00:00:05.09 Kurt Crenwelge Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of sidekicks and side quests, the best unofficial Dungeons and Dragons podcast in my humbly biased opinion. I've got an awesome guest for you this week, but before we get to my guest, you know, I got to do it. I have to leave you in suspense with the first ad read. 00:00:22.69 Kurt Crenwelge Insert section here, all you transcript readers, uh, for plus one exp and their RPG zine club. So you know, the spiel by now, you should go check it out and sign up. And when you want to discount code on some beard bombs and all that stuff on plus one exp.com, use Randolph at checkout. You support the podcast and you get some savings. 00:00:43.62 Kurt Crenwelge butdding All right, and ah without further ado, 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? 00:00:56.65 Jess (she/her) Hi, I'm Jessica Markram. My pronouns are she, her, and I'm a TTRPG game designer and sensitivity reader. 00:01:05.03 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, and I am ah familiar with your work that you've done with MCDM and contributed to some of the issues of Arcadia, which have been very cool to read and ah work to integrate that material into my games. 00:01:20.54 Jess (she/her) Oh, yay. 00:01:20.66 Kurt Crenwelge But yeah, and then also you were featured on an episode of ah Kill Every Monster when you talked about blink dogs. 00:01:28.56 Jess (she/her) Yeah, that was so fun. 00:01:30.40 Kurt Crenwelge And because of that episode in my head cannon now, I'm like, oh, well, blink dogs just sound like Scooby-Doo. But for some reason, ah no one else can understand them. But like, if you speak blink dog, then you're just talking like Scooby-Doo, basically. 00:01:44.90 Jess (she/her) Yeah, you have to be like Shaggy. 00:01:46.80 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. It's like, you oh man, I guess. bro And it's like, yeah, that's blink dog speak. 00:01:50.69 Jess (she/her) the Yeah, that's how they talk. 00:01:53.19 Kurt Crenwelge It makes the most sense. 00:01:55.86 Jess (she/her) workbook 00:01:56.85 Kurt Crenwelge Yep. Yes, so not only um have you done work with MCDM productions and you know you've guessed it on other, ah you know, creative podcasts like ah Kill Every Monster and and Tonight Mine. um But what is some, I think you've also done your own work over on the DMs Guild and you've contributed to a number of other various multitude of projects so certainly uh you know like all of our listeners to be able to kind of know what those are so if they're like oh my gosh that's my favorite then then this is the episode i need to listen to for sure 00:02:30.06 Jess (she/her) Well, yeah, with your sponsorship for plus one XP, you can go get one of my games there, which is called Oops! All Dracula's. So check that out. ah It's my own system. It's called the buddy system. Basically, you get it's a D6 dice pull system, but um your moves get stronger when through helping mechanics. But in Oops! All Dracula's, you are all vampires who like live in a house together. 00:02:58.09 Jess (she/her) I have another version of it that isn't in print, but you can buy it on my website or my itch page, um where I think on direct RPG you called the coven at the end of the lane. 00:03:08.79 Jess (she/her) That was the original one where you're all witches that live together, but oops, all Dracula's really took off. 00:03:09.29 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:03:11.81 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:03:14.80 Kurt Crenwelge I see. 00:03:14.94 Jess (she/her) So that one got a print run. 00:03:17.04 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say any ah any roaring endorsements from Taika Waititi or Jermaine Clement or ah Matt Barry. 00:03:23.49 Jess (she/her) Sadly, no. 00:03:24.54 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, man, they really should. I mean, there's a marketing opportunity they're missing out on. 00:03:30.71 Jess (she/her) i would I would be thrilled ah if any of them even knew that my game existed, but ah it's it's fine. 00:03:40.22 Kurt Crenwelge Well, we'll still, we'll we'll keep that ah hope those hopes and prayers up that one day when they're bored in their Hollywood movie trailers, and they're like, you know, I just want to play a game, but I want to play a game that's like based on our witty vampire characters that we do. 00:03:54.46 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:03:55.05 Kurt Crenwelge And they're like, oh my gosh, this game exists. This is amazing. 00:03:58.41 Jess (she/her) Oh, that would be so cool. 00:04:01.14 Kurt Crenwelge And, uh, and remind me again, uh, the specific content that you developed for Arcadia. 00:04:01.24 Jess (she/her) ah oh 00:04:05.85 Kurt Crenwelge I feel like was there, I don't know if it was an ancestry or was it like, uh, like kind of spell rules or I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm just drawing a blank and I know there's like 20 issues of Arcadia. 00:04:17.48 Kurt Crenwelge So I'm just trying to remember. 00:04:18.25 Jess (she/her) How do you not know my entire resume? ah but For Arcadia, I did subclasses based on hags. 00:04:20.40 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yes. 00:04:27.52 Jess (she/her) So it was the Bard, Sorcerer, and Warlock. 00:04:28.64 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:04:31.49 Jess (she/her) And then I did um little mini adventure seats called, a So Your Best Friend's a Monster. And it was basically how to remove the curse from a monster, but also how to get monsterfied for Medusa's and Dryder's, I think. 00:04:49.06 Jess (she/her) That one was originally really long and had like a lot of different curse marks. There's harpies is in there. i think I don't want to like falsely advertise, but I wrote it a while ago. I don't remember what made the cut. 00:04:58.45 Kurt Crenwelge Sure, sure. 00:05:00.26 Jess (she/her) banshees possibly um and uh then for uh i hope i'm not forgetting anything and then for their uh book of like big bads i wrote the chapter on hags and then for their book of lairs they switched up who wrote the lair for witch monsters so i wrote the lair for the medusa 00:05:01.90 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:05:16.89 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 00:05:24.91 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay, very cool. And I did get an opportunity to use ah Where Evil Lives when I participated in FateCon earlier this year. And I did i did the Shadowkeep one, so the level 13 party one. 00:05:35.38 Jess (she/her) Oh, fine. 00:05:39.50 Kurt Crenwelge So that was that was a lot of fun. And I'm like, okay, you know, I'm trying to get stuff going on, start playing games. And I'm like, you know, I've got the books and stuff like that. And you know, this isn't, you know, like a, you know, most of those encounters are all balanced for five ah players. So it's like, maybe I just need to like, I've got the books and I've got the stuff and these are real fun to run. So like, I should just be doing a bunch of these games and stuff like that. And and advertising that for for people to not only get a chance to, you know, ah get to explore Medusa's lair or a vampires lair or whatever, but just to, you know, play great stuff. 00:06:14.46 Jess (she/her) I totally forgot. The other thing I wrote for Acadia was a potion shop. 00:06:16.75 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Ooh, there we go. 00:06:19.44 Jess (she/her) It was I think Granny Greenwinkle was her name and she's, ah i I don't want to give it away. She is a tiny little old lady who sells potions with her cat. 00:06:32.24 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, there we go, yeah. and And certainly for me, as I alluded to, I've been i've been starting up on startplaying.games and so I'm doing these, what I'm calling JRPG ah one-on-one D&Ds. 00:06:46.23 Kurt Crenwelge So the the idea, 00:06:46.29 Jess (she/her) Oh yeah, so it's not fabulous. 00:06:49.76 Kurt Crenwelge um so the i d It's still like 5e D and&D, but just one on one. 00:06:53.07 Jess (she/her) Okay. 00:06:54.91 Kurt Crenwelge um But we use the retainer rules. ah We use the follower rules. 00:06:57.45 Jess (she/her) Mm, mm-hmm. 00:06:58.77 Kurt Crenwelge So then that way as time goes on, um like because the the game that I'm running with a ah friend and colleague of mine, she has like she's collected like four or five little retainers. And so she can like, you know, and she's a bard. So it's like she just springs into battle. And she has like, the shield bear fighter goes in and then the reaver barbarian goes in and then you know, the who's it now the hats it goes in. And so ah it makes you know, for fun, you know, cinematic ah fights, but it's still just mean one person writing back and forth. 00:07:29.37 Kurt Crenwelge ah So yeah, that thank you for the reminder because I was like, Oh, yes, all these hag subclasses were very cool. 00:07:34.80 Jess (she/her) Thank 00:07:37.18 Kurt Crenwelge and And the retainer ones as well. 00:07:38.11 Jess (she/her) you. 00:07:39.42 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like, Ooh, if I have an opportunity now, now with this interview, I'm going to be reminded me like, Ooh, I probably need to dangle like one of those in the story and see if ah my player characters interested in recruiting them or not. 00:07:52.16 Jess (she/her) Yeah, that actually came about when I was play testing a holiday adventure in Book of Seasons, which you can get on DM's Guild. 00:08:01.83 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 00:08:02.36 Jess (she/her) But where in that adventure, a lot of Christmas creatures are angry that they're forgotten. ah So they all attack a town to remind them like, hey, we exist. 00:08:18.08 Jess (she/her) um But when I was playtesting it, one of my players really liked what I turned into a hat coven. That was like Yukiona and Frau Perchta and La Bifana maybe? I mean yeah don't remember. But she was like, can I study with you? Can I change to Warlock? And I was like, what would a hat patron be like? And kind of went from there. 00:08:44.90 Kurt Crenwelge Right. and but And before certainly we, we, you know, turn this whole podcast into a, you know, into a hypothetical, what if a sort of scenario, because I've, you know, after watching the, uh, the Renfield movie, I was like, it is kind of a glaring omission that there's not like a warlock vampire, uh, patron sort of situation. 00:09:05.52 Kurt Crenwelge Um, or even dragons, like dragons would also make like a perfect warlock patron too, but it's like, um maybe because there's overlap with like. 00:09:05.54 Jess (she/her) Right? 00:09:14.23 Kurt Crenwelge you know, oh, the dragon blood sorcerers or you know, the who's it's or that's it's it's like, okay, so maybe they didn't want to double dip too much. But the great thing with Arcadia and all these other ah third party content publishers is is they're like, No, there's this specific cool niche we want to fill. And so by golly, we're going to design it, we're going to release it for the world to enjoy. it So So yeah, wonderful. ah So it' said but if I could get my tongue untwisted, it goes without saying that, you you know, obviously this is a D and&D podcast. So it it leads beautifully into the next question that, do you currently or have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons before? 00:09:56.54 Jess (she/her) I have, in fact, and I'm currently on a stream playing, well, it's a Humblewood campaign, but that uses fifth edition D and&D rules on Phoenixy Waukee's channel. So we are playing, it would help if I knew the title of it. It is one of the published adventures, but it's the only Humblewood adventure on the channel. We play on Tuesdays and I am a Little Mopak, which is a raccoon person, and I'm playing a little night cleric. 00:10:26.58 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, interesting. And so the idea with Humblewood, as I understand it, as I've seen the in the marketing and all, and how it's pitched, it's kind of like you love Redwall and you want to do like Redwall, but the RPG, that's not um the actual Magpie games developed TTRPG, right? 00:10:45.37 Kurt Crenwelge Is that, am I understanding it right? 00:10:45.90 Jess (she/her) MacFi doesn't have Redwall. They, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:10:48.25 Kurt Crenwelge Right, not Redwall, but they have Root. They have Root, which is like sort of kind of like an idea, yeah. 00:10:52.43 Jess (she/her) Similar, yeah. 00:10:55.50 Kurt Crenwelge So is that how you would pitch humble wood? 00:10:58.78 Jess (she/her) It's a lot more bird focused than Redwall. 00:11:01.97 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, interesting. 00:11:02.05 Jess (she/her) And I would say if someone I don't even know if I'd say root is like Redwall. I think mouse guard is a lot like Redwall, but I think that's because mouse guard is like mouse specific and kind of like in Redwall, the other animals are big and threatening and scary. 00:11:09.94 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:11:13.72 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:11:20.48 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:11:21.19 Jess (she/her) Whereas in root, they all kind of have their own little communities. And in ah Humblewood, they're primarily like, I guess all animals are sentient, but like sapient, they 00:11:34.07 Kurt Crenwelge Uh-huh. 00:11:34.84 Jess (she/her) Do you have like beast of burden, but you're not going to have like, Oh, that's a big monster snake. 00:11:38.91 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:11:39.86 Jess (she/her) That snake is an equivalent of a dragon, and right? It's just like, Oh yeah, that's a snake who lives over there. 00:11:45.44 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, okay. Okay, that's but's pretty cool. 00:11:47.40 Jess (she/her) Um, yeah, I know they're coming out with an expansion with more animal races. So they're going to have like cats and otters and stuff. 00:11:55.24 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, ah. 00:11:56.37 Jess (she/her) I think. It seems like they wanted just birds and then the Kickstarter backers wanted more so then there's like little bitty stuff of like, also there's raccoons and hedgehogs and deer. 00:12:10.20 Jess (she/her) And so we have a heron gone in ours who is like from the Feywild and everyone is like, what is a rabbit? 00:12:10.79 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:12:18.12 Jess (she/her) Like what what is, what are these ears? Like what is this? 00:12:21.56 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, interesting. Yeah, speaking of, you know, being my own amateur sort of designer and and stuff that I've shared on on my Patreon, which hopefully teaming up with ah with a good friend of mine, maybe I'll be dipping my toes into DMs Guild and actually publishing it there because then maybe that's how you get more traction. 00:12:38.85 Jess (she/her) Heck yeah! 00:12:41.25 Kurt Crenwelge But yeah, based on hair and gons, I was like, Oh, you you know, there should be like other Rodentia creatures. And it is kind of interesting how it's like, you know, there aren't like rat folk and mouse folk people. 00:12:52.48 Kurt Crenwelge So that basically developed into the mall weirs is what I call them and in my game in my world. So you can have Miskas and creases. So mouse folk, rat folk. 00:13:03.53 Kurt Crenwelge But then that also expands into like beaver folk and capybara people and ah mole people. 00:13:09.09 Jess (she/her) ah I love that. 00:13:11.39 Kurt Crenwelge And yeah, so it's all it's all there on my Patreon. um And, you know, they're they're pretty pretty cool little dudes in a spinari are what I call like my porcupine people. And so they get like big spikes on their back and they're able to like, you know, use them to do damage and stuff like that if they're in combat and stuff. 