C01 - Ep. 63.5 - Armageddon - Between The Tales
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This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.

This is a Rooster Teeth production. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Between the Tales, a special episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon where we're finished with an arc. So we kind of do a little recap of the story so far and talk with our players, see how they're feeling, maybe answer some questions from the community and see how it goes. It's going to keep it pretty loose. You're not the Stinky Dragon bartender. I wanted to hear, Felicia, take this one! I'm going to take it!

I have a crush on all the boys. Arrowed. So good. Some teen girl squad energy going on there. Sounds like Pinocchio from Shrek. So we're going to do the rest of the episode as teen girl squad. Or is it, are you sure it's not the Pinocchio from the Tom Hanks movie or the Pinocchio from the Shrek? Pinocchio from the Tom Hanks movie? Pinocchio from Tom Hanks. They're coming out with another, they're coming out with two Pinocchio movies. Are you sure it's not the Pinocchio from the movie that's not out yet, John? Yeah.

It's the PCU. It's the Pinocchio Cinematic Universe. I know of one. I didn't know there was two. What's... Vinicio... No. Vinicio. Vinicio del Toro. The Vinicio del Toro one I knew about. Is that who it is? I don't know. That's right. That's right. That's my favorite person. I know that's one of them, but I know Tom Hanks is in that. The other one's Tom Hanks. No, Vinicio del Toro's an actor.

I like how we did mic checks right before this and everyone is twice as loud. Yeah, everyone's like super low energy when they do their mic check and then they get here. Everyone's screaming in my ears. I'm passionate about little wood boys. Stand down from your microphone. Stand down. The story so far. Benicio Del Toro. You'll remember our intrepid...

Our intrepid adventurers started out as interns for the hero group known as the Infinites. Kyborg, the arcane archer, Bart, the bard, Mud, the druid, and Gum-Gum, the wizard and barbarian, all arrived at Boulderay. Wait, you called Gum-Gum his actual class. You didn't call Kyborg his actual class. That

is a bit insulting. He's a fighter. He's a fighter. He's a fighter, but he's subclass. His subclass is Arcane Archer. I know. Stop interrupting. Do you want to switch seats, John? Stop backseat. It's like Guillermo del Toro directing a film about Pinocchio. It's like if you said I was an Austinite and not a Texan. It's still accurate. Right. It's just very more specific. So they arrived at Boulder Ray where... I've heard just call you a dork. Let him get through the friggin' recap. I will strangle you all.

Good night, everybody. So, the party arrived at Boulderay, where after meeting and fighting immediate rival Brink Tussler, who's a wisecracking warlock, they found themselves being offered a job as the Infinite Interns. The Infinites are a group of mighty adventurers known far and wide for their feats of heroism with one slight catch. Unknown to the public, they have gone missing. They've been kidnapped by the mysterious Paralite.

After rescuing the Infinite's brilliant gadgeteer, Dr. M, from one of his own inventions, they're put to the test and guided by Sordo the Living Sphere, training their abilities in order to help them find the four Infinites: Aleve the Amender, Sleek the Symphonious, Spectral the Surreptitious, and Grizzly the Groundbreaker.

On their first away mission, the interns are sent to a small desert town of Pious Pass to pick up a package for Dr. M. But upon arriving, the interns find themselves tasked with helping rescue the town cleric Mother Abby from jail after being blamed for a mysterious curse that's spreading through the town and slowly killing its residents. Question. Yes. What was the package we were supposed to pick up for the professor? Remember, it was a package that helped power the

Was it the recapitulator? Dreamery. It was the dreamery, that's right. It was a package to help power the dreamery. That way you could get more information about where the rest of the infinites were. Okay, it was a plot device. Yes. A MacGuffin. A MacGuffin. A MacGuffin. A MacGuffin. I would never. A McMuffin. No, no, Barbara, not a McMuffin. You had to rescue Mother Abby and you had a Bardbershop quartet haircut for Mudd. His name is, his name is, we go rock collect and start. His name is Mudd.

A pawn shop break-in for... Who was that? Gum, gum, and mud. A zombie jailbreak. The interns chased down the sheriff to reveal Mother Abby's true identity, which was Aleve the Amender, a brainwashed infanite turned evil who was poisoning the town. Just

Just as the interns were about to stop and leave, Paralyte arrives and takes credit for saving the town, chased out and disgraced the interns head back to Bouldere with one Infinite in tow, but not before Mud is given a prophecy from a local about not being able to run away from his past. Joke's on you, I did it for a lot longer.

Still running. Were we supposed to run into Mudd's Ark sooner? Or was that like a message to the whole group? That sounds like alternate reality, huh? Maybe once we get into the multiverse, we can dig into that. Alternate futures. Days of future past, even. Dr. Ahem splits up the interns to help heal a leave of her ailments, finding a mix of medicine in the Elder Pine Forest and her in-breather at the local temple of Dia, who's the deity of the realm.

After successfully stabilizing her, the interns head to their next mission, which was finding Sleek the Symphonious in the industrious city of Urbloom. "Deja Urbloom." Yeah. Arriving at the city in utter chaos, they come face to face with their rival Brink Tussler, dying with a message from the future.

find Brink in the past and work together to stop Sleek from freezing the city in time. They're set back in time and begin working with past Brink in a city besieged by time, including stopping a sword-swinging wind elemental, escaping a tyrannical cannibal and T-Rex, and dealing with a sexy, sexy aurochs.

That's right. If you're going to listen to any part of the story, go back to that episode. We should flag that one for an animation. We're working on some animation, animatics, and even some puppetry stuff to showcase some moments from the show. And I think that needs to be turned into something. That would be good. You all totally derailed the story there.

with your aurochs fixation. Can you blame us? Eventually, you all were successful in turning back time and taking on Sleek the Infinite, but Paralite revealed herself once more to, quote, save the day, steal Sleek's magical loot, and mortally wound one of the Brink Tusslers while capturing the other one and Sordo.

The interns and Sleek escaped at the last moment into a magical portal leading to who knows where. That led us to three weeks after the incident in Urbloom, the interns and Sleek have been surviving in a frozen tundra. They come upon a wondrous cave belonging to a seemingly long gone humanoid polar bears known as the Ishbjorn. You all saved an archaeologist named Archie from becoming a frozen dwarven popsicle.

picked up a mysterious amulet or as it's known. Amulet? Please. Amulet amongst the party. Amulet du fromage. You discovered you were in the land of Kaltberg and you followed Archie to one of its villages, Broomafume. The village of Broomafume, like others in the land, seems to be populated by a humanoid walrus race called the Valrasians.

that settled into this tundra some time ago, but after a rescue mission puts them at odds with some ghostly Ishbiorn and possessed Valrasians, the interns find themselves in the ethereal plane and coincidentally encounter a third infinite, Spectral Asurptitious.

Bitter and aggrieved from having his Ishbyorn soulmate taken from him, Yumi, Spectral, aka Leonard Lank, takes on the plight of the ghostly remnants of the Ishbyorn to wage a vengeful war on the invaders of the land, the Valrasian King, V-King Gjorn, and his people. The interns in Sleek are able to convince Spectral to give them a little time, exactly one night, to talk to the V-King and avoid a war.

The interns sneak into the capital of New Valros during a massive festival and are able to meet with the ruler of the Valrosians, V King Naive Gjorn, a shrimpy boy in a position of power misguided by his evil uncle V-head Ward Gjorn. With the help of local deity goddess Andi, the interns are able to end a century of war and restore peace to the land. V King Naive offers

ships passage and it looks like the interns sleek and spectral finally find themselves heading back to boulder a but this time with a mission to infiltrate paralytes lair within the elder pines and rescue an imprisoned brink and sordo i forgot how much i like hearing you say those names like viking knife georn y'all how would you say it micah

No, no, no. That's right. I just like hearing him say it. It's fun. Micah really uses the extended keyboard when he types. All the accents. Yeah, there's so many accents. The boomlaps and whatnot. Do you find yourself just control C, control V, those names? Or do you actually like... I learned them. How do you type that O with a slash through it? It's been a while. On Mac, I think you can hold down the O and then it'll pop up with the submenu. Yeah, sometimes it'll do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyways. Chris is trying it right now. I know. I just heard it go, boom. I know that umlaut is option U. I forget what the other one is. Anyway. So many options. Our story then picked up at the docks of New Valros, where Bart is reunited with his former ship, the Jebediah, along with Captain Marge. Marge. And her musically gifted crew. The intern set sail homebound for Boulderey, only to find it overrun by Paralites Everguards. Guards.

After freeing Dr. Ahem and taking back the town, the interns then enter the memories of Sleek and Spectral using the Dreamery experiment and become the Infinites. And Fred. As the internites, they hunt for clues as to the whereabouts of Paralite and their missing friends.

