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Take your seats, bring the house lights down, and please don’t silence your phones, you’ll need it for Theater of the Mindset!
TotM is a show combining collaborative, character driven storytelling in a modern high fantasy setting with audio drama production quality. A mixed table of mild mannered TTRPG players and unmanageable improvisers bring balanced humor seasoned with imbalanced results.
The mindset is brought to you by your kind and generous GM, Justin Gerardot and sound designer and composer, Nick Traeger.
Theater of the Mindset. Theater of Theater of Mindset.
Nick (Herry):Last week on Faith and Fortune, we started the third and final arc of our Daggerheart actual play. The gang finished a long night of planning and researching and went their separate ways. Harry had a family meeting with his mom and dad and assured them that he'd check after his sister Tella, the king's mother. On his way back to the senate, he managed to recruit a platoon of northern soldiers and then absolutely wrecked the senate coffee cart in an effort to get more info on the small circle meeting and progress with mother Damaris. Lucan found himself in another game of towers and flowers, but this time with his deity of choice, Baaz, the god of fortune.
Nick (Herry):He managed to preserve the peace representing Venethar and received blessing from the Simeon god.
Justin (GM):So you are making your way back towards the commons and into the soup kitchen. As you get into the commons, obviously, the riots from not even two days ago still has its scars and marks in this place. There are piled up barricades. There are scorch marks where small fires have been started. But there's also something new that you've seen that you're seeing now that that was not there prior to this.
Justin (GM):You see lots of graffiti art. There are pictures of butterflies everywhere, painted in bright colors in spaces, painted in dark reds in other spaces, but it seems that these butterfly motifs, and this graffiti is spreading throughout the commons.
Shelby (Sahra):So, I'm coming in hot, I'm going into the soup kitchen, who do I see?
Justin (GM):You see a fairly emptied out space. There was previously you came to warn Vivian and Nas that the insurgents, as they were being labeled, had been identified. And so by and large, the soup kitchen is cleared out. However, the door to the back room where you previously saw Vivian is open, and you hear voices inside. Everything else has clearly been removed and taken out and little evidence of the acts that happened here outside of the jurisdiction of the soup kitchen ever were.
Shelby (Sahra):So I creep to the doorway and try to listen in without being detected.
Justin (GM):I'm going to spend a fear, to have you be detected.
Shelby (Sahra):Great. Super.
Justin (GM):And inside, you hear Vivian say, there's no point in hiding, Sara. So, I
Shelby (Sahra):come in. So, I see Vivian. Who else do I see in here?
Justin (GM):In this room, you see the witches of the wildfire circle. Each of them holds in their hand that same moving flame. It is not a, like, calm lantern light. It is the flame of a well stocked campfire that is in their hands. The heat in this room is noticeably different.
Justin (GM):Something about the magic they are casting has made this room uncomfortably warm, and they are standing in a semi circle with Vivian in the middle, all kind of looking in your direction. There is a half conducted ritual on the ground. All along the outside of this magic circle, there is a deep red sand that they have made into a perfect circle and there are seven candles all along the outside kind of framing it. Vivian says, you gave us quite the bit of information earlier, Sara, lord of Venethar.
Shelby (Sahra):And I feel like there's a lot of information that you're not telling me.
Justin (GM):It is not me. I mean, it is not us, and she gestures to the men and women around her. It is not us that is hiding things from you. And at this, you feel the presence of Amonet in this room. The shadows in the ceiling of this back room seem darker, like, instead of merely being from the light, that in fact there is no roof there at all, there is a sight into the empty skylight.
Justin (GM):It is daytime, but it is like the black of night in the room above you.
Shelby (Sahra):And Sara feels the heat from the fire and she's feeling this ominous presence and it's just kind of fueling that anger that is seething inside of her. And so she looks back at Vivian and she says, no. I'm done playing these games. I know there's something that you know that you're not telling me. And I'm tired of running around and feeling like I don't know what's up and what's down.
Shelby (Sahra):Tell me the truth, Vivian. What are you hiding from me?
Justin (GM):Do not make demands of us, Aggie says, the leader of the Wildfire Fire Circle. She kind of steps forward closer to the circle, breaking ranks. Do not yell at us. We have dedicated our lives. We have dedicated our lives to this Sarumanusblood.
Justin (GM):And what have you done? What have you given, actually given, for us or for Venethar? You go around toting, my roots are deep, My mother was an important chiefdess. But what have you done? What are the accomplishments that you have to order us what to do?
Shelby (Sahra):It's not my fault that I was born between these two worlds. It's your reacted. Well, what am I supposed to do? I I know that I've got this power, but nobody's telling me how to use it or what to do with it. All I know is that I am central in this for some reason.
Shelby (Sahra):And for I don't know why you guys won't tell me why I'm here.
