0:06

Welcome to

0:07

Dragonfly.

0:12

We are

0:13

super excited for two days at soad.

0:16

Yes. Oh, yes.

0:18

Is

0:19

the I

0:21

was

0:21

I was trying to kinda come up with a number, but all

0:23

the numbers were too close to being real numbers.

0:26

How many episodes have we had? Too

0:29

many.

0:30

Nine to hundred and seventy

0:32

six thousand.

0:33

It is the official

0:35

dungeons dragons podcast. That's what we're talking about.

0:38

I'm Greg Tito. That's Shelley Mads and Noble.

0:40

Oh, yay. Hi. Hi.

0:43

And we are excited to

0:46

talk about not only the cool amazing

0:48

people that are in today's episode,

0:50

including Avedon, Kilroy

0:53

the fourth, an amazing TRPG

0:57

creator and DM

1:00

and storyteller. Mhmm.

1:03

We also have a meet your monsters with McKenzie

1:05

The Armists. Mhmm. About our amazing space

1:07

whales. We'll get to that, the Condori. But

1:11

Our

1:11

book is coming out in December. Welcome

1:13

to Dragon talk. Yay.

1:16

Congratulations. Oh, yeah. Every time you

1:18

say the title, I have to cheer.

1:19

Welcome to Dragon talk.

1:20

Yay.

1:23

Inspiring conversations for

1:25

amazing people. No. What's what's the subtitle?

1:28

Oh my goodness. Oh my god.

1:30

Welcome to Dragon talk inspiring

1:32

conversations about dungeons and dragons

1:34

and the people who love to play it. That's

1:36

you. Listening to this podcast right

1:38

now.

1:39

Yes.

1:40

We loved this book. It was

1:42

so fun to write over the

1:44

last few years and it was

1:46

so fun to talk to all of the amazing people

1:48

we've talked to over the three hundred plus

1:50

episodes that we've had This

1:53

book is a celebration of not just the podcast,

1:55

but like the community that is around

1:57

this game and how it's grown over the last decade.

1:59

and there's stuff about the D and D

2:02

marketing team you might not know about. There's

2:04

stuff about -- Behind the scenes. --

2:06

behind the scenes, setting up events,

2:08

doing the fun stuff that me and Shelley

2:10

have done as well as essays

2:13

with,

2:14

you know, an about many

2:16

of our really focus

2:18

that we've had. And

2:19

and I mean, honestly, we

2:21

could write a hundred bucks

2:23

about every guest that we've had

2:25

on here because every one of them leaves

2:27

us with something.

2:30

like, they imprint. They imprint on our

2:32

hearts.

2:32

They really do our short list of

2:34

of essays to write

2:36

about was basically the entire list of people.

2:38

Yeah. It

2:39

was very it was very hard to

2:41

whittle it down. But

2:44

how fun though to, like, go back and

2:46

listen to some of those episodes

2:48

and And I thought it was also really

2:50

cool to read your essays

2:52

about the same interviews I was

2:54

in and, like, to see

2:56

how it you and

2:59

the impact it had on

3:01

you. because I think we both pull in

3:03

different things from these these interviews

3:05

and these guests. And obviously, with different life

3:07

experiences, things affect you

3:09

differently. So

3:10

Totally. Yeah. Yeah.

3:12

There were definitely ones where I'm like, oh, yeah. I definitely

3:14

got something different out of this than show I did

3:16

and the same way you brought in, you

3:19

know, stories around you know, your life

3:21

and your upbringing and how it pertained to the interview

3:23

subject, and I did the same. It's it's super

3:28

much about what D and D and what

3:30

we've been talking about here on this podcast, which is just

3:32

making lifting each other up and

3:34

and and getting those stories out there

3:36

to be told and hopefully inspired more

3:39

people out there to, a, pick up this game

3:41

and and and create some of these fun stories,

3:43

but then also create content around it because

3:45

that's what this is all about. Yeah.

3:46

And it's really cool to see just

3:49

how diverse the creators

3:51

are that we talk to. And it's like just

3:53

a small slice of

3:56

this community, but it does show you

3:58

the breadth of this community. And how many

3:59

different types of people were

4:02

are

4:02

are part of it.

4:03

Yeah. So so welcome to Dragon

4:05

talk. It is available for pre order

4:07

right now. You can get it from Amazon or get it

4:09

from your local or pre order from your local

4:11

bookstore. It's from

4:13

University of Iowa Press

4:15

and we can't wait to get the word out about

4:18

it more. So we're gonna be talking about it a lot over the coming

4:20

months and being on a lot of other

4:22

other podcasts as guests.

4:23

Yeah. And

4:24

talking about our experiences in the book, so we

4:26

hope you love it. go ahead and preorder it now. It

4:29

would help us out. Not gonna

4:31

lie, getting more people interested

4:33

in it before it comes

4:34

out on December sixth. Yeah.

4:37

Holiday gift giving.

4:38

Yeah. If you have a

4:41

loved one who you've always wanted to have to

4:43

listen to Dragon Talk, this is a might be a

4:45

nice way to do it. or

4:46

get or have, like, a better understanding

4:49

of d and d? because, like, you don't it's

4:51

not a book where we're, like, explaining rules

4:53

or talking mechanics and crunch. It's like

4:55

a collection of essays about really

4:57

interesting people who all happen to

4:59

play D

4:59

and D. And it was written with the idea

5:02

of someone who doesn't know how D and D

5:04

works how to play. Could pick this up and

5:06

glean the basics that you need in order to understand

5:08

the context of the essays and the

5:10

stories that we're telling. So --

5:12

Indeed. -- it is a good way to get people if

5:14

they don't list the funds. Here's

5:17

a great way to introduce them into into your

5:19

hobby if that's what are you

5:21

thinking about? And

5:21

if you do listen to podcasts,

5:24

like Dragon talked, I think you'll still enjoy

5:26

it. This is a reflection of

5:28

You don't know. You don't know like some of these interviews

5:30

left us in tears. You don't know.

5:32

Literally tears. Some of them dead.

5:34

It's true.

5:35

Yeah. Yeah. So check it out.

5:38

But in the meantime, an ongoing story

5:40

that Shelley's been talking about is dungeon

5:42

mastering for Children's.

5:45

You guys, you guys,

5:48

you guys are not gonna believe

5:50

this. Literally

5:51

none of you are

5:52

gonna believe this. I believe this. What?

5:54

I've

5:55

done something truly amazing. And

5:58

I it's so amazing that I'm even

5:59

inspiring myself Oh,

6:03

and I find

6:05

myself very

6:07

inspiring.

6:08

You've given yourself inspiration. So

6:10

you know when you're scared of something.

6:13

And then so you

6:15

just won't do it because

6:17

they're scared, but it's something that you know is good for

6:19

you and you want to do it. There's like a greater

6:21

power driving you to it. Yes. So

6:23

Working

6:24

out or eating Working out? Healthy food.

6:26

Yes. Or, like,

6:29

like, maybe taking the first step and

6:31

meeting new people, like joining,

6:33

like, a board game, meetup club,

6:35

or, like, asking somebody out on a date

6:38

or, like, approaching a cool mom

6:40

at the park because --

6:41

Sure. -- moms are cool. Preordering

6:43

a book called Welcome to Dragon talk. Why

6:45

she reads? could be

6:47

could be scary, but you're gonna do it anyway.

6:49

I literally found myself. Like,

6:51

it was like my hands did not

6:53

belong to me as they were cascading

6:56

over the keyboard of my laptop,

6:58

typing an email to my son's school

7:00

principal. And I would

7:02

like to tell you what that I

7:04

said, do

7:05

you know if there are plans for

7:08

enrichment activities this year? because there

7:10

hasn't been for the last two years because of

7:12

COVID. I

7:14

am is there a process and if so, is there a

7:16

process for parents to submit

7:19

an idea for a club, I

7:21

would Like,

7:23

I I am the brand manager for Dungeons and

7:25

Dragons. It's a personal and professional passion

7:27

of mine to teach kids how to play D and

7:29

D, And then I went into, like, a whole thing about

7:32

why DND is good for

7:34

kids and learning and social emotional

7:36

growth. And I I thought

7:38

it would be a really fun thing to to

7:40

start an after school club at Bearmont

7:42

Park. If the PTA was interested,

7:45

and then I hit

7:46

send. And

7:48

then they accept this road? Literally

7:50

let's see.

7:52

I

7:53

sent that at nine twelve AM and

7:55

at nine fourteen AM

7:57

same day. I got an email that

7:59

says,

7:59

this sounds fun.

8:03

Wow.

8:03

And then we were off and

8:05

running, you guys. I it

8:08

am starting the first official

8:10

dungeon DND Club

8:12

at my son's elementary school.

8:14

It'll be open for only fourth and fifth

8:16

graders. And I

8:19

dragged Bart along with me. I just started

8:21

seeing him on emails. Like,

8:23

so my husband and I were both gonna

8:25

be there. And he's like, what?

8:27

Oh, yeah. Okay. once

8:29

a week. Who do you

8:31

think is the dungeon master? Like, obviously,

8:33

it's me. You guys it's me.

8:35

I am being a dungeon master.

8:37

You're doing great.

8:38

so moved by

8:41

this desire to bring all of these

8:43

kids into the world of D and D,

8:45

solely because we know how good it is

8:47

for them. I I am making it

8:49

happen. I am putting

8:52

my dungeon master skills

8:54

where my mouth is. I can't just keep

8:56

telling people to teach kids how to play. if

8:58

I'm not doing that too. This is

8:59

the secret. You put it out into the world and

9:01

it and it happens.

9:02

I made

9:05

myself get teary eyed. thinking

9:07

about I'm not this is how

9:09

dopey I am about this. I made

9:11

myself get, like, tears in my actual

9:13

eyeballs because I was, like,

9:15

thinking, like, of a kid,

9:17

like, statues, like, in your

9:18

eyeballs. In my eyeballs. They

9:21

were filling up. And I knew that

9:23

was real. like,

9:24

a kid just sitting there in class,

9:27

like, not even knowing how much

9:29

this was going to change for, like,

9:31

how great this would be for them. Yeah. But

9:33

also, like, what if

9:35

they're into it? And, like, it's

9:37

Friday and it's, like, one

9:39

hour before the bell rings and there's kids

9:41

that are, like,

9:42

mingled, jingling the dice in their pockets,

9:44

and they're like, I can't wait to go play

9:46

D and D. That's because of

9:48

me. Like, I'm helped.

9:50

Yes. Yeah. That's gonna be

9:52

you. And

9:53

guess what? I've already, like, you

9:55

know, told some parents. I'm, like, I'm at the

9:57

doing this D and D club. And there's only

9:59

gonna be, like, ten spots because it's just me and

10:01

Bart.

10:01

Yeah. And Well, so I

10:03

I wanna be a part of it. You

10:05

would be a DM too? Sure.

10:07

Oh my gosh. And

10:08

That's not everybody to DM. Everybody to

10:11

it.

10:11

Well, they

10:12

Because you wanna train everything. to be their

10:14

own DM's

10:15

too. That's Barton I already talking about. Like, every day, we're like,

10:17

okay. For our club, like, we're already, like, we're gonna

10:19

buy them all dice. We're gonna give them notebooks.

10:22

We're gonna have, like, a big and, like, a

10:24

graduation ceremony at the end of ten

10:26

weeks, level them up, you know.

10:28

We're we're we're totally geeking

10:30

out on this. But Eight.

10:32

There's like eight people. Kids already

10:34

interested in my club out of my ten spots

10:36

and check this out. Six

10:38

are

10:38

girls. Yes.

10:40

Yes. That's

10:42

great. I

10:43

know. I'm so excited. So

10:45

You're doing it. You're putting the

10:47

the the things out there and people

10:50

are gonna be love in it. And I

10:52

love that you are taking that leap.

