Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Fellowship of the Tavern - 3rd Round - Final Round of Arc One
106 Plays2 years ago
The Fellowship of the Tavern is a mini series that explores the cast of the podcast. Here we gather around the table, have a beer and talk about our characters, the story we're playing and what we think may happen. After our previous episode, we have a lot to talk about!
Recommended
Transcript
Intriguing Cabaret Club Story
00:00:28
Speaker
Okay, listen up big fellas. This is the time of night sky Finally to return and made it out of the blind. I own a cabaret club
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, listen, listen, I have a story to tell you. It's about, it's got Mexican now. I've got a story to tell you about the warriors of the Canandaise.
00:01:10
Speaker
I have a feeling now that Nice Guy, however he looks in your mind, also wears Rouge lipstick as well. And a beret. I imagine he's got a massive string of garlic or onions around his neck.
00:01:22
Speaker
Oh, that's very racist. Racist, how dare you? I'm the one doing the voice, that's all. That's big. Welcome, welcome to the fellowship of the cabaret, no, the, what's it called? Nice guy's cabaret of naked, of naked cobalt.
00:01:38
Speaker
We are here and Darren, don't look so confused. It's fine. Let's go. Do kobolds wear clothes? Don't argue. It's a cannon now. It's cannon now. Let's go with the story. Oh, now we're going to be a nice guy. Kill me, please. You know what I've got? I've got images of you. I played dungeon keeper.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yes. I've got the other imps that would dig the walls. I've got pictures of them on like stripper poles now in my mind. Bye. Bye. Bye. As they dance on the poles.
Podcast Introduction and Character Setup
00:02:10
Speaker
Hi everyone.
00:02:14
Speaker
So i mean us as everyone or even the audience podcast world audience hello give me a chance to say hello i don't give me too much scope to call i was about to introduce it yeah no no no no no i i do know introducing.
00:02:45
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to an evening of Fireside Chat with us, the Fellowship of the Tabletop.
00:02:56
Speaker
Joining me on my monitor and round their own personalized mics, we have our characters. Well, I don't know if people didn't do it. Played Drago, the character, the person who played Drago, we have Ian, say hello. He is a character. Again, this is why Mark writes everything down. Pull up, pull up, pull up. Hey, I mean, I played... It is, it's past tense now, isn't it? It's past tense played. Drago. You played Drago. Barbarian Paladin.
00:03:26
Speaker
We have Will, who played Karsten. I played him, but he's always playing in my heart, so he's always going to be with me. Beautiful, man. That was fantastic. We have Danny, who played Claude. I've come to terms with the past tense of Claude now for a few episodes. That is heartbreaking. Good evening, everyone. We have Darren, who played Robin.
00:03:53
Speaker
Hello, everybody. This is a wonderful evening to be joining you all as we recant and recall. We call the word Christ. We can't. We can't. Heiress is more technically we were following a banished God. So maybe we can't is tell them what we were. Demigod. You weren't that powerful. We weren't all worshipping him.
00:04:17
Speaker
No, no. We are unfortunately missing a Casey who played Helena within our podcast, but I would just like to take a moment to say hi. And we also have myself who played Folly Fizzlebang the night, the heroic hero of our story. Fuck you. And if you want me to do the intro, I am saying I am heroic. Shader died in a fight rather heroically as well and helped
00:04:46
Speaker
The entire party from Beyond the Grave. Who else have you played Callum? Go through all of your characters. Go for it. Well, yeah, I could do, but in all fairness, that would be far too long for the podcast. And of course, however, we cannot be forgetting our majestically maniacal, marvellous DM... Mark.
00:05:07
Speaker
Hey, everyone. I agree with what Danny's just put in the chat. This is chaos. Callum, you're fired. Fine. You're not doing it. I didn't want to do it in the first place. Taking 110 episodes to get to this. This is our swan song and we set out Adam up to deliver it. I blame us. I blame us. It's definitely our fault for us. I blame you too.
00:05:29
Speaker
So this really very much is just a chance for us to be debrief about everything.
Campaign Finale Reflections
00:05:34
Speaker
Obviously, the epilogue came out last week. And thank you for all your bits and pieces on that. And yeah, it's kind of the wrap up now. Next week's probably going to be the first of our kind of prologue episodes, introducing some of our new characters back at level one, where everyone can die in a single blow. And so it's just a chance for us to have a little chat about it.
00:05:57
Speaker
you know i haven't planned any of this really moments fun favorite bits um mainly about the last you know 20 episodes or so i did jesus i don't know just everything really so um well we did have a fireside chat not so long ago where we did do favorite bit in the campaign and kind of kick that chat off so we don't have to
00:06:17
Speaker
recap over everything. Listeners, if you're if you're interested in what we actually said, go and check out the last fireside chat. I think it was about 10 or 12 episodes ago back in November, possibly. Don't quote me on it. Check out itself. So this is more like Mark said, this is more about the finale, maybe how we feel about our characters end. Was it right? Was it wrong? Did it feel good? Did it feel bad? Were we happy about it? Did we want to lynch Mark afterwards?
DM's Insights on Campaign Ending
00:06:44
Speaker
It was a lot to a lot to unpack, a lot to say.
00:06:48
Speaker
I'm gonna kick it off actually and just feel just feel the question of to you the glorious DM How do you feel it went did it when you were setting up the ending because obviously for you the story writing the writer
00:07:01
Speaker
the ending is always something that you think about. Even at the start of your campaign, halfway through your campaign, with the characters going where they are, it's probably, am I right in thinking that in the back of your, you can tell me that I'm just fucking full of shit here, but in the back of your mind, are you always thinking about endgame stuff? And if so, how did it play out in certain stages? Like when you first started this campaign,
00:07:25
Speaker
towards the middle and then towards the end when you actually had the ending did it kind of play out as you think it would or did it just kind of go off like i'm not riding this train anymore this is a totally different thing yeah it's a good question and it started off
00:07:38
Speaker
I think I was playing God of War like literally two years ago at some point. And I was thinking, we'd had a chat about the podcast needing like, you know, this, because it was the first time he'd be yelling. I needed like a focus, needed like a right, where are we going? What are we doing? And I'd stolen an idea, a very simple idea from the game of get this thing, do something with that thing in a certain place and you stop something. And that's pretty much the banter of the game, which was,
00:08:03
Speaker
get the onyx reaver find the world away stab it at this place at this time and stop the blight and it pretty much went how i
00:08:16
Speaker
kind of expected it to go but luckily in such a way that hopefully gave you guys the feeling of autonomy and control over it because the split at the party for example was one thing I didn't think was going to happen I thought you would all 100% stay together but added so much to the the last couple of three or four episodes because you guys split up which was awesome.
00:08:36
Speaker
in my notes when I wrote like the basic kind of let's say the word get the girl this is the kind of order of things as they happen there was literally like just reach the blight kill this person and then this happens gras it wasn't even in a picture yet really um he wasn't even a
00:08:51
Speaker
a creature he kind of literally materialized by halfway through the game as we were developing it. Elf here as well so my baddie was a totally different baddie for the endgame baddie from what you actually thought because as the story moved the
00:09:06
Speaker
The enemies had to move, and it had to be that you had some kind of fruition and finished feel to moments. Grazert became such a pivotal part in many characters' lives and had to meet his end or at least give you the opportunity to kill him. It's something that had to happen with Elthea because, again, that betrayal couldn't really go unanswered because it would feel like a limp dick afterwards. You want to either kill him or fix it or whatever, but I was 100% set up. I think I'd written in, around here, Elthea dies. And so I was written off.
00:09:35
Speaker
Well, I probably thought at this point in the battle, probably, if they get to this point and do this thing, I had a couple of conditional HP moments.
00:09:43
Speaker
If we reach this point, he run out of things. He'll try one more thing, which was his last ditch attempt to morph into the form of something close to the party to change your mind. If that failed, that's it. He's dead. Anyway, moving on. And this was, you know, the story of move on, but it was also dependent because in my mind, the dragon was there as well. He would have got away and recovered. And then the fight with grass, it would have been him on dragon back.
00:10:09
Speaker
Which would have been a another part to the battle as well. So actually by you taking out the dragon Yeah, you made that fight easier because he was gonna be on dragon back you take out the dragon to crash he'd come off kind of like the Lich King of Angmar off the back of his big scary shitty and in Lord of the Rings and then you'd fight him mano Amano like you did so
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, you actually,
Storytelling and Character Development in D&D
00:10:34
Speaker
because of the events earlier on, which I was really pleased about because it made it so that I wasn't controlling that last push, even though it felt quite, keep going forward, the actions you took decided it as well. Actually, you had some kind of control over that.
