Songwovem presents The Lanaya Expedition, a level-up, advanced fifth edition actual play
campaign.
Episode 20 Retrospection
You can catch us live every Sunday at 8pm EST on Twitch.tv slash Songwovem Show or watch
the video version of this podcast on YouTube.
Thanks for listening.
I'm Jenny Sherard and I play Cecilia Idylwind.
And hello, I'm Amber Mosco and I play Jean-Claude Boucheron.
Amazing.
He's laughing already.
You already know, what is the bit?
What is the bit is the question.
There is no bit.
First of all, thank you all so much again for watching.
It just came upon us that we are closing in on our one year anniversary when we started
this whole little shebang.
Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of our test stream that was two weeks before our
actual premiere.
And we are approaching our first actual Lanaya Expedition.
Are we going to do something special?
I don't know.
Probably have a nice post about it on Twitter.
It's going to be great.
Our ex.
We're going to make an ex-eat.
Seat.
An ex-eat.
A zit.
Seat.
Oh, let me just ex you on ex.
Real quick.
I re-exed it.
My ex exed me on ex.
Ex works the spot.
Back to pirates.
A couple announcements at the very top of the stream.
So for everyone, just letting you know that at the very end of this game we're going to
have a small Q&A session.
This session is bound to be a little bit on the shorter side.
So we'll give it a little makeup and we'll give it some time for some questions at the
end and then we'll call it a game.
And number two, all of us here at Songwulven, the company talk, all of us here at Songwulven
agreed.
Sorry, no, that's not how it works.
All of us here at Songwulven Corporation have come to an understanding.
For real though, going forward, because we're a little bit busy people and we have to keep
an eye on our health and our energy levels and such when it comes to this.
And some of us here have jobs outside of this and we do this for fun, for the entertainment.
We have decided going forward that the last week, the last Sunday of every month we will
take it off.
But don't worry, we will be back.
It gives us time to rest ourselves, get a little focused on our real life endeavors.
I don't know why I said that, like this is not a real life endeavor.
This is the fake life, I guess.
This is the fake life endeavor.
Get ourselves all nice and charged up and ready to go again.
Because some people just don't prepare their games six sessions ahead of time and sometimes
they scramble at the last second, which is not good etiquette sometimes.
Six sessions ahead?
Jesus Christ Dan!
It becomes six sessions when they take six sessions to do what you thought would be one.
Us.
And that's about it.
As you can see, no bits.
No bits occurred in the opening of our game.
Nothing is the key, I think.
I think everyone's watching the Chiefs game.
No!
So again, from the bottom of our hearts to the very top, thank you so much for always
coming to watch and enjoy us.
Dropping something in the chat.
It's always great.
India, Marie Paul's here!
India!
Hello!
India's not watching the Chiefs game.
That's what my family is doing.
With that said, who here would like to do the recap?
Oh my god.
Timmy wants to.
Why am I struggling to?
Ah, well, stream elements.
If anyone needs me to read what we just posted in the chat.
Timmy wants to.
I'm not sure what I'm doing.
Jean-Claude and Cecilia celebrate their victory against the Bullywood Queen at the Adventures
League.
Cecilia sends a message to Delmeira that gets cut off on Delmeira's end.
When Cecilia falls asleep, the father of Scarecrows haunts her dreams and threatens to kill Delmeira
as she doesn't give him the moonshards.
Claude wakes her up and Cecilia gets verification from her sister's friend that she is okay.
The pair sets out once more.
The most important detail that's missing from that is that Jean-Claude and Elise fought
a little bit.
They had a row.
They had a little bit of a row.
They finally drew hands!
Elise won.
That should have been Willa.
It should have been.
Jean-Claude is just sick of her shit.
He's a feminist.
So everyone deserves to get their ass kicked.
The hammer of justice is unisex.
The hammer of justice is unisex, god damn it.
She threw a shoe at him was the first thing.
And I forgot about that until I went to make clips and I just lost it again.
You're like, man, he just attacked her out of nowhere.
No, no, she threw a shoe at him.
She threw a shoe at him.
And then she was like, pick up my boots.
I nearly knocked him out.
Yeah, pick up my shoe and he's like, all right, I've had enough of it.
What was I going to say?
Oh, and then another thing is that we have like a new mission, quote unquote.
Yes.
The characters haven't necessarily decided it, but the players have.
Though they did kind of with a FIAS say that they know they would.
Oh, that's a thing.
If he has told them.
Yep.
That they so we were told to avoid this town with there is an archmage there and all these
automatons have gone rogue essentially.
And so to be careful not to go there, but the archmage Brandrick, a FIAS recognizes
the name, but doesn't know from where he can't remember.
And he wants to remember.
So we might be like, yeah, he was like, please take me.
And he was very sincere, very like the most sincere we've ever seen.
And I will say going forward that me and Jenny have done some role playing off the side.
So some new information will come up in a little bit coming from Cecilia.
Whenever it comes up.
Oh, my God.
You guys have a date night with Seller and Cecilia.
Something's more important right now, unfortunately.
I was like, that's so cute, because people who don't know, they're a couple and they're
dating.
They're not a couple.
Not yet.
They're getting through the first awkward phases.
By the time we get to Valentine's Day.
But what if stellar stellar is just getting closer and closer with Jaime right now?
So you know, she I don't think she sees Jaime that way.
When John Claude brought up, she almost whooped his ass.
Yeah, she got really mad.
She was like, no, she's just flat like, no, don't.
All I'm saying is that we get to the Valentine's Day episode is going to be clutch.
She has to come back.
We got to get someone.
No, John Claude is going to love himself.
That's his Valentine.
He's got to love himself.
Is Valentine's Day a Sunday next year?
I wish checking the dates to see it is not.
Oh, I got to.
Oh, you know me.
I must practice self love.
And then he buys himself some chocolate.
He bought exactly the next day he buys all the cheap chocolate.
After a go after Valentine's Day, it is all on super sale.
That's John Claude, baby.
All right.
But that's that's also what I do.
Yeah, that's reasonable.
Girl math too.
Oh, gosh.
So much girl everything.
I explained girl dinner to Timmy.
I'm having girl dinner right now.
And then literally the next day, the next day after I explained what girl dinner was
to Timmy, I found out about girl math.
I'm having my girl dinner, some frozen yogurt.
We live in a.
Girl dinner.
Everyone says society is collapsing, but I keep hearing stuff to the contrary.
I think we are collapsing as a society.
Yeah.
Of the backs of girl dinner, girl math.
How can that happen when girl math and girl dinners exist?
How can that happen when the when the quote.
Barbie was the beginning of the end.
I don't know why, but I really do feel like I grow up.
I guess I'm going to write that down on your resume.
I'm a rescue girl.
Boss is too close to the sun.
We'll just have a tagline that's a tagline.
I edit it.
Cause of death, girl boss too close to the sun.
When you perished, the Reaper shows up.
It's like.
Was it worth it?
When you grow boss too close to the sun.
You see my melting wax wings on my back.
I put those there to further my point.
I wish I would have gate keep more.
I'd gaslit just a little bit more.
I was trying to make this a quick intro.
We've been talking for 12 minutes.
I was like, all right, cool.
We clocked it in at seven minutes.
See this is what happens when friends stream together.
It's a problem.
And it's been two weeks.
So we have to get it all out.
All right.
I can't do this anymore.
I'm just going to say one question guys.
Hey, we all hate each other behind the scenes.
This is, this is a fake friendship on stream.
We all hate each other.
Oh, we're just letting that out now.
Yeah.
It's like the fake dating trope.
Only it's fake friends tropes.
It's fake friends who come together to play TNT.
Yeah.
Like Timmy's, Timmy's a great, a great GM, but like.
Terrible human being out self admittedly.
I can't even, I can't even stick with this bit because I love you guys.
I was like, I love you guys so much.
As an actor.
I was acting.
Did you actually believe we were friends?
That's what my script said.
You nimbus.
You idiot.
You six piece chicken Mcnobody.
What was that character I played a while back?
The squirrel druid number.
Oh, I can look.
There's a squirrel.
No, not in my resume.
You want to know something Tim?
I emptied my resume because of you.
Yes.
It was awesome.
I noticed.
No!
He just refreshes your page every morning.
God damn it.
Okay.
We should, we should get into the story before we get into my resume.
In case you ever forget something.
I do have your, it's in my fridge.
Oh, cute.
I'm sorry.
Oh cute.
Love it.
Don't your dad's like, what the fuck?
He's been like, Timmy, why is this not you?
Yeah.
I would love to be in the opidolum.
I, I hate you.
I dispel your hate with my love.
I despise you.
There's beautiful fucking music playing in the background while we're fizzing our hate
and love to each other.
I actively despise you.
All right.
So what we doing?
We were threatened.
Threatened in chat by Irma.
The moderator was put there for us instead.
So Jean Claude, Cecilia, suffice to say it's been an eventful few, eventful chunk of time.
Dormant, adventurous spirits were ignited.
The feet begins to, the feet began to beat against the Lanaya road.
You have met people when, where if you hadn't ignited that adventurous spirit of yours that
you would have never met.
Had experiences that you would have never had if you kept in your, kept in your secluded
spaces and kept to yourselves.
Jean Claude, the week has gone by, a few days has gone by as the monotony of the, as the
monotony of traveling has, has earned you a bit of reprieve.
You have so much to think about and thankfully on this road, you have all the time, you have
the time and you have the space.
After almost being arrested, after-
Three times?
Twice?
Let me correct myself, after you were arrested and in prison-
I was arrested!
Breaking out and then breaking out of the prison.
After picking up your, picking up your axe and swearing yourself in protection to a young,
to a young girl who is bright, adventurous, brilliant.
After many revelations, some that you're still trying to decipher at the moment, a fortune
telling, telling you of something, something that's going to happen between you and your
brother, which you're still not sure of.
Many more mysteries have come alight, which has already, is already piling atop one gigantic
mystery, and one that you are in no great position to solve.
But you're not, but you're not yielding to the size of the mystery.
You going on this road and journeying alongside Cecilia, this is, this is your little, your
little actions, your little footsteps, to try and piece together what exactly is going
on.
As the journey on the Lanaya Road continues, and as, as the safe monotony of the traveling
comes over Jean-Claude, can you tell me, where is Jean-Claude's mind at the moment?
Is this relating back to my number thing, my nine?
No.
Okay, now this is just his mind.
Yeah, this is just you, this Jean-Claude in his head.
In his head.
I think he's mostly concerned.
The grandfather of Scarecrows has been a threat that he is not, he doesn't know how to tackle,
and not only that, that they got that close to Cecilia while he wasn't there.
So while he's a very jovial, funny chipper guy, and he still is, he'll put it on.
At his core, he is very frightened for Cecilia, and the fact that one, she has clearly become
a target, and two, her, the moonshards, like I think what the grandfather of Scarecrows
said to him really actually struck him.
I think Tim just wrote something and it's stressing me out.
Opened up a loud-ass dice box.
I don't think it's that bad for me to use the moonshards, you know?
It's not a big deal.
Yeah, NBD, points of exhaustion.
I ignore the first one every day.
It doesn't matter, it creeps him out.
It's a free spell slot.
It creeps him out.
Jean-Claude, I'll say this.
Journeying on this road, looking at the map repeatedly, you realize where exactly this
road will lead you.
