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The Fellowship of the Tavern - 1st Round
101 Plays4 years ago
Follow us on our Twitters - @FellowshipTable
Intro written and produced by Joseph McDade - https://josephmcdade.com/
The Fellowship Party Twitter Pages:
- The DM/Mark - @HastilyRolledDM
- Drago/Ian - @IRolledA1
- Folly/Callum - @TheD20Gamer
- Princess Helena/Casey - @unicorncrit
- Carstan/Will - @Natural20Will
- Robin/Darren - @DarrenPage06
- Claude/Danny - @totalpartythrlz
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Transcript
Introduction and New Format
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone. Come on in. Come join us by the fire. Settle down. Have a drink. Yeah. I don't normally do introductions for this podcast. Starting to see why. However, those eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the title of this episode doesn't follow our normal standards. And that's because we're introducing something new to the fellowship product. Don't worry, we're not moving away from the campaign.
00:00:29
Speaker
or changing characters this is more of a fireside drink format where you can learn more about the people behind the characters how we came into the world of D&D how Aerith was born the world that our campaign is set in
00:00:46
Speaker
and how we took the decision basically to take what we were doing at home and create it into a podcast. Normal services shall resume next week and these fireside episodes will sporadically appear in the future. But for now, let me welcome you to the Fellowship of the Tavern.
00:01:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this very special episode of The Fellowship of the Tabletop.
Meet the Dungeon Master and Players
00:01:35
Speaker
We're usually a live play 5e D&D podcast set in the homebrewed world of Aerith and today we're having a very special edition episode where we have a bit of a chat about the podcast, our D&D experience and any defining moments for us, each in the podcast so far. My name is Mark and I am the Dungeon Master and also with us for today's very special short episode we have Will who plays the human bard Karstan. Did Mark cut off for anybody else? No. Okay.
00:02:00
Speaker
Let me just, um, Mark Cartha. I didn't get the end of his speech. He was just introducing you to this, uh, pub chat thing that we got going on. So, uh, that's all right. Fuck yourself. Um,
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah. We are doing this while social distancing. Exactly. We've also got Ian, who plays the Dragonborn barbarian, Drago. What up, guys? We've got Darren, who plays the human fighter, Rogue Robin. Hello there. And we've got Callum, who plays the gnome sorcerer, Fizzlebanger Knight. Hello, hello. So yeah, we have a Danny lurking in the background as well. Is Danny still here? I thought he was off with his... He said he'd be about 15 or so minutes.
00:02:42
Speaker
Well, if he pops in, he pops in. We'll have a chat with him
Journey into D&D and Early Experiences
00:02:45
Speaker
then. But yeah, I just thought it'd be a nice time to have a bit of a chat about to a good 30, almost 35 episodes in now, pretty much, which is mental to think, given, you know, given where we kind of came with this, really. It's kind of crazy to think that if you listened from episode one till now, it's going to take you over 35 hours to listen, because some of those are an hour to an hour and a half.
00:03:08
Speaker
And some are part ones and parts two of the same episode. So it's crazy to think that our content out there on the interwebs has spanned beyond a day. Yeah, it's even more mental than that, is that none of us would be doing this if it wasn't for a certain will, actually, thinking about it. Yeah, you're right.
00:03:29
Speaker
William, you introduced us into this whole world of D&D, because I don't know about you guys, but I certainly came to D&D very late on in my life. I don't know what our demographic is for D&D, but I certainly feel like I was on the older side of the age bracket when getting into it for the first ever time.
00:03:51
Speaker
Well, I first encountered the D&D when I played like, Neverwinter Nights. A really old computer game. That was the first time I ever encountered like, the world... And then I sort of played the games and then I encountered a couple of people through laughs that played it. I don't want to play with you guys and... Yeah, here we are.
00:04:12
Speaker
And I remember early on in that for it. Oh God, yeah, it was. And I remember where we had that one, you led that one moment session where there was nine or 10 of us, I think, how you did that looking back now and see how we do it with five or six people or two in the amount of people you had cried so much.
00:04:30
Speaker
Absolutely. And also the fact that you were the only one that knew anything about it and you had nine of us asking you questions. And then I was there, you know, knew as anything, but I listened to, I listened a lot to drunks and dragons, which is now greetings adventurers and loved it. And I wanted to play nothing more than a tiny little rogue character. I totally tried and split the party from, I think my first, the first thing that happened in that was I tried to rob the
00:04:57
Speaker
Someone, who did I try and rob? Someone. I tried to rob someone. You tried to rob a guard and it was just like, I literally just started the pre-game ramble, right? Setting the scene. I thought, okay, I'll give you guys some role play opportunities. And you tried to fleece the freaking guards.
00:05:13
Speaker
And so how you manage that, I don't know, but then off the back of that, just, I think everyone needs to know that Ian was a little bit late and turned up, you were playing a, um, spellcaster, you're playing a wizard. Oh God, no. Oh, you turned up and we're all there. I think, Oh, maybe Ian's a bit late, it's fine. It's fine. And then he rocks up in a robe with a staff and you went full.
