Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Explorers of Elsewhere's Meet the Crew series. I am DM Dan and joining me is a new face to the main campaign, Eriol. Hello. How you doing? Hi.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Hi. I'm good, yeah. Long day, but amazing.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Amazing. Well, yeah, you've kind. We've kind of been floating around within the same kind of rpg social circles around Bristol for a time, so it feels like, yeah, it was about time that we.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: It was about time. I have been big fan for a long time. When I do get the chance to actually consume new media, it's been enjoyable consuming the media of explorers of elso. So thank you.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: No worries. Amazing. Thank you. And we're looking forward to seeing all the exciting stuff that you're going to be bringing with your peculiar player character, the goblin whisper, Atta. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about Atta, what's going on with her?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Gosh. I mean, my approach to making characters is usually just make. I'll just make a little guy. I'm just going to make a little guy. And Atta really started out very much like, I definitely want to lean into a whisper.
I knew that if I was ever going to get to play a blades in the dark game, it was going to be a whisper because I love that kind of spooky, kind of weird, magic, sort of, kind of noir feeling.
But I kind of wanted a character that had a reasonably ordinary upbringing until something really weird happened. And a lot of really weird things have happened in Felicia.
But, yeah, the dial was mostly zero weird and then just immediately turned up to eleven once a certain thing happened.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Sure, yeah. Getting cast into a sea of souls will do that to anyone, I imagine.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: For sure. For sure.
But, yeah, she had a fairly ordinary upbringing. I think she's from Elysia. She's from Elysia. She had a papa and a brother and a weird grandma. So I guess the only thing weird in her life growing up in the city was a slightly weird grandma and kind of leaned into the traditional goblins as very proficient architectural maestros, like the very well regarded people of the town. Her brother and father were practicing this kind of architecture. She was kind of due to do similar things, but was kind of dossing off a lot and tinkering, spending a lot of time with grandma.
But, yeah, had a pretty ordinary upbringing until, I guess, the war kind of conscription side of things, which was when?
So remind me, Dan, when pre and post bubble war is pre war. Conscription is pre bubble. Yeah, I thought so.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: That's it. So, yeah, the war of elsewhere would have been going on for a number of years, and then the escobaton, which was the rather dramatic finale, would directly lead on through bubbling.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: But, yeah, there were a number of ways that Atta specifically kind of avoided being kind of pulled into war. She was quite young at the time.
As she kind of got to the age where she would have been.
Certain accidents would have happened at places where documents were kept. But I think the saddest thing is that papa and bro got conscripted, got conscripted into the war, but grandma stayed. Sure.
Because. Grandma.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Yeah, grandma.
Okay. And, yeah. So when the shield, when the dome encompassed, the sphere encompassed Alicia, you of how did her life change when that happened?
[00:04:41] Speaker B: So when this happened, I think that Atta was pretty much having an ordinary day until something just incredibly weird happened. And her first instinct would have been go back and find Grandma. Couldn't find grandma at all and losing kind of her last family member that she kind of would then come to know that she would not have access to other families outside. Other family members outside.
She suspects heavily that grandma has gone to the outside or been absorbed by the dome.
She has a level of certainty which borders on fanatical.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Right, okay.
So, yeah, I guess that's a pretty good kind of following. After that kind of fanaticism, it's a pretty good reason to get into a gang that deals with lots of arcane implements and methodologies in a city that doesn't allow it.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: Certainly that. And no more family members.
You've got your new obsession with the arcane Magics that are happening. Something weird is happening inside you as well. You're suddenly feeling much more attuned and much more on the same wavelength as things. Magics that are outlawed recently or. Yeah, very much looked down upon, and you got to find a way to survive. So Atta did go and join.
Kind of was a bit of a scamp for a while. Made a few friends kind of on the streets. I think that's what plays into.
I think she's got the underworld. Is it background underworld? Yeah.
And ran with a few of the other gangs, but pissed them off enough to have a rival or two, maybe from the gang, and kind of made one fast friend in the sewers.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Good old.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, now.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Yes, Alma.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Sorry, asthma. Yeah. There's lots of a names in my backstory, but, yeah, made friends with somebody that she probably has that same sense of comfort that she had with grandma. An older lady makes great rat, rat stew or various other dishes with rat in, and. Yeah. Now has her new crew that she is running around.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Okay. Very good. So in terms of Ata as a concept, was there anything in particular that inspired you or influenced you to create the finished Atta product?
[00:07:52] Speaker B: I think there. I'm loathe to reference this, but there's a little bit of a lunar love.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Good.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Because Harry Potter, sadly, is no longer a franchise that I associate with, but there's definitely sort of, like, a normality in the weirdness that she tries to exude. And I have fun with that kind of role playing, just being a bit kooky and a bit strange and a lot of the kind of strangeness that you get with the studio Ghibli witches, where they can be comical at one moment and kind of silly and goofy, and then at another moment just be terrifyingly scary and the stuff of nightmares. So mostly, I'm here to have fun with that balancing act and see if I can make the fellow players laugh and also maybe kind of give them a few nightmares a little bit.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Amazing.
Since dearest Bubble appeared two long years ago, what would you say has been Atta's biggest brag?
[00:09:06] Speaker B: I think taking inspiration from what her papa and bro did, I think leaning into what I selected as her first special skill is she has strange methods where she can invent things, arcane related items. And I think her biggest bragging rights is that I think she approaches those kinds of things with, like, an effortless.
Like, I'm so good at this, I don't even need to think.
The kind of kids that didn't need to study before exams.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: With that.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Sure.
Do you think it's something that she knows about this kind of virtuosity, or is it.
Is she aware of it? Is she not aware of it, do you reckon?
[00:10:00] Speaker B: I think if we're talking percentage, I think she's, like, 70% unaware of. Like, she kind of goes into a fugue state when she's crafting and inventing, especially if it's related to those arcane devices, contraptions. Whatever is going here, there's a sort of removal of the self from the body to some extent.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Amazing. Okay. Well, yes. I'm really kind of jazzed that someone picked up the whisper playbook just because it adds a whole new kind of element and dimension to a blaze in the dark adventure. And also, you picked categorically the best race, the best lineage choice. So I thank you for that.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: There's something so freeing about goblin and other races, right. There's something incredibly freeing about a race or a choice that people tend to have these preconceptions about. So, yeah, I'm stoked to play a.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Goblin 24/7 goblin mode.
Fish, fresh brush.
So, yes, if you're excited to see Ata getting up to all sorts of hijinks, arcane and otherwise, across the city of Alicia, make sure to check out the rising when it comes out, which will be very, very soon.
Given that it's coming out very, very soon, it would behoove you greatly to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon for notifications of when we release new content, because that's going to be happening very frequently and we wouldn't want you to miss out. So, yeah, go ahead and do that. You should.
Fab.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Yes, do it.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Well, thank you all for watching. Thank you, Errol, for giving us a little dive in on atta, and we'll see you next time. Tara.
