S1B10 MAILBAAAAG!

In this special behind-the-scenes bonus episode our unflappable PLAYERS answer your burning hot questions! Guest staring Tones, the other half of our terrific sound team. It's a mailbaaaag episode! 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

Mailbag.

SPEAKER_07 0:03

Mailbag. Mailbag.

SPEAKER_04 0:08

What are we doing? Mailbag. That's that's that's where I thought we were going with this, but then you held it for way longer than I thought you were going to.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Because I was waiting for people to come in.

SPEAKER_08 0:18

I got it. Wasn't on key, but I got it.

SPEAKER_04 0:22

I try to like harmonize a little bit, but it just sounded bad in my head.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

It'd be a nightmare to do an audio. Well, that's not making it in. Come on now.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Things that will never be accused of being AI slop.

SPEAKER_04 0:41

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

It's just regular slop. Good old fashioned human.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

100% organic mulch compost pile slop.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

There's not enough uh extra fingers on this podcast in the world to make it sound like AI slot.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Okay, so uh I'm not gonna do the full intro because um it's not a real episode, but this is the mailroom episode, everybody. Woo! Because we're between seasons and we need to burn some time. Woo! Mailroom. So I'm Ian, uh the host, normally the GM, but not today. Suckers. And uh let the rest of the cast introduce themselves in no particular order. Because that always goes well.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

We all start talking over each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Well, hey, I'm Bree. I'm glad mechanics on Colossus of the Crud.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

Hi, I'm Audra. I play uh Sabbatha the quartermaster on the ship.

SPEAKER_08 1:50

I'm Garrett, I play Tegan St. James, uh, the ship's pilot, and sometimes confused for captain uh on the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Hey, I'm Eugene. I play Gualo, the ship's science officer. The real treasure, I always say, is the friends we killed along the way.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

And we have joining with us as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Uh hey, I'm Tony. Uh I am the foley artist and half of the sound team. Yo!

SPEAKER_08 2:20

We got tones!

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Woo! Let's hear it for our sound team.

unknown 2:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

So uh I I guess um since I'm the host, I'll read the questions. So we asked the audience for questions and they sent some questions. And uh so we'll in the order that we just introduced ourselves, the very first question was uh how did people decide their PC build? How did you come to come to get your character for the show? No, starting with Brie.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

That's a fantastic question. I was expecting really crappy questions. I was not prepared to answer uh things that were smart and interesting. Uh glitch came to me in a fever dream. And by that, I imagine I was doing a lot of drugs. I was doing a lot of drugs at the time. No, uh the idea of uh playing a cyborg's always been really interesting to me, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. Uh, I was already so in love with the whole world, and I wanted a character that really fit into the world that Ian was building, and I wanted to play something that felt like it was born of the sea sky, and that's how glitch came up around that. You know, a lot of times when you're making PCs, especially for tabletop gaming, uh, it's someone in your life, or it's an idea, or it's a character you read about in a book, and then you make it work into the game, and this was absolutely the opposite of that. I just was so in love with the concept of the show that I wanted something that felt uniquely and inherently born from it. Also, I thought it'd be really cool to have cybernetics and like be able to shoot lasers and shit.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Rad, Rad. Good good answer, good answer. It uh complimented me a lot, so obviously I'm I'm gonna like that. Um Tabitha. Audra, how did you come to Tabitha?

SPEAKER_04 4:28

Um it took a lot of thinking, but I think like once I started to like form like a basic idea of her, like it just started like flowing out of me. Um like I don't know, it just all seemed to like come together as I continue to think about her. I think there's also a a little bit of myself in her. Uh she's kind of ridiculous at times, uh inappropriate times, a lot like myself. Um so it's not too hard to play her because it's kind of just being myself a lot.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

You're a very hungry, giant, three-eyed cat.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

Um that's that's just the like the veneer of oh okay. Well, uh I have a cat named Spectra. And uh Tabitha is actually modeled off of Spectra a lot as well. Spectra is always hungry in any situation. Uh she's very food-driven. Uh, she's a smoky tabby um with golden eyes with like a green around her pupils and stuff. So like even Tabitha is supposed to look somewhat, at least color-wise, as Spectra. And uh Spectra is I don't know, she's cute and she's cuddly and everything, but she's she's just a lovable cat, and I love her so much. And I saw I like I thought it would be cute and funny to play a character that was modeled after my house cat. So that's where the the basis of Tabitha came from.

