High Rollers DnD - High Rollers: Aerois | The Final Q&A

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

You all submitted tons of great questions and now that Aerois is finished we can spill ALL The beans! All secrets revealed in the final Q&A now that Aerois is finished! Support the High Rollers and get early access to podcast episodes and more on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/HighRollers Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound, TCT Adventures (Solasta: Crown of the Magisters) and Jolene Khor! Check out Jolene Khor and all her wonderful work on High Rollers on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1WX3ICiTmf4GpHwImnQMs6 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. This is Hyrolers! Hello. There it is. Welcome. Oh, look at this. Friendly faces. Gosh, we've missed you, haven't we?

You've missed us. I've missed you. You've missed me. I've missed them. But we're all here together again for a lovely little High Rollers stream. Delightful. I'm joined as always by my dear friends, the cast of High Rollers themselves. But what's this strange combination? We've got Rhiannon, we've got Kim, we've got Tom. Hey gamers. And then on the other side, we've got Trot and we've got Katie. The last time we were here, we were in a black void.

We are not in a black void anymore, but we are in a work in progress. Work in progress. Yeah, it is ongoing. So this won't necessarily, this will give you an idea of where the set's going, but it's not finished yet. Work in progress. Work in progress. Keep supporting us on there.

That's real cool. There's behind the scenes updates going up pretty regularly now with the set build, the studio build, and so on. You also get those on YouTube members. I also think we should probably do a thing for the thing that's happening soon. We can do some Patreon sneaky peeks about that. We absolutely can.

We absolutely can indeed. Also, yeah, Twitch subs now get access to these videos as well, all through the Discord. So check out Twitch subs now get access to these videos as well, all through the Discord. So check out those channels you have access to if you are a Twitch sub. Or if you've been gifted a sub, then you are getting a lot for it. Go to the Discord is what I'm saying.

Discord is the place to be, the place to live, the place to drink. The happening place. The happening place. HIPHOP happening. HIPHOP happening. Wow. So what are we doing today?

We're not doing a regular High Rollers. We're not doing a D&D. We're not doing an Archegear. What we are doing is we're doing a little Q&A. Woo! That was organised mainly, I think mainly, Kim. With the help of the mods. The mods.

I was going to mention the mods. Can we do a team picture? Very good. But we had Kim and the mods have put together a big old Q&A about Erois. Eorius. And you know what that means? Eolius. Spoilies ahead.

If you are not caught up on Erois or indeed finished it, then get out. Get out of here. Go home. Go home. Or not, just leave. Get out of here. Have it spoiled for you.

Leave. Jeez. Be gone, foul demons. I forgot Tom's like this when he hasn't been on camera for a while. To be honest, I'm kind of... No, I'm picking up Tom's energy today. Tom, I'm there with you, buddy.

Look, if you unmatch me, then I'm going to crash hard and I'm going to get real depressed. He opened the door with a LARP sword earlier and said to Tom and Trot that they couldn't come in without the patch. Solve me these riddles three! But yeah,

so we're going to be doing a little Q&A today. Just answering some of the burning questions that have lingered from finishing up our big five-year campaign, Eros. And now it's all finished. All secrets revealed. I have a question to open up with.

Hey Mark, how are you? I'm doing great, thanks. Cool, that's good to hear. I'm not question to open up with. Oh. Hey, Mark, how are you? I'm doing great, thanks. Cool. That's good to hear. I'm glad. I'm not going to ask you how you are. Oh, wow. Sad.

But there is, before we jump into the Q&A, I do want to mention one thing. That's my trick. I love Coke. I love it. Sponsor us, please. No. One thing I'm going to say,

we can't talk about it too much right now, but keep an eye on our Twitter and our social medias because in the next couple of weeks, a very cool thing is happening. Oh, it's so good. And it came out of nowhere, and I can't talk about it, and I'm really excited. I will throw water at you if you say anything today.

But something I guarantee everyone will love. Everyone. It's awesome. Heck yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I don't move on,

I'm going to say something. Just keep an eye on our social media. Keep an eye on the Patreon because there will be some cool stuff. Book off the next few weeks on holiday. One thing I can talk about

which just got literally announced, I think, today, is that I'm going to be doing a one-shot MCM Comic Con on the Friday. I'm going to be joined by Johnny Chionni from Oxventure. We're joined by Jasper from Three Black Halflings, and a couple of other folks who I've not had the pleasure of meeting, Liv Kennedy as well from Three Black Halflings, Dicebreaker, and some other folks who I've not had the pleasure of meeting yet. But I'm going to be there.

That is on Friday. In the current stage, if you and some other folks who I've not had the pleasure of meeting yet but I'm going to be there that is on Friday in the current stage I will if you go on my Twitter I've retweeted it you can go check that out I'm also going to be doing a signing at MCM Comic Con

on the Friday as well so if you're going to what dates are those? Friday it's all on Friday Friday not Friday

Friday the end of October right there we go but go on my Twitter it's all there but if you're going to MCM I know like CritR of October. Right, there we go. But go on my Twitter, it's all there. But if you're going to MCM, I know like CritRoll are going to be there. We've got a load of other folks,

special guests and that. We're not there. I am there, but High Roller's not. Just this one. We're allowed in. We're not allowed in. They were like,

Mike can come in, but if we see those others. The best High Roller is there. What's Twitter? X. Sorry. Twitter? X. Sorry. Sorry. X.

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Don't Zantful me. Zyken Zollo. Zyank for me. Zyken is all over. Zyken is all over. Zyken subscribe. Zonscribs. Zonscribs. All right. But that's it.

A couple of little announcements. Keep an eye on our social media. If you head into MCM, I'll be there on Friday. I'll be around for the rest of the weekend, but you'll only recognize me on Friday. So see you then. And then that's it.

We're going to jump into some Q&A. Hey, which one of you ding dang doodlies wanna go first? Well, I think we should start with the top question for everybody. Oh, have we got a... We've got it here. We'll ask it, don't worry. All right.

It's in the Discord. Let's open up with... We can just read the question. We can just read the question. This ate into Baldur's Gate time. Let's open up by entering the, what was your favorite segment of the show? Quick one and a bit.

And we'll come back to the what was your favorite segment quite frequently because there are a few. This question had 24 upvotes on the various different places you could Discord. What was your favorite boss fight and why kalara bound straight in i was going to say kalara had me shaking i think out of all of them and it's very specifically for the specific moment of the second phase. Like when I did that transition and I think, yeah, and then just like the whole speech and then bringing the mini down

and the new background and like the new map. And I think Tom literally said something along the lines of like, this is the coolest fucking shit that has ever happened. And I was just like, my DM pride was at like max level. I remember it was like a three minute speech and all of it was so good. And at the end of it, we were just like, my DM pride was at like max level. I remember it was like a three minute speech and all of it was so good. And at the end of it, we were just like, we give up. We surrender.

We want to die here. I think that that one was definitely a big one. It was very like heaven's war. Yeah, yes. As well, which is just Fimo. I'm going to say actually Callus Starbane. It's very good as well. Because of, again, the phases.

Which one? And the one where he was testing us. Not the one previously where I told him to fuck off when he was helping us? No. That was really the boss. Because he was with us. He wasn't fighting us. He was with us.

Because you told him to fuck off. You were the boss. No, the one where he was testing if we were good enough to go on the next door. Yeah, the real proper fight. And it was like if we were good enough to go on the next door. Yeah, there was a real proper fight. And it was like the three phase with the heavy armor to the light armor. And then just, I just remember that last bit where it was a fist fight

and you went into like mega fucking like, you know, you were coming, hiding, hiding everywhere. It was a brutal fist fight between Kaz and Star, and Ayla, sorry. Yeah. And he was throwing rocks at Quill's tight down. And I took a rock to the face.

People were all fucked. And then it was just Starbane and Aayla just doofing out. And Quill off to the side. Yeah, I was still up, just screaming. He was still up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quill was still up and he was like, I'm coming for you next.

I think that was the bit when you were like, you were focusing on Aayla but threatening the rest of us and we're just like, no, no. I think what made that one special, because I think that with the bit when you were like, you were focusing on Aayla, but threatening the rest of us, and we're just like, no, no. I think what made that one special, because I think that with the Kalos fight, you know, the first two phases were kind of similar to everything we'd done up to that point. And then from a DM's perspective,

that was a fight that, like, was such a big build-up, because, like, Kalos had been throughout this whole campaign, and I felt like I had done the foreshadowing right, where, like, when you first met him, you were like, we can't fight this man man we're fucked yeah and then the next time you kind of like really interacted with him you were fighting alongside him yeah so you got to see like a glimpse of his power but didn't really show it off too much and then you fought him properly and it was this big build-up it kind of had this big payoff it felt really rewarding for you guys that

like you got to fight him and it was such a tense battle yeah but then also as a gm i purposely didn't really write down the mechanics for that third face i was like i'm gonna basically push it until it feels right and like i had a couple of little notes about like his relentless rage and stuff but and just to have it come down to like ayla and callus just slugging each other out just, bam, just exchanging blows and then just rolling saves. And it came down to con saves. I could do this all day. Yeah, just like bam, bam. Someone's pointed out another detail was when Aayla

threw her hammer, Kallus caught it and went, this is a fine weapon! And then threw it at Sentry. It was just like... So good. There were so many just instant, like, out of nowhere lines where I think all of us were just like, whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was cool. It was all swept up in the RP as well, because as soon as I started, like, unleashing Camas' emotional side, you guys were like, whoa. Like, I remember, like, Rhiannon was just like, yes. I think it's what it is. She gets knocked unconscious, but she's like, yes! It was that thing as well where everything sped up,

and we were all just, like, it was gut instinct. We where everything sped up and we were all just like it was gut instinct we weren't like going oh is this do I have it was like gut instinct like react like act react

act react act react and it was just like that really fast paced like bam bam bam bam we gotta fucking duke it out like that's like a thing

like you have like those moments where the mechanics are really complex and stuff but then actually sometimes it's those bits which really come down I don't think we actually

asked Trot and Katie yet as well, just to quickly round that up. We've talked about that. Her fight is probably going to be- I mean, I like both of those fights as well, but Zarkira is probably a good one to mention. The final Zarkira fight was intense. And I want to make a point actually on that.

I personally see Zarkira as she was the final boss. I know her daughter kind of was, but I feel like Zarkira, because for me personally, Zarkira was the final boss. I know Hadar kind of was, but I feel like Zahkira, because for me personally, Zahkira was the last enemy that was going to be really maliciously out to kill you guys. Hadar obviously was going to try

and fight you and stop you, but didn't hate you. Zahkira hated you. She was also just a consistent threat. She had a lot more impact. She took your eye as well. She took my fucking eye. She took your prisoner more impact. She took your eye as well. She took my fucking eye.

She loved your prisoner and everything. Yeah, she took my memories. And she was just like, you always like will find little bits about her having an influence. She was just genuinely like just evil. Also literally the reason Hesper died. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, she was... That was a good fight. I don't think there was anything she didn't take from me. And that was the funny one because it was again like... Your big feet. The idea of her fight

was the one that I had for so long, because I had the minis. I had the two Warhammer minis. And that's what I based their character on. I based her design on that mini, and I was like, these are the ones I'm going to use. What about Trot? I was thinking earlier on, because obviously these big end ones

are super fresh. And obviously at this point, you're like five years deep refining your boss mechanics. But I'm trying to think of earlier pivotal moments, which were more like role play focused. I'm thinking back initially, this was the first time we saw someone Hadar touched and it was in the church.

And they revealed their void eyes. Oh yeah, in the night. The one that killed Quill. That really stood out for me. Yeah, when the helmet came up and it was just the void. Yeah, that was terrifying. That was also a fight where I started really introducing some more kind of complex elements of the fight and like using abilities. Like I remember when she put the wall and ayla was like i can't get to you because i blocked you off yeah and like there was

this panic moment in all of your faces where you were like oh no like suddenly this like warrior who we know is like capable of doing loads of damage and tanking now can't come and help yeah and we've got other people down and i think that was like like, you guys were like, oh no, this is bad. Yeah. Like, those moments, like, I know I appreciate for you guys, they're stressful,

you guys don't want your characters to die, but they also create those moments where, like, the tension is so high that actually when you come out of it, or even if characters do die,

it really has impact. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, but Quill died, so it's one of my favourites. Nice. I'm trying to think, like, yeah, Quill died basically most of the time. All the big ones. I think Quill died because Rhiannon forgot that she had a healing potion. Oh, yeah!

I didn't forget that. Don't think that you reminded me of that. That was quite funny. That was pretty good. That was pretty good. It was just the moment of realisation. You were like... What, because you forget that stuff in the middle of it? You absolutely do.

Yeah, I mean, I don't blame you. Oh, the Goliath fight, it was quite good. I was going to say, so technically, that Goliath was the first Hadar touched. Oh, yeah, correct. You just didn't know at the time. He took my fucking eye too. Yeah, he took your eye.

He was the first one who took your eye. Because that was brutal, that fight. Well, that was when we were still using injury rules. I'm trying to think. Did he do something to you as well? Like ripped apart Echo? He destroyed Echo. He broke your arm.

He destroyed Echo and he broke your arm. He broke my arm. Didn't he? Yeah. He did something to you. Yeah, yeah. Because this was the point where I started to realise the injury rules weren't quite working.

Right. Because it was like, and I think it was by Gusthaven when Quill got his beak blown off. And I was just like, I don't think... Tom's like, two thumbs up. I don't think Aayla and Century have ever had an injury. I think you had like a minor one at one point.

I had lucky hands for a bit. Yeah, like something like that. Yeah. But I started to realize that like, oh, the characters with the lowest HP and no con bonus are the ones who are constantly There's actually a question about this that says Suge way so during the lead-up to aros, you had implemented new rules such as injury tables and subsequent spells to fix them.

Later on, those rules seemed to be retired for the usual 5E stuff. As someone who's continuing to improve as a DM, what about the new rules worked, what didn't work, and why were they removed? Yeah, I mean, I think that that's like, for the injury specifically, you know, they create some fun moments early on.

And the problem, this is something which I've talked a little bit about in 5E. You, and create some fun moments early on. And the problem, this is something which I've talked a little bit about in 5e. You, and this is like a big thing I see in the 5e industry and like in the culture and the community of 5e, you can homebrew a lot of cool stuff. But there are some things which are kind of fundamentally, I'm not going to say broken. The engine of 5e is designed to do a certain thing. And when you try and homebrew stuff that changes that engine, it doesn't always work out because, you know, you're trying to basically like, you know, make the car do something the car isn't supposed to do. You can add on cool things. You can put a cool spoiler on the car. You can paint it a cool color.

You can like add like a cool deer stick or whatever, but you ultimately can't really change the engine. Right. And that's really what you got to with the injury rules is like dnd is not designed to have an injury system in it games like warhammer which we've we've played and we've we've played with warhammer that's designed to have an injury system and it's built into how hp works it's built into how armor works it's built into like every character is as equally you know vulnerable to these injuries as anybody else. That doesn't exist in 5e D&D, so that's why those injury rules just didn't quite fit. You know, you would have to find a way to make it

so that they have a chance of affecting everybody fairly equally, and it just doesn't really exist. Tom got ravaged by that. Well, it's like you both did. Like honestly, Lucius was just as bad, and we found that in the later fights, right? Like, who are the characters who are always going down? Lucius and Quill.

True, the low AC. Low AC, low HP. You know, it's why, like, when I was designing high-level monsters as well, like, one of the things I started doing towards the end was really having to think about numbers. When I was designing monsters in the high-level part of Arois, you know, I just was throwing out the official D&D monsters out the window. part of arois you know i just was throwing out the official dnd monsters out the window and what i would do is i'd go right how much does everybody have in hp what's the average hp of the party okay well that means that a monster if it

deals 20 damage a turn i'm averaging about 10 of the party's average health okay that seems about right you know because they can out heal that and stuff okay well how much damage does it need to take how much hit points do I need to give the monster so the fight lasts about five, six rounds? Fuck, I need to make this thing like 700 HP because they can output like 200 HP a turn. So you're doing things like that. You're kind of throwing everything else to the side

because you have to base it on these characters because in a different party, that might not have been a problem. An injury rule might work perfectly fine if you've got a party where everybody's very equalized, but we didn't have that in Aralys. I think it did start feeling like that in the third act, where, like, we were getting, like,

I was like, oh, shit, my HP's down to 20. Like, and you guys were, like, actually getting knocked, like, lower, lower, lower, and, like, it felt a lot more, it wasn't just you to like save the squishy boys it was like there were moments where i was like oh god i actually got i can use my tomb i can do that you know i was also you guys changed your tactics as well like quill started once quill could fly again it meant he was often out of the way you know lucius would often like distance

himself like you know you guys change your tactics as well but i think that that's the thing is you've got to be as a dm you've got to be very reactive to this stuff. Like, you can't think that I'm going to put this system in and it's going to work for the whole campaign. It just, it might change. And you've got to think what's fun. I think it's the same as like, towards the end of the campaign.

I know there was a hard rule on resurrection for our characters as well. You can only come back once before, and that's it, that's your last chance. But ordinarily in 5e it's like you can res a million times if you want yeah like eventually it does get to a point where dying has zero impact and it was the same with eros where people weren't taking injuries anymore um so i think it makes sense that it was phased out naturally rather than just a hard cut off where

someone should have been injured or whatever yeah i think it made sense at the time that it was removed. But at the same time, I love the rule. Yeah, listen, it did great things. Cause what it did, the things that worked for it. Yeah, like that entry, like it's moments like that. Losing the eye, like Quill losing the eye. Quill losing the eye became such a great plot point. So that part of it, the narrative part of injuries, works brilliantly.

