Episode 147 - Wren the Half-Orc Grave Cleric Tween

00:00:04.01 Kurt Crenwelge Of course, now I click a thing and it's all wrong. I'll have to fix this in post. 00:00:09.72 Nicole Ciao. 00:00:13.30 Kurt Crenwelge Hello, and welcome to another exciting bonus sort of an episode for Sidekicks and SideQuest. Because, you know, this season I've moved ah to a monthly model. So this is this is a special time indeed. Two episodes in a month? Wow, it's almost as if it was like one of our previous seasons. Yes, this is the podcast. 00:00:31.55 Kurt Crenwelge ah where you know we have guests on, and it is ah the best unofficial Dungeons & Dragons podcast in my humbly biased opinion. 00:00:42.14 Kurt Crenwelge I've got an awesome guest for you ah this episode, but before we get to it, I've got to leave you suspense with the ad read. and all my transcription readers are now hearing about ah Plus One EXP and RPG Zine Club. 00:00:56.76 Kurt Crenwelge So you should check that out if you're looking to build a library of up-and-coming game designers and indie TTRPGs and such. And if you're looking for a beard balm or a beard RPG or something of that nature, when you go to the website plusonexp.com, use that code Randolph at checkout. 00:01:18.35 Kurt Crenwelge Save some coin on your purchase and help support the podcast. Thanks very much. All right. And we're back from that exciting, riveting ad read. ah And it's it's only been a couple months since we last spoke. So ah hello, mystery contestant. Would you care to reintroduce yourself? Tell us who it is that you are. What is it that you do? And what is it that ah that prompted you to want to come back on the podcast so quickly? 00:01:45.19 Nicole Yeah, hey, everybody. um I'm Nicole, also known as Game Master Mom. I was just here, I think a few months ago, although time goes by really fast, so don't quote me on that. 00:01:59.34 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:02:00.97 Nicole But I... i reached out to Kurt about getting back on the podcast because I finally have a launch date for my first book in the Tales of Etheria series. 00:02:13.71 Nicole It's on Kickstarter. That's where I decided to do the launch. it's the campaigns open the whole month of May. So May 1st through the 31st. 00:02:25.72 Kurt Crenwelge Exciting. Yeah. So what what's this whole journey been like for you getting from the pre-planning stages to the planning stages to the execution to all right, now we're here at crowdsourcing and and let's make this dream happen sort of a thing. 00:02:42.16 Nicole It's been wild. I mean, i i think at this point, I've been working on the book for almost exactly a year. i started it sometime around like last May is when I really got serious about it. 00:02:54.89 Kurt Crenwelge Mm hmm. 00:02:54.95 Nicole And, ah you know, going through the process with finding an illustrator, my illustrator is amazing. um and getting all the story and the pictures all together. 00:03:08.94 Nicole it is a children's picture book, right? So the illustration is ah huge, huge piece of the story. 00:03:12.37 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:03:16.93 Nicole And then, yeah, just kind of deciding the right way to launch it and looking at the different packages what exciting little like limited edition things and little add-on extras that I can put in the crowdfunding campaign that I probably wouldn't be able to bring at least in the beginning if I was just funding it all myself straightforwardly. 00:03:41.17 Kurt Crenwelge right 00:03:43.10 Nicole So super excited about trying out this ah Kickstarter way of doing things because the options for what you can offer are pretty much only limited by what people are interested in. 00:03:56.93 Kurt Crenwelge Very true. And, you know, I'm sure ah all of us and most of us listeners and such have ah engaged in a crowdfunding effort ah now and again. 00:04:08.58 Kurt Crenwelge um you know, I, you know, I know for sure, certainly I can say like, oh, like most of the MCDM stuff that has come out, I've kickstarted, you know, back when a Critical Role did some for, I think, some miniatures. 00:04:23.06 Kurt Crenwelge ah But I know I for sure backed like their animated show, like when they were first pitching it. So I got to say, oh, I'm one of the 88,000 people that thousand people that you know got to to launch that so uh so what you know i know obviously by when this comes out like everyone will be able to go check out the kickstarter to get an idea of what it is that you're looking to do but in case someone is just getting to this later in the month it's like what's the goal what's the uh you know what is the uh what's the goal that you're looking for but then what's like that pie in the sky sort of a dream where you're like 00:04:45.49 Nicole yeah 00:04:57.95 Kurt Crenwelge you know, hey, Critical Role can ask and get $11 million. dollars um you know, you deserve a million dollars for sure. 00:05:03.44 Nicole Right? 00:05:04.99 Kurt Crenwelge But it's like, you know, what's the goal where you're like, oh, man, this would just be wild and crazy if it ever got this high? 00:05:12.14 Nicole Yeah, oh that's a good question. I don't know I don't really have like an upper limit in mind. I'm just going kind of see what happens with it. um Definitely have this like small little glimmer of hope of like, oh, it could really catch on and get big and that would be great. 00:05:29.92 Nicole But the reasonable goal, the small end goal is really just to pay for at least a portion of a, the first like bulk run of books. 00:05:34.85 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:05:44.06 Nicole And really, you know, I, I don't know if anybody listening or a few of yourself have all already like looked into options for people who are self-publishing. There are great options out there these days. It's actually pretty easy to self-publish and pretty low cost if you're doing a digital only product or if you're doing a print product that you're okay with doing at like a print on demand kind of quality. 00:06:12.85 Nicole but For an illustrated children's book, it's like, I really want like a big hardcover, sturdy, nice quality book. 00:06:21.55 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:06:21.67 Nicole And you can really really only get that quality from doing a big bulk run of like 500, 1000, 2000 at a time. 00:06:30.18 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:06:31.39 Nicole yeah 00:06:32.22 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, in my day job, I am familiar with that. um Yeah, where I can see I can look behind, ah you know, the screens and the numbers and I can see like, oh, yeah, like we, you know, we really believe in this and we think this will do well. 00:06:45.45 Kurt Crenwelge So it's like, here's like, you know, a chunk of like ah several thousand copies of this book or it's like. oh, this one's like a more niche sort of a topic. So it's like a smaller print run, maybe only like, you know, only a thousand or so of where where we make it. 00:07:00.44 Nicole Mm-hmm. 00:07:01.13 Kurt Crenwelge So i I believe you and understand the whole like, you know, I want it to be good quality. i want it to like be tangibly in your hands and not, you know, sacrifice that quality, ah you know, just for the sake of trying to save a buck. Like you're really trying to deliver on like, I'm a D&D nerd, but I want to like do something fun that incorporates, you know, my family, my fun, my world building and all that to make it ah accessible for everyone to be able to enjoy. 00:07:32.92 Nicole Yeah, thats that's my hope. And and i I think it's a ah realistic hope. I think we're going to get there. So I'm very, very excited about the Kickstarter process. And at the end of the day, going to make the book either way. It's just the Kickstarter, if it funds and does well, is really going to help me to give like the quality book that I really want to put in people's hands. 00:07:59.03 Kurt Crenwelge For sure. Yeah. Yeah. So everybody, hopefully now, at this point in the podcast episode, you're already going to find the Kickstarter information to go ahead and put your pledge in, and, and help us secure this goal. 00:08:02.98 Nicole Yeah. 00:08:11.40 Nicole Yeah. 00:08:14.06 Kurt Crenwelge Um, 00:08:14.51 Nicole yeah 00:08:15.22 Kurt Crenwelge But yeah, as as we we said, we're going to treat this as a regular episode. I know, you know, obviously the Kickstarter was the major ah catalyst for having you return so soon. um So for our guests who maybe are just now finding the podcast, I know we um Oh, what is it? Because I'm still a total Instagram noob. 00:08:34.85 Kurt Crenwelge ah But we did the whole collaboration on a post thing. So that way it would count on like your page and and my page. 00:08:39.25 Nicole Yeah. 00:08:41.84 Kurt Crenwelge And so like your post did like really well because it's like, oh, Game Master Nicole, Game Master Mom Nicole, like this is amazing. And like you're on this episode. So so, yeah, hopefully this one will do even better than the last one. 00:08:55.86 Nicole Yeah, I hope so. I really hope so. 00:08:59.12 Kurt Crenwelge So you're you're an author, um you know, you're a game master, you're a dungeon master for your friends and family, and certainly for your kids primarily. 00:09:06.92 Nicole Yes. 00:09:08.74 Kurt Crenwelge ah But you're also turning into quite a bit of ah of a podcast host yourself. I know by now Story Crafters has been out for a while and you've been doing the the dual, um you know, release it as a podcast, but also you've been doing it to YouTube, too. 00:09:24.72 Kurt Crenwelge So now that you're, think, up to what? 00:09:25.31 Nicole Yes. 00:09:27.08 Kurt Crenwelge Episode seven, i think right now at this point. 00:09:31.11 Nicole Yeah, perhaps we'll probably be on like 10 or 11 at the time that this comes out because we we just recorded 10, but it hasn't been released yet. 00:09:31.33 Kurt Crenwelge So. 00:09:36.96 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:09:40.07 Kurt Crenwelge Right. So how do you feel like now that you've got your toes wet in the podcasting arena um that it's been that whole experience? 00:09:49.56 Nicole I like it. I think it's really fun. I'm always excited to have conversations on my podcast because I'm lucky enough to have three other hosts. It's the four of us almost every time we all four show up and it's 00:10:03.16 Kurt Crenwelge Mm hmm. 00:10:03.63 Nicole myself and and three other really cool kind of like forever dungeon master types that run a lot of games. And ah yeah, it's really fun. we I think our next foray is going to be bringing on guests other than just the four of us. 00:10:19.26 Nicole So I'm excited to try that out and get some um fresh perspectives on the show. 00:10:19.75 Kurt Crenwelge Ah. 00:10:24.60 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah, of course. And, you know, ah you know, not to toot my own horn or ah inadvertently invite myself, you know, oh, let me just barge into your house here. ah You know, of course, I'm always down ah to be able to talk and and reminisce and and share my thoughts and opinions and and such things. 00:10:34.92 Nicole Thank you. 00:10:43.58 Kurt Crenwelge ah But yeah, no, it sounds like everything's been going great. I know, ah you know, the format ah for those of you who are like maybe on the fence of like, oh, my goodness, like another podcast i have to listen to. 00:10:54.75 Kurt Crenwelge But it really is truly like, you know, the four of you coming together. um It's a recap of like what's been happening in your lives. There's like a shared topic or theme that gets discussed. 00:11:06.10 Kurt Crenwelge And not only that, but you're also, um you know, doing a little bit of Forgotten Realms lore that you throw in there since, you know, we have Baldur's Gate 3. 00:11:13.45 Nicole All right. 