Dimension 20
Adventuring Party
Are the Dice Scripted?
Season 1 Episode 1
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Brennan: Hello one and all and welcome to Dimension 20's Adventuring Party. I'm your humble dungeon master, Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me as always our intrepid heroes, say hi intrepid heroes.
All: Hi intrepid heroes.
Brennan: Minus sweet, wonderful Brian Murphy, who is busy at work editing NADDPod right now, lots of love to Murph, we wish good Sir Theobald Gumbar could be here. Guys, we just had the premiere of "A Crown of Candy", the first episode of "A Crown of Candy". I rushed back home from Denny's parking lot, where a bunch of people told me they were gonna come fight me. Once again, a lot of talk from everybody in the chat.
Siobhan: It's hard to fight somebody when you had to be six feet away from.
Brennan: Very hard, that's true.
Zac: Who wanted to fight you?
Emily: Yeah, you wanted to fight you?
Brennan: All the folks thought they would get in the comments and that they would say, we're gonna fight Brennan in a Denny's parking lot. By the way, for Dimension this is our fun talkback show, where we're not only gonna talk about "A Crown of Candy" as it's premiering, but also past seasons of Dimension 20. Answer you all fun questions about the show. So general point of order, this is a zone where we will try to give spoiler warnings as best we can. But it also is a show where we're answering questions about previous episodes and seasons of the show. Expect us to be talking at least about the previous episode of "A Crown of Candy", and then as questions come, we just had the season finale of "Sophomore Year of Fantasy High" on Friday. So a word of caution, the point of this show is to discuss things that are spoil-erific. So proceed with caution, we will do our best to label them as we go through, but you have been duly warned. Immediate spoiler for the end of the previous episode, I guess you guys should jump into right away, we ended the previous episode, our premier episode with a character death. A little bit dramatic, not a full death. Unconscious.
Emily: I think it's about as dramatic as you could have for a first episode.
Ally: Yes.
Emily: Fantasy High spoiler, I shouldn't say anything. Did I say spoiler, never mind, you all know what I'm talking about if you know what I'm talking about.
Brennan: I could be wrong, but I think this is the first time a character drops in a role-playing episode? Maybe it's happened before in other seasons.
Zac: Fantasy High Live maybe.
Ally: Certainly the first time someone's dropped episode one.
Brennan: Yeah, episode one.
Emily: That's what I was trying to imply.
Brennan: Here's what I'll say is well is technically Ruby only dropped to zero, but I believe you were only two points of damage away from full death.
Siobhan: Yeah, I think so, rogue level one hit points are 10, so it would have been four points away from total death.
Brennan: Right you had a +2 Con modifier, d8 max is 10 hit points. So you took 16.
Siobhan: I took 16 points of damage.
Brennan: It was possible on the dice for me to one shot kill Siobhan's character.
Ally: Yeah, and you would have loved it you sick freak. You absolute sick fuck.
Lou: This is why people want to fight you in a Denny's parking lot, change your ways.
Brennan: I welcome it, I welcome it.
Siobhan: I will also say that I am originally took Alert as my feat.
Emily: I almost took that, too.
Siobhan: Plus 5 to initiative and incapable of being surprised. So after the chemistry, day zero play, I was like, I don't know if this fits for this character, I'm going to change this feat.
Ally: Big mistake.
Siobhan: And then I died.
Emily: I remember I found some old notes, this did not happen so it's a non-spoiler, but I remember that one feat I had flagged for Jet was Dungeon Delver, which just means you have an advantage on finding secret doors.
(all laugh)
Zac: That was a feat.
Emily: I think I had brought it up to Brennan, and I think it maybe talking to him I realized I would make his life a living nightmare by just constantly asking to look for secret doors.
Brennan: A million percent, that would have been very, very hard. So yes, Ruby dropped right away, four points away from full dead, and then took another point and took a death save from another attack. Yes, villainous, bad DM. I will say, the vibe we're going for this season, is very, very different. And there were some questions, I was doing a little Instagram Live thing, and I wanted to address this as well. Because I saw some tweets and stuff like that and people were going, what's the deal with the level imbalance? We have first level characters, one second level character and some third level characters. And I answer this on the IG, but I'll answer it again here. What we wanted to communicate was a difference in levels based on experience. Amethar and Theo are veterans of the Ravening War.
Lou: You know it. I've been to war.
Emily: Yeah, it's a war that got you three levels.
Lou: I did a whole war, came out two levels higher than when I was born.
Emily: Is that true, is everyone born at level one?
Lou: I would imagine, or I guess no, you would probably be born at level zero, and then when you get to level one you get your trait. So I got three levels in a war. Okay.
Ally: Level one starts at conception.
(all laugh)
We all agree.
Zac: Of course, that's true.
Brennan: So one of the things we wanted to do is a, we thought that would be very fun. And basically I went to all the players before we started playing, and I was like, you guys can start between first and third level whatever you think makes sense for your character. And with that idea of like, and I think I said too, I was like if you feel at a certain point throughout the long campaign, if you make the cool in character decision to deprive yourself and start lower. At certain points in the campaign you will be able to double level in order to catch. So no one feels too hamstrung by making that character decision.
Zac: I don't remember if I started at two or three, I think I'm three.
Brennan: You started at three as well.
Ally: I got two.
Brennan: Yeah, and then Liam started at level 2, which feels kind of fun because Liam has been fighting his older brothers in the midst--
Ally: Fuck those guys.
Brennan: A million percent. The other thing starting at a variety of levels did as well, was it allowed, it is inherently unfair, which is a vibe of this season, it is communicating that this is not a balanced party, I didn't get these dungeon encounters from a module that are appropriately balanced for a group of X to X level adventurers. That is not the vibe this season. The vibe this season is not about fairness, it is not about things being easy. It is not about--
Ally: I'm re-mad. All over again.
Zac: Hey Brennan, get the hell out of here.
Siobhan: Where is the Denny's parking lot because we're all going there next week.
Lou: Yeah honestly you all drop in the address, we'll be there.
Ally: We'll all be there.
Lou: We'll be on your side, the audience, not Brennan's.
Ally: It goes without saying.
Brennan: For sure, but that's something I definitely think it's like, and it's very fun to explore a very different vibe this season. That is borrowing from that, in a weird way we went the most technical munchkin land, candy land kind of setting. And I would describe this as a low fantasy setting. All of the characters are mechanically just a human variant, with plus two stats, skill, feat. And that goes for all Calorans in Calorum are all the same species, even though there are slices of cake and apples and stuff like that, it's just one. It is that kind of Westeros vibe of we're all one species and magic is rare, and there is definitely this vibe of combat is scary, the world is not fair or easy. And that tone is something that you all should expect.
Zac: Oh God.
Brennan: Oh God.
Siobhan: Oh no.
Brennan: Oh no. For all of you that moment when Ruby drops on the caravan, were you all surprised, were you expecting it, when did you know that something bad was about to happen?
Lou: I think we were all expecting it. I think none of us were surprised. I think that arrows--
Ally: Speak for yourself.
Lou: No, of course we were surprised, that's crazy.
Zac: I wasn't surprised at all.
Lou: I was excited for an adventure.
Siobhan: When there's a tree across the road in this kind of the story, that's bad.
Zac: Classic ambush shit, a tree falling across a path.
Ally: I just remember feeling so stupid that you were on the roof.
Siobhan: Yes.
Ally: It was just like, we're so dumb. We played right into it with our chaos.
Zac: I'm not dumb.
Lou: I was straight up doing like--
Ally: I was just thinking Zac is so dumb.
Zac: No I'm not.
Siobhan: It’s all Zac's fault, not Lapin's fault.
Ally: Not Lapin.
Siobhan: Lapin is very smart.
Ally: Zac Oyama. It's so dumb.
Lou: Just a straight up doing tricks, it was not even like--
Siobhan: It was like fully just doing acrobatics on the roof.
