Tales from the Stinky Dragon - Betwixt The Bramblecracks - Between The Tales

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

The cast and crew recap the adventure so far through the Betwixt the Bramblecrack Arc, level up, and answer questions from the Audience!  Go to http://shopify.com/dragon to start selling online today! Go to http://joinhoney.com/dragon to get Honey for free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a Rooster Teeth production. Hello everyone, welcome to an exciting Between the Tales episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. Pew pew pew pew pew pew pew! Are we like disc jockeys now? Yeah. Is that what we are? I want the like fire explosion between the two. Yeah. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. KY Borg.

It's the Ky Borg. Boisterous Bart coming to you in the morning. Bye, bye, bye. I hate this now. I'm so mad that I said this. I feel like it works because we're all like with a microphone with the headphones on. I hate this now. I'm gum gum. I'm so mad that I said this. I'm gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum gum Speaking of Boulder, maybe we should do a quick recap of the story so far. So the purpose of these episodes, well, there's a number of reasons we do these episodes. You know, every time we wrap up one of the major arcs of the story, we like to do a recap of the story so far.

And, you know, do any housekeeping we need to do before starting a new arc. What housekeeping we got? Well, we'll get to that first. Oh. Recap. Like I said. Laundry. The laundry.

All right. get to that first recap like i said laundry laundry all right so uh the story started way way back when when our job hunting adventurers oh you're going all the way back today it's for people to to start in we do every time we start at the beginning yeah we might but it gets longer gets longer and longer it's further like the the far back goes further back. I should say on top of our normal cast, I'm sure you heard Micah there, who's our writer and the DM behind the DM. Also our composer. Maniac Micah. Come to life.

By this point, we would have announced that ARK 2's soundtrack is on Spotify and all streaming platforms entirely composed by Micah. Thank you. Go listen to it, please. Yeah, go listen to it. And you can listen to it on 92.8 The Mod. Mud in the morning.

You've got musical pieces and then is there a lyrical song in this one too? There's a gum gum song. Oh, the gum gum song. Gum gum wake-a-bye. Oh, the wake-a-bye song. Oh, I want everybody to. Gum Gum, wake-a-bye. Oh, the wake-a-bye song. I want everybody to play this for their actual children at bed and let us know if they managed to get any child to go to sleep with it. Wake up.

Wake up. I gotta wake up. I'm a little offended that you didn't use my vocals in the song. No, I'm just kidding. We'll do a remix. Yeah, it's just me doing the background. Instead of using it as a lullaby, I need everybody to set it as their alarm. Yes, and film yourself waking up to it.

It's such a beautiful song. It definitely made me cry. So, yeah, way back in Boulder, I guess. Way back when our job hunting adventurers, Kyborg the Bowman Fighter, Bart the Bard, Mud the Druid, and Gum-Gum the Whiz-Barian, arrived at the town of Bouldery. There they encountered a deceptive goblin named Besler, a wise cracking warlock named Brink Tussler, and the mayor himself, Felix Prattle, who offered them jobs as the Infinite Interns.

The Infinites are a group of mighty warriors known far and wide across the lands of Faiza for their feats of heroism and legendary power with one slight catch. Unbeknownst to the public, the Infinites are missing. The interns rescue the Infinites' brilliant gadgeteer, Dr. Ahem, from one of his own inventions and uncover their first suspect, the evil Paralite. Guided by Sordo the Living Sphere and Dr. Ahem, the interns undergo a barrage of training exercises and learn more about the four infinites. Aleve the Amender, Sleek the Symphonious,

Spectral the Surreptitious, and Grizzly the Groundbreaker. Those sound like DJ, like Doc Jockeys. Yeah, they do. Also, isn't Dr. Ahem, he's not human. I keep forgetting. Yeah, he's Dragonborn. Dragonkin. He's Draconic, you're right.

Draconic. But he's Kobold. Kobold. Kobold. Which I didn't realize until we had an animation that I watched the other day that's probably out or coming out soon. And I was like, wait, that's Draconic? It was probably only described in the flavor text, you know, three dozen times. All right.

That's your fault. If we didn't get the flavor text, okay. You got to open up your ears. It's bland. You guys then were sent away on your first mission, your first away mission, to the desert town of Pious Pass

with the task of retrieving a package for Dr. M. Upon arrival, the interns were beseeched with rescuing the town cleric Mother Abby from jail after being blamed for a mysterious curse

spreading throughout the town, slowly killing the Pi residents. Do you remember what the Pies look like? Did we get that flavor text? Pringman, Pringman. Close enough. Delicious and crumbly.

See, you all got that flavor text, except for Bart, who wants to eat them or something. I just hear pie, and I can't not think of a pie. A bunch of walking apple fritters. After a Bardbershop quartet haircut, pawn shop break-in, and zombie jail break, the interns chase down Sheriff Gov to reveal Mother Abby's true identity as Aleve the Amender, a brainwashed infanite turned evil and poisoning the town with necromancy. Just as the interns are about to defeat Aleve, Paralite swoops in to take credit for saving the town, and in disgrace, the interns head back to Bouldere with one Infinite in tow. After stabilizing and ailing Aleve, the interns head to their next mission, finding Sleek the Symphonious inside the industrious

city of Urbloom. They arrive at the city in calamitous chaos and come face to face with their Boulderean rival Brink Tussler, dying with a message from the future. Stop Sleek from freezing the city in time. Sent back in time, they get to work with past Brink in a city slowly being besieged by time, including trapping a sword-swinging Wind Elemental, escaping a tyrannical cannibal prehistoric T-Rek, stumbling upon an objectively sexy Aurox, and turning back time to battle the Infinite Sleek himself. Once again, Paralite intercepts to quote-unquote save the day by stealing Sleek's magical loot and capturing Brink Tussler. This really tore Kyborg up.

The interns and Sleek escape at the last moment into a magical portal leading to places unknown. After that, fast forward, it's been three weeks since Urbloom and the interns and Sleek... It's been... You can't say it's been without getting that. It's been three weeks since Urbloom, and the interns at Sleek have been surviving in the frozen tundra of Kaltberg, a land populated by walrus folk called Valrasians. They come upon a wondrous cave from an ancient race of polar bear folk, the Ishbjorn.

Amidst the caverns, the party saves archaeologist Archie from becoming a dwarven popsicle and pick up a mysterious amulet. Or as the party calls it, omulet. Omulet. Also at this point, Brank, not Brank, what was his name that we picked up, the boss guy? Sleek? Sleek, yeah. How do you not remember Sleek?

I tried to forget him. Sleek was a super hard boss, and then when he joined our party, he was just worthless. We kept forgetting he was with us. That's how it is in video games You know, when you get the boss to be on your team Yeah, he can't be OP He wasn't Mission accomplished. Never meet your heroes Yeah, he wasn't my hero in the first place

Sleek's no one's hero. He didn't have his loot But Archie does lead them to the village of Broomafume where they're tasked with a rescue mission that puts them at odds with ghostly Ishbjorn and possessed Valrasians. The interns flee the town but tumble into the ethereal plane, where they encounter a third infinite, Spectral the Surreptitious. Ticious, tissues, tissues. They learn that since Spectral lost his Ishbjorn soulmate to a Valrasian, he's taken on the plight of the ghostly Ishbiorn, waging a vengeful war on the Valrasian king. The interns and Sleek convince Spectral to give them a little time, just one night, to talk to the V-King and avoid a war. The interns sneak into

the capital of New Valras during a massive festival, and they're able to save the true king of Valrasians, V-King Knive. With the of local deity, Goddess Andi, they're able to bring peace to a century of hostility. V King Knive grants the interns and two Infinites ship's passage back to Boulderae with a mission to infiltrate Paralite's lair. This all starting to sound familiar? We get caught up?

I remember all this. I've also been re-listening, so I'm like, you're on top of it. Well, this part kind of dealt with Bart a little bit. The interns set sail homebound for boulderay on bart's old ship the jebediah only to find uh boulderay overrun by paralytes army of evergards they free dr ahem uh take back the town and volunteer to explore the memories of sleek and spectral using dr ahem's dreamery experiment also there's a running theme with every time we leave Baldur's Day and come back something awful has happened. We cannot

leave that place alone for five minutes. It's like the town of Pheebs in Hercules. You should split the party. No! And leave some people behind and have some people go. Just clean this room, gosh. I might have a way of doing that now. Oh, I'm intrigued. Cleaning a room? No, splitting the party.