And you've already noticed this before, but you see the point on the map, one that interests
you specifically.
The road leads across our home.
The kingdom that houses the place that you once lived in.
Are we going to hit that before we hit the...
Oh no!
We're going to go around it.
The town of Onirich.
O-N-I-R-I-Q-U-E.
Friend...
Uh, giant.
Friendship, okay.
We could say French giant.
Giant French.
The liquid of love.
For Dreamlike.
And would you say that during these three days, we have so much to think about, maybe
spending a night in a tent, when sleep evades you that perhaps you reminisce?
Jenny has a question.
Yes.
Cecilia has a new spell, so I don't think, unless you would prefer to stay in a tent,
we probably haven't been staying in tents anymore, because I have Tiny Hut as a domain
spell.
Oh!
That's so cute!
Wait, what does our Tiny Hut look like?
We going to Sims this shit?
Let me go make the multiverse real quick.
We could decorate again.
Yeah, it's probably, you know, it's probably like a lot of Cecilia's magic tends to look
like shrouded in moonlight.
It's probably like that, kind of like the silvery luminescent little, like, is it?
Let me click the spell real quick.
Because yeah, it's a dome, a 10 foot radius dome, which is pretty big, because that's
20 feet all the way across.
Which is good, because Jean-Claude's like, what, seven feet tall?
Yeah, he's got some space.
Nine creatures.
So, in this, in your newfound sanctuary, a shimmering dome where you can watch the rain
pitter patter.
It's like a cool, it's pretty cool.
Singing like a glass dome.
You know, those RVs with a skylight and you can like look up.
In this journey, you reminisce back to where exactly this all started.
Before everything went wrong.
Can you roll me a d20?
That's the most ominous fucking thing I've heard.
Before it all went wrong.
Roll me a d20.
You got a d17.
When everything went wrong.
All right, activate my brain real quick.
You have a good memory.
That's not traumatic in traumatizing.
In the heart of an ancient forest, hidden away from the world, there exists a realm,
a grove, where time itself seems to have slowed to a gentle, whispered cadence.
This sacred haven, a verdant green nebula, cradles the spirits of towering firbolgs,
guardians of the natural world, and a timeless embrace.
In this grove, majestic elms rise like ancient sentinels, their colossal bows draped in velvet
emerald finery that brushes against the surrillion sky.
Sunlight dances through the leaves, casting a kaleidoscope of dappled shadows upon the
forest floor, where moss-covered stones form a mosaic of earthy hues.
Jean-Claude, you remember the view from your house.
Having a purview over all, being able to see each and every one of your fellow town members
go to and fro, perform their business.
This day in particular, you remember it.
It was a cool day.
And there's a reason why you don't forget this day in particular.
We'll get into that soon.
But as you're staring at the town of Olyreach, you can see, far off into the distance, if
you lean at a certain angle, just kind of hunching over your railing on your porch,
you can see Madame Wimsley's school house of education.
Oh my god, man, Madame Wimsley, that's so cute.
Is she related to Madame Mimsley from our other team?
Yes, she is.
No, no, no, no.
A rather large, she's a rather large, you know, also earthy, kind of like pink-nosed,
furball figure, whom everyone in the town has entrusted for many, many generations with
the education of their children.
This was before certain times when education got a bit more dicey.
But as for these times, this is when everything was better.
You would watch at a certain time, knowing, just like clockwork, knowing when the children
would come out to play.
And that's when you can spot her.
The apple of your eye, even if it was so far away, you could tell which dot in the distance
was her.
Sylvie.
And it was always just a little walk away.
Madame Wimsley, she never bats an eye if someone comes over to say hello.
And on this particular day, you saw, you watched as the kids run amok.
Seemingly, Madame Wimsley has had them all gathered up in the group and has something
to do with twine.
The natural bark twine that you can find everywhere in the forest.
Something seems like they're building something today.
Everyone's parking up in twos.
Supposedly.
No!
You see something wrong.
There are little pairs of two everywhere, but you see a pair of three and one for a
bog all by herself.
Who is this little three?
Three and one?
Little jerks?
I hate these children.
Sylvie.
I'm so mad about this.
Like I'm angry.
What the?
Sylvie.
I didn't expect this motion spike to come from that.
Chetty's like, I can deal with a lot of shit, but kids being mean to each other?
To Sylvie?
Hasn't that girl been through enough?
Not yet, but.
Not yet.
Kiddo.
This is bullshit, you think?
I'm kidding.
Your brother, Jean-Luc, is busy with the family business at the moment.
But no doubt, he wouldn't like this situation with his daughter either.
You make your way down, approaching Sylvie.
Watching her tinker with something on her lonesome.
It's a large field when they go out and do their own thing.
People are so upset.
No, there's just a lot of sound.
I was like, what?
In this large field, out of sight of Maddo Winsley, who seems to be currently dealing
with the kids that are closest to her, farthest away as she can be, tinkering away at the
edge of the forest, you see Sylvie, not beat up about her current predicament, but seemingly
really tweaking at some twine at the moment.
And a little book opened up right next to her.
You approach.
Would you like to...
This music is gonna hurt.
Would you like to roleplay this?
I would.
But this is gonna hurt.
Is this clear to Lune?
What is this?
A rose by my tombstone is what it's called, apparently.
Jesus Christ!
So you approach.
She's so...
She was so much more small all these years ago.
It's crazy how much she grew during these last few years.
So you approach.
Her back turns towards you, and she just...
You see, she's currently tracing her finger over a book, and you can see on the page,
this book is actually a merchant's catalog, a detailed merchant's catalog, which Marie,
Jean-Luc's Goliath wife, bought from a roaming merchant.
What is she doing with the catalog?
She is looking at what is called a bracelet made of twine.
Oh, shut the fuck up!
Is this when she made him his bracelet?
His focus?
Is there anything you want to say?
I want to cry when I look at this!
I think he would have brought his axe so it looks like he happened upon her.
And he'll be like, oh, whoa!
Kito, what are you doing all the way out here?
Straightens up.
Just whenever your voice comes to, it's always...
You can tell she perks up out of the light.
She looks up towards you with her bright eyes.
She just goes, oh, uncle!
I'm just...
She tries to hide it, and you see she actually covers the book.
I'm not doing anything.
Okay.
He's going to pretend like he didn't see it because she's trying to hide something.
Why are you all the way out here?
Everyone has a partner, but...
It's okay.
Everyone has a partner.
I mean, I wanted to do something else anyways.
Huh.
That's odd.
Everyone is doing... everyone's learning to make ties and learning how to prepare stuff
to make a fire.
Ah!
Okay.
So survival.
But my partner didn't like that I kept talking about horses.
What's their deal that they don't like horses?
They said I talk too much.
A lot of people say that.
No, he's...
Who are... what is their name?
Who are they?
Oh, um...
She looks at your axe.
The name is Perrier?
Like, Perrier... is it what-er?
Is it Perrier?
Oh, yeah.
That's him over there pointing at the group of three at one of the young folks.
Who the fuck is Perrier?
He's like, yeah, I'll sacrifice him.
That was the kid who cried in the audio clip and also the kid... one of the young children
in the...
Ah, shit, I can't kick Perrier's ass.
He'll just go...
He looks kind of stupid from here.
I can't say that.
That's not really...
All I'm saying is, if he couldn't keep up with you, then that's on him, not on you.
Also I don't have a partner.
And he like gestures, break arms, span wide.
What am I supposed to do?
I don't have a partner.
She kind of stands up, brushes herself off, and places her hand on her shoulder all, you
know, all perky.
I think I have a little answer to your conundrum.
That's a big word.
I don't even know what that means.
Oh, it means like trouble?
Okay.
Big problem.
I am a conundrum, your dad would say.
Your dad wouldn't say that.
No, no.
When I was younger, yeah, I made his life a nightmare.
Anyway, so what is your solution?
I can be your partner.
I'll role-performance if I have to, but he goes...
Oh, I just smiled.
Don't know if I'd be a good enough partner for you.
Uncle, you're really smart.
You know what?
You're right.
I am really smart.
We're done.
Done deal.
And he'll scratch down and set his hand.
We shall enter in a partnership for today.
And we shall be the strongest alliance these children have ever seen.
None of them are going to stand a chance.
We're going to annihilate all of them.
They start maniacally laughing.
Oh, Sylvie's like young, I release, isn't she?
As you start maniacally laughing, she goes...
She tries.
They see these two just fucking...
The teacher must hate him.
As you maniacally laugh, the other kids do see.
Madam Wimsley in her old wisdom, who's very gentle, acknowledges you and knows that you
are a comforting figure for Sylvie.
And Sylvie is known to have a hard time emotionally connecting with other people.
Oh no.
She's just too good for them.
But she has you.
She was bright.
She was inquisitive.
She's had a book in front of her.
Young kids should not be saying conundrum.
And yet here she is, not like other kids.
Even at a young age, she could point at objects and name them.
She just showed so much aptitude, just so much brightness.
She was the brightest star in the sky.
The one that actually shines a light that catches your eye.
That was her.
That was Sylvie.
Um, uncle...
Is it okay if I come by later?
I want to give you something.
Give me something?
Well.
Then as you're part there, I shall have to find something to exchange with you.
Hmm.
Business partners, huh?
That is right.
After all, soon they shall bow before us.
And he's going to haul her up onto his shoulders so she can sit on top of them.
And the world will bow to Sylvie.
And he spins her a little bit.
And she puts her arms off to the side.
And she just goes, I'm an eagle!
That is right, and look how clear you're flying, just like a druid!
And he's going to...
Serpentine.
This is before he had his hookups on druids.
As you're zooming her around and causing a scene on the playground, gathering the attention
of everyone.
Look at this grunt-ass man on the playground!
She just goes, do you guys know that Aurahomian eagles, that they have a fourth claw and just
like goes on.
She's full of animal facts.
She's always excited to share.
When she gets excited, that's how she spins her.
As you allow her to piggyback.
As you allow her to ride on your shoulders.
We transition.
Cecilia.
Oh no.
What's up?
Oh no.
You've been away from home.
Not something you can say often.
Typically away from home means you've been out of the house, but you've still been around
Adelera.
But now when you say that you're out, you've been away from home, you've been away from
a world that you've been living in for what, 18 years?
It feels like longer.
And of course, with your sendings, you've been talking with Adelera.
It's been productive in some sense, but of course, some emotions have run high, and because
of the nature of sending, conversations can't be concluded as fast as you want them to.
In your tiny hut, as you watch the rain splash against the top of the shimmering field, do
you just take a while to think?
It's something that's just been naturally happening, but yeah, it has been an event
for a few weeks.
Getting into your first fights, fighting a scarecrow, seeing horrors that you would have
never thought, but also overcoming them.
Fighting a huge land shark, helping to free a small colony of Bullywugs from a Bullywug
queen, blasting a Bully in the face, facing it down, directly in front of it.
So much time has called for bravery, and you answered with it.
Of course, some new questions have come up, and some factors of your life have caused
an inner tumultuousness to take you.
How, what, I mean, is Cecilia thinking about right now?
Her main concern right now is Delmyra.
She's been messaging her, and she found out that Delmyra is planning to go to the Feywild
to try to kill the father of scarecrows.
Oh Jesus, what?