00:13:28.98 Kurt Crenwelge So, yeah. Yeah. 00:13:32.24 Jess (she/her) I worked on a project that's on DMs Guild called, I think it was Possum Pals. 00:13:37.12 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:13:37.38 Jess (she/her) And it's a bunch of it possums, playable possums, but also, or maybe it's called Play Impossum. That makes more sense. I'm the worst guest because I've done too many things and I don't remember. 00:13:49.46 Jess (she/her) um 00:13:50.12 Kurt Crenwelge We'll just put your resume in the show notes and then people you yeah can find it that way perfect Yeah 00:13:52.00 Jess (she/her) Yeah. I just opened DM's Guild to be like, what is this called? But there were, yeah, playable possums and skunks and ah stuff like that. So that was a fun little thing ah to do. 00:14:08.18 Jess (she/her) There's also, I didn't work on this, but I think they're called the Karpka and they're like a squirrel people on the DMs Guild. 00:14:14.23 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, I do have my own version of them with the maw ears. So they're the echorn, or the squirrel folk, and then I have the tamiya, I think are what I call the chipmunk folk. 00:14:20.67 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:14:26.98 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:14:27.72 Jess (she/her) It is called playing possums is the name of the thing. 00:14:29.68 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, okay. Well, gives gives me an idea. I mean, I suppose, you know, everyone, hopefully when they before they publish on DMS Guild is like checking it out being like, okay, am I just going to publish something that's going to like, just disappear into the noise, or everyone's gonna be like, Oh, this is an obvious rip off of this thing. um So okay, so at least gives me a little bit of like reminder to be like, hey, make sure you check it and make sure it's not too obvious. You know, you're not copying someone's homework, if you will. 00:14:58.73 Jess (she/her) Honestly, whatever you do is going to be a different take on something anyway. Like I just double checked because that possum playing imp possums is possums, armadillos, badgers and skunks. 00:15:08.87 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:15:09.14 Jess (she/her) But anything you bring is going to be a different take on that same type of thing. So like do it. There are so many different types of like cat folk and squirrel folk. 00:15:21.62 Jess (she/her) And there were before hair and guns were official, there were so many like sexy bunnies. on the T.M. scale, like, there is a place for whatever is in your brain. 00:15:33.95 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, then. All right. I will. I will take that advice and ah and and charge ah charge forward, ah albeit cautiously and, you know, with with good discernment and all that. So ah well, perfect. You know, this is this is good. We're getting the we're getting the talking and the creative juices flow and, you know, getting that comfortability and, ah you know, goes without saying this podcast, you know, we like to talk about ah sidekicks and side quests. So I think this next question is going to be a perfect segue for figuring out who is your favorite NPC, ah whether they're from an RPG, a video game, movie, film, television, etc. And why is this character your favorite sidekick or favorite NPC? 00:16:17.74 Jess (she/her) So I made a whole list because I didn't want to do something from one of my like home tables because that is not like, nobody knows what I'm talking about. 00:16:31.37 Jess (she/her) So I was looking at video games and stuff and there are too many, but I have to ask how sick are you of hearing about Asterion or Kim Kitsuragi? 00:16:34.41 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:16:46.03 Jess (she/her) or wrecks from Mass Effect. 00:16:48.62 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, I mean, I'm not I'm not sick of any of them. I feel like oh, yeah. Yeah. i Well, I remember Rex from ah Mass Effect. Certainly. I don't know the second one. And then, ah you know, of course, Astarian is, you know, very much in the zeitgeist and I haven't played Baldur's Gate 3 myself, but I've seen, you know, other people do playing video playthrough videos or, you know, clips and stuff like that. 00:17:09.47 Jess (she/her) ah 00:17:09.99 Kurt Crenwelge And ah fun fact, ah you know, I went to Dallas fan Expo this past summer. And I walked by the signing booth because Neil Niebren was a newborn newborn, Neil, newborn. 00:17:21.39 Jess (she/her) new bond, I think. 00:17:22.98 Kurt Crenwelge Well, he was right there on the end of like where people were doing their signatures and stuff like that. So it's like I saw him like right there i was like, Oh, yeah, that's the guy voices staring. He's just like, he's just like right over there. 00:17:33.79 Kurt Crenwelge Like, who would have thought so? 00:17:35.05 Jess (she/her) Oh, that's so cool. 00:17:36.37 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so 00:17:37.70 Jess (she/her) He won all the awards for a reason. He gives such a fantastic performance in that. 00:17:41.69 Kurt Crenwelge i Well, doesn't Matt Colville say like he's probably one of the most one of the best written characters that he's come across like in a long time as far as a video game maybe is concerned? 00:17:51.31 Jess (she/her) I would believe that, honestly. He's so complicated and realistic. I just, it's the writing and the interaction with other characters, but also ah the voice, the physicality that Neil brings to it is incredible. 00:18:08.82 Jess (she/her) um You didn't know about Kim Katsuragi though, who is from Disco Elysium and is ah one of 00:18:11.81 Kurt Crenwelge I didn't. Oh. 00:18:19.62 Jess (she/her) my favorite NPCs ever from both like a personal like just I adore him but also from like a writing standpoint because I don't think I've encountered another NPC like him except maybe Clementine from The Walking Dead the Telltale Walking Dead game that like makes you care what this NPC thinks of you and they're like not romanceable right because like 00:18:38.48 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. 00:18:42.58 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Oh, right. Right. Right. 00:18:48.79 Jess (she/her) Yeah, if you're playing Baldur's Gate 3 or you're playing Dragon Age, you're like, oh, I want to, maybe I want to reload because, like, I made Shadowheart sad. Or... 00:18:57.54 Kurt Crenwelge Well, same thing with fallout, like with fallout four is like, Oh, Kate likes that. Or like, Oh, strong, strong thought that was bad. Uh, yeah. So you're like, Oh, I don't want to make my favorite companions angry. 00:19:05.75 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:19:08.02 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:19:08.99 Jess (she/her) Right, like, I'll just do whatever they want, so everybody thinks I'm cool. 00:19:12.82 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, but I'm just one big people pleaser. 00:19:15.67 Jess (she/her) So... In Disco Elysium, how much do you know about it? 00:19:19.34 Kurt Crenwelge I've heard of the game. That's about, that's about it. 00:19:21.13 Jess (she/her) Okay. 00:19:23.74 Jess (she/her) It's close to the, I don't want to say it's like Planescape Torment ah because the gameplay is not remotely alike and it's not 5E, but it is a very heavily text-based game where you are a mess of a man. 00:19:36.31 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:19:43.12 Jess (she/her) You wake up, wearing just your underwear and your socks after a bender in a hotel. You don't know your name. You don't know your job. um You find out quickly. Oh, and there's been like the window in your hotel has been shot out. And you can die from turning on the light in your room or getting your tie off the fan based on how you have arranged your stats. 00:20:12.79 Jess (she/her) oh 00:20:13.25 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. Okay then. 00:20:15.10 Jess (she/her) It's a great game. But you come downstairs from the hotel and you learn very quickly that you are a police officer here to investigate a murder. And you learn that from the person assigned to be your partner, Kim Kitsuragi, who is all nonsense, no nonsense. 00:20:27.58 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:20:31.10 Jess (she/her) And you are a disaster trying to put pieces of your life together and just trying to earn Kim's respect. and like not screw up being a cop and like how much do I reveal that I want to call my precinct to tell them I don't have my badge or my gun and don't know my name and don't know what I'm investigating will make him think less of me and ah how it has a lot of ways that you can get through different challenges like you can talk your way through them you can fight but it's not like an action game it's like you 00:20:59.24 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:21:10.67 Jess (she/her) say you're gonna punch somebody and then you roll a die and you either punch them or don't. 00:21:13.70 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:21:15.11 Jess (she/her) There's only one actual like fight in the whole game. 00:21:18.08 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. Very interesting. 00:21:21.89 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:21:21.89 Kurt Crenwelge um 00:21:23.14 Jess (she/her) And there's one part where you can like get, if Kim really likes you, you can get him to like reveal tiny little snippets about himself under this professional veneer that like slowly cracks based on how you play your character. 00:21:37.42 Jess (she/her) And um there was one part where I got him to dance and I like almost cried because it's a really hard role. And I got him to let Luca dance and like I, Jessica, almost cried because I was like, Kim is dancing. 00:21:54.26 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. 00:21:55.52 Jess (she/her) And then at the end of the game, he like gives his opinion on how you handled the case and like whether or not you should be fired and like hearing ah 00:21:57.85 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:22:06.80 Jess (she/her) him talk to your superiors about how you handled all these things. a it's He's very like by the book about it, but you know, he'll either be like, yeah, like he he has an unconventional style. 00:22:15.66 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:22:21.17 Jess (she/her) um He, you know, fell off the wagon, but then he got back on. I was really proud of him for that. Less proud when he fell off again. kind thing Like that sort of thing and hearing it was like, oh, 00:22:35.45 Jess (she/her) I earned his respect and it was the best feeling. 00:22:39.94 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, yeah, no, so that's kind of an interesting way to set up that game so you could play it however you want and it's like, yeah, okay, yeah, because you have amnesia or, you know, base, yeah. 00:22:45.90 Jess (she/her) Literally, however you want. 00:22:50.53 Jess (she/her) You don't even have to investigate the body. Like, you could just leave it there for days. 00:22:54.95 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, okay, yeah, that is definitely, ah that's that's one way. 00:22:57.53 Jess (she/her) Because our are in charge. Kim is there to assist you. 00:23:04.25 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, okay, very cool. 00:23:05.75 Jess (she/her) Like you're the senior officer, even if you know you don't have your badge or your gun or know your name. 00:23:05.89 Kurt Crenwelge this 00:23:11.51 Kurt Crenwelge Right, right. Well, that's a fantastic answer. So, you know, of you know flying colors on on that answer, for sure. um And then, you know, same side of the equation, what happens to be your favorite side quest or B plot element, whether it be from RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, etc. And why is this a side quest or B plot element your favorite? 00:23:37.08 Jess (she/her) So I don't know if this is my, okay, I have two, but the first one that popped in my mind when I saw this question was the Bloody Baron quest from The Witcher 3. 00:23:47.83 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm, okay. 00:23:49.64 Jess (she/her) And I don't know if other people have talked about that or talked your ear off about it. 00:23:53.33 Kurt Crenwelge I think maybe that's only come up maybe like once I feel like it's like, ah, because people people gravitate towards their favorite things. 00:24:00.18 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:24:00.61 Kurt Crenwelge And so Witcher ah titles ah come up and you know, Skyrim and, ah ah you know, ah Elder Scrolls and and stuff like that. 00:24:06.11 Jess (she/her) Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm sure a night to remember has come up a lot from Skyrim, the hangover quest. 00:24:13.14 Kurt Crenwelge Um, um, I'm, I'm just trying to remember, you know, doing 140 episodes and you're just over the span of five seasons, you're like, now what has everyone talked about? 00:24:18.30 Jess (she/her) That's fair. 00:24:23.38 Kurt Crenwelge Can I recall all that information instantaneously in my brain at this moment? Oh, 00:24:28.73 Jess (she/her) It's the one where you find out you married a hag raven. 00:24:31.90 Kurt Crenwelge oh well there you go. Yeah. It's like Vegas. 00:24:34.07 Jess (she/her) Oh, 00:24:34.90 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:24:36.19 Jess (she/her) Uh, the Bloody Baron though. So, um, in my, in my non-game designing life, I'm a social worker and my background is in intimate partner violence and trauma recovery. 00:24:47.07 Jess (she/her) And I almost wrote a paper on the Bloody Baron quest. I instead ended up writing it about Bluebeard's Bride, the TTRPG. 00:24:55.77 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:24:56.63 Jess (she/her) But, um, it's such a good depiction of in abusive relationship. And this is like such a drag to talk about on the podcast, which is why I didn't want to be like, I love it because it's like real life. But as an educational tool, and you know, how so many depictions of intimate partner violence will like show ah the abuser as like a purely evil person and the Baron isn't an evil guy. 00:25:29.58 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 00:25:33.21 Jess (she/her) He's like he's your boy. He's a cool dude and he feels bad about what he did about his wife to his wife and he really thinks he can like get her back and I've seen people who are absolutely on the Baron's side because they're like well he was in war and she cheated on him so of course he got violent with her and then she left kind of thing but like 00:25:53.18 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 00:25:55.48 Jess (she/her) It's so realistic and it's messy and complicated. And then if you go a certain route to solve it, it has one of the most horrifying monsters that is my favorite to put in different games called the botchling where it's like a zombie fetus. 00:26:16.11 Kurt Crenwelge o o 00:26:18.81 Jess (she/her) And did you have to like have the Baron love it and christen it and give it a burial, give it a name. ah basically to solve this, like, resolve this haunting that he's experiencing and atone for, you know, like what he's done and the emotional state that his wife and daughter ended up in because of the way that he ran his house in his marriage. 00:26:39.09 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:26:42.44 Jess (she/her) But he's not an evil dude. 00:26:42.63 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:26:45.09 Jess (she/her) And like it can, okay, content warning for suicide But if you go a certain way in another completely unrelated quest, seemingly, the Baron can die by suicide if his wife dies due to you as Daryl trying to save a bunch of children. 