00:11:16.20 Kurt Crenwelge three And, you know, all the various published adventures and and products that are out there that maybe people are like, I literally just use this book because I needed like a big library place. 00:11:27.76 Kurt Crenwelge But I have no idea what Candlekeep actually is like. ah So your your podcast sort of provides that public service, if you will. 00:11:31.24 Nicole right 00:11:35.64 Nicole Yeah, I think it's an interesting podcast. It's a little bit different than some of the other things that are already out there that are really, really good podcasts. 00:11:41.81 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:11:43.37 Nicole So I'm just trying to bring a little different flavor. 00:11:48.87 Kurt Crenwelge For sure. Yes, you do. sorry. 00:11:53.29 Kurt Crenwelge oh sorry ah ah Just like, again, on the new computer setup and it just like a a little message flashed up. So it's like, oh, what was that? Oh, OK. ill I'll fix it in post and all you transcription readers, I'll just have to wonder what it was that I was alerted about. 00:12:08.19 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:12:08.41 Nicole Yeah. 00:12:09.22 Kurt Crenwelge Excellent. OK, so, yeah, we've got, you know, we've got children's books that we're working on. We've got games that we're running. We've got ah the podcast that's, you know, taking off and and doing well. 00:12:20.58 Kurt Crenwelge And certainly I know ah you know any of your co-hosts are certainly welcome ah to appear on this podcast as well. Even if you wanted to do like a mega episode where, you know, I have had episodes where like, you know, the five sided fates, that was like five guests I had all at once. So it can be done on this podcast. 00:12:37.39 Kurt Crenwelge It just makes it a really long episode. But you could get four times the amount of NPCs if the story crafters, for example, all came on. Yeah. 00:12:45.82 Nicole Yes. Oh, we should set that up. 00:12:46.99 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:12:47.90 Nicole That would be so fun. 00:12:49.36 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, i would I would love to try and pull that one off and and see how it goes. 00:12:56.67 Kurt Crenwelge Well, you know, this this podcast you know is all Dungeons & Dragons themed, so I guess the way I would ah reinterpret the question, since again, ah people will have heard this episode and shortly after Christmas, um but since Christmas time or a little bit before that, 00:13:14.78 Kurt Crenwelge And probably you've, spoiler alert, already said this on StoryCrafters, but have you had an opportunity to play some D&D since the last time we spoke? How's that all been going? Have you been bouncing between different systems and worlds? 00:13:29.67 Nicole Yeah, yeah, I've been playing a little bit. I'm mostly still playing my homebrew campaign, which is Etheria, which is what all the books and stuff are based on. So um I feel like everybody's probably getting sick of hearing me talk about Etheria, but that's mostly my life. 00:13:48.58 Nicole I've also been playing a little bit of the 15 minute D&D series from the kids table, which is really fun to play with kids or new players. 00:13:55.60 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. 00:14:00.11 Nicole they They do something really similar to what I do where they really simplify like the D&D 5e mechanics and player sheets so that it's not as overwhelming to look at for a kid or for a new player. 00:14:16.41 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And I know also our previous guest of the podcast, ah Randall Hampton, also developed like his own very, very kid-friendly tabletop system. ah you know Little Game Masters, I think is what he calls it, ah which also has like a companion... 00:14:33.61 Kurt Crenwelge ah book or comic series because Randall's an illustrator himself so he has ah you know has a very particular ah flavor of art that dons his ah character sheets and books and the like so if you're ever branching out and you're looking for other illustrators and artists and collaborators I might i might throw him your way 00:14:54.78 Nicole Yeah, I need to check out Randolph. I don't know if I have followed his work before. I need to go do that. All right. 00:15:01.08 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, there you go. And you can also check out his episode as well. Episode 139, Zaxibus and the Prickly Pete's Pouring Station, which was which was a very fun one to do. and It was just like right before your episode, too. It was about two episodes before your episode when it came out. 00:15:17.92 Kurt Crenwelge Fun fact. 00:15:18.39 Nicole right 00:15:19.28 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:15:19.43 Nicole Made a note. I'm going to go back to that one. 00:15:22.37 Kurt Crenwelge but Pump up some of those back catalog numbers. There we go. Yeah. 00:15:26.36 Nicole Yeah. yeah 00:15:27.43 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. Well, of course, you know, ah the D&Ds and all that, you know, and the sidekicks and the side quests. So since the last time we spoke, you know, and since this is like, you know, again, you're relatively fresh, ah ah you know, since the last time we spoke, has there been and has there been any new or interesting NPC characters or sidekick characters that you've come across in media and games? 00:15:51.03 Kurt Crenwelge And why is this character your new favorite? I know last time you said Scratch. And I did, spoiler alert, in February, get my birthday money, bought an Xbox Series X, downloaded the premium version of BG3, and that is the game. 00:16:04.79 Kurt Crenwelge i you know i I looked at Fallout 76 and I said, I'll come back to you at some point. I don't know when, but now I'm doing Baldur's Gate 3. 00:16:11.57 Nicole Thank you. 00:16:13.66 Kurt Crenwelge So now I've i've been playing Baldur's Gate 3, and so now I know Scratch. I'm like, oh yeah, I know Scratch. 00:16:17.35 Nicole Now you know Scratch. Good. I love it. 00:16:19.97 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Ha ha ha ha. 00:16:22.93 Nicole I love it. um You know, i So I i don't know that I've actually played anything with this character yet, but I'm going to. 00:16:35.07 Nicole i had people submit their characters for um to be featured in my book and and my game that I'm coming up with as well. 00:16:42.99 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:16:45.24 Nicole That's not out yet, but it will be soon. 00:16:46.64 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:16:48.38 Nicole And one what of the submissions I got um from my friend Chris, his handle on Instagram is the forever DM, if anybody's heard of him, but that old guy out in ah California area. 00:17:03.77 Nicole And he submitted this like, little grumpy like goblin character ah and we decided kind of collaboratively that he's the janitor at the like ah Heroes Academy of Etheria where ah lot of my book takes place and I just like I just cannot cannot wait to write him in as an NPC in my game because and just feel like he's so cute like he kind of has the I imagine he kind of has sort of the energy of like 00:17:17.95 Kurt Crenwelge and Okay. 00:17:35.94 Nicole I can't remember his name, but like the weird kind of janitor guy in Hogwarts that has like a cat. 00:17:41.57 Kurt Crenwelge Filch. 00:17:42.58 Nicole Yeah. Yeah. 00:17:44.05 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I was thinking Filch, and then I was trying to think of other notable ah janitor characters. um I mean, I know the Kill Every Monster podcast, I think when they did their episode on giant bugs, if I'm not mistaken. 00:17:59.92 Kurt Crenwelge Um, Aram had come up with like kobold janitor, who had like, basically it was kind of like an artificer, but because they had their potions and tonics, that was like their cleaning supplies and how they would clean up after all the wizards at the university or whatever. 00:18:04.64 Nicole Okay. 00:18:16.13 Kurt Crenwelge I thought that would be another good Aram will have to message us or something like that or off to go back and listen to remember what that ah particular kobold's name was. But yeah, goblin, a kobold. 00:18:27.73 Kurt Crenwelge um It's like you go to the one of the two extremes. It's like either a very small individual or it's like a very big sort of tall lumbering person that is responsible for you know cleaning up the grounds and taking care of the school. 00:18:42.02 Nicole Yes, I love it I love it. 00:18:44.75 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe some ogre troll will show up eventually as like ah an assistant janitor to the the small goblin. 00:18:53.03 Nicole um That's a great idea. I'm just gonna write that down. 00:18:57.24 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I got tired of climbing ladders, so I i hired Brunhilde here. She can like lift me up really high up so I can get the cobwebs. 00:19:07.21 Nicole love it. I love it. 00:19:10.03 Kurt Crenwelge You know, I figured kids would like that dynamic of like the little guy and then like the really big lady or whatever. 00:19:14.38 Nicole And it's okay. Yeah. 00:19:15.61 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, yeah. 00:19:16.15 Nicole Yeah. you know 00:19:17.77 Kurt Crenwelge I have ideas every now and then and I give them away for free. No problem. 00:19:22.61 Nicole I love it. 00:19:25.31 Kurt Crenwelge And then same sort of question as far as side quests are concerned. Any side quest or B plot element you've come across that you're like, wow, that's really cool. This is like my new favorite thing. 00:19:40.04 Nicole I don't think I have one particularly in mind. and I'm also still playing Baldur's Gate 3, I'm trying to think what kind of randomness I've been up to in there. 00:19:49.19 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I can report on this podcast episode that Duncan is happily cemented in Act 3 right now, because I've been playing a lot. um So he's in Act 3. 00:20:00.96 Kurt Crenwelge ah We're heading into the sewers to do all the Undercity stuff and finally deal with this pesky lady who captured my friend and that I'm going to go rescue. 00:20:09.81 Nicole Yeah. 00:20:11.37 Kurt Crenwelge Duncan will not stand for this. 00:20:11.62 Nicole Yeah, that's a good time. 00:20:12.69 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:20:15.06 Nicole That's a good time. 00:20:17.97 Nicole Yeah, I think mostly what I'm doing in Baldur's Gate right now, I'm actually in Act 3 as well, and the plethora of shops is really interesting to me, so I'm just like going around and buying random stuff that's like kind of pointless but cute, like new clothes for all my people. 00:20:33.41 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Yes, that's true. Yeah, like buying the clothes or just, you know, looting every chest and then just being like, oh, a swarthy shirt in red. 00:20:44.02 Nicole Yeah. 00:20:44.13 Kurt Crenwelge It's like, sure, we'll try that. ah Although Duncan... 00:20:48.07 Nicole Do I need a another hot? I probably do. 00:20:49.74 Kurt Crenwelge Do it. Yeah. I know Duncan has romanced Carlack. Uh, so I know like every pretty thing I find. 00:20:55.31 Nicole Yeah. 00:20:56.63 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, and I also made Duncan as like the model four, which is like the big tall human. So, you know, he's the human fighter, battle master fighter. 00:21:03.35 Nicole Yeah. 00:21:07.22 Kurt Crenwelge ah And so, yeah, like every pretty thing that he finds, he's like, oh, Karlak should have this. She would look good in this. um 00:21:14.69 Nicole yeah 00:21:14.94 Kurt Crenwelge So that's like kind of his way of of of me dealing with the clothes. And I know I missed out on um the dress problem from the one temple over by the factory. 00:21:25.73 Kurt Crenwelge Because I did things out of sequence. And so I was like, that's really weird. I came over here and there's nothing for me to do. And it's like, oh, because I already i already I already resolved that. And so um no way for me to get the dress. 