00:00:05.31 Kurt Crenwelge hello and Welcome to another exciting episode of sidekicks and side quests the best unofficial Dungeons and Dragons podcast in my humbly biased opinion I've gotten an awesome guest for you this week. But before I get to my guest, you know, I have to do it with the first ad read Insert here where you learn about plus one exp And their monthly subscription RPG zine club. So all you transcriber readers out there Make sure you go to RPG zine club sign up for the monthly subscription service get cool indie games fresh hot off the press to your door and be sure to use code Randolph at checkout on this on the website and the store plus one exp calm 00:00:47.66 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And without further ado, I turn the microphone over to my guest and I say, hello mystery contestant. Would you care to introduce us? Uh, tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do? 00:00:59.20 Randall Hampton Hey, good evening, good morning, whatever time zone you're in. um My name is Randall Hampton. I am the author and illustrator of the Little Game Master series of children's books and the any nominated creator of Little Game Masters, which is a TTRPG built for kids age five and up. 00:01:17.20 Kurt Crenwelge o Okay, well I've got a three-year-old so this this is a very fortuitous interview indeed So I may get the inside skinny to learn how to to run games ah for for my son 00:01:23.32 Randall Hampton Yeah. 00:01:29.10 Randall Hampton Absolutely. 00:01:31.00 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and um so we were we were talking before we rolled ah the mic, we rolled the cameras, we rolled the we turned on the microphones is what we did, we didn't roll microphones around. ah But yeah, we were we were saying, oh, we're both, we both know each other because ah Jordan, our good friend of the podcast, ah Jordan, ah put us in touch with one another. 00:01:51.41 Kurt Crenwelge And yeah, can you tell us more about this ah little game masters I hear it's ah it's won some awards, it's done pretty well for itself. 00:01:52.88 Randall Hampton Yeah. 00:02:01.32 Randall Hampton It's doing pretty well. It hasn't won any awards yet. It was nominated for Best Family Game of 2024 at this year's Ennies there at Gen Con, which is a huge honor. 00:02:05.19 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. Okay. 00:02:13.79 Randall Hampton It was a lot of fun being down there for that and being able to interact with the other ah nominees and seeing the people that are these great creators and designers and all in this one room. So being able to sit down and talk with those people and kind of, you know, ah mince words about what, you know, what we do for a living and how we how we dive into this, this these passion projects of ours is a lot of fun. um Little Game Masters, like I said, it is a TTRPG built for kids ages five and up. I am a father of three. 00:02:46.08 Randall Hampton I have three children myself, and when my youngest son was born, um this was back in 2017, my oldest found my dice bag. Now, I've been i've been playing Dungeons and Dragons for over well over 20 years now, and ah shoot. 00:03:07.73 Randall Hampton It might be closer to 30 years now. um and um ah but So I have i have and a nice sturdy collection of dice. um When my son found the dice bag, he asked me, you know what is this for? And it's a big question because but it's more than just you know rolling you know probabilities and and trying to see you know ah you know what numbers come up. they these these These math rocks, these dice, these these funny shaped ah little geodes, they tell stories. 00:03:39.97 Randall Hampton you know So I wanted a way to to ah describe to my children or to tell my children what it is we're doing when we sit down at the table and we're rolling dice and we're talking in funny voices and we're scribbling furiously on our notepads. 00:03:40.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:03:56.26 Randall Hampton And so at that point I started writing um a children's book, a children's picture book, to introduce my kids to what tabletop role-playing games are all about. and That's where the the Little Game Master children's book series came. There are two books in that series. um The first book is very much, you know, a group of friends get together, they they they make characters, they go on their first adventure, and there you know there's a nice little moral at the end. Whenever I try to describe what the Little Game Master is, 00:04:27.79 Randall Hampton It is quite literally Dr. Seuss meets Dungeons and Dragons. That's the best way to describe it. 00:04:31.51 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:04:33.53 Randall Hampton um And then the second book, The Little Game Master of Bards and Bullies, is kind of a continuation. Think of it kind of like Session 2. You know, they go on their next adventure. 00:04:42.45 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:04:44.27 Randall Hampton And so it's it's continued. And Session 3, the third book in the series, is also in the works right now. So that'll be The Little Game Master, Don't Split the Party. 00:04:51.95 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. 00:04:55.46 Randall Hampton That'll be the third book in the series, and that's that's that's coming that's coming soon. We've got a couple other things that we're working on. 00:05:00.86 Kurt Crenwelge just in time for christmas question mark 00:05:01.02 Randall Hampton um not even Not even close, no. 00:05:05.50 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:05:06.65 Randall Hampton ha But this year, for Christmas, we do have physical copies in hand of Little Game Masters, the te the tabletop role-playing game that's built for kids. um ah Years of going to conventions and ah and selling the children's books. 00:05:22.05 Randall Hampton People always ask, is this a game? Is this something that I can play with my kids? And I was like, no, I've been looking at that. 00:05:26.30 Kurt Crenwelge Just in time for Christmas? 00:05:27.96 Randall Hampton I've been toying with that idea. But no, this is these are just children's picture books. 00:05:29.92 Kurt Crenwelge Question mark? 00:05:31.14 Randall Hampton They're a fun way for real little kids to kind of get along with what's going on at the table. So I sat down and I started noodling some ideas and how can I take like I'm very much a D and&D guy. 00:05:45.20 Randall Hampton Like I grew up on D and&D, like I started with advanced D and&D, went on to second edition, went on to, you know, three three and three five. 00:05:45.30 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:05:52.60 Randall Hampton I skipped fourth edition, came back for five E. And so I like, I'm very much, if ah if I'm not home brewing an entire system myself or or one of my friends is running a game and they're home brewing everything, it's basically D and&D is what I did. 00:05:59.72 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:06:07.58 Randall Hampton So I wanted to find a way to, get the the idea of what a traditional Dungeons and Dragons campaign would be, but simplify it for kids. you know Minimize the choices so that they're not overwhelmed. you know um ah make them Make it very fun, very light, very full of levity so that they can sit down at the table, start playing immediately, and and then the way we wrote our adventures 00:06:40.06 Randall Hampton go through an adventure in about an hour or less. Because if you try and play a game with a five-year-old for any longer than that, you might you might have find some hurdles. 00:06:50.16 Kurt Crenwelge Right well my son got to play his for his first official D and&D game this past Halloween which coincidentally was my 14th anniversary of ever having played D and&D where I got my start with 4th edition so I know you were like oh I just skipped 4th I was like I don't know I kind of started on 4th and I thought I was pretty alright and then rolling into 5th I was like oh this is easy and this is cool I like this. 00:07:01.72 Randall Hampton OK. 00:07:12.81 Kurt Crenwelge so 00:07:13.49 Randall Hampton And there's nothing wrong with fourth edition. 00:07:13.57 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:07:15.53 Randall Hampton like it It is all about taste. It is all about what you love. And like there's there's a part of me that loves the crunchiness of fourth edition. i There's a part of me that loves it. 00:07:25.86 Randall Hampton I love rolling the dice as much as possible. I know some people will say, oh, that just bogs down the game, blah, blah, blah. He's like, yeah, but it's fun. 00:07:34.21 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:07:35.24 Randall Hampton So. 00:07:35.45 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so we managed about 15 minutes, I think was along his mom ran it and, you know, it's 15 minutes and it was all the the hollow dragon had captured all the Halloween candy. So we did various activities. 00:07:47.62 Kurt Crenwelge So like, you know, we went to the vampire's house. And so like the vampire wanted us to do something. uh we went to the zombies house and so we had to eat like a brain cupcake we went to the mummies house we had to wrap one of his stuffed dragons and toilet paper to like resecure the bandages and everyone we did gave us like a little bonus item and it was very simplified combat where we each were rolling d20s to see like do we hit the dragon and do we do enough damage and 00:08:04.54 Randall Hampton That's amazing. 00:08:09.23 Randall Hampton Yeah. Yep. 00:08:14.95 Kurt Crenwelge we We each got down to about half of our six hit points that we had and the dragon had like way more than us, but eventually we felt the dragon. 00:08:21.56 Randall Hampton Yep. 00:08:22.63 Kurt Crenwelge We saved all the Halloween candy and everyone was alright with the world. 00:08:24.02 Randall Hampton Yep. Yeah, exactly. it's It's all about taking the the systems that we know and love and making them accessible for for for the young players. 00:08:36.23 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:08:38.39 Randall Hampton With Little Game Masters, it's nice because um there' there's a a few things that we did. First and foremost, we yeah we use like a heart system, very much like Legend of Zelda. 00:08:49.27 Randall Hampton You get like four hearts to start, right? 00:08:51.48 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:08:51.63 Randall Hampton And every time you get hit, it takes away a heart. you know, that kind of thing. So very simple ah damage in life and health and that kind of thing. Each character that we made through the Kickstarter, we did a Kickstarter for the game, and one of the stretch goals was adding on war characters, pre-generated characters. So we have 12 characters that come with the with the game straight out of the box, ready to play with. Each character has four unique actions that they can do in combat. And some of the things, you know I mean, use your imagination. Use those actions however you want. 00:09:22.66 Randall Hampton um with the way we decided to do it was instead of having big bold big you know long character sheets, we have character cards. So think of them as like a jumbo size you know index card. 00:09:35.36 Randall Hampton with, you know, big, bright picture of your character, a little, you know, their name and what kind of class they are at the top. You know, their health is on there. And then at the bottom, you know, they got their combat actions written out for you. So for the kids that are old enough, they can read through all the all the descriptions of the actions. Awesome. We love that. We encourage it. it's it's It's amazing to see. For the younger kids, on the back of the card, we illustrated all the combat actions. 00:10:02.21 Kurt Crenwelge very cool there we go yeah well yeah yeah no this is exciting learning about this like i you know i'm i'm like thinking like man yeah no i think i need to add this to the the christmas list for the little kiddo like this may be 00:10:02.32 Randall Hampton So for the young, young kids, they can look at the backside and just say, oh, I want to do that, or oh, I want to do that, just to make it as accessible as possible. um So yeah. 00:10:23.60 Randall Hampton Absolutely. it is It is ready to go. 00:10:27.62 Kurt Crenwelge It's ready to go. Excellent. you know not and Not intentional to be the the kind of... Well, let's see. Hopefully, if I have all my gears together, ah this should be coming out ah the day before Thanksgiving. 00:10:39.81 Kurt Crenwelge So, hey, you're Black Friday shopping, you're Cyber Monday shopping, you should go you know check it check check them out, you know help them out. 00:10:40.93 Randall Hampton There we go. 00:10:45.58 Randall Hampton Let's go. Yeah, forget Amazon. 