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C2 Ep. 197 Eberron Reviewed 34
496 Plays6 months 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 & Podcast Overview
00:00:25
Speaker
. . .
00:00:47
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Eberron Renewed, an actual play podcast where we play the games. This one is Genesis in Eberron. I'm Jeff. And I'm Phillip.
00:00:57
Speaker
And it's just the two of us today. Man, I know no one listens to these episodes first, intentionally, but if they do, we're going to seem like the least professional podcasting out there ever. And that is saying a lot. Welcome. This is Eberron Renewed. We're not playing the game today. Phillip and I are going to talk about The Last Ark. It's true. Those of you that have listened to The Last Ark, well, if you haven't, stop. But those of you listening to The Last Ark know that I have some things to say about it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:24
Speaker
Castigation? I think that's the right word, yeah. Okay,
Alchemy in Eberron: Skills & Reflections
00:01:27
Speaker
so let us begin. This arc begins right after the garden party, which was sweet and fun and adorable. It was delightful. Despite heiress's misgivings about it, and Raynard's delight in it. We all managed to have a good time. I wrote some notes. I had to stop taking notes when I started driving while listening. That makes sense. I guess I didn't have to. It was a good decision though.
00:01:47
Speaker
It felt right. So this arc begins with Eris trying to make a shrinking potion because a lot of our plan hinges on her being able to do that. We don't do a lot of Eris kind of your traditional fantasy alchemy. It's all very mechanical. So is the rolling the same or the skills the same? It's just re-flavoring. So there are three different skills that Eris uses for crafting.
00:02:13
Speaker
Artifice is specifically for the sort of magical spell casting aspect of making gadgets. Mechanics is just traditional crafting and engineering, so anything she makes that is mechanical and not necessarily entirely magical. We've done with mechanics.
00:02:33
Speaker
And then alchemy is a skill from the Taranoth book that's specifically all about making potions, probably in like core Genesis mechanics would cover all of those things. But for the world of Eberom, where magic crafting is so prolific, we decided to break it out into the three. And Eris is best at artifice and mechanics.
00:02:58
Speaker
And alchemy is fewer. I have fewer skill points in in alchemy because we don't really do it much. Eris has not made. I mean, Eris started. Eris took a couple of points in alchemy because she was planning to poison Vigo. Okay.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, so after my first spent experience on alchemy after Vigo threatened to cut off Eris's hand. And so I went and spent points in alchemy after that session in order to make it possible for Eris to poison Vigo. Well, in my inventory, there are several items with which Eris was planning to murder Vigo at the first real opportunity to do so. Her big plan was actually to get into ingest some acid that she had made.
00:03:40
Speaker
But yeah, obviously various things short circuited that as as Eris's friends had positive effects on her and desire to murder things. And so, yeah, it's delightful and poetic that it came back around to alchemy in the downfall of Vigo, ultimately.
00:03:59
Speaker
But yeah, no, we haven't. There's been no opportunity really to role play, to role play it. So it was, it was fun to get to describe a very different kind of magic from, from Eris and doing the, the traditional bubbly cauldron kind of magic.
00:04:15
Speaker
Right. It was fun to walk into it as hob. Yeah. Well, this is new. Yeah. I imagine it being like it's very I figure that it's a lot like the difference between cooking dinner and baking a cake. OK. Because I do a lot of cooking and very little baking.
00:04:31
Speaker
And I usually follow precise instructions the first time I do something and then I kind of have an idea of how it's supposed to go and I can kind of adjust on the fly and I do a lot of grilling and you can't really say, well, I definitely need to grill this hamburger for X number of minutes on one side because the fire is going to be different every time.
00:04:48
Speaker
And so that's Eris's artifice. It's very improvisational. She adjusts stuff as she goes along. And I imagine alchemy to be very literally chemistry. And so if you get it even a little bit wrong, you turn your friend into an ostrich.
00:05:02
Speaker
And so, yeah, so that was why I had like, she's got a really old grimoire of alchemy recipes that she acquired somewhere deeply sketchy and an ancient cauldron that's rune scored and things like that.
Alchemy vs Baking: A Creative Perspective
00:05:21
Speaker
And it was a fun way to also just nod towards Eris's admiration for Tasha, who's the arch witch of the D&D universe. So.
00:05:31
Speaker
That was that was a little fun little opportunity. It was tempting to put on a hammer, put on like a pointy witch's hat, but that didn't make any I couldn't think of anything that would justify that. And it seemed a little, little sillier than where Iris is right now.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yes, and as you said, Hob was turned into an ostrich by the first potion. Sometimes I forget that I am at Eric's mercy. And I'll be like, yeah, so that's funny. Hob takes a little drink of whatever it is. That'll be great. And he's like, well, roll away. No. No, please don't make me roll anything for this because I believe that Eric gets anywhere from 25 to 45% of the way through his random tables before he goes, yeah, this one's good.
00:06:09
Speaker
And does it, I don't know where the 25% comes from, could be the first and last, you know, 12. So every time he tells me to roll a B100, I think none of us know what's going to happen. Sure, the first things you saw were like Sparrow, ostrich and dog, but then it's like worm and blink dog and dead. But yeah, Hob turned into an ostrich. I did not realize until I was re-listening today that the title of this arc was
00:06:35
Speaker
I believe head in the sand which is running for an ostrich and then really foreshadows and without this was titled before yeah we recorded where hob has his head stuck somewhere else actually not so Jeff had his head stuck somewhere else so
00:06:52
Speaker
But it works with Milo. We know that Eris has created a proper potion. And I assume Eric would not have let us keep trying. I mean, it's like, all right, what do we do? Do we have to go buy one? Like surely. Yeah, I assume there must have been a limitation at some point. I don't know. I don't know where that would have been. Or it could be, you know, we spend.
00:07:11
Speaker
Because each attempt to make a dose, at least mechanically speaking, takes some hours. And so probably at a certain point, we've spent enough time working on this that something else happens because we're delaying or maybe like that. I don't know. I know there's a concept, this may be just in the game, and I cannot remember if it was
00:07:34
Speaker
Something I've listened to, either critical role or a podcast I've listened to has a concept of taking 10, where if it's something that you could do and you don't want to roll for it, you can sacrifice time to say you've done it, which kind of makes sense to me. And if you have none of the essence, I guess that would be, that makes sense.
00:07:50
Speaker
This is one of those occasions, and it really wouldn't work with the way that Genesis is, but this is one of those occasions where you can almost see the argument for the GM rolling secretly, because of course, without trying it, Eris doesn't necessarily know did this specific one work. I hate so much the DM secret role.
