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C2 Ep. 170 Eberron Reviewed 29
604 Plays1 year ago
We take a look back on the past arc and answer your questions.
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Darrin Katzska, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrell DeLaney, Charles Compton, Deviouspoptart, Nastasia Raulerson, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, Rebekah Gowman, deviouspoptart, Eðvarð Arnór Sigurðsson, Michael Clark, Jerry Theuns, Mark Stanley, and Shelby Johnson.
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Transcript
Introduction and Setup
00:00:09
Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
Scheduling Conflicts Explained
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Eberron Renewed, an actual play podcast of game. Genesis Eberron. I'm Jeff. Nails it every time. I wrote it down, but I can't read. It is just the two of us today. So here's what's going on, everyone.
Recap of Previous Episodes
00:00:50
Speaker
You may have noticed no episode last week.
00:00:53
Speaker
this fall has been a scheduling nightmare. Eric, and to a lesser extent, I just got off of a huge time commitment with this musical we were doing, Trevor's traveling everywhere, it's convention season for
Narrative Tangents and Developments
00:01:03
Speaker
Randy. It's just the two of us this week, and we are gonna knock out a pretty quick recap of the last 11 episodes, 12 episodes, because that's a lot of episodes, and...
00:01:14
Speaker
We noted right before we started this that there's more than a little bit of wheel spinning in these. So, uh, yeah, I certainly did not think some of these things were going to take as long as they ended up taking, which is not necessarily like the dice work finicky this whole arc. Like the dice did a lot of things. So, yeah, yes. And we will always have a bone to pick with.
Milo Kegbottom's Revelation
00:01:36
Speaker
I have an idea for your triumph and then it takes us into a four episode tangent.
00:01:41
Speaker
But if they weren't fun, we'd stop taking Eric's suggestions. But so this starts with the, we recorded these episodes in June, the first handful of episodes of this arc, Dear Listener. And so it's a little fuzzy, but the first thing that happens is we find out that in fact, Milo Kegbottom is the illegitimate son of Satan Boromar.
Character Reactions to Milo's Loyalty
00:02:05
Speaker
How long had he been the son of Satan Boromar? Not since the beginning, no. So when Randy and I were talking about Milo pre-campaign, the idea was kicked around a little bit. But Randy also, being the type of player that he is, threw out a bunch of ideas and said, whatever you want to use, go for it. And Randy reached out to me like early this year, I feel, and said, what if it turns out
00:02:30
Speaker
And so we workshop some ideas about how that could play and what that looks like. And so it was a fairly recent developed that retrofitted really well, just because I had always played Satan as having a soft spot for Milo. And so this just informs that a bit more. And Milo definitely has fealty had fealty to Satan. I don't think he ever was like.
00:02:52
Speaker
giving up on Satan being on our side when all the rest of us had. Or at least we're willing to hold space for the possibility.
Family Loyalty and Moral Conflicts
00:02:59
Speaker
Milo was never that way. So that was pretty great. Just the little things like Milo came to the for sales and told us all that Satan was his father and everyone just moved on with the planning of the next thing because we are bad at role-playing actual emotion.
00:03:15
Speaker
But we spend the remainder of really an episode and a half just trying to beat out of Trevor what he wants to do in regards to if he's going to kill this lady or kill his dad or disobey his dad or what is the plan. And it turns out that we are able to get some information from Verla about what it would take if he actually tried to do this.
00:03:39
Speaker
And also, on the other side, what Calveir has probably been doing to prepare for this. The biggest one being, you need to find out what side her son is on. Her son is just a smoke show of an elf named Eldred, apparently. Who's a little bit of a goth, luge kind of guy.
00:03:58
Speaker
And thus begins the greatest farce in the history of Dungeons and Dragons. Boy, howdy. It was something else. And I know that's not true.
Player Decisions and Storyline Impact
00:04:06
Speaker
It can't be true because there are funnier people who did a farce on purpose. I'm sure that was better and bigger. But our accidental. Dumbassery. I don't even know what to say about it. It took us like five episodes to find the guy.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, I did not anticipate meeting with Elder and taking that long. I honestly expected you all to ask after him when you got there and that became the opposite of the plan. We need to revise right now. You cannot use plural pronouns. This was Trevor's job to do and I was supposed to be silent and protective.
00:04:46
Speaker
Yeah, I, it was, I don't feel like my actions as a game master in this campaign has instilled a great level of paranoia that I'm going to like try to stab you all in the kidneys at any given moment. But boy, howdy. This scene sure was played that way of if we mentioned Elder and then it's going to come back to bite us in the butt. So it was fun to introduce a whole bunch of NPCs. I was just on my toes as it slash on my heels. I that's weird as you all were, because I had no idea what was going to happen next.
