Latest / Story Games / Episode 14: The Librarian's Apprentice pt 3
Transcript
- Maggie Studio: Hi friends and welcome back to Story Games, a podcast all about your favorite narrative driven games. My name is Memo and I will be your host. And today I'm bringing you more of the Librarian's Apprentice. I do hope you're enjoying this playthrough. I'm having such a fun time and I'm really loving the story that we're telling together. Without further ado, here is the Librarian's Apprentice episode three. Hello everyone and welcome back to Heart of the Dyrnacorn and welcome back to more of the Librarian's Apprentice. My name is Momo and today I will be continuing my playthrough of the Librarian's Apprentice. This is episode three, I believe, so if you have not gone back and watched episodes one and two, make sure you do that because you will be lost. But the Librarian's Apprentice is a solo role-playing journaling game and I'm really excited to be playing more of it because I'm having so much fun with it. Also, on episode one, I mentioned how I like to draw and I kind of like to create little title pages, and I've done a little bit of that today. So when we open our journal. We can now open to the title page. I'm really happy with how this came out actually. I wanted it to look like a little bookshelf, and I have the librarian's apprentice right here, and then just some like books and other chotch keys in this little shelf down below here. And then you turn the page, and then we have our character sheet. Now this page is blank because I want to draw my character with steeria, but I have not done that part yet. So come back next week and hopefully I will have that part done. But I do have the character sheet written down here. I have a space for her name, her pronouns, the skills we have, a little fatigue counter, her familiar Paul, and his bonuses, his fatigue, and then an area for resources. I wanted to give myself enough space under the resources table to write exactly what the resources, because on the character sheet that they give you, there's just a little like place you can put tally marks. But I thought it'd be fun to kind of really define what these resources are and what they do. And narratively, how they help me in the game. And then we turn the page, and there is this place for the documents, which I also have not done yet. Working on these journals is a slow process, okay? It takes me a long time to make these. But we do have these spaces allocated for the documents. And then we move on, and then we have our actual gameplay journaling portion of the journal, which is here. So last time on The Librarian's Apprentice, we have our Character Wisteria, who is a changeling, and she's trying to become a librarian, and she's looking for six documents. We did find a document last session. We found ⁓ a document that is ⁓ a bunch of information inscripted on the wings of a butterfly. So that's really exciting. We also encountered a complication last session, which was a ⁓ sentient skull who had latched onto the arm of a thief. And then we also met another apprentice librarian and actually helped them find some documents. So now with all of that out of the way, I believe we can just move on to our next location. So in order to go to our next location, I'm going to turn my page and then open up my little trifold. Specifically the descriptions, events, and complications trifold. I'm going to open her up. And in order to go to our next location, I need to take the travel action. So I'm gonna set up my journal first, and then we're going to take the travel action roll on the descriptions table, the same method we did in the last episode. So I'm going to open up my little trifold for volume one to remind myself of the rules of this game because it's been a few days and I forget. So to perform the travel action, we are going to draw two cards from our deck. We've got a king, okay, and a three. So face cards are worth eleven, and threes are worth threes. ⁓ but that's exciting because that means we found another document. But before we do that, let's roll our dice. Five, six, seven, eight, and then I get a plus one to navigation, which is a nine. ⁓ and then if I remember correctly, we get a plus two to our next travel roll because of something that happened in last session. We helped a living suit of armor and he gave us directions. So that's five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Boop, boop, boop. Which is not higher than 11. 