Bout of Radness (Freebie) with Katie Marovitch

[00:00:00] Rusty Quill Presents Push The Roll with Ross Bryant is intended for mature listeners only. Check the show notes for content warnings and please listen with care. Want to get involved? Back us on Patreon and submit your ideas for our improvised games. Your suggestion just might inspire our next Call of Cthulhu adventure. Join today at patreon.com slash push the roll.

[00:00:26] Today's show is sponsored by Die Hard Dice, who is offering our listeners a special discount code to use at their website, dieharddice.com. So just head on over there and use the discount code PTR to get 10% off your order. Die Hard Dice has been great to work with and are genuinely fans of this show, which was super endearing and I appreciate it so much. The dice themselves are really high quality and come with a lifetime guarantee. I'm loving all the awesome colors and hues that they come in.

[00:00:55] And I especially love the little dice tray scroll that I got where it rolls out into a dice tray, but each umbilicus of the scroll is a little caddy that you can put your dice into. It's perfect for packing it down if you need to go to a convention or a friend's house to play in person, which people actually still do. So head on over to dieharddice.com and punch in the discount code PTR for 10% off your order.

[00:01:18] Hey everybody, this is Cup with a quick schedule update as we head into year two of Push the Roll with Ross Bryant. Can you believe it? We are changing things up just a bit. We're still going to release episodes every Wednesday during our mini series. But then between series, we're going to take one week for bout of radness instead of a regular episode.

[00:01:41] This week to mark the change, we're going to give you the full episode of bout of radness. But on future weeks in between series, we'll share probably five minutes of highlights here. And then the full episode will be available on Patreon. So you can kind of get the full flavor of it today. Katie Marovitch joined us, which is super cool. And Patreon, of course, keeps the show alive. So go to patreon.com slash push the roll.

[00:02:39] And help us out. We'll be back with a fresh new series.

[00:02:43] We'll be back with a fresh new series debut next week. Rob Kirkovich is our very special guest. And it is a fun one. So don't miss that. Thank you, as always, for listening. Thank you for telling other people about the show. I'm so excited for year two. We have all kinds of cool projects going on. Push the Roll is producing the Magnus Archives role playing game official actual play, which is already well underway on the production side.

[00:03:10] So thank you for everything. Thank you for listening. You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a television. You wouldn't steal a DVD. You wouldn't steal a podcast. Downloading podcasts is a crime.

[00:03:56] Wow. Oh, man. Wow. Oh, man.

[00:04:29] We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

[00:05:03] We'll be right back. We'll be right back. And I'm hoping Katie steals your GM chair. I will. Yes, she's coming for me. But who's that? It's the quartermaster of our pirate bay. It's Scott Dorward. Oh, gosh. That intro you gave took me right back. I am of an age and a nationality where every bloody video I watched had that before the film started. Every one of them. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes.

[00:05:32] I as well remember this. This well. And it has now become a meme disjointed and stolen itself from its original context. But wait, who is that? Who is that the pirate queen attempting to steal the very show itself? It's Katie Maravich. I'm coming for you. And I want to apologize for my dog's little paw prints. She's like constantly running back and forth.

[00:06:01] It sounds like she has little stilettos on because she has long nails. No, our listeners are going to be upset that they can't hear this because they love dogs. Oh, no, they want more dog. Yeah. Yeah. They can't hear it. Okay, good. Yeah, it's just the sound of a dog wearing stilettos. Good. Sorry. I'll add them in post. Yeah, I'm sure you've got that in your sound effect library. Yeah, we need that for sure. I'll email you after the fact so I can get the right breed wearing stilettos for it's answer. Perfect.

[00:06:31] But oh, I feel you Katie. My dog also was was clicking and clacking around all the time. Clicking and clacking. Yes. It's these hardwood floors. But yes, we we've already already evoked piracy on the high seas of media. Um, because our most recent miniseries was sort of set in the world of a college town video store.

[00:07:00] It was called the TV static lies. That was our main title that came from Johnny tea time. Thank you, Johnny. Oh, I messed up. I messed that up. By the way, it's not Johnny tea time. It's inspired by hog father from the disc world series. It's like, do you all know this? I don't know disc world world that well. It's like Tia Tia Timma. Oh, it's Johnny tea Timma. Johnny tea Timma. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Johnny tea Timma.

[00:07:26] And then our subsequent push title was called this our last rodeo that came from Dazzy. Dazzy. Dazzy. And I was Daz, which people are starting to think that I'm cheating on the titles because my character's nickname was Daz. And then all of a sudden we roll this secondary title from Dazzy. It is suspicious. Hmm. It is suspicious. This is just the sort of like strange and occult synchronicities that occur when you're playing with the fates as we do here. It's some kind of curse.

[00:07:56] Playing with the tracking knob of destiny. Yes. This one was sponsored by diehard dice. I wanted to get some dice rolling scandals on the table so that we could really get the social media buzz going. Ooh. Yeah. Those dice. I mean, big fan. Love the dice. They're very, they're very, they're pretty. Beautiful. And heavy, you know, and that's what you want. Weight. Some weight to them. Chonky. Chonky. You want a satisfying plonk when they hit that table. Yes.

[00:08:25] There are the extremes on both sides. Their polymer dice are so light, like the lightest ones I've ever held. And the metal ones are really thick and chonky. So I like that, that they're kind of, they play at the extremes. Yes. Yeah. Dice centibytes. You mentioned, um, now this show is a lot about like titles, the poetry of titles, and also just inspiration the way various media pirated or otherwise has influenced us.

[00:08:53] And you mentioned right off the rip there that Johnny, uh, Tiatima, um, Tiatima, whatever it is. Yeah. Right. Uh, comes from the world of the disc world books. And those are so popular online. They, they have such a, such a huge, um, following and they're, they're a big blind spot for me. I've never read any Terry Pratchett. I haven't read any of those disc world books. I see Katie shaking her head. Have you ever, ever read those?

[00:09:22] No, I haven't. I feel embarrassed. I, this is actually what this show's all about. It's putting us on the spot. Yeah. Scott, I I'm shocked. You haven't read disc world. Is that true? Oh, I have. I've read about the first 10. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's a lot. Way, way, way more than that. Uh, I decided eventually they weren't really my kind of thing.

[00:09:46] I appreciate what Pratchett was doing and he was clearly a very talented writer, but just not to my taste. Hey. Okay. Different strokes are different folks. And yeah, what I, what I glean is it's like a sort of a satirical fantasy world with, with a lot of kind of sounds like kind of wacky humor, like almost like a fantasy hitchhiker's guide-y kind of vibe. Yeah.

[00:10:11] The humor is very similar to Douglas Adams, but at the same time, the fantasy elements seem to, you know, at least initially came an awful lot out of Fritz Lieber. So it was a really weird combination. And no, granted you're, you've already outed yourself as not the biggest fan, but I think a thing that intimidates a lot of readers when there's a huge non-linear body of work like that. It's like, where do I enter?

