00:00:05.02 Kurt Crenwelge Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best, unofficial Dungeons & Dragons podcast in my humbly biased opinion. 00:00:05.54 Bryce Anyway. 00:00:16.13 Kurt Crenwelge I've got an amazing guest for you this month here of November, but before we get to my mystery contestant, you know I have to do it, I have to leave you in suspense with the ad read. 00:00:27.47 Kurt Crenwelge Insert here in post-production where I talk to you about Plus One EXP and their cool RPG Zine Club subscription service. So if you're looking for brand new indie TTRPGs and such to play, why, you should go to PlusOneExp.com. 00:00:44.61 Kurt Crenwelge Use my referral code Randolph at checkout. a a R-A-N-D-O-L-P-H. If you want to save some coin on your purchase ah related to beard balms or beard RPGs and the like. 00:00:57.21 Kurt Crenwelge It helps to support the podcast when you use that affiliate code, don't you know? And, you know, ah Plus One EXP really wants you to know about RPG Zine Club. So why don't you go check that out? 00:01:08.53 Kurt Crenwelge Plus One EXP.com RPGZine.club All right. And so this is now the episode for November, and I'm once again joined by a fantastic guest. 00:01:23.38 Kurt Crenwelge And I've teased it out long enough. So hello, mystery contestant. Would you care to introduce yourself? Tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do? 00:01:32.12 Bryce Yeah, thanks, Kurt. My name is Bryce Wilson. i am the host of Big Flying Lizards, a dragon movie and television podcast. i am a big fanatic about dragons, and obviously that bleeds over into Dungeons & Dragons. I've been playing really ever since middle school, and i mean, I've just used that in my life. I write for fun. i Just really fantasy is a big part of my life, and I hoped for it to continue to be a big part of my life. 00:02:06.78 Kurt Crenwelge yes and uh i was very gracious uh to be a recent guest on your podcast where uh you know we we met uh through instagram you know as you were alluding to the overlaps of our subject matters and uh and you asked me to become a guest on your show and i did and you know i was like oh what about this episode you were like no how about this one huh and then finally where i was like you know what i love pete's dragon that's a good movie for my childhood have you done pete's dragon and you were like no i haven't actually so i i claimed that episode and we had a very lovely time on your show discussing the 1977 film dragon 00:02:48.35 Kurt Crenwelge pete's dragon 00:02:49.53 Bryce We did. I really enjoyed that conversation. I think we got a lot of really fun little snippets and clips from it. And I mean, as people can imagine, Dragon Media is sort of a narrow, so it does make it a little bit difficult. 00:03:03.75 Bryce It's funny because there's probably like five films that people really recognize and then the rest are like, what are you talking about? Is that even a thing? 00:03:11.02 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:03:12.12 Bryce So I appreciate being patient with me while we got that. And I think, as I said, we we made magic over there happen. 00:03:18.79 Kurt Crenwelge that's true yeah and i'll be all those ones that i named uh i'll be excited to see those episodes and then finally be able to join in the conversation to be like ah they see this is what i thought of this movie or oh interesting point you raise about that show so yeah it's a good time so 00:03:34.84 Bryce Or maybe we have a... Oh, sorry. i was going to say, maybe we just have like a WWE w style where we're like, and in the corner, Kurt comes in with the chair comment. 00:03:44.49 Kurt Crenwelge Whoa. Yeah. Well, but I mean, if you, if you ever need someone to fly in from the ropes, I suppose, you know, I could do that on the big flying lizard podcast. 00:03:53.91 Bryce I appreciate it, man. 00:03:56.66 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So um yeah, this podcast, you know, we're all about the dungeons and the dragons and such. And so I think it goes without saying that this, this next question being fairly easy. 00:04:08.34 Kurt Crenwelge ah Do you currently, or have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons before? 00:04:12.44 Bryce Yes, I have played Dungeons and Dragons like I alluded to before. Ever since, really, i think it was sixth grade I started playing. It was Pathfinder. 00:04:24.19 Bryce And to this day, Pathfinder will always have a special place in my heart just due to the level of customization that you can really create with your characters. And though it's a very... 00:04:36.75 Bryce Very much a good time. i do not recommend it for brand new players. I think that 5e is really one of the best to start new players with D&D. And that's where I've been able to convert a lot of my friends playing 5e. 00:04:46.08 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:04:49.45 Bryce I'm currently doing a DM. we're doing I'm currently a DM of a campaign of Eberron. And I'm a big fan of just the sandbox campaigns. 00:04:59.62 Bryce I know some people really like to have the railroads and have the quests. For me, i just... I'm passionate about creating a story with everybody and really just seeing where the story takes us. I i had very much a low loose idea of where the story was going beforehand. 00:05:16.77 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:05:16.99 Bryce And now I'm like, I don't even net recognize it, but I'm all for it. And I'm furiously scribbling away, trying to come up with good plot points for my players. 00:05:27.11 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I was going to say, with ah with a podcast name like you know the Big Flying Lizard ah podcast, surely the the main villains or ah NPC figures of your sandbox game probably are dragons. if Unless I'm mistaken, and you're you actually went against type, and you were like, nope, this is a world where no dragons exist, actually. 00:05:47.85 Bryce Well, Kurt, you might you're going to get some insider information. There might be quaddle that is a Jesus-like figure popping up in my campaign. So... 00:05:56.07 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Well, there we go. Yes, I've i've had an opportunity to who deploy at least one of those in a game I'm running, so that player may not know, but that's all for me to know and to to smile and wink, ah to give myself a wink in the mirror, I suppose. 00:06:12.55 Kurt Crenwelge ah Okay, cool. I know for me, I started in 4th edition, so I know you were saying like you know you started on Pathfinder. That may not be the best one to start with, and 5e is really good, and I agree 5e is a pretty good one to bring people in, but you know what? There is something magical, at least for me in my heart, of capturing the spirit of a heroic fantasy with 4th edition, you know being such a different you know, swing and pace of of the game for or for newcomers. So me and my college years, 4E is where it started. And then naturally I moved to 5E and I was like, okay, no, I do like 5E, but I do have a, 00:06:55.40 Kurt Crenwelge nostalgia for 4e and i am very curious to see how draw steel um comes out from mcdm productions which i just got a notification of my email the other day at the time of this recording that my final charge happened so i'm probably set to be receiving uh those books here soon so hopefully i'll get to promote those on social media maybe eventually find someone to run a game of draw steel with 00:07:21.53 Bryce Oh, that'd be awesome. I, that's really, so I don't know about you, Kurt, but how, not to derail or anything, but how many different TPRPGs have you played? Like I've done ah several, I've done the Star Wars, I've done the, 00:07:37.75 Bryce Lord of the Rings version. My buddy really wanted me to get into ah Call for Cthulhu. So I've played a variety just because one of my good friends, Colby Ford, he is a passionate GM of just multiple games and wants to experience all the different ones. 00:07:53.38 Bryce And honestly, he got bored of 5e. 00:07:54.34 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:07:56.84 Bryce That might be sacrilegious for me to say. but 00:07:59.94 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:08:00.56 Bryce um So I mean, how many I know you said 4 and yeah also obviously 5e, but how many different of these ones have you done? If you don't mind me asking. 00:08:08.15 Kurt Crenwelge That's a great question. I mean, I know there have been like one shots here or there. I've dabbled like a for a couple of games, like in Pathfinder, both the, I guess it would be considered one E and two E versions. 00:08:21.14 Kurt Crenwelge Um, I've also done, i back in college, I think there was a guy that was experimenting with a game system and we had a friend of ours try that out for a session. yeah, 00:08:34.44 Kurt Crenwelge And when I went to Dallas Fan Expo, I got an opportunity to sit in with the Fallout TTRPG after ah spending probably a good long while ah kit bashing and ah editing the rules for 5e to basically homebrew my own version of a Fallout TTRPG. 00:08:54.47 Kurt Crenwelge And then Modiphius came along and made like the Fallout TTRPG, and I was like, oh, this system makes more sense than what I was trying to cobble together. so um That was really cool to get to play that one, though I haven't ah you know had an opportunity to play more of that. And of course, I have a number of other games I've collected along the way, especially from you know my aforementioned ah sponsor, Plus One EXP, as well as um other games that I've gotten from a friend of the podcast. 00:09:23.60 Kurt Crenwelge uh, Alexi Sargent, who runs the, uh, Cloven Pine Games, uh, developer, and he's made a number of ones, including, like, The Great Soul Train Robbery, um, Autumn Triduum, uh, and, uh, Tales of the Night's Aspirant, I believe, is the new one he's working on. 00:09:41.04 Kurt Crenwelge Um, so yeah, there's a, there's a, a small number of other games that I've played, but I do recognize and promote and echo the sentiments of other people in the hobby that are like, you know, if we want to have good health in our gaming attitudes and ah design opinions and stuff like that, then we, 00:10:02.11 Kurt Crenwelge Just like we all need to eat, it's our fruits and vegetables. Even if we complain about our fruits and vegetables, we need a good gaming diet. So, you know, get your granola, get your crunch, get your, you know, loosey-goosey applesauce and all that good stuff. 00:10:16.45 Kurt Crenwelge Mix it all up and you'll do pretty, your gut will will thank you for for a better balanced diet. 00:10:23.70 Bryce And we can always return back to pizza, that good old juicy pizza of five. It's always ready. its 00:10:30.70 Kurt Crenwelge That's true. Very true. Yep. Food, at food, the food analogy works unless you somehow develop a food allergy or your doctor tells you you're not allowed to eat this thing anymore. and then you're just like, all right, well, I guess I'm not allowed anymore. 00:10:45.86 Bryce Absolutely. Sorry, I just I was curious about that. That was something I meant to ask last time, but sorry. 00:10:50.95 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, no, that's, it's Perfectly good question. And I think it also segues beautifully sort of into the namesake questions of the podcast here in the personal interview section. 