Dust World RPG Neon City: Episode 1 Neon City Gladiators

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 quick start 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 Dustworld 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. Hello, I'm Paul Parnell, the DM of Dustworld Neon City, an actual play podcast where we use a game, Dustworld RPG, Powered by the Apocalypse, to tell an awesome narrative story. Roll the intro. [upbeat music] Welcome to Neon City. It's crazy here. I'm telling you what. We got the smog's gonna choke you out, hover cars flying at 100 miles an hour.

We got radioactive light of the spires cooking your brains. We got the cutters, the slicers, the mechs, and look at this guy. We got the Psychomancer Clarence Wells. He's a pit fighter amnesiac with the power to crush you with his single thought. We got over here Dr. Andrew Miller, the philanthropist doctor who's gonna help you out. You just come to his door with your scraped knee, he gets you sorted, but secretly he's got inside of him a parasite that wants to eat you.

And over here we got his right-hand man, Silent Monday. Dude don't talk, but he's got a LCD suit that pops up his thoughts with emojis and text, and he's got a sword that can cut through just about anything. And if that sounds like your cup of tea, well then you in the right place. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode of Dustworld Neon City. Hey, everyone, it's Paul Parnell, the DM of Dustworld.

We are super excited to be starting season two of Dustworld. I'm gonna give you a quick breakdown of what we're playing, how we're playing it, and sort of the world, and then I'm gonna introduce the new cast, and we're gonna go from there. So first off, we are playing the Dustworld Powered by the Apocalypse game that we've been developing. If you're interested to know more, you can find a link in the description.

There's a quick starter guide out now, and you can play it at home. Powered by the Apocalypse is a more narrative-focused game, so it's less about rolling hundreds of dice all the time and more about how your character can do certain things within the story. So it's like if your character can fly, then they can just fly. Like you don't have to roll dice to fly. They're just flying.

So there's a lot of things about that make it a lot easier and simpler to use than, you know, our old game that we were using which was a home-brewed version of sort of 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons. So that's kind of the basics. Our old game was a point-buy game, so, you know, characters were really broad in what they could be. Essentially it was all based around race, which in this game we call genetic heritage, and they could just kinda pick whatever powers and hodgepodge it.

I still kept some of that in this design, but Powered by the Apocalypse, one of the things it lends itself to is creating archetypes. So we created an archetype around different sort of ideas, and each one is put into a playbook. So a playbook is basically a worksheet that has everything you need to know about your character to start with, and then as you level up, you can add moves from other playbooks, or we have like a whole list of other stuff in the book you can also incorporate.

So without further ado, I'd like to introduce the cast. First up we've got Blaise.

Hello. I exist. I play Clarence again. You cannot escape me. [laughs]

He's, he's back with a vengeance. What [laughs] What is your playbook?

Mastermind, I believe.

Yeah. [laughs]

Mastermind. [laughs]

Yeah, mastermind. And so give me just kind of a few ideas of what a mastermind sort of incorporates.

A mastermind is basically your go-to if you want to play a psychic which you can do in this game. So you can have telekinesis telepathy, anything that, you know, Jean Grey or Professor X could do, you could do that. And you can do it well or poorly, depending on your rolls. [laughs]

Awesome.

You've seen a little bit of this template in the previous Dust world with Clarence, where it was just a hodgepodge of every psychic move I could throw onto him. [laughs] And you'll still see that, but a little bit more refined and a little bit more sensical.

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah, so a few things that make up a playbook. So he listed off a couple of the moves that they get. What's cool with the mastermind is they also have an inner darkness, and essentially whenever these particular strong emotions come up, if they don't, like, go with it, they have to resist it, and if they resist it and fail, there's a consequence that sort of adds interest into the game.

And then also, as I said before, there's genetic heritages, which are the same as the other game, which is human, mutant, warbred are the main three, and then, you know, there's still a few little offshoots that either you can pick out of the book or you know, some character sheet playbooks have it. And then the characters have a brand which is where they're from, a background which informs kind of what their character will play like and gives them a little bit of a bonus, and a drive, which helps them kind of make role-playing decisions, and if they do whatever their drive is, so Clarence's get someone to trust you, then they gain experience points from that.

So super cool. Next, I'd like to introduce Frank.

Hey there. I am Frank, and I will be playing the sword monk, a class whose special ability is to draw the energies of the world within them through meditation, and then the enemies of the monk will feel this energy as it is channeled through the edge of their blade. [laughs]

Awesome. Give me a couple, a couple ideas of what your character could do.

Well, to start with one of the more interesting moves is the bulletproof monk, where so long as my character has sword ki, they will have amusing, amazing reflexes, dodging bullets that they can see coming, and any you get a bonus for surprise at attacks.

Awesome.

And the steel skin ability, which allows you to charge your skin with sword ki to strengthen it. Just from simply having sword ki, you get plus one armor, and you can spend sword ki one-to-one to add additional armor for a scene.

Cool. And then something else that's really cool, so besides meditate, which is one of their main sort of things, the sword monk also gets to create a chosen blade which can take a lot of different forms, but, like, short form, or short sword, a long katana, long sword, daggers, and then there's all these cool tags that you can add to it, like... So Frank's, for instance, can you just describe your sword not, like, the shifting ability, just kind of the main stuff, the katana?

All right. I for the katana mine's kind of can change different forms there. It has the vibroblade mono-edged, and the dancing, which give Clarence an additional harm- armor piercing. This grants him the high tech tag and flying, essentially. It can kind of float around and do his, what he needs to do with it.

Awesome. So next up we're gonna introduce Tanner.

