Delta Green - Iconoclasts 36

[00:00:00] Warning, this game's setting revolves around an active Middle East combat zone and contains references to extreme violence, graphic content, and other mature themes. Listener discretion is advised. The Rancors Brothel presents...

[00:00:44] Iconoclasts, a campaign of horrors modern and ancient.

[00:01:12] I don't know if you guys want to think about what you're doing. We probably should be calling this a close of a day. Don't know what you want to do, strategize, etc. I assume we probably got a link back up. Yeah, you can get the crew together. Are we all going back to the safe house? Is what you mean? Well, I mean... Because, I mean, Captain Dan and Landry weren't gonna stay... I was thinking we might stay late and just do a little surveillance on... The ruins are too much of a risk right now to do a conclusion on those.

[00:01:39] The only other lead we've got is this other contact that's south of those ruins, so... I think that this is pretty... Well, also, he's on the side of the ruins that has been more excavated, so we would actually have more to go look at. Yeah, I mean, leaving the two of them out there for surveillance, get up on a rooftop and watch just to see what happens in the ruins. Mmm! Is there traffic in there? Camp out in the middle of Mosul right next to... You boys brave!

[00:02:08] I mean, we're camping out in Mosul in somebody's house. It's true. Camp out in a ruin, you know? I don't know. What do you guys think? I want to get into those ruins somehow, some way. Yeah. I'm feeling like an accelerationist, so I want to stay and see what's going on, but that's not necessarily the smartest choice. I feel like that's not how you feel, that's just how you are. Yeah, yeah. That's fair. I tell you what, you run through that gate, and we'll watch. Right?

[00:02:37] No, I want to go around to the south... Go long! Longer! Keep going! I want to go around to the southwest end of Nineveh and sit on a building across the street and just watch. Yeah. Yeah. No, most definitely. I don't see why we couldn't... I mean, you're talking about like from like right now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't see why. I mean, there also might be a way we can get eyes on the ruins permanently with other assets too, without having to camp out and stay here. So... Like setting up the cameras he was talking about?

[00:03:06] Some type of surveillance that we can tap into with other resources. Yeah. I mean, I don't see why we wouldn't all get back together and then head down. Mm-hmm. Depending on how much time we have left in the day, if we need to put it up. I mean, I don't know if you want to do it in the middle of the night, if you want to do it during the daytime. I mean, the other option is you guys could stay at the ruins for surveillance, and then the hospital crew could check out that other contact as well. Right. That was kind of part of what I was thinking. Yeah. That's a good idea. Because we'll all still be in the same vicinity, and then...

[00:03:36] Works for me. What are you doing? Making secret plans. Oh, okay. Yeah. Is there anything narrative I need to know about at this point? No. Okay. Sounds great. You guys going back to your safe house? The hospital crew is going to follow up on that other contact. Okay. Landry and Captain Dan are going to surveil the southwest end of Nineveh from a rooftop in the city. Some stealth rolls? All right. A group... I'll let you do a party stealth roll.

[00:04:05] That way you only have to make one roll. You've got to make the worst one. What's Landry's stealth? 50. So is Dan's. Oh, you lucked out, you little shits. I think you only have to make one 50 roll. You want to roll it? Hell yeah. Yeah. I think you should put it in the skull. Yes. Towards me. Don't look at it. In the skull. No, because he's just going to make him say whatever the fuck he wants it to be, not what it actually is. No, he's going to let us do whatever we want to do. And then... Then I'm going to dramatically spin the skull around and be like, hey, you see, you're like,

[00:04:34] you see red dots creeping up the side of Landry's head. And then I spin it around. Damn. All right. 65 over 50. Perfect. See, if that was in the skull, you'd just be like, oh, what's the drama there? That's absolutely how I want to use this skull, Jeff. Yeah. We will put it in the middle of the room. We'll put it in the middle of the table. And when an influential roll comes, we'll just pop it and I'll use a flashlight and see what the roll is. I won't touch it. I'll just look at it because it's going to be dark enough in there. No one will be able to see it. The best part is you literally have to investigate the roll. Yes.

[00:05:03] We totally need to install some LEDs in that Cthulhu head. I was thinking that. We could do remote activate it so I can hit it and go, okay, see what it is and then turn it off. That's, that's a thousand percent the way I want to use that skull, Jeff. Like I was thinking this rainbow, rainbow road staircase here has got to have some specific use. That's what the skull is used for. You dump that shit in the skull. Yeah. That's what we're using the skull for a hundred percent. It's for roles like that. Well then roll your stealth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Toss it in the skull.

[00:05:32] I'd rather you not know than know you failed. I'd rather give you the opportunity to pass and not know the answer. Oh, it rolled too hard. Yeah. You're not touching. Don't slam it. Just, just, just let go. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not slamming it. I'm just dropping it. It really is. Yeah. Cthulhu has deemed you're not worthy. All right. Let me try it. Try the other part of it. There you go. Interesting. Interesting. All four of them were fails.

[00:06:03] No, I know that one that he picked up was a 10. I picked up a 10 and I picked up a 40. Okay. You guys stealth up onto a roof somewhere. Yep. Okay. What is the date? It is the 19th, May 19th. And you guys are, how long are you going to stay there? Um, we could, we could take shifts and stay the whole night. It might be important too. What is the average temperature in Mosul in May?

[00:06:33] Cause how much does it suck to be outside? Uh, cool. Somebody going to provide details for the listening audience? 65 at night. Beautiful. I imagine day time's a 93. A little worse. Um, so yeah, you guys post up, uh, in a building. You don't necessarily, I don't think, unless we talked about it, have like binoculars or anything per se. We did specifically talk about taking that stuff with us. Yeah.

