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Lonely TTRPG EP 49 - The Librarian's Apprentice by Dan Bronson-Lowe
Episode 49 • 17th July 2023 • Lonely TTRPG • Black Dragon Dungeon Company
00:00:00 00:25:44

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Transcripts

SteelStash:

Greetings Weary Wanderer, and welcome back to another edition

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of Lonely T T RRP G, the Solo Actual Play and Review podcast.

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This week we are playing the Librarian's Apprentice by Dan Bronson Lowe.

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So Librarian's Apprentice is based off of fire lights, which some of you

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may remember is the same system as.

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Our friend Croaker did queen list based off of, so we're gonna breeze

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through the rules on this one real fast.

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Once again, just a reminder, you're gonna need some type of journal, a

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place to build your map, a deck of cards without the jokers and 2D six.

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Anytime you need to perform an action, you're gonna draw

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two cards from your deck.

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The value of those cards will be Ace one, two through 10 their value,

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and then Jack King, queen will be 11.

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After that, you're gonna roll your two D six.

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Add 'em together.

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If your two D six is higher than both cards, congratulations,

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you're in the light.

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If the dice is higher than one card, then you're in shadow.

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But if it's lower than both cards, you're in darkness.

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Now a twist on this one is you will be getting and discovering resources.

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You can spend those resources any time.

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Five resources will automatically find any document that you're seeking.

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Three resources will find you a safe place to rest, which will then

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allow you to clear all your fatigue.

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And one resource will allow you to add plus one to any action.

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But you have to decide before you roll, and you can do this

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as many times as you want.

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So you can spend five resources to get a plus five on your action, but it is

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not the best use of those resources.

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For the game, you're gonna start out by drawing one card and placing it face up.

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Now, if it's a face card, shuffle that back in the deck and draw again.

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You're gonna take a token and place it on the card to indicate

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that that is where you're at.

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And this is your librarian's office where you begin.

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To add a new area to the map.

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What you're gonna do is you're going to draw two cards from the

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deck, and you are going to roll plus navigation if you are in light.

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Then you get to play either card and then you can keep the other card for trade.

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We'll talk about that in a minute.

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If you're in shadow, you can play either card and discard the other card.

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And if you're in darkness, you play either card, discard the other card and discover

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a complication at the new location.

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And then as far as where to put the card, if your new card is higher than

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your current location, it will go above.

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If it is lower, then it'll go below.

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And if it is the same value, it'll go to either side.

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Now we did mention that we were searching for documents.

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All right.

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You are a librarian's apprentice, tasked with finding six documents, hoping one

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day to become a librarian yourself.

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So anytime you add a face card to the map, a document you

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seek is present in that area.

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You can describe the document using the provided tables,

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but then you need to get it.

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So hopefully you rolled either light or shadow and you can just get it.

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But if you rolled darkness, then you are gonna have to overcome your complication

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for overcoming complications.

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Your complications will have a certain value.

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Or difficulty,

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and you are going to have to build a stack of cards that will equal that value.

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So when you're addressing a complication, you're gonna roll plus lore.

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And you're gonna repeat until you stacked enough cards to match the

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complications, value or difficulty.

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So once again, you're going to draw two cards, roll plus lore, and if

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you're in light, you get to stack both cards against the complication.

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If you're in shadow, you stack either card and discard the other,

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but you're gonna mark one fatigue.

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And if you're in darkness, you're gonna mark one fatigue.

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And finally, the last thing you can do in an area is conduct research.

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Once again, draw two cards and you're gonna roll research.

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And if you're in light, you can trade in both cards.

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Shadow, you can trade in either card and discard the other.

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And darkness, you'll discard both cards and discover a complication.

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Now for the trade, if you have a red suited card, you can trade

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that in to clear one fatigue.

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If you have a black suited card, you can trade that in for one resource.

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Finally, the last big thing is character creation.

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So you're gonna fill in a name and pronoun.

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You're going to assign a plus two to the skill you are best at a plus

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one to the skill you're good at and a plus zero to your remaining skill.

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And remember, it is dangerous to go alone.

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Take a familiar, pick the type, pick the skill.

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And it will add a plus one to that skill.

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. But by doing that, it absorbs one fatigue in your stead, but then

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no longer provides the skill bonus until the fatigue is cleared.

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Finally, there are certain truths to your background, community

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and library that you can answer.