00:05:34
Speaker
Full into, it was fucking pathetic. I put on the full nerd button. I put on my big old cloak. I got my staff out. I put on these kind of baggy Charles and not Jeans of combats and then this loose kind of t-shirt. And the idea was I was a wizard because that's a great first character and not knowing anything is a wizard. And there's a reason why I'm a barbarian for this. And yeah, I turned up in full gear like I was going larping for the day. It was brilliant. It was just so good.
00:06:04
Speaker
I was interested because I'm aware or I was aware of D&D enough to know that the Dungeon Master is a lot of work and a lot of prep work and so I wanted to reciprocate your efforts with a live costume to try and get me in character.
Character Inspirations and Campaign Beginnings
00:06:25
Speaker
It was nice. I mean, it was brilliant. It was like, I'm glad I did it because it was it was amazing how and it's one of these things I think you see in the Dungeons and Dragons world is the moment someone volunteers to be a DM players will come out of the woodwork.
00:06:39
Speaker
Oh yeah. So many did. And you are right, Mark. Without that precursor, there would be no podcast. Yeah, because it was off the back of that. We had that one or two sessions of that. And it obviously was an incredible amount of work for you, Will. And then we wanted to run something a bit smaller, I remember. And I, again, was knee deep in this podcast and really enjoyed listening to it and thought, I'll go and I'll give it a shot.
00:07:05
Speaker
And yeah, that's when we started our first arc, wasn't it, into campaign approval, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Tales from the Yawning Portal and went to the Sunless Citadel and played that early in count, which was loads of fun. That was good. That feels like so long ago. Well, that was the birth of Drago, Robin and Elthir.
00:07:29
Speaker
And Shader came in a couple of episodes later on. It wasn't episodes. There was no episodes because there was no podcast. Oh no, it was sessions back then. Because even then it hadn't been floated as a podcast. We didn't do this to do a podcast. It was Mark who sent us all a message saying, I've really taken to D&D and I want to run a campaign. Do you guys fancy it?
00:07:54
Speaker
So yeah, I think that's an important distinction to make that none of this started as a, whoa, let's make a podcast. No, it started as a let's play D&D and enjoy that. Like most, I'd like to think like most D&D podcasts and they start as a session and people have a good chemistry. And that's certainly how ours started.
00:08:13
Speaker
And it was and it went on for quite a while. We had a great romp through the Sword Coast as well. I remember you all let me arrest you all and put you in jail, which I kept reading. I kept thinking, I spent a lot of my time when I'm going to throw these things at you, looking online, thinking, what do other people say? Will it work? And all I got back was, no, do not take away their sense of autonomy, their sense of control. They will fight against it, this, that, and the other. And
00:08:38
Speaker
Actually, when it came to it, the way you set up annual trust in me, allow that to happen. And what came off the back, that was a really interesting little breakout jailbreak kind of mini prison break style couple of sessions. And the one thing I really remember about that is that shade are sat outside waiting, because you said I'd wait outside Callum, I'd wait for the signal. And then you kept I kept making you roll for perception, and you kept missing the signal, you're rolling threes and eights
Narrative Strategies and Influences
00:09:05
Speaker
or whatever.
00:09:05
Speaker
got to the point where very much similar to Folly where he just wouldn't wake up from fire. Yeah, Shader was basically staring out into nothingness while this great big flaming bat or whatever it was, was flying around trying to signal and Shader was just ignoring it. But before all of that, didn't we go to Shader's hometown?
00:09:27
Speaker
Oh yeah, for weddings. And we had the whole thing by your sister's wedding. And to get there, we had a boat with some captain on there. And that was... Oh, that captain was awesome. And that's when we first met Bell Prax.
00:09:42
Speaker
And Galanin as well, the guy, the one who spoke in third person and you all thought was evil and you tied him up and he actually did nothing wrong. And he just had an, I just gave him an evil voice and you were like, right, he's evil. He must be a dick. And, um, treat you like a piece of shit, which is hilarious. I'm, I miss, I miss Meepo. Oh, Meepo. Cause we adopted, we adopted a cobalt from
00:10:06
Speaker
didn't we? And I managed to convince it to follow us around for quite a while. I think that's a good question. Where did we leave that? So obviously, Mark, your inspiration for this whole thing came from drunks and dragons at the time, wasn't it? So as well, and then listening to drunks and dragons and kind of introducing yourself into this world, you were like,
00:10:27
Speaker
Okay, I'd love to start this campaign. Is that correct in thinking that? Yeah, absolutely. It was that and a bit of, sorry, that and a bit of, I play Baldur's Gate 2, Shadows of Am. I played that for quite a few years. Such a good game. And I come back to it every couple of years, even at my ripe old age of 31.