[00:07:01] I don't know if you would have carried it with you across town or not. Maybe you did. Maybe why not? Yeah. I mean, if we're going to surveil, we're going to surveil. Yeah. Um, okay. Let's go to the other guys, uh, first. So you're going to try and track down. Yeah. Halibaji. Okay. My super secret clue guy. Uh, I'm going to say that you're, you are able to, um, you navigate through the streets. No problem. Okay. Oh, you were, gotcha. I see what you're saying.

[00:07:29] Um, you find the area where, um, our beanie has said that, um, Nalan Halibaji, uh, lives. Gotcha. It is now getting on into the evening. It is getting dark. Um, patrols are, are getting heavier. People are being more questioned for being out at night because there is a curfew. So you don't have a lot of time, um, to get back to the safe house. So, um, you are able to locate the address. Any activity outside the dwelling? No. Um, it looks very quiet.

[00:07:56] Um, other than you notice a few furtive glances of like, I don't know that the homes would have curtains necessarily, but there's definitely someone moving in and in on the inside and watching the outside. Uh, there are lights on, uh, inside candlelight, something to that effect because it is getting dark. What do you want to do? Mr. Talkie talkie. I'm trying to think about approach would work here. They are. What did we get their name from again? I know that they were a witness, but what, like how do they were someone who I think originally had like cell phone footage of an attack or something like that.

[00:08:24] So they just a citizen or are they like an ISIL fighter? No, they're just, they're just a citizen of Mosul. It's a middle-aged, you know, maybe even late fifties, um, woman in Mosul, just an average Mosul citizen. Back on the fucking door. Yeah. Don't scare the shit out of her. Yeah. Yeah. You could use Alcanzo for this one because it's all about women's behavior. If you need to. You bang on the door. Um, you see a, a, a sort of terrified woman sort of open the door. Uh, yes. Alcanzo brigade. We need some answers immediately.

[00:08:54] Of course. Yes. Yes. Um, she opens the door and sort of steps back, uh, cowed by your presence. What is your, um, what's your charisma? I'm guessing this is Jim. You don't have to roll it, but I'm just curious what it is. It's one of those scores. It's up to the top 14. Yeah. You, you, you, you are imposing by your very nature. Um, I, I, I, I, I don't, I don't, I don't understand what, what, what can I do for you? The attack. We need information. Um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, w w w what attack?

[00:09:22] I, I, um, I, I don't understand what you're asking. Can we pull up? Do we have the footage or we just have the, I don't think we have the footage. Yeah. I think it's, it's been sort of a ghost story kind of a thing. I don't remember if there, there are a couple of different tales in here of, of seeing these attacks from the father of war. Um, this is just one that our being, he's been able to actually trace to a real person. I mean, we know it was on the 25th. On the 25th people dying. She looks wide eyed at you. Monsters in the night, skin being flayed.

[00:09:50] Um, uh, um, um, you, you get very much the sense that she feels trapped. Uh, uh, I, I, I, I, um, mm-hmm. She kind of like just nods. I want, um, how would I change like my demeanor from going? I, you could role play it and see what a lot of it is. A lot of it is going to be what you and I, how you and I interact. Okay. You've come in like a hard ass. Yeah. So I want to change that right now. I want to try to take a software approach and be like, we're trying to help.

[00:10:18] I, I, I, I don't. Now, now it's straight confusion. I, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't understand. I, I, um, I, I, I wouldn't be out at night. It's, it's, it's, there's, there's curfews in place for good reason. Of course. Absolutely. I understand. It is Islamic law. People are dying. Um, um, it is, it is good that we have brave soldiers of, of the Islamic state, uh, such as yourself, uh, to protect us. Yes. Yes. The attack. Did you have anything to do with it? No, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't.

[00:10:46] I, I, I, I, I didn't, I've never attacked anyone. No. Who was it? I, I, I, I, um, psychotherapy or human shooter in the knee. There is an option. I, I, I, I, I don't understand. I, I, I, I, um, no, I, I would never attack anyone. No, we don't have any footage or pictures of these victims after all these attacks that we've researched.

[00:11:14] I mean, we've, I assume that we would have imagery of flight bodies. Yes. Man, it doesn't necessarily mean that the body, the body that you're showing her isn't necessarily, but does it have to be? I think it really depends on your tactic, your role playing tactic at this point. Hmm. You barge into this woman's house as a member of the Islamic State. She is batshit terrified about a situation where you're accusing her of being out after curfew and now people have been murdered. To Jeff's point, you could shoot her in the leg. He's waiting for you to play the asshole. I don't know about that, but it would, I mean. Fuck it, Mary's drawing the sign.

[00:11:46] Like, casting the spell? I'm drawing the sign. Like, she's watching Jennifer try to struggle with this lady and she's just stepping to the side and starting to draw it in the air. That does, that does have a cost. I know. Pretty good. I don't think that that's gonna work the way you think it's going to. We're about to see. We're about to find out. Well, let's fucking find how to cast the elder sign again. Honestly, she was struggling with trying to convert some of the people at the hospital, so. What?

[00:12:14] Well, I forgot you're fucking, you're insane now. I forgot. I totally, I was like, oh. The elder god complex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um. And yes, I've already lost two power points. It's gonna cost you two willpower and one sand. Okay. You're not near breaking point or anything, are you? Uh, let's see, I have breaking point 52 crossed out and I have 39.

[00:12:46] Pretty sure that's how you got that elder god complex. It is very insensitive to do this, but I, it is a way to convey to a Western, predominantly Christian based, uh, uh, listening world. Uh, when a bunch of guys from the Midwest don't understand Islamic traits, but she basically falls to the floor and crosses herself and starts screaming about gin and demons and is just like fucking hysterical.

[00:13:15] I don't think Mary can wipe the smile off her face right now. It only lasts for, I don't know, 30 to 60 seconds before the sign expires. Um, but you do draw it like on the side of her wall or something like that. And she is just losing her ever loving goddamn mind. The neighbors are probably wondering why she's screaming. Warner uses psychotherapy. That's just psychotherapy. I'm telling you, shoot her in the knee. Nope.