00:10:49
Speaker
I tried to not have, I tried to not think about how it would be. I tried to set up scenarios and let you guys figure it out. I liked it because by the end I was heartbroken because of the characters dying and because it was the end and it had been such a long time and I didn't want it to finish, but I did want it to finish. And so I felt like I've really like emotional about the ending, which I guess, yeah, that's what I wanted out of it really. And hopefully that you guys,
00:11:15
Speaker
enjoy that journey that's that's that's all i really wanted to tell about the story and it's fun it did feel very organic i'll give you it was it did feel like it came from us rather than you but you did mention that you didn't expect the party split so where did you see that final fight regraza and and the dragon let's say that the dragon was was there but i think the story had moved on by that point so
00:11:35
Speaker
Where did you expect Grazette to turn up? Was it tag-teamed with Elthea at the actual tower? Yeah, it was going to be at the tower outside the tower by the two massive spires of flame and outside there you would have thought Grazette with Elthea basically shutting the doors and he'd be the next stage with the Death Knight in there as well.
00:11:55
Speaker
So it'd be like a three-tiered fight where it'd be dragon back, kill the dragon, Grazet, kill Grazet inside, and then you have the fight that you kind of faced inside there as well. But because of all the listeners that are hearing this and going, shit, we missed out Grazet flying on dragon back to take these fools out. That sounds amazing. You can blame Folly for that. I'm listening to it and he's like,
00:12:21
Speaker
We killed the dragon that they would follow that made sure that got finished off. Ollie kept Elvio alive, technically, and Ollie fucked up your death knight. Here we go. Look at me. Where would we be without Follies? Well, we'd probably be in the same place for 100 episodes until I turn up at the end. I say very little for 100 episodes.
00:12:43
Speaker
We're recording just for your ears, listeners. We're recording on a thing called Zencast. I think I've said it before. Which, if, by the way, you're all wondering how we go about recording remotely and work from home style, it is through Zencast. Check it out. Well worth doing. But we're also using their kind of webcam session as well so we can all see each other. And it's a cool thing that you can almost like Zoom
00:13:10
Speaker
put your hand up virtually if you wanna say something but it also causes everyone's windows to shift and Danny was jumping around in front of my face, Darren's doing it now. I wanna know if you guys actually had something to say or you're just fucking around. Yeah, no, no, I totally have something to say and I think it's to this point that Mark's making about how it ended and how he couldn't predict it. I think it's because
00:13:31
Speaker
I don't
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, the Gungans and droids are on the blue. Anakin's in the sky fighting the droid center. So you have these three main parties that split. It's a big trope in video games as well. Think like the Final Fantasy series. If I pull Final Fantasy 7 out on top of my head, you have Cloud and Sephiroth fighting as one thing and there's a bigger combat that's going on elsewhere. And I think
00:14:15
Speaker
That's more of a testament to us as consumers of popular geekdom, that we felt, yeah, let the samurai style encounter between two noble warriors of Jago and Grazia happen here, while the grander
00:14:32
Speaker
the grander, more important event happens with the remaining party as they charge towards the tower. And I think we naturally found that structure. There was no looking around the table when people decided that the split was necessary. There was no outcry like, why on earth did we do that? It was very much, no, this feels right. And I think that's because we consume a lot of, yeah, there are points where heroes tell stories in different directions in the big moments. That was my contribution. And I think that that's where Mark took me.
00:15:02
Speaker
And I think we found that as players, and there was no way Mark could have planned for it. But he made some really nice, different variants on what a hero has to do in the concluding moments. You know, Mark, you set that up. You gave us something that each character might latch onto. And lo and behold, it was Drago. And lo and behold, it was Folly. And those were the two sort of major heroic moments that just organically happened from something you built.
00:15:33
Speaker
It was... Yeah, that's a very deep way of looking at it as well. I do. I stutter at the point of heroic moment for Drago, though, although it did play out like that. It was innately a very selfish act, his final one, there, because it was all self-serving. Yes, it broke the foothold of Elthir, but Granzo... Correct me if I'm wrong, Mark, but if he had lived, the Blight still would have ended with the Onyx Reaver going in
00:16:02
Speaker
to the book and then being thrown into the whirlpool. Now you tell me I'm wrong that Grazet was integral and he did need to die, in which case, Jargos fucking hero. But it doesn't happen to be made that that was a very, very selfish act. I would say it is slightly selfish. But no, it would have closed anyway. But Grazet would have gone out of his demigod way to have stopped the book from falling into the blade. It's very into the rift, along with Elthea, along with the Death Knight, along with anything else in his in his capability.
00:16:32
Speaker
And that's not me hating on, especially not that decision either. I think it's true to character. And I think he started that campaign very self-centered and I need to do this. I need to avenge my father. And despite anything else, you know, there's a whole argument there of does a leopard change its spots? Or in Drago's case, no. But, you know, Darren, you've got your screens bouncing up. I love this. I've turned into fucking Oprah. Darren, you've got something to say. Let's listen in to you.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like one of those like Mario Party things where like little Koopa Troopa has something to say and you just start popping around to try and get your attention. Something that I've actually only just noticed while I've been listening to this is that at some point in this campaign, and this may be true for other people as well, but I actually now feel like I stopped
00:17:27
Speaker
telling a story by playing Dungeons and Dragons and instead started to tell a story through Dungeons and Dragons, if that makes sense. Dungeons and Dragons was no longer the primary
00:17:42
Speaker
I don't even know what the word is. It was no longer a primary conflict. You used it as a tool to tell your story. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there was a lot of serendipitous things that happened without discussion. So, for instance, I don't think Helena, or I mean, in case he's not here to answer this, but would have been aware that the other three, without me coming and we'll never discuss this, but the prospect of Helena destroying the Onyx Reaver,
00:18:09
Speaker
was never an option because of the role that that character has in the wider world of Aerith. So the campaign has out... No, allow me to rephrase this. The world has outgrown the campaign. And I think that's something that makes me really excited for the next arc is
00:18:33
Speaker
is that this world is just continuing. It's just going somewhere else. And that makes it so fun to invest in that actually with storytellers before with Dungeons and Dragons plays. That Dungeons and Dragons is the conduit for telling that story. And that's, I think that's so cool. And that's the magic of Dungeons and Dragons for me.
00:18:59
Speaker
I agree and I think especially when you're a Dungeons & Dragons podcast that kind of skill is very important if you're trying to convey story because it's really hard to get Dungeons & Dragons sounding.
00:19:13
Speaker
like a audio book, if you will, due to the format, but I think we do a good job of kind of keeping towards the Dungeons and Dragons rules and playset by also and also at the same time, given ourselves kind of almost a I mean, take the epilogue, for example, I don't think it was so left field, I think it's on trend for our podcast to have like an epilogue where there's just the DM talking about our characters. But at the same time, it does sound like
00:19:39
Speaker
something we do. It's not like, well, this is totally different. And we did not expect this. I think we do quite a good job of playing that audio book role at the same time. Just to draw on one thing that you absolutely nailed was Helena. Unfortunately, Casey isn't here. But we got to give props to Casey because wow, man, did she not make a what was meant to be like a part time character into a full time character into the main character? Like, I think it was an incredible
00:20:07
Speaker
show of her skill. So, yeah, Case, if you are listening to this, well played. GG. She was literally an NPC. She was literally an NPC. That's that was that was the role. And fill in NPC for two episodes and then off you go. And ended up, yeah, becoming a pivotal part of this campaign and, you know, steadfast figure of the world of Aerith and the Kingdom of the Sleepguard. From NPC to MVP.
00:20:39
Speaker
Wow. That's the opening of the show. Bloody hell. Sorry, I'm just reading the chat. So Zencasto is also, because I'm not going to edit this listeners. As you hear us talk, it's how you'll hear it in your ears. We've also got a chat window as well. Not with you guys. Is there a wish? Maybe one day. Maybe one day we'll open a live stream episode. Yeah, that'd be great. Let us know that I'd like that.
