SPEAKER_01 0:00

Okay, session zero for Little Mark is going to be joining in our Lichmaster campaign, and he needs to create his alter ego.

Character Creation Begins

SPEAKER_01 0:22

I know I've spoken to you briefly about it already, and you want to take a dwarf.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

One of the special things that are in the Wyoming Fantasy roleplay characters is something called a a dwarf troll slayer, which is a unique character that um normally you're you're trying to survive and do heroic deeds, but paradoxically a troll slayer is a guy that wants to die in glorious battle, not stupid battle, but glorious battle. He wants to try and you know die with honour. So it creates a little nice paradox where you know you've got to be the hero, but you've also got to be the guy that's trying to find the biggest thing to fight it, which is

Session Zero Insights

SPEAKER_00 0:57

normally what you run away from.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Well, everyone else still will be running away from it. It's just leaving you there. Yeah, it's a great one to play because it's very colourful in it. And with the backstory, this is a session zero, so we're going to create him from scratch and then we're going to work his backstory in and have him sort of where the session zero ended up for the rest of them. So so when we begin the the main campaign, you're there and you're straight straight in. So this is the objective of what we're doing today. Uh yeah, it's a very colourful type of character class and works well. It'd be entertaining to play him and and for people to listen to him being played, I think, too. So it's a great choice. And uh I don't know whether you you know it's the irony, you know, your little mark, and this is your ultra ego, and you've chosen the dwarf.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, you know, you've got to keep got to keep with uh the perspective. People will get confused otherwise, wouldn't they? Really? Yeah, you can pass it off, mate. It's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Uh so have you got a character sheet there, like a physical one?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

No, Jenna, I was just literally thinking that. I thought I honestly believed we were going to be using the um Oh well the the the Google sheet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Um no, we've been using physical ones. It's just because the Google Sheet doesn't really because that's a fourth edition character sheet. We're playing with our own bespoke 4.5 edition rules, which we've made a little bit more grim and perilous. Yeah. And so the character sheets also changed a little bit. Best if we play with a proper character sheet. Do you have a printer there? I can send it to you.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

No, but I can get access to a printer. Chris has got a printer over the road.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

All right, okay. A bit of a false start here, but I think getting the character sheet, the rest are running off.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

This is the this is what happens in the real world, isn't it, really?

SPEAKER_01 2:27

There's this smoothness. And this is what these episodes are about, really, just giving people insight into

The 4.5 Edition Rules

SPEAKER_01 2:33

a session zero. So we did the last one, all three of the other guys were together.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah, around the table, yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, we did it around the table. But you know, when you get a new character joining in later in the game, then a session zero is is always one on one, really. You don't really need to occupy the other players because they're you know that they've already done their thing, and this is just about you. So doing it one-on-one is it makes perfect sense. Also makes sense that we have a character sheet.

Crafting the Backstory

SPEAKER_01 3:00

This thing is the new fourth 4.5 edition, because you've not played fourth, had you? You'd you'd played a lot of the old earlier editions of Warhammer.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yes, second edition was my favourite, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yeah, so we've what we've done is taking it back to its roots, really primarily looking at second edition and and changing a lot of the rules and bringing a lot of those things that we liked about the second edition. We think the fourth edition is brilliant. It it is the best edition on balance, but it's not grim and perilous. And it the cr the the combat system was a bit too crunchy and it took away from the narrative um play. So, you know, we took we kept everything that was brilliant about fourth edition, which was in our opinion 80, 85% of them, and just rolled back some of the things that we thought we needed to play the games like we wanted to play.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Well, that was the best thing about Weimar, wasn't it? I always loved lower I always loved lower levels when you were when you were running around with tabletops of shields and rusty short swords, and you know, you barely had enough money to buy the food that you were living on.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

And where where in other role play games you start out as massive heroes and off you go and you just like conquer the world. In this one, if you don't, if you don't, if you don't plan ahead and think, then you're then you're you're in a bad place.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

It's the way it should be. Yeah, because the scenarios for Warhammer are written with that in mind, you know, that you're overcoming a lot of adversity, whether it be social, definitely picking your fights wisely. And the scenarios work better that way. Do you have a carrot sheet?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yes, I have. Yes. When a classic, a classic old carrot sheet that you ended up rubbing out the wounds box and the fake point

Transitioning to Troll Slayer

SPEAKER_00 4:28

box and all that sort of stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

So we pretend that you had a carrot sheet all along and you were probably prepared for the session zero.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

