Music.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk.

I am Russ, aka Morris, or Morris, aka Russ.

And with me this week is...

BJ Coffey from the Southampton Guild of Roleplayers, also from Homebrewing Hacking, PTRPG Design.

For us as ever, I am delighted to be here.

And yet, at the same time, into each sunny day, this rain must fall.

Oh, we are bereft.

Lacking.

We do not have our third member.

Our cohort and co-conservator, Jessica Hancock.

So it's a sad day, stay.

Who's Jessica?

Where might I have heard of Jessica Hancock?

Short girl, Henry.

Because it doesn't ring a bell.

I don't know.

Fights people on the internet like that.

Oh, wait, that's any nominated Jessica Hancock.

Ah, yes.

Sorry, sorry.

I did not give her her full legal name.

Any award from this streamer, Jessica Hancock.

Yes, that's a legal.

Yes.

Yeah, there you go.

Sorry, Jessica, for dead naming you now.

So Jessica came away at a LARP convention type thing, I believe, this weekend.

I saw her earlier this week and nearly fell over because her hair was now bright pink.

Nice.

No warning whatsoever.

My auntie was assaulted by this bright pink hair.

I got over it quite quickly, but...

Nah.

I could have been...

I needed sunglasses beforehand.

I myself am trying to up the glamour, but I am limited in what I can do, so I've gone with the tutorial option.

You could dye your hair bright pink.

I could dye my hair bright pink, but I decided to dye it brown instead.

Oh.

I think pink would look amazing.

Um...

I don't really think I've got the colouration to pull off pink.

No.

Although, if I had the option for a nice green, then that would be very cool oh i don't know i never find green looks great i think maybe if someone spends an awful lot of money and gets like movie star quality sort of you know marvel, level die yeah but i think a lot of it it just doesn't quite work i don't know why am i saying this i think i'm judging other people's appearance well i am clearly i shouldn't be uh i i'm saying is that perhaps you should upgrade your house from glass if we start throwing stones.

Exactly.

Well, I will be doing my hair, white, green, and pink for next week.

I look forward to it.

Or maybe not.

Anyway, we have got...

It could be Pinkbeard the Pirate.

A modern take.

A queer friendly version of Pirates, although Pirates are very queer.

Anyway, shall we get on with some news?

Interesting.

Yes, I suppose we could.

Let's do that, shall we?

I mean, we could just ramble about other stuff for like 10-15 minutes first.

That would be quite good.

That would be good.

That would be good.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we have.

Well, I suppose since people are actually watching, we should get on with it.

Yeah, yeah.

But this is the first bit of news.

Are we talking about everyone forged artificer again?

We are going to talk about everyone forged.

Well, it's their next big release, so they're going to be talking about it quite a bit, aren't they?

So everyone forged the artificer, still can't say that word, coming soon.

Wizards of the Coast has listed the changes to the various species.

So there's an article on EM World with it all listed, But basically, we already knew from last week that it was Changeling, Kalishtar, Khoravar, Shifter, and Warforged.

That's quite interesting.

I'm familiar with four of those, but not with Khoravar.

Okay.

I'm not familiar with Khoravar either.

I'll tell you what they've said.

Yes, yes.

Tell me more.

In order.

Let's go in order.

Because, you know, we're like that.

That's alphabetical, as all things should be.

So the Changeling.

This is based on the Changeling from Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Universe.

Yeah, yeah.

If you're familiar with that particular iteration of the Changeling.

Mm-hmm.

And one of the changes is that the Shapeshifter ability, they have advantage on Charisma checks while Shapeshifted.

Okay, yeah.

Makes sense.

Makes sense?

Yeah, yeah, because, I mean, you can make your appearance what you desire it to be.

And, like, appearance can persuade people of all sorts of things.

Like, you know, if you wanted to, say, dye your hair bright pink, you could persuade people that you were exciting and interesting.

It'd be a lot easier if you were a typeshifter, if you were a changeling.

Well, yeah, that's true.

Like, yeah, then you just imagine it and your hair would go pink.

A lot less messy as well, I imagine.

And expensive and time-consuming.

It's like, it's really not that much of an effort, really.

I'm dying on hairpink.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll take your word for it.

I've never tried it.

I haven't lit.

Well, you know, next week, maybe.

Fingers crossed.

I might do it.

I will not do it.

So the next, the next species on the list is the kalashtar.

Kalashtar?

Kalashtar, yeah.

You know what a kalashtar is?

I am a bit shaky.

i recall them being immune to psychic damage or resistance psychic damage rather and that's something to do with how they are connected to the outer realms and aberrations it's like they have weirdness flowing through their veins well they now have the aberration creature type well there we go yeah also they have mind link ability which allows them to enable multiple creatures to communicate with them telepathically, and they don't have to.

Apparently, they used to have to be able to see you.

Now they don't.

Finally, there's a severed from dreams ability where they gain proficiency in one skill of their choice after a long rest.

Severed from dreams.

Severed from dreams.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's a nice little thing.

You go to sleep, you wake up and you're like, I know how to make beer now.

Good times.

Yes.

Because I dreamt about it.

I guess.

Yes.

Yeah.

I dreamt about brewing and now I know how to brew.

Yeah.

It's not how everyone learns things normally.

I don't, I don't understand.

Of course.

Yeah.

Now what they've got is they've got one of those tapes that you put under your pillows.

Pillow in the 80s.

Yes.

Yes.

stop smoking or whatever you know if those things ever work I'm sure they didn't I don't know it's not the stupidest thing for instance Alan Carr's One Way to Stop Smoking is essentially repeating the same argument over again oh his book is excellent I think I credit that with me stopping smoking 15 years ago yeah we do it it's the argument through repetition yeah yeah i mean it just says the same thing over and over again but in different ways and like.

Phrases it in portrays it as in not something you're losing but something you're gaining as well yeah that's true yeah so that really really really really helped i think for me but this is a long time ago yeah i mean i i found it quite an interesting book and an interesting example of that sort of argument and so forth i never smoked myself but i knew someone who was desperately addicted couldn't go from shop to shop without needing a fag in between do you know i mean right right yeah i know people who are like that still like you try to have a drink with them and like every other sentence oh oh you're gone you're outside okay well it's a it's a terrible addiction anyway so enough of that uh sleep on notice aside yeah yeah so the next one is the Korovar.

This is one we don't know what it is.

I attempt to find out using the magic of the internet.

It's like a half-elf.

It's a half-elf.

There we go.

It's everyone's version of a half-elf.

That's probably why I don't know what it is, because I just, oh, it's a half-elf, and then immediately consign it to things I didn't need to know, because I know what a half-elf is.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

But they've basically removed the half-becies terminology from D&D now, haven't they?

