00:00:04.60 Kurt Crenwelge Hello and welcome to another month's exciting episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best unofficial Dungeons and Dragons podcast, in my humbly biased opinion. 00:00:16.54 Kurt Crenwelge I have a wonderful guest for you this month, but before we figure out who that mystery contestant is going to be today, i have to do it. I have to leave you in suspense with the ad read. 00:00:27.97 Kurt Crenwelge insert here transcription readers where i talk about uh rpg zine club and plus one exp uh tony vicenda is great and there's uh this whole emerging culture of uh of brand new indie ttrpgs being developed so if you're interested in a zine each month uh you should check it out uh new and emerging creators um you know a variety of voices up and coming folks and ah veterans all that good stuff uh and if you go to plus one exp.com use the code randolph uh when you buy a beard balm a lip balm or a beard themed rpg and 00:01:08.47 Kurt Crenwelge um then you'll help support me as well as supporting the sponsor. So again, thanks for that. I think I've rambled enough. Back to the show. All right. And ah well, I mean, ah i have a cup of coffee here. 00:01:24.38 Kurt Crenwelge And when I'm recording this, it's like in the wee hours, ah morning, early hours. But ah through the magic and the mystery and the wibbly wobbly, as ah as a certain doctor might say of time, I'm joined by an illustrious mystery contestant. So without further ado, hello, would you care to introduce yourself? Tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do? 00:01:51.12 Jess What an introduction. um i am Jess aka Plot Girl. I'm a professional dungeon master in London, but I'm a Kiwi. So that is my origin. And that is what I do. 00:02:03.51 Kurt Crenwelge So from New Zealand, but then you decided to move to the UK. 00:02:09.97 Jess Absolutely. It was during COVID. um And the borders closed and I was a flight attendant and i was like, I need to get out of here. I don't want to be caged in. So I moved to the UK. 00:02:21.05 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. So you traded the the, the scenic landscapes of middle earth and then just moved into Tolkien's backyard is what you've done. 00:02:31.58 Jess Yeah, exactly. and it's so beautiful here. I could never go back. 00:02:37.11 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, that is that's the first, because I know I'm like, oh, New Zealand, I want to go take a vacation there and go visit. I know it's across the the planet, across a humongous ocean, which I've flown over at least once going to Hawaii, and even that's not the full way. 00:02:47.51 Jess Yeah. 00:02:54.71 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like, you know, kudos to the Maori people for being able to like navigate that entire stretch of ocean, because it's like that's a lot of water. 00:03:05.24 Jess Yeah, they're incredible. um Yeah, and London is like grey and historical and just like absolutely beautiful. it's It's really cool to be here and see like buildings that are 500 years old and like predate any of the things that you've got going on in your country, like better of active ruins or anything like that. So yeah, it's pretty cool. 00:03:30.26 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that's true. um ah Yeah, no Again, as I said, you know we are we're we're navigating like a seven-hour time difference, ah which is which is cool. I mean, I know I've done that before with our previous guest of the show. We had Mark Thompson on, um you know the developer of the Combat Wheelchair Rule System, and I know Mark is based in Sheffield, I believe. So, and you're in London. So I know at least my basic, you know, knowledge of geography tells you that Sheffield is north of London. 00:04:08.41 Jess Yes, it is. And my geography not the most. 00:04:09.55 Kurt Crenwelge Haha, the stupid American is not stupid. 00:04:15.51 Jess Yeah, if you asked me where Sheffield was, I don't think I could tell you on a map if it didn't have the words, but that's because I'm not from here, so. 00:04:23.54 Kurt Crenwelge o Although now that just has me thinking of just offhand ah because ah i think ah people of the internet are always delighted when they hear about the names of various settlements or roads. 00:04:37.69 Kurt Crenwelge um And I feel like there's got to be like a kind of interesting where you're like, oh, you know, may maybe more traditional Maori, sounding names for like streets or towns, settlements, locations and stuff like that. 00:04:51.89 Kurt Crenwelge But then you come to London and it's like, Oh, spam spamton. And you were like, really? That's the name we're going with, you know, not something cooler. And it's like, Oh, Shakespeare upon the Thames. 00:05:05.12 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, and you know, as hyphenated things are just, you know, ah you know, Lily bottom or or something like something that sounds like it's rude, but it's not necessarily rude. 00:05:13.37 Jess a 00:05:16.47 Jess ah Yeah, like back in Auckland where I'm from, we have a road called Kurangahape road. And then like coming here and you're going to areas like Ryslip or um Tottenham Court Road. And it just is like, it's so very different. 00:05:34.65 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And, uh, and so, you know, the way that we crossed paths is, you know, it was through Instagram. It was through that. And so I just, you know, ah you struck me as like a very interesting go-getter, you know, putting yourself out there on YouTube and social media. And, uh, you know, that's how a Texan and, uh, a Kiwi in London found themselves on a podcast talking about, uh, Dungeons and Dragons today. 00:06:01.21 Jess And what an amazing topic to talk about. 00:06:04.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I think it's a brilliant segue to the next question, but do you currently or have you ever played Dungeons & Dragons before? 00:06:10.71 Jess Yes, I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons for the better part of a decade, which is not as grand as some people's experience, but I came to the game a little late and I wish, like everyone, that I had started earlier, but I haven't. so um Yeah, I've been GMing for the last like six and a half years, I'd say. 00:06:29.13 Jess And I became a professional GM last year, which is not to say, i think like the difference in like paid and a professional GM is that like, I don't, I could have been doing this for money for longer, but I, to work out of a place like I do, I work at a place called Arcadia Games and they are like a, a D and D tavern in London. 00:06:44.85 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm. Ooh. 00:06:55.96 Jess um I deal with so many different tables every night. Like I'll have a new set of people, a new story. It's West March's style. And you've always got to be on your game. Like you can't, you're not telling the same story twice. You're not, you've never got the same players twice in the same um grouping. So yeah, you just got to be on your game. And I love it. It keeps me really like mentally awake because I have to be like constantly adjusting and Yeah. 00:07:27.22 Jess Yeah. I love my job. 00:07:29.40 Kurt Crenwelge So it's a West Marches style game, but you know, it's a whole a D and D tavern in London, which again, that just sounds cool to say out loud. um ah But if so is it kind of like a Brennan Lee Mulligan situation with what we got with campaign four where it's like, is it only just you or is it you and like a whole team and like the world of the game is living and breathing. So depending on who comes that night, you have to take into account like, well, what happened yesterday? 00:08:01.11 Kurt Crenwelge oh the Medusa was slain. Okay, well, we have to remember that if the next group wants to go in or, oh, you know, the Gorgon was not defeated. Okay, well, it's still spewing out its petrification breath. 00:08:14.06 Kurt Crenwelge So adventurers better take heed before they go charging in willy-nilly sort of a thing. 00:08:15.06 Jess Yeah. 00:08:20.12 Jess Yeah, that's exactly it. It's um we've got a team of GMs. So I'm one of like 15, I'd say. um And we run like these overarching stories, but in the fashion where you could drop in and drop out and either be invested quite heavily in the law So some people come like four or five times a week and they'll be really hot. And you've got to be really hot on the lore as well, because they're going to be finding out things from different dungeon masters who might be giving them like slightly different information or, um, 00:08:51.10 Jess like riffing a little bit. So um yeah, but that's probably like the biggest challenge is like when when a dungeon master creatively gives them something in the narrative that is not there and then you have to ah decide what that looks like for you and how much you lean into that. 00:08:53.30 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:09:10.76 Jess Like I remember one person having a, being in like a dungeon crawl and they asked about a mosaic on a wall that I didn't have in my notes. And um the previous GM had described it as this like quite intricate motif that um gave a lot away about some of the founders in the setting. 00:09:33.40 Jess And I just had to keep asking questions because I was like, i I'm not going to let her know that I don't know what she's talking about, but I also do not have that information. 00:09:33.66 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:09:43.03 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I was, well, I was going to say that's where I guess the fog of war comes into play where it's like, oh, some scholars say it's like this, but other scholars say it's like this. So the truth must be somewhere in the middle. 00:09:53.56 Jess Yeah. Somewhere between, yeah. Absolutely. 00:09:56.95 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. That's exciting. So yeah. So you have groupies that come in like every day, like they're like, let's go, we're ready to adventure. And then, you know, you have the mom and dads that are only able to come in like maybe once a week or every other week. 00:10:11.16 Kurt Crenwelge And so they come in and they're like, what did you all do now? It's like, what like, you've already cleared a dungeon or two already. Like leave some for the rest of us. 00:10:19.93 Jess yeah It's amazing. Like I will, see I will look in the discord cause we have a discord and like some of the chats that I see happening about what they've done. I'm like, Oh my God, you guys are so committed and you have like done such an amazing job. And then like, and they're like the most far-fetched stories as well, like totally chaos coded. 