00:00:04.95 Kurt Crenwelge Hello and welcome to another month's episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best, unofficial Dungeons & Dragons podcast and my humbly biased opinion. Before I reveal who my guest of the month is ah with this episode, I have to leave you in suspense as i showcase our first ad read. 00:00:26.30 Kurt Crenwelge And insert here all you fine transcription readers about Plus One EXP and RPG Zine Club. Be sure to go to PlusOneExp.com, use that code Randolph, save some coin on your purchase, yeah a cold get a cool beard balm or the like, ah and help me out at the same time. 00:00:45.43 Kurt Crenwelge All right, 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? 00:00:55.90 John M Rodriguez Alrighty. Well, hello there. My name is John Rodriguez and I am a small business owner that of a program that offers Dungeons and Dragons and Minecraft classes for kiddos. So that's ah kind of who I am right now. I've been a lot of things in my past. 00:01:11.64 John M Rodriguez Was in the United States Navy as a hospital corpsman, ah did do a stint as a social worker, and then also ah worked with a delinquent youth, kind of like a probation officer. So a bit of a dental assistant, a medical assistant, kind of done a little bit of everything. So, but like I said, right now, just kind of working with the kiddos is, is what I do currently. 00:01:32.20 Kurt Crenwelge That's amazing. i ah I appreciate you sharing your journey. And that's, you know, it's just fascinating. I'm a, well, I'm a military brat. So I kind of have that ah that experience a little bit. But my dad was the Air Force and not the Navy, though. I've got ah some Navy ah veterans with my in-laws and such. So ah did you get to go anywhere cool or interesting around the world in your stint when you were in the Navy? 00:01:57.15 John M Rodriguez um Nothing too cool. I joined at a very strange time where, especially for my job, which in the Navy, it's it's rates. I know it's MOS and Army whatever, but ah we were incredibly overmanned. 00:02:05.90 Kurt Crenwelge you 00:02:07.65 John M Rodriguez So they were just kind of putting us in clinics and hospitals just all over the state. So I've been all over the states, but nowhere um out of the country, actually. Yes. 00:02:16.19 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Okay. And ah you know you said you're doing these camps for kids. ah you know And the name of it is, I believe, Heroes Wanted. is that Am I rereading remembering it right? 00:02:24.75 John M Rodriguez yes 00:02:26.99 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. so 00:02:27.45 John M Rodriguez Mm-hmm. 00:02:28.13 Kurt Crenwelge um Well, you know this it seems like this is a good niche for this podcast because it's like I have a four-year-old son that loves Minecraft and I love Dungeons & Dragons. 00:02:35.85 John M Rodriguez ah 00:02:37.07 Kurt Crenwelge So this seems like a match made in heaven. So can you tell us more about the program? What is it that got you inspired to start it? 00:02:44.47 John M Rodriguez Absolutely. Yeah. So, um, kind of going into the business itself is, um, you know, I'm a father myself. I have a three year old and a four month old now. And, um, I, uh, just wanted to create something safe and great for kiddos. 00:02:57.35 John M Rodriguez And I know that with, um, you know, going to Minecraft, there's a lot of concerns there with who they're playing with, you know, um, who they're talking to things like that. So we went and we actually built a server from the ground up. 00:03:05.22 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:03:09.17 John M Rodriguez Um, I, I had no idea what I was doing, but learned a lot about like modding and JavaScript. and ah But we ended up using a mod, which is called Pixelmon. And what it does is it combines Pokemon and Minecraft together. So you have all of the crafting from Minecraft um now mixed with the world of Pokemon, where you can catch, ride, train, battle, all that adds a bunch of new things to Minecraft. 00:03:31.11 John M Rodriguez build and everything. And what we did is we we took this custom server and we built it from the ground up and we built an entire world that we stocked full of NPCs. I think we have ah over 1,200 different unique NPCs with dialogue, trainers, all all those things. 00:03:46.97 John M Rodriguez We went and built out our entire nine town progression complete with gym leaders and the elite four. And ah the great thing about it is we've made this entire world where kids can interact, they can go on the adventure, you know, go town to town and collect the badges and do all that. 00:04:03.05 John M Rodriguez But since it's Minecraft, they can actually add their own splash to it and add to this world ah together um cooperatively and be able to enjoy 00:04:10.24 Kurt Crenwelge oh 00:04:11.53 John M Rodriguez um what other classes build and and things like that. So we have classes that have their own towns, you know, and those towns have parkour courses and things like that. So it creates this really neat community. 00:04:21.89 John M Rodriguez And the great thing is, is the only people that are allowed in there are those in our classes. So you don't have the the randos that, you know, make their way in. You're not worried about who the kids are playing with. And the entire thing is instructor led and moderated the entire time. 00:04:30.17 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:04:33.62 John M Rodriguez So, um that's That's the Minecraft piece for the Dungeons Dragons piece. It's a similar thing as we do offer campaigns for kiddos going from ages eight to 17. And we kind of break those age groups up, putting the teens with ah themselves and you know the younger kiddos with them. But we go and we just so we do Minecraft. I'm sorry. We do Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with them and we tailor all that content. 00:04:57.18 John M Rodriguez for kiddos, once again, making a safe space. And we do everything based off of this five core value system that we have, which we call our players pact. And this is built up of respect, safety, consent, teamwork, and trustworthiness. 00:05:10.70 John M Rodriguez And we kind of use that for the framework framework of everything in our programs. And it's just a great way to ah approach Dungeons and Dragons with kids. And especially with, ah you know, if issues come up with a 00:05:21.01 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:05:22.35 John M Rodriguez people having conflicting ideas or or things like that, you know, and it's like, hey, well, let's utilize respect. Let's make sure that we hear Kurt out, you know, Kurt, what did you want to do? Okay, I think that's a great idea. And so it really gives us a great framework to kind of approach that. So, and that's, ah um everything we do 100% online virtual. 00:05:40.89 John M Rodriguez So the great thing is kiddos can join from wherever. We got kids from East Coast, West Coast. I even have a couple from Alaska right now. So as long as you you could make the time zone work, um we're we're able to get those classes going for you. So I think it's it's just a ah great ah program, great opportunity. And I wish I had something like that when I was a kid, you know? 00:06:00.52 Kurt Crenwelge And I was going to ask, I mean, so you were explaining with the Minecraft portion, you you're using this custom server that combines it with Pokemon, which, of course, for young kids has got to be fun of like, oh, my gosh, it's Beedrill or it's Bulbasaur whatever. 00:06:09.71 John M Rodriguez Yeah. 00:06:14.18 Kurt Crenwelge ah But with the Dungeons and Dragons component, are you using because I know that there was a partnership or license agreement or something where there's like actual. Dungeons and Dragons mixed with Minecraft now because that's a thing that exists so is that's what's happening you're using those servers in order to run the D&D games or is it just like hey this is our server and this is our space and we just so happen um to use it to like use a different service like Roll20 or something else to be able to facilitate the online game for the kiddos 00:06:44.32 John M Rodriguez Okay. 00:06:46.95 John M Rodriguez Yeah, so there. um So currently, the two broke programs are completely are completely separate. So we do have our, our custom server for the Minecraft pixel mon and then we do dungeon dragons and we use real 20 with with some screen share and zoom and things like that for our classes and stuff. 00:06:53.37 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, Mm-hmm. 00:07:01.47 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:07:02.53 John M Rodriguez um We did have some plans, which ah hopefully if our Minecraft program beefs up, we're working on another server, which was more kind of like what you talked about, like that Dungeons and Dragons kind of-esque Minecraft. 00:07:14.86 John M Rodriguez And ah there's some other mods and things out there where you can actually add like character classes, like progression, like quests, all that. So we have that server pretty fleshed out, but the business is still pretty new and we're still kind of like testing interest before we completely launch. So hopefully in the future, we will be able to kind of bridge those two together and have that Dungeons and Dragons-esque Minecraft. So... 00:07:38.19 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, because I mean, ah you know, I remember Minecraft coming out my college days and it's like, oh, it's squares and blocks. But really, over the years, we've been able to see people do pretty amazing and wondrous things in Minecraft with like, here's me recreating the entire Earth or like, here's the entirety of Middle Earth and like recreating the Battle of Helm's Deep, ah you know, with explosions and all that stuff. 00:07:57.58 John M Rodriguez Oh, yeah. 00:08:03.22 Kurt Crenwelge Um, yeah. Uh, so it's, it you know, I know we've had, uh, you know, the community has had these endeavors, uh, you know, with project sigil, which now unfortunately seems like, you know, ah, no, such a bummer with that. 00:08:16.73 Kurt Crenwelge Um, and then we have, you know, Baldur's gate. three which is amazing to be able to go in and play in that world. um So I can only imagine, you know, and and I'm rooting for you for this new project because how cool, especially with me as a kid, like I didn't get to play D&D until I was in my college years, but how cool would it have been for me if I was like, okay, I'm in my mind this Minecraft server and I'm an elf, 00:08:32.47 John M Rodriguez Mm-hmm. 00:08:38.46 Kurt Crenwelge and I'm a fighter or whatever, and I'm like looking around the world, and you know it may be all Minecraft-y, but still, it's like there's like a you know To help with those visual ah learners or like people who are like, wait a minute, I need to tactically see what this is like. And it's like, okay, well, there's the tree, there's the rock, the goblins are right there, here's a horse, you know what are you going to do? 00:08:59.56 Kurt Crenwelge um So I think that sounds cool. i really i really hope that knocks out of the park for you. 00:09:04.70 John M Rodriguez yeah Yeah, like I said, and it's it's something it's it's it's been a real big passion project, and I have some really good buddies where we all kind of collab together to get that going. But yeah, we we'll see what the future holds. But it ah like I said, currently we have the Pixelmon, which, I mean, I was excited to play it, you know, having played testing through it and everything. 00:09:22.16 John M Rodriguez And it it it is truly like a a Pokemon game, but just with Minecraft, you know, which is really awesome. 00:09:28.29 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. And I'm definitely going to date myself now as the elder millennial here, but like, do you have all original one 51 or does it go to the, all the other versions of the Pokemons that I never actually played? 00:09:29.08 John M Rodriguez Yeah. 00:09:32.88 John M Rodriguez but 00:09:41.54 Kurt Crenwelge And the only ones I'm really comfortable with are like the first 151 and that's it 00:09:47.15 John M Rodriguez Well, as a as another millennial, i can I can tell you that, no, they have a... I believe it's like 890. And ninety and it has it has all of the Pokemon all the way up and through the most recent Scarlet Violet. 00:09:56.01 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. Wow. 00:10:02.36 John M Rodriguez So, I mean... 00:10:03.10 Kurt Crenwelge wow 00:10:04.09 John M Rodriguez that's that's that's kind of the great thing is like when a student joins, they get actually pick their starter from nine generations and they just pop up on the screen, fill the screen there. And, you know, it's it's really awesome. And then unlike the other Pokemon games, there's not like a limitation to what you encounter in the wild. So you can encounter legendaries, you encounter starters. So if they have favorites, they can go and pursue those favorites. 00:10:27.13 John M Rodriguez And it uses a lot of Minecraft mechanics with biomes, you know, so your water types are going to be in more water based biomes, your flying types are going to be in the air, you know, forests are going to have a lot of bug types, things like that. So the mod also adds in a bunch of brand new biomes to and a bunch of brand new items and everything. So it's, ah it's really taking something amazing, like Minecraft and just expanding upon it, which is it, ah it it it ends up being very, very cool. 00:10:52.41 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, the bug trainers that you'd have to get through the forest from Pallet Town, and then they just have the Metapod that just uses Harden oh all over and over and over again. Yep. 00:11:03.66 John M Rodriguez yeah And well the and the the neat thing, too, is with all those generations, too, is ah they carry over all of the mechanics directly based off the game. So you have all of the attacks, the stats, all of that. So ah with eight generations now of moves, you know that metapod you come across may know ah Bug Bite or some other things that kind of mix it up. So 00:11:21.49 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. But no Missingo. 