10:54

And I

10:54

will say one hundred

10:56

percent, this is because

10:58

of Dragon Talk listeners because of

11:00

you, Greg Tito, because of the

11:02

guests that have talked to me

11:04

talked through my fears on how to be a

11:06

DM. Yeah. And all those wonderful people

11:08

that write to me on Twitter and are like, you could

11:10

totally do this and hear some advice on how to

11:12

do it. I you have literally

11:15

lifted me up and pumped me up to the

11:17

point where I am, like, that

11:19

I am out here solicited

11:21

in my services as a fashion

11:23

master. That's so great. Oh my god.

11:25

Alright. So now we're gonna need to bet get week by

11:28

week reports on what happens

11:30

and all the characters and all the

11:32

stories. I am, like, already making t

11:34

shirts. and stuff. I'm

11:36

so excited. What if they

11:37

like? Yeah. Are you a member of Shelley's D

11:39

and D Club?

11:40

That's the shell fire club.

11:42

The shell fire club. Oh my

11:45

god. Did you really is that what you called

11:47

the club? No. It just came to me

11:49

right now. that's I want a t shirt.

11:51

I wanna be part of the Shellfire Club.

11:53

Yeah. And look, you know, it should be a parody

11:55

of that t shirt with instead of, like, the dice and

11:57

stuff around it. It's just little faces of you.

11:59

Like,

11:59

in different. Hi.

12:02

Hi. Oh

12:02

my god. I can't wait to, like, be

12:04

at parent pickup and my

12:06

little kids are gonna be like, Ma'am,

12:09

there's my dungeon master shellfire.

12:11

Now you

12:14

have to create like a a different cosmology.

12:17

So then, you know, instead of

12:19

going to the nine hells, you go to the nine

12:21

shells. Oh,

12:21

my god. I mean, there's already a

12:24

shelling move. snail and wildly on the

12:26

witch's leg -- I'm sure we can bring her

12:28

back.

12:28

-- sellers' rebuke.

12:31

Okay. I'm

12:33

into it. I'm into it. I love it.

12:35

So far, that's great. Thank

12:38

you. We're I mean, seriously, we're

12:40

gonna need reports each each week subsequently to

12:42

this one, you're gonna hear what's happening.

12:44

It

12:44

doesn't start until January. Oh,

12:47

well, in

12:48

January, look forward to it. But you

12:50

are gonna hear me talk about prepping

12:52

because you know I'm gonna over

12:54

prepare for this. Oh, toads.

12:56

Yeah.

12:56

Wait. It's gonna be so fun. I love it. I love it. I love

12:58

it. Good for you. Good for all those kids. They're

13:01

gonna learn so much about life

13:03

from you. I don't

13:07

know what they're gonna learn, but Well,

13:10

they're certainly gonna learn about Pandora.

13:12

there's

13:12

gotta be at least two of them that will be

13:15

DMs. And, yes, Kendory

13:17

is a great way to lure kids

13:19

gonna learn about today's rails just like

13:22

we learn about them in this

13:24

upcoming segment with Mackenzie Darnas. That's

13:26

Yay.

13:37

Everyone,

13:37

let's welcome McKenzie to Armids

13:39

back for meet your months'

13:43

the

13:44

Yes.

13:47

Oh, excited to delve

13:50

into a particular monster

13:52

type that is super fun.

13:54

And meet them.

13:56

Get to know them. Get to know everything

13:58

about their ins and their outs and maybe

13:59

how you can use them in your games.

14:02

Mhmm. And today, we are

14:04

gonna talk about our

14:06

favorite spell goner space whales,

14:08

the

14:08

kendory. Yay.

14:10

I love my space whales.

14:13

I gotta be honest.

14:16

this doesn't seem like you're

14:18

type. Okay. Now this is definitely

14:20

a departure from all the previous

14:22

episodes I've done where I've been

14:24

for once. for once admittedly, I

14:26

am doing a monster that is described

14:28

as docile and benevolent

14:30

and generally like a

14:32

unpleasant sight. But

14:34

also, I I just have a deep

14:36

love for the Condori. One

14:39

of my favorite movies growing up

14:41

was Fantasia two thousand. And

14:43

one of the sequences they have

14:45

is a bunch of these blue whales

14:48

swimming through the Arctic Ocean and then

14:50

towards the end raise up into the sky and

14:52

they start swimming among, like, the northern lights

14:54

and the stars. Oh, yeah. And

14:57

I love that sequence. It

14:59

is such a core part

15:01

of my childhood in a very strange

15:03

way. And so when I when

15:05

y'all were like, what months do you wanna talk about? And I was

15:07

like, oh, wait, I can talk about my space

15:10

whales. I love them. Oh.

15:12

I love these guys ever since we

15:15

showed off some of the images for spell

15:17

jammer and -- Yeah. -- featured prominently

15:19

just swimming through the astral sea,

15:21

and I was like, that that image

15:23

almost

15:23

more than anything else that we put out

15:26

for this adventure

15:28

just screams like

15:30

spell jammer to me. Mhmm.

15:32

Yeah. That was, like, when I

15:34

realized, oh, okay.

15:37

There's a little bit of everything

15:39

happening here.

15:40

So how would you so for people who haven't

15:43

seen those images or don't know anything about what we're

15:45

talking about, how would you describe the conduit?

15:47

So

15:47

the conduit are almost

15:49

exactly what they are in the tin and

15:51

that they are whales in space.

15:53

They very much look like these

15:55

massive blue whales, say

15:57

for the fact that they have

15:59

multiple eyes that blink and flash various

16:01

different lights. And they don't have a

16:03

mouse because instead of how

16:07

blue whales take krill from the

16:09

ocean. Hindori

16:11

drive their nutrition and their energy

16:14

from the light of the sars and the sun's

16:16

dotted throughout the astral sea. And

16:19

instead of whale song, what they

16:21

do is they will blink their lights in

16:23

various different patterns. at each

16:25

other as they mosey along through the

16:27

depths of the border Ashburn.

16:29

So the

16:29

whales that know Morse code?

16:32

Yep. Pretty much.

16:34

or the flashing lights from

16:36

close encounters of the third kind.

16:38

Oh, creepy. Yeah.

16:40

Right?

16:40

That's so cool, though. Like, I love that there's so

16:43

many meshing up things in

16:45

there. So how would you I mean,

16:47

immediately, you think of, like, oh, we can

16:49

use Condori as set

16:51

dressing and doing exactly what we're talking about, making

16:53

people feel like they are in a,

16:55

you know, an alien astral sea

16:57

type world. But how what are some other

16:59

fun ways that we can use them in

17:01

a d and d session?

17:03

So I always like to

17:06

imagine Gudori as kind of the like you

17:08

were saying the indication that you are

17:10

in a different world or it's really

17:12

they are great for setting the tone.

17:15

especially like that seeing them in the distance just sort

17:17

of moving along, swimming

17:19

among the stars, especially because also

17:21

they are massive creatures.

17:24

So they will be about the size of, like, your

17:26

spell jamming vehicle. And I

17:28

think that sense of immensity and scale is

17:30

just so wonderful to use in a

17:33

campaign. The other thing I really love veterinarians

17:35

is that canonically,

17:38

they are miniature habitats.

17:40

They are large enough to in the

17:43

depths of Wilde's face accumulate

17:45

an air envelope, creating an atmosphere

17:47

that allows creatures and organisms

17:49

and plant life to thrive

17:52

on and around the Condori. So

17:54

oftentimes, Condori will have, like, scabbers

17:56

sort of feeding on them in the way that you have, like,

17:58

those little bottom

17:59

feeder sharks that put

18:01

her around in your bottom of the aquarium.

18:04

the

18:04

And I always love the

18:07

idea of having like a civilization

18:09

or a settlement that just lives on

18:11

the back of a Condori.

18:13

That is something I wanted to do for the longest

18:16

time. That's just like a little farming settlement

18:19

or a small little

18:21

hut or like even just like

18:23

someone riding on like a gendory calf,

18:25

just like one family or like a whole

18:28

village on these different pods

18:31

or a whole village occupying the

18:33

pod of a condori a condori

18:35

pod. of everyone being like you have like the the ruler

18:37

on the the leader of the pod and then you've

18:39

got like whole farming villages on

18:41

o whale and then another one is just

18:44

like the like, the residential area and you

18:46

can have people, like, jumping from whale

18:48

to whale to

18:50

travel around and just being these beautiful,

18:52

wild space nomadic cultures.

18:54

That's

18:54

so cool. That

18:55

is. But, like, do they

18:58

mind having all of these

19:00

hands on? Just Can

19:01

you maybe No. Can you honestly,

19:04

they are. very chill with

19:06

it.

19:06

Wow. Hey.

19:09

I love that. And then you can have any type

19:11

of adventure happen in that

19:13

settlement, right, whether they can do it themselves or

19:16

threatened or the people living on it are

19:18

threatened by something or

19:20

there's rivals or

19:20

factions within them, like maybe

19:23

there's a splitting off or a schism that happens

19:25

between the pods and then the

19:27

whales or the cuduaries wanna get

19:29

back together, but the people don't want to. Like, I there's

19:31

so much storytelling about the show that you can

19:33

do. Yeah. It is

19:34

so much fun. And the the fun thing is

19:36

is that space whales as

19:39

a trope is a very

19:41

well known and very common trope

19:43

in a lot of sci

19:45

fi and space fantasy, space

19:47

opera media, there are variations of

19:49

space whales in almost

19:51

like any property

19:52

that involves

19:54

some form of space travel

19:56

that I can name off the top of my head.

19:58

And I think with

20:00

the Condor in our book, it kind of

20:02

allows you to indulge in those

20:04

fantasies and, like,

20:06

create that homage to

20:08

the properties

20:10

and the films and the movies and shows that

20:12

really inspired you as you are creating your

20:15

campaign. That's

20:16

cool. Alright. So they

20:17

don't have any any song.

20:20

But what do they what do they feel like? What

20:22

is the texture of their skin to you? What do you what

20:24

do you what would what would you feel like walking on the

20:26

back of a a kendory?

20:28

I

20:29

ah

20:31

so,

20:32

I mean, my immediate thought is they feel

20:34

like a whale, and then my follow-up

20:36

thought is what I'd never touch

20:38

a whale. What is a whale

20:39

like? So,

20:44

I

20:44

very

20:45

mean, there's that. But

20:48

I feel like they'd kind of almost have

20:50

a if

20:53

you've ever gone to, like, an aquarium

20:55

and you Like,

20:57

you've gotten a pet, like, the manta rays, and you

20:59

kinda feel they're -- Yeah. -- they're smooth and

21:01

rubbery, but they're also slightly

21:03

sandpapery. Of

21:05

course. I think it's that weird balance of

21:07

rubbery smooth and very aerodynamic, but

21:09

also with enough, like, texture it

21:11

so that the the skin itself

21:14

can be a good

21:17

hold or a be a good surface

21:19

for which like algae or

21:21

space algae. or other

21:23

organisms to kind of find a group and

21:25

latch onto. Mhmm. I can

21:27

also certainly imagine, like,

21:29

the equivalent like, space barnacles or,

21:31

like, crusts of rock appearing on

21:33

bits and pieces of

21:35

the Condori skin

21:37

the

21:39

in

21:40

what is it? In the video games of Nautica,

21:42

there are the reefbacks, which

21:44

are so named because they are these

21:46

massive Leviathan creatures, very peaceful

21:49

who have, like, little miniature coral reefs

21:51

kind of growing on their backs along with vegetation

21:54

and plant light that you can

21:56

harvest in the game. And I've always

21:58

really love the image like, a cindoorie

22:00

whale with, like, a full on coral reef

22:02

kind of cresting over its back.

22:04

That is a great

22:06

image.

22:08

I

22:08

I'm back to the texture because

22:11

I I feel like it

22:13

would feel like a

22:15

pickle.

22:16

Yeah.

22:18

You

22:18

know what? You know what? I could

22:20

see that. Right. Like a little like that texture

22:22

of a pickle kinda smooth, but

22:24

still a little bumpy,

22:27

a little

22:28

Damp. How's it say? Like, is it slimy?