00:21:37.22 Kurt Crenwelge And they just kept getting mad that I was snooping around and going through their stuff. So I was like, I'll just reload a second and pretend they only scolded me one time and then I just left. 00:21:42.42 Nicole Fair enough. 00:21:48.99 Nicole Yeah, that's fair. 00:21:50.44 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:21:51.69 Nicole It's such a great game. 00:21:52.11 Kurt Crenwelge Duncan is chaotic, chaotically good, but he does have chaos within him. 00:21:56.68 Nicole Yeah, well, that's the best way to play, I think. 00:22:00.12 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Okay, but yeah, enjoying all the shops in Baldur's Gate. That's, yeah. 00:22:05.49 Nicole We'll call that a side quest. 00:22:05.58 Kurt Crenwelge the world The world is crumbling around you, but it's like, hey, you know, the gang goes to the shops. 00:22:12.26 Nicole Let's go shopping. Yeah, why not? 00:22:13.65 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, a shopping episode in the middle of the apocalypse. There we go. 00:22:19.33 Kurt Crenwelge And then finally, the way to round out the personal interview section, ah Nicole, do you have any new passions or hobbies that you've picked up since the last time we spoke? And why is this new passion or hobby your thing? 00:22:35.29 Nicole Well, I don't know if I have any new ones. I think I'm just expanding on my current ones to a point of almost bursting. i feel like the next hobby I need to take up is like sleeping. I'm just becoming way too busy with all of my hobbies and passions and interests right now. 00:22:55.43 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, yeah, that's true. You don't want to you don't want to burn the candle at ah at both ends. I mean, I know the you know you'll burn bright, but ah eventually you will have no fuse left. 00:23:05.46 Nicole Yes, I really like, I think after having this book, like seeing it finished, and it's really like spurred on a lot of my creative writing. So I'm working on like six books right now at the same time, which is a little crazy. 00:23:21.39 Kurt Crenwelge Wow, you're going to put ah George R.R. Martin out of business. He can't even get this last book done. 00:23:26.65 Nicole i don't think he even writes anymore. 00:23:28.55 Kurt Crenwelge I've never i've never read any of those books, but ever the joke is, is like, oh, he'll never he'll never finish this book and all those fans will be just deprived and all they'll have to live with is some HBO show that, I don't know, got weirder and lamer lazier as it went on or something. 00:23:28.90 Nicole Yeah. 00:23:45.70 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, you know, to yeah not to poo-poo it too much because I know, sure, a lot of hard work and time and energy and effort went into a show, but 00:23:46.47 Nicole Yeah, it's a sad joke. 00:23:56.41 Kurt Crenwelge yeah ah The audience can certainly be your harshest critic, I suppose, sometimes. 00:24:01.90 Nicole Yeah, yeah. i'm um' I'm a fan. I'm a believer in his books. But yeah, i sure wish he would finish that series. That would be nice. 00:24:12.04 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And there we go. It sounds like we made it through the personal interview section that now I think it's time to head into some NPC creation. 00:24:28.02 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC Creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience, and our patrons from Patreon. So now's the time of the show where we give a loud hurrah, a toast, a cheer to our Patreon supporters. I've got my whiskey sour here to do that. So cheers to you, our queen of the Patreon, Katie Downey, aka Goblin Katie, as well as wealthy tier patrons, 00:24:52.86 Kurt Crenwelge Anson Jablinski and good old mom and dad. 00:24:53.97 Nicole Bye. 00:24:55.64 Kurt Crenwelge Cheers. And also fun fact, cause I've been checking the Patreon. Um, you know, those are our dedicated, paying members, but we have a lot of free people, uh, that are slowly taking in and joining us. So, you know, I know I don't have a name to shout out for you, but I do want to at least show my appreciation for at least the free folk who are sticking around the Patreon. I know I, 00:25:16.81 Kurt Crenwelge need to be more accountable and catch up on all those rewards. And believe me, I've got some cool stuff that I'm working on. If I can just pry myself away from chores and Baldur's Gate three that I promise I will get back to doing what I told you that I would do, you know, for all the wonderful financial support you show me. 00:25:33.98 Kurt Crenwelge um Yeah. 00:25:34.74 Nicole Mm-hmm. 00:25:34.83 Kurt Crenwelge So all these named folks, you know, they donate money, $2 or more month. They get the shout out on every one of our episodes. And, you know, with this season being just once a month, you know, that $2 certainly, um you know, impacts more. 00:25:50.63 Kurt Crenwelge And of course, all these wealthy patrons also get to introduce an element of chance to our random table. So if we use those here today, then we might get to hear some of their responses. So if you want to learn more and not hear me rattle and prattle and yaddle and um every other Dr. Seuss rhyme about this, you should just go to ah my Patreon website, patreon.com forward slash sidekicksandsidequests. 00:26:13.81 Kurt Crenwelge You should go to the podcast website or just, you know, go to the podcast show notes below. You can learn about our tiers of patronage, help us to grow and expand our operations at the Levitating Platter in this demi-plane and worlds beyond. 00:26:27.33 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so now that that is done, ah we were talking before we hit the record button, and I think as a treat, you know, because this is like, hey, we're doing this because of the Kickstarter, you wanted to share an NPC from the book and be able to give like ah like a preview, a tease for people to be able to incorporate this character into their games. Is that correct? 00:26:52.46 Nicole Yes, that's right. 00:26:55.01 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, excellent. um All right. Well, then without further ado, I think it's time we start wending our way through the questions. And the first one we'll ask is, what is the name of the character that we have today? 00:27:10.45 Nicole This character's name is Wren. W-R-E-N. Wren. 00:27:16.78 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:27:19.23 Nicole And she is a ah half-orc. 00:27:27.31 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. Yeah, that answers the ancestry question. So Ren the half-orc. 00:27:31.03 Nicole Oh, it does. Oh, I'm skipping ahead. Ren, half-orc. 00:27:32.99 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, no, that's fine. You know, that's fine. Yeah, know. That was literally question two. So it's like we got Ren. Ren. Okay. And Ren is a half-orc. 00:27:38.94 Nicole Perfect. 00:27:40.09 Kurt Crenwelge Excellent. All right. And then what is ah her job or ah their job or role in society? 00:27:48.44 Nicole So she is 12 years old and she is a student at the Heroes Academy of Etheria, which is why you would meet her in the book because our two main protagonists are also students at the Academy training to be heroes. 00:28:05.07 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, excellent. 00:28:06.49 Nicole And she is training as a grave cleric. 00:28:12.36 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. 00:28:13.54 Nicole Yeah, yeah, she's spooky. 00:28:15.46 Kurt Crenwelge All right. She's spooky-ooky. ah Halloween's her favorite time of year. Okay. 00:28:21.68 Nicole Yes. Yes, it is. 00:28:24.56 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:28:25.31 Nicole I love this character. 00:28:28.39 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And then you said ah for the age range of the character that she's 12. Okay. 00:28:33.44 Nicole Yeah, she's 12. In my book, um and also in the game that goes with it, most of the characters are in their kind of like tween to early teen years. So like 10 to kind of age. 00:28:49.54 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Cause it makes sense there. It's a learning it's a, it's an Academy you're training, uh, to be it. I know as far as clerics are concerned, you know, they might call that like seminary or, uh, or temple or, or whatever. so you know, as far as the published official D and D material, I know they have Strixhaven, which comes from, I believe their magic, the gathering universe, but the premise being like, Oh, it's a magical university, which is where like students can go. 00:29:18.57 Nicole Yeah. 00:29:24.04 Kurt Crenwelge Basically. It's like a way to be like, Maybe maybe to help logically explain, like, how do you go from level zero to level one sort of a thing? 00:29:32.04 Nicole Right. 00:29:32.28 Kurt Crenwelge You just you you grind away at the college experience and now officially you can call yourself a level one adventurer and stuff like that. 00:29:42.06 Nicole Yeah. 00:29:42.24 Kurt Crenwelge So this is definitely like, a you know, especially if they're tweens, it's like, you know. maybe akin to ah a Hogwarts or, you know, a boarding school, or I'm i'm thinking of, um oh goodness, I'm blanking on the name of the anime, but I know my wife and I watched on Netflix years ago, but it's kind of like a witch academy sort of a anime show where the girls are all like 12 or whatever like that. 00:30:05.23 Nicole the yeah 00:30:09.44 Kurt Crenwelge And it's like, we're learning how to be witches, but we're also at school um sort of a thing. 00:30:13.72 Nicole Yes, it's kind of like that, like a boarding academy kind of situation. and and And the way it works in um my homebrew world in Etheria is that all of the different on classes, you know, 00:30:29.54 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:30:29.90 Nicole cleric, ah ranger, fighter, wizard, whatever, all of those, they can all be trained in the same school, the same academy. There's just kind of like different departments, right? 00:30:40.68 Nicole So there's like a headmaster who teaches all the druids. 00:30:40.90 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:30:44.60 Nicole There's like a head, a headmaster that teaches all the clerics or whatever. So. 00:30:49.74 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Right. 00:30:50.30 Nicole Yes. 00:30:50.58 Kurt Crenwelge The dean of the college of artificery or the dean of the college of fighting spirits or or whatever like that. Yeah. 00:31:00.01 Nicole Yes, exactly. 00:31:02.12 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, taking taking the idea of Strixhaven, then before Sidekicks and Sidequests was a thing, there was a time where my my friends and I, previous guests of the podcast and good friends, ah Michael and Elizabeth Horsley, we we like pitched this idea of like, oh, what if we did a podcast where it was like a magical... 00:31:22.79 Kurt Crenwelge University and like all like and all the classes were represented, but it's like you're following these low level people who are trying to like work their way through, you know, college essentially to become full fledged adventurers in the world. 00:31:37.41 Kurt Crenwelge Well, I sort of all took that idea. And in my major city in the Astral Sea, um Bastion, not to be confused with the concept of Bastions in the 2024 rules, but a a place named Bastion, ah which is like my version of Mass Effects, the Citadel mixed with the Marvel Cinematics Universe Nowhere. 00:31:59.31 Kurt Crenwelge It's an entire metropolis built on the body of a dead god. 00:31:59.97 Nicole okay 00:32:02.63 Kurt Crenwelge In the mouth of it, in the open mouth of it, resides a place called the Orpheum. which is basically like the ultimate bard school in all of the realms of my homebrew world. 