Afterparty: Labor Party VI

It’s time to share cleaning tips, discuss the lives of centaurs, praise this very cool module by the fabulous Ev, and dish on the iconic Miss Vanjie. This is the Afterparty, where we sit down after every episode to break down our game and answer your questions about how to play at home.

Oh, and our new merch is amazing! Check it: http://jointhepartypod.com/merch

Find Us Online

- website: jointhepartypod.com

- merch: jointhepartypod.com/merch

- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod

- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod

- facebook: facebook.com/jointhepartypod

- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod

- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com

- music: brandongrugle.bandcamp.com

Cast & Crew

- Dungeon Master: Eric Silver

- TR8c (Tracey): Brandon Grugle

- Inara Harthorn: Amanda McLoughlin

- Johnny B. Goodlight: Michael Fische

- Creative Contributors: Connor McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, Heddy Hunt

- Multitude: multitude.productions


Transcript

[theme music]

Amanda: Welcome to the After Party where I plan to talk about my bathroom cleaning techniques for the majority of this episode, but instead we have rather a lot to talk about than I initially realized.

Brandon: No I wanna do that. Let’s do that instead. So top-down you always go…

Amanda: I mean, step number one: go to the gym or do a walk or get your outside, get your sweat on, come home, you have a little protein-laden snack.

Brandon: Maybe a hard boiled egg.

Amanda: Exactly, yeah, maybe put peanut butter on a multigrain cracker. Whatever.

Brandon: Yeah.

Amanda: You get your cleaning supplies together, you put on your jams, you open a window for proper ventilation because fumes are bad for you.

Brandon: As many windows as possible.

Amanda: Yeah! Put on the fan! Get that cross-breeze!

Eric: Here’s the thing, most bathrooms don't have windows, though.

Amanda: Outside of New York City, most bathrooms have either windows or a ventilation fan.

Eric: I feel like the bathroom in my house was always the tornado warning place.

Amanda: Oh no.

Eric: And my current bathroom does not have any windows either.

Amanda: Point being, you get those endorphins, you get those jams, you boogie down, you clean your bathroom. And then take a nice shower and, oh wait, not only is your house clean, you’re clean.

Brandon: [at the same time as Amanda] You’re clean.

Amanda: Yo! It’s wonderful.

Brandon: Yeah.

Michael: I mean I don't think anyone can be truly clean after cleaning a frat bathroom.

Amanda: Yeah, as much as I don't want to play into the frat houses are gross stereotype, I love that these guys are intellectual, and lovely, and supportive of each other, but centaurs man. I get it now.

[all chuckle]

Eric: I also- I wanna say that this is another labor from Ev, and this is - I left out a bunch of exposition that there is just wild in here. This was so incredibly detailed and I’m so happy that I got to bring the HORSE house to life. I also want to say that he came up with HORSE even before ‘HORSE’ launched. [all laugh] So this was not me I promise.

Amanda: Okay, okay.

Brandon: Hey, Eric, can you tell me how centaurs shower?

Eric: [laughs] I can tell you!

Amanda: Now he can!

Brandon: Because I will tell you that’s not in the episode.

Eric: I know but it is now in - we need to release these I think as modules. I think we’re gonna do that eventually, so keep an eye out. You can read all this stuff with your own world-building, but this is some pretty wild stuff. I’m happy about it.

Brandon: [chanting gently] Tell me how they shower. Tell me how they shower.

Eric: You wanna hear it?

Amanda: Oh I sure do.

Eric: So turns out, you might have wondered why the showers were not in the bathroom in the basement. Turns out that the showers are in the backyard, which is a walled-in stone space with several shower heads and a drain in the floor. Indoor showers dont really work for centaurs, and they tend to shower in groups since colt-hood because they cant reach most of their horse bodies by themselves.

Amanda: And I guess they don't have like a multiple shower-head, glass-enclosed, like rainfall showers.

Brandon: Not in a frat house you don’t.

Eric: Definitely not. In centaur culture, group showering ends once you're married and have a partner to shower with.

Amanda: Aw!

