We open the lines with Open Frequency—a spoiler-safe chat with a real fan of the show. Favorite PCs/NPCs, the moment that hooked her, and what she wants more of. If you can hear us, we can hear you.
Then the DM Deep Dive: Random Encounters That Actually Matter. Not “roll a die, throw a wolf.” How to use quick scenes with a job—spend resources on purpose, flip hero/villain moments, spotlight who your players built, drip clues, and change the map—using a simple loop: setup → choice → change. Short, sharp, and stealable for your table.
Two dawns: one where a prayer goes unanswered, and one where a stranger steps out of wild magic with a rabbit and a promise. The fourth saddle rides empty, the road bends toward answers, and the Company decides whether grief will make them sharper—or softer.
Below ground, runes wake iron, the earth itself throws punches, and a crystal chamber hums like a held breath. Mercy and necessity trade places in the smoke. When the echoes fade, only one question matters: what kind of heroes walk out of that light?
Music: Six Towers by Sydney Fabel https://bradowens.bandcamp.com/album/blades-in-the-dark-by-john-harper-unofficial-ttrpg-soundtrack
Licensed under Scrybe Quill Context License
https://www.scrybequill.com/license
A manor yields its truth: unity over greed, guardians stilled, and a will that warns what pride would ruin. Treasure shared, papers sealed, the company rides on dragonel wings with a ceasefire to carry and too many omens in their pockets.Night in the deep wood turns the road to a stage—cards drawn, rules bent, and a scythe that laughs in violet light. Hearts stop. Diamonds fall. Breath returns… mostly. By dawn, the mission still stands—but so does the Jester’s shadow.
Music: Silkshore by Sydney Fabel https://bradowens.bandcamp.com/album/blades-in-the-dark-by-john-harper-unofficial-ttrpg-soundtrackLicensed under Scrybe Quill Context Licensehttps://www.scrybequill.com/license
Clean run, messy landing: the stream behaved until the credits froze and the file went gelatinous. In Tech Diaries, I lay out the fix—credits as a scene change, stop stream → stop record in that order, instant remux to MP4 with a rolling audio backup, a 30-second “goodnight” slate to watch bitrate/drops, and a slightly lower bitrate with a bigger buffer. Clean handoff or bust.
Then to Menest: vows over blood and ash, a locket as Cliff’s anchor, and a makeshift gauntlet for Mecoo. The town hums through every smokestack; faces sit just wrong; stone says remember. Inside the inn, the tone dies when the fire dies, and Tim carves a moving pocket of silence—right as Mark appears, knowing our history “too well.” We don’t confirm the theory; we test it: walk Mark past the border, drag the silence-bubble through a crowd, ink names on skin, and listen beneath a smokestack when the hearths go dark.
A chattering amulet reveals the truth about Cliff’s gear: the chainmail eats. A bargain is struck—nightly rations for protection—and Eddie the mimic joins the roster with a mouthful of spider husks. Debts paid, supplies restocked, and a new commission lands: an abandoned noble estate where “only the leader can reveal” the treasure.Dust, portraits, and skittering swarms give way to hidden levers, diary clues, and wrong shelves that wake ghosts. Then the corridor of mirrors cuts deep—visions of shame, threats of betrayal, promises and condemnations slipped into pockets. Blankets over glass, eyes down, nerves tight. At the end, one last mirror swings like a door… and a lock clicks open on the truth of the house.
Tracks one way, a scream the other—and a dead run into hard choices. The bears fall, the traveler doesn’t, and the true trail leads to a ruined temple where the Oracle sits behind a shimmering cage. Plans buckle under fire and mud as a young white wyrm crashes the field; parley turns to prayer, then to steel.
Help vaults the treeline—radiant blades, crackling force, and a barrier that finally breaks. The Oracle answers with flame, the wyrm falls, and the city breathes out: honors, coin, and keys to deeper stacks. Two quieter weeks follow—craft, research, and preparations for darker roads—while something small and wrong still gnaws at Cliff’s gear. The council’s summons looms.
Music: Charterhall by Sydney Fabel https://bradowens.bandcamp.com/album/blades-in-the-dark-by-john-harper-unofficial-ttrpg-soundtrack
Licensed under Scrybe Quill Context License
https://www.scrybequill.com/license
Tech first: we stopped relying on brittle automations, stabilized the rig by driving it manually, and took notes on what actually works on stream. The plan going forward is simple—lean setup, quick scene kits ready to drop (alleys, rooftops, back rooms), and a clear rule: if we’ll live in a space for more than a moment or it affects positioning, it goes on screen; otherwise theater of the mind keeps us fast.
