Latest / Smooth Critical / C1 Ep.5.5: Fireside Chat

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C1 Ep.5.5: Fireside Chat · Smooth Critical

0:00
What's up gang? It's Avni.
0:02
Today's going to be a little bit different.
0:04
Instead of your standard episode, we will have a couple
0:07
special things planned as we finish our first mini arc where
0:11
we had both a dungeon and a dragon.
0:13
We will be having a little fireside chat, similar to FDR
0:17
during the Great Depression, except a lot less important to
0:20
the country. We'll be discussing our favorite
0:22
moments, things we are looking forward to, and any theories my
0:25
wonderful players have. So without further ado, ladies
0:29
and gentlemen, and those not conforming to any specific
0:32
gender identity, your DM? Avni.
0:36
Take it away. Pass Avni.
1:09
Welcome back to Smooth Critical. I'm your fearless leader, Avni.
1:13
Hey, actually a quick question. Avni, are you OK?
1:16
Avni, are you OK? Are you OK, Avni?
1:19
I am fantastic because we are having a very special episode
1:24
this time today we'll just be kind of talking about our
1:27
favorite moments from the past five sessions, any of our
1:31
thoughts, conspiracy theories, stuff like that.
1:34
It's also a great way for me to see what our players have been
1:37
thinking and honestly, maybe using their ideas against them.
1:41
So let's meet our palatable players, Himai.
1:47
Hello. Harry.
1:48
What's up? And Charlie?
1:50
Hello. Hello.
1:51
So guys, a lot has happened and there's a lot of very exciting
1:56
things that have been happening behind scenes as you guys are
1:59
playing. I love taking my notes, but what
2:02
has really stood out to you? What has your guys's favorite
2:05
moments been so far? There's so much I feel like we
2:09
should probably like walk through it step by step.
2:12
Step by. The whole campaign.
2:15
Yeah, let's actually let's start pool #1.
2:17
Oh yeah, Lock in. This better be our longest
2:19
episode. Yeah, we.
2:21
Recap only 5 sessions. I liked when he might got his
2:24
hand cut off. Yeah, episode one, that first
2:28
session. Episode 1 My low He might was
2:31
bamboozled. Yeah, that was Wolf.
2:35
That was definitely a low in the moment though.
2:38
I do like, at the time I also thought it was a bud because I
2:42
was very excited to see like where it could go story wise and
2:45
also mechanics wise because Avani wrote a really good home
2:47
brew rules for getting your limbs chopped off, which I
2:50
didn't know how early that was going to come into play.
2:52
And it came into play pretty early.
2:54
So yeah. The rules make more sense that
2:58
you're going to lose these limbs at lower levels.
3:01
So just came out swinging right out the gate and you know, later
3:05
you'll be hardier and hopefully have those upgrades and all that
3:09
extra power. But yeah, got to lose some limbs
3:11
first, yeah? You might what?
3:14
What were you feeling in that moment when you got your limbs
3:17
cut off? Episode 1.
3:19
Shock and awe, but also one step closer to being Edward Elric
3:24
from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
3:27
And that is what then inspired cutting off the entire arm in
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the in the next session or in the next session?
3:34
Yeah, in second. Session session 2.
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Yeah, so I remember trying to figure out how I could spin it
3:39
positively cuz in the end I feel like you just kind of gotta roll
3:42
with what's happening. Mm hmm.
3:44
And then keep moving on and trying to figure out the what
3:48
the story is gonna be for your character as well.
3:50
So. I remember I, I, I got to ask
3:54
you which hand you wanted to cut off.
3:56
So I, I was gonna just do like a coin toss, but I was like, this
4:01
is session 1. Like, this would really suck if,
4:03
like, he claimed this to be his, like, dominant hand and like,
4:07
yeah, yeah. However, I do.
4:09
Think you? Then you did.
4:10
I did get my dominant hand. You did choose.
4:14
And then I think later on in the episode, you're like, man, I
4:17
really wish I didn't lose my right hand.
4:21
He actually forgot about that. Also just read out the gate
4:24
Bunty being a certified freak from the beginning he was was
4:28
fantastic from you Avni. Insane off the bat, yeah.
4:32
Well, I, I, before I consulted with he my, I had test run a
4:37
couple voices around my apartment.
4:39
I did seem like a crazy person, but then I was like, you know,
4:42
let me he my suggested bunty, let me like see what he says.
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And it was like just totally different, just totally
4:49
different. And I was like, well this
4:52
changes. Can we?
4:53
Can we hear an example? I'm pretty sure I said like,
4:55
just a like a tiny little weirdo.
4:57
Like, just like the weirdest little little guy, Mike
5:01
Wazowski. Yeah, he said.
5:03
RFK Junior. But I did say RFK Junior.
5:06
Yeah, yeah, I did. RFK Junior, that's where I get
5:09
that like smoky part of his voice from us.
5:11
If I smoked a couple packs, then to answer your question,
5:14
Charlie, I think it was just going to be like a little cuter,
5:17
just like a little guy like, oh, hi.
5:20
The classic Avni D&D little guy voice.
5:23
Yeah, that. Way I'm pretty sure we saw that
5:26
voice come back with Janie and Rug.
5:28
We did. Yeah, yeah, Little.
5:30
Guy a little bit deeper. Yeah, it was pretty deep.
5:34
It was like. It.
5:36
Was just like Airy. Holy shit, run.
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You guys imagine if if Bunty sounded like that but was like
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acted the same like just had the voice.
5:46
Oh God, that would in a way be more unsettling I would think.
5:50
Oh, I think it would be. I think it would be, yeah.
5:52
Yeah, he did say there's a brood of Bunty's, which you all
5:55
pointed out so. Oh.
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My God. A brood.
5:58
That is one of the things I'm very much looking forward to,
6:01
just overall like since I want to say was the third session.
6:05
I think the session 3 ended with the Thesmira Lady of Breath.
6:09
So yeah, session session 3 is what I'm thinking about putting
6:12
the clues together, getting all of these bits of information
6:15
like both historically, Harry having that moment with the with
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the 20 on, on casting mending I think it was.
6:23
Yep. All of that I'm, I'm very much
6:26
looking forward to in the campaign.
6:27
I don't know how it's gonna like, come together.
