Lonely TTRPG EP 43 - Secrets and Scholars by Crackerjackalope

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Greetings, weary wanderer, and welcome back to another episode

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

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This week we are playing Secrets and Scholars, the Disappearance of Hieronymus

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the Hardy by Cracker Jackalope.

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Three centuries ago, the Great War broke out and the Wizard Hieronymus

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the Hardy vanished without a trace.

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Many historians have theorized their circumstances regarding the

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disappearance, but none have been universally accepted as the truth.

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That's where you come in.

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You are a scholar working in the University of Arcadia for

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your latest research project.

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You have been tasked with proposing a new theory for the disappearance

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of Hieronymus the Hardy . With full access to the university libraries,

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you must probe through the various aspects of Hieronymus life gathering

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clues and building a theory,

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the disappearance of Hieronymus the Hardy is a solo journaling game

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about research and student life.

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The game is supposed to be lighthearted and fun.

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If you find yourself in too dark a place and are no longer able to enjoy where

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the story is taking you, it's okay to.

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Rewind and try something else or walk away completely.

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Additionally, you are not beholden to your dice roll or the cards you draw.

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If you determine that something on the theme or clue tables that seems

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outlandish or unfitting for the fiction you have written so far,

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feel free to roll or draw again.

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So your character is gonna have two stats.

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You're gonna have analyze and theorize, analyze, understanding

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in a text, discovering information, and following chains of citations.

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Theorize is coming to your own conclusions, disputing biases, and

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discussing your theory with others.

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So for these two stats, you're gonna have one of two dice that

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you're gonna use a D 10 or a D 12.

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Assign one to one and one to the other when you're playing the game.

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You are going to choose which skill you want to use to find your clues.

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On a 10 plus, you find two clues.

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On a five plus you find one clue on a three or four that is hijinks, no clue.

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And on a one or two, that is a failure with no clue.

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Now an important note.

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If you do not find a clue, you also reduce that die by one level, so your

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D 12 becomes a D 10, a D eight a D six, a D four to a D, two, For failures.

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That is something seriously bad happening that prevents you from finding the clue.

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High jinx is just something harmless but distracting.

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Now, if you find that your dice levels are getting way too low, then

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you can always take a study break.

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Basically, you take a little bit of a break, you reset your dice

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back to their maximum level.

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Perhaps take a break yourself.

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That might be a good idea, and then you can continue on the game.

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Now, two notes.

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You can only take one study break per game two.

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That is gonna count as your action for that turn.

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Now you have nine turns that you can do.

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So when you take your study break, then you can only do eight more turns.

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So that's eight opportunities to find clues.

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If you take a study break

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for the investigation, during the investigation, you're gonna

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complete rounds of play until you've covered all nine topics.

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Now these nine topics are.

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Hieronymus childhood.

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His family associates love life, magic, retirement, the war

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detractors, and any other theories.

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So for your round, what you're gonna do is you're gonna pick a topic to study.

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You're gonna roll on the D 66 table, write an overview of the topic

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and how it relates to the theme.

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Then make an investigation role using either your analyze or theorized.

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If you're successful, you draw one or more clues from the clue table and then

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write about the clues and how they're linked to what you've written so far.

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If you fail or run into hijinks, write about how you're

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hindered from your research.

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After that, you're going to continue on to your next clue.

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Now when you run out of topics to study, or at any point that you feel

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like you've made a good theory, you can move on to the deduction phase,

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but you can only perform this once per game.

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This is your final opportunity to lay out your case, so write down your

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deduction and prepare to defend it.

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Now in order to do that, you're going to roll for your deduction.

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You're gonna start at a D two, but for every clue that you've

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gathered, that dice moves up a level.

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So no clues is a D two one clue is a D four.

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Two clues is A D six three clues, D eight four clues, D ten five clues D 12.

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Now, D 12 is the maximum, but any clue you find over five adds plus one to your role,

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Now, of course, for your role on a one to two your theory is absurd.

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No one is gonna believe that.

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Three to four, it could use some more thoughts, should have

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done some more research, but not strong, not bad, but not great.

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On a five your theory is great.

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It is certainly more believable than the previous theories, and on

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a 10 plus your theory is incredible.

