00:00:04.78 Kurt Crenwelge Hello and welcome to another month's exciting episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best unofficial Dungeons and Dragons podcast, in my humbly biased opinion. 00:00:15.77 Kurt Crenwelge I've got an awesome new guest for you this month, but before I get to my mystery contestant, you know I have to do it. I have to leave you in suspense with the ad read. And this is the part, Transcription Readers, where you get to hear me talk about Plus One EXP and their brand new subscription service, RPG Zine Club. So if you're interested in up-and-coming TTRPG game designers or your your your favorites or whatnot, you're just looking for other stuff to play in between your breaks of D&D. 00:00:47.20 Kurt Crenwelge You know, you should sign up for the RPG Zine Club. It's not... It's got all kinds of cool bells and whistles. And this is just me just trying to fill air. up So then that way I can take care of it in the post edit. But you know what to do. 00:01:00.27 Kurt Crenwelge ah Hey, if you're going to go a website, plusoneexp.com, use the code Randolph at checkout. R-A-N-D-O-L-P-H. 00:01:11.39 Kurt Crenwelge Get yourself some savings when you buy a beard balm or a lip balm or a beard RPG. ah You'd like to see my guest. He has a magnificent beard. You could do well with a discount code to plusonexp.com and rpgzine.club. 00:01:27.90 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So now that ah we've left everyone in suspense long enough, I turn the microphone over to my guest and I ask, Hello, mystery contestant. Would you care to introduce yourself? Tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do? 00:01:41.46 Hank Hi, so my name is Hank. I run a channel called D&Doodles. And ah basically, I doodle D&D tabletop ah characters. 00:01:52.92 Hank I like to do live drawings. I do ah you know character portraits, that type of stuff. 00:02:00.78 Kurt Crenwelge Very cool. I mean, our audio-only audience can't see that, you know, you have a magnificent beard, you're wearing a white t-shirt, and you're named Hank. 00:02:12.00 Kurt Crenwelge and so yeah And with the recent zeitgeist news of, like, oh, the new season of ah King of the Hill and R.I.P. um to Jonathan Joss, um but 00:02:22.05 Hank Oh wait. 00:02:23.42 Kurt Crenwelge ah But, ah you know, I was thinking of Hank and it was going to be like a I'll draw D&D and D&D accessories kind of a joke. 00:02:23.59 Hank Who? ah 00:02:32.11 Hank Well, I am down here in the south. I've lived here long enough to unironically say y'all instead of you guys. So if that means anything to my accolades of being a Hank. 00:02:39.10 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:02:42.74 Kurt Crenwelge Well, are you in Texas? 00:02:43.53 Hank Well, I'm on the east coast. 00:02:43.78 Kurt Crenwelge Because I know I'm in Texas. Oh, I see. 00:02:49.12 Hank Yeah, so... 00:02:49.27 Kurt Crenwelge ah Like the Florida Georgia line or something like that? 00:02:51.33 Hank i' in I've been in North Carolina for 15 years now. 00:02:54.11 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, North Carolina. 00:02:54.19 Hank I've kind of gone ah a couple different places in there. 00:02:55.89 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. I got some buddies out there in the Carolinas, so nice to know. 00:03:01.73 Hank pretty good ah Pretty good place. 00:03:01.74 Kurt Crenwelge There you go. 00:03:03.02 Hank very yeah A lot of stuff to do here. 00:03:06.34 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and so the way that I... Well, I mean, as I've mentioned on other podcast episodes this season, I've talked about and lamented about, like, oh, because of the implosion of the hobby's collective online presence on Twitter X, and and there's been a diaspora to all these other... 00:03:26.19 Kurt Crenwelge ah social media platforms where some have like tried to make some things here and some things there. And it's you know it's unfortunately having to rebuild. But for me personally, I feel like I'm finding a lot of growing, thriving in Instagram, which is where I stumbled across you. 00:03:40.11 Hank Yeah. 00:03:41.61 Kurt Crenwelge So you you know maybe the algorithm's doing its trick because it knows that I like to watch reels. If there's any sort of randomized dice involved, 00:03:50.00 Hank Yeah. 00:03:49.98 Kurt Crenwelge where it's like, we're rolling for a sandwich. We're rolling on a t-shirt to make a funny, goofy name. 00:03:52.05 Hank Mm-hmm. 00:03:55.77 Kurt Crenwelge We're going to roll for a doodle to make up a character. I was like, oh, this is perfect. 00:03:59.07 Hank Mm-hmm. 00:03:59.75 Kurt Crenwelge so And you're just starting off on that Instagram, is that correct? 00:03:59.86 Hank Yeah, so. 00:04:02.75 Hank Yeah, definitely inspired by ah you know roll for Sandwich. There's a bunch of different, you breakfast sourdough. ah 00:04:12.45 Hank I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to think of any any other ones. Those are the only ones off top my head, but definitely inspired by those. 00:04:17.88 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:04:18.28 Hank And um you know one thing that i try to, I think, sort of pitch really well, and I use that phrase optimistically because if anybody knows me, I am ah horribly in-equipped to a market myself. 00:04:37.47 Hank So I decided to try to start doing this Roll for Dude as a sort of an exercise in you know creativity. It's also a a way to have some ah regularity and routine and it's been It's been really good. I've been posting on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram so far. 00:05:01.40 Hank Definitely seeing the most engagement off of TikTok. And then Instagram, I'm almost at 2,000 followers, which is kind of insane. 00:05:09.41 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, that's 00:05:10.79 Hank Like, I remember trying to... 00:05:11.18 Kurt Crenwelge it 00:05:12.84 Hank I remember hitting 1,000. 00:05:13.07 Kurt Crenwelge that's more than me. That's more than me. And I'm a one-man band, ah for sure. 00:05:15.57 Hank It's crazy. It's crazy. 00:05:17.68 Kurt Crenwelge So I understand the whole, oh, I don't market myself well. And me being a 37-year-old guy, I'm like, yeah, I've got a wife. 00:05:21.20 Hank Yeah. 00:05:23.90 Hank Mm-hmm. 00:05:24.31 Kurt Crenwelge I've got a kid. I've got a dog. I've got responsibilities and a mortgage. 00:05:26.48 Hank Yeah. 00:05:28.08 Kurt Crenwelge i don't I don't have a whole team that can run my social media. 00:05:30.41 Hank Right. 00:05:31.39 Kurt Crenwelge I'm only going to post when I think it's you know good for my mental health. 00:05:31.54 Hank For sure. 00:05:35.40 Kurt Crenwelge Or, hey, by the way, there's an episode out and stuff like that. 00:05:35.74 Hank Right. 00:05:38.14 Hank Right. For sure. But it's been it's been fun. I've been seeing a lot of new people. I've been trying to engage with people in a way that doesn't feel... ah Too I guess unhealthy on my end, you know try to keep a nice boundaries You know, i've i've I've tried to go into this very intentionally ah with you know, I'm frankly I'm drawing stuff that I want to draw i will take requests and I'll take advice and I'll take notes and stuff but I didn't really want to turn into one of these channels. 00:05:52.02 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. 00:06:09.84 Hank It's just drawing you know ah the comment results like, ooh, top-rated comment. I'll draw what you... Top-rated comment was because you're just gonna draw like Shrek, Boning, Lightning McQueen. 00:06:21.90 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:06:23.51 Hank And you know, it's like, if y'all wanna come here and watch what I'm drawing, that's cool. 00:06:25.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 00:06:28.28 Hank And if you don't, then you know, you can, you can keep scrolling. I'm not gonna i'm not gonna be too sad about that, but it's been really nice to see there have been people that have been trying to engage with the, like um not really lore, but My whole idea with the role for dude was I draw the character and then at the end I have a little call to action, which is name my dude, which serves multiple purposes. On one hand, it ah I'm terrible at naming things, so it sort of offloads that. 00:06:59.42 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:06:59.55 Hank And also it's a very direct, ah you know, hey, please comment on my stuff. without actually saying, hey, please comment on my stuff. 00:07:07.39 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:07:07.72 Hank And then you get some people who like, there's this one dude on TikTok who every single day, he'll just have a response that's like, Billy, dot, dot, dot, just Billy. Or Fred, just Fred. 00:07:20.57 Hank And he's been here like since the beginning. And then there's, know, other people that like, they'll write an entire paragraph of like the lore of these, you know, 30 second characters. 00:07:26.52 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:07:30.97 Kurt Crenwelge Right, it's the same thing with like the ah the official stick review Instagram I've seen. 00:07:31.18 Hank So that's been really fun to see. 00:07:36.38 Kurt Crenwelge There's always at least two three... 00:07:38.23 Hank Oh, are you talking about the, hey, stick nation? This is my, I love that. 00:07:41.03 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, Stick Nation, here's my stick. And then you'll always see like the top two or three comments where someone's written out like the wand of ages. 00:07:43.40 Hank Yes. 00:07:49.60 Hank Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:07:50.10 Kurt Crenwelge And it's like they've statted it all out and stuff like that. 00:07:53.02 Hank I love that. 00:07:54.27 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so eventually we want to get Dean Doodles to that point where you post it and then someone's like, Agathar, the Destroyer. 00:07:57.79 Hank Yeah. Yeah. 00:08:01.85 Hank Uh-huh. I'm actually, I can give you a little sneak peek for some, ah I've been working on my shops and my merch and stuff because, you know, don want to sell the originals. 00:08:03.42 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:08:06.27 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:08:11.38 Hank I want to sell prints. want do commissions and stuff, you know. 00:08:12.61 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:08:14.69 Hank I would like for this to be my full-time job, obviously. I'm not just doing because I like it. 00:08:18.41 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:08:20.07 Hank But i've i've I've been making these little, ah like, playing cards and 00:08:24.28 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, wow. 00:08:25.31 Hank So the idea was I'd do ah little booster packs. So you spend five bucks to get a little booster pack of like, you know, three, five random little cards. and they And they have, you know, made up stats. 00:08:36.72 Hank It's all, it doesn't really matter. 00:08:38.76 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:08:38.89 Hank But I gave them each like sort of special abilities. 00:08:42.78 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:08:42.90 Hank You know, this one says flip a coin. Nice. Or, you know, roll two d20s, add them together. Roll one d6, subtract from the previous value. 00:08:55.01 Hank Math is fun. 00:08:56.96 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. 00:08:57.15 Hank So just like making up random stuff. And then part of me is hoping that one day someone will turn this into an actual game. Or maybe like use these characters in their own campaigns or something. 00:09:08.11 Hank But for now, for now it's just been a fun exercise. 00:09:08.76 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:09:12.59 Hank And also ah merch ideas. 00:09:12.61 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:09:16.14 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and I appreciate, certainly, you know, well well, one, I do have to say the wizard puppet on occasion is a little bit creepy. 00:09:22.57 Hank Yes. 00:09:24.53 Kurt Crenwelge I'm like when, you know, he just pops out and is. 00:09:26.59 Hank Very unsettling. 00:09:28.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, he's a very unsettling wizard. ah Thankfully, he doesn't talk as far as I could tell. 00:09:30.20 Hank Yes. Yeah. 00:09:32.97 Kurt Crenwelge So I'm like, that's a positive. 00:09:33.07 Hank Not yet. 00:09:34.51 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, not yet. Oh, what I have to look. 00:09:35.65 Hank Yeah. actually I I made that wizard with my mother when I was like five or six, maybe? 00:09:43.45 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:09:44.09 Hank By which I mean she made it. 00:09:44.11 Kurt Crenwelge Well, then maybe I feel bad now calling it creepy because it's something that's sentimental. 00:09:47.39 Hank No, it's definitely creepy. It's definitely creepy. 00:09:49.38 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:09:49.51 Hank It can be, both things can be true. 00:09:51.64 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:09:52.23 Hank But he's just been sitting in my, you know, so I'm not going to throw it away. ah 00:09:55.80 Kurt Crenwelge Sure, it's sentimental. 00:09:56.39 Hank My, yeah, my mom passed when I was 11. So, you know, I don't really have a whole lot of things left. 00:09:59.78 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:10:02.34 Hank to hold on to this weird wizard guy. 00:10:04.51 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:10:04.80 Hank And then one day, i think it was when, yeah yes, yes. 00:10:06.42 Kurt Crenwelge Well, he needs a doodle, and he needs his own stats. Okay. 00:10:10.27 Hank You know, part of me, uh, someone asked what his name was. And you know if I had named him as a child, that would be what his name was. But he's always just been wizard guy. 00:10:22.93 Hank So it's like he doesn't really have doesn't really have a name. 00:10:23.48 Kurt Crenwelge Wizard guy. 00:10:25.72 Hank And then realized it kind of feeds into the lore of the name for or the role for dude, which is y'all can figure out what you want to name it and incorporate into your own headcanon or whatever. 00:10:25.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:10:30.81 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:10:36.75 Hank And I'm just going to make the the character. 00:10:36.94 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:10:40.12 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. So you're going to let the community sort of source the lore so it's all going to be like wiki competing wikis of like, oh, the wizard guy and they call him no, the doom wizard. 00:10:44.05 Hank Yeah. 00:10:48.27 Hank Yeah. 00:10:50.67 Kurt Crenwelge And then it's like everyone's yeah arguing over it. 00:10:50.98 Hank it'll be a very It'll be very 40k, where the the ah hu 00:10:55.55 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. The Horus heresy comes into play. Yeah. 00:10:58.88 Hank the intangibility of history is part of the lore. always found that very interesting, too. 00:11:04.99 Kurt Crenwelge Um, but yeah, no, I mean, so first thing, definitely, you know, the, I was going compliment the wizard, but I also love that you, you live by the dice because you know, the, the, um, actually, uh, rules lawyers rules as written people would look at some of those tables and be like, wait a minute. 00:11:10.87 Hank Yeah. 00:11:22.93 Kurt Crenwelge a barbarian wearing full plate. 00:11:25.55 Hank Right. 