Transcriber: vesta (vforvesta)
Character Creation [0:05:25] 6
Sylvi: What if it’s lava instead of steam?
Keith: What if it’s lava instead of steam?
Art: The volcano nobility, the-
Keith: Volcanobility.
Sylvi: Okay wait-
Art: Volcanobility! Oh my god, that was beautiful!
[“Eyes of a Killer” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
Keith: Imagine going Dormant. Oh my god, imagine—and you have-
Art: Well, you would want to, like, keep that from happening, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Art: Like, you'd be worried about it.
Keith: And then it’s like, how long—how long can these resources last you, until you're in the mines?
Sylvi: What if they were part of a family that went Dormant, like, a couple generations ago?
Keith: Oh that’s great!
Sylvi: And then the reason that they've studied like, geology and stuff was trying to get their family back on top?
Dre: Sure.
Sylvi: Or, like, restore their family name?
Dre: And they were like about to succeed?
Sylvi: We also need to be very careful that we do not become Flintstones with this, you know?
Dre: Why?
[wheezing sounds]
Sylvi: Mosie doing really bad murals in ash town.
[Keith laughs]
Dre: Oh, wow, is that an original Mosie? [Sylvi laughs]
Art: Yeah.
Keith: Big, big beautiful peepers?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Art [overlapping]: Piercing gaze.
[wheezing sounds]
Dre: And that’s how they describe them, too.
Sylvia: I'm gonna write that down. I'm writing that down, word for word.
Dre: Do you remember Basalt Caldera and his big beautiful peepers? [Keith wheezes]
Sylvia: Big beautiful peepers. They were always studying things.
Dre: God, he was—I'd let him peep all over me.
Sylvia: Woah!
[Keith wheezes]
Art: Woah.
Keith: Okay. Calm down, steam king.
[Dre chuckles]
[music ends]
Sylvi: Okay. So, we’ve got the Knife, we’ve got sort of the basic stuff of our setting, and that’s gonna you know—we will absolutely be adding more, sort of magma curios and weird fake facts that aren’t actually real in science? But don’t fact check us, ever.
Art: Ever!
Keith: Ever.
Sylvi: Ever. Don’t ever correct me? I will… cry. [laughs]
Keith: Magma Curios would be a good name though.
Sylvi: Thank you! Maybe I’ll name a character Curio. But cause what we’re gonna do now, is instead of you know, we defined one—I’m just gonna read the page, cause we—this next section’s a little different, as “instead of defining one shared character, we’re each creating our conspirator. We will answer questions individually, but we should discuss our choices as a group. We’ll add our character to the board, and use notes to record details.” Everybody ready?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: I’m gonna—don’t need to have like a solid character concept coming into this by the way, cause theoretically, this will be something that helps you figure out what the—what all that is. Each of us-
Keith: Do I need to stake out a spot on this board for my character?
Sylvi: It might be handy just to like know where you’re gonna be writing? But I’m, you know, just find—yeah, take up some space. Please find a spot. If you have—since we’re using—I’ve added the face cards to the—[chuckles] to this Miro board? You can grab one of those if any of them are jumping out to you, I’ve found that’s also helpful to figuring out character vibes sometimes? Just seeing like how someone’s dressed and stuff.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: And, yeah. Try and use the red colour for—or like—oh! Keith’s corner, I like that!
Keith: Thanks. I’ll be—I’ll be something that is not taken up already I guess.
Sylvi: Cool.
Keith: Sorry wait, did you have a colour I should be?
Sylvi: I was just-, I was just using red for all characters, but you—honestly, [Keith: Okay.] as long as you’re not green, which is the Knife, it should be easy enough to figure shit out. That’s the only thing. Alright, let me know—I’m gonna grab a spot on this board too. I’m gonna take the bottom right corner, that’s gonna be my little nook. Hard to move them?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: You just click and drag.
Keith: It’s—it is just dragging the whole board.
Sylvi: Oh, weird!
Dre: Oh, click off and then click on the thing.
Art: I’m not going to the fourth corner cause there’s already stuff there, so-
Sylvi: We don’t necessarily need to use the corners. Here, I’m gonna not have a corner, I’m gonna go right in the middle.
Art: Yeah.
Keith: Right yeah, corner for me, it was literal, but it’s also just the vibe of it.
Sylvi: Well now I’ve made the bottom of the board the Sylvi Zone.
Art: Um which—how do I get myself a note? A sticky note-
Sylvi: So you can click on one of the existing ones, like right click on one of the existing ones and clone it, or on the right-
Dre: And hit the N key.
Sylvi: The left side of the page—oh! Yeah, you can just hit the N key. There’s a sticky note button [Art: Trying to get a unique colour.] underneath the text tool. I think pink. For anyone keeping track at home, Keith is kind of teal, Dre is black with white text, very, very Bullet Club of you [laughs].
Art: Let’s not turn this into a Wrestle King podcast [Sylvi: Sure.] because, [Sylvi: Okay.] because-
Sylvi: I like them now, that’s a big deal. [Art chuckles] Alright.
Art: We can’t.
Sylvi: We can’t, we can’t, we can talk later.
Art: Well you like it—when that wriggles in, cause I think that’s where it’s going, that’s what-
Sylvi: I will—no! President Tanahashi, please, no. Let’s get into the game so I don’t have to think about that!
Keith: Yeah, same.
Sylvi: Each of us—yeah yeah, I know Keith, you care so much about New Japan pro-wrestling, this must be torture for you.
“Each of us is a villain, self-serving and ruthless. How do you hold power over those beneath you?” So, they give us a few examples here, such as: “boundless generational wealth, high office in prominent hierarchy, arcane powers and ancient prophecies.” So, you know, you don't necessarily have to be—I know we’ve described the two class systems of the Born Warm, and then as they are referred to by those people, the Laze?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: But we also like, if you wanna be someone who is from the Ash Pits, but is like, a collaborator with people from above,
Keith: Sure.
Sylvi: Totally can do that. You wanna be-
Art: You could be a real, a real piece a shit.
Sylvi: Yeah! Honestly, [Keith: Mmm.] like let’s—like, remember the way that they described them early when we were doing this as like, you’re trying to make like a Disney villain. You’re trying to be sort of camp—or not camp, but like over the top-
Keith: Arch.
Sylvi: Yes! Arch is the perf—we’re being arch-villains, you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Absolutely the vibe to go for.
Keith: You want someone who like, rubs their hands together like a little freak.
Sylvi: Yeah! I mean Dre already has a note for their character that I think is like, a perfect little example of it, if you don’t mind like reading it, Dre?
Dre: Yeah! My character is an asshole rich person, and they have a very long, fancy cigarette lighter, and the only way they light their cigarettes is by dipping it into lava.
Art: Yeah!
Keith: Ohhh, so it’s like—you’re like a—it’s like a Cru—a super Cruella de Vil.
Dre: Oh, yeah!
Art: But also like a much more dangerous version of lighting your cigarette on like a—on a stovetop?
Keith: [cross] Yeah!
Sylvi: [cross] Yeah, it’s kinda sick!
Art: You know. You’re always in danger. Dre, am I too close to your area?
Dre: No, you’re good.
Sylvi: We can always move stuff. This board is also—does not need to—we don’t necessarily need to stay within the bounds of this board?
Art: Cruella de Vil feels like a good example, so does um—what’s the name of that—the lady from the… the one with David Spade?
Sylvi: Oh, oh! Yzma from Emperor’s New Groove.
Keith: Right, yeah.
Art: Yeah.
Dre: Ohhh, god.
Sylvi: Yeah yeah yeah, played by Eartha Kitt.
Art: Shut up, that’s Eartha Kitt?
Keith: [cross] Yeah. Yeah, it’s Eartha Kitt.
Sylvi: [cross] That’s Eartha Kitt, yeah!
Art: Wow. So much respect.
Dre: I was just thinking about Spin City.
Sylvi: I also have this recently-
Keith: One of the only holdover bits of casting from when it was supposed to be like, a really serious movie called like, Empire of the Sun or something.
Dre: Oh!
Keith: And then it was just—they just couldn’t get it to work, so they were like, the only part of this that works, is Eartha Kitt and David Spade is funny.
Sylvi: Makes perfect sense.
Keith: So they were like, let’s make it a comedy.
Sylvi: Well, the Eartha Kitt part makes perfect sense. [chuckles]
Keith: Yeah. That’s why there’s still like a few songs? Like it was originally supposed to be a full musical.
Sylvi: Yeah! I do remember that, and then they cut a lot of ‘em. But yeah!
Keith: Yeah. Famously troubled production. I think they made that movie in like nine months or something crazy—[chuckles]
Art: Yeah, there’s like a documentary about it.
Keith: Oh, that’s cool.
Art: If you’re that kind of person.
Sylvi: And you know, I am that type of person! I like a documentary.
Art: Love a documentary. Love to learn a thing about a thing.
Sylvi: Okay. I guess here is my first question, is, how many of us feel like playing like, the hyper-wealthy, Born Warm? And does anybody else feel like playing like, someone who’s a little bit like, below them, trying to claw their way up? Because if not I could be-
Keith: I was on the fence. I was like, [Sylvi: Okay.] really not sure. Cause both of them are appealing to me, and so-
Sylvi: Yeah-!
Dre: But even then, you’re still—you’re still playing like, you’re still a villain.
Art: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: You’re still a villain. You’re always gonna—we’re always—like, at the end of this session-
Art: Yeah, you can always be a class traitor.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. That’s the term I was looking for, thank you! Yeah, I mean like, I could—doesn’t necessarily need to be in there, but yeah, your character will also always end up being a villain, because at the end of this process, we have to come up with how we completely ruin the life of our beautiful boy and his beautiful eyes, Mr. Basalt Caldera.
Art: I could go either way.
Sylvi: Okay!
Dre: I wanna be a rich asshole!
Art: I respect that.
Sylvi: Okay. Ooh! Ooh, I thought of a thing for mine.
Keith: I should read some more of the questions, read ahead, might give me a better idea.
Sylvi: Yeah, that might give you some ideas. I can read the other question on this page too. I think I have an answer for mine, which is—we talked about how this place is kind of isolated, and we’ve also talked about zeppelins a lot. [Art chuckles] So what if I’m—yeah, we have! [Art: Yeah!]
Keith: [cross] We have. We talked about zeppelins, yeah.
Sylvi: [cross] Listen, we’ve talked about blimps, we talked about zeppelins, we talked about dirigibles, all of them, okay?
Art: Yeah, if it floats, we talked about it.
Sylvi: And, I was thinking that like, I can play the heiress to like, the like, hub of transport from this place? Like all the imports/exports come through this specific mountain because-
Art: Oh, that’s fun!
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: You’re a dirigible magnate.
Art: Yeah. Dirigible magnate.
Sylvi: Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah.
Dre: Mmmm.
Art: A… nope.
Keith: Mag-mate.
Art: [confused sounds] Oh!
Sylvi: [laughs] That’s what they say when you win in chess in this world! [Keith laughs] So I’m gonna write “control over transportation off and on the island”.
Keith: Are you a Born Warm? [Sylvi: Yes.] Or have you amassed—this is a—okay. So,
Sylvi: Yeah, this is absolutely like, my grandpa built this blimp station, you know?
Keith: Yeah, I guess a better question would be, did the family amass this wealth from a business that grew, or is it—were you—was the grandfather, whoever, started the business already Born Warm? Or—which one came first?
Sylvi: I think it’s the latter. I think this is like a real old money family.
Keith: Okay, okay.
Sylvi: And if you ask like, if this character—I don’t know a name for her yet—but if she like, asked her great-uncle or something about it, would be like, yeah everybody in the family was like, this is going to ruin us, you shouldn’t have built these damn balloons. And then they all got richer and richer off it and stopped complaining, cause that’s what you do. Names are the hard part,
Art: Names are the hard part.
Sylvi: I’m gonna wait to name. Yeah, I exhausted my—I had a little name doc for a while? And I’ve exhausted it like completely at this point? [chuckles] Can I read the next question? Cause it’s a really good one.
Keith: Yeah. yeah.
Sylvi: “What flawed behaviour lurks in your psyche?” [laughs]
Dre: Mmm.
Sylvi: Great first date question too.
Keith: Yeah. The example—oh, go ahead.
Sylvi: The example—oh no, do you wanna read them?
Keith: Yeah. “A barely contained temper, a calculated coldness, or a nagging inferiority.”
Sylvi: Oh I need to be careful around just gonna make Emma Stone’s character from The Curse?
Keith: [cross] I haven’t watched The Curse.
Art: [cross] Oh I haven’t seen that yet.
Sylvi: It’s so good!
Art: People-
Keith: I finished The Rehearsal—I watched about one episode of The Rehearsal every four months?
Sylvi: I—so the reason I like The Curse more than Nathan Fielder’s other stuff is because it’s scripted with actors? [Dre: Mmm.] And that makes me feel way less uncomfortable than stuff like Nathan For You or The Curse, though I really like Nathan For You. Oh, not The Curse, The Rehearsal?
Keith: The Rehearsal.
Sylvi: The Re-curse-al?
Dre: Sure.
Sylvi: Yeah, you know.
Dre: That’s the one about like two house-flippers or whatever, right?
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: It’s so, deeply dark.
Art: The trailers made it look like I had to wait for them to all be available, because if I got to a situation where I wanted to watch the next episode and couldn’t, I would just be very unhappy.
Sylvi: It’s done next Saturday thankfully.
Art: Well, then I can probably start now; I’m not gonna watch it that quickly.
Sylvi: Yeah. Maybe I want to inferiority—maybe I’ll just go like, excessive vanity? [chuckles] You know?
Keith: Sure.
Sylvi: If we’re being camp, let me just lean into my skill set a little bit.
Keith: Art, where are you leaning for character?
Art: Um, I picked someone I think I can—
Dre: Oh, there’s a—
Art: Go either way, I picked a portrait that can go either way.
Keith: Sure. I should pick a portrait, maybe that’ll help.
Sylvi: Yeah, I—I’ve found it very useful. Also, you can also just import images if you’ve got a face in mind for your character. Like an actor or anything, worth also mentioning. Sorry, Art, I interrupted you.
Art: No, I was done.
Sylvi: Oh okay. God, I forgot that also, we decided that the mountains give people their last names, and so, also [Dre: Oh!] the mountains are named after the families that own them?
Keith: Right.
Sylvi: So I’m like oh shit, I gotta really crunch on this stuff.
Keith: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Sylvi: Oh! Dre, do you have—you have your answers written down, do you wanna talk about ‘em? [Dre: Yeah, I’ve got stuff.] Yeah, cool.
Dre: Okay. My character is Eliza Cinder?
Sylvi: Okay, good name.
Dre: How does she hold power? She intentionally provokes infighting. [Sylvi laughs] I would say both amongst the Born Warm, and amongst the Laze.
Sylvi: Oh my god, okay! I love an instigator!