00:10:43
Speaker
I'll come back to that and just have a go through it and just listening to Minsk free himself from the jail in the first opening gambit is I you know that whole sequence I know off my heart so at the time I didn't know that was D&D I didn't realize because I played it free I didn't play it by rounds I just played it free and paused it when I wanted you know as spellcasters to go off I also the the the idea of Itali as well came off the back of forgotten her name now the the main rogue sorcerer
00:11:12
Speaker
that follows you around, the woman, I've forgotten her name now, anyway, came from her as well, and I always picture Talia as looking like her, to an extent, when we talk about her. But yeah, it was Baldur's Gate 2, shadows of Anne, sitting with Will, having a chat about it and playing a little bit, and then yeah, listen to her podcast, keep me busy on the way to work. And yeah, and then you roped us all in. I believe, did you speak to Darren about it first? Or there was a, there's a point of order, I wasn't part of the original conversation, it was,
00:11:41
Speaker
I think the chat had gone for a little bit and then the invitation was extended to me, if I remember rightly. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think we'd had that initial idea. I wanted to make it really, really small, just because I barely knew D&D. I barely do now, but I didn't know at all how to run it or anything.
00:12:00
Speaker
I wanted to keep it really small to begin with, but what was really nice actually when it did actually come around, I think, who was it? Someone was running late. I think you were going to come then couldn't make it. And so we ended up just me and Darren to begin with, and Will, and Will. And so it very much, the whole thing began with Robin walking into a bar.
00:12:22
Speaker
and that was that was the very very opening sequence um so it's actually if we look back all the way from there this whole story is actually Robin is the protagonist he's the one who's been it we followed him from walking into the yawning portal all the way through to this new world now really yeah i remember i remember the um
00:12:43
Speaker
Was he like Ross Kemp-esque barkeep of the year and four? Yeah, he was great. Man, I remember as soon as you started doing, because you always have this thing where you're like, I don't know what type of D&D game this is going to be because, and there's no right way to play D&D. I think that's the first thing. Like, if you don't feel comfortable doing that sense and RPing and your hap, and you know, your table prefers to just describe what's happening, more power to you. Absolutely. I prepared like this kind of,
00:13:10
Speaker
long arc that played out like okay well he's been working as an archer independent ever since his family syndicate fell to pieces and he'll eventually return to his roguish ways when the time's right which was like a year and a half later but um i remember
00:13:28
Speaker
thinking at the time, cool, I'm going to give him a very suave voice. And I just really hope that everyone else at the table is up for accents. And then I got, I remember you said you walked in the tavern and the first thing I was greeted by was Ross Kemp and Grant Mitchell behind the bar. And it was just like, okay, I'm in. Cool. Right. We're doing the accents. So I'm about to have a drinking contest with Grant Mitchell.
00:13:50
Speaker
Exactly. And I think that's so important as well. From a DM perspective as well, like you said, Don, you're totally right. If it's not for you, it's not for
Character Performance and Drama
00:13:57
Speaker
you. The game should be inclusive. You should be able to do what you like to, whatever makes you feel comfortable. But I wanted to... It's worth providing context that actually as I count the group, there are currently as
00:14:07
Speaker
There's me. Is it eight of us at the minute? I can't, but it's eight of us at the minute, isn't there, in the podcast? Or is it seven? Seven. Seven. Good counting, though. But anyway, there's seven people. And on top of that, there's seven drama degrees weaved into that. So there's seven drama students who get to revisit. You do make a good point, actually. And actually, until you said that, I didn't think that through. We all do have a drama back here. But that doesn't mean we're any good at it.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yes, speak for yourself. I haven't done quite possibly. I think to Callum's point, especially for me and Callum, we haven't touched anything drama related for 13 years. Oh my god.
00:14:51
Speaker
or something like that, the crazy amount of units it's got. I think maybe that's why I gravitated to it so much, because it scratches that performance itch. Because certainly I hadn't rolled any of the dice as well. I really like the dice and that pulls me into it. There's something aesthetic about that. But there's definitely the performance out for it.
00:15:11
Speaker
But as we explained why how Mark got into this and then the I think you roped in Darren and Will first down what was the inspiration for Robin like how did Robin come to be part of this world? So Robin has and unfortunately a lot of this featured in the first arc so we kind of burn out a lot of
00:15:34
Speaker
Robin's bits in the first arc. But that's not to say stuff won't come back. But Robin was effectively part of this. I like to sometimes just go, well, what drawed me to Red Dead Redemption 2? It's the bond of the group, if that makes sense. And then what happens to the characters when that falls apart? I really liked Joel and Ellie's relationship in The Last of Us. So I was like, OK, cool.
00:15:59
Speaker
There's my kind of two key points then. He's part of a group that's fell to pieces, and it was done by betrayal in the group, and that character's still out there, which eventually we would discover is this mysterious dragonborn called Belprax. Alongside of that, Robin has this one person from his family who he's still in touch with, which was his sister. They all have these codenames.
00:16:26
Speaker
of birds, because the thieves guild in Skyrim is called the Nightingales. In case you can't tell, I quite like my video games as well, which I think is another unifying thing in the party. So I was like, okay, I'm going to draw from these wells, and because I want to play an archer, his bird alias is going to be Robin.
