Episode Transcript
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0:07
Welcome, Dumbheads, to MDC, the
0:09
Mega Dumbcast. In In this series, we
0:11
examining every single goddamn page
0:13
of The page of God, an
0:15
end -time story from the
0:17
scenario book, story to determine what
0:20
is the dumbest thing on
0:22
each page. to Every episode
0:24
is one page, is every episode
0:26
is short. thing on The Crucible
0:28
of God was published in
0:30
2003 page, every episode is short. The
0:32
Crucible of God was Tonight
0:34
we're discussing page 204 of Wolf. We're
0:36
in the of God of God very
0:38
close to the end. to the end.
0:40
are are more pages after this. this. Season 6
0:42
is winding down. This scenario is
0:44
winding down. There's only so much room
0:47
left, so but that is no excuse.
0:49
But that is no changing the opportunity
0:51
on today's page. As you
0:53
will remember from yesterday, remember
0:55
himself showed up in Denver himself
0:57
showed up in Denver looking for lock,
0:59
aka Marcus, saying that he needed
1:02
an assistant to cast a ritual going was
1:04
going to affect every human and near
1:06
human being on be able He would be
1:08
able to dominate them all. the vampires
1:10
to walk to walk into the this would and this would
1:12
wipe out all the vampires save save humanity. He He
1:14
really does say that, that he wants to save humanity.
1:17
Quote, the arch usurper does not does not
1:19
consider his plan in in stone. to
1:21
He listens to any suggestions for other
1:23
commands or other disciplines to cast
1:25
upon all kindred and and kind. He reminds
1:27
the characters, however, that that the must
1:29
destroy or incapacitate kindred without harming too
1:31
many kind, too many it goes on
1:33
to say goes would prefer to affect
1:35
only the ancient vampires or at least
1:37
or his own clan, but he can't
1:39
do that. He's using the human
1:41
genome and the Mormon and the project in
1:43
Salt Lake City to act as the
1:45
true name of humanity of to do
1:47
that. do that all humanity, all it does have
1:49
to be all humanity. be So you can't
1:51
exclude anyone. exclude he claims. he
1:54
claims. As I I talked about yesterday, all
1:56
of this is very dubious. dubious. never
1:58
known. known Tromir or any his
2:00
progeny to stress too much about collateral damage.
2:02
So it's weird that he's here arguing
2:04
against the against the If they suggest a plan
2:06
to end plan to end would get too many
2:08
humans killed, too seem like the sort of
2:10
thing Tamir would care about. seem So I
2:12
don't know, call me a cynic. I
2:14
think Tamir is lying, but I think the
2:16
scenario envisions that the player characters will
2:18
accept that Tamir is telling the truth, that
2:20
the player characters will accept that this
2:22
ritual is going to do what they're told
2:24
it's going to do, to do, that that's
2:26
a good thing a that they should help. that
2:29
they should for various reasons, this ritual
2:31
needs to be done in Salt Lake
2:33
City, Utah. Quote, Trimir handles the
2:35
handles the transportation. The withering does not does
2:37
not stop him from summoning elementals that can
2:39
carry the entire coterie to Salt Lake City in
2:41
a few hours or nights. or nights. Depending on
2:43
the the current location, they might need to travel
2:46
in stages so they do not fly into daylight.
2:48
not fly into daylight. look like horses fashioned
2:50
out of storm clouds with out of eyes. with
2:52
They gallop through the sky at hundreds
2:54
of miles an hour, their hooves flickering
2:56
with bolts of lightning. with This is
2:58
cool. He can summon elementals to fly us
3:00
wherever we need to go. Denver
3:02
is Denver is already fairly close to
3:04
Salt Lake so we're going to get going to get
3:06
minimal. horse riding time. riding time.
