In our last episode, a fight broke out with another group of adventurers, and TAS accidentally killed one of them, with a single spell. From there, things devolved into complete chaos as the party used a mixture of intimidation, trickery, and tears to eventually defeat the rest of this rival team, revived their leader, and send them on their way before the guards arrived, to take them and the automaton back to the city. Our adventurers today are Hazel, who plays Hector. Do you tell Chicken Fortunes?
Theron, who plays Wilm. If anyone else comes, let's not kill them, okay? David, who plays Nix. I can't believe this.
This is amazing. This is a tent, but it has a stone floor. Kirid, who plays TAS. Alright, let's go.
Let's leave the poor man alone. And I, sorry about that. I'm your DM, Ivy. Should I have used the word Cox so much in that sentence?
Welcome, wanderers, to Legends of Shell. So, when you guys come back, you kind of go through a side loading bay, I guess, would be the only word I can think of. Where supplies might be brought into the building, because the cart has to come in with this rather large heavy object. And it's brought into, actually it's this really large chamber, and it seems that the Baron, or the governor, is using this as sort of like a throne room, which seems wildly inappropriate, but he's in charge, no one can stop him.
And it's almost like an amphitheater. It looks like, once upon a time, a whole bunch of people were supposed to sit here and look down towards the center where the throne now is. And the Baron is sitting there, and he's actually, no, sorry. The Baron was sitting there, but once you guys enter with your hall, he gets up with a start, and he looks very perturbed.
He does not look happy about this, that someone actually found something and brought it back. And he starts pacing, and he doesn't immediately address you all. So, I would say, excuse me, Baron, right now, you look upset that we successfully completed your quest. Is something wrong?
He says, yes, something's wrong. There shouldn't be anything out there. Oh, this is going to be a PR nightmare. Oh, what am I going to do?
What am I going to do? I can't let the citizens panic. We're not equipped to deal with this. I would say that you could cover it up, but another group of adventurers tried to take it from us, and we kind of had to scare them away.
He sort of waves his hands to some details, details, people tell all kinds of stories. Oh, but now I'm sure someone saw this come in and get brought into the city. Oh, I didn't think anyone would actually find anything. That's why I didn't offer a real reward.
And he sort of throws his hands up, and he yells for, I forgot his name already, E-Tate, that one clerk. This poor guy, he kind of shuffles in, and he looks, the drag all this ever stale. He's actually, when he saw him before, he had like a pencil behind one ear, even though he had a pencil in his hand. And he's now got a pencil behind each of his, both of his ears.
And he's also holding a pencil. And he says, yes, yes, yes, yes, you're your Baron, Baron ship, governorship, sir. And he says, clerk, get my advisors. And the guy disappears.
He says, okay, sorry, the Baron turns to you, and he says, you, you four, just wait here. Well, we figure out what the hell we're going to do about this. Okay, as long as there's still some sort of reward coming, big smile. He kind of squints and goes, well, you will be compensated for your service.
Okay. And as he is pacing, can I get prescription checks from everyone? 21. I got a five.
I got a 13. I got an eight. So Hector and Task can both hear kind of a commotion outside? It sounds like maybe a crowd is coming in, like maybe there's a bunch of people who are trying to get in and see what's going on.
And as they get closer, the rest of you can hear it. And it's actually, it almost sounds like a clapping of like hooves or something too. And just as the Baron seems to notice it, the doors, the huge double doors you guys came through that were shut behind you are push open and a crowd of minotaurs walks in. And behind them are a bunch of people who are just sort of coming in to watch what's happening.
But the minotaurs have pushed their way in and said, what is the meaning of this? What is going on? Get out of here. You don't have an appointment?
Can I quickly cast a minor illusion to cover the contents of the cart with a pile of hay? Yeah, it's not still in the cart. It's just lying on the floor, basically. Well, I guess it's sort of in like a kind of a stretcher, almost so that some guards could carry it for you guys.
