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C1 Ep. 81 Eberron Reduced 4
312 Plays6 years ago
This week Philip sits down to give a “story so far” by answering questions as both himself and Beric. Join us as Philip gives us some great insight into what has happened so far!
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Jessica Smith, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrin Katzska, Darrell DeLaney, Jon Cary, Charles Compton, Nikko Batson, Matt Lewis, The Kamm Family, and David Scrams.
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Transcript
Sponsor Acknowledgment
00:00:01
Speaker
This show is brought to you by the generous donations of our show sponsors, Matt Lewis, Laura Pickron, Irene Villarito, Darryl Delaney, Nico Batson, Darren Katska, Ryan Royce, John Kerry, Jessica Smith, The Cam Family, Charles Compton, and David Scrams, as well as all of our generous patrons.
00:00:33
Speaker
D20 radio, your gamers roll.
Introduction to Eberron Renewed Podcast
00:00:50
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Eberron Renewed, a D&D 5th edition actual play podcast.
Scheduling Error and Q&A Setup
00:00:56
Speaker
I'm Philip, and I've never introduced this show before. That's because last week, as you may recall, we announced on the episode that we had messed up our scheduling in a substantial enough way that it was just going to be impossible for us to get an episode out this week.
00:01:10
Speaker
And we looked a few different options and none of them really were going to work for us to be able to get together and record a reduced episode or anything like that.
00:01:23
Speaker
but I had some time and so I talked with our wonderful patrons and asked them what they'd like to hear and they suggested that a or I suggested that perhaps a Q&A episode with just me that kind of covered the whole campaign instead of just
Q&A with Beric - Narrative and Personal Inquiries
00:01:41
Speaker
the last arc, the way we usually do with Eberron Reviewed. And that went over pretty well, and so after a little bit of discussion back and forth with them, I settled on what we're going to do right now, which is a Q&A session, half with me, Philip, and also half with Beric.
00:02:01
Speaker
So I've set up a little in-character thing in which Barak is going to answer some patron-generated questions. So before I get into this, don't worry too much about where exactly this fits into the narrative. I've created a little scene for it because that's the way I think about it, but we don't really have a set place in our story that this happens.
00:02:29
Speaker
other than it happens sometime relatively currently in the story, I guess, just based on the things that we'll be talking about. But don't worry too much about trying to place where if me and, in consultation with Eric, if me and Eric ever decide where it goes, then we'll put it in. But for now, this is just sort of a for fun thing. So don't worry too much about that.
00:02:55
Speaker
All right so I'm going to start and we're going to do the in-character part first and then I'll come back and we'll do the um the questions that were for me as a player as opposed to as a character. So I hope you enjoy this uh if you do let us know and maybe we'll do some of something like this with uh with other characters. Anyway so I guess this is an episode of Eberron reduced slash also an episode of Eberron reviewed
00:03:24
Speaker
So it's kind of a weird combination. Anyway, hope you enjoy and we'll get into it.
Interview with Shanay Nilsanza - Beric's Reputation
00:03:31
Speaker
So Beric sits at a dimly- at a table in a dimly lit room, hands folded on the table. He's not entirely comfortable with what he's asked for care to do, but then the woman had contacted him first. She'd put some of it together and wanted an interview. Beric had given her some documents, some of his notes, and she wanted a face-to-face meet. Beric doubted very much that anything he might say would be believed by the general public, but if some element of the truth
00:04:00
Speaker
of things could get published, and that was all for the better. The door opens, and a woman enters. There is a bag over her head, and one of Drakir's hands grips her arm firmly but gently. The drow closes the door and guides her into a seat before pulling the bag off of her head. Shanay Nilsanza blinks and looks about, then focuses on Beric.
00:04:23
Speaker
Our appointment wasn't until SAR, she says. Barak nods. My mother used to complain about bad operational security during the war. You'll forgive me if I don't implicitly trust you. I do well believe that you won't double cross me, but I feel more sure that you won't since my brother here grabbed you two days early. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, but when my behavior might blow back on my companions, I'm a little more risk averse than other times.