SPEAKER_05 6:09

Okay. Garrett.

SPEAKER_08 6:12

So when me and Ian had first kind of were thinking about this, and he was, you know, fleshing out the world and things like that, and we're talking about having a podcast, uh, I wanted to make sure that we had a character that the listeners could kind of immediately like latch onto without a whole lot of um trouble, you know, like a pants type character that you can kind of sit into. So we thought about it, and uh having something like a a human is nice and relatable, and a cowboy is something everybody kind of knows from shared fiction, and so that's where we kind of started with the whole idea of okay, space cowboy. Uh, and then we you know, talking about Firefly, we're talking about other kind of genres that worked into it. So that was kind of the easy part putting the little extra tweaks on there, you know, the sentient lasso, the you know, how to make a good pilot using the you know system rules and looking at rangers and things like that. Uh that that was kind of the part that got a little more, you know, fidgety or finicky, I should say. Uh, but overall, I think it worked out really well, and I'm really happy with Tegan.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

I think everybody's really happy with Tegan.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

I so one, I think Garrett plays a really good cowboy. Like he just has that kind of like always a little sad kind of thing going.

SPEAKER_08 7:31

Um I can tell you the thing that I didn't count on was uh that kind of like that started to come after we we played a few sessions and I had an idea in my head about what he was gonna be like was the uh the unsurety or like how unsure he would become in these like strange situations where I was trying to kind of go for this like stoic old man, you know, really has his shit together, and then suddenly Qualos like, and I pull a grenade out, and I'm like, uh, what? Um so he he gets a lot uh a lot more uh frazzled than I originally had anticipated him getting, but uh it's I think it's more consumption.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

I don't mean to to uh make this comparison uh to to detract from the performance. It's it's meant to be the opposite. But he has a like Nathan Fillion from Firefly thing going on, where he's like, you know, he's he's supposed to be the sure captain, he wants to be this sure captain of the crew, but he's always like managing chaos to the point where he's always just like barely got a grip on the situation.

SPEAKER_08 8:37

Yeah, and and obviously like that huge inspiration, so I'm I'm glad that that is uh at least in some way coming through.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

I also will say that uh so we had talked about that, but we never said it explicitly on the show that Tegan was meant to be the like anchor character, the the relatable one. But uh, we've had a bunch of fan um fan feedback where they recognized that that that was what Tegan was. So I think that that's also really flattering for the show that people recognize that Tegan was supposed to be the the character that you could, you know, see yourself out of the most. So I think that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Well he's the he's the Jimmy Stewart or like the the George Bailey of It's a Wonderful Life, right? Like the every man who you can connect to and has a good heart and is just trying to deal with the absolute mess he's been dropped into.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Uh yeah, Z, Eugene.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

So normally my character starts off as either some sort of mechanic or cliche or just like one-dimensional idea, and then I start playing the character, and by the fifth or sixth session, I get at some point a light bulb turns on, and I'm like, oh, that's who I'm playing. And then the character sort of takes shapes from there. Uh, but that wasn't gonna work with with this game, right? I wasn't gonna be able to sort of uh try on different ideas until one click. Uh, until Garrett said, uh, play a character who can't help but to investigate answers to every question that occurs to him. Um, so it's this sort of super hyper Doctor Who kind of guy. And I thought that sounded really great, and that's that's essentially the genesis of Qualo.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

I do like that uh between Qualo and Glitch, like they're different ways of talking about the universe that you two sort of help flesh out the show feeling like science fantasy. And so Glitch helps with the the science fiction part of it, and you help with the fantasy part of it, but the the way you guys interrogate the world g like gives it that you know character. And it, you know, I don't have to exposite about the setting as much because you two are are talking about it. Um that's another thing that we've gotten a lot of compliments on is uh glitch's techno babble. Is uh it's it like people like will like message and be like, wow, that's really good technobabble. I'm uh and then people like talking about uh Koalos, like antics of getting into things. But yeah, between the two of you, the way you interact uh helps make the show feel science fantasy.

SPEAKER_08 11:17

I actually have the same kind of uh compliment to pay both uh Brie and Z, is that the I I've listened to some of the episodes and then sitting there listening to the two of you rift uh techno babble versus like quasi-scientific literature terms. Uh and I'm used to riffing stuff, but damn, that's it was really like I I'm like, do I need to start writing this shit down? Do I need to make a Wikipedia? Like, so we keep track of all this. I was happy just blaming everything on the wake stabilizers, but I was I was an only child.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

I watched a lot of Robotech. That's all I know.