00:21:06
Speaker
That would take hours for us to set up, though, because we'd just been so long chatting. But those people are worth it. The people who have listened to us from episode one, which really cannot stress our thanks for that. If you know who you are from episode one all the way through to 109 that the epilogue was at, this is 110. I mean, guys, come on. Well done. Let us know. We know of people who have and we love you dearly. But likewise, if you haven't let us know yet,
00:21:35
Speaker
Please do, because that's a that is a feat all in itself, because some of those earlier episodes, boy, unless you're drunk, not to discourage anything we've done. But yeah, well done. Well done for getting this far. We can promise you that we're not closing at this. This isn't the end of our podcast. We're moving on to bigger, better things. We have a another story to tell and that will be coming up in.
Introduction to New Campaign
00:22:01
Speaker
Well, we
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah i guess i can plug this now next week there's going to be it's kind of like a prologue style episode to introduce the characters in the it's the same world still areas but it's going to be new areas so this kind of serves as a as an introduction to some new characters it's a prologue type style it's going to be kind of rough and ready
00:22:24
Speaker
And yeah, if you hear it, you'll get some cool insight and backstory on the new characters that we're going to play. Different view of Aerith, isn't it? Because it's going to be a different view of Aerith, which is nice, I think. It is. But our official start date will be actually three weeks from now. So when you're listening to this, next week will be prologue one, the week after we prologue two, and then we're putting everything into episode one.
00:22:51
Speaker
of our new campaign and please please tell your friends and family about that you went it's not going to be one of those things where you go like there's this tv show but you need to you need to watch like the first season of break and bad before it really gets good they can jump off we're going to make it well easy just to jump straight into the the latest episode on our newest story so please do advertise that
00:23:13
Speaker
I've got Darren jumping around in front of me, desperate to say something. Darren, what do you need to say? It's really not that desperate, but I think the screen makes it look desperate. It does. And I know that the longer it happens and the more I talk over it, it's given me stress. I really need to get to it. Go on. No, I have a question for everybody because this campaign closure has got me quite philosophical.
00:23:39
Speaker
And I always, I'm always slightly lamenting of the fact that I came to Dungeons and Dragons later in life. So my question is, yeah, exactly. My question is
00:23:53
Speaker
to all of you, what is the best thing about Dungeons and Dragons? Jesus. What is the best thing about Dungeons and Dragons? You are feeling sentimental. I am. But if there was ever a time for such a question, it is surely at the end. Is it two on the nose to say, you guys? Yes. The true Dungeons and Dragons was the Dungeons and Dragons in our hearts all along.
00:24:17
Speaker
I feel like this is 4am in the morning and we've just had a bifter. Yeah. I will start with the soppy one and then you guys cannot be serious after that. But without this, us all messing around on this, aside from it being a podcast, it's kept us in contact through a very, very hairy part of a very, very hairy and lonely part of history.
00:24:41
Speaker
there are some of you that, you know, despite being close friends and having friends for quite a few years, we would have fallen out of contact naturally, especially when we were not allowed to be in contact physically. We not like that, or a little bit like that. And then it would have been very difficult to, we could have found excuses every now and then, but it would have been sporadic. It would have been once every four or five months, if that, and it was such a good excuse.
00:25:04
Speaker
to sit around with a bunch of friends, good friends and just chat shit and just play around and be a nerd and laugh and cry and everything in between. It gave me a focus, it gave me an angle and something to channel my thoughts into when the world gets a bit too heavy and the news was just
00:25:25
Speaker
you know, just hair-raising stuff. You could just escape into a little world and spend some time with some good friends. So that for me has been the best part of it. Given that the majority of my D&D career has been through a pandemic, that's the biggest takeaway I've taken from it so far.
Community and Personal Growth in D&D
00:25:45
Speaker
Because I think to go along that is definitely the same sort of style for me. It's the fact that it's enabled me to not only keep in contact with you all, but I feel like we've gotten closer together as a group because of it. And we've all got this inside kind of circle, which is very cool. And it's also very rare at not to sound like an old fucker, but at this time in life, as you get older and your careers develop and your families develop around you,
00:26:13
Speaker
your walls tend to get higher and letting new people in, it gets harder and harder to do. Not because you become old and fucking jaded, just because life moves quicker and your priorities change. So I do think this has made us all closer. It's introduced like Danny into my life as well and Casey and just that's such a beautiful
00:26:38
Speaker
happenstance because we've done this. And so there's so much to be thankful there. From a more of a self centered point of view, it's allowed me to keep in touch with the drama side. So I think most of us here study drama at some point in our lives, whether it be A levels and then degree and then trying to pursue afterwards.
00:27:02
Speaker
And then, and I was one of those guys, I studied at A-levels, did it as a degree, went to Nashville, did all that awesome shit, and then real life happened, and I got a job, and I was very lucky, fell in love and all of that stuff. But what this isn't, and I just stopped acting and performing in any kind of frame of mind.
00:27:23
Speaker
And what this has done, and I didn't expect it when, Will, you kick started all of this years ago by saying, hey, come around, let's play some Dungeons and Dragons. I'm past 30 at this point. What I didn't expect the consequence of that to be was that itch that I've always had to take up some acting again. Just low key, just pick up a script and read it and perform it. The art of performing.
00:27:49
Speaker
This fulfills that. I never went into it expecting it. It was like this old friend that I found again. And it's like, oh, hey, you like taking a character and making it your own and the whole ad lib thing. You really enjoy that. You forgot about me. And it serves that purpose. So yeah, I really like it for that. Yeah.
00:28:14
Speaker
I think I'll jump in and I think for me it's a community thing. The idea that there are millions of people who play this around the world and the most important voice at our table is marks in a game, but in all these other tables, the most important voice is other DMs.
00:28:35
Speaker
The way in which millions of people across the world are engaging in social situations that they wouldn't do in real life, the way in which they're exercising the mental health, the ways in which they are
00:28:47
Speaker
breaking out of isolation, the way they are staying in communication. It's such a positive, powerful tool for just being human. And we go back to the basics of what it was to be human in the first place, as to share stories and to pass on stories. And that's the community. You know, you always recognize
00:29:11
Speaker
You'll always recognize a Dungeons and Dragons player because they'll have something. There'll be a badge on their bag of a D20. They'll be wearing a Critical Role t-shirt. You'll see them on Facebook and you'll see a shared like is Matt Colville's YouTube video playlist. It's not hard to find them and when you do, you immediately have a bond with someone. You immediately have a way of connecting you. So yes, there are six, seven people at our table, but there are millions out there at tables that look just like us.
00:29:41
Speaker
And that's what's great about it. Beautiful man. Definitely a nice thing. For me, I'm just a dice whore. I just like buying lots of dice to play this thing. You're just a whore. I think that's fair as of the artifacts that come with playing Dungeons and Dragons. I feel like an absolute child when I'm buying
00:30:03
Speaker
so many dice boxes, dice, minifigures and all this kind of shit. I'm not disagreeing with anything you guys have said. I completely agree. I love the community aspect. I'm just clarifying that right now. So community brilliant. It's brought us all closer. Absolutely. And I
00:30:23
Speaker
I love you guys so, so much. I just try to put something new to it and one of the things I do indeed love is especially for a new arc or a new campaign, it's getting the new journals, it's getting the new dice, getting the new miniatures, all that kind of stuff that comes with it.
00:30:40
Speaker
it just makes me feel like an absolute child again. And I do think to a certain degree, especially for myself, I'm not going to say for everybody, as we are of people of a certain age, you say, keep it in touch with that inner child of yourself, I think is partially important as well, just to keep yourself mentally stable and just enjoy life.
00:31:02
Speaker
William, you're the guy who introduced us all to this. Well, not you. Building on Calum's point, I hadn't even like, I hadn't actually done a clock that I'd need a new notepad until Calum just said that. That hurts a little bit. That hurts.
00:31:19
Speaker
them and actually source one of those and or find a place to put my existing notepad because it can never be used for anything else it's only been used as notes for this campaign so i was going to say for character because you've had two so yes it's a notepad that's only ever been used for for this this campaign it's it's got all the way notes from the beginning from alphabets all the way through um and then obviously when Carson started to develop a bit more i started writing from the back of the book as well all his songs and that kind of stuff so yeah thanks for that calm now i've got a
00:31:47
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for that. I now got a source for notepad. Awesome. Yeah, D&D for me, it's a weird one. I dipped my toe early on and that kind of stuff. And then I thought, as has happened to every group, someone has to go, hey, I'll be a DM for a bit. And, you know, like a bajillion people that came out of the woodwork and wanted to do it. D&D has always been for me about like you guys have covered a lot of it.