00:04:53
Speaker
She pauses and considers. Fair enough, she says, looking him over.
00:04:59
Speaker
Well, I don't have all my notes, so we'll have to just do this extemporaneous. Let's start at the beginning. I've dug into some of the news stories about you, and I don't exactly buy it, and I've gotten my hands on some citadel reports that seem to mesh with what you've told me already in your notes, and they don't match up with what's being said about you and your friends by the government. So what's really going on?
Beric's Childhood and Family Secrets
00:05:30
Speaker
Beric is silent for a moment before answering. I can't answer that in full in a reasonable amount of time. He slides a spell shard across the table to her. This has my more extensive notes regarding my evidence that the king is an imposter and the connection between the Mabar incidents and the Rehedrins. It ought to fill in some of the documents I left you before.
00:05:54
Speaker
Nilsanza pockets the shard. All right, then. I'd like to ask you some personal questions. If you want to win any public sympathy, people are going to need to know who you are beyond an outlaw terrorist kidnapper. Fine, says Beric. Let's talk about your childhood. What is your... I mean, you grew up during the war with a mother in the service, so what's your fondest childhood memory?
00:06:24
Speaker
My grandfather taught me to ride on his land outside Sharn, and it's just one of those memories from your childhood that is just crystal clear. I remember everything about it, the smell of the horse, the smell of leather. I can hear his voice exactly as it was then. It must have been about seven. It was only a few months before my mother remarried. She was home on leave.
00:06:53
Speaker
It was probably the last time I remember in my childhood where everything was right, if you follow. I see. And knowing what you do now, how do you feel about your mother hiding the pact from you, if she knew you'd one day inherit it?
Avoiding Military Service and Day of Mourning
00:07:13
Speaker
I thought a lot about that, and initially, I have to admit I was resentful at her and to my father, although I never really knew him.
00:07:27
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But I've thought on it more, and I have to believe she intended to tell me one day if she even knew I would inherit it, and I don't know that she knew that. You have to remember she died young. Based on the little she wrote in her journal, I don't think she fully understood the pact any more than I did when I first came into it. I think most of the wielders have known only a piece of it in the way that I did before I began to join the pact.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yes, I want to talk more about that later, but for the moment, did you serve in the war? I didn't. My mother found a way to keep me out of it. By the time I was old enough, she was
00:08:15
Speaker
She was different near the end of the fighting, haunted by what she'd seen, and she put me in school to have my required service waived. I didn't know she'd done it until later, and we fought about it. I see now how it would have broken her heart to watch me go through what she'd been through, but
00:08:39
Speaker
It's an odd thing to deal with. You know, you have so many of your peers who have been through this thing, this experience, and it's bound them together, even if it haunts them. And I remember feeling ashamed that I wasn't a part of it. I mean, obviously, the most logical feeling would be to be grateful to have been spared all the horrors, but I was left with a sense of
00:09:05
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of not having done my part, even if no one ever said that to me. And what about the morning? Where were you when you heard about the day of morning?
Speculation on the Day of Mourning's Cause
00:09:17
Speaker
I was in seminary at the time.
00:09:21
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We were in class and I remember a page stepping in and whispering something to the cleric who was teaching us. I remember the look on his face. I mean, we all knew it had to be about the war. You know, the army had marched into Khair alongside the thrones and was led by the princess. And nobody told us.
00:09:43
Speaker
It's just impossible. I mean, you must remember where you were, but you know, it's just impossible to express what we felt. We didn't know anything. Only there had been this catastrophe. No one understood the extent of it. The extent of it hadn't reached. The mist hadn't rolled over Kair. It was just something horrible had happened to the army. And that was all we knew at the moment.
00:10:10
Speaker
It was just dead silent in that classroom for a moment. Then we all started talking at once, and then the class was dismissed, and we spent the rest of the day outside a civis guild house absorbing the news as it came in. I think we sat there for probably days. I remember my mother, I'd look on her face, and I think she was thinking,
00:10:40
Speaker
about what we just spoke of, what might have happened. She was still well placed at the time. She had a certain celebrity and so that meant our family was somewhat well placed. She knew I'd have been for one of the guard units, one of the elites.
