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Episode 231: Bloomburrow and an Announcement
143 Plays4 months ago
Welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast!! Today Alex and Taya are diving into the Bloomburrow story. Prior to getting to this review Hobbes recorded an announcement about the fact that he will be taking a break from recording. He plans to be back in September and wanted to be transparent about recent difficulties. The show will be coming out regularly and Hobbes is still involved, he needs to step back from recording only at this point.
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
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Transcript
Hobbs' Announcement and Self-Care
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to the Goblin Lore podcast. This is Hobbs Q, so I'm just popping in to give a little bit of a message, kind of a little statement before Alex and Taya take you away and discuss the Bloomboro story. I posted earlier, well, today when I'm recording this online, that I am going to be stepping back from recording for the Goblin Lore podcast for the next couple of months. This was not kind of an easy decision to make.
00:00:59
Speaker
And I'm still gonna be very involved with the show. I'm still gonna be the one editing and we will be getting episodes out. Alex and Taya will be doing amazing, fantastic work. I have no doubt about that. Because they do, they do. They've been stepping up for me so much when I've needed to step back. And this was just more of a matter of I've been stepping back a lot and I've needed to. And I always think that that's a thing that we emphasize on the show and we talk about and that we all agree on.
Community Support and Charity Involvement
00:01:25
Speaker
We have to take care of ourselves. And we've done that for all of the hosts.
00:01:29
Speaker
I just have needed a little bit more and I'm beginning to the point where we get closer and closer to an episode and I just feel like I don't have a topic to discuss or I don't feel prepared.
00:01:41
Speaker
don't feel the energy or the motivation and that is because of just so much other stuff that is going on outside of the show itself. Because of that I want to be intentional and that's a word that I've used many times when we've taken breaks as a whole cast when I've had to step back but this is probably going to be the longest sabbatical or break that I've taken since we started the show outside of you know when we were switching over
00:02:04
Speaker
from a three person show down to just Alex and I. This is going to be the longest that I am stepping away just from the being on recording, sharing my insights and things that I really am passionate
Plans for Show Notes and Podcast Continuation
00:02:18
Speaker
about. And it's just because I do need a break. And most of it is to do with just both magic and everything that's going on with it being overwhelming, both with the release schedule, just kind of my own relationship with magic as I've been adjusting that.
00:02:33
Speaker
And that's a good thing. I love this cast in this community. I talk about this a lot, but, and I posted the first place I posted was the, well, after talking to Alex and Taya was the goblin Lord discord, because of how important the people there are to me and how active and engaged that community is where I can reach out and get support as I need it.
00:02:56
Speaker
Um, that my work with kind of the charity events and with especially Beth, uh, queen of cardboard is just the stuff that is really important to me and that I want to make sure that I'm able to devote my energy and time to in a way that is not burning me out. And so this is the way that I'm going to do it. I'm going to take a break. I want to recenter. I want to kind of re get restarted with.
00:03:17
Speaker
us using show notes which is something that we used to do and we've just had to kind of we wanted to keep the show coming out and going in the midst of all three hosts I think struggling at different levels and because of that I really want to take this time to restart some of the stuff that I know has been helpful to have in place in the past so this is just my way of wanting to come on talk to you all directly
00:03:41
Speaker
say that the show is still going to be coming. I will be back to the show. I am just taking this intentional break. You will see me around online. You will see me in events in places that I as I am able and I will be online tweeting probably incessantly because that is just something that I do.
00:03:59
Speaker
But I want to pass this over to Taya and Alex, two people who I love dearly and that I trust implicitly, and I want you to enjoy getting to hear from them. Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. We're here today, and Taya and I, I know Hobbs said he was going to record a message beforehand, so we're going to spend too much. He's taking a break for a little bit.
00:04:26
Speaker
He's do some self care and and so he's gonna take a break for a little while, but tay and I are here to record and we're gonna continue to put out some episodes will. We'll see if we hit the weekly cadence we may or may not we're gonna just do what works for us and we'll try to be communicative to the community and thanks everybody for sticking with us for over six years at this point and we're gonna keep going.
00:04:49
Speaker
I'm happy that Hobbs has taken some time for some self-care and he is gonna still be working, doing some stuff in the behind the scenes with us and things
Animal Folk Species Discussion
00:04:57
Speaker
too. So he'll still be part of the cast and present on our Discord, just not recording any episodes for a little bit.
00:05:06
Speaker
But today, we have the full Bloomberg story now. And so Tay and I are here to talk about Bloomberg. And I realize I have mentioned your name twice, but I've not actually said my name once. So why don't I introduce myself? I'm Alex. Vote on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he him.
00:05:27
Speaker
And our question for this week, we figure a nice easy question for this week is, you know, what group of what species of animal folk do you think you'd fit in? And I had to think about this a little bit. And I think for me, I'm
00:05:45
Speaker
I'm going to go on the color pie lines, and though we don't have them represented in the Planeswalker guides that have been releasing, which are cool, just yet, the mouse folk seem to have been in the red-white color pie just from some of the cards they've revealed.
00:06:03
Speaker
And so that is what I'm going to say for myself. That is often when we talk about that. And for me, it's less, and I love, once again, we're having some different types of representations within these two-colored pairs. Because it's like, for me, I'm not really red-white like the Boros from Ravnica, but I feel kind of red-white like the Lorehold from Strixhaven. And so
00:06:28
Speaker
but I still sort of feel like I faded that. So I think that's a good answer for myself. But talk about it for yourself, Taya. Well, I'm Taya. Taya transcends on Blue Sky, pronouns are she, her, they, them. And I'm definitely on the squirrel train for this. There's no cat people, so I can't go with cat. Yeah.
00:06:54
Speaker
Um, the squirrels, uh, I'm glad to see them getting so much attention in this set. They're one of my favorite, um, kindred, uh, groups. And I have a, uh, I have a Tosky deck that is all squirrels. Um, so I'm excited. Uh, I guess you can say Tosky is like 24 squirrels in a crater hoof, but, um,
00:07:20
Speaker
It's like every card that can make a squirrel in mono green is in that deck. So I'm hoping to get some more goodies in this set. I'm also looking, there's the squirrel commander deck that's coming. The black green deck is squirrel themed. Yeah, that's cool. I'm excited to see that they're releasing them on Thursday. So I'm excited to see what's in that deck.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yeah, and I'll say we're recording when the story is out, but the full cards have not been revealed yet. That'll be later this week. And so I'd be interested to see kind of how deep some of these colors are, because it looks like they might have hit. I guess I wasn't counting. But they hit a lot of combos, and not just all ally or all enemy.
