WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Why Do We Tell Stories? | Plot Armor Episode 1

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

Storm and Liam launch their new show exploring how and why humans tell stories and talk about their personal background in the art of telling tales. New episodes weekly! 

Welcome to Plot Armour on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, the show that explores the human experience by asking fundamental questions about how and why we tell stories. Here are your hosts, Storm Drexler and Liam Brennan. Why do we tell stories? I'm hoping this show will answer that question. Hey, welcome to Plot Armour. I'm Storm Drexler. And I'm Liam Brennan. we're going to be doing a podcast for you guys here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. If you're tuning in, this is the first episode of Plot Armour. Our new show rediscuss all things storytelling and why we as humans.

Yes, we, you are listening are probably a human as well. Why we tell stories, why we're so drawn to them, and the various methods upon which we tell them and how we express ourselves to each other. Is that pretty good? It's pretty good. Oh, thanks. I think we're going to start off by doing some introductions. because this is our first episode, and you don't know who we are. And if you do, well, you know what you're in for.

If you don't, you don't know what you're in for. But this is going to be a lot of fun. This is a project that both of us are very passionate about. So we're hoping to tell you a little bit why. That's the case. Do you want to go first? Sure. That sounded like a threat to the audience, but that's far.

Yeah, I'm Liam Brennan. I am a junior undeclared history major. You're undeclared? I'm undeclared still. So I need to lock in on that. But you may not. know me from the Simpson residence. Glorious.

I've been there for a while. I work at AJ's. You probably see me very just like Disbron Johnson Cafe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a good time.

Definitely. I serve you all the wonderful food that Mets provides. I hang out with you, Storm. Yeah. We hang out and we talk. We talk a lot.

I just joined radio this semester. Very excited for that. Yeah. Big thank you to Radio Free Hillsdale. That's 101.7 FM for accommodating our show here. I'm Storm Drexler. You may know me from any number of places or nowhere at all. I have another podcast on Radio Free Hillsdale, the boys only podcast, comedy show.

Go check it out. And I'm all over campus. I'm a senior here at Hillsdale College studying political economy because politicians don't understand how money works and business people do not understand how politics works. We're hoping to bridge that gap somewhat. And Hillsdale College has an awesome major for that. But Liam and I both growing up have become extremely interested in storytelling and its intricacies. We will talk a little bit more about that on the back half of the

episode. But for now, I think it's important to explain the show. And usually at this point, we're going to have a topic, something in storytelling that we'll discuss. Right. And, but this, the topic for this week is just, what are we doing here? What's going on? What's the, what's our purpose? I'm wondering. Where are we? What is happening? Liam actually just dragged him in off the street. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. Yeah, I just woke up five minutes ago. Rise and shine. There's a mic in your face now. It's a little scary. It's right there. What are we doing here? Well, I suppose we're telling a story of our own as we go through these weeks. Yeah, I think both of us are in heavy agreement that stories are a quintessential part of the human experience and that by understanding the stories that have been told throughout time and that we tell ourselves we can understand each other in a better, more illuminated one. way. So we are going to be doing everything from diving into contemporary stories and movies and things like that to going back to Homer and scripture, really anything that brings us joy

and meaning when it comes to telling stories. Yes. And history is very, very much an important part of that. Like the oldest remnants of human civilization that we know about are because of like cave drawings and people like telling their own stories and eventual fictions and eventual the first myths coming about all the way to grand elaborations of heroics and knights to modern romance in war. But not just history, we also look forward into the future with

science fiction, with space, with evolutions outward, and with telling stories about fictional things, monsters, creatures of legend, and how they would look like today, what they would look like today. So it really goes in every direction, which is why we are not going to pick directions, because we're going to let fate do that.

Fate is going to do that. Yeah, for the most part, we're going to be randomly selected. We've curated a big long list of topics that we'll be having thrust upon us each week. We have a great name for it We a stellar name we've gone back and forth. Let us know what you think I guess in the comments is there a comment section Well, we have an insta. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let us know what you think we're trying to decide between whether we want to call it the topic trough Like we're a bunch of snuffling grigs digging into the topic trough or the genre jar That one's a little it's hard to tell what we're saying Yeah, so maybe we say

with the topic trough. That kind of hits the heart. Yeah. We have a large wooden trough filled with like carrots and like slop. It's right here. It's right here. We're looking at it right now. Studio with us.

