The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #22 – Nerd Bracket Finals/Zombie Gaming/Beat McD

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Starting from the Elite 8, the guys declare a winner in the Nerdiest Hobbies Bracket! Plus, with the release of 28 Years Later, everyone weighs in on their favorite zombie apocalypse books, movies, tv shows, and games! 0:00 Intro 8:00 Bracketology 40:55 Zombies 1:20:00 Zombie Gaming 1:35:45 Best Undead Ever 1:50:00 Beat McD Watch the video here: ⁠⁠https://youtu.be/aePF5rxyT48 Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Mmm, hot coffee. Welcome to Glass Cannon Radio, a special edition entitled, Whoops, All Zombies. It kind of was a mistake. We kept talking about different stuff. We kept falling back into all different zombie things as we were talking about what to talk about. Then all of a sudden we were like, we've just got a show full of zombies. This is wild.

Right. Of course, I'm basing that title on was it whoops all crunch berries Do you remember when Captain Crunch did that no? I don't remember. Oh, okay? Yeah, Captain Crunch came out with a version of Captain Crunch It was like whoops all crunch berries and You're like why did you guys put whoops on the box why? You know you talking on the box so what are you your thoughts on Captain Crunch? I feel like it's a trash cereal. Trash. Garbage. You're wrong. It is so freaking

delicious. So amazing. I try to try to stay away from it because obviously that weird film you get on your teeth is not a great after effect. This is a great cereal. And film you get on your teeth is not a great after-effect. This is a great cereal and then you get a weird film on your teeth. Well, you know, you got to take the good with the bad. It's it's, you know, the balance of life. Uh, I don't know. I mean, we were never allowed to get sugary cereals.

Uh, and then when I got to college, I would buy sugary cereals for myself and I would realize, oh, I actually prefer Raisin Bran. You know, I actually prefer Special K. Wow, that is. To, to, Trix? Yeah, get out of here with Trix. Yeah, I never really had Trix. So our sugar cereals, we called them.

We were allowed to have those on the weekend. We could have sugar cereals. And those were typically Frosted Flakes, Captain Crunch, Cinnamon Toast Crunch sometimes. Ah, now I make exceptions. And Cinnamon Toast Crunch is AAA. Chef's Kiss. Delish. Amazing.

So good. So those are great. And I've kind of trained my kids in the same way. I have them so they can have Lucky Charms on the weekend and they can have... The other one I like is Frosted Mini Wheats, which isn't that crazy, but I like them to think that's a special treat, so they just have that on the weekends. But yeah, it's important to set those expectations. I like them to think that's a special treat. So they just have that on the weekends. Right. Yeah. It's important to set those expectations.

My children are only allowed to have fresh guava and handmade yogurt with a sprinkling of granola. There you go. There you go. Keep it real. Well, here we are. It's Glass Cane Radio, the show where you get to call in and tell us off. Yeah.

You know. I wish more people would tell us off. I know. Put us in our place. They're very, people tend to be polite and kind of passive and they cow to you immediately because you're so aggressive and mean. No, no, no.

They're intimidated by you. They're intimidated by you. They're intimidated by you. No, no, no. What, intimidated by you. They're intimidated by you. They're intimidated by you. No, no, no. What, this face? Look at this face. That sweet baby face? Come on.

How could you be, look at this dimple. Daddy's not angry. It's on that side. Yeah. Daddy is, daddy looks like a baby. Daddy is baby. Well, it's not all zombies today. There's nothing to be intimidated by.

It's not all zombies. That's true. Yeah. We, we. Go ahead, please. Well, we're kicking all zombies intimidated by it's not all zombies. That's true. Yeah, we yeah, we go ahead, please Well, we're kicking it off with a segment. We forgot to do last time. I Should play it cool and be like this was all part of the plan But we legit planned an entire episode and forgot to continue with our bracket ology. Yes Bracket ology, we're bracketing types of nerddom. What is the nerdiest form of nerddom?

And we are going to get back into it today. This is our Elite Eight. This is our Elite Eight. Yeah, we got to the Elite Eight three weeks ago, then we were off two weeks ago, and that's what caused sort of the confusion. Yes. And then, yeah, so now here we are back three weeks later to finish out this bracket. Right. And then in honor of the release of 29, oh, sorry, 28 years later,

I don't know why I wanted to make it a year longer. I don't know why. In honor of the release of 28 years later, we are doing a zombie episode today. So we are going to do a segment on zombies, just as a creature. What is their popularity? What do you think? Are they overdone now? Give us your input on that.

Then we're going to talk about, I'm sorry, zombie gaming. Zombie games. Zombie games, yeah. Zombie gaming. So we're talking board games, TTRPGs, video games. Tell us about your favorite zombie games and let's discuss that. Then after that, we're gonna go into

the Pathfinder universe. We're gonna dip into our monster cores and we're gonna pick our favorite undead from Pathfinder or if you're more of a D&D person you could throw out your D&D or maybe some other game. We're talking about stat blocks. There's such a myriad of amazing creatures, undead specifically in that realm and I'd love to see people bring to light something I haven't seen of cool undead monsters. Yes, absolutely.

I mean I found some really cool ones. You know, there are some that I've played with before, like actually run as a GM, and there are some that I really would love to run as a GM. So I got into both of those things. And then finally, we're gonna close it all out with a little undead version of Beat McD. Beat McD. Can you Beat McD in undead trivia?

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you guys, this is a, I think this is a McD specialty. Well, zombie definitely is, zombie definitely is. So if the questions lean a little zombie-ish, it could be tough, but whatever. I mean, if you like zombie fiction, if you like movies and TV shows and stuff, pop culture, like you should just call in

and see if you can give him a run for his money. We'll give away a gift certificate to our merch store, to the winner. If you beat McD, you can earn that gift certificate. Only call in to try to beat McD if you think you can actually beat McD. If you call in and I go, do you know anything about zombies?

And you're like, no, here we go. I'm, we're going to hang up on you. Okay. If you know about zombie media, these are all questions about zombie media, famous shows, TV shows, movies, things like that, then please call in. But otherwise, you know, let an expert take the wheel. And don't be frightened off. This isn't, we're not doing deep cut fringe B-side media in zombies. This is pretty straight forward stuff. So if you're into zombies, you've got a chance.

If you're not into zombies, don't call. Don't call. This is recent stuff. This is stuff that was very famous, but still inevitably we have someone who's like, I don't like horror. I'm ready to beat McD. And you're like, no, no, no.

All right, so I think we should launch in. Down to business. To bracketology. Let's launch in. All right, let's go back and take a look right at the top of our bracket here as we return To take a look where we left off last time last time we had we went right out of the gate with war History nerds up against video game nerds war history one comic book nerds against board game nerds comic book nerds one

collectible card games up against miniatures nerds. That was a hard battle in round one, but miniatures pulled that one out. And then finally, and this was an interesting one. Yeah, this was a controversial upset, controversial upset. Star Trek nerds versus theater nerds and the theater nerds pulled it out. So let's say we're going to take a look at the first half

of our lead eight bracket right now. It is war history nerds against comic book nerds. Okay. Wow. This is a good one. This is a good one. Yeah. Well, are we ready to discuss?

Yeah, start talking it out, man. Whatever you got. Let me talk it out. If you've got thoughts, raise your hand, guys. If you've got thoughts, raise your hands. Yeah. Let me talk it out. If you've got thoughts, raise your hand, guys. If you've got thoughts, raise your hands. Yeah, let me talk it out. Here's what I would say.

Both of these nerddoms depend on mastery of a large body of lore. Yes. Right? So it's about memorizing facts. Even comic books are kind of about memorizing dates. You're like, ah, yes, that's the pre-crisis universe. Right. Post-cris crisis. The flash was different. So, uh, that's sort of the same as like remembering, you know,

which Roman emperor presided over which war or what have you. So they are very similar in that way. Both are, excuse me, histories of a place, histories of a world. On the other hand, war history, okay. Comic books are way more mainstream now, right? Because there was all the Marvel films. Every day you walk out in public, you see people,

regular people with comic book t-shirts on that wouldn't have happened in the eighties, but nowadays you see a dad with two kids walking around with a venom t-shirt on, right? No, this is a very mainstream thing. On the other hand, war history, although no one walks around really with like a battle of the bulge t-shirt on. Just a big midway. The big aircraft carrier. Although now I want that shirt. Although no one does that,

war history still seems to be to me more respectable, or in some ways more accepted as a legitimate, you know, academic pursuit. Right. Something that has some gravitas and it has been acceptable for way longer than comic books. It has been, you know, a thing that people engage in as a hobby for way longer than comic books. I mean, going back to the 19th century,

there were like amateur history enthusiasts in the 19th century. So it has a longer tradition in the hobby world. What do you think, Joe? I think you've, I'm not sure exactly what you're talking yourself into here. It sounds like you're talking about advancing comic book nerds. And if sure exactly what you're talking yourself into here. It sounds like you're talking about advancing comic book nerds.

And if that's what you're, if that's what you're getting at, then I, I, I think I agree with your arguments. I think they're well put. I think that the history, the war history nerd aspect. Yeah. I just, so let's talk about the bad side of these hobbies, right? Like the, the nerdiness that bothers people that aren't as into the hobby, right? So the war history nerd, I feel like it's more, to me, it's more grating to hear people

talk to me about lore that I got wrong or didn't realize about in comic books than it is for people to correct me on historical, more trivia stuff. I enjoy finding out that I'm wrong about that stuff. Comic book stuff, like I couldn't care less about being wrong about lore stuff. So using that as a benchmark to say what is nerdier, I'm going to say comic book nerds. I'm going to push the comic book nerds through. I just want to add a little personal thing, which is that when I was, oh, I wish I wasn't this old, but when I was like 26 through like 31 or so, I was on the comic book resources, that's a website, message boards, in a big way for years fighting with people over comic books.

Like, this was a little before Reddit was a real thing. And I guess I would have found my way there if I'd been a little later in history. But oh my God, just having just ferocious debates about Green Lantern or the pros and cons of Frank Miller's writing. I mean, just ferocious. And to me, I guess history debate gets that heated, but when the history debate gets that heated, it feels actually important.

It feels like people are really figuring out our society in some way. And that kind of debate is among academics who use their whole lives to master the subject. So yeah, ultimately, I got to go comic books. I think comic books are a nerdier form of nerdery. Okay, great. Comic books advance. Let me remember.

Oh, sorry. Let me remember how to do this here. Comic books. Well, I'll figure it out. All right. Let's remember. I'm sorry. Let me remember how to do this here. Comic books. Well, I'll figure it out. All right. Let's talk about the next one. Comic books advance. Next, we have miniatures nerds up against theater nerds.

Do the theater nerds really have what it takes to get to the final four is the question. That was a big upset over those Star Trek nerds. I think they had a favorable matchup in that round. But let's talk real quick about three weeks ago reminding everybody. We kind of went down a spiral of theater nerds where we got to a point where we were like, the culture of theater nerds is so all consuming and so cultish, it is a cult of personality in a way where like everyone adopts this sort of same way of being like with each

other that I feel like you would never see in miniatures nerds and or, you know, even Star Trek nerds. And that is sort of what snuck it through. Jared, what do you think? Do you think it has what it takes to beat? When we talk about miniatures, we're talking about this includes painting as a hobby. This includes war gaming, you know, tabletop war gaming miniatures. So it could, it does have a little bit of crossover

with war history nerds. So if you play war history, battleground kind of stuff. Yeah, so it's a big category, miniatures. Let's not diminish it. I think at first it's like a Star Trek versus theater nerds matchup, miniatures versus theater nerds, because it looks like it's going to go to miniatures. No problem. Yeah. But I just want to bring up some other things about theater nerds match up, miniatures versus theater nerds, because it looks like it's gonna go to miniatures, no problem.

