00:00:06.39 sidekqpodcast Oh, and welcome to another exciting episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best unofficial Dungeons & Dragons podcast in my humbly biased opinion. I've got an amazing guest for you this week, but before we get to my guest, I gotta to leave you in suspense with the ad read. 00:00:23.32 sidekqpodcast uh which in the uh you listening to the or reading rather reading this transcript uh we'll know that this is the spot where i insert the ad for plus one exp and their rpg zine club uh subscription service for all of your game needs so you should go check that out again my discount code on plus one exp.com is going to be randolph r-a-n-d-o-l-p-h and again you should go check out rpgzine club you're gonna get um all sorts of new and upcoming amazing titles in the indie ttrpgzine again plus1exp.com rpgzine.club discount code randolph all right and without further ado i turn the microphone over to my guest and i ask hello mystery contestant uh would you care to introduce yourself tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do 00:01:14.32 Jade Hello, my name is Jade. I would describe myself as a forever student. um I don't do much other than work and explore the universe and try to consume as much of everything as I possibly can. 00:01:32.65 sidekqpodcast Ah, so you're a perfect, uh, listener of the podcast then. So you'll just listen to all 130 some odd episodes and then be able to regurgitate them ad nauseam. 00:01:43.57 Jade I will try. 00:01:46.58 sidekqpodcast No, no, no. I won't force anyone to sit down and listen to this podcast. It's just meant to be a good resource, uh, to help people out with their games and such. So, but it's good to know. Yeah. I'm so forever forever students of the world ah you know we we like those people ah you know being able to just perpetual perpetually learn the students of life you know because you know. I think the the band operation ivy said it best all i know is that i don't know all i know is that i don't know nothing. 00:02:16.26 sidekqpodcast Uh, and I feel like I live that every day, especially with a three-year-old in my house. So, uh, perfect. Uh, so awesome to hear. And, uh, we both know each other, uh, because, uh, you are friends with our previous guest of the show, Carla. 00:02:29.97 sidekqpodcast Yes. 00:02:30.59 Jade Mm hmm. Yes. 00:02:31.65 sidekqpodcast Excellent. Yeah. And so Carla was gracious enough to, uh, be like, Hey, you should speak with my friend Jade. She's awesome. And I was like, perfect. The more the merrier. Uh, and, uh, 00:02:42.57 Jade okay 00:02:43.97 sidekqpodcast As we keep rolling along with this show, I feel it's a dead giveaway, but do you currently, or have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons before? 00:02:53.57 Jade I played D and&D years and years and years ago with a small group of friends in high school and we did small series a small series of ah one shots where none of us knew anything about the game and none of us knew at all what we were doing. We had pre-made character sheets and a pre-made campaign which we completely ignored in favor for literal wild goose chases. um And then our DM, 00:03:21.41 Jade was an exchange student from Germany. And so he moved back home and we never spoke, today like we never spoke ever again. 00:03:31.00 sidekqpodcast Oh. 00:03:32.44 Jade And so since then I have just been like, I've just been consuming D and&D and knowledge as much as I possibly can, which is crazy because I've never actually read the player handbook. 00:03:47.48 Jade I've never read the player handbook. I just love like homebrew content. 00:03:51.36 sidekqpodcast Okay. 00:03:51.92 Jade And I love the, the that I was intrigued by the world building and the endless possibilities and quite generally the chaos that generally ensues in campaigns. 00:04:01.66 sidekqpodcast Yes. 00:04:04.31 Jade And that's what I did until a couple of years ago or a year ago when Baldur's Gate 3 came out. 00:04:07.21 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:04:11.44 Jade And my best friend um has played the other Baldur's Gate games and he was like, you would love this. So he introduced me to, 00:04:21.90 Jade Baldur's Gate and I, I ate it up until the end of Act Two. And then I did that thing where I dropped off the face of the planet, uh, regarding my and three, four, five, seven unfinished games. 00:04:35.42 sidekqpodcast ah 00:04:36.20 Jade And with that, like new, like that reintroduction into DND, the group of friends that I have currently um decided that they wanted to play a game. 00:04:48.77 Jade And I have now been seated as the forever DM, and the forever DM for them. And I'm currently crafting my own campaign, which again, as somebody who's like only just now reading the manuals is a terrifying experience. 00:05:00.12 sidekqpodcast Ah. Mm. 00:05:04.56 sidekqpodcast Well hopefully my podcast and a great number of other actual plays and youtubers out there will convince you otherwise and really lift the curtain. Aside to let you know like hey we're all just making it up as we go along anyway. um i'm I'm quite reminded of ah the character of a captain barbosa played by jeffrey rush in the parts of the caribbean movies. 00:05:27.44 sidekqpodcast He's referring to the Pirates code, but I think it applies to D and&D as well when he's like, there are more guidelines than what you call actual rules. 00:05:35.30 Jade yeah 00:05:36.51 sidekqpodcast So that's really what D and&D is all about. Like hopefully everyone's agreeing to the same guidelines and and style of play and you know what is and is not permissible in their games and all that. 00:05:44.75 Jade Mm hmm. 00:05:47.63 sidekqpodcast um But yeah, no. but So that's amazing that you're going to be here on this show today. We're going to make a character. Hopefully you're going to drop them in this first adventure Or or so at some point down the road you maybe you see them in the game and then maybe your players will take the bait and they'll go figure out who we're gonna meet today. 00:06:05.96 sidekqpodcast um ah But ah but certainly you were sharing that oh i played with a german exchange student the first thing that i was thinking is like oh that's das knick good that ah you know he up and left to germany after he was done. 00:06:18.01 sidekqpodcast ah Well, hopefully ah your friend will hear you on this podcast and he'll be like, you know what? Maybe I do need to finish that game with ah with those friends I made back in America. 00:06:28.75 sidekqpodcast There are plenty of digital tools that are out there to be able to do so, certainly. 00:06:29.24 Jade um maybe and One can only hold. 00:06:34.36 sidekqpodcast All right. Yes. ah And so as this podcast is so aptly named, we like to ask ah the questions about ah the others, ah the NPCs, ah the little guys, the best supporting ah Oscar categories, if you will. So ah for the first one of these questions, who happens to be your favorite sidekick or NPC character, whether they be from ah RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, et cetera? 00:07:04.64 sidekqpodcast And why is this character your favorite sidekick or your favorite NPC? 00:07:10.42 Jade When I was thinking about these questions, my immediate answer was Cicero from Skyrim. Uh, not because he's good, but not because he's good, but because he's absolutely insane. And I love that. But I think I'm not sure if you would qualify him as a sidekick per se, but I am absolutely like in love with Jackie from Cyberpunk. 00:07:38.80 Jade I don't know if you're familiar with the game. 00:07:39.04 sidekqpodcast Hmm. I have not played it, but I mean, I know of it, certainly. 00:07:44.40 Jade Okay, so Jackie is a character, and I can't spoil a whole lot for people who haven't played, but Jackie is a character that you meet that your character meets day one, and because um the the game drops you in medias risk rex. 00:07:49.56 sidekqpodcast Sure. 00:07:59.91 Jade heat It drops you in the middle of a story. You're on the way to do something, or you're making a deal of some sort, and Jackie is usually 00:08:02.20 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:08:08.01 Jade um like a middle man or someone that she meet along the way. And through the chunk of the story that made me fall in love with him, you and him become friends. 00:08:19.10 Jade and things happen and you like there's family and people that he loves that you get involved with and it's absolutely amazing. But I think the phrase that best sums it up because like crime is such a big thing him crime is such a big thing in cyberpunk that it's like even bad men, even bad men love their mamas. And he is such an amazing ah golden retriever type personality that it, 00:08:45.36 Jade He was, oh, I can't spoil all that, nevermind. But he was, he was definitely a favorite of mine. 00:08:51.36 sidekqpodcast Mmkay, well I was gonna say you totally could and I could very humorously add a bleep over what you're saying. 00:08:52.73 Jade to 00:08:57.25 sidekqpodcast Anyone reading the transcripts would be able to know what you're saying, but then, uh, you know, then everyone else in the podcast would just hear up like a tone. 00:09:00.18 Jade and 00:09:05.30 Jade That's fair. Okay, so for everyone watching or listening to the video, ah good luck with the game. For everyone who's reading the transcript, um you only know Jackie for a very short amount of time because he dies, he dies. He dies before the before the title screen happens in the game. And he's only in your life for maybe 30 minutes of gameplay. But you get to meet his mom and you go to his funeral and you get to meet his girlfriend 00:09:36.61 Jade And it's such an amazing, he's such an amazing character that when he died, I was sobbing. And I hadn't known this character at all, um but it really just kind of just like sucked me in. 00:09:51.75 sidekqpodcast o 00:09:52.37 Jade And I and i miss him, I miss him to this day. 00:09:57.02 sidekqpodcast Post-production Kurt will figure out a very interesting way how to contextualize all that down into a like a ah short little extended bleep and and then a lead back in. So enjoy everyone reading the transcripts. 00:10:10.87 sidekqpodcast ah Awesome. So yeah i'm glad I'm glad to hear that you love Jackie so. and And to go along with our question about sidekicks, we like to hear about side quests as well. So what happens to be your favorite side quest or B-plot element, whether it be from ah video game, ah RPG, movie film, television literature, et cetera. And why is this side quest or your why is this side quest or B-plot element your favorite? 00:10:44.41 Jade I think my favorite, I guess, minor story arc in a video game, ah going back to Skyrim is the Thieves Guild, the whole quest line, the whole Thieves Guild quest line is, it holds such a special place in my heart. Skyrim was the first game that I ever played and the world and the history and the NPCs are really beautifully fleshed out. um And it was, I think it was the the found family aspect of that quest line that really made me fall in love. 00:11:22.92 Jade And the thing that kept me in love is it gave me an alternative way to explore the world because you pick up little pieces of lore about characters that in gameplay only have like one or two pre-recorded lines of dialogue that these little quest lines give you so much insight into the types of people that they are. 00:11:49.54 sidekqpodcast Yeah, I know the I mean I never you might find this hard to believe but I was I mean I was in college when Skyrim came out and I totally had friends like you talked about with Baldur's Gate 3 who like disappeared off the face of the earth. I have classmates that you know from caught my college days that that absolutely happened to and roommates and stuff like that. 00:12:09.30 sidekqpodcast but i never have actually played skyrim but from all that i've ever read it's like yeah they really went the extra mile with every uh npc in that game that literally you could just tail an npc and they have like a whole day that they like go on about and it may vary from like different days so it's not like oh this is the cycle they do it's like oh on this day this person's gonna go here to this location and then come back and then maybe the next day they go do something else and so uh 00:12:23.15 Jade um one 00:12:37.54 Jade and move 00:12:38.11 sidekqpodcast you know so for So for all the goofy Bethesda bugs and putting baskets over people's heads while you rob them blind, you know there's still the beauty in all their little characters in the world where you're you're like oh like, people like live here and they they they breathe and there's like you know it's not just ah ones and zeros, it's like they these are little peoples. 00:12:54.09 Jade you 00:13:02.13 Jade hurt It's a sin that you've never played. 00:13:06.56 sidekqpodcast Well, I haven't played Baldur's Gate 3 yet either, but that's only because I have a you know ah an original Xbox One. 00:13:07.16 Jade It's an absolute sin. 00:13:13.65 sidekqpodcast So I don't have the excess. ah And I don't have a super duper gaming computer to be able to run it. And as I said, I have a three-year-old. 00:13:21.11 Jade There is always time theres always time for Baldur's Gate, Kurt. 00:13:21.90 sidekqpodcast So like when am I going to have the time to play Baldur's Gate 3? 00:13:30.34 sidekqpodcast Yeah, that's true. ah Yeah, no, that's true. 00:13:33.90 Jade Just like there's always room for dessert. 00:13:35.70 sidekqpodcast There's always yeah that's that's true someone should put that on a t-shirt and sell it and make a bunch of money I suppose. 00:13:42.39 Jade Maybe it'll be me who knows. 