00:11:24.29 John M Rodriguez um I think it is in the game. It's, but you know, there's um there's there's a lot of Easter egg things that you can do. 00:11:28.34 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:11:33.25 John M Rodriguez um One of the things is you can like attach a Pokemon that you have and make it like stationary, like a decoration. And um if you if you purposely don't select a Pokemon, I think when you set up that block, Missingo does pop out. So I don't know if it's playable, but it's it's kind of in the game. So I I had some kiddos recently freak out were like, what is that? I'm like, oh, that's Missingo. And they're like, what? 00:11:56.97 John M Rodriguez I'm like, oh, yeah, you would you you would have no idea. 00:11:57.25 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:11:58.97 John M Rodriguez um It's it's just a thing, you know. 00:12:01.67 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, all the fables and legends that we heard growing up of like, oh man, like if you got Miss Ingo, like you were going to like kill your game, like you were going to ruin it forever or you were going to just like be unstoppable. 00:12:13.19 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know how the legends went back and forth both ways. So. 00:12:16.77 John M Rodriguez Well, you you have to find Mew under the truck first, right? 00:12:20.60 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, see, I don't know. I never got that far in Pokemon Blue. 00:12:21.97 John M Rodriguez Oh, okay, yeah. 00:12:23.84 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like I got through like the first couple towns. I remember Snorlax and having to get the Poke Flute, but that's really about it. 00:12:31.12 John M Rodriguez Yeah, I think ah there's a a, like, Pokemon folk legend where, you know, the SS Annie, what was was the ah the ship that you would go on? 00:12:39.64 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yes. 00:12:40.29 John M Rodriguez when you're When you're making your way to that ship, there's a truck that's kind of off the pier right there. And I don't know how it started, but they're like, oh, if you interact with the truck, Mew is under the truck. 00:12:52.89 John M Rodriguez But um once you leave that area, you can never backtrack to the dock. So like no one no one ever tried to go to the truck. you know So mean me and my friends would be like, did you go to the truck? And it's like oh, no. yeah. 00:13:04.00 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:13:05.53 John M Rodriguez but yeah 00:13:05.71 Kurt Crenwelge okay Well, we could certainly sit here and gab about Minecraft and Pokemon and all that, but I would be doing our podcast a disservice if I didn't lead into this next question of, do you currently or have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons before? I mean, it sounds like you have if you're running like a whole half of your business that's catered to kids and children to learn how to play D&D. So like what's your what's your history with the hobby? 00:13:31.53 John M Rodriguez Well, you know, i don't i don't I don't want to surprise you here, Kurt, but yes, I have i have played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons in my time. um And unfortunately, i don't play as much now. I'm i'm kind of a forever the DM, very hardly the player. has kind of been my my life progression with D&D. 00:13:47.56 John M Rodriguez so um But i I started playing, gosh, when I was probably about 16, 17. sixteen seventeen And I had a very horrible experience with learning. 00:13:53.17 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. Mm. Mm. 00:13:55.93 John M Rodriguez We had the local game store here where I live and they had to advertise, you know, come out on Thursdays. Anyone can come learn to play D&D. And me and my friends, we we came from ah a lower income community, didn't have a lot of money. And we're like, you know, we can instead of buying video games, we could just get into Dungeons Dragons like we never to buy anything. You know, you just make it up like it would be great. 00:14:17.18 John M Rodriguez So we show up to the game store, and they are not very welcoming. um 00:14:22.09 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:14:22.83 John M Rodriguez they yeah They have you know like the 10 tables set up, and we went table to table like, hey, we want to play. Oh, you know we're really high level. We can't we we can't squeeze you and go, go over there, you know, and after hearing that we were so disgruntled, we were about to walk out and there was this sweet dad that was running the kids table in the corner and he kind of saw us be rejected over and over again. And he said, Hey, like, if you don't mind playing with ah my 10 year old son over here and his friends, I'd love to teach you. 00:14:52.79 John M Rodriguez So we sat down and played at the kids table and kind of got our our first introduction to D and D and uh you know props that dad for for doing that and extending that out that was amazing but we just decided like hey we're never coming back here we're gonna buy the books and just do it ourselves so that that kind of start started that journey and then we we kind of never looked back so i still have buddies that i've been playing with now for over 15 years so 00:15:07.61 Kurt Crenwelge a 00:15:16.15 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. Well, I mean, I am sorry that you had that ah that initial experience of rejection, but kudos to that dad for stepping up and, you know, just reminding me of the kids table podcast and and YouTube channel where it's like, oh, you know, um ah you know, different generations of of players all at the same table. 00:15:34.62 John M Rodriguez Hmm. 00:15:35.19 Kurt Crenwelge So your first game was like with, you know, we younger kids and then yourselves as teenagers. so i don't know. What was that? You know, if you could, I don't know, you may not necessarily remember the adventure of the game itself, but like, how do you think that experience was of like, wow, my first time gaming, I've got my teenage buddies and how we would want to act, but, oh, we're sharing a table with like, you know, elementary school age kids. So we can't, we can't be teaching them about the birds and the bees with like their dad as the dungeon master there and stuff. 00:16:07.80 John M Rodriguez Well, i I think that, and and this is something that I see in my my classes that I run right now with my students as well, is there' there's something magical about doing Dungeons & Dragons with kids because they are so willing to be vulnerable, whereas sometimes us as adults or as teens, we are not. 00:16:25.08 John M Rodriguez you know And I know me and my buddy that we're with, we were very hesitant, very reserved, and we you know we're here to play, and we play a lot of video games, so we're here about the tactics. 00:16:25.42 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm. 00:16:34.55 John M Rodriguez I'm going to move here and attack this, and that's what I do. you know And the that dad kind of prompted, like, well, how do you do it? what does What does it look like as you as you attack that goblin in the forest there? And it's like, oh, well, you know, I... 00:16:48.15 John M Rodriguez draw my long sword and I do a sweeping motion like this and I aim straight for the arm and he's like, perfect. you know And i I think watching those other kids, that the younger kids you know that were just so into it, so excited and so animated with their descriptions and what they wanted to do, no matter how off the wall it was, um that really kind of pushed us to open up. 00:16:58.27 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:17:09.52 John M Rodriguez you know And that's that's something that I always try to kind of remember even now as an adult playing or ah when I'm kind of ah being the instructor or dungeon master for kiddos as well. is it's It's just amazing to see. 00:17:21.44 Kurt Crenwelge Amazing. Yeah. And ah no, that's, that's cool. I mean, I, you know, my first time playing was with a bunch of my friends and we were all college age and, you know, we all had video game experience and stuff like that at that point. 00:17:34.55 Kurt Crenwelge So that was my only frame of reference. And a couple of times, oh, maybe I did like a modified d and D Halloween one shot with my four year old who was three at the time and his mom ran it or like, oh, I tried to do something with my nieces, you know, that are younger. 00:17:43.53 John M Rodriguez you. 00:17:49.97 Kurt Crenwelge so I haven't quite truly gotten that experience of like, you know, running a kid's table of D&D, but I'm hoping that in the future I'll be able to. And certainly if I need a camp or like my kiddo is just like, I just want to play D&D all the time. And I'm like, I've only got so many hours the day. We'll just sign you up for this online game and you can you can play with Mr. John and he'll he'll run you all the D&D you want between these hours of the day. 00:18:17.83 John M Rodriguez Yep. Send them, send them over, Kurt. Like I said, um four is a little young. but We started about eight, ah but here, here in a, ah a ah couple of years though. 00:18:23.81 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:18:27.63 John M Rodriguez Yeah. 00:18:28.28 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. 00:18:28.27 John M Rodriguez I, um, 00:18:28.73 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, something to look forward to. Yeah. 00:18:30.69 John M Rodriguez I've ah tried some scenarios with my daughter as well. Like i said, she's three. And um i I think ah you mentioned that the kids table earlier, they have a ah really great reference about kind of introducing that to younger kiddos and like that 15 minute D&D model. 00:18:43.41 John M Rodriguez But um with my daughter, we do a lot of like story based scenarios and she's 00:18:47.86 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:18:49.20 John M Rodriguez Her name is Millie, so we call it The Adventures of Millie the Wizard. And it's like, you know, Millie the Wizard has a problem. 00:18:52.43 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:18:54.25 John M Rodriguez How do you solve it? And then she'll she'll make up her spells and everything. Well, I want to cast, a ah like like, a tree grows on him. I'm like, okay, you cast tree growth. in this you know and so But that's ah that's that's what I found works really well with with kind of that that age group so far. Yeah. 00:19:11.05 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say, if you if you ah memorize, ah you know, some of the spells she's done over time um and kind of like how, oh, I saw like some social media posts where they're like, actually, the formula for right for figuring out the name of a spell is usually like the name of the arcane practitioner. 00:19:29.81 Kurt Crenwelge Then it's an adjective and then it's like the noun of whatever thing. So the joke. of the post was like, so Mike's hard lemonade would technically be like a wizard spell. So, you know, like Millie's tree growth, ah you know, could one day show up as a, as a spell in a, in her future games where she's like, Oh yeah, i remember when I was a little girl and i just made up this spell on them. 00:19:43.66 John M Rodriguez yeah yeah 00:19:52.18 Kurt Crenwelge And years later, my you know, level 13 wizard is just casting like this from this ancient ah wizard, Mellie, the, the tree growth spell. 00:20:02.38 Kurt Crenwelge It's like, yeah, it's just been around in this world forever. 00:20:02.51 John M Rodriguez but 00:20:04.58 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:20:04.91 John M Rodriguez yeah yeah no makes it makes makes for for some really great homebrew kind of spells there huh 00:20:09.68 Kurt Crenwelge Exactly. Yeah. Like feet, feet for hot peppers or something like that. You know what? in Kids, you know, being super inventive and it's like, sorry, this ridiculous spell happens. It's legitimate. It's ah there's been precedent established. So. 00:20:24.58 John M Rodriguez No, I'm going to have to make a ah make a note of that and start writing those down. Yeah, because you she doesn't know. So she's like, you know, what do you what do you want to do to the dragon? And it's like, I want to turn him into a nice guy. 00:20:34.77 John M Rodriguez And I'm like, okay, so you cast your you're you're nice guy turning spell, you know, and yeah, you know, super excited. 00:20:39.14 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:20:40.90 John M Rodriguez So that'll... 00:20:41.47 Kurt Crenwelge Also means the bad guys can use it in the future too. So you wait till she has like some real powerful clutch spell. 00:20:45.26 John M Rodriguez Boom. Boom. 00:20:49.35 Kurt Crenwelge And then you're like, and then later years later, it's like the big bad evil guy is like the big bad evil guy is going to cast ah rocks fall from above you. And it's like, what? And then all of a sudden, ah but like a big rock just falls on your head and knocks you unconscious. 00:21:03.52 Kurt Crenwelge Sorry, that's the spell. Yeah. 00:21:04.86 John M Rodriguez yeah oh Oh, gosh, you know, i am I am so excited. That's that's that's the great thing with with being a father and kiddos and everything is just to kind of get to those moments, you know. 00:21:15.04 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And so with this podcast, you know, it is called sidekicks and sidequests. So we like to ask the questions about the other and bring the focus on the other. So for the first part of this, who happens to be your favorite sidekick or NPC character, whether they be from movies, film, television, literature, etc. 00:21:34.73 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this character your favorite sidekick or NPC? 00:21:38.80 John M Rodriguez Well, ah first I have to make sure this counts. So does a character that is an NPC for a long time, but then becomes kind of a player character later on count? 