Dust World RPG: Episode 1 Getting started

Hey, it's Paul Parnell here from the RPG Empire. So I have a couple of quick announcements, really quick, hopefully. First of all, we absolutely adore you. We think you are amazing, and we really are so thankful that you listen to our podcast and that you're a part of our community. And that said, we wanna invite you to our Discord server where you can communicate with us, you can ask questions about the stories, you can submit your own fan art, and we can all go like, "Oh my God, I can't believe they made it look so cool," or whatever we say.

And then also you can, you know, ask questions about running games and how that all works. So definitely hop on over there and join the community more actively. We would love to have you. Also, the best thing you can do to support the RPG Empire besides sending us fat stacks of cash, which we'll always accept, you know, envelopes, you can just address it right to me [laughs] is if you tell a friend.

So 100% the best way for a podcast to grow is for people to hear about it from people they trust, like you. So I know you have at least one friend, and tomorrow I want you to go and tell them about this podcast that you're listening to right now that you love, so that we can continue to grow and just really grow as a community. So that's your mission. And the final last thing to just request and say is if you want to support the RPG Empire with actual dollars, the best way you can do that right now is to buy our book, The Dust World RPG PBTA Quickstart Guide.

It's five bucks. It's in our shop on therpgempire.com. It's a super light read. It's 30 pages of fantastic layout, great art, and it teaches you everything you need to know to play a Powered by the Apocalypse game if you've never done that. Maybe not everything you know. It's brief. It's a quickstart guide. But it also comes with the playbooks and all the reference sheets. So we would love for you to do that and then hop in the Discord and tell us what you like about it, what you don't like about it.

We're gonna continue to work on that until it's completely done. It should be around 300 pages, include a bunch of awesome manga art because we're really inspired by manga and anime, and that's about it. So those three things again were join the Discord, to tell a friend, or buy the Dust World book, or do all three. We really appreciate that you listen to the podcast and that you're a part of our community, and we can't wait to talk to you more in the Discord.

So with all that said, I'm gonna let you get back to the show. Have a good day. [upbeat music] Hello, players. My name is Paul Parnell. I am the DM of Dust World. I also created this game. I am a writer and director. I focus in sci-fi and fantasy, and I created this game because I really loved the idea of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi, something along the lines of Trigun or Fallout, but with more sort of anime flair that wouldn't quite fit in, you know, your standard post-apocalyptic type settings.

So a friend of mine and I actually came up with this world, and I have been developing it ever since. This game is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi Western. The game itself is set in a post-apocalyptic America where the land has been divided into countries, and each small country is under martial law and usually ruled by some kind of warlord. Okay, I'm just gonna roll the intro. [upbeat music] Welcome to a place where anything can happen, one way or another.

Where cyborg gunslingers gun down super intelligent wolves with telekinesis. Where radiation storms kill most people in minutes, but somehow mutants can walk right through it. Where the wastelands are born all kind of strange creatures. Where those strong of mind can control the very dust of the wastes. Where dog eat dog eat cat, dog eat human, dogs eat anything dogs can catch.

Welcome to Dust World. You might be wondering just what happened to this world. Well, let me tell you. Long ago, a war broke out between the King of Sand and the Machine King, and the King of Sand had something the Machine King wanted, blood for his beasts. The war was fairly one-sided, though the fleas of the sand were more in number, the machine beasts were strong. This led the King of Sand to find other ways to fight.

He did this with the creation of the dreaded White Horse virus that breaks down all organics to their most basic state, dust, and thus the beginning of the end had begun. He released White Horse, killing many of the Machine King's people, including those that fed his beasts. Seeing that the war would soon end and him losing, the Machine King scorched the world in a sea of light, ending the war for all.

Now, hundreds of years later, the scattered ruins of those once great societies entice reckless adventurers, bounty hunters, and even a few mercs. The land is ruled by a caste system, and each country brands their citizen to show allegiance. This is where you now find yourself, set out to make a name for yourself in either humility or infamy. Let's see what happens to you in Dust World.

So that should have given you a good sense of the flavor of the world.