00:13:43.42 sidekqpodcast Yeah I'm ah I'm not above giving away ideas to other people to profit off of so. 00:13:50.63 sidekqpodcast And then the way we end or round out the personal interview section of the podcast episode. Jade what are you passionate about and why. 00:14:00.55 Jade oh um Other than everything I'm becoming a true jack of all trades. Currently I am studying the occult. 00:14:11.21 Jade And it is what fuels me. And by a cult, I more so mean, I guess maybe metaphysical is a better word, um but I practice what I would deem like alternative spirituality um and paganism and polytheism. And diving headfirst into the study of that has really brought me a lot of joy and a lot of peace and a lot of excitement about the world around me. 00:14:40.08 Jade And I read tarot and I love astrology. um And it is it consumes my every waking moment Kurt. 00:14:52.33 sidekqpodcast OK. 00:14:53.05 Jade My every waking moment. 00:14:55.02 sidekqpodcast Well, hopefully you you weren't too off put by ah our most recent episode we had with Steinway and Mabel, because ah Steinway was the tween who was into astrology, but he you know, he's a te he's a tween, so he doesn't quite have it nailed down. 00:15:11.45 sidekqpodcast So I know we were. 00:15:12.41 Jade I am truly glad for that episode. 00:15:14.19 sidekqpodcast Okay well very good okay so we didn't we didn't we didn't totally scare you away or or ah prompt you to like a negative review bomb the podcast so or help where we're glad and we're hopeful for that certainly. um Yeah so well. 00:15:30.03 sidekqpodcast ah I mean, I guess just, you know, as you were saying earlier, like, oh, you're interested and you're learning about everything. Um, and, you know, uh, does this, you know, cause our friend, our mutual friend, Carla, she's also, uh, Filipino. And it would it be correct for me to also say that, you know, uh, before we started the call, you joked about like, uh, like how you and Carla were seen as like twins, like, uh, you know, like a twin separated at birth. Um, are you also someone who is also a Filipino as well? 00:16:02.31 Jade I am not I am Chinese but I was I was adopted when I was very young so I did not grow up with um even like an inkling of the same kind of history that somebody would have if they were raised in a Chinese culture or raising the same culture that I would have been raised in. 00:16:15.37 sidekqpodcast Mmhmm. 00:16:23.86 Jade so everything that I have ever like loved for myself or believed um is something that i had to I've had to build like brick by brick. 00:16:35.12 sidekqpodcast Mm. OK, so ah the the reason how I was leading up to that or just our asking was, ah you know, just trying to understand, you know, you you've said that you have this passion for is it more of like, a you know, like you were saying, you're building it brick by brick. So is this kind of like your way of like discovering your, you know, like cultural sort of like heritage that exists? Is that is that what it more is, ah you know, to understand and such? 00:17:05.82 Jade um I honestly wouldn't say that particularly. the brand The specific brand of polytheism and paganism that I ah subscribe to, I suppose, is more eclectic. it's more um For me, it's more based in Norse mythology and the Norse pantheon. That's what's really, really called to me personally. oh The Eternal Study is more about me discovering my place in the world. Because the place that I was given does not particularly resonate with me. um You know, the the gods of my parents and the gods of my my grandparents is not something that resonates with me very deeply. um So it's been 00:18:02.95 Jade just this journey my entire life of figuring out who exactly I am and where exactly I belong because the places that I was told I should belong, I really don't feel like I do. 00:18:15.97 sidekqpodcast Okay. Oh no, you go ahead. 00:18:17.72 Jade Karla and I are the same person because we're both crazy. 00:18:19.69 sidekqpodcast You go ahead. 00:18:28.72 sidekqpodcast Well, we love Carl on this podcast. We think, we think Carl is great. So we love you too. 00:18:34.15 Jade Thanks. 00:18:33.89 sidekqpodcast and Yes, well, I mean, you know, well, I mean, ah you know, being open and sharing. I mean, I think it's no secret that like, you know, our our second ever parlays at the platter we did was on Tolkien Catholicism and D and&D and the intersection of all that because surprise, surprise, the Lord of the Rings is a very Catholic work and I'm a very Catholic individual. 00:18:55.08 sidekqpodcast And, ah you know, so it's not meant to be like, ah you know, 00:18:55.79 Jade Really? 00:18:59.32 sidekqpodcast You know it's not meant to be like a pagan is revealed themself i have to i have to do the old. um And now i'm blanking on the name of the particular saint that went to the tree and was like oh this trees your god let me cut it down and in a show of ah religious dominance so like that's that's not that's not my. 00:19:14.28 Jade Okay. 00:19:18.30 sidekqpodcast my nature or my wanting ah to you know to just understand so it's like i'm just i'm just trying to understand jade and figure out what she's passionate about and how i can relate to use it as a human as a fellow human being a fellow student of life and learning. 00:19:33.49 sidekqpodcast And you know whatever i can do to love you and support you and and help you grow as a person like you know that's what this family friendly dnd ask sort of podcast is all about so. 00:19:44.36 Jade but 00:19:44.71 sidekqpodcast No that's that's the beauty of this place i think. 00:19:50.57 sidekqpodcast So, all right. Well, uh, I feel like, uh, we've done an amazing journey here in the personal interview section. I know you're all waiting for figuring out what kind of character we're going to make. So I won't delay any further and let's head into some NPC creation. 00:20:13.75 sidekqpodcast And NPC creation is brought to you by you and our podcast. NPC Creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience, and our patrons from Patreon. Don't mind me getting a bit of a brain fart there. ah My drink is very good and I promise that I haven't let it override my mind for this interview. 00:20:36.31 sidekqpodcast uh but of course you know that that all to say is that we lift our our drinks and and we raise a toast uh to our queen of the patreon goblin katie aka katie downie as well as our other wealthy patrons anson jablinski and good old mom and dad krenwelly we say cheers uh all these folks donate at a level uh where they get a shout out on every episode of the podcast 00:20:48.24 Jade Thank you. 00:21:02.47 sidekqpodcast And all the folks I mentioned as well happen to be at least the wealthy level tier, which means they get to introduce an element of chance to our random table. So we might get to hear some of their responses used here today. So if you want to learn more about our Patreon as well as the Ko-fi, that's like, I mean, I guess it's Patreon adjacent. Surprise, I have a Ko-fi too. So if you don't want to do a Patreon, that's cool. I have Ko-fi information. You can go on the the podcast website to check that out. where you can also find information about the patreon you can find out information about the patreon in the show notes below or just go directly to patreon dot.com forward slash sidekicks inside quests to learn more about the accommodations that we have awaiting for you inside the levitating platter help us to grow and expand our operations in this demiplane and worlds beyond alright so 00:21:50.62 sidekqpodcast We made it through that whole song and dance and now we're here and the question we have to ask ourselves is are we going the path of random or do you have some sort of idea and we're going to like discover who our character is ah through the the process of the questions. 00:22:07.39 Jade I would really love to do a random roll. I would really love to like really test myself on my ability to improvise. 00:22:14.37 sidekqpodcast Okay. All right. Excellent. So then we're going to have, uh, uh, the, the senior and the green horn working together in collaboration to, uh, form this NPC through the series of the random dice rolls that we get here today. We're going to let the tables do the talking. Uh, so for the first question that we have here, what's going to be the name of our character, we're going to get a D 20 and we're going to roll that and see what we get. 00:22:43.23 Jade Do I need a roll? 00:22:45.00 sidekqpodcast Yes, yes, whether you have your dice at the ready, virtual or otherwise, and we will see what character that we get. 00:22:46.54 Jade oh 00:22:54.89 Jade I like those. 00:22:56.78 sidekqpodcast Editorial note for the transcribe reaver, transcription readers rather. ah Jade has left ah to go grab her dice. You listening to the master audio won't hear the fact that Jade is getting back to her chair and getting situated. 00:23:05.98 Jade um like 00:23:11.68 sidekqpodcast Just an extra special treat for you transcription readers. 00:23:16.02 Jade Kurt how dare you title on me. 00:23:18.26 sidekqpodcast Well, it's okay. you know it's I had a brain fart earlier, so you know it's it's okay to admit our mistakes and to admit we're human sometimes. 00:23:28.49 Jade Awesome okay so d20 right. 00:23:30.11 sidekqpodcast Yes. 00:23:31.37 Jade Okay. It's a 20. 00:23:33.99 sidekqpodcast Oh, there we go. 00:23:34.80 Jade And that's 20. 00:23:35.77 sidekqpodcast A nat 20 on your first roll on this podcast. I think you are off to a great start. And your answer was provided by our Patreon supporter, my dad, Wayne Krenwellge, Timothy. 00:23:49.97 Jade Dammit, I love that. 00:23:52.31 sidekqpodcast They call me Tim. If you are know you say you know everything or you're a student of everything, do you know the reference? 00:24:02.57 Jade I do not. 00:24:03.54 sidekqpodcast Ooh, that would be Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 00:24:04.95 Jade Oh. 00:24:09.55 Jade I love Maki Python. I don't know that reference though. 00:24:12.85 sidekqpodcast That's near the end of the Holy Grail movie when they enchant Tim. 00:24:13.33 Jade Darn. 00:24:16.57 sidekqpodcast They attract they recruit Tim the... and the chi Tim the Sorcerer, Tim the Enchanter ah to come along for the adventure. 00:24:25.73 Jade Oh man. 00:24:27.52 sidekqpodcast And the fun movie trivia I know of that is that John Cleese like literally forgot his line and just left it hanging. Uh, and then they were like, well, we love that. We're just going to leave that in the movie. It was like, some call me Tim. 00:24:42.16 sidekqpodcast And then they were like, sure, Tim the Enchanter, the very D and&D a sort of move anyway. So there you go. 00:24:48.13 Jade ah person 00:24:48.76 sidekqpodcast So Timothy, Timothy, Timothy. Okay, now the next dice roll we get to do is for the ancestry of our character. ah So this is going to be a 2d10 or a d100 roll. 00:25:00.46 sidekqpodcast And we've got everything in here. So if there's something in here that you're like, oh, man, I don't know about that, you know, we're always free to reroll, of course. um So to detent, let's get a D100 roll and see what kind of ancestry species racial background are Timothy is going to be today. 00:25:20.20 Jade Okay so a 2d10 that's rolling a d10. Twice. Right. 00:25:23.67 sidekqpodcast Yes. 00:25:24.92 Jade I clearly know what I'm doing. Okay. So our first number is 10. 00:25:30.12 sidekqpodcast All right, so OK, one or zero, I guess. OK. 00:25:34.82 Jade Okay. And then our next one is a two. 00:25:38.44 sidekqpodcast OK, so it sounds like OK, so with a 10 and a two that could either. Well, I mean, I guess it would be 12. Does that sound plausible to you? 00:25:48.22 Jade and I think that's how the math works. 00:25:49.91 sidekqpodcast I think that's how the math works too. Okay. um All right. So 12 is it's dwarf time. So you have your, you you have your pick. So obviously um I'm still using the 2014 D and&D 5e rules. I know 2024 rules have come out. So if you're more comfortable using those, of course, listeners out there, you could do whatever. But I certainly am comfortable with the 2014 version and you know i've I've worked everything out. So here we go. We've got you know Mountain or Hill Dwarf. You've got Dwargar, which are the the under 00:26:26.92 sidekqpodcast dark ah vari dwarf variants we've got the azer which are the fire dwarves and then i have a number of other homebrew dwarven sub but ancestries that i've created as well so dwarf is the category we're working with today so what kind of dwarf are you interested for timothy to be And is there some sort of like dwarven surname that you're already thinking of like Timothy, you know, usually it's some sort of compounded last name, like bronze bottom or a old chugger or, you know, whatever it's going to be. 00:26:46.64 Jade Where? 00:26:57.82 Jade people 00:27:02.43 Jade Ooh, I, hmm, that's a hard one. I think that I kind of like the idea of him being a, how do you say them? A duet guard? The underdark? 00:27:11.87 sidekqpodcast a door guard yeah which i know that they are they are in sky rim but they're like the undead skeletons you'd find in the caves or whatever i have watched my wife play sky rim so i at least know like dwarf are like in that but in dnd terms door guard door guard are the under dark dwarf variants 00:27:14.05 Jade Yeah, the underdark, yeah. 00:27:31.99 Jade I do. I do like that. That sounds fun. I have no idea about character names or my weakness, to be completely honest. So I don't know anything about Dorvinson's. 00:27:43.37 sidekqpodcast okay well you know what i 00:27:46.52 Jade It's just him. 00:27:47.55 sidekqpodcast Yeah, or just just Timothy. Yeah. um Well, I know I will make it no secret for me, you know, ah expert, quote unquote, expert DM tip. I really like the website fantasy name generator. ah They've got all kinds of great names. It's a great database. So if I'm ever in the need for a name, I'll just go on there and refresh it a couple of times and be like, that looks like a good name. um So I might suggest using that if you want to look for a good surname. But for now, we just know the Dwargar known as Timothy. 