SPEAKER_05 11:55

Hell yeah. Yeah, robots with legs. Better than the bigger.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah. Uh thank you. I think I think Breeze feels a lot more natural. Mine is is I'm trying to come up with the most obscure academic words I can find and just string them together in a way that barely makes sense. Uh and hers feels like she's actually thought about the setting and like has an internal map of how everything works, uh, which is kind of neat.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Speaking of maps, though, uh, I mean your description of the uh was it your this like organic uh map device on the ship I thought was really well done.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Oh, the Oculus or no, the Oc uh the Oculi homunculus?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yep. Yeah. Yeah it had the little beaks and stuff. Yeah, thank you. That's one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

And then uh so I will say the the part of how the cast came together, the the characters anyway, is um I in my head wanted when people were picturing the show for the cast to strike a specific kind of tableau. So I don't know if anybody remembers Darksiders, uh an indie comic from like I don't remember, it's like the eighties or nineties. But I remember as a kid seeing the like cast of the Darksiders, and they were all different shapes and sizes, and it immediately was eye-catching just just to see the cast. And um and so I did a little digging and I was looking at like different science fiction shows, and the ones where like the covers were the most interesting were the ones that they like so like Farscape. I've never I've never watched a full episode of Farscape, but the the crew looked interesting when you would like look at them uh just together. And so I uh as people were like having their characters come together, I was pushing them, prodding them to to come up with a group of characters that in the aggregate, you know, standing shoulder to shoulder would look unique. And uh and so there were people who were like on their way to some choices, and I was like pushing back, trying to get them to to physically be more different. And I think that's part of how Tabitha came to be a giant cat.

SPEAKER_08 14:10

And so I that's kind of an interesting question. It's tangential to this, but it was something that I maybe people find interesting. So what what were kind of the the roads that we didn't take? Because I know I had a completely different character concept originally before we all kind of got together and decided what we're gonna do. Uh, did you guys have any other like initial character concepts of what you thought would have been cool that we didn't go with?

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Uh yeah, actually, I think I was going to play a rogue at first. Um I had done one in our audition and I was actually going to go ahead and keep that character running, and then as we talked about it, um uh Z was talking about Qualo and he sounded so cool that I I actually flipped on that. I was like, nope, I want to do something totally different. I want I want Qualo to be the weird one with all the connections.

SPEAKER_08 15:09

Uh I was gonna go on a com like a completely different path. Uh I had the idea to play a like uh a meeboid kind of ooze man druid that was gonna be named Doc Blobins, and and Ian immediately vetoed that he immediately vetoed that name. He was like, absolutely not, and I tried to I tried to get him on Blobin Williams and he said no. Um but the idea of like you know doing druid shape shifting just by you know, he still looks like an amoeba, he's just now in the shape of like an octopus or a uh an elk or something like that. Uh and then him being a doctor where he just have to like put you know pseudopods and stuff into people's noses to figure out what's wrong with them.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah, I'm glad you didn't do that.

SPEAKER_08 15:59

One of the maybe one of these days, maybe if if Tegan ever dies heroically, I can bring in bring in Doc Blobbins.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Um it it never got to any any sort of serious stage of development. Uh but in the auditions I played uh a gorilla brawler or something like that. Yeah, I remember that was a fun character, so if if if the brawler spot had been open and I hadn't been led to wallow, uh something along those lines might have eventually gotten gotten in there.

SPEAKER_08 16:34

That'd have been fun. I'm imagining a big, you know, simia brawler just just doing whirlwind fin spiss, you know, fin spins all throughout everything.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Yeah. I mean it's exactly what you would imagine, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Um okay, and then I guess lastly, tones. How did you come to your character?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Uh so I've actually played a number of characters that you guys may not even know about. A lot of gas. Um two of my favorite are um Propus's whistle is actually mine, and uh my favorite one is episode seven. Um, the science uh, I guess science of some sort of I don't know, the character that is being abducted uh by Alan as he's breaking into the ship. That's me going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Oh, that's so good. Um, I also I pitched an idea to tones, uh, and listeners, uh, please comment on wherever you're listening to this uh when you listen to this, if you like the idea, because he did not buy it, but I think if enough listeners said they wanted to hear it, maybe he'd change his mind. But um I had an idea for uh for a series of B-side episodes where the ship has a secret janitor that's never mentioned in the episodes proper, but that is responsible for a lot of things like turning out okay that otherwise should not have succeeded. And uh so Tones would play that janitor, and it would be like him, uh, Mango, and Stitch on these like quirky little side adventures to cover up you guys' mistakes and like shore things up, but then he's like never thanked or acknowledged uh at all. I think that that would be hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