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It is shaken scholars to the core and caused them to reevaluate everything they

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knew about Hieronymus the Hardy, and then of course, make sure you close out by

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writing down how your theory went, how it was presented, and how it was received.

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The remainder of the book are your D 66 tables.

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Okay, that's just rolling two D six and matching the dye

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and then your clue tables.

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So without any further ado, we're gonna dive on in.

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I've already set up my game board with my nine topics.

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I have chosen to assign my D 12 into analyzing my D 10 into theorize

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now because I am using digital Dice.

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That does allow me to roll things like a D nine, which you may or may not be

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able to do at home, but we're gonna randomly choose what topics we get,

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and for our first one, we get six, which is going to be retirement.

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So we seem to be starting from the end.

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With retirement.

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Hieronymus was far removed from his work in magical studies.

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By the time the Great War came and he disappeared, perhaps

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what led to his downfall happen far after he stopped working.

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When sudden Hieronymus retirement, consider what his last great act

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of magic was before retiring.

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How long did his retirement last before the war and who after all

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this time was still in his life.

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So we're gonna be thinking about that as we roll our two D six

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and we got four, five.

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And that is the greed theme.

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So greed is a factor with Hieronymus retirement.

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Now,

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now that could have some interesting implications.

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Let's go ahead and let's go ahead and roll our D 12.

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We're gonna analyze our, we're gonna analyze our primary sources here, being

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the good little scholar that we are.

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We're gonna look at our contemporary accounts and see if we come up

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with anything that might provide more insight into this greed.

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And right off the bat, I roll a one.

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So not only do I not get any clue, my analyze goes down to a D 10,

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and that is a failure.

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So it seems to me,

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it seems to me that Hieronymus to Hardy obviously has a great reputation in.

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Acadia.

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So my, my suggesting that he came out of retirement for the war because

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of greed, that retirement seemed to.

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Cause a hole that he couldn't fill a hole in his soul that he

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couldn't fill, and that it was his greed that brought him back out.

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That did not go over well with the library staff.

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And I was

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as Hank Hill said, I was asked politely, yet, firmly to leave.

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And yeah, that that's gonna make things awkward for a while, as now I have to,

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now I lose a whole day in the library.

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And then on top of all of that, I kinda have to sneak around for a little bit

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because they don't like me right now.

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All right, so with one topic already out, let us go ahead and see what is up next.

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And that's gonna be magic.

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So let's see what our magic theme is rolling our two D six

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and we got 12.

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So 12 is hiding.

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Which is super interesting.

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We're gonna analyze again because I feel like magic is, Hieronymus magical talent

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is something that was highly documented.

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But I am also very curious about this hiding.

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So no whammies eight.

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Eight is a success.

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That is one clue.

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So we get to draw one card and we got ourselves the nine of clubs.

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So that clue is a house.

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So hiding in a house with magic.

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So some of the some of the prompts for magic are

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when did his interest in magic begin?

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What was his greatest magical act?

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What happened when his magic failed?

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I feel like,

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I feel like Hieronymus was, I feel like Hieronymus went into

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hiding at a particular house.

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When his magic first started to manifest.

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Yeah.

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He had always been surrounded by magic and it's something that exists

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in this world, but I think his particular talent kind of scared him

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and he hid himself away for a little.

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He wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

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He wasn't quite sure how to respond to any of it, so yeah, he, and we

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don't know where this house is.

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He just, he hid himself away there until he got a handle on a handle on the magic.

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So obviously the next question is,

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the next question is, is that where he disappeared to?

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Because while I didn't turn up much during retirement, like he was still around.

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So did he run away to this house after everything was said and done?

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But that is a topic of conjecture.

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We don't have much to go on right now.

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Instead, what we have to do is figure out what our next topic's gonna be

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and.

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I rolled retirement again, so I gotta re-roll.

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All right, we got other theories.

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So let's see what our theme for other theories is gonna be 34,

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which is curiosity.

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That is super non-helpful for other theories.

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Of course, other theories are gonna have curiosity.

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So for other theories we're looking at, many historians have

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theorized as to the circumstances surrounding Hieronymus disappearance.

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You figured it would be worthwhile to investigate these theories and

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see if they're useful when you.

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Investigating this topic, draw three times on the clue table.

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Each clue will inform another theory you encountered in your research.

