00:00:05.29 sidekqpodcast Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best unofficial Dungeons and Dragons podcast in my humbly biased opinion. I've got an awesome guest for you this week but before we get to my guest I have to leave you in suspense with the first ad read. And transcription people you're reading or hearing Uh, the ad for plus one exp and RPG zine club. Uh, be sure to go to plus one exp.com. Use the code Randolph at checkout, save money and support RPG zine.club. All right. And without further ado, I turn the microphone over to my guest and I asked, hello, mystery contestant. Would you care to introduce yourself? Tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do? 00:00:53.94 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Hello. Well, thank you for having me first and foremost. I'm super excited to be on on your show. It's so much fun just getting to riff, talk gaming, talk in role play. I'm Matt. I also talk about role playing games on my podcast, Role Play Chat. So if you guys like side quests, you're going to love role play chat as well. It's a little less action focused. You know, we're more philosophical in role play chat, but it's a TTRPG discussion podcast with all kinds of cool guests, a new guest every episode. And yeah, that's, that's me. I'm roll underscore play underscore chat on all socials and I like talking games. So I'm super pumped to be doing it today. 00:01:35.87 sidekqpodcast Yeah and i just had the pleasure literally this morning of like oh i mean you know i follow roleplay chat on like most of the social medias uh but it's like i oh right it's a podcast yeah so i like i went on my my podcast app and i i followed it And ah so I'm kind of like a purist a completionist like in video games so I'm like well I obviously have to go all the way to the very beginning and so ah hearing your. Your episode zero ah when you said you recorded it back in the middle of your third season of like this is how the show like started and this is how it works now moving forward so. 00:02:15.44 sidekqpodcast I'm very interested to to hear you and your co-host at the beginning of of your show ah talking together and then as time goes on as I was scrolling and looking through the massive catalog of episodes you have, you you've had the opportunity to interview quite a number of people from the hobby, haven't you? 00:02:36.51 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, no, it's been a blast. It's really been a blessing. I've gotten the opportunity to really grow as a content creator. Like you said, the show started off as just two dudes talking about games and and recording our advice. And it quickly snowballed into kind of like this this talk show, this kind of like role play talk show with various guests. 00:02:59.13 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um You know, some of the some of the big names that I've had the chance to talk to include Brennan Lee Mulligan, ah Seth Skorkowski. Not too long ago, I got the opportunity to talk to Diana of the Rose, who, you know, is a new face in the space that's growing like crazy. and Anyway. 00:03:17.50 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Lots of really fun folks. And then a lot of cool indie creators too, you know, kind of spread the love between some of the, some of the big names and some of the smaller names and every single person had just as much ah insight to share. 00:03:32.25 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So it was a lot of, a lot of fun. 00:03:34.81 sidekqpodcast and That's ah that's ah amazing and inspiring because that's kind of like the ethos ah with this podcast as well. 00:03:35.08 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ It's been good. 00:03:41.12 sidekqpodcast is like I would love to talk to you know big name people and I have been blessed very much so to have ah Johnny Stanton the fourth on ah twice, three times three times on and then ah Travis Frederick and Beth May. 00:03:53.92 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Nice. 00:03:57.22 sidekqpodcast uh you know ah dr emily friedman was uh our most uh recent episode at the time of this recording so i've and i've had uh you know personal friends and family and co-workers and all that so i've i've i've ran the gamut as well uh and i would agree with your uh belief and sentiment that like there's a lot of wisdom and there's a lot of cool insights that we can get uh from everyone you know not just the people uh that we anoint uh you know, so-called in the hobby to be like, ah, these are the opinions we need to listen to because they matter. 00:04:31.75 sidekqpodcast It's like, well, no, no, no, like everyone belongs at the table and everyone has a story. And so, like, you know. 00:04:37.67 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's it. That's it. And it's kind of like it becomes this echo chamber sometimes I worry where you know some of the bigger heavier voices say say something and then it kind of reverberates. 00:04:49.86 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Is that the word? 00:04:49.70 sidekqpodcast Mm hmm. Yeah. 00:04:52.04 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ It finds its way and it just kind of echoes and there's like variations. 00:04:54.50 sidekqpodcast Well, maybe river bear reverberates is a good word because, you know, it's like a river, you know, and then it reverbs. 00:05:00.43 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Sure. 00:05:00.39 sidekqpodcast Yeah. Yeah. 00:05:01.50 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah. We'll go with that. We coined here. Everyone, you heard it here first. 00:05:06.25 sidekqpodcast Ooh. 00:05:07.06 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um We'll see if that echoes through. you know We'll see if we have enough weight class in in the DT RPG Discourse Wheel of Time. um 00:05:14.69 sidekqpodcast Right. 00:05:17.02 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But no, you're you're right. it's really It's a blessing of a community. And I think if folks listening art, super involved, maybe this could be your call to action. You know, jump on threads, jump on blue sky, create and create yourself like a role-playing game account where you just follow a bunch of cool folks, make some friends. It's it's a good time, definitely. 00:05:41.45 sidekqpodcast It's just the eternal struggle with me being you know the 36 year old dad of a young toddler um is just kind of like, man, i'm a you know I'm an elder millennial. I don't have time to do this. I'm a one man band. I don't have a time to do this grinding. 00:05:57.31 sidekqpodcast Of like social media. It's like I do so much, you know involved in working alongside social media my day job It's like I this is my hobby. I just want to enjoy it now Certainly it's like I want to use the tools that are available to me to like spread You know all these characters out for everyone to use to hear these interesting and cool conversations But I don't need to beat you over the head ah With it. It's just like if you find it fun and interesting great and if you don't well, hopefully you're not leaving me a bad podcast reviews or something like that. 00:06:30.16 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ You know what they say, when you get a bad podcast review, you know you made it. You gotta you gotta you gotta have some of them, just to be like, yeah, that's my battle scar. yeah 00:06:39.12 sidekqpodcast Hmm, true. Yeah, I guess I have to wait for the one random YouTube comment to come along and then I could wear that like a badge of honor, I suppose. 00:06:49.07 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's it, that's it. 00:06:51.32 sidekqpodcast Yeah, so you know as ah we're you know two fellow podcasters talking to each other, hopefully not falling into too many of the tropes, I did see a very funny video. 00:07:02.62 sidekqpodcast I believe he's an Irishman, ah but he was like the two Johnnies of like very upper crust as sort of British people talking back and forth. So I was like, Hopefully we're not going to fall into that trap of like, ah, we're just two D and&D podcasters ah talking at each other or whatever. 00:07:18.37 sidekqpodcast But no, we're going to have a conversation. We're going to have fun today. So um obvious. 00:07:22.09 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Well, hopefully, Kurt, then you're going to have to like delete that one question where it's like the best times to post on on social media, according to audience. 00:07:23.86 sidekqpodcast Oh, yeah. 00:07:30.62 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Right. And then the best times to publish episodes. 00:07:31.50 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:07:33.59 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ We we might want to not talk about that. We'll have to scrap that from 00:07:36.55 sidekqpodcast right right yeah it's like you know i don't even you know it's it's it's all just fun and and games literally you know so no no no gaming the algorithms here the only games we're playing are dnd and ttrpgs and that that's the only game you should be playing Did he ding the more, you know, ah that that was totally the wrong noise. 00:07:59.56 sidekqpodcast I know that was the reading rainbow noise. And I know the the more, you know, is kind of like a violin or harp. 00:08:07.59 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, my i I actually have no idea what you're talking about, so I'm gonna take your word for it. 00:08:08.16 sidekqpodcast Goodness. 00:08:12.36 sidekqpodcast Reading right away. Are it how old? 00:08:14.22 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ ah reading rainbow Reading Rainbow I know about, but the more you know, like i can't think I can't think of the jingle. 00:08:16.73 sidekqpodcast OK, OK. 00:08:20.26 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um 00:08:21.10 sidekqpodcast Doo doo doo. Yeah something like that it may slightly predate me but i just being a kid perpetually growing up in the nineties and watching a lot of tv it's like you just. You just saw these things and then use you explain things to the younger generation there like we have no context or a basis for what you're talking about it's like i have so much to teach you before time before it's too late. 00:08:43.28 sidekqpodcast ah No, but but this is a D and&D podcast. you know We're having fun. and so you know As Matt has alluded to his podcast, they're having ah maybe not quite the theological discussions, but at least the philosophical discussions present there in in the world of D and&D, in the hobby in general. It goes without saying with this question, ah but do you currently or have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons before? 00:09:10.79 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Well, Kurt, I've played my fair share, definitely, of Dungeons & Dragons. I've been a game master for over 10 years, almost 14 years, I think, at this point. um Yeah, almost 14 years of being a game master or dungeon master. 00:09:20.92 sidekqpodcast o 00:09:27.09 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ ah Definitely started myself in the hobby, as most of us do, cutting our teeth on Dungeons & Dragons. The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons that I game mastered was 3.5. 00:09:39.01 sidekqpodcast Hmm Ah Fourth edition. 00:09:40.04 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Didn't get a whole lot of airtime with that. Spent most of my time game mastering 4th edition and then 5th edition. 00:09:47.42 sidekqpodcast There we go. That's the one I cut my teeth on 00:09:50.55 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, it's a good time. You know what, I feel like it gets a bad reputation, but there's a lot of really interesting things that that system did that I think that, you know, we we learned from and that we can now use in current games. 00:09:57.63 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm. 00:10:03.13 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But yeah, and and that's, you know, I run a game once a week, no, sorry, once every two weeks, every other Sunday for my neighbors and some friends. 00:10:03.88 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:10:07.00 sidekqpodcast Mm. 00:10:12.28 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ It's a home game set in my own homebrew world. Uh, that's been going on for, you know, two plus years now. And I do like to dabble in other games. 00:10:24.62 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Uh, Call of Cthulhu is one that I really enjoy. Uh, I like, especially now that it's, you know, I don't know when this is being released, but as we're recording this, it's close to Halloween. 00:10:35.01 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So I do like my spooky scary games. 00:10:35.33 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:10:37.78 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Ten Candles is a really fun one. 00:10:38.46 sidekqpodcast Mhm. 00:10:40.50 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um And then you know other simpler games with less crunch, like ah the Fate system is one that I really like running. It's kind of straightforward, very simple, ah easy to introduce new players to ah to the to the hobby, that kind of stuff. 00:10:56.00 sidekqpodcast Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Like like I said, um you know fourth edition certainly was impactful for me. and And that's where I also started to learn to ah to DM as well. 00:11:07.42 sidekqpodcast Because my group, you know we're all college kids. 00:11:08.19 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Nice. 00:11:10.65 sidekqpodcast And so it was like when one of us thought of an idea, it's like the dungeon master seat rotated. So like that's where I quickly learned of like, oh, I can't railroad. Because like if they hadn't figured out the one thing by chance, then it wouldn't have worked. 00:11:24.33 sidekqpodcast so There's a lot of lessons I learned in that time frame and then coming up through. 5th edition so now 5th edition's been what I've been running the longest and I'm still on the 2014 rules. I know the newer stuffs come on and there's like things that I'm hearing that are cool and I'm like great I'll just steal that I don't know if I need to go buy new books but like that sounds good and you know so and I you know as an accountability thing to me we did record another parlay at the platter where we talked about games and design and play 00:11:58.39 sidekqpodcast and i just i need to work on it and uh... it should be really fun we had a lot of great discussion between our panelists uh... so hopefully this old service good reminder for me maybe as a way to get you know ah pandering to social media engagement you should just bug me on social media be like hey when's that parlay the platter thing coming out and then i'll 00:12:17.96 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ yeah 00:12:17.92 sidekqpodcast I'll make sure it gets taken care of um but that's awesome and ah you know to hear that of so much of the games you're enjoying like you know i've i feel personally that like four is gonna have it spiritual successor with ah the draw steel mcdm that's coming out since they did so well on their dust campaign. 