So basically, what actually happens just fictionalized for the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

That's exactly correct.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Basically, tones carrying all of our asses and making the show sound 65% better than it does.

SPEAKER_08 18:38

Yeah. So like uh like Z and Tone, you guys do like an amazing job because Z is like getting every um and gasp and dead space and trying to make this like cohesive, and then Tones is like layering on this extra uh you know, like tableau of sounds and soundscapes and stuff. Like it's it's really good, and we're really lucky that you guys are putting in the work that you are.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yes, we are, and I I don't take it for granted. Okay. That's good, good stuff. Uh, does anybody have a favorite episode? We'll go in uh reverse order this time. So or not favorite episode, but favorite moment, or I guess, or favorite episode. And uh so for the listener, uh we the audience has recorded season two, most of season two. Uh so let's to to the rest of the cast, let's avoid anything from season two, but uh anything from season one, starting with tones.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Um, okay, so my favorite moment, at least probably one of my favorite moments to do audio for, um, is when um Ofelion uh when the the gang sees her sort of um before the Deus, and uh uh hush just kind of like bursts out of the ground. I thought that was uh felt really epic for me to kind of work on.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Rad.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Ooh. Ooh, actually mmm Yeah. I had another one too. Dur dur during the hush fight as well. Um the the um Tegan and Glitch tag team I thought was really fun. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:12

That was a good one. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Uh Z.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Um I don't I don't know that I have I'll say this. My favorite bit is uh Qualo being a waiter. Which is completely unintentional, but just now has become kind of a recurring bit. Uh I think that's probably my I'll I'll say that I'll go with that. Also, so just to add a little bit of clarity here, um I do the editing, and so I keep the show from sounding bad, and Tones does the foley, so he makes it sound good. That's how I like to describe it. Oh, okay. Um Tones, I I never we know consult, he just does it all on his own, and I wait until Wednesday to listen to it uh with everyone else. So besides the the quality bit, one of my favorite things is being surprised by the audio choices uh and being, you know, like like, oh man, that was that's a great audio choice, right? That really makes the the scene vibrant or sing in a way that was like, oh, that's awesome. Uh I like that a lot. Red. Especially because I spend like hours editing ums and uhs and shit like that. So listening to the finished product is so it's like it's a pleasure. It's like, ah, okay, that's what we were working for.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

I mean, the I think probably the best compliment that I think I've gotten so far was from Zort of uh halfway through season one. And you said the um you take the the recording and turn it into a conversation, uh, and I take the conversation and turned it into a show. And I thought that was a really cool description.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Hell yes. Hell yes. Alright, Garrett, favorite uh moment or episode?

SPEAKER_08 21:58

Um So I'm not gonna say favorite episode, but there is one thing that stands out to me that I thought was since we we normally kind of keep it lighthearted and it's running around, it's kind of goofy and stuff like that. Um, but when we get back onto the rising after the fight with Hush, uh and Josephine's out of the tube, um, and she's sitting on the ground, and there's a moment where uh you know glitch comes over, she's asking, like, what's going on? And and Tegan snaps, like he snaps hard. And uh at first I was like, oh god, did I put a little too much heat on that? I sound like a dickhead. Uh, but then like Bree just rolls glitch straight into it. She like locks in focus mode, I'm on my way, I'm doing it. And like everyone just kind of tightens up for a moment. And we don't have that many, we haven't had that many moments of like uh uh stressful uh you know hardness. And I c I like that one. It was it was a nice juxtaposition from our normal having fun.

SPEAKER_05 22:56

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

Uh there's a couple. One I uh I know it it has been mentioned several times, but I thought the hush fight was a lot of fun. Um and it was like very serious compared to some of the like previous shenanigans that had happened earlier in the uh show. Um it was a very like, wow, we could actually really for real die from this if we don't like try to work as a team and overcome it.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

But at the end of the fight, you stop to scoop some some goo into a Tupperware instead of fighting.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Tapasa is always hungry.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

She did that in the middle of the fight. In the middle of the fight, she's just stopped fighting.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

She's always hungry.