00:11:25.65 Kurt Crenwelge Like, you know, so some of the combinations where you're like, huh, like a cleric wearing a loincloth, like, is is this, is this legal? 00:11:30.10 Hank Yeah. Right. 00:11:33.85 Kurt Crenwelge um So no, I love that you're like, you know, again, this whole ah idea of like, hey, the lore is whatever you want it to be. So it's just like, I'm just rolling for this randomly. This is what it's spitting out. 00:11:44.88 Kurt Crenwelge This is what I'm drawing and you take it or leave it kind of a thing. 00:11:46.44 Hank Mm-hmm. Yeah, my my favorite one was I got a fairy wizard with full plate and unarmed. 00:11:48.60 Kurt Crenwelge I love it. 00:11:57.61 Hank And ah my immediate first thought was, OK, what if it's a naked little fairy that is controlling ah a a suit of armor? 00:12:07.67 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, that's cool. 00:12:07.75 Hank And this suit of armor is actually what does the fighting. So it's just like, you know, sort of ah Ed and Alfred magical robot. Not robot, but, you know, a suit of armor. 00:12:19.47 Hank And then this little little fairy with the stupid wizard hat. 00:12:19.46 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:12:22.34 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:12:23.04 Hank And those are my favorite types of roles. You know, it's it's it's one thing to get, you know, ah a human fighter with scale mail and a sword. It's like, cool, that makes sense. 00:12:32.35 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. Yeah. 00:12:33.98 Hank But I want to see, you know, ah a troll warlock with a full plate and a wand, you know, it like that way you can make the armor it doesn't fit. 00:12:43.48 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:12:47.00 Hank ah wand like I think I did have a troll with a wand, and the troll is just hanging around his neck like ah like an enchantment. 00:12:54.43 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:12:54.62 Hank So the idea is that you know he was a fighter. It's not like he's going to use the wand, but maybe he found a ah magic wand and ah it enchants his armor, or maybe it it doesn't actually do anything and he thinks that it does because he's just a stupid troll. 00:13:05.95 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:13:06.84 Hank Yeah. 00:13:07.38 Kurt Crenwelge Right. If it again, what is it? The 40 K lore of orcs being like, if we just believe hard enough, then that bends reality to make it true. 00:13:11.07 Hank yeah Yes, the belief magic. Uh-huh. actually I actually found a ah ah channel recently, if I can find it really quick and shout this guy out. 00:13:24.75 Hank ah I think it's called... i don't want to get it wrong. Hold on, hold on. I know I'll find it. 00:13:35.39 Hank OK, Niche Crafts is the YouTube channel. 00:13:38.66 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:13:38.84 Hank And he he has this, ah he makes these like goblin orc sort of whimsical lore called Goblins. And the lore is that he like finds this mystic book in the woods, and he's you know, ah constructing these goblins based off of the diagrams that he sees in the book. 00:13:57.32 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:13:57.50 Hank And the goblins are similar where they have this like super belief magic where things only work because they believe that it works and everyone around them is just left confused as to how this thing could possibly happen. 00:14:09.74 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Kind of like a Nilbog sort of a situation. Okay. 00:14:12.67 Hank Mm hmm. 00:14:15.53 Kurt Crenwelge So, I mean, we're we're we're talking we're and we're exploring and we're learning more. And I feel like that pretty well segues into the the next question. um But do you currently or have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons before? 00:14:29.84 Hank um I have a couple times. It's actually been quite some time. um The first time I played was in high school. And i was very lucky to have my first DM, I still think is the best DM that I've ever played with. 00:14:47.03 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:14:47.43 Hank And ah he just has a very good mentality about the game, which can be summarized as follows. Player says, um want to try a thing. 00:14:58.85 Hank DM says, well, you can certainly try. So there's no, ah it was all pretty homebrew and pretty, you know, was storytelling and hanging out with friends first and then math and character creation second, you know? 00:15:16.06 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:15:16.33 Hank and And I've always, I personally enjoy that much more. I'm not going to be one who's going to min-max and try to, you know, i I'm the type of player who I look at my sheet 20 minutes before the game starts, you know? 00:15:27.49 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:15:27.57 Hank Like, I feel like I'm probably not, 00:15:27.87 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:15:29.94 Hank the DM's favorite player. But I do sit there in the corner and I doodle stuff as it's happening. 00:15:34.48 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:15:35.31 Hank So that's that sort of... 00:15:36.55 Kurt Crenwelge Were you doodling comics of your campaign and stuff like that? 00:15:39.93 Hank Yeah, so that's actually where this whole D&Doodle thing started, which is the main kind of pitch of my ah business company, you know art as of me as an artist in this specific... 00:15:59.66 Hank umbrella of D&Doodles, the main thing that I'm trying to do is ah live campaign drawings. So I've done it a couple times, I've done it for every campaign that I've ever played in, but basically what happens is 00:16:09.04 Kurt Crenwelge um Okay. 00:16:14.28 Hank ah I establish a sort of visual language of the characters. 00:16:20.30 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:16:20.43 Hank So you can have you know super low stick figure fidelity up to like you know the SpongeBob shot, where it's like detailed and exaggerated. 00:16:30.27 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:16:30.80 Hank ah And then once we figure that out, i just kind of sit in the corner, and I'm like doodling, kind of turning what's happening in the game into little jokes and little comics. And then by the end of the session, the three, five hour session or whatever, you get to walk away with this little uh, comic book. 00:16:49.83 Hank And it was always so, uh, rewarding for me personally to, uh, kind of pass around these little doodles to my friends and, uh, sit there waiting for their reactions. 00:17:03.49 Hank And, uh, it ended up being this really nice, you know, uh, they're almost like notes, you know, you can kind of look back and, reference your campaigns. Cause I always forget what happens. 00:17:12.54 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:17:13.10 Hank Uh, uh, And it's just, it was it was really fun. And I've tried it a couple of times with like friends campaigns to see how sort of scalable it is as a, uh, 00:17:26.08 Hank as a sort sort of commission business, you know? And ah i don't I don't think I've ever really seen anybody else doing this specific, you know, quick live drawing D&D thing. 00:17:37.21 Hank I'm sure there's, obviously there's people that they draw their own characters, you know, they're doodling while they're, it's not like I'm the first person who's ever drawn D&D campaigns, you know? 00:17:43.70 Kurt Crenwelge No, I'm the first one who has ever doodled ever. 00:17:46.79 Hank Yeah. 00:17:46.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:17:47.59 Hank And it's like, you know, you you see ah different YouTube channels and podcasts and stuff. They have their like animated characters and their shorts and reels and stuff. and that's all really cool. 00:17:56.77 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:17:56.99 Hank And i'm um'm I'm sort of trying to make that more ah accessible to people. 00:18:02.84 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:18:03.04 Hank you know So you're not going to get a super high fidelity animation. no. 00:18:07.79 Kurt Crenwelge Right. You're not going to get an anime from Hank, but you will get ah you will get an authentic D&D from it. 00:18:08.27 Hank by no no 00:18:13.54 Hank Yeah, you'll get an authentic D&D, you'll get a little zine, you'll get a little book, you'll get little comics, and you will ah reinforce these fun memories that is what D&D is about. 00:18:25.21 Kurt Crenwelge And so when you were playing, what edition was it? 00:18:28.28 Hank um I have played 3.5, 4, and This was back five 00:18:32.95 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:18:33.35 Hank i think i started with either three or three point five this is back in 00:18:42.46 Hank Oh, man, I was a freshman, I think. So like 2009. 00:18:47.46 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:18:48.26 Hank Maybe 2010. 00:18:50.04 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. 00:18:50.96 Hank And my first character was a Goliath Warden named Straight Eight because he was eight feet tall. Mm-hmm. 00:18:57.47 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. I started 4th edition. I was in college by that point, and it was Halloween night 2010. And my first character was a human wizard by the name of Otto von Krieg. 00:19:09.35 Hank Nice. 00:19:09.99 Kurt Crenwelge And it was very much borrowed off of the fable protagonist start of like, oh, I'm from the village of Oakvale, but my parents were murdered by bandits. So I went to wizard school to get revenge sort of a thing. 00:19:20.88 Hank Nice. 00:19:21.31 Kurt Crenwelge And then from there, I've spawned off doing other things and becoming a forever DM and all that and running fifth edition, the 2014 rules. 00:19:26.20 Hank Yeah. 00:19:28.94 Kurt Crenwelge Not that I've had a chance to really sit down with 2024 rules, but. I am comfortable in 2014 rules. 00:19:32.80 Hank Yeah. 00:19:34.66 Kurt Crenwelge And then just nitpicking and choosing like what other home rules or additions or changes to make. 00:19:40.12 Hank Right. Right. I don't think that I could... I tried DMing once. um I wouldn't call it a true DM experience because it was a very homebrew one-shot. 00:19:53.04 Hank It was a kind of like sci-fi vibe where like I had the party crash land on ah on a moon somewhere and there were going to be like robots and aliens. and it was It was okay. 00:20:06.36 Hank I made like little you know little tokens and little... But there were 12 players. 00:20:11.41 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, 00:20:11.60 Hank It was absolutely impossible to get anything done. 00:20:14.88 Kurt Crenwelge wow. 00:20:15.50 Hank So I just kind of gave up on any sort of like narrative of any kind and then just kind of filled the role of, of peacekeeper and, and, you know, a herding dog. 00:20:29.45 Hank Right. 00:20:29.82 Kurt Crenwelge I see. 00:20:31.21 Hank So I have, 00:20:31.30 Kurt Crenwelge And I didn't. Oh, no, sorry. You go ahead. 00:20:34.16 Hank I was just going to say, I have you know respect for these DMs who just have like an encyclopedic knowledge of different rules and ah settings and stuff. it's very Having that on the forefront of your mind can really help with the game because you're not having to like stop and, hold on, let me let me pull up. 00:20:54.74 Hank Let me look up how to do the thing. You know you can just kind of keep it going. 00:20:57.29 Kurt Crenwelge But also the DM secret is just we make it up as we go along and then if there's something we have to look up later we will and correct it and with everyone moving forward. 00:21:01.40 Hank Yeah. 00:21:04.02 Hank Yeah. Right. 00:21:06.94 Hank right 00:21:08.48 Kurt Crenwelge And I didn't ask this before we got to this question, but you know it does pertain to this explanation of your history with D&D and forming Dean Doodles and kind of like your art style. 00:21:20.25 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know. What would you say are some of your inspirational figures for when you're looking at art? Because obviously you look at the Doodle and to me, I'm getting like slight hints of like Frazetta, but maybe I'm also like seeing some Mike Minola from Hellboy or like some come other styles like that. 00:21:36.16 Hank yeah 00:21:38.84 Kurt Crenwelge So just kind of curious of like, so when people are going to find your Instagram page or ah your TikTok or your YouTube, like when they see the doodles, like what sort of vibe are they going to get? 00:21:50.10 Hank That's a good question. um I have a couple of direct artistic inspirations that might not, that I, like, i don't want to give anybody the wrong impression about what the style of the D&Doodles 00:22:03.21 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:22:05.84 Hank is, but some of my personal favorite artists are a big fan of Zdzislaw Bekszynski, he's painter, Polish painter. 00:22:14.06 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:22:14.36 Hank um Also big fan of Kim Young-ji, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, who's a Korean artist who tragically passed away somewhat recently. 00:22:25.57 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yes. 00:22:25.97 Hank um 00:22:26.25 Kurt Crenwelge so There was the big ah whole controversy because the AI training on his comics and stuff, I think. 00:22:32.38 Hank Oh, i'm I don't know if if if AI got to him, but I'm not sure. um he does these like crazy, sprawling, incredibly detailed landscapes. I'm going to type his name into the chat so you can look him up if you want. 00:22:51.77 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. 00:22:53.76 Hank Yeah, super super inspiring. I just, the way that he looks at, it's like you can see him look at a blank flat piece of paper and kind of construct an entire three-dimensional space inside it. 00:23:03.80 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:23:09.28 Hank And I'm pretty sure what happened is he literally drew himself to death. 00:23:09.29 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, yeah. 00:23:15.63 Hank That's what my headcanon is. He never stopped drawing, uh, 00:23:20.19 Kurt Crenwelge Well, another another great artist who ah who passed away in Paris, France, who I'm pretty sure James Morrison, or Jim Morrison from the Doors is there. 00:23:30.18 Hank um 00:23:31.17 Kurt Crenwelge Because I did remember when I did my study abroad trip, I did go to that, um pretty sure I went to that cemetery. And so I was like, oh yeah, there's the Morrison. Yeah, there's his grave there in France, in Paris. 00:23:40.41 Hank Yeah, damn. 00:23:41.90 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:23:43.03 Hank um I'm also a big fan of, back in high school, I used to go online and just ah copy art. 00:23:52.44 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:23:52.78 Hank ah 00:23:53.39 Kurt Crenwelge When you're learning, yeah, for sure. 00:23:55.42 Hank Just so so everybody knows, all art is theft. And ah stealing is okay if you are actually drawing. Not if a computer is drawing. But that's a different conversation. um Anyway, i would ah I was a big fan of Ryan Otley, who did Invincible. 00:24:14.41 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:24:14.52 Hank never Never read the comics. I've only seen the first season of the show. 00:24:18.99 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah, i've I'm pretty caught up on Invincible right now. 00:24:19.55 Hank But... ah Yeah, i'm I'm a big fan of the way that he does crosshatching and ah faces and like these hard edges. 