End Notes, Episode 6

ANNOUNCER (ELI)

The End of Time and Other Bothers: End Notes. Episode 6.

SEAN

Hi everyone. Welcome to the End Notes for Episode 6. I am Sean, the GM, and to my left…

MARISA

I’m Marisa, I play Darcy.

CARTER

I’m Carter, I’m playing as Blat.

MAGGIE

I’m Maggie, I play Ananka.

MIKE

I’m Mike, I play Eggerton.

SEAN

And so these are the End Notes for Episode 6 that you should have heard just a couple of days ago. These are now going out just to our amazing Patreon sponsors. We’re so excited to have you guys on board.

And this is going to be an interesting one, because I tried to do some really crazy new things in this episode, like throw Mags — Ananka — into it with very little background.

(laughs)

So who’s got questions?

MIKE

I’ve got so many questions. But actually I wrote down one: When we were with the Quartermaster… this feels like one of those times when you had a very specific vision for what you wanted to progress. So you created a character and a situation, and I played it safe by hiding in the hall…

MARISA

(laughs)

MIKE

But what were you maybe expecting us to do?

SEAN

So one of the cool things about the campaign and about Dungeon World is it’s all about creating space. So I had a sheet, which we can put online — I don’t know how to pronounce the name I wrote down for him. It’s… here, you try it, Darcy. At the top, in blue. How would you pronounce his name?

MARISA

Well, it just says… Philllll-tha-tickit!

SEAN

That!

MIKE

(laughs)

SEAN

So…

CARTER

Can we get a spelling on that?

MARISA

Multiple Ls.

SEAN

PFILLLLLL-THI-TCKKKKT.

CARTER

Could I get a definition?

SEAN

Giant air jelly.

CARTER

Could you use it in a sentence?

SEAN

“The Pfillllll-thi-tckkkkt did not give them what they wanted.”

CARTER

Excellent. OK! Now that’s a word.

SEAN

But I love that the Pfillllll-thi-tckkkkt became a beholder.

MAGGIE

Yes!

MIKE

Mm hmm.

SEAN

I loved that it became a beholder. So what did I expect? Uh… Originally this was going to be a gelatinous cube, but Join the Party came out with a gelatinous cube literally like a week or two after I’d had the idea, so I don’t know, they probably had the idea first as well. So I was like, “Aaa, I can’t be a gelatinous cube!” And then it became this floating air jelly thing… but the basic idea I had was that its tentacles would read your thoughts and give you what you really needed. But the better you were at controlling your thoughts, the better items you got. So that was my idea.

I thought Pfillllll-thi-tckkkkt… thickit, whatever, could talk. But that’s the thing that changed, was I suddenly decided, no. It would just communicate telepathically. So that was sort of the thing I didn’t expect, that just happened in the moment. But you hiding in the hall, I thought that was great.

MARISA

Yeah. Going back to the beholder… I’m obviously out of the picture. How did Carter know this was a beholder? What’s a beholder? Who’s a beholder?

MIKE

Well, that was from the game we played months ago for fun. And Carter just randomly decided he wanted to be a beholder, or just… beholder was a thing in Carter’s mind.

CARTER

Yeah. When we started getting ideas for this show, Sean and Eli said, “Well, you can come up with your own characters, and they have to fit within the Alba Salix universe, and it’ll be kind of like D&D.” And I immediately thought of the weirdest thing from when I was playing D&D as a 13-year-old, and it was the beholder, which was a giant round creature with tentacles and one giant eye. And I said, “I want to be a beholder!” And they immediately went from “You can literally come up with anything! Anything you want! Anything goes!”

CARTER

“Beholder!”

“You can NOT be a beholder. No beholders!”

So when I heard the description, I thought, “Is he putting a beholder in this story?! That he didn’t allow me to be?”

SEAN

(laughs)

That would have been awesome, if I’d thought of that!

CARTER

So I immediately said it, and just now you saying “Apparently he’s a beholder now!” Well, I’m sorry, I guess I accidentally put a beholder in the story, to which you said “No beholders!”

SEAN

You did. You worked a bazooka and a beholder in.

MARISA

So you just accepted it as canon. As soon as he said it.

SEAN

Yeah! I thought it was funny — but yeah. A beholder would generally be a giant eye, but with lots of tentacles and it would float as well.

MARISA

Yeah, Carter, it’s an eye.

SEAN

That’s OK.

CARTER

So, this beholder is slightly different.