00:27:08.59 Jess (she/her) which you don't see coming, but he's so devastated by losing her. Content warning over, I should have clapped or something, so you could have skipped that, sorry. I'm used to doing that on the street, but like hand gestures, and you can't see me, audience, but you know, he's not a monster. 00:27:23.63 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:27:27.17 Jess (she/her) He's just a guy who does really, really terrible things, and it destroys his family and his life. 00:27:35.29 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah, no, no, no, no. 00:27:37.23 Jess (she/her) that's not a fun answer 00:27:39.08 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, it's not a fun answer, but I mean, you know, the reason why it sticks with you is just, um, you know, like, you know, the whole. aim of this podcast, aside from making fun NPCs with side quests and stuff like that is really to get like, the humanity that's present. 00:27:56.62 Kurt Crenwelge And um I was just on role play chat with Matt, ah ah talking about NPCs. 00:28:02.50 Jess (she/her) That's not a fun answer. 00:28:03.04 Kurt Crenwelge And i mean I know, you know, part of the the the episode format was like, oh, we did a grab bag. And so we collated a bunch of advice on NPCs. And we we got into discussing about the philosophy of NPCs. 00:28:15.33 Kurt Crenwelge And you know, so I just kind of brought in my opinion of in my, my, my my belief and background of like how, you know, ah ah again, you know, it is fantasy and stuff like that. But they're, they're people, you know, they have souls, and they have personalities, and they have flaws. And so the fact that the side quest stuck with you, because it's like, you know, you're, you know, like, it's it reminds me of like, what I experienced in my day to day, and like, in a game for people who maybe, you know, 00:28:44.45 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know, you know, forgive me, you know, I'm not the social worker, so I don't know the statistics, but I'm sure it it's probably safe to say that like, everyone in your life is is, someone in your life has experienced something horrific like this. 00:28:57.77 Kurt Crenwelge And so for those people who are like blind to it, or just don't know, like this kind of a side quest, even though it is, ah you know, based on fantasy Polish folklore, like I'm Catholic, but even the polls can go like a little hardcore with their folklore and all that stuff. 00:28:57.82 Jess (she/her) yeah 00:29:14.47 Kurt Crenwelge Um, but just to have something that's out there to represent it and to like make people aware. So then, you know, whoever's playing the game could be like, Oh man, it's like, you know, I had buddies, uh, like come back from war, uh, or whatever like that. 00:29:28.77 Kurt Crenwelge And they found out that this happened or like, you know, Oh, my buddy worked on an oil rig for six months and came back and then found out like this sort of thing happened. 00:29:31.32 Jess (she/her) yeah 00:29:36.67 Kurt Crenwelge Like, what would I do if I were in their shoes? So it's like a very empathetic sort of a, of a thing, uh, for all of us to be able to. 00:29:39.13 Jess (she/her) 00:29:45.03 Kurt Crenwelge Examining question and hopefully ah to be able to make the right choices ah towards reconciliation and and bridge building and and ah You know, if not, then hopefully trying to resolve something amicably and without violence or or anything like that Yeah Ah 00:29:59.40 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:30:01.89 Jess (she/her) Yeah, and just based on my work, I was like, get her out, keep her out. 00:30:09.83 Jess (she/her) But ah that leads to not the best ending for him. 00:30:15.35 Kurt Crenwelge For him, okay, okay. 00:30:17.57 Jess (she/her) And he's your boy, you barely know her in the game. 00:30:17.58 Kurt Crenwelge Well. 00:30:20.26 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:30:21.88 Jess (she/her) So you want your buddy to be happy. and what But arguably she and her daughter might be happier if he doesn't survive, but the town he manages, his barony, is worse because he's good at everything except his family. 00:30:37.28 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. Yeah, I know. 00:30:38.52 Jess (she/her) It's complicated. 00:30:38.54 Kurt Crenwelge That's yeah. That's a really well-designed conundrum to put in front of players and be like, all right, we'll figure this out. 00:30:42.19 Jess (she/her) Right? 00:30:45.19 Kurt Crenwelge You know, problem solve. 00:30:45.60 Jess (she/her) huh For a happier answer, I just really like the anti-ethyl quest in Baldur's Gate 3, Acts 1 and 3. 00:30:46.39 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Well, there you go. 00:30:52.95 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, the, okay. The hag, this hag. 00:30:55.89 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:30:56.08 Kurt Crenwelge I I've seen a couple of people do playthroughs and uh, yeah. And so this ha okay. Okay, cool. 00:31:01.17 Jess (she/her) I love Hags, Annie Ethel's fun, but what I really like is in act three that people that you've rescued in act one can, if they survived, can come and like participate in taking her down in act three. 00:31:15.62 Jess (she/her) And they like form a group to like help other survivors. 00:31:15.62 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:31:20.18 Jess (she/her) And I really like them coming together to like form like a support group for Hags survivors and they help your PC, like, go stop her and give you the tools that you need to do it. 00:31:33.74 Jess (she/her) And I just think that's beautiful way to show that you can recover from trauma, especially with like a group. 00:31:38.79 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:31:41.09 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, now I'm just kind of, you know, we mentioned earlier, Renfield, and that movie is all about like, at one point, Nicholas Olds character joins a support group because of the the narcissistic tendency of the narcissistic partners. 00:31:46.74 Jess (she/her) Ohio, yeah. Narcissistic partners. 00:31:54.30 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Now I'm just kind of curious if like, ah you know, I think what Larian announced, like some big patch or update or new thing that they're introducing, it'd be fun. 00:32:01.22 Jess (she/her) Mmhmm. 00:32:02.85 Kurt Crenwelge ah you know just like us talking and you know what your path you know what you what you do and like what you focus in on and you're like ah this is great it'd be interesting later on like i know the game has to end obviously you reach your conclusion but it'd be kind of interesting to like come back later it's like Hi, my name is Bill. 00:32:19.83 Kurt Crenwelge Hi, Bill. It's like I was a victim of a hag. And it's like, oh, we're here, Bill. And we understand we've all been victims of hags in our lives and and all that sort of stuff. 00:32:30.11 Kurt Crenwelge So I think that'd be kind of an interesting little vignette to come across later in the game or something like that. 00:32:33.59 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:32:36.66 Kurt Crenwelge But I think oh. 00:32:37.77 Jess (she/her) It is like you find posters that were like, were you hurt by a hack? Come to our meeting. And then when you go to the meeting place, uh, there's, there can be two people that you rescued in act one and one of them is leading it. 00:32:43.54 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:32:52.29 Jess (she/her) And she's like, yeah, about all these other people. 00:32:54.53 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, that's really cool. Well, it's it seems like Larian really did you know approach this like a proper D and&D game, like with ah not just one dungeon master, but like a whole team of dungeon masters to be like, okay, let's examine this from all sides and figure out how to make this this thing work, so. 00:32:56.69 Jess (she/her) Right. 00:33:11.82 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:33:12.45 Kurt Crenwelge Kudos. Makes me want to get the newest Xbox XS or just get a really super duper ridiculous gaming PCs and then I can finally play it and then see what all these people are talking about. 00:33:24.40 Kurt Crenwelge And then the podcast would never get new episodes because that's all I'd be doing, I suppose. 00:33:25.64 Jess (she/her) I highly recommend it. i I finally got Honor Mode. I stopped because I moved, but I have achieved Honor Mode now and I'm very proud of myself. 00:33:38.84 Kurt Crenwelge Well, there you go. And I think this will roll beautifully into the final question here of the personal interview section of the podcast, but Jessica, what are you passionate about and why? 00:33:50.36 Jess (she/her) Oh, what am I not passionate about? I, God, I'm, we're recording this on a night when I'm really tired. So the things that usually, I'm like, social justice and equality. 00:34:04.92 Jess (she/her) Like, yes, but also, you know, taking a nap and hanging out with my cats and having rest and recovery time and a really good cup of coffee. 00:34:10.71 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Those, you know, the simple pleasures in life, you know, that's what, that's what you need. And here I was about to go into the big spiel from, uh, the Conan, the barbarian with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan, what is best in life? 00:34:28.01 Kurt Crenwelge And then, that you know, to, to hear the lamentations of the women and, and, uh, just see your enemy crash before you. 00:34:28.27 Jess (she/her) ah Yeah. 00:34:34.66 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, but no, and no, it's just, sometimes you just need to take a nap and give a cat some scritches and have a nice cup of coffee. 00:34:37.38 Jess (she/her) Mm-hmm. 00:34:40.89 Kurt Crenwelge And that's, you can be passionate about that too. and Rest in quiet. 00:34:46.81 Jess (she/her) Yeah. ah It's been... It's so silly. It feels silly to be like, I'm passionate about, you know, social justice and ah like equity, ah given the political situation that we're in right now when we're recording. 00:35:04.46 Jess (she/her) I'm not sure when this will come out, but ah it's tiring. There's a lot happening. So it's that also being passionate about resting and recovering and taking mental health space away from all of that is is good. And I recommend self care. 00:35:22.07 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. ru You know, self-care certainly got to take care of your mind. ah You know, got to take care of yourself before you help other people. um So, you know, take the time to to rest and then you can, you know, go out there and and do the good work of helping other people. 00:35:30.35 Jess (she/her) Yeah. Yeah. 00:35:39.40 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. All right. Well, I think we've covered everything beautifully here in the personal interview section. And now it's time to head into some NPC creation. 00:35:50.54 Jess (she/her) Heck yeah! 00:35:56.85 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC Creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience, and our patrons from Patreon. So now is the time of the show where we give a shout out to our comfortable patrons at Above With a Loud Hurrah. So to you, our queen of the Patreon, Katie Downey, aka Goblin Katie, RIP Stella, as well as ah my good buddy, Anson Jablinski, and good old mom and dad, we say cheers. Enjoying some lovely Bojangles sweet tea this evening. 00:36:24.23 Kurt Crenwelge uh so yeah again this is for patrons who donate at least two dollars or more a month uh these fine folks are also part of my uh wealthy tier level of patronage which means they get to introduce an element of chance to the random tables that we have here in npc creation so we might get to you we might get to hear some of the responses used here today. So if you want to learn more and join the coolest, ah one of the coolest Patreon communities out there, just go to the show notes below, go to the podcast website, or just go directly to patreon dot.com forward slash sidekicks and side quests to find out more about our three, four tiers 00:37:01.51 Kurt Crenwelge and help us to expand and grow our operations at the levitating platter. And this to me playing in Worlds Beyond. And Kofi, that's a thing too. And maybe you know start playing games and all the all the spaces. So basically, this is just the part of the show where I pitched that, like, thanks to all of you and the folks for supporting me. And in turn, you know hey, if you could throw a dollar my way, that would be great. So um we did not actually discuss this before we began ah hitting all the record buttons on all the microphones and stuff. but Are you bringing a character to the table or are we going to be rolling some dice and making up an NPC? 00:37:37.86 Jess (she/her) I will never turn down an opportunity to roll some dice. 00:37:40.84 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, excellent. ah All right, well, if you have your standard array of dice before you, whether they are physical or virtual, um all right, she the the listening audience can see she's grabbing a dice bag that is a blue adorable looking dragon, and she's got all of her dice ready, and and we're ready to go. 00:37:57.31 Jess (she/her) like 00:37:59.86 Jess (she/her) but step 00:38:01.59 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so the first question, what is the name of our character? Let's go ahead and roll a d20 and figure out what we get. 00:38:09.60 Jess (she/her) All right I brought out my soft dice so they didn't make noise and the T20 is I think hiding at the bottom of this bag so you're just gonna have to listen to me rattle oh no there it is silicon dice ha ha 18 00:38:19.57 Kurt Crenwelge Classic d20. 00:38:26.23 Kurt Crenwelge 18. Okay, well, your answer was provided by previous guest gliza champion, Corazon. So, uh, spelled C O R A Z O N Corazon. 00:38:39.63 Kurt Crenwelge That's nice. 00:38:40.37 Jess (she/her) C-O-R-A-Z-1. Oh, okay, like heart in Spanish. 00:38:44.80 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Uh, I was, I live here in Texas and I was just going to be, I just blanked. It was like, Oh yeah. The word C. Yes. The word yes in Spanish. Um, perfect. 00:38:56.21 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, okay. The next question we have, what is the ancestry of Corazon? Uh, let's roll a D 100 or two D 10s. Uh, and if you don't like what we get, uh, you can always reroll. 00:39:04.85 Jess (she/her) Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:39:08.66 Kurt Crenwelge Um, but yeah, let's see what what we get. 00:39:12.43 Jess (she/her) Let's see what we get. All right. 00:39:15.37 Kurt Crenwelge And there are MCDM choices in here too. So, you know, you maybe you'll get lucky and get one of those. 00:39:21.65 Jess (she/her) 24. 00:39:23.53 Kurt Crenwelge 24 as I scroll in the list. Okay. We've only had one other one of these on the podcast before made by Beth May, but a Mezel. 00:39:34.64 Kurt Crenwelge Are you interested in making a Mezel character? 00:39:36.35 Jess (she/her) Aren't those the tiny little scrawny dudes? 00:39:39.67 Kurt Crenwelge uh they're supposedly the ones that live in the uh the under dark let's see let's see uh from what it says in the forgotten realm wiki uh 00:39:45.96 Jess (she/her) ah Yeah. weird little hairy goblin dudes. 00:39:53.36 Kurt Crenwelge murderous malevolent race of wretched recluses that cared only for wallowing in wistful self-pity, they responded to intrusions on their lonely gloom by killing the offenders or afflicting them with a wicked curse or terrible illness." these are the challenge c r one rating dudes that you'll find in the monster manual but you know they 00:40:13.92 Jess (she/her) That sounds delightful. 