6:29
Like I've thought about like, are we going to that like Lost
6:32
Kingdom? Are we gonna figure things out
6:35
elsewhere in the world? Like who's gonna know about
6:38
these things? We can't really go and ask the
6:39
Imperator like the oldest guy who would possibly know those
6:42
things. My bad.
6:43
Yeah, sorry about that. My bad.
6:46
Too like Abe will Abe. It's on site for Abe as as you
6:50
know so. Abe is nothing if not like loyal
6:55
beyond to comprehension. Yeah, yeah.
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I'm very much looking forward to that.
6:59
And and in that same vein, like the fact that there are multiple
7:02
bunties and that bunty can level up, like what does that mean?
7:05
I don't know. I'm just very much looking
7:07
forward to those things. Those little crumbs of of
7:10
information were very well placed into the story early on.
7:14
I'm not expecting like the entire campaign to like revolve
7:17
around those things, but having that ability to like go back and
7:20
ask those questions and investigate that.
7:22
Very good. Very much looking forward to.
7:24
That thank you. I love dropping those little
7:27
clues and hints because I've played DND with you guys for a
7:30
very long time now and I know what things will get you to
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like, kind of obsess over a little bit.
7:38
Charlie, What's your What's your episode 1 highlight?
7:41
Oh, for episode 1, I know, I know they were kind of kind of
7:45
really awkward, but all of our interactions when we were first
7:48
met each other in the pits. I, I, I think it was just
7:51
interesting because I, I went into it with like the cap of
7:54
disguise. Knowing is like, alright, so I
7:56
can get by most things, but if I have like physical contact with
7:59
someone, that's kind of the limit.
8:01
And then I was, I was very much thrown off guard when the first
8:05
interaction I had with Abe was for Abe to offer me his hand.
8:11
And I was like, oh shit. I like, I want to just take it
8:15
and just let it be. But I can't.
8:16
If I if I know the limits of of like a spell or something, I
8:20
can't just like ignore that. Wait, I I fully thought that you
8:25
weren't grabbing Abe's hand because you're you don't have
8:28
warm blood like that, was my interpretation of the moment.
8:32
Is it because of the spell? Well yes, I mean that's part of
8:35
it. Like the point is like if I had
8:36
grabbed his hand he would have felt like a cold metal.
8:39
OK, OK, OK. Contraption instead of.
8:41
I see, I see the disguise self is extending beyond.
8:45
I thought. I thought it was just.
8:46
Just to hold up the touch. Yeah, yeah.
8:48
Yeah, that's also why there was like the arrow that hit me later
8:50
on in session, one that like didn't affect my body the way it
8:54
should have and. Yeah, There were a lot of you
8:56
held on to that secret pretty well.
8:58
There were a lot of little clues as things went on.
9:01
Like I think, I think at some point both you kissed Abe on the
9:05
head when Abe was getting his arm surgery and it was just like
9:09
cold metal, the Abe said. And he just went interesting.
9:13
Yeah. So I want you to know if if we
9:15
had grasped hands in that moment, Abe definitely would
9:18
have just been like, oh, OK, this guy's got metal hands.
9:24
Honestly, like part of me wishes I kind of just went with it.
9:28
I, I don't know, I think, I think having hints to that.
9:30
And then also later on in the episode I changed my face to
9:34
fuck with Jabo. Oh.
9:36
Yeah, behind everyone's back. I didn't go into it feeling like
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I was like, all right, I'm going to use the cap of this guy's to
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show that I have it so that I I can like prove that I'm not like
9:45
just inventing it later on. But I liked being tricky and
9:48
using that. Going back to the pits, another
9:51
thing that was so good from episode 1 was Monos.
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Yeah, coming up with the name for the Monos.
9:59
I was about to go into that, too.
10:01
Yeah, that's one of my favorite bits, Bond, being so not
10:04
enthusiastic about it, The fact that you just like latched onto
10:09
that right away and being like, all right, we're going for.
10:12
It so The thing is I try to take important notes, but limited
10:15
notes during the session so I'm not just like scratching about.
10:18
So I just had I abbreviated as monos and I was like, that's
10:22
that's it. Like that's what it's going to
10:23
be because like, I can't. I'm not going.
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To write so it's so much better that.
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It's it's the. Short word that we don't have to
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say monosyllabic. Every single time, yeah.
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There was no way I was going to do that.
10:33
Some things are just for ease of me.
10:36
I'm kind of looking through some of our rosebud thorns from the
10:39
second session and I think like I didn't realize how much of A
10:44
slow burn we had on Bose back story, which I felt like was
10:48
done very well through like there were bits, right?
10:51
Like in session one, there was more in session 2, especially
10:55
with the prophecy. And even though like in
10:57
character, we didn't necessarily like let on too much about that.
11:01
Like Bo did end up telling us about that and trusting us with
11:04
that and letting us know that, you know, like there are these
11:07
things. Like there was the Domina's
11:08
relationship with him, what that was.
11:11
And then later on in the third session, like we get kind of
11:14
like a forced reveal through the mirror and then with the arms.
11:17
That was really cool, the mirror.
11:19
Yeah, I love the mirror. Him then choosing to tell us was
11:22
also, I feel like it was a good payoff to that.
11:24
Whereas in the case of Abe, I'm just telling you guys from the
11:27
go, every from the get go, my brothers in prison, my parents
11:30
are dead or missing and bunties here and I wanna kill the
11:34
impaired. He's so mysterious.
11:38
What are his motives? Yeah, it was fun playing with
11:43
Bose Secret, a little bit like getting that hint towards it.
11:47
And the mirror was just. The mirror was a great point to
11:51
look at. Hell yeah, I love, I love magic
11:53
mirrors of any kind. So with the, I think it was the
11:56
second episode when we like did all the puzzles.
11:59
Puzzles are very, very hit or miss sometimes I think, and I
12:03
think you guys were just like the right amount of stupid that
12:07
made it entertaining to go through it.
12:10
I liked the the second puzzle, that was my favorite one of the
12:13
two. You're talking about, are you
12:14
talking about the one with the the chest where you just had to
12:17
shut off your brain? The mimics.
12:19
I I thought that one was really funny.
12:21
That was you guys caught on pretty quick and it was good
12:24
because Beau failed his intelligent saving throw.
12:27
Otherwise you'd never know if you kept passing.
