Akkad Pt 1
The Gang’s All Here!
The rubber meets the road as our heroes finally meet in the middle of a battle between Sargon of Akkad and the forces of Kish. Something here must be wrong to have dragged four time travelers out of their paths toward this place. Can they figure it out before the damage is irreversible?
The Game
This Game was played using the Mavericks system. An RPG utilizing a deck of cards to tell the story and put fate in the hands of the players. It’s a story-forward roleplaying experience that encourages the players and dealer to work together to create the story. Check out the System Reference Document on Itch.io
https://the-indecisionist.itch.io/mavericks
The Cast
Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky. Check out her other podcasts, Not Your Demographic, X-Treks, and Spooky Thirties.
Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.
Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/
Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud
I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.
———
Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis
This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party.
As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.
Transcript
Ansel Burch 0:06
I welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity, they won't be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So our heroes are stuck together, but only for the time being. You
Oh, duck together. Yep, stuck. You're stuck with each other, whether you like it or not.
Sarah Moore 1:09
That makes me feel like there, there is some sort of time goo that has, like, stuck us all together.
Ansel Burch 1:18
I mean, a little bit
Sarah Moore 1:20
time travel is gross.
Ansel Burch 1:22
Oh, it's so it's so icky. Everything is biology when you get down deep enough. Welcome everybody to the show. This is our first adventure. I'm so excited to have these four people gathered around this table. It's gonna be so good. So let's start by going around the table. I'll have you introduce yourselves and your character and then tell us a little bit about what your character's deal is. So let's start off with Sarah. Hi
Sarah Moore 1:50
everybody. My name is Sarah Moore. My pronouns are she her, and today I'm going to be playing Elena Rhodes, whose pronouns are also she, her. And the little, little tagline I came up with her, her deal is that she is Captain America meets Fay Ray. Hell yeah.
Ansel Burch 2:09
All right. Next up, Stella, tell us a little bit about yourself and your character.
Stella Cheeks 2:13
My name is Sal cheeks. My pronouns are she her, and I will be playing aixa Zar, third daughter of the house of recall. Her deal is that she's a time traveler from space, and she's got weird hands, really long, creepy fingers, and that's important for you.
Ansel Burch 2:38
What is, what is the essential characteristic of this character. Oh, I know, creepy fake trees. Ben, tell us a little bit about yourself and your character.
Ben Banks 2:53
Hey, I am Ben. He him pronouns, and I am playing Mason Rockwell. He is a mountain of a man, but he's got a soft heart. He is a down on his luck,
Ansel Burch 3:01
private eye. And finally, Omar, tell us about yourself and your character. Hello,
Omar Burgos 3:07
everyone. I am Omar Burgos, aka tailweaver prone. I accept any pronouns, and I am in playing ferrobiscutarius Mia Rick and fellinius Percival the grand but people call me whiskey amazing. I am a feline cat in all my glory from a timeline where the kittens and the cats ruled Ancient Egypt. The humans were
Ansel Burch 3:31
so excited. I'm Ansel the indecisionist. I use he, him pronouns, and I am stoked this is gonna be good. We will begin our adventure on the plains of Mesopotamia. There is a sort of desert environment that dominates the sort of close up to the camera area, as we are in sort of a wide open plain. In the distance, you can see the rivers and the verdant life that they bring into this area and beyond, you can see farmland and cities, houses and towns. But here in the in this space, this is largely a big, flat, open plane with scrub here and there. There is the sound of conflict near at hand, and somewhere, I'm going to say the sort of the cinematic moment that happens as the camera sort of pulls up from the little scrub that is dotting the ground in this area, as the camera pulls up and we get to see the fertile rivers and the buildings beyond, a single arrow flies in from the corner of frame and lands in the middle of one of those tufts of grass, and we hear the clash of battle just off screen. I think it is in that moment that our first adventurer arrives the.
Sarah Moore 4:59
Arrow thunks in, and then the camera racks focus. And in the background of that shot, a petite ish woman about five, five comes, sort of combat, rolling into interview and lands. The only way that you could imagine is like somehow for that camera that we are looking through, which is very strange, and she whips her hair back this, like long, dark, wavy hair, her makeup is perfect, but somehow also she is smudged, but in a very pretty way, and she gets up and like, dusts herself off, and then just like, puts her her eyes, like shading her eyes for to look to the horizon, but pulls them up a little bit because she is very aware of her light.
