Elysia Rising Post-Campaign Chat - Blades in the Dark Deep Dive

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, and welcome to Explore. Why are you all leaning back? Everyone? That's such a weird thing to do. Is that. Is that something that you do now? Hi, I'm DM Dan. Welcome to Explorers of Elsewhere. Elysia Rising. Debrief declassified. Yeah. Hi. Welcome back. [00:00:19] Speaker B: Hello. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Hello. Last time we saw each other, we were stomping all over Elysia, doing a finale and looking fantastic, if I do say my. Those do say so myself. Looking fantastic in person. [00:00:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:00:39] Speaker A: How have you all been since those heady days in Alicia? [00:00:44] Speaker B: A lot more chilled. [00:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I've. Yeah. Have you all been. You've been good? Been keeping yourselves busy? [00:00:57] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:01:00] Speaker C: No, Dan, we've all been sat. Yes. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Yes. [00:01:04] Speaker C: Not knowing what to do with ourselves every. [00:01:06] Speaker A: Every Monday night between the hours of 7:30 and 11, just staring blankly at screens. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't just me. [00:01:15] Speaker D: So we. We only exist for the channel. In fact, we're actually. We're all AI, like AI Creations, and we don't even exist outside this video. After this, we're just going to be, you know, ones and zeros floating on the web again. [00:01:35] Speaker C: Yeah, isn't it? [00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah. The finale was just a string of really complicated convoluted chat bots. Yeah. With that cat out the bag. That's the first secret they were unearthing. So over the space of the campaign, it turns out that you lot have had a little WhatsApp group called Algernon's Angels, which spawned the little kind of side episodes every. Every other episode. And yeah, there were a lot of theories, a lot of, um, observations, a lot of guesses that were going on in there. Um. But, yeah, I just wanted to bring us all together to talk through any kind of final theories that we haven't. Hadn't discussed or theories that were proven or disproven or, you know, just to see how. Just. Just a chat about Campaign 2. Because, you know, we spent a good part of a year playing through Elysia Rising. It's. Yeah, it's been. It's been a big chunk of my. My recent life, at the very least. Just. Yeah. Wanted to have a little natter about it before we wave it goodbye one final time. [00:02:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:50] Speaker A: So what's the top of the list? [00:02:53] Speaker C: Well, how do we want to do this? Because we do have some questions. But then. [00:02:58] Speaker B: We have questions, Dan. [00:02:59] Speaker A: We have questions. [00:03:00] Speaker C: But then you might have had a bit of structure in Mind yourself of the kind of things that you want to bring to the episode. [00:03:08] Speaker A: I have come in full of hopes, aspirations, and very little Else. So, yeah, yeah, just. I thought because you informed me that a list had been cultivated, the list had been written, I thought we could go through that, and then, yeah, just kind of spin off and have a little natter in between. Just. Yeah, just. Just let it fro for a little flow free. [00:03:38] Speaker C: Nate, you're normally our Algernon's Angels mc. Would you like to start reading off those? [00:03:46] Speaker B: Shall we start with, then, all of the dying questions we have for Dan? Yes, yes. That we've sort of come up with. So the first one we had was obviously final episode. We find out that Alicia is in. In. In the same prison as Aan. [00:04:04] Speaker C: Spoilers. [00:04:05] Speaker B: Spoilers. We should have already watched the episode by now. [00:04:08] Speaker A: Yeah. If you. If you've. If you're watching this, it's a. Your first exposure to Alicia rising, stop right now and head back to episode one. Yes. Consider that your spoiler warning. [00:04:20] Speaker B: And obviously, it was Tarot who, you know, sort of showed us. Was there, or did you plan to have anyone else know that that's where Elysia was? Or was it primarily just gonna be Tarot? And was there any way we probably could have found that out, whether or not it was partial or abstract? [00:04:46] Speaker A: So the reveal that Elysia, like the Void, was like a Khan's banishment void, that was a. That was a decision that I kind of came to part way through the campaign. So there was a lot of stuff, but the. The nature of Blaze in the Dark kind of led me to just kind of thinking up situations, scenarios, and circumstances and then just kind of chucking them out and saying, this is fact. And then kind of through your actions, seeing what kind of had and hadn't resonated with you as a group, then kind of contextualizing and defining the origins of those circumstances based on what you were doing. So. So quite a lot of stuff I just kind of threw out of the ether and then kind of reclaims to make sense. And, yeah, a calm was kind of. Kind of the same. It also can't. There was also a point where I reached out to channel veteran Carl, so thank you, Carl, for this. And when I sat down, I went, right, I really need to figure out what the Void is right now. Like, I really need to figure this out. And it was actually that that decision also kind of came after I re. I made that kind of realization. Oh, the ghosts that are assailing Elysia, their memory ghosts. Oh, that's a cool. Like, that's a cool angle for us to go down. And then, you know, one of the Questions that came out of that is okay, but why though? Like, why are these ghosts? Why are these memories that take physical, like, physical incorporeal form? Why are they attacking? And you know, why Specifically memories? And then, and then I just kind of thought, well, that would be like if a Khan was banished to a place where he has nothing but his memories of everything that happened during the war, so all of these manifestations were conjuring around and then attacking him, he would be in this kind of infinite, unrelenting purgatory of, yeah, just being a site literally assailed by the memories of his actions, which I thought was a pretty gnarly divine punishment. And so then it was that kind of idea that went, oh, okay, so Elysia is sharing void space with a God without realizing it. Like, is that why the children of Aya couldn't reach Aya? Like, because they were locked off in a prison that I had no intention of going back into? But yeah, so in terms of like, who. Who else would know? I mean, it's just I. I also acknowledge it was such a far out idea. Like, oh, you know, the. The purple void split, seemingly split open to reveal. It wasn't like you were actually looking at a closed eye for forever in a day. Yeah, it was very much a case of like, who would know? Like, who. Who would be able to figure it out? Who would understand that? And therefore, like, that kind of tells even more of a story around Tarot. And I think in the. The Stinger at the end, we know that Tarot is very much something else entirely. And Meg, you've got the little. The Nod for Campaign 1 when we found out that Tarot's the sister of a similar being from Campaign 1. But yeah, there's clearly more story to tell around kind of Tarot and the others of whatever she is. But clearly she's at a level that she kind of acknowledges and understands things like the void space that AAR is locked in. And. And also. [00:08:57] Speaker E: But. [00:08:58] Speaker C: And also can travel in and out of it by sound of it, potentially. [00:09:02] Speaker A: Travel in and out of it. Seemingly has had access to arcane powers long before Aan gifted it to the mortals. That was a. A little head tilt in reveal in. In the last episode. But yeah, I mean, the reveal of a Cal was very, very much a. Like, that's a big moment for the finale. But also the reveal of Aan in itself was like arguably the primary objective of Tarot. [00:09:39] Speaker C: Okay. [00:09:40] Speaker A: With that little taunt that she gave you, like, oh, imagine the tales they. The stories they're going to tell as as you got teleported back to elsewhere because now you've got cities worth of people that have seen Aan. [00:09:53] Speaker E: Yeah, this isn't in the document, I don't think. Right. But presumably Akan is free now. [00:10:07] Speaker A: No, no, I would assume not. No, no, no. So because, I mean, you all did the one year later shift, and that one year later would have looked very different if a card had made it out. But no, no, Akan is still in that void prison. I guess I. I'm. I've deliberately left the question open of who teleported you out? Like, who moved you out. But Akan is still locked in there with all the memory ghosts who now no longer have a secondary target in Elysium. Now they're all be attacking Akan. I guess I could also. I also kind of was speculating in my own head that the reason they were attacking Elysia is because, in fact they were trying to get to Turia Interior. Being at the center of Alicia. They were all trying to. We're trying to get him, given how powerful she was. Yeah. Akan is locked away. We now know the extent of his prison. But yes, there's a city worth of people who have seen his face. Capital. [00:11:24] Speaker B: I guess that answers sort of like a couple of other questions we had, because the next one after that is, is when did you figure out that that's where we've been the whole time? So you just said sort of like halfway through the campaign. [00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah, so, yeah, again, like, having to do the sort of like adaptive retconning. There's not really retconning. It's just like filling in the gaps. But if you remember, in the first time it made it onto screen was when at was studying UMI's journal. And Umi noted it was really odd how a soldier had been fighting like this war, the Esque in the Eschaton, for like months. But for Elisa, it only been like a couple of days or something along those lines. And yeah, just kind of introducing that whole kind of weird, timey wimey vibe, which, you know, the Eschaton didn't have up until that point. So now we know that, you know, that the magics unleashed during the Eschaton were powerful enough that even like the temporal flow was being disrupted. That just opens up a huge swathe of opportunities for storytelling in future things. Like, is there a place that is still experiencing the eschaton and has been experiencing the Eschaton for. For them years and years and years and years and years. Kind of thing. Like that's, that's an interesting idea. Like we could look at that. But yeah, knowing like Elysia would have been kind of accidentally slopped in along with a khan. Like that had to happen simultaneously. But, you know, a khan was defeated at the end of the eschaton. So Elise. But Elysia didn't know and. Yeah, so that's why we introduced time with wine and stuff. Yeah. I was about halfway through, Halfway through the campaign, but I started to sit down and actually go, right, I need to start tying up some of these