22:30

Like, I

22:31

said, oh, yeah. Not

22:32

bad. Our our Condorie moist?

22:35

I

22:36

mean, they're not technically in

22:39

water. Right? Yes. So,

22:40

I mean, maybe there's, like, a little bit

22:42

of atmospheric dew

22:45

I guess, Condorion,

22:47

you just view valuable

22:50

potion

22:50

components, so far about the entirety

22:52

of Wild's face.

22:54

Yeah.

22:57

What's the whale mucus called that's

22:59

hardened, that is really

23:01

valuable for pushed me for

23:03

video. You know what I'm talking about?

23:05

Or this or something like that? It's

23:07

called Deepgram. And then there's a

23:09

whole plot right there. Like, there are

23:11

people and spell jamming ships, even though they're

23:13

-- -- hamburger hamburgers. -- hamburgers. Even

23:15

though they're beautiful, you know, peaceful

23:18

animals, they do hunt them for something.

23:20

Oh, yeah. El mucus. Yes.

23:23

The the entry in Booz Ashul

23:25

Managhi describes the various natural

23:27

predators of Kindori, including

23:30

dragons, and

23:32

various people that didn't have a wild

23:34

space. So it is

23:37

unfortunately space wailing does

23:40

happen. But I think that could be a really

23:42

awesome, like, slot

23:44

hook either way. Like, you can need to

23:46

harvest some of the

23:49

something from a kindori, whether it

23:51

is the illustrious kindori mucus

23:53

or something else that might be growing on

23:55

a kindori's back that requires, like, the

23:57

constant motion of a swimming

23:59

a wild space in

23:59

order to grow properly, like a

24:02

special type of coral or

24:04

special kind of plant life that grows

24:06

only on cindoori bats. And

24:08

so you'd have to find a way to locate

24:10

the pod and then

24:12

retrieve it

24:14

the with

24:15

or without because

24:18

the choice is up to the adventurers. So I

24:20

personally would be very sad. If the Kendory

24:23

died, with or without

24:25

harming the cudori. But I also think

24:27

it'd be a super cool plot to go

24:29

after people who are, like, actively poaching

24:31

or hunting kendory and are, like,

24:34

mowing down the natural kendory

24:36

population. Or

24:38

going to hunt down even like a lunar dragon or a solar

24:40

dragon that has been terrorizing

24:42

a pod of Pandora that

24:44

people need to keep safe for

24:46

whether there is a symbiotic relationship with them

24:49

of, like, living on their backs or

24:51

harvesting their the plant life

24:53

that grows on them.

24:56

or maybe they are trying to

24:59

rehabilitate the Conduit population or

25:01

raise more Conduit calves because

25:03

Conduit can grow very, very old

25:05

AND IF THEY

25:07

NEED MORE BABY KINDORIES IN THE WORLD.

25:09

AND HAVING THE EVENTS BE TASLED WITH HEY

25:11

PROTECTS THIS POD OF KINDORRY AND MAKE SURE

25:13

THEY MAKE IT TO THEIR PLACE okay. And they

25:15

aren't killed by any wandering dragons would

25:18

be super fun as well. I

25:20

would accept that quest. I would -- Yeah. --

25:22

absolutely. Yep. I

25:23

like radio two of almost pulling on

25:25

some of the strings of

25:28

inspiration from Star Trek four -- Mhmm. --

25:30

about how

25:32

Kendori might have a relationship with an ancient

25:34

being, and an ancient being needs

25:36

to have them around in order

25:38

to continue

25:39

life as we know it or something like that. So

25:41

the the the player characters need to

25:44

ensure their safety not just for

25:46

the good of them, but there's actually a symbolic and and

25:48

much larger reason why they need to be

25:50

there for the life cycle of a

25:52

certain planet or

25:53

or Yes. And it works really

25:55

well because cononically, can dory are our celestial type.

25:57

So they they aren't beasts. They are actually

25:59

celestial in origin.

26:02

So they do have that connection to the

26:05

upper planes -- Yeah. -- which would allow

26:07

for a lot of storytelling opportunities

26:09

in

26:09

that way. Right?

26:10

What would okay. So we only got time for, like,

26:13

one more question. But Oh, no. It's a

26:15

big one. It's a big one.

26:16

What do you think an awakened

26:19

Condori would sound

26:21

them like.

26:22

Oh. And or act like

26:24

if they were Oh, I feel like it's happening. I

26:26

think in a waking a

26:28

waking can doori to me

26:30

they

26:30

feel like the the

26:33

Ents to to

26:33

reference Lord of the Rings, the Ents

26:36

of Wild Space. They are so

26:38

old and so

26:40

big that their perception of

26:42

time, even especially in the

26:44

astroplane, must be so

26:46

werps. and they

26:49

must just be the chillest,

26:52

slowest talking, like

26:56

the flops. in Yeah. Like the top from the

26:58

topia. Like, they're just they're

27:00

gonna be so chill and so

27:02

peaceful. And I feel like they also

27:04

have this

27:05

kind of acceptance of, like, the

27:08

natural cycle of things where they're aware

27:10

that, like, when they die, their hair bones will

27:12

decay and then other people might use them

27:14

to build boats and they have

27:16

this deep understanding of

27:18

the give and take of, like, the

27:20

actual sea and what it

27:22

takes to live there and support people.

27:24

I think they'd also

27:26

just they'd be so

27:27

I feel like they'd have

27:29

so much wisdom but it's

27:31

also wisdom that is filtered through the lens

27:34

of an old, old space whale

27:36

who probably is

27:37

not busy getting involved in wars

27:40

and stuff. It reminds

27:42

me of this Internet post of

27:44

imagining an amortical who got

27:46

stuck in a well for,

27:48

like, six hundred years because, no,

27:50

everyone thought the well was just haunted. And

27:52

so when the the mortal comes

27:54

out, everyone's, like,

27:55

my god. Were you there for World War two?

27:57

What was the park? And the world

27:58

was like, dude, I don't

27:59

know. I was in a well. I

28:02

suppose I'll do. I can

28:04

imagine the ignoring being like that, like, I

28:07

wasn't on that side of Wild

28:09

Space. Is that star gone?

28:11

Really? Yeah. Oops. I that

28:14

star. Oh, as a good

28:16

star. That makes total sense. That's

28:18

now my head cannon for how

28:20

Pandora's sound and And they all

28:22

have,

28:22

like, the most vocal

28:24

fry. They're all, like, down

28:25

here. Like, yay. Doo.

28:29

Little echoey. That's

28:31

amazing. I mean,

28:35

technically, the

28:35

awakened spell wouldn't work on them because there's

28:37

less gels and not a beast. But

28:39

you know, I think

28:40

a DM would would would allow

28:43

that. Or it's a it's a it's a

28:45

leveled up on it. I think it would be less of

28:46

an awakened spell because they

28:49

do have sex intelligence. So

28:51

This isn't like yourself.

28:52

And, yeah, it'd be more of teaching the

28:55

Condor language and or

28:57

telepathically communicating with them. through

28:58

that through that. Would you

29:00

be lovely? Now I want to

29:02

go into space and telepathically communicate

29:05

with the kendoori on

29:07

a granular level.

29:08

Yes. I think

29:09

it's gonna be B1B1

29:12

with Lick and Dory. Dory.

29:16

That's all I'm gonna hear now. Yeah.

29:18

It's So much

29:21

vegetation.

29:21

Vegetation.

29:24

On my back. you guess.

29:29

So much

29:29

you get some passing.

29:35

That's amazing. Thank you so much, Mackenzie,

29:37

for being here and talking Condori with

29:39

us. I feel like we're all space whales

29:41

on our journey together.

29:44

How did people find out a security? Any

29:46

any fun questions about about

29:48

DND? Yes.

29:49

Well, folks, Tammy over on Twitter

29:51

at Mackenzie Lane d a, that is

29:53

spelled MAKENZIELANEDA

29:58

That is whether I will excitedly yell about

30:00

my personal D and D games,

30:03

other cool stuff that the D and D studio

30:05

is producing, as well as just

30:07

other random ramblings into the void as

30:09

per the usual on Twitter. Thank

30:11

you so much for having me. I always loved talking

30:13

monsters and it was such

30:15

a joy to explore the beauty that our space whales

30:17

with you. Oh, so we

30:19

love it. I love the

30:22

Mackenzie's mom's

30:23

Thank you. Oh my goodness.

30:34

I love everything about

30:36

the candor when I or spread

30:38

about them, when I saw the

30:41

images and now knowing,

30:43

like, having AAA

30:45

settlement on the back of one, on a

30:47

pod of them On the couch

30:49

of whales. read from the mouths

30:51

of whales. You know

30:52

who would love the

30:54

idea of saving

30:56

a pod of

30:58

whales or, like, escorting whales to save

30:59

people. Yes. You

31:02

can't do a shellfire club. It's

31:04

it's right itself. It's all

31:06

right there. right there.

31:07

Yeah. Okay.

31:08

Yeah. These kids all they're they're, like,

31:10

growing up in a school on a

31:12

pod.

31:14

Yeah. And then

31:14

there's like a mean solar dragon that's

31:16

trying to steal the mucus. Oh

31:18

my god, they would love that too.

31:20

Done.

31:20

Done it. There you go. That's your

31:22

that's opening salvo right there.

31:25

I love it. This is great. I'll

31:27

write it down, but it's a good thing to see you

31:29

recorded for buses. Yeah. So

31:31

you can go back back and What

31:33

was that idea we have? What was

31:33

that idea about way out of mucus?

31:36

Hamburgers.

31:40

Hamburgers. You gotta

31:42

come up with a more it's gotta have more x's

31:44

and apostrophes in it. Oh,

31:46

got these kids. very valuable thing.

31:48

Mhmm. Alright.

31:49

Well,

31:50

We are now going to

31:53

learn about so many other

31:55

amazing fun things from

31:57

the mind. Have a very wonderful DND

31:59

creator.

31:59

Let's keep a listen. Everyone,

32:03

let's welcome Avidon to

32:06

Dragon Tom. today. Hello.

32:10

Hello. Thank you so much for

32:13

having me. Where would

32:14

it be? It's a pleasure.

32:16

You are AAAAAAAAAAAAD

32:18

and d player, a dungeon master,

32:21

a writer, a makeup artist, which we're You

32:23

guys are listening at home won't be able to see

32:25

the amazing look that you've put together for

32:27

us, Don. If it's as well as a voice

32:29

actor, you do so many things in this

32:32

creative space?

32:33

I absolutely love

32:36

tabletops. They sort of

32:38

found

32:38

their way me spontaneously and then

32:40

consumed my entire being. So

32:42

if I'm awake, I'm usually doing

32:44

something tabletop related or writing

32:46

related at this point.

32:49

here

32:49

for a while. I guess

32:50

we need to hear about

32:53

how how they they they came

32:55

to you.

32:55

So it's very important to

32:58

mention that I went to a performing arts school for

33:00

high school and was so shy

33:02

and so afraid of being perceived

33:04

that I worked as a stage tech so I could be in the dark

33:06

and not be seen by anyone ever.

33:08

Wow. There are so many just in

33:10

that statement alone, I think you have both

33:13

Shelley and I, as

33:15

as cohorts, I was the backstage. I

33:17

think, Shelley, maybe you you were something

33:19

similar to that. I was

33:20

on stage, Greg. Right.

33:23

But the shyness. I'm

33:25

impressed by

33:25

that. I never had

33:28

any

33:28

intention of ever doing

33:30

anything that would put me in front of people.

33:32

In fact, I

33:32

didn't think I was capable of it. And

33:35

then Q Times had a

33:37

very quiet casting call for an on

33:39

Black D and D game.

33:41

and a friend sent it to me and

33:44

something said just do the scary thing

33:46

first and then be scared. So

33:49

I applied and we are coming into our fifth season on

33:51

October fourth. Fourth,

33:53

that's the Tuesday, which is very

33:55

exciting. They're some of

33:57

my best friends now. and

33:59

it really did just kind of

34:02

open

34:02

the door to

34:04

what I love

34:05

most about table

34:06

tops, I think, which is not being afraid to be wrong.