[00:13:43] No, the demons, the demons. I won't eat the stone. No, I won't. I won't. Say, huh? That's what she was screaming. The stone. I won't eat the stone. Allah preserved me again. Growing up predominantly with a Catholic family. I want to call on all the saints and shit, but that's not how Islam works. So these are unclean. These are heathens. You defile Allah. You, you, uh, um, what do I say? Sacrilege. She screams about sacrilege. She screams about demons and gin.

[00:14:12] She's losing her ever loving fucking mind at this point. She's pointing at Mary and screaming whatever the Islamic cultural equivalent is to which. Nice. You're attracting a scene. So I think Mary's just going to say, have you seen it? Do you follow it? Uh, I do not follow your evil worship. Um, uh, uh, uh, again, trying to do, you know, may Allah curse you. You unclean heathen gin.

[00:14:40] She is riled up as fuck. I wonder if she lives alone. Jeff over under. Uh, under 47. Lucky enough that she lives alone. Cause I was wondering who's going to come thumping down the stairs. Um, they were going to get lit up by Warner, whoever they were. As soon as they came down those stairs. That would have made for an eventful night. It's not gonna, I have a feeling it's not going to be much fucking better if we don't

[00:15:10] either shut her up or get the fuck out of here. Yes, it is. It is causing a ruckus alertness rolls. I'm going to change my fucking dice. I'm clean. I'm clean. I'm clean. Allah will punish you. Help. Help the demons. The gin. Uh, three under 23. No. Yeah. You're probably drawing a crowd. Oh, we're under over. You don't see anybody with guns yet. Just the new something. Yeah. Let's dome her and go for the washer. Yeah.

[00:15:40] Warner just cracks her with the butt of his gun. Um, roll, uh, unarmed combat. Just roll the damage. What's the damage on unarmed combat? Uh, do you not have it? Do you not? Do you have your, uh, I have a 16 unarmed. What's your, what's your unarmed damage? No, that's not on here. I have an unarmed. Oh yeah. Yeah. I have an arm right here. Sorry. I didn't see it. Is it a plus or minus? Uh, it's a minus one. Okay. Just roll flat D for one. Uh, she definitely spins out of the way. So you crack her.

[00:16:08] You don't shut her up, but she like, she's not out like action movie out. But you do startle her with the crack of your, and I'll just say shut up or die in Arabic. Oh, um, what is it? Intimidate? It's persuade. Is it just persuade in this game? Yep. Can somebody else say shut up or die? I think I can say shut up. I was just saying roll with a bonus die.

[00:16:34] I do think presenting yourselves as demons and, uh, then physical violence. Uh, what's the bonus day in this? Just roll another D 10 and take the better result. Gotcha. The tens place. Yeah. So 73 minus four. So yeah. No, you're supposed to roll the tens place. Oh yeah. So like if you rolled an 83 and a 23, you would take the 20. Roll another 70. I rolled a 90. You rolled a 70 and a 90. Yeah. So you take the 70. You always take the, whatever the better role is. Okay. So, so it's fucked either way. Yes. Gotcha. What is your persuade? 70.

[00:17:03] Oh, and you rolled a 71 three. Oh, I burned three points of what that's Cthulhu. I would have burned points earlier. I was like, say, what can we burn? I don't know. I'd let you, I'll burn three points of my points. I'll burn three on my bonds. Willpower. I could see that I'll burn willpower for sure. Um, I say the 73 is probably close. She's not shut up, but she has quieted, but you are. You are rapidly losing control of the situation. So you, you probably want to exit after one or two more questions. So what do you, what are you doing next?

[00:17:36] I said, we wanted to know what you saw and not take your ass in for obviously. I mean, we tied the videos to you. We know that you were there. If we could have taken you in, we would have just yanked you and done it in the first place. We need information on whatever the hell this thing is. They tried to make you eat stones. Ask the witch. She screams. It is, it is, it is demons. Just like, just like her. It is, it is foul things that, that cut men to, to ribbons and, and, and, and speak of violence and blood. Who was talking? People?

[00:18:05] Or could you hear, or, or did the, the, the, it was the stones. The stones had a voice? Yes. You heard it? Yes. Tell us what that means or you will be mine. Fairly intimidating. Uh, she screams again. Um, no, she's like, I will not answer the questions or I'll feed you to the demon. Yeah, no, I, I get it. You guys are going to lean into that. Uh, 10 for, um, I got it. No. Um, it likes its meat like hamburger. Don't make me hit you into hammer.

[00:18:34] Totally should have brought some horns, man. Yeah. I'll just start jumping around the room. She describes an attack, um, where the air was abuzz. Um, the men were surrounded by some sort of glittering black glass or stone. Um, it basically flayed one of them alive in moments like, like a barracuda. You know what I mean? Just piranha just gone. I was like, wait a minute. I don't know. Wait, wait a minute. Okay.

[00:19:03] Barracuda are fast as fuck. Barracuda. Yeah, but they're, it's not like a swarm. Like bear, it's not like a thing. Yeah. Watch, watch a video of a barracuda. It's pretty quick. It is a singular thing. So wait a minute. It's not a swarm of tiny bites. Is she mistaking like the scarabs as stones? Is that what's going on? Or we were. Um, she says the other man fell to his knees in supplication and swore and swore to the service of some dark being.

[00:19:32] It appeared as if he ate a stone and walked away unharmed. Now he's a son of war. She, one of the flying stones. Yeah. Yeah. Ostensibly. She's, she's not sure. You get the sense that like, this is a woman who encountered a demon in real life in the middle of a war zone. And like it, it, it mentally broke her. Like drawing a magical elder sign on the fucking wall that glows really set her the fuck off.