Justin (GM):Vivian puts a clubbed hand, a Galapagos hand, and pulls Aggie back. She says, forgive sister Aggie. Her temper flares. But she speaks truth, Sara Mannisblood. You have done little, be it out of ignorance or out of unwillingness, is not for this circle to decide.
Justin (GM):But information has been kept from you, and that is no longer acceptable. You must be willing to look at your past. But if you look away, the cost may be greater. And she gestures towards the circle.
Shelby (Sahra):At this point, I don't have anything to lose.
Justin (GM):There is always more to lose, and she pulls out a ritual dagger. This ritual dagger will be used with blood magic. You have a binding on you that prevents you from using blood magic. In order for you to see the past, you will need to see it from the eyes of someone who was there. You will need to travel to the world of spirits once again and see from their eyes.
Justin (GM):Are you willing to undergo this ritual? Yes. Immediately upon your yes, the positions of the witches shift and they encircle you. Vivian steps up and she says, for my part, I am sorry for what it is you are about to undergo. You are, without many other options, going to need to participate in this ritual.
Justin (GM):It is blood magic. We do not have we have never had the things needed for this kind of spell. I was always going to take something like this. I free you from your oath. And when she says that, it's like your skin finally gets to release a bit, like almost how when you have a sunburn that's like tense, it feels like unbeknownst to you, you have been held and bound, up until now.
Justin (GM):With that being said, I fear that the spell itself may be more dangerous than the oath put you in, keeping you from it. If you look away, there is no turning back. If you falter, there will be no getting back up. You must hold through this to even have a hope of coming out. Amonet guards their secrets tightly, and getting them from his grasp will be a fight.
Justin (GM):I pray that the spirits guard you.
Shelby (Sahra):I'm ready.
Justin (GM):And as she as you say that, Vivian steps out of the circle, leaving you in the middle with the knife. You must, at this now, in a gold plate at your feet, offer up blood.
Shelby (Sahra):Great. So Sara kneels down at this plate, and I think instinctively, she just knows what to do. She can feel the spirits just kind of guiding her. She doesn't need the instructions. She knows exactly what to do.
Shelby (Sahra):So she takes the blade and places it in her palm, and cuts deeply because she knows it's gonna take a lot of blood for this to work.
Justin (GM):Go ahead and mark one HP. The flames around you, the seven points of candles around the circle flare to life. The brightness and the heat given off from them as the witches around you begin to chant dominate your vision, they dominate your senses, the roar of the flame dominates your hearing. And when you finally recover, you are a young young child again in a out on the Er Desert. Your family, the Emberline tribe, has been moving, and in the process, you have a maybe not friend, but a woman that you have, kind of glommed onto.
Justin (GM):She is a merchant, and she is also inferior. She is very, very pregnant, and her mothering instincts you are maybe two years old, at most, very young. This is not a memory your brain would be able to latch onto in any way. And she is just playing with you, and you are having a great time seeing, her tells hearing her tell stories of far off places that you have never been to in Venizar. She has been a merchant for a long time and, is excited to kind of share these stories with you.
Justin (GM):That is part of the joy that she has in being a merchant. In this moment, you see her kind of grab her abdomen, as you kind of sprint off as she was going to chase you, and she kind of grabs her abdomen. Flash. Your mother is riding at full speed into the desert. The surroundings don't offer any shelter.
Justin (GM):There is only sand rocky sand and low shrubs around her, and she is running with reckless abandon. Clutched to her chest is a bundle. A something is swaddled to her chest as she races, whispering underneath her breath, praying to spirits to give a favorable wind, to give energy to her horse below her, to quiet the child. She is casting spells one after another to aid in her escape. She is fleeing from something that has terrified her more than you have ever seen her scared before.
Justin (GM):Flash. The cries from inside the tent are horrifying she was a child. It sounds, to the best of your knowledge, like someone is dying. The women going in and out of the tent add to the sense of heightened nature of the environment, and all anyone is telling you that, nope, she will be fine. It is a complicated birth, but it is, everything is fine.
Justin (GM):Your mother is one of the most talented chieftainesses, a impressive shaman. This woman could be in no better hands than your mother's. And in the night, you see what looks like a shooting star, but is far better described as a, like, blue white fireball shoot across the sky, and in this extra light kind of creates the only moment of quiet other than the screams of the woman that you know to be of Neni, inside the tent. Everyone else kinda takes a beat to look up at this massive light in the sky, and only Neni's cries inside the tent can be heard. Flash.
Justin (GM):It is well into the night, and your mother is standing across from five people, three of which wear these brilliant gold riding cloaks. They have on their shoulders a sunburst, and two of them wear purple vestments colored with light blue, and they wield these tall hollow birds. And the five of them kind of create a semicircle around your mother. Behind her is a wounded horse. And one of the women in the gold investment say, you can stop us here.