I think Quill only had one wing because I heard about the injury rule. Yeah. I think that's why I decided to have him lose the wing. You got injured on the way to the adventure. Yeah, that was the intention, is that he'd had a bad injury based on the injury rules prior to the adventure starting. And I think that's what led to that sort of thought in my mind.

But I think what I want to do is like, I'd like to keep that element to it, but implement a system where it's less about just like, I rolled a bad con save. Oh, guess I've lost an arm now. And more about you guys as players making those choices based on things that happen. So like, maybe it's like, you know,

you roll your third death saving throw, maybe that's when I give you the chance of like, well, maybe do you want to die or do you want to have a grievous injury or something like that, you know? And change it, like, again, spitballing ideas, I'm not saying that's what was going to happen, but I kind of want to keep that part of it.

I think the same as, well, like, there's a version of it where you could say, well, what if a critical hit causes an injury? But then it's like, I have no control over them rolling a crit. But also, and this is why I didn't do that, because that's what the variant rule in the DMG is. The problem with that is you then factor in, well, monsters often get to make more multiple attacks than players do.

So I had monsters that were making three, four, five attacks a turn. That's five additional chances for me to roll in that 20 and cause an injury to you likewise you know a sorcerer you make one attack a turn like if that a fighter five six seven eight attacks a turn that's why i was so i was getting really frustrated with like i have two spell slots it took 20 minutes to get to my turn my spell missed i was like cool yeah i'll wait 20 minutes for my next spell slot it was just like it was so boring and i was like well i could hit someone but with my wee little like uh spellcaster arms just nothing nothing so yeah so it's interesting stuff like that so like even then like a crit hit doesn't

really work because again it is completely unbalanced and again it comes down to the fact that that's not what the engine of dnd is meant to do it's not a game that is meant to have critical injuries it is a heroic superhero fantasy game right that is what dnd at its core is right and that's what that's what the rules work for something like warhammer a gritty dark fantasy is like uh you attack the guy oh i roll the crit let me roll on the crit injury table. Oh, 100, you're dead, I've chosen. But you go into that game knowing that can happen. They've got a table for drunkness.

That's the Curly game. That's a game built around replacing your characters and living in a horrible environment. Yeah, but I know the original intention of the injury, I don't want to stay on the injury rules for a long time, but it was to stop people from just saying, I've gone down, heal me by one HP, I'm back up, I'm in the fight again, I'm down. And I've got new ways around that as well.

I've come up with different ways to kind of try and avoid that. Or for campaign three. For campaign three, baby. That's going to come out. That's fine. That's TM. Blue ball in him there. Soon, TM. There's a blue ball in him there. Soon, TM.

There's something, call it soon. Anyway, should we do another question? Yeah, hey, who wants to go where? Do you want to do a direct question? Should we do a character question? Sure. Let's do, should we do a sentry question? Yeah, sure.

Right. So you're at the bottom. Oh, you're gonna roll? Okay, well, no, we'll do a sentry question, but next time I'll roll for it. Shit. So, there you are. it. Shit. So... There you are.

So you pick a question from there. Hmm. So the first question on the list has the most upvotes. Okay, that's good. No, second one does. Second one has most upvotes. Yep. This is community voted.

So do you want to go with that one? Let's have a look. The question is... Go for it. How was it to play such a heartfelt protector in Sentry? Was there a particular moment of the campaign that stands out for you because Sentry either succeeded or failed to protect someone? Ooh, interesting. Yeah, I liked playing Sentry. Sentry struck a chord with me, I think, for

a while, and she still does. I miss her a lot. Yeah, it was difficult trying to strike that balance because with Sentry, there's that side where you want her to be vengeful and take revenge against people that wronged her in the past like starbane and stuff but you also have to open yourself up to forgiveness and you know being maybe a bit softer so she's being a paladin yeah an oath of the ancients paladin and everything else so it was tricky trying to strike that balance but i think towards the end of the campaign especially i think i managed to find some i think a satisfying balance towards the end. I hope it was satisfying. A hundred percent.

I think you played that archetype of like the paladin kind of like embracing this former enemy and like coming to respect him, like seeing the Starbane that you didn't know and sort of like having that mutual respect. For me, it was that moment in the petal shop. Yeah. That was like, that was the moment where I was like,

this is like concreted, like, cause you got to have that was like that was the moment where i was like this is like concreted like because you got to have that like you ruined my life like you caused me so much pain we had that kind of moment of catharsis yeah but then him also being like i do understand like you know you know kind of like this is my story but i i'm not trying to make a you know excuses for what i've done kind of thing and that was good you know i think it was a really good moment and i think that like mechanically as well like you're playing a class that does a ton of fucking damage

as we all learn but you also spec yourself out to be the protector and like often would step back and be like I'm going to move next to Quill and you know protect him

and stuff like that. I think you did you struck a very good balance. Oh, thank you. I also think a moment century I think that kind of helped me cement her

was when we did the first Breeze encounter and there was that prisoner. And it was like, do you want to kill him and like take his power or take him? Oh yeah, the undergroundy bit. Yeah. And I think that decision really helped with the racist that we just let go.

Oh yeah, they're not- And the warden was like, you did what? Sounds suspicious to me! Yeah. That's one of my favorite moments. Anyway, back to your century. What was that like? Like, what were you, was there a moment where you were like,

maybe I will take his life? Part of me really like was, there was like the chaotic side of my brain that was like, it was like, if I took his life, what chaos? You do love a deal. Exactly. You love a D&D-le. I'm like, yeah.

D&D-le. Yeah, well, like, yeah. Descent to Avernus was definitely a... You just let into that. You were like, let's go. I look forward to the day that Rhiannon plays a warlock. I'll put it this way. Yes.

Ah. Question four. What if, what would have happened if century had accepted the ritual to extend their life through human sacrifice in episode 23 so the specific to that was was would she have been eligible to become prime later absolutely not and you would have not been a paladin anymore yeah you would have absolutely become an oath breaker or like a fallen paladin absolutely totally that's it and it's everything against the oath of the ancients and i this is something i told rihanna like when we started i was like you have to be a paladin and if you're not a paladin

you will lose this like you know it was a big thing and that's again something i want to take forward paladin warlock cleric are classes that have role play baked into them and i think that if you forget that and if you don't play into that, it's very easy to, like, they just become this generic other, they're a fighter or they're a wizard, a healing wizard or whatever. Paladin is a class that is about its oaths. And if you had taken that deal,

if you had aligned with Breeze, I would have basically, like, gone, okay. And then before the next episode, I would have said, like, hey, can we have a chat and I'd be like you are not how close were you Rhi? how close?

I'd say it was like it was a 50-50 that's pretty high and there's a big difference as well because like you know there were other moments where like

are you going to fight Calus or are you going to side with him are you going to kill Zarkir that stuff didn't matter because those people had very actively done something wrong that prisoner was somebody who was completely innocent and it would have been purely self-gay there was no kind of like vengeance or i'm working for the fighting

the greater evil here that would have been purely i want to extend my life yeah i'm going to take somebody else's and that's evil act so when you say 50 50 was that century for century it was a 50 50 or for you was it a 50 for me it was a 50 50 but what was it for century probably swaying to more it probably would have been like a 75 25 but like because like century was close to like shutdown i want yeah she was at the time yeah and it was also that part of my brain that just loves not knowing. I love when shit happens and I'm like, take me, Jesus. Jesus, take the wheel. I just love it for the ride.

I love when stuff like that happens. You like chaos. I do. So on that, that was Bree's later Verasitor. Yes. Was he Hadar influenced then? Oh, absolutely. That was the beginning of it.

Because again, you've got to remember what Hadar was all about. It was all about consumption. It was all about taking. That was- So would that deal, if accepted, had introduced some Hadar influence to Sentry? Absolutely. Oh. That would have been great.

And there were other moments like that as well. Like, you know, we didn't get to go into it because it got healed, but Nova with the Necrotic Hand could have started leaning into that. If you had been using it more to drain life and drain things like that. Oh, another Crown Rant. Yeah, well, not even like you necessarily like a Crown Rant, like a sentient thing, but like draining more power, gaining more powerful, beginning to kind of feel that connection and stuff like that.

There was a couple of moments like that. Thanks, Rolano, for fixing that shit up. Yeah, like it was definitely like elements of that where like... It wasn't Rolano. It was Celestials. Yeah, when you were out in the planes. In the astral planes, yeah. Before they deserted us.

But it's just I didn't use it. I never used the hand. Nova was like, I hate you. Like, I hate this thing. I don't deserve it. But it's just, I didn't use it. I never used the hand. Nova was like, I hate you. Like, I hate this thing. I don't want it. Because I had, I had like attack rolls and stuff for it and stuff it could do in fights, like damage and stuff, necrotic damage.

But I never used it in a fight. I just want to say, I loved the escape from that space station. Yeah. With the... Aegis V. Yeah, yeah. That was awesome.

That to me... That was another moment where Quill almost died. I love that moment. And we all died to a planet cluster. Because I forgot about concentration on five. You got withered on.

Yeah. Love it. It was that... I think it highlighted to me moments like that, the escape in Aegis V and stuff like that, where you don't...

And this is a big thing about D&D and philosophy of D&D and encounter design. You don't need to have every encounter be against, like, a big, scary monster. It's actually more about the objective D&D and encounter design, you don't need to have every encounter be against like a big scary monster. It's actually more about the objective.

Like that, we need to escape. We need to protect this person. We need to extinguish in the forge, the forge encounter, right? We need to power up these forges. That stuff is way more interesting than just here's a monster, get its hit points to zero, right?

And that proved that. Like Shansara was never meant to be an enemy that was going to put you on low hit points. That whole encounter was designed to get you to the bottom, you have an encounter, and now you have to get back up in the sky. And she's sending this shit after you to try and stop you. That was also the start of the whole Wild Elf.

Yeah? Yeah, when Aayla went through the door. Would you jump across? Because there's a lot of questions. Yeah. I always get distracted. Let's do an Aayla question, because there's probably three questionsla went through the door. Would you really, should we jump across? Because there's a lot of questions. Yeah. So I always get distracted. Let's do an Aayla question because there's some Aayla questions. Thanks for the questions!

Okay, I got one. Do you want it? Or have you got them open there? I've got them open, but I don't, the thing is, I don't have a lot of answers for the cloney questions. Uh, the clone questions. No, that's true, that's more for me. Um, okay, what about this one? In the earlier episodes, Aayla did look towards Zephyr as a possible source of

and explanation for her powers. Did you ever consider her becoming an active follower of Zephyr? That's right, yeah, we had that big conversation where you fought the priest and stuff. Not really. I think she looked at that, she was like, oh, like, that's interesting,

but somehow it didn't feel like it was the answer, especially probably because she'd seen Quill with his connection to his god, and it didn't seem like the same. I feel like she would have had to have had a connection already to have that power, so I think there was probably always a feeling of, no, that doesn't feel like it's the right source.

Yeah, I mean, for me, Aayla never felt like, Aayla was never a follower. No. Aayla was like her own agent. She didn't want to. Throughout the whole campaign, it was like, I'm gonna do what I wanna do and like, that's gonna be it. Pretty much.

Like even when you met Thor, like, it was kind of more like a cool bro moment than a, I am now your follower. Cool, I don't understand this, but cool. For sure. Gonna just keep doing me, though. One question which kind of ties into the Aayla stuff, which I know is for me,

was there anything further planned out for Aayla's clone storyline? Is there anything else to know beyond Alphine elves cloned themselves and Aayla was the one that made it to Aros? There absolutely was. Like, I didn't have it planned out in loads of detail, but I had enough in my head where if it was something that made it to Aros. There absolutely was, like, I didn't have it planned out in loads of detail, but I had enough in my head

where if it was something that Katie wanted to explore and like really like delve into, we absolutely could have done that and like explored it more fully. But it was also, I didn't want to enforce it. It was gonna be like, it is here if you want it, but also if your character is like, I don't care, like I've got my family and that's who I'm gonna focus on.

And Ayla definitely was more of like, I don't care, I've got my family and that's who I'm gonna focus on. And Aayla definitely was more of like the support of everyone else, like was always the one pushing everybody else kind of forward. She didn't start that way, so to start, I thought she would have had more of a drive to find that stuff out and things, and that's how it would go.

But as she evolved, she kind of just became, she was what I needed her to be, she was just a badass. And coming in every week and supporting friends by being a badass was what I wanted at the time and I just didn't feel like she needed anything else. That was enough for me personally. I find it hard to make characters anyway so to have connected with ayla and just like really appreciate her for who she was i didn't feel the need to go digging for more of what she was i felt like no like we're i know her and and this is this is the most fun for me so i'm gonna do this and that was why i didn't push it harder in the narrative as well

because like i put the thread there and this is going to be a common thing with a lot of stuff that people have asked about i put the thread there you didn't really tug on it too hard so i didn't develop it any further um funny funny thing with that though because tom told me about this and this is a funny thing me and tom would laugh about is i had not played any of the horizon zero dawn games at this point and when i told them when that plot started to happen that tom was like have you played horizon Horizon Zero Dawn? I was like, no. I didn't make that connection. I was like, no, I've never played it. He was like, you probably should.

Because apparently it's very similar kind of storyline to what we were kind of developing. Yeah, like it's just the way it was. But like I never made that connection and again like you know, Ayla and like that kind of environment but like yeah, just never came to me. I don't think I've made that connection. No, I didn't until right now. But like Tom, I remember Tom was like, have you played it? I just came to me. I don't think I've made that connection. No, I didn't until right now. But I remember Tom was like,

have you played it? I just need to know. I recently had played it. I was like, it was fresh in my mind, but it's fine. I just wanted to be playing Galen. And there was like alien clones from space stations, right?

Yeah. That's all the very common archetype stuff, right? Like it's all very like, you know, all of these stories are built on each other. I mean, at the end of the day, Ayla became more about supporting her friends and supporting these guys to have their stories told and supporting them through it which i'm happy to do because that's what i wanted to do that's what you wanted to do and also it's nice to have characters who are like that yeah i don't feel

like you always need a huge yeah revealing like yeah. Yeah, I feel like sometimes it seems like a lot of effort to build it in if it doesn't come naturally, and for Aayla, I was like, you know what, she's going a different direction, which happens. Sometimes you'll come up with a character, and I think Elora was, Elora had a lot more to report. There was a narrative there,

but it felt natural to pursue that. It felt like, I know what I have to do. Aayla was like an idea, and then it became through playing something else, which was fine, and it worked the way it was. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

I hope people don't feel disappointed at the fact that she didn't have as much of a storyline as some of the other characters was, but I didn't feel like it needed to happen and I had fun with the way it was. Aayla was Aayla. Aayla was Aayla. Yeah.

And I think a lot of, I don't think anyone would be disappointed with that. I think everybody was very happy. A delight. A delight. That was her character. Nice. So yeah.

We're back to the what was your favorite segment. Don't go. Please give me two. What's your favourite segment? I'm just literally going to do this because he's giving me tears. What? What? What's your favourite? What's your f-f-f-f-favourite? What was your favourite? We might need to change the theme a bit, I think.

F-f-f-f-f-favourite! There's about 10 or 20 different layering ideas there. It's Tommy Hazel and the Favourite Boys! Meow! What was your favourite? Now I'm going to slightly change this question. It's Tommy Hazel and the favorite boy. What? Meow. What was your favorite? Now, I'm going to slightly change this question. The original is what was your favorite combat of the campaign where you got to do an unexpected real cool thing?

I feel like the boss fight thing is similar. I'm going to slightly change it to what was the favorite? You go. You know in the Temple of Hesper, Temple of Time? So not the Yohandria's fight, but the one before where we were segmented. Yeah, where we're in the past, present, and future, and we were all affecting each other.

Figuring it out! And there was those orbs in there. But it was that thing where we couldn't kill the guy in the future because we had to find his phylactery, but we could only find that in the past. And yeah, it might just- I saw this whole thing with my related LNS thing, but I wasn't there with them,

it wasn't communicated to me, so. Oh yeah, I guess it wasn't. There's a whole thing that Mark likes to do by being like, oh, hey, hey Trot, you know how your character exists? Here's a statue, be curious about it. It wasn't a statue, it was an actual person, but yeah, you know how your character exists? Here's a statue. Be curious about it. It wasn't a statue. It was an actual person, but yeah,

there was an actual thing. But there was a statue as well. It was a statue as well. The character's like, look, there's your rest. I do love a bit of stat. I'm not doing anything. No more statues. Hands down, no more statues.

There's none of that in campaign three. No statues. Just one. Well, to re-flavor the question slightly, what was your favorite, I guess, unique or unexpected move that other people had done in combat? I mean, obviously, the blue bullet.

Sentry suplexed a lot of boys. Yeah. No, my favourite for Sentry was still just, Sentry jumps off this thing and lands on this other thing. I'm on an airship, I'm going to jump down onto the monster. I'm going to fall off this building onto this person. I just love that. Sentry fell a lot. Oh, I like that.

Remember her falling off the airship for the first time? Oh, and Yamalotai, you fell off that. I fell off Yamalotai. When I grabbed the missile and then threw it back at the... Yes! That was pretty dope. Yeah. Quill, you had a really powerful time...

Time stop. Time stop, yeah. That was insane. You were like, I have worked out all of these things and I'm going to do this, this, this, this, this, this. Fuck you. Ruined this fight.

And we're just like... Yeah, I remember how I described it. Like, I can see all the potential futures and I make them all happen. You felt like you had it so organized in your head that I was just sitting looking at you like... I feel like Quill was our Doctor Strange. Yeah!