Dre: Uh huh! What flawed behaviour lurks in my psyche? I see everyone as a threat.
Art: Mmm.
Sylvi: Okay. Hell yeah.
Dre: [cross] There’s no one to trust.
Sylvi: [cross] You’ve got stuff for the next couple questions, but I wanna wait [Dre: Yeah, sure!] before we move on to them, but I’m loving her already. She/her for Eliza?
Dre: Yeah, sure.
Sylvi: Cool.
Dre: Girlboss.
Sylvi: Yeah! Yeah—aw, we gotta stick together! [chuckles]
Dre: We sure do, until the very end. And then I’m gonna push you off a bridge or something.
Sylvi: Sorry, what was that?
Dre: Nothing.
Sylvi: Okay.
Keith: [chuckles] Um. Dre.
Dre: Mhm?
Keith: Can I propose an alliance?
Dre: Oh shit.
Keith: Can I—can I be—[Dre: Sure, I love this TikTok trend from two years ago.] Proposing alliances?
Dre: [cross] Yeah, that was a meme on TikTok for a while.
Art: [cross] Yeah, I receive, you receive-
Sylvi: Yeah, yeah.
Dre: No.
Art: No?
Keith: No?
Dre: That’s the NFL like, trade music meme.
Keith: What’s the alliance meme?
Dre: Don’t worry about it, it’s dumb, I shouldn’t even have said anything—[Keith wheezes] Keith, how can we ally-?
Sylvi: Okay, sure.
Keith: Can I be your agent among the Laze?
Dre: [cross] Oh, sure!
Sylvi: [cross] Oooh! Me when I’m eating barbecue chips.
[Keith laughs]
Art: And I think I’m gonna be the chief of police.
Sylvi: Oh, fuck yeah! Okay!
Dre: Mmm!
Sylvi: Okay! The guy you picked with his like, uniform and beard situation, [Keith: Sure.] feels like a chief of police.
Art: And I can't decide if that’s a Born Warm occupation or a Laze occup-? Like, is that like a, sort of shitty noble? Or like a sort of-
Sylvi: I think you could go either way with it, is the problem.
Keith: I think it—yeah, I—my gut was playing it like—like a—shit, there’s a word for it that I’m not thinking of—but like a colonial governor.
Art: Yeah, sure.
Sylvi: Oh, yeah!
Keith: What is the word that I’m not thinking of?
Sylvi: It’s—it’s not a viscount, right?
Keith: A viceroy!
Art: Viceroy.
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: Viceroy! I had the V. I’ll take that. We take those.
Art: And so this is Claxton Cascade.
Keith: Oooh.
Sylvi: Oooh! Oooh, oooh! Hitting with the names today! Eliza Cinder, Claxton Cascade, Basalt Caldera—we’ve got good, got a lot of good “C” names here, actually!
Art: Yeah!
Sylvi: Makes sense, we’re on an island. We’re surrounded by it.
Art: [mumbling] “How do you hold power over those beneath you?”
Sylvi: Yeah, the nex—oh yeah, I mean, you just can write, being the chief of police, right?
Art: [chuckles] Yeah.
Dre: Mhm.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Art: Over…whelming… force [chuckles]
Sylvi: [chuckles] Keith, you’ve picked such a guy! [Keith gremlin chuckles] Oh! Okay, yeah!
Dre: Ohh! That is a guy!
Sylvi: Gonna ask people to give quick descriptions of the guys they’ve picked at some point [chuckling], because, you know. Oh, um, I’m so torn on a name. But I think I have at least a surname.
Keith: Alright, this is gonna—I have a base, now it’s coming together.
Sylvi: Hell yeah! The beginning is always [Keith: Yeah, yeah.] the tough bit. Once it gets rolling-
Keith: It’s so—cause you gotta have a—you have to have an idea that’s good, which is so—[Sylvi chuckles] such an annoying part of doing Friends at the Table.
Sylvi: I know! [Keith laughs] I wish we could phone it in more!
Art: Um, what’s like the name for, the like, the name for like the belief that you can actually fix things with policing, you know? That like-
Keith: Reformist?
Sylvi: Reformist, I think, yeah.
Art: What’s wrong with David Simon?
Sylvi: [scoffs] How much time you got?
Keith: Are we looking for a more specific term than reformist?
Art: I guess that’s not “flawed behaviour with your psyche”, it’s like, I guess it’s not—[Keith: I think it is.] Is that strong enough? Like,
Keith: I think that it’s flawed and it’s psychological.
Art: But is it like a—is it like a tragic—are we trying to find like a tragedy here?
Keith: No, that’s a common psychological flaw.
Art: Or incrementalism, is that-?
Keith: That’s another—yeah, that also works.
Sylvi: Yeah? Yeah, applicable.
Keith: Yeah I think that that’s even like, that’s like a reformist but who’s not even dedicated to reform, just like, it will you know, as long as—[Sylvi: It’ll happen!] as long as we, you know, tape over every crack, eventually we’ll have a really strong tape house.
Sylvi: I’m playing Gabrielle Feldspar.
Dre: Oooh!
Sylvi: I did—I pulled a Keith and Googled geological terms.
Dre: Hell yeah!
Sylvi: A common mineral found in igneous and some metamorphic rocks.
Keith: Sick.
[Sylvi chuckles]
Art: That’s how I got to Cascade. Cascade is like a two-level synonym of avalanche.
Sylvi: We’ve got a naming convention, you know?
Art: Yeah. And it’s incredible, and if you don’t like it, go listen to something worse. [Sylvi chuckles] There’s a lot of bad shows out there.
Sylvi: Damn! Kra-ta-ta!
[Dre and Sylvi laugh]
Sylvi: Okay, are we—Keith, have you read your stuff out yet?
Keith: I have not. I’m almost done with my name, I’m like 80% of the way there [Sylvi: Okay!] But I have snitch/instigator/informant/general-low-life rat. Multi-generational Dormant. Two hundred years since last Born Warm.
Sylvi: Okay! That’s interesting, cause that’s got you in kind of the same [Keith: Yeah, yeah.] zone as our protagonist here. Cool, I like the “I give information to the rich people to maintain my status”.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: It’s good.
Keith: Do we know how long it’s been since the Calderas were not-Dormant?
Sylvi: We—no, we just mentioned that it was like, long enough ago that he’s comfortable moving within like, the Ash Pits, [Keith: Okay.] people don’t see him necessarily as [Keith: My idea-] the same as the other Born Warm, you know?
Keith: My idea specifically was that my guy will have been Dormant longer.
Sylvi: Okay, yeah! I think that’s fine.
Keith: So I can—if we want to increase the two hundred years to you know, five hundred years like, make it silly—I want this guy to be from a family that’s sort of like, so unhealthily clinging to this past that is like, so long gone, and that that is the sort of motivation behind you know.
Sylvi: You should go with five hundred then. [Keith: Okay, sure. Yeah] Cause if we’re playing like, super heightened villains and stuff, I think the more like, much like-
Keith: And five hundred feels biblical in like a forty-days sort of way, whereas like, five hundred, it’s just representative of a long time?
Sylvi: It’s also one of those numbers where when you say it, people don’t always think you’re telling the truth? [Keith: Right.] [Dre: Mmm.] Cause it’s such a rounded number for a lot of people?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Do we wanna—should I read these next couple questions, keep things moving?
Keith: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Dre: Let’s do it.
Sylvi: I feel like—you’re just doing a name right, Keith? [Keith: Yeah, yeah.] You’ve got everything else pretty much written? Cool.
“We each possess some degree of privilege, but desire more. What feature marks you as part of the elite? For example: intricate facial tattoos of an illustrious house”—oh okay, I understand that now, like of a noble house. “A simple platinum circuit—circlet, or nothing yet, but naked ambition.”
And I’ll read the second question on this page too, which is, “Why are you driven to ceaselessly pursue power? For example: a paranoid need to control, a desire”—oh, missed a comma on that one!—“a paranoid need to control, a desire to prove someone wrong, or so that nobody can make you feel small again.”
Keith: Alright I’ve got my name.
Sylvi: What’s your name?
Keith: Sanidine Vug.
Sylvi laughs
Dre: What up, Vug?
Sylvi: Fuck yeah! Sano for short.
Keith: Sanidine is a silicate, a group of silicate—silicates, and then vug is a small cavity in a rock commonly lined with crystals of different mineral compositions from the enclosing rock. So there you go.
Sylvi: Hell yeah!
Keith: Thank you glossary of geologic terms.
Sylvi: Shout outs—shout outs to all the geologers out there!
Keith: Yeah.
Art: That’s not what they call themselves.
Sylvi: Geologists!
Art: Geologers.
Sylvi: [laughs] Geologers!
Keith: Or Giger for short.
[Art laughs]
Sylvi: Oh! After the father of the science, H. R. Giger.
[Art and Keith laugh]
Keith: [laughing] Sylvi, I was right behind you on that! Right behind you on H.R. Giger.
Sylvi: [laughs] I love it. Good! [continues laughing] My—[Art: Go ahead.] oh do you have something there?
Art: “What feature marks you as part of the elite?” A ludicrously ornate uniform. I just imagined like, big fucking shoulder pads, a thing full of medals, [Sylvi: Ohhh.] like medals made of all sorts of weird volcanic rocks.
Dre: And they all look clacky and clingly.
Art: Yeah, they’re real clacky and like, and like, gold—maybe not gold thread, maybe like a bright orange thread motif through to make it look [Sylvi: Oooh!] you know, lava-y?
Sylvi: They try to make it look like lava? Yeah.
Art: [cross] Yeah. And—
Keith: [cross] Do you have a name—
Art: Why are you driven to ceaselessly pursue power? Because I can fix things. [Sylvi chuckles] If I just had a little more power, I can make everything work.
Sylvi: Yeah. Many people have said this, and they’ve never been wrong!
Art: Yeah! What could possibly go wrong?
Sylvi: I’m still writing out my “What drives her”, but, the sign that she’s rich is that she is always in expensive clothing, and I very much made it clear here on my page. She does not repeat outfits. You will never see her wear the same piece of clothing twice?
Keith: Ahhh, the Padme.
Sylvi: Yeah, she is always-
Keith: Sorry, Queen Amidala is who it is, not a Padme. [Sylvi chuckles]
Art: Throw it in the fucking lava when you’re done.
Sylvi: Literally Art? What I was thinking. She burns them so like, the staff can’t have her hand-me-downs.
Art: Yeah.
Keith: Can I—I’m imagining—this is just vast, ludicrous wealth, [Sylvi: Uh huh.] and I’m thinking of not just burning the clothes that you’ve worn, but also buying out the stock from the store so other people can’t buy it, so that [chuckles] you’re the only one that can wear it.
[Sylvi howls in laughter]
Art: Well that would, that would suggest that it wasn’t-
Keith: Oh, these are all hand-made—these are one-offs. These are one-offs.
Sylvi: Yeah, I feel like there’s an in-house tailor.
Keith: That’s fair.
Sylvi: You know? Works to death multiple tailors, probably.
Keith: [trills lips] To death.
Art: To death!
Sylvi: To death! Or at least to retirement, you know? As far as she’s concerned, they’re the same thing.
Art: Yeah. She didn’t check on ‘em, so.
Keith: Yeah, someone else does the hiring.
Art: And there’s no pension.
Sylvi: God. No, never! What, pension? I’ve never heard of—this word doesn’t exist on the island. I’ve written her drive here as driven by insecurity, wants to be seen as equal to her grandfather who established the sort of like airship business here? You know, I’m sure it’s gonna go great for her.
Keith: Oop-! It came back on. I lost my—okay.
Sylvi: Oh I didn’t think Sanidine was spelt like that. It’s a good name.
Keith: Thank you.
Sylvi: Yeah. Dre, I think you had stuff already written down for this, right?
Dre: Yeah! “What feature marks you?” Of course, my fancy cigarette holder. But more importantly, my elite bodyguards that go everywhere with me.
Art: Oh, that’s great!
Sylvi: Love it. That’s a really good touch. Are they like, twice the size of you?
Dre: Oh sure, yeah!
Sylvi: Yeah.
Art: At least.
Dre: What drives me to seek power? Surpassing and destroying my parents’ legacy.
Art: [cross] Destroying is a great word there.
Sylvi: [cross] Oooh, destroying too! Wow.
Sylvi: Dre, you’ve made a real interesting character, especially given that you’ve picked the sort of like, an older lady as the portrait here. I’m enjoying the vibe a lot of Eliza Cinder.
Dre: Thank you! Thank you.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Dre: Can’t wait to push you off a bridge.
Sylvi: Aw! Same here, bestie! [Dre chuckles] [chuckles] I love the way you’re writing “elite feature”, Keith.
Keith: Elite feature.
Sylvi: It makes it feel like um, like a game preview.
Dre: Only feature! Yeah!
[Keith chuckles]
Sylvi: Like IGN from 2006 wrote this? [Dre and Keith laugh]
Keith: If I don’t write it, I won’t know which one it is!
Sylvi: No, I appreciate it.
Dre: Instead of killer apps, we have elite features. [Keith chuckles]
Sylvi: Elite features.
Art: That’s a person’s name. Put that in your name folder.
Keith: Elite—yeah exactly, I agree. Elite Features. [Sylvi laughs]
Art: Elite Features. It’s a newspaper reporter, right? Elite Features?
Keith: Yeah—oh yeah, gr—! [chuckles] That’s—yeah!
Sylvi: Okay wait, hold up. I’m gonna make Elite Features a character right now, if we want this.
Art: This might be a Bluff City character, but I think you’re-
Sylvi: You know what, you’re right actually. It is a Bluff City character.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: We’ll save it for down the road. I do like a journalist being annoying to our characters at some point in this though.
Keith: What are—what is the—there is like something about fashion that we did last time, what was—what was it?
Sylvi: We talked about how this sort of has like a 1900s, like I think we talked about—I mean aesthetically, the clothing is same period as like, what steampunk is drawing off of, [Art wheezes] but not necessarily as gear heavy?
Art: We-! We started with “this is definitely not steampunk”, and then we ended up at steampunk.
Sylvi: And then we ended up at—what if steampunk was a little more metal?
Dre: It’s lavapunk!
Sylvi: Which, yeah it’s cooler.
Dre: It’s different!
Keith: And I was, you know, one of the big problems with steampunk is that it’s a bunch of sort of tacky monarchist shit that you know, [Sylvi: Yeah!] and I think that we’ve— we’ve fully ran in the absolute other direction in terms of the, the political makeup of this place.
Sylvi: Oh yeah! It’s—[chuckles] now it’s just—everyone is really into the free enterprise [Keith: Yeah.] [Dre: Mhm.] and stuff instead of the queen, yeah.
Keith: Yeah, no one here loves the queen or whatever.
Sylvi: No.
Keith: Well, not no one, but.
Sylvi: Do we have a queen?
Art: The important thing is that we don’t have an England.
Sylvi: Yeah, we don’t.