00:12:36.70 sidekqpodcast And, you know, Matt Colville talks very highly of like the lessons that can be learned in 4E to bring into 5E into our other current games. 00:12:39.09 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mmhmm. 00:12:46.41 sidekqpodcast Certainly been enjoying Dungeons and Daddies third season, which is an entirely Call of Cthulhu campaign. So a number of the games you mentioned, ah you know, having had played or are very interested in player. 00:12:58.86 sidekqpodcast I like to listen to things that have those games in them. So yeah. 00:13:02.14 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, they're they're fun. and And I feel like it can be a really good opportunity to experience different kinds of mechanics in a game. um you know I remember back in the good old days running fourth edition and and thinking of like, oh, I wonder, 00:13:18.53 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ How great would it be if there was this cool mechanic for sanity? Well, guess what? Call of Cthulhu literally has a sanity mechanic that you could you could borrow and and transplant into your game if you wanted to. Or, oh, I want to run a heist game. I wish I could do flashbacks. Well, guess what? Blaze in the Dark has an amazing flashback mechanic. Let's just borrow that. And you don't have to change the game that you're playing. 00:13:43.61 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Add to be inspired by other games and and and make the most out of those kind of like little tidbits of rules and someone else has done all the work for you, you know, they've play tested it. the The balance is sort of there already. So you don't have to go and make your own your own rules. You can just borrow other ones. 00:14:00.75 sidekqpodcast Right, yeah, where I i spent quite ah a long while working on my own version of a reskinned fifth edition for Fallout and then Modiphius finally comes out with like a Fallout game where I'm like, oh, well, this would have saved me a lot of time and effort if I just waited for this to show up. 00:14:18.92 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah it's it's easy to fall into that trap. I feel like even as a veteran game master, you'll sometimes think of like, oh, I would be so cool if I could do this. And then you kind of get you put your game designer hat on, even though I'm not a game designer. I don't know how to do any of that stuff. But you know, you're're you're you're using math and coming up with probabilities and stuff. And then All it would have taken was a quick Google search to find out that, yeah, oh, there's an alien RPG out. I don't have to reskin, I don't know, some sci-fi game to to make it an alien game. It literally exists. 00:14:53.88 sidekqpodcast Right right exactly yeah so um like on our recent episode that we had with ah Dr. Emily Friedman she ah encouraged everyone to have a good gaming diet and to try and play other games to you know find those points of inspiration so that you know that way um if we you know if you're wanting to do something new or cool and exciting in your game you don't have to stop playing the game but you can be like like you were saying, oh, we want to do like a heist mechanic, then let's quickly switch over to blades in the dark. 00:15:25.20 sidekqpodcast um And maybe we're running the low level ah people in our order that are going to carry out this heist or like, oh, we're going to journey into the far realm. Okay, let's turn this into a call of Cthulhu one shot or something like that with the the brave souls who are going to try and go fight Cthulhu or whatever. 00:15:43.34 sidekqpodcast So yeah, yeah, very cool. 00:15:44.99 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Definitely, definitely. 00:15:46.71 sidekqpodcast Well, with this podcast, it is called Sidekicks and Sidequests, so I would be remiss if I didn't ask you who happens to be your favorite NPC or sidekick character, whether they be from one of the many RPGs you've played or a video game, movie, film, television, literature, etc. And why is this character your favorite sidekick or favorite NPC? 00:16:09.81 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Okay, so Kurt, you're gonna have to you're gonna have to stop me if this isn't allowed, but I have an NPC that I've used in my games that is this is my own creation. um And he is by none bar none my favorite NPC of all time. 00:16:25.11 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ ah Is that allowed in this segment or should I should I stick to something that exists that the listeners will kind of recognize instead? 00:16:27.45 sidekqpodcast Oh, yeah, I mean. Oh, no, it's it's fine. You know, I asked a fair question of who happens to be your favorite if it's one that you've invented. That's fair play. 00:16:40.70 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Sweet, sweet. Well, then I'm going to talk to you guys and introduce the listeners to Scrub. Scrub is a ah vile little dirty man with a hunched back and a work covered face and big boogly eyes that works for your quote unquote local thieves guild. 00:17:02.91 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So whatever kind of system you're running, whatever kind of genre it is, I imagine you probably have a Thieves Guild. 00:17:02.85 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:17:09.47 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And Scrub is a... 00:17:13.70 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ He appears on the surface to be a low-level grunt for the Thieves' Guild. In reality, he's actually quite high up in the Thieves' Guild, but he has been cursed ah by a deity, whatever deity you want it to be in your world. In my world, it's Ora Ora, who's a trickster god. So whatever your trickster god is, 00:17:35.90 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Scrub has been cursed by that person to be absolutely miserable at everything except for things that revolve around dexterity and stealth. He remains a master of dexterity and stealth He can hide from anybody in any time. It's just that he's incredibly prone to being sick. He's incredibly prone to getting injured. ah He has absolutely no charisma whatsoever. He's like the most vile little man you'll ever talk to. ah And the reason why I love playing him so much is because he's just so goofy. He's he's really, really goofy. 00:18:16.27 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Uh, his voice is inspired by, and now this is kind of a weird reference, but you know, in Aladdin, when like the old Disney cartoon, when the genie, uh, starts listing off rules and provisos that Aladdin can't make wishes for. 00:18:33.82 sidekqpodcast oh Right. 00:18:35.97 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ it there's There's one of these provisos where he says that he can't bring people back from the dead. 00:18:40.57 sidekqpodcast You're right. 00:18:42.31 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And he puts on this voice that I'm sure is a caricature or or he's he's like, interpreting somebody else that I don't know who it is. But he's doing this voice that sounds like this like grimy little man. And that is Scrub. Scrub talks like this. Scrub is a vile man. He likes to hide in the shadows. He likes to find his way around town. He likes to learn all the secrets of all other the people and sell those secrets. So anyway, that's that's Scrub. and And he was kind of born 00:19:19.98 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ out of kind of thin air, but based on these references to that kind of, I feel like that kind of character exists in a lot of these grim dark worlds already. ah Kind of gives me adam Adam's family vibes too. Anyway, that's that's Scrub. he's my He's my favorite NPC and I love him a lot. 00:19:43.26 sidekqpodcast Well i am proud to say with the power of the internet ah that the particular person that robin williams the voice actor of genie from the cartoon version of the aladdin movie he was doing a impression of an actor by the name of peter lori um of course was ah you know born in Slovakia back in 1904 and he passed away in Los Angeles, California back in 1964. 00:20:03.42 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ okay 00:20:11.01 sidekqpodcast So he was a ah Hungarian American actor. so um Yes so some of his big films including m. Passage to mars a multi-spalcon casablanca the raven the man who knew too much arsenic and old lace twenty thousand leagues under the sea just to name a few ah so peter laurie was the that that that particular gentleman you can bring back from the dead kind of guy. 00:20:28.65 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Okay. Wow, okay, this is like a big name. 00:20:37.03 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's it. 00:20:37.60 sidekqpodcast Mine sort of started blending in the adams sandler so maybe perhaps adams sanders dipping in this and peter laurie to who knows. 00:20:44.68 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ but Possibly. I mean, now that you say that and and the Adam Sandler reference, I feel like there was a bunch of this this character also appeared in like a bunch of Looney Tunes caricatures too. 00:20:58.38 sidekqpodcast Hmm Well, 00:21:00.09 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Now I can't quite pi my qui put my pin on it, but I mean, that's awesome. 00:21:03.23 sidekqpodcast he definitely lived during the pinnacle the golden age of of cartoon animation So I'm sure Peter Laurie got like all the cred and you know, just was a very distinctive voice It was like oh, yeah So that's how Robin Williams was able to to do that poll and talk about you know, I can't raise the dead so 00:21:22.63 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ that's it yeah yeah so yeah anyway that's that's awesome i didn't know that now i'm gonna go look up a bunch of peter laurie like impersonators so that i can even make i can make scrub even better 00:21:32.01 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:21:36.04 sidekqpodcast Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's the gift that I that i feel like this podcast is, is I'm just a i am just a giver outer of knowledge and information and useless trivia facts that then can inspire other people ah to go do things and be awesome. 00:21:52.89 sidekqpodcast So there we go. 00:21:53.96 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, that's great. That's great. 00:21:55.40 sidekqpodcast And then continuing on as well, what happens to be one of your favorite side quests or B-plot elements? Again, same criteria, whether it's an RPG, video game, movie film, television, literature, et cetera. And why is this side quest or B-plot element your favorite? 00:22:12.12 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So I'm a really big fan of heists. I feel like heists and ah cat, like Crash and grab type operations that kind of stuff is it's a lot it can be a lot of fun But if that's all you're getting It kind of becomes too much of the same. So one of my favorite side quests is a Skyrim side quest where you have to go I believe it's like a ah there's like a party happening and And you have to go to the where this party is happening and basically destroy or sabotage three things of honey meat that are kind of scattered across the scattered across the premises of this establishment while the party is happening. So you can't be found out, you got to destroy. 00:23:04.19 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ as many of the as many of the mead barrel honey barrel things you know the operations as you can and then escape without causing too much of a ruckus and the reason this is one of my favorite side quests is because i feel like it offers a lot of um agency to the people playing the game to tackle the side quest however they'd like to do they want to be super super sneaky and just make sure nobody sees them okay you can do that do they want to be social and interact in the party and maybe like gain a couple favors from somebody to allow access to the places where these where this you know the 00:23:46.67 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ the operations are taking place and you can you can sabotage it that way do you want to kind of do a mix of the of the both or do you just want to run in as fast as you can not care about whether or not anybody sees you and just be you know run in run out and just hope that you don't come into trouble and if you do you just hit them hard enough so that they can't remember you and and you know that that's kind of the The inspiration for a lot of my games, whenever I come up with a heist game or or like a side quest that's related to something like this, I always try to stick to those principles where I try to give my players an interesting scenario that they can resolve, you know, from whatever pillar of the game they they feel like they want to kind of pursue in that particular instance. 00:24:17.99 sidekqpodcast Mm hmm. 00:24:36.30 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And I mean, Skyrim is just a great game too. I think I sunk hundreds of hours in Skyrim. So there's that too. 00:24:43.65 sidekqpodcast Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely one of those repeat, uh, playable games. And, you know, you hear about people like going on YouTube and Twitch and they're just like, we're still playing Skyrim. They've still got ridiculous mods for it. What else can we do? We're like, we're going to do this kind of play through. Uh, yeah. And then people are just fascinated. It is proven to be, uh, uh, a reoccurring hit, uh, that Bethesda produced certainly. Um, yeah. 00:25:13.02 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, it's a good, it's a good time. 00:25:13.01 sidekqpodcast So yeah, i personally now I personally have not successfully ever dipped my toes into any of the Elder Scrolls games. I know my wife loves Skyrim and I remember when Skyrim came out when I was in college and I definitely had those friends that like disappeared ah when that game came out because they were just like, I have to play it so much. 00:25:33.40 sidekqpodcast kind of like how it is with Baldur's Gate 3 currently at at the time of this recording. ah so but But yeah, you know but we've got it and so it's there. 