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C2 Ep. 16 Eberron Reviewed 3
274 Plays4 years ago
This week Philip takes the crew through the Dragon’s First Breath arc and the Family Dinner Reduced. Come hear Eric explain his GM decisions and insights from the players on the game.
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Darrin Katzska, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrell DeLaney, Jessica Smith, Charles Compton, Richard Cree, Nastasia Raulerson, The Kamm Family, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, Andy Dossett, Rebekah Miller, deviouspoptart, Eðvarð Arnór Sigurðsson, Michael Clark, Eric Witman, and Dustin Troupe.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode is brought to you by Darryl Delaney, Ryan Royce, Darren Katska, Jessica Smith, Irene Villarito, Laura Pickron, Eric Whitman, Deavius Poptart, Elizabeth Clark, Andy Dossett, Natasha Rallerson, Richard Cree, The Cam Family, Charles Compton, Edvard Tharnoff, Dustin Troop, Rebecca Miller, Michael Clark, and David Scrams, along with all of our generous patrons.
00:00:36
Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
Hosts Introduction and Episode Focus
00:01:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Eberron Renewed, an actual play RPG podcast set in the Eberron campaign setting. I am your host, Phillip. I'm Trevor. I'm Randy.
00:01:28
Speaker
And I'm Eric. And as you may notice, I am not Jeff. Jeff is on a vision quest in Uzbekistan today. And so I am filling in for him to host this episode of Eberron Reviewed covering the Dragon's First Breath arc and the family dinner downtime episode.
00:01:47
Speaker
But first, let's go through a little bit of a recap of this arc.
Obligations in Genesis Role-Playing
00:01:53
Speaker
So Eric, talk to us a little bit about obligation. This is a Genesis thing, and we've discussed it a little bit in session zero, I believe, but this whole arc was defined by Roland Eris' obligation.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yes. So at the end of last session, we rolled and Aeris is popped up and we were able to get Olive to Kenneth in the mix, who is intrinsically tied to Aeris's obligation. So each character has an obligation and a score attached to that.
00:02:23
Speaker
And then based on actions they take in the campaign, that score might go up, might go down. The obligation might completely resolve itself and they have to pick a new obligation. So as you said, obligations can resolve themselves. Is that a mechanical thing where if the obligation reaches zero, it's considered resolved? Or is that a purely narrative thing where if the story of the obligation is over, then it has resolved?
00:02:48
Speaker
Both. I mean, an obligation reaching zero doesn't necessarily mean that that obligation is done and gone. Han Solo might have paid off all of his debts to Jabba, but then he has to take another job and all of a sudden he's back up to 10 or something like that. So it's really up to the player. Once they get their obligation down to zero, they're like, I want to try something different. And so we work together and introduce a new obligation into the campaign.
Planning Campaigns with Character Obligations
00:03:16
Speaker
So as as the person planning out the campaign, I'm curious, how do you feel when.
00:03:23
Speaker
Obligation gets rolled and it means that now the next session has to be about this or interrupted by it or something like that. Like, does that make your job you feel like that makes your job harder or is it fun? What is your. So I do a house rule that makes it fun and interesting in that I roll at the end of sessions as opposed to what the actual rules state rolling at the beginning of a session, because if you're at the beginning of a session, you're just like, oh, well, everything I've planned is now
00:03:52
Speaker
kind of catawampus. But rolling at the end of the session gives me the chance to plan out like, okay, when we rolled Aeris's obligation, it's okay, how do do I want to plan the whole session around this? Or do I want to have it be a kind of standard job that gets
00:04:08
Speaker
affected by Eris's obligation. And so obviously with this one, it was Eris's obligation comes calling and the whole session is based around this obligation that Eris has to all of. Did you design this special for that or was this sort of an arc you kind of had in mind? And when the obligation was rolled, you tied it to the obligation? No, I have a pretty good outline and idea of what everyone's
00:04:37
Speaker
obligation looks like and what stories I want to tell when those come up. So obviously like Reynard's obligation being family, like that's a pretty rich vein to mine from. And so I have some notes in my notebook that's like, okay, when his obligation gets rolled, here are some different ways that can manifest.
00:04:57
Speaker
Having said all that, what actually happened to this arc with Norsen and Jerome and all that stuff was specifically set aside for when Olive came calling, basically. It was not going to happen outside of Aeris's obligation. Cool. All right. So, yes, so we got Aeris got a.
00:05:22
Speaker
requests. The very first thing was the sigil cold. Yes, that's right. We got a new cold open for that.
Cold Opens and Character Backstories
00:05:29
Speaker
So how was that experience of recording solo? Interesting. It took a couple of takes of just kind of stopping and going back a few sentences, but.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was cool. I definitely wanted to give that level of insight into Sigils backstory because I think they have a very interesting story and want to start.
00:05:54
Speaker
start revealing that a bit more. And an interesting thing, though, that you and I had a conversation after that episode came out about how how that information gets revealed to you all versus the audience and stuff like that. So it'll be interesting moving forward, because just to pull back the curtain for the audience, the players had no idea about that until the episode aired. Yeah. That that was a fact about Sigil.
00:06:17
Speaker
So it was interesting to me, particularly because in the last review, there were some questions about Eris's view on Kire and New Kire and all of that stuff. And I hadn't honestly put any thought into that. And it made me put some thought into that. And what I had landed on is that Eris doesn't care much about New Kire, but she's very
00:06:40
Speaker
invested or she's she's she's very admiring of Merrick's and House Kenneth because she sees that as sort of the way forward for the survivors. And so this sigil story involving Merrick's was very interesting to me on on that level. Yeah, but well, it was really good.