... World and kind of what we're going for. And now we can go ahead and talk about the system. So this game is a D20 based role playing game, similar to Dungeons and Dragons, but the action and everything that you can do in it is, you know, several steps above in the spectacle. I really wanted this game to allow you to do those things that you see in anime a lot. So when I was creating it, I was very much inspired by Naruto and One Piece and Bleach, and the way that they could slice through a whole building or multiply themselves dozens of times.

In this game, there are three races, and races are similar to classes in Dungeons and Dragons. So there are humans, mutants, and war bred. Humans, somehow surviving the war, most of them have been changed in minor ways, but are still human enough. Humans are the jack of all trades. They make good characters for brawlers or shooters, and excel at dust casting, those that control the dust left by the people killed by White Horse.

Humans are the only race that can dust cast. Mutants. Animals, plants, people, they are all affected by the war in some way or another. These are the mutants. They are the product of the radiation soaked deserts, the chemically altered water, or just evolution. They have altered bodies that give them advantages in the desert and many of the other harsh areas all over the world.

They have very obvious physical defects that allow people to spot them out in a crowd. People generally don't like them. War bred. War bred are monsters that were genetically or technically created during the war, or the offsprings of them. Often caught and forced to guard kings or work as soldiers, most of them have been altered to be bloodthirsty. They are a less common race.

So that's kind of how the classes work. The game itself you can gather items. You can basically do anything you can imagine, and that's what really drew me to role playing in the first place. So here are our players. We've got Jonathan-

Sup?

... Who's playing Gage Thane. We, [laughs] we've got Blaise, who's playing Clarence Wells. And here we've got Preston playing Kevin Wolfkin.

Hello.

Okay, so why don't you tell me a little bit about Gage?

Ugh. Well, shoot. Well, he's still single, so there's that. Gage is a monk. He's from the Black Earth, and he is a dust caster and also a Swartz swordsman, which is an ancient swords technique. He's really on a quest right now. He's just trying to find his sister, who's been long gone and missing with no real information on what happened to her. So he's been searching around, trying to find that.

So he's just that classic Western hero, looking for... [laughs] Looking to save the day, and not really knowing what he's doing 'cause he's kind of ignorant to the world, being so secluded. So he's not great with people.

Cool. What are you hoping to get out of this character?

So Gage, being that he's very secluded from the world and he's trying to find his sister, you know, his biggest thing is finding his sister, but hopefully during that time he'll hopefully develop and really see himself come forth in maturity and be able to understand the world a little better, and possibly make a hero for himself. But hero's such a loose definition that, I don't know, I'm kind of letting him see what he's, what he's got for himself.

Cool. Okay Blaise, tell me a little bit about Clarence.

In character or with my voice? [laughs]

Beta. Or not beta-

Oh

... Meta. [laughs]

Meta.

Being beta meta. [laughs]

The beta, the meta.

There we go.

It upsets me. [laughs] Clarence is a telepath. He's a war breed which is-

Is he?

... Ironic. Heavily ironic, considering.

Oh. Yeah.

But he is pale, somewhat disfigured even. Not particularly good-looking. He's basically a mutant. With albino. But he has a variety of psychic powers that grow along the journey from telekinesis to telepathy, to mind control. He was raised in a circus by an abusive uncle. His uncle used him as a prop to help him with gambling cons, and Clarence eventually got sick of it and ran away.

Clarence is determined to protect himself, and so he has animated a suit of armor and named it Stewart, because Clarence is very lonely and just has decided to name random things. But he has a suit of armor named Stewart that he uses to protect himself. It's got a face shield. It's like kind of typical knight armor, where it's, it's pretty stocky, a helm....

Now, why is this important in the story?

Because basically Clarence, if a light breeze hits him, he will die. [laughs] So it's very important that he stay out of action, and yet Clarence is very intent on self-preservation and is pretty intent on violence even.

What are some of Clarence's key abilities right now?

I believe telepathy, mind control, telekinesis was there. It has to be in order for Stewart to work. Those are the major big ones.

Cool. So what are you hoping to get out of this character?