Eric: Though men and women separately will get together and shower for special occasions. It’s like a pubic baths sort of thing. I like that.

Amanda: I want to know so much about which special occasions merit a group shower. Is it like a bridal party? Is it like July 4th? Is it like quinceanera?

Michael: A bar mitzvah!

Eric: Bar mitzvahs [laughs] Oh god, so Ev put a lot of fun easter eggs about like centaur culture in this one, which I wasn't really able to explore. There’s also stuff about HORSE which I wasn't able to say. Do you want to know where they went on spring break?

Amanda: Yeah!

Brandon: Yes!

Eric: Kenkun.

[Amanda and Brandon laughing]

Michael: I just… I’m not happy.

Brandon: I’m so happy, that was so good.

Amanda: Ah, beautiful.

Eric: It’s extremely good. So that’s some of the other stuff here. Thank you to the patrons whose names that I used. I think it was Doug McHugh, Joe, Vanjor is one that we came up with, and Onion was-

Brandon: Oh “Onion” was something you came up with in your brain?

Eric: Onion was something Ev came up with. His nickname was Onion.

Michael: Oh my god.

Eric: So yeah, Joe-

Michael: Was it because he was so stinky, or, as Amanda said, many layers?

Brandon: Many layers.

Eric: He has many layers. Yeah, so thank you to Doug McHugh and Joe for lending your names.

Amanda: And for all two listeners that have not watched ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ this past season on Drag Race 10, there was this contestant where when they eliminate somebody they just like walk back up off the runway and then typically pause at the top of the runway to give a little wave or to you know, whatever, give a final pose. But the first person this season as she walked back up the runway, her name is Miss Vanjie and she went, [in sing-song voice] “Vanjie. Miss Vanjie. Vanjie.”

Eric: Hauntingly, as she left.

Brandon: Holy shit, did she murder anyone afterwards?

Amanda: No she just left. She’s apparently a lovely person.

Michael: That’s spooky.

Amanda: But it was instantly mimetic. Like people instantly turned it into a meme.

Brandon: No kidding.

Amanda: And then for the rest of the season, occasionally another judge would lean over and whisper in RuPaul’s ear, “Vanjie.” and she would cry off her make-up and need to stop filming.

Brandon: [shuddering] Oh god!

Eric: It was so funny.

Amanda: It’s excellent.

Brandon: Oh my god, I’m going to do that the next time I leave a job. Just go, “Brandon!”

Eric: I’m gonna do that as soon as I leave my current job. I’m gonna walk out and just be like, “Vanjie!”

Brandon: Why would you not say, “Eric”?

Eric: No, still Vanjie.

Brandon: “Silver.”

Amanda: And considering that Eric, Ev, and I have a ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ group watch live text thread, it made me very happy that that made it in.

Eric: It’s extremely good.

Brandon: That’s hilarious I love it.

Eric: I love this module. Do you guys want to hear the other stuff that could have happened to you in the bathroom?

Amanda: Yes!

Brandon: Absolutely I do.

Michael: That table is very good.

Amanda: Okay, so is a basilisk one of them or all of them?

Eric: It’s actually all of them, are basilisk.

Amanda: Oh good.

Brandon: At what point do the centaurs carry away-

Amanda: [gapss] What if the shadow is the true basilisk?... Mrs. Norris’ corpse?

Brandon: No, what is the name of the bad- the bad person in the fifth book.

Eric: Ludo Bagman.

Brandon: No, alright Schubes. No the bad lady from the Ministry that comes in.

Eric: Umbridge!

Amanda: Umbridge, yeah.

Michael: I’d take Umbridge with me.

Eric: Ahh… So if I had rolled a 1, nothing happens.

Amanda: Nice.

Eric: Which I did not roll. If I rolled a 2, you guys would have lost your footing and had to roll Dexterity saves. And then if you fail you would have fallen into a pile of poo.

Brandon: Oh my god, I would have died.

Eric: No, you would have been afflicted with filthiness, so while filthy you get disadvantage while cleaning, and then it could have been cured be Prestidigitation or by Tracey’s sudsy gun.

Amanda: This is so sweet. I love this idea so much.

