If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Jay Dragon, Will Uhl, Lilit Penrod, Justen Jess, Veronica S, Mossy, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, and Amanda Thinks So: THANK YOU!
If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, ALice Kyra, Amanda Thinks So, Elizabeth Bellisario, Justen Jess, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Lilit Penrod, Matthew Guzdial, Nicole Trainor, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, Will Uhl, and Veronica S: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Alice Kyra, Amanda Thinks So, Elizabeth Bellisario, Justen Jess, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Lilit Penrod, Matthew Guzdial, Nicole Trainor, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, Will Uhl, and Veronica S: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, ALice Kyra, Amanda Thinks So, Elizabeth Bellisario, Justen Jess, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Lilit Penrod, Matthew Guzdial, Nicole Trainor, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, and Veronica S: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, ALice Kyra, Amanda Thinks So, Elizabeth Bellisario, Justen Jess, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Lilit Penrod, Matthew Guzdial, Nicole Trainor, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, and Veronica S: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, ALice Kyra, Amanda Thinks So, Elizabeth Bellisario, Justen Jess, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Lilit Penrod, Matthew Guzdial, Nicole Trainor, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, and Veronica S: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, ALice Kyra, Amanda Thinks So, Elizabeth Bellisario, Justen Jess, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Lilit Penrod, Matthew Guzdial, Nicole Trainor, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, and Veronica S: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, ALice Kyra, Amanda Thinks So, Elizabeth Bellisario, Justen Jess, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Lilit Penrod, Matthew Guzdial, Nicole Trainor, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, and Veronica S: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hey listeners, July 3rd is going to be the 100th official episode of Game Closet and I want your help to make it special! For the 100th episode I want to run a couple things on the show.
First, I wanna hear your voices! Send me a recording of how Game Closet influenced your experience in RPGs, your favorite episode, a message of congrats, a great memory of a time we hung out, or even a clip of you promoting your game (tbh i would love it if I got folks sending me E3 style ad reels for their shit)! Try and keep it under like 5 minutes? I don’t know whatever feels like an appropriate length. You can send these by email to Taylor@RiverhouseGames.com by July 2nd. Try and use the subject line “Game Closet 100” but if you forget that’s ok too!
Second, as always, I want your listener questions! This time I’m the guest, tho. Do you have a question about how I run Game Closet, or design my games, or do you just wanna ask me about my favorite fishing lure, movie, or RPG? Now’s your time to ask it! I’ll do my regular tweet and call on Discord but you can also send your questions in a short audio recording form! Shoot me an mp3 of your question to Taylor@RiverhouseGames.com by July 2nd!
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project in (or adjacent to) tabletop RPGs, check out our Guest Form to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and other fun stuff. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Lilit Penrod, Justen Hunter, Veronica S, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Matthew Guzdial, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Paul Bennett, Amanda Thinks So, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Matthew Guzdial, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Matthew Guzdial, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Matthew Guzdial, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Matthew Guzdial, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Matthew Guzdial, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Matthew Guzdial, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Matthew Guzdial, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by your hoset, Taylor. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Matthew Guzdial, Georgie Bats, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
If you ID as queer/LGBT+ and are working on a project adjacent to tabletop RPGs, DM me on Twitter (@LeviathanFiles) to discuss advertising or show appearances!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? DM me on Twitter @LeviathanFiles! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? DM me on Twitter @LeviathanFiles! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? DM me on Twitter @LeviathanFiles! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Mossy, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Welcome to a special episode of Game Closet! You won’t hear your normal host’s voice on this one, but stay tuned!!!
Taylor’s been working as the Design Lead for Descent into Midnight for a good amount of time now and the Kickstarter is IN THE FINAL STRETCH! While you listen to these special Actual Plays, go check it out at DiMRPG.io/ks.
RICH: Hi everyone. Welcome back to Descent into Midnight. If you haven’t heard our character and world generation episode you may want to pop back in the feed and check that out to see how this incredible world the players created came about. Before we get started, let’s go around and remind people who we are and who we’ll be playing. My name is Rich Howard, he/him pronouns, and I am the Concept Lead on Descent into Midnight, and I will be your Guide today. Next up we have Devon.
DEVON: Hi! My name is Devon George. I go by she, they, or he. I am an artist and illustrator, same thing really [laughs], sometimes game designer. Also, if you look at the art in Descent into Midnight some of that is indeed my art. I am playing a Cultivator by the name of Maybe Many Homes who is kind of like a hermit crab Iron Man who is kind of scared and just wants to help people out.
RICH: How about you, DC?
DC: I am DC… and I’m going to be playing-Oh, my pronouns are they/them. I am playing the Traveler which is the name of the class and also Traveler is the name of my character. They have no pronouns, but they and them is fine. They are this really cool representation of the universe’s consciousness in a very deliberate and I guess unassuming form, which is very cool, and I’m excited to see what happens in this third episode that we can’t talk about yet because you might not have heard anything about it. Go listen to the first episode, please.
RICH: [laughs] And Kat?
KAT: Hi, my name’s Kat Kuhl. My pronouns are she/her. I’m a podcaster, game designer, and voice actor. I’m playing a character whose name is Polyp 39, or whose designation is Polyp 39. Their pronouns are they/them, and they’re based around the Redeemed playbook.
RICH: Alright. Our fourth player from the previous games, Richard Kreutz-Landry, who is the Project Lead and Co-Designer on Descent into Midnight, can’t make it today because of work obligations. He was playing our Specialist, Même, but he and I have chatted about Même’s role today so we will find out, we will play to find out what happens, because it’s PbtA and you have to put that in their trademark somewhere.
KAT: Mm-hmm.
DEVON: Spooky.
RICH: Anyway. Let’s go over a little bit what happened last time, both for our listeners and for us. Last session our rebellious Cultivator, known as Many Homes, uncovered pieces of her friend Polyp 39’s missing memory. Polyp 39, a former member of the 100 series Infiltrators had been created by a private military research facility to undermine external threats to the city long before they became actual threats. When Même, a colonial being from another dimension, manifested into this world from The Echo, they duplicated the body of the first sapient creature they found, in this case Polyp 39. This psychic bond accidentally introduced the concept of freedom into 39’s programming and inadvertently to the entire 100 series. The 100 series was then quote unquote “retired” by their creators for this fatal flaw with 39 being one of the only known survivors.
Many Homes’s research into her friend’s missing memory uncovered a broken recording revealing that Polyp 39 had once been sent on an assassination assignment, not outside the city but aimed at one of its citizens. To get this information, Many Homes needed to tap into the enigmatic energy of an extradimensional plant in her garden, dubbed the Leo Venus plants, but doing so left her sick and her technically advanced, bioengineered garden suffering. Many Homes, Même, 39, and their Transcendent friend Traveler made a plan to infiltrate the private military research facility to, one, recover 39’s missing memory, two, revive Many Homes’s garden by exposing her unique species of Leo Venus plant to more of its kind, and three, find a way to help Vista, the last of a species suspected of being the ancestor of the beings known as the Transcendents, which DC is playing today.
When we last left our protagonists they had been discovered outside the former mansion/castle of one of the city’s most prominent families, a building now abandoned by said family, as it has been engulfed in a forest of Leo Venus plants and surrounded by hundreds of private and public research and tech facilities. Many Homes communed with the alien plants in order to find a way into the structure but awoke from her painful psychic connection to find herself face-to-face with her old mentor and four members of the new and improved 1000 series Infiltrators.
So, before we get going, one of the things that we didn’t talk about in this particular game at the beginning that we often do in Descent into Midnight games is the Corruption. Take a look at the back of your playbooks and you’ll see two tracks; there’s a Harmony track and a Corruption track. Harmony is what you mark when you roll a 6 or less or when a move directs you to, and it’s how you advance in the game. I’d like each of you to please mark 3 Harmony in addition to any Harmony you’ve gotten so far in the game. When the Harmony track fills, you clear the Harmony track and you can pick a new advancement, like a new move or something else, or you can also choose to pick an advancement for your community with your Harmony as well.
The Corruption track works in a similar way. When you mark your last box of Corruption the Corruption starts to work through you. You clear the track, you place a Corruption marker on one of the established elements in your community, and you pick one of the Corruption moves on your playbook. Each playbook has three unique Corruption moves to that playbook and there are two additional moves that are shared by every playbook, so you have five to choose from. Each move can be chosen and triggered only once, though, and one of those five helps you end the game in a dramatic way for your character if you choose it.
As a condition of their creation, Polyp 39 is currently sitting at 4 Corruption. The breakdown of the Leo Venus plant inside her shell means that Many Homes is actually sitting at 3 Corruption. Traveler picked up 1 Corruption in an earlier game that I marked down myself due to a scene that we may explain a little bit later.
So, Many Homes, tell me about your last interaction with this former mentor who you have named Definite In Perpetuum. Everyone can chime in ideas as well, but I want to hear a little bit about them. Many Homes, you left working with this mentor after discovering things like Vista and Polyp 39, right?
DEVON: Yeah. I left the place because of a reveal of In Perpetuum being involved in things that were bad, like sending genetically engineered people out to kill other people. I think that the last time Many Homes interacted with In Perpetuum would be honestly before she found out what was going on, I don’t think that there’s been any kind of discussion after it came out to the public. I don’t think there was any chance for her to get any kind of closure. There’s a lot of unresolved worrying on her part there.
RICH: Gotcha. In addition to In Perpetuum being there, In Perpetuum was talking to another Transcendent, they were traveling on the back of what looks like a giant turtle with a fairly flat shell and multiple fins coming out the side of it almost like the oars on a longboat, and they were traveling surrounded by four of this 1000 series Infiltrators. Many Homes had communed with the many Leo Venus plants that are around the area and they revealed to her a trail through a back area or entrance potentially of this Leo Venus covered mansion. She opened her eyes, many, many eyes-How many eyes now, 50,000 eyes? I can’t remember how many eyes. It just keeps getting more and more.
DEVON: I think I originally said seven, but the numbers have gone up to like 37 or something now.
RICH: I see. Okay. So there’s a lot of eyes. Opened up at least one of those many eyes and saw In Perpetuum there who was locking eyes with Many Homes, but in addition to that one of these Infiltrators had split off from the group, maybe potentially sensing something, and heading straight toward you as a collection, and Polyp 39 and this 1000 series Polyp were locked in a… What’s that move that you have? Find Weakness? Sense Weakness?
KAT: Yeah.
RICH: You guys are both analyzing each other. [laughs] I think the last statement you made was, basically, I think we have to be ready for combat or something to that effect. In Perpetuum sees the Infiltrator heading in that direction and one of the others starts to peel off when In Perpetuum calls out to them psychically and puts a hold on them.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Stop! Stop!
RICH: It taps the back of the turtle that it’s riding on that also has clamshell crates that are held onto the back of the turtle and the turtle changes direction and starts heading toward you.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Is that Maybe Many Homes?
DEVON (as Many Homes): This was a bad idea.
RICH: [laughs]
DEVON (as Many Homes): I lied. This was a bad idea… We could run. That’s a choice. We’ll run, we’ll find somewhere to hide, they won’t find us…
DEVON: …and very obviously we’ll just start backtracking very quickly along the ground with little legs going in reverse.
KAT: [laughs]
RICH: Okay, 39 and Traveler, what are you doing?
KAT: I turn to where Maybe Many Homes is starting to slowly back off.
RICH: Where she was, you mean?
KAT: [laughing] Yeah.
KAT (as Polyp 39): I may need you to restrain me, from combat. I-Oh. Oh, where is sh-Oh.
KAT: Then I turn to Traveler.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Well, I do not want to fight.
DC (as Traveler): I’m not particularly interested in fighting, especially since you are quite powerful and there are four somewhat like you. Are they stronger than you?
KAT (as Polyp 39): No. No, but that is irrelevant. No, no, of course they are not stronger. No. The point is that I don’t want to fight, so if it comes to that please hold me back. Don’t let me fight. That’s the point. I’m asking you to-It’s irrelevant who’s stronger, you understand? I’ve sized up their weaknesses… They don’t have any weaknesses. I don’t have any weaknesses. I don’t want to fight them, so in some ways I’m stronger than them, because I’m sure they don’t want to fight me… or, they do want to fight me, I don’t want to fight them.
DC (as Traveler): I just want to say that I am extremely interested in the result of whatever combat may happen between you and the four, but because you’ve asked I will-
KAT (as Polyp 39): I do not want to fight them!
DC (as Traveler): My interest is purely, well, the interest of the universe itself, but-
KAT (as Polyp 39): Where is Maybe Many Homes?!
[laughter]
DEVON: Alright, I have something.
RICH: Just one second. Même is watching everything that’s happening, and Many Homes is almost completely out of sight, like behind giant Leo Venus plants. Même discorporates into the little pieces of themselves, and just like before where they helped you put on disguises-
KAT: Oh! Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah!
RICH: They actually separate themselves into three clouds and collectively move toward each of you and manifest themselves on your body somewhere that allows you, when Polyp 39 says where’s Many Homes, you now feel a psychic link between the three of you manifested by Même, so you can now communicate and share visions and emotions through Même between the three of you no matter where you are.
KAT: Huh.
RICH: So, Many Homes? You said you had something?
DEVON: Oh, well first, she psychically goes:
DEVON (as Many Homes): Oh, well that’s useful. Huh.
RICH: You feel Même’s happiness at your happiness.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Uh… I’m gonna do something, maybe stupid, and then you should probably come find me while they’re not looking. So…
RICH: [laughing] This turtle is still heading right over to where you guys are.
DEVON: Yeah, I know. I want to make a-Okay. Here’s my thing. I’m looking at my moves. I’m not sure which would be more applicable. I have It Plugs In Where and I have The Reef Protects Its Own. I know one of them is defend, but I think one of them very specifically, It Plugs In Where I believe, is kind of the…
RICH: It Plugs In Where is kind of the MacGyver maneuver…
DEVON: That’s what I want to do.
RICH: …and Iron Man maneuver, where you can either create or manifest or say you have access to a piece of equipment that’s helpful in the situation that you’re in. The Reef Defends Its Own is something that can work through a whole scene where you either take control of or manifest pieces of your garden in an area that works to defend your allies.
DEVON: Oh no…
RICH: And there’s a lot of Leo Venus plants here…
DEVON: I know! Okay, so…
RICH: …that clearly, clearly love spending time with you.
DEVON: Oh god. I have two thoughts, and you guys can tell me which one sounds cooler. I can do a bioluminescent flash grenade?
RICH: Like flares?
DEVON: Yeah, like a flare, so they can’t see you so you just disappear and we’re gone. They know we’re here and they’re after us, but… Then the other thing is I could manifest part of my garden around where you are so they stop and are like “where are they” and then the garden might do something bad? Those are my thoughts. Which sounds like a worse idea.
DC: Flash grenade sounds like something that would be a combat move to one of the Polyps in which case they’d probably respond with “oh, it’s time to go chase something that is trying to escape,” but also ending up… I mean, a part of the garden sounds really cool and then something possibly really bad happening sounds also very cool. I would actually be down with either, because in character you all feel-
KAT: [laughs] Traveler’s just here for fun!
DC: –a very deep interest as to who is stronger.
RICH: Traveler’s here to participate. Traveler’s here to experience things.
DEVON: Traveler is a force of chaos.
DC: Traveler will definitely take things into consideration.
RICH: Traveler sounds like they’re just being supportive to me.
DEVON: Let me double-check my move, but I think it would be more fun to manifest… unless you guys have something you want to do.
KAT: I’m ready to step in, but I’m trying to not act first.
DEVON: I don’t wanna like, if you guys have a plan I don’t want to take…
KAT: No, no-no-no.
DC: I don’t really have anything helpful other than the ability to help you do whatever you’re doing.
DEVON: Heh. Alright, I think in that case I’d probably Protect Its Own. [mumbles] …activation, rapidly create a garden in the surrounding area, so it’s not my garden, it’s a garden.
RICH: Well, you just define it however you want. At this point, it’s the Leo Venus plants, so maybe it’s bonding with the Leo Venus plants that are already around you.
DEVON: Okay. I have an idea if it goes not amazingly. Heh.
RICH: Okay. You tell me what you would like. This is all happening fairly instantaneously as you’re translating information.
DEVON: Mm-hmm. It just happens, and I have a +1 ongoing to defend another within the affected area. Any ally you successfully defend takes a +1 forward as the living world continues to aid them.
RICH: So, describe to me what happens with all of these Leo Venus plants. How do you bond in with them?
DEVON: I’m just gonna go ahead and do the kind of not amazing outcome for me but the cooler outcome visually. What I think it is, I just try to tap in regularly and create the plants or make them grow extra big over in this direction, but the Leo Venus plants that are in my garden right now are…
RICH: Uh-huh? And your garden is inside this pocket dimension inside your shell, to remind listeners.
DEVON: Yes. What happens is, I think they go crazy and they grow and now my garden inside my shell is only Leo Venus plants, and they start coming out of the shell, like the seams are bursting of the pocket space, and then just (shoop), and are very big and all of a sudden everyone is in a jungle.
KAT: Whoa.
DC: They filled up an entire pocket dimension.
DEVON: Yeah.
RICH: So, you plant growth this huge forest full of Leo Venus plants.
DEVON: Yes. I wasn’t entirely trying to do that, but there are now Leo Venus plants everywhere. You can’t see in front of you, but since we all have the mind thing…
RICH: Psychic link.
DEVON: Yeah. I would assume that we’d…
RICH: You know where each other are, generally.
DEVON: Yeah. Warmer, colder, cooler, yeah.
RICH: Right. You have a general idea of direction and distance.
DC: You feel this spike of interest as Traveler goes:
DC (as Traveler): Ooh. This is very good.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Thank you. It was an accident. Um, I’m over here.
DEVON: Heh. I’m waving, mentally.
RICH: This turtle has come over and a shadow is coming over Traveler and 39, and this happens fairly quickly even though the discussion happened for a bit.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Many Homes? Many Homes?
RICH: He turns to the Transcendent that’s next to him.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): That was my former assistant, I think. I’m not sure what she’s doing here. Nice to see her.
RICH: He looks around and sees the 1000 series Infiltrator come back and there’s some communication going on. There is a roil across the skin of In Perpetuum’s body, and that is an indicator of stress and concern.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): I’m sorry, there’s a what?
KAT: Yeah. I’m restraining from doing stress roiling, but I’m talking to Même in the connection really, really rapidly.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Okay. Même, we’ve talked about this, many times, and you’re the one who said that nonviolent action is the best way to move forward, and I, oh boy, I think that you’re right, and, um, but, I haven’t really been tested, so I just, I could use some help at the moment, and if you could remind me about what, and how, and um, maybe you should be the one who takes care of this and if you could connect up with that person this time, just do the same thing that you did before.
KAT: I’m going to use one of my Heart of Violence moves, Storm Front. When I appeal to one of my allies to help restrain me from rash or violent action, I ask my friend to hold me back. If they do, soothe my violent nature and clear 1 Corruption, and if they don’t I gain +1 ongoing in the ensuing conflict.
RICH: Même connects everyone together, immediately, to have this same… basically you are allowed to feel the emotional support from the people who care about you, and that they are there for you, that they believe in you, and that they also believe that violence may not be the solution to this problem, and that, you know, there’s a history of perhaps violence not being a solution to many problems. So you get to clear a Corruption.
In Perpetuum sees this, all of a sudden there’s this garden growing up, the Leo Venus plants are growing wild and quickly, and In Perpetuum starts calling out.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Many Homes? Many Homes! We need to… Many Homes, is that you?
RICH: Their shell-they’re one of the few that have a shell as well-the shell begins to open up and you see spores pour out through the bottom of its shell and coming out and going into and around. You’ve seen these spores act before. They’re basically scanners. They go out and they are collecting information and going through this forest looking for you, but also looking for what it is that’s happening and taking data and information about what’s happening around. Traveler, you also hear, the other Transcendent has been very calm, floating, holding onto this turtle and going with what In Perpetuum is doing. I picture Transcendents are not normally chatty unless they are designed to be that way in some way. This Transcendent then sends out a psychic signal that you can hear the echo of to the four 1000 series which is an order for them to go into this forest and locate who’s here, and they take off. In Perpetuum had given the order for them to halt earlier, but is now likely psychically linked to all these probes and lost in his own thoughts scanning this area.
DC: Oh… That sounds very interesting, but I was asked for an assistance in keeping combat from happening, and I do have choice as a being. Oh, if I must.
KAT: [laughs]
DC: I want to send out a powerful psychic resonance, like I want to pop up, rise out from-
RICH: Out of the forest? Yep.
DC: And then send out a huge wave of, just like, “HALT!” like at everything in front of me.
RICH: Oh my. It sounds like you redirecting the current, which is when you act to remove an obstacle in your path, which is a roll +Calm.
DC: From the last game I think I had a +1 forward, and I have a -1 to Calm. Great. So, 9.
RICH: Oh, a 9, very nice. On a hit you succeed at your task and avoid trouble. On a 7 to 9 the Guide will give you a hard choice, introduce an instability, or enact a cost. So, you send out this psychic wave of “HALT!” The four 1000 series actually pull up, they were kind of dive-bombing down into the forest, and they pull up at the psychic wave which has a very similar resonance to them, or tone, accent, however you want to put it, as the one that gave them the order. They pull up and they see you, because you are now floating above and it’s another Transcendent. The Transcendent that is on the back of the turtle sees you and reaches out, psychically, to link.
RICH (as Transcendent): Hmm. Friend, why is it that you are hiding here?
RICH: It’s less of a casual question and more like it’s crawling into your head. I would actually like you to Resist Corruption.
DC: Let’s do it.
RICH: You’re gonna roll 2d6 plus the amount of Corruption that you currently have.
DC: Which is 1.
DEVON: I’m guessing my defend only works physically?
RICH: This is a world full of lots of things. In this particular case it’s a cost… so I’m gonna say that it doesn’t necessarily work here. They also came up above the jungle which I can kind of roll with, but for this particular case I think I’m gonna have it…
DEVON: Yeah. I didn’t quite, but I thought I’d just check just in case.
RICH: Of course. Yeah. The physical world, the emotional and psychic world are very similar, so they interact all the time. How did that roll go, DC?
DC: With the +1, I got a 6.
RICH: Oh, that’s actually good. Like with Endure or other things, you want to roll low, so the more Corruption you have, the higher the roll, the harder it gets for you. You actually did quite well. On a 6 you mark Harmony as normal, because you rolled a 6 or less, and you hold onto your true self. You keep the Corruption at bay and you reduce your Corruption score by 1.
DC: Yes.
RICH: What you do get is this with a 6 roll. There’s something off about this Transcendent. This Transcendent manifested here, like you and the other Transcendents, manifested in this world with a purpose. As you had mentioned earlier, this idea of the Transcendents being the will of the universe kind of thing, they’re manifested for a purpose, to keep balance, or to support, or in your case to learn and observe. This one manifested with something that is not in balance. It has manifested with a purpose that is not aligned with what you have run into in the past.
DC: Oh dang. That’s probably the weirdest possible thing that I’ve encountered in my entire hundreds of years of life. [laughs]
RICH: Yes.
RICH (as Transcendent): Why are you hiding, friend? Come speak with us.
DC: Traveler slowly moves forward, and when the other Transcendent says why are you hiding I think Traveler then gets the little “oh, what are you doing” sort of thing, and goes:
DC (as Traveler): What are You hiding?
DC: But only between the two of them.
RICH: Oh, interesting.
RICH (as Transcendent): Why don’t you come and have a discussion with me?
RICH: Polyp 39, the other Polyps did stop, they’re kind of confused now, they’re waiting for orders basically and trying to figure out what to do. Polyp 39, there are definitely these scanning things going through there, and also Many Homes, you know these scanners are moving through this forest, but Polyp 39, you see an interaction with Traveler. What do you do? Spotlight’s on you.
KAT: There are multiple Polyps you said?
RICH: There are four Polyp 1000s and there are hundreds of little spores, little glowing, bioluminescent spores that are basically little scanner balls that are going through, scanning the forest to see what’s happening with this sudden growth, probably looking for you and other information. That’s what’s happening there.
KAT: Have I encountered this before or is this a new technology to me?
RICH: I’d say you’ve seen this in the past.
KAT: Is this something that I can interface with, or is this just a plant spore sort of thing?
RICH: Oh, it’s biotechnology. What would you like to do?
KAT: Well, I’m not sure if I want to do anything with it, I’m trying to prioritize. I’m figuring out marching orders here.
RICH: Unless you do something in particular, they will find you, know what you are and where you are, and translate that information to In Perpetuum.
KAT: To In Perpetuum and not to In Perpetuum’s generals or anything.
RICH: No, this is personal, he’s basically looking at a tricorder.
KAT: Gotcha. Okay. That’s what that does. Then, the Polyps, are they moving or stable?
RICH: They were diving directly into the forest at the order of the other Transcendent, but then when Traveler gave their announcement they pulled up and they are now simply hovering above the forest waiting for further orders.
KAT: Ah! So they are dealing with the Transcendent not with this person.
RICH: Well, they’ve gotten orders from both and now they’re confused.
KAT: Yup. Cool.
RICH: You can tell by their actions, you know from the memory of what you use to feel like, you don’t do much of anything without orders and then when you do you do it…
KAT: Completely. Yeah.
RICH: …yeah, and they’ve gotten a bunch of conflicting orders right now, so they’re just confused. Not confused, that’s the wrong word, they’re just waiting. They’re stalled, they’re processing.
KAT: Just for Kat’s memory, have I been told that I was supposed to assassinate somebody?
RICH: I do not think that happened.
KAT: Okay. Cool. I see this thing happening with Traveler. Maybe Many Homes, where are you?
DEVON: I imagine if this is a big cavern then I’m off along one of the sides in a very thick patch of where the forest is, or where the garden is, but I definitely think ever since the garden has gone up she started to creep over, not quickly but like “oh gosh, are they alive, did I screw it up,” because that didn’t go the way I thought it would. I mean, she knows they’re alive because of the psychic link, but she knows there’s something going on, and she’s kind of creeping, but there’s a lot of fear I think in the psychic bond; a lot of weakness, a lot of fear, easy to kill.
KAT: No… [whines] No! [laughs]
DEVON: If you want to have a talk, there’s a team move that says Fearless Together.
RICH: There’s two team moves per playbook, and you automatically have access to those team moves.
DEVON: That’s rad, because then I will use my level up for something else.
RICH: That was something that was mentioned a little earlier, is that Devon’s character Many Homes, with the Harmony we marked, filled the track.
DEVON: I did.
RICH: So, your track emptied, and you’re still contemplating an advancement?
DEVON: I think I know what I’m going to choose, but I was gonna hold onto it until when I thought it appropriate.
RICH: Perfect. I love it.
DC: You gained a power in a time of stress.
RICH: That’s right.
DEVON: yeah.
KAT: Cool! Since you have a cool group thing for us to do and you’re kind of in an “am I running, am I staying” sort of thing, and also-whether or not Traveler knows this-Traveler’s in a tight spot. [laughs]
DC: Oh yeah, they know. [laughs] They’re in their element.
RICH: And I’m gonna reiterate, in other Descent into Midnight games when players create their group they’re already a group of Guardians that have this psychic link. Richard decided that this is the establishment of that psychic link for you.
KAT: Yeah, that’s cool, giving an origin story.
RICH: The way the “mechanics” of this work is basically you get to choose what you share, when you share it. There’s never really a question of “do you know what I’m seeing or hearing.” If you ask me that I’m just gonna say I don’t know, do you want them to know? So, Traveler can express or translate or whatever as much or as little of this interaction they’re having as they want. That’s up to you guys.
DC: I’m telling everyone everything. There’s no reason not to.
KAT: Cool!
RICH: Then I’m gonna say you guys emotionally felt that… Traveler does not get put off by anything, and Traveler is like “I do not understand,” and that is an uncomfortable feeling for all of you.
KAT: Yeah. That comes through the link, then basically the “mind palace” of Polyp 39 at any given moment is like a stat readout of people.
RICH: Got a HUD?
KAT: The HUD, yes. The HUD is like attack points, and figuring out like, the spores lead back to that device so they’re not an immediate concern unless In Perpetuum is the boss, but right now there’s a “who is the boss,” the boss seems to be the other Transcendent, that’s probable, that’s the working theory, the other Transcendent is definitely the dangerous person, so is Maybe Many Homes in danger… possibly, but it seems like Traveler is the one that we need to worry about so there’s a spark coming through that. Then, Polyp 39 speeds and goes really, really, really fast. I don’t think any of you have ever seen Polyp 39 book it before, and appears right between their faces. They were kind of close together and then Polyp 39 is there, and activates-
RICH: Between Traveler and the Transcendent?
KAT: Yes.
DC: Oh my god. [laughs]
KAT: Yeah, just there, just this tiny little Polyp thing. They softly start to glow, they have these blue rings on their body that start to light up with this neon blue.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Hello. I have some questions for you.
KAT: And they activate One to One. When you grapple with an opponent ask if they yield. If they do, roll +Calm, blah-blah-blah, and if they do not there are other things. So…
KAT (as Polyp 39): I have some questions for you. I would prefer not to fight at the moment, so if you would not like to fight with me please say so now. However, if you do, I suppose there will be consequences.
RICH: Nice. The One to One move, when we say grapple, of course that can be interpreted like a lot of PbtA games a lot of ways. It could be a psychic, verbal, social, physical grapple, and this seems like you’re using it in a really interesting way. The Transcendent answers you.
RICH (as Transcendent): You speak independently.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Like that’s hard?
RICH (as Transcendent): For some of you, yes. I don’t wish to fight with anyone.
RICH: Traveler, you sense one of those little communication pulses again, and the other four Polyps begin returning slowly, well, quickly but not as quickly as Polyp just moved back toward the turtle.
RICH (as Transcendent): I do not wish to fight with anyone.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Excellent!
KAT: So, they yield. I get to do a Calm. Let’s make sure the mechanics are ready and then we can break into… So, a 6. Oh no, I don’t get to do any of them!
RICH: Oh no. You rolled a 6? Okay.
KAT: Yeah. We just get to have a fine conversation.
RICH: Here’s a thing, if I remember correctly you each have 1 Maneuver.
KAT: Oh, hold on. I rolled +Calm, so let me see my Calm. Oh! It’s an 8 actually.
RICH: The Redeemed is a Calm-based playbook, actually. Nothing phases the Redeemed. The Redeemed has seen everything and seen terrible things. There’s nothing that really off-puts them about most situations, and that’s why their Calm is so high. You rolled an 8? What do you get?
KAT: Yeah. I can either limit their movement and they hurt, speak my peace and they hear me, drive them away and they seek refuge, or create an opportunity for my allies. I think we should do one of the last two ones, and the one that I like the best is create an opportunity for my allies. What do you guys think?
DC: I think leaving is a good idea.
KAT: Yeah. It seemed like Maybe Many Homes wanted to flee, too. [laughs]
DEVON: Leaving would be a good idea. I will say that there’s always a chance that we can have to deal with them on the way out as well, and that might be fun as well.
KAT: Yeah. How about I’ll have a little talk while you all leave and we can have some info or have a little scuffle or whatever on the way out?
DEVON: Yeah.
DC: So, what’s going on in Traveler’s head right now is that if not fighting and the safety of everyone’s lives is a priority we are in the most dangerous place Traveler has ever been in their entire existence, and it’s like, we’re all leaving. Traveler wouldn’t leave you by yourself.
KAT: Aw.
DEVON: Yeah. Remember, we still have Vista. We still have them with us.
KAT: Oh yeah, that’s right, they’re in your shell.
DEVON: If we get caught here…
RICH: The probes are now moving farther into the forest and will find Many Homes.
DEVON: I’m going to… Ugh.
RICH: You can effectively defend another in this situation, being yourself, if you can tell me narratively how you use the forest to hide yourself from them you can make that roll.
DC: I can also give you super speed.
DEVON: That’s actually really fab.
DC: You could just dip.
KAT: [laughs]
RICH: Super handy. “Also, I could blow up the planet, I mean if you need to. I mean, it’s an option.”
DEVON: Little jets come out of her shell and she just jets away… I have two options here. It sounds like the best option, you guys want to run away, and that sounds like what we plan on doing. Okay, then I won’t reveal myself. I think I will, because also I am carrying precious cargo, and it would be rad to confront them later on, but if that doesn’t work I think I can still have a semi-closure thing, kind of, about the mentor. I have a team move that I think would still make something interesting. So yeah, can I roll to defend myself?
RICH: In this case, you sure can. Roll +Altruism plus an additional +1 on the roll because of your move.
DEVON: Defend Another, +1, +Altruism, and I have a lot of Altruism… Phew. I got a 7, we’re okay.
RICH: Okay. here’s what happens on a 7. This is what you’ve done. Your goal was to hide from the scanners. Is that correct, to not be detected by them?
DEVON: Mm-hmm.
RICH: You are not detected by them, but on a 7 to 9 there are some consequences. You have to choose one. You take the hit, so some other consequence happens basically, you end up in a bad spot, or you lash out at a friend.
DEVON: I’m gonna choose you end up in a bad spot.
RICH: Okay. Here’s what happens.
DEVON: I don’t think I’m quite in the right situation to lash out at a friend yet.
RICH: Yeah. You bury yourself, reflexively, just hide yourself in an overgrowth of these things, tight enough that you know these little tiny scanners can’t even get in there, and you’re one of the few people who knows how they work intimately because you’ve seen them used before.
DEVON: I grow a couple of the plants over me.
RICH: Yeah, a really tight ball. Unfortunately, you now start to understand a little more about the Leo Venus plants. These Leo Venus plants, this thing that you’ve been tapping into, is… How do I put this? Do you remember the feeling that Traveler had with this other Transcendent that something was part of the universe but almost out of phase, screechy with the universe?
DEVON: Oh no.
RICH: It’s not the plants themselves. There’s something inside the plants. The plants are interacting with this in a way, and maybe absorbing it, eating it, consuming it, holding it.
DEVON: There’s a virus.
RICH: Surrounding yourself with these plants is exposing yourself to that. You are not found by the scanners, but you do need to Resist Corruption, please.
DEVON: Watch me roll good for once in my life.
RICH: Really high. Roll a 12.
DEVON: Real high. Hell yeah.
RICH: No wait, don’t do that.
DEVON: You joke, but I have never really rolled well. This is why I spent a very long time of my life being the GM/DM. Okay, I have three, so I’m gonna roll that again… [huffs] It’s an 8.
RICH: Eight?
DEVON: Yes. I rolled, again, almost as low as you possibly could.
RICH: On a 7 to 9 you stave off the Corruption for now, but something inside of you is unsettled. Mark a Condition, and let us know what you mark and why.
DEVON: Let me see what I have for my options.
RICH: For the listeners, the Conditions are Despair, Selfish, Isolated, Angry, and Conflicted, and they’re the opposite of each of the stats.
DEVON: Right now, also, by the way, I still have Isolated marked.
RICH: Okay, so you can’t mark Isolated again, you already feel isolated.
DEVON: Which is still very apt and accurate. I think in this context despairing makes sense, because it’s like how do we fix this, I don’t know, there’s a lot of elements going bad right now and I think she’s very overwhelmed, so I think despairing is a good reaction to being like, oh wow, now these things I’ve dedicated myself to are also screwed up.
RICH: Mechanically, Despair and Isolated will put -2 on the rolls of the associated stat, so with Despair it’s the opposite of Hope, ad Isolated is the opposite of Community, so if you make any rolls with those stats they’ll be at -2. The upside is you now understand a little more about the plants. Isn’t that nice?
DEVON: Yeah… Sure is nice.
RICH: Okay. You guys know that Many Homes is protected and not going to be detected by these scanning device things, but you also sense what she senses about the plants. There’s something more about them than at first you thought. So, Polyp 39 has created an “opportunity for your allies.” What is that opportunity, and how are you going to take advantage of that?
KAT: I think that the Transcendent is curious and that curiosity is diverting resources. I’m creating a diversion. Perhaps it’s creating minor turmoil even because it seems like there is, as we’ve already seen, a split between the Transcendent and Definite In Perpetuum, that they have different objectives. So, they can escape while I’m chatting it up here and trying to get some info.
RICH: Yeah. I think the four 1000 series are almost shark-like, slowly circling around this turtle, far enough not to be an immediate threat, but Polyp 39 you know exactly how quickly they can get from point A to point B if they need to. Also, you have a move, Polyp 39, the Sense Weakness. Can you read that out?
KAT: Sense Weakness: You identify weak points in everyone, friend or foe. When you first encounter a new ally, predator, or other notable creature you may ask the Guide one question about them. They must answer truthfully.
RICH: You can do that with both the Transcendent and In Perpetuum if you’d like, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be physical. It uses a lot of different senses including psychic senses, so you could ask a question of something that you think you’d be able to perceive in some way and I have to answer that question.
KAT: The question that I have about this Transcendent is a relational question, because from what I’ve gathered of Transcendents in general they show up here for purposes that most of the time seem to be generated by the planet, they’ve always been this frankly pretty mysterious thing but they’ve been benevolent.
RICH: There’s the word. They seem altruistic or community-driven in some way, usually.
KAT: Mm-hmm. This one’s spooky. [laughs] I wanted to know, can I get a sense if… Was this one summoned for evil?
RICH: Hmm… How to answer that question. Based on what you sense with your own personal sense and what you felt through Traveler, you know that this Transcendent manifested in a very similar way that Traveler did, but it manifested with a purpose that is counterintuitive or counterproductive to current society. It was not summoned, like from this side, it manifested naturally, or as naturally as you might think, from the other side, but since you don’t know why Transcendents get manifested, what the purpose is, what the drive is, or who brings them here or why, you’re not really sure about that, but this is definitely not brought here from this side. Something else brought it here.
KAT: And then this other being, In Perpetuum, is a Hermie?
RICH: Yep, like a hermit crab, this one with a shell, not all of them do.
KAT: Are they familiar to me? Is this the first time I’ve ever seen them?
RICH: Oh yes. No, not the first time you’ve ever seen them. Here’s what happens. You start to scan and analyze, your heads up display finally grabs them because he hasn’t been an immediate threat, and now you’re scanning him, and you are bringing up basically memory files that are hazy. Some of them have been broken. You had direct contact with this Hermie and you have gotten orders in the past from this Hermie. It’s more like an emotional memory of having interacted with this Hermie, but you have very few direct access memories with this Hermie. The one thing that I will offer to you that you do get from this Hermie, from your previous experience, is this Hermie is curious to an extreme, meaning curiosity and seeking knowledge will override almost any other feeling or need that he has.
KAT: Okay. My question is does this Hermie have a boss?
RICH: You don’t think so.
KAT: Okay, cool.
RICH: Traveler, there’s a distraction. Right now the 1000s are really more focused on 39 than anything else, 39 is up having a conversation with the Transcendent, and the Transcendent has kind of removed their attention on you toward 39 for what appears to be curiosity, deep, deep curiosity as well, toward how 39 is exhibiting such independence. So, you have an opportunity, and that opportunity can be to leave.
KAT: I broadcast the knowledge, obviously, that they have come to wreck society. [laughs] Or, they have a purpose counterintuitive to the purposes of modern society.
DC: Yeah. Oof. This is a really tough situation for Traveler. Ooh… How do I both escape, keep everyone safe, and ascertain more knowledge as to what this other Transcendent is meant here to do. I will leave a psychic note. I’ll put out a psychic wave again. I’m going to Redirect the Current with this opening. I want to get them interested in something. I want them to redirect their focus again, as if what Kat just did, like it’s basketball, and we just are gonna cross them up, trip them up for a second and then we can book. I am going to put out a wave that says:
DC (as Traveler): In time, this one will show you what they can do.
RICH: Meaning 39?
DC: Yes.
