00:00:04.72 Kurt Crenwelge Hello and welcome to another month's exciting episode, spooky-ooky for October episode of ah Sidekicks and Sidequest, the best unofficial Dungeons & Dragons podcast, in my humbly biased opinion. 00:00:18.15 Kurt Crenwelge I've got an awesome guest for you this month, but before we get to my mystery contestant this evening, we have to leave you in suspense with an ad read. and insert here all you fancy transcription readers where you're, you're hearing the ad about plus one EXP and RPG zine club. 00:00:35.53 Kurt Crenwelge So if you're not already hooked on to that, Tony Vicinda and team have a good thing going over there. And if you go to the website, plus one EXP.com and use the code Randolph, it supports the podcast. It gets you a discount on beard balms and beer RPGs and lip balms and all the good stuff that, 00:00:51.92 Kurt Crenwelge you want your beard to be awesome and smell nice. Hey, it's October. And you want something to, you know, like make you have a plus one in charisma or dexterity or something. And remember plus one exp.com code Randolph and RPG zine.club. 00:01:09.34 Kurt Crenwelge All right. With that ad read out of the way, I now turn the microphone over to my guest and I ask, hello, mystery contestant. Would you care to introduce yourself? Tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do? 00:01:20.65 Tyler Kamstra All right. Hi, I'm Tyler Kamstra. People know me online as RPGbot. i've been creating I've been creating character optimization content for D&D and Pathfinder for about 14 years at this point. 00:01:34.52 Tyler Kamstra So people mostly know me for that. You might know me from the rpgbot.podcast as well. And if you're on such platforms, you might know me for my tiny videos on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram as well. 00:01:48.04 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, I've now formally really started to see your face pop up on the the Instagram reels. So I was like, oh yeah, oh yeah. So there is like humans involved at RPG Bot. 00:01:57.43 Tyler Kamstra yeah 00:01:58.10 Kurt Crenwelge It's now just not all just robots. 00:02:01.34 Tyler Kamstra Man, pretending to be a robot on the internet was way more fun before generative AI became a thing. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, I have to actually like be a flesh and blood person on the internet now. 00:02:07.03 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:02:13.06 Tyler Kamstra So people don't think that I'm generative AI. Yeah. 00:02:16.75 Kurt Crenwelge Right. And, ah you know, you you and your team have certainly been an invaluable resource to the community and the hobby at large, because, you know, when when we're rolling up new characters and we're like, you know, I feel like playing an artificer, but like, you know, what would what would really be good for an artificer? And then, you know, you have the four star rating of like, you know, one star is like probably not very fun. Two is like, meh. 00:02:41.43 Kurt Crenwelge Three is like, oh, this could be interesting. And four is like, this is like the best. Min max build if you want ah for for a character. So what what what led you into ah to jumping into that deep end and just be like, all right, well, this is where I'm going to plant my flag and this is what I'm going to be known for in the hobby. 00:03:00.70 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. So when i when I first started writing character optimization content, like and character optimization discussions online had started just becoming kind of a bigger thing. But most people were publishing their guides as forum posts, which you could never update, or as Google Docs, which would immediately be lost to the ether. 00:03:22.59 Tyler Kamstra So 00:03:22.92 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. Mmm. 00:03:24.02 Tyler Kamstra these guides weren't being updated. Everyone had a different style. So they're all wildly inconsistent. Most of them were pretty awful. And um like I knew looking at the forums, like if anything happens to these forums, all of this content is toast. 00:03:38.59 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:03:38.59 Tyler Kamstra ah so So I started writing my own guides cause I knew like, yeah, I want to be able to update them. So I put them on my own website where i control the platform. Therefore i control the content and few, 00:03:51.94 Tyler Kamstra like I want to say two years after that, within the span of about a month, the official Wizards of the Coast forums and a bunch of other tabletop gaming forums all shut down at the same time. 00:04:03.87 Tyler Kamstra And basically the entire characterization landscape for all of 3.5 gone overnight. on overnight 00:04:11.51 Kurt Crenwelge wow 00:04:13.52 Tyler Kamstra And yeah, i like I was writing mostly for PF1 at that point, but I scrambled together a couple of guides as quickly as I could for 3.5 and just over time I've kept at it. So now I cover both editions of Pathfinder, 5th edition, both the 2014 and 2024 rules. 00:04:34.03 Tyler Kamstra We just started covering Daggerheart, although I guess it's October when this is releasing. So hopefully we've got more than just the one article on the site by now. 00:04:43.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I was going to say, I haven't had an opportunity to play dagger heart, but this whole mechanic of like rolling two D 12s then picking out whether or not you want like the good outcome or the bad outcome, which I've i've kind of stolen for a moment in my game that I'm running right now um at the time of this recording. 00:04:51.35 Tyler Kamstra Thank you. 00:05:01.92 Kurt Crenwelge And I'm just using it as a way to like kind of mix things up as far as like, all right, here's the combined total between these two dice rolls. But which is the better result, the good one or the bad one? And it's I i was like, OK, 00:05:12.84 Kurt Crenwelge There is so kind of something to this like 2d12 sort of a thing and then hedging your bet as far as like, oh, is the good one going to be the higher one or the bad one going to be the higher one? 00:05:22.19 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:05:22.24 Kurt Crenwelge So. Yeah. 00:05:24.39 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, it's a cool system. 00:05:26.33 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And so, you know, hopefully, you know, as part of our good gaming diets, you know, we're always trying to play and explore other games. But, you know, you got sometimes you just got to have your meat and taters with with D&D. 00:05:40.05 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Well, so, you know, this this podcast, we're we're about Dungeons and Dragons and all that good stuff. So I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you the question. do you currently or have you ever played D&D before? 00:05:54.52 Tyler Kamstra ah i um I have been playing D&D for about 25 years. 00:06:02.42 Kurt Crenwelge Much longer than me, that's for sure. 00:06:05.67 Tyler Kamstra i i got my first core rule books in January, like the January right after third edition launched. Like that that is when I started. 00:06:15.16 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:06:16.67 Tyler Kamstra And I frequently have to go back to Wikipedia and remind myself what year that was. 00:06:21.84 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say, yeah, I mean, I didn't discover D&D until I was second year senior, my undergrad in college, and it was the fourth edition time because my first game I ever played was Halloween night 2010. 00:06:34.40 Kurt Crenwelge um So that's all that's how long I've been playing D&D since. I track it since then. 00:06:40.57 Tyler Kamstra I'm glad you stuck with it. Yes. 00:06:42.19 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's it's it's it's led me to meet some really cool people and have some really interesting conversations. so So, yeah. um So i'm it's always interesting to get to talk to people who are more veteran than me, more senior, have more experience. 00:06:56.76 Kurt Crenwelge And, you know, as you do with RPG Bot, you and your team, you know, not only cover D&D, the various additions, but other systems as well. So for you in these, you know, years of playing the game and being in the hobby, 00:07:05.92 Tyler Kamstra yes 00:07:11.73 Kurt Crenwelge How have, how, for you and your perspective, how do you feel like it's changed, how it's grown, how it's morphed and, you know, all that kind of stuff. 00:07:19.55 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, ah the hobby as a whole, man, um it has changed so much in just the 25 years that I've been playing. like We just celebrated the 50-year anniversary of D&D last year, and I mean... 00:07:34.11 Tyler Kamstra Seismic changes since then. The the community has grown so much and become much more diverse and interesting and fun. It's so much easier to find people to play with than it's ever been. 00:07:49.52 Tyler Kamstra like the The advent of being able to play online with virtual tabletops has made it so people can find community, they can find tables, they can find like but basically any random game you could possibly want to play at a moment's notice. The like the rise of professional dungeon masters means that ah people can like have a pretty nice side hustle running games for strangers And people can always find a reliable vetted group to play with because of those platforms. And like the the opportunities to do things and to create and tell stories and get those stories in front of people that want to hear them. like 00:08:32.83 Tyler Kamstra the the hobby has never been better in my opinion and i'm like the fact that i get to create stuff in this makes me so incredibly happy like uh i do have a day job rpg bot is not my full-time job but like i pick this like i pick doing this for fun over almost anything else 00:08:55.28 Kurt Crenwelge Likewise, you know, I have a very rewarding day job that I do. And there will be times where I see like, you know, all the other great content creators out there. And I get that twinge of like, oh, but you could be doing more. 00:09:06.77 Kurt Crenwelge You could be a bigger deal. That's like the little imp on my shoulder whispering in my ear. 00:09:09.38 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:09:11.13 Kurt Crenwelge But then I'm like, you know what? I provide a pretty valuable service. You know, this is like a 20,000 plus download podcast in six seasons. You know, there's some merit to this with having more 00:09:21.45 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:09:22.85 Kurt Crenwelge you know, down to earth, serious conversations about NPCs and, you know, getting to meet awesome people in the hobby, you know, both, well, both in the hobby and outside the hobby. um So it's just a way, just a way to like, you know, have these cool, interesting conversations. And, you know, so that's how sidekicks and sidequests starts. That's how RPG bot is born and then provide so much resource help to all these people that are curious of like, you know what? I wonder if a Minotaur, 00:09:51.32 Kurt Crenwelge Artificer, you know, might actually be like the best build that I could conceive of because of this silly joke that I have in my head or something like that. And then you do the math and you're like, i mean, it could work, but you know, maybe you won't have the best time if you pick this subclass over that subclass. 00:10:10.88 Tyler Kamstra and i i love doing that like the yeah i love writing the articles i love exploring the combinations i love seeing what i can build and yeah i just find it incredibly gratifying and i know i've helped a ton of people get into the hobby through that like the i I approach the game very mechanically. Like I am a tinkerer. I am an engineer. 00:10:35.66 Tyler Kamstra um I engage with the rules of a game first before I engage with the fiction. So like I i look at things a little differently from a lot of people. And the mechanics are the thing that a lot of people struggle with. 00:10:44.54 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. Mm. 00:10:47.15 Tyler Kamstra So like I can turn the mechanics into something digestible for people. Like into a step by step, like, here's how you do these things. Here's how you find the fun in this. Here's how you make this the most useful. 