00:21:51.41 Kurt Crenwelge Sure, why not? 00:21:51.64 John M Rodriguez oh Okay. All right. Perfect. Well, my favorite is, I don't know if you're familiar, but is Jafar from Fire Emblem 7. So this was the this was the first Fire Emblem released in the US for the Game Boy Advance. 00:22:05.56 John M Rodriguez and Jafar was um i 00:22:09.09 Kurt Crenwelge Not from the Aladdin movie. 00:22:11.06 John M Rodriguez no not not from the Aladdin movie lot a lot ah probably even possibly more nefarious um he he was a villain was a bad guy and not to get into too much of this game or anything but ah you know there's there's the good guys and they're trying to stop some world calamity and they're gathering some sort of stones that can do it and of course the the the bad guys they they have a like these generals that operate shadows. 00:22:38.47 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:22:39.03 John M Rodriguez And Jafar was one of these generals and he was an assassin. And so you go through the game and you watch Jafar just taking out, you know, some of your other allies, um ah you know, hurting townspeople, doing these things. He's he's the the the greatest assassin assassin in the land. 00:22:56.86 John M Rodriguez But they hint that he has a softer side. 00:23:00.30 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:23:00.46 John M Rodriguez And Jafar, he works for this other mage. And the mage has a daughter. And the daughter is really trying to prove herself. She's a young acolyte mage, you know. And Jafar is tasked of just kind of babysitting, essentially. 00:23:14.13 John M Rodriguez And of course, he's very disgruntled about it at first. But as the game progresses and you get these cut scenes, you kind of pick up that they do kind of start building this relationship. And Jafar cares about her, wants to look after her. 00:23:25.01 John M Rodriguez And what happens is he ends up becoming mortally wounded. And the pact of ah those bad guys is to You know, if you're hurt, leave him behind. Go on, you know. 00:23:33.82 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:23:34.08 John M Rodriguez And this little mage character refuses and nurses him back to health and restores him. Well, in a towards the end of the game, later chapter in the game, ah the evil kind of ah sorceress at this point, she's done with her daughter. Her daughter was a tool. 00:23:50.29 John M Rodriguez And she orders Jafar to kill this daughter. And for the first time in his life, he refuses the order. And he stands against the organization that he's been a part of his entire life, that he is one of the head members. And he goes head to head to protect this girl who is the only one that has shown him kindness his entire time being here. And so you start the chapter where ah your unit, it's kind of one of those ah like chess-based, like tactics games. 00:24:17.09 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:24:17.20 John M Rodriguez And so your units are way over here the top right. And the only thing you see in the bottom left of the map is Jafar against like 30 dudes and he's an assassin with incredibly busted stats and he's just taking them out and as kind of like a side mission you can rescue the mage and bring the mage to talk to Jafar and then Jafar joins you and i and uh you know he's he's kind of been been outlawed by his entire organization and he stands by this mage who's who's uh 00:24:26.11 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Ah. 00:24:39.00 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:24:47.33 John M Rodriguez his, I guess, only friend in the world, you know, and I just kind of love that idea that you can be the most heinous, brutal ah villain, but you can be redeemed, you know, that there there there can be someone or something that can redeem you and kind of bring you to the light. So um as a kid, like I was always like, oh, like Jafar is such a such a BA, such a cool dude, you know, and just and that's that's always kind of resonated with me there with that character. so 00:25:16.54 Kurt Crenwelge Amazing answer. Yeah, no. So totally agree. Yeah. Like you could be the most, yeah, heinous dude. And then, you know, all it takes is one act of kindness, of love and acceptance. 00:25:28.27 Kurt Crenwelge And suddenly there's a redemption arc. And now you are like the greatest a warrior triumphant now fighting for good instead of evil. 00:25:34.46 John M Rodriguez Yep. 00:25:36.24 Kurt Crenwelge So, yeah, I love it. And then same sort of ah same sort of question. What's been one of your favorite side quest or B-plot elements in movie, film, television, video games, etc.? And why is this your favorite side quest or B-plot? 00:25:50.75 John M Rodriguez All right, well, going back to another probably obscure video game here, Persona 4. I don't know if you've played that one, but a lot of fun. Came out for the PlayStation 2 originally. And in Persona 4, it's kind of like a like a dungeon crawler. 00:26:05.67 John M Rodriguez um There's a lot of but other elements to it, but the the main core mechanic is you find a dungeon, you climb floors, boss is at the top floor, right? 00:26:13.35 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:26:14.05 John M Rodriguez Well, during your exploration, you will hear the sound of chains rattling. And... What this turns out to be is there's this character that's called the Reaper that for some reason the Reaper hangs out in dungeons. 00:26:30.77 John M Rodriguez And if you spend too much time on any individual floor, the Reaper will show up and he's like the secret boss that's like stronger than like the last boss kind of thing. 00:26:39.74 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:26:39.85 John M Rodriguez So, so, you know, you'll you'll you'll be in the first dungeon and the Reaper shows up and yeah yeah you just lose. There's no chance. 00:26:45.78 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. 00:26:46.10 John M Rodriguez And ah eventually, towards the end of the game, you finally get the side quest to go hunt down the Reaper. and And I always thought that that was really neat because you spend the entire game like you'll be playing just, you know, having a good time. 00:26:52.49 Kurt Crenwelge oh 00:26:58.40 John M Rodriguez And you hear the chains, you're like, oh, crap, like, I i need to get off this floor. I need to, I need to get out of here. And they build kind of so much kind of fear and tension when that happens. 00:27:06.49 Kurt Crenwelge oh yeah yeah 00:27:07.55 John M Rodriguez and then And then to finally like go seek that out, you know, where you're like, you're you're just walking in circles around a floor like, all right, Reaper, let's go. I'm ready now, you know. And so um I always thought that that was a a ah ton of fun to kind of, you know, face that that big, bad, ah unbeatable thing that's finally within reach, you know. 00:27:27.39 Kurt Crenwelge yeah yeah no that does that would be very terrifying of like oh yeah at lower levels like you hear this noise and it's like game over don't even and then like okay yeah you get strong enough and you're like okay yeah i think i can take on death yeah let's do this 00:27:44.48 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. And then the way we round out the personal interview section of the episode, ah John, what are you passionate about and why? 00:27:53.16 John M Rodriguez Well, I would say that I'm i'm i'm passionate about you know being a father and working with kiddos. And that's that's kind of something that I found. um I ah mentioned kind of some of some of my work history before. 00:28:04.08 John M Rodriguez And I really kind of, in everything that I did, whether it was being the that combat medic in the Navy or working with people and ah doing social work or with ah the delinquent youth, is I i loved working with people. 00:28:16.62 John M Rodriguez And when I worked with kiddos for the first time, I found that, you know, a lot of times if you just listen and and look at these, these different strategies to really relate, you know, to, in that time, that the kids that were having a hard time, that ah it was amazing how they open up to you. 00:28:33.30 John M Rodriguez And I actually would use like board games and like really simple card games and things in my work there to kind of, you know, I just set up a game and like, Hey, let's talk, you know, and here's this, this hardened kid that, you know, has done some, 00:28:42.12 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:28:45.93 John M Rodriguez serious things and now they're they're playing ah Uno with you, you know, and they're kind of opening up and things like that. So I found it was really amazing how you can relate just to people or to kiddos if you put a game in front of them. 00:28:59.07 John M Rodriguez So I think that that ah that is kind of a big passion right now is, you know, just ah building on that with the business and working with these kids. And it's really amazing to watch them grow. a lot of them have never played Dungeon Dragons before and they kind of come in and they're timid and you you literally watch them blossom. You watch them, you know, make these relationships with other kids and and ah they all start kind of growing and building their backstories together and you know like the the the one kid's dad was actually knew the other kid's brother and they're you know and they and they it's just it's it's amazing just to watch them grow and just to see like the adventure real like you happen so 00:29:35.43 Kurt Crenwelge Wonderful. Well, I think we've learned a lot about our guest and I think it's time we head into some NPC creation. 00:29:49.92 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC creation is brought to you you, the podcast audience and our patrons from Patreon. That's right. Now is the time of the show where we give a shout out to our comfortable patrons and above with a loud hurrah. 00:30:03.72 Kurt Crenwelge So to you, our queen of the Patreon, ah Katie Downey, aka Goblin Katie, as well as our other wealthy tier level patrons, Anson Jablinski and good old mom and dad. We say cheers ah with the twisted tea that I've got. 00:30:19.89 Kurt Crenwelge so Promise I haven't smacked anyone with it. But yes, these fine folks donated at least $2 or more a month, which means they get a shout out on all of our episodes. And, ah you know, that certainly carries weight considering I'm on a monthly schedule this season. 00:30:35.37 Kurt Crenwelge And all these fine folks, since they're at least wealthy tier, means they get to introduce an element of chance to our random tables that we have here. an NPC creation, so we might get to hear some of their responses ah used here today. So if you want to learn more about our awesome, wonderful, enthusiastic, albeit I need to catch up on very badly, and I welcome any and all gentle reminders about Yeah, if you want to learn more about our Patreon, you should go to the ah show notes below, go to my podcast website, or just go directly to patreon.com forward slash sidekicksandsidequests to find out more about our four tiers of accommodation that we have awaiting for you. Help us to grow and expand our operations for the Levitating Platter in this semi-plane and worlds beyond. 00:31:23.65 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So as we were starting to get the episode ready to hit all the record buttons and and get all the audio and whatnot all fixed and set. um Yeah, we were trying to decide like yeah or explain the format of the show. So, yeah, we're getting to this part where we make up a character. But the question becomes are we going to like go through a character that you have and you want to present and share with everyone or do you got your dice and you want to roll some dice and see what we get maybe they will soon to be featured in a heroes wanted incorporated adventure for the kids or something 00:32:00.32 John M Rodriguez Well, I would say if you're okay with it, I do have a character in mind. Like I said, i am I am forever the DM, never a player. So I do have a couple NPCs I've come up with that i are just very special to me. 00:32:13.34 John M Rodriguez um And I really feel like I haven't gotten a good chance to highlight them. So I do have ah one idea, if that's okay with you. 00:32:20.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, totally. And the tables are here. So if you if we get to a question and you're like, oh, I don't actually know what this would be, then we can always just do a dice roll and we can randomize something and and kind of see what we get. 00:32:33.75 Kurt Crenwelge So. 00:32:33.87 John M Rodriguez or All right, perfect. 00:32:35.99 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. OK, so then the way that we begin this process is we ask the question, what is the name of the character? 00:32:42.64 John M Rodriguez All right, so the name of this character is Fenn. That is F-E-N-N. Just Fenn. 00:32:48.31 Kurt Crenwelge Just Fen. Okay, Fen. 00:32:49.26 John M Rodriguez Just Fenn. 00:32:50.62 Kurt Crenwelge Alright, perfect. And then what is the ancestry of Fen? 00:32:54.92 John M Rodriguez All right, so Fenn is a shifter, actually, which is a... 00:32:59.48 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:32:59.81 John M Rodriguez It is the offspring of a lycanthrope and a humanoid. So. 00:33:04.82 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, yes, yes. I've used shifters a time or two. do you know what particular kind of shifter they are? Like what kind of lycanthrope they are descended from? 00:33:15.90 John M Rodriguez um In this case, it would be it would probably just be more of of like the standard werewolf. Mm-hmm. 00:33:21.21 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. So like a, a, a lupine or the, yeah, the wolf like shifter. Okay, cool. Um, excellence. Okay. And then the next question we have to ask ourselves is what is the job or role in society, uh, that Fenn the shifter has? 00:33:36.96 John M Rodriguez All right. Well, Fenn is actually a bit of, I'd say, like a hermit slash wild woman, you know, ah grew up on the outskirts away from people in towns and was kind of forced to fend for herself. 