00:05:15
Speaker
I was on my phone texting Philip, what can I do to make Trevor move this story forward? Because, yeah, the dice really drove a lot of of this scene and its ultimate culmination, like five episodes later. I will say the first thing we did was you said, when do you want to go? We said we would know when he would be
Game Master's Role and Player Dynamics
00:05:35
Speaker
there. He's always there. And then he wasn't for like hours.
00:05:39
Speaker
And here's the thing, he was there. He was in the building the whole time until it narrative made sense. I think you all used something to say he's not here because the Ram is here, so he's coming up the back alley. Yeah, what it ended up being was we needed to leave and so we decided that we were going to meet him as we left and we used either a triumph or a story point for that. Yeah, but no, he was in the building. Schrodinger's Elder in was in the building the whole time. Okay.
00:06:08
Speaker
If Trevor had just walked in and said, actually, I'm looking for my friend, Elder, and I haven't seen him in a while and catch up with him, or anything of that nature, he would have just been there. And if he passed the check, he'd have been there and we'd have been talking to him.
00:06:22
Speaker
Instead, Hob almost died. Yeah. He was in his sexy den in the back. He doesn't like, he doesn't like slum it with the regular folk out here. He has a private room in the back. And so, yeah, that was my plan. And still, he still has a sexy den there. If glob wants to go check it out sometime, but he does not. He doesn't. He likes a den. He's not interested in a sexy one.
00:06:45
Speaker
and his name is Hob. Oh, I hate it, glob. Trevor's the worst. It is fun, and Philip does it sometimes as Aeris as well, when they know they've got Hob trapped to make him do something silly. It's fun to play that, and I think they both enjoy doing that too. And Randy as well, it's not fair to leave. Might be the most mischievous among us. God, he was cracking. We'll get back to it, sorry. Yeah, so mainly, the only major thing that happens besides the ram coming back again,
00:07:14
Speaker
is at one point I go into the wrong door and end up in a pocket dimension that could kill me.
00:07:20
Speaker
If I was in there long enough, was that right? I know there was a trial and I would have been safe in there. It was just a little. Yeah, OK. You were banished. But yeah, no, maybe you weren't going to run out of oxygen or anything. It's not about the whole thing. The threat of the trial, forthcoming trial, I guess, was the only urgency there was. I'm misremembering. Yeah. But that was so funny. And how did. OK, I listened. I literally listened to it last night, but I do not remember how Trevor got me out of the pocket dimension. That's a question that Laura asked because they want to know what Hobb would have done.
00:07:47
Speaker
Um, so, uh, Trevor snuck back and found the security room because when he was being given the tour, he passed by it and was able to, to get you out of there. Um, as I think, I can't remember if the, the Ram hadn't attacked yet. I think that was part of that check was that the Ram busted through the wall. Like he rolled really well on
Humor and Creativity in Gameplay
00:08:07
Speaker
it.
00:08:07
Speaker
Which it's so funny because we were given Trevor a lot of gruff but like he played the paranoia really well throughout because like anytime somebody asked him a question
00:08:18
Speaker
He just like bobbed and weaved and zigged and zagged. And I was like, I'm trying to get, cause I wanted Raynard to slip up and give up something. And Trevor did a great job of just not doing that at any point in the role play. So, yes, I will break kayfabe and I will say, I think Trevor did a great job. It's fun to give Trevor a hard time. Yeah, he was playing. Raynard is not Hob or Eris. Hob's not scared and Eris has no filter. The one thing Raynard knows is finesse everything you can. So of course he would be. Yeah.
00:08:49
Speaker
I say of course, it was still driving me crazy.
00:08:54
Speaker
But yeah, he's a cagey dude. He's got a lot when he thinks it suits him. But man, he was so funny. Yeah, and you're right. Like who, by nature of his job, who has been in more nightclubs than Trevor to know that there's definitely a VIP back room, not just these semi-private booths. Get Eldrin, we take him to the consistent bird, which has changed. Why did you do that? Just escalation. She's not one to sit on her laurels and innovate, find a market, that kind of thing.
00:09:24
Speaker
Eric, how long in each day do you sit down developing menu items for various sharn establishments? It's fun to me. I really enjoy it. No, I think it's great. I love hearing them. I've just, you, we've gone just in the last, what, probably six months, we've gone to four or five new places and they've all had multiple drinks and meals on the menu.
00:09:48
Speaker
I, a lot of times we'll try to, I'll, I'll find a type of restaurant or type of region that I think matches what I want that particular establishment to be. And I'll look up menus. So I cheat, I find real world examples and then sharn them up a bit. I do that shortcut, but it's a lot of fun. I waste a lot of time when I should be planning encounters doing that because I just get lost in the sauce of building out menus for even consistent bird.
00:10:14
Speaker
The first time you did it, I don't remember which restaurant it was. It was the very first time we started going. My first time, I was like, he's been spending a lot of time on those chat GPT and AI things lately. This could be, and then the more I listened, I was like, no, this has Eric all over it.
