Tale Gate | Episode 1 | Discussing Up To C4E11

Why hello there, Distinguished Campaign 4 listeners! I'm Sam Riegel, and welcome to our new talkback show, Tailgate! In this series, we'll sit down with the cast after each table arc and spill the tea together on all things Campaign 4. Plus, if you're a Beacon member, the soiree will continue with The Nightcap, a Beacon exclusive segment where we answer all your questions from the Discord chat. Each Tailgate episode is streamed live on beacon.tv, YouTube, and Twitch, and will arrive here on the Critical Role Podcast Network one week later. So if you ever want to join in on the live fun, check us out on one of those platforms. Alright, without further ado, let's get this Tailgate started! Good evening everyone, and welcome to the first episode of Tailgate! This is the official talkback show for Campaign 4, where we'll be talking through the latest arc, answering lorekeeper questions, oogling a few fan creations, and enjoying the rare luxury of reflection. So pull up a seat and pour some tea, because the gate is open. Yay! You talked and you walked and you chewed and chewed. Thank you. Hey! Everyone was so nervous that I was gonna spill it. Oh my god, how did you do that? It's so full. That looks hot. It is. I shouldn't have. Alright, alright, alright. Let's get to some lorekeeper questions, y'all. Tailgate, tail like story. No, I didn't get it. We are also wearing tails. Did you not get that? We've got them. Okay, yes. It's not visible. I want to go, before we get to the questions, I want to appreciate everybody's cups, because I asked for a mug, I asked for a tea cup that hurt to hold, and I got this one, and it says pain. Does it have barbed wire on it? It has barbed wire on it, yeah. Really cute. It has my tyranny tea cup. I have a lovely iridescent black with a skull within. That's very apropos. Yes. That's a metal AF. I have a dainty little puny boy cup. Yeah, for dainty little puny boys. Leaves! What? That's not yours. You have the wrong cup. Oh, this isn't mine? Oh, that one too. What's who there? Why do you have so many cups? That's also very important to have too many cups. This one? Who's this? That's not mine. That's set deck. They're all set deck? It has nothing to watch. That one is not mine. Look at what's floating on the top. Oh, God, I drank that. You guys ever sat in a museum chair that was one of the exhibits by accident? Oh, no. I did. Yes, bad. Did you guys kicked out? No, I got reprimanded loudly across the room. I saw a video of a guy that broke an art display that was a chair, and he sat in it, and it just collapsed. That's so bad. You can't be having a display that's a chair that's just near the bathroom. What a rube. I would never do that. What does your bug look like? Branch? I got leaves. You got leaves in there? It makes it functionally unusable, but I'm enjoying the fake plants. They're nice. Okay, the first Lorekeeper question that I have is for everybody. How was it to getting to be the first party to explore outside of Dolmok Yar? I'll go first. It was sick. It was really cool. Is that the whole show? You just answered your question? You guys were all like, that's my show. Less from you? More from me. Got it, got it, got it. We need to get a lot of questions. My mug's great. You actually do have the best mug, Lore. You should show it. What is it? It's glass. What's on top? A flower. It's cute. It is actually quite lovely. The gold clasp. It is beautiful. It's a larger cup, which makes you look small. This is set deck, too, but I feel like this is very simple. That is really pretty. Whatever gray muck you're drinking looks delicious. It's coffee with milk in it, but I wish I would have waited because I could have gotten real tea. You can mix them. Where is the other? Milk with coffee in it. That's a light. This is foul. It's not good. Whitney, I enjoyed exploring the world of Aramang. It was great. Yeah. I don't... You know, Brennan, we don't have a map. Yeah. So it's just a lot of words. And we kind of... And I don't know where we're going and I don't know where we've been. I want to be clear. We do have a map. It's just in pencil. It's just I drew it at home. And we all got it. But it was so small and bad. It's in the binder. It was so bad. It looked like a child. I drew it. It is really funny to be at a stage of playing D&D where I still have to do the making it up. But then I have to sort of like a baby. I'm looking like, artist, help. Someone make it pretty. I don't know how. But yeah, no, there is. The continent of Pasitar is... It exists. But our first little trek out from Dolmakiya, I know there is a lot of that. I have to place myself in context of what this realm is and what this land is. I thought you guys did a phenomenal job. It was really excellent. There's multiple kingdoms around us and borders. And dogs and berries. Oh my God. To your credit, you're not making it up on the spot because you gave me a... You said you were out here doing stuff. And I said, what was the stuff we're doing and where's out here? And you knew all the answers. It was real life homework. It was so impressive. There are so many NPCs that we probably didn't even meet that you just had queued up for if we... Or that we saw in passing that other people are going to get to meet? Oh, I see. The jealous of them. All right, I'm going to go to the next one. This one's for me. And Sam. They are all... Whitney, what's it like being the favorite? I don't