00:00:04.88 Kurt Crenwelge Hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best unofficial Dungeons & Dragons podcast, in my humbly biased opinion. I've got an awesome guest for you this week, ah but before I get to my guest, you know I have to do it with the first ad read. 00:00:22.17 Kurt Crenwelge Insert here, all you transcription readers about Plus One EXP and the RPG Zine Club a monthly subscription... service deal that they're offering now where you can get brand new indie ttrpgs hot off the presses delivered to you so be sure to subscribe and check that out and when you're on the website plusonexp.com use that code randolph at checkout to save some money on your purchase and support the podcast appreciate it very much All right. 00:00:51.42 Kurt Crenwelge And 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? 00:01:03.38 Frederick Well, my name is Frederick. I am a musician and I also published self-published a card game called Dragon Vault. So yeah, I'd say some people may know me from The Dragon Father. That's my fantasy music. 00:01:19.85 Frederick And I also make ah extreme metal and a solo project called Hell's Enemy. Um, yeah. And I'm very happy to, ah i'm happy that you invited me onto this and I'm looking forward to getting started here. 00:01:38.37 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, of course. That's how I first found out about you was ah was the solo music project for Hell's Enemy. And i was like, what is this? And you know you have the you have the Book of Revelations imagery of the Lamb of God with like seven eyes and seven horns. 00:01:46.58 Frederick Oh. 00:01:52.16 Kurt Crenwelge And you think, like but you know what what is this? And then you know finding out and learning about your personal... ah story and journey it's like oh this is actually like the most cool thing i've ever seen on instagram in a while so that's what got me to follow and then seeing all the related projects i was like oh i see he developed his own card game that's really cool and you know you've got your own um you know fantasy music that you uh compose as well and that seems to also be very popular online so I don't know. Are you able to kind of like walk me through, um you know, the the different music projects a little bit and and the card game? Because, you know, I'm I'm I admit I'm a I'm a noob when it comes to Instagram because I avoided it for so long. And I only just got an Instagram for the podcast like in March of 2023. 00:02:40.90 Kurt Crenwelge two thousand and twenty three So I'm still playing like a lot of catch up as it as with Instagram. 00:02:44.43 Frederick Sure. 00:02:45.93 Kurt Crenwelge So I know people are like. it's very easy for people to just make a bunch of duplicate Instagram accounts because it's like, oh, I just want to like pump up ah the views and I want to like game the algorithm. 00:02:58.44 Kurt Crenwelge So I like cast the widest net possible ah for someone to like get eyes on whatever project it is um that I have. But ah but genuinely, I think it probably makes sense to differentiate. 00:03:10.63 Kurt Crenwelge So it's not like here's Frederick's account, but like there's like five different things going on and people don't have any sense. 00:03:17.20 Frederick Right. 00:03:17.81 Kurt Crenwelge of of what of what's going on. 00:03:21.15 Frederick I mean, that's true when it comes to social media, everything is so finely tuned. There's so many niches, you know, and usually people want their feed to be about very specific things. 00:03:33.56 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:03:33.61 Frederick And so on the one hand, I thought, oh, I'll just, it's just me, right? And everything I'm doing, that doesn't seem to really work with them with apps like Instagram. 00:03:44.76 Frederick It seems like the algorithms and everything, they reward staying in your lane. So the downside of that is me having 72 accounts, because then I got to make a new account for everything that I do. 00:03:50.08 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:03:55.03 Frederick And ah try I try to stay busy and and I have lots of ideas. So sometimes people people say, yeah, Frederick, I don't know how to keep up with all your accounts, man. 00:03:59.75 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:04:05.51 Frederick And and I tell them, um I sometimes forget what accounts I have as well. So I i don't and don't blame people for having trouble figuring out what all I'm doing. 00:04:16.60 Frederick But the card game is probably honestly what started it started this whole thing. 00:04:17.51 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:04:25.17 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Okay. 00:04:25.31 Frederick And that was around 2019. So I was working as a cell phone salesman and um for T-Mobile. And I remember having this like ah having this epiphany. something Once I hit my late 20s, it seems to be like that's when I gained consciousness. 00:04:44.68 Kurt Crenwelge this is 00:04:45.51 Frederick the the The years before that seemed a bit like a dream. And I remember having this thought, what am I doing? I should do something cool. I don't know what, but I need to figure out some some project, something to work on besides wake up, go to work, go to bed, wake up, go to work. 00:05:00.13 Frederick I mean, I was working for a while there, six days a week, and it seemed like it was just work was my only existence. So I wanted to kind of reconnect to my humanity and rediscover it somehow. 00:05:11.99 Frederick And when I was young, had made quite a few card games, never finished any of them. But I thought, maybe I'll make a game like I used to when I was in middle school. And so I came up with this concept, which later became Dragon Vault. 00:05:27.40 Frederick And that was in 2019. And it was kind of like this dungeon crawl with Russian roulette elements. I like the idea of not knowing what you're going to pull, and it could be something super... 00:05:40.06 Frederick devastating, but then having ways to get out of it somehow. 00:05:41.18 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:05:43.72 Frederick So that kind of developed into the whole, you pull dragons out of the deck, but you can pay them off with treasure. So it's it's almost like you're dreading the draw, but you do have means of your at your disposal to get out of the out of the encounters and there's traps and there's good encounters too, like, um, a gin and a Valkyrie. And you basically move through this deck, collecting treasure and hiring mercenaries with that treasure to smack other people on the table. 00:06:11.46 Frederick So it's a friendship straining experience, but I'm here for the drama, man. I, um, So anyway, that's that's what started it, 2019. 00:06:22.32 Frederick And I just had home a home printed deck that I was taking and play testing the game at barbecues and stuff. i't I wasn't sure if it was going to really go anywhere at that time. 00:06:33.01 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:06:34.77 Frederick I ended up meeting with them with my cousin and he loved the idea and he decided he wanted to invest to see if we could get the game actually made. 00:06:47.54 Frederick um And so that's how it actually got self-published was because of my cousin because I didn't have, it's an expensive hiring artists is expensive, man, way more expensive than I could have ever done. 00:06:57.09 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:07:00.08 Frederick So I'm very grateful to my cousin Daniel for doing that because he believed in the game. 00:07:07.22 Frederick So that was around early 2020 when we actually had the game made and then COVID happened and and everything shut down and we had to deal with all these things, the shipments getting stuck. 00:07:13.15 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:07:17.20 Frederick Remember, do you remember when there was those, um those big ships that were stuck in LA for the long, for like months? Do you remember that? and That might've been 2021. 00:07:27.80 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:07:28.69 Frederick Cause I think it was our second shipment. 00:07:31.58 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:07:32.45 Frederick Well, our games got stuck. 00:07:32.53 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Well, everyone, everyone remembers the Suez Canal getting stuck. That's for sure. The big ship that was like, let me, let me turn sideways for some reason. 00:07:37.44 Frederick right Oh, yeah. 00:07:42.06 Frederick Yeah, yeah. 00:07:42.10 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, Hey bro, hold my beer. 00:07:42.86 Frederick It wasn't that, but... 00:07:44.66 Kurt Crenwelge Watch me do this. 00:07:45.43 Frederick Right. 00:07:46.18 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, yeah. 00:07:47.44 Frederick Yeah. 00:07:47.50 Kurt Crenwelge Um, Yeah, well, that's that's cool to hear about ah the ah Dragon Vault and and and, you know, your cousin helping out to do the game. 00:07:49.36 Frederick I mean... 00:07:58.11 Kurt Crenwelge The only other experience I know with ah with guests of the podcast who have, like, made a card game specifically, our good friends, the Five Sided Fates, um developed a game called Speedy RPG that I know they were doing, like, they did a Kickstarter for it and they, like, demoed it and played it at the FateCon that we went to last spring. 00:08:07.55 Frederick Hmm. 00:08:19.06 Kurt Crenwelge um so i haven't had an opportunity to play that one myself but i see the art again that comes from the dragon vault card game ah instagram account so when you're saying like oh man it cost a lot for the art i was like yeah i can believe it because it's like this is like high quality good art it's not any of the um ai prompt generated sort of uh garbage fed stuff it's like you could tell like a real person sat down and worked on it so that that's really cool 00:08:19.56 Frederick yeah 00:08:37.29 Frederick Right. 00:08:39.83 Frederick Right. 00:08:42.69 Frederick Well, that wasn't even available back then. 00:08:45.04 Kurt Crenwelge Right, that's true, yeah. Or if it was, it was like in a very proto-early stage where everyone just sort of laughed at it, yeah. 00:08:49.70 Frederick Oh, maybe there. Yeah. Sure, because this was 2020 when we were going through the art. 00:08:53.15 Kurt Crenwelge And now people are... 00:08:57.60 Frederick But yeah, he his art's great. He's a friend of mine. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa, and he does mainly World of Warcraft art. 00:09:03.44 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:09:06.34 Frederick And so I reached out to him. 00:09:06.60 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:09:08.29 Frederick Because i his style was very... it was kind of It had this good balance between detail level and also kind of a ah sort of warmth to it. Kind of like a vague lightheartedness. 00:09:21.05 Frederick um Not quite on the Hearthstone level, but you know something kind of in between maybe D&D and Hearthstone. 00:09:27.76 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:09:28.86 Frederick And he's... 00:09:29.00 Kurt Crenwelge And then from the and from there, that project, is that what you know is that what inspired you then to do the the RPG music then? 00:09:30.08 Frederick yeah 00:09:37.66 Frederick Yeah, yeah. 00:09:37.77 Kurt Crenwelge and then And then the solo projects and all that? 00:09:41.20 Frederick Yes, that's why they're connected. I wanted to make some music that would pair well with the game. So I started making some tavern music and other stuff. And then that branched off into all different types of moods and themes because my brain... 00:09:56.98 Frederick loves to imagine different locations and different scenarios when I'm composing music. So it kind of it branched off well beyond just, this is fun music for playing the game. It kind of turned into something else. 00:10:10.28 Kurt Crenwelge There you go. 00:10:10.64 Frederick And then that turned into me making some metal, going back, because metal is my roots. I've played in a metal band since I was 15. But it'd been a few years, and i thought, well, I'm composing music as a solo artist. Maybe I can make my own metal music too. 00:10:29.15 Kurt Crenwelge ah you go 00:10:29.18 Frederick So that kind of, long story short, turned into Hell's Enemy because I was also converting um from atheism to um Catholicism around, or or I went from atheism to just kind of like a non-denominational Christian understanding in about early 2023. 00:10:49.21 Frederick Then spring 2024, I was confirmed Catholic. And that's when Hell's Enemy, when I released that album, was spring 2024. So those are the main projects and how they're kind of linked together loosely. 00:11:02.94 Frederick But it's two very different crowds. There's hardly anyone on the Hell's Enemy side that came from the Dragon Vault side. 00:11:07.54 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Yeah. 00:11:09.73 Frederick you know there And a lot of people don't even know about Dragon Vault. It's it's like ah an island in a whole different culture and a whole different world, literally. 