Brandon: It’s such a good idea.

Eric: Okay, so for 4, what happened Inara had to cut herself out of her hazmat suit, but since it was the end of the fight we wanted to do something different, but if you vomited, you would have vomited back into the bathroom, and then the bathroom would have regained dirtiness health.

Amanda: Aw.

Eric: So I would have rolled 1d6 and gotten that back. If I rolled a 5, just being in the room is debilitating to the soul, and you have to roll charisma saving throws and you get 1d6 damage.

Michael: Snap out of it man.

Eric: Slap.

Amanda: This is such a good metaphor for depression and self care, you know, the difficulty of it but also the necessity of it.

Brandon: 2 and 3?

Eric: 2 I just read, 3 was existential dread, 4 you did, and then 6 was the Constitution saving throws.

Brandon: Got it.

Michael: Nice.

Eric: And yeah, I mean if there were other people in the room it could have went a little bit differently, but Tracey scared off Onion, and McHugh and Joe just did not care.

Brandon: I did think about blowing my help horn just to see if I could get any cleaning helpers, but I didn't think that would have worked [laughing]

Eric: Oh my god, no that would not have helped, believe me.

Michael: I have a question, is that help horn actually an item with any magical properties or is it just a horn? I’m asking Eric, not Brandon.

Eric: I did create a bunch of birds, so it does happen. Live show.

[Amanda laughing]

Brandon: No, it’s supposed to like gather your forces near you, but it’s only if you can hear it. It’s just a horn-

Michael: Okay.

Brandon: But it’s a very loud horn.

Michael: Okay, okay.

Eric: That Brandon loves to use at all times.

Brandon: Yeah.

Eric: Hey, Inara used a patch on her cloak!

Brandon: Bah-bah-bah!

Amanda: Oh my god.

Eric: Finally, this is from Arc 1!

Amanda: It is! I really wanted to save it for a situation where I thought we needed it. I almost did the door patch when we were in the cave trying to get toward the Bone Whale.

Eric: Yep.

Amanda: But ended up not needing it. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but it was bad enough that I was ready to do it, and it was very fun.

Brandon: Yeah, it was very fun.

Michael: Good call.

Brandon: Speaking of badness, what was the elemental thing we were fighting?

Eric: So this is actually a reskinned version of a new elemental in Tome of Foes. This is the air elemental Myrmidon. So this is like when magicians conjure elementals to inhabit suits of armor, and like they exist in it and it’s like a stronger version of the elementals from the ‘Monster Manual’. So I reflavored it as shadow and gave it susceptibility to radiant damage. But it had some pretty dope stats. I mean, it has a flail and there’s like an extra sort of like strike like a paladin Divine Smite.

Brandon: Oh.

Eric: So you got a bunch of extra shadow damage, but then I tried to recharge it, I couldn't recharge it.

Brandon: Gotcha.

Eric: So you just kind of got fucked up there in the beginning.

Brandon: Well I steadied myself from it.

Eric: Yeah, you fought off the frightened-ness which was good, and then you-

Brandon: And then I frightened myself.

Eric: And then you decided to be claustrophobic. And then Tracey’s claustrophobic [laughing]

Brandon: This is canon. Tracey is now claustrophobic.

Eric: There you go.

Amanda: Listen, it’s real. You don't have the ability to act and I think that makes a lot of sense.

Eric: Yeah, I do like that you were able to - you were still able to run away which I was able to-

Brandon: Only with Inara’s confidence in me.

Eric: Yeah. God, fucking Vanjor though coming up with that- picking the number.

Michael: That’s two nat-20s in a row for our DM.

Amanda: Incredible.

Eric: In a row! I don’t even- I’ve never rolled that well ever in my entire life.

Amanda: You know, we see lots of examples of our good rolls messing up your intentions for us. It was fun to see your own rolls messing up your intentions for yourself.

[Brandon laughing]

Eric: Yeah. That was on me. It was absolutely my fault.

Michael: And just poor Brandon with his rolling. I don't know, man.

Eric: I love the Sawbone.