SPEAKER_08 23:46

Sometimes we have a light in it's lighthearted. Sometimes you have to make giant mecha crab chowder, you know?

SPEAKER_04 23:52

It was right there in front of her, okay? Like, what do you expect? She's a lot of animal to power, okay?

SPEAKER_00 23:58

She's like how many calories, okay?

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

I just had a really good idea for what Qualo's been doing with that meat.

SPEAKER_04 24:09

But uh the other one is because not because I got any pleasure out of the idea of this, but it was just so absurd that it was hilarious to me. It was when uh the two guys, uh Alan and the oh god, what was the other one's name? Ranger. Yeah, Alan Ranger. They kept getting they kept getting their heads bashed in. Just like repeatedly, like mercilessly, just over and over and over again. And it just got to this ridiculous level. It's like it's not funny, but it's hilarious at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Will Koalo ever feel bad about that?

SPEAKER_02 24:53

No, we're gonna get like an email from the National Institute of Head Protection being like, we do not think that this is funny.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

And uh Colossus of the Crux. Worse than the NFL.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Uh okay, and then finally, Rie?

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Uh I'm a I'm a basic woman with basic needs, and I uh honestly the first moment where I was like, this is so next level. I love this show so much as a listener was Tegan going dancing for the first time and losing those corduroy jorts, and I to this day I can't listen to that without just losing it. Absolutely losing that whole scene is pure brilliance as far as I'm concerned. There's some like next level, next level like improv and role-playing, and um, but it also is it's I think everything it's so hard to pick episodes because there's just like all these character moments where and this is like the best thing about TTRPGs in general, right? When you look at someone who's just a totally normal person sitting across the table from you, and you're like, How did you come up with that? And where did that come from in your brain? And that is so brilliant, and I never would have thought of that in a million years.

SPEAKER_08 26:20

Yeah, so um me and Ian had had a discussion uh about, you know, I didn't, you know, again, Tegan's supposed to be kind of like the lens that the people can can come into, but I was like, all right, I don't want to have it too flat, right? I don't want to just be like gruff cowboy and this and that. I was like, I need to have something to kind of make him a little bit more. And originally I was like, maybe he can play the piano or he can do this and that. And I was talking to Ian and I was like, I don't know, maybe he should just be like really into dancing. And Ian's like, yes, go for it. He's like, do that. I was like, okay, and I'm thinking like line dancing. I was like, no, well, and Ian's like, yeah, we should just ratchet that to 11. And I'm like, yeah, okay, so I'm gonna do like tear away chaps, fish nets, and and his what he looks like corduroy pants are just jorts, you know, and that's how he goes and like lets loose uh and and and blows off stress, but he can't let everyone else know. And so that's kind of where that whole thing came from was this uh, you know, this idea of how to teagan cut loose in a in a non-tru, you know, stereotypical cowboy, let's go he just get drunk or whatever way.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

The the gang kind of finding out about the sort of like the the cutaway pants, the corduroy jorts, uh was was smack dab in the middle of the uh the gremlin scene.

SPEAKER_08 27:38

And I thought that was Oh, the gremlin scene.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Oh right, when glitch makes you take your pants off.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Me as the GM, the the two my two favorite moments of season one were uh yes. Well, my three favorite moments. My mo my most favorite moment was when it was over, and just the relief that I felt that we had like got to the end. But uh no, during the season, like the thing that made the show feel like a show for me was uh I bel it was episode three, and you know, I asked you all something to do on the ship, and like Garrett did his dancing scene, and jamming that live in the moment, it was incredible. But then listening to it after the editing and the foley work, um going back, and I was like, alright, we have a show. Like that that hit so hard. Uh and it was like so freaking good. Um and then the other moment was the Gremlin moment. So as a as a GM, you know, a a big part of any art form, right, is the is the boundaries, the limitations. And one of the rules for a good GM, I think, is when your players fail a role, right, that they have to do something different. Because if you let them, they'll just try to to to push through what they wanted to do. Um and so it makes for a better game and a better show to to tell them no um when the the dice don't go in their favor. And so they're just like a string of you know, choices combined with some bad roles. And if we just got to the point where it was like kill the gremlins or let them on the ship. And I still remember uh glitch slash breach trying to gently be like, Ian no, like don't don't don't do this to me. Don't do this to me. And I and I had to be firm and be like, nah man, we're we're here now. Uh and then, you know, if the listeners know what happened. But I don't know. If I'm playing the universe, like that that drama of the like decision getting pushed up to that point, I thought was uh in terms of like GMing.