Oh, I see. But sure. Yeah, you can cast an illusion to cover it. I'll do that right now.
Make it a table with a tablecloth that perfectly fits the area. Okay. That might change the things. I think that in that same moment, Wilm is noticing Taz's nervousness and just sort of like steps between him and the group and like with spares.
Like you can turn into a bear. Go ahead. In general. From the ego and have some kind of festival.
What kind of food are you guys going to present? I really need a bear token. Quick question. Does anyone remember what that jewelers monocle from last campaign did?
The thing that police were had? Yeah. It's still in the discord. So I can look at that.
Oh, okay. I wasn't sure if it was where it were identified and I don't once per day and it's good to take to something with magic, I think. Gentlemen, enchantment, horn, cap of flame, sort of severance, seven-week spear. No, no, no, no.
Wow. We shot a lot of shit. Yeah. Jewelers monocle.
First thing on the page, of course. When looking through it, you learn the value of any gem or coin you can perceive through it. It also detects magical energies on objects. It can only detect that they are magical, not with school of magic.
Once a day, you can use it to cast identify. Cool. Thanks. So the minotaur who's at the front who is this massive femme looking minotaur, they step forward and they're carrying it.
They've got all sorts of things. The thing that pops out to you guys is this, it almost looks like a short spear or a Ikawa. They start talking over the Baron. I guess it's the way to put it.
They say, chill, buddy. We heard you found something out in the woods. Just want to see it. The Baron looks down at the illusion and says, there's nothing here.
See? The minotaur looks at you for. I'm seeing if you guys have anything to say about this. Hello there.
I'm Hecker. So good to make your acquaintance with your name. They ignore you for the time being. Yes!
And they produce a sort of seeing device like a monocle, like a jeweler might use. And they hold that up to their eye and they say, that's definitely an illusion covering something. Oh, that's interesting that you think. I thought that was the table for that festival that we were going to hold.
Isn't that why you guys are here for the festival? The minotaur who I should say, they have their horns are pretty decked out. You notice that on one of their horns, there's a sort of metallic cap that's like embossed with a flame pattern. And they reach into the illusory table and they pick up the automaton's body.
And you hear like all these gasps from people behind them. How did I get there? You win a prize. And they say, aha!
So it's true. The Forgotten Army has returned. So it's true. The Forgotten Army has returned.
Baron, if you can't protect these people, we will take the land back and we will protect it. Excuse me. Can you explain any of what you just said? What's the Forgotten Army?
I mean, obviously something to do with this little robo-d you would be thought. But what's going on? They look at you and then they realize that you're tall, that you're actually taller than them, which they're not used to when they look up. And they say, I am a polystyro red horn.
And this machine destroyed my ancestral lands. And we the minotaurs are here to reclaim what is ours from the Empire. So I'm not going to get your way on that. But I would also like to ask a clarifying question.
If it destroyed your ancestral lands, then why is it yours? I was wondering that myself. If they destroyed your ancestral lands, how can you take them back? They're destroying.
Okay, now you guys are just picking apart the wording. It's what the laser says. Yeah, that's what the laser says. Yeah.
And the laser throws it on the ground and looks at the Baron and says, what are you going to do about this? And the Baron says, I'll tell you what I'm going to do about it. You see these four adventurers right here? And he gestures to you four.
He says, they are our automaton defense force. They will protect this city in the name of the Minna Empire. This just bare noises. And you can hear all of the non-minotaurs crowd that followed them in.
They all start clapping and cheering. And the police are huffs. The police says, we'll see. We'll see about that.
Come on boys and girls and oh crap, I'm so bad at this. I wish Dave was here seeing how to leave. Okay, come on everyone. We're going to set up camp and we're going to wait and watch and see how the Empire cleans up this mess.
And the Minna Torr Minna Torr is all storm out. So how do you guys feel about your new title? I feel shitty about it, but there's like a big crowd of people clapping. So I'm smiling and waving at them and stuff.
