State of the Naish 2026

Hey what's going on guys it's your good buddy Joe O'Brien and I want to thank you for listening to the Glass Cannon Network. Because you are here because you're listening you know that we're committed to making high quality entertainment. We want you to feel like you're here at the table laughing with us, crying with us, celebrating with us because you are becoming an official member of the nation by joining our subscription service is by far the best way that you can support all of the creators here at the GCN. And not only that you'll also unlock hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of hours of exclusive podcasts, videos, campaigns, side quests and behind the scenes high jinks that you just can't get on the public feet and it's all ad-free. If you're ready for even more laughs for more danger and more GCN head to join the nation dot com and subscribe that's join the N A I S H dot com. Hello happy new year everybody new year new you same old glass cannon network we'll find out totally new glass cannon network maybe who knows let's let's talk over the next four or five hours that's how long this usually takes. Hi I noticed that the countdown was supposed to say go time and when it stopped it's I think it just said go Tim which is kind of fun. Least a reg I bet you all all you wonder who's Tim who's this Tim and what does he have to do with the state of the nation find out we'll get around to that Tim on the wall check off they always say watch out for check off Tim how you doing everybody welcome to the 2026 state of the nation if you are new to the network new to what we do here this is something that I've been doing for like I know we've been around going on 11 years. I feel like six or seven years I've been doing this this little live stream we do every year the designs are state of the unit is the state of the nation the nation is you the fans glass cannon nation we call you the nation is the state of the nation we talk about you know what we're looking forward to for the next year we have a lot of big plans and as long as a worldwide pandemic doesn't hit. Most of them should come to fruition so this is this is a big day for us I used to do it in random times and then last year I think I did it in December before the holidays and then this year I was like there's just too many things that are like just on the cusp of being finalized so let's hit the ground running in 2026 and do the state of the day in January right at the beginning of the year so that's why we're here we have a great crowd here we're live on twitch and on YouTube you know pretty much two percent chance any of you can hear me and can and can see what I'm see what I'm doing here you'll know we've made it when the state of the nation happens live in our studio our studio we we pay a very high rent for the big deal I don't use that much when we're doing it there and I've got a team of production assistants and someone who's bringing me water and like say all right Troy we're ready to go in three two now it's just me it's just me a lot of people helped get us to this point but when something goes wrong today you can 100% blame me because I am a producer and host and let's just do it happens is how we do it we're a homegrown band the glass can a network and we've got a lot of exciting things that we want to talk about if you are here live I want to thank you for for spending part of your night with us or all of your night depending on how verbose I get choosing us over what I can only assume will be a lackluster national championship football game college football Indiana Miami who cares thank you for coming here tonight and if you're watching this or listening to it later I don't blame it if you want to skip ahead however I be careful there's a lot of news in here you don't want to skip over something and miss it but anyways thank you for watching and joining in I think I've vamped long enough to build an audience you know tonight is going to be pretty straightforward I want to tell you what the glass can in network where we stand basically heading into 2026 what we're doing this year a lot of what we're doing all of what we're doing that I know thus far and why we're so excited and confident with the direction we're heading in terms of sort of previews of coming attractions for the night I'm going to talk a little bit about last year up top and talk about some of the changes that we implemented over the year then I'll announce the 2026 live tour very excited about this I know people have been waiting with baited breath to find out about the 2026 live tour we'll also talk about this year's glass can in retreat and I'm going to go over the full 2026 content slate something we've really never done this in depth we're going to do that tonight and I'm also going to go over our always ambitious jencon plans that you have seven months just sort of move your life around get out to Indianapolis for probably the best four days of your life because this year is going to be our biggest jencon yet I know I always say that but when you see what we got planned it's on paper it's the biggest one yet so that is the plan for the night I've got a lot of notes here I hope you like bullet points I'm king of bullet points sometimes he's the bullet sometimes who the numbers and the a maybe some Roman numerals when I'm feeling funky tonight's bullet points so if you see me look at my notes here I apologize I'm going to try to look right at the screen want to make eye contact with you but after this live stream I want to invite you over to the glass cannon discord this is our subscriber only discord where I'm going to do a q and a for everything that I talk about tonight I'm going to vomit a bunch of information and then we're going to go over to the discord and you can be like what about this what about that you can ask me anything you do anything you want so head on over to the discord after this if you're not a subscriber and you want to join in just head to join the nace.com and a ish.com so I'm going to throw the link in one of the various chats here and subscribe you can subscribe for as little as six dollars a month get access to the discord and thousands of hours worth of content so be sure to join me after this I'm hoping that I'll be in there by nineish but we'll see these these tend to take long I'm going to try and just just get through the facts um but let's start with the foundation because kind of everything else builds on this and what what that this is was 2025 I got to talk about 2025 because 2025 you know depending on where you sit I imagine you saw that it was a bit of a year of transitions for us both creative and organizational transitions creatively we changed up the live tour um we we moved away from the story that we were doing for over seven years uh this tour the story that we were doing for seven years and we decided to go with a brand new homebrewed pathfinder 2e adventure called ascension this was a uh a focused story that would just take place over the course of one year something that would make the bar for entry a little more a little more manageable uh for for people who have never seen our shows uh we also ended our second uh flagship campaign for the glass cannon podcast uh playing the gate walkers pathfinder 2e adventure path and started a brand new third campaign uh playing a brand new game for us and for the network uh the shadow dark RPG organizationally we had to tackle a lot of the key issues that plague many small businesses uh burn out uh managing individual and collective bandwidth and also coming to grips with the reality of how much high quality work uh still very small team can reliably produce from week to week um these weren't