00:11:08
Speaker
if I'd gone in just through my name. She was thinking, that would have been me. I don't know that's true. There's all sorts of, all manner of parts of the army that didn't go, but that had to be what was going in her mind. And I think she felt ashamed that she was so relieved. So relieved that I hadn't been there.
00:11:40
Speaker
It was hard. I don't know what else to say. Anyone who went through it, especially when they were young, when they were younger, it defines everything about your world. Of course,
00:12:05
Speaker
I realize this may sound a bit glib, but you have a guess as to the cause. Everyone's got their pet theory. I mean, there's no value in guessing. So many things might have caused it, but I don't think it was divine judgment or anything like that. Some natural disaster. There's nothing natural about it.
00:12:27
Speaker
Simple explanations are usually the best I've learned. And the simplest is that someone did it. I think most likely someone deployed a weapon that went wrong. You have to remember there were no fewer than four armies in the field in Kire at the time.
00:12:43
Speaker
Prelland, Thrain, Karnath, and of course Khair itself. They were all looking to finish the war. And everyone had secret arcane weapons in the works.
Beric's Pact and Its Implications
00:12:53
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You know, I have no idea who. You know, everyone says it must have been the Thrain's, or it must have been House Kanath, or any of these other things. But that's just idle speculation. There's no reason to think one over another. But that's my guess. Was it a weapon?
00:13:12
Speaker
Could be wrong. I don't have any evidence to support it, but all the circumstantial evidence seems to support it. And that's all I've got to work on. You'd have to ask someone who knows more of the dark secrets of the world than I do.
00:13:31
Speaker
This might sound a bit silly, but I find it's often revealing. If you could send a piece of advice back to your youth, what would it be? Stay in seminary. Really? Yes. I think about it now. I mean, it may sound strange because we've spoken about how important I feel what's happening now is. And so of course, if I stayed in seminary, maybe I don't stumble upon any of this and maybe the pact never comes to me and maybe
00:14:02
Speaker
Maybe I'm not positioned as I am now to do anything about it, but I think how much better prepared to deal with these things I might have been with more training. Or how much more quickly I might have put things together if I'd had a better academic understanding of arcane and divine magic. So I wish I hadn't been so hasty. That's very interesting.
00:14:32
Speaker
I mean, you said my youth. Obviously, since leaving seminary, there's lots of advice I wish I could give myself about where things are going. I could just send myself a piece of advice anywhere. It'd only go back a few months. And the piece of advice would be, it's not a trap. Read the books. But that answer requires a little more explanation than I have time for right now. Oh, all right.
00:14:56
Speaker
So the other part of your story that probably needs the most explanation is this pact. So you've inherited a magical pact, power bound up with obligation from your parents, and this pact is divided among many wielders, and the purpose of it is to battle against these creatures you call the Dream Thieves, and they're somehow tied to the inspired of Reirdre. Is that a fair assessment, a fair summary?
00:15:26
Speaker
Yes, look, I realize it sounds like a lot of nonsense. Every time I say it out loud, it sounds like a lot of nonsense. But then you have to also remember that we've been told since we were children that we're hurtling through the Astral Sea on the corpse of an ancient dragon. So perhaps we just need to redefine our understanding of nonsense. Fair enough. What do you think happens when you combine all these packs? I don't know. I've been asked to do so.
00:15:58
Speaker
by an entity that once wielded them. And I know the packs become stronger with each one I gain, so I'm hoping it will give me the power that's necessary and that it will not be too late. Yes, but necessary to do what?
00:16:17
Speaker
The best answer I can give you is simply defeat the Dream Thieves. I don't know what that means. I don't, you know, I don't expect it means going to wherever they are and eradicating them or anything like that. I know it's not a helpful answer, but I can't tell you how we'll do it. I don't know yet. I know it's going to require more strength than I have, than I or any of my companions have right now. And so at the moment, the best way I can help, the best way I can prepare,
00:16:47
Speaker
is gaining more of the Pact. I see.