We're actually recording this from a barnyard. Smells horrible. There's a number of topics we've written in there. Amongst all the rummage, there's like 20 pieces of paper in there. They're all slimy and covered. We have to pick them out like it with our mouths like apple, like apples in a barrel or whatever. So that's going to be great for you guys to listen to every. week. So we'll be doing that

towards the end. But just to get you a little bit of a primer onto kind of some of the stuff we'll be talking about. We want to talk about myth and we don't talk about cinematography and movies. We want to talk about comics, comic strips and visual art on how art tells stories. We want to talk about

poetry. We also want to talk about space. I've mentioned it twice now. I love space. I'm talking about space a little bit. I want to talk about romance, horror, heroes, archetypes, knights, heists. All the things. I mean, really when it comes to telling stories that involves basically everything you could think of, everything from mathematics to geometry. I'm learning that in quadrivium right now. Shout out flatland. Shout out flatland. But I think a lot of how this is going to work is we're going to pick a genre or a topic of storytelling. And then we'll both each week bring something to the table, whether that's a book, a passage we want to read, or just an idea that we've been mulling over. or an experience in our own lives, a story that we have from our own experience on Earth.

And then we can compare, contrast. Storm and I, we disagree a fair amount. I've never agreed with things. Never ever. In like eight years of friendship. That's the funny thing is that we have known each other so long, yet we still surprise each other with our takes. And usually we love the same things.

So like the same movies we like pretty, we usually have pretty similar ratings. But then it's like the different problems we have with the movie or book are widely different. Yes. We'll both end the consumption of some various media and then be like, oh, that sucked. And then he's like, I think it's like because of this. And I was like, that was actually my favorite part. The only part that was redeemable to me at all was that part you disliked. I just like this other part. You guys are going to hear some punching, just some like cartoon smacking noises.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Storm beats the tar out of me. Yeah. But I can't, I cannot express how many topics we came up with in such a very short time. There is limitless directions. I want to talk about mystery, Westerns, dystopian future, superheroes,

world building. More on that later. Gods and pantheons, like Arthurian legends, how we tell stories through music, tabletop role-playing games. There are endless avenues to approach this topic from.

But the ultimate goal of the project, and I do think this show is indeed a project that we're going to be conducting over the course of a year, maybe longer, but around a year, we'll be to answer the question why and how we tell stories

by looking at it from 30 or so angles. and see if we can get to the heart of what that is all about. Because it's something I think we know, but we're going to try to put it into words. And it'll be many, many, many words over the course of a bunch of episodes, but then by the end, hopefully we can distill it into a few words.

It's very interesting. We are both Hillsville College students, and we've taken many classes. And what I've found, whether it's through chemistry or like a physics class or philosophy, the teacher always has to return to telling a story. One of my actually favorite classes, and this is honestly crazy for me to say as a history major who really is afraid of STEM was principles of chemistry.

And it was basically my teacher telling stories of how chemistry came onto the scene of the world and how it developed. Really, whatever the listener's interest is, I think they'll take something away from what we discuss. You simply cannot escape storytelling as a human. Yeah, it's going to be real great. Should we talk about maybe where we started with storytelling ourselves? We can, maybe in the back half of the episode. Let's plug the back half. Which we can plug right now at this point.

The structure that we're kind of aiming for here is going to have a front half and a back half of this show, which will be around 22 minutes each. So a little nice sizable bite size chunks that also fit very nice into the radio. Because you are listening right now to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.7 FM, which is something I think we're supposed to say. around every 10 or 11 minutes. Every 12 seconds. Every 12 seconds. We got to plug our providers. But a front half of plot armor that will kind of be the topic of the week.

We'll discuss it. We'll bring our homework to the table. We'll compare and contrast ideas. We'll get into it. And then a back half. Yeah. Yeah. Liam, what did you decide to name the back half?

Dude, it's called the Knights Watch. The Night Shift. Oh, sorry. I forgot. You got it wrong. I was reading a book that had. Never mind. Sorry, yeah.

The Night Shift. The Night Shift. The K'nite shift. Yeah, like night spelled like a knight. Like a Knaight. Like an armor. Yeah, exactly. But a night shift.

Isn't that great? Yeah. Doesn't that make you happy storm? We're going to have so many puns. We should just have an episode dedicated to puns. How we tell stories through puns? Lots of ponds. Two minutes episode, dude.