Ansel Burch 6:02
I She wants
Sarah Moore 6:04
to see, but she also, yeah, she it's in her contract to have sort of a soft focus light across, like the Shatner light across her eyes, because she needs to be seen. So she needs to see, but also be seen.
Ansel Burch 6:21
I like the idea that whenever you're on screen that you have been shot absolutely soft focus, and we can see the like the bounce panel sort of finding you.
Sarah Moore 6:30
I'm not sure that everybody is looking just off camera, but she has a team. There are people there making sure she is lit properly. There's a there's a bounce card just off, just out of frame. The
Ansel Burch 6:43
camera pulls back just a little bit, since we got the view for your camera now we pull back a little bit and we see the camera man, the lighting guy, and who was the third person, yeah, obviously,
Sarah Moore 6:56
yeah. She's, she's there. I mean, I think, I don't know who we talked about it. My stunt double is technically there, but she's, I don't use her. I do all of my own stunts. So she's just sort of, she's just kind of there she is. The cover that to have my girlfriend on set at all times is that she's my son. She doesn't even look like me, but she's like, blonde and six foot tall. It's not the same.
Ansel Burch 7:22
You put a wig on, they'll never know. They'll never know. Yeah, amazing. So as this amazing like dive roll entrance is happening, the camera does pull back, we see the rest of your team, and then it sort of whip pans around to the other side of the scene, and as it does, just as it's speeding past, we see this massive battle, two enormous armies coming together, clashing in just truly magnificent Hollywood celluloid glory. Chariots are running back and forth across the back of the battlefield. On one side, the armies are seemingly very poorly matched. One has all this infrastructure. The other, not so much. One is carrying these very fancy bows. The other, not so much. It seems like this is going to be a pretty, pretty rough battle for one side, but we don't have enough time to process all of that. No, we flip around to the other side to somebody who's arriving, probably about, I don't know, like 20 yards away from where we just got our little Hollywood intro. Who do we think arrives in this area of the scene?
Stella Cheeks 8:39
In the like desert area that you just described, there starts to be, like a shimmery kind of light. So it looks like, kind of like the air right after it rains, like right before the like rainbow kind of forms that like, or also like the desert heat, the kind of like waves. So that kind of starts to manifest, and then in the beam, not like shooting down, but like turning out of it comes aixa, who is in all light, it looks like if a space suit and a Met Gala dress, like had a baby, and she's got Just white hair and, like very, very pale skin, and, like I said, real creepy long fingers. Looks humanoid, just like slightly off. So she takes a moment dramatically turns, you know, revealing the alien Met Gala realness looks at her, for lack of a better term watch, like arm band. Kind of takes a moment to do some fiddling, to kind of figure out where she is, gets the reading, and then as she gets the reading, starts at her head, but kind of like, waves her hands behind her and down her body to like, change the like shape of the outfit, to like, be period dress. Like, it doesn't change her hair or her skin or anything. They haven't come up with that technology, but they can kind of like, transform your outfit to be, like, period appropriate. So now she's in kind of like the desert gear, more heat appropriate, and kind of just doesn't look lost. But it's just like, like, she just took a very intense trip, and it's kind of like blinking into the sunlight, like, okay, reassessing. Here we are back on Earth. Incredible.
Ansel Burch 10:27
I am finding you references for what your outfit, excellent.
Stella Cheeks 10:33
Put it on my Pinterest board.
Sarah Moore 10:36
Yeah. Is that a thing that we can really alien hands to go with it. Can we? Can we release I says Pinterest board as a like a little bonus content?
Stella Cheeks 10:47
Absolutely, again, it's mostly just alien hands.