11 is equal to 11, which means that we get shadow, unfortunately. Which is fine. Shadow isn't that big of a deal. ⁓ and we were really, really close, but no dice. So I am going to take the king and place it to the side of the queen on the map. And I'm going to move my little guy over there to show that I am now in that room. And then I think we. Discard the other card. Discard the other card. Okay, no complication though, so that's pretty good. And we got the king of spades. That is a spade, yes. King of spades. Okay. And let's roll to see what kind of room we're in. We're going to roll once for a descriptor. Six and a four. Six and a four, which is underwater. That's interesting. An underwater room. How very Legend of Zelda. And then for a feature, let's see what we've got. Six and a three. Taxidermy. Tac underwater taxidermy. That's cool. Tax it. How does it work underwater if it's taxidermy? Well, magic, duh. Alright, and one more for a category. We've got a one and a six. One and a six. Destroyed by the author. What does that mean? Okay, let me cook for a second. Let me figure out how to put those three things together to come up with a compelling room. Because destroyed by the author is giving me. A bit of pause. So let me think on that for a second. ⁓ okay, I've got it. So, ⁓ for destroyed by the author, this room contains books that authors have tried to destroy, like their own works that for whatever reason they've tried to like destroy their own documents or their own books. But instead of being totally destroyed, they find themselves here in this room of this library. So these works are never fully destroyed, even if the author thinks they are, but they somehow manage to find their way into this weird underwater taxidermy room instead. I like that, so I'm gonna write that down in my journal. Okay, so here is what I wrote. I wander into the next room to find steps leading down into a recessed chamber. Water laps at my ankles as I slowly wade into a pool. Miraculously, a shark swims by me. It takes me a moment before I realize that it's actually taxidermied. Enchanted to patrol the halls of this room. As I read the spines of the books lining the shelves, I realize this room is full of books that have been tried and failed to be destroyed by the ones who wrote them. The library hates the destruction of books, so they found their way here instead. Eee! I like that. That's really fun. Okay, so I'm going to make a little note that we have found a document here, and now I'm going to roll on the documents table to find out what document we got. Okay, so we are going to roll once, four and two, which is the form of, and we roll again to roll one and two, which is ⁓ we got a butterfly last time, so I'm gonna re-roll actually. And I can do that because this is my game and I'm playing it how I want, and we already have a butterfly document, and I don't want another butterfly document. Hell yeah. One and four. Coin, the form of a coin. Ooh, interesting. How will that play out? The form of a coin. How can a coin hold information? ⁓ okay, I have an idea. What if the coin fits into the slot of a book and then the coin is what opens the book? So it's kind of like a two parter. It's like the coin and also the book, and the coin fits into the slot, which then lets you read the book. That's what I'm thinking. Okay, cool. Okay, and now we have to roll one more time on the events and secrets table to find out what's going on in this room. Four or one and four. The documents here are mischievous. Interesting. That's fun. Okay, okay, okay, okay. How can a coin be mischievous? And we're also underwater. And ⁓ okay. What if the coin is kind of floating in the water? And because we have these like autonomous taxidermy animals that are kind of swimming around, what if the coin is kind of like distracting the the the taxidermate animals and kind of playing with them? And I kind of have to like swim over and kind of like dive and try to get the coin because the coin is like darting all around all over the place trying to play and Yeah, I think that's fun. I'm gonna write about that, and I'll be back in a second. Okay, I have written down what I'm going to write down, and here is what I wrote. I am taken by this magical room when suddenly a bright gold coin darts past me. I immediately recognize it as one of the documents I need. Well, to be specific, I've recognized it as the payment needed to access one of my documents. I reach out to grab it, my hand moving slowly underwater, and it darts away again. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was mocking me. Then again, in this library, that's probably exactly what it's doing. It bobs and weaves between great big taxidermied fish just out of my reach. Suddenly, a sea turtle floats past me, picks up the coin in its mouth, and floats on by. I'm stunned for only a moment. Then I spend entirely too long trying to pry the coin from the turtle's jaws. Eventually the turtle has had enough of me and spits the coin out. I quickly grab it, triumphant in finding another document. Eee yay! So that's two out of six documents. We still have zero fatigue. I'm feeling very confident that we are going to become librarians at the end of this, and I'm very excited. Alright, so now we can take the travel action again, but first let me set up my journal page. We're going to location number five. Okay, and we're going to take the