00:33:52.44 John M Rodriguez Hmm. 00:33:53.50 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. Interesting. Okay, so she she inhabits the hermit, um you know, outsider of of town, um wise one sort of role, it sounds like. Okay. 00:34:04.59 John M Rodriguez Well, and ah and and kind of going off that too, I i originally designed this character as a um as like a wild magic barbarian. 00:34:13.34 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:34:13.44 John M Rodriguez And ah the thing that I thought was She was forced to kind of live away from society because she was shunned because of her lineage and was forced to kind of raise herself. So shifters, according to the lore, they do mature incredibly quickly. 00:34:28.82 John M Rodriguez So you're looking at, you know, like a fully matured, ah like adult sized person at like age like 10, 12. So Fen kind of lived out on the outskirts, fending for herself, just kind of rough and tumbling it, surviving. 00:34:43.35 John M Rodriguez And, uh, had an exposure to, i don't know, some source of of wild magic source and kind of a that ambient magic kind of became a part of her. So. 00:34:53.48 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Okay. And then, um, let's see. And then how old would do you say that Fenn is? 00:35:00.96 John M Rodriguez I would say probably like early 20s, maybe even late, late teens, somewhere in there. 00:35:08.52 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so, yeah, so, like, thoroughly in like, the young adult camp, if you had to, like, categorize it in a rough range. 00:35:13.38 John M Rodriguez Mm-hmm. 00:35:16.24 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, perfect. All right. And then with these details in mind, so we know Fen, we know that she's like a lupine, wolfish ah shifter character. She's this hermit that's like a wild magic barbarian sort of a character. And, you know, she's in her late teens or early 20s as a young adult. 00:35:33.60 Kurt Crenwelge With all these details in mind, can you paint a physical description? ah So when we see her, how is she going to appear? 00:35:40.65 John M Rodriguez all right well the way that i envision fan is with uh long black hair uh with you know piercing green eyes and kind of it's uh it's kind of where you can kind of see that uh that feralness you know like like if you you look a creature in its eyes um kind of with that and uh her entire body is covered in scars just riddled and uh 00:36:00.68 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Mm-hmm. 00:36:01.44 John M Rodriguez you can You can think like that typical barbarian, like athletic lean build, you know? And the thing with Fenn is ah wears ah very little clothing, like not naked, you know, but not like a big, pretty flowing dress. 00:36:14.41 John M Rodriguez Just things that are comfortable that she can move easily in. 00:36:20.15 Kurt Crenwelge Sorry, I was just thinking of like, oh yeah she wears like a track suit or like sweatpants or something like that. 00:36:24.52 John M Rodriguez Yep. Yep. 00:36:25.11 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, it's comfortable that she can move in like a Lycra gym workout clothes or something like that. 00:36:25.41 John M Rodriguez yeah no no 00:36:31.37 John M Rodriguez Whatever the D&D equivalent is, the jeggings of swiftness might be... 00:36:37.83 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, or just the hides or yeah, whatever. Okay, cool. Okay, so we got a good physical description of the character. um But for role playing purposes, obviously, as a DM, we kind of want to know, like, what are three adjectives that would best describe Fen to help us in our our role playing of the character? 00:36:56.89 John M Rodriguez All right. Well, despite the, ah you know, the the bestial appearance that can be a Finn, she is naive, whimsical, and bubbly. 00:37:08.77 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. So yeah, not so yeah I would just expect like a hermit, you know, this is barbarian sort of sounding character to be like very gruff and like anti-social. But in actuality, she kind of sounds like, oh, a character that we made earlier on in our earlier seasons, Ata. 00:37:28.28 Kurt Crenwelge So Ata was a character that we made. Oh, I think what season two. And she's right here. I'm just, I, cause I have the schedule pull up number episode number 68, Ata and the dove coat cafe. 00:37:38.25 John M Rodriguez yeah 00:37:42.60 Kurt Crenwelge Um, so she was like this half or calf dry ad sort of a character. Um, you know, so like big and imposing, like, cause the orcishness and the dry adness, uh, but she spoke like a Valley girl and she was like very bubbly and whimsical and stuff like that. So I thought that was like, Oh, 00:37:59.68 Kurt Crenwelge That sounds like Ata. Like, yeah. So they would be buddies. It sounds like. 00:38:02.96 John M Rodriguez Yeah, and sounds like it. 00:38:03.12 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. yeah Okay. Perfect. ah Okay. Yeah. Yes. We got, we got, so um is there, and that's just how she is. So she hasn't let her, her she has not let her her medic lifestyle just kind of like ah wear her down or make her jaded or anything like that. She's able to keep this like bubbly and whimsical yet naive sort of attitude about her. 00:38:27.85 John M Rodriguez I would say that it's it's kind of ah she's kept that attitude in spite of. um you know like being Being shunned for her lineage, never really having close friends, anything like that, is she's she's always wanted that. 00:38:37.98 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:38:39.67 John M Rodriguez So literally every opportunity she has, she ah doesn't let ah you know the sadness take over and will, even in the darker situations, kind of look at the the bright side of it. um The one time I did get to use her, she was very much so like, hey, before we ah kill that guy, we should see if he wants to be our friend because you never know. 00:39:01.06 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:39:01.45 John M Rodriguez you know 00:39:02.02 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:39:02.16 John M Rodriguez And so she's always looking at the bright side of things and kind of not giving into that loneliness and that um hermit lifestyle, even though that was forced forced upon her. 00:39:11.02 Kurt Crenwelge I see. Right. Okay. Yeah, i was go to so I was trying to think of, like for some reason, my mind was going to Star Wars, and like is there a difference between like how Obi-Wan approached it versus how Yoda approached it, where it was like, Yoda was totally happy being a hermit, and was just as... 00:39:23.51 John M Rodriguez Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:39:28.13 Kurt Crenwelge like well, I mean, by the time we see him in Empire Strikes Back, or we meet him for the first time, he definitely seems like he's kooky, or he's like silly and whimsical and stuff like that. But in but in actuality, that hides um you know his more serious and stern and wiser um wisdom and knowledge that he has. 00:39:47.52 Kurt Crenwelge Whereas Obi-Wan is like, oh, I have to guard over Luke Skywalker, so I'm just going to you know as we saw in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, it was like, okay, I've got, I've got to assume this identity and this lifestyle here on Tatooine. And I just kind of like always have to be watching from a distance, uh, sort of a thing, kind of like two different, two different ways of going about hermit-ness, I suppose. 00:40:10.66 John M Rodriguez Yeah, and and I would say too, like the the interesting thing with this character is going to that lineage is it's ah kind of what's led to be in the Hermit is, you know, society being afraid of what she can do, but she was forced to kind of go into that more feralness to survive. 00:40:24.38 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm. 00:40:28.74 John M Rodriguez So, you know, she's happy-go-lucky bubbly, but there still is this inner beast that could come out if necessary. And ah I think especially with the barbarian, that's an interesting thing to get into, you know, of ah because the barbarian rage is is ah typically like, I'm so angry. ah I'm fighting hard, you know. 00:40:46.95 John M Rodriguez But, ah you know, in this case with her going to that, like the wild magic is when she rages, it's just like this whimsy and laughter as there's a a cascade of sparkles all around her. And, you know, with the wild magic barbarian, just random stuff happens when you rage. 00:41:01.69 John M Rodriguez but but 00:41:01.75 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:41:02.67 John M Rodriguez So. 00:41:02.74 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say, I never, I never watched it, but it sounds very much like that Harley Quinn, uh, the Harley Quinn movie where, you know, it's like big and splashy and like you're seeing things from her perspective where she's swinging around this big hammer or whatever, but like all the carnage or something is like happening on in the background, but it's like big splashy colors or, uh, I can see it here on my computer, at the logo for, 00:41:12.93 John M Rodriguez Okay. 00:41:25.67 Kurt Crenwelge team fortress 2 when they released the trailer for meet the pyro and you saw it was like you know like a 60s hippie song and pyro's going around like oh i'm blowing bubbles on everyone but in actuality it's cutting to the reality and it's like pyro's going around with a flamethrower and like decimating the other team and they're like oh the horror and it's like oh look at me just whimsy and fun sort of a juxtaposition 00:41:45.82 John M Rodriguez may Yeah, no, i'm i'm i'm I'm following that. Exactly. Yeah, she's just giggling the entire time swinging around whatever heavy thing she could pick up, you know. 00:41:56.69 Kurt Crenwelge perfect and uh this would be the part normally when people are randomizing and i get to say and now we get to go back to rolling some dice but we like all of our npcs uh to be able to have something cool on their person so i know sometimes with bringing your own character you know this may encompass several categories but what's a valuable item piece of lore secret or ideal or concept that fen would ascribe to so If you're looking to randomize it, you know, it's a combination role where we do it like a D4 and a D6 to get the category in the particular thing. 00:42:29.82 Kurt Crenwelge Or like I said, since you're bringing us the character, there might be a couple of things at play here. So you could just let us know, you know, what are some of those cool things that are on our person? 00:42:38.50 John M Rodriguez You know, I would say let's let's go ahead and let's let's add a a little bit of whimsy to this and let's let's roll. So you said that that was a d4 and d4 OK. 00:42:47.31 Kurt Crenwelge D6. Correct. 00:42:51.24 John M Rodriguez Let me go ahead and get those dice out here and we'll see what we get. All 00:42:55.49 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:42:58.54 John M Rodriguez right. I got 4 on d6 and a 2 on the d4. um the default 00:43:03.56 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Okay. Interesting. So your answer was suggested by our previous Patreon supporter there. Thank you, Nicholas Carterelli of the raised on D and D podcast. So the ideal or concept that Fen would ascribe to, she places importance on the existence of non-human spiritual beings. 00:43:24.19 John M Rodriguez That seems kind of fitting. 00:43:26.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so what what is that all about? what How does that speak to Fen's character, if you will? 00:43:32.37 John M Rodriguez um So this this was non non spiritual. 00:43:36.18 Kurt Crenwelge Non-human spiritual beings. 00:43:37.18 John M Rodriguez Non-human. I would say that this may go directly into that kind of lore backstory there where whatever this, ah you know, this could have been like maybe a bit of the Feywild kind of bleeding over to this plane or something. But wherever she encountered that wild magic, maybe her only friends, you know, were those those spirits that talked to her that couldn't physically be there, but still was, ah you know, just something to talk to. 00:44:02.18 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. And so if she's from an area that maybe doesn't really have knowledge of or acknowledge the Feywild and stuff like that. So she's so the town, you know, because they're scared of her because of like her lineage as we've established. But it's also like Oh, she's the crazy hermit that lives on the edge of the woods because she goes on about fear bulgs and she goes on about elves and all these other sorts of whimsical creatures that come from the Feywild that the regular townsfolk ah don't care about, don't have knowledge about, or they're just like, they're just going to leave her to her unicorns and dryads and whatever else she's going to go on and on about. But, you know, that and has nothing to do with us in the town. 00:44:45.44 John M Rodriguez i would I would say, too, even going to that that naivety of of like the child, because she is a child, a set you know or I guess ah a teen, maybe, in this case. 00:44:54.95 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:44:55.61 John M Rodriguez But you know maybe she doesn't even know what those things are. like She doesn't know that it's a fur bowl, or doesn't know it's an elf, or something. It's just, oh, my my friend Timmy. you know Yeah, Timmy's a great guy. He's got ears like this. you know and he So maybe maybe even leading into that, where she's not even quite sure what she's been ah communicating with or engaging in. 00:45:15.28 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Okay. Well, that's very cool. Yeah. So then, you know, depending on the setting that we find Fen in, especially if it's more like human centric sort of a situation, you know, she's going on about all these creatures like from the Feywild and like, you know, the placing the importance of their existence. 