12:30
Yeah, so unlikely that Beau would fail an intelligent saving
12:33
throw. How did we even pass that one
12:37
specifically? Who was it that ended up opening
12:39
the right one? I think I did.
12:41
So I said it out loud and then and then Harry was like, oh, OK,
12:45
I just walked up. Don't think.
12:49
Because we would have had to fight maybe 12 mimics or
12:52
something like that. Well, you said afterwards that
12:54
they were like regenerating. We could have just kept going
12:57
through. I don't think we have gotten
13:00
through like 3 like we would, yeah.
13:02
That did have Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Ron,
13:05
Hermione and Harry vibes going into the end of the book it.
13:08
Was definitely. Yeah, no, totally.
13:11
The other episode 2 thing that I thought was really fun was
13:14
stealing the keys. Oh yes.
13:16
Cuz I like went up with a plan of like, I'm going to talk to
13:21
the Captain Lumiere about this a certain way.
13:24
And then like one sentence in, Abe stepped in and.
13:28
Was just like. Punish this this underlay, it
13:34
caught me so off guard. Even the best laid plans.
13:39
Yeah, Abe's got some growing to do for sure.
13:42
No, no. That was perfect on it because
13:44
it was. It was a way better distraction
13:46
than anything I could have done. Was just like completely
13:49
opposite of what I was trying to do.
13:52
Also, just imagine like imagining any public scenario
13:56
where like someone in a position of authority is, is like
14:00
physically hurting someone below them and just somebody walking
14:04
up and being like, yeah, keep going.
14:06
That's great. Monkey gets his freak from
14:11
somewhere. Yeah, he learned it.
14:13
That's true from you, Abe. Yeah, that was definitely
14:18
something because the plan definitely got stronger when Abe
14:21
showed up. It caused more of a distraction.
14:25
I had plans like Lumiere was going to was going to roll
14:28
because, you know, unless bonded something like absolutely crazy.
14:31
It was more just like a regular conversation that he could
14:33
multitask a little more, but with with Abe just throwing
14:38
himself in there, he became just like a hodgepodge of God knows
14:41
what. Anybody else for episode 2?
14:43
I don't know, I liked all of the kind of tricky stuff in episode
14:47
2. I liked again using the of
14:49
disguise to like try to finesse some deals.
14:53
Oh, Ballandida. Ballandida.
14:55
Yeah, Oh yeah, and the the prophecy, I guess he might have
14:58
mentioned that earlier, but that was one of my favorite parts.
15:00
Yeah, I said it before, I'll say it again.
15:02
I love prophecies, like cryptic prophecies and what's what's the
15:08
line you mistake yourself for the seed when you are the root
15:12
that never died. That stuck with me so well, Oh
15:14
my God. There was prophecies for
15:17
everyone. Prophecies aplenty.
15:20
Prophecies if you decided to get more than one, prophecies.
15:23
One of these days I'll get a good dream.
15:26
Salt Prophecy. Oh yeah, forget that was bad.
15:30
You were tripping so hard. Yeah, I do like how there hasn't
15:34
been like a pretty solid payoff for the Dream Salt yet.
15:39
Nope, it's only been either harmful or like neutral I think.
15:44
Right. It's pretty stacked in your
15:46
favor for the most. I know.
15:48
That's with your high religion. That's a stupid thing.
15:52
I know I've like already, we already kind of talked about
15:55
this overarchingly, but I'm reading now again through the
15:58
messages about how like after the third session was just
16:02
hooked. I've just been hooked on the
16:04
story. I know.
16:05
And like, I don't know, it's, it's hard to do that.
16:08
I feel like in ADND campaign sometimes, because you might
16:12
have like a really grand story or you might have a very simple
16:15
one. But like getting the players to
16:18
really buy in to the mystery can be difficult.
16:21
Yeah. And so like, yeah, through like
16:23
function of like obviously I'm sure there was some like you
16:26
letting us find some things and some good roles and whatnot.
16:29
But like session 3 to me, even though there's a lot of action
16:33
that happened after the fact, like that was really like peek
16:37
peek hook. It was just a really
16:38
well-rounded session. And even like the sessions after
16:41
that, what was really cool about that first kind of dungeon is
16:46
that it presumably touched on like all aspects of all of our
16:50
backstories. And then of course, it also like
16:53
had clues about the fallen Empire, which I feel like kind
16:56
of is in the background of all of this.
16:58
And is, you know, connected to everything in some way.
17:02
So like having like the mechanical arm for for bow to
17:05
find. And it's strangling bow, which
17:07
by the way, is one of the most helpless I felt in D&D being
17:11
strangled by your own arm in like in the best way.
17:14
Like that's absolutely a compliment.
17:16
Not like a complaint, but like just being like, OK, well, I
17:20
guess my, my limbs are attacking myself now.
17:23
What do I do? But also like that, but then
17:28
finding the different letters where it was.
17:31
There was letter from a guy about his son.
17:35
Yes, there was a summoning ritual that was related to
17:39
Bunty. Yeah, unfinished.
17:41
Yeah. Yeah, there's the morning mantra
17:43
or the prayer. Stuff, Yeah.
17:46
Yeah, the prayer from. The Lady of Breath and the fact
17:48
that like, I mean, we at the time and I still think like
17:52
Charlie's character is wrapped up in it.
17:54
The fact that it's also like, obviously, obviously the stories
17:57
written for us, but it's touching on many different
18:00
aspects of our different characters at this point, like
18:03
Harry obviously being a cleric of this, Mira, Charlie's
18:06
character being perhaps way older and connected to
18:09
immortality in some way. And then Bunty.
18:12
Why? Why Bunty?
18:13
But. Well, it's also like you in
18:16
searching for immortality. Yeah, like with Abe's back
18:20
story, Abe's drive for this knowledge.
18:22
There's that like a monk brotherhood too.
18:25
Yeah, I mean. You're seemingly a part of maybe
18:28
now or have similar powers too. Yeah, you dove right into.
18:33
Yeah, yeah. Does it still look like Bunty?
18:35
We haven't changed it. Don't change it.
18:37
Abe's gonna change it. We haven't changed.
18:38
It though. I it's, it's hard to play
18:42
sometimes, but it's very fun having the I mean, Charlie and
18:46
brought this up a while ago, but like, Abe doesn't like to admit
18:51
that he likes Bunty, but he does, Yeah.
18:55
We know. Yeah.