Upcoming Plot Developments and NPC Plans
00:07:00
Speaker
I mean, regardless of.
00:07:02
Speaker
It being interesting how how we will learn that later on, but it was it was cool. Yeah. Got a lot of really positive feedback from our listeners. So it more will happen. We'll have some cold opens featuring NPCs, and I would like to start mixing and matching characters in the cold opens at some point, having
00:07:21
Speaker
Eris and Raynard going to the theater, which is something we had talked about. They enjoyed doing together and stuff like that. So we will we will see how that continues to manifest itself. But I enjoyed it. Cool. And then the arc began. Yes. And so we have all of ask a favor of Eris involving some research of hers that's been stolen. And Eris brings all of to meet the crew.
00:07:49
Speaker
and pitches this as a job that all of has asked. And Eris claims to have already negotiated the price and all these things like that. But essentially the job, the research has been stolen by a patron of House Kenneth. That would how you would describe him. Of House Kenneth, he is a consultant, I think would be the term. He is not formally a member of the House, but he works with them. OK.
00:08:19
Speaker
uh, named Norsen Mill Hatch. And I can't remember, are you, is, is this reviewed where you're willing to explain the algorithm that generated that name or is that into the campaign? That algorithm is being used for a number of NPCs. So I don't want to give away the goose. Excellent. Uh, well, it's a fabulous name. Well, thank you. Um,
00:08:42
Speaker
So research has been stolen by Norsen Millhatch and we take a job or we accept the job from Olive, which Eris essentially is pitching to the group as a favor to her on behalf of Olive. And there's some interesting interplay with Milo attempting to sort of pry into
00:09:10
Speaker
What exactly is going on with this person? And Eric ended up imposing some strain from some roles there. So, Randy, you want to want to talk about that? What is what is Milo picking at? Milo, this. It's I think it's Milo likes Eris and, you know, a lot.
00:09:35
Speaker
And her being young, he's concerned about her. What is she getting herself into? You know, it's, it's, it's more of like a protective role that he's coming from. And, and I think he kind of gets, he kind of got uncomfortable when he noticed that he was making Eris uncomfortable.
00:10:00
Speaker
Right. That's that's why he backed off because he doesn't want to upset Eris, but he cares for Eris. So he's like, what's going on? What are we doing here? I think it was from that standpoint for Milo. Yeah. Yeah. So we.
Lab Heist and Character Dynamics
00:10:20
Speaker
we end up taking the job and heading out in our new, at least semi-sentient vehicle. The full range of sentience has not been explored yet. Tasha, our air, our sky coach.
00:10:41
Speaker
to go and case the joint, as it were, to investigate Milhatch's laboratory. And the session ended, I believe, with us at the lot or the session, the first episode ended with us at the laboratory observing things. Yes.
00:11:06
Speaker
So episode two was us breaking into the laboratory. Well, spotting a couple of individuals once you got to the rooftop. Yes. Trevor spotted his favorite woman. Yes. Rainard, rather. It was a wonderful facial expression, Trevor. I'm sorry the listeners couldn't see it. Maybe I should give it a noise. Oh.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, we spot Posey and her big companion. And I didn't know I was hosting this, so I don't have notes. What's the what's the big guy's name again, Eric? Solomon Callaway, Solomon Callaway. Excellent. So we have and who, sorry, at the top of the second episode, whose cold open was that? I believe that was
00:11:59
Speaker
I think that was Hob and Kath. Yeah, that's right. And we don't have to talk about that. That was the thing that. Yeah. But yeah, so we have Hob and Kath beat up a bunch of rich kids who are bringing
00:12:15
Speaker
Fool's Hope, is that what the drug was? Fool's Hope into did you make that one up or was that out of one of the books? That's straight out of exploring Eberron. OK, so, yep, it's it's a plant that grows in the manifest zones of Erian, the the plane of hope. Nice. What are the effects of Fool's Hope? It makes you relieved of any form of fear and convinced that you are invincible and capable of anything. And in a city like Sharn, that's just made of towers. That's real bad.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, so it gives you this very euphoric state of mind. So, yeah, but we got some interesting insight between Kath and Hobb. They discussed a few members of the party and I know at least one listener did not care at all for Hobb talking about his friends behind their back. Yes, my daughter had some opinions about that. You're not supposed to talk about your friends behind their back. So polite. Yeah, they talked about
00:13:14
Speaker
Eris and Milo and Sana, I believe, were the three topics of conversation. But yeah, it was fun. It was it was fun to get to. I've always liked the idea of it's very evocative of me of what I've said in our discord is my favorite scene from Thor Ragnarok, where Thor and Loki are just fighting their way through these wave after wave of bad guys on their way to the hangar.
00:13:37
Speaker
And having this really intense conversation, a lot of really great character stuff while combat is happening around them. And I was trying to evoke that by telling Jeff, OK, these guys are so far below you and Cass level from a combat standpoint, so we don't need to worry about that. We're just going to role play through the combat. So that was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was cool. I liked it.
00:13:59
Speaker
And I think I think a game developed between me and Jeff when we were role playing it, if you go back and listen to it, that totally makes sense for Hob and Kath to be playing in fiction, of trying to describe more and more elaborate, like one upping each other on the the combat moves that they are doing while talking. So I really enjoyed that aspect of the the escalation of the absurdity of these these power moves that these two characters are doing. Yes, literally flexing.
00:14:27
Speaker
But yes, so on the rooftop,
The Escape and Character Motivations
00:14:29
Speaker
Solomon and Posey are spotted along with Norsen Millhatch and Jerome De Canis, who's the actual house heir who's present in this laboratory now.