00:11:20.47 Frederick I mean, with goblins and elves. 00:11:20.69 Kurt Crenwelge right 00:11:23.21 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Well, hey, you know, the second panel episode we did for this podcast where I had, ah you know, Dr. Holly Ordway, I had Alexei Sargent and my good friend Catherine come on and we talked about Tolkien, Catholicism and D&D. 00:11:36.43 Kurt Crenwelge So, I mean, you know, Tolkien, yeah, Tolkien is like, you know, I, you you know, I feel like ah 00:11:37.05 Frederick ah beautiful certainly 00:11:41.68 Kurt Crenwelge ah like a spiritual grandfather, if you will, of TTRPG and and certainly of modern fantasy. And I know that the co-creators of D&D were inspired by a number of different authors and and fantasy projects, but it's hard to deny just the you know, just the Tolkienian and the small bits of, like, culturally borrowed elements of Catholicism that are in the game. 00:12:06.03 Kurt Crenwelge Like, again, it's not it's not explicitly that, but that was a good panel episode, and, you know, I had some experts on ah to talk about it, so it wasn't just me ah gabbing nonsense about it. 00:12:06.36 Frederick right 00:12:17.63 Kurt Crenwelge So a little self-plug there, but... But what well, I mean, you said like, oh, I have any hardly overlap of the two audiences. And I guess you've got me because I was like, I saw the Hell's Enemy stuff and I started digging around. 00:12:27.28 Frederick Right? 00:12:29.46 Kurt Crenwelge i was like, oh, he's actually making his own, you know, like great fantasy music. So if you need it for your D&D game or if you need it, you know, because you're playing Dragon Vault and you've got the tunes there. 00:12:42.34 Kurt Crenwelge But then he also does like his own cool metal music. So. Yeah, i may be the I may be the single intersecting point between the two worlds. Who knows? 00:12:50.81 Frederick You are. Well, i've I've told people that my my personality, I enjoy extremes. So if I'm listening to music, I want it to either be blisteringly heavy or I want it to sound like something like enchanting or or gentle or whatever. it Things in the middle bore me, truly. 00:13:12.59 Frederick So ah and in a lot of my Dragonfather music, and mean especially in later years, it seems to have gotten even even more ambient and kind of more harps and more of that kind of sort of fae-like music, I guess. um Maybe because i do metal more now, I'm even more drawn when I come over to the Dragonfather side to something that's gentler. 00:13:38.87 Frederick And so it started out definitely... 00:13:40.54 Kurt Crenwelge it's like a doctor it's like a dr jekyll mr hyde situation of like flipping between the two extremes yeah 00:13:43.39 Frederick No, it certainly is. Yeah. yeah 00:13:48.17 Kurt Crenwelge i've I've been banging my head too much. gotta flip over. i have to do the light, ah airy, ethereal, bardic, fey music now. 00:13:55.36 Frederick Right. I need to eat some Limbus bread under a maolorn tree or something. 00:14:01.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:14:02.25 Frederick You know, that's that's how I feel after I make the medal. 00:14:05.96 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. the These are the two moods of man. It's heavy metal and then, ah you know, enchanted ah wooded, ah you know, harp playing music. Yeah. 00:14:15.89 Frederick Right. 00:14:16.62 Kurt Crenwelge ah what though the the warrior the troubadour poets the the warrior bards yeah ah those are the two extremes well excellent yeah so you know we're we're getting an idea of our our guest and and learning about frederick more and so you know this is a dungeons and dragons themed podcast so think it goes without ah saying the next question do you currently or have you ever played dungeons and dragons before 00:14:40.85 Frederick I have, um but the last time that I played D&D, I'm fairly certain it was 3.5. So that was, it might have even been 2008, either the year that fourth edition came out or or or maybe even before. what Didn't fourth edition come out? 00:14:59.82 Frederick 2008? Hmm. 00:15:01.43 Kurt Crenwelge ah That must be right, because I first played fourth edition Halloween night on 2010. 00:15:08.93 Kurt Crenwelge So and it had already been out a couple years or something at that point when we hopped in. 00:15:12.83 Frederick Gotcha. 00:15:14.25 Kurt Crenwelge And it's really interesting because you say like, oh, 2000, was playing 3.5. 00:15:14.88 Frederick Okay. 00:15:18.57 Kurt Crenwelge I just finished watching um a YouTube video where Questing Beast did an interview with Mike Murls, one of the creators of fifth edition. 00:15:29.17 Kurt Crenwelge And so that was a really interesting interview where he talked about like, you know, the motivating factors into going to making the game and his thoughts and opinions as to like how the game currently is now. 00:15:40.75 Kurt Crenwelge um 00:15:41.11 Frederick right 00:15:41.75 Kurt Crenwelge But it was interesting of him talking about like, oh, yeah, all the 3.5 gamers. And so we're making fourth edition and it's, you know, we're trying something new. And so then going into fifth edition, it was like, OK, well, let's let's find a way to bring, you know, the 3.5 crowd back in, ah you know, ah along with the fourth edition people into something, you know, that would be. 00:15:56.21 Frederick Right. Sure. 00:16:02.95 Kurt Crenwelge all-encompassing for everyone to be able to play. So that's interesting. So 3.5 was the last one you played. 00:16:06.21 Frederick sure 00:16:09.02 Kurt Crenwelge So you liked the the crunch of it? Was that what drew you to it or? 00:16:12.93 Frederick Well, i I did like the grittiness of 3rd Edition and 3.5. It seemed a little bit more somber and serious. um Just the tone, the overall tone of the game. it was a little more It's a little more dense, that's for sure. i mean um And I will say, I've played copious games. 00:16:33.69 Frederick copious amounts of Baldur's Gate 3 and I know that's loosely based off 5e so I mean it's not like I'm a stranger to 5e completely it's just I haven't sat down with a group and really delved into 5e yet I'm not sure if I will or when 00:16:38.53 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:16:41.12 Kurt Crenwelge who 00:16:48.04 Kurt Crenwelge was Is that something you'd be open to? 00:16:52.05 Frederick um it well I'm gonna be entirely honest 00:16:54.83 Kurt Crenwelge Like if a table invited you or you looked in your local area and you were like, hey, I want to hop in a game. Like, do you think that's something that you'd do? 00:17:00.66 Frederick um Probably not in this season of life, just because my day, i just, I don't have time. ah truly I truly, mean, but between borrowing the product or between balancing the projects of Dragonfather and Hell's Enemy and trying to keep my game afloat, and I'm working on another game that... 00:17:21.32 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:17:21.43 Frederick No one really knows about yet, but yeah, I'll just, I will mention there's, there's a new game that's been in the works. 00:17:21.46 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:17:27.07 Frederick Um, haven't posted anything about it, but there's that project is kind of in the very early stages of development. 00:17:33.71 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:17:35.66 Frederick I'm the kind of person where if I have time, I fill it. So that doesn't really, it's not very conducive to a D and D campaign because I'm like, well, if I had a few hours to chill, 00:17:50.04 Frederick my brain would find a project to put in those few hours. And that's the situation I've been in since I've been self-employed of the past few years. But I won't say I would never consider it. 00:18:01.81 Frederick um But I will say that it it would have to be in person because I miss gaming at the table, man. There's just something about, I love tabletop simulator. It's a gift, especially for playtesting. Absolutely love it. 00:18:15.71 Frederick Whoever the develop developers are of that, thank you. But there's something about rolling real dice on a real table, you know, especially if it's a little bit dimly lit and we ought maybe some ambient music, you know what i mean? 00:18:23.37 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:18:28.92 Frederick Like we've got some drinks. 00:18:29.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:18:31.41 Frederick um It would have to be experienced like that, I think, in person. 00:18:34.83 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:18:34.88 Frederick I don't think I would do. um I know people do D&D on Zoom and stuff like that. 00:18:40.35 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah, there's a number of virtual tabletop programs that exist, you know, whether it's oh, goodness, well, Roll20 and Demiplane. 00:18:40.43 Frederick um 00:18:43.48 Frederick Right. 00:18:50.24 Kurt Crenwelge Well, Demiplane was its own thing, and now Roll20 purchased Demiplane, and there's um Foundry, and there's 00:18:58.58 Frederick right 00:18:58.72 Kurt Crenwelge there's a whole there's a whole list of ah different programs that that that are there that facilitate online play. And certainly Wizards and Hasbro are working on their own sort of virtual tabletop solution as well. So 00:19:10.51 Frederick oh excellent wow 00:19:11.87 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so yeah, we'll well we'll see how that how that all goes in the future, but okay. um Well, this podcast has its name in being Sidekicks and Sidequests, so we like to focus on the other, and we like to focus on the not necessarily the most important thing going on around in ah in a story or a game. So the first of these questions is, who happens to be your favorite NPC or sidekick character, whether they be from an RPG, a video game, 00:19:40.25 Kurt Crenwelge movie, film, television, etc. And why is this character your favorite NPC or sidekick? 00:19:48.78 Frederick Okay, so this is going to be... I wonder at anyone watching if they're going to remember this character. But I'd be hard-pressed to find an NPC that has um made more of an impact on my brain than Bartley the shopkeeper from Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. 00:20:11.97 Frederick I don't know why, but that balding man in the corner of the tavern... Something about going and seeing his little pot belly and I was loaded up with items and the the satisfaction of selling, because in this game, the the shopkeeper, and unlike Morrowind and some of the other ones, they had infinite gold. 00:20:33.91 Frederick So you could just weigh yourself down with an incredible amount of items and then just sell them off. 00:20:34.57 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. Hmm. oh 00:20:40.58 Frederick I think... The dopamine release in my brain of doing that, it's like a core memory at this point. In 2002, I think it was 2002 when I played ball. 00:20:51.88 Frederick It might have come out 2001, but I don't think I played until 2002. um Maybe even 03. And I don't know if you know who this is, but he's a character Baldur's Gate um at the Elfsong Tavern. 00:21:06.50 Frederick And he's got just a great shopkeeper voice. And he's always... oh Everything is reasonable prices. Like he has that kind of gruff sort of voice. So that that's gonna be my that's going to be my choice. Bartley the shopkeeper from Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance is my favorite NPC. 00:21:25.80 Kurt Crenwelge That's a fantastic answer. At first, I thought you were giving me a preview of something for me to find in Baldur's Gate 3. If he somehow made a ah ah cameo or something like that. 00:21:33.32 Frederick but Oh no. 00:21:35.91 Kurt Crenwelge I know i watched a YouTube video to catch me up on the history of the first two Baldur's Gate games, because those are ones that I never played. 00:21:37.40 Frederick Oh no. 00:21:42.47 Frederick Yes. 00:21:44.47 Kurt Crenwelge um i would it my My computer gaming was all like... command and conquer red alert and and stuff like that uh those are the kinds of games that i was playing and and uh and and not not like old school fallout one and two or balder's gate uh balder's gate titles or anything like this so it's it's a real treat and a joy to get to be playing bg3 finally um 00:21:53.31 Frederick yeah 00:22:04.08 Frederick Sure. 00:22:08.50 Frederick Yeah. 00:22:09.46 Kurt Crenwelge But yeah, that fantastic answer. That's ah that's a strong answer. So ah beautiful. And then the flip side of that ah equation of that coin, ah what happens to be your favorite side quest or B plot element? Again, same criteria, whether it's from an RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, etc. And why is this your favorite B plot or or side quest? 00:22:40.94 Frederick I guess my brain is just sort of in this in this reminiscing on this season of my life. But there was um there was a side quest in Champions of Norath, which is a game on the PS2 based in the EverQuest universe. 