Emily: I fully had to support it in the moment.
Lou: Yeah
Emily: I wasn't being dumb, I was being supportive and loving.
Siobhan: I was being absolutely dumb. Also Ruby, at this point, Ruby and Jet have no idea how privileged their lives have been up until this point.
Ally: Oh, totally.
Siobhan: They just truly are so ignorant of their own privilege.
Ally: I remember that whole episode, because obviously Liam is diametrically opposed to your guys' status. But I just remember thinking, don't come out of the gate as such an asshole, but the more you guys talked about like, we're just like normal people, I just remember like, as a player and being like, oh, you could rip them apart right now. I'm like--
Emily: That's what the fun is with those characters, the idea of a princess who wants to be a common person, is kind of offensive.
Brennan: Yes. You guys played it perfectly.
Emily: That's a trope.
Zac: Truly infuriating.
(all laugh)
Brennan: Right exactly, I think you guys played that beautifully, that was so, so fun. Here's a great question to get us started. From Cody the Rat, thanks Cody the Rat.
Zac: Do you have any cheese?
Brennan: Do you have any cheese?
Siobhan: Ally, that bottle is so big. It's every time, but it's really very funny.
Brennan:
“How much of the campaign is planned ahead of time? It seems like you all have to start and the end planned, and then just figure out how you get there. I've never DMed before, so I'm not sure how much to do for a campaign.”
Cody, thank you for the high praise. The beginning and the end are not planned.
(all laugh)
But that is high praise. I saw one of those funny comments floating around on the internet, someone left a very lovely review of the first episode of A Crown of Candy. And someone in a YouTube comment was like, “Newsflash, it's all written, none of it is improv, dude.” And I was like, you think we have 800 page scripts that we--
Siobhan: I'm not that good at remembering lines, I'm just not.
Brennan: The staggering, doing a scripted D&D actual play, I mean it's not your fault that if you have that opinion you have no idea how production works. It would be exponentially, the degree harder that would be is mind-boggling, it's just mind boggling, the idea that it would be easier to write it is oh man.
Zac: I think I would have to quit.
Emily: I would not do it.
Zac: I can't do that.
Emily: I would feel like that a lot.
Siobhan: What we would do is if we were writing it, just play the game that we play and then write that down and then do it again.
Zac: It also doesn't make sense because of dice rolls. Wouldn't that change. So we're not only remembering an 800 page script, we're remembering like
Emily: The dice are scripted? What a conspiracy theory.
Zac: Get out of here.
Siobhan: The Box of Doom rolls, I guess they just roll those Box of Doom rolls over and over again until they get what we say out loud.
Lou: Thousands of takes on the cutting room floor.
Ally: We are all such super fans of the game, that even like when we're just hanging out before filming, no one is giving up anything. No one wants to ruin the fun. I had no idea about like, certain things about your guys' character before we started filming, I just knew overarching ideas, like you are both rogues.
Siobhan: I think honestly also, some of that stuff was stuff that we discussed with Brennan individually beforehand. But also a lot of it, you just figure out on your feet, like I feel like.
Brennan: 100%. And I think it's more fun that way. I don't come in with beginnings and endings written, but my note taking does get more scrupulous at the beginning and end of campaigns. Like, because mistakes in the middle can be massaged, but you really want to stick the landing, and you really want to nail the beginning. And that doesn't mean that you write those things, it just means that you are more prepared for how things should go. The intros for the characters I love so much in this first episode. Shout out to Rick Perry and his whole squad for the amazing set for the dome this time. Shout out to our amazing editors, Noah and Erin. And then I believe Easton also worked on this season as well, of the music cues, everything like that. So we had this great time introducing our characters. Going through those introductions by the way, so we have Murph is the first introduced, who is sadly not here. But I love meeting our stuffy Lord Commander first. And then Zac, we meet your character. Zac, talk for a second, this is a departure for you, Murph for the first time is playing someone taller than three feet tall. And Zac for the first time is not playing a sweetie. Lapin is a little bit of a bastard man.
Zac: Yeah
(all laugh)
Brennan: Talk to me about that man, what was that like?
Zac: It was like Gorgug and Rick-
Brennan: Ricky.
Zac: I said Rick, and I was like that's not right. Just throw a Y in there. Gorgug and Ricky are of course very sweet and very nice people, and that's a fun zone for me and a comfortable zone for me to be in. I also don't mind playing mean characters, but I also haven't felt like, when you're looking at a party balance it hasn't felt like, had a real place in any previous campaigns that we, in terms of group cohesion. And per the nature of this season, it's a little more "Game of Thrones"-ish, I don't know if I can say that. But the vibe of it is that way, so it felt like we needed something like that, and it was fun to give it a shot. And I guess he's a lot smarter than the other characters.
Ally: That's the thing, you always play dumb and sweet, and now you're playing mean and smart.
Brennan: That is so good. For me I died with that first line, “what a large goon you are.”
Ally: Oh my God.
Brennan: So after we meet Lapin, we meet the twin princesses, and I got to talk about this, because the vibe this season is really crazy, because we always do in Dimension 20 found family. This is not found, this is family. This is blood family, and we meet our two twin princesses, who also made the awesome mechanical choice to both be rogues. And I also want to talk about two things, number one, I just want to hear about your guys’ character in general, but I also want to hear about something that happened, because normally when we meet characters in the first episode, we spotlight on them, but you two had to actually watch a couple of scenes of people reacting to you before you even showed up. Like you guys not coming down the stairs, you're like scarecrow people. So how did it feel to be these roguish trickster princesses? And was it different?
Siobhan: Oh my goodness. It's so fun, it's really so fun. I feel like we don't remember exactly where it came from, but we were texting each other over the course of a conversation, we're like, it would be fun to have relatives, and also to have two sisters are obsessed with each other.
Emily: I think part of the reason of being family, other seasons we haven't had family, but doing "Game of Thrones" there is so much family and legacy and blood and all of that stuff matters so much, and it also raises the stakes. So I think it just seemed really fun. But we didn't really want to have like a weird like, like a weird competitive dynamic, so we were like, what if we were just twins, who're just obsessed with each other?
Brennan: I love it so much.
Ally: And I love twin speak.
Siobhan: Oh yeah, twin speak instead of thieves cand.
Brennan: We love it. Because it made no sense for these two highborn princesses to speak thieves cand. But then having twin language was just so-so fun.
Siobhan: Weirdly, in the tiny little village that I grew up in there were a creepy amount of twins, and so I feel like I've studied twins from a very early age, and especially--
Ally: Siobhan Thompson, I've studied twins.
Lou: I'm also gonna need clarification on a, what's a creepy number of twins, like five?
Siobhan: So my village is 400 people, in my class of the village school of like 20 kids, I think that there were four or five sets of twins and one set of triplets.
Brennan: That's too many for such a small number.
Lou: Half twins?
Siobhan: Yeah, that would have been like half twins.
Emily: That would’ve killed me because I desperately wanted a twin as a child.
Siobhan: And one of the teachers was a twin.
Emily: To be surrounded by so many twins and yet not be one, painful.
Siobhan: Yeah, it sucked.
Ally: Awful.
Siobhan: It's something in the water I think.
Brennan: Yeah, are there like, standing stones near your village?
Siobhan: Oh my god there are so many standing stones Brennan, you have no idea. I'm like half an hour away from Stonehenge, everywhere is a standing stone.
Brennan: Real-life Dimension 20 field trip to Siobhan's village to get to the bottom of this.
Zac: We all find our own twins.
Brennan: Oh God, we're going to find our own twins in the village.
Emily: It's too late for that, but I guess I'm open to it.
(all laugh)
Zac: Too late as in it wouldn't be fun, or too late?
Siobhan: That's like a lot of work to find your twin as an adult, it's like a lot of emotional work.
Emily: It will eventually be really fun, but it would be a lot of work to get there.