Oh. He's got an axe. Yeah, we'll leave your bottom half here. Yeah, I'm intrigued. Cleaning a room? No, splitting the party. Oh. He's got an axe. Yeah, we'll leave your bottom half here. Yeah, I have an axe. I made it all the time. After hunting for clues of Paralite's whereabouts, the interns return to reality and sneak into Elderling Village with Sleek and Spectral in tow. Little did they know, it's yet another trap set by Paralite.

At the last moment, they're saved from a brainwashed Spectral by a sacrificial Sleek. The interns barely escape but with vital clues to Paralyte's next location, they sail to the port of Peskar and engage in a race with Paralyte to the top of the ominous ziggurat called the Escalon. At the top of the tower, they run into a disfigured duo-headed Grizzlyve, a monstrous combination of the Infinites Aleve and Grizzly. After a successful brawl with Grizzlyve, the interns encounter a rare attack of opportunity on Paralyte herself, catch a glimpse of Paralyte's lair under a frozen sheer lake. They locate the secret lair but are captured alongside an old acquaintance, Archie the

Archaeologist. They learn of Paralyte's plan to police the world using a divine power gemstone called the Diagem. They free themselves and engage in an epic battle with paralite and her everguards but the interns are interrupted as archie reveals himself to be a powerful creature called entropa now freed from his corporeal prison entropa seizes the dia gem and seeks out the rest of these mystical gemstones the interns return to boulder a mid-election and a mayoral race with brink Tussler as the forerunner. Nothing bad happened this time. That we know of.

There was a terrorist attack and it was developing while we were gone. They blew up the library. Brink Tussler became successful. That's awful. I guess you're right because while in the library, Qyborg is sent a surprise from his old rival, Quadron, a self-destructing squadron. And it seems Quadron is hunting Qyborg to end his nemesis. So you did survive the surprise ambush from the Quadron squadron.

The interns visited the local temple to learn about deity Dia and lore of the Dia Gems, after which Brink Tussler is announced as the new mayor of Boulderay. In his first act, he promotes the interns to infinites. You're bad-mouthing him. He gave you a promotion. I am. He promotes the interns to Infanites. You're bad-mouthing him. He gave you a promotion.

I am. The next day, Dr. Ahem and Meld conduct an experiment with the party to explore Kyborg's past and find out Quadrant's plans and whereabouts. As the Infant Knights, the party is introduced to Kydelius' family and hometown of Everwinter. We were babies. Yeah. But soon it's invaded by Quadrant and a squadron of squadrons. Kydelius relives the harrowing memory of his family's passing and the genesis of his enmity with Quadron. With the past fresh in their minds, the party returns to present day Everwinter where they find a heart-pounding monolith that turns out to house a red diagem called the Source, which fits perfectly into Qyborg's iron arm.

The party follows the lead to Pius' past in search of Quadron's whereabouts, but all they find is a ghost town of missing pies, a host of serpentine flying tabooleans, and Sheriff Gov and Deputy Pat. They strike a deal with the draconic tabooleans, which leads them to the Flats of Tabool, where they find the missing pie prisoners being sacrificed to the tabooleans' leader, M'ra. Or, as the party knows him, Quadrant. The party manages to persuade the rest of the tabooleans to peaceful terms, and in a turn of events, the Infin knows him Quadrant. The party manages to persuade the rest of the Tabulians to peaceful terms and in a turn of events the Infinites defeat Quadrant. Turn of events? Yeah. You didn't have high hopes for us? Things didn't always go well. Did you hear

a lot of the previous run-ins you all had? Yeah, you know what? It didn't always go well. Also, I got a bow from my mom. I got my mom's bow which is called the Longbow of Kristalina. Okay. He's got a bow to pick with Quadrant. Yeah. That laugh, Bob. That laugh.

That laugh went on a journey. I'm just glad that someone came to the party. Trying to be a good audience for Chris. I like it. At a critical moment, Smarsh, the giant purple worm, arrives to help, sort of, and guides the party out of the Flats of Tabool, eventually back to Boulderay. That was so cool. It was. It's a critical moment, Smarsh, the giant purple worm, arrives to help, sort of, and guides the party out of the Flats of Tabool eventually back to Boulderay. That was so cool. It was.

It's a great moment. We were all like, Smarsh! My arc was a lot of fun. A little blast from the past. It's funny, too, to see the puppet version of that scene where it was like, because we could do the spoiler of Smarsh coming in and saving us. Oh, yeah. That was one of the Stinky Dragon puppet videos we made where we essentially

puppeted that moment where Kyborg talks to the Tabulians to try to keep them down. So go check it out on socials at StinkyDragonPod. That'd be one of my favorite things that we've made in the last couple years. They came out really, really good. Chris made some awesome ones too. And hopefully we're working on more. What do you think of those, Micah?

Oh, I love them. Seeing them come to life. Yeah, it's really cool. It's really nice to have a visual representation, but also like, it's just a happy medium. It's a fun thing to see. Yeah, puppets are fun. Yeah. We have a ton of fun making them. And also shout out to you guys' mom.

Yeah. And Patty for making those little puppets. I mean, they weren't even puppets. They were just cute little dolls. And then we were all just like, we should do something. We might need her to like come in and do some like repairs.

And like touch-ups. Some touch-ups. We're stitching some places. I love some of the lo-fi additions that are done like to show mud closing his eye or that much to show gum gum closing his eyes like the little circles of felt yeah over his eyes that are that are open there's one that we might i guess will probably be released i will have been out before we this comes out but where kyberg's doing shadow boxing and we have like fishing line tied to his arms and we're just like puppeting from above i love the the way the punch turned out too yeah because the way the light hits gum gum it looks like he's like incredibly oh yeah it's good it's very good check it out yeah they're really really really great sorry we

got distracted yeah smarsh came in and it's a good day yeah it's all good uh At this point, Mud has a visitor from his own murky past Clay, his brother, who comes bearing bad news about their dying father, Lord Lomish The party travels via Brambleboat to the land of Witherveins Why does Google Docs underline Brambleboat like it's misspelled, but not Witherveins? Like Witherveins, oh, that's a totally fine word

Brambleboat, I don't know You spelled it wrong, that's why It's canonical Well, the party travels via Brambleboat, I don't know. You spelled it wrong, that's why. It's canonical. Oh, gotcha. Well, the party traveled via Brambleboat to the land of Witherveins and Mud's hometown, Bobayu, also not misspelled. And their reception is interrupted by a slew of yellow slimes known as Amnusia, also not misspelled.

Apparently, these memory-munching monsters are the cause of Lord Lomash's comatose condition, and after visiting Mud's family at the Bramble Castle, they are sent on a quest by Mudd's mentor, a Kajuju named Shaman Seuss. They must find ingredients to a bomb to heal Lord Lomish and others. They travel to the hillage of Morvane looking for the Emerald Stone of Aljaroc and eventually uncover yet another monolith behind a waterfall. The monolith melts away revealing a second elderly Kajuju, Algaroc. The dying shrimp folk enlists the infinites into a secret society of diagent protectors,

the Palladians. Oh, I forgot about that, yeah. Yeah. It's good we do these recaps. Yeah, it's good for everyone. Okay, say that one group of people. Kajujus? No, no, no. The Diareans. Palladians? Don't, don't, don't, don't read them in. Don't read them in. The Diareans. He'sians? Don't, don't, don't, don't read them in. Don't read them in. The Diorians.

He's a Diorian. This is where the radio host would play the fart. Yeah. Diorians. Well, the Paladians. And then Alderac passes on, leaving Mud with the green virtue diagem. Next, the party travels to Lagoon of Crokemyre, where they delve into the recesses of an underwater temple, the

Pantheon, in search of a sacred scroll. While searching for clues, Mud's soul is transported to Mount Celestia, a realm of deities where he encounters Amphibolus, the spirit of water. He just kind of has real talk with her too. He's just talking to this god and he's like, whatever, I'm not impressed.

