C02 - Grotethe Campaign Wrap Up

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Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to a very long special bonus episode.

You haven't even started, and you just said long.

Man,

long, long, man.

We have a lot to talk about.

It's a good filibuster to make sure it's long.

Yeah, Gus, why is your chair turned around?

I don't understand.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to address.

We're going to be doing a discussion about campaign two, the Grotesque Campaign as a whole.

Before we get started, I'm going to hit everyone here with an arrow.

What?

Can everyone just go around the table and introduce themselves?

Do we go counterclockwise or clockwise?

I'm Chris DeMaris, and I play Barney Farney.

He decided it for you.

I'm Barbara Dunkelman and I play Elga Von Breath.

And I'm Michael Reisinger, the writer, editor, and composer.

I'm John Reisinger, and I play Metis Confisis.

Counterclockwise.

Just go.

I'm Blaine Gibson.

I play Chipani.

And who are you?

Oh, and I'm Gustavus Rolo, the Dungeon Master.

And I think we have someone on Mike back over there, too.

Yeah, I'm Ben, and I play Dr.

Frankenstein.

and I also play Quiff Lee the Beth.

I'm so excited for him to do that.

I don't know.

Sony, you stuck two sticks of butter in your throat.

What you need to do is you need to imagine your tongue growing three times in size.

We also got

David Sonia on the ones and twos.

Our Sfera too.

But I do want to say Ben is also our producer.

He doesn't just do those two voices.

Yeah.

Many hats.

He produces VO force.

I know that.

Yeah.

Yes.

So we want to talk in general about campaign two and maybe talk about some questions the players may have.

I want to start with my own questions

i have a question no notes so we're recording this and uh the all the episodes have not come out yet so you know the the players here have not seen audience feedback about some of the last several episodes so i want to start off by asking the audience does anyone remember who sadate tempura is the us us yes you just said ask the audience as the ask the players i'm sorry who sadate tempura was well yeah i feel like that name sounded familiar when you said it and i think i had mentioned that yes

And obviously she's in Sheath and she was Elga's fake mom during that time.

But I feel like we met her in Carcassook or like heard about her in Carcassook maybe.

But I don't remember.

Anybody else?

Is she from campaign two?

Or is she from campaign two?

Is she from campaign one?

Now you're asking the right question.

Because I thought we had met her in campaign one, but I wasn't sure.

I don't think you ever met her.

Well, Well, I met

her in the story sense.

Well, didn't we die at one point and someone said, No, no, no, they're not ready or something.

Yeah, that was campaign two.

That was campaign two.

Was that them, though?

Sadate and this dragon person?

Who, by the way,

I think I know who that is.

Well, we'll know.

Here's the thing: the audience will know by the voice if it's somebody we know.

So say it now if it is, because the audience knows this information.

I should defer to Micah.

I'll say,

yeah, you definitely heard the name Sadate Tempor in campaign one in Deja Erblum, that arc.

Do you remember hearing that name?

In Deja Erblum,

would have been the city that we went around in time a bunch of times.

Correct.

And there was also...

Kyborg met his good buddy.

I've forgotten that one.

No, I'm trying to think of any place we would have.

Was that?

It wasn't like Hugh Manner's wife.

Ding, ding, ding.

Whoa, Chris.

You're not half as dumb as you look.

There's reference, and it's one of the things I was always curious about.

You know, obviously, Micah, you do all the writing.

It was one of the things I'd always curious about.

It was it was a left open hook at the end of campaign one was Meld was going to leave to look for her mother.

And it was just like never, it was never addressed directly.

Yeah.

So even when I got the module from Micah with the name Sadati Chippur in it for the first time, I looked at it and I probably had the same reaction you did, Barbara.

I know that's it.

Where have I seen that before?

I had to like look through your Rolodex.

And it's so funny because I've looked through all my old documents.

Because even those episodes haven't come out by the time we're recording this.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I'm sure there's going to be so many people in our audience who know it's from campaign one because a lot of people have like re-listened to the first campaign.

That's why I was kind of excited that we were finishing off this campaign without the episodes having aired yet and without you guys having what the audience had to say.

Without us knowing.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, we have a real opportunity here to like lean into it and kind of have fun with it without any people, like you said, who've listened to the story many times chiming in with comments about it.

And so

just in case people haven't listened to the first campaign and they've only listened to the second campaign this is we're not talking about any major spoilers right they can they don't have to feel like they

i just want to no it's like nick fury at the end of the iron man it's just like who's that nick furious at the end of iron man

you didn't watch the end of the credits that's like a thing now i do think though like even the

i think connections that there are to campaign one doesn't spoil campaign one as a whole yeah like i think you could still go back and listen to it and not have anything ruined for you exactly That's what I was.

Unless I mentioned beep.

I know sometimes when I listen to stuff, I'm like, oh, wait, is there a spoiler?

And I'll turn it off.

So I wanted to like,

did I unknowingly give mom a really important role?

Well, she did, birth two of you.

I wanted to go with that.

So it was like a thing that like you had, Ben had brought up, and I was like, yeah, that's who I want to play this person.

Oh, I, I, it was, it was something I pulled where I was like, yeah, mom makes sense for uh, you know, uh, Elga's mother.

I was like, good idea, John.

It's a little behind the scenes, right?

Like, so is dad the dragon barn?

How many on records think no?

Yeah, it's because I love you, dad.

I got a role for you coming up, though.

Gus really likes to not read too far ahead in modules so as to not accidentally spoil something.

I'm horrible about that.

We've done that before, too.

So I'm so bad about it.

But Micah and I have talked at length at times about just kind of pacing and where the story's headed and kind of like wrapping my head around, you know, what his thoughts are for the story.

Right.

And I think Micah told me about Sadate

months ago.

Yeah.

Kind of when we were talking about, okay, where's Groteth headed?

What's going to happen?

And so when we finally had the episode where her name was dropped, I'm really glad I'm sitting behind a screen because I just kind of like held my breath and I was waiting to see if anyone picked up on it.

Oh, Humana's wife.

Wait, so was Sadate to Perb?

You know, we often name characters after community members who have interacted with us on social media.

Was that no, those are just

a just a random name.

You can kind of get a clue from it from everybody else's name in the family.

So, like, she doesn't share, obviously, the same last name, but Meld

is like mild,

sadate, sedate.

So, it's always like this juxtaposition of Hugh Manner and like these people.

And obviously, this will be more obvious when the episode comes out and we have all the like voice actors doing the parts.

But, was the

dragonborn person Dr.

Ahem?

I don't know.

Yeah, that's gonna be my voice actor.

I was gonna say, like, you can tell us because the audience knows at this point.

Well, I can't say that because it's a spoiler for season one, but interesting.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So we're in heaven.

Well, I bet you're not dead.

My, I'll catch you in Lumbo.

We have to go back to an island.

Okay.

Interpretation's like, hell.

How I interpreted the ending was it was kind of like giving the stakes of the big story because it's like, again, when you talked about uh, was it hubris?

Yeah, hubris, yeah, hubris consuming worlds, and it's like that was the example of a world getting consumed.

You're talking about like where you were or like grotesque.

Like, was that

the question you're asking?

I'm not getting anything.

Well, I'm trying to unwant anything.

I'm talking about

Micah is just going to be okay.

This this is how i interpreted it that's what i said as in like he's telling you a statement and all you have to do is say okay

how do you feel about that great

the the hubris was like it is consuming worlds or like consuming growing and eating and and and the grotesque world was almost like getting consumed well it was being i know there's like the earthquakes and all the things like falling apart like that kind of aspect to it are you talking about

yeah well and then it literally kind of like came out of a mouth and it was kind of like eaten.

But like kind of eaten and consumed and like, I don't know, like everything was falling apart.

Like the world was being consumed by the hubris, which is like the big, big bad.

I think you're on to something.

I'm not going to give you a definitive because I think that would influence future decisions.

But I think it's an excellent theory and I think it has traction for in some ways.

So I have to ask.

Yeah.

I assume it's for me.

No, it's not.

It is for you.

So obviously the ending of this campaign is very different than the ending of the first campaign, where the first campaign felt like you got kind of closure on a lot of things and answers to a lot of questions.