But I just wanna bring up some other things about theater nerds. Because I was a theater nerd. So was I. We're talking for personal experience here. Right, I was in plays, I was a theater major in college, I was in a lot of plays. One other thing I wanna bring up about theater nerds

is like how horny theater nerds are. The back rubs, did you have the back rubs One other thing I want to bring up about theater nerds is like how horny theater nerds are. The back rubs. Did you have the back rubs constantly happening? Every time the director's giving notes, everybody's giving each other a back rub. It's so cringe. I mean the whole culture. I mean it really is so cultish.

So everybody, not everybody, but like a lot of people are sleeping with a lot of other people. Everybody's just constantly hooking up and there's all these like rumors and stuff all the time. It is, it's very horny. That's a good way to put it. When you say cult, you're absolutely right. Cause it feels like the Manson family

or like the source family. Because like people also like become like this cult of personality around the director, you know, like, Oh, his wisdom or her wisdom. Oh my God, tell us mold us shape us. Oh, thank you. Great one. Like, there is this whole thing that happens, this sort of like group think that happens in theater. And you know, you could argue that it sort of has to happen. For people to make a play that's really working and where they're really reacting off of each other and bringing it to life, they kind of do

have to become this unit, this hive mind. So what you would call it, Philonis says in Discord chat, well damn, guys, my daughter was saying she wants to be on stage more. Now I'm second guessing that, lol. Hey, Philonis, second guess guys, my daughter was saying she wants to be on stage more. Now I'm second guessing that. Lol. Hey, felonis, second guess it. Okay? God, that is so funny.

Is there any chance she'd like to get into STEM? Because I think that's a great place for your daughter. Everything that you said is accurate. That's how I remember it too. I remember getting so into the art. I remember being so into the portrayal and the sets and how everything, the production design and then going to see actual professional stuff on Broadway or in different cities and just being wowed by this or that of the performances, et cetera. While it does have all those negative connotations, I can't say I didn't love it when I was in it.

I loved being in that cult. Like I had a good time. I had a really good time. And I made a lot of really good friends. McD was in it with me. McD was on stage with me. I did too, but just imagine being like, guys, the Tonys is this weekend.

We gotta watch. It's such a strange mindset where you like want to watch the Tonys. Here's what I think. I think that we need to talk a little bit on behalf of miniatures before we move on. Miniatures is the strangest. Part of it is such a solitary pursuit. Yeah. That's what I was going to say that makes it so such a solitary pursuit. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. That makes it so much different from theater. The sitting and quietly painting

and all of the painting techniques and the constructing them. And I dabbled, I dabbled. I got some Warhammer armies, oh, about 10 years ago and painted them up. I was painting up a chaos army. And it really was very soothing and satisfying to put the little guys together and to choose what flag they were going to hold or what weapon they

were going to hold and then paint them up and get to this finished product. Then the game, you know, the game is more social. It requires an enormous amount of money output. Like the miniatures are really expensive. And then if you want to have a really awesome game, you need a huge table that you've set down like trees and little buildings on and all of these things cost money too. I see people often have to go to like special gaming shops that have set up like a game area to play these things in any real way.

So if, if the output, the effort and the money output that you have to put into a hobby is any indication of how nerdy it is, then miniatures is definitely nerdier than theater major. But it's tricky. I don't know. Like biking can be a hobby and that can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars. And it's not nerdy. So I don't think the expense adds to the nerdiness.

I agree. I agree. This brings up a really big question. It's like, what by definition is nerdier being a part of a hugely nerdy cult or Being in a solitary Sort of hobby that you do alone in the dark no social aspect with like no one ever knowing you even do it Maybe you don't even tell people you do it like You know I'm interested like

What people think. I don't know. This is a real close one for me. I'm just gonna- And the 40 year old Virgin, he paints miniatures. Do you remember that? That's like one of his things, just painting miniatures. So, you know, you could be a Virgin and paint miniatures.

So sound off in the chat if you are a Virgin. If you're a Virgin, sound off in the chat. you are a virgin if you're a virgin sound off in the chat Call in and we're gonna talk about that a little bit. But ultimately Joe I I gotta go theater nerd Okay. All right. I I gotta go miniatures and I'll tell you what push it over the line for me is like Great miniature work great miniature painting great miniature work, great miniature painting, great miniature game play is never sexy.

There's nothing ever sexy about it. Great theater performers, the best of the best, they're sexy, man. They become famous. They're huge. People want to be them. They're popular. So I They become famous. They're huge. Like, people want to be them. They're popular. So I got to give it to miniatures, but that's a split here.

So let's get McD to weigh in. McD, I think we might have done this before. McD, come in and weigh in for us. Split the tie real fast. We've made a lot of interesting arguments on both sides. What do you pick here? To advance, theater nerds or miniatures nerds? Well there's a guy named John and every Tuesday night at my local game shop, he sets up shop

from seven to ten and paints minis. He's 75 years old and just sits at a table painting minis with his like weird magnifying glasses on, doing details, talking shop, willing to teach people his techniques. And in honor of John, I'm going minis. He is a great nerd. He is just the best of us. Be more like John. Nice. Hang out for no money and teach people how to paint minis.

Go, John. Go, John. There you go. All right. Go, John. I appreciate, John. All right. The miniatures takes it.

Let's move on to our next matchups here. Last time we had Fantasy Sports beating out film nerds and LARPing beating out anime, which was a hard early round matchup LARPing and anime, but LARPing sailed through. A lot of people are saying LARPing is the number one seed to finish the whole thing on top. We'll see. Then we had Cosplay Nerds beating out alcohol nerds, which is like beer nerds, whiskey nerds, that kind of stuff. And then RPG nerds beating out Star Wars nerds. So let's go to the fantasy sports versus LARPing matchup. Are we gonna talk about this or are we just advancing LARPing?

You know, I hate to say we're just advancing LARPing, but this is a mismatch, you know, this is a huge mismatch and, uh, fantasy sports has so much more acceptance. It has so much more. I don't know. I feel like the, the buy-in the, you know, to, to say, I'm going to get into fantasy sports is so much lower than saying, you know what, I'm going to get into LARPing. Like, you know, it's so much harder to commit yourself to LARPing. You have to be truly, truly nerdy to go, I'm going to do the costume.

I'm going to learn the rules. I'm going to give away a weekend. Okay. I'm gonna learn the rules. I'm gonna give away a weekend Okay, it's LARP it's yeah LARPing sales through there and I love that point That's a really great point that like you can dabble in the nerdiness ish of fantasy sports and be part of it Yeah, you know like there's no dabbling in LARPing like you are no or you are out Let's do cosplay versus RPG nerds. Obviously, there's a lot of crossover here. But what do we talk about?

Let's define cosplay. This is primarily people that travel around to conventions that spend a lot of their time and money focused on building and creating amazing costumes and then going to events and taking pictures with strangers because they look like Captain America or whatever. And then entering contests. That to me is what I think of when I think of cosplay.

Is that the way you're heading? Right. And let's be clear. There are people that go to San Diego Comic Con, Gen Con, the big nerd cons just for this. Like, there are people I think that go to Gen Con, the big nerd cons just for this. Like, you know, there are people, I think they go to DragonCon who, yeah, that I think that they're not that into games. They're into cosplay and they go to take the photos, be in the scene, try to win the contest.

So it is its own branch of nerdery. Um, that can only take place at conventions, which is interesting as well. There's not a lot of cosplay at home or cosplay at your local gaming store. You really have to wait for the conventions to come up. So that's interesting. RPG nerds, RPG nerds, look, it's a gigantic body of lore, but there are definitely dabblers. And with the rise and ubiquitousness of Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition, I feel like a lot of, I don't want to be a gatekeeper here, but I think that we can all agree with stranger things.

It's received more widespread recognition and acceptance. So to me... Yeah, I think to the uninitiated these days, I feel the difference. 10 years after starting the podcast, I feel the difference of talking to people that are not into it at all and saying that I do Dungeons and Dragons,

you know, that I play D&D as a podcast, and if I know what, that's what I do, a lot of people, and it doesn't seem like politeness, like a lot of people are like, oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Cool, like yeah. I get a lot of jealousy, I get a lot of jealousy. Yeah, and I got a lot of people being like,

I wanted to try that, or like, my buddies played it when I was a kid, but I never got that into it. Now I think like, I want to play with my kids. I try it out or whatever, you know, people are like talking about it, but you know, if you say I dress up in costumes and travel around the country and do events and stuff like that, I think you'd get a lot more like, cool. I mean, that's sort of what I expect. Well, maybe just surprise, even more surprise. I mean, I get surprised when I tell people I run RPG podcasts, but I think that there

might be a little bit more surprise if people found out that you build these costumes. I'd also say that there's a lot more craft in cosplay. There's a lot more artistic expression. It has that miniatures touch to it where like this solo focused deep work that you have to put into it. Yeah. And it also demands mastery of bodies of lore because as we've often said, cosplay rules

apply to our contest questions here on the show. Like you said, winning Dragon Con, your buddy said winning Dragon Con is doing the thing that everybody knows, but nobody thought of, you know, that that requires a mastery of lore as well. Of pop culture. Yeah. Mastery of pop culture. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, gotta go, Costume. Sorry, RPG nerds, you're bounced. You're bounced out.

And now things are going to start to get, I think, quicker. We're in the final four. So starting with 16 teams, there are four left. Comic book nerds, miniatures nerds, LARPing nerds, and cosplay nerds. So this is like, makes total sense. There were some surprises in the early rounds, but I think we all knew we'd probably

get to about this final four. And the big heavyweight match first up is comic book nerds versus miniatures nerds. So what do we got? Comic book nerds versus miniatures nerds. Comic book nerds versus miniatures nerds. Okay. Both have a lot of a type of stuff

that they have to handle delicately. Yep. handle delicately. Yep. You know? Both can potentially spend a lot of money. Yep. Yep. It can consume your cash.

Both have. There is a. Both have. I feel like both have an equal amount of solitary versus social possibility. Right? You can just be an alone comic book reader all the time, or you can be part of social events.

Same thing with miniatures. You can just paint and just sort of do things yourself, or you can play games with people at the game store. So like, could go both ways. Yeah. I gotta go, I gotta, well, I'm not gonna say my decision yet, but I am gonna say that to me miniatures feels like it gets more social. You at least go out to the game store.

You have matchups against other people. People stand around and watch comic book nerds. I mean, you could just be doing that in your basement all by yourself. Maybe getting on a message board to argue with me in 2011. I mean, it's a. It could be a lot more of a solitary pursuit. Yeah. And going back to, and this is what edged me out for comic book nerds before, but I'm going to go back to this again. It's like, let's talk about the negative side, which is like, not all comic book nerds are this, but there are some that are just a little intolerable, right?