00:11:01.80 Kurt Crenwelge um So, you know, we like to know about side kicks. We like to know about side quests. So the first of these, who happens to be your favorite NPC or sidekick character, whether they be from an RPG, a video game, movie, film, television, literature, et cetera. 00:11:17.77 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this character your favorite sidekick or NPC? 00:11:22.34 Bryce So funny thing, i really wanted to lean into as answering who's my favorite sidekick because truth be told, i am not a big fan of just the traditional Batman and Robin sidekick figure. I always feel like they're very whiny or just like too much of a lickspittle for the hero. And to me, that's always been just a little... 00:11:45.80 Bryce unattractive you might say for a particular thing so but at the same time i didn't want to be like just listing ah some sort of npc so i really thought about it and um i'm gonna say i came down on my favorite sidekick i think i'd have to say and it's a little bit of a stretch so bear with me is kuma from one piece uh those and i don't know if how familiar you are with one piece or not um 00:11:49.38 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:12:03.72 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:12:10.30 Kurt Crenwelge One Piece is the pirate show that has a thousand episodes. That's the claim to fame that I know of. And I did have an opportunity to meet a gentleman at Dallas Fan Expo, a Broadway star ah who is a guest or a voice. 00:12:26.01 Kurt Crenwelge a voice He voiced a character um on on One Piece. 00:12:30.85 Bryce Oh, awesome. 00:12:30.89 Kurt Crenwelge He used to play the genie on Broadway, and then he went on ah to ah to be in One Piece. So tell tell us more about your favorite character from One Piece. While I ah don't mind me, the man behind the curtain trying to find the answer so I can name drop this awesome individual. 00:12:50.02 Bryce So for those of you that are watching One Piece and are not caught up, a spoiler alerts, light spoilers, I guess I should say, but Kuma is considered to be the right hand of the Revolutionary Army. 00:13:02.36 Bryce So the main guy who's in charge is this mysterious figure who's the father of the main character, and then there's Kuma, who's sort of his... one like a spy but also just his big beefy barbarian and he goes in and everything he's doing he's fighting for first his it was his one true love that he never got to marry but then it became his daughter when his one true love died and he's just the one of the most selfless characters who has a tragic tragic backstory and I just love crying, apparently. 00:13:33.97 Bryce I love characters that have those just deeply sad backstories, because when they succeed, just gives those feelings of success so much more weight to it. 00:13:39.39 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Mm. 00:13:44.91 Bryce i I mean, i like the darker shows that are out there that have dark stories because, I mean, my philosophy is the darker the the night, the lighter the morning, you might say. so 00:13:54.96 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:13:54.97 Bryce And Kumail, I feel like, is the very definition of that, where he has so much going on that yeah like he has every right to become a villain or just every right to give up, but he perseveres and he's able to, to spoiler alert again, save those that he loves. Yeah. 00:14:12.07 Kurt Crenwelge We do like a good redemption arc for sure. 00:14:15.11 Bryce Oh, for sure. 00:14:16.36 Kurt Crenwelge And I, uh, and thank you, uh, for allowing me that time to look up the name of the gentleman that I met at Dallas fan expo and sat in at his panel. Major Attaway is, uh, the name of the voice actor. And, uh, you might recognize him from one piece as the voice of queen Urog, or it looks like U-R-O-U-G-E, and then also additional voices. um So yeah, I've had an opportunity to meet Major Attaway at the Dallas Fan Expo here. 00:14:47.76 Kurt Crenwelge ah Super nice, charismatic, wonderful gentleman. And for all you musical theater nerds out there and choir kids like me, like I was growing up, 00:14:59.56 Kurt Crenwelge was stunned to hear that like, Oh yeah, I was the genie, uh, on Aladdin on Broadway in New York city. So wild. 00:15:08.12 Bryce That's wild. I mean, that's. Absolutely. 00:15:10.92 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. And but Major Attaway, if you're listening here or on Instagrams or wherever, because I'm following you and all that, love to have you on the podcast. So no big deal. But I'm sure you would you would stun us all with your ah your luxuriously smooth sounding voice. 00:15:32.87 Bryce absolutely 00:15:33.85 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Yeah. not, not too, not too proud to beg, uh, you know, like, uh, like the temptations one saying in the, the fables of old, uh, and I keep bumping my microphone. Hopefully that's not, uh, doing anything in post-production anyway. 00:15:51.11 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And then to go to the flip side of the coin of the namesake of this show, what happens to be your favorite side quest or B plot element? Again, same criteria of like RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, history, etc. 00:16:09.64 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this your favorite side quest or your favorite B plot element? 00:16:15.66 Bryce So this particular side quest I think more just shows how great of a game it actually is because this side quest is just such an insane side quest you have to go on and there's so many levels to it and by the time you actually complete it you're like wait this is not even remotely a part of the main quest and i'm ah obviously alluding to skyrim skyrim is one of my favorite games of all time and uh my favorite side quest is the assassination of the emperor like it's a whole thing that you having to go down and it's just like a level of like a people fighting for their liberation and trying to take down just this evil dictator who's taken over their lands and 00:16:38.26 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. Mm. 00:16:59.18 Bryce Like I said, it's it's as good of a story that could have been its own game, but it's literally a side quest that you can choose to go on to. And you can also just completely ignore it if you so choose. 00:17:11.35 Bryce So for me, the fact that it's such a big side quest, again, like I love the side quest itself, but I also think it just supports the game of Skyrim so well that that's just such a major side quest to go on. 00:17:12.25 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Mm hmm. 00:17:25.83 Bryce And it's not even mainstream. 00:17:29.74 Kurt Crenwelge Right. I mean, talk ah talk about ah a franchise and talk about just a stellar title that, again, came out when I was in college. So I remember friends of mine disappearing for weeks on end playing this game. 00:17:44.66 Kurt Crenwelge And ah surprisingly, you know, I went for the other Bethesda titles. So I went more Fallout ah and instead of Skyrim. But my wife loves the Skyrims and stuff. And I know Oblivion Remastered just came out, so everyone's been loving that. And I know recently in the the time of this recording, I know one of the major um developers or or directors or writers or a very important figure to the history of the Elder Scrolls ah community has recently passed away. So certainly want to offer our condolences for him ah and and for the fans ah that love this game. 00:18:22.88 Kurt Crenwelge And yeah, And again, I've never played any of them, but seeing people do you know clips or or gaming things, it almost reminds me of, I guess, the thing I've seen. 00:18:35.04 Kurt Crenwelge Doesn't Oblivion open up with you're like the Emperor or someone comes to you in your jail cell and like helps you get out, but then gets murdered? and Because the Emperor's voice by... Patrick Stewart and he's getting you know the story goes he was given like you know a novel to memorize like for his character motivation and backstory and yet he's only in the game for like the very first tutorial mission and then he gets killed 00:19:04.83 Bryce I think that just speaks to how great the game is though. Like the fact that even just a little person, like not a little person, but just a little snippet of a character, it has such a big impact. 00:19:16.91 Bryce And it is sort of ironic because I, I recently did just start playing the remastered version and I was laughing at the fact, cause I'm like, Oh, my favorite side quest in the other game I played, I'm trying to hunt this guy down or I think it's his son or his grand. 00:19:30.11 Bryce I don't know how many years, 00:19:30.95 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, yeah. 00:19:32.13 Bryce but ah 00:19:32.41 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:19:33.75 Bryce Or who knows, maybe my character jumped games and is the one... Oh. 00:19:41.06 Kurt Crenwelge And there we go. Perfect. 00:19:42.18 Bryce that 00:19:42.33 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. The Skyrim, the game that keeps on giving, which now with Baldur's Gate three, I mean, I'm, I'm sure people are like, well, they're not going to maybe, well, I mean, Blarian's not going to add any more stuff to it, but you know, as a, as a time capsule of a game, it's like, you know, people will probably be still rolling up new characters for Baldur's Gate three, just as much as they do for, for Skyrim or, Oblivion remasters. 00:20:07.50 Bryce Hey, I wouldn't be surprised if they do what Elden Ring does and just keep dropping like DLC expansion expansion packs that you can buy and add on to the game. 00:20:16.33 Kurt Crenwelge and ah Well, I don't think Larian will, but I do think the modding community will probably just continue to explode and offer new things, like including rumors I've seen of like... 00:20:27.61 Kurt Crenwelge you know Some modding team is trying to basically recreate like a version of Strahd and Barovia as like a side mission or something like that. 00:20:39.30 Kurt Crenwelge So no no telling you know what exactly the modding community will come up with. I mean, if they can come out with like Fallout London and modders making like a whole Fallout game based in the UK. 00:20:52.23 Kurt Crenwelge So modders get it done, that's for sure. 00:20:55.62 Bryce They get it done and they're dedicated to making sure I never see the light of day ever. 00:21:01.03 Kurt Crenwelge Right, they keep us playing our old games that we love. 00:21:05.60 Bryce Gotta respect it. 00:21:07.28 Kurt Crenwelge Gotta to boot my game up again. Let me blow the dust off of it and get ready for a new new version. Yep. Perfect. And then the way that we round out the personal interview section, Bryce, what are you passionate about and why? 00:21:23.16 Bryce Again, i really thought about this for a while because i felt like, oh, I could be basic and say, i love dragons. I'm obsessed with dragons. But again, though, i I want to give a little more. And something I think that you and I can both relate with, just especially, and really anyone who is involved with ah games like Dungeons & Dragons, is I am obsessed and just passionate about lore. 00:21:44.37 Bryce Whenever I'm watching that, a show or reading a book, my favorite snippets, my favorite episodes are when you just really start getting digging deep and learning just the history of everything going on. 00:21:58.39 Bryce I there's several of my favorite shows like it's not even the actual storyline, but just finding out things that happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago and just really seeing why the things are the way they are or just getting that origin story, you might say. And it doesn't even have to relate to... um to games and to books. I think that I've always been really interested in history. I considered getting a history major in college. 