So I guess they need to be named.

Yeah, yeah.

And also because they don't have elves.

Oh, no, they do have elves.

What am I talking about?

Ah, in D&D.

I guess it's...

They famously have elves in D&D.

In Eberron, specifically.

Okay.

Because, so it's sort of like, it's one of the cooler things about Eberron is the striving towards like a sort of a cultural approach, although they are limited by working with the Mithens on that is the five-year rule set.

So Korravar is actually like sort of more of a culture.

Right.

So it's like, you know, instead of having a random half-elf like Tainis, it's like you've got a nation of Tainai, Tainises, Tannis?

Tannity?

Tannis Alfelvin?

Yeah.

Tannis.

No, it's just the way you're saying Tannis and not Tannis.

It's just like throwing me in a little bit.

Oh, okay.

I'm a friend.

Well, I think we'll have to agree to disagree, Dan.

Well, it is definitely Tannis.

Anyway, anyway, anyway.

On the core of our side, it's now a unique playable species in the world of Eberron.

Dark vision, 60 feet.

Advantage on saving those to avoid or end a charmed condition with their fey ancestry a fey gift they know the friend's cantrip, and they can switch it after a long rest for any cleric, druid or wizard cantrip.

Oh, wow.

That's a bit nice.

So I don't even know why you need to know the friend's cantrip, because that's a wizard one anyway.

So why didn't they just say, after a long rest, you can have any cleric, druid, or wizard cantrip?

It doesn't really matter that you know the friend's cantrip, does it?

Try and get someone to use friend's cantrip, I guess.

I guess.

There are use cases for it.

I'd have to check the 2024 rulebook, but my previous use case was, I'll play a warlock with my mask of a thousand faces and go around using friend's cantrip on people to annoy them whilst I'm infiltrating their fortress and constantly switch my disguise.

What did it do?

Advantage on charisma or something like that?

Oh, yeah.

I think it gives you advantage on charisma persuasion checks.

Right.

But the 2014 version was that they then hated you and that was often interpreted as they would go to really quite unreasonable lengths to track you down and stab you.

Do you know what?

If you've been telepathically gassed a bit, I haven't got a problem with that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's not a nice thing to do.

That's why I'm saying use that with like disguising yourself and therefore they start hating other people, unless you can spread chaos, chaos and confusion, which as we know, is the role players around.

Oh yeah.

What else do we have?

We've got lethargy resilience for the Korava.

So they can turn a failed save to avoid your Enyan conscious condition into a success.

Hmm.

Once per 1d4 long rests.

That sounds like they have messed around with sleep.

I need to read the 2024 versions of spells.

Maybe that's what's going on there, because normally they'd be immune to sleep or something, because it's all hard.

Yeah.

I mean, the unconscious condition can come out from things other than just a sleep spell, though, I guess.

I mean, yeah.

It's a broader thing than that.

General purpose sort of thing.

I mean, but I'm just struggling to think of an occasion when you would fall unconscious, without having fallen to ero hit points.

That is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Anyway.

Yeah.

And the last one for the Coral Board is skill versatility.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The standard old half-mouth one.

Which is the same finish long rest spot proficiency for a different skill or tool.

Oh.

So they can...

It's the same as the color star.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

Huh.

That's great for skill versatility, but I don't know.

What was it before?

Skill versatility was that you could just either, you could pick a skill like character creation that you should buy it.

Okay.

But it was just from anywhere, which was, yeah, it wasn't the best, but it was nice, you know, flavor.

Okay.

And now it's just, you can change it.

Okay, I guess.

Okay.

The next one is the shifter.

Oh, I love these guys.

I actually played one in a campaign.

I was playing a barbarian, and the rule was, if I thought of something, I had to do it.

Okay.

It was very silly.

When you say thought of something, if you uttered it out loud, or if it popped into your head?

If it popped into my head, I could reasonably...

Insert it into the uh insert it into the game yeah there's one point where we're on like this giant bridge because they've got like a sky city and someone's been murdered on it i'm like oh they must have gone off the side it's like wait this is a bridge with like immense levels of thing but i thought of it so i said here hold this rope and threw myself off the side i was expecting to be dangling there like a very and feel slightly stupid like a very angry yo-yo but realized i I was actually facing a cybernetic assassin who had chosen to hide underneath a bridge.

I guess the bottom line was, because who in their right minds, who in their, well, apparently I did ask the GM afterwards, I was like, no, that's where they were hiding because that's where they need to hide.

I didn't think anyone would look.

I'm like, okay.

As a matter of fact, you didn't look, you just jumped off the side.

Yeah, yeah.

It was completely accident.

But yeah, like I said, it's like, you know, if I wanted something, I had to do it.

So impulsive.

That could be a really, really annoying character.

Well, potentially.

I can see how that could potentially be very annoying.

Yeah, it's like I could also be easily dissuaded from doing things as well.

Oh, fair enough, fair enough.

It's like, yeah, there's no point being like impulsive and stubborn.

That would be annoying.

Yeah.

How do you consider not doing that?

Oh, no, I hadn't.

Oh, I've considered it now, so I must do it.

Yeah.

It was a little bit random.

If anyone says something to you, it has popped into your mind.

That just makes you very suggestible, surely?

Well, yes, I am very suggestible.

All right, shall we move on to the shifter?

The shifter.

I think, apart from the shifter, well, the shifter we can talk a little bit about.

Yeah.

Like, bonus action, grow some fangs or some claws or something.

Like, what, four different types?

Well, the change in this is that you can choose to be medium or small.

You don't have to be medium.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, that's when you, when you select the species at the start, you can't, like, change constantly.

Okay.

But you can start playing medium or small.

Okay.

That sounds, okay.

Anything else?

And then we've got the Raw.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

They now have the Construct creature type, which makes sense.

Yes.

I was assuming they probably did have, but I guess not.

They have advantage on saving throws to end poison condition.

Okay.

They don't have to spend an hour to put armor on anymore.

Ooh.

They don't need to sleep and magic can't put them to sleep.

Okay.

And finally, they don't gain exhaustion levels from dehydration, malnutrition, or suffocation.

Okay.

That's a nice way to go about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, basically, all of that is just specifying you don't need to eat and sleep, isn't it?

Yes, or breathe.

Yeah, or breathe.

Yeah.

Although, chaining it so you don't gain a level of exhaustion does mean that you can avoid the whole problem of, like, you've got a poison at the feast, or you've got a poison gas cloud, and the warforged is essentially immune to the poison because they're not ingesting it.

Uh yeah and they've got an advantage on saving throws against them they don't need.