00:32:15.15 Kurt Crenwelge And it's run by the concert master as the factional leader of of that ah of that learning station. ah She's a Luxodon bard. 00:32:25.75 Kurt Crenwelge ah So what an elephant person. 00:32:26.50 Nicole I love it. 00:32:27.51 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. But yeah, essentially, it's like they're like a higher education ah place. And it's like, oh, you can go there to find wizards and bards and sorcerers and fighters and barbarians. 00:32:37.48 Nicole Yeah. 00:32:38.10 Kurt Crenwelge And all those folks are represented there at the at the college. um So I feel like every game tries to, you know, find some sort of tangible example. 00:32:42.61 Nicole Yeah. 00:32:48.21 Kurt Crenwelge And it's especially cool that, you know, since you're running a game for kids, you make a school um that's specifically geared to them. To be like, oh, yeah. So it's like anyone become an adventurer, especially half-orc cleric. 00:33:01.67 Kurt Crenwelge So that that particular college that Ren is a part of, is it like classified as like a seminary? 00:33:02.34 Nicole Yeah. 00:33:07.45 Kurt Crenwelge Or just like, oh, this is just the college of religious studies or gods or whatever? 00:33:15.52 Nicole Yeah. I mean, i wouldn't call it a seminary more of just like, okay, we're, we're in the college of, you know, uh, clerics and other like religious type things, you know, not, 00:33:28.46 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 00:33:30.73 Nicole I mean, I feel like within even just clerics, there's like different types, right? So there's definitely still some variety there that there's not like one doctrine, like a seminary that they're teaching. 00:33:37.15 Kurt Crenwelge sure 00:33:44.66 Kurt Crenwelge right Right, right. That's true. Yeah. ah Sorry. I just meant seminary as the, as the literal term of like, oh, this is a school, ah college a college, a place of learning where it's specifically focused on religious studies. It doesn't necessarily have to belong to one particular deity of your world. 00:34:03.39 Kurt Crenwelge Um, but just, they might call it like, oh, that's the seminary. 00:34:03.82 Nicole Yeah. 00:34:06.83 Kurt Crenwelge That's like where all the clerics and the paladins go, um, to start taking their classes. all their philosophy, theology, ah social communications, all these buzzwords that 12-year-olds don't know, but when the adults are pitched it, when they're like, why should I send my kid to this adventuring college? 00:34:12.88 Nicole Yeah. 00:34:27.60 Kurt Crenwelge ah then the Then the dean steps and is like, well, we have the latest treatises on all of the latest philosophies and theoretical ah quandaries of the age. 00:34:28.17 Nicole yeah 00:34:38.67 Kurt Crenwelge And they're like, okay, all right. 00:34:39.38 Nicole yeah 00:34:40.35 Kurt Crenwelge I'm willing to pay the thousand gold it is to send my kid here for a semester. 00:34:45.85 Nicole Right. I'm just imagining like all the little baby clerics and paladins like sitting together in this big lecture hall. That's like theology 101. 00:34:56.09 Kurt Crenwelge Right, exactly. I mean, is that kind of what we should imagine Ren's day is like? Or even at her level, is it just very basic like, like maybe you're getting like first aid training. Cause it's like, Oh, they expect the clerics to be like healing people. So it's like, it actually maybe involves quite a bit of like, here's some like basic science and biology, you know, here's how you do math because maybe you will become a cleric and a kingdom and that kingdom will force taxes on you. So you have to know how to pay the taxes and ah district, you know, all, I don't know. 00:35:33.07 Kurt Crenwelge It could be very interesting. How in-depth does the the learning go in your world? I know it's for kids, but kids are smart and they can pick up on things. 00:35:39.60 Nicole yeah 00:35:41.02 Kurt Crenwelge If they can and they can easily get sucked down rabbit holes on YouTube about like, hey, this is how taxation works in your country or whatever, then they can be like, oh, mom, why why are we not? 00:35:52.83 Kurt Crenwelge why does this ah why Why is our college ah exempt from taxes from the king 00:35:59.17 Nicole Right. Yeah, I would say it's a pretty well-rounded education. I mean, I feel like the kids will, the kids that are playing will mostly be um school age, like grade school age. 00:36:11.69 Nicole So imagine it's similar to, you know, kind of like you learn the basics and you'll have some specialty classes for your specific thing that you're training to be a hero in. 00:36:12.23 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:36:23.34 Nicole And definitely some, ah like one-on-one or small group mentorship type classes once you get a little higher up in the, in the academy. 00:36:35.71 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. And you did say tween. So is it, is it how we would think of like, um, like a sixth grader middle schooler, sort of a situation where there's like, maybe there's not, I mean, they may do like the whole, um, East coast or European school of like, Oh, you have a college. 00:36:54.72 Kurt Crenwelge that you reside in. and Like that's like all the clerics and the paladins like are bunked in this college. But meanwhile, it's like, oh, I have first period. 00:37:02.79 Nicole Yeah. 00:37:05.06 Kurt Crenwelge This is medicine. So this is where I go to learn the medicine skill. 00:37:07.21 Nicole Yeah. Mm-hmm. 00:37:08.62 Kurt Crenwelge My second period. Ah, That's athletics training. So now I got to go and like work on my athletic skill. ah Third period lunch. All right, cool. I'm already for lunch. And then like, you know, the rest of the day is scheduled out. If you know, if you had to gamify it or something like that. So it's like, oh, this period, you're working on this particular skill. 00:37:27.48 Kurt Crenwelge I can only imagine how the deception and intimidation classes go if it were to be like that. 00:37:35.09 Nicole Right. Yeah, I imagine it very much like that. And, you know, I think it's really like more of a like grade six through 12 sort of situation, which I guess is not unlike a boarding school type situation in the real world. 00:37:49.22 Kurt Crenwelge Thank 00:37:54.29 Kurt Crenwelge Do they, ah because as we're, you know, as we're winning our way through the questions and we and we've got this all figured out, you know, we're we're talking and figuring out, at least for me, in my edification is like, I just want to know how the school works. 00:38:06.12 Kurt Crenwelge So then I know like how the kids and how you're expected to sort of interact with the NPC. 00:38:07.01 Nicole yeah 00:38:11.70 Kurt Crenwelge um But this kind of feeds into it too. ah But can you describe the physical appearance of Ren? If we're imagining this boarding school situation, is it, is everyone wearing standardized uniforms or is everyone allowed to kind of dress? 00:38:24.38 Kurt Crenwelge as is appropriate for their particular vocation that they're studying for. 00:38:30.14 Nicole Yeah, no standard uniform on the way that the students dress does lend itself really well to what they're training for. So if you were to kind of peek in you might be able to even guess by what they're wearing, which sort of classes they're training in based on what they're wearing. 00:38:40.18 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:38:49.23 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. OK, and so then in particular for Ren, with her being a grave cleric, does she is it more is it more hot topic? 00:38:52.42 Nicole Yeah. 00:39:00.91 Kurt Crenwelge Is it more Raven from Teen Titans or like what's the sort of vibe that she's going for? 00:39:09.19 Nicole Uh, the vibe is a little gothic. She wears mostly like a dark purple color. She's got kind of a lighter purple robe underneath and then a dark purple like big hood, um kind of hooded towel sort of thing that she wears over her head. 00:39:28.32 Nicole Spooky, but um little bit witchy maybe, I guess is a good way to describe it. 00:39:35.91 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. So do people get thrown off because they think like, oh, she looks like she could be like a like a necromancer or like a shadow sorcerer or something like that. 00:39:47.64 Kurt Crenwelge And then she says like ah a prayer or something like that or does something that a cleric would do. 00:39:48.26 Nicole Yeah. 00:39:52.29 Kurt Crenwelge and they're like, oh, wait. Oh, oh, you're one of those kids. Okay. 00:39:57.87 Nicole Yeah, for sure. A lot of people are scared of her at first glance. I mean, if you can imagine, she's got this kind of spooky vibe going on. She looks kind of witchy. And she's also quite a bit bigger than most of the other students because this is a half orc. 00:40:10.70 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, right. 00:40:12.38 Nicole So she's just kind of standing above a lot of these other kids. 00:40:17.54 Kurt Crenwelge Is she like upper five feet or is she even breached like six feet or something like this? I mean, she's 12, so I could if she's like six foot or taller by the time she's 12, it's like the WNBA better be calling to draft her for for their team or something. 00:40:33.04 Nicole Right. No, she's not quite that tall, but she's probably a good half a foot or so taller than the other students who are, you know, humans, elves, dwarves, shorter folks. 00:40:44.54 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:40:47.23 Kurt Crenwelge And as far as the half orcness is concerned, you know, as far as, you know, you know, a phenotype versus a genotype. I don't know. Is there a particular way in how she appears? Like if you looked at her, you could either clearly tell she's like, you know, like very orcish looking, but not fully orc. 00:41:05.03 Kurt Crenwelge Or, you know, even some like ah a fun way to kind of play with the trope is like she's half orc, but she actually appears. I know I've done this at least for one NPC where like she looks really human, but then it's only when you look at like she smiles big or opens up her lip, you actually see like the more pronounced, you know, lower incisor teeth to even hint at the fact of like, oh, she's actually half orcish. 00:41:30.04 Kurt Crenwelge She looks human, but she's actually half orcish. 00:41:34.27 Nicole Yeah, she looks more human than orc-ish, but she does have like the big incisor teeth ah that orcs have. And her skin color is like kind of light greenish. 00:41:50.17 Kurt Crenwelge So like mint cream, ice cream, or like more muted. 00:41:50.24 Nicole So. 00:41:53.40 Nicole Yes. 00:41:54.56 Kurt Crenwelge i was playing. Well, but my, my friend, uh, Catherine and i we, we, we launched a cross play, uh, campaign for Baldur's gate three. So she's playing on a PlayStation. I'm playing on Xbox. 00:42:06.33 Kurt Crenwelge That was a whole thing to figure out, but we got, we got through the prologue. 00:42:08.96 Nicole Yeah. 00:42:09.67 Kurt Crenwelge We got to the beach and got to camp. Um, But it was interesting when I was creating my character for that game as a half elf, a half wood elf. I was going through the this, you know, the pigmentation of the of the skin. 00:42:23.89 Kurt Crenwelge i was like, oh, some of these like wood elf tones, because remember in the book it said like, oh, they could be copperish and stuff like that. But like some of the wood tones like looked very muted green. 00:42:32.27 Nicole yeah 00:42:36.41 Kurt Crenwelge like almost kind of like a dollar bill, like a really worn dollar bill or something like that. was like, that's kind of interesting choice um for a wood elf coloration where you'd almost be like, are you OK? 00:42:41.62 Nicole Okay. 00:42:47.48 Kurt Crenwelge You look like you're off color or something like that. It's like that kind of green or is it more traditional sort of orcish, but not heavily like orcish green. 00:42:51.52 Nicole Yeah, 00:42:58.52 Nicole it's kind of like a, if you think of like orcish green, but like a little lighter. 