Episode 141 - Rime the Manticore Chocolatier

00:00:05.12 Kurt Crenwelge Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best unofficial Dungeons and Dragons podcast in my humbly biased opinion. I've got an awesome guest for you this week, but before I get to my guest, you know, I have to do it. I have to leave you in suspense with the ad read. 00:00:22.33 Kurt Crenwelge And this is the part where you transcription readers already know I'm talking about ah the RPG zine club from plus one exp.com. It's a great subscription service if you're looking for news zines and new indie games every month. So be sure to go to RPG zine.club. And when you go to the website plus one exp.com, use that affiliate code Randolph, get savings on your purchase, yada, yada, you know the stuff. 00:00:49.51 Kurt Crenwelge All right, and without further ado, I turn the microphone over to my guest and I ask, hello mystery contestant, would you care to introduce yourself? Tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do? 00:01:01.52 Nicole Hi, yeah, and this is Nicole, also known as Game Master Mom, mostly on Instagram, but some other social media places as well. I am a nerd, and I'm also a dungeon master or game master primarily for kids. I mostly run games for kids or a mix of kids and adults. And my newest title that I'm going to claim is that I am a fantasy children's author. 00:01:35.41 Nicole I'm about to publish my first book early in 2025. 00:01:38.89 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. Well, that's cool. What's that process been like? Because, ah you know, maybe I've ah maybe I myself had dabbled with the idea of like, oh, surely, ah you know, me and a friend of mine could get together and we could craft the next token for kids ah fantasy epic or something like that. But what's that process been like for you with coming up with the whole story? 00:02:03.85 Nicole Yeah, I mean, and you absolutely could. But first off, you definitely could do that. And luckily with, you know, the way publishing works now, there's so many options to self publish for you know, not a lot of investment up front if you do it right. So if you have a story in mind, like the story just kind of grew in my mind out of something that I created for my children, the kind of story that I would like them to read that I couldn't find anything else out there that was like it. And I don't know, it took shape. And I wrote it down on paper and started working with a really wonderful illustrator. And it's 00:02:46.13 Nicole going to be out for the world to see and and hopefully like soon, but the process is great. Um, no, no complaints about that. And one of the things that I love about technology is that it makes it easy to do some of those things without having to, you know, hire a whole publishing team, which could be very pricey. 00:03:07.11 Kurt Crenwelge Indeed, yeah. I definitely know an ancillary amount of stuff in my my day job responsibilities. um But yes, I'm i'm checking out ah you know your social medias here. You're also a co-host as well of an of ah your very own podcast as well. 00:03:23.99 Nicole Yes, we actually haven't launched the first episode quite yet. That's coming early 2025 as well. 00:03:27.29 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:03:29.93 Nicole But yeah, the story crafters podcast, I host with three other, uh, I want to say professional dungeon masters, but we're probably more like amateur dungeon masters if we're being honest and just talk all things D and D and crafting and nerd stuff. 00:03:30.51 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:03:47.95 Nicole So first episode coming soon, hopefully in about a month. 00:03:52.57 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Yeah. We're, we're excited to hear about that. I mean, it's been a a delight getting to learn more about you and see more of you on social media, ah certainly as a father to, you know, a three year old, you know, I myself, I'm like, okay, you know, I want to, I want to do D and D stuff with my. 00:04:08.51 Kurt Crenwelge with my kiddo you know he's showing more interest like he wants to just play with my dice was rolling them around he wants to pull out the monster manuals and say oh here's this monster let me roll a dice and then he tells you like if you if you win or not so you know he's showing an interest so you know finding like-minded you know the kids table D and&D and now having you on the show so hopefully you know we can build a you know quite the synergy and quite the community here yeah 00:04:30.76 Nicole yeah 00:04:35.64 Nicole Yeah, I think so. I mean, i kids kids take to it pretty quickly, especially if they see their parents playing with the dice and the minis and going through these books with this really wonderful artwork of monsters and heroes. They're all about it. 00:04:49.45 Nicole so I love it. I love that more people are um bringing their kids into it earlier on. I think that's really great. 00:04:58.01 Kurt Crenwelge which I think is a pretty good segue into the ah the question here, ah do you currently or have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons before? 00:05:07.10 Nicole Yes, I have. Yes, i um I haven't had the chance to be a player very much. I played in, I guess, one campaign and one one shot as a player. 00:05:20.81 Nicole I'm usually the the DM which which is great in its own right. um But right now I have kind of an ongoing campaign that I'm running for my family and a few family friends who you know kind of go in and out. 00:05:25.67 Kurt Crenwelge in 00:05:38.60 Nicole Some games they're there other games they're not but um We have a running campaign in my home brew world of a theory that we're doing right now. 00:05:48.61 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, so is it more of like a West marches style sort of a game or is it more of like episodic kind of like TV, like, Hey, this is our cast of characters today and this is the adventure we're going to go on. 00:06:00.96 Nicole It's I mean, it's pretty. um 00:06:05.73 Nicole it ties all together. It does sometimes turn out episodic and usually that's more based on the interest of the people I'm playing with. Like, for example, my daughter, she just turned five but she's super into My Little Pony. 00:06:14.79 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:06:21.05 Nicole So I picked up a My Little Pony adventure book and we transported to Equestria for like a couple months. 00:06:21.03 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:06:31.21 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, makes sense. 00:06:31.41 Nicole You know, and we did my little pony stuff, but but we always keep the same characters and and it's all mostly in the same world unless we transport somewhere else. 00:06:42.84 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. and And then it's a good balance ah experience as well, which I know our friends over at the the kids table D and&D talk about Oh, how critical and and and very, ah you know, ah character building education and like social interaction and stuff it is to have, you know, not only kids at the table, but like teenagers and adults was that you were describing, you know, oh, I'm running it for my my children, and then, ah you know, our friends and and and family members and such. So is that kind of the mixture that you're working with too? It's like from the super young to like the more mature. 00:07:16.43 Nicole Yeah, we've got, you know, probably our youngest like actual player is like three, almost four. and I know. 00:07:24.21 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. I got i gotta to get my son ready. I'm like, all right, dude, come on. You gotta roll up your first character. Let's let's throw you in it. 00:07:32.16 Nicole Right, I know, it's it's kind of chaotic. But um we play a really rules light version. So it's it's not as crazy as it sounds like If you're listening and you're imagining a three-year-old playing like full D and&D 5e, it's not that deep, right? They're not reading the player's handbook. It's just not happening. 00:07:52.59 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:07:52.66 Nicole but and ah Yeah, any anywhere from, you know, I think we have like a three to 10 kind of range as far as like the kids that I usually get to play with. And then the rest are those kids parents. So unfortunately, we don't have any of like the teen population at this moment. But but we'll we'll take in some teens if anybody wants to join and come on over and play with us. 00:08:15.91 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, or, you know, just give it a couple of years, your 10 year olds all become teenagers and there you go. Yeah. 00:08:22.04 Nicole Right? I'm trying to train one of them to become the the dungeon master. 00:08:26.32 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, there you go. You having your little apprentice sit next to you. 00:08:29.47 Nicole Yeah. 00:08:30.21 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:08:30.86 Nicole That's my grand plan. I'm like, in a few years, you're going to run this, and then I can play again. 00:08:36.06 Kurt Crenwelge You're like, yeah I'm free. And you like go running away. It's like, wait, no, come back. You're supposed to run the game. It's like, nope, it's your turn. 00:08:44.19 Nicole Yep. 00:08:44.96 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. That's what all of us. 00:08:45.52 Nicole We'll see if that comes to fruition. 00:08:47.66 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, that's what all of us forever DMs wish for is that one of the players will be inspired and then we're like, great, you run the game so I can get a break. 00:08:55.57 Nicole yeah the love it 00:09:00.34 Kurt Crenwelge So this podcast, we're called sidekicks and side quests because we like to focus on the little guy, the supporting actors, you know, the background characters, if you will. So this first question, who happens to be your favorite NPC or sidekick character, whether they be from, you know, an RPG, a video game, movie, film, television, etc. 00:09:20.18 Nicole Yeah, 00:09:21.66 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this character your favorite NPC or sidekick? 00:09:23.20 Nicole yeah. 00:09:28.28 Nicole This one's so hard because there's so many good ones, but um as many of us are, I've been a little obsessed with Baldur's Gate 3 since it came out. 00:09:39.58 Nicole And my absolute favorite character in the whole game is the dog Scratch. 00:09:49.17 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. 00:09:50.70 Nicole i I love Scratch, like I would do anything for Scratch in that game. 00:09:58.03 Kurt Crenwelge Well, you are talking to someone who purposefully is doing his best to stay ignorant of it because I don't yet have a fancy enough gaming computer or the newest iteration of the Xbox device in order to play. 00:10:10.09 Nicole Oh, They're, they're very rich. 00:10:11.34 Kurt Crenwelge So I know that this game is just loaded probably packed to the gills with as many interesting NPCs and sidekicks that you could find. 00:10:23.09 Nicole If you've ever played like, uh, one of the dragon age games before, I feel like it's a similar level of like character development for the side characters and the companions. 00:10:34.68 Nicole and so good I can't wait for you to play. You're going to love it. 00:10:37.76 Kurt Crenwelge I know all my life, well, I mean, it'll be this podcast will just go on an indefinite hiatus. It'll be like, what happened? Oh, Kurt finally got a copy of Baldur's Gate 3. That was the last we saw of him. 00:10:47.61 Nicole ah 00:10:49.29 Kurt Crenwelge It'll be like my college days when Skyrim originally came out, and then I had classmates who just would disappear. 