00:45:35.58 Kurt Crenwelge So, you know, kind of like how we might say like, oh yeah, pixies and fairies and Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster. Like these things are real. I see them. I play with them and hang out with them all the time. 00:45:47.38 Kurt Crenwelge And then the players are like, yeah, sure, whatever. And then they journeyed further into the forest and they're like, Oh, she wasn't kidding. There's a unicorn right there. There's a tall, walking, living tree. 00:46:00.86 Kurt Crenwelge A treeant right there. Like, we thought those things were only in fairy tales. that Like, now they're ah really real. 00:46:07.22 John M Rodriguez Yeah, no, i I love that. Yeah, that' I find that that's that's kind of really kind of coming together perfectly there. so 00:46:14.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and that's what the dice do. You know, they're random dice rolls, but the dice know what story they want to tell. 00:46:20.34 John M Rodriguez Absolutely. 00:46:22.05 Kurt Crenwelge And then, of course, you know, we like all of our NPCs on this podcast to be able to have the bright gold exclamation point over their head, offering up a side quest. So what is going to be a quest that Fen would be willing to recruit or hire player characters to go and do on her behalf? So again, if you're looking to randomize, the last dice to roll will be a D12. Or if you have an idea of what Fen needs help with, ah what would that be? 00:46:47.29 John M Rodriguez um I do have an idea for this one. 00:46:50.02 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:46:50.30 John M Rodriguez And what I was thinking here was a a bit of a mistaken identity. So there is there is another perhaps lycanthropic creature that's been terrorizing the town nearby settlement, whatever. 00:46:56.05 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:47:03.35 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:47:03.55 John M Rodriguez And Fenn's been taking the the blame for it, but would like to get to the bottom of the real culprits. 00:47:06.96 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:47:10.58 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah. Okay, so yeah, things are going wrong in the town. Livestock are being attacked. People are being attacked. And they're blaming her because, oh yeah, she's the shifty wolf girl that lives on the edge of town and no one trusts her. 00:47:25.64 Kurt Crenwelge And then, you know, so so she asks the player characters for help to investigate and get to the bottom of the crime. 00:47:30.67 John M Rodriguez Yep. yep 00:47:30.94 Kurt Crenwelge okay, is she going to go along with the adventure or is she just going to purely have the adventurers go and like go figure it out herself? Because I'm just remembering from earlier, like when you said, oh, when when you deployed her, she was like, are you sure you want to kill that thing? So maybe she's just very curious to like find out what this thing is because, oh, maybe it just needs a talking to and it could be my friend. 00:47:52.58 Kurt Crenwelge Like, oh, like here's a like a full blown werewolf or something like that that's going on. She's like, well, I'm part werewolf or I'm like descended from werewolves. Surely this thing will want to be my friend. 00:48:04.42 John M Rodriguez I would say that ah she like I do have her in my notes like curious to a fault. So I think she would absolutely want to go on and whether whether it's to, ah you know, take out whatever this creature is or just to ah talk to it, see what's going on, you know, so. 00:48:19.58 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:48:20.69 John M Rodriguez and um ah And I know doing Dungeon Dragons, too, is you can always ah plan for a fight or an encounter, and your players will always surprise you. 00:48:20.86 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:48:30.76 John M Rodriguez And so um I've learned it's kind of nice to have those options open to whether you're going to, you know, attack that enemy or talk to them and and see what's going on. So. 00:48:40.50 Kurt Crenwelge Right. It definitely, yeah, I track with that as far as like, oh, yeah, she totally wants to hire the player characters to come with her on the adventure ah because, you know, she wants to figure out and get to the bottom of this. 00:48:51.44 Kurt Crenwelge And um so then there's the encounter with this creature, whether it's a werewolf or some other lycanthrope creature. um And then, yeah, then there's the whole... the confrontation of whether it's going to be just a merely dialogue, heavy interlude, or if it does break out into a fight. 00:49:08.66 Kurt Crenwelge So it seems like there's, don't know, kind of some interesting scenarios to consider when we ask the question, what's going to be the reward for the side quest. If the players are successful and her and helping her with this, you know, this investigation and getting to the bottom of it, like, 00:49:26.31 Kurt Crenwelge don't know. Do you imagine that the reward going to be different versus like, hey, they went the more peaceful route. And so they talked to this thing and befriended it. Or they were like, oh, they figured out this thing was bad. 00:49:37.81 Kurt Crenwelge You know, and they they they tried talking to it and negotiating. It didn't work out. And so a fight broke out or the players just went straight to fighting. I don't know what's going to be the what do you what would you consider to be the reward for the side quest? 00:49:51.05 John M Rodriguez I was thinking that, um and just kind of going back to Fen herself, that she's kind of absorbed whatever this radiant wild magic is, you know, from where she lived in the forest or whatever. 00:50:02.22 John M Rodriguez And ah that she would give the the group, you know, whatever ends up happening, whether it's a fight or whatever, as long as they help Fen, that she would give them one of her most prized possessions, which is a amulet that is the only remaining thing from her mother. 00:50:19.32 John M Rodriguez And this amulet is also kind of absorbed some of that wild magic. And ah this is an item that I love to use in my games, a homebrew item, but it's either that you know the ring or the necklace of wild magic. 00:50:29.63 John M Rodriguez And 00:50:30.15 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:50:31.04 John M Rodriguez ah kind of like, ah you know, ah once or twice per day is a bonus action. You just roll on a wild magic ah table and see what happens and ah chaos ensues, and whether it's good or bad or anything like that. So that's kind of what I had in mind there. 00:50:46.41 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so she's willing to part with a magic item that with a bonus action once or twice, you know, did dungeon master to determine how many times a day. 00:50:55.19 John M Rodriguez Yep. 00:50:56.39 Kurt Crenwelge um But you roll in a wild magic table and then some effect happens and and then that's that's the item. 00:51:03.45 John M Rodriguez Yeah, and and ah like I said, I've used this item in some campaigns I've done before, and it's usually hilarious. It's ah it's a do-or-die moment. ah You know, the troll's about to TPK the entire party, and the warlock's orb of wild magic and rolls on the table, and then, ah you know, 2d6 snakes also show up. 00:51:23.35 John M Rodriguez You know, and it's like, oh, well. 00:51:24.02 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:51:27.07 Kurt Crenwelge Snake attack! And you just throw the snakes on the troll. 00:51:27.91 John M Rodriguez Yeah, yeah. 00:51:30.14 Kurt Crenwelge oh Yeah. 00:51:32.26 John M Rodriguez So it's ah it's ah really fun in in my experience, but it's it's ah if ah as a DM, you want to deal with that level of chaos. 00:51:40.53 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. But then we also have to consider the opposite. What's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? Maybe, you know... you know, well, I mean, yeah, well, I mean, depending on how you introduce her, know, cause she could be coming into town and not anyone's interacting with her. They're like, you know, hissing, like get away, get out of here. 00:52:01.36 Kurt Crenwelge And she comes to the players for help and they say, Ooh, no, thanks. I don't want to do this. Or, it would seem weird if they have to travel all the way to her hut and then they refuse her. Then it seems more like, uh, she comes up to them in the town, like one of the few times she comes into the town and they like refuse her. 00:52:17.54 Kurt Crenwelge Or if, um, I don't know, like she's trying to go about the peaceful route, but then they decide, ah, this isn't worth it. And they decided just kind of attack, uh, go against her wishes or whatever. 00:52:28.56 Kurt Crenwelge Um, what would you consider to be the failure, of the adventure? Or the consequences of failure or refusing the call to the adventure. 00:52:37.38 John M Rodriguez I would say that the, ah you know, whatever the true culprit was, we talked about another lycanthrope or another beast, ah you know, another creature, creature whatever it is, um that, you know, they, ah that Fen is blamed for the attacks. 00:52:45.63 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:52:51.28 John M Rodriguez And this may turn into a, ah the mayor is like, hey, there's this crazy hermit feral thing on the edge of town. It's been attacking our people, go deal with that, you know, which could be interesting. So... 00:53:04.57 Kurt Crenwelge So the townspeople are rallied into a mob against poor Fen. 00:53:11.40 Kurt Crenwelge And then Fen is scapegoated. And then, i don't know, her fate... Well, I mean, Dungeon Masters can always be creative with her fate. 00:53:17.23 John M Rodriguez Yeah. 00:53:18.46 Kurt Crenwelge you know If you take the more gruesome, like, oh no. you know She sacrificed ah you know to the this for the sins of the town or whatever. Or, oh she flees into the forest. 00:53:29.64 Kurt Crenwelge She gets more feral. She gets more angry. she becomes the antagonist of the town or i don't know, maybe she's just heartbroken and sad. 00:53:34.29 John M Rodriguez yeah 00:53:37.15 Kurt Crenwelge And then she's just left wandering the roads and the woods and stuff like that. And she's just super bummed out and just heartbroken for everything that's happened. I don't know. What do you, what do you think? 00:53:47.68 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, there's a number of different ways go for sure. 00:53:49.56 John M Rodriguez Yeah, it's ah I think that's the interesting thing is that it could be spawned like a variety a variety of ways, you know, and how they react to Fen. think it comes down to the players on how they would interact with that, you know. 00:54:00.55 John M Rodriguez and 00:54:00.67 Kurt Crenwelge hmm. 00:54:01.82 John M Rodriguez I think that whatever happens if Fen is defeated or ran out of town or whatever, that the thing was the the attacks would still continue, which may be that wish may be the, oh, we may not have done the right thing here, you know. 00:54:11.79 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:54:18.35 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:54:19.73 John M Rodriguez so 00:54:20.55 Kurt Crenwelge Would there be a chance of redemption or earning her trust back? If it was that situation of like, oh, we acted to hate, like the town was like, oh, we acted to hastily. we We called this totally wrong. And, you know, would she be willing to come back, do you think? 00:54:33.97 John M Rodriguez I would say yes. I would say kind of to a fault having that that optimism, you know, and in giving those second chances that maybe she's never been given, that absolutely. 00:54:43.36 Kurt Crenwelge Mm hmm. 00:54:44.01 John M Rodriguez It'd be like, hey, we're sorry we messed up. And she's like okay, just ah don't do it again, you know. 00:54:49.82 Kurt Crenwelge OK, wow. Yeah. OK, yeah. youd And then for sure, it's like, Fen, we, you know, we really need to talk about this, like, you know, make sure you're not being gaslit here by the town or whatever. 00:54:59.62 John M Rodriguez Absolutely. 00:55:01.63 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:55:02.55 John M Rodriguez And ah that was the one time I used her in my group is that was the interesting thing is because of that naivety, the group almost took her in and then she began to take on like emulate what she saw of the group. 00:55:13.23 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:55:17.75 John M Rodriguez And it was a really neat thing. Because, ah you know, were we're playing with adults, so they could would get kind of murder hobo sometimes. And then role playing Fen, she's kind of getting murder hobo they're like, oh, wait, we shouldn't be teaching Fen this, you know, and it it was interesting to see the players kind of think about how they portrayed things to Fen while she was along with the group. 00:55:39.56 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Okay, so you see that there's a potential maybe even she could become like a retainer or like a follower or a hireling sort of a character that goes along with the group and joins in their adventures, potentially. 00:55:52.21 John M Rodriguez Yeah, i would I would say absolutely until she she found her place, you know, because that's that that's all she's looking for is a place where she's accepted and that we she can finally have those those friends that she's never had. 00:56:05.04 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Yeah, my answer would be like she just finally gets to go to the Feywild and then she finds like a tribe of lycanthropes that just dance and make revelry and just hang out in the woods and just party hardy. And she's like, great, I found my people. 00:56:19.90 Kurt Crenwelge This is it. 00:56:19.93 John M Rodriguez Yep, yep, that's it. 00:56:20.38 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:56:23.53 Kurt Crenwelge And then we also have some optional questions as well, that if you're, if you feel like you want to explore even further, ah you know, the background and the depths of Fenn as a character, or if you feel like she's pretty well fleshed out, um we can move on to the next section. 