Rules

1. Say what you do and roll a number of d6s, determined by the level of relevant skill you have
2. If you roll a 6, the thing you wanted to happen, happens
3. At start, you have only one skill: Do Anything 1
4. If you roll all sixes, you get a new skill specific to the action, one level higher than the one you used
5. For every roll you fail, you get 1 XP
6. XP can be used to change a die into a 6 for advancement purposes only

Notes 16/02/2023

Setting

• Job is to cook big meal in castle
• Why? It’s a coronation
• Why is the king uptight? Because waiting to be king for 30 years and mum wouldn’t die
• Preparations are woefully behind schedule and the staff are chucking together whatever we can manage at the last minute
• Why not prepared? Didn’t expect the mum to die, and they become king immediately, so we’d’ve never been prepared anyway, we’re just super not prepared
• What’s on the line if the feast doesn’t go well? We get beheaded
• Now rushed plans – for some reason, require a key ingredient
• It’s nigh-mythical – a dodo
• What makes this critically important so hard to obtain? It’s thought to be extinct
• Each of us have a traditional courtly job, but we’re conscripted to do this
• Name / Description / Court Position / Feast Task:
• (Niko) Falstaff (now Flagstaff as of Natural History Museum) / fat and squat / Town Cryer / Has a bell / Read out recipe whilst people prepare it
• (Jonny) Randwulf / old with long wizened beard / Court Magician / Cook food (uh, chef)

Act 1: Gathering the Ingredients

We’re gathered together by the King’s food chancellor panicking at the lack of time

• We are the best he has (uh oh) and we need to get the Dodo, not clear if bird or egg
• Randwulf asks if he’s seen one before – in the Natural History Museum in Oxford
• Thankfully we’re at Oxford, and the magician points out all cooking is alchemy and transmutations
• “Off you go, keep your heads!”
• All the queen’s workers are being rounded up and shot to be buried with her

We’re also asked not to poison him, lest we all get beheaded for that too

• We’re handed a piece of paper with a recipe on but need to see if we can read the recipe…but Falstaff can’t
• Oh dear
• Perhaps it’s not written in English?
• Randwulf can’t see it anyway

Falstaff finds his way to a library to look for a dictionary or thesaurus or translation device

• He finds his way to the library but can’t find the book
• Maybe Randwulf can find a braille thesaurus?
• He finds where it should be!
• Right between Dinosaurs and Molluscs, there’s a gap
• Where’s the book?
• We think one of the queen’s servants has it checked out and they’re about to be shot, so we rush to the firing squad
• Using the arc of the sun in the sky we get to the firing squad
• The person we were looking for is shot just as we appear – they don’t have the book but they have a note

  “If you need the book, it’s filed upon the tallest tower on the darkest night where the dark birds take – flight”

• Falstaff reads this to Randwulf, hoping he’ll decipher the riddle, but alas it means nothing to him
• He wants to go back to the library mostly for the smell as he’s blind
• We clamber back out of the mass grave

There’s a tall tower within eyeshot so we try that one, and at the base of the tower it has a sign reading “Rookery”

• Falstaff knocks on the door
• No one answers…and looking at the sun we can’t tell how long we have
• The door is also locked, so Randwulf chooses to use magic to open it
• He waves both hands at the door whilst chanting and stroking his beard (this defies limbs), and Falstaff checks under flowerpots for a key (nope)
• Lots of rooks are looking down at us and Randwulf thinks talking to them could get them to bring the book down
• Sadly Randwulf can’t speak with animals, just squawks and flaps his arms like a clucking chicken
• Luckily (but not luck) Falstaff climbs up dragging Randwulf with him and we enter through an open window

Looking in the room (no files) and corridor (no signs) looks like only a nest at the top and stairs leading up

• We decide to head up as apparently the holder would read it as they look out over the grand city of Oxford (which Randwulf can imagine as he lacks aphantasia)
• We head up

At the top we find a lot of twigs and bird poop

• Rooks aren’t territorial but sadly aren’t sharing the room with a dodo
• Looking around there are lots of books everywhere so Randwulf gets to searching and he finds ‘Fake It ’til You Make It’