00:28:17.75 sidekqpodcast ah we We could have a very interesting story of maybe why he goes by timothy. um Okay so so we know the ancestry now we need to figure out what's gonna be the job or role in society that timothy has. We will roll just a regular d10 to figure out what is job is occupations gonna be. 00:28:37.09 Jade Okay. 00:28:40.58 Jade A forward. 00:28:42.00 sidekqpodcast Four. Okay, your answer was provided by previous guest, Nolan Page. Wet stone cutter. 00:28:50.82 Jade A wet sewn cutter. 00:28:52.73 sidekqpodcast Yes, so if I had to venture a guess and not totally, ah you know, speak out of turn off the cuff, um it sounds like someone who like makes wet stones. 00:29:05.42 Jade I guess so. 00:29:07.87 sidekqpodcast Yeah. um Yeah. I mean, just a quick Google search ah has a number of table saws that have come up. But let's see, stonecutter saws, wet stonecutter. 00:29:19.43 sidekqpodcast Yeah. So my guess would be this totally would fit for someone who lives in the underdark or underground. 00:29:26.37 Jade who 00:29:26.95 sidekqpodcast And it's like, oh, yeah. So Timothy's job, he's the guy who makes all the wet stones that everyone uses to be able to sharpen their blades. So that seems like a pretty stable profession to be in. 00:29:37.74 sidekqpodcast ah You know ah everyone needs what stones to sharpen their blades so never never never a dull moment in that profession so Yeah at jokes dad jokes for days, okay So we know the name we know the ancestry you know the occupation and 00:29:46.86 Jade Wow, I'm snapping for your pardon. Snap, snap, snap. but 00:29:57.61 sidekqpodcast Now we need to figure out what's the age range. What's like, how old are we picturing our Timothy to be? Let's roll a D8 to get the category. 00:30:09.50 Jade Let me see, I have one of those. Okay. A two. 00:30:13.55 sidekqpodcast A 2. Okay, teenager. Are you okay with a teenage duergar named Timothy? 00:30:22.04 Jade I think so. That's interesting. I wonder how long he's been a wet stone cutter. 00:30:24.38 sidekqpodcast Okay. Yeah, yeah. 00:30:27.16 Jade but 00:30:28.17 sidekqpodcast So with these details in mind as we are reminiscing on them. So we've got Timothy, we've got Dorgar, we've got whetstone cutter, who's a teenager. so my my So my mind goes to apprentice or something like that. 00:30:43.09 sidekqpodcast But with these details in mind, ah when you put them all together, can you paint the physical picture? Can you give us a physical appearance, a physical description of how we're going to picture Timothy? 00:30:57.47 Jade o The picture that I have in my mind is he's Oh, my God, kurt I was about to be like, he's short. 00:31:08.50 Jade OK, so he is. 00:31:09.52 sidekqpodcast He has a Dwargar, I mean, you wouldn't be lying. 00:31:12.26 Jade He is short. He's a short little dwarf and he is. The way that I'm picturing him is he's this really dark purple, because I know that there's like, you know, a range, but he's a fairly dark purple and he has this really long, very like, very like just exited puberty, like pimple face with the the eyes that are a little too big for his head. 00:31:33.69 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:31:38.79 Jade His eyes a little bit too big for his head. And he's probably very, he's probably very, I don't want to say green looking because he's purple, but he's probably very green looking. He probably still kind of looks a like he's not been worn down by like years of labor. Like he's very soft. He's got soft hands. You know what I'm talking about? 00:31:59.87 sidekqpodcast yeah Yeah, the other Dworkar give him a hard time. He's like, I'm just doing my job. I'm new at this. And they're just like, ah, you haven't been working the mines or fighting the drow or the other ah beasties that live here in the Underdark like us kid. 00:32:15.54 sidekqpodcast And he's just like, I'm just doing what I'm doing. 00:32:16.06 Jade seven Like I'm so sorry, but also what am I doing? 00:32:23.59 sidekqpodcast Right, just the eternal teenage angst of, uh, no one understands me, but then also I have no idea what I'm doing, which some of us get into our thirties and we're still asking ourselves, what is it that we're doing? 00:32:27.13 Jade yeah 00:32:30.77 Jade Isn't that the truth? 00:32:35.14 sidekqpodcast So. Yep. Okay. So fresh, fresh out of the the teenage acne stage. Um, and so. I don't know actually when Dworkar start their beards and stuff like that and I know usually the Dworkar well in fourth edition I remember them having like spines and stuff growing out of their out of their beards and I don't know if that's I don't believe that's the case in fifth edition anymore. um ah But do you imagine that he's got like a little bit of like a ah tiny beard thing going on or is he like wispy or patchy? 00:33:14.41 Jade Oh man, Timothy would hate me. I imagine that he's got like like three or four little like wiry hairs just like sticking out of his chin. 00:33:23.10 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:33:24.64 Jade That is it. And nobody at this whetstone cutting place, wherever they go to cut whetstones, nobody takes him seriously. They're all just like, ae you don't know anything and you're too young to be knowing you're too young to be here. 00:33:32.78 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:33:39.44 Jade You're too young to know anything. and Oh, I bet he's clumsy. I think he's clumsy. 00:33:45.77 sidekqpodcast Oh, OK. Do you want to go ahead and kind of start rolling into the three adjectives that you think describe Timothy? 00:33:50.19 Jade Oh, we can. I'm sorry, I got ahead of myself, didn't I? 00:33:53.49 sidekqpodcast I don't know you're fine now this is this is this is the the juice the secret of this podcast is that as we're talking in discussing in figuring out these like little pieces of details about up you know are NPCs that we make is like we learn we start learning so much about. 00:34:10.90 sidekqpodcast Not only them as characters, but we learn about the world in which they live, the context that they're in. And we start drawing all these interesting inferences and conclusions. So, so clumsy. 00:34:21.19 Jade Okay. 00:34:21.81 sidekqpodcast Okay. You're thinking maybe Timothy. 00:34:22.92 Jade i 00:34:23.53 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:34:24.82 Jade Yeah, I definitely think he's I don't want to say. simple but he's very he's very clumsy he's a little slow um i wonder if he has any dreams and ambitions i think maybe he's a little bit of a dreamer and that's why he's a little bit not connected with the physical world which is not a good trait to have when you're what are you doing cutting whetstones 00:34:35.73 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:34:49.81 sidekqpodcast Right. Yeah. You have to be very observant. You don't want to accidentally, um, you know, lop off a finger or an arm or a leg or something like that. Yeah. That makes sense. 00:35:00.76 Jade I'm just picturing him sitting in his little factory and his, ah what do they call him? Cause he's an apprentice, like a mentor. There's a word for those. His little German whetstone cutter that's watching over his work is yelling at him and he just takes this big deep breath. And then he starts to sing about what it's like in the world above. 00:35:24.27 sidekqpodcast o Okay well now that's another Monty Python reference of the prince is just like I just want to sing in the dad keeps coming in say no singing no singing whatsoever. 00:35:32.39 Jade but 00:35:35.40 sidekqpodcast and 00:35:36.91 Jade I love the dad. The dad has his priorities in order. You know, if you know what I'm talking about. 00:35:41.33 sidekqpodcast Yes huge tracks of land. 00:35:44.13 Jade acts of land I too young to understand that reference the first time that I watched that movie. 00:35:45.70 sidekqpodcast Yes. 00:35:51.88 Jade And as an adult, I asked myself constantly why my father showed that to me. He thought it was funny. I had no idea what was going on. 00:36:01.23 sidekqpodcast okay well now i have an interesting question so we know he's you know we know he's clumsy and we know that he's slow but he's a dreamer is there you know and with you know a dwargar society you don't normally encounter dwargar with the name of like timothy so is that kind of like um I don't know is that like a pejorative or something like that put upon him by like the other door guard where he's at where it's like ah you're such a Timothy and he's like he doesn't know any better and saw that all the other door guard like he has like a proper door guard name but they don't address him by it they just they just call him Timothy because he's like oh you know you met this kind of a guy before he's such a Timothy sort of a thing. 00:36:45.01 Jade You know, I actually had that kind of thought that it was just like a I don't want to say a nickname, maybe put, oh, that's not nice of me, a nickname put on him by, um, like the other dwarves. Ooh, I wonder, cause there are books people read. Uh, maybe, maybe Timothy knows how to read. Maybe Timothy was like reading a book somewhere and it was like, 00:37:10.30 Jade I imagine him like huddled under the covers as like a child and reading like a fairy tale or something. Something very flowery, something very nice. 00:37:15.27 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:37:18.44 Jade I wonder if he dreams of being like a prince or a knight or something. 00:37:21.79 sidekqpodcast Oh. 00:37:22.18 Jade i bet Could you imagine if he dreams of being a knight and then every time he has to like sharpen swords and things like that, he's like, I wish that I could be a knight. 00:37:31.13 sidekqpodcast Oh, and so he thinks if he does that enough times, eventually, like, something magical will happen. 00:37:36.17 Jade Maybe or less so like he calls himself. Oh, he's so cute. He calls himself. 00:37:41.65 sidekqpodcast It's also a very teenager thing of like, no, call me Timothy. And it's like, blarg! 00:37:46.03 Jade Yeah. 00:37:48.40 sidekqpodcast It's like, get back to work. 00:37:49.17 Jade bit 00:37:49.96 sidekqpodcast And he's like, you will call me Timothy. And they just shake their heads and they're just like, get back to work, kid. 00:37:55.27 Jade Yeah, I definitely imagine that like Timothy was this is horrible. This is like Voldemort love. That's horrible. This is like Voldemort level nickname giving because my favorite facts about Voldemort the Dark Lord is that he gave himself that nickname. 00:38:09.58 sidekqpodcast Right. Right. Cause he was originally Tom Riddle and then it was a whole. 00:38:11.13 Jade So. Yeah. 00:38:13.52 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:38:13.97 Jade And he sat in front of his whole name and arranged all the little letters around. And it was like that one. I like that nickname. So I wonder if Timothy is maybe his like favorite like knight in shining armor from some book he read somewhere. 00:38:25.57 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:38:27.04 Jade And he just refuses to tell, ah not in any like, no, I'm not gonna tell you my real name. 00:38:27.16 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:38:33.64 Jade But he's like, I'm Timothy. And they're like, that is not your name. And he goes, I'm Timothy. 00:38:39.82 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm. 00:38:40.74 Jade I want to be Timothy. 00:38:40.70 sidekqpodcast Okay Okay. All right. Well, I think that's very fun and ah So so certainly, you know dungeon masters out there if you use fantasy name generator or You have a good idea of what a Dorgar name would be that's really what Timothy name name what his name really is But he just refers to himself as as Timothy, you know, because he's with typical teenage arrogance like he's insistent and But not not like an angsty teen i I like that like he very much believes in like these fairy tales and stuff like that and like that's what he wants to pursue but yet he's here being a whetstone cutter like. 00:39:12.93 Jade Mm hmm. 00:39:18.67 sidekqpodcast Serving the door our army or you know whatever else that he's doing. i forced to do and you know ah i just wanna go out there and sing and i wanna be like sir timothy the the grand gallant night that i read about in this book that fell down here that some adventure dropped and that i was lucky enough to pick up or whatever. 00:39:39.84 Jade Yeah, I like that. I was just imagining to myself that he has like a little, like this the sidekick, Timothy, has like his own little sidekick. The only thing I know about Mykonids is from D and&D, but I imagine he saw like a little Mykonid and he was like, this is what a flower must look like. So he's got this little baby Mykonid that he like the foot like he hangs out with his his best friends and he just calls him flower. 00:40:02.62 sidekqpodcast Oh, I like that. That is cool. Okay. Could be very interesting ah implications, especially if a little flower grows up to be like some kind of like mastermind Mike in it that then begins to release a bunch of pollen and like mind control. 00:40:18.01 Jade Yeah. 00:40:18.68 sidekqpodcast All the door guard has served the pot, the fungus needs or whatever. 