Sarah Moore 10:54
It's important. It's important stuff that was a very important part of the description. So they need reference,
Stella Cheeks 11:03
um Yeah, because I wanted something where I look humanoid, but there's like one thing about me that's like, not right? Um yeah, so it's, it's very elegant. It's a disorienting way to travel by the misdemean All
Ansel Burch 11:16
right, so as aixa is adjusting and her clothing sort of shimmers into place. I think we push for or past that moment and see just in the background, I'm gonna guess that it's just like a little bit darker over there. For some reason, maybe there's the shadow of like a single stalwart desert tree that's been there for years and years, just enough to give us a weird slant of light, as I'm one of the two of you can take advantage of that location. Who do we think is ready to intro next? Yeah, I can. I had a feeling. So,
Ben Banks 11:59
yeah, and that dark shadow, you kind of some like smog, maybe some like pollution comes through, and you hear, like faint notes of jazz trickling through, and then out steps this large, dark skinned man wearing, like a tan suit with like a trench coat over it, and a fedora. His face is, like, pretty badly scarred and everything as he goes through and immediately he's struck by the light, because where he's from, it's somehow always dark and raining, 24/7 but this is a total like 180 flip on his world. It is bright, it is dirty, he's hot. He immediately takes off his trench coat. He keeps the hat on for the shade, but he is looking around holding, like, this kind of funky looking pocket watch that he had just activated, or, like, tried to turn on in his world, and he had ended up stepping through this portal into he's not sure where. I love
Ansel Burch 12:56
it. I don't know why, but I'm getting, like, Colombo vibes from like, well, guess I gotta deal with this. Take off the trench coat. Look around, all right. And finally, I feel free to reject this, but I feel like the camera pans just up a little bit and we see in the branches of the tree the arrival of our final adventurer.
Omar Burgos 13:22
Oh, alrighty. Question, are our allies with us, or is just us coming by ourselves? If
Ansel Burch 13:27
you specifically travel with a crew, you can have a crew with you, or, like you know, people, the allies that you drew in your deck, are not necessarily with you, unless, unless it suits you to have them with you.
Omar Burgos 13:44
Perfect this one to be sure. Yeah, no worries. So as the camera pans up towards the tree, there's a blowing of the branches and the leaves as a ONk appears about the size of a small door that pierces the air, and as it does, this golden light comes behind, and it just this majestic God, like beam that shines onto the branch. And a shadow appears from the other side of this large, monstrous quadrupedal creature stepping forward, and it zooms in. And this small feline cat, a Sphinx, adult cat with iridescent eyes that just glow and shimmer from the sun above Grace skin pointy ears that stand up wearing what looks to be a skull cap like helmet that goes down the middle of his head, between the ears, and it just adorned with gold and jewels. He has the same pattern down his back of some type of like a metal, metallic cat like armor, and it comes out to around his waist, a kilt like armor. Of. Um, that's just a course covered with this gold and jewels and everything. Just scream opulence. As he steps out, looks around, looks around him, and just licks his paws, and you just hear an odd human like sigh.
Ansel Burch 15:18
That's sick as hell. I didn't realize you were gonna be wearing armor. And I love it. That's so good. And so at this point, the camera finally pans away from the four of you and back to this active battle, and it's just in time for us to see as one of the combatants notices that there are people over there, and we see them throw a spear from the battlefield right into Mason's eye line. Mason, how do you think you react to having a spear thrown it? I
Ben Banks 15:56
think I'm a little bit again, blinded by the by the sun and everything, because it's bright here, but not too kindly, once I realize what's what's going on, I'm just like, Hey, buddy, you got a problem? What's going on?
Ansel Burch 16:11
Amazing with that. Let's do our first drawing game.