RICH: Okay. The Transcendent’s attention is drawn to you.
DC: And to the Transcendent, this is kind of a gamble…
DC (as Traveler): We’re getting close to the point where you’re not gonna kill us but those things are. We don’t want to fight, but if you have this curiosity as to why this one has independence you’ll have to let us go in order to see where that goes.
DC: That’s just a truth.
RICH: Interesting.
DC:So it’s like take the win now or get more later, because I’m coming back. We need to talk. [laughs]
RICH: So, you give this information to them and they’re processing that information when In Perpetuum returns.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Is that a 100 series? That is a 100 series. What is that 100 series doing here? Is that a…?
RICH: The Transcendent… Describe to me again how the Transcendents typically manifest their look.
DC: They mostly just look kind of like the jellyfish from SpongeBob honestly, they’re pink but they’re very translucent, and some of them change form, some will be smaller and some will be bigger, some do come out in humanoid shapes, but it’s usually around the same. They all end up looking Transcendent and have lots of little jellyfish arms.
RICH: Little tentacles?
DC: Yeah.
RICH: This one holds up several tentacles between you and In Perpetuum.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Wh-What?!
RICH (as Transcendent): You can go.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): What do you mean they can go?!
RICH: In Perpetuum starts getting indignant. Do you take that opportunity?
DC: I’m hitting the super speed on everybody and we’re getting the hell out of here. [laughs]
KAT: I stay a brief moment to stoke discord.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Clearly the more powerful entity says we can go.
KAT: And then I book.
[laughter]
DEVON: Zing!
RICH: Wow.
DC: Wakka-wakka.
RICH: I mark a Condition on the mentor. Wow. You can leave this particular area. Are you leaving the entirety of the central research facility, the most central sphere of the inside of this city? Are you moving out of the quarantine zone?
DEVON: I have a question if that’s the case. The only reason we were on the inside of this, because we had access to the mainframe before this right, because we were looking for info? Was two of our three.
RICH: Yeah. You wanted to come inside the quarantine zone area, which was the central neighborhood I guess, or central district of the city that used to be the aristocracy, meritocracy, people at high ranks, but now is full of research facilities, so you wanted to get more information. To get more information you needed to be inside the quarantine zone to hack into the security, but to help yourself with the Leo Venus plants and other things you needed to actually get into that castle.
DEVON: Yes. My follow up question is, do we still need to get into the upside down castle? Because where am I with my plants? They’re all Leo Venus now.
RICH: I will say that you have other plants in there, but the Leo Venus plants are now choking out with volume.
DEVON: Yeah. I used to have like two of them, and now I have like 30.
RICH: Yes, the same number of eyes that you have as they grow.
DEVON: Yes, exactly. One eye for every Leo Venus plant.
RICH: It’s a coincidence, I’m sure.
DEVON: I’m sure.
RICH: Now as you get more corrupted and you’re mutating people are like “did you have this many eyes last week?”
DEVON: Yeah, totally!
RICH: So, you’re not better. [laughs]
DEVON: Okay, so I still need to go in there.
KAT: Yeah. We need baby, and I want my memories. I don’t think we should leave.
DEVON: It sounds like everything we need to find is actually inside the upside down castle.
RICH: Mm-hmm.
DEVON: Alright. I will probably bolt along the path that I was shown last session, which is Episode 2, you can go listen to if you haven’t.
DC: That’s where we’re going.
RICH: They’re heading toward the castle. The turtle with all of them are moving toward the castle. They’re arguing currently, but that’s where they were going.
KAT: Oh. Can we just wait? Can we hide and loop and then follow them?
RICH: Mm-hmm, if you’d like.
DC: Lower our power levels and just hide.
KAT: Yeah. [laughs]
DEVON: My other thought was what if we went in and hit the fire button so they couldn’t get in, like the quarantine button, once we get in.
RICH: [breathes heavily] Is there a quarantine button?
DEVON:Of course there’s a quarantine button! We’re not heathens here in this lab!
[chuckling]
RICH: So, you worked in a lab that was nearby and you have been inside this castle/mansion, but you’ve only been in some of the outer rooms, because the place is just packed. You did not have access to the larger central core of this castle.
DEVON: Do we want to wait for them to be in or do we want to hit the quarantine button? Which one is the worst option you guys like?
DC: I think we should let them in and then trap them in here by hitting the quarantine button when we’re booking it. We go off-
DEVON: Oh…
RICH: On the way out?
DC: Yeah.
DEVON: That’s good.
DC: They’re gonna come after us. If we’re prepared we can just hit the button and they can’t immediately get out.
DEVON: At first I thought you were gonna do, like, “I’m not trapped in here with you, you’re trapped in here with me!”
[laughter]
DC: I have curiosity and I know people. Those are my skills. I cannot fight.
RICH: Just as a reminder, Même, the Specialist from the last game, on one of their rolls they gave you-what you were looking for is where you think it is, on their roll Get the Job Done, and your way out is uncompromised.
KAT: Oh!
RICH:So this sounds like how you’re uncompromised getting out.
KAT: Yeah, that rocks!
RICH: They did not choose, however, you and your friends don’t suffer long-term consequences, and they also did not choose no one knew you were coming, which is basically a little of what just happened.
DEVON: I feel like there’s a difference between you can get out and people tried to stop you.
RICH: Your way out is uncompromised means that you will be able to get out, but narratively it’s nice to describe what that is, and it sounds like you just did describe what that could be. If you get in, and you can find what you’re looking for, then you have a way to get out without having me block you in some way.
DEVON: In that case, I think we should do what DC mentioned which was wait for them to get in and then sneak in around them.
RICH: Okay. They do go in. This castle as we described is what we would think of as upside down, right, because this whole central area is a big sphere, almost like a space station out in space is circular. You can look up and see buildings and lakes and stuff because of the way gravity works. This castle is hanging upside down, pointed triangular upside down, but it is almost impossible to see any of the original architecture. It is covered in Leo Venus plants, but there are some areas that are opened, like hacked away. There were probably old supply things or “drawbridge” equivalents where there’s an opening, and the turtle continues to go after you see the Transcendent and In Perpetuum arguing extensively. They head to the castle. They get inside the castle. The way you were shown by the plants who were happy to commune with you, Many Homes, showed you a path through them around to the back which you expect was some kind of service entrance of some sort, you’re thinking. That’s the way you want to go?
DEVON: Yes. That’s where I would lead them unless anyone else would prefer going in the front. I prefer to go in the back so that there’s less chance of running into people we don’t want to run into, which I’m sure there will be a high chance of doing that anyway.
KAT: We’re not going in the front. [laughs]
RICH: Okay. You guys move through the forest around to the back side, along up the walls, upside down, at least Many Homes is chittering along upside down while the others are swimming. [laughs] You do get to an entrance, but you couldn’t see it at first. It’s actually covered in Leo Venus plants, but you are now able to almost transmit the visual memory of this sense that you had, and you’re pretty sure you’re where you need to be to get in, but there’s lots of Leo Venus plants all over the place. So, you need to find the entrance and/or get through these to get inside.
DC: [gasps] I have abilities for this. Like a Local: When you are introduced to an unfamiliar location or culture tell the table how you are aware of the location or culture and roll +Community. On a hit you are able to call for aid, comfort, information, or rest.
RICH: Excellent.
DC: On a 10+ you gain +1 forward, and on a 7 to 9, things happen.
RICH: Make that roll. You are familiar with how this aristocracy works.
DC: Alrighty. Let’s see how this goes.
DEVON: Heh. They’ve invited you to dinner.
RICH: How old is Traveler, 800 years or something?
DC: Yeah, somewhere around there.
RICH: Okay. I’m gonna say, depending on your roll, you’ve been to this before it was covered.
DC: I had dinner here once.
RICH: Yeah.
DC: I got a 7. I just barely made it.
RICH: On a hit you are able to call for aid, comfort, information, or rest. It sounds like information.
DC: Yes.
RICH: On a 7 to 9 choose one.
DC: Oh, there are two really good ones. You uncover something dangerous or threatening…
KAT: [laughs]
DC: …and an adversary, competitor, or rival makes their presence known.
KAT: [laughing] Oh no!
RICH: [smiling] There’s also your information is incomplete, and how you gained your knowledge involved an unsettling personal memory.
DEVON: How many do you have to choose?
RICH: Just one.
DEVON: Oh. I was gonna say, if you could choose two there are at least two really good ones in there.
RICH: Just one. So, you get the information you need, which is you’re like “I think the entrance was right around here,” and then you do actually find that entrance. As you get closer these Leo Venus plants respond to the presence of your Cultivator and seem to fall away, out of the way from this door, almost voluntarily disconnecting themselves from the wall and curling themselves up into little balls, almost like seeds as they come falling away. You’re not sure if that causes them to die or not, but they have moved out of the way.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Um… They don’t usually do that.
RICH: You’ve never seen one do that, and now like hundreds of them have done it.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Well, if we pass by anymore I guess I can do that now.
DEVON: She says uncomfortably.
RICH: Maybe. So, Traveler, which choice do you make?
DC: You uncover something dangerous or threatening.
RICH: Excellent. [laughs] You know exactly which way to go. Trust me.
DC: There’s that scene in Mad Max: Fury Road, I forget his name, but he’s one of the kids that are supposed to die and they love Valhalla and all that, and he’s driving in his little buggy, and he goes “What a great day! What an absolutely fantastic day!” That’s how Traveler feels right now, like everything is weird, I want to be here right now.
[laughter]
RICH: Fantastic. As all of the Leo Venus plants drop away revealing this entrance that you can swim and move through, you guys enter into this giant castle. You normally would have a Specialist, and your Specialist, Même, has an ability called Hack the World. I’m going to assume that the Specialist has used their ability to help you manipulate yourself through this cavernous area. The part of the castle that you enter into that Traveler kind of guided you in and through is all unused. It’s covered in Leo Venus plants to an extent, but it’s clear that no one goes back there. They must have put no security or no anything else there, because nobody could theoretically find the entrance to get in that side. You’re in a big, disused area of the castle as you’re moving through it. You get to where you think these plants should be, not that Many Homes has necessarily been there, but you know and have memory of how this space works and how the castle works. You know where you’ve been, you know where you were not allowed. How your unique species of these Leo Venus plants got into your garden you’re still not exactly sure, because they just love you I think is what it is. Isn’t that nice? So nice.
DEVON: Makes me feel so safe and comfortable.
RICH: I’m sure. It should.
DEVON: Agh…
RICH: You guys move through and you get to a much more trafficked area. Describe to me, when I say you’re in a much more trafficked area of this castle, and this castle is being researched on by researchers who are studying the plants and various other things, describe to me one thing that you’re seeing as you’re looking into an area that looks like it’s much more trafficked. Devon? What surprises you, maybe, about what you see?
DEVON: What surprises me? I guess the level of how deep they’re going to analyze what these are, and I imagine we pass… maybe “room” is a little too official for what it is, but an area that we can see through glass or transparent material that they have deconstructed a Leo Venus plant all the way down to almost its molecules, if that makes sense. It’s kind of floating up in the water, like an exploded view of the plant, but all the way down to some of its smallest parts.
RICH: Nice. I like it. The majority of the Leo Venus plants, actually all of the Leo Venus plants that you’ve ever seen all have this internal bioluminescent glow, but this one that’s been exploded out and is hovering there where they can look at it with this 3D view is not. It looks dark and not glowing. Kat, tell me something that is interesting or surprising about what you’re walking into.
KAT: I think now that we’ve seen the internal structure of this Leo Venus plant, and… this bioluminescence that we’ve seen, it’s not common but it’s familiar, and this substance that’s internal is not, but the way that it’s unfamiliar is almost protective camouflage, you know, if you weren’t looking at the skeleton of it you wouldn’t notice it because the bioluminescence masks. Now that you can see the skeleton of it, it’s just like, oh, I know what to look for, and now that I’m looking at the structure of the palace it’s like embedded in the framework here, not meaning that the Leo Venus plant is everywhere necessarily, but there are things utilizing technology or whatever this stuff is elsewhere.
RICH: I’m trying to follow. I’m not sure I follow. Can you explain that a little bit more? The picture I have of the Leo Venus plant exploded out is this idea that it’s blown out so that you could examine it and look at it with the bioluminescence. You’re saying there’s little rhizomes or something from the Leo Venus plants that are in the structure of the building or something like that?
KAT: Sort of. Based on what you were saying, I figured there was a skeletal structure to the plant just made out of some foreign material.
RICH: It does now, yeah.
KAT: And this foreign material is being used in the framework of the building, but not necessarily the building itself-could be, if you’d prefer-but I figured some of the building’s technologies.
RICH: Yes. They have been utilizing it. They have been utilizing what they are learning into other bioengineered devices around them; computer bank equivalents, basically Valve rooms, the Valve rooms that are covered in these bivalves or whatnot, but you can tell that the technology is different. There are smaller valves that have different patterns on them. something’s been incorporated into the technology directly from the Leo Venus plants.
KAT: Yeah, which feels like if it’s embedded in the building it means that this has been going on longer than at least I thought.
RICH: Yeah. DC?
DC: I think that the décor is beautiful.
RICH: It is. It really is.
DC: It was a castle. There was a lot of really beautiful… Well, because this is underwater I think we have something similar to our world where we have tapestries that slowly wiggle back and forth through the water, and some of them are a little torn or broken. The floor and the ceiling, to us, there’s probably some really cool, like, as you move forward the designs probably turn in a spiral so that any point whatever direction that your up is you’ll be looking at or you’ll be right next to a part of this pattern that doesn’t seem to have any frame of reference in it’s three-dimensional-ness.
RICH: [laughing] I love how Many Homes and 39 are like, Many Homes is kind of horrified by what’s happening here and what’s being seen, and 39 is all analytical about “ooh, they’re using it in the technology, that could be bad,” and Traveler’s like “it’s so nice in here!”
DC: [laughs] As long as things are interesting, I am onboard. And returning to this place having been here at some point, now there’s this frame of reference, so seeing how things have changed is probably a really big thing to Traveler. “Oh… I love that time passes. Things are different, and I can come to the same place and have a completely different experience.” So, they’re just soaking it in and contrasting it over the little bits that they do remember.
RICH: Speaking of that, Traveler, as you guys are moving through toward where Many Homes believes that the information she needs is contained, you see an area that you absolutely were at before. It’s the big dining area, the dining hall, you were here for dinner that one time. The hall itself is filled with researchers, but there is a wall or a door there that was not there before, an archway that has been very purposefully placed in one area of this hall that was absolutely not there before. There’s very little activity by that door, but you do see an Infiltrator standing guard, which 39 you’re already like that’s not a thing.
DC: Huh.
RICH: So, if they’re putting a 1000 series Infiltrator in front of a door, that’s like unnecessarily big guns.
DC (as Traveler): Well, we found our doorway… and a friend. Are you stronger than this person?
KAT: Uh… [laughs]
RICH: Didn’t we do that bit?
KAT: Did we?
DC: [laughs]
KAT (as Polyp 39): I can easily not rise to that, because I am very strong. So, let’s look for a back way into the room. Yes? I understand that it’s very interesting for you, would be, to watch me interact with them, but let’s just look for a back entrance.
DC (as Traveler): Oh. You don’t necessarily have to be in combat. I’m just interested in which, as we go across these different series, if you’re stronger than them. But, I think maybe, maybe it’s your independence and your ability to not enter combat.
KAT (as Polyp 39): The only interest that I have is possibly converting them like the others of my series, but I haven’t interacted with ones above my level yet, so I don’t know what stopgaps they’ve made.
DC (as Traveler): That is even more interesting.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Traveler, I think you’re comparing oysters and clams.
DC (as Traveler): That’s the best part.
DEVON (as Many Homes): But you can’t add them together, because they’re not the same. You can’t compare and contrast.
DC (as Traveler): That’s what makes this even better. Now you’re going to try and turn these oysters into clams. This is very good.
DEVON: Do I know that through this doorway is what we are looking for, or do I surmise?
RICH: There is something of importance behind that door. You think what you’re looking for, as far as the computer interface for the memories and perhaps data and information to help with the history of Vista, is in another area. You can access that from another area. As far as your plants are concerned, it’s possible they’re held up in this special area that’s being heavily protected.
Now, as you guys are discussing the various merits of clams and oysters, the Transcendent that you saw earlier floats toward that door. The door molds out of the way, it and of itself is a living creature, the bioengineering kind of morphs and clay moves out of the way, and it moves through that space.
Polyp 39, as soon as that door opens up, your senses pick up all kinds of information. There is a living thing in there that is in an almost incomprehensible amount of distress, pain, and angst. You can sense it, that Sense Weakness you have, you can sense it coming through the water; the pheromones, waste products, things like that are coming out and you immediately sense this, and then the door closes, molds closed.
KAT: Hmm…
RICH: And as always, you can share as much or as little of that information immediately with the group as you wish. They could all know it just the same time you do if you want.
KAT: No, I’m not telling them that. Instead, I say through the connection:
KAT (as Polyp 39): Are we very sure that the plants are there?
DEVON (as Many Homes): Uh, it’s a possibility. I don’t actually know exactly where the center is, actually. I’ve never been there, but it could be. This could be it.
KAT (as Polyp 39): It could just as likely be a trap.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yes.
KAT (as Polyp 39): We should act with self-preservation.
RICH: She says in the middle of the giant castle filled with antagonists.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Or we trigger the trap on the way out.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Yes.
DC (as Traveler): I like that plan as well.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Perhaps we should get your baby seen to.
DEVON (as Many Homes): And your memories, don’t forget.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Hmm.
DEVON (as Many Homes): It’s a two-pronged assault. Two fish with one stone.
DC (as Traveler): I would prefer that both of these things happen.
RICH: [laughs] Of course you would. As Many Homes says “and your memories,” Polyp 39, I would like you to roll an Endure, please.
KAT: Sure, gladly. A 7.
RICH: On a 7 to 9 you will choose one. This is what happens. She says “and your memories,” and you have immediate recall of the inside of that room. That is just after you awoke. You spent time in this room witnessing other members of the 100 series being created. There was something else in that room that you were kept away from that you did not visually see, and just like you smell chocolate chip cookies and have a memory of your childhood, the sensory information that you got as that door opened is now triggering a fall of memories from this space. So, as an Endure, on a 7 to 9 you choose one. The trauma unsettles you, the trauma of the memory, mark a Condition. The trauma impairs your physical, emotional, or psychic defenses, mark a Corruption. Your attempt to defend yourself goes wrong, and expose an ally to danger.
KAT: I think I’ll… Hmm. I’ll take the trauma impairs me and I’ll mark a Condition.
RICH: Okay. What Condition do you mark?
KAT: I’ll take Selfish here.
RICH: Interesting. Why that?
KAT: Because what I was moving away from, here, the instinct… I noticed on my stats pretty early that the thing that the Redeemed doesn’t have is Altruism, that they have a high sense of self-preservation, so with this happening their first instinct here is to retreat in, go away, to protect this group… so they’re going into a very selfish place away from this scary thing.
RICH: Do you share this, any parts of this?
KAT: Yeah. I don’t know how much of the memory, but the emotions are all coming through.
DC: Ooh.
DEVON (as Many Homes): There’s something in pain in there?
KAT: Well, the knowledge of others’ pain is coming, but I don’t know that you’re getting how much of it being attached to memories and stuff. Does that make sense?
DEVON: Yeah.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Well, there’s something in pain in there. I am all for triggering a trap.
DC (as Traveler): This reminds me of Vista’s plight.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yes.
DC (as Traveler): Although, I am having quite a good time, pain doesn’t seem to be a thing that most people like in my experience.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I’ve committed fish crime before, and I’m going to commit fish crime again.
DC (as Traveler): Crime is a very interesting thing to do.
DEVON (as Many Homes): And by that I mean I’m going to help someone out of a government facility.
RICH: [laughs] “Crime is fascinating!”
DC: [laughs] I need a t-shirt for Traveler that says “Crime is Fascinating.”
DEVON: I want one that says “I have committed fish crime.”
KAT: Polyp 39 has been very quiet and then looks up, concerned.
KAT (as Polyp 39): What? No, we should go.
DC (as Traveler): Yes, go inside. Yeah.
KAT (as Polyp 39): No. No, we should go. The Transcendent is in there.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Oh…
RICH: Yes, I’m not understanding what you’re saying. [laughs] You’re making my point for me. Let’s go.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I can get the one away from the door.
KAT (as Polyp 39): No, you cannot.
DEVON (as Many Homes): But I could.
KAT (as Polyp 39): You are… very, very weak.
DEVON (as Many Homes): No, I wouldn’t be doing it, but I could make them get away from the door.
DC (as Traveler): You’ve both shown yourselves to be extremely capable in all matters of deception, escape, crime-
DEVON (as Many Homes): Crime. Yeah.
DC (as Traveler): –not quite yet combat, but apparently we’re not going there.
DEVON (as Many Homes): 39, I don’t fight with my body, I fight with my mind, and I don’t think your radar says whether I am smart or not, unless I am mistaken.
DC (as Traveler): Does your radar say whether or not?
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yeah, actually that’s kind of interesting.
KAT (as Polyp 39): That room is a dangerous room.
DEVON (as Many Homes): [chuckles]
KAT (as Polyp 39): You’re laughing, but it is a dangerous room. We shouldn’t go there.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yeah, we probably shouldn’t.
KAT (as Polyp 39): There are other rooms to go to. There are other rooms to go to. We should go to the other rooms.
DEVON (as Many Homes): And then go to this room, because there’s someone who’s… If I can repair something that I’ve screwed up, then I’m going to. I did the same thing with you, and I’m probably going to keep doing it.
DC (as Traveler): Are we gonna come back to this room later?
DEVON (as Many Homes): Aye.
KAT: Polyp 39 starts to {blup} off.
DC: [laughs]
DC (as Traveler): I’ll take that as a yes.
DC: And then I’ll just follow.
DEVON: I’m gonna go find an office.
RICH: Okay. You do find an office. You find an office and you manage to get into the office thanks to Même’s hacking skills, into an office and find a Valve bank.
DEVON: Do I need to roll something to get the info?
RICH: Just tell me what you want to do. You see an office with a very advanced Valve bank. It seems to have incorporated some of this technology, this newly designed technology, that loves you.
DEVON: Oof. Oh boy. I feel like… I don’t know. For some reason I always imagine, where it comes to those types of things, I imagine her like plugging into The Matrix almost, that’s what I’m seeing, like a physical almost.
RICH: Yep. I love it.
DEVON: Although, she does have Bioelectric Mainframe.
RICH: Yeah. At home you have a bioelectric mainframe, but also the Technopathy and the Bioelectric Mainframe, you can jack right into this thing, just have that new technology right there at your fingertips.
DEVON: Mm-hmm. Yes, but I want to say that I also would like to upload the information that I’m looking for, which is the file on… everything they have on Vista, and everything they have on 39. I’m also gonna have data slugs, I guess slugs but they’re literal slugs, that you eat I guess, and that’s how you get the info. I’m also gonna be transferring to those so I can get it to the others, basically USB drives.
RICH: USB drives that are actual, bioengineered memory slugs.
DEVON: Yeah. I don’t think I’m loading it into myself, I’m loading them into these thumb drives that are actually slugs.
RICH: Hmm, but to interact with this highly secure mainframe you’re going to have to use the technopathy and psychically jack in.
DEVON: Rad. Do I have to roll anything?
RICH: No, you just get to take a Corruption.
DEVON: Rad. Awesome. [smiling] I’ll take it. I am almost full.
RICH: Where are you at now, 4?
DEVON: Yes, I’m 4 out of 5. You only live once.
RICH: But you also get extra information, so you find what you’re looking for and you’re just quickly downloading data and information on Vista and on 39, and inadvertently basically a lot of the 100 series. You also get other information as you’re looking around, waiting for it to download. Here’s what you find for your Corruption that you took, because I’m not a monster.
After the old Guardians died there were lots of concerns about the safety and security of the city. We’ve talked about this in the past. The Infiltrator series was created to help protect the city before problems could happen. The thing is, before that, because the Infiltrator series is not as old as these plants, before that the instability that happened in the city started right here, in this building, in that room. The instability was because the aristocratic family that lived previously in this castle was exploring The Deep Echo and trying to recreate the deep and powerful psychic abilities of the Guardians for their own. There are many things in there that implied that they were doing it for the benefit of the city itself, but you know better.
There was a lot of personal power and status involved in this. They brought something over they shouldn’t have that caused the city to start to unravel, and in reaction to that these plants showed up and began feeding on the corruption that this family brought from somewhere else, feeding on and containing it. So, these plants feed on whatever this corruption is that you don’t have a lot of information on as of yet, and flourish in it, but they also contain it and keep it from spreading.
Just a short period of time ago, probably within the last year, a Transcendent manifested and came here, and said I’m here to help, but you are finding information that this Transcendent is not trying to help research and understand more about these plants, they’re trying to destroy them.
DEVON: I share this with everyone. I keep the open psychic link.
RICH: This Transcendent has manifested here on this plane basically as a harbinger of something and is trying to unplug the hole so that it can come through.
DC: This Transcendent is still a normal Transcendent, like it is from The Echo?
RICH: Mm-hmm, but you do also know that there are Transcendents who have said that they have manifested themselves or have memories from other realities that they have manifested into as well.
DC: This is conflicting.
KAT (as Polyp 39): I am resolved now. Let’s go talk to the entity, find out what it is, and see if we can send it home.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Or at least possibly discourage the thing trying to destroy the barricade, although the barricade seems to, in and of itself, be an issue.
DEVON: Says Many Homes, as there’s little plants coming out of her shell. Heh.
DEVON (as Many Homes): But I think that room is going to have to be the trap we trigger.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Probably the plants are hurting it. It is sad.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Maybe.
KAT: I share my full memories of what I have of them.
RICH: Okay. Your memories manifest themselves. You still had, at the time, when you first awakened, they have to fine-tune your programming, and before you get fine-tuned you have some semblance of freedom and awareness and emotions. You are afraid of whatever was happening to this thing, but it was in a room that’s adjacent to the room, out of sight, whatever it was it was out of sight in another side alcove corner that was being experimented on. You have an emotional memory of that fear of the unknown and the fear of what was happening there until they flipped off your emotion chip.
KAT: Yeah… Now I’m selfishly stomping down my foots. We’re gonna go help this friend. We’re gonna go free Willy. This isn’t fair.
DEVON: I am gonna give a slug that has Vista info to Traveler and then a slug that has 39’s memories to 39, and probably caution them that now is not the time to download that information.
KAT: Now is not appropriate! [laughs]
RICH: This looks delicious. Snacks before attacking?
DEVON: Now is not the time for snacks.
DC: Brain blast!
KAT: Last time that I had a memory there was no traumatic response at all!
DEVON: Yeah, I mean, you make your own choices, but snacks may not be the best decision at the moment especially brain snacks.
KAT: Well, thank you.
DEVON: But I think you should all be carrying the information you need.
RICH: Nice. You have now been in the castle long enough that the effects of the “Your friends do not have long-term consequences” from the roll from last game comes into effect, and I would like everyone to please roll Resist Corruption for being exposed to the constant amounts of corrupting radiation that’s in this area.
KAT: Ho! Oh no!
DEVON: Oh boy.
RICH: Oh yes.
DEVON:Of course I roll really well.
RICH: Devon, what did you roll?
DEVON: Twelve.
RICH: Nice! Twelve is, as you might suspect, a fantastic result.
DC: Oof.
DEVON: Did we all fail?!
DC: I rolled a 10.
RICH: On a 10+ the Corruption works its way deeper into your mind, body, and/or soul. Mark a Corruption.
DEVON: Alright. My track is full up.
RICH: Alright, so you clear your track. Normally what you would do, you have a community map, when you empty your track you would take a Corruption token and you put it on some area of the community that is important to you, and you can decide where that might be and how that might be affected, but as the Corruption moves forward it basically acts as our clock for various things to move forward. We’re not really using the map right now for a one-shot, so we’ll just keep that in mind. You clear your track, and then you pick one of the Corruption moves that you have. It’s a move that you hold, you pick it once and you can trigger it once at some point, and they let you do wonderful, amazing things that won’t hurt you. Kat, what did you roll?
KAT: Snake eyes.
RICH: Oh, you rolled 2. Very nice. Plus your Corruption that you had marked was 4, is a 6, right?
KAT: Yeah.
RICH: Okay, 6 or less, you are fine. You stave off the Corruption and you actually reduce your Corruption by 1.
KAT: Oh, okay. That’s not that bad.
RICH: No, that’s the best roll you can get, and considering you had 4, I’m surprised. DC?
DC: Yeah, I rolled a 10.
RICH: Nice. You had lost a Corruption from earlier, right?
DC: Yeah, I lost one, so I just have 1 now.
RICH: Perfect.
DC: Not too bad.
RICH: When you had previously come into this area to talk to a different Transcendent in that first session you were exposed to Corruption when you were here and it crept into your system, but you managed to clear that. Oh, also Kat, you mark a Harmony for that as well.
KAT: Oh wow.
RICH: Anytime you roll a 6 or less you gain a Harmony including on Endure and Resist Corruption.
KAT: Holy smokes.
DEVON: I took a really cool move. I don’t know if I’ll get to use it, but I actually love it.
KAT: I hope you get to.
DEVON: It’s cool!
RICH: The Corruption is here to help you.
DEVON: Uh-huh!
RICH: [laughs] Alright. Now you guys have decided that you are going to enter into this room to find out more. Alright. How do you want to do that, through the direct front route, or you had mention earlier trying to find some alternative route?
KAT: [sighs] Should probably try to convert that buddy in the front door.
DEVON: I can distract it, too.
KAT: That’s definitely the better plan.
DC: [gasps] What if-Oh no, that’s too risky, that’s too risky.
DEVON: No, say it, say it, say it!
DC: I was gonna say, this is really risky, but you could eat the slug and then psychically link with them and maybe that will shake them out of the thing.
DEVON: Or make them eat the slug?
DC: But then you don’t have the slug, and so this person…
KAT: …has all my memories.
DC: Right. To me, as both me and player and as Traveler, I’ve been watching you and I think that you are at a point-
KAT: “I WANNA DO IT. IT’ SO FUN.” [laughs]
DC: [laughs] You’re at a point where you’re the kind of person where your traumas are going to be the things that heal the people you’re trying to help.
KAT: yeah. That’s the way that… Basically Même gave me sensory overload, so this feels approximate. Let’s do it!
RICH: I love this.
DC: Also, I eat my slug.
[laughter]
DEVON: Just picture Many Homes in the background like [groaning] “oh my god, they’re all eating snacks.”
KAT: Chug a slug! Chug a slug!
DC: Slug chug! Slug chug!
DEVON: Slug! Slug! Slug!
[laughter]
KAT: I disguise myself and float on up into the thing and then reach out a tentacle, and… chug a slug, and yeah, try to psychically connect and then override.
RICH: [laughing] Hold up. One thing at a time. DC, Traveler consumed the slug that has all the data and information regarding Vista, correct?
DC: Yes. [laughs]
RICH: Okay.
DC: Something so bad that it has made a former Transcendent just go into a time loop.
RICH: Go into a, yes, a reflexive, defensive maneuver. That won’t at all have a problem. Roll an Endure and a Resist Corruption, please.
DEVON: You can eat it slowly. You can eat half at a time.
DC: Just nibble.
RICH: No, it’s all or nothing.
DEVON: It’s segmented so that you can eat a bit at a time. It’s like a gummy worm.
RICH: Segmented for your convenience.
DEVON: [giggles]
RICH: Yeah, actually, you know what, I’m not gonna have you Resist Corruption. Mark Corruption and then roll an Endure.
DC: I got a 5 on the Endure.
RICH: Wow. Mark another Harmony for all the times you keep enduring things.
DC: Oh, that’s full.
RICH: Okay, so you clear your Harmony track and you will be able to pick an advancement.
DEVON: Chug a slug!
RICH: DC’s contemplating, so we’ll go to Kat. So, 39, you consume this and you get an influx, basically a download of all of your memories and experiences including after they tried to figure out what was wrong with you. One of the Hermies that worked in this facility couldn’t take it anymore and decided they were going to out what was happening here to the rest of the city, including the Infiltrator program. You were tasked with, and succeeded in, tracking them through the city and assassinating them. They are in basically the equivalent of… You had their memory wiped. What’s your power again?
KAT: Transferable Consciousness.
RICH: There you go. You’re basically able to absorb everything that they knew so that they did not know it anymore and left them in a state where they could work at a different job but never really recover. This means you also downloaded, inadvertently, everything that they knew, which is why they wiped all of your memory of the situation. The thing that’s in there is a member of the aristocratic family that they were trying to make into a superhero, that’s what’s in this city, that’s what opened the gateway and door to some other physical reality at the far end of The Far Echo, and they had been using that individual and the immortal jellyfish, Vista, as a channel of the Corruption, an active, living use of the Corruption that bound itself to a physical living body in order to make the Infiltrators, and it’s still in there.
DC: They’re trying to use the Corruption to power themselves.
RICH: They thought they found a power that would help them become new Guardians and it ended up being a corruption that caused a chain reaction of problems, and now our current scientists in this city are taking the Corruption from the plants, as they are absorbing it and trying to contain it, they are taking it and incorporating it into technology. You’ve got all those memories. You were going to try to memory transfer into this other person?
KAT: Yeah. I wanted to do that in tandem with doing Transferable Consciousness to shock them out.
RICH: Perfect. That sounds like you’re trying to Do Something Wondrous, which is using your powers in an exciting and interesting way. Using your gifts in a spectacular way, you’re gonna roll +Drive.
KAT: That’s an 8.
RICH: Great. On a hit you describe how you accomplish your goal, but on a 7 to 9 you’re gonna choose one; you suffer a backlash, you lose control at the worst time, or you put someone else in danger.
KAT: Oh… I’m just trying to think what’s the most fun.
RICH: The most narratively interesting?
KAT: Yeah.
RICH: Of course.
KAT: I guess I lose control at the worst time.
RICH: Alright. We’ll talk about that in a bit. Tell me how it works. What happens with this other Polyp?
KAT: They’re doing their holding pattern, because I’m not a perceived threat until the moment that I touch them and then it’s too late, then they’re just getting a complete overload of information. Once they’re short-circuited they’re like off the grid, and I think that… they’re probably just hyperventilating and trying to process stuff, you know?
RICH: How does a Dumbo octopus hyperventilate? So, this is what I picture happens, too, if you don’t mind me adding to it a little bit. It tries to defend itself, because it has a similar power, so you guys are wrestling back and forth, like “whoa, wait a minute, what?” because you don’t usually attack each other, so you’re trying to shove memories into it and it’s trying to push memories back into you, and you’re going back and forth until you clearly win. Then, you dump all your knowledge and memory, and also the concept of freedom, into their mind which causes it basically just to lock up. It doesn’t know what to do. It has too much to process. It’s conscious, it’s alive, but it’s semi-conscious and it’s floating, it’s just kind of floating in the current now as it’s clearly, like, its head is twitching as it’s trying to process all this new information that’s going on in its head, but it’s not a threat.
KAT: Yeah. Bounce back, bounce back.
RICH: [chuckles] Do you guys want to get in the door? Même could open it for you.
DEVON: Sure. Is 39 gonna follow or does 39 look spaced out?
KAT: I’m probably a little spaced out.
RICH: Mm-hmm, but you’re okay, you didn’t take a backlash.
KAT:So I’m gonna lose control later?
RICH: I will tell you what happens with the lose control in a little bit. Right now you feel fine.
DEVON: I don’t know this, so I’ll probably hook one of 39’s legs so I can drag them and keep them close so that I can protect them.
RICH: Même hacks the door so the door can open, whenever you’re ready you can just give them the signal.
KAT: Yeah, then I’m okay. I’m a little spaced, but I’m okay.
DC: I walk forward and look over at Polyp.
DC (as Traveler): Whoa!
KAT (as Polyp 39): Whoa… Eh…
DC (as Traveler): Woo!
[laughter]
RICH: “That was a rush. I know kung fu.”
DC: I did learn something new.
DEVON: Thirteen of 39’s legs do a face palm, but there’s no face, it’s just eyes.
RICH: Does an eyepalm?
DEVON: Eyepalm. Yeah, no…
DEVON (as Many Homes): That was dangerous. Please use my gadgets responsibly. I might start putting that on them now. Même? Même, we don’t have a lot of time.
RICH: Même acknowledges and then the door opens up. Basically Même has become like Jarvis.
DEVON: Même is my co-pilot.
KAT: Aw.
RICH: Même is my co-pilot. [laughs]
DEVON: I want that on a sticker on my shell.
RICH: The door opens up and you guys go in. you see the Transcendent there. This is a very involved research area. There are some tubes, think Winter Soldier tubes, that are there. Some have Polyps in them, some of them are empty. You can immediately sense through 39 all of the uncomfortable pheromones and things that are floating around in this water, you’re now getting a very direct sense of what it is that 39 was experiencing. The Transcendent is not in this room, but you see that there is an archway that goes into the next room, which from 39’s memories you know is where they’re keeping this former member of this aristocratic family. You don’t see any other exit from here except for where you came in.
also in the room is In Perpetuum. In Perpetuum’s back is to you, or shell is to you I guess, and they are along a very involved Valve bank. It’s all glowing with this bioluminescent white-purple glow that is clearly part of the technology that they’re incorporating in, using the Corruption to power things in different ways, there’s something going on with what they’re pulling from this other dimension that they’re using to now power other objects that are not overloading another kind of living organism, and they’ve been studying this for 50 years now.
DEVON: I think over the psychic link, very quickly before In Perpetuum has a chance to turn around or even notice, Many Homes goes…
DEVON (as Many Homes): Oh no! …
DEVON: …and then psyches herself up and goes…
DEVON (as Many Homes): I ran away before, and it was because I was afraid that he was gonna say something that… I was afraid he is going to say something, and I’m going to believe him, and I’m going to do what I did before and go back to not seeing how horrible this is. I need to know that you won’t let me go back.
RICH: Who are you talking to?
DEVON: Anyone. I’m making a move. I haven’t said the name of it yet.
KAT: Is that the creator of the program?
RICH: He’s one of the highest ranking if not the highest ranking member of this individual private military firm. He’s the head researcher of many researchers. So, Many Homes is asking for help?
DEVON: Yep, I’m doing Fearless Together. When you tell a friend about a fear you hold ask them how they would help you face it. If they have a plan, you hold 1 maneuver, if they hesitate, mark Harmony and Resist Corruption.
KAT: I {blup} around.
KAT (as Polyp 39): No, he is horrible. You don’t need to listen to him. You are great.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Thank you. … You! Get out of our way! Move!
[giggling]
RICH: You guys come in. you’re around a corner just a little bit. You have this psychic conversation translated by Même, which again goes very quickly because it’s really transferring feelings and ideas fairly quickly, faster than a conversation. You see a bunch of eyes come up over the shell and look backwards, because the door opens. He’s just looking to see who’s there, and you’re all there. He turns around.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): [gasps] Many Homes! It was you.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Move out of the way. We’re going through.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): What? Going through to where?
DEVON (as Many Homes): To whatever is in that other room.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Oh, you don’t want to go in there. You’ve never wanted to go in there… That’s not a place to go.
RICH: He starts moving forward toward you.
DEVON (as Many Homes): But it holds the truth. It does. It’s the source, and I think I can go see the truth. Thank you. Thank you, In Perpetuum. I think I can. Right? I can.
RICH: [laughing] It looks like you’re looking to everyone else.
DEVON (as Many Homes): [laughing] yeah, like I can, right? I can go see the truth.
DC: I’m like, yeah, you can do it.
RICH: “You can’t handle the truth!” I had to. Anyway.
KAT: Through the connection you feel “yeah, you got it, you’re fine.”