And you did that quite often, where I would watch you in a combat and you'd be like this. You'd be watching everyone else at the same time. And I'd get to you and you'd be like, I'm going to cast this and I do this. And I'd be like, you motherfucker. Oh, that's a really good move. Or Spellbreaker. The amount of times and you'd be like, I'm going to cast this and I'd do this. And I'd be like, you motherfucker. That's a really good move.

Or Spellbreaker. The amount of times where you'd be like, Mask your wounds, Spellbreaker, everyone's free of this fucking thing that marks them. And I'd be like, bastard. I know why Zarkira hated me. Yeah. It was just because I was causing so much trouble.

You and Lucius were Zarkira's enemies. I was going to say, your stuff with drawing stuff into the gauntlet and throwing it back it was the slightest i remember the slight of hand yeah that one when you fainted casting a high level yeah yeah she kind of spelled it she kind of felt that and then you cast the heart that was such a good that was so cool i don't remember you say that you pull off a lot of similar stuff like that where again you, you'll be like... You tricksy stuff. There'll be combats, Chris Trott,

where you'll be like, I cast this spell, and I'm like, they're immune to it. You've just seen that they're immune twice, and you'll be like, oh, I forgot. And then there'll be moments in combats where you pull out the most insane Sun Tzu master tactician bullshit. And it's a crit. And it'll be a crit, and it changes a fight.

And I'll be like, he's a he's a savant he's like some sort of combat salon yeah like it'll be like he'll just be like i do this roll dice nat 20 i win and i'd be like what just happened it might be bipolar. Some days I'm like... Did you get the first prismatic spray in the City of Glass? Oh yeah! That was coming up. Do you remember also rescuing Quilth

the Dominate Monster on the Mind Flayer? Oh yeah, that was a good one. I don't remember any of it. I'm not that guy today. In the tower, I think I was stood next to you and it was the first time your eyes radiated all the different colours. Okay. And I looked at you, and that was when I felt a little spark.

I rolled a buzz. What did you get? Seven. I remember at one point, I can't remember exactly where this was. I think it was like an airship versus airship fight. Ayla tore open the cargo hatch and pulled a load of people out of the ship. Yeah. I can't remember exactly what it was. a load of people out of the ship. Yeah. I can't remember exactly what it was.

Cercetia Glass. No, Cercetia Glass. Gusthaven. When the... I think it was, yeah. Oh! A ship for some reason came a little bit too close to Ayla, so she tore the string off it.

It was so good. It felt very... a vengeance. There was a guy who clawed onto a ship onto the twin star he like climbed across a rope that he'd grappled onto the twin star and he arrived

and I just went oh yeah I must admit the one bit I was smuggest about was fighting the two headless horsemen where I cast

the portal fight in the last session and he got teleported and I was like that just removed him from the fight that was so good and then literally you fought them again and then fucking Tom and his bloody in the last session that he got teleported. Yeah. And I was like... That removed him from the fight. That was so good.

And then literally you fought them again and then fucking Tom and his bloody temple of gods or whatever. And I'm like reading this spell and I'm like... Yeah, fuck. Does he poke us?

But that was the thing that we... I should probably just have these guys leave. We spent a long time... But I was committed to encounter at that point. He's poking them through the window.

We're not coming out. We spent a long time preparing that spell as well. It wasn't like an out of nowhere. You made decisions as well to get there early enough to do that as well. It was so big as well. Yeah, I just didn't. It had so many windows. I didn't appreciate how strong that spell was

and in that scenario. But then Mark went, oh, it has windows. She can see you through it. She casts a spell and you're like, no, no, there's no windows. We didn't put them windows. She can see you through it. She casts a spell. No, no, there's no windows! We didn't put them in. I didn't really design it. It's just a box. I want to build on this.

I want to do another favorite with favorite in the top. What was your favorite? I was going to do a story arc throughout the whole campaign because we had lots of different story arcs. Like, favorite child. Yeah. I want to know. No,

there's a lot. So wait, is this, this is removing the final like arc? I guess like removing. Cause that was everything culminated, right? Yeah.

Like let's, yeah, we'll remove like the final kind of like assault on the tropics and stuff like that. Like, cause there were a lot of individual little storylines. Like, you know, I liked when we first got to gust haven because we had just battled all through wilderness it fucking sucked we were dirty we were filthy we were gust haven the flying city or do you mean rose hall gust haven gust haven so like when we got to luci got to Lucius's home city

like finally civilization oh it's nice wait and then we found out especially about your family but also like the fact that there was

that intrigue and plot and we just solved it by like going to the library and you fucking bumbled your way

into it and we're like oh this book looks weird oh wait there's names you what did you do again your way into it. And we're like, oh, this book looks weird. Oh, wait. There's names? Yeah! It was literally,

I think, Tom. It was somebody went, can I just make an, I just want to make an investigation just to see if anything's here because you were about to leave the library. Yeah.

I think it was somebody just went, can I just make a check to see if there's anything here? Fucking old perception boy over there was just like, oh, 39. And I was just like, yeah, there's anything here. Fucking old perception boy over there was just like, oh, 39. And I was just like,

yeah, there's a secret fucking bookcase. Because there's Iron Staff, did it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was it. Iron Staff? Yeah, it was something like Iron Staff, yeah. Because there was an Iron Staff above the door when we turned around, and then he was there.

I think I was rude to Prince Aradan the first time we met. Yeah. Because I was like, ugh, boy. Yeah, that's on par. And he met yeah because I was like ugh yeah it's on par and he appreciated it because I was like yeah

I think Iron Staff died because I was controlling Aayla for a session and I think Aayla killed him you smashed the fuck out of him

and it was my fault one of the I think that was the second NPC that died on my watch there was also there was also that guy in

not Callie's Rest, Ironwick. Yeah, Ironwick. There was a character, I think, for some reason the party was split. I think there was some that were going down to the ship and some that stayed behind. Oh yeah, there was. And I controlled this NPC that was just this dad. Aww, that was the dad of the girls. He was the dad of a girl.

And I killed him. You did? Galen. Galen. Galen. What about, so yeah, so the stuff in Gustavion, any other favorite arcs or storylines? Callie's Rest.

Callie's Rest. I like Callie's Rest. With the whole, the chapel and... The chapel was chaos, but just being there in general because we met other guardians and then we did Spellclash. It was like the first kind of big fancy town

it was like a good little base where we set some good foundations and then chaos it was meant it was meant to be a lot more in Kaylee's rest it was like I made it as like a little hop town I thought oh this will be a lovely little hop town they'll be here for a while

across the world with thee that's fun I remember the end of that episode as soon as we stopped being I'd be here for a while. It would have been. It would have been a nice little time. Across the world with thee. We wrecked it. Yeah, that's fun. I remember the end of that episode, as soon as we stopped being live, you went, kick, go and rewrite a lot of things.

Bye, guys. If I can say one, so I love the Feywild stuff. I love the Mismara, Mismira, the Thalia, Rose Meadow, Dandelion.

Dandelion. I really love that. Like, I read a bunch of Feywild stuff and I was really keen to do it. I liked doing the kind of playing on the fairy tale idea with Mesmera and stuff like that. Yeah, with the mirror. That was really fun.

Awesome. And I think that's why as well, like when Eve, Cosplay Eve, who did, she did a Mesmera cosplay. I was just like, you have picked like this random NPC that I personally like really liked the storyline of, but I didn't think was that impactful. And to see somebody be like no i love this i really love this character i was like oh fuck that's awesome it was the imagery of the hands on

yeah that was dope i will come back to that in a second mine was uh nova versus quill oh that was an interesting thing i still think about where I'm like, there's many different ways that it could have gone. Like, it could have very quickly turned into Quill literally turning you into the storm chaser and saying, like, she's an agent of Starbane. And that would just be the end of Nova, right? Kim and Tom had to have a serious, we okay, bro?

At the end of that. Which is good. It's good to have that, though. It was a really, really cool episode, though. Yeah. I'm glad'm glad it went i mean obviously i'm glad the way it went the way it did because it was the light ending but it very easily could have gone like the other way and it wasn't just that one episode it was that there was a lot of build-up to it with the ils and like a lot of stuff going on and yeah yeah and again the ils was another way of like again seeding a little bit of callus's personality and like kind of foreshadowing a lot of that yeah that's probably the closest one of us has gone to defecting right

in the main campaigns either becoming part of Hadar yeah we've had miniseries where well I mean it was almost I guess I didn't feel like I was going evil because Nova always thought that she had the best intentions it was just she was using the ILS to get more information she wasn't going to join Starbend. And also, keep in mind, joining Starbend doesn't make you evil. Kallus was lawful evil for a lot of it, but a lot of people in the Valkyrian Empire weren't evil. They just believed in a different way of doing things.

It was almost the arrogance of Nova, thinking she was smart enough to crack this technology to get this information and maybe even talk to Kalos himself and be like, oi, bruv, what are you doing? But that kind of naivety that she could just talk it out with Starbane and the arrogance of like, I have this tech that I can use

to get information for everybody. But obviously that's a fucking bad look when your best friend comes in. But there was also an element of like, I think there was definitely some bits in those episodes where like what Kalos was saying, Nova was like, I kind of agree with him and I think that actually he's making a good point because there's a threat yeah but whereas like century and lucius were like fuck this dude i will never believe anything he says

and that so that was creating a moment of would nova go because like they were being stubborn like they were like you guys are being stubborn and not listening. For Nova, it was that reality, like doing the kind of probability and tactics and being like, if this man with a giant empire cannot defeat Hadar, what do we, especially because it was so early on in our adventures, what chance do we have of standing up against Hadar? So it means Boxer instead of Kirk. The thing is that I think that we knew that as people, but in character, it was like,

there's really no reason that we can trust you, right? There was no way Cintri was ever gonna work with Calus at that point. Especially because it was so early on as well. It was sketchy. Also, Lucius was all about the old teachings of Calus starting to kill Teasca. Yeah.

That's why it took that hard stance. And I think that also led into the Vortensar stuff, right? Like the Ganassi never really connected with that stuff. Nova never grew up being faithful to Siaska. Exactly. The gods weren't really a thing to Ganassi. So if we headcanon it a little bit now, instead of you defecting,

if we forced you to defect, basically, we were like, we have absolutely nothing to do with you what would what would be the journey of nova because i guess the character would be out of your hands at that point right like i think nova would have still tried to like maybe shifted the focus from trying to find the more shards of tiangong because that's why she was on the sparrow blade in the first place and all that, because she'd just seen the space station, she'd seen the ILS, probably still trying to collect more information,

like all this tech and all of that kind of thing. And I don't know if she would have joined Starbane, but I think definitely more research and then seeing where that would have gone. I can tell you from a DM perspective, if the group had basically kicked over El, what would have happened is I would have basically still kept in touch. I would have probably still spoken to Kim, like, privately

and be like, okay, what would Nova do? Would she go and join Starbane? Would she work independently? Tell me what her plans are. Then I would basically, like, run Nova in the background and then maybe, like, have her come back in at certain points and maybe give it as a present choice of have Kim come in and play Nova again and be like, look, I'm still willing to work with you guys but i've learned all this

stuff or like blah blah blah and give that opportunity for kim to come back in as nova but also basically be like no no like kim has to play another character now like nova is gone i'm not gonna run two separate campaigns we were at that point in the campaign we were just like brookstone we would not believe anything she said if she came when Wayne came back would be like uh uh

uh uh It would have been gone yeah But yeah it was very cool So going back to Feywild sorry that was a while ago Was Hope always planned

to be a unique entity the only centaur on Eros or was she adapted to have a reintroduction for the Feywild shenanigans absolutely yeah so like uh you know this is a bit of peek behind the wizard's curtain uh when i made hope slash rose meadow uh the peak behind the wizard's cut don't look behind the wizard's

curtain um and this is this is very common i they were in kaylee's rest i was like cool i'm writing the notes of kaylee's Rest. Like, I want to fill the town out. I want to add some NPCs, create some interesting people, interesting places. What would be fun? Ah, a herbalist's shop.

Ah, who's going to run the herbalist's shop? I know, a centaur. That'd be cool. A valley girl centaur. That'd be fun. And then I was just like, oh, but like centaurs aren't really a thing in a row. Well, maybe it's a mystery.

Like, they call her Rose Meadow because they found her in a meadow of roses and nobody really knows who she is done and then when you guys were in cali's rest that was all the notes i had that was literally everything i knew about rose meadow at that point and then again when you guys kind of like it was this fun interaction and you were like this is a fun character we like this character i was like cool i'll develop her a little bit more and i had the idea of like oh what if she's actually from the feywild that's why they found her blah blah blah and then again she became a bit more of like you guys would go back to her you check in with her you'd ask how she was i was like cool they clearly it's actually this character i'm gonna

give them a bigger place in the world they're actually an arch they're actually a fey like they're a powerful fey being that's why they were sent there to protect them oh they need to go to the feywild for thalia's story which i had also kind of like had in my head of like she's former you know fey princess why don't i tie rose meadow into this and actually it was you know the one who sent rose meadow away it was all connected because these hunters were after her and blah blah blah and then it all just kind of tied in together and that's often like what you do as a gm it's like that early game when you guys were in kelly's rest and rose meadow and rose hall and stuff it's seeding a bunch of stuff leaving it

there seeing what you guys are like we really like this guy or we really like this thing that we did and going cool nurture nurture nurture and just leaving the rest of the stuff just to like you know leave it there for another day and that was very much the case with hope like she was just this fun npc i put in i had a blast playing her and i think that often when i enjoy playing an npc you guys tend to be like oh we really like this as well best friend yeah and so that kind of builds and builds and builds and then that develops and it's the same that's pretty much the same for most npcs yeah like if there was an npc that like every like the audience really liked but you guys didn't really interact with generally i didn't do that much more with them and i didn't develop them any further um yeah there's definitely npcs that we had like that

that there's lots of questions well what happened to vezic yes i saw that there was literally a question about vezic and again it was the exact same thing quill was in the prison ship i needed to fill it up with some interesting characters so that quill had somebody to role play with and then also when you guys came to rescue him, give somebody that you guys might want to rescue. Like give you new things to try and be like, well, we can save Quill, but can we also save these other people? Great, here's a bunch of other people.

And I put him in, I was just like, well, it'd be fun. Cobbold, Cobbold with time and space magic, something to do with Valor. Literally my notes were like, something to do with Valor question mark. And I was like, something to do with Valor, question mark. And I was like, that's it. I'm just going to leave him there. And then you guys rescued him. You enjoyed him briefly, but then you never really went back and spoke to him.

You didn't really make an effort to engage with that character more, so I just left it, and I never developed it further. Because that would be a waste of my time. Why would I do that if you guys weren't interacting with him? Boring answer, but a very technical answer. It's interesting to know yeah because people that that way people people who ask about specific npcs that's the thought process it's like

is there interest and like if there is then as a dm don't put more work for yourself right dming world building yeah i can't write like if you think that I wrote out all of this complicated world before we sat down to play god no that's impossible so much of it is like just putting a little thing out

if the players interact with it great develop it build it if they don't leave it like there's no point writing 20 pages it's just disappointing right when you like

put effort into something if I wrote like two pages of Fezzik's backstory and then you guys never spoke to him again I'd be like fine I'll waste my life I'll waste the time but if I do that if Iik's backstory and then you guys never spoke to him again, I'd be like... Fine, I'll waste my life. I'll waste the time.

I'll waste the time. But if I do that, if I put him there and then you guys are like, oh, who's this little fucking cobble? I want to talk to him more. I'd be like, great. Develop him a bit more, bit by bit. So yeah.

Like Smeek. Oh, Smeek. Smeek was the rare exception where like, I think only a couple of you really engaged with him and like found him fun, but the audience really liked it. And I was just and tom hated him so i was like yeah i'm gonna make him more crucial to this yeah yeah uh let's do a lucius question well i was looking through them there are three very similar ones here um starting with so lucia started as quite

a scared one-dimensional character i didn't agree with that when youus started as quite a scared, one-dimensional character. I didn't agree with that. When you first started playing him, if you remember, did you ever envision him becoming the person he turned out to be? And adding on to that, Lucius changed a lot in the final arc. What was the driving decision to make him more serious? I had always planned to flesh out Lucius as he goes and let the campaign grow the character.

That's just the way I like to play anyway. Very much Cam Buckland. I like to go in with a stereotype kind of character with a single naive way of thinking and then is opened up to new experiences. And then I like the challenges along the way of like, how would this character that's just experienced this for the first time react to that?

And how would he grow over time? That's basically what I came to with Lucius. There was another question as well that said, did you guide Lucius's change in evolution and personality or was it solely influenced by what had happened to him? Again, almost entirely at the whim of the environment that's happening around him. Like, I didn't know Gus Taven would be

going to shit when we arrived there. It turned into a tragic backstory. Just got to lean into it. I love that shit. Well, I remember you specifically, you went, Mark, here is my family. I'm not going to make you do whatever you want. You literally were like, do what you will. This is the character. Here is my family. And then you just basically went make you you do whatever you want you literally like do what you will yeah

this is the character here's my family and then you just basically went you can do the rest yeah and i was like okay if you're gonna leave it to me and it wasn't just like i've got names here like there were like yeah you gave me like nanny nor fear yeah yeah you also gave a little bit of relations like oh he's not very close to his dad he kind of is like trying to impress him all the time he's close yeah it was like these kind of relationships um and because like we had done some stuff with like cam and like family and stuff i was like this time i think like it will be interesting to see how trot deals with a more kind of like yeah like his family's gone like and he's now got to deal with that like this very very flamboyant very kind of silly very like non-chalant character and i wanted to put you

in that position where like yeah you can't you know what are you going to do with this situation now um and i think it's interesting because i think like in high rollers like you and a few of the a few of the other guys like a lot of and playing with other dnd people i found the difference with this i found like playing with a lot of other D&D people, they will come into a campaign and be like, this character's goal is this. And I have got their kind of arc already planned in my mind. A couple of you guys are like, you don't do that at all. You're like, I don't have a goal. What I have is a concept of the character

and I'm going to build them as we go. You're very reactive. You're not proactive. Whereas like, I'd say actually with Kim, you are much more than kind of like, this is what I want my character to do You are proactive in your character, but you still react. Yeah, I didn't I wasn't like a railroad like no I was like her goal is to find the shards of Tiangong. That's a different thing

Rail road is not saying you're railroading character, but you have a very you have a goal You know the character is motivated to do something beyond what is happening to them is motivated to do something beyond what is happening to them. Whereas Lucius was a character who had no goal except get to Gusthaven and give daddy the thing back. It's basically like, I crafted a character that's like, I can't wait to exploit this character with the campaign that's about to happen to him. That's basically it.

