[Second Wind] C02 - Ep. 44 - Vengeance in Vainia - Can I Get a Vitness?
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Hello everyone, welcome to Second Wind, the extra bonus show where we talk a little more stinky, we get a little stinkier. My name is Gustavo Sorolla, BlurbleGurble, I'm your Dungeon Master. I have two friends joining me today. I'm Chris Demers and I play Barney Barney. I'm John Reisgier, I play the bird. I hear it's the word. It is the word. He caw. No. Mateed doesn't caw, Mateed chirps. As always, I don't know what sound Shrikes make.

I have to look it up. Okay. We take questions from the community in Discord and social media to talk about. Before we get to that, though, normally we'd like to do a little recap, a little rehash of this episode. A lot happening. A lot going on in the world of Grotesque. My favorite part was...

Blaine making a song. I forgot about that already. That was my favorite. That was the highlight. Oh, I loved that he was digging himself in the hole like, oh, I was in choir. I can read music. Little does he know I've got music right in front of me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he forgets that you and Micah both are very musically inclined. Micah more than me.

But yes, yes, I've dabbled. So it's like, oh, OK, keep digging that hole, Blaine, because we're about to jump on in. It's funny is that when we got in that room, I was like,

You know, you start, you rattled off all the stuff that was in that room. And I was like, clearly the pool of blood is probably the most important thing. I was like, oh, the fireplace is a little mysterious. Maybe it isn't. I'm like, it's probably nothing to do with the piano, but I really wants the piano to do something because I like pianos a lot. And you were like, it's dusty. And I was like, I hope we get to play it. And you did. Yeah. I'm very excited.

Was there anything... Do you all even remember? Was there anything in that room that you didn't get to explore that you wanted to? Because there was a lot in that room, and I feel like we kind of very... There was like a couch or a cushion or something? Yeah, there was some cushion seating in the middle of the room. I think that was it, right? Um...

I wanted to see what happened if we put out the fire. I don't know for a fact. I probably would have deferred to Micah, who sits next to me. I assume he would have probably re-lit that. I just did an escape room recently, and in the escape room, we went through a fireplace after we did the puzzle, so I was very prepared for this fireplace to open up for us to go through. Yeah, there was the entrance, the sofas, the bath, a desk.

Oh, the desk. The painting, the fireplace, and the vein rack. Yeah. Oh, there's a vein rack. So there was a bit there. I felt like there were a few things left undiscovered in that room. I was dead set on that wine being poisoned of some kind. I know. I was so set. Alcohol is a type of poison. It's true. You all focused on that, and I was slacking Mike. I said, or, you know, he could be passed out drunk based on context clues. I think after...

Because you said he was in this mysterious room. The room was in shambles. Mirrors cracked. Tub piled over. Something written on the mirror. People don't write things on cracked mirrors in red substances when they're not in dismay. What you described was a crime scene. That's what it was. So we were in that space. Conversely.

The Von Brath household was also in a very similar status when you entered. We're like, we're on edge. Like everything's in shambles and the armor was on the ground and his painting was shredded. You know, it was all there. And then he did a medicine check that wasn't the best medicine check ever. But like nothing came of it. And so, yeah. Yeah. It was...

Yeah, there was quite a bit to get through there. I was wondering how this episode would pace out because...

There was a lot to go through in general in the Feng Pick. You know, you did Sepulcher, Capillary, and Silver in the last episode. And then so we're really left with this episode was pretty much just Dracula's home and the Belfry, like the Bell Tower, all of this stuff. I was like, hmm, I wonder if they're going to blow through this like really quickly or if they're really going to go out and explore. And I thought it was like just about the right amount of time that you all spent investigating, even though there was some stuff left undiscovered. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was a fun little like...

It didn't feel like we were ever hitting our heads against the wall. Y'all really clued in very quickly to the secret passage. I thought it would take a little longer and y'all would be fumbling around the room a bit. We did that too, but...

Good turn on that reveal at the end. Yeah, it was an unexpected twist. I was wondering, no one's going to ask what happened to Hugo or where Hugo went, like when they're in that questioning with Dracula. I would have gotten more, but... I thought Hugo was Vixie.

Gotcha. I would have had more questions, and that's why I think Barney had a lot of questions, and that's why he snapped at Elga, because he's finally getting an opportunity to find some answers. Yeah.

I think the party... I can't speak for Barbara, obviously. She's not here. I don't know what she was thinking. I think her motivation may have been she was afraid Barney would become so angry he would just kill Dracula without thinking. Like, just let the rage overcome. Yeah. Which I think, based on the way Barney was played, is a very valid concern. Yeah, I mean...