new problems but uh these were problems that needed to be handled directly and quickly and all at once um so we made some changes uh we adjusted some casting with long term sustainability in mind we ended some shows uh some shows that people really liked um so that we could concentrate effort where we felt it would have the most impact uh and we also got very disciplined about how we used our time this is something you probably only saw tangentially but like how we use our time to make sure that the work that we we do put out is something that we're genuinely proud of and not you know burning man hours and energy on less impactful endeavors we wanted to make sure that the time we were spending was creating content that we thought that we would be the most impactful for the audience um you know when we started out with the glass cannon podcast in 2015 plain giant slayer the idea of sort of running a a six book adventure path that eventually ended up taking seven years to finish i think we went in being like there's gonna be like three maybe five year seven years to finish uh that didn't seem so crazy at the time we're like this this is what we're gonna do we're gonna make a podcast of this but as we grew and and as we started to attract an audience and more and more people wanted to see us doing more and more of that kind of content we kind of got locked in to producing this kind of seven years to complete a story or campaign content uh it shows the release weekly and and that is just at this point now 10 years in it's become unsustainable uh as we matured both as an entertainment and content production company what made sense in 2015 2016 2017 doesn't make sense now but there were decisions that we made early on that are still reverberating and so that's why we had to kind of clean up a lot of that i don't want to say mess but just sort of things that weren't working for our long-term goals uh so i went into last year knowing that i was gonna have to be decisive about these things and make some hard but necessary decisions uh in order for the glass cannon network to evolve and it was difficult and i know that a lot of the changes that we made weren't always met with excitement but they had to be done and uh you know in case you're wondering these were always done with the full support of the whole team um which is very important you know we're not just saying handing down decrees this is a conversation and we move together as a unit and everyone's excited about uh last year and very very excited about what we're heading and the good news the reason I bring up all of this is that now all those changes are done uh i'd say the past six months or so after making the majority of those changes have been about really preparing for 2026 as well as 2029 and 2036 we're really trying to look more ahead you know and now we can do that early on that wasn't really a possibility because that was still kind of a hobby and then we slowly start a couple of those starting going full time we're now at the point we're really looking long-term and that's why you're gonna get a full you know a full content slate tonight the likes of which you've never really had and so this year is a year for us of moving forward with with clarity and precision with a with a really solid foundation and especially for tonight you know make sure we are communicating expectations and deliverables to you the niche in a timely manner and in sort of you know making sure that we're also there to answer as many questions as we can so it doesn't turn into a game of telephone on social media and all the various channels that talk about what we do so that's the sort of that's where we bend but also a little a little look into where we're going that's that's that's the that's my intro that's my little get the crowd warmed I should have some more jokes hey away from what about you sir all right that's my warm up um let's talk about the live tour let's get into the nitty gritty all the west coast people have finally joined the stream they can listen to that should be a later now let's get into the drops let's talk about the live tour 2026 live tour glass getting live ascension was our 2025 iteration of the tour it was a focused run it was a chance for us to stretch ourselves in new and exciting creative ways and I am exceptionally proud of the work that we did on that tour and with that story for all of you who joined us live or watched the show afterwards you know thank you for supporting this endeavor this was a big deal for us to try something new like this and I am so glad we did it um but ascension was always meant to just be a one-year show I said that at the beginning of the year I know a lot of people like maybe they keep going not I said it's gonna be a one-year show and I mean I went into Philly being like let's go let's wrap this up because in the spring must have been last year in the spring may maybe even earlier like April I started thinking about the 2026 tour and I made a decision very early on about what I wanted that tour to be and and so I've been thinking very seriously for the better part of a year about the next evolution of glass can in live for a while not just dates and venues I think about that um but what the tour what the tour can be how do we how do we go from what we've been doing and what we did into something new a new experience how how can be structured how it how it also fits into the bigger picture of the network so tonight I want to kick things off with the announcement for next year's tour that's right folks in 2026 the glass can in network is launching an all new live tour experience no longer will it be called glass can in live because next year is the glass can in network presents call of cthulhu live all year long this is a brand new fresh creative concept that we are designing specifically for the stage and built from the ground up as a full on touring experience the good folks at chaosium and I have been chatting for some time and we have lined up a veritable who's who of call of cthulhu writers to create 14 standalone modern call of cthulhu stories that will debut live across the country throughout the entire year this is going to be call of cthulhu set in the modern era and each stop is going to be a complete standalone story that you can experience in one night you don't have to have watched a previous show or uh you know anything like that multiple shows you show up it's one show all happening in that night you don't need any previous knowledge to jump in but if you follow the tour you're going to start to notice a little connective tissue beneath the surface if you've had a chance to see us live doing call of cthulhu or anything for that matter or or if you watch or listen to any of the call of cthulhu live shows that we've done in the past then you know how special these can be and you know right away I was like okay love this idea I definitely want to do call of cthulhu live it's it's special it feels special how do I kick it up how do I how do I take it up a notch and so right away the concept was like let's broaden the scope of the tour by including so many of the amazing people that help us make the network what it is we have so many performers I'm blessed to have traveled uh you know the entire country uh with the wonderful people that I've traveled with since 2017 and before and we're still I'm still going to travel those people but there's so many other people that we work with that are shaping what the glass can and network is who the glass can and network is I want to bring them out on tour and mix up the show show every show is going to have its own cast full of characters and those characters might die they might go insane or they might live on to come