SEAN

But I like the fact that, a lot of tables, the first person would have had — someone would have had the realization, how does this work? and then would have tried to game it…

(laughing)

But I love the fact that all three of you just picked whatever random — I mean, obviously you went first, so you had no idea what was happening…

MARISA

No. No.

SEAN

But I love that everyone just went with that.

CARTER

Blat got exactly what he needed from the beholder.

SEAN

He did, actually.

MARISA

That’s true.

SEAN

You played the beholder.

Next question?

ELI

So it is a beholder now? And not — like, you had written it up as a jellyfish. Which is, uh…

MARISA

That was Eli.

SEAN

I’m going to write “Beholder?” on the sheet.

CARTER

(singing)

I get… what I want! I get… what I want!

ELI

Because there was a jellyfish on TAZ [The Adventure Zone], now that I think of it. The Voidfish.

MARISA

Oh no.

CARTER

Well, this is better! This is different! It’s a beholder!

SEAN

Dammit! I’m stealing everything, clearly. Snegal, though, is original, we can all agree, right?

MIKE

Absolutely.

SEAN

Okay.

MARISA

So original.

MIKE

From the Hall of Mordor.

SEAN

So I tried to do something this episode where — I don’t know if we’re going to keep it. It might be the blooper. But I decided, I was telling the players, I don’t know how much you’ll hear in the final episode — that, OK guys, here’s a quick briefing, here’s what you’re going to have been told about this necklace you’re going to be wearing, this medallion, and we’re starting you in the action, at the end.

(laughs)

And Carter had this great moment where — right? Remember what you said, Carter?

CARTER

Well, I just asked, OK, many films or TV shows, the first scene of this episode is going to be the last scene of the story, where some action happens and you don’t know quite how they were thrust into this situation. So us as players had no idea what was going on — we were just in the action.

I asked, from a storytelling standpoint, perhaps it would have been easier to just have us record the story from beginning to end, take the last scene… and put it at the start of the episode. To which I was told, “We don’t have the technology for that…”

CARTER

And then we rushed into the episode.

Editing! I was just talking about editing.

SEAN

That’s on our wish list. To be able to get that.

MIKE

(laughs)

That’s on our Amazon wish list? You can support us?

SEAN

If we hit our next goal, everyone, we get the ability to move things around.

Yeah. So my thinking was, I wanted to thrust — because we’re using improv, I thought it would be really interesting to throw you into the start of a story. Because then we get to play the game when we get to Episode 7, after our snack, where we basically get to, like…

CARTER

Move forward from there.

SEAN

Yeah.

CARTER

Tell the story in a linear fashion.

SEAN

Right.

CARTER

One of the reviews I’ve read for our show — which was a positive review — referred to all three of our characters as “stupid”.

CARTER

And I think that part of the reason might be that we’re coming across as ignoramuses, is that we’re not given any information! So we’re always operating from a place of complete ignorance.

SEAN

I was trying to capture what it would be like to be shoved into Cadet, out of time, not ready, pushed into this world. And I felt like starting you cold there would get that across.

MARISA

I liked it! I thought it was a good idea.

MIKE

It was fun. Though I can confirm that most of the time, we are shoved into the world unprepared.

MARISA

Mm hmm.

SEAN

Yup.

MIKE

So that was maybe a little more obvious in this one. And it’s fun. I like it. But yeah.

SEAN

But that also — so Mags, you shouldn’t feel bad, because we also shoved Mags — I think you had, what, you had a 4x6” cue card…

MAGGIE

Yes. “Here’s a few key points, and… go!”

SEAN

(laughs)

That’s all I gave you.

MAGGIE

Yeah. It’s OK though. I’m figuring it out.

(laughs)

SEAN

You were good! You were great.

Yeah. So I was trying that too — like, how would communication work, because we’re also bringing in Mags, who is playing an NPC…

MAGGIE

I’m really glad I have a very chatty sister who’s explaining all of this — I’m just riding your coattails for the moment…

MARISA

She’s nothing if not chatty.

SEAN

And I think it’ll get easier once we get better at knowing the characters, but yeah, there was a lot of exposition to get through, so I knew that, so I wanted to start in the action. And once we get that editing thing it’ll be awesome, Carter.

CARTER

(mutters)

You just… you just move scenes around… it’s not that difficult…

MIKE

We should really complain more about Memento though, on this End Notes. I feel like that’s worth bringing back up.

CARTER

Again, Memento is a fine film and I don’t understand why you have a problem with it. Perhaps you need to get the DVD, which –

MIKE

You said that they don’t have that any more.