00:43:02.37 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:43:03.45 Nicole yeah 00:43:03.65 Kurt Crenwelge OK, she hasn't gotten a tan yet. 00:43:06.64 Nicole No. No orc tan on this girl yet. 00:43:10.47 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Well, she's, she's got the big cloak and cowl that she's wearing. So she avoids the sun, uh, fulfilling all the goth vampire stereotypes of middle schoolers of like, I can't possibly be in The sun is my enemy. 00:43:15.92 Nicole She does. 00:43:21.54 Nicole Very much so. 00:43:26.35 Nicole Yes. Yeah. 00:43:28.97 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. Very cool. I'm, I'm loving Ren. Like, uh, yeah. Um, Can you describe her with three adjectives you now that we kind of have an idea of like how she physically looks to help role player a little bit better in our games? 00:43:42.66 Kurt Crenwelge What three adjectives best describe her? 00:43:46.42 Nicole Yeah, I 00:43:51.17 Nicole know I said spooky already before. i shy. and 00:44:02.59 Nicole i think at first glance, kind of an outsider, like she doesn't fit in. 00:44:07.09 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Misfit. 00:44:10.83 Nicole Yeah, a little misfit. Uh-huh. 00:44:12.36 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. She's got breakfast club energy to her. 00:44:16.46 Nicole Yeah. 00:44:16.59 Kurt Crenwelge Allie Sheedy's character, I believe. 00:44:21.63 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, she's like quiet, keeps to herself, but then when she like outbursts or says something like everyone looks at her like, oh, you actually talk or whatever, or you have something to add to the conversation. 00:44:29.68 Nicole Yes. 00:44:31.14 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:44:31.85 Nicole It's very much that. It's very much that. And well I will give a little spoiler that Wren actually does not say any words in the first book. She has no lines. 00:44:40.24 Kurt Crenwelge Wow. Interesting. Okay, so just chooses to not speak and just merely observe, probably has her own internal monologue that she's running and opinions that she's forming on other characters that we're seeing in the story, but doesn't doesn't actually speak in the first book. 00:44:53.92 Nicole Yeah. 00:44:57.91 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. 00:44:59.17 Nicole Yeah, you'll be able to know kind of what she's thinking just by looking at her facial expressions and body language and the illustrations, but she does not speak. Not yet. 00:45:08.04 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Well, can you, can you tease us a little bit? And, and, and what, when we hear her speak, what does she, what does she sound like? 00:45:17.93 Nicole So she's actually, you know, surprisingly for an orc, she's actually very soft-spoken. She has a very like quiet kind of demure voice. 00:45:29.19 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, okay. Again, I'm just going to the Raven. 00:45:32.01 Nicole Not a sexy voice, though. She's still a child. 00:45:33.52 Kurt Crenwelge I'm just ah right, right. 00:45:34.73 Nicole Mm-hmm. 00:45:35.37 Kurt Crenwelge I'm just going to the Raven image from Teen Titans. And I think I didn't really watch that show all that much. But like, I think Terrastron's voice acting in it kind of keeps her like sort of like that kind of low and down here and intense, but also demure. 00:45:50.42 Nicole yeah yeah 00:45:50.54 Kurt Crenwelge And before she says her magic phrase and then like all her powers shoot off and stuff like that. 00:45:57.86 Nicole you guys 00:45:59.00 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. Okay, so now that we've we've done the adjectives, we're getting an idea of the character. We, of course, like all of our NPCs to have something valuable on their person, whether that's going to be a valuable item, a piece of lore, a secret, or an ideal or concept that w Ren would ascribe to. 00:46:18.57 Kurt Crenwelge um i know we've just been you know talking and learning about the character. of course, I have the tables if you're looking to just you know, generate something fun that maybe hasn't been depicted in the books, but could eventually find their way into the books. 00:46:32.01 Kurt Crenwelge And then people would know where the origin of that random thing would come from. But I don't know. Is there something? 00:46:37.27 Nicole Yeah, that sounds fun. 00:46:38.59 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right, cool. We're going to go to the. 00:46:40.49 Nicole Let's bring some tables in 00:46:42.34 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Yeah. So then it's a D four for the category and then a D six for the particular thing. 00:46:45.93 Nicole I'll find it. 00:46:49.68 Nicole Okay, let me get my virtual dice here because didn't bring any with me. Did I? No, I did not. Okay. right, D4, right? 00:46:59.02 Kurt Crenwelge Correct for the first one. 00:47:01.54 Nicole All right, that's a two 00:47:02.85 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, this is goingnna be a piece of lore, and then a d6 for the piece of lore. 00:47:05.78 Nicole two. Ooh. 00:47:09.77 Nicole ah five o Wait, is she the baker? 00:47:11.11 Kurt Crenwelge Five. Okay, well, your answer was suggested by our Patreon supporter, my dad, Wayne Cranwelge, and it says here that Ren knows how to bake cakes so that whomever eats from it, the baker can read their mind for a day. 00:47:29.19 Kurt Crenwelge If she knows how to bake cake so that whomever eats from it, that she can read their mind for a day. 00:47:31.15 Nicole and She bakes the cake. Okay. Ooh, I love that. 00:47:37.57 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so tell me tell me more about that, how ah how Ren came to this knowledge. Is this something that she like picked up in class one day? All the other kids sort of like breezed over it, didn't caring, but she's like, actually, I'm going to investigate this a little more and and figure it out how to do like ah detect thoughts through culinary components. 00:47:58.98 Nicole through Kate. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that definitely sounds like a self study program that she ah ah she picked up of her own will in a class. 00:48:11.09 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, she went to the library. Yeah, definitely fits with like the wow. She's like hanging out in the library on her own. She doesn't even have and an assignment to do. What's she even doing here? She's secretly figuring out the recipe for this. 00:48:21.79 Nicole Yeah. 00:48:23.46 Kurt Crenwelge So now everyone knows that, ah you know, i don' well, I don't know. It'd be interesting. How long would it be? You know, they figure out like, wow, she makes like these really good cakes. But then. 00:48:33.74 Nicole Mm-hmm. 00:48:35.04 Kurt Crenwelge She's able to read their mind for an entire day. And so then she's just like subtly dropping hints or something like that based on what people are doing. And so then everyone gets weirded out by her even more because they're like, it's so uncanny. 00:48:48.62 Nicole Right. 00:48:48.96 Kurt Crenwelge It's like she knows what I'm thinking. She knows what I'm going to do or say. 00:48:51.79 Nicole Let's see now. Uh-huh. Yeah, and that actually makes a lot of sense for Ren as a character because she is this kind of like misfit character, but she really wants to find belonging and and fit in with people as, you know, most preteens do deep down. 00:49:10.30 Nicole But, ah you know, I imagine that might be a way that she would try two understand people better and maybe win some friends over. but But like you said, I think it likely might just scare them away even more. Like, oh, that's even more strange and 00:49:29.02 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, just trying to just trying to think how kids think. I don't know. ah Again, I'm just thinking like you know if she becomes more speaking in future books, if like our main heroes are offered a cake ah from Ren and they eat of it, but all the other kids are trying to warn them, like don't eat the cake. 00:49:45.77 Nicole yeah 00:49:49.59 Kurt Crenwelge If you do that, Ren's going to put a curse on you or something like that. Because the kids don't know the secret of what's actually going on. But then it's like, 00:49:57.16 Nicole yeah 00:49:58.75 Kurt Crenwelge Then Ren's able to like, maybe she tries to do something nice where she figures out like, you know, because one of the characters is like, oh man, I really wish I could have this thing or I could see this thing or do this thing. 00:50:09.75 Kurt Crenwelge And then she actually pulls it off for them. 00:50:10.68 Nicole yeah 00:50:11.47 Kurt Crenwelge And then the kids are like, well, how are you able to do this? And then maybe she lets in on the secret about the cake. And then that explains like, oh, so all the other kids misunderstand it. And then that like forms their, their friend group bond stronger. 00:50:27.43 Nicole yeah Yeah, like she wasn't actually cursing you, she was just reading your mind through the cake to try to be your friend. 00:50:33.36 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Going about it a very weird roundabout way. So it sounds like, yeah, like her biggest thing is like because of the path that she's on and what she's chosen, she's physically bigger than all these other kids around the school. 00:50:39.53 Nicole and 00:50:47.54 Kurt Crenwelge She just has a hard time making friends. And of course, like a tween would go about the the longest um scenic route of actually trying to make friends rather than just the direct thing of just going up to someone being like hi my name is Ren I'm studying to be a cleric what's your name like no I need to make a cake and offer it to people like a hag and get them to agree to eat the cake 00:51:07.15 Nicole yeah 00:51:14.09 Nicole That totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. 00:51:16.05 Kurt Crenwelge yeah okay sounds cool 00:51:20.88 Nicole Oh goodness. I like that one. That worked out really well. 00:51:24.18 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, well, the dice give, man. The dice give. um Sometimes they take away, but more often on this podcast, they give, and they give very good, fun suggestions. And then... 00:51:34.01 Nicole Yes. They are giving today. 00:51:34.34 Kurt Crenwelge in They are definitely very giving. Of course, our NPCs have to be able to have bright gold exclamation points over their head to offer up a side quest. So when we're putting Ren in our game, what's going to be the particular quest that she'd be willing to recruit or hire player characters or adventure proper adventures to be able to go and do on her behalf? So if we're imagining that we're finding her in... 00:52:00.61 Kurt Crenwelge ah magical school. ah The adventurers are there at the school and she goes out of her way or the adventurers go out of their way to meet her and she's like, I need help. 00:52:11.95 Kurt Crenwelge ah Do you have an idea of what she'd offer up or do you want to roll the dice and figure out ah roll one? 00:52:16.71 Nicole Let's roll one. i like what the dice are saying so far. 00:52:18.86 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and roll a d12 then. 00:52:28.92 Kurt Crenwelge We'll see if it's appropriate. 00:52:29.26 Nicole well 00:52:30.79 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:52:31.04 Nicole yeah 00:52:32.92 Kurt Crenwelge What'd you get? 00:52:34.57 Nicole wow 00:52:36.32 Kurt Crenwelge 12. Ooh, okay. Well, this one was suggested by our previous guest, ah Jessica Markrum. An influential spirit has vanished. 00:52:47.94 Kurt Crenwelge Are there spirits present at the school? 00:52:48.72 Nicole Oh. 00:52:49.74 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, she's a grave cleric, so that also makes sense. 