C01 - Ep. 71.5 - Betwixt The Bramblecracks - Between The Tales
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This is a Rooster Teeth production. Hello, everyone. Welcome to an exciting Between the Tales episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. Are we like disc jockeys now? Yeah. Is that what we are? I want the like fire explosion. Between the Tales. Yeah. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. KY Borg. It's the Ky Borg. Boisterous Bart coming to you in the morning. Bye, bye, bye.

It works because we're all like with a microphone with the headphones on radio DJ what's going on in Washington this morning? No, no, you see what's going on in Boulder a this morning. Oh

Speaking of boulder, eh? Maybe we should do a quick recap of the story so far. So the purpose of these episodes, well, there's a number of reasons we do these episodes. You know, every time we wrap up one of the major arcs of the story, we like to do a recap of the story so far and, you know, do any housekeeping we need to do before starting a new arc. What housekeeping we got? Well, we'll get to that first. Recap. Like I said. Laundry. Laundry. Ha ha ha.

All right. So the story started way, way back when, when our job hunting adventurers. Oh, you're going all the way back today. It's for people to start in. We do every time. Yeah, we do every time. We start at the beginning. Yeah, we might, but it gets longer. This aspect gets longer and longer. It gets further, like the far back goes further back. I should say on top of our normal cast, I'm sure you heard Micah there, who's our...

Ryder and the DM behind the DM. Also our composer. Maniac Micah. By this point, we would have announced that ARK 2's soundtrack is on Spotify and all streaming platforms entirely composed by Micah. Thank you.

Go listen to it, please. Yeah, go listen to it. And you can listen to it on 92.8 The Mod. You've got musical pieces and then is there a lyrical song in this one too? There's a gum gum song. Oh, the gum gum song. Yeah, gum gum wake-a-bye. Oh, the wake-a-bye song. Aww.

I want everybody to play this for their actual children at bed and let us know if they managed to get any child to go to sleep with it. Wake up. I gotta wake up. I'm a little offended that you didn't use my vocals in the song. No, I'm just kidding. We'll do a remix. Yeah, it's just me doing the background. Cam, Cam.

Instead of using it as a lullaby, I need everybody to set it as their alarm. Yes. And film yourself waking up to it. It's such a beautiful song. It definitely made me cry. So yeah, way back in Boulder, I guess. Way back when our job hunting adventurers, Kyborg the Bowman Fighter, Bart the Bard, Mud the Druid,

and Gum-Gum the Wiz-Barian arrived at the town of Bolderay. There they encountered a deceptive goblin named Bezler, a wise cracking warlock named Brink-Tussler, and the mayor himself Felix Prattle, who offered them jobs as the Infinite interns. The Infinites are a group of mighty warriors known far and wide across the lands of Faiza for their feats of heroism and legendary power with one slight catch: unbeknownst to the public, the Infinites are missing.

The interns rescue the infinite's brilliant gadgeteer, Dr. Ahem, from one of his own inventions and uncover their first suspect, the evil Paralite.

Guided by Sordo the Living Sphere and Dr. Ahem, the interns undergo a barrage of training exercises and learn more about the four infinites. Aleve the Amender, Sleek the Symphonious, Spectral the Surreptitious, and Grizzly the Groundbreaker. Those sound like DJ, like Dr. Jocky. Yeah, they do. Also, isn't Dr. Ahem, he's not human. I keep forgetting. Dragonborn. Yeah, he's not dragonborn. Dragonkin. He's draconic, you're right. Draconic. But he's kobold. Kobold.

Cobalt. Which I didn't realize until we had an animation that I watched the other day that's probably out or coming out soon. And I was like, wait, that's... It was probably only described in the flavor text, you know, three dozen times.

That's your fault. We didn't get the flavor text, okay? You got to open up your ears. It's bland. You guys then were sent away on your first mission, your first away mission to the desert town of Pious Pass with the task of retrieving a package for Dr. Ahem. Upon arrival, the interns were beseeched with rescuing the town cleric Mother Abby from jail after being blamed for a mysterious curse spreading throughout the town, slowly killing the Pi residents. Do you remember what the Pies look like?

Did we get that flavor text? Prane Mantises. Close enough. Delicious and crumbly. See, you all got that flavor text. Except for Bart, who wants to eat them or something.

I just hear pie and I can't not think of a pie. A bunch of walking apple fritters. After a barbershop quartet haircut, pawn shop break-in, and zombie jailbreak, the interns chase down Sheriff Gov to reveal Mother Abby's true identity as Aleve the Amender, a brainwashed infinite turned evil and poisoning the town with necromancy. Just as the interns are about to defeat Aleve, Paralite swoops in to take credit for saving the town and in disgrace, the interns head back to Boulderay with one infinite in tow.

After stabilizing and ailing Aleve, the interns head to their next mission, finding Sleek the Symphonious inside the industrious city of Urbloom. They arrive at the city in calamitous chaos and come face to face with their boulderian rival Brink Tussler, dying with a message from the future. Stop Sleek from freezing the city in time.

Set back in time, they get to work with past Brink in a city slowly being besieged by time, including trapping a sword-swinging wind elemental, escaping a tyrannical cannibal prehistoric T-Rex, stumbling upon an objectively sexy aurochs,

And turning back time to battle the Infinite, Sleek himself. Once again, Paralite intercepts to quote unquote save the day by stealing Sleek's magical loot and capturing Brink Tussler. This really tore Kyborg up. The interns and Sleek escape at the last moment into a magical portal leading to places unknown. After that, fast forward, it's been three weeks since Urbloom and the interns and Sleek... It's been... You can't say it's been without getting that. It's been three weeks...

Since Urbloom. And the interns at Sleek have been surviving in the frozen tundra of Kaltberg, a land populated by walrus folk called Valrossians. They come upon a wondrous cave from an ancient race of polar bear folk, the Ishbjorn.

Amidst the caverns, the party saves archaeologist Archie from becoming a dwarven popsicle and pick up a mysterious amulet. Or as the party calls it, omulet. Also at this point, Brank, not Brank, what was his name that we picked up? The boss guy? Fleek?

Sleek? Yeah. How do you not remember Sleek? I tried to forget him. Sleek was a super hard boss, and then when he joined our party, he was just worthless. We kept forgetting he was with us. That's how it is in video games. Yeah. You know, when you get the boss behind your team. Yeah. It can't be OP. It can't be OP.

He wasn't. Mission accomplished. Never meet your heroes. Yeah. Wasn't my hero in the first place. No one's hero. He didn't have his loot. But Archie does lead them to the village of Brumafume, where they're tasked with a rescue mission that puts them at odds with ghostly Ishbjorn and possessed Valrasians. The interns flee the town but tumble into the ethereal plane, where they encounter a third infinite, Spectral Lacerptitious. Dishes, dishes, dishes.

They learn that since Spectral lost his Ishbjorn soulmate to a Valrasian, he's taken on the plight of the ghostly Ishbjorn, waging a vengeful war on the Valrasian king. The interns and Sleek convince Spectral to give them a little time, just one night, to talk to the V-King and avoid a war. The interns sneak into the capital of New Valras during a massive festival, and they're able to save the true king of Valrasians, V-King Nive,

With the help of local deity Goddess Andi, they're able to bring peace to a century of hostility. V-King Knive grants the interns and two Infinites ships passage back to Bouldere with a mission to infiltrate Paralite's lair. This all starting to sound familiar? We get caught up. - I remember all this.

I've also been re-listening, so I'm like, mm-hmm. Yeah, you're on top of it. Well, this part kind of dealt with Bart a little bit. The interns set sail homebound for Boulderay on Bart's old ship. The Jebediah. Only to find Boulderay overrun by Paralite's army of Evergards. They free Dr. Ahem, take back the town, and volunteer to explore the memories of Sleek and Spectral using Dr. Ahem's dreamery experiment.

Also, there's a running theme with every time we leave Baldur's Day and come back, something awful has happened. We cannot leave that place alone for five minutes. It's like the town of Thebes in Hercules. It truly is. You should split the party. No! And leave some people behind, have some people go. I'll just clean this room. I might have a way of doing that now. Oh, I'm intrigued. Cleaning a room? No, splitting the party. Oh. He's got an axe.

- Yeah, we'll leave your bottom half here. - Yeah, I made it all the time. - After hunting for clues of Paralite's whereabouts, the interns return to reality and sneak into Elderling Village with Sleek and Spectral in tow. Little did they know, it's yet another trap set by Paralite. At the last moment, they're saved from a brainwashed Spectral by a sacrificial Sleek.