Unknown Speaker 16:18
Yeah,
Ansel Burch 16:20
start off. Start off with the heavy stuff. So many of you will not have gotten to play this game before, and therefore, just like our players at home, our audience at home, I'm gonna explain the rules as much as I need to, and I'll keep explaining it a little bit afterward anyway, because that's the point of this show. Before today's adventure, all four of you got to create a character, and you drew that character up on a deck of cards. This deck of cards represents your character's history and their capabilities. It's very much the character sheet of your character or of your experience in this particular game. And so the first thing we're going to do whenever we get into a conflict is draw three cards. These three cards are going to represent the totality of this conflict. Now that means that three cards will represent everything from a two minute bar brawl to a four year war. All of those things are encompassed in this three three card spread. And the reason that we can do that is because the card spread is here to help us tell a story. It's not going to define any individual actions. It's not going to define your characters number of times getting punched. This is going to represent the the sort of totality of that experience in a beginning, middle and end. So the first card we draw will be the beginning of the conflict. The second card will be the middle of the conflict, and the final card will be the end. As we go through the conflict, you are allowed to change the order of the face down cards in front of you, so you can Monty Hall yourself all you want, until the time that those cards are revealed. So let us start by dealing out three cards. Now I know you're going to ask, Do I have to start with one or the other. No, you can start with any of the three. Because, like I said, you can Monty Hall yourself all you want, and when you're ready, we'll flip over the first card, revealing that first value. All right, I'm ready. All right, so I have flipped over the first card in my spread, and I will be playing as the two warring armies in this situation. So I'm actually going to draw a second set to represent the other army. I
Sarah Moore 18:49
would like to object that both armies get to have a turn. That feels unfair to us as small players. Yeah. That feels as PCs, yeah. Just like, lodge my complaint. Okay, that's
Ansel Burch 19:02
totally fair. That's totally fair, overruled, but totally fair. Well, I tried. Had to try. Here's the reason that this is actually more fair for you, is that they are fighting each other and only barely notice that you're there. The four of you do not stand. The four of you probably won't register for the majority of the armies involved. So I have got a 10 and an eight to represent the actions of these armies, which tells me that in this first section of the conflict, 10 is going to be the number that you want to beat to sort of make a major impact on what's going on in the moment. But it also tells me that the Acadians are doing better right now than the people of Kish. You don't have any context for that. That's, that's who these two groups are. So what did everybody else get? And is it a marked card?
Omar Burgos 20:14
I did not get a mark hard, but I did get the king of diamonds.
Ansel Burch 20:18
Okay, got a king, excellent.
Stella Cheeks 20:21
I got the 10 of hearts,
Ansel Burch 20:24
10. Okay, great ties go to the players. I got the the queen of spades. Okay, I've got a queen and a three clubs. All right, never
Sarah Moore 20:36
remember this one. Yeah, I, for my whole life, called it puppy feet. So sorry about that, because that's what I'll be calling it, three of puppy Yeah,
Ansel Burch 20:53
I'm a fan. I'm a fan. I like the three of puppy feet. So this is a taxing situation. You are in a physical conflict, in a war zone, and that means that you are in exceptional danger in this game. When you're in a taxing situation, if you draw lower than me, you're gonna lose the top five cards off of your deck. So those just get discouraged. Seems rude. I know, right? We just started first. Just started. Don't worry, there's 47 more. Thanks. Where that came from. 49 even more than that, since
Stella Cheeks 21:42
we're explaining the mechanics, it's just so we we have a discard pile, but if we run out, then we just re up that pile.
Ansel Burch 21:51
Thank you for asking. So in the event that we somehow run out of cards, which has not happened yet, but boy, how again am I going to try in the event that we run out of cards. It is just like any other role playing game where you run out of your energy or mana or health points or whatever. Y'all gotta take a rest. Y'all gotta just chill out for a minute and union break reshuffle. And yeah, see, yeah, you take your union break and and you reshuffle. It's, it's a break in the scene. It's a break in the story. It forces you to find a place to rest. And yeah, it represents your sort of accumulated stress and tiredness and injuries. And yeah, and you'll reshuffle and we jump right back in after that sort of story break.
Omar Burgos 22:39
Great question. Great can ice? Can I assume that if you're you don't take a breaking round on a card, then you would just, if something else happened, you would just automatically lose to it, since you have nothing to draw? Yes, effectively,
Ansel Burch 22:50
at that point, if, if you opted to keep if, like the rest of the group, opted to keep going, basically your character by being out of cards, you're kind of like unconscious or unable to contribute to the scene, you know? So if, if the other players somehow have more cards left, which is possible, they could keep going and just sort of pull you along as as, like collateral. But, yeah, that generally speaking, it's like in masks where, like, you've got all your conditions you just have to leave now, just
Sarah Moore 23:24
like, glitching through the wall, like tea, posing like,
I actually think I know that we could carry you. That was a joke, but I do think it will be interesting if it's a like a glitch in the time stream, like making you not as corporeal in that space,
Stella Cheeks 23:53
you got less time. Goo, Oh,
Ansel Burch 23:54
I like that. You, you are. You've had you,
Sarah Moore 23:58
and now you can't, you can't go anywhere.