00:52:52.56 Nicole Yeah, this will be a perfect quest for her, yeah. She would be in touch with those spirits. 00:52:55.77 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:52:58.23 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, so an influential spirit has vanished. Are there spirit professors, teachers, educators at this place? Like if, you know, we talk about like, oh, Harry Potter, and yes, there were ghosts that were clearly around the school, and I'm sure other works and medias and projects have done that as well. 00:53:06.85 Nicole All 00:53:15.34 Kurt Crenwelge I certainly like to entertain every now and then that like, oh yeah, there's just a ghost that lives and works here because they're stupid they're too stubborn to move on, and they just happen to like to do their job, but 00:53:16.11 Nicole right. 00:53:21.61 Nicole Yeah. 00:53:26.35 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, is there like a ah ghost or something like that that teaches like, I don't really like enjoying teaching how turn undead works, but you know, I'm the perfect person to ah encapsulate the spirit or or explain how it repels spirits away and stuff like that. 00:53:27.10 Nicole yeah 00:53:46.86 Nicole Yeah. Yeah. Maybe just like, uh, A former professor that, you know, passed on but didn't want to leave school yet. 00:53:56.67 Kurt Crenwelge o 00:53:56.71 Nicole Just sticking around. Not ready to retire, you know? Death can't even stop him. 00:54:02.27 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. All right. So someone in the, in the religious studies department that, uh, that hangs around and teaches classes, but an influential spirit nonetheless has suddenly vanished. 00:54:14.06 Kurt Crenwelge Um, certainly we leave it open to dungeon masters to be able to invent their reason as to why, but don't know, just shooting from the hip. Um, what, whether or not you actually have a influential spirit character at your unit at your school, you might now. 00:54:30.27 Kurt Crenwelge um But I don't know You're thinking ah is there a re is what are you thinking as to why they vanished? 00:54:31.56 Nicole okay 00:54:36.99 Kurt Crenwelge Because what what would would would Ren's first thought be like, oh, they decided that they wanted to pass on, but they just didn't tell anyone? Or is it something more nefarious or like, oh, they just went off to go do an errand, but just didn't tell anyone. 00:54:52.84 Nicole Yeah. Ooh, I know. mean, I was thinking, maybe something more mysterious, but like something happened to them or they got pulled away to deal with something that needs solving. 00:55:10.25 Kurt Crenwelge They got trapped somewhere. They're like, I'm trapped in like a soul jar. 00:55:12.56 Nicole Yeah. 00:55:15.60 Kurt Crenwelge i can't get out I can't get out of the soul jar. 00:55:16.15 Nicole Yeah. 00:55:18.16 Kurt Crenwelge I need you to smash me out of here, please. 00:55:21.51 Nicole Yeah, something like that. that's That's kind of what I was thinking. 00:55:24.09 Kurt Crenwelge Or trapped or yeah like trapped in a soul jar or a puzzle or or something like that. So like the kids you know you know contextualizing it for youre your wonderful stories of like, Ren's really concerned that this professor's gone missing. 00:55:37.68 Kurt Crenwelge So she and the gang all go off to like, 00:55:38.51 Nicole Yeah. 00:55:41.02 Kurt Crenwelge we Well, we read that he was off to go find this treasure that we were going to use for an upcoming lecture demonstration. And as they're going through the the ah catacombs or the ah temple or the ruins or whatever, they find the puzzle. 00:55:54.50 Kurt Crenwelge Then it's like, oh, he's trapped in a ward of some kind. And he can't break out on his own. 00:56:00.28 Nicole Yeah. 00:56:00.98 Kurt Crenwelge And there's some trap that's activated that the kids have got to stop in order for him to be released or whatever. 00:56:07.68 Nicole Mm-hmm. I'm here for it. 00:56:10.19 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:56:10.26 Nicole like that. 00:56:11.72 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So yeah, whether it's going to be the actual in the books version that ah Nicole will get to write or you use it in your adventure. ah But what's going to be the reward for success? 00:56:23.72 Kurt Crenwelge So Ren, you know, for our podcast purposes, recruits adults to go and handle this, to go find where the spirit went, however the circumstances were. 00:56:33.87 Kurt Crenwelge But the spirit returns, resumes their classes. 00:56:35.26 Nicole Yeah. 00:56:37.62 Kurt Crenwelge Everything's all well and good. How is Ren going to reward the party? 00:56:42.13 Nicole How would she reward the bread? Now I'm thinking about the cake again. and That could be a fun trick, yeah? 00:56:50.22 Kurt Crenwelge Does she teach them how to make the cakes? 00:56:55.28 Nicole Teach them how to make those special cakes where they can detect thoughts. I like that. She could share her cake recipe. 00:57:04.13 Kurt Crenwelge She shares the cake recipe that ah allows you the ability to read someone's mind again, as my dad stipulated for an entire day. So beyond the normal means of like a detect thought spell, it's just ah the way I'm reading it and thinking of how my dad would word it. 00:57:14.00 Nicole urge Yeah, unlimited range all day. 00:57:20.84 Kurt Crenwelge It would just be like, Oh yeah, it doesn't matter where you are. It's just like, you could think about it and be like, Oh, they're thinking about tuna fish. I don't know why they're thinking about tuna fish, but that's what they're thinking about right now. 00:57:32.18 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, Yeah, but it must be that it must be really hard to make these cakes because it's not. Otherwise, it's too game breaking. I feel like as far as like, oh, if all I need is just sugar, eggs, flour, water, and I just think about it really hard and then it works. 00:57:49.84 Kurt Crenwelge It's like I feel like it's got to be like an owlbear egg. 00:57:51.30 Nicole Right. 00:57:54.23 Kurt Crenwelge It's got to be like dander from a unicorn or whatever it is, like some weird, very niche mythic ingredients. 00:58:01.05 Nicole Yeah, something really unique. 00:58:03.27 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:58:04.55 Nicole agree. 00:58:06.56 Kurt Crenwelge So she teaches you how to make it. So if you have the wherewithal to go owlbear and unicorn hunting, again, ethically sourced, not doing anything cruel to them, but you get the ingredients for the cake, you make the cake, someone eats the cake, and suddenly you can unlimited range wiretap them for an entire 24 hours, i think. 00:58:28.10 Nicole There you go. All 00:58:29.04 Kurt Crenwelge There you go. Okay. And of course, the consequence of the flip side, what's going to be the conditions if the heroes fail or they refuse her? 00:58:41.20 Kurt Crenwelge Like they are like, we're just here to drop off a message at the at the school. We're not here to pick up side quests from tweens. Go back to Hot Topic or whatever they say. 00:58:48.44 Nicole right. 00:58:50.31 Kurt Crenwelge how is re How is Ren going to react to that? 00:58:54.34 Nicole Wow, she's never going to be very pleased that these adults will not help her. little child in need here. But yeah, I don't know. I guess this spirit professor is going to be lost forever or until someone else comes to find him. 00:59:11.24 Nicole Just really yeah julia a bummer. 00:59:14.73 Kurt Crenwelge Right. But, you know, he is a ghost, so it's not like he's going to, like, die all over again, i suppose. He'll just be trapped there, but hip you know, maybe not be so nice. 00:59:21.90 Nicole True. 00:59:25.39 Nicole think Think of all the lessons he won't be able to teach, you know? I mean, the students are really missing out. 00:59:29.93 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:59:31.86 Nicole This our next generation of heroes here. 00:59:35.24 Kurt Crenwelge yeah don't well no i know the influential spirit should be whoever the dm wants to invent i know nicole already has her idea of of who it should be this podcast episode would be three times as long if we sat here and and went through all the faculty uh of wren's college but we'll just we'll just leave it there leave some mystery you know you have to buy the books people you can't just get everything for 01:00:00.61 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So now that we've made it through all the regular questions, you know, we do have the optional questions. And do you think there's any of those that might help us to round out Ren a little bit more? Do you feel like you're ready to go to a random encounter? 01:00:20.00 Nicole see. 01:00:24.63 Nicole Yeah, I think. 01:00:27.86 Nicole think I'm ready. I feel like we i feel like we know Wren pretty well. I mean, I know her very well. i think I shared enough where you know her well too. 01:00:37.06 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Well, we've we've got our first preview plus a little bit more. It seems of one of the NPCs featured in the upcoming Tales of Etheria. 01:00:47.78 Kurt Crenwelge And so now I think it's time to head into ah random encounter. 01:00:59.43 Kurt Crenwelge And insert here for the final ad read for Zencaster, the platform I use to record and host my podcast recordings and all that good stuff. 01:01:10.86 Kurt Crenwelge If you want to start a podcast of your own or you have a podcast like StoryCrafters and you're like, man, what platform do I use to get started? You should really use Zencaster. And if you want to save some purchase power, 01:01:24.22 Kurt Crenwelge save some coin on your purchase of a, of a, of a paid plan. Use, go to, go to Zencaster.com forward slash pricing, use side KQ podcast at the checkout and save 30% off your first month of any paid plan. 01:01:38.80 Kurt Crenwelge And that'll come back to help me and support the podcast. So supporting the sponsors helps me people. So, all right, back to the, back to the podcast, you transcription readers. Alright, so we've made it here to the random encounter. So like we did with Rime, the... 01:01:55.24 Kurt Crenwelge the the the 01:01:58.65 Nicole manticore chocolatier 01:02:00.47 Kurt Crenwelge The Manticore Chocolatier, yes, my my but my mind went to blank there for a hot second there, but yes, just like we did with Rhyme, now is the point in the show where we get to do a little bit of a roleplay of Vignetta scene. 01:02:12.97 Kurt Crenwelge um So obviously, you know, don't want to spoil the books. I know she you said she doesn't talk in the first book alone, but What kind of scene are you interested in showcasing Ren in today? 01:02:25.59 Kurt Crenwelge Is she going to be like meeting with one of my podcast adventuring characters to give the quest? Is she interacting with other students? Is she trying to make a friend, feed someone a cake? 01:02:39.38 Kurt Crenwelge Or I don't know. What what kind of scene are you interested in in showing her off in today? 01:02:51.29 Nicole let um Let's do a ah cake one. This cake thing is very interesting to me. 01:02:59.28 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so she's she's offering a cake to like another student, basically. 01:03:05.55 Nicole Yeah, yeah. And by offering 01:03:12.04 Nicole And she's just going to be like putting it in front of them, ah kind of and in a way where they will be tempted to try some of it, but they may not actually know it came from her. 01:03:26.49 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, interesting. Okay. um Do you have any idea of the character in the scene that I should be as far as another student or should it just be invent who you think you it will be and then we'll just take the scene from there. 