Delving Deeper: Episode 4 Recap

Watch the full video on our YouTube channel: Dissonant Whispers Age of Magic - YouTube.

Welcome to Delving Deeper with Oleander Hawthorne, where we have meta game discussions about our characters, events in the game, the world, or even just to demand of someone "What the hells were you thinking!?" 

Joining Oleander is Delphine to discuss  Episode 4.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Welcome to Delving Deeper with Oleander Hawthorne and Delphine Alandra. Delving Deeper is our metagame series where we talk about our characters, our game sessions, uh general theories and suspicions, what we think is going on, or just generally ask each other what the hell were you thinking? Sometimes not. And there's a lot of that this time round. Today we are going to talk about a lot of asking what the hell were you thinking? Yes. Today we're gonna be talking about our episode four, which oh my goodness, I don't even remember what it's called all of a sudden. A great start. Super professional. Professional. We're super professional. I'm super tired, yo. Yeah. So, no, this is gonna bug me. Law and disorder, Giants of the Gates. What was the fourth one? You'll remember at the end. She'll remember at the end. She'll remember at the end. Anyways, so a lot this episode was actually our our first big fights in intercharacter fights. Intercharacter fights on recording. No, we've actually had a lot of character fights. Keep talking. Yeah, we've had a lot of character fights um up until this point. Our campaign's been going on for two years and we fight a lot. But this was a lot. This is the first time that there was like real total conflict. Conflict where our characters could not comprehend what other characters were doing. So I want to talk the best laid plans. Yes, the best laid plans. Because uh none of that plans for no reason. Yeah, none of the plans worked out. Um I want to talk about uh playing your alignment. Now, alignment is not like a hard, fast, you must do this because you are this. But it should act as sort of like an inspiration and a basis, the beginning of like how your character might view situations. Yes. Um, like your motivations. I like to look at it as sort of an if anyone's played Mass Effect, renegade or paragon. Ends justify the means or means justify the ends kind of thing. Um there's a lot of debate about that in this episode. Yeah. We have constant um okay, you know, have you ever played with somebody who is quite certain that they are a lawful good character? Because one of ours, one of our characters. Not just that he's lawful good, he's the only lawful. At this point in the game, we've since put all this to bed. But at this point in the game, he he was pretty sure he was the only. Yeah, he was very convinced he was the only lawful good character. And I mean I I debated the lawful and now who else is lawful good? I do believe Delphine. And I do believe our cleric, Trukin. Technically, Delphine is lawful good. Yeah, I don't think that Rolled is either lawful or good. I think they're just um experienced. Chaotic convenient. Yes, chaotic convenient. I think that that's a good description. So we've got this traitor, the traitor, not traitor. Yeah, traitor. Traitor. Okay. Captain Valera. Captain Valera, the guard captain of Crystalboro. She has spent five years in her position as the guard captain working for the Obsidian Shadow and the Wretched Dawn. She has let um people or the bad guys, she's let the big bad guys infiltrate the town, killing citizens and stealing children for five years, using her authority in order to She's in a position of trust. She people expected her to protect them. And she admits that she was changing guard rotations, coordinating with things, and we even found that she had um there was like a letter, I think that someone found. I don't think Drax ever showed us it, but he did find it. If if Throck shows up, don't let the wall stand or something like that. I feel yes, yes, there was a letter. There was a letter. There was a letter say, you know, actually bratting her out uh that we did find afterwards. But uh we have this woman and we've She's admitted her crimes, fully admitted them. Completely. And we didn't have to like no one had to like do anything to her. No, we just questioned her. Yeah. End of last episode, Rolden Drax, they were considering taking her out. However, they decided to guard her instead so that um she would face justice. Well, we ended up having giant catastrophe at the end of last session, and so uh we ran away. Catastrophe named Ravenshade. Ravenshade. And so we ran away and we took her with us because we didn't know what else to do. She was with us at the time. We needed information, we needed answers, and we were not gonna get it if we left her there. And everything was going wrong. Absolutely everything. So we just took this captive out of the exploded jail and we ran out of town, which could kind of look like we were um It would have yeah, it looked like we were to aiding her escape. To people who weren't in the know, it would have looked like we were aiding her escape that we were part of it. Exactly. Which we didn't want at all. That's part of the plans going wrong. Uh, but when you're playing your alignment, it's just we sometimes you cannot understand how somebody would make a decision. So world goes from I want to kill you to I wanna set you free. Yeah. We should, of course, just set her free. You no sense of justice for a lawful good character, no sense of justice. Now, we did find out that yes, she had a child who was one of the marked children, and in in exchange for her child not being taken, she was then gonna work for the wretched doll. And that's how they got their hooks at her. So we understand like the reasoning. I I understand it doesn't prevent consequences, it doesn't absolve you from your guilt. Like this town still deserves justice, even if it's a fake trial and they're gonna kill you anyway. The townsfolk deserve that sense of justice. They've lost their own children, and yes. And you can't just let the person go scot-free. We understand, but consequences, consequences, consequences. We make choices knowing that there will be consequences. We've had to face-new that there would be consequences. Yeah, exactly. We've had to face consequences, she's gonna have to face consequences, she's aware of this, she does not expect to survive this. Um, but at what point do you seriously think that you are a lawful good character when you're not going to have justice for the people that have been wronged? You're not even going to try for it. And as one of the children that have experienced being taken by these bad guys. That's another thing. Having suffered his whole life.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

