We’re not getting out of the pregame without a worldbuilding game episode! Taking inspiration from some of our favorite videogames, we’re building a base (and raising crops while contemplating the cosmic horror of a Goofy-Pluto situation). Let’s start a skill tree and come up with some stuff!
Play This Is What My Camp Is Like at your own table as one of the Three Short Games to Build Stories, only at the JTP merch store!
Dive into the Traditions mechanics, the countries of Verda Stello, the classes from Mage Hand Press, and other changes we’ve made for C3 HERE!
Upcoming Schedule
- February 21: C3 Introduction Afterparty
- February 28: Story episode 1!!
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Cast & Crew
- Game Master, Co-Producer: Eric Silver
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Brandon Grugle
- Co-Host, Co-Producer, Editor: Julia Schifini
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Amanda McLoughlin
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Join the Party is an actual play podcast with tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling, and collaborators who make each other laugh each week. We welcome everyone to the table, from longtime players to folks who’ve never touched a roleplaying game before. Hop into our current campaign, a pirate story set in a world of plant- and bug-folk, or marathon our completed stories with the Camp-Paign, a MOTW game set in a weird summer camp, Campaign 2 for a modern superhero game, and Campaign 1 for a high fantasy story. And once a month we release the Afterparty, where we answer your questions about the show and how we play the game. New episodes every Tuesday.
Transcript
Eric: Everyone welcome to our first episode of Campaign Three. You know this is pirate themed, so I have a One-Shot where we’re, we all have to avoid the Wellerman. I'm going to send you all characters. Julia, you're going to be sugar.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: Brandon, you're going to be tea, and Amanda you're going to be rum.
Amanda: Nice.
Eric: And one day when the tonguing is done, we can take our leave and go.
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: That's true.
Eric: Yeah. And now we're famous on Tiktok. We did it.
Julia: Isn't that song all about how like Capitalism is bad and mistreats workers?
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Aren't all songs, Julia?
Julia: Well, sometimes, not always.
Eric: Brandon, Let's Hear It for the Boy, is about hearing it for the boy.
Brandon: It's Raining Men is famously about uh– men is a metaphor for money and how everyone should just have money as opposed to working. Like sure the government should shower men upon us, is what I've always said.
Eric: That's pretty good.
Julia: Listen, Brandon, not every song is the quintessential Dolly Parton 9 to 5. Okay? And that's okay. That's okay. We can't all have songs that are just so blatantly obviously critical about the workplace environment.
Eric: Yeah. Jolene is about a bad manager though.
Julia: That's true.
Brandon: That's true.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I regret making this joke.
Eric: Amanda, I thought that It's Raining Men is about how you can't have too little unemployment, it's actually bad for the economy. So you're filling all of the jobs but now that there's all this man being rained down?
Amanda: That is actually just a lie perpetrated by Reaganomics, which is actually what Purple Rain is about.
Eric: Oh, okay.
Amanda: Where it is, it is all just a metaphor for Reaganomics. Yeah.
Eric: Got it.
Julia: It's Reaganomicsing Men.
Amanda: Hmm.
Brandon: It was weird when our GIs came back from World War Two singing It's Raining Men, and they were– as they were kicking the women out of the factories, but—
Amanda: Hmm. Hmm.
Brandon: You know, it was– it's an anthem.
Julia: This simply can't be in the episode.
Eric: American Idiot is about being an American Idiot though.
Amanda: Allentown. That's my safe word, guys. Yeah, yeah, I'm safe.
Eric: No, I'm good. And The Downeaster ‘Alexa’ was about a ship in a storm.
Amanda: There you go!
Eric: There it is, which we're going to be actually talking about today because we're doing a Worldbuilding Base Building episode.
Amanda: Yay!
Brandon: Just call me Minecraft Steve, baby!
Eric: Because you're?
Brandon: I don't know anything else about Minecraft, Eric. I'm so sorry.
Eric: No, I thought you were gonna say just call me Minecraft Steve because I'm–
Amanda: Just say Brandon because your head's a cube. Say it's because your head’s a cube.
Brandon: Because my head is a cube.
Eric: That's pretty good.
Amanda: There you go. Now we're famous on Tiktok.
Eric: I thought you were– I thought you were gonna finish the couplet there.
Brandon: No, I was just saying call me– call me Minecraft Steve, because I'm ready to Base Build.
Eric: No, that's what I was looking for. That's exact— that's what I was looking at.
Brandon: Okay, okay.
Julia: Oh god, what's happening?
Brandon: I thought the end was implied. Let's just reverse that.
Eric: I just wanted you to say. No, it was good. It was good. The thing you said, that was correct. Okay. So what we're playing is we're playing the same game that we did when we started the Camp-Paign. I have now fully developed that game and I've called it, This Is What My Camp Is Like, a world-building game for small places with big questions. You can find that in the Worldbuilding Pack, which is at the Join the Party merch store, called Three Short Games To Build Stories.
Brandon: What's that URL, Eric?
Eric: jointhepartypod.com/merch/ [mumbles]
Amanda: You can filter by digital items. Wow.
Eric: Yeah. Filter by digital items. You can buy all this stuff. You can buy the Monster Mash as well. If you need stuff for your Monster of the Week Campaign. But we're playing this modified version of Dungeons & Dragons that I've put together. Like it was once a dragon, but then I like tessallized it, and now it's a crystal dragon and it’s the Fire-type
Julia: Tight.
Amanda: Sorry Eric, I don't recognize any animals except crabs. So can you– we work that as a crab for me?
Eric: Sure. It's like if Dungeons and Dragons, it was a dragon, but then through carcinization or that, that process where everything becomes a crab through evolution, it turns into a crab. Everyone was doing crab, crab claws the whole time. Thank you so much. Awesome. So you know, we've run this for a Monster of the Week game. But I think this works as long as you're building a relatively small space that you're starting out in and you want to make sure that that's fleshed out. That's why you use the game, This Is What My Camp Is Like. Again, I want to give a special shout-out to Caro Asercion who wrote, “I'm sorry, did you say street magic?” Which is a very good World Building Game with incredible title. And as always The Quiet Year by Avery Alder, The Based God of World Building Games.
Brandon: The Base-Building God, Eric.
Eric: That's sure The Base-Building God. Call them Minecraft Steve.
Julia: Why?
Eric: Because they're always building bases.
Brandon: Continue.
Julia: Ohh!
Eric: Yes, I said, yes. I said it. I saw—I saw the thing. It's like I gave Brandon an alley-oop and instead he took out a gun and shot the ball.
Julia: Checks out, make sense.
Eric: And then he said it's Fortnite and ran away.
Amanda: Can I say a complete non sequitur?
Eric: Yeah, go ahead.
Amanda: I learned yesterday that there is a genre of desserts called The Next Best Thing to Robert Redford.
Brandon: What?!
Julia: What?!
Amanda: Which was just like– yeah, Robert Redford liked a certain chocolate cake. And so there was like a similar like icebox cake kind of situation.
Eric: Sure.
Amanda: And it was just called like The Next Best Thing to Robert Redford. And then the New York Times published a version of this recipe, and everyone was like, this is just Robert Redford. Everyone's like, what? And then had to figure out what that meant. Anyway, so The Next Best Thing is to Harrison Ford, it’s what Brandon just did.
Brandon: Holy shit, Amanda, there is a real thing called Next Best Thing to Robert Redford.
Amanda: That's right. 20th-century femininity was oppressed.
Eric: The only way to express yourself, is through the title of your recipes.
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: Hey, do you want to play this game?
Brandon: I do!
Amanda: Yay!
Eric: Cool, cool, cool. So as you might remember before, we're going to come up with some adjectives, we're going to think of some big picture stuff, then we're going to answer some questions that I'm going to write here on the sheet. We're going to review the questions at the end where you– we're going to use this as like a jumping-off point for the base. Your island Pirate Cove thing that we're going to start off. Because again, we're you know, we're probably going to touch on this about how this campaign is going to function as compared to like straight-up fantasy stories or straight-up Dungeons & Dragons games, but you know, there is going to be more of an element of like going out and coming back. Because I also do want there to be a base-building element, because I was very inspired by the recent like, push of what would you call like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley? Like farming-building games?
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: And also like Cult of the Lamb as I've talked about before, has kind of like pushed smoosh the two together, but really sure did just smooshed to things that were fully formed, that don't really mix well together, like anchovies and peanut butter.
Brandon: So you've had that Robert Redford dessert then before, Eric?
Eric: The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford, peanut butter and anchovies, yeah.
Brandon: Anchovies, yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Thinking about it, I'm sure that’d actually be pretty good.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Anchovies and peanut butter?
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Are we talking about like, anchovy paste and peanut butter? Because like–
Eric: No.
Julia: –eating like a full anchovy dipped in peanut butter, not so much. But like, anchovy paste in peanut butter.
Amanda: Not dip like on– on a chunky toast. Chunky toast, like a natural nut butter. Anchovies, like flaky salt. I think that would be pretty good.
Julia: I also feel like they tried that in Food Wars.
Eric: Yeah, they did.
Amanda: Probably.
Eric: Yeah. No, I'm talking about the special island nation where they call bananas, anchovies.
Julia: Ahh. Okay.
Eric: That's why I got confused. It's a regionalism, sorry.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: So we're gonna run this Dungeons & Dragons game, which is going to be Campaign 3 with a Pirate Island and base. But I would love to have a conversation about our experiences with Secret Bases, or Home Bases, either from personal experience or pop culture. You know if anyone has like a clubhouse, or a treehouse, or a basement that you had as a kid, but of course, there's plenty of secret layers from pop culture that you're— you might be interested in, like ones from comic books, like the Sanctum Santorum, and the Batcave, or, you know, people living on a ship, we can also talk about, like, whether it's a spaceship, or a pirate ship, or Amanda, I mean, feel free to talk about these town building games that you love so much. But yeah, how do you all feel about Home Bases in your life and in pop culture?
Julia: So I grew up in a summer community that I feel like we talked a bit about in the world-building for the Camp Paign. And one of the things that I truly loved about that was, it was in the middle of the woods. So there was just like different parts of it that were just like we made secret bases in the woods in random places. And my favorite, the one that I remember the most, was just there was a huge thing of hedges that separated the camp property from the like property next door, which was an old military academy, and–
Brandon: Cool.
Julia: –you could like duck into those hedges and they kind of opened up in the middle the way that the hedges were formed, and so we just created a base there. People would like throw out chairs and stuff, and we would just drag them behind our bikes into the hedge and—
Eric: Hell yeah.
Julia: —my favorite part was I remember being the quote-unquote “lookout” because I was the smallest, so I could climb up into the top of branches of the hedges and watch people approach from the field on either side, and that's what I think of.
Brandon: That's so cute.
Eric: Julia, can you tell us what voice you might use when you were being a lookout, and what's something you might say if you if you saw someone trespass?
Julia: Yeah, it sounded like my voice, but pitched up a little bit more.
Eric (as Lookout Julia): [high pitched voice] Ayo, boss watch out, adults are coming.
Julia (as Lookout Julia): [high pitched small voice] There’s people coming.
Amanda (as a Newsie): Paps, get your paps here!
Eric: No, Amanda. Amanda, Julia was not a newsie.
Amanda: Was, was she?
Julia: Amanda would know if I was newsie or not, out of all of us here.