00:22:27.03 Bryce Then I realized that ah I would only be able to teach history with apps, but I still was just obsessed with history. And I really just view history as real life lore that you get to just go through and dig up and I mean, it's sometimes it's so fascinating and sure, sometimes it's boring, but there's always I'm the type of person who will go in, try to find a history podcast or try to find just a good story that's like a narrative version of something that's happened and just start nerding out on what's going on. So I'd have to say that lore in general, just as a subject, is something that I'm passionate about and learn learning as much of it as I can. 00:23:06.92 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, no, I think it is. It is good. um I've never watched the show. I've just seen clips and I've seen cinema therapy do an episode on Ted Lasso and stuff like that. 00:23:18.49 Kurt Crenwelge um But I think there's something that Jason Sudeikis's character says about like being curious and uh you know being interesting and stuff like that so it's like i think that's how we grow as people um you know the the great saint uh irenaeus talking about like ah ah god as a human being fully alive um so i think it's like yeah when we're curious when we're passionate about things whether it's you know great things uh even in the small things i think being passionate about the small things and having like 00:23:49.57 Kurt Crenwelge the particular details. So it's like, you know, you go on Instagram and you see these people that are passionate about like, oh, I'm miniature painting. And it may be, maybe not even miniature painting for like Warhammer and stuff like that, which everyone would, would love. But it's like, you might see someone that's like, oh, I've been doing like model trains since I was a kid in the nineteen fifty s Uh, and you know, I just, I meticulously handcraft paint, uh, to make it look like the trains of my youth back then. And, you know, and you see these like Christmas villages or, um, or just people being passionate about like, oh, I'm going go through this old sandwich book and I'm going to make and recreate all these episodes, uh, uh, 00:24:32.20 Kurt Crenwelge these episodes of histories ah through sandwiches. ah You know, there's all kinds of create the creativity of the human spirit and what we will find to be passionate about and being able to see that through history, um you know, talking about like, you know, 00:24:48.72 Kurt Crenwelge different things that you know people enjoy doing of like oh we we used to do ice cream socials or when i was a kid we used to go to the roller rink and uh that was the cool thing to do and nowadays it's just like uh everyone's glued to their technologies and listening to their podcasts on uh on youtubes and and their podcast apps of choice which we appreciate we love that you're listening to us on youtube and your podcast app player of choice. But, you know, there's a whole world outside your bedroom. You should go check it out. 00:25:20.71 Kurt Crenwelge Hopefully when it's not blisteringly hot outside, make sure you wear sunscreen and a hat. My wife tells me to do that all the time. so general life advice, listen to your wife. 00:25:32.25 Kurt Crenwelge She generally knows but more than what you know. ah so yeah, you know, stay hydrated, get curious about the world, all that good stuff. 00:25:40.28 Bryce drink electrolytes. 00:25:42.43 Kurt Crenwelge electrolytes, Brondo. ah it's why It's what plant plants crave, right? 00:25:47.87 Bryce Exactly. 00:25:48.90 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:25:49.23 Bryce Hey, 00:25:49.55 Kurt Crenwelge Even though there's no dragons in Idiocracy that I'm aware of. 00:25:54.26 Bryce there might be one in the background. We can see. Hey, Terry Crews 00:25:57.91 Kurt Crenwelge If we zoom in over here, we can see one image of a dragon, therefore it qualifies for the Big Flying Lizards podcast. 00:26:05.24 Bryce Terry Crews gives off big dragon energy in that movie. 00:26:11.30 Kurt Crenwelge And on that note, I think it's time for us to head into some NPC creation. 00:26:12.47 Bryce yeah 00:26:22.91 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC creation is brought to you by you, our podcast audience and our patrons from Patreon. So now's the time when the show where we give a shout out to our comfortable patrons and above with a loud hurrah. 00:26:35.59 Kurt Crenwelge So to you my good buddy, answer to Blinsky, as well as good old mom and dad, we say cheers. I am pounding away on a Mountain Dew Baja Blast tropical lime. 00:26:46.45 Kurt Crenwelge You know, they say energy drinks are the way to keep you energized and and going through all the day. You drink two cans of this and you won't go to sleep until like three or four o'clock in the morning. 00:26:59.22 Kurt Crenwelge I guarantee it. Anyway, and that tangent aside, all these folks that I named, ah they're not only comfortable patrons, they're wealthy patrons, which means they get to introduce an element of chance to our random tables that we have here at NPC Creation. And we might get to hear some of their responses that they've provided today. 00:27:18.53 Kurt Crenwelge So if you want to learn more about all the various tiers of patronage that we have to offer here at the Levitating Platter, ah you should go Patreon page. ah patreon page Patreon.com forward slash Sidekicks and Sidequest. Check out the show notes below or go to the podcast website. 00:27:37.60 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Those are all the places that you want to go. Find out all the details. Help us to grow and expand our operations at the Levitating Platter in this Demiplane and Worlds Beyond. And Kofi, all that good stuff. 00:27:49.10 Kurt Crenwelge Bada bing, bada boom. All right. So now is the part of the show where we get to make up a character. We didn't explicitly discuss this before we started hitting record on all the microphones and stuff, but are you wanting to randomize an NPC today or do you have something pre-prepared and we're just going to kind of discover who the character is through the questions? 00:28:09.49 Bryce Hey, Kurt, I think it'd be a lot of fun to randomize it. I've seen a lot of people have a lot of fun doing that random i randomization, and i think it's a I think that's the way to go 00:28:19.27 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. Okay, well, if you've got your standard array of dice at the ready, whether they're physical or virtual, or, I mean, I guess they could be mental, you would just have to tell me a number, and then I would just look at the list and see what it is. But regardless, the first question we have to ask here in NPC Creation is, what's going to be the name of our character? 00:28:38.82 Kurt Crenwelge And let's roll a d20 and see what we get. 00:28:42.42 Bryce All righty. ah Natural one. 00:28:46.88 Kurt Crenwelge Natural one All right. We're off to a strong start as a fellow DMS. All right. So this answer was provided to us by previous guest, Ben Martin Mooney, Ren Gleon, which is spelled W R E N G L I O N. And it's pronounced Ren Gleon. 00:29:10.56 Bryce Ren Gleon. Perfect. 00:29:12.59 Kurt Crenwelge Indeed. Alright, and then the next question we have here, what is the ancestry of our character? This is where it can certainly swing wild with a d100 or a 2d10 roll to figure out what is the ancestry of as I scroll through the list. 00:29:26.42 Bryce let Let's go. i am so... oh Oh, we got a 62. A 00:29:34.48 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, Quaggoth. 00:29:37.46 Bryce Quagoth? I'm not even sure what that is. 00:29:38.85 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:29:41.37 Kurt Crenwelge ah So Quagoths are described as like the bear-like, bipedal creatures of the Underdark. They were unfortunately enslaved by the Drow or the Mind Flayers or the Dwargar, depending on who you ask. 00:29:59.22 Kurt Crenwelge um And so yeah, theyre they are these dudes who live in the Underdark. We've had a couple of Quagoths on the podcast. um 00:30:06.71 Bryce Okay. 00:30:07.30 Kurt Crenwelge So yeah, Renglion is a Quagoth. Okay, perfect. All right. 00:30:11.05 Bryce ah I'm digging it. um um I saw some pictures. 00:30:14.76 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Okay. And then the next thing we roll for is the job or role in society that Wrang Leon would have. This gets to be just a regular D10 role. 00:30:25.63 Bryce Okay, let's go. 00:30:28.92 Bryce That is a nine. 00:30:30.81 Kurt Crenwelge Nine. Okay. Your answer was provided to us by previous guest VTuber Mandy Quinn, a small scale fisherman. 00:30:41.38 Bryce A All right. That's 00:30:43.72 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And then let's see the ah final dice roll we get to do before we take a small pause on said dice rolling. We need to figure out the age range of the character. So to determine this randomly, we we roll a D8. 00:30:58.54 Bryce a five. ah right that's a five 00:31:03.24 Kurt Crenwelge Midlife, middle-aged, so we have a middle-aged Quagoth named Wranglion that's a small-scale fisher, and with all these details in mind, when you hear such descriptors given, describe the physical appearance of our fair Wranglion. 00:31:19.99 Bryce So when I think of Wranglion, I think of a Quagoth who knows what he is, but he also is sort of trying to fit in best he can. He just wants to live a fish simple life. 00:31:34.10 Bryce He wants to... So he probably has some old overalls that he wears, even though he doesn't need to. ah 00:31:40.34 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:31:41.51 Bryce he i He sounds like a bowler cap sort of guy. He wants to be wearing a bowler cap. ah 00:31:47.70 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:31:49.00 Bryce ah And, you know, i i think that he's really run of the mill. I don't think he really stands out in any other way other than he likes his boulder cat but bowler cap and he likes his overalls. 00:32:04.07 Bryce like 00:32:04.17 Kurt Crenwelge Overalls. Interesting. And, you know, I did pull up the Forgotten Realms wiki ah to at least give us what the on paper it says, ah kind of the lore of Quaigoths are. But of course, on this podcast and hopefully any other Dungeons and Dragons podcast you listen to, it should go without saying that, you know, ah kind of like from Pirates of the Caribbean, these are kind of more like guidelines than actual rules. 00:32:30.63 Kurt Crenwelge um So, you know, free to take or borrow or amend or change or put in or leave out of your campaigns. But according to the DEETS for a 5e Quagoth, it does say that they are... 00:32:45.95 Kurt Crenwelge You know, their most common language being under common, but, you know, we can always change some of those things and their favorite terrain being the under dark. So are we imagining that Ren Gleon is this small scale fisherman, but in the under dark or did he make his way up to the surface and he's having to adjust to life on the surface as a small scale fisherman? 