00:10:49.78 Nicole Yeah. 00:10:55.96 Kurt Crenwelge And for hours on end, it would be like, oh, it's because they're playing Skyrim today. Oh, OK. All right. Not like you had a ah class to go to or something like that. 00:11:01.28 Nicole Yeah. 00:11:04.06 Kurt Crenwelge No, no, no, Skyrim. 00:11:04.90 Nicole Priorities. Priorities. 00:11:07.57 Kurt Crenwelge priorities. All right, scratch the dog. Well, I will be fascinated to learn more about to learn more about him when I finally get around to playing the game in the year of our Lord 2027 or something like that. 00:11:10.18 Nicole That's the duck. 00:11:20.54 Kurt Crenwelge ah Long, long after its popularity. 00:11:22.76 Nicole He's the most loyal, just the goodest boy you you could ever meet. You will love him. 00:11:29.20 Kurt Crenwelge Excellent. And then ah let's see then the the flip side of that equation, what happens to be your favorite side quest or B plot element? Again, same sort of criteria, RPG, video game, movie, film, television, literature, etc. And why is this your favorite side quest or B plot element? 00:11:50.70 Nicole Okay, I'm kind of embarrassed about this one because I feel like it sheds light on some of my OCD tendencies, but going back to Elder Scrolls Oblivion, the quest that was like, find all of the Nirn roots. 00:12:02.84 Kurt Crenwelge hey Okay. Okay. 00:12:11.80 Nicole all of them and they made that like humming noise and kind of glowed when you came near them so it wasn't super hard like how some of the collecting quests can be like I'm thinking of like the one in Skyrim where you have to find like all those stupid jewels that are hidden like freaking everywhere this this one was like a little bit more accessible to me and and honestly I think Oblivion was one of my first like open world RPG video games so 00:12:15.56 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:12:23.17 Kurt Crenwelge oh 00:12:26.44 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:12:42.12 Nicole As an avid hunter-gatherer in video games, I was like, yes, collect all the glowing plants. 00:12:42.24 Kurt Crenwelge ye 00:12:48.32 Nicole That is all I care about. That is now the main quest of this game for me. 00:12:53.02 Kurt Crenwelge Nevermind the big bad, ah pull ah you know, plotting away at the world. No, these roots, these are the things I need. 00:12:58.12 Nicole No. Yeah, I need these plants. 00:12:59.90 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:13:01.16 Nicole This is all I care about now. 00:13:03.48 Kurt Crenwelge You said collecting and I visibly had a reaction here on the camera because I was remembering Assassin's Creed and there was, you had a good a hundred flags. And I remember on the original Xbox 360 trying to do this and I got stuck at 99 and I do not know where that last flag is. And it'll just forever to this day haunt me. And I'll just be like, 99% done. And I still couldn't find that very last flag. And I went all over that game trying to find it. 00:13:33.41 Kurt Crenwelge couldn't find it. So I won that got away. 00:13:34.16 Nicole Oh, that is the worst. 00:13:37.55 Kurt Crenwelge Yep. 00:13:37.69 Nicole Yeah, that's just awful. 00:13:42.34 Kurt Crenwelge And then the way that we round out the personal interview section of the show, Nicole, what are you passionate about? And why? 00:13:52.37 Nicole Darn, I feel like I already previewed this one a little bit, but I think mostly just like parents or other like significant adults bringing their kids into nerd-dom and gaming and like the magic of fantasy and, you know, obviously, 00:14:15.09 Nicole most of the way that I go about doing that and try to inspire other people to be able to do it too is through D&D and other role-playing games at the table. But even just like, you know, parents sharing like fantasy stories, you know, like The Hobbit or something like that. These like classic fantasy worlds that are so rich and imaginative with their kids. I feel like that's just this really wonderful source of like connection between people and also just like magic and whimsy and joy and like we need more of that. We all need more of that. 00:14:57.26 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, thank you no for sharing that because it has a has me reflecting on on kind of my parenting style, where, you know, my son, you know, I treat him, you know, like, you know, I treat him like he's my son, but I also treat him like he's a little person. And so sometimes in the way that I parent, 00:15:15.61 Kurt Crenwelge I perhaps, you know, um maybe I'm a little too i'm ah complex in how I'm approaching things. And the other day, my wife was telling me like, no, you have to bring some like wonder into things and make it make it fun. And so that's like a good reminder for even me and like the little things. It's like, you're right. Kids, you know, kids only have this time in their life ah to just, you know, 00:15:36.26 Kurt Crenwelge ah we I just got done with the thing where we were making a gingerbread at the park in the freezing cold of night but the Santa Claus was on and that whole movie was about like the whole message or the the the crux the thesis of that movie was you know it's not a matter of seeing it in order to believe it you believe it and then you can see it so that's kind of like how you know the the magic that's the sauce of of childhood is like of of being able to do that and so in and having adults instill that in children, it's like a way for us to like, you know, but you know, be kids again, and to connect with them and have that ah bonding as as parents and and children. 00:16:14.06 Nicole Yeah, I feel like it's like this way for us to connect back to our younger selves too and be a little more like goofy and silly and that's always good. 00:16:25.18 Kurt Crenwelge Well, my wife would say I never grew up. um So, you know, i might I might have an advantage there, but yeah, no. 00:16:31.79 Nicole Perfect. 00:16:32.59 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, there we go. 00:16:33.05 Nicole Just the best. 00:16:34.93 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I think that was a fantastic first part of the podcast to the personal interview section. I think it's time to head into some NPC creation. 00:16:50.95 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC Creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience, and our patrons from Patreon. So now is the time of the show where we give a shout out to our comfortable patrons and above with a loud hoorah. So to you, our queen of the Patreon, Katie Downey, AKA Goblin Katie, RIP Stella, as well as our other wealthy patrons, Ainsa Jablinski and good old mom and dad, we say cheers. 00:17:17.00 Kurt Crenwelge I happen to be enjoying ah in my D and&D mug a double thing of coffee and some coffee creamer because as I said I was outside in the freezing cold and I Needed to warm the old bones. So again, this is this patreon reward is for people who just donate two dollars or more a month ah these ah and And that's what gets you the shout out. 00:17:39.52 Kurt Crenwelge But all the folks I mentioned, they're actually wealthy tier ah patrons, which means they get to introduce an element of chance to our random tables. So if we're going to use those here today, we might hear some of their responses. 00:17:50.92 Kurt Crenwelge So if you want to learn more about the Patreon, you know, just go to the show notes below, go to the podcast website, just or just go to patreon dot.com forward slash 00:17:52.50 Nicole Hmm. 00:18:00.11 Kurt Crenwelge sidekicks and sidequests to find out, learn more about the accommodations that we have awaiting for you within. Help us to grow and expand our operations in the levitating platter, in this demiplane and world's beyond. And Kofi, that's a thing too. So Kofi, you know, all the all the stuff. but all right ah So yeah, so now is the part of the show where we get to make up a character. And before we hit the record button and all that stuff, 00:18:24.68 Kurt Crenwelge ah you had said that you had a character that you wanted to bring to us and and share with the wider world. ah You might tweak it, but was that kind of the the strategy you were wanting to take tonight? 00:18:37.16 Nicole I think so. Is that a good strategy? You tell me. 00:18:40.85 Kurt Crenwelge Hey, ah well, I mean, you know people have brought their own characters and that's been fine. Uh, but I think a lot of people, you know, they also just like to roll dice and they just like to have fun and have the freedom of creativity. So really it's on you. It's what you're my guest. So dealers choice. 00:18:59.83 Nicole See, now you're attempting me to roll. 00:19:03.46 Kurt Crenwelge That's kind of the role of the dungeon master, isn't it? Just to be like, Hmm, I wonder what this could be. 00:19:06.33 Nicole Yes. 00:19:07.82 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know. You'll have to just make a choice. 00:19:11.38 Nicole a 00:19:16.60 Nicole So hard. Okay, if we do the random one hop, what do I need? Is it just to roll? 00:19:24.07 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, so if you wanna roll, whether you have physical dice or virtual dice, you'll just need a standard array. We're gonna work all our way through the dice. So you will get a chance to roll every single one of the dice if you go random. 00:19:38.13 Nicole ring Yeah, let's do it. Let's do random. 00:19:42.08 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, all right, we did it. 00:19:44.03 Nicole All right. 00:19:44.20 Kurt Crenwelge We we flipped a guest who was gonna bring their own character and now is gonna roll random. 00:19:48.08 Nicole but 00:19:49.31 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know if that's happened that often on the show, but I feel very proud of myself. ah 00:19:53.72 Nicole Yeah, you convinced me. 00:19:55.40 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. 00:19:56.12 Nicole yeah 00:19:56.41 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so the first question we have to ask ourselves is what is the name of our character and the way that we determine character names on this show as we roll a d20 and see what we get. 00:19:56.81 Nicole yeah 00:20:08.00 Nicole All right. We're rolling. I got a 17 Rhyme. 00:20:14.14 Kurt Crenwelge 17, okay. Your answer was provided by a previous guest, scarlet64, rhyme, R-I-M-E, rhyme. 00:20:26.61 Nicole I love that name. 00:20:28.08 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, it's also the the name of a popular adventure module setting thing from WotC. So, you know, Rhyme of the Frostmaiden. So there we go, Rhyme. 00:20:37.32 Nicole Yeah. 00:20:38.26 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Or Rhyme of the, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. 00:20:39.61 Nicole Love it. 00:20:41.48 Kurt Crenwelge If ah if you like your ah ancient, well well, if you like your classical poetry and Iron Maiden songs. 00:20:49.36 Kurt Crenwelge The next thing, what is the ancestry of Rhyme? We determined this with a 2d10s or a d100 role. 00:20:58.64 Nicole Okay. 00:21:03.36 Kurt Crenwelge So one for the tens place, one for the ones place. 00:21:08.34 Nicole 74. 00:21:10.15 Kurt Crenwelge 74. Ooh, as I scroll down the list, Manticore. 00:21:16.42 Nicole Oh, this is so good. 00:21:18.27 Kurt Crenwelge So rhyme the Manticore. Okay. 00:21:20.88 Nicole Okay. 00:21:21.04 Kurt Crenwelge This is only the second time in the history of the podcast that we've ever gotten Manticore again. So very cool. 00:21:26.86 Nicole Oh, I love that. 00:21:28.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:21:28.62 Nicole I love it. 00:21:29.41 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Well, all of our NPCs, you know, they have to have a job or something that they're doing. ah So what is the job or role in society? Question mark that rhyme the Manticore has. Let's roll just a regular D10, a singular D10 and see what job they have. 00:21:48.30 Nicole All right, got a seven. 