batshit plots that I'm throwing into the ether. [00:13:32] Speaker B: I think something that you said earlier on as well also answers another question. I don't know who wrote this question, but it says spirits equal memories and ghosts. Is this part of Aan's power or the anger of being locked up? [00:13:46] Speaker E: That was me. It's incareent. So I wrote all the incoherent questions channel. Channeling you. Me? [00:13:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:13:54] Speaker A: No. So Aya's kind of punishment for Aan was that, yeah, memories would become manifest and, and be aggressive towards like, you know, sources of arcane power such as Aan. So for all extents and purposes, Aan is the. The void was designed, quote unquote, to be a place where aan would just be nibbled and clawed at by thousands upon thousands upon thousands of these, like conjured spirits. But yeah, we also needed that kind of differentiation between the spirits and the ghosts. So Taran saying when she died, she was just like floating in nothingness and everything was like she felt like she was the only one. And. And then in the finale, you finally found. You finally saw like the spirit of Nana at Nana. So yeah, the idea that the spirits are the ghosts of the dead were trapped like there was no route to the afterlife as such. So they were just kind of lingering in elsewhere. And then when you bamfed out and returned to elsewhere and the veil was peeled away, then they could join the. And I use the biggest air quotes, natural journey to the afterlife. Yeah, that, that's. I think that's why Nana was just a bit like, please let me go. Yeah, that's. Yeah, it was the. The spirits being angry was very, very intentional. And the ghosts were just a un. An unfortunate, like victim of the sin of the same as the living, like all unfortunate victims of circumstance. [00:15:56] Speaker E: I've got, I've got a follow up question that isn't in the document, which is, does that make Tavarian Mecha Tavarian a memory or a ghost or some kind of like, blend of both. [00:16:08] Speaker A: She. So she was a ghost. Okay. Like, well, she wasn't angry. She wasn't angry. No, she was a genuine, like, quote unquote, genuine ghost. As in, like, a soul, a glob of mana that came out of someone's body, but was just kind of floating around in, like, the mausoleum. So, you know, because the idea, you know, the clerics, like, all of the faith were saying, oh, we have to cut these people away before the ghosts get out and eat people. Like, that would have been based on some degree of sort, like, divine academia. Right. Like, back when. But, you know, someone's soul would. After someone dies, their soul would leave their body and go off and join, like, one of the dragons. So that's based in knowledge. And that was kind of still happening, but then the chain was severed after that point. So, yeah, Tavarian just kind of floating around in the mausoleum when Catherine first met her, and she was just like, oh, like, you're the first voice I've heard in weeks. [00:17:09] Speaker E: Oh, that makes sense. It makes sense that it's plausible that when somebody dies and, like, immediately after their death and they can't go out, that people are thinking about them, therefore the memories of them being angry are manifest because you think more about somebody that's just died. [00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is also something me on actually tried to weaponize for the Clean Team episode. [00:17:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. [00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, because you're absolutely right. Because also, atta thought of Songbird real hard, like, with a magically inclined kick, and the ghost. The spirits of songbirds started trashing up the Ilnaishi brothel. [00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm gonna pop down to some of the lower down the list questions. Well, actually, I'm going to ask this one because I think we all want to know this. How did Musto become a gang leader? Origin story, please. [00:18:14] Speaker A: Well, I mean, you. You lot have discussed it. Meg. You know, Meg gave some really kind of concise thoughts on the matter. I mean, that. That. That truly is the. The. The biggest mystery of. [00:18:32] Speaker C: The most unrealistic aspect of the whole thing is Musto being a crime lord. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah. You know what? I think that's a question that I'm more than happy to allow anyone else to answer. And, like, the myriad answers that we generate from. From asking, like, they're all equally as true and untrue as each other. [00:18:56] Speaker D: I can't actually remember what I said. [00:18:58] Speaker C: Like, nobody does, Meg. The audio was lost, and Dan made up a new history for that. [00:19:05] Speaker D: Was in that one, wasn't it? [00:19:06] Speaker F: Oh, no. [00:19:08] Speaker D: I Think it might have been something along the lines of. [00:19:14] Speaker A: Like, from my really strained, like, lip reading, I think there was an idea that Mustow fundamentally, like, irritated his way to the top like a splinter, like, dislodging and, like, coming back to the surface. [00:19:30] Speaker D: Oh, I know, I know. I reckon, Right. Does anyone work with someone who is so incompetent that you'd rather just give them the easy, easy jobs, even though it means you have to do a harder job yourself, but you just give them the easy jobs so that you don't have to bloody deal with them or put up with their shit? I reckon it's like that. And they basically kept giving him positions of power to get him out of the way of everyone else and somehow he just managed to, like, crawl his way up to the top so that he basically didn't have to take on any actual responsibility in the firm because they knew that if he did take on any actual, you know, meaningful tasks, he'd fuck it up. [00:20:18] Speaker C: That's what I think it is a tried and tested technique of a lot of organizations. You put the most incompetent person right at the top and then they're literally just a figurehead. And the cleverer people lower down do the actual running of the business. [00:20:33] Speaker D: Yeah, because we all know it. It seems to be a thing. As soon as you like, you know, hit like the 50 grand a year pay, pay, like, paymark, you seem to suddenly lose the ability to do things like save PDFs and like, operate a basic Excel sheet. [00:20:49] Speaker A: Are you saying that the truth, the actual truth of the cobbles, is that Musto was held aloft by a council of toms? Yes. [00:21:00] Speaker E: I think the Toms are really watching the shit, you know, I want to hear what JC thinks because I feel like Mustow got. Got what? Where he is. The combination of what Meg said and just like, a spider's plan, like some, like Spider's plan, was to put Musto. [00:21:16] Speaker A: In power and then maybe is elsewhere's version of Kaiser Soze? [00:21:21] Speaker C: No, no, no. I think Errol's saying that a spider, like someone much cleverer, needed Musto in that position for a plan. It wasn't that Musto was the Spider. [00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Spider Todd, maybe that. [00:21:35] Speaker F: Wasn'T his plan all along. [00:21:37] Speaker C: Maybe. Maybe that's why Algernon has so much chagrin towards Musto, because he's just kicking himself that he put Musto there for some previous plan that's long done with. And it's like, now I still have to deal with this guy. [00:21:53] Speaker A: We need to do a. Like a prequel story focusing on this. The. Like the. The 18 months of hard draft from Alganon, like, establishing Musto as the leader of the cobbles. So when one day it, like one day we finally need it. Alon could seize control of the cobbles for the good of the city. [00:22:16] Speaker C: It was all part of the plan. [00:22:18] Speaker A: All part of that. Up until the point where Mosso went, oh, you know what? I'm really good at this actually. Just watching you beef your roles. Yes. I have no, no firm idea. I'm just as clueless as to how Musto made it to where he got to. [00:22:40] Speaker C: I think for me, seeing the. The relationship between Algannon and Musto was one of my favorite things about the campaign, like, culminating in that moment jc where Algernon told Musto to off and he just became this bashful, sad little boy. Oh, sorry. Algann has waddled away and like, even you couldn't stand it at that point called him. [00:23:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I genuinely had no idea that Masto would have kind of ended up with as much screen time as he did. Like, I knew I wanted to throw him out as like the absolutely useless Oath npc. But yeah, like, I think by the time we collectively got to the Musto Must die epic score, like when Lucra told you to bump him off, like, when. To be fair, even at that point, I was just like, what. What if they actually do it though? [00:23:53] Speaker C: Short episode. [00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah. But when you. When you collectively decide we can't, like, he's too. He's too rubbish for us to bump off. Yeah. I knew that it would feel like. [00:24:09] Speaker D: Clubbing a baby seal, wouldn't it? [00:24:10] Speaker C: Yeah, a little bit. [00:24:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:15] Speaker E: Baby. [00:24:15] Speaker D: Very sweet, gross, slimy baby seal. [00:24:18] Speaker C: But. [00:24:21] Speaker A: I mean, that's actually a question I'd like to throw out to you then, besides Masto, because I know he's going to be your number one spot for this question. Who. Who was the sort of, like, NPC you liked the most or like, you felt resonated with you as a player or as a character from. Because, I mean, as is the case with Urban Store like campaigns, there were a lot of NPCs, but. Yeah, which of those? Let's start with Julia. Like, who rose to the top of the pile for you couple? [00:24:54] Speaker C: We all love Umi with all our hearts, obviously. I think she was wonderful. But I. I'm not going to claim Umi because I have a feeling Erol might want Umi because of the affinity between Umi and Atta. Um, I mean, I just really. I just love Lorenzo. I don't know if it's particularly that he resonated with Magpie, but he resonated with me. I thought he was great and just his sort of quiet, I'm not here to make friends. Professionalism at all times. Which then morphed into that weird obsession with paralytics in the one shot. Yeah, I think overall, I love, love Lorenzo very much. Very dear to me. [00:25:38] Speaker A: Nate. [00:25:41] Speaker B: You might be able to guess. [00:25:45] Speaker A: How silly of me to ask. [00:25:47] Speaker C: Hot snake tailed boyfriend. [00:25:49] Speaker B: Yes, I was very fond of Fomthum. I did actually think towards the end you would ask me again. Like when you said like, catherine, what are you doing? Like, as this whole new world sort of opens up again. Like, I asked about Musto for a joke, thinking that you might possibly ask me again and then you didn't. I was like, well, I guess Cavern doesn't give two monkeys about warmth. [00:26:16] Speaker A: I remember on that night because, yeah, yeah, it was quite late at that point. We're all feeling a bit sleepy. And I remember like when you said, oh, is there anyone in the crowd that I noticed? I remember looking at you, maybe this will come out in the actual recording. But looking at you thinking there is a correct answer to this question, I'm not entirely sure what that answer is. So that's why I said Musto, because obviously Busto is just a surefire winner. But you never know. I mean, Cavern's out, Cameron's exploring the world, Thornton's not got a boss anymore. We've got a buddy cop drama right there. [00:27:00] Speaker B: But yeah, I mean, I, I was, I was also fond of Lorenzo as well. Lorenzo made me laugh. Yeah. I'm trying to think who else? And Anumi, obviously. [00:27:15] Speaker C: Obviously I was a big fan of. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Tavarian, but you know me, I love a grandma figure. So I. [00:27:25] Speaker A: Okay, what about, what about Meg? [00:27:29] Speaker D: Oh, I definitely got quite invested in the Fairfax updates. Yeah, did love a bit of Fairfax and I really loved a bit of like Alganon, sort of like gentle ribbing of Fairfax as well, you know? Yeah, really? I really love that dynamic. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Nice, nice. Yeah, that was the, the final. So, like the episode 18 downtime where Algonon had dinner with the Fairfaxes. Like normally I'd always be kind of ripping you, kind of going, right, like, we gotta make sure we, we maintain pace. But actually that was something that I was like, you know what, we're just gonna run this out, gonna play it through. This is. This is. This is a good shout. [00:28:18] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:28:19] Speaker D: It always felt, it always felt like that, that relationship from an outsider's perspective, JC was that like, you know, those friends that you make in school? [00:28:29] Speaker E: School. [00:28:30] Speaker D: Because it's sort of like it's. It's essentially like a friendship of circumstance because you're in close proximity to each other and then together you grow up and you grow apart and you're completely different people with different personalities. But that's sort of like that history binds you together. And it was clear that Alganon was like, Fairfax was pretty normal dude. And then Algernon's channel, just this like slightly unhinged but can't help but love, love him kind of friend that just, you know, occasionally just pops out of the blue sort of like, you know, with some hair brain scheme. And you just. Poor Fairfax couldn't help but be, you know, sort of pulled along into it again. And I can just imagine them being exactly the same in their, like, school days, you know. [00:29:23] Speaker A: Well, speaking of Maggie, what about you, jc? Who was your favourite? [00:29:27] Speaker F: I did love what you did with Fairfax and I also think you did really great things with all of our sort of rivals allies, the characters that we invented in the first place. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Oh, thank God. [00:29:40] Speaker F: You did a really good job of taking them, weaving them into the important bits of the plot and creating more drama. I really loved what you did with Dorothea and I really liked what you did with Caleb, making them like quite sinister forces that drove us forward in the plot. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:29:59] Speaker F: And making it personal. [00:30:01] Speaker A: I think the. The one like rival or ally that there was a part of me I was like, I wish I could kind of have done more with them was. [00:30:11] Speaker C: Alejandro, who was just a hot guy. [00:30:15] Speaker A: Who was around like, so I was kind of going through and like, obviously, you know, we fundamentally it was like, right, here are 10 NPCs that I'm going to need to weave into the narrative at some point. But I kind of want to make them feel connected, I want to make them feel kind of meaningful, etc. Etc. And then with Alejandro, I think I just straight up forgot to introduce Alejandra Handro in like the first opportunity that I was kind of eyeballing. But I thought, all right, now I'm gonna. I'll bring him in on the cast Lantalier job. He'll be like a rival party. And then you lot are all like, hey, let's team up and go through this place together. Oh, okay. So they're like this rival gang threat, like this like mirror match kind of threat then was just like tagging along. And then I was trying to Go like, yeah, trying to make them seem really suspicious by having them doing, like, little whisper parties in the corner. And then instead of being like, I think they're doing something super suspicious and we should stop them, Cavern starts going, hey, do you want my number? And then, like, the information didn't really kind of crop up again. Like, not in a way that I felt like Alejandro could come in. And then B team happened. I was like, perf. This is the perfect opportunity to bring in Alejandro, have him and his crew do something meaningful, like really kind of set them up as like, the villains that they should have been. And then you JC were like, I've got a sniper rifle aimed at your head. Do as. Do everything I say. All right. Just neutered. [00:32:02] Speaker C: While also aggressively flirting with him. I feel like this is the curse of the. The beautiful male npc. No one's going to take him seriously. The beautiful villain. It's just like, oh, look how gorgeous he is. Oh, he can't be that bad. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Yes, but so I suppose actually in hindsight, maybe, maybe Alejandro, you know, successfully filled a required, like, role within a campaign setting of being hot. Evil. Hot tries to be evil guy. [00:32:37] Speaker C: I think 6 is evil, but he's actually not. [00:32:39] Speaker B: I mean, to be honest, no one can be a real rival to Atta. She's too adorable. So. [00:32:48] Speaker E: Kind of weirdly like teachers on the edge of evil. So is her arrival evil, actually? All right, the evil rival. [00:32:58] Speaker C: Adorable evil. What is. Who is your favorite npc? Aral. [00:33:04] Speaker E: So the. The only one that hasn't been mentioned because I agree with basically everything that everyone says and I have a special place in my heart for Fairfax because I think as you were describing Fairfax and Algann, it really reminds me of like, the journey of a queer person and their normal, normal school friend. And you know, they're the people that get married and have a kid and you just show up to dinner like in your. With your pride flag pin and it's like. So I think there's something really beautiful about that relationship. But the one that we haven't mentioned is Nephene, because hot lady villain. I loved her. She was such a good villain in the sense of that I understood and could sympathize with why she was doing things. She made sense. She made a lot of sense. So she was fantastic as well as being. Yeah, hot and kind of up. Right. Like, eat this bird. [00:34:03] Speaker A: I realized, well, I mean, the five of you discussed it in one of the. The Algon's Angels. But you know, one of my. One of the core principles for Campaign two that I kind of said to the five of you right at the start is that. But certainly Julia, I didn't want to go into Campaign two knowing who, like, the BBEG was going to be, because for me to go right here are 15 factions and then have already gone, but this person's the one that I actually care about the most. So that just didn't seem. Seem right. So, like, over the space of, you know, it wasn't until. It wasn't until, like, after the castle Anteliar job. So that's what episode, like 10 or 12, I believe that's when kind of Nephen, like, solidified herself as the Big Bad. It was after that because I. I had you kind of yoink away the cube. And I remember during, in my notes, I jotted down that the cube that you grabbed for her was like a bomb of some sort. There was a point where ATA asked, like, did it detect magic? And I said, oh, it's thrumming the vivocation magic. And incredible, incredibly, you threw yourselves off the scent by going, oh. Interestingly, I was looking in D and D books and, like, healing is evocation. So it's like a big healing box. And again, I'd like to hope that there's a part of me on camera going, wellness box. Oh, yes. But, yeah, when you kind of snag that for her, I again, because I wanted to kind of write the story. Story off the back of what you were doing to keep it interesting. Like, I didn't actually know what it was for. So then deciding. So, yeah, going into sort of like the cat, the Arc 2 finale, like the prison break, I knew that at the end of that, Nephne was going to make her move because the chances are the. The faith were going to be no more and so on and so forth. Yeah. So it was. It was close to the acting finale. They went, right, it's definitely going to be Nephna. And, like, we have reasons. She's been able to do some, like, weird intimid. Like, the eating of the birds was, like, weirdly intimidating. Like, I remember Julia and Nate's faces. [00:36:40] Speaker F: And I. I really liked it. You. You had invited us to go essentially to her house, and then we realized that it's not her house. She's. She's like, threatening the people that live there. She can use it to show off. That's really good. Really? [00:36:55] Speaker E: Yeah, it was good. [00:36:56] Speaker C: Made her quite sinister. [00:36:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I really wanted to kind of play into her whole, like, what is her superpower? It's like, oh, it's being filthy rich and, like, influential and powerful. [00:37:08] Speaker E: So. [00:37:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And what's like, I don't know. I. I hope that no one. Like, I hope that very few of us here have experienced, like, a home burglary. But, like, when. When a stranger has been in, like, your living space, there's this kind of really horrible uneasiness that you get in your stomach because, like, your sanctuary is no longer a sanctuary kind of thing. So, yeah, I, I kind of thought, oh, I can really drum up the, like, evil upper class vibes by. By having the owners of this house having to stand in the corner looking at their shoes. Yeah, I'm glad that landed. [00:37:51] Speaker C: I think one of. Yeah. One of the most impressive things about Alicia Rising as a campaign was the ambition of your vision for it and how much work you put into populating it with all. Although that ridiculous number of factions. And I gave you such a hard time for insisting for being so one track on that. Like, it's got to be 15, Julia. There's no way around it. You could just do less. And, like, you were like, no, Julia. And then it ended up being really, really good. And I'm just wondering, did. [00:38:25] Speaker E: Did. [00:38:25] Speaker C: Because you were having to ruthlessly cut factions out as we. We went. You, as you were sort of did a whittling down, didn't you, as we went along, did any of them hurt to cut out? Were there any that you were like, oh, such a shame, I have to get rid of this one? [00:38:47] Speaker A: I don't think so. I mean, of the 15, I mean, right at the very, very start, and we can kind of see it in all of the faction actions, there was arguably 18 factions because I included the citizenry, the treaties, and. [00:39:07] Speaker C: Yeah, okay. [00:39:09] Speaker A: And then I think it was by. By sort of like episode three or four, I was just like, we're absolutely not really going to be touching on. On these three civilian factions, so we can. We'll just kind of forget about them. But of those 15, it was only the tellers and the garden keepers. [00:39:33] Speaker E: Yeah, garden keepers. [00:39:34] Speaker A: That didn't really kind of show their heads. I mean, the orchestra were kind of left to their own devices until I jump scared Nate with him. But yeah, no, I. I mean, I knew, like, when we were going into Act 1 finale, I kind of thought, right, I need to make, like, my big statement piece and I need to sort, like, I've set up all the pieces and now I need to shake the chessboard and like, reintroduce chaos. I was like, I Can only do that realistically by killing Algarve off. And then that set the stage for all the other factions really kind of going to town on each other. So I was more than happy to kill off Algarve and I would wager that you five were also quite happy that Alcove bit it. [00:40:26] Speaker F: I was sort of hoping that you'd give me a chance to do it. I know something we didn't discuss, but there was a bullet in Al's chamber from the beginning. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Algernon's Chekhov's gun. Yeah, Algernon's Chekhov's gun. That was. Well, I will definitely come back to that in a sec. [00:40:51] Speaker B: I think that kind of leads into another question we had on there. And we'll make this your last question, then we'll get on to us. Was there any chance that we probably could have stopped Algarve from shooting Tarvarien? Or was it pretty much like just like. No, this is the way it's going. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Unfortunately, Tavarian's death was like the predetermined instigating incident. [00:41:19] Speaker C: It was a cut scene. [00:41:21] Speaker A: That was a cutscene moment. But yeah, I needed to like, if Elysia Rising was a five room dungeon, Tavarian being alive was the entrance guardian. Like, she had had to go like for the. For the campaign to happen. Because realistically, everything that you know, whilst it wasn't explicitly stated, the reason Algar shot her is because he found out that she knew and she would also. That the veil was failing. But he also knew he would. She would tell everyone and that's something he didn't want. So the only thing he could do at that point would, you know, if she didn't back down was to silence her permanently, which. Which was obviously a very, very extreme thing for him to do. But that then set everyone off because the. The voice of reason within the city had been extinguished. So unfortunately, yeah, Tavarian terrarium was not long for this world, the beginning of the campaign. But as you have also discussed in Alan's Angels, I also had. No, I genuinely didn't know you were going to bring her back via the suit. [00:42:40] Speaker C: Your surprise in that moment was the best. We've already talked about this, but that was like. [00:42:45] Speaker E: No. [00:42:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, congratulations on that. Yeah. What about your questions? [00:42:54] Speaker B: Let's talk about our characters. [00:42:56] Speaker C: Say how. [00:42:59] Speaker B: How do we feel that our characters developed over. Over the campaign? Like, was there anything that we. Did they change tool or was it very distinctive, like thing that you had very much set and that just went completely out the window as like things carried on or did they progress in a way that you weren't completely prepared for? Let's, let's start with Meg. [00:43:20] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:43:22] Speaker E: Oh. [00:43:25] Speaker D: I think Frida started off as someone who was quite closed off and get the job done and ended, you know, really important. Embracing the sort of family aspect of the group, you know, and, and realizing that it's not just sort of, you know, sort of survival for survival state. It's. It's about, you know, sort of protecting the people around you that sort of bring your life enrichment and meaning. I think there was a bit of that. I think, I think the trauma, getting trauma did a lot for her character. That sort of sense of like having that recklessness. [00:44:15] Speaker A: Definitely that was, that was a surprise trauma. [00:44:19] Speaker D: It was a surprise trauma. [00:44:20] Speaker A: We genuinely didn't know. Like, I don't think we considered it was truly on the cards when you rolled it out. [00:44:25] Speaker D: Nope, nope, nope. Total surprise. But yeah, I think, I think almost having that trauma is kind of, you know, did in a way sort of make her kinder. I think that like, you know, she sort of had gone from being in a position where like fighting and brawling was very much like a way or like a low stakes way of getting what she wanted and getting things done to like by the end of the campaign it was kind of like to fight for a better cause and also had real implications. You know, she had like a. Had a moment where she realized that she was, you know, she nearly and then, and then eventually had to sort of like take. Take a life for the first time and then it sort of, you know, becomes less sort of like, you know, a bit of rough and tumble, you know, a bit of like, a bit of like fighting on the side to like real life consequences, you know. [00:45:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Because it was a big turning point for Frida when she ran the assassin through. [00:45:52] Speaker B: Jc. How about you? [00:45:53] Speaker A: You. [00:45:54] Speaker B: How about Algann? [00:45:56] Speaker F: I think a lot of what I had planned for Algann was sort of like how he would have been before the campaign began. Before I had a real sense for what Alicia was like and just how desperate and apocalyptic it was. And, and I had the whole idea of him was that he's this sort of master blackmailer and I would like in any given situation be able to read an NPC and get some kind of dirt on them and to the point where that was baked into his vice. Like I had this idea of his vice being like almost like blackmailing normal people for fun, but then the dice never really worked out that well, when I was trying to do those downtime rolls and I wasn't really getting what I wanted from it, so I leaned into foresight more as like a drug, just simply because it's an easier vice to get through in those sort of downtime encounters and also leaning on the moment. But yeah, I think I. I think a lot of what I planned for Algernon came to fruition. I did a lot of research into Eton Boys School and to the point where I even learned this, learned the song. And then, yeah, I did a lot of research into like, Sherlock Holmes. I remember before we started, I was playing this old Sherlock Holmes game for Ms. Dos that I used to play as a kid and I was writing down like the dialogue. [00:47:43] Speaker C: Amazing. [00:47:45] Speaker F: Some of his one liners and quips and stuff were just lifted from that. Amazing. And it's a headspace that I found it quite hard to leave. [00:47:57] Speaker C: Just really resonated with you, that character. You played, Algernon, so effortlessly, it seemed like. [00:48:05] Speaker F: Thank you. I found it quite taxing actually being. And having to think about things almost. Almost like I was the dungeon master within the group of players and I. Yeah, exactly. I can't wait. I can't wait to play someone who's thick as a brick. [00:48:25] Speaker C: I mean, I. Yeah, I repeatedly thought, how does JC doing this? This is, you know, 3D chess thinking at all times. And I think one of the things that really impressed me about the way you play blades in the dark is how good you are at those elements of the game where it's like, I'm going to take control of this scene and I'm going to use flashbacks really cleverly. And like, that was something that I, as a baby blades player really struggled with. That shift into the blades mentality rather than the D and D. I'm just going to react to what's around kind of mentality. So I thought, yeah, it really showed up in the way you played that really sort of clever lateral thinking style of play. [00:49:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely like over the space of this campaign, I noticed how kind of unique. Unique the spider play style is in terms of like role playing games. Because I've never really known any other, like class fantasy, for all extents and purposes, fundamentally be able to go, no, no, dm, no, no, gm. This is what it looks like. Just, yeah, like scribbling over the notes and then how to get back. Yeah, no, I think, yeah, I think, I think Algernon was like a fantastic character that you played awesomely. Yeah, thanks. [00:49:55] Speaker B: How about you? And atta. [00:50:01] Speaker E: Funny that JC says that they can't wait to play a dumb character because I routinely in games end up as the moral compass or the sort of one that tries to keep the group together and kind of doesn't. I don't often get to be unhinged in my TTRPGs because of like, how I am as a person. So I was determined in this lovely group of very safe people because I appreciate you all. This is the soppy bit. I appreciate you greatly. The. The ability to be able to play Atta, who. Who really is probably as close to kind of an evil aligned character as I ever kind of intended originally. Like, she fully at the beginning wanted to bring down the veil. She didn't give two shits about any like anything other than ghosts their grandma must have. And she like wanted the chaos of it all. She like fully wanted to embrace the chaos of it all. And it really was interesting to have the moment where. And I was sort of expecting this, the moment, I think especially when cavern. It was. It was a lot of cavern and a lot of algae that helped Atta reconsider. [00:51:31] Speaker A: Well, that. [00:51:32] Speaker E: That would actually mean. I don't think she's a character that thinks beyond like her desires, but she now does. Through the course of the campaign, she thinks very much about how to balance what she wants to happen and what's good in the world. And so she kind of became. Not necessarily. She really redirected her unhingedness into like cooperativeness, which was. Which was nice to see her care about something because she doesn't. At the beginning of the campaign, she doesn't have anything other than really grandma and pseudo grandma, which is Asma. Asma kind of played a place. She was kind of almost projecting Grandma onto Asma, which was kind of cruel in a lot of ways. But yeah, she's now got people that she cares about more, more than an objective. So that was. That was nice. That was really nice. But I kind of feel like Asma's always like one discovery away from doing something horrible. And that's kind of when she picks up like the sending stone to like cavern or algae or like Magpie Frieda, should I do this? And they're like, no, please don't. It would be wrong. She'd be like, okay, okay. And then she just makes furious