00:33:04.22 Bryce Thank you. 00:33:08.78 Bryce You know, what I sort of imagine, and I think that it makes only the most sense, is he's not somebody who actually wants to still leave the Underdark, but he understands to live the simple life that he wants, he has to be in that sort of in-between. 00:33:22.51 Bryce So he makes it to some of those like lakes that are in the mountains that you can sort of do hikes into, but he doesn't actually leave the mountainscape itself, but he's coming at least from Under the Crust. 00:33:31.82 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:33:34.76 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so he's emerged from the Underdark to just the regular ah mountainous ah subterranean terrain. 00:33:43.57 Bryce Yeah, and exact. Couldn't have put it better myself. 00:33:46.60 Kurt Crenwelge Right, so he's left the Underdark, he's joined Fraggle Rock. 00:33:50.03 Bryce yeah Yes. 00:33:53.13 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, well, and you said, you know, like, uh, like the dwarves in the mountains of the big lakes in the mountains. I'm just wondering, um, you know, is what sort of community, ah you know, does he find himself in if he's wearing a bowler hat and overalls and he's this fisherman, 00:34:08.41 Kurt Crenwelge Is he living and working like in a more heavily ah dwarvish sort of a culture and society? Or is it like a mixed, you know, a mixed mountain subterranean community there? Or don't know, just kind of curious, like what you imagine the environment we would find him in. 00:34:27.16 Kurt Crenwelge Because, you know, could obviously give us a lore explanation of how he knows more languages than just undercommon. 00:34:27.33 Bryce So 00:34:33.68 Bryce what I imagine is that he sort of I mean, again, he's just a small scale fisherman. He he's his profession allows him to eat. So he even if people don't want to work with him, he he doesn't necessarily have to worry about it. 00:34:47.79 Bryce So I imagine that he sort of keeps to himself sort of a hermit outside of town. Like if dwarves are feeling charitable enough to work with them, they'll be willing to work with him, but I also imagine that they still like, oh, he's ah little bit of an odd one. like he's like He's good, but we're we still don't trust him. 00:35:02.93 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:35:05.16 Bryce We're just waiting for him to snap one of these days. And you he maybe wears that bowler cap and those overalls just to let the dwarves feel more at ease than anything else. 00:35:15.98 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say, what the name with a an ancestry name like Quagoth and your description of him being kind of more like a loner or someone that's like on the outside or not readily or fully accepted into the community, just because it was you know the the letter Q being on my my brain and thinking of the movie Jaws, do you imagine that Ren Gleon is kind of like a Quint sort of a character from Jaws? you know He's just kind of like the Hulia and i I know the sharks out in the water. It's like, ah, I know the best fishing spots on this lake. 00:35:49.61 Kurt Crenwelge And then the dwarves all kind of look at this Quagoth like, yeah, that Renegleon, he's an odd fellow. I don't know, but I guess if you're gonna, you know, go fishing or you're going to, ah you know, you need a boat or... 00:36:03.23 Kurt Crenwelge you're on the hunt for some sort of giant cave shark that's been terrorizing all the interior fishing or something like that, then, ah, yeah, Ren Gleon's your man. He'll go on that that crazy mission ah to certain doom. 00:36:18.95 Bryce Yeah, that's sort of what I'm envisioning. Also, I'm getting a little bit of like Logan in the Wolverine origin story, where he's like a little bit... ah like he's still He's still a big guy. 00:36:30.09 Bryce He's still a beast. like you Don't be there. 00:36:31.45 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. 00:36:32.48 Bryce so but At the same time, he's a little crazy, and he's willing to interact, but people also know, like hey, he he could snap at any moment. that The bowling cap can only protect you for so long. 00:36:40.97 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:36:44.66 Kurt Crenwelge It does say that typically their diet is supposed to be carnivorous, so subsisting on fish is a good call. And, you know, an average height for a Quagos is going to be, for for a male, is going to be anywhere between 6 and 7 feet, 250 pounds at the ah probably average weight. 00:36:50.89 Bryce oh yeah 00:37:01.20 Kurt Crenwelge So, I mean, yeah, he's he's he's a good, he's at least two dwarves tall. um So, I mean, you know, he he stands above ah everyone else in this community. 00:37:12.16 Bryce Oh, yes, literally. 00:37:16.62 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And then, ah you know, as we're discovering kind of these ah these aspects of the character and the community they live and the the way that they present and physically appear for role-playing purposes as dungeon masters, you know, it kind of helps us to to know, like, if we're going to present Ren Gleon in our game, what what three adjectives would best describe Ren Gleon as a character so that way you can, you know, be able to role-play them a little more easily. 00:37:45.73 Bryce I definitely, the first time we even came up, I i think stubborn. Like, he does what he wants to do, and he's, no one really can change his mind but his own. 00:37:50.40 Kurt Crenwelge stubborn. 00:37:56.72 Bryce I get the sense that he's a little, i don't, I'll say he's slow. He's slow and stubborn, but at the same time, he's content. I don't know if that's, like, he's he's not trying to get, he's he's true neutral. 00:38:12.61 Bryce He's 00:38:12.65 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah, I mean, it says default assumed alignment being chaotic neutral, but yeah, true neutral. Yeah, he's he's chilled out a bit now that he's gotten out of his frantic, dangerous Underdark environment. He can actually breathe and not have panic attacks or, you know, fears of of of being ah subjugated by some other ah militaristic evil faction in the Underdark or something like that. 00:38:40.50 Kurt Crenwelge He could just be himself. 00:38:41.91 Bryce Yeah, and he's not huffing those lava fumes over there, those volcanic fumes down under in the underdark. 00:38:48.15 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, true, true. Okay, alright, so slow stubborn, and content. Sounds like a pretty good salt of the... Well, I guess if it's a freshwater lake, there is no salt. 00:39:02.39 Bryce Yeah. 00:39:02.92 Kurt Crenwelge he's a He's a true blue crystal lake fisherman here in the mountain. So problem maybe maybe some sort of some sort of fisherman saying with the dwarves is probably what they say. It's like, i yo know he's he stands head tall over many of us, but you know what? You can't deny that you know he he knows these waters and he's a part of them. 00:39:28.26 Kurt Crenwelge So, yeah. I like it. All right. Good old, good old Ren Gleon. And now we get to go back to some dice rolling. 00:39:33.41 Bryce right 00:39:35.50 Kurt Crenwelge um 00:39:35.50 Bryce oh yeah 00:39:36.42 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, we got more dice to roll and more more things to discover. So we like all of our NPCs to have something cool on their person. So what's going to be a valuable item, piece of lore, secret, or ideal or concept that Ren Gleon would ascribe to? 00:39:52.10 Kurt Crenwelge ah We roll the D4 first for the category and then a D6 for the particular thing. 00:39:57.62 Bryce All righty. That is a three. 00:40:00.79 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, this going to secret that Renegreon has. Okay, and what's the D6? What secret is he holding? 00:40:06.52 Bryce I am excited for this. Wranglion has another one. 00:40:12.06 Kurt Crenwelge Another one. All right. Well, your answer was provided to us by our our Patreon supporter, our good friend Goblin Katie, a.k.a. Katie Downey. The secret that Rengrion is harboring. All right. 00:40:24.71 Kurt Crenwelge I have to pull my glasses out to read this. I already have glasses to wear. It's just I gotta a i got to focus up. Alright, Renglion, your entire village was wiped out when you and your family were controlled by Illithids and given the command to kill everyone. 00:40:39.67 Kurt Crenwelge You have carried this burden in silence, but have sworn an oath to destroy those responsible in hopes it will clear your conscience. 00:40:47.85 Bryce Okay, so I. 00:40:49.05 Kurt Crenwelge So how do you, does that fit in for our Renglion? 00:40:49.31 Bryce You know. 00:40:51.93 Kurt Crenwelge Like, how how does that make sense? If he's this small-scale fisherman, doesn't sound like he's on his way to go fight back against the Illithids, the Mind Flayers. 00:40:54.52 Bryce yeah 00:41:02.58 Bryce So the funny you say that, but I almost feel like it fits perfectly because he was controlled to be like this murderous creature before. And he decided to run away from that. He, that was the blood of his youth, you might say. And he's now middle-aged and though he has to do this, it's sort of one of those things where he doesn't really have a taste for blood. So we know he's knows he has to sort of, 00:41:26.89 Bryce do it eventually, but he's like, let me experience this piece until I have to go and do this bloody work at some point. 00:41:34.92 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, and ah just a quick question here to the the Google machines, because, you know, being in the Underdark, you know, Mind Flayers and Illithids, interchangeable terms. 00:41:47.33 Kurt Crenwelge ah but ah But let's see here. I just was asking, like, you know, ah trying to see, you know, oh, do Mind Flayers conquer Quagoths? I mean, because normally you associate Quagoths, unfortunately, being subjugated by, believe it's the Drowl, 00:42:03.13 Kurt Crenwelge But according to this quick summary here, it does say, yes, Mind Flayers, also known as Illithids, often conquer and enslave Quagoths. Here's why. Psionic powers, Mind Flayers possess, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. They use their powers to dominate Quagoths and make them their thralls. 00:42:18.59 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:42:23.85 Kurt Crenwelge quake oing physically strong and relatively common in the underarrk make suitable candidates for these roles and qua goth vulnerability they' are fierce and dangerous hunters they' ah frequently prey for other underdark creatures including mindf flaers and droowught their society particularly those who follow the beast, can be susceptible to manipulation, especially by those with magic or powerful mental abilities. 00:42:45.94 Kurt Crenwelge Drow Enmity. Drow, another powerful Underdark race, often enslave Quagoths and often incite them against other surface elves, further pushing them towards servitude or conflict. 