Playing at the Hearth

An actual play of Nick Bate's Stealing the Throne - Three Thieves steal an ancient, impossibly powerful mech. Not all of them survive.Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TDmsOwtkJ4 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

exploring Sarnac aftermathOriginal video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boY1FwEOWQ4 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Alun R facilitates the next session in a series of 'The Cluster', his own PbtA space opera game.This session was organsied as part of The Open Hearth Gaming Community (https://openhearthgaming.com/ RPG) using our Gaming Calendar (https://app.playabl.io/communities/the_open_hearth/overview).The Crew make good use of some lead time to find out as much as they can about the Mercenary Job they have accepted. However, they receive a distress signal from a different asteroid base. There's a careful approach, plans to seal an atmosphere leak, and the Crew divide their focus. Then ... a warning, a surprise, and all hell breaks loose ...Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvWufZKq4mk ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The group briefly regroups at the library with Cloud and Skull. Horns experiments with their new incorporeal abilities, while Ruse—the apprentice magician—begins forming a tentative friendship with Cloud. Meanwhile the party debates their next move: relocating the library to a safer location, exploring Rust Bucket for rumored artifacts, or heading north to resolve the mystery of Tooth the Clown, a job that still hangs over Naas.While resting in Yanni’s Plaza, a band of sellswords arrives to investigate the ruins below. Initially the encounter is tense but peaceful. Naas speaks with the group’s leader, Truth, and shares information about the dangerous elevator and the ruins below. The sellswords begin exploring the underground complex to salvage machinery.Everything unravels when Nagi secretly tries to poison the sellswords. The attempt fails, exposing the betrayal. Suspicion erupts, weapons are drawn, and the fragile peace collapses. The party negotiates a temporary truce but is forced to abandon the plaza. During the retreat, Skull and Cloud slip away into the city unnoticed.Later, scavenging the nearby battlefield, the party discovers the corpse of Sleepy Renault, leader of the Cloudling expedition. Rook uses his strange organ-granted ability to crack open the corpse and consume the brain, gaining memories of the expedition’s downfall. The expedition had attempted to destroy the Imago breeding grounds and capture the missing Empress, but the assault turned into a massacre after Prince Bug arrived. Renault was ultimately murdered by his own squire.Naas accidentally witnesses Rook’s grisly ability, leading to a tense confrontation. Rook explains that the organ allows him to absorb memories from the dead. The two reach an uneasy understanding and agree that the others should eventually know the truth.While scavenging, Horns and Nagi bond over their unusual circumstances—Horns as a Wanderling discovering newfound freedom and Nagi as a body-hopper who barely remembers past lives.Continuing north in search of Tooth the Clown, the party enters the Thickwood, an ancient forest filled with Imago and strange magic. There they encounter Dove, a brood-monk caretaker sheltering a group of elderly magicians who have succumbed to chalk addiction and magical decay. After sharing food and conversation, the party receives healing and rest.Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHAKgAi5qTo ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Alun R facilitates the first session of a short series of Grimwild (Oddity Press).This session was organsied as part of The Open Hearth Gaming Community (https://openhearthgaming.com) using our Gaming Calendar (https://app.playabl.io/communities/the_open_hearth/overview)Merle the Balladeer decides to take sides in Gaelen's mayoral race and the heroes make an enemy. That same enemy's rhetoric wakes Valeria the following morning and Sir Windemir takes a different approach to the rising tensionsin the town. Meanwhile, Pherdo visits the Watch House just in time for an argument whihc turns into a negotiation. There's screaming, a horrific murder in broad daylight, and an assassin spotted. Then, Windemir and the victim, Valeria and Merle and the crowd, and Pherdo and the washing lines ... until, finally ... a revelation no one was expecting ...Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2tmwdzMvSA ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