You'd think, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah. Yeah, I just cut I'll just cut the rest of it out. It's okay. Uh yeah, I don't want to embarrass you, you're a new RPG bloke.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Well, exactly. There you go. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, I think we're amateurs otherwise. Uh okay, so you've chosen dwarf, which is the first step in creating a Warhammer character. Uh, and next thing is the class and career. Now, it's strange, you're gonna be a troll slayer, don't get me wrong, that that's a given, but you've only just the idea I've got you've only just become a troll slayer. So you would have had a career before. So in effect, you've started as something else, and then you've taken the oath and you begin the adventure as a troll slayer.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, it makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Just to give you an idea that the adventure is set in the Grey Mountains anyway, and it's in a place called the Frugelhorn Valley, and this valley has a human village settlement, it has a couple of farms, but it also has a dwarven mine.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

And I I'd like you to come from that mine. So the Frugalhorn Valley, that's your home place. Gimbrin's mine would be where you were brought up and where you used to work, and something happened. We discussed that. What happened? But just to give you a heads up, something happened at the mine, and that caused you to take the oath.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, I'm with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It could be like a a a cave-in, maybe, or maybe he was the he was the lead miner or something, something like that. Or sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

So, like, um, yeah, he calls the death of other dwarfs by shoddy workmanship or something. Shuddy workmanship, yeah. Okay, or making a bad decision or using the wrong tools, or yeah. Well, that could play into something that the mine has going on. It's a it's a not a very profitable mine. It they are mining for gold, but they're surviving on quartz ore that that's within the mounting. So they're surviving really just piecemeal, just looking for gold, but just making a living selling this quartz. And so they're becoming more and more adventurous and more and more desperate to to find the gold. And then, you know, and you may well have taken a one risk too far.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, go with that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yeah, so you didn't get the authorisation for it, but you went ahead, you roped a few or you convinced a few other dwarves into it too. We can talk about that when we get further on, but it's great to have that in our mind already. So that would give your starting career as a miner. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

I'm assuming there must be a minor

Rolling Attributes

SPEAKER_00 6:48

career in here somewhere. Sure there is. Let's just double check.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

There always was in previous editions. Uh yeah, look at that. There's a minor. Okay, so we're good. We're good for that. At the moment, that's all we need to know that you're that you began as a miner. Now, normally in Warhammer, you would spend experience points to advance to a new career, but sometimes if it works out narratively, then that experience point cost can be waived. And in this case, I'm gonna waive the experience point cost that would have taken you from the miner to the troll slayer. So you don't need to spend experience for that. You begin as a troll slayer. But effectively, as far as this session zero is concerned, at this point we're making up a miner.

SPEAKER_04 7:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, so you mine. Okay, so that's moved on to the next part, which is to roll your attributes. So what you do is roll two D ten, and I'll tell you the modifier that is applied to that for each of the attributes.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

And so the first one you're rolling is weapon skill. So you just click the roll it button. Yeah, if you've added the two D10 into the grey bar, and then you can just click the roll it button and it comes up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

So you've got nine and a one to take.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Okay. So you've got 40 weapon skill.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Next one is ballistic skill. Uh 19. Well, I do allow you to swap one characteristic for another. So uh the dice rolls that is, but you can make that decision at the end. But at the moment, yeah, you've got you're very very good ballistically with for a dwarf anyway. You've got 29 ballistic skill.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah, that might be me moved. Yeah, we'll do that in a minute. Yeah. Yeah. That's exceptional exceptional ballistic skill.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

The next one's strength. Oh, seven. Twenty-seven. But the good thing about a troll slayer is you know, they do

Shaping the Character

SPEAKER_01 8:38

come from all walks of light. So it doesn't have to be, you know, you're you're really strong. It might might not be. I mean, the fact is you just want to get yourself killed, don't you? So you could you could become you could be an academic dwarf and then move into being a troll slayer. Uh so the next one is toughness. This one's so it's 38.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

He's rubbish.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Initiative. So this is how fast you move and think. Eight again. So you don't move fast and you don't think fast. You have eighteen initiative. Good agility. This is yeah, this is just uh eleven. Nimble you are. That is twenty-one.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Now your dexterity, this is your manual dexterity, is how you shape things with your hands. So you've got 44. Intelligence tools are average, all races have the same. Intelligence 17. Okay, so intelligence is 37. So you're very intelligent. So that might play into the idea if you keep that in in your intelligence, it might play into the idea that you were inventive and you had tried something new, um, a different tool or something like that. Or modified something, yeah, didn't work. Willpower. This one's plus 30.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Oh bloody hell. 17 again. Okay, 47. He's an academic.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

He yeah, he could have started as one of them. Yeah, uh, that's yeah, okay, that's that's let's just discuss that in a second. The last attribute is fellowship, and this one's only plus ten, so you've got 17. 17 fellowship. So, yeah, you you do come across as quite academic with those attribute roles. The other idea, I suppose, is that you don't have to be a minor, you could have been an academic, so you proposed that invention, that change to the tool that got the others killed, or you could be a a miner, it's it's up to you. You could go, I'll let you go one way or the other at this point if you wanted to be an academic to start off with and then go troll slayer or be a- Yeah, like a foreman kind of thing, yeah, yeah. Yeah, something a bit like that. So you're so we're looking at perhaps then a scholar as being your starting career, yeah, rather than miner. So you were a foreman and you were responsible for um designing new inventive ways of mining for for the exploration of the mine and to to try and find more gold. And you took too many risks. Yep. You maybe okay. So scholars studied, you would have not been able to study here in the mine. You would have gone. I'm just trying to figure out where you've had any exposure to the empire. You've gone to an empire university, you were you were somehow financed to do that by Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