New plan: Steal and destroy dodo and instead cook chicken and hope no one notices as it’s so long since anyone’s eaten dodo

• Fake it ’til you make it doing work
• Apparently the Natural History Museum has a wide range of resources, perhaps even to help translate the recipe

The Library of Lost Languages happens to be next door to the Natural History Museum

• We leave the tower, it’s a 20min run but Falstaff isn’t great and trips up, Randwulf tries to hail a cab unsuccessfully, and a policeman tells Randwulf to stop flashing people as his robe came loose whilst waving
• After a 20min bad run we get there

Randwulf thinks the library first, so we stride in

• Randwulf looks for attention and a grumpy librarian shushes him
• She asks if we know what we’re looking for, and Randwulf says she can’t help us
• If we make too much noise she’ll kick us out

Randwulf gets looking for the book, the library is thankfully sorted by Dewey Decimal, and the book is found!

• We sit down and begin translating
• Falstaff can do this:

  “Cook dodo in oven with curried spices, sultanas, apricots and mayonnaise. Note: if dodo not available, it tastes like chicken”

• Falstaff kicks his chair out, punches the air and shouts “YES!”, and the librarian lifts us by the scruff of our necks and chucks us out of the library saying, “Good riddance!”

We get up off the pavement and head into the Natural History Museum

• We go to the Dodo and see a number of attendants
• Falstaff asks Randwulf to cause a diversion so the attendants leave the room, and he agrees to get their attention
• In the far corner of the room he calls the attendants to attention, but they totally miss him
• He instead resorts to other methods, donning his wizards hat and pulling the wand out of his sleeve, and uses “magic”
• Vanishing acts, smoke bombs go off, and the fire alarm goes off
• The attendants start ushering us out, and Randwulf throws a really big smoke bomb in the hopes of accessing their security room and mainframe
• Randwulf gets into the room and asks if anyone is around, and someone is, despite not answering (how menacing)

  • “We come on an urgent errand for the King! (in waiting)”
  • “What do you mean?”
  • “I’m just declaring my intentions”
  • “Good to know”
  • “Why have you not evacuated?”
  • “I have to make sure everyone has gone, what are you doing”
  • “The same”
  • “Are you the new tech?”
  • “I’m very skilled in both the Dewey Decimal System and Coding”
  • “What you can do – programme an image recognition system, ping us an email and we can go!”
  • “Can you direct me to the keyboard. Put these fingers on the F and J and everything will happen”

Security sits Randwulf down and guides his hands to the home position and away Randwulf goes

• He puts headphones in, grabs another keyboard and codes with two at once, and hackathons the catalogue, sets up the image recognition system and pings an email, and also deletes the row of the inventory saying they had a dodo

Randwulf uses the security tannoy to let Falstaff (now Flagstaff) and confirms to Security we can now exit

• Flagstaff picks up the dodo to take it out with him
• They argue it’s theirs and part of their collection, but Flagstaff says it’s his, so they check the catalogue and indeed they don’t own one
• Flagstaff tries to run out with it but trips over and squashes it

Act 2: Cook the Meal!

We head to a Co-Op food and look for a chicken that looks most dodolike

• We select one
• We use a self-checkout but need to hack it as we are cashless, but as it doesn’t have a keyboard and is touchscreen, but we can’t work out how to get the keyboard up
• We press the magnifying button and the search calls up an onscreen keyboard
• Flagstaff positions the F and J keys under Randwulf’s fingers
• Flagstaff shouts about having a dodo in a no-pet store, but the people hear this and remember the reward for a Dodo for the king’s banquet
• Uh oh
• Randwulf also fails to hack the thing too, leading to a doubling of prices in the store

Flagstaff reaches into the pocket of a nearby customer in the hopes of pulling out exactly double the original cost of a chicken and does do that: £7.36 (originally a £3.68 chicken)

• We pay and don’t even wait for the receipt, leaving with the chicken and the dodo

We stop by the mass grave and they’re infilling it, so Randwulf attempts to distract them

