Latest / Story Games / Episode 12: The Librarian's Apprentice pt 1
Transcript
- Maggie Studio: Hello everyone and welcome back to Story Games, a podcast all about your favorite narrative-driven games. My name is Momo and I will be your host. Today I'm bringing you something a little different. I am actually playing a solo journaling game today. Today I will be playing the librarian's apprentice. Solo journaling games are some of my favorite games to play, like of all time, so I'm very excited to be playing this with you all today. Anyway, enough from me rambling, let's get right into the episode. Friends, welcome back to Heart of the Deer Nicorn. My name is Momo, and today I'm bringing you something a little different. So, to preface, some of my favorite games are solo journaling games, and today I want to play one with you. So the format is gonna be a little bit different because I'm the only one here. I'm playing a game by myself, but I genuinely think these games are so magical and fun, and I just want to sit down and play one with you, and you can play along with me, or you can just watch and enjoy. It's entirely up to you. My goal for this little series that I'm doing is just to have some relaxing, cozy gameplay with you. It'll be a bit more low-key, a bit quieter, a bit vibey, but I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. So without further ado, let's get on into the game. Today I want to play The Librarian's Apprentice, which is a very popular solo journaling game and one that I've never actually played before. Which, in my opinion, is a tragedy. So I'm gonna remedy that today. This game is by Daniel Bronson Lowe. And it is published by Almost Bedtime Theater. And it is distributed in part by us. So if you would like to get a copy for yourself, we do have them available on our website. That is heart of the dear nakorn.com. But let's just let's just get into it. Let's just get into it. ⁓ I'm so excited. Okay, cool. So I'm going to read the back of the game first to give you guys a bit of an overview of what this game is and what we can expect. So it says, the Great Library, infinite, ever-shifting, and sometimes dangerous, the library exists in the space between worlds and times. Among the many who call it home are the librarians, and only those who truly understand it may join their ranks. You seek to do so. The path of a librarian's apprentice is a long one. Your current task is designed to test your skills at traversing the library and locating documents. Find the information requested by your librarian before the day is out, and you will have completed one more step on your journey. Good luck. E I this is so up my alley. I love libraries, I love books, I'm a huge bookworm, and the idea of a magical library just already is giving me so many fun ideas. Then there's an area for contents. It says contents, three double-sided trifold brochures of rules and prompts. Character sheet bookmarks, a library card for the Great Library, and instructions for a free digital copy of the game and bonus material. To play, you will need a journaling method, a deck of cards, two six-sided dice, a small token, and a flat surface for building your map. I have already accumulated all of the materials I need. I've got my cards here, I've got two dice, I've got a token I stole from a different game, and of course I've got journaling supplies. One of my favorite things about these kind of games, ⁓ journaling games specifically, is I love to journal. I am a huge journaler, I'm a bullet journaler, I like to make my journals aesthetic and pretty, which isn't mandatory. You can make your journal as ugly as you want, but for me, part of the fun is making my journal very beautiful. It's part of the creative process for me. So I'm very excited to dig in. I've got some pencils here, I've got some pens, I've got a beautiful new journal. Look how pretty she is. Untouched. Which is so exciting. And I'm just gonna open her up. So I love to use a journal that has a table of contents already built in because I do like to use the journal for multiple games, especially if I like don't use up the whole journal. But if your journal does not have a table of contents, you can always just write one in yourself. But to start this game, to christen my journal, I am going to write in the table of contents the librarian's apprentice. And let's see, I believe we're starting on page one. We are starting on page ⁓ one. I'm already having so much fun. Okay, cool. ⁓ what I also like to do is I like to make a title page. So I'm going to write down the librarian's apprentice on this page, and then probably off camera, I will actually draw something and make it beautiful and pretty. And then the next time you see me, I will show you the finished tile page. But I'm gonna do that probably off camera because it usually takes me a while. So will be our title page. And then I flip over to the next page where we will actually start. But before we can start, we should probably read the rules of the game. That might be a little bit helpful. So usually these solo journaling games are in a booklet, but this one's really cool because it's like this little it folds out. It's ⁓ it's very tactile and very cool. So you open the game and it looks like a little, like a