Small little feature. Yeah, a little feature, a little extra. Yeah, but in the night shift, oh God, that's going to be a thing. Canite shift. In the Kinnight shift, the back half, the back 22 minutes, we'll get a little bit more, Lucy Goosey, we'll bring more of our own personal experiences in that particular genre to the table, maybe talk about some of more of like our favorite things in that genre and have more

of a loose conversation between friends, just revolving around still like relating to the topic, but branching off to wherever the conversation and the story takes us. Whereas in the front half, we're going to stick a little bit more to the books and describe the stuff we've learned about that genre and more kind of like try to stay a little bit more factual. So that should kind of have provide a nice basis. Hopefully in the best, back half, the front half will be a little bit more accessible. And the back half, the night shift will be a little bit more geared toward learning things you as the listener maybe didn't know about, things that we have in our nerddom.

Distant fringe research have come across. It's going to be so niche. It's going to be so niche, dude. We're so tough. Yeah, let's be honest, Storm. We are extremely nerdy. Yeah. And we're going to just have that badge on our chest.

I'm really excited for the back half in some ways more than the first. We're really going to dive deep. So more context. Storm and I have been friends for eight years. And most of our conversations are extremely specific stuff of world building and things like that. We'll dive into that more later. But that's going to be where we do those sort of things where you can be a fly on the wall of conversations that we've already had throughout the years. Which are goofy.

Which are so goofy. Occasionally, exceedingly insightful. Yeah. Sometimes it changes my life. Yeah. I thought I was like, wow. Walk away. Life changed.

Yeah. So it's going to be great. So think about it this way. Like if we have an episode on fantasy, which will come up eventually because fantasy's awesome and is one of the biggest methods in which we tell stories,

perhaps in the front half, I'll be like, dude, I love Lord of the Rings. Everybody freaking loves Lord of the Rings. Most people have read it. But then maybe in the back half, I'm going to be like, dude, Dungeons and Dragons is awesome,

which is something people less people have been exposed to. Or if we do like a science fiction episode, Star Wars is so sick and amazing. And then the back half, I'm going to be like, have you ever played Lancer? Dude, I haven't played Lancer.

I want to play Lancer. And we'll talk about it. So maybe a little less accessible stuff. So if you're excited by the topic and you're excited by the conversation thus far, stick around for the night shift. It's another 22 minutes on top of the first part of the show where we get a little bit more niche, a little bit more nitty gritty, and a little bit more just into each other's beautiful eyes. That's crazy.

Dude, the Kinnight shift is going to be wild. I would say it like that every time. The Kinnit shift. Yeah, so stick around on this week's first night shift. shift, we're going to just be talking through our personal stories and what brought us this point, why we're so interested in this general topic that we'll branch off

into lots of little ones, but why we started the show, why we love talking about this, and what you can expect, and why you should listen to us, because we're so experienced to something. You really should. You just should. Every single week. Yeah, every single week, whenever this drops will schedule. One day. Yeah, so stick around to hear more about us

as well as something else that will be included in the back half, which is our world building. Gosh. Section. Yeah. Do you want to talk about that? Dude, I'm worried about this part because I'm a slow thinker. I'm very methodical.

You're telling the audiences already. You're not going to let them try to decipher that for themselves. I feel like most of them will already know this. But no, Storm and I have, actually I would say very different sort of a different methodology of how to build a world. Which is what, really? Like, what even is building a world? What does that mean for someone who maybe wouldn't even know?

Well, it's, I mean, it's writing. Yeah. It's putting yourself in the perspective of different people, a different place, a different time, and letting your mind drift almost, at least for me. A lot of people say that it's almost like escapism, like you're trying to flee the world that you're in. I would argue that through world building, we understand our world better than we ever could. What that really means is you sit down and you write characters, you write stories. One of my favorite things is sort of like Tolkien did this super, I mean, this is how he made Middle Earth as he looked. at language. He looked at language and all sorts of different types of languages and let those

patterns and the spirit of different languages fuel a space in a world that he was able to be immersed in and then invite people into that. So really proper world building is a endeavor of the heart. Storm and I have both done a lot of world building and we've been able, we've had the privilege really to share those worlds with our friends. And, And it is the most rewarding experience, rewarding hobby that I think I've ever really partaken in. There's a lot of nitty-gritty stuff that we'll talk about, about how to do that well, different methods, ways to get inspiration. Because sometimes getting inspiration is hard. You experience writer's blocks.