00:22:57.25 Frederick And you had to 00:22:57.32 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:22:59.27 Frederick you had to find a shell or it was either one shell or it was multiple different little items and one of them was a shell. 00:23:11.57 Frederick And yeah you have to bring it back to a mermaid. And in turn, she gives you the ability to breathe underwater so that you can go on this other side quest where you're literally at the bottom of the ocean in ruins, um like some James and the Giant Peach type beat, and you're fighting these little these little blue demons or something down there. 00:23:34.73 Frederick And that side quest I thought was so cool because just the concept of collecting an item for a mermaid, it's like kind of wholesome. And you had to kill these cyclopses and it was in this tropical area. 00:23:42.22 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:23:45.66 Frederick And the water effects during that time blew my mind as a kid because going from Nintendo 64 and PS1 to PS2, and now we have semi-realistic water physics, at least to my eyes at the time. 00:24:00.69 Frederick I just loved that early 2000s tropical vibe. Man, there was something about it. And every game had a tropical thing. So that, I'm in a tropical area. I helped this mermaid out. And then the part two of that quest made it even better because then you unexpectedly get to go down to the bottom of the ocean and fight all these creatures and sunken skeletons in these sea caves and whatever else. 00:24:24.09 Frederick And that actually, i will admit shamelessly, This mermaid quest inspired the Dragon Vault Adventure Voyage of Peril, where you get to actually trade treasure to the mermaids. 00:24:40.37 Frederick and like There was a mermaid card. I re re um 00:24:42.33 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:24:45.43 Frederick reinterpreted this card later with the Treacherous Seas expansion, but the concept is still the same. You give a mermaid the treasure, they reward you with potentially winning the game, actually, in Dragon Vault. 00:24:59.12 Frederick But yeah, so that's another core memory, is that, and I don't know a ton about the EverQuest world, I'll admit. i didn't play the old EverQuest online. I jumped into that game completely not knowing what I was getting myself into, but it's one of my favorite games. 00:25:16.14 Frederick To this day, mm-hmm. 00:25:16.33 Kurt Crenwelge There you go. To this day, OG recognize. 00:25:22.71 Frederick All the old unks that are going to watch this are going to be like, I remember that game. 00:25:27.14 Kurt Crenwelge Back in my day. 00:25:28.60 Frederick Yeah, when I didn't have joint pain. 00:25:32.56 Kurt Crenwelge And then, Frederick, the way that we round out the personal interview section of the podcast episode, what are you passionate about and why? 00:25:43.87 Frederick Well, I mean, that's an easy one for me. um Christ is the center of my life. He wasn't before. When I started making Dragon Vault, I was motivated by pure escapism. 00:25:55.48 Frederick I just thought the world was kind of boring, and I wanted out of it. I'm like, get me somewhere else, man. i I look around, i see I'm just at a mall selling phones, you know? 00:26:05.58 Frederick I want to be somewhere some are exciting. 00:26:06.11 Kurt Crenwelge you 00:26:09.62 Frederick And I remember reading The Silmarillion. Well, I won't say reading because it was an audio book. I know some people are like, that doesn't count. And it was an audio book. And i was sort of drifting to sleep. 00:26:20.62 Frederick And then I'd fall asleep and I'd have to find my place the next day. And I did that for several um several weeks. And that made me think, really think about heaven and the possibility of being in another world that was more home than the world that I live in now. 00:26:37.65 Frederick And I remember being shook to the core by Tolkien's descriptions of Eldamar and the Blessed Land and how the elves lived there. And and they were always making things and crafting beauty. And i don't know, man, that that's one of the things that tilted me toward um Catholicism was that book. 00:27:00.74 Frederick I remember just feeling like I need to be there wherever this is. But i mean, it was heaven I was thinking of, but but in in a fantastical sense. 00:27:07.18 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:27:09.52 Frederick So now what motivates me is reaching souls. I want people to experience the peace that I have in my life now that I didn't have before. And knowing that um that kind of joy, there's ah there's a lot of people that are living and they don't they don't understand how good life can actually be. 00:27:31.01 Frederick And I was a very cynical person. yeah I was an escapist because I hated the world in some ways. That's the dark side of escapism. Sometimes it's motivated by almost a sense of disgust for my surroundings. 00:27:45.11 Frederick um Simultaneous disgust and a deep disgust. longing for beauty. Those were the two things that motivated me and got me into fantasy, actually. Enchanted forests and beautiful, clean streams and, you know, elven music. And I would think about these things. I want to be there. 00:28:03.91 Frederick Now I realize I'm going to experience it. I mean, Lord willing, if I finish the race, I will be there in heaven. I'll be able to hear this enchanted music, you know, played by angels and whoever else. 00:28:14.96 Frederick So, I mean, i was that was probably a bit of a deeper... um answer than maybe you were looking for, but it's but it's true. I mean, Jesus Christ is the meaning for everything. He's he's the purpose of of everything I do now. 00:28:33.74 Frederick I gave it all to him, everything that I make. 00:28:38.24 Kurt Crenwelge fantastic answer i have no notes uh i certainly you know uh sympathize and and you know i you know uh that's that's That's the heart of heart of me too. 00:28:50.31 Kurt Crenwelge you know, I, I haven't shied away from it. Uh, but certainly I don't try and like shove it in people's faces cause they're like, Hey, I'm just here for a podcast, but you know what? 00:28:58.40 Frederick Right. 00:28:58.72 Kurt Crenwelge You're not just here for a podcast. You're here for people and interviews and learning about people. And, you know, that's that what we're curious and we're learning about the world and we're learning about other people and what makes people tick and getting to experience, uh, perspectives and, uh, and, and, 00:29:05.91 Frederick Right. 00:29:17.59 Kurt Crenwelge you know, just worldviews that maybe are not your own. And so and in this area, but we can, we can, ah we can share and and bond over it certainly. 00:29:21.18 Frederick Sure. 00:29:25.89 Kurt Crenwelge And that's just a fantastic, ah you know, not only answer, but just a fantastic bit of ah testimony there. So, so third certainly thank you for sharing that. I think that's a, again, fantastic answer. 00:29:41.30 Frederick Well, thank you for allowing me to share it. 00:29:43.84 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And, you know, I don't think we can top that question any further. So, you know, without much ado, I think it's time to head into some NPC creation. 00:29:54.81 Frederick Let's go. 00:30:00.73 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 and a loud hurrah to our comfortable patrons and above. So I've got my my glass of whiskey and whiskey whiskey mix in it. So we say cheers. 00:30:19.16 Kurt Crenwelge ah So thank you again to ah Katie Downey, a.k.a. Goblin Katie, who is our queen of the Patreon, as well as our other Wealthy tier patrons, Anson Jablinski and good old mom and dad. 00:30:31.15 Kurt Crenwelge Again, we say cheers. ah All these folks who I mentioned by name also happen to donate at a level of $2 and more month. That's the comfortable level, as I said before. 00:30:42.88 Kurt Crenwelge And um hold on, scratch. I'll redo that. So all these patrons that I just mentioned by name, you know, they're at least the wealthy tier level. And that's what gets you to be able to submit ah responses and answers to our random tables. 00:31:00.19 Kurt Crenwelge And ah thereby our patrons get to introduce an element of chance. And so we might get to use some of their... we might get to use and hear some of the responses used here today. So if you want to learn more about the Patreon, just go to the show notes below, go to the podcast website, or just go directly to patreon.com forward slash sidekicksandsidequest to find out more about our three, four tiers of patronage and help us to grow and expand our operations at the Levitating Platter in this Demiplane and Worlds Beyond. 00:31:30.64 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Now that that song and dance is done with, this is the part where we get to make up a character. And so we were talking a little bit before we started hitting record on all the microphones and stuff. So um Frederick, you're interested in like presenting your own idea for a character, but you want to leave yourself open to that. If you're stuck or not feeling inspired, ah then you can roll a dice and kind of like generate some inspiration that way from our random tables. 00:32:00.46 Kurt Crenwelge Is that ah correct? 00:32:01.63 Frederick Yes, yes. 00:32:03.95 Kurt Crenwelge OK, perfect. Well, then, without much further ado, let us begin. And the first question we have to ask ourselves is what is going to be the name of our character? 00:32:22.23 Frederick I um think I want to give him a simple name. 00:32:22.39 Kurt Crenwelge I know some people who are Oh, okay. Simple name. I know with some guests of the podcast, they were like, I really want to leave my names till the last point. 00:32:33.37 Kurt Crenwelge So if at this point you just have like an idea of who the character is, but doesn't, but don't have a name, we could totally skip that one and come back around. If that's, if that makes it easier. 00:32:42.22 Frederick I've got a name. 00:32:43.48 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:32:43.81 Frederick um This is a ah Celtic name, Aynon. 00:32:43.88 Kurt Crenwelge You do. 00:32:46.49 Frederick I always liked that name. E-I-N-O-N is how I'll spell it. 00:32:51.09 Kurt Crenwelge Again, one more time on this. 00:32:52.18 Frederick Aynon! 00:32:53.24 Kurt Crenwelge I want more time on the spelling. 00:32:53.94 Frederick Sorry, i don't know if you've seen Dragonheart. Aynon. E-I-N-O-N is how I'll spell it. I think there's other ways to spell it, like Aynon, but I'll spell it Aynon. 00:33:00.20 Kurt Crenwelge I'm in. 00:33:03.62 Frederick E-I-N-O-N. 00:33:06.19 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. OK, yes, and I have seen Dragonheart, at least the first one. So was that was that Dennis Quaid's character? 00:33:10.67 Frederick Yeah, that's the good one. The one who yells, Aynan? Yeah. ah I don't remember what his character was named, though. 00:33:19.25 Kurt Crenwelge Well, the Dennis Quaid, I think, was like or Dennis Quaid was the main guy. 00:33:20.05 Frederick Or was he named Aynan? 00:33:23.86 Kurt Crenwelge Then Sean Connery is the voice of the dragon. 00:33:28.40 Frederick Gotcha. I think Aynan might have been Dennis Quaid's character, actually. And it was the dragon yelling at him. 00:33:33.64 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:33:36.38 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, yeah. 00:33:36.57 Frederick Oh, I'll have to look that up. Someone's going to correct me. Well, I'll just have to watch it again. 00:33:42.93 Kurt Crenwelge Why not? ah A good excuse to watch a 20 plus year old movie at this point. So classic classic Dragonheart. 00:33:47.79 Frederick classic though. 00:33:51.77 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:33:52.10 Frederick Yes, of course have the sort of the S's. 00:33:56.30 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And OK, so I'm in. OK. And then what is the ancestry of I'm in as a character? 00:34:03.28 Frederick Okay, so this is going to get a little um five he has. Do they have lizard folk as a playable character for five? 00:34:11.73 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:34:12.03 Frederick e 00:34:12.82 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, there's technically, there's, like, standard lizard folk, and then I think with the Spelljammer redo for 5e, they introduced Sorins, like the dinosaur, more lizard-like people. 00:34:26.14 Kurt Crenwelge um And then I guess if... I mean, you know, maybe you go to some of the the campaign module books and they might have other types of lizard folk creature. But I think for basic for our purposes, yes, they do have like regular lizard folk. And then the Sorens were supposed to be like the more dinosaur like lizard folk. 00:34:48.57 Frederick certainly and they have dragonborn correct which are like um 00:34:52.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, Dragonborn. Now, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but were Dragonborn a thing in 3.5 or were they purely introduced in 4th edition? 