00:40:19.07 Jade um 00:40:23.35 Jade No, but like now right now he's cute. 00:40:25.53 sidekqpodcast Right now he's cute. 00:40:27.19 Jade Right now, Flower is cute. 00:40:27.35 sidekqpodcast yeah 00:40:28.45 Jade Oh my God, could you imagine the absolute horror and heartbreak that Timothy, this is horrible, that Timothy would experience when like, because again, I don't know anything truly about the real, like, lore of the Myconids, because i I believe they're like hive-minded, aren't they? 00:40:46.45 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm. They are and if you want to know more about my kids I might recommend ah My buddies over at the dispel magic podcast where they did a whole dedicated episode on my kids And I don't and maybe kill every monster kill every monster also has done an episode on my kids very very spooky very cool episode because I believe they had a 00:40:48.06 Jade But can you imagine? 00:40:58.73 Jade i love her 00:41:10.67 sidekqpodcast fungus expert on actually to talk about like all sorts of different cool science facts about mushrooms and stuff like that. 00:41:12.88 Jade really I think one of my favorite. 00:41:17.07 sidekqpodcast So again, yeah. 00:41:19.25 Jade Oh, I think one of my. 00:41:20.05 sidekqpodcast Oh, no, no, I was just going to say I'm also happy to plug other shows on my podcast as well for stuff that I consume and enjoy. 00:41:24.75 Jade Yeah. 00:41:28.35 Jade I was just about to say that one of my favorite things about this podcast so far is as a green brand new DM who generally knows very very little of the great vast amount of information that is D and&D your podcast I've been like wow there's been a lot of really really cool people on this podcast because i remember i listened partially unfortunately partially to the episode where you had um one of the like speakers producers or something but the kill every monsters podcast i started to look into because of this plaque because of this podcast yeah 00:42:01.42 sidekqpodcast Oh good, yeah, Dylan will be happy to hear that, yeah. so Still waiting to get a ROM, I know a ROM's very busy, but one day we'll have a ROM and then we'll have Dylan and a ROM, it'll be great. um So yeah, yeah, totally. 00:42:12.95 sidekqpodcast Yeah, Myconid's okay, so we like that he's got this little Myconid buddy named Flower. 00:42:15.39 Jade Yeah. 00:42:17.91 sidekqpodcast um 00:42:18.84 Jade yeah 00:42:19.49 sidekqpodcast Yeah, I feel like this is just, you know, you spoke it into being so like that has to be like a true fact about Timothy. 00:42:20.84 Jade Yeah. So think so. 00:42:28.08 sidekqpodcast But, but also, you know, if, ah you know, we we like our NPCs on this podcast to have something cool on them. So if you want to figure out what's going to be a valuable item, 00:42:38.82 sidekqpodcast piece of lore, secret or ideal or concept that Timothy ascribes to, let's roll. This is where we do a combination. So you roll a d4 first for the category and then a d6 for the particular thing. 00:42:51.83 Jade particular 00:42:54.51 Jade Okay. So this one, one, two, three, four, five, six. This is a D4. 00:42:59.92 sidekqpodcast The one that looks like a cow trap that would hurt very badly if you stepped on it. 00:43:00.40 Jade I know what I'm doing. 00:43:04.26 Jade Oh my goodness. Okay. So our D4 is a one. 00:43:08.81 sidekqpodcast Okay, so this is going to be an item. So now a D6 and let's figure out what item, special item that Timothy has on his person. 00:43:11.36 Jade Okay. 00:43:15.22 Jade Okay. 00:43:21.02 sidekqpodcast A two. Okay. Well, your answer was provided by previous guest, Michael Horsley. 00:43:25.46 Jade Okay. and okay 00:43:29.74 sidekqpodcast A sled. 00:43:31.30 Jade A what? 00:43:32.67 sidekqpodcast A sled. 00:43:34.08 Jade A sled. 00:43:35.65 sidekqpodcast Yeah, so what's so special about this sled that Timothy has? 00:43:37.48 Jade Ooh. 00:43:44.16 Jade and people sled in the underdark i don't think they do that 00:43:47.66 sidekqpodcast Well, I mean, I'm sure they could. I mean, there's all sorts of like deep drops and stuff like that. Uh, there's probably like, you know, big Hills or, um, ah mountains under mountains and stuff like that. 00:44:00.45 sidekqpodcast I'm, I'm sure there's all sorts of opportunities for sledding, but of course Dorgar are all about serious business. So why would they ever stop to sled down a ah hill covered in fungus or mold or, you know, whatever? 00:44:08.21 Jade Yeah. 00:44:16.38 Jade is it There's lots of hills. There's no fun. There's no fun in the Underdark, only darkness and terror. um So I wonder, I wonder, oh my goodness, Kurt. So here's what I'm thinking. Sled. 00:44:32.08 Jade I think that Timothy maybe stumbled across it, right? I think maybe um when he stumbled across it, he was very young and didn't really realize what was going on. 00:44:35.56 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:44:41.66 Jade But like I imagine that there was a merchant or a traveler, because I know it's actually quite difficult to get into the Underdark. I've listened to like one Dutch and Cast episode about the Underdark, and that's all that I know. 00:44:56.05 Jade um But I imagine maybe like someone went down there with his little sled and like was was traveling, right? And then he died because it's the underdark. 00:45:07.01 Jade um But he found, I imagine Timothy found the sled and in the sled was like a bunch of clothes and, you know, things that this traveler brought with him. 00:45:06.89 sidekqpodcast Sure. 00:45:19.04 Jade And there was that book. There was the book that he, yeah. 00:45:21.38 sidekqpodcast Oh. 00:45:25.35 Jade So they found the book. So he found the book, read the book, um maybe by the, maybe even like by the light of, of flowers, a little um like luminescent. 00:45:35.72 sidekqpodcast oh 00:45:36.28 Jade I can, so that's so adorable. I love flower almost more than I loved him. 00:45:42.91 Jade And, and flowers going to become a villain one day. So that's horrible of me. But I imagine that that's where he found his little book. I imagine that maybe he, Ooh, there's part of me that wants to say he keeps it stashed away. like It's covered in like a little tarp. 00:46:01.06 Jade like a mile away or so from the shop, just like hidden away. And whenever he gets off work or whenever he ah he gets into a fight with whoever it is that is around him about being a dreamer, he gets really upset and he wants to cry, but he doesn't and he runs away. 00:46:04.18 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:46:17.70 Jade So this little sled that he's kind of built into this little fort of his and he just hides and he reads his little knight in shining armor book and it makes him feel better. 00:46:29.39 sidekqpodcast Now i had some interesting questions you know because it's a sled and you know you were saying oh this you know from what i know about the underdark it's hard to get to. I would say that's debatable depending on your approach like matt colville and mcdm he's talked about in his world he he assumes that the underdark is like a whole separate realm. 00:46:41.62 Jade Okay. 00:46:49.47 sidekqpodcast Like it's literally like traveling to a different plane of existence but you have to go down and then you cross a barrier and then oh now i'm in the underdark. Um, other people are just like hey, you've got like, you know the surface you've kind of got like cave systems going if you just keep going down then eventually you reach the under dark Um the deepest deepest pits of like the mundane world That's kind of like the camp i'm more in but I kind of also like the idea occasionally of playing with like Oh, it operates like its own different plane of existence. 00:46:58.22 Jade all 00:47:21.13 sidekqpodcast Um, so yeah, there's a couple different theories and ideas that that float around but see i i heard sled and i started thinking of like cold arctic tundra sorts of conditions i was wondering if like oh maybe this explorer was somewhere far up in ah In a place where there's you know like cold weather conditions so they needed a sled to get around and then they just. They went tumbling over a ravine in this thing just fell fell fell fell fell all the way down into the under dark it was like frozen in ice or something and then that's how timothy stumbled upon it. 00:47:57.36 sidekqpodcast um if it's that or if it is like some sort of like um you know some sort of constructed sled that works in a more general sort of environment but it depended on what how you wanted the rails of the sled to be constructed is like oh it works better on ice or like oh it's like a flat like. Some sort of curved rail thing that works more generally across like dirt and grass and stuff like that. 00:48:24.00 Jade I think, I think I like the idea of it having been like its previous home having been in some sort of arctic environment because in the sled kurt along with the book was the traveler's hat. It's a little Santa hat. 00:48:39.86 Jade And it's probably, I don't know how big Durkar's heads are, but I imagine it's like a little too big for Timothy because he's so young and everybody makes fun of him because he has, I don't feel so bad, I just created like a whole victim. 00:48:55.08 Jade Everybody makes fun of Timothy because he's a dreamer and he wants to be a knight and he has this cute little raggedy Santa hat, but he refuses to take off. 00:49:05.10 sidekqpodcast Mmm, no, I like that. 00:49:05.95 Jade It makes him feel like, but he calls it like an explorer hat. 00:49:09.46 sidekqpodcast Okay. No, I love Timothy like, no, this is great. This is great. See, this is what the fun of being a dungeon master is all about is like getting to make all these weird and interesting people that your players will get to run across. Okay. So we're imagining Arctic condition, this sled that fell down. It has the book of fairy tales and it's maybe, you know, if we're imagining, okay, like I know popular, um, you know, actual play, actual show, critical role. 00:49:37.37 sidekqpodcast animated cartoon out there and you know we know. 00:49:37.99 Jade you Okay. 00:49:40.54 sidekqpodcast If you know the story of Chetney is like the new character that Travis Willingham plays, but his origins were in a critical role Christmas themed one shot at adventure they did where they were all like Christmas elves. 00:49:54.91 sidekqpodcast And so Chetney was the character that Travis played then, so they have sort of kind of i played with the idea of like, oh, there is some sort of like Santa like figure that must exist in their world, possibly. 00:49:55.37 Jade I love. 00:50:09.06 sidekqpodcast I'm so maybe are you playing with that idea like oh this was like a christmas gnome from the far north that was this explorer was on the sled and you know tragedy befell them because what i was getting to is like oh it's a book of fairy tales but there were other christmas presents or something like that some other kinds of presents or weird odds and ends. So it's it's possible that like Timothy's in possession of like weird magic items that he has no business possessing because they were abandoned on the sled or whatever. 00:50:40.92 Jade Oh my goodness, could you remember could you imagine been like a tragic, like a tragic Santa story where like, i'm not I know Santa doesn't like exist, but like Santa like falls into the underdog. 00:50:50.31 sidekqpodcast Well, St. Nicholas existed, that's for sure. 00:50:53.22 Jade Oh my goodness. Those are so funny. Just like a little, I mean, that's not funny. The guy fell into the air dark and died, but like a little sled, well it's really like a sled, but a sled just like full of like little weird like baubles and odds and ends. 00:51:05.54 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:51:06.12 Jade And Timothy's got like a little like alcove where he stashes his little sled and he's like kind of lined up all the interesting things that he's found. And he's got his little, oh my goodness. 00:51:13.64 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:51:15.76 Jade He's so cute. 00:51:15.40 sidekqpodcast And so it's kind of like an aerial sort of story, like for the little mermaid. 00:51:18.06 Jade I was thinking that, yeah. 00:51:19.77 sidekqpodcast Look at this thing, isn't it neat? Wouldn't you say my complex, my collection's complete? Yeah. So all that, all that good stuff. 00:51:29.00 Jade Oh, that's so cute. 00:51:28.86 sidekqpodcast What's the, what's him a who's it? He like has like some sort of like weird arcane magic item. and He's like, yeah, the what's him a, the what's him a bobble. Yeah. 00:51:38.58 Jade I love Timmy. 00:51:38.57 sidekqpodcast And then he, yeah. And then he has his animal. Well, I mean his fungus, but like his animal companion, which is flower. 00:51:46.00 Jade Oh no, that's so precious. 00:51:45.94 sidekqpodcast So someday I'll be part of their world. 00:51:54.09 Jade Oh, you that's so funny. That's so sad because Flower's gonna like grow up a little bit and he's gonna be like eaten into the hive mind and Timothy's gonna lose his best friend. 00:52:06.07 sidekqpodcast Well, Timothy will be exploring the world by then. 00:52:09.79 Jade Maybe. 00:52:10.43 sidekqpodcast Maybe. We'll see, depends on how it goes. 00:52:13.55 Jade Oh, no. 00:52:13.39 sidekqpodcast Okay, so we know he's got the sled, he's got all the the old presents and the and the watsumahoosits and stuff like that. Okay, I really dig. But now we come to the question of the side quests. 00:52:26.07 sidekqpodcast So what is going to be a quest that Timothy would be willing to recruit or hire player characters to go and do? So if you're inspired, you can think of that now based on what we've learned or if you want to randomize the last one or, you know, roll and use it as a springboard. The last dice to roll is a D12. 00:52:46.34 Jade D12. I know I have one of those two. It's got a 12 on it. 00:52:49.79 sidekqpodcast Yep. And it looks like a soccer ball. 00:52:50.82 Jade Oh it does. OK. 00:52:54.02 sidekqpodcast At least to me it does. 00:52:54.64 Jade OK. I got an 8. 