You were reactive, and then you have characters... It's like having a really rough stone, and you're chiseling away at a sculpture. I prefer that as well. I find that fascinating. Yeah. And it's just different ways of playing it. Like, I'm very much the same

where I create reactive characters, but I've played with, like, my friend Gabe who comes in and is very proactive. He's like, I have this thing that my character wants and I'm going to work towards that. And that's sometimes amazing for a GM, right? It's amazing for the GM, yeah. I want to switch over to a question for Nova because I wanted to throw this because it kind of relates to this uh which was and it

was i think it was the top one for you was you put a lot of work into fleshing out vortenstar for the campaign what were yours and nova's favorite parts of it and again this is a good example of that i mean i say i say you're a proactive character right a player because you wrote an entire city you were like here is here is my hometown, here is all the law, here is everything about it. There you go, GM, and I was like, thank you very much, this is amazing. But it wasn't shoehorned in. No, no, no, and I wasn't, if you hadn't gone there,

I wouldn't have been like, I want my new one. No, no, yeah, no, absolutely. I think the thing about that though was you did write some bits about it, like you wrote some, very small, a couple of lines. Because I'm the kind of person where you sent out all the notes that you wanted us to see. I combed through everything and then I was like,

this sounds interesting, Bortensaur. And then you were like, I want to develop this, I want to build it into a character. So you had the foundations and I just kind of expanded on it and did a lot of stuff about the food, about opera and singing and music. You came up with the statues. The statues, yeah.

I had the idea about the statues and stuff like that. The academy, the Atlas Academy and everything else. Yeah, because I was like, you know, she wants to be scientific academic, so it would make sense that there is a... And also because I just felt like because they were coming from outside of Eros, there would be that kind of even though that the current generation had been there for a long time the foundation of that would be brand new aliens to this weird planet like so they wouldn't necessarily believe in the gods they wouldn't necessarily you know gel

because you said in the history as well that the ganassi originally went to war with native erosians because they were like what the have you done to it you've kidnapped us this is betrayal you like you know so that kind of i i really like that you brought that in was that kind of return to like older generational suspicion of erosians and like that's why they sided with starbanks they're like starbate's gonna take us home even though i was like that actually really yeah that lines up generational trauma like goes in cycles like yeah you know whereas the younger generations ones who have grown up on a road you see it as their home they were the ones who were like no we want to stay this isn't the right way of doing it and it's very it's and it's very much built into, that's actually how a lot of culture stuff works.

You will get that. As generations go on, you lose touches to where that culture came from and stuff. And that was very much what it was all about. Probably you being a writer influences how you look at making characters and stuff and how you enjoy that process of fleshing it out quite a lot, whereas I find that stressful.

You find that hard. I'm like, hmm. They're like, oh, well, Ken made three character. And I'm just like, oh God, I gotta make another one. Whereas you're like, I have ideas. Ken had hers locked up. I have ideas. Ken read through my notes and went, this.

I will be this. I want this. Yeah, I just had this idea of the homesick alien. That was literally the first thing I wrote in my notebook was the homesick alien. And then it was going thing I wrote in my notebook was the homesick alien. And then it was going through your notes that I was like, this is where I find this. And again, I think that's where the writer brain comes in

because that is a great archetype. It's a very famous literary archetype of a character. Whereas for you guys, you don't really know that stuff. So you're just like, you know, that's why it can be hard to make a character. You're a birdman. Whereas like I know for Rhiannon, when we were doing the century the initial concept of

a century was I want to be a beast war transformer warforged well we just had a druid so is there another class that we could do but then we kind of moved on because we just had a Laura it was like well what about like is there another class you were like Paladin I was like so we kind of moved on because we just had Elora as a watcher. It was like, well, what about, like, is there another class? And you were like Paladin. I was like, so you kind of want to be Optimus Prime. And then that was where that kind of story developed from. But we had that kind of archetype in mind. But it's just interesting because there's no right or wrong way about any of this stuff.

I just find that there are these two camps of reactive and proactive. I definitely fall very deep into the reactive because I think when I'm making characters. You did for Quill, but for Campaign 3, you've been a bit more proactive. Well, I don't necessarily have solid locked in things. Not talking about Lightfall too much, but Raynard was a temporary character, so I didn't have too much to add to him.

So a lot of the stuff was a big surprise. Raynard was like the most tropey archetype. You just was like, I want this. He was great. He was great, but he was not complex. His family was a big surprise. Raynaud was like the most tropey archetype. He was great. He was great, but he's not complex. His family was a surprise to me. That was so funny. And it was just reacting to that moment.

But it was the same with Quill as well, where I kind of just didn't have anything locked in. There was a thread. Because I basically like to give you memes with which to stab me in the back. I love it. It works well. And I just kind of throw out like a what if this, and that's my character prompt.

Like there was a potential idea that Quill had a brother that betrayed him on his flight through the Valley of the Swords. And I was like, what if that happened? And obviously nothing happened there but there there's that's kind of this the story beats i sort of throw out like what is this and i think that's you know from it possibly from a gm perspective like with quill tom provided me a range of these different things it was like quill's had these visions quill doesn't know what they mean cool comes from this he was struggling there are all these different threads that i was, I could have chosen like a lot of them to like draw from.

And the brother thing was interesting and I did have some like very loose notes of like when you go to towns I maybe was gonna have you meet him and like, you know, blah blah blah, have this stuff happen. But actually what I think made Quill stand out and what was most interesting was the visions and the prophecies. Yeah. And actually the role that you took within the group was definitely more that kind of voice of wisdom and like the thinker the plan of the one who was like the seer and i wanted to build more into that you know like i feel like you know lucius became the the captain the leader he was the voice like whenever you had to do a you know speak to a character it was often

lucius because again playing a high charisma sorcerer he was the one that would come in and make the persuasion check or whatever there was a bit where i was like oh there could be an interesting threat to play off and we did start to do that with like everyone's got like a higher purpose lucius is just an elf yeah um and i was interested with that facet of like these guys are superheroes they're about to save the planet lucius is a sorcerer yeah but that made him a superhero as well that's the thing he had to step up to it and uh i like that battle within of like i'm not good enough but then everyone's expecting these things of me i'm now the captain with the captain's hat yeah well at risk of giving you yet

another question well you haven't had a question yet, I was going to say there was one that says, how was it playing the only character that wouldn't want to be the hero yet had to? I don't know, because I didn't really play the other characters. What? I didn't play the other characters, so I can only know from my own perspective. I don't think Aayla particularly wanted to be a hero. She was just kind of along for the ride. Nova just wanted to reunite Tiangong, and that was it, really. I think that's a true hero, though. Did Quill want to be a hero she was just kind of along for the ride Nova just wanted to reunite Tiangong

and that was it really did Quill want to be a hero? we're not heroes but Secret was saving the world yeah Century was a born hero Century was Optimus Prime like he was the iconic hero

character but I think it was that also meant that like her moments of vulnerability made that like, when you guys leapt to Sentry's defense and helped Sentry with that, made you guys the heroes as well, right? True. It's a strength in the ordinary, isn't it?

It's just the... Strength in the ordinary. It's a big, powerful theme. It's something that's, it's often like when we watch like, you know, things like animes and stories and superhero movies, that's why it resonates with us because we all want to believe that in those moments we would rise up to it and we would be the those heroes we would stand up for the right thing and defend the innocent and stuff like that um and it's what dnd is made for like honestly like again going back to that whole thing of like

dnd is a type of game it is not really well designed to be a villainous horrible mean nasty game it is designed to be a fightous, horrible, mean, nasty game. It is designed to be a fight the monsters, save the world game. And that's why it works really well. Like, you know, you can do it. You can definitely do other types of game with it. With a good GM, you can do anything. But it is designed and it feeds very much into that.

I mean, we did Dead Reckoning, right? Yeah, like I said, you can do it. That was a difficult campaign to play, though. Yeah. Because consciously making it. That's a difficult campaign to play, though. Yeah. Because consciously making... That's the one I wiped from my memory. But consciously making the decision to do the thing that's not a nice thing is difficult.

Well, it was interesting because you definitely struggled with it, whereas somebody did not struggle with it. I went in with the worst idea. My idea was just, I really should have just workshopped it better. That was still early on as well. You know what the thing is,

is it's hard to be a villain and still have a group of friends that you're not shitty to. Because there was like so many times that you could be horrible to each other but you can't derail the game so it's like how do you convey that you're a nasty person?

There was an issue with perspective with that campaign where it was like some people went in as anti-heroes some people went in as evil. I think Taryn was not evil. Taryn was evil evil Taryn was evil Taryn was evil

but like actively still pushing forward yeah like there was a it was a very selfish goal that was the thing with that game

and like this is where because I recently just played a lawful evil character in a thing we did for Idle Champions when I played Miria and Miria was

lawful evil but I knew because luckily like you know we played and I'd seen stuff with Worthless and Dead Reckoning and stuff. I was like, okay, well, I think I've got a handle on how to do evil as a player character okay.

And that was like, she was selfish, but she was still, she had her own code of rules. She wouldn't turn on her allies. She would try and help them. She was nice. She was polite. But she ultimately was out for herself. And I think that that was where,

and that was what Dead Reckoning was built into. And that's when you wanna, if you wanna play an evil character, you have to kind of be that. You have to remember that you still have to be friends at the end of the day, but you have to also be like, well, my character is gonna try and do what,

is gonna achieve their goal at any cost. I mean, Aayla was a little bit like that. She was like selfish, but then I had to find a way from the start, which I didn't find at the start, but as we went, I had to find a way to be like, okay, she's going to be a bit of an asshole, but she needs to be funny enough about it

to still want to have this relationship. If you have that much of an edge, it does almost get to, that's the difficulty at the start of any campaign, where it's like, you need to make sure this group stays together, but if someone is just not, at the start of any campaign where it's like, I need to make sure this group stays together. But if someone is just not,

like has not aligning goals, then it's gonna be really difficult to justify it. And that is ultimately a player's responsibility is to be like, well, how am I gonna change my character to make sure that I'm still gonna work with these guys? And I think the problem with Worthless was I was so confused about her from the word go, because I don't think she was evil.

I was just so fucking confused about her. And I tried to create this very damaged character. And it just wasn't- You don't have to worry about it. I know, but it was a learning lesson for me, because I was like, yeah, I fucked that up badly. Let's never do this again. So if I go back to it, I would have brought Boomer across.

Because Boomer was so much better and so much more interesting, because he was selfish, but would have brought Boomer across. Yeah. Because Boomer was so much better and so much more interesting because he was selfish, but he would go along because chaos. Yeah. I want to jump back into something Katie said because I think that like Aayla was not necessarily selfish. Aayla was very chaotic in that she was a free spirit. She was like, I've been looking out

for myself, but you also developed very well into which was the perfect trope fit for Aayla, which was the found family. She was somebody who didn't have anybody, and these assholes that initially you're like, these fucking useless elves, weak nerds. You know, I like Sentry. Sentry's okay,

but the rest of them... But it became this, like, Ayla became the, like, I have to look after them, and it became this found family trope, which was great. It fit Ayla perfectly. You didn't have to be nice to everybody else because you were nice to these guys if you were like

selfish it could have been things like you were stealing resources from the group you were like you know I think I did take some gold from

Lucius a few times I was giving it away he was giving it away I just really kept asking how much money is this oh I've got

hundreds I've read that so far to go back to the whole like using a bad character that won't gel with got hundreds of them. I've read them so far. To go back to the whole, like, using a bad character that won't gel with the rest of them, can be, if you're willing to think beyond that character, a great catalyst for the story. So, for example, if you're willing to let that character go

and bring in a new character that takes that person's place as the future party member, that could be a great, catalyst. Or work with the DM and be like, look, everybody fucking hates my guy. I'm going to sabotage this shit. Or, in the next combat, kill me. Like, really just outright slaughter me. And then the

DM can use that as a tool to have a merciless villain pick up a dude and slap him. It's like, that person was causing a problem, but it's brought the rest of them together. I do think if that had been a private campaign, I would have said get rid of worthless, bring another one in. So you mean having a character that you play for a while just to introduce your actual character? Yeah. That's really cool.

That's exactly what Travis did in Assassin's Creed 3 when he plays Hathem Kenway at the start. Who is a Templar and then you play Connor well I mean not to throw out but like so I was saying Travis in CritRole

Campaign 3 he did that he played a character that then you know basically is a way to introduce there's nothing

original anymore no no nothing it's just hard to do it when there's so many out there yeah also I've

thought about doing very complicated things in Campaign 3 and I've then thought I should be a reactive guy that comes in with I listen I would love to see you

I think for like moving into campaign 3 I would love to see all of you doesn't have to be a big thing but just a small thing where you're like my character wants this

this is what my character wants like just that one line I want X bigger pee pee because then that gets a cool thing big pee pee big pee pee you want to have Bigger pee pee. Because then that gets the cool thing. Big pee pee?

Big pee pee. Well, sure. You want to have big pee pee? World peace. There has been a lot of people, because obviously for Nat 20, High Rollers, Nat 1. Nat Lucius, Nat 1.

Nat 1. You now need to roll just 10. Average. 10. You need an average. Should we do a quill question? We haven't done a quill. Yeah, do you want to do a quill question?

We'll do a favorite. Quilly boy. Well done a Quill. Yeah, do you want to do a question? Quilly boy. Well, Quilly boy. Well, speaking of characters that you might not like, there is a lot about Piri, and I know that you have thoughts on old Piri. So what are the Piri questions? Piri seems to be a fairly contentious character. What were your thoughts on him at the time that you played him, and how if all did they change

if at all did they change since then do you think he could have been a viable permanent PC anywhere near to the extent of Keeluk no

I'm so glad you said that I mean because in my head I was like no but what explain that there was there was like

I mean I definitely was building a character with the intention of it potentially becoming permanent I think if There was like, I mean, I definitely was building a character with the intention of it potentially becoming permanent. I think if Quill hadn't got resurrected, Piri would have left the party and I would have just made a new character.

Why didn't you like him? He just felt flat. Like he did have a story. He fell out of a portal, right? He fell out of a portal, yeah. And there was a guy there that everyone keeps... Tormann! Tormann!

Yeah, like, he definitely had a story. I don't know how deep we went into it with the Cypher Academy, and there were these... He would have tied very heavily into the Vaughn's stuff. There were these elite units that go in trying to recover relics or something like that. I remember that being a thing it was basically like

a part of the Cypher Academy it was like the evil X-Men so they had like more psionic powers they had more unusual magic they had like a press of Professor Xavier but he basically

would have ended up working for Kallus and the council of Vortensar and stuff like that like the secret part of the Atlas Academy he also had like

that portal watch that was broken he wanted that recovered so he could teleport back to the Cipher Academy properly and things like that. So there was more to him. I think when I started playing him, he was very quickly stupid.

And I didn't actually want him to be a dumb character, but I kind of leaned into it as time went on and he just became dumber and dumber until eventually it came to a point where I was like, he's just too stupid now. Don't knock Norman. Norman? Nerman.

Nerman. Yeah, no, Peary, he was fine. I also just... I think it wasn't that there was anything wrong with Peary. Peary just was kind of a bit meh. He was an NPC. Yeah, yeah. He didn't have main character energy.

He felt quite modern. Like, I don't know, in a sort of sci-fi, like high fantasy, I don't know. I think the issue I had in building him is I didn't, obviously I had to build him quite quickly. I didn't read into the Vordensal stuff as much as I should have for a character that would have been tied so deeply into it. And also, like, apparently I knew Nova from the Atlas Academy, but me didn't do the

research, didn't know anything about the Atlas Academy, didn't know much about Ganassi. Because we talked about this. We literally had a conversation about this because you were like, I'm thinking of doing a Faraganasi from the Alice Academy. So I was like, oh my God, like, you know, we could do this, we could do this. And then I was like, I like reactive. But it's difficult to do in an established universe. Also, he just wasn't Quill.

And I think you had very clearly really loved playing Quill. And it's hard to like pick up and play a new character when a character you really love. I think not to throw this over. Also, there was two down at that point. So joining the party with a new character. And I think there was a big difference because with Ariah,

I think you were really enjoying playing Ariah. Even though she wasn't sentry, she was fun to play. And she very clearly had a role within the group still as this captain. She had this thing going on. She filled a gap. Whereas like P, as like this captain, like this kind of, she had like this thing going on. She filled a gap. Whereas like Piri, I don't feel like, it was kind of like this weird, like not Nova,

but kind of, and just didn't have this thing that made their own. In terms of like having to make him rapidly, I kind of, there's a sick thrill I get from playing a character that if they die, I have no backup. So I'm always like, I won't let them die because I'm fucked if he does. So that's kind of why I hadn't had a backup in plan.