The interns barely escape, but with vital clues to Paralite's next location, they sail to the port of Peskar and engage in a race with Paralite to the top of the ominous ziggurat called the Escalon. At the top of the tower, they run into a disfigured duo-headed Grizzlyve, a monstrous combination of the Infinites Aleve and Grizzly.

After a successful brawl with Grizzly, the interns encounter a rare attack of opportunity on Paralight herself, catch a glimpse of Paralight's lair under a frozen sheer lake. They locate the secret lair but are captured alongside an old acquaintance, Archie the Archaeologist. They learn of Paralight's plan to police the world using a divine power gemstone called the Diagem. They free themselves and engage in an epic battle with Paralight and her Everguards, but the interns are interrupted as Archie reveals himself to be a powerful creature called Entropa.

Now freed from his corporeal prison, Entropa seizes the Diagem and seeks out the rest of these mystical gemstones. The interns return to Bouldere mid-election and a mayoral race with Brink Tussler as the forerunner. Nothing bad happened this time. That we know of. Politics are always bad. No, there was a terrorist attack and it was like developing while we were gone. Yeah. They blew up the library. Also, Brink Tussler became successful. That's awful. I guess you're right because...

While in the library, Qyborg is sent a surprise from his old rival, Quadron, a self-destructing squadron. And it seems Quadron is hunting Qyborg to end his nemesis. So you did survive the surprise ambush from the Quadron squadron. The interns visited the local temple to learn about deity Dia and lore of the Dia Gems, after which Brink Tussler is announced as the new mayor of Boulderay. In his first act, he promotes the interns to infinites. You're bad-mouthing him. He gave you a promotion. Thanks.

The next day, Dr. Ahem and Meld conduct an experiment with the party to explore Qyborg's past and find out Quadrant's plans and whereabouts.

As the infant knights, the party is introduced to Caedilius' family and hometown of Everwinter. We were babies. Yeah. But soon it's invaded by Quadron and a squadron of squadrons. Caedilius relives the harrowing memory of his family's passing and the genesis of his enmity with Quadron. With the past fresh in their minds, the party returns to present-day Everwinter where they find a heart-pounding monolith that turns out to house a red diagem called the Source, which fits perfectly into Qyborg's iron arm. Cute.

Or, as the party knows him, Quadron. Mm-hmm.

The party manages to persuade the rest of the Tabulians to peaceful terms and in a turn of events, the Infinites defeat Quadrin. Turn of events? Yeah. You didn't have high hopes for us? Things didn't always go well. Did you hear a lot of the previous run-ins you all had? Yeah, you know what? It didn't always go well. Also, I got a bow from my mom. I got my mom's bow, which is called the Longbow of Kristalina. Okay. He's got a bow to pick with Quadrin. Nice.

That laugh, Barb. That laugh. That laugh went on a journey. I'm just glad that someone came to the party. Trying to be a good audience. I like it. At a critical moment, Smarsh, the giant purple worm, arrives to help, sort of, and guides the party out of the Flats of Tabool, eventually back to Boulderay. That was so cool. It was. It's a great moment. We were all like, Smarsh!

My arc was a lot of fun. A little blast from the past. It's funny too to see the puppet version of that scene where it was like because we could do the spoiler of Smarsh coming in and saving us. That was one of the Stinky Dragon puppet videos we made where we essentially puppeted

that moment where kyborg talks to the tabooly and try to keep them down so go check it out on uh socials at stinky dragon pod i think my one of my favorite things that we've made in the last couple years they came out really really good chris made some awesome ones too we got and hopefully we're working on more so what do you think of those micah like i love them seeing them come to life yeah it's really cool it's really nice to have a visual representation but also like it's just a happy medium it's a fun thing to see yeah it's fun yeah we have

ton of fun and also shout out to you guys as mom yeah for making those little puppets I mean there weren't even puppets they're just cute little dolls and then we're all just like we should do something we might need her to like come in and do some like repairs and like touch up through stitching some places I love some of the lo-fi additions that are done like to show mud closing his eye or that much to show gum gum closing his eyes like the little circles of felt yeah over his eyes that are that are open there's one that we might I guess we'll

probably be released before we this comes out but where kyberg's doing shadow boxing and we have like fishing line tied to his arms and we're just like puppeting from above i love the the way the punch turned out too yeah because the way the light hits gum gum it looks like he's like incredibly shy oh yeah it's good it's very good check it out yeah they're really really

Really great. Sorry, we got distracted. Smarsh came in and saved the day. Yeah, it's all good. At this point, Mud has a visitor from his own murky past, Clay, his brother, who comes bearing bad news about their dying father, Lord Lomish. The party travels via Bramble Boat to the land of Witherveins. Why does Google Docs underline Bramble Boat like it's misspelled, but not Witherveins?

Like, Witherveins? Oh, that's a totally fine word. Brambleboat? I don't know. You spelled it wrong. That's why. It's canonical. Oh, gotcha. Well, the party travels via Brambleboat to the land of Witherveins and Mud's hometown, Bobayu, also not misspelled. And their reception is interrupted by a slew of yellow slimes known as Amnusia, also not misspelled. Apparently, these memory-munching monsters are the cause of Lord Lomash's comatose condition, and after visiting Mud's family at the Bramble Castle, they are sent on a quest by Mud's mentor, a kajuju named Shaman Seuss.

They must find... Spoiler! They must find ingredients to a bomb to heal Lord Lomush and others. They travel to the Hillage of Morvayne looking for the Emerald Stone of Algaroc and eventually uncover yet another monolith behind a waterfall.

The monolith melts away, revealing a second elderly Kajuju, Algaroc. The dying shrimpfolk enlists the Infinites into a secret society of Diagem protectors, the Palladians. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. It's good we do these recaps. Yeah, it's good for everyone. Okay, say that one group of people. Kajujus? No, no, no. The Diareans. Palladians? Don't, don't, don't read them in. Don't read them in. The Diareans. He's a diarrhea.

This is where the radio host would play the fart. Diarrhea in the morning. Well, the paladians. And then Alderac passes on leaving mud with the green virtue diagem. Next, the party travels to Lagoon of Crokemyre, where they delve into the recesses of an underwater temple, the Pantheon, in search of a sacred scroll.

While searching for clues Mud's soul is transported to Mount Celestia, a realm of deities where he encounters Amphibolus, the spirit of water. He just kind of has real talk with her too. He's just talking to this god and he's like, "um yeah whatever I'm not impressed." Well she was also very laid back. Yes, true. She convinces the spirit to grant him her sacred scroll and returns to the material plane to find the party surrounded by an army of Amnusia. They

They escape to Bramble Castle with the ingredients for the healing bomb, but after some druidic traps and puzzles, they find Mud's family captured by none other than Shaman Soos. She blackmails Mud into freeing her master from a demi-plane prison called the Briar Orb. Mud recovers missing pieces from his past that Soos stole from him and discovers that he never had a brother.

Now freed from his planar prison, Sludge unleashes an onslaught of slime against the Infinites, but in the end fails to engulf their memories. At the last minute, he retreats via portal and leaves behind a subdued Soos. Amud is reunited with his parents and a piece of his ancestry, the key to making Briar Orbs. The party rescues the Witherveins from the rest of Amnusia with antiseptic salt and heads home.

But they find Bouldery draped in darkness and subjugated by shadowy assassins. Now it seems Inku, the queen of Shadowmane, has invited the Infinites to the land of Tatora and has teased to Bart that his parents are trapped in the Shadowmane. Who is Inku? Where is Tatora? And what does Bart have to do with any of this? Find out in the next arc of Tales from the Stinky Dragon.

Hey, Stinky Peeps. If you want even more aromatic content like this show, you should follow us at StinkyDragonPod on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. If you're looking for an awesome online community, come join us on the Stinky Dragon subreddit where friendly folks like you are around the clock posting plot thickening theories, D&D item ideas, and merrymaking memes about the show. If you post on social media using hashtag StinkyDragonPod, we might name an NPC in the show after you. Sounds intriguing, right?