After experiencing a curious cave-in, failed diplomacy with slothful Sheerlachian creatures, the interns return to reality with a mission to infiltrate the Elderpine Forest. With Sleek and Spectral in tow, the interns sneak into Elderling Village only to discover it's another trap set by Paralite. Or, in this case, Spectralite. This led to an infinite fight with an explosive ending resulting in the freedom of friends but the loss of two of the infinites.

Next, the interns set sail for the port of Pescar, a land cursed by an aberrant rainfall and an ominous ziggurat called the Escalon. They race their way to the top. By the way, you all really pulled a number on that episode where you totally avoided ship-based combat by mud becoming a dinosaur and swimming under the enemy ship. That's one of my favorite moments.

They raced their way to the top of this transmutative tower to find a disfigured duo headed Grizzly. After a successful brawley bout with priests and Grizzly, the interns encountered a rare attack of opportunity on Paralite herself.

Their party managed to make a marring mark on their female foe and in the process catch a glimpse of her mysterious whereabouts. The interns and Dr. Ahem finally pieced together the puzzle of Paralite, Prattle and the Infinites, and uncovered Paralite's lair under a frozen sheer lake. There they discovered Paralite's plan to police the world, assuage the death of Mayor Prattle, encountered an old acquaintance Archie, battled a battalion of Evergards, fought a paralyzing Paralite, and finally lowered some force shields around the Diagem Core.

It turns out, however, Archie was never actually Archie, but actually a chaotic crimson cloud creature called Entropa, inhabiting the body of Sordo. Now, possessing one of the Diagems, Entropa escapes his corporeal prison to seek out the rest of these mystical Diagems, but

But who is Entropa? What are these Diagems? Those questions are pursued in the next arc. The interns arrive back in Boulderey mid-election, a mayoral race with Brink Tussler as the frontrunner. But Brink believes a mysterious stalker is following him, perhaps sent by his political rival to assassinate him.

The party splits up to investigate the whereabouts of Stalker, however at the library, Qyborg is sent a surprise from his old rival, Quadren, a self-destructing squadron. Fortunately, he's saved by their friend, Meld Manor from Urbloom, and it turns out there's two of her because of time travel. Meld has been traveling through time in search of her missing mother, Sedate Tempur, but instead she stumbled upon a bleak future ruled by an axis of evil known as the Tetragogs. She searched for the interns but found Qydren.

A perverse version of Kyborg that has been blown up and reconstructed to serve Quadrin, one of the Tetragogs. This is all the first time we're hearing about Sedate. I'm looking around the table and everyone's like... I'm trying to remember. Everything you're saying right now, I do not remember. No, no, no. The Tetragogs and the stakes for if we lost against...

and I become Kydrin. That's all. No, there was that episode where Meld comes back, remember, saves you from the explosion and talks about everything. She's Sarah Connor. She's searching for her mother the whole time. We never knew her name was Sadate. You learned that back in Herblum. Yeah. Oh, really? When you first met her. Can you go back and edit in like those little like, what are those little finger like, like, it's,

It's just like a really cool exotic name. Castanets? Castanets! Thank you. How did I know what he was talking about? I have no idea. Because we have communication. We have good language together. Well, Meld went back in time to save Qyborg from this fate and is now searching for clues on how to avoid the rest of his future. Next, the interns visited the temple to learn about the deity Dia and the Dia Gems. Afterwards, they discovered Brink Tussler is the new mayor of Boulderae and as his first act, he promoted the interns to Infinites. Congratulations!

The next day, Dr. Ahem and Meld conducted an experiment with the party to explore Qyborg's past and find out what Quadrin is up to and where he is hiding. As the infant knights, the party is introduced to Qydelius' family and his hometown of Everwinter, but it is soon invaded by a squadron of squadrons and Quadrin himself. Qydelius relives the harrowing memory of his family's passing in the genesis of his enmity with Quadrin.

Nonetheless, clues are uncovered that lead the party back to present day Everwinter, where they find a heart-pounding monolith that rocks them to their very core. The monolith turns out to house a red diagem called the Source, which

which fits perfectly in Kyborg's metallic arm. Thanks to Kyborg's memories, the party follows a clue of Quadrant's whereabouts to Winder Canyon and Pius Pass, but all they find is a ghost town, missing pies, and the town is populated by Sheriff Gov, Deputy Pat, and a host of serpentine flying taboolyans. Eventually, they come to an arrangement with the brood of snake-like creatures with a draconic past.

The party heads down Winder Canyon in search of the Flats of T'bul, and after a perilous pool dive, they finally enter the Labyrinthian Lair. There they find the missing Pi prisoners being sacrificed of their limbs in service of the T'bulian's leader, M'ra, or as the party knows him, Quadrin.

The party manages to persuade the Tabulians to peaceful terms while contending with Quadran and his squadron of squadrons. In a turn of events, the Infinites defeat Quadran and discover that he himself is a Tabulian. Meanwhile, Smarsh the giant purple worm arrives to save the day. Smarsh! Sort of.

and guides the party out of the Flats of Tabool back home. Which leads us to the Throne Gauntlet Tavern where Mud finally comes face to face with his brother, Clay, bearing dire news. Mud's father is dying. Has Mud's mysterious past finally caught up to our favorite fearless furballed bud? Find out in the next arc of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. Ba-ba-ba-ba!

I think the Austin summer heat is frying my brain because I do not think I have any recollection of the last two months of our episodes. It's all about hair bleach.

Maybe. Do you take notes? No. You should do that. It helps you remember, even if you don't look at them again. Genuinely, like, I don't know how I would take notes while also paying attention to the... Well, apparently paying attention isn't working. No, no. Paying attention...

you're you're right it paying attention doesn't help me remember but it helps me like be in the moment for the actual show to actually be in the you know do the things that i do in the show but fire and forget that's the mud way i just take like bullet point notes it doesn't have to be like full sentences but just like i need a little uh that little like keyboard you have for your apex it's so much harder to type someone who's just filled with x-men lore it's

full my brain's full yeah I got x-men and pokemon no room for anything else yeah you know what's a great uh way to combat that is just listen to the episodes like I do I do I I stopped listening well I have a hard time listening to myself any of my projects I I it's so it's always been something like like for instance I've like watched almost no on the spots ever

Don't blame me for that one. And you can learn some of those jokes lie of bashing my show. Anyways, John's feisty today. No, but like the show, the Stinky Dragon is really good when I do listen to it, but I can't listen to myself very well. That's weird because I listen to it only to hear my own voice. Yeah.

Well, I hope you free up a little bit of space in your brain, John, because it's time for your characters to level up to level nine. So what kind of stuff do we get at level nine? So I'll go around the table here. Okay.

Of course, you roll your hit die, so you get more hit points. Your proficiency bonuses actually go up to plus four from a plus three. Kyborg, you are now indomitable. Beginning at this level, you can re-roll a saving throw you fail. And if you do so, you must use the new roll, and you can't use this feature again until you finish the long rest. I rolled a d10, and it was a 10. Did you keep rolling over and over, and then you showed me the 10? No, no, no, of course not. It was literally the first one it did. I'm showing you now. Oh.

Mud, you gain access to fifth level spells. Getting real powerful there. And you get an extra level four spell slot. Bart as well, fifth level spells. You can swap a spell if you want. Yeah. And your Song of Rest increases from a D6 to a D8. Question about the spell slots. When you say like I could swap one spell, is that just one total or is it one from each level? Let me read specifically about you. I'm seeing Ben hold up a number one. One.

And how do we see again what to roll for increasing our HP? It's your hit die, which in your case is, I believe it's a D8, isn't it? Yes.

I rolled a nine out of 12. It says 98, but that's total health. Yeah, that's true. I was going to be like, sweet. Gum, gum, your rage damage becomes a plus three. I believe it's currently a plus two. And you get brutal critical. You roll an additional weapon damage die when you crit with a melee attack. That's cool. So normally the way we do it is we have one die that's max damage. And then the other one you roll. Now you will roll two and then have another one as max damage as well.

Fancy, fancy. So it's just indomitable is the only thing that I got then. You got, yeah, indomitable. Which is just like another like... The only thing I got. It was only really cool. No, no, no. I like it. I just, I'm laughing because it's like I got lucky. I got inspiration dives out the butt because I'm, you know, constantly stacking those up. You know, I got one other like re-roll thing. So...

I'm just, my rolls will never end. I'm always going to get 20s. We're going to Humber a feat where at level 20, Kyborg can never fail checks involving backflips. That's right. Never fail. Never fail backflips.

I'm always so excited to level up. And every time we do a level up episode, I'm always like, okay, next time we do this and I know it's coming, I'm going to research what to do before we actually get there. And then the day comes and I go, dang it. Yeah, now that we sprung this on you. I know, we knew it was coming. In two levels, on the 11th level, I get an extra attack. Oh man, if you guys think my turns are forever now, just wait. I think I have the shortest turns, typically. Oh.