Amanda: My memories of Julia as a child are bangs with like chin lane pair, dusty, knobbly knees. Kind of a newsie!
Julia: That's true. If you had any newspaper and a pageboy hat, I would have been a newsie.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: That's fair. It's really just the aesthetic.
Amanda: Julia, it reminds me– my memories are in Lake Placid which at least I base a lot of my suggestions for Laketown City on in the Adirondack. Were in the wintertime, my next younger sibling, CC, and I, there were two huge like blue spruce kind of Evergreen trees that grew on the hill behind my grandparents' house. And they were planted too close together because they were like 40 feet tall, and basically parallel like they were really smooshed together. That was the hill where we did most of our sledding. And so at the top of the hill where we would sled down, these two trees came together and the undergrowth was cleared away, so we could go under the trees and really sit like with each of our backs against the two trunks facing each other. And because it was sheltered, there was really no snow there, so there would be snow all around it. It will get weirdly warm because the snow helps insulate like that's why igloos work. And so it was just pine needles on the ground, snow kind of all around, it was so quiet and our parents couldn't see us. So we would go up there and I would make like a little shelf for our like juice boxes. We would have some snacks up there, we would take our mittens off and our hats, and just you know play our– our Gameboy Colors or read, or do whatever it is we would do. And then when we wanted to leave, we would just sled out the door, down and then if you position the track right, you can slide right onto my grandparent's front porch.
Julia: Incredible.
Eric: Oh, that's tight as hell.
Amanda: Hmm.
Brandon: That's awesome. I love that.
Eric: I think I ma– a really big thing of a secret base is how you enter and exit.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Pretty huge. I mean, that's half the fun of the Batcave, because it's definitely not the brooding billionaire sitting in the dark with some bats.
Julia: I thought it was a giant penny.
Eric: Yes, Julia, it was the giant penny. I like the little– I like the little puppet that's in a box. That's my favorite part.
Amanda: A secondary memory. Julia, remember that kid– I brought this up before, who went to elementary school with us? Who had like an attic, Jessica C.?
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah, so she had like a ductwork crawlspace in her parent's attic. There was like a skinny set of stairs maybe or it was like one of those panels in the room like under the eaves where you could like slide it open and then like go into the crawlspace. And she had like blankets and pillows up there, and people had like written on the 2x4s that framed out the space and I was so jealous. And when her family moved, I was mad because I was like, I was counting on that space. I was gonna go back to that space again and again. And that's fucking other family lives there like I'm so mad.
Julia: Yeah, yeah. I get it.
Eric: I was gonna write my name and-- that says Amanda was here.
Amanda: Yeah, Amanda M. at that.
Eric: Oh Amanda M. was here
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: You need to specify.
Eric: There's so many Amanda’s, you gotta make someone know who.
Julia: There's so many Brittney's, there's so many Amanda's, there's so many Jessica's.
Amanda: Five of us in high school.
Julia: I know.
Amanda: Get out of here.
Brandon: You had five Amanda's in High School?
Julia: In like our one class.
Amanda: In my Drama Program.
Brandon: Oh my god.
Amanda: That's a 3% Amanda rate. 3% of our Drama Program was named Amanda.
Brandon: That's too many.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. Things have been really changing in this country. Affirmative action is letting in 3% of all Amandas per grade.
Julia: Oh my God!
Amanda: Oh boy. Oh boy.
Eric: I will say that in one, in like my second grade, there were three Eric’s in the same class.
Amanda: Oh.
Eric: Like 3 out of 20 students were named Eric, which is also a high percentage.
Julia: Too many.
Eric: But in my graduating high school class, there were three Silver's, and me and my twin brother, were only two of them. Which is very odd. His name was Harrison and my brother's name is Tyler. So my mom was very clear to be like, hey, can you not put not my child in between my two children in the yearbook? So it went me, Tyler, then Harrison.
Brandon: That's incredible.
Julia: Make sense.
Brandon: I only had one other Brandon in all of my grade school years, and he was a big fucking nerd. So–
Julia: So, do you had two nerdy Brandons?
Brandon: Uh-huh, exactly.
Amanda: Hey Eric, 3 out of 20 is a 15% rate of Erics in your class.
Eric: That's a lot of Eric.
Amanda: That's a lot.
Eric: That's a lot of Eric. Hell yeah. Brandon, what do you think about secret bases?
Brandon: I– I think they're dope as hell. We had a like travel trailer thing, not like a full RV because it didn't have like an engine, but like a one you like drag behind a car or whatever?
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: So we still go camping a lot in it, and we still go to a place called Dinosaur Valley State Park, which is in Glen Rose or near Glen Rose, Texas. Not so far outside of Dallas. But it's really cool, because there are like, literally preserved dinosaur footprints.
Julia: That's cool as hell.
Brandon: In this place that you can see. It's really cool.
Amanda: Gosh.
Brandon: But we– yeah, we stay in the forest, obviously around there. And we– I don't know where the name came from. But me and my siblings, like, quote-unquote, “Built a Base” you know, in the forest. And it was called Mighty Cry, and I don't know why. But yeah, that was our base.
Eric: That's cool.
Brandon: And I've just also looked up Dinosaur Valley to get some facts, or like to figure out where it was and everything. And it apparently I didn't notice, but there was a controversy, where they found quote-unquote, “twin sets of tracks.” And some people thought this was thought to be evidence that humans and nonavian dinosaurs lived at the same time.
Amanda: I bet they did.
Eric: Well, Brandon, was there only one set of tracks because Jesus was carrying a dinosaur?
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Oh, Eric, that’s it. Jesus was carrying the people, while the dinosaurs made the footprints the whole time.
Eric: Right. Oh okay, right.
Brandon: Jesus was carrying the dinosaurs and the people, but Jesus has Dinosaur feet so.
Eric: Oh, he was wearing like those soc—those shoes that made it look like he had dinosaur feet?
Brandon: No, no, he just has dinosaur feet. He's a fucking biblical Angel, Eric.
Eric: Oh, true. Yeah, yeah.
Amanda: True. That's true.
Eric: Damn, you get so much by being the Son of God, such Nepotism. I didn't really have that many secret bases as a kid. Again, I spent a lot of my like formative years just kind of like outside with my brother. The majority of the time we were out either like my mom's house or my dad's house, which like, after they divorced like we were just in two condos. So we kind of just like had our own room. Like where Tyler would play like Maplestory, like a South Korean RPG that he got really into, or we’d play Guild Wars 2. And we spent like a lot of time in like the top floor of my dad's house, which basically like we spent all the time when we were over at his place. And I was like, I was at summer camp. So I didn't really have as many secret bases because I was just like, rambling around with some other boys. But like, I did look up a bunch of like secret bases that I thought were really cool. And that I was trying to remember from pop culture. Do you remember the tree house from Kids Next Door? That one cartoon–
Amanda: Of course.
Eric: On Cartoon Network?
Julia: Hell yeah, dawg.
Brandon: Yes.
Eric: And we've talked about this before with Swiss Family Robinson when we were mentioning it?
Amanda: Oh gosh, yeah.
Brandon: Oh, yeah!
Eric: For the Camp Paign, but I really liked fucking big goddamn tree houses.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: I think they’re really cool. And I like when they're bursting, I think they're really– that's really funny. You like threw an entire complex in a tree.
Amanda: Yeah, I was obsessed with The Swiss Family Robinson, because like mine, there were a lot of kids and they cared about carpentry, and they made the sickest Treehouse of all time. And I love that book. I'm sure looking back there are some Imperialist just overt agendas, but good god that book was fun.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: As a child in Disney World, I loved going and playing in the Swiss Family Robinson attraction thing. As an adult, I'm not allowed to without a child.
Amanda: Oh no!
Eric: Fair
Brandon: Very sad.
Eric: Fair.
Amanda: You got to get your niece up. You gotta go.
Brandon: I know.
Eric: I also started thinking about like ships where people live and all that stuff, like from Battlestar Galactica, or the Starship Enterprise, of course. Or, I mean, a big inspiration for this campaign is One Piece for me. So like, just the changing of this giant pirate ship, and like, you don't really see necessarily where people live in One Piece, but like, again, it's a thing where you can just like shove as much stuff as possible. Like they had orange trees growing on the– on the ship, which I always thought was really funny. And like a massive kitchen where like the cook could do all this stuff. So I always thought that was really funny.
Brandon: Well you gotta avoid scurvy, Eric.
Eric: I know. But it was like they were like growing on the ship. It was way too much space, for how little space they had, it was very funny.
Amanda: That reminds me more generally of just like seeing a character's room on TV, like saying that makes me think of characters like in the Gilmore Girls or in Sex and the City. You know, places where you can see costumes from previous episodes. You can see their hangers.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: You can see you know, just like their water glasses and tissues and like just the various signs of like a lived in place, I always find so endearing. And that really stuck out to me as a kid reading like British novels also of any you know, boarding school with a common room, or anybody like decorating you know, their-- as I remember as a kid I was obsessed with dorm room decor, and I would sometimes seeing like a magazine or whatever, like decorate your dorm room with like, you know, whatever. And I was like God, like the fantasy of just having a space to decorate on my own was so strong.
Brandon: I thought dorm room decor was just Scarface posters? Was there more to it than that?
Eric: No, Brandon, you're right. And there was that poster of those two women kissing in black and white? Yeah, no, Brandon's correct.
Amanda: I had the Fight Club soap.
Eric: Brandon's Correct. Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: For me, because I'm the resident comic book nerd, I always really loved the idea of like, the X-Mansion–
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: –for the X-Men, because one, not only was it like, the whole team lived there and worked there, which is fucking wild in and of itself. But also, it's a school. So you just have chaotic people with superpowers constantly creating chaos in this so-called, “base” all the time. And I just love the mechanics of chaos that kind of surround that. And like, the idea that anything can happen while at this base.
Eric: I was also thinking about the various X-Men cartoons that have existed, like there was the one, the relatively newer one when we were kids, mid-2000s illustration.
Julia: X-Men: Evolution.
Eric: Yeah, that one and like, where it's a lot of teens figuring their stuff out. And Beast is very much a professor, which is always very funny. And like the plot of so many of those episodes is like, wow, one of them can't control their powers and did a bad thing at the school.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: They gotta figure it out. And I think there's like the episodic nature of some of those where it's like, yeah, let's go figure it out. Let's go do this. I think only works when yeah, your– your job or your– your main purpose and your home are one in the same, which I think is– is a lot of what we're touching on here.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: So I just liked the idea of the small amounts of choice you get in a lot of these video games, to control for the way you want to play. I'm really interested in you know, being able to choose how something looks. And there isn’t like a mechanical thing of that per se, but it is like, you know, the story moves forward as demonstrated by how you build things, is quite interesting to me. And I've really only seen this started to get mashed up with Cult of the Lamb. For those of you haven't played, you're lamb who needs to do basically like a town-building game at the same time as like a Hades-style roguelike. And I think balancing the two is quite interesting because you get bonuses depending on what buildings you– like, you can build a building that turns your cult followers into monsters that will help you in the fight. You might be having another thing that gives you like more hearts or whatever. I kind of like the kind of push and pull of the mechanics as you're trying to make sure that like people don't die because you can use them for your own gain. And I think it could be cool for us to figure this out in like a campaign setting, where we really do get to whatever you want, you know? And we touched on this with the amber and with– with the “XP", quote-unquote. But I think that being able to lo– something tangible to level up your base, as demonstrated by bonuses you can get either as like a team, or for your ship, or for like progressing the story, I think, can be really interesting, which is why I really am excited about doing this today.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Brandon: Hell yeah.