00:10:41.82 Jess um Yeah. it It's, it's a lot of fun. And I think it's really fun to have a table full of people who, do know the law and don't know the law. And there's like a mix of, 00:10:56.22 Jess and it's like it's like a it's like Whispers, right? Like a game of Whispers where it gets misconstrued along the way and everyone has a little piece of the puzzle that doesn't quite match. 00:11:07.22 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, I love this. How ah how different cultures express like what we what I would have grown you know grown up ah growing up. They would have called that, oh, the game of telephone. 00:11:17.75 Kurt Crenwelge And then I think, you know, critical role set like narrative telephone, but game of whispers whisper sounds cool. 00:11:18.98 Jess Oh. 00:11:23.83 Kurt Crenwelge I like that. But yeah, like growing up, it'd be like the game of telephone where one kid has to like whisper into the next car kid's ear. 00:11:30.65 Jess Yeah. 00:11:31.32 Kurt Crenwelge And as it works its way down the line, you're like the monkey was in a tuxedo. You're like, I don't understand. 00:11:36.28 Jess Yeah. 00:11:37.10 Kurt Crenwelge yeah yeah perfect and is this a unique uh location in a business in a place that that can be found in london or in the in the entirety of the the uk the the aisles over there or have you heard of this kind of existing in other places and so you all team up with like other shops and stuff like that and know 00:11:37.69 Jess Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:11:52.50 Jess There are quite a few 00:12:00.60 Jess We have quite a few different establishments in London, like there are places like the Arcanist Tavern, RPG um tables and things like that. Like, so we've got quite a few. 00:12:12.31 Jess um i dont is Is that the same in the States? Do you guys have like D&D taverns where people come in and play D&D? 00:12:19.16 Kurt Crenwelge um Well, I mean, they have game stores, so there will be like hobby shops or game stores. So like where, you know, people can go and get magic, the gathering cards, they can get comic books, they can get the latest board games and, or, oh, we're going to play Warhammer 40,000 over here, do this. 00:12:30.01 Jess okay 00:12:37.42 Kurt Crenwelge And it's like, oh yeah, then here's the people who run like Dungeons and Dragons. But I think there are some unique businesses I've seen. where it's like they exclusively cater to Dungeons and Dragons. 00:12:48.30 Kurt Crenwelge And it's, you know, they're trying to evoke the theme of like, hey, we could be like a medieval tavern too. But it's like, but London actually has like the literal history and the buildings where you're like, if you dig down, you know, 15 feet, to there's bones underneath this place sort of a thing. 00:13:06.78 Jess Yeah, yeah. um yeah Yeah, we have those stores as well. We have a lot of those stores, some really good stores as well. But yeah, they're they're like proper taverns. You go into the go upstairs, there's a bar. it's It's very sweet, like a tavern. And then you go into the upstairs rooms, which are themed and look all cute and cozy. So some of ours will be like the forest room or the observation room. um the mountain rune, things like that. um 00:13:38.17 Jess And yeah, you get to play D&D. So we don't really sell anything apart from like food and drink and the experience of playing D&D. 00:13:45.02 Kurt Crenwelge I see. I see. Well, this just has me in my head going down memory lane because the last time i was in London, i was in college, what you would say university, in my undergraduate years. And I did a study abroad trip over to my my university's sister school, which was Harriet Watt University up in Edinburgh. 00:14:07.77 Kurt Crenwelge So like for the first two weeks we were like there in Edinburgh. 00:14:08.10 Jess Oh, beautiful. beautiful 00:14:11.78 Kurt Crenwelge And so we were doing stuff all and around up there in the far North in Scotland, which I like to think of as like the Texas of UK. So it's like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of synergy between Scotsman and Texans. 00:14:23.59 Kurt Crenwelge We're very, we're very like, um, and then we went South and then we were able to like spend some time in London. Then we went over to, uh, Paris and then we went over and then we went down to Verona and Venice, but, 00:14:37.98 Kurt Crenwelge I do recall, you know, being like, oh, I'm back in London. Haven't been back here since my dad was in the Air Force and we were stationed in West Germany when Germany was still divided. 00:14:41.93 Jess Thank 00:14:49.10 Kurt Crenwelge ah and ah and And so I got to stop at the, ah you know, proud piece of Texas history is the fact that Texas was its own country before we joined the United States of America. And so there is an old historical building in London where you can find the Texas embassy and then they conveniently have like a Tex-Mex sort of a restaurant nearby so if you haven't checked it out I don't know if I can speak to the authenticity of the actual Tex-Mex food but you can get a margarita you can have like some nachos and a burrito or something 00:15:22.71 Jess Where is this? do you remember what like area this was? 00:15:28.06 Kurt Crenwelge I don't. You probably could just Google Texas embassy and then it'll probably show you like a Tex-Mex restaurant. Maybe it's your morning there. If you're like, you're going to chat with your girlfriends and be like, let's go get some margaritas and some nachos over at the Texas embassy today. 00:15:47.06 Jess Over in St. James. Oh, how interesting. I've never heard of that before. 00:15:52.09 Kurt Crenwelge Well, there you go. 00:15:52.06 Jess I don't like my... 00:15:52.81 Kurt Crenwelge It's a piece of American, American, ah Texas history that I'm just imparting to you today for free. 00:16:00.15 Jess Ah, well I'll have to check it out next time I'm near St. James. 00:16:03.36 Kurt Crenwelge Well, there you go. And ah yeah, so with this podcast ah being you know all about sidekicks and side quests, I like to ask the first one of these, which is, ah who happens to be your favorite NPC or sidekick character, whether they be from you know RPGs, video games, movie film, television, literature, and et cetera? 00:16:04.70 Jess Very cool. 00:16:25.34 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this character your favorite NPC or sidekick? 00:16:30.87 Jess Oh my gosh, that's so tough. My mind has just raced through like a million different movies and I'm trying to think of one. I keep thinking of like people that I love, but I know they're not NPCs. I mean, isn't who is an NPC in a movie? Because they all they all have 00:16:45.46 Kurt Crenwelge Well, it would be a side character. So it's not someone who's going to be one of the main protagonists, but there'll be a side character. Like there'll be, you'll see them on the screen, but in like a D and D sense, you would know that like, oh, um I'm trying to think of like a movie I recently saw. Like it was, I think what was the last movie that I saw? 00:17:05.15 Kurt Crenwelge Howell's moving castle was on. So it's like, okay, um like the little boy assistant wizard for Howell, like I would consider him an NPC. 00:17:07.33 Jess Mm-hmm. 00:17:16.06 Kurt Crenwelge Whereas like, you know, um you know, you know, the the lady who gets cursed or how those are like, you know, main characters, maybe even like the witch of the wilds might be considered an NPC or the turnip turnip head who then has to become back a man again. 00:17:34.49 Jess Okay, I have one but I think it's gonna be really bad and I think you're gonna say that's not an NPC. 00:17:41.24 Kurt Crenwelge Well, it's sidekick character as well. Like it's NPC slash sidekick character. 00:17:46.94 Jess Okay. um You can... Yeah, okay. Who I've chosen is purely because I don't think she got enough screen time, but I will say that later on she did. So this is the earlier iterations of her character. 00:18:01.88 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:18:01.98 Jess um but I know that this is going to be like a terrible answer. It's got to be Wanda from Avengers. 00:18:11.77 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. 00:18:11.96 Jess But... 00:18:12.29 Kurt Crenwelge So like one Wanda, Wanda Maximoff, Scarlet Witch. 00:18:16.22 Jess Yes, but like she is a smaller character for most of the movies. See, it's a bad answer. 00:18:22.30 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. I mean, I can see that argument. I mean, it's like, yeah, it's like with any story, it's like, okay, so she's treated as like an NPC or a sidekick character in, you know, the first couple of Avengers movies. 00:18:35.03 Kurt Crenwelge But then eventually, you know, she gets WandaVision and, you know, some of the other stuff. 00:18:38.10 Jess yeah 00:18:39.51 Kurt Crenwelge And okay, so she's more of a mainline character now. So she makes the transition from sidekick to front and center, which, you know, that's fine. Yeah. 00:18:49.75 Jess I've had another thought, actually, a better one. 00:18:52.60 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, ah like which Dracula movie? 00:18:52.62 Jess Lucy Westenborough from Dracula. 00:18:58.50 Kurt Crenwelge I know there's a couple. 00:19:00.22 Jess um The one, not the most recent one, the Gary Oldman Bram Stoker's Dracula. 00:19:05.82 Kurt Crenwelge I know of that one. I don't think I've actually ever watched it. 00:19:10.30 Jess Oh, okay. Lucy is like Mina's best friend and is turned by Dracula. 00:19:14.40 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:19:16.79 Jess She's a little bit more of a sidekick and I just think she's She's iconic. She's got such a great like vibe. She's so funny and free and vivacious and then becomes quite a an important part of the plot later on, but never really graduates, I think, from sidekick. 00:19:32.48 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. Mm. 00:19:34.70 Jess But I think ah Mina, who is a little bit more of a is Is the term Mary Sue? um I think she is a little bit... I don't know. It should have been about Lucy. 00:19:47.22 Jess Lucy's so great. 00:19:50.42 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. Yeah, but I like that answer. And then, ah you know, and then as well, we like to ask about side quests or B plot elements. So what happens to be one of your favorite of those? Again, it could be from an RPG, a video game, movie, film, literature, etc. 00:20:06.68 Kurt Crenwelge And, ah you know, why is this your favorite B plot? Why is it your favorite side quest? 