00:40:15.49 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so Corazon, the measles. Okay, very interesting. um So it sounds like we've got some questions forming already as to his name, their name. 00:40:27.12 Kurt Crenwelge um Let's see, the job or role in society ah that Corazon would have, ah this is going to be just a regular D10 role. 00:40:37.34 Jess (she/her) Regular D time. 00:40:38.40 Kurt Crenwelge Correct. 00:40:38.47 Jess (she/her) Okay. 00:40:41.53 Jess (she/her) Seven. 00:40:42.96 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay, your answer was provided by ah Allison Coons and Ryan Timpty of the Kids Table D and&D, ah a wizard level zero cantrip teacher. 00:40:55.40 Jess (she/her) Oh my God, level zero. 00:40:56.66 Kurt Crenwelge So yeah, so basically like a cantrip wizard teacher, like, hey, you're here at wizard school, I'm i'm the wizard 101 professor that's gonna teach you how to cast light or whatever it may be. 00:41:10.05 Jess (she/her) Got it. 00:41:11.16 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:41:12.78 Jess (she/her) I forgot to say when you were reading about the measles, I love that alliteration. And what you said, the murderous, malevolent race of wretched recluses in wallowing and wistful self-pity, like that's so delightful. 00:41:25.15 Kurt Crenwelge Well, that's that's not me. That's just Forgotten Realms fandom wiki. ah So whoever wrote it there, you know kudos to you or the book. 00:41:33.29 Jess (she/her) Good job, wiki creators. 00:41:35.23 Kurt Crenwelge Good job, you all folks. ah Perfect. OK, so we've got a wizard level zero teacher. And then the next thing we get to roll for before we take a slight pause on the dice rolling, um what's the age range of the character? 00:41:49.53 Kurt Crenwelge Let's roll just a regular d8. 00:41:52.94 Jess (she/her) Okay. 00:41:55.65 Jess (she/her) So say is this going to be a particularly long lived musical to like teaching wizard cantrips behind the school. 00:42:00.48 Kurt Crenwelge Teenager. 00:42:07.37 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:42:10.72 Kurt Crenwelge Hey kid, you wanna to learn some magic? 00:42:13.48 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:42:15.16 Kurt Crenwelge Oh yeah, okay, all right. So now that we've got all these details in mind, when you think cortisone, measles, teenager, ah wizard level zero cantrip teacher, ah can you describe the physical appearance of this person? 00:42:31.05 Jess (she/her) Oh, yeah. I mean, knowing what they look like, they're tiny little goblin dudes. um 00:42:37.82 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, between four to five feet, ah apparently is what it says, their average height being. 00:42:43.75 Jess (she/her) Yeah, I'm looking up their stats just to see like, okay, they are smart enough to cast a spell. I know they usually like garrott and shadow teleport around. 00:42:54.61 Kurt Crenwelge Mm hmm. 00:42:55.07 Jess (she/her) ah But yeah, so they could learn magic. Uh, it doesn't have to be a lie. 00:43:04.10 Jess (she/her) So yeah, it's, uh, I'm going to say tiny little grayish stone colored skin. 00:43:16.51 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:43:16.81 Jess (she/her) Uh, and I know they have big fluffy ears, like big furry ears and hair and just like big, like the I'm imagining like the annoying fan from Oblivion, but with if the like thing on his head went on all three sides. 00:43:34.31 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. 00:43:38.03 Jess (she/her) ah And yeah, he would just be like hanging out in ah your fantasy equivalent of a scraggly t-shirt and Timberlands. 00:43:50.34 Kurt Crenwelge And it does say their favorite terrain being marshes and underground and they do speak common. So that's, you know, I, my whole thing was like, okay, I got to fill out this D 100 table. 00:44:00.62 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like, look quick, look through every monster manual and every setting book. And if there's something with a staff block block, can they speak a language? Okay. They get thrown into the D 100 table. So like I said, Beth, mate, 00:44:11.32 Jess (she/her) blink are blink dogs there because blink dogs can speak blink dog. 00:44:15.47 Kurt Crenwelge well yeah that Well, I mean, they had to be able to converse in a common enough language ah to be able to, yeah. 00:44:21.59 Jess (she/her) Just kidding. 00:44:22.53 Kurt Crenwelge yeah ah Well, I mean, someone can have a blink dog companion, I suppose. They could just invent it and be like, oh yeah, they have a a blink dog companion and they speak blink dog. And I'd be like, all right, cool, that makes sense. ah But yeah, Beth May is the only other person on this podcast who made ah who made a Meisel character who ah was a guard ah in this, 00:44:42.57 Kurt Crenwelge ah under dark city that like worshiped donuts, essentially. And they went to the surface to go retrieve this ah ingredient from a plant. 00:44:48.35 Jess (she/her) I love that. 00:44:53.08 Kurt Crenwelge And people went crazy for the donut. So in my head, I'm thinking like, okay, if this ah favorite terrain or the typical place that we find measles are going to be in like marshes or the underground, um like what kind of society are we finding him in that he's there like teaching magic, low level magic. 00:45:12.72 Jess (she/her) right There's actually, sorry, a really fun measles encounter in Baldur's Gate 3. 00:45:19.73 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, ok okay, okay. 00:45:21.68 Jess (she/her) Yeah, act two, ah beware the measles ambush. But um yeah, i it describes them as hermits, but since they're CR1, I think they're more fun in a group. So I don't know, I feel like as, is it teenager? 00:45:43.12 Jess (she/her) I feel like they don't go to measles school. 00:45:46.11 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:45:46.39 Jess (she/her) Maybe since they live in a swamp, I'm imagining like a Shadowfell Bayou type measles. Maybe that's just because because you talked about Bojangles earlier and it made me really, really miss living near a Bojangles. 00:45:57.02 Kurt Crenwelge Right, right, yes yeah, yeah. 00:46:02.50 Jess (she/her) But um yeah, this is some like bayou swamp living airboat riding kind of measles who's uh scraping not a bayou it's an everglades it's the everglades but yeah uh that's him 00:46:12.68 Kurt Crenwelge You're just describing Florida, man, is what you're describing. 00:46:18.65 Kurt Crenwelge My name's Corazon, I live out by to buy you in the high school. Yeah. 00:46:30.55 Jess (she/her) And ah he is just teaching cantrips for a some extra cash because maybe the kids ah can't learn at school yet. 00:46:41.82 Kurt Crenwelge o see i'm um 00:46:44.56 Jess (she/her) Maybe I imagine if he's a teenager and he's teaching cantrips, he is probably teaching them to like elementary school children. 00:46:51.54 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, okay. Yeah. I was wondering, like, I'm trying to think of like, you know, the big famous, like, you know, Marsh swampy sorts of environments that are out there at at least the published stuff. So we've obviously got like salt Marsh, which I only until recently found out was, um, gray Hawk. 00:47:09.30 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, so like when the book came out, I was like, Oh, I just assumed this is Fay room, but apparently it's gray Hawk. 00:47:10.14 Jess (she/her) Mm. 00:47:14.16 Kurt Crenwelge And then watching a recent. I think super geek Mike video that came out. He was like actually the salts of gray mark The the ghost of salt marsh book was actually for something in Greyhawk. I was like, oh, that's cool. I didn't know that's okay We got like salt marsh and then we've got still been from critical role And, uh, and then I guess the other one that took place in campaign two, but like, other than that, like, those are the most famous, like, swampy, marshy sort of locations that I know in popular media. 00:47:39.07 Jess (she/her) Marshes. 00:47:42.59 Kurt Crenwelge So are we imagining that he's, we would find him in that sort of like CD sort of environment that he's just like, Hey kids, you want to learn some magic? 00:47:53.30 Jess (she/her) Okay, so I know that Measles, ah I like the idea of him not being totally evil. 00:48:01.09 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:48:01.34 Jess (she/her) Like maybe he was he was raised that way, but Measles like to, I think their thing is like they can lure travelers and then like other beings like ah undead or will-o-wisps or sorrowsworn or something will come and like 00:48:03.89 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:48:20.27 Jess (she/her) ah devour their prey and they'll have like a big carnage party. So maybe he's trying to teach the children and how to defend themselves in case they're lost. Maybe he's like, hey, what you need is a light spell. 00:48:32.81 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, okay. So he's like that, that teen with the heart of gold or like, this is how you rebel in measles society. Cause he's a teenager. 00:48:40.32 Jess (she/her) Right. 00:48:40.78 Kurt Crenwelge So he's like, I don't want to be like everyone else. So it's like, I'm actually gonna make the rest of them have to have a challenge because suddenly people are having to like, Oh, I know the light can trip so I can actually get around places. 00:48:52.01 Kurt Crenwelge And it's like, yeah. 00:48:54.21 Jess (she/her) Yeah, he's like, ah it's so boring, just like garroting people and shadow teleporting them away and then having a big carnage fest. It's so much more fun if they put up a fight. 00:49:04.24 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm Yeah, 00:49:04.49 Jess (she/her) So kids, learn the light cantrip, learn sacred flame. He can't teach that if he's a cantrip teacher. Maybe he can, I don't know. 00:49:12.24 Kurt Crenwelge so how did he learn all these is he like ah um Because I know like in my setting like I have a knoll wizard ah who like like was originally from the abyssal plane and through portal shenanigans and stuff like that found his way into ah You know being around where he is in the story 00:49:19.91 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:49:31.03 Kurt Crenwelge And he has this whole thing that I've developed for him being like, well, I actually don't subscribe to these like supposed ivory tower institutions of learning. It's like, I'm smart, I can read the books myself, and then I can just kind of like learn magic that way. And the more that I do, the more that I learned through trial and error and like, you know, 00:49:51.02 Kurt Crenwelge so So someone who's like, unconventionally smart, kind of like, you know, ah goodwill hunting or something like that, it's like, Oh, I may look like a janitor, like someone who doesn't belong here, but I'm clearly very smart, and I can read the books and do it all myself and not subscribe, um you know, to like having to pay tuition and all these other things. 00:49:57.36 Jess (she/her) yeah. 00:50:08.36 Kurt Crenwelge So is Corazon really like more of like, Oh, i I did try and do that with my life, but it didn't work out as I 00:50:08.63 Jess (she/her) Right. 00:50:17.59 Jess (she/her) I don't think he's old enough for that. I mean, maybe he could have had a really rough life. I don't know how long measles live. um But even as a teen, like if they only live to be like 20, then as a teenager, maybe. I know goblins only live to be like 30. But um so he could be having a midlife crisis. ah But would this make him a teenager like for a measles or a teenager just in years? 00:50:42.23 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. I don't know. Uh, it's, it's however you feel the spirit of it, uh, you know, uh, sits with you. 00:50:48.22 Jess (she/her) I like him as a rebellious teen. 00:50:50.51 Kurt Crenwelge Reveille his team. Okay. 00:50:51.97 Jess (she/her) Yeah. ah I think, you know, how you just, like, absorb stuff during your family traditions, even if you don't really like it, are things that your parents do all the time. 00:51:03.84 Jess (she/her) Like, if your parents watch a show and you hate the show, you will still learn things about that show. 00:51:10.35 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:51:11.24 Jess (she/her) So Khartzons probably learned spells from watching hapless adventurers set them off before getting snatched away or maybe once who escaped and has just learned like, oh, that one was pretty effective for a little bit. 00:51:20.44 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:51:28.18 Kurt Crenwelge the Obviously the wizards are the glass cannons, they're the weakest link. So he picked up he picked up a spell book. 00:51:32.54 Jess (she/her) You go for them first. 00:51:36.22 Jess (she/her) Yes. 00:51:36.24 Kurt Crenwelge And so he just started reading the spell book and was like, I can do this. And that's how we that's how we learned at least to do all the cantrips, because they were obviously a low level party. 00:51:41.15 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:51:44.94 Kurt Crenwelge So the wizard had nothing but cantrips to defend himself. 00:51:47.59 Jess (she/her) Oh no. 00:51:48.87 Kurt Crenwelge ah So yes. 00:51:50.40 Jess (she/her) Maybe one first level spell or something. 00:51:52.92 Kurt Crenwelge Right. He's like, I can't, I can't figure that out, but all these other things, like these are more my speed. 00:51:58.70 Jess (she/her) Yeah, measles have an intelligence of 14. So like they're, he can learn. 00:52:02.22 Kurt Crenwelge Oh yeah. Okay. Well then maybe, you know, he's being the, the, the lazy teen of like, Oh, I'll do that later. 00:52:08.61 Jess (she/her) I'll get that later. 00:52:08.89 Kurt Crenwelge Like I don't, I don't have the ingredients or whatever to actually make this work. 00:52:13.18 Jess (she/her) Maybe that one's just for him. 00:52:14.83 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, that's the one that he, 00:52:15.67 Jess (she/her) The kids aren't ready for the the spells yet. 00:52:18.06 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, I see. Okay. And then, um you know, if we're if we're following um the affectations of like, oh, ah spellcasters, you know, use a different name other than what their true name is. So that way you don't have power over them. So if he's like this teacher, ah you you know, who looks sinister, maybe to like, you know, the the kids or whatever like that, to maybe kind of convince them like, Hey, I'm a legitimate teacher. 00:52:44.21 Kurt Crenwelge How can you trust me? Cause my name is Corazon. And it's like, that's obviously not like a real measles name. 00:52:47.64 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 00:52:51.17 Kurt Crenwelge Um, but it's like, it's a wizardy sounding name and the kids are like, Oh yeah. 00:52:51.34 Jess (she/her) Right. 00:52:55.82 Kurt Crenwelge Corazon the wizard. Like we know this guy. 00:52:57.88 Jess (she/her) Yeah, Professor Corazon. 00:53:00.00 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Yeah. Does he, does he, does he care? Like he's like, Oh no, you have to call me professor Corazon or something. 00:53:05.81 Jess (she/her) I think a kid probably called him Professor or Mr. Corazon, and it like made his day. 00:53:11.78 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. 00:53:13.11 Jess (she/her) And he doesn't insist upon it, but like gave extra credit to that kid. 00:53:17.24 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, okay, so he's rebelling, he's he's being nice, and he's like actually teaching kids magic, and it's helping and benefiting the community, it sounds like. 00:53:28.05 Kurt Crenwelge So at least, you know, maybe the adult, yeah, the first measles, it's nice in this ah in this Florida land bayou town. 00:53:30.32 Jess (she/her) He's the worst weasel. 00:53:37.96 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:53:39.46 Jess (she/her) That probably like is near the Shadowfell or something, like has an open portal to the Shadowfell. 