00:10:47.97 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:10:49.40 Randall Hampton Just come on over to Randallhamptonart dot.com. Pick up your games. 00:10:54.07 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, support local business, small business too. Yeah. 00:10:57.16 Randall Hampton We have I have a Black Friday sale, too. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I'm sure I will. 00:11:02.69 Kurt Crenwelge something to do with the color black and it's on a Friday. 00:11:05.51 Randall Hampton Sure. 00:11:06.40 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Well, as we're working our way through the questions, it it seems like we kind of, you know, in in you explaining how, ah you know, ah little game masters works, you kind of provided some of your credentials, because I always like to kind of get an idea of like, well, have you currently or have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons before? 00:11:23.03 Kurt Crenwelge So I know you, you stated like, you know, oh, you've been with it since advance. 00:11:23.48 Randall Hampton Yeah. 00:11:27.04 Kurt Crenwelge So like, I don't know, anymore, you can kind of speak to that of your experience with 00:11:28.56 Randall Hampton i started yeah i i I started playing when I was a real little kid. and know I wouldn't even say that it was a full-on game or campaign, but I remember sitting down with my aunt and uncle um and flipping through though their AD&D books and like going through the the monster manual and just like loving the pictures and reading about the the monsters and stuff. And I remember im like i remember I was driving, think I think I was spending the week week with them during the summer, one one summer with them and my cousins and we were hanging out there and then they were bringing me home. And on the way home, 00:12:06.32 Randall Hampton we had our first like adventure in the car. And it was literally my my aunt up in the front seat and describing things and saying, OK, well, what do you want to do now? And how do you want to do this? And how do you want to do that? And me knowing what my character was, oh, I'd do that that kind of thing. So that was my first taste of it. And it was fun. And it was it it was exciting. And you know being a kid that grew up with like the original Final Fantasy on NES, 00:12:30.25 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:12:30.46 Randall Hampton You know, like that was, you know, like I remember like there was so much familiarity between the two and I and i instantly loved it. um And later on, like in middle school and then into high school, I had ah one of my best friends was our forever DM. And he was always like, hey, guys, let's let's let's try this. And I remember him running 00:12:54.60 Randall Hampton ran just a regular like high fantasy campaign, but then he did a Ravenloft campaign. And it wasn't even Curse of Strahd at that point. 00:13:00.27 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:13:02.70 Randall Hampton It was Ravenloft. 00:13:03.31 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Right, right, right. 00:13:06.94 Randall Hampton And so so dipping my toe into like you know my first real sense of like horror with him, like that was a lot of fun. um And then you know through through high school, through college, and then after college, I remember that same person decided to run again. 00:13:24.29 Randall Hampton Like it was like seven years after we'd all graduated high school or something. And he was like, hey, you know, I want to get some of our old friends back together and play again. I've created this idea, do you guys want to come play? 00:13:37.35 Randall Hampton And there was like five of us that all went to high school together. It was like ah it was like a ah high school reunion monthly, getting together and being able. 00:13:44.36 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:13:45.45 Randall Hampton And that game ran for, seven years, five years, seven years after that, you know, and it was just constantly playing. 00:13:49.75 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. 00:13:53.01 Randall Hampton And then he's like, you know what, we got we're getting busy with work, everyone's starting to adult, we got to hang out, we got to hang it up. So that campaign ended. And then I think at that point, that was right around 2015 or so. 00:14:08.35 Randall Hampton And I had just started watching Critical Role. 00:14:12.81 Randall Hampton And then i like ah watching critical role and like I started watching Critical Role when they were right around their like the ah the conclave arc with the dragons and stuff. 00:14:22.23 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:14:23.17 Randall Hampton And I was like, ah so so campaign one you know with Vox Machina. 00:14:26.45 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:14:27.60 Randall Hampton But I'm watching that and seeing the the joy and the excitement that they had playing. I was like, gosh, I wanna play again. It had been in a few years since we'd played. And I was like, I wanna play again. 00:14:40.19 Randall Hampton So I called up that crew and I was like, hey guys, adam You know, my friend i Adam, him I was like, I know you don't want to be the DM. How about I run a game? 00:14:48.85 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:14:49.26 Randall Hampton And so we got back in and then it's so and it's been back and forth and and doing that ever since. So it's just it's been a constant thing and I love it. And now I get to play with my kids, which is a lot of fun. 00:15:01.80 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:15:02.36 Randall Hampton And it's different because like when you sit down with your friends as an adult and play a tabletop game, 00:15:09.70 Randall Hampton you know it's You know, there's more mature themes and and there's ah some things that can happen at the table that you would obviously never want your your kids involved with. But when you sit down at a table with kids, the sheer chaos that happens is so is so delightful. 00:15:31.42 Randall Hampton ah because they their response to any problem, you have no idea where it's gonna come from. So it's delightful and i and I encourage it as much as possible. If you're if you're a parent that plays D and&D and you haven't yet tried playing with your kids, it can be so fun and it can be so rewarding. 00:15:52.84 Randall Hampton And I just, I really encourage it. like having we we The first time we tried playing with my kids, I didn't have the game yet. And so I tried playing, like I took 5E and I just slimmed it down as much as I could with the regular character sheets. 00:16:06.62 Randall Hampton And I would talk them through everything a bunch. And then I was like, this is great, but it's just too much. And that kind of fed, and that also helped kind of build and and and feed the fire to to really get the game up and running. 00:16:14.42 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Yeah, no, I mean, it sounds like, you know, you know I've told other podcasts guests on these episodes, like I'm not above plugging other things in the middle of my podcast. So if you haven't checked out the kids table D and&D on Instagram and YouTube and stuff like that, I think you'd quite enjoy them. And they've also been doing a series called Area of Effect where it's kind of like an interview show where ah they talk to other adults you know that work with kids. 00:16:48.65 Kurt Crenwelge So I feel like the little game masters would be a slam dunk of home run out of the park with them. 00:16:53.89 Randall Hampton Sure. 00:16:55.62 Kurt Crenwelge So certainly, yeah, make sure make sure you you guys are all talking and exchanging ideas and all that. 00:17:00.30 Randall Hampton Yeah, absolutely. 00:17:02.37 Kurt Crenwelge so ah 00:17:03.71 Randall Hampton um but Before we go any further, I gotta shout out a couple of people. There's like, there were a bunch of people that were involved with creating little game masters with me. And I gotta give a little bit of credit where credit's due. 00:17:12.58 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Sure. 00:17:15.77 Randall Hampton First and foremost, ah Adam Johns, um one of the founders of Game to Grow, he was instrumental in helping me balance things. 00:17:27.74 Randall Hampton ah so ah So I want to give him a lot of love. He was he was so generous with his time and so patient with me because I had so many questions. ah So it was he was a delight. But people like Connor Napier also helped with all the layout and design work and and just and some of the play testing and things like that that just was was pivotal to making sure that it was a good game and that it worked with kids. 00:17:50.68 Randall Hampton um And then with as part of the Kickstarter, I got to work with some of the best people in the community as well. We did a nine chapter adventure book, like your first yourre first and campaign that you can play with your kids. And then people like Lauren Urban and B. Dave Walters, Megan Connell and ah Hunter Fell and Devin Schulich all wrote, and Connor also, all wrote chapters for this book. 00:18:19.87 Randall Hampton So these heavy hitters in the D and&D community that are that are that are just amazing talents came in. They're like, for the kids, absolutely. Let's make let's make a great story. So I i want to shout these people out because they're a delight to work with. 00:18:30.18 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:18:33.59 Randall Hampton And they're just they've been such an amazing representation here in our community. And the fact that they were willing to work with me on this is it's unbelievably humbling, first and foremost. 00:18:44.94 Randall Hampton um And it was a real pleasure to be able to do that. So I want to shout them out. Thank you guys so much. 00:18:51.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, of course. We love that here. We love spreading the love and the and and the the kudos and all that. So perfect. ah Well, as you know, this podcast happens to be called sidekicks and side quests. So I would be remiss if I didn't ask you who happens to be your favorite NPC or psychic character, whether they be from an RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, et cetera. And why is this character your favorite sidekick or NPC? 00:19:19.95 Randall Hampton um So, like I said before, I've been playing like RPGs and stuff since I was a little kid, like going way back to original and NES days and the Final Fantasy and stuff. And through the Final Fantasy series and the different series and all that, there have been amazing characters um that have come up and grabbed you in those games or grabbed you. Even in in my home tabletop games, there have been some amazing ones. 00:19:47.32 Randall Hampton But there's one that has stood out for me for, it's been a few years now but since he's done this this this little guest spot. But Darren DePaul came on to Critical Role. 00:20:01.22 Randall Hampton I think it was, camp was it campaign one or campaign two? 00:20:04.44 Kurt Crenwelge It was campaign one because he, he's, he shows, he shows up near the end when they're starting to figure out, uh, the, the knowing mistress and stuff. 00:20:06.50 Randall Hampton It was campaign one. Yeah. the Vecma stuff. Yeah. 00:20:13.00 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:20:13.63 Randall Hampton um So, Darren DePaul came on and he he created this little character called Sprig, I believe. 00:20:19.82 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 00:20:21.25 Randall Hampton And 00:20:24.24 Randall Hampton listening to him. And I don't know necessarily if it was, I don't know what it was, it was just there's something magical in the way that Darren did the voice of that character and how they interacted with the other people at the table. And it was just a joy to watch. It's one of those moments like as a person that in in my past, you know, I've done, I've done theater, I've done music, and I've done, you know, these things, these these these aspects of storytelling that we can kind of jump into and be a part of when you have a moment like that. 00:20:57.96 Randall Hampton where that one little character can just shine so bright. Like he wasn't even there, but but maybe two episodes, right? 00:21:05.40 Kurt Crenwelge Mmhmm. 00:21:05.67 Randall Hampton And, but it was just so memorable. I loved it. and It was just, I don't know what it was. It's just something about, about that one little, the little character sprig just spoke to me. 00:21:16.90 Randall Hampton And it was, it was just a pure delight to listen and to watch and to experience. 