00:25:40.94 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, good time. 00:25:43.51 sidekqpodcast So whenever I feel the call of the mountains and the Fus Ro Daz, then i can I can boot it up and awake from my coma to the the the guy being like, oh, you're awake. 00:25:54.96 sidekqpodcast Welcome. ah Ready to begin your adventure. 00:25:58.54 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's it. That's it. You know, in the back of the cart with the shackles on and what a better, there's no better way to start a game, maybe in a tavern. I'm sure that's a hot take. 00:26:06.56 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:26:07.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I'm sure people will be mad at me for say that. 00:26:11.26 sidekqpodcast Well, speaking, well, speaking of Bethesda, you know, another game and early, early listeners of the podcast will know how much I've talked about fallout 76. Now, just last night, having had the opportunity to play after a long while. 00:26:24.09 sidekqpodcast ah And there's a fun little Easter egg for Skyrim and fallout 76. If you go to one part of the map, you can find a tractor pulling a wagon and there's two guys in the back of the wagon that are just ah tied up. 00:26:37.39 sidekqpodcast So it's like, ah, There's my Skyrim reference of them being ah carted away. um So it's like, ah, very cool. 00:26:42.03 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ awesome yeah i mean if if if you could permit me another great one in the fallout universe is the uh now i can't remember what it's called not the not the academy what's that place that like the world of synths this is the underground and it's 00:26:44.45 sidekqpodcast um and 00:26:58.88 sidekqpodcast Oh, the Institute. 00:27:00.44 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ The Institute, that's it. That's a really cool B-plot, too. um Maybe it's not quite a B-plot, ah but it's it's its own arc in the story of Fallout. 00:27:03.84 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:27:10.57 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I find that that really, really fascinating, this self-contained pressure cooker environment um where things can go wrong. 00:27:10.35 sidekqpodcast Right. 00:27:19.16 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ it's it's It's just prime for fun adventures to happen. 00:27:24.27 sidekqpodcast Indeed, uh, and then also a reminder that I still need to actually finish my play through fallout four. I got like a good chunk into it and then I just, uh, 76 came out and then I wanted to be me in, in 76. And so I've just been my own adventure in Appalachia. So. 00:27:41.68 sidekqpodcast ands So that's but that's been my jam. 00:27:42.18 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yes. 00:27:43.08 sidekqpodcast so And then the way that we round out to the personal interview section of the podcast ah so we don't rattle and prattle on too long. 00:27:43.76 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's cool. 00:27:53.44 sidekqpodcast ah Matt, what are you passionate about and why? 00:27:56.79 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ What am I passionate about? Well, you know, Kurt, I think it's probably the same thing as you. I'm passionate about talking about role-playing games. It's, it's, you know, like quite literally started a podcast because the people in my life are like, Matt, we don't want to hear you talk about this anymore. Go, yeah go find an outlet. Um, so definitely, definitely role-playing games and, and getting the opportunity to dissect them. I think. 00:28:23.07 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ It's just such an incredibly rich and deep hobby that we have. There's so many ways to play it. None of those ways are wrong. So long as the people that are at the table all agree with the way that you're playing and everyone's having a good time, then you're playing right. And and I think that that's kind of the beauty of this is that it offers us the opportunity to just take any single element of it and talk about it for hours. So it's something that I'm i'm definitely passionate about. um i'm also you know As as you you mentioned, I'm really passionate about getting as many voices as I can to talk about their experiences with role-playing games. there's 00:29:03.47 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So many people with so many backgrounds and so many unique you know unique perspectives on the way that we play this game and the way that we live generally. So getting to hear from a lot of different folks is it's always eye-opening too. you know you you think You think you understand something and then somebody throws in an interesting perspective and I'm like, oh my gosh, maybe that's my opinion now too. I don't know. I have to think about it. 00:29:29.03 sidekqpodcast Mhmm. Yeah, we live on a planet with billions of people, uh, and everyone's got a story and it's just, you know, it's mind bending and mind boggling and it's awe inspiring. Just like here and now I exist and I live and I'm wonderfully made and created. And here we all are telling stories. We're like our ancestors of yore who just, you know, after a long day of hunting and gathering and surviving, what do we do? We get around the fire. 00:30:00.55 sidekqpodcast We tell stories we play games we drink and we have and we make mary and you know we celebrate our our lives and we celebrate each other in our community so. 00:30:06.80 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's it. 00:30:10.04 sidekqpodcast You know what we're doing now except we're using funny polyhedral dice and we sometimes use goofy voices so. 00:30:19.80 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Exactly, exactly. So yeah, it's a good time. And I mean, maybe to add dimension a little bit, I also love gardening. Gardening is a blast. 00:30:28.33 sidekqpodcast oo 00:30:29.07 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I just harvested all of my all of my plants and all the seeds and, you know, any day now it's going to snow up here. I'm in Ottawa, Canada, so any day it's going to snow. 00:30:37.86 sidekqpodcast Oh. 00:30:40.30 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So I'm just waiting on it. just Hopefully it's after Halloween so that my kids can go trick-or-treating without having their snow suits on. 00:30:47.49 sidekqpodcast Oh, yeah. Well, bull bully for you for your gardening. I mean, I know we've made our small attempt here in North Texas and the weather wasn't exactly kind to us this year. So better luck next time, I guess. 00:31:03.16 sidekqpodcast So, but very cool. And I feel like, you know, we've had a great conversation here in the personal interview section that now I think it's time to head into some NPC creation. 00:31:15.76 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Let's do it let's do it 00:31:25.14 sidekqpodcast And NPC Creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience, and our patrons from Patreon. So now is the time of the show where we give a shout out to our comfortable patrons and above with a loud hoorah. Just a ah miniature can of Dr. Pepper, don't worry. 00:31:43.88 sidekqpodcast Remember to consume and drink responsibly out there you people driving and listening to this podcast Be careful both hands on the wheel ten and two Anyway, yes, so our patrons we like to shout them out. So of course our queen of the patreon goblin Katie aka Katie Downie As well as our other wealthy patrons answer to blin ski and good old mom and dad krenwell gee we say cheers so again all these folks ah are a part of the patreon community and they get to introduce what's called an element of chance ah so we have some random tables here for the podcast of our guests like want to you know mix things up and roll the dice well ah we give our patreon 00:32:26.93 sidekqpodcast Patreon supporters ah the opportunity to throw in a little bit of chaos in there and and just see what we can get to mix it up so if you want to learn more about our yeah If you would like to learn more about all the various rewards and things that we have waiting for you in the Levitating Platter, you should go to the show notes below. You should go to the podcast website or just go directly to patreon dot.com forward slash sidekicks and side quests. Find out about the accommodations we have awaiting for you in the Levitating Platter. Help us to grow and expand our operations in this demiplane and Worlds Beyond. 00:33:04.54 sidekqpodcast and Kofi, Kofi's a thing too. So if you don't like Patreon, Kofi, ba-ding. All right, so now that all that business is out of the way, yes, this is NPC creation. 00:33:15.53 sidekqpodcast So we were kind of chit chatting before we started hitting all the recording buttons. So Matt, what are we doing today? Are we going to just kind of like walk our way through the questions and discover an NPC? 00:33:27.74 sidekqpodcast Are we going to roll the dice or what are we going to do? 00:33:28.68 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. um maybe Maybe a bit of a mix in the match. So I've i've got sort of an idea for character, but there's there's definitely some elements there that can be can be improvised. We'll leave it up to the Patreons to decide for us. And I'm sure the people listening that aren't Patreons are like, oh, I wish I could add something cool to Matt's character. So they're going to have to go and become a patron of your show too, to be able to add you know add some cool stuff. 00:33:58.85 sidekqpodcast Exactly. 00:33:59.42 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So let's let's do it. Let's do it. 00:34:01.05 sidekqpodcast Okay. Yeah. So then the first thing ah to determine for our NPC is the name of the character. So do you have a name figured out or do you need to roll for it? 00:34:10.99 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, i do I do have a name. So this character, maybe very briefly, i I'll mention that. This was an NPC that I ran briefly during a one-shot some time ago, probably three years ago. 00:34:25.67 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ ah So I have a very vague memory of who this person was. 00:34:25.61 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:34:28.90 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But, you know, kind of a secret of the trade is that oftentimes the NPCs at the Game Master are improvising. They don't really know who they are either. 00:34:39.55 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ yeah so So I'm hoping that, yeah, we can flesh out Ambrose. 00:34:40.40 sidekqpodcast Right. 00:34:45.00 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ His name is Ambrose. ah and And I don't have a last name for him. 00:34:48.01 sidekqpodcast Hmm. A good saintly name. A good saintly name. Yeah. 00:34:53.63 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, I don't... 00:34:53.70 sidekqpodcast A-M-E-R-O-S-E. 00:34:56.91 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's it, yeah. 00:34:57.86 sidekqpodcast Perfect. 00:34:58.51 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Ambrose. 00:34:59.90 sidekqpodcast Excellent. 00:35:00.33 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I don't know if if your if your random table has like last names. 00:35:00.23 sidekqpodcast Okay. 00:35:03.81 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ do we want to Can we get a last name out of one of these? Is that something that we should do? 00:35:07.82 sidekqpodcast Uh, if you would, if you would like to, I think a number of these responses are going to be maybe more first name, but you know, there are people who have like first name sounding last names. 00:35:20.03 sidekqpodcast So if you want to roll a D 20 and see if it's something, uh, we could do that too. 00:35:23.98 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Let's do it. Let's do it. I feel like that would suit Ambrose to have to have like Henry or something as his last name. All right. am i Am I rolling or are you rolling? 00:35:34.44 sidekqpodcast yeah you Yeah, I let the guests roll. 00:35:37.42 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Okay, I got an eight. What do we got? 00:35:39.73 sidekqpodcast 8. Oh, this is interesting. Okay, so your answer provided by previous guest, Kevin Knoll, um, Eusebius, which is also a very strong name. 00:35:50.49 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Whoa, that's... 00:35:51.90 sidekqpodcast So E-U-S-E-B-I-U-S. 00:35:52.62 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ yeah 00:35:56.19 sidekqpodcast So Ambrose Eusebius. 00:35:59.36 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That is intense. 00:35:59.40 sidekqpodcast That's it. Yeah, I'm getting like, like a, like a, well, like a Roman gladiator, like a a commander of a Legion or something like that. I am Ambrose Eusebius. 00:36:11.50 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, exactly. 00:36:11.32 sidekqpodcast Uh, or I was just listening to the, um, dungeons and daddies on the way home and they just released their, um, dad hammer 40k, uh, episodes. So I was like, Oh, Ambrose Eusebius also kind of sounds like something I would hear in Warhammer or something like that. 00:36:27.23 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ You know, it's really funny you say that because Ambrose was in war like he was in a Warhammer fantasy roleplay game So you CDS is a perfect last name ah for Ambrose I mean i I he was human let's go with human. 00:36:34.78 sidekqpodcast ah Ah. Perfect. All right. And then what's the ancestry of Ambrose Eusebius? 00:36:48.31 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I know that's kind of like yeah human just 00:36:48.48 sidekqpodcast Human? Okay yeah like you know you got it you have humans that exist in dnd too it's not all ways just elves and dwarves and t flings I know everyone loves t flings and changelings and all these other ones but you gotta have humans too yeah so there we go human all right and then let's see what is the job or role in society ah that ambrosus cbs has. 00:37:03.15 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ that's it yeah yeah so ambros is a shalia exterminator priest and a shalia priest in the warhammer world is they're they're kind of like healers but a very small window 00:37:25.72 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:37:29.13 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ of shalia priests hunt at disease. So they go and try to exterminate that the root causes of disease and infestation. So he might be called upon to go and help a farmer be rid of a tree that's been infected by some kind of vermin or or or illness, or perhaps be called to a town that has people in it who are all falling mysteriously ill, and it's his job to identify the problem and be rid of it. So I i think his name his last name really comes and like adds some oomph to to him a little bit. It's great. 