SPEAKER_08 30:04

I can say that like so one, that caught me completely by surprise. I thought uh Glitch was gonna acquiesce. She was gonna be like, okay, we'll deal with it later. I'll throw them into like a you know the the you know waste recycle or something like that or whatever. I did not expect her to straight gack the two gremlins, and so I like I don't know if you can hear the shock in my voice, like, oh that just happened. Um tones is tones is nodding his head like oh I could hear it.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

You so the the the the sequence of events were was in the in the audio. Uh Brie says, take your pants off, cowboy, and you can hear it in her voice too, she's kind of done with it. And your response to that was forgive me. And you can hear just like your soul before me, and you tear off the pants.

SPEAKER_08 30:54

I and then like uh so after that happens, and then I've been sitting there like really thinking about okay, so how does you know how's Tegan dealing with this? How's he doing? We have that whole like you know little interlude where uh we go to the shrine locker, which for the listeners, there's a lot of stuff that me and the the and Ian and the rest of the team have all kind of talked about in the background about places on the ship and things like that. And we haven't really gotten around to the shrine locker uh as being a sort of quasi-spiritual religious place on the ship. You know, we don't have a chapel or anything, we have like a box that we throw our our fears and hopes and dreams into. And going down there and remembering, you know, that Tegan can't really write. And so him just trying to write something about how he's feeling and putting it into this box, you know, about the gremlins. And I can tell you that that that that interaction is a what directly led to me saving Glampweasel. So when Egan Ian, you kind of push us towards another, you know, you can do this or you can do that. And the reason we went after Glampweasel is because of literally how bad I felt about those fucking gremlins.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Awesome. Alright, so back at the top with three.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

Uh do you have a favorite NPC? Oh. I love them all. Um, I do.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

They're hilarious. Uh and and I'm gonna say that the um glamp weasel was always one, but I I'm again, I am a simple woman with simple needs, and propus, I want the like all propus bonus episode. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

I'm not prepared for what that's gonna do to my vocal chords, but alright. Alright.

SPEAKER_05 32:49

Uh Slim Jimmy.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

He's just like I don't know. I I just love when Garrett was like trying to get him to do something, and he was just like, nah, boss is the seventh. And I was trying so hard not to laugh in that moment. Like it like, I mean, I it was just so good. It was so good. Like, I was trying not to laugh for like freaking 10 minutes after that. That like you just like freaking ripped that out, like, nah, boss is the seventh, and I I died. So I was so good.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

I will say part of what made Slim Jimmy the way he is, is I've learned from a long time of GMing that if you give the players a an NPC like helper that's too good, then they will just lean on that NPC helper for everything. And so uh I've I've learned to to consciously limit how helpful an NPC is. You know, so if I if I if they're supposed to be helpful, then they're helpful, right? But if they're gonna be a throwaway character, then they cannot be helpful. And so Slim Jimmy, like I could tell really early on that the crew wanted to lean on Slim Jimmy, and that's not why I wrote him. And so he turned into just like an obnoxiously useless character pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_08 34:15

Yeah, real, real frustration in my voice, I think, through.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

Yeah, toward the end of the show, Garrett was honestly like, so it was like it wasn't just like it wasn't just like Tegan mad at Slim Jimmy. It started to be like Garrett mad at Ian for how useless Slim Jimmy was. Uh but anyway, okay, so that's that was Slim Jimmy.

SPEAKER_05 34:41

Uh Tegan? Yeah, my favorite.

SPEAKER_08 34:45

So, yeah, I've got I've got a favorite and and I've got a most hated. So I'm gonna start uh I'm gonna start with my most hated, uh, and this is entirely my fault, uh, but Charlie Fontaine.

SPEAKER_05 35:00

No!

SPEAKER_08 35:01

He's great!

SPEAKER_05 35:02

I love him.