00:20:13.39 Jess Oh, okay. 00:20:20.08 Jess Is there in a movie, if it's a side quest, isn't that just part of the the plot and then it becomes like part of the main quest? 00:20:32.82 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I mean, ah like D&D Honor Among Thieves, like the whole idea of them having to go into the Underdark to get this Helm of Displacement, I mean, technically is a side quest. 00:20:43.36 Jess Oh yeah. 00:20:45.72 Kurt Crenwelge And they're like, oh, it's absolutely necessary for us as part of our heist ah plot. I mean, you could do a heist any number of ways, but they're dead set on, well, we need to get this Helm of Disruption. So, okay, well, now we have to go do the Underdark part of our story, which is a side quest to get this one specific magic item for our plan. 00:21:07.88 Jess Okay, that's actually a really good example. And now I don't think I'm going to be able to like come up with anything that's better than the example you've given. um 00:21:20.41 Jess I don't... 00:21:21.14 Kurt Crenwelge Could be a television show. I mean, well, I mean, a series, I guess, as you say over there. 00:21:27.97 Jess I think anything like... So my favorite TV series is Community. I think it's so great. Have you seen it? 00:21:33.46 Kurt Crenwelge o yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:21:34.57 Jess Yeah. 00:21:34.64 Kurt Crenwelge The community was definitely something that I binged early on in the pandemic years. 00:21:40.54 Jess Okay. um And so for me, all of the side quests in Community become part of the main plot eventually. I feel like there's so much set up in the writing where um things that are small become much bigger. Like the episode with the arsecrack bandit, I think, is so... 00:22:01.65 Jess It's genius. It's so clever. um And you know, okay, I'm going to say as ah for like a side quest thing, um reuniting um that father and son combo in the second D&D episode of Community is like, is a side quest in my mind because they don't set out, like they set out to like restore this relationship. 00:22:32.54 Jess um I don't know. Can I say that? That's what I want to claim. I want to claim that that's my side quest that I love is any of that D&D stuff. 00:22:42.10 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:22:42.46 Jess even Even with Neil as well. 00:22:45.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:22:45.74 Jess Oh, this is a really bad answer. sorry 00:22:48.18 Kurt Crenwelge No, it's fine. I mean, I, I have a, I've a, I'm just going through my mind of all the interesting answers I've been, ah that I've received for that question. And probably one of the, uh, the favorite ones is, uh, you know, the, the guest I had, um, was not a D and D player, but she was like, Oh, 00:23:07.48 Kurt Crenwelge I like in Finding Nemo when they go bouncing on all the jellyfish. She's like, I just really love that part of the movie. It's not part of the main plot. And it's just like a silly fun thing that they do. 00:23:19.29 Kurt Crenwelge ah You know, it sort of moves the story forward a little bit, but like, it's just like a nice moment of like, yeah, Marlon and Dory like bouncing around all the jellyfish and stuff like that. 00:23:20.46 Jess That's really cute. That's nice. 00:23:30.35 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:23:31.70 Jess I wish I had a better answer. I think at six in the morning, I'm struggling to even think of the last movie I saw. um But it'll have to be something from community. 00:23:42.60 Kurt Crenwelge That's fine. 00:23:42.58 Jess The writing is just too good. 00:23:44.60 Kurt Crenwelge It, it, it, well, it's Dan Harmon. So, you know, it's, it's dang good writing. 00:23:49.05 Jess yeah Yeah, he's amazing. 00:23:53.37 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. And then the way that we will ah round out the personal interview section of this episode, ah Jess, what are you passionate about and why? 00:24:06.78 Jess I am passionate about Dungeons and Dragons and TTRPGs and getting women plus into them. So when I say that, I do mean the umbrella of women, so my trans folk, my non-binary pals, um I am passionate about making seats at the table free up for them. 00:24:27.54 Jess um I recently started a ladies night where I work at Arcadia and it was so incredibly amazing and successful and was so freeing and I just had the absolute best time and that will now be recurring event um where we try and get as many women plus to the table. 00:24:52.25 Kurt Crenwelge Very cool. I mean, you know, maybe it's a, it's a show of my age or just the culture in America, but you know, you, you talk about ladies night it's like, Oh, yeah, come on down to ladies' night, half-price drinks while you, you know, dance and boogie-oogie and all that stuff. 00:25:08.49 Kurt Crenwelge But no, we're rolling dice, we're fighting monsters, we're we're we're slaying, we're doing all the stuff. 00:25:11.01 Jess Yeah, 00:25:14.84 Jess we can roll dice with the boys. And I think that it's important that terms like ladies night, which has certainly some, I don't know, some connotations to it, can be applied to something um 00:25:30.33 Jess can be applied to something like Dungeons and Dragons, which is so heavily male dominated. Yeah. 00:25:36.76 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. I mean, you're not you're not wrong. I mean, I'm not going to disagree with you on that. um But no, that's cool that you're working to you know to do that, to be ah an advocate and a voice and you know just to remind people that it's like, hey, the game's for everyone and we want to make this night special. 00:25:54.14 Jess yeah 00:25:56.06 Kurt Crenwelge And so you're invited and let's have some fun. you know Don't be scared. The water's fine. Sort of a thing. 00:26:02.42 Jess Exactly. i think stories are better for having women in them. And I will often find if if a movie doesn't have a lot of female leads, I won't watch it. like Just because i I can't relate to some of the stories sometimes, which maybe sounds a bit narrow, but um I want to see the representation and it doesn't have to be ticking any boxes or anything like that but as a world we are so diverse with so many different walks of life and so many different people in it and their different experiences I just think that I want to see more stories and I want women in them 00:26:44.84 Kurt Crenwelge Beautifully said. And now that we've made it through the personal interview section, I think it's time to head into some NPC creation. 00:27:01.46 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience and our patrons from Patreon. So now's the time of the show where we give a shout out and a loud hurrah, um, to our comfortable patrons and above. So to our wealthy tier patrons, uh, answer Jablinski and good old mom and dad, we say cheers. 00:27:21.50 Kurt Crenwelge Um, So again, the folks that I just named, you know, I said they were wealthy tier, which means they get to introduce an element of chance. So we might get to hear some of their responses used today if we're going to roll some dice and randomly generate an NPC today. Who knows? We don't know at this point, but we shall soon know. 00:27:39.00 Kurt Crenwelge And if you want to learn more about what we've got waiting in store for you in the Patreon and all that, Um, you know, we got lots of freebie folks hanging out. Hey, you're welcome. Um, but you know, you can support the podcast in a in that way, Kofi, any number of ways, uh, that we certainly appreciate. So if you want to learn more, go to the podcast website, go to the show notes below, or just go directly to patrion.com forward slash. 00:28:05.16 Kurt Crenwelge sidekicks and sidequests and find out about all the tiers of patronage we got waiting for you help us to grow and expand our operations of the levitating platter in this demi plane and worlds beyond so technically did not ask you this before we started hitting all the record buttons but uh do you what are you What are you wanting to do today as far as an NPC is concerned? do you have like an idea you're bringing to us? Are you purely wanting to roll the dice? 00:28:32.79 Kurt Crenwelge Or is it going to be like mix and match situation where you're like, well, I have an idea of like these things, but for the rest of it, we can you know leave it up to chance sort of a thing. 00:28:43.46 Jess I have one in mind, but then the idea of rolling for chance sounds really great. So um do you have the tables? If I say like rolled for... 00:28:50.81 Kurt Crenwelge I do, yes. I have all my tables. 00:28:52.24 Jess Amazing. 00:28:52.89 Kurt Crenwelge We'll walk through each question and I'll tell you which dice to roll. 00:28:56.44 Jess Great. Then I would love to randomize it. 00:28:59.58 Kurt Crenwelge All right. a random dice roll kind of an episode today. Perfect. So without further ado. Okay. So I'm going to make some notes and adjustments and away we go. So the first thing to roll for is going to be the name of our character. And the way we do that is we roll a d20. 00:29:23.43 Jess I got a seven. 00:29:24.73 Kurt Crenwelge You got a seven and your answer was provided to us today by good pal Hank Dean doodles ah Anton stodgy. 00:29:38.17 Jess Don't stop. 00:29:38.36 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, stod. Well, let's ah let's of course it's like I have it way over there on that screen and then I need my eyes to see it. Where is the view? I'm just going to zoom in this thing really big. Okay, there we go. Anton. 00:29:54.98 Kurt Crenwelge soglee Okay, so A-N-T-O-N, first name, and then last name, S-T-O-D-G-L-E-Y. 00:30:05.46 Jess That's got to be Stodgely. Anton Stodgely. 00:30:07.25 Kurt Crenwelge Stodgely. Okay, so Anton Stodgely is the name we are working with today. all right. 00:30:12.68 Jess Incredible. 00:30:14.33 Kurt Crenwelge And let's see, next thing. What's the ancestry of the character? Now this, we get to roll two D10s for a D100 effect. 00:30:24.73 Jess Okay, we've got six. 00:30:27.48 Kurt Crenwelge Just six and six, just six. 00:30:29.88 Jess Just six. 00:30:30.90 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Well, you've got a choice. um So the category is gnome, darrow, or zvart. So of course, with gnomes, you have the forest, rock, deep slash sverbalan, or the auto gnomes. 00:30:40.75 Jess Okay. 00:30:46.87 Kurt Crenwelge And then the darrow are like the small folk in the underdark. And then the zvart are like the dark, ah I think they're the dark fey creatures, but basically we're looking at small dudes and it's like, you want a gnome guy, Darrow guy or a Zvart guy? 00:31:05.43 Jess I want to go with a little forest gnome. I think that would be super cute. 00:31:08.60 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. A force gnome. Okay. Anton Stodgely. right. 