can strip another target.
[SPEAKER_06]: Grappled basically means you're your speed is zero, but you are also restrained.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have advantage on my next attack roll because I'm restraining you.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I'm gonna try and do a bite.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, that's a 19.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I get that hit.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that's going to be 8 piercing plus 11 poison.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it burns, it burns!
[SPEAKER_06]: And then, for my final attack, I'm going to stab you with my cimetre.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm very happy I have advantage because one of them was a natural one, but the other one is a 24.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is good I hit.
[SPEAKER_06]: and then you take 11 slashing damage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck, wow.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm squeezing you real tight and it's not actually, I mean, you know what, I'm gonna let you decide if it's closing or not, but it's not designed to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think the stabbing in the body.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe the initial squeeze, but then it got bad quickly.
[SPEAKER_05]: You saw this snake creature form and the moment started moving you went into like one of your standard responses like get a good jump So you can get in your and get a kick in you got those powerful legs except the moment you were in the air.
[SPEAKER_05]: It just shot out And just surrounded you and developed and there's this immediate crush
[SPEAKER_05]: As you just feel your bones, all shift just a little bit closer together.
[SPEAKER_05]: It buries its teeth deep into your shoulder, and you just feel along like you're exposed leg.
[SPEAKER_05]: A very careful stab, as it sort just rakes across your thigh, cutting deep, little buddies not looking so good.
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you want to do?
[SPEAKER_04]: They think they've got me, but in truth, they're right where I want them.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I put my little bunny hands, and I'm just going to go into Flurry of Blows.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just like, I had a bunny gets mad, and they stopped, so I'm just slapping you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I wish my hands were right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, sure, roll that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I will take three attacks.
[SPEAKER_04]: The first one is going to be a 22.
[SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's 12.
[SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't want hit me.
[SPEAKER_04]: at 19.
[SPEAKER_06]: That does also hit me.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, so I hit you with two little fuzzy fluries.
[SPEAKER_04]: The first one does five points of damage and the second one does nine points of damage.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I still have one more attack.
[SPEAKER_04]: Can I do two Flourier Blows?
[SPEAKER_04]: Brown, I can't, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a bonus action.
[SPEAKER_04]: You cheater?
[SPEAKER_04]: Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why
[SPEAKER_05]: you go absolutely hog wild, just thrashing, kicking and biting, the Sebastian, I think there's like an innate instinct in snakes, really, if it's struggling, you crush harder, but in drawing it up, you just give this perfect angle where you like tighten in, just brings her up level, boot the abomination in the chest.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you want, he could sweat.
[SPEAKER_06]: How it would be?
[SPEAKER_05]: The pairels being cold blood, and how am I to indicate my tension?
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, let us say this is kind of embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so while you constrict it, I come on to constrict another target, but there's nothing to stop me from continuing to do that, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: So I can just do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm going to do that again.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh dear, does a 14 hit?
[SPEAKER_06]: That's even withered on that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, well, that's embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that you, I think you kicked, like, I know, I've got a cramp in my tail muscle now, like, it's, uh, whatever.
[SPEAKER_04]: You went for the ears.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's always a mistake with the rabbit.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the slight, like, trying to reposition so that she doesn't have as easy access to your, apparently very kickable chest.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and in that shift just sort of loosening the grip a little bit too much to get a tight hold again Part of me is also confused because you did a lot of fighting, but you at no point tried to escape this grapple But I am gonna bite you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, okay, that is gonna be a problem for you because that was a natural 20
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's gonna be a total of eight D6 plus four, damn it.
[SPEAKER_05]: All of the dice double.
[SPEAKER_05]: So an extra D6 of piercing damage and three extra D6 of poison, woof.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so that is 7 points, 20, that's 40 damage.
[SPEAKER_05]: She's still awake.
[SPEAKER_05]: You squirming this borders on self-inflicted and that little squirming that re-bite.
[SPEAKER_05]: You get a good bite.
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't get me wrong.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is wrong.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is not unattributed to the UNT.
[SPEAKER_05]: You get a tooth and basically right behind a rib.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the thrashing and kicking, you hit the chest again and push back and you feel the tooth slide along bone as it rips a massive gash in your side.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the buddy's weak part.
[SPEAKER_05]: All of the bunny is a weak part.
[SPEAKER_05]: Life, so it's exactly.
[SPEAKER_05]: Most of their parts are weak parts, and all of their parts are also delicious.
[SPEAKER_06]: Soft and squishy, and I still have one wisdom at her attack to make, so...
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, that is a soft 20.