00:08:14
Speaker
I mostly do too. This is just one of those where I can see the appeal of it. I think I would still have hated it if Eric had decided to do it, but I can kind of see where that side of that argument is coming from in this particular occasion. That was when we did the Pathfinder second edition special episode, which you can find on our Patreon. If you want to join for as little as a dollar a month, you will have access to
00:08:37
Speaker
I think there's more than one bonus play session on there, but one of them is, uh, the two of us with Erica's GM and two friends, Mia and legal Kim G playing in Pathfinder 2e. And there were several times where in the mechanic it is, this is rolled secretly by the GM and I hated it.
00:08:54
Speaker
The only form of that that I've ever thought was kind of neat is rolling privately between the GM and the specific player involved and letting the other players experience the tension because you can usually, you know, if you have a good group, you should be able to trust players to not to not meta it. But like I saw this as an argument for
00:09:15
Speaker
death saves in fifth edition. So you have the player who's dying, the character who's dying and the step behind the screen and roll the death save with just the GM so that the other players don't know how close that character is to dying. But the player themselves gets to experience the dramatic irony and the tension of knowing.
00:09:35
Speaker
I like that quite a bit.
Potion Procurement & Warforged Encounter
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah, because yeah, I like that. I mean, yeah, because, you know, after your second 10 or above, you can see your cleric stow their wand. But yeah, yeah, so we get the potions and we are on our way to talk. We call it horrible. And we're like, hey, you're still in, right? And then we're on our way to Fiarlan.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yep. Yes. To the Fierling to get some kidnapping. And on the way, we get an unbelievably difficult perception check we lucked into. I think it was four red. Yeah. Perception check. We see it. We spot it. It's cloaked. And all of a sudden, in the words of Eric, I know a warforged can't be jacked, but a jacked warforged lands on your boat. And I believe ultimately it became he has like pistons
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah, our extra external pistons powering his punches. It's like transverse pistons across where his abdomen would be. So they sort of shape like abs. I don't know what they do in that position, but he's quick to dodge. Right. And it took a long time. I listened again today and you definitely figured out before I did that these were bizarro us. This group was. And yes, so the warforged lands and the skiff reveals itself and there are two others in the skiff, a caster and an artificer.
Battle with Bizarro Versions
00:10:52
Speaker
and it's we met bizarro jerry and you handled you you eris handled herself extremely well in this fight the taking it went really well was amazing eric has
00:11:06
Speaker
So the danger of giving me the options that Eris has, which are mostly given by the system and not specifically by Eric, but the danger of it is Eric also still gives Eris loot. And so the number of like gadgets and toys that Eris has is really a lot.
00:11:27
Speaker
And so, you know, she's got the goggles can commandeer things and her gauntlet can just shut things down. And she has so many ways to to commit cyber warfare that that it is. It sometimes feels feels like I'm cheating, but but no, that was.
00:11:48
Speaker
I liked I liked that more than just shutting down the machine is taking control of it and just having it dive because I didn't necessarily as a player want to just kill all of these people because I I imagine that Eric has some kind of story to them and I think it would be fun to learn that story someday.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yes, I would love if things work out and Aaron is in charge and the Boromars no longer hate us, I would love to have a sit down dinner across from, oh, there was a Reynard as well, even though he wasn't with us, there was a Reynard, he effed off in the middle of the fight. Yep, appropriately. Yep, yes, I would love to have a sit down with them and the tableau that might create a lot of fun. But what matters is,
00:12:35
Speaker
everyone in the boat is dealt with by Aeris and we punched. When I was listening today, I realized, okay, I do this move way too often. I did exactly the moves that you guys have heard. It's the exact same series of moves and talents that killed Ace two episodes later.
00:12:54
Speaker
You got a, you got a combo that works, man. It doesn't kill the warforged though. The warforged is, is you to take out. Eric takes out the warforged. AB up upright bumper, man. It works for you. It's true. I had Duke and you know, that's not talking about it yet. We get confirmation that they were hired by Alira, that they were sub there. We have a long thing about, okay, but were they going to kill us? We hope they weren't going to kill us because we want to hang out with them later. We get no confirmation or, or, or denial from Eric.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah. And we go. Wait, we are off to meet Tarvel, aren't we?
Securing Allies & Offers from House Feerlan
00:13:27
Speaker
I guess so. We meet before we meet Viga or before we meet Alistair. That's right. Yes, you're correct. That's the order. Because the next thing I have in my notes is dead pirate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We see that weird like Davy Jones zombie corpse thing that comes lumbering out. Man, I really want to know what's up with that because
00:13:48
Speaker
Like Aaron gave gave us weird looks about like it's just sub man I can't the problem is where we are right now Things are going like we don't have time to pause and hang out with the doppelgangers or investigate What sort of evil deed evil entity Tarvel has a pact with right? Yeah, I'm actually double-checking something really quickly Go ahead
00:14:13
Speaker
It's really uncool of Eric to throw all these cool, continue to throw cool hooks at us at a stage where the pace of the campaign has moved up so fast.
00:14:23
Speaker
We are, I'm just double checking, we are currently, yes, 50 episodes passed where the first campaign ended and Eric is still throwing in some of the most tantalizing hooks we've gotten so far. We could go spend 10 episodes finding out about the, about the, whatever the undead sea pirate is that, that Tarvel's got, maybe Tarvel's working with Captain Copperbeard or Ron's beard or whatever his name is.
00:14:47
Speaker
Like who knows what often like how this might relate to our buddy and curse and then yes of the bizarro us and there's 6000 things that and just as a teaser we've recorded the next session and he's still throwing things at us. He's still doing it. So we're never leaving this campaign. I'm sorry. Or I'm not if you're having fun. I'm not sorry. I'm not personally sorry. I'm loving it.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yeah, remember like, okay, I distinctly remember us talking about campaign three, like it was imminent. Oh, yeah. Driving so long ago. Yeah, like over two years ago. Yeah. Well, yeah, because his whole idea was it's going to be it's going to be shorter. Like this one's going to be this is going to be a shorter campaign.
00:15:29
Speaker
I have, I have had several Halloween parties, several Halloween parties at Eric's house. He moved into after we had those conversations. That's how long it's because killer Halloween parties, Eric and Miley, those killer, just so the listeners know. Okay. Where was I? We talked to Tarvel. He's still down. He's on board. So we, yeah, we lay the plans.
00:15:49
Speaker
And Jeff was really like, okay, we need to make sure that they are on board because everyone's on board until they see their tiny unconscious son. That is the saying. That's the saying. It's as the saying goes, everyone agrees with the plan until they see their tiny unconscious son and then things can change. But everybody says they're good. We take off. This is where we go to Alistair.
00:16:14
Speaker
And he tries to recruit us. It feels like pretty heavily to Fearland after this is over.
00:16:23
Speaker
The weirdest thing for me, and I'm really looking forward to getting the opportunity to demand an explanation of him sometime in the future, is Trevor's this turn that Reynard has taken towards gung-ho house loyalty. Where, of course, you want to work for House Fearless. It's a great place. What is going on?
00:16:46
Speaker
I mean, he did say, okay, I can't remember if he said to us or on the air. And I believe it was on the air, he was like, he has a shot at leadership now. So he's like, that's all it took.