00:08:10
Speaker
Yeah, there's one creature type for each, one animal folk for each 10 color pair. They've only covered about half of them on the Planeswalker Guide so far, but Gavin did a video that covers all 10 of them. Oh, cool. Cool. That's awesome. So yeah, I like that.
Draft Archetypes and Set Themes
00:08:31
Speaker
I think that's cool, and especially
00:08:34
Speaker
It's cool to have more representation of that for people who are, we're point especially commander, but like in a Ravnica, it's hard to do that all in one set. Cause you're trying to hit all the guilds and have each of them be big enough to do stuff with. But in this set, I suspect they're not, the way it's built is, is not quite as, as hard as that. Like you want to be in these exactly two colors. So putting all 10 in and having them be a little thinner in total still works. I suspect.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think it'll probably I mean, I haven't been a limited player for a while, but you know, it's not like they're doing anything new. It's like blue, white has always been flyers and limited and it's blue, white bird folk this time. So it's like, yeah. Red, black aggro is red, black get bonuses for doing damage to your opponent lizard folk. So, yeah, I mean, they're the typical draft archetypes.
00:09:32
Speaker
Um, white, black bats is life gain and life loss. So standard aristocrats, uh, play style. Yep. So it'll be fun. And it's a fun, it's a fun thing. And as we'll get to more on the story, I'll be curious to see how much more of this plane we see, how quickly, if that makes sense, the story.
00:09:57
Speaker
The specific story for the folk who were involved in the exact story, you know, what was being covered, was resolved, but kind of none of the greater plot went anywhere yet. So, and it definitely seems like there's more that's going to be happening on this plane, so I'll be curious to see.
00:10:15
Speaker
kind of when we see that and what that looks
Bloomborough Story and Valerie Valdez's Writing
00:10:17
Speaker
like. I guess seeing as that's the topic, maybe we effortlessly and elegantly transition into the main topic. So we had five episodes for the story this time, which is a decent spot, but it was a little less than we've had in recent years, but we know this is marketing budget.
00:10:40
Speaker
And so just glad we're getting good story written by good writers. And we got a cool thing. And I don't know, maybe I've just noticed this this time, but we got the audio. Yeah, they've been doing this for the last couple of sets. OK, that's that's so cool. Yeah, I mean, it's not quite the quality that it was when Voice of all used to do the full audio dramatization for the stories. I really miss them.
00:11:08
Speaker
But the audio readings are still really good. It's basically like an audio book format. So if you don't have time to read the story, you can listen to it. Yeah, which is, I will admit, what I did today for the last one while I was at work. I just had it playing. And from what I did, they were all around 30 minutes or so, which isn't too bad to kind of cat two and a half hours or so for the whole story for the set.
00:11:36
Speaker
Which was cool. And these stories are all by Valerie Valdez, who also did the Lost Caverns of Ixalan story, I believe. Okay.
00:11:52
Speaker
not checked into the story at the time. Yeah, she also did the Lost Caverns of Excellence story. That is cool. Thank you for having that pulled up. That's awesome. So yeah, it's great to have her back writing the story. Yeah.
00:12:16
Speaker
I would have been amused if they'd gotten an actual well-known furry writer to write the Bloomborough story, but maybe next time we come to Bloomborough, they can be that bold.
00:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, let's say just before we get into some of the details, one of the things I really appreciate, and maybe this is just something I pay too much attention to, but one of the things, and I'm not going to, we're not going to go down this rabbit hole too much, but one of the things that threw me off the most with the War of the Spark story that I, not even the one that was super problematic, but the one that, the only one that I read, because there was two parts of it that
00:12:56
Speaker
It doesn't matter, but there was a lot of illusions and expressions to things that were from our world just sort of bandied about. They're a normal part of our conversational language in the United States, but they didn't fit.
00:13:12
Speaker
magic and they didn't fit Ravnica and this world with this this writer and all of all of the details that were in here really captured every character Valerie had
00:13:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah, the expression. She did an amazing job. I'm not I'm not putting Valerie down at all. I'm just joking that, you know, there's a lot of furry writers out there. Oh, yeah. No, that's a that's a rough. Yeah, not not this was a this wasn't in reference to what you're saying. This is just in general. I want to recognize at least that that Valerie, like not just making little references. So like I have a quote here from from why didn't I write the character's name, the mouse folk?
00:13:55
Speaker
Mabel, or maybe Mabel. Yeah, I just heard the story. But so like, one of her one of the things she said to her kids right at the end of the second episode was I love you from spring to winter and back again.
00:14:10
Speaker
It's like that feels so pitch perfect for this world. And she had so many little expressions that had to do with food. Oh yeah, I had it right down to Mabel. At one point she was just in her head, there was a lot of things going on. And then I was like, nope, there's something we need to take care of. So she said the line something like, I need to store that in my mental pantry because Mabel's a baker. And so there's all these little things that are not just
00:14:35
Speaker
appropriate for the world, but appropriate for the character and help to determine, like, build the character's voice. And even when the big bad kept calling her a farmer, she's like, no, I'm not a farmer. I'm a baker. Yeah. And reading these stories from her POV, you're like, yeah, she's a baker. Like, you can tell it. It is just a part of who she is and how she thinks about things.
00:14:59
Speaker
And especially in short fiction, as we've talked to several different writers of magic fiction on the cast, you don't have a lot of space. And I really hope we get to talk to Valerie. That is something I'm hoping we can make happen. Yeah, I would love to. But at least for me, someone who is so interested in structure of some of these things and how it's built, I just really appreciate how economical and how
00:15:29
Speaker
really strong that character building was. And even those little moments, those little turns of phrase, they were so personalized to the characters that they really helped to build the characters and build the world in this short little bit of space. Like I said, two and a half hours of audio. If you listen to audiobooks, like most novels are like an average sized novel. You're looking at like an eight to 10 hour audio book.
00:15:58
Speaker
So it's like, this is such a small little bit in that way, at least. So it takes a lot of those things and validates a good job of building this story and telling it in these five pieces in this limited scope. And at least for me, that was one of the cool things that really helped to build that. Yeah. It's.
00:16:23
Speaker
you know, even getting down into like talking about the food that's going to be at the party, like a dandelion and turnip salad. It's, you know, strawberry jam and calamine. Yeah. Yeah. It's there's one point or two when they like talking about eating a strawberry. Yes. Because strawberries are so big relative to that. Yeah.