I mean, you and I fight for that. There was a turn last episode. I do have a memory of this where I summoned those toads. They immediately failed. They immediately failed. I did nothing. I just made toads appear. But sometimes you make like eight animals appear and they all do different things. We fight sometimes for like cloud of daggers. Yeah.

All right. I got to go with Barbara on this one. Cause like, yeah, you, you always also had to do several roles for several things. Well, our roles as part of the party are different than your guys's roles. Like for instance, why is that? I reminded of this is, Oh, cause the, we posted a clip of the conversation you had with the dust devil. That, that,

because your job is to talk to people and be able to roll charisma and intelligence checks. Even though my intelligence is plus zero. It's the highest of the group somehow. We're equals now. I'm plus zero in intelligence. Well, I haven't leveled up my things

yet so maybe i'm gonna yeah last time uh your job is charisma yeah ever since gus started saying who are what was in the queue like cyborg you're up next then i just have my whole battle strategy mapped out that way like i can go as fast as i can even though it takes for forever gotta go fast i mean you can't i don't i don't i don't fumble and like well maybe i'll do it in um

You proceed with authority, but you also have the luxury of knowing you can re-roll things with the lucky feet. So it's like even if it goes wrong, you can alter the course of history just a little bit. Should I fire the arrow? Should I not fire the arrow? I know. What to do? What to do? Should I get in melee range or use the bow? Bow. Could I go back and switch things out that have changed or am I locked into that track? What do you mean? Like if I wanted to like change out the lucky feet for something else. No.

no normally your your feets are locked in David I was that was a trap I wouldn't guess to be like yeah yeah you could try to switch out lucky feet no and I'd be like just kidding it's staying for forever it's always so like um actually I keep going back and forth whenever I have to like choose a new spell where I'm like do I want to choose something like there's this one in level five called mass cure wounds or I could send out a

essentially like a wave of healing to people. And it does 3d eight plus your spellcasting ability modifier to everybody. And I'm like, that's a pretty nice thing. Or do I want like a cool, cool Barbara, go cool. Like a cool, like actual attack kind of spell. You know, it's cool though. Friendship.

Friendship is cool. And I feel like I do buff as well. Like you guys do damage typically. And I'm like, you're a bardic inspiration is pretty tippy top. When you're utilitarian and that like you have like, oh, I can go invisible and do that. You know, like that kind of stuff. Sneak around. I'm looking at your spells right now, Barbara. There's some good ones. Level five spells are blasts.

bonkers. I know. That's why I'm like... I've only got one slot and I'm like, which one do I do? Because there's some insane stuff here. Have you opened a new... What was it called? There's like a...

not S class, like there was like a class rank system for animals that you can and cannot unlock. You know what I mean? Wait, what? The challenge rating? Yeah, challenge rating. Oh no, I've actually, I think I'm max level with that, like with the, I can turn into almost anything I see at this point. Cool. As far as the D&D list of beasts.

because it's only beasts I can turn into. That's why whenever you've suggested some stuff, I'm like, I can't turn to that. And I've asked Gus sometimes, is it a beast or a monster? If it's a monster, I can't turn into it. No, at this point, if I see a beast and add it to my list, I can now turn into it. There's a move called Transmute Rock, and one of the sub parts of it is Transmute Rock to Mud. Nice.

Friend. When would that come in handy? I guess for destroying cover that enemies are behind? Or the ground under them? Yeah, yeah. Or there's a cave, you know, like getting through a wall. They can sink in to the mud. I also have a spell that allows me to change the appearance of any number of creatures that I could see within range. So then you could have an enemy turn into like Kyborg.

And then the enemies will be like shooting at him. That's cool. It has to make a charisma saving throw if it's unwilling. But if like, if we had to sneak somewhere, I could change all of us. Well, I mean, if Gus is playing the character, then you can count on him not being charismatic. I don't want to give away all these. I like surprising in the episode certain spells. So I'm not going to list out all of them that are pretty great. But I have to tell Blaine this one because I think you'd think it'd be pretty cool. Go ahead. I can have an ability called Tree Stride. And just the first sentence of this spell has got my interest.

You gain the ability to enter a tree and move from inside it to inside another tree of the same kind within 500 feet. So it's just portal dooring through trees. You're just nightcrawler going into trees. What's the use of that? I guess, is it just a defensive thing? It's travel, but you instantly know the location of all of the trees of the same kind within 500 feet. You can either pass into one of those trees or step out of the tree you're in. I don't know, man. You're already pretty mobile with turning into...

flying animals and stuff. I don't know if you need another like travel spell. I just think it's fun to just use it. It's cool. It is really cool. A tree to go five feet in the ocean. I can travel more farther than you now. It'd be like immovable ride. As long as there's a tree around. Yeah.

But Gunga, couldn't you do that in Tana with Gum Room? Could you grow trees or is it only flowers? Only flowers. He's trying to push that. He's trying to Googling the biggest flower in the world. Is there a tree that's also like a hybrid of a flower? You know, we could work around that. Are you reading Chris's Google search history? Yeah. Is trees flowers? Fifth level is pretty great. I don't know what's best.

Yeah, this is like when spells start to get really, really get powerful. I guess question for the team. Would you guys rather have me have like mass cure wounds or be able to disguise you guys? I would like you to have a spell that you think is fun. Yeah, I think you should do something that you think will be fun and useful in a weird way or, you know.

The only thing I know is that our enemies are going to be scaling with us. So we're going to be getting more hits, but that we also have higher hit points. So it's in Barbara. It's whatever you want to do. Whatever. I mean, there's, there's other like cool area of attack or area of effect. What I want for you is I think that you really enjoy the encounters and interactions where you're rolling for charisma and you're like having to talk and stuff. But I feel like whenever we get to battle, you don't enjoy that component as much. So I want for you to, when we get to battle, you're like, Oh heck yeah. Like I'm, I'm having fun.

fun with this. I think Ben has something he wants to chime in. I was just going to say, would you like some suggestions just kind of based on how Bard is as a person? I would love that. I would love that. Just a few that are like level five spells for Bards. You have Dominate Person, where basically you can control someone with telepathy for up to a minute. Which kind of goes with Command, which Bart uses. Exactly. You have Gaius, I think is how it's pronounced. Gaius? Sure.

uh you can like magic command a creature that you can see within range and like force it into like service to you for up to 30 days you have mask your wounds which just lets you like heal a bunch of people at once you've mislead which feels very bart where you become invisible and at the same time you create like an illusion of yourself in front of where you're standing uh and you can control it and have it speak for you and basically like act exactly like you that's pretty fun

You got modify memory, you can raise the dead, you got a lot of options I think you can have fun with. Necromancy? Yeah. Well, okay. That's the, I just have, I only have one. The great thing about raise dead is if the entire party kills Kyborg, you could reanimate him and have him like as a puppet.

Yo. Would I control myself or would you actually control yourself? Zomborg. That'd be pretty rad. Because then it'd be like an evil dead, like evil ash. Hell yeah. I think. Weekend at Kyorg's. If you get Gaius, then you can control Gumbo and make him love you more than he loves blood. I will say also, we need to start being careful with some of these spells.

Because now that they're getting more powerful, they begin having material components to act as a limiting factor for them. So, for example, raised dead requires a diamond worth at least 500 gold, which is consumed every time you cast it. Yeah. So that's why I probably wouldn't pick something like that. You're raised from the dead and you're raised from the dead. I'm broke. Help me. I already have a material component thing with the hand cannon thing. And that is already a pain in the butt. But it's a good thing.

counter to make sure that you're not like just using it all the time. Hankin, Hankin, Hankin. Yeah, it's tough because a lot of the spells that I can cast that do damage are like area of effect. And typically our players like to grapple people and like, well, there's one of them. Yeah. Oh, no, I keep my distance. And so like, I never want it to hurt.

our own team i'm also pretty beefy as far as taking damage especially if it's physical damage you're pretty mobile too so you could get out of the way okay i think i'm just gonna take the cure wounds one i feel like that'll be helpful i ain't complaining that's handy very and then i will also trade out as well dun dun dun i'm going to get anything cool i mean i got my extra damage and and hit die whenever i crit and more health i'm an indomitable snowman

Are you still looking through your spells there, Mud? Yeah, I'm just preparing...

there's just too many spells to read through that are also cool. But yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm adding some stuff in and I like to keep those as a little surprise for the episodes when, when I pull them out. Surprise. It's also fun. Cause as a fear bog, I can swap out mine. I'm not a feeler. I drew it. I can swap out mine, uh, every long rest. So when it says I can reroll a savings for that, I fail. Is that like, if it's like a five or does it have to be a critical fail? Anyone you fail.

So just say once you're told that you fail the saving throw you can then use it You don't have to so the way the wording is you don't roll and then make the decision before you know the outcome You make the roll. I tell you you fail and then you can say I want to redo it sick Anyway, going back to what John just said speaking of surprises you all also level up again to level 10 Why didn't we do this?