[00:10:35] Do you have recommendation anyone in here who's read those books as far as where a good place to start with the Discworld books is if you want to try and see if they are your taste? Probably at the beginning. I remember quite enjoying The Color of Magic, which was the first book. Okay. My problem with it wasn't so much that the books, as I said, were bad in any way. One of the things I struggled with was the fact that there were all sorts of different parallel storylines going on.

[00:11:03] It's like multiple different series under the same big umbrella. And you get invested in one group of characters and then, you know, he'll go off and do books about it, you know, another four or five books about different groups of characters. And by the time it comes back to the one you were invested in, you've forgotten everything that happened in the book that you read a while back. That was my biggest problem with them. Okay. Some people like that kind of thing. I'm not into that either. I mean... Yeah, me neither. Yeah, with all this stuff.

[00:11:30] That's why we do three episodes and we're out. We're done. That's right. We spend just enough time to make you fall in love with a little group of characters before they are utterly destroyed. Yeah. Just seeing Katie's name as Liz Sanders is bringing back memories of what a sweet character she was. Aww. Yeah, what a total sweetheart. She was like the new hire. Do you remember, Katie? Yeah. Yes, I think it opened with me cleaning the bathroom or something. Right. It did, yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:01] Real slice of life. That was great. Aww. Katie, is there a genre of thing that you're super duper well versed in like that? Do you... Is there a particular type of thing you really gravitate towards? Yeah, Columbo. Oh, wow. Yes! Oh, cool. Yes. I love Columbo and yeah, I've seen it all. Huge Peter Falk fan. Um, and...

[00:12:25] Yeah, I mean, I know a lot about like singular shows like The Nanny. I watched all of like crazy. Um, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Oh, yeah. I like know every single episode. Just really bizarre. And then Columbo has been most recently. But I love, um, when I make something it's usually uh, like a comedy horror. Like I love making comedy horror things. Mm-hmm. So that's kind of where I write. Awesome.

[00:12:52] You've got to come back and we've got to do no matter what the title is, it has to be a Columbo story, Ross. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes! I would love that. Well, yes, Katie, you're in good company. I almost want to ask you the same question because now all the Columbo's are kind of available in various streaming platforms. Is there a particular episode of Columbo that you think is like a great place to start for a novice? Oh.

[00:13:18] I mean, I loved Etude in Black and actually I got to see it on the big screen. They did like a screening of it recently and it was just super fun. But that's with Cassavetes and Gwyneth Paltrow's mom. And I like did the math and she was pregnant with Gwyneth Paltrow while they were shooting it for sure. So technically she's in it. So yes, Gwyneth Paltrow is in like one of the most popular.

[00:13:46] There's also like the wine cellar one. There's so many good. I could talk about this forever. I'm adding Gwyneth Paltrow to the IMDB right now for that episode. Please. And we all love horror comedy around here. Of course, that's kind of like the flavor of this podcast. And we've talked on this show a lot about how much we all love Widow's Bay, which is a great, awesome horror comedy. Yes, I love Widow's Bay. And Matthew Rhys has been doing sort of the press tour around it.

[00:14:12] It's come out that one of his earliest jobs was on an episode of Columbo, like Peter Falk, I guess, like basically flew him out to America to do an episode of Columbo. Wow. Wow. That's awesome. That's so cool. I thought you were going to say it came out that he's Welsh. It was a big reveal. What? What the fuck? All these. Yeah. Shocking. Suddenly I don't like Widow's Bay quite as much. I know.

[00:14:40] Every time, every time you go to see an interview with the talented actors on your favorite streaming shows, like they're, they're all from the UK. Yeah. Okay. Pretty much. That Patricia's role is like one that, that is a dream role for me. Oh my God. Yeah. Katie, you would kill it in a role like that. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, she killed it, but, but I was like the whole time I was watching it, like her, her main episode with like the witch stuff. I think that was my favorite one. Perfect. It's so good. It's my favorite too. Yeah.

[00:15:09] But I want to play that character so badly. Oh my God. Yeah. Well, we'll do it. We'll just crib Widow's Bay when you come back and do Push the Roll with Ross Ryan. Yeah. We could just do it. Yeah. Yeah. We'll just do that episode. We don't have to change anything. Right. Yeah. It's perfect. Here's our new Push the Roll Orphans Island. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, what a great title, Scott.

[00:15:32] That reminds me that we have, of course, all the amazing titles that have been submitted by you, dear listener, our wonderful subscribers who submit the titles to inspire all our imaginations. Now, of course, Johnny Teotame and Dazzy submitted two awesome titles, and I loved what those inspired. I loved the story set in the world of that VHS rental shop. It was so nostalgic for me, I feel like.

[00:16:00] And God, we just name so many movies over the course of those episodes. Something like 50 titles. Yeah, just episode two had 38. Somebody counted them on Discord. So we're doing some deep intertextuality on these episodes. But let's get into some of these other titles that were suggested that simply were not selected by the fates yet. Actually, I'm not giving Alice enough credit for the wiki page.

[00:16:29] Alice didn't just count them. She went and added all the media references that we made onto the wiki. Wow. Yeah, Alice, who maintains the wiki, is doing the Lord's work. It's really incredible stuff. Yeah. She's a real G. Indeed. It's amazing. Yeah. Amazing. But I want to take a look at some of these titles because as ever, as I scroll through the list, I'm just goggle-eyed and impressed that there are so many really great ones.

[00:16:58] There's so many weird ones and a few that are stinky, obvious trolls. Oh, okay. Yes. Yeah. The first one I noticed was from Lucas Gorton, who's a name, that's not a name I'm familiar with, so maybe somebody quite new. And the title is The Night the Stars Went Out. Ooh. Yeah.

[00:17:25] I like astronomy, Call of Cthulhu. Yeah. And I was thinking like maybe we're all at Griffith Observatory and kind of checking on the night sky and then it's like, vroom, all the stars go out. Yeah. That's fun.

[00:17:40] That makes me think of Arthur C. Clarke's story, The Nine Million Names of God, which is about, I think it's a bit of Buddhist belief or Tibetan Buddhist belief that there are nine million possible names of God. And it's about a computer working through all the permutations of them because something miraculous is supposed to happen when you enumerate all these different names. And it just ends up with the stars going out one by one. Ooh. Wow.

[00:18:09] That's cool. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Like you're in the computer lab. Yeah. Wow. Oh, the idea of watching stars go out is so scary. And yeah, imagining you set in the story set at the Griffith Observatory or like an astronomy club or like SETI or one of these places where you're at one of those labs with the huge dishes and telescopes watching the skies. Ooh. I like your imagery a lot better, Scott, like blinking out one by one.

[00:18:37] I think that's so cool because it almost times the game, right? Like what happens when the last one goes out? Oh, yeah. It's like 10 candles. Yeah. Yeah. Only a lot more. Just, yeah. Yes. It'd be just a couple more. It's a 10 candles campaign. Yeah. There's one big star in the sky that may be about to go out as well. Oh, it could even be set like, what if it's an alternate year 2000 Y2K thing?