It's a valid concern, but also it's like an interrogation. I thought you were going to kill Dracula. To be honest, sitting in my seat, I was like, okay, so Barney's going to shoot Dracula. How is this going to play out? I was trying to figure out the contingencies for that, too. So it could have gone either way. From an outside perspective, it could have gone either way. And then I think from a character perspective...

The way Elga responded, well, you didn't do anything. I think that hurts Barney very deeply in a way that probably his biggest insecurity, his biggest regret in life. I feel like we even heard Barney talk about that before when he had the vision back in Parish, I think.

Yeah. So I think that's like that really hurt him on an emotional level from. So there was the him trying to finally get answers. And then he felt like I was trying to stop him from getting the answers. And then also then was cutting him like in at his most emotional core, like in a way that was like really just like. Yeah. So Barney's a very sensitive, not people person.

I think he's a people person who had his peoples taken. Okay, fair. Does that make sense? By nature, he is, but that's why I think whenever he had his own memory, when he had a harder time remembering things, he got along with everyone and liked to talk and very friendly. I think that's his...

more of his actual you know more of his true nature and then like so so i'm curious to see like as time goes on and i don't know and you know we'll see where you don't please don't answer this i don't want to spoil anything that you may have in mind but i'm curious to see as time goes on as barney remembers more if that continues to change in that direction or if it reverts or if like if there is any outcome that barney would be satisfied with entirely

Don't act like I said don't answer don't react. That's just me talking and wondering out loud What I do want you to answer though is some questions submitted by the audience Splendid attire God sent in a question asking what if any would your characters theme song be I?

And they gave examples like the Benny Hill theme, Another One Bites the Dust. Those are two very different songs. These sound like less about theme songs and more like what's your wrestling entrance? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The same thing. Because when I think of theme songs, I was actually just thinking about theme songs this weekend because I was like, I have kids and I'm like, I feel like I grew up in the era of...

peak cartoon theme songs of all these catchy tunes like DuckTales and Gummy Bears and Darkwing Duck and all that kind of stuff. And a lot of the modern stuff isn't as lyrical as that. There's not a jingle to it. There's still some catchy stuff like Bluey's Very Catchy and that kind of thing. But entrance music or theme song of what's your Rocky going up the stairs thing

I kind of like the idea of Queen being something of the Teads and Dresden. I don't know. It's a very good question. What kind of specific song? Because Queen has such a wide range to their catalog. Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I guess it would make more sense if I picked an Eagles song.

I'd like to think Hotel California, of course, for Matide. I feel like you have good taste in music. Can you think of a good one for Matide? That would be tough. Same with Barnaby. I feel like Matide, you could almost go in a different way rather than, you know,

like the the queen or or the eagles or anything like that i would almost think like the the um the organ piece like the from phantom of the opera that kind of stuff yeah yeah that's very good because then it gets into the rock part of that song oh that's so good i kind of think that for matita i don't know if it's john's musical theater influence affecting my brain though dude dude that sounds

My CD was like my first CD I owned. That says a lot about me, I think, at this point. But like, I genuinely listened to that soundtrack with my... Micah can attest to this because we shared a room until I moved out for college.

Like going to bed, going to bed, listening to Savannah, which is also not a very good like lullaby. Yeah. Because it's a lot. There's a lot of dynamics to the thing. Like wake you up. Yeah. It's just hearing Michael Crawford like screaming at you. I mean, I would go to bed listening to like no effects.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just punk, like, you know, loud. And that's where the nightmares came from. For Barney, Disneyland Haunted Mansion theme song, final answer. Oh, that's good. I would think almost like Sweet Child of Mine.

One for the children and two also at the end. Three Dog Night. One is the loneliest. Oh, that's a good one. I do like at the end of Sweet Child of Mine, the where do we go? Where do we go now? Or who is that? That's not Pixies. It's Where Is My Mind? That's Pixies. Yeah, that's a good one. Where Is My Mind? That's a good one. Yeah, I like that one. Let's go with that one. Where Is My Mind? That's pretty good.

He's like just wandering through town. So Sleepy Shaman asks, can we get a check in on your inventory? What we got in there? Anything surprising? Genuinely. Genuinely, I'm trying to use my inventory more. Which is why I pulled out the mort apples. Oh, right. To put into those barrels. I have the barred brownie. Oh, yeah. I got that in there. I still have...

Don't know what it was the thing that we got in carcassouk. He kept talking about his baboon jar. I have my jars. Oh, yeah He he had the the jar of the baboon and it like gave him bonuses Yeah, you're you use it in parish. I think it helped you climb or something if I remember right? Yeah, sorry I was pointing to where Blaine normally sits apologies. Oh

I think that might be the only consumables I still... I know. I do have one, and I don't want to remind people I have it because I want to pull it out at an interesting time. But I'm trying to be much better, and I'm putting things in as we get it, and I'm checking my inventory constantly, which is where I... Even recently, I was like, I keep waiting for you to do something where I can use it. I have the neckerchief that I bought.

bought. Oh, yeah. I'm like, oh, I can use that. I can use that. I have a lot of stuff in there. What is that one? That's something we bought in Vania. And it gives...