travel action again. Nine and three. And we're gonna roll six, seven, eight. Eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight. Which is, I believe that is shadow. Six, seven, eight. Yes, so we get shadow again. I'm gonna keep the nine. And we're gonna move that there and move our token to the nine and I'm gonna discard the three. So we've got the nine of diamonds as our fifth location. Okay. And now we can roll on the descriptions page. Our descriptor is three and a six, three and a six, which is glowing. And then our feature is two and six, which is glowing crystals, which we already got that, so I'm gonna roll again. Two and three, which is garden. Ooh, a glowing garden, that's fun. And then for category, we've got one and three, which is cities. Okay, so put that all together. Do do do do do do do. It's kind of funny that the category is cities while we're in a glowing garden. I kinda like the juxtaposition of that. Interesting. Okay, let me think for a second. Ooh, maybe it's kind of like a rooftop garden. Like an inner city rooftop garden, and there's little fireflies that are all over the place that are glowing, but it kind of looks like I've stepped out onto like a garden terrace on top of an apartment building or something. And then the books are all kind of hidden in these like little tiny libraries that are kind of surrounding the garden. Ooh, I kinda like that. Okay, that's fun. I'm gonna write that down. Okay, here's what I have written down. I enter the next room to find myself on top of what looks like a garden nestled on top of an apartment building. Lights glow in the distance as smaller, closer lights float around me. Fireflies lazily bounce to and fro before me. Plants of all kinds fill planter boxes and brightly colored ceramic pots. Little tiny libraries are situated between the plants, containing books about city planning. So that's what I've got. Now we're going to roll on the events and secrets table to find out what's going on in this room. Three and six. Three and six. Welcome to 24-7 Drag Queen Story Hour. ⁓ my god, that's amazing. ⁓ that's fun. Okay. Okay. I'm thinking I'm going to be too distracted by Drag Queen Story Hour to actually find a document, and I'm just gonna sit and watch the show. What is the drag queen or story hour? What is the drag queen reading? What would be the funniest thing for a drag queen? To read the Lorax. I decided. The drag queen is reading the Lorax. It is drag queen story hour, and I sit and I watch the entire thing. And of course, the drag queen is dressed up as the Lorax, but like a drag version of the Lorax. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna write that down. What's a funny drag name? What's a good drag name? What's my drag name that I've always wanted? Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm blanking on every single drag name I've ever come up with. ⁓ Okay, here's one. My name is Momo, which means Peach in Japanese, and I think Peach Bellini would be a really cute drag name. So that is going to be the drag name of this drag artist that we're going to introduce here in this book. Her name is Peach Bellini. Okay, here's what I wrote about our drag queen story hour. The piece is broken by loud music as someone waltz to a small stage I didn't realize was there. Welcome Peach Bellini to the stage. An audience cheers as an elaborately dressed woman saunters up to the stage and sits on a stool. She has a dress made entirely of sequins and orange feathers, ostrich feathers, of course. She clears her throat and pulls out a copy of the lorax, and suddenly the orange color scheme makes a lot of sense. I join the audience and sit transfixed as Peach Bellini reads the Lorax in its entirety. I do not find any documents, but I do have a great time. So that is fun. That's really silly. I love that they put a drag queen story hour in this game because it's something completely out of left field from what I was expecting. But that's very, very fun. So we are now going to go to our next location after not finding a document that time. Location number six, I believe. Five, six, yes. Alright, let's take our travel action again. We've got a Jack and a Queen. Two face cards. This actually hurts a little bit because we can't keep both face cards. We can't keep two documents. So we're gonna have to discard one of these guys, which does hurt just a little bit. ⁓ plus that means we need to score higher than an 11 in order to avoid getting a complication. So let's see. Ooh, and that's not looking good for us. I got a three and a two, which is five, plus one for navigation, which is six, which is not higher than eleven. So we got darkness, unfortunately. So on the plus side, we do get to keep a face card so we can get a document at our next location. But I have to discard the jack, and then we have to roll on the complications table, which is a bit of a bummer. So let's See how that plays out for us. Boop boop