up later on in another show they can fight on to come on another day so they might be in a show in February and then you'll see that character again when that player comes back in you know June or whatever you know so they'll they'll be some sort of sustainability but again you don't have to have seen the previous shows uh to enjoy uh enjoy this experience so let's take a look at the cities uh that we're going to be visiting this year uh we're going to visit a loss angelus on March 23rd and then again on March 24th that's going to be a dynasty typewriter which has sort of become the de facto place for podcasts uh this is big we haven't been we took out last year off from LA and some people were very disappointed but my plan was to take the year off so that we could come back with a bang in 2026 and we are really bangin as it were with two shows back to back at dynasty those shows are also going to be live streamed tickets for the majority of these shows are going to go on sale tomorrow we've never done this many on sales but there's I think there's 14 shows on the tour and ten of them go on sale tomorrow but Los Angeles is extra special because not only we kickin off the tour in LA but those you can buy live tickets to the live stream as well which is going to be fun uh and then a couple days later we're going to be in Portland uh you know the PNW and the house we're gonna we're gonna go up to Portland we're on the west coast might as well do three shows in one week and then in April we're going to be in Chicago in St. Louis on April 15th and 16th and then Dallas and St. Paul in May on May 13th and May 14th and then the back half of the year we're in indianapolis for two nights and that's going to be callica thulu live both nights on uh Thursday the 30th and Friday the 31st that sounds weird in my head but no they think that's correct and then September 2nd we are coming to new Orleans this is one of the new stops on the tour this year I'm personally very excited about um the the ink isn't dry on the contract yet but that is happening and then the next day we're coming back to dragon con we're gonna be in Atlanta during dragon con at the masquerade and then in october we're gonna go to Madison during game hole con and do a show there and then we finish out the year with back to back nights in philly that's a lot that's a lot a little part I should have taken to drink somewhere in there where you were watching but that is the plan and everything with the exception of let's go back to those cities no not that one first mistake there goes my no hitter uh let's go back to the cities on sale tomorrow LA Portland Chicago St. Louis Dallas St. Paul both Indianapolis shows are gonna go on sale tomorrow maybe even New Orleans no I think New Orleans is holding us up uh yeah so New Orleans but both indy shows and everything on this page including the live streams for LA all those tickets are gonna go on sale tomorrow stay tuned to our socials I think they're going up sometime between 9 a.m. and noon eastern um but we'll let you know uh make sure you make sure you tune in if you want to get that and now VIP tickets people always wonder how does the VIP work with the exception of LA we sell the VIP VIP IGCP experience on our website and the reason we do that is you know live nation and tick a master and all these sites if you try to buy the VIP IGCP package through them you get charged an arm and a leg on fees in order to avoid those fees you buy the VIP GCP package on our website glasscanonetwork.com slash tour and then you have to still buy a general admission ticket at the uh actual ticket site for the venue LA the package comes all together it's just easier that way but yeah I'm making it sound extra confusing but we're trying to try to save you guys some money it's expensive nowadays um so that is the slate how about I announce the casts for these first seven shows LA night one is going to be on March 23rd featuring Joe O'Brien Mary Lou Ross Bryant Matthew Capitacaza Skidmar and Sidney Emmanuel the next night Jason Charles Miller, Paula Demings Skidmar Jared Logan Ross Bryant and Mary Lou and then a couple days later we had to Portland let's mix it up some more we got Rob Kergovich coming out to Portland Sidney Emmanuel Matthew Capitacaza Mary Lou Skidmar and Joe O'Brien then April we're in Chicago and St. Louis these are going to be the only shows that have the same exact cast because they're very close to each other and it just makes sense look at that cast Skidmar Nora Ibrahim Jared Logan Rob Kergovich and Joe O'Brien head to St. Louis same cast again Skidmar Nora Ibrahim Jared Logan Rob Kergovich and Joe O'Brien and then we go to Dallas you guys sitting down you guys sitting down for these Dallas shows oh my god Jared Logan Seth Skorkowski Joe O'Brien Matthew Capitacaza Sidney Emmanuel and Ross Bryant and then let's head over to St. Paul mix it up even more we got Eric Mona joining us and by us I mean Jared Logan Matthew Capitacaza Joe O'Brien Sidney Emmanuel and Ross Bryant so where am I where am I in the world that goes to the cast for the first six shows I've already begun starting to cast the rest of these shows I got Kate on New Orleans I got Kate coming to Philly I've got Brian Holland going to be on one of the Jen Concha there's a lot going on I want to make sure I locked in those first seven casts and then I will announce the other cast very soon now cast or subject to change right because we all have live somebody good book done a TV show or whatever you know but those are the the cast and you never know if other special guests are going to pop up along the way as we make more friends at L.A. Show in particular you never know you never know I got a couple texts out I got a couple texts out your status found somebody texts Robert De Niro I don't really text me how you mailed Robert De Niro gmail.com I imagine he got it let's just see what happens I don't even think he lives in L.A. but anyways that's the tour that's a 2026 live tour very very excited about that but wanting to do this for a long time and so we're fucking doing it um next up glass cannon retreat we have done three glass cannon retreats this is how much a man Randy Savage used to throw out the number three he's like I pin you one two and then he throw out the three like this so I do it in honor of much a man Randy Savage we have done three glass cannon retreats up until now one in Nashville was our first one in 2024 we did one in Vegas uh last year in June to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the start of this dog and party show and then we also did a third one in Nashville last fall starting this year and for the foreseeable future glass cannon retreats will be just one big one a year if you are among the folks who have had the opportunity to come to one of these things I know from your feedback from talking to you from reading your emails that these retreats are some of the best experiences of people's lives they're very very special and the feeling is mutual for us as well you know there are a lot and we're very hands on you know we don't just kind of come in to go pictures we are very hands on the entire weekend and and the reason we are is because I want this experience to truly feel out of this world if you enjoy us if you enjoy this community in our content I want you to come there and and celebrate celebrate that that sort of love and joy with us um and and we always walk away with a real profound gratitude uh for the community we built we're very very lucky when you come to these things just amazing people people that I would truly call friends um and the retreat kind of came out of this simple realization that there's a part of the nation that wants something a