[SPEAKER_06]: That it's... And that's 16 slashing damage.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh gosh, I'm so close to being a gold.
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't worry, it was a soft 20 year fine.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just 16 points of slashing damage.
[SPEAKER_04]: Suity's not looking good, but Suity does not give off.
[SPEAKER_04]: So as you take that last chunk out of them and you can see their eyes kind of glaze over and her little head kind of wobble back and forth, she thinks back to her training and she focuses and she stares right back into your eyes and then her eyes go this like,
[SPEAKER_04]: Just saw it light.
[SPEAKER_04]: The ears go straight up.
[SPEAKER_04]: All of her fur poops out and she becomes terrifying.
[SPEAKER_04]: I invoke hour of reaping, and I need you to make a wisdom saving throw DC 15 or be frightened until the start of your next turn.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh crap.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh no.
[SPEAKER_06]: 8.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am fucking terrified of this puffed up rabbit.
[SPEAKER_06]: The worst thing is thinkin' too.
[SPEAKER_06]: Being frightened, I have disadvantaged and ability checks on the tack for all of the source of its fears within line of sight, and I can't willingly move closer to the source of its fear.
[SPEAKER_06]: Does that mean that I dropped the rabbit?
[SPEAKER_06]: The thing is... From being grappled.
[SPEAKER_06]: No.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's nothing that says that I do.
[SPEAKER_05]: The rules is written.
[SPEAKER_05]: There is absolutely nothing to imply that this in any way helps a rock.
[SPEAKER_05]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, if I had emotions, you would believe that I was afraid of you.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that I'm here's my bonus action to use a key point to go on full defense.
[SPEAKER_04]: Your advantage is taken away and you're at normal.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now you're a disadvantage attacking me for this round.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the days, I think you've taken all your actions for the turn, because you can't move.
[SPEAKER_05]: You've done a bonus at a standard.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sebastian, there is a terrifying cotton ball.
[SPEAKER_06]: In my tail.
[SPEAKER_06]: In your tail.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think you feel like a slight kind of spasm through my tail as I kind of seize up a phrase of you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Three foot tall rabbit.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, three foot tall rabbit person versus like a ten foot long snake.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ha ha ha.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ah, dear.
[SPEAKER_06]: I, this is gonna be very funny.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am also going to need you to make a wisdom saving throw.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I am going to cast suggestion.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ah, all right.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am a monk.
[SPEAKER_04]: So this is one of my good words.
[SPEAKER_03]: I suggest you stop struggling.
[SPEAKER_04]: Straight wisdom save.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is A for 18 plus 7 is 25.
[SPEAKER_06]: God's fucking damn it.
[SPEAKER_06]: My dz was 15 and so now you're just like, I don't think I will.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_05]: It snaps its head down in the collar, flares out and you see like something shift in the eyes and you catch that like you recognize this for exactly what it is.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like a magical effect is taking place and you feel it pushed into your head.
[SPEAKER_05]: but the moment you saw that flicker, you were ready for it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and you tune it out.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have that like ability with the shape of yours to direct your hearing, and you focus in on just the sound of its heart beating until it drowns out the words for now.
[SPEAKER_06]: Damn.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, well, I mean, that's my turn because that's my action.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, right now, you're no longer afraid of me because it's the end of your turn.
[SPEAKER_06]: Right.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm mad again.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, you are.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, do I have anything else I can do?
[SPEAKER_04]: That was my big play.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was a good play.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not a bad play.
[SPEAKER_05]: It just was a play that had little bearing on the situation.
[SPEAKER_05]: How are you looking?
[SPEAKER_06]: Me?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm actually looking pretty decent.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm definitely not.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think at this point, Judy is going to be a little bit smart and try to get away.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm gonna try and break your grapple and I am going to use my dexterity, obviously.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's an acrobatics.
[SPEAKER_06]: My DC's only 14, so you might be able to get it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Frankly, I think you might not be able to not get it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think see here.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is going to be, yeah, that is going to be a 17 total.
[SPEAKER_06]: I guess you wiggle out of like, out of my cold, scaly embrace.
[SPEAKER_04]: When I frightened you, you let go just enough for me to pop out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you poofed out and there's almost a reflex of like, this is a bigger thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: You give the suggestion and expect immediate obedience.
[SPEAKER_05]: I do.
[SPEAKER_05]: And in keeping with that, you just sort of relax a little bit.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like it shouldn't be struggling.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when you relax and it forces its feet up and push, it drops out.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is your full action, Ron.
[SPEAKER_04]: Bonus action, wrap it hop.