document sheet or like a what's it called? Folder? That's the word. And it says, Welcome to the Great Library. For a digital copy of this game and bonus materials, visit almostbedtimetheater.itch.io slash T L A dash extras or email almostbedtimetheater at gmail.com. The sequel, Song of the Scriptworm, plus other games and content can be found via bio.link slash almost bedtime theater. Now I have played Song of the Scriptworm. I did this out of order. They're not, ⁓ what's the word? You don't need to play them in chronological order, so you don't need to play the Librarian's Apprentice first to play Song of the Scriptworm. They are two totally different games set in the same universe. But I loved Song of the Scriptworm, and I would like to maybe do a playthrough of that too, if anyone's interested. But alas, I'm playing the Librarian's Apprentice now, and that's what matters. Something else that's really fun is there's a little library card. I love games with tactile things in them, so this is very exciting to me. But It has a little space for your name, which I'm going to write down right now. My name is Mmm. And it says, Momo is hereby deemed an apprentice librarian of the great library. With all applicable privileges and responsibilities subject to the rules and regulations of the library. ⁓ and there's something from the back, too. Whoop. Okay. This card must be presented when entering the library, borrowing materials, or requesting an audience with the script worm. Library entrances can appear anywhere a sufficient concentration of knowledge has accumulated. And then in red ink, it says. Look for a blue door. That's really fun. I will have to incorporate a blue door into my playthrough in some kind of capacity. You are responsible for all materials borrowed on this card and for your own safety. And then it has a signature, third librarian, and then a signature of bearer, which I will put my little signature right here. Yay! I'm a library, well, not a librarian yet. I'm an apprentice librarian. Not a librarian yet. I do not have that privilege. So then you open the rest of the game, and there are three brochures and some bookmarks. Now, the bookmarks are fun because these are also the character sheets. And I just think that's that's fun. That's really fun. And all of the bookmarks have ⁓ quotes on them. So the first one says a library card is the start of a lifelong adventure from Lillian Jackson Braun, and a library is infinity under a roof. By Gail Carson Levine. And they all have different quotes on them from different people loving libraries, which I think is just very, very fun. And then on the back it says librarian's apprentice, and then it has a space for name, pronouns, a fatigue monitor, resources, skills, your familiars, name and type, and the bonus with the fatigue tracker. So we have this. I'm gonna set that aside. I'm gonna set these aside. And then we have the first brochure. It says The Librarian's Apprentice Volume One. And I'm throwing it, apparently. We have volume one, two, and three. So I'm gonna set these aside for a minute while I look at the rest of this. Because there's more interesting stuff on the inside of this little manila envelope that we've got. It says, per library policy, PA-Numbers and Letters. This mailer may only be used for documents that one fit entirely within the envelope. Envelope. That's the word I was looking for. Two, reside within three dimensions. Three are tangible. And four, obey all laws of thermodynamics known to the sender. And then there's five written in red ink and are not lizards, Kevin. Kevin, I swear to God, if I find a lizard in my envelope, I am going to lose it. ⁓ this okay, I'm already getting ideas. This is so fun. I love how there's like little snippets of personality kind of woven into the rules of this game. Like we have the think about the lizards, the think about the blue door. They're already giving you little nuggets of inspiration you can use for your game. And I just think that's really smart and clever. Okay, then on the inside of the envelope, it says intra-library loan delivery. Note, cross out entire line one received and reuse all lines until all lines are full. ⁓ and then there's like deliver to section, sent by section, ⁓ which can also be used for information. There's let's see. Deliver to KO Feathers section pride from teeth sent by ashes section temporal dentistry. I guess that makes sense if it was pride from teeth, huh? There's deliver to Ardnock section must be caught sent by KO Feathers section pride from teeth. So this is like really interesting and fun. there's also a space here for Kevin. ⁓ god damn it, Kevin. ⁓ this is fun. This is just little flavor that I don't know if it has any actual meaning on like my playthrough of the game, but again, is like stuff I can pull through if I'm ever like like lost or need inspiration. ⁓ I can kind of look at this and be like, okay, well, there's a section where you can pry something from teeth. Maybe I can incorporate that into my game. Fun. Okay, let's go over the rules of this bad boy. Been yapping too much. Okay. There's a space for acknowledgments. Writing and layout by Dan Bronsonlowe, editing by Christina Bronson-Lowe. The Librarian's Apprentice by Dan Bronson-Lowe is released under