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yes. Move out of the way.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Well, I could, but I have questions. Did you make the forest grow?
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yes, and if you don’t get out of the way I can do it again.
RICH (as In Perpetuum): Will you please? That’s amazing. Do you have any idea of how important this would be for our research to be able to have more?
RICH: He keeps going.
DEVON: Can I make the forest, the Leo Venus plants grow down and then just scoop him up and bring them back up?
RICH: Can you?
DEVON: I don’t know. Can I?
RICH: Sounds like you’re doing something wondrous to me, so I think you should roll with that. Roll +Drive.
DEVON: Okay. I’m just gonna get him out of the way.
RICH: And your move allowed you each to hold a Maneuver. Is that correct?
DEVON: Mm-hmm.
RICH: Okay, so you and 39 both have an extra Maneuver, and you each started with 1 Maneuver at the beginning of this as well.
DEVON: Oh-[into hands] I rolled a 1 and a 2, and then I added 1 for my Drive, so…
RICH: If other people want to describe how you help move this Hermie out of the way and help Many Homes with this, you can each spend a Maneuver, including Même, which would add 3, and that would make it a 7.
DC: I can do that, and then also I can use More Experience Than Luck to double the bonus.
RICH: Excellent. Tell me how this works for you.
DC: You start moving the plants, I’m gonna use my Matter Manipulation to make it so that instead of them just having plant things they have tentacles that can grab so it’s a bit easier for it to actually hoist, so if they try and move away or resist or something it’s actually being held much more securely. And, I have to roll to see if my bonus is more. I got 10.
RICH: Nice. This is the way that I see this happening. This is a lot about Many Homes’s confidence in herself, right, and I see this conversation that you guys had where she was like “please tell me this won’t happen again, please tell me I won’t become this person that I accidentally became and I’m trying not to be,” and 39 helped encourage her to do that. I see that as an opportunity for Traveler to have been sharing some life experience at the time.
DC: Okay. I’ll drop some life experience. We’ll have a time slowdown where we enter the Dumbledore realm or whatever.
[laughter]
DC (as Traveler): Many Homes, I’ve traveled very far, seen a lot of people, a lot of civilizations, and one thing that remains true about people and their fears is that they become what they choose to become. You made the choice to become strong, and now you are strong.
RICH: Bam, +2.
DEVON: Hell yeah.
DC: And I disappear. [laughs]
RICH: For the last one, to make it a 7, either 39 can participate or Même has some things that Même can do as well.
KAT: I don’t have to physically do something? I can work with mental support?
RICH: It could be mental support, it could be actual physical support, helping someone with something. You describe how you work together as a team in some way to help them succeed at their goal and spend a Maneuver to increase their roll by 1.
KAT: I would love to just talk her up… The first thing that I do is really figure out a new aspect of our Même connection where I’m like, huh, she’s not making the best use of her new ability, and I just shoot over my HUD so that she can better use the plants.
RICH: [laughs]
DC: Use the Force.
KAT: Yeah. “Just grab him here. Why aren’t you grabbing him here?” And then she can, and use a load-bearing vine.
RICH: Seeing all the weak points or the easiest places to grab and lift up In Perpetuum.
KAT: Mm-hmm. We start to become a superhero team.
RICH: How does the fact that she has 37 eyes affect the look of the HUD?
KAT: Ohh…
DEVON: More data. I can process more data.
KAT: Yeah! It probably becomes really efficient!
DC: Ultra HUD!
RICH: [laughs]
DEVON: There’s like one data stream per eye, so it’s like 37 data streams.
KAT: Yeah, you can categorize.
DEVON: It’s 37 different scouter readouts, but all overlaid.
KAT: And then I tell you all of these catty things that he did from my memories.
KAT (as Polyp 39): This one time he said that Polyp 32 was a little stumpy, and…
DEVON (as Many Homes): That’s really mean!
KAT (as Polyp 39): It was really mean, and nobody liked it.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Oh no…
KAT (as Polyp 39): So, he wasn’t as nice as you thought he was. He wasn’t as nice.
[laughter]
RICH: You’ve made it as a team and discovered new things about yourselves. I love it. You have successfully gotten a 7. On a 7 to 9 you succeed at your goal, you pull him and move him out of the way, but you do need to choose one; you suffer a backlash, you lose control at the worst time, or you put others in danger.
DEVON: [groans]
RICH: I have an idea if you would like. You move straight past him into where that space is. You see a Grimp. The Grimp is on the older side. It also looks drained. It’s floating in an area like an orb that’s got it restrained and held, and inside the orb are little chitinous looking little arms that periodically go off and draw samples from them and transfer it into this other series of tubes and things that are being transmitted out. You see a large growth area of plants, of Leo Venus plants, that are the rare species that you were looking for, and the Transcendent is there. The Transcendent turns, and floats-actually doesn’t turn, because they have eye spots all around their body with a neural network inside, turns their attention, maybe I should say, towards you.
As you come into the room, you see what’s happening, and then you hear behind you a vibration, a scream. You turn around and the 1000 series that Kat reprogrammed is now awake. They’ve come into the room and they are in an absolute rage. This is 39’s losing control of their powers in a way. They shoot directly toward In Perpetuum who is restrained on the ceiling and unable to defend themselves, and this thing piles straight into him and grabs onto them with all of its tentacles, and Kat, you know that it is doing all kinds of aggressive, assertive, memory manipulation on this thing in anger. It can’t do anything much to defend itself at the moment because of the restraints that are on it right now. Many Homes, how does this make you feel?
DEVON: Bad.
RICH: This is the backlash. I’m gonna have you roll an Endure.
DEVON: Okay. Nine.
RICH: You’re gonna choose one. You can mark a Condition, you can mark a Corruption, and the other thing is the trauma damages you in some way. You can take -1 ongoing and remain in pain, distressed, or distracted until you receive help as defined by the narrative.
DEVON: Ooh. That’s upsetting. I think I might go for… I feel like if I was to do Corruption she would have a very, oh no, I feel bad, but also be kind of cruel about it, so I don’t want to do that.
RICH: Hmm, if you take the Corruption? I see the definition of that, yeah.
DEVON: Yeah. I don’t wanna-I think that’s where I would go if I was to choose that, but I think in that context I’m not a fan of that. Oh, I have so many Conditions. Ugh. Angry makes sense. Yeah, angry does make sense. Never mind. I’m just going to take -2 to everything and I will be angry.
RICH: Excellent. You’re gonna mark a Condition, Angry?
DEVON: Yes.
RICH: Okay. Alright. Kat, you also see the results of this as well, 39 does.
KAT: Yeah…
RICH: This isn’t necessarily you suffering backlash, this is just what’s happening, something that 39 might need to process at some point.
KAT: Yeah. It makes sense, honestly. If that person had been around me when I had gone through that I might have done something similar. I see that now. If we had time I might go try to stop them and explain to them that they’ll probably be sad about it later. I don’t think we do have the time.
RICH: You don’t, and you don’t because Traveler now sees what’s going on in the room with the other Transcendent, and that is, you notice that this Transcendent, this group of plants that it has gathered, it makes a psychic connection with the bank of valves and you see the plants start to dissolve…
DC: Oh shit.
RICH: …and you see this bioluminescent glow release into the world, uncontrolled, and it hits a few more things, and more of these plants are now starting to break down at a cellular level and releasing the thing that they are holding, and it is being drawn up into a small ball, it’s being drawn to itself, and it is holding it in a container. You see that it has figured out how to break these plants down at a cellular level without destroying the Corruption that they are holding.
DC:So they have a collection of it?
RICH: They do now.
DC: [sighs] Alright.
RICH (as Transcendent): My friend, you’ve arrived in time. It’s time to change the world. What’s more interesting than that?
DC (as Traveler): That’s a really compelling argument.
RICH: [laughs]
DC (as Traveler): But, you know, one of the most interesting things about being Transcendent is that our will is the will of the universe, so even though you’re choosing to do that and it’s just as much happening as me choosing to do this…
DC: I put out a tentacle, and I want to use Matter Manipulation, and I want to destroy the machine that’s making this happen.
RICH: Okay. I have no issue with that. Actually, I was gonna say it’s Unleash, but it’s not. I think it’s really Doing Something Wondrous, so let’s roll +Drive. I wanna see what happens there.
DC: Nine.
RICH: Ooh, interesting.
DC: Is there any way I could get one more?
DEVON: Yeah. Do you want a 10?
DC: Yes?!
RICH: Yes, yes they do.
DEVON: Okay. You have been around when I build similar things… This is where I learned how to do it, so you have that knowledge.
RICH: I love it. You get a 10. Describe to me how this thing tears apart.
DC: I think when I reach out initially I’m just about to destroy everything and then this knowledge of all of the, like, these things need to go sort of thing happens, it becomes this very precise thing, and it’s just like these black holes almost where (it pulses and fires) but in an array and they happen all at once. It just starts breaking down this whole area. There’s no anger or emotion going on, it’s just this is a thing that needs to happen. While it’s happening, Traveler is just looking directly at the other Transcendent.
DC (as Traveler): Now the will of the universe is having an argument. Let’s see what happens.
RICH: Nice. Since you rolled a 10+ there’s basically no personal consequence to that. You can feel anger coming off of this Transcendent. You feel pain and frustration. You feel things that you have never felt off of a Transcendent before. It moves forward towards you like it’s going to physically attack you, but then it stops. You can kind of sense it’s scanning the room and sensing what’s going on around the room, seeing the three of you there, seeing from behind the three of you this 1000 series now come from behind you guys, up and hovering over you with anger and violence in its… eyes? Yeah, they have eyes. It calms itself and says:
RICH (as Transcendent): The universe doesn’t argue with itself. We can argue with it. You are choosing to argue with the inevitable. We will see how that argument ends.
RICH: You feel a rip in reality as it pulls itself, what looks like, directly into and through The Echo and disappears.
DC: While it’s doing that can I use a move?
RICH: Sure.
DC: I want to use my new move.
RICH: What’s the new move?! Do it.
DC: Truth Seeker. I want to look into his future. [laughs]
RICH: Whoa. Tell us about that.
DC: Your instincts are honed through experience and survival allowing you to read the flow of The Echo around creatures and objects. When you examine an important object or creature roll +Hope. On a hit you may ask the Guide a question about the past, present, or potential future of the target and the Guide must answer truthfully. On a 10+ you gain +1 ongoing in regard to the revealed information.
RICH: Okay. Make that roll.
DC: I wanna read this thing’s future. [laughs]
KAT: Yeah!
RICH: Do it. Great way to wrap up. Amazing.
DC: I get a +1 to this one… which is exactly a 7. I got a 4 and a 2.
RICH: Nice. That’s okay, 7 is a success. What do you get with a 7? You just don’t get the +1 ongoing? Perfect. What’s the question?
DC: Is it aiming to destroy what’s here?
RICH: You have a vision of a future, a potential future, you know it’s a potential future, probably fed by this thing’s desires for the future, the image in vision that it has of the future. You see it envisioning this world engulfed and changed and manipulated into something else that will allow life that is not currently here to now live here in this reality.
DC: That don’t sound right.
RICH: That is its overall goal.
DEVON: It’s a terraformer.
RICH: You also see hundreds and hundreds of Transcendents like it in its vision… and then it disappears through that hole in The Echo. I think we are going to say… Welcome to Midnight.
DC: [laughs] This is the best and worst day of my life!
RICH: Fantastic.
DC: Oh no…
RICH: Congratulations. You got all the information and data that you needed. You stopped what this Transcendent was doing. You found out what it’s going to do in the future. I’m sure it will all be fine.
KAT: [laughs and groans]
DEVON: Nothing bad could happen.
RICH: Under normal circumstances what we would do is you guys got your connection, which is very cool, but if we were going to continue this in a campaign what I would do is also get you guys what’s called a Sanctuary. The Guardians use a Sanctuary which is a physical space within the city but also has a reflection within The Echo. What we’d do with that is we’d open up and close each game with you guys reflecting on how this Sanctuary that you use as a base of operations, it could literally be like a superhero base or a rescue facility or just a home that you guys live in-
DEVON: Or an apartment with too many people.
RICH: Or an apartment with too many people. The echoic reflection of the emotions and what not of the people there also get reflected there, so at the end of the game we would do a little meditation on how that echo or spiritual psychic landscape changes with how you guys have changed as the game goes on, and each session we would visit that and see how that evolves over time with your characters.
And that’s it. Thanks so much for joining me, guys. Well done. I would love it if we could go around again and just remind people who you are and where they can find you, and if you wouldn’t mind just telling us something that you enjoyed about the game. We’ll go backwards this time, I’ll be last, so we will go with Kat.
KAT: Thank you so much for having me on, Rich. This was wonderful.
RICH: Of course. It’s my honor. You know how much I love you.
KAT: I love you very much, too. I’m Kat Kuhl. You can find me online most directly on Twitter at @Kat_Kuhl_. I also do the Autonomic podcast which is a family friendly actual play fantasy podcast, and you can find that at AutonomicPodcast.com. That’s me.
RICH: Fantastic. Can you tell us something you enjoyed about the game that we played?
KAT: Yeah! I enjoyed so much. There were two phases, so there’s world-building-and I really love world building-so it was cool how much of this was just that and always meant to be that, for me, because not every game is just like, nah, we’re gonna world build and you have to. It is inextricably a part of the thing, so that was a real blast. The second half of that was pulling together our puzzle pieces to bolster each other. It feels good. It was good, man. That’s what was nice to me about playing this game with all of you. [laughs]
RICH: [laughs] Fantastic. Thanks so much for joining us, Kat. DC?
DC: Hi. I’m DC. All the stuff, you can find me at Dungeon Commandr on Twitter, on Itch.io. I made a game. Is it not as cool as this? I feel like it’s not as cool as this one. [laughter] I’m gonna say, my game is really, really good, but this game is ridiculous.
RICH: Ah, DC, that’s so kind of you. Please.
DC: That truth just hit me. I was like damn, actually, maybe I like this more than {mine}. I’m not saying mine’s bad, I love it to death.
RICH: What?! [laughs] Your game is amazing.
DC: This is really good. Yeah, find me on all the stuffs. The thing that I love about this game the most is that it’s… fish, big fish.
[laughter]
RICH: Fish crime.
DC: It’s really, really interesting to, instead of finding the relation-this is why I say I kind of like it more than my game, my game takes mutation and says this is how you can demonstrate your humanity but it’s still tied to human as a base core. In this game, when you become a fish, which is right at the beginning, your world changes in ways where… I fill in things, you know what a city is, yada-yada, in this game it’s like wait, what is a city when you’re a fish? All of the things that you think you know about the world completely shift, so the world building ends up happening on this level of continuous surprise. Oh, I go through this door, wait a second, what would a door be like if I was a fish? Wait, up-down, left-right, all these things start to change and it continuously does that process over and over, so I don’t think it ever could get boring as long as you keep running into those things in life where you’re like, well, this would work differently. There’s a lot of other stuff, but that’s definitely my favorite.
RICH: That’s awesome. Thank you so much. Devon?
DEVON: Hi! I’m Devon George. I’m an artist and a storyteller. You can find me on my website at DevonGeorgeStudios.com, Devon like the place in England, George like the monkey. [giggles] You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram at @DGeorgeStudios, and also find all my art there as well. Both Kat and DC took the stuff I was gonna talk about. I love world building. I feel like if you talk to me for a hot second you know that’s all I do. I enjoy world building. I love the fact that it’s not humans, because humans get boring sometimes. Yeah, just reiterating what you said. I think to take it further… Those are my top two, and then this is my third. I like how spiritual this is. It’s very spiritual and very emotional, and yet you’re playing things that don’t resemble you at all, and I think that’s very fascinating and a good exercise in empathy, because I don’t think we get that enough with the classic games. You don’t get to inhabit something totally different than what you are and learn to build up that empathy with something… out of this world.
RICH: [laughs] Thanks so much, Devon. I appreciate that, and thanks guys, so much. My name is Rich. I have been your Guide. I am one of the Co-Designers and the Concept Lead for Descent into Midnight. Thanks everybody for joining us for this amazing world that these players created and this adventure that basically I just led them through that they also created. I appreciate everybody’s time joining us for the game, and Welcome to Midnight.
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
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Welcome to a special episode of Game Closet! You won’t hear your normal host’s voice on this one, but stay tuned!!!
Taylor’s been working as the Design Lead for Descent into Midnight for a good amount of time now and the Kickstarter is ongoing! While you listen to these special Actual Plays, go check it out at DiMRPG.io/ks.
Session 1
Show Notes
Rich Howard guides Kat Kuhl, DC (Orion), Devon George, and Richard Kreutz-Landry from a sitcom beginning to the research facility where the team hopes to find answers about Polyp 39’s past, and what happened to Vista, the baby immortal jellyfish Transcendent.
RICH: Hi everyone, and welcome to our first session of Descent into Midnight. If you haven’t heard our character and world generation episode you may want to pop back in the feed and check that out to see how this incredible world the players created came about. Before we get started though, let’s go around and remind people who we are and who we’ll be playing.
My name is Rich Howard, he/him pronouns, and I’m the Concept Lead on Descent into Midnight, and I will be your guide today. Next up, Devon, why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a little about who you will be playing today.
DEVON: Hi, my name is Devon George. I’m an artist and sometimes a game designer. You can find my work over at DevonGeorgeStudios.com and also you can find me on social media at @DGeorgeStudios on both Instagram and Twitter. I draw mostly fantasy and sci-fi illustrations. You can actually find some of my work in Descent into Midnight. My personal pronouns are she, they, or he, I don’t really have a preference, and Maybe Many Homes is she/her.
RICH: What playbook are you playing?
DEVON: Yes. I’m playing the Cultivator playbook. My character’s name is Maybe Many Homes. She is a hermit crab inspired character. She’s got a lot of legs and a lot of eyes, not all of them originally her own. She has got impenetrable armor and technopathy.
RICH: Can you talk a little bit about what a Cultivator is? You can just read the opening paragraph at the top if you want, or explain to us what you think this Cultivator is like.
DEVON: Oh, yeah. I was gonna talk about that when I got to the garden.
RICH: Oh, perfect. Okay.
DEVON: I was gonna say, she has a garden in a pocket dimension in her shell and she takes care of that, and both uses it to make basically the equivalent of gadgets, except the gadgets aren’t made out of metal, they’re made out of stuff you’d find in the sea and chemicals and things you could…
RICH: They’re bioengineered.
DEVON: …yeah, you could bioengineer. So yeah, that’s what she does.
RICH: DC, why don’t you tell us about yourself and who you’ll be playing today?
DC: I am DC. My pronouns are they/them. I am going to be playing the Traveler playbook, and my character’s name is Traveler. They don’t have any pronouns. I myself am a bit of a traveler, in my mind. I make the games, I’m a game designer. I create worlds and settings, and theories and things. I also do a lot of writing and community-building things. I’m very scatterbrained, and all of the things I do are scattered across the nine realms.
I am excited to play this game, because the Traveler is a character who has lived a very interesting life, going around and exploring, whether that be within the city or out in the world. My particular Traveler, the way that we’ve cultivated the story, has come from the interdimensional ether space, kind of like agents from The matrix, but not bad. It’s like you’re here, you have a job, you know what it is, kind of. Go do things, whatever feels right. You’re kind of coded for something. Traveler is an immortal jellyfish who has gone and explored out in the world and is now back in the city hanging out with some of the members of this crew.
RICH: Outstanding. Kat, wanna tell us about your adorable little murder machine?
KAT: Mm-hmm. Hi everyone. I’m Kat. My pronouns are she/her. I am the host and narrator of the Autonomic podcast which is a very intentionally family friendly actual play fantasy show that is, you know, it’s set for children of all ages. I’m gonna pull that old board game phrase out.
RICH: [laughs] That old hat.
KAT: That is my primary passion. I am playing, I have the privilege to play Polyp 39 who is a little cephalopod anemone who was created by something corrupted or some influence of corruption as a weapon and had their lifeóthey use they/them pronounsócompletely reformatted after running into someone who would become a friend, and they decided no more being a weapon. They are living the path of the Redeemed, something that is very near and dear to my heart, because I often think of myself as the redeemed path. I messed up a bunch in high school and got a bunch of people hurt, and since then being someone who is bad became part of my fundamental identity from age 15 and I took a lot of inspiration from the character Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and was just like “I’m not going to do bad things anymore.” So, I really love this character type, it means a lot to me.
RICH: Excellent. Last but not least, Richard.
RICHARD: Alright. I am Richard Kreutz-Landry. I am the Project Lead for Descent into Midnight. I am an origami artist, a game designer, and in my day job I get to write code to make math puzzles for kids to do online, which is friggin’ amazing. Today I’m going to be playing a character called MÍme. They use they/them pronouns, I use he/him. MÍme is essentially a group of plankton that was hanging out in The Echo and sort of coalesced, popped into this particular world, and then encountered Kat’s character, Polyp 39. Basically what this species does is they float through The Echo, they pop into a world, and they can take on the shape and quality of the things that they find, and when they found Polyp 39 they sort of imparted some of their own consciousness and was able to help break that programming that they were under and give them a little bit of a taste of free will.
RICH: Outstanding, and you now look a lot like this species we’re gonna talk about, right? You have manifested yourself into looking similar to Kat’s home species, which I’ll talk about in just a minute.
RICHARD: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
RICH: Thank you guys. Last session, we created an advanced civilization in an alien ocean. The metropolis in which these stories will take place is an enormous moss ball, tens of miles in diameter, which means the inside volume is enormous. It’s floating in the open ocean a hundred or so meters from the surface and is riddled with tunnels and caverns that are filled with a bustling civilization. The main two sapient species that reside in this incredible concept the players came up with are the Hermies, beings as we mentioned that look similar to hermit crabs on Earth, and a species we’re calling the Grimps, beings with a similar body type to the Dumbo octopus, kind of young medusa style that Kat had mentioned earlier. In addition to that, there are periodic… travelers? I don’t know. Do we have a name, DC, for your species? Did we come up with one?
DC: I don’t think that we did. Give me like 14 seconds as I attune.
RICH: No worries. I do want to mention that they are active members of the community as well, they just seem to be smaller in number, and as DC had mentioned in the last session they appear to have any kind of job. As they mentioned, one could pop into existence and say I’m here to take care of kids, this is what I do.
DC: They’re called Transcendents.
RICHARD: Ooh.
RICH: The Transcendents. Ooh, I like it. Alright. At the center of this massive moss ball city, it used to be a district that was inhabited largely by, what we were callingówe’re not sure yet, a meritocracy, aristocracy analogóthe closer to the center of the moss ball, the higher in status individuals in this particular culture have, but some 50 years ago the city became unstable for reasons that we have yet to understand and the central structure of the moss ball suddenly and inexplicably became the home of alien plants that manifested themselves directly from The Echo, the dimension that surrounds the physical world. This event forced the aristocracy, meritocracy from their central homes out to a farther out ring to be replaced by scientists, cultivators, and researchers causing an upset in the social structure. Lastly, there is a central shaft that runs from pole to pole through which light is brought to the rest of the city. The central shaft that we are calling The Speakeasy is an area of the city more permeable to The Echo. From the central shaft, also, a complex of bioengineered fiber-optic cables spread out throughout the city along all the tunnels and caverns, carrying light, allowing the city to grow and thrive from the inside out.
Unlike other Descent into Midnight games, there are no currently established Guardians of the city. The Guardians are a historical organization that, for one reason or another that I don’t know if we’ve established yet, no longer exists. Does anybody have anything to add from what I brought up from last time?
RICHARD: One of the things we talked about very briefly at the end was a cultural ritual, and we decided that when someone is born they go to the outside of the moss ball and actually braid some of the seagrasses that live on the outside of the ball, and then when they die, as part of the funeral rite, you unbraid the grass.
RICH: Yeah, I remember that. That’s fantastic.
DC: That’s beautiful.
DEVON: Did we ever find out if that also applied to Transcendents?
RICH: We’re gonna ask DC about that.
DC: I don’t think we do that.
RICH: They’re immortal. [laughs]
DC: Just because the concept of death, yeah, it’s like oh that’s cool. This is great, y’all.
DEVON: There’s a braid out there maybe somewhere else that represents them that will always exist.
RICHARD: Somewhere in The Echo?
RICH: It will never become unbraided.
DC: I think there would be some kind of, like you’re saying, there would be a general one, this is the thing in the city that’s like the Transcendents’ braid, because we don’t go and get one, but we want to…
RICH: Honor you in some way.
DC: yeah, like you’re a part of our culture.
RICHARD: Oh no. I just realized, so when you’re born it’s not your birthday, it’s your braid day.
[gasps, laughter]
DC: That’s so beautiful.
RICH: Happy Braid Day.
DEVON: Oh my god. Happy braiding.
DC: Yeah, Happy Braid Day.
RICH: I love it.
DEVON: One more thing. The Grimps have long tentacles, right? Maybe it’s like on your Braid Day you have to wear three of your tentacles all braided up so everyone knows it’s your Braid Day.
DC: Aww.
RICH: It’s your Braid Day.
DEVON: It’s your Braid Day! Happy Braid Day!
RICH: I love it.
DC: That’s awesome.
RICH: Alright. A couple of other basic things that we established was that Many Homes used to work in the central research area and no longer does. Many Homes has met and has a dynamic of some sort with Polyp 39 who I think we established are living in the same home. Is that right?
DEVON: I don’t know, but it can be right?
DC: Roomies?
KAT: Yeah, I don’t know either. I guess it depends on whether or not I’ve been given any other home, otherwise I’m very happy to live with Maybe Many Homes.
RICH: I don’t think you’ve been given a home. My feeling is that this break down, like there are still other Polyps that are under control and new ones being made, your number is actually relatively low, like 39 is pretty early on. That’s my thought process, so there are others, but you have been retired. I’m getting a feeling that you were not voluntarily retired, your whole series was discontinued.
KAT: That makes sense, if we had such an obvious defect. Right?
RICH: I’m thinking that discontinued means something not great and that you avoided that fate. That’s what I’m feeling. How do you feel about that?
KAT: That checks out.
RICH: That math checks out? [laughs]
KAT: That’s only logical. I’m onboard, and very sad for all of my fellow Polyps.
RICH: I’d say the whole 100 series, so everything from 100 down were all discontinued when this thing happened that they could not understand where this corrupted programming came from, [clears throat] Richard.
[laughter]
KAT: [whispering] It’s your fault.
RICH: So they were discontinued. I think you may know a few that managed to get out or escape before being permanently discontinued, but maybe not too many.
KAT: yeah, it’s probably a small number.
RICH: Maybe you’re hiding out with Many Homes who now…
DEVON: Yeah. I have like a small studio apartment or something, I would imagine, because she’s not being paid veryóor whatever would give her status, because I imagine we’re not using… We’re not using money.
RICH: I don’t know. It depends. You guys are all creating this culture as we go, so you tell me.
RICHARD: Are we using Bivalvecoin?
[laughter]
RICH: Oh. The other thing that we had established was that the psychic computers that are used in this particular advanced civilization are integrated, psychically linked bivalve structures, like complexes that you can hack into.
KAT: Whatever our money is has to be called Clams.
RICHARD: Oh my god. Yes!
DC: [laughs]
RICH: For sure.
DEVON: I feel like there was an internet web thing where you collected clams or something.
DC: Instead of Fiber it’s Valve.
RICH: Yeah.
RICHARD: Oh no… Yeah, yeah.
[laughter]
DC: Just 60 Clams a month for Valve internet.
RICH: Yeah, for sure, this is all canon now, this world’s canon.
DEVON: It’s on auto-Clam repay. It’s fine.
DC: It took us about, what?
RICH: It took us ten minutes for the puns to start coming.
DEVON: I’m sorry!
RICH: You don’t need to be sorry. If it wasn’t you it would be Richard, so I’m glad it was someone else this time.
RICHARD: yeah.
DEVON: I imagine right now Maybe Many Homes is basically freelancing.
RICH: That’s what I’m thinking.
DEVON: Yeah, because she went from being like “I’m not controlling what I’m working on” to being like “my mentor was a bad person and I want to make sure I work for people that I’m choosing,” and that’s why I imagine she’s living in a smaller apartment and is like “I’m happy to open my home to you.” I don’t have many homes, but I’m more than happy to open my home to someone else who also got kind of screwed over by this.
RICH: Maybe Many Homes, though.
DEVON: But I definitely imagine that it is small.
KAT: I was wondering, can we live in your shell or is it not that big a space?
DEVON: I can imagine that small things, like things that are smaller than my mass, can live in it. It’s a big garden, and I imagine that Vista stays in that a lot of the time. Vista like a vista, not the computer, we’re totally not referencing that. What I imagine is that’s not where a lot of people live because when it’s in subspace you’re like on pause, it’s not really like a home.
KAT: Hmm. Gotcha. Yeah.
DEVON: When you’re in the subspace and it’s part of my shell you’re on pause, but when it comes out you’re unpaused, so it’s not really like a home, it’s just kind of like storage.
RICHARD: Interesting.
KAT: yeah, not a place to live.
RICH: Oh, interesting.
DC: That’s dope.
RICH: It’s really cool.
DEVON: I keep all my tools in there.
RICH: It’s my toolshed. So, does this extend to MÍme too? Now MÍme and Polyp 39 have a dynamic as well. Are we talking this is like Three’s Company and you’re all living in the same apartment here?
RICHARD: I kind of love that idea, honestly, because MÍme can take on, one of their Gifts is Material Mimicry and Phasing so they can just turn into different materials and just go wandering around, so if they want to look like other creatures they can. Keep the neighbors guessing, you know? They’re like waitó
RICH: How many people are living in that apartment?
RICHARD: Yeah, exactly. It’s like a clown car, right?
DEVON: [laughs] I imagine it was one of those things where 39 came to Many Homes and was like “I don’t have a home,” or Maybe Many Homes went to 39 and was like “hey, I have a place and I want to get back to you, I know you don’t have a place,” and then MÍme shows up and Many Homes is like “who is this? Who is this person? Why didóAll of a sudden did I invite everyone?”
RICHARD: [laughs]
DEVON: She’s very nice though. She’s like, “oh, it’s totally okay,” but I also imagineó
KAT: We haven’t quite worked out how to live together yet.
DEVON: Yeah.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Did you guys pay me each 10 Clams for the Valve?
KAT (as Polyp 39): I do not use the Valve, so I will not be paying.
[laughter]
DC: You’re that roommate.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Listen. This is a lot of search history that I don’t think is mine. Is this yours?
RICH: It’s gotta be MÍme’s.
DEVON (as Many Homes): That’s 15 Clams. Listen, if you can’t pay it now, it’s fine. I’ll cover it for now, but just in the future, if we’re both gonna be using the Valve, you know. Also, who ate my kelp salad?
[giggling]
RICHARD: I think MÍme slowly turns into kelp, all of the little component parts, like that’s how they flush.
DEVON: [laughing] What are you talking about?!
RICHARD: So like, you know, instead of their cheeks flushing or getting embarrassed, or blush or whatever.
RICH: Oh, that’s how they blush, okay. You said flush, and I was thinking something… else.
RICHARD: Ohó
DC: I was like, oh, just right in the shared water, huh?
RICH: An aspect of Descent into Midnight we have not directly covered in the rulebook.
DC: [laughs] Not yet.
RICH: Where does poop go? The never-ending Aquaman question.
DEVON: Are we all swimming in fish pee? How does this work?
RICH: So now that we’ve established the hilarity that is this apartment, Traveler and many Homes, this dynamic that you have because Many Homes has found or acquired in some way, brought with them, her? It’s her, right?
DEVON: Her or they, yeah, I think they’re both pretty good.
RICH: Did you rescue Vista? This little, ancient, immortal jellyfish precursor? Did you rescue it and bring it with you?
DEVON: Yeah. I thought that Vista was also one at the lab and some of Vista’s programming is what ended up going into the Polyps. Is that correct?
RICH: I think that’s part of it, and I think that maybe they were studying this immortal quality in a way that they could do it without actually studying Transcendents, because that would be problematic ethically.
DEVON: Yeah. I imagine that this was around when Many Homes found out and was leaving, and was like here’s my two weeks, and then the night before was like, this is a child. I don’t necessarily know if it is a child, DC might have more information, but I think Many Homes specifically sees Vista as a kid, as a baby, like I have to take care of this because this is not good.
RICH: Right.
DC: It’s likely a defense mechanism. It restarted its cycle so that it’s as close to a… like, it would be recognized as a baby so people would have their natural response of “I have to save that baby,” and that was the way it saved itself.
RICHARD: Ooh. Interesting.
DEVON: Heh. It worked on many Homes. Many Homes was like that’s a child and I have to protect that kid.
RICH: The question of this was, the link between the two of you as well had to do with, Many Homes has an item from your homeland, what is that item’s significance, and also kind of linked together with this, you have this, you’re taking care of the last of this species. I’m just checking in, because it sounds like there isn’t another one of this thing around, that you’re aware of.
DC: Nope.
RICH: This is an ancient thing that was kept there and was being researched and experimented on never-endingly.
DEVON: Yeah. I imagine that Many Homes has gone a couple times to Traveler to just be like hey, I’m checking in, I want to know if this, like what’s up, and I don’t know if we figured anything out or what DC’s character Traveler had told me about it, but I know that Many Homes sought out Traveler specifically I think, I’m not sure why, to be like hey, can you tell me what’s up and if I can help this little bean.
DC: yeah. Traveler doesn’t really know, because we kind of just know what we do and we don’t what we don’t, but we can learn things a lot, so it’s like sure, this seems interesting, I can probably go to some places and find some information on people who have interacted with this super old Transcendent that’s like a real old computer, basically.
RICH: I’m picturing the Transcendents as well having a bit of status, like you’re kind of in the community but you’re† not of the community, you are there and people see you as… not revered, but you get a lot of natural respect in some way because of who you are and where you come from. The Traveler playbook itself has a lot to do with knowing and understanding things either through research or actual travel, or in your case seems just manifested knowledge almost. How long has Traveler been manifested on this planet?
DC: Probably like 800 years, probably not too long.
RICH: Okay. So you manifested and you have literally traveled all over the place.
DC: Yeah. I think that 800 years is a medium amount.
RICH: A medium age? You’re middle age?
DC: Yeah, probably like 36 in Traveler years. Oh yeah, you’ve been around, but you still got a lot of things to learn.
RICH: You still got things to do. Okay, I gotcha. I’m gonna say that Traveler and Many Homes have actually only recently met, so you’re having these conversations. In addition, I think Many Homes has known Polyp for a little while, but MÍme has only just kind of come into the equation. Does that track with everyone?
DEVON: Yeah. That’s why we’re still figuring out who owes what Clams.
[laughter]
RICH: Exactly. You haven’t gone through the finances for the month yet. So, Many Homes, one of the things that you have been trying to do is try to understand more about what happened to Polyp 39. There are a thousand to two thousand of these Polyps, there’s ten to twenty series that were run of these Polyps, and Polyp 39 was a very early development, but the entire 100 series run developed this same problem that didn’t seem to develop in some of the later series, and you’re seeing a level of independence in Polyp 39… the independence that were bred into them, they’re supposed to look like other Grimps, and they’re supposed to act like other Grimps, but you’re noticing it’s not like they’re roleplaying being a Grimp anymore, there are emotions and feelings and things that they’re processing that they won’t know how to work with yet. You don’t understand where that necessarily came from.
When MÍme enters the picture, MÍme, how do you bring yourself into this space with Polyp 39? How did you bring yourself into this dynamic with the apartment? How much do they know?
RICHARD: I think MÍme literally just appears inside the space at some point, basically just phasing through the wall, and just wherever Polyp 39 is hanging out basically MÍme literally just comes through the wall on the other side like a mirror image and just hangs out until someone says something.
RICH: [laughs] Okay. Many Homes, you’re our every-person it seems like for this particular culture, as everyone else around you are quite unique in many ways. How does Many Homes react to MÍme as a creature that exists? This is something that you are not familiar with, this being.
DEVON: Unsure. One of the things is, although Many Homes is the every-person trope, she’s worked with a lot of people that are unusual and individuals that don’t fall into the mold, so it’s not super unusual for her. She’s like, I’ve done this, I literally worked with alien plants, that I actually have a name for.
RICH: What are the alien plants named?
DEVON: They are called Leo Venus plants, Leo as in the constellation and Venus like the planet, Leo Venus.
RICHARD: Ooh.
RICH: I love it.
DEVON: She’s worked with those plants and she’s also helped assist some adjacent Polyp stuff. She was never really directly involved with that. So, she has an understanding of it and is confused and I think curious what MÍme is, but also very wary, because this is how it all started before and I don’t think she’s interested in repeating the past, so she’s trying really hard not to approach things as a scientist and trying very hard to just approach this as… a human being doesn’t work because she’s not a human being, but trying to approach this on a personal level as much as possible. Oh hi, you know, I’m your friend, and trying to keep that out of it as much as possible, but if she’s asked, can you help me figure this out, she’s going to help, she just doesn’t want to volunteer that scientific aspect of herself because she’s afraid she’s gonna come off as what her mentor was.
RICH: Gotcha. Traveler, when you’re not spending time with Many Homes and this entertaining crew, what does Traveler do?
DC: Right now, I think Traveler’s just come back from a long expedition, I want to say three or four hundred years. They were probably observing a civilization as it continued to grow and was like cool, I have enough data, I’m basically uninterested now but not in a negative way. Once Traveler loses interest that is a sign to them that they’re done with that particular thing, because they’re like if I’m part of the consciousness of The Echo then when I become… these are the sort of things that Transcendents think, if I’m bored then I must be done here.
RICH: Yeah, not doing the thing I’m supposed to be doing and go off to do whatever the other thing is, what draws you.
DC: Right. The city is like home base. They don’t know what’s gonna happen next, so whatever happens next would be the most interesting thing, whatever piques their interest. I feel like Transcendents have a reserved home area that maybe is super empty, maybe it’s full, just over the years “hey, there’s one, cool, I’ve never seen one before.”
RICH: I think there’s a whole Transcendent district, because this happens. Some Transcendents come and they do a job, and that’s the job they love, and they do it for a very, very long time, and some Transcendents just come and go, and it’s not like there’s a real estate agency it’s like no, this is the district, this is your home whether you come back in 300 years or you come back next week or you just go to work for the day. You have this space and it will be yours forever, they just have to have a space that’s like that in this. How do you feel about that?
DC: Yeah, that makes sense. I was gonna say as well that they get free Valve, so if y’all just want to come over to my place, you know, you can use free internet.
DEVON: We’re gonna have a LAN party.
RICHARD: Is it kind of like the USO as the airport lounge where it’s like if you happen to be a Traveler you can just go hang out in there?
DC: Probably. There’s probably a lot of stuff like that.
RICH: I think the district would be close to The Speakeasy, close to the central shaft, I think it would not be far from there. You were saying that new Travelers periodically manifest within the shaft, right? Within The Speakeasy?
DC: Yeah, new Transcendents will just show up, like boop. They might
RICH: New Transcendents, sorry, yeah.
DC: They might just move into a place, they might just leave.
RICH: Okay. Here’s the deal. Many Homes, you have been researching, you have been freelancing, and between freelancing I see you with all of your arms out doing things, growing and attuning to things but also psychically dropping into the Bivalve computer that you have. You have an office space?
DEVON: Yeah. I have the equivalent of seven monitors up on a wall.
RICH: Right, exactly. They’re all bioluminescent plankton that actually glow and move themselves into three-dimensional holographic shapes that are all around.
DEVON: In the water! Yes!
RICH: Yes, in the water, around in each different little area, so you’ve got all of these basically what looks like screens all over you.
DEVON: Yeah. I can take two claws and just go like (zoop) and zoom, and it goes all into the molecules.