Keith: Yeah. Right, just an island.
Sylvi: This is something that I say about every—yeah but it’s pronounced Iceland, because it’s the place where all the ice is. [Keith chuckles]
Dre: Mhm.
Sylvi: Something about-
Keith: Sorry, is it Greenland? Is it Greenland—is it Greenland, not Iceland?
Sylvi: No, that’s where all the grass lives. And then there’s Waterland too.
Keith: They didn’t do something vague, did a better job on this world of naming Greenland and Iceland.
Art: God, bringing in airships full of grass is very funny.
Dre: Oh, man!
Sylvi: I mean, I could—you know?
Dre: And it just burns up every single fucking time, so you just gotta keep bringing it in.
Sylvi: Damn! They burning grass over there?
[Keith sighs]
[Sylvi howls in laughter]
Keith: It stinks.
Dre: What are you, a narc?
Keith: No I’m not a narc, it just stinks.
Dre: Mm.
Sylvi: It’s just smelly, you know?
Keith: Smelly…
Dre: Phoo-ey!
Sylvi: Do you need time to think of your elite feature, Keith?
[Dre laughs]
Keith: I basically have it, I need—I need time. [Sylvi chuckles] I need time to phrase it, but it’s basically like, like in the—ugh, I hate to give a real timeframe for an actual thing that happens on Earth, but let’s say [Sylvi: Yeah.] in the 1200s you know, you’ve got this really fucked feudal system where there’s people who are like technically nobles, but they have no—they are unlanded nobles?
Sylvi: Oh, yeah yeah!
Keith: And the thing that gives them their privilege is like, carrying you know, like, a piece of fur clothing that’s like, having this signifies that I’m in the nobility even though it doesn’t really matter, I’m still tilling these fields. And I’m thinking something like that, but I haven’t found the object yet.
Sylvi: Okay, no worries! [Keith: Yup.] That is still I think enough to—[Keith: Yeah.] for us to go on for now, and then when you’ve got it, we can [Keith: Yeah.] come back to it. Where were we? Ooh, okay, [Keith: Page nineteen.] and now we’re getting—yeah we are!
“Each of us have a reason to desire the Knife banished. Who was the Knife to you before the incident? For example, the colleague who always showed me up. My oldest friend and fiercest rival. My parents’ favourite child. Or a lowly stranger”—which I love, “my parents’ favourite child” being one of them in here.
Dre: Mmm.
Sylvi: And oh I guess I’ve been reading these in pairs, I’ll read the second one too.
“What did you have to gain from their imprisonment? For example, to steal back the heart of another, to gain material wealth and influence, or to cover up a ruinous scandal to prove that you are better than them.”
Okay, I’ve got mine for why I wanted the Knife—who was the Knife to me? Or like, and also why she didn’t really like him. Basalt constantly showed her up at social functions, arriving with Mosie and acting as if he still had the influence that comes from a functioning mountain.
Keith: Oh that’s perfect.
Sylvi: The audacity! Yeah.
Keith: Because mine is, I was just jealous from a distance of Caldera’s proximity to wealth despite being a Dormant like me.
Sylvi: Perfect, love it. I can already see how we’re gonna be on the same page about this.
Keith: Yup.
Art: How do you spell Caldera… [muttering] or how is Caldera spelt? Who is the Knife to you? Caldera committed a petty crime once. That was enough.
Dre: [cross] Mmm.
Sylvi: [cross] Nice.
Keith: [cross] Damn.
Sylvi: Damn Dre, can you read yours?
Dre: Yeah! “Who was the Knife to me before?” My secret lover.
Keith: Woah.
Sylvi: Love it. Love! It!
Dre: Do you know what I gained from having him imprisoned?
Sylvi: Hit me up!
Dre: Yeah, he made me soft.
Sylvi: Let’s fucking go.
Keith: Damn.
Sylvi: I’m so for it.
Keith: Yeah. I was thinking—I was just thinking like, what do we need in our lava world, and it’s problematic age gap.
Dre: [laughs] Hey, I’ve never said how old I am! [Keith laugh] Or how old Basalt-
Sylvi: No-
Keith: Yeah, you’re just a really, really heavy smoker [laughs].
Dre: I mean you know, it’s that joke that like, if you’re evil and hateful, you don’t do skincare?
Keith: Hmm, that’s true. Yeah, Cruella de Vil is thirty five.
Sylvi: Oh, we’re in a Roald Dahl novel.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: [laughs] Sorry!
Art: I just don’t wanna write that much-
Dre: [overlapping] Listen, I’m looking at this picture of Basalt Caldera, [Sylvi: No, good point.] and he doesn’t look like a spring chicken. This looks like some salt and pepper going on.
Sylvi: I think we said that he was in his like, mid to late thirties?
Keith: I think that we did say that, yeah.
Dre: Okay.
Sylvi: Yeah, he’s not a young man [Keith: Yeah.] by any means.
Keith: I read him as being like, not young, but like, in his thirties and tired. He’s ti—he like, looks tired.
Art: Big mood.
Sylvi: Yeah. Good thing he’s not gonna fall victim to a conspiracy [Keith: Yeah.] or anything like that.
Art: My “what did you have to gain from their imprisonment?”, the favour of more connected nobles, and perhaps even Eliza. Maybe Eliza has some juice in the [Dre: Sure.], the general hierarchy of being this kind of person, I don’t know what you’d call it.
Dre: Bad person?
Art: Yeah. But like, bad, law enforcement person.
Dre: Oh, bad person!
Art: Bad person, comma, violence.
Sylvi: Ah. A cop!
Dre: Mhm. [Sylvi chuckles] We can just keep doing this bit for a while.
Keith: My “what do I have to gain” is, with Caldera gone, his mountain is up for grabs, or the mountain he found.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Art: Yeah that’s a good one.
Keith: Is it a—surely my loyalty would have bought me a seat at the table again.
Sylvi: Mine is so fuckin’ petty. Which I wrote, if Caldera can return to Born Warm status, then her place in the social hierarchy would be ruined. Just doesn’t want this guy showing up at the parties, so why not ruin his life forever? [Dre: Mmm, sure.] Made her feel stupid in a conversation one time, and then.
Art: I have also felt that way about people before though, I mean.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Art: [cross] What if I could just get this person to stop showing where I’m gonna be?
Dre: [cross] Do you think like, he wore—did he wear the same gloves as you one time?
Sylvi: Oh my god. I think it was… you know what, because of the geology thing, I think it’s more like, we had a precious stone in our like jewelry, that like I had been talking about how it’s like, impossible to find? [Dre: Mmmm.] And like, so rare, and then he shows up with one in a ring or something?
Art: Practically asking for it.
Sylvi: Yeah!
Keith: Wait, what—what did you say—[Sylvi: Just hearing the Kill Bill sirens.] what about a ring?
[Art chuckles]
Sylvi: He just had like, he just came wearing—like say that my character have like an emerald necklace, [Keith: Oh, okay. Sure.] and had been bragging about it. He showed up with an emerald ring, and she looked stupid, and a grudge was born.
Dre: Mhm.
Art: It do be like that.
Sylvi: Uh huh!
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: God damn, this is coming together!
Art: Yeah, this is gonna be fun.
Sylvi: I’m very excited. And remember, we can add more characters to this board. There will be NPCs, anyone who feels like they’re gonna be recurring. Like Mosie, for example. We can write down—obviously we haven’t gotten into scenes yet, but if you think of like, oh, my—like Dre for example, if you had a name for a bodyguard—and I’m not trying to pressure you to name your bodyguards—but if one of them ends up becoming a character, you could write their name down.
Dre: Yeah, sure.
Sylvi: Yeah yeah. Okay, how are we looking? We read out all our—wait, everybody read out our “what do we have to gain-?”
Keith: Yeah!
Sylvi: Okay. Okay! I’ll keep it moving then.
Keith: Mhm.
Sylvi: Oh, I’m looking at the wrong page, okay.
“Now, we will establish the details of the incident that befell the Knife. We’ll start with a basic outline of facts before moving on to the specific role that each of our conspirators played. We”—this is a typo—“we should continue to add characters, threads, and notes to the board as we go. The Knife was arrested for a crime they did not commit. What were they accused of? For example, the murder of a high profile industrialist. A seditious plot to overthrow the king. The theft of a prized cultural artifact.” I think we’ll do these one by—one at a time, cause they’re more collaborative than the uh-
Dre: Yeah, sure. I have a proposal, but I also wanted to—my proposal also makes this more about my character and I don’t wanna like, completely take it over.
Sylvi: Listen! Throw it out there and we’ll see what we can do, you know?
Dre: Yeah. I wanted to frame Basalt Caldera for the murder of my father.
Sylvi: Okay! I think framing for murder is like a really easy way to like, [chuckles] you know, quick and easy way to ruin someone’s life, right?
Art: Yeah.
Dre: Mhm.
Art: And you know who’s good at framing people for murder? [Sylvi: Also-] Chief of police.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah! Keith, you on board with that?
Keith: The murder of the father? Yeah!
Sylvi: Cool—[bursts out laughing]
Dre: Down for it.
Sylvi: Said it like it’s a biblical omen!
Dre: Mhm.
Art: So did someone else do it? Who did it?
Dre: Oh, I did it.
Art: Okay great. Cause any of us could’ve, you know.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Dre: Well I don’t know, maybe one of my bodyguards did it, I don’t know.
Art: Yeah, I mean it could be anyone. I’m not trying to—not trying to pin anything down.
Sylvi: Okay I’m gonna add the note, framed for the murder of—Eliza Cinder, right?
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: Of Eliza’s father.
Dre: I need to think of a family name, because Cinder is not my family name.
Sylvi: Okay.
Dre: So let me hit the old Google and look up volcano terms once more.
Sylvi: Yeah, no worries!
Dre: Let me just leave this open.
Sylvi: It’s handy, I’ve got my tab nestled comfortably next to my Roll20 tab. Okay, yeah, no, I—it’s simple, I like it. I added a note for it on the Knife there.
“Where were they imprisoned or exiled? For example, a half-crumbling tower on a wind-swept islet”—islet, not ice-let—“a rotting temple buried temple below our city, or a vast and toxic wasteland.” And I’ve got a pitch for this one!
Dre: Please.
Sylvi: I mean you know, what’s super handy is if you know somebody who has access to like, all the airships in the country, to like put somebody on one and just send them off. [Dre: Mmm.] Wherever.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: [chuckling] Iceland, for example.
Art: Yeah, send him to Iceland.
Dre: Yeah, get fucked! Go to Iceland.
Art: Live cold.
Sylvi: [laughs] Born Warm, die cold!
Keith: Damn.
Dre: Damn.
Art: That was a big hit song.
Keith: That’s the—the Vugs.
Sylvi: Yeah [chuckles]. I’m—I’m too—I’ve yet to think of a Lana Del Rey magmapunk. [Dre laughs] I think, just like-
Keith: Is the pun that you’re trying to think of still-?
Sylvi: No, [Keith chuckles] I was gonna like write down like, “exiled to the mainland” or something like that?
Keith: Yeah, so which page are we in now? Twenty-one?
Sylvi: Sorry, I believe so, let me just double check.
Keith: We’re at the “what are they accused of?”, and now we’re doing “where were they exiled or imprisoned?” [Art: Imprisoned or exiled.] [Sylvi: Yes!] Okay, there we go.
Sylvi: Yes, we’re on twenty-one, yeah. And then we’ll look into it more-
Keith: Remind me of the order of operations here. This is not—this is the—this is what they are accused of—this is the part of the downfall-?
Sylvi: This is the downfall. [Keith: This—right.] we are like in the downfall currently. This is like, we are describing what leads to the Knife having to like, leave this—this community, [Keith: Yeah.] and how to have, like, like what they are being punished for, what the people within the community think they did, stuff like that.
Keith: So the order of operations is, the Calderas are Dormant, [Sylvi: Mhm.] Basalt is a geologist who finds like, a potential new source of magma for the Calderas to take over and take back their nobility. [Sylvi: Mhm.] And during this, or slash because of this, they—he is accused of murder as a ploy, and is exiled.
Sylvi: Yes!
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: I think that’s about it, yeah. Yeah, framed for like, very qui—I think like, the sort of thing like, we very quickly were able—I mean we’ve got the chief of police on our team, right?
Keith: Sure.
Sylvi: I think being able to very quickly get the evidence—I don’t know. We can talk about—I think, we talk more about those—I don’t wanna actually like, [Keith: Yeah.] fill it out.
Keith: Okay. Just—I just wanted the base order—this is not like, [Sylvi: Yes.] in exile, like—he’s not back from his exile doing the plot. The plot happens before-
Sylvi: Yeah, the plot is—the plot is the exiling.
Keith: Right, yeah.
Sylvi: And then we—then throughout—what we’ll get into the main gameplay, is we pull cards with questions on them that describe the different states of our characters, the Knife and the like civilisation we’ve built, following the exile or arrest of the [Keith: Gotcha.], the Knife. Yeah. Okay. We’ve got where, we’ve got why, and now it’s time to move on to the “what we did”.
“Each of our conspirators played a pivotal, active role in the arrest. Every player should answer at least one of these. Who was first among us to suggest this conspiracy, and what urgent situation led you to propose the plot?” Dre, I feel like [chuckles]-
Dre: Yeah. No, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. [Sylvi laughs] Uh huh.
Sylvi: Okay. So yeah, we’re all cool with Dre’s character being the one to come up with this?
Art: Mhm.
Sylvi: [chuckling] Okay, cool. Is the urgent situation like—I feel like the answer is obvious, but I want you to be able to give it. What’s the urgent situation?
Dre: Hmmm. That’s a good question.
Sylvi: [chuckles] Yeah, like is there—like what—I guess, to get more to it, cause we can kind of figure like, oh yeah, it’s to make sure you don’t get arrested for murdering your dad, [Dre: Oh yeah.] like why did you do that, you know? Like…
Dre: Um. For the first time in his life, my dad started talking about writing a will.
Sylvi: Ohhh! And you just assumed everything-
Dre: And so, this had to happen sooner rather than later.
Sylvi: Yeah. Yeah! Okay.
Keith: Did you—did he die by your hand?
Dre: Yeah.
Keith: Okay.
Dre: I stabbed him.
Sylvi: Ooh! Hey. Very fitting for the name of this game.
Dre: Mhm.
Sylvi: Alright. I love that. Have you written—are you able to write that down?
Dre: Yeah, sure.
Sylvi: Cool. Eventually we get—there are—there is like line tools and stuff, but we-
Dre: There are, I’ve bene fucking around with them.
Sylvi: They’re very fun, but also I was like, okay, I just want to have the words written down before I start playing with graphic design [chuckles]. Okay. Next question is—by the way, everyone should answer at least one of these, so.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: I don’t know if I read that out loud. “Which of us betrayed the Knife’s trust, and which closely guarded vulnerability of theirs did you divulge?” Anybody got strong feelings here?