Hello. I'm Tanner. [laughs] [laughs] I was waiting for you to go. Sorry, I was waiting for you to go ahead. I'm trying to be polite here.

No, you're doing great. Who are you playing, Tanner?

I am playing Andrew "Doc" Miller, and the Doc is in quotation marks, but even though that's his nickname, he is actually a doctor. And Doc is the playbook called the grave doctor sure enough, and it is either a, like, a scientist, mad or otherwise, or a doctor who has a strange parasite that helps them in combat situations. So do you want me to-

Well, not just combat.

Well, and also, it has a number of features that are useful in and outside of combat, so it's, it's a very versatile kind of playbook.

Yeah. Awesome. So like you were saying, he has creature features. Kind of his main playbook features is that the parasite gets different abilities, and to start with you can pick some of them. You also can pick sort of tags to describe your parasite. So what tags did you end up picking?

His partner, which you will be meeting very soon has an extra head. Like it's kind of like a face that can appear on Doc's body, and it also has misplaced eyes. So the initial thought was, like, kind of a Quato kind of guy, like, from Total Recall- [laughs]... But it kind of, it's kind of, it's kind of moved beyond that. But the creature feature-

Nice reference. I like it.

Oh, right. [laughs] so Doc has a number of abilities that he can use that his parasite can use. He can release some of the parasite into the environment, and it gives him the ability to search for things better, and he can also, he also has his healing abilities are increased with his parasite. He has a, an ability called fix you up, which means he can reattach people's limbs, You know, that may or may not come in handy, and there are other secret ones that we will be learning about very soon.

Awesome. Well, we'll definitely have to cut off limbs, I guess, right? Um-

Yeah, hey, you know, it happens.

Yeah. So that's really cool. So that's just the three of our eight playbooks that are a part of the game but we're gonna probably have some guest stars come in and out from the other podcasts that we do, like Strangers in the Pines, to give you a sample of some of these other playbooks. But for now, we're gonna tell you an awesome story set in a particular city. This- So essentially, we're playing in a crazy massive cyberpunk city.

Imagine Coruscant, you know, in Star Wars. Just like the city is so massive, it's hard to describe how massive it is. In fact, it's that massiveness that is the reason that it survived the apocalypse. The city was so big and the buildings were so tall that when those shock waves came, there was enough buildings between the center of that city and the outside of that city that, like, a bunch of those buildings just blocked that shock wave and became just this massive rubble wall.

And so around this whole city which is essentially like the size of a state, there's this massive wall that's the height of a mountain that's made up of crumbled buildings, and all of this sand and dust and debris has kind of stacked on it and sort of hidden the city from view from the ground, and also made it really difficult for, you know, just random dust world residents and stuff to make their way in.

Like, you have to climb over essentially this crazy treacherous mountain range just to get into the city. But the city is super alive. It's continued to grow their technology, their- they kind of went on almost like nothing has ever happened. Like, they know what happened on the outside, but for them, it was more of like a blip than, you know, the end of the world. And so, you know, the city's continued to evolve, like the cybernetics, the technology, the hover cars, like all of this stuff has just continued to build for good and for bad.

Because of that, the city has also continued to build into sort of a... Actually, I don't know the word for it, but where, like, a lot of the government is run by corporations. These conglomerations, these corporations, they run a lot of the cities. And so you still have, you know, a form of government but kind of behind the scenes, the corporations more or less can move that government how they want.

And then on top of that, there are mysteries and conspiracies and all of that wrapped into the city. But the game itself is gonna take place in one small sector. Sector 14 is where our players are gonna call home, and that sector is called Neon City. So right now we're going to talk about the corporations a little bit. So I have three corporations that you guys would know about.

Well, there are three, like, sort of main corporations/factions, and they tie in a lot to kind of everything that's going on in this particular sector. The two that I've sort of started working on already is Klein Tech, and we know that they create medical supplies and basically robotics, but for, you know, anything from military, industrial, to medical. Those robotics, like one of their biggest sellers is peacekeeping drones that they use to police the city.

There's also Cervello Corp, which is a corporation that deals mainly in genetic engineered soldiers, which are used for all sorts of different things. Because this show's kind of more PG-13 we won't be spending much time in brothels, but you can imagine in this kind of world, you know, that sort of thing would happen. They would be, you know, enhanced strength workers or soldiers or entourage.

They genetically engineer psychic powers and different mutations and sort of the whole gamut. But there's room for one more corporation, and I haven't worked on it at all. And so I thought this would be a good time to bring in my players, and why don't we think about what is this last corporation gonna be, and how are they gonna affect the dynamics of Neon City?

Well, there should probably be maybe it could be rather, a loan shark place because we're all in debt.

Oh, yeah, and that's what makes the city go around.

So like a bank sort of corporation?

But maybe you can pay them off. You can pay in cash, or they subcontract out favors.

Hmm.

So if you do a favor the person asking for the favor pays the bank, like, a percentage, and then you get some of your debt knocked off. So they would kind of maybe be a middleman-

Nice

... Between some of the more nefarious elements of the city.

And they're all Mr. Johnsons.

What if we call it something like The Guild?

I mean, The Guild sounds pretty obvious. [laughs]

It does. [laughs] In a good way. Yeah, in a, in a, like, faceless cyberpunk corporation kind of way.

And then, like, the people that work for them, they can call them the Gilded, which is also when you, like, put in gold. And so you could have like a golden G kind of branded on you that stays until you've paid your debt.

Oh, yeah. That's awesome. [laughs]

You can pay your debt in a variety of ways, including giving up body parts or even your dreams or even your personality and identity.