34:08

Not

34:08

even so much looking silly, but

34:10

not being afraid to roll poorly,

34:13

to fail a check. to

34:16

fail an interaction. It's

34:18

something that I struggle with as a

34:20

perfectionist. So it's been really, really good

34:22

for me to kind of force me to

34:24

unwind and stop taking myself so

34:28

seriously.

34:28

That is, I think, a

34:30

really important lesson for anybody to learn at any stage in their in their

34:33

lives. But definitely, early on, I

34:35

think the idea of

34:38

not necessarily failing up, but just like failing and then and then how

34:40

to how to get up from that and and

34:43

continue with either the storytelling in a in

34:45

a in a D and D campaign

34:48

or just in life just being like, okay. Well, let's try something

34:50

else. Yeah. I think so.

34:51

Like having it

34:52

look, it's not up to to

34:56

us. it's up to the dice. Like, there is something very very

34:58

freeing about knowing, like, I am putting my

35:00

best self out there. And if it

35:04

doesn't work, It's

35:04

not my fault. Exactly. But,

35:07

yeah, it makes you

35:10

a dot. You

35:12

really do. it it does make you feel less to

35:14

try something knowing, I guess, that

35:16

you're you could fail,

35:19

but the onus is

35:21

sort of removed from you? I don't know. It

35:24

creates

35:24

a weird kind of bravery

35:26

knowing that, you know, you can build

35:28

the character and you can know the stats

35:31

but you can still roll in

35:33

that one and fail absolutely

35:36

spectacularly. And one

35:38

thing that I've been trying to learn both as a player and as a

35:40

DM is to turn

35:42

those failures into something that is

35:44

still cool. not just --

35:46

Yeah. -- didn't succeed, but

35:48

you learned some other

35:50

information or you made a new friend or what

35:52

have you trying

35:54

to find away or even letting them interpret their

35:56

failure, asking them on that one, what do you

35:58

think happens to you?

35:59

It may it more

36:01

collaborative and less me against them, which

36:04

I really enjoy. Yeah.

36:06

And my channel in particular is a

36:08

very

36:08

collaborative network. It's very

36:10

much kind of everyone puts in their best effort. So

36:14

I appreciate when I'm able to

36:16

soften a failure for them.

36:18

Nice. Yeah.

36:20

And your channel's

36:21

called exquisite corpse presents.

36:23

It isn't it. Is that a reference to

36:25

Hedwig in the angry inch by any

36:27

chance? It's a little bit of reference

36:29

to Headwig and a little

36:30

bit of reference to the surrealist game

36:32

exclusive groups -- Oh. -- which was a

36:35

lot of people who were trapped in cabins

36:37

with Floor'd Beyer and would sit around and

36:39

either start a drawing or start a sentence

36:41

and just pass a piece of paper around

36:43

and let everyone add to

36:45

it. And when I was looking at what I wanted

36:47

the channel to be, that

36:49

was very much the core

36:51

idea. The idea that I

36:53

might be the one running things, but it

36:55

wouldn't exist without the other people who come

36:57

and play games with me. So letting

36:59

it be something that is very much

37:01

a game of give and

37:03

take has given it this really cool, homie, all

37:06

hands on deck kind

37:08

of feel.

37:09

love that. I

37:10

love any type of artistic

37:12

endeavor

37:12

that is less about

37:15

the art tour kind

37:17

of idea there's like one person that is the

37:19

the the idea maker and everyone else

37:21

needs to be subservient to

37:24

that idea. to a

37:25

collaboration, which I think is just so much more you get so

37:27

much more, well, a positive feelings

37:29

around any project as

37:32

well as better, I

37:34

think, projects,

37:35

like, better better completed

37:37

projects because you have

37:40

this this and it feels very much like

37:42

a DND campaign or a DND party. Everybody's working together and

37:44

bringing their own talents to it and

37:46

making the story and

37:48

or project as awesome as

37:50

they can. And

37:51

I I personally, as

37:54

someone who is running two games

37:56

alone on top of my channel, I

37:58

appreciate so much that my players

38:00

take that they are very,

38:02

very invested in their characters

38:04

and in each other's characters.

38:06

So it

38:08

becomes a it becomes a really cool thing where people are now home brewing their own

38:10

sub classes and we're home

38:12

brewing items and abilities together. And

38:14

it's a conversation between us

38:16

about, like,

38:18

who do you want this to be, but also why did you this class?

38:20

Why do you want to play this particular

38:22

character so that I can give

38:25

you chances to do the thing that you wanted to

38:28

do. It has

38:30

been a very big learning

38:32

curve, learning how to be

38:34

functionally in charge and still allow the

38:37

fun to happen. But because

38:39

of them, really,

38:42

it's it hasn't been as hard as it should be. Mhmm.

38:44

That's cool.

38:45

So I think

38:46

a lot of people we

38:50

talk to or that I talk to or

38:52

Greg talks to that are really good dungeon masters. They do

38:54

have they do spend a lot of

38:56

time getting to know their players,

38:58

getting to know the characters and asking those questions.

39:00

Why do you want to play this character?

39:02

Like, what can I help you?

39:04

discover or, you know, about this character through the course of

39:07

the game. But I I've played

39:09

with some new people and I feel like

39:11

asking them that question, they

39:13

would be like, Well, I don't

39:15

it just sounded cool. But, like, how

39:16

I think it's important, and I

39:19

but I don't want to overwhelm

39:22

or deter people from, like, feel

39:24

like, you know, a lot of people come

39:26

into D and D thinking, like, I need

39:28

a costume and a voice. and

39:31

you're gonna everyone's gonna stare at me

39:33

and it doesn't have to be that. So how

39:35

do you get to, like,

39:37

to the heart of the

39:39

character in the

39:41

player in a way that, like, is helping

39:43

to draw it out and not

39:46

totally putting them on the spot. My older

39:48

sister is

39:49

one of our cast members.

39:51

She's also our community manager.

39:53

But when we originally started playing our very first game

39:55

a year ago. She had never played DND

39:58

before. And there's a lot

40:00

of that unexclusive corpus

40:02

presents. There are a lot of people who have wanted to

40:04

play, but not found groups or have

40:06

played, but not an in actual

40:08

play. And that has been kind

40:10

of a question because we have these people who

40:12

are used to, you know,

40:14

performing when they're playing DND, and then

40:16

people who are literally just trying to get a

40:18

handle on the mechanics. What I've

40:21

started

40:21

doing is

40:24

trying

40:25

to kind of understand who

40:27

the character is as a person without before I even

40:29

talk to the player trying to kind of

40:32

understand the concepts that

40:34

they

40:34

have for them, and then I write out questions

40:36

ahead of time that I think are

40:38

relevant

40:38

to the character. I don't show

40:40

the player ahead of time. So I'm

40:43

actually doing meetings all this week where I'm using

40:45

this formula. I don't show them ahead of time

40:47

and I just sort of go through the questions

40:49

with them in a conversational

40:52

format. And it's not things like what

40:54

was your character's first kill that are

40:56

kind of vague and nebulous at first. It's

40:58

things like what do they value.

41:01

what do they believe in? What do they detest?

41:03

How do they feel about their

41:05

place in the world? And how do they

41:07

project that? And so it's

41:09

it's kind of like mining or kind of like shipping something out of

41:12

marble where we start with this

41:14

big, rough block and not a

41:16

lot of context for what's gonna

41:18

come out of it. and little by

41:20

little by them being willing

41:22

to suspend disbelief and think

41:24

in the mindset of the

41:26

character that they're

41:28

building it. gives me enough about the character

41:30

emotionally and mentally to kind of

41:32

help them figure out

41:34

what class do you wanna be? What you

41:36

want this character to be able to do?

41:38

Wait. This is

41:39

before they even choose their class.

41:41

A lot of the

41:43

time. Wow. Cool.

41:44

Usually with newer players, that's

41:46

how we'll do it to kind of just give them

41:48

a chance to just play pretend and

41:50

then

41:51

we'll apply the Yeah. With some of

41:53

my more veteran players, it literally is just

41:55

you wanna homebrew a sub class? Go

41:57

for it. I'll approve it or we'll change

41:59

it or whatever we

42:01

need and will play from there. But one

42:04

of the things that I love

42:06

is showing changes in narrative

42:08

through mechanics. So knowing

42:10

who the characters are ahead of time and

42:12

kind of what they want

42:14

to do in the world that they are

42:16

in helps me help them figure out

42:19

what skills they need to do that.

42:21

So my sister is now playing

42:23

a multi class homebrew and

42:25

she is a path

42:27

of beauty,

42:28

barbarian, and oath of Aesthetics

42:30

is impaled in. Oh, wow. And it

42:33

is a very specific skill set.

42:36

Yeah. She she plays a

42:38

reincarnated starlet from the nineteen

42:40

thirties. Oh my gosh. She used the gosh. She used

42:41

the gosh. seconds and the silver screen,

42:44

so she big hair, very glamorous, very dolly

42:46

pattern, and trying to figure out

42:48

what mechanics would be for that just based off

42:50

that

42:51

concept is impossible. but

42:53

by getting to know who character of Suki Fay Hollis is

42:55

and what she values and who

42:57

she was before our

43:00

story started, it made it a lot

43:02

easier to kind of narrow down. Okay. She's

43:04

got a temper, so maybe we'll go

43:06

barbarian or she's very dedicated

43:08

to beauty. So maybe we'll make

43:10

that a tenant of her personality. And that sort of

43:12

shapes out what they're able to do

43:14

mechanically. It seems to be a

43:16

little easier

43:18

than just throwing a character sheet at them and saying,

43:20

hi. That is so It's

43:22

very

43:22

similar actually when when I deal with very

43:24

new players where people who have never played

43:27

know, don't even even have some board game

43:30

experience to to try to transfer trying

43:32

to transfer their interest and I

43:34

try to use,

43:36

like, archetypes. So I was like, oh, you can do,

43:38

like, a legolas character, you know, or you could do this type of thing. And then

43:40

then we just make, okay, now your ranger

43:42

or when we make things off of that.

43:45

It sounds like you're doing something similar, but just

43:47

a little bit more specific and

43:49

not necessarily drawing on

43:52

tried in true archetype so much, but just like, oh, where are we gonna find the

43:54

niche and then find

43:56

the mechanics that match that or create

43:58

mechanics that match that if they

43:59

don't exist?

44:00

with homebrew, it has gotten

44:03

very, very niche. So there is a

44:05

lot of just like, okay. What are how

44:07

how are we gonna make this a thing that you

44:09

can actually physically do? but

44:12

it has been really fun to say, okay,

44:14

this isn't something that's standard in the book,

44:16

but your character is

44:18

the goddess of bees. So you can definitely

44:20

just call b's whenever you

44:22

want to. Right? And so all of her

44:24

items are b themed. She has,

44:26

like I said, of Yeah. Yeah.

44:29

That's sort of what we do for for

44:31

my major brand new homebrew

44:34

campaign, which has

44:34

blown out of proportion. It is

44:36

now twice the size, Castimize, that it was

44:38

two weeks ago. Wow. We are

44:40

now operating on a completely

44:42

different sort of system than we were before

44:46

and we have a bunch of people coming in as guest NPCs. As

44:48

much as I love playing NPCs, I

44:51

love having guests I watched

44:53

a lot of critical role, I watched a lot of

44:56

LA by

44:56

night, and it had never occurred to

44:58

me that you could bring somebody to the table.

45:01

and just have them be

45:03

someone.

45:03

And it's worked out swimmingly.

45:06

Every

45:06

guest leaves their own, like, sure

45:08

in the universe that becomes a part of our master lore

45:12

and with home brewing

45:14

because they are playing the type of

45:16

characters that they are things

45:18

are very overpowered. They're very, very

45:20

overpowered because they're playing gods. But

45:23

everyone has a

45:25

very specific set of things that they

45:27

can do. And it's either

45:29

been supplementing sub classes with

45:31

items or with special homebrew

45:34

abilities that are unique to

45:36

them. That's

45:36

so cool. I love hearing about

45:38

the goddess of bees as well.