And this one, obviously, there's a lot still up in the air and a lot of, I think, loose ends that maybe some people assumed might be tied up that weren't.

Is there,

is this the end of the story?

This is not the end of the story of Groteth.

Yeah, I can see how people will assume that.

And I kind of did that intentionally in a lot of ways.

But yeah, clearly there is some sort of interconnectedness with your that last scene that we kind of heard with Sadati and that other person.

And the doctor.

I didn't say that.

No, we want the rights to the doctor.

Yeah, that's true.

That's a different time traveling.

Yeah.

Who?

Yeah.

But yeah, so there is a.

If everybody here, I'm allowed to slap you.

No, you're too far.

You're not really too far.

I'll put you across the table.

Actually, we're all no longer employees.

So yeah, if we can.

Hey, no HR, no HR free zone.

Can they make this remote now?

May 11th, you just see me and Blaine having a slap fight.

Finally.

Did that actually answer the question?

I don't know.

Yeah, pretty much.

It's just Blaine and me having a slap

answer.

Technically not.

Just cause more questions.

I think ultimately, like, wanting to know if we'll ever see these characters again and learn more about.

If this was a visual medium it would be the end of avengers it says like the groteth detectives will return

and i guess like and you don't have to answer this too but obviously doing the show we plan on doing more campaigns as in a third campaign coming up next would that be involved in that or do you think that's like a later on kind of thing i can take a stab at the answer Are you going to stab him?

Put that knife away, John.

John, John, John's got a gun.

I don't think I've ever stabbed you.

I've done a lot of things to you as big brother.

I don't think I've ever stabbed you.

Probably with like a fake lightsaber.

I think an easy answer

is an answer from you, because I know he can't directly address this kind of stuff, is that the can of worms has been opened of this addition to our stinky verse and the can of worms is open now.

So now it's not like he's going to put a cap on it and it's not going to be a part of what's going on, but to reveal how it's going to incorporate the rest of the stuff would be giving away story.

That makes sense.

That's a good way of putting it.

I'll also say, you know, Micah and I have talked a lot about Dungeons and Dragons story pacing and how stories go.

And my interpretation of this, separate from anything like Micah has, so please don't read into this as something like Micah knows or I'm giving you hints on.

Take notes, everyone.

Infinites told the story of the Infinite interns, and we got a compelling end with like information and conclusion there, right?

Groteth, it told the story of the Groteth detectives in trying to figure out who the murderer was.

And you guys got the resolution there, right?

Like what is happening with you all being framed as his murderer?

Carol was the big baddie.

I leave that up to the interpretation of the audience.

She was Carol.

That was the murderer.

That was our whole mission in the beginning: was who killed the person we were framed for?

I guess technically we got to answer it.

So that way anyone can listen to the different campaigns and get a story and its conclusion, but there are still these little bits and pieces that are cool if you've listened to both campaigns and you're following along.

Fair.

Fair, fair, fair.

Which one of the guys in the jail cell at the first episode are going to end up being deities in campaign four?

Do you remember, I don't know if we we ever talked about this from that episode pilot when you were in the jail cell yeah

you guys were leaving the first the jail cell you were like starting in like the holding cell yeah and you kind of started going down a hallway and there were several like cells on either side of you and you kind of i think gus had mentioned some uh prisoners and in passing you made a description you know what i'm talking about yeah uh and Do you want to hop in there?

Was it the prisoners along both the walls?

They're talking about the one when they made the turn to the south.

There was a a person who was in gray clothing that was asleep.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

And you walked right past him.

And I don't think anybody interacted with them.

He was the alchemist?

It was the alchemist.

He was the alchemist.

Yeah.

But he later gets blasts out of there.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I caught on that.

I remember in that episode, I was wondering what the pacing would be like.

And as always, it was one of those things where you all went totally in a different direction than I was expecting, where you spent more time than I was expecting in the first holding area with the two gnomes who had the, one of them had the tattoo.

Yeah.

And then when it came time to walk down the hallway, you all just kind of blew past it.

And I was trying to be like, wait, wait, wait, there's this and there's this.

You're like, no, no, no.

We're going down the street.

We're going.

I'm like, oh, okay.

I still, so I recently re-listened to the first two episodes because I was like, I remember hearing something that I wanted to ask about when the campaign finished.

During the time when like Chip and Elga were in the bakery with Mateed and like they had just met at that peace parade, there was like, I want to say it was like a gnome or a dwarf or like someone making comments or being like, oh, sorry.

Like, oh, didn't mean to get in your way.

They popped up, I think, later.

And I was just like, I'm clocking this.

Like, were they like stealing or something?

No, just like they, they seemed like they were watching us or something or like following us.

I don't know what it was, but I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah.

So it happened first when you were in line with Chip.

Yes.

And then later on, something, I think someone similar came by.

Someone you were outside with Barney.

Maybe you walked outside exactly from the bakery and like you ran into Barney.

You literally ran into Barney.

And

that was initially supposed to be like a pivotal NPC character and it never panned out.

Oh, okay.

Really?

Yeah.

I was like, nope, this isn't going anywhere.

That doesn't make sense.

So that's fine.

That happens in stories all the time, though.

Tear distant gunshot.

Something I am disappointed.

Maybe there'll be a campaign, right?

There's no chance they won't come back.

Something I am disappointed that we didn't

happen in the final episode.

I was really hoping that at one point we'd all be in trouble.

And then out of the distance, a goat comes running in.

Ah, Hooper.

No, the goat that we saved in the cave.

Hoofers Daniel.

Oh, that goat.

Hoofers Daniel.

I cared a lot about that goat.

Well, we made a joke at the time when we saved it from having its life.

We did, we did.

And we're just like, that goat is going to show up next arc and save us from something.

That goat started eating and hasn't stopped.

And now it's the size of a mountain.

My God.

What have we done?

Are there any things that kind of flew over ahead?

Are there any huge things that you just kind of had been keeping from us and you were like dying to elaborate on or tell us about?

It's always when something is going to be revealed, how to reveal it.

Right.

You know, because I don't want it to be always forced on you and you have to.

Shoehorned.

Yeah.

So I think it's things like that, like how to...

lead you in the direction that the alchemist also has ultimate personality and that Henry has that connection, but not to like wave it in front of you all and be like, look at this, look at this, look at this.

So things like that.

And like, I even gave minor, minor, minor clues to things like that.

Maybe the audience can clue in on that kind of thing.

I like to leave a little Easter eggs for that.

For instance,

do any of you know who the writer, the author of the story, Dr.

Jekyll, Mr.

High, the strange case of Robert Louis Esteban?

Stevenson.

Robert Louis Stevenson.

So Robert Esteban.

Yeah.

Lewis is his alternate.

And then do you know the first names of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde?

Yeah.

That's the...

Is it Henry?

Henry.

Yeah.

And

Eddie.

Edward.

Yeah, Edward.

Edward.

It's not Scissor Hands.

No, it's.

He's Hyde.

Hyde.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Edward.

Hyde.

Yeah.

Robert Stevenson's wife in real life is Fanny Stevenson, Francesca.

Oh, nerd.

So there's things like that that I'll do, like, and with names.

I love names.

I love words.

So that's some stuff I just do mostly for me.

One more question.

Sorry, I take up time.

So we're here for.

I know, I know.

I just know.

We're going to be

here.

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We at one point, I think it was in Carcasuke, it was like outside of a library.

We looked down and we're all like handcuffed to the table.

Someone slipped me a note and I was like, was that Carol?

And then, like, you know, obviously, with the hagglings and stuff like that, had we encountered Carol at any other point in the story?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Definitely had interactions, like spy interaction kind of stuff.

Really?

Keep telling her.

Well, that's one.

Yeah.

Off the top of my head.

I'm sure there were.

But yeah,

you've received several notes and shadows in the background.

Like I've described figures in the writing before.

I'm sorry, we didn't go back to the train.

Mission Impossible style.

She was discouraged.

Over time.

Yeah.

