Eldrichville Ep 22 - A Recap And A Look Forward

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Monster Monster, a RealPlay Dungeons
Dragons podcast that hasfinished its first campaign.
I am your Dungeon Master, KevinEggleston, joined by former
players.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hi, I'm Tyson.
I played a guy named.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Chester Blackfield and my name is Tyler, and I
played Ekram, the ShadowSorcerer.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yeah, guys, so we are done with Eldritchville.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, and we got a special guest appearance from
Mike the cat.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yep, mike, my cat, if you hear him in the background.
He is handsome, he is a tabaxiuh tabaxi, noisy boy.
Uh, that's a custom class foundonly in monster monster.
Uh guys, every time you hearmike meow, tyson will donate a
dollar to a charity all right,fine that charity just made meow
, meow, meow, meow, meow, allright fine, that charity just
made $10.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Oh no.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm such a bad guy.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, no, the thing is the charity is going to be
just Tyson, he's going to belike you know what Poverty
starts at home.
So for those of you folks thatstuck with us all the way from
the beginning of Eldridgeville,we I almost loathe to say
bumbling.
But just a muscle boy thatdidn't believe in himself,

(01:09):
chester Blackfield, just ahappy-go-lucky kind of golden
retriever of a person.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, I think the character there definitely was.
I was saying about this becausethere was definitely character
growth, but it wasn't such ahuge black-white turn-to-corner,
it was just like a real slowlike.
I think more of like, maybelike a more realistic growth
where it's like no, I can dothis, I don't have to have all

(01:35):
these pressures, I can just kindof eventually get to have a
little bit of happiness, youknow.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, there was a tenacity to chester when it's
like because, dear god, how manytimes did you well and that
never changed die.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, I, I almost died.
What the first or secondepisode?

Speaker 1 (01:53):
I got stabbed in the alley and cabinet to be like oh
no I expected you to be a littlebit tougher boy than you were
honestly, me too, I should havelooked at some stat blocks, uh
and ekram, I mean you were justkind of like defiant start to
finish in this, yeah I feel likethe development for ekram came

(02:14):
from episode one.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
He had this idea that he was like he's done with like
the scum of, like the area andlike, hey, life is bad because
people are doing evil things andtaking advantage of other
people.
I need to create anorganization because clearly,
whatever local authorities orwhatever are handling it and I
just need to handle it myselfunderground.
And then the development camefrom.

(02:36):
Well, I have gained my ownpersonal growth and power to
where I don't need to recruitpeople.
I literally started making thearmy you know, yeah, uh, you
really like a, like a, like aquiverful shadow sorcerer yeah,
yeah make my own little army todo my bidding in this case

(02:58):
shadow dragons yeah, and it itkind of conveniently worked out
because, as we were recordingthis, obviously all these were
recorded ahead of time, but mycharacter ended up following a
similar path to Sungjin Woo fromSolo Leveling.
I don't know if you guys everwatched that.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
I know.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
It was hilariously similar as we were doing this,
recording it before thoseepisodes came out.
That just kind of happened tofit along a D&D style of that.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
That's neat.
That's really cool because Iknow you're&D style of that.
That's neat.
That's really cool Because Iknow you're a big fan of anime,
I am, yeah.
And how did you feel about theDMing of it?
How did it go according to plan?
What did you learn?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Oh, man, it is weird to DM comedians Because one of
the things you notice with themis like you'll try to build this
impactful, serious moment andthey're like, yeah, but you know
what would go here fart joke.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, we are so weak.
Yeah, we are, and it's not likeI'm better than it.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Like I'm not, like I'm the stoic, no, I'm.
Like I'm gonna do it too.
So I was like I just step on myown moment.
I think the hardest thing waslike, uh, wanting to really
build this like real world andthen bringing in your characters
, and I think like, if I wouldlook back at doing that again,
uh, I think we maybe wouldstructure some episodes a little
bit differently to have alittle bit more breath for your
characters, individualbackstories, I mean this, this

(04:14):
campaign is 20 episodes.
It's really like I think wementioned it in the final
episode.
It's like three days like we,it's a breakneck pace to go from
discovering a box to saving anentire multiversal city.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
We did an anime yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well, there was also some weird stuff with time in
there, like when we got back tothe time dragon after failing to
save the first dragon, where weentered like a Dragon Ball Z
time capsule training thing,where it was like 10 minutes
here is three years in thisparallel, so like there was like
fluffed time in three years inthis parallel, so like there was
like oh, no time in there.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
We put him in like a super one, so he came out very
old.
We put him in the too fast one.
You gotta put him back in theslow down.
He won.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh no, my sciatica uh , yeah, I really enjoyed how
there were wins and losses inthis because, like, I've played,
uh, actual campaigns where thethe dm either was like too, like
oh, I don't want to upsetanybody, like I, I legitimately
thought my character was dead inthe first episode.
It's like, okay, we'll re-roll,that's fine.