Amanda: Let's do it.
Julia: Let's do it!
Eric: Alright, so let's go into the first step of This Is What My Camp is Like, which is us looking at adjectives. Let's assume that our base has standard, quote-unquote, “town buildings.” These are going to be buildings for each of you to sleep in, or maybe you have a shared sleeping area with you and whoever else is on this island. There is going to be a shared meeting hall, there's a kitchen for group meals. This is not like set in stone in any sort of way. But you don't have to tell me I need a bed. You know what I mean?
Julia: I need a bed.
Eric: Let's– let's make sure we have sleeping quarters first. I want to really make sure we do that.
Brandon: I don't sleep, is that a problem?
Eric: That might be a pro– yeah, that might be a problem. So the first part of creating our base is establishing the tone, the color, and texture of the setting we want to explore. As a group, let's decide on three adjectives that will set the mood for our base. Now I've actually swapped some stuff out for what we did with the Camp Paign. And some of these might be new words. Remember, you can come up with other adjectives as well, but let's use at least one of these as we pick our three. Here's some examples. “Ageless”, “Bright”, “Unstable”, “Cluttered”, “Hungry”, “Drowsy”, “Adventurous, “Intense”, “Ethereal”, “Magnetic”, “Concealed”, “Tense”, “Freewheeling”, “Loud”, “Reachable”, “Careful”, “Faded”, “Volatile”, “Gritty”, “Tranquil”, “Sprawling”, “Creaky”, “Wayward”, “Vivid”, “Overwhelming”.
Amanda: Well, “Adventurous” feels like a gimme, we might be able to, like get at that from other directions, but that sounds really cool. I also love “Freewheeling”, it reminds me of seagulls, it reminds me of the sea, those are the two that jumped out.
Julia: For me, “Cluttered” is the one that jumped out at me like, you know, loot everywhere and whatnot. But also I am still thinking about “Chaotic”, the same chaotic energy as the Xavier Institute, and so that's where my head's at.
Eric: I mean, that's good.
Brandon: Yeah, I think “Cluttered” stood out to me as well. So I– I get that.
Amanda: That seems like “Cozy”and “Homey” to me.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Exactly.
Eric: I like “Cluttered”, yeah. I also agree with “Adventurous”. I wasn't sure if we wanted to use that one as like a guiding principle. But like, listen, we're a bunch of plant folk looking for a treasure, and we're pirates. So like, I don't know, we don't have to do “Adventurous” if we don't want it.
Brandon: I was gonna say is the— is the base “Adventurous” or are we adventurous?
Eric: Exactly. That's the— that's—that's what we're trying to get out a little bit.
Amanda: Totally. I'm pretty drawn to “Creaky”. I think that's cool, it reminds you like a big ol’ house scene has been added to over time. But maybe it's not the direction we want to go in. It can also be something that is like, really small and contained and concealed, for example.
Brandon: Yeah, I was thinking about that too. Some other just like thoughts. I'm not proposing any of these. But like, “Tense” could be interesting, like maybe it's sort of like a classic pirate haven, where there's a million people and there's no laws kind of thing. It could be “Ethereal”, could be sort of like cloud-like, like sort of like a real haven base kind of thing.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: I feel like “Freewheeling” and “Volatile” are the ones that I'm being drawn to in particular. And again, I think those hit the kind of chaotic energy that I am picturing. And also gets that kind of idea of pirates just do whatever they want. Like just fuc—there's people swinging from ropes across the street, and things are exploding in small, not chaotic explosions and—
Eric: Sure.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: That's where I'm at.
Amanda: I think “Freewheeling” connotes like unpredictability but in a sort of adventurous way.
Julia: Fun way. Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Right. And “Volatile” is a sense of danger or things could kind of like blow up at any moment.
Brandon: I love “Freewheeling”. I think that's great.
Amanda: I think that's—yeah, cheerful and reminds me of like a you know, the music when you set sail in a movie, you know, like the big open sea for you.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Eric: Oh, I should have said the Lost Boys’ place from Hook.
Amanda: Of course.
Julia: Oh yeah.
Eric: Really, really good. “Freewheeling” is really screaming Rufio, whenever your leader shows up.
Julia: That's the energy that I'm feeling here.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: For sure.
Eric: I really “Cluttered”, I really like “Freewheeling”. I can't remember what we did for the last one. If we did “Creaky” again, but it does feel similar to how I felt like the Camp Paign went. I was looking for a word that was like about how people can find you or the base. I was thinking about something with like, “Misty” or “Hidden”, or on the other side, “Open”. And maybe that's what we're looking for, loud or welcoming, in a different way.
Julia: Right. You do have “Reachable” here on the list.
Brandon: “Sprawling” was what came to my mind, like almost a very— yeah, like an open spot where people meet together, and they kind of like build their own places on top of it, you know?
Eric: Remember, this is definitely a choice. Like, will– while there's a pirate contest going on, do you want to be something that's open? Or do you want to be something that's not?
Amanda: I think, yeah, the other—the other end of the spectrum would be like “Concealed” or “Protected” or “Pass-coded”, or like something along the lines of a cove, I know that’s a noun, not an adjective. But something that like you have to know a person to know a person to know how to get there. I kind of like the idea of almost piercing a veil or of knowing like when you know exactly where to go, or the coordinates or it looks like a kind of rocky abandoned whatever. But then when you sail around it, you actually see this, you know, like city, “Cluttered”, “Freewheeling”, lots of stuff going on. At least for me, that's a fun, sort of like, it's homey, but also, once you're there, you can be really free. And I like the dissonance between those two things.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, I like that too, actually. That's kind of like a middle ground between the two. That's nice.
Julia: Yeah. I think to Eric's point before, I like the idea of being open and accessible because it makes it easier to like recruit people to our cause, or for people to find us and join us. But at the same time, it does open us up to attack during a pirate contest for lack of a better phrase.
Eric: Right.
Julia: And being concealed gives us that privacy and that protection, but also makes it difficult for people who might want to be on our site to find us, so.
Eric: That's interesting. I like what– yeah, I like what Amanda, you said about like, “Pass-coded” or “Coded” as an adjective. You know, it's not secretive necessarily. Or it's like what– what is a word that means once you have the password, you can get in. But without it, you can't.
Brandon: Can I pitch an idea? I don't– I don't know what the word is but, I like the idea of just like, almost like at Disney World on the Pirates ride where you go under that like fog fake waterfall thing.
Amanda: “Veiled”?
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. Like you go–
Eric: Oh, veils.
Brandon: –to a water veil, and then like it is indoors or whatever, like it's in a literal cave or cove or whatever it is, but it's massive. So it looks almost as if you're outside.
Amanda: Yeah. Maybe it's like a microclimate where there's like a constant fog–
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: –or something like a low cloud. And perhaps it's like a lock, and there is a you know, a mechanism that lets us get back out, but we're actually living below sea level. Something along those lines.
Julia: Is the word then just, “Veiled”?
Eric: Yeah. I wrote down the word “Veiled”. I think it's very good.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Excellent.
Amanda: Cause you can part it, you can pierce it, you can reveal its existence to somebody else, but it's still protected from the outside world.
Eric: I like that. Alright. The adjectives I've written down are “Cluttered”, “Freewheeling”, and “Veiled”. How do we feel about those?
Julia: Yeah, yeah.
Amanda: I love it.
Brandon: I like it.
Eric: Hell, yeah. Alright, so jumping off the adjectives. Let's set up some bigger-picture ideas. What does the landscape look like? What do the buildings look like? What do our characters value? Ordinarily, this is where we do some more Word-building but we've done that in previous episodes. But I still think that there's a lot to play with here. Just because it's pirates doesn't mean it's a tropical treasure island sort of thing. All it really has to be is that you're surrounded by saltwater because your– you're on the Tide. Also dee– as where we're starting. I feel like we're in– we have a relatively small crew, but that doesn't mean that this is a tiny island. It could be, definitely, you have your own tiny island being this, you've already started touching on it. But this could also be a smaller part of a larger island, but then we would have to contend with, who else is there? Because again, there wasn't anything here before you all showed up because the Cascade went away. So it's all about like what happened in the last 50 years in the– in the big rush about where we're starting.
Julia: I really liked the suggestion that Amanda just made of this kind of cave-like thing where there is a microclimate, and you have to pass through the veil in order to get through it. I also am picturing however, it's like a hollowed-out dormant volcano, where you have like an open–
Eric: Tight.
Amanda: Same brain.
Julia: –area over the top.
Brandon: I love that.
Amanda: Yeah. I think that is something where there's like different kinds of caves and natural outcroppings that people have added onto. Maybe you add a door, or you add an awning or you keep your valuables there. Not the valuables but like the necessary stuff like a change of clothes or you know, bedding and things. And I sort of liked that you can claim a nook or a locker almost. And there's enough space for you know, your crew to bunk for the night. And you know, maybe somebody has set up a trading post and someone has a restaurant. And you know, somebody is like the guy you go to for a haircut, and there is just kind of like a very kind of come as you and go, take what you need, leave what you don't place where there is honor among thieves, in this way.
Julia: We've made a commune is what we're saying.
Eric: Sure, yeah. I mean–
Julia: We made a pirate commune.
Brandon: I mean—I mean I know. Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, if you want to have people in there, that's not just you for sure. That's definitely a choice y'all can do.
Brandon: I liked the idea that you sort of brought up Eric about like having other-- because I imagine if it's a gold rush kind of vibe. Like, it's—there's gonna be people stepping on people's toes. Like, that's just inevitable.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: So like, I wonder if, like, we have like the dormant volcano that hollowed out, and that's where we sort of like set up our base. But then like, on the actual land level above us, there are also other camps and other folks.
Amanda: Yeah, I think we would definitely have our own space like the— you know, the cave that is ours, and we, you know, have our flag on it, or our names or something. And, you know, we close it, but there's people around if you need it, almost like a home in a city sort of thing.
Brandon: Where am I gonna buy my pirates? I mean, my parrots. Where am I gonna find my pirates here?
Eric: I don't know man, it's uh—I don't know much you trade? No, I like the idea just to illustrate what Amanda is saying that like if y'all are in the volcano cave, but there is like some other stuff happening on the island proper, which I think could be helpful.
Amanda: I was picturing a volcano that's like a thousand feet wide, and like everything is inside of it but—
Julia: Yes, me too.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Okay, then that's fine. I also— I think that might be better.
Julia: Yeah, because I'm kind of picturing almost like a JRPG you know, when you go out of wherever you're like town or basis, and then you meet random people, and you're like, hey, you should come to my town and they're like, okay, and then next time you return to the town, they've set up a little farm stand because now they're selling carrots or something like that, you know what I mean? So the idea of as people come and join us, they add more and more to the base building for lack of a better phrase?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: I think that's very cool. This is reminding me of Marceline's house from Adventure Time, where like, they're in a cave, and then there's just like a house in the cave, which I find— which I just find very funny. I mean, listen, you don't have to explain why it's cool as fuck to live inside a volcano.
Julia: It is.