the CCBY 4.0 license. Thanks go to Renee Pierre Deschey Gilnaus for the game system and for supporting others in creating with it. This work is based on Fire Lights, a product of Fari RPGs, developed and authored by Rene Pierre. Dischetnaus and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Yada yada yada. Truths inspired by Iron Sworn by Sean Tomkin. Resources inspired by Jason Cordova's Labyrinth Move for Dungeon World. Events Table inspired by the Hints and Hijinx system by Panda Games. Concept inspired by the Stygian Library by Emily Allen. The Interstitial That's a word I haven't seen before. Interstitial Library Circulating Collection. Terry Pratchett's L Space and various works from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, including Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Nausuka Valley of the Wind, and Princess Mononoke. Typefaces: Sinzel Decorative by Nathaniel Gama, Open Sands by Steve Madison, Donna Library Hand by Margot Burns, and DCA by Speak the Sky. Okay. I do think it's important to read all this aloud because the creator wanted this in the game for a reason. So there you go. Dedicated to all who serve and support libraries. That's us. Introduction. Infinite, ever-shifting, and sometimes dangerous, the great library exists in the space between worlds and times. Among the many who call it home are the librarians, and only those who seek to understand it may join their ranks. You seek to do so. The path of a librarian's apprentice is a long one. Your current task is designed to test your skills at traversing the library and locating documents. Find the information requested by your librarian before the day is out, and you will have completed one more step on your journey. Good luck. The basics. This is a solo journaling game. The rules will guide you, but you are in control of where the story goes. I'm gonna pause for a second. I think that's very important to put in a solo journaling game. Solo journaling games really kind of are in the hands of the player. There are rules and there are guidelines. But ultimately, the way that I like to play these, I like to use the rules as a loose system to kind of base my story on. But if there's ever a bend or something that doesn't make sense or something I really want to do, I will bend the rules to kind of facilitate that. Because ultimately it is my story, it is my play experience, and I don't need to listen to anyone's rules if I don't want to. And I know that sounds silly for a game where you're playing by rules, but Ultimately, the goal for me when playing a story game or a ⁓ solo journaling game is to tell a cool story and to have fun while doing it. So I'm gonna make sure I do that. Okay, back to the rules. To play this game, you will need a journaling method, a flat surface to build your map on, a standard deck of cards without the jokers shuffled, two six-sided dice, and a small token. I'm gonna remove the jokers real quick because I don't think I did that. And first I need to find the jokers wherever they may be. Jokers removed. And I'll set those to the side. Performing an action. Actions guide your progress through the library and reveal the outcomes of your activities. To perform any action, draw two cards from your deck, roll and sum your 2d6, add the applicable skill bonus and any other modifiers to your roll to get your score. Compare the score to the value of each card. Aces are worth one, face cards are worth 11. Then interpret the result. If the score is higher than both cards, that equals light. If the score is higher than one card, that equals shadow. If the score is lower than or equal to both cards, that equals darkness. The effects of these results are covered in the action section and involve using and or discarding the drawn cards. So we will get to that in a minute. Using resources. During your travels, you may discover resources. You can describe them or leave them abstract. You can also spend them at any time. One resource equals plus one to any action roll. Decide before rolling, multiple resources can be used on the same roll. You can use three ⁓ my god, resources is so hard to say. You can use three resources to find a safe place to rest and clear all fatigue. Or you can use five resources to find a document you're seeking. Select a face card from the deck or discard pile and add it to the map as a new area. Journaling your progress. How much you record about your journey and how you record it is up to you. Feel free to write an entire story based on your actions and discoveries, nothing at all or anything in between. This is another important part of solo journaling games, is that you can really tailor it to how much you enjoy writing. I love writing. I love creative writing. I think it's very, very fun. So I end up writing journal fulls of of stuff for my games. I fill journals, I write chapters, I like to weave a story. But if you're not into that and you're more about the mechanical gameplay of the actual game, you don't really have to write anything. You can keep it all in your head. You can even like ⁓ use voice notes. You can like talk into a recorder if you want to have like a record of your game. ⁓ you can really do whatever the heck you want. You can write comics about it. I like to write little