00:16:46
Speaker
obvious reasons and Robin Hood for all those who listen to outside of England although Robin Hood's quite cross country yeah he's pretty big and and then I was like okay and that's what puts him in the world of the story from on that point it's it's he's he got I think Mark sent me like this parchment letter so Mark actually wrote us like
00:17:11
Speaker
specific nuanced introductions and robin's was like a piece of parchment like properly tea stained which was to tell him about a bleed in the in the uh yawning portal and from there he was sent uh down to um i can't remember what village we went to after that and that's where he met elf here and the beautiful friendship forms where neither of them ever betrayed each other which is just lovely i forgot how much effort i used to put into this thing
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah, I remember you literally gave it to me. I had a barbecue at Wills, I think.
Crafting Personalized Storytelling
00:17:43
Speaker
I said, you're going to need that for the first session. And it was a proper rope bound wax seal. I don't know how to wax seal. That might be too far. But it was definitely sealed with something. And it was like a tea stained link for Robin. He's got real effort in now. I know him.
00:18:01
Speaker
What about Elthir? Where did his inspiration come from? Elthir came from... Judith? Because I've played a lot of games that are set in the Sword Coast and I have this wealth of knowledge of it all.
00:18:23
Speaker
What I basically did, I built a character who basically had been around a lot and I wanted to play a character who, because a lot of elves are very lighter than light and obviously a lot of people play elves as very good guys, so I wanted to play a character that was
00:18:45
Speaker
had a bit more of a sort of darker background so he wasn't from a well-off family in going into things like he didn't have the really utopia-like childhood that most people associate with elves. You look at a lot of fiction and that kind of stuff and elves have this perfect life whereas I wanted him to not have a perfect life and then I wanted him to be older so I could draw upon the knowledge of me as a player and then yeah he really evolved sort of
00:19:16
Speaker
organically based on a few key traits I wanted to bring out in him. And yeah. What about the final OG member, Drago? Where did he come from and what were you thinking behind Dragonborn as well, making him Dragonborn, which is an interesting take as well?
00:19:34
Speaker
I believe it was the final week where we were trying to get things written up for our first campaign because you wanted ideally some sort of like backstory to send to you on Facebook Messenger about characters that we were making and stuff like that. And I was cutting it close to the wire. I remember that. Like everything I do. And I was sitting in the office in my office in my house and it was about half, 10 or 11. It'd be interesting to find that message actually.
00:20:03
Speaker
And I was like, shit, I need to figure this out. If I'm in, I've got to go in. So I need to write something. I'm not very good at just creating out of thin air. I like a reference point, like Darren uses some video games sometimes just to create the very, very loose wireframe of what his character is going to be. And I do the same sort of thought process. So I was sitting there. I was just staring at the screen. I started typing out some words. And nothing was kind of stringing together.
00:20:32
Speaker
I had the TV on next to me at the time and it was Rocky. Oh, Rocky 4 playing. Or is it Rocky 3? I'm guessing whichever one has Drago in it. Yeah, don't kill me in the comments. I think it's Rocky 3 actually. And yeah, you had Rocky versus Drago. And I was like, hmm.
00:20:53
Speaker
Drago. Drago is a pretty cool name. And the reason why I went Dragonborn is, I believe, Will will be able to tell me on this, but I believe with the 5e content, Dragonborns are a new species allowed to be played?
Drago's Deep Dive: Creation and Backstory
00:21:07
Speaker
Now am I right or wrong on that?
00:21:08
Speaker
I mean, yeah, they they they've sort of been the whole idea of Dragonborn have been in the law of D&D for a while, but certainly they weren't in three or three point five. So they're a relatively new thing, certainly from my point of view. But they've they've existed in the law of it, but they get called in different things of doing things, they get called different things. But certainly they were a bigger thing.
00:21:34
Speaker
They're definitely one of the official races that are stapled in 5e because they're off-the-bat races they put in the players' habits. They're one of them. If you look back at like there's some books like 30 years ago where they're written by a group of people who actually wrote a series of books based on D&D sessions and they're called Draconians and essentially they're hatched out of out of dragon's eggs and turned into people.
00:22:04
Speaker
But yeah, so certainly 5e is the one where they really came to fun, especially being in the player's handbook. Yeah, well, they seem to be fairly new in the whole lore of things for me anyway, the whole thing was new, but it was, I gravitated towards the characters that seem to be new, and the Dragonborn seem to be like, you know, a new sort of thing in 5e. So I was like, okay, well, that kind of makes sense, because I'm new to D&D as a whole, plus the idea of playing a Dragonborn
00:22:28
Speaker
It's pretty damn dope and then I didn't make the link between the word dragon and drop the n if you've got drago All I did was look at the film next to me. It was drago. I was like drago. It's a fucking strong name Dragonborn he'd make a great job and then this image materialized in my head of this long strong lizard type characters like a giant statue of like seven and a bit feet tall big muscles and I was like Well, there's there's only one I was reading through the classes and I'm not
00:22:58
Speaker
maybe one day but to set up to play a wizard i feel like to make that work you need to know a lot about spells and that's a lot more work and at the time i didn't really i wanted to like dnd but i didn't know how much i'd fall into it
00:23:13
Speaker
And so I wanted something kind of light content-wise, so it just seemed to be smash and hit hard with a sword. I was like, well, OK, barbarian naturally seems like the class for me. And then Drago just kind of started materializing my head. So it started with that one image of this big, huge lizard-like dragonborn who was just strong and likes hitting things. And then I was like, I really need a backstory to work on.