[00:19:07] Like that's the night the stars went out. That would be fun. Yeah. Because we haven't done a Y2K game, I don't think. Ooh. Man, that'd be an interesting way to take it. Fun. We're all of an age maybe where we remember Y2K. Yes. Maybe. I was working in corporate IT during the Y2K. Oh, wow. So you're on the front lines. Yes. Scott saved the world, actually. Yeah. I won't bore everybody with my story because I always tell it.

[00:19:34] I was on the ride out crew at Disney's Animal Kingdom in case the animals got loose. Wow. They did not. They were worried the computer systems would all fail and it would just be mass chaos at Walt Disney World. Did you work at Walt Disney World? I did. I was on the- During this time? Oh my God. I said I wasn't going to tell it, no. Here we are. Okay, sorry. No, no, no, no. I was on the overnight crew, but really it was all a trick. They wanted us to learn how to take credit card transactions by hand. So we were training that all night long while we waited for the world to end.

[00:20:03] Oh my God. Yeah. Money never sleeps even when apocalypse looms. Yeah, truly. Definitely. Is there a better metaphor for capitalism than learning to do manual credit card transactions while waiting for the end of the world? Yeah, it's perfect. That's a pretty good title. It's a long one, but it's a good title. Yeah. I was in an Appalachian cabin just waiting to see if everything went out. Oh, wow. Wow.

[00:20:29] Up in the mountains of North Carolina with some family because it was like, I was at school at the time and it was kind of, you know, it's New Year's so it was winter break. Oh. We were just kind of waiting, waiting, waiting to see what happened. And if it did, were you just going to stay there and live off the land? Oh yeah, that was the plan. Just hoard weapons and get water from the creek and just try to rebuild civilization. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:56] I mean, that's actually a decent setup for a game like this. The family having gathered there on New Year's Eve. And maybe it is just the lie that the parents tell the children that the world has ended and you've got your own little community there pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist. Ooh. It's like dog tooth. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yes. Last year we did a Saturnalia game for the holidays. We should do that this year. We should do a New Year's, like a New Year's Eve kind of thing. Yeah. We'll just do it right now with these four.

[00:21:26] Yeah, let's just do it. Just play. Cool. Sorry for telling my story again. I've told the Y2K story so many times. Yeah, but not on this podcast. Yeah, I think it's on Scott's podcast, so it's fine. Yeah. One that's leaping out of me here just because I think it would be a lot of fun is Necronomicon, an amateur musical production. Oh. I saw that too. That's very fun. Oh my God. Oh, that sounds so good.

[00:21:54] Have any of you ever encountered Shoggoth on the Roof? No. This was a mock musical, at least originally a mock musical that was done by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. And they did this mockumentary about the staging of it that I think starred Chris Sarandon. It was like all the songs from Fiddler on the Roof, but rewritten to be Lovecraftian. That's fun.

[00:22:21] Then they did an original cast recording album of it and they got so carried away, they just ended up writing a full musical. And I did get to see the world premiere of it in Stockholm like 20 years ago. Wow. It was an experience because they performed it in Swedish, which is not language I speak, but I still loved every moment of it. Oh my God. That is wild. That's awesome. People are really pressuring us for a musical episode, even though the logistics of it are difficult to say the least.

[00:22:52] Oh God. People love those. This title is like would be would be an amazing setup for one. It is a dream of mine that we get to do that someday. We know so many excellent, like just world class musical improvisers and we could totally do something like that. We just all have to be in the same room together with the musicians because as I have learned through baleful experience doing musical improv over an internet connection is hellish.

[00:23:22] Oh God. I always say I can fix anything in post. That might be the one thing I'm not that interested in doing. I would not wish that on you. I'll be there. I'll work the merch table. You can all put on your musical and maybe I can get like a two second cameo. Yeah. I know we'll make you sing cup. We'll make you sing. Oh my gosh. I got to start training. I find a vocal coach, but there's a way into this where you necessarily you wouldn't maybe have to go full full band.

[00:23:50] Maybe you're you are like just people attending the premiere of this musical and just and just to just to look upon it. Or maybe you're just members of the the crew and the playwright. They're trying to work out how to adapt these blasphemous horrors into a bit of light musical theater. Yeah.

[00:24:12] And just running through the the translation of these sanity blasting ideas into just just fun fun fun for all the family. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Like backstage. Let's put on a show type stuff is very fun. I love that. Like I'm imagining almost almost a Cthulhu eyes version of waiting for Guffman or something like that. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Katie, are you are you a musical improviser?

[00:24:40] No, but I can sing. Oh, OK. I'm afraid to do it. Well, this is your chance right now. Ross is like, not on my show. No, I do love it. Yeah, it's so good. For me, I think it's the hardness type of improv. Yeah. All the clips I see. I really admire. Oh, yeah. Not just improvisation, but also being able to sing in tune while you're while you're doing it.

[00:25:10] It's amazing to me. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's magic. For a while there, it became like almost all I did. And it's yeah, it is really, really, really, really fun. But yeah, you really you really want everything kind of set up just right, especially for the musicians, so that everybody feels set up for success. Absolutely. Yes. Ross, have you ever like completely bombed while doing musical improv or like failed?

[00:25:36] I'm sure I've I've I've gone down in flames doing every kind of performance you can imagine. Me too. But I kid, of course. No, I'm always I'm always successful. Hit a dinger out of the park and walk and do not walk, but I'm rather carried by the audience out of the theater in triumph. Wow. But bomb stories for improv. It's hard to think. I'm like, yeah, I can read some comments for you. Hold on a second. Pull some reviews up.

[00:26:05] Yeah, pull some up. Make some noise. So the only complaint I saw about our Gen Con video that I posted, which has a lot of views, I was really happy with that. But somebody was was mad that we were yelling into the microphone. It was too loud. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Less enthusiasm, please. I'm sorry. Yeah, it was just the beginning, too. I think they just didn't make it far enough to get to the actual game. But whatever. I'm sorry. I was excited. I was excited. I did. I did.

[00:26:35] I apologize. I'm very sensitive. You should. As with a lot of things, Katie, I think improv kind of bombs are less. It's it's more like when it doesn't reach my standard, you know, or when when musical improv type things happen and end with a whimper rather than the bang you were hoping for. It's hard for it to be an unalloyed disaster. Actually, wait. OK, you can cut all that out, Cup, because I do have a bomb story. OK. Yeah. Yes.

[00:27:01] This is an example of why I feel it's so important to set ourselves up for success when you do musical improv. So I was in it. I was in a group that did musical improv that was booked to do a show at a university. So doing a university show. I had thought that this was at the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana. It turned out it was and I was like, oh, great. That's what a two and three hour drive from Chicago. No, it was at the University of Champaign Ohio.

[00:27:29] So it was like it was like a full day's drive to get to this place. We arrived and have no time to soundcheck. They have booked a full band show. So that means we're performing a full length improvised musical with a keys, guitar and drums. So the sound mix is going to be incredibly delicate because we're also going to all be on mics. The room is an all purpose room in a student union with one of those accordion style devire walls to make up a table.