• Instead both of us are attended to
• They see the dodo – plucked and unplucked – and Flagstaff badly explains it’s the reference dodo, and the plucked one is for cooking
• Randwulf explains it’s the queen’s dodo so it must be buried in the mass grave
• Total success: Randwulf is able to bury the Dodo and hypnotherapise the burying guards
• They’re clearly twitchy and stressed, so Randwulf convinces them everything is fine and the reference dodo must be buried with the queen and forgotten
• We have the dodo (chicken) to be cooked

We go to the kitchen, Flagstaff pulls out his Coronation/Jubilee Dodo recipe and reminds Randwulf it’s time to cook (not code)

• Flagstaff reads the recipe wrongly and Randwulf thinks he said “current spices” so looks for fashionable spices in the kitchen
• He says “you can never go wrong with paprika”, but thankfully the spices are organised by Dewey Decimal
• Randwulf pulls out a bunch of random spices, a little of this, a pinch of that, a sprinkle of the other
• Flagstaff finds mayo in the fridge and asks if Randwulf has dried fruits in the same cupboard?

The mayo and (hopefully) paprika are all blended up but with the steam and smoke we can’t see if it’s red

• Flagstaff scoops up handfuls of mayo and begins slathering it on the chicken
• We bang it in the oven

As we still haven’t found dried fruit we do that as it’s in the oven Flagstaff yells at a commis chef for dried fruit and they knock the mayo residue on the floor, and they return with dates prunes but slip on the mayo, scattering them on the floor, we hope the floor is clean and we pick up the scattered fruits

They are then thrown into the oven along with the chicken

“It’ll be a masterpiece worthy of the crown”, says Randwulf

Act 3: Serving

100 minutes have passed by with Randwulf using parlour tricks to while away the minutes and keep them entertained, but does really badly

• They seem very stressed and panicky
• Randwulf reminds them he is a professional magician

  • “The last dodo will be a mighty surprise for the king”
  • They: “Oh god, there’ll be another ditch”
  • “Only if the king dies from eating this!” reassures Flagstaff

• It does not reassure them

  “I think it is done!” says Randwulf, “A wizard knows when something is vaguely cooked, it’s a skill wizards have”

We open the oven, wafting the steam away with the teatowel, the smell of baked mayo and roasted prune heavy in the air

• We can’t find a platter so just take it on the baking tray
• Flagstaff yells at a kitchen porter for a knife, and they bring a butter knife instead
• Flagstaff realises he lacked specificity so thanks the KP

  “That looks perfect”, says Randwulf, who’s blind

• When asked to clarify he says

  “In my mind’s eye”

• Which clearly means an optimistic mindset
• Huh

We carry the chicken on a baking tray with butter knife to the high table

• The King is there waiting by himself, eager for his pre-coronation dodo (Randwulf said “chicken” as we approach so Flagstaff whispers “dodo”)
• The King is friendly

  “Hey, my man, how are you doing?” to Randwulf

• They exchange high fives, and Randwulf is super pleased about being elevated to Head Chef

  “I hope you have an appetite for something exotic!”

• The king appears to have forgotten what he asked for

  “A coronation dish to celebrate your coronation: The coronation Dodo. Soon all your subjects across the land will be eating fine meals like this.”

• The kings says

  “Isn’t the dodo dead? We need to release this recipe so that everyone can make the coronation dodo. Will you join me?”

• Randwulf says as an ascetic (not acetic) he shouldn’t join but the King insists on having a party – a dinner party

We decide to round up the burial guards whilst the King has a smoke

• Flagstaff calls them in for dinner, and they worry they’ll be beheaded but he reminds them how relaxed they were after doing a good job, and they do remember, filing in

The 4 sit with the king

• Flagstaff prepares to carve the dodo, pointing out it’s cooked so well a butter knife will carve it
• He gets enough off the breast for 4 people, and the King insists to be served last, so with a flourish Flagstaff slams the knife into the crown and presents the tray to the king with the rest of the bird and says

  “The rest is yours, my lord”

The king asks Randwulf how the drug pipe preparation is going, well apparently

• They have a lovely meal and the king stands up, saying

  • “Ooh, that was a meal to remember”
  • Flagstaff says, “Hopefully for a long and lustrous reign”

• The King asks for Randwulf’s arm to help him along to the coronation whilst they have a smoke along the way