00:16:58
Speaker
I would never have identified Reynard as ambitious. And so it's like well, it's like ambitious. I mean, I'm I'm absolutely loving it like it's not this not a this doesn't make any sense. It's just it was so unexpected and and a fun, a very fun turn that Trevor is Trevor is constantly surprising. Yeah.
00:17:20
Speaker
I am thinking of the wrong word. I cannot think of the word I'm looking for. Craven, I think actually means like really scared. I'm thinking like shamelessly opportunistic. No, he's not ambitious, but he will snag like, he's always grabbing. Yeah. Yeah. As long as it doesn't have to work. That's what it is. Whatever is ambition without desire to work hard for it. There you go. That's which frankly, if you can, nice work if you can get it. Yeah, you know, just luck into a well paying job. That's good for you, man.
00:17:49
Speaker
or be born into in this game. And increasingly the real case. Anyway, and we get an assurance that it's gonna happen that they will do their best to keep him alive. We sign a liability waiver saying like, we won't sue if he's returned dead to us. We might pay extra. Yeah, he promises us he'll put competent people on it and he does because we get Vigo and Vigo is alive and unconscious when we receive him.
Capturing Vigo: A Potion Plan
00:18:14
Speaker
with a nightmare sedative, which is a nice little touch. Yes, he is having nightmares about his own death, vivid visions of his own death the entire time he's unconscious. I loved how Eris was like, this isn't enough for me. I need him to know that I did it. Yeah. Yeah, Eris has been holding on to that, like Eris once. The realization that she can send him stuff through the teleportation to taunt him for the rest of his time in the Dreadhold.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, and then Tarvel had to go and ruin that. Yeah, I didn't put together how devious that could have been when you showed up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Harris would be absolutely horrible about it.
00:18:53
Speaker
Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah. Iris is going to figure out what the mail system is like at the at the dreadhold and whether they accept spiteful mail. That's funny. We I mean, we do the thing like there's no like that's the next stop is we go back to Tarvel. We put his son in jail and get his wife out. They have names Vigo and Aaron swap places. Yep.
00:19:15
Speaker
And it works entirely. Like that was frankly, shocking to me that not that they went without a hitch. I was convinced the hitch was going to be once Aaron's on the other side, Eric starts to play a little more fast than those with her mental faculties. Yeah. Having been isolated for all this time. Hasn't yet that I would say that's still on the table, but it hasn't, hasn't at this point.
00:19:39
Speaker
but, and I feel like this is where unfortunately I had to stop listening today when I was going back through. I feel like we were doing inside checks. We were trying to make sure that she seemed altogether and did.
00:19:53
Speaker
We had a reasonable conversation, talked about how she plans on like slaying, slaying, laying low. She's gonna slay. She's gonna slay. Laying super low until it's like time, until it's like go time. Yeah, yeah. And then as one astute listener, I cannot remember who put in the discord. As soon as we left, it was go time for her and Tarvel. True. Eric made that pretty explicit. Yeah, he did. Without being explicit. I was gonna say yes. I know that was funny.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah. And then we head home, you know, to stay together and be safe and not let anything go terribly wrong. Okay. Let's just talk out like I, okay. As we're going home, like as we're going home, we see a cup. The previous episode, there was the quick vignette at the meanwhile. Yeah. Right. Of, of Norse and mill hatch getting sprung out of prison or kind of springing himself out. I couldn't quite,
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't quite, I'm still a little uncertain of what the sequence of events were and yeah. Cause it felt like Flamehead showed up and one else also. Yes, I definitely remember there being two people and I still don't know who the second one is. And then Eric said Millhatch touched a thing on his own wrist. Right. And the back wall of the jail blew out. Yeah, maybe he had to escape from those two and wasn't able to. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I also don't know.
00:21:18
Speaker
See listeners, we're doing the same thing you guys do. This is the first time I think we've processed it on air. Yep, and we don't have anyone we can ask questions of. And he wouldn't tell us anyway. Right. But because of that, as we are flying back home after something really did go right and well, we see a flaming monster
The Tragic Death of Ace
00:21:43
Speaker
with Norsen Millhatch at the end of a chain and we can't just let it go. No one expected us to let it go. The several, I mean, it's really like, Hob doesn't really have a personal iron in the fire except for the fact that Hob is the guy that does the thing for the friends. And between Milo immediately says, well, that's probably what I'm getting framed for.
00:22:08
Speaker
And I didn't even think about Harbin until you said something. And I was like, all right, well, here we go. Yeah, I like I would love to say that at some point after Eris is relieved that also we've cleared Milo's name, but that's not that's not what motivated Eris to to swing the skiff around. Right. And so we go and.
00:22:29
Speaker
start to fight this guy and he's strong and he talks to us, tells us he's super powerful. He's a billion years old and he attacks Eris. Did we swing first? We swung first. It was obvious we were going to swing first and then and so we had to roll initiative. We didn't get a surprise around and he beat our initiative with both of his initiative slots. Yes. So yeah, he got he got to get some real good hits in before we got to do anything. Yes. And he did do that.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Eris was taken down to like I think I was down to three wounds at some point in the fight. Like it was it was real bad, real fast for for Eris. And so I did the thing that I do where I double or did.
00:23:15
Speaker
And then I got enough advantage to Key Monk and I did that. And then at this, okay. So there comes a point where Hobbs, Jeff stares at Hobbs' fists and stops thinking about anything else. Didn't think about anything that had happened in the past. Didn't think about the fact that we even might've said Ace's name at some point. Didn't think about the fact that Ace wasn't at the four sales. We went there. I saw, I have, when you have a hammer, I nailed that guy. You did. Real good. Real, real good.
00:23:44
Speaker
And there's no coming back from hole through the chest. I, it was a plus 50, right? It was a plus 50 plus 50 and you rolled and I rolled a 90 92 two. And I mean, like somewhere in my head when we were talking that out, I was thinking this is going to be ace, but also you had to roll that 90 or up for this to be what happened. Yes. And so.
00:24:10
Speaker
the odds of that were low. And so it just didn't, I was like, man, this is going to be great. You're going to really mess him up. And it did not occur to me that until we rolled the 92 and then I realized like you can hear it on the recording. I, you know, I switched to no, no, no.
00:24:25
Speaker
Because I that's when it clicked to me this thing that we were just got really excited about doing is going to kill ace yes, and as soon as I Like honestly, it was Eric narrated the death one without asking me how it went which he typically does and to so quickly I was like I see what I've done now
00:24:47
Speaker
And I think you can hear on the record. I mean, I don't know. Again, I haven't listened to the final. I was very upset with myself. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it's evident on the recording. I listened to this one before our last recording session. It is evident. I mean, you can you can hear you leave. I do do that. I leave. I walk off. I'm very upset with myself. I.