00:56:38.88 John M Rodriguez Ahmed, you're a lot more experienced ah with this than than I am. Did you think we have ah enough here to work on or or should we dig deeper? 00:56:47.46 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, it's your call. You're the guest. This is your episode and your show. So, um, I mean, sometimes, you know, people get really invested in the NPCs and, you know, they're, you know, especially if someone has like brought them to us to share with the world, it's like, they really want to dive into these noodley questions that are like more specific, uh, to give you like more, you know, more meat and hunk on them. 00:57:11.40 Kurt Crenwelge Um, but otherwise, you know, i feel in formulating this show and really just being like, you know, these are good questions to ask, but like, really if like a dungeon master or a player character needs someone for their backstory, they're like, no, these are the questions that I need to really have answers for, um, if I'm going to deploy them. 00:57:31.29 Kurt Crenwelge And then if, you know, the dungeon master can certainly invent, you know, their particular accents or idiosyncrasies or goals and motivations and stuff like that. But sometimes people want to know that up front because it gives them a better idea of how to portray the character. 00:57:44.96 Kurt Crenwelge Um, but yeah, it's your call, whatever you feel most inspired. 00:57:46.96 John M Rodriguez Yeah. i ah I feel like let's let's go deep. Let's let's ah do the these extra questions. let's ah Let's really flesh out Fen. 00:57:56.45 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. So what are Fenn's goals and motivations as a character? 00:58:01.41 John M Rodriguez So I would say it it it just goes back to that she doesn't want to be alone. She doesn't want to be ostracized. She doesn't want to be that hermit. And like I said, really wants to find a place where she's accepted. 00:58:10.01 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm. 00:58:14.23 John M Rodriguez And I think that ultimately Fen wants to do right. but may not know how to do it. That's the thing is is with not having that socialized approach, she you know may not know how to talk to people or but you know may not know how to how to handle scenarios. 00:58:26.45 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:58:28.87 John M Rodriguez And she may think she's helping someone, but in fact, you know doing more damage in helping. So- 00:58:34.49 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And so then how would you say that these goals and motivations affect her general personality? 00:58:41.13 John M Rodriguez um like i said before like very bubbly with that forced optimism i would go on the line of almost annoying like it's like that that person we're like it's a great day everything's great and it's raining and everything's muddy and i'm just so glad to be here with everybody and it's like fenn stop like it's not 00:58:59.45 Kurt Crenwelge Would you say like a toxic positivity in a way? 00:59:02.62 John M Rodriguez i would yeah yeah i would i would say kind of that toxic positivity 00:59:06.18 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Yeah. So she's really got to learn some hard lessons, you know, so actually bonding. So it'll be interesting. Yeah. Depending on what group encounters are like, does she get the does she get the group, the band of mo murder hobos or does she get like the fresh faced out of the adventuring Academy people that are like all textbook knowledge that are trying to apply those lessons in real life? Yeah. 00:59:28.56 Kurt Crenwelge So she would be an interesting first case for them to crack. 00:59:31.83 John M Rodriguez yeah yeah and ah and i think too like kind of going off of that like naivety too is like i've i i've uh had my notes like she can't read you know there's there's a lot of things that she'll see and have no idea what it is and i think that makes for um you know for parties that are into role play that makes there some really interesting like role play opportunities there 00:59:49.53 Kurt Crenwelge o Okay, yeah. And so then how would you say that Fen normally interacts ah with people? Is she like pretty nuanced or is she or is what we see is what we get? She's like the same across the board no matter what group of people that she's speaking with. Like, you know, friends and family versus, you know, peers and enemies and rivals, cetera etc. 01:00:12.28 John M Rodriguez I would say like with, ah you know, friends, ah family peers that she's that super bubbly, ah kind of ah clingy, I would say even, you know, um like you're my buddy, you know, and and she's there. 01:00:24.05 John M Rodriguez And I would say that when it comes to a fight, because there is that feral survival that how she grew up, that there that's kind of where you see that that shifter beast come out in a fight. And it's kind of like flipping that switch, you know, 01:00:39.82 John M Rodriguez And I think especially with the barbarian, that's an interesting thing to play on is, you know, when because her rage is kind of that whimsy we talked about, but can that rage go darker, more, more, more bestial when she when she needs it to. 01:00:54.39 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Yeah. Okay. And then does she have a particular accent or language that she uses? are there itd Are there any idiosyncrasies in how she acts or speaks? 01:01:08.31 John M Rodriguez i would I would say you guysica kind of talked about it ah before, kind of like that valley girl just thought, hey, how's it going? Like, you know just that that bubbly kind of happy. i would I would say as long as you're you're going along with that, um I think a big inspiration for this character was um Lulu from League of Legends. 01:01:26.18 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:01:26.59 John M Rodriguez So that's kind of like the voice that I hear there. 01:01:29.59 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. I don't have any League of Legends reference. I know that was a game that came out again in like my college years and you know, ever is talk about toxic for all kinds of different reasons with that fandom. 01:01:32.58 John M Rodriguez Oh, gotcha. 01:01:41.05 John M Rodriguez ah Yeah, yeah no 01:01:42.04 Kurt Crenwelge ah But, but okay. 01:01:44.13 John M Rodriguez yeah I spent spent way too much time playing that game, for sure. Don't play anymore. I don't have the time for it. But i yeah when I was younger, it was cheap and it was there. and yeah so but ah But yeah, if you if you look it up, Lulu is... a I think Lulu's backstory, too, is she was raised by fairies or something. 01:02:02.03 John M Rodriguez So it's it's ah all about the whimsy and the the the wonder of of of the world. 01:02:02.59 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:02:07.17 John M Rodriguez So... 01:02:07.49 Kurt Crenwelge I see. And then for Fen, what impact has she made on the world? How has she shaped her local area? 01:02:16.23 John M Rodriguez um I would say in this case, it's it's kind of like that ah that local legend. Like we we talked about like the weird you know the weird hermit at the edge of the forest or the the beast in the forest, kind of like the the thing told to ah to kids so they don't go out too late at night. you know Don't go out of the forest because there's there's the beast that lives there. So I would say that not really impacting the world in a big way, but definitely that local area that there's kind of this mysticism you know that that goes around of on who Fen is or what Fen is. 01:02:46.62 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. Okay. And then does she have any current problems that prevent her from being an even bigger player on the stage? Is it the ostracization? 01:02:56.92 John M Rodriguez I would, you know, and and this is this is campaign dependent because some some campaign settings are more accepting of ah the different lineages of D&D characters, you know. 01:03:07.20 John M Rodriguez So um I think that would depend on, you know, what ah what the campaign setting is. 01:03:07.84 Kurt Crenwelge hmm. 01:03:11.57 John M Rodriguez um I think that in the local area that, yeah, she's ostracized, but, you know, maybe everywhere she goes, maybe seeing this half beast, half person is is always a negative, you know. 01:03:22.60 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:03:23.20 John M Rodriguez So... 01:03:24.71 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Well, sounds like we've learned a lot then about Fen, our little happy hermit. And I think it's time we throw her into ah random encounter. 01:03:34.05 John M Rodriguez Ooh, okay. hey 01:03:41.47 Kurt Crenwelge And insert the final ad read here for Zencaster, the lovely service that records this podcast and all its goodness. If you're looking to start your own podcast, be sure to use the code side KQ podcast at Zencaster dot com forward slash pricing and you'll save 30 percent off your first month of any Zencaster paid plan. So thank you ah for supporting the sponsor because it supports the podcast. 01:04:07.12 Kurt Crenwelge And now back to the show. All right. And so this is the part of the episode. That's the random encounter. It's where we do a little role play vignette, a scene with the character that's been brought to us today. So I think you're going to do a fantastic job of showing us what Fenn is all about. But the question that I have is, who am I going to be in the scene? Am I going to be one of my reoccurring adventure characters ah that meets Fenn and gets the side quest? 01:04:34.91 Kurt Crenwelge Am i some sort of... oh, townsperson that's interacting with her or reacting against her? ah Is this something to do with the the wild magic origin to her barbarianness? I don't know. What sort of scene are you interested in showcasing and showing off Fen in? 01:04:56.27 John M Rodriguez I would think let's go with ah the adventurer kind of encountering Fen for the first time. 01:05:01.62 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, well, we definitely have a big old Rolodex of of characters to choose from. so if i go through them rather quickly, we have Duncan. He's the recklessly brave adventurer for hire ah fighter background as I battle master fighter as I chose in Baldur's Gate three. But yes, 01:05:20.05 Kurt Crenwelge Happy-go-lucky, no feet too daring, no no no mission too small sort of a guy. you know Chaotic goodness just sort of follows him. Chaos follows him wherever he goes. 01:05:30.56 John M Rodriguez Ooh, okay. 01:05:30.63 Kurt Crenwelge um We have Sonya, who is the warrior woman. She started off as a barbarian and then multiclassed into a paladin who serves a god who wishes to redeem the undead. We have Korak, who is the lawful evil, arcane trickster, roguish dwarf. 01:05:46.05 Kurt Crenwelge ah We have Chrisley, who is the herbalist botanist Wood Elf Druid, who then multiclassed into a cleric who serves living memory. We have Orion, who is the Astral Elf Illusionist Wizard. 01:06:00.08 Kurt Crenwelge We have... I'm doing so good with remembering. And then it's like, oh, and then we have... Oh, we got Agape, who is the lilac-colored tiefling, Sorlock. 01:06:13.35 Kurt Crenwelge She started off as a wild magic sorcerer, and then she made a warlock pact with, again, she refers to, and I have for and now a long time been missaying the name, she says Prosperina, but really the name of the archvase Proserpina, like from Greek myth. 01:06:16.10 John M Rodriguez oh 01:06:32.35 John M Rodriguez ah 01:06:32.41 Kurt Crenwelge So, That's my fault for the longest time. But you know what? That's just in character as a copy. She just calls her Prosperina, but that's not really your name. um And then also we have Life Spell. 01:06:43.06 Kurt Crenwelge He is the forest gnome necromancer, old man. And he has Octavius, his his skeletal manservant that he has. And then there also was one bard character that we made, Amblin Mithril Shaper, who showed up in one of our earlier adventures. 01:07:02.13 Kurt Crenwelge um But we haven't seen her since. It's been a little while, which is fine. But those are all the named characters that I'm pretty. Yes, I'm pretty sure I i got them all named and all that sort of stuff. But if none of those characters speak to you, ah then we are certainly welcome and open to inventing brand new adventure characters for the podcast. 01:07:21.07 John M Rodriguez You know, i would say let's go Duncan. I feel like they would, there'd be like a bit of a rivalry there and maybe they could get along out of the gate, but it could go either way, you know? So um that, that really kind of stood out to me. 01:07:34.70 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so you would like Fenn to meet Duncan. 01:07:38.59 John M Rodriguez Yes. 01:07:39.43 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, and then would you like to set the scene or shall I? 01:07:42.93 John M Rodriguez I will. Why don't you set the sink for us? 01:07:46.36 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:07:49.44 Kurt Crenwelge Where we last left our hero, Duncan. Duncan had come across the Swamptown and he came to the school. And all the kids were behind the school because they were getting lessons from a Miesel, a Miesel named Corazon, who was teaching cantrips to all the kids. 01:08:07.36 Kurt Crenwelge And ah Duncan undertook the mission for the kids for the sake of the children who wanted to learn more cantrips. So Duncan had to make his way into the swamps and find the hut of a green hag. 01:08:20.41 Kurt Crenwelge And he had to steal ah the sourdough starter. ah Like that was a hundred years old. And then as well, there were several spell books that had been acquired ah from the corpses of some wizards and such. 01:08:34.18 Kurt Crenwelge So that quote, that way Corazon could then memorize the cantrips and then be able to use those to teach the kids. So through that harrowing, Baldur's Gate 3 sort of anti-Ethel sort of stages of going through that whole fight um with his allies at his side ah because he totally called them in. that's Of course he would. 