00:31:12.45 Jess Yep. 00:31:13.18 Kurt Crenwelge And then, ah okay. ah Jaw. Okay. Now we get to roll for the occupation, the job or role in society. This is just a regular D10. 00:31:22.24 Jess Yep. One. 00:31:23.81 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Okay. Your answer ah provided to us by the hosts of the Dispel Magic podcast, good old Dane Fox McGraw and Benjamin Huffman. ah So Anton Stodgely is a Tensor's train operator. 00:31:39.86 Kurt Crenwelge So hopefully not too many folks are having to go and do homework, but... um the The premise of Dispel Magic is they examine the magic of the D&D spells and they try and work to be like, take the spells to their logical conclusions of like, well, if we're in a world where this spell exists, how would people use it? 00:32:01.75 Kurt Crenwelge And so ah the when they did the episode on Tensor's floating disc, I guess based on the rules or of what they came up with, they were like, Oh, people could string a bunch of these like tensors floating discs together. 00:32:16.50 Kurt Crenwelge And then they become like a train system or like carts or basically you can use them for movement of goods and stuff because tensors floating disc will hold a lot of weight and it doesn't take up, you know, that much room or effort or something. 00:32:21.47 Jess Ah. 00:32:31.30 Kurt Crenwelge So, 00:32:32.09 Jess Well, that makes sense. He's tiny, so he doesn't take up much space on one of those. 00:32:36.92 Kurt Crenwelge So he's a tensor's train operator. So he's operating, you know, however many tensors floating disks at a time, whether it's in the city or it's out in the forest or where, wherever he is, he's operating these trains. 00:32:52.31 Jess I love it. 00:32:53.37 Kurt Crenwelge And then, okay. Oh, and then the age. ah So the age range category is a D eight. 00:33:00.85 Jess Six. 00:33:02.23 Kurt Crenwelge Elder. Okay, so Anton Stodgely definitely sounds like an elderly guy, sort of a name, but with these things in mind, so we get we know Forest Gnome, Anton Stodgely, Tensor's train operator, and he's elderly. 00:33:16.50 Kurt Crenwelge Describe the physical appearance of this man, of this little man. 00:33:21.40 Jess Okay, Anton has quite a rotund middle because he's lived quite a good comfortable life with his wife and she's fed him many pies. 00:33:30.01 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:33:29.98 Jess um He has a little bulbous nose and bright green eyes and I think that he has like ah little swath of black hair on top that's gone quite peppery. 00:33:42.81 Jess um like salt and pepper, sorry. um He's got sort of brown skin and he he dwells in the forest with his wife and they live in this little home. 00:33:53.69 Jess Have we covered the home? no do i have Do I have to roll for home or can I make that up? 00:33:57.02 Kurt Crenwelge No, I mean, it's just like whatever whatever you feel. um So they they just live in the forest. That's cool. 00:34:02.97 Jess Yeah, they live in a little tree house and I think he wears overalls most of the time because he got so used to wearing overalls for his job as a Tensor's train operator, that I think he feels most comfortable in them, and he uses them to like help with his gardening. 00:34:19.99 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say, well, overalls, you know, does he does he have a hat and he he has a little wooden whistle train whistle that he blows to let people know that the tensor's train is coming through the forest? 00:34:31.22 Jess Oh, he's so cute. I think he has a little horn that he um ah he uses, and maybe he does have hat, but I think he likes the sun on his face, so he doesn't wear it that much. 00:34:43.86 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. So he just sounds like a nice elderly band that you would find in the forest. I mean, you describe overalls. I'm here in Texas. So like, depending on if you go East Texas versus West Texas, it's like East Texas is going to be piney woods and West Texas is going to be more scrub brush and starting to get into like desert and stuff like that. so sounds He sounds more like an East Texas guy. So his his voice is starting to blend a little bit with Arkansas, a little bit with Louisiana. So you're like, is he Cajun or does he is he just firmly in East Texas is how I interpret it in my brain. 00:35:25.76 Jess Oh, that so interesting because having basically no understanding of America's, like, geography, um 00:35:35.19 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:35:36.60 Jess i just see him as living in, like, the the wilds of the Sword Coast. I don't think that he's on this plane. I think that he's in Seiru. 00:35:44.47 Kurt Crenwelge Oh yeah, no, that's totally fine. Yeah. Okay. 00:35:49.11 Jess Yeah, he just lives a simple life. 00:35:52.25 Kurt Crenwelge He lives a simple life with his with his very beautiful wife. 00:35:57.29 Jess Yeah, she's lovely. And she bakes great pies. 00:36:02.71 Kurt Crenwelge These are the best pies in the Sword Coast. You'll love them and eat them. 00:36:07.07 Jess I love Sweeney Todd. 00:36:08.63 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Is she Angela Lansbury? Very important question. Is this wife Angela Lansbury? 00:36:15.34 Jess I have no idea who that is. I'm going to look it up. 00:36:17.14 Kurt Crenwelge Well, Angela Lansbury, she's the original, ah well, I mean, she's the voice of ah Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast, and she's the original Broadway recording of ah Mrs. 00:36:23.62 Jess Oh, I know who that is. 00:36:28.74 Kurt Crenwelge Lovett from Sweeney Todd. 00:36:31.00 Jess My Mrs. Lovett is, of course, from the newer movie, so it's um Helena Bonham Carter. 00:36:34.42 Kurt Crenwelge Helena Bonham Carter, I say. 00:36:35.99 Jess Yeah. Yeah. 00:36:37.69 Kurt Crenwelge Well, you can't. Well, and then, of course, well, I mean, tangent is a tangent, of course, but one of my favorite, favorite childhood movies growing up was, of course, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which is what Angela Lansbury is the witch in that movie. 00:36:53.91 Kurt Crenwelge And she does the Triguna, McCoy, Trichorum, Sadis, Dee, and she animates all the suits of armor from the nearby museum. And then they fight the Nazis who are starting to invade the little English town. 00:37:07.00 Kurt Crenwelge And these suits of armor are just walking and like bonking Nazis over the head. 00:37:07.35 Jess Oh god. 00:37:11.99 Kurt Crenwelge And then they get scared and go run back to their yeah U-boats and stuff. 00:37:15.99 Jess I always think it's interesting to see what kind of movies people grew up on because movies that are so nostalgic for me or that I love Oftentimes people have not seen them, especially now that I live in the UK. i will talk about something and they've never heard of it, never seen it. 00:37:33.72 Jess They'll talk about Doctor Who, which was not very like big in New Zealand. And they're like aghast when I say, and know who 00:37:38.65 Kurt Crenwelge e But if I say Flight of the Conchords, you'll be like, know, you're like, enough of those guys. Like, they get all the attention. 00:37:49.11 Jess they They're our homegrown legends. Absolutely, I know who they are. 00:37:53.14 Kurt Crenwelge Well, Rise Darby, too, of course, right? 00:37:56.30 Jess Rhys, yeah. 00:37:57.30 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, Reese. Okay, well, okay. I'm i'm a dumb American. I'm sorry. 00:38:03.35 Jess No, that's so funny. I didn't know who that was before when you were talking about Angela Lansbury. So I'm just a dumb Kiwi. so 00:38:12.86 Kurt Crenwelge yeah all right well fair enough um okay bret well i'm gonna my head canon is that ah anton's wife is like a gnomish version of angela lansbury and she's just lovely and has a beautiful singing voice she makes these pies great the rotund anton we love it um 00:38:16.38 Jess listen 00:38:33.43 Jess Beautiful. 00:38:34.30 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so now to help us with role playing, you obviously being a dungeon master, it's like, great, we have this physical appearance, but like if I'm going role play Antoine, what three adjectives would best describe Anton to help you? 00:38:52.55 Jess Ooh. 00:38:55.21 Jess I think Anton is earnest. 00:38:59.51 Jess I think that he is... 00:39:06.29 Jess Honourable. 00:39:08.98 Jess And he is... 00:39:13.59 Jess and do I put that into word? He can't sit still. He's he's energetic. 00:39:17.85 Kurt Crenwelge Energetic. Okay, I was going to say restless, but energetic's good. 00:39:21.97 Jess I like Restless too. I think maybe Restless. I think like as he's gotten into his older years, he is... He finds it tough to sleep at night and he's up really early in the morning and he doesn't sit down in a chair for long. He knows he needs to get out and do the gardening and take advantage of the good son. 00:39:37.59 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Got to do the gardening and the sun and then he's got to operate the trains. And i i mean, you know, we've been talking about, oh yeah, he like does gardening and he does this train operation business. 00:39:42.67 Jess Exactly. 00:39:49.54 Kurt Crenwelge But so is he himself sort of like a wizard in order to be able to cast this spell? Like what exactly is he transporting? Is it part of like, you know, the, the, the farmers co-op in this part of the forest. And he's the one that helps bring the stuff into the nearby a community. 00:40:08.95 Kurt Crenwelge Or is it just strictly within the forest? Oh, we're just moving stuff back and forth in the forest. Or how are you envisioning him being this, you know, you know, doing his job essentially and what he's doing it for. 00:40:21.69 Jess I think he's a sorcerer. 00:40:22.15 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:40:24.92 Jess um And he... 00:40:25.24 Kurt Crenwelge oo 00:40:29.37 Jess i think that he does this on behalf of people. I think he's just a little guy. he He's moving, i don't know, some kind of product, maybe something nefarious that is secret. 00:40:42.09 Kurt Crenwelge Nefarious? 00:40:43.26 Jess Yeah. 00:40:44.54 Kurt Crenwelge What? Is he growing some illegal plants in this garden? 00:40:47.38 Jess um But... 00:40:49.74 Kurt Crenwelge Is this what he's moving? 