00:24:22.31 Kurt Crenwelge so yeah. 00:24:30.18 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:24:31.42 Hank he he he works really well with line weight. um 00:24:36.49 Hank Yeah, Kim Young-ji, Ryan Otley, Beksinsky's up there. um Definitely, I take a lot from ah like the thick black and white... 00:24:52.57 Hank styles of like the guy who did darkest dungeon and hellboy you just brought him up and forgot his name yes uh because back in high school i used to almost like i didn't draw with color at all until probably college 00:24:57.60 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mike Mignola? Yeah. 00:25:12.85 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. Mm-hmm. 00:25:13.66 Hank i was I almost exclusively did pencil or black and white or ink, um mostly because it was comfortable and also because it was a sort of, ah you know you learn how to do values and composition and ah shapes and shadows and stuff. 00:25:30.08 Hank And then you can start putting in colors and extra fancy stuff. But I wanted to kind of hone in on some of the fundamentals. So for almost all of high school, I would draw with just Sharpies. 00:25:41.00 Hank Sharpies, Micron pens, big pens. It's black and white. 00:25:43.94 Kurt Crenwelge and i do have to compliment as well with the dean doodles because like yeah you do you do your sketch and pencil you go over it in like sharpie and then you roll for at least two colors and so sometimes you'll get like really wild colors like you know they're not complimentary or they're not you know primary colors necessarily 00:25:53.69 Hank Mm-hmm. 00:25:59.21 Hank Right. 00:26:01.99 Hank Or they don't really fit with the character or... 00:26:01.99 Kurt Crenwelge um Right. But then you you shade it and it almost kind of reminds me of um I know Alex Grobot. I think his name is on Instagram. He does like the black light style 70s esque drawings of fantasy stuff. 00:26:17.72 Kurt Crenwelge um And yeah, so some of those color combinations remind me of like you're doing like a 70s black light poster or something like that. 00:26:25.64 Hank Yeah. 00:26:25.76 Kurt Crenwelge So makes it real cool. 00:26:27.81 Hank Nice. Yeah, it's fun to I've been figuring out ways to expand the roles. 00:26:35.11 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:26:36.06 Hank And you know like do I want to get more markers? Do I want to do more things? um I've been kind of slowly implementing more ah values or different changes. 00:26:47.87 Hank But um I'm also trying to kind of keep an eye on adding too many things because I'm also a big fan. This is my second art lesson. The first lesson is stealing is good. 00:27:00.03 Hank And the second lesson is restrictions are good. 00:27:02.96 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:27:03.74 Hank So I really like working almost exclusively with white, black, red, yellow, blue. Anytime I buy a new medium, if I buy a new paint, if I buy new type of marker, if I buy a new... ah 00:27:15.86 Kurt Crenwelge Like the original Ninja Turtles. Not that I've ever read the original Ninja Turtles comics, but it's like those were fairly like black and white and then maybe splashes of red and stuff like that. 00:27:18.39 Hank Hmm. 00:27:23.30 Hank Yeah. Because I think restriction, not not rules and not hard set rules, because those don't really exist in art. There's no right and wrong way to draw a picture in any meaning of the word. 00:27:36.98 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:27:38.53 Hank But ah I think that constraints tend to ah help with creativity and they also tend to help with overall you know, cohesion. 00:27:52.74 Hank It's like, I've never really understood when... It's like, I'll see... I watch a lot of, ah you know, war game painters, miniature painters, and and I've recently... 00:28:03.26 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. Some of them are insane. Yeah. 00:28:05.49 Hank Yeah. I've recently gotten into it, just exclusively just for me. i don't want to ever monetize it. I don't want ever do anything for anybody else. I just want to do it for me because it's fun, because I like tiny dudes, and I like Space Marines. 00:28:13.98 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:28:16.71 Hank Space Marines are awesome. But I only have... like four colors. I have red, yellow, blue, and then I have a silver and a gold, black and a white, and then i have Nuln Oil, and that's it. 00:28:30.04 Hank And I'll see these people that have like an entire shelf of like seven different shades of red and seven different shades of green. And it's like, that's all cool. 00:28:36.30 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:28:36.86 Hank And um'm I'm sure you can get a lot of really ah good colors that I could never get with just these three colors. 00:28:43.24 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:28:43.64 Hank But, um, at a certain point, I feel like it's going to get too, uh, too messy and too, it's like, it's it's, it's, it's, it's too much. It's too much, you know, like tone it down a bit. 00:28:52.36 Kurt Crenwelge Less is more. 00:28:53.51 Hank Less is more generally. I've, I've, you know, I'm, I turned 32 this year. I like a good single player experience with the narrative. 00:29:01.73 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. Mmm. 00:29:03.04 Hank I like some open world stuff, but like, I have 11, 1200 hours in Dark Souls 3. And then I only have like 400 in Elden Ring. 00:29:14.44 Hank Because it's just so big. And I haven't even beat the DLC yet. Because every time I open it, I walk in one direction. Because I don't know where i i need to go. And then I die. And then I close it. Because it's like, I don't want to look up spoilers. 00:29:26.97 Hank It's just it's too many things. 00:29:26.95 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:29:27.93 Hank It's too it's just too big. give me Give me a nice... 00:29:29.45 Kurt Crenwelge Well, any Baldur's Gate 3 that you've done? 00:29:31.47 Hank i have You know, that's that's a game, the same reason that I never played World Warcraft, and the same reason that I never tried cocaine. It's because I'd probably like it too much. 00:29:41.18 Kurt Crenwelge ah fair enough. 00:29:42.64 Hank So, I think Baldur's Gate 3 came out when I was already ah fixing on a different game, and I knew that it was going to just like overtake my... 00:29:54.62 Hank my fixation and I had to i had to remove that ah same same thing with like Helldivers 2 like everything about that game looks like it would be right up my alley to the point where I know I'd put hundreds of hours into it and I need to I need to relax 00:29:56.61 Kurt Crenwelge Fair enough. 00:30:01.05 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:30:10.42 Kurt Crenwelge Fair enough. Well, speaking of such amazing titles, it it seems like it's another good segue into the namesake questions of this podcast. But, um you know, this show is about the sidekicks and the sidequests. We like to, you know, we like to figure out what, you know, what are the favorite others, background actors, the small players that really help to populate our our favorite franchises and games that really make them shine and stand out. So for the first of these questions, 00:30:38.09 Kurt Crenwelge Who is your favorite NPC or sidekick character? Again, whether they're from an RPG, a video game, movie, film, television, literature, etc. And why is this character your favorite NPC or sidekick? 00:30:49.99 Hank So I'm going to go with my gut reaction. And the more I think about it, the more true I feel it is. And that is Patches. Patches the unbreakable. Patches the untarnished. Whatever his other names are. 00:31:03.90 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:31:04.43 Hank So he shows up in all the FromSoft games. ah Not only is he a bald representation, um but I love the idea of this kind of ah cynical character who's not he's not so cynical that he's removed himself from the world around him but he's cynical in the sense that he sees and accepts the world around him and ah doesn't think that it is a good place so he accepts that and leans into that instead of trying to change it or instead of trying to run away from it 00:31:27.35 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm. 00:31:44.25 Hank and he often tricks the player in usually pretty funny ways, ah but always leads you in the right direction. 00:31:54.73 Hank So if you look back, any time that Patches kicks you down a hole, it turns out that that's where you were supposed to go. 00:32:01.56 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:32:02.10 Hank And he's also, ah spoilers for anybody who hasn't played ah the Dark Souls 3 DLC from like nine years ago, he is the only remaining ah you know chosen undead or ah tarnished or whatever cursed one. 00:32:27.83 Hank He's the only person that makes it all the way to the end of the world, along with you. It's you, ah Patches, and Slave Knight Gale. They're like the only sort of main character dudes that like make it all the way to the end. 00:32:41.65 Hank And I just thought that that was really cool that he's been, you know, he he he forgets who he was because he he almost goes hollow, but he never fully goes hollow because he's he's more like you than people realize. 00:32:55.27 Hank And he also, ah I love the idea of him taking advantage of players' greediness. It's like, ooh, shiny object. 00:33:02.05 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:33:03.50 Hank And then he kicks you down a hole because you got greedy you wanted to take the shiny object. And that's the real lesson of Dark Souls is don't be greedy. 00:33:07.87 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:33:11.25 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Learn how to time your strikes. Uh, if something's too good to be true, probably is. 00:33:14.78 Hank ah her 00:33:18.92 Hank Back up, back up. 00:33:19.67 Kurt Crenwelge ye All right. That's a, that's a franchise that I, I, I feel I don't have the discipline for. so 00:33:27.08 Hank Fair enough. 00:33:27.15 Kurt Crenwelge ah Yeah, ah but fascinating to hear and I'm glad ah glad to hear that he is your favorite NPC. And then to go along with it, what's been one of your favorite side quest or B-plot elements? Again, whether it's been from an RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, etc. 00:33:45.83 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this side quest or B-plot element your favorite? 00:33:50.66 Hank So I was thinking about this a lot and. um I don't know if I have a true answer for if it's my favorite, but I will give you an answer for what the first one was and why it is a contender for being my favorite. 00:34:04.76 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Hmm. 00:34:05.14 Hank For my first side quest and what I think like truly exemplifies what a side quest is, is the ah trading sequences in the Zelda games. So that was the first time that, like my first side quest was the trading sequence from Link's Awakening, which is also my first Zelda game. 00:34:16.38 Kurt Crenwelge and okay 00:34:26.21 Hank And I like it so much as as a sort of side quest idea because it's always on the side. It will always be a side quest. You're just kind of trading things and you have to wait until you progress in the main storyline before you can find the next part of the the next character you have to give the item to. 00:34:45.77 Hank You know, so I also just like the idea of it's like you know trading a paperclip until you get a yacht. 00:34:53.99 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting 00:34:54.18 Hank It's like that, you know, you start with a random object and then you find some character who. ah i i remember back in high school, I did I did a whole drawing of every single sequence. 00:35:06.76 Hank I think you start with you get the Yoshi doll from the shop in the starting world. and then you give the Yoshi doll to a baby. And then the baby gives you a bow. 00:35:17.52 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:35:17.92 Hank And then the bow you put Bow Wow. And then Bow Wow gives you A banana or i don't remember. it's you know like It goes in all these silly directions. And then sometimes you'll like you'll see a character who obviously looks like an important character. 00:35:34.54 Hank And they're sitting there like, i really wish that I had some dog food. And you're like, ooh, I'm going come back once i once I trade this item for some dog food. 00:35:47.34 Hank Sorry, I was about to you one. 00:35:47.54 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say, how does a baby have a bow on them? Like, what what sort of irresponsible parent? 00:35:50.72 Hank but You know, I think i think i definite there's definitely a bow in there somewhere. and know i'm I'm sorry, not like a not like a bow and arrow, but like hair bow. 00:35:58.48 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, like a hair bow? 00:36:00.56 Hank Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:36:00.91 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:36:02.42 Hank That makes more sense. 00:36:02.64 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say, babies going around distributing bows and arrows. 00:36:06.34 Hank You gotta start them young, you know? It's a dangerous world. 00:36:09.26 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I was getting, uh, I never beat it. And I, and I, watch I watched a friend play it loads of times before I finally found an emulator and then eventually got my own super Nintendo copy of super Mario RPG. But the, you know, I was getting flashbacks to like Gino is the, uh, the star who inhabits a doll and then comes to life. 00:36:30.16 Hank Yeah. 00:36:30.52 Kurt Crenwelge Um, For some reason, that was reminding me of that when you were like, oh, a baby gives a bow and arrow. Or, well, baby gives a bow and and stuff like that in the Yoshi doll. So all the the nice little Nintendo Easter eggs along the way. 00:36:42.02 Hank Right. Right. 00:36:44.76 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. All right. Well, hey, I mean, that's that's good. And, ah you know, it's a solid answer. It reminds me of some of our other previous guests of the podcast who talked about, um like, I want to say Kevin Chouinard, who's a voice actor on the Chad Fallout 76 podcast. 00:37:00.31 Kurt Crenwelge um talking about the coffee side quests in one of the Final Fantasy games. like It was very critical that at certain points in the discs or whatever, you bought the coffee and you took it to the guy because then he gave you like the legendary weapon or whatever it was you were looking for. 00:37:15.51 Hank uh-huh. 00:37:16.34 Kurt Crenwelge So those side quests, you know that that little random chock ski that you buy in the shop, you never know when it will come in handy. 00:37:19.00 Hank Yeah. 00:37:23.65 Hank It's true. 00:37:23.85 Kurt Crenwelge That's what games have taught us. 00:37:25.25 Hank Yeah, for real. And that's why I collect so much useless junk. 00:37:28.60 Kurt Crenwelge Yep, that's why nerds are inherently ah good collectors of choshkis and random things. 00:37:33.80 Hank Exactly. 00:37:35.03 Kurt Crenwelge And then the way that we the wrap that we round out the personal interview section of the podcast, Hank, what are you passionate about and why? 00:37:35.27 Hank love... 00:37:43.91 Hank So I just put art and storytelling. um I appreciate art. I'm going to say mostly for personal reasons, you know, like I think if I never made money off of art, if nobody ever saw my drawings, I would still do it. 00:38:03.69 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:38:03.86 Hank You know, it's like it's therapy. 