00:23:39
Speaker
And I just sat there and I put Drago came from a small family of Dragonborns and from there this it all just kind of materialized in my mind's eye of this small small town like
00:23:55
Speaker
to me Dragonborns aren't really a race that people gravitate towards to get to know so I was like well I'm gonna take that concept in my head true or not I don't know in the law of things but in my mind that seems to be a working concept that Dragonborns are kind of like on the fringes of society so I took that cohort of Jago's family which just involved I was like he didn't seem like a happy family so it's just gonna be him his brother his dad you won't know much about where he came from because it just
00:24:24
Speaker
It seemed like a broken family to begin with and that's like a good place to start for me because I think all good stories come from conflict. So I just started from a conflicted point of place that never gets resolved. We don't know anything about how Drago came into this world as mother or anything like that.
00:24:42
Speaker
but we start with his broken family already and It's on the fringe of society. So maybe this society that he finds himself in they've learned to accept Dragonborns and what would what would make someone accept something that they didn't really like at first and it's as if that Dragonborn was solving problems so all of a sudden this story in my mind came up of this small little town on the fringe of society that would get raided by enemies like cold bolts and stuff like that and it was
00:25:11
Speaker
up to Drago and his family to basically service the town and keep them safe. And on the flip side of that, the town allowed them to live there without any issues, without any judgments or anything like that. And I was like, that sounds like a really staple background. So the key pillars in Drago's life is his dad and his brother. What happens if we take his dad away?
00:25:35
Speaker
and that's where that kind of came and i just all wrote this out in one night and it was uh it just all played out in my head i just kind of saw it happen before my eyes without really thinking about it i saw a dark stormy night and drago being battle proud there is a whole family being battle proud and um i just saw in my mind's eye drago's father just kind of going off into the shadows and and uh drago either being um
00:26:02
Speaker
uh KO'd or too overwhelmed to find him during the fight and then once the fight is over like think the clouds are gone and the rain had dissipated there's nothing left of um Drago's father dengar and other than the sword on his ground and i was like well if the sword is the only source
00:26:20
Speaker
of his father he had left, we make that sword into something amazing. And so all of a sudden, a dengon sword became another plot hook for me. I was just like, well, what do I know about anything God-related? I was like, Bahamut, because of Final Hancy. So a quick Google was like, oh, Bahamut is part of the world of D&D. So I'll just go, OK.
00:26:42
Speaker
dengons a proud dragonborn and his sword is has mythical tendencies and he never went anywhere without it and the story and because i don't know much about it i was just like uh the the story told on this sword is that it was once owned by bahama himself and
00:26:59
Speaker
and it just kind of all came kind of naturally to me during that one night and then I ended up started after like half ten and it was I looked at the clock and it's like 1am and I that's when I sent you that you know huge backstory mark on uh on Drago and all of a sudden I went from going not really sure who I should play or what I should do to really invested in this character and and it's only going from there
00:27:21
Speaker
It's worth adding to this about when we talk about how you get players to hand themselves in and go to jail. Mark took the key points from my backstory and Ian's backstory and went, okay, how could I convince some of these guys to willingly give themselves up? Robin was, well, we've got someone from his family imprisoned and if you don't give yourself up,
00:27:42
Speaker
we could hurt them. And I think with Drago, it was the promise of information on his sword, wasn't it? And it was, okay, all of a sudden you play to their bonds, the things that bond the characters to what's important to them. And it's like, yeah, we were the two who gave ourselves up. I think the rest managed to escape, didn't they? So again, a great thing there about, I think that communal thing that you find is a DM who can take a player's backstory and go, okay, if I need to manipulate them or if I need something to happen,
00:28:11
Speaker
I've got the ammunition to do that, if that makes sense. I know what I can pull at to get things to go a certain way, which I think is really, really clever to have that communal build before you start playing a campaign. Because you give the DM, who's really like a neutral referee in it all, just something to go, okay. And I think you sometimes have to be kind to a DM and go, well,
00:28:35
Speaker
that they're writing the story to go a certain way, while still the DM's allowing the autonomy of the players to make the choice, but if a DM's got the bonds for the characters, then you're golden, because you can always probably guarantee, if characters are that well-realised, the people playing the characters will gravitate towards fulfilling the bonds, if that makes sense. Absolutely, and on top of that, I think just to add that it's all very well and good having the backstories, but
Importance of Character Consistency
00:29:03
Speaker
Like you said about pulling on those emotive strings, you need the players to be able to go, I see what you're doing. They would totally go for that, or they would totally do this. And really subscribe to that RP nature of it, because it's very easy to write an amazing backstory. And Ian, I found yours actually. Drag was easily angered. He has little or no regard in pursuing things that do not benefit himself. Incredibly self-reliant.