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, and it's even those moments where it's like, that's world building stuff. It feels like what food they lay out, maybe not as important as all the events, but by doing that, you can still build this world and you can build the characters by the way they're talking about this food, the way they're laying out this party for Mabel because it's her birthday and celebrating this, helps to build this tone.
00:17:15
Speaker
to start quoting, you know, this is like that so much that the internet discourse has, but it really builds a little like one of the things that I was noticing while thinking about, well, well, listening to the last story in this, the scope of these events feel so much smaller. This so like, and I didn't even think about the party thing. I didn't put this together. So you were talking about that, but that feels very hobbit. That this is very hobbit in parts of the Lord of the Rings, where there's just this
00:17:45
Speaker
There are events that are happening, especially here. We have the calamity beast, we have disasters, we have things that happen that are bad, but the normal day to day is a lot more pastoral and calm and farmerly than a lot of the planes we go to, especially when you hang out on Ravnica. It's a very different world.
00:18:11
Speaker
It is really different and this world feels more different than I think any of the other worlds. It's really impressive how much it feels on its own.
00:18:29
Speaker
um even shows up in the mechanics like like you know it's the gift mechanic is really um neat i think it's uh and and it kind of just shows how there's so much focus on community in these stories yeah and all the all the little cities and even like the people who don't leave like they know there's these couple
00:18:56
Speaker
little towns, these are not towns that there's just like the couple of cities that they go to. But even those cities are just like relatively small compared to what we would know of as a city in another place, even on the scale of these, you know, folk who are smaller than most of the humanoids we follow in the stories. But even on that, even accounting for that scale difference, their big cities are pretty small. Yeah.
00:19:23
Speaker
And pretty neat looking to the way they like design the city is, you know, it's really cool. I'm
00:19:36
Speaker
So, you know, just so overjoyed by the set. It is. Oh, yeah. And the art direction in this set is just incredible. It's gorgeous. I really want to own a piece of art from the set, but the pieces have been going for more than I can swing right now. Yeah, you know, I was trying to I was trying to get an otter, but the otters keep going for us.
00:20:04
Speaker
a pretty significant amount of money. Yeah, they're popular. The otters be popular. They need more of them in magic. Yes. Do we want to try to talk through the events of the story? Yeah, let's talk through the story then. It starts in a little village with the
00:20:32
Speaker
very obviously on the spectrum, Helga the Frog. They did not play down that aspect at all of what it's like to be ADHD slash autistic. She's definitely got that going for her and
00:20:58
Speaker
And she has trouble relating the only people she ever really related to her grandparents who are no longer with her. And she's an outsider to pretty much everyone else. Yep. And she's also can see the future but nobody believes her so that's another thing that
00:21:19
Speaker
Um, you know, she has scrying magic potential and it's in the way that it shows up for her as she just kind of goes into a daze and sketches things and Which from what I understand is different from everyone else Which is another thing which is contributes to them just not believing her because she works different than them Yeah, and then she internalizes that
00:21:45
Speaker
And thanks that this was a note that I wrote to today. It was just like, uh, something about, um, she needs more self-compassion. It gets like, there's, there's a lot of internalized things of just feelings of uselessness that she has because of all these experiences, because of all this rejection, because of all these people kind of othering her, um, based on her differences.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's so, you know, we get her as our point of view character for the start of the story. And, you know, she's a frog folk, so Simica aligned in this story set. We know she used to study magic, but she got tossed out for some reason.
00:22:39
Speaker
And now she's just was living in the small town with their grandparents until they passed on. And then we get our first viewing of the Calamity Beasts, which is this really awesome aisle. The art on it is, the Calamity Beast arts in general are amazing. Yes, they are. So in this world, the Calamity Beasts are not, they're not the animal folk. They don't seem to have any
00:23:05
Speaker
They don't talk or anything. And they're much larger than the other animal folk. Yeah. And a lot of them fit animal types that are not sort of represented. So like this first one is an owl. And they have some bird for it, but they're smaller birds. And maha, the owl. Yeah. So we have, they're all small birds, but a lot of the calamities are also predators. Not all of them are, but a lot of them are. Yep.
00:23:35
Speaker
Um, but like the, the borderless Maha is absolutely gorgeous. Uh, and basically all of the, all of the calamity beasts are elemental, uh, elemental type. And, um, Maha's element is darkness. So wherever she goes, she brings the dark with her.
00:23:58
Speaker
And she tore Helga's little town to bits and Helga basically runs off and decides the best thing she could do would be run off and get help from this blind calamity. So she just starts running down the river as quick as she can and eventually gets to the next village, which is like three hours away and kind of passes out.
00:24:25
Speaker
That's where we pick up most of the rest of our story cast. They're all getting ready to celebrate Mabel's birthday. Mabel's a mouse folk. We talked about her being a chef. She's got a whole adorable little mouse family. The relationship with her and her husband is so adorable.
00:24:54
Speaker
It's really cute the way that Valerie describes them as a family. Oh yeah, and the interactions with her and her kids. It's awesome. It's a great explanation. And this is one of those things where some of that is
00:25:15
Speaker
Again, the story doesn't have a whole lot of space, and so where you use it is really important. And this, even though it doesn't, quote unquote, involve the plot, is all super important for setting the tone, and setting the characters, and setting kind of the character of the world, too. And yeah, like I said, it was just such a sweet, her family life is so sweet. And I love, too, their,
00:25:45
Speaker
relationship with Oliver, who is the mayor? Yes, the mayor is like, in their day to day is probably the most contentious thing they have. And it is not really contentious. It's just that he is a little bit of he just likes to talk too much and talk up things. And they're just like, you don't need so many speeches, we can just get to the food. And like that is the
00:26:12
Speaker
the height of sort of that, that they, uh, contentionally. Yeah.
00:26:22
Speaker
But Mabel does have some experience with fighting off bandits and other things. So she is known as one of the more outgoing or heroic people in town just based on her experience protecting the town in the past, even though she's a baker. And it turns out one of the things is she has an ancient artifact that her mom
00:26:48
Speaker
has her guarding which is a fire sword so that's you know one of the reasons that she actually is kind of a you know she's a powerful little mouse yeah and and that you learn about partly through the interaction with Oliver too which is yeah because he keeps trying to get her to bring out the family heirloom artifact to the birthday party and she's just like no i'm not going to bring it out just to show it off
00:27:17
Speaker
Uh, but then, um, Helga kind of wanders in, uh, passes out in town. Uh, they wake her up and gets a story of the attack. And that's when they go to like, you know, Avengers assemble. Let's get the party team together. Yeah. And, uh, And then we get.