With the Limehouse Lurker vanquished, the hunters decide to stay home for the night and explore the music room.Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuLTGuH0_sc ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Sith arrival and a confrontation that ends very badly.Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6sNEMI3iN8 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Alun R facilitates the next session in a series of 'The Cluster', his own PbtA space opera game.This session was organsied as part of The Open Hearth Gaming Community (https://openhearthgaming.com/ RPG) using our Gaming Calendar (https://app.playabl.io/communities/the_open_hearth/overview).In the aftermath of the successful ambush Gort & Kyle check the bodies and discover a surprise survivor with useful intel. With the Clan shuttles heading back to their base it’s only a matter of time before retribution arrives, and there’ll be no benefit of surprise this time. A plan is settled on and a survivor returns a hero, prisoners are taken away, but medical attention becomes necessary. Meanwhile Clan leadership is distracted, a medbay experiences carnage, and slow death devised. Then, a survey completed, a shuttle ‘salvaged’ and an investment made in the Crew’s financial security …Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7uvsKZ9HPg ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Alun R facilitates the next session in a series of 'The Cluster', his own PbtA space opera game.This session was organsied as part of The Open Hearth Gaming Community (https://openhearthgaming.com/ RPG) using our Gaming Calendar (https://app.playabl.io/communities/the_open_hearth/overview).On their initial reconnaissance Gort & Serena find evidence of settlement on the edge of the nearest 'hot zone' where none of the locals would consider going. An initial approach generates a challenge from people who are not entriely like the locals. Then, a hostage who becomes a go-between, a surprise arrival and ... a 'kill-box' ...Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=146YkZ_80aE ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Alun R facilitates a one-shot of Action Movie World as part of the Open Hearth Gaming Community's MECHA MARCH.This session was organsied as part of The Open Hearth Gaming Community (https://openhearthgaming.com) using our Gaming Calendar (https://app.playabl.io/communities/the_open_hearth/overview)In this season's biggest blockbuster: - Anya Brozyna IS Lena Kowalski the hard charging MMA champion turned geologist ...- Kris Connery IS Jack Jarvis the suave agent with an unresolved relationship with Lena ...- and Garrison Swift, in his first dramatic role, IS Aaron MacArthur who knows Lena from their time as bodyguards ...Our Heroes are sent to Hearthstone City to investigate strange seismic data only to have a truck run them off a bridge on their way from the airport. Romantic sparks fly when Jack digs into the background of the truck with their City Hall Liaison and romantic sparks fly while Lena and Aaron's discussion of the data is interrupted when ninja storm City Hall! In one of the most remarkable action movies of recent decades earth tremors put a school bus in jeopardy, a mayoral candidate is confronted, and a hair-raising helicopter is necessary before the Kaiju is revealed and our Heroes pilot their prototype Mechs into battle!Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBnPJh4CVS4 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Finding some friendly faces to point them in the right direction (along with some alien domesticated animals) the Caravan arrive in The Rez, under the wings of a great Aernian Pod and speak with some leaders there about some big ideas.The Last Caravan is a cars and aliens tabletop role-playing game about a midwinter road trip in the wake of an alien invasion. Starting from the East Coast, you and your fellow travelers will navigate a shattered North America. You’ll explore landscapes transformed by xenoflora, search abandoned towns and crashed spaceships, discover the otherworldly technology called Harmonics, negotiate with newly-formed factions both human and alien, outrun hostile pursuers, and fight for the future of your world.Your story is about normal people finding heroism under extraordinary pressures. It’s about relationships tested by a crisis, and rediscovering what matters when the world is ending.Your people need you. Will you join the caravan?The Last Caravan is by Ted Bushman and is available here https://tedbushman.itch.io/the-last-caravan-a-cars-and-aliens-roleplaying-game***Find me on itch.io: https://donogh.itch.io or on Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@donoghFind the Open Hearth gaming community: https://openhearthgaming.com/#ActualPlay #TTRPG #OpenHearth #ForgedInTheDarkOriginal video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5StnWknmtIk ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Alun R facilitates the first session of a short series of Grimwild (Oddity Press).This session was organsied as part of The Open Hearth Gaming Community (https://openhearthgaming.com) using our Gaming Calendar (https://app.playabl.io/communities/the_open_hearth/overview)We flashback to a time when Pherdo the Monk, Sir Windermir the Paladin & Valeria the Warlock rescued a kidnapped merchant from cultists. His recommendation is what has brought them to the town of Gaelen, a prosperous trading centre at the uncertain boundary between The Kingdom and the Grimwilds. While Windemir demonstrates his fine voice, Pherdo and Valeria find themselves in an altercation with a local stall holder ... then the town watch intervenes, there's a pendant of concerning provenance, and their late-arriving friend 'The Bard' ... who finds a fan!Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OnU1QuhXzI ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