Doodles and little illustrations in with my games. You can really do whatever the heck you want, and that's one of the reasons why I love these games so much. Okay, the game. Now we're getting into it. Okay. When you start the game, draw a card and place it face up in front of you. If it's a face card, reshuffle and draw again. Okay, I think we're actually getting into the game now, so I'm gonna clear a space. Ooh, how do I want to do this? I'm gonna put these on the ground. I'll put this in my lap. I'll put these to the side. So from the little knowledge I have about this game, I do know that you build a map as you go. So I think I'm gonna do that over here and leave this area for me to actually journal and draw and stuff. Okay, good plan. So I'm going to shuffle my cards. Okay, and what did the game say? Draw a card and place it face up in front of you. I got a five of clubs. And I did not get a face card, so that is good. That is our card, and that'll be, I think, the start of our map. Place your token on the card to indicate your character is there. This is the librarian's office. As you travel through the library, you will add more cards to your map. Each card is a new area. I added my token to the librarian's office, which is the first part of our map. Eee! The game! Okay. When you add a card to the map, the new card must touch the card representing your current location. If the number on the new card is higher than the one in your current location, place the new card higher. If the number on the new card is lower than one in your current location, place the new card lower. Otherwise, place the new card beside your current location. So we're kind of gonna move around, we're gonna do a bunch of this. I hope I have enough space. Move your token onto the newly added card and use the descriptions, document formats, and events and secrets table in volume two for inspiration about the location and what you find there. For the events and secrets table, roll two d6 and use one value for the column and one value for the row. For all other tables, choose a column, roll two d6, and find the row with the two values rolled. For example, if you roll a two and a five, find a row with dice depicting those values two and five. If you've run out of cards in your deck, shuffle the discard pile, it becomes your deck. Okay. That was a lot. Let me gather my thoughts. So it says use the descriptions, document formats, and events and secrets tables in volume two. So let me look, open volume two real quick. ⁓ yes, okay. Okay, so yes. Depending on our role, there seems to be prompts almost. Yes, there are prompts. In here, so that will help guide what we journal about. Okay, I'm putting that aside for now. It's starting to make sense. Okay. Finding documents. You have been tasked with recovering information from six requested documents in one day. Anytime you add a face card to the map, a document you seek is present there. You can collect the document by moving to the card. You don't need to roll anything to find it. Describe the document and the knowledge you gather from it. Okay, so I guess that is the goal of this game, right? The goal of the game is to find, was it six? Yes, six documents. Okay, I'm starting to think about how I'm gonna set up my journal too now. Okay, so we need a place for six documents and the information we have found in those six documents. And I'm imagining the information will kind of come through whatever it is we're playing about. ⁓ or maybe it'll be totally random. I don't know yet. That's part of the fun. Okay, moving on. Fatigue. Some action outcomes will require you to mark fatigue. When all your fatigue is marked, the day is over, you will have to attempt your task again another time. So I guess that is how you lose the game. Is if you do not collect six documents before your fatigue fills up, you will have to kind of start over from the beginning. Which is fine. Sometimes you don't win solo artists. RPG, but you always win because you're telling a story, and that's the point, if that makes sense. So even if you lose, you still won something. Because you're having fun. That's the point of games, right? Alright, complications. If you discover a complication, roll on the complications table to determine what you've encountered. Use the address a complication table to deal with it. Narratively, this will mean attempting to help, avoid, fix, Flee from, trick, pacify, or otherwise overcome the issue. A librarian's apprentice should only use violence as a last resort. Cool. So this is not a game where you fight things, which are also some of my favorite games. I like having more creative ways to get out of a complication than just like swinging a sword at it, so that's fun. I'm going to read the actions panel. Some outcomes allow you to trade in cards. After you trade in a card, discard it. Club or spade, trade for plus one resource. Heart or diamond, trade in to clear one fatigue, can be saved for later use. Okay. Travel. When you travel to a new location, roll plus navigation. If you get light, add either card to the map, trade in the other, okay? If you get shadow, add either card to the map, discard the other. If you get darkness, add either card to the map, discard the other, and discover a complication