[00:27:59] The big room small. Oh, so every time you speak, you hear yourself reverberate from every corner of the room. No two people have the same kind of mic. One person has the over the ear. One person has the lapel. One person has a handheld. The drums are so loud in this space. The commenter on our YouTube video would have been beside themselves because every time he lightly brushed his snare drum, it sounded like an atomic bomb went off. Oh, man.

[00:28:27] So we had to basically build a muffling chamber around him out of little like cork boards and what looked like mattresses. He was basically in a little redoubt with a little hole for his eyes so he could watch the pianist for the changes. Oh, my God. This isn't all because the it was not. It was like a stage in quotes that was built of those risers with wheels that you lock down to the floor with a little pedal, you know? Oh, yeah. But this, of course, is a college student union.

[00:28:57] So it's a very slick floor. So as soon as we begin to move around on the stage doing all our awesome improvised choreography, the stage began to split and break apart like rocks on a lava flow. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's like it's a wonderful life. You're trying not to fall into the pool. Exactly. Can we watch this? Is this online anywhere? No, no. Okay. It is. It is.

[00:29:25] So, yeah, we performed a utterly incomprehensible, impossible to follow because the mics were bad musical improv show where we were being totally drowned out by the band in an echoey chamber to an audience of bemused college students. Wow. But that's the kind of thing we're like, as an ensemble, you just lock eyes with each other and you're like, this is a hazing ritual. We're going to get through this together. Can you believe that this is going on right now?

[00:29:52] And so in a weird way, even though it's frustrating and you're like going down in flames in a way, it's kind of fun because you're doing it together. Absolutely. And when it was all said and done, we were just like, oh, my God, I got drunker than I think I've ever been drunk before. We went out to a bar and just I was like, I like we're going to put this behind us. I was throwing them down. And the next morning on the four hour drive back to Chicago, I had the worst hangover I've ever had in my life.

[00:30:22] Oh, and so, yeah, a truly just horrific experience front to back. But I'm glad you got to relive it because it feels like it was buried. You had to really think and dig it out. Yeah. Yes, it was. I write. Yeah, that was buried deep in my subconscious under under layers of suppression. Oh, my God. I'm so glad I asked. And yeah. And it's amazing that the students still carried you out of the theater on their shoulders because you were so good individually.

[00:30:50] Well, they carried us out on their shoulders, but we were also on a rail. Oh, they took us to the edge of town before tarring and feathering us. Oh, God. Yeah. Sweet. Before we get away from this topic, I should credit Helga who suggested this title in all the excitement I forgot to say. Cool. Yeah. Anytime we talk about a title for like 15 minutes, it is important to credit them. Yes. Amazing. Helga always has banging titles, I gotta say. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:31:19] Yeah. Going off the sort of light slash darkness, this Samuel Pratau or Praetau has borrowed light, which is just kind of beautiful. Oh, yeah. Just kind of like how that sounds. And then this one's just funny. What would Scooby do? Wrote this. Yeah. Which is one dish, two fish, black blood ghoulish, which is maybe for children.

[00:31:51] One dish, two fish, black blood ghoulish. That is interesting. Yeah. Ross, would you rhyme the whole time for that one? Yes, you'd have to. Would I rhyme the whole time? Well, it's not a crime. No. I mean, they're obviously doing a little homage to Dr. Seuss. Mm-hmm. It'd be interesting to, yeah, do an almost children's programming horror show. Yeah. You could maybe try to do something like that.

[00:32:20] Or maybe it's a, there's a way in where you do it diegetically where it's, it is the children's show that slowly becomes horrible. Or maybe it's a, or maybe you're all, maybe the party are all people who are kids watching a show that becomes uncanny and ghoulish. Or maybe they're remembering something that they half remembered as kids. Mm-hmm. I love that. I like all those. I do like this. I like the creepy kids TV show.

[00:32:48] I think that's a really fun way to do horror. Yeah. Me too. It's so much fun. Just the idea of like, um, a Dr. Seuss book, cursed books, or should I say tomes are such a feature of Lovecraftian horror. The idea that there could not only be like, um, the, the narcotic manuscripts and the Necronomicon, but also a sanity blasting children's book hiding in the stacks at your local library. Yeah.

[00:33:16] Oh, Scott, aren't there, there are like Seussified Call of Cthulhu books, aren't there? I forget who makes them. I couldn't tell you the names of any of them off the top of my head, but I will swear that I've seen some. Yeah, I think I saw them, like, I think Chaosium actually sells them at conventions. I think that's where I saw it. Oh, quite possibly. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I'm looking, I looked it up just quickly and yeah, there's, there's an H.P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu, an H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon, done entirely in the style of Dr. Seuss,

[00:33:46] right down to the illustrations. That's so fun. Oh, these are published by Chaosium. Yeah. Yeah. This is what happens when you enter the public domain. You can get, uh, chopped and rift like crazy. R.J. Ivankovic? Is that how you say that? I don't know. That's the author on the Call of Cthulhu for beginning readers. But it would be a challenge to try to do my GM narration Seussified as much as possible. Yes.

[00:34:15] Oh, I demand it. I think you'd be good at that. I think you should try that. I think I could keep that up for a while. Yes. Yeah. At least it doesn't have to be the whole adventure, but at least for the, the tomes, right? Yeah. At least for chunks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I totally glossed over Katie's first title, by the way. What was it? Borrowed Light? Borrowed Light. When I hear Borrowed Light, like that is, you're right. That is such a cool and poetic turn of phrase. Within those two titles, Katie, you really see the dichotomy of a lot of these titles.

[00:34:44] Ones that are sort of like heavy handed and jokey, but very fun. And ones that have this kind of like glamorous, dark poetry to them. Yeah. Yeah. Borrowed Light makes me think of the moon because the moon shines with a borrowed light. The light borrowed from the sun. You are a poet, Ross. Oh yes. Yeah. You are. So yeah, maybe there's, there's something there's, I, I hear that if I, if I say poetry,

[00:35:09] Borrowed Light, moon, maybe it's like a cool, like gothic set in the past werewolf story or something like that. Yes. Ooh, I love a werewolf. There's not enough werewolf stuff out there. Not on our feed. Well, I can't say wolf, so it's a problem for us. You can't say it? I can't say the L. Yeah. I have to really force it like wolf. Okay. That'd be a problem because my husband's name is Wolf. Oh no.

[00:35:40] We can never meet. You can never meet. I won't allow it. Yeah. You're not going to disrespect him like that. Pleasure to meet you, wolf. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Fantastic. Those are both great. These are all so good. Like everything's kind of making me think of little stories. Nice. I like this. Um, this, this popped out at me. This comes from Starling.

[00:36:07] The title is stay calm, Mr. President. Oh, that's good. Cause it just sets you up for that opening scene. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I, and I love the idea of like niche little pressure cooker worlds. And I think we've talked about this in the past on, on this show, even that where that would be fun to kind of set something in a West wing esque world. Um, if we're all, you're all people sort of serving at the pleasure of the president. That's a, that's a fun place to be.