RICH: I also see the walls, you know how they have soundproofing on walls, right, like the baffling? That’s kind of what it looks like, but it’s all bivalves of different sizes and shapes and colors that are all over this room that all psychically link into this space. One of the things that you’ve been doing is trying to help Polyp with memory issues, because you know that there are some memory pieces that are missing but you can’t tell, it’s hard, you’re dealing with cognition in a way that these Polyps have never manifested before so you can’t tell what they weren’t taught by the matrix, like what wasn’t programmed into them and what was, and is it a missing memory or just something that they never learned, that kind of thing. You’ve now made a breakthrough.
The first thing I want you to do before we get too much farther in is I want you to take a look at your move Seafoam Green Thumb. I’m gonna assume at the beginning of the game you’ve taken time to cultivate your garden, so I want you to go ahead and make a roll on that move and see what you’re starting with here. It’s a roll +Altruism.
DEVON: Ooh. Hmm. Fun. That’s not good.
RICH: What did you roll? I love it.
DEVON: I rolled a 5, in total, including my bonus.
RICH: Including your bonus? Alright, great.
DEVON: Yes. I’m a bad roller.
RICH: That’s fantastic. I love it, though. You’re gonna mark Harmony to start off with, because you rolled a 6 or less. On a 6- your garden’s Liability has blossomed and it cannot benefit you until it is tended. The Guide will give you 1 to 4 conditions to fulfill in order to return it to its abundant state. So, this is what I think happened. I think this breakthrough happened because you had drawnóone of your Benefits is Bioelectric mainframeóI think you have depleted so much of the nutrients in your garden, kind of jacking into the system to get deeper and deeper into the citywide mainframe, to try and uncover this information. Your liability is Hungry, for your garden, meaning that you are going to need to find ways in which to reestablish this garden with nutrients that you can’t afford because you don’t have enough Clams right now.
DEVON: Definitely not. I also want to say that a bunch of my garden is actually the Leo Venus plants as well.
RICH: You’ve incorporated the alien plants into your garden?
RICHARD: Oh-ho-ho.
DEVON: Not on purpose. I went into the garden one day and there was one there, like genuinely. She probably picked it up when she was there.
RICH: Oh… interesting.
DEVON: You’re welcome.
RICH: I love it. Thank you. So, one of the things that you need to do is you’ve gotta obtain some extra cash, some extra Clams, to be able to afford to actually get just basic things that you need to do to feed that garden. You are feeding for 100 really in your apartment. That’s probably one of the reasons why your apartment is so scarce too is that you need to spend that money doing some other things within your garden. In addition to that, I actually want you to roll a Resist Corruption, which is fantastic. What you’re going to roll is 2d6 plus the amount of Corruption that you have in your track. All of you are starting with 0 Corruption on your track, so right now you have none. It’s just gonna be a straight roll to Resist Corruption.
DEVON: I rolled a 6, because I don’t have any Corruption to add to it.
RICHARD: That’s good.
RICH: Oh, that’s fantastic. On a 6 or less you mark Harmony, just as you normally did, so you’ve now marked 2 Harmony, and you manage to hold onto yourself. Normally you would also reduce your Corruption score by 1, but you don’t have any. This is what happens:
DEVON: Wait. Is it good to roll lower?
RICHARD: On that.
RICH: It is. The higher the Corruption you’re carrying, the higher the number you roll, the worse it gets for you, so you’re good.
DEVON: Oh, okay. Sorry. I think I only had to roll for Corruption once before when I played, so I…
RICH: That’s alright. No, it’s perfect. So, what’s happened is this: You have tapped into some things, and one of the things that you did when you were running low on that psychic energy that you needed is you drew on one of these plants, the Leo Venus plants. There’s a bit of energy that comes from these plants that you know and you’ve studied in the past but you’re not sure how to qualify it or quantify it, and you decided to take a chance. You tapped into the plant, you got the energy that you needed to the kind of psychic rush, it’s almost like a caffeine dump from it, to be able to break through a little bit of defenses that the mainframe was putting up in the central research core that you used to work at. What you have found is this.
There is a piece of memory, you find an actual recorded event, a psychically recorded event in the computer that involved Polyp 39. It’s Polyp 39 in a meeting, and in that meeting is your former mentor, and the recording itself is a little bitósince you rolled so low on your gardenóit’s a little bit corrupt, but you know that Polyp 39 was given an assignment and the only thing that you know of was that the assignment was not outside of the city, a lot of the Polyps are sent outside of the city to infiltrate and spy on other places, this was inside the city, and Polyp 39 was assigned to murder someone.
DEVON: Oh… Okay. Alright. Solid.
KAT: [laughs]
DEVON: Good times.
RICH: You come out of your little room, exhausted. Polyp 39 is surreptitiously eating your kelp salad.
KAT: I do not need to eat!
RICH: I’m kidding.
KAT: [giggling] As soon as she comes in, I hide it.
RICH: Aw. You just kind of pull it into yourself.
DEVON: Is there anyone else there?
RICH: MÍme is there.
RICHARD: Yeah. I feel like MÍme just makes one of their tentacles turn into kelp, like just the edges of it, so it looks like they’ve been eating it and give Polyp a sly look, like you’re good.
DEVON (as Many Homes): It’s fine. The kelpman is delivering the kelp tomorrow. It’s fine.
DEVON: The kelpfish, there we go. That’s better.
DEVON (as Many Homes): The kelpfish is delivering the kelp tomorrow. It’s fine. I know, it’s fine. Do you really not think I have a monitor on…
DEVON: …the fridge? The cool water place? I don’t know.
[chuckling]
KAT: I have basically a sea anemone on my head, and it just wilts.
DEVON (as Many Homes): It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m not mad at you. I’m just disappointed.
RICH: Ouch.
KAT (as Polyp 39): That is worse.
RICHARD: At that, MÍme just turns transparent.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I’m generally not great, I’m very tired actually, but I think that… since you seem to be liking it so much we’ll just get kelp takeout.
DEVON: I’m gonna hand some Clams to MÍme.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Go get some takeout.
RICHARD: Just through the wall, gone.
DEVON: Awesome.
RICH: But the Clams don’t go through the wall.
RICHARD: No, no they don’t.
RICH: They fall to the floor.
[laughter]
RICHARD: And then a couple seconds lateró
DEVON: We put it out the window.
RICHARD: Yeah, MÍme comes up to the window, because this happens often. [laughs]
RICH: You’re like, “Vision, use the door!”
DEVON: I like how this has just become, it’s gone from Lord of the Rings level epic to just like Charmed.
RICHARD: Yes.
DC: I feel like it’s getting to Full House.
DEVON: Yeah. Full House is a better example.
RICH: It’s the DiM sitcom.
KAT: The corruption becomes our landlord.
RICHARD: Yes!
RICH: Play to find out what happens.
RICHARD: Everywhere you look!
DEVON: Everywhere you fish!
KAT: I’ll blub over.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Hey. Why are you tired?
DEVON (as Many Homes): Well, I’m not really tired, my garden’s tired. I’m totally tired. So… You know how we talked and you mentioned that you weren’t remembering everything?
KAT (as Polyp 39): NoóYes. I do remember that. Yes.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yes. Yeah.
RICH: I don’t remember that I don’t remember everything.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yes, no I understand. I tried to take a look and see if I could find anything for you, because you deserve to have all your memories. I found something… it’s not great, because I finished up a big project recently and it made me really tired so I didn’t have a lot of stuff to sink into it, but I did find it. Unfortunately, I think that it would be best if we could retrieve it directly, because then I can directly give it to you, and I think that you deserve to have all of your memories, but I think we might need to go to the direct source to get it without the corruption. I don’t mean corruption with a capital C, I mean like corrupted file. Don’t panic, it’s okay.
RICH: There is no knowledge of a capital C Corruption yet, at least to public knowledge. Also, Polyp 39, you have a move called Sense Weakness.
DEVON: I am very weak right now.
RICH: In her weakened state right now would be the perfect time in which to kill her.
DEVON: Oh, straight up, I am very weak.
KAT: Ohh…
RICH: Your psychic heads up display is giving you this important information.
KAT: Yeah. My HUD is very, very useful. Thanks, HUD. [laughter] I nod. My little ear flaps do their acknowledgement indicator.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Where would the direct source be in this case?
DEVON (as Many Homes): It would be the lab… but I don’t want to take you back there if you don’t want to go. That’s not my choice to make.
KAT (as Polyp 39): I will require time to think about this.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Okay.
RICH: Traveler, you’ve shown up at the apartment for your weekly visitation of Vista.
[laughter]
DC (as Traveler): I’m here. Where’s Vista?
RICH: I brought anchovy pizza.
DEVON: Is it MÍme and Traveler? They both got anchovy pizza?
RICH: Not yet. MÍme’s not back yet, but Traveler shows up.
DEVON: Oh man. Where is Vista? I feel like the shell is like the equivalent of a baby Bjorn. I imagine that there is a small equivalent of a pen, like how you put little kids, sometimes you wall off certain rooms just to make sure that the toddler doesn’t go outside of the room, like that kind of thing.
RICH: Inside your shell, inside your little pocket dimension?
DEVON: No, my shell is the baby bjorn, so they’re out somewhere. I think I go to the equivalent of a spare bedroom or something and take the filter off the door so that Vista can come out.
RICH: Vista comes roaring out past the little net that was put up to keep Vista in their little side room and grabs Traveler by the face. Traveler, can you describe for us again, you’re immortal jellyfish looking, is that correct? You’re also a jellyfish-like creature.
DC: Yes. It would be like… I can change forms, so I think there’s a humanoid form that I have because I’ve been spending so much time out and about, but I still look like a jellyfish in that the central bulb of the jellyfish body just turns into a humanoid shape and then all of the tentacles turn into arms and fingers.
RICH: Like a Grimpoid shape, you mean?
DC: Yes, “the Grimp.”
RICH: A Grimpoid shape. Got you.
DC: Very Grimpy.
DEVON: The night the Grimp stole Christmas?
DC: Fishmas.
DEVON: I’m sorry. The night the Grimp stole Braidmas.
RICHARD: [laughs]
DC: Yeah, I look Grimpy at the moment.
RICH: Got you. Vista comes out and is very excited to see you. All kinds of bioluminescent lights and all along their neural net that is just inside the dome of their medusaoid form is just glowing with these beautiful, beautiful colors as Vista sees you.
DC (as Traveler): Get ahold of yourself.
[laughter]
RICH: Vista does not. Vista smothers you in love whether you want it or not.
DC (as Traveler): Alright. I tried.
RICH: That’s your parenting technique? “Eh, I tried.”
DC: I move Vista over to my shoulder so that I can see.
DC (as Traveler): It seems they’re doing fine.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yeah. They’ve been eating the food you mentioned, so I thought that was doing alright. Have you found anything else?
DC: Um… Let me see. [laughs]
RICH: Do you want to use one of your moves? Hide and Seek?
DC: Yeah.
RICH: Okay. Whether through education, training, or social graces you know how to find the most elusive creatures and information on them, so when you seek to gain information about a plant, animal, or an inhabitant you roll +Drive. This is you filing through your memory.
DC: Alright. I enter my mind palace.
KAT: yeah!
DEVON: Wait. Isn’t a mind palace just The Echo?
DC: Pretty much. I think it’s like an internet, like psychic internet. You ask a question, like Ask Jeeves, and you can just get anything.
RICH: Basically. That’s kind of how The Near Echo works, The Far Echo gets a little wackier.
DC: Alright, 2d6, right?
RICH: Yes, 2d6 +Drive.
DC: Okay, then I got 11.
KAT: Good roll!
RICHARD: Yes!
RICH: You got an 11? Nice. On a 10+ you choose three and you gain a +1 ongoing when acting on the information that you uncover. The choices you have are: you discover the general direction and distance to your quarry, you discover a little-known secret, you are able to approach your quarry without complications, or your inquiries don’t attract unwanted attention. In this particular case, I’m going to say that you can pick the little-known secret one twice if you want.
DC: Oh. I’m gonna choose it twice then, if you’re offering.
RICH: I am.
DC: I’ll take a seat at that table.
RICH: Yes, absolutely. The other one you’re gonna choose is your inquiries don’t attract unwanted attention?
DC: yeah. We’re already a full house, soó
[laughter]
RICH: Full House is a different show.
RICHARD: And if we’re busting into the lion’s den, so to speak, it would be nice if they didn’t know we were coming.
RICH: Okay. This is what you’ve done. You have gone out and tried to do research on this ancestral being, this creature that is a relative of yours but has not been seen in literal thousands of years. At first you thought maybe it manifested itself directly from The Echo in some other way, but it hasn’t, it didn’t, it is native to this particular planet. In your research, what you have found are a couple of things. Vista was found as part of one of the aristocratic families’… what would you call it, a zoo? In the central core. When the aristocracy were forced to abandon the central core that became the research industrial complex that exists there now, a lot of their homes were actually… I don’t want to say raided, but the scientists went into the homes to research things and found this in one of the aquarium equivalents there and began to do research. You still don’t know where that aristocratic family got it from, but you know that’s where they originally found Vista.
You also found out that, as we had mentioned before, Vista had been experimented on extensively and its genetic material, its regenerative qualities incorporated into the Polyp series giving them some of their resistance, abilities, and their ability to kind of mimic other things. Their regenerative powers to mimic other things is part of what came from Vista specifically.
You also know, as you mentioned earlier, you get confirmation that Vista keeps continuously putting themselves into self-defense mode, into the young body. It doesn’t let itself get very old before it triggers a regeneration into a younger form again, and that’s not okay.
DEVON: So basically they have anxiety, kind of?
RICH: Yes. It’s a PTSD reaction of trying to just trigger itself back into a younger form to say, let’s just do this, I don’t like this, I’m doing over again, I’m going back to a previous save game and we’re gonna try this again. It was stuck, almost like complex PTSD, in a situation it couldn’t get out of until now. The upside is it’s reset, even though it does have some memories of previous things, when it does reset† not all of those memories come with it, so it does get some relief each time, but the fact that it keeps having to do it over and over again does not make you feel good.
DC: Yeah, that’s not how that’s supposed to work.
RICH: You also got this information. Your inquiries don’t attract unwanted attention. The reason you got some of the information is you went to the central core and asked questions of a particular Transcendent who is a researcher that works in that particular area. At first you were asking around to non-Transcendents and they were not answering you, and you found a Transcendent who had been there for not a very long period of time. It’s a younger one, more like a teenager, but came into manifestation directly to do research in this specific area, it says, not just research in general, research here in this city, in this place, in this spot, and it shared with you the information that it had. You’re confident it’s both accurate information, genuine information, and that it has no interest in sharing your inquiries with other people.
DC: Great. I feel like that’s probably a general thing with Transcendents. We don’t really lie to each other.
RICH: Why should you?
DC: Yeah, right. We’re all kind of the same person.
RICH: It’s not a thing. Yeah. Exactly. That’s the information that you have come over to share.
DC: I relay that. I just kind of pet Vista.
RICH: Vista is almost ironically joyful after sharing this information with Many Homes.
DC (as Traveler): Progress.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I don’t know if I can fix this. I can help if they’ve messed with something physically on Vista, but as you know I’m not very good at the rest of that. I don’t know if that means they need more time around you. I don’t have any plans for treatment, if that makes any sense outside of the physical. If it’s a mental issue, if it’s something that… We’d have to find a specialist, unless you know…
DC (as Traveler): The only thing that I could recommend would be pretty much to, in terms that would make more general sense, re-uplink Vista. The connection, nothing’s lost, The Echo is everything, has everything, and they could likely restore themselves, but if Vista’s not prepared for that to happen there would likely be a feedback and Vista would return to The Echo.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
DC (as Traveler): Good or bad is subjective.
DEVON (as Many Homes): That’s fair. I don’t know how to proceed. I don’t know exactly what happened to Vista. I can try to reverse engineer. I would have better luck if I knew exactly what happened. I can see what I can do physically, because I know that something was experimented on and I think there’s a possibility they were physically altered which might make it harder for them mentally to come to terms. Apart from that I can’t do anything. If they have to return to The Echo then I guess they might have to.
RICH: You do know that, again, this is a creature who is a species who is native to this world, and returning to The Echo is passing away and a species will go extinct.
DEVON: Oh, right, okay. Cool. I didn’t know if that meant popping in and then popping back out or something.
RICH: No. In many ways, The Echo is like outer space. It’s a place… In many ways, Descent into Midnight inhabitants think of The Echo as this dimension, it’s the dimension next door, but some inhabitants will explore deeper, far echoes, and go into different worlds and different dimensions through The Echo as a pathway. It also happens to be, The Near Echo is how psychic powers work, how computers work and connect, how the internet works, it’s kind of like the electricity and the TV and radio waves you don’t see pass through The Echo like currents and tides. A physical body manifesting from The Echo is kind of a thing that’s unique to this particular game, which I think is very, very cool, but in this case where MÍme or Traveler that are beings that manifest into this world from The Echo itself, creatures that evolve here or develop in this physical world, when their physical body ends their spirit might move on, but the species here on the planet might be done.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Okay. To clarify, when you mean they’re going to hook up to the mainframe or something, do you mean as in reconnect to The Near Echo, mentally?
DC (as Traveler): Yes. It would be not as simple as using the Valve, but it would be an intense process, specifically for Vista. The rest of us, it’s just what we do, especially when we go to The Speakeasy. Deep in the levels of The Speakeasy I could easily communicate on that level, but Vista is pulling themselves away from being able to be in a mental state to do so, so unless that’s resolved I feel like it would be a dangerous action to take if they intend to remain here.
RICH: As you’re speaking of that, MÍme returns.
RICHARD (as MÍme): Lunch?!
DEVON (as Many Homes): Thank god. (om-nom-nom)
RICH: Do you use the door or the wall? Is lunch outside in the hallway?
RICHARD: I think they start to and then they come up through the window.
DEVON: Which we now leave open permanently.
KAT: [laughs]
RICHARD: Yeah.
DC: Peter Pan.
KAT: I appear immediately next to Maybe Many Homes.
KAT (as Polyp 39): You should eat first. You are very tired.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I am very tired, yes. Yeah, the number 5, the number 5 is mine.
DEVON: They know my order. [laughs]
RICHARD: [laughs] Yeah.
DEVON: I am a freelance human being who doesn’t know how to cook. Maybe Many Homes is well-known at many places.
RICH: Number 5 is ramen? Is it just ramen?
DEVON: Number 5 is ramen. Number 5 is kelp which is just ramen.
DC: Kelp noodles.
RICH: MÍme, you actually heard that whole last part where Traveler was talking about going to The Speakeasy and hacking into The Echo and doing this crazy linking almost to the source as opposed to into the equivalent of the Valve.
RICHARD (as MÍme): So, are we breaking in somewhere? To The Echo, or… what’s going on?
DEVON (as Many Homes): I don’t know. Traveler, are we? How do you think best to proceed here?
DC (as Traveler): I don’t have any opinions on how to proceed, because I don’t have any desire for any particular result. I’m just giving you information based on what you would like to do.
RICHARD (as MÍme): It sounds like it would be dangerous to Vista if we took them there. They don’t seem right.
KAT (as Polyp 39): However, Vista does not have all of their memories.
DEVON (as Many Homes): No, and also is possibly not physically in the best situation.
RICH: Here’s another thing that you question about Vista. You are not entirely sure whether or not Vista is sentient, like animals, or was sapient, like the rest of you guys in having higher functions. It is possible that the species was sapient at some point or to some level at some point in the past, but Vista, this may be part of what Vista’s issue is. You get a sense that there’s something more here than a pet level of intelligence, but it’s possible the trauma and the rebooting and all of this stuff has caused the problem that we’re talking about.
RICHARD (as MÍme): Have we gone and… I mean, we don’t really have the records for what happened to Vista, but we could look. It would be dangerous, but…
DEVON (as Many Homes): We would have to go to the source. I may have, this afternoon, taken a peek through some of the records, but they’re all pretty deep and I don’t have the resources to get in remotely, which if you let anyone know that I hacked in remotely me and 39 will be living alone in this apartment, MÍme. Please don’t tell anyone that I hacked the government.
RICHARD (as MÍme): I mean, that just sounds like fun.
DEVON (as Many Homes): [exasperated] Yeah. Yeah, it would be fun.
RICH: [laughs] This is the thing that I think you two connect on. MÍme is absolutely fascinated about jacking into your room. I think MÍme’s been sneaking into your room, actually, into your computer office.
RICHARD: Every once in a while you just see one of the valves starts looking around with an eyeball in it, and you’re like hey, hey.
DEVON: Yeah. I would like to remind you that Maybe Many Homes literally I think I said had 30-something eyes. She knows. They know. It’s fine. It’s like that thing where “Am I gonna be mad about this? Not today. I’m not gonna be mad about this today.”
RICH: [laughs] Not today. Don’t have enough energy.
DEVON: Not enough energy.
RICHARD (as MÍme): Is everything okay, Polyp?
KAT (as Polyp 39): I… am coming to terms with what we are going to do. We are going to go back to the source.
DC: The Traveler moves over to Polyp and puts their little tentacle things out just sort of near you, not super close, but at your field of self.
DC (as Traveler): It’s quite possible that because Vista’s adult form was used to create a part of your composition that the data we find about you and Vista would allow us to help Vista return to a form at which they were when the experiments occurred.
KAT: I mirror your movement so we’re hovering near each other with our tentacles outstretched.
[laughter]
DEVON: I’m heavy. I’m down on the floor.
RICHARD: I was gonna say, MÍme is on the other side of the room just kind of doing the same thing, but just kind of off into the water by themself, not really with anybody.
DEVON: You’re T-posing in the water and I’m just like “I have forty legs…”
KAT (as Polyp 39): I am well aware, which is why we are going, however… I have no guarantee that I am not going to revert and kill all of you.
DC (as Traveler): That’s fine.
RICHARD (as MÍme): I mean, you’re welcome to try. I mean not really, but… you know what I mean.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Well, are you certain that you will be able to take me out?
RICHARD (as MÍme): Hmm.
RICH: That pause means no. [laughs]
DEVON (as Many Homes): I would say, where it comes to my own safety, I am willing to help you even if it might mean… I’ll try to do my best to have contingencies in place in case that occurs, but I’m not worried about my own safety.
KAT (as Polyp 39): That is foolish of you.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I will be keeping Vista in the baby bjorn, though.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Aside from Vista you are the weakest of all of us, Maybe Many Homes.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Ow. Um…
RICHARD (as MÍme): They’re not wrong.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I really don’t need this tonight. I am trying very hard, and I don’t need this tonight. What I’m saying is that if I get hurt I accept responsibility, 39. That’s what I’m saying. I understand that there is a… It’s okay. Nothing bad will happen.
DC (as Traveler): I have currently no reason to resist death, so if you were to begin attacking me with the purpose to kill I would return to The Echo from which I came, so feel no wrong in doing so.
KAT: Polyp 39 reaches out a tentacle to bap Traveler on the noggin.
KAT (as Polyp 39): This world is very interesting.
KAT: Then I sulk off.
[laughter]
RICH: Alright. What I hear is three different potential things, or at least two. Finding out some more information about Vista, sounds like you kind of incorporated that into the idea of getting more information about this memory of Polyp 39. The other thing that still needs to be done at some point, or kept in mind, is that you need to get extra Clams to be able to get the supplies necessary to reinvigorate Many Homes’s garden to a place of usefulness for that.
RICHARD: Oh, that’s easy.
DEVON: Also, no one else knows that, they just know I’m tired.
RICH: Yes, but just as a group, keeping it in mind.
RICHARD: Mm-hmm.
KAT: Cool.
DEVON: Yeah. I’m sure I can, I don’t know, contact someone who’s been like, hey you wanna do this job, and I’ll be like [breathy] yeah.
RICH: It sounded like MÍme was saying something was easy.
RICHARD: Yeah. Like, what do you need?
KAT: From my corner I harrumph over.
KAT (as Polyp 39): We should leave as soon as possible then, however we must fix that one.
DEVON (as Many Homes): [sighs] Ow. I need some food.
RICHARD: MÍme goes and digs through and gets another number 5, and just sort of, eh?
DEVON (as Many Homes): I’ll eat two of those. It won’t be good. I’ll have trouble swimming later, but I totally will. Yes, thank you.
KAT: [laughing] “I’m gonna break out!”
DEVON: “I’m gonna get barnacles!”
[laughter]
DC (as Traveler): Don’t worry about swimming. I can assist you in movement.
DEVON (as Many Homes): No, it’s not food for me, it’s food for my garden.
RICHARD: MÍme just wanders off through a wall… because we’ve seen what you feed the garden, right?
DEVON: Yeah. I was actually gonna ask Rich if you have any ideas. I’m trying to think, but all I can think of is horrible options.
DC: Souls!
DEVON: Yeah, that’s what it was gonna be, like people.
RICH: What’s wrong with horrible options?
DEVON: Soylent Green is people!
RICH: That’s right. This is the flaw in the garden. This is hungry, hungry meaning not like… yeah, it needs to eat a lot, but also probably it needs to eat something particularly unique that’s difficult to get ahold of for when it gets triggered. What do you think that would be besides necessarily people?
DEVON: Yeah, I don’t want to feed it people.
RICH: It may also just be something that’s in a hard to reach location, say something that you would have to travel to the outside, or you’d have to travel outside of this city, or you’d have to travel to the center, right?
DEVON: I have two instincts. My first instinct is I actually feed it information, but it’s a very temperamental thing and it decides what kind of information it wants. Oh, I want agricultural information about the left side of the Marimo moss, and I’m like why specifically that. Or, it needs sunlight.
RICH: Oh, actual sunlight.
DEVON: Actual sunlight, which means we’d have to go up, because we’re at the point where there’s barely any sunlight. And actual sunlight, not like the filtered stuff, like genuine sunlight. Those are my two.
DC: That grade A.
RICH: I have another idea. You said that you have Leo Venus plants in your garden.
DEVON: I do.
RICH: I think they need to return to the central core periodically.
DEVON: So then that would wrap everything into one heist. We’re gonna fish heist this.
RICH: I’m thinking that works for me. What do you guys think?
RICHARD: I’m imagining, what if it’s, you know how trees and stuff can have differently gendered pollen where you have to have trees of certain kind, of each kind, and then the wind or whatever spreads it around? It could be something like that where you have a certain kind of plant that is in the garden, a certain kind of them, but they also need to interact with others of their species.
RICH: Yeah. There isn’t just one type of Leo Venus plant. Maybe Leo Venus is actually the general term; there are Leo plants, and there are Venus plants, and there are Leo Venus plants.
DEVON: It’s a biome, and I have only a fraction of the biome, and for the biome to continue I have to go back there and exist in it for a little for the plants to be like “oh, I’m okay.” Or, maybe at some point I just have to transfer the whole biome into my shell, and that might end bad. Yay.
RICH: I’m sure it’ll be fine.
DC: Open a rift in space-time.
DEVON: Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be fine!
DC: Then we’ll put Vista in there and Vista will return as a golden god.
KAT: [laughs] Yeah!
DEVON: I’m okay with that. That’s actually really good.
DC: And be like, I am now… 8.
[laughter]
RICH: Awesome.
RICHARD: I think MÍme comes back into the thing with a bunch of clippings of different things and some spare Clams and just a bunch of random stuff that they think is what the garden needs.
RICHARD (as MÍme): I can get more.
RICHARD: Not realizing what they actually need.
RICH: I think that works great for a whole lot of the garden, I think it’s just…
DEVON: Yeah. It’s like, ooh, this is the equivalent of a magnolia tree, I need one of these, but… Also, where did you find these Clams, and who did you kill?
RICHARD: That’s not important. [laughs]
DEVON (as Many Homes): Yeah. This does help me, thank you MÍme, but it’s specifically for certain plants. The plants I have need to be in the core for a little bit, so if you give me a little bit once we get there I will not be as weak as I am now, the way you put it, 39.
[chuckling]
KAT (as Polyp 39): You seem sensitive about this.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I am sensitive about it, a little.
KAT (as Polyp 39): You should become stronger.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Okay. I’m trying my best.
RICHARD (as MÍme): Why is this different than everything else? You seem sensitive about a lot of things, if we’re honest.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Wow… So, I’m gonna go to sleep and we’ll do this tomorrow morning. I think that would be the best. [laughter] Hey Traveler, do you have somewhere to stay? You have the couch if you’d like.
DC (as Traveler): I have a large estate over in theó
[laughter]
DEVON: Traveler has a mansion.
DC: I can’t even say it seriously.
DC (as Traveler): I have a large estate over in the Transcendent district that has enough space to hold… me.
DEVON: Wait, let me pitch something real quick, because we could operate out of your… Your mansion could be our heist planning spot and that would be very funny, but just saying. Or, actually even funnier is the tiny apartment.
KAT: This is the more defensible location.
DEVON: That’s true, and we can have aóI don’t actually know the name of itóbut the Pepe Sylvia meme, all those walls, just everywhere.
DC: The red string. Yeah.
DEVON: Yeah. [smiling] I only know it as the Pepe Sylvia meme.
RICH: Oh! You mean a conspiracy board?
KAT: Conspiracy board, yeah!
DC: “I went into the source and I said Carol, Carol! But there is no Carol at the source.”
[laughter]
RICH: I just see Many Homes going “How did my life get so weird?” and going to bed. “Why do I not have any normal friends?”
DEVON: Oh, I mean, she’s enjoying herself, though not tonight, not so much tonight.
KAT: Poor buddy.
RICH: Alright, now as a seed of a plan is planted and everyone is getting some rest that needs to sleep, except maybe creepily not 39 in some way…
KAT: Yeah, I don’t think I need a lot of stuff.
RICH: Okay. It’s the next time cycle, whatever that is. The next day?
RICHARD: We’re only 100 meters down. We’re fine. Days work.
RICH: Oh yeah, that’s true. That’s right. Days work. Many Homes, you feel worse.
DEVON: No…
RICH: Your garden has been fed, at least most of it has been fed, but you’re feeling like the Leo Venus plants are drawing nutrients from the rest of the garden to just try and stay ahead of the drain that you imposed on them. You wake up and you look like you haven’t gotten any sleep at all. you’ve got bags under 89 of your 100 eyes.
DEVON: Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?
[laughter]
RICH: How many eyes do you have?
DEVON: I have only two that you can see.
RICH: You have 100% bags, like me? Is that what you’re saying?
DEVON: Yes, I have 100% bags. No, okay. Are there any mechanics to that or is it just aó
RICH: Nope. It’s just still hungry and you’re feeling driven now. Alright, so you’ve gotten some rest, sort of. What is your next step? MÍme, you see that she does not look good. Actually, Polyp 39, you may not even have to kill her. Just wait, she’ll justó
KAT: Yeah… So, I figure I don’t sleep a lot.
RICH: That tracks.
KAT: I don’t think I eat a ton either. I think I’m fairly efficient. I figured that I was spending the night trying to effectively meditate to see how many synapses I could repair memory-wise. I know that I know Maybe Many Homes from somewhere. Have I seen the garden?
RICH: I don’t know. This garden is interesting to me. Your garden is in a pocket dimension that you access through the inside of your shell?
DEVON: Yes.
RICH: Do you come in and out of your shell? Do you put your shell on and off like a jacket? How does it work?
DEVON: I can come out of my shell. I can be open. [chuckles] When I am just doing research or whatever, I have access to it, but I’m not tending it, if that makes sense. It’s like stored data, when I have my shell on. If I need to tend to it or fix it or change the code that it is, quote unquote, then I have to take my shell off, I have to come out of my shell, and turn it inside out. I imagine that’s why there’s a spare room, that’s my room that I go to. You can setup your board games in there, but you have to move them out when I need that room, and we have to move Vista into a different room because I have to go over there and I need to set up my thing. I’m sure that y’all have wandered through it once or twice. It’s not a very common thing, it’s just when I have to go and… You know how they make bonsai and they train bonsai by putting wire around them? I have to do the equivalent of that, but I imagine that’s more of a genetic engineering aspect of that, but I have to train my garden.
RICH: But you said it was in a pocket dimension, right? Or like it was stored?
DEVON: Yeah. Most of the time it’s stored.
RICH: Are you opening a door into this space in which you keep your garden?
DEVON: No, I turn my shell inside out.
RICH: Oh, okay. [laughs] As one does.
DEVON: As one does. I’m not sure exactly what it looks like, but I know that my shell becomes the garden, and when I need it to be a shell, you know [claps], and it becomes aó
RICH: Your shell is a transformer that folds out into a larger space when it’s folded out than it looks like when it’s folded in. Got it.
DEVON: yes, and then it becomes a garden, so the whole room is a garden.
RICH: And a garden that other people can see?
DEVON: Yeah. If you’re in the garden when I fold it up, you’re part of it, you become stored data, you become part of that. That’s why I say that I can put Vista in there and then just put it back together. That’s the baby bjorn.
RICH: Interesting, protecting Vista, got you.
RICHARD: Amazing.
RICH: This all started from Kat asking about whether or not she’s seen the garden.
KAT: Yeah, I’ve definitely seen the garden. [laughs] Cool. The thing that I was doing was not in physical space but in my mind, making the equivalent of a conspiracy board, and trying to see if, by following back different memories, I could get the old ones to re-up, trying to connect through different paths to figure out why I know Maybe Many Homes and where the information would be stored for our little buddy Vista and what about this home and space would be an in for us. I wanted to know if I could make some sort of roll to see how much of that I can actually accomplish.
RICH: Yeah, absolutely. What it sounds like to me you’re doing is a Basic Move called Reaching Out. When you ask for help from nature or your community, so reaching out in this meditative state that you’re having and reaching out for a deeper meaning or understanding of something, right, from your natural state?
KAT: Yep.
RICH: I would do that. You’re gonna roll +Hope.
KAT: Okay. That is 10 exactly.
RICHARD: Nice.
RICH: Oh, very nice. On a hit your pleas are heard. Describe what it is that you see and how this deep meditative state looks for you and we can work together on the answers to your questions.
KAT: I think it’s mostly… I know there’s something wrong with my memories, and I know that something has severed the connection between them, so the way that I’ve regained memories so far is by having enough information in context in the world and then thinking through all of my related memories, and if you have connecting threads it will open up a new possibility, and then I have to reckon with that shown memory and see if that opens anything up after I deal with it and process whatever potentially traumatic information is there. So, I think I’ve done this in a few different pockets, trying to remember bits of Maybe Many Homes in this space, so I remember seeing them out of a tube in an area where lots of bio-machines were being made. At one point I get little bits of the facility, not a ton, but different connected rooms, so I think I’d know that the plant stuff is relevant, and roughly I have an idea ofóif we’re inówhere that is.
RICH: Now I’m picturing you as the Winter Soldier coming back to get reprogrammed. I think one of the things that you note, too, is that these plants are everywhere, they’re all over the place, and this research area is huge. There are scores of research facilities that are owned and operated by a range of private and public interest groups. So, one of the things that you do know for sure is that the facility you need to get into is privately run, but it is a military organization that gained its power and reputation from the creation of this post-Guardian defense program that you became part of. You did see Many Homes in the past, but it was peripherally. She was never really in the core of the reprogramming process. It was like when you were returning from a mission you would see her on the outskirts and you recognized her. One of your Gifts that you chose was Transferrable Consciousness, right?
KAT: Yes!
RICH: You have this kind of awareness of yourself and of others that others don’t have, kind of this self-analysis piece, and going into this deep meditation you kind of recognize where you might need to get into, you recognize the particular plants that Many Homes has within their shell are not common, it’s actually a relatively rare plant version that is found in the core central area of this research facility where you would go to be reprogrammed.
KAT: Oh, okay.
RICH: If that’s part of the problem, if part of her garden’s issue now is that this plant has become almost parasitic to the rest of her garden and she needs to get it exposed to some kind of food process or something that has to do with these other plants, you’re gonna have to get pretty deep in the core, physically, to actually get to the plants. As far as information is concerned, getting information on yourself and your history, you might be able to, when you get close enough, be able to hack in without getting necessarily to the central core, but for her garden she’ll physically need to get into a pretty deep area of the complex. Does that kind of answer your question?
KAT: Yeah. That’s pretty much what I was looking for. I’m really worried about her, so as soon as I focusó
RICH: She is weak.
KAT: Yeah. She’s way weak, doesn’t make any sense, bad. [laughs] Yeah, so knowing roughlyóDo I know this building amongst other buildings? Do I understand things to that degree?
RICH: Yeah. We speak of buildings. When I think of buildings within this giant moss ballóWhat was the name? What are they called? You guys had a name.
KAT: Like a Marimo?
RICH: A Marimo? Is that what it’s called?
KAT: Uh-huh.
RICH: It’s so joyful.
KAT: Mm-hmm!
RICH: So, this Marimo of a city, “buildings” quote unquote, there could actually be physical structures that are built and grown within, but it would be within these giant caverns that have been grown out. You were talking about bonsai trees, Devon. It’s cultivated and cured into these areas with ledges. It’s an underwater labyrinth of tunnels and caves and openings and areas. The central core area, how I imagine it, if you’ve watched a show like Babylon 5 or something where there’s a station that’s circular, you’re looking out through and gravity is weird, so buildings are built on the ground and on the walls and on the ceiling and upside down, and yes there is gravity but buildings can be grown and cultivated off the ceiling just as easily as they can grow up from the bottom.
DEVON: Yeah, I was gonna say, especially where it came to maze, you could have openings upward too, not just downward or the sides.
RICH: Exactly. The inside volume of living space within this thing is hard to even comprehend, but in that central core area where it used to be these beautiful gardens and all of this grown area that the aristocracy, the meritocracy resided, a lot of these homes and buildings have been walled off or they’ve been covered in domes, areas that make it difficult to get into and out of, these plants are all over the place, glowing almost crystalline looking plants are all over the place. They’ve tried to cut them back and to cultivate them, but they just keep manifesting themselves past barriers. They’re still having a hard time, even after 50 years, trying to understand what it’s doing.
In fact, at one point, they cut back a whole bunch of areas, and Many Homes would know this, they started to cut back a whole bunch of this area and the city started to destabilize again, so now they’re trying to live in this balancing act between living there and researching it and still not even sure if it’s affecting anyone around them in negative ways over long terms, and trying to research them and back and forth. There’s a lot of researchers that live in this area and a lot of people that go into this area, but not many people go into and out of the area, once you’re in there you kind of stay in there for long periods of time. They’re trying to keep it balanced between quarantine and research and getting what they need, so it’s a pretty heavily secured area.
DEVON: I was gonna ask about whether quarantine was a thing that they were worried about or if you have to be scanned before you leave.
RICH: Yeah. They do not want it to potentially spread out, so the fact that you have one out… not great.
DEVON: Well, mine was in the pocket space, so I imagine you can’t necessarily scan for that.
RICH: Yeah. I think that’s a unique thing of yours as well. There may be some others that have developed this technique, but I think you learned this technique from someone else.
DEVON: If we want to continue making this dramatic, it can just be my mentor, my parental figure, because then it’s tinted where I’m using this for good but I don’t like that this is what I’m using.
RICH: yes. Yeah, because a lot of the study has to do with The Echo and the ability to pass across the boundaries between The Echo and the physical world, because that’s where these plants appear to come from. Alright, so that’s the situation.
RICHARD: Yeah.
KAT: Cool.
RICH: You guys get together. You just inform everybody else of this?
KAT: Yeah. I guess we have a tactical brunch, and I check for everyone’s permission before beaming the information into their brains.
RICH: Nice. What’s the next step?
RICHARD: I think MÍme transforms themself into a map of the area, so it’s like that whole, was it the sand from…
RICH: Black Panther?
RICHARD: Yeah, from Black Panther, except they are the sand. There’s a little miniature version of the four of them that forms up on one side and it shows a pathway through there.