Definitely all of those are true, yes. [laughs]

Hey, maybe, you know, you have these grandparents, maybe you're, they're just not your grandparents anymore, but hey. [laughs]

And actually, that's super interesting, 'cause maybe, you know, some of you guys' issues is, like, you've sold memories and you're trying to get them back, you know? Like-

Hmm

... That opens so many cool ideas.

You can't put a price on nostalgia. Oh wait, you can. [laughs]

All hail the New Edge Financial Corp.

That's right. That's right. You're gonna sell my memory of making cookies with my grandparents. [laughs]

Oh, God, the nostalgia.

Yeah. I think that the more impactful a memory, like within your forming of your personality, the more they pay you for it. That's amazing. That's really cool.

Can I make a suggestion not to infringe-

Yeah

... On not to infringe on a video game of the same genre, but maybe, like, the memories are so that they can sell them to other people to, like-

... Play them on virtual reality.

Heck yeah.

Again, not to not to infringe on a recent video game. [laughs]

Certain franchise. [laughs]

On a, on a, on a certain franchise which shall not be named. [laughs]

Yeah. It has many entries-

Right there

... And you get to wear white, yes. I actually don't, I mean, I assume I know what you're talking about.

Assassin's Creed. [laughs]

Oh, okay. Is that, is that something that they do? I didn't even know that. Awesome. Yeah, so definitely there are dream banks where people go in and, you know, they get hooked up to machines. There's sort of like every level. Like the aristocrats go in and it's super nice and, like, incredibly, like, amazing and realistic to the lowest level where you're, you know, having to jack in with, like, implants and sedatives, and it's more like that scene in Inception where they, like, go down and find this guy and there, all these people are on beds, and you're like, "What the hell is happening in here?"

Oh, yeah, they don't really even anesthetize you when you're on the lower levels. They just slam the plug- [laughs]... Socket into your head.

They just hold-

It's like, "Okay, we're gonna shave you."

Hold you down.!

Oh, no.

Oh, God. [laughs] That's awesome. I really like The Guild. That, I had no, nothing like it, so amazing. Clientek, let's talk a little bit about these other two, and I want you guys' sort of ideas and inspiration as well. So Clientek, we know that they, you know, create robots, right? They create different kind of robots drones, synthetic automatons, all that kind of thing. What are your guys' ideas?

What more can we put in there?

Nobody has ever met the CEO face to face. He has always gone for a recording. People are not completely sure it's being run by a human. [laughs]

So there's, so there's conspiracies.

Hmm, that's good.

I kind of picture them as kind of like a mad science wing, basically. You know, all the amoral experiments and all that besides just the robotics for things like medicine and all that. Like mutant experimentation.

Mm-hmm.

So maybe they have a wing, so they have, like, a human experimentation.

One set aside for mutants to kind of, like, what's the advantage of this mutant versus a human kind of thing. Genetics.

Well, Cervello Corp is the genetic-

Oh, okay. Okay

... Genetic engineering corporation.

Then not so much that.

But they probably have human cyborg sort of stuff, right?

Yeah. So a lot of, like, wetware and all that.

You could do testing for them.

Yeah? Oh, that's cool.

Drug tests and stuff?

Well, it's, it's like you have people who a lot of people are, I would assume, in debt-

Yep, mm-hmm

... In the city. And so they're like, "Hey, sweet human subjects," they won't, you know... That you have to probably sign a massive non-disclosure agreement, but they're like, "All right, let's let's noodle around." [laughs]

Awesome. I love it. Okay, and then the last one is Cervello Corporation, and they are the genetic engineering corporation. Their CEO, his name is Giovanni Cervello XVII, so his family has, you know, built and run this corporation for several generations. They deal in kind of all sort of genetic engineered war bread kind of creations. You know, so you know, you'll have espers, you'll have mutants.

Like, maybe you need somebody who's extra strong and has steel-like skin, like they can make them for you or whatever. What are your thoughts? Like, what do you think would be cool to add or think about?

Hmm. There's the obvious super soldier program, but I'm also... Have any of you guys seen, like, Batman Beyond?

Yeah, I love that show.

You remember-

Yeah, uh-huh

... The splicers thing, like for normal humans?

Is that the one where they, uh-

They inject animal-

Yeah, so-

... Like DNA to get their you know, like features and all that? Uh-

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

Okay, so having actually, when I was looking through the cyberpunk, like, lingo, there was a mention of that. They called them exotics.

Oh, I like that.

Hmm.

That's a good name.

Um-

I also think, well, this would be a little bit more of a esoteric reference, but we could call them Moros.

Oh, I l-

Ooh.

I... Yeah.

Oh.

Yeah.

That's great too.

Yeah.

So that could be like street slang.

Yeah.

Okay, so Cervello Corp has, like, consumer-based products too, then, and like-

A cosmetic wing

... Like, at home cosmetic gene splicers. They probably have something, like instead of makeup, you could just put this on and it, like, changes your DNA so that your face looks younger. [laughs]

It's perfectly safe.

Gene therapy. [laughs]

Yeah. What is that called?

Gene therapy.

Yeah, so, like cosmetic gene therapy.

That sounds legit to me.

There could also be a wing for, like, say, people who, like, need to work at night. Like, they say they need night vision. Uh-

Yeah

... Little augments like that, bio augments for that

Yep. Augments. Yeah, this is really cool. Any-

Or maybe like bio or genetics that will, say, improve your concentration for longer much longer for people that are, like, up late at night and all that.