00:21:22.33 Kurt Crenwelge There we go good good answer i would say i think all the answers are good and you know the the point of it is that you know showcase and show the wider world like all the cool people that inhabit it so. 00:21:34.12 Kurt Crenwelge You know spring love them and then let's see the the the coin flip the other side of the equation. 00:21:34.74 Randall Hampton Yeah. 00:21:42.13 Kurt Crenwelge What happens to be one of your favorite side quests? Whether it be from an RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, ah B-plot element in a film or play, whatever. 00:21:45.16 Randall Hampton Oh, God. 00:21:56.23 Kurt Crenwelge But why is this your favorite side quest or B-plot element? 00:22:02.90 Randall Hampton You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say, oh man. I just recently rewatched Andor. 00:22:13.28 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:22:14.54 Randall Hampton And I loved Andor. Like that was, like of all the of all the Star Wars stuff that has come out recently, it's my absolute favorite. 00:22:16.19 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:22:21.91 Randall Hampton And that was two years ago, I think. Andor was two years ago, something like that. 00:22:24.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:22:25.84 Randall Hampton um the The point, with ah Andy Serkis in the manufacturing facility, the prison. 00:22:31.18 Kurt Crenwelge Mm hmm. 00:22:36.22 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:22:37.17 Randall Hampton That little sub arc, I loved it. I loved it so much. 00:22:40.05 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:22:42.69 Randall Hampton I don't know, like it's it's it's just an amazing little um little moment in in Andor's story where he's he's picked up for no reason. 00:22:42.65 Kurt Crenwelge Oh yeah. 00:22:54.77 Randall Hampton put into a basically an internment camp, forced to do you know labor for for the Empire. and it really like Despite the fact that he had worked with rebels, he never really his heart wasn't and he was his heart wasn't there yet. 00:23:11.90 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:23:12.38 Randall Hampton But as soon as he was put there, and as soon as he saw what the Empire was, You know, it was that it was that that moment that juiced him. but then like And then like seeing him convince Andy Serkis' character um of what was going on is like, listen, this is this is your opportunity. 00:23:31.74 Randall Hampton Take it. um There's one way out. 00:23:35.13 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:23:35.21 Randall Hampton you know So that that was that was a great little subplot for that for that show. I really enjoyed that. 00:23:42.34 Kurt Crenwelge And just how, I mean, I know they're coming out with Andor two season two, uh, but after that whole arc, you know, just kind of like the irony of it in the fact that they were manufacturing parts for the death star. 00:23:46.81 Randall Hampton Yes. Yeah. 00:23:55.80 Kurt Crenwelge And at the end of rogue one, the movie, what's the thing that kills Andor is the thing that he helped to build. 00:23:58.95 Randall Hampton theyve Yeah. Yeah. He helped to build it. Yeah. 00:24:04.10 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:24:04.62 Randall Hampton Yeah. 00:24:05.51 Kurt Crenwelge Juicy stuff. 00:24:07.33 Randall Hampton Yeah. No, they're like, that's the thing. Like there, there are, there have been like, I grew up with Star Wars too, you know, and I was always a fan of Star Wars. Like there there are properties that just ah will always live rent free in my head, things, you know, like Star Wars is always gonna be there. 00:24:19.87 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:24:22.77 Randall Hampton Indiana Jones is always gonna be there, except for a Crystal Skull, forget that, but whatever. 00:24:26.90 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:24:27.26 Randall Hampton um 00:24:29.38 Kurt Crenwelge So I think then you haven't seen the new dial M for destiny or whatever. 00:24:30.08 Randall Hampton But I have, you know, I have seen the dial of destiny and I enjoyed it, I did. 00:24:37.95 Kurt Crenwelge OK, OK, all right. 00:24:38.95 Randall Hampton Is it my favorite? No, it's not my favorite, but I enjoyed it. 00:24:40.81 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:24:42.28 Randall Hampton i you know it's It's fun. 00:24:42.55 Kurt Crenwelge OK. 00:24:44.19 Randall Hampton um I did enjoy it. um I enjoyed it more than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. but but But Star Wars absolutely lives rent free and and and these some of these newer additions to the to the lore and to the story and and people that are so excited about this property and and like building on this world. you know It's one of those things where as creators, we always want to be involved in the things that we love. 00:25:13.05 Randall Hampton I don't know that, I mean, it's it like if I had the opportunity to tell a Star Wars tale, oh God, I would jump at it immediately. I would love to. I would love to get my fingers in there. 00:25:23.29 Randall Hampton Are you kidding me? 00:25:24.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:25:24.78 Randall Hampton I wanna tell the Starkiller story with Sam Witwer. I wanna find a way to get that done. Let's do it. 00:25:30.77 Kurt Crenwelge ah Okay. Yeah. I know what game you're talking about, but that's one I've never played because I think it was on a game cube or something and I didn't, I didn't have a game cube. 00:25:37.56 Randall Hampton Yeah. You can get it on Steam, it's fine. 00:25:43.18 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, I can get on Steam. See, yeah and if you asked me to make a Star Wars story, it would be ah because I've been so blown away by ah the Mandalorian and in the Book of Boba Fett and stuff like that, just the more, ah you know, since the Jedi sort of have this quasi sort of ah inspiration from like the more Eastern philosophical religious traditions to see something so starkly like Western and for me as a Catholic, 00:25:53.18 Randall Hampton Yeah. 00:26:09.28 Randall Hampton Wild West. Yeah. 00:26:11.21 Kurt Crenwelge As for me as a Catholic seeing like these guys are acting like this is the way like very like oh Like this is something that resonates with me. Like I want to see the Mandalorian stories like especially where they've left it It's like, you know, I know they kind of left it open as like oh why they weren't involved in the sequel trilogy So it's like, okay Well, I want to see that story of them like rebuilding their great Mandalorian Empire or their their nation their planet and then see them like 00:26:22.79 Randall Hampton yeah Sure. 00:26:37.64 Kurt Crenwelge Alright, whatever the universe has got to throw at us, we'll just you know we'll conquer it or do whatever we have to do. 00:26:43.95 Randall Hampton Absolutely. yeah i've I've enjoyed um Mandalorian as well. Again, like the tone of that series has been great. Like you said, it's so it's got very much that spaghetti western, ah very, um ah what's the word, just wild kind of Wild West feel to it. 00:26:53.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:27:04.60 Randall Hampton Like it's just shoot first, ask questions later. You know, I can bring you in cold, I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold kind of thing. 00:27:07.73 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:27:12.01 Randall Hampton You know, it's just, it's it's great. 00:27:12.20 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:27:14.47 Randall Hampton i've enjoyed I've enjoyed that very much too. 00:27:14.48 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:27:17.49 Kurt Crenwelge Indeed. And, uh, the way that we end or round out the personal section of the podcast, Mr. Randall, what are you passionate about and why? 00:27:29.93 Randall Hampton um I'm passionate but passionate about a great many things. I'm passionate about storytelling. I love you in whatever form it may be. i i' i'm I'm a trained artist, so i I create illustrations for myself, for my work, for the books that I draw, the books that I write, ah for other people's literature I've illustrated. 00:27:57.78 Randall Hampton I illustrate for other people in the here in the D and&D community. I've done character illustrations for countless people and I enjoy every single one of them. It could be the absolute worst character, like terrible character idea you've ever heard in your life, but finding a way to bring them to life in a way that means something to the player. 00:28:20.10 Randall Hampton is great. so and But that's all storytelling to me. ah still That's another form of of of storytelling. So I love that um music. I've been ah a singer, songwriter, instrumentalist for a long time. Love it. Can't get enough of that. And then i' I live in Michigan. I'm a graduate of Michigan State University. Basketball season is upon us. And so I'm going crazy right now, loving every minute of college basketball. 00:28:50.42 Kurt Crenwelge There we go yeah i know it sounds like ah you know we are ah brothers apart in time i mean maybe not so much we me with sports but definitely with with music and and art and creativity and all that now i love it and i if you're ever looking for characters you're like you know my my hands are feeling itchy and i don't know what character to draw You know, we've got like 138 episodes, I think, at this point. So, you know, there's there's a number of characters here that are just waiting for illustrations. 00:29:20.86 Randall Hampton There you go. We can we can work something out. 00:29:23.49 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, there we go. And all right. Well, it's been marvelous learning more about the man, the myth, the legend, that now it's time to head into some NPC creation. 00:29:35.74 Randall Hampton Ooh. This will be fun. 00:29:41.67 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience, and our patrons from Patreon. So now is the time of the show where we give a loud shout out to a hurrah to all of our great supporters. So to you, our queen of the Patreon, Katie Downey, AKA Goblin Katie, RIP Stella, best dog, as well as our other wealthy tier patrons, Nancy Jablitsky, and good old mom and dad, Crenwellge, we say cheers. 00:30:09.68 Kurt Crenwelge I happen to have a bottle of Shiner and Ducal Vison for the holidays, so um they don't sponsor me, but Shiner, if you want to give me money, you're more than welcome to, so cheers! 00:30:21.32 Randall Hampton Cheers. 00:30:23.09 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. So, ah yeah, all these folks donate $4 a month. So that means they get to introduce an element of chance to our random tables that we have. So if Mr. Randall or any of our guests are feeling the itch and they want to roll some dice, well, they get to introduce a variable of chaos for our tables that our guests get to use. 00:30:32.75 Randall Hampton um 00:30:41.08 Kurt Crenwelge so If you want to learn more about our ah Patreon community and what we've got to offer, just go to the show notes below, go to the podcast website, or just go directly to patreon dot.com forward slash psychics and side quests to learn about our accommodations that we have awaiting for you. 00:30:42.54 Randall Hampton Gosh, now I feel like I have to. 00:30:57.31 Kurt Crenwelge Help us to grow and expand our operations in this demiplane and worlds beyond. so all right So we are here now at the you know aforementioned NPC creation section of the show. So ah the question I have for you today, Mr. Randall, is what kind of character are we making today? Is this someone that you're bringing to us? Are we randomly rolling the dice, doing a bit of both, or or what are we doing today? 00:31:23.05 Randall Hampton I'm so torn now because the character that I had, I have a character that I wanted to bring that I thought would just be an amazing addition for you. But in truth, this character was created using nothing but RNG. 00:31:41.76 Randall Hampton um 00:31:41.75 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:31:43.24 Randall Hampton Little backstory, I was doing a game with some friends during COVID. When COVID like locked us all down, I got into i got into a Zoom chat with a couple of my friends. 00:31:49.68 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:31:52.34 Randall Hampton We started a game and everything was was absolutely random generated. It was RNGesus take the wheel, like like let us know, like like roll the dice, that's what you get. 00:32:03.78 Randall Hampton and and and And that's how I got this character technically. 