01:03:41.24 Nicole Yeah, just, just invent someone else who might be at the academy happening upon this cake. 01:03:50.63 Kurt Crenwelge OK, I'm just trying to think of junior high. Go back to those memories. It's OK. It's OK. We've been to therapy. We've grown up. We've matured. We don't have to go to any dark places from junior high. It's OK. 01:04:02.92 Kurt Crenwelge Life gets better. It's OK, kids. um All right. Perfect. All right. ah Would you care to set the scene or would you like me to set the scene? 01:04:12.20 Nicole Oh, you go ahead. 01:04:13.65 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. um All right. So it sounds like we're the Heroes Academy ah in Etheria and ah the camera, you know, for the animated show or movie, it zooms in. 01:04:27.37 Kurt Crenwelge It's perhaps the dining hall ah where all the students are congregating. We see a rather ah cloaked but hunched over larger ah young girl sitting at a table. 01:04:42.56 Kurt Crenwelge She has this cake in front of her. She's she's thinking of her course, a plan of action, ah you know, maybe It's her lunch period, um so she looks around to see like who's around. 01:04:54.18 Kurt Crenwelge um Maybe there's like an up-and-coming, blonde-haired, coiffed-hair jock type. So they're a fighter. 01:05:05.36 Kurt Crenwelge And like this kid has already talked about, like oh, i'm I'm a big game, I'm the up-and-coming on the sports team, our school rules, your school drools kind of a guy. 01:05:06.77 Nicole Okay. 01:05:15.43 Kurt Crenwelge We'll say that there's another girl... 01:05:15.73 Nicole Mm-hmm. 01:05:17.58 Kurt Crenwelge Um, maybe like the, the girlfriend, uh, of, of the day, you know, cause I remember junior high being like, Oh, you're my girlfriend. You're my boyfriend at the beginning of the day. And then by the end of the day they're broken up. 01:05:29.72 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, maybe it's like, uh, a bard in training, uh, girl, she's treating it more of like ballerina school or something like that. Like she's dressed up in maybe like a ballerina outfit, uh, an elven, uh, little girl. And she's next to this, uh, this, you know, this, 01:05:46.52 Kurt Crenwelge junior high football star essentially is like bragging about like, Oh yeah coach coaches. I'm the best on the team. Uh, and then finally, maybe there is a, she recognizes this other kid. 01:05:58.21 Kurt Crenwelge Um, he's also in the cleric school. Um, but maybe he is like the trickery. domain. So he's been working on like his pranks and stuff like that. 01:06:06.01 Nicole Oh. 01:06:09.42 Kurt Crenwelge So currently he's going over some of the science class notes. He's trying to figure out the mixture ratios um like from his artifice. Like he's also second majoring in artificery, I guess, trying to decide like my parents want me to do this cleric thing, but I kind of like doing the science thing for pulling off tricks. 01:06:27.68 Kurt Crenwelge So maybe I'll become like an arcane trickster rogue or I'll just become an artificer. But kind of doing like the ah the ah the Tom Holland Spider-Man thing where he opens the drawer and he does the the webbing mixture. he's He's at the lunch table. He's eating his lunch with one hand, but he's like mi he's working on some sort of mixture and the other. 01:06:47.67 Kurt Crenwelge He's trying to be very conscious and careful about like, I'm mixing something with my left hand. I'm eating with my right hand. So he's trying not be focusing on like not messing that up. um He's got a wide berth around him. No one wants to mess with him because whatever he's experimenting with, it smells like, you know, like the really awful fish from Sweden that no one wants to eat. 01:07:09.49 Kurt Crenwelge The preserved pickled fish. That's what it smells like. And he's experimenting with that. Meanwhile, he's happily eating his school lunch with the other hand and We'll say he looks like a dwarf. He's like a dwarf kid. He's got like three peach fuzz hairs that he's very proud of um while he's working on this. So that's who ah catches Ren's eye this day as she's contemplating who she's going to approach with the cake. 01:07:38.39 Nicole I love it. Okay. So Ron's kind of sitting there, like tapping her hands and looking around furtively, trying to decide what to do with this cake, special cake that she's got here. 01:07:55.36 Nicole and she decides that she wants to try it out on this and dwarf fellow student that is looking distracted over there. 01:08:09.57 Nicole she picks up the little cake. And she walks over kind of awkwardly and she puts it on the table next to him. Just. Okay. 01:08:20.53 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 01:08:20.57 Nicole Stan. There. 01:08:21.87 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, and she just stands there. Okay. And I think because his perception, he's like at a disadvantage. ah He rolls his perception check disadvantage and does not notice. ah So she's going be standing there for a while. 01:08:34.83 Kurt Crenwelge um So he's just like, no, He's like muttering in dwarvish. He's got like his very rough sort of like calculations of like what he's working on. And she can like obviously peek over his shoulder because she's much taller and she can see like the diagram where it's like dwarvish runes and it looks like equations like he's learned in science classes. 01:08:56.29 Kurt Crenwelge And you can see that he's because of the smell of what he's working on. Basically, it's like his version of the rudimentary workings of like a stinking cloud spell or something like that. 01:09:08.06 Kurt Crenwelge um So that's what he's trying to work on right now. 01:09:09.05 Nicole ah 01:09:11.00 Kurt Crenwelge But he's also like got a diagram where he's trying to figure out how to like to like get the spell out. to be inside of like a whoopee cushion or something. 01:09:21.31 Kurt Crenwelge So that way, when someone would sit on the whoopee cushion, it would just activate a stinking cloud spell and it would just like cause all kinds of chaos and stuff like that. So he's like, he's muttering, he's laughing. 01:09:34.36 Kurt Crenwelge He's like, hey, like, oh, this will be so funny. Like, oh yeah, I'll get that professor. He's thinks he could give me bad grades. He just doesn't know. He doesn't know. And so he's sitting there eating. 01:09:44.46 Nicole Thank you. 01:09:46.01 Kurt Crenwelge I think he gets to a point, maybe and she's standing there for like 10 minutes, five or 10 minutes while he's doing. He finishes his food, but then he does a double take as he looks over and he sees this cake. 01:09:58.14 Kurt Crenwelge ah But he doesn't see her. He sees the cake. um So is before he actually starts digging into the cake, is she going to like, you you know, say something or do anything so like introduce he yourself or she's just going to like let this happen? 01:10:13.18 Nicole She's just going to let this happen. She was just really standing there to make sure he actually ate the cake. So now that he's paying attention to the cake, looking like he's going to eat it, she just kind of like backs away and observes. 01:10:24.57 Kurt Crenwelge but Okay. um Yeah. 01:10:25.68 Nicole Very creepy, like. 01:10:27.62 Kurt Crenwelge Right. ah Yeah. And with his like, ah you know, he's he's a growing he's a growing dwarven boy. So he's like he looks at like his ah student issued mug of, well, butter beer or, you know, the whatever, you know, it's not ale, although he's ah he's probably the kind of kid who argued with the faculty that like my mom and dad let me drink ale all the time at home so why can't I have ale here I have to drink water and milk like everyone else um so like whatever he argued to get like his version he's already had like 01:10:57.47 Nicole Right. 01:11:02.54 Kurt Crenwelge one big tankard of that. He had a full meal that probably most adults would be like, I'm full after even looking at that. Like, so he sees this whole cake and he's just like, well, don't mind if I do. And he pulls it over and he starts eating it while he's working on the equations for his stinking cloud breakfast. 01:11:22.30 Kurt Crenwelge Whoopie fart cushion. um And he eats that thing clean. He eats it all. So what's ah what's Ren thinking as she's watching him eat the cake and she's very early on getting the rudimentary like, oh, she can start picking up what he's thinking and stuff. 01:11:40.14 Nicole Yeah, yeah. Well, she's a she's she's standing there still kind of awkward, like up against the wall in the cafeteria and just sort of looking i him and starting to get these, get some of these little thoughts from his mind that are mostly about the concoction he's trying to create right now. And and she just kind of, ah you know, looks kind of confused and skeptical and is like, huh, that's, she's kind of talking to herself like, that that's that's what he's working on. but 01:12:19.16 Nicole That's where he wants to spend his time. Okay, how peculiar. 01:12:26.56 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, she starts to hear his thoughts talking about like he's talking about his particular um dwarven patron saint or whatever that he looks up to because he's like he so he starts running through the story of like, oh, yeah, this dwarf. 01:12:41.10 Kurt Crenwelge He was the greatest prankster. Like I heard he pranked the king of the hill giants with one of these sorts of things. And it made the hill giant smell even worse. You know, the the hill giant smelled, took one whiff of this and he keeled over dead. 01:12:55.65 Kurt Crenwelge You know, so he's he's thinking about like the grandeur level of like, oh, yeah, I'm just this like, you know, 12 year old dwarven boy is going to figure out how to craft this master level spell and put it into a woopy cushion ah for me to be able to to be just like my hero. 01:13:13.43 Nicole Okay, and Wren's kind of starting to think through like, okay, so if I want to be friends with this person, he's really into this dwarven lore stuff and trickery and fart smells. 01:13:29.58 Nicole Okay, okay. 01:13:33.38 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and so he's just going to keep on with his lunch, of the the you know the cake consumed. ah Maybe finally at one point, you know he's licking his fingers clean. 01:13:44.69 Kurt Crenwelge And again, he's been very careful to make sure he doesn't mix the two. But maybe he finally looks over and he sees Ren and she's been muttering to herself. And he's just like, cause she's trying to analyze what he's thinking in. 01:13:57.08 Kurt Crenwelge So now it starts being the feedback loop of where she's hearing like, Oh, there's that, there's that tall girl. Like what's she doing over there muttering? Like is she's always so strange doing things like that. Like just the other week I heard my halfling friend talk about how she was skulking around the trash cans the other day. 01:14:16.76 Kurt Crenwelge And so he, now he's starting to recount some of those stories about red. 01:14:20.52 Nicole and 01:14:20.60 Kurt Crenwelge So now Ren is having to hear about, her exploits being told from hearsay sorts of vantage points and stuff like that. 01:14:32.83 Kurt Crenwelge Again, he doesn't know and he doesn't understand that she's reading his mind. 01:14:33.50 Nicole Yeah. go know 01:14:37.45 Kurt Crenwelge um So he's just kind of like after a while, he just like, you know, because she's still he just kind of like waves ah with his other hand that he's been experimenting with. 01:14:50.08 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, and then absentmindedly goes to lick his finger and then he realizes what he's done. And maybe on this day, his, dwarven, steel belly constitution hasn't done well. So he starts just, maybe he starts gagging really loudly and and like making the sounds of like, he's going retch. 01:15:08.75 Kurt Crenwelge So now in her mind, she's hearing, Oh, I'm to throw up. Oh, I'm going to throw up. Oh, quick. Where's the trash can? So then he takes off running. He leaves his science experiment there because it's more important that he finds a trash can and not embarrass himself. 