00:27:40
Speaker
Fairly short little bit from one more point of view. Yeah. We get a short bit from Raoul.
00:27:52
Speaker
Raoul has one thing on his mind, and that's violence. Yes, one of the very first lines of his POV is, Bellerin is alive, and I'm going to kill him. And then he has that, he's thinking about it, and then he has that conversation with Tomit. Yeah, which is, I love this. So you have in Mabel's,
00:28:19
Speaker
BC, you have three points of view here, and in Mabel's and Raoul's, you both get a nice familial moment. Mabel's, it's a little longer with her whole family and the town kind of things, but you get this great, just nice, tender moment opening with conversation between Raoul and Tomic.
00:28:38
Speaker
where Raoul was fuming and then Tomik has to like kind of talk through with him and okay. Yeah, Tomik's like, you know, I thought you wanted to find him and Raoul's like, I do so I can kill him. And Tomik's like, wait, isn't he your friend? Yeah. Yeah. And I just, I love the line, stop being reasonable. Raoul pressed a kiss to his husband's mouth to silence him. This is just like, yeah, it's just this nice, yeah, it didn't work. It's just a great little moment.
00:29:10
Speaker
and Atomic kind of talks him through, helps him talk through a potential solution. And then Rael sort of heads off and winds up as an honor. I love this so much.
00:29:32
Speaker
Because it just, it ends this line. I just have to read the last full line of this thing. It says, I'm going to kill him. Ralph shouted, his eyes filling with lightning as he shook his paw at the sky. Yeah. Yeah. And the line before that is he ran his hand over his face in disgust and froze. What happened to his face for these whiskers was he's covered in fur. Was that a towel?
00:29:58
Speaker
And there's a recurring thing throughout the story that he doesn't know how to handle his tail. Yep. Yep. Notice that there's this weird otter who doesn't know how to handle his tail. Yeah. And I think this was, if I recall correctly, this is the only POV we get from Ral's point of view. It's the only stretch. He is in the story, but I think it's all through the other characters viewing him, which is fun because
00:30:24
Speaker
Then you get to see them all thinking he's just a little hot cuz like how does this otter just not know his tail is there like just not know how to interact with having a tail. Yeah. Because that was even the first reference was that in the next episode, where the first reference of him that we see after this POV was
00:30:45
Speaker
the characters talking to someone else when they get to a new time. They're like, yeah, there was this really kind of rude otter that came through and bumped into somebody. Like he didn't even know how his tail worked or something. Yeah. Yeah. That was... So yeah, going into episode two, we get kind of Helga waking up and telling the story about what happened. And nobody believes her but Mabel pretty much. So she's used to people not believing.
00:31:14
Speaker
her and but Mabel's like no I think I think there's something here so they get to the party together to travel back to Helga's village to look
00:31:30
Speaker
look it over and they introduced all the party members or all the characters during the party. And then of course they do the, you know, Mabel does the who's with me and those are all the characters that happen to volunteer. Yeah. They have a literal, you have my bow moment. Yeah. You know,
00:31:56
Speaker
I really love the bats in this story, though. Yes. Zoraline is a little bat cleric, and since she sleeps all day, she's, you know, through most of the story, she is hanging on to the back of the Badger boat and just hanging upside down off of his back. Mm hmm.
00:32:23
Speaker
and sleeping, but, um, yeah, they all do like moon magic, which is really cool. The way they did the bat focus pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I love that one. She's talking about like part of why she went and was the stars are out of alignment or something, which is kind of cool. Like a cool, like I think I'd love that, that sort of fit for the magic, but like that kind of fits the planes thing. And like, there could be some things going on and we know
00:32:55
Speaker
We know Jace is doing something. Yeah, and it's not good. And it's not good. And apparently he has been here before. So we have the whole party scene. We get Oliver giving his big speech, and then they go to get the volunteers.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah. And then we also get the sad, we get the sad little mice completely crying that their mom is going to go away. Yeah. And I, I've lost, I think there was the, there was the moment where one of them was talking about her mom, their mom going out to, to be a hero. And the response was something like, well, she's already my hero. And that was so that was heartbreaking, but
00:33:51
Speaker
In this world, there are regular seasonal calamity beasts that have a pattern that they know and some that don't, but this was so far out of what they understand. It's like, we got to investigate this. And if this village was, the calamity beast came through, there might be people who need help. And so this was Helga and the others saying we need to go help.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah. And I do love the Badger's name is Huggs. Huggs. Huggs the Badger. That's right. Yes. It's so good. Yeah. And we get to see, like I said, Oliver had another excuse to make a speech. So that was a nice way to start. And we get to see the sword. Mabel goes and gets the family artifact. Yeah. We talk about it a little bit.
00:34:48
Speaker
And that goes into episode three, kind of starting. You know, they get going a little bit. They get, they get to talk amongst themselves a little bit more and you learn a bit more about the rest of the party members. Yeah. Kind of through the lens of Helga getting to finally meet some of them. Yeah. So like, give the lizard man and hugs the badger. We're in an adventuring party together for a long time.
00:35:18
Speaker
And they really play off like the, um, you know, like the, the hetero life partner friends, give us constantly taking care of hugs and yes, you know, making sure he's all right when hugs is just kind of this big monster, but they have, they definitely have a connection together, but it's not a romantic thing. Uh,
00:35:45
Speaker
Yes. The, the adventures of the striped rapscallions. Yeah. That's what they called themselves. Uh, that's right. Cause give was telling the story about it. It's like hugs and myself. We also traveled with a skunk folk named Kiki, but she's gone to her rest.
00:36:04
Speaker
I'm sorry, when did she pass on? Oh, she's not dead. She just fell in love with the raccoon folk and they settled down to raise ladybugs. Really setting the tone of this world and these stories. Yeah. They get back to what's left of the town and yeah, it's totally trash. Everything is wrecked. There's nobody around. And then they find squirrel folk digging through the rubble.
00:36:35
Speaker
Yeah, and this is the first time we've seen squirrel folk. Yeah, and also the first time we see combat, because those squirrel folk, you're actually a pair of necromancers who raise a whole bunch of dead animals to attack the party while they make off. Which is kind of grisly for this place, but it's just so funny to me that we have the squirrels are necromancers. Yeah. I love this plane so much. Yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Um, scroll neck room through. Yeah, it's great. And this is, this is where you get to see the party and they can.