So the nearest the nearest one to my knowledge from where you're setting it is NOLM, um, which is the um which is with the gum where they make all the gunpowder and stuff like that. So I suppose that works.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, okay. So you you went to university in null. So that would perhaps give you some additional language skills if you don't already have them. But we'll get to those in a bit. Okay, so the next thing is oh you start with three uh no two fate points. Yes. And you'll oh no, hold on, you can swap two of your characteristics if you still want to do that. The dice rolls rather than the actual characteristics. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

I think I should, yeah. I'm trying to work out what is the best idea.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

You can still swab your weapon skill with your ballistic skill. Keeps all your academic scores intact.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah, let's do that.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, 47. So you that gives you 47 weapon skill.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

And instead you'll have 17 ballistic skills.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Much more dwarfish.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah. And your strength ain't great, but you're an academic, so that makes sense. Yeah. And you'll be able to increase your strength because almost certainly it's going to be on the advanced scheme for trolls layer. Oh no, I know he's just going to be rubbish to start with, isn't he? Yeah, a little bit. You can get your strength up actually before as well. And as it's um, what is your strength? 27. Good, because you're within shooting distance of going above 30, which then gives you an extra point of damage and everything else. So that's the important, that's the important bit. Yeah.

Skills and Talents

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Okay, and your movement is three. Outstanding. Yeah. Now, you have a star sign. Dwarves wouldn't necessarily go with this kind of stuff because, well, they live underground and they don't get to see the star so much. But this is an empire kind of thing. But I've given everyone the option of rolling a star sign, and each of these star signs can modify your attributes, and they can also give you some talents. On balance, you you're better off, but what it does is it weakens certain characteristics and improves others, and that's a fairly random thing. Uh so what you can do is roll on the star sign table, and you can take the star sign alone, so say out of interest, you know what your what your star sign is, or you can decide before you make the roll to take the effect of the star sign as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

What do you want to do?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's if we're gonna do if we're gonna dive into this, let's let's just dive into it properly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Okay, so um you need a d hundred now. So you could either just keep rolling those two ds. Yeah, okay, so 64. 64, right. Okay, the piper.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Well, you're not gonna like this. It's plus two fellowship. So this is your initial fellowship. So modified that by two up. Nineteen. Plus two dexterity and minus three weapon skill. Yep. Sorry, mate. It was anyway, your weapon skill is so good you shouldn't be too badly affected by that. So the best diplomats are born under the Piper's rule, and so are the best thieves. So people with this star sign are cunning, slick, and very tactful when they need to be. In negotiations, there's no one better to have one's back, however, they do not hesitate to play both sides to their advantage or take advantage of their allies if they think they'll come out better for it. So it's the sign of the trickster. It doesn't have to shape your character, but it might have some influence in probably where things went wrong for him, perhaps. You know, he wasn't he wasn't particularly honest on the on the risks involved, shall we say, yeah, in what he was doing. But you would have picked up all of these kind of traits, these kind of superstitions from your time studying in the Empire, in Null. This is the kind of baggage you get from being around humans for too long. Okay, the next thing is skills and talents.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

The talents, obviously, the big ones, they're the ones that kind of give you black powers, whereas the skills give you the chance to push up any of your basic skills or learn advanced skills. Uh, you if if a skill is not on the basic skill list, as you can see on your character sheet there, it it will be by default an advanced skill. If you don't have anything in that advanced skill, you cannot use it. But with basic skills, everybody can use them to a certain degree.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Okay. So dwarves, um, what we do is you put a little tick by the skills I'm calling out, and then I'm going to give you a certain amount of points you can allocate between them all as advances.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

So the first one you get is consume alcohol. Okay, yeah. Cool. Yeah, so cool is now a skill rather than what it was in previous editions. It used to be a character and a tribute, and now it's just a skill. Endurance. Yep. Entertain storytelling, that's an advanced skill. So you have to put that in your advanced school list. Don't write it down if you don't want it at all, but if you want to put at least one point in it, then it means that you can use it. If you don't put anything in it, as I said, you can't. Okay. Evaluate.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Evaluate, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Intimidate. Language Hazelid. That's an advance goal. Yeah. Law dwarfs. Another advanced skill. Law geology, law metallurgy. So many basic is a should be in the basic skill list. Yep, yep, got it, yep. Yep. And trade any one. So you get to choose a trade. I'll give you some choices of which one you might want to, but background character-wise, we're already practically there, aren't we? It'll be metals, wouldn't it? Gold? Well, it might yeah, I'm thinking it might link into your your interest in sort of modifying mining equipment for a further benefit. So engineering? Engineering. Yeah. Engineering. Perfect. So trade engineering.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Okay. So now you've got twenty plus one advances to allocate between all of them. So the maximum you can have in any one of them is plus five. Okay. And you've got twenty to allocate. Remember, if you don't put anything into the advanced skills, you can't use them. Uh, you will get more points to allocate to these skills eventually, once we get to the to the next part of this, um, which is looking at the skills you get from being a scholar.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