00:40:51.19 Jess and I think perhaps. I think that he, um, 00:40:55.69 Kurt Crenwelge You're too fond of the half-legged leaf. 00:40:59.91 Jess I think that he has, yeah, I think that he's helping out with, like, yeah, probably some drugs or something like that. And it could be that he got bullied into it or that he got like pressured into it. The money is too good. And yeah, going to say he used to work in like a mine that closed up. 00:41:18.14 Jess And he needed a job. And the only one going was to deliver these goods. And he has been lying to his wife that he still works in the mine and that he is still making an honest living. And he's wracked with guilt about it. 00:41:36.07 Kurt Crenwelge Whoa, what a left turn here at this part. I was just like, oh, he's doing like a nice thing with the train, like moving like, you know, perishables and, you know, people around the forest. But it's like, oh, no, he's still like Walter White. He's still breaking bad. He's still like, I'm in it and I can't leave it sort of a thing. 00:41:56.92 Kurt Crenwelge The mob. 00:41:57.14 Jess But he's so cute as well. Yeah. 00:41:59.99 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, he's part he's part of the mob, which, well... ah Well, I mean, I... Well, there's organized crime everywhere. I've seen some, at least, ah fictional depictions of like, oh, what organized crime in London is like and stuff like that. It's, oh, we're the the gentleman thieves and all this sort of a thing. But then you come to you know America and it's like, oh, are you the Boston kind of mob? Are you like the New York Italian mafiosos or you know the Yakuza out on the West Coast? It's like all, you know, we have different flavors of mobsters and 00:42:35.99 Kurt Crenwelge Or if you're the Chicago gangsters. like So we got different flavors here in America. 00:42:41.37 Jess I feel like he would be under the thumb of a cabal of like wizards. um 00:42:46.96 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:42:48.12 Jess I think it's the wizards maybe. 00:42:48.18 Kurt Crenwelge So working for some wizards, moving some illicit goods out of the mine? 00:42:50.42 Jess Yeah. Yeah. No, not out of the mine. I think that's like a drop point. And so it looks like he's going to the mine, but he doesn't because the mine is actually shut down and he's been lying to his wife about it. 00:43:06.84 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so dungeon masters can fill in the blank of whatever illicit good that it is, but the mine location that he used to work at is like ah is like a safe point or something like that. like he There's an exchange of goods that happens there, and then he does his part to move the stuff along, and he just he's able to somehow... you know swallow the pain justified as like, wow, look, all I'm doing is just moving the train along from here to there. 00:43:34.23 Kurt Crenwelge And I don't worry about what the stuff does, um, you know, when it gets to the city or whatever. 00:43:40.02 Jess If it wasn't him, it'd be someone else, so he might as well be the one to do it and get the the money. I imagine it's like Residuum kind of vibes, like um it is arcane drugs. 00:43:54.12 Kurt Crenwelge Arcane drugs. 00:43:56.13 Jess Mm-hmm. 00:43:56.82 Kurt Crenwelge Is it the kind of drugs that like give you spell slots back or it like boosts your so like, oh, you snort this and suddenly your spell effect is like one level higher or something like that at the. 00:44:08.86 Jess Yeah, I feel like it's more like that. 00:44:10.94 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so it's like performance enhancing ah arcane drugs, but your constitution definitely takes a hit when you are on the sauce a little too hard. 00:44:14.17 Jess ni Yeah. And probably like the downside. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. 00:44:23.26 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. yeah ah ah ah Well, ah we move on. We go back to dice rolling because we like all of our NPCs to have something cool on their person. 00:44:37.66 Kurt Crenwelge So what's going to be a valuable item, piece of lore, secret, or ideal or concept that the character will describe to you? Obviously, we've got a pretty juicy one. You've already introduced, like he's got a secret, no doubt, but to randomize another one, you would roll a D4 for the category and then a D6 for the particular thing. 00:44:58.68 Jess Okay. The D four is two and the D six is five. 00:45:01.14 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right, so this is going to be lore, and this was provided to us by one of our um ah guests from our live a panel that we did FateCon. 00:45:14.90 Kurt Crenwelge So thank you, MK, for this answer. The piece of lore that Anton Stodgely has is they know the possible location of a map that leads to a library been buried underwater from long ago. 00:45:33.69 Jess Okay, maybe that's part of the reason why he's moving on the trains as well. He's like looking out for the spot. 00:45:41.08 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so he knows the possible location. Well, it's he knows the possible location of a map that leads to a library that's buried underwater from a long time ago. 00:45:52.73 Jess Yeah. 00:45:52.98 Kurt Crenwelge So he's got a lead on the map that'll get him to that place, to the library that's blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:45:59.35 Jess Yeah. Maybe he believes it's like in another mine. And that's why he's like, he's he's like traveling along the route of different mines to get there, like picking up more stuff. But he's also like taking that time to go into the mines and check out, to find out where that scroll is. 00:46:19.98 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. Okay. So he is, so he's, he's trying to do this side. So he's doing a side hustle in the midst of the side hustle that he's doing, which is a lie of what he's telling his wife of what he's doing. 00:46:34.67 Jess It's lies on lies, like it's layered. 00:46:39.64 Kurt Crenwelge Poor Anton. I feel for this guy. 00:46:41.37 Jess I know, he's so stressed. 00:46:43.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:46:43.14 Jess He's so stressed. 00:46:45.42 Kurt Crenwelge He's going to, he's going to give himself a heart attack is what he's going to do. ah 00:46:48.92 Jess Yeah, but he has no choice. 00:46:51.80 Kurt Crenwelge Well, um of course, we want all of our NPCs to have bright gold exclamation points above their head but when they offer a side quest. So if you are inspired and you want to come up with it yourself, you can. But if you want to roll the last dice, it's a Duh. Three. 00:47:10.27 Jess I want to roll. 00:47:11.43 Kurt Crenwelge Three. 00:47:12.15 Jess Three. he 00:47:13.34 Kurt Crenwelge three Whoa. Okay. Well, you, so you tell me if you think this fits, this response was given to us by our previous guest. Another good DM out there, Tyler, uh, campstra, uh, who runs RPG bot.net. 00:47:31.80 Kurt Crenwelge Um, the side quest here says kill the mayor and make it look like an accident. Um, 00:47:41.64 Jess Oh my god. He's becoming really sinister as the story goes along. 00:47:47.93 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, it's the it's the Walter White story. 00:47:48.02 Jess um 00:47:50.29 Kurt Crenwelge It's the I am, you know, I am Heisenberg or whatever, you know. 00:47:55.86 Jess I think that he knows that the mayor is like in on this drug thing. This whole drug trade is being orchestrated by the mayor to like... 00:48:02.40 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:48:06.74 Jess Or like a mayoral candidate who is... trying to discredit the former mayor by being like, well, we've got a huge drug problem. 00:48:17.11 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so someone so the mayor is looking into this problem, and because Anton is so deep in the lies, he's so caught into it, he's just like, we got to get rid of this mayor. like He's going to unravel this whole thing. My wife is going to be heartbroken. i can't have that happen. 00:48:35.67 Jess I was going more down the route of like, he, it's not the mayor, it's that it's the new mayor candidate. Because i I still think he's good at heart, I think he's just been put in a bad situation. 00:48:48.38 Jess i think it's this new... 00:48:49.11 Kurt Crenwelge do you want to reroll? Do you want to roll another D 12 and see if maybe another response might work better? If this one is too, too dark. 00:48:58.21 Jess Okay, yeah. I got a 12. 00:49:00.41 Kurt Crenwelge twelve 12. ah Okay. Um, well this is from our Patreon sponsor, Anson Jablinski. Thank you, Anson for this suggestion. let's see help the per so help them go get close help. 00:49:17.08 Kurt Crenwelge Sorry, i'm I'm trying to parse what Anson wrote. So it says, help me go clothes shopping as I get ready for a first date with someone special. If you think he's still good at heart, do you think he wants to go on a date with his wife and try and make up all this bad that he's doing? 00:49:36.25 Jess that is just so sweet. he is just so endearing. um ah Yeah, I think that one really works. I think like he, with all the guilt that he's feeling and like the new money that he's been getting from this job, he definitely wants to get a new little outfit so that he can go out with his wife and really treat her. 00:49:56.74 Jess oh my God. 00:49:57.14 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah I want Lovey to look nice You know Get her some perfume Some makeup Some jewelry 00:49:57.70 Jess I love him. 00:50:07.92 Jess Oh, he's such a cutie. 00:50:10.20 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So, so he's going to come to the party and he's going to ask for help to go and, you know, get some clothes shopping done. So that way he can treat his wife on a lovely date. 00:50:22.26 Kurt Crenwelge So pretty, pretty straightforward side quest. 00:50:22.80 Jess Mm-hmm. um 00:50:25.34 Kurt Crenwelge So, um, you know, so we gotta, we gotta consider all the angles. So, um, so he asked the party to do this and they accept that What's going to be the reward for success in this side quest? So they, you know, Anton comes out dressed to the nines. 00:50:42.52 Kurt Crenwelge He has he and his wife go on a lovely date. How is the party rewarded ah for helping in this endeavor? 00:50:50.50 Jess I think the party is rewarded because he, firstly, he offers a pie to sweeten the deal from his wife. 00:50:57.08 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:50:57.14 Jess And then I think he gives up information about the cabal of wizards, which is what they're really after. And he made them do, do his, uh, do a little bit of shopping for him in order to get, um, the information. 