Keith: I feel like I would have the most claim to being in a position to be trusted by the Knife, [Sylvi: Yeah.] and also the person who would be divulging to a bunch of vultures. So I think that it was—I think that it was Sanidine. And what closely guarded vulnerability did I divulge? [Sylvi: Yeah.] It must have been the research.
Sylvi: Oh! Ohhh, oh I like that! Wait, like, you told us where the research-?
Keith: Yeah. Or that I was—even that it was happening, that like Caldera’s about to break ground on a magma pit.
Art: Mmm.
Sylvi: Yeah, I do feel like that’s enough to get at least me moving on things, you know? How do you guys feel?
Art: Yeah that’s a good one.
Sylvi: Okay, cool. Next question, “who planted the evidence that would incriminate them, and how did you gain access to their personal belongings?”
Keith: It’s like we read these questions in advance.
Sylvi: It’s almost like it. Did, wait-
Keith: No! No, we didn’t!
Sylvi: We didn’t though. We didn’t though.
Keith: Yeah, that’s why I’m saying it. It’s like we did!
Sylvi: This is why I like this game! [Keith: Yeah.] Because eventually, the questions just kind of start answering themselves in a weird way.
Dre: Art, I feel like this is an important inflection point. [Art: Yeah.] Does Claxton know that Basalt was framed, or were you, were you also bamboozled?
Art: No, Claxton knows.
Keith: [cross] Yeah.
Dre: [cross] Okay.
Art: But the real question is, is Claxton evidence planter, or dealt with someone who threatened to spoil the plot person?
Dre: Mmm.
Keith: Could be both.
Sylvi: If you’re not an evidence planter—yeah, also could be both, but if you’re not an evidence planter, I think I could also probably do it?
Art: Sure.
Sylvi: If you wanna go that way?
Keith: There’s—there is also the last one, which is “which of us lead the forces of law and order to them”—these all sound like [Sylvi laughs] chief of police to me.
Dre: Yeah.
Art: [cross] Um, so I guess, yeah—pick, pick which one you would like the most.
Sylvi: vWell I gotta answer one of them!
Keith: [cross] I know, I know! That’s what I’m saying, you get to pick-
Sylvi: Yeah, I think planting the evidence—I think I like planting the evidence. I think I like the idea of, I visited like—I used the like pretense of visiting Mosie to look at their art, [Dre: Mmm.] and while Basalt was there, and then hid the knife in Basalt’s bags before like, he would go somewhere that we knew he’d be at to be caught?
Art: Mmm.
Sylvi: That sound good for y’all?
Keith: Yeah.
Art: Yeah, definitely.
Sylvi: Cool, alright.
Art: I guess someone else could also dealt—have like, for example, Keith,
Keith: Yeah.
Art: “Dealing with someone who threatened to spoil the plot” also feels like a big one, but I feel like I need a—I feel like I need an act of violence to appear [chuckles].
Dre: [cross] Mmm.
Sylvi: [cross] Yeah, go for it.
Keith: [cross] Sure.
Art: Which is just like, yeah. I mean “how did you take them out of the picture”, by orchestrating an officer-involved killing. Right? Like,
Keith: Yeah.
Art: Whoops.
Keith: What do these cops have for weapons?
Art: Oh…
Dre: That’s a good question.
Art: I almost want like a Flintstones gun.
Keith: Flintstones gun?
Sylvi: [chuckles] Can you-
Dre: What if you have fucking—maybe this isn’t all cops, but the uppity up cops, especially you—you have a fucking obsidian like, police baton.
Sylvi: Like an obsidian truncheon?
Art: [cross] Mmm.
Dre: [cross] Yeah.
Sylvi: Oof. Ow. [Art: Yeah.] I like it, but ow! [chuckles]
Art: Yeah, it does the job.
Keith: Obsidian’s extremely sharp. It does the job very easily. [Art chuckles] What is a Flintstones gun?
Sylvi: Yeah, I’m still curious.
Art: Don’t you—hold on. Flintstones… I feel like-
Dre: Is that like where you have like a bird, and you pull the bird’s butt feather and it shoots like an egg out or something?
Art: Well-
Dre: Oh, the Flintstones have guns!
Art: The Flintstones have guns, yeah!
Keith: The Flintstones have guns? This thing that looks like a—it’s like a slingshot with a trigger?
Art: Yeah. [chuckles] What if it was a slingshot with a-
Sylvi: I was about to ask, cause it’s-
Art: Maybe this is too goofy.
Keith: [chuckles] Okay—okay! If anybody’s got exploding black powder, it’s these people though.
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Art: Alright. So maybe we just like, old-timey looking guns.
Sylvi: Flintlocks.
Art: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah, the blunderbusses.
Dre: It needs more gears.
Art: Oh! Maybe it’s just like a very elaborate loading mechanism.
Dre: I’m looking at a lava gun.
Sylvi: [cross] Ohhh…
Art: [cross] Mmm.
Keith: You pour-
Sylvi: I’m getting some TF2 results, I feels like.
Dre: I’m also getting Fortnite skins.
Sylvi: [laughs] Is that the—is the officer involved incident like—“incident”—killing, I need to not—I’m getting too in character! I’m using the language!
Dre: Sure, yeah. What are you, the New York Times?
Sylvi: [chuckling] Is the officer-involved killing the trap we’re laying for, in this last question here? Or like are we trying to-
Art: No I think there’s like people who—there’s someone—someone knows, right? Maybe it’s the original bodyguard, [Sylvi: Yeah.] maybe it’s just like a witness, but like, someone who knew the truth-
Dre: Oh maybe it’s one of my bodyguards.
Sylvi: Ohhh! Okay, and so you like, silence them.
Art: Yeah.
Dre: Mmm.
Sylvi: And also pin that on Basalt? Or-
Art: No! It’s just a-
Dre: Uhhh! Not necessarily.
Keith: It’s just swept under the rug, it’s like yeah, yeah, they were resisting-
Sylvi: Oh! Wait, that’s—sorry, that’s for the second question. Yeah yeah yeah, “the dealt with someone who threatened to spoil our plot”. Hell yeah.
Keith: What I wanna know is how do we tie together like, how do we get—how do we go from this guy is going to reclaim a position of power that we don’t want him to have, how do we go from that to tying him to the murder?
Art: Oh, because he—cause Eliza decided that she didn’t want this—didn’t want it to happen.
Sylvi: We also could it have be where Eliza’s dad was starting to be like, sympathetic to things, right?
Dre: Ohhh, yeah!
Art: Maybe, that’s how he got this little skull etched into his name.
Dre: Well, that’s because he’s dead.
Art: Yeah.
Dre: Enh. I do like that though, that like, Basalt was like starting to, his philosophy was rubbing off on my father.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: That makes sense, cause you have a history-
Sylvi: Then that also—yeah, and then also has us being able to be like, well I saw him talking to so-and-so about business, and it seemed very heated!
Keith: Maybe he can’t claim the magma for the Calderas without a second that has like, stake in a mountain. So like Mosie couldn’t count because they’re not in line to inherit anything.
Sylvi: Yeah. I like that! Okay, that makes sense to me. We should write that down, hold on.
Keith: Cause I’m assuming there wasn’t a lot of connective tissue between the like, mountain plot, and the murder plot. And so just giving them a little bit of extra like, this is why the murder would be something that Caldera was even involved in.
Sylvi: Yeah, like, there is an actual connection between—there is a relationship between him and the victim now, and like—okay, yeah. Dre, thank you for writing down the bit about [Dre: Mhm.] Basalt starting to influence your dad, that’s really helpful. I think that should be enough to keep track about stuff. Wait, I am gonna write down the—needed like a second Born Warm to sign off on their, [Dre: Mm.] like, excavation? That’s the right word? And you’re the Quartz family now? Is the family name?
Dre: The family name is Quartz. I don’t use that name.
Sylvi: Hell yeah. Of course not, you’re trying to destroy your family’s [chuckles] [Dre: Sure, yeah.] legacy or whatever.
Dre: Everything I have, I made my own.
Sylvi: God damn.
Art: Wow.
Sylvi: Me too! Co-sign… there we go. Okay. Got that written down. Okay! So, it’s time to actually start pulling some cards.
Dre: Wooo!
Sylvi: Because Miro, the thing that we’re using for this, does not have built-in card settings, I’ve just set up a Roll20 for us. Maybe I’ll add the cards to the Miro board, but you know, we’ll see. Anyway, the way that the flow of The Slow Knife works, for the rest of this game, is going to be, it’s a four-act structure, each of the acts have different names. Act I is Ashes, which we will be about—we will about to—[inhales] we will be about to start!
Art: Hey, it fits with our volcano thing.
Sylvi: Yeah! Listen, you know, two out of the four names I feel like, are things that we’ve already made fit, and then the other—Vines is Act II, I don’t think that’s gonna fit, but we [Dre: I love vines.] could make some scenarios. Yeah, six-second videos are huge on the island.
Dre: That’s how long a camera can run. That’s it.
Keith: Yeah-! [laughs]
Sylvi: Uses so much magma, oh my god, it’s so hard to hold too. You have to wear like a full like, like, the suits that actual geologists wear in modern times, you know?
Keith: You can make a movie, but it’s gotta be like, Michael Bay action scenes, non-stop, like, that style of—[Dre laughs] or Bohemian Rhapsody. [Sylvi: Yeah.] They could’ve made Bohemian Rhapsody.
Sylvi: [laughs] Okay sure! Perfect! But okay. Let me just—[wheezes] [Keith: Cause of all the cuts!] sorry, that really tripped me up. Yeah yeah yeah, and I’m thinking of Rami Malek and his bad veneers in that movie.
Keith: [laughs] Oscar winning!
Sylvi: Crazy to me. But, whatever.
Keith: Best actor.
Sylvi: Sure—I like him.
Keith: I like him too! But that’s crazy!
Sylvi: That’s wild to me.
Keith: Best editing too. And a movie that [Sylvi laughs] no one liked! Ever!
Sylvi: Yeah. It’s—yeah. Rocket Man got robbed, in terms of movie biopics that’s not-
Keith: You mean Harland Williams’ Rocket Man?
Sylvi: [cross] Uhhh no, it was the-
Dre: [cross] No, it was the Elton John one.
Art: Yeah yeah, Elton John.
Sylvi: [cross] The Taron Egerton one.
Dre: [cross] That was—that was pretty good.
Keith: Oh, not the comedy—the chimp?
Sylvi: No! The movie that I watched twenty minutes of on a plane [Keith: Oh, okay.], I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Art: It also had a very good trailer, if we’re just gonna give points for-
Sylvi: Sure! You know.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Why not.
Keith: Are you still—no, you’re still talking not about the 1997 Harland Williams comedy, where he goes to space.
Sylvi: No no no, sorry. We’re not talking about the one where he goes to space, no, sorry.
Keith: Shoutout-! Just quick shoutout to me for remembering the name Harland Williams!
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah, no! Very impressive. [Keith chuckles]
Dre: Bravo.
Sylvi: Each act begins—each act as a set like first card that is played, so I’ve removed these from my deck so I can just like, pull it—put the image file in so we can all see it. Within these decks, there will eventually be a card that says, if I’m remembering correctly, there will be a card that says it’s time to begin Act II. So that could be after we read this first one—the first card we pull—or it could end up being, there’s like twelve cards in each deck I believe, it could end up being the last one we pull.
So, that’s basic flow of the game, it’s we answer questions, we add important details to the board as we go, we will you know, when it’s appropriate, zoom in and do some you know, roleplaying on this roleplaying podcast.
Dre: Woah, hold on!
Sylvi: I know, I know, right?
Art: I thought we were just inventing stuff.
Keith: I’m excited to play a role. [Sylvi: You know-] I don’t need to invent 24/7.
Sylvi: Damn, that’s so brave of you.
Art: Wow.
Sylvi: But yeah, I think—I think there’s no like, there’s nothing else to do other than jump in. Is everybody over on the Roll20 board, just so you can see the cards?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Cool, just—just try to have that open to refer back to. And also, if you want me to add any cards to the board, just let me know and I’ll drag it over, if you wanna like, have a physical—not physical—have a note attached to it specifically.
“In the ashes of the incident, our conspirators consolidate their power. Everyone answers, what new ambition do you feel emboldened to pursue?”
Keith: To be reheated!
Sylvi: Yeah? You’re going for the—you’re going for that magma vein?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Hell yeah.
Dre: Mmmm.
Sylvi: Hell yeah! I think—I’m trying to think of like, what sort of like, overly ambitious, ill thought-out project I can get her started on, and my brain immediately went to volcano-to-volcano bridge system?
Art: Oooh—wait, isn’t that? Isn’t that the opposite of what you want?
Sylvi: Well, so, that’s why I was like-
Dre: I mean if you own them all.
Sylvi: Yeah, that’s the thing, it’s like well, I think the spin that she’s putting on it is that the airships are for the elite, you know? The airships are for people like us, people who deserve it. And what the bridges offer is a lower altitude solution to get workers from mountain-to-mountain [Keith: Right.] without us having to ever interact with them or see them on our airship commute.
Art: Ooh, I think you’re—you’re ruining your own—what the hell is the matter with me?—scarcity, you know? You got a-
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: Well, there’s, of course there’d be laws about who can travel and when.
Sylvi: Oh, yeah! And of course like we’d control all the toll booths and the gates, and make sure everything is going you know, according to plan.
Keith: Remind me, what is the scarcity? Is it just the inability of the Laze to go from place to place?
Art: Well that like, there’s only so many seats on an airship, and only so many airships that can go per day, [Keith: Ohh, sure.] so by like-
Keith: So you’re giving people an option to just not use the airships.
Art: Right. You’re-
Sylvi: The thing is-
Keith: You’re competing with yourself.
Art: You’re competing with yourself, yeah.
Dre: Mmm.
Sylvi: Yeah. Well so, my thinking, one, I like that she’s competing with herself cause I think that fits the character.
Dre: Sure.
Keith: Who else is even left to compete against?
Sylvi: But also—exactly! And I already control—I’d still be controlling anyone trying to leave our lovely island here. You can’t get off without an airship after all.
Keith: That’s what they say.
Sylvi: [chuckling] That’s what they say.
Keith: You can’t get off without an airship.
[Art chuckles]
Sylvi: [laughing] God damn it. But like, this is more like, I was thinking of this as being kind of shoddily constructed, not necessarily—not really like, made for the people who are using it and more made for the people who are employing them, and trying to get them to different sites on their mountains and stuff like that. Like, this would probably go through the actual Laze, not the like people, but the phenomena we have described.
Keith: Sure.
Sylvi: And so like, [Keith: Sure.] I’m actual-
Keith: The literal Laze.
Sylvi: She’s making—yeah, she’s making the workers breathe in fucking like, terrible fucking fumes every day.
Keith: So they can get to the jobs faster.