00:25:08
Speaker
Again, I don't know what's in the recording, so I'm sorry if I'm rehashing things, but I start saying, I knew this, I knew better, I know better. I legitimately did, I said in the Discord, by the way, if you'd like to join the Discord, there's a link on our Facebook page, on our merge page, all over our socials, Geek Pantheon, at the Geek Pantheon, all the socials. In the Discord, I did not go to the Eberron
00:25:30
Speaker
renewed discussion channel the day that episode came out, until I had talked, Eric and I went to see my kid in a play that night. And I was like, hey, so I have not been in the show, it's like, it's not that bad. And that's when I went and loved. I did appreciate all of the, Hobb did what was right at the time, love, because Jeff did not feel that way at all for him. Still doesn't.
00:25:49
Speaker
Well, as you kind of dealt with this in the episode, which is kind of how Hobb talks himself down, there was nothing we know because we know who Ghost Rider is and we can see all of the signs. But that's not like our characters know who Ghost Rider is. And the bike wasn't present in the scene. If we had pulled up and the bike was sitting there, we might have put two and two together reasonably. Right.
00:26:16
Speaker
There's no there's just nothing by which we could go. Hobb would know this is an innocent in some capacity. Right. And why would Hobb go easy on that guy? That guy just really messed Eris up. And if he gets another turn, he's going to really mess somebody else up. Oh, yeah. I mean, yes, absolutely. And I had just hit him. So it would have been me because he seems to be like that seems seems to be his combat ammo. It's turn where you just got hit from.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah. So Eric does something sad. I'm not going to rehash it. Here's no, no point in talking about what ACE's last words were. As hub pulls his hands from through ACE. ACE says, is I just wanted to help. Yep. I believe I just wanted to help. Yeah. Did you see the wildly unsympathetic ACE puns on the discord?
00:27:06
Speaker
I'm sure I did and didn't realize I may not have been in the movie. Yeah. Something about having an ace up my sleeve. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Flame. Flame 112. Looks like Hob was keeping a... I feel like you got to put the CSI sunglasses on. Absolutely. Ace up his sleeve for this fight. Yeah! And then Kevin had really punched that card. Okay. Yep. Very good. Thank you everyone. Yeah. So it was a... It was real good.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah, this is, every once in a while we'll do an episode where all of the discussion is behind spoiler bars and this is a field of black and no text for a while. And then yes, I came in and I was like, I really was concerned about looking in here and everybody was very kind about, you know. So let's continue with the narrative. As Ace dies, several people who could have potentially prevented such things from happening also make themselves known.
Blame & Processing Loss
00:28:01
Speaker
The most culpable I would say being cast.
00:28:04
Speaker
100%, it's entirely Cass' fault. Like, Verla could not have actually said, hey, stop, that's Ace, because she didn't know. Right, right. But she could have said, hey, I saw that too, you don't need to do this to clear your name. Not that she would have thought that's what we were doing. Not the point, Eric knew, and that's all that matters. That's right. It's absolutely Cass' fault. Yeah, it feels like it's 100% Cass' fault. Yeah. Even to the point, did you pick up the vibe that Cath introduced Ace to this opportunity? Yeah, I mean, it seemed like
00:28:30
Speaker
Well, okay, it seemed like I didn't I didn't think eight that she introduced him to like the pact Because we we played that scene Eric made me play the the devil. That's right Yeah, thank you and yeah, so we had played that out but absolutely the ace showed up it's like I have superpowers let me help and Kath was definitely apparently like
00:28:54
Speaker
Well, sure. Join my vigilante murder crusade. Exactly. Did you? Yeah, and didn't tell us. Hey, these never said that it gives him these abilities out. Okay, we we will eventually have to unpack, not as characters, maybe just ourselves with Eric on like a final review or something.
00:29:13
Speaker
how much agency did Ace have when he was Skullhead? Because that's going to go a long way towards making me feel better or worse. But the way it really will play out is if he knew he could do this when he was talking to us about the motorcycle and didn't mention it. Right. Brother, you weren't trying to help then because that would have been a big thing to tell us. Yeah, no. OK, so just to pile on, Kath's relatives
00:29:44
Speaker
work with the gashkala combating fiends and so you're deeply inexperienced because of fiends you're deeply inexperienced incompetent
00:29:58
Speaker
waiter friend shows up and says, I have been possessed by a fiend and I don't know what to do with my power. And you don't say, wow, conveniently, I am from a family of exorcists. Let's get your problem to an expert and take care of it. It was.
00:30:17
Speaker
Cool. Let's use your power. Cass fault. 100% Cass fault. Eris has frequently jumped the gun. I mean, Eris has been unfair in the way that she yells at people frequently in this campaign, not at the way she yells at Cass. I think every time Eris has lost her temper and yelled at Cass, she has been 100% justified. Cass absolutely deserved it and Cass should feel terrible. And I hope she does.
00:30:42
Speaker
I think Cass should feel pretty bad about this one. Yes, I'm glad we can agree that this is all Cass fault. Yep. A hundred percent. There's going to need to be a reckoning on that. Yeah, I feel like that is what like there's going to be some loose ends when this is over. And I feel like that's got to be one that we do something with. Although it's going to have to the impetus is going to have to come from somewhere other than Eris, because Eris has been is at this point pretty content to say, Cass dead to me.
00:31:09
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense, Ferreris. It takes Hob a lot longer to say that about people.
00:31:14
Speaker
Sure. Hob is a better adjusted, more mature human. I don't know. I think Hob's a larger and therefore more effective doormat in a lot of ways as well. I almost spoiled next week's episode talking about something. I don't think saying that is a spoiler because I don't think people are going to be surprised we deal with Asa's death in the next episodes. Right. Right. Yeah. I literally say I'm going to talk to Ulfin and Sana. But so, Cath,
00:31:40
Speaker
yells at us for that and then runs off and Verla kind of does her much more emotionally mature thing.
00:31:47
Speaker
much more emotionally mature than us as well, thing. I can admit with Eric, if I'm going to take the time to say all the dumb stuff Eric's NPCs do, I will absolutely give him credit for being the grown up in the room. Yeah, Verla is very much the grown up in the room. This is a much different relationship than the one between Batman and Commissioner Gordon. We are not Verla's peers.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, we are if, like, Freakazoid had a Commissioner Gordon character. We're Animaniacs and the Doctor. And then after all the talk that we had about winning this day together, we absolutely split up. I mean, things changed, obviously. I didn't realize when we were in the moment that I did not narrate Hob telling anyone anything. He just dipped. I think he eventually... I think that's right. This may be very beginning of next episode, so I'm sorry. That's possible.
00:32:40
Speaker
let you know where he's going, but takes off and there's a question about, so I won't go too deeply into it, but that idea of absolution doesn't exist in the blood of voles. So he does not know what to do with himself. Sure. The one of the comforts of religion is you have a system
00:32:55
Speaker
for, even if it just makes you feel a little bit better, your, your absolution is the, you know, the confession or whatever prayer, supplication, whatever it may be. And Hobbes is just like, well, you live with it and deal with it. And so he chose to deal with it with the least offensive mind altering substance you could think of caffeine.