Final Act: Get the King Successfully Through the Coronation

Randwulf begins to use hypnotherapy on the King

• Who’s loving the drugs and says

  “We should do more of this”

• Flagstaff is walking ahead trying to shout that people should look busy, but no one is paying attention
• Randwulf says the King’s speech is about to roll out, and he thinks that legalising and rolling out the smoking drug trade around the island would liberalise the economy, eat a lot of coronation dodo and have a good party

The king is ready for the speech, and he gets to the altar

• Randwulf suddenly suggests that he and Flagstaff should run the country on the King’s behalf, and begins therapising the troubled mind of the King, who is recently bereaved
• The therapy does not go well at all, realising he shouldn’t have mentioned the mother, and the King feels very queasy, going for the magician’s hat and Randwulf pulls the hat off his head…revealing a bucket underneath
• He hands the hat over to the king, wearing the bucket as a new hat
• The King thanks him and hurls into the hat, feeling much better

  • “Better?”
  • “Much”
  • “Ready for that speech?”
  • “The economy – slim down the king’s staff and politicians. I’ll need to run some interviews for this. For now I’ll get rid of the rest. Prepare the firing squad, as they’ll be busy later”

Flagstaff suggests to Randwulf we be on the interview panel to spare our own lives

• Randwulf relays this message to the King, who thinks we’re not his interview panel
• He pulls a phone out of his pocket and asks to check his interview itinerary
• Randwulf takes the phone and attempts to code the itinerary
• Sadly it’s a keypad not a keyboard
• We’re definitely not on the interview board or panel
• Uh oh
• We spot a note saying

  • “Vacancies 2: 0 applicants for closest advisors”
  • Flagstaff says, “We need to apply right now”

• Randwulf asks Siri to apply for both of us asap
• The King says we need to write his speech whilst he has a smoke, as an interview test for the position of “closet advisors”
• It needs to be in depth and to give the perception we know what we’re talking about

Randwulf suggests the speech has shouting in and STEM, putting young minds towards good paths in the coding industry

• Add parlour trick for the King to perform, basic as he’s less good than Randwulf, ad-lib lines for the King to fill in (talk around drugs)

King returns from more drugs and we hand over the speech notes

• We stand either side of the King at the altar and he commences

Card 1: SHOUTING and Grabbing Attention

“Citizens! LET ME GRAB YOUR ATTENTION”

Card 2: STEM

• “We need to do some magic”
• Randwulf, “STEM isn’t magic, sir”
• “I will pass over to my trusted advisor to talk about STEM”
• “Hello citizens of the UK, I am Randwulf, Royal Magician and I will talk to you about STEM. It’s important for young minds to embrace this. The King and I have long admired new age techniques and it’s time to embrace computing. That’s all I have to say on this.”
• “That’s all I have to say on STEM”

Card 3: More about STEM

We’ve already done this

Card 4: Parlour Trick

“The trick is I’ve already covered that card!”

• Throws card away

Card 5: Ad-lib Lines, Talk Around Drugs

• “And we feel very strongly around drugs in this country” turning to Flagstaff
• “I’ve noticed that people seem to get very queasy if they take drugs straight after eating, so it is important to allow good digestion time before consuming drugs, like waiting an hour after eating to swim”
• “And”, the King says, “my final decree as a commitment to all of this, I will get everyone, every child and adult, to get a bucket to go under their hat”

Flagstaff and Randwulf begin applauding, the crowd applauds in response

• The King turns round and as we head into the building

  “You two, you beat the other applicants, you’re hired. Now let’s save this country”

• Flagstaff begins producing buckets for all heads [bestowed the title Lord Buckethead] and Randwulf is council of STEM

Final Skills

Falstaff/Flagstaff

• XP 7
• Do Anything 1
• Perception 2
• Shouting 2
• Head Chef Intimidation 3
• Translation/Decryption 2
• Climb 2
• Luck 2
• Navigation 2
• Celestial orientation 3

Randwulf

• XP 3
• Do Anything 1
• The Dewey Decimal System 2
• Computer Coding 3
• Hackathons 4
• ‘Magic’ 2
• Parlour Tricks 3
• Hypnotherapy 4
• ‘Conjuration’ 4
• Getting Attention 2