00:53:42.65 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. Okay. And that's originally where they all I'm just, that's where they're from. 00:53:47.31 Jess (she/her) That's where they're from, yeah. 00:53:49.27 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Okay. All right. And so we've kind of like got the idea of like, you know, the physical description of the character, but the way we kind of narrow in on Corazon, at least for maybe like a role playing perspective, what three adjectives would best describe him? 00:54:07.27 Jess (she/her) oh 00:54:10.56 Jess (she/her) Oh, knowing he's a wizard, I was just like pompous, but I don't love, we've called it rebellious so many times. So that has to be one of them. He has to be rebellious. um I'm going to say inspiring, 00:54:21.73 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:54:23.76 Jess (she/her) rebellious, inspiring, and um persnickety. 00:54:31.62 Kurt Crenwelge o That's a good one. You don't hear that one very often, but it is a very good one. 00:54:38.89 Jess (she/her) Yeah, he's really opinionated on like tiny minor things and gets ah very annoyed when they don't go his way. 00:54:46.67 Kurt Crenwelge Also probably because the this this one spellbucky picked up is the only one that he has to reference. And so he's like, you have to do it exactly like this because I literally don't know any other way to do it. 00:54:57.63 Jess (she/her) that This is the only way there is, is what he'll tell them. 00:55:00.11 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:55:02.03 Jess (she/her) But yeah, because he is Professor Corazon. the great provider of knowledge to these small little children. and 00:55:09.83 Kurt Crenwelge And I want to say that is something that came up in a in a later Arcadia issue. I think another colleague of yours designed or kind of like wrote a thing about like how magic would be different between different ancestry. 00:55:23.99 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like, oh, if a goblin casts a particular spell. 00:55:24.31 Jess (she/her) Oh, fun. 00:55:27.21 Kurt Crenwelge it might sound like this, but if an elf does it, then it sounds like this. 00:55:28.35 Jess (she/her) Mm-hmm. 00:55:30.42 Kurt Crenwelge So depending on persnickety, especially if you want to get that level of ah detail in using Arcadia ah stuff, again, I'm not sponsored by them, but if they want to, they can. 00:55:43.48 Kurt Crenwelge ah hey Hey, James, I'd love to have you on the podcast. 00:55:44.12 Jess (she/her) Hey Matt, sponsor this podcast. 00:55:48.18 Kurt Crenwelge I know i know you're a busy guy you know with the whole RPG you're trying to design and all that stuff. 00:55:53.29 Jess (she/her) James is so busy. 00:55:53.38 Kurt Crenwelge Nope, yeah. 00:55:54.09 Jess (she/her) Hi James. 00:55:54.84 Kurt Crenwelge Hi James, no pressure. ah Yeah, so that can be really cool and interesting of like, well, it was an elven spellcaster that he got it from, but he's trying to teach a bunch of kids in the town and they're all like halflings and, and other stuff. 00:56:07.78 Jess (she/her) Right. 00:56:08.70 Kurt Crenwelge And they're just like, I don't understand what you mean. It's like, this is clearly the way you do it. Like if you don't do it this way. 00:56:13.75 Jess (she/her) and like one Tabaxi who is just like not getting it. 00:56:17.40 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:56:18.09 Jess (she/her) Or super getting it. And that Tabaxi became Jezargo from Skyrim. 00:56:19.24 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Hmm. Khajiit has wares? Is that ah is that the one? 00:56:26.49 Jess (she/her) That is from Skyrim, yeah. 00:56:27.40 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, okay. 00:56:28.89 Jess (she/her) Jezargo is the one Khajiit at the Magus College and he is there to be the best and will give you ah spells to try out. He was also on my list of favorite NPCs, but he does he doesn't do very much. 00:56:41.28 Jess (she/her) But he's so mean to you. And I love him. He will give you a, uh, scrolls to try out. His flame cloak to protect you from fire, but they actually light you on fire. And then you come back. to He's like, you lived. I mean, excellent. You lived. 00:56:57.66 Kurt Crenwelge Very fun, okay. Okay, cool, good, good, good. So we're we're we're getting more and we've what we got the adjectives, so we've we figured this out. Okay, now we get to go back to some dice rolling, because you're like, wait a minute, we haven't rolled all the dice yet. 00:57:09.32 Jess (she/her) Oh. 00:57:10.17 Kurt Crenwelge So this is the perfect time to do that now. 00:57:12.62 Jess (she/her) ahho 00:57:12.72 Kurt Crenwelge So what is going to be a valuable item, piece of lore, secret or ideal or concept that this character would ascribe to? This is a combo, where you get to roll a D4 for the category, and then a D6 for the particular thing. 00:57:24.47 Jess (she/her) Okay. 00:57:27.31 Jess (she/her) Okay. Four on the D4 and three for the ideal. 00:57:30.85 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, that's an ideal or concept. 00:57:35.31 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, well, your answer was provided by our most recent guest, Evatera, to always have the last word, which totally fits in with being a teenager. 00:57:44.59 Jess (she/her) That makes sense. 00:57:45.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, yeah. So he's always this persnickety guy that's always got to have the last word. Okay. 00:57:51.33 Jess (she/her) especially for like a rebellious teenager, like this guy's never backing down from a fight. 00:57:56.07 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Yeah, even though CR one and I've got a handful of can trips and maybe a Couple of low-level spells on my arsenal, but that's about it. So Ah 00:58:05.89 Jess (she/her) He has a book of like 10 cantrips and he's prepared one of them today. 00:58:10.19 Kurt Crenwelge boy And then the way, uh, the last dice we get to roll and, and also figure out, because we want all of our NPCs that we make to have the bright yellow exclamation point over their head. 00:58:21.45 Jess (she/her) guys. 00:58:22.17 Kurt Crenwelge When you encounter them, like in, you know, Baldur's gate three or whatever. I don't know if they actually have yellow exclamation points over their head in that game, but you know, regardless, that's the universal symbol for, Hey, I have something that you could do and help me out and get experience points and whatever else. 00:58:35.59 Kurt Crenwelge So let's get. 00:58:36.79 Jess (she/her) I love when people do that at cons, by the way, they like become a quest giver, those are my favorites. 00:58:39.16 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:58:41.90 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, well that then that'll be a good, I don't know if lazy costume to put together, but I will have to consider that for the future, certainly. Your side quest is to listen to my podcast, and I just hand out business cards for the podcast, that's all I do. 00:58:55.19 Kurt Crenwelge ah That'd be very funny. ah Tangent aside, okay, we get to roll a D12, we get to figure out what's gonna be the particular quest that Corazon would be willing to recruit or hire player characters to go and do. 00:59:03.44 Jess (she/her) Ooh. 00:59:06.86 Jess (she/her) That was cocked, let's see. Seven. 00:59:10.12 Kurt Crenwelge Seven ooh, okay You let me know if you think this works. This is suggested by previous guest scarlet 64 Retrieve a lost self-portrait painting from a famous artist to complete an otherwise formalized collection and it's the painter's soul repository Do you think a rebellious teen measles is interested in paintings? 00:59:32.35 Jess (she/her) Yeah, I don't know. Maybe if it was like, and I don't know if that would be his bag. 00:59:38.20 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, you can always reroll. ah 00:59:40.36 Jess (she/her) I feel like he would ask them to either um retrieve a new spell book for him or to take his students on an adventure and get them some real world experience. 00:59:48.48 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:59:55.68 Kurt Crenwelge Would you rather that be the side quest? 00:59:58.10 Jess (she/her) Yeah, let's do that. 00:59:59.35 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so he wants you to 01:00:01.27 Jess (she/her) I've given the adventurers a babysitting quest with a bunch of children to look out for. 01:00:05.61 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. Well, you definitely want to, you definitely want to talk to your characters about that. Or like, are we cool with leading a bunch of kids on a mission that could be potentially lethal? You know, like hopefully, hopefully you're not doing that. 01:00:17.91 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, at least in my game, I'd be like, ah, kids have plot armor. Like the nothing bad is ever going to happen to kids. 01:00:22.12 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:00:24.09 Kurt Crenwelge unless it's like obviously like something like the kids table D&D podcast where they maybe use something like from TTRPG kids recommendations of like, it's you now, this is how you switch to the kid version of the one game you wanted to run like no thank you monsters. 01:00:41.65 Jess (she/her) Oh, yeah no, thank you, evil. 01:00:42.85 Kurt Crenwelge No, thank you evil or something like that. And now your adult players are like having to play like an actual kids version of the game. They're like, now they're taking on the kid characters. And now they get to go and have this silly adventure, a little bit of lightheartedness. 01:00:55.59 Jess (she/her) Oh, that sounds so fun. 01:00:57.37 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, or you know, that's the way to bring your kids in and you want your kids to play or your nieces your nephews your grandchildren or whoever the neighbors down the street. 01:01:01.23 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:01:07.37 Kurt Crenwelge It's like this is the way to bring them into the adventure and now this measles wants you to leave the like put his ah accreditation his a quote unquote accreditation his his teaching skills to the test to see like do these kids have what it takes to actually ah go on in an adventure so is there like a specific adventure he would want ah to send them on or is this just kind of like ah 01:01:18.96 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:01:32.37 Jess (she/her) Honestly, I don't think he's put that much thought into it. He would just be like, Yeah, what's the next thing you're doing? You should take them. 01:01:38.35 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. Interesting. So especially if we're like in a swampy marshy environment, you know, it sounds like, you know, typical sort of thing would be like, Hey, go hunt this big thing because it's causing problems or it's like, Oh, 01:01:50.60 Jess (she/her) You know what's in the swamps a lot? Hags. 01:01:55.32 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:01:55.84 Jess (she/her) You know what else is in the swamp a lot? Dragons. 01:01:58.74 Kurt Crenwelge True, okay, so something with involving a dragon or or a hag. I was gonna say, um you know, I know you rolled for it, and I know you have this, but just because you just said it and spoke it, and it's right here in the list, but it's also suggested by previous guests, Allison Coons and Ryan Timpty of the Kids Table D&D Podcast and Show, retrieve the heirloom like a hundred year old sourdough starter from the hag's hut. 01:02:24.96 Jess (she/her) Oh, that's delightful. I like that too. 01:02:28.51 Kurt Crenwelge So I don't know. 01:02:29.13 Jess (she/her) And take the kids with them. 01:02:30.44 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. I was going to say, is this something maybe you want to kind of like mesh them together? You just, okay. 01:02:34.52 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:02:35.57 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So we'll use that selection. So thank you, Alison and Ryan for that. Okay. So the mission that he wants you to take these kids on is to like, go get the sourdough starter from the hags hut. 01:02:48.10 Jess (she/her) Mm hmm. 01:02:48.22 Kurt Crenwelge That's in the swamp. Do the measles have a problem with his hag in the swamp? Are they like in conflict? 01:02:54.69 Jess (she/her) I think anyone who has lives in a hag swamp either has a problem with the hag or works for the hag. Like there's not a lot of like either or. 01:03:05.85 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, interesting, okay, so then this hag is nearby to this this town, the civilization, and so now these kids are being recruited to somehow go steal this sourdough starter um from the hag's hut, and they the kids have only been armed with like cantrip level spells, so. 01:03:18.32 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:03:23.78 Jess (she/her) like guidance and thaumaturgy. 01:03:27.26 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, again, yeah, and hopefully this is where me, Kurt, the person, 01:03:31.55 Jess (she/her) And toll the dead. 01:03:33.38 Kurt Crenwelge This is where I would heavily, heavily ah you know stress like, hey, you know as a dad, you know my per my PSA, please don't please don't do that kind of weird stuff in games where you put kids in danger. 01:03:45.82 Kurt Crenwelge That's just, it gives me, just give now that I'm a dad, I'm like, I would never, yeah. 01:03:45.96 Jess (she/her) um Yeah. 01:03:50.95 Kurt Crenwelge Even in my younger years, I don't think I actually would have ever entertained it, but still, it's just kind of like, yeah, that just doesn't sit weird with me. That's where you introduce this no thank you evil, or like some kids, 01:04:01.01 Jess (she/her) X card. 01:04:01.93 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, some kids variant game, and this is where you make it fun and goofy. um to 01:04:07.43 Jess (she/her) I would even put as like an alternative just he just doesn't need you to get the kids he just wants sourdough starter and maybe a book a spell book from the hag so the adventurers can go get it. 01:04:18.34 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Interesting. Okay. Or if you want to morph it that way, that works too. So, you and also, you know, lends to the idea of like, Hey, I've taught everything out of this book and I don't have anything more to teach the kids. They're, they're bugging me. They want to learn more. And so, Hey, just, you know, 01:04:37.43 Kurt Crenwelge I'm hungry. Just, you know, but or it's like this hag was a real jerk to me. um She really cares about her bread making because you know, some pandemic and everyone was stuck indoors and everyone got super into bread. 01:04:42.62 Jess (she/her) Aha. 01:04:50.33 Kurt Crenwelge And ah yeah, so like true. 01:04:53.04 Jess (she/her) Yeah, I could see parties being like, I think the last thing you want to do as a final exam for children is send them to a hag. 01:05:00.85 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that 01:05:01.53 Jess (she/her) That's like a really, really high level final exam for a group of children. 01:05:06.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay. So you kind of like that idea better of like him being like, Hey, I need new tricks to be able to teach the kids. So go to this hags hut, you know, get, find me whatever spell books you can, but also, you know, take the sourdough starter too. 01:05:21.92 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, and that's just kind of like a more like, well, if you're in there, you might as well just grab it. 01:05:25.73 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:05:26.35 Kurt Crenwelge Or is this guy really into bread making or something? 01:05:26.69 Jess (she/her) Yeah. Yeah. 01:05:30.60 Jess (she/her) ah I think it's like she's really into bread making. 