With how they interact with the non-invited. What's the word I'm looking for? Non-inducted, whatever. Uninitiated. Not initiated. Uninitiated. The uninitiated in the hobby. They can be a little bit more gatekeep-y,

I feel like a little bit. I've never really gotten that vibe even accidentally from miniatures nerds. Yeah, but Joe, let me just say, miniatures does the gatekeeping for you. That's true. The hobby itself. The actual nerds don't have to gatekeep. They're like, would you like to build these models and then paint them? And everybody's like, no, I'm good.

That is so funny. Like they're saying, please, can someone else do this with me? Yeah. Come on, join me. And everybody's like, nah, dude, that's your thing. Oh, that's so good. And, and that's that, that right there, I think is edging miniatures. Well, edging is an interesting term.

Interesting term to choose there. It's pushing miniatures into the winner slot for me because miniatures, I think, requires more commitment. It requires more of a certain type of mindset, and it requires not only mastering the craft of building them, but also the craft of playing them. I have to go with miniatures. Okay, you've made your choice. El Grande Papa in Discord chat might side with you as well.

They say, oh boy, someone's not encountered some of the worst Warhammer fans. Now, that question is like, you know, is that Warhammer? What percentage of people that are way into Warhammer as like Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Warhammer lore, et cetera, are miniatures, painters, and players? Is it a high percentage? Because I mean, there's a massive Warhammer following. But a lot of that might just be the lore, the shows, the games, that kind of stuff, and not actual miniatures. Or do we think that a larger percentage of that already large group is doing the miniature hobby as well?

Draganath says, in my experience, maybe about 50%. So 50-50 of people that are into Warhammer are also actually painting minis and playing. Yeah, I would say that there are less people than have played the video games or even the RPG, which is excellent, the Warhammer fantasy role play. But we're talking about the people that make the miniatures, that make and play the miniatures.

That's who we're talking about. Yeah. And those people show an incredible amount of commitment and focus. Yes. All right. And it's very niche. I'm going to go with you here.

I'm going to push it through. I think, undeniably, miniatures is more niche. That can be a very big indicator as to what is more nerdy sometimes, something that's a little bit more niche. So let's advance miniatures into the finals. They're in the finals. And now this is one that's a little bit of a tight crossover here in a way.

You know, there are crossover elements to LARPing versus cosplay. But that's a tough matchup for cosplay, man. LARPing versus cosplay, but that's a tough matchup for cosplay, man. LARPing versus cosplay, this is not that tough to me. No, it's a tough matchup for cosplay is what I'm saying. Like it's an impossible matchup for cosplay because you're basically LARPing involves cosplay. It's cosplay plus nerdier. Basically, yeah, is what it is. Yeah.

All right, we're just going to push it through. We're going to push it through here. I don't think there's really a contest there. I don't want this to be predictable, but I feel like LARPing is going to take this whole thing. We said it before. I really don't see a way around it. Now the finals is LARPing versus Miniatures. And I just, it's so funny.

Like Miniatures powered through an entire bracket. I mean, Miniatures, it took down magic players. Magic gathering players. Yeah, that was his toughest game. Yeah, and then it took down theater nerds, which you were adamant about. It was a split decision. I still feel theater should have advanced, but I got to tell you, I don't know if theater would have beat comic book.

I don't know if it would have. Yeah, it is an interesting matchup. But miniatures makes it through eight, an absolute gauntlet only to in the finals face LARPing, which is just, that's cool. Well, listen, I wanna know from the niche, do you think there's an argument for miniatures to beat LARPing?

Is there an argument for that? We're both on the LARPing side, but I am open to argument. Clorp Donk in Twitch chat says, LARP is dork king. Sorry, nerd king. Sweet Threat says, LARPing is the LeBron James of insufferable hobbyists. Gratuitous D says, LARP beats minis. I mean, LARP is Ben on Discord says LARP is social.

That is very true. I have an argument against Papa. Oh, wait, what's that? I have an argument against LARPing winning. OK, great. Please. Halloween. Halloween. Yeah, yeah. Like that's a mainstream holiday. Yeah.

It's LARP adjacent. People dress up, pretend to be somebody they're not. Very mainstream. There's a miniatures version of that. Yeah, there's no aspect of miniatures that in any way is mainstream. Correct. Yes, it's no aspect of miniatures that in any way is mainstream. Correct. Yes, it's true. Correct.

However, I would say that Halloween is closer to cosplay, which has already been defeated. Because when someone comes up to you on Halloween and is pretending to be the person they are dressed as, it's so painful. They get extra candy from you, dog. It's so socially painful. Extra candy. King size, sir. When someone's like, it is is I the vampire Lestat

I'm like get away from right unless they're like six Right, I mean like little little kids are LARPing on how horrible like that's what you're doing. Yeah, it's true It's true Charles fro in discord says Halloween equals LARP only if Legos equals miniatures. So if you want to expand it out to more mainstream things. Legos does equal miniatures. I think Legos is definitely a gateway drug to miniatures, I think. I could see that. I could see that. And you know, there's a lot of adults that do Legos. We could have just... Legos could

have been one of our categories, but they didn't make the tournament this year. They didn't make the tournament this year. They're in the NIT. I told you about watching Star Wars with the kids. I'd just fallen full back into it. And I told you last week, coming out of Vegas, Star Wars Unlimited. I'm just so into it right now. Dude, I went shopping online and I came this close

to buying like $180 X-Wing Lego, like for adults, like a big old X-Wing Lego. I came like this close. I was like, I would love to build that, but I can't justify that cost, but maybe I can. I almost talked myself into it. I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I can't justify that cost, but maybe I can. I almost talked myself into it. I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I think it would be so fun to build

like a badass looking X-Wing or Tie Fighter with Legos. Yeah. I don't know how I would keep it away from my children destroying it, but you know, and also Trey Parker of South Park, if you watch the documentary, Six Days to Air, when he is sort of stumped on writing or when he's just kind of procrastinating his writing, he puts together these huge Star

Wars Lego sets. So that's part of his creative process. So I really think it's so, lately my kids have been getting Legos, I've been putting together their Legos for them. It's so satisfying and relaxing to just, you know, get those pieces into place. I don't know, now we're off on Legos. This is great though. The Great Kevun says, I have the Lego Avengers tower. That's amazing.

Awesome. Spitfire says, I've spent almost a grand on Legos this year since getting a full-time job. Lol. Lol. Wow. That is amazing. And then somebody else brought up that they feel that in the miniatures conversation should be train nerds.

Oh my God. We didn't even bring up train nerds. I can't believe train nerds are in the NIT because they would have taken the whole thing How did we not think of train nerds that there's a word for them to there's a word for train enthusiasts Wait, I gotta look it up. So let's get back to the the topic at hand though I know this is our final matchup, right? Yeah, I think we're delaying rail fans rail fans rail fans Yeah, rail heads Draganos said what they call. Rail fans. Yeah. Railheads, Draganov said.

Railheads, rail fans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. You know what? We could do this again. I mean, we're going to have more bracketology. We're going to come up with other things to put against each other.

You know, we've had a lot of fun with My Offense's rank. And I think it will be fun to do one of these with just like movies, right? Like it's like a genre of movies, movie genre, movie genre. And we put up, pick 16 movies and then have them go head to head, which is the best. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We could do it. We could do it again. But I know we all further ado. Yeah. You're going to you're going to give your pet champion. I got to go LARPing. What are you're going to give your pick. The champion. I got to go LARPing.

What are you going to go? I was not swayed. I got to go LARPing. We got to go LARPing. Congratulations to the champ. You know what this means, Joe? Yes. It means that our friend Mary Lou is the nerdiest person we know.

And she would wear that as a badge of honor. Absolutely no doubt about it. I mean, in addition to being a Wheel of Time expert and a professional RPG player, she is a LARPER. That makes her the nerdiest person in the Glass Cannon Network, maybe. Jen with two N says, Queen of the nerds.

Yes, she is. So let's just, going back, L Jen with two N's says, queen of the nerds. Yes, she is. So let's just going back, LARPing got through. Anime, fantasy sports was an easy one. Man, it did have a favorable path. Then it goes up against cosplay, which it is cosplay, just with more nerdyness attached. And then in the finals, FOSS fought its toughest challenge against miniatures, but came out on top.

Playing against cosplay was like playing a team that uses your same strategies, so you're familiar with them. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Anyway, that was fun. I'm glad we did that. Bracketology!

We're gonna do it again. We'll do it again. Tell us in the Discord, tell us, wherever you can get ahold of us, what you think would make a great bracket. Yeah, tell us, you know, wherever you can get ahold of us, what you think would make a great bracket. Yeah, give us a good topic idea for a bracket. Because we want to do it again.

We'll pull one together. All right, let's move it along. Let's move it along. Let's move it along. So 28 years later, debuted just this last weekend. And I'm a huge fan of that series and I'm a huge fan of zombies in general. It feels like for a little while zombies permeated the culture. They were everywhere. Then people got a little burnt out on them. I think zombies are

back baby. I think we need to talk about zombies again because now we're looking at The Last of Us. We're looking at 28 years later. I just watched an incredible French film called Mads that was a zombie film that I really, really recommend. So we wanna talk about all things zombie and we're gonna start before we get into films really, which I think is the main thing people know zombies from, let's just talk about the creature in general

and its popularity. So I did a little research, Where do zombies come from? I think everybody knows that they come from the Haitian Voodoo religion or the folklore of Haitian people. And I went ahead and looked, is there any real factual basis for the legend of zombies? Um, and there really isn't a lot of academic evidence to back up that zombies were real. There was a guy named Wade, uh, what was his name? Wade Davis, who did a academic book, um, I think in the eighties called the serpent and the rainbow which was made into a west craven movie and he argued that there was actually proof of zombies in haitian culture. And and the way according to the folklore that zombies are created is that when.

folklore that zombies are created is that when, um, when someone, um, has angered the people, maybe they have, um, they have committed a crime like murder or land theft, they are given a drug, uh, that makes them extremely suggestible and, um in a death-like trance where their heartbeat slows, their breathing slows. So to the uninitiated observer, a non-doctor for example, they may look like they are dead. They are then buried and then the Hun-gen, I hope I'm pronouncing these things right or the Bokor, the Voodoo priest, or sometimes called a Voodoo sorcerer, exumes them, digs them out of the ground. And from then on, they are a willing and pliant slave who will do what is asked of them because they are in a confused, I mean, arguably brain dead state from then on.

Um, that's super scary. But according to some folklore, a little bit of the research I did online, sometimes it's not even thought of as evil or scary. Like if someone really liked to work in life, they might come back as a zombie and continue to work. And that is like a, a positive thing. I don't know, but that's, that's where zombies come from this idea that a bokor or hoon gen can, um, can bring someone back to life using these drugs.

And so they're not technically really dead. They enter a death like trance. They are really just people who have been drugged to be slaves. Uh, and that is, that's dark. That's pretty dark, but some of the earliest zombie media uses this sort of folklore as its basis. So if you've ever seen the 1932 film with Bela Lugosi, white zombie, it's about this kind of zombie.