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We will not be going over those here as that is definitely

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for a longer play session.

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And I do encourage, if you're gonna play this for quite a bit and really

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explore out that library, then start paying attention to those truths.

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But for a one shot, not necessary.

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All right, so we're gonna go ahead and transition to our gameplay,

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and I have already taken the liberty of rolling up all my stats and maps.

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Now here's the thing, like I know this designed to be.

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A little fantastical, a little whimsical, but I've been getting

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a lot of war Hammer, 40 K lore.

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So

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ours is gonna be set in space.

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All right?

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We're gonna be set in space.

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We're gonna be in one of the Imperial Archives doing that, which means that

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our familiar is going to be a servo.

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A nice little servo skull floating around beside us.

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We have a plus two in navigation, a plus one in research and a plus zero in lore.

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So I seem to have spent a lot of my time in the library preparing

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myself, but not a whole lot on the actual practical applications.

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So we're gonna see how this goes.

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Immense ever shifting and sometimes dangerous.

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The library exists in a space between worlds and times.

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Among the many who call it home are the librarians and only those who truly

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understand it may join their ranks.

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Steel Stash seeks to do so.

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The path of the librarians of apprentice is a long one.

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Their current task is designed to test their skills at traversing the

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library and finding information.

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. Retrieve the six documents requested by the librarian before the day

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is out and he will have completed one more step on his journey.

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Now steal stash.

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Within the archives are six documents that must be found.

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Go, go forth and seek them.

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All right, so to start off, I am going to

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immediately pull a face card.

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So now I need to recall that we're gonna reshuffle.

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All right, and we got the six of clubs for our librarian base.

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So first thing we need to do is we need to draw two cards and.

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Roll our navigation.

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Draw two cards and roll our navigation.

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Luckily I got a three and a four, so this should be a pretty good navigation.

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So rolling two D six plus two.

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Also, I'm gonna apologize if any of these barks get through.

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This is what I get for trying to record while everyone is awake.

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All right, so I got a total of nine, which does handily beat both.

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We're gonna keep that four because we only have four fatigue before we end up.

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In a situation where we have to come back.

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So moving down to the first area of the library.

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So we're gonna roll two D six three times to get our descriptor.

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And we got 4, 12, 12.

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Actually we got 2, 2, 6, 6, 6, 6.

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So two, two is decorative.

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Six.

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Six is work, be or so.

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The descriptor is decorative.

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The feature is workbenches and the category is written by the undead.

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Even in death, we will continue to serve the God emperor.

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So,

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so this feels like a place of high valued, high skilled.

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Books Cause we have, we have the workbenches, so obviously there's a

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place, there's a place to try it out.

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The, the written by the undead feels very masters of the past,

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so that is what this place is gonna be.

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All right, and since things are going well for me in this room, we're gonna go

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ahead and conduct some research as well.

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So again, first thing we need to do, draw two cards.

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Mm.

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And we got the five of hearts and the nine of spades.

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So this one might be a little more tricky, especially as we

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only have plus one to research,

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but we got a nine.

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Which means only one card is higher, so we can trade one and discard the other.

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So we're gonna keep that nine and that is going to be one of our tradable resources.

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We'll go ahead and discard.

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We'll go ahead and discard the five.

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So continuing on.

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Continuing on, we got the eight N Queen of Clubs for our new

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area, which is very fortuitous.

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We might find our first document that we're looking for.

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So rolling our navigation of two D six plus two, and we got a nine,

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so that doesn't beat the queen.

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However,

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we are in shadows, so we can play either card and discard the other one.

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So we're gonna go ahead and discard that eight, and we're gonna play this queen,

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and let's go ahead and roll up a description for this pretty lady.

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So first up for the descriptor, we got four three, which is Labyrinth Theme

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six.

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Six on our feature work benches and four, three for our category.

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Just never read Labyrinthine workbenches.

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Never read.

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So it would seem that at the back of.

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At the back of the room where we had the master's works.

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We found a dusty ladder and followed that up, and we found

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another area of workbenches.

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And the, the, these are all just kind of cobbled together, kind of

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thrown about all willy-nilly, like,

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and you know, it's creating kind of a labyrinth like pattern on the floor.

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And

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I mean, dust is covering everything.

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This looks like someplace that people haven't been to in a while.