00:38:15.61 sidekqpodcast So how do you spell shalia? 00:38:18.75 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I think it's with a C-H. Or no, S-H. You know, what let me look it up. Let's ask Google. It's been too long. 00:38:36.38 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ S? No, that's that's definitely wrong. I'm sure i'm sure your editors can can make this seem flawless. 00:38:43.43 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:38:45.10 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ i'm hoping 00:38:46.09 sidekqpodcast The editor that which is me. Yes. 00:38:50.42 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ ah So Shalia in the Warhammer canon, I mean you can make it what you want, is spelled S-H-A-L-L-Y-A. Shalia. 00:39:01.69 sidekqpodcast Interesting. Okay, so yeah, you could definitely take this NPC and if you're like, oh great, yes, I'm playing a Warhammer game, then like, just drag and drop into Warhammer. But otherwise, we could certainly get creative in a and a D and&D sort of context. So like, okay, so somes like because ah the way you're describing this ah priestly figure is like, ah, okay, so they're like, you know, they deal with like, 00:39:27.46 sidekqpodcast They look like ah the picture at least I'm getting is like, oh, clearly a plague doctor sort of a look like, you know, works with in the domain of nature. I may i don't know about necessarily like circle of spores, druid or just like some sort of like cleric of rot or whatever it is. But it's like, ah, there is an infestation here and I must cleanse and purify it with fire or whatever it is kind of a vibe. 00:39:57.07 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. um And I mean, there's got to be equivalent gods in in the pantheon that whoever, you know, whoever's listening, you must have like a death god or a god of of of um like a healing god. 00:40:05.94 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:40:14.49 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ i think I think the death god in D and&D is Kelimvor. 00:40:17.57 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:40:19.48 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Am I saying that right? 00:40:23.13 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ The Lord of the Dead. 00:40:22.94 sidekqpodcast Yeah i don't know which path like i remember my my dawn war pantheon from four e. And then when i started home brewing it's like what i've i've got my own versions of the dawn war people than plus others that i've added as as time has gone on so it's just like at this point i'm just like. I don't know the forgotten realms deities are gray hawk. 00:40:43.62 sidekqpodcast deities because that that seems cool for the new 2024 books is that they're going more Greyhawk. So that's kind of cool. Haven't been there in a while. So maybe maybe I will have to go check it out just to go see the world of Greyhawk. 00:40:59.04 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But i I really like the like plague mask um I hadn't thought of that and I'm definitely stealing that so we're gonna make that cannon for for Ambrose. He's definitely wearing Some kind of like plague doctor mask with like the long nose all made out of leather. 00:41:15.11 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I'm really liking that visual I think that's a super cool visual 00:41:15.67 sidekqpodcast Mm hmm hmm hmm. All right. So we've got ah the his job or role in society is he's a he's a priest of this particular deity, which is sent to like root out exterminates like rot and disease and filth and stuff like that is basically what you're envisioning. 00:41:37.95 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go with that. 00:41:39.98 sidekqpodcast OK, and then let's see what is the age range of our character? Like, do you have like a specific number of like, how old is he? Or like, is there like a vague age range of how you picture ah Ambrose? 00:41:54.03 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Um, I kind of picture him as being a young adult, maybe, maybe, maybe like in his twenties, early twenties, something like that. 00:42:04.21 sidekqpodcast Okay. Okay. Young adult. Okay. All right. I dig. 00:42:09.45 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 00:42:09.42 sidekqpodcast So yeah yeah, if you had rolled on ah the rain, well, if you had rolled on the table, that would have just been a three on a D eight. So yeah, young adult. Perfect. Okay. So like somewhere in his twenties as a human. 00:42:19.92 sidekqpodcast So like, you know, all right, very good. Uh, So now the question, uh, as we, I normally say, Oh, now we're going to take a pause on the dice rolling. Cause now that we know these details so far, uh, can you come up with a physical description? So we're going to paint a picture. So Ambrose, you see BS, the exterminator cleric, who's a somewhere in his twenties and is a human. 00:42:45.19 sidekqpodcast ah So what you know we've already discussed ah and agree upon like okay he's got like the plague doctor mask. Thing going on but like what else is going on with him as like a physical description. 00:42:57.64 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Okay, so I have some stuff figured out already and I think maybe our random table will help us, but my inspiration for Ambrose, funnily enough, I thought i thought it'd be funny to have this like plague doctor character who kind of looks like and in some cases acts like Prince Charming from Shrek. I thought like the juxtaposition of this like pretty boy type character who also happens to have to deal with like illness and disease and get rid of it felt like a a very interesting yeah and interesting like combination of two worlds so so to me that's kind of what Ambrose looks like this like very chiseled face 00:43:48.35 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ uh blonde wavy hair that he takes far too well care of uh despite you know his constant uh constant interaction with like the terminally sick and the like diseased he's he's very obsessed about his appearance um well groomed blue like piercing blue eyes you know very handsome very handsome a beautiful man if if i could say um 00:44:05.03 sidekqpodcast Mhm. 00:44:14.01 sidekqpodcast Mhm. Yeah, like a Fabio kind of. 00:44:19.34 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. um So that's kind of where my head was at, but I'd love to throw in a couple of other dimensions. I don't know if we have, let's maybe roll on it and see it like how we can how we can add more complexity to him if you're cool with that. 00:44:36.26 sidekqpodcast ah Sure yeah I mean I don't have any specific random tables for like ah you know physical descriptions so Mike maybe if you you found one for yourself that you you know I wanted to roll on you're certainly more than welcome to but I'm happy to spit ball. 00:44:47.64 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Oh, okay. 00:44:53.60 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah, give me some ideas here, Kurt. 00:44:53.40 sidekqpodcast So you. 00:44:55.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ What else can we what else can we do? 00:44:55.62 sidekqpodcast Yeah. Yeah, sure. so i mean So he's wearing this plague doctor outfit um and you know cleric robes and stuff like that. So we're imagining he serves some sort of healing god is what we said, or like a or a death god. So is ah probably his iconography is goingnna and his garb is going to reflect that as part of his ensemble. And then when he like takes the mask off and he shakes his hair on his shoulders, and it's like, oh, hello, you, Prince Charming. 00:45:25.89 sidekqpodcast It's like oh I'm here let me get that person the blisters and the wounds all addressed. ah So he's not squeamish like he's actually like he's ready to like dive in there and like attend to the sick in the in the dying and and all that. 00:45:32.33 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 00:45:41.06 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Okay, yeah, let's do it. Yeah, not squeamish. um I like the idea of of him being, you know, like kind of like a physical, like a pretty big presence, you know, like he's, he's a big, he's a big man. 00:45:53.74 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um Takes care of himself, but I think probably pretty vain too. You know, he's, yeah, I think there's going to be like a, 00:46:01.01 sidekqpodcast Oh, interesting. 00:46:05.63 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ There's got to be some kind of layering to his his vanity, um maybe a little bit self-indulgent. 00:46:13.57 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 00:46:14.84 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Call it a weakness, if you will. where 00:46:16.73 sidekqpodcast Okay. 00:46:18.30 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ yeah yeah 00:46:18.48 sidekqpodcast Well it sounds like it's kind of blending into our next question because we usually you know to like help ah you know once we have like a. An idea of what how they physically would appear so we try and narrow it down for the role play elements of like okay what three adjectives best described. 00:46:33.65 sidekqpodcast Ambrose Eusebius so there is some vanity in there um but he's also kind of like bold or he's like not afraid ah to like get into the muck and the grime and the dirt and the the wounds and the in the filth and all this to be able to like cleanse it and purify it Is there like some sort of like so, you know, he's he's bold, he's fearless. 00:46:51.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mmhmm. 00:46:55.73 sidekqpodcast um You know, he has this vein, this vein streak in him. Because I'm just wondering where that comes from. Is it like a sense of like piety or superiority or something like that? 00:47:08.17 sidekqpodcast Or or I don't know. ah what what How are you um envisioning these three adjectives that are going to ah work to try and encapsulate Ambrose? 00:47:17.81 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, i look i I kind of like the dichotomy there that exists, right? He's he's bold, he's he's fearless, but also he's he's vain and and a little maybe a little bit like conceited or or selfish. 00:47:33.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Perhaps it comes from a place of of trying to prove his self-worth. 00:47:42.24 sidekqpodcast Mm. 00:47:42.68 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I like the idea that maybe Maybe he's doing this to get somebody's attention, somebody who who who he doesn't have their approval yet. 00:47:53.23 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ i And I mean, I don't really know who that is. Maybe it's maybe it's a ah head priest in the in that order that he's a part of where he's, you know, everybody thinks of him as just this pretty face and nobody takes him seriously. 00:47:55.62 sidekqpodcast Sure. Yeah. 00:48:06.42 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So he's trying to selfishly do all of these things that are good and right and brave, but ultimately it's it's for this this approval that he can't seem to get. 00:48:17.57 sidekqpodcast Ooh, I was thinking kind of like an interesting opposite because, well, it would certainly be like an an opposite certainly of like ah St. Damian of Molokai, you know, who is the famous Franciscan priest who went to Hawaii and intended to the lepers. 00:48:33.12 sidekqpodcast And in the course of doing so, ah you know, being very merciful and just ah succumbed to leprosy himself. So, i you know, you were so talking about like, oh, Ambrose is seeking this approval. 00:48:40.52 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mmm. 00:48:45.23 sidekqpodcast You know maybe it's ah or you know maybe the angle that i'm coming at or trying to think in and speak into words into a microphone is like oh what if. you know It's this darker vanity of like see like you expect all your other priest like go out there and they you know it's like this hopeless cause of them you know tending to all this disease this never ending play or whatever it is but look. 00:49:09.51 sidekqpodcast I'm able to do all that and succeed and I can still make myself like look shine like the heavens themselves and here I am you know in the in the grime and the thick of it and you said that I wouldn't be able to amount to it and look I'm able to to do it and bear the visage of our God himself or whatever. 00:49:16.45 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ yeah 00:49:30.79 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, no, I love that so much. And I think i think both of these things can exist, right? He can can seek for that approval and be fabulous while doing it. So I love that a lot. 00:49:40.55 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 00:49:42.65 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I think that's fantastic. 00:49:44.46 sidekqpodcast OK, and so then OK, so we've got bold and we've got a kind of like reckless or fearless. And then we've got and then ah this vanity or this this this vainness or something. 00:49:55.51 sidekqpodcast OK, so those are our three adjectives, I guess, that kind of like work to to help round out. 00:50:00.28 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 00:50:01.09 sidekqpodcast Okay so now now is the part where i'm like and now we get to go back to some dice rolling so we like all of our npc's to have something cool on their person a valuable so um what's going to be a valuable item a piece of lore a secret or an ideal or concept 00:50:05.27 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Cool. 00:50:19.18 sidekqpodcast Ambrosus would ascribe to so if you're wanting to randomize this this is where you get to do two dice rolls cuz you roll a d4 for the category and then you roll a d6 for the particular thing sometimes if you're just spitballing you might have like a couple of items but i know what what what fits in that category. 00:50:21.71 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Let's do it. 00:50:37.13 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So let's let's definitely give us a category. So we said it was a D4 for the category. 00:50:41.63 sidekqpodcast Yes correct. 00:50:44.15 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ All right, so we got a 4. What do we got? 00:50:45.78 sidekqpodcast oo Okay so this is an ideal or concept. 00:50:50.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ ideal 00:50:50.38 sidekqpodcast And then it's a D6 for the particular thing. 00:50:57.14 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So what kind of ideal or concept does he bring with him? a okay Let's see what we get. ah We got a 6. 