And on top of that, we also want to give a special thanks to some friends of ours who provided voiceover for characters in the previous episode. Shaman Seuss, voiced by Elise Willems. Sludge, voiced by Jeremy Dooley. Lady Sandra, voiced by Kelsey Childs. Lord Lomish was John Grylls from Bloody Disgusting Podcast. And Inku was voiced by Raquel Lilly. Did you know that Tales from the Stinky Dragon has an official soundtrack? The second album recently dropped on all your favorite music streaming platforms.

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and supporting the show i'd never recommend something i don't use so get honey for free at joinhoney.com slash dragon that's joinhoney.com slash dragon does bart have to do with any of this spoiler nothing what's love got to do with it we always kind of take the game very loosey-goosey you know we always try to lean into the fun and like not get into the uh the hardcore nitty-gritty meta of the game but now that we're past the encounter i want to point out

what an underrated mvp bart was in the fight with sludge yeah let's go let's talk about this sludge was vulnerable to psychic damage oh my god that's all you were throwing and that's all you kept throwing at him that was the only damage that was really done to him and it was all courtesy of your new spell i don't think anybody else could have heard there was a lot of stuff sludge was immune to really and yeah you you like honed in on the one thing that really did damage

to him and you know it was a new spell did a lot of damage and then he was vulnerable to it so it was like it did extra damage so you were rolling you know a ton of damage and then behind the scenes I was like oh sh** you know adding modifiers to it and like tallying it all up like uh oh so it's not looking good I took care of Shaman Seuss guys let's be real yeah that poor little shrimp lady really took a can I tell some behind the scenes stuff when I found out that Elise is going to be voicing Shaman Seuss that's when I focused on just

obliterating Suze because I knew that Elise would give a funny performance in return. And then later on, I told Elise, I was like, Hey, this thing's about to happen. And I focus solely on you. So like, I hope you know this. And she was like, I'm so glad you told me this because I'm going to bring that into the performance. I'm very excited to hear that episode. It's always so awesome. And like, you know, friends of ours get to do these cameos in the show and like us knowing what happens before they do. Like when,

we were encountering Hugh Manor and it's played by my partner Trevor and like that episode where he I think he gets eaten right or he gets eaten by the T-Rex and T-Rex and I remember like we recorded that and I went home and I'm like so bad news so

He was all excited. He loved doing it. Yeah, he loves getting that stuff. Yeah, Trevor was great at that character too. Yeah, he rarely gets the opportunity to do some voice acting stuff, so he was really excited and jazzed to be part of it. It's always funny knowing how our friends are going to portray these different characters. Shout out to both their podcasts. Oh yeah, Red Web, which is I guess mystery and

unsolved things. I don't know how to describe it. True crime. Alfredo and Trevor and Alfredo was also Mudd's fake brother. Clay. Yeah, they have a podcast called Red Web. Get it where we get podcasts and then Elise...

Willems and Jessica Vasami who have another true crime podcast about 30 morbid minutes. About spooky stuff. Spooky stuff. And it's a spooky season. I don't know if it still will be when this comes out. Probably not. Spooky season stays in your heart all year long. Yeah. That's right. So we also in these Between the Tales, we also do some Q&A with, you know, questions that people have submitted via various social media channels. Just give us a call. We'll be answering all morning. Call the mud line. Oh,

I keep picking on Mudd because I know John hates it. Algebra in the morning. It's always the same guy lines in there. I say, Brian, you didn't pay to do food. What? Did you just have a stroke? What was that? The more I hate John, the more I make him think like, yeah, yeah, right, right. Mommy? I was trying to figure out what voice you were doing. It's like that. Stewie. Okay, cut that, cut that.

I thought you were like doing a bad pinky impression and we're pronouncing brain. Well, before we get to the question and answer section, though, we do have a level up to do for everyone. So everyone make sure you level up your characters. Done. We already did it. Yeah, we did this behind the scenes. We did it so that we weren't sitting here going, hmm, what should I?

Also, Ben was with me the entire time we were doing the level up because he came to each of us and had a session where he was talking to us. I rolled a 9 and a 10 for my HP upgrade. I rolled a 1 and a 2. A 1 and a 2? Yeah, it sucked. I was like, Ben! You're at 125 right now, GumGum? I rolled like a 3 and like a 2.

Or something and I have a d12. Oh, yeah, I only have a d8 so I you know couldn't get that high So my current HP is 95. I'm at 102. Oh, I'm one point of HP behind gum gum I'm the lowest. I am the littlest of them. Less body to hurt. Yeah, we can talk it over with Ben I always feel like when someone I feel bad when someone rolls a one for HP normally I let them roll that I think I rolled like a one and a three. You have the lucky feet both of you

I don't know if that applies. No, it does not apply to that. It's fine. Wink. Anybody else have any... So yeah, everyone got to roll two hit dice because you all were leveled up twice to 12. So everyone is level 12 now. Kyborg now gets an extra attack because he needs... Oh my God. Really? I forgot it. Oh my God. I still don't have another attack. John's face just...

He just put his head in his head. So he can attack three times when he takes the attack action. And when I action surge, it'll be six times. I foresee a lot of disadvantage in your future. Yeah. I think from now on, whenever we get to Blaine's turn and initiative, that could be like our bathroom break. We go get a snack. That should be Chris's turn. Yeah. Me and John will just go. I typically know what I'm going to do. And it's not like, you know, I get it all lined out and stuff. I try to keep it as brief as possible.

I should also mention that when everyone hit level 12, everyone also gets an ability score improvement. So everyone got that as well. I'll just say that as a blanket term. Hey, you know what I got? I do know. I got a plus one on intellect now. Intelligence. Yeah. I figured you would. I got a plus one. I was like,

I'm going to have a positive modifier on this. What did you go up to? 12? Something like that. Yeah. 10 and 11 is zero. So in the 12 and 13, I believe is plus one. I'm at 13. Oh, okay. I'm at 13. What did I upgrade? Do you have it written? The only one I'm negative is I'm negative still on charisma. Charisma. I think I might've brought intelligence and wisdom up.

I'm zero intelligence, plus zero intelligence and plus one wisdom. I brought, I'm pretty sure I improved my wisdom score because then it also like some of the saving throws on a lot of my spells upped what the save is. What is your wisdom now? It is 16. Okay. So every time you hit an even number, it goes up. So I felt like with a lot of spells that I tend to use, having like a higher save that, you know, the enemy has to do, it's beneficial. So that's where I went.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet.

I forgot. Okay. It was like, oh, I'm going to look over this before. And then I just, I forgot until last night when I was going to bed. And then I was like, uh. Too late. Yeah. Well, Mud gained access to sixth level spells. Have you decided what you're taking, Mud? Yeah. That's what I was alluding to. Let me pull it up so I can actually call it what it is correctly. I have mine if you want me to read what I added. Yeah, Bart also gained sixth level spells. What did you get, Bart? I added a spell called Eye Bite, which is a concentration spell.

Eye bite? Answer. For the spell's duration, your eyes become an inky void imbued with dread power. One creature of your choice within 60 feet of you that you could see must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or be affected by one of the following effects of your choice for the duration. On each of your turns until the spell ends, you could use your action to target another creature, but can't target a creature again if it has succeeded on a saving throw against this casting of eye bite.

You could do asleep. The target falls unconscious. It wakes up if it takes any damage or if another creature uses its action to shake the sleeper awake. Panicked, the target is frightened of you.

On each of its turn, the frightened creature must take the dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. Unless there's nowhere to move, if the target moves to a place at least 60 feet away from you where it can no longer see you, this effect ends and then sickened. The target has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. At the end of each of its turn, it can make another wisdom saving throw. If it succeeds, the effect ends. From like a role playing perspective, I love the thought.

of Bart casting Eye Bite and his eyes becoming like that inky void. And every time, even though if you don't direct it at him, like Gum Gum gets scared and has to make a saving throw or he panics and runs away from you. I was just thinking how cool it would be to put the friendship bracelet on Bart because it can cast Warding Bond, which gives you like super buff

the fence and then like you just go like into crazy mode and then gum gum's like circling I do feel it's gonna be like almost it's very horror movie-esque in my opinion I wish I had my little soundboard with me here so I could like pitch down my voice every time I do I bite or like you yeah you be on you be on gum gum's shoulders doing that and I'm like

I'm like saying some type of like curse. You also have that one. You're just singing hungry eyes. You also have that one where it's like retreat. Like you use like the voice from Dune. Oh, I think that's command. Yeah. Bart's got some pretty like scary intimidating things, which is fun because like I always imagine Bart's a cute little...