00:33:17
Speaker
And that's it. Hobbs not interested in feeling better. Hobbs interested in moving through, I think. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. Again, partly because he's able to rationalize it. He's not happy about it, but he's able to rationalize it. So, there was, there was a part of me that kept thinking that Eric was going to give the chance to just like get jumped or something, just to feel a little bit, get, get roughed up, you know, it would be, that would, what they would do in a movie. Yeah.
00:33:44
Speaker
Like the, or like a serialized television show. Like the last scene would be like hob getting punched in the chest and smiling a little bit, you know? Eric did not give me that easy. Milo goes to the sorting spirits, chats with the bartender, grabs a drink, goes to the closet to fall asleep.
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah, that was that was a very kind bit from from your land, but it was if I wasn't sure where this was going. I really thought we might be getting into another horrible trap because Milo is Milo is so prone to to get ambushed by Eldritch horrors. But yeah, it turns out, OK, Milo Milo benefits from the kindness of of acquaintances.
00:34:32
Speaker
Well, and with some of Milo's rash decision making lately revolving around justice and retribution, we're lucky that he was sad, he was just sad and wanted to go be sad. Yeah. I don't know if Randy would have thought about that. I mean, I think we were all genuinely a little sad. Yeah. Yeah. I thought cards on the table. I love Ace. I thought Ace was a fun character to interact with. I enjoyed. I enjoyed every time Ace showed up, the fact that we had a fan
00:35:01
Speaker
the annoying little brother aspect of it. It was fun to play along with. If I had thought for a second that it was ace, I would have betrayed my character and pulled a punch. It just did not come into my head at the moment and you gotta face the consequences. Is this potential spoilers for campaign one, skip like 30 seconds or something? Did we have anything quite that, I mean, we had losses in campaign one, but anything like at our hand that badly like that,
00:35:31
Speaker
I don't think, no, I don't think so. This doesn't really count because it was, it was also a way of exiting a, a character from the, from the story. There's sort of that level of betrayal feeling in the, in the, when we, when we all take the deals with Bella Shira and, and, and Dracure leaves.
00:35:56
Speaker
But I don't think we I really don't think we killed anyone and then suddenly realized we needed to feel bad about it. I think that.
00:36:05
Speaker
And I will say the Bela Shira thing was definitely you pissing off you. Yeah. Right. So that doesn't really. Yeah, that's not nearly as bad. Well, and to be fair, as much as we like Ace, Cath, Sana, all of them. Yeah. None of them are in the team to the level of tomorrow. The time crew was right. Yeah. You know, it felt that way for a while. They were 100 episodes ago, 60 episodes ago, but we've gone so far afield and fights and they've gotten their lives as they should. So what does Eris do?
00:36:35
Speaker
Eris goes back to the cauldron, drops her stuff, and climbs into Olive's bed. To just be not alone was what I really wanted from that. It was just Eris. Eris is not good at processing, as we've well established. And so she's not gonna go try to, she doesn't want to talk about it. She's decided that she's gonna process by being mad at Cath and blaming Cath for it. And since she's been mad at Cath for a while now, that works pretty well.
00:37:03
Speaker
And so just needing needing some closeness and some some contact is what brings her to cuddle up with all of. I think that's fantastic. Yeah. And that is where we leave the story for a couple of weeks. Like I said, we have recorded the next three episodes, two to three episodes, depending on how Eric divides. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, we had a really long session. I don't know how much Eric how Eric's going to cut it up.
00:37:30
Speaker
And so, you'll see what happens, friends. We're gonna answer some questions now, and here we go. If you would like to ask us questions for these reviewed episodes, you can do so on our Discord, which I have mentioned already. You can find the link to on all of our socials.
Character Regrets & Elements
00:37:45
Speaker
While we're doing those sorts of pluggy plug things, I'll go ahead and also say that we have merch at geekpantheon.com.
00:37:50
Speaker
And we have a Patreon, patreon.com slash the Geek Pantheon tier start at $1. You have access to some of Eric and Philip's DM shenanigans behind the curtain, some bonus episodes, some bonus videos from Eric. And then, and those are, I mean, I don't want to sell a false bill of goods. Those are not ongoing. They are occasional. Yeah.
00:38:12
Speaker
But, and a thousand other things. Anyway, check out the Patreon. If you like it, spend some money. Here are those questions. We will start with a handful from Kevin. What regrets would Hobb and Eris have in what's happened thus far in the campaign? Well, there's that one big one that we saw. This doesn't exactly count. Eris is really like when we captured and turned over Norse and Millhatch at the beginning,
00:38:39
Speaker
and Eris accidentally, at the very last possible moment, blows their identity to Norsen after all of our careful work to prevent that from happening. That is a pretty big one. Eris regrets a lot of things to do with Harbin, but she honestly doesn't know what she should have done different, and I think that's
00:39:02
Speaker
often Eris's frustration with interpersonal things is she knows she's screwed up with a lot of people, but she doesn't actually know what the right thing to have done was in most of these situations. I think if Hobb has a regret, it is that he did not realize the enormity of all of this when it was still in its infancy and there was actually some things we could have done about it. Yeah.
00:39:27
Speaker
He didn't catch the vibes off of Milhatch that he should have. He didn't catch the vibes off of Solomon Callaway that he should have. He knew Viggo was a little, you know, turd and...
00:39:38
Speaker
But nothing, I don't believe there's anything we could have done to save Satan. But the fallout from it, making sure that people knew it was something we wouldn't have done. Being a bigger against Callaway in public, not where Callaway was around, but along the Klan or something, things like that. I think that's what Hob regrets is that he is surrounded by all of what's happening now because he didn't have the insight
00:40:04
Speaker
of where it was heading in the beginning, whether he should have or not. That's how it feels. Sure. I call myself dumb a lot and I stand by it. But Hobb thinks he's smart. I don't think Hobbs necessarily wrong either. And he just fully let this
00:40:18
Speaker
So I think if you were to have a regret, that would be it. And I'm sure there's a death that I can't remember right now that Hobb would have liked to have not have happened. Or a loss or something. Is there a particular moment in this campaign, Kevin continues, where you really felt like your character was in their element or at the peak of that melding of player and character? This is so hard because there are places where I remember in the moment really wishing that I was.
00:40:43
Speaker
in the heads, like the confrontation with the dashour under the city.
00:40:49
Speaker
was great. And Eric, man, the way Eric set it up and everything, it was so so the way he gradually foreshadowed what it would be, who we were going after and just everything like that was was really cool and having all of there and everything. And I I remember just feeling very in my own head throughout that and wishing that I could have just like let let Eris flow in that in that moment because
00:41:17
Speaker
I was stuck in the... Eris hates this person, and Eris is eternally grateful to this person, and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to communicate that contradictory feeling in a combat encounter right now, because without abandoning my friends to die. Eric saved me from that moment by having him hurt Olive, which flipped all the necessary switches to send Eris into a Berserker rage.