So Millie Basic, obviously, we're gonna have to have that. We're gonna put that one up to the to the top here. We're gonna have one in each of the one of each of the um advanced skills, because I want him to have access to them. That's the whole point of it, really. Yeah. Then I'm thinking cool will be a good idea, the whole idea of him being a bit cool under pressure. So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And then endurance and entertain. There we go. All twenty done. All twenty done, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

That's great. Well done. Okay, so now we look at the scholar. And these skills now also need to have a little tick book by them. Okay. So the scholar, this consuming alcohol, you get that as a dwarf as well. Something tells me you're gonna be good at consuming alcohol. Consuming alcohol. Scholars also get entertainment storytelling. Oh my god. Okay, you get gamble. Is that a skill? That's a skill. That's a skill, yeah, it's a basic one. Gossip. Yeah,

Defining Character’s Goals

SPEAKER_01 18:44

that's on uh haggle. Haggle, yeah. And uh these are advanced ones. Get language classical, law, and this can be any law you like. Remember, you're not gonna be a scholar for very long. In fact, you're gonna be a scholar for for for the next ten minutes. So it's best to get the skills now, put the skill points in the scholar skills that you think are gonna be things you want to all have because you won't be able to spend any experience on them moving on. So the kind of laws that you have available to you. Well, engineering is a law, swell apparently.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Can there we go then? That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, okay. So I'm just gonna go back to the trade um just quickly, just in case there's something else other than that, have an engineering in both. Uh trade. It can be a carpenter, a smith, that kind of thing. Yeah, okay, take the Smith trade. Yeah. Okay. Right. And the last one for scholar is research. I think it's an advanced skill, research. So you now have another 20 points and you can allocate those 20 advances between any of the skills we've already read out. So the the race ones and the and the scholar ones, you can you've got an extra 20 points to put between uh any of that.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Well, I'm with, I'm with, I'm with, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah, still a maximum plus five advances limit in the in the thing. Yeah, for any any skill.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

I'm thinking the law one's an important one.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah. Because you've got good intelligence, anyway. So only most of those skills are going to be pretty usable.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Law law and research sounds like a good idea. I like I like those two.

unknown 20:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

That's 10. But you're going full on plus five to each of those. For those two, yeah. Yeah. And then I'm thinking part of me thinks it'd be a drinker because of what he's done.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

If he hadn't been drinking already.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

One one point in each of the things, like you said, so at least I've access to them. So that's five, ten, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, seventeen. Gossip and haggle, fifteen. And gamble. There you go, done. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Uh so now we just do a quick check, add up all of the advances you've got in all of your skills, it should add to 40. So just double check back. Five, ten. Yep, 40 it is. Yep. Okay. Right. Um now we're moving on to talents. So as a demi human, uh, most of your talents are preset. You do get to roll uh I don't know, don't get to roll any. Okay, a bit boring. Uh no random talents. No random talents. So yeah, but they're good talents. Um magic resistance, night vision, and you can choose read or write or relentless. Now, you do get the option to you'll have one free talent from your career. One of those is read and write, but just to tell you the other talents from your career that you may have available to you are carouser, read write, savvy, and supernumerate. It's

Starting Equipment Overview

SPEAKER_01 21:42

up to you whether you want to take the read or write from from your race choice of talents, or you want to take it from your so if you do if you don't want to read and write from the race, yeah. The other one is relentless, and I'll just tell you what relentless does.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

That means I know what that one means. That is when you um get to the enemy you want. Is it?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

I don't know. If it is, you're maybe thinking of a previous edition. Do they give that? Relentless. When you have your mind set, yeah, you're right. There is nothing anyone can do to stop you reaching them when disengaging in order to fight another opponent, you may add plus ten per level of relentless used for that disengage role.

unknown 22:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

No, I don't want that because I'm going to disengage.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

That's true. Well you yeah, that's true. So you don't you're gonna take the read-write from those choices. And the next one is resolute or strong-minded. So resolute is you launch into attacks with grim determination. Add your level of resolute to your strength bonus when you charge.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

So it just gives you extra damage on that first charge attack. Or strong-minded. Strong minded is plus five to your starting willpower.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

No, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go um Resolute.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Okay. And the last one is sturdy. You have a brawny physique, you're used to carrying things. We don't we don't micromanage encumbrance, but this times your encumbrance by two. What that does in game terms is you can narrate that. We'll always apply that to you in certain situations. If you know if it doesn't make sense that you're able to carry a certain amount, you can. And if you want to pick up something and and travel with it, you can. It's more of a narrative way of playing that talent that we do because we just don't want to micromanage encumbrance and working out what everything is and and how much it weighs, it just weighs down the game too much, we think. Yep. Okay, so there are your talents from your species, from your race. And so now you get to choose one of these talents from your career. So Carouser, which is fraternizing with the opposite sex or the same sex. No, no, no, no, but it won't be bothered. Well the read-write, which you've already got. Savvy, which is plus five to start and intelligence, and the other one is then otherwise supernumerate, which is counting. Yeah, so we try and play that out narratively as well. So you if you think that you're in a situation where knowing the mathematics of something would give you an advantage, for instance, if you're queuing up for something and you want to know how long it'll take you to get to the front of the queue based upon how long the average person is the first thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

A fantastic talent of a game of fantasy roleplay, and you bring up queuing.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Well, yeah, because you choose the right queue.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Well, that's it. That's that's it's that's it's selected.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Supernumerate, yeah. I want to cue like no man before. And also you're a bit of a buffin, right? So, you know, these things would give you that extra confidence to make those, you know, because you because you mathematically you're working out how to how to modify something to get the best game from it in a mining sense. So yeah, supernumerate. I I like it, but of course it doesn't come into the game very often. Okay, so now we're looking at starting trappings. You're an academic, so you start with clothing.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Now there's a dagger, so you can place that in your weapons, a pouch, a sling bag containing a writing kit and ten sheets of parchment. You can write your last will and testament.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Exactly, there you go, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah. And that's from your that's from your uh career class. And now the trappings from your career. Alcohol. Alcohol, for a good idea. Yeah. A book. Right. Opinions. Opinions? Yeah, so like pamphlets and things, uh political perhaps, or just I don't know, it says opinions. Okay, right, fair enough. Whatever opinions you want. I'll write them down. Whatever rabbit hole you put yourself in. Uh okay, and writing kit. So you've got two writing kits.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Oh, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

I'll be writing a lot then. Yeah. Uh okay. That's your trappings. Oh,

Finalizing Character Details

SPEAKER_01 25:45

and also you start with so we don't need to worry about you writing down your social level for scholar because you're not going to be a scholar, but it does determine your starting wealth. Yeah. So you scholars have brass three, so you have sixty ten brass pennies. Sixty ten? Yeah. And also you were sponsored through university, so you've had the privileges of that. That would have cost a fair bit of money. We say the mine sponsored you. Okay. Uh not silver pennies, but brass pennies. Brass pennies, brass pennies. Yeah. Okay. Um so now we're looking at physical details, adding detail. So your age is ten D ten plus fifteen.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Ten D ten plus fifteen?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Fifty-two?

SPEAKER_01 26:29

That's nice and easy, huh? Uh plus fifteen, so yep, sixty-seven years old.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Sixty-seven years old. Got it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Uh your height is one D ten plus four foot three. Nine. Again, a drum roll before that one.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah, I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Uh nine. Okay, so you are five foot tall.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

No, yeah, you're five foot tall. You're tall for a dwarf. I was the lanky one at the back telling everyone where to go, that's the problem.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Okay, it's now eye colour. You roll uh two D ten. Fourteen. You have dark brown eyes.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Brown, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

And your hair colour saying two D ten. Well it is now, yeah. But it was, it was 15. It was brown. Yeah. Okay. And now your name.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Would you have a a name after your oath has been taken? Well, yeah, actually, I I I was gonna call him um Galato Stormhammer. Go for it. Sounds very dwarven, doesn't it? Yeah, that's it then.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Now we just need we're almost done. Um so we need now to look at you get you're a cut above the rest, this rule is. What it does is it gives you some advances on a characteristic that are not in your advanced skin. Just to make you a more rounded starting character. You don't have the scholar in front of you, but I'll tell you. So there are four characteristics that you would never be able to advance being a scholar. And they are weapon skill, bow skill, ballistic swimming, strength, agility.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

So you can put a plus five advance into one of them, or you can put a plus three into one and a plus two into another.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Yeah, see I can put plus three into strength, which makes you strength thirty. That gives you that does give you the strength bonus of three. Which is what we want. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a good start. I was gonna put the other two in toughness, but toughness is not

Backstory and Motivation

SPEAKER_00 28:20

one of them.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

No, it's not. That's part of your advanced scheme.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

I'll put it into weapon skill then to try and get me back the two three that I lost due to the star sign.

unknown 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

That's 46. That works. That works.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Right. Okay. And the last thing we need to do now, we can determine your wounds, because that's determined off each of those characteristics. So to start off with your strength bonus, when you think about your strength bonus, you take your strength score and it's the tens number. Which is your strength bonus? Three, plus two times your toughness. Which is three, so that's six. So you're on nine at the moment, plus your willpower bonus.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

That's not bad. So uh so three, six, nine, so that'll be thirteen. Yeah, got that right, huh?