Denouncing Lady Hadith and Moral Boundaries
00:16:54
Speaker
Speaking of Pact wielders, you've leveled some pretty incredible charges against Hadith Iruinan, and have said she also wielded one of these pacts, and seemed to be working against the Dream Thieves, so now, knowing more,
00:17:12
Speaker
What do you think? Do you still have it in for her? Or would you be willing to work with her? Lady Hadith is a terrorist. She ordered the murder of innocent civilians. Did she intend to accomplish something good by doing it? Maybe. But there are simply things you can't do in the name of good and remain good. There are lines that you don't cross.
00:17:41
Speaker
I hope to live to see the day when we have the time and the luxury to hold her responsible for her crimes. At the moment, considering what's at stake, would I work with her?
Concerns Over Good Pact Wielders
00:17:54
Speaker
Not if there were another way. And even then, there are lines you have to draw in how you achieve things. And any cooperation with her or anyone like her
00:18:09
Speaker
would come with some strong terms on my part as to how we're going to do things. And anyone who refused to abide by them would avoid any alliance we might have farmed. Well, on that point about drawing lines, so far from what you've told me, all of the packed wielders have
00:18:38
Speaker
have either been enemies in some way or another, have either been dangerous or evil or have been willing. What will you do if you encounter an innocent pack wielder, one who's using it for good as you are, and they refuse to give up the pact?
00:19:02
Speaker
To tell you the truth, I'm haunted by that hypothetical constantly. Ever since I began this, I'm terrified that I'm going to come across that. The best answer I can give you is simply this. I don't kill innocence. And I wish I could tell you how I will deal with that situation should it arise. But I can't. But I don't kill innocence.
Drakir's Pact with the Umbra and Hope for Peace
00:19:34
Speaker
Nilsanza turns and regards Drakir, who stands in the corner with his arms folded. I understand you also have a pact. How was yours made, Mr. Vrim? Beric sees Drakir's face shift a little at Nilsanza's poor shot at manners, but the drow maintains his composure. She can't know, after all, what that name means to him, or her failure to say it right. Drakir...
00:20:04
Speaker
stares and then responds. My people long ago bound ourselves to the Umbra in order to gain the power to save ourselves from the creatures of Khyber. The rituals we use to do it are secret. We do not share them with outsiders. Let's look from Beric, he goes on.
00:20:32
Speaker
But suffice to say, you take the Umbra, this dark power, take it into yourself. You let it fill you. You let it take hold of you. And you gain power. Beric thinks she shivers a little. And how much will it help in the fight against these creatures you're having trouble with? She asks. Beric winces and holds up a hand to forestall Drakir's anger.
00:21:02
Speaker
Drakir glares, his solid black eyes pools a void. We are still losing, but not so fast as once we were. She smiles, either oblivious or just perseverant. And what do you hope to gain? What do you hope to do once you've vanquished these enemies? What will you do? Drakir is silent for a long while.
00:21:32
Speaker
Barak knows why. He knows Drakir doesn't think he'll live to see that day. Barak doesn't know the Umbrageen well, but he's known Drakir for a while now. And he knows Drakir sees no final hope in the fight, simply that it's a fight he can't stop. It's a fight worth making. It's a cause worth dying for. The silence stretches and becomes awkward.
00:21:59
Speaker
Berik is impressed with how long Nilsanza can hold a silence like this, but perhaps that comes with being a good journalist. Finally, Drakir responds, if I live to see peace, he says very slowly, thinking as if for the first time, I would like to have a family
00:22:28
Speaker
To raise up children, to be there for them instead of away at war. To be there for them and to raise them so that they can study something other than war or magic, if they wish. To raise up children who can see the world in forms other than hunters and prey.