00:41:44
Speaker
I guess kind of the opposite of that would be pretty much any time we've gotten to have a skiff chase combat, all of the different things that Eris has made really tend to shine when we get into vehicular combats of having Tasha
00:42:01
Speaker
And the different ways that Aeris can screw with somebody else's vessel and the ridiculous things that we've got to do there. I think Car Chase Aeris is probably the place where just everything I've built Aeris to do really comes out in and shines.
00:42:19
Speaker
I would say the time I feel like I'm playing the hob I intended to play, the hob that I built, is when he's in minion crushing mode. That is the hob that I created. Eric knew that, that's why he gave me that heroic ability. So that is the time that I feel the most like hob qua hob that I wanted. To kind of rephrase, I hope I still get the spirit of the question. As far as the melding thing, the most Jeff thing hob does,
00:42:47
Speaker
is swoop in at the end of a conversation and try to clear things up. So what we're all saying here, just so we're all clear on this, like that is a very Jeff thing. Part of it has to do with working with teenagers every day, specifically teenagers who are supposed to be representing themselves to potential employers. I feel like I do a lot of that, which also leads to another very Jeff thing where he realizes that he kind of didn't get the gist of it and has to back up a little bit. That's a very Jeff thing.
00:43:12
Speaker
But that's what I feel. And it is just it's Jeff compelling it. But that's the most Jeff thing Hob does is like, well, no, that's not really OK. That's not what we meant meant. I mean, I built Eris to do this, but the most me part of Eris is absolutely just spouting random obscure Eberron lore about goblins or things like that. Like I Eris was partly built because I thought to play a goblin and then decided to play Eris and I still wanted to use all my goblin lore.
00:43:40
Speaker
My favorite hob as just the wrecking machine that he is in melee fighting is the first time we went down into fallen and we got attacked by those like like acid creatures like that thing that was that every time you hit it hit you with acid and hob just goes mad and punches it through a wall like that was just
00:44:03
Speaker
That was perfect. That was just so like you could see the moment, you could see it in, you could see the comic book panel of it. And that, yeah, that was, that was immediately what went to my head. I was like, where is, where is Hobb just doing exactly what Hobb is supposed to do? That was the immediate, the episode that jumped into my head.
00:44:19
Speaker
You know what I think would be interesting? I'm going to put a question to the Discord. If anybody would like to get in there and answer this. What do you see as through lines between the characters that we've played between campaign one and campaign two? Oh, that would be a cheat, yeah. We may not see. And this is just the way Philip plays. It really doesn't have anything to do with his character. Philip plays close to the vest.
00:44:37
Speaker
until he gets a really good opportunity to show his new toy out. And it always blows. It's the most fun way to play it. I have to immediately tell him that. I'm like, look at this talent I got. Whereas Phillip's like, I'm not saying anything until I do it. And it's the most fun thing to do. Eris and Barak both would occasionally just do something. I'd be like, I'm sorry.
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah, Eris definitely is. It's it's much more in character with Eris than than with Beric. I enjoy it. I enjoyed it with Beric partly because it's fun to surprise Eric, but it was Eris. It's definitely much more in character because Eris absolutely would not tell you this new thing she made last night until she pulls it out from under her coat and blows something up with it like just. Yes. Yeah. What's been your favorite part, Kevin? I'm just going to I'll tell you when it's not got anymore. What's been your favorite part of playing this campaign in Genesis and your least favorite?
00:45:24
Speaker
the way we've done artifice, Eris is practically impossible to build in any other in any other system and be the way she is. I've I came kind of close in Blades in the Dark just one time just to try. But D&D does not give the kind of free, free form crafting that is absolutely the core of everything Eris is able to do. Yeah, mine is definitely I mean, it's it's a.
00:45:52
Speaker
broad answer, but I just love the talent system. Yeah, I like feats in D&D, but I never take them because I don't like the trade off. Especially if you're like, you know, one ability point away from raising up your modifier and something important, right?
00:46:06
Speaker
I'm never going to take silence as a feat or whatever, you know, when I could constantly be rolling, adding another digit. Right. So it's just, it's just that like building the character, refining the character. When I remember to spend XP, that's, that's what I've enjoyed the most about playing in Genesis. And it is more a system thing than an actual gameplay thing, but it makes the gameplay that much more fun. Yeah. As far as least I don't like the spares, but I don't feel like that's what you're asking.
00:46:34
Speaker
Again, this is more a reality of the way that we play at Eric's table, either present, either physically or digitally, than it is. Well, this isn't really a Genesis thing. I was going to say, I really like maps and tokens, but that's not a Genesis thing. That's just a nature of what we're doing thing. I don't know. I don't know. I guess we've said it before.
00:46:59
Speaker
If we had known that we were going to spend a lot of the early part of this campaign not able to play at a table with each other, we'd have probably picked a different system because Genesis is just so much better when you're around a table. So maybe that, maybe the fact that it doesn't transfer as well to playing remotely as other things do.
00:47:17
Speaker
To put a very granular look on the question though, what's been my favorite part of playing this campaign in Genesis is it lends itself well to the not world defining stuff.
Genesis System: Pros & Cons
00:47:31
Speaker
The system and this setting of being like, we're just going to focus on this much of shorn works well together.
00:47:37
Speaker
Yeah, if we were the equivalent, whatever the equivalent D and D level would be, there's no way Eris would be in danger as often as she is. Yeah, we would be if we would be world famous, you know, like we could still be in China, but people would be coming to try to take us out. Yeah, you know, we'd be invincible. And I like that we aren't. What is your favorite dessert baked good and or pastry?
00:47:57
Speaker
OK, it's probably conditional. There are several, but if I'm going to pick one that I will just eat really any time, there's a pastry. It exists in a lot of different cuisines. I'm familiar with the Latin version of it being from Texas. There's a pastry call that's called an array.
00:48:15
Speaker
And it's basically just puffed pastry that's been cut thin and then sort of wrapped and folded into almost a heart shape. Oreja means an ear. And so it kind of looks like a pair of ears or a heart, depending on where your head is. And then it's drizzled in caramelized sugar and honey and sometimes like cinnamon, like you can flavor it in a lot of different ways. But it's just.
00:48:36
Speaker
It's really simple, and it's really, really good. And there used to be a grocery store here that just kept them in the bakery aisle. They would just bake them fresh and put them out, and they were real cheap. And so I would just go by there and just buy a dozen and bring them home sometimes. And I haven't... That place closed down, and I haven't found another good place in my area to get them, but I love those. They're so good. It's probably okay that I can't buy them by the dozen anymore, because it's hard not to just eat them like Oreos.
