Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: We are back again for another episode of Algernon's Angels.
So, obviously a lot happened last episode for the Act 2 finale, and we're gonna talk about it before we have our downtime.
So what do we want to start off on? Because obviously it was quite chunky.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: I think you've got the agenda, Nate.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: I do have the agenda.
Let's start off then with that big old talking rat pile.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Big old talking rat pile.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And this is Meg's first time in an Aganon's angel, so.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: Yay. Hello. I made it. Finally. Yay. Put my crochet over there.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So the big old talking rat pile happened.
That was a thing. That was a thing.
Kind of unexpected. A sentient rat swarm demanding the return of the jewel from the crown of House Antelier.
[00:01:08] Speaker C: I mean, I want to know something. I've got questions. Yeah, my question is, right, why on earth is everyone in that city eating mushrooms when there's clearly a plethora of protein right beneath their feet? You know, where's the skewered rats? Where's the rat flambe?
[00:01:30] Speaker B: I think, you know, the slight problem is that anyone who goes down into the sewers doesn't tend to come back.
That's the problem. And now we know why. It's because of the potential ratscua flambe that will eat them.
[00:01:45] Speaker D: Flambeillu. Yeah.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: In this.
[00:01:47] Speaker D: In Elysio, rats flambe you.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: I mean, we all came out alive, and Anglobars all came out alive, but not everyone with us came out alive.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: No, no. Well, that's a really good point as well, so we should come on to that in a moment. All the people. Significant people who died.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Yeah. So this rat pile specifically asked for the jewel that came from the crown of Antalya back. So are we guessing? We're guessing. Lady Valamir.
Lady Valimar.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Sorry, I think we were told.
[00:02:21] Speaker E: Yeah, I think.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Didn't Algernon see it?
[00:02:23] Speaker E: Algernon knew that, I think.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:26] Speaker C: And then Algernon yeeted it.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Yeet. So, just to be clear for listeners, because obviously we take notes on all this stuff, but there's a rich world Dan has built here. So Lady Valinmar is that her name, was a former head of House Antalya who were the ruling family in Alicia till the irons kicked them out during the war, the war between the divine and arcane dragons.
So, yeah, when. When the sort of.
Well, was it before the emergence of the Sanguivar? I think it was. Wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:03:05] Speaker E: Before it went up. Post bubble.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Post bubble. That's it.
So that's her face in the ratswarm. Give it back to me.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: So that was pretty cool. So are we guessing that she is a spirit or is she somewhere still in Alicia that is using arcane magic to.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: To control the rats?
[00:03:33] Speaker A: To control the rats.
[00:03:34] Speaker E: Could be. I assumed that she had sort of become that rat spirit monster.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Her spirit has been scattered amongst the rats, perhaps.
[00:03:44] Speaker E: Yeah. Cause Algernon said something.
I say it as if it's not me saying it. I said something a few sessions ago, which is like the noble houses of Elysia probably wanted to. Even though they were being kicked out, they don't give up easily. They would have cling on to power using whatever twisted arcane things possible.
So now she's.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: A thousand furry phylacteries.
[00:04:13] Speaker E: Some of them would have become the Lodge.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: That was quite beautiful, Meg. A thousand furry phylacteries.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: A thousand furry phylacteries. It's a bit of a tongue twister though.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: But it's beautiful. It's very poetic.
Sorry, go ahead, JC.
[00:04:28] Speaker E: No, I was Aganon was theorizing that some of the nobility sort of became the Lodge reticent in secret. So it's possible that others like became a swarm of living rats.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: One does presuppose the other. Yes, a little bit.
Okay, so that's pretty. That was pretty cool, I've got to say. The sentient rat swarm. I was a bit big fan of a very juicy threat for us as well in that mission.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: The next thing I. The. Well, I guess the next thing on our list is talking about something which we would also like to add that Dan did not expect us to actually do. And we all expected. Surely this is where Dan's aiming for us to go. And he was like, no, is Mecha Tarvarien. Now that we have Tarvarian and a big mech suit.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: You know when you present a D and D party with who are carrying the soul of their dead kind of city mentor and you present them with a massive spirit driven mech suit, what do you expect to happen?
[00:05:40] Speaker E: Yeah. Because I was forming the idea in my mind and then Dan confirmed that it was powered by ghosts in the. In that exact language. So I was like, well, we've got one.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: We've got one that we would prefer to be driving this particular mech suit. Yes. So that was quite satisfying.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think one thing that we are now sort of thinking about is what is that going to mean for the Infrastructure for Alicia. Like, are. How are people going to react? One, because I guess, you know.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Well, she was popular, wasn't she? And she was a popular civic.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: We know now that we've now got Tarian in a big daddy suit.
So.