00:42:56.64 Kurt Crenwelge In essence, Mind Flayers exploit the Quagoth's physical prowess and relatively simple society to add them to their vast armies and of thralls and expand their dominion in the Underdark. So... Again, that's lore as written and summarized here by the by the machine. so So you think it goes in line that ah you know his particular community was ah assumed or enthralled by this colony of mind flayers, and yet he was the only one that managed to escape and make his way closer to the surface. 00:43:27.70 Bryce Yeah, I think it sort of makes sense. I don't know. i don't I mean, maybe we just maybe there's an instance that did cause him to break free. Maybe he had to kill one of his own family members that was maybe he was an overseer over his people in his and it just allowed him to break free for a split second. And he used that to just escape. 00:43:49.31 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. 00:43:49.89 Bryce Right. 00:43:51.51 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah, because I don't know if and if many Quaigoths are actually being fed little Mind Flayer tadpoles to be seromorphized into other Mind Flayers, because it seems like they'd be good muscle, like, yeah, mind control, it's like, you lumbering thing, do manual labor and build all my stuff and be my guards to, like, you know, bully the other things around, so, yeah, okay. 00:44:15.51 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so he had to, okay, so he had to do this dark thing, and then yeah, he oh so he managed to escape and run. So, also seems like he'd be a good NPC ah to be like a, oh, you don't know where the Mind Flayer colony is? I'm kind of reticent to give you this information, but I'll mark it on your map as to where the Mind Flayer colony is. 00:44:36.18 Bryce Oh, for sure. And he could, even depending on how well you roll with them, be willing to be your guide down to there because he has to eventually so like follow through with that quest of his. 00:44:49.75 Kurt Crenwelge yeah true yeah if he can if he can somehow fulfill his oath that he's sworn um in order to clear his conscience with uh with getting revenge on all these mind flayers if you're if you're itching for some npc randomly to be able to introduce a whole mind flayer subplot to your your campaign well here's your npc to do it uh But along, I mean, it's a juicy secret. 00:45:15.58 Kurt Crenwelge And maybe that's what you might be tempted ah to offer as the side quest, because all of our NPCs have to have their little gold exclamation points over their head to be able to offer a side quest. 00:45:27.02 Kurt Crenwelge You might be, you know, well reasoned to have that be the side quest, but maybe like, you know it is a secret. So maybe he's not going to let that one out until a couple of other interactions ah to finally come clean about that. 00:45:42.23 Kurt Crenwelge So if you want to roll for ah side quest that maybe perhaps Ren Gleon is willing to ah to give to the player characters or offer up, um let's see perhaps maybe what kind of side quest ah he'd be willing to offer. 00:45:56.20 Bryce All right. And which die was that again? Apologize. 00:45:58.59 Kurt Crenwelge The last one, D12. 00:46:01.06 Bryce The D12. 00:46:04.23 Bryce And that's a 12. 00:46:05.80 Kurt Crenwelge And that's a 12. 00:46:08.41 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, um let's see if this makes sense. Let's see. It's a sewer cleanup. This is given to us by our good friend Frederick from Hell's Enemy, the metal band. 00:46:21.41 Kurt Crenwelge Let's see. It's a sewer cleanup quest, but it's full of monsters that are exotic and have no business being there. Since he's a small-scale fisherman, I don't see him maybe offering up really a sewer side quest unless it did something to affect the fish or something. 00:46:39.04 Kurt Crenwelge Is that plausible or do you want to re-roll the D12 and maybe see if there's a different one ah that maybe speaks more relevantly? 00:46:47.83 Bryce I'm open to it, but I could also make the argument like the dwarves have the sewer system sort of pouring into his lake and there's some just monsters that are invasive species that are really affecting his fish. And like I mentioned earlier, he probably doesn't get that much trade but with the dwarves because they are just so distrustful. And if he wants to send the, he probably would offer the party just like, hey go take care of these beasts for me. And I might have something worth trading for it sort of situation. 00:47:21.25 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Okay. So, ah so interesting bit of world building and lore as well being like, Oh, the, the dwarves of this mountain, they built a great city here. It's by the lake and, you know, dwarves like to drink and, you know, and live their lives and all that stuff. And they make, uh, garbage and refuse and trash. 00:47:38.89 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, but unfortunately it's all draining into the lake, which, uh, Ren Gleon depends upon in order to fish, uh, And so really the dwarves are just hurting themselves by not ah you know doing better water treatment stuff here for themselves. 00:47:52.94 Kurt Crenwelge um But okay, sewer cleanup quest full of monsters. ah And interestingly enough, they are exotic and have no business being there. an interesting thing we could tie into his secret. 00:48:06.27 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe it's freaking him out as well because it's starting to be like, those are intellect devourers that are in the sewer. Like there are other like trans, there's a mind witness in there. 00:48:18.09 Kurt Crenwelge ah you know, there's these creatures that have been, cranium rats all experimented upon, uh, by the mind flayers. And they're being slowly introduced up into the sewers as a way for them to make their first a covert strike to try and ah lay siege to and take claim over this dwarven city. But the dwarves are too busy um in their halls drinking and mining and making merry and ignoring the threat looming beneath them. 00:48:48.70 Bryce Exactly. 00:48:51.34 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, I like it. Yeah, so what seems like a simple sewer cleanup quest, you're finding more and more of these monsters ah that are aberrations, tinkered and messed and experimented on ah by the Mind Flayers. 00:49:06.33 Kurt Crenwelge um And then, yeah, okay, so we get to the end of the quest, and the peopleep of the party reports back to Rencleon, and they let him know, like... hey, we cleaned up the sewers and you know they report back on everything. 00:49:19.28 Kurt Crenwelge what How is Renegleon going to award the party? How is he how is he going to deem their, or maybe not deem, but how is he going to present them with the the reward of their quest? 00:49:32.91 Bryce who i i feel like he'd need to be coaxed for like the juicy bits on where the Illithid are, but I feel like i feel like the Illithid wouldn't necessarily be as interested maybe in some thing that he would consider as treasure, whether that is just a rare, just a particular rare earth material or a rare exposit that he didn't let the Illithid know and he could tell the party down like, hey, this is where you can get 00:49:40.64 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:50:02.58 Bryce It's a platinum mine or some sort of ah thing that his village was mining before they were conquered and taken over by the Illithid. 00:50:11.18 Kurt Crenwelge Oh 00:50:11.27 Bryce And that sort of sends them down into Underdark where they could learn about the Illithid down there and sort of tying together. i don't know about you, Kirk, but I am a big fan of starting the, like having these simple quests available for my party that turn into just game changer quests down in the road 00:50:31.16 Kurt Crenwelge oh yeah, for sure. It's like, yeah, you're you're in Act 1 of the Dwarven City, and it's like yeah your friends who have already, ah maybe because you've run this campaign one other time or two, they're like, oh, oh yeah, ah written that in that interesting fisherman, yeah, you should you should totally go talk to him if you want to know how to really deal with the things that are coming up in Act 3. 00:50:52.21 Kurt Crenwelge Like, you better go talk to him. 00:50:53.75 Bryce Exactly. 00:50:53.85 Kurt Crenwelge Like he's going to give you the the juice that you need. um Yeah, that's really fun. ah Okay, so something interesting that his community of Quagoths were working on or mining or had access to before they were all enthralled ah by the Mind Flayers. 00:51:11.09 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that could be like Mithril, Platinum, Adamantine, ah Any number of invented ah minerals or metallurges, metallurgical alloys or whatnot. Yeah, you could have a lot of fun with that. 00:51:26.82 Kurt Crenwelge It'd be interesting, yeah interesting point of contention as well, I guess, with the dwarves, especially if you introduce like a whole mining faction and they're like, oh, we're looking for like, you know, the next big thing. 00:51:38.51 Kurt Crenwelge and then, you know, one of the characters is mouthy in the tavern and suddenly like, uh, the mining company is bearing down on the adventuring party because they're like, Hey, we heard a rumor that, you know, where this like big pocket of this thing is, where is it? 00:51:52.23 Kurt Crenwelge and so then you've got like these, uh, capitalistic, uh, miners, uh, that are miners. M I N E R S not capitalistic miners, children. 00:52:04.12 Kurt Crenwelge Um, it's ah it's ah It's a mining faction run by children. ah 00:52:09.39 Bryce Good clarification. 00:52:09.56 Kurt Crenwelge No, just... 00:52:10.23 Bryce They're responsible. 00:52:11.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. They're dwarven children. They're much more mature than human children. so yeah They're sober. Their parents are just perpetually drunk. so they're They're the only ones that can be trusted with the business. 00:52:24.60 Bryce they're responsible 00:52:25.82 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah interesting twist that, you know, potentially you could, you could ah put into play. Yeah. There's a lot of different angles um that you could cover that for sure. So, okay. 00:52:37.85 Kurt Crenwelge So you, so knowledge about like some sort of very valuable material that's down there in the underdark that certainly this dwarven community would be interested in, or just the player characters being interested in. 00:52:51.14 Bryce Yeah, and I feel like he's sort of the person who just wants to stay out of the way of everyone. And since he is such a intimidating and not so typically friendly, nobody's going to go up and be like, hey do you know where I can find some myth real down there? Sort of situation. i felt like that's a good... ah He's got some... 00:53:12.62 Bryce He may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knows exactly what he needs to do. and Well, not in what he needs to do, but he knows exactly where the treasure needs to be for the party to move along. 00:53:23.14 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, perfect. Okay, so that's the reward. But we also have to consider the opposite. What's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? 