00:29:27
Speaker
with others was your opening line, which is hilarious given where you are at the moment. I know, isn't it? The whole time you were talking, I was just scrolling up in our Facebook chat to find it. God, we talk a lot of crap. And I finally find it, and it is chunky, and I read it, and the thing is, I want to do it with everyone, really, but reading over it, I mean, he's changed, but you played him to the mark. You could read this and go, yeah, 100%, that's the character you've played, which is really important to, you know,
00:29:56
Speaker
the players not to change the characters halfway through for no reason and just develop with time and especially draw out with all the characters really every single one even Helena and Karstan right down the line you're already starting to that's what I love about the game develop your characters based on the experiences within the game not just on the backstory based on things that happen in the game so Karstan being banished the way that has affected him
00:30:19
Speaker
and the way all that will play out over who knows how many sessions is great. Also given the fact that he talks about banishment earlier in another episode, you know, it's just these nice motifs that come back to visit and how that develops characters, it just feels more real and grounded and just a lot of fun. I just love it. I have a question that I would like to ask a member of this conversation because they're the only character who's in theory been through this. So Callum, listeners only got to meet Shaidar for a bit because obviously
00:30:48
Speaker
He died. What was it like to, which by the way, I think it's worth pointing out that was totally not planned. Callum was bored of Shader and wanted to roll a new character. He died in game and that shot was real. But what was it like to handle character death and what was that process?
00:31:11
Speaker
Just before you talk about that, what was your inspiration for Shader first, if you want to talk about why Shader came to be, and then how you lost him? That would be quite cool, because I don't actually know how you thought about Shader. I always knew about Robin, and in some aspects where Althea came from, but actually Shader, I don't have a bloody clue how you thought about him. No, it's kind of breaking my heart a little bit, talking about his death again. It's still hurting me a little bit.
00:31:42
Speaker
Shader basically came from Gimli. It was dwarf, barbarian, noble blood, that kind of thing. And I loved the whole attitude to it. I felt there was a lot of freedom into how you could kind of actually play Shader. But I mean, the reason for the barbarian is very similar to
00:32:02
Speaker
Ian's with his cargo thing, you know, very first session, I played a tiefling warlock, because I just love the idea of magic in every aspect of things. And then as a completely new player to this, looking at spells and trying to figure out how they actually work in your first session is so goddamn overwhelming when you try and do it by yourselves. And I thought to myself, you know what, just for now,
00:32:29
Speaker
I just want a class I can kill things with. Let's keep it simple. And Barbarian just screamed out to me because everything was kind of automatic to it. And then I thought, okay, so I've got the fighting style. The fighting style almost came second to the actual character, more than anything else for me. And it's very simple. And obviously, working with Mark, a lot of it, because I'm not
00:32:53
Speaker
I wasn't at the time, anyway, very much of a creative soul when it came to D&D related things, but he helped just build a bit of a character and a backstory because I think my first conversation with Mark over text, Shayla's backstory is about two or three sentences. I've got it here. That was about it.
00:33:14
Speaker
I've managed to find it. He's a noble dwarf who first quested to earn his rightful place in his family, then realized he had more fun questing and drinking, so stuck with it. Always making sure he helps the common folk on occasion to ensure his family hears of his good deeds. I think you stuck solidly to that as a character anyway, but yeah, off the back of that, sorry, we did end up, I've just seen now we had a couple of letters. I pretend to play your sister and send you some letters regarding events that were going to happen.
00:33:40
Speaker
he definitely had the family and obviously noble blood i mean you've made him quite high up in regards and ability more than anything else um with obviously i got asked what was the name of the city actually vernden vernden i was close um it was actually in the um royal bloodline four um so obviously you moved him up the ladder on that quite a lot uh more than i ever would have
00:34:08
Speaker
possibly done it but yeah obviously word of advice for anybody who's listening if you're just thinking about getting into dungeon and dragons never be afraid to go to your dm in regards helping you build your character and get something with them because they want to work with you as much as you want to make a good character and work with them
00:34:28
Speaker
Always isn't your DM, it's very very good. Totally agree with that and also draw on things that you love like any characters in cinema that you love, you just use them as bases. Me, like a lot of the people in this podcast I believe are quite large fans believe it or not of Lord of the Rings and Gimli is just an absolute diamond of a character that I love and that is one of my favourites and yeah he was a big source of inspiration for shade art definitely.