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Hmm.

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So I'm gonna draw three times, but because I'm doing this in a random

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order, I think you're actually supposed to do this in order, but

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because I'm doing this in a random.

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I am gonna draw three times, but I'm gonna keep two of those cards face down

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until I get more clues to work with.

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Now also, as far as I know, these don't actually count as.

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Clues.

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So these will not count towards our deduction role, but as a

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augmentation to our magic clue, we got ourselves the King of Clubs.

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So I'm gonna slide that right under my nine.

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And the King of Clubs is, Broken glass.

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So broken glass doesn't really help or hurt my house hiding.

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Really the only thing that we're going to adjust is instead of just

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being an unknown house, we will say it is an unknown abandoned house.

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As we will assume that the broken glass is, as we will assume, the

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broken glass is shattered windows.

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So moving on to our next topic, we got seven, which is detractors.

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And for detractors, we know Hieronymus wasn't a perfect man.

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He made plenty of mistakes throughout his career.

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And his flaws could directly relate to his disappearance when

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studying Hieronymus as detractors.

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Consider what he did that was so controversial.

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Who were the detractors?

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And did the detractors live at the same time as Hieronymus

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or are they scholars like us?

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So we got 62 for our theme,

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which is friendship.

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And that is a

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that's a really interesting theme to pull for detractors.

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Hopefully we can get something with it.

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I think at this point, I think at this point I'm theorizing.

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I'm not researching anything.

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I am, I am theorizing, attempting to figure something out making

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some conjectures as to who his de tractors might have been.

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And why they might be related to friendship, and that's a seven.

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That's gonna be a success.

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So that's gonna be another card.

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And we got the Queen of Diamonds,

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which is a flying carpet.

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And to augment that, we got the eight of diamonds.

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That's actually kind of freaky that I have matched suits on all my augmentations.

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And the eight of diamonds is gonna be a diamond.

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All right, so we have a flying carpet and a diamond, and we were talking about

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friendship in relation to detractors.

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So the nearest that I can configure is Hieronymus and.

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One of his close friends, they were working on a project together,

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and maybe this was during the war.

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After all,

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the ability to, the ability to observe the enemy is always a

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key thing needed during war and.

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So they were working on some way of

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providing better observation on the battlefield.

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And

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the prize was, the prize was a diamond

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and.

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Hieronymus developed this flying carpet that would allow observers to rise

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above the battlefield and be able to observe while also providing limited

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capabilities for some type of strike where his friend was merely working

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on some type of some type of scrying.

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And so Hieronymus won the diamond.

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But lost his friendship.

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So this would just be an instance of, this would be an instance of Hieronymus

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losing people along the way, and not even, like, not even losing them to

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just a normal passage of time, but,

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But over competition and contracts.

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All right.

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Next up we have childhood.

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And 62 is our theme for childhood.

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Just like last time, more friendship.

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So I think this is gonna be the same friend that we lost

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during the military competition.

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But so we are going to continue to theorize and we are going to see if

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we get any more clues, but we do not.

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That was a failure.

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So our theorize goes down to D eight.

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So as our, as our line of questioning turns toward this friend,

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I would say that, I mean obviously any friend of Hieronymus is going to be a

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notable person as well, or will be or will develop into a notable person,

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especially if they were both engaged in some sort of military competition.

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And being a notable person, they are going to still have

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followers even after all this time.

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So I'm going to say that as we started,

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as we started bouncing off the ideas of this friend and what this friend

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might have meant to Hieronymus and to Hieronymus disappearance.

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The people we talk with come up to us and pull us aside, and they

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let us know that, hey, this might be a dangerous line of questioning

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that we should probably abandon.

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So we will, we will drop that.

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As we move on to our next topic,

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which is going to be associates, so what shall we learn about

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Hieronymus Associates 36 redemption.

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So things we need to ask ourselves many people worked with Hieronymus

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from childhood friends to magical co scholars Hieronymus had a wide network.

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When studying associates consider where did he meet the associate, how long did he

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know them, and what did they think of him?

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So I wanna see if we get a clue on this before I start making any conjectures.

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We're gonna go back to analyze.

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We're gonna research other associates.

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Because I think we were onto something with a friend, and now I need to

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know who to ask questions about.

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So that is going to be an eight.