He was one of these kidnapped children himself. He and his sister. So they were kidnapped by orcs who were working for the Wretched Dawn looking for marked children. His sister was one of the marked children. He grew up enslaved. Someone like Valera put him and his sister in that situation. He watched his parents rebirth and be myrtled in front of him. He thought his sister was dead this whole time. We find out later. But and to think that he him of all people would let someone like that who could have been, she could have been the one responsible. Yeah, I'll just let her go.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

It totally could have made sense for my character to totally let her go. It would have actually made much more sense. Yeah. For Oleander to argue that. Yeah. Oleander could have said, you know what? Shit happens, people make choices, she did bad because of blah. Let's just let her go. She can struggle her own freedom, try her best. So Oleander could have said that and it would have fit, but not for somebody who thinks that they're lawful good and who had suffered so much because of somebody exactly like her. Yeah, like like Delphine and Driken, they're like, we understand, like it's that's shitty. That's terrible. You know, if your daughter is alive, I don't need to know where she is. I don't want to know where she is. Don't put her in this equation. She's if she's safe, leave her there. But you still have to pay for what you did.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

You allowed or enabled who knows how many children to and their families to suffer for five years.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

And nobody's just let her go. Nobody else actually knows for sure that she has a daughter. Yeah, which could be a fictitious. Delphine, yeah, doesn't care. She's like, well, whatever. Oleander's the only one who actually knows for real that the daughter exists because Oleander um read her mind, delved a little deeper, if you will, and uh found out the location of her daughter, which is one of those random secrets that will probably never be revealed. That Oleander has, you know, just holds other people's secrets for them. Cat tax. Yeah, gotta have the cat tax. He won't stay. So Oleander's holding that secret, has never bothered telling the rest of the group because it's irrelevant, but nobody else knows, you know, concretely that she exists. Yeah, yeah. But I yeah, I I know you've played with other characters in other campaigns that have definitely not played their alignment.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Well, like it's like I said, it's it's you know parts of the carry being.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

It's a guideline. Yeah. But there are moments where in that guideline should mean something more. Yeah. Like if you're a good character and you're doing something evil, is this like why are you doing this? Is it for a good reason? It helps sort of like inform your choices of what your character would do. Or is this a big moment of change for your character where your alignment is changing. Stuff is happening to you. You are doing things because of all these situations, uh, what has come through the campaign so far, and your alignment is full-on changing. Yeah. Which I think is always a really interesting thing to end up playing as a character. Like Delphine, she's lawful, good, but mostly in the sense of she doesn't like the irresponsible use of magic. Which is why she gets extremely angry at something else the same character role does in this same episode. Um, but this this thing with the children and Valera though, that was just pure justice. Like this town needed that sense of justice. Yeah. And so even Oleander recognized that that town needed justice. And, you know, for some for somebody who is definitely more on the chaotic. Although Oleander, as far as alignments going and uh as far as talking about changing of alignments. You're not gonna say you're not chaotic. Oh no, I am 100% falling under the chaotic. There's nothing lawful about my character whatsoever. Um but so much bad has happened to us. There's there's been so many horrible experiences. My character has almost died multiple times watching everybody doing awful things in this world that my character is um getting far less hopeful, uh, far more clouded vision of he wants to be a lap cat and also doesn't want to be a lap cat.

unknown 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

So I'd say that Oleander is definitely um moving from good to neutral. Mm-hmm. Delphine's getting a little more Delphine's getting more pragmatic. Um she already is like like I said, she's awful good in a sense, more of the use of magic. Um but like the brothers have their ways of doing and getting information and doing things. Delphine doesn't, I don't want to know how they're doing it. I don't need to know. She's willingly turning a blind eye to some of those methods because they get results, and that might be unlawful results. She's like, mm-hmm, I don't need to know. Nope, you go you go do what you do. Yep, yeah. You've said many times actually, la la la, I'm gonna look over here and I don't know where you're going.