Until his eyes rolled in the back of his head and turned black and inky. It's pretty fun because the, you know, the first D&D campaign we played together a few years ago, I played like a, an archer, like a ranged creature that like, it was all about bow and arrow and like shooting and like playing a character that's completely different where it's like,

spells and charisma and all this stuff. It's just very fun. Yeah. What'd you get, John? I got a spell called transport via plants. You and plants. Well, I had to go with this one mostly because it is exactly something that is going on in the X-Men comics right now of how the X-Men transport themselves around the world via these portals.

Here's the spell. The spell creates a magical link between a large or larger inanimate plant within range and another plant at any distance on the same plane of existence. You must have seen or touched the destination plant at least once before.

For the duration, any creature can step into the target plant and exit from the destination plant by using five feet of movement. Wow, that is like... I remember you explaining the X-Men thing to me. That is verbatim what they're doing. Another way of putting it, it's kind of like the door in Nightmare Before Christmas in the tree. Yeah. I touch a tree...

And then we go travel and any time I touch anyone, we now can go back to where I touched. The duration is one round. So it's like six seconds. So it's not like you could hold it open for a long time. Yeah. But that is incredibly useful. It's restricted to the same plane of existence, which is wild. That's a lot. Yeah. I said Martin, but. Martin. Gum, gum. Your number of rages per long rest became five.

And now you gained relentless rage. Do you want to read that to us? You drop to zero hit points while you're raging and don't die. You can make a DC 10 con saving throw. If you succeed, you drop to one hit points instead. DC increases by five each time you use this after the first resetting to 10 after a short or long rest. So basically if I die, I pop back up.

Potentially and can keep popping up until I roll that I've heard about this like this is like a meme with barbarians We're like you're just unstoppable. I'm very excited for you to see this for I mean we never we don't really bottom out though I think I got down wanting to test this yeah, we're gonna know we're gonna get a Tarrasque shows up again Yeah, that's uh, that's really powerful. Yeah, that's that's about it though for very

I think as long as we're talking about like the meta and the nitty gritty, we also need to keep an eye on your reactions in the future for GumGum. I think I've mistakenly let you take multiple reactions in a round.

But you should only have one reaction in a round. Have I done that multiple? Like when would I? With like re-raging and wild magic procking. Okay. I try. I think I might have missed it. I try to keep a beat on that. Yeah. But maybe. It's also me. So we'll just keep an eye on that going forward. So if you hear me complaining about it in the future, that's what it is. Just setting it up now. Setting up my future complaining. Yep.

As you do. All right. I guess before I get into Q&A with the questions that have been submitted, does anybody have anything they want to talk about about the story so far or about D&D or questions or anything? I have a question. Yeah. I know like the teaser for the next storyline is about Bart's parents. What about Gum Gum's stuff?

We have plans. Okay. TBD. I was like, I feel unfair that we're doing me again. We've said this before, I think, that we have a plan of when this campaign will end. And so we have mapped out essentially tying up everything by a certain time, let's say next year.

Gotcha. So that's as much as I'll give as far as that. But we are to tell people we have a plan. We've discussed it. But also, you know, to comfort people who might be upset that this is ending. It's not ending yet. Well, also like this campaign might end and then we'll do a whole nother story. Our plan right now is to end the campaign and start a new one. A new tale from the Stinky Dragon. Exactly. And if you want us to stick to that plan, tell your friends about the show. Yes, please.

We want to keep making it. Part of the reason we've been working on like the puppet videos, which are like a minute long and there's like some animations and animatics that are out that are really fun. We just had one come out recently about the very first episode where everyone's meeting characters. Yeah, the introduction of the interns. It's...

it's just really, I love the colors. Well, yeah. And we've, we've seen a lot of people, um, thanks to those, we feel, uh, going back and we've seen a big uptick in people listening to the first episode. So we can see a lot of people voraciously making their way through. And I've even seen on the subreddit, I love the messages of people like, you know, they're crying because they've caught up finally, you know, but it makes me feel good. Cause I'm like, yeah, you did cry.

I feel that way with so much like content that you enjoy. It's like, man, I like, I can't stop consuming this and I love it, but I don't want it to like, I don't want to catch up or have it end. Yeah. And so it's just like, I'm just taking my time listening or reading or whatever it is. I remember when I finally caught up to Ghost in the Shell and I was like,

Finally, I can sleep. But I was like really sad. I don't, yeah, I feel their pain for catching up to Sticky Dragon. We were making, you know, it's also like that content's meant to be like very shareable. So if you have friends, you're like, hey, watch this. It's like a minute long and it's fun, you know. Kind of like hooks you in. Yeah, yeah. So if they're like, what is, I don't know if I like D&D or, you know, I don't know about this podcast. Like watch this, check it out. One of the reasons we've always been kind of loosey goosey with the rules and like not wanting to create roadblocks to the fun. Right.

you know, trying to live, trying to be within the rails that keep it fun, but without like bogging down too much about like, um, actually, you know, this and that, although we do get into rules lawyering a little bit every now and then. Gotta stay true to D&D to an extent. Just like the broken super advantage of,

That the lucky feet grants you? You know, Ben was asking me, like, and this isn't any sort of thing. I think, like, if we do future Stinky Dragon stuff, we're probably going to mix up personnel and cast and stuff and just, like, do things different. But he was just kind of talking to me generally about D&D. He's like, what kind of character would you want to play in the future? And I was, like, kind of tossing around some of the classes and stuff like that. I think I'd have to look and see who else has that specific kind of lucky feet. It's my favorite part of this show. It is.

Ben actually, he was like, oh, you should bring this up on the podcast and talk to Gus about it. Like apparently I'm able to add feats. I just haven't been. Instead of a ability score improvement, you can take a feat, which there's a lot of things you can choose from. I could have chose. I don't know if anybody else could have, but I could have chosen this leveling up at like 12. Every fourth level you can do it. That's why I didn't pick my ability score yet because I wanted to look and see if there were any. That's how Kyborg got that lucky feat.

I was going to add another feet to this one, but I ended up not because he's like, you're going to have to ask us for approval. And I was like, Gus is going to say no. Anyways, I'm just going to do this. Does that mean you just have one foot? I have multiple feet. He's three right now. Three feet. I'm going to end this show. Don't make me turn the show around. We have questions? Yeah, we got some questions here. We got a question from Ray-88. Ray?

Radiate. First question. Why are you all so damn good at this? Honestly, I watch a few D&D podcasts. You all are amazing. Second question. Did you ever talk about having Micah or Ben take over as DM for a few episodes so Gus can jump in? So why are you all so good at this? Are we? I don't know.

I don't know that we are. Explain yourselves. I think that we have very good chemistry because we are very good friends and we have years of experience with each other. Yeah, I would say, yeah, we know each other. So we're able to bounce off of each other. Well, I also think we put in some good work of like picking which characters we wanted to play and like making sure that it was like a balanced team of, you know. I can answer both questions with one answer.

I genuinely think in agreement with everything you guys just said, it's also Gus's ability to yes and is a superpower. Definitely. Because I've said it before, I am not as patient. I would not allow Chris to do half the things he's done. I would have been way more upset at some of the stunts that Blaine has pulled.

Barb, you would have been fine. Yay! I definitely include Gus in that. Teacher's pet. I include Gus in that when I say the chemistry thing. But also, Micah is like a new addition and we've grown so comfortable with you and you're just...

very good at Dungeons and Dragons. Like you have a group outside of this and they like, it's whatever I hear about you guys, like you're making like sets, yeah, like a pirate ship or something recently. Yep. It's incredible what they do. Like a real work, like a, can we see those? Yeah, I'd love to see that. I can show you pictures after. Yeah, and I say that because we could maybe use them as sets for, oh my God, yeah. Yeah.

Chris is now just looking for anything. One of my friends... Are they just scale to the dolls? It has like a room just of Dungeons & Dragons miniatures and things they build all the time. It's so cool. Lights and flickering lanterns and stuff. And I get it now because we've been building like...

the sets for the puppet thing and it's fun it's really fun it's good it's good therapy that's also the whole warhammer community it's kind of like that yeah i also just want to like i know we talk about all the time but micah really is like the hero of this podcast absolutely writes the entire story and is like edits it and does the sound design and the music and just everything that goes into making it an amazing i don't say product but essentially an amazing product for the audience

And like, he makes this incredible playground for us to just like go off and play in. Yeah. Yeah. Like peeking behind the DM screen, you don't see every time you all ask a question that I don't definitely know the answer to because Mike is writing. It's like when I waffle giving an answer, it's like, yeah, I'm not going to commit to anything. I don't want Mike as typing.