00:52:58.33 sidekqpodcast Eight. Ooh, okay. 00:53:02.22 Jade Oh OK. 00:53:01.93 sidekqpodcast Well, this answer was suggested by our, at the time, Patreon supporter, Nicholas Cardarelli of the Raised on D and&D podcast. Thank you, Nick. A stray dog is wearing and an ornate jewel encrusted collar with a note wedged between the collar and its neck. 00:53:19.19 sidekqpodcast The note is a plea for help with a hurriedly drawn map. Is this something plausible that, um, Timothy would be willing to offer as a side quest, or do you think we have to reroll? 00:53:30.86 sidekqpodcast I mean, that's pretty good, but. 00:53:32.59 Jade No, I love that. I want Timothy to go on this journey, but I am imagining, oh no, okay. 00:53:34.30 sidekqpodcast OK. 00:53:37.99 sidekqpodcast So how is it going to work with Timothy? Because Timothy is the one offering the side quest. is Did Timothy find the dog? 00:53:43.22 Jade Yeah. 00:53:43.87 sidekqpodcast Is that what it is? 00:53:47.45 Jade NPCs can like, NPCs can accompany characters on quests. 00:53:52.59 sidekqpodcast Oh, sure. 00:53:53.53 Jade It's not super unusual. 00:53:53.43 sidekqpodcast Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. 00:53:56.38 Jade So maybe like, yeah, oh my goodness, this little puppy comes up too. comes up to Tim and he's so interested because, A, it's a cute dog. 00:54:06.98 Jade um I'm convinced it's a cute dog and his collar is so interesting. It's jeweled, it's jewelled shiny, it's beautiful, and Timothy wants to like be the good in the world, right? 00:54:17.64 Jade So he finds the note. 00:54:17.78 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:54:21.43 Jade Aw, man, and I just made it really mean. Aw, I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay, so it's a plea for help and there's a little map and I imagine maybe the map is like to a nearby like abandoned guard tower, right? 00:54:37.31 Jade But oh my goodness. I just, I wrote the, for I don't even know how it would work as a quest, but I was like thinking to myself that like it was almost like a prank on Tim. 00:54:49.34 Jade Like in the end, the quest ends up being like a prank. That's so horrible. And there's like a, 00:54:53.90 sidekqpodcast Well, I don't know. oh I mean, we've already discovered or we've, you know, we've talked about in our, uh, discussion of, of all the items that we have or the things we found out about Timothy. He has this sled. There is some sort of connection to an Arctic environment above. 00:55:09.87 sidekqpodcast maybe this area is riddled with like deep ravines and caverns that just plummet into the underdark is it possible that some sort of rich guy or uh explorer that has a dog with an ornate jewel encrusted collar it like just fell like oh i broke my leg i didn't bring the cleric this time so like i'm stuck 00:55:14.68 Jade the be Yeah. 00:55:31.88 sidekqpodcast and or ah a Cartographer was exploring the wilderness and then it's like ah ah my leg is broke i found this abandoned guard tower okay let me like based on where i was like here's the map that i've drawn and like okay boy puppy dog you're my only hope go and find help. 00:55:52.72 sidekqpodcast And then because they're in the under dark like this is the nearest settlement that they've come to whether it's a door guard settlement settlement. We have because we didn't even figure that out like is Timothy just part of a d door guard civilization is it like some sort of like mishmash under dark society that timothy's found himself in or or what are you thinking. 00:56:13.97 Jade I kind of imagined him living in a, I guess, normal for the duergar, like a normal duergar society. You have your normal sort of structure and then the stoneworkers and the whetstone workers and the masons and the stoneworker, the masons just kind of doing their thing to build their little society to further their army um and all that kind of stuff. 00:56:38.36 Jade And I guess for all intents and purposes, Timothy lives a fairly normal life for a duergar. I mean, it's not a great life because it's terrifying down there, but nothing super, super crazy, which is why I think he dreams a little bit of more. 00:56:47.59 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm. Sure. 00:56:55.86 Jade So I like this idea where the, there's like a traveler that gets hurt or like, is somewhere and sends the dog to deliver this little message and it's like tied to his little collar and it's so adorable. 00:57:12.03 sidekqpodcast Mm. 00:57:13.52 Jade And Timothy finds the note and finds the little map and it's literally just like send to help or something like that. 00:57:24.91 Jade um And I imagine that Timothy is like, if I go and save this person, you know, like help this person they will take me back to wherever they came from. Oh my goodness, because anywhere would be better than the underdark when you want to be a knight. 00:57:42.47 sidekqpodcast Yeah of course certainly and so then how did the player characters kind of enter the picture because so we've established that timothy lives in a typical. Or a normal sort of work our civilization so. 00:57:56.71 sidekqpodcast I don't know. Well, depending on how you play Dworkar in your world, they could be openly hostile. Or, you know, maybe they're just very self-centered, very self-interested sort of dwarves that don't really like having outsiders come and visit them. 00:58:08.34 Jade We have. 00:58:11.75 sidekqpodcast But what's going to be sort of the circumstances ah that they're going to come across Timothy? 00:58:12.52 Jade Yeah. 00:58:17.75 sidekqpodcast Or are we imagining, you know, because we've established that Timothy has his little hidey hole hide away where he has like his stuff. 00:58:23.65 Jade no 00:58:25.70 sidekqpodcast are the player characters going to just randomly encounter him like he's on his way to his secret hidey hole of all his cool stuff he's found and he's like oh my gosh like you actually look like you all are capable of adventuring and doing all this stuff you should come help me because if you help me then I can go become a knight if they don't autumn if they don't react like ah Dorgar evil we must attack you immediately uh kind of a thing 00:58:51.29 Jade I kind imagined that Timothy had found the dog and found the note and was like really just like really enthusiastic really excited really hopeful so he packs up a little rucksack and he just goes right and um this requires a little bit of like 00:59:05.08 sidekqpodcast Mm hmm. 00:59:10.69 Jade collaboration and like maybe like a lack of just murder hobos but like the i imagine the party would just kind of like find him maybe he's in trouble maybe he's like stuck in like some uh like vines or like a cave somewhere and like needs help and he can ask the players for help and hopefully the players don't ignore him and murder ho him or murder hobo him because that would be so so sad 00:59:11.46 sidekqpodcast Sure. 00:59:27.61 sidekqpodcast Yeah. Sure. 00:59:39.70 Jade but I can imagine he goes and like scoops up flour and he's like we're going on an adventure and he goes on this little adventure for flour and it probably goes terribly right because remember he's green he doesn't know anything about like the world outside not really and he is kind of clumsy you know and I so i imagine he maybe picks up like an old axe that was just kind of like discarded or something like that and like a sword that's a little too big for his body and he just he's like I know I can do this and it's 00:59:51.79 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 01:00:01.50 sidekqpodcast yeah 01:00:07.31 Jade He's so full of hope, oh my goodness. So he just goes and he gets himself stuck. And the player is just kind of like, find him. 01:00:11.08 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 01:00:13.69 Jade He's like, please, will you help me? Like, I can't, not like I can't do this, but like, I'm on an adventure. ah yeah Please, will you like come with me and help me? Like, you guys look really capable. 01:00:25.42 Jade And he's, I don't know, because we we don't know what this party particularly looks like, but I imagine that he's just so excited to see 01:00:32.87 sidekqpodcast Right. 01:00:36.47 Jade like people that, or or creatures, are things that that don't look like Durovar and don't look like Drow and don't look like all the things that he's seen. 01:00:37.44 sidekqpodcast Right. 01:00:44.96 Jade So he says, you like must be good, I guess, you know? Like I'm just gonna hope that like you're not gonna, like like this is gonna go well, but you guys look interesting. 01:00:51.05 sidekqpodcast Mmm. Yeah. Right. 01:00:58.72 Jade And so surely you must be adventurers, you know? 01:01:00.46 sidekqpodcast Yeah. I love that, that he picks up like the rusty pickaxe, like maybe all the discarded armor and weapons that aren't good enough for the army. 01:01:06.16 Jade and 01:01:09.27 sidekqpodcast He rifles through them, so he looks like what he thinks a version of a knight should be from what he's got laying around. And so when they stumble across him, he's like clanking and making a bunch of noise, probably like the paladin or something like that in the adventuring party, I'm guessing. 01:01:25.88 Jade Zero stages. 01:01:25.52 sidekqpodcast And then they're just like, what is this? He's got like a fungus on his shoulder. And he has like, whatever work. Well, I mean, for some reason, I got the idea that like, it was a pug, that something that found him like some sort of ridiculous dog that you would have no business being in the underdark. 01:01:40.02 Jade Yeah. 01:01:41.54 sidekqpodcast But maybe it's like, ah like a mastiff or Saint Bernard or something like that. 01:01:43.14 Jade What are those? What are those dogs? They're hairless. um Like the dog from Coco. That's horrible to say. 01:01:53.51 Jade I know what the dog is. 01:01:55.06 sidekqpodcast Oh, like a Mexican hairless? 01:01:57.70 Jade Yeah, like the little, like the kind of lanky, the kind of dorky looking, but they're so like, yeah, they're so like lanky and and beautiful, but not like a, not like a pretty like tough dog. 01:02:09.54 Jade I think that he was just like the adventuring buddy of the, of the guy that fell down there. 01:02:14.66 sidekqpodcast Mm, okay. 01:02:16.61 Jade He'll be so cute. Oh my goodness. But yeah, I think that I like that. 01:02:20.72 sidekqpodcast Okay. So the party is going to stumble across Timothy randomly in their adventures. 01:02:29.75 sidekqpodcast Hello. Hello, buddy. Are you going to bed? Well, I'm on a podcast call right now, so I need you to go to bed. 01:02:47.90 sidekqpodcast I can't, buddy. I'm in the middle of recording. When I'm done the when i'm done with the episode, I can maybe come in there. I love you. 01:02:59.44 sidekqpodcast All right, thank you. I'll have to go through the transcript and remove all that, which I found out that I can go through the transcripts and I can actually cut around stuff. So maybe I'll save myself some headache and and all that. Yes, my wife texted me. He's escaped. 01:03:14.81 sidekqpodcast ah but It's OK. So what was I going to say? So um maybe trying to come back into it. So we're imagining that the party is going to stumble across Timothy randomly in their exploration of the Underdark. We're assuming that this is near some sort of like above in the mundane world on the surface. We're in like some sort of temp ah arctic or snowy sort of condition. So definitely something you could probably drop in your 01:03:45.51 sidekqpodcast Rime of the frost maiden campaigns or um you know ah in the ah ah Out of the abyss, but you center it more in like an Arctic a Sort of condition if you want your party to be able to escape ah that whole plot of out of the abyss or you know We're just home brewing. We're just like hey, this is like the North Pole ah Greenland Canada sort of part of the world and all the crevices and cracks of the earth lead down to the underdark here And then this is where we're gonna find Timothy Okay, so the party comes across Timothy, Flower, the Mike and Ed, and this dog, which it would might it might be kind of cool or funny if there's like a particular steed that ah this Sir Timothy from the story he had. 01:04:31.01 sidekqpodcast And so that's what he refers to the dog, but maybe there's like a clear name tag on the dog that says something else, but he's like, ah, yes, my faithful companion, Winstead. And then like the the the collar says like Bubbles or something like that. 01:04:42.32 Jade ah but 01:04:45.51 sidekqpodcast you know something like dorky and adorable. It's like, ah yes, we're here on this adventure. We have to go. and Look, this person is trapped on this map. And this is where they're located. So so the party gets invited onto the quest. 01:04:58.64 sidekqpodcast So what's going to be the reward for the party when they successfully reunite the dog with its master and providing aid or whatnot to the person who's trapped? 01:05:11.44 Jade ooh oh no okay so in maybe there's gold you know maybe there's something uh i imagine maybe somebody from the party tries to seal the like beautiful bejeweled dog collar right but like i imagine there's gold i imagine there's gold from the um 01:05:20.30 sidekqpodcast Sure. 01:05:34.03 Jade the traveler that's like stuck. They're like, here's some of my wares, here you can you've helped me, all this kind of stuff. Maybe like further down the line in a campaign, there's a forever discount, I don't know. 01:05:40.68 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 01:05:43.50 sidekqpodcast Ooh, okay. 01:05:45.09 Jade um But I, would you imagine if the little, like the the big, but like the too big, like rusty sword, and I imagine Timothy is named the sword maybe, and he loves it because it's his, and he's gonna take it on an adventure at the very end of the quest line he like, 01:05:57.83 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm. 01:06:01.58 Jade gives the sword to the party. 