Doesn't mean they can't eat they just don't need to eat yeah they might do it on a social basis or like there's no major ill effects from it yeah yeah yeah so there there we go that that is the eberon news for the week and this is probably going to be everyone news every week coming up I would imagine.

Okay.

I would have thought.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Oh, I did have a slide of this and I appear to have lost it, but, so we're going to have to do this without a slide, but this is the Heroes of the Borderlands starter set.

Okay.

Which we know is coming soon-ish.

Who has made Heroes of the Borderlands?

Which is of the coast.

Ah.

It's their brand new starter set.

Yeah.

I was just checking.

Lots of people are making starter sets.

Well, it's going to be a bit more expensive than usual.

Okay how much this is coming in at $49.99.

What, $50?

$50.

Or 50 quid, because I suppose it's going to be 50 quid for us anyway.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, because they don't tend to change the dollar.

They just change the sign over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

The worst for that is technology companies.

It's like you buy a phone or something, and it's the same price in pounds as in dollars, and it's like, wow, we're just paying 20% more then.

Okay, fine.

Yeah.

Screw us, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so tell me then, what is this?

where are we getting this extra $20 of that?

No, this is interesting.

They refer to it as the starter set price point.

I don't know why people use the phrase price point.

It's the price.

Have you ever gone into a shop and said, what's the price of this book?

And someone went, I don't understand what you mean.

Price?

What does price mean?

No, the price point.

Oh, you mean the price point.

What's the point?

What's the point?

What's the point of the point?

It's just the price.

Anyway, mini rant over.

Additional words added for the sake of it.

So the price of this, not the price point, the price.

I think it's to do with the competition aspect.

So they feel that there's obviously some space for it to go up.

It's the RRP I guess, isn't it, basically.

Recommended retail price.

That's how much they reckon the shop should sell it for.

But it's like how much they think they should get away with charging for it in the first place.

I don't know too much about that side of the thing.

In the long run, it will cost whatever the shop says to sell it for.

You know, all it is there is to dispose with as they wish.

Anyway, unless someone consignment, in which case this is possibly an entirely different situation.

We can talk about consignment a little bit later in a news article, which I'm sure you can predict.

Oof, oof, oof, oof.

Anyway, yes, moving on.

Anyway, Heroes of the Borderlands box set.

Yep.

$49.99.

It's going to have a lot more stuff in it than previous starter sets.

So they've got a big old trailer, which you can watch as they enter it on EN World.

But it's got cards, tokens, handouts, three adventure booklets, eight character class boards, featuring, you know, you get your board and you put components, because they've got this kind of like slightly build your character with cards thing.

So if you want to talk about that, so you put down a character class board, like a fighter and then you put down like species card on it and a thingy card and background card or something and you put the different cards down onto that yeah, And you've got a quick start guide, a reference booklet, five immersive handouts, including a cavern menu and a shop catalog.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Nine double-sided poster maps.

Yeah, that's decent amount.

A combat trapper.

Trapper?

Tracker?

Like a trapper keeper with a little bit of elastic to go to the side.

Yeah.

You put a combat in there, and boom, it explodes.

So we've got 210 game cards.

These are spells, magic items, and equipment.

Right, right, right.

Okay, yeah.

273 tokens.

Okay.

That's a good amount.

And also part of the reason for the pricing, and that is a lot of stuff that really is like, from the beginning start, so I've, uh, Lots of bits and pieces.

It's a positioning, it feels like quite board game-y almost.

Yeah.

Or to help people make that transition from board games to TTRPGs.

Yeah.

But the other thing is it's produced in China.

Ooh.

So it could be impacted by tariffs as well.

Assuming that tariffs are sort of thing.

They're at 30 on China at the moment.

Yeah, 50%.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Yeah, who knows what will happen tomorrow, let alone in a few weeks.

Yeah, yeah.

It's all just, let's roll the dice, see what happens.

Yeah.

Goodness.

Yeah, so Rory, Wizard of the World, asks in the chat, how does Wizards, because obviously we are streaming live, as we do every Friday, 2pm UK time, 9am Eastern time, and you can join us, join in the chat and, you know, chat.

But my first question is, how does this $50 gift set compare to the price points of third competitor's starter sets?

Third party, perhaps.

Their competitor's starter sets.

Yeah.

So, yes, hi.

Generally, you're talking $24.99 or $29.99 is the usual kind of price.

Ours are $24.99 for what's old is new.

And level up to 30 it's just because one of them has got dice in it and the other hasn't, that's what makes the difference I can't remember offhand which is which let's explain it last week what's old is new what's old is new is 25 is it?

It's the advanced edition I know the writers of my own it's okay that's what you've got a Jess oh sorry I keep saying that's what you've got any award nominated streamer Jessica Hancock yeah.

Which is an excellent job as well yeah yeah and people should go and vote for Jess they should I think voting closes on Sunday doesn't it so, vote quickly yeah yeah I voted do my part I have voted and I did I considered it, and I did vote for Jess in the end.

I gave it some thought.

I just voted for it straight away.

Yeah.

There's no thinking involved.

Anyway, yeah.

I mean, it's a lot of stuff.

It's got a lot of stuff.

And I like this idea.

I mean, you and I have discussed this before, long before we found out that Wizards was doing it, this whole card-based Moisture character creation.

Yes.

Yes, because I'm just super interested in using that to bring out advanced 5th editions.

Yeah, I love that idea.

But now if we ever do it, we'll just be told we're copying Wizards, even though we talked about it two or three years ago.

Yeah, yeah.

It was hard to...

It would be quite graphic design heavy as well.

Yeah.

Tricky.

They've got a much simpler system, so it's much easier to do it.

And you'd end up going to set a box set of it for $49,000, I think.

Bah!

Yeah.

You could do print at home.

That's a new way to avoid tariffs.

That is true.

That's true.

This is coming up to September the 16th.

so it's a couple of months away yeah well i will say i will say actually like print at home might not be as terrible as it used to be because nowadays you've got like print shops uh i forget there's a stationers in southampton that's part of a well-known chain who i can't remember i'll give them a shout out but they will print at a reasonable price on cardstock um your files so So that would be actually a really good way.

Because for me, when I see print at home, my old-fashioned brain says, well, I'm going to need to get some cardboard off some cereal boxes or something, and then print it out, stick it to that.

It'll be like a whole craft project.

It'll look ugly.

I won't hate it.

Actually, you can just pop it onto a print shop.

They'll do it for you.

And it's like, oh, that's...

Will they cut the salads for you as well?

Or do they need you to do that?

I don't know, because I haven't seen it myself.

Yeah.

But that would be a problem.

But that's less of a problem.

I think I can manage cutting in straight lines.

Ish.

You're not a guillotine like those ones they have in schools.