Because I was like, it's going to suck. It's not going to be good. I didn't have it. I have five new characters at the time, ready to go. The question that someone did ask, was like, did you guys have backup characters? No, absolutely not. What were they?

Katie never does. If Ayla died, I'd be like, right, I'm going to go away until you bring me back. Katie would have literally taken like a one month hiatus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See ya. What about you, Trot? I don't think about it until it happens.

But man, you wanted it to happen. You were edging. Holy shit, he didn't fucking die I was trying man every combat you were like me me me why didn't he fucking die he was so close so many times

I did the mending fucking thing and I survived that bullshit because they had the one thing that could save them. Sequester scroll! I was just like, We did it, yay, we solved that problem. I could just see me and Shrott look at each other like,

I can't believe he's not gonna die. And then again, I didn't have a back up, so. But I think out of all of us, I think you're one of the people that very easily plays into other characters. I think me and you are a bit similar in that we can jump into new characters pretty easily. Yeah. If he did die though,

why did you want him to die so bad? Was it so that you could then- Because he's such a good catalyst for everybody else. That's the only reason. He was the- I am the sacrificial lamb. Like I wanted that so bad so that I was putting myself out there.

I think that you being alive was I was putting myself out there. I think that you being alive was our catalyst. And even at the end, he was, like, standing up against the dark going, like, fucking, I'm going to stay. It was like, why do you get to sacrifice yourself? Okay, you can leave now. I'll stay. You can leave, I'll stay.

And we were like, no, Shadow Master. The weather's switched. Literally physically picking up and carrying him away. I think there was a nice way of doing that though, where you weren't just being stupid and saying, I'm gonna stand in front of the fire. Yeah, I always tried to find a genuine reason that Lucius would be.

You never put yourself purposely in that. Like there was just moments where it's like, this is perfect. This would be so perfect. Well, it was the thing again, with you and Quill being so squishy was that you went so close to that point quickly that there was a lot of opportunity where it could have definitely happened.

The party created so many good backup plans to save Lucius because it happened so often that I had such a big safety net. Yeah, like Nervo was always near him at some point. I almost wish that the Zarkirra fight we had at the end happened maybe, like, a couple of months

or, like, a year earlier because if I had put that kind of lethality into a fight at the point where I still felt we could have brought in a new character

to continue, but at the point that Zarkirra was, I was like, please don't die. Like, I need these characters to all get through the end, but I have to play this villain to the point that she is.

So like when you kept saving Quill, I was like, thank fucking God. But that's the thing that people- You died twice in that fight. Something that people were questioning was the fact that you were like, right, nobody can get resurrected past this point. And then Quill got resed.

Do you want to talk about, cause you explained it to us. He didn't get resed. He didn't get resed. No, but you explained it to us. He didn't get rezzed. He didn't get rezzed. But you explained it to us very clearly. That you couldn't be resurrected. He didn't get resurrected.

I didn't get rezzed. Because he knew I died. I built in, and I did that on purpose. I built in the Valor mechanic, and I did it for two reasons. One, because it is a true representation of Valor's powers.

Yep. Right? She has always been like that kind of there. And again, this kind of relates to a question. In fact, I like that kind of, and again, this kind of relates to a question. In fact, I'm going to read the question out because it kind of ties into this. The question for me was, it was like one of

the top ones. What sort of inspirations and themes did you have in Minecraft in the story of this campaign? That's a question for me. It ties into, you know, it was lots of anime inspirations, like Shonen and Dragon Ball and all that, and Valor was that character. Yeah.

When, like, she's Gohan, right? Like, when the chips are down and everybody thinks it's all going to go wrong, Super Saiyan power up, and then does a cool thing. And so when she was trapped in that thing, I wrote in my notes, if they break Valor out, she triggers these powers,

and this is, and one of them would be that she can basically bring somebody back if they've died within the last round. And I put all of those very specific conditions in because it was true to who Valor was. It wasn't up to the fact. And because I'm not an asshole,

and I knew that I was going to be trying to actively kill you guys, which I don't often do, and that might take you by surprise. You might just get unlucky. Remember, it's a game of dice, right? Like, if you'd gone into that, and you even had that at the start of that Z cure fight you guys were rolling so bad and there's nothing you could all the tactics and cool plans in the world wouldn't help you because you just

rolled like dirt so i wanted to have something like a barrier a safety net which was if somebody does go down maybe there's a chance they can be saved but you did also say um like if he had died permanently and that wasn't to happen there might have been something whereby siesta yeah i'll talk about that yeah because i think that's quite interesting that you so what i would have done with that was basically, Siaska was with you. You know, she's the last god. She's basically the one who's looking after the souls of Daedalus. What she would have done is, before Quill's soul was fully consumed,

would have basically preserved it, allowed Quill to join you basically as a spirit Quill, where he would have had his cleric powers. Maybe he physically couldn't hold people or touch people, but he still would have been able to join you and cast spells. But with the proviso that when Hadar was defeated, he would have to go. Like it would be like, no, he is gone.

Like he is, you can't bring him back. Wish spells, nothing like that would work. Crescent Wreck, none of it would work. He would be dead, like 100%. But I didn't want, I don't want to be like you're not in the last episode sorry tell me you're not going in the last two episodes so like that would have been the idea is that you basically she would have preserved like his spirit long enough to help you fulfill the mission and that would have been true for any of you who died not just quill it

would have been the same for like lucius because i wouldn't want trot to like even if he had died in that fight i wouldn't want trot to not be there. So I would have had his spirit be there, and then basically with that understanding of that sad farewell once Hadar's gone is like, right, say goodbye, because they're gone. I'm glad it didn't happen, because that would have broken me. Yeah. That's what I wanted. I want to break yours.

Why do you want to cry? I don't want to be broken myself, I break others. That's what happens. Kind of related to that, we've got a Nova question. Tied to characters dying. Was it hard to make the decision as to whether or not Nova would return and did you worry any of the rest of the cast while deliberating? Also, would you have considered not bringing back Nova

if the campaign had not been as close to the end as it had been? So I had a lot of delirium because this happened when we went on Christmas break. So I had like, what, three weeks to think about this. So we actually had a phone call, a Discord call, where we spoke about this for hours, like about what to do. And I actually ended up speaking to my therapist about this a lot because it really hit me very hard it came at a time where I personally was going through a lot of mental

health issues and um there was a line about stardust that fucking punched me in the heart that sat with me for three weeks and I had to talk to my therapist about because I was like, this is really like, this is not healthy. This line about Stardust and needing to disappear into Stardust. So we had a long talk about it.

And I think the general line was if it had been a private campaign, I would have retired Nova because she did what she wanted, she set out to do. She stopped Vought and Sarr from exploding. And to bring her back, I don't think would have fit if it was a private game.

If it had happened earlier in the campaign, again, same thing, I think I would have brought another character back. You could play Piri. I could have done Piri. Because you'd know the backstory, unlike Tom. Yeah, I would have done a better Piri. Well, Tornado.

Tornado was my initial backup idea. And I was almost Tornado until we struck upon the idea of Howard. And I was like, do you know what? I need to have some fun. Like, not that Tornado wouldn't have been fun. No, but Howard was fun. But Howard was fun. And that was the absolute cathartic thing I needed to do.

So unexpected. That arc was another good one. Yeah. That was so funny. Crumble belly. Yeah. Crumble belly! It was a close thing.

And when we did the bringing her back and Quill came, even though I had gone into that session going, we made a decision, she is coming back. There is going to be a sacrifice. She's lost Tiangong. She lost every magic item, everything's gone. Everything about her was gone, you know, apart apart from her and we came back with that idea but then whenever it started and you were rp'ing with me i was like what if i just changed my mind and

this is the perfect time for her to go but i just i didn't feel right bringing in another character that late no i'm not coming back to that. Pete was amazing, by the way. Yeah. Between you two, that was awesome. Tom was like, for the love of God, take my hand! So, yeah, it was a very close thing. And if we had been earlier, if it had been a private campaign.

I also think that a big difference is that we had been playing Arise for five years yes and I wasn't ready to let her go I wasn't and I said this to Kim I was I asked you keep

keep playing yeah you did yeah because it was it was when we got to that end I couldn't envision an ending to the campaign that didn't have

the five characters I just couldn't envision that's what swung it for me like and I know that that's bad because it's like some people will be like oh railroading or something like that I couldn't envision an ending to the campaign that didn't have the five characters. I just couldn't envision. That's what swung it for me. Like I know that that's bad because it's like some people were like, oh, railroading or something like that. I'm like, we spent five years,

like I just couldn't envision that. That's why this campaign was all about. And that's what I felt as well. Ultimately what brought it back was I cannot see being anyone else in this final fight. Like I could not see it being anyone else. Lucius could have gone, but. You love Lucius.

You love him. You would have missed him. I love him, but I wanted him to be a martyr and everyone revere him. Some of our artists did not want that, but her fail was like, I'm killing myself, I've come to Bristol. It's close. It's close.

Yeah. Let's do a... F-f-f-f-favourite. Yeah. It's time for your Favorite moment So I like this one We've probably answered it a bunch of times But it's always a fun one

Most and least favorite NPC in WoW Oh my god, Howard, number one Howard's fantastic Howard is fantastic. Howard is the best. He just had the Bristolian accent. I loved Howard. Howard had a breakdown,

and it was one of my favorite moments overall. Yeah. That was great. Just the sweetest. He was cozy. He was like a hug of an NPC. Yeah. I liked-

He's the everyman. He's the all hairy, just, he's this random halfling cook on a fucking edge just pulling super heroes. Traumatized. And he's just like, why am I here?

He's so out of his depth. Yeah, you talk about being out of your depth. Fucking Howard. He made crumble syrup and his face is crumble. I love that crumble belly became a thing. Crumble belly. And I got all of you guys with that.

That was so good. Because I'd written that ability and I was just like, yeah. Have the crumble. So good. And I got all of you guys with that. Because I'd written that ability and I was just like, yeah. Have the crumble. Have the crumble. So good. I think a lot of my favorites are fucking Guardians. Yeah. Breeze, Lord Veracitor, I just like that.

I also like Herald a lot. That was a very cool art with the City of Glass. City of Glass was cool. Protector was really cool. Yeah. I like the Strike Squad when we're heading into Calara. Yeah. I love Lookout.

Lookout's great. He was just there looking. Just loads of eyes. That was his bow. Loads of eyes. I liked Smeek because Tom hated him so much and Aayla wouldn't have liked him, but there was an opportunity to play off of him

because he worshiped Aayla and then there was an opportunity to play off of him because he worshiped Ayla, and then there was an opportunity for me to annoy Tom. So it was just like a perfect little situation. Tom hated it. I liked Max because there was just an honest, aside from the pecs, there was just a real honest simplicity to him. That was his goal. That was his oath. There was no bending real honest simplicity to him. Like that was his goal.

That was his oath. There was no bending around that. And I think that Max was actually the first time where I, I got to kind of show you that the Valkyrian empire wasn't black and white. It was gray. Max, you were like, we really want him over.

Yeah. But you were like, he's so like honorable and like decent, but he's committed to this empire. I really took a sense of it. Yeah, and I think Max was really the kind of catalyst that made Sentry go, maybe I'm not 100% right. Yeah, exactly. Because how could this warrior who I respect so much believe in this guy?

There's got to be something to it. Yeah, exactly. And then there was. He's an honorable man. And I just really like that simplicity of you could bend iron around his will. Yeah. There's little things like he smiles slightly and you're like.

Or like a bit when I described his armor coming off at night and Ron's just like. I don't think I have a least favorite. I don't think there's any NPC that I really hate. A character that you hate, you were like, oh my God, I was so glad when we killed them or I hated them in have a least favorite. I don't think there's any NPC that I really hate. Okay, well, like, a character that you, like, hate, like, you were like, oh my god, I was so glad when we killed them, or, like, hated them in, like, role play. I really enjoyed it when we beat the shit out of Gratz.

Yeah. That was fun. Like, when we fucking kicked his ass. That was fun. I was like, fuck you, you bitch, fuck off. That will forever be one of my examples of why the official D&D books are very broken. Like, we beat him up really good. CR 23, you say?

Let me put him against my level 16 pot. Oh, no, they kicked the shit out of him. Fair enough. Yeah, two rounds. That was really cathartic. And it wasn't even close. Like, you guys in two rounds had him on the ropes, and I barely touched him.

But it was so cathartic. Yeah, and that's true. I was happy with that. That's why I didn't, like, bullshit it. I was like, yeah, fair enough. You guys kicked his ass. But I don't think there's any that I'm like... I mean, like Zarkira.

Well, Zarkira, we hate him, but... You hated her. But that was... But love him. But I feared her showing up. Yeah. Which is good. You want that.

I think she was the biggest... I was more scared of Zarkira than I was of Calus. Yeah. By far. That was intentional. That was very much intentional. She did a great job of making me hate the Mag Calus. Yeah. Yeah. That was intentional. That was very much intentional. You did a great job of making me hate the McGrouners. Yeah.

And the Brookstone, the whole Brookstone family. The Brookstone's like, yeah. The kids. The OGs. The fucking kids that we met and brought back, and then you fucking threatened to shoot one of them in the face in front of Brookstone. I threatened to shoot Brookstone in the face,

saying, like, father, like son, because he's so cool... That was so cool! Yeah, so cool. I think, like, for me, for, like, favourite NPC-wise and stuff, like, I mean, like, and I said this, like, you, because you guys, obviously there was so much I couldn't tell you guys, my only confidant in the entire campaign was Nina. And me and Nina, Nina knew everything, like, about this campaign. campaign was Nina and me and Nina Nina knew everything like about this campaign and I remember

because I came home after the finale and Nina had been crying for like hours because Calus Siasca like that was like that was like my story like that was like my little bit of the story that I put in of like this love story and like this like eons tragic

lovers who are reunited. Well Nina drew the whole like intro. Yeah yeah and so like and she knew that from the start she Well Nina drew the whole like intro. Yeah, yeah. And so like, and she knew that from the start. She knew the whole story and like all the details. She knew that like Siaska was the one that killed herself rather than it being Calus. And like, you know, she knew all of that stuff. But honestly, Valor was a surprise as well.

Like I knew what Valor was gonna be, but like I, how much you guys were her protectors and stuff. That like really got me. You have a knife child yeah yeah I love that that was our response

child needs a knife yeah because I watched you sit by Andrew and then that knife became the way that Calus tracked you for most of the

campaign Lucius and uh who was it Lucius and Aelin's knives I think yeah yeah oh yeah

yeah yeah and then yeah I like uh Thalia's pie and Aelin's knives, I think? No, it was Tian Gong because he has a shot of Tian Gong. Oh, yeah. He had Lucius' knife and then shots of Tian Gong, yeah. I like Thalia's pie as well. Yeah, big bag. That kind of classic sidebar. I was surprised at how much you guys liked...

Because Thalia, I thought, okay, she's like Han. She's like drunk Han Solo. But I was surprised at how much you liked Kyrie and Big Cat. And Bim. And Bim. Oh, my boy.

Forever in our hearts. He's still out there. So good. I mean, obviously Petal's a big favourite for me. Aww! You, to this day, man, like, that whole bit, like, with you... She was Sentry's North Star the whole time. Yeah, honestly, like, Petal. Rosemidow as well, like, I mean, like, fuck, I cosplayed her, you know, I loved her. She was dumb like she was dumb she was really fun to play

I actually there was one NPC that I really enjoyed playing that I didn't get to do too much was like do you remember the tortle who ran like the fight yeah yeah

I can't even remember his name but I liked playing him I don't have my notebook on yeah I liked playing him but yeah that was a fun one yeah I don't think there's any like that we hate.

No. Love to hate, but not like, oh god, I can't wait until we never see this person again. There's just some NPCs that you just move on from quickly and forget about. That's it. Not sneak! Here's an interesting one that I wanted to ask, which is for everyone. How does the ending your characters got compared to what you expected of them at the beginning of the campaign? Were there any story beats that made you change course

in your character after the Star Trek? Trotz obviously talked about how he wanted Lucius to die. Not at the start of the campaign. I didn't think I'd have a space girlfriend. Yeah, it's true. Space wife. I don't know about wife. Oh yeah, space wife.

I think when you're dating an archfey who's immortal, you can't really do the marriage thing. Yeah. A lot of people were like, but why didn't Nova take the divine spark so she like yeah a lot of people were like but why didn't nova take the divine spark so she could live forever and i was like because it's not nova i mean also they were only dating for like she loved her but they don't even date for a little bit of that you gotta you gotta test that shit you know she's an archery i'm sure there's ways she can

find potions of longevity or like extend nova's lifeline i'm like poor Quill! Meh! Yeah, I mean, like, the ending for Quill was the ending of Quill. I fully expected that. I'm not surprised by that. There was an addendum actually after the fact I headcanoned an addendum to it. And it's his, so you know his Spear of Oracles

summoned Elder Quill? I had it in my mind that eventually there'd be a point where Elder Quill, I had it in my mind that eventually there'd be a point where Elder Quill wouldn't appear anymore. Yeah. Because it is literally Quill from the future. So he would have foreseen almost like the time where... Aww.

He knew it was coming. Yeah. Oh, shit, guys, he's not happening anymore. I had it in my head that Quill had made peace with the fact that he was going to die soon because Elder Quill was no longer appearing. Jesus Christ. I know.

Imagine if I said that in the episode. Oh my God. So what I want to say about that is out of everybody, obviously I knew Quill had a short lifespan, and in my head I was like, I think Tom will take the deal. And I thought Tom would become a god. We are getting ahead head I was like, I think Tom will take the deal. Okay. And I thought Tom would become a god. We are getting ahead of ourselves a little bit.