Sylvi: Yeah, and maybe it’s got mine carts or something, I don’t know, she hasn’t thought that far ahead, but she’s just like, listen! You wanna improve productivity, pay for me to make some bridges for ya.
Keith: Oh and I just remembered, if this does end up being a bad idea, then it’s fine because you’re supposed to be ruined.
Sylvi: Exactly!
Keith: Oh yeah, that helps, that helps. These—we’ve left the part where our ideas need to be good, and we’ve entered the part where they don’t need to be good [Art: Right.], because if they’re bad, then it just feeds into the ultimate goal.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Art: Just sometimes-
Sylvi: We’ve entered the Arrested Development phase.
Keith: Yeah. It’s a good phase.
[Dre chuckles]
Sylvi: Sorry, Art what were you going to say?
Art: Sometimes, your economics degree starts screaming at you that you’re making-
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: No worries!
Art: That you’re making an economics mistake.
Sylvi: Yeah. That’s how I know I’m playing the character properly though, so [Art chuckles] I appreciate it!
Keith: Between—geez, there’s so many things written on these—between Gabrielle Feldspar and Eliza Cinder, who is the—who is more Lucille Bluth? Cause I think it’s Dre’s character, but I could be wrong.
Sylvi: I feel like—Dre you can say this, I feel like your character’s maybe a little smarter than that?
Dre: Yeah, but [Sylvi: But-] is not like, how much could a banana cost, twenty thousand dollars like, disconnected?
Sylvi: That’s me for sure. [Dre: Okay.] That’s me for sure. [Keith chuckles] That is absolute—like one hundred percent the vibe I’m going for is like, Marie Antoinette type shit, you know? Yeah, okay. I’m happy with my answer for that one. Dre or Art, do you guys have any ideas?
Dre: Yeah, I do. My new ambition is I want to completely automize (automate) lava—larva? Lava, lava harvesting [Sylvi: Oh no!] and processing.
Sylvi: Okay.
Dre: Get these people out of here.
Sylvi: So we’re gonna butt heads over this, because I’m trying to make money off these people.
Dre: Sure.
Sylvi: I like it. I’m sure—I’m sure with the way we’ve described the technology in this setting, this will be super easy and not at all draining of resources, [Dre: Sure.] or time.
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Art: I think Claxton wants a promotion. To like, something, a more like, you know like, Lord Protector or something you know,
Keith: You wanna go—you wanna be a federal employee.
Art: Or like, a more functionary—not a functionary—a more aristocratic role, ceremonial almost.
Sylvi: You-
Keith: Sure.
Sylvi: You wanna be the guy who you were like, taking orders from.
Art: Yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: Or like above that, even, is—yeah, okay.
Art: I wanna move up one.
Keith: We can create a whole new position for you!
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: Like straight up, yeah. I think that is a really good, yeah. A really good answer for that, I like it a lot. Okay, wait I’m trying to, is there a-? I’m just looking to see if there’s a turn order thing, cause we do take turns pulling cards. [Keith: Yeah.] But if not, we can just go down the like,
Keith: We should do the person who’s—the temperature outside is the warmest.
Sylvi: Oh, it’s not me.
Art: It’s-
Keith: It’s also not me.
Sylvi: [cross] It’s Art.
Keith: [cross] I think it’s Art.
Art: [cross] It’s me, it’s fifty seven degrees here.
Dre: Yeah, it’s Art.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah, it’s Art!
Dre: This motherfucker.
Art: It gets colder in winter though.
Keith: Or overnight.
Sylvi: Yeah? Overnight.
Keith: Here it gets warm overnight, it doesn’t get even colder.
[Sylvi laughs]
Art: Well it’s been in the low forties overnight, which is you know, not a good temperature.
Sylvi: I’m doing some—I’m doing some conversion really quick, cause I’m the celsius-haver. Okay!
Keith: It’s currently—it’s currently snowing here.
Sylvi: It was snowing earlier today, not to, you know, we’ve already decided who’s going first.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: And then I’ll just go off Discord, so it’ll go Art, then Dre, then Keith, then back to me.
Keith: Okay, yeah.
Sylvi: Sound good?
Art: Yeah.
Dre: Let’s do it.
Sylvi: Okay. Can you see the cards on the Roll20, [Art: Yeah, can I just like-?] like the decks? Yeah, just drag it—you should be able to just drag it out-
Art: Why is it so small? [wheezing]
Sylvi: I don’t know! This is the opposite problem. Here we go. Oh, wow!
Dre: Oh, wow!
Sylvi: This is brutal!
Art: A grieving friend helps you to—begs you to help them rescue the Knife. Who? I don’t know who.
Sylvi: This could be an existing character. You could—this could be a chance to give you like a connection to Mosie for example, if you’re struggling to think of a different-
Art: Yeah Mosie’s a good person for this because I think introducing a new friend—a grieving friend of mine, or grieving friend of Caldera?
Keith: [cross] I think it’s ambiguous, but I read it as grieving friend of yours.
Sylvi: [cross] That’s up to interpretation.
Sylvi: Yeah, I did too, but I also like, [Keith: It could go either way.] if you want to read it the other way, it’s your call, like genuinely.
Art: Sure, I can just create a connection between Claxton and Mosie. They can be friends, there’s nothing that says they can’t be friends.
Keith: No.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: Do we check the rules for that? Does it say maybe that [chuckling] Claxton and Mosie can’t be friends?
Sylvi: No no no, it says nothing about that.
Art: There’s a lot of Air Bud rules in this game.
[Keith chuckles]
Sylvi: It does say that at the end of the game everybody has to clap for me, [Keith: Okay.] but that’s fine, you guys don’t need to check that one. [laughs]
Art: How do you abuse their trust to ensure they fail? I mean, I think it’s just that the easiest way to abuse someone’s trust and ensure they fail, is like, is by promising them resources you can’t slash won’t give them.
Keith: Right, just lie.
Art: Like yeah, I’ll get you the case file, and then just redact all the stuff from the case file that would help-
Dre: Or give them the wrong case file.
Art: Yeah, or just-
Sylvi: Give them the worst cop you have.
Art: Yeah. I’ll put my best man on it, and then it’s my worst man.
Keith: Can we—can we get a bad cop? Like a bad cop who’s like out of the loop, but is terrible?
Sylvi: An incompetent cop?
Art: Yeah, some doofus.
Sylvi: I love this idea.
Dre: Officer Magoo.
Art: Yeah.
[Sylvi laughs]
Art: I was thinking like-
Sylvi: Cause that means there’s a mountain called Mount Magoo. [Keith chuckles] If their last name is Magoo, we need to remember that.
Art: Yeah, and that’s why they’re doofuses, is because the like, [Keith: Thug Magoo. Officer Thug Magoo.] it’s like, it’s their like, Magma Goo, and [Dre, Sylvi, Keith laugh] [Sylvi: Oh my god!] they got shortened into Magoo over the years, because they’re not that-
Keith: [high-pitched wheezing] Magma Goo!
Sylvi: Art, I’m making this character canon. I’m putting down a sticky note for Officer Magoo.
Art: Officer’s Magoo’s just like,
Art (as Magoo): [goofy voice] Okay, I’ll help!
[Keith chuckles]
Art: I’m not really married to that accent, considering it’s really a nothing.
Keith: No, you’re not married to Goofy from Disney?
Art: It’s—yeah, [goofy voice] A-hork! Gorsh, I’ll help you!
Dre: Oh, they did a modern reboot of Mr. Magoo.
Keith: Really?
Dre: Yeah.
Keith: Starring who, Harland Williams?
[Sylvi wheezes]
Dre: [exhales] No.
Keith: Is it someone stupid like Matthew McConaughey?
Dre: Oh it’s not like a—I don’t know who voices ‘em.
Keith: Oh okay.
Dre: It’s just like, there’s like a more recent cartoon.
Keith: Oh, it’s a cartoon, okay.
Dre: Yeah yeah yeah.
Keith: I just assumed it was a live action because of the era. Okay.
Art: There’s basically no way Matthew McConaughey’s doing a voiced Mr. Magoo [chuckles].
Sylvi: What is going on here?
Dre: Oh, it’s from 2018. Okay.
Sylvi: That feels like the right time period for that. They were trying to get the Magoo Cinematic Universe.
Keith: The Magooniverse?
Sylvi: The Magoonimatic-
[laughter breaks out]
Dre: Magooniverse!
Sylvi: Oh no!
Dre: This guy doesn’t even look like Mr. Magoo! He looks too happy.
Art: Mr. Magoo’s not unhappy.
Dre: Yeah, but he’s like—I don’t know. I don’t believe this guy.
Keith: Leslie Nielsen looks happy.
Dre: He doesn’t look avuncular enough.
Sylvi: I’ve officially written down the Officer Magoo note.
Art: Yeah. Officer Magoo. Voiced by Goofy.
Sylvi: But also write that-
Dre: [goofy voice] Gorsh!
Sylvi: From Magma Goo—hold on, I just needed to write down that Magoo is derived from Magma Goo, cause if I forgot that, I’d literally never forgive myself.
Dre: Mmm.
Art: No, that’s important canon information.
Sylvi: I think so.
Dre: [goofy voice] Well gorsh, Mr. Basalt, [Sylvi wheezes] your alibi sure doesn’t check out!
Sylvi: Oh no, we’re making Kingdom Hearts!
Keith: [goofy voice] That lava’s hot!
[Sylvi wheezes]
Dre: [goofy voice] Soooora!
Sylvi: Goofy! We—we have to help them! That lady’s lighting a cigarette in the magma! [Art chuckles] It’s hard to do a Haley Joel Osment voice when you’re not a child.
Dre: Mhm.
Sylvi: Are you satisfied with that answer for your question, Art? Got any other details you want to add, or?
Art: Tremendously satisfied.
Dre: Wow.
Sylvi: Alright, Dre, you’re up.
Dre: We’re drawing from the Ashes deck, correct?
Sylvi: Oh! We’re drawing from the Ashes deck, and also I should note, some of these cards will ask us to answer as the Knife, and like, person with the card will get precedent for like answer stuff, but like also, this is a collaborative game, we can throw shit out, you know?
Dre: Nice.
Keith: Little card.
Dre: Hello little card.
Sylvi: I’ll big it up again. I’ll big it up, hold on.
Keith: Big it up.
Dre: Big me up!
Sylvi: Big ups! Ohhh!
Dre: You are jealous of another conspirator, who? What rumours do you spread about them? I mean obviously, it’s Gabrielle.
Sylvi: Wow. How could you? Girlbosses gotta stick together.
Dre: I know. That’s why I—[Keith: I have a bridge to show you.] yeah, [chuckles]
Sylvi: Yeah, I’m making it! I’m making that bridge!
Keith: Oh yeah! [laughs]
Sylvi: [laughs] For some reason, wood isn’t working on the volcanoes, but we’ll figure it out.
Dre: I’m jealous of you because you remind me of when I could be happy.
Sylvi: Fuck, that’s-
Art: Wow.
Sylvi: That’s brutal.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: What are the rumours you’re spreading about me though?
Dre: Oh. Hmmm. Alright, how—what sort—yeah what sort of terrible person am I here? Are we like-
Keith: Grass type.
Sylvi: I have—I have a suggestion.
Dre: Uh huh.
Sylvi: That I think would be fun. What if you start spreading the rumour that I was involved romantically with Basalt?
Dre: Oh, yeah!
Sylvi: Which is just you saying something that’s true about you, but pushing it onto me?
Dre: Mhm. Oh I love projection!
Sylvi: Yeah! If you got something else in mind, feel-
Dre: No, that’s great.
Sylvi: Cool, okay.
Dre: You fuckin’ young hussy.
Keith: Wow.
Sylvi: Wow, I would never—I would never write the webcomic Homestuck, how could you. That’s the guy’s name.
Dre: [laughs] You just put your bucket right in front of him.
Sylvi: We’re ending this right now, Keith it’s your turn to draw a card.
Dre: It’s the only Homestuck joke I know.
Sylvi: [chuckles] Well done.
Keith: I still don’t know what that means, I was told not to look into it, and I didn’t.
Dre: Yeah don’t, you’re good.
Sylvi: Don’t—you’re, you’re fine. If you wanna listen to the Ranged Touch podcast-
Keith: Is it like Jonathan Blow’s water bottle?
Sylvi: Uhh, no—hmm??? No! Not necessarily.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Different fluids.
Keith: [whispering] Different fluids.
Dre: Bruh. Bruh.
Art: Different-
Sylvi: We need to move on.
Dre: Yeah, you’re the one who’s keeping us here.
Sylvi: They’re never gon—they’re never gonna let me host something again, Keith. Oh, I gotta embiggen your card, my apologies.
Keith: Please embiggen me. One of your vices [Sylvi: Oooh!] gets you in trouble, what did you do? How did you bury the resulting scandal?
Oh, one of my vices! Oh well it’s—obviously it’s theft. I have written on my thing that—my little cards here—that I, how do I hold power; special privilege, access to resources, mostly as can afford a blind eye from authorities. I think that I’m like a chronic thief, like I’m stealing from [Sylvi: Oh yeah!] houses, stealing from businesses, and I mostly don’t get caught, but when I do get caught, I can use my connections to avoid punishment? But I think that I’ve like, maybe stolen something bigger than usual, [Sylvi: Yeah.] and so there’s gotta be like, a show put on about like, no, we’re definitely gonna tell you know, tell him to cut it out this time.
Sylvi: [chuckles] Is this something that you wrap Claxton up in, or do you go to someone else about it?
Art: Yeah, do you want a press conference?
Keith: I think that this is—say again?
Art: Do you want like a press conference about it?
[Sylvi laughs]
Keith: [chuckles] I think I want the opposite of a press conference. I think that I want like, to keep it—kept as small as possible, like, a notice, like a post—not post-dated, yeah, like a post-dated letter being like, hey, this is the day that the court—the aggrieved—this is the day of the trial if you want to show up to the trial, but it’s like, they don’t send it out until the 13th, and it’s you know, the trial was supposedly on the 10th or something. So it’s like oh, we missed it I guess?
Sylvi: Ohh. I like it!
Keith: As the-
Sylvi: It’s very wormy.
Keith: It is very wormy. As the smallest fry here, I don’t have like, a lot of like, world-changing ability?
Sylvi: Mhm.
Keith: But I can be making everyone in my community miserable, which is what I’m doing. Yes, I think that Claxton is wrapped up in this, if Art is fine with that.
Art: Of course.
Keith: I don’t have like a solid idea of what I stole that could’ve caused a big—like been a bigger deal than usual? But I’m thinking something maybe that’s like a public utility.
Sylvi: Ohh!
Art: You stole the waterworks.
[Sylvi and Keith laugh]
Keith: Like, maybe I’ve been stealing air filters?
Sylvi: Oh, that’s fucked!
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: I like it. I like it a lot.