Not like the ones they had in the French Revolutions, ones that they had stationary cupboards.

I've seen a couple of types of guillotines.

There's ones which are basically a big lever that you pull down.

They didn't have that.

They changed those over from schools, possibly because children kept losing fingers or something, I don't know that would be awkward yeah, that would be awkward alright, our next news item yes, How would you like a premium two-day symposium to train you to be a world-class dungeon master?

I have to pay for it, is it a present?

You do have to pay for it.

No, I'm good.

Thanks.

No, no, but tell us more about it.

So this is by Tabletop Vacations, and they do those the Indiana Castle-type things.

Oh, yeah.

So this event, first of its kind, apparently, is going to be hosted at a university in Atlanta, G-A-B-A.

Georgia.

Georgia.

Georgia, okay.

And the Dungeon Master University is a two-day event, and it's focused on four immersive learning tracks.

And these are skill building, campaign building, world building, and career building.

So, you know, that's being a pro-DM, streaming, all that sort of stuff.

You know, how to build your brand and become a professional.

Because it's about being a pro-DM, not just a home.

Right, right, right.

Partly about the business as well.

Taking the steps to the charge and so forth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, this is January 2026th.

There's obviously limited spaces.

I don't know how much it's going to cost, but G&D in a castle is thousands.

Yeah, I mean, so this is what, did you say four-day residential course?

Two-day, two-day.

A two-day residential course covering four topics.

Yeah.

So, presumably, stay on site.

Well, I imagine a university is less expensive than a castle to acquire.

Oh, like, I guess you'd be probably looking about $1,500 to $2,000 all in?

I don't know.

I'll tell you they'll give you some food for that as well.

Well, yeah, I assume that includes all the food and lodging and everything, I guess.

I don't know.

I don't know.

No, no.

And that might be on the low end.

These tend to be quite pricey.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I'm sure you'll have excellent teaching.

Do we know anything about the staff and the people who are delivering this?

What we know is that it's acclaimed dungeon masters, industry professionals, and seasoned storytellers.

But I don't know who these are.

Right, right.

Well, it might be.

They haven't even recruited them yet.

You know, it might be.

You know, they haven't got until January.

They might be still in the process of putting together that team.

I don't know.

Yeah, I guess build it and they will come.

Like, sometimes I do that, but then I really propose to charge people $2,000 per head for stuff.

Yeah no idea no idea um well it is partnered with the wizards of the ghost so it is official, wow well you can tell from the official dnd so yeah right right interesting yeah well i thought so yeah yeah so that's probably gonna whack an extra i don't know 200 to 500 dollars on the ticket price because they've got to pay for franchising, Which is good work for Aeon, who's, yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

He's already getting that franchise out there.

Yeah.

Well, I imagine that was in the works before the last two weeks, I would guess.

Yeah.

Can you imagine how awesome that would be to be a game company?

We can literally get people to pay you so that they can run courses to teach other people on how to run your games.

Like that's a hell of a market advantage that's a hell of a market advantage but like because i know em publishing has said yeah we'll pay some streamers from.

Games and yeah but no no no in in in this sort of position they can say it's the.

Other way around yeah yeah yeah it's not even that it's like no.

No you pay us for the right to use our name to recruit people to further our advertising yeah wild wild but yeah good job i suppose all that money has paid off them yeah i guess so yeah yeah wow wow wow wow anyway yeah you know probably you know it's probably probably got something like a chief growth officer i reckon like hazo now has hazo has a chief growth officer they have appointed christian moore in this newly created role yes who's basically his job is to grow the company basically right so he's a what is this a data first brand architect i've got no idea what that even means that's words i can confirm those are all words i understand what each of them means individually i don't know what a data first brand architect is well i guess people talk about building brands so i'm not 100 sure but i imagine from the description it would be someone who has a vision of a brand and works to try and create it but their data first so they only do that based on whatever they can get metrics for yes i guess we'll have to see how it goes yeah yeah so he recently served as managing director at exemplar holdings okay which i think is a a medical company of some kind.

But before that, he began his career in gaming.

So he founded Last Unicorn Games and sold it to Wizards of the Coast.

Later, he became Wizards of the Coast's first D20 Games Creative Director and he also was VP of Product Development at Decipher.

So he's got a solid gaming background prior to his managing director at Exemplar Holdings position.

So he was in gaming, he left gaming, now he's come back to join Poison.

Yeah.

The exemplar holdings you said yeah yeah you're googling it i i've had a look, private equity is one i've seen yeah i got a link to linkedin i i'm got a linkedin account so i couldn't i could yeah yeah well there's a hong kong because i was trying to i was trying to find a picture of him for the for the slides but i couldn't yeah and there was one on linkedin but I couldn't get into it and I wasn't prepared to create an account just to get in the picture so I left it.

I think it's wise.

Yeah.

Social networks go it's a place.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

So we've established it's to grow Paizo rather than to be a growth or anything like that.

So good for him.

So he's got Pathfinder and Starfinder.

They've got some other stuff.

They've got board games.

I think they've got card games rather.

Maybe some board games are on the rise.

Yeah.

So well He's going to be emphasizing digital marketing, hobby and book trade sales, consumer insights, licensing, e-commerce, and strategic partnerships.

Kind of standard stuff, I guess.

Unicrated role that is designed to really...

Yeah.

I think strategic partnerships is quite interesting because I believe that would probably be something to do with stuff making.

Yeah.

For example.

It might be something like the very recent partnership just announced and is launching a Gen Con.

Paizo has partnered with Titan Ford and MyMiniFactory.

And they're going to be producing premium STLs and print-on-demand miniatures.

Yes.

And that is just Pathfinder and Starfinder.

Yeah.

The reason I was explaining is because Russ has just read out Barbara, gorgeous little model.

It's got a certain kobold Liz person factor to it.

They're quite small and cute and they're holding a crossbow and they're extremely pleased with themselves.

They're good for them.

Long tail.

Love it.

So they're going to start off with six Starfinder second edition iconic characters, which is from Starfinder Murder in Metal City.

I'm not familiar with them, but also the Akashic dragon from the cover of Starfinder Player Core.

If you're familiar with that cover a couple of bonus Starfighter miniatures and a bunch of Andoran and Chalaxian troops hmm yeah, so it's not miniatures though it is you know directly selling miniatures it's STLs and yeah yeah, uh well i mean that's that's pretty popular miniatures fiddly to get sent around yeah or to keep sark like it's all 3d printing it's uh it's marvelous that hero forges definitely led the way on that yeah remember my death knight yes yes uh region by my previous dog yeah and they very kindly sent me another one when they found out about it which was very very nice yeah well They wanted to be happy, even if your dog didn't.