45:41

Yes. Suki. I'm meeting with her right after this.

45:43

Oh, that's great. Your sister's character

45:45

is named Suki. Is that right?

45:47

Suki Faye Hollis. That's -- Right. -- so perfect.

45:49

I mean, Nilly put me in, like, true

45:52

blood. I went I went Right.

45:54

Exactly. That's

45:57

so great. And so she's she's a

45:59

prerecorded nineteen thirties star.

46:02

He's not Suki

46:04

Fe Hollis was at the height of her career when

46:06

she perished in an accident.

46:08

She was on the

46:10

set of birth of Venus, and

46:13

the giant clamshell that she was in malfunctioned and closed

46:15

on

46:15

her. So

46:19

part of her story going forward is going to be to

46:21

either find or retaliate

46:24

against the family of the individual

46:26

it's been revealed was responsible

46:30

for that function. Oh. It was not

46:31

an accident. Somebody wrote back clamshell. It

46:33

was her

46:34

very best friend in the whole world at

46:37

the time.

46:37

day. Okay. So tell me show you

46:39

those. Did some of this come

46:41

through in, like, your

46:44

air interview interview? Like, while while

46:46

you were helping her come up with her character like,

46:48

or did she come to the table with, like, here's my backstory.

46:50

It was a little bit of both.

46:53

she she knew that she kind of wanted

46:55

to play somebody very glamorous, someone

46:57

who was very my sister has

46:59

just kind of a natural

47:00

old Hollywood glamour to her, so it was

47:02

something that was a little bit

47:04

more comfortable for her to play. Mhmm. And little things, little

47:06

nods, old Hollywood, sucky face

47:07

temper, is a direct nod to

47:10

Joan Crawford. Mammi

47:12

Dares is one of our favorite movies. Me

47:14

so. It's a lot of just little

47:16

references like

47:16

that that kind of compiled

47:19

to create this entity. And

47:22

so everything about her is very particular. She

47:24

just got a

47:25

new item. It's a Tiffany bracelet of

47:27

holding. So she can her

47:29

items down into charms and put them on her bracelet,

47:31

and that way she doesn't need to carry

47:33

a purse. Mhmm. A

47:34

lot of things come kind of

47:36

inherently from just me getting to sit

47:38

and listen to

47:39

them me specifically or to each other,

47:42

I take various notes during

47:44

an episode,

47:46

and try to make sure that the things that are important

47:48

to those characters continually make

47:50

it back into the campaign. And

47:54

finding a heady Mavis and holding her responsible is very important

47:56

to sucky face. Wow. There's like

47:58

a whole closet of wire hangers

48:00

waiting for her. I

48:02

Exactly. So my

48:04

brother and I also

48:08

love

48:08

Joan Crawford

48:09

and mommy Darrows, and growing

48:11

up that was one of our favorite movies. It

48:13

was so disturbing to my mom. She was like, I don't understand

48:16

why you guys are so

48:18

I shouldn't show. I'm gonna show you

48:21

know no one else can see this, but you. But here is me

48:23

and my friend on Halloween

48:25

one. I

48:30

have to actually described that go down to my sister because she is

48:32

going to love. I'll send it to you.

48:34

Please.

48:34

Yeah. We Great.

48:37

we were very disturbing that you're in Halloween for the I

48:39

know it's a podcast. You guys can't see it, but it

48:41

was me dressed as Joan Crawford literally

48:43

living out my my family. Very

48:45

convincing too. Very convincing photo. Yeah. Oh, I have, like, waited my

48:47

whole

48:47

life for that moment. What I was

48:49

a kid and I my grandma bought me

48:51

a bathrobe with

48:54

big shoulder pads because everyone knew I was so obsessed with

48:56

junk or preferred. And my

48:58

mom got me fake satin jeans. and

49:02

incredible. They, like, scratched my legs

49:04

when I got in the back because they were,

49:06

like, really faint. They looked like

49:08

satin,

49:08

but they were definitely

49:10

not. and they were a little painful, but

49:12

I didn't care. Like, I've I'm so pissed off there. I think

49:14

about the aesthetic of my life.

49:18

So

49:18

I totally appreciate. I love you and I I just

49:20

feel like you and your sister and my brother and

49:23

I would have a great time.

49:26

I think

49:26

so. It's it's still something that we sit down and do every

49:28

year for Thanksgiving. We sit down and watch Don

49:30

with the win because it's the only time we can

49:32

stand to sit through the whole movie.

49:35

Yeah. Yeah.

49:36

It reminds

49:38

me of one of my favorite

49:40

pastimes when I lived in New York with a

49:42

I was a drag show called Christmas with to

49:44

Crawford. Amazing. And it was supposed to be, like, the family getting

49:47

together for Christmas dinner, but then was always there

49:49

was a lot of yelling and --

49:51

Yeah. -- breaking of wire

49:54

anchors. I like, I missed out. I

49:56

missed out. Everybody like, actually, this

49:57

happened at Thanksgiving too

49:59

because I had

50:02

younger cousins. And my brother and I were like, let's go to the basement and

50:04

play. And will we leave

50:06

mommy, dearest,

50:06

and we leave? My brother used

50:08

to hang me from a ceiling fan. I

50:11

think that's just part of the

50:13

resilience of childhood. I don't

50:14

believe, like, it definitely, like,

50:18

toughened.

50:18

That's what

50:21

they have grown number would say. They they bring it up, like, every

50:23

time we're together, you remember when you brought us

50:25

to the beach? He remembers us. And

50:27

Mike and Mike and

50:30

our, like, Oh my god. We totally put couch cushions. It was

50:32

socks. You

50:32

were fine. You were fine. You

50:36

were fine. And

50:38

we felt these wonderful core memories together. What's wrong?

50:40

Exactly. You'll catch up forever. Just

50:43

like DND. Right. This

50:48

is the flag. Yes.

50:49

Wow. Exactly. So I wouldn't know.

50:52

So after talking about this this

50:54

amazing character, I wanna know

50:56

what about the world building of

50:58

this show or this

51:00

this the thing that's exploded, it

51:02

has much more a cast member. Yeah. What's

51:04

How does it begin and end? You mentioned they're all playing as

51:06

deities. Is that right? Absolutely. The

51:08

show

51:09

is called divine intervention. It

51:12

is a completely homebrew d

51:14

and D5E campaign that follows

51:16

the Quintette, which is a group of five

51:18

newborn gods. They were born in our

51:21

first soad, and they are now learning

51:23

to navigate this second life and

51:26

divinity. Some of them were human

51:28

beforehand, but Melisondi

51:30

who is got us of the honeycomb wasn't back to be in her previous

51:32

life. A queen. A queen? A queen

51:34

bee. Yes. Okay. Good.

51:36

Her soon

51:38

to be probably girlfriend, Tara, was a butterfly in a past

51:40

life. So there is

51:42

it has been a lot of just

51:44

me kind of sitting in front of

51:48

my house chain smoking on my cell phone and Google Docs

51:50

typing things out.

51:53

There is the

51:56

the world

51:57

follows the quintet and as

52:00

they are kind of moving around there in

52:02

this fictional kind of Night Vale

52:04

esque town

52:06

called Collopsia, It's a magical town so the stars

52:07

actually dance overhead

52:10

when they're observed only when

52:12

they're

52:13

observed otherwise they do nothing There

52:15

are prayer lamps on every street that are lit and

52:18

represent answered prayers. Mhmm.

52:20

i'm

52:21

And the relationship between the

52:23

divine and the mundane in the game very important. Gods are

52:26

sustained by belief. So

52:30

their main

52:32

task is to find a way

52:34

to find believers and to

52:36

stoke that belief in a way

52:38

that is healthy and sustainable. So we

52:40

have five players. We started

52:42

with five players. My sister who plays

52:44

Licki Fay, Abby

52:47

plays, Melisandi, my one

52:49

of

52:49

my oldest friends in the

52:50

world who I specifically asked to play someone

52:52

very spooky for this game, is

52:55

playing Play Through Gebbens who is

52:57

the God of the unknown

52:59

and avoid and began

53:02

in

53:03

a coroner's office. having just been

53:05

on top seeds. So we're having a little bit of a

53:07

different experience from everybody else in

53:09

the gang.

53:10

Okay. And then there are our star crossed

53:12

levers.

53:12

Forage and

53:15

Eindrite, who are

53:15

soul mates, who came together from

53:17

the

53:17

thirteen hundreds.

53:20

And

53:21

so that kind of forecast and

53:23

they all ended up very different

53:25

because I just said

53:27

pick a domain. pick

53:28

a domain and we'll make it work. So Faraj,

53:30

who is

53:30

the god of regret and

53:33

the unspoken, actually

53:35

home brewed. their class. And they are a path of

53:38

sorrow, Barbarian. So instead of raging,

53:40

they sorrow. And so

53:42

it's just

53:42

a lot of very cool little things like

53:46

that the

53:46

people have stylized for their characters. But the

53:49

structure of the

53:50

game is such

53:52

that

53:54

the the

53:54

archive as to

53:55

is my storyteller character,

53:58

narrates sort of what's going on in town and

53:59

then zooms into their

54:02

action and

54:02

sort of lets them run wild.

54:04

So they meet different gods and don't realize their gods or don't realize

54:06

that they have gotten an invitation

54:08

from the seven deadly

54:10

sins. I'm

54:12

really mixing world mythologies as much as

54:15

I can. I'm fascinated by

54:17

mythology and folklore and

54:19

that's really where this campaign came from is I sort

54:21

of wanted to do my own version of

54:23

American Gods.

54:27

the and And Things

54:29

exploded

54:29

in our finale. We broke the fourth wall. The

54:31

archivists actually stepped into the game

54:33

and interfered. We had a

54:35

ten person PVP

54:37

for our final

54:39

episode. It was three hours and we had one round of combat. It was

54:41

one of the wildest things I've

54:44

ever seen. And

54:46

as a result of that, someone

54:49

split off from the core group

54:51

and actually walked off with

54:54

our villain. So we

54:55

are now splitting our narrative for season

54:58

two between the main group and this

55:00

sort of lost lamb who has

55:02

basically joined the

55:04

divine mafia. and will kind of bounce back and forth

55:05

between the villains, which

55:08

are

55:08

the elder gods

55:10

of this

55:11

universe, the first pantheon. they

55:14

have they're beholden

55:16

by superstition, and they

55:18

operate under the

55:19

belief that there is a limited

55:21

amount of belief in the

55:23

world. and that every new god who was born into

55:25

their domain encroaches on their domain. Mhmm.

55:27

So there is something called the

55:29

great devouring, which is the act of one

55:31

god consuming another, and a assuming their

55:33

domain and their powers. And that is

55:35

what our brand new baby

55:37

gods are worried about. And

55:39

they came to town in the very

55:42

last episode. of book

55:44

one, and it did not go well. It

55:46

did not go well for literally anybody

55:48

involved. And we

55:48

will now be dealing with kind

55:50

of the fallout

55:51

from that after they've had some

55:53

time to learn to use their powers and their

55:55

new abilities and their level ups

55:58

and sort of See

55:59

where things have landed so

56:02

far. Wow.

56:03

Okay. What do you do? Can

56:05

you do me

56:06

a favor?

56:08

Mhmm. Can you write this as a novel? This

56:10

is such a

56:11

cool story. I am so

56:13

in I

56:13

am so in

56:15

it. Everything you're saying, I'm like, oh, that's even

56:18

like more amazing than the

56:20

next. I'm actually building sort of like

56:22

a chat book source book

56:24

-- k. -- or this universe so

56:25

that other people can jump in if they would

56:27

like this. I would love to run more

56:30

games of it and explore more corners

56:32

and like classic Greek monsters

56:34

and classic cryptids, I just

56:36

don't have enough hands, so I would love

56:38

for other people to get to jump in

56:40

and play.