00:10:59.93 Tyler Kamstra And a lot of people, like I, years, years of messages from people saying like, I could not have gotten into this hobby without RPG bot. And I find that incredibly gratifying. 00:11:12.87 Kurt Crenwelge Indeed. Yeah. And i it just has me thinking and wondering, like if I don't know if you've ever done charity games or you just done kind of like, I'm just going to do a silly one shot or whatever with my friends and you go to your own guides and ah your dungeon master, whoever's running the game is like, all right, the rule is you have to pick the worst build of a character. 00:11:32.19 Kurt Crenwelge And so I'm just curious, have you ever played a game where it's like you had to pick in your mind what you thought like the worst 2014 5e combo of ah Ancestry and and player class would be. 00:11:48.45 Tyler Kamstra I don't think I have. no um 00:11:51.20 Kurt Crenwelge That would be fun. 00:11:52.52 Tyler Kamstra That would be fun. I would play in that game. Yeah. 00:11:55.87 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, now I'm wondering if ah there's there's a future partnership there. as ah you know if ah If Beetle and Grimms can do ah you know ah but Purple Worm, Faster Kill Kill, you know where a bunch of level one characters go fight like some monster they have no business doing, it'd be... 00:12:11.95 Kurt Crenwelge Probably more fun to do like, ah you know, the the like the misfits or something like, you know, you might have to come up with a different name or something like that. But the idea being like these are misfit, not meant long for this world because of their ah combination of builds and just see how far along they can get into a particular adventure would be would be very fun. 00:12:32.35 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, absolutely. like 00:12:34.66 Kurt Crenwelge All right, I'm good to i'm just going to jot that one down for me, and then ah you know we might have to circle back in here and see if we've made something happen, perhaps. 00:12:42.87 Tyler Kamstra but Sounds good. 00:12:44.89 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And then, of course, ah this podcast, you know, Sidekicks and Sidequests, we like to ah focus on the other. And we like to focus on those small moments that really help to make media and games and such shine. So for the first of these questions, who is your favorite NPC or sidekick character, whether they be from an RPG, ah video game, movie, film, television, literature, etc. 00:13:10.52 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this character your favorite NPC or sidekick? 00:13:14.99 Tyler Kamstra You know, i had an answer to this coming in and it words have fallen out of my brain. ah My favorite sidekick. um I'm going Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings, and I know that's two, but they're attached at the hip, so tolerate it, I guess. 00:13:35.55 Kurt Crenwelge Well, there we go You know, the hobbits are often ah popular figures to pick from. 00:13:36.58 Tyler Kamstra They're... 00:13:40.62 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. ah ah Yeah, like Merry and Pippin, it feels like they have the least impact on the story, but they see everything that happens. And they they get it up to some mischief themselves. 00:13:54.57 Tyler Kamstra They're there for important things. They push the right button at the right time to move the story forward. And honestly, it feels like... If that was a D&D game, Merry and Pippin were the NPCs that tagged along so that like, oh, the plot stuck. I'm going to have the NPC cause mischief to make things happen. Like, oh, one of the characters is about to die fighting the Witch King. ah The NPC stabs them in the leg with a magic dagger. 00:14:20.00 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, it's fine. 00:14:22.80 Kurt Crenwelge Right, but I mean, without Merry and Pippin, ah the Ents wouldn't have gotten involved. They would have just... 00:14:27.75 Tyler Kamstra That's true. 00:14:28.84 Kurt Crenwelge It probably would have taken longer to debate ah and all that stuff. So of the the whole plot of the... of Well, I mean, darkness would have descended upon Middle-Earth and the Ents had been like, what the heck? 00:14:40.49 Kurt Crenwelge this This forest is burned down. It's like, yeah, guys, you should have been ah paying attention. 00:14:46.99 Tyler Kamstra Instead of debating. 00:14:47.19 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah, instead of debating. It takes a rather long time to say anything in Entish. Don't you know? Oh, man. Oh, sorry. Now now just thinking of, ah you know, marrying Pippin and Ents and like, I know, probably you could probably tell me better than someone else, ah but like the older editions of D&D, like somewhere in the in the very beginning of the front of the book, you know, Gary Gygax or someone being like, 00:15:10.35 Kurt Crenwelge you know, your character, your players will eventually want to play things like ah dragons and such. Let them. And so I'm just curious if there would ever be a future edition of the game where it's like, ah again, the it would have to be like some sort of living online document to be like, okay, we're going to figure out the player character stats for like a tree. And so if you want to be like an end and then you, then RPG bot comes along and tells you what the best of the worst class for an end to be would be. 00:15:37.08 Tyler Kamstra ah okay Okay, I have stories here. um Okay, in 3rd edition, there was a supplement called Savage Species, which was specifically, how do you play monsters as characters? 00:15:48.55 Tyler Kamstra The book. 00:15:48.88 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:15:49.71 Tyler Kamstra um And 3rd edition was written very much like so that you could turn monsters into a playable character. And it was math-y. there were There was nuance, it was complicated, it was kind of a pain. 00:16:02.01 Tyler Kamstra Savage Species made it a little better and gave you a bunch of tools to help. 00:16:06.11 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:16:06.10 Tyler Kamstra ah But we never got anything like that again. And like early, early days of 2014 fifth edition, um i i used to moderate the RD&D subreddit. 00:16:10.23 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:16:18.84 Tyler Kamstra And part of being a moderator is like, you watch the conversations, and you see the same cyclical conversations happening over and over again. Like, oh, I want to play such and such monster. How do I do this? Like, OK, how do we solve this problem masse? 00:16:35.32 Tyler Kamstra ah So I wrote a thing called Monstrous Races and published it on DMs Guild, converts the entire monster manual into playable character options. 00:16:44.90 Kurt Crenwelge oh so if we go over to uh to that site and we can we can throw you a couple bucks and now we have the ability to unlock anything in the monster manual to play it as a player character 00:16:48.66 Tyler Kamstra Yes. 00:16:56.14 Tyler Kamstra Yes. Yeah, I'm still... 00:16:57.11 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, well, i did I didn't know that, and i'm now I i gotta to go look for it, maybe, um and throw you a couple bucks and see about, like, ah maybe I can expand my list of player characters yet to be. 00:17:10.05 Tyler Kamstra Yep. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. um I am working on the sequel for the 2024 rules, calling it Monstrous Species this time. it's It's probably not out by the time this podcast releases because the Monster Manual is way bigger this time. 00:17:26.55 Kurt Crenwelge Mm, yeah. Although you do have to applaud, you know, 2014 version of the game, because that's the one I'm in. I have not, I have not, I've i picked and I've cherry picked a few things from the newer rules that I'm like, you know what? It's good. Okay, yeah. Drinking a potion should be a bonus action. That's like a gimme. 00:17:44.25 Kurt Crenwelge Like some things like that I've i've cherry picked, but otherwise I'm just like, 00:17:44.52 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:17:47.73 Kurt Crenwelge i've I've already tinkered the 2014 rules how I like them, so i'll just this is the version I'll i'll keep in play. um But yeah, I did like how they came out with Volos, and it was like, oh, goblins and bugbears and orcs and fearbolgs and you know some of these other ones that you weren't normally used to, so then by the time Wardencanyons book came around, 00:18:06.48 Kurt Crenwelge It was like, okay, here's like everything that we've originally thought of. But then you came in and filled the gap as far as like, yeah, but if you wanted to be like a vampire or a tree end or an earth elemental, now you can do it. 00:18:16.88 Tyler Kamstra Yep. 00:18:19.91 Tyler Kamstra Yes, exactly. like 00:18:21.81 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. Okay. Well, that was a good tangent and I learned something new and I think everyone learned something new. So I will have to go put that in the show notes for a link to that DMs Guild ah product. So hopefully you'll you'll see the the revenue ah just pouring in from that. 00:18:38.28 Kurt Crenwelge so 00:18:39.11 Tyler Kamstra I do usually put it on sale in October because it it feels appropriate. If you're going to play monsters, October's the time to do it. 00:18:46.30 Kurt Crenwelge There you go. And then you can run a charity one-shot and call it the Monster Mash. 00:18:52.27 Tyler Kamstra Alright, I like it. 00:18:53.53 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay. And then to go on with the second half of the kind of the theme of the show, what's been one of your favorite side quest or B plot elements? Again, whether from it's an an RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, et cetera. 00:19:07.70 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this b plot or your or this side quest your favorite? 00:19:15.24 Tyler Kamstra Sidequest or B-plot? um i'm gonna I'm going to go for Baldur's Gate just because it's a good recent example. 00:19:24.21 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:19:24.31 Tyler Kamstra um i 00:19:27.57 Tyler Kamstra I really liked Shadowheart's side quest. Like the... 00:19:31.73 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:19:32.66 Tyler Kamstra ah The dungeon crawl is kind of fun and ah like discovering so much about the character in like one very self-contained location. 00:19:46.25 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:19:46.33 Tyler Kamstra i and then, yeah, like major decision points for the character within that singular location that both affect to the character and then also have a broader effect on the long-term plot of the game. it... 00:20:01.26 Kurt Crenwelge right 00:20:01.50 Tyler Kamstra it it feels impactful, but also at the same time, like the game doesn't stop working if you skip it. 00:20:09.30 Kurt Crenwelge That's true. Yeah. Well, oh, we're talking about act two. 00:20:14.08 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:20:15.02 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay. 00:20:15.50 Tyler Kamstra i 00:20:15.77 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:20:16.44 Tyler Kamstra I mean, I guess there's parts of it that do kind of break if you skip it, but but like you don't have to do all 00:20:20.75 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Well, it's like you can't, you can't progress further unless you go to that place and and deal with the night song or whatever. 00:20:26.06 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. Yeah. 00:20:26.77 Kurt Crenwelge So. But yeah, no, I think that's great. Yeah, like I did find, yeah, I did find her. i've I've completed one playthrough as myself. I played a version of this podcast character, Duncan. 00:20:36.10 Tyler Kamstra Yep. 00:20:38.22 Kurt Crenwelge So Duncan, the recklessly brave, happy-go-lucky fighter. I made him a battle master fighter um with the lucky feet because he's, you know, chaos follows him wherever he goes. 00:20:48.85 Kurt Crenwelge And I basically did the the typical thing I do in RPGs, which is I found every side quest. I explored every nook and cranny. 