00:21:50.22 Kurt Crenwelge Seven. Ooh, okay. Your answer was provided by previous guest, Leah Murray, a chocolatier. 00:21:59.12 Nicole Oh, okay. 00:22:00.88 Kurt Crenwelge So Rhyme, Rhyme is a very fancy chocolatier person. Maybe, or maybe, I don't know, ah just a chocolatier. I don't know whether that's fancy or regular ah Joe Schmoe chocolatier. 00:22:12.66 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know. That's, that's for, for us. 00:22:14.13 Nicole Yeah, it feels, it feels fancy to me with a name like rhyme. I feel like this is the fancy. 00:22:19.08 Kurt Crenwelge This is is fancy work. Okay. And and then ah then let's see, we need to we need to determine the age range of Rhyme, the manticore. So let's roll a D8 so we can kind of get like ah like a category range. 00:22:34.99 Nicole bye Okay. 00:22:35.70 Kurt Crenwelge Five would be midlife. So kind of a middle-aged manticore named Rhyme that is a chocolatier. So with these starting details in mind, this leads us into our next question. 00:22:47.82 Kurt Crenwelge Describe the physical appearance of Rhyme. So we got Rhyme, middle-aged, manticore, and chocolatier. So what are you picturing when you picture Rhyme? 00:22:55.82 Nicole me 00:22:59.28 Nicole Well, I feel like first off, I'm thinking like, is this a male or female character, right? 00:23:09.71 Nicole I feel like rhyme could go either way. 00:23:09.78 Kurt Crenwelge Your, your choice. True. True. Yeah. 00:23:14.28 Nicole and 00:23:16.02 Kurt Crenwelge What speaks to you. 00:23:16.25 Nicole I think I'm picturing more like female. 00:23:20.19 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Yeah, I can totally see that. 00:23:21.12 Nicole that's That's what I'm feeling. 00:23:22.61 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:23:22.93 Nicole Yeah, female. man Manticore. 00:23:26.91 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. So she's, she's a fancy chocolatier. 00:23:27.91 Nicole Okay. 00:23:29.57 Kurt Crenwelge I wonder how she got this gig. 00:23:32.05 Nicole Right. I know. I mean, and I'm thinking like she's middle aged. Like has she been doing this a long time? Is it like, does it run in the family, this chocolatiering business? Maybe she was like an apprentice and now she's stepping up to run the business. 00:23:47.05 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. ah Yeah, yeah, no, this is totally like a good spot where, you know, as we're working on the physical description now, yeah and we spitball back and forth. 00:23:57.48 Kurt Crenwelge Now, you know, you can go to a monster manual, or you can go to mythology, and you can kind of see artistic representations of manticore over the years. 00:24:08.00 Kurt Crenwelge So, I mean, does rhyme kind of look like what we would expect, like a so a bog standard 00:24:08.48 Nicole Yeah. 00:24:14.62 Kurt Crenwelge manticore to look like? Or is she softer in her features? Is she more monstrous or like, or more mythological? Like what what kind of manticore are we working with? 00:24:25.91 Nicole Yeah, I'm imagining like a little softer, almost a little more like, I don't know, like cartoony is kind of what I'm picturing. and I don't know where that's coming from. 00:24:35.99 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:24:36.97 Nicole But like, A little more friendly, not not such a ah monster kind of vibe. Friendly magic, or just want to make you some chocolate, some fancy chocolate. 00:24:47.28 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, a friendly manticore. 00:24:53.05 Kurt Crenwelge Which, you know, just I'm just doing a quick bit of googling to help us out, you know, so the manticore legendary creature from ancient Persian mythology, ah similar to the Egyptian Sphinx and proliferated it proliferated in Western Europe. 00:25:08.01 Kurt Crenwelge Western European medieval art. It has the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion or a tail covered in venomous spines similar to porcupine quills. So I mean, you could go to the D and&D ah manual and kind of see how they've done Manticores. 00:25:19.22 Nicole Mm. 00:25:23.50 Kurt Crenwelge I think MCDM productions when they did their Flea mortals monster book, they had like a really interesting take on Manticores. So you know, just kind of looking on Google, um oh, were like a really interesting sort of like pencil sketch from ah from Wikipedia that kind of shows like this, you know, kind of looks like a ah feminine sort of manticore, but she's got like the real like soft lion's mane and not a particularly fearsome um sort of ah tail sort of thing. 00:25:54.43 Kurt Crenwelge So we're imagining rime is a little more softer. 00:25:55.74 Nicole Yeah. 00:25:57.84 Kurt Crenwelge Is there any particular, um coloration or anything to her. And like, what's the what's the tail situation ah kind of a light? 00:26:08.60 Nicole Yeah, I mean, like, a kind of like a golden lion color to most of her fur skin, her lovely fur. 00:26:16.60 Kurt Crenwelge OK. Yeah, yeah. 00:26:20.64 Nicole And then like, ah like deep purple, those kind of like, dragony wings that manticores have. 00:26:27.26 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. Ooh, yeah, yeah, because there are dragon wings with it too, yeah, yeah. Okay, so lion. 00:26:32.31 Nicole Yeah, I don't know that they always have dragon wings, but I'm definitely picturing dragon wings involved. 00:26:38.49 Kurt Crenwelge Right, right. 00:26:38.86 Nicole Because why not? 00:26:40.08 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, well, definitely the the the the D and&D Beyond Sight does say, vaguely humanoid head, body of a lion, the wings of a dragon, long tail ends in a cluster of deadly spikes that can impale prey at impressive range. 00:26:48.18 Nicole Okay. 00:26:53.11 Kurt Crenwelge um 00:26:53.40 Nicole Ooh. 00:26:54.10 Kurt Crenwelge so So we're imagining her softer, so kind of golden colored lion body, but purplish sort of dragon wings. um so So not as many, ah the teeth and stuff like that, maybe not as like razor sharp. 00:27:02.35 Nicole Yeah. 00:27:09.25 Nicole Yeah, not so menacing, like a little more soft and and feminine. 00:27:14.70 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so maybe more like how you would imagine a sphinx. 00:27:19.74 Nicole Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:27:21.53 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah. 00:27:22.40 Nicole Yeah, very cat-like catlike and graceful, but not so menacing. 00:27:22.47 Kurt Crenwelge so 00:27:27.71 Kurt Crenwelge And then, okay. So then, and then the tail spike maybe is just, um, you know, just like very demure. I don't know. Like how you, how you. 00:27:35.83 Nicole Yeah, Mary Demir. 00:27:37.65 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Very demure porcupine spikes on her. They're very fashionable. They're not, uh, they're not mean. And, uh, or I don't know, it says, according to mythology could also be the tail of a dragon or, or like a scorpion tail as well. 00:27:51.85 Kurt Crenwelge So I don't know. Do you feel like tail spikes or dragon tail or scorpion tail? 00:27:55.76 Nicole Yeah, i I like the dragon tail. That that feels ah feels more appropriate to me. 00:28:01.66 Kurt Crenwelge That feels more in line with Rhyme. Okay. 00:28:04.25 Nicole Yeah. 00:28:04.97 Kurt Crenwelge So she doesn't necessarily have to worry about like, you know, doing tail spikes. She just has like a dragon sort of tail. 00:28:11.89 Nicole Yeah. 00:28:12.76 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right, very cool. All right. um Okay, all right. Good, good, good. So we're we're learning more. um What kind of helps us as well, not only the physical descriptions of the characters, but we also, ah for role playing purposes, like to kind of come up with some adjectives. 00:28:29.21 Kurt Crenwelge So based on all that we've learned, Can you narrow Ryan down with like three adjectives of what best describe her as a character? 00:28:39.72 Nicole o 00:28:42.96 Nicole She is sophisticated. 00:28:50.65 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, it's supposed to get a good chocolate here. Yeah, it makes sense. 00:28:54.79 Nicole Yeah. She's warm. I imagine her kind of having like an inviting presence that maybe is a you know, a little counter to her, her appearance, which is like very big, right? Very big and kind of looming, but her personality is much more warm and, and soft and welcoming. 00:29:18.69 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. So we've got, yeah, okay. So we've got warm. And then we've got sophisticated. I don't know. Is there like a third one that's kind of like, ah oh, this is like her flaw sort of a thing? Or is it just something else? That's nice to round it out. 00:29:35.95 Nicole I don't see her flaw. Maybe she, maybe sometimes she is a ah prone to being a bit too chatty with her customers. 00:29:55.72 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, okay, so she's chatty. So she's warm, she's sophisticated, but she's a bit of a chatterbox. 00:30:01.81 Nicole Yeah, she could get going and and not know when to stop sometimes. 00:30:05.63 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. um Yeah, so I'm just kind of more curious now. you know This is kind of a little more free form, like a small departure away from the questions, just to kind of help us understand the character a little more. 00:30:17.30 Kurt Crenwelge So so how has she ended up as a chocolatier? I have personal ideas. like if i'm I'm going to absolutely put Rhyme in my game, but like where's the appropriate place to put her in my world? 00:30:28.23 Kurt Crenwelge OK, I have my rationalizations of where she would be. But I'm just kind of curious. like you know you're you're kind of you know you Earlier you said like cartoonish or like, 00:30:32.01 Nicole me 00:30:37.56 Kurt Crenwelge maybe fairy tale asks. So like, you know, is she gonna be? Would she be someone that you would see in your ah your daughter's equestria equestria departure in My Little Pony's realm or something like that? 00:30:50.92 Nicole Oh, for sure. For sure. I feel like she would fit right in and like, ah you know, Ponyville or some other place like that of a you know, i'm I'm imagining that like she has this, you know, in like a large ish city, she's got a kind of a cottagey sort of shop that she does her chocolate business out of. 00:31:07.82 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:31:14.59 Nicole And, you know, maybe it's been passed on to her from parents or ah maybe even adopted parents, seems like kind of a strange business for a Manticore to go into. 00:31:24.65 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, 00:31:27.39 Nicole But 00:31:28.46 Kurt Crenwelge interesting. Yeah, so like a manticore egg that was just found by them and then it hatched and then oh, it's a manticore. 00:31:30.12 Nicole Yeah. 00:31:36.98 Kurt Crenwelge And then they just didn't know any different or didn't, you know, they were like, Okay, well, I guess this is what we're dealing with. 00:31:37.93 Nicole Yeah. 00:31:43.31 Kurt Crenwelge And then they just 00:31:43.36 Nicole Right. Let's just raise her as our own and teach her the chocolate business. 00:31:48.40 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to say, like what, so like, uh, like, are we talking like dragon born parents or something like that? So she's got like a dragon born mom and dad, like, Oh, the, the, and then she's got like dragon born brothers and sisters running around like, Oh, rhyme, like, Oh, you you, you know, your tail bumped this thing again. 00:32:03.44 Nicole Yes. 00:32:06.40 Kurt Crenwelge Like, Oh, let me pick that up. 00:32:07.58 Nicole Yes. 00:32:07.64 Kurt Crenwelge Sort of a thing. 