Character Dynamics at Social Events
00:10:27
Speaker
This is absolutely original. Yeah, we go, we talk to Eldrin. It's weird because, of course, Raynard forgets he's been lying all night. We're going to a place where someone knows him and he can't be cool about it. And Hobb can't do any,
00:10:42
Speaker
That's not true. I like to pretend Hob has less agency than he does in these situations because it's fun to watch Trevor go. But long and short of it is we believe that he wants to not see his mother die. And we promised him that we would not kill her.
00:10:59
Speaker
Going back. Rewind six episodes. Yeah. Let's knock one out of the way. All right. The other half of our crew, Milo and Eris, I skipped a bit. We find out that's what we found out from Verla, right? Was another thing we found out or was that what Cold War had to tell us? No, Cold War told you all about orphans being in danger. Yes, that's right. That is what I'm getting to. I didn't realize I did not give the
00:11:28
Speaker
just of what I was talking about.
00:11:30
Speaker
When we meet Cold War, he starts telling us, hey, the Boromars are going to start cracking down on your known associates. We made a pretty explicit, Savia's is safe because she's got her own, like the fact that I work here, there is the least important thing about Savia. So she's fine. And some other things, but the for sales basically was the big issue. And Philip being Philip, let's Eris be Eris and says, I bet we could just sail this boat to Highwall where we have heard people want their seafood anyway.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yep. And that one toss off hair brain idea was the driving impetus for eight episodes worth of material because he decides he needs oracalcum. Literally, Philip decided it would need oracalcum. This was not in the story. Eric didn't do it. Let's make up an element or use a made up element, which leads to needing to talk to Harbin, which leads to the gala, which leads to an argument, which leads to Kath, which leads to everything that finishes it.
00:12:30
Speaker
It's insane, but I can't speak to it because I wasn't a part of it. The conversation between Eris and Harbin when, remind me, she had a second with him before the gala. That's how they found out about the gala, right? Or was that all of it? All of it came outside because Harbin's got too many eyes on him right now. All of it came outside, told about the gala. That's right, that I'm one of these rich tots happened at the gala.
00:12:56
Speaker
Eris took not surprising, but not really heavily elucidated hard line against the wealthy in this in this arc, which considering the fact that she fully luxuriates at Catherine's on his parents house is interesting. But typical gala shenanigans were pretty much thwarted by Philip. He did not want another
Key Events and Character Decisions
00:13:14
Speaker
shopping episode and you didn't force him to have one.
00:13:17
Speaker
That went quick and Sana, Milo and Eris find themselves at another Gala with more statues. As far as we know, just regular stone ones. Yes.
00:13:32
Speaker
and I'm gonna need as much input from you as possible on this one, because no, I did listen, I didn't play it. It basically jumps right into them talking, Harbin and Eris, correct? Because that's why she's there, that's what she wants to get done, she doesn't like galas, while Milo and Sana dance. Yep, and Olive is there too. Olive is there as well. So yeah, Eris and Harbin had a nice little chat, super chill, fine. I liked the way both of you guys played those, because
00:13:59
Speaker
Eris does, it felt to me like Eris was acting like I don't need to build up to this because we're just these kind of people. This is what we talk about, this is what we do. Whereas Harv was like, I don't think you understand. Things have changed a bit. We're not, there's no we are any kind of people. I'm a certain person and you're a certain person and we are butting heads. You hurt my dad. Yeah.
00:14:24
Speaker
And I just really good. It was, I love the not these rich thoughts. I'm one of the rich thoughts. No, cause you're just rich. It was very funny to me. Yeah. And I, and it's fine. Cause I think Harbin's demeanor change was Eris made a check and rolled some threat, I think, which is where I decided, okay.
00:14:42
Speaker
Eris or Harbin has strong feelings about everything that's been going on as opposed to it's who how much benefit of the doubt do you give a person and so those threat diminished the benefit that Harbin was willing to extend to Eris because if in however it played out in terms of Harbin finding out from his dad that Eris was involved in his arrest there's a thousand questions that
00:15:10
Speaker
Eris has made no attempt to answer in the wake of all this. Like Harbin's just been left, I guess I'm on my own now. And so that's Harbin's had a lot of time to stew about it. And getting only one side of the story obviously doesn't help. Not to say that Eris did anything wrong by not engaging Harbin or, and I know Eris's motivations weren't altruistic, but I'm going to give him space. Eris was like, Oh God, not an awkward conversation. How can I deal with it? How can I handle this right now? But yeah, I mean that kind of allowed Harbin to
Interpersonal Conflicts and Resolutions
00:15:40
Speaker
be, uh, somebody that would come into conflict with Eris as opposed to being somebody that would be wholly helpful. And yeah, so we'll see how it plays out moving forward in terms of that. Cause still gotta get that or a Calcum. And he wasn't hostile towards Eris and he was ultimately amenable to helping. I don't think he wants to help Eris. I think he wants to not see somebody get hurt. I don't think he knows often necessarily.