SPEAKER_01 29:01

That's pretty good, yeah. And so if your toughness goes up, your wounds go up by two. So if your toughness goes to the next toughness bonus, so if you go from well, you got the moment 30 something.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

38, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah, so very close to going up. So if you can get that to 40, you gain two wound points as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

I know, but the thing, the reason you had a dwarf, wouldn't it, to be really tough. And I'm about as tough as a human, so that's just it's just he's just he's a weed. Well, but you're a scholar.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

And you know, there are other fighters in the group where Barry's playing a warrior, he's got a pitfighter.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Does he? Yeah, but I don't want it to outdo me.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

He's gonna be very happy you're playing this character because normally he just goes going on a murder over and gets himself killed. I mean, at least there's two of you now. At least there's two of us doing that. Yeah, you're guaranteed to be with him, aren't you? So unless you see some nuances in the situation, which you might do. Well, you you'll see. I think this character is very, very good for this campaign. I think it'll be a great one to bring in. Uh right. So we're done on character generation, I think. Unless there's anything there that additionally you think you might need to do. We now need to to work out the transition to a troll slayer. Troll slayer, yeah. Yeah. So let's just bring out troll slayer. And you wouldn't have had any opportunity to spend experience in troll slayer career. You've chosen why you become a troll slayer. I'd like to talk about that a bit more. But what what happened, whatever happened, I've got an idea of what what you did. So after the event happened, we're about to discuss,

Oath and Redemption

SPEAKER_01 30:27

you just fucked off. The shame was too great, you just you just left. You didn't say anything to anybody, and you you roamed and you went back down to null and you tried to conf trying to figure out what was going on in your head, and you couldn't you couldn't reconcile what had happened. So you took the oath. Now, normally when a dwarf takes the oath, choosing the life of a slayer is something far more profound than a simple career change, and so there's no hope of you reclaiming honour through a less drastic means. So when you choose this endeavour, when you choose to do this, you spend a week severing your links to clan and kin, resolving all outstanding business, shedding your worldly possessions, and dedicating yourself to the path of redemption. And by way, glorious doom. So at the end of that week, um you've then become a slayer. But for the for the purpose of this scenario, because you left without doing that, without without um severing those links and tidying up your personal affairs, and you're returning to the Frugalhorn Valley before then you just sort of disappear into the Grey Mountains and look for fights against trolls and and goblinoids and and everything there that's there. That's the perfect place for you to sort of a stop off point before you're gone. So you don't intend to hang around very long, but you do have things to s to do and say, and you want to be clear what's happened because they don't know what's happened to you. You just you just disappeared. So that's that's the premise of the character coming back into the Kruglehorn Valley. So let's talk about what exactly happened. So I'll just give you an idea of the mine itself. I already told you they are looking for gold, but they're just not finding it. It's called Gimbrin's Mine. It's run by a dwarf called Gimbrin Feinhell, and he's the clan chief. And there are 16 dwarves at the mine, or there were. No, we'll say there are now, because that's how many are in the scenario. How many, how many dwarfs did you kill with your well if there's only 16 there and dwarves are quite rare.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I'd say three, maybe two or three, something like that. Something enough to make enough to make a dent, but not to stop them, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Should we say you kill two and there's one that's seriously hurt? Yeah, okay. Yep. So part of coming back is to perhaps, you know, to see to see how he is too. And so Gimbrin is the clan chief, and Bardak Barantan is the lawmaster, and he would have identified you as being somebody that they thought was worthy to finance the future boffing of the mine. You know, that you you were the one that, you know, send him send him to Narn for three, four years, come back with some of that engineering knowledge, and he can help us. There's gold in these gold in here, these mines. Yeah. And uh so they invested a fair bit of money in your education. And you came back and things went wrong. So so how how did how do you see that work in in your background?

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Didn't tell you it would be something like maybe because he's got a quite academic guy, isn't he? So maybe he came back and he was like overconfident basically. I've learned how to use this form of gunpowder to make this mine so big and open up this vein. Don't worry, it's all perfectly fine, don't worry about it. And it all just went horribly bloody wrong, basically. Yeah, he rolled he rolled, obviously he rolled a double zero on his main skin. Yeah. And uh and there was a cave-in, kill two, mame one, and uh he in shame he he fled.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Yeah, okay. So he realised you know he would have hung about long enough to work out the you know the consequences of his action.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

And and then just just left without without word. Just left, yeah. So the dwarves that were killed and maimed, would they be relatives to you, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 34:00

I wouldn't say direct family, because all clan, the the dwarven process is like if you're in your clan, then they're your brother anyway, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 34:06