Keith: And it’s like oh fuck, we’ve ran out of air filters, we were supposed to have six months’ more of air filters, like what’s going on? And it was me. I did that. I’ve got a double—[Sylvi wheezing] I’ve got a personal filtration system in my house. But I can’t afford to buy the filters for it, so I’ve been stealing it from the town.
Sylvi: Is there like an equivalent of the Joe Biden “I did that” stickers [Art chuckles] but with—[laughs] Sorry!
Keith: I don’t even know what these stickers are, but I can imagine-
Sylvi: You said that, and—I’ve straight up have just seen them plastered in random places when I’m in the States, or used as a shitpost thing on the internet.
Art: Oh, for a minute I thought like, they’re in Canada, people are like,
Keith: They got to Canada.
Sylvi: No!
Art: Joe Biden’s responsible for gas prices here.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: No no no no no! We’ve got, we’ve got Justin Trudeau for all that. There was a march by my apartment today.
Keith: I can imagine—I can imagine that after the blackface stuff and the Nazi stuff, that people are not excited about Justin Trudeau finally? They’re like well, how about Biden? [Sylvi: Yeah.] What’s the next worst thing?
Sylvi: I don’t wanna talk about Justin Trudeau anymore.
Art: I don’t wanna talk about Joe Biden.
Keith: Trudeau, more like—Yeah.
Sylvi: You know what, solidarity. International solidarity.
Keith: More like Poo-Deau, and Go Biden
Sylvi: Fuck yeah, dude!
Dre: Yeah.
Art: Wow.
Keith: Cause they’re shit and they can get out of here.
Sylvi: Should I pull my card?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Okay cool. Oooh! “Answer as the Knife! What is the most harrowing part of your isolation? What trace of nature brings you solace?”
Dre: Aw, man!
Sylvi: I think the most harrowing part is the fact that like, I’ve been dropped in this place that I’m like, I’ve never been. I don’t have any—I don’t know how to live out here, and even though it’s like, there is more like, greenery and like, nature around me, the fact is like, I grew up—speaking as Caldera—I grew up on the volcanoes. I grew up around the island and everything like that, which I’m gonna have to try and have a name for by the way.
But like, suddenly being in another continent and having to find a place to stay when you’ve been basically stripped of everything—you have been stripped of everything by the people who have exiled you, is terrifying. And that has been the main thing dominating their post-exile life in the immediate aftermath. That being said, “what trace of nature brings you solace?” I think it’s like, this is like a different spin for me given the like environments that they grew up with? And I think like, I feel like a thing that I think is both a little hokey but also would comfort someone and remind them of home a little bit, is if you came across like a geyser, or a spring or something, that he could like make some sort of camp around?
Keith: Oh, sure!
Sylvi: Yeah! Like, oh! Like, I didn’t—there’s like, finding like the steam and being reminded of the heat of the mountains and then like, actually seeing the geyser erupt and just being—like I have this image of him like, not knowing that it’s gonna happen, feeling like a rumble, seeing it happen, and then like laughing for the first time in weeks when it does? Where it’s just like, oh, okay! Shit, I guess there’s home everywhere, even when I don’t wanna think about it.
Yeah, I feel comfy with that answer. So I think that brings us back around to Art. I’ll embiggen, apologies. Okay.
Art: “You finally secure something you’ve coveted. Why doesn’t it satisfy you? What new desire do you distract yourself with?”
Sylvi: Ooooh.
Art: I think that I’m awarded a medal for the successful capture of this murderer.
Sylvi: Yeah? Does that come with any—is it just a medal, is that part of why you’re not satisfied with that?
Art: Yeah, it just goes on my giant set of medals and, it doesn’t—it doesn’t work this time. Doesn’t make him happy. And I think, what new desire do you distract yourself with—I think Claxton starts looking at manors that he can move into.
Sylvi: [cross] Ohhh!
Dre: [cross] Mmmm.
Art: I don’t want a—[Sylvi: You’re like-] I don’t want a medal, I want a house.
Sylvi: You want one of those like, the obsidian manors that we talked about in the first like, session we did. Yeah, no, I love that! I love the going from like, oh the glory doesn’t satisfy me anymore, I’ve got—I need something material for it.
[metal clink sound]
Sylvi: Okay. Also, reminder, if any of these questions feel like stuff you wanna refer back to, please try and write them down on a note. Some of it’s good flavour, but some of it might come—for example, Officer Magoo, very important note we had to make.
Dre: Sure.
Sylvi: Okay.
Dre: It’s me.
Sylvi: Do we wanna—yeah, we can keep moving. By the way also, please let me know if you feel like anything seems ripe for a scene. I feel like this tends to become more scene-heavy in the intermediate acts when things start happening [Keith: Yeah.] between conspirators more, as opposed to just [Dre: Mmm, sure.] rumour-mongering, you know?
Dre: Well, I think this card I just drew could potentially launch us into a scene.
Sylvi: Ooh? Let me make this tiny card larger.
Dre: “Answer as the Knife. [Sylvi: Oh!] Someone else is trapped with you. Who?” Hmmm.
Keith: Who?
Dre: I don’t think it’s Mosie.
Sylvi: I think we gotta make a new character. Well no, cause we’ve established they’re still back home [Dre: Yeah yeah yeah.] trying to get absolution for the Knife, right?
Keith: Yeah, they’re busy working with Magma Goo.
Sylvi: Magma Goo, yeah—Mack Magoo is his name.
Dre: [voice of a chump] Hey, I’m Mack Magoo!
Sylvi: Oh, new voice!
Dre: Yeah. Okay, yeah, so who else is with Basalt?
Sylvi: Is this a thing where we—is this like, do we think this is the usual way that like, prisoners are, or like, people who’ve committed a crime that is judged as like, harsh enough, [Dre: Mhm.] on the level with murder, are they exiled the same way? Is there just like, are we going full what the English did to Australia, to this unnamed continent on the mainland, except we’re just dumping them there and leaving them?
Dre: Yeah.
Keith: I had been thinking some—I had been thinking like, like a Napoleon deal.
Sylvi: Oh?
Dre: Hmmm.
Sylvi: Wait, do you mean for the character, or do you mean like in terms of how this was laid out?
Keith: Yeah, just being exiled to like an island—cause well we were talking about Iceland—wait, and, I’m like okay, island, it’s a bigger island than I think—can’t remember where Napoleon went to.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: But I was thinking not like, an Australia, but like, a sort of Napoleon, sort of a more remote exile.
Sylvi: Sure!
Keith: But I’m not dedicated to that, that’s just what I had in my head.
Sylvi: I mean we—yeah, we’ll—we can—it’s at least something to turn over while we figure out who this person is.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: I guess Dre, since it’s your card, like do you want it to be someone that they’re meeting after the exile, or someone that they met during-?
Dre: Yeah, I think so.
Sylvi: Okay.
Dre: The idea that just came to me was like, if we are kind of running with this idea that like, maybe they do exile some people to the mainland, and that either makes you better or worse, I’m not sure, but they also have these like kind of, additional, more-
Sylvi: Isolated?
Dre: Isolated, thank you, god. [Sylvi: Yeah, no worries!] Isolated like, small islands. And maybe they drop Basalt off at one of those, and they just assumed the last person they dropped off has already died, but they did not?
Keith: Oooh.
Sylvi: Oh!
Keith: Got a Hatchet situation.
[Dre laughs]
Sylvi: Yeah! Oh man! Oh man, I love this idea already, of just like, okay, wait. We can—we could do a quick scene if we—like, once we—actually okay, we should get the answers to who, like, what do they begin to teach you, and also like, do you have an idea for like what they could’ve done? Are they also a murderer? [chuckles]
Keith: Oh, this must be the murderers’ punishment.
Sylvi: Doesn’t necessarily have to be.
Dre: I do like that though!
Sylvi: Can I pitch something?
Dre: Yeah. I have an idea too, so I wanna hear what your idea is.
Sylvi: So my idea was immediately like, a guy or someone, who like in an argument with their sibling accidentally knocked them into the lava? [Dre: Jesus!] Like it wasn’t an intentional murder, but because it went—like yeah, like they were like, hands-on approach to excavation, they were arguing over some work practice that they were doing? And a like-
Keith: Born Warm?
Sylvi: It’s one of those—huh?
Keith: Born Warm?
Sylvi: Born Warm—yeah, I think so. Either that, [Dre: I mean, yeah.] or this person could be like the foreman, this person—they don’t necessarily need to be related.
Dre: If you’re a Laze and you kill a Born Warm, you don’t get exiled. You get fucking tossed into the lava pit or something.
Sylvi: That’s, yeah, I feel like that is—actually I like that, because then I can imagine all of our characters being disappointed when the verdict isn’t death, it’s exile, because [Dre chuckles] of the family status protecting him.
Dre: Put him in the pit! Put him in the pit!
Sylvi: Yeah. But—yeah! If—Dre, what was your idea?
Dre: My idea-
Sylvi: Cause maybe we can find some synergy.
Dre: Sure. My idea was that it is a person who did kill someone. [Sylvi: Yeah, okay.] And I guess did so intentionally, [Sylvi: Yeah.] but like feels righteous about it, and so it becomes like the fucking like, the thing he teaches Basalt is how to fight.
Sylvi: Oh, I love that. I—I think I have an idea for a guy.
Dre: Okay.
Sylvi: [chuckles] Wanna like do more of a scene here. Do you want to play Basalt at all, or? You comfortable with that?
Dre: Oh, yeah! Have we—do we have a voice for Basalt or anything? We haven’t done a scene yet.
Keith: No.
Sylvi: No, we haven’t! [Keith: This is the first scene.] This is like our actual first scene. We’ve only—we’ve established them as sort of, they are curious and like intellectual I think are the two big things we’ve done.
Dre: Sure.
Keith: They also have those big eyes.
Sylvi: They got those big ol’ peepers.
Dre: Peepers.
Sylvi: And I feel like—oh wait, we also described them as being sort of worn down from like, things [Dre: Sure.], which makes—I think makes a lot of sense.
Keith: Yeah.
Dre: Yeah, yeah. Maybe worst breakup ever?
Sylvi: You know. It’s a—this situationship really got nasty. Okay, what would Basalt be doing when—I’m gonna call this character Slate, I think?
Dre: Oh nice. Hell yeah.
Sylvi: When Slate comes across them?
Dre: Ohhh. Um, I bet you get exiled with like, a certain amount of supplies. And so, I think what Basalt is doing is that he is—he basically has all his like, supplies like laid out, so he can categorize them. [Sylvi: Okay.] And he’s starting to like, pitch a tent.
Sylvi: [chuckles] Okay.
Dre: Like you know, to sleep in.
Sylvi: No, I know what you mean! [Dre chuckles] I think what Basalt hears while laying things out is just like, I’m gonna try not to do Master Roshi but, [Keith laughs, makes a crowing sound] he’s just like, [Sylvi makes the crowing sound] uh, no. He’s just like,
Sylvi (as Slate): Yeah I mean, they’re nice to look at, but it’s not gonna last you more than a couple weeks out here, kid.
Sylvi: And just sort of like casually walks up to the supplies and like leans over and starts looking at them.
Keith: Wow, you’re pitching a tent?
Sylvi: Wow, you’re pitching a tent over there?
Keith: Massive hog.
Sylvi: There’s-
[Dre chuckles]
Sylvi: There’s still—they’re using the same—[laughs]
Keith: That’s a call back to I think before we started recording. [laughs]
Sylvi: Yeah! No worries, it’s great! I love it. I love it. Keep it in, whoever’s editing this, please!
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: Says like,
Sylvi (as Slate): Oh wow, they’re still using the same material—the same shitty fabric on the tent they sent me here with. This one might be as old as it too.
Dre (as Basalt): [exhales] I… I was under the assumption—presumption, I guess—this would be a solitary confinement.
Sylvi (as Slate): Ehh yeah, most people are. You know, I’ve been wondering when eventually they’d send another person out here. Last guy, [smacks lips] I don’t—last guy had a real bad temper, I didn’t talk to him too much. He was also not the most happy to see me? But you know.
Dre (as Basalt): Is he still around?
Sylvi (as Slate): Oh. No. No no no. He tried swimming.
Dre (as Basalt): Oh.
Sylvi (as Slate): And let me tell ya, first tip while you’re here-
Dre: Puts a rock down that he was subconsciously grabbing off the dirt.
Sylvi (as Slate): Naw, don’t. You never wanna—the ocean, you’re not gonna make it out there. At least not with what we’ve got here. I mean, I’d be happy to see someone prove me wrong, but.
Sylvi: And I think while he’s talking, he picks up one of the rations and starts eating it, and talking with his mouth full is like,
Sylvi (as Slate): Well you know every time, every time they send someone new, it’s like a couple days, and then all of a sudden they’re like oh, I’ve built a raft, I know how to, I’ve learned suddenly how to be a shipwright, and then I’m stuck here with no company for another decade or so.
Sylvi: He’s like, in his late sixties, I think. [Dre: Okay, yeah.] At this point. Actually I’m gonna give him a card, which is just this big beardy man, [Dre: Sure.] but way more disheveled in my mind.
Dre (as Basalt): How long was your sentence supposed to be?
Sylvi (as Slate): [chuckles] Oh. Um, did they give you a time?
Dre (as Basalt): Yeah.
Sylvi (as Slate): Cause for me, it was just—bye!
Dre (as Basalt): Oh it’s… five years?
Sylvi (as Slate): Ohhh! Oh they told you that one, huh. Yeah, they’re not coming back, kid.
Dre (as Basalt): [sighs] That’s disappointing.
Sylvi (as Slate): Enh.
Dre (as Basalt): I’m Basalt, by the way. What’s your name, friend?
Sylvi (as Slate): Slate. Pleased to meet ya! You might’ve heard that name in the news but, hm. Maybe not-
Sylvi: Like looks you up and down.
Sylvi (as Slate): Actually might be a little young. Anyway, used to be a bit of a big deal. And now I’m kind of a big deal here too, but, you know, no one else is around to notice it.
Dre (as Basalt): Hey. Hey. Biggest fish in the smallest pond is still the biggest fish.
Sylvi (as Slate): I like you, kid.
Dre (as Basalt): That’s-
Sylvi (as Slate): You’re not immediately throwing rocks at me like the others did.
Dre (as Basalt): That’s—yeah.
Sylvi (as Slate): Alright. Here’s the thing. I’m getting old. And hunting is not exactly easy for bones like this.
Sylvi: And he like gets up from like—I pictured him like squatting down over, like looking at the supplies and stuff, still? Like, real like, pronounced like, oooh! noise when he’s like, and like holding his knees when he gets up.
Sylvi (as Slate): But, I know what to do, and you know, just by the you know, fancy shmancy clothes you got there, I mean, you seem like you might be able to hold a bow or an axe at the very least.
Dre (as Basalt): Yeah, a bow would be a new one, but.
Sylvi (as Slate): Want some help finding some more food?
Dre (as Basalt): Yeah, well. You ate my dinner, so. I guess I should go find it.