00:32:10.42 Nicole Yes. I'm feeling it. it 00:32:13.18 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, yeah, so then that kind of explains um the the maybe the name, maybe, like, you know, Rhyme might be like a Dragonborn name or unless she had like a little, like, there was a name tag or something with the egg ah before she hatched or something, I don't know. 00:32:29.84 Nicole Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that ah that would be ah a given name, right? Not a name that she came with, but a name that her adopted family gave her. 00:32:43.24 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, perfect. So she's adopted into this, or we're just saying for now, Dragonborn, unless you say concretely, like, no, this is the true story. 00:32:51.05 Nicole No, Dragonborn is it. Yeah, this is the true story now. 00:32:53.40 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, the true story. Okay, so she's raised by a Dragonborn family adopted, and they have this chocolate, chocolatiering business. And so she works in, ah you know, she works in the shop, mom and dad and siblings are all still around and all that helping her working alongside her. 00:33:10.85 Nicole Yeah. Yeah. 00:33:14.32 Kurt Crenwelge I'm just curious like how how she's able, what's the thing that she brings to the table? like She's like literally using like her her claws or her wings or her tail to like drizzle like the chocolate in the most perfect way. 00:33:30.19 Kurt Crenwelge and like ah it's really Because Rhyme is here, we can do like the flourishes that we were missing on our stuff. 00:33:36.16 Nicole Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Like she adds her own special kind of ah flair to it. That's different than what they had before. And people just go nuts for it. 00:33:47.87 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, okay. And I was just trying to see, yeah, it's not quite like a chimera where there's actual dragon breath involved. So yeah, I was gonna say just the wings and stuff, of and ah I guess a tail of a dragon, but not necessarily literally dragon's breath or anything like that. 00:34:05.02 Kurt Crenwelge So okay, so she's got this. 00:34:05.58 Nicole Right. She's not like doing the creme brulees with her breath or anything like that. 00:34:10.62 Kurt Crenwelge Right, that would be your siblings, because are they like fire breathing? 00:34:13.17 Nicole Right. 00:34:13.78 Kurt Crenwelge Are they fire breathing dragon born? 00:34:14.62 Nicole yeah Yes. Yes. 00:34:17.61 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay, so that would mean, if I try and remember all my, it's a family affair, is it, I'm just trying to remember all the different colorations now. 00:34:19.67 Nicole It's a family affair. Yeah. 00:34:26.73 Kurt Crenwelge um Let's see, ooh, don't mind me, just googling something here in the background, dragonborn colors. Yeah, okay, here we go. So as I just quickly look, um yeah, so you know, thing the you know brass dragonborn do fire, um and I feel like red, that's probably a given as well. 00:34:43.38 Nicole Okay. 00:34:46.76 Kurt Crenwelge um 00:34:47.84 Nicole Probably. 00:34:47.96 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, let's see. Here's my here. Here you are list. Okay, fire. So brass, gold, red, I don't know any of those colors standing out to you. 00:34:58.36 Nicole Yeah, I like i like the brass. I'm attached to that one already. 00:35:02.96 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. So it's a family of brass dragons that adopted this Manticore and they're all chocolatiers. And you said it's a cottage type situation. So it's a cottage, like ah a somewhere adjacent or near to like a major city sort of a situation. 00:35:11.99 Nicole Yeah. 00:35:18.66 Nicole yes Yeah, yeah. 00:35:20.65 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And metropolitan, or is it actually like, Oh, we're in a dragon born civilization and this is the cottage outside of town. And they just happen to have a Manticore that lives with them. 00:35:35.29 Nicole Yeah. i ah I think I think more that one. um I I don't know. 00:35:46.91 Nicole I feel like I always end up back on Elder Scrolls, right? But I'm i'm imagining like a Skyrim type environment where there's all these like different towns. And yeah, maybe their cottage is like right on the outskirts of one of these towns that's primarily inhabited by other Dragonborn. 00:36:05.30 Nicole And you know, the occasional traveler who might want to pop in and get some fancy chocolate. 00:36:06.46 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:36:12.59 Kurt Crenwelge Right and it's exactly why why not and also you need the more you need more real estate literally because you know manticores are large creatures so it's not like you know they had to expand on to the business in order to like actually have room for ah you know for rhyme that work behind the counter in the kitchen and making all the the pieces alongside her siblings and the rest of her family. 00:36:12.83 Nicole Because why would you not? 00:36:37.60 Nicole Yes, I love it. 00:36:42.10 Kurt Crenwelge And okay, my other question now because thinking like of real world connections, they always talk about like, Oh, the Swiss do chocolate real well. Well, the Swiss are landlocked peoples in the middle of Europe. And then like chocolate and cacao comes from like you know, South America and Asia and you know, more tropical regions. So how was the chocolate getting to them? Is this a situation of like by trade? It's like, Oh, they buy all this cacao and then you know, they have like a whole family factory on site where they're like, you know, preparing all the cacao and making it melting it down to get all the chocolate or 00:37:18.67 Kurt Crenwelge Is it like, oh, we're just in a tropical environment and like, we just get the stuff ourselves off the cacao trees in the, in the, but in the back, in the back orchard or whatever. 00:37:28.49 Nicole No, they've definitely got some trade connections. This is like, ah not a locally sourced situation, but they do get it from, you know, wherever but far, far away across the seas or from their trade partners. 00:37:42.57 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Far, far away. Okay. Yeah. 00:37:47.77 Nicole Yes. And then they produce this delicacy. 00:37:52.70 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Yeah, so so they so the family probably does well for themselves, you know, because if they're the only game in town, in this major, you know, one of the major players in this town, it's like, oh, you might have the fancy, the fancier chocolatiers done by the Dragonborn, like in the heart of the city, but it's like, oh, no, no, the real secret is you got to go out out of the town, and you got to find this cottage 00:38:12.93 Nicole Yes. 00:38:16.67 Kurt Crenwelge you know you can't miss it you know it's very large you you would think why is a cottage this large it's like well you'll you'll find the reason now soon and enough. 00:38:25.47 Nicole Yes, yes, that's it. 00:38:28.89 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, okay. All right, so we got some creative juices flowing and we're kind of understanding the story and the setting that we're gonna, you know, potentially find rhyme in. And so now I get to ah say, and now we get to go back to some dice rolling, ah because we like all of our NPCs to have something cool on their person. 00:38:44.42 Nicole Oh. 00:38:47.89 Nicole Oh, yes. 00:38:49.13 Kurt Crenwelge So what's going to be a valuable item, piece of lore, secret, or ideal or concept that Rhyme ascribes to? This is a combination roll. So you get to roll a d4 first for the category, and then you roll a d6 and we'll find out what the particular thing is. 00:39:07.70 Nicole All right, category is two. 00:39:09.48 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so this is going to be a piece of lore, and then you roll a d6. 00:39:15.48 Nicole that's a Three. 00:39:16.77 Kurt Crenwelge Aha! Well, your answer was provided to us by our Patreon supporter, ah Nicholas Cartarelli, of Raised On D and&D Podcast, the secret, or rather, hey Nick, sorry, not the secret, but the piece of lore provided. 00:39:26.96 Nicole Oh, hey, Nick. 00:39:32.50 Kurt Crenwelge ah Rhyme knows that the Wheelwright is a trained assassin slash bodyguard. 00:39:40.59 Nicole Oh my gosh. 00:39:40.75 Kurt Crenwelge So, yeah, so how did Rhyme come to to to know this piece of knowledge? 00:39:47.63 Nicole Wow, how did she come to know that? 00:39:51.11 Kurt Crenwelge Is he a frequent customer? 00:39:51.46 Nicole You know, mate. Oh, she is chatty. 00:39:53.82 Kurt Crenwelge She's chatty. 00:39:56.85 Nicole I know maybe she got him chatting, you know, just buttered him up with all that chocolate and got him, got him spilling his secrets. 00:39:59.56 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:40:05.04 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe some of the liqueur chocolates, you know, some of those ah fancy alcohol infused chocolates. 00:40:11.17 Nicole There you go. There you go. Yeah, all her all her warmth and her chattiness just loosened his lips. 00:40:20.11 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And so then it's you know, this so we described that, oh, this is a cottage outside of a major civilization out of a major like capital city, we're thinking maybe. 00:40:32.11 Kurt Crenwelge So there's like a hamlet or like not really a suburbia, but just like, oh, this is like the little hamlet before you get to the big town. 00:40:32.33 Nicole Yes. 00:40:40.00 Kurt Crenwelge So the wheel right in this town, 00:40:41.03 Nicole Yes. 00:40:43.07 Kurt Crenwelge for whatever reason he's here, but that he's a trained assassin or a bodyguard of someone. So is there someone important in this hamlet that ah the Wheelwright is a trained assassin for? Like, oh, I do work in the city because I work for the Assassin's Guild, or yeah or I don't know, are you just kind of leaving that up to whatever dungeon master is gonna use Rime and by extension this trained assassin bodyguard ah Wheelwright guy? 00:41:12.27 Nicole Yeah, I mean, I'm, I don't know, like, why is he there? I wasn't thinking that there was somebody that he worked for locally. I was thinking like he was posted out there kind of in, you know, in Nowhere'sville, not by anyone important, but just to be kind of, you know, on the lookout or surveying or or sending back information. 00:41:26.99 Kurt Crenwelge Mhmm. 00:41:34.69 Kurt Crenwelge Or is it a situation of um there was that movie that Viggo Mortensen was in, where he was like, Oh, I used to be the assassin. 00:41:45.79 Kurt Crenwelge And now I leave the quiet private life, but I get pulled in. It's like the same concept behind John Wick. Like, Hey, I used to be a trained assassin. 00:41:53.09 Nicole Yeah. 00:41:54.62 Kurt Crenwelge I left that life behind because I just wanted to live the simple life. And so is it just like, Oh, I'm here in the community. I am the wheel, right? This is what I do day in day out. But you know, like my past like, oh, i you know, because I'm working my shirt slips and I have like, some sort of deadly tattoo that gets revealed for a split second before I adjust my shirt back or whatever. 00:42:05.47 Nicole Yeah. 00:42:17.63 Nicole Yeah, I love that. Like this is his retirement gig. 00:42:21.51 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. So the retirement gig for the the nearby wheel ride in this hamlet. That's a trained assassin. 00:42:26.32 Nicole Yeah. 00:42:26.75 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like, so the player characters like, Oh man, like we need, we need to hire someone to like help us. She could be like, you know, because she's chatty, she's like, Oh, you know, you could just go talk to the wheel, right? 00:42:37.44 Kurt Crenwelge And if you give him some of these like whiskey infused bonbons, I'm sure you could get him to like come with you on your adventure. 