Yeah. I think augs are good. Um-

We're off to see the wizard, the wizard of aug. [laughs] [laughs]

Okay, so a couple of other interesting things about Neon City. So the reason Neon City in particular is important and where you guys are set is because of something called the Spire. The Spire is a massive city. Think Angel Alita. There's this city hovering above sort of the lower city, and this is where all of the richest of the rich live. It's, it's, like, essentially a whole small city up there.

There's, you know... Like, people that live in the city, they live in a dark city. Like, it's dark here most of the time because you're so far down, you know, below where sun [laughs] can reach, that it's essentially coming through scaffolding almost. And so unless you live on the very top of these buildings, you know, there's parks and stuff up there on, like, the upper levels, but if you live in the Spire, there's trees.

Like, there's... And so because of that, because there's so much greenery and life there, they actually call it the Emerald City. Other names that people call it, sort of derogatory, is, like, the Faded Heaven, the Chromatic Heaven Spire which is where Neon City gets its name because the lower half of the floating city, the Spires, kind of comes down to a point and has, like, these multicolored rings that are kind of floating around it, and they keep it afloat.

They're part of its anti-gravity device. And so that kind of constantly casts this neon light on the city, like this rainbow-colored neon light. So morning, noon, or night, if you live underneath that thing, you're getting a neon sunburn. [laughs]

A healthy glow. [laughs]

A healthy glow, exactly. Awesome. I think that's kind of all the points we need to start telling our story. What do you guys think?

Sounds good.

Let's do this.

Yeah.

So a few-

Andiamo

... A couple important places in the city that you guys will interact with. There is a... These are the districts. There's The Fall, which is essentially just a massive hole. It goes down, you know, several miles, and within it, there are gangs. There's hostile technology. There's mines and farms and generators. There's all sorts of stuff that goes on down here. Think if you've ever seen the 1313 Star Wars like, little trailer that they made for that, what would've been the most amazing game.

Kinda like that, you know? It's this huge hole. There's hovercrafts going up and down all the time. Poor people ride in what looks like a subway car mounted on its side that is lowered and raised on tracks. There is Chem Town, which is where the hospital is. There are markets there. This town is mainly run by Kleintech, and so their drones are even heavier in this town. This is where their factories are and different things like that.

There's also a lot of really good builders in Chem Town. Then there's The Derelict, which is kind of like a futuristic ghetto. Like, the mutants have been sort of forced to live here. It's ruled by a gang that you guys would all know about called the Purple Dragons. They sort of, in quotes, "give them protection," but really, they kind of keep them there and sort of use them for their own means.

And then the last place is called Powder Town. And this place is where a lot of the drugs are made. There's factories there. There's technology. There's... A lot of the people are addicted to things there, but you also go there for your information gathering and different kind of, like, forgeries and things like that. You guys ready?

Let's do it.

Mm-hmm.

Ready when you are.

Okay. We move the camera in on this massive line of skyscrapers as far as the eye can see, and as we come in closer and closer until we're zooming past hovering cars and flying semis, we're moving down, further and further and further until we find ourselves coming to a massive hole, just the biggest hole you can imagine. It's a mile wide. It's just freaking huge, insanely huge, and it's so deep.

You see all of these hovercraft and semis moving down into this hole, and the camera follows them down, and it seems to lock onto one particular small, sleek, really nice-looking limousine just hovering, flying right down into this hole called The Fall. It's a place of desolation and interesting ideas, mines and farms, and also sort of nefarious crimes and hidden gambling rings.

And as this limousine comes down to a very deep level, it pulls into a port, and out steps a finely dressed, to the nines Miller. [echo] Hello, players. It's Paul Parnell, the creative director of the RPG Empire and the keeper of Dust World RPG, as well as I play Lucas in Strangers in the Pines. I'm just here to let you know that we have just released a free one-page RPG called The Christmas Special.

It's a game about playing Christmas movies, essentially. So if you love Christmas movies, you love the Grinch, you don't love Christmas, you can blast it. It's kind of up to you and the keeper, whoever's running the game, the DM. So it's really simple. You print it out, you and your friends, and you can create mayhem for Christmas, [laughs] or you can save it. It's up to you. But we just released it, so if you're interested in getting that, just head on over to our website and click the download link.

So that's all for now. I hope you are enjoying the show, and we'll get on with it. So back to the show. Play on.

Bye. [electronic sounds]

Describe what you look like, Miller. Finely dressed.

Where exactly is Miller going to dressed to the nines?

Miller and Monday have been tasked with infiltrating a gambling ring, and the main thing they do in this gambling ring-

... Is gladiator fighting. Because neither of you... Well, I don't know. Monday, would you try to become a gladiator?

Yeah.

I'm imagining that Miller is... So maybe Miller is, like, your manager.

The handler, yeah.

Okay. Love it. Perfect. So you're coming out, and you're coming to this level where there is essentially, like, an arena-sized space that you're walking down towards. You can... As you get closer, you start to hear the sound of the roar of an audience. [crowd cheering] And what is Miller dressed as? What does he look like?

So Miller is dressed up in what he would perceive to be, like, the kinda outfit that would fit in. He's got, like, a crisp white shirt blue jeans, a bolo tie, and a... Like, a cowboy hat. [laughs] [laughs] So he's going, he's going for the, like-

Oil baron [laughs]

... Oil rich and... Yeah, oil baron kinda look. And he kinda-

Love it

... Has the accent that fits in with it. And he-

Like you have a Dimmadome situation. [laughs]

What is his... Just also describe what does Miller look like?