We start back at the breeding grounds, right as Prince Bug is lifting the battlefield into the air. Bodies, debris, everything is spiraling up toward him. The fear checks go poorly. Stormmy basically freezes and is lost in the chaos. Rook falls back and prepares to defend. Nagi makes their entrance by animating a corpse and, in true form, immediately tries to pick Rook’s pocket in the middle of all of this.Horns reacts very differently. Instead of running, they’re captivated. Through the noise of Prince Bug’s song, Horns gets the sense that he isn’t just some rampaging force. He feels compelled, almost distressed, like he’s being driven to do something larger than himself.When Horns starts drifting upward with the debris, Rook improvises a rescue line and manages to anchor them. Eventually Prince Bug drifts west, taking the worst of the battlefield with him.Afterward, the surviving imago are in rough shape, sick and leaking blue ichor. Horns carefully collects some of that fluid from a dying one, planning to use it to help Neus.Back at the library, Neus continues offering shelter to Cloud and Skull. Skull is tense and protective, especially when the rest of the party returns, but Neus keeps things from escalating.They decide to attempt the ritual using the blue ichor and chalk magic to stabilize Neus’s organ. It’s dangerous, but there aren’t better options.The spell miscasts.In the middle of the process, Horns realizes the poison will spread and kill Neus unless someone absorbs it. So Horns pulls it into themself and gives up their own soul to complete the transformation.Horns dies physically, but rises as a Wanderling.The miscast tears open the slip, and ash starts falling sideways outside the library. Wanderlings begin appearing. They’re cold, desperate, and drawn to “ancient flame.” They start taking books from the shelves. As they take them, the books ignite. One by one, the ghosts burn through volumes before finally fading.By the end, around fifty books are destroyed. The library smells like burned plastic. The librarian is understandably horrified, while Mama points out that, over time, she can reconstruct the lost knowledge.Neus survives, but altered. From now on, he only takes damage when doubles are rolled. Horns is now a ghost magician who can pass through walls and ignore normal harm, but is vulnerable to magical forces and drawn toward slip energy.With the expedition likely devastated and the library feeling less secure, the group relocates Cloud and Skull to the abandoned city-god complex under Rust Bucket. Rook destroys one of Vonnie’s proxy corpses and absorbs a flood of memories about what the place used to be: a maintained transit hub before the fall and Little Oregano’s descent into madness.They clear out a filthy but defensible room and settle in for the night.By the end of the session, Neus is stabilized but changed, Horns exists in a new and uncertain state, the library has suffered real loss, and Cloud and Skull are tentatively integrated into the group. Prince Bug remains out there, and Tooth the Clown is still an unresolved thread to the north.Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL7ABUfsBKg ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Historical revelations and a culling.Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYhgX1CaMUs ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Making their way across the vast expanses of the Dakotas, the newly enlarged Caravan make hunting for supplies their main task. The veterans get to know their new companions a little, while getting into scrapes and encountering new alien lifeforms.The Last Caravan is a cars and aliens tabletop role-playing game about a midwinter road trip in the wake of an alien invasion. Starting from the East Coast, you and your fellow travelers will navigate a shattered North America. You’ll explore landscapes transformed by xenoflora, search abandoned towns and crashed spaceships, discover the otherworldly technology called Harmonics, negotiate with newly-formed factions both human and alien, outrun hostile pursuers, and fight for the future of your world.Your story is about normal people finding heroism under extraordinary pressures. It’s about relationships tested by a crisis, and rediscovering what matters when the world is ending.Your people need you. Will you join the caravan?The Last Caravan is by Ted Bushman and is available here https://tedbushman.itch.io/the-last-caravan-a-cars-and-aliens-roleplaying-game***Find me on itch.io: https://donogh.itch.io or on Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@donoghFind the Open Hearth gaming community: https://openhearthgaming.com/#ActualPlay #TTRPG #OpenHearth #ForgedInTheDarkOriginal video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFaD3HO1DiU ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