Ansel Burch 24:07
Blasted time. Goo, all right, so we have a king in play, Omar. What do you think is your immediate reaction to what's going on around you? Whatever you're trying to do in this moment is going to be successful. You know that going in so as this is the story of the beginning of this conflict, what do we think is, is the response that whiskers brings into this moment? Well,
Omar Burgos 24:35
being a pharaoh and a master tactician, whiskers would first observe the side that's winning, which you say were the the Acadian Canadians, yeah, yeah, the Acadians. And then you might
Ansel Burch 24:51
honestly know something about the Acadians, if you wanted to draw for it, like these guys are, like their history for you, but their history, you might. No,
Omar Burgos 25:01
ooh, I would love to draw for it.
Ansel Burch 25:04
All right, fantastic. So this is gonna be a simple draw. I will draw a card. You will draw a card. If your card is higher, you know the thing?
Omar Burgos 25:14
All right, I drew the king of hearts. I threw
Ansel Burch 25:16
a four. So for sure, boy howdy. Do you know about the Acadians?
Omar Burgos 25:21
Oh, there's also a symbol on here, which so this is
Ansel Burch 25:26
a marked first marked card draw,
Omar Burgos 25:29
yes. Let me pull open the note so I can
Ansel Burch 25:35
call what this is. He described the symbol for us.
Omar Burgos 25:37
It is the triangle with the plus sign underneath, ah,
Ansel Burch 25:41
yes, this is one of your backstory cards.
Omar Burgos 25:44
Oh yeah, this is one of my backstory cards. Do I say what the backstory is? Yeah,
Ansel Burch 25:48
please. So this, this should tell us that something about the element of your backstory that this card represents is inspiring you or in some ways relevant to why you have this information,
Omar Burgos 26:02
you remind me what what hearts means. Hearts
Ansel Burch 26:05
generally refers to those who pray or those who seek a higher power in in the way that they get their their power, ability or status. Oh,
Omar Burgos 26:21
yes. So I remember this is how so whisker is. Is not like any ordinary cat. Not only can he will talk, as you'll find out, but he also has divine powers, limited, but yes, that he pulls from the gods, specifically the god, Goddess uh Bast, and this card represents how he use it to he's not a fighter, but he's a smart, keen mind so he can get other worldly knowledge and understanding of the situation and battle tactics to overcome, to Basically get what he wants out of it.
Ansel Burch 27:00
Okay, and so, so you think this is almost like a divine inspiration sort of thing? Yeah, fast is just sort of like beaming the knowledge of the Acadians into your into your brain.
Omar Burgos 27:14
Yep. And I know every last detail, their strengths, their weaknesses, and how to use them to benefit my current standard. I think
Ansel Burch 27:21
that's very cool. So yeah, I think as you, as you look across the battlefield, and you sort of give it this tactical view, maybe we even see it through your eyes for a brief moment, we can see that the the Acadians are clearly the aggressor in this situation, and they have come with far greater forces. The Acadians have a very particular fighting style. It's very intensive, especially in this point in their history, that it requires enormous amounts of support, so they have chariots that run back and forth at the back of their lines, resupplying their archers and javelin errors with ammunition. You can see this happening in the conflict in front of you, as these resupply chariots sort of run back and forth across the sort of terminal lines at the back end of the Acadian force. At the front, they're using what I think you would recognize as a phalanx position, so they are like they're locked together. They're super tight. They're using Spears the like infantry at the front are terrifying. And the the the forces of Kish are sort of breaking against that wall like water. You can also see that the actually, I think because you did so well with this card, I'm going to go ahead and say that you notice something out of place the as you're seeing the bows being restocked at the back, the arrows being restocked, I think you would notice that the bows that the archers are using are not what you would expect. I don't think you can quite pick out what's wrong at this exact moment. It's kind of off in the distance. You're more on the Kish side of the conflict. But there's definitely something up with the bows. I think that's that's what you get from this successful history. Paul,
Omar Burgos 29:39