3:08
it, we arrive and we we arrive The see
3:10
the following find Salt The characters find
3:12
Salt Lake than more intact than any other
3:14
city they've seen in months. never The city
3:16
never had a significant kindred population. It's
3:19
too too far from other major cities for
3:21
Canites to reach easily. easily. The ancients ignored
3:23
it for this reason. reason. The Mormon
3:25
Church also enjoins its members to stock stockpile
3:27
a supply of food and other necessities,
3:29
so the city suffered less from famine and
3:31
disease. disease. The Church of of Jesus Christ
3:33
of Latter -day Saints also provided an alternative
3:35
source of governance and social stability. The
3:37
The United States is defunct, but but
3:39
the state of Utah still functions. The
3:41
city The city even has electricity, though
3:43
though it's restricted to government buildings, the
3:45
Great Tabernacle, and vital services such
3:48
as hospitals. So it turns out
3:50
that like Denver, Denver at least
3:52
Denver on our watch, Salt Lake City and
3:54
Utah in general is of an
3:56
oasis in this apocalypse. There never
3:58
never have been many kindred here,
4:00
no kindred have taken it over, the
4:02
church is running things, there's electricity, there
4:04
are hospitals, this is fantastic. By post-apocalyptic
4:06
standards, this is great. Now they're hostile
4:08
to kindred, so we need to keep
4:10
a low profile, but the people here
4:12
have a good life. They are relatively
4:14
safe and relatively comfortable. Until now, we're
4:16
here, and we've got a ritual to
4:18
do, and that ritual requires supplies. The
4:20
old warlock points out, however, that he
4:23
will need to expend a huge amount
4:25
of vitae to perform the spell, and
4:27
he is old enough that mortal blood
4:29
no longer sustains him. He needs to
4:31
feed on the characters, so they need
4:33
to gather vessels of their own. Tromir
4:35
estimates that 15 mortals might supply enough
4:37
blood, or twice that many of the
4:39
characters want the vessels to live. He'd
4:41
prefer that all the vessels be human
4:43
virgins for ceremonial reasons, but since time
4:45
is short, he reluctantly foregoes that particular
4:47
condition. Tromir insistsists on only human vessels,
4:49
though. animals would defile the ritual. Now
4:51
it goes on to talk about how
4:53
we feed on people and then Tramire
4:55
feeds on us and so on and
4:57
so on and so on until he's
4:59
got all the blood that he needs
5:01
for this big ritual which we'll talk
5:03
about next time. The dumbest thing on
5:05
this page is that, look, we have
5:07
been ruthless in fighting off this apocalypse,
5:09
preserving our own existence, and also just
5:11
doing whatever we want. Since all the
5:14
way back in awakening Diablery Cole in
5:16
Mexico, Vampire Drama Club has been pushing
5:18
it to the limit, body mind and
5:20
soul, for no reason, for no reason.
5:22
Sometimes we just get in our heads
5:24
like, there's this guy in the Yucatan,
5:26
we're gonna find him, we're gonna eat
5:28
him. And we went for it. We
5:30
ate that guy, we ate his soul,
5:32
we went to the Yucatan and hacked
5:34
through the jungle and got past the
5:36
werewolves and got past the fucking traps,
5:38
we beat God at football and we
5:40
ate that motherfucker. We were barely hungry
5:42
just because Vampire Drama Club goes ham
5:44
consistently. We are the leading ham purveyors
5:46
of the post-apolips. We just drove from
5:48
Denver to Alaska to steal nukes from
5:50
a sub. For barely any reason. It
5:52
just seemed like a good idea. Like,
5:54
gut reaction. would Would
5:56
we rather have nukes
5:58
or not have
6:00
nukes? Have nukes. Okay,
6:02
let's go get go
6:05
get We animated a a to fight
6:07
Godzilla because Godzilla might be coming might be
6:09
stomp on the goth punk city that
6:11
we love. city Now, here we are. we are.
6:13
The end of the end times. guys The
6:15
guys out on the street that say
6:17
the end is near are getting harassed
6:19
by other guys who think they're not
6:21
manic enough about the end times. point, if this
6:24
point, if you're out on the
6:26
street screaming repent, you're a centrist. That's
6:28
where we're at And Vampire Drama Club is fortunate
6:30
enough, fortunate enough since they their perspective.