Brennan: I do hear that. And then after that we meet Amethar of the House of Rocks who gets our first hearing. We get a lot of shenanigans, and then we get a big switch over to a more somber scene with King Amethar's late sisters, the elder sisters of the House of Rocks. Lou, what was that like to like, did you feel when we got to your introduction scene that it was like bring the mood, because I don't preplan with people, so people's intro scenes are often a surprise to them. What was that like playing the somber scene in the intros there?
Lou: It was definitely I remember feeling of, because the other scenes had been so silly, I think we had just come from the scarecrow scene, and then you were like, we're in a chapel, and I was like okay. And then you were like, the three sisters. I was like okay. And then you were like, and then you set a tone that was very like, I was like oh, is it going to be like a silly man in there that I'm dealing with. It was like, no, it's just you talking to your dead sisters. And I was like okay.
(all laugh)
Lou: I mean I loved it, because I had chosen to be the king, honestly personally lightly pushed into being a king.
Siobhan: I think we all bullied Lou into being the king.
Lou: You bullied me a bit.
Brennan: That's absolutely something that we did it, I remember that, because Lou wanted to be like a, the character concept was insane, but Lou wanted to be like a drunkard, like a looser uncle, like fringe of the family. A kind of like oh, liked the war happened and that was my peak, and now I'm this. But there's a very real thing that like no one wants to take the biggest cookie on the plate. And I think all of us could sense, this season will be more meaningful and fun. I don't want to necessarily play the higher status characters in the thing. The King should be one of the PCs, and there was a moment when we all looked at Lou, and we were like, be the King Lou.
(all laugh)
Lou: Very much. Because I think you guys had decided to be sisters, and so it was like, what if you were our dad? And then everyone started to get excited.
Emily: And then we looked at you with our little baby eyes.
Lou: And I said, how could I say no? It was, I don't know, I think like--
Zac: Heavy is the the crown.
Lou: It is, it really is, they don't tell you until you put it on, and then it's like damp, this is heavy. But no, I think the comedic sides of Amethar were already so crystalline in my mind, it was actually really nice to start with something more somber, because it was like okay, like touch base with like an explorer like this part, that like is going to be as consistently a part of Amethar as the comedic heart that I had already like, that had been the birth of the character.
Brennan: Yes, I fundamentally agree. It looks like Beardsley is making a quesadilla.
Siobhan: It's quesadilla time.
Brennan: Is it quesadilla time? I am going to, oh my goodness, some people have been doing some very nice stuff. Andrew Bridgman is curating our asks and questions, thank you so much, Andrew. This is from user One of the Bad Kids.
“No question, just a fan, enjoy seeing everyone stretch this season and play someone a little different. It's my favorite part of the player journey with TTRPGs, looking forward to the rest of the season, love the tone, keep up the amazing stuff, smiley emoji.”
Thank you one of the Bad Kids, that's really, really kind. Yeah, I love the stretch. It's also I think part of the strength of doing an anthology thing is to make it really, really different. Fantasy High is so fun is this high school coming of age story, and then to move to this, which is about family dynamics. Even Zac and Murph are still these really tight advisers and conciliators to this Royal Family. And move to this high medieval, the vibe is like politics, and we have this scene with Queen Caramelinda, Queen Caramelinda explaining everything to everybody. I saw a bunch of people hollering in the chat about Queen Caramelinda, who I loved playing in this episode. You know no one likes mom cracking the whip and getting people to focus up, but someone's got to do it. So thank you one of the Bad Kids for that. We have another, hold on one second.
Lou: How is that quesadilla?
Brennan: Ally? Are you back, you got your earphones, you can hear? Hold on one second.
(all laugh)
Brennan: Incredible. I'll go to a question here from Nivekvamps2821:
“So how much of the backstory lore do the players know about before starting the campaign?”
This one, you guys got some extensive lore emails.
Siobhan: Yes.
Lou: Yes.
Zac: I remember a few days before getting a thing, and then not looking at it right away, and then as we got closer opening an email and being like, oh shit.
(all laugh)
And doing some reading.
Emily: I was pumped.
Lou: And then we also got like great personalized ones. Each one had a section of, so you need this history, or you need this religious info. It was a lot, in a good way.
Brennan: Yeah, huge spoiler for the first episode, but Zac is playing a character who is administratively, a member of the Bulbian Church. He is a primagen of the Bulbian Church, which is this big global church worships the bulb above, which in their world that's the sun. But is actually a warlock of the Sugar Plum Fairy, which is a spirit of an animistic, pantheistic religion called the Sweetening Path, which is native to Candia, it's an old druidic faith. So Zac had to get a ton of religion lore. And even Amethar, who's an illiterate character, had fought in the ravening war, which was a very funny moment by the way, when I was like, oh right, Amethar is illiterate. But Amethar lived the biggest and most important point of recent history, which is this war that ended 20 years ago called the ravening war that Amethar was an important hero of, and an important figure in as a much younger man.
Emily: Earning him a total of three levels.
(all laugh)
Lou: Full three levels.
Brennan: I would like to point something out however, which is that adventurers are in very small groups fighting very dangerous monsters. If you were in a massive conflict, let's say that you were in a war and you were in four or five huge battles, how many opponents would you actually really gain experience for killing, probably a handful. So I think that going through a war and only gaining one or two levels is realistic. If some math heads want to get on that and get back to me. I buy that, because fighting in a war is not the same thing as trolling through a dungeon.
Zac: That's like an episode of Brian David Gilbert's "Unraveled" or something.
Siobhan: Yes.
Brennan: BDG is a friend, Dimension 20 family member and friend who replayed in the live with in Brooklyn. If you want to unravel the XP of fighting as a first level soldier in large-scale conflicts, get back to us. So Ally, we were going through character introductions.
Ally: Yeah, sorry about that.
Brennan: No worries. So we get to Liam, who is a political prisoner of the House of Rocks, and a sweet lonesome wilderness boy. When you were playing this character, which it was very fun, of playing almost like an outsider character, almost like a very sweet version of someone whose family has some political strife with the Rocks family, part of the rebel house of Jawbreaker. What was that like when we first met your character?
Ally: I think it was fun to just be introduced completely alone, really setting the tone for Liam's life up until that point just like a total loner. I'm really channeling Dewey from "Malcolm in the Middle".
(all laugh)
Just a completely fucked with little baby.
Zac: what an insane pull
Emily: I like that.
Brennan: That's so funny. What I will, from DPC is awesome, a.k.a. Darlene. Thank you so much for the question.
“How old is Liam?”
I believe Liam is only one or two months behind Jet and Ruby. Liam is 17 in this.
Ally: Yeah, totally.
Zac: I thought he was 45.
(all laugh)
Ally: Yeah, Liam is a 45 year old man with a pig
Zac: It's like Napoleon Dynamite's brother.
(all laugh)
Brennan: No, 100%. So Liam is I think young at heart in this world that is like very high medieval as well, there is definitely some Leanna Mormont vibes from some of the people in this world in terms of some lords and ladies are ruling provinces are themselves teenagers in this world. But poor young Liam. Let's see if we got some other questions here. From Sir Pengy.
“I loved the first episode, how did you all decide what kind of candy you were, and is there our genetical logic as to what type of candy you are born as?”
I'll let you guys answer what candy you wanted to be. In terms of genetical logic, just remember one of the people that you met in this episode is a talking slice of cake. So biology, we take some liberties with biology here. I think that that gets played with pretty fast and loose. Sometimes that matters, and other times it doesn't. You know what I mean? Like Caramelinda is Carmel, Amethar is Pop Rocks. And there are two daughters are licorice. So it's not a hard and fast thing, otherwise after a couple of generations, there wouldn't be, you would be like, I'm a mix of vegetable and whatever else. And by the way, people from different kingdoms, they're all the same species, so a vegetable person and someone from Cerisia, who is a grain person can absolutely start a family and have children, that's no sweat.