A character who is able to use telepathy and telekinesis to basically protect himself and wreak havoc. Your classic kind of runaway story that you would see in, like, '70s books where they hide in the museum or whatever. He's basically a boxcar kid-

Okay

... And basically looking for some kind of form of safety or security.

Okay, cool. So Preston, tell us a little bit about Kevin Wolfkin.

I'm Preston and I play Kevin Wolfkin, also known as Leander in his own people's tongue.

What's Kevin's narrative background? Like, kind of where does he come from?

All right. Kevin is trying to find the people that burned his village down with the intention of mutilating their face, because his father was the village elder. Only makes sense that his kid takes revenge. He's also a descendant of the war wolves of old, created through horrible experiments because life sucks and people need super soldiers. Basically, he left his village to go hunting to get food for them, and he comes back and the place is destroyed.

And that's his motivations. It's why he wants revenge, which is a part of his character flaws. Can you really blame the guy? 'Cause I can't.

Cool. Well, why don't you describe his powers and his class, kind of how you're gonna play him.

He's a mutant. He's a sniper. He likes to shoot people. He has the ability to go invisible depending on his equipment. He's also got that thing where he stands out, so it's hard for him to hide in places.

Nice. So what do you wanna get out of playing this character?

What do I wanna get out of playing this character? I have no particular things I plan to get out of it. I'm just doing this for the curse word here, and giggles. Yeah. Having fun, killing people, taking names. That's all.

Okay. So I am the DM. I will be playing every other character. But in particular, there are a few NPCs who are very interesting and important to the story. One of them is Griffin Silvercrest, or Griff. He is a war wolf, but because his genes have human DNA in them, he was born and he looks exactly like a human. Over time, he grew more powerful in his village and eventually because these particular kind of war wolf-human hybrids have the ability to dust shift and they can't always control it, he was banished from his tribe.

He lived in the desert waste, and he made money by doing odd jobs. He's what's called a stray. He is unbranded, and it allows him to move from nation to nation, but it also makes people uneasy to trust him. General Gerber is a baby-faced telekinetic child. He looks like a baby, but he's actually, you know, 30 or maybe 40. He's in charge of the military of this nation called Other, as well as in charge of this particular small town, Lonely Oak.

He is incredibly powerful telekinetic, and is a general for a reason. His strategic ability is on par with the best minds of his time. Okay. So because we didn't record the first session not realizing how amazing this game was gonna be, we are gonna do a quick recap of what happened before episode one. So this whole episode is essentially episode zero. So to start out with all of our party members are on a train.

Train is one of the main ways that people travel in this world, and as I talked about before every country is kind of martial law. Generally, it's kinda difficult to travel through each country, and so the train is, like, one of the few ways that they sort of all agree to not mess up, essentially. So our whole party's on the train for their various reasons. Clarence was escaping the circus.

Gage was on a journey to find his missing sister. And Kevin was out to revenge his tribe that was slaughtered. That finds us on the train, which everything seemed to be going well and there was... Clarence was sitting in the back of one of the cars. Really cool old-timey trains. Like, imagine, you know, what would travel in the West. Mainly the world has a Western setting because building sort of Western-oriented stuff was a little easier.

You needed easier tools to do it. And so as I was conceiving the world, I imagined that building those kind of things would be a lot easier. So what happened between Clarence and Gage?

Gage starts out, he's chilling, sitting in the chair. You know, sitting in his chair, kind of thinking over just everything that's been going on. Kind of puzzling over this kind of new world he's in. He doesn't really know anything about it, but he's got enough to know that he's in over his head a little bit, but he's hoping he can find some stuff. So he's headed to the next town to see if he can pick up any leads, see if he's heard anything of his sister or if anyone's seen anything on it, and also get some jobs too, 'cause he's broke as all mess.

But that's beside the point. You know, Gage was looking around the train, trying to scope everything out. Noted one scrawny kid in the back and then one dude kind of, like, curled up sleeping in the corner with a hood over his face.

Huge armor.

Yeah. He had huge armor with him, but you know. I mean, he made note of it and was like, "That's weird." But at the same time, Gage doesn't really know the status quo for the world, so he figured, "Oh, maybe that's normal. Okay." And other than that, he was just kind of just trying to think through what he was gonna do when he got into town.