little a little deeper a little a little deeper than a live show or a convention they want time you know maybe they want a little more access to kind of their creative they want to be around that energy or just some sort of shared experience in a in a focused setting and this isn't a con and this isn't a meat and greet that just has better lighting it is an intentionally small hands-on experience built around actually playing games together and hanging out and that also means this really expensive uh I want to be clear about that upfront you know the price though it's not about exclusivity it's about scale you know if you want to have small groups you want to have real access with all the personalities from the network you know that's a lot of time with a lot of people involved there's no way to do that just yet at the level that I want to do it at a way that you know cost less than what it does that's it I've crunched the numbers as much as someone can crunch the numbers in the hopes of lowering the costs offering some new options and so that maybe we could expand the experience uh this year for for those of you who might want to take the plunge you know not everybody's gonna want this not everybody is gonna feel like this is for them and that's okay um this isn't replacing anything else that we do we're still doing you know 14 dates on the road we're still gonna be your appear conventions it's just one specific experience for people who are looking for this kind of depth so let's uh let's take a look at this year's glass can network retreat these are the packages that we're gonna have available king single package is going to be 29.99 down from 32.99 we also have a king double package and a double queen package those are 21.99 a person and we have lowered the badge only price to 9.99 a person and that will not come with you know food and drink basically so those three packages include you know a room at the hotel from June 11 to the 14th it includes access to all the gaming that goes on it includes breakfast buffets there were everybody loved last year on Friday and Saturday morning cocktail parties on Friday and Saturday night and this year we're doing a drink bottle cap tokens uh so that we can uh you know have this badge only option the badge only option will come with all of that except the food and the drinks uh and well you'll be able to like buy drink uh bottle cap tokens if you want but those are the packages uh these are available right now you can buy them at glasscanonetwork.com slash retreat uh I deployed them right as the stream went live uh we're also doing a few add-ons this year there's going to be a VIP welcome reception on Thursday night that you can add on uh this is all at checkout you could also buy the retreat afterwards if you're like on the fence oh no the retreat the reception afterwards if you like a little on the fence but at checkout you can add on these things some people came in on Wednesday and we're so glad they did because they could hit the ground running on Thursday and a lot of people I was uh getting a little fomo when I uh follow out early early Sunday morning and so everybody hanging out with Brian Holland all day Sunday and checking out Monday so you have the option to add the VIP welcome reception which is going to be at a private uh space and or or bar rather away from the uh the gaming area on Thursday night from six to eight p.m. with all of the personalities that are coming out and if you want to add a check-in Wednesday or a checkout Monday you can add that at checkout as well so that is the glass can of network retreat in terms of who's coming I have invited everybody back and I think they're all coming so if you saw people in that promo they are most likely coming but stay tuned to glasscanonetwork.com slash retreat as we announce exactly who's locked in and loaded uh but the plan is to have everybody back and then some uh so stay tuned uh as I announce those things duh duh duh duh duh duh duh let's talk about the content slate the 2026 content slate let me give you a second case you're rushing over to glasscanonetwork.com slash retreat to get your packages I'm so excited to go back and it doesn't fall on Father's Day weekend this time which is nice uh but uh yeah I'm really where everyone's really excited to go back I already know some of the games I'm gonna run um I got one of my uh sons this uh teenage Indian tutorials unmatched game actually I'm just talking and you can't even see me I got them for Christmas I was walking around packs and plugged just looking for like games that I could buy the kids for Christmas and just I'd look at go on board game give look at the score and so I got battle a hoth for archer uh which had like an 8.2 and it's fantastic highly recommended it's also like good for kids and then I saw this boot that sold these games called unmatched adventures they had like a teenage mutant jitterdals one and dash loves teenage mutant turtles so it's like this looks cool but I couldn't buy it there I look at like an 8.4 or something on board game keep so I just bought it site unseen and it's awesome I'm gonna run it at the con uh at the at the retreat rather really excited about that anyways this has been one of the games choice gonna run just I'm just really excited to play it with uh with non-children for once they're great though we beat it once anyways content slate da da da da da it's the content slate for 2026 one thing we've never really done is sort of go into a year uh letting you know all of our plans right there's a lot of reasons for that you know for one thing plans change uh for another thing we've spent the first few years just kind of flying by the seat of our pants desperately trying to create something out of nothing so we didn't always know what was next you know until we were 10 apps into something we're like uh what have we done um but the last few years have been you know really about being methodical and intentional with our plans uh so while new opportunities and projects will always come floating across my desk you know that may come to fruition this year I mean I'm already got a project that we just greenlit that's not gonna come out to 2027 I'm not even gonna talk about that tonight I'm gonna talk about the stuff that we have locked in uh as well as some projects that maybe you the naysh may be able to unlock with your supports and we'll talk about that as well first let's go into our weekly releases obviously we have our flagship glass cannon podcast which now features the shadow dark RPG we are 11 episodes in and loving every second of it uh we recorded last week and I'm actually uh wake it up tomorrow and drive it right back to the studio because we got a couple more apps on the slate for tomorrow uh please check it out if you haven't already blood of the wild of course is our pathfinder 2e quest for the frozen flame series that up until recently was only available to subscribers at the 12 dollar tier but now that we're three years into the show we have started releasing all of the episodes in order weekly on the free glass cannon podcast main feed starting with episode one which began releasing at the end of last year so if you want to listen to that show for free you can start it on episode one if you like what you hear and you want to catch up with a hundred more episodes right away maybe you got a job you can just mainline podcast then subscribe today join the nation.com at the 12 dollar tier and you can catch up immediately now blood of the wild is probably going to come to a conclusion this year that is a plan even at the pace that they move and Jared and I uh had a meeting last week already discussing about what might be next so stay tuned for that and then