Character Development and Emotional Complexity
00:22:54
Speaker
His voice is quiet and Barak sighs slowly, having never heard emotion in Drakir's voice. The drow smiles just slightly, just in the corner of his mouth. We would like time to learn to play the lute. Barak stares. Did Drakir just make a joke? Nilsanza, however, just nods, continues writing.
00:23:24
Speaker
Well, I hope you can one day. She looks back to Beric. Well, with your notes to fill in the documents you gave me, I think I have everything I need. Shall I leave the way I came in? She stands and holds out her hand for the bag.
00:23:43
Speaker
and seen. All right, so those were all of the users of the patron submitted questions for Barrick. So now I'm going to move on and go through some of them that were submitted for me as a player.
00:24:02
Speaker
So, the first one comes from Darren over on our Patreon Discord, and he asks, how much had you written about Drakir before the game started? The answer to that is really easy. Nothing. I didn't know Drakir existed when the game started.
00:24:22
Speaker
I set up Barrick as a half drow.
Player Questions on Character and Plot
00:24:26
Speaker
I kind of wanted to play an Umbragean drow, but as Eric explained the sort of setup of the game, I knew that it just wasn't gonna make any sense to have this Umbragean drow hanging out in Mistmarsh, especially when you consider who the companions were initially. So you've got a Umbragean drow, a changeling, and a tiefling as the deputy marshals of this little town. It just didn't fit.
00:24:52
Speaker
So I made him a half-elf and gave him this sort of dusky gray skin to imply that the other half of him was drow. And I had told Eric that in my mind his father was an umbrageant drow that that Uruk had had a brief romance with while on some kind of assignment in Zindrik.
00:25:13
Speaker
I just kind of left it at that and I honestly didn't know whether it would ever matter. Most of the work I put into Barak's relationships were about his mother. I had no idea that Eric would do as much as he intended to with Elidrin, or of course, and of course Eric didn't get to do nearly as much as he intended to with Elidrin due to Elidrin's untimely demise in the first time that Barak was resurrected. As far as Drakir goes,
00:25:42
Speaker
Eric had decided that there was a half-brother. I didn't make that decision, and as Eric has told, when Beric wanders off into the woods to see if he can find the clerics packed to try and deal with the fact that he's just been infected with lycanthropy,
00:26:02
Speaker
and runs into that drow, Eric had rolled on a random table that he had set up of random people they might encounter in the woods, and he happened to roll Beric's half-brother. Or so Eric says, you never quite know when you're dealing with your GM whether they're fudging the dice rolls or not, but Eric loves his random tables and he usually abides by them, so I tend to believe it.
00:26:30
Speaker
So anyway, Barrett dies right there, of course, for the first time. And Eric and I went and had dinner to talk about what to do. And I, as you know, am inclined to just let characters remain dead. Eric really didn't want me to. And we kind of tabled the discussion.
00:26:52
Speaker
There and settled on what to do in the short term because obviously there was no way for Beric to just pop right back up And so we decided that I would take over the character of Beric's half-brother
00:27:04
Speaker
And I have no idea who Erik intended that character to be. I don't know what name Erik had in mind for him. I don't know what the personality traits were intended to be. That would be an interesting Eberron-reviewed question for someone to ask the next time we do one of those, because I would be really interested to hear how different Erik had in mind for this character that became Drakir.
00:27:28
Speaker
When I sat down to build him, I knew I wanted to play a ranger, and I knew I wanted him to be just iconically Umbrigen. So I read through Keith Baker's article on the Umbrigen, and I just used the character traits that Baker said were traditional for the Umbrigen. So I made him all just the consummate hunter. I made him really cold, really calculating. And it's only really been in his second
00:27:58
Speaker
encounter with the party in this last arc that I've introduced I think any kind of thought to how Dracure feels about things. I think in the first arc I really just settled in on Dracure is all about pragmatism. Dracure is all business, he's cold, and the only thing we really dealt with him having feelings about was his father. But as far as
00:28:26
Speaker
how he felt about the party, he was impressed with them. They were good at what they did. They were competent. And so that was fine. They were good allies. And he needed their help once he took some out of the Ring of Storms. He needed their help to get something he could use to buy his way back into the tribe. And eventually, of course, he used the giant's sword for that, or partly.