So Miller is an older guy. I wanna say he's, like, in his 50s. He's bald with a mustache, but he tends to put people at ease when he is in his actual job as a, well, medic of sorts. He tends to put people at ease, so just kind of a... Yeah, just kind of like a older guy.

Nice. Love it. Okay, and on the other side of the car, we have Silent Monday getting out, and Silent Monday, you are dressed and prepared to be a gladiator fighter. What does that mean and/or look like for Silent Monday?

For Silent Monday, he has on a very slick looking cybernetic suit with LED displays if you look close enough, and he has on a heavy, heavily patched up duster with the words Silent Monday written in it, kind of looks like a boxer, you know, like robe or something.

Awesome. And this is what Monday wears all the time anyway, right?

Yeah. In this case, though, he's kinda showing off with the LED panels and kinda has, like, extra muscles kinda bulging out. [laughs]

Nice. Um-

And he's kinda, like, flexing and posing and doing these cool you know, like gymnastics and martial arts poses just to kinda show off the camera.

What is his what is his... I guess we could call them skins. What does his current skin look like?

Um-

Like, do you look like a skeleton? Like, what's your, what's Silent Monday's shtick for his gladiator? Like, does he have a new name? Is he you know, is he El Diablo and he looks like a skeleton, or what?

I kinda like the angle that he's he's got, like little sugar skull designs on his face, and he kinda... Yeah, he kind of going for the Hispanic angle there.

Okay. I like it. What would his name be?

I'm gonna mangle this horribly. El Tigre.

El Tigre.

Okay. [laughs]

El Tigre, thank you.

El Tigre? What-

It is El Tigre. [laughs]

Love it. Okay, so you have a sugar skull sort of mask, so it looks like a skull, but has, like, designs on it, like flowers and stuff?

Yeah.

And then are there, like, tiger stripes for your, like-

Uh-

... El Tigre?

Yeah. And then even maybe even little, like, whiskers to go with it.

Nice. I like it. Um-

And he kind of, like, pulses the tiger stripes. They kind of, like, invert and revert on his suit.

Nice. Just to give people, like, shock. [laughs] so do you still wear your-

So he can be seen from a distance

... Your Silent Monday coat, or do you probably leave that behind? I'm imagining you guys are trying to be undercover since you're trying to infiltrate.

I think in this case he has, like, a tiger stripe cape, uh-

Okay

... Kind of around his suit. [laughs]

Love it. Love it.

We're blending in by being as obvious as possible. [laughs]

Got you. Obviously somebody else, hopefully.

And he has a-

Um-

... He has a black sombrero on there just to kinda complete the look.

Oh my gosh.

Cool.

Okay, great. So you're wearing a cape. You look like you're wearing Spandex that's, like, tiger striped. [laughs]

Mm-hmm.

You have a skull and a big sombrero. This is getting amazing. Um-

I'm sorry, I don't see anything unusual about this, Paul. [laughs] [laughs]

This is, like, a strong Tuesday, right?

Yeah.

Wow, love it. Awesome. Okay, so you guys are making your way in, and you come to your first obstacle. There is a man at the door. He's, he's very tall. He's got one robotic eye. One of his eyes' pupils is kind of red, and you imagine it's scanning. The other thing about him is just he's kind of a massive dude and he's one of two guarding this door. How are you getting in?

Is Silent Monday next to Doc in the car?

Yeah, you both got out-

In the limo?

Yeah, we're both... I'm kinda, you're kinda, like, just strutting behind him, and he's kinda, like, posing and, you know, for the camera and doing all the cool light shows-

Okay

... And all that.

So Doc puts his hand on Monday's shoulder and says, "What do you think our plan's gonna be for getting inside?" Hmm. I guess I could try to talk my way in, but I mean, I need you to back me up on this.

Monday's going to kind of... He won't he'll just keep doing his little hype thing, but there's a little emote that pops up on his back that's nodding in agreement. [blip]

All right.

Nice.

So what is the guy... You said there's a guy with a, like, a eyeball scanner thing?

Uh-huh.

All right. He's gonna walk up to him and you know, just... You know what? He's not really gonna talk. He's just gonna kinda walk through like he owns the place. [laughs]

Okay. Uh-

I think it's just, it's just, like, the giving off the impression that, like, "You don't need to stop me. I'm already, I already belong here."

These are not the droids you're looking for.

Yeah. [laughs]

Okay. So I think with that you're gonna be doing a sway somebody. So in this game, instead of a charisma check there are special moves just called the basic moves which everyone has access to, and this one is called sway someone, whenever you're trying to manipulate somebody. Well, specifically, it says, "When you try to get your way using force, a silver tongue, or your appeal say what you want them to [laughs]...

And roll plus looks," looks being our rating or stat. So give me a sway someone and let's see what happens.

So the goal?

To let you in, right?

Yeah, just to, for him to be like, "Oh, yeah, whatever. This guy already, this guy is good to go." 11. Okay.

Nice.

Not bad.

Okay. So-

Excellent.

The first roll of the game.

So as you walk up, he, like, scans you over [electronic scanner] and he scans Silent Monday. He looks at you for a second, and he can, you know, see that Monday's, you know, got this crazy sword, and he's you know, wearing all this tech. He, like, kinda nods and then, like, opens the gate and lets you guys in.

Monday is going to shoot the two guards finger guns as he walks in there, you know, just kinda hyping it up there still. [laughs]

Awesome. I think one of the guys like, leans over to the other guy and he goes, "I think that was El Tigre. I love that guy." [laughs]

Doc just, like, takes off his hat and, like, wipes sweat from his brow and he's like, "Well, I'm sure as heck glad that worked."