Clarence meanwhile, was kind of looking for some muscle that isn't just automatically created by his telepathy. He was looking for kind of a bodyguard, so to speak. And his thinking was, "If I am useful to somebody, then I can convince them to be useful for me." And so his thinking is, "Well, I know what adults like. They love liquor." So and it seems like, you know, they couldn't get to the liquor cabinet.

So Clarence thinks, "Well, I can open the liquor cabinet for this strong guy who looks like he could kick serious butt." Clarence not being the most socially adept creature on the planet, possibly one of the worst actually at that particular category, leads off with, "Hello, sir, do you want to see a magic trick?"

Oh, God. What? No. Oh, no, kid. And he announces this very loudly to the train to make sure no one else assumes anything. I do not wanna see any of your disgusting magic tricks, little kid. Now run along back to your supervisor or whoever that is over there. Just go. Just get out of here. [laughs] And immediately turns away and tries to just ignore the child as much as possible and pretend that he didn't just walk up to him and ask him that.

[laughs]

Yeah, it was really good. So a few minutes later Gage notices one of the guys who's kind of strapped with some guns starts kinda talking amongst each other and then rush out of this room. And, you know, Gage, trying to be a hero, was like, "Maybe I should go see what's going on." And as he does, he enters into the second car where these guys have all put on their, you know, handkerchief over their face, bandit style, and are now sticking up the joint.

This is a stickup. Every one of you keep all your knees and your seats. Now maybe shoot any one of you. I'll shoot you all, I swear. You better not move.

Well, Gage being himself and not really... He's not good at social cues, let me tell you. [laughs].

So Gage walks in and this guy turns immediately like-

Very much

... "Hey, what are you doing? Get in your seat."

Gage politely declines and starts walking towards the man. Um-

"I said get in your seat. Get down on your knees."

And as Gage gets close enough-

"Put your hands up"

... He talks. He goes-

That's what happened. He goes-

"Put your hands up. Okay, just give me one... All right, I'm putting them." And as he does, he opens up a little flask he has actually in his wrist. It's a little canister. And-

In a bracer-

In a bracer

... That has a-

Yep. It's like-

... Dust in it

... Like, think Assassin's Creed, like, knife except it's a canister of dust. And as he lifts up his arms quickly, he throws the dust into the man's eyes.

Ow, it burns. Ow, the dust in my eyeballs.

And with that, Gage takes and bends the dust to his will, expanding it and creating a, well-

Spikes

... Well, he [laughs] yeah, he spiked him really bad. And-

Like caltrops into your eyeballs

... Pretty much. He put 'em behind the eyes, too. It was everywhere.

Oh, man.

It was bad.

Just like all of a sudden spikes are sticking out of this guy's face. He's like, "This hurts." Like he falls over and he's definitely smoked.

And with that, Gage kicks off the Royal Rumble of it all. [laughs]

Yeah.

Starts the campaign off hot.

So, uh-

Meanwhile, in the other car Clarence decides that his best way of handling the situation is mind-controlling one of the bandits. This will become Clarence's go-to for most situations he ends in. Clarence takes over one of the ban... There's three bandits, I believe, and he takes over the bandit in front's mind and has him turn on his friend.

Hey, Frank. What are you doing, Frank?

You're... I'm turning on you guys.

What? What? What do you mean?

I want the money for myself.

What money?

I don't care. [laughs] [laughs]

Yep, and then they one by one start shooting each other until eventually they're all-

It turns into a battle royale

... Gone. Oh, but also- [laughs]... Stuart did enter the fight, and Stuart, like, comes in and, like, punches a few of these guys and they're like, "Oh my God, you're so big." And he's, like, smashing them. And then eventually you two get back together.

Yeah, because he walked... After cleaning up and, you know apologizing to the car that was I think four or five-

Yeah.

Did he say apologize? [laughs]

After he split, he split apart one of the guys with one of his swords moves. Schwartz Swordsman is a special kind of swordsman. I modeled it loosely off of, like, Mihawk from One Piece. So he could, like, cut through the air and basically, like, his the energy of his body, which in this game we call stamina, can... Kind of comes together and forms blades, and he's able to, like, cut with blades through the air and different cool techniques like that.