Eric: That's tight as hell. What do you think about like the buildings, or what—how do you set up? I guess when you're inside of a volcano, it's location, location, location, and then everything else is fucking figures it out along the way, is the vibe that I'm getting. Like yeah, yeah, let's just throw some buildings together.
Julia: Yeah, yeah, I think it is chaotic and cluttered in the way that we chose those nouns to describe it. So I think that fits the mold. Absolutely.
Brandon: Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say like yeah, I think in the way that this is sort of a very diverse group of people coming together to live in this one spot, like so are there building materials, like someone maybe yeah, built into the cave itself, into the rock, some folks built wooden buildings.
Amanda: Exactly. If you have the biology to like you know, sleep up and down, then you have like a sick vertical space, if you can fly then you're higher you know, like all kinds of stuff you need to like anchor your roots in at the ground, you know, you're at ground level. I think that's awesome. And I think 50 years is just the right amount of time where like a very kind of slapped together, almost shanty town is sufficiently upgraded where it's not like, you know, new construction, but someone has replaced the like twigs with, you know, more like shaved down and regular wood in some of the dwellings.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I love that there's just like a giant nest in one part of it up top.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: I really like that. It's just like, you know, whoever go– or whatever you want, whatever—you just build your own thing, and then we’ll all do it together.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Right.
Brandon: As a fire away, baby.
Amanda: Right.
Brandon: Do what you want, but you must have a parrot.
Julia: There's no parrots.
Brandon: I know.
Eric: It's just—I'm imagining—I'm imagining, it's like a little beet with wings, just sitting on someone's shoulder.
Brandon: That's pretty good.
Eric: You know, it's like how pirates like, you know, there was always like bird poop on their shoulder. It's like, there's always like red on someone's shoulder from the beet.
Amanda: I was gonna say, the parrot would be like, 10 times taller than us.
Eric: Okay, wonderful. So we have these some big picture ideas here. Remember, I– we're not going to talk about the name of our island or our base or as we start to talk about our ship. There's no question explicitly for it. Don't try to force it. We're just going to let it naturally come up in conversation.
Brandon: Robert Redfordton.
Eric: Yes. If someone has a name, and everyone goes, ooh, that's probably it. But if not, then we're just going to keep seeing what happens and we can just come up with it later. It doesn't have to even be during the session.
Brandon: Cool.
Eric: Alright. So let's answer some more specific questions about what we're dealing with here. I have three sets of questions, the space, the boat, and the needs so far. Starting with set one, let's answer as many questions as we have players for the each table. Starting with the shortest character, we're going to go around a circle, rolling a D-6 to see which question we answer. Although everyone who can contribute, the person who rolled the die will ultimately decide the answer. Whose character is the shortest?
Brandon: I forget now.
Julia: How big is Umbi?
Brandon: I think he's pretty tall but like hunched over, so I think he's tall.
Amanda: I think Troy is very short because when you look at a butterfly, most of the height is wings and Troy's are rolled up.
Julia: But does his wing count?
Amanda: No, Julia, he's a short king.
Eric: Damn. Alright, yeah, we'll start with Amanda, that sounds great.
Julia: Oh, no, we picked the same heights as last time. [laughs]
Eric: So first, before we start, I want to say that because it's campaign three, this might set up some benefits for once we start. Either straight-up mechanical benefits, people who are on the island, part of your crew, or something a little bit squishier, as I said, in terms of story. I've talked about a skilled tree before and any special things that you add will be coming up from level zero or which is like base or nonexistent to level one. For example, if you want a quote-unquote, “good cannon,” that's going to be a level one thing, so it's only going to be a little bit better, or it's going to like exist for the first time. Like, you can't just be like, oh, fuck, I want something that does a 100 damage straight from the beginning. I don't know if you've played Civilization, but you know, when you pick a sp– certain people, and they start out with like, someone good thing is like, oh, you start out with iron. And that's—but that's it. Like you just get iron, you don't have a nuke. You know what I mean? Just because you started with Gandhi.
Julia: Gotcha.
Eric: Okay, at the same time, there are things you can assume that your character would have as like personal stuff, but it wouldn't be like bonuses. For example, I assume Umbi might have a workshop right? A place where he does his—his bomb effects. However, the—it's not like mo— a workshop mechanically. You don't get bonuses because you have a workshop, but he—he would have a place that he works on his bombs, you know what I mean?
Brandon: I imagine more like a like a Smeagol, Gollum style cove where he's like, [imitates Gollum] yeah.
Julia: Oh my god.
Eric: Right. So a workshop, exactly.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Eric: But like maybe you know, maybe you have like a—like a tackling dummy or something to set up for to mess with swords, or—or for your Troy's gunmanship or wherever Cam does their tea stuff.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: That's fine, that can exist but it doesn't have bonuses unless we are investing like game points into it. You know what I'm talking about?
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Okay, great.
[theme]
Amanda: Hey, it's Amanda. Oh my god, it has been so exciting to see everybody get to know our characters and our crew in the world of Verda Stello over these last few pregame episodes. And I have to admit, I've been looking at my world a little bit differently. Y'all know I love plants. And I love most of all when my plants are growing new leaves or buds or flowers, just seeing the little nub, you know, come into being is so amazing. And recently I made myself laugh by imagining that my jade plant which was growing a new leaf, and looks like truly the most adorable chibi cartoony leaf, the leaf was yelling, hello! And like, excited to meet the world. So that's just where I'm at. Welcome to the midroll. Hi! Thank you so much to our newest patrons. I am excited that you're excited to join us and to live react to all of these episodes coming out in the special campaign three spoiler channel of our patron-only Discord. OB and Delia you are our newest patrons as of the time I'm recording this, but I'm sure there will be many more of you, by the time this episode is out. Welcome. Thank you. I will say your names next week. And if you, listening right now, want to join and get access to hundreds and hundreds of posts worth of bonus stuff and the just lovely stream, the never-ending salt sea of goodness. That is the Join the Party Patron Discord. Join us at patreon.com/jointhepartypod. If you've been waiting to get someone you love to Join The Party, I mean it, folks, this is the time. The first story episode of the campaign is coming out in just two weeks, next week is our After Party. So you have two weeks basically to be like hey, let's get you into this. Listen to the 10 minute D&D overview that Eric and Amanda made, linked at jointhepartypod.com/start. And let me tell you and get you hyped about all of this goodness. That start page on the website is a perfect place to get your folks and friends into the show. And also there's a gorgeous page on the website if I do say so myself. All about the world of Verda Stello. It is linked at jointhepartypod.com/start. This week at Multitude, this is not the only weekly podcast where you can hear me and Julia get really excited about stories and storytelling and what makes something lore an important, and a larger-than-life figure because you have Spirits, a history, and comedy podcast about everything, folklore, mythology, and the occult. All through the lens of feminism and queerness and modern adulthood. Julia has been doing a fabulous job recently researching Norse Mythology for our 2023 mini-series, It's Norse, Of Course, where we go through the foundational figures and stories of Norse Mythology. After finishing, It's All Greek to me in 2022. Julia, I don't know how we can top that for 2024. You know, hang in, find out. 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[theme]
Eric: Let's start with set one, the space. This is going to be about the island itself.
Amanda: Happily for campaign three, I rolled a three!
Eric: Three!
Julia: Yay!
Eric: Okay, we've already touched on this a little bit, but I do want to expand here. What landscape feature is the base integrated with, or what landscape feature do buildings need to work around?
Amanda: So there is a huge array of elevation inside this volcano, and I am going to draw on my favorite landmark I've ever visited, which is the birthplace of the potato in Peru. Where there were tiered farming, and there's microclimates like every 10 or 15 feet where it's like an upside-down pyramid, where it goes from ground level all the way down and you can make plants adapt as you grow them up and down the elevations to work on mountains. So here I think that there are all different kinds of like vegetation, berries, mushrooms, flowers, all the kinds of nutrients we need growing you know, haphazardly naturally all over the inside of the volcano. So there are you know, there's this section where you can forage for various things. Some are more humid than others, some are really dry. It probably goes dryer as you get toward the bottom. So at the top, I'm imagining like a cloud and kind of the veil that keeps the spot hidden. So it gets kind of more humid, wetter, more rainforest-y as you go up.
Brandon: Can I pitch you a ‘yes, and’, where it's like because there's only one hole at the very top, right? Like that column is where you can get like traditional plants. And then like yeah, as you go out from there, and up from there, inside from there, you get like yeah, the mushroom stuff and like the– but I just– I like the idea that there's only like one single farm, community farm that we all have to use at the bottom of the base. Because it's the one that gets the most sunlight.
Eric: Where the sun goes and–
Amanda: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: There's only a cone where the sun comes in on the top of the volcano.
Brandon: Exactly.
Amanda: I think that'll be really interesting if there was yeah, like a kind of community plot in the very center. It's like our mini Open Fields, right? It's where people with you know who like to farm or know enough about how to do it can get that done.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. I don't think I changed anything you said. I just thought that was funny.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, I know.
Eric: I also think it's funny that like rain only comes in through the top in like one segment.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: In the middle.
Amanda: Yeah, and like–
Eric: Which is also very funny.
Amanda: –those are where the mushrooms would grow, right? Like damp and kind of shadowed, like it'd be in the crevices, you know, kind of near the top of the volcano.
Julia: That's also probably our only freshwater supply, is the rain that comes down–
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: –from the big hole in the top.
Brandon: Also, maybe there's a big like water tower collection thing.
Amanda: A catchment. Yeah.
Brandon: On stilts above the farm or whatever.
Eric: Yeah. That, or there's just like a really big basin in the bottom just to grab everything.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: It's a catchment, that's what it's called.
Eric: Oh, there you go!
Julia: Look at that!
Amanda: Catchment.
Eric: Well, well, well! It’s a fucking catchment.
Brandon: That's a catchment!
Amanda: A water catchment!
Eric: Yeah! I also I'm still trying to figure out like where the boat can come in into the cove. But maybe it's just like on the side, and there really is just like a bunch of volcanic rock, like the majority of that stuff. So you have all the– all this stuff to play with. But there's also you know, it goes up and down.
Amanda: What if?
Brandon: What if?
Amanda: Thank you. What if you kind of–
Eric: Marvel Presents: What If.
Amanda: –you sail in almost the middle of the elevation, and then there is you know, a cove and there's land sloping downward more into the bedrock, and then there is a lot of space upward.
Eric: That makes sense. I think that makes a lot of sense.
Brandon: That's fun.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Yep.
Brandon: Boat elevator! Boat elevator!
Amanda: It’s called a lock, Brandon!
Brandon: No, but see a lock who does the water. I want like, net that takes the boat up.
Amanda: Oh, sure.
Eric: I mean, that would be cool as hell, definitely.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: There's like a modified fishing net, but it's not fishing, it's something else. Pulling seaweed from the ground and pulling it up, that would be tight as hell. Alright, who's next?
Julia: Kelp collector. It's me!
Eric: Cam, Julia.
[dice roll]
Julia: A 1.
Eric: A 1. Oh, Julia, once again, you're answering the question about the water. What is the sea like around the island? Describe the water with three adjectives.
Julia: Oh, interesting. So I'm– I like the idea of it being coved, so there is a cove which one has to navigate through in order to get to the entrance, the veiled entrance. In particular, I really liked the idea of a hidden reef or something like that. So you do have a lot of people who get wrecked outside if they're not careful.