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a long way around to answering your question, Darren. But yeah, short answer is nothing. I didn't know Dracure existed when the game began, and I really didn't know much about Dracure before I started playing him. I knew what Umbergym were like, but I didn't know much about what this Umbergym was like, because I didn't expect to play him very long. I certainly didn't expect him to recur.
00:29:17
Speaker
at the time. I also didn't know what his relationship was like with his father and that decision was made in the moment because when we walked in, Eric
00:29:34
Speaker
just in the moment made the choice to be stern off the bat as Elodrin and specifically to to call Drakir boy and that just immediately made the choice in my mind that they do not have a good relationship and that Drakir has no respect or affection for his father and so
00:30:02
Speaker
I had kind of already built up this idea that here felt some resentment towards his father's other family as we've discussed before so.
00:30:12
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of how Dracure's relationship with his father and his character overall came to be, but none of it was really pre-planned. It kind of developed on the fly, which is really fun to me because I feel like he's developed into a very interesting character. It's one of the reasons that I kind of liked bringing him back. I think we skipped a question on The Last Ever Unreviewed about whose idea was it to bring him back.
00:30:38
Speaker
And it was mine. Lots of questions have been asked about Drakir, especially over on our Patreon Discord, and apparently several of our listeners liked Drakir a lot. And I did it as well.
00:30:54
Speaker
And when the idea of the Gala was first introduced, my plan, because I knew that Beric was just never going to, Beric was not going to be a hired thief. Like it just was never going to work. My plan was that Beric would basically find Drakir, and Drakir would go on the heist.
00:31:17
Speaker
Uh, Berwick would basically say, listen, if you guys want to go on the heist, that's your business. I can't do this. And so Berwick would stay back and deal with, you know, his baggage. Cause obviously that was during Berwick's particularly work, particularly low time. Um, and Dracure would go, but that didn't.
00:31:36
Speaker
end up happening and so when the Gala came back up I had kind of already planted this seed with Erik that the Drakir would be totally down for going to this Gala and stealing powerful weapons because that's what Drakir does. And so it came back up and we talked about it and decided it would be fun and that's that's how Drakir's re-entry into the story came about. So thanks for the question. Moving on.
00:32:03
Speaker
had several questions from Glenn. I said, Philip, what do you view as one of the high moments for Barak? High points of the story for Barak. This is an interesting question. His other question about the low points is somewhat easier because obviously Barak's had a pretty hard life. So as far as a high point for Barak,
00:32:32
Speaker
I think I think probably.
00:32:43
Speaker
there have been a couple. I would say one was just
Beric's Adventures: Highs and Lows
00:32:49
Speaker
the train journey with Orgev, and not only was that a really fun adventure with the train fight, that was really cool, but also it was a nice adventure, and Barak's kind of a romantic, and so going on this great, exciting romantic adventure was wonderful for him. And so that was just fun. He just enjoyed that a lot.
00:33:12
Speaker
But as far as something a little more serious, I think reuniting with Boranell was a huge thing for Beric. I know that he didn't react with excessive joy in the moment, but I think being vindicated because coming to the low points, which was Glenn's other question, is what are the low points for Beric other than his deaths?
00:33:41
Speaker
It's the betrayal. It's when they're double-crossed by the Citadel, and then when he reads the newspaper after returning from the jungle about the King's seizing emergency powers.
00:33:59
Speaker
Because I don't really know what Beric's opinion is on the monarchy in general because that's obviously in Eberron lore. That's an open question in Breland. Is there are those who want the monarchy to continue and those who want to replace it with a republic? I don't actually know what Beric's opinion is on that exactly.