00:32:17
Speaker
It is about that acting it's about.
00:32:20
Speaker
Sort of, I don't know, it's like when you play a computer game, you're living that character's life that's different from your own. You're getting to experience, you know, this fantastical world where, you know, magic and all that kind of stuff and that kind of exists. So it's always been a nice sort of form of escapism, I think, from reality to go, hey, let's play a game where you can, you know, do magic and shit like that. So that's always been the draw for me.
00:32:51
Speaker
I totally agree. Breaking out of your every day into the magical. Right you, Boldy Locks. Again, we've been through this. You're a great man. You're my hometown at some point. At least do one episode, whatever you want. I know, but it was getting very serious and mental and self-effective. You had to tray the park trash. I needed to bring the douche bag. For me,
00:33:18
Speaker
I think Callum said something actually quite poignant about that essence of play. And it sounds really strange, but it's always kind of makes me quite philosophically sad when I think that a part of growing up seems to be a disconnect to that essence of play and that essence of escapism through live creation with friends. And I think Dungeons and Dragons is a revitalization of
00:33:47
Speaker
of that basically. I think there's something quite brilliant from a DM's perspective about being able to well build and story build and to share that with people who then help you enriching that story in ways that you can't imagine.
00:34:08
Speaker
I've just seen I've got a messy this probably is like a smart man. I am a smart man. I tried to be anyway and I.
00:34:21
Speaker
I've completely lost my trail of thought. Sorry. You've broken him out. I was trying to do it in like a southern... You were sounding really intelligent. Not that you don't anyway. I have written a lecture on performance and dungeon
00:34:46
Speaker
So it clearly wasn't very good, but I did manage to wear my velvet waistcoat as I have many leather bound patches in, you know, but actually from a performance sense,
00:35:01
Speaker
you invest so much of yourself particularly when you character create. I often find one of my favorite things and maybe this is a bit too philosophical but there is an extension of some of the best part of yourself that makes its way into your character which I think is
00:35:16
Speaker
I think he's just actually incredible. And then the performance side of Dungeons and Dragons, it's incredible because you are both performer and audience at the same time. Everyone at that table is all of those things. And I listen to Dungeons and Dragons podcast and I watch Critical Role and all these other Dungeons and Dragons adventures because I care as much about the people who are playing the characters as I do the characters, if that makes sense. I want to go on that journey with those people. And I think
00:35:46
Speaker
that role of being at a table and being both performer and the audience member at the same time. And then if you're lucky enough to be able to extend that and have people who watch you do that or listen to you do that.
00:35:58
Speaker
Plug to the audience. Thank you very much again. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You made it this far. Yeah. Um, that was, that's everything I love. I do just want to tag on, not tag on, maybe I want to slightly disagree with Darren on that there. Cause you said something about, um, you put like a lot of yourself. Yeah. He got really, you're just having his taste out his mouth.
00:36:24
Speaker
You said that you normally find yourself put in something of you in the character that you create. I did not find that at all.
00:36:39
Speaker
Let's say that I'm not sat here with my nipples out. No, I get where Colin's coming from. But I will agree with a certain aspect that I did not realise until I had lost Shader how bonded I was with him. So you do get very emotionally invested in these fictitious characters all the time. But yeah, I didn't see any of myself in Shader or Folly, but I was
00:37:06
Speaker
One thing I definitely was not expecting was just fondly creating. It was an extension of your creative self. What a grumpy, quiet... Something like your first character is always an interesting one. I think people's first characters, especially if they're new to D&D or any kind of role-playing in a D&D setting or a live act or whatever, I think sometimes your first character has more of you in than you probably realise.
00:37:35
Speaker
Well, my first character was actually Tiefling Warlock, not Shader. Yeah, well, exactly. So you may have found, if you think that's your Tiefling Warlock, you may have found, if we played that character more, you may have found more of that person, whatever, and you walked up wearing a robe and carrying a stick. I'm not talking about you, I was talking about Callum Jochen's character class there. I was reacting to Bernie's face. Tiefling Warlock sounds proper shit as well, I think.
00:38:04
Speaker
Hey, I didn't want I'm not the one who disregarded your your point there Sorry the last the last thing I just was thinking sorry to interrupt all of you and of D&D being awesome is the fact that as column you mentioned that
00:38:21
Speaker
the characters can die and there's a finality to it and that the opportunity that that's it it goes that's it you cannot you cannot play that again i mean you can but it's a bit of a trope but that he went here at the end of the name yeah yeah pretty much or the oh you had the 10th or the 9th or the 8th or whatever you want and that finality is so is so like
00:38:41
Speaker
You don't expect it to hit you, but it fucking does. It hits you. And because you have invested time into it and you've invested effort and creation into it, as Darren mentioned, it does hit you. It hits you hard, man, especially when you've been playing them as long as you guys had. If the ending wasn't now, if we had more to go and Claude dropped, that would
00:39:01
Speaker
I guess to an extent, Danny, it might have felt all right knowing that, right, we're only three, four episodes away from the end. You know, it's it will build up to the end. That's fine. If it had been kind of shade style in the middle of the campaign. I mean, would that would that have changed the way you felt about his death? Oh, 100 percent, 100 percent.
00:39:21
Speaker
I think as soon as we left the spooky vampire house and we made it to the blighted lands, I was on borrowed time at that point. Claude knew that the most important thing is to keep everyone else alive and finish this. And I am expendable. Claude has died once. He wants to spend eternity in the eternal plane. That's his plan.
00:39:48
Speaker
been in a situation where Claude was making death saves. I think it was the fight with Eric, the one with the fucking candles that took us so long to figure out why we weren't damaging him. And I was on like two death saves at that point. And I was really like that I'd really.
00:40:03
Speaker
I felt worse then than when I did actually losing Claude because the stakes were so high. The stakes were really high when I lost him, but we were at the conclusion. I felt like I'd made a really sweet conclusion to the end. That's it. It was the relay race, and I'd run my leg. That's the metaphor. Whereas then, there was so much to do. I hadn't even corrupted Drago into being a paladin yet. There was so much I had still to do.
00:40:31
Speaker
And I really didn't want to play another character in Aerith. I didn't. I wanted to play this story. The idea of an ending was so painful to think about at that moment. And then I think Drago puts a potion in my mouth and everything's better. I saved your ass a lot.
00:40:47
Speaker
Yeah, there was an unspoken bond between drug and not so much unspoke became very real towards the very vocal was not unspoken what there was definite a bond between Drago and Claude and in many ways, like you said, the whole paladin arc of Drago.
00:41:03
Speaker
It started with clauden our first time we met i think drago held a sword to your throat and i mean who didn't need to play the other so do you throw and really disliked the way that you were that your religion that you kept the faith that you had it was so alien to him and then there's something so beautiful about the fact that towards the end he's now carrying claudes amule
00:41:26
Speaker
and Claude Shield, and he's echoing the same words that Claude had about Akiva, and he's practicing his faith, and he's in the epilogue. Even when he hasn't got something to pray about, he still practices mindfulness. He practices connection with Akiva. That was a successful criteria for me. When I came into this, I said practically to Mark, I don't really care necessarily about my character. I ended up caring a lot more about my character, but I want to make everyone else at the table
00:41:54
Speaker
more aware of what character means to them. I'd fortunately been able to play a bit of Dungeons and Dragons before joining the podcast so I'd sort of flexed that early character nerves and then played a couple of additional characters elsewhere and for this one it was like right I'm making someone who is a servant to the party in the party's story and
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah, for some reason I just had you and the tractor beam first, Drago, to sort of completely, not manipulate, it's the wrong word, corrupt, it's enlightened. It's to broaden the view, really. Makes me feel better anyway. And then slowly that trickles to everyone else, but I sort of channeled it through Drago's efforts.
00:42:37
Speaker
It was a beautiful journey. Literally, you could paint the first image of us meeting sword at your neck, and then the last image of us would be you in my arms, saving my life. I'm very, very proud of the journey that both of those characters went on with each other. Yeah, I just fucking love the whole thing, really.
00:43:06
Speaker
Darren you wanted to say something? Yeah and I think actually everything Danny has just said encapsulates your point about characters being some form of a creation coming from the creative aspect of self that you actually you have an idea for what you want to do at the start and the way it plays out organically over the course of a campaign is just so enriching
00:43:31
Speaker
I had a similar experience. Level 1 Robin, I remember writing down the notes that he wants to be an instrument for change, an instrument for good, with a flaw of being completely directionless and able of finding that himself, which makes him dependent on following others. I think that is why he felt Elfie's betrayal harder than anyone else, because he was convinced for a long time that that was Elfie.