00:14:46
Speaker
That was an interesting thing to me with the relationship between Norsen and the house being somewhat informal. So is this a Canis facility that Millhatch is allowed to run or is this Millhatch's facility and he's been loaned some Canis heirs?
00:15:02
Speaker
So, yeah, this is personnel. This is Millhatch Research HQ. So essentially the way all have kind of described it at the beginning of the first episode, I think, is that Millhatch has a a brilliant mind for this kind of thing, rivaling even merits in terms of his imagination to come up with creations. He just is cursed with the inability to actually realize those creations. And so.
00:15:27
Speaker
He provides the house with some designs and things like that in exchange for a crew of. Can if people to work in his research facility. Yeah. And is Millhouse Millhouse research the official canon name of his of his company or does it have something fancier to it? Millhatch research is what it is right now, so.
00:15:50
Speaker
Yeah, so we have another layer of all of this with the presence of Posey DeCanis. Not her cannon name.
00:16:03
Speaker
I know, but I don't want to just call her the lady. I know. I'm just reminding the audience that we did not find out her name and it is not. Yeah, we do not know her name, but Posey DeCanis is her name until we learn it. But at this point in the session, everybody's real hopeful that you're going to learn her name. Yes. Yes, hopes bring us eternal. Yeah, and we don't yet know the big guy's name until later on. Yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
So we eventually decide to just go for it because Norsen is about to get into the classic big cylinder of colored mist. So yeah, Hobb jumps in and the fight kicks off.
00:16:47
Speaker
sort of blast our way in and the we have sort of a back and forth with Eris and Jerome trying to break and unbreak the control panel while Hobb and Milo beat up the laboratory assistance. And Raynard just feels it all to do the job. That's my M.O.
00:17:15
Speaker
Raynard steals it all. But yeah, that that episode culminates with Raynard grabbing everything and Aeris running around to go get the car. Yeah, we bring Tasha around and Raynard and Aeris enter the lobby at the same time and runs smack into Posey. Sans, her gigantic friend, who at this point in the arc is called Biggin.
00:17:41
Speaker
But then the car comes to us. Yes, incapacitates our friend. Yeah, next episode, we get Raynard's cold open, which was done, I think, entirely improvisationally because you had a scheduling malfunction and Raynard and Trevor stepped in.
00:18:07
Speaker
So yeah. How did you design that on the fly or did you have that in your pocket for whenever you were going to do a Raynard cold open or the next one? It was it was an idea that I had. It's not exactly how I intended it to. It was going to be a later on cold open potentially with Raynard and Sana going to a fancy dress party, which might potentially come up later. But because we hadn't started doing mixed
00:18:37
Speaker
mixed groups yet, I wanted to hold off. So and it just made a lot of fun and a lot of sense to have Raynard like showing that Raynard still goes into the upper parts of the city to live his old life kind of thing, which was a lot of fun. So so Trevor, in your cold opens, I have observed that a lot of Raynard's reaction to any kind of confrontation is just to see how far you can keep the witty one line banter going back and forth.
00:19:05
Speaker
To what degree is that Trevor having fun and to what degree is that Raynard Raynard's defense mechanism or are they different? I think I've misunderstood what charming is.
00:19:21
Speaker
Cause that's me trying to be charming. And kind of just, you know, using wit to maybe weasel my way out of a situation or just kind of prolong the inevitable at least. So. I mean, charm is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.
00:19:44
Speaker
Plenty of people find Reynard perfectly charming. I'm sure that's true. There you go. Just not Philip. I wasn't objecting to it. I was just. Yeah. I had observed that in both of his, so I was curious. But no, I just kind of I felt like that was the relationship established in the first Cold Open with that with that detective character.
00:20:05
Speaker
And so I just- Verla, right? Verla, Eric? Yes. So I just wanted to keep building on top of that. That was definitely their relationship at least. So I was interested. Eric asked you a bunch of questions that gave you opportunities to make Reynard seem
00:20:27
Speaker
softer and more sympathetic as far as like Reynard's view towards the opulence and absurd level of crazy wealth around him. And you didn't take any of them. Like you're like, no, he's he wants it back. If he could have it all back tomorrow, he would do it at the drop of a hat. And he's jealous of all these people that they still have. So why? Why did you decide?
00:20:51
Speaker
that that's just a trait that is on my character sheet being selfish so i i took the ball and ran with it um okay cool so i'm still kind of developing
00:21:06
Speaker
this character but we all are we've played we've played four sessions hoping at some point there's a growth and a evolution of of this person because right now it's not that great of a guy so I mean we're all criminals um yeah yeah so um so that
00:21:35
Speaker
That's the cold open for that one. And then yes, we begin the next one with an outright fight between Hobb and Jerome and then Hobb and Norsen. Mm hmm. We avoid a fight thanks to some triumphs with Posey. Although I'm curious, would she have fought us? She has. I.
00:21:58
Speaker
With I mean, I feel like I gave this indication through describing her posturing and gesturing. She was not interested in a fight like she like. It was two against one for one, and she's far too smart to take those odds. And then, yeah, she she was not interested in fighting you all. So didn't at some point you said we were not ready for her anyway.
00:22:22
Speaker
I don't recall that, but it's entirely possible. I thought I thought maybe you had said you don't want to fight her because you're not ready. She definitely was not ready for Tasha. No, correct. Just as she was about to declare her name. Tasha comes busting in through the wall. And then we had to talk talk hob down
00:22:50
Speaker
from continuing his fight with Norsen in order to get him into the into the cab and escaping. And that is the other thing I'm bummed that Jeff couldn't be here is that it would be fun to hear Jeff talk about how he made that decision, because it seemed pretty in doubt for a minute there as to whether or not we were going to get him to we were going to get him to leave.