00:34:57
Speaker
It's worth it's worth adding at this point that for like the first six were actually until Shader left like Mark and we just didn't need part three of the players handbook it was like there's the bit on magic don't need that because it's a month higher and two barbarians it was yeah how did you feel about losing Shader then after all of that work and effort and time building that character you were with him quite a while
00:35:22
Speaker
It was quite a while. Does this like another episode to talk about Shader's death? Or I was going to say, do you feel like, you know, do you want to do him justice by having a separate conversation and just going, how that felt? I can sum it up quite easily in all fairness, because you go through very similar feelings when you actually lose your D&D character, actually losing
00:35:50
Speaker
somebody who you know. I know that might sound a bit of extreme, but I'm not saying they're too comparable by any means. I will just point that out. No, I get you. I don't think anyone would do. When it first happened, because it was not planned, because it is a genuine death that happened in D&D, I was in denial. I mean, I honestly got thought, oh, no, no, it's not. DM's not killed him off. Hopefully, there's some kind of weird
00:36:17
Speaker
uh thing where he's been moved over there and party finds out and they have to go and find him and rescue him and whatnot and then when the um session actually ended and mark says okay so what are you going to be doing going forward i'm like oh shit you've actually killed him oh wow um literally my throat just kind of went and closed up on myself because i thought oh shit he's dead and keep in mind this is probably after i spent
00:36:45
Speaker
30, 40 quid dropping on like full of themed dice and figurines and a drop in the chest to carry everything in. I'm like, oh my God, you bastard. It's also worth noting that Callum was the only one of us to paint his miniature. Like the rest of us, we had miniatures, but at the time we hadn't bothered painting them. Callum had mounted him onto like a little plinth. He was painted and yeah. I was willing to D&D with Shader and I absolutely loved the character, even though he wasn't very well outspoken at the time. I was going to say that in some ways.
00:37:15
Speaker
that kind of added the drama towards it because usually in stories, in a storyboard sense, it's the louder character that gets it in the neck first because it cuts the head of the party off or adds more dramatic effect. So the fact that Shader, who was the quieter one of the group at the time, it happened to him in such a surprising,
00:37:42
Speaker
unexpected moment. It was a brutal way to kill someone whose actual nature was inherently good as well. Like, Shadyol didn't have the conflict of Drago or the wrongdoings of Robin or the pure rich history of Elthir. Shadyol was probably the most relatable character in that podcast.
00:38:06
Speaker
In those episodes and yeah, just fucking died Gone down. Yeah, I've got a question just on that because it was that was quite an intense fight We were all a bit worse for aware disintegration ray could have hit any of us like any one of us could have died in that fight was what was it random that it was shade are or was there any logic to the fact that we show that if you're willing to share that
Shader's Story: Life and Impact
00:38:32
Speaker
I
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah, of course. It's a good question. The impetus I go, again, I read a lot online about how to kind of play as DM, play the baddies. And the way I never liked baddies being played was how I played them early on, which was I hit you till I die, and then I die, and then I move on. Whereas actually, you should be with any baddie. You play them for self-preservation and to strike the things that you think is the most danger to you.
00:39:00
Speaker
If you remember, the last attack that Shader did to that creature was an unholy amount of damage. I think you action-surged or something friendly. You did everything. You rolled the most damage you'd ever rolled. And just before that, and through that fight, the rule I had with that baddie was, he's going to attack the highest risk.
00:39:22
Speaker
character to him. Ultimately thinking it was most likely going to be someone like Robin or perhaps... Given the damage output, I was basically going off DPS. Who's the highest DPS? That's the character he'll go, right, I've got to kill you off first. And my experience with disintegration rays normally don't particularly go very well. We've had many zombie beholders that didn't work particularly well either. So
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah, it was just purely off that, and it was purely by chance that Callum, you rolled so damn well on that round, which meant that it was you that was there and you were below a certain
00:40:05
Speaker
which means that reading off the rules for the disintegration rate, you go. And it was a really hard decision because you want to give people that time to do a quick goodbye. But because it was in combat and because the nature of the death, it is disintegration. If it was just you've been reduced to zero hit points and then your hit points below and you fail your death saving throws.
00:40:27
Speaker
I can make you hang on for a bit before you end the combat, come back to you, have those last final words and then pass away. But with a disintegration rate, it's fast moving, it's quick, it's to dust, it's instantaneous almost. So I didn't really have much artistic license to kind of slow it down per se. And I'm not going to lie, I was in shock also that this was it. I remember I think I paused. I think you can do it.
00:40:56
Speaker
I didn't really believe you'd done it, did you? No, and I think I whispered to myself, I've got to do it or something like that. And I remember, Will, you, 100%, yeah, that, and also 100% saves my ass a lot of the time when it comes to the rules of D&D. And I appreciate you to no end for that, all of you. But I think at that point, you went, do you want me to, I was like, no, just, and I snapped to you a little bit because I was, I realized what had just happened and realized what I now had to describe
00:41:20
Speaker
and realized that I didn't want it to happen as much as anyone else around the table didn't want it to happen. And that moment there, early on in us recording the podcast, solidified for me how amazing this game is and how invested you all were, looking at you all, just kind of glass-eyed, staring at me, or looking down, just kind of taking this in, was like, shit, this is storytelling editing.
00:41:43
Speaker
And I think, coming back to that, you say about investment, that on a meta level, if you know beholders, you know that they're a loaded gun. That disintegration rate, if it drops you to zero hit points, that's it, you're finished. And I know that on a meta level, because like you said, I love the rules, I DM myself, but I was so invested that I'd forgotten all about the disintegration rate. And when there's that pure moment of horror, which I think hit Will first, where like you said, he processed what was going on, shipped by disintegration rate.