01:06:04.51 sidekqpodcast Oh, oh. 01:06:05.04 Jade It's really not super valuable, but it's valuable to him. 01:06:09.81 sidekqpodcast Well, here's now here's something interesting. Now, I know in 5th edition, you know with paladins, like I you know personally, for my homebrew taste, I like that paladins are tied to a god. 01:06:18.94 Jade so 01:06:21.51 sidekqpodcast like That feels right of like you have to make an oath or a pledge to a deity or some sort of higher power in order to get your paladin powers. However, as we've seen with eXU Calamity, ah eexu calamity and some other or even atheistic paladins, if you will, um you know, that they swear their oath or whatever, and then that's what gives them their power. 01:06:38.70 Jade sure Yeah. 01:06:44.37 sidekqpodcast Do you like the idea of because he is this teenager, he's earnest, he believes this in his soul, that like this is his great weapon. 01:06:55.06 sidekqpodcast And because he's sworn his oath to like, I'm going to become a knight, I'm going to do this great thing, it somehow has imbued this rusty, old, Cruddy looking dwargar blade and it actually is a magic item now Yeah 01:07:10.09 Jade Oh my gosh, I love that. I wonder what would the magic item like do? Like if somebody else were to pick up the magic item, what kind of like magic would it hold? 01:07:26.04 Jade You know how funny if it were just like, look is there like a luck mechanic in 01:07:31.56 sidekqpodcast Yeah, there is a look mechanic where it like so anyone who like holds the blade has the lucky feet, which would then allow them to be able to so many times a day be able to roll a D 20 with advantage to be able to like try and succeed on like a saving throw or an ability check or something like that. 01:07:52.56 Jade I like that. 01:07:52.61 sidekqpodcast That's possible. Okay, so 01:07:54.45 Jade I like the idea that he doesn't know because like we said like he's clumsy he's a little little green but like somehow he just kind of does it you know he just kind of gets yeah I like that yes I like that. 01:08:02.58 sidekqpodcast Yeah, he bumbles his way forward. He has plot armor. He has plot armor to save him. 01:08:10.17 sidekqpodcast Okay. So in getting this blade, um, it makes you lucky, um, probably has like some sort of basic magic traits, whether you want it to be like a, probably a plus one sounds fair of like, yeah, it's a plus one blade. So it does like plus one to attacks and damage. Uh, it's got the lucky traits and then, I dunno, maybe, uh, it does like some other cool thing. Uh, maybe it's, um, 01:08:36.85 sidekqpodcast I don't know I was trying to think back to like the story that he read like if there's like some sort of spell that it lets you do once a day ah or if it's just you know because it's like oh because it's like it's like Sir Timothy in the story and Sir Timothy was able to like you know slay a dragon and so it like has like a dragon slaying feet where it does like 01:08:41.08 Jade Mm hmm. 01:08:58.91 sidekqpodcast It's a plus one Magic Blade normally, but like two like if you're fighting like Dragonborn or dragons or half dragons or anything dragon adjacent, it does like plus three or something like that against them, if that inspires you. 01:09:14.55 Jade Ooh, I like that. I like that idea that it just like does, for some whatever reason, like extra damage to... 01:09:24.31 sidekqpodcast Like a specific kind of foe that like Sir Timothy was against. 01:09:26.63 Jade Yeah. I like the idea. There are dragons in the Underdark. There are. There are dragons in the Underdark. 01:09:33.03 sidekqpodcast Oh yeah, there's there's dragons everywhere in Dungeons and Dragons. 01:10:44.77 Jade I like that idea. I guess I think dragons is probably a fair and useful to the party um kind of feat to have. 01:10:56.03 Jade One of my friends was telling me about I think one of the quest lines and I think he was talking about a previous Baldur's Gate game where you have to go into the Underdark and there's like 01:11:02.67 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm. 01:11:06.12 Jade a dragon that you can get to help you stop some sort of ritual involving Drow and, like, the dragon eggs. so I don't know why I asked you that. 01:11:14.96 sidekqpodcast Mmhmm. 01:11:16.56 Jade But, um, so I like the idea of dragons. I think that that's so precious that you can play dragons. 01:11:22.50 sidekqpodcast Okay. So we like, we like that. He's, you know, he's, he's serious. He believes this oath. 01:11:29.68 Jade No. 01:11:29.32 sidekqpodcast He's sworn it. And so because of the merit of that alone, it's enchanted this particular sword and he's willing to part with it for successfully reuniting the dog with its owner. 01:11:42.34 sidekqpodcast Uh, maybe the, you know, the owner can give some sort of separate reward for the party, for the rescue, as well as to Timothy. And then Timothy being such a humble and brave Knight, ah Gives them the sword and then the party finds out like oh actually this rusted looking thing is magical now and so it gives it makes you lucky. It's a generic plus one weapon but against dragons and dragon types it's an extra it's instead treated as a plus three weapon. 01:12:09.48 Jade yeah I imagine that he gives them the sword because he really believes that he's gonna go out into like the, what do they call them? like The overworld. He's gonna leave, I imagine he wants to leave the Underdark and that's why he wants to help this person. and So he's like, I now can like go on to realize like my dream of becoming a knight or whatever. And he really hopes that like the party will He gives the party the sword because like they, you know, the real journey was the friends you made along the way kind of thing. 01:12:45.79 Jade I wonder if there would be like a morality aspect to that. If like the party could only get the sword if like all of the party was like not horrible people. 01:12:58.66 Jade Do you know what I mean? 01:12:59.40 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 01:13:00.53 Jade Cause I imagine Timothy is like, yeah. 01:13:00.20 sidekqpodcast Yeah, that's a condition. So certainly he's willing to offer the sword um You know, like I go back to like Like the fallout games like fallout 3 and new vegas had like the child at heart perk 01:13:08.37 Jade But it's. 01:13:14.96 Jade you 01:13:14.90 sidekqpodcast so you had special dialogue options with the the children characters so like that's how you could acla acquire ways a rifle in fallout 3 which is like a unique laser rifle item or in ah in Freeside in New Vegas. 01:13:32.62 sidekqpodcast That's how you got the ah giant space laser gun. like The kids are playing with it. They don't know what it really is, but if you fix up if you fix up the power plant, then you can you can get a death laser from space. 01:13:39.05 Jade Yeah. 01:13:44.65 sidekqpodcast If you just talk to the kid nicely and you get it. so Okay, so that's a possible win ah for the party. is they they They get this on the surface looking ah crappy, rusted sort of thing, but it's actually magical. 01:13:58.49 sidekqpodcast So it's deceiving in that way. 01:13:59.19 Jade and 01:13:59.89 sidekqpodcast They can use it as a deception against their enemies. And then in actuality, you're like, oh, this thing is powerful. um But then otherwise, is there an ability maybe or a possibility you know because he's he believes himself himself to be this knight or this very young paladin in training ah where he could maybe tag along as like a retainer or a squire, especially if there is some sort of knight character already in the party, like another paladin maybe decides to take little Timothy as a squire or a little hireling, a follower, retainer character for your group. 01:14:14.23 Jade of 01:14:27.63 Jade three 01:14:32.49 Jade um 01:14:38.37 Jade I love that idea that you could just he could just live in your camp or like tag along with you for certain things and continue to realize his true calling of being at night. Oh my gosh, that sounds so fun. And then i maybe if not, 01:14:55.00 Jade there's like a chance to like run into him later and he's just been living his, could you imagine, have you watched Loki, that show? 01:15:02.12 sidekqpodcast Yes. Mhm. 01:15:03.80 Jade I imagine like maybe it's like, because I want Timothy to be successful but so far Timothy has been a relatively comedic kind of character and imagine he's like slowly where he's like I'm living my best life and he's really not doing like 01:15:07.41 sidekqpodcast Mhm. 01:15:18.00 Jade all that much but everything is exciting to him still and everything is like a grand journey and he's just he's just running around whatever city or whatever place he's in just the happiest to be there running mundane errands that's 01:15:36.71 sidekqpodcast very cool 01:15:37.12 Jade so precious 01:15:38.55 sidekqpodcast And then, of course, we have to consider the opposite. What's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? I know we talked about like, oh, the party encounters and they think he's an enemy. 01:15:49.12 sidekqpodcast They attack him outright and only to discover like, oh, the dog had this map on its collar. 01:15:51.64 Jade yeah 01:15:55.56 sidekqpodcast ah You know, is there anything more that could be a consequence of failure or refusing to help ah Timothy in his quest? 01:15:57.43 Jade Um, 01:16:04.39 Jade um I imagine. I don't know, you know, there could be like this this whole like dragon i because i I would love for this little journey to mirror whatever journey Timothy read about in his book um I imagine that maybe there's like a dragon somewhere along the way something that you find something that's part of another quest or something that's like guarding the guy that is stuck and Timothy's little blade with his plus three dragon slaying ability 01:16:17.62 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm. 01:16:26.58 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 01:16:36.30 Jade um would have really come in handy but you can't get the sword because it's just like oh like whatever perception that you would roll whatever observations that you would make if you refuse to help timothy it's like it's a rusty old sword and you don't pick it up you know uh for the most part so you don't get that like extra help in that like journey further down the line and then you don't get the sword 01:16:59.58 sidekqpodcast Okay. Yeah. And then you miss out on the sword. Okay. 01:18:49.71 sidekqpodcast OK. All right. So you feel like we're good with with getting all the ah the the the success and the failures figured out for the quest. 01:18:52.19 Jade hello. 01:18:59.10 Jade I think so. I really like this. 01:19:00.09 sidekqpodcast OK. And you feel like Timothy is a very good character realize there's no other optional questions you wish to explore for the character. 01:19:09.96 Jade Um, I don't really think so. I think he's a very just like simple, straightforward kind of person. He, we know what he wants. 01:19:17.98 sidekqpodcast Okay. 01:19:20.30 Jade He knows what he wants. Everything that he does is in, in like with, uh, with that goal in mind of becoming a, a knight. And he finally gets to realize it. 01:19:31.29 Jade And this is, this is his, this is his go at it. 01:19:35.63 sidekqpodcast Perfect. Well, now that we've got little Timothy created, I think it's time we throw him into a random encounter. 01:19:51.71 sidekqpodcast And ah this final part of the show is brought to you by Zencaster. The podcasting program that I'm using, you in the transcription part get to read this. Be sure to go to the Zencaster website, use my code sidekqpodcast, get a discount on your so paid subscription ah plan if you're ready to start your own podcast. So check that out. ah Thanks for supporting the sponsor. It supports the show. 01:20:18.82 sidekqpodcast All right, so we are here in the part now where we get to do a random encounter, a bit of a role play, a vignette, a scene with the character that we've made today. So ah now I think you'll do a great job in presenting Timothy as a character. But the question becomes, who should I be in the scene? Am I going to be one of my adventuring characters that stumbles across Timothy? Is this going to be Timothy in the wet stone cutting place? and Oh, kid, you you know, you're ah youre your head is not in the game. You need to focus on your work and stop daydreaming. ah Is it going to be a flashback to ah Timothy discovering the sled? Or I don't know what kind of or or finding flower. I don't know what kind of scene are you interested in presenting ah Timothy in today? 01:21:06.96 Jade Ooh, I don't know. i What kind of, because I know on a previous episode you had listed the, like your characters, could you do that? 01:21:19.60 sidekqpodcast Yeah, yeah, sure. 01:21:20.98 Jade Because I found more them interesting. 01:21:22.88 sidekqpodcast Yeah, yeah, okay. um Yeah, so we've got a whole cast of characters to choose from if they want to stumble and meet. So we've got Duncan, who's the recklessly brave adventurer for hire happy go lucky no task too small no feet too daring kind of a guy we've got Sonia who's the warrior woman who started off as a barbarian in multi classed into a paladin. 01:21:42.96 sidekqpodcast who serves to redeem, ah who serves a god who wishes to redeem the undead. We have Korak, who is the lawful evil arcane trickster roguish dwarf, like an actual proper dwarf. um We've got Chrisley, who's the herbalist botanist wood elf druid, who ah then multi-classed into a cleric who serves a living memory. ah We've got Orion, who is the astral elf illusionist wizard, kind of like a Spock sort of a dude. ah We've got 01:22:14.62 sidekqpodcast Agape, who is the lilac-colored Tiefling Sorelock, started off as a wild magic sorcerer from the Feywild influence, and then made an archfey warlock pact with Prosperina, one of our other characters made on this show. And then the newest one that we've added ah is Lifespell the Necromancer, ah who is a little forest gnome old man necromancer who has his Octavius the Skeleton Man servant. 