00:51:04.65 sidekqpodcast Six. Wow. Okay. This is very interesting. Okay. So this was suggested by previous guest, Katie Demataeus. Nihilism. 00:51:16.25 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Whoa, okay. 00:51:17.21 sidekqpodcast Yeah. So how does the nihilism factor into this? 00:51:21.56 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Hmm. 00:51:24.15 sidekqpodcast Is this like a like a deeply seated like in his heart of hearts he's a nihilist but like on the outward vein part of the outside it's like no I'm like this shiny golden angelic figure and I'm here helping the people but like really what's eating at him deep inside is like Like I do all this and like none of it matters. 00:51:47.19 sidekqpodcast And like, why should I, why should we be like helping the sick and stuff like that? But, but yet I'm compelled ah to do it. I don't know. What do you, what do you think of that? 00:51:55.74 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I wonder, and maybe I'm like stretching the definition a little bit of nihilism, but what if Ambrose, when he goes to exterminate these illnesses? 00:52:12.58 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ kind of rejects all other moral principles, you know? Like to him, this person is sick. They're gonna get everybody else sick. There's no talking me out of it. 00:52:23.89 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ They're dead. Like I'm exterminating this person, point blank. 00:52:27.23 sidekqpodcast Oh. 00:52:28.60 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ You know what I mean? Like all other religious, all other moral principles are out the window when it comes to him serving his his his objective. 00:52:32.61 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:52:39.25 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um 00:52:39.40 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 00:52:42.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I don't know. Does that fit? Is that a little bit too like black and white? I know that that doesn't make for a super interesting. 00:52:45.80 sidekqpodcast Well, I mean, that's kind of what nihilism is all about. It's like things are clear cut black and white and it's like all bad. 00:52:53.01 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 00:52:52.99 sidekqpodcast And, you know, you're the illusion of free choice and free will and all this stuff and like chaos reigns supreme and, you know, just being evil and, you know, well. 00:53:03.95 sidekqpodcast Even big dick big dick vindictive i know certainly in the zeitgeist right now the second ah walking phoenix joker movies out and so definitely you know that is a film series that exemplifies nihilism ah certainly i'm yeah i'm sure there are other great movies out there that exemplified nihilism as well, 00:53:25.78 sidekqpodcast I'm not a movie podcast, but certainly I would recommend you checking out someone smarter than me on cinema to recommend it. but you know if you're If you're able to take those like ah gentle ah dives into nihilism, certainly i yeah I don't encourage anyone to embrace nihilism in real life, but you know for our games of D and&D, for NPCs, it's totally fine. 00:53:48.62 sidekqpodcast um So yeah, it's kind of like ah the I got the image of the the the gif in my head, the gif of ah ah what is it? I think it was like a short film that Corridor Digital did as a tie-in for the Tom Clancy ah yeah MMORPG open world game in New York City where it was like the dollar bill virus. 00:54:14.30 sidekqpodcast And so the people are coming in with flamethrowers and they're just like burning everyone. That's kind of like the image of like, he presents this image of like, oh, I'm this, I'm this golden boy savior, and I've come to save you all. 00:54:25.09 sidekqpodcast It's like, yes, let me let me lead these people into a building. Don't don't worry, I will, I will tend to them. And they're like, great, we're waiting on the healing. And he's like, that's when the shift happens, the nihilism engages. 00:54:35.17 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah. 00:54:36.17 sidekqpodcast And he's just like, burn all of you or whatever and so yeah 00:54:40.12 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Locks the door and he's like, yeah, I did my duty. Yeah, that's a little dark, but let's let's go there. Let's do it. That's Ambrose now. 00:54:47.86 sidekqpodcast yeah Yeah certainly you know talk to your ah you know talk to your game table and and and everything like that make sure like this kind of NPC is cooler you know you know you know your players and you know how you can tweak the dials you know we need our bad guys quote unquote bad guys to do evil things so certainly someone who's a nihilist that's like oh i have to heal the community and and protect them. 00:55:09.36 sidekqpodcast yeah, probably would just the ends would justify the means to be like, well, these five people were were sick with a disease that I can't cure. 00:55:20.09 sidekqpodcast So I'm just going to burn them alive. And then just, you know, and maybe that's why the vanity thing comes into play. Because like, maybe it's kind of eating at him a little bit. And so he's like, I have to be clean. 00:55:30.18 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Hmm. 00:55:31.46 sidekqpodcast And so that's why he takes such great care and presenting ah such a clean image because of all the the deep-seated nihilism that he carries in his heart ah which like obviously would contradict in conflict with this public persona that he gives of this like you know oh golden hairs and piercing blue eyes and i'm just a pretty boy uh but yet i'm i'm doing all this dark stuff 00:55:42.43 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. Yeah. 00:55:59.60 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, he comes with his problems and I like it too because like you said, Kurt, he doesn't need to be good or bad. It kind of creates this gray zone where it's like, yeah, he's he's working for a good order, generally speaking, but he's he's basically committing these atrocities in the name of that in the name of that order. 00:56:12.14 sidekqpodcast Mm hmm. Right. 00:56:19.23 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ It might not even be what the order wants him to be doing, but he's doing them anyway. 00:56:21.36 sidekqpodcast Right. 00:56:24.07 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um So it can create this interesting scenario where I hope other people listening to this introduce Ambrose to their world and and and he might be like your next villain or he might be nobody but and there's there's room there for growth definitely i like this i like this a lot 00:56:37.13 sidekqpodcast right 00:56:39.98 sidekqpodcast Yeah, I feel like this, you know, Ambrose is definitely operating somewhere like in the rural area. He's like far removed away from like the actual guiding hand of his leadership of his of his order and of his of his religion. And so he's taken like this extremist fundamentalist nihilistic sort of view to carry out the will of his God. 00:57:05.65 sidekqpodcast And because maybe he may be the only authority in the area on the matter, there's no one there to check him. And so could definitely present some interesting moral quandaries to your party of like, Oh, like this plague ridden land, you know, this is like the one safe respite we've been able to find. And it's like, Oh, here's this. 00:57:24.05 sidekqpodcast Here's this priest that's like, you know, he's leading the town and it, you know, maybe there's like that weird uncanny feeling and it's just like Ambrose is there doing his thing. 00:57:34.32 sidekqpodcast It's like, but wait a minute, there there was the one sick person there yesterday, but like. 00:57:39.47 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, they're gone now. 00:57:39.59 sidekqpodcast Now he's not showing up and Ambrose doesn't seem as rattled cuz like, you know, that was someone important that we needed to talk to and they just had like a little cough. Like it wasn't anything major. They weren't presenting ah like, you know, life or death symptoms. 00:57:52.69 sidekqpodcast It was like, he just had a cough and now suddenly the person we needed to talk to is gone. Like, yeah, mystery and intrigue and stuff. 00:57:59.36 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Definitely. 00:58:01.82 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, I love it. I love it. 00:58:03.28 sidekqpodcast Okay, okay. And then, of course, ah you know, our NPCs, we'd like them to be able to offer up side quests to player characters, to adventurers, to heroes. 00:58:13.85 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ moon 00:58:15.96 sidekqpodcast So what's going to be the side quests that Ambrose Eusebius needs the player characters to go and do? If you need to roll randomly, you get to roll a d12, or if you have an idea, what do you think is a reasonable side quest that Ambrose might be willing to offer up? 00:58:32.36 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, I have an idea based on everything we've just been saying in the picture we've been painting. I i like the idea that Ambrose knows the limitations of what he can do. 00:58:44.70 sidekqpodcast Mmhmm. 00:58:45.17 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So he might he might send the party off to be rid of some kind of abomination, you know, some vile abomination that's causing some of this illness perhaps in his domain. 00:58:58.65 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um Maybe it's a scouting mission to get information. Maybe it's an extermination mission. ah But he needs he needs the party's help to go and and be rid of whatever bile monster lives in the in the woods that's maybe it's infesting the water source of the village or something. 00:59:20.55 sidekqpodcast Mmm, okay Okay, so it is gonna be like ah on the surface kind of like, you know, like hey I need I need your help Like obviously I have this flock to attend to here so I can't like go out and do it myself so okay, so we're gonna recruit the party to go on this scouting or extermination mission and uh for Ambrose so that seems you know pretty straightforward so what is going to be the reward how is Ambrose going to reward the party for their efforts in succeeding like they go and they deliver a report uh that's successful or they successfully identify whatever it is or it's you know something they have to fight they fight the thing they bring back proof that it's dead how is Ambrose going to reward the party 00:59:22.23 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 00:59:39.36 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 01:00:08.34 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ How is he going to reward the party? I, so I play in games with very little magic. So maybe, maybe this isn't, you might have to help me Kurt in making this an appropriate gift ah in the context of of of a space where like revivifies are an option. 01:00:26.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But I, I, I'd like to think that Ambrose is a very gifted healer. 01:00:26.26 sidekqpodcast Okay. 01:00:31.99 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ He just doesn't often employ that side of him. 01:00:33.80 sidekqpodcast Mm. 01:00:37.17 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So I think he could offer. to to to heal some kind of ongoing ailment that a member of the party might have, or or perhaps they have an NPC friend who's who's sick and dying and and he could do something, kind of offer his services, kind of a service for service exchange. 01:00:57.84 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um That, or it might be interesting for Ambrose to offer up some kind of insights or access to his order. 01:01:12.63 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Maybe maybe it's like a letter of invitation to go visit the the you know the head office or whatever, wherever it may be, often off some further further lands. 01:01:21.36 sidekqpodcast OK. 01:01:25.90 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um That's kind of where I'm thinking, what one of those two one of those two areas. I don't know if you have other ideas. 01:01:31.82 sidekqpodcast Okay yeah well i mean okay so you and your game you play with like low magic uh whereas i guess technically for me i guess my game would be very high magic so um okay so you could you know you could you know obviously change it and and make adjustments to whatever game that ambros is going to appear in so 01:01:39.27 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 01:01:53.61 sidekqpodcast you know if In a low magic setting, he becomes very valuable because he actually can cast these ah healing magics to be able to like remove curses, greater restorations, ah you know that kind of stuff. 01:02:08.46 sidekqpodcast which is very interesting. So how does that feed into, you know, he has this idea of nihilism and normally it sounds like he wouldn't, you know, to me, my read on it is like, Oh, if they have a follower retainer character and like he has the sniffles, like in his extreme view, like I feel like Ambrose would be like, I want to kidnap that NPC and like execute him because like there's, you know, he's done for. 01:02:30.37 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Hmm. 01:02:33.28 sidekqpodcast So the fact that he's willing to offer up, Like healing magical magical services definitely seems like a big ah juxtaposition unless it's kind of like a more like, or a criticalness of like, oh, so he's willing to heal the player characters and their important friends with anyone else. 01:02:43.22 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. Well, maybe he would have some. 01:02:52.59 sidekqpodcast Like, no, no, no, they can't be it can't be left to chance and camp can't live. 01:02:56.12 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. i I mean, yeah, that's that's a good point. I think perhaps he's going to have to have kind of a set of of principles where if the character has an illness that is contagious, then a hundred percent he wants them dead. 01:03:12.03 sidekqpodcast Hmm okay stabbed in the course of their mission or whatever 01:03:14.56 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But if it's like they have a broken arm or they have a bleeding, like a a severe bleeding injury or some kind of ah 01:03:27.09 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah. And now again, I'm thinking maybe in the D and&D context, that's kind of of a superfluous thing ah because it's so easy to heal, but it it could be maybe exhaustion. Maybe he can he can remove exhaustion. 01:03:43.19 sidekqpodcast Does he have a particular magic item on his person that, you know, that to in him, to him in his anathema, his self anathema in his nihilism, he has this because he was given it by his order. 