18:56
I feel like everything about like the two of you interacting
19:01
as Abe and Bunty has been excellent from episode 1.
19:04
Like right off the bat, like I've been thinking a lot about
19:07
this and like the only way I can describe it is like he might is
19:12
the kid that you really want to play with at the playground
19:16
because he's so good at pretend. And that's how I feel like
19:25
you've been like you're just talking to Bunty like a little
19:28
sibling, like get in the cloak, like all this stupid stuff that
19:32
just like is. So it makes sense when you're
19:34
listening to it, but coming up with it is a whole other thing.
19:37
I don't know. I think you do such a good job
19:40
with that. I feel like it it does a really
19:42
good job of conveying Abe's age. Yes, how?
19:45
How old is he again? Yeah, he's like, I mean, I think
19:49
I've maybe said it explicitly. I know in my back story I did
19:53
write it down that he's like supposed to be late teens, early
19:57
20s. I might have even written down
19:59
like 20 or something. But that being said, like the
20:02
guy's been isolated. For a long time, yeah.
20:07
Totally makes sense that he's like a.
20:08
Little. Yeah.
20:10
When I play Bunty, I really do think like, what if I was like
20:15
Humai's little sister? How could I piss off Humai?
20:22
Excellent middle child energy. You do a very good.
20:24
I mean, a part of it is also like, I appreciate you saying
20:27
that like, oh, coming up with like, oh, get in the cloak or
20:30
something is like good in the moment.
20:32
But Avni does a very good job at having, like, those little,
20:35
little, like things that Bunty will just say at random points
20:39
when it's, like, inopportune or just not good.
20:42
And it gives me an opportunity to, like, latch onto that and be
20:45
like, Bunty, shut up. You know, Like, yeah.
20:47
Oh. My God, you, you being earnestly
20:52
like Bunty, do you think you can transform?
20:55
And like we should have, we should have known right off the
20:58
bat. I fully expected something to
21:00
happen, but the fact that Avni didn't ask for a role should
21:03
have been cool enough. What was to come?
21:08
Yeah, I just took a shit on the ground.
21:10
That sounds about right. Oh man, when I was going back
21:13
and editing that, that one made me laugh so hard every time I
21:17
listened to it. I did music for it that like
21:20
makes it sound like something's about to happen and it cuts off
21:23
right before. Oh, incredible.
21:28
Yeah, I'll be honest, like sometimes when you guys ask me
21:31
insane things like that, I really do consider it.
21:35
Like for a split second I was like, yeah, what if Bunty could
21:39
just do something so crazy right now?
21:41
Like I could just write it into the story later, but I decided a
21:45
shit was probably easier to explain.
21:49
That's super fair. Well, along the same vein, I
21:51
guess this is going back to to episode 1.
21:54
Props to you of need for going along when I question about
21:58
about the use of alternative uses of Gladiator patches.
22:04
Yeah, I knew where that was going.
22:05
It wasn't super hard. I lived with like 5 dudes.
22:09
It was like. Fair enough.
22:11
Oh, session three also when you guys learned about the dragon
22:16
and just bond being like, oh fuck, like are we just going
22:19
down? Like keep just going down into a
22:22
dragon? Like are we fucking serious?
22:24
Like should we turn around? Should we just There's a dragon
22:28
down there? Yeah, and.
22:30
I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting the stakes to be this
22:33
high this early and I genuinely was like, is this the point
22:37
where we should turn around? But also like we do not have the
22:40
artifact yet. This was like our whole session,
22:44
one quest and immediately, like as a player, I was genuinely
22:48
afraid of like, guys, we don't got this like.
22:52
Well, yeah, on top of that, Bond was having like the second worst
22:56
day of his life. That's true.
23:00
That was, I remember session 3 when I learned that there was
23:04
the dragon. I don't think I played it or
23:06
role played it at all, but in my head I fully believed we weren't
23:10
going to encounter the dragon, that we were just going to get
23:12
the artifact before we ever got to the dragon I.
23:15
Know and that it was just. Going to be safe and we're going
23:17
to get it and we're going to get out of there.
23:18
But I will say like, I mean jumping ahead, the scene for the
23:22
room where the dragon was with the Elvin like Wizards, I think
23:26
it was who? Were episode 5.
23:29
Episode 5 that the scene setting I think was like really amazing,
23:35
really well done with like the candles and trying to keep all
23:38
of those a lit with the dragon asleep.
23:41
It was very intense in a way where I don't think like I think
23:44
maybe I'd imagined, Oh, you know, just like dragon in a lair
23:47
asleep. But this was much more like
23:49
active. It was so high stakes, yeah.
23:53
I haven't heard the audio yet but I'm sure that that like the
23:56
shakiness of my voice comes through because I was so on
24:00
edge. When you were in the Dragon's
24:03
Horde, you could feel it like you were you were in the moment.
24:08
And I, I think I expressed it and like after the session, but
24:12
if I was just in there and I had like no luck points, no like
24:17
clockwork amulet and nothing to like change my actual roles, I
24:22
think it would have actually been a lot less stressful
24:25
because then it's just in the die.
24:26
There's not much that you can do about it.
24:28
But when you do have the luck points and you do have that like
24:31
13 that you can just replace AD 20 roll with, you have to think
24:35
about like every all strategically.
24:37
It was like, do I want advantage on this?
24:39
Do I want to just succeed automatically?
24:41
Yeah, that's what was making my heartbeat.
24:44
But I was also like a part of me was hoping that I would wake the
24:48
dragon up because I was ready to just say that.
24:50
I bumped the whistle stone in my pocket that I got from Plorsons
24:54
Plorsons and just whistled the dragon awake.
24:57
I was gonna say it being like after we got the tablet and on
25:02
our way out, the dragon was waking up like, yeah, yeah,
25:06
sucks. But also.
25:08
That was like the perfect time for it, not just for like story
25:11
wise, but it took me to the last round to actually get the tablet
25:15
inside the Horde. Like if I had woken him up any
25:19
earlier than that, would we have even gotten the tablet?
25:22
Yeah, no, I actually. So I pulled up your roles for
25:27
when you were inside the dragon horde.
25:28
Oh my God. Round 4 out of the 10 rounds.
25:32
Round 4 you were actually in the same area as the tablet, but you
25:37
rolled too low on your perception check and you didn't
25:40
see it, and then it took until the last round.