I don't want to write. I don't want to say something that puts Micah into a corner. So I'll intentionally sometimes get like super cagey with answers like, yeah, I don't know. The stray glances that you guys exchange. It's kind of like I feel like us being able to watch you guys. It's like I'm like, oh, wait a second. There's something amiss here. Yeah. It's also like, man, doing this podcast altogether is really nice. Having everyone in the same room.

And like whenever something funny happens, like seeing everybody at the table over there, like keel over laughing. And it's just like really fun. And Ben is also an encyclopedia of Dungeons and Dragons. Oh yeah, Ben is amazing. So invested and in love with the show. And it makes me really happy. He's so invested. He couldn't be bothered to show up today. Ben! And this is something, and I've seen this commented before, like the NPC being voiced and stuff. That's something that takes a lot of effort. But I don't...

think that's been done very often. I think that's pretty unique to us. I haven't found too many. And it's really, it really elevates it in a fun way. Like it makes it feel like a world. It also allows us to involve other creators that we love in the show, which is, you know, a really unique part of it. And I'll be honest, like early on when we started doing this, I wasn't, I was kind of uncertain about that. I was too.

I was like, I don't know how that works because it kind of takes away from the Dungeon Master's performance and stuff, but it works really well. They're all better at it than me, so it augments my performance. No, I love your classic voices. Let's hear your Scottish accent. Oh, no. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's all be friends here. It's me, your brother. What was the guy's, the little weird archer guy that we met in the wild? Little Jimmy. Like, little Jimmy's like the peak of Gus's acting. Yeah.

I know both Ben and I would be happy to run a session. We've talked about that before, but it's like we know right now and we're sticking with like everybody loves Gus. Like we're going to stick with what people love. My favorite show. Everybody loves Gus. That would be great to have you or Ben, you know, step in for a little while and try it out and deal with these numbskulls over here. I would love to see Gus like... As a player? Yeah, because he's so creative and you have a...

long, long history with Dungeons and Dragons. And I think that you'd pull some crazy stuff. Yeah, I started playing D&D back in like 92, I want to say. That's when I was a two-year-old. Yeah. I lived out in the middle of nowhere. So we would go to used bookstores and secondhand books to try to buy anything we could. So we started playing original D&D, which was awful. Then we played a D&D, then second edition, third edition,

That kind of stopped. I never played fourth, but yeah, I've been playing for a long time. I still remember Chris thinking 5E was like not fifth edition, but it was like, oh, there must be 5A, 5B, 5C.

So funny. Yeah, some of those old editions were rough, man. They were trying to figure out how to make the game. How was it rough? Like, you know, like nowadays, a lot of things are standardized with D20 rolls. Back in the early days, like in original D&D and even AD&D, I want to say, you had hit tables that you had to look at. So it's like you would compare what your roll was versus armor class in a table, then like

like looking at a spreadsheet. They run across and look at what the number was that you needed to roll to be able to hit the armor class. It was, it was wild. I've seen those. Yeah, it was, it was not great. Balance is probably an issue too. Yeah, some things were really broken. Second edition had Thaco,

Which is how you calculated your hits. It was like two hit armor class zero what you needed to roll and then you would make adjustments based on whatever the armor class was to that. There's just a lot more math nowadays. It's like armor class is 15, roll a 15, you know. It's a lot more streamlined for what you need to do. And with stuff like

doing it on D&D Beyond that you don't even have to think. It does the math for you. It's amazing. Yeah, you can roll 100 D100s. And you don't lose anything. That was the worst, having to stuff your player character sheet into your book and hope it didn't fall out and you didn't lose it. Oh, shoot. Did you make a backup? Yeah, so every now and then you'd have to either make a Xerox copy or manually copy it off by hand to another character sheet just to have a backup. Back in my day, we had to make our own die.

And we liked it. We had to cut a finger off and roll the bones. Okay. I have a question here from NerdLevel18. Players, what are your predictions for the next arc? Is there something you really want to see or do? Hmm. I haven't really put a lot of thought into the next arc. We're just kind of...

experience it as it comes. Yeah, I mean, obviously, like, we still want to learn a lot more about Gum Gum, I think. It's still kind of a mystery to us. Also, you know, even more Bart stuff would be fun. Yeah, I think it'd be interesting. I mean, I want to know what's going on with Bart's family and like what. Well, yeah, because he was an orphan.

And so like, I don't know who his real parents were or what they did or where they are. So yeah, I'm interested to find out. I have a hunch as to why it's going to finish with Gum Gum and I feel like it's going to lead to something. I don't know. I actually can spoil that right now. Gum Gum's last name is Skywalker. I also have a theory. I guess I have to go back to the drawing board. I ruined it.

You know, I have a theory, but I also like don't know if I want to say it because what if it's actually true? And then they had to change it. I think Dr. Ahem is behind all of this. I think he's evil. Could be. Could be. Barbara doesn't like cobalt. You heard it here first. Yeah. But I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm just too pessimistic.

At the end of the story, you'll know if it turns out that Gum-Gum is a secret clone of Dr. Ahem, who's formed in his secret base in a far-off moon. The one thing that I am curious about, I was, I think, reminded by someone on the subreddit.

Because we always forget him. It's like, oh, yeah, where's Sordo? Well, Sordo. Because Sordo is the soul of the body that was Archie. And so I'm like, oh, I want to know that. I want to see. I want to conclude him. And Archie double crosses. I feel like there might be a double cross in the future. I don't know if it's going to be Doctor Ahem, but I feel like someone's going to backstab us. I don't know.

So that's why I'm always really shaky, especially around like Brink Tussler. He made a hero turn. He sucks. I dunk on Brink Tussler a lot. It's because it's voiced by Eric Padour, who is a very close friend of mine and we work out together every morning. But I hate his character. He is honestly, though, the perfect casting. Oh, yes, absolutely. It's essentially just Eric playing Eric. And I love it. The Brink Tussler. Tussler.

Got a question here from Little Mouse. Blaine, how is your fox doing? You dropped them off at headquarters and never checked back in. I know Fred's fine. He's Dr. Ahem's buddy now. Who's going to backstab you? No. You left your pet. I didn't say anything to Ahem. Fred is like the muck that...

ash sent to oh god professor oaks center and just like was ash's pokemon but professor oaks was just like saddled with him for forever i like to consider him more of like a rescue that i what is it called when you didn't want no no no no fostered for a bit and then to another owner i don't know what to do with this fuck i also didn't want to like i don't want gilbert your competition that was my doctor that's so weird why would you why would he sound like jimmy

I just didn't want gumbo to have like competition and I also it stresses me out having a companion because Gus hates lucky so much. I took away one of my companions. Everybody's ready for that to happen. How do you think I feel when my companion is gum gum? Take care

of him all the time. He now has at least an ability where he comes back from the dead. Yeah. You got to bathe him. You got to feed him. You got to put a friendship bracelet on, take him for a walk. Make sure he's always paying attention to where to go. Not to talk to strangers. The animation of the first episode where everyone's like, Chris, Chris, are you paying attention? Oh yeah, but my character isn't. Yeah.

He's like, oh my God. That was so obnoxious. It was very funny. Case in point of moments I would not have been patient with as a DM. Yeah, and you die. Yeah, a lightning bolt. We got a question here from Thermic.

How long does Micah spend on one episode or arc? Gus, you're an amazing DM. I think you deserve more praise. Thank you. I think so too. P.S. Could we please get Micah DM notes release? I look forward to the podcast every week. Thanks for all the work you guys do. Well, thank you for listening. Yes. Yeah, we've talked about

Releasing adventures maybe in the future. Yeah. I think you should at least do like upload a page or two to like the social. I'll tell you what we're working on. I make no promises that we're going to be able to figure out, but we're working on a way to package it and try and sell it as a way that people can physically consume it. Like actually use it for their own campaign. Yeah, play module. And it's not just for like the characters you all play, but it's like for anybody that could pop into the world. Yeah, the same way you would buy any campaign. That's awesome.

because there's a lot of work that micah does that sometimes we don't get to like that's true you go in one direction and where it's like versus the other direction which is also fully fleshed out and there's tons of stuff there to explore that's that's dnd though like i made some notes for myself because i was trying to remember like how long it takes but like

Each episode is different because like if it's an encounter, it's going to be different length wise of making it versus if it's a social thing or if it's a dungeon crawl, y'all do. But like I take a lot of notes on my notes app, like it's just full of things. I try to like keep it within 90 to 120 minutes for the actual running of the episode. And that's hard because D&D is meant to be played like at least three hours long. But yeah, it takes me a good chunk of a day or two to get like one solid module out from like start to finish.