care. All right, Sam, this is Russ. This was the first time Tyranny and Wick left their home. True. I think that's the first time that people have learned the most about themselves during our travels. You take it. I think Wick learned that he might not be as equipped for the world as he thought. Maybe. He learned that people don't like him and that the world is a rough and tumble place filled with lots of different types of people. But he also learned that there's some good people out there too who are... Who if you put your faith in them and your trust in them, they can help you through a pickle. Yeah, plus he can sprout wings. That's something that you learned about. I learned that too, yes. That I can... He's an angel boy. I kind of feel like Tyranny is saying the same thing. She thought she was tough shit because she was just, you know, on a leash but kind of gallivanting around, you know, Domakiara with you and then out in the rough world, she's like, ooh, I'm a little baby actually. I don't know many things about the world. She's just a baby. She's just a baby. Did you know you could have wings? Did I, Sam Regal? Yeah. Sam Regal, yes I did. I knew that that was an option, one of three options, I believe. But I didn't know how to activate it and, you know, I don't know much about this character. I've never played a sorcerer and I've certainly never played this kind of sorcerer, so I didn't know how it was going to manifest. It manifested in a super cool way. Thank you, Brad. It was really fun. I think it is really cool for mapping. You guys had a tremendous amount of combats in a very short number of episodes. We had the fight at Hawthorne's Glade, we had the fight at the Wraith Tree, we had the fight at Castle Slok, and we had the fight in the cellars of Castle D'Londre. You are the soldiers. You are the soldiers. Yes, you guys whipped a lot of ass and I think it was very cool. Mostly a thimble. Mathematically, yes. I mean, just you count the damage and it only tells one story. But the important thing is this. Everyone's story was really fascinating, I felt. I love when combat tells a story. For Wick, what was very interesting was Wick had some exceptional moments of triumph. The moment of shedding the light of the sun in that glade and shuffle, the plant creature beginning to revere you. And Wick was encountering a brutal world he was not cut out for. Wick dropped in two different combats. You don't mind me. I have. I just know. And it feels like a cool mapping to the idea of the process of being like, okay, I need to throw out an entire cosmology and a conception of the world while somehow preserving a sense of forward momentum and right and wrong and who I even am. And it feels like that what that can feel like is, okay, I get to keep this. I am a servant of the light. Oops, eight shit stands for the stomach. Oh, no, that doesn't work the same. And it just felt like your experience of combat was mapping to your emotional journey in a way that that was really. I also liked this is a total tangent. When we leveled up, you did this great thing of like choosing when we level up and how we level up and choose the spell that we take or the ability that we take, which was a cool thing to involve that into a story beat. But I think I anyway, because I'm sort of new to my powers and new to my abilities. I've been also sort of choosing story beats to sort of use a spell for the first time or use that an ability that's technically on my character sheet, but I wouldn't know about or I haven't used yet. And there's other spells that I have on my character sheet that I still haven't even used them yet or even tried to. So it's super cool. Yeah. The real stuff. This is a great segue. You were mentioning that we've had a fair amount of battles and I've got a question here, which is what is everyone's favorite battle we've had? I loved the bit of espionage we got to do. I feel like the Slok one kind of worked all of our different skills in a really unique way. It's really cool. Yeah. Slok was what Slok was sick. We had it's very rare to have a moment of of a line as cold and bad as is. Do you hear it now? While someone named Dr. Gisabelle finger. This game's got it all. It's hiding in a giant octopus. This game's got it all. It was really great. Everyone I feel like that there were yeah, that was an awesome battle. That move was Wolfric and peeling the horse off. Yes. It was brilliant. Yeah, that felt like that one for me. I think I said this in the maybe the cool down that was like the team comes together episode for me via combat and not just RP. It just felt like everybody was doing what they're supposed to do and they're doing it in a fun and interesting way. That was definitely my my favorite. Yeah, your face was in the mud for most of that. Yeah, that's right. I was being held down in the middle of the room while you guys were doing badass stuff. That was very cool. Very great. But you didn't help for us all to come save you. So without that, you started it all incredible. It's true incredible tactical move. Yes. I think when I did that, I looked over Travis and he was just like, what? That's not running to leave the table. That was not really a good idea. It was so funny. I loved the the the fairy fight too, because I feel like that there was so much for Thimble to consider of like, you know, you have the option of leaving us in the dirt. You could have just sold us up the river. I know. And she's just this is