[00:19:59] Like, Hey, you, I might have hurt the resell. Right in the ribs. So here for it. Emotional baggage elbow drop from the top of the fucking cage. Yes. Um, so yeah. Um, she, she basically, she warned her people never to go. She warned her family never to go out at night. She's terrified. You don't think she's left her house in two months. She might now.

[00:20:28] I literally now see Mary is like the Jehovah's witnesses of the elder. And he, she's just going to walk from house to house. Have you seen the signs? There's a really sweet shirt that I want to get something like that. It's like, have you tried DCC? And it's got guys in like robes with like tentacles underneath handing pamphlets out on the street corner. I'm like, nice. Uh, so yeah, those are the major clues that you picked up.

[00:20:54] Um, it seemed to bow almost in prayer or supplication to this swarm consumed one of the stones and walked away completely unharmed. You think their bellies glow under blacklight? I mean, anything else you want to do? How do you get extra dimensional beans out of people? 12 gauge. That's getting the people out of the. Potato. I keep telling people that's my rule in any of these games.

[00:21:23] You buy a sawed off shotgun. You pull both barrels. If it doesn't die, it didn't matter anyway because you weren't going to survive the encounter. If two slugs doesn't kill it from close range, you probably weren't going to live. I don't imagine we're going to get much house out of her. Hysterical weeping. Yeah. Time for us to make a quick exit. I think. Yeah. Um, uh, we exit stage stage, right? Yeah. World build. Um, military science.

[00:21:52] It's probably two guys on the roof. Military science. I would also take alertness. Well, before you roll, I would take alertness. Military science. You hear a buzzing. I think there's anything else that I would really take. No, those are probably it. 51 under 60 for military science. Nice. 98 over 50. Perfect. You got it. I mean, we were going to take turns keeping watch.

[00:22:22] So I'm asleep. Best special forces person ever. Um, so binoculars, right? Jeff. Yeah. You can't. That's probably right. Yeah. That's east. That's west. Okay. You notice a lot of traffic into one particular area. There seemed to be a lot of, there seem to be folks moving in and about. There are several, there are several guard positions. You can see like moving troops.

[00:22:52] They're trying to prevent looters at all the exits, right? There's definitely a spot. You probably can't quite see it with binoculars. Um, there's definitely a spot where you saw troops moving to, um, with purpose farther into farther into the site. Not, not super far, but just enough that like binoculars are a bit difficult to see. But what's interesting to you is that as it gets dark, you don't see those guys come out, but you don't see any lights go on either. Okay.

[00:23:19] The night patrols of the ISIL guys outside the site, flashlights, cell phones, there's a spot farther back there where if they're operating, they're operating with infrared or they're operating somehow almost completely undercover. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. So you got the outer perimeter where we can see guards with lights. Correct. Yes. Somewhere further back there. We saw troops move to that area. No lights. We can assume that they're, they are either the lights are, the lights are blocked or

[00:23:48] they are somehow using no lights. Correct. Okay. Hmm. Um, as that happens, as you're watching, uh, It's already fucked up there, right? We can just call it an airstrike. Yeah. Alertness roll, Jeff. Aught eight under 50. You see the truck coming. It's slow enough that your spider sense starts tingling. Um, but a small truck kind of cause you're on like the Southeast corner, right?

[00:24:15] So there's kind of a road that runs not quite North and South, but like slight Northwest to Southeast, like a bit of an angle. And you see a slow moving, you know, 25 year old model car, truck, whatever it is. Some small two door. It's a Toyota. Yes. It's a Toyota. It's a Hilux. Um, moving its way down the road, right? Yep. Um, and every military instinct in your body tells you to duck. Yep. Duck. He's already down.

[00:24:42] As the explosion goes off, um, right in front of the four or five ISIL guards, um, that were there, um, from underneath the building that you're in and the alleyways around you hear, um, automatic fire firing into the Nineveh ruins. Oh, okay. Um, I'm assuming he's sitting up and I'm away. I feel like the 98, uh, only goes so far when someone sets off a fucking IED across the street.

[00:25:12] It's not time for school yet. So somebody's shooting into Nineveh. Correct. At the ISIL guards. That's what I thought. Um, yeah. So what are you guys going to do? I mean this to me, there's, there's two of us and there's, uh, there's this clash happening. This is a fucking wait and see and keep your fucking head down. Even my dumb ass knows that. Um, yeah.

[00:25:41] So, right. Like, let's just let them fight. Right. We'll see what happens. Well, yeah, but they're, they're shooting at them from the building that we're on. Okay. I missed that. Yeah. Did I sleep through that? Yes. That's a problem. Fuck. So what the concern is we get hit with artillery. So yeah, yeah, we got move. So can we, can we, can we clock with, uh, the binoculars, uh, any of these guys and what

[00:26:10] they're wearing or how about alertness roll Spencer? 3450. You both. Spencer is you, uh, flip up the binoculars, right? And you're, you're trying to see what's going on. You're keeping your head down. Right. Clearly the firefight is coming from ground level beneath this building. You're in whether you're in two, three, four stories, whatever it is, you scaled up the side, you're hiding on the, on the roof, right? The fighters in the alleys are moving towards the ISIL position.

[00:26:39] At this point, the ISIL guys have regrouped. They, they would have trucks. They would have some sort of fortification sandbags, whatever, right? If they were sort of patrolling and hanging out there, um, you see one of them pop up, um, and, uh, put something on his shoulder. Yeah. Um, would you like to tell Spencer what he rolled? Uh, you rolled a 77. Nice. Oh, fuck. Oh. The RPG goes whizzing towards the building. Um. It's a crit fail by the way. Oh, right. Yeah.

[00:27:08] Yeah, no, they- Eleven'sies. I'm not gonna say that they saw you. It's literally eleven'sies. But they see what happened around you. Um, base range of 200 meters is definitely, uh, solid there. Oh, and, uh, oh, I like that. The kill radius is 10 meters. Only one piece of ammo, obviously. I'm trying to remember how that works. But we are behind cover. You are behind cover, yeah. No, you would definitely- Cthulhu really did not find me worthy tonight. And you would also imagine he's not shooting at the roof. Yeah, right. Right.