Ah, our heralding hero returns from their stout-hearted hunt. Please take a seat, my friend. I see you've been braving many monstrous mountains and various vexing villages in search of the missing listeners. I trust your journey has been fruitful because every week more and more folks are finding their way to the Stinky Dragon, giving ears to our intriguing tales. So thank you, and carry on with this noble quest.

May your eyes be peeled, ears be perked, and friendship bracelets always be at the ready. Folks, if you haven't already, you really should give us a follow at StinkyDragonPod on Twitter and Instagram. Join us on the Stinky Dragon subreddit where we recently crossed the threshold of 1,000 members and growing. It's amazing each week to see the plethora of podcast theories, creative D&D ideas, merrymaking memes, fabulous fan art, and more. Plus, if you tag us on social media using hashtag StinkyDragonPod,

or post on the subreddit that an NPC could be named after you, immortalized in the world of Phaser. Forever! No take backsies.

We do want to give a special thank you to some of our friends who provide VO for characters in the previous episode. Mayor Brink Tussler is voiced by Eric Badour. Clay Bramblecrack is voiced by Alfredo Diaz. Sheriff Gov Ernst is voiced by Caden Jensen. Deputy Pat Ernst is voiced by Ash Schmidt. Entropa is Armando Torres. Our mystery post-credits voice is Jeremy Dooley. And Dr. Ahem is our very own Micah Reisinger, who's the writer, editor, and composer for this show.

Do you ever find yourself awake in the middle of the night, reading real-life stories that make your skin crawl? The creepy history behind Victorian nursery rhymes? Or tales of sleep paralysis demons? Perhaps you've seen the haunting images of corpses on Mount Everest, read The Last Meal Request of Death Row Prisoners, or experimented with seances and spirit boards? If you've ever wondered, hey, what the heck

exactly is necrocannibalism, then 30 Morbid Minutes is the new podcast for you. Hosted by Elise Willems and Jessica Fasami, each episode investigates a new topic ranging from macabre to morbid to downright creepy, sourced straight from history and the headlines of today. Subscribe now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out every Tuesday and Mondays for Rooster Teeth First members.

The odometer turns over. It goes from 0-9 to 1-0. Oh my gosh, I love it. Kyborg, you gain a new arcane shot ability. Mud, you have elemental wild shape. Use two uses of wild shape to turn into an air, earth, fire, or water elemental. I'm the avatar. It's an 8. Mud, you also get an extra level 5 spell slot. Yeah, 2! Bart.

your bardic inspiration becomes a d10 oh nice you get another fifth level spell slot excellent uh you also have expertise so you can choose two skills and your proficiency doubles in them and you also have magical secrets you can choose two spells from any class and you can cast them they must be of spell slot level five or below so when you say i could cast two spells from any what does that mean

It means you can choose spells that aren't necessarily bard spells. You can look at all of the spells from all of the classes. Oh my God. I'm sorry, Barbara. I just gave you a lot of reading. Yeah, choices. Yeah, it's okay. And then finally, Gum Gum, you have unstable backlash, which means immediately after you take damage or you fail a saving throw while you're raging, you can use your reaction to roll wild magic and immediately produce the effect rolled and that effect replaces your current wild magic effect. So it's just...

Even more wild magic. Even more chaos. I like that because it's whenever I get hit, which means I'll be able to use it a lot more. Yes. What's beguiling? What does that mean? Like charming, deceptive? Okay. I know I ask this every time, but I'm going through leveling up to nine first, and then I'm going to go back and do it again for ten. But when you go to your abilities, how do you again determine...

What to change and how to change it? For what? Like your ability scores. Oh, are ability scores changing? Your ability scores are not changing at this time. So it's only your skills. Only your HP and skills. Yeah. Your skills in particular. I also want to correct myself. I was thinking of polymorph where I can turn anybody into anything. I can't look at every beast there is and turn into it. But I am now at level six. I can do up to CR level three. So I have improved to that. What's the highest CR level?

I think like I saw some six stuff. Like I think when I turned you into the mammoth, that's like a CR six. Let's do that. Because polymorph doesn't have those restrictions. Got it. Got it. But there's also something else for druids. A primal strike at level six. I want to chime in here, John, and say there's a CR 30. Yeah. It goes really high. On beasts or just all creatures? All creatures. Yeah. Okay. So beasts is what I was referencing. Yeah. Which I believe is what polymorph is limited to. Twelve's the highest. Oh, is there? The place I've been looking up animals doesn't have that thing.

then maybe I missed that. 12 is the highest but it's a specific module that it has. Okay yeah. There's a lot of spells. There are. The problem is it says I could choose two additional spells now I guess from any class but it's just the title of them. No you should be able to click on them and see. Alright well I'll see you guys in about four hours. So I have a couple of arcane archer wait no arcane what are these things called? Arcane shots.

Available to me and I'll try to summarize them as quick as possible one of them banishes people to like the fey wild Which I don't really know what that means, but I think is it just teleports them away like a row. That's cool I don't like that though. I want to see the bodies. I want to see I want to make sure they're okay I want the carnage on the carnage beguiling arrow I can shoot someone they take some damage, and then I can make them love one of you Yeah, Oh What are the other ones

There's enfeebling arrow, which is lame as hell. Oh, no, no, no. It's necrotic necromantic magic, which that's pretty cool, I guess. And it also like if they fail a thing, then their weapons take make only half damage. So it's got like some lasting stuff as long as they fail.

piercing arrow seems like it's like a fake thing like you shoot an arrow and then a bunch of people like dodge out of the way and it's not very great and then a shadow arrow and then that blinds them basically for five feet the loved one like they get shot and then they can't see for five feet oh wow beguiling arrow is really funny though you could you could have blinded anybody at any point just an arrow to the face yeah this one says your enchantment magic causes this error to temporarily beguile its target the creature hit by the arrow takes an extra 2d6 psychic damage

and choose one of your allies within 30 feet of the target. The target must succeed on a wisdom saving throw, or it's charmed by the chosen ally until the start of your next turn. So it's like a very temporary... And looking at it now, it's not very strong. Just for the lulls, it's funny. Well, I mean, it could keep someone from attacking something.

I don't know. I do want to call something out here real fast. Ben and I are side texting over here. I think maybe you're underestimating Piercing Arrow. Piercing Arrow seems like one of the most powerful ones on this list to me. It goes through literally anything. You don't even make your attack roll. And if you can get in such a way where you line up multiple enemies, it damages all

all of them the arrow passes harmlessly through objects ignoring cover oh oh i guess i read that part and i was like it looks like it's yeah then everyone has to make a dexterity saving throw and then they take damage plus additional piercing damage and even if they save they take half damage but i just need to line them up though you gotta line them up piercing arrow is cool and shadow arrow is cool i'm kind of tied between those two

It's funny, Ben. I was also reading. I was like, what's he talking about? This one seems awesome to me. All right, fine. We'll do piercing arrow. No, no, no. I'm not telling you to do it. If you want to be cute, that's really funny too. It's a rail shot. I was going to say it's a rail shot. It's like a musing cob and smite. Whenever you line up somebody, you just give it like, and then it just goes.

goes through them all. I'm impressed that you remember Swain stuff. At what point do we, we could upgrade our armor class by like buying better armor and stuff, right? Buying better armor or increasing your dexterity. So ability scores increase every four levels. So your next ability score increase won't be until level 12.

12. Okay. I think you told us that last time, didn't I? Let me check. Bart, your dexterity is currently 18. So in order to improve your dexterity, you would need two additional points. And it goes up every two, every even number. So in order to get plus five dexterity, you would have to go to 20. And that would give you an additional one on your armor class. So what you're saying is our armor class is like the World Cup and...

dexterity and stuff like that is like the Olympics. Yeah. Okay. Four and two. Could I swap out an old arcane shot for a new one? Can you do that? I don't know. I haven't used seeking arrow in ages and it's not that great. But take it off. We're trying to see. I just realized it. Because I have a new skill that if I miss something, I can like still hit something. I can just kind of guide the arrow to hit a different target behind and it still takes damage. It's like

It's like within 60 feet, so I can basically curve the bullet. So that kind of makes Seeking Arrow a little bit more useless, I guess. It doesn't say anything about resetting them, so I'm going to say no. You picked them. You got them. Grumpy guest today. It's a Friday. He's been all grumpy with us. I read it. I'm going through. Guys, I quit.

Oh my god man Oh my god How am I supposed to figure these Wouldn't it be crazy if you guys let us go up one more class And then I got an extra attack Wouldn't that be nuts We don't have time for you to have another attack

While you guys... I'm all set. While you guys finish that up, maybe that's a good time to segue into some of the questions that we have, some of the Q&A we can hit up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a whole bunch this time, I think, with the addition of our new subreddit. Yes.

Speaking of which, the first one comes from the subreddit, which is, uh, reddit.com slash R slash stinky dragon podcast. Yes. Yes. I'm Ron Burgundy. The first one is from a user on, on Reddit's new, uh, macarons, two zero one nine. They asked what sound does a bat make? Uh,

In seriousness though, do you find yourself having to design encounters around the DM disrupting fun that is Wild Shape and Conjure Animals, which is mud constantly trying to break the game? Micah?