00:20:54.67 Tyler Kamstra Yep. 00:20:55.57 Kurt Crenwelge I wanted to loot everything that I could and then ah most of it I didn't use and I just kept it in my trunk at camp because like you know I may need it later but my good friend and I were doing a cross platform play where I randomly rolled a new character and she made a new character and so we're both slowly progressing through the game where she's still working on her original first playthrough and I'm like, okay, yeah, well, if we do this, we can maybe do this. And so it it is interesting how, you know, that gem is now come along and I finally have a copy of it. And yeah, I could definitely see the huge replay value and it gives me a forever DM kind of an itch, uh, scratch as far as like, well, I want to play D and D, but none of my friends are running. 00:21:38.74 Kurt Crenwelge I guess I'll just fire up Baldur's gate three for a little while. And you know, play D and d and then sigh heavily when shadow Hark yet again, misses an attack. I don't know what her deal is. Is it just the programmers admit to like making her always have disadvantage? 00:21:53.83 Tyler Kamstra she has thirteen strength 00:21:56.31 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, 00:21:57.17 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, like the Shadowheart is not built to be using weapons. Don't have her use weapons. Like she's built as a she's built as a caster. 00:22:07.57 Tyler Kamstra The default stats for clerics in Baldur's Gate three are straight garbage. 00:22:07.89 Kurt Crenwelge ah, 00:22:12.15 Tyler Kamstra Don't use them. Fix your ability scores like any cleric using Shadowheart stats will miss every one of their attacks. 00:22:21.80 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. That's good to know. So my friend and I will have to convene and we'll have to decide at the next level of, hey, are we going to increase her ability scores are we going to give her another feat to you know help her out? 00:22:33.90 Tyler Kamstra Oh, well, just go to Withers and respec. 00:22:38.83 Kurt Crenwelge Or, oh yeah, that's another good point. I never did that. Yeah, so it's just like, yeah, I just like Withers hung out in camp and he was cool and stuff like that. And of course with Duncan, I always reloaded. If anyone died, I was just like, I'm just going to reload a save. I'm not going to bother with. 00:22:52.41 Kurt Crenwelge I'm going to play through it as if Duncan had skin has had survived by the skin of his teeth and never had an accident or or a catastrophic failure whatsoever. 00:23:04.26 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, save's coming. 00:23:05.06 Tyler Kamstra Nothing. 00:23:05.98 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. 00:23:06.14 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. There's nothing wrong with it. The game the game lets you resurrect everyone anyway. 00:23:12.06 Kurt Crenwelge True, true. All right. And a brilliant answer. And the, and now we're rounding here into the final question of the personal interview section of the episode. 00:23:24.02 Kurt Crenwelge Tyler, what are you passionate about and why? 00:23:27.33 Tyler Kamstra What am I passionate about? ah Character optimization, apparently. Why? Because... ah You know, I've never had a good answer for that one, honestly. I just kind of latched onto it, and i it's fun. I enjoy it. 00:23:42.52 Tyler Kamstra I like tinkering. ah Like I said, I'm an engineer at heart. I approach games mechanics first, and I just find it very fun to see what I can do with stuff. 00:23:54.15 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to ask, I mean, because I know I've had other guests of the show talk about their experience with GURPS and how GURPS is supposed to be like this very crunchy mathematical game. Are you like a GURPS guy? do you play a lot of GURPS in your off season, if you will? 00:24:08.10 Tyler Kamstra No, i've never I have never been in a game of GURPS. I have tried to get my friends to play it a couple of times, and they have opened the book, and they're like, not even this group, man, no. 00:24:20.76 Tyler Kamstra It's like, but come on, guys. 00:24:23.01 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I wish that for you. I hope that one day you can find that gaming group. Maybe you go to somewhere like startplaying.games or wherever and you you find that group that group insane enough to run GURPS online. 00:24:36.58 Kurt Crenwelge You're like, hold on, I'm the guy from RPGBod. 00:24:36.71 Tyler Kamstra um 00:24:38.90 Kurt Crenwelge Don't you worry, I can optimize this. i will find a solution. 00:24:44.12 Tyler Kamstra Someday it'll happen. It might have to be at a convention someday. 00:24:48.07 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. All right. And so we've made it through the personal interview section. And now it's time to head into some NPC creation. 00:24:58.17 Tyler Kamstra All right. 00:25:04.07 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience and our patrons from Patreon. So now is the time of the show where we give a shout out and a hurrah to our comfortable patrons and above. So hurrah. 00:25:17.11 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I've got my Dr. Pepper Blackberry here. ah you know, rocking it tonight. So of course, yes, cheers. So all all of you are wealthy patrons. 00:25:26.44 Tyler Kamstra Thank you. 00:25:27.61 Kurt Crenwelge Anson Jablinski and good old mom and dad. Cheers. Again, this is for everybody who donates at least $2 or more a month. All the folks I named, they're wealthy tier patrons, which means they get to introduce an element of chance to our random tables that we have here in NPC creation. 00:25:41.73 Kurt Crenwelge We might get to hear some of their responses used. and I could gab on and on about Kofis and Patreons and all this stuff, but you know what to do. You know to go to the show notes below. You know to go to the podcast website or just go directly to patreon.com forward slash sidekicksandsidequest to learn more about the four different tiers of accommodations we have awaiting for you within the Levitating Platter. Help us to grow and expand our operations in this demi-plane and worlds beyond. 00:26:07.97 Kurt Crenwelge Alright, so now that song and dance is done, we're here at the fun part of the podcast. We get to make up an NPC. The idea being that this is going to be a character that, you know, like your fabled min-maxing optimization tables that people, nerds of all stripes across the web go to, well now this can be an NPC that any dungeon master or any player character who needs just someone... 00:26:32.72 Kurt Crenwelge To put in their backstory or put in their game, they can they can depend on Tyler. So, ah you have chosen chosen the path of randomization today, is that correct? 00:26:41.71 Tyler Kamstra absolutely i love a random table 00:26:44.42 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. Okay, so we've got all the standard array of dice. We have our tables. I just need to make a quick ah fill in here because I realized the last time I had not ah changed some things around, but we're good to go. 00:26:59.07 Kurt Crenwelge So ah we begin NPC creation with the task of figuring out the name of our character and the way that we determine names is we roll a d20 and we see what we get. 00:27:15.61 Tyler Kamstra I have rolled ah three. 00:27:18.41 Kurt Crenwelge A three. Well, your answer was provided by our previous guest, Matt from Roleplay Chat, the other cool podcast and a good guy from Canada, Tobias. 00:27:30.22 Tyler Kamstra Okay, Tobias. 00:27:31.06 Kurt Crenwelge So we have so Tobias, t o b i a s T-O-B-I-A-S, Tobias. All right. So off off to a good start. And then let's see the next question. What is the ancestry of our character? This is where it can certainly swing wild like you with the ah monstrous ancestry tables and such. 00:27:48.19 Kurt Crenwelge Let's roll a D100 or 2D10s and see what sort of ancestry we land on today for Tobias. 00:27:56.68 Tyler Kamstra what did we get? We got 52. A thing. 00:28:01.03 Kurt Crenwelge 52 as I scroll and check the list. Ah, okay. So here we go. Dryad or Nyad, any kind, Conclave, Ravnica, or Riverine. So basically anything in the camp of like Dryad, Nyad, Nareed, Riverine, sort of in that camp. 00:28:16.54 Tyler Kamstra ana 00:28:16.71 Kurt Crenwelge So Tobias is some sort of like spirit creature of of nature. 00:28:22.71 Tyler Kamstra Okay. 00:28:23.69 Kurt Crenwelge Of that, of however you figure that to be. 00:28:27.08 Tyler Kamstra ah i I want to say Tobias is some kind of river spirit, like a Nyad. Like... 00:28:37.19 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. Nyad. Okay. Tobias the Nyad. Okay. And then let's see. ah What is the job or role in society for Tobias? Because you know what? Maybe Tobias up and moved to the city. Who knows? 00:28:49.66 Kurt Crenwelge ah But the way we determine this is we roll just a regular D10 and we figure out what their job or role in society is. 00:28:58.36 Tyler Kamstra Alrighty. I got a seven. 00:29:01.31 Kurt Crenwelge seven All right. Well, this is actually ah I think it kind of fits. This was provided by MK, who was one of my audience members when I did my live recording at FateCon last spring. 00:29:15.87 Kurt Crenwelge A brewer. So Tobias is a brewer. 00:29:18.04 Tyler Kamstra Interesting. 00:29:20.04 Kurt Crenwelge So a river spirit ah who makes alcohols. 00:29:25.11 Tyler Kamstra All right. A river spirit that makes spirits. All righty. 00:29:28.29 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Yes, there we go. On the nose. And then the last ah thing here that we get to roll a dice for before we take a slight pause on it, we got to figure out the age range category of of this character. And so we randomized this with a D8 roll to kind of give us a skew of like how young or how old or ancient the character is. 00:29:49.46 Tyler Kamstra alright 00:29:54.09 Tyler Kamstra lookop And it's on the floor. 00:29:57.44 Tyler Kamstra Eight. Oh, boy. 00:29:58.86 Kurt Crenwelge Immortal, immortal. So there we go. 00:30:00.99 Tyler Kamstra Perfect. 00:30:01.98 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. All right. And now with these details in mind, when we think of Tobias, the Nia ad who's a brewer and is a mortal, can you describe the physical appearance of this character? 00:30:15.99 Tyler Kamstra um i 00:30:20.45 Tyler Kamstra In my head, Tobias is... Small, like, slightly small for a human. um 00:30:32.14 Tyler Kamstra Slender, kind of, like, walks with kind of a weird gait. Like, watery, I guess. um 00:30:39.19 Kurt Crenwelge kind of sloshes around like Jack, like Jack Sparrow or something like that. 00:30:39.19 Tyler Kamstra Doesn't so much... Exactly. Yes, exactly. ah Could be the spirits. Could be that they're a river spirit. Who can say? Uh... 00:30:51.96 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, like what what kind of clothes does a river spirit wear? Do they wear any? ah I figure they probably adopted whatever the local like human humanoid fashion was, but they're immortal, so maybe they're just a couple centuries out of date. 00:31:11.51 Kurt Crenwelge True, yeah. I pulled up the the Forgotten Realms wiki over here, not to be that guy on that podcast that just re-quotes other wiki pages or something like that, but let's see. 00:31:23.84 Kurt Crenwelge Nyad's rarely seen Fae Spirit, Water Spirits that lived in the Sisters, along with Nereid's... ah Sylphs, Pixies, and Leprechauns. And let's see, is there anything about their history? 00:31:35.63 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, it's like a really scant short article on the on the the on the old Forgotten Realms wiki. But it does say that Nyads are an introduction to 5th edition, challenge rating 2. 00:31:48.62 Kurt Crenwelge um So at least looking at the art that is presented here, you know ah does look like basically like a humanoid water-looking... ah spirits and like actual water and ah looks like lily pads and vegetation is how and then you know like the bubbling turbulence of the water is helping to give some color so you do you so do you think Tobias appears like we kind of like elemental the movie but like if basically take a human but make them like all water and then that's Tobias and 00:32:22.36 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, but that's pretty much what I had in my head. ah Maybe, yeah maybe they are trying to wear human clothes and they just like, they're perpetually wet because Tobias is made of water. 