00:32:04.36 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:32:08.22 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:32:08.32 Randall Hampton But the the idea of doing it again speaks to me so much. But no, no, we'll use we'll use the one that I have. We'll use the one I have, because it's here, and it's amazing, and and i'm I'm proud of him, and he's a lot of fun. 00:32:23.42 Kurt Crenwelge Okay then all right well you know I'll just leave that uh that fruit dangling that if you you know we get to a question and you're like you know I you know yeah let's just randomize it then we've got the I've got the dables yeah exactly perfect so the first question we have here then is uh what's the name of the character? 00:32:29.30 Randall Hampton It's all... Let's roll that, yeah. Okay, okay, we can do that if we need to, okay. 00:32:45.35 Randall Hampton Today I bring you, um his his name is Zaxibis. 00:32:54.58 Kurt Crenwelge Zach's it is. How do I spell that? 00:32:57.69 Randall Hampton Zaxibis, Z-A-X-I-B-U-S. 00:33:04.08 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:33:04.49 Randall Hampton Zaxibis, Zaxi for short. 00:33:07.85 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting, OK. 00:33:08.35 Randall Hampton If you know him. And it's like Cher, there is no last name, it is just Zaxivus. 00:33:15.13 Kurt Crenwelge Just as activists, perfect, all right, I'm I'm already intrigued. um 00:33:23.94 Kurt Crenwelge Excuse me, cough, I have to fix in post-production. Let's see, the next question we have here, what is the ancestry of this character? 00:33:32.17 Randall Hampton um Zaxibis, as determined by the random table I rolled on previously, is a human. 00:33:39.38 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay, human, we like humans, not enough of them. 00:33:42.38 Randall Hampton He is a human, yeah. 00:33:42.78 Kurt Crenwelge ah sometimes Sometimes in our games, it's like, we got elves and dwarves and all these things, and it's like, oh yeah, there's humans too, I guess we gotta have humans in the game. 00:33:50.19 Randall Hampton there There are still humans, yeah. 00:33:52.63 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah perfect and then let's see what is the job or role in society for zaxibis. 00:34:00.48 Randall Hampton So, so Zaxibis is a former adventurer. he He did spend a few years of his life out on the trails, delving dungeons and, you know, writing wrongs and things like that. um He is not, he is he is well versed in the in the wizard arts. He is a he's a spell slinger, if you will. 00:34:27.80 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:34:28.58 Randall Hampton um But but that's in that's in another life. to- Today, he is the part owner and proprietor of Prickly Pete's Poring Station. 00:34:40.19 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:34:40.64 Randall Hampton Prickly Pete's Poring Station is a is in an inn and tavern um located in Seashell Town. which is a a small ah port city on on the southern coast of ah of a little island called Urst's Folly. 00:34:59.77 Randall Hampton And it's ah it's a nice it's ah it's a nice little little town. It's got its own, it's got its little feudalist system. It's got lords and things like that. But he was able, with a few of his friends, his adventuring partners, they were able to ah set up a a a brewery and and in the station. So we've he he's got a nice little living there in Seashell Town. 00:35:27.81 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. Yeah, he kind of sounds like, ah well, this podcast's own Randolph, who is the ah the proprie proprietor of ah the Levitating Platter. ah who is So he's a former arch wizard who who eventually became a tavern keeper. 00:35:43.63 Kurt Crenwelge So it's it's a good theme. Is there anything magical or special about prickly peats, or is it just like, oh, I just happened to be a former adventurer, and this is just a regular building? 00:35:51.22 Randall Hampton all 00:35:54.25 Randall Hampton you know You know, there's a couple of things. First and foremost, they pride theirself on their vertical integration. all right They have been working with local granaries and local farmers to make sure that their barley and their harps hops farms are all locally sourced. 00:36:11.49 Randall Hampton you know it's all It's all just like top choice materials for their beers, for their brews. 00:36:17.00 Kurt Crenwelge OK. 00:36:18.54 Randall Hampton um ah 00:36:23.41 Randall Hampton i believe I believe Zach's of his famous ah his favorite brew that is created there is, my love is Imperial, but it's stout. thats that's his That's his favorite beer that they have there. um Yeah, it's ah now it's it's ah it's a wonderful place. They have their own mug club that you can join. So that's a nice little bonus as well. 00:36:48.80 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay, yeah, yeah. um Yeah, because part of the the meta narrative of this podcast, as well as like the real life inspiration for for my podcast is I don't, i to my knowledge, I don't know if the Flying Saucer has any ah chains out there in Michigan, ah but there's a beer emporium chain here. ah I think mostly like in the Southern United States are just kind of spread out. It's called the Flying Saucer. 00:37:14.65 Kurt Crenwelge And so their whole thing is like, oh, you go there, you can sample different beers, you join the UFO club. 00:37:14.99 Randall Hampton okay 00:37:20.19 Kurt Crenwelge Every 200 beers you drink, different kinds of beer you drink, you get to put a plate up on the wall. I have my plate ah right somewhere around here ah before COVID happened and and all that good stuff. 00:37:33.28 Kurt Crenwelge ah So naturally, because my group started playing fifth edition, I was like, oh, we need a tavern to meet in. 00:37:36.35 Randall Hampton Okay. 00:37:39.45 Kurt Crenwelge We'll be in the levitating platter. It's kind of like a flying saucer. 00:37:42.29 Randall Hampton There you go. 00:37:43.48 Kurt Crenwelge And then instead of Gandalf, you have Randolph. 00:37:43.73 Randall Hampton There you go. 00:37:46.96 Kurt Crenwelge And then that's and that's how he's born. 00:37:47.70 Randall Hampton Of course. 00:37:49.82 Kurt Crenwelge And it wasn't until the podcast started that I figured out that Randolph just simply has a magnificent mansion spell. And then you when you step inside, It's invisible servants carrying platters around and that's why all the platters levitate. 00:38:01.98 Randall Hampton Yeah. Platters of beer. 00:38:04.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, platters are beer, whatever food you need. 00:38:05.00 Randall Hampton Amazing. 00:38:06.34 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so. 00:38:07.13 Randall Hampton Amazing. Wonderful. 00:38:09.98 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so if ah if Zaxibis ever has plans to like take more shares of prickly Pete's, he could perhaps overhaul with some more magic or something like that. Automation. 00:38:19.88 Randall Hampton Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, so so it's the the the party that created Prickly Pete's, it is Zaxibis, a human, and then three dwarves. 00:38:30.82 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:38:32.11 Randall Hampton and and And Prickly Pete's, and I can send you the logo for Prickly Pete's because Prickly Pete's is the pub that we started in our game. And because we did that in our game and because I'm a graphic designer and illustrator, I made a logo and then made t-shirts for us that play in the game for our bar. 00:38:53.80 Randall Hampton So I'll have to show that to you at some point. But yes, um Prickly Pete's is named after a wonderful little horse that that saved our bacon a couple of times. 00:38:57.00 Kurt Crenwelge there we go 00:39:04.90 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, man, that, yeah, the stories. I just can't wait, you know, like to just be, be a fly on the wall of that bar and hear all the stories about this mythic horse that saved them all in their time of need. 00:39:09.01 Randall Hampton that It's amazing. 00:39:15.12 Randall Hampton Yeah. Oh, pick Prickly Pete is still around and he lives in a little stable right outside the bar. 00:39:18.50 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, he's still around. 00:39:21.44 Randall Hampton Yes. 00:39:23.17 Kurt Crenwelge Does he get to come? 00:39:23.24 Randall Hampton We bought him. we had ah yeah He has his own mug, absolutely. 00:39:25.40 Kurt Crenwelge Does he get to come into the bar and drink? And then people say, Hey buddy, why the long face? 00:39:31.74 Randall Hampton He's a part of the mug club. He is a member for life. 00:39:36.16 Kurt Crenwelge He's the president. I'm not only a member. 00:39:37.74 Randall Hampton He's the president of that mug club. 00:39:38.12 Kurt Crenwelge i Because what is it they used to say that the hair club for men and it was like, I'm not only president, I'm the member. 00:39:45.73 Randall Hampton I'm not only a member the president, I'm also a member. 00:39:49.40 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:39:49.82 Randall Hampton yeah 00:39:51.52 Kurt Crenwelge Excellent. Okay. All right. So we know that, uh, Zaxibis is this former adventurer who now is a part owner of this, uh, awesome tavern with a horse. 00:39:59.83 Randall Hampton Yeah, absolutely does. 00:40:01.57 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, that's like the, the, that has this horse must have like the folk hero background or something that like people, it's like little Sebastian or something like that. 00:40:09.13 Randall Hampton He has his own. Oh, he has his own ah folklore about him for sure. 00:40:15.43 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, and then ah let's see. The next question would be, how old is Zaxibis? Like what's, you know, if you have ah an exact number or is there like an age range sort of that he fits in? 00:40:26.20 Randall Hampton um at at this At this time, Zaxibis is probably in his mid to late 30s. 00:40:32.63 Kurt Crenwelge I'm into late 30s. 00:40:35.29 Randall Hampton He's probably around like 36, 38, something like that. 00:40:38.37 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay, well, Fun fact, 36 is me. So basically it's like you're talking to Zaxibis. 00:40:43.54 Randall Hampton Okay. Are your time talking to Zaxibis right now? 00:40:45.80 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:40:48.17 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, there we go. ah Perfect. So now that we've got like those first details ah figured out for the character, we I always like, and speaking to you an illustrator, ah probably you've already got artwork done of Zaxibis, but can you describe to us the physical appearance of Zaxibis, this human wizard? 00:41:04.95 Randall Hampton Sure, yeah. Zaxivus, he's about 6'1". He's fairly tall. He has some sandy blonde hair. it's ah It's a little bushy, a getting a little overgrown. 00:41:18.13 Randall Hampton But he has a very neat trimmed ah beard. It doesn't get too long and scraggly. It's it's pretty pretty pretty kept close. um He wears a very bright yellow cloak that is trimmed with red piping. 00:41:30.74 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:41:34.99 Randall Hampton um And he has very thick, worn brown leather gloves that have seen, like he's he's he's not afraid to work with his hands. 00:41:34.94 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:41:48.57 Kurt Crenwelge Mm hmm. 00:41:48.72 Randall Hampton um But if you look, you know, here if if the the sleeves of his of his tunic kind of cover up the cuff of the gloves. But if you pull them back, you'll see just the this ornate, um runic writing scrawled around the cuffs of the gloves as well. 00:42:05.65 Kurt Crenwelge OK, I was going to say, are is there anything magical about any of his attire with this cloak and these gloves and such? 00:42:15.82 Randall Hampton The cloak is just for show. It may be enchanted to billow slightly, um but ah but nothing other than that, no. 00:42:20.63 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:42:24.19 Randall Hampton ah The gloves um are are more of... 00:42:24.38 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:42:27.75 Randall Hampton um They allow him to do things with a little extra flair. 00:42:33.04 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:42:37.71 Randall Hampton So when he casts any of his spells, they it's it's it gives like a little 00:42:47.67 Randall Hampton little juj. It doesn't really, it gives ah it gives a bonus to his spell casting modifier. But other than that, just a plus one bonus to his spell casting modifier, but other than that, nothing real, real ornate. 00:43:02.42 Randall Hampton so like So instead of a plus six based on proficiency and whatever, it goes up to a plus seven. That kind of thing. 