we have legacy the ancients this is the show that obviously has undergone the most turnover of any show uh it feels like the most real show in that sense and that casts have changed a lot since the beginning but it has now settled into a cast that uh we plan on having for the long run and that cast is Cinea Manuel, Nikolo, Jason Charles Miller and Eric Mona and that cast is locked and loaded and fully fueled by Skid's determination to slay his Moby Dick which is finishing rise of the Brune Lords after several other failed attempts I think this is his third is third attempt and he will he will finish this by hook or by crook let's talk about our returning series time for chaos season four is coming back and we are back in the studio back in person and coming back this July I probably have some unopened emails from today that finalize when when will actually be in studio to record that first batch of apps but get ready for 20 new apps aiming to return this July uh and then while getting the trunk twilight specter just finished last week uh doing a debrief on discord this Wednesday for our subscribers we're already talking about not only the next season but the season after that and how both of them could release this year what is he talking about stay tuned to find out more about that let's talk about some limited series in the works more Marvel multiverse uh we have at least one more Marvel multiverse in the can uh and then I'm going to be running a call of cthulhu gas light two shot which will debut in april they're very excited about this new supplement for call of cthulhu gas light so i'm going to be running this unreleased uh adventure uh in april uh and then you wanted it you asked for it you got it more pen dragon under an iron sky we have an eight episode order and that uh I believe that starts recording this week and will release in May uh so these are some limited series that we're really excited about all kind of stacked towards the first quarter of the year I would not be surprised if uh you know i've gonna have another state of the nation midway through the year that there be even more things to announce how about how about some new series some new content coming in 2026 how about a show already announced that will release two subscribers in two days uh blah blah blah we shouldn't be alive knowing that we normally start we do only start the year slow because we go so hard into December that we're just like takes a couple months to get going and knowing that was towards the end of the year I asked Joe is like hey buddy how about would you would you be interested in running a twilight 2000 series he's clearly obsessed with the game we were at the Nashville retreat and I just wrapped up a late game I don't know what I might have been playing Star Wars unlimited and I look over and he's like he's running it's like I'm not even Joe it's like nine ten o'clock at night and he's just running an impromptu twilight 2000 game for like eight or nine players Sydney Kate and Jared I think we're at the table and a bunch of the retreat people anyways this new show drops this Wednesday we we played twilight 2000 before on the network and over the years it's just been the game that Joe keeps coming back to so here's Joe to talk about this new show that will be available to subscribers starting this Wednesday both in audio and video format oh hey what's going on there nish it's your good buddy Joe Brian a cut in here during the state of the nish 2026 briefly I I have not been on the state of the nish in a few years but I had to come on this year because I am so excited about a new show that we're going to share with you literally this week it comes out this week and I cannot wait for you all to experience this show which is if you boil it down five years in the making I've been obsessed with making this show for so long and now we've finally done it thanks to the help of our subscribers your support has given us the ability to make this new show what are we talking about here five years in the making what do you mean five years ago we had a little game a little show called new game who deasts during that run I played a game called twilight 2000 fourth edition from our friends at free league and I loved it we did five total episodes and one of those was character creation so only four apps for a long time I've been thinking how can I get a cast to come together and do a longer form campaign of this game because I loved the vibe so much it's very shadow dark adjacent exploration sort of open world survival vibe and I was like I've got it I just need to get Ross Bryant Mary Lou Jared Logan as a player and my good buddy and co-founder skidmar that crew of four what a cast are you kidding me we bring these four players together we drop them into a horrifying uh world war three that never was scenario and just let them have that a exploration game I'm so excited to share this with you guys and it's coming out this week that's right this Wednesday on our subscription service at the basic tier you can get we shouldn't be alive episode one we actually recorded an episode zero a character creation and we released it on Christmas day on the main feed on the glass kind of piecast feed so if you want to check that out you can go check that out get to know where the characters came from or if you want to just dive in and see it unfold cinematically in episode one you'll be able to see that and here at this week podcast releases this week also you can watch video of it exclusively on our subscription service if you want to go over to that platform and watch it there but that's the only way that you're going to get this show for a while so uh go to join the n h dot com to find out more information about that uh I think that that's all I want to share with you uh I'd love to go into some details about the campaign but I don't want to spoil anything so I am running Ross Bryant Mary Lou Jared Logan and skidmar through a new longer form campaign of twilight 2000 and uh we're very excited to have you all along for the ride and if you like it write in let us know comment on discord if we get a lot of those likes maybe we'll do more we'll see anyway I'll kick it back to you Troy thanks nesh love you guys thank you for all your support uh all year long and then and all through the years it's what makes me be able to do shows like this so I'm very very very appreciative thanks guys enjoy the rest of the state of the nation bye you all Joey Joe Joe huh how's the hairline looking all those him so they click and I meant to really look I must be working by now hey twilight 2000 nobody's more excited than Joe O'Brien what a cast uh so check it out I think it's gonna I think uh you know I think you're really going to like it do you when when when someone is that excited about a game that translates like you can just you can send a room and just goof off it's going to be a wonderful series so be sure to check it out uh now in terms of other new content coming to 2026 let's talk business we talk business for a second I'm getting all handsy with my mic we talk business for a moment over the past few months uh I've been teasing that uh some changes are coming to our subscription service uh that wasn't accidental uh we recently sent out a pretty comprehensive survey uh and thousands of you thank you uh for those of you who took the time thousands uh if you took the time to respond that's so helpful uh that's like the first real survey we've ever sent out um and we've gone through that feedback very very carefully and it's been super invaluable in shaping the best version of of what we do and especially our subscription offerings moving forward you know the subscription service is the backbone of how the