00:42:38.79 Nicole yeah 00:42:45.79 Nicole Yes, yes, I love it. I love that. 00:42:48.67 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Perfect. All right, we figured out a way to make it work. And then the way that we thread the needle, ah we want all of our NPCs to be able to offer up side quests. We want Rhyme to have a bright gold exclamation point over her head when the party stops in this hamlet. And they're like, oh, chocolate. Sure, we'll go buy some chocolate because we've got some characters with sweet toots in the game. But oh, oh, look, someone needs our help. So we roll the last dice, which is going to be a D12. And let's figure out, what's the side quest that Rhyme is going to offer up for the player characters to go and do? 00:43:20.50 Nicole Oh, okay. Uh oh, I lost my dice. Hold on. 00:43:27.17 Nicole Okay, d12, is that what you said? 00:43:29.07 Kurt Crenwelge Indeed. 00:43:30.94 Nicole All right, I got a one. 00:43:34.13 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Okay. Your answer was provided by previous guest, Hannah Wright of the in between podcast. There is a dragon. There is a dragon who is a hoarder trying to turn over a new organizational leaf and he needs your help. 00:43:51.83 Kurt Crenwelge Do you think that makes sense for rhyme or do you want to try rerolling? Cause I'm not above people rerolling. 00:43:57.16 Nicole Okay. The dragons of hoarder and needs help organizing. 00:44:02.54 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Okay, yeah, that's why it took me to okay. Yes, so there is a dragon who's a hoarder that has like like a like a real-world person That's like oh, I'm living in too much stuff like I collect too much stuff I'm not taking care of myself or whatever it is But there is a dragon who is a hoarder has a hoarding problem aside from I guess a normal dragon having a hoard and that they maintain, but they're trying to turn over a new organizational leaf. 00:44:07.00 Nicole Okay. 00:44:24.24 Nicole Yeah. 00:44:27.17 Kurt Crenwelge And they need your help, I guess to organize their hoard. 00:44:27.89 Nicole Okay. 00:44:30.50 Kurt Crenwelge Is that something logical that rhyme would be able to like offer up to the player characters because this, this dragon because Oh, they're the chocolatiers that everyone goes to. 00:44:41.65 Kurt Crenwelge So this dragon conceivably goes or gets chocolates from this family. And so rhyme is like, She's chatty. She's warm. She talks to this dragon. This dragon's just like, I've got too much stuff. 00:44:53.53 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know what to do with it all. Or like, I'm buried in my hoard and I can't get around in it. 00:44:56.06 Nicole yeah 00:44:58.67 Kurt Crenwelge Or, or what are you thinking? 00:45:00.24 Nicole Yeah, yeah, no, I like that. I mean, I think, I think Rhyme's the kind of girl that wouldn't be above like making a delivery of chocolate to this dragon, you know? 00:45:09.59 Kurt Crenwelge She's got wings. She can fly. That would make sense. 00:45:12.29 Nicole Yeah. 00:45:12.49 Kurt Crenwelge I would believe that. 00:45:14.47 Nicole I mean, what dragon wouldn't want some of that chocolate and if he could order it delivery and she could provide it. By the time she gets there, she's going to want to have a conversation and I could see how this would come up in conversation as she surveys his hoard that is making him upset. 00:45:31.77 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. Yeah. So probably kind of maybe more of a, a quote unquote good dragon. So not like maybe a chromatic dragon. So this family is a brass dragon born family. 00:45:43.72 Kurt Crenwelge Is there like a brass dragon patron, if you will, that's like a progenitor of this line of um brass dragon born or if you will. 00:45:48.64 Nicole Yeah. 00:45:53.82 Nicole Yes, I think that's perfect. 00:45:56.19 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:45:56.32 Nicole That's how it all ties together. 00:45:57.86 Kurt Crenwelge That's how it all ties together. Okay. So there is a nearby brass dragon, uh, that, you know, uh, patronage to the, the civilization, the big town and the hamlet and this like, Oh yeah, we trace our lineage back. 00:46:09.06 Kurt Crenwelge And this is our, this is our progenitor ancestor, kind of a guide. And so rhyme goes and makes the delivery of the chocolates and gets to be chatty and know the dragon. Uh, but this dragon has a hoarding problem. 00:46:21.32 Kurt Crenwelge Who would have thought, uh, and wants to reorganize the hoard. 00:46:23.34 Nicole Yeah. 00:46:24.72 Kurt Crenwelge So, okay. So then rhyme. when the players come to the chocolate shop or they meet Rhyme wherever, and she informs them of this task, the side quest to do. 00:46:35.44 Kurt Crenwelge ah So we have to consider the the consequences like what are the good and what's the bad. 00:46:36.06 Nicole yeah Okay. 00:46:40.66 Kurt Crenwelge So what's going to be the reward for the players? So Rhyme gives them this interesting side quest to do what's going to be the reward for the party when they undertake this mission. 00:46:51.48 Kurt Crenwelge especially depending on how ancient this dragon is and how extensive this horde is like, what is it going to take to get it organized? 00:46:58.08 Nicole Right? 00:47:01.34 Nicole Yeah, I don't know. And I'm like, okay, who's really doing the rewarding, right? Because maybe the dragon would do some rewarding himself, right? Like maybe he would let them keep some of their favorite pieces from the Horde that he doesn't need anymore. 00:47:15.46 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, yeah. Yeah. And that could, um you know, that might, uh, well, this is a podcast where we're free. We don't have to stay tied to the Lord all. So I don't know. I don't know if brass dragons are particularly covetous or like greedy or they're like, I really can't part with this, but you you know, if this dragon truly is trying to turn over a new leaf, 00:47:36.70 Kurt Crenwelge you know like oh you know what that that plus two magic shield I haven't used it in like two centuries so you know you what you're an adventurer you're gonna get hurt so sure you can use the plus two shield so you think everyone in the party just gets to take like one item from the dragon horde you think okay yeah yeah and then dungeon masters can kind of scale with the party of like oh this is like 00:47:44.58 Nicole Yeah. Yeah, 00:47:56.39 Nicole yeah I think so. I mean, there's some good stuff in there, I bet. 00:48:04.65 Kurt Crenwelge a young dragon, an adult dragon, or maybe even an ancient dragon. you know Then you fix the lore to be like, you know oh, they're just related to us. The family's like, oh yeah, that but that brass dragon's related to us. 00:48:16.40 Kurt Crenwelge third Third cousin once removed on my mother's side, kind of a thing. 00:48:22.02 Nicole yeah 00:48:22.56 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:48:23.33 Nicole love it. 00:48:24.07 Kurt Crenwelge All right, so the party goes, they help organize the Horde. They make this dragon's life better. They get to walk away with a piece of treasure ah from the Horde. 00:48:32.92 Nicole Yeah, yeah, it does. 00:48:33.36 Kurt Crenwelge That sounds pretty cool. And then do you think Rhyme would be willing to offer the player characters anything once she hears like her good friend, the dragons, you know, feels much happier and better that that is place is better organized now? 00:48:49.29 Nicole Yeah, certainly. I mean, it's Nothing else she could give them some chocolates that might have some good effects, you know, some some healing, if nothing else, but Right. 00:48:55.93 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. Oh, do you think do you now do you think that's what kind of sets this chocolate shop apart? Is it just that it's normal chocolate or is there chocolate like I joked earlier about like alcoholic infused stuff but like I know a previous character on this podcast was a beekeeper, but the thing that made his be special is that they produced a honey that was very similar to like a basic healing potion. So are you thinking along the same lines like, Oh, these, these chocolates are infused because of where we get them from their magical properties. It's like when you eat one of these chocolates, it's like drinking a health potion kind of a thing. 00:49:34.41 Nicole Right. Yeah, like it helps your stamina or health or something. 00:49:39.53 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. It gives you temporary hit points or like whatever you thinking. 00:49:44.89 Nicole Yeah. 00:49:45.71 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. So yeah, dungeon masters, you can certainly play with that. 00:49:48.56 Nicole Yeah. 00:49:48.59 Kurt Crenwelge So, okay. So she's willing to give you some of these like special chocolates that these, uh, that this family is known for, for making, I'm sure they could do like regular chocolate too, but like the pricey thing, the thing that helps keep the family really in business is that they're like, Oh, we know how to make like the special bond bonds or whatever. 00:49:59.71 Nicole Yeah, 00:50:07.85 Nicole yeah. yeah 00:50:09.55 Kurt Crenwelge OK, very cool. and But then, of course, we also have to consider the consequences of the flip side of the equation. So what's going to be? What's gonna be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? 00:50:23.14 Kurt Crenwelge So if the players get to the dragon horde and they're like, yo, this is a young brass dragon. We can take on a brass dragon and they decide to like take that dragon out and try and like steal the horde for themselves. 00:50:32.68 Nicole oh darn well i mean my like selfish kind of hope if i was the dungeon master is that they decide to fight that dragon i'm gonna be beefing up that dragon so they get 00:50:36.23 Kurt Crenwelge ah Or they're just like, no, we're a dragon. yeah Are you crazy? We're gonna get barbecued. No, we're not gonna do it. So like in either sort of case, what's gonna be the consequence for the party? 00:51:02.59 Nicole pummeled because I do not appreciate that choice, but you know to each his own Yep Yeah yeah 00:51:08.13 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I mean, there are murder hobos and there are there are players that just like to kick the hornets nest just to see what will happen. Because, hey, there's no consequences to my real life. It's not like I get to go fight a dragon in its hoard every day. So okay, so you so well, and it makes sense. Like, yeah, a dragon in his hoard would be stronger than like normally outside of his of his hoard. 00:51:32.96 Nicole Right. Yeah, he's going to be strong and there there might even be some environmental things that mess you up in there too. Just depends how how upset I am. 00:51:47.02 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so yeah, so it's gonna be like, you're not gonna make it an easy fight for, you don't think it should be an easy fight, like, but you. 00:51:51.58 Nicole No, I don't think there should be any of these at all. 00:51:55.81 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so consequence there is like, you're in a dragon fight, in a dragon fights home turf, so good luck surviving that if you can. 00:52:03.73 Nicole Yeah, good luck. 00:52:04.72 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, right, but okay, so say that example, they take the they take the path of violence, they take the evil karma, the renegade path, if you will. Um, and they come out on top and you know, this dragon is dead. 00:52:19.08 Kurt Crenwelge They raid the hoard. They take it all for themselves. How is Ryan going to react to that? Cause she's the one who told them like, Oh my, I love this guy. Like he's my friend and you, you know, you should go help him. 00:52:29.57 Nicole Right. 