00:43:09.00 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, OK, OK. See, you started describing the cloak and I thought, like, oh, is this like a reverse Tom Bombadil or something like that, where we're inverting all the colors and stuff like that? 00:43:20.02 Randall Hampton No, no, no, no, no nothing like that 00:43:23.84 Kurt Crenwelge OK. ah Perfect. And then, OK, so we've got an idea of the physical appearance of a Zaxibis. And then the way for, ah you know obviously, we want to be able to use Zaxibis in our game. 00:43:37.48 Kurt Crenwelge So for role-playing purposes to help Dungeon Masters to be able to like get an idea of Zaxibis, we always like to narrow down you know three adjectives that would describe Zaxibis as a character. 00:43:50.93 Kurt Crenwelge What three adjectives would you use? 00:43:51.35 Randall Hampton Sure, sure. I would say ah well-read for sure. As a wizard, he spends a lot of time just looking through books and scrolls and things like that. Well-read is definitely there. um he's ah He's a little quick tempered. He's a little quick tempered. He can get a little little bit of a short fuse. um And then the last thing I would probably say is fireball 00:44:23.13 Kurt Crenwelge I jumped in my seat. ah Wow. Okay. So just he's very quick to to use that spell to solve his problems. 00:44:29.82 Randall Hampton Yeah, he he will absolutely he yeah there have been a couple of times in his ah adventuring past where he definitely shot first and asked questions later. 00:44:43.52 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, he took the Han Solo approach. 00:44:45.59 Randall Hampton Yeah, very much. He very much shoots first. Absolutely. 00:44:49.72 Kurt Crenwelge I was just I was going to say with the fireball as a so much of an adjective description of the character. ah No, no, ah ah no bards have come into the tavern and ah played his song and like pointed to him and then he just shouts fireball and then the band still playing. 00:45:07.73 Randall Hampton No. 00:45:08.60 Kurt Crenwelge But then like an explosion goes off or something. 00:45:11.92 Randall Hampton No, he definitely will um ah use thaumaturgy from time to time, though, just to let off little little little sparks of pyrotechnics for whatever band is playing. 00:45:27.15 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, okay. 00:45:27.74 Randall Hampton well absolutely He absolutely supports the arts. 00:45:30.65 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. That's good to know. Yeah. So he doesn't have to worry about ah the famous bard Pitbull coming into his place and demanding that he just shoot fireballs off, uh, at, uh, at different points in the song or the music. 00:45:43.55 Kurt Crenwelge So good to know. 00:45:44.46 Randall Hampton You know, the nice part about living in seashell town is we're right on the port. The brewery is right down by the docks. So we could actually just go right off into our little deck area and just launch them out off over the ocean anytime we want. 00:45:51.34 Kurt Crenwelge Mm hmm. 00:45:57.30 Randall Hampton It'd be great. 00:45:58.26 Kurt Crenwelge OK, so yeah, so fireworks, it's like, OK, you guys OK. 00:46:01.64 Randall Hampton Yeah, seasonal, seasonal, but yes, we can do that. 00:46:04.83 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. OK. 00:46:09.09 Kurt Crenwelge All right, so we've got ah we've we're learning a lot about Zaxibis. And so we now we come to the question, ah you know, because we always like our characters to have something cool on their person that makes them unique and stand out. So what's a valuable item, piece of lore, secret or ideal or concept that the character would ah possess? Now, sometimes people bring in their own characters or their Basing it it off something else so sometimes they may have a couple of more things but if you're wanting to like just narrow it down to something you know we do have this is the one we do the combo roll of where people get to roll two dice for this table in particular. 00:46:45.88 Randall Hampton Ooh. 00:46:50.35 Randall Hampton I have one thing, but I kinda wanna roll something just for fun. 00:46:54.47 Kurt Crenwelge Sure yeah good go for it. 00:46:54.69 Randall Hampton Just just because we're we're here and we're doing it, let's go ahead and roll something. Give me two seconds, I'm gonna grab ah yeah my deck of my box of dice here. 00:47:06.71 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Yeah. So for the, for the valuables. 00:47:08.31 Randall Hampton And then I will roll something. 00:47:10.07 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. For the valuables category rule, we roll a D four first for the category and then a D six for the particular thing. 00:47:16.44 Randall Hampton Okay. Okay. All right. I'm here for it. All right. So D four first. 00:47:24.32 Randall Hampton And it's a three. 00:47:25.55 Kurt Crenwelge Three is going to be a secret. 00:47:28.21 Randall Hampton Oh, it's a secret. 00:47:29.43 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:47:29.73 Randall Hampton Okay. I, I, okay. I don't know what that means, but okay. 00:47:34.12 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and then we roll a d6, and we're going to figure out what kind of random secret he has. 00:47:34.61 Randall Hampton I'm here for it. 00:47:40.28 Randall Hampton It's a four. 00:47:42.11 Kurt Crenwelge Four. OK. Well, your answer was provided by previous guest of the podcast, Benjamin Huffman, AKA one half of ah the Dispel Magic podcast. And he's also known as the startling adventure Sterling Vermin Adventuring Company, his own game designer and his own right. 00:48:01.03 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:48:01.39 Randall Hampton OK. 00:48:02.20 Kurt Crenwelge So, Zaxibis is in love with a party member. So, like, whenever you meet Zaxibis, there's a potential that, ah you know, Zaxibis finds one of the party members rather fetching and ah keeps that secret. 00:48:16.11 Randall Hampton It's possible. 00:48:17.41 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:48:17.88 Randall Hampton It's possible. 00:48:19.75 Kurt Crenwelge Hey, he's a 36-year-old guy. 00:48:20.27 Randall Hampton He's. 00:48:21.59 Kurt Crenwelge He's settled down. he's ready He was ready for love. 00:48:23.55 Randall Hampton He's. He's he's he's a little bit amorous, he is he he he he's not shy. to to speaking sweet nothings. 00:48:34.75 Kurt Crenwelge ah ah Do those sweet nothings get ah people discounts at the bar or not? 00:48:41.35 Randall Hampton i I mean, maybe a discount on ah on a membership to the mug club, maybe. 00:48:48.21 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, is it a pretty expensive mu mug club to get into? 00:48:48.75 Randall Hampton We'll see. 00:48:51.48 Randall Hampton No, ah it's not terrible, but you can get um you can get it you get a personalized stein, handcrafted by the elves up in Euat-Omera, ah which is one of the towns on Urosfali. It's a great little place. ah But they do great, very, very skilled, scrawling and delicate ah inlay work. So the the steins are amazing. They're beautiful. They're not cheap. I'm not gonna lie. They're not cheap. 00:49:19.07 Kurt Crenwelge Like how expensive are we talking? 00:49:21.85 Randall Hampton i think i think I think mug club membership, I'm trying to remember what it was we charged. We actually had, this is like side note from our campaign, we had one member of our group, so it's like me and art major, and then the other three four people that are in our that played in this game were all business majors. So we had people that we had one person that actually wrote up a business plan for the bar. 00:49:47.67 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:49:49.56 Randall Hampton It was a 26 page business plan. That was a legit, like, here's what we're going to do. This is where we're going to get our materials. This is how much it's going to cost is what we can expect to see. And I was looked at it. Wow. Okay. Let's start a bar. Um, no, yeah, I think it's, I think it's something like 10 gold per month or something like that. 00:50:14.31 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, OK. 00:50:15.45 Randall Hampton So like 120 gold for the year, hundred or 100 gold for the years, what the but the bonus was. you You only had to, you know, or so something like that. 00:50:21.13 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:50:24.20 Randall Hampton I don't know what it was. But I mean, for to have us you like a personalized Stein in a bar, 100 gold. 00:50:30.27 Kurt Crenwelge OK, and it was only your Stein, no one else could use it. 00:50:32.49 Randall Hampton I don't know. That is your Stein. That is your Stein. 00:50:36.05 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:50:36.70 Randall Hampton It has your name on it. 00:50:38.51 Kurt Crenwelge And did it come, did this mug club come with any other benefits that, you know, that came along with it? 00:50:43.71 Randall Hampton Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. No, no, there's no, there's no extra benefits. You still have to pay for your beer. 00:50:52.79 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. a Okay. 00:50:55.62 Randall Hampton But you get a cool mug and then the mug is up on the wall and it's there. 00:50:57.47 Kurt Crenwelge But you get a cool mug. 00:51:01.15 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:51:01.50 Randall Hampton But I'm the, I'm the partial owner. I still want to make money. So yes, you still have to pay for your beer. 00:51:06.82 Kurt Crenwelge I see, I see. Well, I suppose in that, uh, that pretty, my DM brain sort of working, like depending on the, you know, where, you know, where this is in your world and you go to the prickly, uh, go to prickly Pete's. 00:51:19.94 Kurt Crenwelge And if you're like, you're looking for someone, you're like, is their mug still up on the wall? It's like, no, their mug is down. 00:51:25.27 Randall Hampton Yeah. Ooh. 00:51:26.25 Kurt Crenwelge That means they're here in the bar somewhere. We can go find them or like, Oh no, the mug's still up on the wall. Like they haven't checked in in a while. 00:51:31.66 Randall Hampton That's a great little note. Heck yeah. That's wonderful. 00:51:36.73 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. All right, very cool. So we know that his Zaxibis is in love with one member of your party. you know DM to ah to figure that out and deploy that ah and ah in a good way. 00:51:49.49 Randall Hampton Good luck. He's he good luck because he's just he's he's insufferable. You're gonna it's gonna be ah it's gonna be a problem for someone Yeah 00:51:59.21 Kurt Crenwelge Don't worry, I can fix him. I can fix him. That's what they all say. ah And then let's see then then ah the the the next thing we need to figure out, obviously obviously we want all of our NPCs to be able to give side quests, have the little yellow exclamation point above their head when you encounter them. 00:52:17.59 Kurt Crenwelge So what is a particular quest that Zaxibis would be willing to recruit or hire player characters to go and do? And if you need help, we got the D12 you can roll. 00:52:27.54 Randall Hampton So this one I have i have ready for you. 00:52:33.21 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:52:33.37 Randall Hampton um So Zaxibis, in one of his adventures, he traveled deep into the forests of the northern part of Uris-Fali. Now, it's not a small island, like Urusfali. 00:52:46.23 Randall Hampton It's a good-sized island. you know it's I mean, we're thinking like like like New Zealand size, Madagascar size. 00:52:51.15 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:52:53.43 Randall Hampton It's a good-sized island. 00:52:55.19 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:52:55.32 Randall Hampton um So so in the northern part of Urusfali was a giant goblin stronghold. And this stronghold was massive and there were hundreds and hundreds of goblins. They'd all congregated there and they bred and and just just built up their forces. And at one point, Zaxibis and his followers had to ah had to make their way to this stronghold and they had to break their way in 00:53:30.52 Randall Hampton and they had to basically put an end to the the threat that these goblins were posing towards the the the people of Urusfali. 