(05:17):
This sucks, didn't get to knowthe guy.
And then in the seventh episodeand the 14th, episode and the
15th, and then the 18th, 19thand 20th episode.
Yeah, yeah, uh thank god, I'mfriends with the time dragon.
Yeah, no kidding.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Uh, the time dragon she's, she's.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Guys, got your backs well, the funny thing is is
there was a few times that wesplit up and every time.
Logically, I would have beenthe one in danger because I'm a
sorcerer, I'm pretty squishy,never once had a mortal wound, I
don't think.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
I don't think you ever solo took damage.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
No, I mean first of all, Chester's not going to let
that happen to you, becausethat's just the guy he is.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I'm talking about when we were separated.
You couldn't protect me then.
Still just breathe through itsomehow.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
No, yours are all these morally complicated like
do I surrender to a darker self?
Kind of things.
And Chester's were all like doI surrender to a fist?
How?

Speaker 2 (06:17):
much blood am I allowed to lose legally?

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, no, this was kind of a fun.
Um.
I I guess, uh, where did youguys get inspiration for your
characters, like, did you?
Was there any media orsomething that you looked at as
kind of like a template?

Speaker 2 (06:33):
I really liked uh oh brother.
Where are there?
Uh oh brother where are there?
oh, brother, right there.
Uh, delmar, just how he like,especially the scene when he's
like george clooney and, uh,john Titoro are like I'm in
charge, no, I'm in charge.
Well, what do you think?
Well, I'm with you.
Fellas, like that kind of Just,wholesome, never lost hope

(06:56):
style of character, like when hewas like when I get out of jail
, I'm going to be 86 years old,and he's like, well, well, I'm
going to only be 82.
Just like, just that.
So that's where I got a lot ofhis hope from.
All, right, awesome, what aboutyou, ekrem?

Speaker 3 (07:12):
So, with us doing what we do when it comes to the
live shows and stuff, a lot ofthe characters and stuff that we
build are like these biggerdramatic, like jokey characters
for the live shows and when I doplay normal, normal.
D&d campaigns.
I normally stick to the classesI like because I don't get to
be a normal player so I tried toget away from, like my core

(07:33):
three classes.
But I knew charisma was myfavorite stat.
So I was like, well, I alwaysplay bard or paladin or
something like that.
So I'm gonna go out of my depth, I'm gonna keep charisma and I
really like summoning as an idea, but there's not much stuff in
5e that really circulates that.

(07:53):
So it seemed like shadowsorcerer was the way to go, just
to even have that experience infifth edition, and that was
really the core of the character, and then I just went from
there interesting.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, uh, 5e really is weird kind of sometimes with
some of the summoning rules.
Uh, because in previouseditions you'd be like, oh no,
you can have like a little armythat you make, but in 5e they're
kind of like, yeah, you can,it's gonna slow everything down
and we're all gonna hate youyeah, enjoy, because, like what
are the options?

Speaker 3 (08:19):
you summon a bunch of animals as a druid, yeah, and
they all have their owninitiatives.
It's a nightmare, yeah oryou're like a wizard or a
sorcerer and you can have onething, because every summoning
thing requires concentration.
Yeah, because the only way thatI was able to get around it is
because of my hound.
Yeah, that was a class ability,that was not concentration, so

(08:39):
it was always the hound and theone thing I could summon hell
yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
And chester, how'd you like playing the humblewood?

Speaker 2 (08:46):
uh, scofflock class I enjoyed that a lot.
I don't know if I misunderstoodthe rules, but it is so strong
getting to be able to be liketake a swing at me, duck stab
friend, like that's as a bonusaction.
That's very, very powerfulespecially when you get higher
up in levels too and you're likesome of those things are doing
crazy damage yeah, like I was soexcited because like there's

(09:10):
blindside and then the like,just the potential for damage
from a fighter with no actualweapon you know what I mean like
just his hands, uh, or using animprovised weapon.
It was so fun just to be like,because I love like fantasy
where it's all like big knightsand armor and big axes and

(09:31):
shields.
It's so fun to me to havesomebody who's just like well, I
punch kind of good and I'mtough yeah, yeah, also the the
funny thing about I completelylost my thought.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
We'll just edit that out uh it just left my fucking
body.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
It was gone.
It went to the bathroom.
Oh, you want a yes and Go fuckyourself yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
It was a good thought too yeah, we're not editing
that out.
No, I say, keep in all ofTyler's fuck-ups.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, no, I looked at .
So I don't know if you guysknow this, If you've ever been
to a live show.
I'm a big fan of like cosmichorror and stuff.
Uh, I got cast a deadly spellwhich.
Have you guys ever seen thatmovie, this bad HBO movie from
like the nineties?