Let's come back to that. Divine Spark thing, if we talk about that now. We'll talk about this, then maybe we'll take a quick break. It's like, we may go for a while. Divine Spark was the hardest decision by far for me. Where taking the blood of an innocent person century was a 50-50, this was an easy 50. It could have gone either way for me.

And I was so on the fence that I was almost like, I can't make a decision. I need someone to make a decision for Quill. I just cannot figure this out. And I presume everyone else was the same as that as well. I thought you would have taken it so you could become the new Hesper. Well, that was a hard no, weren't you?

That was a hard no, yeah. I kind of wanted everyone else to be gods, and then Lucius was like, I'm going to die. I'm just going to die. But also, that would have fit out of everybody. I'll say this. I'll tell you what I thought was going to happen. I was like, I think Aayla will say yes.

I think Quill will say yes. Century doesn't need to say yes because she's got the Prime Matrix and she'll live for a long time anyway. I thought Nova and Lucius would say no. So I thought Quill and Aayla would say yes. Oddly enough, I think I said this as well in the post-donations thing we did,

is that for maybe 99% of the campaign, if the choice had come up, I'd be like, hell yeah, absolutely. Like, that's what Quill is building towards. And that's what I was definitely alluding to. Hesper was trying to make you his successor. Yeah, that's what I thought you'd do, is become the new Hesper. Yeah. But you decided not to.

Nah. Too much paperwork. It was, yeah, I liked the theme of the ending that we created. yeah but you decided not to nah too much paperwork it was I liked the theme of the ending that we created I really loved that when you said that

like when it was the idea of like I don't think it needs gods yeah like I was like a world without heroes that is like

such a poignant thing and what you didn't know is that to me that ties into like one of the big inspirations of this particular anime that is one of my favourite's one of my favorite it's happened already but like but like that no no no but no what i mean is is like in that concept in that that in that show the way

it ends is the world is very much like a world like it is very technological it's about the spirit of humanity being more powerful than the forces of the universe and like how humanity can overcome stuff and it just in my head i was like oh my god that choice and those wordings just aligned with the vision i always had of where that world would go and i was just i was really happy with it i was just like man i can't actually think of a more perfect ending like to me i yeah that ending was perfect the choice that was made in the end there. And the choice for Siaska and Calus and Val to go as well and be like, this world is now for

mortal kind. If we had, or one or two of us had divine sparked it, would they have stayed? They would have stayed. Because they would have had to, like, Siaska would have had to be your teacher and teach you what it is to be a god. Like, they would have stayed. Calus probably still would have given up the throne. Val would have become the empress, like a dem-god or goddess empress um but siasko would

have taught those who chose to become gods how to be gods um and then that would have been it so independent to everyone else's like thoughts where did you fall on the initial like take it or don't take it where did nova land oh i i think it was a 100% in that kind of what I said at the time of, like, these are the things that Nova wants to go and do, but I don't need godhood to do that. Like you said, the spirit of humanity. Nova did not see that she needed divine powers to do that. To do the things she wanted to do.

She always had a scientific, inquisitive mind. She was never a divine person. Yeah, she never put much in gods. Like, you know, she debunked them as titans, you know? And even fighting with Siaska at the end, she was like, it's not for me. So I think Kim, Kim was sitting there going, oh, I fucking love to be a god.

Yeah. So good. But no, bro, like, absolutely, yeah. What about Aayla? I think she, it was kind of a 50-50. It depended on what everyone else did because the idea was intriguing, but mostly from the point of view that

someone needs to protect the world against Hadar still in case that threat came back. But if there was no other gods, then like how is anything going to happen there anyway? And she wouldn't have wanted to do it unless she had friends by her side because she would be like, well, what the hell do I do? Like, even with Siaska teaching her,

she would have been like, mm, no. What would a universe look like if Aayla was the only god? I don't know! She'd just be like... Just build that real quick. Do it. But everyone's just like the orcs. There's just war everywhere. Just war. War never changes.

I guess for Sentry, cause Sentry basically already was kind of very god-like to the Guardians. This would have just been the next evolution of that. One thing which I had in mind, which is if Sentry had accepted godhood, was you would have had the power to allow Guardians to recreate themselves. It wouldn't have been this, they need to be made by other people. They would basically become this race of beings that can repopulate by themselves and you

know they would be a true race almost, in the sense that they can... Guardians can't bang? Well, maybe not bang, but they can just make new versions. They don't need other people to do it. How do Babi Guardian work? Why does there need to be Babi Guardian? Why can't they just make Grown Guardian?

It's like in Star Trek when Data makes lore. I don't fucking know what that is. But that was a thing that I was going to be like, now that you are a god, you have this power that you can basically give this ability to your people that they can create new versions of themselves. They don't need the Prime Matrix anymore. They don't need you are that.

The hell? I wouldn't give you that choice. It would have been your choice to do it, but that would have been a thing that was put on the table. I think the Sentry as well, after seeing the Titans and seeing how their own god had corrupted them in a way i think that initial fear would have been with century as well like she'd she wouldn't want to become the antithesis of what she'd been the whole campaign yeah yeah made sense made sense like i said like for me the two surprising ones was definitely it was like ayla and quill those two

i was like oh okay because also in my head ones was definitely, it was, like, Aayla and Quill. Those were the two I was like, oh, okay. Because also in my head, I was just like, I didn't need to worry about Quill's short lifespan because I was pretty sure that Quill was going to say yes. And so I was like, well, Quill will always be around. But when you said no, I was like... He dies! You're at his funeral. I was like, and I felt like it had to be stated

because it was like, yeah, he would literally only live for, like, four or five more years. And then that would be it. Like, Arako grew short lifespan, man. Apparently lore wasn't created by Data. Fuck's sake, why do you have to do this to me? It's Lieutenant Commander

Data. No, it was Lael, Laura's his brother. I thought you liked that. I just misspoke, okay? I'm very tired. They begin with L. We're going to try and rapid fire a couple because there was a lot of questions. We're not going to be able to answer them all, unfortunately.

Hopefully, we've answered some of the more interesting ones. We're going to rattle through these and then maybe about 45 minutes, we'll be wrapping things up. So it's going to be a bit of a broken up one today. But Tommy's going to start us off. Just a few more quiz calls from your boy, TJ Hazzy

in the hizzy. Oh god. You just read the question. This is going to opposite a quick fire. Sorry. So it's now been how long since the finale? A while. Which is now the longest

period of time in five years that we have not played these characters. How often do you still think about characters on a regular basis because man burned in seared in hmm not quite a lot yeah I see my Lucius mini a lot so yeah it lids on my wall so I'm watching Star Trek every day at the moment and every day is apparently to know about. Will you stop? I'm going to drop you. Actually, I've still got,

I've got Ayla art as my background on my laptop and it still is so. Oh yeah, I mean. And it's on my, she's on my watch actually. I've got Pumpkin's Ayla art on my watch. My iPad background, lock screen is all different fan art. Oh, I have squirrel curls. I fan art like squirrel curls i've got the squirrel curls artwork from the very very beginning of campaign no that's fire watch on

my phone ignore me um yeah i am constantly surrounded like i've got the shelves behind me in my office which is covered in like there's the yeah i've got a bunch of yeah i've got an over art um i'm gonna be honest despite having a load of our around me, I think because I've been thinking so much about Campaign 3 and this special project that we've got coming up, I honestly haven't had time to really think about Aero. It's like, to me, especially being the GM, when we wrapped, I was done. Like, even coming into this Q&A, I was just like, I've moved on. Well, you were even like, do we need to do a Q&A?

And I was like, people want answers. And you're like, really? I was like, they want answers. I was like, yeah, but I guess because to me, I'm already working on the Q&A. Whereas was like people want answers and you're like really? I was like they want answers I was like yeah but I guess because to me I'm already working on the music

so like whereas you guys like it's a bit different like it's kind of lingering right I think as well it's because like compared to campaign one

this was a lot longer so we played these characters for a lot longer and they now leave a bigger gap that we like because we got to know

them so well yeah and I know especially like for you like there is so much of them so well yeah and i know especially like for you like there is so much of like you in ayla and stuff like that it makes a big big difference right so yeah i mean yeah for me it's like uh it's unfortunately not not that much but it's because i'm working on new stuff new exciting stuff so there is a question tied to that as well because the intention of arois was to play a level 2 to level 20 campaign right from the very beginning which we did what are your

opinions on that and also how did everyone else feel playing 2 to 20 I can tell you that from my perspective as GM

I'm super glad I did it I wanted I specifically did it like it was a thing I planned to do because I wanted you guys to have that experience I wanted you to play

level 20 characters and be like we're fucking awesome and like we got all these cool powers we got 9th and we've got all these cool powers we've got 9th level spells we do all this cool stuff I will never do it again

so few people are able to do it as well I think without the commitment of us streaming being adults having lives and shit

would never happen so we're one of the rarefied people that have done it and I'm glad that we've done it. I'm glad that we did it.

It was really good to do. I really enjoyed it. For me, as a warlock, it poked some holes in being a warlock at high level. So I'm glad that I had the opportunity to multi-class and that brought a whole new joy to it. I'm gonna miss all the high level temporal stuff. And gravity spell, I'm gonna miss oscillating. Well, you know, you say that. One of the things, I talked to her a little bit about it and I'm going to miss oscillating well you know

you say that like one of the things I talked a little bit about it and I'm thinking about for campaign 3 and beyond and stuff like that

is like I almost want to like maybe find a way in the future campaigns to kind of bring you those high level spells and powers bring them in

so you can use them at lower levels but make it so there are consequences and costs to using them so you still have that I get to cast a 9th level spell but now I've got another consequence

attached to it. But also I don't have to deal with the nonsense that is making level 15 plus D&D content because that killed me. I'll be honest. I think I would have preferred to

play a level 20 druid to a barbarian just because of how freaking insane druids are. But I loved playing a level 20 barbarian. I loved playing a barbarian full stop, but it would have been hilarious to play a level 20 druid. Listen, if I had to have

a level 20 druid and a level 20 paladin in the same campaign, I don't think I'd ever run D&D again. Yeah, well it's not like being a level 20 paladin because... same campaign i don't think i'd ever run dnd again it was a lot of fun but also i think for me like the level so much were like a nice indicator of how far we were coming but i also liked having like just the time to really craft a story together like i really liked how much of a slow burn it was and how long we could spend on each other as characters and really like growing our stories together. I really enjoyed that time. That was really fun.

Yeah. That's a very good point. I think that's the thing, because as I went on, I started speccing more things around portals and gravity. You found the way you liked it. Yeah. I hit upon it at a point,

and then I was like, this is my life now. For sure, for sure. The craft. Yeah, it does take a while. Arching gate. Quintfire. What about you, Tommy?

Oh, yeah, no, I mean, I didn't get to level 20. Well, I did. You did, but... But not multi-class. I didn't get to level 20 cleric. You got to like 17 cleric, right? Yeah, I think it was, yeah, 18. Up there.

But yeah, no, I loved, I mean, he started as a bard cleric because I had a very well I think there's so much crossover with bard and cleric that I basically

was just a level 2 cleric in my opinion and I didn't use bardic inspiration because Quill wasn't a bard

you didn't play him as a bard yeah so I'm glad I swapped over to wizard and gained portent because it fits so nicely with this character as well. Yeah, it was a smart move. I like to, there was a sort of,

meant to be originally like a thematic sort of way of leveling up. Like if I spent most of that level aligning myself with Hesper and being cleric-like, god-like, then I probably would have... Please don't. I would have leveled up

into cleric, but if I was more bard-like or wizard-like, I would have leveled up wizard, but I didn't do that. I ended up just leveling up cleric all the way. We need to ask Trot more questions so he doesn't get bored and starts playing with the BTZ. Okay, well... I've got one question I want to answer,

and it will be a quick one. This was a specific DM question. Between sessions, what is the prep breakdown for the next session? How long is spent planning maps, painting minis, building NPCs, assigning treasure, and readying combats? The honest answer is it varies. There are definitely... But on average, the honest answer is it varies there are definitely but on average the honest answer is about between a week like i honestly a lot of a roast was spent planning week to week

so it'd be like a thing would happen in one session i would then spend the next week planning the next session um and that would be designing the encounters building the maps painting the minis coming up with all the plot points anything like that um not much of it was done in big batches like there wasn't there was only a couple of instances i think like all the cholera stuff um a few other bits where i prepped a lot in one chunk where i had a really productive day where i just wrote loads and then that would last forever but most of it was week to week and i would say on average i would probably spend about four to six hours a week doing various bits of prep and content and stuff like that so it'd be like you know and that that's when there's no mini painting involved um in the later stuff when we

were doing all like i was doing a lot of custom minis there was a lot more yeah there was a lot more time of like ordering the minis building the minis, painting the minis. I did find a really good technique to do it quickly, like building the terrain. All that stuff that I used at the end, I was building physical terrain and stuff. So that probably bumped it up to a good 10, 12 hours a week prep and stuff like that. But also, I'm a big prepper. I'm not a DM who comes in with just five bullet points and that's my session. I write a ton of stuff and a lot of it doesn't get used, i just throw it away it's nice to have it in the bank i i

feel more confident as a gm doing it but and i know this is a tangent one thing that i've kind of learned from doing arois and looking at other gms and looking at the way i run things what i want to do for campaign three is lean more into my improv skills because i think back to like all your favorite npcs all the bits that like really made you guys laugh zim zam it's the stuff i do when i'm just having a breakdown howard having a breakdown one of the reasons that you guys love so much those are the times when i just go the notes i'm just gonna like go crazy for a bit and like watching some other gms uh especially brenna lee mulligan recently i'm like i need to lean more into that

because I can do it. I just, I don't feel confident to do it very often. So I want to do it more. I got to do it more. Yeah. It works every time. Speaking of hard prep, what was the hardest boss fight to mechanically crack?

Mechanically crack? Like, obviously after level 15 is when you were saying it was difficult to create encounters for us. So you started introducing a lot more puzzles. Honestly, yeah. Honestly, Hadar. Because Hadar was the toughest to crack because I was in a difficult place where, like,

we just had the Zarkira fight, which was so hard on you guys and was so brutal. I didn't want to do that again and just really come at your throats but i did still want the fight to feel epic and important and complex but i also didn't want it to be we didn't have time for it to be a four episode mega fight i had to cram it into two episodes max. And that was also with going through the keep and wrapping all the epilogue up. So I had an episode of a fight. I had three hours.

And to cram everything I wanted in, that was really hard. And I look back and I'm not 100% happy with that fight, but that's okay. You're never going to be 100% happy with everything. But there were a lot of fights I was 100% happy with. Kalara, Zarkira callus i was fucking over the moon with those atelicus all the atelicus stuff for the giant robot that

was tons of fun but honestly the hardest to crack was hadar because mainly the external constraints on it like i didn't want to like i wanted you guys to win i we just had the fight with zarkira which was really harsh and brutal like we only had one three hour combat to get it all done in yeah you know it had to feel big it had to feel epic like it was

it was tough I went like you know that was the toughest one you did a great job on that thanks appreciate it yeah it was awesome yeah

I think non-combat wise as well someone asked your favourite non-combat mechanic and it was the whole landing on Entropis that kind of day that you had the map and you were like, slip up.

The Slay the Spire map. I still have that map. That was really satisfying because for once, we fucking did give it up for all of you. It was so loud. I think that made a big difference. You guys rolled well, you made smart

decisions, you did stuff I wasn't thinking of and also three episodes doing it no yeah one episode we did it and again like that's again more stuff like it's there's a lot of learning process right like that thing like that whole mechanic like i want to do something similar to that or find ways to improve it one thing i really want to try and do more for like campaign three is have like a hex map and you guys being like exploring it and moving around

and finding stuff and doing I want to bring more elements of that in because I think that that works really well with Curse of Strug right we had that map

yeah kind of like yeah kind of but again with playing with modules it's a little bit different as well because I'm a bit more limited in what I can do

but like you know I really like the entropist thing I thought that and very much like it was you know I'd mentioned it slay the spire like a big inspiration and it's why is the dm play lots of video games play lots of different ttrpgs because you never know where you're going to get an idea from literally that it's research mom it's research but um it's a really simple way of doing it and it's like i think darkest dungeon 2 does a very similar thing

where you have like that kind of dot lines and you've got to pick which way you go and you can't do everything but you've got to try and do as much as you can. It really scratched that tactical itch of like tactics. And it was a unique thing for the end of the campaign. It wasn't just boss fight, boss fight, boss fight. Yeah, well I didn't want it to be that.

I wanted there to be a mixture of things. Even like the big going in through the Fenris where it was like, look this isn't necessarily going to be a full combat, but it's a bit more like Mass Effect and the suicide mission. You've got to make choices and things are going to happen. Also, it's a party thing as well. That's cool. Yeah, very well done. I wanted that to be a big thing.

Good shit. Ayla. Hi. Hey, what up? It's time for that coin question. Here we go. Now, obviously, do you want to have your first say on the coin before i ask the question okay um so you held on to that coin for a good long while and

used it to perfection what was it about that moment that made you finally decide to use it alo's getting pissed off because he wasn't listening. She was like, oh, for fuck's sake. That tallies that, yeah. Literally, Ayla was getting pissed off. But to be fair, I did have it in my head that, one, it was funny because it was annoying the crap out of everyone that I wasn't using it. Two, I was always going to use it for something that was more important.