Oh, man takes off the mask

a question i guess similar in that kind of same vein was there any point in time we were discussing something or like someone mentioned something where you're like oh they know oh yeah definitely henry oh yeah henry was one yeah we grilled henry from the beginning

did not trust that kid and then we grilled alchemist

but this party doesn't trust any npc who is the voice of henry Ash Hildreth.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Okay.

They're awesome.

Incredible job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It also just makes me hate them more because it's like, it's such a yinnesy little boy voice.

And I'm like, Henry,

what are you talking about?

One of the things that's not a character per se, but I saw someone ask this, like, I've seen several people ask this online in the past about dragons.

Why are there no dragons in this world?

Dragons.

Dragons.

Everything's kind of a little off in this world.

Were those the big bones?

Those are the big bones.

That's what I thought.

I thought the big bones were the dragons.

Yeah.

And so like, there's kind of this, were they there at one point?

What's their involvement?

And there's kind of remnants.

Like Like, we see Barney comes across a way to summon one.

And then there's also the cave you guys went into that was kind of remnants of a dragon that eventually was Skelegon and then Dragcast.

Um, so like there's that kind of stuff too.

Uh, one thing that I wanted to bring up that before I forget, this is a music thing for Eddie and Alchemist and Henry and Francesca, all of their motifs, like musical motifs, share the same three notes in different combinations.

Yeah, it's just done done done.

Thank you for ruining that nice moment.

That's what I'm here to do, baby brother.

Eddie, Eddie uses, I kind of mentioned this in another second win, but Eddie uses a famous, like, kind of demonic motif that you hear in movies and stuff all the time.

Bum, bum, bum, bum.

And I think it's the DSE ray is what it's called.

It's just combinations of that.

And then Alchemist is done.

So it's the same thing, but just like kind of backwards.

That's cool.

Was your favorite part of the entire campaign when we pulled out the little piano piano on my phone and had Blaine sight read?

That was enjoyable.

That was a highlight.

I felt like he played right into that trap.

Well, yeah, I guess from a like DM and writer perspective, do you guys have a favorite moment from like all the different arcs during this campaign?

I have mine.

Oh, you do.

Oh, I know what yours is.

Do you?

I'm going to guess it's the hemo pieces, the blood bank.

No, that was good, though.

That was very good.

I think that's my favorite.

That was very good.

Just like Matid going around trying to scam every single person.

Like in a situation where you should be stealthy and fearful, Matid just leaned into it.

That whole fake it, like act like you belong and just really like leaning into that.

I'm heading to the chapel.

You want to give me some hemo pieces?

Like every time you did that, I was like, okay, John has fully realized Matid and you know what they are.

Fully realized.

It just took me five arcs.

My favorite part of the entire campaign was, I think, a frustration for everybody involved, including you guys, because of sandbagging moments.

It's when we were talking to the wall that mumbled.

I was in Carcasuke.

I loved that.

It was very much the lady in the inkwell kind of situation where it's like, but you kind of set this up to be something to stall us.

The description in the module just had this wall mumbles.

That's all it was.

Before I forget, that on that same vein,

when I was making this last module where you guys are kind of making your way chasing after after hugo and stuff and you're going these different weird weird rooms i you know the one practice you do in dnd is obviously put treasure in certain places and like if you find it you find it and just over overwhelmingly do that and then like they'll only find certain things i don't always do that because you guys have really powerful stuff but uh i thought about oh yeah i could just put in like artifacts to really distract the part No, I shouldn't do that.

Mean a whole extra episode.

You saying that, Reminder.

There was another favorite moment.

You know, you meant, I mentioned Matisse conning people out of hemo pieces.

Another favorite moment, and this is all later,

was Barney perfectly falling into the trap of the vampire, also in the vampspire.

Oh, yeah, that was a funny moment.

Where, you know, Chris or Barney asked, Is there a place I could rest for just a minute and do this?

And did not get at all

suspicious when I named where I perfectly described a spot where he could do it.

And he's like,

That's great.

I was like, oh, okay.

We're doing it.

It's Barney's literal hell, just surrounded by vampires.

He's an old man in a loud techno rave.

There was a fun moment.

I forget which arc it was in, but we were like going through this place where we were going through walls.

We're like going through into different rooms.

And I went ahead first.

And so you guys had taken your headphones off because we were recording that one remotely.

Seeing how you guys approached the situation after I had done it, it was just a really entertaining mechanic, I think.

I think that was right by the mumbling wall.

Yeah, it was that same episode.

I remember finishing recording that and be like, that that was a fun episode.

There's a lot of that that I would like to pursue as we get more familiar with D and D and kind of like get out of our rookie stages.

Like where we

rookie, we're still pretty new

earlier.

I don't remember what exactly I say.

When are they going to learn what a modifier is?

As we get out of that, you know, and I'm not a DM, so you can take this or leave it, but like messing with the meta of it.

You know, there's times where it's like, oh, Mate finds this Bible that says this highly specific thing.

And then we all suddenly know about it, even though like the characters don't.

That lack of information, but also like, I think you tried this at one point in a past campaign.

Gus, how you like stole from the party during long or short rests, and then it was like this thing that you'd worked out with the DM.

Yeah, I'd highly discourage anyone from ever doing that because it created a lot of problems.

But in one campaign with some friends, I was playing a rogue, but I told everyone I was a fighter.

Yeah.

And at night, I would make checks to steal stuff from the party that they had that I wanted.

And then in combat, people be like, I pull out my so-and-so to use it.

And the deal would be like, yeah, you can't find it.

That's so funny.

I do not want to do that.

Do not do that.

Do not do that.

I did say, I hate that.

And I love it more the way we have done it, where

I heard that you two, Barbara and Blaine, found treasure, but because Mati didn't roll

a check, check, I went, okay, Matid doesn't know.

And I think that's funnier because then you can actually play with it.

It's everyone playing in.

John knows, but Mati doesn't.

Yeah, yeah, I like that better because we're supposed to be collaborative and be sanding each other.

And when we are not telling each other what's going on, that's kind of a bummer.

One of my favorite moments are when a motif for one of your characters, like the player characters, comes into my head.

So, for instance, the first one, I think, was probably when you went into the dragon, dragon cave, and you guys had, uh, I think Mateed was like splashing Barney with like that, that

purple stuff.

And you started having dreams and visions.

And um, Chip had a vision of Carol

and uh, of a, of a, a person that was like crying or something like that.

And it was, it was clearly Carol.

And I just came up with a motif for you right then.

That's what the chip and Carol motif was from that beginning.

So that from that, and it was just piano, that's all it was.

And then later on, Barney was singing to creature you singing to, but you said, go to sleep, go to sleep, little doggy.

Don't be mean.

I'm a froggy.

It was something like that.

Sounds like Chris.

Yeah.

Was it a work?

It was a motif.

Maybe it was the work in Maskey.

Little doggy.

And that became your motif.

Like Barney's motif.

That's interesting how you, because that's not the first time you've pulled motifs or musical things from little

ditties that we sing.

And we're not musically inclined like you.

The

Gum Gum Wake Aby song was like a huge kind of recurring

motif in the frame of the animal.

That's what made it so ironic that you sang basically a lullaby again.

And I was like, I got to use that.

I got to use that.

That's interesting.

For Mateed, it was when you're on the train for the first time, the Groteth Express, and you start doing your forms and dance.

And then you have that vision of someone that's an Eric Cochrane, which we learned is Jacques.

And you start, you sang something in that episode.

And I thought, I'm going to use that.

That's funny because as rice singers, we never do that.

No.

Yours was the theme song of the whole show.

I thought that was the case.

It's part of the theme song.

So I use different parts of the theme song for different characters in your family.

Yeah, when we were in the Vampspire, I noticed a lot of like that coming through in a lot of moments.

And I was like, this is cool.

You can argue that Elga is the main character.

Nobody's arguing that.

When I was initially writing the theme song for the show, we kind of went back and forth on some iterations of it with like, I think, John, I think you were involved in that.

I can't remember who else was that.

Maybe Ben.

I tipped into.

It was Blaine Carlson that I came in to translate.

You came in to translate.

One of the things was we kind of rearranged the order of the sections of the song.