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That is going to be a success.

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And we got the six of hearts for our main one.

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And the 10 of clubs for our supplementary.

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So that is our last supplementary from our other theories.

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So the six of hearts is a party and the 10 of clubs is a town.

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So I feel like Hieronymus was

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invited to this party in this small town just outside of Acadia and.

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This was more of a who's who type party.

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Only the most notable people would be there

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and.

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I think this is a, I'm gonna say this is an annual type thing,

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or at least a regular thing.

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So the first time it happens, Hieronymus like the first time it happens,

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the accounts talk about the various people that Hieronymus and there are

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letters and correspondence following the party, talking about research

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projects and proposals that Hieronymus and these other people can work on.

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And as time goes on, especially, especially after the war.

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Those type of proposals stop coming.

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Like there is a marked drop in letters after the party, especially

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from people Hieronymus knows and would've known for a while.

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Like, yeah, the new people who get invited will.

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Will always shoot their shot, but where there was regular correspondence

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prior to the war post-war, Hieronymus seems to be drawing in on himself.

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So for our next topic, I am not even gonna roll.

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We keep, we keep dodging around the war.

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So let's go ahead and let's go ahead and dive on into that.

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Let's explore the war and we got 35 for our theme, which is failure,

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and that seems pretty on brand.

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We're going to continue with our analysis

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and we rolled a four, so our analysis goes down to a D eight.

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Our analysis goes down to a D eight, so no clue for that, but it is high jinx

SteelStash: 00:21:13

or distraction, and I feel like the distraction is getting sucked into, sucked

SteelStash: 00:21:20

into all the different accounts of the.

SteelStash: 00:21:23

It becomes harder to isolate particular, particular clauses and instances when

SteelStash: 00:21:34

this whole thing was a, this whole thing was a bloody mess of information.

SteelStash: 00:21:39

But regardless of, regardless of all of that, like we do know that

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we do know that Hieronymus left the war with a sense of failure.

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Which again, we saw manifesting itself with

SteelStash: 00:21:54

losing his best friend, with withdrawing in on himself at the at the party.

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So

SteelStash: 00:22:06

it feels like, it feels like Hieronymus felt some type of responsibility for the

SteelStash: 00:22:14

war and the outcome and what happened and.

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It seems that his guilt eventually caught up with him.

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It seems that his guilty conscience eventually caught up with him,

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not saying that he was necessarily guilty of anything, but war does

SteelStash: 00:22:34

terrible things to the mind.

SteelStash: 00:22:38

So we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna go ahead and roll our deduction.

SteelStash: 00:22:42

All right.

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We know that Hieronymus when he started out, hit himself in an abandoned house.

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We don't know where that house was.

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We know that he lost his best friend.

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Due to a competition during the war, he left the war feeling like a failure, and

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that caused him to withdraw in on himself.

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So our conjecture is going to be that because of all of this Hieronymus retired

SteelStash: 00:23:10

again, back to that, that unknown.

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Now we have three clues, so that moves us up to a D eight,

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which means we have just under a coin flipped chance of our

SteelStash: 00:23:22

theory being good enough.

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That's a two.

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As we present our theory, as we present our theory, we are

SteelStash: 00:23:33

politely dismissed, but we know that we know that nobody believes us that.

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We apparently misinterpreted all of our data.

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After all the great Hieronymus the hardy withdrawing in on

SteelStash: 00:23:50

himself and running away.

SteelStash: 00:23:54

That is not, that is not the wizard that this world know.

SteelStash: 00:24:01

But with that, that is, that is Secrets and Scholars by Cracker Jackalope.

SteelStash: 00:24:10

So I really enjoyed this game.

SteelStash: 00:24:12

I do like, I do like mystery games.

SteelStash: 00:24:13

I like the way that this one is set up,

SteelStash: 00:24:16

the investigation.

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The investigation is fun.

SteelStash: 00:24:21

The combination of theme and clue is definitely a, is definitely

SteelStash: 00:24:26

a novel concept that we haven't run across yet on this channel.

SteelStash: 00:24:30

And I really enjoyed that.

SteelStash: 00:24:31

I really enjoyed the way that that worked together.