Well, she was also very late back. Yes, true. She convinces the spirit to grant him her sacred scroll and returns to the material plane to find the party surrounded by an army of Amnusia. They escape to Bramble Castle with the ingredients for the healing bomb, but after some druidic traps and puzzles, they find Mud's family captured by none other than Shaman Soos. She blackmails Mud into freeing her master from a demi-plane prison called the Briar Orb. Mud recovers missing pieces from his past that Soos stole from him and discovers that

he never had a brother. Now freed from his planar prison, Sludge unleashes an onslaught of slime against the Infinites, but in the end fails to engulf their memories. The last minute, he retreats via portal and leaves behind a subdued Soos. Amud is reunited with his parents and a piece of his ancestry, the key to making Briar Orbs. The party rescues the Witherveins from the rest of Amnusia with antiseptic salt, courtesy of

Torthor, and heads home. But they find Bouldery draped in darkness and subjugated by shadowy assassins. Now it seems Inku, the queen of Shadowmane, has invited the Infinites to the land of Tatora and has teased to Bart that his parents are trapped in the Shadowmane. Who is Inku? Where is Tatora? And what

does Bart have to do with any of this? Find out in the next arc of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. Hey, stinky peeps! If you want even more aromatic content like this show, you should follow us at StinkyDragonPod on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. If you're looking for an awesome online community, come join us on the StinkyDragon subreddit, where friendly folks like you are around the clock posting plot-thickening theories,

D&D item ideas, and merrymaking memes about the show. If you post on social media using hashtag StinkyDragonPod, we might name an NPC in the show after you. Sounds intriguing, right? And on top of that, we also want to give a special thanks to some friends of ours who provided voiceover for characters in the previous episode. Shaman Seuss, voiced by Elise Willems. Sludge, voiced by Jeremy Dooley. Lady Sandra, voiced by Kelsey Childs.

Lord Lomish was John Grylls from Bloody Disgusting Podcast. And Inku was voiced by Raquel Lilly. Did you know that Tales from the Stinky Dragon has an official soundtrack? The second album recently dropped on all your favorite music streaming platforms. Relive the sonorous themes of Sleek the Symphonious in the city of Urbloom.

The album includes 19 tracks of musical motifs, themes, and songs written by Micah Reisinger, including the second character song, Gum Gum's Wake-A-Bye. We hope you enjoy the music. Be sure to share it with your friends and loved ones. Want to hear my biggest flex? What's that?

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you could be straight up missing out. By getting it, you'll be doing yourself a solid and supporting the show. I'd never recommend something I don't use. So get honey for free at joinhoney.com slash dragon that's joinhoney.com slash dragon what does bart have to do with any of this spoiler nothing what's love got to do with we always kind of take the game very loosey-goosey. You know, we always try to lean into the fun and like not get into the hardcore nitty-gritty meta of the game.

But now that we're past the encounter, I want to point out what an underrated MVP Bart was in the fight with Sludge. Yeah, let's go. Let's talk about this. Sludge was vulnerable to psychic damage. Oh, my God. That's all you were throwing at him. And that's all you kept throwing at him. That was the only damage that was really done to him.

And it was all courtesy of your new spell. I don't think anybody else could have heard. There was a lot of stuff Sludge was immune to. Really? And yeah, you like honed in on the one thing that really did damage to him. And, you know, it was a new spell, did a lot of damage. And then he was vulnerable to it. So it was like it did extra damage. So you were rolling a new spell did a lot of damage and then he was vulnerable to it so it was like it did extra damage so you were rolling you know a ton of damage and then behind

the scenes i was like oh you know adding modifiers to it and like tallying it all up like oh it's not looking good i took care of shaman seuss guys let's uh let's be real yeah that poor little shrimp lady really took a can i tell some behind the scenes stuff? When I found out that Elise is going to be voicing Shaman Soos, that's when I focused on just obliterating Soos because I knew that Elise would give a funny performance in return. And then later on, I told Elise, I was like, hey, this thing's about to happen and I focus solely on you. So like, I hope you know this.

And she was like, I'm so glad you told me this because I'm going to bring that into the performance performance i'm very excited to hear that episode it's always so awesome when like you know friends of ours get to do these cameos in the show and like us knowing what happens before they do like when we were encountering hugh manor and it's played by my partner trevor and uh like that episode where he i I think he gets eaten, right? Or yeah. Yeah. By the T-Rex and T-Rex. And I remember like we recorded that and I went home and I'm like, so bad news. Cause he was all excited.

He loved doing it. Yeah. He loves getting that stuff. Yeah. Trevor was great at that character too. Yeah. He, I mean,

he rarely gets the opportunity to do some voice acting stuff. So he was really excited and jazzed to be part of it. But it's always funny knowing how like our friends are going to portray these different characters. Yeah. Shout out to both their podcasts. Oh, yeah. Red Web, which is, I guess, mystery and unsolved things. I don't know how to describe it.

True crime. Alfredo and Trevor. And Alfredo was also Mud's fake brother. Clay. Yeah, they have a podcast called Red Web. Get it wherever you get podcasts. And then Elise Willems and Jessica Vasami, who have another true crime podcast about... 30 Morbid Minutes.

Spooky stuff. Spooky stuff. And it's a spooky season. I don't know if it still will be when this comes out. Probably not. Probably not. Spooky season stays in your heart all year long. Yeah.

That's right. So we also, in these Between the the tales we also do some Q&A With you know questions that people have submitted Via various social media channels Just give us a call we'll be answering all morning Call the mud line I keep picking on mud because I know John hates it Algebra in the morning

It's always this family guy lines in there I say Brian What? Did you just have a stroke? What was that? The more I hit John to make him think like, yeah, yeah. Right. Right.

Mommy. Mommy. I was trying to figure out what voice you were doing. Yeah. It's like that. Stewie. Okay. Cut that.

Cut that. I thought you were like doing a bad pinky impression and we're pronouncing brain. Oh, yeah. I think so, Brian. pinky impression and we're pronouncing brain. Oh yeah, I think so, Brian. Well, before we get to the question and answer section though, we do have a level

up to do for everyone. So everyone make sure you level up your characters. Done. We already did it. Yeah, we did this behind the scenes. We did it so that we weren't sitting here going, hmm, what should I do? Also, Ben was with me the entire time we're doing the level up because he came to each of us and had a session where he was talking to us.

Our producer, Ben. I rolled a nine and a 10 for my HP upgrade. I rolled a one and a two. A one and a two? Yeah. It sucked. I was like, Ben! You're at 125 right now, Gum Gum?

I rolled like a three and like a two or something. And I have a D12. Yeah. I only have a D8, so I, you know, couldn't get that high. So my current HP is 95. I'm at 102. Oh, I'm one point of HP behind GumGum.

I'm the lowest. Well, I'm the littlest, so that makes sense. Less body to hurt. Yeah, we can talk it over with Ben. I always feel like when someone, I feel bad when someone rolls a 1 for HP. Normally I let them re-roll that. I think I rolled like a 1 in a three. You have the lucky feet both of you Anybody else have any so yeah, everyone got to roll to hit dice cuz you all were leveled up Twice to 12. So everyone is level 12 now

Kyborg now gets an extra attack attack because he needs oh my god really i forgot oh my god i still don't have another attack john's face just he just put his head in his head so he can attack three times when he takes the attack action when i action surge it'll be six times i foresee a lot of disadvantage in your future yeah i think from now on whenever we get to blaine's turn initiative that could be like our bathroom break we go get a snack that That should be Chris's turn. Yeah, me and John will just go. I typically know what I'm going to do and it's not like, you

know, I get it all lined out and stuff. I try to keep it as brief as possible. I should also mention that when everyone hit level 12, everyone also gets an ability score improvement. So everyone got that as well. I'll just say that as a blanket term. Hey, you know what I got? I do do know i got a plus one on intellect now oh intelligence yeah i figured you would i got a plus one i was like i'm gonna have a positive modifier on this what

did you go up to 12 something like that yeah yeah because 10 and 11 is zero so 12 and 13 i believe is plus one i'm at 13 oh okay i'm at 13 what did i upgrade do you have it written plus one. I'm at 13. Oh, okay. I'm at 13. What did I upgrade? Do you have it written down? The only one I'm negative is I'm negative still on charisma. I'm negative on charisma. I think I might have brought intelligence and wisdom up. I'm zero intelligence, plus zero intelligence, and plus one wisdom. I brought, I'm pretty sure I improved my wisdom score because then it also like some of the saving throws on a lot of my spells upped what the save

is what is your wisdom now it is uh 16 okay yeah so every time you hit an even number yeah you get it goes up so i felt like with a lot of spells that i tend to use having like a higher save that you know the enemy has to do it's beneficial so that's where i went i haven't decided what i'm gonna do yet. I forgot. Okay. It was like, oh, I'm going to look over this before. And then I just, I forgot until last night when I was going to bed. And then I was like, uh, too late.

Yeah. Well, mud gained access to sixth level spells. Have you decided what you're taking mud? Yeah. I, that's what I was alluding to. Let me pull it up so I can actually call it what it is. Correct. I have mine.

If you want me to also gained six level spells. What did you get, Bart? I added a spell called Eye Bite, which is a concentration. An Apple product? Eye Bite. For the spell's duration, your eyes become an inky void imbued with dread power. One creature of your choice within 60 feet of you that you could see must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or be affected by one of the following effects of your choice for the duration. On each of your turns until the spell ends, you could use your action to target another creature, but can't target a creature again if it has succeeded on a saving throw against this casting of eye bite.