It eviscerated multiple people.

Yes.

It was wonderful.

So then the whole group of passengers weren't sure who they should be more afraid of, the people sticking them up or the guy cutting them all in half.

It was really... It's honestly a miracle there was no friendly fire in that situation because Gage was not really thinking very- [laughs]... Logically on this. I mean, he was just sending blades down the, to the car.

So Gage returns and then what happens?

I don't know. Gage kind of just walked in and was-

Covered in blood, right?

Yeah, I looked like I just literally went to, like-

You can stay or you can go. I don't care

... I got dumped in, like, chum pretty much. Like, it was bad. And I just kinda looked at Clarence as I walked by, 'cause see this little ratty kid with his massive suit of armor. Suit of armor's covered in blood. The kid's just kinda standing there still looking creepy. And I just look at him and say, "You can come or go. I don't really give a crap. I'm going. I'm gonna go kill the rest of them."

And I just go walking right off to the next line. I don't really pay much attention to him at that point.

Okay. And Clarence says, "Stuart, we're going." And so-

So as they enter the next car, this is one of those cars that have, like, the rooms, separate rooms, kind of the first class sections style, and a good chunk of those rooms have been totally blown out, as along with half of, like, the wall on one wall the left wall. And as they enter, they see Griff, who is a prominent NPC and continues to be throughout. And he is... He's wearing a red bandana-

Always shows up

... On his head and neck, and he has long, black hair with some kind of black markings on his face, and his teeth are abnormally sharp. His eyes are golden like a wolf's And he is darting back and forth with just amazing acrobatics. As the other side of him is Alistair, one of the rivals, who is throwing dust at him and naming every move he does. "Crimson Strike. Crimson Cross."

And as he throws the dust, which is pitch black, it explodes and little explosions are happening all over. There's smoke in this room. The ground is has singes everywhere where Alistair has blown up some of this dust. And when Gage sees this, how does he feel?

Well, Gage... So the thing with dust casting is no one really knew Gage was a dust caster. He kinda taught himself. It was an anomaly 'cause swords was the monastery's focus. That was what the training was there for. So it was kinda considered a, you know, kind of an oddity and not something you really go discussing with everyone. So he just kinda kept it to himself. So he doesn't have a lot of conventional training.

So to see this guy manipulating dust this way, and also blowing it up too, which is clearly a variation he's never seen before, I mean, he was he was kind of excited and he wanted to learn, but at the same time, you know, he was blowing up the training. So it was kind of a, you know, catch-22 of a, "You know, maybe next time." But he definitely was intrigued and really realized he had a lot more to learn about dust casting, which really expanded his whole entire journey into it as we went.

Um-

Oh, that's cool. I like that

... 'cause that initial, that initial taste of seeing something more than what he had thought was possible for himself made him realize, "I can do more, so I need to figure this out."

Oh, was that similar for you as a player?

Yeah, it was because I really hadn't... You know, I'd never worked with dust casting as a thing before, and this was also my first real, like, conventional kinda D&D game that I'd really... I'd never really played much before except for, you know, like, Sci-Find. And so-

Yeah

... This was a brand-new field for me, and I had not really thought about the implications. I'd always thought of just being a brawler with swords. So to think of implications of, "Oh, I can, I can do more with this ability if I train and learn it."

So yeah, so you guys see that Griff does, like, a back flip and he lands right next to you guys. And having had one encounter before where you guys talked briefly, he could tell that you guys have done some good work. Also, he has an amazing nose and he could smell [laughs] the blood of the bandits and see them all over you guys. And so he's, he's like, "Okay, gunpowder. Blood, no blood.

I don't know why you're here. This is weird, kid." But yeah. He's like, "Okay, you guys seem to be on the same page," and I think we might have jibber jabbered a little bit there. I don't remember. But we... He's like, "Okay, I'll draw us fire. You guys get to the cargo hold. They're trying to steal something very dangerous." And he jumps back out there, pulls his gun, starts firing on Alistair, who blocks it using his dust as you guys skirt by.