That Delmyra's boyfriend Dominic followed her and insisted on going with her.
What the fuck, Dominic?
And so Delmyra is trying to gather up her party to go into the Feywild.
What the fuck is going on?
To be clear, Dominic didn't say he was going to go into the Feywild.
Good, because he'll die.
Yeah, Cecilia doesn't know that.
For now she's like, he's with her.
And Cecilia's spent more time with Dominic the past years than she has with Delmyra.
Yeah, so she's closer with him.
Yeah, since Cecilia didn't really have very many friends back at home.
She got along with the adults and things, but she doesn't-
I can't do the Sylvie and Cecilia parallel right now!
It's- a lot of her life is very geared around taking care of her dad, taking care of the
house and animals.
Dominic helped a lot.
She tries to help Dominic with her things and they're practically family.
But she's very worried about Delmyra and thinking about what Delmyra said in the last message
where she said- Delmyra said something along the lines of, it's my responsibility to make
these decisions for you because our mom isn't here and dad isn't here.
Interesting, but she can't make her own choices, but okay.
That was Delmyra's last sending.
Okay, go off Delmyra, I guess.
But that's what she's been thinking about.
Wild, they're going into the Feywild?
Come on.
She tried to tell her not to.
High level adventure stuff, let's go!
Is that going to be our one shot, us playing Delmyra's party?
Oh, that'd be fun!
Trying to go into the Feywild!
The thing is, it's out of character when you look at it from a meta perspective.
You know Delmyra's not going to win, so you know it's going to be bad.
You know it's going to be bad because she's not just going to go there and kill the father
of scarecrows.
She's like, I had to look for you guys.
The big- one of the big villains is dead off screen.
You guys are good.
Like honestly, I'm glad that the sorcerer kid is with her though, the one who's like,
he's a bit reasonable.
He's a bard.
Oh god.
Take it all back, they're fucked.
But she's trying to gather the rest of her party at least.
They're fucked.
They're dead.
I don't think she has a druid in her party at least.
She's got a druid.
Druid barbarian.
Oh no!
Oh but they're multi-class.
Who's a furbog?
Oh, Jean-Claude's going to be like, you're such a disappointment.
Well I don't share that exact same sentiment with you.
I like you.
You smell like mushrooms.
Oh god.
Jean-Claude and his classic mushroom scent.
Maybe that will be his new air de perfume.
Speaking of scent.
Jean-Claude.
Announcing our new line.
Announcing my new line, cologne de perfume.
I let a mushroom ferment in a bottle.
Sway away.
That's the commercial.
But speaking of scent, which is a great segue.
That's Cecilia.
The dream you had.
You haven't heard your father's voice in a while.
But of course you can remember it.
The dream was, suffice to say, a really pale imitation of who your father really is.
Of course, I would say thinking about it, I think it would cause you to reminisce.
In the forest of Adelera, one of the earliest memories of your father.
It was really dark out.
The night had grown really old and this was the most you've ever stayed up.
Because your father allowed you to assist him with gathering some, foraging for some
things.
Looking for berries and what not.
Because he wanted to teach you.
He had the know-how.
And especially since after mom passed away.
He has been doing everything he could to spend time with you and Bill Meara.
You were on top of his shoulders.
What?
What is up with these fucking parallels?
As a large sash and that bag holding a bunch of things you and your father gathered.
You were really tired that night.
Like your father, he was a calloused.
He had calloused hands, he worked hard, his body was wiry and muscly.
It seems like he had all the energy in the world.
So he was just carrying you as you were almost listing off on top of his head.
Lacing your chin on top of his head.
You see your house coming in the distance.
And he goes, you asleep yeah kiddo?
You might or might not have responded.
But you get taken into the house.
And that night in particular it was a constant struggle.
What happens is a consistent problem that's bad.
You're hungry.
And your dad and Delmeara cannot cook.
At all.
How did she survive?
It was a toast kind of family.
A toast?
They just ate toast?
No.
Cecilia's a lot better but I don't know at what age she got to be a lot better.
So when he put you down that night you had to tell him you were hungry.
And of course every time you tell him that he's hungry you tell him that you're hungry.
He always has that look of searching because he always gets the neighbor to do it.
To cook him a meal.
Oh my god what?
He told you to wait for the morning?
Especially at this age you were very hungry and you needed to eat something now.
Yeah she snuck out obviously.
Maybe snuck out.
That night was spent even though the two of you were delirious with fatigue.
Kind of fussing over the berries and what you got.
Your father always did try his best.
He always did.
No matter what.
So he did believe you when you told him that you should put more sugar because that's the
proper way to make it.
That's the proper sweetness for a jam.
And he always gave you a little look trying to discern what your intentions are.
He goes tell me to stop and he starts putting tablespoons after tablespoons of sugar.
He's trying to kill his kids.
Don't put that much sugar in jam.
This is what Jean Claude would do.
But even though it was always a mediocre snack or a mediocre dinner, it was fucked when you
did it with your dad.
And then that made you get better.
And that made dinner nights a lot better.
The sugar rush had taken you to sleep.
You remember the familiar scent overtaking you as you, in your barely conscious state,
your father gently cradles you, picking you up as the scent of fern and maple overtake
you.
He always smelled like some kind of wood.
He always smelled like the houses he built.
He would pick you up.
And though his arms were wiry and muscly, he always had this cloud-like quality when
it came to you.
And as he puts you down into your bed, gently places the blanket over you.
He hooks his finger over a little piece of hair that falls in front of your face, moving
it out of the way.
And you heard him say that night, thinking that you were already asleep and not hearing
it.
Good night, baby girl.
But next, morning comes.
The expedition goes on.
And a supply stop has to happen.
Has to happen eventually.
You eventually stop at a place marked on Delmyra's map, a place called Penniston.
And as you get there, it's a place that's not, out of all the places of civilizations
you've seen so far, this one is definitely the most humble.
Very few wooden buildings stand up.
Not old.
They're constructed to a degree.
It's just, this place is nothing interesting.
Of course you get here during the late part of the night.
And as you kind of like, take a look at the place, yeah, there's a little general store
with your general stuff.
No sundries, however.
Just the essentials.
It is important to note that this place is not a supply stop, but it is a place that
Delmyra put down.
And there is no inn in this place.
But instead there is a shared campground for adventurers.
With one rule.
There is a sign that has one rule on it.
Be kind.
What?
Wait, that's so cute!
A shared campground.
You get there, and you hear, when you get there into this opening in the forest, you
see that there is already a small fire in the middle, and a good few tents already put
up.
You see a little assortment of people there, of a lot of people, a lot of people, a lot
of people.
You are greeted with the sound of small popping.
As you see the source of it immediately.
Two young kids, that seem to be a part of the village, is watching this young, fresh-faced
wizard boy, freckles and auburn hair, holding a pot.
And he's currently holding a flame underneath the pot.
And at times you see little pieces of popcorn pop up.
Much to the delight of these two kids.
There is an elven woman, you see, that she is currently tending to her bowstring, tending
to her equipment, not really socializing.
Seems like everyone who has a tent here are just travelers, just making do with what's
here at the moment.
What catches the both of your eyes is you see a large metal man, currently situated
next to a tent.
He has a large, seemingly like, automaton, which by the way, for both of you, this is
a very new sight.
Have we seen a warforged before?
I don't think so, right?
I wouldn't think so.
This large automaton, the eyes have darkened, it seems.
A very simple design with rivets and studs all the way around, all around his body.
It's very apparent that some modifications have been made to it, to keep it repaired.
It seems kind of like slapdashed together, with some patches of scrap iron that does
not fit the rest of the make of its body.
It has been affixed to it.
But whoever is keeping it together cares for it.
It currently has its knees up and its arms wrapped around it.
And you see in the tent, with a makeshift workbench, you see a dwarven girl, a young
girl, young woman, of a, you can assume maybe the same age as Cecilia, currently tending
to what's currently tending to and tinkering, much like how you saw Sylvie tending to something.
She is sitting in what seems to be a wheelchair.
Oh my god, I hope she and Dennis are friends!
Is Dennis born yet?
I don't think he is.
By this point, yeah.
Is he?
Yeah.
See the little baby?
Yeah, he's a little, little goo goo gaga.
What do the two of you want to do?
It's late, the road's been long, a shared campground is pretty welcome, for the most
part.
I think Jean-Claude, he's trying not to be like, creepy, right?
Because he's a seven foot towering large man, but he is just curious as to what the woman
in this chair with wheels is working on.
Because I don't think he's seen a, have we seen wheelchairs before?
Hmm.
In, well, in your hometown, yes.
Okay, cool.
There has definitely been wheelchairs.
Great, great, great.
But the metal man he has not seen before.
Yeah, that's a new sight.
That's a new sight.
The wheelchair's like, oh yeah, the metal man's like, whoa!
I think he's just, he's just watching from afar.
He doesn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.
What are you looking at?
He definitely like jumps, like jumps in his skin.
He goes, sorry.
Oh, sorry.
So right, I was mainly, you know, taking, taking watch, you know, scanning the surrounding
area, you know, you never know.
Do you think that thing is an automaton like Willow was talking about?
Oh, the one that went, oh, the one that went, aren't they supposed to, he tilts his head.
Aren't they supposed to go, the one that went to globe, you said?
Well, do you think that's what, what that is?
We could go ask.
I, yeah, I guess we can.
That's probably a good idea.
Do you want me to talk to the robot?
I'll come with you.
The metal man?
All right, come with me.
Any talk?
We will find out.
As you come over, you see that the, the dwarven, the young girl kind of like the chair just
kind of like backs up on its own.
She's like, she's maneuvering with like a little, like a little magical stone that's
embedded in the armrest of the, of the wheelchair.
And she called that wheelchair, call that wheelchair.
Absolutely.
And she pulls up her goggles where you see that there is a, there is a paleness that's
around, like a certain part of her eyes.
And she just goes, and she kind of like, she has a big smile as she looks over to the both
of you.
And she just goes, it's okay.
I'm used to people staring.
Oh, pardon, mademoiselle, not at you, but at your companion we were hoping to speak
to.
That's going to be so happy.
You guys said that.
That's, that's, she pats the, the leg of the, of the metal companion.
And you see that the eyes come alight for a moment before blinking out.
The light begins to blink out.
He just, as she just goes, oh, it's okay.
It's okay, little guy.
He's a little tired.
He's a little tired at the moment, but he'll be very excited to talk to you.
The first thing to get is once I get a chance to fix him up and repair him and things like
that.
He likes it better when the sun's out.
And the sun is out.
The sun gives you strength.
Good sale.
He addresses the man of metal.
You, a low voice comes out.
Warm.
It is warm.
Can be too hot sometimes too.
Does it not heat you up too hot?
I like warmth.
I get that.
By the way, I should introduce ourselves.
I am former captain of the Groven Guard Jean-Claude Boucheron.
This is my compatriot and traveling partner, Cecilia Eidewind.
It's nice to meet you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for gracing me with your presence, captain.
I don't know if anyone caught it, but he said former captain.
And he's going to keep going with it.
And he'll go, yes, yes, of course.
My name is Nellie.
I've just been traveling on the good old road and I've been on the road with my little partner
here, ads for a little bit now.
Is this why you specified that nobody here wants to hurt us or anything?
Is it because you named her Nellie?