You sort of just don't know where to go. Maybe it's a time issue. So yeah, we're going to be giving actual advice to our listeners about how to improve your world building and also invite you. to join us as we build a world every single week. So, you know, we'll get to this, but we'll start off with something small and branch out from there. And maybe one week, we just write one singular character. And that's what we do. And you'll be able, hopefully, by the end of the semester, this year,

to have a full world that we've built together, Storm, that we can then use however we wish, create more stories as we go, and just experience the joy of creating. I actually have a question for you. I know that you love Dorothy Sayers and the mind of the maker. Big fan. I think that applies right here. Yeah.

Do you want to talk about that? Yeah. For background, the inklets or the inklings? Inklings. The inklings, which were C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's reading group and writing group that they had where they meet in like a pub with friends and talk about the books they were writing, the stories they were creating, and the worlds they were building, which is the theme here. Also included their friend Dorothy Sayers, who wrote a book called The Mind of the Maker.

She was more of a theologian than I would say. the other two are, maybe even than Lewis is, surprisingly. She came from a much more like, I think, diverse theological background. She had a lot of exposure. Lewis did have a lot of exposure as well, obviously. But her writing and her world building and her storytelling were always more focused on theological information. And where you can evidently obviously see the theology in the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion in the Chronicles of Narnia, Dorothy Sayers just straight up wanted to write about her experience.

and she had the idea in her mind of the maker book, which is not a very long read. I highly encourage it. She talked about how she believes that we express ourselves and the expression of ourselves through stories is one of the huge aspects of being the image of God. And it's in the same sense that we are the image of God as humans, the things we write and the characters we create and the stories we tell

we're imprinting our image, not of course to the same degree as God is, obviously, but kind of undergoing the same process that God underwent in creation. There's something of a magic there, not magic in the sense of something outside of the realm of physics, but magic in the sense of there is something like unexplained there, a phenomenon that emulates a higher phenomenon, something that is, chalkins back to an already done or a deeper truth. Yeah.

I think really the highest claim that we could make in this first episode is that through storytelling, we participate in the divine. And many people disagree on what that looks like, but I think universally, we all have that calling upon our lives. And like you said, being the Amago Day, the image of God, we are called to create in whatever way that takes form for different people. And that's a part of the beauty is that it does take many different forms and many different crafts for different individuals.

Storm and I are lucky that we sort of have a similar calling, similar method of doing so, but I actually was thinking, we have had this compliment that we've given a very select amount of people where every once in a while we'll just go, the guy gets it. Yeah. Or that person just gets it. There's resonation through stories that you tell with people or tell to people that you can just kind of understand. And sometimes you don't know why you understand something or resonate with something so much. I'm hoping, at least for me personally, to unpack that a little bit. Totally.

And like when you read something and you're like, wow, that hits. Why does that hit? What is that harkening back to? What deeper, spiritual or otherwise truth is that touching on? So we hope you join us on this journey. This is plot armor. This is going to be our show. And we're going to talk about this, dive way, way deeper into this with individual topics

each week and explore the world of storytelling, which I fundamentally believe is the world of humanity. Yeah. Have we said the name enough? Plot armor. It's called plot armor. It's called plot armor. It's on Radio Free Hillsdale.

and you should tune in and listen. For now, though, we've got to go. But if you're not tired of us yet, we'll see you in the night shift. A night shift. Okay, we got to pick the topic for next week, though. So we got to dig into the topic trough. The topic trough.

We've got to take into the topic trough, which definitely isn't a dodecahedron, a 20-sided. I have a dice. Wait, is a dode-a-hrein a 12-sided? Do-de-de-de-a. Yeah, dodecahedron. Yeah.

It's a 20-sided dice that we'll be using to decide our topic for episode two for next week. Dude, isn't this dice so pretty? Yeah, it's like purple and nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely, no, no. I mean, no, what are you talking about? We're digging into a trough right now.

We're digging into it. Like, our noses are covered in apples and oranges. Let's roll and see what happens. Okay. Okay, well. We're so good at this, guys. Number 12. Literature and the written tradition.