01:05:34.37 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, so it's a way. 01:05:34.91 Jess (she/her) The hags are really into bread making. 01:05:35.89 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:05:36.11 Jess (she/her) So it would spite her, let her know that ah she's not say entirely in control. 01:05:37.45 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, o okay. All right, so now that now that this is the, o the yeast is alive, it grew legs and walked away. 01:05:46.31 Jess (she/her) She might expect a spell book to go missing because you know spell books do that sometimes. Spell books magic has a mind of its own but like sourdough starter? 01:05:59.35 Kurt Crenwelge ah Okay, so now that now that we know that this is the side quest, this is the true side quest ah that Corazon would send a bunch of hero characters to go and do. um So what's gonna be the reward? How is he gonna reward the players for successfully bringing back some sort of arcane tome, probably with like forbidden knowledge for him to try and comprehend and teach children to something, ah but how does he reward the players? 01:06:27.50 Jess (she/her) I think obviously he would ah share some bread with them, but in addition to that, he would offer free teaching of wizard spells, any that came in the book, to any who want to learn, or if anyone wants to learn a cantrip from him, he could teach them that. 01:06:42.42 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 01:06:49.48 Jess (she/her) if they like spend If they attended one of his classes, they could attend ah for free basically so it wouldn't be like I know you can learn spells in D and&D like if you spend the requisite amount of time and if you have the requisite intelligence blah blah blah blah but basically he would just be a teacher and you could learn to spell in like an hour or short rest time. 01:07:10.66 Kurt Crenwelge Right. I was gonna say it's like one of those like, ah what was it? um Because I'm just being my mind is all of a sudden going to Ant-Man and the Wasp. 01:07:20.83 Kurt Crenwelge And when Scott is ah under house arrest, and so he's watching the guy do the magic trick card videos. 01:07:26.49 Jess (she/her) Yes. Yeah. 01:07:26.65 Kurt Crenwelge And later in the movie, the guy, the Jimmy Wong characters like 01:07:26.82 Jess (she/her) so yeah 01:07:31.18 Kurt Crenwelge I'm trying to watch the video to figure out how to do the magic trick. So it's kind of like that sort of intensity of like, hey, you come come to my class, you pay me like 10 gold, and I'll teach you how to cast lights, dancing lights, you know, you it'll be a regular party once you're casting these cantrips. 01:07:42.32 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:07:47.94 Kurt Crenwelge And so that he's just like, great. And then he's like working through it real fast. And you're just like, I, how did you Ah, okay. Yeah, okay. That's so that's a way to give a freebie cantrip to your players without them having to have like the magic adept feed or whatever like that. 01:07:57.68 Jess (she/her) Yeah. Mm hmm. 01:08:02.46 Kurt Crenwelge You get a crash course from some swamp Bubba team dude. And then yeah, cool. It's like, all right. Well, I don't I guess I don't need torches anymore because I can just go light, which would be hugely valuable. 01:08:16.92 Jess (she/her) Yeah. And as the GM, you can obviously pick the cantrips that Corazon knows. So they can't, if you don't want them to be like, I want to learn Toll of the Dead from him. 01:08:21.36 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:08:25.28 Jess (she/her) Well, I want to learn light. Well, I want to learn flowering or something. Uh, you know, you could be like, he knows these five cantrips. You can each learn one. 01:08:35.39 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah. And then you pay him a little money. You learn the cantrip and then bada bing bada boom. 01:08:40.82 Jess (she/her) You don't even have to pay him. You got him a spell book. 01:08:42.85 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, that's true. Yeah, you got him the spell book. So that's kind of like the requisite for it. 01:08:46.33 Jess (she/her) That's the payment. 01:08:47.35 Kurt Crenwelge So otherwise it is possible maybe as a, re you know, if he ends up becoming a reoccurring character in your campaign, you could just go to him and pay him money. And then he can teach you like the redneck crash course version of the spell um to be able to learn it. 01:09:00.24 Jess (she/her) yeah 01:09:03.19 Kurt Crenwelge But ah now the designer, me thinking like, okay, the more high level, ah the more ah MacGyvered the spell, the way that he teaches it. So there's got to be like some sort of like, you know, like, ah I think the DMG talks about like spell mishaps and stuff like that. 01:09:19.69 Kurt Crenwelge But it seems like it's got to be more and more skewed, like wild magic or some sort of spell mishap happens when you try and like, Oh, I want to learn fireball from a redneck. 01:09:19.87 Jess (she/her) Mm hmm. 01:09:30.24 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, come on down. We're going to teach you how to do it. Um, but then it turns out like it's just like a lot of high grade alcohol that he uses to teach fireball. 01:09:40.77 Kurt Crenwelge And then because you learned it weird when you try and cast it, it's like, suddenly I have third degree burns on my face or whatever. 01:09:41.54 Jess (she/her) Yes. Yeah. Um, and also like, I feel like if you want to keep him as a recurring character, you could keep bringing him spell books and then, uh, reduce the chance that he could have a mishap, but maybe he teaches you a version of the spell with a lesser effect. 01:09:56.50 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 01:10:05.54 Kurt Crenwelge ah 01:10:05.70 Jess (she/her) So maybe it's like fireball, but also give someone like. ah fli like someone near it also ah bleeds fire or something or like explodes whenever they get hit. 01:10:20.08 Jess (she/her) You know, something weird like that. 01:10:21.22 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, all right, that's very cool. And I like the idea of like, because now 01:10:25.56 Jess (she/her) It was just a little wonky. 01:10:27.12 Kurt Crenwelge Right, a little wonky. I'm just thinking of, ah well, my head goes to Fallout. I remember in Fallout 3, it would always be like the one ghouls that would always want sugar bombs ah to make their drugs or it'd be the one guy in in Megaton who was always looking for scrap metal and he would give you money or something like that. 01:10:44.64 Kurt Crenwelge So kind of this idea of like, 01:10:45.35 Jess (she/her) Mm-hmm. 01:10:46.46 Kurt Crenwelge just bring me spell books. I don't care who they belong to or how you got them, but just bring me the spell books and I'll read them and I'll learn something and I'll be able to teach the kids. 01:10:51.39 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:10:57.24 Kurt Crenwelge And so, okay. 01:10:57.63 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:10:59.06 Kurt Crenwelge All right. I like that. And then as now I'm just thinking the far future, it's like, Oh, this mezel, this arch wizard, he's just a mezel from the swamps. But like, he literally like, I'm a self 01:11:07.79 Jess (she/her) yeah Made himself an arch wizard thanks to you. 01:11:11.35 Kurt Crenwelge I am a self-made arch wizard. I studied from the books of the greats. I never set foot in a classroom. The swamp was my classroom. 01:11:20.59 Jess (she/her) I love it. 01:11:22.84 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:11:23.58 Jess (she/her) Just like he teaches you how to cast Fireball centered on yourself. 01:11:27.63 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, so it's like going Super Saiyan. 01:11:30.28 Jess (she/her) Right. 01:11:30.59 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay. All right. and then but 01:11:33.24 Jess (she/her) Or you cast like a fog cloud but ah everyone outside of the cloud is blind. 01:11:42.92 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, okay. Yeah, there's some free Exactly silly silly implications. 01:11:44.53 Jess (she/her) Something silly like that. 01:11:47.61 Kurt Crenwelge We love silly implications ah But now we also have to consider the opposite ah So what's gonna be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? 01:12:01.17 Jess (she/her) So a teacher, so he's probably not gonna like sneak up and garate you. I think there are different things here. Okay, yeah I feel like if you did the quest, but didn't give him the spell book, he might become hostile. 01:12:12.76 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm You put it you put a mark you put a mark on my back you know that now the hags gonna come get me Right yeah, all the measles clan yeah 01:12:14.98 Jess (she/her) and do try and just like, exactly. He might take you to meet his family. 01:12:26.34 Jess (she/her) aha Just leave, ah be like, oh, come with me to my next lesson. And it's just like the dark encroaching darkness. 01:12:34.35 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. ah Well, now now I'm just imagining, ah well if you remember Rango, when they go to confront ah the mole rats who stole the water, and then it's like, Oh, you think this is all of us? 01:12:44.17 Jess (she/her) huh 01:12:45.83 Kurt Crenwelge And then all of a sudden, all these mole rats just start coming out of the ground. And it's like the whole clan is there. And you're just like, there are you guys may all be like challenge rating one, but there's like 100 of you guys. 01:12:58.46 Kurt Crenwelge And there's only like 01:12:59.35 Jess (she/her) The action economy is not in your favor. 01:13:01.62 Kurt Crenwelge right right unless you're adopting minion rules and traits then this is ah yeah this is not looking good for us guys okay well certainly you're not going to get any bread if you you're not getting any bread if you don't ah if you leave the sourdough starter there 01:13:11.88 Jess (she/her) i You're not getting any bread. 01:13:18.99 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, for some reason I thought like the bread is evil. And so now you've, like you've loosened evil bread onto the world because you didn't steal the sourdough starter. Uh, and so now in act three, when the King goes to eat that bread, Oh, it was bread made by the hag. 01:13:34.45 Kurt Crenwelge And now the entire kingdom is infected with hag sickness or whatever. 01:13:36.05 Jess (she/her) wo 01:13:41.37 Jess (she/her) Everyone turns into frogs. 01:13:43.01 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. ah Everyone's it starts off with the frog in the throat and then everyone just turns into frogs. Okay, that'd be fun to do. ah 01:13:52.94 Jess (she/her) Yeah, like refusing the call. I just feel like, you know, a really good guilt trip. That's the consequence. He's like, well, it's not for me, it's for the kids. But if you don't want to help the kids, give back to the community, I guess. 01:14:04.60 Jess (she/her) That's how you folks do it, where you're from. Good thing. 01:14:07.24 Kurt Crenwelge You from the high cities and you you don't care about us folks in the swamps. Okay. um And then of course, I mean, obviously, another failure condition is um your stealth. 01:14:20.49 Kurt Crenwelge I'm assuming ah a possible route being like, oh, we're just going to stealth our way into the hags hut, you know, to to steal these two things. Well, now you're in a full fledged fight with a hag on her home turf. 01:14:31.99 Jess (she/her) Mm-hmm. Yeah. 01:14:34.29 Kurt Crenwelge And are you imagining this would be like a green hag because green hags are the ones they're the ones in the swamp. 01:14:37.71 Jess (she/her) Yeah, because they're the ones in the swamp. 01:14:39.83 Kurt Crenwelge So 01:14:40.74 Jess (she/her) I mean, I guess a night hag can be anywhere. But when i when I first mentioned it, I was like, ooh, green hags live in swamps. 01:14:46.70 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, there we go. Or, you know, even worse, it's a green hag coven. So there's like three of them living there. 01:14:52.19 Jess (she/her) Right. 01:14:52.91 Kurt Crenwelge And now you have to deal with a green hag coven. um 01:14:55.88 Jess (she/her) Green dragons live in swamps. 01:14:58.58 Kurt Crenwelge There. 01:14:58.95 Jess (she/her) It's a hag and her dragon friend. 01:15:00.29 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah, yeah. 01:15:00.84 Jess (she/her) but yeah 01:15:01.13 Kurt Crenwelge Now, yeah, now the the the greenies are going to come pay pay you a visit or something like that, or start haunting your dreams or doing all that sort of kind of stuff. 01:15:04.94 Jess (she/her) huh 01:15:11.30 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. So, and then with, um you know, with all all those questions sort of explored, I know we have some alternate questions, as well, optional questions. And, you You know, we've kind of, it seems like we've maybe touched on some of them, but do you feel like anything more needs to be explored with Cortison or do you feel like he's pretty well fleshed out? 01:15:28.69 Jess (she/her) Mm hmm. Um, I'm seeing how he's shaped the local area. I feel like he's a major irritant to all measles. 01:15:42.22 Jess (she/her) But is probably and it's probably a little bit scary to like, ah non me to like, you know, I was almost said like playable ah races, but you know, to like halflings don't are not thrilled when their kids like, Oh, yeah, the measles taught me magic. 01:15:58.68 Kurt Crenwelge right yeah well and then also kind of interesting depending on um you know the socio-economic conditions of this community and it's like the fact that the measles teen is going out of his way for some reason for his own kicks for his own rebellion or whatever and he's just like i'm just gonna teach a bunch of kids magic and see what happens um but then the kids are actually 01:15:58.73 Jess (she/her) They're like, don't love that for you. 01:16:17.64 Jess (she/her) Yeah. Right. Like how does that change your town if like all of the eight year olds can suddenly cast firebolt? 01:16:30.17 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh wow. Yeah, I forget. Those are cantrips too. Oh boy. 01:16:34.33 Jess (she/her) Right? 01:16:34.90 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. It's like suddenly it's like, uh, yeah, now it turns into, cause we're here at the Christmas season and, uh, uh, Santa Claus is coming to town. The the rank and bass claymation when the burger Meister Meisterburger is like, 01:16:46.75 Kurt Crenwelge No, he steps on one toy and goes onto this whole thing about like, no kids can have any toys in this town because look at what they do. The rebel damage to society. And it's really like, dude, you just broke your foot and you just had a bad day. 01:16:58.98 Kurt Crenwelge It's like, you shouldn't have just been, uh, yeah. 01:16:59.75 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:17:01.88 Kurt Crenwelge Now I'm just imagining that situation, like Kris Kringle, the measles or whatever comes to town. 01:17:05.41 Jess (she/her) Uh-huh. 01:17:06.20 Kurt Crenwelge He's like, Hey, magic and fun and woo. And then suddenly the kids are like, you know, like you said, they're blasting fire bolts around. Someone's got. 01:17:13.48 Jess (she/her) Shockey grasp, chill touch. 01:17:16.07 Kurt Crenwelge Eldritch Blast, does that count as a tangent? 01:17:17.69 Jess (she/her) Yeah, that's a cantrip. 01:17:18.49 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Blast, and so like. 01:17:21.61 Jess (she/her) Mage hand, there's all sorts of like doors and windows opening. 01:17:25.03 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah, and the kids, like, the parents told them to go to bed, but they turn on light under their covers and they're reading their books and staying up late. It's like, I can't wait to go to the next lesson um in the in the fields or whoever behind store, because, like you know, maybe Corazon has to have like all these different places that he does his coursework or whatever. 