00:49:06
Speaker
That's funny. I'll take any baked good that is either lemon blueberry or orange cranberry flavored. I will take and be, those are my two favorite flavor combinations, period.
00:49:19
Speaker
and they happen to exist in pastries. So I also will never turn down a plain glazed donut. I'm not that fancy. It's true. What NPC has felt the most like a chore to interact with? That's very funny. Right. I don't know. I mean, for Eris, it was it was definitely ace. Like Eris had a very hard time tolerating ace because he required patience and that's not her thing. She's the person that everyone is supposed to use their patience on.
00:49:48
Speaker
That's patience is something that happens to Eris, not the other way around. For me, I don't I don't know how to answer. I can't I can't think of one that Eric brings out. I'm just like, I mean, I guess a little bit that horrible doctor, like the things that Eric chooses has chosen to start doing with that voice. Just make my skin crawl.
00:50:13
Speaker
That's gonna kill me. I will not think of it. There's no point in even trying. I mean, late Cath is a bummer to deal with. Oh, yeah. Honestly, Eric knows when he's making an NPC a chore for me and will lean into it sometimes because if Hob is making sense and the NPC is just not agreeing with him out of spite, that's a chore for Jeff. And Eric knows that. Anytime Eric points at me, that is a chore for that NPC.
00:50:39
Speaker
The smug pedantic villain is what Eric does to needle me. And he's good at it. He's so good at it. Oh my gosh. Eric is really good at monologuing as a villain.
00:50:52
Speaker
And to be fair, next time Eric is on, I will give him an opportunity to say what things, Philip, that I do. I was going to say, surely that, yeah, it goes both ways. But again, it will be the same thing that we know annoying him. I just don't know what it is. I have to be in the moment to realize it, but I'm sure I do on purpose. I would guess it's when I am, this is, I swear this is almost always accidental when I.
00:51:16
Speaker
bring up some bit of Eberron lore that contradicts something that just happened in the narrative. Because usually it happens because I'm seeking clarification, and then I realize, oh, shut up, you jerk, this is Eric's Eberron. Don't bother him about books. I meant to say earlier, that is one thing in the confluence of Hob and Jeff is they will both derail whatever's happening for the sake of a joke that may or may not be true. Okay, Irene has a question. For both of you, what's your favorite part about parenting a teenager?
Parenting Teenagers: Challenges & Joys
00:51:46
Speaker
mine still likes dressing up in costumes. Yeah, my kids are just stuck. Honestly, my favorite thing about about about raising a teenager right now is they both I'm very lucky I did not try to force this but they both got into the extracurriculars that I enjoyed in high school and so getting to experience that with them.
00:52:04
Speaker
Yeah, it is really hard not to try and force that because like I really I really want Rose to love D&D and board games and she likes some of them and she likes the social activity of it, but it's just not right now. It's not like her favorite thing. She likes the idea of it a lot more than she ends up liking the execution of it. But yeah.
00:52:23
Speaker
You know, in the last two weekends, I got to watch Ferris play Pugsley in the Addams family and Aubrey played Janice in Mean Girls. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. It's so good. It's wonderful getting to watch them do things that I did, but develop their own personality for it. They're both much better at it than I was at their respective ages. That's for sure.
00:52:41
Speaker
And then the other thing is just, you know, I enjoy all of the standard teenage tropes that I was expecting to get to deal with as a teenage. Like I told Philip earlier today when we were scheduling this, he said, what time I don't want to interrupt your dinnertime. And I said, I don't have a dinnertime. I have a Ferris puts down the controller and says, do we have any food? And that's when I feel specific to like specific to teen stuff I.
00:53:01
Speaker
I really like her getting older because I get to introduce her to new media that I like, where there are so many more movies I can watch with her at 15 than in the past. And so that's a real joy, is not having to like,
00:53:18
Speaker
go through my mind of this movie, I'd really like to share with her and think, is this going to ruin her night's sleep for the next week? Yeah. And getting to take her to more movies, too. Like getting to just look at a rating and say, OK, well, this is rated that. So.
00:53:35
Speaker
I can take her, whether I know the content thoroughly ahead of time or not. And most of the time that doesn't blackfire. At the very least, anything that comes up here we can safely talk through. Yes, exactly. I do want to be clear, Ferris will not be a teenager for like two more months, but I'm counting it. He's always been pretty mature.
00:53:54
Speaker
Man, they start being a teen before they hit, before that suffix gets added to the number. When I was a youth minister, there was a kid in the youth group that was like 12, and he was like, actually, I'm a tween. And I go, you do not want to correct people with that. Just take it. Laura asks, is Hob okay? And Flame asks. She actually asks if Honb is okay.
00:54:16
Speaker
I was gonna let it slide. But I don't think they would let it slide with me, so. Yeah, yeah. So they ask, is Han bouquet? And Flame asks, is Jeff okay? And the answer is, you'll see, and yeah, more or less.
00:54:27
Speaker
No, I don't want to gloss over. I was genuinely concerned about the reaction that this was going to have. Like it was in my mind from the moment it happened until the episode released. So Laura wants to know if we think Ace and Kath were, you know, which led to a discussion about wasn't Ace a child. I always assumed Ace was would have been at Morgrave University if he had had a different life.
00:54:53
Speaker
Yeah, I always assumed Ace was was called was a I pictured Ace younger than Eris which would make him I guess very late late teens Because Eris is we have an unspoken thing. Eric is going to let us know Yeah, this is not a character. We should be treating like an adult. Mm-hmm Like if down the road he's like this 14 year old and we've like said things that we should only say to or adults
00:55:16
Speaker
Well, or he suddenly reveals that Ace is 14 after you've punched a hole in his chest. Like, yes, yes. Right. So I believe Laura continues. How old is Ace? How old was Ace? Right. We're going to go with 18. I'm going to go with 18 because that feels about right. That's right. I was going to say 21.
00:55:31
Speaker
Okay. Anyway, he is firmly an adult. Yeah. Young one. Yes. Okay. Laura wants to know what is your favorite nostalgia book and I not being in the internet book world. I don't know if that's an actual thing. Oh, I didn't even occur to me to check whether that's a specific thing. I assumed that meant like a book you like because you liked it a long time ago, regardless of its merits. I think that's kind of what I was thinking.
00:56:01
Speaker
I assumed it wasn't a book that makes you think about the past. I read a lot of those. Yeah, that's my jam. This is really hard because most of the books that have stuck with me like I'm gonna have to let go of the regardless of its merits thing because most of the books that I really that really affected me as a kid. I reread on a regular basis because I still love them and I think they're
00:56:22
Speaker
I think they're still as meaningful as adults. I'm going to cheat and offer two because they're big for me in different ways. And I'm setting aside the ones that anyone who knows anything about me would immediately list as obvious. Lord of the Rings is not a nostalgia book. That's a current fascination. That's an evergreen book. That's a lifestyle. I'm going to go with the Jungle Book.