What do you think about that? Bats chirp. A. But I generally don't design encounters around muds like zoo, but I do keep in mind that now he can like fly and swim and like maybe go on the ground and design terrain around that kind of thing. Because I don't want to cramp any battle necessarily. And we reserve the right as people to change the encounter if we need to. Yeah.

On the fly. I'm mischievous. Mischievous nerd. Oh, there's a lot of questions about John breaking the party. Hold on. Oh, wait. This person has a very familiar name. On Twitter, at actofbalancing asks...

In your opinion as head writer of Stinky Dragon Pod, what punishment does John deserve for breaking the game so often and making your job harder? Well, I don't break the game that often. Question for John, who is your favorite sibling? You have two, don't you? I do. Active balancing on Twitter, their real name is Heather Reisinger. Oh! I love how all the Reisingers have rallied around this show. Then she also writes, keep in mind that I think you're so smart and pretty. Oh. Answer the question, John. Yeah, John.

What was it? Just a question of favorite sibling? Yeah. Yeah, probably the quiet one that lives in a different state. Not the one sitting directly behind you. I want to say, yeah, the geography of the room is that John has his back turned against his brother Micah right now. He's just like...

No, I mean, there are definitely elements of both of my siblings that I get along with. While my sister is a lot more like me, where she's very reserved, very introverted, loves her quiet time and that kind of thing. My brother is the one that I connect with for all things nerdy. I mean, before the recording, he was letting me know that he picked up House of X, Powers of X, which is a comic that I told him to pick up. And then he also is picking up Sandman. And I told him I could actually lend him

eight volumes of Sandman. You mean he was picking up Hox Pox? Hox Pox. Come on, John. We're all friends here. I went to a game night at Micah's house and he was the life of the party and it was really fun watching Micah and his element. Like he just like bust out these one-liners and everyone would go, I was like, are these paid actors? What's going on here? He's really funny and it shows in the writing of Telling the Stinky Dragon. It was impressive. I was like, man, he's like holding court over these people. Well, I guess we know who Blaine's favorite

That's fine with me. Ben just sent me something that I think is like a good reminder about what your levels mean. You all just currently leveled up to level 10 about what your levels mean in terms of power. Um,

Levels 1 through 4, you're basically local heroes. Levels 5 to 10, you can consider yourselves heroes of the realm. The adventurers have mastered the basics of their class. They found their place in the world and have begun to involve themselves in the dangers that surround them. And you're pretty much at the end of that. Once you hit like levels 11 to 16, it's more masters of the realm. So y'all are really starting to carve out your place in this world. Yeah, at least from like a druidic level, I can tell from...

advancement that's been happening with certain stuff that there were way more limitations on what the druid could do during one to five as far as like you know what spells cast what animals i could even turn into couldn't even swim as a wild shape which seems really silly but then like five to ten was like okay we're letting those limitations off and you can actually like push the gas more and then now that i'm looking at level five spells at level 10 i'm

it's like, oh, you're starting to tap into being able to, like, even just the fact that now I can turn into an elemental. Like, that's a level of ability that should not be somebody at, like, level two or three. So, yeah, that makes sense. Sounds like in, like, one-punch man terms, we're, like, B-class heroes right now. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, we're approaching A, which are, like, celebrities, and then S, which are, like, gods. Yeah. Hmm.

Was One Punch Man an S? Was that what he was? S tier is like the highest. No, no, no. He went and got his evaluation. Yeah, he was like, he started as a C. Oh, yeah. Because he was so dumb. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing anime. It's a very good anime. Season three is coming out in November.

November. I still haven't watched their season two. It's so cool. Any other questions? Tons. Any about One Punch Man? On Instagram, Joe P91 asks, are the character songs available somewhere to download? Do we have an announcement? Can we say something, please? Anything?

I want to find him. I'll give that to Ben. We're working on it. We are working on it. I'm hoping by the time that this comes out that we might have one or two of the ARC albums up. Sick. I'll throw that out there. But they're coming. I know a lot of people asked for them and I'm really excited to work with Micah to pull those together and like loop them into like their own little albums that we can throw up on Spotify or streaming services or anywhere else people want them. We've been having conversations a lot about like Stinky Dragon and like where we can take it and stuff like that.

and how other departments can support us. I feel like it's okay that we're transparent with the audience about this, but like we really want to take it to the next level. So spreading the word about continuing to tell your friends about the show and stuff like that, anything you can do to support, we're going to continue to put out like the albums and like...

hopefully cool merch and like John mentioned animatics and puppet stuff. And I don't know, I think like Seeky Dragon is so much fun to work on. So yeah, I can, I'll say a thank you to the community. We are, as far as like how our community has been acting around the show, our numbers act in a way that is not normal for many podcasts where we don't really dip the

which is crazy considering we're, what episode will this have been? 62? We're a 62-episode narrative podcast that should have a fall-off because it's hard to get into narrative podcasts that you need to listen to previous episodes. So our community is insane that they just keep listening. Like even this morning, I was reading a subreddit post about someone who went on like a 14-hour drive and just listened to only Sneaky Dragon. Wow.

they loved it. They had been, they had fallen off because I think they said they had like, they hadn't had a job for a bit so they weren't driving as much, they hadn't listened to much and now that they've binged, it was either them or a comment in there of someone doing something similar where now they're at the point where they're sad, they have to wait. The week to week. The week to week, yeah. And so our audience is,

is crazy in that way. We, even the subreddit growing the way it has is so fun to watch. And so the, the thing that we need help with in order to continue to like make the podcast, you know, the success we wanted to be is continue to grow to like that next level of how many people are listening. So that's why we want to do, we want to produce a lot more supplemental stuff to get people more excited about it, to put out things like the music, because

All that is around this fact that the show is one that because of how it's made, and I'm praising it because I have very little to do with all of this happening, is that Stinky Dragon, once people listen to it, they stay listening to it. But we just have to convince people to check out this different D&D podcast. And that's kind of what these Between the Tales recaps are good for. So try to get people to jump in. So if you know someone who you think they might like this podcast, they want to just jump in, they can listen to the recap at the top of this episode.

And then you know they can just start in with the new arc and then once they see how much they love it then go back and listen to the old episodes too. Got another question I'm kind of trying to go around from all the different sources we can get questions from going back to the subreddit here. LatinPrince27 asks why doesn't GumGum want to know who his mom is? He's an orphan right? I get that his dad left him a wand and he wants to be a wizard but she birthed him. Who is mom mom? His mom passed away.

I think you had covered that before, hadn't you? I'm not sure if I mentioned it or if maybe it was in passing. I thought it was just because Gum-Gum was a big fan of the patriarchy. Gum-Gum hates women? But Gum-Gum, Gum-Gum-Mum-Mum? And so since his mom passed away, the only family as far as he knows is that his dad is somewhere. It's a literal dead end trying to go look for your mom. It makes him sad-sad. Yeah. Oh, no.

It makes him bum bum. And he knew he's a half orc and he knew his mom was an orc. And so he's like, doesn't know what the other half is. And as being a kid without parents, he kind of always has like made the best in his mind of what his dad might be. What's the Dungeons and Dragons version of just sending Gum Gums a swab of his spit in 23 and me? We have a question from at Bri Calhoun. What is everyone's favorite region that they visited?

that's a fun question go barb man i don't they've all been like really fun in different ways i think i really liked i mean pious past was such like a fun like because i was like our first arc and so it was like getting into the world and stuff like that and everything that happened with chick store and the jail house and all that stuff there was really fun but yeah i also like the the arc with the uh

Gosh. Valrossians? Valrossians, yes. Thank you. How did you know what I was thinking? I think I brought it up before. I could see you were struggling to think of a hard name of a place like Valross is one of the harder ones. I also really enjoyed the Tabulians and that whole storyline. I really enjoyed Qyborg's arc too with like learning about his family. I got really emotional listening back to the episode with all the like sound design and the voice acting and stuff like that. It was really touching. Yeah.