01:22:41.77 sidekqpodcast uh in tow as well so those are the characters we have made so far in the podcast and If none of them sound good we're certainly happy to roll up a new one ah randomly to abby added Oh, so you want to make a whole brand new uh a whole brand new adventuring npc 01:22:54.29 Jade Oh, let's, let's do, let's roll. I think that that sounds really fun. 01:23:02.23 Jade Just a little. Let me think, let me think. Because I think a lot of his little thing is like alone. So we could drop him in like a, okay, let's not roll. Let me not get ahead of myself. less Let me think. 01:23:23.08 Jade I think it would be interesting to see. 01:23:35.28 Jade It's difficult. I kind of want to see Timothy start his little journey. 01:23:41.77 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm 01:23:44.03 Jade But that's difficult because in the beginning he's alone. You know what I mean? 01:23:47.05 sidekqpodcast Right Do you want him to come across one of these more seasoned sort of adventurers? 01:23:48.76 Jade so 01:23:53.22 sidekqpodcast Or do you think he should his journey should parallel someone else who's like starting off on their adventuring life, too? 01:24:03.04 Jade I think it would be funny to see if he like came across someone who's like well like a little bit more well-seasoned, who knows what he's doing, because I think that it would be interesting to play with that. 01:24:09.89 sidekqpodcast Hmm 01:24:14.24 Jade like I don't know anything, but I'm just fueled by optimism. 01:24:19.67 sidekqpodcast okay so i don't know is there a particular character that i read out that stands out to you as wanting that you would want to meet timothy i mean for sure i thought maybe korak would be interesting because they would play against each other because korak is very much lawful evil but he's a dwarf uh and he's a more of a surface dwarf than he is an actual like duergar under under dark dwarf so i thought 01:24:38.54 Jade Yeah. 01:24:44.49 Jade I kind of I. 01:24:47.52 Jade Yeah, that one kind of stood out to me. The dwarf, because I think that'd be really interesting. It's like, you're a bad dwarf. like You don't know how to dwarf. All you want to do is be a prince. Someone that also kind of stood out to me was the the the no task too small, the sword for hire, right? 01:25:05.94 sidekqpodcast Duncan. 01:25:07.31 Jade Duncan. But i think I think that if we took Duncan, it would be, I think it would be chaos. In my head, they play off each other and they get into more trouble. 01:25:19.38 sidekqpodcast He does have chaos that seems to follow him. 01:25:22.43 Jade Yeah. 01:25:22.35 sidekqpodcast but also likewise protected by plot armor, so you know. 01:25:27.94 Jade That would be, that would be an an amazingly chaotic story, but it would just be, I think it would be full of just like deus ex machina. 01:25:40.10 Jade We just kind of managed to get through somehow. ah thats So I am interested in this, ah the dwarf corette. 01:25:43.51 sidekqpodcast Right. Okay, you want to meet Korak. 01:25:52.47 sidekqpodcast All right, well, new Dungeon Master, would you like to go ahead and set the scene or would you care for me to set the scene? 01:26:00.23 Jade Um, I kind of want to know how you would do it because Korak is an existing kind of character. You know what I mean? 01:26:07.02 sidekqpodcast Sure, yeah. 01:26:08.30 Jade so i want I'm stepping into his world, respectfully. 01:26:11.60 sidekqpodcast Okay, perfect. So where we last left our hero, question mark, Korak, he had found himself in the Astral Sea, where he was at druthers and druthers brothers offices, ah where he was getting a pair of paralegals advice on how to get out of some of his troubles ah in the Feywild, due to his involvement, allegedly, with some sort of thieving of goods and art and other 01:26:44.21 sidekqpodcast valuable items ah while an arch phase war was waging um and so after retrieving the three buckets of greeble oil which was blood of some type of rare and valuable creature only found in the astral sea, Korak was able to set the druthers brothers uh for life on greeble oil uh and they agreed to help him out uh and get him back uh back to the mundane world um but maybe perhaps the portal wasn't quite calibrated as correctly as they they hoped uh and so when korak steps through the portal uh he finds himself suddenly in the underdark and he begins to swear and dwarvish because he's like 01:27:28.30 sidekqpodcast like, man, I did everything to get like away from the mountains and the underdark and all this stuff. And now I hear now here I am back at it. And he's not going to be able to get too very far when suddenly he like senses something and he like hushes up and he like goes to like hide behind, ah press himself up against a wall as he's beginning to hear some sort of like clanking and some like torchlight, ah kind of like, well, maybe not torchlight because Dworkar have superior dark vision. So here's some clanking coming up the hallway. And so what's he going to see with his dark vision ah coming up the hallway of this passageway of in the Underdark? 01:28:10.45 Jade I imagine he sees... That would be very cute. I imagine he sees Timothy and I imagine he is... doing a little bit of exploring, a little bit of pretending, um being inspired by his story of Timothy the Knight. And he's almost, he's almost playing, he's almost playing Knight, right? So Korak hears him, that that's what he hears, he hears him coming up this little dark kind of tunnel um with, probably with flowers. 01:28:50.20 sidekqpodcast Okay. 01:28:52.36 Jade Yeah, and so. I imagine Timothy kind of he's up against a wall. I imagine he kind of like walks. Almost past him. 01:29:03.64 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 01:29:04.84 Jade Right, it almost kind of doesn't see. 01:29:04.65 sidekqpodcast Yeah. Coric did roll the stealth check. He rolled pretty high. I mean, he is a, he is a rogue. So like, yeah, he's pressed up against the wall and he's like holding his breath and not moving. 01:29:10.41 Jade Yeah. 01:29:15.00 sidekqpodcast And teenage, teenage Timothy doesn't notice. 01:29:15.58 Jade Yeah. 01:29:19.80 Jade No, I imagine not. I imagine he's a little distracted by his imaginary quest. So he's like he's just kind of like walking down his little tunnel talking to himself, like proclaiming himself and a knight. You know what I mean? Oh, that's so cute. 01:29:35.74 Jade but but 01:29:36.56 sidekqpodcast Does he have his sled and toe? 01:29:39.24 Jade I don't think he has his sled in tow. I think he's probably come from the sled and has like gone to the sled, picked up all his little things. um and just kind of like nearby is just having the time with his life. 01:29:54.79 sidekqpodcast Okay. And is the dog with him at this point or not? 01:29:59.21 Jade I don't think so. 01:30:00.18 sidekqpodcast Okay. 01:30:00.83 Jade i think this I think this probably is going to serve as like a like backstory for him. 01:30:07.93 sidekqpodcast Mm. Okay. 01:30:09.93 Jade You know what I mean? 01:30:09.84 sidekqpodcast Or, or something. 01:30:11.37 Jade what 01:30:11.53 sidekqpodcast So, or something interesting could happen. 01:30:12.13 Jade oh 01:30:13.13 sidekqpodcast So, uh, so we'll let, we'll let, so he lets Timothy get past him and he's like, he's very puzzled. He has a very puzzled look on his face hearing what Timothy is saying. 01:30:24.90 sidekqpodcast I'll allow it that Coacano is under dark or under common rather. Um, he hasn't had to use it in a long while. 01:30:30.09 Jade Okay. 01:30:31.49 sidekqpodcast So it takes him a second. He's like, did I hear him right? He's talking about being a knight and like, what is that all about? And so, you know, he, I dunno, he has a moment of hesitation because normally he would just like cold clock him in the back of the head, take whatever he has and like run off. 01:30:50.80 sidekqpodcast But like, there's just something about, the optimism, the cheerfulness, the sincerity of this that like actually cuts to the lawful evil heart ah within Korak. 01:31:05.18 Jade Mm hmm. 01:31:05.55 sidekqpodcast And so maybe he's going to, you know, maybe he sees that he's young and he's like, ah, I probably shouldn't be killing young people, old people or older people I have no problem with, but younger people. 01:31:16.45 sidekqpodcast ah So he's just going to use the opportunity to kind of like whirl on him and be like, 01:31:18.31 Jade Yeah. 01:31:22.64 sidekqpodcast and, you know, and dwarvish is just going to be like, if you were any louder, I would have already gutted you boy. What are you doing making so much noise? 01:31:33.31 Jade oh And I imagine Timothy gets flustered because I think he thinks that he's by himself. Aw, that's really sad. 01:31:44.84 Jade ah He's by himself and I think he gets like, not afraid. I think he gets a little afraid. You know what I mean? He's just suddenly like accosted by this, by this other elf. 01:31:53.22 sidekqpodcast Mm. 01:31:59.45 Jade So I think he almost, I think he almost starts to like, I don't want to say apologize, but he like, I think he i think he freaks out a little bit and it's just like um so like, I'm sorry, who are you? 01:32:10.90 sidekqpodcast Mm. Mm. 01:32:13.75 Jade What is happening? And I imagine they would, I almost imagine they would struggle. Like he would just kind of, you said he grabbed him or he was just kind of like, or did he just talk to them? 01:32:26.99 sidekqpodcast i think he like and I think he just kind of like popped out and held a knife. ah Not up to him, but I think he would just pops out suddenly. 01:32:32.44 Jade Ah. Oh. little 01:32:36.68 sidekqpodcast He's holding out his knives because like that's his typical trademark move. 01:32:39.58 Jade Yeah. Mm-hmm. 01:32:41.51 sidekqpodcast um but He's you know basically rolling an intimidation check. and you know It sounds like he did pretty well on his intimidation. 01:32:45.98 Jade OK. Thank you, guys. 01:32:48.39 sidekqpodcast so He's just kind of like, if you breathe any louder, if you were if you made any more noise or ruckus, you would already be dead. 01:32:50.74 Jade Sorry. 01:32:55.13 sidekqpodcast What are you doing down here? Kind of a thing. Where am I? What am I doing here? Kind of a thing. He's just as confused as he's just as confused as this kid. 01:33:01.46 Jade So I think. Right, so I think Timothy probably like. probably he whips around and he sees him and he has this he goes pale. You know what I mean? He's afraid. He's afraid he's been caught in his little charade, I suppose. um But they don't recognize each other because they don't know each other. They don't recognize each other. So he kind of like squares his shoulders and he introduces himself and he's like, i 01:33:32.50 Jade am the great knight timothy and he's he's like pretending to be he's rolling like he's trying to like not intimidate but to bolster himself and he's like i am timothy the knight and who are you you have wandered into like my into like my realm you know what i mean he's trying to he's trying to uh call upon the bravery of timothy the night because he's terrified before timothy is actually terrified um 01:34:11.08 sidekqpodcast I think seeing that well one scene that he's a door guard, you know, definitely throws him off because he thought like, oh, this is just going to be like because the the armor was covering him up so he couldn't, and he didn't see a beard so he didn't like quite he was like, probably some kind of dwarf kin but he didn't know what kind so he sees that he's a door guard he sees that he's a teen. 01:34:18.18 Jade um 01:34:31.56 sidekqpodcast And that, you know, he, you know, believes himself to be this kind of character. So it actually kind of like catches Korak off guard. Maybe for a moment, he has like a ratatouille moment where he like zooms back into his past as a kid. And he remembers himself being like some sort of like, Oh, look at me. I'm doing adventures and stuff like that before he had his. 01:34:50.53 sidekqpodcast whatever bad thing happened in his life that turned him lawful evil and uh wanting to be a murder murder arcane trickster guy um so he actually pauses a little bit hesitates and then like actually softens and is like 01:34:59.56 Jade um 01:35:05.72 sidekqpodcast Well, i was I was with some gif in the Astral Sea, and they helped me work to find some legal representation. 01:35:18.03 sidekqpodcast Still waiting on that call, oh but ah they said they'd send me home. 01:35:20.36 Jade me 01:35:22.50 sidekqpodcast But it sounds like they were wrong in their calculations, so am I in the Underdark? 01:35:31.00 Jade And I imagine Timothy doesn't understand half of what Korak just said. All he knows is that Korak is in need of rescuing. 01:35:41.50 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 01:35:43.22 Jade So he kind of continues this sort of puffed out demeanor and he's like, why yes, you are in the great under dark. 01:35:55.02 Jade And then he, I think, because he's not super smart, I imagine he looks at him and he goes, he asks him, are you in need of rescuing? 01:36:06.80 sidekqpodcast he Looks very taken aback and like, are you kidding me right now? And he's just like, you know, he, in now he seen that he's a dwarf guard and probably understands under common a little bit better than dwarvish, you know, for his sake is just kind of like an under common, like. 01:36:22.47 Jade Okay. 01:36:24.00 sidekqpodcast Kid i don't need rescuing i just need to get pointed to the door so i can get out of here like this is not where i want to be. Some guys you know from the astral sea sent me here by mistake some pair of paralegals they are but um he's just looking for a way he's looking for a way out he's like unless. 