00:56:44
Speaker
It was one because my dad loved the Jungle Book growing up and he passionately hated the Disney adaptation because it's so far from the books. And so he read us pieces of the Jungle Book from a very young age. And so I have a lot of memories of sitting on the floor while my dad reads us stories out of the Jungle Books or he read us pieces of a lot of classics.
00:57:09
Speaker
that he carefully curated. It was a while before I knew that Ka made all the monkeys walk down his throat to their deaths. But, you know, carefully curated ones, especially Ricky Tiki Tavi was the Kipling story that I remember my dad reading and just being enamored of. So I'm going to say the Jungle Book. I still like it. I still think it's good literature, but I have
00:57:34
Speaker
It is part of my love for it is warm feelings of childhood. And then there's a there's a classicist and historical fiction writer named Mary Reynolds, who was a British writer who died back in the 80s. She wrote a book, I think in the 1950s, that was it's called The Lion in the Gateway. And it's about the war between the Greeks and the Persians in the fifth century B.C. And I didn't realize until much later
00:58:04
Speaker
So it's not historical fiction, it's just a narrative telling of a series of historical events. She's just narrating what happened instead of providing a fictional narrative within that setting. And it was really well into adulthood before I realized that defined what I like about history because I
00:58:29
Speaker
I hate academic history writing. I hate it. It's so boring. History is this cool series of stories. I have a book that has a letter from a Sumerian bureaucrat to his king explaining why it's taking him so long to find a lion for the king's zoo.
00:58:53
Speaker
And the reason is that the lion they had found got loose and got stuck in somebody's attic and it took them four days to get it. And so reading that book when I was, I think in sixth or seventh grade, I still got my copy of that book when I was in sixth or seventh grade really set what I loved about history, which was this is
00:59:12
Speaker
This is an amazing and dramatic story about remarkable, remarkable, remarkable people and also regular people doing remarkable things. And that's, well, that's what, that has defined my teaching style as a history teacher and, and lots of other things about it. So I would say that is one that I don't reread because it's very much for children, but it is, it has a lot of impact on me. So.
00:59:36
Speaker
Similarly, one of mine, the book that I remembered for reading as a child that I loved and was excited to introduce to Ferris as he got old enough to read it and does hold up is Jerry Spinelli's Maniac McGee. Oh, that's such a good book. Fantastic book. Yeah, I probably read it. Rose read it for school. And that was I remembered it. Such a good book. Because, you know, I was I was of reading age when it was published, I believe was up for a Newbery that year. And that's why I read it in the year 91 or something.
01:00:03
Speaker
And like 30 years later, Farish read it and it was still very good. So that one, a book I haven't read in a long time that I loved that I can't imagine doesn't hold up is The Outsiders. And then the only book I've revis, I've revisited four books in my life. I've only reread that I can think of. Well, one of them is the Chronicles of Narnia. So that's a little different. It's very recent, but I've gone back to it several times. I just love it. I've reread Andy Weir's The Martian.
01:00:29
Speaker
That's so good. Probably such a good book six or eight times, including audio book. Yeah. It's just the way he writes it. So, you know, it's funny, I haven't read his follow up. This is not a follow up to the March, but his second book, I still haven't read. But the way he wrote The Martian, which is so pleasant and colloquial and enjoyable, but I just pick it up to, you know, feel nice. So yeah, it's that is it was so it's so it's so like it's triumph of the human spirit. It's like, you know, it's it's the definition of that. Yeah, I agree. The Martian is very readable.
01:00:59
Speaker
and the movie really holds up as a really good adaptation. I was very happy with all the Martian things. Lastly, Gus7 has a couple of questions. With the loss that Hob has experienced over the course of the campaign, do you see him drifting back towards his blood of a vole faith or turning away from it? Hob's blood of vole faith is constantly in a spin cycle. He returns and runs from it as he needs to to remain
01:01:26
Speaker
stoic and sane and grounded. I think that's been his his kind of thing his whole life. You know, we don't do I don't do a lot of narrating of Hobbes alone time and downtime, but he very much still does his meditations and things he needs to. So I think it'll always be a thing that he keeps at arm's length.
01:01:46
Speaker
both because he doesn't want it too close and needs to be able to drag it near what he wants to. Not too terribly different from my own relationship with the faith I grew up with, I'm being honest. So I don't think that he'll do either. Hobbs loss in this campaign is not drastically different than any loss that one might have over their lifetime in the life that he leads, a nomadic fighter's lifestyle.
01:02:11
Speaker
So I think that's where he's going to be. And lastly, from Gus7, now that we've gone far past campaign one's length, how has it been still playing relatively low stakes after such a long time?
Enjoying a Low Stakes Campaign
01:02:23
Speaker
I love it. Like I'm at this stage in campaign one, and we've said this before, this is not a surprise. At this stage in campaign one, I was, well, obviously we're way past it, but when we got to the end of campaign one, I was very ready for it to be in, be over. I was ready to stop playing Barrick. I was ready to not deal with the fact that the world is on our shoulders. Like it was just, it got so heavy. I love the low level play that we're getting.
01:02:46
Speaker
I think one of the things that is fun about it and one of the great ironies of this is we have so much more to keep track of now that we haven't left town than we did when we spent most of our time on a boat with the same seven people flitting all over the world. That it has become such a bigger story in such a smaller geography is something that I think is a lot of fun. I don't feel like we're playing a small story, we're just playing it in a small arena. I really love the fixed setting.
01:03:16
Speaker
I thought I might miss traveling around to other places, but I have not. I really loved the fixed story and the way that we've gotten to grow to know the different parts of town. I think that's great. And Eric has done such a good job of making that alive.
01:03:35
Speaker
And I think that's part of it is Eric has done an unbelievable job of saying now we're going to go to the credit was called midnight veil something veil. Yeah, yeah, it's a new nightclub that I came up with and here's the menu. Yeah. So even inside of town, we have an entire I mean, there's a constellation in our town.
01:03:53
Speaker
So it's pretty wonderful. And I will not, I always end up when he's not here, I'm nice about him. And I don't like it. But yeah, I would say that not to quibble, it feels more low, less low stakes. Because we've invested so much more in the personal lives of the characters that even though what is happening in sharn is low stakes on a cosmic scale, it seems very high stakes in our little cauldron. So way to go Eric, I guess.
01:04:21
Speaker
Thank you all for your questions. Thank you all for listening. We will be back next week. Philip, any last thing you want to get out there that we may have glossed over? No, this is, yeah, I'm excited for them to hear what's coming. Yeah, it's good. I don't say that about it. I believe it, but I don't say it very often. I'm excited for you guys to hear what's coming up. And we will be back next Friday with another episode. Until then, I have been Jeff. And I'm Philip.
01:04:44
Speaker
wonderful whatever the rest of your day looks like when you're done with this. Goodbye.