25:43
Yep, that was the only time that I actually had the chance.
25:45
Yeah, I was like, OK, one last stealth roll on the way out, you
25:49
guys are fine. DC 20, right?
25:51
Because Avis, Avis stealthy as fuck and so is Beau.
25:54
So this should have been something I wasn't concerned
25:57
about because all the other stealth rolls were like 24/24/26
26:01
like. Correct me if I'm wrong, but
26:02
Abe's still rolled like well, but it just like wasn't good
26:05
enough right it? Was like an 18 or 19 or
26:07
something like that. Like I rolled low with my
26:10
bonuses. It still wasn't.
26:11
Yeah, it wasn't enough. And then didn't you narrate this
26:14
like one of the candles went out and that's what like caused it?
26:18
God, I love, I love the imagery. It's very.
26:20
It was good, very visceral. Very Kung Fu Panda, you know?
26:24
Yeah. You know, I was actually.
26:26
That's what I was going. On considered Kung Fu Panda.
26:29
That's really good. I was thinking it.
26:32
It was very much giving me vibes of Fellowship of the Ring in the
26:37
Minds. Yeah, when they drop the thing
26:39
down the and then they hear all the I think it's the goblins.
26:43
Oh yeah, the whole way down. I've never actually seen.
26:46
Overtook. Throw yourself in next time and
26:49
save us the trouble. Exactly, Harry.
26:52
I swear to God, if you're about to say you've never seen
26:54
Fellowship of the Ring. I've only ever seen The Hobbit.
26:57
I'm sorry people. What?
27:00
No sense in Dragons. I know it doesn't make sense for
27:03
me at all. This is so awful.
27:06
Friend, it's also. What all?
27:08
Of this is based on like all of these like.
27:11
I know, I know dude. I understand a lot of it because
27:15
it's just getting reference through so many things.
27:17
It's very brave of you to come out on the fireside chat like
27:21
this, yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna clarify
27:26
that I had to fight the disappointment, but I'm actually
27:30
more excited for you than anything else.
27:32
I I think, I think you got something good in store.
27:34
Yeah, the fact that you can experience it for the first time
27:37
is pretty cool and we should try to do it together if we can.
27:41
I would really like to. That would be fun.
27:42
Also like as a question, did you, did you like The Hobbit?
27:45
Yeah, of course I like The Hobbit.
27:47
I mean like. OK, then you're you're you're
27:49
gonna be blown away. It's it's not gonna be.
27:52
Levels above. It's so much better.
27:53
Levels above. It's so, yeah.
27:55
So much better. Yeah.
27:58
I've seen bits and pieces of a lot of them, I feel.
28:00
Like that's worse. In college would just do
28:02
marathons. I don't know, movies were not
28:04
that big in my family growing up like.
28:06
I mean, to be fair, I watched Lord of the Rings quite late in
28:09
my life as well because like my parents weren't into that stuff.
28:13
So yeah, I definitely watched it like let's say like late middle
28:15
school, early high school, something like that.
28:17
When like I heard about the, I think I'd read The Two Towers
28:20
randomly, like on my Kindle at the time, and like, didn't
28:25
really. And I was like, huh, it's kind
28:26
of cool gonna go check out the movies.
28:29
And then I was locked in. I bought all the extended movies
28:32
on iTunes at the time with my mom's Apple account.
28:36
She was not happy about that. And then me and my sister
28:43
watched all three of them. This was before like all The
28:46
Hobbit movies were out I think. That's awesome.
28:48
We had a town and country minivan growing up with the DVD
28:52
players in the back. Seats, yeah.
28:55
And I think we burned through at least 2 DVD trilogies just from
29:01
like where of like, you know, like playing a DVD doesn't wear
29:05
it. But when you're like a 5 year
29:06
old kid and you're interacting with it, it does.
29:08
Yeah. So at least 2 like full
29:11
trilogies where we had to buy the movies and again, maybe even
29:14
a third time. I don't know how many times I've
29:16
seen those movies all the way through.
29:18
Yeah, that's like me, but The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
29:22
Nice, yeah. I was gonna say to Charlie,
29:25
bringing up the kind of happy that you haven't experienced it
29:28
yet, and so you have this opportunity to experience it for
29:32
the first time. Along the same vein, Love Me
29:36
there's this fantastic, fantastic piece of media that
29:39
has inspired much of my creative work in Duns and Dragons, both
29:43
players and pretty. Independent not many people have
29:46
heard about. It's pretty low.
29:48
Interesting, it's a Japanese art form called anime.
29:52
And there is, yeah, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood is
29:55
genuinely one of. I mean, I don't recommend it
29:58
lightly if there's one. I know, I know, it's that one.
30:03
When grad school is done I will pick it up.
30:06
I pinky promise. But I first need to graduate.
30:09
We can get an Airbnb somewhere and just we'll record some some
30:16
crazy shit and we'll we'll watch movies.
30:20
Sounds awesome. Yeah.
30:22
So we've talked about a lot of the session.
30:26
I think the biggest thing that we haven't talked about was
30:30
those mini scenes I had you guys do at the end of session 5.
30:34
I had a lot of fun with that. I didn't want it to necessarily
30:38
be just give me this skill check.
30:40
Give me this skill check. I like that you guys got to
30:43
narrate what you would do in that scene.
30:46
And I think Beau, you being an arcane Trickster, but having
30:51
very low intelligence is great in the way that you pick your
30:55
spells. Like your feather fall came in
30:57
handy. That was so great.
30:58
And having shield and things like that, not having to rely on
31:02
your intelligence while still being a spellcaster.
31:05
You've come up with some like great uses for it already.
31:08
Yeah, that was definitely an interesting decision going into
31:10
it because I wasn't absolutely certain I was going to be an
31:13
trickster, but I really wanted to be.
31:15
However, I don't usually put a lot of points into intelligence
31:19
as you guys might know my past characters.
31:22
So I I was nervous about that, but I was looking through like
31:25
the wizard spells at first level and I was like, oh, the ones
31:30
that, or a lot of the ones that I would actually want to pick
31:33
don't even require the spell casting like because like
31:37
Featherfall and Shield were probably ones that I was going
31:40
to pick anyway. And yeah, it worked out
31:43
perfectly. You could get magic missile
31:45
also. That's a really solid 1.