[00:27:37] Should've taken a hint when I couldn't even roll the dice. Oh, shit. I'm trying to remember how that works with lethality. If you roll under the percentage, it just- It just hits and goes off within that radius. Yes. But if not, I think it does the damage of both dice, I think is how that works. Correct. You're not aiming at our floor, right? Just at the building. Well, I'll pause the building first off. Yeah. Cause I mean, that's gonna make a big difference.

[00:28:06] Can I roll a d6 for how many floors there are? Cause the taller the building, the less fucked we are. No, my thought was- Well, we would've gotten on a tall building to surveil from a distance. Right, right. Really won't matter though if the first floor goes. Right. RPGs don't take out whole floors. Right? Just critical parts of the infrastructure. I rolled a 70, so that deals what? 17 points of damage. Oh yeah, yeah.

[00:28:34] Um, so the building takes 17 points of damage. I'm going to assume that, you know- Each floor is 10 damage. I've never dropped a building. Um, uh, either of you have armor on? I don't think you do. Yeah. You do? I believe so. I do? Cause if we do, I don't know where that would be. Hang on. Oh, it does say- Well, so there's a whole list. There's a whole line for armor down here. My character does not show that he's wearing it. No, no, you're right. Ditto.

[00:29:06] Sorry for- Paramilitary civilian clothes. Pooping on your parade. Our parade's been pooped, buddy. I really found something. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I'm going to locate some plate armor next time we try to- Yeah, based off of what we got, we've got paramilitary and civilian clothes and Chinese surplus combat boots. Balaclava, canteen. Yep. To Spencer's credit, he did see it coming. Yeah. Also, all of our characters do have binoculars. Oh, okay. Good to know. Thank you.

[00:29:35] You may need some when this pair is lost. Um, I mean, is there a building- Athletics rules. I was going to say, is there a building close enough that we could jump to a roof or- Uh, well, so here's the thing. I will- You see an RPG being aimed in your general direction. He would scream RPG. What would your actions be? What are you trying to do? I would go away from the RPG. Right. So you're going to run straight the opposite direction. Yes. You're going to run straight west. Got it. Spencer, what would your action be? I follow. Um, okay.

[00:30:05] Athletics rules. No. That's another 98. What's your athletics score? Uh, 40. Jesus Christ. Mine's 60. I still rolled over that. Go on without me, Captain Dan. Which two players are incredibly at risk here? What's that? I'm just trying to figure out who I'm killing with an RPG. Captain Dan and Landry. Yeah. I just- Okay. Yeah. Let's let it happen Spencer. What was that check for? Athletics? Just an athletics role to see if they could get out of it.

[00:30:35] We might need to figure out how many floors are on that building. Yeah. I mean like seriously- Sure. It's got the explosive power of a grenade. It's a rocket propelled grenade. Yeah. So it's not going to like fucking nuke the building. Roll a d6. I would assume it's at least a three story built. Okay. Roll a d6. So we want- One, two, or three would be a three. Oh, okay. Gotcha. I was thinking like three is one or two, four or five. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Six. Yes, dude. That's actually good. It's as tall as it can possibly be.

[00:31:04] Unless I fall off the building because I got a 98. Or it's him athletically trying to dive behind cover and he just goes over the side of the building. But it's not a critical failure, right? So maybe he only his front half goes and he hoot on whatever the lip is. Oh my gosh. Okay. Please. Please. I'm going to laugh if you died because of how high I made the building.

[00:31:34] Because you fell off of it. I don't know of a- Any rules lawyer-y things that you'd like to say, Jeff, of things that I'm doing as I ad hoc it? I'm not sure what you're doing yet. Oh, okay. Landry always did run head first into stupid situations. He was just trying to get some shut-eye. I just- The last sound he makes before he dies is just all the air escaping his body because he's landed weird. Spencer 100% rolled a 77 though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:04] Which is a critical failure. I really wanted just like a spotlight to appear on them and just like fucking AK fire just lay into the building and I'm like, nah, we're going to do it. We're going to do an explosive. Give it up you bastard. All right. The best part is it had nothing to do with your stealth role. It's just they just happened to also inhabit the building. Well, then I was rolling like random encounters and it's like your characters are wrong place, wrong time, right in the middle of a- Yeah. Internal firefight for Mosul. I'm like, oh, this is going to be sweet.

[00:32:33] So you both rolled like shit. We're going to assume that it strikes. It didn't hit the kill radius, so it wouldn't be an instant kill. He didn't hit the top of the building. He did do 17 points of damage within what was it a 20 meter, 20 meter radius is what it says. 20 meter radius. 20 meteors. Which is- Is it 10 or 20? You said 10. Yeah. 20 is insane. Cause I'm like a math and ballistics expert now. I mean, 10 meters is a good size. That's like half. Yeah. That's like 30 feet.

[00:33:03] There's a little bit of reason why I thought it might collapse the building. I mean, reinforced wall has 15 armor rating. And the RPG has 20 armor piercing. Oh shit. Oh damn. Okay. That's why I started to ask if you guys had armor and then I looked at it and it says armor piercing 20 and I went, I don't think it really- This is RPG in 2016, not 1942. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So the rocket propelled grenade launcher is a 200 meter base range, 30% lethality, kill radius of 10 meters.

[00:33:31] So anything within 10 meters of the strike is immediately dead. One armor capacity, not surprise and a 20 armor piercing rate. Um, well, I mean, it's a rocket propelled get fucked. We're not just behind a wall. We're behind a building. No, I understand. I haven't killed you yet. Yeah. Um, I feel like it falls. If you jump right before it hits the ground. Yeah. Yeah. Oh wait, that was the athletic rules. Fuck. Nah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Uh, it's hit. See their legs.