Are you sure you don't want them? Protecting it? That big one there looked like they were a little somewhere in the 10s, 17, 18, something like that? The Baron, he gestures to some guards that have finally showed up.
Some reinforcements because obviously the guards couldn't handle this. And they push the doors closed and they get the crowd out of there. He says, okay listen, here's what we're going to do. We're going to make you guys this special task force.
I'll give you an old building that will say is your headquarters. And I'll give you a stipend and you guys just need to make sure that these little incidents just stay quiet and stay out in the woods. And it's all good. We don't have to worry.
Problem solved. I swear at him and I say how much is this stipend? Is that what the persuasion is for? Yeah.
He says, well, we have a budget meeting coming up, so it'll be determined that I will give you the four of you 200 gold for this first machine you've brought in. And I'm also giving you a building. Okay, does the building have a slidey pole? I don't know because I don't grow it.
I don't go into old gross abandoned buildings. Okay, well, if you can get one with a slidey pole, I'd appreciate it. Can we consult before we answer? Can you give us?
Yeah. Oh, sorry. That was out of character going, yeah. Yeah.
But that was me asking that he said yes, but if you don't take this position, I'll find someone else who will. Okay, so we all have a lot. And I say, do we want to work for a government agency? I don't know.
Automaton seemed interesting. Seems like we're in a pretty good bargaining position too. I mean, he already told everybody that was going to be us. So he tries to kick us out.
Then that'll be some problem for him. And we get like a house and stuff. It sounds like we have to do things his way and he is an asshole. I think that I say that that specific phrase loud enough so that anybody in the room can hear.
Counterpoint gold. I don't know. I think I'm good. Whatever the rest of you guys decide.
I just, I don't know. I enjoyed hanging out with you and getting that first Automaton. Automaton. So, yeah, a house with a slidey pole sounds pretty cool.
And if I'm hanging around town, then I'll be able to see what people are eating and drinking and stuff. All that weird stuff that you guys ingest. So, yeah, I don't know. It's kind of stuck here, it seems.
If we do that. And don't get explored too much, but seems like these automatons are new and also old. So I guess we'll experience a lot of stuff that way. Next, what do you think?
I say we go. Like we leave. We don't do it. Into the forest.
I mean, I guess I turn back from a bear. I think that we could patrol the forest and have a place to come back to. It doesn't mean we have to say no to go into the forest. I don't know.
The bear in has pulled out a yo-yo and is playing with it. Yo-yo? I love yo-yo's. Oh, did you do?
Did you do all kinds of things? So, are we ready to be shown to our house? Okay. Okay.
All right. Okay. He claps his hands and he says, great. Just remember to just make this all go away for me.
And your favorite. For lots of gold? Yes. He, well, you, he, the, the advisors and such have finally arrived.
And one of them hands you the bag of 200 gold to divide up amongst yourselves. However, you see fit. And another one of them says, okay, I, I, I, I know, I know what building he's talking about. I know where he wants to put you up.
Come on. Let's go. And he takes you through the streets to sort of almost like the out, kind of the outskirts of the town of the city, I should say. I should say the outskirts close to, close to the mountain, close to like the base of the mountain.
And it looks like maybe it was a mansion once upon a time, but now it's, it's just a pretty dilapidated looking building. But it's still like sturdy. Like it doesn't look like it's going to collapse in on itself or anything. But it definitely like the yards overgrown and the windows have been broken by neighborhood kids and stuff.
He says, okay, well, it's a little bit of a fixer upper. But, you know what, we've got, we've got someone, just a caretaker. And he's, he's basically in your employ now and, and you just need to tell him what you want done and he'll do it for you. He'll take care of the place.
And we will be in touch with you very soon. If we get any, any information or any leads for you to chase down. He, he, he rings, he rings like a little bell that's sort of just inside the doorway as the, this guy standing there with all of you. And the doorway is thankfully big enough to accommodate one.