00:37:24
Speaker
did well for themselves, these people. Right, but they did, but Helga screws up a spell and it just has her questioning herself even more. She has the whole thing going on constantly. Nobody trusts her, and so she doesn't trust herself.
00:37:42
Speaker
Uh, and she's one of the, you know, she always screws up the spell when it matters most sort of thing. Uh, so she, she kind of gets some more of that and, you know, Mabel tries to reassure her that she's doing a good job. Uh, Mabel is very, very wholesome. She's just, she is such a mom folk personality, a mom, uh, personality for the whole group and.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah, and I wrote down like a note later in this when I was listening through the last ones and I just we need we need more badass moms in fantasy. It's I love her character so much like you say she and it's if you ever played it like D&D campaigns a lot of times not all the time but every so often depending on the group dynamic and things you'll have the party mom. And that is kind of what Mabel became and it was
00:38:41
Speaker
It's great. I love it. Yeah. You know, she's obviously she's got experience doing this, but it's not her full time thing. But like her, maybe not full time things. She's a baker as well. But like her, her experience like as a parent is.
00:39:01
Speaker
very helpful here. She helps. It's a bunch of folks, most of whom know each other and kind of know what they're doing, but what they're doing within a certain realm. They're good at, you know, hugs is big and strong, and oh, the rabbit folk, he was an archer.
00:39:17
Speaker
Phineas, was that Phineas? Great archer, but it's like, but what they're doing, none of them have ever done before. This is, they're all in uncharted territory and they, and so there's a moment where they kind of don't really know what to do, but Mabel's like, okay, we're going to talk through the options. What can we do? And that helps them all focus. And then kind of after this fight here, as they kind of go through the options, then she turns to Helga and says, well, this was your village.
00:39:47
Speaker
What should we be doing? Should we go after them? Should we try to stay and help people? What direction should we go in? And Pelga decides to follow the squirrels because something serious is happening and they should try to figure out what's happening and try to stop it if they can. Well, that's right. When they have her do some, did she do some augury here to help them figure out where they were going to?
00:40:18
Speaker
Oh no, that was Zoraline just figured out where they were going. So they had an idea of what was in that direction. Yeah. So they get to Three Tree City, which is basically it's a city built into a tree.
00:40:40
Speaker
Very familiar with this from my humble would campaign as well, which if you've never if you're not familiar with humble what it's a good time to bring it up because it's a, it is a D&D compatible fifth edition setting. That is all critter folk. So like my character and my humble would campaign is a hedgehog Druid.
00:41:05
Speaker
It's a great, it is basically, Bloomberg is like Humblewood, exactly, even to the point of them using insects as beasts of burden and stuff like that. Yep. Yeah, I have not played it, but I'm kind of familiar with it.
00:41:27
Speaker
Yeah, so this definitely, if you like the setting of Bloomborough, you might enjoy playing a Humblewood campaign. So, yeah, so they get to Three Tree City and they start asking around
00:41:53
Speaker
about the squirrels or they find out that squirrels mentioned Cruelclaw, which was their boss apparently. So they're looking for somebody named Cruelclaw. And that's when they run into, they run into Ral. And he's badly looking for,
00:42:21
Speaker
He's trying to do anything to find any sighting of Jace, but he can't even describe Jace without people laughing at him because it makes no sense. Yeah.
00:42:35
Speaker
And it's like he doesn't know what. Yeah, like at one point he says tattoos. What are those? You know, one of the he has distinctive tattoos, tattoos, someone else chiming. What are those in a stranger side? Fur pattern, stripes, two white lines running from his mouth to his chin and others on the one side of his cheek face. Would you just look at my drawing? And so that must have been poorly rendered because the others doubled over with laughter. So, I mean, they've never seen a human before. And I'm sure that's what Raoul has drawn.
00:43:03
Speaker
Yes. And had a very, a very real response to was, nevermind, thank you so much for your utter lack of assistance. Yeah. Then Mabel's just like, rude. Yeah. But Helga heard the description and she had actually had visions of him. Yeah. And so she brings him up in a sketchbook as a fox form.
00:43:29
Speaker
And Ralge was like, yeah, that's him. Where is he? And he gets even kind of ruder. But this is, she mentioned she's seen him in his dream and there's a lizard folk with green and black scales and yellow eyes. So we know he's with Baraska too.
00:43:54
Speaker
So, yeah, of course, Frasca would become a lizard folk on this plane. Oh, yeah. I don't know if we're going to get a card for her, but we haven't seen one yet. Oh, that's true. For the planeswalkers as Persona, planeswalker, Persona cards. We haven't seen one for her yet. Yeah.
00:44:11
Speaker
Yeah. Then you get a bit where Raul and Mabel are kind of arguing, which is which ends up being interrupted by Helga being surprised that this stranger actually believes her. Because again, she has kind of her whole life just she just believes that no one would believe her. That's just the internal monologue she has. Yeah. And usually nobody does. But
00:44:42
Speaker
So it's, uh, yeah, so she's, she's like, what's going on here? And then we get rail and your rail is like, I'm going to stick by your side because you're my only link to chase at this point. Uh, and right about then a water calamity beast shows up and floods the whole dang city. Yep.
00:45:07
Speaker
So the whole party basically gets sucked away down a stream. Hugs basically holds everybody together to keep them from falling apart or drowning. And then they get to a rat poke den where they are not welcomed very nicely at first.
00:45:36
Speaker
Uh, not at all. And, uh, apparently so that the village elder like comes out and says, Oh, they're not like the other ones and welcomes them inside. And, uh, apparently, uh, Jason Vraska were, or seemed like they were there, but weren't very, um, polite. Um,
00:46:05
Speaker
Oh, okay. No, sorry. That wasn't Jason Nebraska visit. It was the mercenaries. That was right. I had to reread that quick because I was, um, so the, uh, cool claw and his, uh, yeah, there's a good name, you know, that's obvious bad guy, right?
00:46:25
Speaker
Oh yeah, absolutely. Uh, and specifically Crookclaw is a weasel folk. So he's a type that we don't have, uh, represented in the other groups. And there's a few of these that have less representation, uh, than the primary 10, um, that are the two color pairs, but we, we get some possum folk and, uh, some weasel folk and, um,
00:46:50
Speaker
You know, green, red is the raccoon color, but we get, you know, hugs in the green, red. So we get, you know, some, some baboons and, or not baboons, but badgers in green, red as well. So there's, there's some animal folk that aren't as common as the others. We also learned that the, the rats, or at least this group of rat folk are lore keepers. Yeah.