00:32:35.41 Kurt Crenwelge okay just wet clothes all the time. It's like, why does it's like, it's, you know, you get the slapping of the clothes as they like smack on stuff. 00:32:38.15 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:32:44.40 Kurt Crenwelge Like he's putting his arms down on the bar to like, and you just hear the sound of like wet sleeves hitting the bar or whatever. So, okay. 00:32:52.34 Tyler Kamstra everything perpetually damp. 00:32:54.49 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, just a very damp, moist, wet ah place. I mean, granted, you do want a brewing operation to have like that, but i don't know, kind of interesting if, ah you know, also the the the heat around because you got to boil the water to make the the alcoholic vapors and condense it and all that stuff. So, yeah, I'm just ah kind of curious, like, how how industrial are we going as far as Tobias is concerned? or it Is it more like, is it like... 00:33:23.53 Kurt Crenwelge Dwarven ale operations in a big city along a river? Or is it more like in the hills making moonshine at a little water mill by the river? And I'm just the guy that lives there. I brew the spirits and and all that kind of stuff. 00:33:41.47 Tyler Kamstra I think this would be really fun to go more that route, like a a little off the beaten path. ah Maybe it was an inn that was abandoned and Tobias found it by accident just found there like, oh, yeah, here's this interesting building. 00:33:57.13 Tyler Kamstra Look, I can make this weird alcohol stuff with these cool machines. Like, oh, there's people who want to come stay here. ah Sure, I guess I'm an innkeeper now. 00:34:08.76 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so you want to expand the brewer even further into like just full-fledged innkeeper as well. 00:34:12.26 Tyler Kamstra Maybe. 00:34:14.32 Kurt Crenwelge Or maybe he's in charge of the brewing operations. Maybe other mortals have come along, and you know he's a fey water spirit. and He's just kind of like, well, I'm more interested in like making alcoholic spirits. 00:34:27.79 Kurt Crenwelge You all can, you know, people like it here. Okay, you figure out how to run all that. I just make sure that the river's good, and I make sure that all the alcohol is good. 00:34:32.86 Tyler Kamstra Perfect. 00:34:36.71 Kurt Crenwelge And then everything else can be fine. Sort of a thing. 00:34:40.07 Tyler Kamstra I like it. That's perfect. 00:34:42.07 Kurt Crenwelge And of course, he's always wearing the wet clothes. And maybe, maybe the other people who are on his staff are just telling him like, you know, Tobias, you don't really have to do that. 00:34:44.49 Tyler Kamstra Always. 00:34:50.66 Kurt Crenwelge Like you can just like, he's like, no, no, no. I insist. I have to, I have to match the ambiance of this place. 00:34:57.19 Tyler Kamstra it's a uniform 00:34:58.63 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Oh, 00:35:02.67 Kurt Crenwelge All right. ah Well, I was just I was in my head. I was just thinking of like, okay, I know I've done it with other ah guests of the podcast where I'm like, I don't know. Are you interested in inventing a couple of other characters who also work at this in slash brewery? 00:35:18.02 Kurt Crenwelge um You know, you could just go back real quick and roll D100 a couple times if you wanted to like get some real random characters working at the end with Tobias. um Maybe even borrow a couple more names ah from the list too. 00:35:31.06 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know. It's up to you. It's Halloween time. we can We can make this a spooky treat. Why not? Or if you're just like, no, I just, I already have an idea of who's here. 00:35:36.50 Tyler Kamstra Okay. 00:35:40.28 Kurt Crenwelge ah Then you could do that too. 00:35:41.67 Tyler Kamstra I have ideas. Okay, i've got I've got two groups of NPCs who are here. So there's there's the ah the regular like mortals who live in the area, and I'm picturing halflings. 00:35:55.09 Tyler Kamstra Like, just so many halflings. And it's never the same halfling. Whenever like you turn and you ask for something, or like you go to the inn, or like you go to purchase something, never the same halfling twice. It is a very, very dense, tightly knit family. 00:36:12.12 Tyler Kamstra And every time you turn around, one of them runs off and another one steps in. So it's just the halflings. 00:36:20.28 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. I like that. 00:36:21.59 Tyler Kamstra And then. 00:36:21.73 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that's very fun. Like, ah and they, they're all like, uh, you know, maybe like, uh, like Irish or Italian or, you know, kind of like, like, oh, there's a lot of them and they all, you know, because they're all a family and they all look very similar to each other. 00:36:34.25 Kurt Crenwelge it's like, wait a minute, didn't you have a mustache? 00:36:34.85 Tyler Kamstra Hmm. 00:36:35.93 Kurt Crenwelge It's like, no, that's my cousin. And then he turned and you turn around and then suddenly a guy with a beard is there. He's like, what do you want? It's like, wait, I was talking to the other guy. Yeah. 00:36:43.98 Tyler Kamstra Exactly. And then you never have to name them either. 00:36:46.13 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:36:47.86 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:36:48.82 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah, you just describe a different halfling. 00:36:50.54 Tyler Kamstra All 00:36:51.22 Kurt Crenwelge Like, at first it was a dude you were talking to, now a lady has shown up. Okay. 00:36:56.44 Tyler Kamstra all right. and And then second group of NPCs, the spirits. So we have a river spirit making alcoholic spirits. And now we have the spirits of alcoholics. 00:37:10.01 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. And so then any other interesting, ah you know, ah mortal creature that you want to stick in there that are like, you know, drunk off of, or really in love with Tobias's moonshine or whatnot, uh, they just hang around. 00:37:24.14 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:37:26.59 Tyler Kamstra oh Or maybe just spirits of the dead on their way to the afterlife, stopping for a drink with Tobias, like quick sip off to the afterlife. 00:37:36.36 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, that is fun, especially with Halloween. It's like, yeah, it's like a maybe it's like cozy spooky. 00:37:39.46 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:37:42.10 Kurt Crenwelge It's like there's ghosts in the corner and it's like they're all partaking of like this spirit, you know, fave water spirit infused spirit that they're actually able to interact with. 00:37:42.54 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:37:52.96 Kurt Crenwelge And then they're like, oh, this warms me up. And then they just kind of like pass on and go to their next stage of of life in the afterlife. 00:38:01.45 Tyler Kamstra Perfect. Cozy, spooky. 00:38:02.53 Kurt Crenwelge That's cool. 00:38:03.05 Tyler Kamstra I like it. Yeah. 00:38:04.12 Kurt Crenwelge Cozy, spooky. Someone, I'm sure some indie game developer has already done that. And, you know, they're going to hear this episode and then they're going to have to give us royalties because they've invented the next is a guy, you know, ah game or whatever, where it's like you're Tobias, the water, not add spirits who runs a place with a bunch of halflings and then ghosts that show up. 00:38:27.41 Kurt Crenwelge And then the other random travelers that will come in on occasion. But perfect. All right. I'm loving this. All right. And that's all all to say. So we've got the physical description and certainly any other physical notes that since we've been brainstorming and talking and yakking back and forth, you can let me know. 00:38:43.73 Kurt Crenwelge But certainly we want to know for role playing purposes, what three adjectives do you think best describe Tobias as a character? 00:38:52.41 Tyler Kamstra um Three adjectives. Okay, moist. 00:38:58.29 Kurt Crenwelge I'm sorry, you may we may have to do a trigger warning or or for something from that word. I know some people don't like it. I'm fine with it. But it's like, okay. that's okay Yeah, that's act. 00:39:06.71 Tyler Kamstra yeah 00:39:07.54 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:39:08.26 Tyler Kamstra um I'm thinking... 00:39:13.09 Tyler Kamstra Alright, so he's always wet. River spirit, we where's the wet clothes? So moist, damp, pick one. ah 00:39:19.99 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:39:22.78 Tyler Kamstra I see him as like jovial, like friendly, bubbly, like there to make friends. Uh, he's a mortal, ah as long as the river's there, he's fine. So there's not really anything you can do to harm or inconvenience him in any long-term way. So like he friendly to everybody never feels threatened, never feels worried, not a care in the world. So moist, jovial, 00:39:50.25 Tyler Kamstra um And then I want him to have like a flaw, I think. 00:39:57.28 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. That's always good of like a one-two combo. Like a one-two and then a hook of like, whoa, I wasn't expecting that. 00:40:03.36 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:40:07.45 Tyler Kamstra Uh. 00:40:10.44 Tyler Kamstra Alien. 00:40:11.87 Kurt Crenwelge Alien. 00:40:11.96 Tyler Kamstra There we go. Like you're a mortal, you're a river spirit, no matter how much time you spend with mortals. 00:40:15.70 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:40:22.39 Tyler Kamstra like wearing their clothes, serving their drinks, maybe even eating their food, no matter how much time you spend with them, you'll never quite get them just because your perspective is so different from theirs. 00:40:29.41 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:40:35.87 Tyler Kamstra So like you talk to Tobias and you say like, Oh, we need to do this thing. And it has to happen within like a week or two or something really bad happens. Like, Oh man. ah That sucks. 00:40:49.18 Tyler Kamstra I'll be here in a thousand years. So like a week or two is like a blink for me. So like, do you want alcohol? what What can I do for you 00:40:58.79 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and and you say alien and and, you know, my literal thinking is just being like, oh, he was in the Feywild for so long. And then he just kind of like stumbled into the mundane world and he found this river and he's like, well, there's no other spirit here taking care of it. 00:41:14.50 Kurt Crenwelge So I'll do it. And oh, like there's this interesting building. And oh, I remember like, you know, the satyrs and all the revelers along the banks in the Feywild, you know, getting drunk and you know, wild and tipsy and all that stuff. And hey, wouldn't that be fun to have that sort of a kind of a thing going on once again? And that's maybe like the motivation ah for Tobias wanting to like start this in back up because of his alien memories of a different realm of existence that, you know, in the mundane world, it's like, you know, he's just like, Oh, yesterday, you know, I was just doing this and now I'm here. 00:41:40.85 Tyler Kamstra yeah 00:41:47.94 Kurt Crenwelge But then like when people do the math, they're like, wait a minute, you're talking about like the first age or something like that. We're in the third age now. It's like, dude, like, you know, and he's just kind of like, whatever i do. You want some booze? 00:42:01.67 Tyler Kamstra I love that. That's fantastic. 00:42:04.32 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Alien. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. I love this guy. I want to, I want to stick him somewhere in my world so bad. I just, and I'm also getting, because I've been listening to a lot of worlds beyond number. 