01:03:47.57 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ He could, yeah. 01:03:59.98 sidekqpodcast But in his nihilistic worldview, he doesn't think that it's worth anything to him. because all the methods that i'm using in point are doing the will of my god just fine. So i don't need this anymore and then he's able to play it off in his vanity to be like oh brave adventurous heroes here you can take this. Healing item that will let you do these wondering healing and then they're like wow this guy's really powerful and he's he gave us this thing and then to him. 01:04:29.98 sidekqpodcast To Ambrose, it's like a way of like ridding himself of that, uh, hypocritical, like, Oh, you serve this God and you're supposed to use this item to like heal and cure people. But at the same time, he's like, no, no, no. Why waste it when my methods are just as good. 01:04:47.80 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, no, i like I like that a lot. That's super cool. not I'm just looking up what like kind of charms um and charms and and and and necklaces and things might exist, but definitely... 01:05:00.53 sidekqpodcast isn't there like the the parapet of ah the parapet of healing of life or something like that ah hair okay um Sorry, just don't mind me, Future Kurt, editing this part to have to cut out of the episode. 01:05:09.48 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, we can go with that. 01:05:21.96 sidekqpodcast Yeah, the parapet of health. That's what it is. A wondrous, uncommon item. You are immune to contracting any disease while you wear this pendant. If you are already infected with a disease, as I click on the thing to read further, and I'll go back and read that. 01:05:38.90 sidekqpodcast ah I'll do that pickup from the thing. Let's see. did did did Okay. You are immune to contracting any disease while you wear this pendant. If you are already infected with a disease, the effects of the disease are suppressed. 01:05:53.73 sidekqpodcast You are suppressed while you wear the pendant. So like, that's like a, you know, that's an uncommon item. 01:05:58.85 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, that sounds on brand. 01:06:01.71 sidekqpodcast Like, you know, not like, everyday but it's like you know he the these are things that he can get he's expected to wear it uh himself uh as uh you know as this as this priest as this cleric you know who has to literally go in to plague ridden areas to you know cure them uh and that's like oh this is your safeguard to make sure that you don't get infected but he's like I don't have to worry about something like this because I literally just eliminate the problem. 01:06:30.12 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 01:06:32.55 sidekqpodcast ah So it doesn't spread and doesn't overwhelm. 01:06:33.61 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Almost. Yeah, I almost suspect him to have like an overabundance of these things. Like maybe maybe he's meant to to to provide them to like the leaders of town and and heal them with it. 01:06:46.21 sidekqpodcast Oh. 01:06:47.83 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And he's just like, well, no, why would I do that? They're clearly, they need to go and he just gets rid of them. So he's got, I don't want to say and ah overabundance, but let's let's say, you know, he's he's he's got he's got enough to give out for sure. 01:06:57.61 sidekqpodcast Right. 01:07:01.65 sidekqpodcast He has enough to give to the party. 01:07:01.93 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um 01:07:03.34 sidekqpodcast So if we're if we're imagining a group of anywhere between like four to six or seven adventurers or something like that, depending on the size of your party, the the appropriate amount of your adventuring party, hey, conveniently enough. 01:07:16.92 sidekqpodcast he has parapets of health for everyone and you know it's a wondrous item it doesn't uh take one of your magic attunement slots and so it takes the next slot item but now you are immune to contracting disease and you can suppress a disease if you are currently infected with something so actually i well uh maybe it's something for me to to hear or listen to on an episode of roleplay chat but Like, for example, like if someone has vampirism or lycanthropy, does wearing this suppress the effects of being a vampire or a werewolf? 01:07:49.02 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mm hmm. 01:07:56.11 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I would think so. But to me, those are diseases. 01:07:57.32 sidekqpodcast Based on how it's written. 01:07:59.43 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. 01:07:59.94 sidekqpodcast Yeah, well, yeah, like it's like, oh, is it a curse or is it a disease? So I guess it's like how you read it. I'm sure there you I'm I'm sure if you haven't, there's got to be an episode of that on your podcast, right? 01:08:10.59 sidekqpodcast Of like. 01:08:10.97 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I mean, we haven't I haven't talked about that. So maybe Kurt, when you come join me, we'll have you know that that could be a contender for for our conversation. 01:08:18.43 sidekqpodcast Ooh. Well, there we go. 01:08:21.22 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ We'll see, we'll see. 01:08:22.72 sidekqpodcast Yeah, because they're certainly, you go on enough Reddit or you go on on enough websites and people argue back and forth ah like rules is written versus like the spirit of the letter or the letter of the law, you know, the, that, that kind of thing. So yeah, yeah, I can see it both ways is like, oh, rules is written. It, I guess it would con, you know, constitute a disease, and but in some cases it could be a curse, but very interesting. Yeah. So. 01:08:49.43 sidekqpodcast He has enough of these to be able to hand out to the party and they're like, great, you know we're walking through these plague lands and now we don't have to worry about contracting the disease, but they don't, you know they otherwise don't know or understand the grave ah significance of him having this number of these to be able to hand out to the party. 01:09:11.63 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, definitely, definitely. 01:09:12.90 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 01:09:13.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And i I like the idea that, you know, he sends them on this quest, he sends them on the quest before giving them the, you know, if this is the reward for going to do what he asks them to do. 01:09:26.58 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So if they if the party chooses not to or can't complete it, they they don't get to don't get to have ah these pendants. which will serve to be extremely helpful in the environment that they're in. 01:09:40.43 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm Yeah, I think that's a perfect lead-in what's gonna be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure 01:09:41.47 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um I like the idea too of you know what might happen should they pass on his side quest. 01:09:57.92 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah. And I think the consequences, you can kind of think of them in different tiers, but in in the world where Ambrose is vying for more attention in his vanity, he wants to make, you know, prove himself gain, probably gain stature in his order. If the party doesn't get rid of this thing for Ambrose, 01:10:27.57 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ then I couldn't imagine that that environment gets worse. The surrounding cities get plagued by whatever this disease ah might be in Ambrose's town, and it just gives Ambrose more work to do. It just makes him a more valuable resource in the order, ah which would kind of serve his objective of of becoming more powerful, becoming more, getting more attention, achieving his goals to possibly becoming a larger threat against the party as being this, this, this like nihilistic individual. 01:11:03.62 sidekqpodcast Yeah, the the hidden the hidden heresy. 01:11:09.09 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah. Yeah. 01:11:09.72 sidekqpodcast He basically, ah you know, maybe because he's on the outskirts, he doesn't have any traction, but because the party doesn't help. It actually helps him to further and cement. His heretical views of the of his order and so more people begin to follow his example and they're like oh. Ambrose is serious is great you know we need to give him more power and responsibility so he continues to rise to the ranks and then. 01:11:37.93 sidekqpodcast You know suddenly it's like yeah like these weird teachings start showing up and then there's infighting in the the religion, maybe there's a schism, ah maybe there's just like a civil war within the church or whatever it is. 01:11:39.04 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mm hmm. 01:11:51.27 sidekqpodcast um It's like or you know or it gets revealed. ah you know that ambros has been following like a dark god a dark god has been whispering in his ear and then it's like a breaker sort of a situation and now it's like his he's been twisted and corrupted and now is nihilism is on full force. 01:12:10.97 sidekqpodcast And yeah it's like a. another way for the dark forces ah to further their goals of like you know destroying life and communities and the the world and all that stuff is like, oh, we you know we were so busy trying to like infect everyone when really what we need to do is just like just give one person enough motivation to go full unhinged and trying to create their utopia that they destroy everything in the process of of trying to create this perfect society. 01:12:36.05 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mm hmm. 01:12:44.55 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah, I really like that. I think that's that's fantastic because it gives people listening, and I mean me, motivation to have kind of like tiers of consequence. 01:12:55.54 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Oh, the first consequence is, yeah, disease starts to spread. 01:12:55.52 sidekqpodcast Yeah. 01:12:58.14 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Oh, it's not good. So as the party continues along, they might encounter more and more of this illness. But long-term, there are consequences where Ambrose is going to be pushing his motivation you know his objective, which while it's unhinged isn't necessarily evil, but it it'll it it'll slowly teeter its way into that. 01:13:22.04 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So the the party... 01:13:22.68 sidekqpodcast Mmhmm. The Eusebian heresy. That sounds just very much like a Warhammer thing, yeah. 01:13:28.15 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's it. ah Totally, totally. 01:13:32.12 sidekqpodcast Yeah, so yeah, as the problem continues to fester and the party ignores it or doesn't address it, like suddenly this major religion of your world is going to have like a takeover. It's going to have a schism, a split. um You know, the heresy gets found out. And so now there's these like roving bands of like nihilistic priests on the road that like they're demanding to know whether you're clean and pure or not. And if you're they suspect anything wrong, then they're just going to like attack you in the name of of you know of cleansing and stuff like that and more of the dark powers and and forces grow. Spooky, definitely appropriate for for the Halloween times. 01:14:13.97 sidekqpodcast and just and definitefinly something you know This definitely does feel like something out of 40k for sure. 01:14:14.82 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Totally, totally. 01:14:20.27 sidekqpodcast um Like the actual Warhammer, maybe more actual Warhammer than Warhammer 40k because It took me a lot. I remember first encountering 40K in junior high and I was like, oh, Warhammer 40K, like that's it. 01:14:33.47 sidekqpodcast But then I was like, oh, there's a Warhammer. And it's like the medieval TTRPG war gaming version of 40K, which is Dune-esque. 01:14:44.89 sidekqpodcast And now it's like, ah, we've got, you know, Warhammer. So this is like, yeah, that whole realm. 01:14:49.43 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:14:51.01 sidekqpodcast Okay. 01:14:51.70 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ It's it's very like... Eldritch in a fantasy world basically, you know, that's that's the Warhammer world the Warhammer fantasy world um And I mean as I've been talking about these plagues and illness and things I can't help but think of so the the Warhammer God of of this or the demon is called nurgle so for people listening if you want inspiration on on the kinds of enemies or the kinds of illness that can be born from This kind of scenario just go look up 01:15:01.02 sidekqpodcast Mm. 01:15:09.11 sidekqpodcast Mm. 01:15:24.34 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Nurgle, the demon Nurgle in the Warhammer world, and and you'll find all kinds of inspiration for ah you know his minions and the kinds of challenges that the party might have to face up against. 01:15:39.85 sidekqpodcast Yeah, I'm just and i'm imagining the further future that ah you know this this hypothetical goes along of him ah like being duped in by this god of of rotting chaos. 01:15:52.18 sidekqpodcast And so it kind of becomes like, you know if if it gets far enough along, or maybe you ah you know put this far enough in your past and there's like, he becomes like this saintly sort of figure ah but you know who serves like this this god of like of death and rot and disease and plague and stuff like that but yet he's the shiny golden you know fallen angelic angelic sort of a sort of a guy so kind of you know very luciferian in that way of like i was trying to do the right thing don't you see i was trying to save you all but yet 01:16:11.94 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mm-hmm. 01:16:24.39 sidekqpodcast In doing that, he, you know, damned himself, essentially. 01:16:27.30 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mm-hmm. 01:16:28.06 sidekqpodcast ah So yeah, very tragic in that way. 01:16:28.63 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Totally. 01:16:32.89 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Very cool. Now I wanna, like, run a whole campaign with with Ambrose as the main villain. 01:16:39.68 sidekqpodcast There we go. Yep. See, we just give away great ideas on this podcast. We can't wait to hear the next actual play that's produced by roleplay chat and we get to hear more about Ambrose Eusebius. 01:16:52.31 sidekqpodcast Uh, okay, cool. 01:16:52.57 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's it. 01:16:53.18 sidekqpodcast So yeah, and we, so big, big consequences for sure. Are there any other optional questions that you want to explore with Ambrose or do you feel like this is a good character? 