[00:36:36] You could almost, you could do it like Dr. Strange lovey too. If it's all people in the war room along with the president. Oh yeah. But there's something wrong with him, which is why it's stay calm, Mr. President. Exactly. Yeah. Ooh. Maybe you mash them up. Maybe, uh, oh no, the president's a werewolf and the, um, the state of the unions on the night of the full moon. Oh, stay calm, Mr. President. Stay calm. This one's fun.

[00:37:02] Cause it could be kind of like meta the, this is from Raya Raven black, the one where Ross kills the party. I feel like it could be like set in like the, like the pre pro like before we actually start recording. Yeah. Oh yeah. Just chatting about it. And, or it could be our version of friends. Oh, that's true. It could just be friends. Oh my God. Where it's Ross Geller. Yeah.

[00:37:27] When I first started role playing as a teenager, for some reason, so many of the people I played with had this obsession with games where everyone played themselves. Hmm. Huh. I don't know how much that would work for an actual play, but I guess it's something like this where perhaps the listenership is now kind of got used to the personalities of some of the people behind it, then you could almost get away with that. Yeah. That's true. What about doesn't, doesn't die the RPG do that?

[00:37:57] Don't you play yourselves in that game? I've not really know. Okay. I haven't played it, but I thought I'd heard that. No, you're playing characters who enter into an RPG world. It's very, but it's, it's like the evil version of the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. Oh, okay. Just, it's like that, but what, that was really the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Oh, okay. Okay. I had that, I had that all wrong in my head. I gotta be honest. Like I'd, we'd find a way in. I personally would have a hard time with that title, maybe just off the rip because I, it's, it would be hard for me to set.

[00:38:27] It's inviting us to set ourselves in the game world. And I play these games to escape reality. Yeah. We just have to be children where we didn't have any trauma or problems. Yeah. I like, I like to maybe take it another way where maybe there's a character who kills a party and not in the sense that, that they kill a party of PCs, but they, they do a party foul at a social gathering. Oh, wait, that's very fun too. Yes. But, and it's a fake though.

[00:38:57] You do that, but then you still killed the whole PCs. Definitely. Um, Ray, Ray Raven Black is, uh, what we call reading me to filth because this is, this is just any given episode of our show is, uh, yeah. You've killed me in some pretty brutal ways on this show already, but I think the TV static lies where you cut me in half with the TV. Yes. Like remember I was halfway through and then they turned the TV off and it cut me in half. That was, that was fun. Yeah.

[00:39:26] That was, that was maybe, maybe my favorite one. Yeah. That's a fun death. That's great. Yes. I not even, and the one previous you, uh, tore your own skin off and then your skin, so that your skeleton could walk across the room and get dressed by another person's flesh. Yeah. You're on a roll with killing me, Ross. I'm curious to see what you do next. Oh my God. Got to keep them guessing. At this stage, how many of your characters haven't ripped their own skin off? You know, it's a, there's some of them. There's a percentage, a healthy percentage.

[00:39:57] One I like here, uh, from Mark Tucker, mandatory meeting 4.15 PM. Oh. For a start, just the sheer mundanity of that is quite chilling. Mm-hmm. But, uh, I have, has there been a push the roll yet that's, that's played around with corporate horror? Because, yeah, because that, that's overdue. No, there hasn't. There hasn't. And I think it's overdue. Yes.

[00:40:22] When a title, when a title, uh, prompts that like this one does, I would love to kind of sink into that world. Cup actually sent me a copy of, um, the Thomas Ligotti corporate horror book. Uh, my work is not yet done, which I've not yet, which I've not yet read. Um, yeah. What a mensch. What a, what an absolute sweetheart he is. Aw. Yeah. I mean, corporate environments already have this debasing and soul sucking quality. Mm-hmm.

[00:40:52] So it's, it's fun to just turn the dial, do an office space, but horror. Mm. Oh, I love that. The fact that the time's 4.15 and it's, it's right before like you're, you're off work. Everybody would be so pissed about a 4.15 meeting. Awful. Uh, so I just imagine the opening scene being the PCs bitching about having to go to a 4.15 meeting. Yeah. That would be, that would be a fun setup. A meeting that never ends. I'm imagining something like the, uh, what is that, uh, Louis Bunuel movie? The exterminating angel.

[00:41:22] Oh yes. Yeah. But they're all trapped in the dinner party. Yeah. They can't leave a dinner party where the PCs are people at an office and they can't leave the mandatory meeting. Oh, hell isn't eternal PowerPoint presentation. Indeed. Yes. Ooh. Oh my God. Yeah. Putting PCs on the spot to give like impromptu PowerPoint presentations would actually be pretty fun. Oh, that'd be wonderful.

[00:41:49] That's actually a fun way of thinking about our show a little bit more that I'd like to try more of like kind of teeing players up for these little set piece moments to see them kind of see if they can take a prompt in that way and run with it. Yeah. And if they can, it's also funny. Yeah. Yeah. This title popped out to me. I don't know if I've seen this name before. This comes from Marcus Eelgner. Greetings from Germany. They say, um, yes. Um, hello. Hello from the States.

[00:42:18] Is that their name pronunciation? Greetings from Germany. The pronunciation style guide says much like Eelgner greetings from Germany. Pronouns. He, him. Okay. The title is lawfully mandated summoning duty. Oh, speaking of sort of dry and bloodless phraseology, legal bureaucracy speak like this.

[00:42:41] The idea that you would be for community service, have to do something occult is very cool. Yeah. That really makes me think of the laundry files. I don't know if you've ever read any of those books, but yeah. I never have. I played a one off of the role playing game that's inspired by them. Um, which was cool. I remember seeing those books as a kid where it's like kooky laws from around the country.

[00:43:06] And it's like, yeah, like in Derry in Ohio, it's illegal to wear a bow tie on Tuesdays or, um, but like maybe, maybe there is like a little town that the PCs have visited where the law and the books is because they, because they got caught in the speed trap. They have some legally mandated summoning duty they need to do in order to keep the town prosperous. This title does remind me of Widows Bay, um, where, cause they watched the video, right? Of the requirement. I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but yeah.

[00:43:36] Uh, yes. It reminded me of that. I like this Elizabeth E. one at the very bottom. Um, the song that killed its singer is very fun. Yeah. That really feels like a black mirror episode or something. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, oh, perhaps the, uh, the history of the song gloomy Sunday. Yeah. Oh, the, the, the famously cursed song that, uh,

[00:44:02] what was it that they'd found so many suicide scenes where people had just played that song before they died, that it just became notorious for, for driving people to death. It's on the turntable and all these gruesome scenes. Yeah. You could set that a lot of different places. I, I, I love stuff set in world musical worlds. Hmm. You could do like a wartime cabaret. Oh yeah. Kind of setting for something like this. That would be fun. Yeah. We could set something in like Weimar, make it, make it like,

[00:44:32] Cabaret. Yeah. Yeah. I love just weird pockets of history. And I, I got really into reading up on and the practice of castrati. Um, Oh yeah. Which is just so bizarre, but like, um, boys choirs, you know, young pre, uh, adolescents have these, these, these high soaring voices. And in order to maintain them, there was a practice of like gelding people in order to keep their voices high.