00:42:11.04 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:42:14.78 Kurt Crenwelge And so their whole thing is like, you know, the spirit and the mortal realm. I feel like Tobias would be like friends with Ame the witch. Like Ame the witch has got to have Tobias the Nyad on speed dial somewhere. 00:42:22.67 Tyler Kamstra yeah 00:42:26.25 Kurt Crenwelge And it's like, Oh, come to my end. 00:42:26.92 Tyler Kamstra ah 00:42:28.45 Kurt Crenwelge and the halflings are all running the business parts and then all the spirits are hanging around as they're you know getting nice drinks and waiting to go on to their next thing sort of a sort of a thing yeah 00:42:39.35 Tyler Kamstra I love that. Yeah. 00:42:41.72 Kurt Crenwelge well it'll be a true mark to know if ah that shows up in a future episode of worlds beyond number because ah you know one of the cast members or or crew listens to this episode and is like hey you know what maybe Brendan should ah should add this to his game who knows but 00:42:55.19 Tyler Kamstra but 00:42:57.99 Kurt Crenwelge All right, ah so now is the part where I say, and now we get to go back to some dice rolling, because we like all of our NPCs to have a valuable on their person. um So what is a valuable item, piece of lore, secret, or ideal or concept that Tobias would ascribe to? 00:43:17.92 Kurt Crenwelge And though this is a combination roll where we get to do D4 for the category, and then we get to do a D6 for the particular thing. 00:43:23.64 Tyler Kamstra Okay. 00:43:27.55 Tyler Kamstra Alright. 00:43:30.49 Tyler Kamstra I got a 1 on the d4 and a 6 on the d6. 00:43:35.40 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, okay, perfect. Well, your answer was provided to us by previous guest, Brian Rose. So Tobias has a staff of shielding as his valuable item. 00:43:45.59 Tyler Kamstra Interesting. 00:43:46.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, tell me more. Why why does ah Tobias have this? How did he come into possession? 00:43:51.96 Tyler Kamstra yeah uh a staff of shielding and what use would he have for it like immortal river spirit from the feywild like doesn't really feel a sense of threat from the world around them um 00:44:00.27 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:44:10.24 Kurt Crenwelge Is it a treasure that he claimed from the river? 00:44:13.94 Tyler Kamstra maybe yeah ah 00:44:16.39 Kurt Crenwelge Or something from the Feywild that he grabbed? Like, he thought of it as, like, a walking stick. it was just like, I'm just gonna go on my way. 00:44:22.74 Tyler Kamstra yeah um yeah in my head it's it's purely sentimental value for tobias like he knows it's a magic item he knows it's a magic item that people would probably really like to have but it he likes it it's his favorite stick i guess uh maybe he 00:44:42.02 Kurt Crenwelge He subscribes to the official Stick Reviews Instagram channel. He's like, hey, hey, Stick Nation. 00:44:45.92 Tyler Kamstra ah but 00:44:47.23 Kurt Crenwelge I've got this stick. And people are like, wait a minute. That's a Staff of Shielding. Tobias, what are you talking about? It's like, no, this is a cool stick I found in the river, guys. What are you talking about? 00:44:59.42 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, okay, that's fantastic. 00:45:01.96 Kurt Crenwelge That or he has a really good friend ah from the Feywild when he he got that wanderlust of like, oh, you know, I want to see what else is out there. And his friend, you know, maybe it was a satyr or it was a bully wug or whatever it could have been in the Feywild was like, well, it's really dangerous to go out there. So I want you to have my favorite stick. 00:45:20.41 Kurt Crenwelge And he's like, OK, I'll take this stick with me. And then maybe that's how it's sentimental to him if you don't want to make it. So, oh, it just randomly washed up in the river and he took it. And then it's like, great, this is mine. 00:45:33.02 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, I like that better as sentimental value, like an old friend from the Feywild. That's good. 00:45:37.94 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah, and then we leave it open-ended, so whichever dungeon master is like needs to tie Tobias into whichever player character's backstory is like, oh, yeah, that one person from the Feywild is you know his best friends with Tobias and gave him this Staff of Shielding. 00:45:38.63 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. Mm-hmm. 00:45:52.00 Kurt Crenwelge And you know then the player characters are trying to to convince Tobias to, hey, you should really hand over that Staff of Shielding because my grandmother really wanted me to have it, even though my grandmother was friends with you 6,000 years ago in the Feywild. 00:46:08.29 Kurt Crenwelge That sort of thing. 00:46:08.60 Tyler Kamstra time Time is weird in the Feywild. 00:46:11.15 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. as ah As one Ashley Johnson says, time is a weird soup. 00:46:15.90 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, yes. 00:46:16.62 Kurt Crenwelge Yep. All right. And now, you you know, we like all of our NPCs to have bright gold exclamation points over their head as quest givers. 00:46:29.24 Kurt Crenwelge So now we get to roll for the last dice and generate the random side quests that Tobias would be willing to offer to bunch of heroes or player characters to go and do on his behalf. 00:46:41.60 Kurt Crenwelge So to determine this, you would roll the final dice, which is the D12. 00:46:45.71 Tyler Kamstra Okay. 00:46:48.51 Tyler Kamstra Seven. 00:46:50.51 Kurt Crenwelge Seven. Ah, okay. Interesting. Provided to us today by Nicole, the Game Master Mom. This side quest ah prompt says, My sibling went missing mysteriously. Can you go find them? 00:47:07.09 Tyler Kamstra Oh, that implies that Tobias has siblings. Interesting. 00:47:11.20 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Is the Staff of Shielding from the sibling, maybe? 00:47:15.86 Tyler Kamstra Oh, could be. ah Okay, so Tobias is a river spirit. 00:47:22.47 Kurt Crenwelge the Okay. 00:47:23.07 Tyler Kamstra So you have to assume that their sibling is probably also a river spirit. How do you lose a river? 00:47:33.02 Kurt Crenwelge I think lots of environmentalists ask that question. And, you know, global warming or climate change or beavers or ah rock slides, I'm sure, make rivers disappear all the time. 00:47:40.21 Tyler Kamstra Ugh, yeah. 00:47:43.83 Tyler Kamstra Beavers! 00:47:48.42 Tyler Kamstra uh actually yeah finding out like going to look for their sibling and finding out that there's like a new dam that tobias didn't know about and their sibling is just stuck on the wrong side of the dam like ah there could be something there i've i've been on adventures involving dams i've died on dams before weirdly more than once 00:48:02.46 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:48:14.34 Kurt Crenwelge and then of course you have the sibling that can deliver like the best fish joke about like you know you know what like oh ah oh like i keep hitting you know like Sorry, hopefully I don't have to edit this out later in post, but yeah dad here struggling for a dad joke. 00:48:31.01 Kurt Crenwelge Basically the punchline being like the fish said, damn it, or something like that because of ah hitting hitting the head. 00:48:31.60 Tyler Kamstra Mm-hmm. 00:48:37.21 Kurt Crenwelge The river spirit's trying to get through. It's just like, oh damn it, ow. ah It's like, yes, that's what's blocking your way to be able to get going to where you need to go. Oh, is that what it So, but it's like, oh, but then you're like, you know, I'm sure the river spirit's a little more intelligent than that unless it's like, 00:48:52.20 Kurt Crenwelge some sort of arcane dam or block or something like that. Like a big Snorlax is just sitting in the river and preventing the water from moving or something. 00:49:02.49 Tyler Kamstra Well, ah it's that alien, it's that alien quality. So like, they've been in this river for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And then one day, there's just a dam. 00:49:14.87 Tyler Kamstra And like, I don't know, it it probably took humans a couple of years to build it. But from their perspective of time, that's nothing like they turned around one century turned around the next century, and there's a dam there. And how do I get now? What do I do? 00:49:29.27 Tyler Kamstra Never seen one of these before. 00:49:31.41 Kurt Crenwelge Right, yeah, because the Feywilds, yeah, the Feywild, the rivers, i um I like to imagine fantastically the rivers are like, oh, there's an obstacle. 00:49:31.77 Tyler Kamstra Like, yeah, it could be. 00:49:35.26 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:49:39.44 Kurt Crenwelge I'm just literally go to bend space and time to like just move myself wherever I need to go, even if that means like cartoonishly like over a rock to then continue on or so 00:49:43.97 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:49:52.22 Kurt Crenwelge But then you come to the mundane world and there's like, ah yeah. 00:49:52.67 Tyler Kamstra that That is the cartoon physics. 00:49:55.34 Kurt Crenwelge And then you come to the mundane world and there's like, even though Dylan from kill every monster likes to say, if you can cast fireball, then physics is not real in the world of D and D. It's like, okay, maybe there's some light physics, 00:50:05.77 Tyler Kamstra Fair. 00:50:08.73 Kurt Crenwelge It's physics-esque about like, okay, well, water has to flow with the with the speed of gravity or where the path of least resistance is, and if there's a dam, well, suddenly water can't move past it, and river spirits be confused because they're like, this is very alien to me, and I don't understand why this is here. 00:50:27.80 Kurt Crenwelge Like the earth just changed and okay, well, I guess we'll just have to find another way around without actually taking the time to ah maybe stop and fight it. Or unless, you know, maybe this sibling is leading some kind of like one man campaign against the dam and the the people on the dam are fighting him. 00:50:46.99 Kurt Crenwelge Like, and so that's why the other, you know, why our, our, our friend Tobias just doesn't know. 00:50:48.68 Tyler Kamstra I like 00:50:53.54 Kurt Crenwelge Meanwhile, their sibling is like battle hardened and like, I am the fury of nature and I will bring this thing down. But there's like wizards and artificers and whoever else that are like, no, it's critically important that we keep this dam up in order to, you know, get whatever we need to with the water way damned up or whatever. 00:51:07.39 Tyler Kamstra it. 00:51:13.09 Kurt Crenwelge I don't 00:51:13.21 Tyler Kamstra i like it 00:51:14.11 Kurt Crenwelge There's a couple of different ways you could take this. you know so we We like to leave some wiggle room, but ah hopefully there's some good ideas there for your your game or your backstory or whatever um that you can take it and run a couple ways. 00:51:16.61 Tyler Kamstra yeah 00:51:25.75 Kurt Crenwelge Certainly if you want to lay the law down and definitively declare why the sibling has gone missing, you can certainly do that too. 00:51:35.25 Tyler Kamstra I like that. That's fun. 00:51:37.48 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so that the sibling is is trapped behind a dam and is actually trying to fight, but can't overcome the obstacles. 00:51:45.47 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. um And yeah, like you I like your idea of just leaving it up to the DM what that fight looks like. Like maybe they are just slowly beating their head against the wall over centuries and waiting for something to happen. Or maybe they're actually like maybe they're fighting people. Yeah. 00:52:03.20 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Yeah, like ah like a like a guerrilla sort of a warfare. ah War of attrition or something, if you will. 00:52:09.47 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:52:10.21 Kurt Crenwelge like a bunch of ah well Because I know, at least in my game, of where i would ah where I would drop this, because there is a mercenary faction of high-level spellcasters that are... 00:52:21.68 Kurt Crenwelge basically doing a Saruman and they're exploiting the, uh, the forest, uh, which is heavily full of fey wild esque aligned, uh, but in the mundane world sort of creatures. And so definitely something like this of like, Oh, the sibling is trapped behind a river that's been damned by these arcane mercenaries. 