notes on it and says, do not do. And kind of underlines it several times in her notebook. [00:53:18] Speaker C: I love that. [00:53:19] Speaker E: Yeah, Ato is a really fun character to play. I really appreciate being able to play that kind of character. [00:53:27] Speaker A: And I appreciate that you played the goblin with a tail. [00:53:34] Speaker E: With a tail. It came up once and I was like, we didn't go to the tail ever again. But yeah, I, I, it was my one little what if I knew made goblins have tails in Dan's world. [00:53:47] Speaker A: Yes. Errol has, is still currently the leader of most like notable change to one of the elsewhere heritages. Like off the back of Atta I've, I've had to go, some goblins have tails. [00:54:05] Speaker C: We talked about that before the campaign started, didn't we? You came to me like, Errol wants their goblin to have a tail. How am I going to explain this? And we talked about it and came up with, okay, so you know, it's a genetic, it's like a recessive gene in goblins. So some goblins will have tails, but. [00:54:23] Speaker A: Not all goblin tails are to goblins what gingers are to Daniel. No. Yes. So from keep your peepers peeled in case I drop Goblin NPCs with tails in the future. Amazing. Who's next? Julia. [00:54:46] Speaker B: Julia. [00:54:46] Speaker E: Ye. [00:54:47] Speaker C: Right. Magpie. I think Magpie basically went the way I wanted her to in a lot of ways. So one aspect of her is the whole double life thing. So I was quite inspired by characters I've seen in previous sort of D and D kind of campaigns. So there was Dragon heist that I DMed. I talked about this in my intro video. There was the Black Viper character. Spoilers for Dragon Heist turns out to be very similar type of character to Magpie. And also there's in Unprepared Casters, which is a D and D podcast I really love. They've got a mini campaign called Lovejoys4 which is about a very, very blades in the Darky style crew, one of whom, Robin Lovejoy, is the daughter of a very rich and powerful family who is moonlighting as, you know, basically steals for fun around the city. So I was kind of inspired by those sorts of characters. And also the other aspect of her is that she is an Aesavar. So there was that whole path thing where essentially all Asfar are expected to follow a path. And what, what do you do if your path has absolutely nothing to do with what you value or think is important? So it was all about like tensions in, you know, tensions within us and kind of internal conflict with, with Magpie. So I kind of, I had it in mind from the beginning that she was absolutely going to get rumbled one way or another. Like that was for me, I would have been really unhappy if I'd got To the end. And nothing had come of that internal conflict in her of, like, am I a rich socialite or am I the, you know, the lurk who tries to do good in the city? So I was very grateful when you. [00:56:49] Speaker A: Kept rolling too well. [00:56:53] Speaker B: You probably had the most crits throughout the whole. [00:56:55] Speaker C: For sure, Magpie got the most crits. I just think that just reflects the fact that she does a few things very well and. Yeah. And that's what she tends to stick to. And I really love the development in her relationship with Samuel. I was getting a bit worried at the beginning in the first sort of half of the campaign that Samuel just wasn't around and because he was stuck in prison and. But then the fact that we got to go and get him out, and he became much more of a surrogate father figure than I had anticipated he might. But it just. It just felt like it kind of went that way and was very heartwarming when it did. [00:57:37] Speaker E: So. [00:57:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think the thing that I was in the finale, when we had all of our final scenes at the end, like, where are they? A year later, and Magpie had her scene with Samuel talking about how she was leaving. I think what I was trying to get at but didn't phrase terribly well was basically, it was about paths. It was like, the reason I'm going is that I spent my whole life up till now in, you know, doing my duty in one way or another, you know, appearing dutiful to my family, you know, doing what I felt obligated to do to the sick for the city. And now, finally, the city's okay. I'm. I'm gonna go off and find my own path now. So. Yeah. [00:58:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Because, I mean, for a. For a lot of ace of art. By the time Campaign 3 rolls around, like, three years after the Eschaton, there's going to be a lot of acavar, including Sangres as a concept in Campaign 2. But, like, it's been 3. Campaign 3. Three years later, Sanguvar will be absolutely part of the general population. Yeah, There's a lot of Ace of R whose paths just don't make sense or are no longer applicable or so. Yeah, you may. Well may well find that ace of our PCs in the future. [00:59:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:10] Speaker A: Might have a mentor in Magpie, a traveling magpie. [00:59:15] Speaker C: I feel as if the Eschaton is a. Probably will have proved to be a bit of a watershed moment it. A lot of Eivar's lives, because prior to the Eschaton, I think it would probably have been much More common to just follow your path, not question it. Or even if you did sort of internally question it, it wouldn't have been acceptable to go against it. But then the eschaton, everything just went to hell and everyone was just scrabbling to survive and rebuild the world. And at that point, I feel like that will have freed a lot of Aesavar up to break away from convention. [00:59:47] Speaker A: And traditional session to become wanderers. [00:59:50] Speaker C: Yeah, maybe, maybe. [00:59:52] Speaker B: I. I was a particularly big fan of the scene that Alganon and Magpie had. Just the nice sort of chatty scene the both of you had. Because I don't think there's very often within any of the campaigns, like two characters of two player characters of similar race and especially like, similar class as well. So you're both of like, nobility having a chat about, like, well, my path is not this, like, what's happening. I. I just really enjoyed that scene. [01:00:20] Speaker C: Yeah, that was a nice one. [01:00:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm glad we got. We got the time to look at that Algernon Magpie relationship. That was. That was very sweet. Last, but certainly not least, talk to us about Catherine. [01:00:39] Speaker B: So I think with Cavern, like, I had a com. I did have quite of a different plan for him. Like, at the beginning, my plan was more that he. More sex. [01:00:52] Speaker C: Even more. [01:00:53] Speaker B: Well, that was the thing I was thinking. I was trying to be a little bit more downgrading on the sex more with him and his character because I wanted. I wanted him just to use his, like, his status as a dragon scent more to get, like, money and status. And just so happens that some people might want to do something more sexual with him and he'd be like, oh, I can offer you a tete a tete or whatever for that. But then he just became a boy. So then just developed into that and I was like, well, cool. I very. I really enjoyed playing Cat Catherine. Like, he's definitely been one of my favorite characters to play, especially as he's meant to be like, a very charismatic character. And I'm not very charismatic in real life. So playing that might have been like, a little bit difficult for me. But I did really enjoy playing him and just how his. I also didn't plan for him to be as passionate as I think I played him sometimes, very passionate about. About people and people's situations. I fully felt like he would just be very blase about it. But then he just became very passionate about, like, people's lives and, you know, sort of like what was happening in the city and. And how people were being affected so, yeah, that was. That was something I didn't really plan for. [01:02:18] Speaker A: What I'm hearing a lot of is everyone was like, my character is intended to a real. And then by the end of the campaign, you're all just. No, we. We were just too soft and squishy. Yeah. Did you, like. I mean, Dorothea arguably was one of the more kind of prominent rivals. How. How did that whole kind of arc between Kevin and Dar pan out? Friends to love, enemies to lovers, obviously. [01:02:55] Speaker B: I mean, it definitely did play out, like when. When we decided we were gonna have that, like, wrap up. I really didn't know what you were planning to do with that. And I was just fully. Just sort of letting you roll with whatever you thought was best because I then fully prepared, you know, she might have just come out of the shadows and just shanked me. I don't know. But. But yeah, she. She was definitely played the way that I thought. She. She would have been like. I thought she was a. Like, I have my. I have my things with general faith in the. In the world of ours anyway. So being able to sort of play that out was. Was really fun. [01:03:38] Speaker A: And because you did seem quite surprised when. When she admitted that she'd done a real kind of. Is it Webber Mitchell? Like, are we the bad guys? [01:03:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:51] Speaker A: Would you have that moment? Yeah, no, that's. Yeah. I. I think I'll just step in, actually mentioning the faith. There's a part of me that felt like the expectation was that the faith was going to be the BB egs. And then because, like, I was really, like, certainly in the second act, I realized that you all. Very few of you liked the, like to the faith. So, yeah, I. I thought I'm gonna push. I'm gonna push Lucraji and the children of. I am. And like, show what, like, show a worst case scenario, like, cult, like faith. [01:04:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:34] Speaker A: Rather than one that is, you know, genuinely spiritual and kind of good meaning and actually looking out for. For people. You know, the whole concept of theoretic. Well, the idealistic concept of religion. Yes. Yes. Errol. [01:04:52] Speaker E: Well, the point where the faith became very evil for me was they're taking all of our magic items and they're destroyed. Destroying them. Those. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fun. Fun to take what. Because I know, Nate, you're playing in Tales from Elsewhere. So, like, you were playing games set outside of Alicia. So it was, you know, stories that aren't bound by the twisted narrative of Alicia. So then. And you picked a seraphim, like a. A holy warrior of a no less. And yeah, even I found it a bit of a weird. Like I was a goodie. But, yeah, it was. It was fun to take what you would consider the good guys and then just make them the most twisted parody. Yeah. Just kind of culminated in what felt like a very. It felt quite personal when you lot were fighting off the children of IV in the sewers. [01:05:57] Speaker B: I feel like as a group of people who we are in real life, we can't help but feel any sort of a post, like, personal emotion to that either, you know, religion or the police are going to be the bad guys in some sort of sense. [01:06:10] Speaker F: So this is true, something I always find interesting when, like, dming a fantasy world world where the religions are very real. [01:06:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:22] Speaker F: But it's. It's very likely that you have a table full of, like, atheists who don't care about religion or actively don't dislike religion or have their own religious trauma, but you're saying to them, no, you have to actually think now that you're in a world where there are good religions and they're really. Yes. [01:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah. It becomes very much more like it. Weirdly, it almost becomes more abstract and like, no, this one is good and this one is bad. Yeah, yeah, you can't have. You can't really have atheism in the vast majority of tabletop RPG worlds, can you? [01:07:04] Speaker C: Well, Terry Pratchett sort of gets into that in his Discworld series. He talks about how a belief isn't really a thing when the gods are literal and, and real. Because, you know, saying, oh, I believe in this God is a bit like saying, I believe in the postman. Like, you know, they're there, but you either are like a devout follower of them or you just kind of leave, leave them to it and don't bother them, you know? [01:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we. We live in a world where there are their footprints embedded in mountains and. Yeah, yeah, towns and cities are no longer gone because a dragon tripped over and sat on it. Like. Yes, it's pretty. Real pretty. [01:07:39] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:07:42] Speaker A: Cool. Well, that. Thank you. Now, yeah, the. The combination of characters, like we. We had a little joke before we recorded today, which was imagine what the campaign would be if we'd all played our B team characters from the get go. [01:07:57] Speaker C: It would have been quite different. [01:07:59] Speaker A: Quite, quite different. But yeah, between, between the five of you, like, the characters that you brought to the table. Like, you all genuinely helped in kind of creating the story of Campaign 2. And like, it's kept me kind of like more, you know, this campaign has been One of the most engaged with campaign that I've run in a while, simply because a lot of, A lot of the campaign from my perspective was just like gray area waiting for you to kind of throw your ideas in and then seeing what came out of it and then kind of rolling off the. The consequences and whatnot. Yeah, it was this. I absolutely in love with the campaign two story. So thank you all for, for contributing to that, that. Really, really appreciate it. Is there anything else on the cards? [01:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's, there's quite a few, but obviously we've gone on for quite a bit. So I guess. [01:09:02] Speaker A: Should we do a lightning round? [01:09:04] Speaker C: Well, I, I really wanted to hear what people's thoughts were on what other playbooks they would have wanted. [01:09:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:10] Speaker C: To play or like, if you got to play Blades again, what, what playbooks would you be most interested in? I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on that. [01:09:18] Speaker A: If, if we did like an Alicia Rising version of season six of Breaking Bad, like somehow we could re. Return for another season. Yeah, yeah. I'd be interested. Meg, you've. You've experienced Cutter, where would you step next? [01:09:36] Speaker D: Do you know what? I'm actually gonna start by going off a bit off Kilton. I really enjoyed playing Cutter. And before I. The previous time I played Blades, I played a spider, but way, way more enjoyed Cutter. And I don't know what I'd play in terms of actual player playbooks. But I tell you what I'd really like to do as like our, our sort of like group thing. I'd really love to try starting a cult. I, I really kind of wish we'd have done that. I think that would have been great. [01:10:14] Speaker C: If we just a different crew type altogether. [01:10:17] Speaker D: Yeah, if we'd have been a different crew type, a different like faction, and we started Cult, that would have been. [01:10:23] Speaker C: That could have been so fun. [01:10:25] Speaker A: What I'm hearing is Blades of the Dark Cult crew plus Pugmir equals Cult the Lamb Tabletop rpg. [01:10:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:40] Speaker A: You heard it here. It's on the books. Okay, so you, you would play, you would play a cultist. Very good. [01:10:47] Speaker D: It's very good. [01:10:49] Speaker A: Jc, what would you play? Have you scratched your spider itch? [01:10:54] Speaker F: Oh, definitely. I think I would go for something like a Cutter and be as a more simple barbarian type character. And I have actually. Well, when I come up with characters, it's never like class first. It's always based on character, basically like a screenwriter. So I was toying with the idea of a Cutter type character who was like, based on this Real person who I find really fascinating and quite scary called Paul Sykes. He was like a boxer from the 80s and he was a really sad, like tragic alcoholic. But I. Yeah, so I think doing a character study with somebody who is a violent person, I find that quite interesting. Whether that's a cutter or a hound or something else. [01:11:54] Speaker D: Oh, almost like Disco Elysium vibes. [01:11:59] Speaker A: Okay, so something, something a bit more direct. Okay. Very, very good. What about Errol? So you've played a leech in Lorenzo. You've played a. [01:12:13] Speaker E: A whisper and Meg Whispers have like a whole thing where they can start cults. So just, just letting you know they've got cult vibes. Like they've got one of their abilities is like to do cults, essentially. Yeah, yeah. I really, I really enjoyed playing a leech. And the reason that I enjoy playing a leech is because it feels like they're much more long term. So like a lot of their abilities and a lot of the things that they're, they do are, are about like building something. And if I was like developing Lorenzo and the whole paralytic poison thing was like. Well, I was trying to figure out whether how Lorenzo would have a vice and it's just like weird experiment doctor that hides it. But I also would maybe play into. Maybe have been like a former garden keeper. But anyway, there's another, there's another class that I can't remember what the playbook is called. [01:13:14] Speaker A: What's it, what's the style like? [01:13:17] Speaker E: And oh gosh, it's flown out of my brain because I've been thinking about leech so much. [01:13:23] Speaker C: So you've got. [01:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah, Cutter, lurk, leech slide. [01:13:31] Speaker E: Oh, it's the same as what Nate played. [01:13:34] Speaker C: Yeah, that's slide, slide, slide. [01:13:37] Speaker E: Thank you. Yeah, like a more charismatic, alluring character is kind of something I've been recently playing like a very high charisma character in a cyberpunk game. And it's really fun to be able to just like play with NPCs that way. So maybe I'd want to try that again. [01:14:01] Speaker F: Yeah. And the. In the 1 blades 1 shots I've played before, I was playing like a proto Algonon type character, but he was a slide and he had that, he had ability that Nate picked up where you could just throw off a disguise and get the initiative of any situation. And that was kind of fun to me. It was me all along. [01:14:23] Speaker E: Love that. [01:14:26] Speaker A: Okay, so a slide for Errol Cavern Mate. [01:14:35] Speaker B: Actually kind of like to mirror Errol there because I think playing a Whisper would Actually be quite fun. Yeah. Especially now that you said that they can start cults, so. Yeah. [01:14:48] Speaker E: Yeah. Nice. [01:14:49] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [01:14:50] Speaker C: And Julia, I think Hound, definitely I've always been a fan. Fan of the, you know, strong, dark, brooding henchman who you. Incredibly professional and you send off with his gun to like, you know, get. Get rid of a problem or, you know, hunt somebody. And. Yeah, I just. I think that would be quite a fun archetype to play. Quite different from what I normally play. [01:15:15] Speaker A: I think I'm going to join you in saying. I'm just going to quickly jump in and say, I think Ham would be the one. One that I'd be interested in because it's got the elements of lurk. Yeah, quite enjoy. [01:15:25] Speaker C: But also it's a bit stronger, a bit of a, you know, more predator style. Character lurks are all about evasion. [01:15:32] Speaker F: It was very easy as well when I was playing Ro looking through his loadout. He has, like, special ammunition that can hunt ghosts and a big gun or telescope. It's just what I need, basically. No further thought required. [01:15:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Alicia Rising would have been very, very different if one of you had a sniper rifle. [01:15:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:16:00] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. So. Well, yeah, I mean, if we ever play Blaze together again, then, yeah, we know what our new playbooks are going to be. Any. Any other questions on the. On the list? [01:16:14] Speaker B: Maybe we'll make this the last one and it's more. [01:16:18] Speaker A: I've got one final, like, group thing. [01:16:20] Speaker B: To ask after as well, so this is for everyone. Again, how do we feel? Like Blaze in the Dark plays differently, especially for the people like myself, where it's their first time playing it. Like, how do you feel it differs from like, other sort of like big ttrpg. So like D and D and stuff like that. Like, how did you find it easy to sort of get into the gameplay? Did you, you know, did you struggle a little bit? Did you take a while? Just sort of things like that. Let's. Well, let's. Let's start up. Let's go with Julia this time. [01:16:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I really struggled. I loved it by the end, but at the beginning I was so used to D and D where success is kind of common and on a bit of a gradient of just like, you do it, you do it amazingly or whatever. With blades, a failure is so baked into the mechanics and the way you tell the story. And actually I really like it now. I'm used to it. But first I felt really defeated whenever I didn't roll a six. So that took a bit of getting used to. And the Other thing I took a while to get used to was how creative you can be as a Blades player. Like, you know, affecting, you know, situations and kind of coming up with flashbacks and stuff. So that took a while to get into as well. And I feel like I always sat. Took a back seat on that side of things. I let other people. I wasn't quite brave enough to do it very often, but, yeah, that is something. Something I've come to appreciate about the Blade system. [01:17:57] Speaker B: For me, I'll. I'll hop on with my points of view and just sort of agree with you on there, Julia. Like that whole creativity part of being like, you can come up with a flashback and you can kind of like say, well, like, oh, actually I did this because it feels like a little