unknown 13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

But yeah, so the other thing that happens that must be addressed in this game, like talking about the unlawful use, irresponsible use of magic, is rolled also randomly, even though we had had the deck of many things since the beginning, and none of us remember where exactly we got it from. No, we weren't keeping very good. But almost immediately I identified it, and there was much agreement that these are potentially extremely dangerous. Nobody just plays with these. Don't play around with, don't touch it, don't do anything with it. No one of which was originally rolled, but Rold forgot. No touchy.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

And in an exchange of goods, Drax in his infinite intelligence decides, oh, I'm gonna give this deck of many things to Rold.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

And Rold decided, while we are mid-conversation, to immediately just pause one. Now he got damn lucky, but that really pissed off Delphine. So there is a long time there where she's like, you can clearly not be trusted with magical items, because we've all had a whole conversation about this. And that also led to Delphine being like making drags. Uh Pinky promised her that he would not just hand out things willy-nilly from the bag holding. He's the custodian of our bag holding and stop fucking handing people shit without that that we don't lick it, don't touch it, don't put it in your mouth, don't give it to Rold. Don't give it to Rold.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

That was a little mean, but there's there's rules now. I'm like, can we all at least be aware that you're handing these things out? Yeah. So we all know, please. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

There's a lot, it was a it was a very tense.

unknown 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

So this is this is definitely the first time on recording that the characters have fought each other or fought with each other, I should say. Not fought on each other obviously. We've had disagreements. We had the whole Breakfast Club before that. Yeah. But I yeah, we had the the Breakfast Club was very tense, but we'll have to do a whole delving deeper on just the Breakfast Club and why, like what it meant. Yeah. But uh then, yeah, so other other than playing your alignment, changing alignment, the guidelines of alignment. Um, yeah, the big the other big thing for the episode was plans going wrong. Plans went wrong, left, right, and center. We were trying to. We knew that Valera, we would either we wouldn't get answers and she'd probably be killed if we had left her in town, so we had to take her with us, and but we wanted proof that we're not in on it, so she needs to go back, not just for justice, but just also so it doesn't look like we're in on us. Yeah. We're responsible. We're trying to contact, okay, who do we trust? Who do we know is safe in the town still that hasn't been swayed by Ravenshade and the captain's assistant, the second and second in command, the lieutenant Alruck. Yes. So we contact him and say, hey, come meet us. We're dumb. I don't know why we thought that we would be able to get away with him just coming by himself.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Well, why would why would we think that? Because that's what he implied he would do. I, in fact, told him strictly, do not like come alone.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Don't tell anyone. Maybe tell Garrick if you think you can trust him. Yes. And for some reason, we thought that that's good enough. We're not the boss of him. I'm not the boss of him. We don't know him. That's your mom. Yeah. We don't know him. He doesn't really know us. And so why would he be very angry about Valera? He was not part of the Obsidian Shadows. And now he's under the rule of Ravenshade, so not like Ravenshade, neither is Garrick, who was a lord there. Yes. But he's now now that Ravenshade is in charge of that town. I mean, do you really want to piss him off? No! So he's, of course, gonna do what Ravenshade says. So he brings a whole contingent of soldiers. We always were in the bubble of fuck off. And I like teleport him in with us and like, hey, yo, why'd you bring all these fucking people? Yeah, spaz motherfuckers.

unknown 17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yeah. For some re I just honestly, how did we think that that was a big thing? Because we wanted him there for the interrogation. So he would give your information, we would hear the information, and we send Valer back with him. Yeah. We just had these like fluffy bunny ideas of we're gonna, okay, things went bad, but we're gonna fix them through. Yeah. And no matter what we were doing, we were screwing things up. I almost entirely derailed the game because I I just like my our DM scrolled me. 100%. He went like baited. Yeah, I am very easily baited at times. And so well, I should be specific, he knows how to bait. Bait you, not everyone can bait you. He knows you very well and he knows how to bait you. 30 years of friendship has resulted in um he yeah. I'm gullible and he knows how to use it. Again, he knows how to use it. I'm not saying everyone could bait you. You never try. Thank you. So I just want us all to just not die, please. Can I stop trying to do that? I almost made us all die because for some reason I got it in my head that of course the captain of the guard wants me to let her go or bite her and turn her into a vampire, and she'll tell me all about my vampirism because I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

We're having a in front of Drewkin, the champion of the Raven Queen, who's already made it clear that the Raven Queen is not okay with that. I don't we're right there watching. We don't know what's going on though, because she's it's a telepathic conversation.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