What? How. You know, how is that? Especially with now quite a lot of factions depleting because they've lost their leaders.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: So let's go through it. Lucrative. Leader of the faith, like the High Priestess, gone. Eaten by rats.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Eaten by rats.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Odalnas. The sprite. The Auron Sprite. Leader of the chain bearers.
Dead.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Dead.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Killed by arcane blue box that turned out to be a bomb that we got for Nephene.
[00:07:05] Speaker D: We?
[00:07:06] Speaker C: Caleb and McNulty.
Not technically dead.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Not technically dead. Just custody.
[00:07:14] Speaker C: Certainly out of the picture. Currently, Umi's in his own Umi's crystal.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Umi's gifty, and Caleb is incapacitated.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: So definitely the Hollow are out of the picture pretty much.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Which sort of makes me think, like, you know, the sort of connection between sort of, you know, Caleb spirit and Tarvarien's spirit. Like, it sort of brings into question the whole nature of the ghost in Alicia. Like, you know, before they were just some spooky threat being kept at bay, but now we've had at least three, like, evidences of sentient or, like, ghosts or ghosts that have retained their sentience. So, you know, you have Caleb, you've got Tevarian, you had that.
Oh, gosh, that. That shield bearer that came after Atta.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Mm. It's really interesting, isn't it? And we've also witnessed ghosts in ghost orbs that look scared as well, rather than angry or hungry. And also in the mausoleum, it makes me think back to how we saw there were just these fairly peaceful looking ghosts drifting around the mausoleum, not trying to feed anyone.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Is it's time to blow a hole through the bubble and let all the ghosts in. So. I just want to be friends.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: I see what happens.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Don't know about that.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: I have to agree with Julia on that.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: I said I know about that. But there's definitely more to it than what the citizens of Elysia have been led to believe. Right.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: I wonder that Tarvaryen is in ghost form, whether or not it's something she might be able to find some light on.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Maybe it's worth asking her then. Yeah.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Anything else on Tevarin or the current status of. Because we've lost some pretty. Like, we've lost, like, two quite big.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Powers in Elysium, massively so I think I feel I can't help but feel as if going into Act 3, things are going to be.
The whole city is going to be tipping into some kind of public disorder state. Like so many big players have suddenly been wiped off. You can imagine people might start to panic. Other the remaining factions might start to grab for power.
So it could be a very chaotic act, this coming one.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: I guess this leads into. Oh, sorry, did you want to.
[00:09:54] Speaker D: Well, we sort of implicitly trust Hovarian, don't we? I guess like the more suspicious side of Erol the player definitely not at her loves ghosts. Goblino last name.
Can't remember my character's last name, but yeah, I mean she could. She could be playing a long game. You never know. Maybe to Ryan.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Really.
Well, shall we put her in a mech suit?
[00:10:23] Speaker A: No.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:25] Speaker D: So. Well, I mean, we know that ghosts are still semi like coherent sentient can.
So you know, it's possible they're able to be duplicitous and vengeful. You never know. I can't imagine. Unless you know. So. Unless the fundamental process of becoming a ghost has twisted to Varian and then also being put into a giant Max.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Well, every campaign.
So Dan is very good at unexpected twists and character turns. But every campaign he puts in at least one NPC who is just adorable. I'm thinking of Aaron Fox in Cormier, which people may or may not be familiar with. Probably someone like Frinker from year one. And this season I'm convinced it's Tarvaryen. Whoa. Whoa.
[00:11:21] Speaker C: I mean, Frinker. Fair play. But not Dribbles the horse.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Oh, oh, sorry. I'm sorry, Meg. Dribbles the horse. Of course. But I mean, he goes without saying.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: He got a statue, not Dan's creation.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. But anyway. And real MVP without fail, whenever Dan does produce a just genuinely adorable npc, the players tend to start assuming they must be secretly evil.
I think we're falling into his trap.
[00:11:53] Speaker D: I'm falling into the trap.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Okay, but just imagine if you're right, how spectacular that will be.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: No one expects the little old lady. No, you just don't.
[00:12:03] Speaker D: To be like a dictator.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: Well, I don't think she's a little old lady anymore, is she?
[00:12:10] Speaker D: No, she's an old lady spirit. Little.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: I mean, if it makes anyone feel better, we probably are going to end up with a lady dictator and Alicia, aren't we? That's my theory.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Speaking of which, Nefine. Yeah, obviously, obviously plowing along to be, you know, the end baddie.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: I Think it just. She just has to be at this point, doesn't she? A great baddie at that. I'm really looking forward to her as the bbeg because. Yeah, I mean, we as players know that she sent that bomb that we recovered from Castle Antelier to Odelmas to blow him up. Our characters don't know that yet. So it'll be interesting to see how the first couple of episodes of Act 3 play out, how we sort of become fully alerted to her wrongness.