Sylvi: I think [chuckles] just like a big like, smile, and like. This is the—I think he gives you the big ol’ Master Roshi smile, [Dre: Uh huh.] just to bring it back.
[Keith does a Master Roshi chuckle]
Sylvi (as Slate): [Master Roshi chuckle] Eh-heh-heh, that’s what I like to hear, kid! Come on, they got these—well I guess you’d call them wolves, but, they’re not—they’re not that scary. Come on. But careful, I’ve set up a couple—I dug some pits and I think I remember where they are, and I’ll try and point them out on the way?
Dre (as Basalt): Sure, I’ll let you walk first.
Sylvi (as Slate): Ah, age before beauty, right?
Dre (as Basalt): Mhm.
Sylvi: Do we wanna, do we wanna keep going at this or cut it there?
Dre: I think that’s good, yeah.
Sylvi: With them walking into the jungle together. Cool. That was very fun. I like that we’ve got a kooky old mentor immediately. I’m gonna write this guy’s name down.
Dre: Oh, that got big.
Sylvi: Oh, no worries, thanks for getting ahead of me on that.
Dre: Mhm.
Sylvi: Okay, who’s next? That is—Keith, it’s your turn.
Keith: Alright. [Sylvi hums: Tiny card needs to get bigger~] Little—I don’t think I’m allowed to embiggen-
Art: No, I think only Sylvi has the embiggen power.
Sylvi: I will—yeah, I’ll give y’all GM stuff before—privileges—before the next time we play, for sure.
Keith: “Someone with power over you talks about the Knife fondly. Who? Do you endure, or act to undermine them?” [clears throat] Um, this is gotta be Mosie, right? I mean it doesn’t have to be, but that’s who—we haven’t used Mosie yet, and they-
Art: Well, we paired Mosie with Magoo.
Keith: Oh, sure, we have mentioned Mosie, yeah.
Sylvi: We’ve mentioned Mosie, but-
Keith: But Mosie is the sort of person who would be in the sort of like, lower—they’d be the upper tier of the—sorry, they’d be the lower tier of the upper tier, [Sylvi: Yeah.] in the same circles that-
Sylvi: Sanidine?
Keith: Yeah, is the lower tiers of, where it’s like, they’re the sort of underling, lackey, little weasel guy.
Sylvi: Mhm.
Keith: And so, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mosie was like, trying to drum up support.
Sylvi: Telling stories about what a good person their friend was [Keith: Right.] and how they could never do this?
Keith: Yeah, and you know, they were generous, and thoughtful, and they were the, you know, they were the—they represented the best of the Laze. [Sylvi: God.] And one of the good ones.
Sylvi: Jesus!
Dre: Mmm.
Keith: Look. Rich artist-
Sylvi: It’s—we have painted them as being a little vapid and a little out of touch, [Keith: Yeah.] I think that is the type of thing they would actually say to these people, like, for sure.
Keith: I think that Vug is like, maybe like, long time hater of Mosie? And so, having these like sort of two like, hates come together, is you know, like, their wealth is wasted on them, like they’re not even an inheritor, they have no ambition, they waste their time with the Laze who suck. They’re friends with Basalt Caldera, who sucks, helping him get his you know, get reheated. I do think that I-
Sylvi: You shit talk the art.
Keith: I do think—yeah I think that that’s the thing, I endure it, but I’m just like rude and unpleasant to be around, totally, super indirect, not direct at all. [Sylvi: Yeah.] But just being kind of like mean and snipey. You know, making cracks about the art, making cracks about the you know, the no-inheritance, which probably Mosie doesn’t even care about. [chuckles] Like, I’m rich for life, what are you talking about?
Sylvi: [chuckles] I paint all day and huff magma fumes, I’m fine.
Keith: Yeah, I paint all day and then huff magma fumes all day. [Sylvi laughs] So yeah, I think that that’s—that’s it for Vug on that.
Sylvi: Sick. Okay. You wanna leave it at that?
Keith: Yep.
Sylvi: Cool, okay. I’m gonna pull my card. And make it large. “You develop a kinship with another conspirator. Who? What venture do you start together?” Wait a minute. Keith, I think this works perfectly for what you just said.
Keith: Okay?
Sylvi: Which is, I think we’re at the same party. And I—and hearing Mosie say the same things, and I am just immediately there like, backing you up on everything,
Keith (as Vug): Yeah. What’s a—what’s a better word for like, art—your art sucks? Like-
Sylvi (as Gabrielle): So uninspired!
Keith (as Vug): Uninspired, that’s good—it’s a little uninspired, don’t you think?
Sylvi (as Gabrielle): That’s a good one. Good one. Call it blasé next time? And they—I would, but, you know, they already know I don’t like Mosie, so.
Keith (as Vug): Right.
Sylvi: Do—I have a suggestion for the venture.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: Because we have discussed about how you need another Born Warm to co-sign your excavation?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: What if I am the one who’s like, yeah, I’ll help you get that, the magma flow excavated. I’ll start funding your stuff if you-
Keith: You get the same sort of—you get the same ploy as your father, but you’re just doing the evil version of it, to the shittier person.
Sylvi: Well, that was Eliza’s father.
Keith: Oh sorry, I was—it was Eliza’s father, right, yeah.
Sylvi: Please keep the evil women straight.
Keith: Sorry.
Dre: Please.
Sylvi: Not a thing I usually say, but you know.
Dre: Ohhh!
Keith: Keep the evil women straight? [laughs]
Sylvi: No, definitely not. [chuckles]
[Dre makes pew pew sounds]
Sylvi: This is a great idea—her seeing this as an opportunity to show off her like, the like mine track building that she’s been doing, and like, [Keith: Yeah, yeah.] the like, intra—the stuff to make it so that people get to work on time, and leave—maybe a little later, but who cares about that part?
Keith: Is this a normal sort of relationship that the Born Warm have as like, taking on a Dormant who is like, an ambitious Dormant as a sort of like, pet project? Because we have seen this a few times.
Sylvi: I think it’s—I think this might be a special case, because of like, the stuff we’ve described feels like they’ve put systems in place to make it harder for people to [Keith: Yeah.] rise out of being Dormant? [Keith: Yeah.] And so that to me feels like it’s not a thing that happens very often, and that’s what Caldera got a lot of attention, was because they were actually making progress—he was actually making progress on that.
Keith: Right, yeah. Yeah.
Sylvi: And then this becomes like another-
Keith: Because it is a sort of world—like one of the weird things about the sort of you know, feudal, early-capitalism thing we’ve developed is like, there is a chance for a random person to find a volcano and become immediately, you know, a minor ruler, like land-owning ruler. And which means, you gotta be very careful about [Sylvi: Yeah.] who can even go places where they might find a new thing. You don’t want to dilute—so that makes sense.
Sylvi: Yeah, and I think that also it’s like, a way of consolidating the conspiracy a bit more, [Keith: Yeah.] it’s like, you’re not—you’re less likely to let anything slip if you’re satisfied with your [Keith: Right.] business, and I’m gonna get paid out of this too.
Keith: Right. And if I’m gonna get my status back, that would be like, oh, I would do anything to protect that.
Sylvi: Yeah, exactly! I’m gonna just write a note on this really quick. Okay, working with Vug to fund his excavation. Yeah! Hell yeah, okay. We are back around to Art.
Art: Something is harder for you now the Knife is gone.
Sylvi: Wait, where is it—sorry I didn’t—I didn’t see it. I would’ve-
Art: It should also be now that the Knife is gone. What is it, how do you adapt? Wow this is hard.
Sylvi: Yeah! This is—specifically for you too.
Keith: I didn’t think there were supposed to be any consequences for me!
[Sylvi chuckles]
Art: Maybe they start—maybe Mosie and Magoo start to figure it out. [Sylvi laughs]
Dre: Mmmm.
Sylvi: The dream team, Mosie and Magoo!
Art: Yeah.
[Sylvi wheezes]
Art: Sorry, what was Magoo’s first name? Do we have-
Dre: Mack.
Keith: Mack.
Art: Mack Magoo.
Sylvi: I had it Mack Magoo, yeah.
Art: Mosie and Mack Magoo. They start to do it, you know?
Dre: Oh?
Sylvi: They like actually start piecing things together?
Art: Yeah, they start working leads, and maybe Mosie is good at filling in the problems that Magoo has, and Magoo is a police, so has like, a badge or whatever, that’s gotta help.
Sylvi: Has just enough resources to actually start like getting in places?
Keith: And if I can add maybe one thing, we can see how we feel about—maybe this was not a very well executed conspiracy!
Art: That’s—that’s really possible, yeah.
Dre: Yeah. I mean, it is not uncommon that when the cops do a conspiracy, they just do it shittily, because they just assume that nobody’s going to look.
Art: Yeah, because they’re arrogant and they’re—
Keith: And they have legitimate authority and power.
Dre: Yeah.
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: But with the brain trust around this, I mean, what are you talking about? Me and Vug, we’re geniuses! [chuckles]
Dre: Uh huh.
Sylvi: Eliza—Eliza would never do something petty in the heat of the moment, [Art: Yeah.] No, it’s fine—yeah, no. I like—I like that we’re-
Dre: Mosie, Magoo, and the ACLU. They’re out here just changin’ the world.
Art: Oh wow.
Sylvi: Holy shit. My least favourite Bob Dylan song. [Keith chuckles]
Art: [Bob Dylan voice] Hey! Mosie and Magoo!
[Keith laughs]
Sylvi: Oh, we’ve got a third voice for Officer Magoo now.
Art: [Bob Dylan voice] Saving the world, with the ACLU! [Sylvi and Dre laugh]
Sylvi: Oh! [laughs]
Art: I have no idea that I had a perfect Bob Dylan.
Dre: Yeah!
Keith: That was a perfect Bob Dylan.
Sylvi: Yeah, wow!
Dre: Beautiful.
[Art chuckles]
Sylvi: I thought he was here.
Dre: Just took me right back straight to Dinkytown.
Sylvi: [spit takes] What?
Keith: Yes.
Art: I assume that’s a legitimate Bob Dylan reference.
Dre: Yes, it is.
Art: Yeah, great. [chuckles] I know very little about Bob Dylan, [Sylvi: Yeah, me either.] except that apparently his voice is just right in my head. [Dre and Sylvi chuckle]
Dre: [Bob Dylan voice] Tangled up in—bleuuuh!
Art: Yeah. Yeah get me whatever weird instrument is in all of those Bob Dylan songs.
Dre: [cross] A guitar?
Keith: [cross] Piano, it’s called a piano.
Sylvi: [cross] That’s his voice—oh, okay.
[Art chuckles]
Sylvi: I thought we all had—everybody’s like wait, here’s my punchline!
Keith: What was—Dre, what was yours? I didn’t hear—I heard the voice and then the piano.
Dre: Oh, guitar.
Keith: Guitar, okay [chuckles] sure.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Art: Yeah. The gwitar, is I think what they call it when it’s Bob Dylan.
Dre: Just gwittin’ all over it.
Sylvi: Woah!
Art: How do you adapt? I think, I think it’s time to make an anti-Magoo squad.
Dre: Oh shit.
[Sylvi cackles]
Art: An elite unit, [Sylvi howling and stifling her howls] of like, five people, who are just trying to like—you can’t attack Magoo.
Dre: Can I—can I modify your idea?
Art: Yeah, yeah great.
Dre: What if you’re just creating the Internal Review Board.
Art: Ohhh! Yeah, it’s just like, add another layer of-
Keith: All of a sudden, it’s very important to have oversight.
Art: Yeah.
Dre: Sure, yeah.
Art: They have to report everything to a board, and the board has to approve all of their operations, just like, gum up some bureaucracy in this, just, the Mag—the Ragu Board. No, no, that’s not good.
Sylvi: The Magooicide Squad.
[Keith and Sylvi chuckle]
Art: The Magooicide Squad! Wow. This is gonna end with Magoo being like, the hero of this-
Sylvi: [wheezes] Yeah—it is!
Art: We’re gonna make a weird cop the hero of this—[wheezes]
Dre: Finally, Friends at the Table takes the stand, you know? [Art: Yeah, finally.] Not all cops, there might be one.
Sylvi: It’s only okay if it’s Detective Gumshoe from the Phoenix Wright series apparently.
Dre: I mean, yes.
Sylvi: I love—I love the idea of building like, oversight specifically just because one guy started doing better than you wanted him to.
Art: Yeah, I think it’s very strong.
Sylvi: Yeah, no, I’m on board. Do you have anything else to add? Do you wanna play anything out or should we keep it moving?
Art: I think we can keep this moving.
Keith: We’re running out of cards here, huh!
Sylvi: Yeah, we’re almost done with Act I. Dre, it’s your—yeah-
Dre: Can’t read that.
Sylvi: Let me make that—let me make that legible real quick.
Dre: Oooh.
Sylvi: Oh,
Dre and Sylvi: Wow!
Dre: What a horrible card for me. “You consider your legacy. Who do you intend to be your successor?” Who do I intend to be my successor? I could say my younger sister.
Sylvi: Oh!
Dre: So I created a little family tree, there is an older sibling who is dead.
Sylvi: Oh, cute!
Dre: And then I have a younger sister named Luetta. Luetta Quartz.
Sylvi: Oh and your mom is still alive, too.
Dre: Yeah! Well,
Keith: Well, no one murdered her.
Dre: Hey. What flaws do I have to correct first?
Keith: Kill your mom.
Sylvi: Oh, right, you do have to—you have to destroy her legacy.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: Keith I think put it more succinctly.
Dre: Yeah, and Luetta still idolizes my parents. So I’ve gotta help her see the reality of the situation.
Sylvi: Ohhh, shit, okay! I like it. That’s the flaw you intend to correct?
Dre: Mhm.
Sylvi: Okay cool.
Dre: Yeah, she thinks she can trust people.
Sylvi: Time to make her a paranoid mess! God.
Dre: Your words not mine.
Sylvi: Yeah, yeah.
Dre: Powerful, insecure-
Sylvi: Definitely my words. Keith, I think that brings it around to you.
Keith: You got it. I think this is the last card. Did I miscount?
Sylvi: It might be—we might’ve one more I think, I think I miscounted earlier. [Keith: Okay.] I think I gave the wrong number total. Oh. Ohhh, hell yeah!
Keith: “You celebrate your victory over the Knife. Who do you carouse with? What secret do you keep from them?”
I wanna carouse with the Vugs! I want this to be like a family party. This is a—we are bitter, jealous, ambitious, mean-spirited you know, generations of disappointment and hardship, you know. Not just being Dormant, but maybe Dormant from a even crueler time? You know, five hundred years earlier, you know maybe there was not so—it was not so easy to keep one foot in the door of you know, high society, as Basalt and the Calderas had?