Brandon: I thought-

Eric: This is like classic. I put this in your hands to see what would happen.

Brandon: It’s very good. I bought to new sets of dice, and I have one set that I was given at the live show, thank you, Sarah. And hate to say it, still roll badly. I think it’s a problem I have. Is there like a dice doctor I can go to?

Michael: I mean…

Amanda: I wouldn't ask Fish because he is apparently a purveyor of darkness.

Brandon: Yeah, Mister Darkness, what  were you thinking?!

Michael: Okay, well first on the dice thing, you are not treating your dice right just letting them lay on whatever number and just not caring about them. You’re causing your own bad rolls. That’s you.

Eric: Judgy.

Michael: Very judgy. And then the whole idea in my head is that Johnny is like really tired of just doing the one thing, and for a while he’s been playing around with the Shadow a bit, and believing a little more in the fact that there needs to be a balance. Just because there needs to be a balance doesn't mean it’s okay that right now it seems like there’s more Shadow in the world than Light, so cleanly Light needs to be spread. But a cool tool for times when you need to like dim the room a little bit would be nice, you know? Like a nice little lamp that acted like a dimmer.

Brandon: Let me read you the prophecy [laughing]

Michael: Yeah, “harbinger of darkness,” here’s the thing: Johnny has-

Brandon: “Bring a new era of night.”

Michael: Here’s the thing. Johnny has in his lantern and basically in his interactions, like- the Undying Light is not like the most friendly happy person, it’s Johnny interprets it that way, but there has to be a balance between the Light and Dark, because the Dark is manipulative, but the Light is manipulative in the way that all gods are when they are the good god, where they do nothing and just like hang out until you're like, “Hey do something. There’s bad stuff happening.” adn they’re just like, “Nah.” Hence why Johnny has to do stuff and meanwhile the Shadow is like “Ooh let’s do things.”

But the good news at least for me, I think I got something good out of it. The Shadow’s outside of the lantern now so I’m hopefully no longer going to have to roll to see if I mess up.

Brandon: [laughs] Eric is not speaking and -

Amanda: Slowly-

Brandon: Slowly shaking his head-

Amanda: -moving his head.

Eric: We’ll see, bud.

Michael: We’ll see. I was honestly just hoping that I would be able to get a second lantern and I would have two lanterns.

Brandon: So you could double fist lanterns?

Michael: One that I-

Amanda: Like pouding those Artificial Darknesses.

Michael: Like those Artificial Darknesses.

Amanda: Arty Darks!

Brandon: Arty Darks!

Michael: Very funny that that is the name I fully made up.

Amanda: I thought it was- isn’t that a spell, Artificial Darkness?

Michael: It’s just Darkness. It’s like Daylight.

Amanda: Oh okay, I thought it was like a spell. I was like “That’s a funny spell, oh wait. Natural Light.”

Michael: Natural Light, Natty Light, so Artificial Darkness.

Brandon: Arty Dark.

Michael: Arty Dark.

Amanda: Arty Dark’s a pretty good name for a frat bro.

Eric: Just in general.

Amanda: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, I wasn't gonna leave that candle alone, I was gonna do something. We were talking and it was like, “Maybe take the candle” and I’m like, “Eh that’ll activate the door to close probably. Let’s light it and see what happens.”

Brandon: I don't think Tracey is gonna be thrilled with the fact that you almost brought in a new era of darkness.

Michael: I don't think that would have-

Brandon: I don't think he’s gonna understand-

Amanda: I mean, we don’t know what the consequences are.

Michael: I don't think that would have like-

Brandon: No, but we read the prophecy.

Eric: I’m gonna read it again. The Retainer of the destroyer of stars-

Brandon: Capital R Retainer.

Eric: Capital R Retainer.

Michael: So that would be the Retainer being Alonzo because he’s destroying stars and we’re retained to him. Go on.

Eric: The one foretold to come.

Michael: I don't know, maybe the Book of Things to Come.

Amanda: Something in there.

Eric: The reader of all tongues.

Brandon: Johnny.

Michael: I can read.

Eric: The bearer of the cursed lamp, Johnny.