00:44:01
Speaker
I think he wanted it to be Drago at some point and he turned to Drago and I think he was actually liberated of that expectation because Drago was equally as deeply as flawed and as broken as Robin was. And they kind of had that solace that it was a friendship there. I don't think there was any more expectation than
00:44:22
Speaker
than just that companionship between the children. And I'm so glad that her case did come along because Robin's art was transformed so gradually
00:44:32
Speaker
over completely misrepresenting who Helena was, having his classist expectation that she has to be doing this to wallow in her own self-pity, which even comes from that stupid line in the pub where he assumes he knows why she's doing this and he gets it completely wrong with your mother's dead, to the point where actually he's found that person he needs to follow for that instrument of change.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't know that was coming at the start. So again, that organic unraveling, similar to Danny, there was a point where it was like, it's Helena all along. That's Robin's Akiva, if that makes sense. That's Robin's direction. And that was incredibly rewarding to discover. Fucking Akiva, man. Pops up everywhere. Will, question for you.
00:45:27
Speaker
You've played two characters in this campaign, both heavy hitters, and both survived. Who's your favorite one? If you had to pick, who did you like playing more or... Okay, two questions then. Who did you like playing more and whose story do you prefer when it comes to the end?
00:45:47
Speaker
That's really hard. It's only just dawn on me that both of your characters and like I don't think many players out there, especially when you're doing like seasons or stories like we do, end up with two surviving characters at the end of it. Yeah, Elthir was a very strange
00:46:08
Speaker
Because his his his change was all was was very he wasn't didn't go I didn't go into the Gang going right elf is gonna portray the pie. I'm gonna be that guy. It just sort of evolved in the story. Um His character and the way I built him he was very orchestrated around the Sword Coast So it was one of those things where I think
00:46:29
Speaker
coming to Aerith, he really felt like a fish out of water and he was way outside of his comfort zone as a person. And to answer your question, Danny, I never actually considered writing Elphir's Epidogue. It wasn't a fact that I considered for this. I was like,
00:46:53
Speaker
I think his his story is, you know, Drago takes him home and that kind of stuff. And then that's it. It's it's it's an interesting one. Do you feel like it's no longer your story to tell in some ways? I don't know. I don't keep that. It must be weird because obviously you have total control of your characters, emotions and thoughts until he's either dead or she's dead.
00:47:21
Speaker
But yours was returned to you, so it's like, in which case, who's driving those thoughts and ambitions now? Is it the DM, or is it Will? It's a weird situation that we find ourselves in. I think in my mind, you know, Drago takes Elthir home, and I don't know if you consider this Drago the fact that the journey to take him home from the Sword Coast is quite a long one.
00:47:48
Speaker
My superior knowledge on all things Sword Coast meant that I knew exactly how long it would take. No, I'd be honest, man. I knew that driver would get him home. That's the best place for Elthir. Regardless, I think of anything else, and this is me then driving Elthir's wants and ambitions, and I'm always up for saying that's fucking wrong. But I just feel like the best place for anyone who's been through what Elthir has is to be
00:48:17
Speaker
at home with their family. So one of the, and it's nice to talk about actually, one of the driving goals around his betrayal was the fact that he was promised to be able to go home. That was one of the driving things around Elphir's betrayal was that he was presented the opportunity to go, if you do this for me, I'll make sure you get home.
00:48:42
Speaker
And at that point, Elfie was like, well, screw Aerith, I don't know it. Aerith is not my home. Screw that, I'll do this and I'll get to go home. You know, I've been dragged to this place that I don't want to be. Followed this stupid dragonborn to find his sword and here we fucking are. On the eve of your betrayal though, Claude and Elfie had their extensive heart to heart. And I think Claude made the exact same promise. I think I said something on the lines of I'll get you home.
00:49:09
Speaker
Yeah, the only problem at that point was, from the character's point of view, Elphir was fairly bound in. You know what I mean? In my mind, there was a corruption there. In my mind, I would tell you that if Mark ever wanted me to,
00:49:30
Speaker
to to to do it is that um elfith started out being corrupted and thinking it was of his choice and then i imagine that part of him probably got controlled by whatever was with like graze and that kind of stuff and actually there was probably part of elfith that wanted to fight against that but then couldn't anymore um and was on shortly after
00:49:52
Speaker
Shaidar died. He obviously, we know now, killed that preacher in Clay Peak. Not that shortly after that. For you and for Elphir, was Shaidar's death the point of no return, do you think? Do you think Shaidar's death was the watershed moment for him?
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think because yeah, he'd been he'd been he'd had that temptation and then shadar's death happened and then he associated blame and he was like, right. Elphir went out and did what he had to do kill that person to
00:50:28
Speaker
Commune with the person that he needed to commune with. And yeah, it was a very interesting one. But that probably was... Shader's death was probably the major catalyst for Elthir to go, right, screw this. Because Shader was Elthir's link to pre-campaign as well. So...
00:50:46
Speaker
So like on Danny's wonderful question about Elthea's epilogue, do you feel anything towards Elthea? Because we all feel something towards our characters. We all wanted them to end in a certain way, whether we got that or not. But did you did you have anything there or was it all about Kastan or was there anything for Elthea? Or did you had had you just given total reigns to Mark?
00:51:12
Speaker
I sort of, I sort of resigned myself to hand it over to Mark because I didn't want to write anything depending on if, you know, he did, he was killed by other people's epilogues. I was like, I was like, and it sort of stopped being his story. There were his, you know, as much as his, you know, Drago has taken him home, I think his
00:51:31
Speaker
his his story was his his downfall i think his redemption is something that you know it's nice perhaps for the listeners to decide whether he goes back to the sword coast and and and finds redemption at home or whether or whether he doesn't and and and he lives with that shame forever i think totally i think potentially it's a nice one for for listeners to decide you know do they think that elf as a as an elf that lives for a long time will he live for another few hundred years
00:51:59
Speaker
and then decide that he's redeemed himself enough, or will he not? Totally agree, and when I was writing Elthea into Drago's epilogue, I never felt comfortable
00:52:10
Speaker
making decisions on behalf of Elthir. Why I was messaging you guys going, would Elthir want to go home? Thankfully, Will, you you you answered that one for me. But I also I scripted that he never said anything like because I didn't feel comfortable driving words from him. But I did at certain points, I played with Tali in drugs epilogue because I felt comfortable with Tali knowing enough about her situation and her character and her future. But with Elthir was so
00:52:41
Speaker
mysterious and there was part of it like, does he get fine redemption? And I think you're absolutely right in thinking it's great for the listeners to the hypothesis about that. Sorry, I was just gonna say on top of that, as you mentioned, Ian, about you not wanting to speak as Elthea, the minute we discovered that Elthea was gonna live, which I wasn't expecting,
00:53:06
Speaker
I told myself he's not going to speak. And it was useful that I could use the trauma of the event so he's gone through as a chance to become insular and shut down socially. It also gave me
00:53:18
Speaker
and out and in hindsight was a really good thing because it gives, like you said, that choice for the listener to decide where does his fake take him afterwards? Does redemption catch up with him? Does his actions from the past catch up? Does he have a shot at redemption or does he not? And I think if I had allowed myself to speak, health is.
00:53:39
Speaker
you know, what he was going on and said, that would have ruined that that were taken away from that at that chance for the listen to make the decision themselves. So I'm that's one lucky spot at the moment thing I'm really glad I did just to like you said, he's not what was interesting, though. Well, you said he's not part of the story, but he is one of the key protagonists who still alive. Yeah.
00:53:58
Speaker
He's one of the three that remained alive out of everyone. I find it quite funny that you mentioned Tarly because what you don't know is that during that whole bar thing, I actually went to Mark and went, if I murder Tarly, how does that affect your story?
00:54:19
Speaker
Holy shit. That would have been a very different Robin from that. During that fire, there was the potential for me to murder Tarly and set the place on fire. And yeah, it would have been a very different... Dragon wouldn't have worked so damn hard to get you back.
00:54:41
Speaker
Oh my god. It's an interesting one. Probably wouldn't have paladin'd at all. That's what I mean. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah, Jesus.