CARTER

No no, the Blu-ray doesn’t have that. The DVD has that, where the film is then told chronologically, and maybe then you’ll understand that…

MIKE

This summer, you and I are gonna find the DVD, we’re gonna come over here to Sean and Eli’s house and kick them out, and sit and watch it while we hold hands, and you explain it to me.

CARTER

Done.

SEAN

Hooo. There’s a picture.

So we should probably remind people how the dice rolls work, because I had forgotten. 1 to 6 is a fail, so that happened, I think in this episode…

MARISA

That was Carter.

SEAN

Yes.

CARTER

Try to save a shirt, and look what happens.

SEAN

(laughs)

I love that zombies are attacking and you’re folding your shirt.

7 to 9 is a partial success, so it works but there’s a cost.

And then 10+ is a pure success. Which I think we had all three of those in this episode. We actually rolled dice!

MARISA

Uh huh.

MIKE

All of us did.

SEAN

Did anyone else have any questions? Comments about this crazy, weird…

MIKE

I’m discovering that I’m a coward.

MARISA

Which surprises me. I don’t think Eggerton would be… I didn’t think Eggerton would be a coward.

MIKE

I didn’t think so either! And then I thought, if I’m this little flightless fairy guy, who works behind a desk most of the time and just tells stories, which is very, actually, close to me in real life — except I’m taller — and what would happen if he saw undead things? And my first reaction was: I would run away. That is the logical course of action.

CARTER

I don’t think you should feel badly about running away from zombies.

MIKE

Yeah.

MARISA

I actually like that you climbed a tree, like Smokey the Bear tells us to do.

MAGGIE

(laughs)

MIKE

What? He does?

CARTER

Smokey the Bear gives warnings –

MARISA

When danger threatens, climb a tree.

CARTER

Does Smokey the Bear talk about zombie attacks?

MIKE

(laughs)

MARISA

He just said “When danger threatens.” Zombie attacks qualify.

SEAN

Well, I love that you guys did, like you know — somebody’s written up all the things you’re supposed to do in a horror movie that nobody does, and you guys did it. You just, like, ran. There’s slow-moving zombies, you run.

MIKE

(laughs)

Yeah.

SEAN

But not Blat! He folded his shirt.

No, I thought that was a good response.

MIKE

I want to know, Maggie, how it feels to be sitting at the table with all of us — and not even during the actual episode when we’re playing characters, but we’re sitting here waiting for Sean’s computer to load something, and we’re rolling for everything — which Carter started the first time we ever sat down at the table…

SEAN

Wait! Roll for rolling.

MIKE

Roll for rolling.

CARTER

Roll for rolling… and rolling gets a 5.

SEAN

That’s a fail.

CARTER

Fail on rolling.

MIKE

So what’s it like, maybe to — you’ve listened to everything, you know what we’re doing, you know more than we do for some of the things. But what it was like to sit down at the table and watch us be idiots.

MAGGIE

(laughs)

It was inspiring. It’s really awesome to watch you guys and the dynamic you all clearly have, and the relationships you’ve built as the characters. Like, you’ve obviously grown together, and it’s really, really awesome. So I’m just a fly on the wall for now, and observing…

(slips into her Ananka voice)

And then eventually I will take over, don’t worry.

SEAN

Well, I gotta say, I realized in the moment as I’m sitting here and I’m doing this, I’m like, “Oh, I haven’t told her that!” And all of a sudden, I was like, “Describe Ananka…”

MAGGIE

I’ve actually drawn her.

MIKE

What!

SEAN

Awwww, you did so good at that! I was wondering why!

MAGGIE

To be fair, I was like, I’m gonna draw her, because I want to figure out how she looks. So I kind of got it. Some parts, I was like, oh wait, I forgot about that part. But I kind of sketched her out on a break at work once. I was like, you know, what would she look like?

MARISA

Yeah, your description was beautiful.

SEAN

And in the next scene, the thing we have to figure out is how to get you talking back and forth. But now that they know how to use their devices…

(laughs)

So poor Maggie — Ananka — is holding an actual massive tome of a book, with the storyverse that this is based on. Actually, I’ll say what it is. It’s World Tales by Idries Shah. It’s a collection of tales from around the world, like the original tales behind a lot of the tales we’ve been told or grew up on. So it’s sort of a cool book.

Any other questions for Episode 6?

Now, Eli, have the people around the table heard the scene with Greg and Ananka?

ELI

Have you?

MARISA

Yes, I think so.

MIKE

We heard one scene.

MARISA

Where you’re lovers?

SEAN

Oh OK, you have. OK, cool.