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Oh, hell yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
That is like this.
It's set in Las Vegas, I thinkOkay, and, but like all the
Lovecraftian stuff is true, oh,like the, the big bad battle at
the end is in a housingdevelopment outside of Nevada,
or outside of Las Vegas wherethey summon Yog-Sotha in this
housing development and they usezombies to build the houses and

(10:36):
they're like it's efficientlabor.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Okay, I'm kind of into it yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
It's one of those movies that you're like this
plot is bananas and could be socool, but it's just also by
people that are like, yeah, butwe had just puppets.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Yeah, oh, I remember the thing about Chester.
It was yeah, it was funnybecause like, cut that out, yeah
, I can wait.
You're going to run out ofbreath, don't challenge me.
As the charisma character, myprimary stat is charisma.
But Chester was like I'm goingto pull a Terry Crews, flex my

(11:12):
pecs and use strength instead ofcharisma and I'm like, okay,
this isn't fucking annoying,what is this high school?

Speaker 2 (11:22):
That was only good in a fight.
We have to actively be fightingand I can be like look how
strong I am, oh wow don't youfeel like calming down now?

Speaker 1 (11:31):
very funny, that was very funny all right, uh, do we
want to start talking aboutcampaign two then?

Speaker 3 (11:36):
uh, well, real quick.
If you had to pick one momentthat was your favorite from this
campaign, what would it havebeen?

Speaker 2 (11:42):
oh man, I really, I really.
I love big, ridiculous scenes,so I really enjoy elbow dropping
and it's also so cool.
I'm with my buddy who's inshadow form on a shadow dragon.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Oh, so the last episode.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
But like I mean it all builds to it you know what I
mean Like just jumping off of adragon to elbow drop somebody
Hilarious.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
So good.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
And finally, my stats were enough that I was kind of
hitting more than not, yeah.
But I think my favorite momentthat kind of encapsulated
everything, uh, was how you gotme poisoned by tripping a trap.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
I forgot about that oh man, that was what.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Death number three god, and then just getting the
shit beat out of me by animatedarmor and caverns, just like
this is supposed to be easy it'ssupposed to be.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
But when you're two characters, one is poisoned
somehow and the other one hasonly psychic damage.
At that point it's frustratingyes, it was.
Yes, it was because you know,what armor doesn't have a brain
what about you?
What was?

Speaker 2 (12:49):
your favorite, you think?

Speaker 3 (12:51):
I think my favorite moment was probably the uh, the
first it's.
It's tough.
For me the honorable mentiongoes to like failing to save the
shadow dragon, because it wasour first ever like big moment,
like we'd had wins, like wechased down the cult member, got
some information.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Got stabbed in an alley bled out near death.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that really contextualizedwhat the stakes were, Because we
literally couldn't have atragedy after that.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
But my personal favorite Ekra moment was
thinking I saved Chester's life.
Oh God by pushing him into theforce field and breaking that
staff of power.
Thinking, I killed Kaga andteleported myself to another
dimension.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
And then just the whole time I'm being stabbed
again.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
And I'm just like kicking my feet and twiddling my
thumbs, being like I saved theday, you know.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
I was like god once.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yes, it went well until everyone started dying uh,
I think my favorite moment youhave this.
You had this like flash ofbrilliance, tyson, where you're
like I'm gonna turn thisballista while we were trying to
save the fey dragon.
You're gonna turn the ballistaon this group of people and then
you, you're just like, wheneverit's like why did you just
betray us?

(14:10):
You're like, oh, because hebanged my wife.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Oh, he didn't have a wife.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
And it's just becoming a recurring thing where
Tyler and I cannot let go thatyou have a wife.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
I'm just trying to gaslight Chester into believing
he has a partner, just hittingthe head so hard he forgot a
person.
A partner just hitting the headso hard, he forgot a person.
Yeah, I I really did enjoy like, especially like learning and
growing, uh, as performers inthis media, learning how to like
try to build these momentswithout it feeling too like pat

(14:41):
yourself on the backy.
Yeah, like there was a funbalance, like it was a really
cool.
I'm excited for the nextcampaign.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, me too.
I, yeah, I think, uh, itbecomes that weird balance of
like how much exposition do youget?
Or that doesn't feel likeyou're like circle jerking
yourself and you're like, butlook at how good I did at like
describing the scene and youguys are like we haven't talked
in five minutes.
What?
Please stop doing that, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
But yeah, I think it was.
I think ultimately it was avery successful campaign and
thank you everyone that listenedto it and I'm excited for the
next season.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
I think we'll shift into that, yeah yeah, sure, so I
will be the one that's runningthe second season.
It's going to be a bit moregrounded.
I don't know if that's theright word, but this was very
like mystical, like horror, andit was awesome.
It was so much fun.
So I think, instead offollowing in that suit of like
the mystic stuff, mine's goingto be a very grounded in I don't