00:54:51
Speaker
In some ways though, the paladin was driven a lot by Claude because that's the, as I've learned. Yeah, but you need the drive. You need this super objective. Grazette was, it was a big drive fight facing Grazette that first time in the cave. And, um, Mark played brilliantly that I think I rolled a crit against Grazette the first time and it did fuck all to him. And it just left this whole, like, well, what do I do? There's, I need more power and then enter.
00:55:19
Speaker
enter the whole Paladin thing as well. I think it's cool. You have a question, Danny? Yes, this is moving the subject on because I want to hear from someone who isn't speaking much, Callum. Hang on, I've said a lot tonight. For you, yes, but for the general... Unfortunately. Oh, Lord.
00:55:42
Speaker
So I was quite interested in your epilogue in particular because like you, you're not, Folly's not around to tell it, but also there's so much of Folly we never learned. Could you tell us more about the Fizzlebang dynasty, right? That you are the ninth. Why was the eighth not in attendance of your funeral? Does a tenth exist? What's the lineage about?
00:56:12
Speaker
Who are they? Who are the fizzle banks? The listeners have wanted to know. This is it. We've never addressed it yet. Always two there are, no more, no less. Where is eight and where was ten? That's where I want to start. And then tell us about the legacy. This is something that is kind of, well, not kind of, this is entirely my fault. It was Folly's backstory is never something that I really brought up a lot in the campaign.
00:56:41
Speaker
and for one reason or another. At all. I thought you went on about it all the time. At all. Folly's talking about his backstory. If anything, we learn too much. Folly's talking about his family again. For fuck's sake, shut up, man. Now, what the fizzle banks are, they are actually from Evershire, but Folly is ashamed of his actual story because his entire family are alchemists.
00:57:06
Speaker
They are all very, very good ones. Folly showed a particular knack for it, but Folly was trying to brew a particularly
00:57:17
Speaker
well, a particularly high level stock magic potion. It went horrendously wrong. It blew up in Folly's face, as is like Folly fizzling, and had like an odd side effect of giving him wild magic, sorcerer kind of power. So that's where it all emanated from. And he couldn't control them. And Folly basically
00:57:43
Speaker
and slightly heartbreakingly, only had a mum and dad, which was Polly Fizzlebang the 8th and Polly Fizzlebang.
00:57:54
Speaker
And I'm not even joking, that is in my book. That is in my book. I have a series of names that all rhyme with Folly that was designed to be like distant relatives for him and all this kind of stuff, but I never really put them in. It was Folly Fizzabang the 8th and Folly Fizzabang, which was mum and dad, who unfortunately, because of his just trying to learn how Wild Magic works, he accidentally killed them himself.
00:58:20
Speaker
And so distraught about this, he lied about where he was from because he never wanted anybody to find out what he'd actually done. So he left Evershire. He started telling people, including Carson, that he was from the Sanguine Lambs, a place he'd never actually been to.
00:58:38
Speaker
Just to try, but this was also part of the reason why he never brought up much about his backstory because he was ashamed. And it was just kind of difficult when it might have fought for tying him in like that. I ain't gonna lie. But when you try and make your backstory something that you're ashamed of,
00:58:56
Speaker
There's not, I couldn't find a good way to shoehorn it in every now and then. It's a crying shame because what a story, jeez. Yeah man, like that's a shame. There's a lot of fun that could have been had from that, but like you said. Fun!
00:59:12
Speaker
Yeah, because it's fun to play these different, you can't be a hero all the time and you can't do good things all the time. They're not just one shade of color, you know. So it is fun to kind of dive into that. I think anyway, maybe that's not how you play. So that's not for me to say. From a listener's point of view, though, that sounds good to hear and there's a lot to unpack and get into there. But as you rightfully said, like,
00:59:40
Speaker
You know, there's something to learn and move on and it's in the next time we play You've got more of a bearing on I said this was the first full campaign where I've played a character that has lasted more than so many episodes while we've been podcasting and On the next arc I am hoping at the very least that I will be able to expand a lot more on my character's history and
01:00:11
Speaker
Even though, oh well, no spoilers in all fairness. Just expand a lot more on my character history, what he wants to accomplish, where he's going, and all that kind of stuff. Really flesh him out. Sure up his little bang. Can't wait. Actually, I'm going holly. It's more a feminine version of folly. Oh, hello.
01:00:30
Speaker
Ooh, because Molly's Tony Butch. I tried to do like a high pitched voice that also sounded slightly feminine and just came out all kinds of wrong. Is there a little accidental Folly Fizzle by the 10th running around in a sordid back alley somewhere? Blowing things up.
01:00:53
Speaker
Well, he will be the next inheritor of the backpack. So there is, you've just confirmed, there is a team. There you go listeners, confirmed. Get it on Reddit. Mark's added to his NPC list for the next tale. We've got Young Folly, we've got Young Drago. I'm sure Castan has got a few spots for it. It's like baby Muppets.
01:01:11
Speaker
In all fairness, I think there's a good little side story for a young folly in Drago, just two very kind of different characters. I genuinely, man, I had in my mind, because we all forethought our endings and stuff like that. And I couldn't have hoped for an ending like Drago got. It was literally a good ending.
01:01:32
Speaker
I did have a different ending that I thought was going to be more realistic to hit because I genuinely didn't think that Grazette was going to succumb in the battle. And if we did get to fight him, I thought he would run. If Drago survived, he didn't survive because
01:01:51
Speaker
the death of Grazette. He survived because Grazette was like, you're going to kill me and I'm fucking out of here. I ain't laying this to happen. So I had an alternate, which I thought was going to happen more thing of Drago and Folly going into the depths of the plains where Grazette reside.
01:02:09
Speaker
and that was going to be that's the ending like oh everyone says you know we say goodbye and stuff and it's it's drag and follow that's going on there never in a mission to kill grazette um because that's that was all i much prefer how it fucking happened don't get me wrong i loved how it went down and i got a course out of it the way it did happen was absolutely amazing i'm not gonna lie i loved every minute of it and
01:02:34
Speaker
all the way up until the finale. Before I decided that Folly was going to just finish it all, I was kind of hoping, and we would have had to discuss this, that Folly would have gone to the Sword Coast with somebody.
01:02:54
Speaker
He would have seen it as a fresh start for him, where he could be himself again. And yeah, that is where he would have had this happy ending where it settled down in Canada's family. Maybe, maybe he would have stopped with the Steel Falls for a while. It does kind of help to them. But yeah, Folly was going to take the opportunity to go to this new plane that he never heard of, the Sword Coast, and start fresh there. That was going to be his happy luck before he died.
01:03:27
Speaker
We are coming up to time. I've got one question for the DM though before you do that. Yes, absolutely. I wasn't about to end it. I was gonna round up a final few questions or so. Let's start it with yours. I kind of hope that Folly would have gone and found Meepo.
01:03:47
Speaker
Our party's pet cobold, poor Meepo, who we were going to take on our journeys and then we left in Neverwinter. Put my stabilizers on and we ran a little bit of Tales of the Unimportant to get us into it before we quickly ran off into a new world because I thought that's a good idea after I've been DMing for a few months. We obviously come across Meepo and everyone's favorite cobold and
01:04:12
Speaker
of course did a really stupid voice for it and everyone fell in love with him he was yeah he's the uh pre-recorded a nice guy if we're being honest i think you can safely say pre the pre-recording nice guy except um meepo went on a bit of a journey with you where it's nice guy you just bullied into submission yeah meepo we were gonna train up
01:04:30
Speaker
Yeah. He was going to learn skill. Maybe a future Christmas special. Meepo. The Adventures of Meepo. He did appear in the 2020 Christmas special. He did. He did. Which was a great little cameo. I loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
01:04:46
Speaker
But yeah, sorry, I just wanted you to think about going back to Sword Coast. I was like, oh, you could have you could have brought in Meepo and it would have been beautiful. Yeah. Well, maybe Drago and Althea search out Meepo as a way of finding redemption arc. I like Meepo finding the book and bow and becoming the new Robin of Neverwinter. I couldn't believe that was that was a surprise for me, actually, was that Drago inherited yet another of his friends weapons like he's just
01:05:16
Speaker
Buckaroo at this point. You know, his father's sword, Claude's fucking shield, Shado's axe, Robin's bow is like, that's nuts. Crazy. That's very round with the weapons of all your dead compadres. My axe! Very Lord of the Rings. You have my bow.