00:52:40.55 Kurt Crenwelge And, uh, you know, can't, the spirit can't do it alone. And Tobias meanwhile, is in a different part of the continent with another river, just being like, I'm living my best life. Like, I wonder where my sibling is. Oh, well. 00:52:51.93 Kurt Crenwelge And then it's just alienated. Just as like, I guess I'll hear from my sibling at some point in time. Okay. Well, so, so. 00:53:00.46 Tyler Kamstra when you live on when you live on the geological scale yeah yeah you'll hear from them at some point 00:53:05.09 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:53:07.61 Kurt Crenwelge You'll hear from them at some point. So, okay, so we have this ah this prompt for our side quest. And so, you know, we like to examine it from both sides of the equation. So, however it gets brought up, you know, whether, you know, because because based on the character we have in mind, i don't know if Tobias seems like he's rather... 00:53:26.51 Kurt Crenwelge you know, and he's, he's like pressing on this of like, or if he's just kind of, you know, ambient dialogue, just musing aloud of the player characters happen to hear like, Oh, I wonder what happened to my sibling. It's been a while since I heard from them. 00:53:39.17 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, well go back to make alcohol. And if the player characters press and get the mission, yada, yada, however it happens, the player characters go on this mission. They find where the sibling is and whatever adventure entails there. 00:53:52.41 Kurt Crenwelge But once they find the low, they locate the missing sibling and then they report back to Tobias of like what happened. How is Tobias going to reward the party for their efforts? 00:54:04.37 Tyler Kamstra ah Well, to my mind, Tobias really owns two things. He owns that cool staff, which he's not going to give up. And he owns the still. 00:54:16.17 Tyler Kamstra So he's producing spirits. He knows that mortals like the spirits. So just a large quantity of those. And honestly, that's a perfectly fine trade good. you could just take it to the next town over and sell it for gold. 00:54:29.71 Kurt Crenwelge True. And is there anything special about the spirits that he's making? This moonshine doesn't have any in interesting or unique properties, or is it just like he's really good at making moonshine? 00:54:35.66 Tyler Kamstra ah 00:54:42.24 Kurt Crenwelge This is like the best moonshine that you're ever going to get. You're going to you're going to drink a whole gallon of this and you're going to wake up like a week later wondering what you've done with your life. 00:54:53.91 Tyler Kamstra um ah You know, you could you could really go either way with that. Like, you could make it really good Or you could just make it cartoonish, cheap swill. 00:55:05.56 Tyler Kamstra And like, its only value is in the fact that it is readily available and there is a lot of it. And sometimes that's all you need. 00:55:17.93 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. I don't know. I'm just kind of curious on your take. Would you rather make it like the most, you know, like it's the most unassuming place, you know, it's like a rundown place, but the halflings are working on making it look, you know, business presentable. 00:55:26.65 Tyler Kamstra Mm-hmm. 00:55:32.64 Kurt Crenwelge But do you think it's like, you know Again, borrowing from a video game franchise, i like is it like Fallout 76, I'm drinking Nuka Shine, I see a bunch of weird colors, I black out and I ah randomly appear at another point on the map? 00:55:47.60 Kurt Crenwelge Or is it, oh, it's just really cheaply made, it's maybe not the best, but you know what, if you drink enough of it, it doesn't matter. 00:55:55.42 Tyler Kamstra um What if it was random? What if it was like one in ten servings? Like something wild happened. Most of the time, it's just completely normal. 00:56:10.24 Tyler Kamstra But like one in ten, something odd happens. 00:56:13.34 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, so like a wild magic effect or something like that? 00:56:15.51 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:56:16.75 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, right, because he's from the Feywild, that would make sense. 00:56:16.78 Tyler Kamstra Like... Yeah. And just... 00:56:20.84 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:56:21.78 Tyler Kamstra Like very like low level wild magic stuff though. So like ah you drink it and I don't know, your hair color changes or like flowers pop out of your ears or something like that. 00:56:31.54 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:56:36.06 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah, that'd be fun because then if you wanted to to telegraph that to your players, you know, it's like, oh, we have like, you know, 10 people like regular patrons in the bar and you see one of them has like, you know, blue hair and, you know, grass growing on his feet and some other weird stuff happening because he just keeps drinking it. 00:56:58.01 Kurt Crenwelge And he just keeps having more wild magic effects going off on him until the drink has successfully passed through his ah his digestive system. 00:57:09.08 Tyler Kamstra perfect and yeah and those uh those halflings that live in the area are probably going to look so weird from just having been around the moonshine effects so much just just 00:57:10.23 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. But otherwise, it's just really good moonshine. Yeah. 00:57:24.26 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, interesting. So you think that plays into, you know, this this group of the halflings is like they may not even look like normal halflings, like they look like very strange indeed sort of halflings. 00:57:36.67 Tyler Kamstra Some of them are too tall. Some of them are too short. They're all funny colors. Their clothes look all weird. Some of them can only walk backwards. Like, yeah, just just random cartoonish magical nonsense. 00:57:50.03 Kurt Crenwelge Well, this is definitely where I would stick in an MCDM issue from Arcadia, one and a halfling. So a large category sized halfling who's just like, oh, yeah, I've drank some of this stuff. 00:57:56.91 Tyler Kamstra Hmm. Hmm. 00:58:02.11 Kurt Crenwelge It's really good. But, you know, i ended up like this, you know. So it's like a a large category halfling walking around. And then the rest of them are all like normal small category halflings walking around and stuff. But just one really big halfling. 00:58:16.60 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 00:58:17.08 Kurt Crenwelge Um, just, he's the one that gets to lift up all the heavy stuff. Uh, they're all like you, you know, like jumbo, you're the, you know, like that's his nickname. Although ironically, if he already was named jumbo and then he's the one that became super big, they're like jumbo, you're the one you lift up the bed and carry it upstairs or whatever. He's like, all right. 00:58:36.38 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:58:37.82 Tyler Kamstra I love the idea of one and a half leg as a name. That's great. 00:58:41.42 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that comes from an issue of ah Arcadia from MCDM's production. So if you haven't checked that one out, that's ah that's real fun. I have a couple of those in my campaign. They're treat. 00:58:53.26 Tyler Kamstra Nice. 00:58:54.18 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so we have a good idea of like what the reward's going to be. So, you know, magical moonshine, one in ten chance that a wow magic effect goes off when you drink it. So, that's pretty cool. 00:59:04.74 Kurt Crenwelge ah Oh, i every drink or every sip? Because certainly if you sit there long enough and you sip it, like... 00:59:09.18 Tyler Kamstra oh 00:59:12.66 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, i'd I'd say every time you're served, there is a 1 in 10 chance. 00:59:15.84 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:59:16.78 Tyler Kamstra so Like, every time you fill a glass, 1 in 10. 00:59:17.38 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:59:19.17 Tyler Kamstra It doesn't matter how big the glass is. 00:59:19.29 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:59:21.47 Tyler Kamstra Like, it really does not matter. but like 00:59:23.75 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:59:24.51 Tyler Kamstra Enormous bowl still only counts as one. 00:59:27.70 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. It still only counts as one. 00:59:29.65 Tyler Kamstra Yes. 00:59:29.70 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:59:30.04 Tyler Kamstra Yes. 00:59:30.84 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. Good. We got that cleared up, but now we have to consider the opposite. What's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? So in this case, I know we talked about, oh, he's, you know, maybe ambient NPC dialogue. And if you go up to him and talk to him about it, but then you're just kind of like, 00:59:49.77 Kurt Crenwelge Like Baldur's Gate 3, oh, I'm going to skip over the dialogue, whatever. um Or like you go to help or discover the truth, but like you can't find the truth, you can't help the sibling, you report back to Tobias and you have to hang your head in shame, or you just proudly boast that, ah yeah, sorry, couldn't help. 01:00:09.69 Kurt Crenwelge um what's goingnna be What's going to be the consequence of failure or refusal? 01:00:14.55 Tyler Kamstra ah ecological devastation to a place that the party cares about. 01:00:21.33 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, because of the dam. 01:00:23.20 Tyler Kamstra Yes. So maybe they have a long-term drought. ah Maybe some like important local plant or animal disappears. ah Like maybe and maybe there's a... 01:00:37.33 Tyler Kamstra and Maybe there's some, like, critical herb that you need to make healing potions in the area or something, and because the the ecology changed because of the dam, suddenly the herb doesn't grow, and now you can't buy healing potions. 01:00:50.85 Kurt Crenwelge You know, you took out the one water source where this ah particular community of bees thrived, and now you can't pollinate the crops and there's a famine. 01:00:57.58 Tyler Kamstra Yep. 01:01:00.25 Kurt Crenwelge Good job for not helping out. 01:01:00.58 Tyler Kamstra Yep. 01:01:04.50 Tyler Kamstra ah This is why they do ecological studies before they build stuff. 01:01:04.66 Kurt Crenwelge You should care about bees. 01:01:08.68 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. When we're kids, we don't even think about that sort of kind of stuff. But then when you're an adult, you're like, no, we have to care about bees and trees and fleas and whatever else rhymes with that, because eventually it all will, you know, if you shake up or, you know, mess with too many things, you're going to throw everything out of whack. 01:01:13.93 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 01:01:21.34 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 01:01:29.29 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 01:01:32.18 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so an ecological disaster. Interesting. So that would that would be like a very long game ah for a dungeon master to play out with their players. It's just like, okay, all right, well, you're going to continue to ignore this thing longer and longer, and then you get to like kind of tease it out as far as like, oh, really weird. Like, there's no healing potions in this area. Oh, you know, yeah the crops are not looking too good. And like, oh, suddenly everyone's all sickly and they can't figure out why. 01:01:57.15 Kurt Crenwelge And it's all because this one river is dammed up and it's not ah feeding the area with nutrient water and all that stuff, because that's what that spirit, ah the sibling spirit was in charge of, of making sure happened. But now it can't happen because the dam is all, well, the dam is damned. 