00:51:14.49 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, I see. So is this, you know so his is he voluntarily hinting at like, oh yeah, I'm involved in something nefarious, or he's just out of the guilt, out of the kindness of his heart, he's just like, look, you didn't hear it from me, but you know there's this shady stuff that's going on that you know I'm caught up in that I don't really like. 00:51:37.72 Jess Yeah, I could get information about. Yeah. 00:51:40.44 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So then he's the one that feeds them. 00:51:41.50 Jess Yeah. 00:51:42.92 Kurt Crenwelge The clue is like, here's this new side quest of the wizard drug cabal cartel going on sort of a thing. 00:51:51.32 Jess yeah Yeah. i I feel like the Cabal of Wizards might be more of a main quest for them and helping him as a side quest. So he, yeah, like in order to get information about their main quest, they approach him. And that is the price to pay. He wants a new fit for his little date. 00:52:10.01 Kurt Crenwelge o Hmm. Now I'm just thinking of this. I'm thinking of this like in a modern cinema ah sort of thing. Like if, ah you know, Jason Statham's going around, he's trying to like solve the thing. And then he runs across like just some old codger who's like, he's like, you know, 00:52:28.79 Kurt Crenwelge like normally i go in and beat stuff up but he's like hey i'll tell you what ah what you want to know ah the my wife you know i want to take her out on a date help me out and then so jason statham is like playing like suit uh garçon guy like like no you want your cut to be like this you want to you know do your stuff and then him and the guy are chatting back and forth and the date goes well and then the guy's like oh yeah, like here's the thing that's going on that you were like You helped me out, so it's like, I'll be your buddy. 00:52:57.37 Jess Yeah. 00:52:58.97 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know if he's... Is he willing? Is Anton willing to like kind of then go in with the heroes as far as like undoing the cabal? Or is he just like, here's the information. 00:53:10.46 Kurt Crenwelge I need to go back and kind of protect myself and my wife and do my thing and try and not raise suspicion. 00:53:14.05 Jess Yeah. 00:53:16.34 Jess He is not willing to put his family on the line, so he will give them the information fine, but he is not going to go any further than that. he will like He would even take them on his tensor. 00:53:27.55 Jess tensor train, but he is not going in the mine. 00:53:28.70 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:53:31.10 Jess He is not dealing with the the wizards, nothing like that. He wants to keep his head down, get his paycheck and go home to his wife. And more so now he is like trying to get out of this. He he realizes that this is a bad situation. 00:53:45.78 Kurt Crenwelge Does she have a name? Like, I mean, like maybe he is a pet name for if I'm imagining like, oh, you know, lovey or something like that. But like, does I don't know. I was just thinking of like Anton Stodgely. 00:53:57.01 Kurt Crenwelge Like, what's her like, is she an Angela or is she like, you know, something else? 00:54:01.06 Jess She's a Barbara and he calls her Barbie. 00:54:02.30 Kurt Crenwelge Barbara? 00:54:04.01 Jess Yeah. 00:54:04.90 Kurt Crenwelge Bobby. Oh, lovely Bobby. Yeah, I can. Yeah. All right. All right. But of course, with our side quest, we also have to consider the opposite as well. So what's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? 00:54:23.00 Kurt Crenwelge Kind of two different ways to go about it. But what's going to happen if they say no? Or what's going to happen if they fail miserably? 00:54:32.89 Jess Oh, I think if they fail... 00:54:32.98 Kurt Crenwelge They make him look horrible. It's a bad date. 00:54:37.59 Jess Oh, you went back to that. I was thinking if they fail, then that obviously the wizards would know that he gave the money. 00:54:43.13 Kurt Crenwelge no No, no, It's a side quest. So, you know, what did they tell him? 00:54:45.72 Jess Okay, okay. 00:54:46.77 Kurt Crenwelge No, we're not going to help you get ready and suave for this date. Or they purposely sabotage the date somehow. Like, because... 00:54:55.14 Jess That would be so mean. What a murderhobo party. um I think that if they refuse him, think their marriage would be a bit strained. 00:55:06.84 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, no. 00:55:07.38 Jess I think that he's away from home a lot and she's starting to get fed up. 00:55:11.26 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:55:12.50 Jess I think that, yeah, she's waiting for like a gesture, you know, to show that he's still committed to this relationship. 00:55:13.60 Kurt Crenwelge It's like the trucker lifestyle. Yeah. 00:55:22.42 Jess And I think that if they refuse that call, I don't think their marriage will last long. 00:55:30.42 Kurt Crenwelge Gasp. and it's in And as far as, like, failure, as far as the side quest is concerned, so that's if they refuse, but failure, like, he doesn't, like, okay, so we go to clothes shop and get ready for this date, but, like, however it fails... 00:55:49.11 Kurt Crenwelge Like, you know, bad reservations outfit looks bad. Her outfit looks bad. It's just like one thing wrong after another. And it's like a horrible, a horrible day, a horrible time. Like, does the truth come spilling out? Like, you know, what's the failure condition like and how does that affect the players? 00:56:10.84 Jess I really like the truth comes spilling out. I feel like if it failed and she saw this as like a bit of a that he didn't make much effort either in how he's like, how well he's dressed or something else. 00:56:24.35 Jess I think it would start an argument and she had, she had let a lot of years of resentment come out. Like you were never home. You were always in the mines. And like, now you're always in the mines still. 00:56:35.40 Jess And in fact, it's worse. And now I never see you. And then he'll be like, you have no idea what I'm doing for you. and then he would, he would say, he would like tell her what's going on. 00:56:45.85 Jess And it would, it would, 00:56:46.07 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Or it's loud enough that someone is like, wait a minute, the mines have been closed for like 10 years. 00:56:52.66 Jess Yes. Yes. 00:56:55.51 Kurt Crenwelge And then, oh, yeah, now the argument blows up and he's like, oh, Bobby, come on and come on now. And she's like, no, don't touch me. Smacking him in public. And, you know, it's just like it's like a whole knockdown drag out fight. And he's just like, come like trying to trying to assuage her. And she's just like distraught and on the war path. 00:57:14.58 Jess Yeah. And that's, that's their marriage done. And perhaps that could be like the end of his, his naughty career because I feel like they have chosen him purposefully because he has he has kind of a cover like no one suspects him he's really sweet but if people know that he's been lying about working in the mines going start looking into what he's actually doing and where he's actually been and I think that 00:57:38.10 Kurt Crenwelge o So think the wizards are going to come out and like, you know, they're going to hire a hit man to like, oh boy. 00:57:44.41 Jess yeah the bandits will start appearing yeah assassins 00:57:49.67 Kurt Crenwelge They're going the players will come back to this town and Barbie will be depressed. There'll be a funeral for Anton Stodgely. She'll be like, you know, hmm. 00:57:59.61 Jess Barbie will be remarried. Barbie will be remarried. 00:58:04.38 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, she'll be remarried. 00:58:06.49 Jess Yeah. 00:58:06.78 Kurt Crenwelge Before the funeral or after the funeral? 00:58:10.33 Jess I'm not sure. 00:58:10.58 Kurt Crenwelge How fast does she move on? 00:58:10.77 Jess No, it's got to be it's good it's gotta to be after. But it he'll be like a real Ned Flanders type guy. 00:58:14.58 Kurt Crenwelge After. 00:58:17.88 Jess Someone she can trust. 00:58:19.64 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Until we find out the deadly secret about him where he's like, oh, I've really been a sleeper agent for this evil empire the whole time. 00:58:29.37 Jess Exactly. 00:58:30.45 Kurt Crenwelge Barbie's like, I don't know what I keep doing to attract these men in my life. 00:58:34.33 Jess She loves a bad boy secretly. 00:58:35.61 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, she thinks she can make him good. Yeah. 00:58:39.51 Jess she yeah, I mean, she thinks that she can make them all good, but, you know, that's the lesson. You never can. 00:58:44.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Do you hear that book talk girls, you romanticcy ladies? You can't, you can't fight it. 00:58:54.27 Jess They're good on paper. 00:58:55.34 Kurt Crenwelge You can't, you can't fight the logic. Yeah, the truth. 00:58:57.82 Jess and 00:59:00.15 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So we have we have some optional questions unless, you know, that could explore Anton further. But if you feel like he's pretty well rounded out, we can we can move on to the next section. 00:59:13.06 Jess I feel like that is, that's him. Like, I don't even, I think that, I believe in that Coco Chanel thing, you take off one piece of jewellery or something before you leave the house. I think that I don't want to mess with perfection. 00:59:25.98 Jess That storyline is chaotic enough. 00:59:30.94 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Well, we've got our Anton Stodgely. We've got his wife, Barbie. We've got we've got the whole kit and caboodle. And what do we do with our character that we've made? Why we throw them into a random encounter. 00:59:53.94 Kurt Crenwelge And final insert here for the last ad that I do. It's for Zencaster, the platform that lets me record all this with my guest, who's again, seven hours ahead of me. But through the magic of technology, this platform works and does its job. And it's amazing. 01:00:11.61 Kurt Crenwelge And if you want to do your own podcast and use this platform, ah you can take advantage of my offer at Zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use the code side KQ podcast and you'll you'll get 30% off your first month of any paid Zencaster plan. Like I'm on like a $20 month plan. So like imagine that like 30 30% off. 01:00:35.26 Kurt Crenwelge It's a pretty good deal. And doing that helps support the podcast. So if you want to learn more, check out the sponsor. Doing so really helps me out. And without further ado, back to the episode. 