01:05:36
Speaker
Literally, you were the fellowship all on your own. We should have given you Folly's backpack as well, just to... Yeah. No, I like that still being there. I like that still being there, though, a bit of a monument to the party. It's all in the stone. You should have the bag of holding still. Well, yeah, fair. Can we make it like an in-game thing? You know, players can visit Folly's backpack and in return they can do one thing at one point that's complete and that's a bullshit.
01:06:10
Speaker
If you want to try and pull off something absolutely balmy, stupid, ridiculous, just call in the blessing of the backpack and you will be sorted. I think we should call it Folly's bullshit bless.
01:06:26
Speaker
There we go. And your character has to visit in-game. Yeah, touch the backpack. But if you invoke it, you become vulnerable to all damage. Yes, absolutely. And lots and lots of banter and abuse while you're playing at play inmates as well. Yeah, I mean, that's guaranteed regardless you pick up that fucking backpack or not, especially when you call them.
01:06:46
Speaker
So to wrap this up, because like I said, we're coming up and I know there is some part of us that doesn't want to wrap this up because it means saying goodbye to these characters for good, or at least for now, but I'd say not ready. We'll put them in a box and these are big. I don't know about you guys. Big deal. Dragga was my first proper character. So it's a very big deal to say goodbye to him.
01:07:11
Speaker
So to kind of send us on our way, a great song by Rusted Root. How we'll go around, how do you feel about your character's journey? How do you feel like it ended? And general thoughts on this story arc, as it were. And let's start with Callum, because he loves talking. Jesus Christ, he's talking our ear off.
01:07:43
Speaker
Great, great. That was awesome. I knew you were going to cut me off. I knew entirely you were going to cut me off. In all fairness, I loved the entirety of the story. I liked how Folly went out. I'm not disputing that. I would have preferred him to survive and give him a little bit of a nicer, fresher story because I think you killed it.
01:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, I know I did, but I believe it's what Folly would have done. I would prefer to have done this when you are the agent behind it. Yeah, I know. I know what you're lining up to do. It's fine. Yeah, but Folly just saw everybody else had better things to do than what he did. I thought, going off on a similar tangent here, I genuinely thought when you guys entered that place, it was Robin who was going to do it.
01:08:31
Speaker
I thought for sure. I would have bet the house on Robin. I mean, I like the idea, although it is too of a fairy tale ending idea for me, that we would have been able to talk to Elthea, get him to renounce his ways, and then he goes and stabs the book and ends the blight himself. And we're all living happily ever after. As a cop-out, letting the DM do it. It's a massive cop-out. I've got to say, too fairy tale, but it was part of me. It's like, no, that'd be really nice.
01:09:00
Speaker
and then you cast whole person on his own, did it yourself anyway. Yeah, yeah, well, I got told that after the action. That was epic, man, when you did that. I still didn't expect, I think I was still in shock over the whole Claude thing, but I did not expect, I did not see you do that, and then even when you cast that spell, I didn't know that was the reason why. I thought you were just gonna throw Alpha here off the edge or something like that. No, I saved Disintegrate for him. That's what I was gonna do.
01:09:27
Speaker
I've saved this integrate for Altia. In the moment, I'd changed everything that I'd planned. Such is the way though, isn't it? I mean, that is the way. This is the way, yeah.
01:09:40
Speaker
Did you walk into the tower thinking, alright, whole person, everyone? Or did you walk in there going disintegrate time? No, I walked in there planning to be a boss. I had a spell slot left for animate objects and that kind of magical bullshit. I had me disintegrate spell left. And I thought,
01:10:00
Speaker
Oh, I had Resilient Sphere, which I just had prepared just on the off chance. So I did the Resilient Sphere one, but yeah, I thought, no. No, I can't do this. I can't. It was more so I didn't want to see anybody else die.
01:10:15
Speaker
I wasn't too fussed if it was me again. But I generally care for Robin and Helena and Carstan all being there and it's just like, no, I don't want to deal with trying to portray an emotional folly because he will not know how to portray it at all.
01:10:33
Speaker
And I thought, no, fuck it. Folly's going to do this the way he does it. He's not giving anybody a choice. They're all frozen. And I really was genuinely lucky that everybody failed that. Mate, such was the serendipity. And this is the magic of D&D again, right? Me and Case were one. We were one away from passing that saving throw. Both of us. We both missed out on passing it by one. I had some sorceress point saved if I needed to bend luck, but I wouldn't have been able to do it on all of you.
01:11:01
Speaker
So who knows if anybody had passed that saving throw. It could have been a very different story. Well, let's spotlight on you. Yeah. Thanks. Good one. Great contribution. You really get in touch with the inner column there.
01:11:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a real journey. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. It's really nice to have seen this campaign through to the end with the characters we've had. And it's nice to see these characters have an end. It's nice to... It's nice because obviously when you play a campaign book, obviously...
01:11:42
Speaker
Once that campaign book's over, that's it. The campaign's over and the world sort of ends. Sometimes, unless you're going to play our whole overarching campaign, it's nice that we're about to go into a world that we as players have had an impact on developing and shaping the history of.
01:11:58
Speaker
So that's quite a nice feeling, I think, going from this one into the next story, knowing that it's our characters that have decided this and we're existing in a world that has been shaped and impacted by our characters. So I'm looking forward to seeing some nice nods to different NPCs we may have met before. Easter eggs. Yeah, little Easter eggs. 100%. Yeah, they're very, very similar.
01:12:24
Speaker
That will be quite cool, all the little references that I'm sure Mark will be putting in. Mark's always writing them right now to put them in, yeah. He's just a wordsmith, that's why. Good genius. I agree, Will. Sorry, just to jump in on what Will said. That's exactly what I'd hoped would be the case, especially from the epilogue and everything after that. I wanted it to feel like, I think, good D&D from my very, very limited experience of it.
01:12:47
Speaker
is a world that you guys not only have that autonomy in, but also you genuinely make a difference. The world doesn't just keep on spinning, you alter its course. And I think that is how I wanted it to be. You know, you have a world ending event, you guys save it, and things get named after you. Things get renamed, things change because of what you've done. And that was really important that that was built into the epilogue to show to you guys, look, nothing, things didn't return to normal. There are some elements of things that have saved the same that you need to fix, but
01:13:17
Speaker
lots of things have changed away from the battleground because of what you've done the way people talk you know the calendar has changed events have changed their anniversaries that weren't there there are names of places that have changed you know you've had an impact and yeah like you said it's really nice to have your new characters entering into that world and i think as players it's nice that you
01:13:37
Speaker
You know a little bit about the world. You have that history innately built in. We haven't got to talk about it. You just know it, which will be really nice from early in the next story to be able just to get going because you will naturally just know a bit about the area, which is really, really cool. So yeah, I agree with you all. Sorry, Danny. Oh, mine sort of.
01:14:01
Speaker
keys into what Mark's saying, really. As much as Callum was able to sort of exploit the rules of the game, Mark really let me exploit the roleplay, the world a little bit from- You had free reign, didn't you? Well, this is it. I was able to suggest the outright absurd that became folklore. I was able to- Can cannon. Yeah. Bless these eggs. That's it. I was able to just make
01:14:30
Speaker
small but really, small and really insignificant moments that Mark embraced and ran full sprint with to sort of world changing events like being able to legalise a religion now. So from this point forward, as Leopold suggests,
01:14:49
Speaker
the eternal ones and the worship of Akiva is now legal. Which you also totally wrote as well. You wrote that religion into existence as well, Danny. I have to mention that as well. That whole creation was you that I loved so much. It was better than anything I'd written. So it became the focal kind of deity of the campaign because it was so great. So that, yeah, I want just a quick shout out to you for that because that was incredible.
01:15:13
Speaker
Thanks. It sort of helped me make the character like we were all thinking about our super objectives for our characters for for our new characters. But I might my sort of super objective for Claude was was take something that people loathe and turn in something that they love. And I was able to do that. So yes, my my biggest takeaway was a
01:15:37
Speaker
a rapport and a thank you to Mark for letting me flex my narrative cheats like Folly's game rule cheats. Always, never change. I would like to just say something as well. Do you know when you came up with a whole bless these eggs kind of thing? And then I think it was later on that you started obviously talking about your character more and how you died and come back and you were X amount of years old and all this kind of stuff.
01:16:04
Speaker
Part of me out of game was thinking that it's like, I wonder if these are just like really old traditions that existed when Claude was first alive, and then they've kind of just aged out of time. And I love the idea that you just, all this stuff that seems like random nonsense that you made will be literally Claude's past life stuff, just thinking it's still common practice.