00:23:11
Speaker
Well, and I like that I like that thus far, it's becoming very clear that all of you have your your different things that like you all are all about, like professionalism and doing the job and getting the job done unless.
00:23:26
Speaker
This like with with hobbits, unless there's somebody like tough that I can punch right with. And so I really like having that wrinkle of like coming out of the last arc where hob was just all business because there wasn't anything interesting for him. So he's like, no, let's just go do the thing. Whereas Eris was really struggling in that whole arc.
00:23:46
Speaker
And then we get the inverse of Eris has no interest in sticking around and fighting just because. Right. But Hobb definitely wants to. So, yeah, I like I like getting that that those little insights. And was this the first arc where we got to see Milo's wand, Randy? I'm trying to remember. I think it was. I think it was. Yes. Yeah.
Milo's Wand and Personal Stories
00:24:10
Speaker
The the charred piece of wood.
00:24:12
Speaker
So I'm interested. At what point did you decide that's what your wand was going to look like and and kind of the story behind that? Well, I thought, you know, when the bar burnt down and he lost Kylie, at some point he would have went back to see if there was anything salvageable, a memory of his wife, you know, something. Yeah. And
00:24:42
Speaker
he couldn't find anything. I mean, it was just pretty well torched gone. And as he's leaving, for some reason, his attention is drawn to this piece of wood, this little stick. And he recognizes, based on where it's at, that it's actually a cross brace
00:25:09
Speaker
that was on the stool that Kylie always sat on. So that's like his only memory of Kylie. And to think that it could just be from a stool, like this is it. And so that's what he picks up. And in my mind, I kind of think that maybe that's at the point to where
00:25:40
Speaker
He starts hearing Kylie's voice maybe. Okay. You know, he starts hearing a voice. You know what? At first he thinks it's just his thoughts. You know, he's just hearing things that she would normally say. And then, you know, and he thinks maybe at some point that is this really her? Am I going crazy? Am I crazy? So that's kind of the story of the wand. It was like the only thing salvageable.
00:26:10
Speaker
and something that he found that reminded him of her. Very cool. So I'm curious, Randy, Milo is not tough at all. So what physically, physically, physically, yes, no, yes, definitely not. Milo is squishy in in gaming parlance.
00:26:37
Speaker
and also capable of lots of destructive ranged abilities. So what makes Milo leap down onto the warehouse floor surrounded by bad guys? I think he. Hob has protected Milo for some time and. And not too long ago, Milo had no magic.
00:27:03
Speaker
Milo's just running numbers out of a bar. He's just, you know, your average ordinary everyday halfling and, and not the brightest tool in the shed, not dumb, but you know, Kylie pretty much took care of the business end. And now that he has some ability, he looks up to hob as his protector, but now, Hey, he has a chance to protect hob.
00:27:33
Speaker
And his other friends, of course, also. So, you know, I just envisioned Milo at the top of that warehouse, getting ready to put barrier on hob and then hob goes crashing through before he has a chance. So I don't think Milo even thought it was just like, Oh my gosh, there goes hob. I gotta go. So he just drops down in there to protect his friend. Cool.
00:28:00
Speaker
Uh, but that's one of his characteristics. One of his characteristics is I think it's courageous or one of those to where, you know, he just, he's not afraid of the danger. And after what has happened to him.
00:28:15
Speaker
I don't know if there's a bit of recklessness cause you know, he still mourns the loss of his wife. You know, maybe the sooner he's gone, the sooner he can join her. Maybe that's going through his head. So I don't think he's really reckless, reckless. I just think he, he just wants to protect his friends now that he feels like, Hey, I can do something. Cool. Uh, and eventually we get the,
00:28:42
Speaker
Um, we get hobbit into the cab, uh, and burst out through the skylights and off back to the four sales, uh, and return all those research, uh, and somewhere as well as all of the other research. Good job, Reynard.
00:29:01
Speaker
Yes, I think that's the right call. I think that needs to be our M.O. from now on is none of this like searching around for the precise thing to steal. We just steal everything, everything. Anytime we're sent on a take it on a on a stealing job, just ransack the place. I think that's that's just good business.
00:29:21
Speaker
Until the point where time comes that we steal everything and we go only to find out there was a hidden compartment somewhere that has what we were looking for. Yeah. Yeah. Until it's not in the filing cabinet. Yeah, that's true. And somewhere in there.
00:29:42
Speaker
Eris speaks on speaks without care and blows the very, very bad deception she's been running to where she's been not quite letting on to Olive that she is part of this crew. And so now Olive knows that of Eris as well.
00:30:03
Speaker
So I think that brings us up to the end of the arc. So we have some listener questions. All right.
Game System Discussion and Crew Independence
00:30:14
Speaker
So first, starting off from our Q&A tier, we have a question from Darren.
00:30:20
Speaker
Uh, for Eric, did you ever consider using a forged in the dark system for campaign two? And for those of you that don't know, forged in the dark, uh, has a number of systems. The most, the original and most famous one is blades in the dark, which is all about criminal syndicates in a big city. Yep. And heists and all kinds of really cool stuff.
00:30:42
Speaker
No, is the short answer, simply because that system wasn't super on my radar when I was mulling about what I wanted to do for campaign two. And the biggest system that was on my mind coming out of kind of a bit of fatigue with fifth edition was Genesis. I really thought that Eberron could flourish in the system and so that that's what we went with and Forged in the Dark was never really on my radar.