DEVON: I can help correct anything that looks off, because I’ve been in the complex before.
RICHARD: Ooh! Yeah, okay! Yeah, I think they’re going off of the cues that Polyp 39 and Maybe Many Homes are giving them about what’s there and everything and adapting as tough they were one of the holograms. They actually have a move called Get the Job Done. Nothing distracts you from the task at hand. When you Scan the Environment you may roll with Calm instead of Community. Additionally, when you Act as a Team to prepare for an infiltration of, a rescue from, or travel through treacherous or unpredictable locations, add Calm to the result of your roll. On a hit you and your allies gain access, but it’s up to you to get out. Then you get to pick some options as far as what consequences you avoid. I think sort of like Blades in the Dark or something we’re just gonna jump into it rather than creating a plan and we’ll see what happens as we roll?
RICH: Yeah, exactly. Do you want to make that roll then to Act as a Team, Richard?
RICHARD: yeah, let’s do it.
DEVON: I do want to make one thing before we jump in there, though.
RICH: For sure.
DEVON: I just want to use a move and have a gadget on me.
RICH: Oh, for sure, you can do that at any time.
DEVON: Whenever that’s applicable.
RICH: Perfect. Acting as a team, when you face a challenge as a team choose a team leader then answer the following questions. You’re gonna roll plus questions. The questions are: Are all the team members pursuing the same resolution? So, what is it you’re trying to do?
RICHARD: I think I’m trying to get the memories for Polyp specifically, and if we can get more information about Vista then great, but I think because Vista has such a time scale, it’s like we could do this 100 years from now if we’re all still around and probably be okay provided nothing else went wrong.
RICH: Okay, so priority is getting memories for 39?
RICHARD: Yeah.
RICH: Okay. Does anybody have a different goal than that?
KAT: I feel certain that Maybe Many Homes is going to die if we don’t fix that problem, so…
RICH: Fix the garden problem?
KAT: yeah, so that’s mine. I think I’m also a little scared of getting my memories back as much as I know it’s necessary, so I’m gonna focus on the Maybe Many Homes problem.
RICH: Okay. Perfect. I love it.
DEVON: Yeah, I was gonna say, Maybe Many Homes has three. [laughs] Herself, Vista, and 39, and I think that they’re all relatively even. Actually, I think that Vista might be a little bit more for her, but 39 and Vista are about the same. The thing is, she’s also afraid of what will happen when that happens, but she feels like she owes it to 39 to find that, but also Vista’s will have less negative things happen, maybe. Then herself, she’s like whatever, I’ll figure it out. It won’t hurt me.
RICHARD: I love it. That’s exactly what that question is for, right? We’re all kinda doing stuff.
RICH: Exactly.
RICHARD: What about Traveler? Are they just rolling with it?
DC: Traveler is focused on getting Vista up and running as best they can.
RICHARD: Alright.
RICH: Yeah. Sounds good. Did the team take time to prepare for the challenge ahead? It sounds like you guys are sitting down, you’re making a plan, you’re gonna be thinking about some stuff, you have some people who have been inside the facility to give you ideas, etcetera. It does sound like that, so you’re gonna add 1 to the roll. Does at least one team member not trust another team member? Does anyone not trust another member of this team?
RICHARD: Ooh.
DEVON: I feel like Maybe Many Homes doesn’t know very much about MÍme, but I don’t think that means she doesn’t trust them.
RICH: Yeah. This is definitely a deep, fundamental mistrust, like “I feel like you’re gonna betray us,” or “I feel like you will not have my back,” kind of thing.
DEVON: No.
RICHARD: The only one I can think of is maybe Kat, if 39 doesn’t trust themself.
KAT: Yeah, I was just gonna say, I don’t think that 39 trusts themself, but I don’t know if that counts.
RICH: According to the question as we have it, I’m gonna say that does not count, so not trusting yourself is a little different than watching someone else that’s gonna turn on you.
KAT: Yeah, no.
RICH: Is every team member suffering the penalties of one or more Conditions? None of you have any Conditions marked, right?
RICHARD: Not yet.
RICH: Perfect. You’re gonna be rolling +1, and you get to actually add your Calm as well.
RICHARD: Yep. We’re actually looking at a +3 on this guy. That’s a 12 altogether. [laughs]
RICH: Fantastic. On a hit each team member holds 1 Maneuver. You basically have a resource you can now use called maneuver, and you can spend that Maneuver at any time to add or subtract one from one of your rolls as you see is beneficial. You can do that with friends as well. So, if for example Many Homes is making a roll and rolls a 6, and you really want a 7, one of you can spend a maneuver to increase that 6 to a 7 and describe how you’re helping them as a team member. In addition, on a 10+ the team leader chooses one team member to hold 1 additional Maneuver. Each of you has 1 Maneuver, and then MÍme gets to choose someone to give them a second Maneuver as well.
RICHARD: I think I’m gonna give the extra Maneuver to Traveler, because I know they’re going there to get stuff for Vista, but I think they’re probably the most detached from it emotionally, I feel like. They’re going to have more perspective than I think the rest of us will who are sort of in it.
DEVON: They’re the most Jedi.
RICHARD: [laughs] Yeah.
RICH: Alright. In addition to that, you also get to choose three from your list, from Get the Job Done.
RICHARD: Alright. Oh geez. No one knew we were coming.
RICH: That’s good.
RICHARD: Our way out is uncompromised, and you have what you came for, so we’re going to be able to find the stuff, it’s actually there. The thing that I did not choose is you or your friends don’t suffer long-term consequences, so we’ll see how this goes.
RICH: Excellent. Describe to me how you guys get into the central core.
DEVON: Me and DC have a thought.
DC: Because in this culture the way that Transcendents function they can ask for things, and they have to be given them because whatever they’re doing is a part of their journey, so if it’s I need to go in here and I need this person specifically, there’s a bureaucracy sort of thing where it’s like, okay you have 20 minutes or something, where I have to scan a little card.
RICH: Got it. You can ask for something that you need.
RICHARD: It’s like a reasonable accommodation type thing? Oh, you’re a Transcendent, it’s like yeah, okay.
DEVON: You’re a Transcendent and therefore whatever you’re doing is ultimately going to benefit everyone around you, so of course we’re gonna let you in and we’re not gonna ask you to explain everything, because you’re a Transcendent.
KAT: So it’s like diplomatic immunity? Is that the idea?
DC: Yeah, that’s the perfect way to put it.
RICH: [laughs] Nice.
RICHARD: Cool.
DEVON: I’m the “I have to come in with this friend” and I have everyone in my garden, in my shell.
KAT: yeah!
DEVON: You all are in the baby bjorn. I imagine that I am at capacity, because Vista, we don’t want to leave them at home.
RICH: Yeah, I could see that.
DEVON: We’d have to get a babysitter, and I don’t have the Clams for it, unfortunately.
RICH: Yeah. You barely had Clams for those two number 5s.
DEVON: Oof.
[laughter]
RICH: You get into the central core area, and where you get to is now in the military complex, so this private military complex area. You’ve gotten into the central area and you guys see all of these crystalline plants everywhere. Sorry, Many Homes does and Traveler does. You can, if you wish, be psychically linked. In other Descent into Midnight games, when you’re already a Guardian group, you actually are linked through your sanctuary to one another. I’m gonna say that you guys are already developing this connection, a familiarity you guys are building with one another, psychically, so that you can kind of see a little bit of what’s going on outside. Each person knows what anyone else wants them to know about what’s happening with them no matter where you are in the world.
So, you get into that space, into that area, and you get to the military complex. The military complex itself, even though you’re a Traveler and you have asked for access into the research, the whole central core is not a problem, into this military facility with someone that does not have clearance is going to be a little bit more difficult. This is a private facility that’s highly secure and secretive. In fact, the only reason you guys know that the Polyp program exists is because you know 39 and you know Many Homes. A lot of people feel like, in the general community, that there’s just this time of peace. “Oh, we had these Guardians, they’re not around anymore but that’s okay, because… nobody’s attacked us and nobody’s had any issues, and we haven’t had any diplomatic problems with other cities. Everything’s great in the world.” They’re just taking it at face value and not understanding that the Winter Soldier is out there taking care of business before it becomes a problem. It’s a combination of Winter Soldier and Insight Program is what’s happening right now.
You actually get up to the dome that covers an area that was one of the highest, or most central I guess, aristocratic areas. It’s domed off with a permeable, almost a jellyfish membrane that’s covering this area that prevents people from going in and out except through actual checkpoints.
RICHARD: I’ve got this.
DEVON: Alright. I’ll let everyone out.
RICHARD: That was part of the plan? Yeah.
DEVON: Everyone’s out now that we’re in, and I’ll swoop Vista back in.
RICHARD: So, we knew about this, this is all part of the plan, so MÍme is actually going to split themselves into a sheet of plankton or whatever and go and, they have material mimicry, so they transform into the same material that the bubble is and start to work themselves into it and basically form themselves into a small ring and just start opening it…
RICH: Ah. Interesting.
RICHARD: …and create an opening, and that’s how they’re going to attempt to ëHack the World.’
RICH: Oh! Excellent. What is Hack the World?
RICHARD: When you attempt to bypass a location’s defenses, roll +Drive.
RICH: I love it.
RICHARD: Ooh, and that is a 7, so we’re at a 7 to 9. The access is limited or temporary, the bypass was more difficult or challenging than you anticipated and mark a Condition, or our entry had unseen consequences. I’m gonna say limited or temporary. I feel like that’s the right thing, because it’s gonna close behind us and we’re gonna have to figure our own way out later.
RICH: Yep. That’s exactly what’s gonna happen. If you had not chosen that then you might have been able to make a permanent weakness in the dome to be able to get back out again.
RICHARD: Mm-hmm.
RICH: Once you get outside of this military complex you guys have an escape route out and you have no problem getting out of the secure area. In fact, your papers have been checked multiple times since you’ve been inside, but you’ve gotten past any other issues that you’ve had pretty easily. You do, you guys bypass into this dome. You are now inside a military facility, and there are people everywhere. There are Hermies and Grimps all over the place. You even see a Transcendent or two in the facility area as well moving around and doing research. The central part of it looks like… The only thing I can picture in my head here is it’s Cinderella’s castle. This was an elaborate home, and there are other buildings that are built around the outside of this thing, but this home looks like it’s been heavily locked down.
DEVON: For visual’s sake, becauseó
RICH: Because you’re visual.
DEVON: I see many things. I see many homes. I imagine that it is like Cinderella’s castle but it’s like upside down.
KAT: Oh…
DC: Oh shit.
RICH: Oh yes.
RICHARD: Oh my gosh, yeah.
DEVON: Yeah, because that way you have the downward pointing triangle, and that means bad.
RICH: That means bad. [laughs]
DEVON: I can talk about the psychology of why, of shape design, but it means bad. It would be best if it was upside down. Just saying.
RICH: I want to have that conversation.
DEVON: I will also send you a PDF that just has the info, too. It’s really cool.
RICHARD: So, how would people feel about wearing bits of MÍme as a disguise?
KAT: Whoa.
DC: It’s fine by Traveler.
RICHARD: Okay. Just to look a little differently, you know like you change your profile or wear a mustache or whatever, because MÍme can turn themself into whatever material people are made of.
RICH: Oh, that’s right, you have material Mimicry, right?
RICHARD: Yeah, so they can turn themself basically into a prosthetic thing to just change the look of people if they want it.
RICH: [laughs] You can absolutely do that if everybody’s okay. I need you to make a roll on Do Something Wondrous, though.
RICHARD: Drive, okay. That’s a +1, and that’s an 11.
RICH: Very nice. On a hit describe how you accomplish your goal. On a 7 to 9 you would choose a consequence, but you do not have one. Tell me what you’ve done.
RICHARD: MÍme essentially splits into three and they all float toward each of you.
RICH: Can I toss out something real quick?
RICHARD: Sure.
RICH: This is a research place, and remember this is an advanced civilization, so it’s not just people walking around naked or whatever. They’re carrying things, there’s the equivalent of the Descent into Midnight clipboard, you know, people wearing glasses, pocket protectors… There’s people wearing identification, other kind of clothing, body paint, whatever it is that you happen to describe, there is all kinds of things going on. It is a research facility. Things are being carried around like giant clamshells that are used basically as security boxes or crates that are carrying things from place to place. There are shipments going in and out. Imagine it very active.
RICHARD: Yeah. Basically, MÍme becomes uniform/extra arm/whatever it is to fit in and disguise the distinctive look of, let’s say, Many Homes’s shell, that sort of thing.
DEVON: Yeah, turn the shell into looking like something else, because that’s a very… I am one of the only hermit crabs.
RICHARD: Yeah.
RICH: So, elaborate on that. Hermies are a fairly common species in the city, but you’re one of the only ones that has a shell?
DEVON: Yeah. The Hermies look like hermit crabs without the shell, but what they do is they specialize in something to the point where they will change their physical form to make it perfect for what they do, so hers is changed where she biologically engineers things and the way she does that is she has all this stuff from the garden that she can pull nutrients from and whatever, and she created the shell so that she could carry it with her, so that’s how she’s specialized.
RICH: Oh, nice.
DEVON: She has a bunch of arms so that she can do a bunch of engineering things… I’m not sure what it would look like underwater, but you know what I mean. That’s why she looks the way she does, because this is her special field, and not many other people have that shell. They have something adjacent or similar, and I imagine that there’s some kind of clothing.
RICH: They must look very unique and different in many ways. Interesting.
RICHARD: I wonder if you’re a clamshell driver, a crab or whatever, where you’re sort of attached to the outside of this big, giant clam that opens up for people and you can hang out in there, and it’s all plush and luxurious, and has mint flavored spurts of water or something. [laughs]
DEVON: Yeah, but you would have a shell that was kind of like that, or hook up specially for you and it would be your specialty. Every Hermie looks very different.
RICHARD: Cool. Yeah, so MÍme sort of takes on some of that to disguise Many Homes’s shell.
RICH: Yeah. What about Traveler and 39? There are a lot of Grimps around, and 39 appears to be a normal member of the species in general, until terribleness happens.
KAT: Yeah. I think my disguise is pretty simple, right? It’s just to make me look like a slightly different, basic Grimp. It’s just changing my eye color and maybe giving me a distinctive accessory, doing that psyops thing.
DEVON: A big sunhat.
KAT: Yeah. There’s now… So, all Grimps have basically a little sea flower in their different types, and then they do things to them to make them fancier, so mine’s normally an anemone but now it looks like a coral riffle with a bow.
RICHARD: Ooh.
[giggling]
KAT: As soon as that happened, I completely changed my personality. (switching to Valley Girl accent) “Oh my god, guys! We HAVE to go down the hall now!!”
[laughter]
RICHARD: Amazing.
KAT: Really getting into it. Yeah.
RICH: I love it.
KAT: Basic protocols.
RICH: Amazing. Alright Traveler. You have some shapeshifting ability as well, but you still tend to look like a jellyfish, yeah?
DC: I think that Traveler just stays the same and just has an imposing look on their face. [laughter] They’re just going around like this walking with the rest of you.
RICH: That walking with purpose? “That person must belong here.”
DEVON: Yeah, we all walk like we have somewhere to be.
KAT: Your disguise was a clipboard.
RICHARD: [laughs] Amazing.
DEVON: Aw man. I want to say that most people can swim, but I love the idea that you guys are all swimming beautifully through the water and Many Homes is just (scratching) across the floor, like god damn it.
[laughter]
RICH: I definitely think that’s the case. Right?
RICHARD: Yeah.
DEVON: Loud scrabbling sounds.
RICH: And there’s a lot of Hermies of various kinds around that are all doing that scramble.
RICHARD: So at this point, the garden of the Leo Venus, is that outside of this building?
RICH: They have covered this building. This building is encased.
DEVON: Where would be the mainframe? Like, where could we most directly access things? That’s a little bit more what Maybe is focused on, I think.
RICH: Sure. The mainframe, you know of one of the offices that you could go to that’s outside of this home that’s been almost sealed off by the Leo Venus. You know the office that you can go to that you should be able to hack into without having to get too much deeper into what’s happening, but to get what you need for the plants that are in your garden you’re going to have to get into that building, into that home.
DC (as Traveler): We can get in there.
DEVON (as Many Homes): I have to go in there, but if you don’t feel like it’s safe for you I’m not going to ask you to come with me.
DC (as Traveler): I’m generally not concerned about my safety. This is very interesting.
DEVON (as Many Homes): Okay. It’s weird in there, it’s really weird.
DC (as Traveler): Your words excite me. Let’s go.
RICHARD: [laughs]
DEVON: Okay. [laughs] I’m glad we’re on the same page.
DC: I’m going to use my Movement Manipulation to make us just move generally quicker.
KAT: Ooh, that’s cool.
RICH: Great. What does that look like?
DC: I think it’s like an Echo-touched thing, just a very small, tiny… like it almost feels like someone’s gently pushing your back, but in a comfortable way, like when you’re on a swing and you’re like, oh, yay. [laughter] It’s like that. I just sort of flicker my eyes for a second.
DEVON: And we scuttle.
RICH: Are you trying to get into the office that Many Homes was talking about, this office where she might be able to hack into the mainframe?
DEVON: I’m going into Cinderella’s castle. I’m going into the center. I would say that I would tell everyone this is where the office is, there’s probably not gonna be anyone in it if you want to wait for us, I’m not gonna ask you to come with me because there’s a chance we’re gonna get caught, so this is your choice. If you just want to go for the data, this is where the data is. I have to go there so that I can then go back to the office and do a deep data dive, but where you guys go is up to you, but I’m going into the center so that I can help you guys.
RICHARD (as MÍme): Yeah, we can stick together.
RICHARD: Everyone hears that, because there’s bits of them on all of you, [laughter] so your hat’s just like “yeah, we can stick together.”
DC: MÍme, can you just yell Gryffindor for me for a second, one time?
RICHARD: Yeah. What is the situation that we have to get past to get into the building? I think that’s the crux of it, right? We’ve gotten into the area and then we’ve gotten into the perimeter, and now we just gotta make it past something. What do we think that is?
RICH: Where are you guys right this second while you’re having this conversation, while you’re deciding what to do?
RICHARD: Are we hidden in the bushes, basically? Like if the big building is all dangling down all these plants, did we just find something and climb up into them so we’re hidden from view?
RICH: You’re hiding in some of the overgrown Leo Venus plants?
DEVON: I think we’re going near them. I kind of have a move that I can do… not a specific move, a basic move, nothing too special. I think that Maybe Many Homes has worked with these plants enough where she could reach out to them, if that makes sense, and ask them. Do you know where there’s the least amount of people? Can you give us a boost?
RICH: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
DEVON: She’s literally been living with one, so she can reach out to these crystal plants and be like, hey friend.
RICH: I’m up for that.
DEVON: I believe that would be Reach out with your feelings, or what’s it called?
RICH: Reach Out. [laughs] Reach out with your feelings.
DC: Reach out and touch plants!
RICH: You blow up the building with your mind.
RICHARD: [laughs]
RICH: Yes. The Basic Move is called Reach Out, and it’s when you’re psychically or socially reaching out to your community or to nature for aid.
DC: Wait a second. Can I help you? I have a move that helps people.
RICHARD: Ooh.
RICH: Maybe.
KAT: Yay.
DEVON: Sure. I have a +0 in it, so…
DC: Fantastic.
RICH: What’s the move?
DC: More Experience Than Luck.
[laughter]
DEVON: I feel like that’s valid. That’s really valid.
DC: So, I can share an experience with you or give you skilled advice, and I roll +Drive. My experience is applicable to the challenge, and then I can spend Maneuvers to grant you the double bonus.
RICH: Ooh, nice. You can also wait to see what she rolls before you decide to spend a maneuver.
DC: Okay cool.
DEVON: It will probably be bad. I rolled a 7.
RICH: Right, so on Reach Out, on a 7 to 9 your Guide will describe how the help is temporary, unstable, or threatening, but you do get help.
DEVON: Yeah, so the only way to get it to a 10 is to get a +3, so it’s alright.
RICHARD: Which we can do. We’ve got the maneuver to do it.
DEVON: It’s true. Do we want to try and not get in trouble right now, or do we want to wait until we actually are in trouble and then use this?
KAT: [laughs]
DC: I like having a complication right now. That sounds fun.
DEVON: Yeah. I feel like we’re in a spot where we’re a little floundery. [drum crash]
RICH: So, you hack into, you psychically link into, some of these plants that are around you. Now, the plants that are around you, these Leo Venus plants that are around you, are not the same specific species as the one that’s in your garden, so you’re kind of taking a chance and seeing what will happen. You link with them and you can get the feel of them. It’s almost as if your mind’s eye switches from seeing this glowing crystalline plants that are all over this building… Everything that’s not the plants fades into this dull black and white, and the plants get much brighter. As you’re reaching out to them and more like feeling them you’re asking the question but it’s more like you’re projecting empathically to them what it is that you’re looking for. They show you a path through them. Other parts of the plants dim a little bit, there’s a little bit of a brightness to a path, and it goes around to the back of this huge mansion, which is all I can describe it as, and there’s an area where the plants are that highlight what you feel might be an entrance that’s around the back, may have been a service entrance of some sort. When you do that, after you get that sense of where you might be able to go, all of the plants come back into brightness so bright that it almost blinds your mind’s eye. You can see with your eyes, but your brain is not processing the visual information, and you reel back from it. I want you to take a Condition.
DEVON: Rad.
RICH: There’s an emotional backlash to having a connection to this much of this plant that you’ve only had a little bit of link with. I want you to mark Isolated.
DEVON: Oh. So I feel like I’m isolated away from them?
RICH: There is something that’s now deep inside you that you feel like these plants, even though they’re covering everything inside this central core, there is this universal, almost crushing loneliness that they’re feeling, like they do not belong where they are, and you are now carrying that with you.
DEVON: I am now the parent of an entire species of plants. They are now my child.
RICHARD: [laughs]
DEVON: Okay. Well, I’m gonna show them the path, then, sadly.
RICHARD: Aw.
RICH: So, you come out, Many Homes comes out of this psychic vision that you had, and as you do, even though these plants are everywhere, there are roads and pathways that are through there, and of course it’s a 3D environment so individuals can just be swimming back and forth without too much of an issue… You open your eyes and you look out, as you’re blinking your hundred eyes trying to get your visual cortex of your brain to start working again…
DEVON: I like how I have more eyes every single time we say how many eyes I have. It’s good. I love it.
RICH: It’s a thousand eyes, right? That’s what you said?
DEVON: [smiling] yep, it’s a thousand eyes.
RICH: I can’t remember how many eyes you said. There’s a lot of eyes.
DEVON: It’s fine. We don’t know how many. She doesn’t know either.
RICH: They keep coming out and coming back into the space, andó
DEVON: No one canóYeah. Some of them are now MÍme, so we don’t know.
RICHARD: Mm-hmm.
[laughter]
RICH: Exactly. You open your eyes, and as you do, you guys are looking out and you guys are focusing on Many Homes and seeing what she’s doing, and there is a lot of traffic of course going up and through the water as well, and you look up and you find something to focus on. It’s kind of a turtle analog that’s used for carrying and dragging objects, it’s like a beast of burden, that comes through this area. There are multiple Grimps swimming around it, and on the back of it are two Hermies, and one of them has a shell, and that Hermie, when you’re finally focusing on what’s going on and your mind’s eye starts to clear, you realize that you’re locking eye to eye, to eye to eye to eye to eye to eye… [laughter] with your mentor. At the same time, one of the Grimps turns, kind of breaks formation, and starts heading in your direction, and you Polyp 39, your psychic heads up display starts analyzing this Grimp, and you realize quickly that this Grimp does not have any easily visible weaknesses…
KAT (as Polyp 39): [softly] No weaknesses.
RICH: …which tells you it’s one of you…
KAT: Yeah.
RICH: …and heading in your direction.
KAT (as Polyp 39): Um, guys, like totally we have to like prepare for battle.
[laughter]
RICH: And that’s game.
RICHARD: Amazing.
DEVON: I knew you were gonna bring in the mentor. Ugh.
RICH: I see the two Polyps trying to analyze each other and it’s like this battle of psychic war trying to figure out a weakness and then realizing, wait a minute.
DEVON: “What are their power levels?!”
KAT: “It’s a… It’s a me!”
DEVON: Yeah. It’s just a DBZ scanner. It’s got the heads up. I actually imagine it’s like a cat looking at their own reflection, like “[startled grunt] … No weaknesses!”
[laughter]
KAT: Puffing the tail!
DC: “This can’t be possible! Their power level–!”
DEVON: “Masaka!”
RICH: Alright. Perfect. Thanks so much, guys. Let’s go back around again and introduce yourselves and where people can find you out in the world. I’m Rich Howard. I was your Guide for today in this fascinating game of Descent into Midnight, and you can find me online, you can find all of the creative team actually at @DiMRPG, that’s Descent into Midnight RPG, or you can find me at my personal Twitter account @UmbralWalker. Devon?
DEVON: You can find my artwork and projects at DevonGeorgeStudios.com. You can also find me on social media at @DGeorgeStudios, on either Twitter or Instagram. If you want to take a look at what I’m actually working on like right now at this moment, I am working on the art for a card game called Valhallamas by Fidget Creative, so if you want to see me draw a bunch of… llamasó
RICH: A thousand llamas.
DEVON: Just so many llamas. Yeah, you can go check that out.
RICH: Awesome. DC?
DC: Hello. …
RICH: [laughs]
DC: I am DC. I just have to say, the amount of times I do that across so many different interviews and streams is absurdly high, so if you’re following that bizarre path that I’m walking, there’s another one. You can find me on the internet as Dungeon Commandr, without the E in Commander, on Twitter, on Twitch, on just about anything. I am a game designer, I am a consultant, I am a writer, all sorts of things, and a community activist?
RICH: That sounds right.
RICHARD: Mm-hmm.
KAT: That is right.
DC: I kinda don’t like self-prescribing activism, that feels weird to me, but anyway.
KAT: That is what you do. [laughs] You’re an organizer. Sorry!
DC: Yeah, I’ll use organizer, I’m a community organizer. If you want to check out all of my cool stuff, follow me on Twitter, that’s where all of the information goes.
RICH: Fantastic.
DC: Thank you all. You’re amazing.
RICH: You’re amazing.
DEVON: Thank You.
RICH: Kat?
KAT: Thank you so much for running, Rich, this is really fun, and thank you everyone for playing with me. It was really enjoyable. I am Kat Kuhl. I am a podcaster, game designer, and voice actor. You can most easily find me online on Twitter at @Kat_Kuhl_, and you can also find my favorite thing that I’m working on at AutonomicPodcast.com with Autonomic spelled like the nervous system.
RICH: Awesome, and Richard?
RICHARD: Alright. I’m Richard Kreutz-Landry. You can find me pretty much all the time on Twitter at @RKreutzLandry, or you can check out my origami and a little bit of my gaming stuff at OrigamiGaming.com.
RICH: Fantastic. Thanks everybody else for spending some time with us as well, and Welcome to Midnight, everybody.
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Welcome to a special episode of Game Closet! You won’t hear your normal host’s voice on this one, but stay tuned!!!
Taylor’s been working as the Design Lead for Descent into Midnight for a good amount of time now and the Kickstarter is ongoing! While you listen to these special Actual Plays, go check it out at DiMRPG.io/ks.
Rich: Welcome everyone to a very special game of Descent into Midnight. Descent into Midnight is a role playing game where you play psionically linked sea creatures in a technologically advanced alien world. You take on the role of highly trained and gifted psionic guardians defending your underwater city from an existential corruption, both of which, the city and the corruption, you define with your group at the table.
Everyone is encouraged to bring whatever cool things they know about the ocean in as inspiration or even the things that scare you about it. Whatever’s most horrifying or most interesting to you. That’s what we’re playing with today. The game is ultimately hopeful, but explores the emotional consequences of fighting corruption and the bonds between the people who fight it and the community they protect.
I am honored to have four incredible players with me today, but I’m going to let them tell us more about themselves. So, first up. Kat Kuhl. Welcome to this game.
Kat: Hey, Rich, thanks for having me. Hi everyone. I’m Kat Kuhl. She/her.
Rich: Tell us more about who you are and what you do in the world. I’m going to steal a line from my own podcast.
Kat: Okay. Uh, yeah. I’m Kat. I am an actual play podcaster and game design. I do a podcast called Autonomic, which is a kid’s actual play. Uh, it’s like my favorite thing I’ve ever done. I love it a lot. It’s…
Rich: It’s amazing.
Kat: …weekly, usually releases on Thursdays, and you can find it at autonomicpodcast.com. Other than that, I made a card game called Noisy Person Cards.
I helped design a role playing game for Roll20 that’s called Burn Bryte. And I like that thing a lot. It’s in beta, so you have to like be a Roll20 person to do it. But I’m really excited for people to get to do it ‘cause I feel pretty strongly about that.
Here’s a good segue. It cares a lot about climate change and themes like ocean conservation.
Rich: Yay! Tell me one thing that either fascinates you or terrifies you about the ocean.
Kat: Oh gosh. Okay. Well, there’s a lot that fascinates me about the ocean, but really the biggest thing about the ocean for me is how much it scares me.
Um, like it, I…
Rich: Excellent! Good place to start.
Kat: Yeah. Yeah. I can’t get over both the like claustrophobia and agoraphobia of it. Right? But it’s just, that’s so much of the ocean to me.
I spent a lot of time on beaches as a kid, like the Steven Universe, like three beaches, that whole Delmarva area’s where I grew up. So I love that whole stretch of land. But once I’d spend more than a few hours out there, you know, it would start to spook you. That’s just a knowing that I don’t belong out there at all, and other things very much do, so…
Rich: You’re going to belong today, so it’ll be good because you can face that.
The reason I brought that up too is ’cause, too, Descent into Midnight started the same way. It started as a joke about a Broseidon playbook for Monsterhearts. And then I had all these playbooks in my head for Monsterhearts, and then it evolved and we’re like, let’s do a skin.
And then, Oh, maybe we’ll do some do it with Masks, and then now it’s whatever. Now it’s what it is now. Which I love. DC I want to hear something that excites you or terrifies you about the ocean.
DC: What a great question. I am very afraid of the ocean, uh, but I respect it. And what has always been interesting to me, is that I love conceptually and physically, space. Space is very interesting because it’s infinite and there’s so much out there. There’s so much life, all these planets, all these things that could destroy us instantaneously, but the ocean is way more terrifying to me because it is limited.
It is… closer. And although we have made so many scientific strides in the world and in space, we still don’t know what’s in the ocean.
That’s scary.
Rich: So that fascinates and terrifies you? Both.
DC: Yes.
Rich: Excellent. I love it. All right, Devon…
Devon: It’s me!
Rich: Who, I will say has done some absolutely breathtaking art for Descent into Midnight. Thank you so much for all of your work. Tell everyone a little more about you and what you do and where they can get your incredible art.
Devon: Well first, thank you. Doing that art was really awesome and actually like, I really enjoy how both of the illustrations I did turned out. I think they turned out really well and I’m glad that they’re working out for you. So, yeah. My name is Devon George. I’m an artist and sometimes a game designer.
You can find my illustrations over at devongeorgestudios.com. Devon spelled with an “O”. My social media at dgeorgestudios on Twitter and Instagram. So I’ve done art for a Descent into Midnight, and I’m also doing, I’m just also drawing just a bunch of llamas for a game called Valhallamas.
They’re a local group to me who approached me and it’s like a player-v-player fighting llama card game. If you want to check that out, it’s by Fidget Creative. And I am right now coloring so many llamas right now.
Kat: That rocks!
Devon: Yeah. This one’s fun. I tried to draw a dog like a week ago and it turned out looking like a llama.
Rich: I love it.
Devon: But I also, as I said, I do a little bit of game design. My game Edifice is in beta and it will be in beta probably until sometime next year when I’ll figure out how to get that out to the general public, the final version, and you can find that also on my website or on my Twitter. Other than that, I don’t do much other than draw art and like robots.
Richard: Oh, and Character Creation Cast. It has a series of episodes. So you can go check it out and get a sneak peek.
Rich: I was going to bring that up.
Devon: Episode 13 and you can listen to an hour of me just talking about the creative process, which it just evolved into.
Rich: It’s a fantastic episode. You should go check it out.
Devon: Thanks.
Rich: Devon, there are no llamas in the ocean that I’m aware of.
Devon: Not yet.
Rich: What fascinates you… ? Not yet. Awesome, awesome. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your Cultivator and what you were thinking to start with?
Devon: So, first of all, crabs are llamas of the sea for me. So I’m going to be playing, I wanna play a hermit crab is what I want to do, but it’s like a hermit crab with a million arms. So it’s got like 37 arms, and not all of them are its own and like 20 eyes. Um.
Rich: I love it already.
Devon: Yeah. And I’ll talk more about my weird thing about the garden ‘cause I had an idea.
All I know is I went down a Wiki hole of facts about hermit crabs and I have a bunch of really weird fun facts. They like, conga line. Okay. Anyway, other than that, I don’t really have too much plan for them other than I think they’re just going to be kind of a gentle character who really likes to build stuff and help people out.
I don’t really have too much more on them yet.
Rich: I love it. I love it. All right, well let’s go to Richard, cause obviously you’ve played once or twice. What playbooks were you interested in?
Richard: The one I’m looking at today is the specialist. This is one that I think you kind of drove a little bit.
Rich: I did. Yeah, the specialist, it’s one of our newest playbooks, so most people haven’t seen it yet.
Richard: Yeah, I’m excited. Basically the blurb, as it were, is you are an expert at getting your allies into and out of dangerous or questionable situations with skill and grace. Whether rescuing the victims of a natural disaster, negotiating a lethal hydrothermal vent field, breaching into the biotech security of an ancient civilization, or extracting psychic information from a coral hive mind.
So their, their whole thing is getting into and out of dangerous situations. So you can think of them like maybe a combat medic or an infiltration specialist or maybe even a psychic hacker, that kind of thing. And, after seeing the video of the octopus that was eating a bird, I was like, okay, that’s real cool.
I’m going to do something with that. And looking over the cool powers list or the list of gifts, the psionic gifts, I am definitely going with an octopus with a penchant for getting into and out of things. So…
Rich: Nice. I love it. Fantastic. Kat. Do you have, did you narrow down a few playbooks here or do you have a specific one you’re looking for?
Kat: So the one that jumped out to me was the Redeemed. Partially… um, so this is a pretty spiritual game, Rich. I have noticed that.
Rich: It’s as if I designed it.
Kat: It seems, it seems that way.
Rich: It’s spiritual, underwater superheroes. What? What do you want from me?
Kat: It’s kind of like a Rich jam.
Rich: It’s just #OnBrand.
Kat: Yeah. And something that you’ve recently realized about me is that, I am not anti-spirituality, but I have some incredible family trauma surrounding it.
Rich: Yes. I just, I literally just found out…
Kat: Yeah, you found that out like last week. And I love a lot about the Redeemed, the idea of it, especially with, as we’ll find soon, the idea of somebody who was created by something. Who had been affected by the Corruption beforehand, so has somewhat of a different perspective of what’s going on. Which will enable me to have frank conversations about how my perspectives on this whole world might be slightly different than what you guys are dealing with because I don’t know that I’m always going to be on the same page here. And I’m a little worried about that coming into this game. I’ll, I’ll be vulnerable right now and say I’m a little worried about not being the cool kid and, and just chill spiritually it with all of every, all you nice people.
Rich: May I may I offer a few things up? So just so people know the Redeemed is a character playbook that we kind of designed is like, almost like, your captain America, Hulk, something where someone was created by something or trained by someone to deal with conflict in some way. And it’s very grounded out many times in the physical world, the physical protection, but is no longer that weapon of potentially war or conflict and is now become a guardian for whatever reason to try to protect and work with the community. So the Redeemed can be interpreted as a lot of different things. But the idea of having a Redeemed who maybe was trained by someone who then betrayed them or had been influenced in some way by the Corruption as we’re going to develop it down the line and then has like this… a very strong or different viewpoint on much of this would be really interesting to me.
Kat: Cool. So they’re also the only playbook that has my favorite thing about the ocean that we didn’t talk about in our interest section, which is venom. I care about that a lot. And I’m always very much interested in exploring characters who have like this variety of past and are no longer really interested in trucking with violence all that much.
Think of people who are really skilled at it, but don’t want to do it like your, like your Killua from Hunter X Hunter. Um, so yeah. It jumps out and appeals to me. This one’s interesting to me.
Rich: It’s fascinating to me because that is not the playbook I expected you to pick it all.
Kat: I know. I’m sorry. I’m, I’m really dark and angsty a lot. I’m so sorry.
Rich: No, no, no. But what I was thinking was actually another playbook you had mentioned you might have some interest in, which was the Touchstone.
Kat: I know, which is such a happy and light character!
Rich: Well, but it also reminded me a lot of the character of Tamlin that appears on Campaign podcast.
The innocence in the face of terrible things, right? And how that can approach, these terrible things and make change through hope. Um, not less, more about you, but more about like, that Tamlin is, you’re clearly… Like, Tamlin is a piece of your heart in this podcast.
Kat: Very much so. That like “The Duality of Man.” I could have easily… that’s the other playbook that I offered up of like, I’d be happy to play this. But, thinking about it more, I was like, I want to play a weird blue ringed octopus person, and just go for it if everyone’s chill with me doing that. But also, if you guys don’t want to have like an angsty person on your team, I don’t have to do that at all and I can be a happy Tamlin.
Rich: So Kat, um, this game is hopepunk meets horror.
Kat: Yeah.
Richard: So I, I’m just gonna interject here. So at gen con last year. I went into this game, you know, I was real tired. I was feeling a little down. I just lost my job. I’d been having all these issues. Right? And I go into this game and I’m GMing it, and I think, “Oh, cool. We’ve got some players, everybody’s upbeat, we’re doing voices. It’s great.”
Uh, we were, I think everybody at the table except for one person was crying about an hour into it. And we hadn’t even started the game. We were doing character creation and community building. Like, we do angst.
Rich: I was running a game at the table five feet from them and I kept getting notifications to the DiMRPG Twitter feed with pictures of people crying. And I went to Richard, I was like, what are you doing to them over there?
Kat: Yeah. Then in an act of self preservation, I think the Redeemed is really… This is the most… um, like violence isn’t… I noticed that I was like, “Huh. It’s funny that it’s built for physical violence because that isn’t what’s important to me about this playbook at all.” But this playbook is so much in my wheelhouse, so yeah.
Rich: That’s, and that’s actually it. The redeemed actually started off as called the living weapon. And then we realized the violent aspect of it was not what we were interested in. The idea of having been something and wanting to be something else is the most important. That’s why the name is called the redeemed.
So it is about that emotional thing. It’s not the fighter playbook. That’s not what it’s for. It’s like The Bull in masks where people go in and think like, “Oh good. I can just be the invulnerable strong person.” And then they realize it’s literally the most emotional playbook in the entire masks game.
That’s what, that’s what I really want to see from the Redeemed. Ideally. Yeah. So I think you’re spot on.
Kat: Yay!
Rich: All right. And then last step…
Devon: I think I teared up when, Oh, sorry, go-
Rich: No. Go ahead Devon. What were you going to say?
Devon: Nevermind.
Rich: No, I heard “teared up.” I want to hear about it.
Devon: I was just going to say, I think I almost cried when I played too.
Rich: Excellent. I win!
Devon: I did tear up. I think it was when we were trying to save the corrupted little grub babies.
Richard: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Rich: And we’re having, we’re going to have flashbacks. Okay. All right.
Devon: When we were on the “moon.” It was bad.
Rich: So Kat, you’re in safe hands. Let’s do this. DC, you and I had talked a little earlier about the playbook that you wanted to play. Tell us the playbook that you want to play and tell us why it kind of draws you.