Like, I didn't want to use it for something for Ayla. And there was a lot of opportunities where it was like, crap how do we get out of this situation like oh we can't possibly survive this and it was like oh why didn't you use the coin and I'm like but there there always was a way that we could get out of those situations but there wasn't a way to get through to Starbane and I wanted to use it for something that was arois, like something that affected the wider whole point of things. If it wasn't Calus, it probably would have been something to do with Zahkira, because that's the big threat, and.

And yeah, I mean, like if you'd gone into that final fight and still had that coin, like, you know, with Valor being trapped, you could've used it for that. There's loads of ways you could've used it. I could've used it then, but I wanted to save it for something that felt like it was gonna have an impact on. And boy, did you.

Boy, did you put it in the right moment. That's the follow-up question is that I want to know. Kim wants to know, this isn't from chat, this is Kim. Well, it was from chat. It's a what if question. If we hadn't have convinced Calus with the coin, because that was a pretty clutch move, would he have joined us in the end?

How would that have impacted the events? There's another question tied to that of, was he always built to be a companion for us? Welcome to the illusion of choice. No, he was never necessarily built to be a companion, but I did, in my hope, my sort of like, what I would like to happen is you guys will fight him, and in that fighting him, you kind of prove your strength to him,

and maybe you kill him, maybe you spare him, but either way, like, even if you killed him, there would be this thing of like well we're gonna go fight hadar we need the most powerful warriors we need our strongest allies callous was the strongest and he was against hadar maybe we resurrect him maybe we like rebuild him or like you know we spared him and we release him and that you join him like in my hopes and dreams you joined him up in the end like 100 but he was always planning to be a fight. And that's why, even when you convinced him,

I was like, fuck, I really want them to fight Calus. Oh, he would test them. Like, he would challenge them and be like, prove to me you're strong enough to do this. And so it still worked out. Like, a little bit, not railroad-y, but, like, I always wanted you to fight him. Because, like, it would have been,

I think it would have been lame if you never fought it and it was such a good fight yeah but it just would have been what would have happened is if you hadn't convinced him there would have been a lot more of that like um eros versus the valkyrian empire more warfare like probably had like the world map or like more x-com right i would be like valkyrian forces are attacking here the horizon is here you've got something where are you going to send your troops where are you going to do this how are you going to fight back it would be like a little x-com game so many universes just casually just stopping a global war with a stubborn little coin yeah and that war would have basically inevitably concluded with you fighting callus like you know in setting you know on the Tassadar

or like on fucking Araris or something lesson for chat if you tell me to do something I am not going to do it same when you're playing Ava Mark told me to watch Die Hard still haven't watched it

that's fine I'm the same if someone tells me to do something it makes me really not want to so if someone asks it more that just

that just delays it every time someone mentions it, everyone's like, that's too great. It adds another month. Yeah, it just adds. So a follow-up question kind of related to the we had to fight Starbane thing.

We had to. We simply had to. How close were you in that final slobber knocker between Ayla and Calus? How close were you to striking a killer blow? Yeah, that's right, because I said like, do you spare him or do you kill him? Yeah, would you kill him?

Is it non-lethal or lethal? Well, I wasn't there for it, was I? No, the fight with Kallus, when it was down to Kallus and Ayla punching. Oh, that's right, somebody else was rolling. Katie wasn't there for the session. But I don't right. Somebody else was rolling. Katie wasn't actually there for the session. But I don't think. I think I asked you guys as a group.

I don't think that Ayla would have. I think she would have recognized, like, because it was a test of strength. At that point, I think you would all establish that you were on the same side. She would have been like, right, he's got a lot of resource. That would be dumb. Like, I don side. She would have been like, right, he's got a lot of resource. That would be dumb. I don't think she would have done lethal damage.

However, if it was I remember you got the killing blow on Zarkira, Aayla would absolutely have made the same choice that Nova did. 100%. If you had been fighting Kalos, let's say you had been fighting Kalos as enemies, like you hadn't agreed to be on the same side yet. Oh, it would have been a

killing blow probably. I think for Aayla it always would be. If they were a threat, Aayla would kill. If it wasn't for the coin and putting doubt in his head and having to prove our strength, then if it was the other situation, then it would have been a kill and blow. See, you all came round to Nova's way of thinking eventually.

It took four years, but we got there. She's a hole blown inside of the airship. Yeah, I remember when you blew up the airship. Hey. That wasn't just me. That was technically

Ayla striking it with the hammer. After you concealed the fact that you had direct contact with Star of A. Of course. Go back.

Happening again. You two just fire it out now. Okay. Sentry. What up? I'm trying to find the question. Where'd it go?

Here it is. You made some wonderful speeches and gave some great one-liners throughout the campaign. Did you use AI? Child GPT broke the law. That were taken... What the fuck? Fuck me.

Wonderful speeches that were taken as inspiration by PCs and NPCs alike, where did you get the inspiration for all of these? Or was it just you leaking out of your character at the time? Can I just say before you answer, whenever I would see that you had prepared something to write, like say, and like you had a thing, one of my absolute favorite things, like it would, I was like delighted. I was just like, Rhiannon you had a thing one of my absolute favorite things like it would i was like delighted i was just like rihanna's prepared a thing and i'd be like sat here like oh yeah let's go like

i fucking love he was pre-crying just because like it again it shows such a commitment to the game and such an engagement with the game when you're the dm and you guys bring something to the table ahead of time like kim ryan all of what and so guys bring something to the table ahead of time, like Kim, Ryan, all of Vort and Sarr, you come in with the speeches prepared. Especially later in the campaign, Troc coming in with plans of what he wanted to do or some things he wanted to say.

Your endgame stuff, yeah. That stuff, I just want to let you guys know, and for the audience as well, as a GM, that's my fuel, right? That's the stuff that makes me go home and want to do more. That's my fuel? That's the stuff that makes me go home. That's my fuel. That's my fuel. That's the stuff that makes me get so hyped and feel so, like,

you guys appreciate my job, like, in the game. So that, oh, I fucking loved every single time you did it. It was, like, real special to me. I loved it. Oh, cool. Thank you. But it was all chat GPT, right? Oh, yeah. it was all chat gpt right yeah i guess a lot of the inspiration for sentry like comes from just things that i like a lot of the time like i speak

to speak to mark a lot about it like just the cartoons 80s 90s cartoons transformers you know like x-men all that good just just people trying to do good and like be heroes being heroes yeah and like sonic but it's also just like oh i don't know like just like just characters that have that have been through just the worst and have seen the most abhorrent things but they don't lose that spot that hope yeah that humanity like, they still keep chugging forward, like, Samwise Gamgee, like, you know, like... It's always Samwise. It's always Samwise.

Just, like, people like that just... There's some good in this world. Can I ask this as a question for me? Because, obviously, Sentry is a very motherly figure, right? Especially with Petal and, like, the PCs. But then, obviously, you had Baby. Like, do you think that that, like, played a part in it? figure right especially with petal and like the pcs but then obviously you you had baby like yeah do you think that that like played a part in it because a lot of like what century said was very

parental and motherly do you think that it was that something that played into it because like that scene with petal at the end like i i was worried that like man is this a bit too real like like because there was that like mother-daughter relationship kind of thing going on like it was that like ever a part of it or do you think there was some bleed like, mother-daughter relationship kind of thing going on. Like, was that, like, ever a part of it? Or do you think there was some bleed there? I don't know, because, like, even before Babby was here, like, there was always that part of her. I think I'd always wanted her to kind of be motherly in a way and kind of be a bit soft. Because I think it sort of contrasts her exterior by having this really nice

squishy soft interior and contrast is such a great thing in characters yeah I think that surprised me because when I first saw your character art

and obviously because knowing you as a new player like I thought you were going for that kind of you know prime guard

yeah and then the way you played her just always surprised like in a wonderful way like in a delightful way it was like man like you know I just love the way like you her, just always surprised, like in a wonderful way, like in a delightful way. It was like, man, like, you know, I just love the way, like you say, you mixed it up.

And like, yeah, did that. It's so different to what I originally thought when I first saw your character art. Contrast is such a great way of like having that. Like it really highlights the elements of a character. I also think a big part of that inspiration as well was going back to Tom's background, the squirrel curls original art.

Yeah. Seeing that pose of Sentry standing over everybody, like she's at the back, but she's just looking down at everybody and she looks so gentle

and warm. Yeah. And like, I just saw that and I was like, that's it. That's it right there. Yeah.

I love that. It's, it's, I, do you want to, this is like a spare thing but it's amazing seeing how many of the fan artists and the fans who like watched earlier especially like score cause has done some amazing stuff like other really big dnd shows and like done some real and i just love the fact that like so many of artists have gone to do super cool things now and like work with really cool projects and worked with loads of people. And it's really lovely.

It's really nice to see. I love all that. I would print out all of the Aayla art. I've got plans for the new stuff. I've got plans for my little corner. Like I wanna get a huge board and start putting loads of art. It's so inspirational.

I would have a whole Aayla wall in my office. I've got a lot. I've got Yamarashi and Peggles, Frig Nova. Speaking of art, actually, you saying that art kind of helped inspire that kind of feeling as well. There's actually been a lot of times when art has inspired me or changed stuff in my game.

Valor looked completely different at the end in my head, and I described her differently then, after seeing Pumpkin and a few others do a certain artwork and making her skin darker and stuff like that I was like yeah actually no that is in my head actually

that fits way better now and there's a lot of stuff like that where like art will sometimes slightly subtly influence the change and stuff like that it's really

interesting so you can be in campaign three you just have to do awesome art that inspires us wow let's not go down this route just make NPCs.

I don't want to scare anyone, but it's time for a what was your favorite? F-f-f-favorite! Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo! Does anyone, what was your favorite snapshot single image frame that you have in your head of Eros? I got mine. Yeah? it's that final scene it's the bit

the the uh the vision that quill saw the valley of the storm the valley of the storm but the futuristic valley of the storm with the ships coming down neon lights uh with just this figure this which we now know is not quill this arakoga figure sat down looking over the valley the old temple much older you know the lights the stars the veil the cradle that to me that final is just burned in yeah just near future that is eros it's everything that all the inspiration goren laga and the anime stuff op transformers it's all of that combined into this image of like that is my campaign that is my campaign yeah dope yeah good answer hard to beat i think two for me comes to mind one for an epic scale and that is uncovering root um interesting and i almost have this idea of the huge, half-covered, broken-bodied root and the tiny ass.

Like not even detailed, just tiny little ass at his feet. Little silhouette. Yeah, lava and all of that. That's one of the epic images I have. And then the kind of more intimate is one of the many dinner scenes that we had with everybody in Gusthaven. The family, the friends the and the food and that kind of thing like it's very like classic like that kind of big damp

banquet another epic one which for me which will always be in my head is that scene of the astoria coming out of the ocean oh yeah my big one yeah like that again that's like less a single image and more like I can see it animated like as an old 80s anime like the water pouring out

like the airships and the fighters flying out these little dwarves like working on it like that to me is like if I could pay

if I could go back in time and pay like a 90s anime studio to animate that I'd be like do it like

here's 20 million dollars in cocaine, go! That just triggered in my brain. For a 10 second scene. One that stuck with me for ages, Quill's flight. That was good, that was one of mine. Just all, I think just a moment of people, like the party, on the deck of the storm chaser, just existing on the deck of the storm chaser, just existing on the deck of the storm chaser

and like Quill being able to fly again. The Quill's flight scene in my head has the How to Train Your Dragon music. Like I just hear the How to Train Your Dragon music. Like the bug, welcome to bug music. And the lightning rod. That was a vision before it actually happened as well. Yeah, the visions are definitely, like, very visual things.

I know that you guys love those. There'll be a lot more of those. I should hope so. It's all a vision. Campaign 3, you were there. Quill asked a question. It's all of Campaign 3. A lot of those I share, like the dinner party ones.

Lucius being a statue on the back of a futuristic motorbike. Oh, I forgot about that! Yes! A bike that we just then immediately forgot about. I like that bike. That was a fucking statue. Yeah, Lucius had an accident. I completely forgot that was

the thing. That happened. Oh, that's brilliant. Lucius and Quill sharing, like, just a little sat-down. Yeah. That was going to. That happened. Oh, that's brilliant. Lucius and Quill sharing just a little set down. Yeah. That was gonna be my idea. I love the fact that I got to go back to that as well. That was lovely. I was pushing towards that as hard as I could.

That was so lovely. Mine is Quill's tongue after his jaw got blown off. Oh my god. I'm trying to speak. Like Resident Evil. That guy with the jaw falls off. Oh, that's hateful. Oh my god. I'm trying to speak. Like Resident Evil. I'm trying to talk for someone. Oh, that's hateful. Jesus Christ.

There's so many great movies. There's so many great movies. Yeah, Quill Gang and Storm Eye, I think is another one. Storm Eye, City of Glass, like when you guys fighting Velocity or Prismatic Spray. Everything in space.

A lot of the space stuff. Yeah, space stuff. Like first time you're going into the infinite corridor and stuff like that. Everyone landing on Entropis, like when you said you're the tip of the spear. With like, the siaskir. Yeah, you guys have the siaskir of Captain Marveling alongside you and stuff. Definitely like, I guess because it is fresher in our minds, but like that big superhero stuff.

Even like, there was that fighting Gus thing when you first fought Zarkir and they had the metal dragon. Like, even in my head, like, I don't know, like that, I just imagine like that scene in the Avengers where they're all in New York

and they all come together and fighting just like, in my head, that fight plays out like that where it's just like, Aayla like jumping into the deck of one of those ships and like beating up loads of dudes.

The steel predator chasing Quill up the mast and Lucius and Zahira. Quill was dying. That's what you're going to do. Quill was trying to avoid it. Was it a face spider? It was a steel predator. Retriever, it's called.

Another one of my favorite moments. Everyone's favorite boss fight, the ones where Quill died. Your favorite visual is the one where Quill is dead. No, not my favorite visuals, I just remembered this one. I had some on Wick when you could see the glowing spaceship. The green ship.

The spaceship. Yeah. That was so much stuff. The tree blowing up in, with Talara, when I blew up the tree. Oh, the giant tree. And there was the guardian, fuck, what was the gun's name? Protector.

Not Protector, the one who got shot when he overcharged the gun, Mega Man. And yeah, blew up the thing. Yeah, that was the cool thing. That's a lot of cool things. Some of the cool moments. Hey, Nova. Do you want a question? What one?

I'm pretty sure you've done one, like- No, there's a lot of Tiangong questions. Okay, I guess we won't speak about Tiangong here. Mmm. Do you want a question? Mmm. What one? I'm pretty sure you've done one, like... No, there's a lot of Tiangong questions. Okay, I guess we haven't spoken about Tiangong yet. There you go, that's it. That's it. That's the question. Wow.

Tiangong? Question one. While I try and find the one I was looking at a second ago. Yeah. Answer the question then. What's the question? Was there a possibility of reuniting Tiangong as a whole, and what would have happened if you know the answer?

I mean, that's a Mark question. Like, was there ever a chance of Tiangong fully, like, fully, fully, fully? Yeah. Of course there was. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, actually, no, we spoke very early on of, like, if Tiangong had fully formed, i would have lost my weapon so i probably would have lost being a hexblade um warlock um and respect as something else like there was the idea when artificer first came out of like maybe i would you know recreate everything as an artificer but then i read artificer and i hated it the thing is you could have stayed a warlock

you probably just wouldn't have been a hexblade yeah there would have been a change like I would have made a pact of the Eterna yeah where like it's a different thing

that could have been cool but you would have you know because Tiangong would have still been able to give you power they just wouldn't be this thing that you carry around as a specific weapon anymore

because they wouldn't be on there but also I mean there was always a thing of even if you collected all the shards Calus had all the other shards

like there was Tiangong was never going to be reunited until you either beat Calus and took his shards or

but I honestly think that the story we ended up telling was better than that like I think the idea of like losing Tiangong

but then like Tiangrong being like convinced and like absorbing the memory that was really that moment was so good definitely a lot of inspiration from Vision

and Scarlet Witch and stuff like that. But hey, it's okay to be inspired by stuff like Ship of Hesios. Okay, to have a more Kim-centric Nova question then. What happened to Nova and Thalia after the finale? Adventures into space? They broke up. What the hell? Dreams shattered everywhere. I could have been a god. and Thalia after the finale. Adventures into space? Uh, they broke up. What? That quick?

Dreams shattered everything. I could have been a god. No, I think, like I said, it felt like a very fresh relationship. Like, so I think they would have just carried on as is, like, whatever, probably, you know, some work still on Earth, not Earth, Eros, and, like, helping Vortensar do whatever they wanted to do, you know. But definitely I think there would have been spaceship adventures, not Earth, Aroas, and helping Vortensar do whatever they wanted to do.

But definitely I think there would have been spaceship adventures and sea without relationship. I think that, yeah, for me in my head canon, there were still a few little threats left over, especially where once Quill's passed and other people are doing their own thing, Grats probably would have come after Thalia and Nova, and you could have had Thalia and Nova versus Grats kind of adventure. Yeah, we would have kicked his ass again. Aayla probably would have found you andalia and Nova, and you could have had a Thalia and Nova versus Grats

kind of adventure. Yeah, we would have kicked his ass again. Aayla probably would have found you and be like, let me join you. I'll have a nice kick in the ass. Hey, going after Grats, want in? I'm on my way. I'm already there.

There's a lot of little things like that I can imagine, but also you gotta remember Thalia and Rosemarra, there was still a lot to rebuild and rekindle there and work to do in the Feyworld. Thalia definitely still had a lot of things that I think she would have felt guilty over and wanted to still make amends for. I think it would have been an exploration of the world afterwards.