[00:34:01] Oh God. Legs spasm from the back breaking. Um, he hasn't got to murder hobo. He wants to murder. I don't want to murder hobo. It just seemed like a lot of fun. When have we ever, you are, you are fucking gleeful about this. You literally have a smile. I was gleeful, gleeful about the 77 cause it's a critical. Failure. Yeah. You're still grinning. It's fucking funny.

[00:34:29] You turned it to me and just, you can't, you fucking, you can't tell him yet. That's exactly what that's. That was very gleeful. No, that was, um, I'm going to say, uh, you know, chunk of the building obviously is gone. Shrapnel and shit is everywhere. Your athletic roles weren't good enough to completely get you out of the way. I don't think the building is collapsing. Um, but I do think you're each taking a chunk of damage. That's I accept. Not that I have a choice. Uh, one point of damage apparently for Spencer.

[00:34:59] Let's go. Six. Five for Jeff. Sorry, but you were using Jeff for cover. Yeah. It is equally your stupid Cthulhu head's fault as it is my dice. To be fair, he rolled three successes before a dice was a critical failure. Um, so fucking, you know, shrapnel goes flying everywhere. Um, uh, Spencer gets blown back a little bit as you both try and escape.

[00:35:27] Uh, Jeff apparently takes a chunk of rebar to the head or something. Um, there's specifically one that has a great eraser. Well, take the unsharpened pencil to the fact that the eraser is completely gone, making it useless as a pencil. I like it. You mean like all the other ones? They're not useless. Just mostly useless. That's not useless. Just don't fuck up whatever you write. Just anyone can contribute to the pencil fund at any point.

[00:35:57] Um, I'm going to buy one of those fucking electric battery powered ones just to do while he's talking. Yeah. Right there. Thanks. Um, you guys are in the middle of a firefight. The next time he reaches for the one that you bring specifically, you tase his ass and say, no, that's mine. Um, and wait for him to start bitching and then stick a pencil. Yep. They, you guys are in the middle of a firefight clearly between anti, uh, Islamic state folks

[00:36:27] and ISIL. What would you like to do? We found the Mosul brigades. Yeah. Hey guys, can we chat? You do see them taking casualties for sure. ISIL has, is, uh, mobilizing. Will you just get the fuck out? Right. ISIL is. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, we're getting the fuck out. I assume that we can, can we, um, pal down the back of the building? Cause how much gear you got in your back?

[00:36:56] I was going to say, I'm going to watch you roll that athletics. Make that athletics roll Spencer. How high did you? I just, I rolled right into death. Yeah. Death by six floors. Saving you from a six story fall. If you roll athletics, uh, we would call that death by dumb decision. Yeah. Um, I mean, I would, I would, or I look really good when I go, I would worry less about the

[00:37:23] athletics role and whatever the role is to secure the rope. Yeah. Right. Um, so we were assuming that we got up here by climbing is what you, you said, no, there's probably a ladder or you went through an internal staircase or yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, it's a question of whether or not you want to take the time to go down a stairwell right when, uh, with a compromised building. They say when Tee Hottie Joe over there's reloading his RPG. Right. But we're on, we were on the opposite side of where the, we want to run to the back of

[00:37:52] the building, which would make us on the opposite side of where the firefighter is happening. I agree. I understand that. Call Eileen. We need Skyhook immediately. We would 100% go down the stairs so that we could cover ourselves. I agree. Yeah. I'm just curious what you want to do. We would not leave ourselves exposed on the side of a building in the middle of a fucking firefight. He's going to do a superhero, Lenny. He's going to do a superhero. I agree. It's a terrible decision. I was going to allow the opportunity for Spencer to make it. Well, it's the back of the building guy.

[00:38:22] Oh no. Captain Dan has him by the back of the fucking collar. I just want to see what'll happen. The, the, the, the, the, the dumpster. Aim for the dumpster. Aim for the, I'm sure there's refuse in there. It'll, it'll definitely break your fall. They speak to me. All right. All right. Just the beginning. Why is it, why is it full of broken AK 47s? Because isn't that how you fix them? You beat them against the wall. Wasn't that a joke? There's just all the broken glass and rusty nails. Oh God.

[00:38:53] Uh. Yes. You guys would get into the building. Um, uh, you are hearing more trucks and everything else. Oh yeah. It is like, you're going to have to make some sort of tactical decision of what you want to do. Um, are you just hiding in the building? No, we are moving our way down. Okay. Make stealth roll. You get to, oh, I'm not even worried about stealth. I'm going to blow the shit out of whoever gets in the way, but we're going. Uh, you do hear obviously screams of, of, um, pain, people crying.

[00:39:23] Cause probably this building was occupied. That's called cover. Go. I don't disagree. Uh, you do get down to street level. Um, you do see some, uh, wounded fighters, um, on the ground. Uh, the firefights are raging. What direction do you want to go? What are you doing? Out the back. Okay. Um, had you guys planned on being there all night? Yeah. That's what I said. Yeah. I'm just trying to like, are the rest of us back at base?

[00:39:52] We were heading back to the safe house. Make a stealth roll. Party stealth roll. I didn't give you just one. Come on, buddy. You got it, Jeff. Yeah. My name is Jeff. God damn it. Jeff. Jeff. Why'd you give me the 98? Oh no. Three 98. Oh man. Yeah. No. Like you guys are really doing everything you can to kill yourselves. Well, he was being super stealthy. It's just, he's so bad that it's hitting people and they're like, what the fuck is going on?

[00:40:21] Um, yeah, like I said, I'm not trying to be stealthy. I'm leaving. Oh yeah. No, I, I get that you're not being stealthy, but you're being so unstealthy to the point of drawing attention with a 98. Hmm. No. Cause I'm not trying to be stealthy. I'm just leaving. Okay. Fair enough. Uh, would they, so they're in the building with ISIL, correct? No, no, no, no. They're in the building with the resistance fighters who attacked ISIL. Okay. So ISIL is seeing them as part of the resistance trying to exit. Correct.