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You can tell that the stuff here is not being taken care of.

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It's not being read, it's not being used.

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I mean, hell, half the benches have

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half the benches, have those workman cloths just draped over them just to

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try to help keep them from dusting up.

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And let's see what type of document we might have in this area.

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So that's gonna be two D six, twice.

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And for the first description, we got four six, which is the pressure from.

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And for our second one, we got six two, which is knotted yarn,

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the pressure from knotted yarn.

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Well, that makes sense why that would be in an area that's not,

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not used anymore.

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The, the pressure of knotted yarn.

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That,

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that seems very.

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Very niche,

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so I can see why it would definitely be in this area.

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But while the rules don't say, I'm going to declare that there is a complication

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here, we have to face a complication in order to get this document.

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So we're gonna roll two D six for our complication table

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just to see what complication we have.

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And that is six one,

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which is gonna be a gnosiphage.

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Which is a type of creature, the gnosiphage, AKA bootlicker, a withered

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husk of a person from the burn section steals words and knowledge from documents.

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By licking them, the content appears on their skin, like tattoos.

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Yeah, this is a interesting and creepy creature to be running across.

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This definitely feels like one of those Gene Stealer Colts.

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Trying to eat away at our, eat away at our dangled knowledge that we have here.

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And these guys have a difficulty score of six.

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All right,

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so we are going to be using our lore in order to try to overcome this

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thing, preferably without violence, cuz after all we are a librarian.

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And we got a nine a jack.

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Not looking good for the home team right off right off the rip there cuz we are

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rolling two D six with no modification.

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And we got a five total, so we're gonna go ahead and take one.

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Fatigue,

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bringing our fatigue up to one.

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So next up we have

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a five and a seven.

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This seems much more manageable.

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Rolling.

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R two D six oh oh oh oh, and we got a four,

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so that is also a failure.

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Bringing our fatigue up to 2 of 4.

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So I'm gonna trade my nine spades in for a plus one.

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So I'm gonna take a plus one on this roll because I need I, I need it.

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I definitely need it as I got a jack and a king, so I have to beat an 11, so rolling

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two D six plus one and I got an eight.

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So once again,

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Another fatigue.

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All right.

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My servo is going to whip in front of me on this one just to try to help out

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which probably good because we got an eight and a queen,

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so my servo is gonna roll.

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Two D six plus one cuz they had the plus one in lore and they got a seven.

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My servo doesn't help out any, but the bright side is, I am still in it.

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This is probably the last round though.

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Nine and a two.

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Nine and a two.

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I need to beat to nine though, because I'm gonna take fatigue regardless.

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And I got an 11.

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Outstanding.

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And also because I mean, So first of all, it doesn't matter because I can

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sta or I will stack the nine and the two on this gnosiphage, and that is

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11 versus the gnosiphage six we win.

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But because the nine and the two are both clubs and the queen that we're,

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whose room we're in is also a club then.

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I would be able to,

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actually, this is important because I misunderstood the rules, so

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it's not the val, it's not the number of the value on the cards.

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I have to stack six cards on this.

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So because the value of the card is the same as the value of my

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room, the suit of the card is the same as the suit of my room.

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Those count as two.

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So my nine counts as two, and my two counts as two cards.

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So I'm at four of six cards right now.

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I'm going to trade in my heart.

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To remove one of these resources.

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So I no longer have any, or I no longer have any tradable goods.

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However, I am at 2 of 4 fatigue, which may be important as we continue to do

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this, that it does buy me an extra round.

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Which might be good because we got a two of hearts and a 10 of diamonds.

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And I doubt I'm beating the 10.

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I am not.

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I'm matching the 10, which is frustrating, but that's okay

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because I get to stack the two.

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So that brings me up to five of six,

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and I'm still taking one fatigue.

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So it's a good thing I traded in that heart from earlier.

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And now we're on the last round.

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Either this thing is going down or I'm going down

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and a jack and a four,

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which is gonna bring up a very interesting question potentially.

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I could fail outright and then we don't have to worry about it.

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No, I got a six, so I'm in shadow.

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So the way, the way that the rules read is once you have achieved four

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fatigue, you have to return back to the office, the librarian's office.

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But that four also allowed me to accomplish this challenge.

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So I've beat my complication, but I've hit my max fatigue.

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So

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we are going to ask the Oracle, because this does have an Oracle in it.