bit like metagaming in a way. [01:18:15] Speaker C: Like you're cheating almost. [01:18:16] Speaker B: Yeah. But that all still relies on the role that you do, so. And it was getting that part to click in my brain that went, oh, actually, yeah, this, this can be done. And. Or whatever Dan sort of agrees with, just like, cool, let's go with that. I like it. Or something along those lines. So, yeah, it was, it was definitely bits like that. Errol, how about you? Because you played blades before? [01:18:41] Speaker E: Yeah, I have once. I just need to plug in my laptop and move it really quickly because I'm on 32%. [01:18:47] Speaker A: Let's jump to JC in the meantime. [01:18:52] Speaker F: So the one, the one thing I really love about Blade System is this idea of clocks being attached to your goal or not. Not even necessarily the clocks, but just having goals that you as characters can do in any way, you can achieve them in any way. It's not like D and D where you've got a monster in front of you and the only way to defeat it is to chip away its hit points. And for players like myself, who like doing character studies and playing talky people, it can be a bit frustrating just watching people fire magic missiles. So when you've got the clock, even if it's something like a big Mecha diving suit that you need to attack, I'm still free to come up with a creative solution that can take a chunk of that clock away using whatever skills that I want to. And that's what I really love about the system. But then I think a big criticism I have with it is that it's very busy. You're always doing stuff that has to be useful to your characters and even in the downtime sessions, you're not really having downtime. Like there's not chance for us to just like chat in character and talk about our backstories. It always has to be useful. You've got to be clearing stress, you've got to be healing yourself. You've got to be doing a project which can be, is very useful for momentum of a game. But when we're doing like a show where we are all doing playing characters and maybe want to explore more roleplay stuff, it just adds an extra bit of shopping list of stuff that we need to do and get through. [01:20:40] Speaker C: I agree with that. Definitely. [01:20:43] Speaker A: No, that's fair. No, I see where you're coming from on that one. On that front, I guess if like I, I, you know, I think the constraint of, of us doing like keeping things relatively concise, I know that we could, we could absolutely happily let the like the, the free time basically just kind of explode out and really kind of get to grips with the players because yeah, Blades has been fantastic for generating like case studies on each of your kind of individual characters. Like, like I feel like I know your five characters like so much more intimately than I do any kind of D and D campaign that I've run in the past. Yeah, you could, you could absolutely get kind of really lost in that. That would be like in a good way. So. No, that's fair. That's fair. [01:21:41] Speaker F: One of the things I've enjoyed, this is the first time in ages that I've actually played a character like in a long term thing. And I've really enjoyed the process of like creating a character and a backstory and having all these little stories in my, in the back of my brain that I'm ready to just like bring forward in the roleplay and add to add to your image of my character. That's something I really enjoy doing and I miss doing it from being behind the Dungeon Master screen all the time. Time. [01:22:15] Speaker A: That's fair. Errol's plugged in. [01:22:20] Speaker E: I am, Yes. I, I fell out of love with DND like about maybe a year and a half ago like as a, a system or at least it had done what it needed to do for me. I still like the system. I still, still play it again. But yeah, I think Blades is similar to some of my other favorite systems which is like Spire and Heart, which are about like a group of people and maybe Wildsea as well. A group of people. That one I think that Blades does really well. That D and D is really crap at is Blades has like a. You're all part of a gang and so you're all like to JC's point, you're all working towards a collective goal. And I find that D and D can be very individualistic, like my backstory and how it plays into the rest of the wider narrative. Whereas this is all about, well, you're part of a gang, so you need to maintain the gang, otherwise why are you in this kind of game? And I really appreciate that part of Blades, but yeah, and the collaborative storytelling. I love, like how you can really chain flashbacks, you can really chain actions. It's actually like a system that encourages that kind of thing to better effect, essentially. Whereas, you know, when you are in D and D, it's like I got a high score in my perception, so I get in like special information. Whereas, like, it doesn't feel like you're getting like that kind of vibes in, in Blades. Like, it doesn't feel as, like, yeah, that, that kind of. I don't know how to describe it. So I, I vastly prefer like blade blades, like systems or like adaptions to DND that, that bring in the best parts of those kinds of systems, that they encourage that, that kind of gameplay. There's my spicy hot takes on the system. [01:24:16] Speaker A: Can I. Yeah. Based off like DND that introduces more blaze, like mechanics. Could I introduce you to Dagger Heart? No, that's, that's, that's good to know. Yeah. And again, I, I agree. I think, yeah, the, the whole, I've noticed in the past one of the most more difficult parts of DMing in DND is taking 4, 5, 6 disparate backstories and then going, ah, I've got to somehow like tie these into a big knot. Not to give everyone some sort of communal purpose without making it. Without just trampling over what you've brought to the table kind of thing to. Yeah, no, that's fair. Meg. Meg. [01:25:09] Speaker D: Yeah, I don't think there's that much, like new I can add, but definitely I'm echoing everything. I, I, I really enjoy the creativity. I really enjoy the like cinematic nature of, of it. You know, it feels, yeah, it just feels cinematic and not procedural. Errol, I actually think I can put a name to your point. I'm gonna on DND a little bit here as well. I feel like D can lend to a group of individuals who all feel like their own little Mary Sues. You know, you, you kind of, you get powerful really quickly and then I think it's really difficult to sort of inject a sense of like, danger and a sense of risk into the game. Whereas Blades of the Dark, it's all about risk. It's all about failing. It's all about, like, being creative through your failures and actually learning from your, like, mistakes. So. So, yeah, I really enjoy that. I think my struggles with blades, it's getting the head around. I think the. The main complicated bit of it is getting your head around the sort of, like, the positions like Risky standard and. And lesser Great effect. That has taken my brain a little bit of time to get. Get my head around, but once I got it, it's super easy. But here's my hot take that hasn't been said yet. I really enjoy the fact that I don't have to keep track of seven different types of dice. I love the fact that it's all just D6s. [01:26:48] Speaker C: Okay, there we go. [01:26:52] Speaker E: Spoken like a true warhammer convert, actually. [01:26:57] Speaker D: Yeah, genuinely. I think, you know, I used to be all about, like. Yeah. I used to get my little sets of my little D20 sets, you know, and all said, no, I am. I'm total. I'm a D6 convert. I really. [01:27:08] Speaker C: Amazing. [01:27:13] Speaker A: Nate, am I allowed to jump in? [01:27:15] Speaker E: Of course. [01:27:15] Speaker B: Yes. Go for it. [01:27:17] Speaker A: I. My favorite is bit about Blaze is the mechanical drive to definitively make the story about the players. Like, the crew. I mean, I will you touch on this, but, like, the crew as a whole is the. The heart of the whole story. Like, everything that happens is either. But pretty much either done to the crew or by the crew. And then that, like, that. That, you know, that intimacy for the characters just makes seeing what happens with you all that much more exciting combined with. So, Julie, you touched on this, like, the shift in perspective for, like, boundaries of success. So a 4 or 5. A success with complicated, like a partial success is realistically the gold standard, like, the silver standard. And it leads to points where seeing a six in blades so algae parrying away the black guard with a crutch, like disarming Lukraji in the tunnels. Like, those sixes are so much more sweet. Yeah. Than a success in D and D because you're expect. Like, that is not expectation, but kind of going. But, yeah, reframing it. So I do it. And something has evolved as a result of my success. But that being the norm. Yeah. Just makes for much more interesting storytelling. I. I think. Yeah. Say these. These five characters, I feel like I know so much more intimately, more than many other of the parties I've kind of run in the past, but that, you know, I also care about them because I feel like they've almost accomplished more in. In their time, in our time together. Down downsides. Yeah. I mean, is quite bookkeepy. I'm surprised that I managed to kind of extract enough of blades that I could put my own setting on it. John Harper, if you do happen to be watching this, you could have released the. The update to the rules before the finale. That came out literally days before the finale. Come on, mate. [01:29:49] Speaker C: What are you doing? [01:29:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I. I'm really interested in running another blades campaign. But, like, the problem I've now find myself in. Find myself in is like, what would I do? Like, what, do I run an actual Blaze thing or do I take one of the many hacks of it or. Yeah, yeah, that. That's me. Are we. Are we all done for? Because I say, I've got one more question, one lightning round that I want to fire around the five of you. [01:30:22] Speaker B: Gosh. [01:30:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:30:23] Speaker A: Okay. Starting with N. Songbird. Velca. Musto. [01:30:36] Speaker C: Absolutely not. [01:30:38] Speaker A: Mary. Snog. Mary. Kill. [01:30:41] Speaker B: Mary. Kill. [01:30:45] Speaker F: Kill. [01:30:46] Speaker B: Musto. [01:30:48] Speaker C: No. [01:30:55] Speaker B: Sorry, what? It was Kill. [01:30:57] Speaker A: Kill. [01:30:57] Speaker B: Mary. [01:30:59] Speaker C: Songbird. Velka. Musto. I think. [01:31:01] Speaker B: Velka. Songbird. Marry. [01:31:03] Speaker C: Wait, there you go. [01:31:05] Speaker A: Julia. [01:31:06] Speaker C: Oh, is it. We're all getting the same one. [01:31:10] Speaker A: Thing is, I mean, I can change it up if you like. Yeah, okay, I'll change up. Yeah. So. For Julia, Nephene, the orchestra. Musto. [01:31:24] Speaker C: No, that's really mean. You can't do that. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Hear me out. Hear me out. Kill the orchestra. Because I'm not sharing any kind of bed with that lunatic Nephene. Marry. Musto. Because, you know, he. He brings in that money. [01:31:49] Speaker A: He does. Well, not anymore. He's not even force of it. He's taking redundancy. True. [01:31:55] Speaker C: We just. We just have a separate marriage. We'd live in separate houses. We talk. We'd have that kind of marriage. [01:32:01] Speaker A: Like a royal marriage. [01:32:02] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [01:32:03] Speaker A: Very good, Very good. Meg, let's go. The guy from the lodge you had a little chat with in Jocasta's pit. [01:32:16] Speaker D: Okay. [01:32:19] Speaker A: Algar. Sergeant. Leech. [01:32:23] Speaker C: Oh, not Musto. [01:32:24] Speaker A: Musto. Someone else to get a leech. That. That old. The old Lodge reticent guy. Algarve. Musto. [01:32:39] Speaker D: Can I them all at the same time? [01:32:42] Speaker C: And then you've got to kill them all. [01:32:44] Speaker D: Hear my reasoning, right? If you're them all at the same time, it's like eventually it's just going to be like a sensory overwhelm to the point where it's just bodies moving together. [01:32:55] Speaker C: You're not aware of who it is. [01:32:57] Speaker F: Yeah. [01:32:57] Speaker D: And you won't have to. [01:32:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:32:58] Speaker D: Actually have any awareness of, you know, what's going on or. Or what's happening. Yeah, you can. [01:33:06] Speaker E: You can be like, whose finger is that? It doesn't matter. [01:33:09] Speaker D: No, you know. You know, think of Alicia. [01:33:17] Speaker A: Okay. [01:33:18] Speaker E: It's a wizard. [01:33:21] Speaker C: Those sweaty little fingers. [01:33:23] Speaker D: It's the greasiest. [01:33:26] Speaker A: Sorry. Okay. J.C. leech, Masto de Vera. [01:33:35] Speaker F: Well, kill Leech, obviously. AAB all the way. I think Mari Musto. [01:33:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:50] Speaker F: And then Kavira, like, providing she's not my secret sister all along. [01:33:58] Speaker C: Good call. [01:33:58] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah, sure. [01:34:00] Speaker C: Agreed. [01:34:02] Speaker A: Okay. Errol. Oh, I feel like I'm gonna have to dig deep. I've already thrown out all the rotters. [01:34:08] Speaker C: Lucrati. You could bring Lukraji into it. [01:34:12] Speaker A: Lucraji. [01:34:13] Speaker C: Odelmarks and Mustang. [01:34:19] Speaker D: Oh, I was gonna say, like, Caleb, but specifically in like. [01:34:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:34:24] Speaker D: In fact, Caleb. [01:34:25] Speaker A: I think pre diving suit Caleb has more ick to him. [01:34:29] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:34:29] Speaker A: So, you know what? Let's. Let's do substitution. [01:34:32] Speaker E: Terrible robot. [01:34:35] Speaker A: So pre suit Caleb. Musto. [01:34:39] Speaker E: Oh, okay. Kill Caleb. [01:34:45] Speaker A: Okay. [01:34:47] Speaker E: Marry Musto, because I feel like he's very easy to cuck. So I feel like he's into Coco stuff. Or at least like you could make him into it. Like, sat in the one chair in the hotel, like, in the see through kimono and you. Anyway, so then it would be Lucraji, because I kind of also feel like that would be kind of, you know, religious people weird. So, yeah, I'm into that. [01:35:26] Speaker A: A real smite on me mummy. What I'm hearing. [01:35:31] Speaker E: Wow. [01:35:32] Speaker A: Okay. I mean, what I've gathered is that a surprising number of you. [01:35:39] Speaker C: Yeah. Join the Mari Musto club. Dan, you need one. What should we do for Dan? [01:35:44] Speaker A: Okay. Oh, am I coming up with mine or you? [01:35:51] Speaker C: No, no, no, no. [01:35:52] Speaker A: We're trying to think of one. [01:35:54] Speaker C: We're stumped. We. We were having to dig really deep. Well, Odal nurse hasn't been done yet. Okay, so we should do Odorous Tarot. The tarot must stay. [01:36:05] Speaker E: Oh, what about the leader of the alnace? She's super old. [01:36:10] Speaker C: Lady Noel. Lady Noel Tarot. [01:36:16] Speaker A: Okay, I bump off Lady Null because, I mean, she has been here for both a good and a long time, so it would be a mercy in all honesty, I would get say it was new tarot. Musto. [01:36:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:36:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:36:40] Speaker C: There's a correct answer to this. [01:36:42] Speaker A: I get freaky with tarot. [01:36:43] Speaker C: Yes. [01:36:45] Speaker A: Because, like, I'm sure she could show me things that no other NPC in Alicia Rising could. And then marry Musto, because, yeah, he is the epitome. [01:36:57] Speaker C: He's the most marryable npc. [01:37:00] Speaker A: You always know where he is. Yeah. [01:37:03] Speaker C: From the smell. [01:37:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And yeah, he looks. Having done the hero forge room, he looks damn good in a see through red dressing gown. [01:37:17] Speaker E: Why did, why did Elgarnon have a see through red kimono in the first. Oh, it was his mum. Okay. [01:37:25] Speaker C: But why was it. [01:37:26] Speaker E: Okay, it's late for you guys. [01:37:31] Speaker A: It's better if you don't ask the questions. Okay, well, on those bombshells, I love. [01:37:39] Speaker C: How highbrow the final question was. [01:37:43] Speaker A: As. As it always should be in explorers elsewhere. So, yeah, with all, all that said. Yeah, I just want to thank you, the five of you, once again, for like all of your time, your commitment, the sheer amount of like, effort and love that you've put into Campaign two because, like, coming out of campaign one, which I would regard as, you know, quite successful from a sort of like a gming perspective, I was low key, kind of terrified for the softball, the sophomore campaign. But yeah, you've. You've raised the bar, I feel. So for that I am infinite grateful. And for anyone who's watching this, having also watched the previous 20 episodes, I'd like to thank you for your time and commitment. I. I know I always wanted to do these kind of campaigns to put out some really kind of interesting, entertaining, engaging stories, not only like, for us, but for, for anyone who wants to consume it online. So, yeah, thank you very, very much for your support in supporting us as well. And yeah, before I get too, too emotion, I think, I think that's it. [01:39:09] Speaker C: Oh boy, oh boy. [01:39:12] Speaker A: That's it. Yeah, we bring. We. We turn the final page of Campaign 2. Tell you what, actually sneaky last. Last question. What are the next adventures that you foresee yourselves jumping into now that Campaign 2 is finished? And what's next on your TTRPG horizons and or horizons you're already exploring? Let's start with Julia. [01:39:41] Speaker C: I'm enjoying having a solid running Wednesday night home game that doesn't go on YouTube and you can just mess about and have fun. I play with Nate and a few other lovely people, so yeah, that's my main thing at the moment. [01:39:57] Speaker A: Good old D and D. Yeah. And what about you, Nate? What's. What's keeping you busy? [01:40:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I also again, sort of really enjoy the very sort of weekly game of D D that we've got on our Wednesday group. We've also, if people watch any of the dagger heart like streams, that's also got Livy and Dan P. In it as well. And Chris, who's been on the channel a couple of times, obviously I'm still playing Dagger Heart as well, which I'm really enjoying. And hopefully going to be running a game for the channel. Couple of. Couple of episodes maybe in the new year. We're gonna see how that goes in a one that's been out for a while and I haven't had a chance to play. So I think we're gonna see if we can get Pugmir running. Get a couple of sessions of Pugmir. Nice. [01:40:47] Speaker A: Cultists. Blade of a Dark. Yeah. Meg, are you turning your hand to any other TTRPGs or have you been bitten too hard by the Warhammer bug? [01:40:59] Speaker D: Oh, I mean, yeah, I'm definitely. I'm definitely on the. The Warhammer crazy train at the moment. But yeah, I'm kind of hoping to like, like finally join the Wednesday crew in the new year in like a, you know, in a more casual sort of setting. Maybe even Nate will let me onto Pugmir and I can cosplay as our dog, which I'd really love to do because I think. I think Biscuit would. Biscuit would be such a good character for the. Yeah, for Pugmir. I think it'd be great. But yeah, yeah, it's me. [01:41:37] Speaker C: Nice. [01:41:39] Speaker A: J.C. what are you going to be keeping yourself busy with? [01:41:42] Speaker F: I am currently trying to bend the next series of Adventures in Capital into shape. [01:41:48] Speaker A: Amazing. [01:41:49] Speaker F: It's going to be like small weekly or fortnightly episodes that all tell the story of one, like heist scenario. There's a big birthday party for a posh person that's going to get robbed. And there's also going to be a boxing match which I've created my own homebrew rules to simulate like the 19th century prize fighting rules. It's really ambitious and I don't know how I'm going to edit it yet, but that should be coming in 2025 at some point. [01:42:22] Speaker A: Amazing. [01:42:22] Speaker E: Nice. [01:42:24] Speaker A: And Errol. [01:42:27] Speaker E: I. Speaking about being bitten by bugs, I've been bitten by the. The cyberpunk core or like the cyberpunk red bug. I play in two games at the moment. It's a really great system and I hope to run more cyber cyberpunky systems. But I also would love to run a Void Heart game at some point, which is a nice little system that's very much like about look into Void Heart. It's got like a interesting premise about evil people in societies and you basically is all about foiling an evil person. If you've ever played Persona 5, it's kind of like if every villain had a dungeon and you go through the, like, metaphysical dungeon of that villain to foil them. So I'd love to do that. But also, jc, if there was ever a Strix haven for Algae School or like a kids on bike session for Algae School, I'd love to play like a student at Algae School. [01:43:30] Speaker C: Great idea. [01:43:34] Speaker A: I fully approve and endorse this message. Cool. Yeah. I mean, hopefully might even be able to see some cyberpunk, more cyberpunky stuff from you in the future. So that's us. Yeah. Once again, thank you all. It's gonna be the last time I say it to you lot as a group, but thank you all for watching. Thank you lot for playing and thank you, Dan. [01:44:04] Speaker C: Thank you so much. [01:44:06] Speaker B: This has been really cool. [01:44:08] Speaker D: Yes. Smashed it. Knocked out the park. [01:44:10] Speaker A: Thank you. [01:44:10] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:44:11] Speaker A: As did all of you. As did all of you. So with all that said, if you enjoyed the second campaign of the Explorers of Elsewhere, Elysia Rising, make sure to hit the like button and hit the subscribe button and the bell icon for notifications when release new videos. Because I have this sneaking suspicion that in the very. In the future, I won't say near future. In the future, one of those videos is going to be episode one of Campaign 3. And I'm very excited for that one. So take care, everyone. [01:44:52] Speaker C: Bye bye.