01:08:56.52 Kurt Crenwelge ah 01:08:56.69 John M Rodriguez and 01:08:57.06 Kurt Crenwelge But yeah, he totally had a successful fight against a green hag and came back and helped all the kids and then went on his merry way. And not too much further away from the swamps, you know, coming back to idyllic country and forest and rolling hills and oh, it seems like a nice town and all that stuff. But where is Duncan going to stumble upon Fen? 01:09:18.14 John M Rodriguez I would say maybe even a random encounter just on the road. Fenn's looking for friends at every opportunity. 01:09:23.02 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:09:26.17 John M Rodriguez So maybe it's like the, you know, you're walking down the road and there's no traveler, no wagons for miles and you turn around and now there is a wolf woman standing there. 01:09:37.73 Kurt Crenwelge No! Hello! Wow, you just sort of snuck up on me. Hello there. How are you? 01:09:42.94 John M Rodriguez Hi, i'm I'm doing really well. um What's your name? 01:09:49.18 Kurt Crenwelge yeah um My dear, who am I? And he reaches into a pocket and he pulls out a business card. And again, shea he doesn't know that she can't read, but he's like, ah, yes, this says it all. I am Duncan, the adventurer for hire. No tasks... 01:10:04.57 Kurt Crenwelge too big, no feet, too daring. And he starts going on and on. And, you know, the business card says, like, you know, the same thing, ah you know, adventurer for hire, ah and that he is the proud sponsor of a stone cast in the local region ah from a pair of hexblade siblings that are fantasy game designers ah that make use of magic mouth pod stone casts in some of the nearby major settlements. 01:10:25.09 John M Rodriguez Okay. 01:10:30.42 Kurt Crenwelge ah So he's mentioned as these things. And so he's he's starting to go through like, oh, yes, I'm the slayer of this. And I did this mission and I did that. So he's starting to go through like his whole thing of qualifications and he'll keep going until um until Fenn stops it. 01:10:40.93 John M Rodriguez okay 01:10:45.14 John M Rodriguez I would say that Fen will take that card, um obviously upside down, and she's like, uh-huh, uh-huh, and like looking at it. And then Fen is going to start kind of looking him up and down, kind of walking around, circling him while he's doing these, ah you know talking about his accolades and and what he's done and everything. 01:11:02.80 John M Rodriguez And then she's going to start like sniffing him like that, that having having no idea of personal space, but, you know, and ah she'll, she'll probably do this. and i don't know if it'll bother him, but she'll, she'll probably continue to do this while he's talking um and until he kind of acknowledges it. 01:11:22.38 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. So he's going on. and And so she starts doing the smelling thing. And he kind of like stops and quirks his head a little bit. And he's like, ah are you all right, madam? i ah Seems well. hu And he's like, well, he's starting to get a little fidgety. 01:11:39.70 Kurt Crenwelge And he's just kind of like, well, what would ah what would Daisy say? Oh, my goodness. I mean, I mean, I thought she was. So he's like, he's trying to do the the thing like in the, in the police on like, you know, don't stand, don't stand so close to me. 01:11:53.93 John M Rodriguez Oh, 01:11:55.19 Kurt Crenwelge So he's like trying to create some distance and like make sure he's being proper and chaste and honorable and all that stuff. ah But he's coming at it more of like a, what, what, what would Daisy say? My fair, 01:12:05.74 Kurt Crenwelge my favorite patron from the city, ah who I told you about, who I went on the Grand Epic Adventure to find the Crescent's Edge. And so now she's in the possession of it. And she said she had a lovely time with me. Yes, she said that she might want to perchance give me a smooch one of these days, don't you know? 01:12:25.60 John M Rodriguez Well, you smell funny. I wonder if Daisy thought you smelled funny too. I mean, it's not bad. It's just different. It's just not from around here. 01:12:32.62 Kurt Crenwelge You know, when I was at the party that I got invited to, she did say that she could still smell the dungeon on me. i She is a dragon herself. She appears as an Aldatu, one of the half-celestials, but she's actually a silver dragon. and 01:12:48.37 John M Rodriguez Wow, a silver dragon? 01:12:50.46 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, going to magic school and all that. 01:12:51.39 John M Rodriguez Is that... 01:12:53.05 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and he's about to start telling you the whole backstory of all this this this young dragon that he, you know, became a hired adventurer for to go on this at grand epic adventure in this ah this temple with this ancient ah religious artifact. 01:13:09.99 John M Rodriguez I would say that Fen is like eating this up at this point. And ah I would say funny enough, they probably started walking again and now like walking in step with each other. 01:13:18.12 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:13:20.12 John M Rodriguez ah whatever direction that Duncan was going. 01:13:20.22 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 01:13:23.32 John M Rodriguez And Fen is just kind of prodding more information, just wanting to wanting to hear about these travels, fully believing them, not not not questioning whatsoever, but you know like, oh, and then what happened? 01:13:29.74 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:13:33.71 John M Rodriguez And then and then who did you see? And then you know just really trying to get as much information and interaction as she can. 01:13:40.60 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and he's using it also as an as a as a way to explain some of the gear. Because definitely kind of like in Baldur's Gate, there are some of these other RPGs where you're like, I clearly picked this gear because it gives me the best stats. 01:13:54.14 Kurt Crenwelge Not that it's necessarily the best aesthetics. 01:13:54.41 John M Rodriguez Mm-hmm. 01:13:56.77 Kurt Crenwelge um So he's like, ah, yeah, this contraption on this arm, this is a wrist-mounted grappling hook contraption. I can use it to like grab things from a distance and pull it close. And he's like, ah, this wooden 01:14:10.09 Kurt Crenwelge ah, it is is the spoon of justice. A halfling woman gave this to me, and I haven't it still fills me with a sense of dread and omen, knowing that a bunch of maternal wrath is store stored in it, but ah haven't haven't quite found the situation to use this. Oh, I can fly a certain number of times a day, thanks to Lily the Narwhalicorn, and so you start and in these shoes were made by a wonderful pair, ah some sort of cranky sort of, a I don't know, like a death what but What was he called? 01:14:40.93 Kurt Crenwelge I think he was. Yeah, he was like a death lock. No, what was it? ah He was a sorcerer fellow or an undead warlock fellow of some archfey. Yes, but they worked with a Vidalcan who was a coin minter and these fantastic loafers that have magic coins in them that just make me stronger and faster. And so, again, he's pointing out all the different mismatched sort of like equipment that he has, um but it gives him all these really cool, awesome stats. And so, you know, just basically hyping up his resume and stuff like that. 01:15:11.92 John M Rodriguez And then ah for for kind of me to visualize here, ah does Duncan wear like heavy armor? Is he wear like leather armor? like what is What is his loadout? Because he's a fighter, correct? 01:15:22.95 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I know in Baldur's Gate 3 terms, I made him as a battle master 01:15:27.20 John M Rodriguez OK. 01:15:28.43 Kurt Crenwelge With the lucky stat, because, you know, chaos case chaos always follows him. 01:15:29.94 John M Rodriguez ah Of course, of course, yeah. 01:15:33.40 Kurt Crenwelge um Yeah, so i mean I mean, I don't know if I actually thought about the particular armor that he wears, but probably like basic, you know, like if he hasn't found something to replace it with and he's probably just still like in his like initial battered and, and ah you know, well-worn armor that's, you know, it's served him this well. 01:15:53.30 Kurt Crenwelge you know maybe he's had to get a couple pieces repaired and stuff like that over time but like he sees it as a testament to his skill that like oh yeah this is like you know basic armor but like this has gotten me this far and i've got a bunch of other stuff that helps me to compensate otherwise 01:16:08.93 John M Rodriguez Wait, so I'm confused. So you say that you're really great and you're really strong and you've done all these things, but are you strong or is it just your stuff that makes you strong? 01:16:20.93 John M Rodriguez Because I'm really strong and I don't need magic spoons or ah loafers of coinage or anything like that. So like, are you actually strong? 01:16:35.42 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, ah now for the first time, I think Duncan's just kind of been like, Madam, you insult me. i am ay I will have you know before I got even any of this stuff that I was the strongest man in my town that I was from. 01:16:49.71 Kurt Crenwelge so i was too big for my town. That's why I had to go out on the road and go do all these other things to prove myself. Well, for for me, not for anyone else, but for me, did a testament to myself, my skills. 01:17:00.95 Kurt Crenwelge And i don't know, he he looks around for something to to test his to test his strength. Maybe he finds... um ah well, some sort of like, uh, like big two by four or something like that. And he's just kind of like, but and because of the, because of the magic from the, the, the loafers and all the other stuff, he gets a two by four and he literally just like breaks it over his knee. Like it's like, he's just snapping a twig. He's like, ha ha. 01:17:28.99 Kurt Crenwelge See, 01:17:30.53 John M Rodriguez i would I would say that Fen's like, yeah, I i see, but that but that's not really anything crazy. And she'll probably walk over and replicate it just with that barbarian strength, you know, ah just shattering it too. And she's like, see, I can do that. I don't have stuff. 01:17:46.85 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. Ugh. Hmm. Now he starts to think like, oh, well, I better watch my words carefully with this one because I don't want to get her angry and upset. And maybe by this point, um to help highlight the fact of her ostracization from the town, because now they've snapped like two perfectly... 01:18:08.08 Kurt Crenwelge decent two by fours. Some people start coming over. They're like, Hey, what are you doing? Like, why what are you doing? Messing. And Duncan's like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. i My strength was being called into question. It's me, Duncan. Hello. Hello. 01:18:19.27 Kurt Crenwelge He starts handing out business cards and people are like half ignoring the fact that he's trying to like, ease things over so maybe his persuasion is kind of like his persuasion check that he makes is kind of like middle of the road where some of them are impressed but most of them are just more concerned of the fact of like you're destroying stuff in the town and also you're with this girl that is nothing but trouble and so he's just like trying to quiet the people down like I'm sorry look look like I'm very rich like and he's like here and he like reaches into a pouch and he like pulls out some coinage and he's like I'm sorry who owns this fence you you and he just slaps like 01:18:33.37 John M Rodriguez Thank you. 01:18:55.38 Kurt Crenwelge 30 gold in this guy's hand like I'm that should cover it right like you should be fine 01:19:00.30 John M Rodriguez i would I would say during this, like, Fen visibly wilts at being called out. And it's kind of like, oh... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. um We were so he said he was strong, but he I was he wasn't really seem strong, but I guess he is kind of strong. So I was trying to strong I am, but we can fix it. 01:19:17.14 John M Rodriguez And she's trying to, like, put the two by fours back together. And of course, probably damaging more in the process or, you know, leaning on the fence too much and the fence breaks another piece or something. 01:19:29.27 John M Rodriguez And ah you can see just Fen trying her best while he's trying his best, I guess, to kind of kind of ah throw money at this situation. 01:19:37.89 Kurt Crenwelge Right, yeah, I think the chaos is building on itself between these two characters. um So what's the fever pitch? What happens? Does a wild magic effect go off? 01:19:47.81 John M Rodriguez um I would say, let's say that ah someone becomes very angry at the fence, you know, being damaged. And ah yeah, fn Fen would probably go to that wild magic and something happens. We can we can roll a table. ah 01:20:02.64 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, let's see what happens. 01:20:04.30 John M Rodriguez let's Let's see here. And did you want to go off the wild magic barbarian table or just just the... 01:20:08.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that's fine. 01:20:09.84 John M Rodriguez Okay, yeah. 01:20:10.17 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:20:10.93 John M Rodriguez I don't have that in front of me. Just give me a second here and I will pull that up. 01:20:17.21 Kurt Crenwelge Things that can be fixed in post. 01:20:22.09 John M Rodriguez Yeah, that was that was my bad for not being ah ready, right? 01:20:28.56 John M Rodriguez Let's here. magic corarian And you would think us being DMs, we'd have all of this memorized, right? 01:20:35.07 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:20:36.12 John M Rodriguez All right. i do have that dice up if you want to give yourself a cut point here to start. So, all right. Well, let's go ahead and roll. Let's see what happens as Fen becomes more and more flustered. 01:20:48.45 John M Rodriguez And i rolled a six here. So until your rage ends, you are surrounded by a multicolored protective lights. You gain a plus one to your AC and all allies within 10 feet of you also gain the same bonus. 