Or I really love and really recommend the 1943 film, I walked with a zombie, which is also about like a Caribbean Island plantation and people using these kinds of drugs on people who are not you know native Haitians but on like, you know Colonists who have come and turned like a guy turns his wife into a zombie very creepy very very Atmospheric and moody and strange. So some of the earliest media uses the kind of voodoo version of the zombie. I know you, you looked up and did a little research on this stuff,

Joe. What did, what did you find out or what did you see? Yeah, I saw similar stuff. I, I saw that, you know, those, the, the Haitian roots, the, um, what's it called? It's, um, the tetro, tetro, tetro, tetro toxin, tetro, do toxin, something like that. Yeah, yeah, tetrodotoxin. They would say that these small doses of this powder, this drug would slow the processes down to somebody truly appeared dead

and then they'd bury them and exhume them. I mean, just crazy stories. I mean, it's so scary. It's kind of as scary as the pop culture zombies we have today. And I would love to see another film or novel along those lines. But when you talk about it that way, it's kind of scary.

It's funny, right? Am I getting this wrong in the way I'm thinking about it? It's scary for the zombie. It's scary for it to happen to you. What actual zombie horror is, is nobody cares about the zombies. They're scared about what those zombies are going to do to them, right? But there is that element of like, and a lot of them, there seems to be a common theme

of like, if you get bit, you get infected or scratched or whatever, you can get infected and become one. It's horrifying to think you might become one, of course. But then most of them seem brainless and already dead. And what we're really afraid of is them coming to kill us. I want to take a quick call. We haven't talked to anybody yet. And Old Man Tizzle raised their hand. I have a feeling they might know a little bit

about zombie history. They might want to add something here. So Old Man Tizzle, what do you got? Yeah, can you hear me? Yeah, we got you. We can. Awesome. All right, this is so exciting.

So I teach a high school speech and one of my example speeches I give my students is over zombies with the whole like how to use visual aids and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, so a lot of what you're saying is true, but to me, you know, we talk about zombies and then you talk about 28 days. It's that reanimation aspect that has to be key to it.

But to me, the whole thing is just terrifying. You know, if you're a Haitian slave and then you're told, well, you're now gonna be a slave way into death for all eternity. That's where it becomes, I think it was the powerhouse of it. Um, and then kind of why it still continues today. So yeah, yeah.

You know, right. Interesting that these legends crop up in a place where slavery was a reality. Um, and then I, if I'm not mistaken, the Haitians revolted against their French oppressors and they gained their freedom. But this sort of fear, this sort of existential fear of eternal slavery kind of sticks with them and becomes part of the folklore. Very interesting.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm studying it too. It's like even when the United States decided to, you know, do what the United States does and colonialize and take over Haiti, they also were like, wow, this whole voodoo religion thing is a little scary. And they tried to ban it and part of it trying to eliminate that potential threat. Yeah, that's very interesting, very scary. Thanks old man for weighing in.

That's so cool. I love a good speech teacher. Had some great speech teachers in my time. What a great speech. I wanna see the speech with the visual aids about zombies. I will say, in addition to the US maybe outlawing it, one of the sources I read said that it was illegal in Haitian law,

even into the modern day to create zombies. So whether it's real or not, people definitely believed in it in a meaningful way. Enough to put it into law. Enough to put it into law. Yeah. So it would have had to pass through several people that weren't like, this is ridiculous. There were people like, let's just say, this can't happen. Bad syntax wanted to add something here on zombies. So what do you got? Bad syntax's picture almost looks like a zombie. What's up, Ed?

Hey. Yeah. So my grandfather, he actually was stationed, he was in the army in the late 20s and he was stationed, he was in the army in the late 20s, and he was stationed in Haiti. And he used to tell stories, he would tell a couple of things about his time there. He said it was a really rough place. And he said that when you would walk along the beaches, you would just like kick up skulls. There would be, you know, you'd kick your feet through this, the sand and you would just kick up skulls. And the other thing was you

would talk about the zombies that you would see. Like you would see people who were zombies walking along. And the way he described it was exactly the way you would think of like a voodoo zombie. And he's, he used to see them. He said they were not uncommon. So I always thought that was really interesting. Okay. So I don't want to call your grandpa liar, but he saw zombies walking around. Yeah.

I mean, he did call them zombies because zombies is sort of a later term, but he, he said they were people who were like under some kind of drug induced. Um, you know, I don't know, influence trance or, yeah, yeah. So these just have been drug addicts. Cause I've also been to the lower East Side of New York City and been in a methadone clinic. Those folks do seem like they've undergone the Hun-Gan ritual of zombieism. Well, perhaps. Perhaps.

God bless them and I hope they get better. I guess it sounds like you used to say that you would see these people walking in the street in a drug-induced state, whether it was intentional or forced upon them, shambling around. This is what the history article that I read from history.com discussed was like it would put out a lot of these symptoms that are classic in zombie movies. You would have reduced mental function. You sort of shamble around and you are very suggestible or you're not thinking. You don't know who you are.

You don't have any memory of the events, that kind of stuff. That's really interesting. That is bad for the insight. But yeah, 1920s, what a cool place to set a horror 1920s Cthulhu scenario. Absolutely. Yeah. I'd be surprised if there wasn't one floating around out there somewhere.

Yeah, and bad is just the way he put it and how his grandfather described it, it's just like really rough. It's a scary time to be there, and I can imagine what that must have been like. So let me ask this question. This is a philosophical question I want to throw out there. I don't have an answer.

I'd love to just kind of like talk it out. What is it about zombies that makes them explode in pop culture in a way that I feel that vampires haven't and werewolves haven't? They've had their day. they've had great stuff. But like zombie, it's everywhere. I mean, all kinds of media and people seem to be way into it. What are some of the elements of it as a monster, as a creature and as a trope of horror that makes it so easy to keep going back to that well and bringing different stories to the table?

that makes it so easy to keep going back to that well and bringing different stories to the table. In your opinion, Jared. I have my opinion, and I probably am not saying anything new. I'm sure there's some scholarly articles that have covered this and are articulated better than me. But I think one of our biggest fears is embodied in zombies. And that fear is the mass of people around us.

Yeah. So we know that so many people out there are metaphorically zombies. They're the people who are posting comments on YouTube. Like they, you know, they're like, there's so many people, masses and masses of people, our population on earth is becoming untenable. And they, uh, as a group, as a mob, they are bad actors. They are hurting our society. They are voting for Donald Trump.

Snuck that one in there. Uh, snuck. Um, and, uh, they are zombies. They Snuck. And they are zombies. They are monsters. The mob itself is something we fear. We feared it a long time ago too, but especially in the modern era where we see just like the throng of humanity,

just how diseased and unhealthy, and how angry and alone and rapacious they are. That is what zombies make us think of and they hit on that sort of fear of the mass of humanity. The mob turning against you. A truly horrifying thing. Yeah, if you're unable to protect yourself. McD says he's got an opinion we should get in. Please, McD, jump in. Sure, buddy.

I think that zombies endure because the backstory can remain relevant through the ages, right? So like go back to like white zombie, that's like the 30s. Mysticism is big, right? So like it has this like mystic slant. And then Night of the Living Dead, you're talking about like the nuclear threat. And you know, like it's a different age, a different reason

why these things might come back from the dead. To the 28 days later, Daisy, walking dead, these are like pandemic fears. These are biological fears that we have. So it taps into through the ages because you can make the reasons so fluid as to why these things exist. It can tie in really easily to like what is really

on the minds of society. How a werewolf comes to exist and how you make one, how a vampire comes to exist and how you make one, there isn't a lot of variety in those. They're like kind of set. How you kill a werewolf, how you kill a vampire, all that stuff is kind of set in a way. Zombies, there's a huge breadth of how a zombie apocalypse comes to happen, how zombies even act, right? In some, there are these slow shambling, you know, the slow wall of horror

that just never stops and it can't be stopped. And in others, they're super fast, lightning fast, you know, terrifying as if you're being chased down by a cheetah or something like that, right? Like really scary in that way. Somebody else mentioned in chat, and Melis, I think this is well said, for me, zombies are closer to humanity than vampires or werewolves. Mob mentality, as Jared says, losing all morality or humanity plus cannibalism is stomach turning. That is truly scary. Losing your identity. You said the voodoo zombie is scary because you could become it, but the, the, the modern zombie is scary because you could become it. Just losing your identity to that mob.

You know, one of the biggest things in a lot of modern zombie movies is getting turned. You know, that's like the big horrific moment where someone, oh no, I got a bite. Oh, I hide it from my friends. I don't want them to know. You know, great story. It's a bite. Oh, I hide it from my friends. I don't want them to know. Great trope, great story. It's a great trope. It's a great trope. I know that I'm going to become a monster that

will kill my friends, but I have to believe that I can find the cure before that happens. I have to believe that there is a way that I'll beat it, because I certainly don't want to risk my friends, and then coming to that point of decision where it's like, do you tell somebody, do you go off by yourself, do you kill yourself, right? Like all these horrible choices that you have to make

make for great story, great drama. Let's go to another call. Let's take Corvus. Corvus says he's got me. He's like, I got you, Joe. I'm curious what that means for talking about the philosophy here. Corvus. Yeah, we got you. All right. So yeah, like I was, I was hesitant to go here, but it seems like Jared like paved the way for me a little bit. You were talking about vampires and zombies and the like. And there's a common trend,

that to talk about vampires for a second, that you get more vampire movies during conservative presidential administrations, because the things that conservatives fear are a foreign aristocratic elite of that is kind of effeminate or you know sexually promiscuous and what have you that's running everything from the shouts that is a thing that that is that is the fear in more democratic administration in other In other words, Jewish people, or like the anti-Semitic version of Jewish people. And absolutely right, Corvus, because you know, there are like, have you ever heard of Svengali?

Svengali, that's a Dracula type character that was in a book a long time ago, and he was basically a Jewish person who would hypnotize women and then, you know, take advantage of them. So in other words, you're saying ultimately conservatives are afraid of Jewish people. Jesus, Jared, would you just let him talk about vampires and so on? Okay, all right.

No, but I know what you're saying. All right, continue, please. And yet they support Israel. Go ahead. What liberals tend to fear is a mob mentality, like you were saying, of mindless, still people, in which case that empathy is actually a weakness. Like that inability to put a bullet in your friend's head, that's a weakness. That survival instinct where the person who stacks up, which is the fun, that fantasy

of picking up all the guns and building a bunker and all that stupid shit, that is actually the answer to a zombie thing. That's what liberals tend to fear. So in more democratic administrations, you see more zombie movies. It's it's it is it is kind of a trend that has gone back like a few decades. And I think cracked like opened me up to it. And it was actually kind of a kind of a fun little crack magazine. Yeah, well, I was doing on the cracked podcast. Oh, right. Yeah, I always forget that cracked is now like this really sort of erudite,

like interesting, informative sort of brand, because when I was young, cracked did parodies of the Ninja Turtles movie. So yes, it's an all-encompassing and now defunct, uh, thing, but the people who worked on it are still alive and well and doing very good work. But what didn't you, what didn't you say that? So you've, you've brought it to the political realm and I think that's super interesting. You started, wouldn't you say, you started it. No, it's okay. Wouldn't you say that conservatives are also afraid of the the masses of the mob? Like I mean democracy and liberalism is really about.

Go ahead sir. Their answer to it is correct in a zombie movie. Right. Mow them down. Right. Like. Right. They're finally allowed to just mow down. masses. Okay. All right. So in a

way a zombie apocalypse is like a far right wing dream scenario, right? Doomsday Prepper is about as far right as you can go. And they love the idea of a zombie apocalypse. Absolutely. Yeah. Corvus, great. Great call. That was very interesting. A lot smarter than what I was going to say, I guess. I want to know what political administration is afraid of werewolves. Yeah, exactly. Anytime you have the wig party in power, werewolf fiction proliferates. So good. Yeah, I think that there's something that maybe, it's hard to top Corvus's comment there because it all weaves through that in the sense of like, there are people that are not afraid of these kinds of things because they're like, I know how to deal with it.