00:31:09
Speaker
But it is a really cool system, so maybe in three years we'll see what happens. Well, and of course, our policy of widespread theft is applicable because there are a lot of a lot of mechanics and blades in the dark that one could swipe and apply to other systems. Absolutely.
00:31:29
Speaker
And in a sense, we kind of already are kind of accidentally, it wasn't, I think, inspired specifically by this. But I think Blades in the Dark also does the rotation of go on a job, have a downtime, go on a job, have a downtime, which we are doing.
00:31:44
Speaker
Okay, Richard asks, concerning the main job and the hob-cath cold open, how much freedom do members of the Boromar clan have for selecting the jobs they go on? Are they free to just do whatever they want until the clan calls or do they need approval from the main halfling, Richard can't remember his name, for every job?
00:32:07
Speaker
for every job they do since they could be considered clan resources and getting hurt on a non-clan job could possibly be considered a breach of contract. First and foremost, the crew as they stand right now are definitely at-will employees. They're not under contract by Boromar and Boromar owes them
00:32:26
Speaker
Very little, I guess, if that makes sense. And it's a question of how busy the clan keeps you. So the higher up you move within the clan, the more the clan needs your talents and uses them. And so where the crew is right now, they're pretty low on the totem pole. So it's like, hey, when we have a job that we need done that we don't want to be easily traced back to the clan, we'll call you.
00:32:53
Speaker
If if you don't get a call from us, you're you're free to do whatever kind of thing. So the clan isn't keeping close tabs on the party yet. If they continue doing well, then that might begin to change. But yeah, I have a follow up to that. How much? So I and I initially thought the twist of that arc was going to be, whoops, these guys are in fact, Boromar. How how much does the clan keep our crew in the loop of their activities in our in our neighborhood?
00:33:24
Speaker
I would say at least Grum is really like knowledgeable. So if if somebody were to go to Grum and be like, hey, like presumably Kath did of, hey, there's these guys selling fool's hope down here. Are they related to the Klan in any way? Grum would be able to very quickly have a turnaround and say yes or no. And then that would be green light, red light kind of thing. OK. So you all definitely have the resources to figure out if you don't know outright. But you all are pretty knowledgeable about what goes on in your neighborhood and what is Klan business and what is not.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah. I think Milo would have some of that info based on trucking around at different places. All right. I'm interested in the last part of the question though. Would
00:34:08
Speaker
Would us getting hurt and if if Hob had been injured on the job on the the non clan business or if any of us had been hurt doing all those job, would we be in trouble with the clan? I feel like you would be in trouble with Grum. OK, like I don't I don't know if the clan would care too much. They just hire somebody else.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's it's Grum's reputation and income that's kind of on the line with you all being ready and able to to take jobs. OK, so that that would be the the the line that gets crossed if you all get hurt not doing clean business. That makes sense.
00:34:48
Speaker
All right, Laura would like to know whether Norsen was in any way inspired by the 2002 epic Spider-Man starring Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe.
Listener Questions and Character Choices
00:35:03
Speaker
I mean, if you all are in the discord listeners, then you saw at least a couple of gifts going around after that episode released of Norsin in the tube with the red mist. And I mean, yeah, there's definitely points of inspiration that come from I'm a huge comic book nerd and I love superhero movies. So, yeah, I mean, that that was at least part of the point of inspiration for Norsin's transformation was that that very
00:35:30
Speaker
cool scene from the 2002 epic Spider-Man, starring Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe, directed by Sam Raimi. So, yeah, I mean, I Philip and I have never made any secret of our penchant to steal things for our tabletop games. So, yep, you got me. Eric wants to know what upgrade Sigil got from Merrick's in the cold open.
00:35:55
Speaker
So this was something that was cut for time. I know it's shocking that as long as that cold open was that I cut something for time. But yeah, it was supposed to be an implication of the thing that Sigil can do with other dragon things that require a dragon mark. That was part of what Merix did.
00:36:13
Speaker
did to them was was Sigil's ability to do that kind of thing. So there might be more to it. We'll see. Stay tuned. But yeah, that's that's the the upgrade they got. Cool. Eric also wants to know for Trevor. Did Trevor know about the history of bird masks on everyone renewed when he made the choice to wear an owl mask? I did not.
00:36:42
Speaker
Do you now? Wait, wait. No, I do. From the last campaign. I listen to that one because I'm not on it. But I did not put two or two together before I said I want to wear an owl mask.
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah, in my head, I was smiling for me at a year like he went with a bird mask. That's phenomenal. But for all the people that listen to campaign one, they're now listening to this campaign. That was a fun, fun moment, I'm sure. But I made an effort to have every other mask that appeared in that cold open not be avian based because you didn't want us to hunt down and murder the attendees of that party. I just wanted to implement gold. And so for some reason, the first thing in my mind was gold alfeathers. So.
00:37:31
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Awesome. Then Richard wants to know, I presume this is that, Eric, is Charne just fantasy New York? Should we be paying attention to different borough accents to place in PCs or? Or am I giving Eric too much credit? I mean, give me as much credit as you want, because I am a brilliant genius who is a masterful storyteller now.
00:38:00
Speaker
It's Sharn is a as a metropolitan place with opulent districts and less opulent districts. I mean, so I mean, Sharn is definitely fantasy New York and it has nothing to do with us. Yeah. So no, I mean, but I am not.