Death Knight versus dog.

Dog wins.

Vitality.

It's quite good.

I was involved in my discussion about 3D printers only today, largely because we were just saying, well, people who make stuff love 3D printers, because you can make your own stuff.

You don't need to mess around with injection molding.

I've noticed recently on eBay, because I like to sometimes buy movie replicas and collectibles.

I've got my swords and stuff.

I buy other stuff as well.

But generally for me, I kind of want it to be an official, licensed, high quality, sort of actual movie replica.

So it's like, you know, there's the officialness in there.

But there's so much 3D printed stuff on eBay that it's so hard, and there's no filter to sort it out.

And you know i think crazy printing is great it's amazing but when i want to buy a replica of a movie prop i don't want just somebody's really printed one no matter how good it is you know i do that for myself but i want the official one you know and i don't want to make and generally i don't want it made out of plastic either often what i want it made out of metal whatever the you know weapon for example totally made out of metal not plastic otherwise it feels like a toy to me, rather than a weapon, you know.

Well, yeah, and like a plastic sword doesn't feel like a sword, doesn't it?

Or a plastic gun doesn't feel like a gun.

It feels like a toy, which it is.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's all about your emotional experience with it and getting ones that give you the valid ones.

So that sounds like there's a lot of people doing that.

A lot, a lot.

But for miniatures, going back to miniatures, I'm totally fine with it for miniatures.

That's just a great way of doing it for miniatures.

If I had a three, I'd be doing it, that I think 3D printing is quite at the level where I'm comfortable, you know, I can barely manage my paper printer than a 3D printer.

I think there's a lot of, it sounds like it's still quite finicky and requires a lot of patience and a preparedness to put up with the smell of burning plastic.

Yeah, you need to clear up space in your garage for it and all sorts of stuff.

I know loads of people that have gotten 3D printers and they used it for a few weeks and then kind of never touched it again.

Yeah yeah i know some people who are happily printing make designing their own files now and yeah i can i can see the point to it it's but it's like nobody's ever tried to make me use a 3d printer like yeah i guess because 3d printers good for people who make stuff and lots of people are fond of them and use it to make things not all this great but it's an artistic tool that lets you create things i mean it's different it will get easier to use over time yeah oh yeah 100 yeah i think it's really good that people are able to treat things that they envisage without having to spend tens of thousands of currency on, on on getting to that point it's uh it's hard yeah yeah yeah so anyway anyway that was that So, the next news item involves Critical Role.

We've announced another live tour date.

Live tour, sorry.

So, people keep calling these world tours.

They're not, because this is five dates, three of which are in Europe and two of which are in the US.

They themselves are calling it a world tour, but people keep saying it, but it's not.

But it's five dates.

You can see on the screen there.

So, we've got Atlanta GA, again, popular place this week.

And Dallas, Texas are two of the dates.

That says Fort Worth, but okay.

Yeah, this article says Dallas.

Isn't it Dallas?

I don't know.

Someone's going to tell me American geography.

I don't want to know.

See, it's a little bit of Darryl Fall.

I get my suit.

Yeah, I know.

I don't need a proper lecture.

Okay.

Then we've got Berlin, Germany, Edinburgh, Scotland, and London in that there, England.

So they're the five days.

and they're going from well the next year and they're going from May through to December that's, Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah.

No, yeah, good for them.

Yeah.

They're going to play, I mean, four hours is a long time to sit and watch.

It's like watching an opera, isn't it?

Like four hours or something.

I think they're quicker, but maybe.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I've seen one opera, which was, it was the Gorillaz did Journey to the West.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Yeah.

It was quite good, but I think I fell asleep.

Yeah.

Well, generally, I think twice about going to the cinema for something over two hours.

these days.

Your choice of films must be a bit circumscribed.

Yeah, I know.

It's annoying.

Because films seem to be getting longer and longer and longer.

Yeah, yeah.

Don't mention Dune to me.

Okay.

Seven hours or something.

It sort of felt like, anyway.

Seven hours of watching people look at sand dunes.

I felt like...

Well, I've frequently leveled criticism at the 1980s Dune was it was an inconvenient mess.

I didn't find it a problem to follow along with.

Also, it was edited down from like 10 hours to just under two.

So you're going to struggle to get much coherence out of that, aren't you?

Imagine that.

Oh, how was Superman, by the way?

Loved it.

It wasn't perfect by any means.

I have criticisms of it, but I liked it a lot.

And the dog was just brilliant.

Not the dog.

Yeah, yeah.

I hear there's mild impertlement of a dog involved.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I want a CGI dog to be fair.

Oh, right.

Okay.

That's what some people online sort of saying, the way I can tell it was a CGI dog is because I know that fur is really hard to do.

And I'm like, the way I can tell it's a CGI dog is it flies around with a cape and punches people and stuff.

Like dogs don't do.

You thought they trained a dog to do that?

It's a dog.

Dogs not known for their ability to fly or to punch people headbutts are more that sort of thing I'm very familiar with having had this tooth knocked out before by my dog yeah love that, thanks Marvin, I got it fixed, it's fine but it wasn't time to try, shall we move on?

Yeah, shall we move on shall we move on to mutants and masterminds oh that's a blast from the past yeah or even the future because there's a new edition coming oh goodness yeah it was announced by green running right day there's a fourth edition of mutants and masterminds which is probably the biggest I guess, superhero RPG?

It's pretty famous.

Uh, like even I've heard of it.

And a lot of people have talked of it with varying levels of fondness.

I think there was like a lot of tables because it used like an exponential power scale.

But it's changed a lot over the years.

Like the initial one was basically a 3.5.

Half is the wrong word.

It's a massive modification of 3.5 GND, 3.5 not just a slight one.

A mutation, since we're using the language of superheroes.

Yeah, that's sort of where it came from.

And then over the next three editions, it changed and changed.

So it doesn't really resemble that all that much.

I don't know what this new edition is going to look like.

But there is going to be a playtest document out in PDF at the end of this month.

Okay.

So that's only 10 days, whatever, 12 days or something.

So if you actually take a look at it, I mean, one of the cool things about Mutants of Masterminds is how it can deal with different power levels.

Yeah.

So you set the power level of your campaign, whether it's like a street level thing or whether it's like an epic kind of, you know, Justice League type thing or whatever.

So you can set the power level and then the game and the framework operates and your characters and the villains operate within that power level, which I think is useful.

Because otherwise, you know, it can be, it can be pretty difficult otherwise, I think.

Because like Hawkeye, Daredevil, excellent superheroes, probably not up to the task of taking on Thanos.

You wouldn't have thought, no.

No, no.