You could do asleep. The target falls unconscious. It wakes up if it takes any damage or if another creature uses its action to shake the sleeper awake panicked the target is frightened of you on each of its turn the frightened creature must take the dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route unless there's nowhere to move if the target moves to a place at least 60 feet away from you where it can no longer see you this effect ends and then sickened the target has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks at the end of each of its turn it can make another wisdom saving throw if it succeeds the effect ends from uh like a role-playing perspective i

love the thought of bart casting eye bite and his eyes becoming like that inky void yeah and every time even though if you don't direct it at him like gum gum gets scared and has to make a saving throw or he panicked and runs away from you. I was just thinking how cool it would be to put the friendship bracelet on Barb because it can cast a warding bond, which gives you like super buff defense. And then like you just go like into crazy mode

and then Gum-Gum's like circling around and fighting everyone off. I do feel it's going to be like almost, it's very horror movie-esque in my opinion. I wish I had my little soundboard with me here so I could like pitch down my voice every time I do I bite. Or like you, yeah, you'd be on, you'd be on Gum Gum's shoulders doing that. And I'm like, I'm like saying some type of like curse. You also have that one.

You're just singing hungry eyes. You also have that one where it's like retreat like you use like the voice from the from dune i think that's command yeah yeah bart's got some pretty like scary intimidating things which is fun because like i always imagine bart's a cute little until his eyes rolled in the back of his head and turned black and inky it's pretty fun because the you know the first dnd campaign we played together a few years ago i played like a origin an archer like a ranged creature that like it was all about bow and arrow and like shooting and like playing a character that's completely different where it's like spells and charisma and all this stuff it's just very fun yeah what'd you

get john i got a spell called transport via plants plants. Well, I had to go with this one, mostly because it is exactly something that is going on in the X-Men comics right now of how the X-Men transport themselves around the world via these portals. Here's the spell. The spell creates a magical link between a large or larger inanimate plant within range and another plant at any distance on the same plane of existence.

You must have seen or touched the destination plant at least once before for the duration. Any creature can step into the target plant and exit from the destination plant by using five feet of movement. Wow. That is like, I remember you explaining the X-Men thing to me. That is verbatim what they're doing.

Another way of putting it. It's kind of like the door andmare Before Christmas in the tree. Yeah. I touch a tree and then we go travel and any time I touch any other tree you've ever touched, we now can go back to where I touched. The duration is one round, so it's like six seconds. So it's not like you could hold it open for a long time.

But that is incredibly useful. It's restricted to the same plane of existence, which is wild. That uh that's a lot yeah um but i said martin but mud and bart um mart gum gum your number of rages per long rest became five and now you gained relentless rage do you want to read that to us you drop to zero hit points while you're raging and don't die. You can make a DC 10 con saving throw. If you succeed, you drop to one hit points instead.

DC increases by five each time you use this after the first, resetting to 10 after a short or long rest. So basically, if I die, I pop back up potentially and can keep popping up until I roll back. I've heard about this. Like, this is like a meme with barbarians where, like, you're just unstoppable. I'm very excited for you to see this.

I mean, we don't really bottom out, though. i got down we'll need to test this yeah we're gonna a tarrasque shows up again yeah that's uh that's really powerful yeah that's that's about it though for very i think um as long as we're talking about like the meta and the nitty-gritty we also need to keep an eye on your reactions in the future for gum gum i think i've mistakenly let you take multiple reactions in a round but you should only have one reaction in a round have i done that multiple like when would i with like re-raging and wild magic uh procking okay i try i think i i might have missed it i try to keep a beat on that yeah but maybe it's all it's me. So we'll just keep an eye on that going forward.

So if you hear me complaining about it in the future, that's what it is. Just setting it up now. Setting up my future complaining. Yep. As you do. All right. I guess before I get into Q&A with the questions that have been submitted, does anybody have anything they want to talk about, about the story so far,

or about D&D or questions or anything? I have a question. Yeah. I know like the the teaser for the next storyline is about bart's parents what about gum gum stuff like we have plans okay tbd i was like i feel unfair that we're doing me again we've said this we've said this before i think that we have a plan of when this campaign will end. And so we have mapped out essentially tying up everything by a certain time, let's say next year.

Gotcha. So that's as much as I'll give as far as that. But we are to tell people we have a plan. We've discussed it. But also, you know, to comfort people who might be upset that this is ending. It's not ending yet. Well, also like this campaign might end

and then we'll do a whole nother story. Our plan right now is to end the campaign and start a new one. A new tale from the Stinky Dragon. Exactly. And if you want us to stick to that plan, tell your friends about the show. Yes, please. We want to keep making it. Part of the reason we've been

working on like the puppet videos which are like a minute long and there's like some animations and animatics that are out that are really fun. We just had one come out recently about the, the very first episode where everyone's meeting characters. The introduction of the interns. It's,

it's, it's just really, I love the colors. Well, yeah. And we've, we've seen a lot of people, thanks to those,

we feel going back and we've seen a big uptick in people listening to the first episode. So we see a lot of people voraciously making their way through. And I've even seen on the subreddit. I love the messages of people like, you know, they're crying because they've caught up finally. Yeah. You know, but it makes me feel good because I'm like, yeah, you did. That's right. Cry.

I feel that way with so much like content that you enjoy. It's like, man, I like I can't stop consuming this and I love it, but I don't want it to, like, I don't want to catch up or have it end. Yeah. And so it's just like, I'm just taking my time listening or reading or whatever it is. I remember when I finally caught up to Ghost in the Shell and I was like, finally, I can sleep. But I was like really sad.

I don't, yeah. I feel the pain for catching up to Sticky Dragon. Yeah. We were making, you know, it's also it's also like that content's meant to be like very shareable. So if you have friends, you're like, hey, watch this. It's like a minute long and it's fun, you know. Kind of like hooks you in. Yeah.

Yeah. So if they're like, what is, I don't know if I like D&D or, you know, I don't know about it, but this podcast, like watch this, check it out. One of the reasons we've always been kind of loosey goosey with the rules and like not wanting to create roadblocks to the fun, Roadblocks. You know, trying to live, trying to be within the rails that keep it fun, but without like bogging down too much about like, actually, you know, this and that. Although we do get into rules lawyering

a little bit every now and then. Gotta stay true to D&D to an extent. Just like the broken super advantage that the lucky feet grants you. You know, Ben was asking me like, and this isn't any sort of thing. I think if we do future Sticky Dragon stuff, we're probably going to mix up personnel and cast and stuff and just do things different.

But he was just kind of talking to me generally about D&D. He's like, what kind of character would you want to play in the future? And I was kind of tossing around some of the classes and stuff like that. I think I'd have to look and see who else has that specific kind of lucky feat. It's my favorite part. It is. Ben actually, he was like,

Oh, you should bring this up on, on the podcast and talk to Gus about it. Like apparently I'm able to add feats. I just haven't been. Instead of a ability score improvement, you can take a feat, which there's a lot of things you can choose.

I was, I could have, I could have chose. I don't know if anybody else could have, but I, I could have chosen that this leveling up at like 12, every fourth level. You can do it. That's why I didn't know if anybody else could have, but I could have chosen this leveling up at like 12. Every fourth level, you can do it. That's why I didn't pick my ability score yet because I wanted to look and see if there were any.

That's how Kyborg got that lucky feat. I was going to add another feat to this one, but I ended up not because he's like, you're going to have to ask Gus for approval. And I was like, Gus is going to say no anyways. I'm just going to do this. Does that mean you just have one foot? I have multiple feet. He's three right now. Don't make me turn the show around

we have questions yeah we got some questions here we got a question from ray dash 88 radiate first question why are you all so damn good at this honestly i watch a few dnd podcasts you all are amazing second question did you ever talk about having micah or ben take over as dm for a few episodes so gus can jump in so why are you all so good at this are we i don't know that we are i think that we have very good chemistry because we are very good friends and we have years of experience with each other yeah i would say yeah we know each other so we're able to bounce off of each other well i also think we put in some good work of like picking which characters we wanted to play and like making sure that it was like a balanced team of, you know,

I can answer both questions with one answer. I genuinely think an agreement with everything you guys just said. It's also Gus's ability to yes. And it's a superpower because I've said it before. I am not as patient. I would not allow Chris to do half the things he's done. I would have been way more upset at some of the stunts that Blaine has

pulled. Barb, you would have been fine. I definitely include Gus in that. Teacher's pet. I include Gus in that when I see the chemistry thing. But also, Micah is like a new addition and we've grown so comfortable with you and you're just very good at dungeons and dragons like you have a group outside of this and they like it's whatever

i hear about you guys like you're making like sets yeah like a pirate ship or something recently it's incredible what they do like a real work like a can we see those yeah i'll show you pictures after yeah and i say that because we could maybe use them as sets for. Oh my God. Yeah. Chris is now just looking for anything. One of my friends. Are they just scale to the dolls? It has like a room just of Dungeons and Dragons miniatures and things they build all the time.