It's like a damage reducer of some kind. It's like, I can't remember what it's called, like the neckerchief of the undead or something like that, but it gives me some sort of damage reduction. I feel like you also used something recently, didn't you, Chris? I used my telepathic messenger thing to talk to Mateed where I have to wrap it. Right, right. Yeah, that was it. There's one consumable that I have that I have a plan for if it comes up.

But I don't know if I want to say it. Okay, fair enough. But it's relevant to this episode. I was almost going to use it in this episode. I'm so bad. I mean, I'm playing Midnight Suns right now, and it has a mechanic where you can make two different kinds of consumables. I've made a ton, and I'm still very bad at using them constantly. Even though I can keep remaking them and use them, I'm like, I have

That's any RPG video games like that where you end up finishing the game, you've got just like pages of entry like, oh yeah, I thought that was going to be useful at one point. That would have been useful in the pop-up five hours ago, but I totally forgot I had it. There's got to be a word that's crafted for that shared experience of...

Like the fear of using something before it's useful. Yeah, you know, I've tried to be better about that. I'm sure you've probably heard of it. Like whenever in video games, whenever Gavin finds like a big...

powerful weapon, he immediately uses it. It becomes his primary weapon until it's done. He doesn't want to save it or hold onto it and never use it. So it's immediately like, use it as soon as you can. Especially if you get some consumable and it's like, oh, this is like the best healing item, you know, that I have. And then later on in the game, they're just commonplace. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not valuable anymore. Yeah, yeah. I think that's definitely a shared experience. That's something to answer the question of like, how have you grown as a player this campaign, Jon?

Inventory. I am being better. I am being better. I didn't track nothing for Mudd. I do think we have, maybe it's just because this isn't as long of a campaign, we don't have as many items. I think maybe also Micah isn't dropping them as much. That's what I'm saying. There's not as many overall. I like the upgrade items function we do. That's fun. You get it and you keep it. I got my spear out of stuff like that. It's like new stuff.

I'm going to do one more question here before we wrap up. The Blind Lemon is asking, have you guys ever considered having guests in as a temp player, like an NPC that follows the party? We've talked about it. I think, I mean...

I think it's something we're open to the idea of. It would just, I think, need to be complimentary to the story and not feel like it was like a shoehorned in where it's like, oh, now there's this random person coming in. But if it was something that we could have in, I think it could be fun. Yeah. Ideally, what I would love to do, and I'm going to speak in the tense of

This is not at all what we are going to do. This is not all we can do, but this is something that if John had his druthers and there's a world where we continue to make this show and we're doing, and we're, let's say we're living in a world where everything is going the same trajectory we were planning at the beginning of this year as far as like the show. In a world. In a world. What I wanted to do, to mimic other shows that have done this is be able to do like smaller campaigns or mini campaigns with,

Oh, yeah. Because I worry that in a main campaign, it's the main show, and you want to make sure you see your main characters, your main people. So I don't want to see Barbara be temporarily replaced by somebody because people will want to see Barbara. And I know that as a podcast listener and as a fan of other D&D shows, if the person's not there, it's very different. It's not the main show I'm looking for. Right. But I like...

Like a good example is one of the first times I ever experienced that was at Adventure Zone because they became good buddies with Lin-Manuel. They had Lin-Manuel actually do a one-shot with them, and he was an addition to them, and it was a fun new dynamic. I was like, I wouldn't want this to be the main show, but this was fun to see a friend, and we have so many friends now.

you know, that are also talented, you know, performers and D&D players and that kind of thing. I would absolutely love that. And so, you know, I'm trying to become, you know, work on my DM-ness, and I would love to, like, add people into, like, that kind of world that way. For sure. And I think one of the things that we have, like, to kind of bounce off of what you're saying, one of the things I think we have going for us as an ensemble is that we've all known each other for a long time. Yeah. And that we can all play off of each other. I worry, I do want to guess, but I do worry, like, if you introduce one that's a little different

Has a little too much agency that they're not, they don't have that same interaction with everyone else. Here's the pitch.

We all take a road trip and do a mini campaign in Georgia with my mom And you film it as you craft items That's one of the puzzles in the campaign Alright, well that's gonna do it for this episode of Second Wind Once again, thank you so much for watching and for supporting the show And find out what happens We'll see you next time Next week! I think John invited us to Christmas Christmas! Why not? They'd say yes