Justin (GM):More will come. Please. This can end peacefully. And your mother, her hand down by her side, is slowly moving her fingers, and you recognize a fog cloud spell forming in her hand. And with a quick motion, she pulls up her hand, and all of the sand around her and the five people rise up, creating a dust cloud for her to escape.
Justin (GM):You hear all five of them move in response despite the cloud. You hear the armed individuals dash forward. You hear spells being cast via prayer and lights flash as your mother fights back with the best of her ability in this fog cloud to try and even the odds. Flash. Your mother is putting your favorite blanket around you, and she is crying and saying, no.
Justin (GM):I'll be right back. I promise. I promise. She still has, the same clothes she was wearing the night before on. They are covered in sweat and fluids, and it is clear that she has been bustling and going.
Justin (GM):You have control in this moment of your senses. You are seeing from your perspective. What are you doing? As she is kind of wrapping you in these things, clearly, like, trying to get you comfortable, and you see behind her people getting a horse ready.
Shelby (Sahra):Mom, what's happening? Where are we going?
Justin (GM):Honey, you're you're not gonna go anywhere. You're gonna stay right here. I just need to go out and I'm gonna help this little baby. I'm just gonna help him be safe. Okay?
Shelby (Sahra):Where are you going?
Justin (GM):I I am just gonna go out. There is a cave nearby and some people are gonna come here, and they're they're gonna be it's important that that this little baby here, that she's just not here.
Shelby (Sahra):Why why can't I come with?
Justin (GM):You are such a good horse rider, but I need to be able to go very fast. Okay? Now, here here is a look at this doll, and she kinda hands you one of your, like, several dolls. I think, why don't you protect this doll, and I'm going to protect this baby. Okay?
Justin (GM):Can you can you help me with that?
Shelby (Sahra):Okay. I can be brave.
Justin (GM):I know you can. And she gives you a kiss on the forehead, and you feel the wetness of tears, and she gives you a hug that is too tight. It is painful how much she is squeezing you at this moment. And you hear some voices behind them say behind the both of you say, the horse is ready, Soraya. We really you need to go.
Justin (GM):The squeeze, tighter, and then she kind of puts her hands on her shoulder. I love you so much. Okay? Okay. Flash.
Justin (GM):Your mother's feet are calloused and bleeding. She has several wounds on her person, and she is here at dawn doing her best to make her way into a cave. It is dark. Still, the sun has not fully risen and the way the the face of the cave is away from the sun leaving her in the darkness. And the bundle that she clutches against her is crying.
Justin (GM):They're there. They're there. Just just a little bit longer, please. Just a little bit longer. Outside, out of view, you hear the sounds of horses coming to a stop.
Justin (GM):They, you hear muffled voices, all of which are too hard for you to distinctly hear. You are seeing from the eyes of something high above. What do you want to focus on in this moment?
Shelby (Sahra):The whoever is coming after my mom?
Justin (GM):Give me a instinct roll.
Shelby (Sahra):It's eighteen, nineteen, 20 21 with fear.
Justin (GM):The you focus on the people outside of the cave and your vision shifts and moves in your overhead perspective, and you see 10 people on horses dismounting. Many of them wear that similar gold attire from before. One of them is at the lead, and she has a golden tiara around her head. And you see that this elven fae woman seems to be giving orders to the others around her. They are surrounding the cave.
Justin (GM):She is ordering them not to take any direct action with 21. These are all priestesses of Yrisinda and the closely aligned Selenic Brotherhood. There are if Irasinda is the motherhood, the two moons are her brothers, and they have their own knights dedicated to each of them. And so that is the collective group here. There are no guardsmen in that purple and blue in this space.
Justin (GM):You see all of them surround the cave and none of them are making an approach at this time. And from the outside, this elven fae woman kind of calls out I understand that you're a chieftainess and you have a lot of responsibility to your tribe. That child is not your jurisdiction. Please hand over the child and we can all progress forward. This doesn't have to end the way it did for my sisters earlier.
Justin (GM):This can end without bloodshed. Your mother is praying over this child and she says, please, anything, anything to hide. I will gladly pay the price. And your perspective shifts and slithers down into the cave, and you hear Aminette's voice respond to her. I wish to be free.
Justin (GM):I wish to be free. Free. I look and the pallor of your mother goes white. I I promise you freedom. On what will you swear?
Justin (GM):And your mother considers for a second and a blinding light fills the room. Flash. You are outside of the tent. The labor is over, but the heated discussion inside is it's still intense. Go ahead and give me an instinct roll, and you hear your mother talking, you hear the member other leaders in your tribe, your father in the room, and you also hear you'll need to roll high to catch this person's voice, the voice of Neni, the mother, the merchant mother from Venethar, is also speaking, but much more quietly.