00:53:34.13 Kurt Crenwelge so So with my thinking, since this is directly affecting his business because of the pollution and all these creatures, it seems like it's going to move that plot forward as far as like, okay, if the players ignore this, suddenly there's more... 00:53:49.42 Kurt Crenwelge um abominations and aberrations that are appearing in the dwarven city and they're attacking random people or people are starting to disappear and being dragged down below ah into the and deeper into the underdark and ah you know And then, I don't know, yeah. 00:54:07.89 Kurt Crenwelge um It sounds like that happens, or maybe ah does Red and Gleon get spooked and you know wants to flee because he starts hearing stories about like oh yeah brains walking around on legs, or you know evil-looking rats, or an ooze that mimics and pretends to be ah people and and and tries to lure people into the sewers and and such. 00:54:10.35 Bryce Yeah. 00:54:32.95 Bryce Yeah. And we could even say that maybe Wranglion tries to take it on himself and go and do it. And I don't know if these ah intellect devourers sort of relate to the Illithid that like, oh, one of your guys have escaped. And the Illithid being so proud that they are like, oh, we can't let that happen. And they just concentrate all of their firepower on that village area and sort of just zombie-esque Call of Duty zombie just keep waves and waves of different of the ilk of the Illithid. And it's one of those things that 00:55:06.35 Bryce You either tear it out at its roots at the beginning, or you're dealing with just constant waves of all sorts of underdark creatures until you're overwhelmed. 00:55:16.21 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:55:19.04 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, no, doing like a, like a horde mode siege, uh, of like, yeah, just waves of, you know, you, you get minion stat blocks and you're like, here's a, it's like, ah the black plague. 00:55:32.22 Kurt Crenwelge What is it? That black plague, black plague video game where it's just like the sea of rats, but it's all cranium rats that are like descending on the city. 00:55:39.87 Bryce Thank you. 00:55:40.93 Kurt Crenwelge Or it's like, you know, little, little skittering and like intellect devourers or, you you know, again, mind witness or two flying through the city. so So it could potentially lead to this city ah being readily attacked and overtaken ah by the Mind Flayer colony. And so their empire grows, they claim another city. 00:56:04.98 Kurt Crenwelge And now this starts to ripple out in your game world because now it's like, oh, the Mind Flayers have declared war on the surface. And this is their first strike. This was the first city to fall. Like, what's the next one? 00:56:16.86 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe your game master, dungeon master, needs a new, exciting way to kick off the brand new campaign. And this gets to be like your prologue ah story before the actual campaign ah kicks off or something like that. 00:56:31.29 Bryce Yeah. And it could also be just potentially I'm i am When I am a dungeon master, my players will attest to this. I tend to be unforgiving in some ways. 00:56:43.18 Bryce And this could be like potentially like a level 15 quest that you're getting oh, you ignored poor little fisherman. Well, look, guys, now you're dealing with this invasion. 00:56:50.83 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:56:53.64 Bryce So it is like an end game rather. Or i love the idea of it being a new game, but it could also potentially just be an end game for ah the campaign. 00:57:01.96 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. It's like, especially, you know, if you ran this as a, I mean, you you know, you could introduce this certainly as your, um, uh, you know, like, Oh, I'm, this is our game of the week. And, you know, here's our new city. And here's this interesting Quagoth fisherman as a random NPC that, you know, would probably raise a few questions and your players would more than likely, uh, want to go talk to Ren Gleon, but you could also probably set this as uh, as a one shot. 00:57:29.90 Kurt Crenwelge And, you know, explain that it's like the prologue one shot. 00:57:30.08 Bryce oh 00:57:32.82 Kurt Crenwelge And so, you know, if these characters survive the onslaught in the in the city of overrun by the mind flayers and their army, um that can be very cool and cinematic as far as like, you know, the bowels of the earth open up and pouring out or all these mind flayers and all this stuff that are starting to take over the city and everyone's fleeing. 00:57:54.96 Kurt Crenwelge And then when you introduce the new campaign, it's like, oh, I was one of the dwarven ah survivors and I've been trying to warn everyone here on the surface of like what's coming, but they don't believe us because, oh, you're just a dwarf that lives in the mountain. What do you know about the wider world and the problems that we're dealing with up here? So could be very, could be very fun. 00:58:14.86 Bryce Oh, I exactly. 00:58:17.75 Kurt Crenwelge All right, there we go. So those are your failure conditions for sure. And I mean, um We've made our way through all the preliminary basic, I feel like encapsulating questions to create an NPC, but we do have some optional questions. If you think that Ren Gleon deserves you know more nuance and more depth as a character, or do you feel like he's pretty good and you're ready to move on to the next section? 00:58:43.14 Bryce I think he has everything he needs to be a good quest starter NPC. 00:58:48.53 Kurt Crenwelge All right, perfect. Well, with that determined, we're now going to head into ah random him encounter. 00:59:02.04 Kurt Crenwelge And insert here for final ad read from Zencaster, the proud sponsor of this podcast that enables me to do all the recordings and use all the tools for the editing. 00:59:12.49 Kurt Crenwelge It's pretty sweet. So if you're looking to start your own podcast or switch over from some other podcast a thing that you're using, you're like, gosh, man, I wish I had something cool. like Zencastr in my life. Well, good news. You can use my code at Zencastr.com forward slash pricing. 00:59:29.36 Kurt Crenwelge Use my code side KQ podcast at checkout. And then you can save 30% off your first month of any paid Zencastr plan and doing such a thing would give me a kickback. It would help me out and it would help the show. 00:59:43.19 Kurt Crenwelge So again, Zencaster.com forward slash pricing, use the code side, cake, you podcast, save the 30% off your first month of any paid Zencaster plan. Any pain, you know, the words, you know, the deals. Thank you very much. And back to the podcast. 00:59:59.57 Kurt Crenwelge Alright, so now we're here in the random encounter section, so it's where we get to do the roleplay vignette scene with the character we've made today. So I think Bryce is going to do a fantastic job as this rather ah could content, but also slow and also stubborn Quagoth named Renglion. But the question becomes, who am I going to be in the scene? 01:00:21.69 Kurt Crenwelge Am I going to be one of my adventuring characters that's going to get this side quest to go clear out the sewers? Am I one of these other dwarven lake fishermen that talks with Renglion? Maybe he's come into town into the one of the many, many drinking halls of this place and is you know resting after a day of perhaps not successful fishing? 01:00:44.95 Kurt Crenwelge Or is it, ah you know, Renglion escaping the Underdark in his past in a flashback sort of a thing? Or I don't know. What sort of scene are you interested in to showcase Renglion in? 01:00:57.56 Bryce Kurt, I think it's only fair that I turn this on you and say, you have to roll a D4, and if it's a 1, it's the party. If it's 2, the dwarves. If it's 3, it's out, ah running out, and a 4, you get to pick between the three. Yeah. 01:01:14.95 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, alright, so I will i have ah my virtual dice roller that I'm going to pull up and I'll make sure to show it to the the screen ah so he can be the judge of my honesty of dice rolling. And so I click the d four and it says 1. 01:01:31.31 Bryce It's a one. 01:01:32.51 Kurt Crenwelge So that means again that we're going to be doing the scene with the adventuring character, is that correct? 01:01:32.76 Bryce Absolutely. 01:01:39.52 Bryce absolutely 01:01:41.02 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. ah So as you very graciously said, oh i'm ah I'm a listener of this podcast and I know a thing or two about it. So do you happen to have a ah preferred NPC adventurer that you would like to hear from with Renglion? Or shall I go through the Rolodex? Because perhaps the episodes you've listened to um you know are older and not ah ones where we've had probably some updates to some of the NPCs um of the roster. 01:02:10.70 Bryce Let's go through the roster one more time just to freshen it up. 01:02:13.09 Kurt Crenwelge sure Sure thing. Yeah, of course. We'll go through that roster. So we've got Duncan. He's the recklessly brave ah fighter battle master per BG three of the group. 01:02:24.59 Kurt Crenwelge You know, he's ah no task too small, no feet too daring sort of a guy. He's, he He is ah chaotic good on legs, and he just tumbles his way from one adventure to the next. 01:02:36.46 Kurt Crenwelge We've got Sonya. She's the warrior woman. She started off as a barbarian, and then she found Axis, the revenant priest, and she became a paladin as well, ah who so ah who serves a god who wishes to redeem the undead. 01:02:49.55 Kurt Crenwelge We have Korak. He's the lawful evil arcane trickster roguish dwarf. We've got Chrisley. She's the herbalist botanist wood elf druid from the Woad. 01:03:00.35 Kurt Crenwelge And she was doing her adventures and then she found a strange another wandering ah ah prophet and priest of an ancient bygone civilization. 01:03:11.59 Kurt Crenwelge And she now is a cleric of living memory as well as to being a druid. We have Orion. He is the astral elf illusionist wizard ah from the astral sea. We also have Agape. 01:03:26.87 Kurt Crenwelge She is the lilac colored tiefling. Sorlock started off as a wild magic sorcerer ah influenced by the Feywild then eventually made her own ah arch Fey warlock pack with her buddy that she incorrectly refers to as Prosperina when a real name is Prosperina. 01:03:45.01 Kurt Crenwelge Um, and then we've also got, um, Lifespell the Necromancer. He is our little old man forest gnome a necromancer. 01:03:55.95 Kurt Crenwelge ah But he's he's ah he's gotten some upgrades, so he has a few more skeletons in tow. He's got Octavius, of course, his skeletal manservant. But he's also got Get Over Here, Minotaur skeleton, who works as his pack meal. And he also has Slippin' Jimmy, the bugbear skeleton ah with the muscly arcane arm. So like one of his skeletal arms has been ah replaced with like an arcane arm. 01:04:20.11 Kurt Crenwelge um That's life spell. He's got that whole posse of skeletons rolling with him. And then we also have Amblin Mithril Shaper. She's newbie greenhorn dwarvish bard. 01:04:33.10 Kurt Crenwelge um She's only been featured in one other episode thus far. um So I like to just think that she's chilling in the prickly Pete's pouring station. But if you want her to be in this adventure, you can. Or if one of those other characters was exciting, you can name them. Or if none of them sounded interesting, and by golly, they've all been on enough episodes to have such gravitas. But if none of them catch your fancy and you want... 01:04:58.12 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know, a dragonborn or a half-dragon or something like that adventurer character, then we could make them do. Honor of Big Flying Lizard Podcast. 