Oh, that's perfect. That's great. So our topic for next week will be literature and the written tradition, how and why we tell stories using it. Yeah. So tune in then. For now, though, we got to go. You've been listening to Plot Armor on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

Thank you for joining us for the inaugural episode of our show. Stay tuned for the back half, or as we call it, the Night Shift coming up next. Or if you're listening on Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts, go check out the Night Shift. We'll be waiting for you there. Welcome back to Plot Armour on Radio Free Hillsdale 101. 0.7 FM and to the night shift, the back half of the show in which your hosts, Storm Drexler, and Liam Brennan, delve further into the intricacies of this week's topic. Here they are now. Many great adventures begin in a tavern. Frothy ale, spilling over the side of wooden steins,

onto stained tables, smelling of meat and cheese, dimly lit interior with canned. delight, dancing off the side of the walls from an elaborate chandelier overhead, perhaps constructed of antlers or decorated with pieces of game hunted in the nearby woods. Stools resting near a bar with a barkeep scrubbing away at an already polished alestein perhaps. It's a place where people otherwise separate meet and laugh and drink and cry and scheme. It's a place where adventures begin. Fates are woven together in places such as this. Destinies drawn into, only to be thrust outward from a tavern. If a world is ever to be saved, what's a better place to start that saving than in a community?

A small podunk building overlooked by authorities, powerful mages, clerics, churches. It all starts, hidden, happy or sad on rainy days, on bright days. Near hearth, fire, warm beds, simple, cozy meals. Many times the saving of the world starts in and in. A musty map unrolled on a table with the large surrounding area, landmarking places to explore, forgotten ruins, deep mist-fills. deep mist-filled forests, promising treasure, adventure, excitement, but also peril. As a group of unnamed people, stand around that table, looking down at that map, but it's

an unfilled map, especially around the edges, one that we, on plot armor, shall fill. Welcome to the World Build portion of our show, where we are going to put piece by piece together a world. Liam and I decided that in the spirit of the introduction, we thought about where many stories begin, especially fantasy tales, tales of epic heroism, of magic, of great unfolding events. They begin in taverns lots of times. So we have decided this week we're going to be putting together a tavern. Just a little location, a little wayside point. It'll be the first thing we're going to construct here together.

Neither of us have really any idea what this is going to look like going into it. And neither do you. And that's kind of the fun. and the magic of it. And on the outside, on the, on the outside, on the aftermath of this,

we will have a tavern, a location, a starting point upon which in each episode forthcoming, we may jump off into said adventures, meet said protagonists that we will also build together. Right now we have an empty slate, a white canvas.

So let's get to painting. We got a tavern. We do. We've described some stuff about it. It's chilling. It's dreary. There's people inside. Maybe we won't worry too much about

them yet, but there's a bar keep who's just like stereotypically scrubbing mugs, right? That's like all they do. That's all they do. I don't know if I've ever seen any adaptation of a bar in which the bar guy is not cleaning. I guess that makes sense, though. Like, they'd clean a lot. They would have a lot to clean. Yeah.

How old is our bar keep? It's a great question. You know, I think a good barkeep, if we want this to be a good barkeep, is someone who's very wise and insightful. perhaps they only clean the mugs to put other people at ease so that they can sit in the corner and watch the goings-ons. Ooh, I like that. I think he'd be older. Maybe some gray hair.

I think he'd be early. A burly older man. Okay. Yeah. I like that. Yeah, yeah. A burly older guy, sleeves rolled up a big apron on his chest, maybe a bit of a balding cut across his head, brown eyes and some very, very faint scars that give any. traveler the sense that he has seen his fair share of rough and tumble perhaps more rough than tumble

but yeah he he's there what's his name the worst part of so hard what in the world is his name what we got to think about this guy he's he's he's a wise insightful burly older is this a human man yeah he's a human man in his later years perhaps in his 50s his early 50s maybe late 50s his name is john smith his name is not john john human guy. His name is Mr. Man. Hello, other humans. Maybe that's his secret is that he's not. He's not actually a human. I don't know. I think that, God, names are so difficult. Well, Storm, how about we do something? I like doing this. I like taking a name that reminds me of like someone in my past. Sure. Or a person in my life who influences a character. Is there anyone in your life you can think of who is old and, and maybe a little grizzled. Dr. Arnd. Dr. Larry P.R.

Let's call him Barkeep Jones. Jones. I like that. His name is Jones. He's just a really old guy. He's big. He's really big. He's huge.

He's huge. Yeah. And he runs this place. He puts people at ease. I like that. He puts people at ease with that. Making a really safe open space. He goes and tends the hearth occasionally,

stoking it a little bit. But keeping the coals vaguely alike, Never a roaring fire. It wants to draw people in. It needs to be a warm, welcoming, inviting space. I think that taverns are a place in which people congregate adventurers, near-do-wells, many different archetypes in fantasy stories congregate because of that invitingness. Because you're right, it's a little bit outside the law.