And this, this little, this little humanoid kind of hops down the steps. And he's got this, this small, but this, this kind of, I guess maybe medium-ish length like bushy beard and this really, really long hair. And he says, hey, I'm Zahn. What's good?
What's bad? What's happy? What's sad? How you doing?
Oh, hello, there's, I'm, I'm Hector. It's good to meet you. I hope you have a good skeleton. I hope you have a good skeleton, huh?
That's cool. I hope you have a room with like seven beds so that little has a nice place to sleep. And, okay. Yeah, it's good to meet you.
Does this place have a slidey pole? It's a stripper pole. You know what, we don't, but I know a guy. We can get you one.
That's a great way to stay in shape too. It is so great that, you know, people can like kind of take something that has been stigmatized and treated like this dirty thing and return it to what it really is, which is just like a beautiful expression using your body. And I thought people just thought they were cool. They are cool.
You're cool. Thank you. Okay. I don't know this point.
It places have a slidey pole already, but I guess we can acquire one that's pretty good too. No, but no one's lived here for like a hundred years, dude. It's crazy. I didn't see.
There. You were going to say this is on why, why were you here if no one's lived here? Like did you just get worried that you were a caretaker? Like what's the deal with you?
Tell me your story, bud. Oh, I just come around here to make sure that no one's squatting in the place basically. I mean, I used to give tours like for the historical society because this place is like really cool and old and stuff and has a lot of history in it, but they cut the funding for that. But they kept me on to just sort of make sure vagrants didn't like, you know, take off the place, which is unfortunate, you know, because I feel like everyone like housing's like a human right, you know.
And I just feel like this place could have been used to housing people. But I guess it is now. It's housing you guys. That's awesome.
That's so cool. Is on what are your pronouns? He him. Well, how about you?
I use she her. Righteous. Righteous. So like, yeah, it's cool that we're here now and you're giving me a lot of great ideas, but I'm going to need some time to think about it.
But shows around. Okay, cool. So this here's the main hall. And as you can see, we've got the that classic sort of like spooky mansion double staircase that goes up to a landing and then becomes one staircase up to the second floor.
Big fan of that myself. And by the way, that that old faded painting right there. There's actually that's where the door to the courtyard is. It's like a secret door.
It's so cool. The room to the right here that is was the dining room mostly belongs to the raccoons now. And then often that wing was sort of like the kitchen and like servants quarters, which, yeah, you know, I know kind of messed up, but it was a different time. And then over here to the left, this was like a private art gallery because the people who built this house were like mega rich.
Now it's just empty. And then upstairs are like the bedrooms. I think there should I think we should be good on bedrooms. I think there's definitely four.
I think the master bedroom. I mean, that's I was told it was the master bedroom. I kind of inherited this job from another guy. He told me it was the master bedroom.
Anyway, it's got real high ceiling. So I think ma'am, that that is probably going to be your spot to sleep. Cool. Yeah.
And you know, once you guys are settled in, I'll start showing you like the secret passages and stuff. Okay. See you. I don't know.
Man rich people. They're crazy. I love it. Sorry.
I shouldn't say crazy. They are eccentric. You said she said there was a kitchen. Do you eat food?
It's on. I do eat food. Food is really good. Okay.
What kind of food do you eat? Whatever's put in front of me. I like to find new experiences, especially like new taste experience. Oh, you ever tried calcite?
No. What is that? That's what I eat. I got a big barrel of it.
I got to bring in and store wherever we're storing food. Yeah, totally. We got food stores for days. Oh, good.
All right. So you guys. You guys are you guys going to want like an armory or? I think the first thing we need to do is clean up.
I have a greenhouse would be nice. Well, I was thinking that maybe we could find a place that we could we could keep the raccoons, but like not in the like sentient people space because that seems nice. And I don't want to unhouse the raccoons. Oh, don't worry.
Those raccoons are they can take care of themselves. And and and Zon actually looks a little, um, a little sad or something. And you notice for the first time that like he is missing part of a finger. I think that's back to his back.