Yeah. Anytime we have like a, an episode, I know it's going to be combat heavy. It's like, okay, I know we're going to be spending almost the entire time doing this combat because it just, it takes so long to get through this combat. I think from our perspective to the combat versus role-playing we're torn in

middle on who likes what the most. I love combat and I feel like everyone else hates combat. I don't hate combat but I like everything. I like the role play the most like playing with NPCs. I'm so bad at my roles though. That's why I like combat and I think the reverse is true with Elise or sorry. I'm

Barbara and John, sorry. Classic mistake. It's an honor. You guys have amazing social roles, but I feel like combat-wise... I like how Blaine's like, I don't like the stuff I'm bad at. I only like the things I roll good at. When he said he was bad at his roles, I thought he meant R-O-L-L-S. Yeah.

I think he did mean that. Then you started talking about other roles. When he has to roll to see if what he did can work, he fails a lot because he has bad charisma and bad intelligence. I thought it started as a joke because I was like, I'm going to make him purposely stupid. Now I'm like, I hate

You can't convince anybody of anything. You can't investigate anything. You can't intimidate. That's why you got me, baby. That's right. But like, I think it's fun too to fail. True. The drama. Yeah. Like to me, I guess like going, I'm like, it's always more fun to me to find a way not to fight and get through an encounter than to fight. Even though combat is fun too. Yeah. Sometimes that makes me put my head in my hands. So I'm like, Oh my God, you all just need to fight this thing. Yeah.

But sometimes you do get around it. Like the Tabulians, when you were encountering Amrah, you did manage to avoid some encounter. I don't know how we would have succeeded had we not done that. I don't know like how... Big fight. It would have been a big fight. But that was fun. Again, like the kind of social...

aspect of it yeah yeah i like that stuff i like puzzles and problem solving and mike is really great about incorporating that stuff into the campaign which i think is so much fun yeah only no but like i say this in a joking way because i actually kind of love it the riddles i like the riddle like they just go over my head i didn't know you didn't like them there's so many riddles and none of them makes sense i love like i would have never put those in if i'd known yeah head and hands like i remember i think back

a lot just because like it was one of the first things we did in this whole campaign was when we got to that hallway that had the doors the different symbols over it like the bear and the coffee mug and all that stuff and figuring out what to do in each room like i love that kind of stuff it's funny because i think about a little more recently the four doors that you all found that you all did not move and inspect

Like you all just went and looked at one door, but if you all had taken turns to look at the doors, everyone would have seen something different. I love the one we went into where it was just like essentially a bar fight. We're like, do we just get involved? And like body slamming people and drinking. We're like, why do we get out of here? That was fun.

Yeah. It's always curious to see what's going to happen when you guys have doors in front of you. Actually, recently we filmed a short about what happens when a party encounters a door in D&D. And it's probably out by now, but it's very fun. Squad Team Force on TikTok and Scream. Yeah. Squad Team Force is where we upload all of our skits and stuff. And then Stinky Dragon Pod.

is like more specific to just stinky dragon content. - Yeah. - I got a question here from Black Death. For the players, as your characters grow to more powerful heights and gain renown across the lands, has the fame, fortune, and power gotten anyone's head yet? - I don't know what fortune you're talking about for Bart. I'm broke, baby. - You got lots of very expensive items though. - That's true. - Didn't you break this down for us where you're like level one through whatever is like a vigilante and then level X through this is like,

city hero and then like this is like a countrywide known person the fame has come into no advantage to us thus far nobody cares or knows who we are so far sometimes they do and it's bad I don't think that people know us as well as the previous infinites well y'all are new

Right. We definitely need to make better money. We don't have much of a fortune. Although I'm apparently and I should I should have like pulled money from like the coffers of Bramblecrack. After your parents like snapped back to reality should have been like money please. I need my inheritance. Where's the treasury? I saved everyone. I would like my brother's inheritance. So did the

brother never existed? Never. Okay. I just wanted to clear that up. Alfredo has never existed. I knew it. Red Web should investigate. The ghost of Bramble Castle. To answer that question though, like I think Kyborg has maintained the same level of confidence in him being like the hero. I have arrived. You can't go above 100% if that's your starting point. Right. Exactly. Can't if you don't know what numbers are.

I do. It's funny, though, like as we progress through the campaign and collect more items and stuff like that, it's just like trying to keep track of everything you have and what you could use at your disposal in every moment. Like, I forget that time someone jumped out a window and I was like, oh, wait, I have this vest of slow descent. Like, I forgot I had that. And or like, oh, I could use that right now. Yeah. Suspenders of Haglan have come in.

We've used those a lot. Yeah, you really use those. You got permanent bruises in your shoulders now from those. It's just like the scars. Stop. It's so funny. Whenever I do that, all the boys in this room are like, eee.

And I'm like, it really doesn't. Don't do that. I didn't even want to mention that you were actually hitting your bra straps because it was like during that episode, we were all just going. Yeah. And I'm like, anyone listening who wears a bra for you, they know it doesn't really hurt that much. And it's just a everyday kind of feel. Everyday kind of feel. Wake up. Everyday. Yeah.

Is bra strap snap in your cup? That was oddly fitting. It landed perfectly.

It'll wake you up, that's for sure. We do have another question here. This one is from on Twitter from Kevin Smith, whose handle is at the other Kevin FM. This is a real Kevin Smith, but not famous Kevin Smith. I'll take it. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. The other Kevin Smith asks, love the puppets and animation. Did the Infinites consult in their appearances or was it a surprise? It was a surprise. Yeah. My mama surprised everybody with the dolls. She tried to get as accurate as possible from source material. But yeah. Right. The source material being Andrew Douglas making our thumbnail art. Yeah. Which is amazing. And also did work on

like animatics and things. I think actually, no, going way, way back, Ben did send out an email and was like, hey, give us a character description of what you kind of imagine your person looking like. Yeah, which we then applied to Andrew's thumbs and have workshopped the accuracy there a few times. And then since then, yeah, that was what Mama Rai did. I never said anything about green skin, but I love that Kyborg has green skin for some reason. But like the long blonde hair. I think that was an Andrew call to differentiate everybody. I think it was a good call.

with the color spectrum, which is good because like that often can be like an issue in like even comics and stuff is like being able to differentiate similar looking characters apart from different angles from behind from X-Men all having yellow and blue on and you're like, who?

are you? Well, like even with like that as an example, like, you know, there's several female X-Men that have brown hair. So differentiate all the female X-Men with brown hair. It's like, okay, well, one of them has a white skunk down her hair and, you know, wears a bomber jacket, you know? Yeah. Wonder Woman. Right. Yeah.

I'll insert crickets there. It's fine. Let's try to get a rise out of rising. A question from killing 1909. K I L E and not like killing Kylan 1909. It sounded a little aggressive for Gus and Micah. Have there been times when you guys have broken character behind the screen and just lost track of your own plots because you were laughing too hard?

For Blaine, who do we have to bribe for your next character to have a southern or Cajun accent? I say, I say. I do declare. Oh my God. It's just Foghorn Leghorn is your southern. Yeah. Or Yosemite Sam. A bit Yosemite as well, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, has there been a moment where you guys are just like... I think lots of times. We're always... I was going to say all the time. Yeah, we're always like messaging each other. You know, we sit next to each other kind of away from... A little away from the players. And we're always like looking at each other or messaging each other when things go off the rails or...

go awry there's always there's lots of times where i'll ask a question like well technically this shouldn't work but should we just go with it like let's just see where this leads you know just trying to see you know how micah feels about it yeah there's a lot of chatter behind the scenes with the crew and uh i it reminds me of like director audio commentaries on like dvds and bonus features it's like watching the film and like oh that's funny i never thought that would happen yeah just roll with what we give you i don't know if i will do so next time i

I think you need to do a character voice at the very least because at least the three of us have had character voices and yours has devolved into just Blaine. So you need to commit to something that is not a version of Blaine's voice, but like a voice voice. I know what I want my next character to be, but Ben was like, I don't know that Gus would like that if you did it.