It's a little bit out away from the rat race. It's a bar. Like, right? Like, if you go to a bar in real life, you're looking around at people who are just from all walks of life. Right. because comfortability, sociability, and alcohol. Bring people together. Like, no other three things in this world.

What else could you ask for? So, yeah, he owns the bar. Does he have any secrets? Any secrets? Any secrets? Can I say something nerdy first about like inns and taverns? Please do. I think it's awesome.

And it's something in the modern day that we've lost of like a community hub. Where even like when my dad grew up, his grandmother owned a bar. bar. And it wasn't really a tavern, but it was a proper Irish pub. And like looking at human history, people almost always had a shared space to go somewhere after work and enjoy the warmth of a fire. And now that's kind of devoid in our world today. So I'm glad we're starting with an end and Barkeep Jones to see what that's actually like. Yeah. And I will say there are many such places in many different forms of storytelling. Like we talked in the front. half of this episode about how many different topics we're going to be covering. We have chosen

epic fantasy as our specific part of the world build project that we're going to be doing with this show. Because it's something that a lot of people are very familiar with. It's something that we in particular are very versed in and have read a lot and experimented a lot with. So we're going to be going with that. But do not think that the tavern is the only iteration of such beginning of adventure. In the Greek world and the mythos, you could have the agora in Athens, the public space in which people would meet. You could have the spaceport. You could have any number of things. You could have the public pool. Schools are a big one. Yes, the school lunchroom, the cafeteria. Many different types of stories can have different origin points. But the tavern is a

very famous one. Yeah. For reasons already discussed. So what I'm getting with Barkeep Jones is that he's this guy who's grizzled. He has scars on his face. Yes. His hair is kind of slick back and balding, maybe a little long and cares about his appearance just enough to get by. I would think that he's sort of like maybe a Galen Urso kind of character. Yes. Where he's taken a more peaceful route in life after a lot of struggle. So what would his secrets be?

Former identity, maybe? I like that. Former, perhaps a former soldier. Yeah. Maybe he is a former soldier of not the nation or whatever city state that he's in. Maybe he's a former soldier of an opposing of an enemy

who's lying low, doesn't really want anything to do with the grand conflicts of whatever world he is in. Like he's a bit of a fugitive. Yes. No one's currently seeking him, but he's in territory that should he still be a soldier, would be enemy territory. Right. I like that. He's undercover kind of. That's fun. I love this way of doing storytelling and world building because just more and more questions pop up of like, okay, then why did he leave his army? Yes. Was he deserted? Was he a deserter? This is the story of the tavern, not necessarily of him. So whatever method he came to this point, maybe that's something to explore in a future episode, like who exactly he is. But that's what you could tell. just from him and a secret that perhaps you could discern if you had a very insightful eye. The tavern interior space could seat perhaps 30 with a couple of round tables and a large bar front.

Maybe it has an upstairs in portion for people to stay the night in their travels. Do you think this is a wayside tavern or one that is located in perhaps a community, a village, or even a city? I was just wondering that. I think if we're going off the barkeep, we could say that maybe he wants to be a little far afield from the bustling of a town. or city. So maybe he is a wayside inn with this end being sort of nussled in between a forest and a road. Maybe it's only about a mile from town, but he's chosen this plot of land that he bought or acquired somehow to start his business. Yeah, I think this would be a place where he genuinely wants to provide peace to the people. Yeah. And would he be owning this in or is he a worker? I think that if it's

outside of the community, then perhaps he owns the land. Who knows, we haven't yet come up with the grand political structure of the region, perhaps to be explored in a future episode, but I think he owns this point. He has paid it. It's worth and gold. Or perhaps it's even not a piece of claimed land and he laid claim to it. And with enough business, it became official. Yeah. So obviously with a tavern and an inn, the idea is warmth and kind of coziness and ideally peace paired with joviality, right? Yes. So now turning to the name of the inn, what would send that message to someone in the world or us as potential readers of of this area. Names are the hardest part. It's called the broken record. You know what's a word I love?

What? Nook. Nuck. I like that. Hmm. Harts, Nuck. Ock Nuck. Something about forest between road. Chariot's nook. Perhaps Karts, nook. Yeah, like Wagon's Nook. Nuck and Cranny. Nook and cranberry. Nook and cranberry. What if his special drink? There you go. It's called the Nook and Cranberry. And his specialty is a, is a cranberry flavored spiced ale. And he also serves cranberry pie. Dude, what I'd say?