00:35:01.97 Frederick um i don't think they were playable in 3.5 that that much is for sure watch somebody will correct me 00:35:07.10 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, well, I do remember in 4th edition, you could play Dragonborn in 4th edition. so 00:35:12.29 Frederick oh can you not in five okay 00:35:13.96 Kurt Crenwelge No, you can. Yeah, it's like they got their start in 4 and then they brought them into 5. 00:35:17.91 Frederick Gotcha. 00:35:17.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:35:18.50 Frederick Gotcha. 00:35:18.62 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:35:19.35 Frederick I disfigured Dragonborn because um my music, The Dragonfather, right? We need to redeem the reputation of dragons. There's something funny about, you know, my my little, it's a record label that I came up with for my solo project. it's called Worm Slayer, but that's a little ironic considering The Dragonfather. So um am I slaying myself? 00:35:39.77 Frederick But you know what? There is a scripture that says, um praise the Lord, ye dragons. And that implies the existence of non-evil dragons, at least in the mythos. 00:35:51.17 Frederick So I stand vindicated. My father actually found that verse and I was like, perfect. Okay, dragons can be good. You hear that, Draco, from Dragonheart? You weren't the only one. 00:36:00.89 Kurt Crenwelge yeah you weren't the only one okay you have a particular do you have a particular coloration or ah makeup as far as this particular dragonborn is concerned 00:36:02.62 Frederick But yeah, I think we'll do dragonborn and I'll name him Aynon. 00:36:15.43 Frederick Hmm, I think... 00:36:15.74 Kurt Crenwelge Because traditional by the book, you know, it's like, oh, the chromatic dragons are like the more evil aligned. 00:36:18.60 Frederick Right. 00:36:22.25 Kurt Crenwelge The metallic ones are going to be the more good aligned. 00:36:22.71 Frederick Right. 00:36:24.47 Kurt Crenwelge And then you have the crystalline or the gems so gem gemstone dragons that are like, I guess they flip. I don't know. Maybe they occupy the space between good and neutral. 00:36:36.44 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know. I don't think there's any evil gem dragons. And then, of course, you have like with Spelljammer, at least I remember there's like solar and lunar. And then the Planescape book had like even more intense, crazy dragons. ah i don't know. 00:36:51.32 Kurt Crenwelge So whatever flavor of Dragonborn you think your ah your Dragonborn iin is descended from. 00:36:57.70 Frederick Hmm. I think um I'm going to do bronze. 00:37:03.04 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, bronze. 00:37:04.14 Frederick Yeah, I'll do a bronze dragon. 00:37:04.34 Kurt Crenwelge Nice. OK, bronze dragon. 00:37:07.01 Frederick Bronze dragonborn. 00:37:07.69 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, there we go. And I know some people like to make a like a big debate or not like that, but tail or no tail. 00:37:16.36 Frederick Oh, tail. Yeah, yeah. Like an Argonian. 00:37:18.07 Kurt Crenwelge OK. OK, perfect. And then let's see, what is the job or role in society that I'm the bronze dragonborn has? If you need a roll, if you need to roll randomly to maybe get an idea, we you could roll a D10 and maybe see what. 00:37:29.91 Frederick Roll in society. 00:37:36.63 Frederick That one could be fun to roll for, I think. what you 00:37:39.39 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, OK. 00:37:40.70 Frederick Let me consult the d ten Okay, let's do it. I rolled a three. 00:37:50.28 Kurt Crenwelge Three. Ooh, okay. Your answer was provided by previous guest, Adam Bradford, the architect, the architect of D&D Beyond. ah Minstrel. 00:38:03.06 Kurt Crenwelge Which, which. 00:38:03.63 Frederick Wow, that's funny. Okay. Oh, wow, it's meant to be, bro. 00:38:08.41 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so I, it was meant to be. ah The dice speaketh and so sayeth. um Perfect. 00:38:15.13 Frederick They do. 00:38:15.38 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. 00:38:15.53 Frederick I thought that that would be his character class, so I was going to wait to tell you my idea about him being a bard, but I guess he is what his occupation is. He was lucky enough to to get his dream job, I guess. 00:38:26.42 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:38:28.81 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. And then um let's see, what's the age range of the character? You can roll this randomly as well to get like a rough range. Or do you have like a like islands this old? 00:38:41.61 Frederick No, I don't have ah um an age. Would it be D10 or 20 or how would we do this? 00:38:46.87 Kurt Crenwelge It would be a D eight for the particular category range. 00:38:48.85 Frederick D8. 00:38:52.42 Frederick Okay, we'll do that. 00:38:56.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, we make sure to use the standard array of dice on this podcast, so all the dice get an ah equal opportunity to be rolled. 00:38:57.26 Frederick This is going to turn into ASMR. 00:39:08.16 Frederick That is a one. Is he going to come out a toddler now? 00:39:11.51 Kurt Crenwelge oh it Well, a one would be child age, so do you feel like Ainen is a child minstrel? 00:39:18.40 Frederick You know what? I'm going to go with that. Yeah, I think that'd be... 00:39:20.17 Kurt Crenwelge You're going go with that. 00:39:21.53 Frederick It depends on child. Are we talking like a four-year-old or maybe you 00:39:26.83 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, child, I mean, because a two would have been a teenager, so whatever a child is considered for a dragonborn, you want to re-roll? 00:39:33.25 Frederick oh Oh, no, no, no, no. Let's bump him up. 00:39:37.78 Kurt Crenwelge Or you want to bump him up? 00:39:38.17 Frederick Yeah. I'll reroll. We'll do one more reroll. If it turns our child again, we're going run with it. 00:39:44.59 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:39:44.83 Frederick Okay, we'll give it we'll give the dice the ability to speak for themselves. I just rolled off the table. Three. 00:39:51.49 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, that's a young adult. 00:39:53.51 Frederick Okay, perfect. 00:39:55.42 Kurt Crenwelge So a young adult bronze dragonborn named Aynan, who's a minstrel. That's what we have so far. And with those details in mind, um now we get to we come to the question, describe the physical appearance of Aynan. 00:40:01.76 Frederick There we go. 00:40:08.68 Kurt Crenwelge So when we're when we're picturing this bronze dragonborn minstrel, young adult named Aynan, what are we going to see? 00:40:17.73 Frederick Well, I had this image in my head of, we know dragons have claws. So in order to use his instrument, he's going to have to file down his claws. 00:40:23.37 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:40:26.83 Frederick I thought that would be hilarious. I had this picture of um of a bard, a dragon bard with these blunted nails because he's trying to pluck the strings and actually do the chord configurations. 00:40:38.63 Frederick And so it's kind of like, there's an irony in him being a bard because he's not really... at least at first glance, you'd think equipped for the task, but he wants it more than anything. So he's pushing forward with his claw nubs and he's strumming upon the lute. 00:40:55.17 Frederick And maybe he doesn't even have lips. I don't know if dragonborns technically have lips or not. Um, so i'm not sure how he would vocalize or what kind of, um, what kind of vocals he would be doing. 00:41:03.48 Kurt Crenwelge Well, that is that is. Right. No, that's very apt because um if you listen to some of the early Matt Colville ah running the game videos on YouTube, I think the vocal impression he does ah because there was a Dragonborn character that was he was doing a campaign diary. So he's telling the This is like before MCDM productions became a thing. 00:41:24.74 Kurt Crenwelge His company became a thing. 00:41:25.35 Frederick Ah. 00:41:26.59 Kurt Crenwelge He's just telling recaps of his campaign that he's running. And like one of his characters recruits a follower character, which is a Dragonborn Knight, Sir Razzalax, I think was the name of the character. 00:41:38.14 Kurt Crenwelge And so he talks like this. and he his reasoning because you know he's a writer and he's like well dragonborn don't have lips so they got to talk like in a real weird sort of a way like i am a dragon knight um so if you know if if you feel like that inspires you or if you saw the dnd movie you know that they did very good practical effects with an actual like animatronic dragonborn head and as far as i could tell with that they seem to be able to 00:41:41.10 Frederick ah 00:42:06.08 Kurt Crenwelge to talk normally as well so it depends on which extreme you want to take of like oh they're you know they have to vocalize differently because of no lips or they're it's magic and they just because they're descended from dragons they just can magically make whatever sounds they want 00:42:15.67 Frederick Yeah, I like that idea. 00:42:23.94 Frederick Telepathic singing. No, I like the idea of him attempting to vocalize, and he's got his claws shaved down, and he's just living his best life as ah as a dragonborn bard. 00:42:36.24 Frederick And somehow he caught a gig doing this, and um that's kind of become... his his personality in a sense. Now, physically, I'm not sure... I'm not sure if I've imagined any distinctive characteristics. I mean, as far as horn shapes, I do... Because horn shapes are specific to dragon breeds, right? 00:42:58.07 Frederick Like horn configurations. 00:43:00.11 Kurt Crenwelge Um, that's a great question. If you want me to, you know, I can just pull up a whole Dragonborn 5E, you know, just read up a little quick thing on the old Forgotten Realms wiki, um seeing if it has anything to hear to say about their descriptions. 00:43:04.50 Frederick I don't remember bronze having... 00:43:15.24 Frederick There we go 00:43:20.05 Kurt Crenwelge and ah to them toan Standing on average six feet, two inches to six feet. 6'8", impressively tall, heavy weight to match, commonly possessing a weight of 220 to 320 pounds, ah and feat ended with three strong, talon-like claws with a fourth claw in the back, 00:43:40.03 Kurt Crenwelge Their hands were similar with three claws with a thumb replacing the rear claw. Dragonborn's head featured a blunt snout, a strong brow, and reptilian frills on the cheeks and ears. 00:43:50.89 Frederick Oh, 00:43:51.08 Kurt Crenwelge On the back of the head, a crest of horn-like scales formed what resembled a mass ah mess of ropey hair. Dragonborn eyes usually red or golden hue, few rare individuals born with tails, but this was seen as a deformity by most dragonborn if you accept the lore as written. 00:44:08.91 Frederick oh okay. No, that's perfect. He's a deformed dragonborn with a tail, shaved down claws, and um he's living his best life as a bard. 00:44:20.61 Kurt Crenwelge And my question to you, I mean, i i'm I'm like an OK, you know, you in the background of our call, you can see I've got like some instruments up on the wall. Like I'm pretty mediocrely OK. 00:44:30.90 Frederick Right. 00:44:32.61 Kurt Crenwelge And you are obviously my superior when it comes to playing like a stringed instrument. But my understanding or thinking is like, couldn't he use his claws as like picks instead of having to like actually get a pick to play with his hands he could just have like one or two of his claw or like one of his claws or something like that like fashioned in such a way that it makes it easier for him to be able to play or is it like no he has to shave down all of his his talons or his claws 00:44:57.89 Frederick Right. That was my thought. 00:45:03.20 Frederick It depends on how long and how curved the claws are. I was thinking with his picking hand, he'd find he would only blunt them slightly. um But with the other hand that's doing the cords, he'd have to get rid of the nails almost entirely, which would look hilarious. 00:45:16.33 Frederick The thought of ah of a dragon with one nub hand and then one clawed hand, um it's like an extreme version of those classical guitar players when they have the long nails on the one hand. 00:45:16.66 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:45:20.78 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:45:26.04 Frederick But like imagine a dragon, he's at the very long literal talons on one hand. 00:45:26.42 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:45:30.16 Frederick with maybe the edges just barely blunted so he doesn't slice the strings and then he has one blunted hand that looks about half the size and that's doing the chords 00:45:39.72 Kurt Crenwelge ah Okay. And then is there any particular way that he like dresses or presents himself as, you know, are we, um you know, we're, we have the, the cultural ah medium to talk in as far as like Baldur's gate three. 