Ally: My view of caramel, oh sorry.
Zac: No, go for it.
Ally: Caramel with Pop Rocks and two pieces of licorice is the grossest combo of a family.
Siobhan: Pop rock sounds good. Licorice I personally think it's nasty.
Emily: It's really gross.
Ally: Really, neither of you like liquorice?
Siobhan: No, I think it's so disgusting.
Ally: Oh my god, I love licorice.
Lou: I like the red one.
Ally: Exactly, give me the drop.
Zac: I just wanted to be a candy bunny, a chocolate bunny, that seemed fun to me.
Brennan: I love that.
Lou: I think I found that it's like storm herald mechanic, and this seems cool, but it seemed like kind are not awesome, it was narratively and aesthetically sounded very cool, and so I was like I want to make this work, and then it also just felt right to be rock solid. Pop Rocks.
Siobhan: I don't remember why we came up with licorice, probably because there are two versions of it.
Emily: I think we were trying to think of what we could do that would be the same but slightly different, like fraternal twins.
Ally: I think there was a moment where everybody, because I know Murph came in knowing he was like a Gummy Bear, this was a funny idea.
Siobhan: Murph was like this is what I'm doing, I'm straight down the line. Let me be this character or I will burn this building town.
Emily: It is the best representation of Murph, just a lawful Gummy Bear.
Ally: Oh my god.
Brennan: Love is real, love is real.
Ally: I think Murph was a Gummy Bear, Zac knew he wanted to be a chocolate bunny, and then the reason I picked peppermint, is because we were more on the production side. They were like, we can't use brand names. So it limits you to being like, I am a peppermint candy, instead of being like. And I'm Skittles, get ready to get sued.
(all laugh)
Lou: Skittles.
Emily: Ally pitched Milk Duds, Skittles, Mr Goodbar. They wanted to be literally-
Zac: Let's play a whole movie theater.
Ally: Mini Geiger, just go straight into pop culture.
Brennan: Incredible
Ally: "Time" magazine.
Brennan: I love it. Yeah, I think we wanted some classic candies.
Ally: Yeah, exactly.
Brennan: The licorice princesses were so fun, having one solid rock candy, like Pop Rock, lollipop material was so fun. We definitely needed one chocolate character, we got that with Zac. And then the Gummy Bear thing was so fun, like a specific candy. But it was almost this thing of like, don't we need a candy cane, it's just so classic.
Ally: Totally.
Brennan: And it was so fun too. I just love this. We have played so much D&D together, and it's really fun, almost like a kaleidoscope. When you take the seven of us and you just shake us up and you twist the kaleidoscope a little bit, and you go, we know what our vibe is at this point so well. But what if you made us a royal family, what will our vibe be then. And it's so cool to take a prism and have all of our playing mechanics filter through something so different, it's really intoxicating. I love this season.
(all laugh)
Zac: It was very fun to watch. I'm sorry to interrupt, but it was very fun to watch it for the first time today, because when did we do this?
Emily: We played so long ago.
Zac: September?
Emily: August.
Zac: August? Oh yeah, it was August. So it was like I kinda forgot a lot of things that happened in the first episode, so it was just great to re-watch for that reason.
Ally: Totally, I re-watched it too, and I was just like, this is so fun. I forgot about so many little things.
Zac: I fully forgot what Lapin's accent was.
Siobhan: I will never forget what Lapin's accent is.
Emily: I totally forgot the moment where Liam is like, I feel like at one point I just watched this, but Brennan was like, what is Liam doing? And you are like, I'm trying to figure out why Lapin sounds like an egg.
(all laugh)
And I was like, "What?"
Ally: I don't remember where that came from, but I just know that it's true.
Brennan: I love that so dang much. Let's take a little adventure, there's just some other fun questions I want to throw out here. We are going to take a little adventure over to the Unsleeping City for a moment. So spoilers for Unsleeping City, spoilers, spoilers. Not anything too plot relevant, but there are some character details that are definitely spoilers. This one is from Phoenix, they ask,
“Did Pete and Rowan ever become a thing after the epilogue in TUC, even for just a bit? Got some heavy vibes that I don't believe ever got resolved.”
Spicy.
Siobhan: My feeling is that probably Rowan fucked Pete around for a while. They probably looked up a lot, but in that way that Rowan is like, “I'm outside your house just right now.”
(all laugh)
Ally: Totally. What are you doing right now?”
Siobhan: Pete is also like, “I'm outside your house right now,” and Rowan is like, “Oh, I'm somewhere else.”
Ally: It's never like, what are you doing this weekend, it's like, what are you doing right now?
Siobhan: It's not making right plans, it’s land being extremely messy and chaotic and then suddenly one or other of them just disappears off the face of the planet.
Siobhan: We will see, maybe we'll get there if we ever do a revisit.
Lou: That was a hell of an answer. That is not what I was expecting.
Ally: It's me and all your shows.
Siobhan: Yeah, that's for sure.
Zac: That so incredibly correct.
Siobhan: I think Pete at every show, but every show introduce Peter to somebody and Pete is like, “Who is this person, what's going on, is this?”
Ally: I always bring flowers and I'm like, “Oh, I just bought these.”
(all laugh)
Brennan: Oh, so fun.
Ally: There is such a vibe there, look, what can I say?
Siobhan: I feel like there's a vibe.
Brennan: Oh, there's so many questions. This one's from Basil, back to "A Crown of Candy", thanks Basil.
“Was Emily's black nail polish and Siobhan's red, deliberate or just coincidental, either way, it was super cute?”
Siobhan: Baby, they were so deliberate.
Emily: Of course it was so deliberate. I believe in the next episode, this is a spoiler for the next episode, in the next episode I literally wear a black shirt with a little bowl that's red for Ruby.
Siobhan: Yes, we definitely coordinated our outfits and stuff for this season.
(all laugh)
Brennan: I love that so much. Okay, some "Fantasy High Sophomore Year" Finale questions. This one's from Able Salad.
“Does Adaine fully dying impact her status as the Elven Oracle, is this something we might see the resolution of in season three?”
So great question, the ancient forces of elven divination magic that concerned the Oracle. Basically give you a 60 second cancel button on death. So the length of a Revivify, they're like, okay hold on before we pass this along to the next person, let's give it a quick 60 seconds, because this might get turned around. But after 60 seconds you are cut off. I know that's not very mystical, but what can I say, that's the answer.
Siobhan: So if I fully die and then I am reincarnated, I'm not the Elven Oracle any more?
Brennan: Correct.
Zac: You might not be an elf.
Siobhan: That's true.
Emily: You might be a bugbear.
Siobhan: Oh, the bugbear oracle.
Zac: Adaine comes back as a bugbear next season.
Brennan: Incredible.
Ally: So if I had just really taken my time, unlike what I did in saving you, just like turn after turn after turn flies by. And I finally save you as one of the sole healers. Then maybe you wouldn't have been the Elven Oracle.
Siobhan: Yes, thank you for saving me, Kristen.
Ally: I don't remember that every being in question.
Emily: I guess if we're doling for compliments, I do believe I conjured the diamond that saved you.
Siobhan: Thank you, I am grateful for all of you.
Ally: It's almost like you gave me that diamond three turns before I used it. I'm just remembering.
Zac: Three turns
Brennan: Normally I can never answer questions about what would have happened, because it's always like, it's improv, I don't know what would have happened. There was one thing that could have been used as a last minute Revivify in that final battle. If one, Emily Axford did not come up with the brilliant illusory diamond strategy, which was--
Emily: Oh yeah, I was wondering, I wanted to ask you personally about that, about the Gilear thing, we didn't have any diamonds on us, were you just trying to let him die?
Brennan: I feel that I'm being called out and attacked in a way that feels very personal and--
Zac: Answer the question, just answer the question.
Siobhan: It seems like a pretty simple yes or no question.