01:17:05.12 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I think we've covered a lot. i think I think we might have even covered some of the optional questions without meaning to. So um' I'm good. 01:17:11.47 sidekqpodcast There we go. 01:17:12.08 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ to and i'm good yeah 01:17:14.23 sidekqpodcast All right. Well, without further ado, let's head into a random encounter. 01:17:26.72 sidekqpodcast And the Random Encounter is ah brought to you by Zencaster. So transcript people, you should go to zencaster.com, use my code sidekqpodcast, get some discounts on making your own podcast, and have a good time doing it. 01:17:44.27 sidekqpodcast Alright so this is the part of the show now where we get to do a role play a vignette a scene with Ambrose you serious the priest. ah But the question becomes who am I going to be in the scene um and what kind of like scene are we going to present so it could be you know the. ah Ambrose you see bs meets one of the podcast adventuring characters and gives them the task of going to investigate the thing or slay the beast here whatever it is that's causing the issue. 01:18:14.97 sidekqpodcast Uh, it could be Ambrose maybe having, uh, the commission, uh, from his order to like go out to this area to go deal with this thing. Is it just a slice of life and maybe like, uh, you know, to, to really like twist the screws of the nihilism of like, Oh, it's just like a sweet, uh, you know, scene of him, like, you know, dealing with the sick. Uh, but then he's going to do whatever dark nihilistic thing he's going to do to like. 01:18:43.84 sidekqpodcast you know rid these sick people from the community or i don't know what kind of you know obviously sensitivity and stuff like that ah you know i feel like we do a pretty good job of this podcast of not really diving too deep so certainly you know if that's the option we're gonna choose and definitely for sure i'll make sure i do a disclaimer at the very very beginning of the podcast but certainly you know you know whatever whatever scene you are interested in exploring with good safety tools in mind, I am willing to take that journey with you. ah So what kind of scene are you interested in? 01:19:16.75 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, I mean, i I think it might be fun to just to emulate an encounter with Ambrose um as if the party were encountering him in in the town, doing about his business, just to kind of perhaps showcase what that might be for people listening and then, you know, you all can kind of go off the rails if you want with Ambrose and and make him do whatever it is that you feel so motivated to do. 01:19:47.56 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But I think that could be kind of fun. um Yeah. 01:19:49.81 sidekqpodcast Okay, so meeting one of the podcast adventurer characters, ah the staple of characters that we've developed for this section of the show. So we have a whole list and i I'll roll through them real quick. So we've got Duncan, he's the recklessly brave adventurer for hire, happy go lucky, ah no task too small, no feet too daring. 01:20:11.18 sidekqpodcast We have Sonia, who's the warrior woman. She started off as a barbarian and then multiclassed into a paladin who serves a god who wishes to redeem the undead. 01:20:22.27 sidekqpodcast We have Korak. 01:20:22.54 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ so 01:20:24.55 sidekqpodcast He's the lawful evil arcane trickster roguish dwarf. We have Chrisley. She's the herbalist botanist wood elf druid who then multiclassed into a cleric who serves living memory. 01:20:37.93 sidekqpodcast We have Orion, who's the Astral Elf illusionist wizard. 01:20:41.76 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Oh. 01:20:42.19 sidekqpodcast I play him like a Spock, kind of a guy. 01:20:44.48 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Hmm. 01:20:45.56 sidekqpodcast We've got Agape, who is the lilac-colored Tiefling Sorelok, started off as a wild magic, Feywild-inspired sorcerer, and then made a pact with Prosperina the Archfey ah NPC made on the show, so she's a Sorelok. And then the most recent character that we have introduced into the roster is Lifespell the Necromancer and his faithful skeletal manservant Octavius. 01:21:13.81 sidekqpodcast ah So with those kind of characters in mind, ah what sort of scene are you interested in in sharing a scene with? 01:21:23.97 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I mean, i'm I'm good to roll on it. Let's see who we get. 01:21:27.23 sidekqpodcast Sure. 01:21:28.52 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ There's eight of them, I think. Is that what you said? 01:21:30.68 sidekqpodcast I believe I believe we made it to eight, yeah. 01:21:31.01 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Maybe 10 of them? 01:21:34.37 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Okay, let's roll. Let's see who we get. We got two. 01:21:38.01 sidekqpodcast OK, well, that would be Sonia. 01:21:40.27 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ There you go. That's the warrior paladin person, yeah? 01:21:43.18 sidekqpodcast Yes, she, she started off as a barbarian and then she, uh, yeah, she had an encounter with Axios, the revenant priest, and now she follows a God whose, uh, task is to redeem, uh, the undead. 01:21:45.42 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Good. 01:21:56.22 sidekqpodcast So, uh, similar departments, uh, but different bosses, it seems. 01:22:02.81 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:22:04.10 sidekqpodcast So would you like to set the scene or would you like for me to set the scene? 01:22:04.39 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's cool. 01:22:08.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ go Go for it, Kurt. It's all you. 01:22:10.89 sidekqpodcast Okay. Where we last left our hero, Sonya, she had ah left the city ah that she and Axios had been at and been long working. Axios had stayed in the town and he advised Sonya, hey, you're going to travel out of town. You're going to go on this. ah You know, you're going to wander a little bit, but you're you're going to see something and you know it. And she came across this crashed advanced balloon device and it had Steinway, the tween 01:22:42.98 sidekqpodcast goth emo kid and Mabel the skeleton who communicated with common sign and they needed Sonia's help to be able to slay a black pudding that was in the nearby cave so they could put it into the magical jerry cans which could then be refined as the fuel that the arcane advanced balloon hot air balloon needed to be able to return back to the um evil lich overlord. 01:23:09.18 sidekqpodcast We'll say during that time you know sonja i was able to use her wits uh and her powers as both a barbarian and a paladin to deal with the black pudding retrieve uh the remnants of it in the jerry cans and refuel the balloon during that time she was able to speak with mabel and talk to her about this god who redeems the undead and so there's been a rapport there there's an invitation and so You know she couldn't obviously they serve the evil lich overlord ah so they she couldn't commit to something right now but she's planted a seed and that could soon spread to other members of this undead army. ah So for now Sony abids them farewell ah but she says you know for them to keep in touch. 01:23:54.47 sidekqpodcast And as we're continuing on, she's pressing further and further out into the community. She's feeling the call of her God. She's trying to learn and understand more about how her God works as this newbie paladin, um but she feels herself being pulled to this community. It is a community that has been affected by the workings of this lich overlord you know who seeks to grow his undead armies with skeletons and zombies and plagues and whatever else. 01:24:23.69 sidekqpodcast Uh, but it's a quiet, peaceful hamlet that Sonia soon finds herself, uh, stumbling across. And so as she's entering this town, you know, and she's been seeing like the signs of like the, the looming gathering storm clouds and the evidence of like, oh, there were battles over here. Uh, there was conflict over here. Here's the remnants of like, you know, uh, 01:24:49.77 sidekqpodcast piles of where they burn bodies and stuff like that. So she's getting closer and closer to this community and she's finding something. She was expecting maybe like a deserted town, but she's finding a thriving place. So what does that look like as she enters into this community? 01:25:06.03 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, so I'm going to picture the community as being kind of a lumber town close to a large forest with a handmade palisade wall that's just logs you know log palisade surrounding the town with a couple of guard towers on either end and you can sort of see the roofs of small thatched buildings um when she gets to the front gate it's unguarded there's nobody preventing her or asking her any questions and she kind of approaches the town and 01:25:47.41 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ the small town appears quite quiet. She can see people poking their head out windows or looking through you know glass windows. But for the most part, it's kind of eerie. Off in the distance in one of the guard towers, she she sees a guard that kind of asks her to stop, to wait. Is she bringing any contaminants with her? 01:26:17.13 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And she might not quite know what's going on. 01:26:21.81 sidekqpodcast Right, yeah, I think she's gonna call up and respond like you know that I'm you know that she's not sick ah That you know that she is you know strong in health And that she serves a God who wishes to redeem the undead and I think she'll just she'll she'll name that God out loud very proudly in this very Paladin sort of way. She'll just be like this is the God I serve He redeems the undead and I've you know, I've seen the evidence ah coming in this way I know that the the Lich King's the Lich Army ah you know 01:26:55.15 sidekqpodcast but Teases on the you know beyond beyond the the lands over that way um but like you know i'm untouched basically is what she's communicating. 01:27:07.53 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Right, so she's so she's instructed by the guard to to wait ah by the town hall down the path near the well. I presume she she follows the instructions and when she gets there as she notices that the well is boarded up and there's a couple of buildings near the town hall that are also boarded up with kind of makeshift wood planks and from from the the town hall is a large, the only stone building in the in the environment here, in the in the village. Out comes a tall, imposing figure. Under his arm, he holds a mask with a long nose made of leather and his his flowing robes. And he approaches her and welcomes her. Hello, welcome, welcome. You've looked like you've traveled far. 01:28:02.47 sidekqpodcast Yeah. And Sonia looks down and she definitely like her, uh, her armor and her, uh, you know, which is hide and leather. Uh, but also she has the bits of the, the paladin, uh, robes and you know, stuff like that that go over the armor. It's clearly muddied. It's seen fraying and stuff at the, at the, uh, at the ends of it, you know, she looks down and looks over her appearance and she's like, yeah, yeah. I've, um, I've been on the road for quite a way and following the call of my God down this way. 01:28:32.93 sidekqpodcast And you are? 01:28:35.30 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Oh, I am Ambrose. Ambrose Eusebius, pleasure to meet you. And he kind of, he just bows, you know, he he he makes an active effort not to shake hands or or touch his his new friend. 01:28:52.73 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um he can And then he kind of 01:28:54.14 sidekqpodcast She'll return the bell, but awkwardly. 01:28:57.38 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Okay, yeah, yeah. He definitely does so very gracefully, you know, his hair flowing. There seems to be like a breeze that comes out of nowhere just to kind of have his locks, his blonde locks sway in the in the air. And he proceeds to explain to her the situation of his village. He he tells her that and This glitch seems to be wreaking disease and spreading it across the land in order to kill innocent people to then raise them up again as part of his army. And he was sent to this town to protect it and to make sure that the people don't fall victim to his illness. 01:29:46.81 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ ah He's done so by instructing everybody to stay apart from one another, to stay in their homes, and as soon as they show any symptom, to come see him where he will treat them in the in the um in the town hall. 01:30:05.12 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um as he says this he kind of like has this he kind of like has this metal staff that he kind of shows like that he you I use this for treatment and at the tip of the staff there's kind of like a hook almost like a cane and you can see there you know there's like Um, there's, there's, there's blood and there's things like dried up on it. 01:30:29.32 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Uh, that seems to be constantly used for quote unquote, treating the sick. 01:30:30.60 sidekqpodcast Mm. Mm. 01:30:35.62 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Um, he, he then, he didn't ask for her help. He, he basically says, you know, I, I can't possibly leave town. 01:30:43.14 sidekqpodcast Okay. 01:30:47.74 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ The people here are too vulnerable. 01:30:48.22 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 01:30:51.28 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But our water supply has been damaged, or not damaged, but infected rather. 01:30:53.44 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 01:30:57.94 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ The taint of this vi of some vile abomination plagues our water source out in the forest. Would you help us in ridding and scouting the area and perhaps be ridding the creature that infects our water? 01:31:18.18 sidekqpodcast She she nods and she listens um you know she turns her head as if she's hearing like divine whisperings um and you know she she regards his appearance you know this this shining clean ah you know pristine sort of a figure. 