01:21:03.24 John M Rodriguez So 01:21:03.68 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 01:21:06.50 John M Rodriguez go ahead. 01:21:07.90 Kurt Crenwelge So then the light just kind of starts shimmering out, and so does she consider Duncan an ally at this point? 01:21:14.62 John M Rodriguez I would say with the time that they've spent, I would say yes. Yeah, she's already kind of attached. ah She was really trying to make an impression and ah not knowing how to approach social situations came from the, well, you don't look strong, you know, but she's she's trying really hard. 01:21:29.21 John M Rodriguez So yeah, this ah kaleidoscope rainbow effect of lights just shoots out around her, kind of covering her entire body and also ah now covering Duncan, who is handing gold out, but now shimmering with a prismatic effect. 01:21:29.49 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:21:43.77 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so it probably stands to reason that the townspeople freak out because they're like, ah, magic. 01:21:48.67 John M Rodriguez Thank you. 01:21:48.85 Kurt Crenwelge And then they like they flee in terror, ah probably, you know, because this isn't a normal occurrence. And so Duncan's like, wait, come back. I have more money. I'm i'm sorry about this. It's OK. It'll be fine. 01:22:01.01 Kurt Crenwelge And he's just and I think Duncan, to showcase his goodness, is just going to turn to fat and be like, hey, ah hey, it's all right. yeah Calm down. We're we're good. ah You know, i I have a friend, ah she you know, she's ah she's a tiefling and, you know, she gets hot and she burns and, you know, i it's OK. Like, you know, you're you're cool. 01:22:22.87 Kurt Crenwelge And he like helps doing his part to like calm her down. 01:22:26.30 John M Rodriguez yeah i would I would say, like, in that flustered moment trying to fix the fence, the two-by-fours, that's this kind of where this wild magic effect came from. And she kind of, okay, okay, okay. Breathe, breathe, breathe. And, like, the rainbow kind of fades away. 01:22:40.71 John M Rodriguez And she says, listen, we're friends, right? 01:22:45.17 Kurt Crenwelge Of course, like naturally, yes. 01:22:45.27 John M Rodriguez Like, okay, perfect. So that everyone's kind of scared of me, and they stay away. um i don't i don't want you to go away, too. So... 01:22:56.00 John M Rodriguez um 01:22:57.66 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, the Duncan's heart breaks a little bit hearing that. 01:22:59.54 John M Rodriguez Yeah. Yeah. um So yeah maybe we should go back to the forest or, or, or back down the road and and we could talk more and you can tell me about your adventures and where you've been and about your loafers. 01:23:13.91 Kurt Crenwelge Duncan will roll his insight check. And this time he actually does pretty well on his insight check. And so he'll just kind of be like, so the townspeople are afraid of you. Is there, is there something going on that would make them believe that you're a threat to them? don't, yeah, 01:23:30.81 Kurt Crenwelge you know, no no offense to you. I mean, you are certainly strong, but you do not strike me as the type of person who would actually be mean spirited or wish harm on people. So there is, is there something that's going on? 01:23:44.51 John M Rodriguez Well, I just don't think they understand me. And i really want them to be my friends. i want to show them that I'm nice, but sometimes hey I break things. um One time, i think I hurt somebody. We were trying to arm wrestle and he wasn't very strong. 01:24:02.97 John M Rodriguez Um, so they're just kind of scared. And then sometimes like you saw just things happen around me. I don't know why, but whenever I get really flustered or upset, like things happen, like I'll shoot beams out of my chest or a bunch of flowers and vines will grow around me. And i guess people don't like that. 01:24:21.79 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Yes. I mean, you yes. Okay. Yes. You have a bit of the, you but you have a bit of the Feywild that follows you, it seems. Yes. I've, I've been there a time or two myself. Don't you? know i can I can just naturally smell that on you, don't don't you know? But, I don't know, it just it seems like they reacted more more than just that, because we live in a world where all sorts of crazy things happen on the street every day. 01:24:49.95 Kurt Crenwelge In the big cities, you know, they advertise the fact that, oh, you can do magic and you can go to this store and buy scrolls and stuff like that, but No, this... With my seasoned adventuring mind, no, this seems... Are you being blamed for something? 01:25:07.73 John M Rodriguez Well, there's been some attacks and I think like something's been eating ah some cows. I think some chickens went missing and one of the woodcutters didn't come back to town. And I think they think it was me, but I've never eaten anyone that I knew. i mean, i've I've had to eat some weird things, but the that it wasn't like a townsperson. 01:25:31.15 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. And still going off his insight check, um you know, Duncan believes her. He has no reason to think otherwise, but he's just kind of like, okay, so there's a mystery afoot. 01:25:37.43 John M Rodriguez Mm-hmm. 01:25:42.32 Kurt Crenwelge So you are being blamed for something that you're not doing. And there's some bigger adventure to be had in this town. Yes. And he looks at the nearby sign and maybe the this the the name for the town just kind of like, it like falls down in disrepair. cause It's like the idea of being like, oh, this town has seen better days. It's like, ah, well, this town it has a mystery on its hands and it's a fine adventurer like me to help solve it. So he's, yes, I'll take you up on your offer. 01:26:11.25 Kurt Crenwelge ah Let's go to your house and reconnoiter and gather all the intelligence and and begin our and begin our investigation at once. 01:26:19.68 John M Rodriguez Well, you want to come to my house? Well, it's not... 01:26:23.60 Kurt Crenwelge Sure, if it saves me money, why not? 01:26:26.24 John M Rodriguez Okay, well, it's not really a house, but it's kind of like a... A nest is a good word for it? I mean, I live there, but, like, there's not a door or anything. 01:26:35.55 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:26:39.19 John M Rodriguez Is that okay? 01:26:40.76 Kurt Crenwelge As long as it's nicer than a green hag's hut, I'll take it. 01:26:44.60 John M Rodriguez Right. it'll It'll be like a sleepover. My first sleepover. And kind of this point, kind of arm in arm, like just dragging Duncan towards Fen's abode. 01:27:00.25 Kurt Crenwelge And scene. So we did it. So that what did you think it was like getting to play Fen in that scene with Duncan? 01:27:07.29 John M Rodriguez I think it was a ton of fun. I think always you with me, I'm like, I want to see where this goes. I want to see what happens here, you know? ah So I am excited for that. but ah But yeah, no, I think that went really good. Mm-hmm. 01:27:22.84 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, no, yeah, it definitely seems like ah they're kindred spirits, like ah siblings separated in a way, kind of like they're definitely feeding off of each other's energy for sure. Like maybe not intentional one upsmanship, but it's just kind of like, oh, you're chaotic. I'm chaotic. 01:27:40.11 Kurt Crenwelge Our chaotics are bouncing off of each other sort of a thing. So if the two of them were in a party together, it would just it would be hijinks and chaos the entire time. 01:27:50.03 John M Rodriguez but Which is always fun, right? 01:27:51.91 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 01:27:53.25 John M Rodriguez um Yeah. And and the the thing that i found interesting, too, is I was ah expecting Duncan, um especially with like the the the the insult you know to his strength. 01:28:04.71 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:28:04.76 John M Rodriguez i was i was wondering if that would actually result in conflict. 01:28:04.85 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 01:28:07.84 John M Rodriguez you know Like, well, you you call me out. Who are you? you know So I thought it was interesting how that how that kind of played out. 01:28:14.60 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Well, Duncan, you know, as ah as you listen to the back catalog of episodes where Duncan started way back when meeting Dolly, the tree and cartographer to now he's been to a number of realms and he's even traveled to the forgotten realms once. And I guess technically with being my first playthrough of Baldur's Gate three for sure has like some. 01:28:37.24 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. variant history there within the Forgotten Realms for sure but it's also been established canonically within the podcast as well so you know Duncan has been a couple of places and seen some things in his life let me tell you so he's a little more he's a little more understanding and easygoing so like yeah I mean sure someone wants to call him out on his on his strength and he can just be like well 01:28:50.28 John M Rodriguez All right. Well. 01:29:01.51 Kurt Crenwelge I am a high level fighter by now. I've done all the side quests. I've grinded away at the side quests and avoided the main plot for so long that I'm just like way overpowered at this point and completely ridiculous looking. 01:29:12.94 John M Rodriguez Yeah, plus, plus he has the loafers. So. 01:29:15.32 Kurt Crenwelge ah he does have the magic loafers, which again, for those of you curious, what in the world I'm talking about, you would want to go into our back catalog and listen to episode number 60, rock folio and penny loafers is the name of that episode where you can get some interesting gear. 01:29:33.69 Kurt Crenwelge ah yeah. Get yourself some deer skin loafers with, uh, I'm forgetting the name. Kulva? I'll have to go back and listen to the episode myself to figure out the name of the actual magic coins themselves. 01:29:46.02 Kurt Crenwelge But um yeah, it was like the magic coins boosted a stat, but the but the drawback was that because the um because it was Folio who was like the undead Feywild... 01:30:01.60 Kurt Crenwelge ah The undead Archfey Warlock character. Aren't those called Deathlocks? I think in the game. 01:30:09.77 John M Rodriguez I think so, yeah. 01:30:10.74 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, because he's like a death lock, he had to put like a trick or like some sort of curse on the loafers. And so it makes you more susceptible to the command spell. And it also makes it harder like for you to want to take the loafers off. So every time there's been a scene where it's like, you know, it's like, oh, and then you see him in like these deerskin loafers, like penny loafers, essentially. It's like imagine ah a knight walking around, but he's wearing penny loafers with magic coins in the shoes. 01:30:36.82 Kurt Crenwelge And that's why he wears them is because He's just he just can't quite bring himself to actually take off the shoes unequip them and stuff like that. So he just always has the shoes. 01:30:47.39 John M Rodriguez I love it. I love it. 01:30:49.03 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So there we go. Yeah, we've made it through our episode here on sidekicks and sidequests. So overall, how do you think your experience was on the podcast? 01:30:56.91 John M Rodriguez Oh, it was a ton of fun. I had a blast. I think it's it's always great to collab with other creative minds. So and I think the impromptu roleplay too is is always fun. So 01:31:08.82 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, for sure. Because it's like you go through the whole exercise of making a character and you're like, great, I rolled all these stats. I got all all these numbers. I've got all these traits. But if we don't humanize ah the NPCs, then you don't necessarily know like, well, how are they going to sound? 01:31:24.22 Kurt Crenwelge How are they going to react to a situation? So, you know, I like to you know give that little little bit of AP sort of experience of like, you know, or just like a mini D&D session of like, this is what it would be like to play a game of D&D with me. 01:31:38.05 Kurt Crenwelge ah with the guests. So yeah, it's fun to do that and bring a life and contextualize an NPC for sure. so So yeah, as we're here in the final thoughts section of the show, um you know, besides any, again, any final thoughts you wish to share, but this is always the part where I leave the stage, the microphone, the soapbox over to the guests. So if you want to plug all your stuff and where can people find you online and any passions or causes we need to be made aware of, let us know. 01:32:07.69 John M Rodriguez Okay, perfect. Yeah. ah First thing, I just want to thank you for the opportunity. Like I said, it was a ah ton of fun and glad to be here. And like I said, we we do have a small business, which is Heroes Wanted, which is ah offering Minecraft and D&T classes to kiddos. So you can go ahead and... 01:32:22.86 John M Rodriguez Check us out at www.heroeswanted.kids. 01:32:24.62 Kurt Crenwelge Thank you. 01:32:27.06 John M Rodriguez And we also do have, ah we're on Facebook and Instagram, so you can look us up by that same name. And we kind of do funny videos ah with my four month old. I think my wife just did a silly one where he's like, yeah, Heroes Wanted is as cool as grass and he's in ah in a field of grass. So, 01:32:42.56 John M Rodriguez You know, um I've ah dressed my cat up like a pirate doing silly voices and things like that. So we got some fun things on there. But definitely, if you're interested in starting a new adventure, and ah for your children, we're a great, great place to check out. And we do offer a ah free trial to anyone that is interested as well. So 01:33:03.03 Kurt Crenwelge Awesome. Well, John, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast and and having this time with me. I can't wait to have you back on the podcast, making even more interesting NPCs.