01:00:47.22 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So we're here now in the part where we do a role play, a vignette, a scene with the character that we've made here today. And I think dungeon master extraordinaire Jess is going to deliver brilliantly on Anton Stodgely or however she would do his voice. 01:01:01.82 Kurt Crenwelge But the question becomes, who am I going to be in this scene? 01:01:02.43 Jess Thank you. 01:01:05.30 Kurt Crenwelge Am I going to be an adventuring character that like Stumbles upon Anton who asks for some help in the side quest. Is it Anton and Barbie talking? 01:01:15.97 Kurt Crenwelge Is it Anton meeting with one of the underlings of this wizard cabal and like reminding him of like why he's doing what he's doing? Or I don't know. 01:01:27.02 Kurt Crenwelge What sort of scene are you interested in showcasing showing off Anton in? 01:01:32.03 Jess I get confused. um I think, what was the first one again? 01:01:36.25 Kurt Crenwelge um So it would be like I have a list of podcast adventuring characters that come up in this section and ah he could meet one of the reoccurring characters of the podcast um or if you know none of them sound good we could just make up someone new on the spot I guess. 01:01:54.32 Jess Oh, okay. I think that he wants to bump into an adventurer. Yeah. 01:01:57.66 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, um so I'll try and go through the list real quickly because we've got like eight of them. So it's like Duncan is the classic happy-go-lucky adventurer for hire. Chaotic good. 01:02:08.06 Kurt Crenwelge No tasks too small. No feet too daring. There is Sonya. She's the warrior woman who started off as a barbarian and then multiclassed into a paladin who serves a god who wishes to redeem the undead. 01:02:20.82 Kurt Crenwelge We have Korak. He is the lawful evil arcane trickster roguish dwarf. We have Chrisley, who is the herbalist, botanist, wood elf druid, who then multiclassed into a cleric who serves living memory. 01:02:35.45 Kurt Crenwelge We have Orion, who is the astral elf illusionist wizard. ah We have Agape, who is the lilac-colored tiefling sorlock. 01:02:46.68 Kurt Crenwelge So, wild magic sorcerer, made an archfey warlock pact. And then we have... ah yeah we do have a forest gnome NPC adventure character. 01:03:00.41 Kurt Crenwelge His name is life spell and he is a necromancer forest gnome. And he's got a whole crew of skelly boys and ah one big Clifford size skelly dog with him. 01:03:04.94 Jess Oh my god. 01:03:10.52 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, and then we've got, Amblin Mithril Shaper and she's a dwarvish bard. Um, so those are all the main named characters I've made. And if that Rolodex needs to continue to grow with another suggestion, because none of those sound good, but, but you tell me who do you want? Uh, do you want Anton to meet life spell the, the old man necromancer maybe or, or not? 01:03:34.10 Jess Do you say Anne Boleyn? 01:03:36.46 Kurt Crenwelge Anne Boleyn Mithril Shaper is her name. She's a dwarven bard. 01:03:41.56 Jess Like Anne Boleyn as is in the the Queen Anne Boleyn? 01:03:46.71 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I mean, I got the name from fantasy name generator dot com, but the name is spelled A-N-N-E-B-E-L-Y-N-N. But I you know pronounced Anne Boleyn. 01:03:59.29 Jess yeah, yeah. Okay, it must be like a fantasy take on a real world queen. 01:04:01.34 Kurt Crenwelge But I know, yes, with the with London and Berlin. Yes, Henry VIII, I am, I am. 01:04:06.57 Jess I want to talk to her. 01:04:07.34 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. yeah 01:04:09.46 Jess ah want to talk to her. 01:04:09.56 Kurt Crenwelge I know the Herman's Hermits. Yeah, I know their songs. 01:04:14.39 Jess Yeah, Anne Boleyn. Let's let's have her. 01:04:16.81 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. All right. So would you care to set the scene or shall I? Dun-dun-dun-dun. 01:04:22.81 Jess You said it. You're the dungeon master in this scene. 01:04:29.40 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So where we last left our hero and Belen Mithril Shaper, she had stumbled into a town. She's still a relatively new adventurer on the scene. So she's only gotten like two big side quests under her belt. She just finished up with our friend Nora Swift. 01:04:49.30 Kurt Crenwelge the Goliath alchemist. And, you know, ah Nora seemed a little skeptical about Anne Boleyn being such a greenhorn, but took a chance on her and surprisingly... 01:05:01.78 Kurt Crenwelge She made it out. She did the side quest. She did what she was supposed to do. And you know what? And it stills ambling with a little more confidence and a little more pep in her step. And so, yeah, so she finishes up with that adventure. 01:05:15.58 Kurt Crenwelge And I'm wondering, does she stumble upon Anton as he's operating his ah his tensor's train disks going on? 01:05:24.41 Jess Yeah, I think he he stands before them and he's like casting just some like detect magic just to make sure that everything looks like it's working well. 01:05:25.13 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe. 01:05:35.40 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:05:35.48 Jess um And he's standing there in his little overalls. He's got his hat on just because he's worried about the rain and he's got quite a stern expression on his face and he just gets a little bit of a fright as she comes up behind him. 01:05:49.53 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh, so sorry. um And she's like, ah, this big zither board here on my back. I know it makes a lot of noise. I'm im i'm quite sorry, but ah just feeling it feeling good, feeling fine off my big adventure that I just had. And it it went surprisingly well. I'm flabbergasted myself to say. 01:06:11.04 Jess Oh, I'm going to be controversial here. I'm going to keep my accent just because Kiwis need representation too. And so I'm going he turns around and he says, okay, well, would you like a ride? Is that why you're talking to me? 01:06:24.34 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh, are you are you offering a ride? I'm just, you know, um she's like looking around and she's like, I don't have another adventure to go on right now, but where where are you going? Where's this train? Where's this train heading? 01:06:38.04 Jess He looks at her, sort of trying to figure out if she's trying to get information from him, um or like knows anything about what he's doing. I think he's immediately suspicious. And he just says, I'm just taking some merchandise through the mines. 01:06:57.94 Jess Why? 01:06:58.74 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, to the mines. Oh, well, I mean, I know all about mines. She's like, Mithril Shaper. Yes, I come from the Mithril Shaper families. you know i spend quite a number of my younger days in the mines myself, but you know what? I just... 01:07:15.06 Kurt Crenwelge i have the I have the gift of the gab. I have the gift of the toon. And she like will work to get her zither board set up. And she like does like some zither board playing and accompaniment. She's basically trying wine and dine him like you know you know ah flatter him a little bit, just being like, so you come this way often? you know She's like playing some mood music, like trying to like you know butter him up and stuff like that. See see what you know his vibe is. 01:07:41.70 Jess I'm imagining like he he's trying to work and someone just starts playing music behind him. um ah Yeah, I come here often. I'm just on my way out though. 01:07:52.36 Jess can i Is there something I can help you with? like Beautiful music, by the way, but I do need to head off soon. I've got quite an important job. 01:08:02.46 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh, okay. um Well, um she'll show'll roll an insight check and we'll say she does pretty well. And ah she'll say like, oh, okay. 01:08:10.58 Jess Okay. 01:08:12.71 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, i'm I'm sure that I can let you go, but um it seems like something's on your mind. I don't know. Something something telling me you're on, something's on your mind. You're like kind of like fidgeting with your clothes a bit. 01:08:25.56 Kurt Crenwelge Like, you know, the overalls, I mean, you know, classic, you know, ah Dwarven tuxedo. you know You can't go wrong with that, but like ah you know is something bothering to you? 01:08:38.01 Jess yeah I was going say his eyes kind of widen and there's like a panicked look on his face. ah No, um I just need to get this delivery um made. um To be honest, I am just having a bit of a stressful time at home. 01:08:54.23 Jess Me and Barbie are fighting a little bit at the moment, ah but I'll be okay once I just get on the road and I'm just alone with my thoughts. 01:09:05.37 Jess Yeah. it'll It'll be okay. It'll be okay. um But beautiful music, though. Where did you learn to do that? 01:09:13.18 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, well, don't, don't you know from the, uh, from the Bard college, uh, you know, I'm still, uh, still relatively, know, uh, recent graduate, but, um, you know, I'm trying to make my way out in the world. 01:09:28.09 Kurt Crenwelge And, um, I just, it looks like you use a friend, uh, looks like, uh, you know, you could, uh, you could use a little help. I'm just saying, I'm just offering my services, you know, uh, most people, you know, I'm, uh, you know, wow. 01:09:45.56 Kurt Crenwelge she like, you know, we'll just, she'll sigh and then she'll just like, kind of like come out with the truth. And she's like, I'm still like a new adventure. I'm still trying to figure things out. I'm like way more good with my mouth than with my fighting. 01:09:59.26 Kurt Crenwelge And, uh, you know, I, you know, I want to go out there and help people. I want to do good. You know, I don't want to be in the minds like my family. They're like, oh, you'll never be an adventurer. And it's like, no, you don't know, dad. Like the gift, I can i can feel it. I can, my my destiny's out on the road sort of a thing. And so she starts kind of rambling a little bit. But what's ah what's Anton thinking as she's like rambling a little bit? 01:10:23.60 Jess I think that he he waits for her to stop because i think that he finds her quite endearing. And he says, being out on the road isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Okay, take that lesson from me. 01:10:37.14 Jess Look, if you're looking for a bit of training and how to be an adventurer, and look, I don't know, I'm not an adventurer. You could help me out. I need to find an outfit. 