00:45:53.55 Kurt Crenwelge So like, you know, Oh, is he in like the bard outfit for Baldur's gate three, the big plume he had in like, you know, Renaissance style clothes. 00:46:00.09 Frederick i was Yeah, I was picturing the plume. 00:46:02.79 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, a plumed hat. 00:46:03.10 Frederick And, oh yes, maybe some custom bifocals as well, like a Witcher 3 style, but obviously more widely um widely set for the dragonborn eyes. 00:46:08.75 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:46:13.99 Frederick I feel like this guy going very extra. 00:46:17.59 Kurt Crenwelge Very extra. Okay. 00:46:19.04 Frederick Yeah. 00:46:19.40 Kurt Crenwelge and And let's see. Okay, perfect. So let's see. any you know Certainly any other physical description details you want to throw in, you can. um But as a way to kind of help us focus for the role-playing aspect of the character, we always like to make sure we ask the question, what three adjectives would you use to describe Aynan this bard? 00:46:43.66 Frederick Ainin is foolishly confident in himself. um And I feel like he is an avid wine drinker and also 00:47:02.11 Frederick incredibly clumsy. 00:47:03.91 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. So he's okay. 00:47:04.42 Frederick Those three things. 00:47:06.01 Kurt Crenwelge So he's like, foolish if well, let's see. Foolishly courageous, a bit of an alcoholic and he's clumsy. ah 00:47:13.55 Frederick Yes, I picture his um his hand-eye coordination, wonderful. 00:47:14.49 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:47:19.18 Frederick But his foot-eye coordination, not so much. So he's broken a couple of instruments by falling on them. 00:47:25.62 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:47:26.15 Frederick But it never dings his confidence because he's the kind of guy, i mean, he's a dragonborn that chose to become a bard. So Ainin will stop at nothing to be exactly what he wants to be. and He's the talk of the town because whoever heard of such a thing, a plume hatted dragonborn with shaved claws lumbering in knocking one to three glasses over perhaps or tables. 00:47:53.92 Frederick And then he, he begins his, uh, his work. 00:47:59.35 Kurt Crenwelge Wonderful. OK, and now's the part where I get to say, okay now we get to go back to some dice rolling. So we like all of our NPCs to be able to offer up, ah you know, well, we like all of our NPCs to have something cool on their person, a valuable item, if you will. 00:48:16.00 Kurt Crenwelge Well, it could be a valuable item. 00:48:16.39 Frederick yeah 00:48:17.28 Kurt Crenwelge We have some categories ah that we can choose from. So what's going to be a valuable item? Piece of lore. Secret or ideal or concept that the character would ascribe to so if you are spitballing it, you know, you can kind of mix a couple in there But if you want to roll and randomize something you would roll a d4 for the category and then a d6 for the particular thing in the category 00:48:35.41 Frederick Yes. 00:48:42.21 Frederick Okay, so I rolled a one on the d4. 00:48:44.93 Kurt Crenwelge So that's a item 00:48:47.52 Frederick And then a six on Right. 00:48:51.86 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, well, your answer was given to us by our Patreon supporter, Nicholas Carterelli. ah His valuable item is shoes. So it just says shoes is all the is the prompt I have. 00:49:04.19 Frederick but 00:49:04.97 Kurt Crenwelge So for a dragonborn minstrel, ah why are the shoes so valuable to him? 00:49:05.97 Frederick right 00:49:11.33 Frederick Okay, well, um i he's got to have those curly shoes, man. You know what I'm talking about? What do they call those shoes? There's a very specific name for them. 00:49:23.07 Frederick Those sort of like jestery shoes. 00:49:26.69 Kurt Crenwelge Let's see. Oh, okay. Well, that's why we have the power of the internet at our fingertips. Jester shoes. What is the history behind curly pointed shoes? I'm just seeing just jester shoes. 00:49:39.55 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:49:40.18 Frederick Hmm. Hmm. 00:49:41.05 Kurt Crenwelge um ah Well, um maybe if I refine my search. What are curly jester shoes called? um 00:49:53.07 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. The history of curly toed shoes. I don't know. That's about, or wait, a Poulain, a Poulain. 00:49:59.93 Frederick I knew it was a P. 00:50:02.19 Kurt Crenwelge Poulains, also known by other names, were a style of unisex footwear with extremely long toes that were fashionable in Europe at various times in the Middle Ages. The Poulain proper was a shoe or boot of soft material whose elongated toe, also known as a Poulain or pike, frequently required filling to maintain its shape. 00:50:23.89 Kurt Crenwelge So there you go. 00:50:24.77 Frederick Yep. That's it. We're going to have that one. 00:50:26.64 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, although interestingly enough, again, this is from the Wikipedia page, but interestingly enough ah in our shared Catholicism here, who lanes were periodically condemned by Christian writers of the time as demonic or vain kings of the area variously taxed them as luxuries, restricted their use to the nobility or outright banned them. 00:50:41.20 Frederick ah 00:50:47.74 Kurt Crenwelge So there you go. 00:50:48.22 Frederick That's funny. 00:50:50.04 Kurt Crenwelge A little bit of real, real world lore. 00:50:50.25 Frederick This perfect. 00:50:53.45 Frederick I picture his back claw pokes out the back. 00:50:57.18 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:50:57.63 Frederick Of these fancy, fancy shoes. And I think he believes these shoes are enchanted to help him with his balance issues. Now everyone else says they're not really working. 00:51:08.96 Frederick And he says, you should see me when I don't have these on. So we'll never really know actually how bad it can be because he's always wearing his enchanted pouillants or whatever they were called. 00:51:19.87 Frederick Sounds like some French mischief. 00:51:20.10 Kurt Crenwelge Who lands? Yeah. 00:51:23.23 Frederick Poulants. 00:51:24.38 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:51:24.47 Frederick Poulants. 00:51:24.62 Kurt Crenwelge so Well, I know living here in Texas, um you know, being so close ah to a number of ah of ah of Mexican, Central American ah styles of music and dress and and culture, you'll have the cowboy boots that also have the same thing where they're the very long pointed. 00:51:26.95 Frederick Something. 00:51:43.54 Frederick Oh, yeah, true. 00:51:46.83 Kurt Crenwelge ah So part of me also imagined that like there are these fancy shoes or fancy boots. And then, like you said, his claws are poking out the back and he's like, look at me. I'm i'm like this. I'm this minstrel. 00:51:58.43 Kurt Crenwelge I'm this musician. Some people maybe even call him a jester because he's got this big plumy hat and he looks sort of ridiculous. He's not like a little goblin like a jester. 00:52:06.20 Frederick right. 00:52:07.78 Kurt Crenwelge He's like a big buffoon sort of a looking guy, maybe to some people. 00:52:12.42 Frederick But I picture he has no sense of humor at all. 00:52:15.49 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, so it just doesn't translate. 00:52:16.29 Frederick He's one of those guys. No, doesn't translate at all. 00:52:19.89 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. So very cool. Just shoes. These are the things that are valuable to him. And he, okay, love it. And then ah let's see, we want all of our NPCs to be able to offer up side quests for when they encounter heroes or player characters in our game. So what is a quest? 00:52:38.25 Kurt Crenwelge that Aynan would be willing to recruit or hire player characters to go and do on his behalf. If you have an idea, you can lay it out on us. Or if you, again, you'd like to roll on the table and see what you get, the last dice to roll would be a D12. 00:52:53.99 Frederick I mean, I'm having quite a lot of fun with the rolling, I won't lie. And it's sort of extrapolating on that. 00:52:59.64 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, for sure. Go for it. You just roll a D12. 00:53:01.96 Frederick D12. Let 00:53:03.64 Kurt Crenwelge See what we get. 00:53:05.87 Frederick let me cons consult the library of dice. 00:53:10.76 Frederick I should have just pulled them all out at once. it's kind of funny. That was a seven. 00:53:17.39 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, a seven. Okay. All right. Well, you let me know if you think this works. This was submitted by our previous guest, Scarlet 64. Retrieve a secret long... 00:53:29.93 Kurt Crenwelge Retrieve a secret lost self-portrait painting from a famous artist to complete an otherwise formalized collection. And this painting also happens to be ah sole repository. 00:53:41.29 Kurt Crenwelge It's a sole repository for the painter. 00:53:42.63 Frederick ah 00:53:43.87 Kurt Crenwelge So does that sound like something that Aynon would do? 00:53:44.95 Frederick Oh, oh, absolutely. Oh, yes, because he's all about the arts. he He's like the Squidward of the Dragonborn. So i think I think that works quite nicely. 00:53:58.19 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so he's a lover of the arts, and that's the only reason why he wants this secret lost self-portrait of the famous artist? 00:54:09.12 Kurt Crenwelge Is it someone that he looks up to, or he just knows that like this dude, this person, this lady was a famous artist or whatever, and he's like, I gotta have it. What are you thinking? 00:54:18.44 Frederick Well, no, he bought it out of spite because his rival wanted it to complete his collection. So, Ainin actually doesn't particularly like this artist. But he bought that precisely so his rival cannot complete their collection. 00:54:36.16 Frederick Because he's a petty... He's a petty bard. 00:54:40.31 Kurt Crenwelge oh 00:54:40.92 Frederick i think that the we're going to delve into his flaws. 00:54:44.06 Kurt Crenwelge okay so but but the side quest is to retrieve a secret lost self-portrait painting so is that kind of like the story of like how he got started is like oh he has this rival and so he's like constantly trying to find works of art but like 00:54:45.37 Frederick Yeah. 00:54:53.99 Frederick Yeah, yeah. 00:55:00.40 Kurt Crenwelge You know, it's like, well, we've bought all the paintings there are to buy, but there's a rumor or something like that, that there's this lost self-portrait or something like that. But if you can find it, then I'll finally be able to, like, get my collection and rub it in the face of Fernando or whatever the name of the rival is. 00:55:18.63 Frederick Right, yes, exactly. 00:55:19.49 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:55:20.67 Frederick I'm thinking, um maybe Maybe, maybe he already had this painting. painting It was stolen or otherwise lost. 00:55:32.61 Frederick Maybe it was um maybe was a break-in. 00:55:36.45 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. Mmm. 00:55:36.94 Frederick And he desperately wants it back. Then only after retrieving the um traving the painting do the adventurers find out that he really didn't care for the painting much at all. To begin with, it was just he didn't want the other person to have it. 00:55:54.28 Frederick So I think that would be funny if he was very, very concerned about this painting and then they realize it's not really even the painting that he he cares much about. maybe maybe he just Maybe it wasn't a break-in. 00:56:08.28 Frederick Maybe he moved apartments and he left it behind on accident or something like that. 00:56:14.70 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:56:15.19 Frederick Because I feel like a break-in might be a little unrealistic. 00:56:18.44 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay, so he moved places, and so he needs you to go retrieve this secret lost painting ah that he managed to get a hold of but not the rival so then it becomes like a ah race against this other rival who learns that like wait a minute there's another painting like oh i should go get it and so now your party has to go contend with this other bard and his lackeys to um to get this painting 00:56:31.52 Frederick Yes. 00:56:46.78 Frederick Right? Right. I'm thinking it's in some kind of a secret compartment at his other apartment. and And you see, because he himself doesn't care too much about the painting, he forgot about the secret compartment until after he moved. 00:57:01.88 Frederick So they have to go in. 00:57:02.11 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:57:03.02 Frederick They got to break into his old apartment and they got to find this painting. Now, hopefully it hasn't been found by the time they get there. 00:57:12.04 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:57:12.69 Frederick And I think that makes sense. 