I've got my guns. I've got my bunker made. I've got my whatever. And then there are people that are afraid of that stuff because they're like, how do you, how do you reason with a cannibalistic mindless monster? Uh, people that think that reason and thought is the way to, is the way to approach conflict, uh, is, you know, it's, it's a horrifying concept. And, uh, I think for me,

I think that one of the reasons that zombie stuff is so popular in games, in video games, in board games and stuff like that is, and this is very simplistic, but I think there's something to be said for a very quick and easy way to show a massive amount, a massive amount of enemy combatants that you get to mow down and kill

without any moral repercussions. They are by definition mindless. They are by definition, they can never be helped. There's never stories of like, there's the antidote. Right, and I can bring you back to life. Like that never happens. And so it gives you an excuse to just like kill

all these people and never have somebody be like, hey, I mean, this is a little bit genocidal, isn't it? Right? Yeah, yeah. Zombies are the perfect monster to just have fun killing and laugh about and joke about, you know, with like, especially as we get into, we'll talk about games a, you know, with like, especially as we get into, we'll talk about games a little bit more in a minute,

but as we get into the games that put a light on the tropes of, you know, the jock and the cheerleader and the, you know, physics teacher that all have to band together to kill zombies. It's just fun and funny and light because the enemy is perfectly mindless, always keeps coming, and there's never any social or moral repercussions to killing them en masse. I would also say, you know, I kind of think that that's healthy. It's healthy to want to get out that sort of like kill urge in a game or to enjoy it in a work of fiction and to kind of express that part of your personality or, or have

those sort of weird parts of your hind brain sort of massaged that way. I think that's healthy. So yeah. Let's let's take another call. What do you got? Nano Gibbon Nano Gibbon. I don't recognize your name. I'm not sure if you're new maybe.

Call it first time caller. Maybe. Hey, how's it going? Is my mic on your mic? Is on. Is this your first time calling Nano? It is. Yeah, I'm a I'm a teacher.

So I've usually been busy on Wednesday afternoons and then now so gloriously happy For a bit well But I just got rehired today at another school. So I'll get congratulations, right? Yeah I had a thing about the philosophical zombie. I guess. Part of my background is in cognitive science. So I spent a couple of years reading just like, what is consciousness all about? What do people think it is? And yeah, if people haven't heard of the term philosophical zombie, I guess it's sort of

a thought experiment of like, you know, imagine you've got a person who you're looking at and you're talking to and you're interacting with and everything seems normal, but there is basically nothing going on inside their mind. They are just responding to stimuli. You know, according to like kind of like a robot, they're just following a kind of program course of responses. And the question is like how would that be any different from our existence? How is there any way to know the difference between those two things? It's kind of a way between us and a creature that's just Responding to stimulus just like us and looks just like us and talks just like us but doesn't have any sort of internal Life existence that we usually define consciousness. So it's a way of of getting that like what is this thing we call consciousness yeah it's hard to tell the difference but those people are everywhere so. I mean it's not to them every day.

Yeah I mean my my being tended to land on like well yeah we're probably all kind of more zombie like than not. I think a lot of consciousness is more more of an illusion But you know, that's that's interesting. God. I love that kind of cognitive philosophy stuff like talking about like, you know How do you know anything is happening really? You know what I mean? Like all that kind of stuff is so fun to delve into Expand your mind. I mean have you ever Jared you you talk about encountering these people every day, and I know what you're saying. I'm curious if you, I have felt, do you ever feel like this is sometimes purely like actually visible within somebody's eyes? Like have you ever, like you can, I feel like sometimes I look at people and I'm like, I'm

looking and I feel like nothing is look at people and I'm like, I'm looking and I feel like nothing is going on in there. And other times you look at people and you feel like just looking in their eyes, you see they're working something out. They're thinking, they're scheming, they're, I don't know. I feel like the eyes are that window to the soul. I think it's a window to your consciousness and how much you're actually thinking in a moment sometimes.

I think you can mostly tell when you look at someone's internet comments. Um, that they're a zombie. That's the real. Or that they have just lived scrolling on the internet and absorbed a bunch of ideas from other people and now they're regurgitating them. Or much like an animal that spits at its food or growls at it, they're just spitting

and growling into the comments. Yeah. Like something with no higher brain function. it's food or growls at it, they're just spitting and growling into the comments like something with no higher brain function. I think that's when you can really see that it is the dawn of the dead out there when you look at any comment thread on the internet. Thanks for the call, Nando. You got anything else before we let you go? Not really, just from one Joe to another.

Keep up the good work, I guess. Thanks Joe appreciate it that's awesome. I will also weigh in here if you've got any you know favorite. Zombie media definitely way and if there's anything that stands out to you. What's your favorite Joe I want to know what your favorite I'm not too well versed in it I'll probably you're not a horror guy I'm not a horror guy and so I can't speak to the length and breadth of it. Of course. I've seen plenty of zombie stuff For a long time one of my favorites was Shaun of the Dead. I loved Shaun of the Dead I just loved the shit out of that movie when it yeah that movie first came out I there was just nothing I felt quite like it, the style of comedy, but then also the drama and the horror.

It was really well done. So I loved that one. And more recently, and I have not watched the second season, but I really loved The Last of Us so much because I thought the fungus thing was very interesting, a new angle, I loved that. And then I really loved how focused on survivors it was and not so focused on just mowing down zombies.

It was more about the psychological impact of what this means for the people that survive. I loved the, almost like how much I loved, like when I first picked up Game of Thrones, the novel, many, many, many years ago, I was like initially turned off by the lack of magic and dragons. And then as I read more and more of it, I was like, oh no, it's just a choice to make it so rare that it's really engrossing

and like interesting when it happens. And so similarly with The Last of Us, I loved how you didn't see too many zombies, but when you did, it was like absolutely terrifying and nobody was gonna like just, oh, we'll just mow them all down and get out of here. Like it wasn't like that, it was much more intense. So anyway, I loved those.

I mean, a key to good horror is to hide the monster for a while, you know, just show hints of the monster, kind of tease the monster, and then the reveal is horrific. I mean, that's something, for example, Lovecraft does really well. Look, I mean, for me, it's still the original Night of the Living Dead, 1968,

a movie made on a shoestring budget, absolutely terrifying, great shock ending down in the basement of the house. I'm not going to say any more if you haven't seen it. It is worth watching this film and trying to get into it. The look of it is so incredible. It's an older movie. It's an older movie. It's an older movie, so you have to kind of give it, give it some time, kind of get on its wavelength. But I absolutely adore the original Night of the Living Dead.

But my other pick that I really think is so amazing and not a ton of people have seen it is Peter Jackson's Dead uh, dead alive. Have you ever seen dead alive? No, never even heard of it. So, you know, this is a New Zealand film, uh, made by Peter Jackson, the guy that would originally, uh, eventually rather, uh, win, you know, Oscars for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And basically, um, this Sumatran rat monkey gets loose in a New Zealand town and when it bites people, they become zombies, but they're like dead alive, meaning that they keep bleeding and vomiting and shitting. And, uh, there's a zombie baby and there's like his mother becomes a zombie and instead of like running from them or trying to escape from them this one guy is trying to like take care of them and hide them from the rest of the village because they're not quite they're dangerous but they're they're more like almost like pathetic characters anyway it's one of the grossest movies you can ever watch.

And for that reason alone, I really highly recommend it. The special effects are all practical from like, I think it's an early nineties movie dead alive. It is. It's five stars. Let's get, uh, let's get one or two, or two media options from the niche here. Punk Luke, if you're still there, hop on stage. Tell us what you got here for a zombie movie.

I think I lost you for a second there. My apologies. Or maybe you stepped away. You're kicked off, Luke. You're out, punk. You're out, buddy. Let's move on. Who else we got here?

Idlex, Idlex. Idlex. What do you got, Zombie Media? Hi, guys. Hey, how are you? Hey, what's up? Good, how you guys doing? Well, we're doing great man. This is awesome All right favorite all-time zombie movie

1985 return of the living dead Amazing Absolutely, I love return to the living dead Plastic and one of the scariest zombie movies I think ever made. The hopelessness, the way the action and the trouble just escalates. One of the scariest zombie movies I've ever seen. It's an all-time classic. I've never seen this one.

So a couple things about Return of the Living Dead. One is one of our callers, I believe, or no, no, I'm sorry, it was McD, was talking about all the different ways zombies can have an origin and how it goes with the times. And Return of the Living Dead, it's toxic waste. So it's the 80s and we're talking about pollution. Pollution creates the zombies, which I think is really interesting. Another thing about Return of the Living Dead is it's a Dan O'Bannon movie. Dan O'Bannon directed it, I believe, and Dan O'Bannon is famous for being the writer, and in a lot of ways the creator of the Alien franchise. He wrote the original Alien script.

So that's quite a pedigree to bring to a zombie movie, and he does not disappoint. And one other point I'll make about Return of the Living Dead is that not only is it terrifying, it's also very funny, right? Well, I mean, when I look at it online, I just looked it up real quick, it looks kind of funny. Like it doesn't look, in terms of its overall look, it doesn't look like the artwork and stuff,

it doesn't look that, it's like punk rock skeletons, punk rock zombies, punk rock zombies. It looks kind of funny. It has a punk rock sensibility. In fact, there's a lot of punk and metal bands that are part of the soundtrack, which is really cool as well. It is very highly rated. Because it's amazing, Joe.

You've got to see Return of the Living Dead, man. I can't wait to continue making our Glass Cannon Radio list of movies Joe has to see. Yeah, one day we'll just do an episode where you've watched like five of them. That'll be the whole episode. Idle X, you got anything else or can we let you go? No, close second, Shaun of the Dead, good pick Joe. Awesome, thank you, Idlex. All right, take it easy, good call, thanks for calling in.

Thanks, Idlex. Let's do one more before we move on to gaming, but we'll bring more people up and you can add in whatever you want when we get a chance to bring you up. We just gotta keep things moving. Adam, you're on the stage, what's up? Can you hear me? Yeah, we got you. Yeah, we can hear you.

Sounds good. So Joe, I'm the physical therapist that pissed off your elbow in this Vegas meeting. Awesome. I was great meeting you in Vegas. Thank you for the little bit of physical therapy. That was great. All in all. But, you know, it's the equivalent of trying to say to a software engineer, hey, can you teach me how to code like in 20 minutes?

Like, let's do it. Right. like in 20 minutes? Like, right? A little more complicated than that. Yeah. Does media have to be movie only? No, no. So for me, like the healthcare background part of it was World War Z. The book is probably like top, top three of all forms of media of all forms forms of genres for me, because it felt so real. Yeah, I feel like I've read it. I think I did.