00:16:07
Speaker
No, probably knows by reputation. I'm sure I'm sure it's through Eris. Yeah. Harbin is very much like a good kind of person, but is just yeah, he's had a lot of time to stew about this one thing and this one relationship. In fact, I think if.
00:16:24
Speaker
As weird as it is to say, if somebody like Milo or Hob, probably not Reynard, would have come to make the ask, it might have, Harbin might not have been as angsty about it because Eris is like, your capacity for hurt is only matched inversely by how much you trusted the person. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't hurt Harbin's feelings. We are nothing to each other. I get it.
00:16:49
Speaker
But the, it kicks off. Because don't skip why. You tell me. Ilya Boromar is at the gala and spots Milo and is making a beeline to him. And I think it's, I think it's a Lyra. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. New leader of the Boromar and it's coming at Milo and you all needed a distraction.
00:17:18
Speaker
And I think, in fact, I can't remember if it was the RAM or this, that it wasn't even a triumph. It was just a handful of advantage. And I said, I'll give it to you for a discount if you accept it without me telling you what it is. Yeah. And it wasn't a discount. You made us pay to get our arm chopped off. It couldn't have been the fire suppression system. It couldn't have been a fan who wanted to talk to Lyra Boromar. No, it was, Kath shows up.
00:17:47
Speaker
and derails us for four and a half episodes. The dice not being your friend, like every attempt, just this is getting a bit ahead of like where we're at, but every attempt you all made to console or talk down Kath or Sana, the dice just would not let you, like the dice were determined to have these two characters be mad at the party.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah. Milo wasn't making his checks any easier with the way that he was talking to them. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know the hob was either, but it's so funny to me that at first when Milo would say his weird search, either the circular comments or the ones where he said like,
00:18:34
Speaker
When he finally decided he was going to be the one to speak plainly about why we were all at Kath's apartment. And he was like, something happened and you know the rest. You stopped us to say that. And at first I thought that was Randy being Randy, like to make a joke. But Naras, he's infused that into Milo's character. It makes Hob itch every time. So funny. Oh man. Yeah. So Kath takes two employees and
00:19:04
Speaker
shags off and Eris lets us know.
Narrative Tension and High Stakes
00:19:08
Speaker
I believe a despair is rolled. And that's why Elira Boromar is following as well. And we have to lose her. Yeah, I think so. Or a bunch of threat. Yeah, something. Something's one of those two. And so that's what's happening is we, Rainard and I tell Eldrin to have a wonderful day and to go
00:19:26
Speaker
save his friends from the warforged. And we hop on my bike and we speed to Cath's house. We're all going to meet at Cath's and Tom's apartment where we believe Cath has taken the prisoners, two prisoners, and we get there. And, and, and Rainard is not done Rainarding. He started at the, the veil. What is it? The what veil? The Ebony veil. Ebony veil. And then
00:19:51
Speaker
When he said he had to go to the bathroom, did you think he actually was going to make Raynard have to go to the bathroom? No. That was not what I was expecting. I love the verisimilitude though. These characters do have to go to the bathroom on occasion. I'm sure. Sometimes he's got to show that on camera. I guess.
00:20:06
Speaker
I just love the realization of when Aeris started talking to Reina about, what are you doing? I'm in the bathroom. But what are you doing? I'm going to the bathroom. That was just such a funny exchange of, yeah. Because we were all shocked. Yeah. I am glad that we are not a video podcast.
00:20:24
Speaker
that there are some things that it would be nice if they were caught on camera because some of the reactions. Anyway, it's a little cat and mousey, but it's pretty low stakes because we're all pretty sure that even if Kath, I wanted to walk in and say, hey, Kath, where are the people you stole tonight? And I still don't know why that's not how it happened.
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah, I just got caught up in the shenanigans of the invisibility maybe. Yeah, but because it wouldn't have changed things. Yeah.
00:20:55
Speaker
I don't think. Did you have the kitchen sink bottom floor apartment thing the whole time? Okay, so that was. After the last incident where you all just showed up and saw him at the kitchen table, she was like, I gotta figure this out. And while Kath also has a lot of strong opinions about the wealthy, similar to Eris, she also lacks the self-awareness to look internally. And the fact that she can just buy the apartment below her for her vigilante shenanigans, she's like, oh, that's different.
00:21:26
Speaker
But I do it right. Yeah. And they're doing it wrong. One of the good ones. I like that. That was fun. You spoon fed that to us. What were you waiting for us to find? Or was it just eventually they're going to roll well enough and I'll just say that's where it is? Because I believe you just said it's like in her bedroom with some papers. That was what it was the whole time?
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah, if you all would have come in like aggressively, she would have probably shown you if you if the dice rolled. But yeah, I had the plan, the deed and originally was just going to be the deed of the apartment below. But I was like probably a little bit more just to indicate a way to get down there from this apartment. So yeah.