So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Okay. So as good as any they weren't they weren't blood relatives, but it's good as. Good as. Yeah. And your relationship with the lawmaster, how would you imagine that to be? Just trying to establish so I got an idea how to play the dwarves when you turn up, because they may not have wanted you to take the oath. Who knows? They might have they might have been quite forgiving. You know, you never stung about to find out, but you've taken that decision yourself, regardless. Uh, so I want to play that out within the game, all of that. But your relationship with Barrontown and Gimbrel, was it his fault? I mean, is it 100% guaranteed that it was? You know, I'm just trying to think maybe there's something that we can play with there. If yeah, I just what do you think? Or would you rather it be, yeah, this you've done something really fucking stupid than they're angry, they're angry with you in the you know, taking the oath is a piece of that a little bit, but still they're you know, there's a lot. Would the community as a whole welcome you back even as a troll slayer, and you know, or would they be fucked off with you basically?

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yeah, maybe that's a good idea. Maybe he used some of the new engineering skills he learned in Nolm to do it, and another dwarf, whoever whoever was there, went, I'm not doing that, I'm doing this my way, and that's what caused the accident. So it was yeah, yeah. So it's like it was his fault in the sense that he came up with the idea, but whoever was there didn't listen to him, a younger dwarf maybe, or something I didn't listen to him, and then it was just it all went wrong.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Okay, so somebody there was could have taken some of the responsibility, but he was a young dwarf and you knew him fairly well. Should we say that you didn't get on then? That would make more sense with this one particular dwarf.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Yeah. Okay, so I'll I'll flesh him out. Yeah. Yeah, and you could make him the wounded one.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Okay. He's the one that survived. Yeah. Yeah, so he's he's pretty bitter. He can't take up the oath because he's he's disabled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, we'll play that out, it'll be fun. You will be with the rest of them. You may have a different agenda, and so the game will will definitely cater for that. Just go with whatever you think your character would do. You will be crossing paths with the party.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

Yeah. Yeah.

The Adventure Awaits

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Okay, and that doesn't necessarily make you a part of their group to begin with, at least. Uh so we'll play that out and see how see that how that comes together. Okay. Okay, and so the adventure would begin.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

What was your character's name again? First name? Galato. Galato Stormhammer. So I'll I'll make everyone call me Stormhammer.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

So the the adventure will begin for Stormhammer. Having made that journey from taking the oath, you've entered the Grey Mountains, you've you've travelled for some time by yourself, and you've arrived now within the Frugalhorn Valley, and you will be making your way to the mine. Perhaps you will encounter the other three of them.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

So, in regards to the game process, in regards to the rules of the game, is his career officially troll slayer?

SPEAKER_01 37:00

So now he's a troll slayer. So you can now put um troll slayer as your career. Okay. And actually, we could finish this off by just going through the troll slayer career for you a little bit. So you've there might be a few things you need to note down, but also you get to learn what your signature skill is. It's Millie. But these are the characteristics that you can advance when you get some experience. You've got access to weapon skill, yeah, strength, yeah, and willpower.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Okay. Willpower's an interesting one. What does your willpower for?

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yeah. And your skills. Well, I'll I'll give you a printout of this. So once you get experience points, you can start to put it into some of these skills as well. Obviously, then our combo-oriented skills and also your talents are too.

unknown 37:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

So you've got no armor. You um so that makes sense giving you a weapon, doesn't it? I think I'll give you that for nothing. So choose a hand weapon. Okay, an axe. There you go. That's easy enough. Let's not mess about.

unknown 38:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Yeah, okay, and appearance-wise, you've had your head shaved, or if you had you've got the Mohican.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Yeah, classic, classic troll slayer.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Yeah, so what he's got tattoos, they get gimrel tattoos, don't they? And other tattoos linked to their um to the shame in which they brought upon themselves. So you've got all of those things. Uh you've got your you've got your hair dyed. Yeah, orange. Orange. And you've got the Mohican. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Orange beard, one axe, no, uh just a pair of stripey trousers, blue and white, as as should be. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:36

Why'd you say that?

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Because every look at every picture now, you always have blue and white striped trousers. Yeah, it's all to do with the um Galtrick Gurnus and the one they've written all the books about. When I paint my model to show the group, they will have stripey blue and white trousers.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Have you got a nice troll slayer figure? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah, yeah, I found one. Yeah, literally, if you I know this is a podcast, but on the picture of the um the slayer in the book, he's he's leaning forward with an axe and he's holding a troll's head. And the model I found is a dwarf with his axe forward holding a troll's head. So there you go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Well, you haven't killed your first troll yet, so it's a bit uh that the odds are killed me, to be honest with you. That's what's meant to happen. This is a tough adventure. It's classic. It's a it's a good, good, tough, tough Whymer adventure, bit old school, really. It's supposed to this this adventure is a first edition adventure, which I'm converted to fourth. They haven't they haven't converted it since from the first edition version of it. Okay. So Galato Stormhower is now alive and kicking for the time being at least. Is there anything we need to cover? Anything you want to do backstory-wise before? No, no, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