00:38:03.97 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:38:06.58 Hank It's it's getting ideas out of my head. it's you know something to do with my hands. right it's it's ah It's a skill to learn. I like getting good at things. 00:38:18.13 Hank um I'm also very visual person, so it helps me process things sometimes. um In storytelling, i just you know that's kind of my biggest thing with D&D. 00:38:33.64 Hank is And and the the most enjoyment that I get out of it is when you can see that or when people realize that it's it's communal storytelling, you know, it's it's improv with math. 00:38:43.79 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. right 00:38:46.22 Hank right? Like it's, ah they tend to be much more rewarding for everybody when people kind of go in with that mentality. And that doesn't mean that you have to be, you know, a thespian and you have to, but it's like, you know, we're all on the same page. It's not me versus the DM. It's not me versus the other players. It's, it's, Hey, let's hang out. 00:39:09.73 Hank Let's figure out a story. Let's, Let's make some shit up, you know? And I love, you know, as as as much as the world tries to make it very difficult to do so, I love people. 00:39:21.78 Hank And I love connecting with people. And um I like telling stories. I like telling jokes. I like repeating jokes. It's good times. 00:39:33.07 Kurt Crenwelge Good times. 00:39:35.35 Hank So yeah, that's my passions. 00:39:40.44 Kurt Crenwelge Excellent. 00:39:41.09 Hank And propane and propane accessories. 00:39:42.95 Kurt Crenwelge And propane accessories. I'll tell you what. 00:39:46.22 Hank I'll tell you. God dang it, Bob. 00:39:49.29 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And ah now that we've had a chance to learn some more about Hank and D&D Doodles, it's time we head into some NPC creation. 00:39:59.50 Hank Beep, beep, beep. 00:40:05.44 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC creation is brought to you by you, our podcast audience and our patrons from Patreon. So now is the time of the show where we give a shout out and a loud hurrah to our comfortable patrons and above. 00:40:18.45 Kurt Crenwelge So hurrah, cheers. ah 00:40:20.39 Hank Hurrah! 00:40:21.26 Kurt Crenwelge So do you, Anson Jablinski and good old mom and dad. We say cheers. 00:40:27.93 Hank Salud. 00:40:29.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, got the the Shiner Bach Prickly Pear, the seasonal. So very good. Yes. All these fine folks I named, you know, the comfortable levels, the two dollar level that gets you the shout out on the month, these monthly episodes this season. 00:40:43.71 Kurt Crenwelge But all these folks I named are wealthy tier level patrons, which means they get to introduce an element of chance to our random tables. 00:40:50.77 Hank Oh. 00:40:52.04 Kurt Crenwelge And we might get to hear some of their responses used here today. So if you want to learn more about all that the Patreon and Kofi, which is a separate thing, but this is the Patreon part. So we talk about Patreon. So if you want to learn more about Patreon, um just go to the show notes below, go to the podcast website, or just go directly to patreon.com forward slash sidekicks and sidequests to find out more about our four tiers of accommodations, help us to grow and expand, uh, 00:41:20.81 Kurt Crenwelge all that we have going on at the Levitating Platter, in this Demiplane, and Worlds Beyond. All right. So this is the part of the show where we get to make up a character. You know, we have a doodler and we have a forever DM with the two of us and our powers combined. 00:41:36.25 Kurt Crenwelge Surely we can make someone really interesting tonight. 00:41:38.25 Hank Something beautiful. 00:41:39.32 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, something beautiful. um And so, you know, I think you said that you wanted to completely randomize a character tonight. Maybe it's a combination of both of our tables or or what are we thinking? 00:41:48.38 Hank Yes. 00:41:51.60 Hank um let's Let's just go with your table. I want i want to be as uninformed as possible. 00:41:56.92 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, you want to be free. 00:41:58.81 Hank Yes. 00:41:59.53 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Free, free fallen. 00:42:02.69 Hank Free from choice. 00:42:02.90 Kurt Crenwelge as As Tom, yes, free, free from, can well, have our constraints, but also be totally free in our constraints. 00:42:05.04 Hank Yes. 00:42:07.25 Hank yes 00:42:08.77 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. 00:42:08.91 Hank Exactly. 00:42:10.20 Kurt Crenwelge All right, so the first thing we have to do is name our character. So unlike, you know, your reels, where we name the character at the end, ah we name the character at the beginning. 00:42:17.26 Hank Mm-hmm. 00:42:18.98 Kurt Crenwelge So if you want to roll d20 with your dice, then we can, ooh, 00:42:21.69 Hank I will. I just got this dice today. 00:42:26.06 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Yes. 00:42:27.01 Hank got a 17. 00:42:27.64 Kurt Crenwelge A D20 roll. Let's see what we get. 00:42:30.02 Hank like got seventeen 00:42:32.66 Kurt Crenwelge seventeen all right well your answer was provided by our previous guests 00:42:33.54 Kurt Crenwelge 17. 00:42:33.72 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Well, your answer was provided by our previous guest, Dr. Emily Friedman of Auburn University, who does all the scholarly write-ups on ah actual plays and stuff like that. 00:42:38.96 Hank Oh boy. 00:42:45.47 Kurt Crenwelge ah Evelina, which is, yeah, E-V-E-L-I-N-A. 00:42:48.10 Hank Evilina. 00:42:51.76 Kurt Crenwelge Evelina. 00:42:52.91 Hank Nice. 00:42:53.65 Kurt Crenwelge Okay? Alright, so then the next thing that we roll for is the Ancestry of the character. This is where we have a very extensive list, so this is where you roll for d100 effect. 00:43:03.11 Hank um see 00:43:06.24 Hank Let me get my Might die. Okay. Here we go. These are tens, right? I can read. all right. Ready. 00:43:18.88 Hank 51. 00:43:20.10 Kurt Crenwelge 51 as I scroll down the list. Oh, here we go. tortle. 00:43:25.46 Hank turtle? 00:43:26.40 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:43:26.91 Hank Oh boy. Hell yeah. 00:43:29.78 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Okay, so Evelina the tortle is what we've got so far. Let's see the next question. What is the job or role in society that Evelina the tortle has? 00:43:41.19 Kurt Crenwelge This we roll just a regular D10. 00:43:43.50 Hank Roll one d10. Got a six. 00:43:48.56 Kurt Crenwelge A six. All right. Your answer was provided by previous guest, Jacob Prince. 00:43:53.48 Hank Thank you, Jacob. 00:43:53.65 Kurt Crenwelge ah Journeyman Blacksmith. 00:43:56.28 Hank Ooh. Yo, this is already cool. 00:43:57.46 Kurt Crenwelge So, yeah. 00:43:59.03 Hank A turtle blacksmith. I'm already 100% board. 00:44:00.39 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. tor yeah 00:44:01.02 Hank hundred percent on board 00:44:02.99 Kurt Crenwelge Well, Evelina joins the roster of the, at this point, I think like at least four, this she may be the fifth. blacksmith that's been made in the six seasons of this podcast so if you ever need a blacksmith character you can always come to this podcast we've got we've got one for you for sure you you got your choices um okay and then let's see what is the age range of this tortle if you want to roll a d8 that'll give us the uh the age range midlife 00:44:14.06 Hank ah huh. 00:44:17.64 Hank Yeah. Nice. 00:44:34.42 Hank a five. 00:44:37.72 Kurt Crenwelge So we have a middle-aged tortle named Evelina. That's a journeyman blacksmith. So perhaps, I don't know. I think if I'm not mistaken, 00:44:46.76 Hank Journeyman is like Greenbeard, right? 00:44:46.92 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:44:48.51 Hank Like your newbie? 00:44:49.58 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so it's like you're getting started on your blacksmithing journey a little bit later in life. But ah but yeah, with these details in mind, now this is where we come into your wheelhouse of expertise. 00:45:00.04 Kurt Crenwelge Can you describe the physical appearance? We have Evelina, we have Tortle, we have journeyman blacksmith, and we have middle-aged. So when you have all those details in mind, what are you picturing? 00:45:11.50 Hank So immediately, first thing comes to mind with a ah blacksmith with a turtle shell is to throw random cracks or nails or pieces into the shell. 00:45:29.77 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:45:30.71 Hank ah You know, maybe she's got like... 00:45:35.84 Hank I don't know. Maybe there's... there's there's you You also want to kind of think of the the scene around them. She's got like a bucket of water somewhere. She's got her ah flame belch cool furnace that's the word 00:45:51.68 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, she's got a furnace. She's got her her bellows and her anvil. 00:45:58.14 Hank yeah you know I'm picturing like snapping turtle vibes too or like I had a turtle as a kid it wasn't a box turtle but it was like a one of these like spiky pointy nose turtles you know and you know what I mean that's 00:46:03.25 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. 00:46:14.42 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:46:19.47 Hank That's what's coming to my mind so far. 00:46:23.22 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. um And then let's see. 00:46:25.58 Hank And she's older. 00:46:25.70 Kurt Crenwelge um 00:46:28.74 Kurt Crenwelge And I was serious. Forgive me. I was just trying to Google here in the background about more about journeying blacksmiths um and just seeing like, for example, this center history dot org saying, you know, learning the iron working trade by apprenticing to a blacksmith once qualified following a seven year apprenticeship, a smith generally became a journeyman. 00:46:50.44 Kurt Crenwelge OK, so. 00:46:51.01 Hank Yeah, I think it's after Apprentice, but before, like, Master. 00:46:55.11 Kurt Crenwelge Right, okay, so she... So, Evelina, even though she's middle-aged, she's, like, just fresh into her career as a blacksmith. 00:47:02.04 Hank Yeah, but but but still competent. 00:47:03.22 Kurt Crenwelge So... Yeah, I was curious if ah you had any ideas or if you just want to leave it open to whichever DM or ah player character decides to stick Evelina in their backstory or the the campaign or whatever. 00:47:06.30 Hank No. 00:47:15.50 Hank Mm-hmm. 00:47:17.37 Kurt Crenwelge um You know, who who was her who was her master that she apprenticed under? 00:47:21.74 Hank Yeah. 00:47:23.06 Kurt Crenwelge And then like, ah you know, what's she been what's she been up to? ah Like, is she like working in a major town? Is she out on the boonies or like in the woods or the swamps? 00:47:31.55 Hank Yeah, I picture her. i don't know why, but in my head, she is outcast and ostracized. So maybe she's like... 00:47:41.41 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. Mmm. 00:47:43.37 Hank Maybe she's just blacksmithing for the sake of it, and there's like a pile of unused, brand new weaponry around this like little hut in the swamp. 00:47:54.95 Hank And she just keeps making making' so making stuff for an army that doesn't exist. 00:48:00.70 Kurt Crenwelge o And I know you were talking about like something about like cracks and like stuff like that in the shell, and maybe that happens a little bit because of the nature of the work. 00:48:11.47 Kurt Crenwelge um i was in so I was thinking of, or I was reminded of, ah Joe Manginello's death cleric tortle character that had like... 00:48:20.38 Hank paper 00:48:21.45 Kurt Crenwelge stuff done to the shell so we were talking about a blacksmith and I was wondering if there was like like oh was there like a need because of like some major injury happened to my shell because as you know with real life turtles and tortoises like an actual shell of them is actually like part of their skeleton and physiology so if something bad happens to that like 00:48:38.79 Hank Yeah. Right. It's not like a ah t-shirt that you can change. 00:48:45.09 Kurt Crenwelge Right, exactly. So I was wondering if like the whole reason maybe why she ah you know became a journeyman blacksmith is like because she's like, oh, my i have like something's happening to my shell, and so I'm literally having to like you know put stick pieces of, like yeah, patch it together with like bits of iron and rivets and nails and stuff like that. 00:48:58.43 Hank Patch it together. yeah 00:49:03.96 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like, oh, do you do a lot of shoeing horses? It's like, no, my shell's falling apart, so I'm just having to like heat it up and go and hit it into my shell. 00:49:07.76 Hank me 00:49:11.84 Hank Right. 00:49:14.17 Hank I like it. 00:49:15.33 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, she's got like rivets. And so if she ever did like a shell attack and probably hurt a little bit extra because she's got like metal bits like. 00:49:21.19 Hank hu hurt It hurt both parties. 00:49:24.51 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, like studded leather, like, ah you know, like, you a little a little a little oomph to the shell. 00:49:24.88 Hank but 00:49:30.78 Hank Right. 00:49:32.30 Kurt Crenwelge OK. 00:49:33.83 Hank Beautiful. 00:49:34.03 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Yeah. And then is there anything else that you can think of as far as physical description wise? 00:49:39.50 Hank ah Well, I started the sketch, so if anything changes, i will keep you posted. 00:49:45.65 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. Perfect. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. 00:49:48.37 Hank We are... 00:49:48.63 Kurt Crenwelge so So Hank is actually in the process of doodling the character that we're making. So hopefully you'll be seeing this later on an Instagram reel. It'll look very cool and and amazing and everything. 00:49:59.46 Hank Absolutely. 00:49:59.45 Kurt Crenwelge So, yes. 00:50:00.54 Hank All of the above. 00:50:01.63 Kurt Crenwelge All of the above. So, yeah, it'll it's it's cool to get to hear, like, this is the audio part of it. And then you'll get to see, like, the finished product over on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube when all is said and done. 00:50:12.60 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. ok and then as we're Okay, so we got an idea of the physical appearance, and then to kind of help us with the role-playing aspects of the character for whoever's going to use Evelina, if you had to pick three adjectives to describe Evelina, what three adjectives would you use? 00:50:34.39 Hank quiet, 00:50:39.09 Hank obsessed, and loyal. 00:50:40.61 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:50:53.18 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. And does that have to go back to like what you were saying? Like, oh, she's in the swamp. 00:50:59.89 Hank yeah um um um um playing off of that Yeah, I'm playing off of that a half-baked headcanon. 00:50:59.96 Kurt Crenwelge She's making all this stuff for like an army that'll never show up. 00:51:07.41 Hank Because that was the name of my band in high school. 00:51:08.03 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:51:11.88 Kurt Crenwelge Half-baked headcanon. 00:51:12.38 Hank I'm just kidding. 00:51:14.10 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, that doesn't sound like a bad band name for a high school band. 00:51:16.53 Hank that's That's full circle going back to repeating jokes. 