GCN operates if it grows with your support we can make more shows if it doesn't we can't uh we have to stay exactly where we are and to be clear the the limitation right now isn't ideas or wanting to play more games there are plenty of games we really really want to play uh and shows that we really really want to make great ideas but we'd love to come you know make come to fruition but the limitation is is bandwidth the limitation is staff we need more editors we need more producers or maybe and another editor one other producer the actual human hours required to do the work at the level you expect from us to do we just need to add more people there isn't hidden capacity sort of waiting in the wings and the days of people working 80 90 hours a week you know when it was just like founder grinding that's not really sustainable anymore nor is it long term uh healthy so um to kind of take GCN to the next level we're going to do something very intentional uh let me switch to this slide we're going to do a subscription pledge drive we've never really done anything like this uh for some time in March might be a weekend might be a two-night thing or not 100% sure stay tuned for the announcement we're going to do a a subscription the first ever subscription pledge drive and for for that period of time we're going to be playing games around the clock it's probably going to feel a lot like the extra life marathon uh and we're playing these games with a single goal growing the subscriber base so we can directly invest in more content as the drive progresses you'll be able to unlock goals that map very cleanly and transparently to new shows and expanded production this is not going to be some abstract thing like oh hit a goal and maybe something will happen or something kind of like this you will see in real time how new subscriptions or or upgraded subscriptions if you move from one tier to another move us and you very closer to specific outcomes uh you know we'll get into more details as we get closer you know when it's going to happen what it's going to feature how all these goals are going to work but that's the core idea clear clear goals clear results no guesswork so with that in mind uh let's talk about what you'll actually be able to unlock during this uh pledge drive uh goal number one getting the trunk trunk back immediately and another season in the fall you know rather than waiting a full year like I said the last season just wrapped up you know last week that went long that was supposed to wrap up in December you probably wouldn't have seen another season of getting the trunk until next fall so now we're saying okay when we do this pledge drive here's the goal if we hit it getting the turns going to come back like right away like April and then we'll do another season in the fall and we will go to you we will go to you in the discord uh and and find out what you're interested in seeing is there a certain uh Baltimoreian sunglasses the character that you'd like back in one of those seasons then we can talk about it uh or maybe you don't want that that's fine too we want you to have a voice uh in the in the decision making process so that we can give you the best versions of these shows but goal number one is gonna be bring back get in the trunk right away uh goal number two is gonna be a big one it is a you know I'd say all of these are stretch goals probably not the first one the first one is like uh it's pretty much just like nominal growth this one is a bit of a stretch goal but it is the one that you've been waiting for new game who does if we hit goal number two I've been teasing it for a while is by New Year's resolution glass cannon podcast shadow dark uh a couple episodes ago or last episode the first episode of the year if we hit goal number two excuse me when we hit goal number two new game who does will make its triumphant return but in a whole new format this is gonna be a whole new format basically the original new game who does would feature a game that ran like like three episodes I'm gonna make sure the volume was down low while I was talking the first first new game it would be like three episodes you have a session zero and then like a two shot um if you help us hit this very ambitious goal new game who does will return but instead of you know three shots or the occasional four shot these are gonna be 12 episode pilot series that will run back to back to back to back and if there if people like them these are shows that can turn into full running longer series or like 12 episodes a year or get a 20 episode order but instead of just doing three or even five like we did with game garage we're talking about sorry my uh I forgot to lower the volume I had a note to myself lower the volume when I switched to this thing and I forgot what I was saying was when we hit this goal instead of doing three or five episodes each series is gonna have a 12 episode order so you'll get 12 episodes back to back to back to back pilot series they may turn into longer series if you enjoy them if the feedback is please give me more of this uh then that's what you're gonna get and so this is an ambitious goal like I said but when we hit it I'm so confident that we're gonna hit it I've already picked and cast the first two series and they will be ready to go into production the moment the path to completing this second goal is clear let's go back to Troy Cam now that I've now that I've blown out your ears I had a little note lower volume it's forgot sorry but isn't it good to hear that song again anyway the first series the first 12 episode John's key that will come out of the new new game who does we need new logo with another new maybe not um this summer actually probably when we're talking about this summer wait like beginning of last year when I was like okay gate walkers is gonna be wrapping up this year I know I want to make a change I want to know I want to do something different so I started just looking at every RPG under the sun testing some playing some reading some seeing what I wanted to do I think it was like I'm saying last summer it was like March right around March is when I started there was this game that just kept being brought in front of me and kept being mentioned by people that I really trusted so I went on I bought it and I was like oh oh this is this is right at my alley this is like I want this to be this would be a perfect follow up to gate walkers but the reason I didn't do it well one I fell in love with shadow dark in the meantime we all fell in love with shadow dark and I also thought it was too big of a departure from you know that sort of transition from giant slayer to gate walkers this just felt like too big of a jump but you know when we hit goal number two I will be playing the number one game that I want to play that's on my list so let's see what that game is and the cast you've asked for it but I've been thinking about it for a long time first series will be mother ship I will be running Joe Bryan Robkirkovich Jared Logan and Skidmar through a 12 episode mother ship series I have the box set it is it is so gorgeous it's been sitting on my well now it's not sitting on my shelves because I'm already prepping the campaigns these we're moving forward as if this is happening right so like I'm already looking into this trying to decide what I want to do talking with the cast hardy working up logos for the show and whatnot that will be the first 12 episode series and the next one that I'll announce after that this is one that we played similar to Twilight 2000 we played it back in the new game who disdays and it just is a show and a game that has always come up for very obvious reasons and so we said it's time it's time to unleash this