what she knows now. You guys are what she knows. So it's almost like that's that's foreign to her. That was also the fight where we met the big bad of the campaign. Skinner the red cap. Oh, yeah. It's going to come back and get fucking terrified. Put my head in you. It was a hot. It was a hot. No, my hand. My hand. My hand. I feel like he would do both. He'd do both. There's only one way to get the hat in you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The hat to go in as well. I had a hand. Yeah. Red caps are a real fairy type from from a fairy folklore. What do they? What does that mean? I believe they're they're from they're from the British Isles. I think that they're a I could be wrong, but that's what I remember at least. And the red cap is red because of being died in blood. There are these little goblin fairy men who are nasty bearded little guys who come up and they kill people and bathe their hats in their blood. That's so sick. And then you said the headless guys, the switching their heads. That's also that when I made up. But but Greg Greg is a preexisting term for a little cricket type fairy. But the but the swapping of the head, the kettle hops and the swapping of the heads. That's that's made it up on the spot. Just on the fly in that. I'm often in my office going, what's a fucked up little guy to make. You have like a board of like on the left. It's like Elf, no, dwarf. And then on the right, it's like you can switch heads. Has back was hands. I have a series of custom made magic aples and I roll them out and I'm like, Elf head switch. Okay. There are so many cool fairy folk that we got to me because we also met the hag. We met Brooke Meadow. We met so many and many to come, I'm sure. We have so many questions. So I'm going to cook this next one's for Robbie. Did Cadigan expect his fellow former soldiers to question his mysterious return at more than they did? And how does he feel being back in a group in the group and interacting with people again in general? Oh, you just got folded in as a good question. So Cadigan has zero expectations of anything. It's a very free and sad way to live. And is that okay? Yeah. Well, I think that you can't impose expectations on people that you don't have relationships with. And maybe you shouldn't as much as you do with the people that you have. So when he's back in this group, I don't know. He's capable of caring without necessarily putting value on like needing to trauma dump on his homies. I think that speaks to how antisocial he is because I think a common, a core component of an antisocial person is deliberately not needing community, not needing something from your friends. And if that's a deliberate move on Cadigan. Does he need it though? What? Does he need it? He needs it. Well, he knows he needs it. I think it's been not so... Cadigan just needs a hug. I don't think I've been like light handed in the idea that he's feeling again at all. I think when you're numbed out and regressive and you start feeling again, you don't even know how to process this at first except when you're in the moment. So if you're a person who lives moment to moment and you're in your body and you feel those feelings but you haven't felt them in a long time, I think it can be confusing and frightening and I think you can revert back into old behaviors that used to be your shield. So, yeah, he's going through all of that but he's not one to sit on the couch and talk about it. Yeah. I certainly wanted to ask you about it. I feel like Thimble's so like antagonistic with people though, like she's like in your face. It's not like a gentle, what happened? Are you okay? We were doing lots of stuff. What the fuck were you doing? We were all doing lots of stuff. Yeah. We were all doing a lot of travel. To your credit, it was a jam-packed adventure and there wasn't as much time to be like, how are you? We didn't really get a campfire talk to the very end. I think my favorite episode of The Soldier's Ark was Make Mary, this last one where we were the very final because to have this rock'em, rock'em, combat-filled, escapade, vengeance and rescue and discovery and to get that very sweet moment of in triumph but a like, a like, a high-stakes still like your heart rates up kind of triumph. It's like we got Sid but he's a statue. We got our revenge but the enemies are still abound. To have this moment at the campfire where we see everyone suddenly catch their first breath and reveal how they're doing, that's always my favorite shit. And also because I love to come shoot something and I go, ah, this shit has nothing to do with me. I'm going to kick back and watch the professionals work. Truly the best seat in the house. It's lovely. Hey, I just have a question that just popped up in my head. Who's been coming home with the episode titles? Is it you? Are you going to be the producers? Is it Matt? Is it who is it? Who comes up with the? I will say I think the highest batting average of episode titles goes to one Danny Carr. Oh yeah. And applause there. Did she pitch him out to her every episode? Yes, I get, I am CC'd with a number of producers and other great people and Danny has the most phenomenal like episode breakdowns and title suggestions and they're beautiful and contain a lovely double meaning or reference to the themes of the episode and I think it's delightful. I was going to follow up on the question that we are technically on right now from our lore keeper speaking of Danny