31:48
Do you have to subtract your intelligence off the damage
31:50
though? Is it 1D4?
31:51
No, wait, do you? I don't think so.
31:53
Is it like? I don't think it uses your
31:56
bonus, does it? That sounds right, but it might.
31:59
It might be like the special case where if you have a
32:01
negative, you do apply that. Or the 5th edition 1 is just one
32:04
D 4 + 1? Well, I might, but I also don't
32:08
like Magic Missile that much so I probably won't.
32:11
Yeah, that's fair. I know Harry loves Magic
32:13
Missile. Dude, Magic Missile's so good.
32:16
Yeah, get Bunty a wand of Magic Missile.
32:19
No. Honestly.
32:21
That that would be. Very dangerous.
32:23
That's very irresponsible. That's like.
32:25
You guys would be dead, yeah. Honestly him having the bunk it
32:29
is already pretty dangerous. I know I'm so excited for the
32:32
bunk it to pay off, like the bunk it's going to pay off.
32:36
It has a low so he's got to use it sooner rather than later, so.
32:40
Maybe we can get it upgraded or something at one of like the
32:43
artifices the Bonkit Extreme. Maybe if there's a low level
32:48
guard at some point later on that we just don't want to kill,
32:51
but. We should just bonk them.
32:52
Bunty, that's all you I. Was looking at two things, like
32:56
going back across all of the sessions and like 2 of the very
33:00
like morally good like moments where I seem to have thought
33:04
like there were good moral centres of the party.
33:07
One of which was like session 2, I think Bond being generally
33:11
just like a good person in his interactions, like throughout
33:15
going around the city and shopping and like paying for
33:19
some of Abe's things like that was I feel like that was a good,
33:22
good setup long term for his character.
33:25
And then the other one in the session 5 at the end, Charlie's
33:28
speech as Beau to Bond and to Abe about like, I don't know,
33:33
kind of just like locking in. And yeah, it was, it was the
33:38
perfect thing for that moment. I think also like massively
33:42
expanded Bose character in a in a very believable way, in a way
33:47
that felt like had build up as well.
33:50
I think that was very, very good and something I think about
33:53
still. And I'm looking forward to
33:54
seeing how all of that like kind of develops as we go on.
33:58
Yeah, that last like 35 minutes of of episode 5 was crazy and
34:04
and like going into this speech, I feel like Abe was freaking the
34:08
fuck out. Bond was like heartbroken and
34:11
like Ego was destroyed. Killed a child.
34:16
I'll talk about that more in a moment, but yeah, I don't know,
34:21
Charlie, what was what was going through your head?
34:23
There. So it's really funny because you
34:25
guys have mentioned it a few times and I swear to God, I
34:28
don't remember a single word that I said.
34:30
During the speech I have to I. Have to listen to the audio
34:33
again. That's so funny.
34:35
I think I remember I capped it off with we're gonna get those
34:38
motherfuckers or something like that.
34:40
The thought process for me was like, I kinda played Bo cautious
34:45
at the start and felt like I had to stick with that.
34:49
And as time went on, I was kind of looking for like a way to get
34:54
a little bit more acquainted with the party because I really
34:57
don't want to be the edgy rogue who, yeah, you know, does his
35:01
own thing. I kind of hate that.
35:03
But I also a little bit shoehorned myself into that just
35:06
slightly. But again, I think the speech
35:09
was a good way out cuz I like going into it with the, the
35:13
interaction with Bond and the Imperator.
35:16
Yeah, personally, as Charlie, I loved that.
35:20
As as Beau, as a player, I like Beau, hated that, like being the
35:26
center of attention and like drawing attention to yourself
35:29
because his whole thing, the whole reason he looks like an
35:31
average dude is so that people won't remember him in his face.
35:36
And like, and so yeah, drawing attention to yourself was like
35:40
he, I think I even narrated that he was like looking for a way
35:43
out slightly, but decided to stick with you guys.
35:46
So I think it was him kind of throwing his eggs in the basket
35:51
with you guys after all. I guess that that moment, the
35:55
confrontation and the speech, like that was the moment our
35:58
party became a party. Like we obviously were a party,
36:02
right? Like we were these gliders that
36:03
fought together. We had some stuff but now it was
36:05
like, we have these like there, there is a bond now.
36:08
Yeah, we were. We were butting heads.
36:10
Yeah, we were butting heads and like, yeah, it also solidified
36:14
our characters. Very like Bond.
36:16
That's true. Bond is good, like he was trying
36:18
to save this kid, but also Bond wasn't gonna like necessarily
36:21
stand up to the Imperator in that moment.
36:23
Abe is the hot head. He's the loyal person.
36:26
He will do something stupid even though he's smart because he's
36:29
just over come with emotion and he comes there to try to like
36:32
fight the Imperator. And it's like, of course this
36:35
isn't going to work, you idiot. Like if you try this, you're
36:37
going to die. And then somehow we get out of
36:40
the situation and Bo is, I mean, I guess we'll see more of this
36:44
as time goes on. But I do also think Beau is
36:46
quite thoughtful, as much as like it might seem that he's not
36:50
that smart. I think the speech, yeah, in
36:53
particular was was very, very good.
36:55
And honestly, I can't remember too much about the speech as
36:57
well. I just remember in the moment
36:59
being like, wow, like that was off the Dome, Charlie.
37:05
Oh, I do think I remembered one. I I brought up that Bond had
37:09
saved our lives in the fight with the monks.
37:13
And I I think even like going into the speech, I, I was like,
37:16
Bond feels like Bond is just having such a terrible time.
37:20
I got it. I got to think of something to
37:22
bring him up so that that I latched onto and then that's
37:26
kind of I went from there. But yeah, can we talk?
37:28
Can we talk about Bond's no good, very bad day.
37:31
I don't. Have to go underground with.
37:34
So. Many.
37:36
Yeah, surrounded by change. Where did it start?
37:39
Where? The day before.
37:40
Where did it true like just everything bad happening to bond
37:45
start? Was it as soon as we?
37:46
Went, I would say it was when you no, I would say, wait,
37:50
actually, did we rest the first night before we went underground
37:53
or did we just go underground? They give you a health thing to
37:56
to. Boost.
37:56
Yeah, we got like beated. We we rested while we were down
37:59
there. And then we went to, I mean, it
38:01
started with me just being upset when I woke up because you, who
38:05
had finished the last night saying that you were thesmir has
38:09
chosen 1. No, I think it started.