MIKE

Yeah, we knew that part.

MAGGIE

(laughs)

My lover Greg.

SEAN

We just gave it away! Oh, but they’re going to hear this after, sorry.

Yeah, that was awesome. That was totally improvved at the end. That was so funny.

MIKE

I also feel like my accent use is a lot lower than you’re accent. Because you go into something totally different, and I just lean into my actual Canadian accent, so…

MAGGIE

(exaggerated Canadian accent)

But it’s a good one though, eh?

MIKE

Yeah. That’s a little more West, I’m a little more North.

MAGGIE

I like it. I like it.

Well, I grew up with Slavic in the household.

MIKE

Ahhh.

MAGGIE

So it is very natural for me. I’ve been surrounded by it.

(laughs)

MIKE

Carter grew up around administrators. So that’s how he can lean into that.

MAGGIE

Oh! That all makes sense now.

CARTER

It pains me that my “nerd voice” is really just my voice in a higher octave.

CARTER

That’s all I’m doing. I’m just slightly more nasal.

MARISA

That’s everyone’s nerd voice.

SEAN

Now, were you pimping me with Thip-Thicket — or whatever his name is — to get the Snegal end? Or did that just pop into your head to be the story? I don’t remember how we ended up with the…

CARTER

Well, I wanted to continue that storyline, that Blat thinks that he had sex with Snegal. I mean, that’s just good soap-opera stuff.

SEAN

Yeah, it was a good callback.

CARTER

So I wanted to avoid Snegal, and then I knew putting Eggerton in charge of that happening would fail…

MIKE

There’s a certain amount of trust there…

CARTER

Yeah. Storywise that worked out. And then you gave me that wonderful, what sounded like a euphemism, “sing the friend song”… and I thought, OK, we’ll go with that. And so Snegal now has no idea what he was talking about because, “Perhaps someday we can be friends, but we can no longer sing the friend song,” so he has no idea what I’m freaked out about. but I also had to admit to the entire party that I thought I got wasted one evening and banged an imp.

SEAN

Yeah, I’m glad you brought that back. I wasn’t sure.

That’s what I loved — I loved that moment in the dormitory, where we cut to the dormitory out of wherever, and I had nothing planned. Like, I literally have, “They are in their dorm room. One of Carter’s shirts is missing.” Because I have these pink cards, that I’ve written about, which is outstanding offers. And in Episode 3, when you gave Snegal a dry-cleaning coupon, you also suggested that Snegal should wear a shirt. Right? So you had made that offer to Snegal. Of course, anything you say, Snegal is like “Ohhhh!” — you know?

But I love that. The only note I have is “a shirt is missing.” It was really interesting to watch how you guys just took that, like you said, and built this whole story out of that one…

CARTER

Well, it’s the only note that I made for myself after our last session — a green card here that simply says, “Blat thinks he had sex with Snegal while high on fairy cakes.” I thought, “That’s the only thing I need to remember for next time!”

CARTER

And now I can get rid of this card, because we have dealt with that plot point.

SEAN

And Darcy casts her first spell, which was pretty cool…

MARISA

Not really…

SEAN

(laughing)

Though I did not see that coming, that you were going to try –

I was like, I guess they’re undead — zombies, right?

CARTER

I thought they were ghouls? And I wasn’t too sure if ghouls were undead or not. But it’s our world, we can change things if we want to.

SEAN

Yeah.

MARISA

It’s OK, because if you’d said no, I was going to talk to the dead people on the ground that you said they were stumbling over.

ALL

Oooo.

CARTER

That’s very good.

MARISA

Who probably would have told me more, actually, now that I think about it.

SEAN

Yes.

MARISA

Anyway, she’s just learning.

SEAN

But you also wouldn’t have opened a connection directly to the Shattering. Which was sorta cool.

MARISA

What?! I didn’t know I did that!

SEAN

Yeah.

MIKE

Yeah, that was the black eyes, and it was streaming out…

MARISA

Aw, geez, I totally missed that. I had no idea.

CARTER

Yeah, I didn’t know it was the Shattering.

MARISA

Remember, I spent most of the episode staring blankly at Sean, not having any idea what was going on.

SEAN

I did throw you guys in. So this was a test to see what would happen if I threw multiple people into the deep end. I’d apologize for that, but it was so much fun to do.

Awesome. So thanks everyone. Thanks for tuning in to this End Notes. We are super excited — we’re going to be recording Episode 7 next, here at the table, and we’ll have another End Notes coming to you after that. And we’ll talk to you all soon.