00:47:19
Speaker
preserving the history of Bloomborough and the Valley, which is cool. They're pretty cool, yeah. So it even kind of gets into the, it gets into the rat folk mechanic as threshold. So they're like learning from the past. So I thought this was- Yeah, that makes sense. It's like good melt those. Yeah, that's cool. Tie-in too.
00:47:43
Speaker
And we also meet a molefolk here too. Right. Yes. We also meet another molefolk. So another one. Yep. And he's like the butler. I don't think they have they don't have art for him, but I'm just picturing this little molefolk with a pair of like wire rim glasses wearing a butler's outfit. Yep. I like it.
00:48:14
Speaker
I think it's a pretty adorable thought. So they don't know where the mercenaries went. They know they left. So they decided to trust Mabel. So Mabel decides to trust Helga to do some scrying. And Helga is like, I don't think I can do it. Everybody supports her.
00:48:44
Speaker
And she even talks about, it's like almost no one ever believes she could. Her parents, her siblings, her neighbors, only her grandparents had supported her and she'd always suspected they were humming her out of love, but Mabel trusted her and Mabel believed in her. And, and Rael, a complete stranger, seeing enough truth in her drawings to pledge himself as a protector. So she, she realizes that other people are thinking more highly of her than she does herself. Mm-hmm.
00:49:11
Speaker
And she decides to put some trust in that and try. And then we get this moment I love where she tries to get a bowl of water to try to scry like others would and nothing happened. And then instead she pulled out a blank page and put pencil to paper
00:49:42
Speaker
And kind of after some encouragement from Zarlene, started to deep, started to breathe deep. Oh, good Lord. Started to take a deep, slow breath and started to just let it go. Just let it, and she managed to draw a picture of Fountainport. Just the next destination.
00:50:08
Speaker
And in this scene, we also learned from the rat folk what the thing that the mercenaries have. They stole a calamity beast egg. And that's probably what's causing these calamity beasts to chase them, which is causing a lot of destruction. Yeah. So the rat folk show them a shortcut out
00:50:38
Speaker
Um, at one point, uh, so they, they run into, or they hear, you know, they get some foreshadowing that there's an odd creature, um, stalking the path to fountain, uh, or whatever it's called. And, um,
00:51:00
Speaker
I haven't seen it myself. I'm told it's not a calamity beast, but it's very like one. We have no record of anything similar in our histories. And perhaps it's from another plane, Rael muttered, and another what, Phineas? Nothing. So Rael, obviously, our beast folk are not familiar with the rest of the multiverse, even though the Omen Paths are open now. And Rael almost just lets the whole thing slip.
00:51:28
Speaker
Oh yeah. Because then that leads to Phineas a little while later as they were traveling, starting to question him. It's like, so may I ask where you hail from? Far away. Yeah. Got our woods? Farther. Yeah. It's, it's like every, you know, back in the
00:51:45
Speaker
planeswalker days where everybody was a planeswalker. There was a lot of stories like that occasionally where most of the world was not familiar with the other planes. There had been no phyrexian invasion yet. And so planeswalkers just didn't even try to explain it. Just like, I'm from away. No further away than that. Even further than that. Yeah. And then you get another touching little moment where Mabel and Ral are both commiserating with missing their husbands.
00:52:15
Speaker
Uh, and that is just adorable. No. Um.
00:52:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a great it's a great little bet. And then all of a sudden there is something that we get a reminder that Tarkir is coming in. Yes. Whatever six months or whenever it is. And I hadn't put that together. Yeah. Yeah. So we get it.
00:52:58
Speaker
uh, which his transmogrified somewhat into a hawk, but it still has the four wings and they end in, instead of feathers, they end in like reptilian ends. So it's got a little bit of magic. Doesn't quite know what to do with dragons. Yes. Actually one's as odd as the colon on, uh, rude are with their, their four partially feathered wings and.
00:53:27
Speaker
Yeah, and the lighting. Yeah, it brought a storm. Yep.
00:53:36
Speaker
And at this point, so Phineas asked, what is that thing? And he said, it's a dragon rel, Whisper Beck. Animals shifted, which I suppose is to be expected. And then, what are you talking about? So, I should listen rel, quiet, but intense. That creature is not from Bloomberg. It's extremely dangerous, like your calamity beast. If we attract its attention, we'll be in immense trouble. So, he keeps letting it slip that there's a wider multiverse out there and then,
00:54:05
Speaker
quickly covering it up as much as you can yeah yeah so they all they all try to this is the stealth section where they all yeah which they fail like i do every time in a stealth video game i hate for stealth sections so much yep i i they always put one in a zelda game and i'm just like please no do we have to do this again i don't want to do this again
00:54:31
Speaker
Yeah, and I love it, the way it works here, it was everybody tried so hard, even hugs, who is so big, he was trying so hard. And in the end, it was Zoraleen who was sleeping, because it's the middle of the day, who gets hit in the face by a dandelion and snaps awake, sneezes, oh yeah, so you have sneezes, and doesn't,
00:54:57
Speaker
know that they're trying to sneak and it's just asking, you know, what's going on? Where are we? Why is everyone so quiet? And now it's time to run. Yeah. And then we get some really cool art that looks like it's probably from the common red removal spell in this set of Braille just bolting everything in the field of dandelions. Yeah.
00:55:21
Speaker
Yes. Ral as an otter just going full Ral. It's beautiful. Takes control of the storm that the dragon created and just... And then they basically create a... Phineas shoots an arrow that is basically a lightning rod at the dragon and then Ral hits it. Yep.
00:55:42
Speaker
I love, cause I think we're in Mabel's point of view. Yeah. We're in Mabel's point of view. So he called it a dragon, but they're all like, well, it's, it's a hawk. It looks like a hawk. And so after he calls it a dragon, Mabel refer, well, the POV even refers to it as a dragon hyphen hawk several times, which I love. That's just a nice little detail. Yeah.
00:56:06
Speaker
Um, in another, a lovely Ral, very Ral line. It's like, you like a little lightning, don't you? Well, let's check your battery capacity. I, Ral has the snarkiest lines. Yep. And, um, yeah. And so they use lightning against a Kologon dragon, which doesn't kill it. Uh, lightning bolt only does three damage and a dragon is a five, five.