00:51:20.84 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:51:21.24 Hank steal that one. You can just throw it in any time. Oh, that was my band name in high school. 00:51:28.12 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, alright, I like that. And ah now this is the part where I get to say, and now we get to go back to some dice rolling. So we like, and and this could certainly inform the doodle as well, we like all of our NPCs to have something cool on their person. 00:51:44.00 Kurt Crenwelge So what's going to be a valuable item? Piece of lore, secret, or ideal or concept that Evelina would ascribe to? This is a combination where we get to roll a d4, uh, 00:51:56.93 Kurt Crenwelge for the category and then a D6 for the particular thing. 00:52:00.54 Hank Nice. I'll roll the d4 first. 00:52:04.95 Hank Three. 00:52:06.34 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, three is going to be a secret. 00:52:08.69 Hank Ooh, I won't tell anybody. 00:52:12.68 Hank And five. 00:52:14.27 Kurt Crenwelge Five. Okay, all right. As I take a look here, this response was provided by our previous guest, Glyza Champion. So, Evelina is a twin, and your twin has tasked you with replacing them in their current life because they have been summoned away. 00:52:26.88 Hank Ooh. 00:52:35.88 Kurt Crenwelge So, this is a pretty big juicy secret, so, yeah, so tell us more. 00:52:38.55 Hank Yeah. 00:52:41.40 Kurt Crenwelge What does what does this mean? 00:52:43.15 Hank Well, that's funny because I'm also a twin. So that's a little bit of serendipity right there. 00:52:45.82 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, you are? 00:52:49.04 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:52:50.59 Hank Oh, well, that that that begs the question. Is is she Evilina or is she Goodalina? Is she the other twin? 00:52:56.21 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:52:58.72 Hank You know? 00:52:58.72 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, do they have like a very similar sort of naming convention or do you just or do you just leave it up? 00:53:01.57 Hank Oh, no. I was just making a joke about evil and Goodalina. 00:53:04.09 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, OK. 00:53:06.77 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. 00:53:08.79 Hank ah Yeah, pretty cool. 00:53:10.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I mean, if you have an idea for the name of the twin or you just leave it up to the DM or the player, whoever's going to use this character to be like, oh, and then that's the name of the twin. 00:53:15.87 Hank who 00:53:19.20 Hank Right. I like it. 00:53:22.40 Kurt Crenwelge OK. 00:53:22.91 Hank So she replaced her twin as a as the blacksmith, or is she... ah tasked with replacing the twin and she's actually blacksmith. 00:53:36.75 Hank Like, is she faking to be a journeyman blacksmith or is that, is the twin a blacksmith? 00:53:39.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, it does say here it's worded as you're a twin and your twin has tasked you with replacing them in their current life because they've been summoned away. 00:53:47.25 Hank Okay. Gotcha. 00:53:50.91 Kurt Crenwelge So Evelina posing as the journeyman blacksmith or is the journeyman blacksmith, but originally it was her twin who was the ah blacksmith of this hut. 00:53:52.76 Hank I'm thinking that her, right. 00:54:00.24 Hank Mm-hmm. 00:54:02.46 Kurt Crenwelge And so Evelina is keeping up the guys or the premise by, all right, I guess I'm just going to keep making armors and weapons and whatever else because that's what my twin was doing 00:54:13.36 Hank Because she's loyal, like I said in the last question. 00:54:17.26 Kurt Crenwelge okay yeah so she's loyal so she's loyal to her twin to the end 00:54:18.26 Hank Full circle. 00:54:21.73 Hank And maybe the twin is like, maybe they come from some royalty or some type of like important family. And she had to get called away and she doesn't want to. don't know. 00:54:33.78 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I was going to say, is this like blacksmithing all this equipment, is it for like is it proportional for tortles or just like everyday adventurers? 00:54:42.85 Hank Right. 00:54:43.51 Kurt Crenwelge like Other humanoids that could easily use it and stuff. 00:54:47.17 Hank I like the idea that she's just making whatever she has materials for so she can make stuff for giants and halflings and everybody in between. 00:54:51.85 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:54:55.63 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, and then would that tip off? So if if you allowed for, or if a DM or a player whatever introduces character, um would that give them a chance to like be able to roll like an insight check to be like, wait a minute, the real Evelina that I know would only make stuff this particular way, but this Evelina is making stuff for like halflings and giants and like all other weird sorts of stuff? 00:55:12.62 Hank Yeah. 00:55:15.78 Hank who 00:55:19.28 Hank Right, right 00:55:22.44 Kurt Crenwelge like What's going on here? 00:55:23.45 Hank me right. 00:55:24.85 Kurt Crenwelge Is that a way to get a peek at the secret? 00:55:26.85 Hank Yeah, they can tell by like how many times the steel was folded, if it's the real Evelina or not. 00:55:32.43 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:55:33.88 Hank Something like that. 00:55:34.09 Kurt Crenwelge so So do we think the twin here that we've got you know is ah is a good journeyman blacksmith or do you leave it up to the whichever campaign she ends up in? like Oh, if she's been doing this for a while, yeah, she's actually good. Or like, oh, this is a fresh thing. 00:55:48.56 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe she's a bit clumsy and doesn't quite have this figured out or whatever. 00:55:50.23 Hank and i i think that she is competent at worst so maybe maybe she has like some really good stuff every now and then but uh uh generally speaking it's it's mostly serviceable you know it's like b plus tier equipment yeah 00:56:04.64 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:56:08.74 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, and now another question. Because we've determined that the Evelina that we're working with is actually a twin, she had to put if she has all these like metal plates and rivulets in her shell um to make it look like her twin. 00:56:24.31 Kurt Crenwelge So she had to do all these body modifications ah to be a convincing total blacksmith that everyone would know her as. But maybe like upon closer inspection, they're like, wait a minute, your shell isn't actually cracked at all. 00:56:37.54 Hank Right, right. 00:56:37.66 Kurt Crenwelge Like yeah you had to put this stuff on and you you willingly did this. Why did you do this sort of a thing? 00:56:42.52 Hank like it. i like it 00:56:47.34 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right, cool. Yeah, that's a pretty juicy secret. Could lead to all sorts of ramifications depending on perhaps this next question, which is our supposed Evelina here needs some doing done. 00:57:02.91 Kurt Crenwelge And so she's going to offer up some sort of side quest to our players. So what's going to be that side quest that she's going to offer up? 00:57:08.88 Hank Ooh. 00:57:09.30 Kurt Crenwelge If you want to randomize that the with the final dice roll of the d twelve 00:57:14.16 Hank Is this the final dice roll? Oh, I gotta do it. I was gonna come up with something, but if it's the last dice roll, I gotta commit. 00:57:20.18 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:57:20.79 Hank I'll do that. Oh, that's a 10. I can't read. Okay. Last roll. Eight. 00:57:26.95 Kurt Crenwelge Eight. All right. ah who Okay. Well, this one was provided by Dylan, ah co-host of the Kill Every Monster D&D podcast. Assassination of a merchant. 00:57:39.72 Hank Oh, no. 00:57:40.99 Kurt Crenwelge So, yeah, I don't know. Do you think that fits for this Evelina? 00:57:43.58 Hank right, that... 00:57:45.60 Kurt Crenwelge Does it have to do with like a rival blacksmith or something? 00:57:48.29 Hank You know, that that works with what I was going to say, which is ah she just needs more supplies. You know, she's like... 00:57:53.56 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:57:54.64 Hank She's, you know, holed up in the swamp somewhere and doesn't want to go anywhere. Or maybe travel is hard. Or maybe she doesn't want to be recognized because her twin or whatever... 00:58:05.35 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:58:06.41 Hank ah 00:58:06.44 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:58:07.41 Hank so So her relationship with the merchants is very important to her. And that that trust is going to be very important. 00:58:12.33 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:58:15.16 Hank ah So maybe ah someone betrayed her. Or maybe she wants you to believe that they they were betrayed, but actually she's just going after them after their supplies. Or it could be one of those things where... 00:58:29.63 Hank You're just given a task, hey, go kill this guy, and you don't question it at all. And then you come back and it's like, oh, that was the mayor of of Happy Princess Town. What have you done? 00:58:39.61 Kurt Crenwelge oh 00:58:39.75 Hank you know So maybe she's she's just going, she is actually going after a rival blacksmith, but doesn't want you to think that. And she tells you that it's, a you know, they stole my shipment. 00:58:52.19 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, yeah. Or it's like, oh, yeah, they're the ones that normally bring my shipments of ore or whatever from the mine. And they kind of they jilted me or they stiffed me of of some stuff that I was promised. 00:58:59.60 Hank Yeah. Mm-hmm. 00:59:04.61 Kurt Crenwelge So go deal with these ah merchants who are like, you know, bringing me the ore and stuff like that. 00:59:12.96 Hank yeah 00:59:14.06 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Yeah. And then this is probably another clue or an insight to people to be like, wait a minute, is this how the real Evelina would act? 00:59:22.16 Hank her 00:59:22.14 Kurt Crenwelge Would she be so, you know, if she's supposedly quiet and loyal and stuff like that, is she going to be so vindictive or bloodthirsty with supposedly needing you to go assassinate a merchant? 00:59:30.32 Hank Right. 00:59:35.00 Hank Right. Or is she just in doing so? 00:59:38.61 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Yeah, there's the. 00:59:39.47 Hank You're not sure? 00:59:41.52 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay. So now that we've got this side quest before us, you know, obviously we don't have to plan the whole thing, but the things that we ought to figure out are the the rewards ah for success and the and and the consequences of failure. So for the first of those... 00:59:57.27 Kurt Crenwelge What's going to be the reward for successfully assassinating this ah merchant, whether they be a rival blacksmith or like a metal merchant or ah ores or or what have you? 01:00:09.03 Kurt Crenwelge What's going to be the reward from our supposed Evelina? 01:00:10.97 Hank oh 01:00:13.86 Hank it's gotta be like a cool sword or like her the best sword i'm go go with meteor sword like from like sokka's sword from avatar 01:00:16.63 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:00:19.46 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, meteorite sword. 01:00:23.73 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, there you go. So it's like stronger than like normal metals and stuff like that. 01:00:29.65 Hank yeah and plus it's cool 01:00:30.72 Kurt Crenwelge So maybe kind of has like the adamantine sort of properties, if you will. 01:00:34.56 Hank Sure, yeah, yeah. It's like a, not not like a magic, you know, it doesn't have magical properties, but it's like magical in the sense that it's super incredibly durable and strong. 01:00:44.75 Hank It doesn't have like a, you can't shoot fireballs or anything, but it's ah the best sword she's ever made. 01:00:45.31 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:00:51.01 Hank Let's say that. 01:00:51.21 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, like an adamantine or maybe even mithril. Mithril will be extremely rare as well, but yeah, I can imagine that adamantine, which I think allows you to like crit. 01:00:57.45 Hank Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 01:01:01.11 Kurt Crenwelge What is on 19 a 20 or something like that? Yeah. 01:01:06.46 Kurt Crenwelge ah 01:01:07.02 Hank Oh, I'm not sure. I'm actually not super versed with like the specific rules of D&D. ah and know the broad strokes and I know how to play the game, obviously, but like if it comes to like specific D&D lore or stuff like that, I am not super knowledgeable. 01:01:22.56 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 01:01:26.25 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, well, thanks to the interwebs right here at my fingertips, adamantine weapons are known for their exceptional hardness and the ability to bypass certain damage resistances and immunities. Specifically, they automatically score critical hit against objects according to 5e tools. 01:01:41.81 Kurt Crenwelge This makes them particularly useful for destroying structures or overcoming objects with high durability. 01:01:41.86 Hank Yeah. 01:01:46.95 Kurt Crenwelge While they don't inherently offer a damage bonus against creatures, they can be effective against those with resistances or immunities to non-magical weapons like certain golems or elementals. So yeah, this certainly would be like, you know, 01:02:00.10 Kurt Crenwelge So she's able to offer up an adamantine weapon for the party to be able to have. 01:02:04.32 Hank yeah 01:02:04.34 Kurt Crenwelge Like, this is the best one that she's ever made, and everything else is kind of like standard fare sort of adventuring equipment or maybe even slightly subpar. 01:02:13.16 Hank Right. 01:02:14.31 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. But then ah what is going to be the opposite? What's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? So like she asks the players to go do this and the players say no. 01:02:29.31 Kurt Crenwelge um Maybe because they're suspicious of like, is this even really the real Evelina? Because this isn't the Evelina that I would know. 01:02:34.91 Hank Mm-hmm. 01:02:37.28 Kurt Crenwelge Or, you know, they get to trying to do this assassination and the whole job gets... goofed, and they have to come back and report their failure because, oh, the merchant ran away and made off of all the stuff. 01:02:50.20 Hank Yeah. 01:02:50.38 Kurt Crenwelge What's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure at all? 01:02:55.26 Hank going to go back to some Dark Souls inspiration and just say that if you refuse or if you fail, when you come back, she's just dead. And you're not really sure why. 01:03:07.53 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:03:08.41 Hank So maybe ah the merchant was onto her and came and killed her first. Or... she just had a heart attack and on her own and just happened to die. 01:03:20.62 Hank But that happens yeah yeah but that that happens a lot in Dark Souls quests where you complete the quests or you do something and then you reload the area and the person's just just dead. 01:03:20.90 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, because she is middle-aged. 01:03:32.42 Hank And you're like, no, what happened? 