Carr to Robbie, which was just to ask something that was very cool because Robbie is playing an archetype that we love, the gruff, stoic, laconic, the man with a mysterious past who is an outdoorsy gruff man. And that's all it is. There is a facet of your character that was not included in the pitch dock. It wasn't present to character creation. It came out organically through play, which is one of my favorite ways that characters evolve. Like we are literally playing this game to discover the story we're telling, right? I would say that Cat again, very subtly and without judgment or preachingness amongst a religious figure, right, is a profoundly moral man. Yes. And that is, and that a tremendous amount of wisdom and grace came from this gruff man who we meet in a state of like sort of like drunk, who we've seen sort of like an unkempt wild man in some ways has like a very potent heart. Did you become aware of that? First of all, do people share the same observation that I had? Oh, yes. And was that something that happened organically in a way that you were surprised to discover through playing the character? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that we talked about this like creating a backstory versus like trying to foist it upon someone else's story or just living in it and see what happens. And like little moments like that surprised you. We were talking about the first encounter with Moppa My Hat in you. And it was like, oh, it's go time. Tey are my battle buddy is about to fire things up and my gut check wasn't to continue that conflict. It was to heal the first person that was heal, honey, so called and that surprised me because I was looking at my options and then I was like, ah, it's an unavoidable choice because it's what he would do. So I feel like, yeah, and those moments continued to surprise, set up by the circumstances that the rest of the cast and you build. So I think that's the what a rich and fun way to play any kind of character. Like that moment, the moment where you heal Honey Suckle, the moment where Wick is weighing all these options for what to do as House Halevarr has taken Kaus'a's slope. And Categan comes in and is like, like, Dean Williamford, you know what I mean? Yeah. Consider giving it to the local. Like time and time again, it was this thing of, that always came from like a commoner's point of view as being like really grounded moral insight that because of who Categan is, there is no finger wagging that accompanies it. When someone who visibly wears a hard life comes to you with moral insight, it always comes from, let me share a lesson with you. I got the hard way rather than I'm here to tell you. Yes. Yeah. I think, well, those are the people that I grew up with and that's how I grew up and I know a lot of us, some of us have similar backgrounds and stuff like that. And I think it's okay to be a good person who's had a hard life or made bad decisions. Like I'm a big proponent of retribution. You know, no, it's true. And I think we so often write those people off and they write themselves off and like that was a little bit of the intent to play a character like this. It was just, you know, yeah. And the lessons don't come sugar coated either as exhibited with Cat and Tyranny having these moments where, you know, he's trying to instill this morality on her. Good luck. And it's done in a way, I was so, I loved that moment just becoming friends with you, Robbie, because I was like, this man has a daughter. And it really like, it really showed. I do have a daughter. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, it really shows. I was like, this is, and it just, it felt so paternal. And I was like, wow, it's so, it's such a treat to see those glimmers of Catigan shine through amongst the grit. Is there something in this tea? Poisons. I'm gonna use the set dressing to pour my gross coffee out and get fresh tea. Do you want some tea? I have a question for you, Laura. Next. Are those donuts edible? Cat? Yeah. No, they are. I checked. They are. Wait, the donuts are edible? The donuts are edible and there's, there's everything. Everybody get a donut. Oh, there's brownies in there, dog. No, let's go. I'm giving this one. Sorry, go on. Dengastown. Every high tea, you gotta have a little cake. A little cookie. This is gonna have a little latte mixed in. It's gonna be nice when they get you. Looks like we made it. Wow, it's just, it'll have a little milk in it. It's, you know, that's right. Sorry, I poured out almost the entire pot for the day. Into your, no, I get it. I'll take some more. She has a joke. There's no more. Sorry, you can have a sip of mine. No. My tea. Okay, Laura, Kazimir was once a friend. Thimble got her revenge and all of its complications, but does she worry about other former friends betraying her? Hmm. I don't, I hadn't until just now. Well, get ready, bitch. I'm not gonna lie. Thimble's not thinking about much of anything. Like she's not thinking about the past right now. She is, she is so, just in this like cloud of, she doesn't even know who she is anymore. She doesn't know where she stands anymore. She doesn't know what the world means anymore. She doesn't, like everything she knows has disappeared at this point. And it's just this, this quest to try to make it all makes sense and it's not going to. And I was struck in the last, that last scene when all of us were like at the campfire and everybody was like pairing up and having like