It's so cool. Like lights and flickering lanterns and stuff. And I get it now after because we've been building like the sets for the puppet thing. And it's fun. It's really fun. It's good. It's good therapy. That's also the whole. Artsy crafts. It's like the sets for the puppet thing. And that's fun. It's really fun. It's good. It's good therapy. That's also the whole Warhammer community.

It's kind of like that. Yeah. I also just want to like, I know we talk about all the time, but Micah really is like the hero of this podcast. Oh, absolutely. Writes the entire story and is like edits it and does the sound design and

the music and just everything that goes into making it an amazing, I don't want to say product, but essentially an amazing product for the audience. And like, he makes this incredible playground for us to just like go off and play in. Yeah, like peeking behind the DM screen, you don't see every time you all ask a question that I don't definitely know the answer to

because Micah's writing it. It's like when I waffle giving an answer, it's like, yeah, I'm not going to commit to anything. All you see is Micah's typing. Right, I don't want to write, I don't want to say something that puts micah into a corner so i'll intentionally sometimes get like super cagey with answers like yeah i don't know the stray glances that you guys exchange it's kind of like i feel like us being able to watch

you guys like i'm like oh wait a second there's something amiss here yeah it's also like man doing this podcast all together is really nice having everyone in the same room and like whenever something funny happens, like seeing everybody at the table over there, like keel over laughing and it's just like really fun. And Ben is also an encyclopedia of Dungeons and Dragons. Oh yeah, Ben is amazing. And he's so invested and in love with this show.

And it makes me really happy. He's so invested he couldn't be bothered to show up today. And this was something, and I've seen this commented before, like the NPC being voiced and stuff. That's something that takes a lot of effort. But I don't think that's been done very often. I think that's pretty unique to us. I haven't found too many.

And it really elevates it in a fun way. Like it makes it feel like a world. It also allows us to involve other creators that we love in the show um which is you know a really unique part of it and i'll be honest like early on when we started doing this i wasn't i was kind of uncertain about that i was too i was like i don't know how that works because it kind of takes away from the dungeon master's performance and stuff but it it works really well it works they're all better at it than me so

let's hear your Scottish accent oh no whoa let's all be friends here it's me your brother what was the guy's the little weird archer guy that we met in the wild little Jimmy like little Jimmy's like the peak of Gus's acting

I know I know both Ben and I would be happy to run a session. We've talked about that before, but it's like we know right now and we're sticking with like everybody loves Gus. Like we're going to stick with what people love. My favorite show, everybody loves Gus. That would be great to have you or Ben, you know, step in for a little while and try it out and deal with these numbskulls over here. I would love to see Gus like...

As a player. Yeah, because he's so creative and you have a long, long history with Dungeons and Dragons. And I think that you'd pull some crazy stuff. Yeah, I started playing D&D back in like 92, I want to say. So when I was a two year old. Yeah, I'm like we I lived out in the middle of nowhere. So like we would go to like used bookstores and secondhand books to try to buy anything we could. So we started playing original Dnd wow which was awful and then we played a dnd then second edition third edition

uh that kind of stopped i never played fourth but yeah i've been playing for a long time i still remember chris thinking 5e was like not fifth edition but it was like oh there must be 5a 5b so funny yeah some of those old editions were rough man they were they were trying to figure out how to make the game and it was like how is it right like just like like you know like nowadays a lot of things are standardized with d20 rolls uh back in the early days like in original dnd and even adnd i want to say you had hit tables that you had to look at so it's like you would compare what your roll was versus armor class in a table. Then like looking at a spreadsheet, then run across and look at what the number was that you needed to roll

to be able to hit the armor class. It was wild. There's a lot of work. I've seen those. Yeah, it was not great. Balance is probably an issue too. Yeah, some things were really broken. Second edition had THAC0, which is how you calculated your hits hits it was like two hit armor class zero what you needed to roll

and then you would make adjustments based on whatever the armor class was to that there's just a lot more math nowadays it's like armor class is 15 roll a 15 you know it's a it's a lot more streamlined for uh what you need to do and with stuff like doing it on dnd beyond that you don't even have to do it does the math for you it's amazing yeah you can roll 100 d100s yeah and you don't lose anything that was the worst having to like stuff your player character sheet into like your book and hope it didn't fall out and you didn't lose it oh shoot i did you make like a backup yeah so you would every now and then you'd have to like either like make like a xerox copy or manually copy it off by hand to another character sheet just to have a backup back in my day when we had to make our own

die and we liked it we had to cut a finger off and roll the bones okay i have a question here from nerd level 18 players what are your predictions for the next arc is there something you really want to see or do hadn't really put a lot of thought into the next arc. We just kind of experienced it as it comes. Yeah. I mean, obviously like we still want to learn a lot more about gum gum. I think it's a still kind of a mystery to us.

Also, you know, even more Bart stuff would be fun. Yeah. I think it'd be interesting. I mean, I want to know what's going on with Bart's family and like, well,

yeah, because he was an orphan. And so like, I don't know who his real parents were or what they did or where they are. So yeah, I'm interested to find out. I have a hunch as to why it's going to finish with gum gum. And I feel like it's going to lead to something.

I don't know. I actually can spoil that right now. Gum gum's last name is Skywalker. I also have a theory. I said to go back to the drawing. You know, I have a theory, but I also like, don't know if i want to say it because what if it's actually true and then they had to change it i think dr ahem is behind all of this i think he's evil could be could be barbara doesn't like kobolds you heard it here first yeah but i don't know i don't know maybe

i'm just too pessimistic at the end of the story you'll know if it turns out that Gum-Gum is a secret clone of Dr. Ahem, who's formed in his secret base in a far-off moon. The one thing that I am curious about, I was, I think, reminded by someone on the subreddit, because we always forget him. I was like, oh, yeah, where's Sordo? Well, Sordo. Because Sordo is the soul of

the body that was Archie. I'm like, oh, I want to know that. I want to see. I want to conclude him. And Archie double crosses. I feel like there might be a double cross in the future. I don't know if it's going to be Doctor Ahem, but I feel like someone's going to backstab us. That's why I'm always really shaky, especially

around Brink Tussler. He made a hero turn. He sucks. I dunk on Brink Tussler a lot. It's because it's voiced by Eric Padour, who is a very close friend of mine and we work out together every morning. But I hate his character. It's honestly though, the perfect casting.

It's essentially just Eric playing Eric. And I love it. The Brink Tussler Got a question here From Little Mouse Blaine how is your fox doing You dropped them off at headquarters and never checked back in I know Fred's fine

He's Dr. Ahem's buddy now Who's gonna backstab you You left your pet Fred is like The muck that Ash sent to No. You left your pet. I didn't say anything. Fred is like the muck that Ash sent to Professor Oaks' center and just like

was Ash's Pokemon, but Professor Oaks was just like saddled with him for forever. I like to consider him more of like a rescue that I what is it called when you didn't want? No, no, no. Fostered for a bit and then gave off to another owner. I don't know what is it called? When you didn't want to foster for a bit and then to another owner. I don't

know what to do with this. I also didn't want to like, I don't want to have competition. Why would you, why would he sound like Jimmy Stewart? I just didn't want gumbo to have like competition. And I also, it stresses me out having a companion

because Gus hates Lucky so much. Because Gus took away one of my companions. So everybody's ready for that to happen again. How do you think I feel when my companion is Gum-Gum? Gotta take care of him all the time. He now has at least an ability where he comes back from the dead. You gotta bathe him.

You gotta feed him. You gotta put a friendship bracelet on take him for a walk make sure he's always paying attention to where to go not to talk to strangers the animation of the first episode where everyone's like Chris Chris are you paying attention oh yeah but my character isn't

yeah he's like oh my god that was so obnoxious it was very funny case in point of moments I would not have been patient with as a DM. Yeah. And you die. Yeah. A lightning bolt.

We got a question here from Thermic. How long does Micah spend on one episode or arc? Gus, you're an amazing DM. I think you deserve more praise. Thank you. I think so too. P.S. Could we please get Micah DM notes released?

I look forward to the podcast every week. Thanks for all the work you guys do. Well, thank you for listening. Yes. Yeah, we've talked about releasing adventures maybe in the future. Yeah. I think you should at least do like upload a page or two. Well, I'll tell you what we're working on.