I know I saw the movie. I did not read it, I only saw the film with Brad Pitt. Maybe I only saw the movie. The movie is not the book at all, in any way, shape or form. It's one of those, I swear, it was like, they bought the title and then decided they're gonna make their own thing. They are not equivalent. Right, I mean mean you can never really recreate the book because I as I understand it

It's a fictional oral history, right? Yes, exactly It's it's very different than like a movie script, you know for sure the way that I interpreted It was like it's a journalist who's going around the world interviewing people or looking at historical accounts and just reporting what happened like I Don't know how you make a movie to that. I always appreciated it as interviewing people or looking at historical accounts and just reporting what happened. I don't know how you make a movie of that. I always appreciated it as something that I've wanted to do myself. I could never really write anything,

but I've always thought it would be so cool to read a science fiction novel that is written exactly like a nonfiction book. Because I love good nonfiction when it's about really interesting or tragic or huge events or survival and stuff like that, like people's crazy stories. I always love the way a good nonfiction book is presented. And I'm like, how come you don't present more fiction

in this way as if it really happened? And that's exactly, you know, what that book did. First of all, Joe, I'll remind you that you said that you could have written Dungeon Crawler Carl. So yes, and I stand by that. Don't sell yourself short. Also that's a, you know, that's a really great horror technique. You know, Dracula is written as a series of letters and news

stories, the original Dracula, a lot of Lovecraft is like, these are diary entries, you know, so, um, man, I really, really love the idea of World War Z. Is it, I haven't read it. Is it scary? Um, well, I read it in the middle of the night over a power outage. And so yes to me, but I don't know that I would call it like a scary book. I need to read it during a power outage or candlelight. Some sort of natural disaster.

Yeah. So I don't, I would not call it a scary book. Honestly, I think it just,, you know the vibes hit me So I got it to a little that's cool. I mean, you know a Zombie book that isn't like scary like it's more How would you describe it? Is it is it more of a thriller like action or is it honestly like? if you're a world war two nerd and just reading about what happened in World War II, like... Interesting.

Yeah. That's cool. Well, yeah, thanks for the shout out. That's obviously one of the biggest properties out there and we hadn't mentioned it yet. So good work. Let's keep it moving though. Let's talk about games.

Let's talk about zombie games. Let's kind of like... Hell yeah. Focus in on that a little bit. And McD, weigh in whenever you want because McD has introduced a lot of zombie games, it's kind of like, oh yeah, focus in on that a little bit. And McD, weigh in whenever you want, because McD has introduced a lot of zombie games to me. I'll just say off the jump, I mean, we can talk about anything. There's a ton, video game, board game, role playing game.

I'll just jump in on board games right away. Somebody in chat mentioned Dead of Winter. McD, you played that, right? I played Dead of Winter. I think I've played it too. I think we played it together, didn't we? My memory is that we did, but. we played dead of winter. Yeah dead of winter really good McDermott also introduced me to zombicide. Zombicide is awesome. So that was on my on my notes. I

Love the zombies. Oh really awesome. Yeah, you know? Cause I feel like it's not one of those board games where someone has to explain the rules to you for like 40 minutes, you know? It's a pickup and play game. It's a little more complicated than say like code names or something you just, you know, start playing, but it's still, and it's an adventure. It gives me, you know, my favorite thing is RPGs

and Zombicide gives me a little bit of that RPG feel. So I, and you know, there's a Zombicide fantasy version called Black Plague. I gotta play that. I haven't played that. I did not know that. That sounds awesome. Would someone in the niche please buy for me

Zombicide Night of the Living Dead? Cause I hear that there's actually a scenario the niche, please buy for me. Zombicide night of the living dead. Cause I hear that there's actually a scenario in it where you can play through the movie. So I need a niche member with a healthy income to buy zombicide night of the living dead and then DM me and I will give you my address to send it to me, okay? Oh, amazing. I never ask you guys for anything. Ha ha ha ha.

My memory of Zombicide is, I think one of the things it's known for is a million minis, right? Doesn't it come with like a ton of zombie minis? Yeah, but they're cool. Yeah, and they just like keep coming. You just constantly putting down huge swaths of

zombie minis. They, what do they call it? They, uh, Oh my god, spawn. Spawn. Every turn the zombies spawn more zombies. Yeah. Call in, let us know. What are some of your favorite zombie games? Jared, do you have a an RPG that stands out to you. So to my great shame, I have not played some of the greatest, you know, purely zombie focused RPGs, but I really want to. There was a game that was really big. I believe in like the early two thousands called all flesh must be eaten. All flesh must be eaten.

And that game was just about humans versus zombies, but it had all kinds of extra source books. So you could do martial artists versus zombies. You could do zombies in the old West. You could do zombies in space or in the future. So you could buy all these extra books to kind of customize your setting. And, and, um, and then also there were books just about creating different types of zombies, zombies that spit acid on you, zombies that, you know, can turn into sludge and go under the door, et cetera, et cetera. You could come up with all your fast zombies and instead of slow zombies. So, uh, all flesh must be eaten.

I I've only heard good things about it and hopefully I'll get to play it one day. Maybe it like a niche retreat or something. We should break out. All flesh must be eaten. I I've only heard good things about it and hopefully I'll get to play it one day. Maybe at like a niche retreat or something, we should break out. All flesh must be eaten. Yeah. And then there's also a, um, a series of games called the end of the world. And there's the end of the world revolts of the machines, which is like Terminator, there's the end of the world alien invasion, which is like independence day, and then there's a then there's a book for it called

End of the World Zombie Apocalypse. And what's unique about that game is your character, you're supposed to play yourself. So you're supposed to make Joe O'Brien as a character and play yourself. I feel like I've heard of that in another game too. Another RPG, you're supposed to make yourself. This is so familiar to me. People have done that in another game too, another RPG. You're supposed to make yourself, this is so familiar to me.

People have done that in tons of RPGs. I mean, people were doing that back in basic D&D or whatever. But I think that in the end of the world, Zombie Apocalypse, it specifically states, you need to create a character that is you. And I don't know how interested I am in playing me in a zombie apocalypse. I would give my estimated time of survival to be approximately 16 minutes in a zombie

apocalypse. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. I don't think that would be very, very fun to play. It looks like Suburbanite is going to send you this game, Jared. Hell yeah. You son of a bitch.

Amazing. That's incredible. son of a bitch. Amazing. That's incredible. Thanks, Suburbanite. Suburbanite, do not send that to the GCNPO box. If you do, I will get that game and I will be keeping it. I'm not sending it to Jared. We'll get you his address if you really want to send it to him, but that's very generous, buddy. Thank you. All right. Let's- I was, just to be clear, I was joking. We'll get you his address if you really want to send it to him, but that's very generous, buddy. Thank you. All right. Let's-

I was, just to be clear, I was joking. Yes, of course you were joking, but Suburbanite is crazy generous. Suburbanite is mentally ill and- No, please. Are you going to say that to a gift giver? Well, I guess you can get a gift and be like, the person that gave me this is mentally ill. My way of saying thank you is to call you mentally ill Suburbanite says I'm on it and yes, I'm sick

What a sicko What else what else? All right? I got video games Joe zombie video game. Oh All right. How about so many great ones? There are so many great ones You know what jumps out to me? This is probably at the pinnacle of my gaming life where I could just play video games every day. I'd come home from work and just play video games. I was living in New York City, single in an apartment,

just like play whatever was, this is Xbox 360 era and it was Left 4 Dead. I loved- Left 4 Dead incredible. Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead, incredible. Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead was awesome. McDermott introduced that to me as well. And we would play co-op with that together. And I remember just being like, it's

unbelievable how much fun I'm having playing this game. Getting together with the group, they're so fun. It was so fun. It was so fun. The co-op, I think it was one of the first that had that co-op aspect, I think. Yes. And that added such a layer of fun to it and and it was skids here by the way

What's up skit? It did add a layer of I mean there were four players, right? That's why it was left for dead, right? Yeah, I have as many as four in co-op and Man, that was so much fun fun just like screaming for your buddies help me help me and it was terrifying how if you made a loud sound the zombies would swarm and everything and they just run at you and it was yeah that like night with the flashlight vibe so they also running into the light their twisted faces and stuff oh it was so was so, so well done. It was fantastic. I'm going to go for video games. I'm going to go really old school. I think this is a super Nintendo game, but I really loved it. Um, and this is for my

old schoolers. Does anybody heard of zombies ate my neighbors? Great game. Ha ha. Victor, it's right on it. Incredible game. My brother and I played 190 hours of zombies ate my neighbors. It was a run it gun, which means you just kind of like, it's like almost top down view and you kind of run around blasting zombies and rescuing people in these neighborhoods, you know, the whole idea was you had to get to all the people you needed to rescue and then get out of the neighborhood. Um, and, uh, it was just taking out hordes of zombies.

It was awesome. Jared, you're getting a lot of love here. People are, it's bringing up good memories. Oh, nice. Herb Durs says zombies as ate my neighbors is the best. Falona says he played it before school all the time. Yeah, that's the other thing about zombies ate my neighbors. You can just throw it on, cause it's an old about zombies hate my neighbors. You can just throw it on because it's an old school game.

You could just throw it on and play like seven levels before you went to school. That's great. What do you got, Naish? What zombie movies, TV shows, games do you love? We just mentioned Falonis. Why don't you come up and join us, buddy? Are you there? Hey and join us buddy. Hey there.

Hey, hey, welcome back. Hey, how's it going? Great, man. Oh, I was going to say for a game wise, like, no, about any of you, but welcome the original zombies on that hours and hours with my friends, we would just sit there, you know, getting stoned, going through levels of endless zombie American. Sorry, Philonis, we're having a hard time hearing you. What was the game? Oh, zombies on Black Ops? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, Call of Duty. Yeah, Call of Duty Black Ops, the zombie mode when they came out with that. And I remember, I mean, that leads into my thinking of why, you know, I was like, why make this mode? Oh, God, because it's just so fun to just kill a million mindless things and just have fun laughing while you're doing it. And Call of Duty definitely came to mind with that. That's awesome.

Good one. I'm going to try to get a few more in here. Thank you, Falones, because yeah, people are wanting to weigh in on game. Zombies were so huge that things unrelated to zombies would have like zombie modes or a zombie version. Zombies really permeated the culture there for about, oh, about 15 years ago. I feel like zombies were everywhere. Everywhere. Ultimate's here. Ultimate Frisbee, what's up, buddy? Hey guys, how are you? Good. What do you got? This is an older board game, but I think it's 2014.

And I love this because it kind of for me, breaks the mold of like current based board gaming. It's called Zombie 15. Have you heard of it? No, I've never heard of it. So Zombie 15 is a 15 minute board game. Okay. You are basically playing like 18 year olds and you have quote unquote classes

that you have like one special ability. And usually the idea is to make it from one end of the map to the other end of the map without your party dying. You're not usually killing zombies. You're mostly trying to devise strategies to distract or to mobilize zombies and get away. Okay.

But what's cool about it is you set a 15 minute timer. There's like a, the game comes with like a audio track that's 15 minutes long. And it basically gives you audio clues as to when you add more zombies to the scenario, et cetera, et cetera. Cool. Leading you all the way to the end of the game. And so players take turns, but your turn is never going to be the most thought out turn

because you don't have time for that. Wow. That sounds really cool. And it came out a little over 10 years ago. A little over 10 years ago, it comes with a scenario book. And the scenario book tells you how to arrange the map tiles to create a new map

for everything you're running through, so it's got some decent replayability. It's a really nice game. It's called Zombies 15? Zombie 15. Zombie, Zombie 15. For when you only have 15 minutes for the zombie apocalypse. Well, you need 30 minutes, here's the problem with the game,

you need 30 minutes, because it takes 15 minutes to set up the minutes for the zombie apocalypse. Well, you need 30 minutes. Here's the problem with the game. You need 30 minutes, because it takes 15 minutes to set up the board for the scenario. Sure, yeah. But your players, if you're the board setup guy, your players only need 15 minutes, right? Right. Frantically work together as a group.