(15:38):
know a great way to put it, butit's going to be a story based
where magic is more of a rarityand if you do have magic,
certain people around are goingto be weary because it's not.
It's not really practiced, andif you are using magic, then
you're associated with somethingthat's not common.
You know, and you guys alreadyhave, like, your characters

(16:01):
relatively fleshed out.
I mean, there's going to be abunch of stuff that we figure
out throughout the campaign, butdo you guys want to kind of
give like a brief, like twosentence elevator summary of
what you guys are thinking?

Speaker 2 (16:11):
uh, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
I don't want to give anything away, but like I'm
gonna be playing a characternamed vance, who is a wandering
uh cleric, okay, yeah, and I'mgonna be carrying playing a
character named frolin uh andhe's a uh fighter that does not
want to ever put other people atrisk.

(16:34):
He always kind of wants to takethe challenge on for himself
and it comes off as gloryseeking and a little bit
arrogant, but it's really hidingsome trauma and some response
to pain.
So, the self-sacrifice so nobodyelse has to.
Yeah, but also he's like he'sone of those guys that's like

(16:57):
make sure they build a bitch instatue nice, um, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
So basically your, your two characters, are going
to be thrust into a world thatyou guys really need to find
your place in, because nobodyreally has a home anymore, and I
want that to sound as vague aspossible, to like build intrigue
.
But essentially there is aglobal type of conflict that
breaks out that you guys need tofind your place in so if there

(17:23):
was like a, maybe a war?

Speaker 1 (17:26):
one might over across the entire world a world war.
Why don't we just call it theGreat War?

Speaker 3 (17:32):
For now.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
The war to end all wars.
It'll never happen again, right?
We all learned a lesson.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
I think that's good, without giving too much away.
We're very excited and that'sjust going to chain right on, so
we'll release our normalepisode 20 and then we'll put
this episode in the next weekand then we'll keep this episode
in like the next week and thenwe'll keep our normal schedule
of every other week after that.
Yeah, uh.
So thank you all so much forlistening.
It's great.
Like is we get to do?
This is insane.
The fact that we get to do thisis crazy, and it's super cool

(18:02):
that you guys are listening andwe're getting more and more
listeners and it's growing.
It baffles me.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
So just thank you so much yeah, whether you come to
the live shows or just listen tothe podcast, we truly
appreciate any way that yousupport us yeah, I'm a fan of
you guys, you're a fan of us,we're a fan of you boom I'm a
bigger fan of you guys thantyson and tyler are of you,
though I got your back that istrue, I'm very, but I couldn't

(18:28):
say the word.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
No, he's pretty lukewarm on the concept of fans
uh no season, two strong.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, no hey chester's coming back.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
No, I thank you guys again um check out the stuff
that we do.
I think our patreon it's gotsome exclusive stuff, some
behind the scenes stuff too.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, the live shows and oh, that's gonna be the
other thing too.
We're ramping everything up so,uh, we're actually getting
video of us doing the actual podon the next season.
We're upgrading all of ourcameras and stuff.
Like, when you sign up for thePatreon, we're not just rolling
to the bank with that fat D&Dpodcast money that's all

(19:06):
reserved for Critical Role andDimension 20.
But we're using it to invest,uh, and making a better product
for you, the listener.
So, thank you.
If you like it, please followand subscribe on the patreon and
stuff if not still cool.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Give the shares and reviews.
That helps us a ton too, and we.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
We thoroughly enjoy doing this.
So any opportunity we get tomake the product better just
means we can also have more funwith it.
So it really is just like acircular, like hey, more fun,
more support, we can do coolerthings and then like this is so
much fun.
I never imagined that two yearsago, when we did our first ever
live show, that we would belike here now.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
That's baffling yeah, in a studio apartment.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
No, I kind of figured this is where we're gonna end
up, which is crazy because Ididn't.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
You were buying a house you can see where the
pessimism lies, and I'm like wedo three live shows a month and
we get to travel around themidwest, which is weird, because
this is podcast tyler, which islike optimism tyler, and then
as soon as we shut off this mic,he's gonna be like fucking
glass is empty boys yeah, Idon't have.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
But remember guys.
As Chester would say, remember,it's going to be all right, you
just got to get back up.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
I don't think he ever said that.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
I think he was.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Remember what I always said to Chester make a
death saving throw.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
If we're going to quote Chester, it's a oh fuck,
oh fuck, I've been stabbed yetagain, Thank you all so much.