these talks and Thimble was off like sitting on a flower and kind of watching from a distance of all of everybody else. And how incredibly lonely it is for her to not even to like be suffering through this grief, but like you can't even hug someone. You can't, you can't really have that embrace. You can't have that comfort. You can hug me. Physically. I mean the wingspan is so small. I've read that comic. Um. Um. No, I mean, I think she's just, she's, she's lost. She's so moving out of her wounds too. Like she's, she's moving from a place of wounding and that's such a, such a like great choice because it clouds your vision in so many ways when you move from your pain. God, I love it. Yes, Robbie. Yes, Robbie. Okay, so after you smote your enemy upon the castle wall, it felt great right in the moment. It felt awesome. But wait, what about right after? Wait, this is actually, this leads into the next question. Okay, okay, okay. Which is what do you feel was your character's highest high and lowest low from this arc? Highest high, fucking killing. Revenge. Yeah, revenge. Killing him. Slicing his damn throat. Felt great. Lowest low. I mean, can I say falling asleep on that as his chest? That was terrible. That was terrible. That's pretty low. It's low. Finding out he's dead. Pretty low. Pretty fucking low. We started Thimble's story on a lowest low. With the bottom. The bottom. It's an interesting place. I also, can I, there's more to unpack this question for all of the characters present here. But I actually want to go back and say, lovingly and politely, I think I disagree with a take from before. I want to offer a little spicy hot take here. In terms of Thimble moving from a place of grief, I disagree. Because I think that what is so fascinating about Thimble's journey is... Because carries can't feel real emotion. Yes, because they're basically elemental. Your brains are too small. I never thought about that. Wily Coyote in... No. Yeah, I'm not ready to say something. I'm about to say something. I'm about to say something. Fucking write it down. Wily Coyote doesn't fall until he looks down. And I wonder if Wily knew that he was a cartoon. What would happen if he sees Roadrunner go away and realizes that he's not moving forward anymore and can see the canyon and the edge of it and goes, just keep pumping your legs and don't look down. And how long would he hang in the air? Where the only thing that can happen next is to fall, but if I never look down, it never starts. I rescind my observation. I don't have a Looney Tunes analogy. No, it's a fascinating point. There's a point about... What's next? There's a great article written about Batman that talks about the power fantasy of Batman. And I think there's actually a lot of parallels between Thimble and Batman, weirdly as these super heroic city, fucking roguish kind of things. Where someone says the power fantasy of Batman is that most people's grief debilitates them and Batman makes him heroic. But it only makes him heroic if he never processes it. He has to stay locked in the cycle. It's why his ultimate antagonist is laughter. The Joker is the ultimate antagonist because he has to stay sad forever because something about it powers him forward. And I think that there's a way of... The thing about Thimble that really strikes me is the arrested. It's that wily coyote if he suddenly realized and went, don't look down. But this applies exactly to the question that I was asking was, once you achieve a goal that's so direct and there's more to unravel, of course, how did you feel afterwards? Like, was it always just eyes on the prize or was there a moment of introspection as a player or character where it's like, I had this drive to hunt this character down in-game and as my character, and we've satisfied this in the most epic way, are you, Laura, and are you Thimble satisfied? Or no. Yeah. That's a tough place to be in in life. It's like this feeling of, I thought this was going to make it okay, but it's not okay still. So what can I move to that will make it okay? I've watched that in your... It's such a beautiful character and the performance is so incredible. And I've watched it where if you go back and look through, Thimble never looks more scared in this first soldier's arc than right after she did what she said she was going to do. There's a moment where, you know what I mean? When she's got something to chase, it's actually stability and purpose and peace. And the minute that Kaz and your dice, you watch a... Gotta be the next... What's the next problem? What were your highest highs and lowest lows? Sorry, I was thinking about a gritty live-action remake of Wiley Coyote versus Batman. Just in a silly way. He didn't hear nothing. They're both gadget-oriented. Highest highs and lowest lows? I mean, my lowest low is probably finding out that everything I've known is a lie. And that my grandmother somehow channeled the blood of a crazy monster angel to fuel her family. That was so sick. It was sick. And the highest high, I think, was just surviving. Any of the fights? Waking up at the end? No, I think... You rolled a nat-20 at disadvantage, I think, at one point. That's pretty blessed. You had some really clutch roles. Boy, I hope those last. I don't got a lot going on. No, I think being able to help other people... I don't know if I ever really saved the day ever, but I certainly helped a couple of times. And I think that's all he wants to do is to help to be