Brennan: No, no, no.
Ally: Just answer the question.
Brennan: When you figure that out, answer the question, when you figure that out that was an extremely cool character way of solving that problem. There was a diamond worth more than 300 gold pieces that you guys were forgetting about, which was the sapphire in Gorgug's hoodie, that Zaphriel the Hangvan lived in. So you had one shot to bring someone back. And I was going to have an intelligence check or whatever, in case you guys forgot about that.
Ally: Oh wow.
Brennan: But it would have been sad because Zaphriel would have had to go away, but as always, I got Emily Axford holding me to my worldbuilding over here, and that was honestly too cool of a solution. So I was like fuck it, performance check will do the trick, that just was too cool to me do not let that be a thing.
Ally: Yeah, that was so sick.
Zac: That's so interesting. Do you ever listen to a description of something that a DM gives you or something like that, where you just jump to your own conclusions about something before you really understand what it is. In my head when he got zapped out a bit, it turned gross and bad or something. I just made up that it was broken.
Brennan: How interesting, that's so funny, that you thought it was destroyed. No, it was just empty, he had been zapped out of and it was stored.
Emily: That makes more sense, because I knew you knew I had Revivify, but we also didn't have any diamonds. So I was like, wait a second, what are we supposed to do?
Brennan: What are we supposed to do, but listen, at the level you guys are and proficiency you guys have as players, I say this with lots of love. It's not my job to figure out how you guys are going to accomplish the impossible, you guys will and have and continue to, and worse case scenario, Ally roles a nat 20 out of nowhere and fixes everything.
(all laugh)
Ally, I got to talk to you for a second. What's up with--
Siobhan: If you need us to leave we can leave.
Lou: Yeah, we all dip out real quick.
Ally: Everyone leave the chat.
Lou: You guys have a moment.
Brennan: What's up? What is up with these finale nat 20s, it's crazy?
Ally: I don't know what to tell you, people are like it's the dice, I get a new set of dice for each character, they keep rolling.
Emily: Oh really I thought it was those sweet dice.
Ally: See what happened is in this move for quarantine my box was dropped off with all my papers and stuff, but no dice in it. So I had to go and get dice.
Lou: I have their dice.
Ally: Yeah, you have my dice. So I have brand-new dice, that's why they were those classic black and white dice, because I had to go and borrow those in a hazmat suit. Okay, you left them in a bush. But they served me well. No, I really don't know what's up with all the 20s, but statistically I'm not rolling the most 20s, so I do think it's just I had the advantage.
Emily: I always say dice speak through you Ally, I think you are just chosen. I know I say this about a lot of people, but I think you're the chosen one. That's what I tell multiple people, that they're the chosen one.
(all laugh)
Brennan: This question is from Danny Moore, thanks Danny.
“Hey guys, wondering how you choose where you all sit in the dome each season, and how that affects the group dynamics. Love the show.”
Thanks Danny. Each season, I forget about why we chose it for Fantasy High, but on Sweeping City there was some logic to it. For "A Crown of Candy" there were a couple of choices, which we definitely wanted Emily and Siobhan to be next to each other as sisters, but also to be able to cross cut between them As they exchanged furtive glances. So they were at the end of the table for that reason. We wanted Lou next to one of his daughters, and then we wanted to Zac to be able to creepily bend over Lou's shoulder, that was like--
Zac: Hello my King.
Lou: Too much, much too much.
Brennan: So if you're wondering if there is deep or profound considerations, they're very goofy considerations. It's like wouldn't it be funny if Zac would be like, milord. And that's how we did that. Very, very fun. Okay, let's see here. Here's a fun one that people ask all the time. This is from Brennan Joe Bailey. And the question is,
“what do the people in Calorum eat?”
They eat food? They eat food.
Emily: We are mammals and we eat mammals.
Brennan: Exactly. I think gang, watching this at home, you think this is creepier than it actually is. We eat stuff made out of the same stuff. Not everyone does, there's vegans and vegetarians and stuff like that, we are meat and we also eat meat, and even the things that aren't meat are still other organic living material, which we also are. So the only thing I would say in terms of if you are wondering is people in Calorum do farm and produce foodstuff material, even though the structure of their landscape is also fundamentally made out of that same stuff. So you would not break a chunk off of your house and eat it, that would still be inedible. Even though Lou's great sword, Payment Day, is caramel and peanut, it is not an edible form of that material, you could not eat that sword.
Lou: He has tried and failed.
Brennan: I'm saying that wondering do we ever fuck with that in the show at some point and eat some. I don't think we do. It is possible to starve in the wilderness in Calorum. Even though you are amongst trees, they might not be edible even though they're made on a molecular level out of candy, if you are in Candia, or fruit if you are in Fructera. So that's an important part of the world building. Lily asks,
“can you shout out some snacks I should have prepared?”
What are some snacks we should have prepared for the show.
Siobhan: I don't understand what the question is.
Ally: What are some good recipes? Let me see,
Emily: Quesadillas.
Lou: Quesadillas.
Ally: Quesadillas. Have you guys seen the Papa Dia?
Siobhan: No, what's a Papa Dia? What is this shenanigans?
Ally: It's bad, Papa Johns has a new thing out called Papa Dia. It is a pizza of folded in half--
Emily: Are you sponsored Ally?
Zac: Ally, you had this very specific sideways glance, that was like I'm about to just do a commercial right now.
Ally: All you have to do is add in promo code Ally sent me, and you will receive free Parmesan.
Lou: I always need more parm.
Ally: I almost sent to all of you in the group chat, Papa Dia.
Siobhan: Papa Dia.
Lou: You never described it, what is it?
Siobhan: It's a folded over pizza.
Ally: It's literally a folded pizza with some like toppings in the middle, and like I don't know.
Lou: It's not a calzone though?
Ally: It's not a calzone, it's a Papa Dia.
Lou: Okay.
Ally: Speaking of which mine is arriving right now, so I'll be right back.
Brennan: This one is from Jamie M, thanks Jamie M.
“Love the first episode you guys, Siobhan and Emily, was it challenging to play sisters or do you know each other well enough to make it work without much difficulty?”
Emily: I would say that we're best friends.
Siobhan: Yeah, it was pretty easy.
Emily: I said it first, I put myself out there, I would classify us as best friends.
Siobhan: And it's very sad for me that we don't get to hang out right now.
Emily: I know.
Zac: You are literally talking to each other right now.
Siobhan: Shut up Zac, you're not in this.
(all laugh)
Emily: This is a twinship not a triplet ship.
Siobhan: I think it was just so, it's very fun for me to play two peas in a pod. I think that's like always really fun as a performer and the improviser to be like, I'm going to mirror this person's performance and they'll mirror mine, and we will play off each other in that way is always delightful to me. And so, it was easy because it is fun, I think that's why.
Emily: Totally. Definitely wasn't like, are we going to get there? It was like, we're already there.
Siobhan: We didn't do any work towards it.
Emily: We were doing very intense mirror sessions before.
Lou: Greenroom was a nightmare
Siobhan: Everyone else in the green room just like what is going on, no one needs to be doing this.
Lou: I'm just trying to get my make-up done.
Siobhan: Across Lou's face.
Ally: You guys are doing some like Meissner.
(all laugh)
Zac: Twins.
Ally: I see you.
Emily: Why don't we just say twins with different emotions.
Siobhan: Twins.
Emily: Twins.
Ally: Twins.
Zac: Twins. So that's how I get.
(all laugh)
For no reason I'm just on the side.
Brennan: This next question comes to us from Ezra Davore. Who I believe is the same Ezra that makes such amazing music. If that's the case, Ezra, amazing music, thank you so much.
Siobhan: So good, Ezra.
Brennan:
“So I gotta express the weight of the Ayda's representation in Fantasy High: Sophomore Year. As I heard of her autism I just began to hardcore ugly cry. As a person who struggles with that, it meant more to me than you know. What brought you to portray an autistic character? Also, does this season just take place in a fridge?”