Conflict Resolution Strategies
00:22:03
Speaker
And then there was another despair rolled when Raynard was finding the papers and building. And you had already
00:22:12
Speaker
You had already previous despair planted the seed of draughter has also made something for sauna sauna to counteract for when Kath goes too far when they agree, Kath has gone too far. Yes. Yep. Which was cool, which was super cool. And so she's a ghost tiger vigilante.
00:22:33
Speaker
Yep, a countervigilante. Yeah, she showed up behind Reynard and tried to punch Reynard, punched a hole through the wall, and then stole the papers and disappeared. Huh? And she physically threatened Reynard as well. Yeah. The fact, okay, can we talk about, and this is getting a little bit ahead, but not really, because at this point she's introduced it. Why in the world would Sana ever think that the four of us were involved in what Kath was doing?
00:23:04
Speaker
It's the emotion of a good story. You can know something academically and logically, but then in the back of your mind you think, but...
00:23:14
Speaker
They it's from the NPC perspective. And once again, these are all I'm trying to play these all very flawed people. And so Sana's big thing is family, community, looking out for each other, willing to do anything to help the people that you call your family kind of thing. That's her mentality, her driving force. And so.
00:23:34
Speaker
Hobbs response in when him and Sana would talk about this of well if you would have asked us in Sana's mind she's going I shouldn't have to like you saw what was happening too and so your passivity indicates either to me you don't care or you're on the opposite side of this and so that's mentally where she was at is either apathy or antagonism which either one Reynard's gonna get punched. I do like
00:24:00
Speaker
We didn't actively say we were against it. So obviously we're for it. It was happening in your house until recently. In fact, the reason it stopped happening in your house was because we showed up. Yeah. And I think that from once again, from Sana's perspective, like her relationship with Kath is so vital that like when you and Raynard talked to her about what was going on and she was like hedging her bets, saying this stuff, saying I'm not going to do anything against her because I don't want her to hide it from me.
00:24:29
Speaker
I think one of you all tried to roll a perception check to get inside her head more, and it didn't work. But in that moment, all she wanted was for you all to actually go take care of the problem. She didn't want to take her relationship with Kath. So that's why she was dragging her feet as, I need somebody else to do this, but if Kath finds out that I asked somebody else to deal with this, then that's also going... So it was like, I was trying to play a very trapped person that hits the breaking point.
00:24:56
Speaker
That makes a ton of sense and of course the emotional intelligence of our crew would not have picked up on that. And I
Action Sequences and Growth
00:25:03
Speaker
do not mean our characters. I like to think that I'm an emotionally intelligent person and I just turn it off when I'm playing this game. That's all that makes sense to me. And so we go down and we weren't there. And that is when we realized
00:25:25
Speaker
We the players, this was one of the trickiest set knowledge separation sections, especially once the fight starts and we're not supposed to be sure if it's sauna and pulling punches, because I think at one point Aeris like triple critted or something, it was ridiculous, or crit plus 30. And so we go, we are pursuing, I believe Raynard gets a really good perception check and sees the hostages on a rooftop and we go up.
00:25:55
Speaker
Try to make the big show. We're going to ask really loud if they're okay. And I'm going to kiss one of them on the forehead so they know we're friends. Whoever's watching this and it doesn't work at all. Cause I get tigers thrown at me. Yep. That was a conjure spell. Yep.
00:26:11
Speaker
So it is as likely if she those tigers could have turned and just attacked her or I don't know how conjure works. Yeah, they weren't friendly. She can dismiss them at any point. So that's the thing is if they start to attack, you can just get rid of them. So, yeah.
00:26:26
Speaker
The takeaway is Sana was looking to kill Haw and looking to kill Raynard during that fight. You all were gonna die. Those were ghost tigers. Raynard literally died for a minute. And she got him back. She had it under control. That was very, yeah. Actually, the funny part was at the end when she was like, and then I made you invisible. You're welcome. Come on, baby. Yeah.
00:26:51
Speaker
No, she was trying to it was all it was a trap for Kath that you all obviously got there first and sent off the trap. It was in for a penny in for a pound kind of thing at that point of I have the tools to make sure that they are OK. They're not going to be like permanently harmed by this is what she was telling herself when she summoned the ghost tigers to attack you all on the edge of a skyscraper while you were on your bike. So now it's on a
00:27:20
Speaker
Nobody was great like NPC wise like nobody was great in this arc. I don't think I played like a Straight up like well-adjusted NPC even olive could have done more to prevent what all the crap that happened But we don't need to get into that right now. Yeah, no, no one was covered in glory Yeah, PC or NPC in this one Maybe elder and he seemed fine
00:27:44
Speaker
But it obviously proceeds with the lizard showing up was part of it all the time. Because I know that it came from a despair or a lot of threat, but it was always going to. It was on the list of if this gets rolled, then this will happen. And at this point in the game, you all are rolling so many reds that I can count on at least one despair per session. So despair per encounter. You get one despair per round there for a minute. Yeah. Let me go ahead. No, go ahead, please.