DC: I want to play the traveler, which- I will read the blurb. Where many lives thrive within and around the city scape, you have spent years, perhaps even centuries, studying the world outside. Whether a scholar, trader, explorer or bounty hunter, you have collected a lifetime of knowledge and experience and seen the best and worst the world has to offer.
I very much resonate with the traveler. Mostly because I have I always feel like I don’t center in my personal life. I feel very on the edge, observant of people. And, most of the skills that people are like, “Oh, you’re very good at this…” Cause I, I’ve been watching people be people for a long time and so my understanding comes from there.
And the really interesting thing to me about it is that there’s a sense of this person is both one of us and not one of us. And how a person who is a traveler can have that sense in their own self, because the things that, the experiences that they have are truly unique on both sides.
And so it’s one foot in on both areas and not two foot feet in any way.
Rich: I love it. Do you have an idea? I’ve heard some octopuses and some hermit crabs and some, uh, some, some… We’ll get more specific, but you have some idea of something that you might like to…
DC: I’m going to have to go with my favorite animal, the immortal jellyfish.
Rich: Excellent. I love it. We’re doing that for sure. All right, so let’s take a look at our playbooks now. Thanks for everybody, for, I got everybody right? I did get everyone. So let’s take a look at the playbooks now. On the front page of the playbook, of course, you have your name and your pronouns.
You can fill those in. We’ll do those a little bit later on the front of the playbook. You have your look. Which are just suggestions and ideas to help stimulate an idea that you have. If you didn’t have one to start with.
Gifts, which are, could be psionic, they could be natural to your species, or they could be bio-engineered technology or a bio-engineered, cybernetics, that kind of thing as well.
However you want to interpret it, you get to two gifts. Again, these are suggestions and you can use gifts from any playbook, similar to games like Masks. The powers are our ideas and themes that seem to go well with the playbook, but you can, you know, pitch whatever you want.
An idea for attitude or viewpoint.
And then also an idea about where you come from in your home though you now all reside within a metropolis. And the basic core city that we use as a base is a reef. Metropolis. Millions and millions of creatures, sentient creatures, live in an advanced civilization in this reef. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you or your species come from the city itself, or they could be some district of the city that has these qualities.
Like, for example, in the specialist, the examples are a snug crevasse, a dirty hole, too many teeth as a suggestion for home, or a family legacy. So these aren’t like, just like, “Oh, a kelp bed or a coral reef.” These are ideas and themes that you can talk about where your home and family come from. So why don’t you take a look at that and circle a few things, and then we’ll talk about the specifics there. And then we’ll go on to the next.
Devon: I love it. One of my options for home is “What are these plants?”
I’m circling it. I don’t know what it means, but I’m circling it.
Rich: Excellent. We can all figure it out together.
Richard: I think Taylor basically started bringing in just some really poetic language. And if you need poetry, Taylor is the person to go to. Like, he’s so good at evoking images and feelings with just a couple of words. You know?
Rich: He leaned heavily into the alliteration on the looks as well. So for, again, for the specialist there is invisible and infinite, beefy and bulbous, fluid and fastidious are examples.
Richard: And of course they’re all suggestions. So if you’ve got something else in mind that you think would work, go for it. And that includes the gifts and…
Rich: Or if you want to pick up another playbook and just say like, “Oh, none of these are really, I’m not really feeling inspired by any of these.” Pickup another playbook and see if anything jumps out at you.
Devon: Yeah, I’m just going to circle two that are close to each other, but aren’t in the same like, comma.
Rich: Oh, that’s great! Yes, you are allowed. No commas or hard stops here.
A really popular one is, uh, the redeemed has colony of creatures. That one gets picked up a lot.
Kat: Yeah. I can see people liking that.
Rich: Yeah. Yep. I also like the deceptively delicate for the Redeemed.
Kat: That is what I have picked.
Rich: Excellent. I’m already loving this character. Kat. You’re good. All right.
Devon: I’m good. I just have to figure out my second gift. I’m a little stuck on that, but other than that, I’m good.
Rich: All right. Well, why don’t we talk, why don’t we start with you then, Devon, since you’re pretty close, and then we’ll move on to the rest. So for your look, what did you pick?
Devon: I circled. Yeah, I had, I had enlightened and encrusted, boisterous and blooming, and guarded and gooey, and I circled the two that were close to each other. Which was encrusted and boisterous. And then I also circled enlightened, so I’m not sure what that means, but we’ll find out.
Rich: Excellent. Welcome to Powered by the Apocalypse games.
And then, and then your gifts you had, do you get to choose two of those gifts? What did you choose?
Devon: I have technopathy first and I am very… my first thing is to hit like impenetrable armor…
Rich: Because you’re a hermit crab.
Devon: Yeah. But also because of what I plan to do with my garden, I feel like that’s, I feel like that’s cheating. A little spoiler alert. I want to put my garden in my shell, but in a, in a… What does the term-
Kat: Yeah. Like a pocket dimension.
Devon: Yeah.
Rich: Absolutely. I’m in.
Devon: I want to put it in my shell, but in a subspace dimension, and I can turn my shell inside out and turn it into the garden. So that’s why I don’t want to do impenetrable armor, because I feel like…
Rich: Well, let me lean into that if you want to do impenetrable armor, because let’s talk about that. Because one of the things that you do for your garden is a move called seafoam green thumb. You pick two, you pick two benefits and one liability, one of the lines that the liabilities are things like that your garden is appetizing, that your garden is vulnerable, that your garden is ostentatious, delicate, or that your garden is hungry. So if you’re gonna put it in a pocket dimension inside you and you roll in a way that triggers your liability, that could give us some interesting ways to go. So I don’t have an issue with you taking in penetrable armor because it’s inside your armor and it may be the problem.
Richard: Whoa!
Devon: All right. Yeah. I want impenetrable armor and technopathy. And then for attitude, I hit nurturing and for home I have “What are these plants?” I also have a name.
Rich: Great. What’s the name?
Devon: Their name is Maybe Many Homes.
Rich: Maybe Many Homes.
Devon: Yes. Maybe m-a-y-b-e, Many as in there’s a lot, and Homes as in, “this is my home.”
Rich: And then do you have pronouns?
Devon: Uh, I always stall at pronouns, so you’re gonna have to come back to me on that one.
Rich: That’s okay. You can hang out with that one. That’s no problem. And then we’re going to go around and talk about individual characters. Then I’m going to start diving a little bit deeper, but right now, Devon, I want to plant the seed to remind you that you are not just creating a single character. You’re not creating all dwarves.
You are representative of all dwarves. You are a member of the species that happens to be a Cultivator. Meaning that your whole species aren’t all cultivators. So in your mind, think about, start thinking about things like, well, what if my species, same species was a Traveler or a Seeker or a Redeemed?
How would they maybe fit in those? And then also the people who aren’t these playbooks, the inhabitants that aren’t these playbooks live in the city every day. And so there they are going to be a people in the city. So think a little bit about that. I’m going to ask you some questions later about the culture: some interesting cultural things and things like that for your people, not just yourself. So I’m planting those seeds right now.
Devon: Awesome. I will go take some notes ‘cause I already have some ideas.
Rich: So who wants to, who’s popping up next to, who’s got something for me?
Richard: I mean, yeah, I’m ready to go if y’all want to take some time. Okay. I started with the idea of an octopus, but I think I’m going a little bit weirder because this game lets you do that.
Rich: Lean into the weird. Yes, it does.
Richard: So I’m going to be playing a group of echo plankton called Même,
Rich: Okay. The plankton are called Même, or you’re called Même?
Richard: Well, we are called, Même.
Rich: Excellent.
Richard: And essentially, uh, we are a group of plankton that sort of span the gap between the Echo and the physical world.
And we can take on the form of other creatures. And they pick one when they basically like gain sentience or sapience so they can shift that. But generally they like to hang out as a squid. I’m in the shape of a squid. And they are fluid and fastidious because what they can do, is they have material mimicry.
And so when they come into contact with materials in the physical world, they can transform themselves into something similar to that. And the other power that they have is phasing. And so they can move through materials as they sort of lean more towards the Echo. But it’s dangerous for them because they can pop back into the physical world if they get tired or something happens and they can lose a part of themselves inside of whatever the material is.
Rich: I love this. This is fantastic.
Richard: And they’re very sort of curious and probing and they go to different worlds, but this collection, they have happened upon this world and they like it. So their family legacy is interacting with this world and sort of, you know, swimming around and hanging out with this particular physical world.
Rich: So one of the things that we play around with is the idea that Seekers or other characters that are going into the far, far Echo can actually appear, or discover other realities, uh, and may just be like other worlds like this. So it seems like that’s something that you, that, that Même has done,
Richard: Yeah, and I think they, as a family, the collection that they come from has sort of latched onto this particular world. And so they can’t go back into the far Echo anymore. Like they’re sort of tied to this world.
Rich: They’ve kind of, it’s almost like maybe when you were younger, they travel around, they find a place, and then once they’ve kind of manifested themselves, they have, they’re kind of rooted generally.
Richard: So it’s, it’s sort of like if you had some sort of sea kelp or something that floated around and then the moment it found a rock, it would attach itself to that and then it doesn’t move after that.
Rich: Love it. That’s super cool. Okay. DC, Kat?
DC: I’ve got some stuff. So my traveler they’re, you know, a jellyfish. Their name is Traveler.
Rich: Okay.
DC: This is because this particular species just manifest from the Echo, and they’re… a special… their species is treated as like a special class because they just manifest and within the city they are then like, “I am here for this particular role.”
And they don’t have any conscious knowledge of the Echo, like their past.
Richard: Oh, interesting.
DC: If they even view time in that way, I’m not completely sure yet, but-
Rich: Well they’re immortal jellyfish, so this tracks.
DC: They then say “this is my role.” And then it’s basically like, okay, go ahead. And then they contribute to the city in whatever way that things are given to them.
So they’re sort of sage, like, I picked smooth and sage-like for a look, so that kind of leans into that. And they come with contributions and then are usually given a lot of flexibility as to what their position is in any given situation.
Rich: And so there’s, there’s multiple of your species in the city. They’ve all manifested with specific goals in mind or specific jobs or things that they participate with in the city?
DC: Yes. Some might show up and be like, I take care of children. And that’s their thing.
Rich: I love it. That’s so cool.
DC: So Traveler doesn’t have any pronouns, they’re just Traveler.
Rich: I love it.
DC: They showed up, understood that they were Traveler, looked across the city, got to know the culture and the people probably fairly quickly through a lot of psychic interaction and then left.
Their gifts are movement, manipulation, and matter mimicry. So with movement manipulation, I’m thinking they can speed things up or slow things down when they’re moving.
Rich: Ooh.
DC: And can probably move things a little bit in a direction if they want to.
Rich: Like they control, they control momentum and inertia in some way?
DC: Yeah. This allows them to move through the world a bit safer and the travel really quickly. The matter mimicry allows him to blend in to areas where they show up because they generally just want to observe.
Rich: So the matter of mimicry for Traveler is almost like a camouflage.
DC: Yeah. They can camouflage by making themselves less visible or if they can make themselves look like whatever creatures around if they want to interact with them. There are no particular rules around it. It’s just like whatever the feeling is. Cause it’s sort of like the consciousness of, there are forms of consciousness of the echo sort of experiencing different…
We assume worlds and dimensions out there, but it’s not something that any jellyfish in any particular place really thinks about. They’re just like doing the thing.
Rich: I think that’s cool.
DC: The attitude is Restless. They want to be traveling most of the time. If they’re in, and that even means not necessarily traveling to different places, but having different experiences and their home is empty spaces.
Rich: Awesome. All right. The Redeemed.
Kat: So my look options were colony of creatures, which is great, polished predator, mailed monstrosity, or deceptively delicate. And I’ve gone with a deceptively delicate. I really like the idea of being like a branching little flower thing that is like a combination of a blue-ringed octopus and a, uh, what are those called?
Uh, Oh. A lionfish.
Richard: Ooh. With all the spiny things!
Kat: With all the spines. So, different types of venom branches.
Rich: There’s a video of a mimic octopus mimicking a lionfish. That might be, yeah, it’s pretty rad. So we should find that.
Kat: We should definitely find that and look at that. That’s not the secret agenda of this at all.
Right. So, so generally like it can move around, or probably they, they can move around and change with what they look like, but they look like a little flower. They’re a bunch of gifts options, but I’ve gone with venomous defenses and transferable consciousness.
I believe the way that they were constructed was, because they are definitely a product of bioengineering, is that they’re meant to infiltrate a society, and spread venom that made it easier for the corruption to take over the consciousness of people and change them, their minds into doing a thing. Um.
Rich: So this is, so this is interesting. So, what I’ve experienced in the past running the game is that the characters will be a part of the society. And then the corruption is coming in and being introduced in the first games. But this is beautiful. I love this.
Kat: Well, I figured, I figured we already at least thought that we beat this particular corruption and maybe we did. Maybe it’s a completely new corruption. It could be related to this past corruption that’s still ongoing.
Rich: Somebody tried to weaponize the corruption… that is messed up and I love it.
Kat: So the idea… so I have like multiple types of venom, but one of them is definitely a thing that is meant to help take over consciousness. And then I have transferable consciousness. So that is what I’m intended to do. I no longer like to do that. My attitude in general is I’m a fairly stoic individual because I wasn’t made that way. I’m made to infiltrate and be charming and “la-tee-da, I’m happy little flower person.” So now that I don’t have to, I don’t bother.
And then home. Um, the options are really cute. There’s spines and spires, the bone yard, calm currents. And then the last one was simple beginnings. And I really like simple beginnings, trying to make it work in like a little simple cave these days, now that I have been given space in our little metropolis society.
I have a name: I’m going to go with a Polyp 39.
Richard: Oh my God, I love that.
Kat: Thanks.
Rich: Yeah, I’m all about that.
Kat: And, uh, I, yeah, I think pronouns are, they/them.
Rich: That all sounds amazing, and I already have a million ideas from all of you. That’s incredible.
Richard: Oh, do we? Did we get a name and pronouns for the cultivator, Devon?
Devon: Yeah. I think I’m going to confirm to she/her.
Rich: Got it. The next thing we’re going to do is we’re going to go over the moves a little bit and talk about the general moves, and then we’re going to go over our links and then we’ll develop a little bit more about the city. So, let’s start with… let’s just go back in the same order. So let’s start with Devon.
So we’ve talked a little bit about the cultivator has this seafoam green thumb as their core move and then they get to pick two additional moves in addition to that and the seafoam green thumb. You’re a master aquaculturist and bioengineer with a connection to the flora and fauna of the ocean world.
You nurture a vibrant garden and tend to schools of creatures both natural and bio engineered. So your garden has two benefits and one liability. Have you put some thought into those?
Devon: I would say that hungry, cause you mentioned that and that actually sounds radical. So I would go with hungry.
Rich: As a liability.
Devon: A liability, yeah. I’m very good at coming up with a bad thing. So you have to give me a second to figure out the good things. Uh. Oh boy, that’s a lot of options.
Rich: So while you’re thinking about it, I’ll share some with the listeners. There’s armored constructs…
Devon: It’s almost a robot, and therefore I would like armored constructs.
Rich: Good. Medicinal organisms, weaponized creatures, prophetic spores, bioelectric, mainframe and living security systems.
Devon: Well, what do we think of bio electric mainframe means, though?
Rich: Bio electric main frame. It can mean anything, obviously, but what we’re thinking about with that is coral computers, some kind of plugging into broad systems. Something that has to do… maybe plugged into the sanctuary that you guys are going to have. But it could be interpreted just like anything else in the game. It’s whatever you think might work.
Devon: What do you think would be making like gadgets? Isn’t there something already for that, or is this a-
Rich: There are a few different moves. One is called “It Plugs in Where?” In It Plugs in Where you use your personal energy in the living environment to create and/or power, a bioelectric or genetically modified device. You have the reef protects its own, it goes to 11, which is supercharging bioelectric stuff and something called It’s Green, where you call upon nature, your connection to nature for assistance.
You also have buds, which is you have a talent for nurturing friendships, sometimes even growing new friends from seeds or spores.
Devon: I love that.
Rich: And so when you grow a helpful creature or plant.
Devon: I love that so much.
Rich: There’s a lot of that kind of thing. So you’re very MacGuyvery / computer engineery.
Devon: Yeah. That’s what I-
Rich: It’s Iron Man, the underwater Iron Man kind of a thing.
Devon: Yes. I want to be underwater Iron Man. I’m literally building underwater Iron Man cause I literally have a suit.
Rich: Excellent.
Devon: Also remind me to explain the hermit crab conga line at some point. I’m going to go-
Rich: That’s gonna come up for sure.
Devon: Yeah, I’m going to go with the bioelectric mainframe cause I like the idea of the, I like the idea of like a computer.
Rich: Awesome. And we can talk about more about that as a group. And then you have two other moves. Do you have ideas? It sounds like you would like to do It Plugs in Where when you’re creating gadgets on the fly, great.
Devon: I know when I was looking through these, I just wanted one with like a really high altruism because I think there was a basic move that I really liked and I think it was something to do with defending people.
Rich: Yes, there is. The one you’re thinking of is The Reef Protects Its Own. Through genetic manipulation, bioelectric triggers, and psionic activation. You can rapidly create a garden in the surrounding area, and when you grow a garden to defend your allies, you gain plus one ongoing to defend another within the affected area.
So you’re basically overgrowing the area around you then that area you grow is going to protect and help your allies.
Devon: Ugh, but I only get two and I really like It’s Green.
Rich: It’s Green is also really quite good.
Devon: I know.
Rich: They’re all fun.
Devon: I like the idea of growing a helpful plant or creature.
Rich: The buds?
Devon: I’ll choose buds. I think that’s cool. But I definitely want The Reef Protects Its Own at some point ‘cause I feel like that’s sort of where I want to go with this character.
Rich: Perfect. Great. So we’ll do Buds and It Plugs in Where? All right, so Richard, we’re doing the Specialist here. Your core move is Get the Job Done.
Nothing distracts you from your tasks at hand. It allows you to use calm as a stat instead of community. When you’re scanning the environment and when you act as a team to prepare for an infiltration, a rescue, or travel through treacherous locations, you get to do some cool stuff.
Richard: Yup. The other two things I was looking at… I was looking at safety net. So, when something doesn’t go to plan, you react with instinct and training. When an ally rolls a six minus on a basic move, you may mark a condition and describe how you help them. And if you do, the ally may consider the role a 10 plus.
The idea behind that is Même is very quick and running on instinct. And because they’re this collection of small things, they just react to things without necessarily thinking about them first. And they’re very curious and they operate at that quick speed when they sense that something’s going on.
The other thing is Hack the World. When you attempt to bypass a location’s defenses, roll plus drive. On a hit, you gain access, and then on a seven to nine you have to pick from some lesser versions of that. And then on a six minus, you may take dangerous or damaging shortcuts to get the job done.
And then you can resist corruption to treat it as a seven to nine so you have some options for, again, getting the job done, but it might not be great for you.
Rich: Right?
Richard: Which I think is perfect. Kind of given that their whole thing is moving through materials and becoming those materials and the fact that they are sort of like a set collective of small creatures.
Rich: Love it. That sounds great. All right. DC for your traveler, your core move is called Hide and Seek. Whether through education, training or social graces, you know how to find the most elusive creatures. When you seek information about a plant, animal, or another inhabitant, you can roll plus drive and find out a list of information.
So you could either track them down, find a person, or just know things about strange and bizarre plants and creatures that other people don’t. And then in addition to that, you get two others.
DC: My two others are Like a Local: when you are introduced to an unfamiliar location or creature or culture, tell the table how you are aware of the location or culture and roll plus community. On a hit, you are able to call for aid, comfort, information, or rest. On a 10 plus, you gain plus one forward, on a seven to nine I get: how you gained your knowledge involved an unsettling personal event and describe the event and mark a condition.
As the memories are brought to the surface, you uncover something dangerous or threatening. Your information is incomplete, causing delays or complications and an adversary, competitor, or rival makes their presence known.
And my other move is More Experienced than Luck. You’ve survived on more than instinct and will. You have gained experience with the range of disciplines either through research training or practical knowledge. Whether you share an experience with or give skilled advice to your allies roll plus drive.
On a hit, your experience is applicable to the current challenge until the end of the scene. Whenever you spend a maneuver to aid your allies you can double the bonus if your advice applies. On a seven to nine your current situation includes a twist or complication you didn’t foresee.
Rich: Nice. More Experience than Luck is very popular. I think a lot of people would want to have more experience than luck for some reason, which I think is really telling. I don’t know. In some way there’s something psychological happening there. I don’t know what that is.
And Kat with the Redeemed.
So your core move is called Heart of Violence. And in that you pick one of two moves. One is called Stormfront. When you appeal to your allies to help restrain you from rash or violent action, you ask your friends if they hold you back and then if they do or don’t, there’s consequences. This is… I refer to this as the Hulk situation. You want to respond violently, but you’re trying to figure out how not to do that anymore.
The other one’s called Eye of the Storm. When you remain calm during a conflict with a powerful opponent, ask your allies if they think you can prevail and whether they do or not. And that’s more of the captain America facing Thanos kind of a thing, like that kind of situation.
So someone who’s already calm in a situation but is dealing with more powerful things. So, is one or the other of those appealing to you?
Kat: Yeah. I’d like to one day be Eye of the Storm, but I don’t think this buddy’s there yet. So even though I would like to be a character who isn’t particularly violent, Stormfront is the more appropriate of the two.
Rich: So that’s where you are now. There’s an arc going on. I love it. And then two other moves.
Kat: Yeah. I love Sense Weakness. Sense Weakness is you identify weak points in everyone, friend or foe, when you first encounter a new ally, predator or other notable creature, you may ask the guide one question about them. They must answer truthfully. And then, what is the move grapple?
Rich: It just says when you grapple with an opponent, the move is called One-to-One. When you grapple with an opponent, ask if they yield. The grappling can be generally interpreted. So it could be a physical-
Kat: Cool. Cool.
Rich: Or it could also be a social conflict grapple. Again, that Captain America, like right in someone’s face, using his presence to say “do you stand down?”
And if they don’t, then there are consequences. Or if they do, there are consequences. So it, or in this game, there’s so many things with tentacles and arms that it ends up being a physical grapple a lot of times anyway. But it can be either of those. It could be both, or either one.
Kat: Yeah. I’m going to take one-to-one. The idea behind it is that you’re grappling with a person in a one-on-one capacity and then asking them if they stand down and if they do, you can get them to back out of the fight. And seeing as I’m someone who’s trying to get things to chill out nonviolently it seems like it would be a benefit to me.
Rich: I like it. Before we get onto taking a quick look at the team moves and then doing our links, I want to talk a little bit about the stats because we haven’t talked about those yet. The stats in our game are not based on physical stats. Like several Powered by the Apocalypse games do, the stats that happen in our game are hope, altruism, community, calm, and drive.
In addition to those, each stat has an associated Condition. So for Hope there’s Despairing, Altruism is Selfish, Community is Isolated, Calm is Angry, and Drive is Conflicted. So when you have a conflict with somebody, whether it’s physical, social, emotional, psychic, and there is “damage” inflicted in some way, or you mark one of those conditions, that condition gives you a minus two on any role that happens to involve that stat.
So if you are Despairing, any Hope roll you make is going to be made at a minus two. When you have all five conditions marked and you have to mark another condition / you’re forced to mark another condition, you need to remove yourself in some way from whatever’s happening. It could be being knocked unconscious, teleporting deep into the far echo, discorporating into whatever, just… it could be any at anything that removes you from that particular conflict to recover conditions.
There are a few things that you can do. One is a special move that’s called “What Have We Done?” It allows you to contemplate the consequences of whatever the thing was that happened that caused that condition, and you can remove that condition if you do something that’s role playing driven. For example, you could clear Despairing, but you try to convince someone of an impending doom. You put it off yourself. You clear yourself of this bitter despair that you have by bringing somebody into that space with you.
You can also do it by a basic move, and that’s called Salve Wounds. And what that is, is either it could be physical salving of wounds, like a medical roll, or it could be verbal or emotional, just being supportive of someone else will allow you or your teammates to help you clear conditions as well.
So let’s go to links. On the back of your playbook is a list of five questions. You just have to answer one. You can answer all five if you want, but you just need to answer one or more of the following questions. So for example, one of the questions for the Specialist is “blank helped you achieve a goal that was personal to you. Why did they help you and what was the result of that mission?”
Or “You confided in blank about an enmity you have with an influential member of the community. Who is your rival? And how did blank react to the news?” These are questions to help you link yourselves together in ways that tell us that there have been previous episodes of this TV show. So now you guys know a little bit about each of the characters.
Let’s answer some links. I am going to, instead of going around, I think I’m gonna see who’s got something they want to throw out first. This is definitely one where you like, “Hey, I, this is an interesting question to me. Who wants to join? Who wants to be my person for this?” You know?
Richard: So, Kat, I was thinking, one of mine is “you know something about blank’s past? What do you know? How did you uncover it? Do they know? If so, what was their reaction?” I’m wondering, would you be cool with, um. Même because the way that they interact with the world is like they touch things and then that portion of them kind of resonates with whatever they touch, and will transform into that and gain information about it that way.
Would you be cool with them having touched Polyp 39 at some point and learn, absorb some of the venom or something and figured it out a little bit, of like what they can do, where they came from or something like that. Does that sound cool?
Kat: Yeah. That’s, that’s very cool. Especially ‘cause we need a way for Polyp 39 to have gotten out of the bad situation to start with. Right. So you need to have gotten, someone needs to have gotten information at some point that didn’t kill them. So, A-okay.
Rich: I’m gonna add… I’m gonna dig into some questions here. So did this happen… is this how you helped Polyp 39 stop doing this?
Richard: I can imagine that Même, sort of like Traveler did, sort of appeared in the space. Because I imagine that they float around near the physical dimension and then filter in one day, and that’s when they’re born essentially. And that was, the first creature that they found. And so that’s the sort of shape that they take on. But they were still sort of young and exploring things, and that’s when they first came across Polyp 39.
Rich: what mission was polyp 39 in the middle of doing when Même showed up?
Richard: Oh gosh, I don’t know. Kat, what do you think?
Kat: I don’t know.
Rich: I’m guessing you were in another city.
Kat: Yeah. We were probably at least, like, a little forest of us was probably taking over a city or something.
Richard: Ooh. Interesting. So Même has a piece of themselves that takes on a little bit of what Polyp 39 is able to do and sees that “Oh, there’s a consciousness there” and reacts weirdly to it. And maybe like, I imagine that, that piece of Même sort of like cut itself off and turned on the rest of them.
The rest of Même basically destroyed that piece. So how would, how would Impala 39 have reacted to that? Seeing that, here’s this almost blank slate creature that sees what it is, but immediately recognize this, “Oh, I need to destroy that.” And then destroys it.
Rich: Même touched Polyp 39 and some part of that corruption was injected into Même and then Même like severed itself, to keep the corruption from taking over? I have a question that might feed into this a little bit. Did Polyp 39 not want to do this to start with or was there some reaction maybe between Polyp 39’s interaction with Même that triggered a sense of wanting freedom in some way?
Kat: Yes. I figure the latter. I think Polyp 39 basically was able to come online because of interacting with friends. You know, like, I’m not sure that there was much in… not… not saying that they weren’t a fully thinking being, right? But it was all brainwashing before that.
Richard: okay.
Rich: I’m thinking, it sounds like Même… Let me throw this out there and see if this gels with you guys. So what if Même, who had just maybe recently manifested and was still learning about whatever this, this world was, um, runs into Apollo 39, you guys have a physical contact in some way, and then part of Même who is still like basically like, neonatal cells trying to form themselves, got into Polyp 39.
You guys exchanged, yeah, there was Corruption on, came into you and you had to cut off part of yourself, but that part you cut off also-
Kat: -stayed-
Rich: -kind of got into Polyp 39 to show… and it inadvertently gave Polyp 39 a vision of the bigger universe, that you manifested from. Maybe even just seeing the infinite of something, that made Polyp 39 go, “Wait, this is the… I don’t… this is not the only thing I have to do” like somehow broke that programming. Does that sit with either of you guys?
Richard: It’s fine with me.
Kat: Yeah. It works with me.
Richard: Okay, cool.
Rich: Cool. Awesome.
Richard: (processing) So I think like it, it’s the kind of thing where, “Oh,” there’s one piece of Même that starts to form up and then men cuts it off. Like, “Oh gee, I touched something weird. I’m going to cut off my whole hand because I can.” And then, the rest of the pieces of Même integrated with Polyp 39 and you were able to take that new view or experience and go, “Oh, there’s something else here.” And it was enough to kind of break that programming?
Kat: Yeah. That very much works.
Rich: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Very cool.
Richard: Awesome.
Rich: Let’s go to Polyp 39 then. Let’s take a look at your links now that we have a little bit of an idea of how you get freed, and then kind of made a, have a bonding moment here with Même. Do you have any of the links there that are interesting to you?
Kat: Yeah. I’m intrigued by the, “A memory from my past weighs heavily on me, but I’ve only told X person about this memory Y” one because I think a lot of my stuff is public record to start with, right? People know what we did, but the idea of a secret memory, oh, you know, is kind of fun. And I was thinking it would be cool to have that connection with Maybe Many Homes, because I think the idea of a Cultivator is pretty much the closest thing that I would have to a mom being as though I was bio engineered, right?
Devon: I like that. I actually have a little bit of a, I have a little thing that I, I want to say before I get to that, ‘cause I think it’ll set it up. First of all, I figured out what “what are these plants?” means.
Rich: Okay!
Devon: And the answer is, I think that there is a garden that is a laboratory in the center of this place, but the plants are alien to us. Like these plants came from outer space. And so I don’t know if maybe that means that laboratory has something to do with the creators of Polyp 39 maybe, and that’s why, is because like I work and maybe knew, or hell, was related or had some kind of connection to the creators of whatever was going on with Polyp 39. Does that make sense Kat?
Kat: (nods.)
Rich: Wow, yeah.
Devon: Okay, cool. I don’t know what the secret is, but I know that I have some weird stuff that I feel like could answer that.
Kat: I was figuring that my secret was that there was a chunk of memory that I didn’t have anymore.
Rich: Something was removed?
Devon: Oh…
Kat: Yeah, so, you can just know what it is and I don’t.
Devon: Ooh, I’m keeping a secret from you.
Rich: Or you know where to… you know where you might be able to find it maybe, and you haven’t gotten it yet.
Devon: Yeah. I like that idea. I mean, if we want to make this even more heartbreaking…
Rich: Yeah. The answer is yes.
Devon: Okay, ‘cause I feel like this is, this is interesting and relevant and like relatable to a certain extent. But what if this character is like mentor, or one of her mentor figures was one of the people that began this project and therefore you not only have like it being like…
Maybe has a little bit of a strange relationship to Polyp, and her mentor, because her mentor turned out to be a really bad person. And so she can be like, “Oh, I don’t know. Like how, what does that mean for me? Does that mean I’m a bad person? Does that mean that because I didn’t figure this out? Does that make me a horrible person and I can’t help this person who is the victim as much as I wish I could? Does that… what does that mean? What can I do?” Cause I think that puts her in a very almost helpless place where she’s trying her best. But…
Rich: I’m going to throw some things out again. So what if Même helped to kind of free Polyp. As such, Polyp started this chain reaction of free thinking, left whatever mission you were doing, and came to the city where you guys both came to the city together, almost like a little bit of outsiders and not sure what what’s happening.
Ran into, in some way, Many Homes and Many Homes recognized what Polyp was. Right? Also probably has some idea of what… cause I’m going to say that members of Même’s species have manifested across the world in the past. You’re not completely unknown, but you’re a curiosity in some way.
Richard: Okay. I like that.
Rich: And if, if the plants that are in this laboratory are “alien” in Descent to Midnight, it doesn’t… they certainly could come from another planet in this physical dimension, but more than likely, they’re probably things that somebody has gone out and pulled from some other physical dimension in the Echo and brought back, which means that there may be something, some connection that Many Homes has to Même’s people and understanding. So you would see, Oh God, this Même creature and Polyp 39 trying to like, I don’t know what you guys were doing in the meantime, but running into them and going, what’s happening? And then understanding that, “Oh wait. These polyps have consciousness. These polyps have sapience” and then you left that program to become a guardian to change. Maybe have some redemption for yourself, something like that.
Devon: Yeah. Figure out if… what, what that means ultimately. I’d say that to make it maximum sad and angsty, I think that it would make sense for Maybe not to be the one who blew the whistle because she was, I don’t know, figuring something out or like was too slow to figure out what’s going on because that would definitely make her more apt to blame herself ‘cause she didn’t take action.
But yeah, I can imagine just everything going down and her being like, “I can’t continue with this. I need to go find something else. I can use my skill somewhere else. ‘Cause this is obviously not for the benefit of society. So I am peacing out.”
Rich: Yes, I have got an idea that twists our own basic core game a bit: I don’t think you guys are a group of guardians yet.
Devon: Yes.
Rich: I think you have had this chain reaction of weird, terrible, interesting things happen to you right now, and you are only finding out about the history of Corruption that’s being manipulated and weaponized and all of this stuff.
And you guys have not become a trained unit or a group yet. I think you guys are friends trying to survive and figure out what is happening to yourselves and what your place is in the world. How do you guys feel about that?
Richard: Works for me.
Devon: I’ve, I’ve thought of that.
Rich: Yeah. You’re good with that? Get a lot of thumbs up from Kat, little quiet thumbs up from Kat.
Kat: Sorry. I know this is a podcast, but since it’s the internet, that quiet thumbs up is how I tend to go. Sorry. No, that sounds great!
Rich: Well then, Devon, let’s talk about Many Homes and answer one of those questions and then get onto DC who has been very quiet and patiently listening and watching us all-
DC: (laughing.)
Rich: -like the Traveler they are.
Devon: So let see these two? And you can choose which one you think would be more appropriate. “You used a rare/unusual object in your most powerful personal device. What was it? And who helped you acquire it?” or “You tend to the last surviving specimen of an organism? What is it? How did you acquire it and what happened to its habitat?”
I’d love to have Traveler help me have one of those ‘cause I feel like that’s applicable to their character.
DC: I think that you could have one of the, the last species of the former jellyfish, that… we evolve over time in a way that it’s kinda like in the matrix where they upgrade the agents.
And so I’m a part of the new agents and it’s not like we’re brand new. We’ve been around for a while, but there was a previous version species that is still alive and you have one of them.
Devon: I have like a Windows Vista.
DC: Yeah.
Devon: Awesome. All right. My notes are not gonna make any sense. I’ll just say I have a Windows Vista. Excellent.
DC: That’d be rad.
Devon: Why did you give it to me then? I feel like my character’s-
Rich: I’m not sure they did give it to you.
Devon: Oh did-
Rich: I’m wondering if it, if you rescued it from the lab.
Richard: Because if they’re doing research about creatures that are popping into the physical world from other places in the echo like that 100% makes sense.
Devon: yeah.
Rich: And also for those who are listening who don’t know what an immortal jellyfish is: an immortal jellyfish is a creature that goes through its lifetime, and as its body starts to break down, will revert itself into a polyp form of itself. And then regrow again as if you hit 80 years old and decided, “I’ve had enough of this body. I’m just going to go ahead and just activate all my neonatal genes again and go back to being a baby and go again.”
They don’t… the only way they die… they don’t die of old age. The only way they die is by being eating. So this idea of this immortality aspect in addition to coming from out in the… It just sounds like somebody’s going to want to know more about that.
Devon: Maybe some of those genes or whatever. That we’re like engineered. Whoops. Almost ‘gineered. Engineered into Polyp 39.
Rich: Ooh, yup. That sounds likely.
Devon: But I would say that in that case, maybe I did rescue it and kept it in my garden and I went then to you for maybe like, “Oh, you’re similar. Can you give me some information? I have no idea what this is and I don’t know how to keep, what do I feed them?”
DC: I’m down with that.
Rich: Which raises the question, are they sapient or are they simply sentient, right? So do they just like feel emotions and have some cognitive abilities like “animals,” or are they sapient, like actual logical thinking beings. That’s something to think about. We don’t have to answer that right now.
Richard: One thing is, you know, if they do sort of revert back into that baby state, it could be that like they’re helpless at the moment and small, and that’s how you were able to sneak them out.
Devon: Hi, I stole this baby. I need you to tell me what they eat, please. (laughter) I can’t. We are now, I am. We are now a parents to this very small jellyfish.
Richard: Oh, wow.
DC: That seems interesting enough for Traveler to be down.
Devon: Yeah. I mean that would also explain why you’re hanging around this area too, to a certain extent. ‘Cause it’s like,” Oh, there’s someone who I have to keep an eye on.”
Rich: We know how these three are connected to each other now. How’s Traveler fit into this puzzle piece?
DC: I’ve been thinking about that. So this is… this fits really well with Many Homes. “You’ve seen blank with an item from your Homeland. What is the item’s significance? Do they understand the significance?” I think that fits really well with Windows Vista.
Richard: Oh my gosh.
Devon: That’s going to be the name of the jellyfish is Vista.
Rich: The baby’s name is Vista.
Devon: The baby’s name is Vista cause it works in multiple angles. Vista, Many Homes. It depends. I don’t know who has custody. Technically-
DC: Co-parenting situation.
Devon: I’m writing Vista Many Homes. This is.
DC: Being that I have no surname, uh, no problems there.
Devon: Mr. Traveler. It’s fine. We can, we can do, that’s-
Rich: Vista Traveler. That’s a great name.
Devon: We can also hyphenate for the-
DC: Traveler of many homes.
Rich: Vista Traveling Homes sounds like an RV company. I don’t know. I love it. All right. So we have like an X-files-like conspiracy thing going on with this particular group that I’m pretty excited about. But let’s talk about some of the bigger picture of the city that you guys take place in.
Like I said, the kind of default to start with is basically just an enormous reef metropolis. Species from all over the place, however many we end up wanting to create for ourselves, and you know, that live in the city that may not be part of this group. All congregate in this. It is an active ecology. It’s an active economy. It’s, it’s a very big place that again, is technologically advanced in this case, bioengineering and psionics. So keep those things in mind when you’re thinking about this.
So the first thing I want to do, we’re going to talk about the city. I want you guys to think about a unique natural feature or neighborhood or district in the city.
Devon: Where do we want it to be? Because I feel like that’s going to determine like everything.
Rich: What do you mean? Like where in the world? As far as like climate or-
Devon: No, as in like elevation.
Richard: Oh…
Rich: It’s funny you should mention that because that almost inevitably comes out as we’re discussing things.
Devon: Oh okay, nevermind.
Rich: So people- so no, that’s okay. It’s a great question to think, and you can think about it ahead of time, but people will say things that make you eventually realize that it’s in a trench or eventually realize it’s right near the surface or eventually realize it’s not a reef and it’s actually a mangrove swamp and you’re living in the roots. That happened one time.
So as the questions get answered, though, with people’s interest, and I think we’ll have an idea, but if you have a preference, you can throw that out. What do you think?
Devon: I like the idea of it being in the middle of the ocean and I mean in the middle, elevation wise as well as in “we don’t have a top or a bottom, we don’t have up or down. We have something that exists in the center.” So like, you know how you can get like a cork to bob in the middle of a tank of water?
Richard: Yeah, yeah. Neutral buoyancy.
Devon: Neutral buoyancy. That’s what we are.
Rich: So you’re thinking something, this city is somehow almost like a submerged floating self-contained island of some sort.
Devon: I think that would be cool. ‘Cause I feel like, I mean I’ve already done deep ocean. That’s why I’m skirting away from that personally. Although if you guys want to do, that’s totally cool. And I also-
Rich: I’m fascinated by this idea.