01:05:08.09 Bryce here's the thing. It's not that I don't like any of them. There's so many of them that I like. I feel like Duncan is the most appropriate for it, but I want to see where Lifespan takes this. i want I'm really curious on how he would go about this whole excursion. 01:05:23.10 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, you want to hear from Life Spelling Crew. 01:05:25.39 Bryce Yes, Lifespell. I think Lifespell would be a fun little encounter during this whole side quest. whole time southquest 01:05:36.52 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Would you care to set the scene or shall I set the scene? 01:05:43.09 Bryce ah By all means, this is your world. These are your people. 01:05:46.71 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. Where we last left our hero, Lifespell the Necromancer, and his skelly boys, his skeleton crew that he has with him. They were in the swamps up on the surface, and they met with a rather interesting tortle, a blacksmith, and they were able to negotiate for some ah old weapons and such by taking care of a evilina's side quest uh which was done ah you know and uh life spell was happy to do it of course uh and through the series of that adventure again he's what's what's life spells what's life spells modus operandi he wants a skeleton army well where do you go to get the best skeletons well obviously you need dwarves you need a lot of dwarves you needed a lot of dwarves who have a necropolis spell 01:06:39.43 Kurt Crenwelge capital city built into the mountain, of course, which is where you would go. Um, you know, they, they drink in their many drinking halls to honor their sacred dead alongside their bones. 01:06:51.08 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, some of them even going through uh, the ceremonial cleansing process after their death to have, uh, only the most revered warrior skulls, uh, turned into sacred communal drinking vessels that only get busted out at the holy times of the year. 01:07:07.22 Kurt Crenwelge Um, you know so So they claim in this society where they they drink, they fight, they party, and they they live life hard ah to the fullest. 01:07:19.36 Kurt Crenwelge And so the camera pans in and you know we see Lifespell and his ah and is skeletons walking behind him. Of course, you know there has been some work done with Octavius who does kind of look like a very cloaked up uh, manservant, you know, wearing, like, you know, very covering robes, and he has his top hat, uh, and he's got his, uh, mask work and stuff like that, so he just kind of looks like a little sort of a, only unsettling sort of a butler manservant, but not too bad. The other ones are a little more lumbering, but thanks to, uh, 01:07:54.73 Kurt Crenwelge you know, Evelina and some other ah work, they're able to get some armor and some other stuff ah to kind of make, you know, our minotaur skeleton and our bugbear skeleton with his magical arm a little more presentable for polite society, we'll say. So ah the the road ah from the outside into the mountain to head to this necropolis city, which, you know, life spell has just like Diamonds in his eyes the diamonds that he needs for all the resurrections of the skeletons to be able to use in his army 01:08:28.43 Kurt Crenwelge He'll have to see how he contends with their laws here of how they treat their dead, but he doesn't care about that now. He's walking alongside the road, which leads by this giant lake. And very interestingly, he sees another big fellow and he's initially thinking like, oh, ah great, and an easy snag, like a big undead that I can grab now. Oh, oh, this one has fur on him. oh he's he's rather interesting. So he he's start he's he's puttering and muttering and he goes, ah, you. 01:08:57.25 Kurt Crenwelge oh ah who Oh, you you're not undead. No. wound Who are you? Oh, yeah. So he's just muttering and being an old man, but he he's startled. 01:09:07.56 Kurt Crenwelge You see the other skeletons or the other figures lumbering with him stop behind him. ah But he looks at ah he looks at Ren Gleon and sort of like bumps into him. But ah what what scene is happening? What is Ren Gleon been doing as Lifespell and crew have been ah approaching? 01:09:27.16 Bryce So Wranglion has been, he has all of his baits in front of him and he's trying them all out and none of them are working right now because of the monsters that are going there. So I imagine he's been at the lake for several hours, no fish in sight, no bites. 01:09:45.03 Bryce So he's a little agitated, a little annoyed, but that's what he's really been doing. Just trying to get some sort of bite right there. So when ah when he hears somebody ask, I ask who he is they're like, Wenglion is my name. 01:10:08.62 Kurt Crenwelge ah Oh, Ringleon, very good. you i This is a dwarvish necropolis, is it not? 01:10:17.76 Bryce Yes. 01:10:19.87 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, and you you you are not a you are not a dwarf. No, you're much bigger. Kind of like my guys. Here, and he points behind him. He says, get over here. 01:10:30.77 Kurt Crenwelge And then ah the minotaur skeleton kind of walks forward a little bit, you know lumbering with like a big chest strapped to his back that's jangling with a bunch of like old rusted weapons that ah Life Spell is... 01:10:44.21 Kurt Crenwelge all about the reduce, reuse, recycle philosophy of life, especially when it comes to bones and skeletons. So he's got all their weapons ready for his skeleton army. And then of course, and then he says, you slipping Jimmy. 01:10:56.78 Kurt Crenwelge yeah And he says, and then the, the, the bugbear skeleton walks forward with his arcane arm. And he says, and then of course my men servant Octavius and then Octavius will bow and lift of the ah top hat and quickly put back on his head. 01:11:11.97 Kurt Crenwelge He said, you have a fancy hat too. Not many, ah fisher bears wearing top hats when they fish. Not at least not on the surface. 01:11:20.82 Bryce You see him just put one of his hooks that he's been working with onto it, take another one off to switch over to his fishing line, which I like to imagine that his fishing line is regular size. So it is just looks like he's big man, little fishing hook. 01:11:38.57 Bryce But he's like, you have lots of men. 01:11:46.26 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, I'm in the process of building my own army, you see. Mm-hmm. 01:11:53.28 Bryce on 01:11:54.99 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 01:11:56.24 Bryce Would you be interested in hunting down some foul desecrates? 01:12:09.51 Bryce Desecrotes? Desecraters. yes sir desecrators yes desecators 01:12:17.10 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Interesting. and So he'll do a history check and, you know, maybe he does middle of the road. ah So as far as like what he could be referring to and as as far as like Red and Glow on himself, because perhaps he hasn't encountered many Quagos before. 01:12:34.53 Kurt Crenwelge So he's like, do you mean to tell me that there are some drow figures in the in this necropolis? 01:12:43.49 Bryce um 01:12:44.29 Kurt Crenwelge I thought it was for dwarves. That doesn't make sense. 01:12:47.36 Bryce I mean, I imagine at the word of drought, you'd see him like tense and like start looking around like a little drought. No, 01:12:56.77 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh but he he starts looking around too as a confused old man because he thinks like now there's drow around. 01:12:57.05 Bryce Big 01:13:02.17 Kurt Crenwelge He's like, well, they have very good skeletons, you know, very light and and bendy and they can do many acrobatic feats. 01:13:10.53 Bryce no no big Brains with legs. 01:13:17.21 Kurt Crenwelge Brains with legs. 01:13:18.78 Bryce Brains with legs. 01:13:21.26 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:13:23.49 Bryce Desecrate fish. 01:13:23.80 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:13:26.58 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, well, I have no need for fish. I mean, the the skeletons on fish are all right. I mean, I suppose if I needed a a skeletal navy of some type at some point, but no, no, no, not mermaids. And he starts rattling on about like, ah you know, being an an old man and just kind of like going off on a tangent. 01:13:45.97 Kurt Crenwelge ah Maybe Octavius bumps him, and that gets him out of his mode of thinking. And so he's ah ah he looks like he wants to like dress down Octavius, but then he realizes you know ah that he's talking to you, and you're mentioning something about, oh, you said something. So brains. Well, I mean, that's... 01:14:04.74 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, that's sort of my wheelhouse. I mean, I prefer skeletons because they're little more programmable, not as bitey-bitey as the the undead flesh kind of some of my other colleagues who are so insistent on the superiority of, well, of flesh undead. 01:14:24.76 Kurt Crenwelge But I, but the bones, the bones tell no lies. I say it. 01:14:30.90 Bryce bones right 01:14:33.38 Kurt Crenwelge Aye, bones. They make good fish hooks. Don't you know? 01:14:39.62 Bryce so 01:14:39.68 Kurt Crenwelge I remember when I was a little boy forest gnome village, and yeah, we used to use bones for all kinds of things. Come to think of it, that's probably where got my whole reasoning for wanting to be a necromancer. 01:14:53.83 Kurt Crenwelge And then he just he kind of sits there as an old man and just stares off into space like he's caught lost in a daydream. And what does Wren Gleon say to kind of get him back in the moment before he just starts kind of drooling and maybe slowly starting to nod off because like, oh, he hasn't had his nap yet today. 01:15:11.65 Bryce So out of one of his pockets on his overalls, he pulls out a small, small little bag and he just hands it to him. He's like, you take out brains. 01:15:27.32 Bryce I tell you where to get more of this. And he just drops and... You can tell, yeah, it's some of the material from the mine that he previously worked with in another life. 01:15:45.35 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay, so yeah, he, uh, so, uh, life spell gets snapped out of it, he looks at this bag, he examines it, he does some, uh, maybe he does an arcana check, he does really well, he's like, oh, interesting arcane properties of this, are very unique, le and then he does, he, like, does a little taste to his tongue, he's like, ooh, a little zingy there, and he's, like, experimenting, he's like, ah yes my my army, it seems like it has components, maybe fulfills some things, but, 01:16:14.84 Kurt Crenwelge Very wide range of... ah It seems to hold an arcane charge. That could be very useful for my weaponry and my armor. Components? 01:16:26.03 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Yes. Renglion. Yes. Okay. So the brains in the sewers that are causing a ruckus for your fish... And if I get them, then, well, I guess brains don't really have skeletons, but anything I find, I keep, right? so this is I mean, surely maybe the dwarves haven't found all of their skeletons. Maybe there's, maybe they won't mind a few other skeletons when the sewer's going missing, you think? 