So TVD. It is something though. I don't know about you guys. And I forget if I've talked about this on a previous Between the Tales episode, but when we were about to start recording this podcast and we were creating our characters, I and Trevor could attest to this. I spent so much time being like, I don't know what kind of voice to do, if I should do an accent because it's something I'm going to have to keep up for the entire time. And I don't want it to be like annoying to the audience. And I don't want to like do...

do a really hard to commit to and maintain voice. Yeah. And so that's why I just do this. Yeah. And that's it. A little pitched up. But then like next campaign. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah. Didn't want to have to do a hundred episodes of a show where your voice is being. What you like.

Like this or something. Oh, he's talking about Good Morning from Hell. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. Where he was a Clayton. That's actually wasn't that bad. Those are also shorter episodes. We also don't talk for forever in the podcast, in this podcast as our character voices. Very true.

It's like playing Gollum, you know? Like being Andy Serkis for all those years. Like, oh my God. Oh yeah. Number on your throat. I don't know if we can find this. I would love to hear the test episode that we did like pre-pandemic. Yeah, we did test. Pre-Mica even. Oh yeah, way pre-Mica. Ben might have it. I would love to hear that because...

I was playing at least a version of Gum Gum. And you were, I think, playing a version of Kyborg, too. I was playing a version of Kyborg. And I don't even, I would love to hear it because I don't really remember it very much. I was a version of, because I still have that character in D&D Beyond. I was a character named Tiff. Oh, that's right. I was a rogue halfling. Yeah. I like rogues. Yeah. Might look into that next time. Although I feel like rogue is very similar to the kind of character I'm playing here. Very like sneaky, stealthy kind of. I think I'd go in a wildly different direction. Yeah.

Personally, man. I was trying to scroll back through our communication here and find an exchange we had that wasn't spoilery for anything too recent. And I found something. I think this was during their encounter with Sludge. I forget what it was, but there was a DC check that people needed to make. And it was like 20 or something. And everyone just kept hitting it so easily. And Micah just sent me a message that said, everything is DC 30 now.

Just like even these hard checks have gotten to the point where everyone's just making it no problem. Yeah, because I typically create the monsters like I stat build them. And I think for Sludge, it was like one of his things had a condition that put on you guys. It was like DC 20. I was like, that's a little hard. Maybe I should notch it down. I would feel like done DC 15 or something like that. And then you guys came out like 27, 26. I was like, no.

A little before that you had said man his primary DC was originally 20 and I was like no that's too powerful. I'm like well. I don't I also I don't want to be mean but it helps a lot that Gus you just have bad roles. Sometimes your combat roles are awful and I'm like

I think about hiding them sometimes like, hmm, they actually just put the screen up. Just kind of notch the little dice over. I mean, to be fair, I feel like, you know, obviously it's good to be fair with the dice rolls, but you guys are also crafting a story. So if there's something where it's like you need a dice roll for a certain outcome and it would be more entertaining. Yeah, there are some times where I don't show the rolls if I think that that's really going to be the case. But

- But, uh, that's very rare. - I guess I bring my dice in my backpack every morning. - I can roll them on D&D Beyond without anyone seeing as well. - It's just that feeling

It is nice. We have time maybe for just a couple more of these before we wrap up. We have one here from Tanberimo. I hope I said that right. Tanberimo. I just realized and have to ask, all this Cajun-themed surrounding mud, was he aware of it when he named his badger Gumbo? Oh, yeah. No, but Micah was aware of it. Yeah, John told me. You mentioned why he named him Gumbo. I named Gumbo for two reasons. One, because it is actually another word for a type of dirt.

And two, because my girlfriend right now is Cajun. And I thought that was a fun nod to her. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. She's from Louisiana. All right. So then Micah knowing those two facts already of that, it was like, that's why he made it the Bayou themed.

I want to tell you something about Gum Gum. He's a little jealous of Gumbo. Because of the gum? Because of the... Like, he gets confused by the name and he thinks that, like, Gumbo is, like... I don't know. Like, he's Gumbo and you're Gum Gum. Yeah, and he gets... He's a little... And that's what... Gum Gum's a little... He's kind of jealous. So then he gets... Probably when Gumbo bit you or something. That's why Gum Gum was, like, quick to turn on him because Gum Gum is, like...

Like a little jealous that like he's gum adjacent. Yeah. And he's like everyone's favorite and he's like jealous. He's an adorable little badger with armor. Why wouldn't he be everybody's favorite? So he's like, not that he doesn't like gumbo, like as its own, but like maybe Brink Tussler is Kyborg's rival gumbo. And you have to travel and adventure with him. I know.

Kyborg also feels like he has like some small parental ownership over Gumbo because I helped pay for the I gave you the gold for the adoption fees sponsored yeah godfather to Gumbo yeah I like to think of myself as Gumbo's godfather I don't know if this came across like it was very subtle but like when I also when I was planning out your arc John like I knew that you like one of your favorite creators is Jim Henson

So like, I know, like I figured mud would be like a Kermit type of swamp. Just down in the swamp. I just kind of dealt with the arc that mud plays a banjo and has a song about it's not easy being green. Scottish accent. Challenge. Do it. Yeah.

I mean, I'm down with that. Yeah. Question here from Mike Lowe. Mike Lowe? I'm sorry. I don't know how to say that. How much did the characters' backstories inform the writing for the overarching story? Or was there back and forth from the writers when the cast made up the backgrounds? For example, if Qyborg had a different backstory, would the Armageddon arc have played out differently? Oh, interesting. Like a different villain or not have the flashback, et cetera. P.S. Love the show. A while back, I think we asked for like y'all's backstories and...

I had a few like back and forth about the, any questions I had. And then you guys just gave me, and I put them in a doc and I've kept them and I refer to them all the time. And then I take notes. If I remember to take notes when you guys like make offhand comments about things, about your characters. There are some times also where Micah will have a question and we can't directly ask you because we don't want to spoil anything. So he'll send me questions before the episode. Like if you can somehow work these questions in to fill in the blanks. Oh,

so sometimes i'll ask questions that may seem like only tangentially related or a weird question to follow up with it's because like i know micah needs this bit of information so i'm trying to do a third listen through so you're mining the backstory right whenever we don't even realize well it's because we're i mean there is you talked about there was a degree of prep but also like we're making stuff up constantly i also like

I guess I don't really listen to many D&D podcasts or like I've never played D&D before this. But I'm also curious if campaigns typically deal with the...

arcs having to do with the characters and their backstories or if it's just like you're a group of people and this is the situation you're finding yourself in they have like even like homebrew stuff typically does yeah yeah homebrew stuff like for example adventure zone definitely had stuff that did that you know what a great show so yeah it's not abnormal i mean it's just it's a source of story i just feel like it's a really unique take on a campaign yeah that'd be like so ingrained in like the

the characters itself and their backstories and stuff. Yeah. But I've also played plenty of campaigns where you let the character or let the players tell the character story and you don't necessarily have to explore it in the campaign. It can be like real high fantasy. You go storm a castle, save an empire, like all that normal stuff. And then the backstory is just filled in, you know, in the downtime, just like in the chit chat. Yeah.

So it can definitely go either way. But yeah, to answer the question, like, yeah, if Kybro's backstory had been different, yeah, the arc would have been completely different. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I gave a pretty thorough write-up of what I wanted it to be. I remember that episode was between the tails and I had a song that would not play for whatever reason. Oh, yeah, I remember that. You were like giving a backslide.

Backstory or something. And you're like, all right. And he was trying to play it over like a Google. And then he stopped. You're like, can you guys hear that? And we're like, no, not really. Start over again. I'm going to send you the files. Play them individually. Three, two, one. Everyone set your watches. I forgot about that. Two minutes, two seconds. It was a good song.