Devon: Yeah, I’m like DC mentioned space and I think floating with no horizon is…
Rich: And Kat mentioned her, the horror at the agoraphobia and claustrophobia.
Devon: Sorry, Kat.
Kat: No, that’s why I’m here, man. You know? That’s the… bring on those ocean fields.
Richard: Kim from the Magpies, I think has just got a fish recently, and apparently beta fish will do this thing where they make like frothy bubble things like when they’re healthy and they’re ready to mate or whatever. But I think it would be really interesting if there was some sort of almost like a honeycomb structure from some huge creature that we don’t know what forms them. But there are several of these throughout the world that we know about where it’s just like, there was like a base structure of this sort organic bubble honeycomb thing. That’s something obviously created, and then other things have come and latched onto it.
Rich: So it’s an idea of like a coral reef, right? ‘Cause a coral reef is built off of the bones of coral polyp. Some kind of ancient creature built this thing and is no longer there. But it is a massive structure that floats, that other creatures have colonized over a thousand years and built a society.
Richard: And I think different… like if you go to the different versions of this around the world, depending on how old they are, the deeper they are, because as more creatures are coming and glom onto it, it slowly starts to sink. Unless you take steps to raise them up. And so, there’s a very real sort of physical tension of like where, you know, what depth do we want this thing to be at and how do we maintain that and does it sink? Does it float? How do we maintain that as a society?
Rich: I also love the idea of it not just being living on the surface, like this is massive, like a floating piece of this coral cave structure, the size of a city. But it’s all inside as well, like inside and outside.
Devon: You could live in an air bubble.
Kat: May I? Yeah, could I have a suggestion?
Rich: Yeah, of course you can. Yeah.
Kat: What about like Marimo moss balls?
Rich: So, say that again.
Kat: Marimo moss balls.
Rich: I don’t know what that is. I need, I need to know.
Kat: It’s a ball of moss and it’s, um, it’s a moss ball friend, and they go up or down in the water, depending on the construction of gases within them. So if you wanted them to be at a specific thing, you’d have to like carefully tend to them, but they’re like a little ecosystem of moss that’s living in fine.
Richard: That is so cool.
Devon: Look up. Look them up. They’re really cute.
Kat: They’re very cool. Yeah. People keep them as pets. But they naturally, like they’re in streams because they are… like the soft rolling action keeps them as balls and they can get huge.
Rich: Oh, all of that.
Kat: Ah, yeah. They’re very cool.
Richard: That’s so cool.
Rich: I’ve never heard of that in my life.
Devon: I love that, and I think that maybe it’s a two pronged action to keep the city from Descending into Midnight.
Rich: I love it. And now that we’ve set this up, it implies quite a few things. So, the implication that there needs to be an engineering structure, like an actual infrastructure in place to create ballast areas to keep it floating where people want it to go. Does it move somewhere or does it stay where it is?
Like is there something to propel it to move it from place to place? There are other… Is it continually growing if it’s a living moss ball style thing, or is it something that, like we were saying before, was maybe created like a coral reef and is only has that amount of size? Or is it something that they can, that cultivators can grow larger as the population increases?
What do you guys think about all those questions?
DC: We can grow it.
Richard: All right.
DC: It becomes what we need it to be.
Rich: So cultivators would be, are going to be very important. It also, I had this image like when Devon, earlier you were saying that this research facility that you were working with was in the “center” of the city. I’m picturing it at close to the heart of whatever this,moss ball is maybe for a reason.
Maybe there is something at the center of this that allows them to cross boundaries between the actual echo and the physical world, which is not a thing that happens normally very much. They can affect each other. The physical world can affect the echo. The echo can influence the physical world. But physically crossing the boundary into the echo is not usually a thing.
Devon: Yeah. I also imagine that the strange plants that are my home showed up, like they didn’t… they weren’t always part of our city’s cultural heritage. It’s something that happened like five… like a hundred years ago. So it’s still part of our culture to a certain extent, but it’s not recent memory.
Does that make sense?
Rich: Yes.
Devon: It’s like, we still have stories of this just showing up and we’re still like-
Rich: They’re not indigenous. We know they’re not indigenous, but they’ve kind of started to become incorporated.
Devon: Yeah. And they somehow interact with the Marimo moss stuff that keeps us afloat, but we just know that there’s some connection there, and that was something that maybe was where the laboratory started with studying that.
Richard: Interesting. What if we were at risk of a breach, where there was some crisis and then they showed up suddenly, and it sort of calmed things down and so that’s why people didn’t just freak out about them, but they’re seen as… they showed up and they kept us from floating to the surface, which would have been bad for a bunch of people or whatever, but-
Rich: Or sinking.
Richard: Yeah, I mean, either way.
Devon: Yeah. It’s like there’s a split… You know, it’s like blobfish: they have to be at a specific depth. I imagine also the way they look in my head is… maybe all of the plants here have a very specific structure. Like there’s always three leaves or something where this one has five, and even molecularly, it’s kind of strange.
And I imagine them reflecting that’ cause it’s what if plants that showed up here, their whatever they use to photosynthesize was purple.
Rich: Ah, interesting. Okay. I’m fascinated by all of this.
Devon: Something strange that would we look at and go, Oh, that’s not right. That’s alien.
Richard: Well, I know if you look at the math of things in nature, there’s these numbers that keep showing up like the Fibonacci sequence or whatever.
Devon: Like phi.
Richard: Yeah, all those guys. Things where it’s like… maybe it’s just that the number… that it’s just, you know, it’s just a little off.
Rich: Well in the Blue Planet role playing game that I’ve talked about a lot, one of the things that the creators did when they were developing the actual ecology and biology of this planet is looked at the idea that complex eyes like we have and octopus’s and fish… that’s actually a pretty bizarre way to have developed an an an eye. And on this planet, even though there are complex organisms, like, you know, monkey analogs and things like that, the idea of a complex eye never evolved.
So every animal on that planet has just eyespots. So you might see something like this, they call them stick jacks or something. They’re kind of like a monkey analog and you’re like, “Oh, look, a monkey.” And then it turns around, it literally has no eyeballs and it’s just got spots all over its face where its eyes should be.
And it just, the basic idea of that is horrifying because as humans, we are used to looking things in the eyes and understanding what eyes are. Eyes are the window to the soul, and so it’s this thing that’s just just left of okay. For you, that kind of makes it feel alien.
Devon: Maybe these plants have eyes.
Kat: That make sense? Yeah. Like, no eyes makes sense for a lot of, I don’t know… thinking of an aquatic planet to me usually puts me in mind of Europa. So I’m like, okay, things normally wouldn’t have eyes, right? There’s no reason.
Rich: Yyeah, it’s possible
Devon: There’s no, there’s no light to catch. There’s no light to see with. So.
Rich: On Europa, that would be the case. ‘Cause the ice layer’s like a mile thick. So there’s not really, unless it’s bioluminescence down there or something else that’s happening, which could happen, but we don’t know yet. So, but that’s a whole, don’t get me started on Europa.
Devon: I really, yeah…
Rich: I am absolutely fascinated by the city. Okay. So now we’ve got a pretty solid base. So let’s talk about the actual culture that lives there a little bit. So DC, we haven’t heard from you in a bit.
DC: Yeah.
Rich: Tell me about some kind of natural feature, some kind of like neighborhood or a district of some sort that’s important or significant or sticks out to you in some way about the city.
Doesn’t have to be every district. You don’t have to just describe in detail, but just like a neighborhood, a space, a thing that we can glob onto.
DC: Yeah. I think that there’s a space that is a place where people go to commune with the Echo, and it’s easier to do there, the equivalent of a holy space in this world, but highly transparent on a psychic level there. So like, people can communicate with each other really easily, like on levels where you feel people’s emotions as well as their words or like even small bits of imagery.
But the point is to go there and focus on communing with the Echo,
Rich: And, and communing with each other, it sounds like, as well.
DC: It’s an option. People go there to do that as well.
Rich: Nice. Kat throw in… building on that with DC said, tell me what this space looks like a little bit. How is this in an advanced, technologically advanced city? What does a space inside this moss ball that is meant to be a space of communion or some type of religious or theological space?
What does that, what does that look like? Let me see. One aspect of it.
Kat: I think it’s probably one of the few places in the city that allow individual space. I think that largely the city is a little bit cramped, but this recognizes that personal body space is useful when you’re trying to either detach or internalize whatever the mechanism is, when, when you’re connecting to the-
Rich: So does it have like little alcoves? Little separate spaces for people to enter into like little…
Kat: Well, that depends on how big the average inhabitant is. ‘Cause I don’t know if we have anybody that’s like whale-sized. ‘Cause if we have a whale-sized person then they might just need to sit in like a Coliseum-size space.
Rich: Then let’s actually sit with that for a minute. So my picture that I have right now is three out of the four of you are, even though there may be multiple members of your species in the city, you’re fairly unique. But Many Homes, it sounds to me like because of the aspects of this city, you might be, your species might be one of the major species that are in this city. But in addition to that I want to hear about, let’s talk, take a second to talk about a Sapient species that’s not any of you. That also lives in the city.
Devon: A whale.
Rich: So you do want to do something that’s larger and whale-sized?
DC: Yeah.
Richard: But a particular whale.
DC: Wich are the ones that have like the… it looks like they have a line of teeth. It’s really just like-
Kat: Like a sieve?
Rich: Yeah. Baleen, it’s called.
Devon: Yeah, so that’s one of the filter feed whales. My first instinct was a beluga ‘cause of the song-
Rich: Baby beluga, yeah.
Devon: But I think a baleen whale would be interesting as well.
Rich: But you can, you can also do a beluga… like a beluga is a toothed whale, but you can also do a beluga-sized whale creature that has the baleen filters that DC’s talking about.
Devon: Yeah, because that way it’s not like ridiculously large, but they do have the baleen or it’s just like a smaller baleen whale. I think would be cute. I also really liked the idea of a larger animal being a home for smaller animals, so maybe they’re the equivalent of cruise ships.
Rich: That gets us into a different question too, but I like it. So is this going to be one of the sapient creatures that live here or is it going to be a non-sapient creature that is part of the ecology or acts as part of the infrastructure as far as transport.
Devon: I think someone else should answer that.
DC: Both.
Richard: Ooh.
Rich: So it’s Sapient and it acts as either a purposeful or inadvertent piece of transport.
Richard: What if there were tunnels throughout the ball? They get to the different chambers and the flow through those brings plankton or whatever or bits of whatever float through there. And then like literally… that’s just how they eat is they just like move through those things because that’s where the concentration of all the plankton and everything is in the flow from the big chamber is into those tubes. And so it’s literally like if you just like opened up your mouth and like swam through a straw of delicious, delicious food.
Devon: They’re like street sweepers except they eat what they’re sweeping!
Rich: I’m actually thinking like when you have this many, this many creatures in an area that’s going to be contained, right? You’re going to have waste products, you’re going to have garbage, all kind of stuff. There may be microscopic organisms or maybe even like plankton, like not necessarily microscopic that’s consuming all that stuff, right?
And giving these blooms, which is actually part of the cycle, and then having these filter feeders going through, and that’s what brings them there. Right? But again, the question, are they sapient and part of the culture in ecology, or are they just sentient?
Richard: I feel like they might be. I’m now picturing like a radially symmetrical whale with baleen things. So it’s sort of like a chimney sweep brush or the fronds just sort of like come out in this poof in front of it, and instead of growing bigger around, they grow longer.
Rich: Yeah. It’s sounding like this is a creature that’s part of the ecology that’s not necessarily sapient. Like it has a specific part to play in the ecology, but not necessarily, you’re not going to see one of them doing accounting, right? Or, you know, heading a bunch of people that are transporting materials to another city, and having glasses on its face.
It sounds like what you’re describing is something that’s a brilliant… which is going to be a different question: another aspect of the city is basic ecology.
Richard: You know, you mentioned accountants. What about a wall of bivalve accountants and that’s what they do. So there’s the little mollusks or the clams and mussels and everything. And they hang out and instead of hanging out on a trading floor for a stock market, it’s literally just a chamber just covered all the way around.
Rich: I’m picturing Gringotts but instead of goblins, it’s bivalves all over the place.
DC: Actually, that gives me an idea of a… because Même is a collection, that maybe there is a sort of brain that you can hook up to that it’s like… you enter in as a part of like a computation. So it’s both a place where people can gain information and are also, uh, the psychic properties of it make it so that it’s using yourself as a part of its computing process.
Richard: Oh, solike the, what is it? The SETI search or whatever. Where you plug your computer in and you use the spare cycles to process data to look for intelligent life. It’s almost like that. But you plug into it and the part of your brain that is active is going and getting information and accessing things, but then the collective power of everyone who’s connected to it is the thing that’s helping do all that thinking?
DC: Yeah, exactly.
Richard: Oh, Whoa, okay.
Devon: So it’s the internet.
Richard: Yeah. And-
Devon: Kind of.
Rich: And that brings me back. We were talking earlier about Devon’s bioelectric mainframe. So how is that fit into this situation? We kind of went off the previous subject, but I want to hang out here for a minute. With this-
Devon: Maybe there are interlocked stations and it’s basically if you go mentally plug into them it’s like a plugging in through an internet cable or something.
Rich: You took Hack the World as one of your things, right Richard? It’s about how to get past defenses, but it’s not just a physical place’s defenses. It could also be computer defenses, right? A bioelectric mainframe. So-
Devon: Yeah. So we have the equivalent of like internet cafes and he can hack the internet cafes.
Richard: Yeah.
Rich: And we have… so we’re having X-Files mixed with hackers is kind of what’s going on.
Richard: Okay. So we’ve got the idea of the baleen whale chimney sweep type deals. We’ve got maybe these bivalve accountant-ey things. And are they maybe the, oh my goodness, are they maybe the sapient creatures who do a lot of that? Are they managing the connection spots?
Rich: Yes. What I like to have with the other sapiens species is a culture that does lots of different things as opposed to a single identity. I always want to try to avoid the “all elves are like X”. Or “all dwarves are like X” situation. I want to see what an active multi-… like this metropolis is filled with species that we can really latch onto and understand that they are all different, even though they might, we think they look the same and try and get out of that stereotype.
So I like the bivalve idea, but as again, another non-sapient computer program. It’s how the computers work. I love that.And they can be living, but I think they’re bio engineered as opposed to another people that lives there.
DC: Makes sense to me.
Devon: Do we want to talk about, then, our characters’ species, if there’s a context to that so that there’s possibly a baseline to start?
Rich: One of the questions that I like to ask, and we’ll get back to what I planted with Devon earlier, was I want to know about your… in your species, what is a unique cultural event, time, behavior that has to do with your species specifically. What is something that is uniquely yours?
What are you… what does your species do that’s like an interesting thing that’s unique to your species or culture?
Devon: I don’t think it’s necessarily species, but it’s definitely the culture. And I don’t know if it’s the culture in every city that these people inhabit, but I think very specifically in this city, the culture around… and I’m just gonna call them Hermes cause like that. It’s stuck in my head.
Richard: Yeah.
Devon: The Hermes very specifically have a culture around excellence and specification. It’s their core identity, which doesn’t mean that everyone fits into it, but it means that your parents or multiple parents or like, your thirty parents… I don’t know. I don’t know how it works for them, but, all are like “we’re… demanding very specific things out of you because that’s the cultural expectation.”
And I think what it is is, as I said, excellence in specification. And by that I mean you choose what you’re… what you do and you are very good at it. There aren’t many Jack of all trades. With Hermes, usually it’s like, “Oh, you are very good at this.” And it’s usually encouraged that you are… you do everything you can to make sure you are the best at it.
Like you are doing very, very good at it and you are made for it. So for example, I was thinking that the Hermes species are encouraged… like modification. So they don’t actually look like hermit crabs. They look like hermit crabs out of the shell, which look like face-huggers. Don’t look it up.
It’s gross. It’s very uncomfortable. But like, that’s what they usually look like, or to a certain extent and with a lot less arms and a lot less eyes. And so for example, Maybe took this whole thing to a very extreme way, and it was like, “I’m going to be a cultivator in every single way and I’m going to make myself armor, and I am going to make my garden come with me, and I’m going to give myself more arms so that I’m better at X and I’m going to be better at…”
Rich: So that’s what Many Homes did for themselves?
Devon: Yeah. Yeah. She wants to be the best at this.
Rich: But other Hermes specialize in different ways? They have a solid base form, but they-
DC: You’re all cyborgs.
Rich: Okay.
Devon: They make themselves be the perfect form for what they want to do. And that’s encouraged.
Richard: I love the idea that they can change that. Whatever it is, they can modify themselves at any point and be like, “Oh,” this is like… if they come to a new realization about who they are or what they want to be, that they can continue to change.
Rich: I actually want to go the opposite direction. I want to say like they’ve…, you get to choose whatever you want. And then you’re done. That’s what you do. So that if, for example, Many Homes decides not to do this engineering thing, but it tries-
Devon: It would be really hard.
Rich: -to apply it in a different direction, it could be… it has social consequences for her.
So if she’s… she, “I still have to work at this place…”
Devon: I don’t think it’s unheard of.
Rich: Yes. It’s probably not unheard of. I see that, but I think I want some roleplaying consequence to the decision you might need to make about the choices of friends you’re making.
Kat: It’s like a cultural family thing.
Devon: Yeah. I think that like it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s reinforced by not only the culture that, or the species, that participates in it, but also the cultural expectation of the other species that exist around it. It’s like, “Oh, these people tend to do this” and therefore there’s an expectation not to switch or change.
But I would say that I don’t think it’s unheard of. It’s just very hard and you don’t… it doesn’t always socially work out very well for you. Because you’re going against this kind of thing that you have chosen and… it could work out. And I would say that I think they get to choose. Like it’s not… you’re not usually pressured into anything where it comes to choosing.
Rich: I agree with that, too.
Devon: So a lot of people are very happy in it, but I definitely think there’s some people who don’t, who changed their minds.
Rich: Maybe you were happy with it and then you met Polyp 39 and everybody’s lives changed.
Devon: Yeah. I don’t know where Maybe is ‘cause there’s a lot of stigma now around what they are, so I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.
Rich: Awesome. Let’s figure that out more in play as well. DC, let’s talk about Traveler. So you’ve talked a little bit about Traveler being… the species manifests itself out of the echo and there is a specialty. So there seems to be a theme here. There’s a specialty that each of the species members do, whatever that happens to be.
And Traveler’s seems to be collecting knowledge maybe. Is that how you would describe it, or experiences?
DC: Collecting experiences. Yeah. Like it’s sort of mystified in a way. Like they know what they’re… what they want to do, but they don’t know exactly what their purpose is. And that’s a… that’s a normality. It’s like “I’m here and I obviously… I’m going to go and have a bunch of experiences,” but the product of those experiences could be anything, like the actual purpose that the echo was sent forward.
Rich: It’s almost exactly the opposite of what Many Homes is, right? You think you’re supposed to be specialized, like you were saying, someone showed up and said “I’m here to take care of children.” Oh, okay, well we know what you’re supposed to be doing and you’re happy with that and good with that.
You showed up and went, “I’m supposed to do everything,” Jack of all trades. What am I supposed to do? Like there’s gotta be a reason for it, but I don’t know what it is.
DC: Right. But it’s something that’s normal and comfortable. It’s like, I have a desire to do this thing and that’s kind of their starting place. And it’s sort of like a cosmic reasoning. Things that I do here are definitely for a reason. I don’t know what necessarily those reasons are, and some people are fortunate enough to know that at some point. Uh, but-
Rich: Right. So give me something that’s, that’s a unique cultural trait or tradition or habit of your people. ‘Cause there are… the species is in the city and prominent and active in ways. So tell me something that is a connection with your people in some way. What you, how you would connect with another member of your species in some way?
DC: I think that we go to that place. Did we name it?
Rich: We did not actually. You’re talking about the communal place that, Kat was describing with the individual bodies, but communal.
Richard: The first thing that came to my mind was Echo Chamber, and I just-
Rich: Let’s do it.
Richard: It’s bad though. I’m like, I don’t want to go there, but…
Rich: It’s fine with me.
DC: No, that’s great.
Devon: How about Speak and Receive?
Richard: Like a speakeasy.,
Devon: Yeah, that’s what I was… but Speak and Receive.
Rich: Now I have speakeasy in my head.
Devon: That’s what I was trying to work away from. That was the first thing that came in my head too, and I was like, no, it’s something…
Rich: Well, we came back to it, I think. All right. We’re going to call it a Speakeasy for now, and then we’ll see how that goes. So that’s where your people will gather.
DC: That’s where we manifest as well.
Kat: Aah, I love that. That’s cool!
Rich: Oh, you manifest there. Okay.
DC: Yeah. So that’s where we go back to.
Richard: That’s cool.
DC: Well, that’s where… one of our people will know when another one’s going to show up. And so it’s like, “Oh, another one is coming.” And then one will just pop into existence, like come out of a wall or something.
Richard: Whoa!
DC: And they’ll be like, “Oh, um, I’m here to,” and then say a thing.
Devon: Does Traveler’s species then have any kind of family structure or is it just like mentors?
DC: They don’t have.. they’re related in the way that they all have the same thing going on, but they don’t really consider themselves family.
Devon: Hmm.
Kat: I have two questions. One, where in your life cycle are you, and are others in the same place when they come in? Are they at different places? That’s the first question, and then the other one’s very different.
DC: People can be anywhere in their life cycles. They could be… they show up and they’re like, “I’m 3000 years old” and they’re a teenager in their cycle or whatever. Or they can be like “I was just born,” but that doesn’t seem to have a difference in their purpose or they’re not treated any differently.
Kat: Yeah. How it affects them.
Rich: So their physical manifestation is not necessarily… I have so many questions.
DC: Because they’re not… also not bound by time. So they can be like… you could do a biological scan on them and they can be 3,026 years old, but they could have just started existing here. And it also doesn’t mean that they existed previously in another space. They could actually be brand new. This could be their first physical form and still have a particular age because time is relative.
Richard: That’s so cool.
Devon: I love that so much. I love timey-wimey.
Rich: Kat, what’s your second question?
Kat: Well, my second question is: what’s people’s attitude about them here? Because to me it sounds like, especially if people, if other travelers know when the travelers are going to show up here, it seems like they would have either a cult following or a religious following or some, you know, like it seems like people here would be gaga for them unless that’s just ubiquitously what this place is like. So I’m like,”Oh, how? How? What do people think about travelers?”
DC: I think that it’s actually pretty spread across the board, that some people are like, “Oh, they’re so amazing.” And not all of them are travelers. Some of them have different stuff that they do when they arrive.
Kat: Sure, okay.
DC: They say what they do, so they’re like, “I’m here to be a part of the government,” or like “I’m here to be a part of the computer.” Whatever it happens to be.
Rich: Alright. Polyp 39 this will be an interesting question for you. Some type of unique… something that’s unique to the culture. Something unique that happens or happened with your bond with other members of your species, even though you’re engineered.
Kat: So I don’t…, I think a lot of us died. Right?
Rich: How?
Kat: Well, so I think the way… the way we are constructed to fight people was through a combination of poison and then projecting… like taking over minds.
Rich: Like reprogramming people’s consciousnesses? Okay.
DC: Oh shit.
Kat: Yeah. So I think probably the way I and others were fighting back at the time was doing the opposite of that, right? Abusing that, that link back and probably getting an influx of information like overloaded a lot of them.
Rich: Okay. Do you have any concept or idea of how many of your people there are left?
Kat: I’m not sure that I really do because I probably only… and I bet that’s not the only thing that killed them, right? I bet also a bunch were just shut down by whoever ran this, right? I bet either via kill switch or via whatever the Corruption actually is. I don’t know.
Rich: I’ll put it to you this way. Since you were freed by Même have you ever seen another member of your constructed species?
Kat: I think so because I think that I only really had connection to the ones that I was sent on whatever, however many missions I’ve been on, right? And those are the ones that I know about. And I think that I know that vaguely there were more than that because I have birth adjacent memories, right? Like being in a garden. But there are at least a dozen that survived and are within the city doing things, but are either too traumatized or aren’t… or people, you know, like, or whatever, aren’t interested in living, an actively fighting back against the thing lifestyle anymore.
Rich: So is this program shut down? Are these like vets now that are trying to fit themselves into the city?
Kat: Yes, very much so.
Rich: Did this all happen because of Même?
Kat: Um, I think it’s-
Rich: Did Même start a chain reaction of independence?
Kat: Yeah, I think Même gave us the tools to do that. So Même gave me that and then I would have been able to link that out to the others and then we were able to start forming a thing.
Richard: I wonder… we said that there was not a current crop of guardians or we are not guardians ourselves yet. What if, I mean, just throwing this out there, but what if the last guardians of the city were there and were part of that and that’s why there are currently no guardians, is because…
Rich: Or there used to be guardians. The guardians were either… something happened to the historical guardians. And then this program was started up as a way to try to protect the city.
Richard: I like that.
Devon: But if you’re protecting the city, what are you protecting the city from? Usually there’s a threat that begins that.
Rich: Well? Well, yes, absolutely. That’s part of it. And also some people may be like, “Oh no, we’re protecting the city and we’re going to protect the city by taking over other cities.”
Devon: Valid.
Rich: And we’re gonna, you know what I mean? Like somebody did some things they maybe shouldn’t have and maybe it’s not public knowledge.
DC: Wait, this lines up, because we had this massive super spy army and then it falls apart. And so everyone who got effed over by that is pissed at us. And now we don’t have that army anymore. And so. People are like, well, we’re not going to remake that cause that was really bad for all the people involved. Let’s bring back the guardians.
Kat: That makes-
Devon: That’s a bad decision. We’re moving on.
Rich: We’re shutting down the Jason Bourne project.
Devon: Yeah. I was going to make a joke about Polyp 007.
Rich: Polyp oh seven.
Devon: But I couldn’t figure out where to put it in.
Kat: That makes a lot of sense to me. Especially ‘cause I was figuring that we were, that like there’s definitely alien material spliced into us, but it’s not like that’s all that we are. We are definitely made off of partially a life form that is very common and ubiquitous so that we partially fit in. Right? So like…
Rich: Okay. I think there’s our other sapient species for the city.
Richard: Oh my gosh.
Kat: That’s what I was thinking. So like if, if I’m like a caster flower, it’s like a carnation. It’s just like a happy thing. So if I’m the blue ring octopus it’s like a dumbo octopus. It’s a happy, cute little one..
Richard: I love that.
Rich: I think that’s our other sapient species. I think that, along with the Hermes, are actually the main species that are here in this community. And I think that you fit in, almost like a… so you fit in until you don’t. You’re fitting in and then suddenly like you Hulk out or whatever your equivalent is and blue rings start showing up on you and you rage out or I see you rage, like getting like almost like a monk might rage.
You get super focused and you’re very focused-
Kat: Super focused.
Rich: -and “I now see every weakness and everybody that’s around me like a heads up display and I’m going to take you, I’m going to end you all. And I don’t want to, but that’s where I’m at and I have to try and pull that back.” But you can live amongst everyone else, but you have to… almost like you’re a secret weapon. You’re a mutant. Yeah. I love this idea. Okay.
Kat: Yeah. I think that generally they’re happy, do a ton of jobs and have the average color changing properties of cute little dopey dumbo octopus people.
Rich: I love this. So then let me twist the question a little bit. So you have a dozen people across this whole metropolis that you know were part of this program with you that you may or may not connect with. We can get into that.
So let’s talk about the species you came from that were modified. So the basic species. What is a, what is a cultural commonality or a cultural event or like a religious holiday? Something about that culture that you personally may or may not participate in, but that is something that people know about in the city.
Kat: Yes. I think that they’re real status obsessed, and I don’t know what our way of getting it is yet. I don’t know if we’re, I don’t really want to be capitalist. You know, I don’t like… no, thank you, but, whatever it is, they’re really… that’s the thing they’ve bought into, and they’ve bought into it hard in an embarrassing ways. So that’s the cultural driver, is some sort of status.
Rich: Okay.
Kat: It can even change, you know.
Rich: Well, let’s think of… we’ve gotten some vague.. I mean, status obsessed is kind of cool. Let’s talk about something specific. Like there is a certain time of the week, certain day of the week that they do X or a certain food that they eat, a certain type of cultural idea that they share and celebrate.
So something that’s specific to kind of build this out and make this feel like a living culture.
Richard: Talking about the status thing. I imagine because the shape of the city is literally a sphere, I would imagine that your position within it could be really like… literally you are at the center. Yeah. Where it’s a very natural progression of-
Rich: Outside versus inside? So outside might be less status, more central is more status.
Richard: That would be sort of my initial thought. Yeah. It’s ‘cause you’re more protected and you’re closer to, if there’s governmental stuff going on, that’s probably where things are happening and-
Devon: So wait, no, this makes sense. Because what if it was a cultural upset when the, strange alien life, plants showed up because it all of a sudden was like, Oh, we need to pull in people that their status are immediately elevated by bringing them into the center. And therefore people are like, why is their status being upset?
And it’s because it was to study them and because their status was elevated artificially, they gained more pull in the community. And that’s why this weird, killer, bad corruption influenced like army was created because of these people all of a sudden put in a position of influence, and given influence, even though they were like, “Oh, I don’t know what to do with this, and these are my ideas” and were not used to having this level of influence.
Rich: Can other people elaborate on that? ‘Cause I’m having a hard time following that. So the idea that they’re status obsessed being outside is less protected. Being inside is more protected. So that was my first thought. That the central area, if you live or work or move there, that’s where the central hub of everything is and the status is more important there. And then these, these plants had shown up-
Richard: In the center.
Rich: -hundreds of years ago at the center of this creature to help alleviate an actual almost natural disaster. We were saying, right? Like something was going to happen with this moss, and then these strange plants showed up and some quality of them seemed to maybe feed into the ballast to help the thing rise back up again that was falling, but we don’t know where they came from or that kind of thing.
Kat: Right. So then the idea is that people who wouldn’t normally have lived near the center, so like scientists and other things from the outside, were moved more centrally inside. So then they’re like, “no, this is a huge status upset” and people-
Rich: So like the aristocracy equivalent, it was with central and then with Devon, you were saying like these plants showed up and now people who would not have been like the middle-class, suddenly some members of the middle class and the researchers and stuff.
Devon: Yeah. So I imagine like to a certain extent, culturally it was like very positive, but it put someone who was Maybe’s mentor, put them in a position where they shouldn’t have been. But then it put what I’m guessing is also, like, put the equivalent of middle-class people in a position where they could maybe equalize some of the status issues, but also elevated someone who started this horrible artificial army. Yeah. So we could be also going through, we could also be going through a period of social reform. Ya!.
DC: Im’ about it.
Rich: I like it. I like that as well, and somebody is not going to like that probably.
Devon: And we’re people connected to this period of social reform. So.
DC: This is just a Traveler thing. I think that the Traveler has been out in the world for a lot of stuff, and then this stuff started coming down around the time that traveler came back to check on baby and all this stuff started going on, and so it was like, “Oh, this is… This is big experience.” Like the echo is like making waves and it’s the time to be here right now.
Richard: Oh, I love that.
Rich: You’re almost like a harbinger, it sounds like.
DC: Almost.
Devon: Oh, I have a question. So because we have status where things are, where is the echo chamber / speakeasy.
Rich: Oh, as far as inner and outer status layers?
Richard: Ooh.
Devon: Because that can totally change like the cultural concept and viewpoint on the on traveler species.
DC: I have an idea about that,
Devon: Shoot.
Kat: Yeah.
DC: There are levels to it. So at the top there’s this big glowing light. And that’s where the travelers are born from. And that’s why people are like, “Oh, well, you can assume any status that you want.” And for the, the aristocrats, it’s like, “well, we have to honor it.” And they’re not like, we don’t really do, we don’t F with stuff really. We’re just kind of there making small impressions because that’s how, the impact of the universe is small things are what really matters. So nobody really… they’re like, okay, well I guess you’re a part of parliament or whatever.
Devon: They don’t make any big waves and therefore it’s like, oh, we’ll give you a pass. Because you’re not overthrowing, you’re not busy overthrowing the fishy-archy. Yet.
DC: Right. But there are these levels. It’s accessible to everyone, but you come in at a different level, and so there are enough spaces for you at a particular level that going up higher is, it’s not illegal, but it’s culturally weird. It’s like, Oh, you’re not… Because the higher up, they see this… it’s the only place where high and low kind of exist.
Devon: So it’s like here in the center is where the laboratory is now. And then there’s a perfect line through it. And it’s this column of the… that’s really cool. It’s like an elevator.
Rich: The Echo chamber goes right through the center of the whole thing.
Kat: That’s rad.
Devon: It’s, maybe the echo chamber is open to the ocean on the top and the bottom.
Rich: I like that idea.
Richard: Yeah, that’d be really interesting. And it filters light down or something. I imagine almost like crystal or really reflective surfaces that sort of reflect the light back and forth and just down this whole shaft all the way through the ball. And then-
DC: It looks like kind of shiny and iridescent at the same time.
Devon: Like the inside of ’em shells when you crack them open the nacre.
Rich: Yeah, I like that. I’m-
Devon: It’s covered in nacre.
DC: That’s how we get light throughout the entire place.
Rich: I’m also feeling like the central chamber had a different purpose before these plants showed up.
Kat: I know what it is, aside from… so I think that this species, the like blobby one, I think that they partially adjust their diet. Like, they eat things, but then they also grow some of the moss on them to supplement their diet and like partially photosynthesize so they have to go into the chamber to get light to keep their processes going.
Devon: So they get light on the commune with the echo, and maybe it’s considered a religious experience, but there was, there’s a practical element to it.
Rich: And so I’m sorry, who? Who, who grows the moss? I missed the big first part.
Kat: I figured the-
Rich: The dumbo people?
Kat: Yeah, that’s what I figured.
Rich: Yeah. No, I love it. And then these plants showed up and it’s still that, but now there’s some growths and things that are in there that actually almost seemed to charge or save the city in some way. Okay. All right. I’m in, and then we have a few minutes left. Normally we’d be talking about the Corruption, but I have some ideas about the Corruption and what had happened with it, and so I think we’re going to do a little different when we do start our first session.
I’m going to be asking about some of the Corruption as we go, since we’ve already established how some of it has been manipulated and used in the past, and there’s a mystery around that, so we’re going to hold on to that. There’s also an aspect of the sanctuary, which is a place where the guardians live together and work from together.
But as you’re not guardians quite yet, I have some ideas about how we can introduce that down the line as well. But before we go and wrap up, I want to talk about the Specialist here with Même. Même, you have a squid body. You, just like Traveler, have manifested somehow out of the Echo. This is a very common theme in this particular game for some reason.
So what is it with your species in general and members of your species that are as part of the culture in the city, like part of the community? How are you part of the community as a species?
Richard: I’m imagining like this is the thing where if you get pooped on by a pigeon and it’s supposed to be good luck or whatever, right?
Rich: This is going in a weird direction, but yes, I’m in.
Richard: Okay. But the idea of… for Même, their species is sort of hanging out just at the edge of the physical world from the echo. So I imagine that they will pop over into the physical world and generally the first thing that they touch is sort of the form that they take on. And I think it can be, it’s one of those things where it’s considered lucky to be like, “Oh, Hey, like I got chosen by one of them and they have taken on my form,” you know? And they’re not going to look exactly like you, so it’s not like you’re being copied and there’s a doppelganger or anything, but it’s just-
Rich: Like the pod people-
Richard: Yeah. But they’ll come in and I feel like there’s a, maybe a celebration or something that happens where people just know that it’s a random thing that can happen.
Rich: So I have something I want to throw out to you. You had mentioned a squid body, but we haven’t talked much about a squid species, but we do have the dumbo species, and you did run into and touch Polyp 39 so do you think your body is actually similar to the generic, the general species of these dumbo creatures, but you also have some of this strange genetic DNA that’s been in Polyp 39 in some way?
Richard: Well, let, let me ask you, Kat, would you be okay with Même essentially looking like one of the polyps?
Kat: I’m totally okay with that.
Richard: Okay, so, yeah, I think maybe that was… maybe Polyp 39 was literally the first person that Même encountered.
Rich: And maybe you are often drawn to sapient creatures, right? But you were like, “Oh, this is one of the two main species on this world. I will touch this. Oh, wait, what is that? That’s not quite right. Something’s not right.” Right? You showed up and you tried to duplicate the Hulk and you’re like, “wait, you are human, but not quite, wait, what’s happening?”
Richard: Yeah, yeah.
Rich: Okay, cool. All right. That could lead to some interesting…
Richard: Oh, and just a total random one. I feel like there’s also a tradition of braiding the sea grasses and the mosses that are on the outside of the ball and the idea that to celebrate a birth or a death or something, you would traditionally go out there and braid something in their honor. And there’s all these traditions around like the knot patterns and how you do all that.
Rich: So going for funerals, services are outside the ball. And on the outside edge is almost like a memoriam along, and the… maybe the bodies are released to the openness of the sea. But you have a place you can go to, and instead of having a tombstone, you have this special knot thing. Oh man, that sounds rad.
Devon: Or your knot, the one that was braided when you came into existence is removed. It’s undone. So the next person who comes in can have some of whatever that is.
Richard: Oh, that’s interesting.
Rich: So the Hermes and the dumbos, ‘cause I have no other word for them. When they’re born, there’s one, there’s a celebration of it being braided. And when they pass, there’s a celebration of it being undone until they come back through a cycle or whenever-
Devon: Yeah. I think that also is a very good way of symbolizing a kind of culture’s idea of like the idea of a circle, you know, a cycle.
Rich: A cycle of life. I love that. That’s, that’s really cool. What do you guys think about that? DC and Kat.
DC: That’s pretty cool.
Kat: It’s lovely.
Rich: All right, so we have once again, a fascinating city, a set of cultures, species, and we, I can’t wait to see what happens next with the mystery of our corruption and what is going on with Polyp 39.
I can’t wait. And baby! We gotta get baby in there.
Excellent. So as we wrap up this character creation episode zero, why don’t we go back around and remind people who you are and where they can find you out in the world? I’ll start.
I’m Rich Howard. You can find myself and Richard Kreutz-Landry and Taylor at DIMRPG on Twitter. That’s at DIMRPG or descentintomidnight.com you can go and get the play test packet and you can play this for yourself.
Devon.
Devon: My name is Devon George. You can find me at my website, devongeorgestudios.com. You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram @dgeorgestudios. Yeah, that’s about it.
Rich: Awesome. DC.
DC: I am DC. You can find me on Twitter @dungeoncommandr. If you like this game, there are some commonalities between it and my game Mutants In The Night, which is a Forged in the Dark game. I’m having a great time and I think that you should back this game on Kickstarter.
Rich: Awesome. Kat.
Kat: I am Kat Kuhl. And you can find me on Twitter at kat_kuhl_ with “cool” spelled like my last name, K. U. H. L. and also you could check out Autonomic podcast, which I think you’ll really like. Which you can find at autonomicpodcast.com with autonomic spelled like the nervous system.
Rich: Nice. I’ve never heard you say that. That is exactly the way it is.
Kat: The easy way to do it.
Rich: And Richard.
Richard: All right. I am Richard Kreutz-Landry, and you can find me at my website, origamigaming.com or on Twitter @rkreutzlandry.