[00:13:06] Speaker C: I still think she needs to do something worse. I mean, Odalmarce was a bit of a twat and that blowing him up.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Dan's gonna take care of it.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: I'm convinced he will. She's gonna.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: Babies in the babies.
[00:13:26] Speaker D: Where are they?
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Oh, well, something worse.
[00:13:30] Speaker E: Giving me ideas for my own dm.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Uh oh.
Do not feed the evil dm.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Is this. Is there anything else we want to talk about before we hand the reins back to Dan?
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Anything on the agenda that we haven't covered yet?
[00:13:47] Speaker D: Nobody's got. Nobody else has got trauma yet. There's still.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Can we.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: Can we talk very briefly what you're doing, you slackers? Come on, get on the level.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Can we talk very briefly about our characters and, like, where we feel they're at, you know, socially, psychologically, emotionally?
[00:14:05] Speaker A: I mean, I'm on, like, stress eight. One away from trauma, so.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Great. And Dan has already revealed he is not giving us two down times like he did at the beginning of Act 2. He's not that generous. It's very rude.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Well, we might get a little bit of money out of this, so we might be able to spend a little bit of money to get an extra down time.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: I think all of us are relatively high stress right now. Right.
We all went on a bit of a spending spree. Yeah.
[00:14:33] Speaker D: I don't remember what it's like to be zero stress as Atta, but I feel like. I feel like Atta, like, swallows all the stress and turns it into, like, barminus, so.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Because who still currently has harm at the moment as well.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Oh, gosh.
[00:14:55] Speaker C: Frida. Frieda has.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: But you've always got.
[00:14:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I've just always. Yeah, yeah, I've got. I've got two level one harms. I've got. Oh, eight stress, one trauma. Doing great.
[00:15:12] Speaker D: Gosh.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: I thought more of us would get trauma this finale, but no, no trauma for us. We were all very well behaved. It could happen in the downtime. I do not really at the moment.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: It really could happen.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Happening to you in the Downtime, didn't it?
[00:15:29] Speaker C: It did, yeah.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: I think we're also very cautious about getting it, especially during, like, a raid or a heist or something like that. Because if we do get trauma, it takes you during that, then it kicks us out of the rest of the. Out of the rest.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Wouldn't be the most fun.
Yeah. But I think. Yeah, I think we're all. I think we're all in quite juicy, interesting positions as characters.
I think Frieda, with her trauma and also her sort of repeated attempts to get in with the kindling.
I think it's gonna happen. Third time's the charm.
[00:16:05] Speaker D: You can do it.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: I mean, it just seems to be a bit of a meme now.
I tried it once to get insider knowledge, and now everyone keeps asking me to go back.
[00:16:15] Speaker D: Yeah, well, we won't get. I mean, did we ever know that an assassin was after us until, like, we met them towards the end?
[00:16:24] Speaker A: So oblivious to it.
[00:16:26] Speaker D: All right, so I guess. Are there any consequences now? I don't think. Well, I think Daniel.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Not that we know of, no. But then we've also got Algernon with his secret, possibly sister and his sort of, you know, we need to resolve things between him and Blackthorn. And.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Yeah, here's a mystery to resolve, actually. Just bringing it full circle.
What are Algernon's in. What were Algernon's thoughts with, like, you know, yeeting the crown, like, into the rat pile. Like, what's going on with that?
[00:17:04] Speaker E: When you have, like, a million rats asking you to do something, it's pretty hard to ignore them.
Although I think Algonquin, he'd sort of.
He'd given some sort of significance to the crown of authority. And I think in the moment, seeing the person who had that authority be like, literal vermin, he was like, oh, so that's where authority gets you.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Very interesting.
[00:17:39] Speaker E: Like, part of Algernon's arc is, like, rejecting the things that he was taught as a private schoolboy and as a military officer about, like, nationalism and imperialism and stuff.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: That's very cool.
[00:17:56] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:17:57] Speaker D: Yeah, very interesting.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: That will give us something to chew on as we go into downtown time now. Yeah. So if you are interested in what we're going to do next, you can always hit the subscribe button, hit the like button on this video, and hit that bell so you get notified. Whenever we release episodes like this, we don't have very many episodes left of.
At least for recording for us, anyway. We don't have very many left. I think we'll probably do one more Algernon's Angels after this and that'll be it. Really?
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: So, yeah, like, we're getting into the meat of it now. So definitely press that subscribe button and see where this is going. Because it's getting.
But, yeah. Thank you very much for watching. And, yeah, we will see you in an episode.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Bye. Bye.
[00:18:51] Speaker E: Bye.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: SA.