boop. Okay, so the first thing we have to do is describe the room that we're in. So let's roll our three times. Five and five, which is primitive for the descriptor. And then for feature, we've got six and six. Wow, five and five, and then six and six. Okay. Workbenches. Okay, and then for category four and five. Plays. That actually kind of makes sense for what I was thinking because I'm thinking primitive workbenches and plays. ⁓ I was thinking like almost a Leonardo da Vinci type kind of primitive in the way that it's like old. Maybe primitive isn't the correct word for that, but that's kind of where my brain is going. But like a almost mad scientist. Type, workbenches all over the place, ⁓ like ⁓ abacuses. That's that's a thing, right? An abacus type thing, like a primitive way of a calculator, something like that, compasses and rulers and stuff like that. And then plays kind of just like feeds into that a little bit. Like it's like old-timey plays. I'm thinking very Shakespearean. That kind of era is what I'm thinking. Yeah. So that is going to be the room, so I'm going to write that down first. Okay, here is what I wrote. As I walk into the next room, I'm greeted by primitive technology sitting on well-used workbenches. I'm in a wooden room, sunlight streaming through gaps in the beams, loose parchment is strewn across the workroom, and as I investigate, I find plays and scripts written on them. So that's the room that we're in. And then let's roll. Let's roll on the events and secrets table and then on the complications table so we find out what's going on in this room and then why it's complicated. Okay, cool. Five and four. A small flock of birds flit around the room singing sea shanties. I might edit that a little bit and say that they're sh singing show tunes because we've got plays. ⁓ but there's a flock of birds and they're singing. So that's already chaotic. And then for the complications, okay. How do I roll on this again? Okay, I see. So six, two. Okay, I got six and two, which is an acolyte of the scriptworm. Ooh, interesting. How is that a complication? An acolyte of the scriptworm. Okay, let me cook for a second. And then we also got a document while we're here. So let me roll for the document as well. There's a lot going on in this room. ⁓ my gosh. Six and four, six and four. Whispers of Ooh Whispers of One and four, which is a coin which we just got, so we're gonna roll again. I got one and four again. What are the odds of that? Six and six, okay. Trees! Whispers of trees! Ooh, that's cool. Whispers of trees. Interesting, interesting, interesting. Okay, how do I make this all fit together in my head? ⁓ my gosh. Okay, this is a lot, so I'm gonna take some time to think about this real quick. Okay, I have an idea. Maybe I come across in this room an acolyte of the scriptworm, and maybe the acolyte doesn't even talk to me but uses the birds to talk to me instead. So kind of using the birds to communicate, I think that could be cool because maybe acolytes of the scriptworm don't talk, but they can find other means of communication, like these birds that are singing. I think that's pretty cool. And then I think the acolyte. makes me prove something to them in order to give me the document that I seek. Like they have the document, which is Whispers of Trees. Maybe it's like like a ooh. Okay, Whispers of Trees. It's like a old timey recording. Like one of those ⁓ music boxes that has the little nubs on it. ⁓ and when you play it, it plays the Whispers of Trees, which is the document. So that's the document that I'm looking for. And in order to get it, I need to prove myself to the acolyte who's communicating using the birds. Okay, I'm gonna write a little bit, and then we're gonna try to solve the complication, solve it, write how that plays out, all that good stuff. Okay, cool. Okay, here's what I've written down so far. Suddenly I realize I'm not alone. A white robed figure stands before me, the sunlight dappling off their robes. I recognize them immediately as an acolyte of the scriptworm. They open a portion of their robe and a small flock of birds fly out, flitting around my head. They speak in the acolyte's voice. In order to find what you seek, you must prove your worth to the scriptworm. Okay, cool. So now we have to actually address the complication, which is in this this panel, I believe. Yes, okay, address the complication. Do do do do do. So we're going to roll an action and then use lore. So to roll an action, we're going to pick two cards and then add lore. ⁓ so two cards and then roll the dice. Four, five, six, seven. Okay, so we got shadow. Add either card to the complication stack, discard the other, and mark one fatigue. No, we got our first fatigue. Okay, so we add one to the complication stack, discard the other, and then we mark one fatigue. Which I'm gonna do right here. Daunting. Okay, cool. And then this is a six difficulty complication, which is pretty gnarly. ⁓ we need six cards in our complication stack in order to pass it. Oops, okay, so I did that a little out of order. I got I rolled first, but we're gonna five and eight, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Automatically I pass both of those, so we just put both of those in the complication stack. Fantastic. We're going to pull again. Three and seven. We're gonna roll. Three, four, five, six, seven. Ooh. That is shadow, which means we only put one in the stack, discard the other, and then mark another fatigue. We're at two fatigue now, which is really daunting. We've got another seven and a queen. No! So we need ⁓ we need a really high dice score to get this one. Four, eight, nine, ten. ⁓ Nope. Am I really gonna lose here? No, I've re I refuse. I refuse. ⁓ okay. So we're going to put one in the stack, discard the other. I'm going to have my tumblepuff. I'm sorry, my glomite. I'm going to have my glow mite Paul take the fatigue on this one so I don't get another fatigue. Okay. One. More let's see. ⁓ three, four, five, six. That's actually darkness, which means we discard both cards and mark a fatigue. I could lose right here. I could genuinely lose the game right here. Ooh ten and a Okay, so I got ten and eleven, and then I rolled a five. I rolled a five, which means That was my last fatigue, and it took one complication, one complication to completely wipe me out. Damn. Wait, I have I have wait, I have something. Wait, okay, wait, it's not over yet. I forgot. I have this card. I got this card at the beginning of the game, which means I can clear one fatigue. So I'm going to clear one fatigue. I'm gonna discard both of these cards. I just need one more card in the complication stack to win. One, two, three, four, five. Yep. Please. Two. Okay, that's good. And an ace, which is one. I did it. Those both go into the complication stack. I have cleared the complication. I'm discarding that one card, my one fail safe, discarding the rest of these cards. ⁓ boy, we're still in the game, fellas. We are still in the game. Which means that I do prove myself to the script worm, but wow, that was really hard and I struggled a lot. And now I need to think of how I actually prove myself to the script worm. What does that look like? And something that I've really struggled with. Maybe because my research skill has a zero, it's something research-based. Maybe it's trivia. That's kinda lame, but it's all I can think of. So maybe the acolyte asks me a bunch of trivia questions, and if I miss three, I don't prove myself. And maybe I miss two, but then answer the last one correctly. That's what I'm going with. I'm gonna write that down. Okay, so I kind of threw a curveball in there. So here's what I wrote. I answer, I am ready. The acolyte proceeds to do the one thing I was dreading. They ask me trivia questions about the library. Three wrong answers, and I'm unworthy. Three correct answers, and I've proven myself. I steal myself and we begin. After some harrowing questions, I'm down to two correct answers and two incorrect answers. This last question will determine whether or not my journey ends here. And my last question is: what is the name of a fairy child who has been swapped with a human child? I blinked. A folklore question? How odd. A changeling, I answer. The acolyte nods and hands me a music box. My next document. They retreat into the shadows without another word. So I wanted to start incorporating the fact that our character is a changeling and weaving that into the story because I really haven't spent any time developing that kind of little thread. So I wanted just something that something there to just remind us and myself that, ⁓ yes, this character is a changeling, and that's kind of the core of why she's doing all this. So that's what I did. Eee! Now we have explored three more locations today, and I think that's a good place to end it. I think three locations at a time is good for each episode. I am worried that on the next episode we will lose. Lose. But you know what? We're gonna cross that bridge when we get there. If we end up losing, that's fine. I still am really happy of the story that we're telling here, and this has been a lot of fun. So either way, I'm winning, you know what I mean? But anyway, that is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. If you would like a copy of The Librarian's Apprentice Yourself, and I highly recommend if you like solo journaling games, that you pick this one up because I'm having so much fun with it. But if you would like one, you can get one on our website at heart of the dearnacorn.com. Also, feel free to follow us on all the social medias. We are Dearnacorn or Heart of the Deer in a Corn on most places. Anyway, I will see you next time for another episode of the Librarian's Apprentice. Let me know if you're enjoying this series. And yeah, I'm excited to hang out with you again next week. All right, see you then. Bye, friends.