Story second: rumors of people “returning unchanged” kept pointing us to Menest. Cliff’s shadow-mark grew more active, Tim’s tests confirmed it isn’t leaving without a fight, and the table kept walking the line between talking our way through and drawing steel when the clock ran out. We ended with our heading set: track the vanishings, find the crossing, and face what’s waiting in Menest.
The chase quickens. A scream off the trail, four bears in the mud, and a stranger who bleeds out before names can be exchanged. Pelts packed, nerves raw, the road leads to a smoking shrine—wagon, platform, and an iron-etched cage that won’t yield to gold fire.
Winged kobolds wheel, cultists conjure grasping arms, and the lock has no key to pick. Nilar drops, Kolut follows, Cliff sprints through flying stone to drag breath back, and Mecoo’s axe writes the line. Then the clearing shakes as a vast white shadow falls and a voice of ice asks: Who’s invaded my space? The rescue has become a reckoning.
Music: Street Skirmish (City Battle Theme) by Supernova Collective https://supernovacollective.bandcamp.comLicensed under Scrybe Quill Context Licensehttps://www.scrybequill.com/license
The Sacred Wyrmling is missing. Whispers lead from market stalls to slum alleys, an old seer drops a riddle, and a trail of clawed prints pulls the party beneath the trees.
In this recap: a quiet orphanage check-in, political stonewalling in the capital, a cave raid through kobolds and zealots, and one terrified captive who reveals the handoff: a carriage, two hours ahead. Press play and join the chase.
An orphanage stoop, a splintered argument, and a boy who won’t take a gift back. Bricks bake in makeshift kilns while names and nerves harden—Squee Squee, Celeste, Jesse, Zachariah—hope hammered out of clay. Somewhere between goodbyes and good intentions, Cliff’s rations keep vanishing, leaving only a smear of something wrong.Across the bridge, metal gleams and politics sharpen. Bahamut’s garden lends a lighter heart; the council trades sealed letters for slow promises. Raids mapped, patterns found, and rumors that bite. With weeks of deliberation ahead, the question lingers: how far will they go to bend a dragon war—and what’s already eating at them from the edges?
Mid-session the stream flatlined—hard cutoff, no countdown—and we smash-cut back in to our biggest live crowd yet: 24 on YouTube. After that, the show ran clean. Cameras behaved, audio stayed sane, dice didn’t melt machines. Quiet hero? I ripped out the brittle automation and went manual: fewer gremlins, faster flow, momentum on tap.
In the story, Mecoo and Nefir left the Platinum Keep with coin and a quiet directive pointing toward Menest—the city of vanishings. The council’s math turned uglier: the broken portal will reopen elsewhere unless a dragon seals it, and fresh rifts pull orcs like a tide. Cliff chased traces of Sune while Tim mapped a plan to feed worship instead of throwing bodies at a god; a gold-dragon priestess learned the hard way that a certain sigil burns; Bramble kept vigil till dawn; Stepping Stones tilted on its hinges; and by morning, the mark was headed for the Oracle’s elders. In the DM Deep Dive, I lay out how we balance our RP lean with punchy combats: when talk carries, when steel snaps the stalemate, and why the only win condition that matters is whether the table cares.
The broadcast gods took a swing. Mid-fight, the stream flatlined, the VOD sealed itself like a tidy little coffin… and we cold-started back into carnage with no intro, no countdown, just adrenaline. In Tech Diaries, I walk you through the crash playbook—why momentum dies, how to necromancy it back, and the safeguards that keep a severed signal from killing the story (crash slate, local record, split hotkeys, pin-the-link, go).
Then the knives turn inward. In the Recap: a vision of chains and a goddess dimmed, a mark that isn’t just a mark, a spymaster with smoke for answers, and three doors no one wants to open—Menest, the Oracle, or the hunt for an ember that might save a god… or light a fuse. Deep Dive closes us out: Fences, Not Cages—how limits at the table (flight, water folk, banned options, yes even Silvery Barbs) keep the ride fast without caging the players. No answers here. Just the ticking. Come hear which door opens—and who gets pushed.
The boy was found—but not saved.
Drag marks led to a cavern where Nero’s embrace carried a hidden blade, and his eyes burned with a crimson haze. Scarecrows fell to steel, dwarves stepped from stone with moonlit weapons, and enchantment turned kin into killers. Each prayer, each spell, bought only moments before the cave went still again.
But truth weighs heavier than wounds. Parents unmasked. Crystals shattered. Fire and ash rising toward the trees. The road to Meake offered trade, respite, and an orphan’s brief peace—but red shards linger, and the dragons’ charge waits unfinished.