Eric: Absolutely.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Julia: I also really liked the idea of the water being a different color than the water that surrounds it. Whether it is either more pungent or less pungent. I would ask my other players what you think is more interesting.
Brandon: More vivid. Yeah.
Julia: More vivid is a good word. Yeah.
Eric: Oh, sure.
Brandon: I think it would have to be more colorful, right? In order to like hide the reef?
Julia: Right.
Amanda: I think if it's yeah, like a like very green, maybe there's a lot of moss. I'm picturing like moss growing on wrecks, and like algaes and other kinds of stuff that would get swept away on the open sea. If we went from like a grayish blue of the open sea into like a really mossy green cove. I think that's pretty tight, especially if it's humid with the veil.
Julia: That is great and also leads to the other thing that I had in mind, which is, I don't have a single word for it. But the idea of like a very large kelp forest outside of the island, like surrounding the island, maybe in the same cove area, which allows for farming of kelp and making that a resource for us as well.
Brandon: And for little baby otters.
Julia: Home for little baby otters.
Eric: Now, “Kelpy” is a fine adjective.
Julia: “Kelpy”, yes. Great.
Eric: “Kelpy”, “Kelpysh”.
Julia: “Kelpysh”.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Kelpy with a Y, instead of an I E.
Eric: Yeah. Oh, for sure. You know what's interesting? I mean, everything you've set up here is that there's a hidden reef, It's very opaque, there's a lot of kelp. There's definitely some shit in the water.
Julia: Who can say?
Eric: 100%. There's gotta be, because like, there are shipwrecks. We know monsters love to hide in shipwrecks. There's a lot of food sources. If there's kelp forests, there's a food source straight up. So there's gonna be some sea monsters around this island.
Brandon: Crab. Crab. Crab. Crab.
Amanda: And some loot, if you're brave enough to go in there.
Brandon: Big crab, big crab, big crab.
Eric: Exactly. And there's--
Amanda: Mussels all over the place.
Eric: You know what there's a giant– Brandon, there's a giant crab around the island. 100%.
Amanda: Craaaaab!
Julia: Yeaaaah.
Eric: Giant crab! I have not thought about like what “monsters” quote-unquote, are gonna look like so far, but there are gonna be some cool water bug monster crabs.
Amanda: Yeaaaah.
Brandon: I love it.
Eric: It has water wings, so it flies better in the water.
Brandon: I love it in idea. If I saw it, I hate it.
Eric: Yeah, that's gonna be tight as hell.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I like that. Water monster, I'm writing down. Crab in the water.
Brandon: [sings] Crab in the water.
Eric: [sings] A pirate in the sky, bananananana. Brandon, it's your turn.
Brandon: Oh.
[dice roll]
Eric: Umbi, Umbi.
Julia: There’s that tall fruit?
Brandon: 4!
Eric: Great. Classic Brandon. Who does the cooking? Name one positive and one negative about how this person cooks. Now, this can be one of you three, it can be someone else. You do need to describe them a little bit if you are introducing a new character, but I want to give you that open-endedness, that it doesn't have to be one of the PCs, but it can be if you want to.
Brandon: Folks, do we want to go– there's only two options here, right, in my head. Do we want to go– almost like Umbi asked mad scientist cook, where he's just like–
Brandon (as Cook): Yeah, give me the mushrooms from the top!
Brandon: And he like scales the rock. Or–
Amanda: I think that has to be it. I can't imagine a better alternative.
Brandon: Let me pitch this idea. Fuckin’ Noma style, like seven star Michelin restaurant chef who's like, foraging ingredients. And yeah, like a super high-end– what's the name of the guy from Noma?
Amanda: Uh, Rene?
Brandon: Rene Redzepi. Yeah.
Amanda: Redzepi, yeah.
Julia: Brandon, I love that. I want to yes and this. Can Cam and Umbi, tag team cooking? Because I've been thinking about Cam as the cook for a while now.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: And I feel like it's just extremely calm energy, with extremely chaotic energy, and the food comes out amazing.
Brandon: Yeah, I mean, like, I’m totally down for that. I think Umbi would see cooking as just like a natural extension of bomb-making. Because like when it doesn't explode, it's food.
Julia: Hoo boy.
Amanda: I just imagined Troy putting his boots up playing cards and being like, whatever you got, man. Yeah.
Eric: I like both so much. Obviously, I want your characters to get fleshed out. But man, I sure do want an exiled restaurateur to be making high-class shit in the middle of your– your camp.
Brandon: Eric, I think we do both. I think me and Cammie cook when we're– especially when we're out somewhere–
Eric: Sure.
Brandon: –on the open water. But there should definitely be like a Noma restaurant in this cave, absolutely.
Julia: Oh I'm 100% picturing the like first time we came back after the Noma restaurant set up, while we are like out of sea, and we were like, excuse me?
Amanda: Troy touches a single bubble like, what the fuck is this?
Julia: It's good, but it's not tea, so.
Eric: I'm gonna have to come up with some adjectives to describe gastronomy now, thank you. Molecular gastronomy. Okay. Positive and negative here. The positive I assume is really good. High-class shit. The negative is this chef has problems cause they were exiled and now work for pirates? I don't know. What do you– what do you think?
Julia: Is it just that either it's too expensive for the pirates, or it's just underappreciated because most of the pirates are just like, give me the food!
Amanda: Yeah, I think most pirates would be like, I will just eat the berry raw. Like why would I fuck with that? And—
Julia: Why would I want to compote?
Amanda: Like this is the absolute wrong audience for this person's real art.
Brandon: I love it. I think he like uses like, everything is natural, right? Like there are no plates, no silverware. Like he uses foraged things for that too. Like he used like–
Amanda: Yes.
Brandon: Coral as a plate or something and they eat the coral and it's like, oh my god, guys seriously?
Amanda: Right.
Julia: Just because it is the plate, doesn't mean it's on the plate.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: Okay, high-class chef, but it's incredibly unnecessary. No one wants-- knows what to do. That's very good.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: But no rules, baby! He ain't got no rules down here.
Eric: No rules, that's right.
Julia: It's called the Outback Steakhouse.
Eric: Outback.
Julia: No, it was a joke. No!
Eric: I wrote down Outback Food House.
Julia: Oh God.
Eric: Shit. Alright, well– we'll come back to it. Okay. Let me roll.
[dice roll]
Julia: The tallest member of our party, DM Eric Silver.
Eric: I rolled a 2. What wakes up everyone in the morning? Or what makes it hard to sleep?
Amanda: That’s good.
Brandon: Gotta be the sleep one, right?
Amanda: I think so. I mean, this strikes me as a city that is never quiet. Raucous games and fights and impromptu competitions. Like you never know who's going to be rolling in at whatever hour of the day or night. And so I imagine that like after dark is when pirates thrive, right? And that's when people come out to party and hang out till dawn.
Julia: So, I did just Google, are crabs night feeders?
Amanda: Great.
Julia: Because the idea of a crab just being so loud while it devours something huge and gross, keeping us all up at night is extremely funny to me.
Eric: Julia, I think that's it. I think you nailed it. I was thinking of that even like it was an animal that kept people up. And I think that what we did about these water monsters, them feeding at night is very funny. And you just hear like [chomping] The other one I had, was somewhat just at like four in the morning, you just hear a scream from the top of the volcano every night. Someone just wails--
Julia (as Cam): Who's up there? Umbi, get down!
Eric: Someone just wailing, but I feel like maybe we'll come back to that. I feel like that could happen. I think it's the water monsters feeding. I think Julia is right.
Amanda: Yeah, that is incredibly funny. Actually, the idea that somebody, it's like those things were like, oh, someone leaves a flower on the grave every year for the last 60 years. Like we don’t know who it was. I love that. But the concept that like the big crab feeds in like the hour before dawn. And so you can come anytime you like, you can leave whenever you want. But people are like waiting in the cove in the morning before they want to leave for their dawn adventure to be like checking their watches, like alright, did he finish his meal? Like we gotta wait before we go.
Brandon: I love that.
Eric: Right. Because he ta– then the water monster takes a nap right after they feed.
Amanda: Exactly. It's a great time to leave.
Brandon: I love that idea. Because like that means that there's an hour within this town, city thing where there is no escape.
Eric: Yeah, but then there's like a—there's like two—a two hour window where you know it's safe. And then everything else around it is such a crapshoot. It's about navigation, and it's totally like hidden. I think it's really— I think it's neat.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. And then I'm sure there are people like setting up you know, vendors setting up to like sell breakfast in the morning before you go. And then people are like, oh, you gotta kill the hour. Like come on down to the tavern, you know, all kinds of stuff.
Julia: That's when happy hour is.
Brandon: Oh, I was thinking there's an hour in which you can do whatever crime you need to do, which involves no escape. You know?
Amanda: That too.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Brandon: Obviously that’s a little gift. I was wrapping it up for you, Eric.
Amanda: Oh yeah, yeah.
Eric: I mean that's great. Listen, there's gonna be a lot of you figu—all figuring this out. There's also—there's a lot of codes here, which I think is really cool. It's something that we've touched on with veiled.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: So I really—I really like leaning into this.
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Eric: I wrote down water crab feeding an hour before dawn, and then sleeping for 90 minutes afterward. I think it's very important.
Amanda: Like imagine all those sitting ducks sitting at 4:30 in the morning outside the cove needing to wait for the next hour before they can enter. That sounds like an opportunity to me.
Eric: Or the military, not being able to enter. Could be good. Could be a nursery.
Brandon: Could be a nursery.
Eric: Alright.
Amanda: Could be a nursery.
Eric: Set Two: The Boat. Let's talk about your ship, mon friends. Let's shift one to the right here. Let's go, Julia, Brandon, Eric, Amanda.
Julia: Sure. I also want to hit the emergency, I came up with the name for the island button.
Brandon: Do it.
Eric: It's like you're slamming the button in Among Us?
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Yes, exactly. The Big Top.
Brandon: Not bad.
Amanda: It’s good, Julia. It's really good.
Brandon: Does make me think of a circus though.
Julia: Yes. Because it is chaotic, like a circus.
Brandon: That's true.
Eric: And is full of fucking clowns.
Amanda: Alright, I'm gonna write it down.
Brandon: That's true. I like it.
Amanda: Feels pretty good.
Eric: That's good.
Brandon: No, I just want to mention that I saw Amanda’s Slack message earlier and didn't process it. But Amanda did write the Out Back as in, Out space Back like it's Out Back Steakhouse, which is very funny.
Julia: And stade like the thing you kill vampires with?
Amanda: Put a stake in it, baby.
Eric: Listen, that might be good. That might come around. Alright, let's talk about the boat. Goolia, give me a roll.
[dice roll]
Julia: 4.
Eric: 4. What is the most dangerous part of the boat? What cautionary tale do old hands tell new ones?
Julia: Hmm. I have to think about my pirate training now. You know me personally trained as a pirate.
Eric: Yeah. I think there's some different things here. I think that I didn't— I didn't want to be like what part of your boat fucking sucks. What part of your boat’s bad? But I wonder—like there are plenty of things that could be dangerous, whether it is broken and you haven't fixed it, so you gotta do a convoluted thing. It's like when a can opener is broken and you're like yeah avoid the point depart. When you were to just use it like that. Or, or you have to use a knife to open cans. So it could be like something that's broken, it could be something that's actually dangerous. Whether cannons or the engine. Or it could be something that's extra dangerous because of the area. Maybe like pulling up the anchor is dangerous because someone's-- or someone got hurt on it, even if you would know it was particularly dangerous like pulling up the anchor and it's—it's sliced someone in half or something.