So we're all just like, are you getting anything from her? Like they know I'm talking to her. They just don't know what about. But for some reason, I was so fixated in that moment of I need to know more about myself. And sure, okay, let's go along with this. And no, I wasn't convinced that I was gonna turn her or anything like that, although I kind of considered it, even though I didn't know how. Um, but I was kind of more thinking I would let her go and then kill her. Um, that's kind of what I was thinking more would happen. I would just kill her instead of trying to turn her, but I was hoping she'd give me more information beforehand. Uh and then you like tripped, right? Yeah. I I was unsuccessful in trying to undo her bindings right in front. Oopsie! I'm sloshing. Um talking. Right in front of them. I'm trying to undo. I rolled like a really good, I think, performance to fake tripping. I I think I like critted the performance. Yeah, you rolled a one and then you rolled a crit. And so it just we said that I tripped on my skirt while I was tripping. What the hell are you doing? And Delphine's like, she's got a lot of ruffles. Like, leave her alone, man. She's gotta be skirt, man. Yeah, I can't faces. So we don't actually know, still. Nobody of that. No, nobody still knows. And then oh no, the best part. Okay, so have you ever had a player tell you to do something and you're like, yeah, okay, let's do this. You think you're following instructions, and then they get so mad at you afterwards. Do you remember what happened? You untied her? You told me to lose or to to undo her cuffs to make it. There's a whole lot of miscommunication, I think, on everyone. Yeah, okay. We finally realize we're getting nowhere and we're gonna release her. I'm I'm I'm just done. I'm like, okay, fine, you're going back to all work. So she offers to give her either poison or a dagger. I was trying to give her a mercy. Like, if you can you're gonna they're gonna kill you anyway. We got the information we want. You're gonna go back to them. You can have a dagger and like die fighting, or you can have poison, which I was pretty sure she had. Um, which yeah, I do. Um, or or like you could take your, you know, go out by your own terms, yeah. Kind of thing. That was as much of a mercy as Delphine was willing to give. Yeah. So she tells me to make it look like she is still bound. So I untie her, leaving the binding so that it's just there for show. And then she attacks me. Well, I also didn't think she would attack you. But you gave me so much. You were so mad. I'm just so mad. Not even the character things. Not even her character was mad at me. Her character was fine. She was mad at me for weeks after. I swear to God, was this this was also I was mad about the deck of many things. You're mad about the decky things. Decky things. The decky things. The decky things. But for real, she took it out on me for weeks. Was so mad, and she's like, You let her go! You told me to let her go. I wasn't the only one. I know, yeah. Uh Drunken also gave me shit. They were both part of the conversations. I was following instructions. So I want you guys into the sideways, yeah. Miscommunication. But I still feel like 100% I want anybody who has listened to that part closely enough to tell me. Do you think that I was right? Do you think that it was supposed to be a binding clear show? Yeah. Also, I want you guys to tell me in the comments what have you guys done that has gone, what what are your best lid plans that have gone totally wrong? And when have you misunderstood your partner's instructions? I think we've only had like two or three plans actually work. We had one plan that worked real well. The Orc and Camin. Yeah. I think the Kraken was great. Well, the whole plan at the Veiled Market. That worked. The Veiled Market was lovely. But when you release a Kraken, I mean, it went well for our escape went well. But I'm pretty sure we destroyed an entire town. No, no, that was side, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

That was the illegal black market port in Alaney.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

I believe that they are enough powerful people there. They have enough money. I'm sure they dealt with the Kraken. They just threw all of their magic at the Kraken. It was fine. Yeah. We made a Kraken. I mean, that's pretty fun. Release the Kraken! Yes. Um, that was one of our definite favorite moments. Pre-recording. The signal is chaos. Very much. Anything that you would like to add? We finally made it to Winterforge. Oh, yeah. We finally made it to Winter Forge. We're sure our DMs for like he's trying to get us to go there for fucking ever. Yeah, and then he I think he's sick of us being there. He got so sick of us being there after trying so hard to get us there. And then he's like, get the fuck out. Like you made this dungeon, man. We were the company that overstayed our welcome. We did. Yeah. Okay, thank you guys very much for joining us for delving deeper with Oleander Hawthorne and Falcina Landra. And I hope you guys have a great day. Thank you for joining us. Uh, like, follow, and let us know any comments that you have, any questions. And please tell me that I was right. And she told me to release the Lyric.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Great if we had the Kraken. Great. I would have liked the Kraken.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Bye. Thank you for joining us for the Distinant Whispers podcast.