[SPEAKER_04]: As a bonus action, you can jump 25 feet without provoking at a tack of opportunity.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm going to wrap it hop into the tree above me and let it off a bridge.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Great.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I have no climbing, so... You're a snake!
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think I need to change if I want it to.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm gonna try and shoot you with my long bow, because if you've just gone right up there, and I can't follow you.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, and I only get two attacks on this, so let's try.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, one of them's a 14, the other's a 21.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, the 14's gonna miss the 21 will hit.
[SPEAKER_04]: However, I'm gonna deflect the missile.
[SPEAKER_05]: Deflect missiles.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've never seen a monk actually do its thing before.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm kind of excited about this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Roll the damage and then I roll to see how much of that damage I deflect.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I roll 110 plus 17.
[SPEAKER_04]: So can you do more than 17 points of damage?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: With an arrow.
[SPEAKER_04]: Potentially.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so the first roll is 17 for piercing damage and the poison damage is 13.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I have to roll really high and I did.
[SPEAKER_04]: I rolled a 7 plus 17 is 24.
[SPEAKER_04]: How much total damage did you do?
[SPEAKER_06]: 17 plus 13 is 30.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, it's not enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: So Judy reaches out and grabs the arrow out of the air and ha ha, and then she looks at her hand and she's gripping a poison arrow to his cupboard in my own poison.
[SPEAKER_04]: Was 13 enough to do it?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yes, I was telling to I was down to like four reports.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have mastery of death when you are reduced to zero hit points.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can spend one point.
[SPEAKER_04]: No action required to have one hit point instead.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_04]: So even though I grab it, even with the poison coursing through my veins, I spend that key point and I'm just wobbling back and forth, but I'm like,
[SPEAKER_06]: I am a little bit impressed, unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_05]: I also was there when you built this character, like 29 minutes ago.
[SPEAKER_05]: The fact that this paid off as a random choice of that seems the most snake-like, it does.
[SPEAKER_04]: I really appreciate this, and I think Suity, after saying that, is going to...
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't think of what else anyone possibly do.
[SPEAKER_04]: They have one hit point left.
[SPEAKER_04]: They could play this game because they have 13 more key points, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: So every time they get hit, instead of being reduced to zero, they could choose to be at one for a while, I guess, because that's their ability.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think instead, I think instead, I'm going to invoke step of the wind, however, she's going to run straight back.
[SPEAKER_04]: to her mistress.
[SPEAKER_04]: What's your speed?
[SPEAKER_04]: My speed is 65.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is it like an ever-broken opportunity attack, or... Well, I'm in the treats, 25 feet in the air.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And also, because it's step of the wind, it's even faster.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's 130 feet around.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, guys.
[SPEAKER_05]: And to step of the wind, negate difficult terrain?
[SPEAKER_05]: No, it does not.
[SPEAKER_05]: It would be 65 feet, because you are trying to sprint through three tops.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm definitely trying to leap from branch to branch, however, who am I, especially if you're spending the key point to invoke step of the wind to deny you one of the monkiest things you can possibly do.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sprinting along tree tops in branches that can't possibly support your weight is some very monk shit.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, except they can support my weight because I'm a tiny boy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, but like a three foot tall rabbit is still going to be like fucking 40 pounds.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, fair it up,
[SPEAKER_05]: But anyway, so I can't kick you out of the tree.
[SPEAKER_05]: So what I can do, okay, hold on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me, let me do math on how running is gonna work.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you technically move 25 feet faster than Sebastian.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll be in Sebastian's range for at least around.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have a long bow.
[SPEAKER_06]: My long bow is 150.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like basically if you get 600 feet away, then I have disadvantage.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're currently moving at triple your bath speed, right, have to.
[SPEAKER_05]: right, which is 65 plus rounding off 30 feet.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you're moving it 95 feet around to be able to still make an attack.
[SPEAKER_05]: That means Sebastian can shoot at you has three rounds worth of attacks before you're out of range.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you going to four those three rounds spend the points for step of the wind?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I've definitely got to do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So Sebastian, you have six long
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, that thing that you did where you just kind of came back to life, I, hmm, interesting.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, I will shoot at you once.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're the 24 here, you?
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you have one hit point, again?
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, and I will deflect that missile.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, deflecting a missile cost to you, a, oh, good point.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, deflect the missile, you can use your reaction.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, so it's just a reaction.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just a reaction.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so Sebastian roll the damage, around roll your D10 plus 17, you dick.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so oh, I didn't roll very well there, so that it would be 11 piercing and 8 poison.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so that's 19 to negate.
[SPEAKER_06]: 19.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I rolled a toll of 21, so I deflect it and I'm gonna spend an extra key point.