Rich: All right, and thanks everybody for joining us. We will see you on the next episode and Welcome to Midnight.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, The Redacted Files Podcast Network, Ben S, Lucca, Landan Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Alice Kyra, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Nora Blake, Ben S, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Nora Blake, Ben S, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Nora Blake, Ben S, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Nora Blake, Ben S, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Nora Blake, Ben S, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Nora Blake, Ben S, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Nora Blake, Ben S, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Megan Tolentino, Jonathan Summerton, Landon Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Jonathan Summerton, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Jonathan Summerton, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, and Rob Abrazado: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Me, Taylor LaBresh. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet was edited by Cole Burkhardt. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
This episode of Game Closet was edited by SJ Dalmar. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Katy Morgan, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Landan Smith, Mark Causey, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello friends! I don’t know if you’re following me on Twitter or Patreon but you may have seen that my computer recently shit the bed. It had a pretty drastic crash that it has bounced back from slightly but it’s just barely hanging on and even opening WordPress takes about a minute. I have all my Riverhouse stuff backed up to the cloud but audio editing is beyond the capabilities of my current machine.
I have a new computer ordered, but Lenovo keeps pushing back the estimated delivery, at the moment they say I should have it by April. Until the new one comes in I have this for you. Please enjoy the audio of our first Riverhouse Twitch Game! Sorry the audio isn’t great and thank you for your patience while I get things back to normal!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Landan Smith, Katy Morgan, Elizabeth Bellisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Nicole Trainor, Corv Leary, Alice Tobin, Kyle Krueger, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
This episode of Game Closet was edited by SJ Dalmar. Show music was composed by Corv Leary.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, Katy Morgan, Landan Smith, & Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
Hello friends and welcome to Season Two of Game Closet, an informal chat show with queer & LGBT+ tabletop RPG folks! We’re a proud member of the RPG Academy Network. Today’s episode contains explicit sexual language and use of the F word that isn’t “fuck”. We’re joined by John Harness who has a bunch of really gay little microgames. I’ll have links in the show notes for everything we talk about today. A little housekeeping here, if you’re in the Minnesota area in February, come see me at Con of the North where I’ll be debuting four new card larps and running games throughout. Let’s keep this short & sweet, and get straight to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon, such as:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Jalyn Eutenier, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Elizabeth Belisario, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Nicole Trainor, Paul Bennett, Rob Abrazado, Katy Morgan, Landan Smith, & Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
Hello friends and welcome to Season Two of Game Closet, an informal chat show with queer & LGBT+ tabletop RPG folks! We’re a proud member of the RPG Academy Network. I’ll give a quick thank you to Corv Leary for our new show music, and jump into our episode with Brie Sheldon. Brie makes fantastic games & RPG content and has a kickstarter going right now that you can back through November 30th. Let’s jump right into the interview! While you listen, you can support this show and others by visiting patreon dot com slash riverhouse games.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corv Leary, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Nicole Trainor, Kyle Krueger, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Alice Tobin, Tobie Abad, Elizabeth Bellisario, and Phillip Sacramento: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet! We’ve got two fantastic people, Amber Gilchrist and Elizabeth Bellisario here to talk about an ongoing Kickstarter for one of my most anticipated games of the year. Scherzando is a musical game of explosive drama where you make up the soundtrack as you play. It could not be more up my alley, and I’ll have links to back it in the show notes. Speaking of Kickstarters, thank you everyone who backed my game Thirteen Demon Princes. The campaign ended yesterday and we managed to hit every one of our Stretch Goals. Thank you all so much. Well, with our Intro winding down, let’s get right on into the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Jalyn Eutenier, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Emmeline Deplois, Swordnut Radio, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Amanda Coyle, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Phillip Sacramento, Tobie Abad, Rob Abrazado, and Nicole Trainor: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
Hello all you guys gals and nonbinary pals and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the show highlighting all sorts of great queer & LGBT+ folks in the RPG community. I’m stoked to put this interview up because it was very surreal to have a close chat with one of the folks whose work inspired me to start this show. I’m joined by James D’amato of the One Shot Network to talk about his new book that you can preorder RIGHT NOW. James and I talk about his favorite game, Star Crossed, all the fantastic character development tools found in his book, and some frustrations of being a queer creator in a straight publishing world. I’ll have links to everything in the show notes as always.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, Jalyn Eutenier, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Emmeline Deplois, Swordnut Radio, Alice Tobin, Corv Leary, Amanda Coyle, Kirsten Engeseth, Kyle Krueger, Phillip Sacramento, Tobie Abad, Rob Abrazado, and Nicole Trainor: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
Well hello all you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, where we talk to all sorts of awesome queer & LGBT+ tabletop roleplaying folks! Today we’ve got a great guest with us, Jason Cordova, the helm of the magnificent Gauntlet RPG community. We chat about how to foster great atmosphere, some of our favorite ways to support others, and top it off by talking about some hot garbage that we love. The Gauntlet Community is a great group that sponsors all sorts of indy designers and I encourage you to check out the various projects they create, especially the Codex zine that Jason and I talk about. You can find all the links in the show notes. While you check those out, let’s cut to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corv Leary, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Nicole Trainor, Kyle Krueger, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Alice Tobin, Tobie Abad, and Phillip Sacramento: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network.
Hello friends and enemies and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, where we explore all the amazing queer & LGBT+ tabletop RPG folks out there. We’ve got a great guest this week, Nicole from the Misfits of Space podcast. We talk about kissing aliens, worldbuilding, and queer science fiction. While we were recording, both Nicole and myself had colds. I tried real hard to edit out the majority of the sniffles but there’s some in there that were hard to take out. One quick note that if you’ll be at Gen Con, Acadecon, or Metatopia, I’ll be running Descent Into Midnight, so check out the details by visiting Descent Into Midnight dot com. Without further adieu, let’s get to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corv Leary, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Kyle Krueger, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Alice Tobin, Tobie Abad, and Phillip Sacramento: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a very proud member of the RPG Academy Network. Hello friends and enemies and welcome to another exciting episode of Game Closet, where we chat with all the amazing queer & LGBT+ tabletop rpg designers, podcasters, streamers, you name it. Our guest this episode is the illustrious Kira Magrann, and I’m so stoked for you to listen. Kira and I talk about cyborgs, stories without conflict, and her game, A Cozy Den, about cohabitating lesbisnakes. I’ll have links to everything we talk about in the show notes as usual. One quick shout before we dive in, that we’ll be unveiling Descent Into Midnight, the aquatic Powered By The Apocalypse game I’ve been helping develop, at Gen Con. If you’re interested in signing up for a game, follow the link in the show notes. And without futher adieu, enjoy the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corv Leary, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Kyle Krueger, Vi Brower, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Alice Tobin, Tobie Abad, and Phillip Sacramento: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello all you guys gals and nonbinary pals, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the show of amazing queer & LDBT+ tabletop rpg folks! We’ve got a great guest with us this episode, Josephine from Panoplit, a great website of archival history and articles. We had a blast chatting about her work gathering great insight and data and archiving stories of underrepresented people’s experiences in gaming. I’ll have links to Panoplit and Josephine’s novel in the show notes. Why don’t you check out the link to the Riverhouse Games Discord in the show notes as well! Also in the show notes is a link to sign up for our initial playtest run of Descent Into Midnight, a powered by the apocalypse game about aquatic guardians and the corruption they face. Enough plugs, let’s get to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corv Leary, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Kyle Krueger, Ivanrun, Robert Day, Vi Brower, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Alice Tobin, Tobie Abad, and Phillip Sacramento: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello friends! I’ll keep this bumper short cuz this is a nice little bonus episode for y’all. I hope you can hear all the birds outside my window cuz it’s finally springtime & they’re happy as hell about that. What you’re about to listen to is a recording of a game of Masks: A New Generation that I ran for Roll 4 Change, an organization that runs livestreams of rpgs to benefit charity. Masks is my absolute favorite game right now, and this might be the best session I’ve ever ran for it so I wanted to get it out to you, the listener, to enjoy as well. I want to say thank you to everyone involved in making this happen, not only was it just a phenomenal game, but we helped raise three hundred and fifty five dollars for Children’s Defense Fund through viewer donations. While you’re listening to this episode, check out CDF and check out Roll 4 Change for future livestreams just like this one. Let’s get to it!
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corv Leary, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Kyle Krueger, Ivanrun, Kelsey Campbell, Patrick “The Tyrant of Boredom” West, Robert Day, Vi Brower, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Alice Tobin, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a very proud member of the RPG Academy Network. Keep an eye out for AcadecOnline in May for an online gaming convention to raise funds to put on AcadeCon in Dayton, Ohio in November.
Howdy all you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the show where we chat with all sorts of amazing queer & LGBT+ tabletop creators. I am especially excited to welcome to the show one of my dream guests, Alex Roberts. Alex does fantastic work on her podcast, Backstory, expanding the perspectives of creators in the RPG community with a wide variety of diverse guests, all of whom have fascinating insights to share. Backstory is a personal inspiration for my work in the queer RPG space so this episode is one of my favorites. We chat about Backstory, as well as Alex’s current project, Star Crossed, a game about two people who really really want to, but really really shouldn’t. You can get Star Crossed RIGHT NOW by searching on Kickstarter. The campaign goes until May 10th, so go jump on it! Y’all I am super excited for this, so let’s just jump right in!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out a curated collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corv Leary, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Kyle Krueger, Ivanrun, Kelsey Campbell, Patrick “The Tyrant of Boredom” West, Robert Day, Vi Brower, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Alice Tobin, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network. Keep an eye out in May for AcadecOnline, an online convention to raise funds for this year’s Acadecon in Dayton, Ohio.
Hello future friends, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, a show spotlighting all the amazing queer & LGBT+ folks in the tabletop games community. I’m extremely excited to welcome back Jeff Stormer, of Party of One podcast, All My Fantasy Children, Talking Nog, and many other wondrous productions. Jeff & I talk about designing with intent, leveling up, and loving yourself and what you do. I’ll have links to Jeff’s productions in the show notes. If you have a moment to head on over to Twitch.tv/TheLeviathanFiles to check out the new Riverhouse Games streaming content, every Sunday I’ll be hosting Small Gaymes Sunday (That’s spelled with a Y in Gaymes for those of you listening in) where I’ll be streaming queer videogames every sunday morning from 10am to 11:30am central time. And with all of that out of the way, let’s throw it over to me in the past for this chat with Jeff Stormer
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corvidcall, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Kyle Krueger, Ivanrun, Kelsey Campbell, Patrick “The Tyrant of Boredom” West, Robert Day, Vi Brower, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network. Keep en eye out on March 14th for the launch of the kickstarter for Acadecon in Dayton Ohio where you can see me & other RPG Academy folks & play a weekend full of games.
Well howdy all you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the show where we chat with all sorts of awesome queer & LGBT+ creators in the tabletop RPG world. With us today is my friend Nora, here to talk about designing small games, her overwhelmingly cute Star Trek Discovery podcast she makes with her partner, and how we can be aware of storytelling tropes in our tabletop games. I’ve got all of Nora’s links in the show notes. Before we get into it, please consider backing this show on Patreon at Patreon dot com slash Riverhouse Games. And with that taken care of, let’s dive right in!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corvidcall, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Kyle Krueger, Ivanrun, Kelsey Campbell, Patrick “The Tyrant of Boredom” West, Robert Day, Vi Brower, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Well hello all you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the show about all sorts of amazing queer & LGBT+ folks doing great work in the tabletop RPG community. I’m incredibly excited to bring back our first repeat visitor, the spectacular Aaron Catano-Saez of All My Fantasy Children! AMFC is one of my favorite podcasts, and the joy that Aaron and his costar Jeff Stormer bring to their work is palpable. When we last had Aaron on, he blew my mind and this episode is no different. We talk about leveling up, harnessing spite, and some of the highs and lows of the past year or so. As a quick reminder you can find everything in the show notes, and while you’re listening, head on over to Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames to help support the show.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa Mackinnon, VJ Brown, Jalyn Eutenier, Corvidcall, Rohit Sodhia & Gamersplane.com, Kyle Krueger, Ivanrun, Kelsey Campbell, Patrick “The Tyrant of Boredom” West, Robert Day, Vi Brower, Emmeline Deplois, Paul Bennett & Swordnut Radio, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, and Tobie Abad: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Well howdy all you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals and welcome to Game Closet, the show where we talk to all sorts of great queer & LGBT+ tabletop creators. Joining me today is Christine Prevas. Christine produces a Monster Of The Week actual play as well as writing great articles on monsters and queerness. We chat about their work on vampire theory and monstrosity and I had an absolute blast. You should go check out their show now, it’s called The Unexplored Places and it’s phenomenal. Before we get into the episode I want to take a moment to plug Acadecon, the RPG Academy’s gaming convention in Dayton Ohio from November 9th to 11th. They just secured the location for this year and will be making announcements soon about how you can get tickets, keep your eyes on The RPG Academy dot com. And with that out of the way, let’s get to the show! I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about Lawful Good Gaming, an organization that seeks to pair tabletop roleplayers with charitable organizations. In 2017 they helped raise over 7 thousand dollars for organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, National Immigration Law Center, and the Ocean Conservatory. Going into 2018 their efforts are focused on queer & LGBT+ folks with donations going to groups like SAGE and The Trevor Project. Check out their facebook page at facebook dot com slash groups slash lawfulgoodgaming, or follow the link in the show notes. With all that out of the way, let’s get to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, C. Leary, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Ivanrun, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Well hello friends and enemies, and welcome to Game Closet, where we have a chat with all sorts of really cool queer and LGBT+ tabletop roleplayers who make games, podcasts, streams, you name it. With us this week is my friend VJ, who runs Hedged In: a Changeling The Lost story. Her show is quirky, magical, queer, and fantastical and I think you’re going to love it. In this episode we chat about how we find our inspirations, our goals for the future, and the joy of having the ability to make art that celebrates who we are as people. I talked last episode about Con Of The North in mid February where I’ll be running The Quiet Year, Questlandia, and Descent Into Midnight, but I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about Lawful Good Gaming, an organization that seeks to pair tabletop roleplayers with charitable organizations. In 2017 they helped raise over 7 thousand dollars for organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, National Immigration Law Center, and the Ocean Conservatory. Going into 2018 their efforts are focused on queer & LGBT+ folks with donations going to groups like SAGE and The Trevor Project. Check out their facebook page at facebook dot com slash groups slash lawfulgoodgaming, or follow the link in the show notes. With all that out of the way, let’s get to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello guys gals and nonbinary pals, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet where we talk to all sorts of cool queer & LGBT+ tabletop rpg folks! In this episode I talk to Alana Cheski of Witches Ladder Games about the cool games you can get from them. We also talk a little bit about conflict mediation, embracing anxieties at the table, and which monster we’d most like to spend the night with. It’s a really great episode & I can’t wait for you to enjoy it. While I have your attention before the show I’d like to say that I’ll be running games at Con Of The North in Plymouth, Minnesota from February 16 through the 18th. I’m running Questlandia, The Quiet Year, and my personal favorite RPG, Masks. Speaking of Masks you should all head over to the RPG Academy podcast to hear an actual play of Masks that I was lucky enough to be a part of that was run by the game’s author. Thank you again to Michael, Caleb, Dakota, and Brendan for making that small dream come true. Well with all that pre-show out of the way, let’s get to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Well hello all you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals and welcome back to Game Closet, a show about queer & LGBT Tabletop friends. I’m your host, Taylor, and with me today are two great people here to talk about their great show. It’s called Sun City Duet, and it’s a joy to listen to. Ell & Ben have such great rapport and it shows. We talk about their show, hacking games to support more intimate play, and some good steps to make your games more queer friendly. I’ll have links to everything there in the show notes. As a reminder, you can support this show by visiting Patreon dot com slash Riverhouse Games, or head on over to Gumroad or DrivethruRPG to pick up some cool RPGs. If you have a moment, check out Descent Into Midnight dot com as well to check out a cool aquatic powered by the apocalypse game that I have a hand in helping to create. And with all that out of the way, let’s get to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network. A quick reminder that you can still get tickets to Acadecon, run by the RPG Academy in Dayton Ohio from November 10th through the 12th, by going to the acadecon dot com.
Hello friends and enemies and welcome to another episode of Game Closet! I’m your host, Taylor, and joining me today is tabletop streamer, Tesla, from The RPG Lab. We talk about all the various shows run on his stream, how to bring out tabletop’s participatory medium over a stream, and shared narrative spaces. My personal favorite is the Numenera show, I think that group has a lot of great chemistry, & I’m happy to see the game being run in more places! Links to Tesla’s work can be found in the show notes. As a reminder, if you’re free November 10-12th and can get to Dayton, Ohio, I highly suggest you check out Acadecon, run by the RPG Academy. It has all the magic & fun with industry folk of a big convention, with a fraction of the crowds. You can find more info in the show notes!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello Friends and enemies, or should I say Anemonies for this episode? I have a special announcement to make on this feed & I’m really excited you joined us. What you’re listening to right now is an Actual Play of a new game in development called Descent Into Midnight. Descent Into Midnight is an aquatic RPG exploring the depths of the sentient mind. In Descent Into Midnight, a gifted team of psionic defenders fight mental, physical, and spiritual corruption threatening their ecosystem, their home, and their friendships. With shared world building, evocative playbooks & moves, and guided meditation & collaborative storytelling, Descent Into Midnight is aquatic gaming that is intense, emotional, and shows the wonder of the ocean. Take a listen to this third episode of our playthrough which features the finale of our character’s journey and a playtest debrief. You can learn more about this game at Descent Into Midnight dot com. While you go check out our site, I’ll just straight into the show.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello Friends and enemies, or should I say Anemonies for this episode? I have a special announcement to make on this feed & I’m really excited you joined us. What you’re listening to right now is an Actual Play of a new game in development called Descent Into Midnight. Descent Into Midnight is an aquatic RPG exploring the depths of the sentient mind. In Descent Into Midnight, a gifted team of psionic defenders fight mental, physical, and spiritual corruption threatening their ecosystem, their home, and their friendships. With shared world building, evocative playbooks & moves, and guided meditation & collaborative storytelling, Descent Into Midnight is aquatic gaming that is intense, emotional, and shows the wonder of the ocean. Take a listen to this Second episode of our playthrough which features the first leg of our character’s journey. You can learn more about this game at Descent Into Midnight dot com. While you go check out our site, I’ll just straight into the show.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello Friends and enemies, or should I say Anemonies for this episode? I have a special announcement to make on this feed & I’m really excited you joined us. What you’re listening to right now is an Actual Play of a new game in development called Descent Into Midnight. Descent Into Midnight is an aquatic RPG exploring the depths of the sentient mind. In Descent Into Midnight, a gifted team of psionic defenders fight mental, physical, and spiritual corruption threatening their ecosystem, their home, and their friendships. With shared world building, evocative playbooks & moves, and guided meditation & collaborative storytelling, Descent Into Midnight is aquatic gaming that is intense, emotional, and shows the wonder of the ocean. Take a listen to this first episode of our playthrough which features setup, introductions, and character creation. You can learn more about this game at Descent Into Midnight dot com. While you go check out our site, I’ll just straight into the show.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy Network. A quick reminder that you can still get tickets to Acadecon, run by the RPG Academy in Dayton Ohio from November 10th through the 12th, by going to the acadecon dot com.
Well hello friends & enemies, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the show highlighting queer and LGBT+ tabletop games and gamers. This episode we talk to Amy Weston of Theogony games, to talk about her amazing productions. You can hear me fan out over my personal favorite, Formative a game about finding home & family set against a narrative of transformation, which you yourself can get this instant by supporting Amy’s work on Patreon at Patreon dot com slash T H E O G O N Y. We talk about Formative and more during this episode & I was really glad she joined us to lay out her current projects. With all of our intros out of the way, let’s dive right in!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a very proud member of the RPG Academy Network. If you enjoy what we do here, please consider voting for the RPG Academy for Best Podcast at this year’s ENnie awards. There’ll be a link in the shownotes.
Well hey there friends and enemies, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the podcast highlighting queer and LGBT+ tabletop games and gamers. I’m your host, Taylor, and this episode I’m joined by three wonderful friends who are part of the spectacularly heartfelt Dungeon World podcast called Blue Dawn. Corv, Cole, Shannon, and I sit down to talk about fandom culture informing RPGs, Nonbinary individuals playing to gendered characters, and earnest shitposting. I’ll have all their links in the show notes. A special broadcast here for everyone at Geekly Con in Saint Louis Missouri this year, which if I time this right will be happening just days after this episode goes up. If you’re going to the con, gimme a shout and we’ll play some games! If you’re tuning into the show because we met at the con, hey it’s great to have you onboard and I’m sure it was a blast meeting you. Well with all that out of the way, let’s get to it!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello friends and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the show about queer and LGBT+ tabletop games and the people who play them, make them, and do all sorts of fun stuff in the community. Joining me tonight is someone who has multiple projects coming down the pipe and is a good friend of mine. Their name is Fabby Garza and in this episode we chat all about wrestling, superheroes, and their new projects which include an actual play podcast featuring exclusively people of color, as well as an all queer Masks actual play (pst, including yours truly). Before we get into this episode I want to take a moment to say that I’ll be in St. Louis, Missouri for Geekly Con July 19th through the 23rd so if you’ll be there too, gimme a shout! Hey enough intro, let’s get to the episode.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Well hey guys gals and nonbinary pals and welcome to another great episode of Game Closet, the show where we sit and chat with a bunch of cool queer and LGBT+ tabletop games people. Joining me today is Jackie Beckwith, author of the digitally terrifying game, Bated Breath. Jackie & I talk about anxiety horror, visibility, and feeling lost. I’ll put links to her game in the show notes for this episode. Jackie and I are contributors to the Two Weeks game anthology curated by Dan Enders, which we discuss in the episode and you can find links in the show notes for that collection as well.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of Game Closet. I’m your host, Taylor, and today’s episode features game designer Hannah Shaffer. Hannah is the author of amazing games like Questlandia and 14 Days, and is also a podcast personality on shows like the Games People Play and Tabletop SUperhighway podcasts. In this episode, Hannah and I chat about the games she’s made, shared history and narratives, and cooking and RPGs as rituals of self care. Before we get in I want to apologize about the time between episodes, some life happened recently but I’m back and recovered and ready to keep going! We should have a regular release schedule now going forward. Well, with that said, let’s get to it!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Alec Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This episode of Game Closet is particularly not safe for work and contains sexual content and descriptions of insects mating. FYI this is not safe for work or for listeners under the age of 18.
This show is a proud member of the RPG Academy podcast network. You can find other amazing shows there like Swallows Of The South. Quinn Wilson and his amazing cast of players produce this heartfelt and melodramatic Exalted third edition actual play podcast set in a fantastical city, where emotions run as strong as the powers each character wields. I’ve been a raving fan of Swallows of the South since the single digit episodes and I am extremely humbled to consider someone as talented as Quinn my friend. I earnestly implore you to listen to Swallows of the South, it is a fine piece of art.
Hello guys gals and nonbinary pals and welcome to another episode of Game Closet, the show about queer and LGBT+ tabletop games and gamers. Tonight we have another Live Episode all the way from Acadecon 2016. Acadecon is a gaming convention run by the very same RPG Academy you heard mentioned at the top of the show, and is one of the most magical experiences I have ever been blessed with. I could fill an hour with talking about the blessing it was to go, but let’s just leave it at this episode, and say that I can’t wait to be there in 2017. Tickets are sold via a kickstarter that is set to go live April 13th, so mark your calendars. This is an actual play that was done at Acadecon, gathering a bunch of friends to play the marvelously disgusting game, Bugfuck, written by Caitlynn Belle. You can find the link to her patreon in the show notes. This is a recording of a convention game and, despite us finding a relatively quiet room for it, the audio is less than stellar. Well, with all that intro out of the way, let’s get to it.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
This show is a Proud and vibrant member of the RPG Academy Network. Check out the other shows on the network like a personal favorite of mine, She’s A Super Geek. Emily & Senda invite notable guests onto their show to play silly (and sometimes very serious) rpgs and to highlight the many contributions women have made to our hobby. It’s great fun, and their show introduced me to some of my favorite creators and personalities. Just whatever you do, don’t bring up pandas… wait who’s there? WAIT NO NOT THE GLITTER!!! Hello friends, and welcome back to another wonderful episode of Game Closet, the podcast highlighting queer and LGBT+ people in the tabletop games community. We have two wonderful guests this week, the Storybrewers, all the way from Australia, to tell you about their new Kickstarter. I talk with Hayley & Veronica about harsh worlds, the power of mythology, and their project, Alas For The Awful Sea. Alas is running it’s kickstarter right now, and they’ve already funded in just a few short days. I’ll have a link to support their project in the show notes. I do have one quick announcement which is that Sad Things On Index Cards, my zine about microgames, just opened submissions for its second issue. The theme is Augury, and all profits will go towards Planned Parenthood. To learn more on how to submit games, essays, poetry, or art, visit the link above.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Hello friends! I apologize in advance that the introduction for this episode will be lengthy but we have some big news to talk about! I am incredibly overjoyed to announce that Game Closet is extremely PROUD (Pun intended) to be a member of the RPG Academy Network! For those unfamiliar, The RPG Academy is a network of podcasts and other gaming resources with a focus on enriching your play experiences and learning more about our hobby. It’s helmed by the flagship show, The RPG Academy! Michael and Caleb are joined by wonderful friends and guests to run actual plays, try out new systems, and have discussion and round tables about a variety of interesting subjects. I’ve been listening to the RPG Academy for a long time, and really enjoy their dedication to go beyond the intro level while still remaining accessible for newcomers to the hobby. The RPG Academy was nominated for an Ennie award in 2016 and while they were robbed of their deserved victory (I cast my vote for them I’ll tell you that) their place in the nominees was well deserved. Not only is their flagship program worth listening to, there are plenty of other shows on the network. Over the next few episodes of Game Closet, we’ll promote them one by one so you can get a better feel for each of them.
The second announcement is much smaller, and that is the new projects under the Riverhouse banner coming in 2017. The first project is called From The Jackals To The Shepherds and is a new podcast launching Monday, March 20th, the first day of Spring. This show is a micropodcast and will be a week-by-week playthrough of Avery Alder’s The Quiet Year. Expect a teaser episode in the coming months. The other project I’m starting this year is Sad Things On Index Cards, or STOIC for short. Stoic is a zine about small games and microRPGs. We accept games, nonfiction essays, poetry, and visual art, with each issue having a unique theme. The first issue’s submissions have already been gathered and I’ll have news on how to get your hands on it soon. Keep your eyes out for more info on this first issue, and the call for submissions for the next one. Ho boy so that’s all my news for this episode! Joining me in the Game Closet this episode Is Courtney Brooke Davis, comics writer and gaming friend. I met Courtney at Geekly Con 2016 where we briefly chatted about hypersexuality in nerd spaces and her experiences with it while identifying as asexual. We also get to chat a bit about how tropes are used sometimes to skirt around addressing issues, and we do also get to geek out about archaeology. With that long winded intro out of the way I’ll get out of your hair and toss it over to the interview part of the show.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:
Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, and Emmeline Duplois, THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames
Well hey there guys, gals, & nonbinary pals! Welcome to another episode of Game Closet, where we tickle the underbelly of Queer & LGBT+ tabletop gamers and out comes a fantasy child! I’m Aaron Catano, your host for this week. If you’re looking to hear Taylor do a podcast intro, check out my show, All My Fantasy Children to hear the story of Slip Willis’s brush with death. In this episode of Game Closet, I talk to Taylor about personal journeys, how working through gender can be an intimidating process, and character creation both at the table and for ourselves. Sit back, light some candles, and get ready to get spOOOOoooOoooky! From worlds beyond to right here at the gaming table, this is Game Closet.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Thanks to my $5+ Patreon backers! Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Chris Hagensick, The RPG Academy, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, VJ Brown, Tobie Abad, Jeff Stormer, and Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, THANK YOU!
Hey guys, gals, & nonbinary pals, and welcome to another awesome episode of Game Closet. We’re joined today with a friend from Down Under, Sam Baran, to talk about radio drama, queer theater, and the power & impact of play on our lives. Sam has a really cool show called Tales from Spasming Hill and you should go binge all 10 episodes now. I’ll have a link in the show notes. Also! Let’s start this show right off the bat by saying that the Riverhouse Games patreon is now live!! Hello Patreon backers who are listening to this early! For the rest of you, you can get early access, among other things, by going to the page.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying resources.
Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of From Scratch, our side podcast about learning new games. We have a great one for y’all today as we sit down with Josh Jordan’s new game, Short Film. You can purchase this game right now on DrivethruRPG. This game is great & so is Josh. I will apologize to every human being who listens to this, we forgot to change the audio input from my crappy laptop mic to the nice Yeti microphone we have so the audio on this one is rrrrrrrrrrrough. Bear with us. Another apology to anyone with ears is needed because we let Dan pick the music for this game and he took us on a wild ride back to middle school. Don’t ask, you’ll figure it out in a sec. Apologies out of the way, here we go!
Stay tuned for the upcoming Riverhouse Games/The Leviathan Files Patreon!
From Scratch: I’ll be bringing a friend or two on each show, giving them five or so random games out of my list of “Games I Haven’t Played Yet”, and having them choose which one sounds good to them. We would then learn the game together from scratch and we would record both our learning of the game as well as a tiny actual play of the game in progress. A lot of people talk about how you can really only get into gaming via the “older cousin” route – someone has to teach you, you don’t usually just pick up a book & learn. This is a way to pick up new games while at the same time exploring the ways we learn how to play.
Hello Guys, Gals, and non-binary pals, and welcome to another installment of Game Closet, a podcast about queer & LGBT tabletop roleplaying games. We’re fresh off of GenCon & we’ve got a great interview today. I met Jess at Gen Con & we hit it off, so she’s coming on to talk about RPG art, queer coding, and visual signifiers in RPGs. Jess is super rad & we cover a whole bunch of cool stuff in an area of the hobby that doesn’t get talked about a whole lot. Another reminder about Acadecon, a small games convention run by The RPG Academy in Dayton, OH from November 11th through the 13th. I’m super pumped for it & you should be too! Tickets are still available. Well, that’s the intro, let’s get to the show!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying articles.
Hello friends and welcome back to Game Closet. That’s right, we’re rebranding, and making Game Closet our full time focus. We’re no longer The Riverhouse Games Podcast even though we’ll still do our other segments, Critical Theory and From Scratch here & there. For example, this episode is a Critical Theory with Quinn Wilson of Swallows of the South, an Exalted third edition actual play. Quinn’s here to teach us about improvisational storytelling, narrative frames, and how Doctor Magnethands is a sophisticated improv exercise. Wanna hang out with me & Quinn in November? Check out Acadecon, a small games convention in Dayton Ohio run by the RPG Academy Network. While we jump into this episode, I’ll put a link in the show notes. Let’s get to it!
Critical Theory: A literary analysis of a game’s text & practice, going over the questions raised by the text or the way the game plays. Cross-disciplinary approaches to tabletop gaming, or close reading of specific pieces of game text.
Hooooo boy did I have trouble with this one. I do not know what happened during recording but my audio file is complete silence. Thankfully I was able to reverse-engineer my interview with the incredible Jeff Stormer of the Party of One Podcast about 2 player RPGs, bi invisibility, and the weird expectations placed on queer people talking about queer things. Bear with us while I do my best to guess what my questions were and splice Jeff’s audio together to make a coherent episode. All in all, I think it could definitely have been worse. We will for sure get Jeff back on to have a talk where you can actually hear a conversation, but until then, check out this episode.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying articles.
Hello friends, I’m Taylor, and welcome to another episode of the Riverhouse Games Podcast. We’ve got a super cool episode today with two really rad people. We’re talking with Meghan Dornbrock from the Modifier podcast and Brandon Leon-Gambetta from Stop Hack and Roll podcast about fanfiction, transformative works, and fan created RPGs. We talk a little bit about what fanwork is and what it does for the art of roleplaying games and the community who loves them. We even assign our first bit of homework to one of our guests! Before we get into it I want to tell you about cons! I’m going to two of them, GenCon in August and Acadecon in November. If you’re going to either, give me a shout & let’s meet up! With the intro out of the way let’s jump straight into this Critical Theory episode with Meghan and Brandon
If you want to get in on the fanfiction recommendations party, tweet at me (@LeviathanFiles), Brandon (@DrCaptainKobold) or Meghan (@Meglish) with your fic recs and use the hashtag #BranFic!
We didn’t mention it in the show, but check out this episode from the Design Games Podcast with Nathan Paoletta & Will Hindmarch for more cool talk about hacking & Modding games, especially about designing games with the intent of them being hackable.
Critical Theory: A literary analysis of a game’s text & practice, going over the questions raised by the text or the way the game plays. Cross-disciplinary approaches to tabletop gaming, or close reading of specific pieces of game text.
Hello friends! And welcome to another great episode of The Riverhouse Games Podcast. We’re breaking our Games Closet streak to bring you an episode of From Scratch, our podcast about learning new games! We’re live from GeeklyCon in Portland Oregon, playing The Warren by Marshall Miller. I didn’t expect a large turnout since we were booked at the same time as the big larp but we had almost twice as many people as I expected show up! Shoutouts need to go to everyone who was there, Jaime, Millie, Dustin, Kevin, Monica, James, Jason, Alaina, and Kurt! Obvious disclaimer that this is a live show and the audio is not going to be as good as our normal episodes. The first few minutes of audio is very bad but as soon as I remember to turn the usb mic on it should get better. Let’s go be rabbits!
Stay tuned for the upcoming Riverhouse Games/The Leviathan Files Patreon!
From Scratch: I’ll be bringing a friend or two on each show, giving them five or so random games out of my list of “Games I Haven’t Played Yet”, and having them choose which one sounds good to them. We would then learn the game together from scratch and we would record both our learning of the game as well as a tiny actual play of the game in progress. A lot of people talk about how you can really only get into gaming via the “older cousin” route – someone has to teach you, you don’t usually just pick up a book & learn. This is a way to pick up new games while at the same time exploring the ways we learn how to play.
Hello friends! Welcome to another episode of the Riverhouse Games Podcast. We’re continuing our streak of Game Closet episodes and I gotta tell you, I’m super psyched to announce the guest for this week. He’s got a kickstarter going right now for a print run of the worldbook for his podcast about swords and superheroes. That’s right, I’m talking to none other than Aram from Godsfall. We talk about the production process, queer mentorship and narratives, and dive into the details of his amazing project. Aram is one of my podcasting heroes and he’s a genuinely amazing person so this episode was a joy to record. With all that out of the way let’s jump into it! (btw here’s the patreon for Raime Stark who did the art we talk about.)
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying articles.
Hello friends! This is Taylor, and you’re listening to another great episode of The Riverhouse Games Podcast. We’ve got another Game Closet this week, talking to two awesome ladies, Chris from The Leviathan Files, and Nyssa, a Canadian gamer currently working on an audio drama for the Firefly podcast. I talk to them about their experiences as trans women in gaming spaces, how to deal with problem players, and the places they love to be in. We did have our fair share of internet problems during this recording but I managed to edit out the worst of it. That said, the first about 6 minutes of Chris’s audio is totally lost, so bear with us until she pops in. So without further ado, here’s Game Closet number three with Nyssa and Chris!
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying articles.
Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of The Riverhouse Games Podcast. This week we have another episode of Critical Theory. I was joined by friend of the show, Paul, all the way from England to talk about how the traditional tabletop party can be seen as a singular force in the narrative of games. We also talk about shared imagination and memories, and he even gives me a crash course in how to say Fuck like a proper Englishman. Paul has his own show, Swordnut Radio which you can find on iTunes, Podbean, and Google Play. Let’s get right into the show!
Critical Theory: A literary analysis of a game’s text & practice, going over the questions raised by the text or the way the game plays. Cross-disciplinary approaches to tabletop gaming, or close reading of specific pieces of game text.
This one was so fun y’all! Let’s get into these show notes.
First of all, go check out Meghan and her show, Modifier on Twitter.
In this episode we talk about how Meghan has been participating in Epidiah Ravachol’s 36in16 games challenge! We also talk about this article about how your mileage may vary with gaming spaces, especially if you’re not a white cis male. Don’t fret though, because Double Exposure has your back and are dedicated to providing safe spaces for people to play and learn new games. Here’s a good episode of Justice Points, a videogames podcast about feminism and social justice, where the hosts talk about Storium. We take a short tangent to gush about Rainbow Rowell‘s books, Carry On & Fangirl, but get back on track to talk at length about my favorite game of all time, Monsterhearts. We discuss map games like Fall of Magic, The Quiet Year, and the as yet unreleased Companion’s Tale. We look at Jason Morningstar’s The Skeletons and talk about the ease of getting into smaller games as opposed to big titles. We talk about games that break the mold for what you expect from RPGs, like Golden Sky Stories, and Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish Granting Engine. We talked a little bit about games that were a little harder to learn like Torchbearer, but then we talked about a couple of games from the new #Feminism nano game anthology. We talked about this episode of Backstory, featuring Lizzie Stark and the confessional nature of games. We wrapped up by talking about how the game for this episode reminded us of Caitlynn Belle’s Our Radios Are Dying and shared our mutual love for the Party of One Podcast.
The game for this episode is One Missed Call, by Caroline Hobbs.
(BTW here’s the flowchart Meghan & I were talking about)
From Scratch: I’ll be bringing a friend or two on each show, giving them five or so random games out of my list of “Games I Haven’t Played Yet”, and having them choose which one sounds good to them. We would then learn the game together from scratch and we would record both our learning of the game as well as a tiny actual play of the game in progress. A lot of people talk about how you can really only get into gaming via the “older cousin” route – someone has to teach you, you don’t usually just pick up a book & learn. This is a way to pick up new games while at the same time exploring the ways we learn how to play.
Hello friends, this is Taylor, your host for the Riverhouse Gaming Podcast. We’ve past the first rotation of our segments, so it’s time for another lap. We’re starting round two with another episode of Game Closet, our show about queer and LGBT gamers. We’re airing this one out of order actually, as we had recorded it before my chat with Caitlynn Belle. We’re all a little nervous about recording, and thinking “should we really be people with a show?” but after editing, I think we did a great job. In this episode, I sit down with the majority of the cast of the other show on our network, The Leviathan Files. We talk about that show, how we met & started gaming, and a little history of queer representation in gaming sourcebooks. As always, share and enjoy!
Gold, Lee. “Self-Censorship.” Interactive Fantasy 4 (1995). The Oracle: Essays. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying articles.
Join us this week as we chat with my good friend, David Gottfried, about the Dragon Age RPG’s section on character goals. David shares his experience with the Meisner Technique of acting, & how you can apply that to your gaming. We also talk about creating safe ways to express your goals & desires, ways to open yourself to new gaming groups, & how to properly gauge your character goal’s emotional weight.
Just a reminder, Singularity is still on Kickstarter, with 9 days to go! They just released a cool feature where, if you back at a significant level, you can unlock setting hacks for the game.
Critical Theory: A literary analysis of a game’s text & practice, going over the questions raised by the text or the way the game plays. Cross-disciplinary approaches to tabletop gaming, or close reading of specific pieces of game text.
Join us as we talk to Aura Belle, game designer for Singularity, live on Kickstarter until the morning of March 30th. We talk queer gaming, safe spaces, and her new game, a transhumanist dating sim.
Game Closet: interviewing LGBT+ people in tabletop gaming, creators, fans, anyone! Interviews would talk about personal experiences, games with (or without) LGBT+ representations or themes, or using queer content in gaming. Are you queer or LGBT+ and want to be featured on The Game Closet? Check out our Contact Us page! You can also check out the articles mentioned in the show by checking out our collection of queer/LGBT+ roleplaying articles.
From Scratch: I’ll be bringing a friend or two on each show, giving them five or so random games out of my list of “Games I Haven’t Played Yet”, and having them choose which one sounds good to them. We would then learn the game together from scratch and we would record both our learning of the game as well as a tiny actual play of the game in progress. A lot of people talk about how you can really only get into gaming via the “older cousin” route – someone has to teach you, you don’t usually just pick up a book & learn. This is a way to pick up new games while at the same time exploring the ways we learn how to play.
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