[00:40:51] Which is where the RPG and gunfire would come from. I guess we're part of the resistance now, buddy. The resistance see you running in the opposite direction. So I don't know that you are. Yeah. Like motherfuckers. Those sons of bitches. They turn around and start, where's the commissar? You remember that episode of the walking dead where Shane and Otis are in the town trying

[00:41:18] to get medicine and Shane just kneecaps him and keeps running. And that's exactly what I will do to these folks to get out that door. That's fair. But I'm the guy that's with you. I like how Landry is all of a sudden like a hillbilly. Yeah. You were embodying the, uh, the name Otis. Cause you can't not be a hillbilly if your name is Otis. Yeah. It's true. You never know in stressful times what people will do. Um.

[00:41:48] Kneecap the guy next to him. That's what. Yeah. But I think we can. I think self-preservation is, uh, usually goes to the number one priority. Well, this is not another RPG. I think you guys be okay. Uh, as you run out the back, um, like three people in the alleyway eat it as a hail of gunfire, um, erupts through, uh, somehow you guys do not get shot by the hail of gunfire

[00:42:15] that, uh, goes running down the alley because it didn't roll quite well enough. Real good. Those fuckers are real dead, uh, real fucking dead. Had I shot you guys, you would be real fucking dead. Um, but yeah, bullets pinging off of the wall. Um, college students from the Mosul battalion, uh, dying in the streets, uh, blood running. Uh, but you scamper down the, the, uh, the alleyway. That means they're not going to tell the rest of the mobile, uh, Mosul battalions that we left them to die. Are both of you. Silver and lightning.

[00:42:44] Are both of you adapted to violence? Yes. Uh. The answer for you is. Oh, you are. Okay. Otherwise. Are we sure about that one? Wait, wait, wait. No. Oh, I thought it was just. No way. Yeah. I guess I'm not. No. Roll some sand motherfucker. I was like, there's no way Landry's fucking adapted to violence. Uh. Yeah. Then he rolled a 10. Yeah. 10. Uh, D4 plus one. For a pass that high? That's a lot of fucking violence in the last 30 seconds. Two. Alright. That's not just, that's not just violence.

[00:43:14] That's being in the middle of a war zone. Let's say, let's say, violence, helplessness, any of those things could have applied. Mm-hmm. Not broken. Working on it. Yeah, we are. You get a tick, you get a tick one towards adapting towards violence though. Mm-hmm. How many ticks you got? Just one. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, you guys escape by the skin of your teeth. Um, are able to get back across the river and back to the safe house. I think Warner would probably try and patch Captain Dan up.

[00:43:42] How many hit points did you have left on your bobbled deck? 10. Oh shit, you're at 15? You're at 15. I'm beefy. I assume that Landry is blitzed out of his fucking mind as soon as we get back. Oh fuck. No, I mean, he's on, so he's the kind of person that does opioids so often that like... They're just bringing him back to baseline? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay, gotcha. Uh, I would try and first aid. Maybe he popped an extra, he looks a little extra glassy eyed. Uh, I think so, yeah. We just need to look up the skill and see what first aid does.

[00:44:11] First aid or medicine, whichever one needs to happen. I think first aid prevents dying medicine like gives you like, I want to say like one point on a success and like three points on a critical success. I don't know. Well, we should probably know how to heal each other. Yeah. Yeah. Or at least be reminded for the first time in eight months. First aid. Well, at least we learned... Healing on page 55. At least we learned how they convert them. So don't eat the rocks. Don't eat rocks guys. Um, healing.

[00:44:40] So did, did we come to any definite conclusion about it being scarabs or rocks? Um, that's just what the ladies... First aid would hear 1d4. Mm-hmm. First aid would hear 1d4. Yeah. And how many times can you do that? I think it's just... Once per wound. Yeah. Once per wound. Mm-hmm. 60. Under 70. Nice. D4. All right, Jeff. Two. Do better. Um, someone might as well try to heal me too. Eh. I only got one.

[00:45:09] What's your total health? Grab a bandaid, dammit. I'm over here like... I'm some waddo, but... I'm putting a tourniquet on an arm to fucking... stuff galls into it. And he's like, I gotta hang me. To be fair, you can recover one hit point per day. Okay, so I could just sleep it off. So two? Cool. If you are in a safe place with proper food and water and can pass a con by five test, you recover one hit point per day. Okay. I'd say that qualifies for our safe house. You failed. I failed.

[00:45:38] You didn't pass a con by five. You rolled a 20 something. He rolled an 80 something. Oh, did he? He's on fire today. Oh, I actually kind of fucked that up because I rolled two. I actually... I'm gonna re-roll that because I didn't roll my dice right. He rolled a... Goddamn. Come on! There ain't no hope for you, Spice. The skull has spoken! Can someone... Can someone please heal me? I ain't putting my dice anywhere near that damn thing. I ain't putting my dice anywhere near that damn thing until you're... Burn them all.

[00:46:08] 76 under 80. Hey. So, we learned that the ruins are heavily guarded. Something funky is going on. ISIL is guarding the ruins. But there's something going on inside. Yeah. We know ISIL is guarding the gate into the ruins. Whatever's going on inside, whether it's strictly ISIL or Kul's. We don't know. They must have knowledge then of the Suns of War being there. Not necessarily.

[00:46:36] If these guys are just told, watch these gates, they don't necessarily know. But why would there be guarding desecrated ruins? To stop looters. To loot what? Idolatry. He said that they were posted to stop looters. You get the sense that they are very much... Just like they're posted on every street corner, they're posted on this street corner. Hmm. Like I said, what's weird is that it wasn't just a checkpoint or a post or a... Like, whatever Jeff is seeing is more thought out, is his assumption. Did you give us a sense of numbers?