00:53:42.61 Randall Hampton Now, on this trip to this stronghold, a very dear friend of Zaxibis fell during battle and and 00:53:53.08 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 00:53:57.25 Randall Hampton a memento of this friend was left behind. This is a, it's a piece of jewelry that's a necklace that that the friend wore and wore with him wherever he went. um And it was it was left behind in this in this stronghold and he wants you to go back. He wants you to find it and bring it back to him. 00:54:19.60 Kurt Crenwelge OK, so no big deal. You just have to storm this major goblin stronghold and. 00:54:25.63 Randall Hampton Now, now, to be clear, we cleared it out once. 00:54:31.42 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:54:32.75 Randall Hampton What it looks like now, I'm not so sure. 00:54:35.99 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. 00:54:36.50 Randall Hampton But at one point, it had been cleared. 00:54:39.78 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Yeah it's like ah yeah however you take your approach with goblins with ah their their generational ah clocks with how fast they're able to a repopulate their numbers. 00:54:46.52 Randall Hampton Yeah. 00:54:53.75 Randall Hampton yeah 00:54:53.93 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:54:54.38 Randall Hampton Now, Zaxibis is not gonna tell you what this this necklace looks like. He's just gonna say, you know what, you'll know it when you see it. it's it's a very it's ah It's on a gold chain, but other than that, he doesn't tell you anything else. Now, as players, we hear that, and we're like, okay, that's interesting, so we just gotta keep our eye out for something kind of unique and and and and and special, and that's great, that's fine. DM to DM. 00:55:24.74 Randall Hampton it's It's a necklace of goblin ears. And this friend that he had, anytime he killed a goblin, he would rip their ears off and he would put it on that necklace. 00:55:38.11 Randall Hampton He had a bad, bad thing with goblins. 00:55:41.08 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:55:41.79 Randall Hampton but no the But that's just kind of the thing that they have to understand is they're gonna come across a chain, a gold chain with nothing but goblin ears on it. And it's gonna be horrifying to see. 00:55:52.70 Randall Hampton and whether or not they think that that's it or not, or if they may come across some shiny bauble that looks amazing, this gorgeous nog-lemeir-looking necklace. 00:55:55.57 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:56:03.10 Randall Hampton Is that it? No, I want the goblin ears. 00:56:06.39 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Yeah, so they're on the they're on the lookout and hopefully they're not ah chasing down a red herring or or grabbing the wrong thing and leaving It's like nope. 00:56:13.28 Randall Hampton Exactly. Right. 00:56:16.19 Kurt Crenwelge This is what I wanted. It's like why you mean we have to go all the way back It's like and then the final how do they keep coming back? It's like I thought we it's like cockroaches It's like you just you know, you think you got them all but no no you you don't and 00:56:31.04 Randall Hampton where Where are they respawning from? Where's the respawn point? 00:56:34.86 Kurt Crenwelge Where's the code in this game? Yeah. Let me do no clipping. Uh, yeah, all kinds of cheat codes or whatever, uh, is what your players won't want. 00:56:43.78 Randall Hampton Yeah. 00:56:44.82 Kurt Crenwelge But like video game logic, it's just every time you leave, that's just, there's goblins waiting for you when you come back. 00:56:51.04 Randall Hampton They're gonna respawn. If you go two screens over, they're gonna be back when you come back. 00:56:56.21 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, yeah. OK, all right. So Zaxibis wants the players to go and retrieve his friends, his fallen friends necklace, which he doesn't provide the full details, but really, it's a gold chain filled with. 00:57:05.98 Randall Hampton Yep. No. He just says it's a gold chain, but you'll know it when you see it. 00:57:15.50 Kurt Crenwelge And really, it's a bunch of goblin years, and that's what he wants. 00:57:18.29 Randall Hampton It's a bunch of goblin ears. 00:57:20.77 Kurt Crenwelge So the players successfully storm the stronghold. They retrieve ah the item that they're supposed to get and they make their way back to Prickly Pete's and present this to Zaxibis. 00:57:29.26 Randall Hampton Nope. 00:57:31.79 Kurt Crenwelge What's going to be the reward for the party? 00:57:34.47 Randall Hampton He's gonna give them a choice. He said, listen, that's an amazing, amazing gesture. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. This means so much to me. You can't even imagine. I'm willing to offer you either 300 gold, nice lump of gold, or a lifetime membership to the Prickly Pete's mug club. That is your choice. 00:58:04.24 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Yeah. And it depends on, you know, whether they plan on making this community seaside town, uh, like a base seashell, seashell town, uh, like a base of operations and they could operate out of a prickly Pete's and, you know, be able to have their dedicated mugs and stuff or, you know, take the lump sum and go. 00:58:11.60 Randall Hampton Sea Shell Town, yeah. 00:58:27.55 Randall Hampton it's it's It's absolutely your choice. Sea Shell Town, it's a nice little town. We have commerce, we have an adventuring guild, we have, ah you know Prickly Pete speaks for itself. I don't have to say anything more about that. 00:58:41.92 Randall Hampton um We have opportunity here. we We are a growth society. We are ready to have more people come in and help help you know build ah what seashell tile can be. If you want to be a part of that, we got a place on our wall for you with a Stein with your name on it. 00:59:02.67 Kurt Crenwelge Is there any one particular reward that Zaxavus is trying to push them towards? However subtle that may be. 00:59:07.96 Randall Hampton Oh, he would push them, oh, oh no, he wants them in the mug club for sure. He's he's like, if if you're gonna take the time to go up and find this necklace for them, you are a friend for life. 00:59:19.47 Randall Hampton And he in and like, you might even get a few full free pulls from the draft spigot there. 00:59:19.71 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:59:27.73 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:59:28.25 Randall Hampton You never know. like Like, if you wouldn't did that, you might get a few free but few free drinks for that. 00:59:34.03 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:59:34.18 Randall Hampton And if you sit and listen to his stories, he'll definitely buy at least one round. 00:59:37.54 Kurt Crenwelge OK. All right. Yeah. So there are definite there are definite benefits to joining this mug club. 00:59:41.82 Randall Hampton There are perks. 00:59:44.41 Kurt Crenwelge There are perks. 00:59:46.10 Randall Hampton I mean, and other than that, if you ever need a wizard to come on your part, to come on your journeys with you, I mean, Zaxibis is a level 15 wizard. so he And it's straight wizard. 00:59:58.20 Kurt Crenwelge OK. 00:59:59.14 Randall Hampton So it's it's it's he's he's he is he has done well in his craft and he can he can he can do some damage, so. 01:00:06.91 Kurt Crenwelge And because he's so well-read, his wizard spell book is probably full of nearly every spell you could need. 01:00:11.43 Randall Hampton It's pretty thick. it's It's a thick book, I'm not gonna lie. 01:00:18.16 Kurt Crenwelge There you go. Okay. Yeah, no, good, good, good call there. Um, but we also have to consider the opposite, the consequence of what's going to happen if you fail in the quest or you refuse Zaxibis outright and you say, no, thanks. 01:00:26.67 Randall Hampton Oh. 01:00:33.43 Randall Hampton Oh. 01:00:33.74 Kurt Crenwelge I'm not going to do this. 01:00:35.58 Randall Hampton Yeah, that's that's a shame. um that's that's That's a very big shame. In fact, that's that that's that earns you a place on the Prickly Pete's wall of shame. 01:00:47.41 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 01:00:47.52 Randall Hampton we will so we have we have Because you know Prickly Pete's is such a fine establishment, we do have artists on staff that would come draw your likeness and put it on the wall of shame in Prickly Pete's. 01:01:03.55 Randall Hampton So just as if you were at you know Buffalo Wild Wings and couldn't finish all 12 of the mega super hot wings and you went up on the wall of shame, this is also just like that. 01:01:17.07 Randall Hampton Shame on you. 01:01:17.36 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:01:18.64 Randall Hampton You call yourself an adventurer. 01:01:21.21 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, OK. 01:01:21.57 Randall Hampton And then anytime you come anywhere near Prickly Pete's, he would just riddle keel you and and and and cast, ah he'd have one of his bard friends cast, a oh shoot, I just lost this bow. 01:01:35.07 Kurt Crenwelge Vicious mockery. 01:01:36.31 Randall Hampton Vicious mockery, as much as they possibly can. 01:01:40.25 Kurt Crenwelge Without hopefully without you know turning it into a full flight well he's a level fifteen wizard so he probably. Would have no qualms about getting into a fight in his bar in his own home turf. 01:01:50.64 Randall Hampton oh 01:01:51.73 Kurt Crenwelge ah 01:01:52.51 Randall Hampton he would He would have Bigby's hand scoop you out and immediately throw you outside of the premises. Bigby is my bouncer. 01:02:03.27 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. The wall of shame. Yeah. Okay. So not just for people who skip out on their bar tabs, but adventurers who don't live up to the prospect of being adventurers. 01:02:10.18 Randall Hampton Yeah. If if you claim to be an adventurer, you know, if you if you're if you're cutting your teeth, if you're if you're worth your salt, 01:02:22.15 Randall Hampton and you come in and and someone says, hey, I've got a quest for you. I've got something that needs to be done. And you tell him no. I think that's worse than trying and failing, personally. 01:02:34.18 Kurt Crenwelge Is there a difference with tryinging trying and failing like maybe this necklace gets destroyed or something? 01:02:38.05 Randall Hampton you so Say, yeah, that's disappointing. That's disappointing. If you do it, you know, you get a few, you may get a round or two for free, but you don't get the payment. um If you try and like, it's in your overwhelmed, you know, ah at that point, that's when Zach says, hey, you know, there's, there's, there's no shame in grinding. It's okay. Just go, go, go down here, down to the beach. There's some crabs and, you know, you know, grind for a couple levels and then go try again. 01:03:12.93 Kurt Crenwelge Oh man, yeah, it's like I don't know what's worse ending up on the wall of shame or being told that like a bunch of goblins are too much for you. 01:03:20.81 Randall Hampton Well, it's not just goblins and the goblin stronghold, but that's that's what it was known as. 01:03:24.19 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:03:26.31 Randall Hampton It was known as goblins. Zaxibis will regale you with tales of goblins and trolls and undead, like vampires that were leading this entire thing. 01:03:37.77 Randall Hampton So it was it was more than goblins. Whether or not Zaxibis is, depending on how many rounds in Zaxibis is, it'll get worse and worse every time he tells the story. 01:03:40.07 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:03:50.19 Randall Hampton So. 01:03:50.20 Kurt Crenwelge Okay so hopefully this is not a kind of npc that you would deploy for a low-level party or is it one that you would deploy for a low-level party especially if he's more into his cups and he's I don't know is it more of a thing that he's telling taller and taller tales of more dangerous foes waiting there or he's just remembering of like oh yeah and then there was a vampire oh yeah and then there was a stone golem 01:04:11.91 Randall Hampton Oh yeah, ah about that. ah Here's the thing with Zaxibis, and as a DM, this is the fun part about Zaxibis, because the more he gets into his cup his cups, the more he embellishes. 01:04:24.41 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. 01:04:24.88 Randall Hampton You don't really know what's true and what's not. So as a DM, you can put him out there to your players and 01:04:35.46 Randall Hampton I mean, you never know really what you're going to get. he you you could You could have him be completely stone sober and saying, hey, listen, this is the place. We ran into, you know, back then there was a lot of goblins, but we cleaned that out. It should be fine. It's just a simple go in there, grab it, come on back. 01:04:54.55 Randall Hampton and you can fill it with whatever you want. But the more he talks and the more, if he if he's if you're sitting there drinking with him and the more he drinks and the more he talks and the more he he kind of ups the ante a little bit, that can be a lot of fun because at that point it's like, what do the players expect and how much do you play into that? 01:05:13.12 Randall Hampton So that can be a lot of fun as well. 01:05:13.18 Kurt Crenwelge Right. OK, OK. All right. Um, okay. So we've learned more about this quest and what we need to go do. Are there any optional questions that you feel like would unlock further insights into Zaxibis as a character or or is Zaxibis pretty well fleshed out? 01:05:22.17 Randall Hampton Sure. 01:05:31.51 Kurt Crenwelge You think. 