It's the puns. It's the puns. It's all about the puns. So perhaps his cranberries have been running dry in this late season. And his normal trips out into the forest to collect the wild cranberries have not been as fruitful as of late. I feel an adventure brewing. I do too, storm. I think that's where we can leave it, right?

I think that's perfect. I think that's enough. We have founded our nook and cranberry. It's a tavern on the side of a road. The barkeep Jones is Jones in for cranberries. Jones and we'll have to see what's going on further. We will not necessarily be establishing stories in this world building part, but you can, I think, already hopefully see how just creating things,

writing little fictional places and little fictional characteristics and descriptors already has opened up, like you said, a flourishing of questions. and there is even in a sense nothing has chronologically happened yet. No events have occurred. But you could ask the question after what we've just said, what happens next.

Yeah, perfect. We'll see you next week for that part of World Build. But welcome to the night shift. The night shift. We're halfway in. This is the night shift of Plot Armour

on Radio for Hillsdale, 101.1.7 FM. We are back with the back half of our show where we do the world build but afterward we kind of just let loose and talk about things about the topic that we just kind of are more of our favorite things

and more of our personal experiences with the topic. And given that there's no topic this week, just hang out, man. We're talking about our experience with storytelling and why we have come up to this point and why we're doing this show, who we are, and why we're such great voices for you to listen to. We have great voices.

Who are you? I've Liam Brennan. Storm, I've known you for so long. Yeah. Let me dive in. This is the night shift. We can just, if they don't know what's going on, too bad.

You got to the night shift. Yeah. So Storm and I have known each other since like right before freshman year of high school, at least my freshman year, because Storm is a grade above me. We went to the same high school. We're both from Georgia. I'm from Roswell. He's from Atlanta. Yeah, we've been a part of the same friend group for going on like seven years at this point. Something dumb. Yeah, who knows? I don't know how it's lasted this long. But no, it's a good time. Storm and I have been telling stories mainly through D&D, but it actually started with something kind of weird.

Our friend, Esten Burns, shout out, had this idea for sort of like a, I would say, geopolitical, like, risk game where our friend group, different people would meet on Zoom. And it was basically playing like a point by system. Yeah. The goal is to kind of play a tabletop risk strategy geopolitical game, but one that we could play, even though we lived really far from each other. So we can play online with each other and interact heavily with and that we could kind of like modularize it to our own desires. but then also one that didn't have to be played in one sitting, when that we could kind of come back to repeatedly and recurringly on different like sessions of the game almost.

Not even everyone had to be there, which was kind of like the good part. So we could just continue and we would take turns and it would be like, all right, what did your like faction or country do this move? And there were three factions. It was,

so it was called the British Isles. And so there was one group that was Scotland, one that was like mainland England. And then my group, which I was the faction leader, of course, I was Ireland and Wales, I think. And so I was set in like the 900s, I think, like sort of early medieval still.

And the vibes were great. Estin was kind of the orchestrator, but Storm, you were like... He wanted someone to be... He invented the whole game, he wrote it up, and he, but he wanted someone to be like an impartial adjudicator of the rules because he really wanted to play. And he thought that if he was a player, but also an adjudicator, then that could be a conflict of interests. So, and I didn't have a ton of time to be a player or to put together lots of stuff like that.

So he was like, you should help me out and kind of be the rule judge or like the master of ceremonies or game master of this. And so I'd like make calls, make call tiebreakers. People would come to me asking clarifying questions about the rules and stuff like that. And we had 12, 15 players at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually did some cool, like sort of narrative things. We put together a treaty, like a physical treaty that I still have that was representative of some sort of. that we were making in the world.

And we wrote it out. We all signed it. I put like a stamp on it. But it sort of made the fiction seem a little bit more real. Yeah. It was immersive. Wait, this is not just numbers. I really cared about this thing.