[00:47:05] Like how many? That's what I was just going to ask. You're not sure. You saw a couple of trucks, but did the people who came in the trucks also leave the same number in the trucks? Did the people in the trucks come and then leave? Like, you know, you saw some traffic back and forth back there, but it's hard for you to tell numbers. Okay. I mean, were there 30 guys there and five guys came in a truck and one guy left? Like... I was going to say, did we see 30 trucks come in? Did we see one truck come in? No. Probably two trucks. Two trucks.

[00:47:33] So, I mean, if you were thinking there was a guard shift, two trucks would carry like, I don't know what, 15 guys? You know, if you were doing like a truck that would carry transports and supplies, right? You could fit six, eight guys in the back. You know what I mean? So, if it was a guard shift, then 15 guys swapped out. Okay. But you don't know what was in those trucks. Could have been fucking supplies. You know, you don't know for sure. And we are sure that all the people that we saw coming and going there, clearly ISIL affiliated.

[00:48:03] Could it be, you know, civilians that are being sacrificed? Or, you know, we don't know. Okay. That's an intriguing thought. Could those two trucks have been full of human sacrifices? What point in the lunar cycle are we? That's a great question. It is currently May 19th, 20, what? 16th, I think, in this game. I already fucking love the skull. The skull is becoming a permanent addition to all my games. Or just like how you can't see what the fuck you roll.

[00:48:32] Just on a risky roll, dump it in. Oh, that's really going to be creepy if they just keep critical failing. Oh my God, that'd be so awesome. It's a waxing gibbous moon, almost a full moon. So yeah, the full moon is probably within another day or two. Two days. It's on the 21st. Perfect. But the full moon was when it didn't come out, wasn't it? Right. Yeah, it's weakest. I just received the most random text from a buddy who said, I asked AI to roast the non-historicalness of Israel through scripture.

[00:49:02] And AI did it. That is something I have not done with AI. That is something that we will run out of fun things to do. I'm using it to help me run Curse of Strahd. Oh, nice. Anything else you guys want to do tonight? Anything you want to discuss for the podcast? Can we, based on where we saw the troop movement go to and then not be lit up, can we tell what area that was of Nineveh? Looking at maps and things like that.

[00:49:29] If you ping home base and ask some questions, yeah, you can probably figure that out. Okay. What's there? What was there? I don't know that you would get that answer today. Yeah. It is a question you can answer that could be answered. A question that I am asking. Yeah. It's just like the three soldiers names that you looked up. Al Rubini has to have time to search through the data to find that, but you have that answer. Dope. Cool. I think it's a great question.

[00:49:58] Do you need to put that in your notes? That that is things that we are asking for? Just another question whether or not Jeff or anybody else asks it next time. Copper. You can take a note. I am taking notes. I'm literally writing things down right now. Good. Because if we're going to play Dark Tower or some shit, you better be making your own maps. I lost all my notes. The only note I had was that Rassam was there from 67 to 97 and I thought I could shoehorn it in and then Jeff made me feel stupid. I have to give a reason. What? I'm just kidding.

[00:50:27] It was just so funny. You asked me, why are we going to the archives? What did we have to learn? I'm like, I don't know, man. It was just on the sheet. That's the only note I have left. Because everything else is gone. He's like, well, I don't know if you know this, but Istanbul was once Constantinople. It's like the only fact he knows. He learned that while he was in Greece. Holy shit, guys.

[00:50:54] You know ancient cities used to be called by other names? Oh, shit. Telling me the Great Pyramid of Giza was just an ancient aliens battery. Some of that shit I've been clicking on, Jeff. Like just the algorithm just gives me a fucking rabbit hole of shit. It's like, Jesus Christ. Where is Kazim at this point? Uh, let's say Kazim returns tomorrow. Okay.

[00:51:22] Because God knows I don't, I had that on a calendar somewhere that I don't have anymore. I know. He was coming from Britain. Oh, I believe at this point you guys get a call from Hastings checking in. Let's play that. Why not? Our Beanie, the phone rings. Hello. Hey, it's, it's Susan. Just checking in. None of us are even aware, right? Nope. Are any of us aware that Kazim's coming back without her? She would let you know. Yeah, she was staying behind. Mm-hmm. You're checking in? So are you not? We did know that, that she was staying.

[00:51:52] Yeah, I think so. Okay. What are your updates? Uh, research is progressing. Cool. Anything going on that I need to know about? I don't imagine our intel in Mosul is gonna help you with any of your research. Does she even know he incurred into Mosul yet? That's all that she's getting. Oh, yeah. Cause fuck Jeff. Oh my.

[00:52:21] Does Al Rabbini by chance, uh, notice any noise? Uh, can I make an alertness roll to hear if the line is being recorded on the other side? Uh, I mean, you didn't he make secure phones for everybody?

[00:53:00] Mm-hmm. I honestly don't think we'll have to worry about shooting you. Somebody else is going. Mm-hmm. Anything else you'd like to do, Jeff? No. Okay, just checking in. He sighs in Pisces. Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. All right. We'll pick it up on May 20th. Kazim will return to the base. Um, you guys have some questions to ask. You have some new leads. You have some new intel. Um, satellite imagery. You have some other folks you could track down.

[00:53:30] So we'll go from there. Okay. Cool. That ain't the way to have fun, son. That ain't the way to have fun. Our title track, Mama Told Me Not To Come, composed by friend of the podcast Ian Shannon, with additional vocals by Lucas Patterson and Cody Grady. You can find more of Ian's work at sleepfortheweary.com. Like what you heard? Check out more episodes online at rancorsbrothel.com, YouTube, or anywhere you can download podcasts.

[00:53:59] Enjoy talking nerdy? Follow the podcast with other listeners on the fans of the Rancors Brothel Facebook page. Most of all, keep circulating the tapes. Much love, everybody.