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And for the Oracle, if you think the answer is likely a

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yes, you would roll plus two.

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If it is unlikely you would roll zero plus zero, otherwise plus one.

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So I think it is about 50 50 that I would've been able to grab the

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document before running away as this was correct, the hectic chase.

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As I try to, as I try to get this thing towards some blank documents so that.

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It would not be empowered by any of the, any of the words.

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Or at least some silly documents, you know, because again, this

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is a room that's never used.

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The nothing in here is read.

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So it feels very much like this also would've ended up as storage

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for some random stuff, and I'm just kind of chucking those books

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at it, but, I'm getting tired.

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This thing is disgusting.

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I am slithering way too close to the warp powers for U 40 K fans out there,

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so right as I convinced this thing to leave, I also have to leave.

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But am I able to get the document yes or no?

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And again, we're gonna roll plus one against a two and a one.

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So I really think that I got it and I rolled a six.

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So yes, I was able to grab the document before I left.

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But that's it for tonight.

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That is librarian's apprentice.

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So for the librarian's apprentice, I do.

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I like the setting.

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I like the, I like the feel and the very whimsical asset of it.

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Now the gameplay.

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The gameplay.

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It is.

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It is a fire lights game.

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Fire lights by.

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The Firelight system is created by Rene-Pier and Rene-Pier, I love your work.

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Forgive me for not pronouncing the rest of your name cuz I cannot

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do the rest of your last name.

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But Fire Lights is a great system.

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This is, again, this is the second game we've played in that system.

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The first one being Queen Less, which really fun system.

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Highly enjoy, highly enjoy the system.

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And I think this does, I think that the librarian's

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apprentice uses the system well.

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It definitely makes sense that a librarian would not be doing

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like physical combat or something like that wouldn't be

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necessarily be getting in a fight.

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So the fatigue system versus this game, I think.

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Works out really well.

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And again, I love the librarian aesthetic.

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I love the searching dusty tomes in order to find lost or forgotten knowledge.

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That's all great.

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The layout of the book, look.

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So it is a, it is a trifold pamphlet.

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It is done as a trifold pamphlet.

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Which is fine if you are printing it.

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If you are not printing it and you are reading it off of your computer,

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then the problem you always have with trifolds is page one has the first

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thing that you would read Then, The last two things that you would read,

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and then page two or page two would have the bulk of everything else, but

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then you have to go back to page one to finish up on the rules and everything.

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Luckily all said and done, this would come this comes out to two pages

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if you actually printed it front to back four pages total for the pdf.

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But yeah, I kind of wish that.

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I kind of wish that they had like a straight PDF book flavor, you

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know, where everything was in order.

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Like I get it.

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This is a minor gripe.

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That's really my biggest gripe is that.

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You know, it doesn't, it doesn't do well on the computer, you

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know, and all my stuff is digital.

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I do everything digitally.

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So it's annoying for me.

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And if that's gonna be my biggest complaint with this

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game, then, you know, that's it.

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But no, like I said great.

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Feel great, feel to the game.

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Great feel to the way everything that works.

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I really enjoy, I really enjoy just the searching and the exploration aspect.

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And fire lights is definitely a great system if you're trying to do something

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exploration based and, you know, if you're just trying to play an a exploration game.

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I highly recommend this.

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I highly recommend this, or Queen Less is another great one, another

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great one for exploration type games.

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But yeah, librarians Apprentice.

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Great game.

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Go check it out.

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You can find it on itch at bronsonlowe.itch.io/the-librarian-apprentice,

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as always, a link will be included in the show notes below, and then also something

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you may notice a little bit different.

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The show notes will only have the links to the game now, as we do have our own

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website up our own blog and website.

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So if you're looking for, if you're looking for this stuff

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actually spelled out like.

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We used to do well then go check out Black Dragon dungeon company.com, which

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is gonna be the best spot for you to find out about any of our past shows.

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I will be updating the.

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The backlog of games that we've done on there.

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It'll also be a great spot for finding out about our upcoming games

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and any type of lore or things that we develop for our systems here at

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the Black Dragon Dungeon Company.

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But go check out Librarians Apprentice.

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Go pick it up.

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It is only $5.

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And if you do get it, remember let 'em know that steel stash sent you.

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And remember, I mustache y'all to stay Awesome.