01:16:56.40 Bryce I just want my fish back. 01:16:59.75 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh, hmm. Oh. So now he he does like a, like a old man of like, oh, I used to be a great, or I am a great academic, but I'm speaking to someone salt of the earth. He's just like, oh, he'll never understand my grand ambitions. 01:17:16.46 Kurt Crenwelge ah But he just says, all right, all right, all right. Okay. So just, all right, get over here. Slippin' Jimmy, Octavius, hand up. Make sure you get, you know, 01:17:27.95 Kurt Crenwelge Get over here! get get oh Get over here! And see like bend down, bend down. And so he has the minotaur skeleton kneel down, opens the chest with a flick of his wrist for some magic, and so he instructs the others to start arming themselves up. 01:17:41.67 Kurt Crenwelge And he's like, alright, we have our task set before us, we're going to clear out some sewers, help this peasant man with his fish needs, and we'll find some skeletons, i'm surely, in this necropolis. 01:17:54.93 Kurt Crenwelge If they... are so precious with their religious laws, but we will we will we will we will do this task set before us, and we'll find more of this zingy mineral, and we will use it for our army. Yes, yes. 01:18:11.22 Kurt Crenwelge And so... ah 01:18:15.32 Kurt Crenwelge Ugh! So... Someone needs to dust in here. It's too too much fumes. i Do they always run the mines? is it's It's a little bit much. 01:18:26.17 Kurt Crenwelge deep Do you know the schedule where I can go and get breakfast? it's it's ah It's getting to be several hours past midday. i'm I'm starting to get tired. I'm wondering if it's... Maybe I need to turn in early. 01:18:40.35 Kurt Crenwelge you know Now he's being more of an old man. 01:18:42.90 Bryce And Reglion would just point one of his like long fingers off to the side, like, follow the path. And it almost looks like a bear trail that you'd get the sense that he just goes back and forth whenever he catches stuff. It's just his path that he's been using for years. It's not even like an official road. 01:19:02.31 Kurt Crenwelge ah All right, very well. Okay, well, we will we'll go this way. Thank you, peasant fisherman Wranglion. We will see to this task, and I think I'll go have my din-dins, and Octavius, you can tuck me into bed, and we'll get fresh after I've had my nap or my sleep. 01:19:23.45 Kurt Crenwelge What day is it? And he starts walking off and ah head further into the necropolis ah to eventually you know be able to find his way into the sewers, but also to just have his IHOP dinner breakfast with the other seniors, the other senior dwarves of this community, probably eyeing a few of them, seeing if they're if they're a little early, ready for him to go ahead and... 01:19:50.03 Kurt Crenwelge put a put a I like a put put put this skeleton put this old person on my wish list as far as ah skeletons for my army sort of a thing but what's the last thing for the scene that Ren Gleon is going to be doing as a this strange little forest gnome and his ah follower characters start trudging off 01:20:12.11 Bryce I think he would take off his bowler cap hat and take a false bottom that's in it where the map is down to where his village is and also probably where the castle indicated where the illithid would be deep in the underground and maybe have a little PTSD moment shuddering and put it back in his hat and go back into fishing. 01:20:41.55 Kurt Crenwelge And scene. So there we go. Lifespell the necromancer and his skelly boys getting to meet Wranglion. How'd you think that scene went? 01:20:50.28 Bryce It was everything I ever wanted. Again, i thought Duncan would be the perfect fit, but I was like, i you sold him too well to be over there. 01:21:01.27 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Yeah, it is it is fun to have a necromancer. And, you know... You don't, I guess D&D doesn't really truly fully have a class that feels like a necromancer, though I'm sure if you went on DM's Guild or someplace, some third party has worked on selling us um the ideal necromancer class. Or, you know, one of these, again, as we alluded to earlier in our conversation about the healthy gaming diet. I'm sure someone and some other system out there will deliver on the fantasy of truly being a necromancer and getting your own army of skelly boys to take with you out on the road. So, um, yeah. 01:21:40.62 Bryce Stop on by to Bones and More where we got skelly boys, we got skelly girls, we got all the skellies you want. Come on down. 01:21:48.94 Kurt Crenwelge My stock boy over ordered on skeletons and they have to go. 01:21:55.28 Bryce Buy one, get one arm free. 01:21:58.85 Kurt Crenwelge It's like those ah those action figures you buy in the store now where it's like, oh, here's my complete action figure, but then here's an extra arm for some other ah toy that I have to build and I have to go buy the other skeletons in the set in order to get the other mystery toys. So it's like, I'm having to shell out all this gold just to get a free skeleton at this point. 01:22:20.90 Bryce Are we writing this down? think 01:22:25.31 Kurt Crenwelge I know. Yeah. So, so yeah, we're here in the final thoughts section of the show. So overall, how did you think your time was on the podcast? 01:22:33.85 Bryce i think it was great. i i am a firm believer of the dice tell the story, so I appreciate when you gave me a chance to like re-roll or give it, but I'm a firm believer that The dice are meant to be that I'm not even anti lucky. 01:22:48.44 Bryce Like I'm not a big fan of the lucky feet because of that. 01:22:51.32 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, interesting. 01:22:52.07 Bryce So yeah the dice, if if it's meant to be the dice will tell it. ah 01:22:58.47 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, we can save scum all we want on Baldur's Gate 3, but in real D&D, I mean, unless you all agree to it, but it's like, yeah, there is some finality and some truth in the moment as far as like, this is what the dice rolled, this is what they tell. Obviously, ah good dungeon master will hopefully be able to read the table a little bit better, and it's like, well, let's maybe let's not end the campaign so early with a TPK when Really, if I just say like the clutch player who can save everybody um actually didn't get hit by that falling boulder. So now he has a chance to be able to pick up the cleric who's had two death saves and failed both of them. And so it's like the tensions up to like bring the drama back in the favor of the players. 01:23:46.36 Bryce Oh, of course. And I mean, not to get too much on the tangent, but one thing that I learned actually from my good friend Colby Ford, he would, whenever it was a serious boss fight, so just sort of imagine, like, save here. It's automatically saving. You got the health health potions. 01:24:04.52 Bryce He would put a little statue of a squirrel out. And he was like, all right, guys, like, I'm not fudging any dice rolls. I'm not like everything that's over here and let me tell you those have been some of the most intense but also just such memorable moments because you know that he there was one time i think he rolled like six natural 20s in a row so like just he was out for blood that bad and that battle 01:24:25.24 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. 01:24:30.90 Bryce and But like I said earlier, like when you're able to get through that, like even though it's a rougher fight, it's just that much more satisfying when you make it through the end. And if it is if it ends does end, then ah to quote Theoden in Lord of the Rings, then we will make it such an end that they will sing songs for. 01:24:50.75 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Always good ah to end on ah on a Lord of the Rings quote for sure. so So in the very final, final moments of final moments, I always leave the soapbox, the stage, the platform, the microphone, and all the what's-a-who's-its over to the guests. So certainly, you know, any final thoughts or concluding ah notes or opinions our feedback, critiques, and all that. But also we want to know where can we find you on social medias, where can we find the big flying lizard podcast? 01:25:21.58 Kurt Crenwelge Um, you know, all the projects you've got coming out later in the year, ah since this is coming out in November, ah maybe even things that we have to look forward to in the new year. 01:25:32.12 Kurt Crenwelge And then, uh, certainly, any other passions or or causes that we need to be made aware of, let us know. 01:25:38.15 Bryce Oh, for sure. And I just want to first say thank you so much, Kurt. This has been such a fun time. I don't get to nerd out with Dungeons and Dragons near as much as I would like to. So just getting to do this. And I have to say, this is the first time I've not been a DM for years now. So it felt good to get into the mindset of a single player rather than Ray. 01:26:02.15 Bryce But um I really had a great time. And I, like I mentioned before, I'm the host of Big Flying Lizards, a dragon movie and television podcast. I cover a large array of films and TV shows that either contain dragons or are about dragons. 01:26:18.41 Bryce When this will be dropping, I'll probably be in the midst of covering my Game of Thrones section. We're doing our long-awaited coverage of the Game of Thrones. However, with ah the news that broke at Comic-Con recently, i am putting into the schedule to be talking about The Legend of Vox Machina so I can time that up when the new season drops. 01:26:42.38 Kurt Crenwelge o 01:26:42.65 Bryce I'm still curious if I'm going to be covering The Mighty Nein just because I did listen to the mighty nine in real time, and there is only a couple dragons that come up and I just don't know if they're going to coming up anytime soon. So maybe I'll wait a couple seasons in to see how that goes. 01:27:01.03 Bryce But ah yeah, if you love dragons, I'm just a big dragon nerd who wants to go ahead and talk about dragons. We break down the film. We break down what goes on. And like Kurt and I did with Peach Dragon, we do a dragon grade discussing how the dragon influenced the film, well how the dragon was, and obviously just grading the film in general because ah mindset that I had in college was a movie can't be a 10 out of 10 if there's no dragon in it. So take that, Oppenheimer. 01:27:34.64 Kurt Crenwelge And then ah certainly, you know, so it's just big flying lizard across all social medias and YouTube or or where would what will we type into the interwebs to find you? 01:27:44.27 Bryce Yeah, for socials, I have the name big Big Liz Pod, or if you just type in Big Flying Lizards, you'll be able to find it. I'm on YouTube, Spotify, all the other podcast platforms, ah Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky, you name it, I'm there, and I will be sending out I'm not taking dragons. I take dragons seriously, but I have a fun time taking it seriously and joking around, as Kurt can attest to. 01:28:17.56 Kurt Crenwelge Wonderful. Well, again, Bryce, thank you so much for being a guest on my podcast now. After having been a guest on yours, now you've had the pleasure of being online. ah So yeah, I can't wait to have you back on this podcast, making even more interesting NPCs. 01:28:32.59 Bryce Hey, any time. I'm excited.