Brandon: It happens. Let me pitch you an out-of-left field idea that I'm not—I'm not supporting, just something to chew on. Wha—if we get this boat secondhand somehow whether it's stolen or purchased, it could be an area of the boat where like you know someone died and it's a spooky area we don't go into, because that's where the ghosts lives.
Amanda: It's pretty good.
Eric: Pretty good. I like that. He—also if you stole it, or it was secondhand, there could be like plausible deniability to never look at the papers. So the captain's quarters is cordoned off. So all of us have plausible liability of where it came from.
Amanda: I was just thinking that are like the name of it, like somebody at some point changed the name or like added on the spelling, or there's an old name on a board like under the new name we put on it, and it's like, yeah, just never sail the open seas with that name or that flag, please.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: I'm into that.
Brandon: I love the idea that I had a name printed like big gold ornate letters, and we just in like fucking chalk or—
Amanda: Slap over it, yeah.
Brandon: Added a letter to make it something different or whatever.
Julia: Sloppy paint.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Very cool.
Amanda: The Verda Stello equivalent of like duct tape and like a chalk marker.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: No, that makes sense to me.
Eric: I like that a lot. I think Captain’s Quarters, [laughs] quarters and proper– and proper documentation.
Brandon: Maybe not the Captain Quarters, but maybe there's some kind of like because I wanted to be slightly smaller. Because I don't want to not be able to go to the captain's quarters, you know?
Eric: Oh, I think it's like wherever they keep the official documents, that's why I assumed it was in the captain's quarters.
Amanda: Like a ledger or something?
Eric: Yeah. like no—
Julia: Just like a locked cabinet no—no one goes into?
Brandon: Yeah, exactly. So the captain had some kind of container in his quarters that we don't open.
Amanda: Well, traditionally, there is such thing as a captain's chest, which is like a very fancy sea chest with pockets and like things that you can lock and such. So maybe there is like an old, you know, it used to be really fancy. Like, the equivalent of like a Louis Vuitton luggage, you know, but it's a trunk and it's locked. And there's like the dead man's clothes on there. Maybe it could be helpful, but it's also got the papers and we don't need to know whose boat this was.
Brandon: Can I also pitch you that in order to keep any sea hands that we have hired aboard our ship? Away from that, we invented a ghost story around it?
Eric: Okay. There’s also a ghost story.
Amanda: Yes, yes, yes
Eric: Yeah, that's tight as hell. I like that a lot.
Brandon: Am I rolling?
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: Who's—so yes, Brandon, go ahead.
[dice roll]
Amanda: By the way, I saw quince for sale yesterday and thought Umbi? But that's the wrong fruit.
Brandon: [laughs] Uno.
Eric: One. Okay. Your boat has incredibly recognizable iconography on the mast and figurehead. What is it? Or, your ship has unusual coloring? What is it?
Brandon: Oh.
Eric: Now this can be just—just to tie these two together. This could be from the old ship, or you had to fucking change it, like changing the license plate on a car. Or if you're robbing a bank, you take off your jacket and you flip it around, and it looks like a different jacket.
Brandon: Yeah. Well, my first bad idea is to add flames and a unicorn on it, but— [laughs]
Julia: You can't hear me shaking my head, but I am.
Amanda: That's what's happening, I can confirm.
Julia: The idea of the figurehead being like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis is the first thing that came to my mind. Because that seems like really cool. And also meaningful iconography for this world?
Brandon: And also like kind of gruesome.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Scary as hell.
Amanda: I like that Julia. I also don't want to be too restricted to one species. Because you know, my character is a butterfly, but I don't want to be like, oh, this is the—this is the one that the boat is for. Maybe it's just a chrysalis because like that looks kind of like a plow which sort of ties in Open Fields. I think that could be interesting. My bad idea, Brandon, was that Troy, was having shot practice and shot a hole through the mast accidentally, and then someone was like that actually really works for us. And then there was 200 holes in the mast which is not great for aerodynamics, but like it is a distinguis—distin—distinctive look, and gives us kind of street cred. So it's like we've been in a million battles. Julia is, uh—
Julia: I look horrified, ‘cause I know how boats work and I'm like, no!
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julia: You can’t have a hole in the mast!
Brandon: So here's my thought. I don't know that we want iconography, because why would we want to be identifiable from 40 miles away with a telescope? You know, we're fucking pirates.
Julia: We want to be infamous.
Brandon: But unless it's fake iconography and like— like it's the British flag or whatever, you know?
Amanda: What if the mast has a bunch of broken arrows sticking out of it?
Brandon: Well then that was my second thought when you said that Amanda. What if when we got the boat, we like—
Amanda: We distressed it?
Brandon: Yeah, we distressed it to make it look like non-threatening sort of, and like, so when people approach her they're like, they think that we're at a disadvantage and then we just have the advantage on them.
Amanda: I think it'd be really cool if our distinctive look was that we distressed the boat by making it look like bitten and worn, and like use chains and tools and stuff to like knock the shit out of it. Where it's still seaworthy, Julia. Don't worry. But it looks— remember that we went to my uncle's table distressing party once, Julia?
Julia: Oh, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah, where like, you take a new thing and you make it look old and battle-worn to like, give us cred. And that sort of disguises whatever life the ship had before us.
Brandon: Exactly. And I think also because this is a very like plant and greenery world. We somehow implant like moss and lichens, and oysters and whatever all around it. So if we cast anchor somewhere in the sea, we just look like a ship that has no one on it, that's been like abandoned. And that's like a nice little move, we can also use.
Amanda: Troy's like, give me 40 days and a lot of water, I'll get this covered in mussels for you.
Julia: Jeez.
Eric: Yeah. I—listen, I think this is a good idea. You will need to hear lots of other pirates say your ship looks like butt, but other than—other than that, I think it's—it's—it's definitely practical.
Brandon: What do you think, Julia?
Julia: I am trying for the life of me to recall a quote from either a book, or a movie, or something like that, where it was like, a pirate should never steal a ship that either wasn't in battle or hadn't been to sea yet. Because it needs to have that kind of test of mettle to it.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: So I really like that idea that, even if we didn't do that, we tried our best to make it seem like we were doing that.
Amanda: Yeah, I mean listen, you—you walk onto a job site with new boots and someone's like must be nice new boots, never worked a day in your life. So I love that. Like you—you know a tool that looks like it's been through hell and back is a better tool than a new one.
Julia: Absolutely.
Brandon: I'm into it. I think it's called the—whatever our name of our ship is, it's called the blank maneuver. We drop anchor, it looks like a fake ship. We get in little lifeboats and hide behind it. And then when they come and try to attack our boat, you know, we flake ‘em baby.
Amanda: Yeah, underestimated, hiding in plain sight, something like that.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Eric: Cool. Alright, it is my turn. [dice roll] Alright, I got a Two. You immediately invest in one weapon for the boat, what is it? Or you immediately invest in how the boat moves, what is it? What are you all—what are you all thinking?
Julia: I feel like giving away secrets of how we're going to win battles to you, the DM, Eric is not a good way of going about this.
Eric: Whatever, man.
Julia: Because I had an idea specifically for Umbi, but I'm going to save it for later.
Amanda: Well, if we build on the previous answer I think if we neglect to clean the hull of the boat and we let mussels and algae and moss, by the way I should have mentioned Spiritfarer earlier, which is like you literally build a home on a boat and I'm obsessed with it. I've done it like four times. If you don't clean those things off, the boat probably is a little bit less fast than it could be otherwise. But I think that gives us some almost like armor in smacking into stuff. Like I think the boat is kind of sharp and so we take less damage if we bump into something, but also if we like run our boat into somebody, it like breaks their hull open, because they're a bunch of sharp barnacles on the front.
Brandon: It's like the knives they put on the tires in Grease.
Julia: I was about to say do we just go where it's like, well that's a good idea. And just throw knives on the sides of the boat?
Amanda: I’m into it.
Julia: Like, big swords?
Brandon: But only under the water, so you don't see the knives.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I fucking love that.
Amanda: Yeah. Rusty knives and arrows like just below the water level on the boat.
Eric: That's a thing, I've seen that before. I remember it from a movie or something like you can put weapons, yes, below the waterline which will mess up another boat, and your boat is put together for ramming in that way. I think like that's a real thing.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I think that's pretty good. Immediately invet— invest in one weapon, what it is? It is uh—
Amanda: I'm just picturing like talking to the barnacles and be like, open up bud, and then like putting the hilt of a knife in their mouth. [laughs]
Eric: Rusty knife ram, below the waterline.
Julia: It's also very useful for like boarding and stuff like that if we're going to be doing pirate fights, you know?
Eric: Yes.
Brandon: And maybe we catch some fish on there you know?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. Whatev—you kno—whatever.
Amanda: Or we leave a bunch of fish just like scraped up in our wake, like oh no.
Eric: Plant fish.
Julia: Yeah, cause we don't know that fish are real.
Brandon: Plantfish, right. Yeah.
Eric: Again, what is a salmon?
Brandon: Maybe we catch some seaweed on is what I meant to say.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: What is a salmon, really? I don't—I don't even know. Who didn't roll? Amanda, go ahead.
Amanda: [dice roll] Once again, I rolled a 3.
Eric: 3, okay. We kind of answered this, but we can lock this in. Something, not a person lives in or on the boat. What is it?
Julia: The ghost?
Eric: You could have a ghost if you want a ghost.
Brandon: But I would make it real, right? If we want it to be real.
Amanda: Okay. You know how like mushrooms are all connected underground, and it's like one organism with lots of like cells, right?
Julia: No, not familiar.
Amanda: What if there's that, but it's the algae that's on the outside of the ship.
Eric: Great.
Amanda: And It's like—a like connected colony of algae. And we can give it offerings, and communicate with it. And if we have to clean something, we’re like I'm so sorry. I really have to clean it. But also we want to make friends with this. And what if under the right lighting, it glows?
Brandon: I like that, like when the moon is full, and it's like a Blood Moon or Strawberry Moon like when it's closer?
Amanda: Yes. Or I was thinking the same thing Brandon of like, after, you know, seven days of strong moonlight in a row, it'll glow for a day, but we can also like park in the shade if we need to, you know, and like not let that happen for strategic reasons.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Cool.
Brandon: Why did you laugh, Julia? At park in the shade?
Julia: Yeah, park in the shade is very funny to me. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, you don't want your boat to get too hot. So you put one of those reflectors across the front?
Brandon: Yeah, you gotta roll your window down a little bit.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Incredible.
Eric: Oh, no, I left a Snickers in the boat. Shit.
Amanda: Don't leave your dog in the boat.
Eric: If they're hot, you're hot.
Amanda: If they're hot, you're hot. If you're hot, they're hot.
Julia: Except instead of a dog, it's a pineapple.
Amanda: For scurvy!
Eric: It's a little pineapple that runs around. Oh, fuck. Okay, that's wonderful. Let's go on to step three, the work so far. This is going to be everything that maybe you've built that as extra. This is like—probably from level zero to level one. Let's get one of the rights. So Brandon starts, then me, and then Amanda, and then Julia.