For those of you who didn't watch Black Guards, she was the fucking worst.
We hate Nellie.
We have never hated an NPC more than fucking Nellie.
That's actually what we call her.
Fucking Nellie.
This Nellie though is different and she's precious.
Unless she's not.
I'm going to be so broken inside if this Nellie is evil.
I'm going to be emotionally distraught.
She just goes, are the both of you part of the, well, not you because you're part of
the groving guard, but are you part of the Adventurers League?
We both are.
Is Celia wearing her badges like a Girl Scout?
Not Yim's badges, but she has her pin probably.
She has her pin.
It's so cute.
She looks at you and she goes, no way.
Do you want to trade?
Trade?
Yeah, trade some.
Well I only have one pin.
It joined.
But I am an official guild member, which means that I am in charge of creating things that
benefit the Adventurers Guild.
Oh, that's really cool.
It's like Disney.
You can trade the pins with the cast members.
I really can't do much.
Now I'm still a little bit in the learning process.
My little field of abilities really go towards my friend here, pointing towards the metal
man.
But I can, especially now, if you give me a little project, I can enchant something for
you.
I'm an artificer.
That's amazing.
What can you do?
Good question.
The thing that I know I can do at the very top is that, especially if we have one night
because I am going on the road over there and I have to leave tomorrow morning.
I can enchant something for you where no matter where it is in the world, if you are attuned
to it, you always know where it is.
I need to go get it and she goes to reach for her bag and then realizes that she and
she's like, the wagon, the horses have it's in the wagon.
She goes, Oh, all right.
I'll wait for you then.
How much would it cost?
Oh, no.
Technically, I am supposed to charge you by certain guild rates.
But I would really actually prefer if you've written me a glowing letter of recommendation
that I did indeed make something for you so I can score some points.
Well, I mean, I can do both.
I'll go ahead and say 10 gold pieces.
Okay.
If it's not too much bother.
No, she takes out a platinum out of her bag of freaking holding that she's pretending
to go back to her wagon to go get the box for the moon shards and she doesn't want her
to see the moon shards.
Are we having as the drag racing occurs next to the next to the people need to learn to
slow down on the road.
There's good for the horses.
Those horses are so loud.
The racing is gutted intense under the night.
I was going to say it feels like we're having a conversation with our artists.
You know, and Kate goes out to you.
We love you, but please let us pay you.
That means that she did.
She did let me pay her for our stuff when originally she wanted to do it for free.
And I was like, because I because I did voiceover for her at a discount one time and I was like,
I was like, I was like, no, I want we want to pay your full rate.
Okay.
And it's already and her rate is also lower than it should be in my opinion.
So Kate Owens, Kate Owens, creations.
I said your full name.
She's going to find this clip to the chat tomorrow.
Guys, what?
We love you, Kate.
We love you.
So who was saying what?
I gave her a platinum from my bag of holding.
Well, are you sure about this?
Hold of the platinum.
It looks about.
Oh, yeah, that's the how much you said, right?
Oh, this was minted in the Loveland dynasty about 200 years ago.
Girl, math, math.
Say that.
Or do you just does it say that on it?
Oh, I know.
I just I just know I I love coins so much.
Oh, um, do you want to look at my other coins and see if there's any you like more?
Oh, I don't want to be picky.
This is really nice.
I'm grateful for anything.
I don't know which ones are special or anything.
This one's special because you gave it to me.
OK, wait, Jean Claude definitely knows.
Cecilia knows how to use fucking coins.
Yeah, Tangle Peaches is one platinum.
Yeah, she was like she was like, wait, is there something special about it?
She was really excited about it, where it was made and stuff.
Oh, but I go to the horse, the wagon for the.
My I'll be right back.
All right.
Adds, look at this.
It goes. it is a nice coin.
With Jean Claude, does Cecilia want Jean Claude to come with him or is he kind of have to?
OK, I think because I think he completely like while Emma, the player, knows that Cecilia
is off to go get like the moon shards or something akin to them.
Box.
Yeah, the box.
He it's going over Jean Claude's head.
This boy has a negative one wisdom, so he's in the shit.
He just doesn't want her to see her take the moon shards out of the box in front of her,
which is why she's stumbling over her words, because she just can't lie.
Even though it's barely a lie.
He knows she's doing something, but he's not quick enough to piece together.
Oh, yeah, he's going to ask her to put on the moon shards.
She's going to ask for the moon shards.
I think he'll say we are headed off in the.
We had to do a settlement that has rumored to have a Tomatons that have gone rogue of
sorts.
So I don't mean to make a judgment here, but would your friend out is his name.
Oh, ads ads ads.
Would you happen to know anything about this?
Or perhaps.
I'm sorry.
I cannot answer your inquiry.
I do not know.
It's OK.
It's really good that you tried.
Um.
This they have gone rogue, you said.
Yes, something wrong.
Like, I don't know, the magically being manipulated.
I don't have.
I don't.
That could be a thing.
But I also heard about what is going on in Frexon.
This thing is the thing is about these guys is that.
Well, they're not robots.
They're automatons.
That means they have feelings.
That means they know when they're being used and that means they know they know they know
what fear is.
Oh, so maybe something, maybe something bad's going on there.
I don't know, but it probably had a good reason.
So you're saying it is a revolution.
It could be if the people there are not good.
Interesting.
And his eyes narrow and in the background, you can once more hear.
Do you hear the people sing from the image or what?
Time for another revolution.
Like my dog Clon.
Do you want to be free from the shackles that bind you?
By this point, Cecilia.
Please come back.
She's trying to make sure nobody sees her, even though it's probably more suspicious,
just because to everyone else, these are just rocks, probably.
And she's trying to figure out, oh, wait, if I give her the box, where am I going to
hold them?
Oh, God.
And I think she'll maybe pull out her coin purse and put them in and hold it like really
close.
But she's holding it very close to her now because she's worried about it.
So she wants to keep the moonshirts close to her.
But then she takes the empty box.
We're doing really well.
These are the two adventures meant to save the world.
We're great.
You're keeping the moonshirts close?
Yeah, she keeps the moonshirts close to her.
She doesn't want to lose them.
Though maybe a coin purse isn't a great idea because what's someone going to steal first?
Oh, God.
Wait, make Aphius eat them.
No.
I mean, not when I was just...
I've always wanted to eat them.
It's been one of my intrusive thoughts.
Not like when you want to bite shiny rocks and shit.
Yeah, I feel the apius.
She's just...
Okay, she holds her coin purse closer, but then she takes the empty moonshirt box and
goes and brings it back.
So you have the moonshirts close to you?
Yes, in her hand.
Okay.
In the pouch.
Got it.
So you came...
So as you come back, she kind of like...
Kind of like pokes up at you once more.
Do you enchant this box?
Absolutely.
Any sentiment to it or anything?
You don't have to answer that or anything.
I'm just asking questions.
Yeah, it's very sentimental, actually.
I'll be really careful with it then.
I appreciate that because of all the sentiment.
Do I recognize the box?
Absolutely.
So many emotions and feelings around that box.
It's closed right now, so the moonshirts could still be in it.
Or did she take them out?
I don't know if Jean-Claude knows.
Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
So wait, Jean-Claude just sees the box and he sees it.
Because eyes go fucking white as shit.
And he's like, yeah, a lot of powerful feelings, really powerful feelings.
She just thinks you're trying to help her a lot.
I'll be really careful then.
Really careful.
You know when you butter things, like, compartmentalizing feelings.
Like feelings you never want to release.
He knows how important it is to me.
So important that I really wonder why we even brought it out.
So that's, well, because then we won't be able to lose it if we can always know where
it is.
Right, but you know, maybe we should keep really precious things, you know, in our,
you know, because it's so important, maybe to us and...
As the weight of this important object continues the way against me, I'm going to go ahead
and get the icon.
Your life is in your hands.
It's a duck that, well, it is important, but it's not that bad.
Oh no.
Oh wait, John Cluny went to her for that.
He's like, it's not that bad when I get tired from exhaustion.
And he's like, is that bad?
What?
Are you sure you want to trust me on something important?
Yes.
It's just, I don't have a track record of people trusting me with important things.
It's okay.
At the end of the day, it's just a box.
So his eye twitches.
All right.
Thank you.
I promise I'll give you, I'll give you good work.
I always did better than those other groups by myself.
With his eyes still twitching, you see John Cluny slowly turn his head almost mechanically
like the automaton in front of him to Cecilia.
The eyes grow alight suddenly.
And you see Nellie kind of like looks over at him.
Oh God.
Just goes, did it work?
Did you just have a late start there?
Hello.
It's good to meet you.
And she just, she just pats his knees.
That's good.
It's good to meet you too.
I am ads short for adventurer.
Oh, shut up.
That's so cute.
Oh, are you part of the adventurer's league too?
Yes.
I am rank would.
It's kind of ironic since it doesn't look like you have much wood.
He's made of metal.
That's what she was thinking.
That just falls so flat.
That's that's that's a joke.
Joke received.
Oh no.
I'm glad I didn't laugh this entire time.
All right.
Well, this is like a miracle.
I hope this has never happened before.
But well, I had to see if you could help me with this little dookie.
Just I'll have it for you first thing in the morning.
I promise.
Thank you.
If you can write a little letter just saying how how enthusiastic I was.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can do that.
All right.
Thank you.
I won't let you down.
And as she just kind of like turns around, she just shakes the knee of the Tomatina again.
And he goes, hats.
This is you have to do first joke.
Oh, there goes life is full of delights.
Her coin purse like right up to her chest the whole time.
Oh, my God.
Like that's not suspicious at all.
No.
But as time goes on, the setup, the night needs to be slept through as the tents as
the two of you are putting up the efforts to go put up your tent.
You do.
The both of you do notice.
Well, actually, maybe not you, Cecilia, but Jean Claude, that the fire that was in the
big fire was in the middle of the canvas has waned and now it's beginning to like the
vision the fire was providing.
He was going with the light.
And you see the wizard, the wizard boy, just kind of like scratching his scratching his
chin.
It goes, um, right.
Does anyone know what the does anyone know what the fire logs are?
Um, and people just kind of look around, no answer to anyone.
Yeah.
And and just goes, does anyone can anyone like get someone have an axe?
Does anyone know how to chop down some some trees?
Rats.
Yeah.
Trees.
Axe.
Yeah.
Just just some wood for the fire.
What I can do that I can as a former captain of the Groven Guard chopping down trees.
It is a special that, you know, when it comes to chopping down trees and he's kind of mansplaining,
he's just nodding.
But you could see his maybe it was in one catches, but you see his eyes are like always
like going back and forth between you and the fire as if as if the fire.
So how do you make a fire?
Um, all right, I'll teach you.
And he's going to go.
This young man did not ask for to be taught in any way, shape or form, but John Claude
shall educate him.
Um, he's going to bring him along to go chop some firewood.
Oh, I'm coming.
Oh, yes, you are.
All right.
It's important to learn how to chop your own firewoods.
And then started off the night girl bossing and went to mansplaining.
That's good.
That's going to be the name of this title.
The girl boss to mansplain pipeline.
That's what happens when you girl boss too close to the sun.
You begin to mansplain.
Imagine like an improv prompt, but it's Icarus mansplaining how his how his wings failed.
Okay, that's going to be my next character.