01:05:33.32 Randall Hampton Zaximus is pretty easy to play. He's he's very intelligent, ah but he's got his vices, you know? He he he's he he owns and runs ah a brewery, so he enjoys getting into his cups. He's not going to be shy about that. Every night he's down there having a few drinks and and mingling with the townsfolk. So he's he's flirtatious, as we know, and and apparently wears his heart on his sleeve. 01:06:03.90 Randall Hampton Because he'll fall in love with the drop of a hat, apparently. um But he's he's also quick-tempered. If things don't go his way, he may you know he may get a little frustrated with that. 01:06:17.38 Randall Hampton And he might start to get a little sharp-tongued. 01:06:19.19 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Hmm. 01:06:21.44 Randall Hampton So keep that in mind. But if he's staying at the pub, if he's not traveling with you, that's not really going to be too much of a concern. If he is traveling with you, um he is, ah he like I said, he's very much the shoot first kind of guy. 01:06:41.02 Randall Hampton So if he thinks he's getting into a situation where where he or his party are in danger, he's not gonna ask questions about it. 01:06:41.03 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 01:06:49.97 Randall Hampton Like he usually travels with a cleric. So he'll he'll take someone out first if he has to and then revive them if need be. 01:06:59.21 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, man. Just a yeah, it's kind of like it like it. Well, it's like a darker. I don't know about darker, but like a more action gritty version of Lord of the Rings of like, oh, we're the little hobbits going on our adventure and Gandalf's with us. 01:07:11.79 Kurt Crenwelge And Gandalf is just like zap, zap, blammo, blammo. And the hobbits are just horrified of like, well, we were just talking to that person. It's like, yeah, we don't. 01:07:22.17 Randall Hampton Yeah. 01:07:22.83 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that's like level one stuff. I'm level 15. We don't have to worry about that. 01:07:28.12 Randall Hampton I just assume everyone's out to get me. 01:07:31.61 Kurt Crenwelge so that a little bit of paranoia and stuff like that are just ah the. 01:07:33.90 Randall Hampton but I don't know if it's paranoia, but it's definitely on the verge of, it's just it's more just, you know don't take chances if you don't have to. 01:07:45.15 Randall Hampton That's how that's how he lived to 15th level. 01:07:47.55 Kurt Crenwelge Mm, I see. 01:07:47.91 Randall Hampton He doesn't take those chances. 01:07:50.67 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. All right, well, it sounds like we've learned quite a bit about Zaxibis today, and I think it's time to throw him into a random encounter. 01:08:01.86 Randall Hampton Oh dear. 01:08:08.81 Kurt Crenwelge And insert here for final ad read ah for Zencaster, the podcast thing I'm using. ah Be sure to use code sidekqpodcast. If you want to start your own podcast and get a discount and help, you know, give me a kickback and and help support the show. So appreciate it so much. 01:08:27.03 Kurt Crenwelge All right, so now is the part of the show where and we are in the random encounter. This is where we do some role play, a scene, a vignette of the of the NPC that's been brought to us today. So the question I have for you, ah you know I think you're going to do an amazing job of of being Zaxibis, but the question becomes, who am I going to be in the scene? Am I going to be one of my adventuring characters that's going to get the mission ah from Zaxibis? 01:08:54.27 Kurt Crenwelge uh to go retrieve uh the necklace is it just a slice of life uh inside prickly pizza and we're hearing uh zaxibis just kind of like having a back and forth uh with uh one of his co-workers or just a regular of the bar or or something are we taking a flashback into his past uh so i don't know like what kind of scene are you interested in showcasing zaxibis often today 01:09:19.24 Randall Hampton No, oh, okay. All right. No, let's ah let's go ahead. Yeah, let's let's let's take a trip right into Prickly Pete's As as you as you enter Prickly Pete's you've got these saloon doors at the outside the at the outside that kick in and as you walk in there are tables Round tables probably a dozen or so to your left and right far off on the right side of the room is a stage with ah um you have a Roll as many dice as possible. You have an orc, you have a pixie, you have a tiefling, and you have 01:09:58.73 Randall Hampton A Goliath, okay. All in some form of band, playing some music, they're having fun. 01:10:05.14 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh! 01:10:06.05 Randall Hampton um So, you know, it's it's it's a jaunty tunes lively in here right now. There's ah at one of the tables is a group of people playing cards. ah There are another people ah over or at another table that are seem to be rolling some type of a dice game, having a good time. 01:10:22.28 Randall Hampton to you Straight ahead of you, you see the the bar. It is a long, dark wooden mahogany bar with a bright brass pole right along the edge for you to rest against. On the left wall as you if you look to your left on the far wall is a shelf after shelf after shelf of steins, all decorated ornately and some inscribed with with various names. um as some Some spots on the shelves are empty, and you'll see people sitting at tables with their own special steins, and they're drinking them and enjoying themselves. um And as you enter, you see at the bar, behind the bar, just kind of like ah ah taking a ah look at what's going on, 01:11:12.34 Randall Hampton There's a woman with a a blue durag on her head. She picks up a few regular glass mugs and wipes them out and sets them back down. Returns around and pours one from one of the kegs and you know sets it on the bar and slides it down to one of the patrons. And as it slides down, you see it passes past a man in a bright yellow cloak. 01:11:34.89 Randall Hampton um it's ah it's it's all It's a yellow coke with very bright red a piping that runs around the edges. He's got sandy blonde hair that kind of is brushed back and a very neat trimmed goat beard that kind of points a little bit off of his chin. 01:11:53.60 Randall Hampton um And he has a Stein in front of him as well. That's a little more ornate than the other Steins that you see on the wall. ah the The filigree is all golden and it almost seems to sparkle and and and the the the sparkle moves as you look at it. And as the light changes, it seems to kind of shimmer and adjust with it. But you see him pick it up and take a big slug out of it, set it down, turn around and says, ha ha! 01:12:23.45 Randall Hampton Welcome, my friend. 01:12:26.89 Kurt Crenwelge Well, uh, this is an interesting, uh, quandary because it's like, who do I just randomly pick one of my characters or in the spirit of you with your table there? Are you able to roll me? 01:12:37.08 Kurt Crenwelge Like, uh, I feel like I should be a lady, but it's like, uh, what, what kind of, uh, what kind of race and and class should I be? Do you have something there that you could roll for me? 01:12:44.98 Randall Hampton Oh, sure. 01:12:46.79 Kurt Crenwelge We'll introduce a new, we'll introduce a new character. 01:12:47.40 Randall Hampton look 01:12:50.42 Randall Hampton Sure, why not? All right, we'll go go race nine. All right, you are a dwarf. 01:12:59.02 Kurt Crenwelge o Okay, a Dwarven Lady, okay, very nice. 01:13:00.62 Randall Hampton Okay, dwarven lady. And just out of just for just for fun, I'm a class. Class, let me go back here, move to the next table. 01:13:11.17 Randall Hampton Okay, ah so you're you are a bard. 01:13:14.36 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay, I don't have a bard yet. um ah From the cast of characters, okay. Ooh, now I have to think of a name. What is a good name for a Dwarven Bard Lady? 01:13:25.53 Kurt Crenwelge And she definitely has a she's I know for sure she's clean face because in my my Thinking of like young late the lady dwarves grow beards just like men ah But if they're single and they're not married ah Or they're just ready to mingle. 01:13:40.89 Kurt Crenwelge They just tend to keep clean shaven faces to a more easily attract ah ah You know studly dwarves and stuff like that 01:13:44.96 Randall Hampton OK. 01:13:50.84 Randall Hampton All right. You want a random female name. 01:13:54.55 Kurt Crenwelge Sure, let's go for it. 01:13:55.36 Randall Hampton Let's go. 01:13:55.85 Kurt Crenwelge you know In the spirit of random, let's have it carry us through. 01:13:59.82 Randall Hampton All right. Let's get a good one. Wow. These are very interesting names that they're giving me. Holy smokes. ah 01:14:06.57 Kurt Crenwelge Are you on fantasynamegenerator.com? 01:14:09.04 Randall Hampton I am on face you see name generator. 01:14:10.52 Kurt Crenwelge I love that website. 01:14:11.41 Randall Hampton I love this. I love this website. It's perfect. Uh, okay. Ooh, I like this one. Uh, this is, uh, Abilin and I don't know. 01:14:27.64 Randall Hampton Uh, and Berlin mithril shaper. 01:14:30.58 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, Mithril, Mithril Shaper, and then how did I spell the first name? 01:14:37.45 Randall Hampton Anne Boleyn, A-N-N. E-B-E-L-Y-N-N. Anne Boleyn, Mithril Shaper. 01:14:47.09 Kurt Crenwelge Anne Boleyn Mithril Shaper. I love that name. Okay. Um, ooh, okay. What instrument should she be playing? I know most, uh, dwarves, you know, most bards, they're like, oh, they play lutes and stuff like that. But I feel like she strikes me as like, hmm, Mithril Shaper. She's either a vocalist or she is, is she a percussionist? 01:15:10.12 Randall Hampton Oh, no, yeah, she plays like a marimba. 01:15:13.84 Kurt Crenwelge She just has like a whole marimba thing set up that she brings with her. 01:15:17.42 Randall Hampton Bag of holding. Bag of holding. 01:15:20.25 Kurt Crenwelge OK. OK. All right. Well, no, if I'm going in the spirit of it. 01:15:24.21 Randall Hampton Pulls it out. I would even say... um I was gonna say dulcimer, but... 01:15:29.51 Kurt Crenwelge Glockenspiel. 01:15:32.13 Kurt Crenwelge ah Oh, dulcimer would work too. Okay, maybe she's a dulcimer player. Okay, I like that. 01:15:37.19 Randall Hampton Okay. 01:15:37.24 Kurt Crenwelge Mythril Shaper. Okay, so she comes in, you know, clean faced, bright eyed. She, you know, maybe perhaps fresh on, ah fresh out of, out of the home and she's ready to make her way in the world, ah collecting myths and tale and story and song. 01:15:56.00 Kurt Crenwelge So she looks over to the stage that's where her attention ah first is drawn before she acknowledges the greeting so she sees the band playing and so she's like impressed with that then she turns to see the bar owner who greets her warmly ah and so she'll bow low in a very ostentatious and flourishy sort of manner and she'll say 01:16:00.10 Randall Hampton Sure. 01:16:17.75 Kurt Crenwelge Hello, and and well, Matt, thank you so much for allowing me to to grace your halls. this but What is this magical place? 01:16:27.30 Randall Hampton Oh, that's very kind of, yeah. Yeah, this is this is Prickly Pete's. Thank you so much for being here. 01:16:34.52 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, Prickly Pete. 01:16:34.83 Randall Hampton ah Yeah, you can come and meet him if you want. 01:16:37.29 Kurt Crenwelge And so she's... Oh, I can. Yes, let's go. Let's go do that. 01:16:44.47 Randall Hampton Yeah, Prickly Pete. 01:16:44.60 Kurt Crenwelge Accent's still being worked out. yeah 01:16:48.45 Randall Hampton Prickly Pete is, he was named, at the the establishment's named after our horse, believe it or not. 01:16:54.38 Kurt Crenwelge ah ah She laughs ah very happily and excited at that. And so yeah, she's ready to follow ah to learn more about this prickly Pete and listen and and and hear his tale and hear his songs about this. 01:17:08.78 Randall Hampton so So we'll walk, do a little walk around the establishment to help point it out was as you know, where are my manners? Of course, hold on. Helga, Helga, please. but A drink for our new friend. That'll be five silver. 