Take a 15 minute break, get a drink, let your adrenaline come down, play another round, rinse and repeat for like a two or three hour board game night. Now, yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Could you set up a mini campaign for like a niche retreat or something and do like, you know, four scenarios in one one block? That would be awesome. I think you could.

I think there are scenario like, you know, here's scenario one, here's scenario two, here's scenario three in the sort of miniature story. Cool. That's awesome. I love it. two, here's scenario three in the sort of miniature story. Cool. That's awesome. I love it. Great suggestion. Thanks for calling in.

Thanks for letting us know about that. Yeah. Mr. Morning, what do you got? Can you hear me? Yep. We can. Yeah, so I'm an autopsy specialist and more worker and funeral director.

I've spoken to you before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this media, I don't watch too much of it because I'm kind of taken out of the scenarios by this. But I do like to run zombie scenarios and RPGs. I ran one in Delta Green, and I ran one in 10 Candles.

Have you ever played 10 Candles? I have not. No, but I'm very aware of candles. Have you ever, y'all played 10 candles? I have not. No, but I'm very aware of it and I've just barely missed getting to play it a couple times. Well, as you know, 10 candles, to Jared, that at the end of the game, when the candles are out, it's everybody dies at the end, no matter what.

Right. And so zombies, especially with the concept of an end that's gonna come inevitably, is a great, great tool for that game. And so you were talking, Joe, about liking the survivorship focus of The Last of Us. And I agree with that, is that, you know, in a game, this RPG system really lends itself to

focusing on these people's last moments and scenes in their life as they're trying to escape the inevitable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Well put. Thanks for the call. Let's keep going with Herbader. Herbader. What's up, Herbader? What do you got, buddy? Hey, guys. Hey. So, I don't want to just talk about a specific game, although I could. I want to talk about a type of enemy that shows up in zombie video games, and that is the zombie dog. The zombie dog!

Resident Evil! Resident Evil! Yeah. Oh, yeah. All the way back to what? Resident Evil 2 when it jumps through the window at you. Yeah, I still remember it. Like, I still have PTSD from that thing jumping through the window. They're just so much scarier than human zombies.

And I'm not sure why. Like, I have put down Resident Evil's for like a few days because I came across a zombie dog section and I needed to work myself up to it. Like the, there's a, in Resident Evil 4, there's a whole dog, zombie dog maze. Oh God. Um, can I just say I'm a, I have weird phobias and, uh, I'm a little afraid of dogs. So the zombie dogs bother me more. I really am. I had like an experience where a dog attacked me

when I was little. And ever since then, I've been a little bit wary of dogs. And zombie dogs, has anybody ever done a movie where it was just zombie dogs or like, just like crazy rabies with dogs? Because that would be so scary. I mean, not just that I know of, but they were in the Resident Evil movie, weren't they? I think I think they had some good I have memories of like good.

Like I don't know what to call it, CGI, good special effects for a zombie dog. Ultimate Frisbee says I am legend. Yeah, maybe. I don't remember if there were zombie dogs in that one, but yeah, good point, Herbader. Good creature to bring up. Zombie dog. We got to keep going. We'll get as many calls as we can on this stuff, but let's talk about other creatures. Let's talk about other creatures in this realm of Undead. Sure. Obviously, we could go on and on and on and on of different...

We've already done... Our first show was vampires, right? Like, we could do whole shows on some of these types of creatures, but I just wanted everybody to kind of weigh in if you'd like, raise your hand if you'd like, and let us know a great undead creature in TTRPGs that you like in Pathfinder or D&D that you enjoy running as a GM or that you enjoy fighting as a player. I'd love to hear your guys' takes. What do you got? Jared, why don't you go first? I got two. I got two. First of all, I've gotten to run whites. W- G H T a white. I love them because they're in the Lord of the Rings. They're in the fellowship of the ring.

I really love them from there. And you know, I, I, in Pathfinder, I think they're cool. You know, they've got that final spite power where when you take him down, they get to do one final attack. And they also, if they kill you, you become a white as well. I think those are really cool, but I think, I think the undead that doesn't get enough love is the mummy man.

Yeah. I love a mummy. And I was looking at the mummy. It's now called the mummy Pharaoh for pathfinder remaster. And, uh, it looks like a really cool boss to take against a team of players And and you know, the mummy is so cool. Let's not forget. There was an entire adventure path just based around mummies There was one called the mummy's mass adventure path. Yeah, and I would love to play that some day and then also Warhammer has the tomb Kings army, which is all like

mummies that have, it's basically like these kings from like the Egyptian country equivalent in Warhammer and they've just raised their entire army from the dead because they had oaths from them long ago that they would always help them and fight for them. They raise an entire army that way. I just think that the Egyptian type iconography and, um, you know, the ritual of it, everything about Mummies, the location, like these sort of trapped pyramid tombs and things like that, everything about Mummies is cool. And, uh, I want to see more mummies in my Pathfinder games.

Absolutely. That's awesome. I'm gonna jump up also with a classic. This one, I don't have to think about it. It's like when I first knee-jerk reaction of like, what is a great undead creature? I've always loved the lich. I love the lich. Yes love the lich in stories.

The idea of a, there's so many mindless undead, right? The idea of a frighteningly intelligent wizard undead. And then, I mean, that alone is awesome. A spellcaster, skeleton-looking type creature. But then add on to that like the idea of the phylactery and its soul is housed in another location. So like even when you destroy whatever its body is like you then have to find its soul where it went to and destroy that too. Great. Well there's so much built-in story there

which is cool. You know it's not just a stat block. There's like, there's an implied story. There's a lot of drama built into the whole concept. Liches are really scary. They're really cool and really scary. And what's your second one, Jared? I gotta go, I just found out about this. The Bodak, do you know about the Bodak to get a little bit more of an obscure one?

No. Okay, so the Bodak? Do you know about the Bodak to get a little bit more of an obscure one? No. Okay. So the Bodak it says, when a living sentient humanoid is exposed to an extreme expression of supernatural evil, the experience can irrevocably damn the victim crushing their mind and ripping out their soul in an appalling, unholy transformation that results in a creature that's anathema to all life, the Bodak.

And basically Bodaks look like undead with like these weird, like smoking faces and they have a death gaze power, that drains anybody that they look at. And they can also do it as a reaction. that drains anybody that they look at. And they can also do it as a reaction. It's just really cool. And I would really love to bring one of these to the table. It's a creature level eight, and it looks really scary and really cool.

So that's the Bodak. All right, I'm gonna go obscure and then I'm done. I will take a couple of calls to see what people love in terms of undead creatures. This one I'd love to port over to second edition and put it in a game. I don't know that it has been. It's back matter from book five of Council of Thieves,

which I ran many, many years ago. And this jumped out to me and I've never stopped, like I never stopped picturing how horrifying and awesome this creature is it's called a I want to pronounce this correctly. It's called a Vrikola cos of Vrikola cos vry it starts with Vrikola cos it's a cr 10 creature in pathfinder 1e. So roughly 10th level creature and It is a restless and savage form of undead that knows only rage and relishes the suffering of those who failed it in life.

It is a reanimated corpse of a wicked person. So you have to be a wicked evil person initially. And then you have to be denied basic burial rights as part of like dying. And then you can rise as this unreasoning vampire kin that has this wrath against all living things. Kind of like what you said about the Bodak, right? And, oh wait, is it in there? Is it in 2E? It says it's in 2E in archives of Nethus. Amazing. All right. So this is from my one ebook. This is from my PDF of book five of Council of Thieves. It spreads like, okay, I'm just going to read for the stat block, its abilities. This is amazing.

First, create spawn. Any humanoid that is slain by a Vrykolikos becomes one itself in 1d4 days if it is not blessed and then properly buried. That's one of its abilities. Next is, I love this, feral possession. Upon being reduced to zero hit points, a Rikolikos spirit attempts to possess any animal within 100 feet. This ability is similar to a magic jar, but does not require a receptacle. It's just amazing.

If it succeeds in getting into the animal, the animal goes to where the body was, like the Vricolicus' grave, digs itself into the earth and buries itself and then rises one day four days later as a humanoid recolicus. So cool. And then lastly, this is the thing that is so scary is that it will just kill anything in a village. One could kill a whole village and here's why they say why. Pestilent aura. All creatures that come within five feet of recolocas must save to Recontracting bubonic plague. Oh This is amazing. Do you have the artwork up there McD? I can't yeah He's got it on the stream if you want to look at it Jared the the artwork

It is a horrifying looking creature that at first glance you'd be like, oh, that's kind of like a dog zombie. No, it is humanoid. It just like shrinks down and then its spine sort of straightens and it almost like walks on all fours, but it can disguise itself and walk through a village hooded as a human and just spread bubonic plague everywhere. That's amazing. And do you know that it has a, it's in folklore. It is a legendary creature, a vampire of Slavic folklore. This is what I was going to finish off with is, and I remember reading this years ago and just loving it. It comes from Greek folklore.

The name itself, Rikolikos is a very Greek sounding name and it is synonymous with revenants, terrors that manifest as humans that have returned from the grave to perform some act before they can peacefully rest. But these ones are there to just hurt people. It says the more vengeful type of Rikolikas gained stronger belief in Greece after the arrival of Slavic immigrants who brought with them tales of blood-drinking vampires and werewolves. Amazing. So it's interesting to see how that folklore develops. Yeah, anyway, I love that creature and I've always wanted to have it in a game.

It's like- We gotta get it in a game. Gotta get it in a game. This will be the AP we write. The main villain will be of Rikolokos. I don't know how it's taken us this long, but we gotta get singing in a game. This will be the AP we write. The main villain will be a Rick O'Lekos. I don't know how it's taken us this long, but we gotta get singing zombies to the stage. Singing zombies.

Welcome back and you're on the perfect show. Yeah. No, I had like whiplash earlier listening to the show because I kept feeling like you guys were talking to me. What's going on? You wanna add in a creature, a piece of media? What do you got? I love running any kind of recurring villain.

You guys talked a bit about how Liches are great. They kind of build in their own narrative and you have to find their phylactery and stuff, but they're an enemy that you can throw at a party and they can destroy it and then they can show up later and have them build on how much they hate that guy. So they're a little bit proofed against the fact that sometimes it's tough to make a villain and your party just one shots them and they're a one session villain. You had this whole thing planned out. Liches and vampires.

You guys didn't mention vampires. I also love vampires for this reason. And then also the fact that your players kind of know a lot of the mythos Sometimes there's like metagaming involved with it But I think it that also means that they get to buy into the the lore that much more and engage With your with your with your enemy when they kind of know what a vampire is and you don't have to explain This yeah, I mean,. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well said.

Good point. Thanks for calling in. Let's do... All right. I'm going to take a call here. Let's try to get Punk Luke back. While we get Punk Luke back, I want you to raise your hand right now if you want to go up against McD and beat McD for zombie trivia to see if you can win a

gift certificate to the old glass cannon store so go ahead and raise your hand now if you want to get in on that in the meantime let's see if we can get punk Luke back even if you already have your hand raised re-raise it if you want to compete in beat McD what's up punk are? You fix those technical issues. Can you hear me now? Yeah, we got you now. You hear me? We can hear you. Oh, thank fuck for that. Sorry, lads.