at the new location. Okay, it's starting to make sense again. So When you travel, which I assume it kind of happens at the start of your turn, you roll navigation, which is an action, which is when you draw the two cards and then roll the two D6. And then depending on the numbers of those, you can trade in a card, which gives you like a resource, or you can clear fatigue. ⁓ or you discard. Okay, got it, got it, got it, got it. Talking this through out loud is a new experience for me, but I think it's actually really helping me. nail down the rules of the game. Cause sometimes I have to read the rules like over and over again before they really sink in, but I'm kind of catching on to this pretty quickly, so hell yeah. Conduct research. When you search for something useful, roll plus research. This gives you the chance to find resources and clear fatigue. If you get light, trade in both cards. If you get shadow, trade in either card, discard the other. If you get darkness, discard both cards and discover a complication. ⁓ so I guess you can also research On your turn when you're in a location. Yes. And then you would journal about what you found. Yes. Okay. Address a complication. When you address a complication, roll plus lore. Light, add both cards to the complication stack. Okay, I guess we just have a discard pile and then a separate complication stack is how I'm reading that. ⁓ so light, add both cards to the complication stack. Shadow, add either card to the complication stack and discard the other and mark one fatigue. Darkness, discard both cards and mark one fatigue. If a card you add to the stack matches the suit of the card your token is on, it counts as two cards against the complication. Okay, I will try to remember that. Repeat this action until the number of cards in the complication stack is equal to or greater than the complication's difficulty. At that point the complication is addressed and the complication stack is discarded. Okay, that was my that was a question I had that was just answered. Okay. So when you address a complication, you have a little stack of cards that is the complication stack. And when that is equal to or greater than the complications difficulty, which is I'm guessing the sum of the two dice, ⁓ you need to pull that many cards to match that number before the complication is resolved, is how I'm reading that. It'll make more sense when we actually start playing, I'm sure. That's how these games usually go, is like it's all very nebulous and in my brain. And then when I actually start playing and the mechanics take into effect, I'm like, ⁓ okay, that makes sense. So that's also a tip I have. If you're having trouble with any mechanic of the game, my advice is to just start playing. And more often than not, the mechanic will make sense once you start playing. Ask a question. When you want to answer to a yes or no question not covered by the other actions, roll plus two if the answer is likely yes. Plus zero if unlikely, otherwise roll a plus one. Light, the answer is yes and discard both cards. Shadow, the answer is yes, but discard both cards. Darkness, the answer is no and discard both cards. Okay, so that's a mechanic for like if you have like a question and you don't know the answer, it's like, do I find a headless statue in this room? You can roll to kind of determine whether or not you find that. You can also answer that question for yourself. If you want to find a headless statue, you can absolutely find one. But if you want a little bit more randomness to it, you can use that mechanic instead. So now we get into the actual character creation portion of the game, which is very exciting to me. I'm going to grab my handy little journal with my handy little bookmark. To make this process a little seamless, I am going to use the character sheet on the back of this bookmark. However, I might also transfer it. Into my journal. What I like to do is I like to make a little character sheet in my journal and I like to make it pretty, I like to draw on it, I like to actually draw my character as well. I'm a I'm an artist, so I draw a lot. It's one of my favorite things to do. You do not have to do that. ⁓ but that's something I might do also after this session, is I might take the information in this character sheet and transfer it into my journal and then draw my character. If you're not much of an artist, but you still want a physical representation of your character, you can also like print out pictures from the internet. You can use Google, you can like print out if you have like, ⁓ I want my character to look like, I don't know. Like if you want to say, like, ⁓ my, I want my character to look like Anya Taylor Joy, you can find a picture of Anya Taylor Joy, print it out, glue it in your journal. That is totally okay. You can also use like doll makers like Pick Crew, stuff like that. use whatever you want to make your journal cool. The world is your oyster. But all that to say, moving that aside, we're going to use the bookmark and we're going to make our character. Okay, choose a name and pronouns. So some games will give you more direction on names. This game is just like pick a name, which is hard for me because I struggle with names very greatly. So we are going to come up with