Yeah, if you want to send some nice feelings, go to CooleySmiley on Twitter and let her know she did such a good job at voicing Cyborg's mom and sister. And BlizzBear for voicing Quadrant. Yeah, I think new Valras was cool. I had such a difficult time shooting Valrasians and like I felt like weird attacking Valrasians, you know? So like I wasn't fully able to enjoy that element because I was like, I don't know that they're bad.

guys like anytime we fight people and I don't think that they're bad guys then I can't put my whole heart into it but I feel like the herb bloom was with all the time stuff I like their bloom a lot because we're like we're going to the past and seeing T-Rex is T-Rex T-Rex and we meet James's character and then like that was all fun that was also like we had a stealth mission there where we met the Oryx right

Yes. And like that was like all that stuff is like really fun and like very I have like very vivid memories of that. What about Gum Gum? I think like Barbara, I really liked Pies Pass just because of that. I think that was whenever we really found all of our character dynamics and really like had fun exploring the world. And then I think the Tabulians were really fun, too, just because I felt like Gum Gum's

got way too attached way too attached it was a fun little spin on things and so it was fun i don't know it's fun like feeling invested in those bad guys i guess i don't know if they were i think they were supposed to be just straight bad guys were they supposed to be more just straight that's up to you that's up to your interpretation i don't know everybody has a story yeah i don't know it was fun it was fun feeling attached to the entire people so you attached yourself

Literally to that. Going to places that we've been to before is fun because like I already feel like I don't have to spend as much effort inventing what that place space looks like. So like when we went back to Pius Pass and I was like, oh, you know, the prison's got the hole in the ceiling, even though you guys fixed it. And then it's got like the thing that goes into the...

or whatever in like hump back saloon. What was it? Hump house. Yeah. Yeah. Hump back saloon. Little pecker saloon. That's where I was mixing those two. And then you tell me, go back to the castle and stuff like that. It's like, ah, familiar. I know this. Did you say who your place was, John? Oh, I wish I had something much more unique, but I think it's because I got my song in pious pass at the barber shop. And yeah, it was, I thought it was my,

That was the pogo stick argument. That was the... The jump and jab. Immovable rod. Oh, God, the immovable rod. That was right after, right? But got to be a fan of the one time I got to turn into a dinosaur underwater. So I liked the pirate ship.

Those are all good ones. Yeah, I love how distinct every area is and how they all have their own flavor. They're all great. I think I like the districts of Urbloom and I liked how you experienced them in different times. I think that was a really fun mechanic. And then going back and seeing them again and having the time waves come through. I thought that was really fun. I have a question for you, Gus. Yeah. As DM, what is your favorite part of...

of the show is it like improvising npcs or like combat combat or like just telling the story i think it's seeing what you guys do since you all respond it's such an off the wall way like you know micah writes the document and i'll read it and i'll have in my head i'll have an idea of how things are going to go and then we'll get there it's like oh this isn't going at all how i thought it was going to go so it's you know it's definitely giving up letting my hands off the wheel and just being like all right yeah let's see where it goes you know let's trying to be better about

you know, embracing what's fun or what's cool and just trying to like go with it. If I may, I think that the parts that I think you have the most fun in are the really base level weird characters that aren't going to get their own voice actors and might have voice modulation like little Jimmy. Like when you have those little dumb little characters that there's no real blueprint for and you're just like, I'm little Jimmy.

Jimmy. That's fun to listen to and I think I also can tell you are enjoying that moment. Oh, little Jimmy. What's he up to? He's probably a local hero by now. I forgot about little Jimmy. Little Jimmy makes me laugh. Or Scoville the Thumper. Oh,

Scoville the Stumper might be my favorite one-off character. Which one was that? That was the pterodactyl. Yeah, when we were like on the river. You were in the waterfall. And we failed it miserably. Oh,

I think my favorite thing about those one-off characters is like, it gives me, me and Michael ended up talking about like one shot. So we could possibly do down the line. Like maybe we end up in a town where suddenly little Jimmy is now the mayor. And it's like working with Brink Tussler in some campaign or whatever that we send you guys on in the future. Funny. What's funny about Scoville. I think I told you this, guys, is that like, I tried introducing Scoville as an NPC into the show three times and it never happened. Um,

because you guys just like walk past them or something. I was like, I'm putting it to like a pterodactyl right in front of them. Yeah, I think it might be funny to, you know, show the party some of those early modules. Like we were talking the other day, listening to episode one together. And, you know, after the wheel falls off the cart, you know, I think

kyborg made a perception check and he failed it and then he said what was that perception check for and i showed him the module about how what he would have found if he had succeeded on that check yeah there's like all these other possibilities that don't get explored or things that don't happen i also found out and i don't know if i'm allowed to say this so feel free to cut it if if i can't but the tool that i took from bezler uh was giving me it was like curse

Yeah. So it was like cursing my roles. It was exhausting you. Yeah. What? Yeah. I don't know if I realized that. I didn't either until Gus told me one day. That's why I kept trying to take, that's why I really tried to have Bessler take it back because I didn't want you to have it and then have to keep worrying about this. I had her for a while. Yeah. A real long time. Slowly giving you cancer. God.

Jesus. So was it planned to be cursed or is it cursed because she stole it? No, it was planned to be. It was. Yeah. Wow. Lex Luthor wearing a kryptonite ring for forever. Slowly sapping his belt. Oh, I feel so bad. I feel like Gus, you told me not too long ago that there's still some rooms in the castle, like Infinite HQ, that we still haven't gone into. From like the episode one or two, like the...

the puzzle rooms or something. Oh, yeah, you did. I remember you did not explore all of those. Yeah, but it just hasn't come back up. I mean, if you think about it, like, yeah, I mean, there's still as far as I know. Yeah, there's still areas that you really have not fully explored, but there's really been no reason to. There's like holy armor in one of them and it's for all four of us and we just haven't stumbled upon. You just got to find a paladin, someone worthy of holy armor. Yeah.

None of us are. Say I get it. It's none of us are. No. I am. I'm a peneline. Damn, my stealth is up to plus 12 now. Oh, shoot. This is from the subreddit. Defense Plox asks, what happened in Bart's life to give him so much confidence? I mean, look at me.

I think it's just like there's this stereotype of bards in D&D that they're like cocky and confident and like very showman-y. So I'm just kind of like laying into that. I also love the idea of a tiny little halfling that's like...

super big and dense, being very charming and like attractive and having like a lot of confidence in himself in that way. It's just a little little Bob Hoskins running around with charisma just pouring out. I think I think he maybe just like the pirate ship he grew up on. They were very complimentary and very supportive. And I think, you know, if you're raised well, you'll end up well. Isn't that the trope of

bards too is that they're like sexy like you know they charm everything they get little charmers and it just works that it's bards that we also I mean with the makeup of our team I think we needed at least one person who could actually talk to people thank you now you just gotta find someone with intelligence I know well every time we level up I'm like can I add to my intelligence please we're gonna start punishing him for that Micah some mental challenges some intelligence checks I give them like puzzles all the time yes

I know we're past the upgrade part, but am I supposed to change? Barb got higher stealth and all that. Does that do that automatically or was your proficiency went up? So then that means anything that you're proficient in goes up. It's just acrobatics and athletics. I'm just continuing to get more juiced and dumber. You do one thing and one thing well. My insight, my performance, and my stealth are all super, super high. And this is the things that you all play into.

I'll tell you what, Gus. Next door, they can only open it with an intelligence check. No! Psyonix only. Can't enter the infinite HQ unless you have an intelligence check. I think I'm probably the least strong of the team, though, physically. Well, it's not your forte. It's not your strength. Yeah, I use my mental strength. Yeah. Social strength. We have a question here. Is this on Twitter? Yeah, it's on Twitter. At MilkyStar7 asks, My question is, how hard is it for you guys to continue your character personas every week?

week I try in my campaign with my friends and every other week and it can be exhausting sometimes the whole stinky dragon crew here is just phenomenal I feel like all of our characters are secretly pieces of us like I feel like we're playing into ourselves like are you sure about secretly not secretly I mean like playing is kyborg there's no subtlety behind kyborg I think like Chris playing into the kind of not dumb character but I

I feel like Chris is very innocent in a way. It just kind of plays into that. Yeah, I like playing Gum-Gum in that. We're just making this show in general because it's telling this really rich, deep story, but all I have to do is worry about being in character. Like just reacting as Gum-Gum, I think he might do. My favorite story about Chris recently, and this stuff pops up now and then, but John, you were telling us at RTX, Chris happened to run into your partner recently

and just went to dinner with them. And it's just like, Chris is like so gum-gum like, friend? And just like spent the day with them. The better way of telling that story was that it was me, my girlfriend, a friend of hers, and we all were coming back from the Stinky Dragon panel. We were getting out of our costumes and then you and me, Blaine, were having to rush over to do this.

the variety show. And so we were going to break off. Chris wasn't in the variety show. And so I said goodbye to my girlfriend and her friend. We said goodbye to Chris went off. And then I get a text like 15 minutes later that has just a picture of Chris sitting across the table. And she's like, so we're at dinner with Chris. Yeah.