00:34:17
Speaker
but Barak has always admired Boronal personally. He's known him, he's met him a few times, his mother greatly admired him, and so Barak has always admired Boronal. And so when the Citadel, which reports directly to Boronal and betrayed him, and then when this news article came out,
00:34:39
Speaker
Describing how the king was seizing tyrannical powers that just that broke Beric crushed him That this this man who had been kind of a hero to him Would Would prove to be what he wasn't and so Finding Boranell and learning that it's an imposter and that Boranell himself didn't do those things Was just a huge relief for Beric
00:35:09
Speaker
Next question, also from from Glenn. How has it been gradually adopting the role of Erebus and making him your own while still sharing some with Eric?
00:35:19
Speaker
This has been a very interesting experience. Eric has been great in that he's largely just yielded the character to me. We haven't really had a moment where we've needed to step in. I've kind of got a clear understanding of the goals of Erebus. I have enjoyed it and I don't know that what I did with it was quite what Eric expected when we settled on this as the solution to Barak's second death.
00:35:45
Speaker
But I wanted that fear that Barak had of the Pact to have at least some level of reality. And I wanted the sort of blithe way that we as a party had been wielding absurd power to be challenged. And so I wanted to bring in the cost to Barak as he was.
00:36:14
Speaker
And so having Erebus slowly become more and more dominant in Barak was fun. It's been fun. I've enjoyed it a lot. But it's not been a huge problem as far as sharing it with Eric. He's been really good at just letting me take the reins. And I feel like he's given me enough clear information about what Erebus' goals are and all the information I have with the pact at this point.
00:36:42
Speaker
It makes it fairly easy to play that side of the character faithfully. Actually, Erebus is much easier to play because Erebus is so single-minded. He's not nuanced the way Beric is. Next question also from Glenn. You're running two characters. What's been a time when that's been really convenient and another where it's been quite challenging?
00:37:07
Speaker
The challenging I'll answer first, because the challenging thing is, obviously barric and trachea should have a lot to say to one another. But also obviously, it's not particularly fun at the table to have a conversation with yourself.
00:37:22
Speaker
And I've tried to communicate as much as possible about the way Beric and Drakir interact as I can, but it's just really hard. It's playing two characters who have such obvious reason to be talking, but to not be doing it. It bothers me. Sometimes I feel like I wish I was doing more of it,
00:37:51
Speaker
But at the same time, it's very awkward to try and create a relationship between two characters that you're playing extemporaneously at a table. So as far as when it's been really convenient, well, being able to go and being able to use them to go and save each other is awfully nice. Being able to have Barrick dimension Dorian to save Arabas from, or to save Dracure from the
00:38:19
Speaker
uh, the monster nightmare dragon, and then, um, Drakir's shadow abilities, being able to rescue Barak from his own, well, from honestly, from my own, uh, forgetfulness as to the shard. That was, that was really nice, uh, to be able to do that, uh, and to just be able to tag team these two characters.
00:38:42
Speaker
So there are times where it's really nice in dire situations. That would be the places where I'd say it's been most convenient. It's also kind of nice to be able to have two very different people to say things with because you can communicate ideas you have. I can communicate things that Beric would never say through Drakir. And I can know things that Beric wouldn't know through Drakir and vice versa. And so that's also kind of convenient for me as a player.
00:39:16
Speaker
Next question. How do you think the plot and motivations would have changed if one of the others hadn't died? This is a really interesting one.
00:39:36
Speaker
I don't know for sure about Theradak. I honestly was bummed when Theradak died because I was starting to get to like Theradak about that point, not that it's been a bad change. I mean, Booyah is wonderful. I think Draconis is the much more party-changing laws because Draconis also had this
00:40:03
Speaker
dual nature in the same way that Beric did, and so that was someone that Beric could relate to. The way that Dex has a dual nature as a changeling is very different from the way that Beric and Draconis do. It's this thing from our ancestry that we didn't really ask for and that implies some things about us, and it's hard to hide. But also, Draconis was just so good.
00:40:34
Speaker
Barak tries very hard to be good, but Draconis was just effortlessly good. He was innocent in a way that Barak isn't and that Dex certainly isn't. And that was just a really interesting dynamic. I'm not sure what that would have changed about the story for him to go on. I think in general, the story we're on would be the same.