The storm broke—but its silence carried worse omens.
In the caves, webs shuddered with unseen skittering, beetles charged with brutal horns, and flame cut through friend and foe alike. Above ground, gray burrowers burst from the soil with rusted blades, and conscience drove the party deeper into a swamp where even crocodiles clamped to kill. Every mile brought harsher choices, heavier wounds, and signs of blood that refused to fade.
By the time they reached the cave mouth, the trail was certain. Survivors remained. But survival would demand its price.
Broadcasting from the Lonely Halls of Oob—one Dungeon Master, one microphone, no mercy. In this episode’s Tech Diaries, the stream mutinies (twice), the digital dice turn every roll into a slideshow, and the table stutters hard enough to make a barbarian’s rage face a modern art piece. Then we hit the Trail: blood on the road, a plea in a wagon wheel, a ruined lodge with ink-marked zealots in the dark, and a word that should not be spoken out loud. Deeper still: cages, a bridge over black, a humming violet threshold, and a gamble that shakes the stone. Night finally falls—but a vision that isn’t his leaves a mark that is.
For the Dungeon Deep Dive: “How sandboxy is sandboxy?” Theater of the Mind is a camera on a dolly; Foundry’s a camera on rails; modules are the ride. I show you how I hide the tracks, say yes in under a minute, and keep momentum with clues, clocks… or claws. When players stall, survival can be sweeter than victory—and if they really do open a chicken farm, great. Somewhere between the first egg and the first profit, a courier arrives, ink smeared, eyes wide: “The death god wants a bucket.” Tune in.
Dawn splits the party’s path: coin to earn, favors to trade, and a wagon to buy before the road turns inland. Cliff works the shrine with a healer’s edge, Kolut and Nilar scheme gears and lightning, and Mecoo muscles the docks till the purse feels right. A stubborn mule, a woven grass bird, and an easy sky—until the wind brings a smell like old graves and the clouds wear a face that watches back.They take shelter in a mountain cavern where a black pool waits like a promise. A chest sits just close enough to tempt, and the water answers with hooks and hunger. Steel, light, and cold rip the dark apart in a scramble between breath and depth. When the echoes die, something useful glints where danger had smiled—and deeper tunnels breathe a challenge the storm itself seems eager to hear.
A new recruit, a sacred charge, and a letter that could shift the balance of power between dragons. The party sets off on a mission of diplomacy—but first, markets must be navigated, truths bartered, and reputations risked over drink and fire.
In the harbor city of Dreake, tensions boil just beneath the foam of mead and sea spray. With tempers flaring and steel nearly drawn, the road to peace begins not with battle—but with a brawl.
Foundry got weird this week. Summoning circles hijacked druid spells, invisible monsters strutted around with neon auras, and item trades… well, the abyss eats well these days.
But the graveyard? That’s where it got interesting. A statue no one could move. A sound no one could ignore. Then—three clawed nightmares burst from the earth.
By the time the dirt settled, Cliff had vanished underground, Nephir was clinging to the surface by a boot, and Bramble’s badgers were tunneling like furry siege engines to save them. Mecoo barely escaped being buried alive thanks to the angriest fiery teleport I’ve ever seen, and Tim’s “protector” cannon once again stole the spotlight.
We didn’t win. We didn’t lose. But you’ll want to hear why this fight ended in a draw—and why I’d run it again in a heartbeat.
Disoriented. Displaced. Bound by fate. Seven strangers awaken in a fractured realm torn between three warring dragon factions. With no path home, they face conscription into forces beyond their understanding—Metallic order or Chromatic chaos.
But before their fates are sealed, a desperate plea draws them into the wilds. Goblins prowl, danger festers, and choices must be made in the heat of battle. In a realm where nothing is familiar, will their first steps forge unity—or fracture the fragile alliance before it begins?
Broadcasting from the lonely halls of Oob, the Dungeon Step-Daddy returns—solo, unsupervised, and at the mercy of his own tech. In this episode of Attack of Opportunity, the Tech Diaries kick off with some long-overdue module purges, a disappearing inventory issue, and a very real rant about Foundry features that work... until they don’t. If you’ve ever lost more prep time to macros than monsters, this one’s for you.
Then it’s on to the session recap, where tattoos crawl, caravans split, and golden kobolds from “Pamazon Prime” interrupt mid-combat with special deliveries. From critical hit rebalancing to the psychology behind character tension, the DM Deep Dive gets raw—tackling everything from potion rules to the emotional weight of godly silence. It’s weird. It’s warped. It’s Oob. And there’s no co-DM to stop the descent. Roll your fate. One lie at a time.