Brandon: [dice roll] 4!
Eric: Four. You all decided the best defense is a good offense. What defense have you set up? Or you all decide that your health and comfort come first? What have you built that makes you all more vital or spry or hale.
Julia: Hot springs, hot springs, hot springs.
Brandon: Cool. Yeah. I mean, I do fucking love that, Julia.
Julia: Hot spring, hot spring, hot spring.
Brandon: I mean, what if– if Cam goes into hot springs, is that just tea springs at that point?
Julia: Who can say? Not it's like, their roots or anything, you know?
Brandon: Yeah, I mean, I love that. Is that just soap though?
Eric: It's fine man. We're all just opening up our plant spores. Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. It's fine.
Brandon: That's what I've always said.
Julia: It’s also probably got a lot of like nutrients and minerals, and stuff that we as plants need.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I love that.
Eric: Cool.
Brandon: Maybe it's like not only a hot spring, but it's a hot spring that is in the area where the sun shines.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: And so we get like sunshine and this nutrient-rich water. And it's sort of in the middle so everyone can kind of gather around it, you know?
Amanda: Is it in our personal like zone of the base, or in the base as a like shared resource?
Brandon: I imagined it-- I mean, you tell me what you think. But I imagined as sort of like a shared thing.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. In my head, this was also up high. It felt like it was closer to the top of the volcano, especially because Amanda put the steps in there.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So I feel like it's up high. So it is a communal resource, but it is like secluded I guess?
Brandon: Yeah, what if it's like, I love that. What if it's—because the best time to go into a hot tub is when it's snowing. So what if it's, yeah up in the area where the fog is like the cloud is, but then like because the sunlight hits it, just that area breaks from the fog? And then so you get to hit-- sit in the hot spring, get some sunlight but be surrounded by this really pretty fog.
Eric: Sick. wonderful.
Amanda: Very cool.
Eric: I like that.
Amanda: Yeah, cause it's a salty sea, the rainwater could be making like the tide pool. Versus a like geothermal hot springs with like groundwater.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, listen, there's probably still like lava somewhere. So like, I think that's possible. Anything we want to do, it's a fantasy world. What are– JRR Tolkien just made up shit. Let's make shit up too.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Okay.
Eric: There are ents, you know, like, fuck.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: But all of our wives are gone. We lost them.
Julia: Weird. They've– they've made a lesbian commune. Huh.
Eric: My beard is of grass. I have a big grass beard. Oh yeah, hot springs up high. I love that.
Julia: Oh my god. Imagine an ent named Grass Goatee.
Eric: Alright, Imma roll. [dice roll] Oh, here we go. Someone has washed ashore. What is their particular set of skills? Why are they not as good at that skill now?
Brandon: Is this just Gulliver from Animal Crossing?
Eric: It can be any– it can be anybody.
Amanda: Gulliver is the like the Toucan guy that washes on shore, and I have to go digging in the sand for his communicator.
Eric: Oh, really? That's really funny, I didn't know that.
Julia: Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. I wasn't sure.
Eric: This could be the restaurant guy that we said before. This could be someone else.
Brandon: But the restaurant guy is good.
Eric: Yeah–
Amanda: He’s just not appreciated.
Eric: That's true, he's just not appreciated. Yeah, I wonder if there's someone like very specific, something that you would need. Maybe like—
Amanda: Here– here's one, maybe a like fashion designer from the vertical-- like the cities. And now someone's mostly like, can you give me 100 pockets? Or can I store my bow in my pants? Just like wild engineering questions, like repairing a tattered sweater that somebody's favorite. And he's like, I'll do my best.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: I really like that. That's very sweet.
Brandon: That's funny.
Eric: I was also thinking of doctor with amnesia, that could be good too.
Amanda: He washed up and be like, how do you survive the monster? And he's like, uh?
Eric: I don't– I don't know. What? [laughs] I don't know.
Julia: What are you talking about?
Brandon: I do love this idea, that there's some kind of crafts person, or service person where like, they think that they're really good at their job. And they're not, they're fucking bad at it. But everyone loves them because they're so like, nice and charismatic. So they buy their services or whatever, anyway.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah.
Julia: It's just a guy with a French accent. Inexplicably. We all assume that they're good at doing tailoring because they have a French accent.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: And every time we get clothing from them, it's just like, it looks like bags.
Amanda: The pockets are trapezoid. Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: It's the same cloak every time.
Julia: But they're very good at making that one cloak.
Amanda: Yeah. Or I was thinking too, like somebody who maybe was an artist, like a tapestry Weaver. And now they know like three kinds of knots, and everyone's like, okay, like, I know how to do this knot better, but like, let's support Jerpathy.
Eric: I'm writing down French eggplant who does fashion.
Julia: Yeaah.
Amanda: Incredible.
Brandon: I think that's an Aubergine, baby.
Eric: Brandon, I—
Julia: Yeaaah. That's his name!
Eric: That's his name is Aubergine. That's why, yes, yeah. [laughs Frenchly] Oh, I like that. Who does fashion, also has amnesia.
Julia: Why?
Amanda: Why not?
Eric: Just cuz
Brandon: That’s why they make the same cloak over and over again, Julia.
Eric: Yeah, because they forgot. They know that they were a fashion, but now they have no idea. Wonderful. Alright, who's next?
Amanda: It's me. And then Julia.
[dice roll]
Amanda: 6.
Eric: 6.
Brandon: Nice, first 6.
Eric: Ah, here we go. The base has something new, that's purely for entertainment. What is it, and where do you get it?
Julia: When you said entertainment, I thought of like a theater troupe. Which is bad because that means we stole a theater troupe.
Amanda: Well, Julia, my first thought was puppets. Puppet company.
Julia: We just stole Geppetto.
Amanda: Yep.
Brandon: I do like it a lot. I don't wan—I don't want any other options.
Amanda: Everybody donates their old sock to the puppeteers.
Julia: No notes.
Eric: Oh, okay.
Julia: No notes!
Amanda: Eric has some notes.
Julia: Eric, no notes, write it down.
Eric: I just want to say—I just want to say, when I wrote this down, I would be like, you know, maybe they'll get into golf. Or Bar or Frisbee.
Julia: It's a boat, but it's a mini golf course! Hold on!
Amanda: That's real floating mini golf in the cove.
Brandon: That's pretty funny.
Eric: I just thought it was the—
Amanda: Pretty good.
Eric: I thought— I was thinking of an item but I love the first thing you went to was we stole a puppeteer.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Okay.
Julia: It’s a boat–
Amanda: What do you want from me?
Julia: But also a boat that we turned into a mini golf course, is also very funny.
Brandon: What if it was a boat that, like crashed up on the bay or whatever it is. And then like it had a chest full of puppets. And we didn't know what to do with the boat because it wasn't seaworthy anymore. So we made it into like a little entertainment zone where there's a puppet show and a mini golf course.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Can we have both Eric? Eric, can we have mini golf and puppets, please?
Eric: The only thing that would let you do it, is that if you get no extra people. That's what I'm saying. Is like I thought– I was thinking item, and you all immediately went to we stole a theater troupe. Ten people now live here, and they all know how to do monologues.
Amanda: Eric, come on. The theater is for night, it's golf during the day. Puppets at night.
Julia: Come on, Eric. Come on. Obviously.
Amanda: Are you fucking born yesterday?
Eric: You remember puppets at night, sailors take warning? [laughs] Yeah, okay. I'm gonna say entertain– I'm gonna go with Entertainment Zone.
Amanda: What is– what is the thing called in Disney where you can drink on it? Pleasure Island?
Brandon: Oh, yeah, it doesn't exist anymore, but yes.
Amanda: It's the Pleasure Barge.
Eric: Yeah, it's a Pleasure Barge. And the enter– the entertainment
Amanda: Not—not for sex, only for sport and art.
Eric: It’s the Entertainment Zone.
Brandon: When I was a kid, I did think everyone was just fucking on that Disney Island thing, so.
Amanda: Oh, me too.
Eric: Oh, man. I didn’t want to–
Amanda: They called it Pleasure Island, what do they expect?
Eric: I want to grow up and go to the sex club at Disney.
Julia: Yeah. There was famously a lot of teen clubs, so there probably were people having sex on there.
Eric: Is there an 18-plus club on this island? I just want to be very clear.
Brandon: No.
Amanda: No, Eric, if you're old enough to sail, your old enough to do whatever the fuck you want.
Eric: Oh my god.
Brandon: If you're an 18-year-old bug or plant, you're nearly dead.
Amanda: It's true.
Julia: And so Umbi?
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. Alright, I'm gonna—let me go back to the original thing. If you want a puppet, you can have a guy who is a puppeteer, if you want. But if you want a bunch of random fun shit, you’d have to pick stuff.
Brandon: I don't think we kidnapped anyone. I think there's just a trunk full of puppets that washed up and people took to it, you know?
Julia: Did one of us learn shadow puppeteering? Is that what happened?
Amanda: Possible.
Eric: I really—I really like trunk full of puppets, is very funny.
Brandon: I don't want to kidnap people unless I have to.
Eric: Okay.
Brandon: Or it's a parrot. I will kidnap a parrot.
Julia: We’re pirates, we should be allowed to kidnap people without consequence.
Amanda: Listen, I think it's self-serve. I think you know sometimes, people put together a puppet show and everyone's really proud of them and goes to support them. Sometimes, you know you stop by with your buds and you do the mini golf and you return, you know the golf clubs and stuff to the place.
Eric: No, we're not doing mini golf, we're just doing trunk of puppets.
Brandon: No. Why can we do both?!
Amanda: No!
Eric: Okay, fine
Amanda: Golf during the day, puppets at night!
Eric: Okay.
Brandon: Golf during the day, puppets at night!
Eric: Alright, entertain--
Julia: It's not like we're getting any bonuses for puppets during the da—golf during the day, puppets at night. Okay?
Amanda: Suns out, clubs out baby.
Julia: It's all like we're getting like +1 to Protection on the base by having both, Eric. Let us have both!
Eric: No, it's true. No, it's fine. No, you're—you're very—you're very correct.
Amanda: Wait.
Eric: Sorry, Amanda is writing down, “Suns out, clubs out.”
Amanda: I did. And then I'm saying sun sleeping, no. Sun’s asleep--
Eric: Puppets do peep.
Amanda: Puppets do peep.
Julia: Oh my god. What is happening?
Eric: We have one more question.
Julia: Shit.
Brandon: Let's do it.
Eric: One more question. Can somebody roll?
Julia: 2!
Eric: A 2. Something beloved continues to fall into disrepair.
Brandon: Oh, no.
Eric: What is it and why can't you repair it?
Brandon: It's the Entertainment Zone. Oh no.
Eric: It's not the entertainment zone. Is– this would be something basic that has a drawback on it. Unfortunately, since you only had a 1-in-6 chance to roll this. There is going to be something that's falling apart.
Julia: Okay.
Brandon: And it can’t be Umbi.
Eric: It's not Umbi, no.
Julia: I'm trying to think of like a beloved thing in like any sort of town. Amanda, you’re—you’re the town builder game player here. What's a beloved thing that often is in one of those games?
Amanda: Yeah, there's often like a town square with like a statue, or a clock, or a fountain. Some amount of public space.