38:11
I think it started before that. I think it started when we
38:14
walked into the hall of like flame and glory and the rocks
38:20
fell on you in particular. And then like as we kept going
38:24
downstairs, he get kept getting like more and more nervous and
38:28
anxious. And then we walked into like
38:29
Johnny Maccabees room and you picked up the mirror and then
38:33
you came out of the mirror. We called the reflection of you
38:36
sexy blonde and then you immediately got crit on and went
38:40
down. But we're not very.
38:42
Nice bond got so bullied. Sessions.
38:44
No, I mean we were we. Were hyped open up sexy bond we
38:47
were. It was egging on bows like
38:49
Desmera being the chosen Desmera guy.
38:52
Oh my God. Oh yeah.
38:54
And it was, I mean, it's OK. I mean, like that's the, I feel
38:56
like that's the role of the, like straight man in comedies.
38:59
Like it gives the other two something a like a bond over.
39:04
It gives like the reason why the other thing is funny is that
39:08
it's getting a reaction out of someone and it was perfect.
39:12
But I would say, you know, the cherry on top?
39:15
That ending was just so brutal, like.
39:19
Yeah. I, I think I might have said it
39:22
during the session, but to try to save someone, a child, then
39:27
have that child die in front of you because you roll the one,
39:32
then somehow worse, to have that child get saved by the person
39:39
who you think killed your entire family that you've been hating
39:44
for years. It was just like such a mix of
39:48
emotion of loss. And then like this kind of like
39:51
this puts the cherry on top of like what?
39:53
I really did not know that Avni was going to make the stakes
39:57
this high this early. I was like, oh, we're not going
40:01
to go all the way down to the dragon.
40:03
Oh, we're going down to the dragon.
40:04
Oh, we're not going to wake the dragon, are we?
40:06
Oh, oh, we're waking the dragon. Oh, the Dragon's destroying the
40:09
city now. And I was just like not expect I
40:13
it made me genuinely worried as a character.
40:16
I'm such like a cautious character.
40:18
I'm usually like a wizard player that has just like a box of
40:21
tricks for everything. And this was just like my worst
40:24
nightmare as a player. But it was so good, though.
40:26
That was easily the highlight of everything we've done so far for
40:29
me was standing up to the Imperator.
40:32
Yeah, that that one happened at a time where I didn't even toy
40:38
with any other idea. I was like, she's dead.
40:41
Like there's no other option like that.
40:43
Isn't that one You were lifting a cart?
40:45
She's dead. And I know it's going to be
40:47
absolutely traumatizing, but that's just how it's going to
40:50
go. I had to make that split second
40:51
decision and I loved it. You, you've made the right
40:54
decision. That's so good. 2024
40:57
presidential election Bond Was the the Liberals trying to help,
41:02
you know, and then and then he killed him and he, and then he
41:05
killed everyone in the middle class and you know, the
41:09
imperator comes in and saves them.
41:11
And. And Bonds got nothing to say
41:14
that'll convince the masses in front of him.
41:16
And everyone thinks the Imperator is a good guy, but
41:19
he's not. But he's not this good.
41:22
Guy, he was only saving his people.
41:24
He was. He said he was.
41:25
Only saving people inside of me. I'm like this fucking guy.
41:32
And I guess 1 little, 1 little small thing that like just made
41:35
me laugh is sometimes obviously when you improv and you think of
41:40
things on the fly, they're not always perfect.
41:42
But the Imperator coming in after like capturing the dragon,
41:46
the silver or the Rex coming in like through the ground and then
41:51
Seraphine Vexalia coming in with like the shadows and then the
41:55
domina just robot like walking. How do I, how do I make them
42:03
appear robot, Yeah. Yeah, she she could have had
42:06
like the. Superhero thing where it's like
42:08
everybody's flying, but then you have to have like the one guy
42:11
who can just run really fast on Hawkeye or.
42:14
Just the. Guy without.
42:15
Hawkeye just walking. I was like, should she have jet
42:18
packs on her feet? No.
42:20
Oh, that would have been sick. Should we get into our
42:23
predictions for the future in the last few minutes here?
42:27
Yes. Yeah, give it to me, guys.
42:30
Do we want to just say roses and buds?
42:32
Yeah, I mean, I just kind of said my rose was easily just
42:36
like that last interaction with the Imperator was so good.
42:40
And then as far as buds go, I got my best buds next to me.
42:45
I'm excited to see yo. Shut off his feet, shut off his.
42:49
Feet Is this thing on? Is this thing on?
42:53
Yeah. That's that's a bud right there.
42:55
I'm excited to see the mic in action, but no, I'm excited to
42:59
see what the political and like social implications of us
43:04
standing up to the Imperator are.
43:06
Are we going to be haunted now? Like, what's next?
43:09
Obviously I don't, I'm, I'm so curious as a player and as a
43:12
character of like, what's next for this Lady of Breath?
43:16
Stuff like that is my main motive.
43:19
It's like that in the Imperator. And right now I'm hooked on
43:21
both. Do you have any theories about
43:23
the the Mistress or Lady of Breath?
43:25
I just like, no, that's the problem.
43:28
Like I don't know. I don't know if anybody else
43:30
does. I could not tell you what I
43:32
think is gonna happen with that. He might.
43:34
You're nodding. Ideas.
43:35
What is it? No idea if I'm writer.
43:37
What's your prediction? Yeah, What's your ideas?
43:39
I'll get into it in a SEC, Rose. I think also there are so many
43:45
good moments, like I don't want to be unoriginal, but I also
43:48
think that the whole last 30 minutes of Session 5 has got to
43:53
be like peak, like the payoff to that, the chaos of it.
43:56
I think most of our successful saving the people hopefully
44:00
inspired some goodwill and whoever townsfolk or Commons
44:03
people like noticed us helping and saving them.
44:06
So that's like kind of like hopefully to Harry's question,
44:08
at some point we'll find out whether we swing more good or
44:11
bad in the public eye. But yeah, the imperative moment
44:15
with Bonn, amazing. That whole confrontation in
44:18
Charlie's speech, it's just like that is like tie a ribbon on it.