6:32
that Tremear himself they believe him, to enact a ritual that
6:34
himself has enlisted them to you know it would that
6:36
could save the whole guys, world. be And he's like,
6:38
you know, it'd be great for this ritual be
6:40
you know, it'd be perfect for this ritual. going
6:42
to add a lot to our workload, trying to get drama
6:44
clubs Counteroffer rats. Animalism, gather them, gather them,
6:46
gather them, gather them, gather them up, gather them up. Could be a big box, it could be
6:49
a big gonna add a lot to our workload. could be
6:51
a to get could be a for this. be a sack, it could be
6:53
a sack, or a sack, or a sack, or a sack, or a sack, or a sack, or
6:55
a sack, or a sack, or a sack, or a up a sack, or a in a
6:57
big box. It could be a perspective We're We're flexible
6:59
on that. We're going need blenders. Lots of
7:01
blenders, line them up. up. Rats and
7:03
rats and blenders, rats and blenders. and
7:05
Pulse, pulse, pulse. Move on to
7:07
puree, strain those those little bastards.
7:09
We've got some blood fuel we can
7:11
fuel this ritual. can't do it, that would corrupt the
7:14
do it, that would corrupt the
7:16
ritual. First of all, metaphysical but secondly
7:18
on a metaphysical level, gross. do
7:20
We need human blood. The virgin blood. I
7:22
can do without the as they're blood. okay
7:24
As long as they're human, it's okay
7:26
if they fuck. fuck. Why are we bargaining
7:28
down Tremere like this? It's the the world,
7:30
it's the whole fucking world at stake. and
7:32
And, I and this is why I kind
7:34
of care about this. This is why is
7:36
why I feel like we've been cheated out
7:38
of a scene here, a out of a
7:41
challenge a a player character group. This is
7:43
Salt Lake City. Salt in City. In
7:45
timeline when of Jesus Christ
7:47
of Latter -day Saints has been
7:49
has been essentially right.
7:51
in all all of precautions, in
7:53
all of its teachings, they
7:55
are now operating. shining city
7:58
city on a hill, in the - apocalypse.
8:00
Things are great in Utah because of
8:02
the church, because of its teachings in
8:04
that scenario. One year into an apocalypse
8:06
that the Mormons have weathered like no
8:08
one else. The city is big. It
8:10
is prosperous. It is comfortable. It has
8:12
hospitals. You're telling me we can't find
8:14
30 virgins in Salt Lake City to
8:16
save the fucking world. Of course, we
8:18
can. My own experience coming from like
8:20
an evangelical upbringing, even assuming we don't
8:22
want to just like go feed on
8:24
kids or whatever. Assuming that we want
8:27
our blood sacrifices for this ritual to
8:29
save the world to be legal. I
8:31
feel like the social pressure and like
8:33
and also the social capital that the
8:35
church has in this environment, like you
8:37
motherfuckers still have electricity because of the
8:39
church. You would better be listening to
8:41
its teachings and and I think that
8:43
the result is going to be you're
8:45
going to have a lot of young
8:47
adults here who have never been laid
8:49
who either have made a principal decision
8:51
not to have sex before marriage, which
8:53
by the way, no part of this
8:55
episode is in mockery of people who
8:58
decide they don't want to have sex
9:00
at this point in their life for
9:02
whatever reason. Absolutely do what you want
9:04
to do with your body for the
9:06
reasons it makes sense to you. But
9:08
I think you're going to have a
9:10
ton of young adults who made a
9:12
principal decision not to have sex before
9:14
marriage given how right the church turned
9:16
out to be about like apocalypse prep,
9:18
how to fend off the vampire hordes,
9:20
etc. And you're to have a bunch
9:22
of people who haven't been able to
9:24
get laid because number one, you do
9:26
have a bunch of other people around
9:28
you who've made a principal decision not
9:31
to fuck before marriage. And number two,
9:33
it's just like it's a stressful time.
9:35
It's a demanding time. It's a time
9:37
of privation. I don't know if you
9:39
the listener are interested in sex with
9:41
women, but what you may not know
9:43
if you aren't is that when women
9:45
are cold and hungry and busy and
9:47
tired and their lives are under constant
9:49
threat, oftentimes they don't want to have
9:51
sex. So you might well be a
9:53
virgin in this scenario, whether or not
9:55
you're taking a principled stand. My point
9:57
is just that Salt Lake City is
9:59
be full of fucking of fucking young virgins.