00:52:31.83 Kurt Crenwelge And they're like, you know, that she was trusting that they were going to do the right thing, but instead they did the wrong thing. So how is Ryan going to react to this? 00:52:41.38 Nicole Yeah, Rhyme is not going to be happy about that. And I don't know that many of the other dragonborns are either. I mean, I think this is like their, this is their guy, right? 00:52:51.86 Nicole This is their ancestral patron. 00:52:52.14 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:52:53.97 Nicole I think the whole town is going to be pissed. 00:52:56.32 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay, so though so like the entire community turns hostile. 00:53:01.79 Nicole Yeah. Yeah. Like don't ever come back here or we will fight you. 00:53:05.80 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Yeah, and because this is a hamlet that's nearby the big city, so it's like if they start stirring up trouble in the hamlet, all they have to do is go to the big city and now suddenly armies of Dragonborn probably riding wyverns and drakes and all other sort, they have other dragons on their side as well that they can just call to sick on the party ah to go get them and stuff. 00:53:28.86 Nicole Yeah. 00:53:30.10 Kurt Crenwelge So just a series of escalations. 00:53:30.30 Nicole Oh, yeah. 00:53:32.83 Nicole Yeah. 00:53:35.32 Kurt Crenwelge Now you're playing ah you know Dungeons and Dragons Outlaws on the Run edition. 00:53:40.69 Nicole Yes. 00:53:40.87 Kurt Crenwelge The entire world is trying to fight you because you just keep digging yourselves into bigger and bigger holes. ah 00:53:46.81 Nicole Right. Yeah, just you you better run away very far and not go back and hope no one recognizes you. 00:53:54.08 Kurt Crenwelge Right, right. Okay, so there's that consequence of like, okay, we fight the dragon, we're successful. Obviously, if they fight the dragon and they lose, okay, well, now they're they're dead and all their stuff is claimed by the Horde and thereby adds to the problem of this hoarder who's like overwhelmed. 00:54:08.25 Nicole Yes. 00:54:11.63 Nicole Oh, I died. 00:54:13.71 Kurt Crenwelge So that exacerbates his emotions and stuff. It's kind of like an aw, you just made him worse because you left all your your gear here. ah Okay. 00:54:24.23 Nicole Yeah. 00:54:24.36 Kurt Crenwelge Um, but then what about re refusing the call to the adventure? So Ryan like tells them like, Hey, you guys are capable. You could help, but they say no, no, thank you. 00:54:32.42 Nicole Yeah. 00:54:33.69 Kurt Crenwelge Like, or, or no way. Like maybe they're maybe, maybe they politely refuse or maybe they're mean about it. Like, how is she going to react to that? 00:54:44.59 Nicole Yeah, well, she's definitely not going to give them the good stash of the chocolates. That's for sure. 00:54:50.73 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so shecs she locks them out of being able to get like super fancy chocolates. 00:54:56.51 Nicole okay Yeah, I mean, she's not going to completely turn away their business because this is still a family business. 00:54:58.59 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:55:02.89 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:55:04.59 Nicole They still need to make money, but she's not going to offer the good stuff. 00:55:08.55 Kurt Crenwelge Right. and They talk to another family member and then like Rhyme has to be like, you really shouldn't sell them the good stuff. They didn't help my friend. ah maybe Maybe upcharges them a whole bunch. 00:55:18.98 Kurt Crenwelge Like they pay like way more money for the good stuff than they would have paid if they just had helped the dragon. 00:55:20.10 Nicole Yeah, there you go. 00:55:26.50 Nicole Yeah, no, no discounts if they decide to not help. 00:55:32.16 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, okay. 00:55:32.49 Nicole Also, like, I don't know, but like, how bad is this dragon feeling? Like, if he doesn't get help soon, is he gonna do something crazy? 00:55:41.14 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I don't necessarily, you know, I don't personally have any family members or people in my life that I can readily recall the mind that have like a hoarding tendency. But and I'm sure everyone's seen a clip of the TLC like my life is a hoarder or they've seen these people on social media that are like, I'm going to go into this house and show you a time lapse video of me cleaning the most disgusting bathroom or kitchen that you could find. 00:56:07.21 Kurt Crenwelge um 00:56:07.99 Nicole up. 00:56:08.64 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So I mean this, but yeah, I guess this dragon must, yeah, i feel worse, have worse mental health and spiral into a depression. And just like, like I know in. 00:56:21.00 Kurt Crenwelge the hobbit, you know, they talked about like a dragon sickness, but that was more of a about a greed thing, but maybe it is a type of dragon sickness in like a depression or like bad mental health that just kind of like, you know, like overflows out from the dragon's ah hoard and like expands further into the region, especially for imagining like an ancient level dragon you know they do have regional effects they affect regions because of their their vast amount of arcane power that they have within their bodies do you think it like negatively affects the area that they happen to be around to 00:56:54.75 Nicole nice yeah i think so i mean i think like if the dragon gets really down and depressed like that could really poison the landscape and you know affect the crops and the food and the animals and maybe even the the nearby citizens 00:57:17.15 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I'm just going to very quickly pull up some of the, uh, let's see regional effects of brass dragons, legendary brass dragons. Uh, let's see tracks appear in the sand within six miles of the dragon's lair. 00:57:26.27 Nicole Okay. 00:57:30.48 Kurt Crenwelge Wait, but and what sort of environment do you typically find them in? 00:57:33.21 Nicole Okay. 00:57:34.62 Kurt Crenwelge I'm trying to look for a desert. Okay, so typically in a desert type environment. 00:57:37.66 Nicole okay 00:57:38.67 Kurt Crenwelge So definitely very interesting if we're imagining chocolatiers in the desert, especially how they work. 00:57:43.29 Nicole Right. 00:57:44.20 Kurt Crenwelge um But yeah, let's see tracks appear in the sand within six miles of the dragon's lair tracks lead to safe shelters and hidden water sources while also leading away from areas that the dragon prefers to remain undisturbed images of larger smaller monsters haunt the desert stands within a mile of the dragon's lair these illusions move and appear real 00:57:45.00 Nicole and 00:58:03.12 Kurt Crenwelge Although they do not harm, Creature can examine an image from a distance and can tell ah that it's an illusion with us with a successful DC-20 intelligence investigation check. Any physical interaction with an image reveals it to be an illusion because objects pass through it. 00:58:17.32 Kurt Crenwelge and whatever creature with an intelligence of three or higher comes within 30 feet of a water source within a mile the dragon's lair, the dragon becomes aware of the creature's presence and location. 00:58:28.31 Kurt Crenwelge So if we're imagining this ancient brass dragon in a desert, like what sort of bad things are gonna like are we imagining like the water sources are like not safe to drink. 00:58:38.97 Kurt Crenwelge And maybe the illusions that get image that get generated or like more monstrous and dangerous and lead people to danger. 00:58:39.74 Nicole Yeah. 00:58:48.44 Kurt Crenwelge or or purposefully tracks are moving around so it actually is leading people to danger instead of away from danger. And so other desert creatures are like, oh great, we're having a feeding frenzy because this dragon is depressed and in the dumps. 00:59:03.83 Nicole Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I feel like we've got like a whole new side quest now. Like what's wrong with this area? Well, what's wrong with it? It's that the dragon got really sad because you didn't help the dragon. 00:59:15.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, this used to be, 00:59:17.08 Nicole And now there's all this stuff going on. 00:59:19.22 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, this used to be safe for caravans to go through to get to the the the capital city in the desert and now it's like Everything that like sand storms and ah you know rate Raiders marauders You know nasty desert creatures popping up ah Like all this bad stuff all because this dragon is in a funk and he can't get out of it If only they had helped 00:59:29.53 Nicole Yeah. 00:59:41.00 Nicole Yeah, only they had helped the dragon. 00:59:45.80 Kurt Crenwelge Now, do you do you think that ah that our friend Rime and all of our associated characters are all pretty well fleshed out? I do have optional questions if you think Rime needs more ah to you know to learn and figure out about it. Or or do you feel like Rime's pretty well rounded out? 01:00:09.32 Kurt Crenwelge If you need me to go through, 01:00:09.68 Nicole I feel like I've got a good feel for her, but yeah, we could we could go further if we want. 01:00:15.09 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, again, it's dealers choice, you know, I can, or, you know, if you feel more comfortable, maybe I read through some of the questions and see if that inspires anything. 01:00:24.55 Nicole Yeah, let's we's see about that. 01:00:26.04 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. So other typical optional questions that we can ask or not, I feel like, you know, they're good to like further explore of characters, but I, you know, I feel like we've covered the heart of, of rhyme as a character, but you know, other things are like, what are the goals and motivations of rhyme as a character? How do these affect her general personality? How does she normally interact with different people? Is she like the same across the board? Are she pretty nuanced? 01:00:50.81 Kurt Crenwelge um Does she have a particular accent or language? Are there any idiosyncrasies in how she acts or speaks? What impact has she made on the world? How has she shown how has she shaped the local area? 01:01:02.76 Kurt Crenwelge And then finally, does she have any current problems um ah that prevent her from being a bigger player on the stage? 01:01:07.62 Nicole Hmm. 01:01:08.72 Kurt Crenwelge Like those are the kind of optional questions that you could really explore and examine to like flesh out rhyme further. 01:01:10.70 Nicole Hmm. 01:01:15.24 Kurt Crenwelge So do any of those speak to you? Or are you just like, no rhymes rhyme is good. 01:01:23.06 Nicole Yeah, I mean, like I think it speaks to me a little bit just ah how she's obviously very family oriented and interested in running this family business with her, you know, adopted parents and siblings who she cares about very much, but she's obviously different than them. And I imagine she would wonder about that sometimes and kind of guess that like, is this really where I belong? Is this really my place? Do I really fit here? So maybe there's some, some kind of deeper questions that she asks herself about if she's going to stay in this business forever, or if she might want to join a party of adventurers and see what else is out there. And maybe you can find someone of her own kind one day. 01:02:20.97 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I was gonna say, is that another option you unlock? um Rhyme is a reoccurring side quest giver and eventually she gives you the I don't know where I came from. So you should go find the other manticores that are like me do like a whole Tarzan thing. 01:02:34.80 Kurt Crenwelge I want to find the strangers that are just like me sort of a thing. 