00:40:56
Speaker
But I really would have loved to see where Draconis would have gone as a character. And so I was very sad to see Draconis go. And the last question comes from Laura. Laura wants to know, what do you think is happening with Dex's brothers?
00:41:16
Speaker
So I thought about this question a lot and I actually think I as a player know what's happening. Not because Erica specifically told me so I could very much be wrong.
00:41:32
Speaker
But just because knowing enough about Eberron lore and knowing enough about D&D editions and spells and the way psionics work and things like that and the way the inspired work, I just have a lot of details. So what does Philip think? I'm not going to tell you because I think I'm right and I would really hate to
Speculation on Dex's Brothers and Eberron Lore
00:41:54
Speaker
spoil a reveal if it turns out to be this or to be a reveal at all.
00:42:02
Speaker
So I'm not going to answer that one. I'm sorry as far as what Beric thinks is happening to come out of from a character perspective again Beric thinks that strength at least
00:42:22
Speaker
is just a true believer. Barak thinks that Strint has just been converted, been brainwashed. He's a true believer. He's a fanatic. And, um, you know, Barak being part of the Church of the Silver Flame, but being from the more moderate, relish portion of that. And he's aware, uh, you see, he's, you know, just going through the war, you see fanatics of all stripes. And so Barak
00:42:49
Speaker
thinks that's what he's seeing here. He's not sure about the rest of them. He's inclined to think that this is the result of the obelisks and that what sadly what we're seeing is final proof or at least that so far what we're able to do
00:43:11
Speaker
is that we're not able to do anything about it, that once you're changed by the obelisk, there's nothing we can do. And so that's what Berwick thinks is happening. He thinks that Dex's brothers have all been taken to this obelisk, to the obelisk, and mine changed in that way. But Strand I think he believes is just a true believer and just a fanatic.
00:43:37
Speaker
um so that's that's barrick what barrick thinks is happening i'm not going to tell you what i think is happening because i don't want to spoil it if i'm right um so that's everything i hope this was enjoyable or at least a decent substitute for not getting a new episode again i apologize on behalf of all of us for just being dumb and bad at math
Closing Remarks and Contact Information
00:44:05
Speaker
So next week we'll have a new episode up for you. We're going to be recording this weekend, so we're very much looking forward to that and look forward to being able to share the continuing story with you. If you'd like to be part of this conversation, you can join us on social media. We have a Twitter, an Instagram, a Facebook page. We had a Google+, but now of course Google+,
00:44:31
Speaker
go in extinct. And those are places you can contact us and be a part of our community. On all of those platforms we are simply the Geek Pantheon. If you want to communicate directly with us, you can email us at thegeekpantheon.gmail.com. And speaking of that email, right now through the end of October, we're running our second round of our review drawing.
00:44:55
Speaker
If you write a review of any of our shows on any podcasting platform and email us a screenshot of that review, whether it's good or bad, we'll enter your name into a drawing and at the end of the month, we'll draw a name and whoever wins gets to commission a custom painted mini by me. I'm not a professional by any means, but I'm decent and I enjoy doing it and I'll send it to you.
00:45:20
Speaker
You get to set the parameters within certain within reason and I'll find the mini and Paint it up for you and mail it to you. Laura won our last one and I finished up her Tabaxi sorcerer and I'll be mailing that shortly So I'm looking forward to seeing what someone comes up with me for her work Comes up with for me to work on at the next drawing. So if you want to be a part of that drawing write a review and
00:45:46
Speaker
Take a screenshot, email it to thegeekpantheon at gmail.com. Lastly, we'd like to thank Kevin McLeod for the use of all of his music. If you would like to support him and see the music that he uses, you can visit his website at incompetech.com. We are, additionally, proudly a part of the D20 Radio network of podcasts. So thank you for listening. This has been Eberron Reviewed Reduced
00:46:15
Speaker
and renewed, I guess. And I'm Philip. See you next time.