a name together. I do want this to be very fantasy skewed. ⁓ Very kind of like I'm thinking Lord of the Rings-esque, very Tolkien with a hint of Studio Ghibli in there. So something very whimsical is what I'm thinking for this playthrough. So I need a whimsical name. ⁓ gosh. Ooh, okay. I have an idea. I like botanical names. And wisteria is one of my favorite flowers, plants, trees, shrubs, bushes. What is wisteria? Anyway, that's beside the point. I'm gonna name my librarian's apprentice Wisteria. And maybe she goes by whist for short, because I think whist is actually really cute. For pronouns, I'm gonna use she slash her. We've got our fatigue, which I'm writing this in pen, but I will make sure to mark my fatigue in pencil because that will be erasable. Same with the resources. And for resources, I think on the character sheet, at least for now, I'm just going to use tally marks to show how many resources I have. But I would like maybe a table in my journal to show what exactly those resources are, how I got them, and ⁓ what they do. So I'm going to move on. So now we have our name and pronouns. ⁓ it says you have three skills navigation, research, and lore. Assign a plus two bonus to the skill you are best at, a plus one to the skill you are good at, and a plus zero to the last skill. So what is Wisteria good at? Is she good at navigation, research, or lore? And let me go back to see what each one is, actually. The actions. So navigation is for travel, research is for research, go figure. And lore is to address complications. Hmm. This is a little challenging because I don't know what's going to be most helpful here. So I'm just gonna go by vibes. I'm going to say she has a plus two to lore, a plus one to navigation, and a zero to research. And For flavor, maybe she is really, really good at like folklore. Maybe she's like her specialty is folklore. She's a folklorist. ⁓ and she loves stories. And maybe that's why she wanted to be a librarian in the first place, is so she could get her hands on some really ancient ⁓ mythological folklore books. and that's like her big thing. ⁓ she's not great at research, maybe she's a little scatterbrained, ⁓ and she's decent at navigation. So yeah, that's fun. Okay, moving on, moving on. Your fatigue starts at zero. You can take on four fatigue before you are too tired to continue for the day. It's dangerous to go alone. Select a familiar. It's dangerous to go alone. Cute. ⁓ select a familiar. You can pick a catacoon, a glow mite, or a tumblepuff. Pick the skill it adds plus one to and name it. It can also absorb one fatigue for you, but no longer provides its skill bonus until that fatigue is cleared. Okay, very cool. So Catacoon, glow mite, or tumblepuff. That's a hard one. ⁓ I'm imagining a catacoon is like a mixture between a cat and a raccoon, which could be very fun and very shenanigans. Uh-huh-mm, a glow mite. I'm imagining like a little worm that like emits a glow to it, which is also very fun. And then a tumblepuff. I'm imagining like a sentient dust bunny for a tumblepuff. ⁓ so I think I wanna go with a glow mite. Maybe it's like a flying worm as well. I want to give it wings. It's like a mixture between a lightning bug and a worm. A lightning worm. A glow mite. That makes sense. So I'm going to pick glow mite. I could give myself a plus one to research to make it a bit more even. I could bump up my lore so I'm like hella hella into lore. Or I could give a plus one to navigation. Research is for what? Finding something, finding resources, and to clear fatigue. So maybe I'll give myself plus one to research then. Just to make me a bit more balanced. And then he has fatigue as well, so he can absorb one of my fatigues, which is nice. ⁓ what do we name our glow mite? ⁓ god, another name. Another name. What do we name? A little flying lightning bug worm dude. If I am wisteria, my glow mite is. I kinda wanna give him just like a really basic name, just because I think it'd be kind of funny. Should we just name him Paul? I kinda wanna name him Paul. His name's Paul. That's cute. I like putting in a little bit of mundane into my whimsy because I think it makes the whimsy. More whimsical in comparison. So we have Wisteria and we have Paul. And I imagine Paul, ⁓ I imagine maybe they can communicate telepathically. I think that's pretty fun. So no one else can hear Paul speak, but Wisteria can. And I imagine that Paul, because he gives a plus one to research, is very studious. He is the kind of sh like ⁓ flip side of Wisteria, who is very into folklore and magic and myths. And then we have Paul who is more kind of straight-laced and tries to keep Wisteria on track with her tasks. I think that could be a really fun dynamic. Okay. Truths. Select one truth from each section. So I've read a little bit of this. I think this is where I'm actually gonna begin journaling. ⁓ because I just think it would be fun. I like I want to get into the journaling part. So I'm gonna read these first and then we're going to journal about them. So, truths. Select one truth from each section. There's your background, your community, and your library. For your background, it says, one, you were found at a library entrance as an infant. What trinket was with you that you still keep around your