[00:44:59] And there, there are particular registers and songs that were written for the castrati voice. I mean, it's so gross. And it is this like body horror on its own. Yes. But imagining that there's, there's even more intense mutilations that you can do in order to achieve such beautiful songs that it just might kill the singer. It's starting to get back into centibite territory there. Ooh. If, if anyone's interested, look up Farinelli. Okay.

[00:45:28] I'm not that interested. Mileage may vary depending on your. Oh my God. Yeah. I know. I, I know dark stuff, dark stuff, but I love this one from Danny. They suggested the title. We've already heard a couple of these ones that are kind of horrible in their mundanity. This one is horrible in its, in its sort of, uh, Gothic grandeur and infinite castle comma and Oubliette. Oh, that feels like Ross bait. Is this my favorite Danny? D-A-N-I.

[00:45:58] Is it that Danny? It is. It is. Cool. Cool. Um, yeah, that's Ross bait for sure. Yeah. An infinite castle and Oubliette. I picked this here. We have a paradox, a castle that goes on forever and an Oubliette, a little, a little, a tiny prison like chamber where someone is walled in. Um, it makes me think of a Paranacee. It was making me think of Golemenghast. Oh yeah. Yeah. But I love the idea of like those, those Paranacee and dungeons that seem to go on forever.

[00:46:28] Yeah. What's the, I, now I forget the name of it. Scott, we talked about it recently. What's the name of the horror movie where they're in the, the tower with like the stacked dungeons sending the food down. Oh yes. They like kill each other cause the food's not getting down to the bottom. The platform. So I was thinking it could kind of be like that. The dungeon seems like a small, like, you know, room of little pit, but then it actually does go on deeper and deeper and deeper. And who knows, maybe not food, but something else. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:58] I guess the idea of an infinite oubliette is pretty terrifying in itself. Yeah. That is such a Lovecraftian image that we've evoked a lot on the show or things that are simultaneously and cosmically enormous and small. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, this seems like it might be a, another dimension or something or some, some dungeon where you were thrown and may never come out. So what was the first part of the title? I'll probably, it probably doesn't sync up with what I was thinking. An infinite castle.

[00:47:28] Oh, okay. Yeah. It doesn't work. Sorry. I was thinking, what if you're in a modern house and it just happens to have this dungeon in it that your PCs kind of stumble across. That would be pretty interesting. Every home is a castle. I mean, there's a, there's a way of where you could make that modern. Maybe that this. Oh, it could connect to a castle on the other side of the dungeon, like upside down castle upside down stranger things. Yeah. I am. One I'll shout out just because we've talked about so many doubt that make great musical episodes.

[00:47:58] He be GBs at CBGB. That takes me right back to living in New York in the 1980s. Dear God. Oh yeah. Scott, you actually lived in New York during the CBGBs era. Yeah. I mean, that's speaking of, of fun, specific pressure cooker historical moments. It'd be so fun to set something in like the seventies, early eighties punk scene in New York. Yes. Yeah. Maybe you're all like members of a band or like scene music journalists or something like that. Oh yeah.

[00:48:28] Yeah. I feel like, Scott, you, you put me on to a till of various. Oh yes. Who I read in one of his short story collections. There's one of my favorite stories was about a person trying to do an oral history of a town's punk scene. Yeah. And learning that there was this particular band as, as he's interviewing various people that there was this band that had these cosmically important shows that no one can quite remember going to. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:48:56] And it seems that this band like was a conduit to some sublime and terrible thing. Ooh. Fogtown. Fogtown is the story. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. It was awesome. Yeah.

[00:49:31] It was awesome. Fogtown. It's a, it's an, it's an, it's an, it's an, it's an, it's an, it's an, it's an, it's an Ikea. Um, I like this one just because I would like to use the full title of it from cat it's call center of Cthulhu. And then in parentheses with kudos to Scott doorward. I think it would be funny to play that game with the parenthetical when Scott's not there.

[00:49:58] Let's try to do an homage to your, your, uh, your vibe. Oh God. We get Ross's best Scott doorward. MPC. Oh God. Look, I've turned up as an MPC played by someone else in a different podcast and it freaked me the fuck out when I heard him. That's right. So we need to do this. They did a better impression of me than I could. Amazing. Oh my God. I know some of our old series have resonated cause we're getting like the same idea again.

[00:50:28] Like, oh, go back to film noir, go back to water parks. I don't know. Yeah. Speaking of things of, of, uh, images coming back, Bob Grenville suggests Patterson, the duck in the lost room and Sally snappers dream house. My God. We're creating a unified field theory of all our episodes, uh, featuring all our little guys. Our second episode, Katie had Patterson, the duck as a children's book character for Paula's PC.

[00:50:56] Um, and he's submitted as titles now every, every month. People love him. Yeah. Bring him back. We're going to have to do a Patterson game at some point. Maybe it'll be a charity game or something that you can assure Paula will be in. Uh, yeah. People can't get enough of that wonderful lovable duck. I like this one. Genevieve exit pursued by a dream. Ooh. Oh yes. Yeah. That's dope as hell.

[00:51:24] Pursued by a dream is really fun. More, more Ross bait because of course this is a Shakespeare reference. The, the famous, uh, stage direction exit pursued by a bear from the winter's tale. But, uh, yeah, exit pursued by a dream. This is like a more highfalutin title to like a nightmare in Elm street movie or something. Yeah. Yeah. Katie, I wouldn't typically do this, but I have to say it's a Genevieve because it was a big deal on our server. So I'm going to say it just to embarrass her. Oh, Genevieve. Yeah. Yeah. So sorry.

[00:51:54] It's okay. At Gen Con, they had the mascot is Genevieve the dragon. And I wanted to call her Genevieve. Genevieve. Genevieve. It made me feel highfalutin. One here that appeals to me. Welcome to the monthly meeting of local 313 henchmen's and lab assistant union. Ooh, that's fun. Ooh, that's cool.

[00:52:17] All of us playing the assistants and hench people to mad scientists would be absolutely amazing. That'd be so fun. That sounds like a concept from like an old EC comic or something. Yeah. I did run a campaign years ago, which had very similar concept where the player characters were all like freelance hench people who were basically just sort of living out their ordinary daily lives, dealing with the fallout of all the terrible shit that they were doing

[00:52:47] with these, uh, these mad scientists and super villains. And yeah, I mean, that, that was just so much fun. Yeah. That's cool. That's just a fun character study. Mm hmm. I also like the ones that are just so wildly different from the others, like trash panda pandemonium. It's just like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Something in the mix that just totally changes, changes it up. I think that's good to have every now and then. Well, thank you for all of your wonderful titles. Yeah.