Eric: Oh, a clock is good.
Brandon: I imagined something was—was like erected when the people like first came here like 50 years ago, whatever it is, you know?
Julia: Yeah. So I think I—clock is very cool, gives me big Back to the Future vibes. And it just doesn't work, because there's constantly sea water in all of the gears.
Amanda: Sea water corrodes metal so fast. So I love the idea, Julia, that the clock has not functioned for years. But we're so sentimentally tied to it that even though it's like rusty and decaying, and when the breeze is too strong, you get like a faceful of rust, it's still a thing that we all love.
Julia: I also really like the idea that it's someone's mission to constantly be trying to steal parts for it, and try to repair it and it just lasts two weeks, and then everything's rotted out again.
Amanda: I mean, if you're new, the clock is really important to know when you need to avoid the cove. And—
Eric: Yes, exactly.
Amanda: The rest of us just learn it in our bones.
Brandon: That's great.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: That's exactly what I'm thinking of is that like, so much of pirating, and what you've kind of put out is coded, you just fin— you need to know the rhythms of everything. And the clock is supposed to tie everything together, right? Like a quote-unquote, “government time” or a— or a standard military time is, you know, that's why clocks and fucking time zones exist, right? And the fact that you are not on any sort of time is kind of bad. But then again, not it's—it's bad only as it divorces you from, quote-unquote, “society”
Brandon: The narcs, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, exactly. So I think that that could be really, that's actually very, very interesting.
Julia: I just had a thought, which was instead of having circadian rhythms, because again, we're not you know, humanoids, or anything, we have—
Amanda: Crustacean rhythms!
Julia: I was gonna say cicadian rhythms.
Eric: I thought—uh, Julia I thought I'm like, why would you say that, It's already cicadas.
Julia: Yep.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Glad we're on the same page.
Brandon: So we only sleep once every 17 years.
Julia: And for a long time.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, there's really something. I remember I had a professor who like said you know, your body kind of just like understands stuff, you— you go long enough without an alarm, you will start waking up at the same time. And it's true, I do that now. I wake up at pretty much the same time every day, and I haven't set an alarm for years. So I think that like there's something here which is very interesting about not having a clock. And if someone official tries to tell you to do something, you're like uh, can you tell me what that means on the tide instead of a time?
Julia: Is that high tide or is it low tide?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: How does that have to work with your giant crab that eats that, wha–?
Julia: How many hours after the giant crab eats is that?
Amanda: Yeah. I was just getting around feeding time as a sort of shorthand for the—the no-go zone in the cove, which could be fun.
Eric: That's very cool.
Brandon: I love that. I think that the —okay I don't want to kidnap, but I do want to be a pirate. So I think maybe the like initiation is like yeah when the clock strikes 4 o'clock that's when it's best to leave, and that's just feeding time. And if they don't figure that out, then they get eaten by the crab.
Eric: That's pretty good, that’s good stuff.
Julia: I’m fine with that.
Eric: How else are you supposed to know if someone’s sea-worthy, if you're not gonna haze them with a water monster? Like, what else are we supposed to do?
Brandon: Exactly. Exactly.
Julia: What are you doing?
Brandon: Gotta be crusty somehow.
Eric: Yeah, I like this a lot. There's some really interesting stuff that we didn't get to but you know, that's the way the cookie crumbles. I think it's cool.
Amanda: I was kicking around some name ideas and I wonder if this sets off–
Eric: Please.
Amanda: –anything in anybody. But the idea there's a mushroom company called Smallhold that sells mushrooms in a lot of the places that we shop. But like a Stronghold something along those lines, I think could be interesting as you know, a place that is protected and secure. But also you kind of need to know how to get in it, to get in it.
Eric: Smallhold is cool.
Julia: I like Something-hold.
Brandon: I know. I was thinking BigHold, or, but that doesn't sound good.
Julia: We got a big hole in the Bighold.
Eric: Stone—Stonehold.
Amanda: It's not bad.
Julia: Volcano hold.
Eric: Volcano— lava—Lavahold.
Brandon: I—regardless, I do like that, at least colloquially—colloquially. We call it the Big Top though.
Eric: I —listen, if you're going to call it a nickname, you might as well—you might as well—
Amanda: Name it. Yeah.
Eric: —Name it that.
Julia: I also just like The Hold.
Brandon: The Hold is good.
Eric: The Hold is good. That I mean that's pirate-y as fuck.
Amanda: Yeah. I like that.
Eric: I like The Hold.
Amanda: The Hold just like the secure place where you put the loot?
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah. And that's probably how it started before we started like living here. It was just—this is the place where we dropped off the excess loot, so no one can find it.
Eric: Yeah, I really like The Hold. I think it's good.
Amanda: It's pretty good.
Julia: That's why it's cluttered.
Eric: Yeah. And then does anyone have any ship names? I still like the idea that you wrote something over something else.
Brandon: The Chloroblast.
Julia: No.
Eric: So I don't want– I think that like the old one was probably pretty stuffy or official. You know, we haven't talked about like your—your history or why maybe we'll get into it at some point about why all of you came together? How long you've been doing this blah, blah, blah. But I like the idea that like in the beginning of this, before like the big pirate explosion, the only people that were doing the Infinite Lake Challenge and trying to get the wish for the magical salmon were the governments to start with. So I think that like if this is an old ship or weathered regardless of if it looked as such. Like if something that was that looked like this had to be official to start with. So like the old name was probably very official, and then you named it something like cool, but casual and slapdash, maybe.
Julia: May I suggest something?
Brandon: Yes.
Julia: Which is there is a plant that is called the water wheel and is basically an aquatic venus flytrap.
Brandon: That's cool.
Eric: Fuck.
Brandon: I was gonna say the same thing. I was gonna say maybe it's named after the algae that is on it.
Eric: Harold.
Brandon: Well, if there's like Dead Man's Fingers is a cool one. Kombu is fun.
Amanda: I think the name of a ship has to sound good without an article in front of it. And so when I'm saying like, you know, we'll see you on Water Wheel or well, you know, I I’ll meet you back at Waterwheel. It has gravitas to it that I really appreciate.
Julia: I'm into it.
Eric: Yeah. I like water—I like Waterwheel. I think it's cool. Unless there's a really tight algae. Also, the algae's name is Harold.
Julia: There's also another one that's called the Sea Whip.
Brandon: Yeah, I saw that or the Bullwhip.
Julia: Which is a type of coral?
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: We're probably on the same page right now, Brandon.
Eric: Do you say it was called the Cool Whip?
Julia: No, it's called the Sea Whip.
Brandon: Oh the Wire Weed is also cool.
Julia: That is neat.
Eric: Oh these are—hold on, these are the scientific names. Hey, do you want to call the ship Fucus Serratus?
Brandon: Yes.
Julia: I think both Water Wheel and Sea Whip are very cool and are also plant references, which is dope.
Eric: Fuck. I really like Waterwheel. I think that makes sense. Hey, my cousin was a Waterwheel.
Amanda: You can also have me singing Darius Rucker’s Wagon Wheel constantly.
Julia: There you go.
Brandon: I do like Sea Whip I think better than Waterwheel personally but either is fine.
Amanda: Uh, I'm in for Sea Whip.
Julia: Sea Whip is cool.
Eric: Yeah, let's Sea Whip, Sea Whip is cool. It’s the Cool Whip.
Amanda: [sings] Do the Sea Whip.
Julia: Cause Sea Whip, not only is evocative of like a fast-moving cool ship but also is a sea plant. So.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Oh yeah, it's really pretty.
Eric: The Sea Whip also sounds like a fucking pirate ship. Yeah?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Like it sounds more like—the Waterwheel sounds like a fucking Louisiana boat you can gamble on.
Julia: Fair. Fair.
Amanda: And actually, you know what, the color of Sea Whip reminds me of the Join The Party Campaign One pinkish red.
Eric: Oh, that's cool.
Amanda: I'm into it.
Brandon: Love it.
Eric: I put an exclamation point next to Sea Whip!. Sea Whip! Alright, would you like to review the stuff that we did today?
Julia: Sure.
Brandon: Sure.
Eric: Cool. Alright. The adjectives that we've chosen are “Cluttered”, “Freewheeling”, and “Veiled” for our secret base. This is part of a hollowed-out volcano. You pass through a cove, this kind of– maybe there's a commune or some other folks who are in there, but there's just some stuff for the permanent residents as well, that you have all built. For the space, the sea around the island, Julia said that it was “Coved” and had a hidden reef. It was “Opaque” and “Kelpy” or “Kelpish”. For me what makes it hard to sleep? Well, the water crab monster that lives in the kelp, feeds at an hour before dawn and then sleeps for 90 minutes afterward, which is very important if you're going in and out. [chomping sound] What landscape feature is the base integrated with? There's a he— Amanda said there's a huge array of elevation, tiered platforms for growing produce and for hanging out. Kind of like the center is the middle and then he goes down and up. And Brandon wanted a—the person who does the cooking is a Noma-style high class incredible five-star chef, but it is way too unnecessary. No one knows what the hell they're doing. Which is very funny. And we have Out Back Stake House as the name of the restaurant.
Amanda: Potentially.
Julia: Oh my god.
Eric: No, that's definitely what it is. I like it. I like it a lot because it's outback of all of the buildings. For the boat, which we've now named the Sea Whip! Our boat has unusual coloring in that, it is distressed and abandoned. And it seems distressed and abandoned. The weapon we've invested into the boat is a rusty knife ram below the waterline for ramming into other boats. Something lives on the boat, which is the algae on the outside that was put together to make it look worse. And his name is Harold and he glows under the right light. The most dangerous part of the boat is the proper documentation in the captain's chest. Because this was sec— quote-unquote “second hand” and you've all put together a ghost story to keep people away from it. And finally the work so far, the things that you are all starting with. Something beloved is falling into repair, that is the big clock that was put on the island as kind of like the first settlement there. But the metal is rusting and the clock doesn't work because it's right in the middle of the seawater. Someone has washed ashore, that was a French eggplant name Aubergine who was into fashion but also has amnesia. So we don't know if he's actually into fashion. He's just—if he just has a French accent. Your health and comfort come first so you– there are hot springs to make you more vital which is all the way up high, and finally, the base has something new that's purely for entertainment. There's golf during the day and puppet shows at night.
Julia: Sure is!
Eric: Oh God. And we have come up with our secret base, we called it The Hold.
Amanda: Sun's asleep, puppets do peep.
Julia: Sun's out, clubs out.
Eric: Puppets at night, sailor's delight. Puppets in morning, I hate it.
Amanda: Sailors take warning.
Eric: Put it away.
Amanda: Sailors take warning, baby.
Eric: Take warning, they’re puppet people. Put that way. Hell yeah, dude. Alright, I think that we have all we need to start playing Campaign 3.
Amanda: Yaaay!
Brandon: I love it!
Eric: Let's do it. You salty sea dogs.
Julia: Arrgh!
Brandon: Right now!
Eric: Mrrr! No, Brandon, we’ve been recording for like 100 minutes. We have to go.
Brandon: Go to the next episode of your podcast players, it's probably already there. It’s not there, don’t look.
Julia: It’s not there. Don’t do it.
Brandon: It’s not there. Oh, hey, we’re here, Campaign 3, we’re all plants, let’s see what happens.
Transcriptionist: KA
Editor: KM