But then again, they've got Hawkeye, who's a guy with a bow, and Black Widow, who's a basically spying martial artist against Thanos, and they held their own, so I guess.

Yeah.

I mean, not directly, but...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're in the same room and avoid being splattered.

Yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess.

So I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with this, you know, and Steve Kenson, who I...

That character in the red and white there reminds me a lot of steve kenson i'm wondering if that is deliberate i don't know right fair enough yeah he mentioned it on blue sky and i was like oh can't be interested definitely definitely interested i played it i only played it once many years ago many years ago and i can't remember which edition it was yes i tend to find that superhero games i quite enjoy them but i've never found them i've never been attracted to them for campaign style play they are for one of campaigns for me i think yeah i think yeah same here really like i've i've played some quite enjoyable one-offs generally i i don't think i don't really enjoy playing like a unknown character i want to make my own superhero like yeah i wouldn't want to play iron man or war machine oh no you can make your own super you can make your own superhero Yeah, yeah.

That's something that's sort of put me off about things like the Marvel one.

Yeah, the Marvel one, yeah.

Yeah, I'm like, I don't really know enough about them to be invested.

Whereas making your own character and saying, okay, well, let's throw together a bunch of disparate abilities and then engineer a story.

That is very much within my body weight for creating characters.

Yeah, yeah.

And of course, the other thing with superhero RPGs is somehow you need to have Batman and Superman on the same team.

When the power level is obviously off a scale difference there.

Superman really struggles when they start there with Batman.

Have you ever seen that meme where Batman spray cans on a wall in Gotham?

Superman is Clark Kent.

And then the next panel is Superman has laser visioned onto the moon in massive writing.

That is Bruce Wayne.

But yeah, I think he won that one.

Oh, a bit of reservation there.

Yeah, yeah.

um yeah i'll be checking this out for definite definitely i will be checking this out i mean i would definitely give it a whirl i'm sure it'll be what do you reckon are they saying crowdfunding or they're just going to go they're not saying anything at the moment all we know is play test document coming soon that's all we know right right right okay um they did a they did another of it sort of mutants and mastermind powered superhero game like recently but a while back it's a valiant or something valiant adventures or something like that that does sound familiar actually yeah yeah and i think that was a kind of step towards this between the third edition and this so i don't think this is going to be the same as what they did in that and it's but i think that would have been a step towards what they're doing here i think is the impression i've got yeah.

I don't know enough about it, to be sure.

When the PDF for the playtest comes out, I'll definitely get it, and I'll talk about it.

And I'll have a good look at it.

And I'll talk about it in a lot more detail then, because I'm definitely interested.

Absolutely.

At the end of the month.

End of the month.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to find anything that isn't Tales of the Valiant.

I'm going Valiant's adventures.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So...

It combines the amazing world of Valiant with mutants and masterminds.

Yeah.

So I guess that was like a 3.5 edition, I guess, in between third and this fourth edition, in a way.

Yeah.

So I guess Valiant was some sort of setting, it looks like.

Yeah, it's a comic book line.

Something to your model, but it's a comic book.

Right, would you?

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, so this would, yeah, be essential like that.

All right, cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sort of thing I think I might like to run, but I've got like several things now, because I really want to run Moria.

Absolutely.

The One Ring, and my copy of Moria.

You know, I ordered it last week while we were on the podcast, because the Ennies nomination has reminded me to.

So I ordered it, and it arrived at the end of the day, and it's gorgeous.

I love it.

It's got the One Ring version, not the 5e version.

Yeah, yeah.

Just because I kind of feel like if something has a bespoke system, it's probably more tailored towards the setting then yeah well anyway yeah but it sounds like a lot of fun so yeah you have you have that don't you didn't you get it off the game yeah yeah yes yes written by gareth hanrahan yeah did you get the 5d one or the one ring one i got the 5d one right but i also got the map as well because i thought splash out well i've got the map as well but that was given to me by one homie games yeah while we were at uk games expo so it was very good i love that map so much It's also my desktop background at the moment, Mario.

The mouse.

Gorgeous.

Yeah.

I'm having a think about what I should run.

So, yeah.

I've got a lot of stuff.

I've got City of Arches, but that's quite good.

But I'm probably just going to take a bunch of stuff and cludge it together.

And there's just going to be so much gaffer tape.

So much.

Yeah.

Some of the best games come out of that, don't they?

Yeah, yeah.

Death Tape, Super Glue, maybe a bit of spot welding.

Yeah, that's nice.

Talking about Tales of the Valiant, I did see the other day, Tales of the Valiant is finally now available in Creative Commons.

I know.

That is a good one.

Black Flag SRD is now, you know, a couple of years after everyone else.

But, you know, Bunny is available in Creative Commons.

They had it available as the AUK license.

Yeah.

And i'm not a lawyer so but i do read documents before i sign up to them and i read the orc i was like my god i'm not even sure i want to blog about this because i could construe this or someone could construe this has me giving up the entirety of my blog because it's used this part so you know it's a complicated license as well it's a big one it's quite and it's a lot more difficult to understand the nuances of it than that kind of comment is very very.

Creative Commons is brutally clear, brutally simple, testing the courts.

That's why I like it, because you know what?

I know where I stand.

It's like, if someone wants to sue about it, then good luck, because there's a lot of computer game.

There's a lot of computer companies that are like, no, you can't mess with that.

That's not like any precedent.

Whereas, well, like, great intentions, I'm sure, but I'm not touching it.

But now at Trace Commons, I'm like, okay, tell us the Valiant, let's go, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've added that SRD to a5eSRD.com, which is where not only have we got our A5eSRD, I put all SRDs I can find on there as well, along with their associated licenses and instructions on how to use each of the three main licenses.

So I kind of like the idea that, you know, of course, you know, it's primarily a storage place for the ARIV SRT.

I'd kind of like it as being a one-stop point for people who are using SRTs and open licenses, which will give you all the stuff you need and tell you how to do it.

I did not know that.

So I am now...

Yeah, that's very exciting.

Thank you very much.

That is very kind to you.

I've had a whole bunch of SRTs on there for ages.

Ages.

Like there's the Fate SRV and there's the Pathfinder one.

There's loads of them on there.

Oh!

Good to see you.

There's a whole bunch of SRDs out there.

Right.

Oh, SRDs, yes.

I was really sure.

Look at that.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

First, they should...

Oh, yeah, the Archmage Engine for 13th Age.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, Traveller as well.

Check you out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's probably more out there I haven't got on there, but...

Those ones that, you know...

Yeah, ones I knew of or bad.

But a generous move on your part.

Thank you very much.

Right.

Next thing.

Next thing.

Next thing.

Next thing is...

Oh, yes.

So, Seventh Age.