01:02:37.96 Nicole Yes. Yes. I'm feeling that. 01:02:41.46 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I can feel the Phil Collins to you know, very much. Yeah. Okay, yeah, so we we've got it. We've got her. We got her in the bag, you think? 01:02:51.66 Nicole I think so. I love her. She's definitely showing up in my game. 01:02:55.62 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. And I think the way that we test the waters with rhyme, or the sands, because desert, is we throw her into a random encounter. 01:03:05.45 Nicole Yeah. 01:03:08.94 Nicole Oh. 01:03:15.36 Kurt Crenwelge And the final thing ad read here for you transcription readers is Zencaster. You should use it if you wanna do your own podcast. It's great. I have a discount code that you can use on off your paid plans to get 30% off. Just go to zencaster.com forward slash pricing and type in the code side kqpodcast and you can save 30% off. I think your first month. 01:03:40.84 Kurt Crenwelge So if you want to support the podcast and also start your own podcast, then you should use Zencaster because it's cool. All right, and now we're in the section of the show that's called the random encounter. 01:03:51.73 Kurt Crenwelge This is where we get to do a little bit of a role play of vignette, a scene with the character that we've made today. 01:03:56.25 Nicole Oh. 01:03:57.74 Kurt Crenwelge It's kind of a way to like breathe a life and get a feel for like how we would use rhyme in a game. And so the question now here is, you know, obviously you're going to do a great job of presenting rhyme, ah maybe not necessarily with any voices or anything like that, but The question becomes, if you're Rhyme, then who am I gonna be in this scene? Am I gonna be one of my reoccurring adventurer characters that gets the side quest to go help the dragon? Am I another member of the family ah that's speaking with Rhyme? Am I this dragon potentially that's like lamenting the fact of the Horde that's just, you know oh, I'm just being buried alive in my Horde and I just can't get out of my funk? I don't know, what kind of scene are you interested in presenting Rhyme in today? 01:04:41.80 Nicole Oh, I like that. I like the dragon interaction one. 01:04:47.96 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so you wanna have, ah present a scene with Rhyme interacting with the dragon. 01:04:53.08 Nicole Yeah. 01:04:53.78 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. um totally can do, is there, are I don't know, are are we feeling like a particular name ah for the dragon? I know, I'm obviously getting vibes of ah critical roles, ah you know, ah Jamon Saord as like, oh, I'm the ancient dragon who rules the civilization. Is that kind of how we're we're we're leaning? Or like, the the ancient brass dragon just happens to be like a protector of the region. And then the civilization is just sprung up nearby. 01:05:24.15 Nicole e Yeah, I think more the first one, more the vibe of the first one. 01:05:29.60 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so ah so if I was thinking of like like ah like the Sultan, the Emperor or something like that, is that kind of like what you're thinking we might refer to this dragon character as? 01:05:41.91 Nicole Yeah. 01:05:43.05 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, all right. ah So we've got we've got ah we've got a team of a team up here that we're gonna do in this scene. um So would you like to set the scene or would you like for me to set the scene? 01:05:58.61 Nicole I'll let you set the scene and I'll just jump in. 01:06:03.48 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:06:33.97 Kurt Crenwelge So we find ourselves in the sprawling, expansive deserts and the civilization has cropped up in the desert. And how did it do it? Why it was done by the emperor, of course, the emperor who happens to be the ancient brass dragon of these lands. ah And, you know, it's, you know, his lands that he protects and he helped to ah bring up his progeny ah not only other brass dragons that have gone out into the world ah to make their own domains ah but also the brass dragons that probably are just here in the civilization chilling doing things in their own right ah and then you know went on to make the brass dragon born and stuff that are prevalent in this society and so obviously as ah civilizations and capital cities go you know others decide to make their own sorts of community on the outskirts or like 01:07:28.43 Kurt Crenwelge you know, oasis sorts of towns on the way. And so our, our camera would, ah you know, would would show us one of the particular oasis is or hamlets that would exist just out, you know, maybe, you know, within a day's travel or so of the capital city. And then we come ah to this chocolatiers station. And under a heavy escort of other Brass Dragons that are all of course shape-shifted to appear as Brass Dragonborn guard protectorate. 01:08:04.34 Kurt Crenwelge um We find the Emperor who has appeared and is in his brass dragon born form and he's here in the shop again with his heavy guard presence and he walks into the shop and he looks up and he's delighted ah to see Rhyme and he's like, ah Rhyme it is so good to be here to good so good to see you and your family blessings upon you and your family ah My favorite chocolatiers. How are you? 01:08:33.60 Nicole Oh, my favorite customer is back. Hello. What brings you in today? Do you need a restock on your chocolate? 01:08:41.73 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, of course I do, you know that I can't say no to the chocolates that you and your family make. And he's he's very jolly and he's and he's happy to just be here. And of course, you know that the palace puts in huge orders. And so he's just like, yes, it's going to be that time the festival's coming around. And of course we want all the finest chocolates. Do you think that you and your family can concede to this matter this time? 01:09:10.60 Nicole Yes, and and Rhyme is just so excited, very, very happy to see her her customer. And she runs to the back and says, hold on, I've got just the thing. 01:09:23.23 Nicole We just started this new chocolate with ah with a very special drizzle that I think you'll be quite fond of. Let me go get you some to taste test. 01:09:33.35 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, excellent. 01:09:33.43 Nicole And she runs back into the back. 01:09:36.70 Kurt Crenwelge And he waits patiently. um And, you know, of course, he's got his whole entourage in tow. And, you know, you'll see some of them are like very curiously looking at some of the displays. 01:09:47.89 Kurt Crenwelge And, you know, because it's the desert and the Oasis, but in you know, dragons and magic, I think this family has figured out a way to maybe do some air conditioning in their shop. So the dragons, you know, dragons are I don't know, exactly reptilian like where they can just be cold blooded and they can just adjust their temperatures or whatever. um But maybe some of you see some of the other dragon born dragons in disguise um taking advantage of some of the air conditioning. And so the Emperor is curiously looking at them and is just kind of like, oh, my children, they're being silly or whatever. um But then but then rhymes comes back and he's he's happy. He's waiting. He's he's waiting to see what this new creation is going to be. 01:10:30.28 Nicole Yes, and she brings him this lovely platter of chocolates that have a ah sparkly purple drizzle on them that match the ah color of her wing, her big dragon wing. 01:10:41.58 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, very lovely. I see where the inspiration came from. And he'll pick up one of the chocolates. And he takes like a very ah careful like a like a chocolatier connoisseurs sort of exploratory bite. 01:10:56.34 Nicole yeah 01:10:57.66 Kurt Crenwelge So when he takes that first bite, what happens? What does he see? What does he sense? 01:11:03.05 Nicole Well, he, definitely the taste is the main thing. It's this wonderful, rich, robust taste, almost kind of like a, you know, what what you and I would know of as like a dark chocolate, like a little bit more like heavy and kind of bitter type of strong chocolate that almost has that coffee kind of taste to it. 01:11:15.44 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:11:22.94 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, he's like, Oh, yeah. And then as he's as he's, as he's getting more and more of the taste, he's eating more to the chocolate. What else is happening? What's that? What's the other effect? What's the special? 01:11:38.70 Nicole Yeah, so he starts to feel this kind of like warmth spread through him and starts to feel more, I don't know, more energetic. 01:11:52.87 Nicole Like he could run faster or he could do more things and fight stronger. 01:12:00.07 Kurt Crenwelge ah Ah, these are wonderful. and um And however many more chocolates are on this platter, he just like grabs them all and like eats them all in one go. 01:12:12.96 Kurt Crenwelge He's just like, this is amazing. ah He doesn't even let his children have an opportunity to try any of them, because he's the emperor. 01:12:16.05 Nicole oh 01:12:19.45 Kurt Crenwelge like He does what he wants. ah ah But he he's just like, oh, these are fantastic. 01:12:21.43 Nicole yeah 01:12:24.46 Kurt Crenwelge And you said you could get more of these ah for for the time, for the festival, yes? 01:12:30.21 Nicole Oh, yes, of course, of course. 01:12:33.84 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, very good. And then he'll he'll motion to ah one of his children, who's one of these dragonborn bodyguards. And he will say like, Ah, yes, yes, you know, the the the do get the paperwork, do the thing and then like the child bows in respect to the Emperor. 01:12:49.80 Kurt Crenwelge And then we'll work with your your family to get the other things. But I wonder if here to kind of plant the seed and and to give you know ah that chatty, ah friendly nature ah to to rhyme as well. um After the taste and the sensations have kind of um have kind of left and and subsided within the emperor, 01:13:10.97 Kurt Crenwelge You kind of see like a forlorn sort of like weird world weariness sort of like set into his eyes. And he just kind of like looks off into the distance and he's it's like he's like eating the chocolate was like some sort of way of him like chasing a feeling that was fleeting ever before him. But now it's left him and he's like kind of like sad that like oh well one I don't have any more of these chocolates to eat but then two it's like pointing to something deeper in him that's like bothering him. 01:13:38.60 Nicole Yeah. Yeah, and Rhyme notices ah his, his expression and you know, comes a little closer and says, is something bothering you? 01:13:52.24 Kurt Crenwelge You are wise, you are wise, fair rhyme to be a counselor. Many, many great rulers should be so lucky to have someone as wonderful as you in their life to, to tell them the truth. Uh, when others would just give you nothing but flattery to your face. And so he, he like leans on the counter and he's just like, yes, my, my richness, my hoard. 01:14:17.42 Kurt Crenwelge a I have too much. I have an, um I have a literal embarrassment of riches and it is, it is tiring. 