01:17:26.26 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, and she just, uh, uh, yeah, I mean, she's, she's kind of swept up and she's just like, oh, okay. Uh, sure. Yeah. She pulls out some five silver and she hands it to a, to Helga. 01:17:35.96 Randall Hampton and And she gets a stone mug you know that's that's filled with one of our one of the the you know rotating brews that are going on right now. And as she as he slides it to her, he quickly like spins her around and starts walking around pointing out the different things. There are trophies on the walls from event past adventures and things like that. And if you actually look just to the left of the stage, there's actually a hole in the wall where you can like look right into Prickly Pete's stall. 01:18:03.34 Randall Hampton And every once in a while he just kind of pokes his head into the bar room. 01:18:03.38 Kurt Crenwelge ah 01:18:06.99 Kurt Crenwelge yeah And then do people like offer their beers up to him ah to drink from or they just bring his mug over. 01:18:13.02 Randall Hampton Oh, he has no prickly Pete has his own Stein as well. It's it's it's located right by the thing every once in a while they come and they fill it up with beer for him and he'll you know, you know whiskey for my men beer for my horses, you know, and he'll he'll he'll 01:18:22.52 Kurt Crenwelge you 01:18:27.74 Kurt Crenwelge Anne Boleyn says, oh yes, I know that song. I learned how to play it. Yes, I can play it quite well, at my dulcimer. 01:18:31.33 Randall Hampton ah 01:18:35.52 Randall Hampton So yeah, yeah, he points around and the the the funny thing about Prickly Pete, when you see this horse, it's a beaten down nag of a horse. It's just this poor thing has had a rough life. But man, they put this straw hat on this horse, gave him a cigar, and he looks happy as it can be. 01:18:58.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah so she's uh so she's wowed she you know happily accepts her drink. um And so she she's taking it all in and you know so before ah her manners get the better of her she says and you service so kind and and and and and inviting for me. ah May I ask your name. 01:19:19.15 Randall Hampton Of course, of course. I'm Zaxivus. That's all you need to know, Zaxivus. 01:19:23.35 Kurt Crenwelge ah 01:19:24.78 Randall Hampton I am ah one of the owners and proprietors here at Prickly Pete's. You look like to be a a bit of a little bit of green, but you wouldn't happen to be an adventurer, would you? 01:19:39.02 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh, yes. Yes, I am. I just, uh, well, uh, you know, I'm, I'm kind of in a long line of siblings. Uh, you know, couldn't, couldn't keep dad, couldn't keep dad all down. 01:19:52.71 Kurt Crenwelge And, and, uh, my mom is just so beautiful and, and all that. And, uh, well, you know, not, not much for me to do back home and not my prospects are, you know, all the good, all the good men are already married off and, um, you know, 01:20:08.17 Randall Hampton So you came to Orisfali? 01:20:10.69 Kurt Crenwelge I, yes, I did. 01:20:11.17 Randall Hampton Why? 01:20:12.32 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I mean... 01:20:13.30 Randall Hampton Oh, this place. Backwater as it gets, that's what it is. 01:20:18.88 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, well, well then, you know, perhaps, you know, being in somewhere new and not normally where I'm from might help broaden my perspectives of the world and learn new tall tales and adventures and grand songs and tales and epics and things to bring back. 01:20:31.80 Randall Hampton Hmm. 01:20:37.79 Randall Hampton You wanna hear grand tales? Well, I've had a tale or two in mind and he points over to the other side of the bar and there's these three grizzly looking dwarves just kind of sitting at a table. 01:20:49.96 Randall Hampton Those three over there, they were my adventuring party back in the day. Now we had some adventures. 01:20:55.49 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:20:57.49 Randall Hampton We went about, we took out moon horrors. We took out vampires. We slew an entire citadel of goblins. 01:21:09.33 Kurt Crenwelge oh Oh, and what proposition would that be? 01:21:11.38 Randall Hampton Say, might I interest you in a little bit of a a proposition? 01:21:25.96 Randall Hampton Years ago, my friends and I, we went up north here on Orisfali. up in the forests far north of here. There's a stronghold in this little cleft little spit of mountains in the middle of the forest. Yes, you might do. We went up there and we put a stop to the raids and the the murderous rampages that these goblins went on. 01:21:57.57 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 01:21:58.51 Randall Hampton this stronghold filled the hundreds, hundreds of goblins back then. 01:22:05.34 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:22:07.16 Randall Hampton Unfortunately, one of our companions fell, so a sad time's for us, true. He carried with him a a small trinket, something that has some personal meaning to me. 01:22:26.10 Randall Hampton A gold chain. You'd know it when you see it. 01:22:32.14 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:22:32.52 Randall Hampton If you could find it for me, bring it back. I would be well indebted to you. 01:22:42.40 Kurt Crenwelge And you see the look on her face, you know, probably she's been walking a while. She maybe hasn't had any luck with any adventures. So the fact that like, you know, she stepped into this bar and she got her first adventure already out the gates. She's she's like, you know, the things are on the up and up for her. 01:23:00.77 Kurt Crenwelge ah And so you know she's certainly happy to accept the quest, but you know just the the bard in her you know sees those three dwarves back there. And she's like, oh, can can we go talk to them? do they Can they tell us more about these goblins and the strongholds? 01:23:22.09 Randall Hampton Oh certainly! Herga! Another round! On her! Come on! And he starts walking her over towards the other dwarves. 01:23:31.85 Kurt Crenwelge Excellent. So yeah, she's gonna get all the info that she needs from these four and then ah you know if She's given an opportunity to play on the stage. She'll do that and then she'll see about trying to round out a party ah So then that way they can all head north and they can go take on this goblin strongholds 01:23:57.04 Kurt Crenwelge And seen so we did it we made it through the ramming camera with zaxibis and now our new brand new dwarven bard and belin mithril shaper just such a just a very cool name. but I was gonna say I was I was wondering like oh are we gonna ham back ham and ha back and forth and figure out who's gonna like. 01:24:16.40 Kurt Crenwelge Like what kind of scene we're going to do is they're going to be, which of my characters already established brought in, but you just like dove for it. So I was like, all right, well, since, you know, since we're doing some random stuff, yeah, let's figure out a new random character. 01:24:26.01 Randall Hampton Sorry. 01:24:27.33 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, no, no, that's fine. You know, that's cool. 01:24:29.60 Randall Hampton that's the That's the DM in me that just kind of jumps at it. Sorry. 01:24:32.76 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, we love it. I was gonna, yeah, it's like I was so happy and prepared to run through the whole ah list of characters that we have, but I'm so happy now that we have Anne Boleyn, Mythical Shaper, to add to the list, the roster now. 01:24:47.37 Randall Hampton There we go. 01:24:47.51 Kurt Crenwelge So we'll get to see ah which other adventures that she'll get to go on. 01:24:48.21 Randall Hampton Awesome. Love it. 01:24:52.59 Kurt Crenwelge Hopefully, you know, the plot armor will ah will protect her and she'll be able to ah be featured and feed in future episodes and such, so. 01:25:01.27 Randall Hampton For sure. 01:25:02.84 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so this is the you know this is the the final thoughts section of the show show. I always like to get you know the feedback, the critique, and and all that good stuff, figure out how people you know like their time in the random encounter, and then ah any other you know thoughts, you know cur cur there critiques, feedback, and and all that good stuff, as I said. 01:25:25.35 Randall Hampton Okay. ah No, I love it. ah This has actually been a lot of fun because ah first and foremost, being able to to talk about you know what I do with people and so more people can hear about little game masters and stuff, it's always a great opportunity. It's always a great opportunity to meet other people in the community. So I love that that the format is so fun. Being able to come up with new more more NPCs and just being able to just throw that out there so anybody can use them, whatever. but and then 01:25:56.90 Randall Hampton i I, doing the the the little scene at the end, I enjoy because 01:26:08.19 Randall Hampton yeah as much as much as I feel like, and I'm not the forever DM, I'm not, but I have been for a while. Like, you know what I mean? It's one of those things where it's like, if if there's opportunities for me to play, I want to jump at it. 01:26:21.48 Randall Hampton And this, just the two of us just kind of riffing back and forth. It's fun because that's still play for me. You know what I mean? Like that's still being able to just kind of jump in and and and create and voice something. 01:26:28.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:26:32.59 Randall Hampton And and so I appreciate that very much. 01:26:36.73 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. Uh, yeah. And so before, you know, we, we hang our hats, uh, and, and go to bed and and pay our tabs and all that good stuff. 01:26:46.93 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, I always like to leave the final moments of the podcast to the guests. So if there's any, you know, good things that you want to plug right now, you know, where can you be found on social media? 01:26:56.07 Randall Hampton share 01:26:57.74 Kurt Crenwelge What, what projects do we need to follow along with and any other passions or causes that we need to be made aware of? Let us know. 01:27:04.90 Randall Hampton Sure, sure, sure, sure. So um again, I'm Randall Hampton. You can find me on social media just about anywhere. It's at Randall underscore Hampton, or just rand at Randall Hampton, one of those two. 01:27:17.98 Randall Hampton um From time to time, I do stream on Twitch. I'll do live drawing sessions where I'll hang out with people, draw some stuff, things like that. um If you want to find out more about my art or about Little Game Masters or anything like that, go to randallhamptonart.com. 01:27:36.89 Randall Hampton That's my website. That's where you can find everything about me. That's where you can find out about Little Game Masters, about the Children's Book series, and anything we have going out right now. Here next month, I will be at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia. 01:27:52.21 Randall Hampton I'll have a booth set up there so you can come. and you If you haven't picked up a copy of Little Game Masters yet, you can pick that up before Christmas. I'll have it there ready to go. We will have the rule book. We'll have the adventure book. We will have the the physical character cards that you can play play with. We'll have the deck of items, which is our expansion, which is how we level up in our game. um And then we have like the big collector's box, big beautiful box sets that you can pick up there as well. 01:28:20.74 Randall Hampton And even more, you can pick up, we we made we made a little like ah skinny minis, little 2D skinny minis of the pre-generated characters. So if you want to pick those up too, we have those available as well. So all the things that you that you need to to be able to, besides dice, yeah i don't I don't make dice, but other other than that, I got everything that you need to kind of sit down and start playing a game with your kids. 01:28:48.31 Randall Hampton And that's really what it's about. It's about getting the kids at the table, you getting them to use their imagination, and just having that bonding time with your kids, telling stories, playing, being silly, and just enjoying the time that you have with them when they're at this age. um I really encourage that. I really want you to have that opportunity and I want you to just cherish it and love it and just enjoy it so much. 01:29:14.72 Kurt Crenwelge Awesome. Well, Mr. Hampton, thank you so much for your time and and helping us to learn more and encourage us. And I can't wait to have you back on the podcast, making even more interesting NPCs. 01:29:30.40 Randall Hampton Can't wait, loved it.