He says, all right. Well, hey, look, you guys are welcome to help out if you want, but obviously as the caretaker, you know, cleanings my responsibility. So don't feel like you have to. I have already, I was actually cleaning up one of the bedrooms because sometimes I like to spend the night here because I'm trying to figure out if the place is haunted.
I'm not sure yet. I don't think it is, but I want him. I'm curious. So I'm just going to finish up that bedroom and then I'll move on to the other bedrooms.
I wonder if ghost seat, you think ghost seat? Probably not. No. And on the way, he kind of like.
So I was up the stairs and off into somewhere on the second floor to clean up some bedrooms. Okay. I'm going to go into my bag and pull out like an apron and a what the fuck are those things that you put on your head called? Like a handkerchief to tie my hair off with.
And I go help clean. Cool. Do you have like a mechanical something for how this like base is going to work? Not yet.
Kind of flying by the seats of our pants because I thought of it like I had it for a different campaign and then a couple weeks ago, I thought, oh, I should work that into this campaign. And then I forgot about it until earlier today. All right. But we could say, you know, you guys spend the rest of you guys spend the next few hours cleaning up the the bedrooms and stuff.
I politely asked the raccoons to leave. But true. Can I do that? I think I can do that.
The reason that I could do that was because I was a what's it called? What's a big, what's a big group of animals called? A pack. No, it wasn't a pack.
I was shepherd. I was shepherd. I was shepherd. So I could talk to animals, but I don't think that that standard.
I think you'd have to cast like. She's an animal. So what if I just turn into a raccoon? Okay.
If you if you have the ability as a druid to turn into a raccoon, you can try to persuade the other raccoons to leave. Yes, I would like to do that. Okay. Roll me a persuasion and tell me what you say to them.
I want to be like, well, excuse me. This is our house now. Please leave. No, it's fine.
No, we were here. And they actually, instead of saying ours, they're all just saying mine separately. It's mine. Mine.
Mine. Mine. I'm here. I was here.
I was here first. I was here first. Is a Wilm with me? Yeah, sure.
Okay. I'll be like, Hey, it's hers. She's going to squish you. Intimidate.
Okay. Well, do you want to help with the intimidation? I mean, absolutely. You know, I'm saying, I assume we had a plan that like if it didn't go well immediately, like I was going to make some like me giant faces and wave my arms and stop my feet.
So yeah, I'll help. Okay. So yeah, you can roll that intimidation with advantage. 18.
Okay. That over the bench? It did. Yes.
Wonderful. All but all but one of the raccoons immediately flees out of one of the broken windows. Oh, that one way better than I expected. And this raccoon is it looks a little weird.
Actually, it almost looks like not real. Maybe it's like a stuffed raccoon or something, but it's definitely moving around. And it just kind of looks looks at you and looks at well and looks back at you and it skitters into a big hole in the wall and disappears. Oh, dear.
I mean, I'm happy with that result. Honestly, that went way better than I expected. Turn back. Yeah, that definitely did.
We should we should name the big one. Bandits too cliche, isn't it? Probably toad stole. Oh, I like muffin a lot.
Oh, muffin. Okay. Let me write that down real quick. Muffin in the studs, huh?
So yeah, and as it turns out, it's on actually, he knows a little bit of magic. So he like, you find out that he is. Animated like a little feather duster to help while he's sweeping. It's dusting and he knows mending.
So he's like mending a bunch of things. I can mends to cool. All right. So now that the place is actually it's coming together pretty well.
It's still kind of drafty. You guys are going to have to do something about the windows because you couldn't mend them because not all the pieces of the window were there in a lot of cases or like the holes are just too big or whatever. Are there shutters? It looks like some of them have them and some of them.
They've been knocked out or torn off. The second floor windows are actually in pretty good shape, especially the bedroom ones because the The way that the house is sort of shaped or rather that the bedrooms are oriented. Most of the windows face kind of out to the sides and most of the broken windows are in the front. Like kids just, you know, throwing, breaking a window and running away as fast as possible because like a road straight.