Seventh?

Seventh C.

C.

Sorry.

You just said 13th Gauge.

And then, yeah.

Seventh C.

13th Gauge is like a shotgun.

I said 13th Gauge.

Now we're...

No, I am.

Sorry.

Ah.

Seventh C.

Yes.

Seventh C.

So, yeah.

Yeah, that's a great game of our friend, Andy Peregrine, who never fails to remind us how much he'd like Seventh Seat and the work of John Wick.

I've never seen it on offer.

I've never had a chance to play it.

I feel I'd really quite like it with drama dice and everything.

Yeah.

When it first came out, it was 1999 or something like that.

And that would have been...

A.E.G., I think, at the time.

I can't remember.

It's a long time ago.

And then John Wick got the rights to it.

This John Wick Presents line, and he did a big Kickstarter, and it was the first ever million-dollar Kickstarter as well.

Yeah.

Updives, it really would have to run away.

It's like, wow.

First one ever.

So he made a version of 7C.

Okay.

Well, another version, because he put it on the previous.

But the product line ran into trouble, and he ended up having to set it to Chaosium so that Chaosium could continue to fulfill Kickstarter.

That's wrong.

He did a second Kickstarter, which didn't go nearly as well, and apparently just ran into financial problems, had to lay people off, couldn't afford to finish the products.

Yeah, that's right.

He was trying to Monty cook it and just like to knock out a huge Kickstarter out of the park and for whatever reason it didn't fly for him there.

Yeah, basically built a business on that huge Kickstarter and it didn't work.

I guess.

So, sort of Chaosium.

Yes.

Chaosium helped make sure that Kickstarter got fulfilled and everything and they've basically run it ever since.

Hmm.

But now they are farming it out and it doesn't look like they're selling it.

It looks like they're licensing it but it's not, you know, so it's not entirely clear.

Yeah, but they're getting it developed so there's some support for it.

Yeah, so they're handing it over Studio Agate which is that French company.

Yeah, that rings bells.

Did they do Batman?

Or I just...

No, no.

That was another French company.

Yeah, yeah.

That's another one.

I've got that one over there as well.

The official Batman option.

That's a weird game.

It just never got any...

I've never seen anyone mention it ever.

Online anywhere.

Apart from us, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

Maybe people think it's in French or something.

But you'd think Batman would be a popular game for people to play.

You would think.

I mean, it was based on an older version of D&D.

I think it was just based on the G20 3.5 era, I think.

Maybe that was it.

I don't know.

It did well in a big old Kickstarter.

It's not like people didn't buy it.

I've never heard of anyone playing it or talking about it since.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I mean, it just depends, I guess, where you are, to be honest.

I guess.

I guess.

Yeah.

Anyway, so 7C, we were talking about.

chaosium have by since it's a studio agate yeah i'm seeing various like pretty looking, yeah i know the previous this is a previous edition obviously they've only just flys and a so there's no there's nothing really to know about what their new edition is going to be.

But they are going to launch a patreon page which can give you access to like developer blogs and you know, information on progress and stuff.

And there is going to be a Kickstarter at some point.

Yes.

That's pretty much all I can tell you.

I mean, 70 C is kind of set in what a 17th century Europe, fantasy 17th century Europe, swashbuckety type stuff.

Sort of going to tell you.

And it involves a D10 dice ball.

I've never played it.

I just, it's just stuff I know about it by osmosis.

Yeah.

Well, likewise, I'd love to give it a go, but I mean, hint, hint, studio gate.

Yeah.

We want to persuade Andy Peregrine to run it for us it being his favourite that's true I'm sure he'd do that yeah, don't see why not we could do a bit of swashbuckling yeah, why not right, well this one this next bit of information is from you I believe oh yes brought me immense pleasure about University of Chicago announcing Hemlock previously they bought us glaze and nightshade glaze being a program that you can run your if you're a visual artist you can run your images through glaze and it makes them hard to use for ai and reduces their stealability uh whereas nightshade means that if someone were to scrape your images in an authorized fashion it would end up poisoning the AI model that did so.

Obviously, of course, if they asked your permission and obtained your consent to feed your images into their AI machine, you would supply them with a non-nightshade model and they'd be entirely fine.

So, I'm sure there's been absolutely no problems for anyone anywhere about it.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry, was that sarcasm a bit heavy there?

So what does this Hemlock do that the previous things didn't?

Well, Hemlock appears to be an improvement of it, and they're also talking about it being usable to trap AI scrapers.

I'm not a technical person, so I'm just going off what they've said about it.

So I don't fully understand all the details.

I was like, I'm a very simple person to make happy.

If you show me something where they're like, yeah, this will mess up AI.

I'm like, yes, tell me more.

Marvellous, marvellous.

I'm not proud of it, but it is how I go and so forth.

Is this publicly accessible then?

If you're an artist, can you grab this and use it right now?

I think they've got it so that you have to talk to Professor Ben Jow at the University of Chicago to say that you're actually an artist and not just some goon trying to work out a way to get around it.

They've got a prefrontal, but it's poisoning text-to-image AI models versus adversarial mislabeling.

Not 100% sure what that means, but they are saying that they've got new directions beyond protecting visual art, so a meaningful poison attack on LLMs, which is the words side of it.

Metaways for ai scrapers and they've got some ideas on ai music so hemlock to be clear is working it because you've got stable diffusion and that attacks those and this is a new attack that's more generalizable than lightshade that targets a different part of the ai pipeline and makes the models poison themselves apparently yeah so they try to get that stuff out there and they're also making progress to have something similar for text and AI music.

Cool.

So, Great news for our artists, fellows, and creatives.

I've got my own design slide for this, which involves an actual photograph of some hemlock.

And a big image for AI.

My creator knows no bounds.

Well, at least you didn't get an AI to knock up a...

I did not.

Unless I am an AI.

In which case I did.

well actually you would arguably be a very great example of AGI which doesn't sound for artificial general intelligence it sounds for a guy instead, yeah we've got a guy instead to knock this up I think general intelligence is a bit of a stretch for describing me but a guy instead will do yeah yeah There we go.

So like I say, I thought it was bring a bit of good news to people.

Just something to cheer people up.

Like, I don't know.

I'm not...

I'll be quiet about the rest of it.

I could bang on about various things that I found out, which have put me in quite a good mood.

So there we go.

Good, good, good, good.

All right.

Next.

Both.

Here we go.

So the objections.

Have started, you know the court date is 21st.

Comic-Con, actually.

Comic-Con.

Oh, go on.

Well, it was three days, actually.

It was the 18th today.

So the 21st is one day?

One day.

Yeah, one day.

Yeah, so the court date is one day.