01:10:48.60 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, 01:10:48.87 Jess I'd love to take my wife out for a date. 01:10:51.83 Kurt Crenwelge oh good, sir. You are speaking my language in a fashion and flirting. And she tries to think of another word with the F, but then she's like, hmm, probably. 01:11:05.53 Kurt Crenwelge we probably doesn't want me to say that particular F word. So she like rushes past just like, yes, I can make you all look fine and and dashing for an evening. So you, you ah she like looks around and she's like, so we're heading, you said we're heading to the minor. We're going to head to the town. 01:11:23.70 Kurt Crenwelge So I don't think there's many clothes shops in the mines. Right. 01:11:27.48 Jess Yeah, well I can come back with you to the shops if you'll help me, but then I would have to return to work. 01:11:35.01 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. Yeah, sure. So she's like, she's happy. She's happy to agree. And, um, you know, so she's already going to start like, you know, girling out and just being like, you know, so what's your color? What's your palette? Like, what does your wife like to wear? What is you know, what's her size, you know? 01:11:51.05 Kurt Crenwelge what's your size? She's trying to like figure out all these things and like pregame a little bit and, and try and figure out which store is going to be the best one. That's going to cater to smaller folk clothing. 01:12:02.10 Kurt Crenwelge Um, so she's just running her mouth and just like, she's excited, like, Oh, someone wants me to help them out and I can prove myself and all this. And, So what's what's Anton ah thinking? like if we're ah you know wherere We're obviously not going to have to do a whole side quest and a whole scene, but like if the camera's following them and it's like, okay, we're assuming they're going to go off and now go do this shopping montage, which some players love and some players don't. but 01:12:28.86 Jess I hate shopping montages. um I think. 01:12:31.03 Kurt Crenwelge But what's Anton thinking as we're we're heading that way? 01:12:35.44 Jess I think that he is really overwhelmed that someone wants to help him and he feels so trapped in his situation that um as she's talking, he just starts to cry. 01:12:47.61 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, it's like, ah it was, I think she'll try and comfort him a little bit. And, uh, you know, maybe he's not ready to just burst down the walls yet. I mean, she does like an okay insight check and she's just like, you haven't been on a date on a while. 01:13:01.90 Kurt Crenwelge i get it. You know, it's, you know, it's kind of how my old man is. Can't be bothered to take my mom out on a date. The lunkhead. 01:13:11.44 Jess It's not that. it's It's not that. it's ah i'm I'm mixed up in some bad stuff and it's ah it's coming home with me in a way. It's just making me little irritable and Barbie and I are fighting because of it and I'm never home and I don't want to do this anymore. 01:13:21.69 Kurt Crenwelge you 01:13:27.20 Jess i It's not right. I need to get out. I just don't know how. it's It's too big. I've got too much on me. 01:13:37.94 Kurt Crenwelge Well, now now her eyes get wide because she's like, mystery, danger, intrigue. Like, this is the stuff I trained for that no one's given me a chance for. But she's like, she's like Mr. Anton, sir, I will we'll get you out. Don't worry. I will help you. That's that's my guarantee. 01:13:54.93 Kurt Crenwelge um But we you need to get dressed for a date. You know, you got to come clean. You got to, we're going to do it all. And so she's like trying to pep talk him up and, you know, give him like a bardic inspiration, if you will, of like, you know 01:14:08.50 Jess Aww. 01:14:08.99 Kurt Crenwelge raises spirits and stuff like that. 01:14:12.09 Jess Amazing. I think that he goes for, um he actually wants to wear like a sort of Czech shirt tucked into like brown trousers. He wants to wear something other than his overalls and he gets a little like bow tie, a little red bow tie over a blue Czech shirt. And he looks quite smart. 01:14:34.20 Kurt Crenwelge and then And then I assume that Anne Boleyn would help to pick out like an outfit for the wife and stuff like that. 01:14:42.97 Jess Yeah, and he wants Barbie to wear pink, that she always looks great in pink. It's a little pink dress and he knows that it'll be the perfect sort of colour to complement her skin and eyes. 01:14:55.16 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so then as the scene is kind of closing out, they're starting to finish the end of their their montage. But like you know what's that final moment? What's that final beat with Anton as the shopping expenditures are all coming to a close and stuff? And Ambulin's excited. She's like talking up Anton, trying to learn more about Barbie. And like she's like, oh, maybe I could write you to a song. What's your favorite song? Maybe I could play it for you guys. you know That sort of stuff. 01:15:24.29 Jess I think he's so touched that he just puts a hand on her shoulder and says, ah yeah think that you'll be a great adventurer. And I think that I have some information that could really help you get on your way with that. 01:15:39.45 Jess I don't need a song. i do a little bit of banjo myself and I've written something for Barbie but if you wouldn't mind looking into this because I don't want to be involved anymore I have a contract and he pulls out from his pocket a scroll of paper and says these are some of the names that I'm working with I'm transporting goods and gives her like a knowing look 01:16:11.02 Jess I think that no matter what reward I could give you, which would be humble, i don't make a lot of money. This might really get you some esteem in the adventuring community and hands it over to her. 01:16:25.21 Kurt Crenwelge Well, she takes it very seriously. and ah you know, she's like, all right, well, you gave me a mission, you gave me a job, so. Let's get going. 01:16:36.15 Kurt Crenwelge And so she will lead lead them back. So then that way they can get ready for the date. 01:16:44.63 Jess Beautiful. 01:16:48.44 Kurt Crenwelge And scene. So we did it. We made it through the random encounter. How was it getting to be Anton Stodgely? 01:16:55.80 Jess I think I'm going to bring Anton into one of my games as an NPC. I love him. 01:17:00.57 Kurt Crenwelge Excellent. 01:17:00.76 Jess I think he'll fit right into Curse of Strahd. 01:17:00.85 Kurt Crenwelge We love to hear that. 01:17:04.89 Kurt Crenwelge Oh no, in a Curse of Strahd game? 01:17:07.48 Jess know. 01:17:08.92 Kurt Crenwelge Oh boy. but yeah, yeah. So this is the part of the show where we're, where we check in with everybody. We, we see how everyone is doing what they, you know, their, their time on the show was and all their feedback and critique and stuff like that. Obviously thank you for, ah braving, uh, timey, why me, you know, cross transatlantic, uh, internets and all that stuff to be talking to me today. But yeah, how was it? How was it getting to be on the show? 01:17:37.18 Jess Oh, it was really lovely. I loved playing Anton. He's just so sweet and I can't wait to use him again. um Yeah, i it's fun knowing that my little voice in London will be heard in in America, which is quite exciting. 01:17:55.29 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, well, around the world, I mean, you know, this podcast is international to some degree, or maybe it's just people using IP filters and they're like, oh, yeah I'm listening from Germany or whatever. 01:18:07.35 Kurt Crenwelge But regardless, I'm going to maintain that we are an international podcast with international listeners. 01:18:08.22 Jess Yeah. 01:18:12.74 Kurt Crenwelge So we love it. 01:18:14.66 Jess And you were a wonderful host as well. 01:18:17.66 Kurt Crenwelge Well, thank you very kindly for that. I do appreciate that. And, um you know, before we we wrap we wrap up and we close out the podcast, I always like to leave the microphone, the soapbox, the stage, and the platform with the guest. 01:18:33.18 Kurt Crenwelge So, you know, certainly any you know any final thoughts you wish to share with us, you know, please do so. But we also want to give you the opportunity to you know, plug your social medias. If you want to be found, you know, where can we find you? If, you know, if we're a listener in London and, you know, they were like, Hey, you named a cool place. Where's that place? So we can go check out and, ah you know, where you are and participate in the game. And then finally, if there's any passions or causes that you want us to be made aware of, let us know. 01:19:04.12 Jess Yes, so you can find me on Instagram. i like don't work I don't use TikTok um on Instagram. I'm just plot.girl. And there's not a lot that I could plug for an international community because a lot of the stuff I do is in London. But I am doing a ah charity stream next week, which is for Doctors Without Borders. And I believe that it's going to be on an American time zone. And it's with Mikes and Mimics and Jess the Human, I believe, is... 01:19:39.95 Jess launching all of that and I'll be playing Legend in the Mist with some pretty incredible ah fellow TTRPG community people so we've got um Tall Nerd Apollo, the Chaotic Goblin and BBEG Brina which I think is going to be a lot of fun and it's a really rules light system which I'm very excited for so that is probably what I'm up to otherwise i just want to encourage all my ah all my lady or non-binary GMs to really advocate for women at your tables and make sure there's seats available for them. 01:20:19.58 Kurt Crenwelge Very good. And so that game that you're talking about, because we're recording here in the month of May, 2026, and ah i'm I'm very far ahead of schedule. 01:20:27.89 Jess Oh. 01:20:30.48 Kurt Crenwelge So technically, this episode going to be coming out in like middle of October. So at this point, you'll have to go back in the archives and find this wonderful, awesome live stream. 01:20:42.23 Kurt Crenwelge So who knows what Jess is going to be doing in London in October, but maybe something spooky with Halloween at the tavern. and You should go check it out or something. 01:20:50.23 Jess Oh my god, absolutely. yeah I mean, and at Halloween, i will be going to Cornwall and playing, ah running a game with some of my friends at Gals and Pals. So um another sort of female led group, getting more women into TTRPGs. 01:21:11.34 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Well, Jess, again, 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. 01:21:21.78 Jess Thank you so much.