game with this cast onto the world so the second series after mother ship of the new new game who dis once again when we hit that goal this isn't just happening we have to hit these goals during the pledge drive but when we hit that goal the second series will be the one ring it will be the one ring with Jared Logan who has been running this he's running at several retreats already he's been running it in his spare time Jason Charles Miller and Skidmar I would I would say 90% of their friendship came from their mutual love isn't even the right word there isn't someone have to invent a new word for their admiration and adoration of Tolkien's masterpiece polydeming a certified Tolkien geek we got we got her involved and then we have a newcomer to the network actor and comedian Chris Grace you may recognize him from NBC's Superstore he is good buddies with Jared Logan and he performs with Ross Bryant you know Zali LA folks were so excited to have him join us for what will certainly be appointment listening so anyway stay tuned for this subscription pledge drive I'm going to be doing a stream probably in February where I'm going to talk about finally reveal this big subscription and it will be there or shortly thereafter will I'll go in depth about the pledge drive and how these goals are going to shake out so in the meantime if you want to be a part of everything that we have going on and you want to start fill in the base for these goals just subscribe today and join the nash.com gen con 2026 this is always a tent pole event for us I mentioned in the opening you know you got seven months if there's any way you can come to neonapolis you should come it is even if you don't if you don't like us or have a lot of people come on they're like oh you have a live show like yeah we have 45 live shows how are you not seeing this and they're like oh car I just came here to play next week but if you can come out there we're really I always I always try to push the envelope with what we can do because we have so many amazing people and this year we're really kicking it up a notch the booth is coming back and we're bringing new gauntlets to the booth past couple years we've introduced these luxury gauntlets that we run in the booth they're like one hourish adventures that are meant to you're you're trying to survive a tpk and oftentimes parties do sometimes your tpk's sometimes one or two characters died sometimes they all survive which is amazing because we throw the kitchen sink at you and those have always been pathfinder 2e this year we're going to add shadow dark gauntlets and we're going to add call of cthulhu gauntlets I'm already starting to work out how those are going to work it's going to be like you fighting fun cthulhu on a boat it's going to be you fighting just like you don't even have to fight cthulhu just fight like a shug off and that's enough to wipe out an entire party and more I've been kicking around the ideas of merkbori gauntlets and you know we just want to expand what we're doing beyond just pathfinder 2e because we found that a lot of people that come and buy these you know gauntlets they've never been played to you before so let's mix it up we're doing a lot of shadow dark and let me tell you this it's going to be a lot more people running games in the booth Brian the Holland is going to be doing a call of cthulhu gauntlet I'm going to ask Ross if he's available to run some call of cthulhu gauntlets Eric Mona is being going to be doing a pathfinder 2e gauntlet and of course Jared and Joe and skin all the guys so very excited to do that and then you know we always do what started out is one live show glass cannon live and then we're like let's do a con show too and then the last couple years we were like let's do another live show outside the con and then we're like let's do another con show so and this year I'm like let's do more so the plan this year is eight live shows at gen con eight live shows at gen con now keep in mind I'm submitting these live shows they may not get picked up but knock on wood they always approve our offerings we have such a wonderful relationship with them they are so great shout out to the gen con team obviously we're going to do these two call of cthulhu live shows at the Athenaeum I'm working on these casts now and they're going to be wild because everybody's at gen con I got my pick of the litter we're going to be doing shadow dark live obviously it's part of the flagship show now we got to do a live shadow dark show delta green live he's called getting the trunk live well that's great if you know who we are delta green live I'm sure Joe is already talking to Shane ivy about a custom scenario like he's had the last couple years blades in the dark live Jared is leaning into blade 68 which just had I think a big new update that came out I'm dying to play that so I'm very excited to finally bring blades in the dark back I don't think it's going to be the tin whistle is going to be where it's going to be tin whistle set in 1968 but blade 68 live and then since we're doing two call of cthulhu live shows that the Athenaeum I was like me running another call of cthulhu show at the con is kind of redundant but it is great to have a call of cthulhu show so let's do a 1920s call of cthulhu show and have Brian Holland run it you know even as I made this slide I'm like shit it could be gaslight it could be regency it could be something weird I don't even know about yet but Brian Holland is going to run a call of cthulhu live show if you've seen our bachelor party one that we did a couple years ago or even the one that we did was it last year yes it was last year with karkovic and I anyways it's that it's going to be that kind of energy please please get excited about that and then mothership live I wanted to save jencon for after this because I'm so fucking psyched to run mothership I'm like let's do a live show of mothership that was the one one of the ones that I added I don't know if the whole team knows about that yet but mothership live it's coming even if it's me on stage tap dancing in a space suit and then of course Jared Logan for resurrection if you've had a chance to see him do stand up it's so fun he has opening acts come on and then he does it's great it's very geek focused so be sure to check that out 902 I think I think I'm at the rap up here a lot of stuff going on obviously we talked a little bit about 2025 we looked ahead to 2026 announced the tour release some of the cast those tickets go on sale tomorrow glass can a network retreat 2026 in Vegas badges on sale right now packages I should say all sorts of packages that's a weird hand gesture Troy the audio listeners don't need no about that and then we talk about an epic jencon and that's that's that's the state of the nation before we wrap up there's probably one more thing I should talk about because I know it's going to come up it's going to come up in the or would have come up in the q&a it might still come up but I want to bring it up I want to address it directly because I know it's been a lot of people's minds and that's strange aons of all the changes that we sort of went through last year you know all some of them were just sort of obvious you know like Joe left legacy we brought in jace Charles this that we moved this around you know brought glass cannon radio got rid of glass carry those are always strange aons just kind of disappear we haven't talked about it publicly in a while and that was that was intentional you know not because we didn't care and and not because it was forgotten but because we didn't want to we didn't want to speculate you know before we had more clarity so here's the deal with strange aons after years of running pathfinder and