When you enter the cargo hold, you come face to face with a large panther about the size of a cow, and it is snarling right at your faces. What happens next?

Clarence being very default in terms of what he does immediately tries to mind control the cat. Does not go well. [laughs]

Yeah. What happens?

He is blocked. It is nope. [laughs] It's full of nope rope. It's a box full of nope.

And that's not the only time you were blocked during that initial encounter.

No, yeah. And so then what else happened right about the same time?

I had a panic attack because I didn't realize cats could get that big in the real world and had only seen monastery cats and was like, "Jesus, what is that? Thing's huge. Why is it so big?"

Oh my gosh.

Like, I mean Gage was having a bit of a hard time accustoming himself to larger animals. It's not really a thing where he's from.

Yeah. So this was the first time that they were introduced to Matsuo, who is very, like, Pokemaster-esque character, very, like, anime evil villain. " [laughs] What are you doing here? You cannot stop me." You know, Jesse James style. And as all this is happening like you guys try to fight him and he releases a Tauros which is just what he named it, but a big-

It's a bull

... Huge, giant bull monster. And so you guys now have this bull monster, like, bearing down on you, who I gave some, like, Pokemon-esque powers like Earthquake-

Earthquake

... And also this big panther. What happens next?

Clarence decides, "Well, I'm going to help out Gage, who I've decided as my bodyguard, even if he isn't on the same page with me. We'll get there. We'll get there." And so he decides, "I can use my psychic powers to strengthen somebody." And so he lays his hand and tries to strengthen Gage. Only for...

Yeah, so Gage, yeah, creepy kid comes up, tries to touch him again. Tries to... Feels a weird energy. [laughs] And it, you know, no sane grown man would react any differently. I mean, he straight up just blocked it. I mean, natural... This was a natural 20 of get the out of my brain. [laughs] And it was pretty much as successful as it could come. And-

Yeah

... He just kinda threw his hand off and was like, "" and started walking towards the animals 'cause he felt that was safer than the child- [laughs]... That was touching him.

Well, we were so surprised too 'cause we're like, "He's trying to buff you." And you're like, "I don't care. Gage won't take it."

Also, fun fact Gage was not exactly... He was all strength based. There's literally no, like, wisdom base at all in this man.

Yeah.

So the fact that he managed to beat the wisdom or intelligence based character-

Yeah, mine

... It was pretty bad.

It was pretty hilarious too 'cause I think, like, Clarence had at least a plus 2 or 3, maybe a plus 5.

I had like-

And Clarence had, like... Or, and Gage had, like, maybe zero pluses.

Plus 1 I think or something.

Clarence's response was like, "Oh, I'm going to help you." And when that didn't happen, it's like, "Or not." [laughs] Gage does not want to be helped. Okay.

Let it be known that yeah, it just... Anyone would've done it. Don't judge me.

Yeah. [laughs] So moments later a big chunk of the wall is cut out, and enters a man in kind of like a super epic moment. He lands, like, right inside the train, and he's got this massive sword. You know, like a Cloud Strife giant sword. And his hair is, like, dark, and it's, like, so much of it. I kind of imagine it has this sort of fro going on, but it's been, like, tied back, so it's like a fro from the back.

Um-

And Flight of the Valkyries is playing in the background.

It's his, it's his theme music at this point. [laughs]

Yeah. And so this is Juno. He is also a rival, and he is never happy with, like, anybody. And he's like everything is beneath him, and so he's so tired of being here. He's like, "Oh my God, what is taking you so long, Matsuo?"

I'm pretty sure I actually mistook Juno for a woman initially, too, and it made him very angry because Gage addressed him as a she. [laughs] because he came in, and Gage... All he saw was the long, flowing hair-

Yeah

... And so he didn't really know what to do, and he was very... Like, he was, he was the athletic, kinda skinnier. He didn't know. He was in the heat of the battle, and so he said- [laughs]... "What is she doing here?" And Juno took exception to that.

Yeah. I think that might have been the first time you got to taste the side blade.

Yeah, it was. Juno pretty much made me, yeah.

Yeah.