neck? Two, you discovered a way into the library and survived on your own in the stacks for a while, but the library can be dangerous. What did you barely escape during those first few days? And three, You were born and raised in the library. What secret did older library children share with you when you were growing up? So, this is fun. This is a bit of character creation background. It's kind of like helping you discover who your character is. Because there's not a lot to go off with just name, pronouns, and familiar. So this kind of helps you develop your character a little bit, which is something I appreciate. It helps kind of give me a direction to take my character in. And because of that. I'm gonna journal about it. So before I do that, I am going to plan out my journal a little bit because again, I want to make it pretty, I want to make it aesthetic, so I'm gonna do that. So we have page one for our title page, and then I like to save pages two and three for our character sheets. So I'm going to write down character sheet. And then on the opposite page, I'm going to write down character portrait because I want to draw Wisteria and also establishing her background and a bit about her character is going to help me come up with an idea of how I want her to look. So that is helpful. So character sheet, character portrait. Hmm. And then I can just start journaling because there's really not a lot of setup for the journal as far as the game goes. Some journaling games will have you set up an elaborate journal with lots of spaces for stuff. ⁓ But this game, it seems, is pretty bare bones as far as the actual journaling goes. So there is one more section I want to put in here actually. And it doesn't say to do this in the game. This is me adding more work for myself, which is something I actually like to do. But it did say that you need six documents, right, in order to finish the game. So I'm gonna leave two pages for documents, and I can fit three documents on each page. So I'm going to write documents, doc humant, poifict. And then I can begin journaling. It's always a little daunting putting the first permanent marks in your journal. But I'm gonna do it. Okay, so I'm just going to go for it. So the first, I'm gonna do do do do do. I'm going to leave a space. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna leave a space for a title. And I think I kind of know how I want these titles to look. So I'm going to kind of do a that, do a that, because that's vaguely what I want it to look like. And I'm gonna leave it at that. I'm not gonna make it too complicated yet. I like to give titles to my pages. So I know what's in them. That's what a title is for. Good good job. anyway, all that to say, I'm gonna start actually writing down here to give myself enough space. And it's going to say truths, and then the first one is going to say your background. Okay, first permanent marks on the journal. I did it. Okay, no, I'm cool. I'm cool and normal about it, I promise. Okay. So now we pick one. Either we were found at a library entrance as an infant, I discovered a way into the library, or I was born and raised in the library. What makes sense for my character who wants to be a folklorist ⁓ and wants to be a librarian? What trinket was with you that you still keep around your neck? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh! Okay, I'm having an idea. I'm having an idea. Ooh, wait. Okay, okay, okay. What if our character is a changeling? What if she is a changeling? And her fairy parents swapped her out with a child. And then her human mother realized that she was not quite right, not quite her child anymore, and then dropped her off at the library entrance because she couldn't take care of a fairy child. Cool. I like that. I like that background. But does Wisteria know about it? Is the question. Does she know that she's a changeling? Or is that maybe something she discovers along the way? And maybe that's why she's so interested in folklore is because she always knew she was a little bit different and she always resonated with stories of fairies, but just doesn't know why. That's good. I like that. Let's go with that. So I'm going to kind of write all of that down. So I'm gonna go quiet for a bit, but I'll speed through this process. Now, in the background, it also says what trinket was with you that you still keep around your neck. So maybe I've been Thinking as I'm writing this, maybe her fairy mother preserved a seed and put it on a necklace and gave it to her so she'd always have some part of her fairy home with her. So maybe this seed, ⁓ Wisteria has no idea like where it came from or what it is. She knows it's a seed of some kind, but it doesn't look like any seed she's seen before. But it has sentimental value to her because ⁓ she's had it since she was an infant. There we go. Okay, moving on. So now we have your community. And under your community it says, one, there are always two, a librarian and an apprentice. You live with your librarian and rarely have visitors. Why do you suspect your librarian is hiding something from you? That could be good. She could be hiding that the librarian knows that she's a changeling. Okay, keep it out in my brain. Okay, two, you travel throughout the library with your family. That