01:03:34.99 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Well, in D&D, thankfully, we have, you know, like, the speak with the dead spell. So you'd be able to... 01:03:40.03 Hank Yeah. 01:03:40.73 Kurt Crenwelge So if a DM wants to, like, you know, thread this, you know, this plot more, then you can be like, okay, you cast speak with dead on supposed evilina, ah well, I'm not really Evelina, I'm twin so-and-so, and then this is why I died, and sort of a thing. 01:03:54.17 Hank Right. right 01:03:56.48 Kurt Crenwelge And now that's a whole new mystery, maybe has to do with, it relates to the secret of why Evelina, the real Evelina, was called away in the first place, because someone was trying to get to her, and they didn't realize that, oh, we only got the twin, we didn't get um the real Evelina, whatever. 01:04:14.00 Hank Right. 01:04:15.86 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:04:16.00 Hank Hell yeah. 01:04:16.93 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:04:17.44 Hank Intrigue and mystery. 01:04:19.61 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah. Well, that certainly is a good consequence for failure or or refusing to call the adventure. You just come back later and it's like, oh. 01:04:28.42 Hank Well, bet you wish she did that. 01:04:29.26 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:04:31.10 Hank Although I guess you could just take all her swords at that point. 01:04:34.04 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:04:34.15 Hank There's just piles of of swords and weapons and stuff. 01:04:37.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:04:37.93 Hank Take them. 01:04:38.02 Kurt Crenwelge but But is any of the good stuff? Maybe all the good stuff's already been taken. 01:04:41.51 Hank Yeah, probably. 01:04:42.86 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, probably. And then we've got optional questions. You know, if you feel like you want to flesh the character out more, or if you feel like this is a pretty good ah depiction of Evelina, then we can proceed to the next section. 01:04:55.83 Hank um We can keep going because I just started the inks. 01:05:01.23 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. You want to keep going? 01:05:01.51 Hank I've got a pencil right now if you want to see it. Here, let me see if I can. The audio only listeners can't see it, but I can see it. 01:05:09.30 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, that's cool. 01:05:11.13 Hank Just pencils so far. 01:05:13.65 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. 01:05:14.64 Hank Yeah. 01:05:15.84 Kurt Crenwelge Amazing. 01:05:16.91 Hank All right. So, optional questions. 01:05:19.82 Kurt Crenwelge Sure, optional questions. Yeah, so what are what are the goals and motivations of Evelina as a character? 01:05:26.62 Hank um let's Let's go ah deep and existential and say she wants to forgive herself. 01:05:35.78 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:05:36.62 Hank Tie back to that like obsession and hyperfixation and the a strange, complicated family dynamic with the twin. 01:05:48.33 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Okay. So she wants to be able to so forgive herself. So she, so again, with the loyalty, she feels like, you know, she has to do this. She owes her twin to take her place here in this blacksmith shop. 01:06:03.37 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know. So now I feel like this opens up a whole thing. Like, you know, ah we could totally leave it a mystery. And then whoever uses this character could really invent what the real Story is, i don't know, do you feel like you want to leave any notes ah for as to like what she was really doing before she became this journeyman blacksmith in this hut in the swamp? 01:06:27.48 Hank leave it vague. 01:06:28.56 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. I like that. 01:06:30.35 Hank Up to interpretation. yeah y'all Y'all can do whatever you want with it. 01:06:33.75 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And then as far as these goals and motivations are concerned, how do they affect her general personality? 01:06:41.17 Hank um she doesn't like talking to people or people in general. i'd I'd say that she like does not like people. 01:06:52.01 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. 01:06:52.68 Hank Doesn't enjoy the company of other people. 01:06:55.80 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:06:55.84 Hank um 01:06:58.50 Hank So that goes back to you know being quiet and recluse. I'm also somewhat channeling the blacksmith character from Berserk who makes the Dragon Slayer sword. 01:07:10.15 Hank ah as this sort of like always blacksmith hermit character. 01:07:17.00 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:07:19.41 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and again, that may be an interesting um sort of a clue in for people who are like, oh, well, I supposedly know the real Evelina. And Evelina was like was like ah like an old Yoda character, was happy to talk to you whenever you came to visit them. 01:07:30.71 Hank Right. 01:07:32.83 Kurt Crenwelge And now this Evelina is like changed. Like she's different. 01:07:35.26 Hank Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 01:07:35.79 Kurt Crenwelge Like she doesn't like talking to people. She just wants the blacksmith. So different. 01:07:40.31 Hank Yeah. 01:07:41.18 Kurt Crenwelge I wonder if other people in the sort of nearby Swamp Town maybe comment on that as an ambient NPC dialogue being like, that Evelina sure changed. 01:07:49.53 Hank who 01:07:51.16 Kurt Crenwelge You know, it used to be more sociable. Now just does nothing but standard hut. 01:07:53.84 Hank Right, right. 01:07:56.94 Hank like You only hear that if you roll a good passive perception. 01:08:00.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:08:01.09 Hank You only hear that if you roll a good passive perception, I mean. 01:08:04.11 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, there you go. 01:08:04.80 Hank Yeah. 01:08:06.81 Kurt Crenwelge So then, well, I mean, it sounds like we answered this next question pretty well, but um how does our Evelina normally interact when it comes to different people? Is she the same across the board as far as this not wanting to talk to people? 01:08:20.72 Kurt Crenwelge Or is she actually pretty nuanced depending on who she's actually speaking with? 01:08:25.82 Hank I feel like there's probably someone that she likes, you know? i think that she only talks to people about business. 01:08:34.69 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:08:35.28 Hank Or at least has only talked to people about business for the last, you know, decent portion of of her life. 01:08:42.44 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:08:42.80 Hank Right? So, um... 01:08:49.96 Hank Yeah, I'd say she's like, you know, don't don't don't say any words that are unnecessary. Why use many words when few do trick? 01:08:55.91 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 01:08:58.95 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 01:08:59.30 Hank Right? 01:09:00.10 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:09:01.14 Hank Not not like a stoic never says a word, but like does not waste her breath. 01:09:09.45 Kurt Crenwelge I see. So methodical chooses her words carefully um and doesn't say more than she needs to say. 01:09:17.00 Hank Yeah. 01:09:18.20 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Again, probably up with the ruse of like, I have to be Evelina. have to keep her identity safe and not let people know the fact that I'm actually her twin and I'm not really Evelina. 01:09:23.84 Hank Right. 01:09:28.06 Hank Yeah. it could just It could just be a front for like, the more I say, the more likely someone's going catch on to me that I'm lying. 01:09:28.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:09:35.09 Hank So I'm just going to shut my mouth. 01:09:37.21 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. 01:09:39.06 Hank Could be that. 01:09:39.23 Kurt Crenwelge And then, yeah, yeah. ah Does, uh, does she have any particular accent or language that she uses? Are there any idiosyncrasies in how she acts or speaks? 01:09:49.88 Hank Hmm. Hmm. 01:09:53.49 Hank I feel like she did not grow up around tortles, you know, like maybe the her and her twin or her family was like 01:10:07.35 Hank ah subservient to another family and was like the only the only group of tortles here. And maybe that leads to her ah sort of feeling secluded and not connected with people. um But I imagine that that would, you know, like she wouldn't have like a tortle accent or maybe not even speak whatever tortles speak. 01:10:28.03 Hank You know, maybe she can only speak Elvish or Common or or whatever. 01:10:31.88 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:10:34.75 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:10:34.88 Hank That'd be interesting. 01:10:36.92 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, it would. Yeah, so someone tries to speak to her in a particular accent or or or language, and then she like doesn't respond and is like, oh, oh interesting. it's ah It's a thing to note about the character. 01:10:49.97 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:10:51.24 Hank yeah 01:10:51.32 Kurt Crenwelge um Yeah, so what impact on the world has our Evelina made? How has she shaped her local area? 01:11:00.29 Kurt Crenwelge I guess kind of like a pre-version before the before she went away, and then how has that perception been this been maintained or changed ah since the twin ah took over her her identity? 01:11:15.35 Hank Right. I imagine that maybe the original Evelina was more connected with the surrounding people, like, was still a bit reclusive, but, like, would go to the store to pick up milk and eggs versus door dashing it. 01:11:31.28 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Sure. 01:11:36.17 Hank ah And I'm also trying to think, like, what if... So she's in a swamp. She's constantly blacksmithing and you know taking materials from the surroundings and then making a giant pile of ah metal weapons in the soft, swampy area. 01:11:59.79 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:11:59.92 Hank So know what if it's like, you see this big pile of swords and battle axes and stuff. ah But then if you, so if you look underneath the surface or if you dig at all, you realize that it it goes a lot further down than you thought. And they've all just sunk into the, into the swamp water. And maybe there's like a, a sort of load bearing layer of, of useless weapons underneath the, ah the actual geography of her swamp. 01:12:31.84 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, interesting. Like part of the house is collapsed into the swamp. And so the fact that she's literally just like instead of like going out there with like timbers and stuff like that, she's just like, I'm just going to make this, you know, this battle axe and just throw it over there in the water, it to the pile in the hopes that it like helps to ah settle the the ground or whatever. 01:12:35.64 Hank Yeah. 01:12:38.38 Hank Yeah, 01:12:47.62 Hank yeah, yeah. 01:12:53.96 Hank Right, right, right. And then she has to throw in on the other side to, like, balance it out. 01:12:58.71 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. So the floor is weapons, is what we're saying. 01:13:02.14 Hank Yes. The whole area is, the whole swamp is swords. 01:13:06.85 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:13:06.90 Hank sort Sword swamp. 01:13:09.37 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Do the locals call it that, I wonder? 01:13:12.08 Hank Ooh, maybe the kids do. You know, like it's rumored. 01:13:14.02 Kurt Crenwelge Oh yeah, because they're like, that tortle just makes all these weapons and they just kind of just start floating everywhere. 01:13:19.48 Hank yeah. Mm-hmm. 01:13:20.85 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe some legend grew up about like, oh, the maiden of the swamp and the sword. 01:13:24.33 Hank oh yeah 01:13:25.77 Kurt Crenwelge And if you pull it out, then you'll become a knight. But really, it's just like, oh, this thing's rusted. 01:13:31.44 Hank ah And it's like, it's not a lady, it's an old turtle. 01:13:34.44 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay. 01:13:36.23 Hank I mean, she's a lady, but you know she's not like a human lady. 01:13:39.89 Kurt Crenwelge Right. She's middle aged for a total. 01:13:42.10 Hank Yes. 01:13:42.80 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And then, I feel like this is a pretty self-explanatory one, but do you have a do you have does Evelina have any current problems that prevent her from being a bigger player on the stage? 01:13:53.61 Kurt Crenwelge Probably the fact that she's not the real Evelina. 01:13:55.99 Hank Yeah, yeah. 01:13:56.93 Kurt Crenwelge And she's having a to maintain this role. 01:13:57.26 Hank I'd say that's 01:13:59.75 Hank Right. She's bound to her familial calling, if you will. 01:14:05.23 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Just all the more mystery as to what was she doing before she got called here? And what is her sister actually doing that necessitated her needing to leave? 01:14:13.94 Hank Right. 01:14:16.51 Kurt Crenwelge Like that you mentioned, you know, Avatar and like the Order of the White Lotus and Sokka's meteor sword and stuff like that. So had me thinking of like, oh, evil. 01:14:22.98 Hank Mm-hmm. 01:14:25.42 Kurt Crenwelge The real Evelina was part of like some sort of like ah international White Lotus order equivalent where it's like all these different nations and peoples and cultures represented. 01:14:36.24 Hank Right. 01:14:38.35 Kurt Crenwelge um And so she got called away on some secret mission for the order. and ah And then because it's dangerous or it has like world changing implications, it's like, oh, we can't let our enemies know that we're doing this. 01:14:50.27 Kurt Crenwelge So here, twin, you weren't doing anything. 01:14:50.79 Hank Right, right. You got to fill in. Mm-hmm. 01:14:54.24 Kurt Crenwelge So become me. Sort of a thing. 01:14:58.73 Hank Interesting. 01:15:00.53 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:15:01.85 Hank The plot thickens. 01:15:03.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, or you know, like this twin was having some sort of hard life and then was like the real Evelina used it as a as a purpose or a chance or an excuse to be like, okay, my sister needs some help. 01:15:17.40 Kurt Crenwelge I'll have her become me for a while and I'm going to go off on this mission or do something. Eventually I'll come back, but like give my sister some time because, you know, twins would know like what the other twin needs or at least that's the You know, the the the common parlance and saying is like, oh, twins have psychic powers and could just magically talk to each other and intimately know their inner thoughts between each other. 01:15:33.97 Hank hu 01:15:42.04 Hank as As a twin, I have actually never heard that before. 01:15:45.60 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. There 01:15:47.81 Hank That was a joke. 01:15:49.62 Kurt Crenwelge you go. 01:15:52.30 Hank Well, in this case, I feel like magic turtle people could probably do that, though. 01:15:52.49 Kurt Crenwelge All right. 01:15:56.47 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, I feel like we've made it all. We've made it all the way through the NPC creation. So I think it's time head into some. 01:16:07.60 Kurt Crenwelge ah Well, we need to we need to head into a random encounters. What we need to head into. So here we go. 01:16:12.81 Hank and and and and 01:16:12.86 Kurt Crenwelge Random encounter. 