I make no promises that we're going to be able to figure out, but we're working on a way to package it and try and sell it as a way that people can physically consume it like actually use it for their own campaign play module and it's not just for like the characters you all play but it's like for anybody that could pop into the same way you would buy any yeah campaign that's awesome because there's a lot of work that micah does that sometimes we don't get to like you go in one direction and where's like versus the other direction which is also fully fleshed out and there's tons of stuff there to explore that's that's dnd though like i made some notes for myself because i was trying to remember like how long it takes but like each episode's different because like if it's an encounter it's going to be different a length wise of making it

versus if it's a social thing or if it's a dungeon crawl y'all do but like i take a lot of notes on my notes app like it's just full of things i try to like keep it within 90 to 120 minutes for the actual running of the episode and that's hard because dnd is meant to be played like at least three hours yeah yeah but yeah it takes me it takes me a good chunk of a day or two to get like one solid module out from like start to finish yeah anytime we have like a an episode i know it's going to be combat heavy it's like okay i know we're going to be spending almost the entire time doing this combat because it just it takes so long to get through this combat i think from our perspective too the combat versus role-playing we're torn in the middle on who likes what the most i love combat

and i feel like everyone else hates combat i don't hate combat but i like i like everything the role play the most like playing with mps i'm so bad at my roles though that's why i like combat and i think the reverse is true with uh elise or sorry but barbara and john sorry classic mistake yeah it's an honor you guys have amazing like social roles but i feel like combat wise i like how blaine's like i don't like the stuff i'm bad i only like the things i when he said he was bad at his roles i thought thought he meant R-O-L-L-S. I think he did mean that. Then you started talking about other roles. R-O-L-E-S. When he has to roll to see if what he did can work,

he fails a lot because he has bad charisma and bad intelligence. I thought it started as a joke because I was like, I'm going to make him purposely stupid. Now I'm like, I hate this. You're so stupid. You can't convince anybody of anything. You can't investigate anything.

You can't intimidate. That's why you got me baby. That's right. But like I think it's fun too to fail. Oh true. The drama. Yeah like to me I guess like it's always more fun to me to find a way not to fight and get through an encounter than to fight. Even though combat is fun too. Yeah sometimes that makes me put my head in my hands and I'm like oh my god you all just need to fight and get through an encounter than to fight. Even though combat is fun too.

Yeah. Sometimes that makes me put my head in my hands. I'm like, oh my God, you all just need to fight this thing. But sometimes you do get around it. Like the Tabulians, when you were encountering Umrah, you did manage to avoid some encounter. I don't know how we would have succeeded had we not done that. I don't know like how. Big fight.

That would have been a big fight. Yeah. But that was fun. Again, like the kind of social aspect of it. I like that stuff. I like puzzles and problem solving. And Mike is really great about incorporating that stuff into the campaign, which I think is so much fun. I say this

in a joking way because I actually kind of love it. The riddles. I like the riddles. They just go over my head. I didn't know you didn't like them. There are so many riddles and none of them make sense. I love them i love like i would never put those in if i know yeah head and hands like i remember i think back a lot just because like it was one of the first things we did in this whole campaign was when we got to that hallway that had the doors the different symbols over it like the bear and the coffee mug and all that stuff and figuring out what to do in each room like i love that kind of stuff it's funny because i think about a little more recently the four doors that you all found that you all did not move and inspect like you all just went and looked at

one door but if you all had taken turns to look at the doors everyone would have seen something different i love the one we went into where it was just like essentially a bar fight yeah we're like what do we just get involved and like body slamming people and drinking we're like why do we get out of here that was fun oh yeah it's always curious to see what's going to happen when you guys have doors in front of you actually uh recently we filmed a short about what happens when a party encounters a door in dnd and it's probably out by now but yeah very fun squad team force Force on TikTok and Scream. Yeah, Squad Team Force is where we upload all of our skits and stuff.

And then Stinky Dragon Pod is like more specific to just Stinky Dragon content. I got a question here from Black Death. For the players, as your characters grow to more powerful heights and gain renown across the lands, has the fame, fortune, and power gotten to anyone's head yet? I don't know what fortune you're talking about for bart i'm broke baby you got lots of uh very expensive items though that's true didn't you break this down for us where you're like level one through whatever is like a vigilante and then level x through this there's like a city hero and then like this is like a country-wide known person

the fame has come into no advantage to us thus far no nobody cares or knows who we are so far sometimes they do and it's bad i don't think that people know us as well as the previous infinites well y'all are new right we definitely need to make better money we don't have much of a fortune although i'm apparently and i should i should have like pulled money from like the coffers of, of Bramblecrack. After your parents like snap back to reality should have been like money, please.

I need my inheritance. Where's the treasury? I saved everyone. I would like my brother's inheritance. So did the brother never exist? Never. Okay. I just wanted to clear that up.

Alfredo has never existed. I knew it. Red Web should investigate. The ghost of Bramble Castle. To answer that question though, like I think Kyborg has maintained the same level of confidence and him being like the hero. I have arrived.

You can't go above a hundred percent if that's your starting point right exactly can't if you don't know what numbers are i do it's funny though like as we progress through the campaign and collect more items and stuff like that it's just like trying to keep track of everything you have and what you could use at your disposal in every moment like i i forget that time someone jumped out a window and and i was like oh, wait, I have this vest of slow descent. Like, I forgot I had that. Or like, oh, I could use that right now. Suspenders of Haglund have come in handy.

We've used those a lot. Oh, man. Yeah, you really use those. You got permanent bruises in your shoulders now from those. It's just like the scars. It's so funny. Whenever I do that, all the boys in this room are like and i'm like it really doesn't don't do that i didn't even want to mention that you were

actually hitting your bra straps because it was like during that episode we were all just going yeah everyone was cringing and i'm like anyone listening who wears a bra this one's for you they know it doesn't really hurt that much. And it's just a everyday kind of feel. Everyday kind of feel. Wake up and just snap. Everyday, Barbie gets up. Snap. Snap your bra. Best part of waking up.

Is bra strap snap in your cup? That was oddly fitting. Yeah. It landed perfectly. It'll wake you up, that's for sure. We do have another question here this one is from on twitter from kevin smith whose uh handle is at the other kevin sm this is a real kevin smith but not famous kevin smith i'll take it now yeah oh yeah the other

kevin smith asks love the puppets and animation. Did the Infinite consult in their appearances or was it a surprise? It was a surprise. Yeah. My mama surprised everybody with the dolls. She tried to get as accurate as possible from source material. But yeah. Right. The source material being Andrew Douglas making our thumbnail art.

Yeah. Which is amazing. And also did work on like animatics and things. I think actually, actually no going way way back ben did send out an email and was like hey give us a character description of what you kind of imagine your person looking like yeah which which we then applied to andrew's thumbs and have workshopped the accuracy there a few times and then since then yeah that was what mama rye i mean i never said anything about green skin but I love that Kyborg has green skin for some reason.

But like the long blonde hair. I think that was an Andrew call to differentiate everybody, you know, with the color spectrum, which is good. Because like that often can be like an issue in like even comics and stuff is like being able to differentiate similar looking characters apart from different angles, from behind. X-Men all having yellow and blue on and you're like who are you well like even

with like that as an example like you know there's several female X-Men that have brown hair so differentiate all the female X-Men with brown hair it's like okay well one of them has a white skunk down her hair and you know wears a bomber jacket you know yeah Wonder Woman right

I'll insert crickets there. It's fine. Let's try to get our eyes at a rising air. A question from Kylan1909. K-I-L-E-N. Not like Kylan. Kylan. Kylan1909. It sounded a little aggressive.

For Gus and Micah, have there been times when you guys have broken character behind the screen and just lost track of your own plots because you were laughing too hard? For Blaine, who do we have to bribe for your next character to have a southern or Cajun accent? I say, I say. Oh my god. It's just Foghorn

Leghorn is your southern. Yosemite Sam. Oh, a bit Yosemite as well. Yeah. I mean, has there been a moment where you guys are just like i think lots of times we're always i was gonna say all the time yeah we're always like messaging each other you know we sit next to each other kind of away from a little away from the players and we're always like looking at each other or messaging each other when things uh go off the rails or go awry there's always there's lots of times where i'll ask a

question like well technically this shouldn't work but should we just go awry. There's lots of times where I'll ask a question like, well, technically this shouldn't work, but should we just go with it? Like, let's just see where this leads, you know, and just trying to see, you know, how Micah feels about it. Yeah, there's a lot of chatter behind the scenes with the crew. And it reminds me of like director audio commentaries

on like DVDs and bonus features. It's like watching the film and like, oh, that's funny. I never thought that would happen. Yeah, just roll with what we give you. I don't know if I will do so in the next one, Max. I think you need to do a character voice at the very least because at least the three of us have had character voices and yours has devolved into just Blaine. Just Blaine.