okay, keep my eye on that and whiskers, uh, will being the battle prowess kitty cat that he is, will see the winning side, see the stronger side, knowing that victory is victory is the greatest of rewards. And will find whoever is in charge and and just kind of make his way onto the battlefield, dodging arrows left and right, being a nimble cat before landing on top whoever seems to be the captain, and maybe would be able to speak the language, having that, that beam of divine energy can talk to these people and says your defenses are weak here, please. You combine your forces here with the felons and then get had the infantry then fire volleys after the arches go overhead, steady your defenses and start commanding and making and basically taking over as the battle tactician of this in his element,
Ansel Burch 30:42
amazing. Okay, so the so at the beginning of the conflict, you do your sort of assessment, and you're gonna head over and talk to Sargon, the king of battle, First Emperor in the world, supposedly, Sargon, that's what starts off with, with whiskers. Ben, you had the Queen, right? Yes, I did. Yeah. Okay, so tell us about what's going on for you. Mason
Ben Banks 31:08
is looking around, and then he's gonna pull out his little detectives notebook and write down like, and you kind of hear, like the inner monolog, like, I'm in a strange desert, not really sure what's going on above me, a cat just appeared. Something with light hit it, and it took off into the battlefield. And I believe it is speaking to one of the high ranking officers. I'm not really sure what's going on, and I'm just gonna, like, put my notebook away and kind of try to slink into some shadows, because that's where Mason does his best work. Is hiding and like stealth and subterfuge. So I'm just gonna try to, okay, all right, no one sees me. There was that the spear came towards me, but surely they've got to be distracted with the other, the other combatants and the cat. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna step out of here real fast.
Ansel Burch 32:04
I like it. Okay, so Mason is just sort of, like getting this opening monolog and then sort of noping out to safety. That's, that's a brilliant choice. I think
Stella Cheeks 32:12
what I want to do is go up to the Javelin that was thrown at Mason or at us, and assess it, kind of see if it is, like, time period appropriate, if it's because I, like, we just landed, and I'm like, Okay, why am I here? So I kind of want to see it, see if there's anything weird about it. I can't really tinker with a javelin, but kind of just like, seeing if it's sus at all, and also maybe, yeah, that's why,
Ansel Burch 32:37
that's what I would do. Yeah, I like it. Okay, so go ahead and let's do another skill draw, just to see what you can if you're able to suss anything out
Stella Cheeks 32:47
of it. This is a new card, not out of the three, right?
Ansel Burch 32:51
Yeah, a fresh card, yep, off the top of your deck, jack of hearts, a jack. All right, is that a marked card? No, just a regular card. I got a joker, so that has a value of zero, so you definitely are able to fully get all the information that you possibly could out of this sphere. I will tell you everything I can think of, and then feel free to ask additional questions, because you you did get such a high differential there. This is incredibly period appropriate. Everything about this Javelin seems right, based upon what you know, of like the progression of technology in different worlds, you're gonna assume that you're in sort of a pre industrial bronze Agey sort of situation. I think you can probably identify that these people have probably settled down into city states of some sort, just based upon the ability to, like, gather the resources that we'd be required to both collect the metal, smelt it down, turn it into this then form an army. You know, like you're you're able to assess a lot about, like, the the technological position of these armies based upon the technology that goes into making a spear like this one. It's a sort of metal alloy that makes up the tip the handle has been crafted, you know, consistently and well, this wasn't, you know, this isn't a one of a kind piece that was made by somebody specifically for somebody else, like this goes in a rack of other identical spears that all have to match. Because, you know, anybody's going to have to be able to throw it, and they're going to have to know how it's balanced. And, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I think you're able to gain a lot of like, contextual information, probably similar to what you Stella already know about me. You know what?
Stella Cheeks 34:47
I know a lot about, ancient Mesopotamia.