A generational space epic ttrpg inspired by Dune, Foundation, Fading Suns, Coriolis, and more. Throne of Suns is an adaptation of Free from the Yoke/Legacy: Life Among the Ruins (UFO Press). In this playtest session experience our first Zoom In: looking more closely on the moves of two protagonists as they travel to a planet of heretics, both with very different agendas. UFO Press: https://ufo-mina.itch.io/This is part of Open Hearth Gaming Community, you can find out more at openhearthgaming.comOur audio version of these episodes can be found here: https://playingatthehearth.openhearthgaming.com/Follow us on https://www.tumblr.com/blog/open-hearth-rpghttps://bsky.app/profile/openhearthrpg@openhearthrpg@dice.campYou can support my channel and website at patreon/ageofravensFor more APs subscribe to the channel. For more on gaming in general, check out my site at ageofravensgames.comOriginal video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbVAbRmgMik ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

A generational space epic ttrpg inspired by Dune, Foundation, Fading Suns, Coriolis, and more. Throne of Suns is an adaptation of Free from the Yoke/Legacy: Life Among the Ruins (UFO Press). In this playtest session we see the first moves by the various factions and how those play out in the lives of the protagonists. UFO Press: https://ufo-mina.itch.io/This is part of Open Hearth Gaming Community, you can find out more at openhearthgaming.comOur audio version of these episodes can be found here: https://playingatthehearth.openhearthgaming.com/Follow us on https://www.tumblr.com/blog/open-hearth-rpghttps://bsky.app/profile/openhearthrpg@openhearthrpg@dice.campYou can support my channel and website at patreon/ageofravensFor more APs subscribe to the channel. For more on gaming in general, check out my site at ageofravensgames.comOriginal video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K0eZifrwOI ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

This week in Cloud Empress, Rook dueled Lord Flag for Horn, the group sought chalk fluid to save Neus, mangled and sickened soldiers littered the breeding grounds, the Imago prince whipped up a surreal battlefield, and Skull and Cloud sought refuge at the library with Neus.Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzX6HkEMQ5M ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Alun R facilitates the first of a two-shot of his own game. Alien Dark (available free from https://gallusgames.itch.io).This session was organsied as part of The Open Hearth Gaming Community (https://openhearthgaming.com/ RPG) using our Gaming Calendar (https://app.playabl.io/communities/the_open_hearth/overview).Evans is transforming into 'something else', Willis has been thrown across the diner, and Nyx has seen some of the froth on Evans' chin running 'into' her skin. Pvt. Quinn remains surprised when her round to Evans' centre of mass doesn't have the expected effect, while the LT observes from a discrete distance. That's when Mick separates Evans from Nyx, Willis begins to exhibit similar symptoms to Evans, and the LT calls for an orderly retreat before Sgt. Basket ('Basket Case' to the squad) puts a grenade through the diner's window. Evans survives and disappears into the blizzard while the squad gets the civvies into the colony sewer system. There, Nyx takes an ill-advised opportunity for a breather, there are questions about the chain of command, and plenty of grenades go down range! Then 'fungus' growing in the reactor's cooling system, a strange, slimy polymer on the walls, and marines who'd prefer to be dead. Finally, survival beckons in the form of the beanstalk ... but Nyx experiences a change, a black container begins to froth, and everything goes to shit ...Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8CtyNrND9k ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Mr. Pike goes to the tailor and has a good cuppa tea. Dr. Swindrake takes a look at a superior craftperson's handywork. In the evening: an intimate moment.Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZvUe5zFyqo ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★