00:56:32
Speaker
Yep. And I'm sure it has some resistance to lightning being a colegant dragon to begin with. But I don't think it liked something that could fight back. Yeah. So it just left. Yeah. Has happened sometimes in the wild with predators. It's like, eh, it's not worth the calories. So then we get on to the final episode, which all takes place in Fountainport.
00:56:59
Speaker
which is a really cool city concept of this basically three-tiered palace with houses floating in the water and magical uplifts in the water to get from one tier to another.
00:57:19
Speaker
it's really cool. And there's some art by Leon Tucker that's linked in the story that it's just like, this is some really neat world building and design. Like how would a frog folk city look? Yeah, it's, it's super cool. Yeah. I mean, even one of the characters made reference to that too. I can't remember who it was, but somebody said something like, um, you know,
00:57:49
Speaker
The Three Tree City was bigger, but my head is going to pop off because I keep looking around because this place is so beautiful. Yeah, it's Phineas. Phineas, okay. Yeah.
00:58:02
Speaker
And, um, and Gev says, I prefer less water. And I'm like, yeah, that's a very lizard, lizard folk thing to say. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. Uh, but, um, Helga, the, the, the story starts with Helga's point of view and she's really nervous because the last time she was here, she was an apprentice to the King, King Glarr. And she got fired from her job.
00:58:27
Speaker
Yes. And we don't know, we didn't hear why or get a lot of inclination of why. Yeah. And then we, we find out here as she's more and more anxious as they get closer and closer to having to request an audience. Yeah. And, um, like, well,
00:58:51
Speaker
would he even remember me and then, or perhaps would be perfectly white banishers, like maybe they won't. But he gets in and of course the aide is like, oh no, he's too busy to see people right now. And then Mabel brings up, well, Helga was his apprentice.
00:59:12
Speaker
And as it says, an apprentice EA peered at Helga more pointly. I doubt it, but wait, wait, did you say Helga? Yeah, so she has well-known still, so her panic was appropriate. Yes, and I love, like, the next line is, Helga's stomach attempted to hide between her toes. Yeah. To get wonderful flavor flying to just,
00:59:41
Speaker
build that character of the world and the people. Yeah. So they say, well, we're here about the Calamity Beasts. And they're going to get their audience. But while they're waiting, they finally get Helga's story on what happened between her and the king.
01:00:13
Speaker
So she basically was supposed to hit some gnats. And rather than that, she hit King Glarve's staff instead. And it went over the edge of the tier. And she was trying to rescue it by opening a portal underneath it. But the king also used a water whip to try and grab it at the same time.
01:00:39
Speaker
Mm hmm. So it just is so it says so King God himself with his own water went through the portal. The staff fell on his head. He spent the days recovering from the concussion and the staff broke. So she basically bopped the king on his head with his own staff. After hitting him with his own spell. Oh, yeah. And then and then we get
01:01:07
Speaker
you know, Mabel tries to comfort us, you know, you mustn't dwell on past embarrassments, to which Helga replies, how can I not? I never do anything right, I nearly dropped you the last time I tried. Yeah, but then, yeah, she said the last time I tried a spell, but then said, strictly speaking, Gef said, your last spell kept the reign off of us while we ran from the dragonhawk. So, you know, he's like, no, your last spell worked just fine. Yeah, and then Phineas brought up the augury. Yeah.
01:01:35
Speaker
And so we have the whole group trying to help encourage her and believe in her abilities. Followed with Mabel saying, you must forgive yourself, Helga, which is probably, I think when I wrote self-compassion with an exclamation mark in my notes. Yeah, it is. Mabel is such a good mom.
01:02:00
Speaker
Which really sounded like Helga needed it because it didn't sound like she had a good relationship with her parents. No. So King Glarr calls them in. You know, she tells them about the attack on the village and her village and the other villages and mentions the stolen calamity egg.
01:02:27
Speaker
Uh, and that they tracked, um, cruel claw there. And of course he's like, oh, you tracked him here. Does anyone else know of this? And this is sort of like, uh, a group of law keepers may also their own folk are looking for the egg as well. And there's, well, that does present a problem because of course he's the one behind everything. Yep.
01:02:49
Speaker
and of course he's got the sacrifices must be made for the greater good line because his his genius plan here is to use the baby of a calamity beast to somehow fight all the other calamity beasts yep
01:03:08
Speaker
This is when I wrote, there's some Kamagawa shit going on in here. Yeah, that is exactly what, you know, when you steal the child of one of your gods, bad things are gonna happen. And the Calamity Beasts are essentially their nature spirits, but they're like god-level power compared to the Critters.
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and that's, for anyone who hasn't been playing Magic Forever, the original Kamigawa block, like that was the main conflict, was one of the main antagonists stole a child, Kami, a spirit child, from the spirit realm and used its power. You give himself immortality.
01:03:55
Speaker
Yes, to help strengthen his people because he's a there was a mono white villain thing. But then it was like that started the Kami War, where all of the spirits are like, that ain't cool. And most of the humans who were caught in that war and died had no idea that it's because this leader went and stole someone's child. Yeah, kind of as a jerk. Yeah, he was like the first mono white villain in Magic.
01:04:24
Speaker
And then, of course, they find out that Cruelclaw was working for King Blarbe all along. He has the egg and they're like, well, you know, he talks about his genius plan. And then this is
01:04:44
Speaker
Who are you to defy me? King Larp says, a pack of farmers and a failed weaver, and he peered at Rael. Whatever that contraption is on your arm, Mather's not. So Rael still sticks out. Yep. And he orders Cruel Claw to off all of them. And then this is when Zora Line wakes up once again and tries to stretch and asks, why am I tied up?
01:05:10
Speaker
So, you know, our sleeping bat folk always waking up at the most inopportune of times. Yep. And then we get to see Mabel just being a badass even more. Yeah. After Halga gets
01:05:35
Speaker
gets her spell to actually go off and flings cruel claw into King Glaub to break King Glaub's concentration. He failed his concentration check. And then the liquid bonds he had been casting around, everybody broke. And that's when Mabel finally gets to draw her sword and go badass on everything.