Maybe you've caught onto my little bulb joke. I will briefly talk about Ayda, because I want to talk about "A Crown of Candy", and a fridge joke and everything like that. I love Ayda Aguefort with all my heart, playing her means the world to me. I didn't know, as a DM you never know which of your NPC people are going to like or latch onto. Ayda was originally created as kind of a fetch quest character, a character that had a resource that PCs needed that would be a fun scene for them to interact with and then move on.
Ally: And then Fig fell in love.
Brennan: And then Fig fell in love. It's so beautiful, it's also one of the first times I've actually--
Emily: Shut up, You don't know anything.
Brennan: It was very different because normally when there's romantic storylines, which obviously romance is a bigger part in Fantasy High, because Fantasy High is a coming-of-age tale and there's a lot of exploring. My friends have kissed, I haven't kissed. What does that say about me, I'm growing up, I'm discovering things about my identity, my sexuality, this is all new and scary and exciting, et cetera. But Ayda, when I first created Ayda, I was like this will be a fun tie-in to Arthur Aguefort's Paramore being a Phoenix, what a cool character that would be. More cool world building on Leviathan. And my main thing for Ayda Aguefort was I wanted to model her after the Sherlock archetype of this is a brilliant person who is goodhearted, but is so brilliant that they're within that Sherlock mode of like, they're not existing necessarily on that social dimension. And I also modeled her after a couple of my close friends who are very academic in that way and can be very intense in that way. And then what happened was I started to, so she wasn't supposed to be in the campaign all that much. And then was adopted by the Bad Kids, as that Bad Kids want to do, hello, Gilear, and brought her along. And then I started to see people say that and be like, is Ayda autistic, and I was like oh, and I was like, oh, Sherlock Holmes is very autistic coded within Arthur Conan Doyle's work, obviously from a very different time period. And then I was thinking about my friends that I had modeled Ayda after, it was like oh, those are my autistic friends, oh my god, just putting it together of like, absolutely. So then I jumped in, I did a bunch of research, I was like if this character is around longer, is more nuanced, let's research this and get this right. But playing Ayda, listen, Ayda as one of my, is up there with Jawbone in terms of being a character that I love to play and is like, she's very, very special. So I'm so glad that people love Ayda. I love Ayda with all my dang heart.
Ally: My friend is on the spectrum, and they were telling me how much they loved Ayda as well.
Brennan: It's a wild thing to play, because I don't know. The character is so fun for me to play, and there is a part of playing her where it's like this brilliant wizard person the stuff where she like, the subtext and things she doesn't grasp, where she's like, is this normal? Or she goes like, or she says things like out loud, she's like, curious. Or like Emily is flirting with her and she's like, I'm flustered, this is wonderful. I can't tell you how weirdly freeing it is to play a character that just says what they mean.
Emily: As the person playing the romantic interest, it's awesome. It's part of the reason why I was like, oh my God, I love this character, because it's just like everything is on the table, versus my character who everything was like, like try to hide everything, whether or not she did it well or not. I just loved how open she was.
Brennan: Oh my god, and as the person playing her too. Because every single way you play a character, when I'm playing Bill Seacaster, to play a character you have to rearrange your mind, I'm like, “Bill Seacaster, okay Brennan, any impulse you have, follow. It's a pure id, have the impulse, follow it. This is a person that does not check those things.” And with Ayda, what I get to do is take all that software that I'm running in my mind all the time to be like, “okay, like, don't say certain things, lie a little bit. Be subtle about X, Y or Z thing.” To play Ayda you just toggle that off. I'm talking about myself in a very inhuman way right now and I don't mean to communicate it that way. But it's extremely, when all that software goes away of really worry about innuendo and yada, yada and all that stuff. I don't know, it feels so wonderfully honest and beautiful, I love Ayda to death, I think she's incredible. It's very relaxing to play Ayda to be honest with you. Thank you for the question. Calorum, there is like a refrigerator joke within the world of Calorum. That is like, the bulb is the sun. One of the things about Calorum is there are no human beings that eat the people of Calorum. So when I was thinking if people know they’re food, but there is no human beings to eat them, how do they know they’re food? One of the world building things that happened was them basically going like, their belief that they're food becomes a religious conviction. So what ends up happening is all of the faiths of Calorum, the main one being Bulbian Church, but then the older more pagan beliefs revolve around a religious conviction the people are food, and what that means in terms of their cosmology. We get more into that later in the season, but that's the basic idea there. That's a fun thing. Let me see if there's some more questions.
Ally: Sorry, I had to run out again. My kombucha plug was dropping off. You need to go get it before someone stole it off of my street.
Emily: I wish I had a kombucha plug.
Ally: Hey, I got a good one, let me know. And I'll send you a number.
Lou: Is that a growler?
Ally: Yeah, it's a giant growler.
Brennan: I love that.
Emily: I would go through that in a day.
Ally: Oh yeah, definitely.
Brennan: This one is from Chef Whatnot.
Ally: Dad?
(all laugh)
Brennan: Chef Whatnot.
“Do candy and fruit people have bones?”
Brennan: (laughs) This is a mild spoiler for episode two, they have bones and that's all I'm gonna say about.
(all laugh)
Brennan: They have bones. We got time for a couple more questions here. This one is from Nia, thanks Nia, appreciate it.
“Hi guys, thank you so much for giving us light and something to look forward to in truly the grossest of times. My question is, what's the one D&D race/class you can never see yourselves playing as? For example, I'm a repeat offender of only playing spell casters, and wouldn't even know to begin with a fighter/barbarian, no disrespect to the beefy boys, but we're not made for each other. Hope you're staying safe, and sending you love.”
What do you guys think, what are the things that don't speak to you as players?
Zac: Interesting.
Siobhan: I think playing like, there's like a law cleric that their whole thing is just they believe in the law, that doesn't really do anything for me. But I think there is something to found in there, I think that the only way I could play that character is if they immediately began to realize the errors of their ways and changed utterly and completely.
Emily: Or if they had found a secret text of laws from a different time that they believed was more just, and they were seeking to achieve that.
Ally: Ooh.
Siobhan: This game is so good, I prefer playing spell casters, but it's fun playing everybody.
Zac: I think classes recently had to stop where like, you ever go to Warby Parker or some kind of glasses store, and how everything is just like a half step away from the last thing you saw that's kinda like D&D classes, where like you can usually find a thing that you are looking for. There aren't that many different versions of things. My first characters have all been martial things. My home campaign is a monk. Gorgug's a barbarian, and Ricky is a paladin which is a mixture of things. So it took me a while to dive into spellcasting at all, which was just me being like, I don't want to read a bunch of stuff.
(all laugh)
Zac: But the cool stuff is being able to read stuff.
Emily: Please give me your homework.
Brennan: Yeah, I feel like I don't get to play too much, I tend to get drawn to classes that let you, here's the honest question, I want to play a class that gets to interact with whatever the campaign is about. So I had a character multi-class into being a cleric, because the campaign I was in, Molly Ostritag ran this awesome campaign called pilgrimage, and it was all about journeying to these six God's temples. And as the campaigns were to unfold, I was like this is all that we're hearing over and over again, is about the power of the gods. My character had one level of monk and then just started becoming a cleric. So I think for me that's a hard question to answer in a vacuum. I just want to be in the pocket for whatever it is the DM is excited about doing. So that's my take on that.
Ally: That's cool. I've played a cleric, and then a sorcerer now a ranger. And I feel like I've really gotten a taste, like a little sample platter. But I don't think I know enough about the game to have like, I would never play that. I am truly just like, ha, okay.
Emily: I think it's hard for me to say, because for some reason when I think of any character or class and like I want to figure out the cool angle for that. So I think I don't know that there's anything that I'm like, oh, I definitely wouldn't want to play that. I struggle with martial, because I end up really missing just having stupid low level spells to fuck around with.