56:40

It's and again, it's been a very collaborative thing. I had

56:42

a lot of things that were

56:44

concrete ideas, places, names

56:46

for things, gods that would be available, but

56:50

a lot of the universe itself specifically from

56:52

the decisions that the player

56:54

characters have made, questions they've

56:58

asked, that wouldn't necessarily be things I thought of

57:00

automatically. Yeah.

57:01

And by our guests who

57:04

have just

57:04

been

57:06

so phenomenal. I am notorious for sending

57:08

out, like, eight pages of back story for

57:10

an NPC because I'm very

57:14

into lower. and every single one of them has been a

57:16

phenomenal sport, really

57:17

just sort of dived

57:19

into the material and internalized it

57:21

and brought it

57:24

back to our players as something that was new

57:26

and transformative for them. And that's part of

57:28

the reason for the larger cast is

57:30

that Both our players

57:32

and our guests have begged for them to come

57:34

back for this season. So the

57:36

split narrative allows me to have a lot

57:38

more people on screen at one time. And

57:41

so we've got the God of Music who writes the Music of

57:43

the Universe who is one of

57:45

the most phenomenal players

57:46

I've ever seen and Adeem in

57:49

their own riot. It's not going

57:52

mad alone,

57:52

is it? Sadly no. But I'm working on it. Soon.

57:58

Yeah. It's just it's been really, really

57:59

incredible because I as a writer,

58:01

I spend a lot of time alone in my room

58:03

with a notebook. Yeah.

58:06

So it's

58:07

surreal and humbling

58:10

and so incredibly lovely to get

58:12

to see these things become real

58:14

to people. and to see the players and the guests

58:16

really feel

58:18

like they are a part of Caloopsy.

58:20

I feel like they have lived there. Like

58:22

these these tragedies or

58:24

their own. It's it's very cool and

58:26

they have given me a lot of room to create

58:28

a lot of really cool stuff.

58:30

What I like about this too is that it

58:33

is certainly fantasy. Right? It's certainly

58:34

and it's, like, you know, weird and strange

58:36

and and and coming up with

58:40

the reasons for why these gods are the way they are is

58:44

definitely

58:44

in the realm of fantasy, but it feels like

58:46

you're studying it in a generally more

58:50

modern setting. Right? Like, it's a modern It's in twenty

58:52

twenty two. It's in yeah. Right? And so you get

58:54

all those ideas and themes that are

58:56

occurring to people

58:58

right now. similar to the way

59:00

American Gods did. Right? Where they where where Neil

59:02

Gaiman took all the the themes of

59:04

mythology and folklore, and then it was like, okay, what if that

59:06

was happening right now? And so I love

59:08

playing with that duality. Right? Where because so much of of

59:10

of of of D and D play, specifically, is like, oh,

59:12

yeah, you're gonna go fight orgs in a

59:14

castle, which is, you know, you

59:16

can't necessarily have

59:18

those exact things going on.

59:20

Right? So here's

59:21

here's a nice way to

59:23

to bring in many people different

59:26

people's backgrounds and stories and things that are there, you

59:28

know, happening to to our

59:30

our modern society now. That's

59:31

been really fun too. It's starts in

59:33

twenty twenty

59:34

two, and obviously our Quintette

59:36

are the ages they were

59:38

when their previous life ended. And

59:41

you

59:41

know, figuring

59:42

things out in the modern day.

59:44

But the way that this universe works

59:47

is

59:47

that new gods are

59:49

created by this overarching figure,

59:50

the designer who creates new gods

59:52

based on human need and

59:54

shifts in belief. So as we

59:56

get further and further down the timeline

59:59

closer.

59:59

Now you have gods of mental

1:00:02

illness. You have gods

1:00:04

of home and housing that showed up around the

1:00:06

time of the housing crisis in two

1:00:08

thousand eight. you've got gods

1:00:10

of self evident truths of the

1:00:12

universe. So it's been

1:00:14

really cool because the older they

1:00:16

are the more kind of high fantasy DNDI can go with their

1:00:18

weaponry and their

1:00:19

ideals and sort of how they

1:00:22

operate in the world. So even though it is a

1:00:24

modern setting,

1:00:26

the older characters won't use cell phones. They won't use computers. They just have

1:00:28

straight up magic mirrors because I wanted there

1:00:30

to be magic mirrors. Actually,

1:00:33

it should be.

1:00:36

Yeah.

1:00:36

So it based on kind of where they fall in

1:00:38

this very long timeline, I have

1:00:40

options. I can go more modern, more

1:00:43

Saki Fait has a gun. That was her weapon. She has a

1:00:45

pistol in her purse.

1:00:48

But I can

1:00:48

also kind of go back to like

1:00:51

the age of shibbri and heavy armor

1:00:53

and javelins and things like

1:00:55

that. So cool. Yeah. And I

1:00:57

second,

1:00:57

which I said there

1:00:59

there would be great to take your

1:01:01

your writer brain and and write stories in this world. I love it.

1:01:04

Mhmm. That is something I hope very much to

1:01:06

do for this and my other

1:01:08

homebrew universe. The

1:01:10

other universe is something I've been working on for almost

1:01:12

twelve years now. It'll be twelve years

1:01:14

on November first. Wow. And that

1:01:17

is a series of seven

1:01:20

different drafts of a

1:01:22

novel. So

1:01:24

I I very much believe in

1:01:26

earning the ending. and the first

1:01:28

seven drafts didn't do it. They didn't learn it,

1:01:30

so I just keep throwing it out and starting

1:01:33

over. Wow.

1:01:34

That's

1:01:35

amazing. I don't have that

1:01:37

muscle in my brain to keep

1:01:39

to keep going at it. But but

1:01:41

you were all also writing

1:01:43

an anthology. Right? The Styx River

1:01:46

anthology? Yes. Before I

1:01:48

got the chance to do this campaign,

1:01:50

I realized I'm

1:01:52

absolutely obsessed with classic folklore and mythology. I'm actually

1:01:54

switching my degree to classics because I

1:01:56

just love it so much.

1:01:58

Mhmm. And fascinated

1:02:00

by the idea of figures and

1:02:02

history that we see as villains who

1:02:04

never really got a chance to speak for themselves.

1:02:08

There's that old quote about sympathy for the

1:02:10

devil and how no one ever asked him his side of

1:02:12

the story. So the

1:02:14

anthology comes from that point

1:02:16

of view. Each of the

1:02:18

poems that's in that anthology is from

1:02:20

the perspective of a different grecian figure.

1:02:24

So Helen of Troy. The first one is

1:02:26

Prometheus. There

1:02:28

is eurydice after the

1:02:31

whole situation with

1:02:32

with Orpheus,

1:02:34

Ares is there.

1:02:36

And it is just kind of each of

1:02:38

them

1:02:39

voicing their

1:02:41

inner monologue after centuries of being

1:02:43

misconstrued ignorance

1:02:44

gets to talk

1:02:46

about how

1:02:48

him flying too close to the sun wasn't

1:02:50

a matter of hubris.

1:02:52

It wasn't a matter of

1:02:55

recklessness. It was

1:02:56

a matter of finally being free and wanting

1:02:58

to get as high as he possibly could.

1:03:00

And all of his thoughts

1:03:01

kind of on the

1:03:04

way down And it's been a really interesting exercise

1:03:06

in voice. I'm glad I did it before I

1:03:08

started dming because it helped me

1:03:10

kind of learn to

1:03:12

switch those parts of my brain so each

1:03:14

voice sounds organic

1:03:18

and unique. And,

1:03:18

yeah, I'm hoping to rerecord, remaster it. Finally,

1:03:20

it is on bandcamp, but it is terrible quality

1:03:22

because it's before I got this

1:03:24

mic.

1:03:26

will be rerecording

1:03:28

everything and re releasing

1:03:30

it. And there are more.

1:03:33

There's like a Christian mythology version. There's

1:03:36

just a bunch of stuff sitting in my Google

1:03:38

Docs that I have to kind of

1:03:40

piece together. But, yeah,

1:03:42

PROS is where I started, and it is

1:03:44

absolutely still the basis for

1:03:46

everything I do. For a divine intervention, we

1:03:48

start every episode

1:03:50

with perspective. where the archivists just goes and looks in somebody's

1:03:52

window, basically, and sort of

1:03:54

narrates what that person is

1:03:56

thinking, what

1:03:56

they're doing, what they know,

1:03:59

separate from what the players know in narrative. So

1:04:02

I still absolutely love getting

1:04:04

to just beat him at a

1:04:06

Fortive death.

1:04:07

great. And that's also, like, such a good tool for for

1:04:09

being a novelist of being able

1:04:11

to see the story or the world that you

1:04:13

build from different perspectives and bring that to life

1:04:15

in a different way. And also, yeah,

1:04:18

like you've mentioned, like, a very good DM's

1:04:20

tool.

1:04:20

Yeah.

1:04:21

I'm I'm really kind of stuck on the

1:04:24

earned the

1:04:25

ending concept. Mhmm. And

1:04:26

I just wanted to go back to that a little.

1:04:29

And because I think, like, with campaigns, like, do

1:04:31

your campaigns earn their endings? And how

1:04:33

do you know how

1:04:36

do you know with a campaign? That's something that feels more like a

1:04:40

living environment than a novel.

1:04:42

I

1:04:42

think with campaigns,

1:04:45

the players earn their ending. I

1:04:47

can set them as much as I want. I

1:04:49

can have as many plans as

1:04:51

I want, but the people that I'm playing with are so

1:04:53

creative and so intuitive that

1:04:56

at least once a session,

1:04:58

I am completely stumped and have

1:05:00

to just take a minute to think about my life

1:05:02

choices. So I

1:05:05

Every session, mister. Every

1:05:07

session. And I as someone who was originally very

1:05:09

rigid, it's been a learning curve getting

1:05:12

used to just not having an answer

1:05:14

for things. But

1:05:16

I think now that we're kind of in both the second season of

1:05:19

both shows, it really is

1:05:21

a question of understanding

1:05:24

the player. and understanding the characters. What is

1:05:26

important to these characters?

1:05:28

What what small goals

1:05:30

do they have?

1:05:30

Things that are just

1:05:31

for them? What do

1:05:34

they not? tell

1:05:34

anybody else. And knowing

1:05:37

those things helps me

1:05:40

create a path

1:05:42

they can walk down

1:05:44

to get the ending

1:05:44

that I have in mind. But

1:05:47

if they should branch off or

1:05:49

go in a different direction, my

1:05:51

hope is that I understand

1:05:52

the characters well enough that

1:05:55

whatever

1:05:56

end they come to at the end of

1:05:58

an episode or the end of

1:05:59

an arc is satisfying. It is something that

1:06:02

feels true to the character and

1:06:04

feels respectful of everything

1:06:06

that the character has

1:06:08

been through. over the course of

1:06:10

however many

1:06:12

sessions. That's really

1:06:14

interesting. I think that

1:06:15

endings are

1:06:18

hard for a lot of reasons and just

1:06:19

it's hard it's hard to know. Are

1:06:21

we die? I almost like writing

1:06:23

for campaigns a little bit better because

1:06:25

there's that element

1:06:28

of I can plan it, but there someone is gonna

1:06:30

set off something and -- Yeah. -- I'm just gonna

1:06:32

have to improvise with a novel

1:06:34

earning the ending is really where that

1:06:37

comes in for me or or with prose writing the

1:06:39

end of a poem is usually really hard for

1:06:42

me. So kind of nailing

1:06:44

that idea

1:06:46

of when you

1:06:47

put the period at the end of the sentence, you have said

1:06:49

the most important thing at the end. You

1:06:51

have said the thing that is gonna

1:06:53

stick with them the rest of

1:06:55

the day or the rest of the next hour,

1:06:58

what have you. And that's what I try

1:07:00

to keep in mind for endings is even if

1:07:02

it's not the one I planned, making it

1:07:04

something that will hold

1:07:05

importance for them and that they will

1:07:08

remember whether it's moving

1:07:10

forward in character or

1:07:13

trying to decide how they want their character

1:07:16

to grow in advance.