00:38:19
Speaker
either knowledgeable nor adept enough with my voice work ability to file down my accent to different burrows. So don't don't you worry about that. Don't don't give me that much credit on my my accent game. So if somebody sounds like they're from the Bronx and somebody else sounds like they're from Brooklyn, that's just what I maybe watched a movie that shifted my accent a bit. So, yeah, no, I'm not getting that that detailed. Yeah. But
00:38:47
Speaker
All right. And then we have a few questions from our from just from non Q&A patrons, but from the Eberron Reviewed Discussion Channel. And since we have some time, we'll go to those. Put a marker. Do we know Essex's proper name and does Essex use their proper name? Not off the top of my head. Do I know? OK, then we'll just go with Essex. OK, Essex asks.
00:39:17
Speaker
Uh, I have a question for Eric, which maybe along the DM brain trust, but I'll put it here in case he wants to answer. I'm curious why you elected to include sigil, cath and sauna, uh, in the campaign as regularly recurring NPCs that go on jobs.
00:39:32
Speaker
versus maybe just a single NPC that could act as a group handler, giving them jobs, letting them get to it. As a GM DM, I tend to limit NPCs, so I have less to keep track of, but also to move things along. I've noticed that it tends to draw out both combats and skill challenges with extra rolling, and they sometimes also sometimes fade into the background and are forgotten. Like that cleric in the first campaign, what was his name?
00:39:58
Speaker
Oh, Akko, you will forever be a meme on our show. So. Yeah, this first off, it's a very fair question. Obviously, having four PCs at the table introducing three more NPCs that are supposed to interact in a meaningful way with the story is is a lot. And I think it's. It's a certain way of thinking about it, because I feel like if I had done a single NPC. Then.
00:40:28
Speaker
that acts as the group's handler, gives them jobs, let them go do it, then that would just be very much a mouthpiece for the DM. When you have that NPC that just gives the jobs, then that's just very much kind of a hub NPC that's like, okay, here's your next quest, go do it. And I didn't want that. That's why Grum hasn't featured a whole lot on the show, even though that's technically his role.
00:40:52
Speaker
is because I don't want to have that feel of a single person that is me within the game world giving them their quest. The reason for Kath, Sigil and Sana. Is. It's not something that can fully go into because it plays into the the overarching story and things that haven't been revealed about their characters still yet to come. But I wanted to have.
00:41:20
Speaker
a small group of NPCs that could be alongside the PCs to answer any in-world questions or provide any insights about the clan or jobs or anything like that, should they come up. And also wanted to show a level of diversity with the crew and
00:41:41
Speaker
I don't know. This is something that on the Geek Pantheon YouTube channel, I did a video not too long ago about things to do before your session zero and kind of deciding what you want out of the campaign as a game master and communicating that at session zero so the players can buy in properly and all that kind of stuff. And one of the things, one of the examples I gave was very much from my own experience with this campaign and prepping for it of do you want to have NPCs that
00:42:09
Speaker
are meaningful and matter and are, for the narrative purposes, I'm putting air quotes on equal footing with the PCs. And that's just speaking from a narrative standpoint, not an actual practice because obviously the PCs are the PCs. But
00:42:24
Speaker
Making that decision and then communicating that to your players at session zero Which the party was made aware that like I was going to be creating these three characters. They are members of the crew They are your friends. They are meaningful and and should be treated as such and so that's why I created them is it something that I wanted to do I wanted to have this crew really feel like a family and I feel like having some NPCs that can be the glue between disparate and
00:42:50
Speaker
PCs that maybe don't have the strongest relationship would be beneficial. And I know this is a very long answer, but there's a there's a multitude of reasons why I included these characters. And I understand from a GM standpoint, I mean, I was I was as guilty of it as anybody with ACO and Rickard and Paolo, like they would be on jobs and we would all forget they were there and then be like, oh, hey, what's up?
00:43:14
Speaker
And I've had a couple of slip ups already in this campaign with the Halden job, where it was like all three of the NPCs went with them and I would forget about them and they'd be like, oh, yeah, they're there. So we have made an adjustment in the arc that's coming up just to not spoil anything, but this is just a structural thing where we're going to try to maybe like limit with like not having all three of them go on every job kind of thing to to prevent that from happening.
00:43:40
Speaker
But I feel like the cold opens, I feel like the downtime episodes really afford us the opportunity to cement these NPCs as people that belong alongside the PCs. And that's just something that I wanted to do in this game. And so that's that's why I did it, because it's something I wanted to do. And I feel like it's been pretty good thus far. So we'll see how it continues. I would like to say that I'm really enjoying the NPCs and I really like the downtimes.
00:44:09
Speaker
I really, really liked the family get together, the feast, because it kind of made me think that, you know, Milo probably really gets along with Sana. You know, Milo likes to go to events. So when Sana asks him, you know, he's yeah, let's go. And you know, and Sana's really pleased with Milo. So I'm thinking, you know, there's probably some type of a relationship there that could be explored.
00:44:39
Speaker
Yeah. So so I'm really enjoying the NPCs. Awesome. It's good to hear. All right. Next question is from Darren, who asks, Eric, what would you have done differently with campaign two if exploring Eberron had been out before you started?
00:45:02
Speaker
Honestly, there's not a whole lot and we're still early enough in the campaign to to where now that the book is out, I've been able to implement things that I like. But Sharn is really heavily covered in rising from the last war and not touched on that much in exploring Eberron. So there's there's not a whole lot. We're not going to be doing a plane jumping like epic high fantasy, which exploring Eberron touches on much more.
00:45:26
Speaker
So not a whole lot, honestly. Exploring everyone is much more in campaign one territory than campaign two. Well, of course, because we already finished campaign one. Yeah, that's the way our lives go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and there's of course, there's the ultimate sharn city of towers from the three point five, where you get an entire book on sharn. So.