01:14:24.42 Nicole Horrible problem to have. 01:14:27.05 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, it is tiring. It is sad. I do. Well, the caravans, the trade, all of it's, you know, all of it comes to the palace and the, and the it's just, it's, I don't know. 01:14:40.21 Kurt Crenwelge Can one have too much? I just. 01:14:44.97 Kurt Crenwelge I've been so long lived my child I've lived so long seen empires, ah you know, come and go kingdoms rise and fall bandit armies try to attack the city and are laid by the wayside by my children and I and it just is just is there too much I just I feel like every time I go down there I just every it's like I don't recognize it anymore you know it's just where was where was the first century China that I was looking for oh I can't find it because I have 300 Cheshire chests burying it beneath a mountain of gold you know and so he just begins to talk in that sort of way of like he mentions like a legendary magic item but oh no it's buried under like 01:15:32.16 Kurt Crenwelge ah like a ship's worth of scrolls of ancient poetry. Like he goes on and on about all these things, his and his literal embarrassment of wealth and riches. And it's just making it more sad. ah And he's just like, but you just coming here and having your family's chocolates. It just makes me forget about my troubles. And it it brings me a modicum of happiness and joy that that I wish that I could chase if only if only. Well, 01:16:01.83 Kurt Crenwelge If only an emperor didn't have all that he needed and more, you know? Hmm. 01:16:08.48 Nicole yeah Sounds like quite a predicament. and you know i i I wouldn't know what to do with that, but maybe I'll be on the lookout for someone who has such skills you know that could help you to organize, declutter, get it together, maybe some nice shelves. 01:16:26.41 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:16:27.65 Nicole you know It could be very lovely. 01:16:30.33 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. oh yeah And then he turns to his his children um and they begin to speak in a completely different language. um And then his children are maybe chiding him, but he's like, no, no, no. Rhyme knows what she's talking about. She does not feed me flattery. She speaks truth and like kind of berates his child. And the child's like, all right, fine dad, you're right. It's just like, she knows what, yes. And he's like, I will appoint this task to you by right as me as emperor. Yes, you will find the worthy 01:17:02.53 Kurt Crenwelge who can rearrange, make, bring, breathe life, bring light, bring levity to a poor emperor's heart. Yes. 01:17:13.39 Kurt Crenwelge And, and he's, he's starting to get inspired now. 01:17:13.78 Nicole Yeah. 01:17:16.66 Kurt Crenwelge He has his little juice of like, of feeling happy and buzz. Cause he's like, okay, now I just need, this is what I need to do. And like, he won't, like his children are like, well, we could do this. He's just like, he will not hear from them. 01:17:27.96 Kurt Crenwelge He's just like, no, rhyme will know. 01:17:28.98 Nicole No. 01:17:30.93 Kurt Crenwelge And I will wait for her. 01:17:32.39 Nicole i 01:17:32.65 Kurt Crenwelge to tell me when she finds the worthy. And so then he he he's like, all right, but it's time to go. like i'm I'm in my mood, I'm in my positive mood, we're gonna go do something now. And so as like his one child will finish with the order, and then his retinue of of Dragonborn in disguise will now leave the shop. 01:17:50.57 Kurt Crenwelge And is there any last thing um that the scene would close out with, with Rhyme and her family ah before it ends? 01:17:58.74 Nicole Yeah, she's just, you know, looking very thoughtful and thinking to herself like, Hmm, who would I know that could do such a thing? You know, she's trying to like, imagine who who might be able to do this, like, 01:18:12.39 Nicole Marie Kondo kind of organizing feet for her favorite customer. 01:18:23.99 Kurt Crenwelge and scene. So yeah, we did it. I love Rhyme. 01:18:26.67 Nicole I love that. 01:18:27.62 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And I love the Emperor too. 01:18:28.40 Nicole I love Ryan. 01:18:29.14 Kurt Crenwelge And his whole maybe he'll find his new groove in the end. Who knows? 01:18:34.50 Nicole I think hopefully he will if our adventures are helpful. 01:18:39.12 Kurt Crenwelge Well, there you go. Well, now there's a whole new idea of like the Emperor's new groove and instead of, ah you know, it's ah a dragon that gets turned into a llama or something like that. Oh, I'm stuck in a llama form and I can't get out of it. 01:18:49.72 Kurt Crenwelge Like, oh, if we just get back to my palace that I can become a dragon once again or whatever. 01:18:55.21 Nicole Such a cute movie. I love that. 01:18:57.45 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, very good. All right. Yeah. So we made it through the random encounter. So how do you think it was getting to be rhymed? 01:19:02.42 Nicole It was fun. Yeah, I like it. Definitely, it kind of puts me back in that space of like doing the encounters and and characters and I love doing that stuff. 01:19:18.49 Kurt Crenwelge I think it was interesting here in the end, like literally going in ah to this section when we were like, Oh, it's a brass dragon. and I was like, what sort of environments do brass dragons typically live in? 01:19:28.77 Kurt Crenwelge It's like desert. Okay, we've shifted. I thought I was thinking like it was going to be like, like a temperate, modest, ah forest sort of environment. 01:19:31.42 Nicole Yeah. 01:19:36.04 Kurt Crenwelge It's like, Oh, now we're in a desert. So we've got like, you know, you know, stuff like every everything from like, ah ah you know, Qatar and, yeah you know, stuff like that. 01:19:46.24 Kurt Crenwelge So somewhere like like a Qatar or ah Saudi Arabia or. 01:19:49.28 Nicole Yeah, definitely different than what I was imagining in the first place, but I like it. 01:19:54.10 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:19:54.21 Nicole It's got a good flavor to it. 01:19:56.69 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, especially. Yeah, definitely. And ah yeah, an ancient an ancient brass dragon surely would have quite the amount of extravagant wealth. um And now I'm just curious to explore this Emperor character more and just ah going on more lists of like, oh, I would love to find ah that that ah that holy Avenger that I got from that one hero in the first century long ago. 01:20:05.50 Nicole For sure. 01:20:19.81 Kurt Crenwelge But alas, it's under a metric ton of solid gold or whatever it happens to be. 01:20:20.48 Nicole yeah 01:20:25.38 Kurt Crenwelge ah You know, just more and more ridiculous things that he keeps naming. 01:20:26.18 Nicole Right. 01:20:28.76 Kurt Crenwelge ah But yeah, definitely even higher stakes. Now that we know it's an ancient brass dragon, it's like you're gonna have, alluding back to our are our character creation when we were like, oh, what's gonna be the negative consequence if you fight a brass dragon, an ancient brass dragon who has an entire empire at his beck and call? 01:20:43.42 Nicole Yeah. 01:20:47.62 Kurt Crenwelge um Yeah, bad news bears for sure. 01:20:48.47 Nicole Yeah, it's gonna be a big problem for you. 01:20:50.85 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:20:53.12 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So yeah, now we're in, uh, yeah, now we're here in final thoughts. 01:20:53.74 Nicole Love it. 01:20:56.64 Kurt Crenwelge So, uh, I always like to, you know, pick the, pick the guest brain. but I like to speak with the guest and then get their, get their feedback and pick their brain and just yeah find out how their experience was being on the podcast. 01:21:12.22 Kurt Crenwelge So Ms. Nicole, did you have a good time being on the podcast and all that stuff? 01:21:17.89 Nicole Yeah, this was so fun. I i love that we got some of this creative juice flowing here in the in the second half. That was really fun and unexpected. I wasn't quite ready for all of that, but I'm glad it happened. I liked it. 01:21:37.62 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and and you you feel confident that you could stick rhyme in this whole civilization ruled by an ancient brass dragon in the desert and your your game with your kiddos and your family and all that. 01:21:50.66 Nicole For sure, and and I think I will. I really like these characters that we created. 01:21:55.65 Kurt Crenwelge Well, there we go. And if they show up in a future adventure story that you publish, then I'll definitely know that this podcast has done its part ah to make it stamp on the world. 01:22:06.23 Nicole Yes. 01:22:07.50 Kurt Crenwelge so 01:22:08.75 Nicole Yes. 01:22:09.59 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So, uh, the way that we'll end the podcast, uh, so it's not like an awkward thing, uh, is that, uh, you know, I'll leave the microphone, the soapbox, the stage, the platform to you. So where can people find you online? Uh, what projects and things have you got going on? And, uh, you know, any passions or causes that you want to be making us aware of, let us know. 01:22:34.64 Nicole Awesome. ah Yeah. Again, I am Nicole. Game Master Mom is my business and my handle on I think all social media platforms. The place I'm the most active is on Instagram. If you want to actually connect with me, I do respond to messages and stuff. i I'm just a ah little guy still and. 01:22:58.07 Nicole My project coming up 2025 is going to be a pretty big year for me. I'll be publishing my first children's story book, which is about kids diving into the world of role-playing games as characters with their mom. So that's a really cool story within a story that hopefully you guys will get to check out. um I'll be talking a lot more as it gets closer to the launch date about that on all my social media platforms and making sure everybody knows what the launch date will be. Nothing quite yet, but should be first quarter of 2025 for sure to get that out. Shortly after that, I'm hoping to have my tabletop role-playing game published, which is basically like D and&D-ish, but really light rules to play with kids three and up. 01:23:55.35 Nicole So those will be coming out next year and, uh, or this year, depending on when we've come down 2025. And, uh, yeah, I, I'm just excited to be here and to keep connecting with other parents and other significant adults who want to bring their kids to the table and share the magic and the nerd done with them. 01:24:19.69 Kurt Crenwelge And the the Storycrafters podcast, we want to make sure we ah we all follow and subscribe ah to that in our RSS feeds, right? 01:24:28.77 Nicole Yes, absolutely. Follow the Storycrafters podcast as well. a they ah We be starting that here pretty soon. We've got a few episodes recorded, but we haven't actually put anything out quite yet. So be stay tuned to be on the lookout for the Storycrafters podcast as well. 01:24:49.24 Kurt Crenwelge And, uh, and as I'm looking at the schedule, hopefully if I have my act together, cause at time of recording, uh, I was supposed to have an episode out to you. Hopefully I can get my business together and get that out. 01:25:01.38 Kurt Crenwelge Hey, I'm a single guy. I'm a one man band over here. So I'm trying to do it all. And a thank you all audience for, for being supportive and, and, and ah and helping out. 01:25:06.50 Nicole Yeah. 01:25:10.22 Kurt Crenwelge But if I have my act together. then this should be our Christmas episode. Uh, so certainly, you know, if you, if any Christmas well wishes you want to share, uh, certainly when we want to do that, thanks for listening to this podcast on Christmas day, you should be spending it with your family and not listening to podcasts. But if you've already unwrapped your presence and you've had your rich Christmas, uh, dinner, feasts and banquets and and all that stuff after you're done, uh, with all of that, uh, and you, the the family is gathered around yield podcasting radio. 01:25:41.95 Kurt Crenwelge then you can put this on and and have a good time. Yeah. 01:25:46.09 Nicole Love that. 01:25:47.90 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And so then, ah Nicole, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. I can't wait to have you back on making even more interesting NPCs. 01:25:58.66 Nicole Yes, thank you so much.