00:57:12.96 Kurt Crenwelge And then I'm just curious of the angle. yeah I'm curious about the angle now with the painter, because if, if it's a soul repository, For the painter, is that painter now like a lich or something like that? 00:57:25.84 Kurt Crenwelge Is there like a third element now where it's like the lich wants their painting back because it's like, you know, I wanted to be the best artist and I wanted to paint into my years of, you know, I just wanted to paint forever and not stop. 00:57:27.85 Frederick Right. 00:57:39.85 Kurt Crenwelge And then it's like, 00:57:40.46 Frederick Mm hmm. 00:57:41.37 Kurt Crenwelge oh wait, somehow my paintings got stolen or given away or i don't know. Like, is there a reason why we're thinking or like, are we thinking like, oh, maybe now there's an element of like undead or something like that after all the works or something like that? 00:57:55.10 Frederick Yeah, absolutely. I think there there would have to be that. That would make the quest even more interesting. Maybe this lich is still searching for all the paintings. So they might run into this lich. 00:58:04.77 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:58:07.89 Frederick Maybe it's like the one ring and the it's almost calling to the owner in some way. 00:58:12.28 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:58:12.36 Frederick It's in that little secret compartment right now, but when they take it out... I'm thinking the other apartment is in a different city. 00:58:19.83 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:58:20.02 Frederick So maybe there's a little bit of a trek, you know? 00:58:22.47 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:58:22.48 Frederick So they go to this other town, they have retrieve the painting, but then once they remove the painting from this secret compartment, there could be perhaps some kind of a ward around it or some kind of magical shield, which makes it undetectable as long as it's in that compartment. But as soon as they take it out, 00:58:40.68 Kurt Crenwelge Right. It was lead lined. 00:58:41.38 Frederick Now Mr. Lich, yes, now Mr. 00:58:42.33 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 00:58:44.10 Frederick Lich knows that it's out. So they may have an encounter with the Lich themselves as they're teleporting this magical repository painting. 00:58:52.76 Kurt Crenwelge oh 00:58:53.25 Frederick We're on to something here. 00:58:54.76 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. And so like we're getting, we're getting the brain juices flowing. And so, you know, you know, we, we leave it open ended for dungeon masters to be able to implement into their games or for player characters who are like, well, I love Ainin. I want Ainin to be featured in my backstory and like, 00:59:12.52 Kurt Crenwelge here's this hook or whatever, um you know, with the Lich or whatever. 00:59:13.01 Frederick Let's go. 00:59:16.83 Kurt Crenwelge um So, yeah, but but for our purposes, we like to try and like figure out like what's going to be the reward and what's going to be the failure. So the first one of those, what's going to be the reward for successfully getting the painting? 00:59:30.14 Kurt Crenwelge you know, fighting off whatever rivals or undead forces are after this thing and giving it back to Ainin. Has Ainin just painted a big target on himself because now the lich knows like, oh, this silly minstrel has my thing that I want back. 00:59:45.64 Kurt Crenwelge or Or what do you thinking? 00:59:46.56 Frederick Right. I'm thinking Aynan doesn't even know about the Lich. I think this is a misfortune that may just happen upon him because he he doesn't know. And I'm thinking that he is going to give the adventurers his loot as payment. 01:00:03.93 Frederick Now what the adventurers don't know is the loot is actually cracked on the back, but he has not divulged this information because he he fell on his loot earlier, so he wants to get rid of it. So he's giving them a cracked loot as um as payment for their quest, but they don't know that yet. 01:00:14.98 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 01:00:21.35 Kurt Crenwelge ah 01:00:22.01 Frederick They're going to hate Aynan. 01:00:22.10 Kurt Crenwelge and 01:00:22.85 Frederick They're going to be like, I don't want him in this quest. 01:00:26.55 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And then they go back to give him a ah yeah, they're going to give and go back to give him a piece of their mind. 01:00:27.30 Frederick He's the most unlikable. 01:00:31.25 Kurt Crenwelge And that's when he's going to be beset by agents of the Lich that want the painting back. 01:00:35.29 Frederick Yes. Yes. 01:00:36.22 Kurt Crenwelge And that can that spurs on this whole this whole adventure with like, you know, going after the Lich now or whatever. That's like, finally, ah painting. Now I can begin my conquest of the world because this is the one thing I was waiting for whatever. 01:00:51.96 Frederick Yep. 01:00:51.98 Kurt Crenwelge and be kind of funny. Okay. All right. So just a cracked, a cracked loot. No money, no nothing else. Just. 01:00:59.74 Frederick Nope, because that loot 01:00:59.78 Kurt Crenwelge Or does he prompt. 01:01:02.42 Frederick I'm thinking that lute is the lute upon which he composed his his famous his most famous work upon the lute. So it's a very, very, very big deal, at least to him. 01:01:11.35 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:01:14.39 Frederick And he thinks it should be a big deal to everyone else. 01:01:14.99 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:01:17.07 Frederick So the fact that he's offering this is is a great amount of generosity on his behalf. So he's a little bit Squidwardian, that's for sure. there's a little There's a little bit of Squidward tentacles in this guy, and for sure, in his personality. 01:01:25.23 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:01:28.82 Kurt Crenwelge okay yeah i'm just trying to think of uh you know uh good good reward i mean it is i guess it is funny to pull a ah quote unquote a fast one over on your on your players every now and again not all the time um 01:01:43.42 Frederick Oh, yeah. 01:01:44.61 Kurt Crenwelge But ah but yeah, I'm wondering maybe if he's the kind of guy that would make up but this big promise of like, oh, yeah, I'll pay you whatever if you go get this painting in like, you know, the the next the next city over. That's going to be like five days right away ah to this place. 01:02:01.17 Kurt Crenwelge And then, you know, after all of that turmoil and finally coming back and they're like, great, you promised us like 500 gold. So can we have that now? And he's like, here's this loot. 01:02:11.83 Kurt Crenwelge It's worth 500 gold. 01:02:12.62 Frederick Right. Right. 01:02:14.43 Kurt Crenwelge but then it's cracked. 01:02:14.64 Frederick Right. I think, I think that's perfect. Yes. He would say, well, I haven't cheated you because the value. And they'll say, well, how is this loot worth that? so Don't you know I composed my famous work upon this loot? 01:02:29.80 Frederick So that's where the drama happens. When he he does not, in fact, offer them the the gold, liquid, but a loot, which in his mind is a fair trade, but no one else's. 01:02:44.12 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. Which could certainly, you know, prompt a new ah escalation and and ah or, you know, aligning themselves with the lich in this case to be like, yeah, that guy was a real piece of work. 01:02:51.09 Frederick Oh yeah. 01:02:57.82 Kurt Crenwelge Here you go. You can have him kind of a thing. 01:03:00.08 Frederick Right. Let's team up with the Lich now. And then, yeah. 01:03:04.17 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. ah Okay, well then, ah now to examine this reward thing from the the opposite ah lens, what's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? 01:03:17.25 Kurt Crenwelge So this minstrel asks the party to go to this other city, which is however we're far away from the current location you're in now, to go find this painting in a secret compartment and bring it back, and that triggers all the other stuff that's going to happen. 01:03:26.00 Frederick Mm-hmm. 01:03:31.70 Kurt Crenwelge But... What's going to happen when the party says no or they fail in some way or or what what? What are going to be the consequences of that? 01:03:42.52 Frederick Well, I'm thinking, um obviously, if they don't agree, they miss out on a grand adventure. But if they agree and fail, maybe the getting into the secret compartment will be a whole challenge in itself. 01:03:56.44 Frederick I think, obviously, dispelling magical traps and um things of that nature that that could end in death or or dismemberment. And obviously if the Lich cats catches up with them, if they don't make the trip in time, if they're delayed, maybe some bandits show up, maybe there's trouble in the streets, something keeps them from getting back to Ainen in time. 01:04:19.73 Frederick Then they run the risk of running into the Lich himself on the way. So that could also turn into something else. 01:04:27.66 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 01:04:28.31 Frederick An encounter that before they ever get back. 01:04:28.43 Kurt Crenwelge Have a. 01:04:32.10 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And then, ah yeah, then it's a whole thing of like, ah well, do you give the lich their painting back or do you want to give it to Aynan? 01:04:38.66 Frederick Right. 01:04:40.49 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Because that could also be another failure condition of like, they're trying to bring it back to him, but the lich comes back and is like, look, that's clearly me. I should have my painting back. 01:04:49.74 Frederick Right. 01:04:49.90 Kurt Crenwelge And they're like, yeah, here you go. And then they go back to Aynan. They're like, the craziest thing happened. The painter came back and got their painting back because it turns out they're this undead lich. So. 01:05:00.95 Kurt Crenwelge don't know. How would Aynan react to something like that? 01:05:01.19 Frederick Right. Then Aynan throws hands. 01:05:04.25 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, he does? He just turns hostile? 01:05:06.33 Frederick No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I'm not quite sure how Einemar would react to that. Maybe with a um a bit of a tantrum, but I don't think he would be violent. I don't think he would he would go straight to throwing hands. 01:05:19.16 Frederick I do think, however, that transporting this painting, maybe, depending on how they did it, they could they could run into some trouble transporting it, depending on how they're doing it. 01:05:28.73 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:05:30.57 Frederick Maybe they just put it in a covered wagon and no one gets suspicious. I don't know. 01:05:34.46 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:05:35.15 Frederick maybe they Maybe they use a really large bag of holding. 01:05:35.26 Kurt Crenwelge Or they or they're they maneuver. They maneuver their bag of holding enough that the painting fits in the bag of holding. 01:05:40.16 Frederick Right. 01:05:43.74 Kurt Crenwelge So. 01:05:44.02 Frederick Right. 01:05:45.07 Kurt Crenwelge But then that's in a different plane, so it's a little harder for the lich to track because now it's in a extra dimensional space. 01:05:45.64 Frederick So that'll depend on their gear. 01:05:51.54 Frederick That would be the smartest because maybe somebody upon inspecting the the painting maybe be suspects that there's something quiet that there's something a bit dangerous about it. 01:06:02.11 Frederick So using the bag of holding is going to be the move to avoid detection. 01:06:05.77 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. You have a real, um, uh, you have a real situ. I'm trying to Google it now to be seamless, uh, uh, without any delays or or hiccups in the, uh, uh, 01:06:20.99 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, it'd be a real Ghostbusters 2 situation with like the the Carpathian guy. And there it's like this self-portrait of the guy. 01:06:27.42 Frederick Yeah. 01:06:28.29 Kurt Crenwelge and you're like, he looks a little unsettling and creepy. And then it like moves or whatever. And you're like, oh, there's something in the painting. 01:06:34.52 Frederick Right. The eyes flash. 01:06:36.67 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, the ice flash. ah Yeah, it's yeah, it's the whole Ghostbusters 2 all over again. yeah. ah yeah it's like how did this dude get get a hold of this painting yeah fascinating um cool and so that takes us through all the normal questions that we have when we're making npcs we do have optional questions that we can explore the character further or if you feel like ainin is pretty well developed we could head into the the random encounter section if you want 01:07:05.95 Frederick I think I'm ready to go to the random encounter section. Yeah. 01:07:09.48 Kurt Crenwelge All right, well, you heard it here. Let's go ahead and go into a random encounter. 