[SPEAKER_04]: So as you fire that arrow, this little rabbit hopping from side to side spins in midair, grabs your arrow and throws it right back at you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, make your attack roll.
[SPEAKER_04]: that is going to be a, a plus 13 is 21.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, that hits me.
[SPEAKER_06]: I only have a 15 AC and I'm not even wearing armor.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's just natural armor.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, you take two plus three, take five points of damage.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like it sticks into the end of your tail.
[SPEAKER_05]: Under normal circumstances, I gave him the poison damage.
[SPEAKER_05]: But you're in my sense.
[SPEAKER_06]: He just wanted on the record.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so mine is, sorry, what's total of that, diamond?
[SPEAKER_06]: Five, just five.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, well, congratulations.
[SPEAKER_06]: You've now got my hit points down to double digits.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's the vast one you technically have.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have a second attack if you'd like.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh my god, I'm gonna miss you and I'm gonna miss you.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm gonna get a 13.
[SPEAKER_05]: The shot was lining up and like five is pissed for an amateur.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're gonna just say that it's lining up the shot and the arrow basically skids off the edge of your bow and just glances along the cheek punches through the hood.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, just enough to distract you.
[SPEAKER_05]: You were at 13, you spent one more for Dash of the Wind, you spent another one for the running, so you're at 11 points still.
[SPEAKER_05]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_05]: I assume you're gonna do your grand runaway again.
[SPEAKER_05]: I am doing my super bunny runaway.
[SPEAKER_05]: The tail is straight up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sebastian, you have two shots.
[SPEAKER_06]: In that case, I'm just gonna, gonna cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have ford well, little rabbit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, shaking your fist and it's like...
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, you want to get us to have an emotion, but I'm not gonna lie.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that seeing this little rabbit do this is it might have a woken something in my character.
[SPEAKER_06]: And, I'm gonna try and feel like...
[SPEAKER_03]: Patrons, you can come back and we can talk.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think she would skid to a stop on top of a treat, a branch and like, peek around it.
[SPEAKER_04]: You mean it?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: that I think she would hop down and she would like stride on over.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well then, I guess this was another test.
[SPEAKER_04]: Suity at your service.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, we shall say it was a test.
[SPEAKER_03]: You cannot return your mistress.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh no, however, I have good news.
[SPEAKER_03]: I could be your mistress.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, wow, that does seem like a step-up.
[SPEAKER_04]: That sounds like a promotion.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're joining the Warriors.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am honored.
[SPEAKER_04]: And she would take a bow and her little ears flop over and then she sits back up.
[SPEAKER_04]: What's your first order boss?
[SPEAKER_03]: Come with me to assassinate your former mistress.
[SPEAKER_04]: And she rubs her little cotton paws together, excellent.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're gonna snap back to the mistress's hut.
[SPEAKER_05]: When the door opens, and Judy comes in the front, she looks over.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a moment of vague confusion, just looks up and down.
[SPEAKER_05]: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, but mistress, it gets worse.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we're gonna do the standard horror movie and of like, she sees you looking over her shoulder.
[SPEAKER_05]: She turns, and we just see the open mauve's blue and yellow cobra flying towards her face.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for joining us for the Wanty.
[SPEAKER_05]: If any of the ideas we've discussed on the show of Spark Some of Your Own, tell us about it on Twitter at KEM Podcast.
[SPEAKER_05]: You'll find me at DJ Malenfant and a ROM at Arom Vardion.
[SPEAKER_04]: For ad free episodes, early releases, bonus episodes, print ready maps, our new audio DMs notes and my character sheets for each encounter, head over to patreon.com slash dead ghost pro.
[SPEAKER_05]: Our intro theme and many of the sound effects you hear in the show were created by Battle Lards.
[SPEAKER_05]: check them out at battlevards.com.
[SPEAKER_04]: This episode was produced by Aron Vartian and Dylan Mollenfonte.
[SPEAKER_04]: I also did the editing.
[SPEAKER_04]: We were joined by Sebastian Eue.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can find Sebastian at SebastianEue.ca.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you are anything like me and all that information just fill right out of your head, you'll find everything you need.
[SPEAKER_04]: Head kill every monster.com.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll see you next time for kill every monster.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the dreams get way too bad Wonders dip through our heads just all up Just all up I said hold up Why did we grow up When did we start moving so slow Just around we used to go
[SPEAKER_00]: When did we grow up?
[SPEAKER_00]: When did we start moving so slow?
[SPEAKER_00]: We used to run, we used to blow, hold up just all the time.