Michael: I have a lamp that’s cursed.

Eric: The wielder of light and darkness.

Amanda: Johnny.

Brandon: [at the same time] Johnny.

Michael: [at the same time] I do that.

Eric: Triumphant over the aged trials.

Michael: I guess because we did those trials just now.

Amanda: The labors.

Eric: This gift shall be yours.

Michael: Now there's no gift, which is rude honestly.

Brandon: It’s very rude.

Eric: To aid the harbinger of darkness.

Michael: So to help someone-

Brandon: The gift is to be able to aid the harbinger of darkness to…

Eric: Bring a new era of night.

Michael: And honestly that’s kind of what we’re doing. You see, Alonzo is turning off these stars, which means darkness. And I don't see anything wrong with like messing around with this. I wasn't gonna leave it alone.

Brandon: Oh, as a player I’m glad you did it. But as Tracey-

Eric: I mean, you could have.

Michael: No, absolutely not. Johnny was not gonna leave it alone. This has like clues to his while religion thing. He’s gonna mess with it.

Eric: Well now you don't have it, unfortunately.

Michael: Yeah that’s the unfortunate part.

Brandon: I think we’ll see next time.

Michael: Well it doesn't matter. It snuffed out, and with it, hopefully the Shadow that pisses me off.

Eric: Who’s to say? Who’s to say? Who can say?

Brandon: You sound like Ze’ol every time you say that.

Eric: Who can say? I don’t know. Who knows. Who can say?

Well I’m glad we have another prophecy moving it a little bit forward and everyone out there, adn everyone in here, you guys can just think about what can happen next.

Amanda: Well, I guess we'll see what is to come on this front, but now let’s go to some questions.

Eric: This is a really interesting one. I haven't thought about this in a really long time. This one’s from Erin. “I’ve got an oddly specific question. What made you guys decide on a d8 as part of your logo? Was it the most aesthetically pleasing polyhedron for you? Or is there more to it than that?”

Amanda: Great question, Erin. So our very, very talented designer Allyson Wakeman.

Eric: Art mom! Art mom!

Brandon: Whaddup!

Amanda: Multitude Art Mom. She’s on Twitter @allysonkate. She’s outstanding and her credits are in every episode if you want to go look her up. But she came up with lots of different options for our logo. One of them was more traditional like overhead shot of a table with like cards and dice and peoples hands and definitely the sort of friends sitting around a table version.

Brandon: You might say it’s friends at a table.

Amanda: Oh damn, oh that was taken. Guys, you should - we spent so many hours trying to think of a name for this podcast. Every single D&D pun was taken. Every single one. And it was creative producer Connor McLoughlin-

Brandon: Connor!

Amanda: Who ended up coming up with the phrase “Join the Party” which I love. But Allyson, her initial formulation of this logo had a different dice.

Brandon: It’s a d20.

Amanda: d12, or d20 yeah. And I wanted it to be like an easter egg for people who know what a d8 lokos like so they can look at the thing and be like, “Oh my god, wait, is that- Oh my god, D&D,” but not something that people who aren't already RPG nerds would look at and be like “Nah that’s kinda not for me.”

Our whole thing is inviting new people into the show, so it kind of looks like an atom, it kind of looks like a universe, you know, it’s an interesting and pleasing shape, but if you're in the know, you know what’s there.

Brandon: Yeah, we had a lot of creative discussions around every little point in the beginning of this pre-production, because we wanted to find that balance between welcoming longtime D&Ders, not excluding them, but also a lot of the scariness for new people with D&D comes from the fact that you don't know the glossary, you don't know the vocabulary, you don't know the imagery, the inside jokes kind of thing. So we wanted to make sure we weren't perpetuating the stereotype stuff.

Eric: Yeah. There’s two cues when youre looking at the art of the podcast. The first is a picture of a d20 and the other one is a pun using the phrase, “Dungeons and Dragons” or “Critical.”

Brandon: Right.

Eric: So we wanted to try to move away from both of those things while still referencing it. I mean, “party” is something a little bit to the side, and the d8 is a little bit to the side.