Siobhan: I always start with a character and then the class comes second. But not always, but often I'll be like, I want to play this kind of character, what would make sense class-wise for that kind of character, rather than the other way around.
Emily: Maybe I don't, I might not do that.
Siobhan: It's changed also I feel as we have become more familiar with the game.
Lou: I'll never be a warlock. Never.
Siobhan: You don't want to sell your soul?
Lou: Never, exactly, my soul is my own.
Zac: Hay Lou, whats up. Whats up.
Lou: My soul will never belong to any man, or God or beast.
Emily: I've been watching Zac fumble the Warlock class, I've never play it.
Ally: So oops, all warlocks next season.
Lou: All warlocks dude.
Emily: To make Lou eat it
Ally: My God, I love someone commented today during the Premier, oops, no clerics. So I think it was Drew. So that killed me, because this is such a like, Brennan, you wouldn't even let me stock heals. This is a lethal season, no.
Brennan: No, that's true. So I don't want anyone yelling at Ally when--
Emily: Oh, that's a good call. Good call.
Ally: And I don't stock the heals that I could.
Brennan: Yes, exactly. Correct me if I'm wrong, Liam started not at first, but started at second. So you had spells out of the gate, and could have had cure wounds and I did not let you.
Siobhan: I think I tried to take toll of the dead, and you said no.
Emily: Toll of the dead I think--
Brennan: Spare the dying I will let you to cast. I wouldn't let you take two at a time.
Ally: I love, I hated it but I'd love too.
Zac: Is just how stressful that made fighting.
Lou: So real.
Siobhan: Yes.
Emily: So to bring it back to how everyone was like, how did you feel at the very end of this first episode when what happened happened. As the character I was like, this is crazy, no, no, no. The second we stopped playing I was like, oh baby, it's on.
(all laugh)
It was the real adrenaline feeling--
Siobhan: It's really exciting to take the kiddie wheels off. Like we're going for a ride and we could fall.
Brennan: I don't want to create spoilers for people, but I also do what to set expectations for this season correctly, which is like, the vibe is very. If you are coming into this season being like I really can't wait for some soft moments where the Bad Kids.
Lou: Shrimp parties.
Brennan: Like shrimp parties.
Lou: No shrimp parties.
Siobhan: In that there are shrimp that are trying to kill us. Very, very dangerous shrimp warriors.
Brennan: There is no like the Bad Kids go to Basrar’s to hang out, the vibe of this season is not like us in the front yard with a picnic basket asking you to come out and hang. It's very much like us in your driveway with baseball bats and ski masks.
Siobhan: Not to say that there aren't shenanigans, because there are for sure are definitely shenanigans.
Brennan: For sure, but let's walk forward into this and know that part of Dimension 20 is we're an anthology show, and sometimes we explore different things and the thing we explore in "A Crown of Candy" is different.
Emily: Different, but you can learn watching it. While you're watching it we all had a great time.
Lou: We had a great tent.
Siobhan: It was so fun.
Brennan: I also want people to know that we were also being very safe and careful and checking in with each other and everything. We scare the crap out of people, they’ve only seen the first episode.
Siobhan: All great friends still, so just reassure yourself about that.
Ally: Well…
Lou: In fact maybe better friends.
Siobhan: Honestly yes.
Zac: I wouldn't be here if Murph was here.
(all laugh)
Emily: Zac won't be around Lou unless Murph is there.
Brennan: This is about this stuff, and I do want to talk about this, from August Rousey, I might have mispronounced that. But August Rousey. Question for Brennan,
“When you are balancing encounters to be this dangerous, when you are balancing encounters to be this dangerous, do you throw CR, a.k.a. challenge rating out the window to go for the more realistic implications of a character taking an arrow, a sword, et cetera.”
100%. No spoilers because we haven't got to the season's first battle episode yet, but we'll talk about this more next week, after the season's first battle episode. The design here, things are tonal. I never pull punches in the other seasons, but when the genre is different, the enemies make different decisions. The Unsleeping City was pretty much kind of honestly more like a superhero movie than a high fantasy movie. I think in terms of its vibe and tone in a lot of ways. Or it did have that very urban fantasy vibe to it. So the monsters and enemies in the Unsleeping City kind of like attacking the characters that it would be the most dramatic for them to attack. That's not them being stupid or pulling punches, it's just that things are informed by genre. I don't want to give any spoilers about this season, but let's say it's not a superhero story. So characters in "A Crown of Candy" aren't making decisions based on what they would be making them on in a different genre. I'm getting triple middle fingers. Okay. Okay.
Ally: Was that a little sneaky one, Zac?
Brennan: You know what, I already called ahead--
Zac: A little finger.
Brennan: A little middle finger. I already called ahead to Denny's, they said pandemic be damned, they're getting like pancakes ready, let's do it.
Ally: Pancakes sound great.
Lou: He's a very honest man.
Ally: I've been inside too long, I'm about to lose it.
Lou: I forgot what pancakes are.
Siobhan: I made yeasted waffles the other day, because I have all the time in the world babe, do I have work to do, yes? Am I doing it, no.
Zac: I made some gumbo today.
Ally: Oh, crazy.
Zac: I had hours
Ally: I had a yogurt honestly.
Lou: I actually had a quesadilla, a real quesadilla.
Emily: Yeah you texted
Zac: Lou is the quesadilla guy now, Lou is the one that likes quesadilla.
Lou: No I'm not, just because you eat one quesadilla in life, doesn't make you the quesadilla guy.
Siobhan: Nobody likes quesadilla Zac, you're the one that's obsessed with them.
Zac: Your the Quesadilla guy.
Lou: I’m not the fucking Quesadilla!
Zac: Let me tell you something.
Brennan: We getting punchy. We got time for one or two more of these, and then we'll wrap it up. This one is from Kylie.
“For Brennan, how long did it take you to build the lore for "A Crown of Candy", as an historian I find lore and history in fantasy worlds exceptionally amazing, and so far in one episode I am enraptured.”
That's very kind, thank you.
“As an aside, thank you to the entire cast for making such wonderful content that us folks can immerse ourselves in. I have had a really rough last four months, and the D20 gang have provided me with much needed refuge. Love and hugs.”
First of all, all these questions are so kind. Kylie, thank you so much, that's extremely sweet. I had so much fun making the history and lore for "A Crown of Candy". It definitely took a little bit longer, it made the process for "A Crown of Candy" a little bit harder for sure. But it was really fun. And I think there was part of me that like. How do I put this? With Fantasy High and the Unsleeping City, there were certain things I was doing to make the lift easier on myself. But at a certain point with "A Crown of Candy" I was like, maybe let's give them some lore. I've been DMing since I was 10 years old, I have a 250 page document of world lore for one of my home games, let's go for it. Let's show them what we're made of, and I lost a little bit of sleep about it. But it was very, very fun to create a more politically complex world that didn't really have any crutches to rely on of like, it's the suburbs, or it's New York. It's like no, this is constructed whole cloth. And even though we're borrowing a lot from this very high political intrigue War of the Roses, low fantasy historical fiction, "Game of Thrones" vibe. It was still very fun to go and to change a lot of stuff. I think Calorum definitely religion is a bigger part of life in Calorum than in some other types of fiction that deal with high medieval intrigue. That's just my take on medieval Europe. I was like, man, the church was crazy powerful, that dominated a lot of politics. So there's a lot more of that, and I think Calorum was one of the big world building things. And then doing all our fun stuff like the magic items that people got. Like we had sour scratch, that puckering bow. Which was the bow of rocks gifted to Princess Ruby Rocks. There's Flicorice. Was that Emily?
Emily: I completely forgot that this all happened in the first, that scene of Lou giving us our magic items, that was so sweet.
Brennan: So sweet.