01:07:21.65 Kurt Crenwelge And insert here for the final ad break thing for Zencaster, the podcasting platform I'm using. Thanks everyone so much for supporting it. If you're looking to start your own podcast, be sure to go to Zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my code side, KQ podcast at checkout, save some money on starting your podcast and help support the podcast. 01:07:43.95 Kurt Crenwelge Thank you so much. All right, so now is the part of the show where we get to do a little bit of a roleplay, a vignette, a scene with the characters that we've made here today. So I think Frederick is going to do a fantastic job of portraying Aynan. 01:07:57.14 Kurt Crenwelge But the question becomes, who am I going to be in the scene? Am I going to be one of my podcast adventuring characters ah that's meeting Aynan to get the side quest? Am I this... 01:08:08.48 Kurt Crenwelge purported rival, other bard minstrel of Aynan that's like beginning this bidding war on all these paintings? Or is it, I don't know, like what what kind of scene are you interested in showcasing Aynan off? 01:08:25.20 Frederick Oh, man. Hmm. 01:08:30.07 Frederick Maybe, so if it involves Aynan directly, maybe it's a scene where he first comes across the painting. 01:08:43.34 Frederick Because we want it to be, ah you said random encounters, so it doesn't really have to be um associated with 01:08:49.77 Kurt Crenwelge Well, the random encounter is the clever name of the segment, but essentially it's like to kind of help put a bow on this NPC that we've made today to kind of like, you know, we've discussed all the questions and stuff like that. 01:09:00.56 Kurt Crenwelge But now let's put like an actual context to the character. 01:09:01.48 Frederick Right. 01:09:04.21 Kurt Crenwelge So um just, you know, just thinking of ideas of like, how do you think we're going to best learn about Ainin as a character? Are we going to meet him where he's giving this side quest to an adventure character of the podcast? 01:09:18.13 Kurt Crenwelge Or is it him talking with this other bard or or a you know, or something like that or just a slice of life of a slice of life of Ainin in like a standard ah tavern environment? I mean, it's whatever you feel like would serve the character of the best. 01:09:35.54 Frederick hey I think maybe knowing Aynan, he's probably in a bit of trouble with the criminal undercity back at the city that he moved from. 01:09:46.71 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:09:46.90 Frederick I'm thinking that he's not very good with his money and maybe he took out a loan of some kind and he did not pay it back. So we're in a bit of a Han Solo situation with him, I think. 01:09:57.80 Frederick And maybe when we meet Aynan, maybe some of these guys catch up with him. 01:09:58.08 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:10:04.64 Frederick Like he kind of moved all his things very quickly, forgot the painting, moved this new town. But some of the guys from the old town have sniffed out where he moved to and now they're confronting him and they want their money. 01:10:20.26 Kurt Crenwelge OK, so you want to do a scene where some ah criminals from the old town are are coming around ah to like rough up eyeing in a little bit and like try and get their money or or or get something or something. 01:10:35.21 Frederick right um I think, why don't you set the scene and then I'll see, we'll see where it goes from there. 01:10:36.30 Kurt Crenwelge OK, well, would you like to set the scene or would you care for me to set the scene? 01:10:49.49 Kurt Crenwelge OK. 01:10:51.61 Frederick I'm curious what you'll come up with. 01:10:51.74 Kurt Crenwelge All right. 01:10:55.06 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So we open up on a tavern. It's a body rock is a place. You know, it's the perfect sort of place that a young adult dragonborn bard would be want to play. And, ah you know, it's he's got a little bit of time before his his sets coming up. So, you know, so there's a lovely lady that's seeing arias right now and she's got a little band accompanying her. And so you're just off in the way, you know, items off in the wings, like relaxing, you know, 01:11:22.96 Kurt Crenwelge You know, he's running, and running through some scales, checking his arpeggios, making sure his instruments tune. And then he notices like he's able to catch with this patch, passive perception. 01:11:33.39 Kurt Crenwelge um There's like a there's like three dudes, like ah some thuggish looking guys are just kind of like staring him down. They're like cracking their knuckles. And, you know, the the tallest one of them kind of motions for the other two to start heading over Aynan's way. 01:11:48.89 Kurt Crenwelge And so what is, how does Aynan react to this as he's waiting to perform, you know, this lovely music and the scenes going on, but now these like three thugs are working to approach him. 01:12:05.18 Frederick So we're doing straight up role playing like we're we're coming in with voice lines and everything? 01:12:10.26 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. It's just your, your Aynan. So how would Aynan react to the three thugs approaching him? 01:12:13.13 Frederick Oh. Oh, I see. I think what Ayanin would do is treat them as fans. I think that he would project project and and ask them if they were familiar with his work. 01:12:27.47 Frederick I don't know how he would say with the no Yeah. 01:12:30.47 Kurt Crenwelge yeah but's That's fine. 01:12:31.59 Frederick Familiar with my work. I'm not sure. But I think that's how he would deflect, of course. And being a dragonborn with um one file downhand, I mean, I think Aynan's not difficult to spot with his plumage in his long and his long So um unfortunately, he his move didn't really do much for him because he's the talk of the town. 01:12:54.57 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:12:56.94 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So the lead of these guys is like, you know, he's like kind of like a bruiser of a human man. 01:12:57.64 Frederick I think that's how he would do it. 01:13:02.20 Kurt Crenwelge And then there's like a little dwarf. ah Well, I mean, there's a dwarven man, you know, beefy but sort of a guy. And then there's got to be there's usually like a slinky guy to kind of like a like ah like a average height slinky sort of a guy that kind of balances the other two out. 01:13:17.10 Kurt Crenwelge So the leader, the big thug is like, hey. you know, what are you doing here, man? ah Boss man said you you skipped town. You ah cleared out your apartment. You you know, you were you were quite comfortable living on our coin. 01:13:31.47 Kurt Crenwelge ah You know, you you ah ran your bets in our our pools. You drank our wine. You did all that. And your coffers are a little short. ah So boss man says you need to pay up. 01:13:48.89 Frederick I think, gentlemen, as you know, i have a performance scheduled tonight, and I can assure you that my career is thriving. 01:14:04.32 Frederick But unfortunately, i do not have the coin on me. but I will have it at the end of my tour, in the end of the year. Plus interest, of course. 01:14:15.70 Frederick And I'm sure you understand you're in a very, very lucky position to hear this composition I've been working on tonight. And I think at the end of this performance, you will understand and you will be confidently assured that the money will be coming your direction. 01:14:33.26 Frederick I think I think he would say something along those lines of maybe delaying the payment until the end of his big tour, which may or may not actually be happening. 01:14:45.70 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So as far as like a deception check and not that you have to actually roll anything, but, you know, you know, Ainin is a character. So how do you feel like he does in this moment, like with his deception check? 01:14:57.84 Kurt Crenwelge Like, do you think it's enough that these three guys might believe him? 01:14:58.90 Frederick Hmm. 01:15:01.28 Kurt Crenwelge Or do you think that they're kind of like they're seeing through this ruse and they're like, hey, our boss told us we came here for money. And so like, that's what we're here for. 01:15:11.52 Frederick I think... I think it's possible because of his confidence, he might be able to bluff, but we know, we know Aynan doesn't have much of a sense of humor and I don't think he's very socially aware. 01:15:24.14 Frederick So the deception check is going to be a tough one. 01:15:27.20 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:15:27.23 Frederick I think that could go either way. And this may play into why he wants that painting. 01:15:32.68 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:15:32.91 Frederick Maybe he has to have it to pay these guys. If he fails the deception check, perhaps, perhaps, 01:15:41.63 Kurt Crenwelge OK, so so he rolls, he you know, he does his deception check, but like, you know, maybe the squirrely, you know, slide guys like, yeah, that sounds reasonable. Right. And then, like, you know, the dwarf kind of like cracks his knuckles and he's like, I don't believe a word of this guy. 01:15:57.46 Kurt Crenwelge This lizard man's talking through his no lips teeth. 01:15:58.39 Frederick Yeah. 01:16:01.43 Kurt Crenwelge And then he like, you know, I know he does something menacing. He's like, ah he like rears up like he's going to punch his instrument and then, ah you know, maybe sees iron and sort of recoiling in horror like, oh, no, that my instrument. 01:16:14.96 Kurt Crenwelge And then the big guy kind of like clamps his hand on the the dwarven man shoulder and kind of chuckles like. Oh, easy there. Easy there, Brutus. Don't worry. You'll get yours. You'll get yours. Look, man, we've been to your apartment and we picked that place clean. 01:16:30.18 Kurt Crenwelge All of the tapestries, all of your books, your other broken pile of instruments for some reason, everything. We took everything out of that place. There's there there's nothing we ain't picked out but you know what the boss said you were still short so that's why he sent us all the way here we had to ride five days to get here and didn't wasn't that a pain in the rear wasn't it brutus i it was quite a pain in my hunches. 01:16:59.17 Kurt Crenwelge And then the other guy, you know, the squirrely guy is like, i don't know. It was kind of nice. We got to see the environment. They're like, ah quiet you. And they kind of like sock him a little bit. So he's oh, okay. And he'll be quiet. And so then the, you know, the tall leader is like, so come on, you know, you owe us like, come on. 01:17:14.44 Kurt Crenwelge you know, what what, are you going to, what can, what truth can you tell us now? no no lies like that. We have a guarantee that we're going to be able to leave here with some sort of like definitive promise or some lump of payment in our hands to take back to the boss. 01:17:33.94 Frederick I think once you hear my latest work, you will be you'll be assured of the success of my career. Once you hear this tune, you'll see that is just a matter of time before I am the the biggest bard in all of the, whichever realm we're in. 01:17:50.93 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:17:57.35 Frederick I think it's going to come to another ah persuasion check of of sorts. A confidence check. 01:18:03.96 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:18:04.34 Frederick Again, and maybe if this goes wrong, maybe one of them actually swings at Ayanin and he blocks with his loot, which is why it's cracked. Maybe. 01:18:14.51 Kurt Crenwelge yeah i i think that's plausible so like uh yeah the dwarven man rears up and he's like i've heard enough i've heard enough crap i've you know bigger loads of crap out of the cows and he rears up to punch and then ainin like holds up his loot and crack it like cracks the back of it and then the big guy like stops him it's like okay okay come on like okay but you you feel good now that's you're better now and the dwarf's like ah 01:18:30.28 Frederick Yep. yep 01:18:38.25 Kurt Crenwelge I'm going to go get a drink. And so like he leaves to go to the bar and then like the big menacing mantle, you know, like maybe he's about as, as tall as I'm in is. And he just like very menacingly comes over, like clamps a hand down on the soldier on his shoulder and just like grips tighter and tighter to like sell his point. 01:18:56.73 Kurt Crenwelge And he's like, Like, I don't know why you think you can bluff your way through things. Obviously, you're not very good. Like, the only good thing you had worth taking were those those paintings. 01:19:11.72 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know. The weird ah weird things. I don't know. What's a dude like you doing with, like, these gothic-y... you know, ah postmodern, you know, ah he uses like equivalent terms to be like these Gothic postmodern, what that doesn't just seem to fit your vibe. 01:19:23.12 Frederick Yeah. 01:19:28.64 Kurt Crenwelge Like we took all those, like, yeah, there was some other bard that like, apparently was willing to pay us top dollar. uh pay us top gold for all those paintings so we recuperated some but you're so deep in the hole man like it's not worth it lying to us so like what what guarantee are you going to give me we'll be in the audience we'll be listening so if you try and turn tail and run well i mean you can see how tall i am i'll be able to keep pace so 01:19:58.39 Frederick Right. 