Any more? For the group, which personality trait of your characters is the most fun to role play and why? Oh, I'm sorry. That was from American Wastelander. Okay. That's a good question. Man, it's hard to choose with Bart. I've always been a fan of like being a problem solver in games and like...

trying to be very, you know, investigatory and perceptive in things and like figure out clues and piece things together. But I also like I'm just kind of leaning into the whole stereotype of bards and like them being really charismatic and flirty and stuff like that. And I just love the idea of this like tiny little redheaded guy who's like super beefy and charming, just like being into like everyone and everything.

that comes by it's just it's just a fun little role play to do so i really like that we all love that about part i like gum gums just earnestness like and it's fun to play it so i think of it as a wide-eyed wonder

Like everything's like, I get the earnestness, but I think more of like. Like pure. Like, wow. Yeah. Like seeing the world for the first time. Like, this is amazing. Devoid of cynicism. Yeah. Yeah. Gum Gum is closer to Chris, what your previous character was. You had another character. Oh, man. Lunko. Lunko. And he's like mean and he's like conniving. And like really greedy and stuff like that. Yeah. Very different. But like Gum Gum is like a really like.

Yeah, that's Chris. I feel like, yeah, I mean, maybe there's like, I think it's sometimes it's hard to like have a situation and then wanting to approach it more like cynical or more like analytical. But like, no, no, Gum Gum can't do that. Like he wouldn't think that, you know? And I don't know. It's fun to like force yourself to like, I say constraints, but it's really just like a character. Yeah. Yeah. I played with a campaign one time where I had a friend who had,

he would roll a D20 and use an intelligence shake every time. Like if he wanted to solve a puzzle like you were saying, he'd be like, what did my character know? And he would roll it and he would go by that. Wow. That's real commitment to the numbers. Yeah.

But yeah, like I agree. I think it's fun to play into a role like that. I just like Kyborg because his entire personality is just being the muscle guy and ooh, look at me. That's all I have to contribute. And that's just like me, you know? People really love Kyborg. Like I feel like that's, it's one of the most beloved characters of the whole campaign. He's definitely one of the top

I just think you're very funny. And I think like, I love the balance that Kuyberg brings where it's like, yeah, he is very boisterous and showy and muscly, but like, I don't know. There's also a sensitive side there. And I think like his whole backstory was a really highlight.

piece of the arc. The thing I love most about Kyborg is like he puts on the smallest, lightest facade of like, I'm a tough guy. I don't want to show my emotions. But deep down inside, he's like a complex just like nerves, ball of nerves and all these things that he's always trying to hide. So just you. Yeah, you're just describing yourself playing. Yeah, no, and I like that. It's a way for me to be able to like express that aspect of me. But Kyborg's fun. Laughter

Cut down to that ball of mud there. What about mud?

I like playing mud in the way that I play video games sometimes where I love playing things with a level of unpredictability, a little bit of chaos, a little bit of like throwing a wrench in the system, throwing 60 birds into the system. Yeah. It's not how I actually approach life at all. I'm a very methodical and planned person. I follow the rules to too far of an extent sometimes and,

And so it's fun to, you know, in a world where it doesn't matter if I, you know, go a little chaotic, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it's fun to do that. You know, like, for example, like drink the potion. A lot of that's, yeah, you play that in video games, even in multiplayer games, you're like, you'll be like, no, John, no, no,

Mischievous. Yeah. It's fun because like, like it keeps everyone on their toes. It does. I think there's a level of unpredictability that offers up a lot of improv opportunities and creativity within like, you know, I still try to keep it within a respectable range of not just like, you know, saying F it and just doing whatever I want. Well, that's something I do appreciate about having John here is like, I feel like he and I typically are like, let's figure this out. And like, you guys are just like, ah!

banging trash cans and stuff so having someone else on my side like no let's the fingers the dichotomy of

of mud is let's go to the next room and proceed forward and then also like i turn into a plesiosaurus and swim under everything yep so there's that i like it good balance so i do have one more listener submitted question i want to get to before i get to that i don't know if i've ever asked this on mike to blame this a question for me why is it that kyborg always wants to go like why blaine as a player do you like kyborg always going in one direction going left yeah

Oh, cause he even did that in survive block Island. John's just slapped his arm. I did actually tear my bicep and then I was, no, I thought it was cyborg lack of arm. No, uh, that was my reasoning in game. I just do that in real life. Uh, I'm mixed handed and I don't know that you're always presented with forks in the road. And like, I'm very bad at decision-making. So sometimes I'll just blindly say, let's just go left. I've always done that. If I'm like coming up to a turn, like a literal turnpike. And I'm like, I'm not sure which way left. Yeah.

It's just easy for me to make that decision. The reason I ask is in real life, I kind of adopt a similar philosophy. But with me, it's because of Theseus in the Labyrinth of Crete when he fought the Minotaur. That's the way he defeated the maze. He held on to one side. He held on to one wall.

uh knowing that if you enter a maze and you follow one wall you'll always reach the exit eventually it might not be the most direct way but you eventually reach it so i read that when i was like a young kid i thought that was really cool way to approach a puzzle it's like it stuck with me throughout the years and i wondered if you thought the same thing you want to know something funny you're talking about mazes and stuff like that uh we did a show not to plug a different show that we do uh called survive block island where it's survivor in minecraft and there was

one of the final challenges was a series of mazes that we all had to get through to collect something and then leave the maze and go to the next one. I was using that method of like always sticking to one side of the wall and it bit me in the ass. I never, I don't complete one maze. That works if the maze stays. Right, if you're in real life. It doesn't work if there's a transforming maze or if there's like teleportation. Like in D&D it doesn't always work because it'd be like, oh, you get teleported behind yourself. The one I was using was a

It was a maze completely made out of glass. And so you couldn't tell where. And so I'm just like, I'm just gonna, I'm so, I'm having a panic attack. The walls were essentially invisible. Yeah. The last question that we'll get to here is submitted by Jared Warsoff at Resonator, who writes, as a musician, I'm very curious to hear more about Micah's process for composing the music for the show. Where do you draw inspiration from? How long does it take for each piece, et cetera?

Oh man, music is, because like you guys alluded to, I have three roles in the show. It's writing, editing, and music. And music is the thing I most enjoy in life. It's always what I've wanted to do when I've discovered it. So like, yeah, I have plenty of inspiration. All the film composers that you probably know in movies, like John Williams. I was telling John the other day, I was listening to a classical station online and they started playing the theme from Hook, the movie Hook.

And it's John Williams. And I was like, oh man, it's so good. I was like, wait, why are they playing hook? Like this is a classical station. They usually play like, you know, 1800s or 1700s. And I was like, is John Williams dead? I was like, look at it really quick. But anyways, yeah, I listened to a lot of stuff and I went to school for music. Like it's really what I've enjoyed the most learning about. And for like the show, each piece is unique. Yeah. When the songs kind of came up as they came up, like,

I kind of leaned into what the overall tone of y'all's characters. Like in the moment, I think we were talking about Gum-Gum's Wake-A-Bye earlier. Like I wanted to be very like simple, like hardly any boisterousness to it because like Gum-Gum likes the drum. So I had like a drum, like a little lute that plays because Bart's a close friend and like,

Same thing with Kyborg's. Kyborg's like going to be big and brassy, but it's also got some sweet and tender notes when his mom, when he meets his mom. So like, yeah, I wanted it to be kind of playing to each character. It's so good. I threw on the soundtrack from arc one when I was reading. Sometimes like when I read books, I like to just have some like fantasy music playing. Like sometimes I put on like

Skyrim soundtrack music. But like I put on the Tales from the Stinky Dragon soundtrack and just like listen to my book. And it's funny because whenever I listen to the music and one of the like character songs come on where you're actually singing in it, every time I'm around someone from Rooster Teeth and they're hearing that song or any song, without fail, someone goes, is that John?

No, it's his brother. Micah and I are very different in many ways, you know, shape, size, sound, interest, and that kind of thing. But every once in a while, like the Reisinger man's voice. Yeah. You guys have like an underlying tone. It really comes through. Yeah.

No, it's just very, we have to be doing very specific things and then people will make that connection. We did like a little short podcast at one point. We did do. And like, yeah, we had to make sure, because I made sure that his voice was a lot bassier than mine. Yeah, we had a cartoon podcast called Tune Crunch. Oh, nice. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's very cool. I thought you guys hated each other.

All right. On that note, let's go ahead and wrap up this episode of Between the Tales. We'll be back next time with a brand new episode. It'll be the beginning of the next arc. We're going to find out what's going on, where everyone's going to be headed to, and peeling back the onion of mystery. Join us on the subreddit. Enjoy the new soundtrack on Spotify and all streaming platforms, and tell your grandma about the podcast. Oh, and Christmas coming up. If you want Christmas presents, get some Sneaky Dragon merch.

for yourself or other people. No, just for yourself. Treat yourself. All right. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.