1:07:18

Yeah. Yeah.

1:07:20

Because it's there has to be

1:07:22

some change. That's something that every, you know,

1:07:24

every movie, TV show, a

1:07:26

novel needs to have the

1:07:28

characters and the protagonist go through some

1:07:32

type of you know,

1:07:33

overcome some flaw or or figure something out. Right? And

1:07:35

and that's

1:07:36

oftentimes, sometimes

1:07:38

lost when we're just playing

1:07:42

d and d campaigns because you're just like, oh, I'm just getting the next McEuffin

1:07:44

to get to the big bad guy

1:07:46

at the end. Right? Instead

1:07:48

of realizing that, no, there needs

1:07:50

be some growth. There needs to be

1:07:52

some lessons learned along the way that aren't just

1:07:54

experience points.

1:07:57

The biggest thing that I had to learn as

1:07:59

a

1:07:59

DM

1:08:02

was that

1:08:02

the

1:08:05

Did the characters

1:08:08

are not

1:08:08

a vehicle to tell the story? The

1:08:11

story is a vehicle

1:08:13

for the characters operate in. And

1:08:16

so my I try to remove my

1:08:18

hands as much as possible. I build the

1:08:20

sandbox, I fill it with sand,

1:08:22

and

1:08:22

then I try to just step

1:08:24

away. and see what

1:08:25

they do with what is there for them, but someone randomly brings a

1:08:27

toy in with them. And it's way cooler

1:08:29

than anything I would

1:08:32

have imagined. So it

1:08:34

it is very much about giving them space to create

1:08:37

and

1:08:37

giving them

1:08:40

space to decide things for

1:08:42

themselves. I'm very big on consequences and I'm very big on, like, don't go murder somebody

1:08:44

in town because that's gonna be

1:08:46

on the test. That's gonna come back.

1:08:50

So there is

1:08:52

this sense among all

1:08:54

of

1:08:54

the players of

1:08:56

not acting reckless and

1:08:58

I think that that has given them more

1:09:00

motivation to really

1:09:01

live as their characters because there are

1:09:04

consequences, because,

1:09:06

you know, we had somebody do a ritual and it went so

1:09:08

bad that two people lost half their

1:09:10

hit points immediately. It is very

1:09:13

much a thing of, like, because

1:09:15

they believe I am

1:09:16

able

1:09:17

to push those consequences more

1:09:20

because they are willing

1:09:22

to either fail or to fail

1:09:25

fantastically. It's a lot

1:09:27

easier for

1:09:32

me to guide them toward

1:09:33

an end, but let them

1:09:35

sort of be the agents

1:09:37

of

1:09:37

of their own actions

1:09:39

in the world. Yeah.

1:09:42

And I loved

1:09:43

I I had never I've

1:09:45

heard the metaphor for a sandbox many, many times,

1:09:47

obviously, but that idea of

1:09:49

players are

1:09:49

gonna bring their own toy into the sandbox and make it like

1:09:51

I've never kind of felt that before as this

1:09:53

really as you just

1:09:55

described it. Hi. Greg,

1:09:58

I swear on my life. I was gonna say the same

1:09:59

thing that

1:09:59

I've I've always heard

1:10:02

that metaphor, but it's never

1:10:07

been so obvious, if that's

1:10:09

the right word, then

1:10:10

talking to you about

1:10:13

how you run your games.

1:10:15

Like, for me too, that was like, yeah. Like, it

1:10:17

made me think about when

1:10:19

you watch kids play,

1:10:21

hi and,

1:10:22

like, you can leave out, like, little

1:10:25

stations for that, like,

1:10:27

here's maybe some sticks.

1:10:29

And over here, we've got a bowl full

1:10:31

of over you very things and just watching what they do

1:10:33

with them, and every kid does something different.

1:10:36

But, like, a

1:10:39

stick. Like, I'm gonna use it as a sword or this one might be like, I'm

1:10:41

gonna use it make it a bridge so that

1:10:43

these little button people can

1:10:46

walk across it or something.

1:10:48

It's like the the things that

1:10:50

you are saying about how you create your worlds and how the

1:10:52

players exist in them, it

1:10:55

makes me feel like that

1:10:58

too. Like, it really is that whole

1:11:00

sandbox analogy, like, way more come

1:11:02

to life, way more than I've ever

1:11:05

heard it or seen it. It's kind of amazing. Absolutely in love

1:11:07

with my players. I think that they are

1:11:07

the greatest people on the

1:11:10

face of the planet. They

1:11:12

work so hard

1:11:14

and they have created something much cooler than anything that I could have written by myself

1:11:17

and knowing

1:11:20

that and being

1:11:22

as grateful as I am for that. I try to as much love and attention into

1:11:24

the world

1:11:25

as I would

1:11:28

a child. I very much

1:11:30

believe it was I think it was in one of the first episodes of adventuring talk. Bradley

1:11:33

Mulligan was

1:11:36

talking about the idea of creating

1:11:38

a

1:11:38

world that is moving when your players aren't around. And I think that that has really

1:11:40

made the difference for me and

1:11:42

for them is the idea that

1:11:47

People are walking through these doors when you're

1:11:49

not at the table. Conversations are

1:11:51

being had, money is

1:11:53

changing hands, what have you. So every

1:11:55

time they come back in, there's something new. There's

1:11:57

a new person or there's an item

1:11:59

or

1:11:59

there's a secret to follow or a

1:12:02

weird NPC that I just really felt like

1:12:04

play And it it it it

1:12:06

has just

1:12:06

turned into something so cool and

1:12:08

so far beyond what

1:12:10

I imagined it could be.

1:12:12

as

1:12:15

a DM, I go into every game, every weird concept

1:12:17

I come up with, with no

1:12:19

certainty that

1:12:19

it's gonna even

1:12:22

work. and just throw it at my players,

1:12:24

and they're the ones who make

1:12:26

the magic happen. So That's

1:12:28

and

1:12:29

spoken like a true dungeon master.

1:12:31

Right? That's so

1:12:31

good. Everybody can learn from that. Absolutely. So you have, you

1:12:33

know, obviously, we've been talking a

1:12:36

lot about divine

1:12:39

intervention here, but there are -- there's a couple other fun stuff

1:12:41

going on. You want to talk a little bit

1:12:43

about the silk

1:12:46

versus

1:12:46

Yes. The Silt versus is one of

1:12:49

my favorite podcasts, and I do not know

1:12:51

how they found me. But I

1:12:53

was brought on to

1:12:55

play the role of the

1:12:57

sister of Sidreit, who is a

1:12:58

radio host from season one. They have a fantastic

1:13:00

spin

1:13:01

off called the

1:13:03

Incredible Apotheosis of it

1:13:06

right on their Patreon. And in a couple of weeks, that is where you'll be able to hear me as his long, suffering,

1:13:09

kind

1:13:10

of, backwoods' sister.

1:13:14

Nice. That's super cool. It's

1:13:16

literally a dream come true that I'd get

1:13:18

to be any part of my favorite podcast.

1:13:22

That is awesome. And then

1:13:24

I I played a lot of Oregon Trail

1:13:26

when I was a kid. So what's

1:13:28

what's this about a mini series

1:13:31

that you doing about that. It is another

1:13:32

haococcal idea that

1:13:35

I dammed together and

1:13:37

asked some

1:13:38

friends if they wanted to play

1:13:40

and The

1:13:40

channel has gotten

1:13:42

has taken a very historical tone lately. It's part of a series that I'm

1:13:43

calling a night to

1:13:46

remember, which will mash mechanics

1:13:49

of good society and the mechanics of ten candles, and we'll

1:13:51

go through a major historical event.

1:13:53

So

1:13:57

down the line, there will be

1:13:59

a night to remember Pompe or a night to remember Titanic

1:13:59

keeping with

1:14:03

the theme. And It really

1:14:05

is inspired by just sitting around in like a dusty nineteen nineties classroom watching one

1:14:07

person play an eight bit

1:14:12

game. So there

1:14:13

will be times where

1:14:13

they have to like forward the river where they lose their supplies and things

1:14:16

like that. But one of

1:14:18

the people playing is a history

1:14:20

major. and

1:14:22

know

1:14:22

so much more about it than I ever

1:14:24

could. So we are actually following the

1:14:26

route that the donor party took

1:14:29

from Independence, Missouri to Fort Sutter. over

1:14:31

the course of four weeks. Our five players will be

1:14:33

setting out from independence

1:14:34

Missouri in the first week, getting

1:14:36

to know each other, things like

1:14:39

that, and then they will because

1:14:41

the main mechanic of ten

1:14:43

candles is that nobody survives and their game in what

1:14:46

is now Donner Lake.

1:14:49

So

1:14:49

that we just had our session zero for that and designed

1:14:51

characters and figured out kind

1:14:52

of traits

1:14:56

and things. That starts on October

1:14:58

sixth, and we

1:14:58

are so ridiculously excited for our little history

1:15:00

game and our little

1:15:02

costumes and to just Oh,

1:15:06

all read the same book. It wasn't even

1:15:08

a requirement, but we all read the same book

1:15:10

about that time period and the dollar party just

1:15:12

kind of independently. So I'm sure that's gonna work

1:15:14

its way in there too. how cool?

1:15:15

That sounds amazing. That's I

1:15:17

love that idea of blending, like,

1:15:19

interest in a historical

1:15:20

event or topic

1:15:23

and then gaming to kinda

1:15:25

bring it to life. It's so

1:15:27

awesome. And I just hope at

1:15:29

least one of the party gets

1:15:31

disintering. Oh, sure. It's on the list.

1:15:33

Somebody's gotta get, like, dysentery, quincy. They've gotta eat handlock, something like

1:15:35

that. Oh my god. They're gonna afford

1:15:37

the river. I like you mentioned

1:15:40

that too. So good.

1:15:42

Well, that has been an amazing talk with you, Abadam. Thank you so much

1:15:44

for for, I

1:15:47

don't know, just brightening our

1:15:50

minds. inspiring. Yes. Thank you again for having me. If people wanna find out more about

1:15:52

what you're personally doing as

1:15:54

well as exquisite corpse, what's the

1:15:59

the best way for them to to

1:15:59

find out? You can find me

1:16:02

on Twitter at abadarlings, ABA

1:16:03

darlings, where I'm doing

1:16:06

my level best to become the confessional

1:16:08

poet TTRPGs, which I mostly mean I share

1:16:10

my every single thought with Twitter whether you want to see it or not.

1:16:12

If you're not interested in that,

1:16:14

which I don't blame you for,

1:16:18

at exquisite CTTRPG

1:16:21

is the exquisite corpse presents Twitter. We're

1:16:23

very active. It's a very symbiotic relationship

1:16:25

between us and the folks that follow our Twitter, so play

1:16:28

a lot of games and there's a lot

1:16:30

of memes we would love to have either.

1:16:34

That's awesome. Alright. Well, you definitely got some followers from

1:16:36

me. And can't wait to see more of

1:16:38

all this fun stuff and check out

1:16:42

Oregon Trail and and, you

1:16:44

know, all of these amazing deities that you were

1:16:46

describing. And now I want to know novel.

1:16:49

I'm gonna go watch mommy dares Yes.

1:16:52

Fantastic. Wow. I have

1:16:54

always loved the idea

1:16:56

of coming up with fantastic

1:16:58

new deities and and and gods.

1:17:01

But the idea of that, you know, weaving it in with a D and

1:17:03

D campaign that's just creating these gods

1:17:06

in a modern setting, like

1:17:08

what? So

1:17:11

good. I kid you not.

1:17:13

I I am into the

1:17:16

story. I would read

1:17:18

it cover to cover. Yeah. Have

1:17:20

you read American accent? No. No. Well, then

1:17:22

you should read that. Okay. I'll start there. Start there.