I said my next character is going to be a fantasy dentist.
Now it's going to be a mansplaining Icarus explaining how exactly his wings burned up.
Mansplaining Icarus who is a dentist.
You know, you know why you have all this plaque.
And who says I don't come up with fascinating characters.
This is why we take breaks everyone.
This is why we take breaks.
Anyway, before we get to Icarus the mansplaining dentist.
As you go out into the woods Jean Claude.
Let's visit another memory real quick.
It was during that same day after playing around with your after playing around with
your niece.
There was an as they returned to the to the House of Education.
A knock on your door.
Was this back in the flashback?
Yes.
One second.
And I think he's probably been washing dishes or something.
His hands are all wet.
So that when he opens the door he goes I was just washing the dishes.
Her voice outside going.
Oh Johnny boy I need your help quickly come outside a big strapping woman really needs
your help.
Okay wait so the second is compelling but who the fuck's voice is this?
I'll be sure to find out.
Wait do I know this person's voice?
You don't know like okay go ahead and tell you like it you do know it's someone putting
on a voice.
Right so okay cool because I was like if you genuinely make this Madame Wimsley I'm gonna
cry and I will never play as him again.
A big strong woman needs your help.
And at that he brushes his hands on his pants and goes well you've come to the right house
Madame and he swings the door open.
And you hear Madame as you see your brother Jean-Luc.
You fucking liar and I'd like to tackle him to the ground.
You really feel for him.
And he starts grabbing you by the head he starts like rolling your hair and the two
of you start like throwing each other off.
Oh yeah they're full on brother tussling.
And they're grown ass adults.
And he just kind of sits up after a bit and fixes his hair and he just goes oh hold on
one sec he says it in a French accent as he licks his head he just fixes just like right
on your like fur on your forehead just.
Well if they're speaking in giant then he would be speaking normally so we can do that.
What the fuck man as you slap this is so weird.
Okay I recovered.
I'm personally I think you look better that way.
I look like a dork.
Stop laughing.
Clearly I'm the cool one of the two of us.
I have a reputation to uphold in this town bro.
Oh yeah you definitely got a reputation brother.
Oh fuck off.
I just like smack him in the shoulder and then he'll help him up.
Help him get up after he wax him.
It's pulled up and he he just goes decided to come by and drop by today.
I know I've been really stuck with Marie and Sylvie for the past few days but you did come
by and see my little brother.
Hey appreciate it but listen your family comes first.
Am I right?
Especially when you got a loving wife and a kid who's too smart.
Oh you're right.
Family does come first.
Hey I just want to let you know that even though I'm spending time with Marie and all
I always got a place in my heart for you.
You can always drop by you know.
So part of Jean Claude's backstory is that he's jealous that his brother is spending
more time with his wife than him.
Sorry it's not your fault I'm just slamming.
I'm just the begging wife.
I'm kidding.
Bedroom sandwiches baby.
Oh no.
This is what my brother's talking about.
Is this why Sylvie spends all day at the library?
No Sylvie her parents are begging all the time.
That poor kid no wonder she's socially awkward.
Those are two big people too so that is a seismic activity.
No the body.
Our body is crying in the head again.
You ever hear an honor clip of two whales?
No no no.
Alright now let's continue.
No he says there is a difference.
I'm yelling not crying there's a difference our mom says.
Um he'll go.
Anderson you know I get it.
You know you've got you've got the you know I'm just happy to see you you know.
It's good to see you around.
And she's cool.
Marie you know.
She's she's decent.
That's the conclusion you come up with when you after you spar her a couple of times and
the two of you just have a couple of arguments.
I mean what times.
No no they weren't arguments they were conundrums.
Conundrums.
Yes.
Gotcha.
Yes.
I'm very well led now.
Uh you know.
Marie likes you.
That's great.
I appreciate.
Why don't you come over for dinner tonight.
You could think about it while we do our job.
Will he fight with Marie is the question if he agrees to go to dinner tonight or can he
keep his shit together.
He just goes just think about it.
But right now the Bushran brothers you and me were in business.
He's gonna take his hand and just like put a really warm squeeze out of shoulder and
goes you've always got me brother.
I'm always.
It's never gonna change.
No it won't.
You like to check the trees right.
They change with the season but the twist is the same.
Exactly.
Much like how a hermit crab always changes shells every so and then but the hermit crabs
the same.
Yeah.
So he's been telling me some animal facts.
She you know.
You know hermit crabs are.
Go ahead sorry you were saying.
I was going to brag about your kid but tell me more about the hermit crabs please.
Oh they're very social creatures.
I wasn't being serious but I.
Oh my bad.
I'm sorry.
Hey listen to what I was saying is it seems like she's having a bit of trouble in school
not with her studies of girls but with the other kids.
Yeah I haven't heard about that but she seems to be happy.
She's a really good kid.
But I.
She is that's for sure.
I just I don't want her to feel like.
I don't know there's something wrong when there's only right.
Even really good for her.
You know that.
And I see.
No no no no no no no I see.
I see the way you look up at her you check up on her.
Just you don't got to be shy about it.
She's your family.
Yeah.
You know she loves you too.
Yeah.
What kind of uncle would I be if I didn't check up on me.
I think she will want you over dinner too.
But I'll go.
Only if you want to.
That'll make me really happy.
What do you want to be doing.
Anything but most of all yourself.
All right.
So I guess you could say that you could just bring the beef.
The beef.
The cow.
Oh yeah.
The cowabunga.
That's who you are.
The cowabunga.
That's who you are.
I'm the cowabunga?
I just learned about that word.
I think I'm a cowabunga.
Cowabunga.
What do you think?
Yeah.
It means something like awesome or something but it has the word cow on it.
So I thought about you.
I thought about you know us but I thought about you.
You're a cowabunga.
I'm a cowabunga?
Yeah you're a cowabunga.
I'll take that because I am pretty awesome.
I mean like I look at you.
You're so old now.
I know that.
And like look at you.
You're grazing your cows.
I'm a cowabunga.
I don't know I feel you you're grazing your buffalo and he's just fully with with him
now.
He goes oh by the way I like I know you don't drink much.
yeah
I'm not a fan of it.
Yeah we do have something new that we got.
barely comes from a place long time away and
Marie just decided to spend a fortune on it, she's really
she's really tough with her money
so if you feel like it tonight you can indulge with us
though I know you don't like that stuff
no no, I'm just, I don't really like
I don't really, I used to like being off my game you know and like the booze just kinda really
you know, it kinda like, fucks with you
but she spent this much money, of course it's a celebration
you don't have to, no pressure, no no no
of course I would have a glass you know
it's a special occasion I'm sure
alright well, we'll see where that goes tonight
hopefully it doesn't cause any undo feelings to come up at the table
no, I will be missing brother
I will be on my best behavior
I'm just not saying much but I will try
but I know you'll try your best and that's all I'll ask
alright
but right now, one of the druids from the
the dream druids from the circle of reverie
they asked me, specifically, aka the Bushuan brothers
to go cut down a few trees down for them in their little grove
I came to the best druid round
you're gosh dang right
yeah, sure am right
no one can beat you with your magic
and no one can beat you with your
hutzpah
yeah, yeah
that's what I've got
so they're like, what is the gig though?
they need a druid to cut down the trees or something?
they need us to cut down a couple of
they said problematic trees
that seem to be dying down
one of the trees actually was
one of the trees was actually something that like
all of the kids 50 years ago
they all carved their name into
so it's really sad we gotta take that down
but maybe we can put it into something
yeah, make it into like a bench or a chair or something
it's a high paying job
they were really upfront with that
but yeah, just a good couple of
just a good couple of trees
do you need me to be there to help?
of course I need you
okay, good, good, good, good, good
I obviously, you know, this is a high profile job
I should be there
it's a high profile job
that's why it needs you
absolutely, absolutely it does
who better than to come to us?
I mean, come on
yeah, come on
no bueno
no bueno, no, none of them
the amount of buenos?
none, nada
I said, I meant no-brainer
but no-brainer works too
yeah, no-brainer, no brains needed
no brains needed
there's not a single brain between the both of us
there's not, there really isn't
and look how well we're doing
we're great
alright, go on
so dinner and this gig
as he, as he, he has his axe to his side
as you grab yours
the Boucheron brothers make their way out
into the, in the grove of dreams
and as you're walking out into the woods
with the wizard, boy
and talking about cutting down woods
that's where your memories go to
one of the, uh
gosh
you walk out, uh
closer, closer out into the woods
and it's, it gives, it evokes feelings of nostalgia
you just have to find a really good tree
you know exactly what you're, you know exactly what you're looking for
you have the, you have the artisan's eye for it
and as you, as you find, as you find a tree on its own
um, it, the perfect one
it looks like, it looks like one of the trees you and your brother have cut down
less colorful, but the shape is there
and shapes are enough to invoke the nostalgia
but you also remember those woods
the grove of dreams
you remember what the father of scarecrow said
where your brother is trapped in at the very moment
that very forest
and as you walk closer
maybe having gone a little quiet
do you chop down the tree?
I think he would, right? Unless there's something off
there's nothing off
nah, then he would
alright, one hit
two
one strike after another
you, and you miss
you miss
and then you miss again
what the fuck?
and again, and again
come on, what do you mean?
you thought that with everything you had
you could protect her
you could protect Sylvie
but in that moment you couldn't hit
that thing, that thing that stole away
all those children
as you swung with this very same axe that was in your hand
you swing so hard
all the muscles in your arms tensing
and yet your weapon could not find purchase
on that fey
god, this is the emotional damage episode
you just kept missing
you swung this axe with everything you had
your heart emboldened by your love
for Sylvie, the one to protect her
I think she was gone
memories kind of meld together
at the moment
as Jean-Claude, you were a bit deeper in thought
you realized, like
because this is so natural to you that
you have the firewood in your hand, you chopped it up
you were already walking back to camp
the boy is talking to you though
you're so deep in your head
the grove of dreams was where
is where she was taken
it's where your brother is right now
and sooner or later
you're gonna be heading there
as you just place the firewoods
inside
inside the fire
the fire bursts up for a moment
and it grows
the fire grows in size
and it's not that big, but for some reason you taste ash
you feel extreme heat
oh no
excruciating burning
oh no, oh no, he's having a
drowning in a sea of burning embers
oh no, he's having a bit of a flashback PTSD moment
oh no
but even in this pain
even through the choking
you saw the creature
on that shore
and you saw your knees
and you pushed through
and when you finally arrived
you wake up
you snap out of it
hey uh, thanks for the help
I really uh
well I learned a lot about chopping down
chopping down trees so
that was really helpful
I miss
y-you got it
um, I think
I miss
make sure
you do
okay
I think he's gonna lumber away
away from the warm heat of the fire that makes him think of smoke and ash and
that day
Cecilia
Yuzi Jean-Claude
approaching, you finish setting up both tents
she goes
I realized when you were gone why you were really upset about me giving away the box I think
and she opens up the bag she's been holding the whole time to show him
this is what she's been thinking about clearly
he looks down and goes
ah
I-I see
are
are you okay?
good night Cecilia
nods
as you bid
oh go ahead
then she
she thinks a moment like she's thinking about like is this stupid
and then she looks through Jean-Claude's stuff
for JJ!
for JJ
not JJ!
and she goes to lay down or something she'll just set JJ next to him and put JJ's little hand on his shoulder and say
um I-oh the voice
I'm right here Jean-Claude
and then she walks away very quickly and leaves him there
I'm gonna cry Jenny that was so cute
Jenny!
oh no
Cecilia
she's too good for this room
uh I think he would just
after she leaves just take the doll
and just curl in and just hold it
close to him
as you hug
Sylvie that night
as she has crawled into bed with you
wait I'm hugging my knees?
wanting to be with you that night
oh no
she goes
um as she's like holding-as she's holding a book
and you're holding like a little lantern for her to-to read it
it was the tired end of that night where she goes oh!