SPEAKER_08 35:04

No one hates Charlie Fontaine more than me. Uh, and that's uh me staring into a mirror darkly, just dressing my own self down. Because somehow Charlie Fontaine lives inside of me, and I hate it. He makes me he makes me hate myself. Uh no, but uh so Charlie Fontaine's like the the the lowest end of what I I I I don't like, but uh Josephine's probably the highest, right? Like Josephine feels like uh uh absolutely a part of the crew, but it doesn't feel like a GM PC, you know, which for people, the listeners who've been playing these TTRPG games is you know kind of a uh pit that certain GMs fall into when they want to have a character really badly that they want to play. Uh and they insert them into the group and then have them, that character, make way too many important decisions and things like that. So Josephine's like this really nice balance between she's absolutely like not only pertinent to the story, but she feels like she's part of the the crew uh without overstepping, you know, and making it the the Ian Josephine show, you know. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Uh do I have a favorite NPC? I do have a favorite NPC. Uh so I read as a weird aside, I read uh Alan Moore's writing for comics when I was like a teenager. And I still to this day remember I think every lesson that he wrote in that book. But one of them is that the most important character in any story is the villain. And uh because they drive all of the action for the the story. And I love Ofelion, and I know that you guys haven't interacted with her much. Um and you know, some of that's by design, right? We got a long show to go to. But uh you know, I know everything about Ofelion and just what the interactions you guys have had and uh the character I'm a uh I very much enjoy thinking about her and her arc and like getting into her headspace. It's been a lot of fun. So Ephelin is definitely my favorite character. Um and then my least favorite is Propus, because it hurts my voice to it hurts my throat to do that voice.

SPEAKER_05 37:26

What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Why are you making fun of me?

SPEAKER_08 37:30

Of course I know that. What would you guys do if you were to do what I did? I just lost my shit when I heard that. Oh, real tears.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

And so when everybody's like, we want propus back, I was like, motherfucker, I don't it hurts to do that voice. Uh okay, and then Eugene.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Um, I don't uh I don't really have a favorite NPC. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Do you have a least favorite?

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Josephine, probably. And that's real life, folks. Listen, she's becoming kind of a bitch with Qualo, and uh I and he uh notices.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

I think that's I think it's a bigger factor in season two.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Uh but it was right, we'll cut that. We'll cut that. I've been shops for her and all that shit, and she just treats me badly. No, it's all in um it's all in season two now that I'm thinking about it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Um season two what comes out, uh now you we have a uh what's that a teaser. Tune in for season two.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

I don't really have like a favorite or whatever, because I I don't I don't know, my brain doesn't really work that way, but there is an NPC I want to hear more from, which is the mafia uh character at the nail salon. Um that Kayla. Kayla, that that Tabby is at some point gonna kill.

SPEAKER_08 39:14

Um probably or become best friends with, or yeah, who knows, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Uh enemies to lovers. At some point, that's that's an NPC I want to see come back.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Uh and then Tones, who's your favorite uh NPC?

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Um so again, I have heard season two, so I don't know if they come back. Um, but I'd I I love a uh a losing character who who kind of makes a comeback, and uh that for me it's Grim Gregg.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Um dude, you will love season two. You will love season two.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Cool, alright. Yeah, so it's like you know, for to be uh at least up until season and you know end of season one, it's like a he's like a team rocket character. He's you know, he they get their ass kicked, uh and then I'm hoping. I'm hoping he comes back.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

I man, I I didn't mean for Grim Grace to become such a big part of season two. Uh but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

We're gonna be back in roughly the same numbers. We're gonna we're gonna beat your asses.

unknown 40:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 40:19

Yeah. Like listening to him walk through the wait, so if you're saying you don't know, then you do know it means we gotta beat your ass.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

He is like a team rocket character, that's true. Alright, well, uh, this was fun. Um it's been real and it's been good, but I wouldn't say it's been real good. No, it's been good. Um so I believe with that we're gonna end this mailbag episode. A special thanks to our audio team, Eugene and Tones. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa! To Derry to Press for creating Daggerheart, the awesome game we're playing, and to you are incredible fans. Don't forget to like, subscribe, comment, five stars, the entire thing. It's the number one way to help this show. Colossus of the Crux is part of the Witch Key March universe. If you're interested in playing in any of the associated games, you can find them on startplaying.games. You can also join us on our Discord or follow us on Instagram. Links are in the doobly-doo. And we will see you next week. It sees a two star two.