So various people, various people, lots of companies are ruling their objections.

There's lots of them, obviously, pretty much.

There's no surprise there.

So there's four different groups which have kind of, what was it, three different groups have joined together.

Right.

And also there's a bunch of sort of individual publishers finding individual objections as well.

But there's three sort of groups.

One group is called the Ad Hoc Committee of Designers and there's 11 companies involved in that one.

Nice.

I think Paizo was one of those ones.

We've got another one, a second group, which has 13 companies, 12 of which are comic book companies.

Right, right.

A third one was filed by Gamma, the Game Manufacturers Association.

Yeah, and that includes Role for Combat, which is a TTRPG company.

So yeah, everyone's obviously objecting, because why wouldn't they?

I mean, it does my heart good to see people coming together say no about such things.

Yeah, good for that.

Yeah, so the Ad Hoc Committee of Consignors has nine comics.

Consigners.

Oh, is it Consigners?

Oh, sorry.

I did get a problem.

AdWop Committee of Consigners has nine comic book companies and also has Paizo and Green Riot.

Right, right, right.

I don't know, because World of Combat obviously going via the Gamma Group one.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know about Goodman Games, because I know that they were one of the consignors.

I haven't heard what they're doing, whether they're part of one of these groups or whether they're fighting individually or whether they're not doing it.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

So I guess Monday is the big day when the hearing takes place.

And I don't know what happens after that.

yeah well it depends what happens it might be the judge says there's no case to answer kicks them all out and that's all she wrote then bimon goes ahead sells off their stuff ruins getting companies that's right at center yeah yeah or it might be that just says oh yeah i'm gonna hear this play out let's uh let's hear your arguments and that's going to go into litigation yeah yeah like that those are the options as i understand it yeah with various there might be one oh, oh World Combat says actually Gareth stepped up is representing me and sent paperwork on Wednesday yeah good.

Good for you and good on Gareth well done doing what they should be doing especially what I just said but yeah confirmation from the horses now, yeah so yeah so we'll go ahead I guess we'll find out in the morning next week interesting interesting really I mean I don't know what the chances of people getting their stock back is but I really hope they do I really do yeah yeah yeah we're definitely rooting for the little guys yes to be honest and the big ones even Marvin and DC the big guys they're in this as well I want I'm hoping their clout will help yeah yeah like we're not in favour of the bank is what we're saying that made the which made the loans it's Chase, Bank isn't it Chase yes I want to say Chase Manhattan but that's probably not I think that's something different I'm not 100% sure no I don't know some guys.

I'm not going to accidentally lie to the bank on that no no we don't know who they are but we don't like them.

Yeah we don't know they're a bank and that's enough for us yeah, right anyway we're nearly at the end of the podcast oh goodness time has run yeah we're nearly there we've got one last thing to talk about, Ooh.

Yeah.

See?

I see a little cutie pie there.

Yeah.

So we've been talking about pets and sidekicks for weeks.

And we had Paul Hughes on last week, and we showed off dog under cat and the beetle, I believe.

But as I said in this headline, we've been talking about dogs and cats and tigers and ombies and beetles, but we know what the big ticket item is.

People want a dragon wyrmling.

So I thought I'd breed you the dragon wyrmling.

Oh, okay.

And there it is.

Of course, it's far too small if you actually read on that screen there, but it is over on EN World as well, where you can click on it and see it properly.

But that's the Dragon Wormling right there.

So you can see that there's a table there, which you probably can't read.

I can't read it on the screen now, but basically that's all the different types of dragons and their breath weapons and the special ability each one gets.

Really?

So you've got your river dragons and your gem dragons and your chromatic dragons and all that stuff.

Oh, okay.

So that's things like getting telepathy, climb speed, burrow speed.

Oh, you can read that.

Oh, yes.

I'm impressed.

I cannot.

I have laser eyes.

Yeah.

Telepathy, incorporeal movement for the shadow dragon.

So you can move through other creature and objects.

Oh, cloud strider.

No harmful effects from higher altitude.

All right.

Yeah.

And ice delver.

Yeah.

Burrow speed of five feet.

And it can choose to burrow through sound and ice without leaving a trace.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, the Kickstarter's doing really well.

It's just coming up to £52,000, which, I don't know what that is in dollars, but $65,000, I think.

Yeah, it's a nice trick of change.

And it's got 20 days to go.

I'm doing my part.

I backed it.

I'm very excited by this.

I'm very excited by this.

Very.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm looking forward to it.

One of the fun things about the dragons is when they get to level 10, you're at level 10, they basically become an adult dragon of that type.

And at that point they're not really going to do what you tell them to do because they're an adult dragon so they might at that point depending on how well you've treated them they might be an ally or they might be an adversary but they won't be a pet anymore, interesting so previous to that they're going through growing pains as a silky dragon teenager yeah basically.

You can't tell me what to do you're not my real dad I am Groot about it, Interesting, yes.

Yeah.

But yeah, that's it.

That's it.

We're done.

We're done for the week, I think.

Is there anything else you can think of?

Um, no, not really.

Just been blocking as usual.

Yeah.

Pushing some stuff out.

Yeah.

Well, I'm good.

Yeah.

Well, Jess should be back next week with her shockingly pink hair.

Wear some glasses.

I warn you in advance.

I'll just turn down the brightness of my mask.

It'll be fine.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

All right.

I guess that's it then.

And so until next week, thank you everyone for joining us.

Yes.

A bit of a blast as always.

We're going to go and have a weekend now.

It's nice and sunny.

Although apparently I have to go and buy a new fridge this evening.

Our fridge died.

Apparently when you have a heat wave, your fridge has to operate more effort or something and sometimes they explode.

Oh, okay.

Well, it didn't explode, but yeah.

It died.

And so Sharon has been looking at fridges and Sharon being Sharon, has not been looking at small, cheap fridges.

Wow.

Now I have to go and look at fridges with very large numbers written on them.

Well, life is expensive that way.

But at least you have an ice fridge.

And you do have an ice fridge.

It has like little ice maker and everything.

Very swish.

I don't remember.

It doesn't work anymore.

It's dead.

Luckily, we have the emergency battle fridge in the boiler room.

So nobody gets why it's called the emergency battle bridge.

It's like emergency battle bridge.

Like the USS Enterprise has the emergency battle bridge.

so it's called and it's got it written on it emergency battle fridge but nobody understands it I'm the only person that gets that joke oh well makes me laugh, isn't that the importance we've got the essentials in there a bit of meat the milk the butter and you know the mud sorry and uh, hmm yeah okay, yeah yes well we should properly wrap up the podcast yeah fascinating as your domestic situation yes yeah yeah all right then so until next week thank you everyone.

Music.