Brandon: And I think it also matches our aesthetic, like we are a story-first podcast, like if it didn’t have this specific rule system it would still function almost perfectly as well. It’s a nod to D&D and that’s what we do, we sort of nod to D&D but we do our own thing. We straddle a lot of different genre lines and sort of follows our personal aesthetic.

Amanda: Yeah, I mean that’s how we describe the show is an audio drama told through the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. So that’s why I like that the dice are orbiting something bigger in our logo. And I like that it’s pink. I like that our colors are not traditionally masculine and they are not traditionally the Wizards of the Coast black and red. Allyson heard us talk about all this stuff and she transformed it into some really compelling choices. We should go back and look at the old ones. We were all really torn. We didn't know which one to decide.

Brandon: They’re still in there, I go in occasionally.

Michael: They're very good.

Amanda: Oh yeah, I hung them up at my desk and work and just looked at them for two weeks before we decided on one.

Brandon: That’s what we did too!

Amanda:  Aw, adorable. Brandon and Eric used to work together. Sweet.

Brandon: I also like- my favorite thing about the logo has always been the background texture.

Eric: Oh yeah, yes, yes, yes.

Brandon: It’s almost like- it has this texture to it that’s almost like distressed, vintage, destroyed, and it sort of gives a bit of darkness ot the logo that I always find appealing. It’s like ‘Join the Party’ bright, vibrant, we’re gonna have this fun game, but there’s also this little bit-

Amanda: Oh, but wait!

Brandon: Something behind it.

Eric: And it’s like destroyed text too.

Brandon: Yeah.

Michael: I’ve always tried reading it because there’s some versions of like the banner that you can get into and kind of look, zoom into and try to read it. I still have no idea what it says.

[Amanda laughs]

Brandon: I think our transcriber, Nicolle, texted me the letters the other day and was trying to figure out what the anagram was. It was good.

[all laugh]

Thanks Allyson.

Eric: Art mom, we couldn't do it without you!

Brandon: Literally.

Amanda: Art mom, can I stay up ‘till 10?

Michael: Art mom would say yes.

Brandon: Art mom, can I have Gushers?

[Amanda laughs]

My mom wouldn't let me have gushers.

Amanda: Mine either. Gushers kind of look like dice.

Brandon: They do!

Amanda: Cronch.

[Brandon laughs]

Brandon: If you put a dice between two gushers, it’s a conch sandwich.

Amanda: Ooh!

[Michael cringes]

Eric: That’s dangerous. That’s just scary. Do you guys want to hear another question?

All: Yes.

Eric: This one is from Sally. Hi, Sally! You’re great on Twitter and on our Discord.

Brandon: Hi Sally!

Amanda: Hi!

Eric: Question for the whole gang: what are your top three ability scores and what are their values. Do you have any dump stats?

Brandon: Here’s- I have an idea to twist this around.

Amanda: Yes.

Brandon: We have to score the other people.

Amanda: Okay, I think Fish, high Charisma, walk into a party, oh wait, where’s Fish? In the middle, talking to everybody. It’s great.

Brandon: He’s on a stage? Where did he get a spotlight? Why is there a banjo?

Amanda: Why is tehre a microphone?

Eric: A microphone came down from the ceiling, it’s like an old boxing announcer.

Brandon: How did he get such a big poof in his hair?

Amanda: Rips his shirt off, there’s a tux underneath. Whoa!

Michael: But it’s not showing enough chest hair.

Brandon: And then he rips his tux off and there’s an owl onesie-

Eric: He rips his tux off-

Amanda: Yes, yes.

[all chuckle]

Brandon: Amanda has very high Wisdom and Intelligence.

Eric: And I agree with high Survival. There is no one more prepared than Amanda in any situation.

Michael: Yeah, I feel like she’s just always-

Amanda: I have a phone charger, you need one?

Eric: You have a Bag of Holding- you have a real Bag of Holding.

Amanda: I do.

Eric: You have a backpack that is not- that should not carry nearly as much as it does.

Amanda: I’m good at packing. Like Hufflepuffs are good at finding, Gryffin-claws are good at packing.