01:02:14.34 Kurt Crenwelge So, and thus has damned the land. So, yes. 01:02:18.90 Tyler Kamstra Oh, that's beautiful. 01:02:22.02 Kurt Crenwelge Yep. OK, yeah, so we've made it through all of the, you know, the the what I feel are the necessary questions to kind of discover an NPC and NPC creation. But we have more optional questions. 01:02:34.84 Kurt Crenwelge If you feel like you wish to know more about Tobias and explore all of his facets, or do you feel like Tobias is a really good character now and you just want to head into the next part of the show? 01:02:47.47 Tyler Kamstra ah Honestly, I'm really happy with Tobias. Like, he's got a community... Jeez, words are hard. He's got a community around him. He's got a little bit of a backstory. He's got a family. Like, ah somehow an afterlife thing happens around him. So, like, there there's stuff around Tobias going on. And he's this, like, weird puddle the at the middle of all of these other things. 01:03:15.09 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Well, we've got our spooky cozy in and a brewery operation going on. And now I think it's time to head into ah random encounter. 01:03:27.62 Tyler Kamstra Ooh. 01:03:34.91 Kurt Crenwelge And final ad read insert here for Zencaster, which, of course, if you need to build your own podcast or make your own thing, you should use my discount code at at checkout. 01:03:46.31 Kurt Crenwelge So go to Zencaster dot com forward slash pricing. Use the code side. KQ podcast. Save 30 percent on your first month of any paid Zencaster plan. It, you know, kickback helps to support the podcast, all that good stuff. 01:04:00.61 Kurt Crenwelge So thank you so much for supporting the sponsors. It helps to support the podcast. All right. So now this is the part of the show where we get to do a bit of role play, a vignette, a scene with the character that we've made here today and with Tobias to be handled by Tyler. 01:04:16.84 Kurt Crenwelge the question I have is what sort of character am I going to be in this scene? Am I going to be one of my adventurer characters? Who's going to stumble upon the end and get this side quest. 01:04:24.94 Tyler Kamstra Oh, you're going to make me play out a character. 01:04:27.23 Kurt Crenwelge Am I going to be one of the many aforementioned, but yet nameless halflings that's interacting with Tobias, or am I just a spirit who's on his way, food and finds this in and, uh, and learns the story of this place, or I don't know what sort of scene are you interested in highlighting, showcasing, boasting, bragging off, 01:04:46.30 Kurt Crenwelge ah for Tobias. 01:04:50.29 Tyler Kamstra Okay. Uh... 01:04:54.70 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, ah let's go for Spirit of the Dead. Why not? 01:04:58.22 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, all right. 01:04:58.35 Tyler Kamstra Maybe a dead adventurer. 01:05:01.00 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, a dead adventurer. 01:05:02.56 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 01:05:03.59 Kurt Crenwelge haven't done one of those. i don't know, interesting. Okay, could d let's see. um Ooh. 01:05:10.42 Tyler Kamstra Who's your at least favorite character in your regular party? Okay. 01:05:13.42 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:05:14.33 Tyler Kamstra Okay. 01:05:14.49 Kurt Crenwelge um I don't want to do that. I do want to turn on you as far as RPG bots. 01:05:19.80 Tyler Kamstra okay 01:05:19.86 Kurt Crenwelge You know, are you are could you, off the top of your head, or maybe with a quick resource lookup, I want to find the worst combination of, for five v race and player character class. Like a one star. A definitive one star that combo that I could put up. And this will be our dead adventurer spirit. 01:05:41.12 Tyler Kamstra ah Lightfoot Halfling Barbarian. 01:05:45.85 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting, so a Lightfoot Halfling Barbarian is is ah is a one-star class, or a one-star combo. 01:05:48.95 Tyler Kamstra Yes. ah Yeah, your ah your race says a strength, sorry, your race says dexterity and stealth, your class says strength and direct action, and those two things do not work together a lot of the time. 01:06:07.39 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, alright, so we have a Lightfoot... halfling barbarian do we have a name should we go to a random name generator fantasy name generator.com all right fantasy they're not a sponsor of this podcast but if they would like to be i would love to have them be a sponsor because you know what i like rpg bot they are an invaluable resource uh to this community um so let's see halfling i need halfling names halfling names okay 01:06:16.91 Tyler Kamstra Yeah, let's do it. 01:06:36.96 Kurt Crenwelge And let's see, do you have a preference if it is a male or female spirit that is passed on? 01:06:41.51 Tyler Kamstra Not at all. Okay. 01:06:43.79 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, well, then I'm going to use my handy-dandy patented a surefire way of determining this with a coin flip. Because you know what? I also like to live by randomness sometimes. 01:06:56.47 Kurt Crenwelge Coin flip says two, which which means female. 01:07:00.21 Tyler Kamstra okay 01:07:00.40 Kurt Crenwelge So I'm going to... Click this a few times and let's look down the list and what sounds like a, Ooh, but I want it to be a name that I can say. 01:07:13.19 Tyler Kamstra but The classic problem with fantasy names. Does it look fancy? Does it look fantasy enough? Yes. Can you pronounce it? No. How many apostrophes are in there? 01:07:24.19 Tyler Kamstra Who can say? 01:07:28.22 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:07:31.80 Kurt Crenwelge All right. I almost I think I have this narrowed down. If I just, you know, you just click it a few more times, mix it up a little bit. Oh, 01:07:42.70 Kurt Crenwelge oh, well, I guess that would be kind of funny because of like a pen, like a like a pun sort of in in the name. But it looks like sorry, 10 eyes and the the first name S.A.R.E.E. 01:07:54.07 Kurt Crenwelge So I would pronounce that sorry or is it sorry? 01:07:57.13 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. ah You know, I've known people named Sorry with that spelling. 01:08:03.11 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so Sari Ten Eyes is, so ten Ten Eyes would be the surname of the halfling clan, but her name is Sari Ten Eyes. She's the Lightfoot halfling barbarian who is no more. She's a spirit. 01:08:17.20 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, and so she's going to stumble upon this inn. Do we have a name for this inn? 01:08:22.95 Tyler Kamstra Oh. Um... 01:08:26.55 Kurt Crenwelge or would Or would Tobias even think to give it an inn? Or would the halflings just give it and a name 01:08:33.75 Tyler Kamstra i I feel like the halflings would never be able to agree on a permanent name. So it just kind of became known as the Inn by the River. 01:08:44.64 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. The end by the river. Okay. All right. All right. I've got the name and then, uh, um, would you care to set the scene or would you like for me to set the scene? 01:08:56.49 Tyler Kamstra Alright, uh, okay. Tobias is outside the still. a An arrangement of tables are set out, as is standard for the beautiful summer day that we're experiencing. 01:09:12.17 Tyler Kamstra And, um, Tobias is setting out empty cups on the tables, in anticipation of the spirits of the dead joining for the evening uh the halflings are milling about in various crowds of non-determinate size uh some of them come to the tables some of them leave the tables um some of them are on the tables under the tables everywhere really just halflings anywhere you look uh 01:09:43.07 Tyler Kamstra But as the sun like starts to move down towards the horizon, the sky darkens ever so slightly. And then the spirits of the dead ah begin to materialize and take seats here and there at the tables with drinks already laid out in front of them. 01:10:00.99 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and I think Sari Ten Eyes, um you know she was a relatively young ah Lightfoot Halfling Barbarian. you know She felt this rage in her life, and she was new to an adventuring party. 01:10:14.24 Kurt Crenwelge ah And you know being a one-star build, according to RPG Bot, She was not long for this world when she was quick and nimble and fast, ah but she didn't have the the strength of muscle to really cleave through those goblins like she wanted to in that ah that first level adventure. 01:10:33.58 Kurt Crenwelge And so she got wiped out. And so she's here on this night, on this evening, and she's confused. She's... Puzzled, she doesn't quite know what to make of her life and her station. The last thing she knew she knew was she was in the fight of her life, and she was working her way through goblins, and her other companions just kind of took off without her, and she felt her body being dragged away. 01:11:02.50 Kurt Crenwelge And then she woke up outside the cave and just started wandering along the river. And it's been some time, but she eventually has found her way here to the end by the by the river. And so she's just looking around confused and she's just don't know. She's just she feels like she's out of place, even when she sees there's other spirits and she sees other halflings. So she's definitely in a place of she's she's looking and feeling very confused and conflicted. 01:11:31.24 Tyler Kamstra Alright, I as Tobias will sit down at the table across from you and gently nudge the cup in front of you a little bit closer say, think I remember you. 01:11:44.27 Tyler Kamstra You're one of the halflings. I remember you being alive recently, though. What happened? 01:11:51.87 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Yeah, I i was and was on my adventure. i we were I was with a party. we had left town, and we walked ah three days and nights to get to the the goblin hideout, and we're the wizard set off a trap, and then the last thing I knew was I was having to fight my way out of there, and then... 01:12:18.87 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, then everything went cold and dark and I was being dragged away and my friends were running off screaming the other direction. And she like holds the drink and she's like, why didn't they come back for me? 01:12:33.93 Tyler Kamstra Ah, well, listen, i am a river spirit of very little wisdom. I can tell you about rivers and I can tell you about spirits and really only those two things. 01:12:47.02 Tyler Kamstra And I can't tell you what is in the spirits of adventurers. But I do see a lot of you folk come through this way. And, you know, stuff happens. 01:13:02.06 Tyler Kamstra That's all I got for you. but Look, I make spirits, not wisdoms. So, ah tough break, kid. 01:13:14.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, i was going to say that sounds like a ah persuasion check that maybe doesn't go quite as well, like a critical fail. And she's just kind of taking it now. She's like kind of sullen and sad, but she, you know, she accepts the she accepts the cup of the spirit. 01:13:28.77 Kurt Crenwelge And so she goes to the motion of drinking it, thinking it's not going to work. But for whatever fey wild magic ish reason, she's able to like interact with the cup and bring it to her lips. 01:13:40.73 Kurt Crenwelge And she gets a surprise look on her face like she can taste it. And then she's like smacking her lips and she's like, you know, what ah would have been her tongue? And she's like trying to get notes or hints. 01:13:51.93 Kurt Crenwelge And she's looking around at the scene. Maybe her eyes are kind of sparking up a little bit as she's like, she's getting brave or she's like, you know, finding revelry and she's finding happiness and joy and, you know, like the easygoingness of a river. 01:14:04.44 Kurt Crenwelge And so then she's like, oh, I, remember, or this tastes like. And so she starts describing like intangible things like what are sorts of intangible Feywild sorts of things that Tobias would bring into making these spirits that she would taste. 01:14:22.71 Tyler Kamstra ah ah The feeling of putting your feet- yeah The feeling of putting your hot, weary feet into a cool river. 