solely pathfinder long form at a very high level the team and I just got burned out on it not bored not even checked out just plain burned out it was just there was just too much of one game system and and pushing forward in that state would have meant doing the story and the game a disservice and and giving you something that felt obligatory instead of inspired and you know what we started to feel during gate walkers that wasn't an isolated feeling it was part of a broader pattern across our pathfinder to ework and and something had to give you know when we i was very excited to do these you know many marathons these four-hour sessions because i was like man if we can do that one a month we can we can really chunk through the story will be like almost a book six by the end of the year and you know that that one that we did read the beginning of the year i think we did in February because January we're like oh we can't do it January there was February and it just it just felt off i don't know if it's because we did it during the day but i felt like oh man this is off and then immediately before we did the next one a bunch of schedules got tossed around Matthew got a big gig and like other people weren't available and other projects just started to come to light that started to take precedence over this initial plan to bang out four hours because four hours you know once a month that's really five hours and when you multiply by every single person on that show including the behind the scene staff the editing staff the audio staff you have to multiply that five by like seven that's like 35 man hours for we just weren't getting the return and everybody just kind of felt like i don't want to play this anymore um and so you know we just didn't we didn't feel like like like like powering through it that's not an energy that we want to give off so i kind of met an internal call it's just pause it for now and and see what happens rather than cancel it all right let's just pause it you know because long campaigns demand a lot creatively and mentally especially at the scale with which we produce them we don't just sit there and you know pause to do we're trying to like engage the audience the whole time it's a lot and as we've evolved i talked about this earlier our content model is has deliberately moved away from these multi-year arcs for a reason and and strange aons is is one of those shows that lives it kind of sits at that intersection of how we used to do things and how we work now and it's just been it's just been a real thing to reckon with because i kind of feel skids pain you know he really wants to finish rise of the rune lords he's gotten through almost all of it twice and never finished it you know i as the as the game master as the jam for that i feel that like i just want to finish it but i don't want to i don't want to finish it if we can't do justice the system if we're just not focused if it feels like a chore and so that's why it's been kind of hanging in this weird limbo but here's what i can tell you now strange aons is not technically canceled it's not canceled it's not being quietly abandoned either but it's also not coming back just because the calendar says it has to if and when it returns it's going to return when the timing is right when when the excitement is back for it when we can give it the attention it deserves you know that's the standard for our stuff and you know it may come back in a new form that's what i've been thinking about a lot you know it's like is there a way is there a way to perhaps see a new angle into this and i want to go too deep into that but like the story finishing that story is not only important for me but it's important for so many of you that tune in for a hundred episodes just have that rug pulled out while it happens all the time and network television it's a lot harder with the podcast network to justify because it's not like we have a million shows to fall back on it seems like a a bait and switch and i don't want that i'd love it to come to fruition some day but right now it's just it's not ready it's not ready for that um and i know the silence was frustrating i get that but i'd rather give you clarity now than half answers before uh because we've kind of made that choice in the past is like well here's a half answer and then another half answer and they contradict each other there's a little more clarity it's probably not what a lot of people want to hear but i want to at least tell you and if it was cancer i'd tell you i'd be like yeah i would never do it again it's it's at this weird limbo state i'd like it to come back but a lot of things have to happen before it does um so that's where things stand and when there's more to say i will say it as plainly as that in the meantime i hope you're excited we're very excited um i hope this felt different to you i hope this felt like oh boy this is a year this is a whole year of stuff to look forward to because if you enjoy what we do you know whether you're able to support our subscription service or not if you enjoy what you do enjoy what we do we want to do more of it we want to we want to be able to brighten up your day for people who can listen to podcasts i know like for me it sports like i love i just love when i have that moment when i can just sit and watch a game or when we're on tour and i can like sit at a bar and watch a game these these these these light these moments light me up we know that we do that for you so thank you for all of your support if you if you can support us uh and you're on the fence or maybe if you can support us at a higher level head to join the nash.com like i said next month ish there'll be a big subscription update i'm going to do another live stream like this probably because a lot of ins and outs that i want to explain and then this pledge drive is going to be content galore for you to enjoy and we really want this community to have a voice in the future of what we're doing so the best way to do that is to subscribe if you're able come to our live shows meet and greets retreats and have a great 2026 i'm going to go say goodnight to my wife and then i'll see hopefully many of you on the discord for a little q&a a little a ma a little t a day what joy you crazy set of a gun all right i don't have an end screen so let's go back to the beginning bye oh of the regency era you might know it as the time when bridgett and takes place or the time when jenn austin wrote our books but the regency era was also an explosive time of social change sex scandals and maybe the worst king in british history and on the vulgar history podcast we're going to be looking at the balls the gowns and all the scandal of the regency era vulgar history is a women's history podcast and our regency era series will be focusing on the most rebellious women of this time that includes jenn austin herself who is maybe more radical than you might have thought we'll also be talking about queer icons like anlister scientists like marie anning and edalov lace as well as other scandalous actresses royal mistresses rebellious princesses and other lesser known figures who made history happen in england in the regency era listen to vulgar history wherever you get podcasts hi i'm brine luchi a former chicago cop now i'm a producer at chicago pd and i'd like to introduce you to the official one chicago podcast the first ever behind the scenes look at the iconic tv shows we're talking chicago fire chicago pd and chicago met join me each week for an exclusive conversation with the writers the crew members and the stars voids doing the right thing for void check out the once chicago podcast from wolfon or taiman and usd audio available now wherever you get your podcast