00:45:49
Speaker
Yeah. Last question is from Kevin. Kevin asks, was there a way to stop Millhatch's transformation? And then there's a second question, but that's two separate questions. So start with that one.
00:46:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, obviously, if if Jerome given Eris's initial action of messing up the the panel that completely debilitated the machine, if then Jerome would have been like if Hobb would have run up and started physically like keeping Jerome away from the panel, then yeah, I mean, there's there's no way logically that the transformation could have happened.
00:46:28
Speaker
So I very much played it as logically as I could in world of like, OK, the panel has been destroyed. So Jerome's next step is going to be I need to fix this. And as long as nobody prevents me from fixing it, I'm going to continue spending every turn rolling until I can get this thing going again.
00:46:47
Speaker
because we've committed at this point. So so yes, there was a way to stop it. It just wasn't going to be a single role shot. Eris does it. Hooray. Roll credits kind of thing. Right. So second question is the Sky Coach persona based on the Star Wars Droid Brain vehicle attachment, presumably from the Star Wars RPG. I haven't looked at all the vehicle attachments yet yet.
00:47:15
Speaker
If that doesn't answer your question, the answer is no. Yeah, that was not an attachment that I was familiar with when we were talking about that. That was from the Keyforge book. Yeah. Keyforge has a whole bunch of
00:47:32
Speaker
item customization things, and that's what we're using the the amber crafting system is what we're using for Artifice. And so while the ship is an unconventional application of those, I think we applied the mind of its own amber effect to.
00:47:54
Speaker
to the ship. Yeah. So mechanically speaking, what that means, if I can't remember if I explained this in in session, but we can't believe what that means. What that means is that Tasha has three ranks in a skill piloting and also provides a boost to that skill. And when Eris is flying Tasha, I get to use her ranks instead of mine, instead of Eris's, which are none. So.
00:48:22
Speaker
Tasha makes Eris much better at flying, essentially. So before we yeah, before we wrap up the episode, Randy very brought up a very good point that we did. Yeah, we didn't discuss the downtime. That's what I was about to say. We've got some time and we I entirely failed to skip off the down, skip over the downtime. So I'm sure that everyone will be thrilled at the next review to have Jeff back. But
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah, I totally skipped over the downtime, so let's return to that. So I want to know. So when I mean the big the bulk of the downtime was us grocery shopping and preparing things to bring. And I want to know how did everyone decide what they would bring? So Trevor, Randy, how did you decide what Raynard and Milo would bring to the unity dinner?
00:49:13
Speaker
Well, mine was pretty easy. Rainard likes to get drunk. So. Wine was at the top of the list and then. Just making it fun, adding some other level of excitement, you know. Why not? So there was not a lot of thought other than Rainard likes to get drunk and have fun. I mean, that's yeah.
00:49:40
Speaker
For Milo, I was thinking that, you know, what is a halfling? What would be some things they might like? Because once upon a time, I'm sure it would have been Kylie going with and Kylie bringing, you know, making something to take. But now it's kind of fallen to mom. So I say, you know, what kind of halfling foods could there be? And I just came up with. Sure.
00:50:06
Speaker
with the I don't even remember what it was, a lamb, something or other lamb mince pie. Yeah, lamb mince pie, button mince pie. Yes, mutton mince pie. Well, and I love that Raynard failed the Knowledge Society check to figure out the appropriate wine. And so got a very.
00:50:28
Speaker
Prank wine. Party wine, yeah. What about Aeris? I hadn't really thought about what Aeris likes to eat, but for quite a long time, Aeris was eating food mostly of
00:50:47
Speaker
Dargul origin and goblin origin. And with Sharna having such a large goblin population, I assumed that there's probably quite widely available options. So it's probably a fairly popular
00:51:04
Speaker
cuisine in Sharn as well. And so I decided to just go with that is that she's probably continued to just sort of eat what she had gotten used to since Sharn has it available. And so decided to go with that. And I was able to very happy to have the goblin glossary from exploring Eberron lists some various goblin foods. And so I grabbed three options from that.
00:51:28
Speaker
including a super, super strong alcohol that didn't didn't end up getting any play, but. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's OK. And we ran out of rain. We straight up ran out of drunkenness. Yeah, we just straight up ran out of time. And you know, I wanted to bring up that bit in in Eris again. And so it was an easy and easy opportunity to to do that.
00:51:58
Speaker
and get to go to the market. For Kath and Sana's dishes, I went to the gastronomy page on the Eberron Wiki. Oh, that's funny. And they have listings of different dishes by country. So that's funny. One of the brilliant dishes, by the way, on this this page is thrice poached eggs. And that really bothers me. And I just want to give a notice if anybody goes to that. Don't ever poach your eggs three times. Like just poach them once for four minutes and then they're done. You're just going to overcook them. Yeah. Why would you?
00:52:27
Speaker
That doesn't make any sense. What kind of eggs, I guess, is the question. It's a fantasy world. So maybe there's a kind of egg that you must poach thrice. Otherwise it's deadly. Yes. So anyway. Yeah. Oh, there was one question about that. I remember where it was. I didn't see it. But there was a question of.
00:52:45
Speaker
Most of us, other than Reynard who just went with drinks, all of us who brought food decided to have it homemade. And someone asked, was there anything that said we had to? And no, we were just expected to bring something.
00:52:59
Speaker
Yeah, that was from Richard. Yeah. Ask that. Yeah. From Eris's perspective, if you ask Eris to bring something, she's going to make it like there's not a wife. Why would you buy something that you can make? That's just silly. I don't know the answer from Hobbs perspective, but that's that's Eris's view on that. But no, we were not obligated to to to bake. We just all decided to.