1:17:24

It's, you know, it's a it's a it's

1:17:26

a it's a it's a it's a big

1:17:28

novel. but

1:17:30

it's amazing and pulls on a lot of these these same thoughts. But I I love way

1:17:33

Abadon was

1:17:36

bringing in all

1:17:38

of the players and stuff. Like, that's that's not

1:17:40

in in Neil Gaiman. So don't worry about it.

1:17:43

Maybe just read this once. Yes.

1:17:45

Well, I'll read Neil Gaiman

1:17:47

first, and that'll give that'll give her time to write my novel. I don't think

1:17:49

it was a big ask.

1:17:51

Okay? I mean, just Just

1:17:55

the novel, please. They're they're gonna write it

1:17:56

up and it's gonna be amazing.

1:17:58

Go watch more about that and

1:18:00

see everything that's happening at

1:18:03

exquisite court. Oh, presents. Yes.

1:18:05

And then, you should pre order

1:18:06

Dragon Talk. Welcome to Dragon Talk if you haven't already. It's

1:18:09

on Amazon. It's the

1:18:11

University of Iowa Press. from

1:18:15

your local bookstore. They have all of the means to

1:18:17

be able to preorder that and get it ready for you

1:18:19

when it comes out on

1:18:22

December sixth. Yep. Make it so. I might do it from

1:18:24

paper boat here in West Seattle.

1:18:26

I am definitely gonna get a

1:18:28

copy from them too. Probably gonna get a

1:18:30

copy from

1:18:31

Like I said, in in in the junction as well. All the local bookstores, I'm just gonna make sure there's other

1:18:33

way. I'm gonna put them in your

1:18:35

name. Is that okay? That's

1:18:38

totally

1:18:39

fine. You know, what's great about pre ordering is

1:18:41

that you forget, and then all of

1:18:43

a sudden a gift

1:18:45

arrives for yourself. Yeah. So

1:18:47

treat yourself. Why do they

1:18:49

call it preordering when it really should

1:18:51

be pre gifting? I know.

1:18:53

You're pre gifting.

1:18:54

A book is a gift. regardless of

1:18:56

the recipient. Oh, I'm gonna put that on a bookmark. Dude, that's like a

1:18:59

Let me just go. Let

1:18:59

me just go. Yeah.

1:19:03

That's That's so profound.

1:19:04

Are we talking

1:19:07

like space whales again?

1:19:10

It's so chill that magnet. Dude,

1:19:13

books are like a

1:19:15

gift, man. Wait. out

1:19:18

of magnets work in one space. That's

1:19:24

crazy, dude. They're

1:19:26

like blowing my mind. Are

1:19:28

those kids living on my back?

1:19:30

That's not right. Wait. Hang on.

1:19:33

I'll get them off for

1:19:35

you. Swap. No. Facebook.

1:19:42

Alright. Well, when spell jams to

1:19:44

the album comes up, there will

1:19:46

be space whales, the song. Space

1:19:49

whales are a thing. Macelles.

1:19:52

They can sing.

1:19:55

You're

1:19:56

he are barred a

1:19:59

bard. I You

1:19:59

really are inspired.

1:19:59

It's great. I I do have inspiration

1:20:02

today for sure. You for sure

1:20:05

do. But if you are inspired, by listening

1:20:07

to this episode of Dragon Top. Why don't you give us like

1:20:09

a, you know, a good review? Like, it can

1:20:11

read us. We haven't asked for that

1:20:13

in a long time. No. Maybe that

1:20:16

will help get more people

1:20:18

to find out about what's going on in the world of Dungeons and Dragons in the community. So

1:20:20

if you are

1:20:23

on Apple Podcasts, Google

1:20:26

Podcast or the Spotify's or any of the various places or platforms where you listen to this

1:20:32

podcast. Again,

1:20:32

give us a good review.

1:20:35

Five stars. Wanna smash that subscribe button. That's what they

1:20:36

all say. Right?

1:20:38

Like in subscribe. Like

1:20:40

in

1:20:40

scribe to

1:20:42

drag and talk. And spread the word. It really

1:20:44

spread the word

1:20:47

helps the

1:20:48

language That was, like,

1:20:50

a little flourish I did. You you couldn't see it at home, but there was definitely, like, a xylophone. There was. was

1:20:52

very yes.

1:20:54

It was. And Also

1:20:59

in the reviews, you might wanna talk about how great

1:21:01

Greg

1:21:01

Tito's segues are. Oh, I'm on

1:21:03

a segue right now.

1:21:06

props. No room for me.

1:21:08

on the room for you in Mustang

1:21:10

Way. Alright. But there is room

1:21:11

for you to follow me on Twitter. I

1:21:14

am at Greg Tito. I

1:21:16

don't think there's no limit to the

1:21:18

amount of followers that you can pass through this room still. And it's

1:21:23

at Greg underscores, though, on Instagram.

1:21:25

What about you? Shelly

1:21:28

moo at

1:21:28

Shelly moo on the

1:21:31

Twitter's and the Instagram's. So

1:21:33

get on in there. Get on

1:21:35

in there. Follow and I, like like, on a Condori's mine's

1:21:38

and i can

1:21:38

back. Wow. You

1:21:41

really are inspired. I am inspired. I think it's

1:21:43

ever

1:21:43

since I sent that email.

1:21:44

Yeah. You've

1:21:46

been But you've

1:21:49

been walking on a

1:21:51

cloud in the

1:21:52

astral scene? Yes.

1:21:53

Well, Chuck

1:21:55

Cetucci's is walking along following

1:21:57

three very official looking folks as they are walking into the city. We had just been

1:22:00

at a

1:22:04

dance performance on the streets of the

1:22:06

Arabian Citadel after drinking your first drink here. That

1:22:09

was named the

1:22:11

drunkie two shoes. served

1:22:13

by a bartender who works at the bar called the Junky Two Shoes.

1:22:15

And so trying

1:22:16

to find

1:22:18

out

1:22:19

about that and perhaps

1:22:21

any information about your brother, Daryl,

1:22:23

who supposedly founded this

1:22:25

suppose we founded this

1:22:27

bar many many

1:22:29

years ago, maybe even centuries ago. Alright. So, yeah, you're walking.

1:22:31

And there were, yes, there

1:22:32

were these three

1:22:35

individuals who were kind of

1:22:38

going in the direction that

1:22:40

the woman pointed is the kind of

1:22:42

center center of government for this settlement.

1:22:45

Alright. I'm

1:22:47

just following these guys. You said you were. So

1:22:49

yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, you see them you see

1:22:51

them going. Did I describe them

1:22:54

before? I don't remember if I

1:22:56

did. Yeah.

1:22:56

You did. Yeah. I

1:22:57

did say it looked like the way I described before. Yep. And there

1:22:59

was something about that description

1:23:00

that made drunkies say,

1:23:02

I wanna follow

1:23:03

these gentlemen. Yes.

1:23:07

Exactly.

1:23:07

that Okay. And,

1:23:08

yeah, they're going towards the area. It looks like

1:23:10

there were the large crystal kind of shoots

1:23:12

out of the middle of the Oh,

1:23:15

I

1:23:15

wanna see. See if okay. I'm just

1:23:17

gonna, like, just be

1:23:19

very inconspicuously

1:23:22

following them. Okay. Do you wanna

1:23:23

roll out a stealth check? Are you trying to stay inconspicuous

1:23:25

for reels? Are you just trying to No. I'm

1:23:28

just I'm just

1:23:30

not drawing attention to

1:23:32

myself. like you would normally would. Okay?

1:23:34

So it's important that you do. Yeah. You're not doing that default. Or, like, tuck my

1:23:36

my ears into my

1:23:38

-- Okay. -- or something.

1:23:40

So they're

1:23:42

walking along and they they don't seem to be really concerned about looking behind

1:23:44

them or anything like that. So they

1:23:46

just kind of go forward. You kind

1:23:51

of see them. One is

1:23:53

chatting with

1:23:54

the other, with one of

1:23:56

the the lead of the one

1:23:58

that's in the middle. But what? You're a

1:23:59

little bit too far away. You can't

1:23:59

really hear them. So I

1:24:02

scurry

1:24:02

on up a little.

1:24:03

Okay. Make me

1:24:05

a

1:24:05

perception check because

1:24:08

they are as

1:24:09

you get closer, you realize

1:24:12

they're

1:24:12

talking under their breath. Oh,

1:24:14

okay.

1:24:14

Very perceptive. Mhmm. Sixteen. Oh,

1:24:17

okay. With the sixteen, you are able to catch

1:24:19

some phrases and the shorter one

1:24:22

that is not the leader

1:24:28

says, are you sure she's

1:24:29

gonna be able to see us?

1:24:31

And

1:24:32

the leader response, of

1:24:35

course, Yes, once we present to her official

1:24:38

or what we have

1:24:40

discovered.

1:24:42

I am

1:24:43

confident she'll let us in right

1:24:45

way. Alright.

1:24:48

Oh, yeah.

1:24:48

What do

1:24:50

you do? I'm intrigued. I continue following. Okay.

1:24:52

It takes a couple of moments. You

1:24:55

see more of the sites of the

1:24:57

city. It does not look anything like

1:24:59

water deep. at all, which has a lot

1:25:01

of buildings that were designed for

1:25:03

weather and things

1:25:05

like that. This one is certainly

1:25:07

much more green, a lot of plants, a lot of growth

1:25:09

around there. The architecture does not look like

1:25:12

anything you recognize from

1:25:14

water deep, but it does

1:25:17

have a few motifs that

1:25:19

you recognize from Chalt,

1:25:24

from where you drew your

1:25:26

Yeah. Some of you're like, oh, yeah. That kind of that archway kinda reminds me of of some

1:25:29

of the settlements

1:25:31

in that area. various

1:25:35

other performances,

1:25:37

other things going on.

1:25:39

People are looking for you

1:25:42

know, selling random things. You see, actually a

1:25:45

few times these crystals that at

1:25:47

the first, you just thought they were

1:25:49

in the form of mint around you.

1:25:51

But several of them as you're walking, again, it's like about ten minutes

1:25:53

or fifteen minutes that you're walking. Several of

1:25:55

these crystals kind

1:25:58

of come down

1:25:59

and meet at the surface of somewhere. You're

1:26:02

not really sure where you don't see exactly

1:26:04

where they land, but they come

1:26:07

down to the surface, then you see another one kind of They're

1:26:09

like actually moving? They're actually

1:26:10

moving. Yeah. And these

1:26:12

and you realize that

1:26:14

the crystals are almost like building elevator? Are you building size?

1:26:16

Like, they're they're enough to to hold

1:26:18

quite a bit? Are people in them? You

1:26:20

can't see. They they they

1:26:21

come down as crystals and they move up

1:26:24

as crystals. this is

1:26:26

bizarre. Yeah. I

1:26:28

are,

1:26:28

like, and that these

1:26:29

three gentlemen are continuing

1:26:32

to walk.

1:26:34

with a purpose -- Yes. -- somewhere? Yeah. They

1:26:36

others driving, you know, New York

1:26:38

pace. They're just going right to

1:26:41

where they're going. Okay.

1:26:42

Am I anywhere near

1:26:44

where the the the mother told

1:26:46

me the the records office was, by

1:26:49

the way?

1:26:49

Yeah. I did that. Yeah. They were

1:26:51

going in the direction and they they seemed to be she pointed to.

1:26:56

Okay.

1:26:56

So I'm just I'm gonna keep following them,

1:26:58

but if I happen to see this place, I'm gonna probably turn off

1:27:01

and go there. But

1:27:02

in the meantime, I'll continue following.

1:27:04

and

1:27:07

listening. Okay.

1:27:08

They

1:27:10

after that exchange,

1:27:12

they don't say too much

1:27:14

and they actually start to I wouldn't

1:27:16

say, like, heavily breathe, but they are, you

1:27:18

know, they're walking fast enough at a brisk enough pace that the conversation is a little bit harder. Oh. But

1:27:22