And one of the things that I kind of pulled out from that was a little ditty that I ended up.

putting that the way I originally wrote the song in the second episode when you, uh, Lorenzo Wolfman's giving her speech like at the peace parade.

And so like you'll hear Elga's theme right then i think is the first time now i gotta go back and listen to the whole campaign yeah uh you mentioned something micah that made me remember something else you mentioned uh jacques appearing to mate on the grotesque express yeah which makes me think back to the first time that mate encountered that cat in the sewers in park one

and

The description in the module is it's just it was just supposed to be a cat that was there.

I know what I'm doing.

Well, I've made that up on the screen.

He made that up.

Because, like, I think I thought about pets who have like little tags that are like, leave me alone.

I know what I'm doing.

I know where I'm going.

So it was kind of like a subtle way to be like, leave the cat alone.

It's fine.

It's okay here.

I thought it was a plant all along for John.

Oh, no.

I knew it wasn't super important because of its placement.

It wasn't along a path that we had to take.

We were going to see it.

You're going out of your way to fill it out.

In fact, we made it to an advancement point, me and Barney, but only because I left Barney there and then went and re-looked in the places.

Did I find the cat?

We were like, at that point, we could have advanced and never have met Jacques.

Yeah, because you guys were off stealing stuff, yeah, but Blaine and Barbara.

Jacob knows, but if you're gonna put a cat in my path, that's the kitten distribution system.

That's all, that's all you ever want is a crazy cat person.

The cat did have one spell it could use, and I think it only ever used it once in the entire campaign.

Yeah, oh, it was in the

mouth.

No, no, no, it was in Atra City, it wasn't

the very end.

You went into the office of the alchemist, yeah,

uh, and then I think Weezer was in there, yeah.

And like instinctually, there was like this spectral claw that came out, and I got confused because I didn't realize that was the cat doing it, I thought it was like something else,

yeah, yeah.

And I was like, Well, what I can't remember what I thought it was, but I didn't, it was the cat.

Did the alchemists, what did the alchemist know about Henry?

Did how much does he

so?

I wrote it as Francesca and Robert, Francesca particularly, knew something was up with Henry, but didn't know what it was

and

was very protective of Henry, so therefore didn't ever bring it up.

Alchemist was too busy, much too busy to notice that and just thought like his condition that he had was just him.

So we met Eddie in the university,

which is where we met Henry.

First time you fought him was in the apothecary, not the apothecary, the Therasylum.

That's right.

There was someone else who we chased out the window.

You were looking for the professor.

Yeah, it was the professor.

He was like the pigman or something like that.

Yeah, I couldn't remember where Eddie first killed Chip.

Did we have, so in campaign one, this isn't a huge spoiler, but we got into a fight, and it turns out that the key to the fight was breaking this one mirror all along.

You remember?

I remember.

Was there a mirror that we didn't break for campaign two?

I don't know that there was a mirror that they didn't break, but there were definitely lots of times where

there was a lack of investigation or something gets glossed over and missed.

Yeah.

That could definitely really aid the party.

Yeah.

I felt like that was a common occurrence.

A good example of that that happened recent was

you all came into this last temple where like you kind of end up meeting Nessie, right?

And there were some bones on the wall, on the wall, like shelves or sorry, boxes on the on the shelves and around you.

And no one looked at them.

And so later on, we discovered the temple falls down on you guys when you're diving in.

That was the box.

And I planted that box there.

I'll give them a bone, literally.

Like it was a box of bones and like it had a scroll in it.

That I never used.

Yeah.

Things like that.

I think

Michael, you had a comment about that.

It's like the party still hoarding items at the very end of the story using when it's a very specific item that could help them in the exact niche situation that they're in.

I think I threw that in Slack where it's like, it's the typical video game syndrome.

We're at the final boss fight.

We have this whole stash of items we've been collecting the entire journey.

I used a lot of my inventory.

This is campaign.

You used a brownie.

You used your goose.

But also, we thought Hugo was the final boss, and then he wasn't.

So I remember I was like, I wouldn't have used my poison and this and that.

But isn't that the way of adventure?

Like real adventures, though?

That's true.

You think, you don't think, oh, this is the big boss, you know?

Yeah, no one's met a gaming life.

I tried to use my thing that let me eat metal.

To eat the bell.

Yeah.

And I had a rhyme written in everything.

Yeah,

unfortunately, you failed that check.

I'm sure it would have been special, Chris.

Wanted to eat his bell.

Yeah, he Hugo had an ability, I forget what it was called, silver-tongued or something, that kind of like charms you and enraptures you to listen to him.

That's what he was doing when he was giving those speeches at the end.

That's what led to the checks and, you know, seeing how he would react.

Yeah, and that's that's the other thing with like I tried to give clues of like who Hugo actually is.

His clothing is very similar to what the first campaign is like.

And connections to Sadate Tempor had the same kind of dress and garb as Meld.

But interesting.

So is

really listening to get those, though.

I feel like I need to go back and listen to the first campaign.

And, you know, again, our audience should too.

Might spoil a little bit, but like, obviously, Hugh Manner was not a good person in the first campaign.

Misunderstood.

Debatable.

But

I don't remember anything about Sadate.

If she was like good or evil or what role she...

Very unclear because Meld was just...

I think the one thing that you might have learned, I don't know if, should I talk about campaign one or no we can I don't see the harm in it okay it doesn't spoil much

that she was looking for her mother and didn't know where she went right oh I do remember banished yeah there was a moment at the vamp spire where it was the guy from from glerb the mummy and uh oh god what was her name not frank

frankesca were like outside protesting stuff i assume that they were like a part of a greater plot maybe like in sheath or anything was there anything to that not sheath not sheath in particular no they i like to think that um i think the way i wrote it was like they all had lost something uh-huh and they found camaraderie amongst each other and wanted to basically help along in this quest it almost seemed like we were encountering like another adventuring party exactly

oh what a what a weird uh group of people you know yeah that's exactly right because i mean Like I think I've said this another segment before, like the world is alive.

It's not like when you guys go to sleep, the world stops.

There are things that are always operating.

It's one of my favorite running jokes in Sean of the Dead is they keep running into that other party.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, you don't know what they're doing, but it's like they keep intersecting.

It's like, oh, yeah, it's these other people who are also out and surviving in the world.

And it's like, there's weird connections between them.

I actually have a question for everybody based on that.

I want to know what everyone's favorite running bit was through the campaign.

Like, for instance, mine was what Blaine was just saying about anytime referencing Francesca saying Frank Etzka.

Oh, that was your your favorite?

That was my least favorite.

But then my other favorite was anytime we kind of got away from it toward the end, but I'm alive.

It's alive.

It's alive.

Yeah, that was fun.

The sling of sandstorms.

That was fun.

So dumb.

Like getting dumb references like that is fun.

I don't know.

I just had so much fun playing Elga.

I like it.

I like making names for all your acts.

Yeah.

I was like, how can I do a pun for this one?

That was always fun.

It didn't last very long, but I liked Scampsylvania.

Sounds nice.

I also just like the running bit of like, if you guys ever want a fun character to play in D ⁇ D, play a little kid because you could get away with so much stuff.

Like even when you're in the dragon stomach, like be like, I lost my ball.

And like Barney's like the, you know, old man grandpa.

I forgot about that.

I liked fooling the Sviratsu into playing hide-and-go seek every time you're like, oh God, yeah, you went away.

It was funny how those characters really evolved.

Yeah, they were really mean and scary.

Yeah, if you meet them at the very beginning of the well and they're like really foreboding and like mysterious, and then they end up being just like goofballs that are like trying to patrol the

tower.

In my mind, they have to be more stern outside of the vampspire, right?

Like these are like gatekeepers, you know, trying to dissuade people from coming in.

Whereas, you know, once you get into the vampspire, and especially if they recognize Elga.

The belt's like loosen up.

We go into the break room, they're cracking a cold wine.

We can be a little looser.

I liked Frank Geska, and I liked, I feel like there's a running thing with chip writing overly wrong long letters and then reading it to the rest of the gang i always enjoyed that those moments that time that john as mateed was doing the uh sending stone or like whatever it was and you're like how are you i'm good

and we're just like good john

there's the carpet ayah right yeah that's the one There's a point in every campaign that we've done so far where John just like stakes couldn't be lower.