Ben commented that it's only really problematic when Chris starts breaking out the friendship bracelets. Yeah. I'm about to tell him to stop doing that. But yeah, for me, it's pretty easy. I mean, I like kind of playing a charming little lad. It's not very like myself, but I feel like it's a fun character to play and I don't really have to like do too much with my voice. I feel like probably the most challenging is for Mud because you have to keep up like a Scottish accent the whole time. I actually like the...

the talking parts. I actually wish we did a little bit more like dialogue interaction with characters and stuff. Uh, I love combat in D and D. I really do. Uh, I think it's super fun. And when I've listened to D and D shows, I have liked that stuff a ton, but I, yeah, the Scottish accent is broken and stupid and silly, but I, I like it. It's, uh, it gets me, it lets me play into my love of Scottish men. Um,

which I do. I adore a lot of Scottish men. Sean Connery. Nope. Sean Connery. And so I like doing a voice. It's fun. I like the voice part for everybody. Obviously, Kyborg doesn't really do a voice anymore. He did. We recently listened to old episodes and he was like doing like a Keanu kind of thing. I dropped it. Why? He dropped it. It pops up every now and then, but like.

This isn't a criticism on you. No, I'm just genuinely... Get to the combatic track! I'll whip it out. Yeah, there you go. It's an observation that I like because it creates this line of when I'm talking to Chris or when I'm talking to Gum-Gum. Or when Gum-Gum is saying something that is in character that we need to respond to in character. So it gives...

I love that we get to play that game of going fourth wall, fourth wall, fourth wall, that kind of thing. Having that distinction. Yeah, it's fun. Kyborg's voice is like, it'll slow down and it'll sound like Blaine at 1.25% speed. Yeah. Like it's like- 1.25%- Wait, 1.75. 1.75. Math is- I'm Kyborg. Yeah, I was going to say.

Would you like me to roll intelligence for you? It's kind of there. There's a bit of a voice. To answer the question directly, I would say, I don't know. I'd actually, I want to ask the question asker, what is it about getting into a character that is so taxing? Because for us, I think I can speak for everybody that he gets,

more fun and easier the more that we get to develop and learn our characters you just said it barbara we're like pious past or someone said it pious passes where we chris you said it that we learned some of our dynamics and our characters because the part of the character building is like just kind of figure it out along the way and i'll just figure out like what happens when kyborg and bart are sitting on the edge of a roof with you know that was a great moment yeah

What happens when mud and gum gum tried to break into a store? Like what's that dynamic and everything like that. And so that, that is the fun part to me is like, is developing our characters. That being said, I'm mortified to work on background of mud. Cause I'm not a good storyteller.

So kind of in how y'all have been talking, y'all have touched on a couple of questions in here. And I just want to acknowledge them because you've kind of answered questions without me asking them. At Strongman Will asked, do any of the cast find their characters are starting to bleed into their everyday lives? And I feel like y'all had kind of touched on that already. I was just going to say, too, I like...

kyborg because of there's a lack of voice because i feel like i do a lot of character work in rooster teeth content and i've never been fully comfortable using my own voice because i don't like my voice but like i feel like kyborg has made me more comfortable being just plain voice you know just plain i think whatever uh campaign would do next i want all three of you to play female characters i already i already made that decision in my head that i want to play a female character next time yeah

Girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls. Squad team girls. Team girls squad. Arrowed. It works. It's already how I play video games. I like women are much more cool than guys. I'm bored of men. Drag is also a lot of fun. So like, I feel like that'd be a kind of subcategory. Yeah. Well, I mean, I've tried, I've played like gum, low key queer. Like he's,

I've never been explicit about it. What'd I say? Gum. Sorry. Yeah, I was really confused. Can't remember your own name. Nope, can't remember. I've played him an idiot too, apparently. No, I've played Mud low-key queer. You described him as like asexually the other day. And I was like kind of thinking back. I was like, oh yeah, no, absolutely. I'm still trying to get Bart with that bed warmer. I'm waiting for it.

There was one other question here that we had also kind of touched on. This was from the subreddit. LiveMike78 had actually asked, why does mud have a pseudo Scottish accent? And thanks for having him obsessed about coffee and not the lazy whiskey route. Although having said that, a lot of our whiskeys have their flavor influenced by peat, which is just a fancy form of dirt. I'm guessing the person who asked this question is Scottish. Sounds like it. So that's why it's pseudo. Pseudo, yeah.

I am a theater kid and a dork and I love accents. I am the kind of person that secretly works on accents in the car by yourself. Nice. But I don't want to just be that person who just always breaks into an annoying British accent around people because those people are like nails in the chalkboard. I feel like that's a personal attack. Yeah.

cut to me in various Rooster Teeth productions playing a little Cockney kid. No, that's funny. That is funny. That's different than just being like, Ren. People who do this are cringe. Except you, Barbara. No. I like to order a Big Mac, please. No, yeah. What? Yeah, no, I know what you mean. Like, just randomly. And it's never, I never, like, ever,

I assume that I do a good accent ever, and it's more so having fun with it. And there's actually a podcaster, Connor Goldsmith, who does the X-Men podcast. I've talked about a bunch of Cerebrocast. And he does a thing that every time he reads questions from his community, and if they call out where they're from, he just lays into the most stereotypical accent. And he does it because he just, he loves it. He just loves doing it.

And now it's part of his character of a podcaster. And so his community lets him know like, and I'm from Nebraska. So if you want to rip into something from, you know, a Hick accent, do it. No, I love, like I said, I love Scottish people. I think the Scottish accent is beautiful, even though it's so hard to hear sometimes. Question for you guys too. And I don't know if you went through the same thing I did when we were going to start doing this podcast and we had to come up with characters and stuff. I was really worried that

a voice I would pick for a character would become either annoying to hear or tough to keep up. Hard to maintain, like hard on the voice. And so like I spent so much time trying to figure out what kind of voice I wanted to do because I wanted it to be different from my own voice. You do voices a lot with a lot of your characters, like Naris and the little orb from... Orph. Yeah. You like that. Yeah. So it's fun, but I also didn't want it to get like annoying. Like if I was doing Orph's voice the entire campaign, that would be like...

It'd be like a lot to take in. We'd be over it. Yeah. Well, we had to, I feel like we had to coach you, Chris, to project Gum Gum more. Because I think your original stuff, you were very guttural, low, and quiet. It definitely changed more from just like this to, yeah. A little more talkative. Yeah, a little more like. You had a Trumpy era too there where you sounded Trump sometimes. I heard all Reagan. Yeah.

But yeah, I think it's just kind of changed over time. I mean, all I think a

A lot of the, well, definitely Blaine's character's voice has changed. I think he even minded a little bit too. Yeah, they've probably just changed over time as we've kind of, again, like kind of found them. It just happens though. Like it's like, like listening to episode one of The Simpsons and like, oh, hello Bart. Hello son. Like I think we all have fallen into a comfortable, you know, thing with our voices and I like all of our voices. You know what I would like to, I don't know if it exists, but a year and a half, two years ago,

It might have been 2019. We did a... Three years ago. Like, our first time we, like, played D&D as, like, a test. We did a test, yeah. And we recorded it, and I know I played some version of Gum Gum. Yeah. And I think you played...

some version of kyborg they were test versions of all the characters you might have not played bart no i did not have bart you were like a rogue or something it's like whatever dorjan ended up becoming i feel like yeah we when we did that like um brief series of like rtd and d on the website that you can still find it's live stream it was like a live stream we did every week that was like

two hours long each time but he's talking about the test even before that yeah yeah i'm so glad that i didn't burn kyborg on that not that that was a wasted piece of content but i'm glad that like we had that thing to refine our dnd skills and it was training yeah and then now like kyborg is like my main dude when that was the thing is i remember whenever we started doing the live stream i was like well i don't want to i like this character gum gum i want to save him yeah for whenever i

We did a podcast. I think we did the same thing. That's how I played Lungo. Yeah, I think RTD&D was a really good test for you all to kind of dive in and like figure out how to play D&D. And a lot of that was just born from like work from home and whatnot. Yeah. Like I'm so happy we have a team and have Micah here because a lot of the RTD&D stuff was me just like the night before sitting down going, I should probably figure out what we're going to do tomorrow. I like how they all said it was a short thing. It went on for over a year. Yeah.

It was a while. Yeah. But I loved it though. Cause I remember. It was a good learning experience. One of our live streams fell on my birthday and I had this whole thing where I was going to be out of office. We were still in lockdown. So I was at home, but I still showed up to work so that I could just play D and D. That's how much fun I was having with that show. Yeah. It was fun. It was very fun.

Does that still exist anywhere? No, no, no. The original... Oh, the test? I don't even know if we... Those files might be somewhere, but I have no idea where they're... That was pre-pandemic when we were putting things on the cloud a little more. Gus brought us miniatures.

I remember I still have like an elf. Ben might have it somewhere. I'd like to hear it. Yeah, what I remember is that you guys played through the Lost Mines of Phandelver pre-campaign, just the first intro session and then a little bit after that. Yeah, it was like the very beginning. It's also nice because when we did the RTD&D, we had visuals when we played. Like we had a map that we could see and all that stuff. And then when we moved to Stinky Dragon, we don't use any visuals. I like that better, I think. What we're doing now. Yeah, it's more in tandem with like

The way that like the McElroy brothers play the game where they get... You still keep us in line. I'm pointing at Gus. In line as far as like distance and stuff. But it's looser and goosier and allows us to be... Also, yeah, the thought was if we're doing an audio podcast, there's no way we could convey a map or any visuals. So, you know, we have to force everyone to talk about it. That way the audience is also on the same page. And be very descriptive. Right. You're not pointing or moving a figure without saying exactly what it is you're doing. You mentioned earlier, Gus, that you liked...