I think in Doc's ear he hears, "You're such an idiot."

And he kind of, like... Doc pinches his [laughs]... And ignores the voice.

Yeah, so you guys continue to walk in. And as you enter, you're walking down these hallways. As soon as you came through the door, like on the outsides it's industrial, it's pipes, it's dirty, it's dark. You know, there's drips, there's mold, there's vagrants kind of wandering around, all this sort of hubbub and mess, lots of cars coming in and out. Had a similar feeling as, like, a, as a parking garage.

But when you came in through this door, suddenly you're walking into opulence. Like, there's draperies, there's the red carpet. You know, there's gold, there's... It just feels like you're in a beautiful casino almost. And as you're walking through, you see, like, there's grand playrooms and there is all of this different sort of games that you could play, holo chess and backgammon and just...

I suck at games, so you guys can imagine. [laughs]

Baccarat.

Baccarat. [laughs] Blackjack. The thing with the spinning wheel. [laughs]

Oh, God.

Roulette.

Roulette.

Roulettes. [laughs] [laughs] yeah, so you see all that kind of stuff. You see a bunch... Like, everywhere you look you see these black suit goons. And as you continue to walk there's, you know, a huge sign sort of towards the end and it says... What is the name of this arena? What do you guys think? What's an awesome name for a hidden subterranean arena?

Ooh. The Pit. [laughs]

Love it. Anybody, any other ideas, or we like The Pit?

The Pit's fine.

The Pit's fine.

Cool. So you see The Pit in big neon letters, and it's kind of, like, pulsating, and you head in that direction. Are you guys trying to get Silent Monday actually into a fight? Or what's your, what's your plan? How are you gonna get the info you need?

I would suggest that Silent Monday Doc and Silent Monday have been working together for some time, so it's kind of like Monday is really the one getting Doc in there. And when Silent Monday is doing the fight, Doc is going to be gathering some information. And maybe when Silent Monday is behind the scenes hanging out with the other fighters, he's getting information from them.

So they're covering both angles.

Awesome. I like it. So you kind of, like, come up to one of the security guards, and you're trying to find the Pit Lord. What do you say?

Well, I do believe that my friend here, El Tigre, has a place in tonight's events.

"Oh you're trying to find the Pit Lord?"

Yes. I do believe so.

And he kinda, like, gives you this look of, like, "Where's my tip?"

Oh, and so Doc had some extra... Like, he kind of, like, took some of his savings out so that he could convey this impression of that he has money. [laughs]

Nice.

But it's kind of like he really doesn't have that much money at all, but he hands him what he feels like would be an adequate tip.

Monday may have pitched in his bouncing tips there to help out Miller.

Nice.

Yeah.

So, uh-

So it looks like he's got a big wad of cash.

Awesome. So here is some interesting opportunities for world building. How is money- so money is definitely digital, but how is money exchanged? So, like I'm, I'm thinking you could definitely exchange debt. So, like, you could give somebody a tip by taking on some of their debt. But what does it look like? Like, do, does everyone have a bracelet and they use their bracelet to transfer credits?

Or do they have a ring, or is it a chip in their hand, or is it on their PalmPilot? Is it, you know... Do you use your eye to do a tip? Like, you know, you look at your device and it does a biometric on you to make sure it's you. How is money exchanged?

I think it would have to be, like, a voluntary gesture, and not, like, a nod or wink or something. [laughs] Maybe, like, you snap your fingers.

Okay, s-

Eh, I don't know

... So-

Eh.

You, like, touch somebody's... Like, but what, I guess what initiates the transfer? Like, you're not gonna want, you know, it to be easy, right?

No, mm-mm.

You want it to make sure it's, like, a, an, something you have to-

A volun-

... Purposely do. [laughs].

Yeah.

So, you know, maybe everyone has a bracelet, right? And this bracelet-

Yeah

... It's your account. It connects you, like, it's your phone. It'll have holographic display. It could display on your hand when you open your hand, or on a surface if you're near a surface. And then when you touch it to another device, you can look at your hand and then just send a couple, you know, creds over to them or whatever.

Maybe you, like, swipe it over to them.

Yeah, like-

You said it's a, it's a bracelet. Like, maybe you put your finger on the bracelet, and as you bring it across your wrist, the amount increases.

. To make it really-

I don't know. Eh

... Easy to pay for things?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's designed to be voluntary, yet extremely convenient, so everyone-

Right

... Uses it.

'Cause they want, they want you to spend money, 'cause then they own you more.

Oh, yeah.

Awesome. And then what slang do people have for using this? Like, do they call it a swipe? Like, "Hey, man, you got a swipe?"

This idiot part of my brain keeps saying something like twits or something like that. [laughs] Like a Twitter tip or something. [laughs]

You, give me your tweets.

Twits.

I want all your tweets. [laughs]

Give me your tweets. [laughs] Give me some give me some tweets, man.

Oh, no. Okay, I think we'll go with swipe. [laughs]

I'm going with swipe.

Yeah.

I mean, like I said, my brain is being dumb.

Yeah, so you touch your device to his device, so you're linked, and then you swipe some money into his account. He sees it. He's like, "Oh, yeah, no problem," and he touches his device, and then, like, you hear kind of like a... And then he puts his thumb to his ear, and it uses a vibration in the bracelet to make sound travel up his thumb. And then it also picks up the voice when he talks into it, and you hear him talking.

He's like, "Yeah, we've got " what was your name again?

Austin. Austin Abilene.

We've got Austin Abilene. He's here with, what was your fighter?