00:28:13
Speaker
I was gonna say, and additionally, like when I'm rolling NPCs, I'm also rolling a lot of yellows, which a triumph for me means despair. Yeah. And I feel, and I'm, I know this isn't the case, but it feels like the only way this was going to get resolved was with the death of the lizard. Sana was not, or Cath was not coming back until, there was no reasoning her out of this until that had been accomplished.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah.
Reflections and Future Outlooks
00:28:40
Speaker
And then what's narratively, what's interesting to me is, yeah, we got the lizard. There's a bow on the lizard at this point taking care of. And that part of Kath's story has been resolved. But thanks to largely the dice, like this story didn't. And I don't know if it will have a resolution in this campaign of Kath and Sana's relationship. It's Kath was very clear. She's not done, which once again, leading out justice either.
00:29:08
Speaker
was a result of the dice over the course of the arc. It was how justified does she feel? How guilty does she feel? And yeah, just everything fell on deaf ears at that point. I'm hoping that cats swaps more to the single incident stoppage type of vigilante and not the calculated kidnapping and torture of multiple people for one end kind of vigilante. I guess we'll see.
00:29:37
Speaker
But yeah, Sana was pretty clear that she's not in a good place and she's not willing to, I don't wanna say she's not willing to do the work. She wants to see Kath come halfway first, it feels. Does that make sense? She'll do the work once she knows Kath is also gonna do the work. She's not gonna do it on her own. Yeah, yeah. And Kath is basically saying, I'm not ready to do the work. Yeah, and I think the Raynard's, Raynard coming at Sana at the end,
00:30:04
Speaker
like long-term is really good for Sana. Short-term really sucks for everyone because I think like Raynar kind of laying out, here are all the awful things that you did to me over the course of the past hour and a half in the name of
00:30:20
Speaker
quote unquote, protecting your sister. And so that was when Sana said, I need to take a step back. I think she realized I have not prioritized myself at any point in my life, I don't think. And all of this is a result of me putting everything else above me. And yeah, she was just, I need to take several steps back away from these people sounds like
00:30:43
Speaker
a negative towards you all, but just I need to take a step back from these situations to figure out what the heck I need. It's not any of our character's fault that her compulsion is to
00:30:54
Speaker
jump in to help or put the burden on herself. But we are a group that is particularly burdensome and it would be best for her to stay away from us for a while if that's her compulsion. I think that's, yeah, I need to listen to that scene again. I'll be honest, I listened to 11 of the 12 episodes. Time got away from me. I had to spend more time in Lowe's than I intended and I did not make any earbuds with me. So, fall break home improvement projects. Here we go.
00:31:22
Speaker
improvement in big quotes. We'll see if it's better when I'm done. And that's the end of it, right? That is the end of the arc, but there is one thing we need to go back and catch. What was that whole ace thing with a mysterious despair on the sheet? Yeah. So I talked to Philip about this after we recorded because I think he he stayed in the guest room that night. I wanted to do another third person cutaway because I really enjoy role playing those.
00:31:52
Speaker
And I was trying to think of what NPCs are out there that would be something interesting to happen. And my initial thought with Ace was to go like a venom esque route of like him getting infected by some aberration or something from Kyber, like something crazy like that. But then I realized that would present to
00:32:15
Speaker
That, that would be a forward problem that you all would need to deal with because something like that fundamentally changes a person. They become like, yeah. Um, and I didn't want to present another storyline like that into the campaign at this point. So I went something much more low. It would be cool. Ace is down low right now. Doesn't feel like he's respected. This could be a really interesting ghost writer, make a deal for more power kind of thing. And so that's where I landed.
00:32:43
Speaker
And I was like, okay, I, I once, I wanted somebody else and I know that Phillips always down to get a quick text of, Hey, roleplay this thing for me. Sure. So yeah, that was just on my sheet of in case it would despair, a bunch of threat. It was like, okay, third person cutaway, ace becomes ghost writer kind of thing. Yeah. We had the Mephisto conversation essentially. And Philip did a great job. Like I sent Philip just the context of what was happening and.
00:33:05
Speaker
why a devil would want somebody like that operating in Sharn, which is a allusion to the campaign as a whole. There were some little nuggets in there that Philip did a good job sprinkling in. Did a phenomenal job considering he doesn't know
Engaging Audience and Social Interactions
00:33:19
Speaker
what it is. He just got vagaries from me. Here's what's going on. Yeah. Be a little creepy. Be a little... What's the word I'm looking for? Magnetic.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah, the way he was talking reminded me this may be for no one. But there's a cartoon star versus the forces of evil that I watched with Ferris. It's very good if you like cartoons. But there's a character voiced by Michael C Hall that played Dexter. And he's like a lizard person. But he's very slick. He's got long hair and like always wears a suit and looks super slick. And just the way he was talking, I was like, this is
00:33:49
Speaker
His name is Toffee. This is Toffee. So yeah, I like the idea of Ace being a warlock type character and it may never come up again. Or there might be an instant where it makes sense that Ace shows up and saves the day and Hob will love that. Yeah. I look forward to the arc where we have to save Ace from himself because we can't help ourselves.