SteelStash: 00:24:34

I partly, That there was a little more connective tissue between the theme

SteelStash: 00:24:41

and the clues because you know, it's one of those, you roll a juicy theme,

SteelStash: 00:24:48

but then you fail your clue roll so you don't have much to do with it.

SteelStash: 00:24:53

So that could, that could potentially be disappointing, but,

SteelStash: 00:25:00

When it works, it works nicely and it works really well together.

SteelStash: 00:25:03

So yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely worth doing all your roles for the

SteelStash: 00:25:08

round before looking anything up.

SteelStash: 00:25:12

Like there's no point in figuring out what the theme is gonna be

SteelStash: 00:25:14

unless you're going to get a clue.

SteelStash: 00:25:17

But realistically, my biggest complaint in the book and the setup

SteelStash: 00:25:23

is when you look at the theme table, they use the face of the dice.

SteelStash: 00:25:29

And while that is, while that is aesthetically pleasing, it is a, it is a.

SteelStash: 00:25:34

Good artistic choice.

SteelStash: 00:25:36

It makes readability kind of difficult and annoying.

SteelStash: 00:25:41

I would've almost much rather preferred that they just use the

SteelStash: 00:25:46

numbers instead of the dice face.

SteelStash: 00:25:49

It would've made it a little, or it would've made it a lot easier to

SteelStash: 00:25:54

look up what my roles actually were.

SteelStash: 00:25:57

But all in all, this is definitely a fun game.

SteelStash: 00:25:59

This is a, this is a fun little game.

SteelStash: 00:26:01

If you enjoy mysteries, then this is a good one.

SteelStash: 00:26:05

I really enjoy how a lot of the mystery games I've played

SteelStash: 00:26:09

have found ways to.

SteelStash: 00:26:13

Maintain the mystery

SteelStash: 00:26:15

and the use of building a theory and then rolling on your deduction table

SteelStash: 00:26:20

to confirm that theory is great.

SteelStash: 00:26:23

I really enjoyed that.

SteelStash: 00:26:24

Very, very nice.

SteelStash: 00:26:27

Some of the other mysteries that we've played, Have had resolution mechanics

SteelStash: 00:26:33

that were kind of disappointing like weekend in the countryside.

SteelStash: 00:26:38

Great.

SteelStash: 00:26:39

I love the, I love the clue gathering aspect of it, but you know, trying to win

SteelStash: 00:26:45

a game of five cards stud is, is annoying.

SteelStash: 00:26:52

Like it's way too easy.

SteelStash: 00:26:55

Not get anything.

SteelStash: 00:26:57

And now you're like, now you're running out of options and suspects

SteelStash: 00:27:04

fantasy land, confidential, that, you know, that was another

SteelStash: 00:27:06

mystery that we played also.

SteelStash: 00:27:07

Great game.

SteelStash: 00:27:08

But

SteelStash: 00:27:10

again, you had a, you had.

SteelStash: 00:27:13

Problem of running out of suspects with the way that the

SteelStash: 00:27:16

resolution mechanics worked.

SteelStash: 00:27:18

And so the resolution mechanics in this, in seekers and scholars is really nice.

SteelStash: 00:27:25

I definitely enjoyed the fact that the more clues you gathered, the more likely

SteelStash: 00:27:32

it was that your theory would be correct, or at least that your theory would.

SteelStash: 00:27:37

Seen as academically worthy.

SteelStash: 00:27:40

For us, it was just a case of it's late and we've pretty much shown what

SteelStash: 00:27:50

you guys need to see in order to.

SteelStash: 00:27:52

In order to dive on into this game and have a good time,

SteelStash: 00:27:56

but a good time you can have with this game and if you enjoyed it.

SteelStash: 00:28:01

You can find secrets and scholars on itch at Crackerjack Elope 60

SteelStash: 00:28:06

four.itch.io/secrets-and-scholars, and it is currently pay what you want,

SteelStash: 00:28:15

but again, remember.

SteelStash: 00:28:18

At least tos, at least toss some money towards the creator.

SteelStash: 00:28:21

Cuz after all, we want these people to continue to enjoy what they do and

SteelStash: 00:28:27

make a little bit for the time that they put in in our entertainment.

SteelStash: 00:28:31

But if you do pick it up, make sure you tell 'em that Steel stash sent ya.

SteelStash: 00:28:35

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