01:16:28
Speaker
It's one of those moments, Callum, where you said something that's actually better than the reality. So let's go with that. I hate that. All right, you, Darren. Robin of Neverwinter got to complete his story. His story was told and Dustin Fogg, now Dustin Ghostbane,
01:16:53
Speaker
found the means of accepting himself and finding his place in the world and that is the completion of a story art that is incredibly fulfilling and I'm very grateful for it. And he survived.
01:17:09
Speaker
Yeah, I echo yours, man. I was very, very fortunate, I think, with Drago's whole campaign, really fortunate with Drago's whole campaign, the way it played out, his ambition just to kill a fucking demigod, the fact that you guys supported him in it, then he went and got more power from becoming best friends with Claude and journeyed there and became enlightened. And I really like the way it's ended for him, where he's
01:17:37
Speaker
He's gone full into a paladin rather than a little bit paladin using it for the power, mostly barbarian. And he killed Akiva. Nope, he killed Grazin as a paladin, as a barbarian. Like I loved that Claude's death was a catalyst. Even like it's so nuanced the way it all played out that Claude died.
01:18:01
Speaker
made Drago drop his rage and barbarian materialistics, and he just went full paladin, started smiting, and that's how he killed him. And now he's practicing his faith in all of that, I've said before. So there's so many beautiful little things that I can pick out a Drago story that you all had a hand in. And to be able to go, yeah, he gets to go back home, and he's going to do right by the death of his family, and he's going to do right by his bond with Althea.
01:18:31
Speaker
And he's going to continue on with the faith and he's going to live a more peaceful life. He's not angry all the time and he's not ragefully finds beautiful moments. And yeah, it's real nice. But I also like the fact that there's just that hidden thing of like,
01:18:47
Speaker
Well, there is part of him that's still there in Aerith in a bar being looked over by Tarly. And if something happened to him in the Sword Coast, like something untoward to him finding Ren or something, it doesn't necessarily mean he's done with Aerith. And I like that kind of open-endedness and nature to it. Yeah, just very fortunate really. Yeah, very cool.
01:19:16
Speaker
I want to rent that room in campaign two and just see it in the corner and be like, what the fuck is that? Just break it. I could take it with us as a pet.
01:19:35
Speaker
mmm there's no issue it's fucking it's a dragonborn like it's it's uh... well this is the thing the spell has come to maturity now right it was a hundred days oh yeah it would have so mark said it has yeah it would have been a hundred days so yeah it would have come to maturity now damn it yep that's it there is a drago in ereth now it's ready for it don't be a drago yeah but it has to wait for it has to wait for his soul doesn't he drago has to die for it to become a thing otherwise it's just oh it's just a shell going yeah
01:20:05
Speaker
You're muted again, Mark. You're trying to say insightful, wonderful things. You muted yourself. I just said, it's a husk. Not so beautiful in sight. Mark, how do you feel about everything? Obviously, you're the key person here and how did it end on your terms? Did you like the way that everything tied up? You did the epilogue, man.
01:20:29
Speaker
Yeah. I'll preface that I'm only the key person because of the shit you guys let me get away with and the stuff you give me. I'm not that creative. It's the stuff you give me that I go, Oh, this would be cool if we take that and change it and go with this. So, um, he's fucking great.
Reflections on Campaign Attachment and Ending
01:20:45
Speaker
Like we stand behind our DM and push him to the front. If a war happened and we needed the spokesperson for our group, it would be Mark that we pushed to the front.
01:20:53
Speaker
You deal with it, we believe in you. I'll get over it, we'll get over it. And what was the question again? Did I like it? No, what was it? Yeah, go with that, go with that. How did you feel your campaign ended? Did you like genuinely? Not shit, I was like, ah shit. I did want it to end.
01:21:13
Speaker
I'm too attached to all the characters and I didn't want it to end. And that might be why it, not my character, your characters. And I think that might be why it felt like it was a protracted ending. It just felt like it took ages for us to get there. Because I didn't really fucking want it to end, to be honest. And I kind of liked what we had and it was safe and it was dangerous.
01:21:33
Speaker
in terms of game not like oh look at us being dangerous playing D&D but it was dangerous and but it felt comfortable and it felt known and it felt there was lots of like settling and I know I'm gonna get to see Drago and Folly and Carstan and Robin and Claude and Helena you know it's almost like sitting down and watching your favorite sitcom or your favorite um tv series again like you know what to expect with a couple of twists here and there but you know everyone's gonna be all right
01:21:57
Speaker
And so I think I was just a little bit heartbroken when it came to the end, a bit at the stages of mourning and loss after all. And I think I ran into try and find one of you at some point, it was Casey actually, just at some point, you know, in a non-DND time, in a non-DND place, you know, during normal grown up hours of the week.
01:22:17
Speaker
And just like, can I, can we just talk about it for a bit? Cause I need to talk to someone about it to try talking to, you know, other people close to home, at home about it. And they just don't get it. They don't get it. Whereas it's like a shared, like the shared experience and, um, you.
01:22:33
Speaker
People outside don't get it. They'll never get it. But you do listeners because you're in the sanctum. Exactly. I've loved every single second of it. And looking back at it, there are things that I'd like to change about the way I play. But honestly, in terms of the way you guys picked your route through the world and the story to its ending, wouldn't change that for the world.
01:22:52
Speaker
wouldn't change that for all of Aerith, I thought. I mean, either way, there are stuff that it might have been more interesting, it might have been different, but actually, the choices you made got you to these moments of just absolute bliss, be that drama through combat, be that combat through drama, be that poignant moments, be that some absolute hilarity. They all came
01:23:12
Speaker
through to the choices you've made and that journey, I wouldn't change that for the world. So I am nothing but just in awe of you all and loved it all, loved it all, loved every single second of it. I think that is a really good way to see us out of this story involving Helena, Karsten, Claude, Drago, Robin,
01:23:39
Speaker
and folly. Audience, we can't thank you enough for just tuning in and listening and making us a part of your everyday week. We really do love you for us, for it, for us. We love you for us. We love you for it.
New Story Launch and Social Media Outreach
01:23:54
Speaker
So the biggest news that we have is that our latest, our newest, our freshest, our amazing news story comes to you on March the 4th, 2022. Okay, so you've only got three weeks
01:24:06
Speaker
to wait and there's going to be a weekly podcast and we're going to constantly deliver. As we have done since we started this back in September 2019, we haven't missed a single Friday. So you can expect content in these three weeks. Like I've said, we've got a couple of prologues for the new story just for you to listen to. They're going to be very
01:24:29
Speaker
kind of character building-y, we're gonna try and find our feet, but we're counting it as our official start date for our latest story is on March the 4th. So please, please tune in and tell your friends and family, your loved ones, everyone about it and get them to tune in as well.
01:24:46
Speaker
Um, but yeah, thanks for, thanks for listening. Thanks for sticking by us. Uh, if you wanted to keep up to date with the podcast, you can do so on our Twitter page, which is at fellowship table. We're in the discussion of perhaps making more social pages. I don't know. Throw us some suggestions of what we should do. You guys are young and hip. I assume some of you are, some of you are old and hip and that's cool, but I don't know. Old and need a hip depending on.
01:25:13
Speaker
Feel free to suggest where we could plug ourselves. We're interested in growing. We just want to plug away. Help us plug.
01:25:30
Speaker
My children here, I'm still having a calendar hip-joke to be honest Just let us just let us plug away maybe there's new avenues to plug and Maybe the plug fluffer VR You wanted to follow us individually you can do so I'm at I order one Darren's at Darren pay J6
01:26:00
Speaker
Danny's out. At Total Party Thrills. Callum is out. In need of a plug. I mean, that's the D20 Gamer. If you wanted to follow Casey, she's still around and she's still forever be a part of our family of podcasts.
01:26:17
Speaker
She's stepping away for the beginnings of the new story, but hopefully we'll be back to play some sort of characters, maybe a full character, maybe a part-time one. Got some stuff going on, all good things. But if you wanted to follow her, she's at Unicorn Crit. If you wanted to follow Big Willy Will, where can we do you? You can do me at Natural20will. So sexy. That's what she said.
01:26:43
Speaker
And if you wanted to follow our masterful one-of-a-kind DM, you can find him at hastily rolled DM. Thank you everyone for listening. This is the end of season one. End of this story. Until next time. Don't do it!