01:17:46.12 Jess (she/her) Chores are so fast when you know press to digitization. 01:17:48.94 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, that's true. Yeah, mom's it won't. 01:17:50.90 Jess (she/her) Or bending. 01:17:51.98 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Well, i don't so it's got to be like a mix, it seems like, because it's like mom and dad and grandma and grandpa are happy because it's like, wow, this place has never been cleaner than before. 01:17:55.40 Jess (she/her) Mm-hmm. 01:18:01.74 Kurt Crenwelge And like all the clothes are mended. 01:18:01.97 Jess (she/her) Right. 01:18:03.46 Kurt Crenwelge And it's like, we're not having to spend as much time, um you know, doing all these, you know, ah intensive labor sorts of things because now it's like we've got more time for leisure or just more family time and stuff like that. 01:18:16.73 Kurt Crenwelge So. 01:18:17.67 Jess (she/her) But when Sally throws a tantrum, there's always a risk that she'll light the roof on fire. 01:18:22.10 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah, yeah, so I wonder, yeah, I wonder if the town is gonna wanna crack down on this guy, this weird Corazon guy that's like, teach teaching the kids magic is wrong, ah you know, or something like that. 01:18:34.95 Jess (she/her) Or at least teach the kids like non-harmful magic. He's like, what's harmful magic? 01:18:40.22 Kurt Crenwelge Right, this is just things I read in a book, yeah. 01:18:41.59 Jess (she/her) They need to protect themselves. 01:18:43.83 Kurt Crenwelge you know what Do you know my kin that live out in the swamp? you know Of course you gotta to be able to protect yourself. Dangerous world living in this swamp community we live in. 01:18:49.55 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:18:53.84 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. and then uh okay yeah and and so then ah so the measles are then so the measles are just the folk that live out in the bayou and then you know he corresponds the one dude who just like comes onto the fringes of town he comes to town maybe interacts with some of the townspeople but they're like you're one of those weird swamp folk or whatever it's like 01:19:07.14 Jess (she/her) comes to town. 01:19:14.91 Jess (she/her) Yeah, they're like, Oh, he's gonna sit in the corner and like just drink water or get one coffee and be here for hours. Like nobody wants to serve him. 01:19:24.87 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. Okay. 01:19:27.21 Jess (she/her) Which is not necessarily true. 01:19:28.93 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah. 01:19:29.49 Jess (she/her) He could be a really good tipper. They don't know. 01:19:31.93 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, he's, he's flush with cash from all the the people coming to get his crash courses and magic. 01:19:36.93 Jess (she/her) Right? 01:19:37.32 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:19:38.22 Jess (she/her) All the pocket money. 01:19:39.35 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. All the pocket money they've got now from the kids. Yeah. All right. Well, it sounds like we got a pretty well, uh, rounded out, flushed out NPC. Are you ready to throw them into a random encounter? 01:19:50.44 Jess (she/her) Yeah, I like this little dude. 01:19:52.15 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Let's do it. Let's go into a random encounter. 01:19:55.66 Jess (she/her) All right. 01:20:03.12 Kurt Crenwelge And final ad read insert thing here for Zencaster, the podcasting platform thing I'm using, use my code at zencaster.com forward slash pricing use code side KQ podcast and save on your first month of paid a subscription plan and all that good stuff. So thanks everyone for doing that. 01:20:22.96 Kurt Crenwelge Alright, so we're here in the random encounter section where we get to do a little bit of a roleplay of vignette a scene with the character that we've made today. So I think you're going to do a fabulous job of at least representing and portraying and being Corazon. But the question I have is, who am I going to be in the scene? Am I going to be one of my reoccurring ah podcast adventuring characters that's getting the side quest? Am I going to be, you know, like one of the kids having ah one of the the group of children having a course? Is it? um Is it Corazon speaking with other relatives? Or Ken about like, Oh, the thing going on with the hag? Or I don't know what kind of scene are you interested in showcasing and and showing off Corazon the best? 01:21:09.05 Jess (she/her) I want you to do whatever you feel the most comfortable doing. 01:21:14.20 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:21:15.17 Jess (she/her) I am currently looking up cantrips, and there are so many. 01:21:17.19 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. There's a lot of cantrips, you know. 01:21:21.06 Jess (she/her) Even just reducing them to just wizard, there are three pages of cantrips on TND Beyond. 01:21:26.85 Kurt Crenwelge Well, there you go. So, you know, never shortage with this guy. So, um, you know, I'm happy to kind of go through the Rolodex of a podcast adventuring characters. Uh, if you'd like to hear them all rattled off. 01:21:40.65 Jess (she/her) Sure. 01:21:41.03 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so we've got ah Duncan, who's the recklessly brave adventurer for hire. No task too big, no feet too daring, sort of a guy. We have Sonia, who is the warrior woman who started off as a barbarian and then multi-classed into a paladin who serves a god who wishes to redeem the undead. 01:21:59.23 Kurt Crenwelge We have Korak, who is the lawful evil arcane trickster roguish dwarf. We have Chrisley, who is the herbalist botanist wood elf druid, who then multi-classed into a cleric who serves living memory. 01:22:12.84 Kurt Crenwelge We... 01:22:13.08 Jess (she/her) Oh wow, that's a really cool character. 01:22:14.97 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Um, we've also got, um, uh, we've got Orion, who is the astral elf illusionist wizard. I kind of play him kind of like a Spock sort of a guy. We've got, um, uh, we've got Agape, who was the lilac colored tiefling sore lock. So she started off as a wild magic sorcerer influenced by the Feywild, and then eventually made a, uh, archfey warlock packed with, uh, one of the other NPC characters made on the podcast. 01:22:46.23 Kurt Crenwelge And then we've got Lifespell the Necromancer, who has his a Faithful Skeletal Manservant Octavius. And then the newest brand new character we've made. um Her name is Anne Boleyn Mithrilshaper, and she is a Dwarven Bard who plays like a hammered dulcimer. 01:23:02.40 Kurt Crenwelge She's only been in one other adventure so far, so I don't quite have her like character sort of nailed down. um But yeah, that's ah I really got to do a better job of just having a whole list that I could just like, other yeah. 01:23:13.50 Jess (she/her) It's like who who do you must want to play right now. 01:23:16.67 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, that's a good question. I mean, if you, I mean, I'm always down to be Duncan. He's like, I said, he's like, he's the one that started this whole reoccurring character ah for the podcast. And he's just picked up all sorts of odd job skills along the way. So like, 01:23:33.34 Kurt Crenwelge If there is anyone in this list who would be most intrigued with learning a cantrip, it probably would be him because it would just come into his tool belt of whatever tricks or that he needs to be able to like do the job of being an adventurer. 01:23:39.58 Jess (she/her) huh 01:23:46.71 Jess (she/her) Let's do it. 01:23:47.53 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, perfect. So would you like to set the scene or would you care for me to set the scene? 01:23:54.46 Jess (she/her) Oh. um I'm going to say Corazon is behind the school in town, decided this town has a school and is in the middle of teaching ah a collection of children, I'll say eight, 01:24:18.75 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:24:20.24 Jess (she/her) ranging in ages, equivalent ages, right? Like a five-year-old elf is not the same as a five-year-old human. and ah But, you know, equivalent ages of like five to 10. 01:24:34.96 Kurt Crenwelge okay 01:24:36.17 Jess (she/her) And is ah reviewing, ah let's say create bonfire. 01:24:44.06 Kurt Crenwelge Very, very handy. You know, you're in the swamps and you know, you need to make a fire to stay dry. So that makes sense. 01:24:50.16 Jess (she/her) Yeah, I was like, green flame blade. But no, I think create bonfire is ah the way to go. 01:24:57.06 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And so then, yeah, perfect. So where we last left Duncan on his adventures, he was, um well, he was on the one big quest ah that ah ah Daisy had sent him on, who was, ah you know, she was the trust fund baby. 01:25:13.64 Kurt Crenwelge Young Silver Dragon, who was in the appearance of an Aldottu, which is my homebrew, half celestial sort of appearance. Aldottus are half celestials in my world. so That was the form she took. Anyway, so she was on a mission. ah Duncan teamed up with Chris Lee. 01:25:31.39 Kurt Crenwelge And then along the way, they met Rembrandt, who is this young dragon who is trying to find a place to establish a horde. And so there was like a side quest within a side quest ah that Duncan was seen to. So it's been a while. It's been this whole thing with Duncan helping to retrieve ah the crescent's edge ah to help ah further Daisy and her and her being and her ah shenanigans in school and all that stuff. 01:25:56.53 Kurt Crenwelge So Duncan has ah you know been like, okay, you know I feel the call of adventure. I've been living, I've been you know ah maybe a bit smitten with this daisy ah lady, student. And you know i ah you know it's kind of like the wanderer. It's like, I've got a rosy on my chest. I've got like ah this girl here and this girl there. And so he he just feels that his chaotic good nature call him to going into the swamps. and so He's traveling at some time and he eventually comes upon this scene and he he feels a bit of deja vu because he's he's like come across you know these sorts of school scenes with children, but he's taken aback because um you know it's this Meisel. And the last time that he, it was him, I believe, who encountered the Meisel, yes, 01:26:46.84 Kurt Crenwelge I am. I will have to edit this if I got it wrong, but I feel like. ah but But, but, but. Sorry, lame, I know. 01:26:59.67 Kurt Crenwelge It was Duncan. Yes. So Duncan has encountered a measles before. So he's yeah. 01:27:03.57 Jess (she/her) Oh nice. 01:27:04.39 Kurt Crenwelge So he was used to, you know, seeing, um, Benny, the donut watchman in the under dark society. But now he's like, he's getting deja vu and he, you know, for one, for encountering another schoolyard scene of like, oh, kids are learning and this is great. 01:27:18.29 Kurt Crenwelge But then also it's like, wait a minute, a measles. Like, what are you doing? So Duncan is going to very cautiously approach so as he's approaching, like, what is he hearing and what's he see? 01:27:30.12 Jess (she/her) ah So he sees our little gremlin of a teacher who's like, now when you're out, once you create a bonfire, that's going to keep you from getting swarmed and it's going to keep you warm. All right. So you keep this bonfire and get it big and nobody can beep or bop around you travels in the dark. That's a spell I'll teach later, but it's not. It's just the thing that measles do. But it's like, nobody can jump in and grab you. 01:28:00.35 Jess (she/her) So now focus and do it again. Here's that over there. It's four coppers for a lesson. 01:28:06.68 Kurt Crenwelge Oh! Uh, uh, hello? 01:28:08.44 Jess (she/her) We don't have any adjuncts. 01:28:10.28 Kurt Crenwelge Oh! oh my My my apology he's almost like taking a back where he starts to reach for his coin purse, but then he's like I'm sorry ah Are you he names the underdark? Civilization where like this donut mania or this deal donut fever comes from so he's like You're not I know Benny from there. are Are you from there like he's he's just like more confused and so he just wants to get like a bearing of like How would I how should I approach and ah speak with you sort of a thing? 01:28:40.78 Jess (she/her) Well, I do have a lot of cousins, but a is Benny from around these here about parts? 01:28:48.82 Kurt Crenwelge No, no, no, Benny, Benny was a watchman in the Underdark in that and that town or civilization, and I had to go fight the plants up on the surface in order to get the necessary ingredient for them to make the donuts that they all were cuckoo bananas for. 01:29:03.34 Kurt Crenwelge ah Yeah, so is any of that familiar to you? 01:29:03.40 Jess (she/her) Well, I do enjoy a good beignet. I will say that. 01:29:10.11 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 01:29:10.81 Jess (she/her) However, no, I ain't never been to the Underdark. I would like to go, but um I'm just i'm just cor Professor Corazon from right around here. 01:29:17.25 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 01:29:23.41 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:29:26.39 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:29:26.81 Jess (she/her) And these are my students. 01:29:28.91 Kurt Crenwelge Hey, he looks at the kids. 01:29:29.73 Jess (she/her) Say hi, kids. 01:29:31.33 Kurt Crenwelge ah Yes, Duncan is very excited to meet the kids. He kind of has like that fallout perk, child at heart. um So he's just like very excited and happy to meet them. 01:29:38.25 Jess (she/her) Aw. 01:29:41.01 Kurt Crenwelge That's his chaotic, good nature. um So he's just like, you know, he shakes all their hands and they're like, wow, who are you? And he's like, I'm an adventurer. He starts pulling out business cards to hand all of them. And even to Professor Corazon, he's like, yes, I'm an adventurer for hire. 01:29:54.88 Kurt Crenwelge No task too small, no feet too daring. I have been on many in an adventure. And he and he looks around, and he's like, ah I haven't seen swamps like these in quite some time. And he, he's going to begin to start telling about an earlier random encounter that he did with the previous ah NPC on this podcast. 01:30:12.37 Kurt Crenwelge So whatever Professor Corazon is ready to jump in, but he has the spell he has the kids spellbound. 01:30:15.85 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:30:17.60 Kurt Crenwelge So he's like going into this elaborate theatrics of like beginning to tell the tale and stuff. 01:30:24.12 Jess (she/her) Sounds like, ah see kids, this is why you need to learn these spells so you can survive like Duncan here. 01:30:32.85 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, yes, very good, very good, yes. You, you said you teach. What, uh, I know how to fly, but what else could you teach me? 01:30:43.36 Jess (she/her) I know every cantrip there is to know and many spells beyond. 01:30:49.77 Kurt Crenwelge Whoa, you sound very wise indeed. 01:30:54.86 Jess (she/her) That is correct. 01:30:56.24 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, Duncan rolls an insight check and he gets low because, you know, he's, he's chaotic. Good. It doesn't mean he's, he's dumb or anything like that, but he's just kind of like, you know, he's like, ah, the last professor I found. And so he's going to begin starting to talk about professor Hank, uh, in the, in the Royal Academy that he, what he, 01:31:13.31 Kurt Crenwelge He's like, Oh, I was in another universe. And I finally popped back. and I was right in the office of Professor Hank. And so he's like, surely you must know Professor Hank, because he heard that you were called Professor Corazon. So he just assumes that like, you know, like every other academic in the across the lands and stuff like that. And so again, you're gonna have to like interrupt him and get him to stop because now he's getting excited and wanting to talk more and more about his stories. 