El Tigre.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're right, El Tigre. Yeah, he looks like-

I am right

... He looks like a crazy kitty cat with a funny skull.

I think at this, uh-

Yep

... Monday's just gonna do, like, a pose at him. [laughs]

He's really good at posing, though. I like it. Uh-

"Now, El Tigre, please save it for the ring."

"Okay, yep, I'll send him, send him in. Okay, you got it." And then you hear, like, a... And then he's like, "Yeah just head down this hallway, to the right, and then there's a set of employee-only doors. Go through there, and then ask for the pit the pit lord." So you head down the hallways, I imagine, right?

Yeah, we go down the hallway.

Okay. So as you get to the employee-only section, you go past that, and then, you know, you go from opulence and beauty and amazing into essentially just concrete walls. Like, they didn't even bother in here. There's some posters and some, like, sort of future OSHA-type posters and regulations that nobody obviously follows.

Yeah. [laughs]

Also it's a underground casino, so they just kinda put it up to, like, trick people into thinking that they're more legit than they really are. Yeah, and as you walk back, you see a waiting room, and you see, like, a sort of reception area. And somebody sees you, one of the guards, and he, like, kinda waves you, and you come in through another set of doors that you get buzzed into and brought back.

And then there's a really short Danny DeVito-like guy. He's got a massive watch on, like, he's blinged to the max. And he's you know, like, twisting his rings on his finger. He's got a giant fat cigar. And he's like, "Hey, what do you want? You got El Tigre? He's ready to make that cash, a little bit of that cheddar, if you know what I mean?"

"Why, yes, I do know what you mean by the cheddar. You are talking, of course, about money." [laughs] [laughs]

This guy. This guy. [laughs] And he kinda, like, looks around-

Oh, yes

... At the other guys in the room like, giving them the eyeballs, like, "Are you serious?" "Yeah, this guy. [laughs] Okay, well here's the contract." And he slides a tablet. Looks like a piece of glass with, like, a metal sort of edge on it. It's black. You can kinda see through it if you hold it up, but there's text all over it and a spot for a thumb. And he's like, "Sign the contract.

You know, it just says stuff like if you die, it's not our problem. If you-

Yes, yeah, standard stuff

... Kill someone else-

Standard stuff

... You know, and they wanna kill you, it's not our problem. And, uh-

Yeah. Yes, of course

... Yeah, all the standard stuff. And then, you know, we get 15% of the pot, and you get the other 45.

85, actually. I do know my arithmetic.

Oh, you got me.

85.

You got me Oh, okay.

Yeah, this guy.

Okay, and he picks it up and he changes the number to 65.

Doc makes a mental note, like, "I really should read these contracts [laughs] a little bit more carefully." [laughs]

Yeah, Monday's gonna stare at Doc like, "You idiot."

"It's just 5,000 creds and gets you in," and he puts his hand out to tap bracelets like a handshake.

All right, we swipe. [chime]

He gets the money and he's like, "Okay, give him the pass. You just head right through these doors. You know, the first row is for the managers and handlers. Yeah, so we'll, we'll get you in the, in the fight. So cool."

Sounds very good.

"I got, I got stuff to do," and he, like, takes a big whiff of his gross-smelling cigar and puts it out, and [coughs]... He's like, "Oh I'll take you to the seats. Come on. What was your name again? Austin?"

Austin Abilene, at your service.

Okay. And so he brings you out, and as you enter this arena, just imagine, you know, like, a Super Bowl arena, but instead of a football field in the middle, there is this massive dirt ground pit, right? And the sides are made to look like this is the Colosseum, like the Roman Colosseum. So there's all these colonnades, and it's all ancient-looking stone almost. But then, like, once you get up past that row, there's, like, neon signs, giant floating screens that are moving around to make sure people are getting the best view.

There's, you know, the thing in the center that has, like, all these screens around it as well that are just so massive, and it's projecting sound, and there's lights, and when people come out, the whole place just is a laser show. It's crazy. How does Doc react to this laser show craziness?

Doc is, like, really amazed. He had no idea... I mean, he had heard of The Pit, of course, but to actually experience it and to see... Well, it really kinda shows him the wealth disparity of the city 'cause the rest of the Fall is really squalid, but, you know, these people come down here and they get to enjoy you know, luxury.

Right.

So he's kind of really overwhelmed by it all.

Nice. Yeah, that's awesome. So as you come down to the seats, so you have, like, primo seats. These seats are easily, like, probably 10K [laughs] a spot to sit.

Yeah, sure.

And you're bumping elbows with some really elite type people. The guy on your right is wearing a white suit with gold filigree. Immediately you know that guy's... Like, works at the Guild, and he's he's either a Guilded or a Gilder, which is the people that put you into contract, and he's, you know, with a beautiful woman and, like, a few other sort of entourage. One of the entourage has really pale skin and white hair that's cut really trim, and they have a...

They're, they're also in a white suit, but it doesn't have lapels. It's kind of comes up almost like a Asian-style gi. And he's sitting, like, in a way that looks very vigilant. And then on your other side, you recognize immediately a purple dragon tattoo on the neck of this guy. You know he must be, like, one of the kind of wealthier Purple Dragon dudes, which is one of the big gangs in the Derelict.

And, you know, kind of, like, all around you're just seeing all these sort of the who's who's of the worst of the worst [laughs] in... I mean, also just, like, elite people as well. It's like everybody's bumping elbows here. Yeah, he's like, "Okay, here's your seat. There's one extra for you if, you know, you got a lady friend or a guy friend or a robot. I don't know. Whatever, man.