Urblooms, districts. That was probably the map of that city. I made a whole entire map of the entire city, like grid by grid. And that was probably the one I spent the most time on. It's just like a giant circle surrounded by fields and like cut up into districts. And like, that was probably the most fun I did with that. But I've cut down on like making entire cities. Yeah. But yeah, I still provide maps for you. Oh yeah. For certain things. I have a question for Micah. How do you, how do you do it?

how do you come up with like everything you do so detailed and there's so much information and so many little things that we don't even sometimes get to. Do you like do a lot of reading and a lot of consuming of like fantasy content that helps you with that? Pulling from past D&D campaigns. You're describing his entire life. Yeah. I was born for this. I, I, yeah, I generally try to keep the well filled with something, whether it's podcasts or shows or comics or,

But I just, I try not to like listen to other D&D podcasts, honestly. The only other D&D podcast I sometimes listen to is like the official one where like they interview other DMs and stuff like that. But yeah, I basically just pull stuff. I write down notes all the time on my phone. Like, hey, this would be a good idea for an arc or this would be a good idea for this character. The big baddie for the next arc is going to be Spider-Man. Yeah. And I try to keep those collated. That way, like I...

I can like reference them. 'Cause you guys ask me questions or ask Gus questions like, "Wasn't this the thing that happened in this arc and like the episode?" I'm like, "I don't know, I gotta look it up." - What was that? How much was that item in that store, in that place? Like, oh, wow, okay. - I was gonna ask, no, no. Paralites base was under the Shear Lake. We had been there at one point. Was there any indicator that she was there the entire time? Or was that just something that you're like,

Let's just slip them under the noses and we can work on a wreck on it. Because we visited the sheer lake. You visited the sheer lake. In the jury Marie experiment. Was it? Yes. That would have been a prequel. The weird Gungans and stuff. Yeah, that would have been a prequel. Yeah. Before she had her base. True. Okay. I don't know. Because she was there with us. Right. Yes, that is correct. Yeah. So speaking of all the work that you do on fleshing out this world, Micah, I think there's a question here that leaps off of that pretty well. It's from swilly97. This is from the subreddit. This person asks,

How did the doors work in the source diagem challenge? Was there one door for each party member and yet doors read the same because they had the wrong person reading them? Also, is there a contingency for the inevitable party wipe? And I'm sure you guys remember the door challenge where there were four doors and they all had different things written on them. There is a lengthy subreddit, uh,

that people went into that and I was adamantly, I was avidly reading it trying to see if they figured it out because Lord knows I did not. What did you all think? I guess before Micah answers it. Yeah, yeah. I thought there was too many frigging riddles. I ain't getting any information from some rhymes. I'm like, I'm like, I could read it a thousand times and be like, what, what, what? Yeah, I don't, I don't know.

I feel like we didn't experiment enough to really figure it out. Baloney, I listened back to that episode. We did everything you could do in that moment. And the Barstoolune thing? The Barstoolune thing, I know in the end of it, it was we were supposed to all go ham. Free for all. We're all supposed to fight. But I'm saying the way the doors worked, I think they changed depending upon who was at

the door. I bet we could have gone in individually, but in my mind, it would be more entertaining if we were all experiencing this together. Okay, now correct us, Micah. Yeah, tell us what the correct answer is. I don't want to give away too much because it may influence how you interact with future puzzles. Future doors. There will be more. Cop out. But what I can tell you is that...

Riding on the doors was unique to who was reading them. Interesting. What? And each challenge behind the door could have been approached in different ways. And it wasn't, there wasn't necessarily one right answer. That being said, I designed each challenge so that they would be harder for certain people in the party and not for others. Interesting. I still like that door we went through that was like, I forgot what the wording was, but essentially like...

enjoy yourself or have a good time or something like that. It was a ball for all. The free for all, have a ball. And we were just like, do we just start a bar fight or like do what I'm doing here? Yeah, it was funny hearing what Blaine just said and what Micah said about Blaine, you know, feeling like you exhausted every possibility you really investigated. And then Micah's just saying like, yeah, the doors were different for different people. Yeah. It was weird because normally the party sticks together. But in this particular instance, everyone just like broke off and went to a different door and then nobody moved.

Everyone stayed there. The person who read the door first was the only person who ever read the door again. Even if someone else showed up, the second person never said, I want to look at the door. I think I cut down that first segment of you guys like reading the doors from like 40 to 20 or something like that. It was a long, it was another like clock tower and herb loom sort of thing where it's like, well, should we go there? Should we go in the top? Should we like do this? And it could turn invisible. Yeah.

Yeah, the possibilities are endless. It was really evil to put four doors in front of this party and have them try to figure it out. So what's the part two of that question? What are you going to do when we get a team wipe?

I have ideas. Okay. Well, Bart's going to have raised dad soon, right? He can raise himself. Give a bunch of diamonds to Bart. Yeah, I think, you know, we've talked about it briefly, but Tales from the Stinky Dragon, it's just like tales that they're telling at the Stinky Dragon Tavern. And so we have the possibility to essentially start from scratch with like a whole new cast of characters and a whole new story arc and everything like that.

We have a timeline for the end of this. Oh, do we? Hopefully next episode. That's what mud has been running from. Yeah. It's not, it's not impending as in like, you know, this month or next month, but we do like, we want to just like any D and D podcast. Well, you don't have a plan. Cause you don't know what's going to happen. I mean, I do. Cause I'm the producer. Well, I mean, in terms of the story. Oh no, no, no. But I'm saying like, yeah, yeah, we, we, uh, we, but we want to like make sure that we're

we give adequate time for this show, this story. Ben's a producer. Yeah. He means Ben's a producer of the show. I'm the supervising producer of Squad Team Force Productions. Let's give people credit where credit is due. Titles are important. But we want to also give a point eventually for people to be able to jump on to the same energy of this show with a new story that's easier to join in and participate in. For sure.

But I'm not, I don't want to freak anybody out right now. It's not ending like anytime very soon. Yeah. To elaborate further, John doesn't know the story beats, but Micah and I have figured out the pacing for the rest of the plan story. And we have a good guess as to when the campaign will wrap up and we move on to the next story in the tavern. I mean, there is so much to resolve still. Yeah. So I was gonna say with like a lot of like D and D podcasts and shows, like the story has to end at some point, but like that doesn't mean we're going to stop doing the podcast. There are just more stories to tell more stories and more accents to ruin. Yeah.

I just can't wait to play with everyone being a female character. It's like American Horror Story, right? Something different every season. So there's a question here on Twitter from AK Men's. It says, you've done a crossover with Good Morning from Hell. Have you considered doing more crossovers outside of Rooster Teeth? And Ben, I think you have something you wanted to say about that. I mean, like I kind of have an answer. Like we've talked about like

bringing on other people to do like voiceover for some of the NPCs and characters. I've thrown around the idea in the past of like, I would love to figure out some kind of like either social content or between campaigns or something, but I would love to just throw Gus in a room with like another DM from another show. But it's like two bartenders talking, almost like sharing secrets or stories where it's just like, I'm really confused. Good morning from hell. We had gum gum.

and Bart. Oh, they were on. They were on Good Morning. It was how like the Marvel television shows, there was like reference to the movies, but no TV show references in the movies. Sins can be in the TV shows, but none of the people in TV shows get to be in Thor. Correct.

Yeah, I think it was like episode 92 or something in the 90s of Good Morning from Hell. I remember that now. My brain was going to like, when has Good Morning from Hell bled into Stinky Dragon? And I was I could not figure it out. But you're right. The other way it happened. There was a Good Morning from Hell drink. We've had multiple show drinks now. Those have been fun. Yeah. We have a question here that I think is a good setup for our next arc.

I believe it's from Twitter at Ami Joan says, will we get to know more about Gum Gum and Mud's character in the next arc? Since we've got a little insight with Captain Marge for Bart and Kyborg's childhood snippet. Well, based on the way that this arc ended, the next arc is really going to be focused around Gum Gum and his brother Clay. I also remember it took me a second to realize the joke of Mud and Clay after you guys. That was so funny. That was the highlight of the episode.

That's so silly. You're welcome. That's fine. And their uncle pottery. All right. I think that's probably a good time to wrap this episode up. I want to thank everyone for listening. Don't forget, this is a great episode you can share with someone. If they want to get caught up on the story so far, they can listen to the recap at the beginning of the episode and they can dive right in once we come back with our new arc and they can go back and listen to the old episodes too. But yeah, thank you so much for listening and we'll be back next time with a new episode from New York. Bye. Bye.

LAUGHTER