00:42:13
Speaker
But I think that's the thing about, that must have been nice as a DM as well, to know that you were sitting on that loaded gun of any one of these, if they get hit with a disintegration ray and they're dropped to zero hit points, that's it, no saving throws, they're gone. I just think there's something, the more I think back about that, the kind of at-table tension, because I was so busy just RPing at the time, it was like, metadata and had completely not clocked that we were having disintegration rays thrown at us.
00:42:42
Speaker
so i do think it's a really really big advantage in my perspective anyway not knowing a lot about the enemies because that's something that came out of the blue massively for me i know kind of of beholders but for their attack attacks that they can do and all this kind of stuff i only know little bits of the lore itself but
00:43:05
Speaker
the fact that somebody has an attack like that that can just finish me in one hit. Something I never even thought was going to happen. And it's quite interesting how you say it was done on, obviously, DPS towards a certain character. Because I haven't actually mentioned this before to Ian, I think. But I was working, for people to listen to previous episodes, Drago and Shado had a nice little bit of competitiveness going on between them.
00:43:35
Speaker
that always pushed themselves up and Shader massively... What was your line before you go into the story? What was your final line that you came up with that just like solidified like a brotherhood, the starting of a brotherhood, you know? Did we just become best friends? That kind of thing. You said something that... What I said was, because we were arguing in the hallway, I think, and then Althea said something about, shall we just get on with it? I said, it's just a bit of barbarian banter.
00:44:04
Speaker
yeah barbarian banter that was it and i was just like oh he's my brother sorry carry on what were you gonna say i just remember you just you as you were talking about that um that beginnings of a bond i just remembered you said something barbarian banter which i haven't since repeated um oh man that was amazing carry on
00:44:21
Speaker
I loved it, but I was working away to a point with Shader because he massively admired Drago and his fighting capabilities. With Shader's upbringing, he never really took fighting too seriously. He could do, but he never took it seriously because in a battle, when it ruled, he was going to be commanding people, so he'd always thought about it logically.
00:44:43
Speaker
When he was doing that fight, it was Shader was trying to emulate Drago's attitude towards battling and just going at it whole hog, as he goes, rather than holding back and looking at things a little bit logically. So attempt to emulate Drago in the end actually did get him killed. What the hell are you doing? This kind of thing to say now.
00:45:07
Speaker
You just validated Elthea's entire opinion. I know, I know, I know. Drago didn't kill Shader at all. Shader died fighting in the way he enjoyed. Drago did it. Drago did not do it. And we got Folly, which we're all thrilled about.
Reflections on Mortality and Party Identity
00:45:29
Speaker
I think Folly is a whole other story.
00:45:32
Speaker
I think for all of us, it became very real at that point. I think it's safe to say that there's a great turning point for that. And also, more than anything, sorry to interrupt, but it also just brings about that sense of mortality to us as a group as well, because up until that point, yeah, you take some damage, yeah, you go down, yeah, you do some death saving throws, it's fine. But the actual realisation that, no, you've got to make a fully new character.
00:46:01
Speaker
can no longer play that character is very final and that that brings in that that in pushes us all and engrosses us all into it even more i just look back over some of my notes and i've got them all here on this one notepad and the episode with the boats we're going to vaughnton i um
00:46:18
Speaker
I did some drawings because I wasn't doing anything. You guys would just start being as you do so eloquently. And I just did some really awful drawings and wrote down a quote that Shader said. There's two things there. Firstly, on one page, it says top of the round Shader, which I wrote down with a date because I think that never happened.
00:46:32
Speaker
And then I also wrote down, names are meaningless, they cause reputation, which is something you said, Callum, as Shader, which I obviously really liked because I wrote that down. I think it's something you told Tali, maybe. I think I said it to the party because they were trying to name the party. And I says it was more to do that if we have a name, then that name can gain reputation in regards to being good or bad. And it's something that Shader didn't want. And that's why listeners, the party doesn't have a name.
00:47:01
Speaker
and still doesn't, which just gets awkward sometimes. Callum does have a penchant for coming up with these great one-liners, and that has something that's carried on with Folly, which is great to see.
Conclusion and Future Insights
00:47:13
Speaker
We're going to wrap it up here, guys. I hope you all enjoyed this Fellowship of the Tavern.
00:47:18
Speaker
I'm going to name it. And next time we'll go through the origins of the name and then some more backstory and stuff. I really hope you enjoyed listening to some of our origin stories. We have a few more to get through. Thankfully, we had Claude join us and Helena join us as well to add Spice to the party. Obviously, we lost Elthea and gained a cast down as well. So plenty more stories to come. And I'll be back with Folly. And of course, Callum comes back with Folly. Until next time, guys.
00:47:49
Speaker
Should I do the Twitter thing? We don't need the Twitter thing, do we? I mean, we've all got Twitters. Follow on the episode. If you're listening to this, you've probably found us from the actual podcast themselves. Plug for the podcast on Twitter, which is at Fellowship Table. Until next time, guys. Cheers.