00:53:33
Speaker
Well, OK. Is there anything else anyone would like to bring up before we bring this wild ride to a conclusion?
00:53:43
Speaker
I mean, I just want to say then we we kind of mentioned the discord. I think this the family dinner downtime episode may have been one of if not my favorite episode that we've recorded for for either campaign just because I even though there was so little dice rolling, like I loved the amount of.
00:54:03
Speaker
insight, we kind of got into not only each individual character, but their their dynamics and the idea that Milo and Raynard are the drinking buddies that kind of get maybe a little wild. But Milo is the one who is very quickly to jump in when things go a bit too far and begin to start start sorting things out. Like Milo was so quick to jump over and start talking to Catherine and be like, I'm so sorry.
00:54:30
Speaker
or the idea that I mean, we didn't really get this was the first time that you've ever said regarding Eris. The Eris really hates small talk, but enjoys sharing stories and things like that. And we hadn't gotten that before.
00:54:45
Speaker
I think it's probably Eris doesn't understand, doesn't know how to properly like Eris is obviously socially awkward, but can speak very expertly on many things. Well, very expertly on one thing, but competently on many things. And so she needs a topic.
00:55:04
Speaker
Well, and I what the other thing I really liked is the fact that when at the top of the episode, I asked like, OK, who has been and who has not been. And when you and Randy responded with you had, you didn't just say yes, you like provided some further context for whether or not like in Milo's case, you've gone regularly. Eris goes out of obligation. And then why Raynard and Hobb haven't gone. And so that gave a lot of
00:55:34
Speaker
a lot of texture for how Sana would try to convince everybody and get everybody together and getting to see Sana and Kath's personalities come out a lot more. Because I think we've given Sigil a lot of really good play and they have gotten their chance to shine. And I think this is the first chance for Sana and Kath to really get that opportunity as well to start making their personalities known a bit more. Yeah.
00:56:00
Speaker
I really like that. Yeah, no, I did too. I liked we all expressed this at the end. I desperately wish we had gotten to do more of the dinner party like I. It was already a long episode. I wish we could have just gone on and done more of the dinner party because it was. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And I was it was very interesting to meet some of the NPCs families and that sort of thing. And I'm terrified because inevitably they will have to all die tragically.
00:56:31
Speaker
In the in the season in the season one finale, but. Yeah, no, I'm sure that's not actually Eric's not that horrifyingly cruel, but anyway, no, I agree. I liked that episode a lot. Any thoughts on the family dinner episode from Milo or Raynard's perspective?
00:56:56
Speaker
I mean, Milo, you kind of spoken about it a bit, but I thought it was fun. It's just, it's just a kind of a chill episode, but some still good stuff happens. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of like Philip. I was kind of hoping that, you know, more at the party, more mingling how we interacted with others there. But like, and when I was planning out the, uh,
00:57:20
Speaker
Yeah, when I was planning out the idea of the episode, the party definitely played a more central role. But at the same time, I really like the the dynamic that we got and having some like the tension between Sana and Hobb and things like that. So I.
00:57:35
Speaker
Uh, I, I've always told myself that the reason I like the downtime episodes is they're given a chance to breathe and I don't have to push you all along as much as a normal session. And so I tried to stick with that and be like, no, they, they want to go grocery shopping. They want to spend meaningful time doing this. So let's do it. Let's introduce Jorgen, uh, and, and all that kind of stuff. So yeah.
00:57:55
Speaker
Yeah. And the wine seller who we had another question asking if the wine seller had a wine seller and one assumes probably. So, yeah. Although does it count as a seller in Sharn?
00:58:12
Speaker
I don't know. Isn't that just a lower floor of a tower? I'm just mad that I didn't think of that putt on my own. Yeah, Richard did ask about the wine cellar, but then asked about the condescending tone. And if it's somebody from Raynard's pass to the naster grind or grape to stomp.
00:58:35
Speaker
No, this I just wanted to have a really snooty pretentious person selling wine like that. That seemed I was trying to evoke very much kind of the the food critic from Ratatouille, just that that very snobbish purveyor of food and drink. So, yeah. Anyway, it was a fun episode. I liked it. It was.
00:59:01
Speaker
All right, well, I believe that brings this episode of Eberron reviewed to a conclusion. If you would like to be a part of the conversation, you can head on over to our Facebook page, the Geek Pantheon.
00:59:17
Speaker
You can also find us at thegeekpantheon.com and on our Patreon page patreon.com slash thegeekpantheon where you can usually find sort of the hub of all of our activity and posts and videos and that sort of thing. We're also on all the social media, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter,
00:59:40
Speaker
And of course, since we have a Patreon at both our Patreon and on our Facebook page, you can find a link to our Discord, which is the easiest way by far to become a part of the conversation in the community. We've got a great community on our Patreon and we have numerous tiers that are just
00:59:57
Speaker
or numerous channels for discussion of our various shows, as well as general geekiness. And then there are also a number of Patreon Patreon exclusive channels that will get you a little more direct access.
01:00:15
Speaker
to us. And if you want to be able to have your questions answered on Eberron Reviewed, you can sign up for our Patreon, as that's where all the questions that we have answered came from. They came from channels exclusive to our wonderful and generous patrons who make it possible for us to record this show with any kind of quality at all.
01:00:38
Speaker
So anyway, thanks so much for listening. This has been Eberron Reviewed. I am probably never again going to be allowed to be your host, Philip. I'm Trevor. I'm Randy. And I'm Eric. And we'll see you next time.