Yeah. So you need to commit to something that is not your, not a, not a version of Blaine's voice, but like a voice voice. I know what I want my next character to be, but Ben was like, I don't know that Gus would like that if you did it. So TVD. It is something though. I don't know about you guys.

And I forget if I've talked about this on a previous Between the Tales episode, but when we were about to start recording this podcast and we were creating our characters, I and Trevor could attest to this. I spent so much time being like, I don't know what kind of voice to do, if I should do an accent because it's something I'm going to have to keep up for the entire time. And I don't want it to be like annoying to the audience. And I don't want to like do a really hard to commit to

and maintain voice. Yeah. And so that's why I just do this. Yeah. And that's it. A little pitched up. But then like next campaign. Yeah.

Who knows? Yeah. Didn't want to have to do a hundred episodes of a show where your voice is why you like this or something I'm looking at Blaine oh he's talking about Good Morning From Hell

oh yeah oh god I forgot about that yeah where he was a Clayton that's actually Brother of Satan that wasn't that bad

those are also shorter episodes we also don't talk for forever in the podcast in this podcast as our character voices very true it's like playing Gollum, you know,

like being Andy Serkis like for all those years, like, oh my God. Oh yeah. Number on your throat. I would, I don't know if we can find this. I would love to hear

the test episode that we did like pre-pandemic. Yeah, we did test. Pre-Mica even. Oh yeah, way pre-Mica. Ben might have it. I would love to hear that because I was playing

at least a version of Gum Gum. And you are, I think, playing a version of Kyborg too. I was playing a version of Kyborg. And I don't even, I would love to hear that because I was playing at least a version of Gum Gum. And you were, I think, playing a version of Kyborg too. I was playing a version of Kyborg. And I don't even, I would love to hear it because I don't really remember it very much. I was a version of Mud

because I still have that character in D&D Beyond. I was a character named Tiff. Oh, that's right. I was a rogue halfling. Yeah. I like rogues. Yeah.

Might look into that next time. Although I feel like rogue is very similar to the kind of character I'm playing here. Very like sneaky, stealthy kind of. I think I'd go in a wildly different direction. Yeah. Personally.

I was trying to scroll back through our communication here and find an exchange we had that wasn't spoilery for anything too recent. And I found something. I think this was during their encounter with Sludge. I forget what it was, but there was a DC check that people needed to make. And it was like 20 or something. And everyone just kept hitting it so easily. And Micah just sent me a message that said, everything is DC 30 now.

Just like even these hard checks have gotten to the point where everyone's just making it no problem. Yeah, because I typically create the monsters like I stat build them. And I think for Sludge, it was like one of his things had a condition that put on you guys it was like dc 20 i was like that's a little hard maybe i should notch it down i would feel like done dc 15 or something like that and then you guys came out like 27 26 and i was like no but a little before that you had said man his primary dc was originally 20 and i was like no that's too powerful and i'm like well i don't i also i don't want to be mean but it helps a lot that gus

you just have bad roles like sometimes your combat roles are awful and i'm like is this gus i think about hiding them sometimes like they actually just put the screen up screen up yeah yeah you're just gonna notch the little dice over i mean to be fair i feel like you know obviously it's it's good to be fair with the dice rolls but you guys are also crafting a story so if there's something where it's like you need a dice roll for a certain outcome and it'd be more entertaining yeah there are some times where i don't show the rolls if i think that that's really going to be the case but uh guess i bring my dice in my backpack every morning i can i can roll them on dnd beyond without anyone seeing as well. It's just that feeling of dice in your hand. It is nice.

We have time maybe for just a couple more of these before we wrap up. We have one here from Tanberimo. I hope I said that right. Tanberimo. I just realized and have to ask, all this Cajun-themed surrounding mud, was he aware of it when he named his badger Gumbo? Oh, yeah. No, but Micah was aware of it. Yeah, John told me. You mentioned why he named his badger gumbo? Oh yeah. But Micah was aware of it. Yeah. John told me.

Yeah. You mentioned why I named gumbo. I named gumbo for two reasons. One, uh, because it is actually another word for a type of dirt. And two, because my girlfriend right now is Cajun.

And I thought that was a fun nod to her. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. She's from Louisiana. Right. So then Micah, knowing those two facts already of that, it was like, that's why he made it B'Baiu themed.

I want to tell you something about Gum Gum. He's a little jealous of Gumbo. Because of the gum? Because of the, like, he gets confused by the name and he thinks that like Gumbo has like, I don't know. Like he's Gumbo and you're Gum Gum. Yeah. And he gets, he's a little, and that's... Gum Gum's a little... He's kind of jealous.

So then he gets... Exactly. That's why Gum Gum was like quick to turn on him because Gum Gum is like a little jealous that he's... He's Gum adjacent. Yeah, and he's like everyone's favorite and he's like jealous. He's an adorable little badger with armor.

Why wouldn't he be everybody's favorite? Not that he doesn't like Gumbo. But maybe Brink Tussler is Kyborg's rival. Gumbo. And you have to travel and adventure with him. Kyborg also feels like he has some small

parental ownership over Gumbo because I helped pay for the... I gave you the gold for the adoption sponsored yeah godfather to gumbo yeah i'd like to think of myself as gumbo's godfather i don't know if this came across like it was very subtle but like when when i also when i was planning out your arc john like i knew that you like one of your favorite creators is jim henson so like i know like i figured mud would be like a kermit type of swamp just down in the swamp i just kind of dealt with

the arc that mud plays a banjo and has a song about it's not easy being green. You're there. Yeah. Scottish accent. Challenge. Do it. Yeah.

I mean, I'm down with that. Yeah. Question here from Mike. Hello, Mike. Low. I'm sorry. I don't know how to say that. How much of the characters backstories inform the writing for the overarching story or was there back and forth from the writers when the cast

made up the backgrounds for example if kyborg had a different backstory would the armageddon arc have played out differently like a different villain or not had the flashback etc p.s love the show uh while back i think we asked for like y'all's backstories and i had a few like back and forth about the, any questions I had and you guys just gave me and I put them in a doc and I've kept them and I refer to them all the time. And then I take notes. If I remember to take notes when you guys like make offhand comments about

things about your characters. There are some times also where Micah will have a question and we can't directly ask you because we don't want to spoil anything. So he'll send me questions before the episode. Like if you can somehow work these questions in to fill in the blanks. Oh, interesting. Well, detective work. Mining.

So sometimes I'll ask questions that may seem like only tangentially related or a weird question to follow up with. It's because like, I know Micah needs this bit of information. So I'm trying to get it out. Man, I need to do a third listen through. So you're mining the backstory. Right. Whenever we don't even realize it. Well, it's because we're, I mean, there is, you talked about, there was a degree of prep,

but also like we're making stuff up constantly. I also like, I guess I don't really listen to many D&D podcasts or like I've never played D&D before this. But I'm also curious if campaigns typically deal with the arcs having to do with the characters and their backstories, or if it's just like, you're a group of people and this is the situation you're finding yourself in. They have like, even like homebrew stuff typically does. Yeah.

Yeah. Homebrew stuff. Like for example, Adventure Zone definitely had stuff that did that, you know, what a great show. So yeah, it's not abnormal. I mean, it's just, it's a source of story i just feel like it's a really unique take on a campaign yeah that's like so ingrained in like the characters itself and their backstories and stuff and yeah yeah but i've also played plenty of

campaigns where you let the character or let the players tell the character story and you don't necessarily have to explore it in the campaign yeah it can be like real high fantasy you go storm a castle save a empire like all that normal stuff. And then the backstory is just filled in, you know, in the downtime, just like in the chit chat. So it can definitely go either way. But yeah, to answer the question, like, yeah, if Kybro's backstory had been different, yeah, the arc would have been completely different. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I gave a pretty thorough write up of what I wanted it to be.

I remember that episode is Between the Tales and I had a song that would not play for whatever reason. Oh yeah, I remember that. You were giving a backstory or something and you're like, alright! And you're like, we were remote and he was trying to play it over like a Google call. And then he stopped and you're like, can you guys hear that? And we're like, no, not really.

He'd start over again. I'm going to send you the files, play them individually in 3, 2, 1, go. Everyone set your watches and start playing on two minutes, two seconds. It was a good song. Any more? For the group, which personality trait of your characters is the most fun to role play and why? Oh, I'm sorry.