00:34:12
Speaker
And yeah, that's the end of it. We have a handful of questions from the Discord. If you would like to ask any questions, dear listeners, you can do so on our Discord. The easiest way to find that would be probably to check our Facebook page. And it'll be right there. You can find that at facebook.com slash the Geek Pantheon. Our profile on X The Everything website is also at the Geek Pantheon as it is on other socials. And you should be able to find our Discord in any of those. Here are those questions.
00:34:44
Speaker
First one, several from Kevin. Among them, how do any of you ever trust Eric with your triumphs again after this arc? We do because they're fun. Listen, listen. They did everything I said they would do. They provided a distraction. Yes, sometimes the complications of some of Eric's twisty turny triumphs can forget long, but they're never not enjoyable and compelling sometimes. We've had some really neat things come out of our
00:35:14
Speaker
Let's call them GM triumphs because I'm really not sure who triumphed by the end of it. How tempted was Hob to drop Reynard off a tower after the bungle at the bar? Hob, I may not be doing a very good job of playing it. Hob has a soft spot for Reynard because he knows, Hob knows that they are all that Reynard has.
00:35:36
Speaker
And Raynard does actually appreciate them for that. And no, Hobb was annoyed. Hobb was frustrated. Hobb, if he thought it would do any good, Hobb would have had a talk with Raynard about like, you put us in a lot of unnecessary danger, potentially, turns out not, but we didn't know that by not just growing a pair and getting to the point. But no, he would have never, he might be the only person that hasn't punched Raynard in anger.
00:36:04
Speaker
because Raynard would explode if... Okay, fair enough. Is everyone as excited as I am to make Aeris, to see Aeris make the four sails fly and what chaos do any of you suspect from doing so? Oh, Eric's gonna make us roll.
00:36:17
Speaker
for takeoffs, for landings. If it takes out a building in Highwall because we roll poorly, I would not be surprised. We're flying a restaurant across the city. Right. Oh, yeah. Oh, there's definitely be like some sort of zoning B.S. with the city watch as we're moving a building. We don't have our pilot. We don't have our pilot cars. So we're going to get for our wide load something. Yes, I'm very excited for it. I am excited for whatever goes wrong when we try to make the for sales fly to Highwall.
00:36:48
Speaker
When is Hob going to learn to not punch things that stress him out because of spray damage? Never. I have a hammer and the world is a nail. That really is what it comes down to. I just have to accept. That's part of the reason I took that.
00:37:02
Speaker
I took that talent that allows me to reduce the strain every time Eric flips a story point after the first time I lost all my strain in a battle, because I have to do it. It's just like a caster has to spin to strain to cast a spell. If Hob really wants to have an effect with the one punch he gets per round, I've got to do something, one of my talents that costs a strain to make it work, either double or nothing, or leaping attack, or even bodyguard required, takes two strain to cast, or whatever you have to do.
00:37:32
Speaker
initiate, activate. So never hobble always punch. In fact, hobble is more likely to punch the things that stress about. Yeah. And I will say that was a little bit of bungling encounter design on my part, because previously when there's been a thing like that.
00:37:47
Speaker
there have been other things that Hob could be punching that wouldn't do that to him. This was the first encounter where that was the only option and Hob's gonna get hurt. So, yes. There were other bugs in that one fight. I've tried to play, I think I've been pretty consistent. I've tried to play Hob as he goes at the biggest guy.
00:38:04
Speaker
because he's the biggest guy and that just makes sense. He's not going to have Milo casting from afar at Big Brute. And then lastly, from Kevin, is the morning's embrace that Milo has become so fond of laced with dream lily? Eric, would you like to explain what this means and then answer it?
00:38:22
Speaker
I'll never tell. Dreamlily is a flower from Sarlona that propagandists will tell you and conspiracy theorists will tell you that the reedrons used to access people's dreams who consume Dreamlily. And so it's a huge security risk and concern from a privacy standpoint. It's fine. It's just a flower. You guys don't freak out about it.
00:38:44
Speaker
Whether or not it's a ingredient in, yeah, gross from the earth. Nothing bad grows from the earth. You couldn't craft yourself violently while you hallucinate. It's just a plant. It's whether or not Jorland is using that as a secret ingredient in the morning's embrace. I'll never tell unless somebody asks him, but I'm not Jorland, so I don't know. Okay.
00:39:08
Speaker
Shelby asks, remember when you said no more huge arcs, good times. And Shelby, whatever. This stuff happens. There has not been a wilder set of months for scheduling than these last few. It's been insane. Like I said, we banked so many episodes that the beginning of this arc was recorded back in June, just so we could try to make sure we didn't dog out any weeks. Yeah. Laura then has some questions. They ask, first off, new merch win? Big eyeball emoji?