And like there were like mud happened, I think, during like the Babayu part and stuff where you're just like, eh, say levy.

You know,

yeah.

That reminds me of another favorite part of this campaign of mine was the damaging yourselves for hemo pieces.

Oh, yeah.

Then Barney healing you and then just like really leaning into it, like, all right, more money.

Let's go.

Let's roll those dice.

Yeah, that's fun.

I don't, I don't, this is going to sound really like mean,

but in my head.

But I mean this as actually a compliment to your intelligence, Chris.

And when you were doing that, the thought that went over here is like, he can't be this dumb.

Well, because I thought, like, he's clearly playing into the bit, and you weren't.

I really wasn't.

The reaction was so genuine.

It was so

playing a healing character.

It's like you take it upon yourself to be the responsible one.

Of like, maybe your people have HP.

Well, it made sense because, like, Barney was like on high alert because we're in the Vance part, like, the heart of darkness for Barney, you know, like this place that he hates.

Yeah.

He's like trying to heal and make sure everyone's good for the mission.

I made I made a joke.

I think, I can't remember if it was on mic or not on mic, but I think there's a point in this campaign that you can clock where I got on anti-anxiety meds.

I think so too.

Because, to be clear, at the beginning of this grotesque episode, this was like from there till about halfway through the campaign, it was the peak of my anxiety getting so bad.

It was when I was starting to have conversations with my girlfriend, where she's like, I think you need to get on medication.

Yeah.

And I was like, I think you're right.

And then when I got on it, I was like, this is fantastic.

This podcast got John medicated.

I have a quick question that I just lost in my brain.

Oh, yes.

Did you, Micah and Gus, know from the very beginning that Barney was a ghost?

Because

he introduced himself as a human cleric every time.

Or did you know right off the bat?

I knew.

He talked to me about it.

I talked at the volume.

I think I knew I had to create his character sheet.

Right.

Which I assume you guys knew.

I knew.

It was curious.

I tried to.

I didn't do him any favors like trying to distract away from it, but there were definitely some moments where he maybe towed the line.

Yeah.

He's like, all right, where's this going?

Or like, I'd have to have like a side slack conversation with him, like, what's going on here?

Or what's the play at this point?

Right.

There were a couple of things because I did have abilities on my sheet that I, that were giveaway stuff.

And I like flying speed, probably.

Well, things, things like Mati would do, like possession, like,

or going through walls.

Yeah, or death saves was one.

Death saves.

Because I had advantage on Death Saves.

Gotcha.

But I couldn't, I didn't want to roll those publicly.

Oh, that was it.

So, yeah, you would have a second secret roll.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Just to gus.

I think when I made your homebrew, is that Race?

I called it Variant Human 2.0.

Yeah, yeah.

We've done a couple of live things where we switched character sheets, and I would always get really nervous that you'd like too much into it.

You told me you found out because of that one time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What?

I saw your character sheet at one point.

When?

I don't remember when.

It was during the fundraiser.

The extra life.

Extra life.

Was it during that?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Because you guys were switching characters and stuff.

There's one moment during that extra life thing where you guys were trading sheets.

And I was like, oh, thank God Blaine is blindfolded right now because he can't see what's on the sheet.

Ah, ghost.

I don't look that far into it.

You're really good, Chris, at like constructing a character in a way where like we don't know a lot about you.

Was there anything else that you were keeping from us that you were hoping would be found out that we never never got to?

I mean, no.

No, okay.

I wanted

my idea for Barney, and then, but like how it played out was up to Mike, you know, like Micah.

And then there was stuff that's like, I didn't come, you know, that's just Micah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I gave Chris a heads up like the week before you all found the body in the grave.

Yeah.

I was like, hey, this is coming just so you're thinking about it and you know what you want to do at that time.

How to react.

But Chris also, like, you played the character so well that even now audience still has like theories on what Barney actually is.

My favorite running one is that Barney is a revenant.

Oh,

a DD creature that basically is, it's the soul of a mortal who met a cruel and undeserving fate.

It crawls its way back into the world to seek revenge against the one who wronged it.

The revenant reclaims its mortal body and superficially resembles a zombie.

So

really close to that.

Well, I thought Avaina was going to be a zombie or something else.

Or like a werewolf or something like that.

You told me something interesting about your name selection.

Yeah.

I don't know that anyone ever talked about it or it never really ever came up.

I thought it was a cool nod.

So when I was creating Elga, I knew she wanted to be a twin because I was curious to see how we would go with the mechanics of like Elga, who's a vampire who doesn't age, having a twin sister and like what would happen there.

But when I was making the name, Elga and Evena was supposed to be heaven and hell.

Oh, so like Helga and Heaven.

Oh.

But then I just took off the ages and

took off the ages.

And put an A at the end.

Hello.

That was another favorite running bit.

Ugo.

whenever i was creating characters i think you you'd

we'd gone back and forth on whether barney was a ghost or a zombie i yeah the first initial thing i came up with was that you because mati was ghost and yeah i didn't know if that would play too much into the same thing so i said like well you could be like a zombie of sorts or something yeah at that point i was the um i'd already settled into the cleric

twilight cleric and i was like oh i feel like the ghost works well with that because of the the abilities that they get.

Yeah, it was fun this season of ghost team pictures.

Do you guys have any favorite like encounters or boss fights or things that you came across like that that were battle or combat driven?

I have my favorite.

I really liked the Hemogoblin.

Hemogoblin's great.

In the in Carcassouk, I think it's Carcassouk.

Where it was like anytime we'd be loud, it would spit blood at us.

I thought that was such a fun mechanic.

And also like, I loved the running bit I had with Elga where she sometimes did not know how to control her volume or care to control her volume.

And so that was just a fun mechanic for me to play with.

But just the idea of like people getting stuck to the wall in these like giant blood globs.

I don't know.

It was really fun.

I don't think we ever touched on it.

In the Vam Spire, I wrote, I think it was when you guys were on the last, not the last level, the not the Fang Pic, but the, what's the second level?

Not the Tails of Doc, the Fang Pic, and the

Sepulcher.

No.

No.

Claustridi.

Claustridi, Yeah, Claustrid.

Yeah.

Thank you, David.

David's got a great memory, by the way.

I don't know if you know that or not.

Audience doesn't know this.

I have a terrible memory.

That's why I write everything down.

But yeah, in the Claustrid, there was actually a chance for you to re-encounter the Hemo Goblin.

Oh, really?

I wanted to talk about that.

I'm sorry to interrupt your question for a second, but that's one of the things I wanted to talk about was...

In the chaos of the vampspire, there was so much that overwhelmed the players, but there was so much also that they didn't see.

Yeah.

Including the Hemogoblin, there was the chance that they could have run into the mold and discovered that the mold was there.

Yeah, which is a big aspect of that area where they kept talking about how they had gems.

And the mold shows up at the end to kind of like save you guys from stuff that's falling.

And it's like, there were all these possibilities.

Mikey, you wrote so many possibilities in the vampire.

There were so many,

there were so much dice rolling behind the scenes.

Like, what's going to happen?

Are they going to run into this?

Are they going to run into that?

I think my favorite was like the bat rat races.

Yeah.

We just got confused trying to remember which direction was what and like where we've been already, where like where a dead end has happened and like going backtracking.

That's the other thing too is like each level of the vanspire

mechanically played differently.

So the bottom level that you guys start in was a mapped out dungeon that had rooms and had people moving in and out and all that kind of stuff and it functioned in a certain way.

And then you moved to the second level and the second level was virtually endless.

You could have kept finding places if we'd kept playing the game.

And that's, I think, what you're talking about, Guess, is like there was just tons of of stuff.

Which is funny because it feels like we like

exhausted the option.

Yeah, it was the

spiral.

I know it might feel that way as a player, but you really didn't.

It's like you kind of honed in.

Everyone wanted to find Elga's home.

Yeah.

Then it was like, what's going on with Count Vixie?

Then it was like, oh, we found this other room.

There's a point in that episode where I made a joke.

We're like, I'm going to go down every door.

Yeah.

There was a lot more to do.