Yeah. Sure. So the upstairs ones, they have like some heavy curtains and some shotters and stuff. But the ground floor, the windows are all busted up still.
It's really coming together. Why? Why is that so angry? Why is so angry?
I don't know how I feel about Grandin X. You should be happy to work. Is this who I am? Okay.
It's not a phase, Mom. Well, I guess we're hanging out here until they find something for us to do or do we need to go out in the woods on our own? Want to wait till they should we see what they're going to actually pay us? You guys need to eat food time for you?
What are you going to eat? So like I didn't want to take over everything, but Wilm has like very intense cleanliness needs and wants to run the household properly. So she would be like organizing for food deliveries and like getting the milkman to stop by and like looking into the cost of hiring a landscaper and stuff like that. The one the one mechanical thing I have decided is that basically when you want to do stuff like that, you can tell Zon and he will handle it for you.
Okay, I don't think that Wilm would want Zon to handle everything. She would want to do some management stuff, but like, yeah, she would work with Zon to get stuff organized the way that she wants it. So Zon has the means to get the material and possibly contact the people to do all the repairs. Is that right?
Yeah, it's weird. He just seems to like, you know, a lot of people and stuff. He's really charming. It's almost supernatural.
It's kind of weird. It was honest. The caretaker hasn't been taken care of this place. Still we showed up.
I think that's well like he like he explained. They cut his pay a lot. So they basically paid him just enough that he would like hang around the house and like scare off anyone who wanted to squat in there. Are they paying more now?
Do we need to pay him? Who's paying for the repairs? Yeah, I didn't discuss separating that 200 among us in case we needed it to like do something at the house. We will we will figure that I will figure that out between now and accession.
Okay, cool. I am not 100% figured it out, but yeah, we start getting settled in and then you can we can move on to the next thing. Whatever that's gonna be. So how about we'll say you guys spend your first night there and everything's cool.
You wake up food deliveries have not exactly been scheduled yet, but Zon went out and got you guys some like breakfast sandwiches and coffee and tea and stuff from like a little little like diner cafe type of place down the road. Cool. And as you eat and drink you get to deal with um Hector just like talking about how weird your food is. If you like our show we recommend you check out Tabletop Titties.
Tabletop Titties is a weekly Tabletop Role playing podcast run entirely by people of marginalized genders queer feminist hilarious and most importantly fun. Our D&D campaign is run by dungeon goddess Charlene Bear and features themes of post-apocalyptic battle royals revenge. Love of bears, puzzling challenges, and horrifically hilarious carnivals. New this year titties by night a vampire the masquerade v5 campaign.
Story told by Kelly Wright this show follows a vampire coterie of super natural investigators in victorian London. All our shows have professional actors, intricate editing, and storylines that keep you coming back for more. For more information visit our website at TabletopTitties.com. And whenever we say Tabletop Titties that's with double D's if you know what we mean.
Thank you for listening to Legends of Shell. Our GM this season is Ivy. Hey, that's me. You can follow me on Twitter at esoteric90sip.
Hector is played by Hazel Stapp. Follow her on Twitter at hazel underscore duh underscore basil. Wilm is played by Theron Stapp. Follow them on Twitter at explosive runes and visit Theron.card.co that's card with two hours to learn about their podcast transcription side hustle.
Tast is played by Kieran and Nix is played by David. You can't find either of them on Twitter, but they both lurk in our Discord server. The Forgotten Army theme is Brain Drain by Christ Clark. You can find him at Christ Clark dot bandcamp dot com.
Additional music credits can be found in the show notes. This show is a land of shell production edited by Theron Stapp and made possible through generous donations on our Ko-Fi page. If you like the show, you can subscribe to us or make a one-time contribution at Ko-Fi.com slash landofshell. Go get access to bonus content either way.
To learn more about the players, characters, and other shows from Shell, visit landofshell.net or check us out on Twitter at landofshell. Until next time, happy travels!