10:02
Can I say, I if I say say new
10:04
bile, it it just means like like I
10:06
know it sounds very dirty, but I'm not saying it
10:08
in a horny way. It's in a horny way. It's
10:10
just, it's Don't you the listener make
10:12
it weird when I say it
10:14
Lake I is full of City is full of
10:16
new bile ripe for the taking. the taking.
10:19
But, and this is crucial, it wouldn't
10:21
have been so easy to find find 30 new
10:23
bile in Salt Lake Lake it wouldn't have
10:25
been a challenge. It would have been,
10:27
a would have been a fucking quest been.
10:29
we would have felt like heroes. fucking
10:31
I mean, here we are, we powerful felt
10:33
creatures, I mean, here we of magic. supernatural of masters
10:35
of magic, possessed of we are charisma.
10:38
a promising are, settlement on
10:40
the hunt for the
10:42
blood of on the like for the
10:44
blood of virgins, like heroes. Like Let me
10:46
put it to you this way. Let me
10:48
put it to you this way. Suppose. When we told
10:51
him, hey, we're not really interested
10:53
in going and finding virgins, can we
10:55
do it without that part? If
10:57
he had said, do without not. I had
10:59
four or five plans for taking
11:01
down. five plans for and winning down I'm
11:03
down to just one. This is the
11:05
last chance, I'm this is the last
11:07
plan, This this ritual, this plan, this is
11:09
it. This is how we save the
11:11
world. is how we save the world. And it
11:13
it simply has to be be
11:16
What would we have done? done? up, gone
11:18
home to Goughpunk to await the end
11:20
of the world? of the world? No, that's not the
11:22
vampire drama club that I know. I
11:24
We would have found those And everybody
11:27
could have contributed. Sir Bloodworth, a
11:29
sneak, a a slash a could have gone and could have
11:31
gone and snuck in with Obfuscate and
11:33
read people's diaries, found out about their personal
11:35
lives, abducted some people right
11:37
from their sexless bedrooms. Teresa, presents, could have could
11:39
have gotten people to open up, up,
11:42
could could have invited people to come
11:44
with her, could have found some
11:46
horny, repressed people, people. seduced them and
11:48
just brought them right to the ritual
11:50
site. Flash Simpson, just a just a natural
11:52
born creep. You You think he's never scoured
11:54
a town for sexually inexperienced young
11:56
women before? Are you fucking kidding me?
11:59
me? Marcus! knows a lot a lot of
12:01
young, clueless, types, knows a Knows a lot of
12:03
role I mean, this is a mean, this is a
12:05
man who, before he was a wizard, sold sold
12:07
anime titty figurines for a living. You
12:09
don't think he can spot a fucking virgin? The
12:11
The dumbest thing on this page is
12:13
that we did not have a quest through
12:15
Salt Lake City to find the virgins
12:17
necessary for the ritual. I'm ashamed
12:19
of Termir for letting this slide, of
12:22
and I'm ashamed of us this letting
12:24
him let it slide. It's It's like
12:26
we've all just accepted, for some reason,
12:28
reason. that have very little agency and
12:30
our actions have minimal -to -no consequences. Speaking
12:32
of, join me next time
12:34
when it turns out when have
12:36
very little agency in this situation
12:38
and our actions have had
12:41
few -to -no consequences have had few to no consequences
12:43
on MDC, the Mega Dumbcast. This has been has
12:45
been Mega Dumbcast. New episodes
12:47
drop day day except for
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Sundays, when all week's previous
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episodes drop in one
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big in one big the on the
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12:57
access to and support the
12:59
show, visit patreon .com patreon.com/ This
13:01
episode's theme song is episode's
13:03
theme Yeti Music, whose work
13:05
you can find Music, .io. find
13:07
at -P -B -E -A -T dot
13:09
I -O. I will I will catch you
13:12
next time. time.
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