44:21
Perfect moment for me. That's got to be the Rose of the
44:24
last five sessions, Buds. OK, so with this Mira, I think,
44:29
I don't know, like, I mean, because we're working with very
44:31
little information, but I've had this idea that like, maybe there
44:35
was a lot of illusion to mortality.
44:37
Bunty's wrapped up in it. It's obviously I think also
44:40
connected to the Lost Empire Kingdom.
44:42
I feel like I'm butchering the name every time the Varelian
44:45
shards place. And so I think that maybe they
44:49
had taken on the like kind of like patronage of Thesmira and
44:54
Thesmira who's like not this like I forget, there's the
44:57
Scions and the Paragons. Thesmira's in the lower tier.
45:01
She's not in the higher tier. And so I think that maybe
45:05
because of whoever was in the brilliant shards was like using
45:08
the smears original magic and wisdom to like maybe gain more
45:13
importance or power over the other 4 kingdoms that they like.
45:18
One obviously destroyed the Kingdom, went to war, took them
45:22
out. They're like, this is a
45:22
collective threat for all of us and we're going to just get rid
45:24
of them because they can play around with magic that we don't
45:27
even understand and possibly be playing with the idea of
45:31
immortality. And then two, maybe the gods
45:34
were involved in it because they're like, Nah, like no
45:37
upstart lower God is going to rise to this level because
45:42
imagine if you could give immortality, you'd be on the
45:44
level of like extraction or like the other gods that are up
45:48
there. I think goes into the theory of
45:50
like, why would the imperator be like stamping out these, like
45:54
these followers that still exist of this Mira that might still
45:57
have this wisdom? Because if you can erase, it's
45:59
the history of anything that possibly would tell anyone that,
46:04
yeah, there's this connection to mortality, that this mirror
46:06
might be more powerful and important than we've made her
46:09
out to be. That's where I think it is.
46:12
I don't know how Bunty gets wrapped up in that, but I think
46:14
that's how the history of it might go.
46:17
That's the idea. So good, yeah.
46:19
You thought? Because I'm like there's
46:22
obviously. You might as the spoiler king
46:25
there's. No Wikipedia.
46:26
Looking up the endings of things read.
46:31
Other. He might have been looking
46:33
online for the source he's been trying.
46:36
To get to. Spoil Avni's.
46:38
Been giving me. I need somebody who has intimate
46:40
knowledge of everything Avni's been through, all of the media
46:43
that she's consuming. Crafting A GPT that can talk to
46:47
me as if it's Avni as the DF but then that GPT stopped answering
46:53
questions because they were like no Avni wouldn't tell you this
46:56
stuff. Speaking of like predicting, I
47:01
can't even, I don't even know what I'm going to do half the
47:04
time. Like the Imperator was always
47:07
going to come down and try to talk to the people about what
47:12
they had seen with the dragon, assuming the dragon had been,
47:15
you know, released. He's always going to come down
47:17
and do all that. But saving the girl was just
47:20
like the cherry on top of just like pissing off Bond.
47:25
It was just like, it's right there in front of me and I'm
47:28
going to do it like. If you had, if you had treated
47:31
that gnat one any other way, I think it wouldn't have felt as
47:35
good. Yeah.
47:36
Like Harry said, very interested to see if people know whether
47:40
we're good or bad in the eyes of the world.
47:43
And then what happened to the elves?
47:45
The elven Wizards, Yeah, You were very concerned about them.
47:48
Yeah, I wrote that down in my message that I sent to the group
47:51
afterwards in my bud because I'm like.
47:53
Oh, facts. Yeah, I forgot we just killed a
47:56
bunch of Wizards. Like, Nah, they're dead.
47:58
There's no way they're alive. Maybe, maybe one or two of them
48:01
are alive, but I feel like we watched multiple die.
48:03
Multiple. Die.
48:05
At least some are dead. Yeah, but like, who's alive And
48:07
and do they, I mean, like we were there for selfish reasons.
48:12
I wouldn't blame them if they blame us for what happened.
48:16
I don't know. Interested to see if they come
48:18
back in any way, shape or form. So.
48:20
My rows, I will branch off from the previous rows and I will say
48:25
bonds Nat 20 on the lady of breath underneath.
48:29
That's Mira's name is is my highlight because I think he
48:33
might even said it earlier. That was kind of the hook for
48:35
me. Like I was already invested in
48:37
the story and I wanted to figure out what was going on.
48:39
And you we'd had like hints of that, but that was like the
48:42
first thing that was truly like, there's there's something very
48:46
going on here. And yeah, I don't know, I've
48:49
just been thinking about that. A lot of what that could mean.
48:52
I got like a couple of different theories.
48:54
They're not super well formed. I think there might have been
48:57
some sort of swap with the gods where like Mary, maybe the the
49:02
Scions and the Paragons, like switched places where one became
49:07
the lesser group and the other one became the more important
49:10
one. And my only, the only thing I'm
49:12
going off of is like that. I mean, the region are are all
49:17
favored by gods of some kind and it could be that they all kind
49:22
of did favors for this group to destroy their center of worship,
49:26
make them less important and then like the power of belief
49:29
makes the the other gods more powerful.
49:32
But that's again, I don't know where it's going to go.
49:35
I'm so excited. That's just my working theory.
49:39
Avni finishes off. I think my rose has been just
49:43
like the dice rolls. I think they have come at such
49:46
great times. You've failed when you've like
49:49
needed to failed and you've succeeded where you've needed to
49:52
succeed. And I think it has so far told a
49:55
very wonderful and beautiful and tragic story.
50:00
Throughout every session there's been something that was just
50:03
like so good and really pushed us forward and I don't know how
50:07
the campaign would look if there were any other dice rolls.
50:10
So I am very grateful for the dice rolls that we have had to
50:13
lead us here because it is a very strong spot.
50:16
You guys are thinking, curious and I am planning evil things
50:20
behind the computer screen. So very excited.
50:24
If anybody listening has any ideas of what might have
50:27
happened, comment Yeah, give us some comments.
50:30
Let us know. Talk to us.
50:32
Ask Avni, beg her to tell you, and then tell me.
50:37
No, give me ideas that horrible things that I can use against
50:40
these three. I feel bad in retrospect, but
50:43
never in the moment. All right, well, this has been
50:48
such a lovely little fireside chat with the three of you.
50:52
Nice to see what everyone's thinking and giving me ideas for
50:56
where this is going. So with that, we'll say bye.
51:00
Bye.