Yeah, it's like a world that exists out there, not even out there, but in our minds. Yes. And that got people excited. But that launched, hey, would anybody like to play Dungeons the Dragons? Which is a much more narrative-driven tabletop game in which you kind of like create characters and they go on like a quest where there's like an adjudicator, a person who like the rule master, the game master, who kind of like takes those characters that the players made on an adventure. And it's like, who wants to play? And a bunch of people from that British Isles group

were like, sign me up. Also, just for the record, I won the British Isles. We used the America strategy of just infinite inflation. You did do that. And then just borrowed infinite money and just obliterated everyone. It was pretty great. Yeah, then we play D&D. We still play D&D. We have an ongoing D&D campaign, same group of friends online. But also just my love of stories came from my childhood of comic books. I read a lot of comics, Marvel comics, early childhood literature. I read a lot of like fairy tales and stories as a kid. Got into The Hobbit pretty quick, which was like the jump point to Lord of the Rings and then to like adult fantasy and to all that. So I've grown up loving fiction as a genre. Was that something that you just found on your own or did you have influence from

your parents or anyone? I think more on my own and like out in like school, I had like friends who would inspire that. My parents were never as into that. I think I, if I, anyone have gotten my mom into like fiction and and loving like action and adventure. And I'm kind of now always the guy who's like, have you guys heard of this? I just found this fringe thing online, did a ton of research into it. And I was like, this is really, really neat. So that's kind of always been me. I like to take people and expand the horizons and be like, this is something you like. And it's a very safe thing to like because everyone likes it. But here's some things I like. It's not so safe to like because no one knows about it. What if you come over here and listen? You may be judged, but you'll be happier.

Yeah, exactly. So that's my background. What would you say you're a person? more personal background is for why you enter the center here. I mean, I think all good things start with family, which I'm sure you can speak to in some way. But really, I would just credit being a twin brother to my sister, Grace Brennan. And also my father, Hubert Stanislaus Brennan. Full name drop in the first episode. Who would tell us stories that were absurd and definitely totally, absolutely real about his childhood days of going into what is basically the Fay Wild and like turning into a bear. Land of fairies, land of fairies kind of stuff. And although I am

American, we do have a lot of sort of Irish folklore that has kind of been passed down through my family. And so my dad definitely gave that to me with his stories, as well as just when Christmas would come around, we would always play Santa and his elves and I'd be an elf. And then he would act like he's calling one of his elf friends in the North Pole right outside our door. And we'd be listening. And my dad would be like, yeah, you know, grace has been good, but Liam is having trouble. And I would, I would freak out. I would freak out. I'm not going to get my red rider BB again. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, there's a lot of people today who will say that telling your children Santa is real or about. Oh, boy, there's a rant on that in a later episode. Oh, we're going to get to it. Yeah, yeah,

just wait for the Christmas episode. That's right. You know, that trees can talk to you and things like that. A lot of people would say that's irresponsible, that that's even like not Christian. I wholly reject that. I think that children and really grownups need a space to be able to tell stories and to be what most people would call absurd. And so that was really important for me in later years when the world and the reality of the world hit me. And I was able to kind of cling on to those stories that I was told and remember the heroes that I read about and the adventures that my dad supposedly went on. And whether that's a ghost story or something else, that's what keeps people going. Throughout the years, I was sort of a late reader much more than like you or other friends, but once I got my hands,

my hands on novels that I actually like. Yeah. And then once I was put into our school that we went to, you know, I was thrown Greek myths and the classics. And I was able to really chew on those and absorb them because of the background that I had. Yeah, if there's any parents listening, throw every book at them basically ever. Yes. Now it's a bit harder because there are some books that are just like awful. Just buns, dude. Not good. Meaningless drivel. Yeah, not good for the spirit. But for the most part, anything before like 1990s, you're probably safe. You're probably safe. Yeah. I read Dante's Inferno as an 11-year-old, not even a child version. I mean, there's some crazy stuff in that.

And maybe I blocked some of that out, but more than anything, I was like, this is awesome. This inspires me to face my own demons with Dante being able to do that. So you just got to get reading. So that's us. Storm Drexler, Liam Brennan, we have deep literature backgrounds, backgrounds and stories. We grew up, I don't know, what's a good word? Slurping up stories. Slurping up stories was our childhoods.

And now we have been joined together by the union of friendship. And furthermore, by the union of co-ho. So you, yes, you, you, a listener who have made it to the very end of the night shift, I love you. We love you so much. We are so excited. Hi, Mom. Really, genuinely so excited to embark on this journey and to try to decipher these fundamental questions about human nature, through the stories that we're going to tell together and through the deciphering that we are going to do. So join us next week. This has been plot armor.

Plot armor. Plot armor. The night shift on. Canight Shift. On Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. We'll see you there.