01:14:34.31 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Yeah. Okay. So she gets that sensation and she, she starts to laugh and maybe she starts to go off on telling a story about like how she used to go down to the, the pond and the Hamlet where all she and her, her 10 eyes family clan lived. 01:14:51.31 Kurt Crenwelge And so she starts recounting like something about like a like a pleasant summer day of like just spending it by the pond and the river um with her with her cousins and her kin and just having a good time. 01:15:03.33 Kurt Crenwelge She takes another sip and maybe like some other aspect or thing is coming to her mind. What what else is she getting notes of or tasting? 01:15:12.26 Tyler Kamstra um 01:15:15.85 Tyler Kamstra watching the sun go down over like a just a rolling distant field ah from the comfort of your own front door 01:15:31.56 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, probably another memory like with her with her parents and ah them just trying to like really instill in her like this like this is our life. like It's idyllic. It's a quiet hamlet. We farm. We're simple people. 01:15:44.95 Kurt Crenwelge But there was that rage or whatever inside of Sari and she like felt like there was more to her. She felt conflicted. She was like, I know I'm tough and I can do this stuff, but like she wasn't obviously built that way and she just couldn't make... 01:15:58.35 Kurt Crenwelge sense of why she was or what she was, but at least she has the memory to think of like her parents. And so in this moment, she's able to like recall the, the faces of her parents, uh, before she really, that was like the last time she like really had a good heart to heart with them before she went off on her adventure. 01:16:14.57 Kurt Crenwelge And maybe like the final third sip, she feels like herself coming to acceptance of accepting her death and getting ready on her journey of purgatory onto the afterlife. She takes that last sip. 01:16:25.22 Kurt Crenwelge What's the last note or thing that she's picking up 01:16:29.60 Tyler Kamstra uh the last note um 01:16:36.83 Tyler Kamstra something that would be personally comforting for her so like the feeling the feeling of her favorite acts like the comforting weight in her hand as she travels 01:16:52.40 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, ah she she reaches over to like the spiritual ah manifestation of like what her acts felt like. And, you know, her mind cinematically flashes back to like when she first got this act, she found like, um you know, the one dwarven adventurer who stopped by their their Hamlet and just was like he tossed this axe around thinking like oh this is garbage I gotta this is a mundane one I've got like a magic one now and just kind of toss it off into the ah side of a road but she was following and she snuck up and she took it and she held it in her hands and she doesn't know why but she loved this and this is the one that she kept with ah herself and you know 01:17:33.03 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe that was like her first ah ominous sign from the gods that should have been. This was not what you should have done, but she couldn't help it. She loved it. And that's what she wanted. And so she finally you know has that moment of realization of acceptance and maybe like tears starting spectral tears in her eyes um as she's finally coming to this acceptance and like this this time and so she starts to really finish the drink and she can feel herself like feeling that sense of of comfort of peace and she's getting ready to you know face the purgatorial road on to judgment and to figure out where she's going to end up after all said and done but 01:18:12.82 Kurt Crenwelge She looks over at Tobias. She can see other spirits that have like, like her, like taking their sips and they're moving on and disappearing. Some that are lingering longer and the halflings are all bustling about, but she's looking over for Tobias for like some last words of wisdom, even though he said he's not one of wisdom. 01:18:29.48 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, but she's just kind of looking to him like a friend in this moment. And she's just going to maybe say something the effect of like, Maybe, you know, it was maybe would my mama told me things about like bad lucks and bad signs. 01:18:36.94 Tyler Kamstra Uh... 01:18:42.02 Kurt Crenwelge And I should have listened to her when I joined up with this group of adventures. But, you know, maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe it brought me to this place and to this drink and to remembering those things about my life that were good when I thought for so long that maybe things weren't good. 01:18:57.52 Kurt Crenwelge But i don't know, friend, is there any last thing that you can tell me before I feel like I need to go? 01:19:03.93 Tyler Kamstra ah 01:19:08.92 Tyler Kamstra Now my wisdom as Tyler is failing me. ah I don't know what the drinks are like in heaven, but I hear they're good. 01:19:18.81 Kurt Crenwelge I think that that that makes her smile and start to laugh. And the tears, the tears are still there, but I think she's laughing and she's remembering her halfling gods and the teachings and sayings. 01:19:30.70 Kurt Crenwelge And she gets that courage that she needs. So she finishes the drink. She turns the glass upside down. She gets up to start walking and then she just dissolves through the wall. And as the scene closes and the camera is like on Tobias, how does, how is he thinking? What's he feeling? What's he saying in this moment now that sorry, 10 eyes has now passed on. 01:19:52.48 Tyler Kamstra ah Tobias will reach over to her cup, lift it up ever so slightly, and ah a a fluorescently colored butterfly flies out from under the cup. 01:20:04.78 Tyler Kamstra And he looks into the cup and says to himself, one in ten, still one in ten after all these years, and puts it down, gets up, goes back to the still. 01:20:22.44 Kurt Crenwelge And scene. So there we go. There was sorry, 10 eyes, probably maybe her first and only appearance, but then Tobias. So what did you think it was like getting to be a Tobias? 01:20:33.30 Kurt Crenwelge And I, maybe you're not the most, uh, uh, you know, you're not like a voice actor or something like that. 01:20:38.16 Tyler Kamstra No. 01:20:38.29 Kurt Crenwelge You're an engineer guy, but you were able to DM a wonderful NPC. And so how was that? How was that like? 01:20:45.14 Tyler Kamstra um Gosh. ah Okay. Have you seen Arrested Development? 01:20:51.30 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 01:20:52.08 Tyler Kamstra Okay. So I was trying so hard to not just default to Tobias Fumke. 01:20:52.98 Kurt Crenwelge Most of it. 01:20:57.25 Tyler Kamstra Okay. 01:20:59.95 Tyler Kamstra ah just In my head, I'm blue David Cross. It's like, no, you can't do a David Cross impression. You don't know how to do that. 01:21:07.39 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, well, now part of me has just thought of the perfect gif to promote this episode. 01:21:08.56 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 01:21:12.54 Tyler Kamstra Beautiful. 01:21:13.06 Kurt Crenwelge It's just going to be him in the shower crying in the blue because he's a water spirit. 01:21:15.42 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. ah 01:21:18.14 Kurt Crenwelge He's a river spirit. 01:21:18.35 Tyler Kamstra yeah 01:21:18.98 Kurt Crenwelge You know, 01:21:21.37 Tyler Kamstra beautiful 01:21:22.60 Kurt Crenwelge you know Oh, and we went from cozy, spooky to blue David Cross crying in the shower from Arrested Development. 01:21:29.34 Tyler Kamstra yes 01:21:31.91 Kurt Crenwelge We've run the gamut. 01:21:33.30 Tyler Kamstra Yep. Honestly, that is that is what it's like when I run a game. just Just no matter what it is, it always devolves into just comical silliness. And I love that. 01:21:44.76 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and I think we love that in our games too. You gotta have you gotta have some silliness with with the serious, which is what a good Feywild character should do is inject a little bit of silliness, a little bit of fairy tale, a little bit of like you know trickster, haunting, sort of otherworldly vibes. It can go either way, good and bad. 01:22:04.35 Kurt Crenwelge um But yeah, should be a little bit of levity and injection of a um of differentness in an otherwise mundane world. Yeah. 01:22:12.23 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 01:22:12.64 Kurt Crenwelge I love Tobias and I love the Inn by the River and the Halflings and the Spirits. And I think that's really cool. I think we made something really special. And especially since it's Halloween time, I really hope that ah maybe maybe someone running a ah spooky, cozy one-shot might be inspired and would love to hear you all talk about it and ah you know share it online, social media, tag us both and tell us how your cozy, spooky one-shot went with ah Tobias the Nyad. 01:22:42.49 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So, you know, this is the the final thoughts section of the show. So I always like to just, you know, check in with the guest and, you know, see how your time was on the podcast and get your notes and your feedback and all that stuff before we do the final wrap up. So, yeah, just, you know, just looking for a big brother advice and feedback from the more senior creative here from the Internet. Yeah. 01:23:05.40 Tyler Kamstra ah This was a good time. ah The format is fun. i liked ah i like that you have the structure of like how you're building the NPCs and you have the random tables to throw in some surprises so I'm not just coming in ah like the loaded with an NPC that I already had. 01:23:23.95 Tyler Kamstra Like, I never would have created Tobias intentionally. 01:23:26.99 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:23:27.50 Tyler Kamstra Like, I never would have landed on that. um That's one of the reasons I love random tables so much, because, like, the ideas are there. I can put something together, but, like, you get me rolling with the random tables, and I'm going to come up with something that's so much more novel than than something that I could get if I just stared at a blank sheet of paper for long enough until something fell out. So like the format works, the random tables are good. 01:23:51.64 Tyler Kamstra I love that your Patreon supporters are contributing ideas like, yeah, it works. 01:23:57.99 Kurt Crenwelge Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And, you know, sometimes you go through life and every once in a while, you know, you do stumble upon a Tobias, the river spirit in some shape or form. 01:24:09.94 Kurt Crenwelge There may only be one of them in the world, but the fact that they're there means something special. ah You know that they were they were put there they were created and they they inhabit that space and they make it their own and they bring joy and wonder to the world and when we all are so caught up in our day to day and the news and the mundane and whatever else it's just nice to be able to be surprised once in a while by the people that are in the world. 01:24:35.10 Tyler Kamstra yeah yeah 01:24:36.13 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:24:36.50 Tyler Kamstra Yeah. 01:24:37.76 Kurt Crenwelge So we're here. It's the final thoughts. It's the point now where I give the microphone, the stage and the soapbox over to you, Tyler, and whatever you've got to plug. 01:24:48.09 Kurt Crenwelge Where can people find you online? Any passions or projects or causes we need to be made aware of? Let us know. This is your time to shine. 01:24:56.12 Tyler Kamstra Sure. Well, you'll find me on RPGBot.net. You'll find me on TikTok, RPG, B-O-T, D-O-T, N-E-T, because almost everywhere I go, RPGBot is taken. 01:25:08.52 Tyler Kamstra Apparently, the acronym RPGBot means something in several East Asian languages, which was a fun thing to find out, like, years after I picked it. i So yeah, RPG, B-O-T, D-O-T, N-E-T, and then BlueSkyRPGBot.net. 01:25:24.55 Kurt Crenwelge Awesome. Well, Tyler, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. I can't wait to have you back on making even more interesting NPCs. 01:25:34.45 Tyler Kamstra Sounds good.