You said, you said, that's going to take a while.

There's actually something planned.

But do you guys have favorite encounters?

I was going to say the mold.

The mold.

But it was mostly because of Gus's portrayal of him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I liked giving Gus a monster to play.

It was very incredible.

Hulk.

I liked all the glerb stuff.

Not as an encounter, but just like that world, like a moving mountain that's a snail.

I thought that that was like such a cool, beautiful visual.

But like favorite encounter would be, it wasn't even real combat.

It was just you guys gassing up chip because I'd been eating butt all like every combat scenario.

I was terrible.

And then you guys like gave me a dagger character to interact with

him.

And he gassed me up and he's like, chip ain't here.

Yeah.

And then I started like assassinating dudes on towers.

And I was like, yes, I'm doing it.

I'm roguing.

I'm voguing.

I think that's hard about rogue is that like you don't get an extra attack.

Yeah.

You have all this extra damage.

If you do get a hit, then it lines up.

But yeah, it can be rough sometimes.

Yeah.

I need to research those classes for next campaign to see what's my dodge of rogue for a while.

Yeah.

I think you've had your fill of rogue.

Yeah.

I think you also enjoyed all the gim pronunciation.

Yeah.

Everyone was like, are we hearing it wrong?

What is happening here?

Is gas being leaked?

I don't understand.

The fight we also had with those like,

they weren't sphenixes, but like the cat things in the

fiery cats with the tiny hut.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was

a fun one.

Just Levons.

Just anytime there's like weird mechanics of like everyone's like trying to carry each other and we get through it in like a very uh non-typical way.

We were talking earlier in the episode 50 about like words that we only read and then like the pronunciation.

I've always pronounced it Leoman's.

Leoman's tiny hut.

Not Le Mans.

Le Man's.

Because it's L-E-O-M-U-N, I think.

I also said it Leoman's.

Leoman's.

But that's just the thing.

It's like it's always written down.

You don't really hear it.

Yeah.

Plus, it's a name on top of that.

It can sometimes throw the rules on the name.

Speaking of name, I remembered something that I could actually talk about now.

Oh, yes.

Do you want to know where Mate came from?

Where?

They were actually based off of somebody.

Oh.

I described Matid as non-binary, binary, femme presenting.

And I was like, I wanted to find

a woman from history, from French history that was like a badass.

Bad gal.

Bad gal.

Almost swore there.

This is Matid Carre,

born 30th of June, 1908 in France, died in 2007.

So wow, 99 years old.

Wow.

Check out this.

Known as Le Chat, the cat, which is why I named the bakery after that.

And funny enough, Jean Gourmet was a French resistant agent during World War II who betrayed the Franco-Polish resistance organization Interale, and as a double agent, was responsible for the arrest of dozens of Interale operatives of the German occupiers of France.

Wow.

She became an agent for the British at one point.

And at one point, she arrived in Britain.

She was interrogated and prisoned for the remainder of the war.

After the war, she was deported to France and convicted of treason and sentenced to death.

The sentence was later reduced, and she she was released from prison in 1954.

The double agent for...

She was like double, double.

I read into her and she's like, she worked for herself.

I bet it's like super confusing.

Fantastic.

Whoever, whoever was.

Yeah.

And so I based Matid

off of her.

I said it before.

I'll say it again.

Chip Haney.

Mike Haney was like basically my uncle.

He's a coach that my dad.

coached with for like years and I knew this guy my entire life and I just loved Haney and he had this

sick sick mustache And I was like, well, I don't want to do Mike Haney.

So, like, Chip just seemed like a fun chipper name.

So, like, Chip Haney.

It's funny you mentioned that, John, about

like the whole background of Mateed.

When you brought up Carol Blaine

and like that you were both assassins and that kind of thing.

I think you'd mentioned that in your backstory, right?

And I was like, well, what would be funny?

Because you got a double agent, and those things are fun to do, but what about a triple agent?

So I was like, let's put her in every single organization.

Something that's interesting doing doing these types of campaigns is obviously like when we work on the characters and develop like some backstory and some stuff like that.

And when we get asked questions throughout the campaign, we just answer them based on like what we think is the case.

And I think someone had mentioned this that on an early episode, I think I had mentioned my sister.

I thought she was dead or something like that, or like wasn't alive anymore.

I have to go back and see what it actually was.

But like, I'm sure at the time we didn't really know the plan for things.

And like,

you write as you go to you know clearly for something shock clearly

things are figured out as we go a little bit it's just funny because like there's some things where i'm like i don't know if i should answer this or not or if it's gonna ruin some like big plan that you have brewing i think that's something i learned about the arrows as well like what kind of arrows we want to fire at you all because yeah you don't want to box yourself in either you don't want to give off too much things that like it's it's set in stone forever it's more like it should be fun for you guys to warm up for one and to get to know each other.

Yeah.

And I think I'd mentioned in a previous second one, maybe the last one, that like I have another mechanic that I want to try for this third campaign that I think will be fun as well.

That'll kind of be in that same vein.

I think something lovely about this podcast is we're all very production-oriented and all of our input is valid.

And I feel like it's a safe space to like give feedback and criticisms.

And early on when we started introducing arrows, I was like totally against it because I was like, no, we got to get right into the action.

And then arrows ended up like, I loved arrows.

Like answering arrows is so much fun.

I like when we did you, did you love arrows, Blaine?

Did you you love it?

I hadn't noticed by the end of the campaign,

you were citing entire monologues to answer.

I love the Bradley monologue.

I was like, this could be an influence.

I think it's a practice at one point.

Or like, I've got an idea for an arrow.

Yeah.

Bradley in the stolen piggy bank.

Wait, no, I thought it was a good mechanic, this campaign, doing like the character introductions, the arrows, having like a little bit of time before getting into it.

Because I was re-listing to some of the infinite campaign, and we don't do that.

Yeah.

And I was like, I kind of wish we like revisited who we are and what classes and races we are.

I think if we had done that in the first campaign, this is, I'll speak for me.

Okay.

I would have been terrible at it.

I think I learned so much how to play a character in the Infinites.

And I think even on top of that, I learned even more this campaign on how to play a character.

I feel like that contributed so much to like the character development though.

Like Kyborg was insufferable and awful.

And then at the end, he was still insufferable.

And then we ended campaign one.

But it was like, I don't know, it's still like fun.

And I was like, I feel like that learning process.

I'm not saying that that's captured.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

It's like the way that we did campaign one worked out because we found all the characters as we did.

But I think adding the arrows in campaign two was its own like addition that was good.

And it was like, that was the time to add it.

So you talked, Michael, you talked about potentially like a new mechanic in campaign three.

And Barbara, you talked about like world building and doing all of that.

And I don't want to, you know, get spoilery here.

But looking ahead and thinking about campaign three and the types of characters you all may want to play without saying anything too too specific about the characters.

I just want to ask, do you all have voices in your head planned for those characters yet?

I do.

I don't know if I'm ready to commit to it 100%.

You're tested here.

We'll put a big asterisk.

Not may not be final product.

So the character I want to play is inspired by a character I used to play in a different production.

named Gambo.

Everyone knows him.

Everyone loves him.

He just talks like this.

You know, he's not saying a whole special to him, but you know, he's a special guy.

So we'll see.

Guy.

We'll see.

I don't know how to describe that voice.

I was trying to figure out how do you describe the way Gumbo talks?

Cambo.

Gambo.

Sorry.

Which is another thing where I'm like, I don't know if I can.

Gumbo is mine.

Gumbo is yours, which is why I think I might have to rethink

the voice, though.

I was like, I was just trying to figure out because I'm like, it's such like, where do I land that?

type of talking in the world.

It's a little bit like

Bronxy, like old-timey gangster.

There's definitely a bit of a speech impediment.

Yeah.

As well.

I almost think like someone from Maine, like that weird Maine accent that they have.

That's what it makes me think of.

Well, then it must be like a Maine mobster because I hear speech impediments.

Yeah, I hear a little bit of like a seedy underworld, but like from the 1960s kind of thing.

It's fantastic.

Interesting.

It's fantastic.

Thank you for your input, John.

I will take it to heart.

Thank you.