I think I think um I might think about it a little bit more. I mean, normally what I do with with these things, Mark, like with my other characters, is that as I'm painting models, ideas come to my head and I write them down. So, you know, as I'm as I'm pinging up and getting ready, odds are I'll come up with some thoughts. But I like the idea. I like the idea of being an engineer, scholar, went off, came out of a fancy idea, went horribly wrong, cut the dwarfs dead. You know, there's not many knocking about, and now he's taking the slayer oaf, and he's at the beginning of his slare oaf career. Yeah, and uh he would have made a fantastic academic.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yeah, yeah, it's great. I think yeah, the character feels better for me for that. You know, but an academic turn turn in troll slayer is far more interesting. I know. Yeah, it don't take it don't put you too big a disadvantage because your strength and your weapon score are good. Your weapon skill is great anyway.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Yeah, it's just the toughness that plays it off a little bit, doesn't it? But that's that's that's uh it's only two wounds. What's what's who cares about that? Well you can't put you you can't even put that up yet. No, you can't know. You're only gonna put it up when he becomes a giant slayer. But let's be honest, the the chance of him getting to giant slayer is slim regardless. Yeah, yeah, well shame.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Yeah, you didn't get a chance because even Scholar didn't give you the cut above. No. So that's a bit of a surprise. Yeah, I agree. That's the only thing that could have been better, I think. Uh but 13 wounds is still good. And you've got two fate points, and this is likely to be a one-off scenario. Oh no, we're playing our ultra egos, but the idea is that when we finish playing them in this context, we find another system. DD is the one we plan to do next, and we recreate our ultra egos as DD characters. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's the idea. So, you know, rather than play a very, very long Weimar campaign, that's not gonna be happening. So we'll be doing Leashmaster, and Steven is gonna be DMing some of these games as well that we're gonna be putting out onto our private RPG Bloats Plus feed. So we're gonna be doing masks of Nylathro of Nilathrow tap. Sounds good. Stephen was able to say it. I I thought I could until I tried it. That's a Cthulhu campaign. That's a bit of a long play, that one as so that that's gonna be great. Yeah, and uh we'll probably be doing a bit of Dragon Warriors because we've recently interviewed Dave Morris.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Yeah. The um call the best thing about Call of Cthulhu is it which we should really talk about if you're in this game. The thing I love about Call of Cthulhu is no one wants to do anything.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah, but we'll be playing the pulp rolls, which is slightly different. I don't know if you've ever played Pulp Cthulhu. Something they brought out for seventh edition, and they double your your uh hit points and they make it a little bit more gun-ho, so it's more in a cinematic style, but still fucking dangerous. Yeah, it was, yeah, remember not brutal enough that you know you can't take risks. We find it's better, and this one particular campaign, The Masks, has been rewritten in seventh edition for pulp. Yeah, and yeah, it's a it's a really good adventure. I mean, you you like investigative stuff as well, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 42:31

So I do, yeah, yeah. The whole idea is about investigating and figuring out, and then the fighting's the kind of crescendo, isn't it? So I was gonna say, paradoxically, this dwarf is is not going to be that. He'd be quite good at investigating, though. He's got he's got all the he's got all the nounts to do it.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

I think in the context of this scenario, you might find moments where you do think, stop and think. Yeah, it's up to you how you play it, but I think there's plenty of opportunity to do that. The stakes are high. Well, exactly. Maybe that's how he gains his honour. This is an epic. So, you know, there would be moments, I think.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

It says it says he wants to die an honourable death, not a stupid death. So don't think I'm gonna yeah, I'm not gonna go running against like, you know, hordes of people just to die. That's not that's not an honourable death. That's a stupid death. Yeah, he'll he'll want to find the leader of said horde and have him. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Yeah, it's a good that that that's that's the way to play it, I think, here. That way you're gonna last the entire adventure.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Yeah, he's not gonna be like kind of oh, there's 20 trolls there, I'll have them all kind of thing. That's not gonna happen. Um, but it'll be like who's leading the trolls, I'll have him. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

But there's a good chance you'll get your honourable death in this this campaign as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Well, that's what he wants to do.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

There's a good chance the Barry will get you all killed. There you go, yeah. Yeah, it's a badge of honour being killed by Barry. You've never been killed by Barry before, have you? No, Barry will be taking my Barry virginity, yes. Okay, there's that to look forward to. Okay, um, so we're done now. Session zero complete. Galac Galacto? Galato. Galato Stormhammer uh is alive.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

It's alive and can cue like any man in the world.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

And uh yeah, so we'll be playing next week and we'll be putting these episodes up shortly after. So thanks, Mark. Good to see you, mate. Yeah, see you at the at the session one.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

Okay, so that's the same.