01:16:22.19 Kurt Crenwelge And this transcription readers is the final ad read insert part here for Zencaster, which is the platform that allows me to record the podcast to be able to get it to you. So if you're looking to do your own podcast and you want a discount code to save on your purchase of any plan, which gives you the really good tools and stuff, you'll want to go to Zencaster.com forward slash pricing. 01:16:46.71 Kurt Crenwelge And then when it comes to the checkout time and you put in a code, side kq podcast you'll save 30 off on your first month of any paid zencaster plan and doing this supporting the sponsor supports me so i appreciate all you doing that so again zencaster.com forward slash pricing code side kq podcast at the checkouts and all that good stuff so thank you and back to the podcast Alright, so this is the part of the show where we do a random encounter, a roleplay scene, a vignette, a little slice of life into the life of Evelina, or the twid? 01:17:27.09 Kurt Crenwelge question mark but eve Who we know as Evelina, but... um I think as you're you know working on your amazing doodle right now, I think you'll do a fantastic job of role-playing Evelina as well. But the question becomes, who am I going to be in this scene? 01:17:42.42 Kurt Crenwelge Am I going to be one of my podcast adventuring characters that stumbles upon Evelina in the shop? Am I going to be townsfolk that comes through to the shop? 01:17:53.71 Kurt Crenwelge Am I going to be the original Evelina that's giving the mission to the twin to be like convincing them to take her place? 01:17:56.96 Hank ah 01:18:01.51 Kurt Crenwelge Or am I this rival merchant or I don't know any other sort of scene that you're interested in showcasing our Evelina in? 01:18:10.17 Hank Rival Merchant's a fun idea. I like... What about if you are a 01:18:18.10 Hank either a passing adventurer who stumbles upon her shop, or you're one of the locals who has only ever heard rumors and ah finally built up the courage to sneak out into the swamp to go see for yourself. 01:18:37.01 Kurt Crenwelge Oh yeah, we could do that. I don't know. What sounds more interesting to you? Would would you rather meet one of the podcast adventuring characters or would you rather meet a townsfolk who's only believed the rumors? 01:18:47.56 Hank You know, let's let's meet ah let's be one of your characters. I'm down for that. 01:18:51.44 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, well, I've got a whole Rolodex of them, so I'll try and go through them as quick as I can. So we got Duncan. He's the recklessly brave adventurer for hire. Happy-go-lucky. No task. 01:19:02.91 Kurt Crenwelge Too daring. No feat. Too small. ah You know, he's a human fighter sort of a guy. We've got Sonya, who's the warrior woman. She started off as a barbarian, multiclassed into a paladin who serves a god who wishes to redeem the undead. 01:19:16.77 Kurt Crenwelge We have Korak. He's the lawful evil arcane trickster roguish dwarf. We have Chrisley, who's the herbalist botanist wood elf druid, ah who then multiclassed into a cleric who serves living memory. 01:19:30.53 Kurt Crenwelge We have Orion, who's the astral elf illusionist wizard. We have Agape. She is the lilac-colored tiefling Sorlock. Started off as a wild magic sorcerer. Made a pact with Proserpina, the Archfey. 01:19:44.55 Kurt Crenwelge ah She lovingly refers to as Prosperina, but her real name is Proserpina. So yeah, she's a Sorlock, Sorcerer Warlock. um And then we've got... ah We have Lifespell. 01:19:57.71 Kurt Crenwelge He is the forest gnome necromancer who has a skeletal manservant named Octavius. And then i think the only other one after that is we have Ambelin Mithril Shaper, who's a dwarven ah bard. 01:20:10.64 Kurt Crenwelge she's ah She's a greenhorn of a bard. um She's only been on one other adventure. ah So yeah, those are the characters that we've made for the podcast. 01:20:15.98 Hank Nice. 01:20:18.23 Kurt Crenwelge But if none of them sound good, we can always invent a brand new one. 01:20:22.04 Hank I like either the necromancer gnome or the ah dwarf bard. 01:20:29.40 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Well, i don't know your pick. 01:20:31.38 Hank That's Let's do life You can set the scene. 01:20:31.36 Kurt Crenwelge Do you want to hear life spell or do you want to do Anne Boleyn Mithril Shaper? 01:20:38.13 Kurt Crenwelge Life spell. Okay. Would you care for me to set the scene or would you like to set the scene? 01:20:44.79 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:20:47.73 Kurt Crenwelge Where we last left our hero, Question Mark, Lifespell the Necromancer, as well as his faithful manservant, Octavius, ah they were in the collegiate town where they met up with Sven, who was the professor who was lecturing, and Lifespell had to stand in line to get this very popular jar of jam. 01:21:09.28 Kurt Crenwelge And as a reward, was able to get his hands on, um you know, a very potent book of necromancy. So Lifespell was very happy to to study that. 01:21:20.73 Kurt Crenwelge And I think probably at this point, because it's been so long since you've heard from Lifespell, he probably has at least... two more, uh, two more undead servants that have shown up. 01:21:32.77 Kurt Crenwelge Um, so like Octavius, he's dressed up pretty well with like a cloak and a mask and gloves and shoes to hide the fact that he's a skeleton. But i don't know, since you're a doodler, very curious as far as like your constraint to being undead if life spell has two other um you know servant staff with him to give the appearance of like oh I'm this very important person and these are my servants that are with me who are the other two undead with them and how how are they disguised 01:21:54.31 Hank who 01:21:59.94 Hank o Do they have to be zombies or skeletons? or does It doesn't matter. They're just undead. 01:22:04.17 Kurt Crenwelge I mean undead would be the thing but probably like you know zombie or skeleton would be the the most basic 01:22:06.49 Hank Okay. 01:22:11.55 Hank Okay. I want Minotaur zombie that... 01:22:17.43 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, one of the Minotaur... Oh, a Minotaur zombie or the Minotaur skeleton? 01:22:21.26 Hank A Minotaur zombie... ah Well, we do a skeleton. That... 01:22:26.28 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that's his category because I've used one recently and so I had to be reminded. 01:22:29.62 Hank Okay. 01:22:30.90 Kurt Crenwelge Minotaur skeletons classifies a large-sized creature. So this is like a big... 01:22:33.88 Hank Okay, okay. 01:22:34.92 Kurt Crenwelge This is like a big guy. Okay. 01:22:36.79 Hank Yeah, but but he's used as like a pack mule. 01:22:40.48 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. I love that. 01:22:41.30 Hank He's just... 01:22:41.92 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. So the... 01:22:42.40 Hank There he is. 01:22:43.45 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, what is it... 01:22:43.74 Hank Maybe there's not even anything in the stuff he's carrying. It just adds to the looks like he's an important guy. Okay. 01:22:49.22 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And then probably is just, I don't know, any, any, uh, accoutrement that he's wearing again to try to hide the fact that he's undead because life spells trying to present himself as if like he's a normal person in society, but he's a duttering old man. 01:23:00.58 Hank ahha 01:23:02.59 Kurt Crenwelge That's like, Oh yeah, i use necromancy, but I'm trying to hide the fact that I actually use necromancy. 01:23:07.28 Hank Sure, so it doesn't want the skeletons to look like skeletons. 01:23:10.66 Kurt Crenwelge Right, so he could have a minotaur, but like like this pack mule minotaur skeleton, I'm just curious how he's disguised. like Probably like a big hat. 01:23:18.27 Hank Uh-huh. I'm going to say, first of all, very poorly is how he's disguised. 01:23:25.19 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 01:23:25.78 Hank Maybe there's a large hat and just like a sheet. a blanket to look like a robe but uh anyone who's 01:23:32.34 Kurt Crenwelge ah Okay. Okay. he did get some He did get some lessons from Koratiki, who was the middle-aged Yeti professional mourner. Koratiki has some ties with the Actors Guild. 01:23:45.06 Kurt Crenwelge So he got some lessons on costuming. So it's shoddy. 01:23:47.67 Hank you know 01:23:48.98 Kurt Crenwelge It's not the best, but it'll do in a pinch. 01:23:49.46 Hank yeah and it was yeah 01:23:52.13 Kurt Crenwelge And it's enough to fool most people that this giant minotaur skeleton is wearing like robes and like a big top hat or A big wizard's hat maybe even presents him as like a fellow mage, but he's like, you know, he's got all the stuff on his back that he's carrying. 01:24:00.15 Hank Right. Yeah. 01:24:07.65 Hank Right. But it's exceptionally hard to find stuff that fits. So it all looks sort of ramshackle. 01:24:12.22 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Any, any what is what name does he use for him? 01:24:17.95 Hank Ooh. 01:24:22.73 Hank Get over here is his name. 01:24:25.07 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, he just calls him Get Over Here? 01:24:25.95 Hank Just, hey, get over here. And he responds to that. 01:24:27.78 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, I like it. Okay. Get over here. But he says it real fast. So it sounds like, oh, is it like over in here? 01:24:34.10 Hank Yeah, get over here. 01:24:34.52 Kurt Crenwelge Like, oh, yeah. 01:24:35.58 Hank Get over here. 01:24:35.72 Kurt Crenwelge but Okay. Get over here. The minotaur skeleton who he treats as a pack mule. And then who who's ah who's the other undead that he now has at this point? 01:24:46.25 Hank Let's go with... You know what? I'm going to roll off of my list. How about that? 01:24:51.13 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, let's see. 01:24:52.19 Hank I'm going to do a race roll off of my D20. Okay. Got 13, which is a bugbear. 01:25:00.34 Kurt Crenwelge but Okay, so he's got another big guy. 01:25:00.51 Hank So another big guy. 01:25:02.57 Kurt Crenwelge He's got two big guys with him and and just like a regular skeleton, like a humanoid skeleton. 01:25:07.58 Hank Yeah, yeah, and just a little skeleton. I think he's compensating for something. 01:25:09.60 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:25:13.08 Kurt Crenwelge Well, he is a forest gnome, so he is not he's not the mightiest of of of in stature. 01:25:18.93 Hank And he's very old, you said. 01:25:20.60 Kurt Crenwelge He is an elderly, yes, he is an elderly forest gnome. 01:25:25.58 Kurt Crenwelge And so is this a bugbear skeleton or like a bugbear zombie or or what? 01:25:30.54 Hank Let's go with a bugbear skeleton, and he's missing an arm 01:25:36.81 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Okay. Oh, but maybe maybe because he's done an attachment or something like that. He's like attached something for where the other arm should be. Because I would figure that in Life Spell would want to like tinker and be like, okay, this is his first foray into being like, what if I did like some sort of like automaton or construct, but also undead sort of a thing. 01:25:46.94 Hank who 01:25:57.38 Hank who 01:26:00.12 Hank Yeah, I like it. 01:26:02.33 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, and and what does he call the bugbear skeleton, and what is his sort of role in their troop? 01:26:08.07 Hank Let's say the bugbear is he's the muscle with his one arm. 01:26:14.56 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 01:26:17.96 Hank And he leaves the skull exposed, except he makes it look like it could potentially just be a person with like a skull helmet or a skull mask to look scary. 01:26:32.43 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:26:34.28 Hank But it's actually like, I mean, it's a zombie skeleton, but it it's incorporated into the like the robe the disguise. or the the disguise 01:26:46.18 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:26:46.71 Hank To sort of compensate for it. 01:26:46.99 Kurt Crenwelge So... Okay, so he's done a little bit of stage makeup around the skull to make it give the appearance of like, oh, there's actually like eyeballs in there and there's maybe put some jewels in there or something like that to give it the appearance of like, oh, there really is something alive beneath it. 01:26:55.66 Hank Right. 01:27:00.85 Hank Yeah. 01:27:01.84 Kurt Crenwelge But like, oh. 01:27:01.93 Hank the first It's a person wearing... is He's making it look like a person wearing a seat. 01:27:05.42 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, and what does he call this bugbear skeleton who's his muscle? 01:27:08.03 Hank um Slip and Jimmy. 01:27:12.10 Kurt Crenwelge Slippin' Jimmy. Okay, all right. Slippin' Jimmy. 01:27:19.78 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, it kind of sounds like ah like a Bugsy Bugsy, sort of like a gangster sort of a nickname. 01:27:23.46 Hank Yeah. Yeah, see? 01:27:25.20 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, Slippy Jimmy here will make you sleep with the fishes. Okay. All right, yeah, so since the last time we saw Lifespell, you know, because he got his hands on that book, he now has Get Over Here, the Minotaur skeleton, who he treats as his pack mule, and then Slippin' Jimmy, who is it like his first four experiments ah with between, ah you know, like delving into... 01:27:29.20 Hank but 01:27:48.30 Kurt Crenwelge maybe a little bit of artificery, but not quite. um And then also, you know, with his necromancy, um I like to think maybe with the one arm, he's got, ah maybe he put like an arcane, ah like an arcane artificial prosthetic limb on it. 01:28:03.98 Kurt Crenwelge So maybe it's a little bit stronger than like a typical arm. 01:28:04.08 Hank Hell yeah. 01:28:07.63 Kurt Crenwelge And so that's how he's like the muscle and like, you know, it does like a big punch and it like hits harder than a normal skeleton would. 01:28:12.34 Hank Word. Yeah. There's like robot arm. 01:28:15.82 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Yeah, so he left the college town and he was like, okay, I must, you know, ah the the action was a little too hot there in the in the town. Let's let's retreat a bit. 01:28:27.42 Kurt Crenwelge And so they went out to the swamp. And of course, things die in the swamp all the time. There's plenty of skeletons to be had out there. Um, so it's been a couple days and, uh, life spell is realizing that even though he is a necromancer, he still needs sustenance. 01:28:43.12 Kurt Crenwelge So he is slowly making his way back to town, but he's got his little troop of undead with him. and they come across this hut and, what sorts of things is he hearing or smelling or seen as he's getting close to this hut? He's muttering and puttering to himself and trying to order his skeletons about, but he, but something breaks his attention as he, 01:29:04.63 Kurt Crenwelge catches sight of this hut. 01:29:06.62 Hank So there's a a unpleasant combination of like rotten river smell and and burning coal the closer he gets. 01:29:15.77 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 01:29:18.67 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 01:29:20.31 Hank And you hear a consistent ringing clang of a hammer striking steel. It's very consistent and almost musical. 