01:06:00
Speaker
Because after that moment you have Mabel drew her sword which flared orange, Gev pulled out his fire maces, flames dancing along their heads, Phineas nuked three arrows while Hugg stretched to his full height and cracked his neck, even thoroughly and spread her wings menacingly, snoop nose tilted up and scorn. Yeah, we get our Avengers pose moment right before the big fight starts and
01:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, and it turns out that Ral is not particularly good in this case because if he uses his powers, he could electrocute everybody in the whole city. Yes, because there's just water everywhere. It's just like, yeah. One continuous thing of water everywhere. Yep. Yeah, and this is the moment where we get cruel claw
01:06:57
Speaker
it's you know being doing the villain monologue and to which Mabel replies I'm not a farmer I'm a baker yeah yes yeah he's basically saying I'm a professional you're not I'm going to win this duel yeah and he has the line I'm a fighter and you're a farmer leave with your life and make better choices yeah and then
01:07:31
Speaker
And of course, she doesn't off cruel claw after she beats him because she's a good aligned mouse. Would have would have saved a lot of trouble down the road, I'm sure, but that's just how. Yeah, but I love how she turns that phrase back around where then she says to him, leave with your life, make better choices, and then adds it's never too late to do good instead of harm.
01:07:58
Speaker
Yeah. Which I just I love. I love when we can have that message in stories. Yeah. So now they face they turn their fight to King Glarr because they've they've mopped up all the mercenaries and cruel cloth ran away with his tail between his legs. And. And then.
01:08:25
Speaker
the Stormhawk shows up again while they're in the middle of their fight. King Glarbe is grandstanding and suddenly is not grandstanding anymore. No, he disappears as quick as he can. And this is
01:08:49
Speaker
This is when they actually bring up the line about Ral not being able to use his spell here. He's like, why is that the water spire? It could electrocute anyone touching the water and fountain pork. The fountain pork. So could the hawk. Yes. Lightning dragon and water city, not a good combination. No. But then suddenly someone else joins the boat.
01:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, because the dragon bird gets attacked by Maha, who does not like another beast up in her airspace.
01:09:31
Speaker
but she also brings the knight with her. And so it, the dragon hawk, once again, flees from the scarier enemy. So he's still out, we still have a colegon dragon wandering through Plumburrow somewhere. I'm sure that'll be just fine. Oh, yeah, that won't cause any problems. No, no, especially when it gets hungry.
01:10:01
Speaker
Because it's going to need to eat a lot of mice in order to fill its belly. Then the heroes are still facing down the night owl, the calamity bees that destroyed in this village. And we get some more amazing art from Justin Garard of Mabel holding up the egg to Maha.
01:10:31
Speaker
And then Mabel is like, this is yours, isn't it? You must've been beside yourself with worry. I would be too. So she's still a mom, you know, all the way through. And empathizing with who is clearly another parent. Yeah. Uh, so Maha takes her egg and happily leaves. Uh, King Glaard completely, you know, fled not just the castle, but the whole city. He just took off.
01:11:02
Speaker
and then they take the long trip home, they get a cabbage cart. So I guess, I don't know why they specifically called it out as a cabbage cart for their ride home, but it just made me think of Avatar. Yeah. I wonder if it was a cart made in a head of cabbage. You know what? You might be right. That's just, that's the image I had in my head when I saw cabbage. Okay. Yeah. That makes more sense than what I was thinking.
01:11:32
Speaker
Uh, and now they're dreading like Oliver's new speech and yes, they're, they're back to that level of concern, which is nice. And then they're like, okay, what, what's, uh, what's going on with rail? What are you going to do? And he's like, I'm gonna, um,
01:11:57
Speaker
I'm going to take off because I'm no closer to finding Bellerin and the clue's not going to fall on my head while I eat a muffin. Except it does because Helga has a sudden vision of the kings in the dark will return, the mage in blue will bring about the end. And I'm guessing, I'm assuming she's referring to the Fomori. But
01:12:27
Speaker
It also could be the. The. Anaku, the ogres. Yes, who had the chain veil? Yeah. But I think, I mean, they have a formari baby, so they're probably going to they're probably talking about the formari. We don't really know anything about them other than they were an ancient and super powerful species that is just gone now.
01:13:02
Speaker
And then she just blinks back like nothing occurred and says, what kind of muffins? Yeah. And then we get Rell going out behind the house, talking to Mabel a little bit, and then just planes walking away. Yeah. And they're like, that doesn't look like any kind of magic we know. Yeah.
01:13:24
Speaker
because they're use of portal magic for their teleportation type spells. And he just disappeared in his cloud of sparks like he normally does when he planeswalk. Yeah. Oh, he does say, can't say I've loved having a tail though, as he leaves, which is confusing to everyone who isn't him. Yeah. Yeah. So they do bring that up one more time. It's, um,
01:13:55
Speaker
Oh, can't disappear. He must have made a portal. Mabel knew enough of portals to be sure she'd done something else entirely. And then they basically end with Mabel going off with her children to talk about what they were doing while she was gone. So we're back to the pretty peaceful Bloom Barrow with a loose dragon somewhere. Yeah, that's true.
01:14:25
Speaker
still out there somewhere. But yeah, I really enjoyed this. It was a nice, very different tone story to some of the other stories and some of the other worlds, especially that we've had lately, which is fun. And I think that's an intentional thing. We've had Thunder Junction that also had a wildly different tone.
01:14:48
Speaker
than some of the other things we've had. We had, just this year, because then we also had the murderers at Karlov Manor that likewise, very specifically different tone and type of story. Yeah, or this tone, the tone here was basically, it was
01:15:10
Speaker
you know it's like a slight deviation from the norm in this world where like things aren't super peaceful for a little while and then they kind of then they kind of go right back to it and you know that seems to be the steady state for this world you know the calamity beasts don't just rampage for the purposes of rampaging for the most part they do and it's mentioned in the
01:15:40
Speaker
The Planeswalkers guide a bit, but the Fire Calamity Beast is a little bit more of a problem than some of the other ones are, which I'm not surprised being it's the Fire one.
01:16:03
Speaker
I enjoyed it. I thought it was super cool. I can't wait to see what the rest of the cards are and kind of what else they decide to do with this world. I hope this is one that is popular that we get to kind of get some more story from and visit again. But do you have any last thoughts on it? No, I'm just I'm I preordered the commander decks like I normally do for sets in
01:16:28
Speaker
I'm excited for these ones. I wish I got more chances to actually play Commander now. I haven't gotten to play any of the Modern Horizons 3 decks yet either. My friends have been busy. It's a busy summer for people, so we haven't gotten together to play any magic lately. Yeah, same for me, but obviously I haven't played a ton in recent years anyway.
01:16:54
Speaker
Yeah. But all right. Well, cool. Thanks everyone for joining us. We'll sit at the top. We're definitely going to keep recording while Hobbs takes a break, but it may not be weekly. We'll see how it goes. But thanks everybody. And like Helga, everyone should try to practice some self-compassion.