I almost forgot
um and she scrambles to her uh she scrambles to her feet she rushes out of the room so fast
like just with such urgency
wait wait wait he's gonna fall off to her what the fuck is she going late at night
um
running off to uh
she-she opens the front door she's just thrown all like reckless abandon
going off
you're not just gonna fucking kill me
going off uh to her um
parent's house
um
she just goes you're gonna-you're gonna really love it you're gonna really love it
trying to keep up with this child
she goes
and uh she just goes she's trying to run away and goes wait
did you stop?
yeah he freezes with the lantern in his hand
did you know that horses can't breathe through their mouth?
and then she runs she-she-she-she-she distracted you and she runs
save me!
sprinting after this child like a father who's lost his child at Disney World
she
takes you away to her house and she-as she opens up the door she just-she just turns around sees you approaching
um
uh and she just goes barrier barrier barrier
ah he's gonna mimic slamming into air
shhh
ah no save me
get back here
ahhhh
he's-he's intends to not get through the fucking air wall
she then walks a bit
she-she walks to her uh room and she comes out
holding a small wooden uh a small uh wooden chest
a small wooden box you realize this box actually? this is the box that uh Jean-Jean Luc used to propose to Marie
no but Marie used to propose to Jean Luc
oh Jesus!
she took it
nooo! Marie's gonna fucking kill me!
she just goes alright open it
ahhh he wants to make sure that her mom doesn't catch him with this fucking box
she's gonna fucking kill him
her eyes don't run Marie doesn't see anything here at the moment
hh hh hh hh
cause um the reason why Jean-Claude fights with her a lot is cause he's terrified of her secretly
um
hh hh hh
ahhh and he'll go
okay just make sure this goes back where you found it right?
okay
alright
was this what you bought the barrier?
pfff
okay
it's very impotent then
he's gonna like roll back his sleeves
some high level magic must be going in here
oh I should step out of the barrier for you
you should you should
I can't I cannot open the box with the barrier off
she just goes barrier off and then walks out
so fucking cute
uhhh
so he'll sit down so that he's on her level
and he'll open the box
a bracelet
made of twine
of
bits of wood
but what stands out to you most
colorful beads
colorful beads adorn the bracelet
wow
it's a forever bracelet
what is that?
you give it to people
who you always want in your life
and who you know will always be there for you
he
picks it up as if it's the most
precious metal
and rarest jewel
and he delicately
hand gestures to her
um
may I have your help putting it on?
she nods excitedly
and
gingerly
slides it onto your wrist
where it fits snugly
of course she paid attention
do you like it?
it's my most favorite thing
I've ever had
thanks kiddo
and he'll ruffle her curly hair
and then she yawns
it's time for bed
I'll get you back in
as you guide her
to your abode
and the two of you tuck in
she just goes
goodnight uncle
I love you
thanks evie
I'm always here
I love you too
and then you go to sleep
as you hug jj close
it's acelia
that sucked
it's pretty painful
acelia is there anything else you're doing?
well
the past few days she's been messaging
delmyra every night with her remaining spells
and then trying to hide
using the moonshards to get an extra
whenever john claude's driving and not paying attention
god damn it
she's hoodwinked me
she would need to message delmyra again though
I don't know if you want to do that right now
I'll absolutely do it
okay
um
they left off
fighting
but then she talked to creed
more
after they fought
I guess she
this is harder because she doesn't know where to start with delmyra again now though
because it was
hard
um
she'll but she'll say
I don't know
if what I told you yesterday
is the truth
that dad's soul is with
kraureg
that's just
what the scarecrow implied to me
there's a little bit of a
empty moment
just when you thought that maybe
delmyra didn't want to talk to you
and then comes in
whatever happens
I know
I didn't make
a lot of good promises to you
but I am going to find a way
to get dad back
I promised you
I promised mom
I'm sorry
I just
don't want you to go
I know you're not alone
but
I don't want you to go
I know
but I have to
I have to
which is something
this particular set
of sentences
I don't want you to go
I know but I have to
it feels so familiar
oh no
I have to protect you too
and don't think about telling me
not to do it
that the message
yeah that's about the word limit
she says
she uses the moon shards because she already cast two sendings
so she double checks
that Jean Claude's not watching
and takes the moon shards out of the house
every single night
they've been traveling since she got sending
it's going to be even worse when she just uses this to talk
to Stella for fun
he's going to ground her ass
she takes the moon shards
and says
you don't have to do anything
you
have a choice
and I know which one you want
oh
please let me help you
it's dangerous
don't
come
I need you
to be safe
and safe is not with me
it's never been
but it will one day
I promise
and me
is the place for staying considered a safe haven
it is
in that case she'll take a point of fatigue
to use the moon shards one more time
I'm not going to kill you
Jean Claude will
ground your ass
look at that smile
there's no TV time
there's no phone time
this is what this is, this fucking cell phone time
you're losing your fucking phone privileges
you do what my little sister did
and she bragged to my mom about how
you thought I couldn't get on the iPad because you blocked my phone
but I could still check my messages
and so then my mom was like okay then you have to give me your iPad too
Jean Claude would be like give me the moon shards
this is 100% the kind of kid Cecilia would be too
she'd accidentally give herself away
she'd be like and you thought I got away with it
too Jean Claude
but she takes the moon shards again
and she says
I know
I don't want that for you either
and I don't know if Delmira would be able to tell this as much
but it seems like she's thought
like probably all the last 24 hours
about saying this
because she doesn't normally stand up
to Delmira that often and she's done a lot
the past couple days
she says
but I have a choice too
someone clip that
and that's where she leaves this ending
I love you
aww
I'll find you again
just promise me
not now
but you just be safe
I might be busy
the next few days
you're so brave
I came after a while
I will say my pause it's probably like 10 times the length of that
before you got sending back
it kind of takes that as a rejection
and so
she's kind of frustrated by that
but
she'll just
get the night cap out
put the moon shirts back in the pouch
put it in the cap
gives you extra good dreams
I would say do not ever not wear the cap again
mmhmm
and
I get off to bed
you get off the bed
and you hear knocking on the door
as your eyes fly open
open
it was these
it was like two years ago
you hear the frantic knocking
and you fight to your feet
Cecilia! Cecilia!
what's wrong?
um, did you just open the door please?
she does
and as the door opens
you see Delmira
holding your father
his gaze
listless
open mouth agape
oh no!
looking towards the sky Delmira tears streak down
her face
Delmira
immediately
puts him down on the couch
and just kind of like holds his hand
and goes everything's going to be okay dad
everything's going to be okay
what happened? we need to take him to the temple
I don't know
she just goes
just please stay with him I'm gonna
I'm gonna go to the temple I'm gonna get people here
um
she
she goes I can help you take him there
let's
just please stay here I'm gonna bring them here
it's gonna be okay
everything's gonna be okay
um
and as she runs out you do notice that
red has taken the sky
oh no
a bright
not a bright a dark red hue
um
that night
that night it was um
a bad one
the
the saloon clerics
some of them who were out there at the time
you remember the scenes of chaos
um as people
as you see people the door was left the front door was left open
amidst the chaos you remember seeing people
wandering back into town
family members hugging other family members as they were
uh as as some of them were
just uh
some of them were just kind of like almost like zombies
like walking back into the town
moving at a sluggish pace family members
running around trying to find out
and claiming who's theirs
even some people that aren't even in your village
a good amount of strangers who the
um who the clerics are trying to help
but the difference between all of them is that all of them
were walking some of them cried
when they hugged the people they love when they
reunited
but you just there is that sinking feeling
in your chest that
makes your father different
the night ended
in pure frustration
and hopelessness
but that was
but something weighed
so much more deeper on Delmyra
as eventually
um
your father was carried to the bed
that he's been staying in
for the past two years
the bed where eventually he would lose
his scent
uh
he would lose the scent of trees on him
and that you would grow so accustomed
to his presence that
perhaps you couldn't even smell him anymore
no
remember that night
just dread
confusion
as you watched Delmyra
completely
devoid of hope
failure
washing over her
as she sobs uncontrollably
into the shoulder of your father
who is breathing
but not responding
oh this is awful
and you hear
from Delmyra
please come back
I'm so sorry
I need you
that weighs heavy
on your mind
and of course
you remember the times that Delmyra continued to leave
leaving
leaving your father in the care of you
she always had that
she always had that look of guilt
and you're wise to your sister
maybe at times every time she came back
which is very very few in between
when she didn't bring anything back
to help father
that guilt got a little heavier each time
you try to sleep
try to
and eventually sleep will always find you
hopefully you have good dreams tonight
that's what the cap's for
when Delmyra gave you the cap
you remember it was well worn
Delmyra needed it too
and as you fall asleep
you feel the familiar thrum
you feel warmth overcoming you, a feeling of nostalgia
and as sleep begins to take you
as you sleep with the moon shards at your side
there is a familiar scent
of maple and fern
a brushing of the hair from your face
and before sleep takes you away
the voice from this good memory
becomes bare to you
good night, baby girl
ouch, Tim!
ouch, Tim! what the fuck?
you fall asleep?
ouch!
not before casting guiding bolt on the DM
yeah, fuck you, Tim, ouch, that hurt
good night, baby girl? alright, cool
yeah, cool
that is where we're going to end this session
yeah, that's where we're going to end this fucking session before I kill you
that's awful
I'm mad
join us again next week
I'm so mad
Q&A time, first question
why are you laughing at this?
everyone, this is our moderator, JT
who has been dutifully moderating the chat
JT, we love JT the Mod!
we love you so much
and
Dragware says I roll to smack the DM
20
he'll actually flinch, yeah
Dragmire, re-roll with advantage
wait, you only had not 20
extra attack, go
yeah, extra attack
ouch, man
that was as good a time as ever
to
yeah, great
ask your burning questions before we burn Tim
I got a 19 plus one Dragmire, sis
does that hit?
yeah
Tim's AC is like a 5, it hits
the problem is that Tim is so good at this
he's just too good at this
are you guys, first of all
are both of you okay?
oh yeah, oh my god, totally fine
this is just my standard angry Emma
god damn my feels
okay, just making sure
not, don't worry
Dragmire is still rolling at the chat
he's still going
this entire time it's like
hey, are you guys okay?
Timmy, watch this
knocked out, KO'd
oh, you turned me into DJ
I love, did you guys
did you guys see the chat though?
did you see Dragmire go, get JJ
come on, get JJ
yes, my adult character
my adult 30 something character
has an emotional support puppet
to communicate his feelings with
that's right everyone
Cecilia thinks it's kind of silly
but she tries not to judge
I would, she should judge
alright, well
right now in the interest of time
we are going to start our
we're going to start our Q&A section
our Q&A section and also our
let's just, we're just going to talk for a bit
and wind down from everything that's happening
Q&A
I was going to say if anyone's still here
if anyone's still here, ask those questions in the chat
if not, we're just going to keep chatting
any questions, but we'll just
if not, we'll just chat the night away
aka for 30 minutes
we're going to chat till 11
let's see, do I have any questions?