Lou: I still remember when Brennan told me I would get to do that, I was like oh, maybe being the daddy is not so bad.
Siobhan: It was so fun also playing chaotic monster children whose dad approves of them is also really fun.
Lou: I love my chaotic monster children, I love that. It was weird to like--
Emily: You made us.
Brennan: You are your father's daughters for sure.
Siobhan: Absolutely, yes.
Lou: It was special to play a season. I guess in other seasons I have cared about the other PCs, Fabian cares about the Bad Kids, but not the way Amethar cares about Jet and Ruby. It's like it is a different, it's very different.
Brennan: 100%. That scene with the magic items was so sweet and touching, there are certain world buildings that were fun, like having Amethar's sisters was very important part of world building, because I think what I wanted to communicate with them was a, how cool Candia was, because of how cool these four sisters were. It also tells us a lot about Amethar, in that Amethar couldn't have ever expected to be king, fifth in line, four older sisters. And then there was fun world building too, to give a little world building, and then also to depict the cost of the Ravening War, how bad this war was, is implied by these four statutes. Fun little world building nugget that I don't think we ever got the chance to say in the show is, magic items in this world are always unique and they always have two names. So they have their name and their title. So there's Payment Day, the King’s sword. There is Sour Scratch, the Puckering Bow. There is Flicorice, the Twizzling Blade, and one of the deep superstitions in this world is you don't say the name of an enemy's weapon, you only refer to it by its title. Because if you say its name, you are doomed to be struck down by it in the world. So in other words, Amethar calls his sword Payment Day. But someone on the opposite side of the battlefield from Amethar would dare not refer to it as Payment Day, they would refer to it as the King’s sword.
Lou: I knew it. I knew it.
Zac: Barbarians are gonna barrel down and don't--
Lou: Don't do it.
Emily: That was superstitious people online only call it the King's sword. In fear of Lou
Brennan: The King's sword, they fear Lou. The same thing--
Lou: You're gonna find me in a Denny's parking lot with a bit.
Zac: Speak not of the King's sword.
Brennan: Speak not of the King's sword. But that's the vibe I wanted, someone being like, did you see King Amethar, he's got Payment Day on his back. And some old veteran being like, speak not of the King’s sword, lest he be struck down by it. Same thing with Flicorice the twist. So Jet can say Flicorice to me. If you're looking at Jet you would be like, the Twizzling Blade. So that's the nerd stuff that I fell in love with this season, is getting to do that really high fantasy medieval stuff that is just so delightful. I'll finish with one more question, but are there any other notes that anyone wants to go out for our wonderful first Adventuring Party that we had here.
Zac: Gosh, I'm stressed out thinking about our next fight.
Lou: I think I'm gritting my teeth a lot, because all the talking we're doing is just bringing me back. Bringing me back to the--
Siobhan: It’s wild that we all have to wait a week for it. And if I was there, I remember what happened, and I'm still like, we have to wait a week, that’s stupid. Do it now.
Brennan: We'll go out on this question here, because I think after this this is a "Fantasy High Sophomore Year" Finale question, and this will start to leave people's minus, as the weeks of "A Crown of Candy" roll on. This is from the Irritated Crow. Thanks the Irritated Crow.
“Brennan and Siobhan re-bonding as sisters a preplanned thing, or spur of the moment of where the characters ended up in that moment?”
I'll turn it over to Siobhan, because truly I had no idea and it was up to Adaine.
Siobhan: I didn't plan it, and it was truly a spur of the moment decision. Because even with Aelwyn helping somewhat and showing that she maybe had the capacity to change, she had done so many terrible things but I didn't know until it was coming out of my mouth.
Ally: When you said would you be my sister, I would really like it if you would be my big sister. I was just like go, and I was there, but used in re-watching the finale I was like oh my god what a moment.
Brennan: Oh dude, Kill Shot Thompson over here with those one-liners straight to the heart.
Lou: One shot Thompson.
Brennan: It's a fucked up dude, it's fucked. I think that was something really, I am all the bad guys, so as a result of that.
(Booing)
Ally: Fuck you.
Brennan: But it's one of those things where I have to get any thought of redemption out of my head. Because it's like I have to play these people, Aelwyn, spoilers by the way for Sophomore Year Fantasy High, Aelwyn was a villain in season one, and I knew that she was a child and being manipulated or whatever. Or at least a minor. Also she tried to kill you guys at that house party, no joke, she was not pulling any punches. And she sank the ship, she did all this shit. But there was also an element. I always knew that she was at least a little bit more complex morally than Kalvaxas. You know what I mean?
Ally: Or even our parents, like our parents are just old enough that it's like there's no way to make these people change
Brennan: 100% and I think too that the thing that I loved about playing Aelwyn was that thing of when there is, I didn't know what was gonna happen. I'm gonna try to go philosophy major for a second. Good and evil are categories we put on human behavior to describe it as being pro-social or antisocial. I don't necessarily believe in supernatural morality, it's no problem if you do, if you believe that there is a supernatural force of morality in the world. I don't personally believe that, so when I'm playing characters it's always there is really harmful evil, antisocial, cruel, manipulative, destructive behavior. And then there is really selfless, altruistic, kind, oriented behavior. Those behaviors come from an emotional core of the character. And with Aelwyn, her emotional core, good and evil, she had more cracks to get to that pro-social stuff and Adaine could find it. And I knew that in my head. The elder Abernants wherever the pro-social good stuff in them is, it's so deep or controlled by those dominating like power hungry impulses. Maybe theoretically they have some good in there, but when we're talking about good you're just talking about, I firmly believe that good and evil are behaviors, your actions are what counts. And their actions were going to come back to this emotional core of power hungry. Whereas Aelwyn's stuff, was coming from being really fragile in a lot of ways, and doing what people got her to do and acting from panic and impulse. And maybe there is something that Adaine saw in her of panic and impulse and bad decisions, even when they're really harmful leave a way in for me to appeal to the angels of your better nature, in a way that Arianwyn and Angwyn were doing left no room to appeal.
Siobhan: Yeah, I mean Arianwyn and Angwyn were calculated in their selfish decision making. And Aelwyn's selfish decision making was because she felt like she didn't have another choice, and those things are different.
Brennan: Yes, I very much agree with that. So it was completely lovely, and that was a moment where Siobhan fully took the lead as Adaine to rescue her sister. And it was really lovely, and getting to do that scene with Aelwyn and Adaine and their father at the orb and watch that 77 damage, my God.
Siobhan: I really also like at the beginning of this season thought that Aelwyn was unchangeable and unfixable, and truly went into this season being like I hate that we're even talking about rescuing her, I think that she is a bad person, she deserved to be in prison. Like it was a journey for me as well, it wasn't like I was pretending that Adaine felt that stuff, that's how I genuinely felt.
Brennan: Yes, 100%, 100%. That's so lovely. Let me see if there's anything else. So there are so many questions, we're gonna be doing this next week as well. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, anyone has said such kind stuff. Thank everybody for tuning in for the first episode of "A Crown of Candy", if you missed it, it's on Dropout right now, you can go check it out and watch it immediately. Along with thank you to everyone also for watching "Fantasy High Sophomore Year" and its finale. We love you all, I don't know what this is but I'm doing it too, because that's family, baby.
Siobhan: "A Crown of Candy".
Ally: This is "A Crown of Candy" baby.
Siobhan: When you’re here you’re family.
Brennan: You hear your family, spring break, I believe in you. From everybody here at Dimension 20 we love all you so much, thank you so much for tuning in and watching, and we'll see you at the same time next week, will be the next episode if "A Crown of Candy". And then 7 p.m. Pacific, 10 p.m. Eastern will be the next Dimension We'll talk about the episode, spring break, I believe in you, love you all, bye-bye.
Lou: Thank you.
Ally: Bye everyone. Bye.
Captions extracted by: gluegunshots
Edited by: gluegunshots and OliverC, Brianna