The first thing I think of when I hear voices like that is I go to what would be the most insufferable one-shot we could do with characters that are like, okay, Gambo, Captain Kirg, Quiffley, and

I don't know a fourth character right now.

Wait, are you saying this is an annoying voice?

I don't know.

I think we could either sound like he is.

Let's boldly go.

Where no man

has

gone before.

I think we all feel like the voices we start off with in each campaign evolve as we get more familiar and and comfortable doing it and with the character.

Like, I feel like no one sounds the same at the beginning and the end.

I feel like when you start the voice, you have this idea for it, but then it becomes impractical.

You can't maintain it, so you have to make some compromises to make it sustainable.

Except you, Barbara.

You actually, you're consistent.

I feel like you're pretty consistent.

I don't know.

I feel like there's subtle differences.

Like, I think Elga got much higher pitch.

I acquiesced to some subtlety.

Yeah.

I'd say with like,

at least I'll just speak for me, wild difference.

I feel like you were the most consistent.

That's funny.

I think both of my voices changed drastically throughout the campaigns.

Yeah, Mudd was much, was supposed to, remember, like I've said, Mudd was supposed to be a dumb,

slow, deep voiced, like almost like a kid.

In order to keep up with the character, my speech got faster and therefore his voice got a little higher so I could talk a little faster.

And then now with Stinky Dragon Adventures, because we were doing like lines and pickups and stuff, and I was doing that so much, like I've turned mud into something that I can pull out.

It's like you almost make mud easier to do, yeah, in order for me to just be able to do him

whatever I need.

It has to be easy to do if you're talking a lot or like and having to role play in that voice and act in that voice.

We just did something today, right?

To switch from mud to Mateet, and I think I had a heart attack.

Yeah, yeah, I've shown examples before of like other DD shows where when they're starting off their new season and a player brings a new voice to the table, yeah, and sometimes they'll stop down and be like, Are you sure about it?

You're gonna do this for maybe a 50 50 to 100 episodes or more.

This could be the next two years.

Chips started out difficult because it was an accent that I wasn't familiar with, but like now I feel like I've got a grasp on it.

Of course, when we're done, I'm like, no, I can whip it out and it's easy and fun.

Well, it might come back.

Yeah, that's true.

I do have my next campaign character pretty fleshed out.

I don't want to reveal the voice because I am...

deathly afraid and will take all criticisms on like the subreddit.

So if I see anything negative, it'll make me say and guess it.

They're super supportive.

I know, I know, but I...

anyone.

I gotten some feedback on chip that made me like really not believe in my like Wisconsin-y like northern accent.

The only hint I'll give is: there's a character in Venture Brothers that is that heavily inspired the character that I want to play, or at least the voice.

And I'm very excited about it.

Just take a page from my book.

If anybody ever commented how I didn't do a good Scottish accent, I say he's not doing a Scottish accent in Scottish.

He's talking like a Bramble crack.

Where are they from?

Babayan.

A Babayan.

That's a Babayan.

Every time I would have to do Weezer, I'd have to go back and listen to myself too.

Yeah, too much slate.

And I can't even do it.

I can't even.

Detector Carl with it.

That's what it was.

Everything must be on the show.

It's very.

What was his name from the

Andy Dick show?

Andy Griffith.

Andy Griffith Show.

Andy Dick.

Wow.

Could not be more different.

No, yeah.

That's Andy Griffith.

What was the dumb I'm going to go?

Go, you're the Gomer.

It's very British Gomer.

Goer Pyle, yeah.

Hi.

Yeah, it's very British Gomer Py.

Yeah.

It was funny to see, like, anytime we would put up shorts and stuff like that from the Groteth campaign, the amount of comments that are just like, is that the person who voices Little Misfortune?

Because I have never heard of this game or played it, but after we were doing Groteth for a while and I saw a comment about it, I looked it up.

And she sounds exactly like this.

The same kind of tone, the same like little accent.

Is she from Borderlands?

It's called Little Misfortune.

Oh, Little Misfortune.

Yeah.

I think of Tiny Tina.

I think of Tiny Tina.

That's what I'm talking about.

I get that with my regular speaking voice.

People ask, do you narrate?

There's some YouTube channel, like, do you narrate the videos on this YouTube channel?

I have no idea.

You're going to be like, are you Simmons?

I like the ones that are like, oh, that sounds just like Simmons from Red vs.

Blue.

Do the other two of you have voices you're willing to share yet?

Chris, do you?

I don't because I'm still

secrets.

No, no, I agree.

Absolutely.

No, no, I'm just fiddling.

I'm not committed to a character yet.

And I want to also say that.

I'm not super committed to this one quite yet.

That's just what I'm thinking right now.

I'm 100% locked on what I want to do.

Which is crazy.

What you described, Barbara, I really want.

Like I, what you described when we were talking about our characters, and I'm not going to spoil it.

Like, I thought that was so funny.

Yeah.

I just need to, I think, look at the class a little bit more because it's something I'm the most unfamiliar with.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that I need to flesh out.

But I think the character itself is fantastic.

You don't have anything, John?

I'll say that I have an idea for a voice, but the one reason why I don't want to commit to it is because I like to challenge my voices and make them something hard to do and i'm this is an easier one and so i'm trying i'm still trying to figure out a way of where where i could take it somewhere difficult so it's probably

easy no there isn't there isn't and i might just i might just default there yeah uh because like her voice plays into like who she is right but i so in order to change her voice i got to change who she is and i i don't think i will because i really want to play this character so if i if i say it right now i have to kind of commit to it but if i don't i don't but i i have a little bit of a voice.

But I've alluded to what she is.

Right.

Do y'all practice them by yourself?

Yes.

On the drive to work, I would stop listening to the music or I would sing along to the music in chip voice.

Because I don't.

Wait, what music?

I'd just be listening to like

any song.

Sing a song.

Oh, that's funny.

I want to hear Chip sing now.

Can we hear like a chip album?

He's just singing Taylor Swift in Chip's.

Chip voice.

It's by Haney.

You were working as a waitress in the hotel hard.

Next picture at Stretch Gold.

The Japanese classic.

I love it.

I am here for it.

I 100% had to try to work on doing something even remotely close to a French accent.

I watched so many videos.

That is probably, I think it might be the hardest accent to try to do.

Because it could so easily go into German or like it can travel around Europe easily.

If you are doing this, this, it could sound like many things.

And with any accent, same as like the Scottish of Mutt, there is no Scottish accent.

There is no French accent.

There is like, hey, what part of that place are you from?

Hey, you're from Paris.

I didn't want to admit it, but I do the same thing with Sleek and Quiffley.

I sing along your songs in the car.

Sleek or quickly determined.

It's nice.

It's an easy way to start taming that to get into it.

And we have time to pro tip.

We learned something here.

We're trouble when you walk in.

It's great.

The thing I'm excited about the most.

Bart's easy because he got sang all the time.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah, you did sing a lot as Bart.

I'm excited about Campaign 3 because I think something that I noticed with Campaign 2 is depending on your character's attitude and kind of like what their character is like, I feel like I adopt that as a mindset.

So Kyborg, I was like really cocky and

shooting little quips.

And then with Chip, I was chipper and happy.

And so, you know, all that.

And I feel like it bleeds into real life.

And my next guy, I'm like, I'm excited to see what that does for Blaine.

Oh, no.

No, I don't know.

And the other thing, too, and this is like any advice for people that are listening, and you get into the role play of it, it's like, try to have a fun character that's like enjoyable to be around.

Don't be a jerk because then

you're fun to be around.

Yeah.

You want people to enjoy also interacting with you and playing with you in the world, in the space.

I want to make an exclusive reveal here

that the campaign three narrator will be Captain Kerg.

No, I know it.

I know it.

Patreon's done.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

I knew that would get a rise out of Blaine.

But I'm happy we are at the point we are, you know, just having wrapped up campaign two, looking forward to what we're going to do with campaign three, because I feel like lots of times, and I think this was maybe in the back of all of our heads or in the pit of our stomachs, like campaign one was such a...

well-accepted, huge success.

It's always a little scary to try to follow that up.

It's like, what is your next thing?