01:15:20.51 Kurt Crenwelge So that's what he's gone off to do. 01:15:21.83 Nicole yes 01:15:27.10 Nicole oh goodness yeah um for Ren Ren is just so like baffled by this whole situation that now she feels like guilty because she feels like it's her that made this poor boy throw up when she was just trying to see what he was interested in to try to make a friend. 01:15:54.39 Kurt Crenwelge Well, thankfully, I think, you know, it would probably go without saying that she's able to turn that on and off. So I don't think it's like permanently stuck on um because she was smart enough to read that in the book. 01:16:03.78 Nicole Oh, I hope not. 01:16:05.72 Kurt Crenwelge So she probably says whatever she needs to say incantation wise to turn off the, you know, the unlimited Wi-Fi to his brain um for her to listen in on. 01:16:09.11 Nicole Thank you. 01:16:17.34 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. So she looks over, she can see him. um He's bent over the trash can, but he hasn't quite done anything yet. And he takes a second to kind of like settle himself. 01:16:28.79 Kurt Crenwelge And he's he's looking at his hand that he was using to mix ah the concoction. And then he probably he start he's like, you could see him talking to himself as if he's saying like, OK, like the potency is getting there. 01:16:41.44 Kurt Crenwelge Like if just me licking my fingers enough to almost make me want to 01:16:44.49 Nicole Okay. 01:16:45.12 Kurt Crenwelge puke my guts out then like I must be on the right track so then he will slowly return and then maybe he starts to don't know maybe he starts to pack up his lunch but is there any last attempt or or thing that Ren will do as the lunch period is coming to a close and her window of opportunity to say anything to a person 01:17:07.33 Nicole Well, the the one valuable thing that she got from this interaction is she does understand more about his interests. So she's going to file that away in her brain for her next trip to the library and see if she can find any kind of interesting material in the library on tricking, pranking, or dwarven trickery god lore. 01:17:35.42 Nicole to potentially present to this potential new friend. 01:17:46.97 Kurt Crenwelge And scene. So we did it. I think that was a wonderful way to get to show Renhoff and ah kind of ah yeah invent some tweens on the spot. Hopefully, maybe we have a human jock, an elven cheerleader ballerina. 01:18:03.46 Kurt Crenwelge No, it was a ballerina, not a cheerleader. And then just like the ah the science geek trickery cleric dwarf boy with the three ah three hairs poking out in the peach fuzz. 01:18:14.66 Nicole I love them. They definitely are going to the school now. 01:18:15.62 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:18:18.08 Kurt Crenwelge Yay, our podcast does its humble part. So yeah, now now that ah you know we've had an opportunity to you know experience Ren, we're not going to hear her talk in the first book, ah but at least moving forward, hopefully we will. And so for for you, for us, what was that experience of like of getting to ah breathe a life and a character and a voice, if you will, ah two to Ren today? 01:18:44.37 Nicole Yeah, I love it. i one One of the and books that I'm working on right now is actually going to be an early reader chapter book that's all Ren's backstory before she came to the Academy. 01:18:57.50 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 01:18:57.81 Nicole so i 01:18:58.29 Kurt Crenwelge Aww. 01:18:59.17 Nicole i love sharing Ren with people. I think she might be my favorite character from the book, even though she's not one of the main characters. I just, I don't know. I really like her. It's the the inner, like, uh, 01:19:13.85 Nicole outsider misfit goth version of myself I think. 01:19:18.34 Kurt Crenwelge ah So it's kind of like, ah I mean, and i and if I understand, I mean, it's your it's your children who are the the the protagonists of the story. So in in a way, it's ah it's a self insert character for you to be able to show them, you know, to how to like, oh, what would it have been like if we had met mom when she was in middle school? 01:19:27.70 Nicole Yeah. 01:19:38.71 Kurt Crenwelge And you're like, surprise, i was the lurking awkward kid. 01:19:44.52 Nicole Yeah, right. 01:19:45.72 Kurt Crenwelge It's genetic. This is what you're going have to look forward to. ye Yeah, that's true. 01:19:50.18 Nicole No, my kids are way cooler than me already. yeah 01:19:54.25 Kurt Crenwelge Our kids do end up becoming cooler than us. 01:19:57.00 Nicole for sure. 01:19:58.35 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:19:58.40 Nicole For sure. But yeah, I love Wren. 01:20:02.24 Kurt Crenwelge Awesome. Well, I'm glad that I got to, you know, do my little ah part to impart some fun, some, ah you know, some random chance background things. And I look forward to being able to get my copy and then eventually seeing like, wait a minute, Ren has a cake. 01:20:21.03 Kurt Crenwelge She's offering a cake to someone like I know the meaning behind this ah sort of a thing. 01:20:25.08 Nicole okay 01:20:25.39 Kurt Crenwelge And then listeners of the podcast will be in the know of like, why is Ren always offering cakes to people? 01:20:26.23 Nicole Yeah, right yeah 01:20:30.98 Kurt Crenwelge And like, how does she always seem to know? Like, you know, they're in trouble. ah But because they ate the cake, she's able to show up and be like, I knew you were in trouble. and They're like, how did you know? 01:20:42.97 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that'd be really cool to see in this play out in the story. 01:20:47.40 Nicole I like it. A little like background Easter egg just for us and the listeners. 01:20:52.08 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And so, you know, being back on the podcast, you know, this is the final thoughts section. So, you know, it's been a couple months since you were on, but, you know, in that time since then, i don't know. how do How do you think it's been ah being back on the show? 01:21:09.06 Nicole That's great. I'm happy to come back anytime. It's always a fun time. And I just love ah the kind of back and forth creating things. It's always really fun and and I think really unique as far as podcasts go. 01:21:22.71 Kurt Crenwelge Well, thank you. I certainly appreciate that and and happy to to do my part, you know. Especially you know when you're creating a whole a book world you know and you've got all those characters that you're working with your illustrator to be like, ooh, I want this kind of a person in the background in this scene. 01:21:40.49 Kurt Crenwelge ah So it's just kind of like an even further way ah you know to put more self-insert characters or you're like, oh, I want to honor my buddy and their character. 01:21:41.00 Nicole Mm-hmm. 01:21:49.53 Kurt Crenwelge So let me stick them in the background. ah Like you said, Easter eggs. It's like a real fun way to ah collaborate. But then also to be able to you know give them more depth to help people remember like, oh, Ren isn't just like some knockoff goth from Teen Titans wannabe character. It's like Ren has like a whole story and you're working on this this ah novella backstory to kind of explain Ren as a person. 01:22:19.24 Kurt Crenwelge and So that's really cool to like help kids, even kids to be able to be like, Oh, like this friend of mine, like, you know, she has like a whole life and experience and perspective. 01:22:31.33 Kurt Crenwelge She's my friend, but it's different than mine. And I think that's really good to be able to help humanize and and show that with our with our kids. 01:22:40.03 Nicole Yeah, I definitely agree. I think that's really important for, you know, kids, young through teens to be exposed to you know different people, diversity, different backgrounds. 01:22:53.48 Nicole And I hope to bring some of that into the fantasy world in a fun way. 01:23:01.35 Kurt Crenwelge Well, yeah, of course, in a fun way. And, you know, this, you know, all of your all of your friends and listeners and well-wishers, I'm i'm sure it would be more than happy to contribute more NPCs to just stick into the background of your of your book and of your of your game world. 01:23:18.23 Kurt Crenwelge ah So, yeah, as we're as we're here in the final moment, certainly I want to give you. ah Well, I want to. Well, certainly at first, I want to thank you for coming back on the podcast again and having this treat here ah for the month of May. 01:23:31.23 Kurt Crenwelge So I want to give you the platform here at the end to be able to plug all the plugs, share all the links, do all the things. And then if there's any other passions or causes that we need to be made aware of, let us know. 01:23:44.60 Nicole awesome yeah thanks for having me again it's really fun and uh obviously the main thing that i'm pushing right now is the kickstarter to launch the book the first book in the tales of etherea series called an unexpected quest um So that and a bunch of other goodies are available now on Kickstarter. May 1st through the 31st is when you can put in your pledges for that. 01:24:12.12 Nicole And I'm also running a contest, like a giveaway contest. So um you can, can add, and i could send the link so it can be in the show notes, but it's also going to be all over my socials and in all my bios and stuff like that too. 01:24:31.38 Nicole So it should be pretty easy to find. 01:24:32.25 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:24:33.81 Nicole It's a, it's a giveaway contest that goes through ah platform called Gleam. um but it's, uh, lots of ways to get free entries into the giveaway. And that actually gets you, the, the grand prize that you can win like like the legendary tier rewards from Kickstarter. 01:24:56.53 Nicole So it's like all the things, it's like all the versions of the book and all the extras. So it's definitely a really good, a really good prize for the giveaway. So go get you some free entries if you haven't yet. 01:25:07.58 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:25:10.99 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And then and then again, you know, we got to make sure you're plugged into all of ah Nicole's socials. So I believe it's the primary platforms you're on are like Instagram, right? 01:25:22.78 Nicole Yeah, Instagram is where I'm the most active and where I answer messages most quickly. So if you actually want to talk to me, Instagram is good. Game Master Mom, all one word. 01:25:33.35 Nicole But I'm also Game Master Mom on pretty much all other socials too. Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, all the things. So Game Master Mom across the board. 01:25:44.52 Nicole Also my website and web store are GameMasterMom.com. so 01:25:51.05 Kurt Crenwelge And then, ah yeah, and then if you want to hear more of Nicole's thoughts on D&D and all things tabletop and running games for kids and all that, aside from I know at least one guest episode that you did for Area of Effect for the Kids Table podcast, um you've got story crafters. 01:25:51.37 Nicole All very simple. 01:26:09.87 Nicole Yes. 01:26:11.05 Kurt Crenwelge You know, they're already up to 01:26:11.83 Nicole Yes. 01:26:12.91 Kurt Crenwelge 10, 11 episodes at this point. So you've got dishes to wash. You've got cars to drive. You've got yards to mow. It's summertime people. You've got to keep your yards in check. 01:26:23.42 Kurt Crenwelge ah You should throw on your earbuds and listen the story crafters podcast on all major podcast platforms. 01:26:30.71 Nicole Yes it is. Yes it is. 01:26:32.23 Kurt Crenwelge And YouTube are, 01:26:32.52 Nicole Or YouTube if you want to watch us talk. 01:26:35.62 Kurt Crenwelge There we go. Perfect. um 01:26:37.56 Nicole yeah 01:26:38.56 Kurt Crenwelge Well, again, Nicole, thank you so much for being on the podcast. ah Can't wait to have you back on ah making even more interesting NPCs. 01:26:48.99 Nicole Yes. 01:26:51.29 Kurt Crenwelge All right.