And if they stayed together, they stayed together. If they didn't, they didn't. I like to imagine a kind of Arwen Aragorn thing of Thalia basically being with Nova until she's old and then she moves on because she is kind of Arwen Aragorn thing of like Thalia basically being with Nova until she's old and then you know like and then she moves on because she's kind of immortal so like you know it's

one of my favorite jokes of the whole thing was the whole thing of like how long can I how long do you want me to mourn for a year

yeah okay I can do a year like that was one of my favorite little jokes a whole year like just that mentality of like how would an archfey

deal with this like how would they really care like I guess you know they're like yeah yeah that'll do there's a really interesting question for Quill how would an archfey deal with this? How would they really care? They're quite whimsical. They're like, yeah, that'll do. There's a really interesting question for Quill. Were there ever any questions Quill didn't dare ask the Eye of the Storm?

Or were there any questions that you regret not asking? I got one for Trot after this as well. Yeah, I think we said it in the series as well, is to not ask questions about Hadar as much as possible because I don't think we ever had any reason to believe it necessarily, but we just had an idea that the moment you ask a question about Hadar, you're looking upon madness itself. You've become insane.

Yeah, and it would just suck you in. Now, had I have asked a question about Hadar... Bad things. Bad things. I don't have exact mechanics for it, but I always said that if Tom asked questions, if Quill looks into Hadar, it would be bad. It would have been a shit ton of psychic damage.

I'd maybe make some secret rolls that I don't tell you about, and then I'd probably be in nightmares and stuff. With Hadar. Yeah. And you saw that, and I think you'd already picked up on that, because Century and Lucius had come very close to like and there was still

this lingering force on the two of them. You had seen like there was some times when Kim was talking to me about using a spell called Contact Other Plane and I was like

can I use this to ask Kadar? And I was like you certainly can. Yes please do. You want it guys. Please do. Yeah.

So it probably would have had a very similar effect to the contact other planes spell, which is basically roll a dice, and if you fail the saving throw, you go mad. Right, yeah. Were there any that you regret not asking? Was there a question for something in the campaign? Did something happen that you were like,

I wish I'd asked a question about that? I don't think so, because, I mean, obviously obviously in hindsight i'm very happy with how the story went so i don't feel like uh there's any now that i'm like there were definitely things after a session finished but i'm like i could have solved it with this yeah but i am happy with my usage of an incredibly powerful item well can i say something on this as well? Go on. Because I talked about this on my own streams, and I've talked about it a lot.

I use the Eye of the Storms as an example when I talk a lot about DMing. Because I was like, look, this item is incredibly broken. I have literally given a player the ability to ask me about the future, and I will tell them an answer to it. Or to, like, look into the past to find out the answer to basically any question they want. And I gave it to you because I trusted you to use it in a way that was only going to make the game better.

And you delivered that. Every time you never once used that power, which you could have easily misused, you never once used it to, break the game or like to benefit only yourself you only ever used it to make the game better and i am so happy i gave that to you and so proud of you as a player as well like that was such a pro player move the way is this like an intervent are you trying to make are you trying to get me what's going on no i'm just i'm complimenting you this is the place fuckers you won't get me i'm hard as it's an example of like when you have the right group dnd doesn't need to be a balanced game you

can give a player an incredibly unbalanced thing if you trust that player to use it in the right way yeah yeah you used it sparingly you used it when it was something serious like that yeah he does this and make like tom does this amazing thing where he would wait to near the end of the episode when he knew that you're like okay i'll be good time for a cliffhanger and he'd be like mark i'm gonna ask the eye question and i knew that you were doing it to be like let's end the episode on a cool vision because it's a great fucking cliffhanger i'm a content creator you know it yeah but even like if we weren't streaming it as like a private session, that would still be epic thing to do

because then it's like you're thinking about it until next week, right? That's always the best part of D&D is when you finish and then you're like, I've got a whole week where I'm thinking about this thing. And if you, and honestly, if you have that, tell your DM about it because honestly, like I said,

nothing gives them more fuel than knowing that everybody that's at YouTube. I did. Oh, yeah. I'm also talking to the people out there. If your DM does something that makes you think about it for a week and you're really excited for a game, tell them. Like nothing makes them feel better than that.

I got a question for Chris Trott. What was the decision process for you as a player of Lucius developing a romance with Prince Aradan? What factored into it? Number one, top rated question for Lucius. This guy right here had no plans. Never plans. Brain, no valleys or lumps.

Smooth brain. Smooth brain. Even with his, like, sexuality, even his gender, I kept it all very neutral, very blank. Just seeing how things filled in over time. And honestly, Prince Aradan seized the moment. Yeah, I think you even said afterwards, you were like, it just felt like in the moment,

that was the thing to do. And you did it, and I love it. It was great. All of us, I think all of us were like, what? In that moment was the most I had embodied Lucius. You just felt like this is... I connected and that was me being Lucius in that moment. It was great and it fit really well

and I think it would create this great moment for the players and for the audience. I felt the same way. I felt like you really just became Lucius in that moment. And that is like somebody who does LARP and roleplay. You can tell when somebody just becomes them. And they're in that headspace. And I think that was really cool.

It wasn't Chris Trott like, how do I kill off this character? Or how do I do something funny for the stream? It was like you were just playing the character. I was just in Lucius at that moment. That's beautiful. That's great. That's beautiful. It's really nice.

It's nice as well to have a very unambiguous like we already had Thalia and Nova anyway but to have a very unambiguous male male like romance because that doesn't happen that often

and it felt natural it didn't feel like token I don't know like whatever I really love the way that you did it Lucius could have gone

so many different directions all the directions yeah yeah yeah I mean honestly like there was a bit I think when we were talking a long time ago you were talking about him being more asexual just like not really being a sexual person for a long time it was like

Lucius would probably be asexual but yeah but then he found the right person sometimes that's how it goes because there's faith for example which is brought up so many times I'm sure it's another question it was another question. It was a question, yeah, what happened?

Again, Lucius did that for Faith in the moment. Like, it was to help her. It wasn't necessarily for him. Yeah. It was to help the situation. Give her, like, a break out of this kind of awkward situation she was in. And I think that was discussed. Like, it may not have been canonized in the episode itself, but I'm sure he would have had a discussion with Faith of like,

you know, like where we stand with each other, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. It's that classic thing as well. I rolled a random table and like Lucius didn't have any agency in it. And again, those are the lessons where I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to roll and then enforce something. You did ask though. I did ask. But like, you know, it's that kind of thing of like you know that was a random role and we turned it into a cool moment where this character

who was like great i now have this like safety barrier where i'm in this you know marriage with this person that i trust and like i feel safe around but i don't have to have any romance things and you know what honestly i think that faith probably would have like moved into the castle and been like an advisor and helped but like and still would have cared for Lucius but also cared for Aradan not even in a relationship way just as like a friend she would have just been like their friend who like came and hang out and like you know

advised you know gave advice to Prince Aradan because she was very intelligent you know for the wolf pack and stuff like she was definitely one of the smarter members and again that came out of a comedy moment like Lucius got plastered and married in the day. So I think we've made that into quite a sentimental moment, really.

Whatever you turn here, what meme-worthy moment from the past five years has stuck with you the most and still makes you laugh? There are some examples. I think this has to be the last question. There are some examples, but I'm just wondering if there's any that stick out to you. The fucking cows.

The cows. It remains. The cows. Yeah. The cows are just like the classic one. I always remember that. Cows was good. Smaller memes for me.

Burgeoning perception is always so nice. It's like the funny little things that we would say, but number one's got to be the wish I watch I re-watch that short I never re-watch our content because I hate seeing myself I have watched that short so many times because like watching your

face seeing both of our faces like me just being like it's that little thing of like something just triggered in my brain and I'm like what did you say little thing of like, something just triggered in my brain and I'm like, what did you say? And then you're like, uh. Oh no. That is like my number one comedy-like scene.

The birds as well. The birds. They're smarter than sentry. The metal crates. Okay. The metal crates. Metal crates, I don't care about that much. I just like saying it though because this happened

maybe this is playing into exactly the issue that happened in Metal Crates moment, I don't remember the Metal Crates meme it was such a pointless thing so many times those things on the map are Metal Crates

everybody said oh what's this there's a series of metal crates there oh do you want to use the metal crates for cover oh are you going to move next to the metal crates like there was a lot of this

and like people looking at the map and highlighting it and pointing at it it's amazing that even now you're adding to the meme you're adding to

four of them I don't years later he still doesn't know what they are I watched back the episode And I blacked out There's something about

That series of events That is just Coded into my brain To just shut down But I think about things That like Lasted the entire campaign And I think like

Burgeoning perception Is one like That was like Constantly Burgeoning perception Just the way you said it Century falling off things That was another great,

I love that, like a little thing. I like tornado and tornadoes. Bro! Bro! It's all about this, bro. Oh, actually for me, when I fucked up about the daisies,

when we went to the vault where you guys found the lance, and I was like, oh, I'll go outside and have a moment with Thalia, where I'm like, look at the grass. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen grass. I'm a fucking, yeah.

You are a princess, you fucking idiot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never seen flowers and grass before. You're like, you're from space. Yeah, I've never seen grass before. This is amazing. It's nice of you to bring up that vault that I simply had to find in the middle of a war

because it was the same spear that was the only possible spear that could have gotten Valorant to her cage in that fight. Not the only way. Again, there were spells that could have been used. You just didn't have them. There was a bunch of stuff that worked.

You didn't Doctor Strange that shit. You were just greedy. I was just greedy. You were just greedy. Everyone's going to say that. Well, no greedy I was just greedy you were just greedy everyone's gonna say well no I think we all agree that you finding Starbreaker very much saved your

fucking lives a bunch of times yeah like and again like I didn't put that item in there for a century like I was like fucking

if you'd given that to Aayla in the end of the campaign Nova with her four million attacks with Starbreaker would have been just as fucking scary but honestly like

that fucking item was like, yeah. It was Tom Higgins. Like, look at him in the vault, in Howard's vault. It was the only thing. It was the only thing. It was the only thing. It's why it looked like one of my favorite moments ever. Tom's refusal to accept that he is a loot goblin.

Like, Tom, you are, there are three things that Tom Hazel loves. He loves fucking, like, moments that create these great moments, like with the eye, but he also loves dealing huge amounts of damage and looting shit. You are, like, the most quintessential D&D guy sometimes. It's not dealing huge amounts of damage. I also loved healing for 700. It's just, I want to crash D&D beyond.

Especially when it's numbers and loot. Like, just, when I became, like, the guy looking after the money and my inventory said, like, 30,000 gold. Fuck me. It was when you said the amount that was in the chest, and he was just like... Tipped that in. Howard had the set, you can take this.

It's just my ancestral gold. It's already in my bag. Sorry, I'm a bag. Sorry, I've already got it. It's a fact as well that you knew these ghosts were going after Howard, but you were just like, yeah, but I can get one. Well, that was the thing, the ghosts went after the person who would loot the most. I was like, I'm helping. I'm helping. So funny. There's been some great moments, and I think we've had some real memes. Unfortunately, I think that might have to be the last go,

unless there's one more we wanna squeeze in for like everybody. There's something burning for me. I mean, we could, I guess, do an Eroa's question, or we could ask, what is character creation like? And not with giving away characters, obviously we don't have anything to give away too much for Campaigns 3, but we are in the midst of building up this new campaign i don't

building up the story you have an idea we have a pretty solid idea like we've got something to build off where we all sat like i for me i have a pretty strong idea of my character in mind and i've given you knives to stab into my back. We're working with you, we've got something, we're fine tuning the details, we've got to figure out exactly how it's going to work and what's involved. There's a couple of things that we've got to think. But again, very baked

into the world, some key parts of the new world, Althea and Ilmera. We've got that kind of baked in. I know that like, yeah, Rhi and Kim have had their idea, your characters have had their idea. We've had a kind of baked in. I know that like, yeah, Rhi and Kim have had their idea, you're guaranteed to have yours. We've had a meet. We all know each other's ideas. I think we've had our character sheets done for years now.

There was a question that was what does character creation look like for Hyrolers? And I think like for Erois, we were kind of separated in our character creation, whereas, I think there was some- We rolled all the stats and stuff together. In terms of actually designing our characters, there were some people that were very independent. They built their character, and that was like, okay, I'm going to bring this to the game,

whereas, well, I guess me and Rhi had a lot of chats about Quill and Century because we knew each other before. But for Campaign 3, we have had a chat. We all kind of had a big discussion about it. That's not the end of it as well. Like I want to have like another chat with everybody once we've got ideas a bit more locked in.

I want to have a chat about like, because I would like this campaign to start with some of you guys knowing each other. Rhi's character is going to be completely separated from everybody. Like when we begin the character, I can tell you that much. Like because of the nature of her character, she is going to be separated from everybody and she's going to be coming in a little bit separately.

Same time as everybody else, but there's no way any of your characters will have met her or interacted with her before. But yeah, I think the easiest way is we do a session zero. We get together. We talk about ideas. I share a document. I have been using a program called Notion,

which has been really great for me to build out more of the campaign. I send and share the page with the guys and then you guys can look on it and find some pieces i am reshaping some things since we did the the twitch game i'm kind of like changing a few little bits here and there but like i know for like kim you you found a specific thing like a little rp flavor thing i wrote just because it was in my brain and you seem to like really be like oh i really like this story you've written and I want to build onto this. I'm actually,

so a lot of people in chat are joking about how I've probably written three books of backstory by now. I'm actually going into this one a lot differently. I've written nothing. I have ideas in my head. I have key beats in my head. I've been thinking about this character for a long time,

but I haven't written anything down and I'm not going to write anything down. I'm going to try the reactive approach. you know welcome to chaos but yeah it's one of those weird things as well I guess because I've been thinking about this character a lot and so I almost feel like I know them a lot already without having to write something down and figure out details that's quite good yeah so I'm trying for the reactive thing rather than... Don't confuse who I'm sat next to. You're not writing hundreds of pages.

You don't know Star Trek. I am going to murder you. Oh, there she is. There's Kim. Yeah, no, there's a few interesting things. Like, there's been a lot going on, so, like, we definitely want to kind of, like, lock it in and, like, obviously, Babby and stuff like that.

So, you know, we want to lock it in. But I think we've got a pretty strong, like, basis now for most people and we're going to kind of build on it in and like obviously babby and stuff like that so you know we want to lock it in but i think we've got a pretty strong like basis now for most people and we're going to kind of build on it and stuff like that yeah um but yeah it's also it's going to be a very different campaign like this next campaign the first althaean campaign the first story out there it's going to be a bit different it's not going to be a level 2 to 20 thing um it's going to be a bit more of a sandbox it's going to be a bit more of a sandbox. It's going to be a bit more of like, see what you guys get into and like what places you want to go to and stuff like that. Erois was very much a campaign

that had a very strong central arc storyline. It was more video gamey and it was like, it was Mass Effect. It's like the Reapers are coming, Shepard, and you've got to stop them. It was more like that with then loads of choices and branches and things that they could do.

This one, I kind of want to make it a bit more like here is a cool world. There are problems in it. But let's see what you guys want to do and what you want to interact with. And like we'll build from that. Intimate. I think so. I think like it builds on something that a lot of people said, which is some of their favorite moments from High Rollers are the smaller stories.

And actually, I want to lean more into that and be like, cool, like more Rosemeadow, more Kali's Rest, more stuff like the Feywild, like little bits like that, which is more intimate and more like specific rather than this big overarching plot. Cause I feel like we've done that. I mean, I've latched onto a very specific, particular really cool mechanic for the new campaign campaign and i am very excited to continue

developing the character well yeah but like the themes of it i really like um and yeah i'm really excited to sort of continue to develop the character and sort of chat with other people and figure out their place in the world you've all you've all picked stuff with your characters that give you very specific things to get involved in. Like whether that's a particular culture or a particular race or a particular magical thing or a particular part of the world. Like you've all got these very cool

kind of like inbuilt things. And then I think what's gonna kind of bring everything together is the kind of political nature of the situation of the world that you find yourselves in. I we're all going to be feeding into that world growth as well like there's going to be more stories there's a lot of empty space on the map i've purposely not like you know i'm keeping the map pretty empty just so that like hey you guys will be like i come from the hometown of blah i'll be like cool what province is that in it's here now like oh it's near a river i'm going to put it on the map what i'm saying is this first uh campaign three is not going to live and die the world is not

going to live and die with the first characters that we play absolutely not no in fact you're probably not even going to see the entire continent you're probably going to be just in a main province you might go to some other places but it's going to be fairly contained and that means that we're going to tell that story. There's a lot of other stories to tell in that world. Like, a ton of them. So we're not going to get teleported from Kali's Rest to across the world. Into astral space.

Lessons learned. Or into astral space. No. But yeah. So yeah. Very exciting stuff. Exciting stuff and there is exciting stuff in the works as well in the lead up to it that I think you're up to it. And it's not too far off. Campaign three is not too far off. Again, we still don't have a firm date, but it is going to be soon.

Keep watching our social media. Keep an eye on our YouTube channel. You will see we're going to have trailers. We're going to have little teaser videos. We're going to have interviews with the characters or videos about the characters. You're going to see a lot of that kind of stuff. We're going to have some one shots. We're going to have some one-shots. We're going to have some mini-series.

Loads and loads of stuff happening now that we're getting there with the studio and the set. It's happening. It's happening. I'll finish the tome. There it is. But that is going to be it for today's stream. Like I said, we

do have a very special thing coming up, which will probably be our next stream that you guys get to watch. But for that, we need to gather our party before adventuring forth. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye now. Bye. Hey, bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Hey, bye. Bye. Hey, bye. Bye. Hey, I'm just going to keep smiling. Bye. Okay, bye. Bye.