And I think that there is a like, a universal, or near-universal mistrust of, jealousy of Caldera in my family. But a thing that I keep from them, is that he’s innocent! [chuckles] That I did this! [Sylvi laughs] I helped to do this. This was us, this was us being you know, we are the ones who are at fault for this, not Caldera. So we’re sort of like celebrating something that I know to not just be not true, but to be my evil, and not the Calderas. So that’s my answer for that. But it won’t stop me from having a great night. This is the first good night—I think I’m gonna say my mother says like, to the sort of family—this is like a big, standard family, it’s like a huge family thing. She’s like,
Keith (as Mother Vug): This is the best night for the Vugs in twelve years!
Keith: Some like, really sad number of years.
Sylvi: Aww!
Keith: The exile of a supposed murderer.
Sylvi: I—I love a Vug party.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Sounds like a great time. Fantastic. I like that we’re getting some family shit in these last couple cards. I believe we have this next one, and then one after. There’s fourteen Act cards, I was wrong. And you don’t have to play all of them. Okay, my turn—oh do you have more to add, actually? I should ask.
Keith: Nope nope nope, I’m good.
Sylvi: Okay, cool. By the way, a rule I forgot, that I will make sure to mention next time, but also that we should keep in mind in general, is that you can pass a prompt card to another player. [Keith: Oooh.] If you don’t think you have any answer for it, you can say, I’d like to hear what your answer for this, or like how your character would handle this, and pass your card to them? Though I think the way that I’ve played this before is it still uses your turn? But we can play loosey-goosey with that, you know. Anyway. I have got another answer as the Knife. Oh, this is an interesting one, because it might not work with our setting!
Keith: I’m sure we can figure something out.
Sylvi: We can. “You are marked out for special punishment. How did you attract the ire of your captors? What dream do you retreat to during their abuses?” I’m gonna like reinterpret a couple things here?
Keith: Okay.
Sylvi: And make—and try and do this where the captor is the island that he’s stuck on itself? [Keith: Sure.] Because like, if we’re doing the sort of stranded [Keith: Yeah.] thing, it wouldn’t make sense for there all of a sudden to be a bunch of like prison guards popping up out of the brush?
I think that there’s one night where while after like—he’s still kind of getting used to learning how to hunt the way that Slate has showed him. But like, things have—it’s been like a week since then, and things have started to like, at least fall into a routine. There is like yeah, we go hunt at certain spots, I get like—Slate guides me out to places, makes sure know about any traps, and then we deal with, we deal with whatever wildlife that we can find while he scrounges up any like, fruit or vegetables, stuff like that.
But while this is happening, I think that like, I mean I mentioned wolves earlier, might as well lean into it. I think we don’t notice that there’s like a pack of like—or, Caldera doesn’t notice that there’s a pack of wolves. I don’t think Slate’s there at the time, I think he’s by himself when this happens. And gets like chased basically up into a tree, until like hours pass. Like it might be—until the next day when they’ve left, because they don’t think he’s ever coming down? Waiting for these wolves to get bored and leave him alone, or assume that he’s just not gonna come down anytime in the near future. And I think while he’s up there, he has this like, oh thank goodness, okay.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: I’m gonna just say this really quick, [Keith: Okay.] he’s able to see the horizon and starts thinking about when—the days when Mosie would take them up to the top of the mountain that they live on.
Keith: Mhm.
Sylvi: And they’d like look out at the sunrise and just shoot the shit for hours, you know? It’s one of those things where it’s like man, I miss my boys.
Keith: Damn.
Sylvi: And that’s, that’s how they deal with that really shitty night. I believe we have the last card of the Act now, rolling over to Art.
Art: Yeah I really feel this uh-
Sylvi: Wrap up for the night.
Art: “Someone threatens to ruin what you have gained. What are they planning, how do you stop them?”
Sylvi: Ohh. Ohh!
Keith: Who?
Sylvi: Magoo moment?
Art: No, that’s too quick!
Sylvi: Yeah I think so.
Art: For a Magoo moment.
Keith: Yeah, we’ve got three Acts to follow this.
Sylvi: We’ve gotta space out the story of our dear hero.
Keith: Is there a final card after the fourteen?
Sylvi: I think—no. This is the last card. So yeah, I misread the rules, there is like-
Keith: Okay, cause the deck is still there, so I thought maybe it hadn’t-
Sylvi: Yeah, it’s the button to reshuffle it. No, that is the last card, this will be the end of the Act. The first three Acts end when the deck is empty, and then I’ll explain the fourth Act when we get to it, [Keith: Gotcha.] because it was something I wasn’t clear on when I first played it.
Art: What if it’s the head of the Magooicide squad?
[Sylvi laughs]
Art: Like immediately becomes this like, hey would be a shame if someone told someone what was going on here.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Is it like a, someone who’s like, come up under you and is also super ambitious, trying to like-?
Art: Yeah. Does anyone have a name for this person? Cause I don’t. I’m out of volcano words.
Sylvi: I don’t—we can—if you just write down like, their title and stuff, we can try and think of one for next time?
Art: Sure, they’re like Chief Inspector-
Sylvi: Something.
Art: What colour? What’s-
Sylvi: Ohhh. I mean, at this point, I mean I’ve been trying to just use the like, that little like red-ish colour for non-player characters? But. Yeah yeah yeah.
Keith: Chief Inspector Crust.
Art: Chief Inspector—I’m gonna spell it with a K.
Dre: Oooh!
Sylvi: Officer Krust-key.
Dre: Officer Krusties.
Sylvi: Oh my god.
Art: On to the scam. Why is this so big? Oh, because I made my other one a little bigger.
Dre: That’s the—is that the-? That’s the pancake mix, that’s what I’m thinking of.
Keith: Bisquik?
Dre: Krusteaz.
Keith: Oh.
Sylvi: That’s a terrible name.
Art: I keep thinking about the clown from the Simpsons.
Dre: No.
Keith: [chuckles] I actually have had Krusteaz. I forgot—I’ve had Krusties, and it was in my cupboard for like six months, and I laughed about it all the time. Because why would you name—[laughs] why would you-! [wheezing] This is reminding me of—[Dre laughs] those little caramel cream candies, the brand of which is Goetze? [Sylvi laughs]
Dre: Oh no.
Keith: Yeah, the Goetze caramel creams?
Sylvi: No fucking way!
Keith: I swear to God, I swear to god.
Dre: How is it spelled?
Keith: G-O-E-T-Z-E. Goetze caramel creams. [Sylvi: Ohhh.] You’ve seen these—everyone’s seen these candies, [Dre: Yeah, uh huh.] they’re delicious.
Art: Anyway, I don't want to do like a full scene, because-
Sylvi: Oh, I do love these, yeah.
Art: We’re about to wrap up, but it’s one where I was like, I got this file, and looking at the evidence that’s coming in, and the evidence that I can see, it looks like this was a frame-up. It’s like oh! That’s so interesting, thank you for bringing it to my attention. And then wouldn’t you know it, Chief Inspector Krust committed a murder!
Sylvi: Oh fuck yeah!
[Keith laughs]
Sylvi: Fuck yeah, dude!
Keith: Who, who’d they murder?
Art: You know, just like a tax-paying citizen.
Dre: Mmm.
Keith: Oh my god. That’s the worst kind of citizen.
Art: And they’re gonna be exiled to that same island.
[Sylvi cackles]
Keith: Oh no! [laughs]
Sylvi: Oh shit! Oh wait, I love that. Add that to the note that that’s where they’re headed, cause that’s important to remember.
Keith: That’s good.
Dre: What could go wrong? Sending all of our enemies to an island? Where they can plot!
Keith: Yeah, Slate’s gonna have a field day!
Sylvi: Oh my god.
Art: What could happen?
Sylvi: Plot versus plot.
Keith: Oh my god, they’re plotting over there, I can tell!
Art: Let me find—let me find Krust. Who looks like a Krust—this guy’s Krust.
[Sylvi cackles]
Keith: Sure.
Sylvi: Let me see which one. Yeah, that’s a Krust right there.
Art: Chief Inspector Krust, of the Magooicide Squad.
[Sylvi wheezes, Keith laughs]
Keith: We can’t keep calling it the Magooicide Squad.
Sylvi: Watch out!
Dre: Counterpoint, we can, and we will.
Keith: We can. We can.
Sylvi: We can do whatever we want!
Dre: Yeah!
Keith: [unintelligible] like Socrates-
Art: Go to friendsatthetable.shop for your Magooicide Squad t-shirt.
Dre: God.
Sylvi: Oooh. Oooh!
Art: It’s not true. It’s not there, it won’t be there, it’s never going to be there.
Keith: It’s not gonna be there.
Dre: I don’t know, 4/20 merch.
Keith: 4/20 merch.
Sylvi: No we can’t do—I think we’ve got other 4/20 merch we’d wanna do first. Wait, that wasn’t recorded when Dre and I joked about getting a Friends at the Table weed strain—well now it’s on the air.
Keith: I actually think that we have talked about something else that-
Art: Well that’s something we can’t sell on the internet, so-
Dre: That’s fine. It’s THCM baby, that’s legal. That’s fine.
Sylvi: That’s fine.
Keith: Need to sell Friends at the Table Delta-9.
[Sylvi howls with laughter]
Sylvi: Yeah!
Dre: Yeah?
Sylvi: Hold on, let’s go! We need to pivot the business entirely. We need to start push supplements and Delta-9. No we don’t. I’m gonna—I’m getting-
Art: We’ll start talking about sports.
Sylvi: Oh, nevermind.
Art: Yeah, that’s who sells supplements.
Dre: Hi, I’m Pat McAfee.
Sylvi: Oh, god.
Keith: No, no. We have to do—it has to be something the sports people wouldn’t touch, like kratom.
Sylvi: I think kratom was what I was talking of when you said Delta-9, is what I’ve just realized.
Keith: Delta-9 is fake weed. It’s—I mean it’s real weed, but it’s like chemically different in a way that makes it not illegal, so they can sell it in weird places? I don’t know much about it.
Dre: Yeah, it’s CBD. Yeah. It’s like THCA, yeah.
Keith: No it’s like—it’s like T—yeah yeah yeah, it’s like a weird THC.
Dre: It’s loophole weed.
Keith: It’s loophole weed. And then kratom is like a weird caffeine cousin that makes you feel kind of like what the box that CBD says it will do to you? But mostly does nothing? That’s basically what kratom does.
Sylvi: Yeah okay. And with that, with that little kratom check-in, Art do you have anything else to add for that? I feel like [Art: No, I think that’s good, yeah.] you’ve got your scene for your scene and—cool. We have now come to the end of Act I, Ashes.
Dre: Wooo!
Sylvi: And with it, the end of this episode. We’ll be back soon with the rest of these Acts. We’re in it. We’re just rolling, you know?
Keith: We’re just in it, yeah.
Art: Yeah, I think these are a monthly release, but we’re—we’re rolling.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Oh, yeah! I mean like, I’m just gonna—you know. Functionally, I’m gonna put like, some plugs here, such as like, go to notquitereal.bandcamp.com, [Art: Yeah.] pick up the music. Jack sent me like a little demo of what they’re thinking of doing for this, [Art and Keith: Ooooh.] and it’s pretty cool. Very loose, so I don’t know how much of it is gonna be—still be there, but I’m excited to hear how it turns out.
Keith: Make it looser. I want this to be so—like it’s falling apart, that’s what I want.
Sylvi: Okay. [wheezes] I’ll message them about that. [Keith chuckles] Hey, tune everything lower. Tune everything lower till this falls apart.
Dre: Shit yeah! This needs to be new metal.
Keith: Make everything in the range, you get like a full piano, and the notes are so low that they don’t even sound like notes anymore.
Sylvi: [chuckles] Also—this is Patreon, so I’m not gonna, you know where to get all that stuff, [Keith: Yeah.] but you know, check out the YouTube, we’ve been posting things on there.
Dre: friendsatthetable.shop.
Sylvi: Check out friendsatthetable.shop, get some kratom. [laughs] We don’t—we don’t sell kratom at friendsatthetable.shop, just to be clear.
Keith: It gives me a headache.
Sylvi: I’ve never done it, surprisingly.
Keith: I like it but it gives me a headache.
Sylvi: Other plugs. Check out Media Club Plus.
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: Three out of the four people you’ve been listening to for this are on that, and I’m sure that Art will be on it some day.
Dre: Hey Art, do you wanna come on Media Club Plus?
Keith: Yeah, you wanna come on Media Club Plus?
Sylvi: Do you wanna talk about anime, Art?
Art: I don’t know anything about anime.
Dre: Great.
Keith: Great. Neither does Jack!
Sylvi: What if—yeah, this is the thing. [laughs]
Art: I mean sure, yeah. It’s what I-
Keith: Come on—you can come on a bonus, so you don’t have to watch-
Sylvi: Yeah. That should be very fun.
Art: And I mean, this—this can be a fun tease. For people who got to the end of this, but I think I’m hosting Season 2 of Media Club Plus.
Keith: Oh, what are you doing?
Sylvi: Oooh! Wait-
Art: I don’t think we can talk about that yet, but.
Sylvi: Let’s talk about this when we’re done recording.
Dre: Yeah, I wanna know.
Sylvi: But go and check that out, give it a review. Give Friends at the Table a good review. 5 stars only, or I will hate you forever.
Art: Wow.
Dre: It’s true. We’ll get sad.
Sylvi: Do y’all wanna plug anything?
Keith: Yeah, this is on a Patreon, so I wanna tell people that they should go be watching Run Button at youtube.com/RunButton.
Sylvi: Hell yeah you should.
Keith: You should support the show at patreon.com/RunButton, aka contentburger.biz, that’s a great place to go. You’re already on Patreon for Friends at the Table, it’s so easy to also be a Patreon for me, and for Kyle, and for Run Button.
Dre: Mhm.
Sylvi: Uh huh. It’s right there at your fingertips.
Keith: Yeah.
Art: Fuck yeah.
Sylvi: Art, Dre, either of you got stuff to, to plug for this, or? You good.
Art: Nah. We’re good.
Dre: Nah.
Keith: You can get a Run Button backpack at runbutton.shop, [Dre: Ohhh!] that backpack is sick.
Sylvi: And you know what you can put in the backpack?
Keith: Your Friends at the Table shirts.
Sylvi: I was going to say kratom.
Keith: Oh, your—[laughs] your bag! Your Friends at the Table kratom. Not in Rhode Island, you can’t! It’s one of the few states where they made them illegal, yeah.
Dre: Ohhh.
Sylvi: Wow.
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: Well, I think that’s going to bring us to the end of this. Thank you everyone for listening.
Art: Yeah.
Sylvi: We will—looking forward to getting back to see how the rest of this conspiracy just keeps falling apart. Don’t go near any lava flows around your evil daughter, by the way.
Dre: Don’t do it.
Art: Yeah, true story.
Sylvi: Don’t do it.
Dre: Or you gotta push her in first.
Sylvi: [laughs] Bye!
Art: Bye.
[“Eyes of a Killer” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
[music ends]