one doesn't quite make sense. The Royal Librarians of a Lost Kingdom, why do they never settle in one place for too long? That one's fun, but again, doesn't quite make sense for our character. Or three, you live in periphery, an enclave at the perimeter of the burned section. The people there try to keep ⁓ my gosh, what word is this? Nocephages? I think that's a made-up thing. Nocephages. From reaching the rest of the library. How can you tell when a nocephage is near? Okay, I'm gonna go with number one. Because I feel like that makes the most sense for our character. So I'm going to write that down. Your community. Okay, so there are always two: a librarian and an apprentice. You live with your librarian and rarely have visitors. Why do you suspect your librarian is hiding something from you? Perfect. So we should name our librarian because I feel like our librarian is probably an important character in this story. What's a good librarian name? Something cool, something fantasy-like, something old but whimsical. Minerva. Yeah, let's go with Minerva. I like Minerva. Okay, so. okay, I'm going to write down a little bit more and then I will tell you what I wrote. Okay, so here's what I have written down. Minerva, a librarian, was the one who found Wisteria at entrance to the library. Wist was found with a note from her human mother explaining her suspicions about Whist being a changeling. Minerva has cared for Wist like she was her own daughter, but has never spoken about the possibility of Wist being a fairy. So that is what Minerva is hiding from Wisteria. Ooh, Minerva and Wisteria, that actually fits really well. Alright, we have one more question, and that is your library. One, the library is a sentient place. A librarian knows how to communicate with it. The library whispered to you once. What did it say? That's so fun. Okay, two. Each section of the library is a separate creature. A librarian is chosen by their section. You've heard tales of a section that went rogue. What happened? Or three, the library is an ecosystem. A librarian helps to keep it in balance. What is your favorite season in the library? Ooh, this one's harder. I like the idea of the library being a sentient place. I also like the idea of it being an ecosystem. Let's go with it being sentient. I think that is more fun. Gonna write down your library. Okay, so the library whispered to hysteria once. What did it say? Maybe this is what sparked her interest in folklore. Maybe the library whispered. Ooh, maybe okay, when she was a kid. Okay, let me cook. Let me cook, let me cook. Okay, I'm gonna write some stuff down and then I will tell you what I wrote. Okay. Okay, here's what I have. When Mysteria was a child playing in the library one day, the library gently encouraged her to read a story about a fairy child who got swapped with a human child. It told her, sometimes stories hold powerful truths, child. And that is what the wi that is what the library whispered to her. But she was I imagine she was too young to quite grasp exactly what that means. But maybe she'll have like a flashback to that memory and it'll make sense in context going forward. Huh. Okay, and then I think that might be it for character creation. So we have a really cool character that's developing. We have Wisteria, who is a changeling but doesn't know it. She's interested in folklore but doesn't know why. She has this this this glow mite named Paul. Who maybe suspects something but doesn't know for sure, but he's trying to kind of put her on the right track. ⁓ this is really fun and exciting. So I actually think this is a decent enough place to stop episode one. I do want this to be kind of like a series, and I've already spent a bit, bit more than an hour ⁓ working on character creation and reading the rules. So I think starting next episode will actually get into the gameplay, and that feels right to me. Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed ⁓ this episode one of the Librarian's Apprentice. Let me know if you like this format and if you'd like to see more of this. I am at least committed to finishing this game because I'm in it now, baby. But yeah, let me know what you think about it. Once again, you can get a copy of the Librarian's Apprentice through our website, heart of the Dear Decorn.com. Also feel free to follow us on all the socials, all the good stuff, yada yada yada. It'll all be in the description box down below. Anyway, thank you for hanging out with me today, and I will see you next time for another episode of The Librarian's Apprentice, where we actually get into exploring, which is so exciting, and I'm so excited. ⁓ it's gonna be so much fun. All right, I'll see you next time. Bye friends. All right, that was episode one of the Librarian's Apprentice. I do hope you had a fun time watching me play this. If you would like a copy of The Librarian's Apprentice for yourself, like I said, you can get one through our website at heart of the dear inacorn.com. I will have the link in the show notes. Also, feel free to follow us on social media. We are heart of the Deer in a corn or dear in a corn on most platforms, and I will also have those linked below. I hope you're looking forward to more of the Librarian's Apprentice, and I'll see you next time.