01:31:34.89 sidekqpodcast um Would she you know recognize any of the religious symbols on on his appearance? like you know probably you know Like we were saying earlier, like same zip code of like common area that they serve, but yet they're they're completely different gods. 01:31:53.43 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah, I would think that she would recognize some of the symbols. There's there's definitely gonna be um like laurel leaves on on on the shoulders and perhaps a vulture on the on like the the breastplate that Ambrose wears under his under his his robes. 01:32:11.18 sidekqpodcast Mmm. 01:32:15.95 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And she recognizes this as being kind of symbology for Kelimor. the the lord of the dead and kind of the judge of of those who pass on and you know this might not be somebody that she's super familiar with but like you said definitely knows that okay this guy is some kind of death priest or something i would think 01:32:40.76 sidekqpodcast Right. Yeah. And if, and if Sonya were to do a insight check and let's say for drama purposes. Let's say like in this instance you know like because of the eeriness of the town and like what he's explained and seeing this staff with the blood on the end of it. 01:32:59.02 sidekqpodcast If she rolls her insight check and she gets like really high on her insight in this instance when normally like oh you know she's this barbarian paladin and you know oh meat head and stuff like that but no like in this instance because like they're talking about their domain and stuff like that and you know what's going on in the wider world. 01:33:14.94 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ one 01:33:16.47 sidekqpodcast She really wants to make sure that she understands this guy. So with her high insight check that she gets, maybe a crit or something like that, like what is she able to glean from his speech and what is she picking up on hit on what he's not saying? 01:33:33.30 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, yeah, well I think she would definitely pick up that he fervently believes that he's the best thing that could have happened to this town. You know, he he thinks very highly of himself. 01:33:45.15 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ He thinks that these people would have been doomed without him here. And you know, he could very well be right. I would say that he probably is right. 01:33:55.18 sidekqpodcast Mmhmm. 01:33:58.28 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But I think what he's not saying is that He doesn't want to perhaps inform her too much about his methods. 01:34:05.56 sidekqpodcast Mmhmm. 01:34:08.87 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I think he might know that, especially seeing her as also being a religious, i'm a member of ah of an associated religion, he might be a little bit ah What am I trying to say here? 01:34:22.47 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ you You know when you're elusive and you're like not fully answering the questions? Well, when she asks about his methods, he's he's going to be a little bit evasive in in stating exactly. 01:34:26.86 sidekqpodcast Right. 01:34:32.19 sidekqpodcast Yeah, KG. 01:34:33.76 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, he's going to be a little bit cagey. 01:34:35.60 sidekqpodcast okay yeah and from her perspective you know because she follows axios who literally has the charge of this of this particular god to redeem the undead i imagine she's in a minority position so like i would imagine like he's in a more mainline sort of accepted faith in this domain and she has like this very obscure very not understood uh but as 01:34:55.66 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mmm. 01:35:02.52 sidekqpodcast She's been working with axios more and more of the legends and stuff like that are and the tales that are told of axios himself are spreading and so it's becoming maybe more in the zeitgeist and this Local area this continent these lands or what have you of like? Oh, yeah, there are these people that are acting in the world on behalf of this particular God who's working to redeem the undead so yeah, I could yeah, so Sony in this case is kind of like a Yeah I think she's a little tense I mean she wants to help and she feel something in her pulling her to say like she does need to help because you know she needs to redeem the undead and if this is like an undead that's not willing ah to like change its way it's courts its path and you know 01:35:46.93 sidekqpodcast She can't let these people be hurt. ah And so, yeah, I think, you know, seeing how he didn't ah take a hand for the handshake, um you know, ah like, because reflectively, you know, maybe she goes to extend it to like agree to it, but he recoils or something. 01:36:04.35 sidekqpodcast And so she's like, oh, yeah, right. 01:36:06.40 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ why Yeah, yeah. 01:36:06.18 sidekqpodcast He has the thing about touching. And so she'll say, all right, very well. So something in the woods is affecting the water source. Right, and you have to stay here and protect them and make sure no one else gets sick. Yes, I i can do this. Yes. 01:36:25.94 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ So he he bows and in like it's a very deep bow compared to the one that maybe he he did in their greeting where he kind of acknowledges her her help And he says, let me get you food, water. 01:36:41.19 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Do you need anything before you you head off into the woods? And he kind of offers some hospitality. Now now that she has agreed to help him, he kind of like... 01:36:51.24 sidekqpodcast uh Sure yeah, and she's noticing the switch and maybe that's also kind of like weirding her out a little bit in this instance as well um Yeah, no, I I think she's she's gonna smile politely Uh, but maybe in this instance because of her suspicions or this whispering from her god or whatever she's hearing 01:36:54.16 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mm-hmm. 01:37:12.19 sidekqpodcast She'll just kind of like smile weekly and just be like oh oh no i'm fine you know the people of this town need the supplies more than i do i've got everything i need in my and my and my rucksack and. Well you know i'm a big girl and. 01:37:32.52 sidekqpodcast anything that gets in my way that could be dinner, I'm i'm perfectly happy with ah camping out under the stars. It's what I've done for many years before finding myself in this way. 01:37:48.41 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ oh so noble of you yes yes you're you're doing your god proud uncertain and kellmore will look down upon you with a smile as well or perhaps look up i should say yes yes well let me lead you any kind of you know points towards the the other side of the town again with with the palisade wall and the guard tower and he he brings her in that direction And as he kind of explains to her, some of the information about where the water, sort the the spring can be found, half a day's travel past the past the creek, and there's a troll cave. 01:38:25.40 sidekqpodcast Hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:38:33.54 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Watch out for the troll cave, and and then you know it's just due east. um He's kind of explaining where she should go to find the source of water. He then gets interrupted by somebody. 01:38:49.33 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ it's ah It's a lady who is bringing her older mother or aunt, and the older individual is coughing, kind of like yacking up something. 01:39:02.16 sidekqpodcast Mm hmm. Mm hmm. 01:39:03.39 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And Ambrose immediately tells tells the adventurer like, oh, you must leave. I have urgent things to deal with. And he puts on his he puts on his mask and it's this very impressive motion that it kind of just snaps onto his face, the large you know the large nose, his muffled the muffling of his voice. And he immediately tells the younger individual that, you know, 01:39:30.83 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Kelmore will help her passage and he grabs the old lady and like basically rushes out and leaves ah towards the towards kind of the town hall in the middle of town. 01:39:45.43 sidekqpodcast Yeah, and I think the final thing that closes out the scene is like, you know, so the the young woman gets rushed back to where she needs to go. And Ambrose is taking the older woman to the town hall. And I imagine she watches from a distance as the town hall doors kind of slam. And it's this very eerie silence that then falls over the town. And so Sonia only has the crunching of of twigs and grass and gravel and dirt under her feet as she continues on into the forest. And she just can't help but think that 01:40:22.14 sidekqpodcast Even though he serves good intentions, she can't help but wonder if there's something more sinister lurking beneath the surface. 01:40:36.72 sidekqpodcast And scene. Oh, boy. That was. 01:40:39.41 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ There we go. 01:40:40.14 sidekqpodcast There we go. That was kind of that was spooky. 01:40:40.82 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That was good. 01:40:42.35 sidekqpodcast Yeah. ah Talking about the the season that we're in right now. Yeah. But so there we go. We made it through the random encounter. 01:40:48.23 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Love it. 01:40:48.64 sidekqpodcast So how was it getting to be Ambrose? 01:40:51.69 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Oh, great. I want to play more Ambrose, for sure. That was that was a lot of fun. um Yeah, thank you. 01:40:56.97 sidekqpodcast Awesome. 01:40:59.17 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That was that was cool. That was really cool. i'm I'm really looking forward to hearing if folks... um I don't know if this is like common practice, but if if folks that listen to your show ah kind of adopt some of these NPCs. 01:41:14.37 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ I'd love to hear about whether or not ah Ambrose kind of finds a home at other people's table. I think that would be kind of cool. 01:41:20.93 sidekqpodcast I know he's certainly going to find a home in my game, that's for sure. like I know exactly where in the world I can put him. so like He'll be a very interesting character for the heroes to to come across and to ah you know ah get this idea of, like oh, look looks can be deceiving. 01:41:38.02 sidekqpodcast and you know like what is What is truly in a person's heart? Sort of sort of a kind of thing. 01:41:42.50 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Mm hmm. 01:41:42.64 sidekqpodcast so that's what the random tables do they give us wild swings and they help us make even more well rounded characters do a deeper depth and dimensions to the 01:41:55.58 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Totally, totally, I know. 01:41:56.31 sidekqpodcast yeah 01:41:57.49 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ you know There's a lot to be said about random tables, but 100%, they help fill in the gaps that we can't think of. And oftentimes, they fill in the gaps in unexpected and better ways than we could have ever imagined. so 01:42:13.22 sidekqpodcast Indeed so yeah as we're here in the final thoughts section i always like to get ah critiques and feedback from my guests so certainly as a fellow podcaster it's like ah how did i do on my report card today if i if i passed the grade if i I ace the test today and then you know finally ah you know i give the microphone the stage the soapbox a platform so over to the guest to be able to promote ah themselves with their projects are working on where they can be found on social medias and then any passions or causes that we we need to be made aware of. 01:42:52.53 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Yeah, well, ah first of all, thank you, Kurt, for inviting me to to talk and create NPCs with you today. It's been an absolute pleasure. ah As far as, you know, feedback goes, I just have positive things to say. This has been an extremely fun experience. I really love how actionable a lot of our conversation has been. I think that that's definitely something that I have to work on in my show is that sometimes I get so deep in the philosophy that Concrete examples ah sometimes are few and far between. And here tonight, I think we were able to give a lot of fun examples of NPCs that people can borrow, steal, adopt into their own into their own game. So I can really appreciate that. I think that's really, really cool. 01:43:39.96 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ um And as far as me and what I do and where you can find me and in my corner of the internet, and I'm Matt, roleplaychat, so that's R-O-L-E, underscore play, underscore chat, wherever you, you know, do social media. I'm most active on threads these days. Threads is a lot of fun and kind of the, most of the TTRPG community has kind of migrated over there, it it sounds like, because X is a bit of a dumpster fire. 01:44:08.63 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ But, I mean, I'm still there too, and I'm still posting on there. 01:44:08.52 sidekqpodcast Hmm. 01:44:11.74 sidekqpodcast Mm-hmm. 01:44:12.46 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ And then, you know, if if you liked this conversation, or any of the other episodes that Kurt has recorded, you're probably gonna like roleplay chat too. Roleplay chat is a tabletop RPG discussion show with me and a guest. 01:44:27.20 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ The episodes are all completely independent from one another, so you don't, you know, you can go pick whatever episode, Sounds like a topic that's interesting to you and you can go listen to it We cover all kinds of stuff ranging from the use of traps and puzzles to the philosophy of death saves to you know ah but session zero You name it. There's probably an episode on it if not two and ah And yeah that that can be listened to wherever you you find podcasts and there's also like an audio only YouTube ah Recording that I put up and that comes out every other week on Wednesdays so you can go listen to that 01:45:07.85 sidekqpodcast Ooh, Wednesdays, that's when this show drops too. So your Wednesdays are going to be spent between Sidekicks and SideQuest and roleplay chat from now on. So there you go. 01:45:16.16 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ There you go. Perfect. That's all you need. 01:45:17.85 sidekqpodcast Excellent. 01:45:18.85 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ That's all you need. 01:45:19.97 sidekqpodcast That's all you need. And Matt, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. I can't wait to have you back on, making even more interesting NPCs. 01:45:30.89 Mat _Role_Play_Chat_ Awesome. Bye, everybody.