Ansel Burch 34:51
I'm guessing, you don't honestly. I'm guessing, like, broadly speaking, yeah, like, cradle of civilization, all right, yeah, these, this. This is probably pretty early in the in the, like, written history periods, yeah, like, all right. But nothing about the artifact, like, pings your any of your detectors or sensors as being,
Stella Cheeks 35:16
can I, like, scan it or whatever, and then can I, like, break the tip off and keep the metal tip Absolutely yeah, so I just scan it and then snap it, presumably, with my weird hands, and keep the tip. Is
Ansel Burch 35:29
there anything else that your character does at the very beginning here to either protect herself or take action against someone else that's involved? How far away are we from the battle? You are probably, like, 100 yards from the battle itself, so you're pretty safe where you are, except for, like, rogue javelins and, you know, Arabs and what have you. This is
Stella Cheeks 35:52
kind of a meta question, but since this is our first game, yeah, so I know that this is not the first time I have time traveled. But is this the is like running into other time travel, time travelers on these things, like normal at this point, even if I've potentially never met them. Is it like normal to be like, Oh, here's a gang.
Ansel Burch 36:13
That is a great question. And I think that, I think it's, it's probably happened to you a few times, but I think it's probably kind of hard for you to put in context, unless someone has explained it okay, because of the way that you time travel. In fact, does anybody here time travel in a targeted way? Like, does anybody know when and where they were gonna end up when they leave, only a little
Sarah Moore 36:41
bit a little bit, because I always that show up in a appropriate costume. Oh yeah, that's true. So I have like, the tiniest bit of for foreshadowing, basically, is
Ansel Burch 36:54
it part of, like a magical girl transformation back in, in your home timeline? Or do you like? Plan out? Okay, today I'm gonna wear my mess of potatoes. My
Sarah Moore 37:04
costumer does it. I don't do anything. They tell me what I'm supposed to wear. They make me look right? I'm just amazing. I'm just the talent. I don't know. Just show up, do my thing,
Ansel Burch 37:27
then I think your your team have probably sworn a little bit here and there when you do run into other time travelers, because it's usually a sign that something has gone awry. And I think those are the few times where you're like, not wearing the right costume. Yeah,
Sarah Moore 37:44
I would imagine that I look like when Hollywood is like, well, there, it's the 20s, and they're going to ancient Egypt or thereabouts. You know? She's like, Yeah, she looks like she's in the mummy when she should look like she's in actual mummy times. Yeah,
Ansel Burch 38:07
there's super heavy makeup, broad, broad strokes at the history of the period. I think that's very cool. So yeah, I think I think you've probably run into you especially, have probably run into other time travelers with some frequency because of the way that you travel, but I don't know that you would know that it's weird again, because of the way that you travel. I
Stella Cheeks 38:31
see Mason slink off to hide in the shadows. Even though we're in full desert, I'll be like, okay,
Ansel Burch 38:40
yeah, that one tree the
Stella Cheeks 38:41
shadow that follows him and his noir Ness, and I see the cat like being run off, but then I do see this woman and her team. So I think I actually would go up to you guys. I don't even know if I would say anything, because I'm a weirdo, but I think I would just like place myself near you guys. Like, whatever happens, I'm just gonna I'm also here, great.
Ansel Burch 39:05
I like the idea that you, you clearly do not belong here. We are clearly together. Yeah,
Stella Cheeks 39:11
the cat seemed to know what was going on. So, like, who knows, right? But this, whatever is going on here, that seems wrong. So we must be friends. But I'm also like, that's, yeah, I feel like I'm still getting used to Earth communication. So I'm just like, half of the battle is just standing next to somebody until they talk to you first. I think is what I've learned.
Ansel Burch 39:35
Perfect. Fantastic. Are you ready for more? Do you want to find out what happens next? Well, good news, the next episode is in your podcatcher right now. Stella cheeks is at Stella cheeks on Instagram and blue sky. Sarah Moore is at pixies and pins on all of the social media channels, and at pixies and pins.com you can also check out her Sarah's table live streams on Twitch at pixies and piss. Omar Burgos is at tail Weaver. Check out his work on the tale of D 20s. TTRPG channel. More information at a tale of D twenties.com Ben banks is at DJ underscore. Blendian on Instagram and SoundCloud. I'm Ansel Burch, and you can find me at the indecisionist on all of the meta properties and on blue sky special. Thanks to Cameron evesque Davis for the song you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast, this has been an indecisionist production. Go to indecisionist.com to find more of our work, including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG pickup con and my other time travel podcast, time to party as you travel at one second per second. Take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being. You.