01:19:59.19 Kurt Crenwelge maybe think on that. And then he like finishes the grip and he like elbow nudges the the third guy to be like, come on, let's go. Like we, we delivered our message. And so he knows Ina knows that like he needs to, you know, he'll eventually have to like report to them and give them like his promise or payment or whatever it is. But like, 01:20:19.98 Kurt Crenwelge the the three guys will now blend in back to the crowd because it's getting to be like a little um uh maid of the tavern comes up and is like oh oh sir mr ainen uh yes they're almost ready for you and so now it's like this moment for ainen himself to like think his thoughts or gather himself before he'll go up on stage and the maid leaves so yeah what's ainen thinking in this moment now that he's sort of had like this 01:20:41.70 Frederick Right. 01:20:47.14 Kurt Crenwelge threatening, violent sort of ah intimidation against him. 01:20:53.53 Frederick I think knowing Aynan because of his foolhardiness and his um his ego, that he he genuinely thinks that he will convince these people with his music to give him the time. 01:21:04.67 Frederick Who knows? Maybe um maybe he feels like they will be convinced of the promise of his career and will delay the beating long enough for him to kind of go on this journey. 01:21:19.40 Frederick tour that is isn't actually a real tour and isn't happening, hence why he needs the painting, the hidden painting. 01:21:25.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Do you think he's getting ideas in his head because of the thugs laying out like, oh, yeah, we cleaned out your place. 01:21:26.51 Frederick So I'm... 01:21:31.19 Kurt Crenwelge And is this maybe he gets that he has that spark. He has that memory that's like, wait a minute. No, they don't have all the paintings. 01:21:39.76 Frederick Right. So maybe in a bind, and a bind he can he can offer that up. But I think that it will hinge upon his performance because maybe they'll be convinced enough in his mind, if he gives a good enough performance, they'll leave the tavern and he'll slink and then he'll slink off But um yeah, I'm thinking maybe that's the justification for parting with his his precious painting ah repository only because the dire situation might outweigh his desire to spite his rival. 01:22:19.42 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:22:19.94 Frederick Those are my thoughts. 01:22:23.13 Kurt Crenwelge and yeah and so then without uh much ado yeah Ainin takes the stage with his broken lute uh and he and he'll begin to play his tune 01:22:38.48 Kurt Crenwelge And scene. So there we go. We've now seen Ainin in and action. ah So kind of ah like, you know, like I know I, you know, I hopefully haven't been talking too much about it, but it's like, yeah, now that I finally have BG three, I can now start getting these references and making these, ah you know, these ah jokes or these, these things, these references that people understand. 01:22:59.15 Kurt Crenwelge And so it's like, he very much has like Volo vibes to me, if you will. 01:23:03.57 Frederick Oh yeah, absolutely. 01:23:04.58 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Yeah, kind of like dorky, incompetent, but he's like, so you know, he has bravado and he believes in himself and, you know, maybe, you know, a broken clock can be right twice a day. 01:23:15.53 Kurt Crenwelge ah But other the rest of the time, you're just like, what is this guy doing? 01:23:20.51 Frederick That guy's great. yeah He had a great mustache too, if I remember correctly. He's like the very kind of curled up stash, right? You find him with the goblins at the, uh, in the Volo, right? 01:23:31.36 Frederick In Baldur's Gate 3. 01:23:31.85 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Yes, I found, i saw him in the, 01:23:33.91 Frederick depending on how the story goes. 01:23:35.37 Kurt Crenwelge Right. No, I did meet him in the Emerald Grove first and I drove i had consumed an animal speaking potion. So he was interviewing a bear and I could understand what the bear was saying. 01:23:46.10 Kurt Crenwelge And then like it would turn to Voldo and he'd be like, he's just drawing pictures of the bear mauling people and being mean. 01:23:46.35 Frederick Right. 01:23:53.21 Kurt Crenwelge And the bear's like, I came here a long way. Like, why doesn't this guy understand what I'm telling him? It's like, oh, it's because he doesn't speak bear. 01:23:59.43 Frederick Right. 01:24:01.17 Kurt Crenwelge um And yeah, he's supposedly in the goblin camp, but currently I'm somewhere in the underdark right now where I'm in Grimforge. So i'm I'm dealing with. 01:24:07.67 Frederick Oh, yeah. Classic. 01:24:09.57 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I'm dealing with all that. i'm I'm still I'm trying to find the underground underdark entrance to the goblin camp because I thought, oh, I'll be like a commando and I'll just pop up and then I'll, you know, clear it out that way. But I may have to actually go back up to the surface and just stroll into the front gates. 01:24:26.18 Kurt Crenwelge So we'll see. um But yeah, no, I kind of like the vibe of Ainin being like this buffoon and the sort this sort of like tragic bard character that's like left with no good options. 01:24:33.22 Frederick Mm-hmm. 01:24:38.43 Kurt Crenwelge And it's like, yeah, if you, yeah, you know, you leave him to his own devices or you don't help him. It just seems like he seems like he's not long for this world unless the party really takes a sympathy on him. 01:24:50.86 Kurt Crenwelge And they're like, well, this guy's kind of a dork and a weirdo and a loser, but he's our dork and weirdo and loser. 01:24:57.18 Frederick Right. They adopt him. 01:24:58.83 Kurt Crenwelge right and then maybe he has his own redemption arc and he like actually gets good or something like that yeah we can hope yes the real bard of the party takes uh the minstrel ainin under his wing and has him like as a as a bard in training or something 01:25:05.06 Frederick Right. We can hope. He goes on his real tour. One day. 01:25:20.56 Frederick Right. 01:25:20.63 Kurt Crenwelge you could adopt the MCDM followers and strongholds and and followers retainer rules. And so then he could be like a barred retainer. So he's not like a full fledged barred NPC, but he's like a, like a, a D well, he's like a, he's a retainer, which is ah I run a game for a friend and we run it like very much like a JRPG style campaign over Google mess, Google docs back and forth. 01:25:47.76 Kurt Crenwelge And so she has like her final fantasy party of like five characters, her five retainers that follow her around. 01:25:52.41 Frederick Oh, yeah. 01:25:54.64 Kurt Crenwelge So she's a bard. And so she's able to like go into battle with all these people. And so it feels like she's playing like a big D and D game, but she's the only player. So it's kind of like a good way to balance things out with retainers. 01:26:05.73 Frederick I like that. 01:26:07.18 Kurt Crenwelge So, Maybe that's a way for you to be able to play. I know you said, Hey, I'm busy and I'd rather like compose Elvenglade minstrel music, or I'd rather thrash my head and whip my hair around with headbanging for metal for the Lord. 01:26:19.91 Frederick Oh, there ain't no hair in my boy. 01:26:21.94 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, ah Oh, well, you just, you put on a wig, or something like that. 01:26:22.79 Frederick I got no hair. 01:26:27.36 Kurt Crenwelge ah Halloween costume wig for the long hair or something like that. But, um, 01:26:31.81 Frederick Oh yeah, yeah. 01:26:33.77 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, but maybe that's the way you play D&D is like, oh, I play by post or, you know, just whenever I can correspondence or something like that. I mean, that might be a fun way to do it, but. 01:26:43.31 Frederick Hmm. 01:26:43.89 Kurt Crenwelge Enough prattling and rattling for me. This is the final thoughts section of the show where I ask you your opinions on your time here on the podcast and what it was like getting to be the character you made today. 01:26:55.43 Frederick It was a lot of fun, man. um I enjoyed it. And I think I enjoyed the blend of I had a couple ideas that I brought to the table, but then the randomized element on top of that and kind of using that as a baseline and then launching off into um other things. 01:27:07.53 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Mm-hmm. 01:27:14.69 Frederick I like having the dice rolling and how you had, they were your patrons, right? That had these different ideas. I thought that was great. and So I really enjoyed that. 01:27:24.20 Kurt Crenwelge Excellent. Yeah. Well, so, you know, we're, we're here in the final moments of the show. So anything you've got to plug or where can we find you on the social medias and then any passions or causes we made, we need to be made aware of, you know, feel free to let us know. 01:27:41.42 Frederick Um, if you're into the, if you look up the dragon father, look it up on Spotify because, um, if you look up the dragon father on Instagram, it's going to be my old memes. I used to do Skyrim memes and stuff. And, uh, and, and some arc memes, that's kind of what, and then I just ended up making the fantasy music and, and, 01:28:00.83 Frederick I just took on that name, the Dragonfather, and released the music. So it's almost like it's two different things. 01:28:06.29 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:28:06.36 Frederick So if you look up the Dragonfather on Instagram or TikTok, you'll see that old stuff. But if you look it up on Spotify, I think your D&D crowd especially will be drawn to that because I have quite a few playlists for different moods and scenarios, like combat music playlists, and you'll see them pinned there um under the Dragonfather. And then if you're into... 01:28:28.69 Frederick It's kind of like... It's not much like D&D or Magic. It's more of just a casual party game. Dragon Vault. Dragon Vault's like something for a barbecue, something very low... um low maintenance, low... um there's The rules fit on one card, so you can kind of just show up to a gathering and play a game in 15, 20 minutes, and ah probably probably closer to 20, 30, actually, depending on if you have a full group. 01:28:54.12 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:28:54.38 Frederick If you have a two-player game, you can do a 15-minute game, probably. But if you have a handful of people, probably 20, 30, and it's a good warm-up. i Some people do it as a minigame within D&D. 01:29:06.32 Frederick They actually have it as a tavern minigame and then they do it like session zero or whatever. They'll they'll weave it into their campaign, perhaps. 01:29:16.68 Frederick um So dragonvaultgame.com um is where you can find the game. And I have the the first deck, which is a standalone game. I have it discounted right now to $20. And it'd be eight-player game, and you just need the deck and dice. 01:29:31.08 Frederick So yeah, that's that's probably what I would... i don't have any causes or um anything else to bring up. um 01:29:40.46 Kurt Crenwelge Hell's enemy if you're into some metal music. 01:29:42.49 Frederick Oh yeah. If you're in a Catholic death metal, absolutely. Hell's enemy. Yes. 01:29:47.68 Kurt Crenwelge Who would have thought those two words in the same sentence, Catholic death metal. But there you go. Yeah. if you're If you want something new to add to your musical repertoire, your your various niches of music, you're looking you're looking for that perfectly curated end of the year wrap up for Spotify where you're like, yes, the what is the quintessential Catholic death metal banner achievement that I will unlock for the year? 01:29:52.35 Frederick Right. 01:30:10.86 Kurt Crenwelge Well, Hell's Enemy will be your way to do that. 01:30:11.63 Frederick Right. 01:30:15.58 Frederick I like it. 01:30:16.75 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. Well, ah Frederick, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast and and spending time with me and making this episode here for the month of April. So happy April, happy Easter, all all good tidings, one and all. 01:30:32.78 Kurt Crenwelge And I can't wait to bat have and I can't wait to have you back on the podcast, making even more interesting NPCs. 01:30:41.43 Frederick God bless you, Kurt. I appreciate you, brother. Thanks for having me on. And I pray that your podcast continues to grow and that we see many, many other very interesting characters and that people's D&D campaigns flourish with this creative creative energy that we're giving them, creative ideas. 01:31:01.63 Frederick I like what you're doing, brother.