Submissive. [laughs] [laughs]

Yeah, so Juno's, like, starting to attack, and there's this epic battle going on. Juno is an amazing swordsman. And as this is happening, Gage gets this brilliant idea.

Snapshot. Level one Gage, doesn't know anything about dusk casting. Just had this amazing epiphany that he wants to know more. Decides, "I'm gonna save the day," and decides to derail the train, because that's the smart thing. So I look at my DM and say, "I want to cause pillars to rise up from underneath the train and knock it off the tracks."

Mm-hmm.

My DM was kind enough to respond with-

"You can do that."

Fun fact, I was a young D&D player who did not understand that was code for, "Don't do it." [laughs] And I did it anyways.

No, I was actually pretty excited by the idea of it. I just wasn't sure how it was gonna work out. [laughs]

It didn't. Ish.

Eh, actually, I-

It-

... Think it was pretty fun

... It had some victories in it-

Yeah

... But it also got...

So you used all the-

It gave us our ultimate victory, honestly.

Yeah.

But we'll take that.

You used all the stamina you had to, like, make the train... Try to stop the train or derail it. And so the train ended up, like, halting. And all that momentum, forward momentum suddenly is, like, going nowhere, but all the cargo continues to move forward.

That's physics, kids.

Yeah. [laughs] And so most of it hits Gage. As well as Juno was able to stand strong, and nothing really bothered him. And he's, like, cutting up anything that gets too close. And then Matsuo comes flying [laughs] 'cause he wasn't able to stop himself, and he gets caught by Juno. And then moments later, Juno... Or Matsuo's giant panther butt first comes flying into him, and Juno just lets him go.

[laughs] And he just smashed into the far wall right on top of Gage. And somehow through all of this, Clarence managed to avoid it.

I think Stewart was involved. [laughs]

Yeah, I think Stewart, like, kinda blocked a bunch of stuff or something.

Yeah, I had to.

[laughs] Yeah, as all of this happens Juno hops down and grabs the canister, which is what they were after. This piece of... Well, what they were told was White Horse, which is a very deadly virus, which you guys would have heard about in the intro, so I don't have to go over that again.

Nope.

Which is the White Horse virus. And the reason that Griff was actually picked to be one of the people bringing it along is 'cause Griff is immune to White Horse 'cause he's a werewolf. One of their special benefits. So as this all happens-

Never heard that. [laughs] [laughs]

Yeah. So, uh-

We paid attention to the lore sessions. [laughs]

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, as that happens, Juno grabs it, and then comes flying up comes Alistair. And Juno grabs Matsuo, who for the first time uses his ability to shrink both of his monsters into the size of marbles, and he puts them in his pocket, and they fly off. There was probably some sort of witty banter, 'cause there always is. And Griff comes running and jumps in, and everyone's shooting at them and trying to stop them, but they just couldn't at that point.

And so yeah, Griff was like, "Wow, you guys actually did pretty well handling, you know, agents, literally generals of the Red Earth Army. Like, when you get back to town, I think I have a job for you." And that is where our story begins.

So in conclusion, Griff is not very good at talent scouting. [laughs] [laughs]

Yeah.

In conclusion, all the other good people died, and he definitely was just scraping the bottom of the barrel, going on trains like, "The next person that stops a train robbery are my heroes." [laughs]

Kinda like Shazam. It's like- [laughs]... "Well, fine, kid. You're it."

"Listen, there's nobody else. Say my name." [laughs] "Griff, you're now my hero." [laughs]

And then I forget his name.

Um-

Yeah, and then you forgot his name, so your powers don't work anymore. [upbeat music] So I wanna say thank you, players, for listening to this episode zero, and I really hope that you'll enjoy the story as we continue in this crazy world. We've got a special free gift for you at rpgempire.com. Check it out. And if you want even more fun and adventure in your life, make sure you check out our exclusive membership site at therpgempire.

com/membership. There, you'll find incredible resources for your RPG journey, including new Monster of the Week mysteries each month, a Q&A session, and exclusive opportunities to participate in one-shot sessions with us and other unique events. So check it out. This episode is a part of The RPG Empire, where you can get all of your RPG content. And it was edited by Ryan Passow.

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