It's not just D ⁇ D thing.

Like any band releases a huge album.

It's like, oh, what's your next one?

Or, you know, film or anything like that.

It's like

comparing it to when people found it and like fell in love with it.

So their, yeah, expectations.

That's actually a question I wanted to ask everybody was, you know, like we had some.

trepidation leaving the campaign one characters to go on campaign two because like in production right like when you have a good hit or something that's working it's scary to go away from it and you don't want a lot of people tend to just stay with it until maybe people kind of get tired of it sometimes and in the nature of dungeons and dragons like eventually hit a point where the campaign, you're max level, you can't really do anything else unless you're fighting gods.

And so you got to like wind down and start a new character.

And so I kind of wanted to ask everybody, like, how are you feeling now going from, now that you've gotten two campaigns under your belt, how do you feel going into campaign three now that we have one and two done?

And how is it different from going from campaign one to campaign two?

Big shoes to fill, is what I'll say.

But I have the utmost confidence in Micah and the whole team to do an incredible job.

Cause I think like I personally, I loved campaign one.

I had a lot of fun with campaign two.

and I thought a lot of the like discoveries and twists and turns were like really interesting to me.

And I, I, I would say I almost liked it better than campaign one.

Personally, I'll probably like campaign three even better because it's like it's these things that we keep having more experience doing and get comfortable doing and know how to build the space more and more.

We're only going to have more fun with future campaigns.

I think you said something important there, which is like your, your familiarity and your comfort with the material.

Yeah.

You're not so preoccupied with the rules and the mechanics necessarily.

It frees up brainpower to explore the creativity and like the fun side.

Like, what are the moments we're going to lean into?

You're not so like focused on looking at a sheet of paper or like some rules in front of you.

Like, what does this all mean?

It's like,

it's, you've partially, you know, you've learned the material and partially you've learned it's not that important.

Right.

We're going to, we're just going to have fun.

Now, with the state of Stinky Dragon and us doing this ourselves, I think a lot of us are also going to be a lot more invested in everything to do with Stinky Dragon and like not having to work on any other projects or like do anything else for our previous job that maybe was distracting or like took away from us being able to like dive full into something like this.

So I think it's going to be even better.

My calendar will be freed up from meetings that I'm like, why am I here?

I promise you all, I'm going to start committing to this show.

I'm going to

wear a fourth hat if that's okay.

No, you, you out of everybody has been wildly dedicated to this since the very beginning.

The timing is fortuitous, too, because it's like, you know, we're winding down campaign two.

And as we start this new journey, we're also starting a new campaign.

So it's just like, it obviously it wasn't a perfect situation, but I feel like we're making making the best case scenario out of a worst case scenario.

Yeah.

You know, so I'm excited.

Absolutely.

I'm very, I'm very much in the same vein as you, Barbara, where

I feel like I keep getting better at this as it goes on.

I'm very glad we got the second campaign jitters out of the way now because that was a concern.

And

between that and I got to DM my first mini campaign, I'm fully addicted to new worlds and new characters, which I know is a very common trope with DD players where they just want to keep making their new character.

They're excited about it.

And so I'm

all for that and excited to do that.

And so, yeah, I'm and I'm also excited to see what's it like to do an entire campaign medicated.

I also will say we have talked about Cambodia a little bit, and I'm really excited for it because Micah, you seem really excited for it.

Like it's something that excites you as a writer.

So I think like in my mind, that's when I'm the most excited to play in a space that someone who's created it is really amped about.

Well, I fall into that trope as well of like, it's a new thing.

As soon as we finished recording my mini campaign, like I was sad.

I was was like, and Brian, before the campaign, I was freaked out.

Cause I'm like, and I've listened to a few episodes and it's like, oh man, I was terrible at DMing.

I was great.

But well, I see more so I'll phrase like, oh, I could have done this better.

Oh, this could have been, I, oh, this is why I shouldn't do that.

You know, I learned a lot and I love learning more and more about D D.

Even like you guys saw at the end of this campaign that I fell in love with rolling real dice and I started memorizing my modifiers and my stuff.

Like I really wasn't even looking at my D and D Beyond a ton near the end of it.

And that was really fun just this week, started listening to, funny enough, started listening to the Adventure Zone fights Dracula, which I think is so funny that they released that like halfway through hours.

And to listen to it, it's very much like, wow, these are touching on similar things.

Like they have a Frankenstein character and everything like that.

But I love listening to other people play D and D because Ben got me listening to Dimension 20 and that kind of stuff.

But I love the best parts is they don't dwell on figuring out which spell to do.

It's all about improv and playing with each other and having fun jokes and getting to do those silly moments, you know, and I look forward to that for the next campaign.

It's like, those are my favorite moments.

Yeah.

Making Gus do improv.

I think that,

Ben, unlock the door.

I want to say

a big thank you to anyone who's listening to this.

You know, we've, we've poured a lot of energy and a lot of our hearts into campaign one and campaign two.

And we're glad that people really enjoy it.

And, you know, as Bling was talking about, you know, we're at an inflection point with

the stories and with what we're going to do.

And, you know, we're really more than ever

reliant on the listeners, you know, people who consume the show, people who tell their friends about it, people who subscribe on patreon.com slash Dinky Dragon.

Like it's all

needed.

It's all necessary to help

support us and to help us continue having these adventures.

So thank you so much.

Let's see.

Share the podcast with your friend.

Please do tell people about it.

I think a lot of these podcasts really succeed from word of mouth and like talking to your friends and people who also like DD or just general fantasy adventure kind of stuff.

So yeah, if you have a friend you think might like the show, please do tell them.

Send them a puppet video or an animation.

It's like a little teaser.

Be like, there's a whole podcast you can listen to with this.

It's pretty hardworking going onto the Reddit and being like, yeah, my friend turned me onto this.

They said, you know, I was getting into DD and so on and so forth.

And it's like, this is is a person that would have never in a million years have encountered Brewster Teeth or any of us.

Our family, my family, like our parents and our sister, like, they are not DD people.

Did you guys know they don't play DD?

They know nothing about it.

And they've also, to be fair, I've been an employee making content for the past like 10, 11 years.

They don't watch any of it.

I will give someone credit that Heather actually, when I started, when we started,

yeah, sorry, Heather is my sister.

John's sister as well.

It's really weird.

And

she's my sister.

I mean to people.

When I was starting the pious past, like that first arc in Infinites, I did a test run with her and some other people, and she was one person that

jumped in and dated.

Yeah.

So it's, it's, they, my, I, I joke.

My family did watch some of her stuff, like, uh, and no stuff.

But adamantly, this is the first thing they've done.

They are fans and they are DD fans.

Oh, and still they're listening?

Oh, yeah.

And they

every single week they listen.

Make sure their son blamed.

The Risingers have been a crucial part.

Anytime I've changed on FaceTime with them and like, I haven't watched the episode yet.

Don't support.

But I don't know.

It is a very interesting.

My mom just texted me.

If you're listening and thank you for, but really, like, it's only possible because people support, really.

If you're enjoying something,

thank you.

Yeah, it's especially like, I think there's been a very huge shift in online entertainment where a lot of people like you are used to youtube and having like free access to content but to have like a sustainable show like stinky dragon that has so many people involved in it and there's so much that goes into creating it um if you like something supporting it really is the best way to keep having it happen yeah and the stinky dragon audience just like has been such a joy to have they're amazing they're amazing

just even from i'm really active on like reddit and discord and like talking in the youtube comments with everybody but like i've even had moments where i'm trying to get the episode out and it's 2 a.m and it's like almost done rendering and I just hop into Discord and chat with people and they help me get to the point where I can get the episode uploaded.

So if you're listening to this and want to be part of the best community ever, join.

Join the party.

We can't do this without you.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Until next time.

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Yo, this is important, man.

Uh, my favorite Lululemon shorts, the ones you got me back in the day, I think they're pacebreakers, the ones with all the pockets.

Well, I just got back from vacation and I think I left them in my hotel room.

And dude, I need to replace these shorts.

I wear them like every day with that Lulu hoodie you got me.

Could you send me the link to where you got them?

Thanks, bro.

Talk soon.

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