I don't judge, okay? So yeah, I'm gonna go I'm gonna go. Have fun, have fun. Good luck. And I hope we win some cheddar, baby." And he starts walking off.

Doc takes a moment, and, you know, he does... [sighs] "Well, I guess we really lucked out of that one, didn't we, Grin?"

"Yes, I suppose we did. This man over here, I think he's, he's from the place that owns us. I could slip in and, you know, take something of his."

"I don't feel like that's really necessary, and don't you feel like this is a little bit too public of a place to be stealing people's thoughts?"

"I mean, you know, just a little handshake. It doesn't take much. And also, maybe we would find that precious information that you're looking for."

Doc is gonna try to handle it by himself first, so he just pretty much ignores Grin, and he's gonna go over and talk to the Guildsman.

Okay. He's like, "Well, you better put your sunglasses on 'cause I wanna see the fight." [laughs] And then you could feel an eyeball [laughs] starting to slide up your body. It's a really gross sensation, and it's trying to find a spot to see out of. And you feel like unless you give him something to look out of, he's gonna, [laughs] he's gonna end up somewhere weird.

Fine. All right. All right.

Doc puts on these, like, aviator sunglasses, so they're you know, they're really big and wide, [laughs]

So-

... To get for an extra eyeball

... I was imagining, I don't know if you remember these, but, like, in the '80s they used to have these huge, bulky sunglasses that kind of wrap around your whole face, and they're kind of square-ish. But that way he could have, like, his eye sort of on your temple almost and, like, see out of the clear-

Gross, but I like it

... Like, kind of shaded part of the side of it or something. Yeah, so you're gonna walk up to the gilded man?

Yeah.

Okay. Well, while that's happening, we're gonna cut over to Monday. Monday, you're led down into kind of a set of locker rooms and stuff. You see some other fighters. There's a man with a cyborg arm. He's got his shirt off, and you can see he's got a lot of tech. Like, half of his torso is robotic. There's some jacks on his back that look like they would extend somehow. His hand is this massive ball, but the fingers are kind of, like, built on the edge of it, and he just looks formidable.

And you can see, like, on his arm it just says Wrecking Ball. And as you look at him, he [laughs] he looks at you and he sticks his tongue out in a big weird smile, and he's got, like, short blonde spiked hair.

I think Monday is gonna kinda shrug like, "Okay, buddy." And I think Monday's gonna take this moment to kinda find a quiet spot away and meditate.

Okay. It is pretty loud, but I think you find, like, you know, the bathroom or, like, a massage room or something where people can go for a little bit of quiet. Go ahead and roll it up, and let's see what you get.

That is a nine.

So sword monks, in order to use their abilities, they have to have sword ki, and in order to gain sword ki, they have to use a move called meditate. The way all the rolls work in this game, which I didn't cover, is you roll two D6 and you add a rating. Ratings are looks, quick, brains, muscle, instinct, and grit. Each one of these, you know, reflects a different sort of aspect of your character.

And so when you meditate, you roll your instincts, and if you get a 10 plus, you store five sword ki. On a seven to nine, you store three, and on a miss, you lose focus and you get a minus one forward. You'll hear me say this a lot, but plus one or minus one forward means that on your very next roll, you get a minus one or a plus one, depending on what I say. The other thing is all rolls generally will have a success, a mixed success or a success with a cost, and a failure.

And when you fail in this game, you get experience, so it's kind of like a fail forward sort of idea. Awesome. So you've rolled a nine, and because you also have that move called sword ki master Schwartz Sword Ki Master, it allows you to gain extra ki when you meditate. So got your, got your ki going. I think as you do, you start hearing the crowd going crazy, and they're like, you know, they're doing, like, the We Will Rock You stomp, and, like, you know, the, like, doing all these, like, chants.

And it's hard to make out. Do you wanna go closer to see the screen or look out the window into the arena to see what's happening?

Yeah, I think Monday would use this opportunity to see what he's up against here.

Okay. So as you look out this window, you realize you are actually below the crowd level into the wall of the arena. So there, you can see out. You see the arena, the dirt floor. You see some trap doors that probably, like, spikes or tigers come out or something crazy, right? You see the columns and the colonnades and the crowds and the lasers and the lights and everything. And what you hear them chanting really loud over and over is, "Psychomancer.

Psychomancer. Psychomancer." The whole crowd is shouting this. And what you see is a person coming out of the far hallway kind of opposite of you. All the cameras are on him. He's wearing a cloak that is covering his face, and it's kind of rattered tattered and has, like, stitches. It looks like basically every fight he's used the same cloak and he just keeps, like, putting patches back on it.

And you can see for a moment as, like, the wind, simulated wind hits him that there's, like, one of his arms is robotic, like, obviously robotic. And he walks out into the center of this thing. How does he show off? What is his style? How does he get the crowd going?

So you've sent me another champion to break. How horrid for you that your hero is about to be crushed under my feet again.

Yes. Psychomancer, I love you. [laughs]

Don't cheer me. I know that you're going to put some studly Goliath in front of me to squish the ant that I am. However, I think you're in for a surprise. Bad news about all your bets. [laughs] Let the match begin.

And with that, the crowd continues to shout Psychomancer.

Psychomancer. Psychomancer.

Oh my God, I love you, Psychomancer. You're amazing.

Psychomancer.

Woo! Psychomancer.

Psychomancer.

Yeah, destroy him. Psychomancer. [ weapon cocking]

So that's it for this episode of Dust World Neon City. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to check out our mailing list on our website, therpgempire.com, where you can connect with us, get merch, and even download games.