00:39:37
Speaker
When it gets here, Laura, I, um, the continuation of their question is Christmas is approaching, just pointing that out for no reason. It will not be by Christmas, Laura. It might be. I am speaking with absolutely zero knowledge of the situation because I can say that later. I didn't know I was just saying stuff. And they also want to know what were I, what was I going to have glob do. Hob do.
00:40:00
Speaker
if Reynard didn't save him from the pocket dimension. I suppose remain stuck in the pocket dimension. I would have, I assume, been let out for trial and have to have done my best to convince them all that I was not trying to do whatever they thought I was trying to do. I would tell the truth. I would say, look, I was looking for Eldoran for my boss. Yeah. And see what happened. Yeah.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah, I would, I have to assume in that situation, if I had not gotten out of that pocket and I've, I had been at the trial, I would have fully been at the mercy of a combination of the dice and your NPCs. Like we were outmatched out and I'm not going to smash Elder and Calvarys heads together to get out of there. Cause I don't think they're minions, first of all.
00:40:46
Speaker
All right. And then the last question from Becca going off topic. How many ducks do you think you could successfully fend off? This is definitely not research for my duck army. Becca's name in the discord is the duck
Audience Questions and Episode Conclusion
00:41:01
Speaker
empress. So there is actually probably a duck army.
00:41:08
Speaker
The ducks feet are sharp, right? They don't have a whole lot of offensive capabilities though. Very human. What they can do, like the... Okay, I've been attacked by a duck. The blunt force of that bill is actually, it hurts, it'll bruise you. I think it really comes down to how coordinated the ducks are.
00:41:31
Speaker
I feel like I could take a pretty long line of ducks on, but if they all decided to join forces, I don't know how long I would last. I think I could take on 100 ducks, probably. I think that I would win a few rounds. I think ultimately I would succumb to 100 ducks. I think 50 ducks I could take. I think genuinely 500 ducks in a line. If they're coming every one on one, I'm just until I get tired.
00:41:58
Speaker
I saw a similar question to this that I want to ask you that is similar but far weirder. You are in an arena, no weapons or anything, just you. And every 10 seconds, a version of yourself when you were seven will appear with the intent to kill you. So you have to fight them off. How many seven-year-old versions of yourself do you think you could take on before they overwhelm you?
00:42:28
Speaker
every 10 seconds, another one comes out. Yeah. Okay. They would have to be made of much sterner stuff than I was at seven because all I would have to do is be like, I'm really just, that's, that's part of the question. Oh, I could have shamed those morons. I could have, I could have 1500 seven year old Jeff's crying against the wall because physical capabilities, not personality. Yeah. So they appear as a zombie esque, although 21 days later, sprint at you with the intent to kill.
00:42:58
Speaker
Poof. How many asthmatic chubby kids can I take out? I think it's going to be a lot. Also, I don't like myself much, so the rage would kick in eventually. You should have worked harder, I would say. That's an amazing, weird question. Yeah, I think 50. I could easily take on 57 year old Eric's, probably more, but don't want to seem cocky.
00:43:28
Speaker
Again, if it's every 10 seconds, I feel like I've got at least five minutes where I'm like Royal Rumble style, knocking one out and waiting for the next one. But once three or four of them build up, and two of them can hold your right arm while the other one just. But could two seven year old versions of yourself effectively hold your right arm? I feel like you could still like, seven year old me was very weak. That's second grade.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think, okay, maybe four, but I think four of anything, if they're really gripping onto you and putting their weight on it, they're gonna hold your arm down. I can't at the shoulder, like shoulder press or whatever this one's called, right? I can't do that. Front raise, yeah. Yeah, front raise, thank you. Seven-year-old me definitely weighed at least like 30 pounds. I can't do 100 pounds like that. I'm not picking that arm up anymore.
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah, but you also got your legs, you start kicking. I will be kicking. Yeah, we didn't mention footwear. We stopped recording a podcast about 10 minutes ago, you guys. This is just how Eric and I talk to each other. And I'm sorry that you had to be a party to that for even a second. And with that, I think we will call it...
00:44:36
Speaker
Thank you guys so much for listening. We will be back next we will be back next episode hopefully next week, but again We'll get her fixed by Christmas. Don't even worry about it. Thank you so much for listening Make sure to check us out on the socials at the geek pantheon Philip is not here Eric. Would you like to plug Kyber shards?
00:44:53
Speaker
Yeah, the Laughing Tree YouTube channel. You can check out Kyber Shards, which is a fifth edition actual play podcast set in the Everon campaign setting in the city of Stormreach. Philip is the GM. I am a player. And yeah, it's wacky and weird and a good time. So awesome. Look, I'll let you guys know if I ever start playing video games again. That's all I got for you. OK, thank you so much for listening. We'll catch you next time. I have been Jeff.
00:45:18
Speaker
and I'm Eric, goodbye.