[00:53:10] Um, of all sorts, the wild, the, the weird and, um, the, uh, the frankly irresponsible and sick. Yeah. We'll be reaching out to you. Well, the authorities will. Yes. Yes. Um, your door will just be kicked in some morning and you'll have us to thank. Um, but, uh, now is the time on the show where we discuss things that we may have experienced

[00:53:39] out in the world that might find their way into our creative projects, our, our games, our writings, our performances by way of inspiration. Has there been anything lately in your life that particularly resonated with you that you might be, uh, uh, using, uh, to fire your imagination in the weeks to come? I read a book a couple of weeks ago, which I really enjoyed. It's a fairly recent horror novel called Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson. And it's set in the mid seventies.

[00:54:09] And the basic setup is the main protagonist. This guy called Duane is a Vietnam vet who is trying to overcome some of the really horrible stuff that he did during the war, but gets drawn back into violence when his mother-in-law who runs a bar gets involved with this really shady biker gang who are trying to sell heroin through her bar.

[00:54:37] But it turns out there's a lot more to this. And the reason why she got involved is that the guy who is sort of bankrolling the bikers turns out to be an ancient vampire. Basically, this vampire just likes getting involved with all sorts of fucked up shit because, you know, it keeps him entertained after all this time. He sort of promised the woman that he'll turn her husband who's dying of cancer. But the Vietnam vet gets involved with all of this, kind of shuts it all down.

[00:55:07] And so the vampire goes nuts and basically kills the entire family except for Duane and his wife's niece, this 13 year old girl. They're the only two survivors. And this all happens like in the first few chapters. And then it sort of turns into kind of true grit with fangs as this 13 year old girl is absolutely determined to get revenge against this vampire at any cost.

[00:55:34] And you have this damaged, barely functional alcoholic man with anger issues trying to be the voice of reason to her and failing miserably. And it's basically about how far they're willing to go to get revenge, how monstrous they're willing to become. As far as inspiration for gaming is concerned. Yeah, that's absolutely fantastic because I think that's at the heart of so much Call of Cthulhu.

[00:56:03] That faced with these horrors, how much are you willing to become the horror yourself in order to stop that horror? Yeah. It handles that beautifully. The tone of it is great. I mean, it's fundamentally a hard boiled crime story just with supernatural elements. And that really works. That sounds awesome, Scott. I'd love to read that. Like, and that's so much a part of this show that I did.

[00:56:27] That is so fun is I love kind of taking one sub genre and sort of like crashing horror into it. So it's having like a hard boiled crime story like that, but also vampires is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Is the title a riff on Paper Moon? Because you mentioned like the adult going around with the younger niece. It just reminded me of that premise. I think it might be. I mean, it's a very different kind of story.

[00:56:55] And like I say, it's more true grit than Paper Moon. But yeah. Yeah. I wonder if that one little piece of it inspired the title maybe. Yeah. But there's another little bit as well, which is when it comes to a big tipping point about halfway through the story. One thing he does is he just jumps forward immediately like two years, which I think is really good because I mean, that's something that again, I don't think we necessarily see enough in gaming where you have this moment where everything is going to change, where there's going to be catastrophic consequences.

[00:57:24] And instead of playing that out immediately, you just jump forward and right. Yeah. It's two years further on. What is the new normal for your characters in the aftermath of all this? That is cool. It's cool. Yeah. That's a really cool thing to experiment with down the line. Anything that's sparked joy or that you've seen or experienced lately that's fired your imagination, Katie? Yes. I'm very late to this because I have a baby.

[00:57:53] And so I'm a big movie person usually, but we just watched the drama. Oh, yeah. With Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. And I really enjoyed it. It was such an interesting question. I don't want to like spoil anything, but about like what would make you sort of leave a relationship from someone's past. It got me really thinking. I liked it too.

[00:58:21] It's it's I think it's a movie where like mileage will really vary with people depending on how that one reveal lands with them. Yes, exactly. But I, I really liked it and I thought it was really funny. Yes, it was so funny. And yeah, it just like I, I watched and then I was with a group of people and some didn't like it and some really liked it. And it was interesting, like how important was that question?

[00:58:50] And, you know, to you and to your values or whatever. So it was, yeah, I thought it was interesting. It was fun. And it was also something that I was like, oh, I could make something like this. Like it's so, you know, very few locations and that's indie filmmaking is. Yeah. Did you see the invite? Yes. Yeah, I was really impressed with it for the same reason where like how just beautifully blocked and structured it was while being confined to that one apartment.

[00:59:17] Um, those performances were so well dialed in. And it's a good challenge to, yeah, cause I mean, when I make my own things, it's always like, okay, and then we have one place where we all this has to happen. Yeah. Yeah. And how do we make this compelling and interesting? Not to drag us kicking and screaming back to the world of games, but I think that's also a cool challenge too, is like part of the fun of these games is that they live in our imagination and we can go anywhere and any when.

[00:59:44] And like, like Scott saying, like what, why not blast us two years forward to see the, these huge cinematic consequences. But it's also, it would be an interesting challenge to do the sort of quote unquote bottle episode. And yeah, in a way the, the, um, what we did in our episodes that we're discussing here was kind of that we almost never left the video store. Mm. We just went to get the army T sandwiches next door. Yeah. You just got our meetings at, uh, at Jolly Roger subs.

[01:00:14] And we stayed at the strip mall. We never left the strip mall. Yeah. That important stuff. That's what we were looking for Keith. That's right. Yeah. That, that was kind of an example of that where we were sort of like in that, in that one environment and it didn't, it to me didn't feel kind of like it needed to go other places. It was nice to be sort of confined there. Yeah.

[01:00:36] But yeah, like interesting ways of thinking how to bring this sort of ways in which you can raise the pressure on the characters by having them kind of stuck in one place. Yeah. Yeah. Every time we do this, Ross, I tell you, I'm going to start reading or watching movies or something like that. But now I'm like, I feel like I actually have a better excuse now because we're doing the Magnus Archives role playing game. And I don't really want to use the Magnus Archives as my thing.

[01:01:01] So instead I'm going to harken back to, maybe it was the last one or two times ago when I talked about the Call of the Sea, I kind of glossed over. Did you play Call of the Sea, Scott? Were you here for that one? I was here for that episode. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, never mind then. Yeah. But I glossed over Blue Prince, which is a video game where you're basically constructing a house and you're getting kind of a different mix of rooms every time.

[01:01:26] But it reminds me of a betrayal of House on the Hill, where you're kind of building the house as you go through it. And the location itself is telling the story. And I think it kind of like, my brain doesn't work in a normal way. So I think that like with the passing of Tim Curry, I started thinking about Clue and the way that like the Clue board game and Cluedo and all that works. And I was just kind of like in this headspace of like, is that fun for Call of Cthulhu? Because we have so many mansion games. We have Mr. Corbett.

[01:01:56] We have 19th hole, the code. I mean, there's so many games, the haunting, so many games that are kind of in a house. The rooms have different parts of the mystery in them, but the location itself is really helping you build this story. It's like our version of a dungeon crawl, but really mystery focused. Yeah. And I wondered, like, it's a certain style of Call of Cthulhu. So maybe rather than me just telling you it's an inspiration, I'm kind of asking, like, do you like those kind of games or do you feel like they're overdone?