01:31:34.70 Jess (she/her) Yeah, I remember that he is a teenager and doesn't want to lose space in front of his students. He's like, oh, yeah, Hank, we kit yeah haven't spoken in a while at the last professor meeting conference. 01:31:47.99 Kurt Crenwelge ah 01:31:48.63 Jess (she/her) But I have extensively read his work. 01:31:53.93 Kurt Crenwelge Ah Yes poetry he's quite he's quite the lover of poetry indeed Uh, yeah, so then, uh, Duncan's like, well, um, you know, I just, well, I just felt the spirits carry me here and ah coming across your, your lovely presentation and, and all these shining faces. 01:32:14.04 Kurt Crenwelge He says smiling, looking at all the kids and he's like, well, I'm. 01:32:17.86 Jess (she/her) That's right, they do shine. They could get some real world experience. You want to take these kids on your next adventure, give them their final exam. 01:32:23.22 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. Oh, oh, I oh, oh, my goodness. um he He's like beginning to count and he's his count is getting higher and higher. And he's just like, I'm sorry, professor. I don't I don't think I'm cut out for field trip work. I mean, if there's something that I can do to like help your class. I mean, there's that's certainly something I could do that I'm, like I said, I can fly I have he pulls out this wooden cane, which, ah you know, has a magical aura glow about it. 01:32:51.01 Kurt Crenwelge And then he's like in the spoon, and it doesn't it doesn't look like it's inherently magical, but you feel a maternal presence within the spoon. And so he's just refer and then he in the points to his arm, and he has like a magical grappling hook device. 01:33:03.71 Kurt Crenwelge So he's like, he's kitted out with like all sorts of weird stuff. 01:33:04.56 Jess (she/her) Oh, snap. 01:33:07.46 Kurt Crenwelge And you look down at his feet, and he has deer skin loafers with these magic coins in them. And they totally clash with the rest of his outfit. But for some reason, he just can't quite bring himself to actually get out of the shoes. 01:33:19.57 Kurt Crenwelge um So yeah, like he's kitted out with all this. 01:33:21.64 Jess (she/her) They have the best stats. 01:33:22.53 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, they do have the best stats. So yeah, he's he's just like a weird mishmash of all these arcane magic items. And so he's like, clearly, he he meets the resume criteria of doing whatever you need. 01:33:34.02 Kurt Crenwelge So like he's genuinely appealing to the professor. 01:33:35.32 Jess (she/her) He's a much higher level adventurer but ah than ever would have anticipated. 01:33:38.19 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:33:42.98 Kurt Crenwelge Sure, yeah. 01:33:44.08 Jess (she/her) He's like, well, class dismissed kids, everybody practice your bonfires, not in the living rooms, although that would be pretty funny. Yeah, practice your bonfires just outside the house. 01:33:57.39 Jess (she/her) We'll review tomorrow. And anybody who has perfected their bonfire gets to learn something new. 01:34:03.64 Kurt Crenwelge So the kids are excited and they they're like, yeah, yeah, let's go do this. And it's like, oh, yeah. And so maybe the kids are all, you know, but having a three year old son. So I'm just thinking of all the sorts of silly things they say. 01:34:13.92 Kurt Crenwelge It's like, oh, we found a bunch of old cow patties. Let's throw those in the bonfire and see what happens. And like all these other sorts of like, oh, I found a bunch of. 01:34:18.84 Jess (she/her) Yeah. We can tell it's marshmallows. 01:34:22.24 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I found a bunch of wet wood. Surely that would go good in a bonfire, right? 01:34:27.36 Jess (she/her) Why was my friend like, throwing a tire? Yeah. 01:34:31.00 Kurt Crenwelge throwing a wagon wheel. Yeah, let's see what that does. 01:34:32.57 Jess (she/her) yeah 01:34:33.04 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. ah My grandpa's not using that. 01:34:35.19 Jess (she/her) And after throwing the wagon. 01:34:36.35 Kurt Crenwelge um Yeah, so. 01:34:40.49 Kurt Crenwelge So once the kids are dismissed, ah then then yeah, Duncan gets real serious with ah Professor Corazon. 01:34:41.01 Jess (she/her) ah 01:34:45.65 Kurt Crenwelge He's like, now surely, you know, ah you're seeing those kids made my heart sing is, you know, is there something that I can do to help you to help them as you said? 01:34:55.81 Jess (she/her) Well, yeah, actually, there's a there's a hag around here. Her her name's the. Anti-fist knuckle. 01:35:05.39 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 01:35:05.98 Jess (she/her) and she uh well you know hags and kids and all that and but that's not even the point the point is she's got a spell book or two or three that i do not think a hag should have and it would be better in my safekeeping and also she has a hundred year old tower dough starter and 01:35:08.93 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 01:35:18.04 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:35:32.24 Jess (she/her) not only do I think those spill books would be better off in my safekeeping. I think that sourdough starter would be better as bread in our tummies. 01:35:40.73 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Yes, indeed. Yes. Bread is always good in in one's tummy or or or beer or something. Yeah. Yeah. So he's, he, you know, he's getting more pumped for the idea. And so he's just like, yes, yes. Okay. And, and, um, you know, the, uh, it's just a one hag or is the coven. I hear they come in covens sometimes. 01:36:02.89 Jess (she/her) Well, I'm pretty sure this one's by herself, but you never know. 01:36:07.96 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. And, um, okay. So then, ah, okay. 01:36:12.26 Jess (she/her) I've only ever seen the one. But you know what they say with eggs, that doesn't mean nothing. 01:36:19.07 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. A hag is a, um, a hag ah single. He, he, he's trying to like construct like some sort of like adventuring rhyme that like, Oh, surely all adventurers would know it'd be like, Oh, a single hag can be a drag. But if you find a coven, uh, best throw them in the oven or something like that. Um, so. 01:36:37.72 Jess (she/her) delightful. 01:36:37.76 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So that's like the rhyme he says. And so he's like, yeah, he's psyching himself up that he can get to this adventure. um And so then he'll, he'll turn um to the professor Corazon and, you know, Oh, good. Yes. You have a business card of mine. So he sticks his hand out and he's like, I, yeah, so I can, I can do the job clearly. I have the resume. um So can you just point me in the direction and I'll get going. 01:37:04.17 Jess (she/her) We'll just keep tricking in the woods that way and steer clear of the dark. 01:37:09.52 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. And then ah so as the scene closes out as a you know, literally Duncan like arrives on the scene, he gets the mission, and he's off. So is there any last thing that a Professor Corazon is going to say or or something that's going to close out the scene as Duncan go now goes trudging off into the swamp to go confront a hag just full while head on. 01:37:33.36 Jess (she/her) I mean, Corzine's pretty shocked that he didn't even ask for payment. ah I mean, he mentioned he would bake bread, but he's not gonna offer it if it wasn't asked for. He's, you know, he's neutral evil, not ah an idiot. 01:37:50.35 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm Yeah, maybe maybe now maybe over his shoulder He'll just say something to the effect of like I look forward to taking one of your courses and learning I've got the money for it 01:37:52.46 Jess (she/her) ah So he's just like, well, I'll i'll be here, um here every, every week, day after school. So find me after class. 01:38:16.53 Jess (she/her) You know what? If you bring me them books and that sourdough starter, I'll give you a discount. 01:38:24.95 Kurt Crenwelge and ah and And then, yes, without much further ado, then Duncan will trudge off into the horrid swamps and confront whatever horrors await him. 01:38:39.22 Kurt Crenwelge And scene, so there we go. We made it through the random encounter, so ah how do you how do you think it went? 01:38:45.76 Jess (she/her) Don't get so charming. 01:38:47.31 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, you know, he's kind of been around since the beginning and, uh, you know, not totally quite me, but he's just like, you know, he just goes with the flow and whatever the podcast needs, he gets done. Uh, and you know, plot armor sometimes, but, uh, yeah, he's, he's a good guy. 01:39:04.45 Jess (she/her) He's a GM's dream. Just someone who's like, yeah, I'll do Quest. 01:39:08.65 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I mean, probably by this point with five seasons, I would imagine he's a probably a pretty formidable ah adventurer character that you would just stumble upon on the road. So he just grinds the side quests. He must have like some sort of main quest line that he was charged with, but he was just like, no, I think I'm going to do a bunch of side quests first to be overleveled for the main plot. 01:39:37.17 Kurt Crenwelge You muted. 01:39:41.34 Jess (she/her) I sure was. I mute it during the music. Outside he's ah the Dragonborn who was like, oh yeah, i'll do we and I'll do that after I, you know, take over the mages college and um the companions guild, the the thieves guild, the dark brotherhood, and meet every Daedra. 01:40:00.87 Kurt Crenwelge Right, right. Fallout 4, I have to go look for my missing son. But meanwhile, I'm going to go clean up the Commonwealth and all the other areas around it first. 01:40:08.50 Jess (she/her) Isn't that so much weirder since it's your kid? 01:40:11.10 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, true. Oh. 01:40:13.44 Jess (she/her) And three, like it's your dad and you still want to find him, but I i feel like with your kid, you'd be a little more urgent. 01:40:19.59 Kurt Crenwelge Well, with but now I'm a big 76 fan and I do play a lot of Fallout 76 on on um the but Xbox One that I have. And I promise I will not just now derail this into a tangent about like, wow, this new gleaming depths raid thing that they've introduced is like super hard and near impossible unless you're the right build. 01:40:41.30 Kurt Crenwelge um 01:40:41.80 Jess (she/her) oh 01:40:42.15 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, but anyway, well, maybe they'll tweak stuff or maybe I'll just get lucky one of these days and find join ah a good party and we'll be able to get through the whole thing so I can finally see what this whole thing's about. But anyway, in 76, it's just like your mission is like you are you you came out of vault 76. And your task is just to rebuild Appalachia. And there's there is a plot that you can follow of main quest line and plenty of other side quests and stuff like that. But really, you could just like, 01:41:08.24 Kurt Crenwelge I'm just going to set up my camp here. I'm going to go, you know, do events or quest and other stuff and have my cottage core sort of life and just be like, I'm just living in the post apocalypse and I've got all my, my cool little base and stuff like that. 01:41:22.82 Jess (she/her) That's cool. 01:41:23.33 Kurt Crenwelge yeah So it's fun. But, but yeah, so we're we're here now in the final thoughts section of the podcast. So I know, you know, thank you for being patient with me as we worked with the scheduling to get this done. um But yeah, what did you think it was like getting to be on sidekicks and side quests tonight? 01:41:39.55 Jess (she/her) This was so fun. Thank you so much for inviting me. 01:41:43.05 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, like I said, you know, you know, appreciate the work that you do for the community. And, you know, I'm just ah I'm just a humble guy and I'd love to get to talk to other people and invite them on the show. And, you know, you got to do it piece by piece. And so, you know, I just heard you and on, you know, the interview that you did with Kill Every Monster and just seeing your work online, I was like, you know, what I think I think Jess will be a good fit. So I should I reached out. I took that chance. And, you know, following the advice advice of our queen of the Patreon goblin, Katie, 01:42:12.50 Kurt Crenwelge who said, you know, you think people are super busy, but they're not maybe actually quite as busy as you think they are. Now, in the case of like ah of James and Tricasso, that may actually be true. And he really is too busy to to be able to schedule at this time. But I'm sure once draw steel is a huge swinging success, then he'll be chilled out to be like, OK, now I have some free time to do podcasts or whatever. but All that to say, i you know it was cool to get to bring you on and I think you do good work and it was amazing to have you on the podcast. 01:42:42.33 Jess (she/her) Thank you. 01:42:44.61 Kurt Crenwelge so 01:42:46.62 Jess (she/her) Thank you. It was such an honor to be invited. And I had so much fun. I love this little do that we made together. 01:42:52.22 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I can't wait to throw them into my equivalent ah Florida man setting or, uh, you know, uh, I'm here in Texas and I grew up in Houston. So it's like, Louisiana is next door. 01:43:02.36 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like, this is totally like a Louisiana guy, like, you know, from, yeah. 01:43:03.65 Jess (she/her) Yeah. 01:43:06.27 Jess (she/her) yeah 01:43:06.45 Kurt Crenwelge yeah or or her in the parish and you know we're just teaching the kids magic behind the school and nothing shady about it even if I look like I've only got you know a one strap pair of blue jean overalls that I wear and I've got a some dip in my mouth and stuff like that ye yep yep yep Uh, but yeah, perfect. So, you know, here in the final moments of the podcast, before we close that out, I always leave the microphone, the soapbox, the stage on the platform with the guests. So whatever of you, whatever you have to plug, you know, where can people find you? Where can we support your projects and your work and see all of your work and all that. And then, uh, you know, uh, any other passions or causes that you, that we, the audience need to be made aware of, uh, feel free to let us know. 01:43:53.28 Jess (she/her) Oh, wow. Okay. You can find my work at Jessica Markham-Rights.com. i'm My name is spelled phonetically. You can find me on Blue Sky at unsealigest and unsealigest most places actually. I have some stuff coming out that I don't think I can talk about yet. 01:44:15.36 Jess (she/her) But if you like tappy tap mobile games, ah you can play some stuff I'm working on. I write for Party in My Dorm and Witch Academia Magic School. So you can check those out until I can announce some other things that I'm doing. 01:44:32.26 Kurt Crenwelge Awesome. Well, yes, we'll, we'll make sure we re share those on social media and we we help get the word out. I feel like this episode should be out at the beginning of the new year. If I have my act together. 01:44:43.77 Kurt Crenwelge Um, yeah, yeah. 01:44:44.48 Jess (she/her) Oh snap, that's so fast. 01:44:46.12 Kurt Crenwelge Well, you know, you can, uh, you can never, can never keep a podcast down. So, so certainly, uh, miss Jessica, thank you so much for your time with being on the podcast. I can't wait to have you back on making even more interesting NPCs. 01:45:01.66 Kurt Crenwelge right and we'll