I guess also
I have a question, are we allowed to ask them?
yeah, yeah
Dragmire did ask
burning question
real quick, sorry
burning question
how to get better at descriptions?
I couldn't tell you personally
but I'm sure Timmy can
this is a Tim question
how to get better at descriptions?
I just
oh, Dragmire is throwing the questions in the chat
oh boy, hey, okay, I gotcha
yeah
so Jenny can attest
I used to be super, way overly long
for my descriptions
I DM'd for like 6 years up to this point
and there was a time where it was just
it was just way too much
but yeah, I come from like a writing background
and it's just
you know, generating prose
and such, but it's just practice
more than anything, and I definitely
1000%
I write things down beforehand
and I reference them when I'm talking
whenever I think of a good phrase to describe something
I write it down and I use it later
I have notes here with like little phrases
that I like, oh yeah, I definitely want to implement this to make myself sound prettier
Verdant Green Nebula
was something that I thought about last night
and I was like, I so want to use this to describe
it was so pretty
the description you gave
it was a grove of dreams, right?
yes, it was an ancient forest
but yeah
it's just practice
write, I write a lot
yeah
if the players go so far off course, how do you get them back on track?
we don't generally, I think
well, the prevailing question becomes how to
how to get your players on track
and the thing is, people say railroading is bad
it's not
there is bad railroading, there's good railroading
how I build my tracks
because people, you don't want to go on tracks that you don't want to be on
it's like, oh obviously I have to do this
you have to build things that are very interesting
very interesting to the characters
you have to build like
you have to build in things that are interesting like personal backstory stuff
things that would want them and entice them to go on
and a thing that I ask my players
at the very top before anything in Session Zero is that
you all have to be very into each other
you all have to be very fans of each other
and such
because then that becomes like, oh people want to see this person's backstory
this backstory going
and the entirety of Blackguards was built on that foundation
of like, oh yeah, there's so much backstory
everyone's colliding with their stuff at once
so obviously everyone wants to go full force forward into it
but yeah
build your tracks with like personal things and pay attention to your players
that's what I would say
yeah we have a group of nine total
with one of Timmy's kids, that's including Timmy
and so it only works because we still play like the same way except probably even slower
and we play slow on here
so we play even slower and with that many people
and it's very roleplay heavy
so you can imagine that it could be really slow
and the only way it works and like people like
really work hard to make the schedule work to come to the game because Timmy's awesome
and all the players are awesome
but Timmy's games are pretty great
so but like everyone really cares about what everyone else is doing
and in general since the characters are like
you know they have goals that Timmy understands
we still surprise him and we roll with it
but like in general at least like since everyone is pretty focused
I feel like people it's easier to predict kind of what a character might do
since everyone's goals are pretty well defined and people understand though
I'm sure there's plenty of surprises especially in that game
that's the one that JT is in us with
yes
and also like railroading sometimes is very helpful as a player
right like it helps to have that structure
especially for a game like Blackguards where we had
so many emotional beats happening for so many different people right
we needed to like have a structure of something to follow
but I also think what Jenny and Tim are saying is absolutely true
like by being invested in the other characters and the other players at the table
you don't I don't think you have to worry too much about
them going too off the but that's also the team right
you don't have to worry about them going off the rails
because even if they do go off the rails it's in support of each other
which is probably in support of the story as is
right
and if it goes too far off then that just probably means it was an oversight
on but Timmy doesn't make those really often I feel like
it's he he tends to understand he has a very good understanding of people's characters
and how they think usually
and the players to like we always will predict what people will do with different things
in our casual conversations
but beyond that to like it's okay to tell people like it's
I love that drag racing is canon
someone like but like you know some people really hate it
but like it's okay to just tell people like hey can we get back on track to this
like before this game Timmy told us hey just so you know like this session's short
and like none don't you don't have to be suspicious of anyone here
I really appreciate that transparency
especially like because I've been at some tables where people get really frustrated
if like people aren't following a plot line or following on track
and they don't speak up about it like it communication is so key for any of these games
actually a player responsibility to
yeah why it's the answer session zeros are important
yeah set your expectations
but yeah and out of game conversation on things like that
yeah absolutely
follow up question to that
drag my draws go so you guys define your goals right off the bat
it's I mean go for it Tim it's definitely something that me as the DM
I help them with
because typically you know things I think things start off really strong when you go into a game knowing what you
knowing what your character wants yeah
and you know you have I want song all lined up and ready to go yeah
but it's definitely something that I really try
as part of my even before session zero when I just start talking to people in the group
before the camp you know before the campaign gets a name I just
like okay give me your backstory give me like give me the things I'll ask for
do you need more characters I can give you this and like okay here's a goal here's what's going to happen
and it's important to be like to be transparent about
like okay you know this session is going to be this
I'm going to start you off here and this is where it's going to go
and yeah it's just really important to like to talk to them and
because no one wants to go into something like aimless you know unless that's the game they want to play
but I but but yeah
typically yeah we do define goals and I do think like even if a player doesn't naturally have that instinct to do that
if it's in Timmy's game Timmy knows that he will probably guide them towards doing that in the process
and say this is what I have for my character then he will probably make up some stuff
because he gives us like lore documents about stuff related to our character that they would know
and a lot of times that in of itself can probably inspire
yeah because if someone comes into a game not really being like
just being like yeah this is my character and they don't know much about them
and then they suddenly get more information like most of the time people tend to like double down and commit after that
because they start seeing the world as more real at that point I feel like
and it's like oh and then well my character cares about this now even if they didn't maybe didn't think they did
even think of it before but Timmy would probably help guide towards a goal if you didn't come in with one
or if you come in with one usually he helps strengthen it pretty pretty quickly
goals I think will just come to you oh sorry
no go for it
goals will just I think just naturally come to you if you have a better understanding of the world
and you feel better established in it which is what Jenny said a thousand percent
yeah just go ahead go ahead
oh well Jagmeier said I hate aimless games I'm in one of my characters have no idea what to do
they're just with their group because they've been there for so long now
and like literally like I can relate to that I'm not going to talk about it on here probably
but like there there I have played in a game I've played in a game where like the GM just every session
basically gave us nothing to do and all the players were just the players were fantastic
and we would just make stuff up together we'd make up all this drama we were doing our own thing all the time
and we had fun with that but like any the GM would hardly introduce anything so it's like yeah it really does fall on everyone
because on one hand if you're a GM trying to get your players to do something and they all say no and over and over again
and you can't do anything and then at the same time if if you know weird case like that where the GM kind of isn't doing anything
he's just asking you what you want to do constantly without presenting anything new then also what do you do
I think too like as a player what helps like because sometimes it can be like overwhelming to be like well what does my character want
I think another fun way to explore that when creating a character is like what kind of trajectory would I like to see in a play at a character
for example do you want to play a warforged who's never experienced emotion and so you want to explore how would something that is right
that's something that is mechanical that is not built for these things how would that experience emotion
do you want to play someone who is been downtrodden right and and truly you know thinks that you know relationships with people are meaningless
and then to discover that there is power in working together right like I think that's something that helps with for me at least when I want to play a character
and I really don't have an idea of like anywhere I want to go I like to just explore like what kind of trajectory do I would I like to like what do I want to explore
how can this character grow and then vice versa you know by exploring that it kind of gives one the players at the table something fun to watch
right because you know they get to see people changing and morphing and evolving and also gives them something to connect with too right
you guys just become that more interlocked so I think that helps too and then Jaime and Stellar are deaf coming back
uh huh yeah yeah coming back what you said Emma too like I I feel like your your thought process with that too also is part of why your role play feels kind of focused sometimes
like sometimes I get surprised because I think I think I think about some things differently sometimes than you do and like I get surprised a lot
um sometimes even with your characters who I know very well when they react very they'll react very strongly to like one little thing and I think I think that might come from a place of
because you tend to understand what journey they're on and how that triggers their reaction to like because obviously if you're on a journey changing then you know people tend to be resistant to change
yeah and stuff and and so when certain things definitely would be like more triggering to a person like someone says because I've seen it your care I've seen I've had to have several instances instances I can speak I promise
I've had several instances where like someone's just like said something and it like really like hit your character way harder than than I would have expected and like big reaction and it's like oh it makes sense if it's playing and maybe playing into
their insecurities about their overall journey and things and and stuff so that that was it was like so hearing you said that it just made a lot of sense yeah now now Jenny's gonna be able to know everything about me now I thought I there will be no more secrets
no more no more secrets no more yes no more and stellar need to come back and then I saw a question how do you guys build your characters do you have standard array or do we roll I think we roll right I roll we roll we're not
get out of the way yeah we roll I have extra rules so so normally when I play with someone I just don't straight up like hey you can you can roll take you could take the you can take your highest one if it's not 18 you can take it in 18 other rules I do is that like hey if you want to you can play like whatever exact character you want in your head you can you can change any stats you want I trust you because no one's gonna make an all 18 people put negatives they they they they love negatives so I promise that's not
what I did with Cecilia her stats are just really good yeah but she also she's not a variant human we start off with a free feat at level one anyway so I went to the plus one to all stats it's part of why her stats are so good I will I will say though I've given that to like a lot I gave him that I did to a lot of people what people mostly tend to do is that they actually like more often than not but bring something down because they because they do have a lot of people that they're not
they do have a character in mind and you know the character is flawed or is clumsy or whatever and they adjust accordingly flaws are so fun to play because no one wants to play all all 18 score yeah Timmy will also so also when we roll we we will always throw one extra die too so they already skew higher in general because but you can pick out of your seven that you roll you can pick whichever six you want and then like we said he's basically okay with you changing
your stats to you're basically allowed to pick your stats if you want but also he's let's you reroll your stats as many times as you want to so like a whole set like you could roll if you don't like your first seven you can roll another seven you could do that 10 times and pick one if you wanted but it usually people end up pretty balanced and he like he also just likes players to be stronger because the games can be hard.
Find a way to make you no longer love playing in all 18. Tim is very good since he helps build the characters he is very good at finding ways to make things hurt.
Oh all 18 so you're so you're good like that for a good reason right?
Oh no.
Emotional damage!
What are your what is like a society's expectations of you what are your family's expectations of you how did that form you?
You're a prodigy that's actually could be really interesting lots of pressure you're a chosen one.
And question to you guys how do you guys build your characters?
What what what mean?
You're like gosh wait yeah.
I actually have an answer.
Please JT take over.
I tend to get either an idea I really want to see fleshed out like in the nine person game my character started as
Well supposed to be a short term villain that never happened.
But he's basically a fantasy version of ticket master.
I wanted to see how that could play out.
So Tim and I built up this very charismatic very smart willed actor bard and we've run with it since then.
And I've just recently rolled a character had one idea I wanted to play off of.
And Tim went above and beyond saying hey maybe this or hey have you seen this particular item?
He's gonna kill us.
I know.
With love.
Yes.
A pickaxe named love.
When I make my characters for Timmy's games if you don't know Timmy and I are a couple so we do talk a lot.