[01:02:26] I know you've got your no plugs rule cap, but sorry. God damn it, Scott. We did an episode of The Good Friends of Jackson and Elias a little while back on environmental storytelling. And one of the things that we went into there was the idea of perhaps procedurally generating games, because we were talking about focusing on locations rather than stories and characters and using those to create games by creating this really weird,

[01:02:53] weird, messed up location where obviously something terrible had happened. And there was perhaps some lingering threat. Whether you really needed any NPCs or narratives or anything like that, or whether you could just dump the characters in the middle of that and it would just create a scenario by the way they interacted with the environment. Oh.

[01:03:12] And going back to what you were saying there before about, you know, laying tiles or building rooms, we were discussing about, you know, possibly even just like random tables to generate elements and build up this environment. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Random tables is kind of how like blueprints works. I mean, really at its core. It's a random selection of rooms that are available. They're just grouped by color, which kind of determines how many of them you're going to get. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, I kind of like them.

[01:03:39] They're kind of dungeon crawly, but as a GM, I find them kind of easy. You know what I mean? Because you can kind of like look at the rooms as you're building the story instead of understanding the kind of entirety of the adventure. Even my bowling scenario, Scott, is kind of like that. Like the different parts of the bowling alley are all kind of these creepy environments that work together. So I don't know. I mean, they're like map mysteries, I guess, versus kind of the stuff we do on push the roll at least. I don't know. I don't have an answer.

[01:04:09] I kind of like them as a GM. I don't know if I like them as much as a player. What's the one in the keeper screen, Scott? Not yours, but the other one. Oh, Miss Dews. Miss Dews is kind of like that at the end, right? Yeah. You're going through and it's like different rooms have different weird stuff going on. Sometimes. I don't know. I don't know if I like it or not. Maybe we should do some Ross is what I'm saying. Procedurally generated environments. Improvised, improvised, procedurally generated environments.

[01:04:36] Between every door opening, I'll jot down something on a note card. I don't know. I don't know. Who was the guest on that, Scott? Because if I don't like them, I'm going to cut this whole section. Oh, that was Alexander. Yeah, it was Alexander. Oh, that's fine. Okay. Yeah, I'll leave it. I'll leave it in. Cool. I got to keep my enemies out of the show. Oh, okay. The list grows day by day. Oh, man. I'm kidding. I like everyone. I'm kidding. Part of me is like just wants to just bring this up to you, Scott, because I went to a

[01:05:05] bookstore the other day. I use bookstores. I often do. Couldn't help myself. And I saw a title. I saw a name sitting on a table and I was like, well, I have to have it. It was a book by Clark Ashton Smith, a weird fiction author that I really, really like. And I got it home and I'd never heard of it before. As it is written by Clark Ashton Smith. You ever heard of this? No. I'm showing the cover to the group right now. It's got this. Whoa. It's good for podcast. I know. It's got this absolutely bonkers sort of like tarot-esque. Yeah, it looks great.

[01:05:35] Esoteric looking painting on the front. Well, I was thumbing through it. And then I looked it up. And there is a lot of controversy around this book, not because of its content, but because of its authorship. Oh, apparently this book was published in 1919 under the name Delil Ferre Cass, which some people thought at the time was a pseudonym that Clark Ashton Smith was using because they

[01:06:02] noticed some similarities between what happens in this book and some of his stories. And then it lit. And then people found other stories by Delil Ferre Cass. And they're like, well, these don't share qualities. Whoa. So they're thinking that this was a either an act of wishful thinking or perhaps even like chicanery on the part of the person who first claimed this to be a Clark Ashton Smith book,

[01:06:26] because it's now, I guess, decided that he didn't actually write this, that it is written by this other person. Wow. Wow. Is that a rare book, Ross? I don't think so. It's kind of interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That's super interesting. I guess it was published in the eighties under his name. Okay. And, uh, but, but subsequent research made them do a takesie backsies on the, on the, um,

[01:06:55] on the, on the authorship, but absolutely like nothing is known about this other guy, Delil Ferre Cass, like apart from these other stories that were written under the name. What if it's Nair Lathotep? Yes. It can inspire a story that way. Yeah. Right. But you got me thinking about the chronology as well, because if I remember correctly, Clark Ashton Smith didn't start writing fiction until the 1920s. He'd been quite a prolific artist until then. Right. But, uh, it was Lovecraft who basically talked him into writing fiction because he thought

[01:07:23] that Smith had the makings of a great, well, weird fiction imagination and then got him doing that. So 1919 would be, I think before that happened. Right. I think the, the sort of claim of the, of this book is that it was, um, maybe a work of Clark Ashton Smith juvenilia or that had been there because it was published like, like a lot of

[01:07:49] these weird fiction artists in a, in a, in a, in a, in a small press, like, you know, it's in some magazine called like, uh, the Overland Monthly or, or, uh, or the Black Cat or something like that. So it, there was already a few marks that made, I think the, the Clark Ashton Smith heads scratch their chin and be like, is this what it is? And, um, but apparently not. Apparently the consensus is that it's this other person, but this other person is a total mystery. Wow. So weird.

[01:08:19] Yeah. I mean, just that literary mystery on its own feels like the basis for a scenario. Oh yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Finding the truth about like this, this, uh, strange and, uh, a mysterious author. Why it's a, it's a mystery worthy of Columbo. Yes. He could solve it. Just to get really meta.

[01:08:41] There is already a book about a lost Clark Ashton Smith book, a weird novel, uh, by Fritz Lieber called Our Lady of Darkness. Wow. Okay. That's cool. There's layers to this stuff. Yeah. Are we entering a real life mystery? Are we? And this is like some sort of Umberto echo thing where we're like, we're books within books and they're the authors are playing games with each other. Who knows? Hey y'all let me start a podcast about this. Yeah. Okay.

[01:09:11] So I realized my recommendation here is more the story behind the book than the book itself because I've not yet read it, but, um, no, that's good. But I'll let you know if it's, if it's actually a, if it's actually a worthwhile read because apparently it's not, it's not really a straight up weird tale. I guess it's more a sort of like, it's more sort of adventure yarn. Huh? So yeah, we shall see. Yeah. So thank you dear listener for your inspiration to us.

[01:09:38] All these titles are fantastic as always a budding grove of wonderful ideas. And we will continue to pluck the toothsome fruit from the limbs of their branches on our main show. So please keep submitting your wonderful titles. Uh, they fire our imagination so much and we deeply, deeply appreciate your support. So thank you so much. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. I won't rest until we play a Columbo game with you, Katie. Yes. Yes. Yes. Please.

[01:10:07] I'll be watching Columbo later this week. No doubt. Okay. Good. Bye. Thanks everybody. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Bye.

[01:10:34] Thanks so much for listening to push the role with Ross Bryant. You can follow me on Instagram at Ross BB. And if you enjoyed the show and want to shape future episodes, find us at patreon.com slash push the role, subscribe, submit your title ideas and help decide where our next role takes us. Catch you next time. We're sponsored today by die hard dice who are offering our listeners a special discount code to use at their website, die hard dice.com. That code is PTR for 10% off your order.

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