[Brandon laughs]

Eric: That’s the correct answer.

Amanda: I think Brandon has high Insight. You’re a very good listener and a good asker of questions and when I have a quandary, you're one of the people I go to.

Eric: You always know when I’m lying. I’m also a bad-

Brandon: The trick is oyure always lying.

Eric: Yeah I’m always lying.

Michael: And I would give you high Intelligence as well.

Brandon: Thank you.

Michael: Actually, maybe it would be Profession-

Brandon: You can just say Arcana.

Michael: Is audio editing Arcana?

Eric: I think so.

Amanda: I think it must be.

Eric: Audio mixing is the seventh magic type.

Brandon: Well you don't go to school for it, it’s like a ritual you have to-

Amanda: You channel it.

Eric: You’re an audio sorcerer, yeah. You and Mischa are both audio sorcerers.

Brandon: We had to give up a little piece of our soul, but it’s worth it.

Michael: Well so then you’re a warlock, yeah.

Amanda: Don’t worry about it.

Brandon: Yeah.

Michael: Demonic, yeah. It’s fine.

Brandon: Yeah.

Amanda: I think Eric’s high Persuasion also. No one can get a person excited about a thing like Eric can.

Eric: Hey, this one comes from Katie who is our Discord mod. Hi, Katie!

Brandon: Hi Katie!

Amanda: Hi!

Michael: Hello!

Eric: “I’ve got a heckin’ After Party question for y’all. Is there any way we could bribe you all to do a couple bonus episode where Amanda and Brandon and Fish take turns as the DM. Eric, I love you forever, but I think these could be very fun bonuses and I would love to hear you in any player capacity.”

Yeah, guys!

Brandon: Here’s where I’m scared.

Eric: Yeah guys!

Amanda: Tell me.

Brandon: I’ve now played with Eric as a player character many times…

Eric: Oh come on, I cant believe you actually believe this.

Brandon: HIs characters are…

Eric: Extremely good?

Brandon: Bold.

Eric: Extremely good and good for role playing?

Michael: Divisive. I think divisive is a good word.

Eric: You are just referencing fuckin’ Video James.

Brandon: No, not even Video James. They are hard to wrangle is what I’ll say.

Michael: You’re Cool Ranch Doritos Locos tacos. You’re bold flavor and you have a crunch that just can’t be missed.

[all laughing]

Eric: I think it’s wild that you two are saying this to me.

Brandon: The only reason we’re saying it is because I’m scared as a DM, not because they're bad.

Amanda: I’m not scared. Bring it on. As a DM, you are the master of the universe and I am ready for that kind of responsibility and power. Sounds like a great Patreon goal. I don't know, maybe if we hit our current one that could be in the cards.

Brandon: Maybe!

Eric: There are some holidays coming up, we could definitely do that.

Amanda: Yeah.

Eric: I would love to be a player character. Please, let’s do this.

Michael: I want to see Amanda DM.

Eric: I want to see Amanda DM very badly.

Brandon: I do too. Alright, y’all, before we go onto the next trial, let’s-

Eric: The final trial!

Brandon: The final trial.

Eric: [in deep announcer voice] The final labor.

Michael: It’s the labyrinth, right?

Eric: The Labyrinth of Dawnrise.

Amanda: Oh no.

Brandon: Let’s do a check in. Where are we? Where’s your health? Where’s your spell slots?

Amanda: Where are you, my friend?

Brandon: I am at 19 hit points.

Amanda: Oops.

Eric: He had 18 before, but now he’s up 1.

Michael: What’s your max?

Brandon: 81.

Michael: There you go. Yeah you want to give the like out of so that you feel the oomph. Because 19 ain’t bad really.

Brandon: This is terrible.

Michael: No it’s not.

Brandon: So I do have Rage which effectively doubles it if I need to, but I also have a health potion which can give me 10 hit points back, and I have the Sawbone which I can use once per day or once per encounter or whatever it is.

Eric: Yeah, once per encounter.

Brandon: So I’m gonna heal myself up before we go, but yeah I’m a little worried. I have no spell slots.