01:36:44.77 sidekqpodcast Well, hmm, I could kill you now, but, I don't know, hmm, you got anything shiny on you? Anything to make this worth my while? 01:36:56.92 Jade Ooh. I imagine, oh, this would be so cute. I imagine that this is Timothy's ah first chance, right, of he like he would see this as his first chance of leaving the Underdark. I do imagine that he fails. I don't imagine that Korak would take him with him, but I imagine he looks at Korak and it tells him that he does indeed no you know where civilization is, where he could get help, but he tries to bargain, um ah I guess bargain a little bit, and his 01:37:37.90 sidekqpodcast Mhm. 01:37:40.36 Jade payment is like, I will, I will squire you. I will be your loyal companion and kind of tries to like, not in like a horribly rude way, but like kind of tie himself a little bit to Korak. He sees, he wants Korak to take him with him. So he stands there and he's like, I do, and like I do know where you can get help. Um, 01:38:07.87 Jade I will accompany you and and and help you. even I think he probably goes like even beyond the Underdark, do you know what I mean? To try to almost convince Korak that he would be useful, that he would be like useful enough to take with him. 01:38:15.35 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm Right 01:38:23.90 Jade ah Not quite as payment, but but but if he doesn't have anything. um 01:38:29.16 sidekqpodcast Yeah and so i think i'm the the image i'm getting in my mind is from the very beginning of the last crusade where we have the flashback of indiana jones and he's like on the boy scout trip and he steals the coronado cross and like the guy with the with original um you know hat is chasing after him and at the very end of that whole chase sequence he's like you know you got heart kid but like you know this isn't the life for you kind of a thing and he gives him the hat puts it down and then it crosscuts to him later so In Korak's mind, he's thinking he's taking that similar sort of approach. like He sees that this Dworkar is like, well, one, is not acting evil like him. He doesn't think that this kid has an evil bone in his body. He truly believes he's like this some sort of like fairy 01:39:22.10 sidekqpodcast that like he doesn't understand and he doesn't have time ah to really waste with this and this you know this kid is just this teen is this uh you know this nose wiper is like too busy trying to like get himself out of here and he's like there's you know this is a sinking ship it's every man for himself i'm not wasting my time helping you kind of a kind of attitude of this guy so he's just kind of like an under common kid you You got heart. you you your're pal You're playing fairy tale. You're playing pretend. And that's cute and all. But I've got business. I've killed men twice your size. I've you know killed men half your size. I've killed a lot of people. Trust me. You don't want to be hanging out with me. 01:40:06.54 sidekqpodcast It's bad for business. And so literally he's just going to be like, I need you to point a direction and then I'm going to go. I'm going to go that way. You're going to stay here. or You're going to go the opposite way. You're not following me. And if you do follow me, well, and he pulls out his knives and he starts doing a series of like knife, like maneuvers and moves and stuff like that to like show that he means business. 01:40:31.20 Jade Mm hmm. 01:40:30.97 sidekqpodcast Maybe even he has like a piece of his armor or something like that. um He's an arcane trickster, so why not? He has like some sort of like blood pack hidden, or maybe it's some sort of prestidigitation effect, but he stabs himself in a place in his armor that he knows He can make like a fake blood effect happen. 01:40:52.95 sidekqpodcast It's just an arcane trick but he makes it look like he stabs himself and he steals his gaze and he pulls the knife out and Makes it seem like like oh, I just stabbed myself and like it doesn't even faze me So like, you know again kind of like another intimidation check or a bluff to basically be like I mean business Don't follow me. 01:40:53.85 Jade think much 01:41:13.55 sidekqpodcast You don't want to be hanging out with me kind of the thing 01:41:16.63 Jade Oh, I almost imagined Timothy doesn't. You know what I mean? Because like, like, Timothy is actually quite terrified. And Timothy is, is drawing upon that, like, nightly courage that he wants to have. 01:41:24.93 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm 01:41:33.22 Jade He wants to be like that. So I, but I imagine that was a fairly successful so intimidation check for Timothy. 01:41:39.75 sidekqpodcast Okay 01:41:42.56 Jade But I also imagined that, like, as they part ways, he just kind of sits there and he's like, that was so cool. That was so cool. And because he doesn't really know all that much about Korak, he kind of just like, he holds on to that memory and he's like, that's so cool. I want to be like that cool. Oh my gosh, that's so adorable. 01:42:11.58 sidekqpodcast And I think the way that the scene closes out, so Korak does get pointed in the right direction. Korak is going to have to do his own adventure to figure out how to get himself out of Underdark and where he wants to go to continue on with his various many side quest adventures that he will encounter in the in the progress, the course of this podcast and its entirety. 01:42:32.98 sidekqpodcast ah But what i think happens is from like a different side tunnel there's like. There's a there's a wrestling there's it sounds like pebbles like like a cascade of pebbles. 01:42:44.65 sidekqpodcast And then all of a sudden this mastiff this pug some kind of dog with an ornate jeweled collar just kind of spills in the middle of the path right where timothy is. 01:42:45.31 Jade mean 01:42:58.08 Jade Mm hmm. 01:42:58.26 sidekqpodcast and you see that there's a little there's a little piece of parchment sticking out of the collar, but the dog doesn't know any better, and just looks up at Timothy, and just starts panting like, hey, I just found a new best friend. 01:43:07.94 Jade me 01:43:12.76 Jade Oh, that's adorable. 01:43:20.23 sidekqpodcast And scene. So there we go. We made it through the random encounter section of the show. So what did you think it was like getting to be Timothy? 01:43:28.49 Jade That was, that was so much fun. That was so much fun. um I think as I had kind of mentioned that like this is also brand new to me and it felt almost like liberating in a way. Very, very fun and liberating to just kind of go with whatever I was feeling. 01:43:49.92 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 01:43:50.30 Jade um I think at the end of the day, this has really helped like my confidence as like ah as a potential DM, because like i only I only played a little bit. Now I have to be responsible for so many different random characters that my like my table would want to meet. This has really been like very, very helpful and very, very like fun to kind of... 01:44:18.48 Jade tests myself a little bit. I don't know if I succeeded or not, but I had fun. 01:44:21.99 sidekqpodcast I think you did great. Yeah, no, I love Timothy. i'm I'm ready to stick Timothy in my next game. Like if anyone's running around in the Underdark, it's like, yeah, they're going to meet Timothy. I mean, maybe by that point, Timothy will have found the dog. He's carrying the sled. He just looks very out of place. 01:44:38.60 sidekqpodcast But yet he's just like this you know the he is this earnest earnest teen who is determined to become a night and be like shrek you know looks like you know like when shrek in the first movie was wearing the burnt out armor and is like. 01:44:39.36 Jade um 01:44:53.07 sidekqpodcast Yeah i don't like i don't look like your typical nights i don't think you want me but in this case it's like timothy being like. I'm gonna be sir timothy and i'm gonna go on grand adventures and you know so he's got his little armor he's got his santa hat he's got you know all he's got flower the little mic in it and you know he's just ready to go out there like i feel like there's a web comic about this kid uh or there's an actual just like uh you know a series of missives or adventures uh that we're following along uh timothy and figuring out what kind of trouble he's getting into and certainly any number of um 01:45:17.97 Jade um 01:45:30.23 sidekqpodcast Underdark related NPCs that have been made on this podcast as well that you could definitely pair up with Timothy and feel right at home. Certainly. 01:45:40.14 Jade I love him too. I was really excited about him. I had a completely different idea of who Timothy was going to be and then just that endless optimism just kind of ached him up and turned him into what we got. 01:45:51.05 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 01:45:56.25 sidekqpodcast yeah Yeah. So now this is the final thoughts section of the show. So this is where I always like to give, uh, you know, the guests a chance to give me any feedback or notes or critiques and all that good stuff. Uh, and then certainly I want to leave the microphone, the stage, the soapbox, the platform to use. So if, uh, there's projects you're working on, if there's, you know, if you want to be found on social media and any other passions or causes that we need to be made aware of, let us know. 01:46:24.20 Jade who Let me think. So what am I working on it right now? I'm not working on anything. I am hoping to move my tarot reading online to kind of bring in ah effectively clients, sort of start a business, but it doesn't exist yet. 01:46:44.50 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 01:46:45.91 Jade If it does exist, if if someday in the future our listeners your listeners are listening to this episode and I have managed to do what I have set out to do, it will be under the name Blue Lotus Esoterica, but that is This is me, this is me making myself accountable now for the projects that I want to create. But um no, like I'm just kind of floating around doing my own thing being ah completely immaterial to everybody around me. um 01:47:22.18 Jade But other than that, like there's no there's no critique. Is there any advice that you would give me as a beginner DM? 01:47:30.75 sidekqpodcast Oh, ooh, ooh, interesting to turn it around to me here at the end. Um, any advice? Uh, well, I mean, I think a lot of other people online, you know, whether it be like Ginny D or Matt Colville or super geek Mike or legal kimchi, uh, any of these other great creators out there on YouTube and in the community. 01:47:50.30 sidekqpodcast I think, you know, probably would say, you know, for a new DM, you know, have fun, you know, uh, you know, it's okay to not have everything nailed down. Uh, you know, be open to yes, but, and yes, and, um, you know, uh, 01:48:07.11 sidekqpodcast don't don't sweat it like as long as you're having fun uh then your players will have fun uh you know the collaboration you know does wonder sometimes you know like you did with me just turning something around on me and then maybe making like uh inviting your players uh to be more creative in the world so if you're like i have no idea who the god of mischief is just be like yeah so you your character knows something about the god of mischief what is it that they know And then that could be really interesting ways to prompt questions or or thoughts on you know different aspects of your world. Just having those earnest conversations um or or just asking questions, you know getting feedback from your players. And certainly, 01:48:52.85 sidekqpodcast Communication is gonna be key um with like figuring out what kinds of stories and adventures they want to go on What are the goals ah of their characters? And then what are the things that are interest you? 01:49:04.14 sidekqpodcast You know, whatever things are fun ah that you like in pop culture and stuff rip them off and put them in your game Maybe you have to tweak the names a little bit um and maybe your players know what they are But if they're fans of it, then they'll love it even more because they're like, oh my gosh This is like that thing for that episode of Star Trek that we all love like yeah, that's awesome 01:49:10.52 Jade Aha. 01:49:22.71 sidekqpodcast I'm or like all boulders gate three this is like that one npc a companion character from boulders gate three that now is just like the shopkeeper we get to come across a sassy ah the half vampire cool we love this guy we're gonna we're gonna come to a shop all the time you know it's it's stuff like that so. 01:49:26.20 Jade and 01:49:41.74 sidekqpodcast You know so yeah that's that's what I would say is just like have fun trying to like some I would say like loose prepping with your notes like you know you can you could spend a lot of time getting detailed in the home brew Lord. Like oh this is gonna lead to this to cause to this but. 01:49:57.33 sidekqpodcast I found that players will quickly take a left turn ah when you plan for them to take a right turn. So just be ready to drop all your plans at a moment's notice to just go off on the adventure with where your players want to go. Have some loosey-goosey fun with it. Just have fun because you're all telling a story together. At the end of the day, the goal is to have fun. 01:50:19.97 Jade Yeah. Well, thank you so, so much, Kurt. This has been a journey. 01:50:25.93 sidekqpodcast Yep. Well, we'll certainly thank you, Jade, you know, for taking a chance for being a guest on the the podcast. I can't wait to have you back on, making even more interesting NPCs.