That's all good. That's okay, lads. Fuck, shit. Cock sucker, go ahead. Yeah, all of them, all of them, and ones we're not allowed to say. Anyway, and yes, what I was gonna say is, dude, you definitely need to get that board game,

can't remember what it was called, yeah, Black Blade, man, really, really good. You should called. The black plague, man. It's really, really good. You should definitely get it. I highly recommend it. Well, suburban sending me the night of the living dead version. I'll ask him for the black plague next week. Yeah, man. Honestly, had real fun playing that, but you better learn to like batch paint them models.

You know what I mean? Um, and I'm pretty sure you can even get a catapult for it. I played one with a catapult in it where you're flinging zombies all over the board, which is pretty fun. Amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I just still talking about the, uh, the corpse flower. I posted a picture of it up. I've got a mini of it. I ran it in my game and, uh, that was almost a TPK, but it's a really good fun one to play as a DM as well. Cause you get to like fire zombies out of a corpse flower. Uh, it's a corpse flower, so it counts as an undead creature. Yeah, it's sort of like I'm pretty sure it is.

I mean, it has zombies and dead bodies inside of it as well. And then like shoots them out and it can regain health from them as well. I can't remember exactly because it was a while ago, but yeah. And is it is it's five is the fifth a fifth edition, uh, creature, uh, for you? Yeah, unfortunately is a D and D five. Yeah. No, no, that's okay.

We, we like D and D five E over here. That's all right. Uh, cool. Yeah. I, I hadn't heard of this creature. It's not in the main monster manual, right? Uh, yeah. I mean, uh, no, no, in the main monster manual.

Um, basically I've got one of the minis in like someone bought me a little secret Santa thing and I got the mini and then had to Google it and find out what it was. Yeah, I mean, no, no, no, one corpse in its body, turning it into a zombie. The zombie appears in an unoccupied space within one square of the corpse flower and acts immediately after it in the initiative order. The zombie acts as an ally of the corpse flower but isn't under its control and the flower's stench clings to it. The stench of death. Each creature that starts its turn within two squares of the corpse flower or one of its zombies must make a DC-14 con saving throw on a failed save the creature is poisoned until the start of its next turn. So yeah, it has that emanating like poison. You know, we talk about what creates zombies. I'm seeing a whole campaign where there's like a zombie apocalypse in your fantasy world and then you find out what's causing it are these corpse flowers that are bringing them all to

life like that could be very cool I love that yeah that's a really good part of a story like actually man I think about yeah I think it starts with like bodies in it as well I think you start with maybe four I think the other cool thing about it is if you want to go really dark is if you can kill a character it can then absorb that body as well so you lose like even the body You start with maybe four. I think the other cool thing about it is if you wanna go really dark, is if you can kill a character, it can then absorb that body as well. So you lose like even the body of your party member, if I remember rightly.

Wow, that's badass and terrifying. That's so cool. All right, man. Thanks for the call. Glad we got you. Glad we got the tech to work. Thank you, friend. Good to talk to you. Take it easy, punk.

All right, let's get a little beat McD. Let's do a big big day McD is let's see. Let's we got here. We've got uncanny Karloff Requested to face McD uncanny you there Can you hear me guys? Yeah, we got you. We got you uncanny. You know a thing or two about zombie media I know a thing or two about zombie media? I know a thing or two. When I lived in Oklahoma City, I used to run a horror movie marathon every Halloween.

And the last one I did was a Lucio Fulci Festival, which is a lot of just munching Italian gore. Awesome. Phenomenal. That's great. That's great. Well, we're happy to have you here on Beat McD. Let me get my timer ready here. All right, so Jared is going to ask you guys questions.

We'll start with you on Kenny Karloff, and McD will take off his headphones and not listen to the first round of questions. You're going to get five questions and one minute to answer them. The timer starts right after Jared finishes Asking the first question from there You have the option to pass if you'd like and return to a question

If you want to keep it moving But then we'll see how many you get right and then and then we'll go up and and we'll have McD go and see How many he gets right if you get more right than, you will get a gift card to the Glass Cannon store that you can use to get anything you like. So I think that that is. Karloff, I love your handle, by the way. I'm a huge Karloff fan. And also I wanna say, no one has beat McD yet.

Do you think you can do it today? I'm ready for a shot at the title, man. Let's do this. All right. All right. I like that attitude. All right, today? I'm ready for a shot at the title, man. Let's do this. All right. All right. I like that attitude. All right, Joe, I'm ready with the questions. McD, his headphones are off. I can see him.

His headphones are off. And I will let him know when to come back on with a physical John. All right. Whenever, you know what? I actually messed up one thing here. Give me two seconds, and then we'll got it We'll rock and roll

There's a little technical prep on the back end here. Just a minor I'll just say also if you were if you were paying attention to the whole show today You may already Have some of the answers. That's how easy I've made this All you had to do is pay attention to the show. A lot of stuff in this in this quiz we talked about on the show. We didn't. Okay. Here we go. I am ready when you are Jared. Begin the first question. Karloff, are you ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. All right, let's go. Question one and the last of Us video games and television series, what type of organism causes people to turn into zombies? Cordyceps? That is correct.

Very specific, correct. Question two, who was the host of the after show Talking Dead dedicated to recaps of The Walking Dead? Oh Jesus, Paps. Oh wait, Chris Edwards. Chris Edwards. We Jesus, pass. Oh wait, Chris Hedwig. Chris Hedwig. We'll take it. Question three. In the 1985 film Return of the Living Dead, what do the zombies eat? Brains. Correct. Question four. What 2007 novel by Max Brooks is an oral history of the zombie apocalypse? World War Z. Correct. Drew Barrymore starred

with Timothy Olyphant in a Netflix series about zombies. What was the title? The Santa Clarita Diet. Correct. Five out of five with time on the clock. Well done. Well done. Hang in there on Kenny Karloff. We're going to move you to the audience for a second, and we'll get McD back up here. We'll bring McD on, and there he is. He's going to get his headphones. McD, Uncanny Karloff has finished, and it is your turn. Can you hear us? I got you, buddy. You got me? Yeah, we got you. All right, Jared is going to read you the first question. I'll start the timer once he finishes that question and you go ahead and answer. Remember, you can pass if you want and return to a question if you need to.

It's up to you, but just yeah, I think we're good to go whenever you're ready, Jared. All right. Question one, in the Last of Us video games and television series, what type of organism causes people to turn into zombies? Fungus? Is that acceptable? Correct. Question 2, who was the host of the after show Talking Dead dedicated to recaps of The

Walking Dead? Chris Hardwick. Correct. In the 1985 film Return of the Living Dead, what do the zombies eat? Brains. That's right. What 2007 novel by Max Brooks is an oral history of the zombie apocalypse? World War Z.

Correct. Drew Barrymore starred with Timothy Olyphant in a Netflix series about zombies. What was the title? Geez. The Santa Clarita Diet. Oh, correct. That's it, jeez. The Santa Clarita Diet. Oh, correct! That's it, McD! I made it too easy this time.

I made it too easy. Well, we overcorrected, but that's okay. We have a tie, five for five, both of you. Amazing, amazing job. Let me get Karloff back up here. Karloff, please come back up to the stage. Great job, Karloff back up here. Karloff, please come back up to the stage. Great job, Karloff. Great job.

No one's ever tied McD before. We can. We got you. We got you. Great work. Well done. All right, so here's what we do. Now we've got a tiebreaker question.

Jared's going to ask a question, and the answer is going to be a number. Whoever is closest to that number, doesn't matter about going over or not, whoever is closest to that number wins the contest because they had to go to the tiebreaker. So McD, we're going to have you take your headphones off again for this question.

This will be quick. And then I'll summon you back on because I don't want them to hear your answer. So go ahead, Jared. No time limit on this. Just take a second and answer. You're on the honor system, Karloff. want them to hear your answer. So go ahead, Jared, no time limit on this. Just take a second system. Karloff, you're on the honor system. I need a quick answer.

So I'm not thinking that, um, you're, you're Googling it. Okay. You got, uh, the question is how many episodes of the 2010 TV series, the walking dead were there? Oh God. Uh, I'm Let me see here. I'm going to say 85. 85 episodes of The Walking Dead is Karloff's guess.

Should we get McD? And then I'll get the. Karloff, you can stay on stage here. And then McD, come in. Come back on. And can you hear us, buddy? Yeah, buddy. OK, the answer is a number.

And on our system, you just got to answer relatively quickly. There's no time limit. But here we go. All right. How many episodes of the 2010 TV series, The Walking Dead, were there? In 2010 or total? Total.

Jeez, a lot. 170. 190. 170. You're going to go 190. A hundred and a hundred and seventy one nine hundred and seventy. You're going to go one nine one ninety. OK, we're going one ninety. So Karloff says eighty five. McD says one ninety.

The answer. Is one hundred and seventy seven episodes. Wow. These first guess was even closer. guest mcdean my goodness was still regardless McD's No, I think it's done now, but regardless McD has won again

Feel like on a car that you go to the Challenger. So impressive. Well done. That was great. You know what? Right. You get the prize. I agree.

You get the prize anyway. I'm going to send you a gift card. That was an awesome showing. That was awesome. You earned it, but McD still remains undefeated. He remains true. I'm coming back for McD. I'm coming back for the title.

All right. Good. Thank you, Uncanny. McD, we'll reach out to you and get your info. We'll get your email and we'll send you a gift card. Thanks for calling in, buddy. That was awesome. Well done.

Well thought. It was funny. Well done. After we got through the show, I was like, oh my God, we talked about a bunch of this stuff during the show, but like, hey, rewards paying attention, right? Rewards being there for the whole show. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So yeah, congrats to Uncanny, congrats to McD,

remaining undefeated. I mean, you came in, you stepped into a guy who had already gotten five out of five, and you just, bam, laid down five out of five. Ice water in his veins. I can't believe- Who out there thinks they could have done it? Who out there thinks they could have done it?

I wonder if people thought this was generally too easy. I'm just curious It was not that difficult. I could not I would not have gotten Santa Clarita diet never heard of that Oh, dude, that's great And I think and I would not have gotten brains because I never saw return of the living dead, right? But other than that, I think I would have gotten the other ones. Yeah, but yeah, I definitely would have lost Some people saying four out of five, four out of five, four out of five. Yeah.

Ultimate Frisbee says five out of five. He would have had it, but. That's so good. No Bueno says, I would have said Chris, Chris. Fuck. We gave it to Karloff for saying Chris Hedwick. So. Is that what he said? I heard him say it. Close enough, close enough. We gave it to Karloff for saying Chris Hedwick. Is that what he said?

I heard him say it. Close enough. Close enough. There was a lot going on, but he said it. Pretty damn close to say that. I heard. I thought he said Chris Hardwick. Anyway.

That was fun, man. That was really fun. Great job, everybody. Great job. Thanks for talking zombies with us, everybody. This was a great week. Yeah, what a great week. So much fun.

Yeah, thanks for chatting zombies with us. So that's going to wrap it up. I hope everybody has a fantastic week. We'll be back next week with more fun stuff. Until then, have a wonderful weekend, and we'll see you next time. Stay alive, everybody. Stay alive.

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