Amanda: Yikes. I am only down a little bit. I have 45 out of 56.

Brandon: Oh good, I’ll put you in front of me.

Amanda: But I also have a 10HP health potion that I’m happy to give to you if need be. If it works. I hope it works.

Brandon: Yeah, what if it’s a trick potion.

Eric: No, it's a real potion.

Michael: These are just-

Amanda: Werewolves!

Michael: Oh god.

Brandon: I turn into a werewolf raccoon!

Michael: I have a lot of Artificial Darkness beer.

Brandon: Does that-

Amanda: How many hit points, bud?

Michael: Oh sorry, I’m at 24 out of 70.

Brandon: Ooh.

Amanda: Okay.

Michael: Getting closer to that Searing Vengeance time. And then spell slots, I used one of my Level 1d which leaves me with three. I still have a Level 2 and a Level 3.

Eric: Cool.

Michael: Which the Level 3 I can only do Daylight in.

Brandon: How’s Derek?

Eric: Derek’s doing good. He has Level 12 spells? Weird, so weird. And he’s looking fine. Infinity HP.

Brandon: Wow.

Eric: He’s really OP.

Brandon: I hate Derek.

Michael: Yeah, Derek really works hard to make us not like him.

Eric: Yeah. Derek’s in my own- he’s in my other game. My other podcast. It’s called…

Brandon: “My other D&D podcast.”

Eric: Yeah, that's what it’s called. “My other D&D Podcast.”

Brandon: Well looks like I’m the worst off here, I think Tracey’s going to be not leading the charge anymore.

Amanda: We’ll see what happens.

Brandon: We’ll figure it out.

Michael: Just axe yourself. Axe yourself.

Brandon: I think this After Party’s over.

Michael: I think we should axe ourselves if this After Party’s over.

Eric: Fish, you don't have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

[all laugh]

Michael: I don't know why you're asking me to leave.

Amanda: Thank you for joining us for another AFter Party. If you want the chance for your name to be featured as, I don't know, a centaur bro or maybe a, you know, suit of armor that is deconstructed but then is illuminated by forces of light and/or darkness, you can do that! You can join us as a supporter on Patreon.

Brandon: Oh wait really? I’m gonna go do that right now, hang on.

Amanda: Oh yeah no it’s great and I don't know why else your name would be included in the podcast at all, but this is theway that you can get a chance to enter our NPC lottery and have your name featured as an NPC. There’s also NPC backstories that Eric writes for every dang episode. Whenever we play I sort of in theback of my mind think, “Oh man I wonder whose story we’re gonna hear.” So it is a really lovely benefit, as well as of course, membership to our Discord. So if you are a aptron already, consider upgrading for even more perks including getting our episodes a whole day or more early. You get to discuss it in a special spoiler party legend channel, and of course there is a chance to get physical stuff from us in themail. We love selecting these things for our VIP level patrons, adn it is super, super fun to do. That is all at patreon.com/jointhepartypod.

Eric: Dang, our Patreon sounds so good. I wanna support my favorite creators. Yeah.

Amanda: Listen, straight up, we’ve been doing this for more than a year. This is our, what, fifth story arc? Sixth? ANd it is so fun, it’s also so much work. And your support is what allows us to keep going, to keep being excited, to keep leveling up the show, oding new merch, doing live shows, doing all kinds of extras, and we really truly appreciate as much or as little as you can give. A dollar an episode, or if that’s not possible for you, it’s also super helpful to recommend the show to your friends. We are @jointhepartypod on Twitter and on Instagram, so you can tag us recommending to a friend or just text them and be like, “Hey look this is an awesome podcast!” We have recaps available for previous episodes if they don't want to listen to the whole thing, though I don't know why people wouldn't. But that’s at jointhepartypod.com/recap. That’s a great URL to pass along to people who are about to start the show.

I think that is about all for now. Say bye, boys.

Brandon: Bye!

Eric: See you later.

Michael: Undying Shadow be with you.

Brandon: Oh no.

Eric: Ah! It’s different now! Ahhhh!

Amanda: [singing theme song] bah-bah-bah-bah

[theme music]