01:29:36.99 Kurt Crenwelge Octavius, look! Look over there! What is... 01:29:38.69 Hank And the hut the hut is very small and humble, and it is surrounded almost, it almost looks like it's on a hill of swords and halberds and axes, and there can just barely make out a very uncomfortable looking walkway to the front of the hut. 01:29:58.43 Kurt Crenwelge um but but but but ah octavius so look over there what 01:30:03.20 Hank Tink! 01:30:03.28 Kurt Crenwelge What? Weapons? 01:30:04.66 Hank Tink! 01:30:05.67 Kurt Crenwelge What? 01:30:06.26 Hank Tink! 01:30:06.84 Kurt Crenwelge Get over here! And you... 01:30:09.44 Hank drink drink. 01:30:10.63 Kurt Crenwelge Slippin' Jimmy! 01:30:11.07 Hank think 01:30:11.46 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, look! Look at all this stuff over here! Wow, look at the... what And so Lifespell is just like, you know, seeing all the seeing all the the equipment and he's already thinking because he has his his big pie in the sky dream is to have his undead skeleton army. 01:30:28.36 Kurt Crenwelge And so he's just like he just thinks he's just found his meal ticket for like step one. all the armaments step two. Now I just have to get all the skeletons and then I've got my skeleton army. So this is like, he feels like, you know, his master plan is already on its way. 01:30:44.96 Kurt Crenwelge So life spell without any hesitation. Um, he will tell, get over here and slip in Jimmy, uh, he's actually going to start ordering them to start, uh, anything that's not nailed down on the outside. That looks like it's discarded. 01:31:00.03 Kurt Crenwelge He's just going to be like, go ahead and just start taking this. Cause obviously it's just laying around here in the swamp. Like it's not doing anything. Uh, so he's going to, he's going to order those two undead to start like, start grabbing stuff. 01:31:11.87 Kurt Crenwelge And then he and Octavius are going to start walking into the shop. And so the door opens, I don't know if there's a bell or not, but Octavius is, uh, uh, you know good you know, he he's making some clanking and bone noises as he's moving about. 01:31:26.90 Kurt Crenwelge um But he does a big gesture, and then as if to emphasize, like, oh, here's Lifespell, here's my master. And then Lifespell will sort of... boot ri but but but Hello, hello i'm I'm looking for the proprietor of this shop. Hello, hello. 01:31:44.13 Hank Yes. 01:31:45.53 Kurt Crenwelge Hello, yes, my name is Lifespell. and you... Have enough equipment to outfit an army! 01:31:55.15 Hank Are your friends going to pay for those swords? 01:31:57.97 Kurt Crenwelge but but Oh, oh, he looks and he can see probably because there was a clear line of sight outside. And so the, the you know, the two big skeletons are starting to pull stuff. 01:32:09.31 Hank but but 01:32:10.68 Kurt Crenwelge And then ah and then a life spell will quickly be like, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like puttering and trying to make an excuse. But he's like, um of course. Yes, of course. I am. I thought those were free because they were just outside. 01:32:24.22 Hank What's your offer? 01:32:25.75 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, well, um, yeah ah he's looking over his stuff and he's like, well, I don't want to get rid of anything super valuable, like my diamonds and stuff like that, because those I'll need for my necromantic spells and stuff like that. 01:32:39.42 Kurt Crenwelge But he's like, well, i i've I've been known to do a job or two ah Perhaps I can do you a favor and then that can be my payments. 01:32:50.65 Hank Hmm. She grumbles and continues tinkering and doesn't say anything else. 01:33:00.92 Kurt Crenwelge Octavius, don't be rude. offer the Offer the blacksmith something. And so Octavius will kind of like shudder. And then, you know, probably because Life Spell doesn't, you know, maybe have much need of coin for himself other than for his spells. 01:33:17.02 Kurt Crenwelge ah You know, he tries to live, you know, you know, live very frugally as best he can. um maybe Octavius does then produce a sack of coin and puts it on like the part of the anvil she's not working on and then sees if that loosens her tongue any. 01:33:34.98 Hank She looks at him a little funny, almost insulted. And then she looks outside and sees the big skeleton deeds. And then she sees the funny looking arm on one of the skeletons. 01:33:49.49 Hank And she, she points towards that and says, what's that made of? 01:33:53.37 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Well, yeah I got that. ah it's ah It's one of those ah prosthetic things. Cost me a penny. You know, i think about a hundred gold pieces or so in the and the one place. and he He also tries to brush by it as quick as he can, but he's basically just like, oh, it's just a prosthetic thing I found or got. And, you know, my slipping Jimmy needed it ah needed some help because he was... 01:34:22.52 Kurt Crenwelge born without it, and i am an equal supporter of, uh, of helping those, uh, with the limb differences who need support in their life. 01:34:33.39 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 01:34:34.12 Hank ah i'll give you I'll give you seven swords and one halberd for it. 01:34:40.86 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, but s Slippin' Jimmy needs it! Surely there's something I can do for you? i am And then ah maybe now, to to show that he means business, now maybe he he motions to Octavius. He's like, go on, to do the thing. 01:34:56.91 Kurt Crenwelge And so Octavius will like you know take off his top hat, remove his mask, and show that he's like a skeleton. Like, for dramatic effect. And then he puts his mask back on, puts his hat back on. 01:35:04.58 Hank Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:35:07.71 Kurt Crenwelge I am Lifespell the Necromancer. And i as I said, you have enough equipment here to fore... to forge and to make and supply an army, and, well, I have great aspirations for my own army, you see, and I'm not above doing the underhanded deed, so if there's some skullduggery you need done, and then perhaps this gnome is the right one for the job. 01:35:39.30 Hank I'll tell you what. If you want to supply me with whatever you made that arm out of, I can trade you 01:35:53.74 Hank one sharpened edge per cubit of material. 01:36:05.11 Kurt Crenwelge Life spell will go over to the window and he just basically yells out like, all right, that's enough. Maybe start putting some back yeah that the negotiations are still a bit in the negotiating phase. And so then the skeletons will stop and then they start unloading all the stuff that they were pulling out. 01:36:23.14 Kurt Crenwelge And then they'll just kind of go into an idle, like an idle waiting phase. 01:36:27.31 Hank An idle animation, yeah. 01:36:28.44 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, idle animation while they're waiting for the next command. um So Lifespell just be like, why i assure you, like if there's, you know, if you need but materials, ah perhaps there's somewhere we can go to acquire these here in these parts. 01:36:47.14 Hank She grumbles. 01:36:54.55 Hank Tell you what. 01:36:57.96 Hank How about if you can make a pathway from the front of my house 01:37:08.29 Hank to the outhouse on the other side, I will give you four swords and one hand axe. 01:37:20.49 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Yeah. Life spells get a role as insight check at this point. And if he does well enough, what is he going to learn about this? Evilina as far as like why she's being so stingy and odd with him, like throwing himself out there being like, I can kill. 01:37:34.21 Hank well 01:37:37.74 Kurt Crenwelge i can do whatever you need me to do. 01:37:41.19 Hank Well, he will get the sense that ah she does not like him very much. She was not frightened at all by the skeletons. And upon looking at the pathway to the outhouse and the age and shape of this poor old lady, he may realize that 01:37:50.91 Kurt Crenwelge Thank 01:38:03.67 Hank She actually just needs a consistent, decent path to the bathroom. And she has not had any room to do so for who knows how long, because it's covered with pointy swords and dangerous weapons. 01:38:20.35 Kurt Crenwelge Alright, so then Lifespell will lean out the window and he yells at ah get over here and he yells at Slip and Jimmy to basically make a better path. ah You know, that's what they can busy themselves with. 01:38:33.33 Kurt Crenwelge And then Lifespell turns and he's like, there, done. See what what I can do, the great Lifespell? Now surely give me some task worth doing so that I might fortify, that I might ah arm my army that I want. 01:38:49.84 Hank Well, I will say there's been a merchant. 01:38:56.34 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:38:58.31 Hank We used to be on very good terms. He would provide me with ash and charcoal from my furnace. 01:39:06.00 Kurt Crenwelge Mm hmm. Mm hmm. yeah 01:39:08.85 Hank And i I believe that he has been skimming from the top, so to speak. 01:39:16.39 Kurt Crenwelge o 01:39:18.04 Hank If you could 01:39:21.31 Hank let's say, take care of that. i may be willing to be more 01:39:32.09 Hank hospitable. She sounds very uncomfortable saying that word. 01:39:39.12 Kurt Crenwelge Life spell will chuckle and be like, well, the why whatever i didn't you say so? That's something that's totally plausible for me to do. Yes. And he checks out maybe the other window to see how the progress is going. 01:39:51.25 Kurt Crenwelge And it looks like they'll be done here in just a bit. And he's like, all right, boys, finish up with that. We've got a merchant to pay a visit to And so, so yes, then he's happy to basically work to get any details that he needs. And he's going to go off and see to this task. But before the scene closes out, Lifespell gets the mission. 01:40:13.01 Kurt Crenwelge He's going to go off with his skelly, skelly bros and go get this done. But what would be the last thing that we, the audience would see or hear before the scene closes out? 01:40:23.67 Hank She says, pretty be careful. I don't want to see me work squandered. 01:40:35.94 Kurt Crenwelge And scene. So there we go. We had a we had a return visit from Lifespell and Necromancer and you got to help invent some new undead minions for him, which is great. So which they become like their own little characters as ah as time goes on. 01:40:49.78 Hank i love that. 01:40:49.94 Kurt Crenwelge So, yeah. So what did you think it was like getting to be Evelina, the blacksmith tortle? 01:40:57.02 Hank That was a super fun little exercise. And I love your little gnome-gromancer. 01:41:05.30 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, the gnome-cromancer. 01:41:05.92 Hank Necronome. 01:41:06.82 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, the necronome. 01:41:07.23 Hank i did i i haven't put the wax seal on it yet, but I do have a completed drawing. 01:41:13.85 Kurt Crenwelge Whoa! That's amazing! 01:41:16.55 Hank Wait, let cover up the... Yeah. 01:41:18.81 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Oh man, all you podcast audio listeners would wish to see this character. 01:41:20.07 Hank This one's for the Patreons. 01:41:24.55 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. 01:41:26.05 Hank She's going to figure out whatever you're releasing this episode and I will put this out. 01:41:31.03 Kurt Crenwelge September the 10th is ah what I have slated. 01:41:33.03 Hank Nice. Nice. I'm going to put that on my calendar. 01:41:38.40 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. All right. Yeah. So then this is the the part of the show that's called ah Final Thoughts. So basically, you know, how you thought your time was on the podcast and and getting to make Evelina and all that. 01:41:50.73 Kurt Crenwelge um Yeah, that's what we like to that's like what we like to hear in this section of the show. 01:41:56.48 Hank Yeah, that was awesome. Like, again, i've I've never really done anything like this before. um So it was nice to shake off some some role-playing rust for sure. 01:42:11.15 Hank you can ah You and the viewers can tell me how well I did. 01:42:15.55 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:42:16.98 Hank But no, this is this is cool. I really like your i like your setup. I like that it's like we're sort of collaborating on this big ah this big world with all these people that I don't even know and don't know me. 01:42:32.72 Hank And we're all just kind of collaborating on this thing that's all being ah put together by ah you. It's pretty cool. 01:42:39.25 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, well, certainly me and all the other guests of the podcast. And, ah you know, I'm definitely ah one to reduce, reuse, recycle, and certainly um come from ah the podcast and and introduce these characters into my own game. 01:42:48.67 Hank but 01:42:55.86 Kurt Crenwelge So i'm I'm happy to use them. And I just hope that other people out there are certainly finding joy and and laughter and and fun with the NPCs that we're making here to just help make your world a little more interesting and and fun and different than just the standard fair. 01:43:11.82 Kurt Crenwelge Um, you know, like, Oh, this is Baker number three. This is town crier number four. 01:43:18.39 Hank po Potion seller. 01:43:18.68 Kurt Crenwelge Like, yeah. Potion seller that just like, Oh, the next town over you were wearing a Brown shirt in the last town. Now you're wearing a blue shirt. 01:43:26.02 Hank Just asset flop or flips. 01:43:26.99 Kurt Crenwelge So, 01:43:31.18 Hank Is that what it's called? 01:43:31.27 Kurt Crenwelge Exactly, yeah, just reusing the same assets from the last... Hey, these are the same asset files from the last game that I played. 01:43:38.46 Hank Right. 01:43:39.23 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:43:40.90 Hank Well, that was lot of fun. 01:43:42.14 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. Yeah. So then, um, yeah. so I mean, obviously, you know, uh, you know, happy to get any final thoughts and feedback and critiques and stuff, but certainly i want to give the platform, the microphone, the stage, the soapbox to you. So, uh, if you want to plug your socials, where can we you be found? Where can we support you and help you in your creative new endeavor? 01:44:04.66 Kurt Crenwelge And then certainly any other passions or causes that we need to be made aware of, let us know. 01:44:09.83 Hank Yeah, cool. So um again, my name's Hank. I'm dndoodles. You can find me most places if you do dnd.oodles. 01:44:22.86 Hank I've got... i'm on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. um You can also find me on my website at mccartoons.com slash dndoodles. That's mccartoons.com. 01:44:39.03 Hank And there you can find more information about the the live drawing stuff, about the commissions. um You can see my library of random dudes I've rolled over the last, I think it's been... 01:44:53.41 Hank i think I did the first one on April 18th, so it's been just over two months now since I've been doing the roll for dudes. 01:44:59.67 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:45:03.49 Hank um Yeah, so ah keep an eye out. I'm going to try to start the live drawing stuff soon. That's going be really cool. I got plans for trying to make like a sort of a commercial video pitch for it to post and see who bites. 01:45:23.61 Kurt Crenwelge And there we go. Wonderful. So Hank, again, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be a guest on my podcast and and for and for being a guest on the show and making this great character. 01:45:32.46 Hank ah Thank you. 01:45:36.18 Kurt Crenwelge i can't wait to have you back on making even more interesting doodles and NPCs. 01:45:40.64 Hank Oh, I would absolutely love to. Thank you.