That was from American Wastelander. Okay. That's a good question. Man, it's hard to choose with Bart. I've always been a fan of like being a problem solver in games and like trying to be very, you know, investigatory and perceptive in things and like figure out clues and piece things together. But I also like, I'm just kind of leaning into the whole stereotype of Bards and like them being really charismatic and flirty and stuff like that. And I just love the idea of this like tiny little redheaded guy who's like super beefy and charming.

Just like being into like everyone and everything that comes by. It's just a fun little role play to do. So I really like that. We all love that about Bart. I like Gum Gum's just earnestness. Like and it's fun to play it. So I think of it as a wide eyed wonder. Like everything's like, I get the earnestness, but I think more of like, like pure, like,

wow. Yeah. Seeing the world for the first time. Like, this is amazing. Devoid of cynicism. Yeah. Yeah. Gum Gum is closer to Chris.

What your previous character was. You had another character. Oh man. Lunko. And he's like mean. And he's like conniving really lunko and he was like mean and he was like conniving. And like really greedy and stuff like that. Yeah. Very different. But like Gum Gum

is like a really like, yeah, that's Chris. I feel like, yeah, I mean maybe there's like, I think it's sometimes it's hard to like have a situation and then wanting to approach it more like cynical or more like analytical but like no no gum gum can't do that like he wouldn't think that yeah you know and i don't know it's fun to

like force yourself to like i say constraints but it's really just like a character yeah yeah i played with a campaign one time where i had a friend who had he would roll a d20 and use an intelligent chick every time he would like if he wanted to solve a puzzle like you were saying oh wow he'd be like would my character know this and he would roll it and he would he would go by that wow that's real like commitment to the numbers yeah but yeah like i i agree i think it's fun to play into a role like that i just like kyborg because his entire personality is just being the muscle guy and And ooh, look at me. That's all I have to contribute. And that's just like me, you know?

Oh, God. People really love Kyborg. Like, I feel like it's one of the most beloved characters of the whole campaign. He's definitely one of the top four. I just think you're very funny. And I think, like, I love the balance that Kyborg brings where it's like, yeah, he is very boisterous

and showy and muscly. But like, I don't know, there's also a sensitive side there. And I think like his whole backstory was a really highlight piece of the arc. The thing I love most about Khyborg is like he puts on the smallest, lightest facade of like, I'm a tough guy. I don't want to show my emotions. But deep down inside, he's like a complex just like nerves ball of nerves and all these things that he's always trying to hide

you're just describing yourself playing it's a way for me to be able to express that aspect of me but that works fine cut down to that ball of nerves there what about mud? I like playing mud in the way that i play video games sometimes where i love playing things with a level of unpredictability a little bit of chaos uh a little bit of like throwing a wrench in the system throwing 60 birds into the system

yeah i mean really it's not how I actually approach life at all. I'm a very methodical and planned person. I follow the rules to too far of an extent sometimes. Um, and so it's fun to, you know, in a world where it doesn't matter if I, you know,

go a little chaotic, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it's fun to do that. You know, like for example, like drink the potion a lot of that's yeah you play that in video games even in multiplayer games you're like you'll be

no john no yeah yeah you'll just be like don't do it john mischievous yeah it's it's fun because like like it keeps everyone on his toes it does does. It, I think there's a level of unpredictability that, that offers up a lot of improv opportunities and creativity within like, you know, a respect. I still try to keep it within a respectable range of not just like, you know, saying F it and just doing whatever I want. Well,

that's something I do appreciate about having John here is like, I feel like he and I typically are like, let's figure this out. And like, you guys are just like banging trash cans yeah so having a someone else on my side like no let's the dichotomy of of mud is let's go to the next room and proceed forward and then also like i turn into a plesiosaurus swim under everything yep so there's that i like it good balance so i do have one more listener submitted question i want

to get to before i get to that i don't know if i've ever asked this on mike to blame it's a question for me why is it that kyborg always wants to go like why blaine as a player do you like kyborg always going in one direction going left yeah oh because you even did that in july block island john just slapped his arm i did actually tear my bicep and then i was no i thought it was kyborg's lack of arm no uh that was my reasoning in game i just do that in real life uh i'm mixed-handed and i don't know that you're always presented with forks in the road and like i'm very bad at decision making so sometimes i'll just blindly say let's just go left i've always done that if i'm like coming up to a turn like a literal turnpike and i'm like i'm not sure which way left it's just easy it's just easy

for me to make that the reason i ask is i in in real life i kind of adopt a similar philosophy but with me it's because of theseus in the the labyrinth of crete when he fought the minotaur that's the way he defeated the maze he held on he held on to one wall uh knowing that if you enter a maze and you follow one wall you'll always reach the exit eventually it might not be the most direct way but you eventually reach it so i read that when i was like a young kid i thought that was really cool way to approach a puzzle it's like it stuck with me throughout the years and i wondered if you thought the same thing you want to know something funny you're talking about mazes and stuff like that uh we did a show not to plug a different show that we do uh called survive block island where it's survivor in minecraft and

there was uh one of the final challenges was a series of mazes that we all had to get through to collect something and then leave the maze and go to the next one i was using that method of like always sticking to one side of the wall and it bit me in the ass i never i don't complete one maze that works if the maze stays right if you're in real life it doesn't work if there's a transforming maze or if there's like teleportation like in dnd it doesn't always work to be like oh you get teleported behind yourself the one I was using was a it was a maze completely made out of glass. And so you couldn't tell where. And so I'm just like, I'm just gonna I'm so I'm having a panic attack. The walls were essentially invisible.

Yeah. The last question that we'll get to here is submitted by Jared Warsoff at Resonator, who writes, As a musician, I'm very curious to hear more about Micah's process for composing the music for the show. Where do you draw inspiration from? How long does it take for each piece, et cetera? Oh, man. Music is, because like you guys alluded to, I have three roles in the show. It's writing, editing, and music.

And music is the thing I most enjoy in life. It's always what I've wanted to do when I've discovered it. So like, yeah, I have plenty of inspiration. All the film composers that you probably know in movies, like John Williams. I was telling John the other day, I was listening to a classical station online and they started playing the theme from Hook, the movie Hook.

And I was like, oh man, it's so good. I was like, wait, why are they playing Hook? Like this is a classical station. They usually play like, you know, 1800s or 1700s. And I was like, is John Williams dead? Like, I was like, look at it really quick. But anyways, yeah, I listened to a lot of stuff and I was like is John Williams dead like I was like looking at really quick but anyways yeah I listened to a lot of stuff and I went to school for music like it's really what I've enjoyed the most learning about and um for like the show each piece is unique yeah when the

songs kind of came up as they came up like I kind of leaned into what the overall tone of y'all's characters uh like in the moment I think we were talking about Gum Gum's Wake Up I earlier. Like I wanted to be very like simple, like hardly any boisterousness to it because like Gum Gum likes the drum. So I had like a drum, like little, little, little lute that plays cause Bart's a close friend. And like the same thing with,

with Kyborg's. Kyborg's like going to be big and brassy, but it's also got some sweet and tender notes when his mom, when he meets his mom. So like, yeah, I wanted it to be kind of playing to each character it's so good i i threw on the soundtrack from arc one when i was reading i sometimes like when i read books i like to just have some like fantasy music playing yeah like sometimes i put on like uh skyrim soundtrack music but like i put on the d uh the tales from the stinky dragon soundtrack and just like listen

to my book and it's funny because whenever i listen to the music and one of the like character songs come on where you're actually singing in it every time I'm around some someone from Rooster Teeth and they're hearing that song or any song without fail someone goes is that John no it's his brother Micah and I are very different in many ways. You know, shape, size, sound, interest, and that kind of thing. But every once in a while, like the Reisinger man's voice. You guys have like an underlying tone.

It really comes through. No, it's just very, we have to be doing very specific things and then people will make that connection. We did like a little short podcast at one point. We did do. And like, yeah, we had to make sure, because I made sure that his voice was a lot bassier than mine. Yeah, we had a cartoon podcast called Tune Crunch.

Oh, nice. That's very cool. I thought you guys hated each other. All right, on that note, let's go ahead and wrap up this episode of Between the Tales. We'll be back next time with a brand new episode. It'll be the beginning of the next arc. We're going to find out what's going on, where everyone's going to be

headed to and peeling back the onion of mystery. Join us on the subreddit. Enjoy the new soundtrack on Spotify and all streaming platforms and tell your grandma about the podcast. Oh, and Christmas coming up. If you want Christmas presents, get some Stinky Dragon merch for yourself

or other people. No, merch for yourself or other people. No, just for yourself. Treat yourself. All right. Bye. Bye. Thank you.