Shelby (Sahra):Okay. So that's ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen with hope.
Justin (GM):Okay. There is a lot of heated discussion happening from your father and the other leaders of the tribe saying, we can't continue to put ourselves potentially at danger for these Venetharan merchants. They are guests, and we owe them safety, but we do not owe them the safety of the tribe. And your mother is saying, I know what I saw. That child was born under a shooting star.
Justin (GM):This is not just any child. I believe that this is someone important. And when she says someone important, you get the, capital I level of important in her in her tone. Underneath all of this, you hear tension and grit until eventually, there needs to be some release. And several members, leaders leave and begin conversing outside the tent.
Justin (GM):You hide so that they can't see you. And with only your mother, father, and Neni, the merchant, in the room, you hear Neni say, please, please, I beg you. I please protect my daughter. If I if I can make one ask, we will leave. Your mother says, you're in no position to leave right now.
Justin (GM):That was a difficult birth. I I will leave. Maybe we can buy buy some time or draw them away. Please protect my daughter. Flash.
Justin (GM):Your mother is not alone. She is kept in this cave with her via her half completed spell, the spirit of Amonet. Once begun, a primal spell cannot be stopped. But as her life clings to its final moments, she knows that the conditions can be adjusted. At the same time, Aminette understands this, your mother acts quickly.
Justin (GM):A breeze begins to move through the cave and swirl around her picking up granules of sand as she utters the end of the spell, the condition on which she will put, you, Aminette, will be freed by my blood and only through my blood will you know freedom. Amenet strikes, seeing his window of opportunity close as your mother lifts off of the sand below her into the air and becomes the wind. Amineth screeches as the strike misses and the air is a buzz with electricity. Fleeing from the cave, the binding on the spell is complete. Although there is nothing for the spell to protect anymore, only through the life of a Mannisblood can Amonet be freed.
Justin (GM):The conditions of the spell are set, and in casting such a powerful magic, your mother becomes an utterance. Your eyes open, you are back in the room, the candles have burned themselves nearly to the ground and the witches look spent. Vivian says, what did you see? What did you see?
Shelby (Sahra):I saw my mother and I saw a baby and she was protecting
Justin (GM):A bay Was it you? Are you the baby? No. Who was the baby?
Shelby (Sahra):The baby.
Justin (GM):Sara, who was the baby?
Shelby (Sahra):That must No. The baby it must be the incarnate.
Justin (GM):Your mother protected the incarnate king, but your mother died thirty years ago. The you said that the the incarnate king was captured longer before that, before before Esau.
Shelby (Sahra):We're not looking for Esau's twin, we're looking for the next one. Esau's twin must have died and this is the true incarnate. If my mother was willing to risk her life to save this child, then it must have she must have been able to see the wisdom in that choice, and she must have been able to see how this is bigger than just us. It's bigger than just the people. It's bigger than just Venethar.
Shelby (Sahra):So I need your help finding this child. This child is the true incarnate king.
Justin (GM):We can do that. As you are walking out, Aggie stops you and kind of says, Sara, wait. We have been harsh on you. You hold a position here that we believe far outstripped your capabilities. You have proven time and time again that that is not true and it is us who has been blind in seeing that.
Justin (GM):I think all we can ask of you now, and it is the burden of every true witch, to lead us to the next step. And it is not on us to judge what, in your wisdom, you believe that next So, I am giving you a card called the Wildfire Circle. This is an item that you can utilize as a kind of additional spell casting group that you can have access to to help you cast spells or cast spells in your stead. There are rules on that about how that'll all work, but you now kind of have at your disposal this wildfire circle. And Aggie says, we trust that the decisions you make will reflect the best path forward for us, for the Ember Line tribes, and for the Erb nation as a whole.
Justin (GM):Your mother was a wise and respected woman, and I think she would be proud to see where you are today.
Shelby (Sahra):And Sara's shoulders kind of pull back as she stands a little bit straighter, and she gets this confidence and her voice kind of deepens. Thank you. We need to find this child. If that's what my mother was willing to risk everything for, then I need to carry out this mission and we need to make sure that this child is safe.
Joel (End Credits):You've been listening to Faith and Fortune by Theater of the Mindset. Our actual players this season are Steve Edinger, Shelby Myers, Nick Traeger, and your kind and generous GM, Justin Girardeau. Audio engineering, post production, and scoring is done by Nick Traeger at Studio three six zero seven. If you're enjoying the show, you can help us grow with no capital investment by sharing it with a friend, following us on Instagram and Reddit, writing us a review on your favorite pod catcher, or you can chip in for coffee at our Patreon. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week on Theater of the Mindset.