I feel like most people know that but then I realize there's people in here who don't know us that well so I don't actually know who knows or not.
I want you guys to play a romance ttrpg two person ttrpg for Valentine's Day.
There's that one where it's like two people have to be a fake couple.
That'd be funny.
Yes.
And I'll be moderating.
We talk on the phone all the time and so whenever I'm coming up with a new character usually I haven't written a backstory in a long time on paper.
Because we just talk about the character and then usually they get very well fleshed out because like Cecilia was very talked about for months.
Most of the time games take months to get up and running anyways even for home games.
So talk about a character for ages and ages and then they probably turn out a little different in game but sometimes they don't anymore.
My character for our big game I did not figure her out until after I played her and it was frustrating me so much leading up to it.
But Cecilia was like some things like I make realizations about Cecilia of course but more or less like this is kind of how she was planned.
I didn't know she'd be transporting moon shards.
I knew she'd be transporting something.
I didn't know what it would be.
But yeah we just talk about it for a long time and then he also gives you lore sheets.
I've said this before off screen but I'll say it again.
I am very much be a skeptic of like goodness and like players playing like a good character.
Jenny time after time again plays characters that I'm like that's good.
Like that is someone who is good.
Like that is goodness and it's believable.
You know what I mean?
I like to play good characters.
And she does it so well.
That's my type.
Even like my mean characters are usually usually my mean characters part of their story is kind of that like you know it's that they are very pure and good at heart.
And yeah that's that's the Daphne.
She is actually really sweet.
I know we all we all have a little facet of her.
Is there let me check back in the chat.
I shall implement these lore sheets.
Yes.
You guys take a super long time to start a game.
The start of a game.
We're like yeah we it just takes forever to coordinate.
Sometimes it's schedules.
Sometimes it's just scheduling.
We just have too many games to do.
Yeah.
But I love them.
Lots of games.
I think there's like what like twenty seven thirty eight.
Oh my gosh.
Near thirty.
Campaigns.
I don't know what counts.
What counts.
What counts as a game you're running though.
I don't think there's twenty seven.
Twenty seven.
There's less.
Yes.
Less.
But yeah.
Yeah.
And don't apologize for asking questions.
I'm glad you're asking them.
Yeah.
You're the you're the only one asking them.
So go for it.
Yeah.
We're super glad you're asking.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so.
Yeah.
But yeah.
Or sheets.
Yeah.
Implement those.
I'll go.
I'll say this is advice that I got from an adventure academy with Brendan Lee Mulligan
and Matthew Mercer and it helped me a lot.
But as a DM you do need to find ways to be lazier.
Just take off the take off workload like legitimately just do what that needs to be.
That's like necessary.
Don't build a town like oh yeah I got to figure out the fucking export import of this place.
Just build what you need what the players are going to see and build enough that you're
confident that if the players do go off track or they ask a question about something that
you are you feel good.
You feel good enough about your world that you can make something up.
Yeah.
Let me find.
Speaking of lore sheets.
I compiled all of Timmy's lore documents from all his games into one document.
It's wild.
And I'm waiting for it to load so I can tell you how many pages it is.
The list of NPC names is a couple pages long on its own.
Drag by your ghost.
The three pillars of D&D scheduling issues extensive character playlists and homosexuality.
Yes.
We are all depressed queer kids everyone.
Yup.
So here's some lore document that I put all his lore things together and this is the only
stuff I have access to.
There's some things that go to characters that I do not have like I don't have Jean
Claude's sheet for example.
It's 206 pages long on Google Docs.
So a man's writing a book over here.
Yeah.
It's like a whole book.
It's kind of crazy.
Still not done yet.
We're unlocking the southern hemisphere.
Oh yeah.
We've only played in the northern hemisphere of his setting so far.
We have 206 pages.
Super passionate about this and yeah hire me.
Yeah hire Tim.
Hire him.
To write the things.
So I have a question for Tim since he brought up Mr. Mulligan and Mr. Mercer.
I'll take a question directly from them.
Timmy, what's your opinion on snacking during the game?
I do it all the time though.
I say this as someone who has to be.
I was going to say I've literally I eat every single fucking game you can hear me crunching
on our podcast.
I'm sorry.
It's completely fucking all right.
It's good.
People need to eat.
People need to consume.
People when you talk for a while when you when everyone's putting their brains together
all right you don't want you don't want you don't want fucking you don't want fucking
Shanann to go to go down because she didn't get to snack on like some you know she didn't
pass out because I can't have my lunch.
Yeah.
Her half a payday that's been sitting on her desk that she's not allowed to eat because
it's a little too noisy because the rapper is a little bit too noisy.
You don't want that to be a trap for them.
You want them to you want them to be energized for the game.
I've been having habit now actually.
Personally like I would snack.
I would.
I just get too focused for the game.
I have soience and but I do drink water except I haven't drinking water today during the
game.
No go drink your water.
Oh Timmy.
Fucking shit.
I was about to say I was about to say like Timmy you'll you're probably never going to
catch Timmy snacking during a game unless it's like a bit that he's being very intentional
about because he can't even eat and have a conversation with me on the phone at the same
time.
So it's like I remember he used to get jealous because he's like he's like wait you ate your
dinner already when we're talking on the phone.
Snacking during a game just makes me feel comfortable like I'm hanging out with friends
and it reminds me that we will implement a reward points hydrate option at some point
Dragmire.
But yeah.
Snack away.
If people throw a fit about it because you're nourishing yourself then fuck them.
If they whine about it they can drown in my massive bowl of popcorn.
Kettle corn.
No popcorn.
My favorite snack salted caramel peanuts.
You have to buy online.
And they are awesome.
They're sweet.
I hate pistachios.
I hate the.
Unless the pistachios come already fucked away in a bowl.
But if I have to tear that shit apart.
You can't say that to a Sicilian woman.
First of all quote me on this.
I love all kinds of nuts.
Pistachios like definitely pistachio cream.
Come on.
I got a little Sicilian inside me too.
Everyone is an honorary Sicilian.
Congratulations.
I hate the process of stripping a pistachio.
That's what I mean.
Because I have totally gotten them under my thumbnail and fucked myself up.
Lord help Timmy if he ever runs into an unshelled walnut.
Also, hold on.
Drag Mare asks how did you come up with Balgrim Buster?
And also he said that Jean Claude made a smart move earlier and I can't remember Balgrim
Buster.
So can you remind me of the smart thing I did?
Balgrim Buster was from the he was the one with the when you when you got your armor
enchanted.
What did I figure out about him?
I looked up a dwarven name generator.
Yeah.
And I saw Balgrim and I thought, oh, drag my eye pop up with my mouth too.
How do you all have teeth?
I got good teeth, baby.
That's how you do.
I don't.
She's like, I don't have good teeth.
I just I actually don't.
No, no, I don't like nuts in general.
Like, so here's my thing.
So pistachio desserts are severely underrated.
However, you have to have really like nice pistachios because you can have really disgusting
pistachio desserts, a.k.a. the cookies from my childhood that were like, oh, don't.
Hey, hold on.
Those suck.
There are some.
They do suck ass.
They're disgusting.
But I am on my side of culture.
The Asian side.
We get the worst.
But then you but if you have like a really nice quality pistachios, you can have like
pistachio cream, you know, like it could be very good, be very good.
But like the little green fucking cookies that you get in the supermarket, it's like
the Italian cookie.
I'm like, this is for the birds.
This is for freaking Chinese pistachio cookie is a sugar cookie and they put one little
pistachio on top of it and agree that if you have a shitty pistachio cookie, toss it, toss
it, toss it.
At least at least they don't do cashews wrong.
They're just absurdly expensive.
Why?
Ah, cash is right.
You catch you.
All right.
No, no, no.
Cashews are good, even though they're technically not enough.
No, no, no.
You're making a joke.
They're great.
But I'm aware you you have to be like, I hate cash.
You want to fucking cash you.
So much money.
Yeah, money, baby.
All right.
Dragmire said, J.C. immediately made the connection that ballroom buster was being
a ball buster because he was.
Yeah, that's that's that's that's the extent of Jean-Claude's intelligence, though.
Wordplay.
That is what that wisdom gets you.
That is what a Nat 20 negative one.
That is what he might have done.
He's very smart.
That's why he threw his axe at that door and that's why he threw the whole trap.
Can we talk about how Tim truly broke at that moment?
He's like, you have no idea.
Yeah, you didn't explain on stream what those traps were, did you?
What you told us.
OK, this will be the last thing we do because we just went over 30 minutes.
Yeah, the trap.
OK, so that door, when you touched it, it was going to teleport whoever touch saving
throw and teleport them to a like like a room like a prison.
And there would be like a time limit.
There would be but nothing, nothing bad would happen to them because everything up there
was spent to deter people away.
And that's why the that's what the guy who was with you, the gosh hologram, the hologram.
That's why he was being so foreboding.
It's like you should hurry or something like that, because it was meant to add pressure
to the moment.
But the sequence, the code break.
And he was saying that to two people who were just, you know, strolling by.
It was meant to be a moment of like horror, like, like, yeah, one of you is trapped in
a dark room.
Something's definitely encroaching.
Death feels like it's going to come by.
You can't do anything.
And the other one's trying to do a puzzle and trying to trying to get to you.
And the two of you have to yell at each other to like to solve the puzzles because you have
like clues written on the on the prison on the cell that the wall that you're in.
But it didn't happen.
Might be.
And that's the thing.
I like doing that.
It's like, yeah, I prepared this thing by like players circumventing it, knowing that
you had something.
And just because just by doing something and you allowing that to happen, it's a really
nice it's a really nice feeling for them.
And I don't get to be up over it because I don't get too attached.
I learned not to get too attached to any idea that I have because players are kind of crazy.
But yeah, that's about it.
So thank you so much all for watching guys.
And if you enjoyed JT's presence here, well, we got something for you.
Just wait, announcement.
Next time is there an announcement next week?
Next week.
Next week is the announcement.
Well, the next week will be a little late.
Yeah, it'd be a bit too late to announce it when the streams already started.
All right.
Hey, do you want to announce it now?
Nah.
So next week, we are going to be starting off with our very first guest.
And that guest might be here in this in this room with us right now.
I will no longer be the disembodied voice that pops in randomly on stream.
He will be on screen, his face will be present.
Yay!
He's going to yell at us in person.
In person!
I'm only going to yell at Timmy.
Well, maybe.
We'll see.
We're very excited to meet his character.
And remember, I want you to remember for next week that he is that JT is the biggest Swifty
I know.
Anyways, thanks for coming.
Thanks for watching everyone.
This is what I get for knowing someone for too long.
This is what I get for friendship.
But we here are very excited to have JT along for the for the journey as we head towards
a Varexan.
And yeah, very excited to start this new chapter of Songwulven.
Because this is I forgot to say this at the top of the session.
Hey, we're going to head into a new chapter.
Oh, this is going to be like a big start thing.
But we're not going to say it.
Unlike our other game that's not even out of the prologue yet.
We're out of the prologue.
We are way out of the prologue.
We are way out.
I will not survive.
In all of our active games.
But we are very excited to have a guest.
We are very excited to have JT with us.
Long time friend, long time moderator.
And we love him.
So with that said, we'll see you next week.
Good night guys.
Bye.