useful. You saved the day with all the fairies. You brought that light out. That's true. I guess I am the best. Lowest low, missing the simplest. A person of action, failing at what they're meant to do is the worst feeling in the world, especially if you're capable at it, and missing the basketball with the sun-blind bolt, my one bolt in my quiver, and missing your shot. You've been riding the bench for ten years and someone passes the ball and you fucking brick it. You whipped it. So slow. That's a miserable experience in life. I think everybody should have it multiple times. It's true. I'm bumbling. I'm the best and the worst. And then I had tiny little highs every single episode from yelling at you about the knife to giving it to you, because in my head I was thinking about times when I was crafting it for you. I know... No, I mean, I was like, where could this actually be happening? Can I justify getting this to you? It's so funny that you were sitting on that. You had that secret. It was so... That's so fun. It felt nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess for myself, lowest low was stealing the knife, highest high was stealing the knife. And that sucks, because it felt so bad instantly, but what a thrill that I can't ignore. I can't tell you what a gift it is as a DM to have players take huge swings. So this is our first campaign. We're playing together. You stealing that knife fucking rules. And immediately I was like, I'm gonna do a whole thing. I was like right away. You are. I was like, that fucking rules. It's such a great demonic play. It's so simultaneously wicked and also childlike. Yes. Ooh, you know, like... Not a deeply emotionally sophisticated person, Tyrannious, but she'll get there maybe. Yeah. Hey, before we go any further, we need to pause for a moment, because it's our time for our first iteration of Noteworthy Notables, where we celebrate the good works of those from within the Critter community. The first Noteworthy Notable of Tailgate is from Zellers on IG. Let's take a look. Ooh. Noteworthy Notable sounds like a celebrity Jeopardy category. It does. Yeah. Ooh, it's a... Hey! Wow, I love this one. He made it about herself again. It's my show. Has Wick been tanning? He looks so beautiful. He looks fantastic. Also, he's got nails. He just wears bronzer. Yeah, a broad bronzer. For sure. I'm really nailing the Joel Osteen of... There is kind of a... Look at Tyranny's nails. They both have wicks in the lower right corner. He's got celestial... We went to the manicurist together. Self-tanner in his bag of holding. He's a beautiful boy. He is beautiful. And we... Yes! We got Brooke Meadow. I love the bubbles in the foreground. Oh my gosh, and the bubble on the head. Yes. That moment. Such a cool detail. It was so, so good. She got... She got Teppol bottom. Is that what's going on there? Got a little Teppol tail. That's cool. Yeah. What a cool detail. That's so cool. Beautiful. Beautiful. These are both by Zellers. Zellers. I was saying Zellers, but Zellers on IG. Showness. If you're interested in being featured on Noteworthy Notables, go check it out at critrole.com slash submit. Submit to me. Anyways, here's some more questions. Brennan. Hi. Is the knife from Catagon actually a vestige of divergence or does it just behave similarly? I'm excited that we're getting through this because there was so much speculation. I want to know. Yes. That was a metaphor, right? Your phrasing was very particular. It was a comparison. It was a direct comparison. It is a significant object that will... It has the ability to awaken. The item has the ability to awaken and increase as opposed to a potion where it's like this does one thing eternally. But it's like a vestige of divergence. Correct. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is... Is a vestige of divergence. It doesn't mean that it could be. We are in a world where the divergence did not happen. To call it that would be shocking. But when I said... What did I say? I said in another world in time it would have been called a vestige of divergence. It was clearly an analog. Yes. What would have been called a vestige of divergence? We all heard the words and we were like... No, I just mean that Matt made up the coolest shit in the world. Vestige of divergence is solving a... I think Matt in his endless proficiency and brilliance. Vestige of divergence are one of the most elegant and beautiful ways I've ever seen of solving the issue with magic items in these games. Which is that you're like, oh, I know we got a better thing, but I've fallen in love with this sword or this one is related to my family or this one. There's something meaningful about it. I want to throw out my dad's sword because I'm like, Frostmourn sick, playing, and then your dad's sword is gone. That's what a bag of holding is for. Bag of holding is for, right? I'll remember you forever. I remember when I was fighting with you. But I think there's something really beautiful about the... In the exalted state of them and the fact that... And also, I think too of what Matt did with vestiges that I wrote in his love as well is baking storytelling directly into a magic item. That it states that it awakens into are a reflection of the progress of the character in relation and often in relation to the values of the object itself, right? Or in the act of its creation. And obviously there are some vestiges that don't have the... There are some of them that came up in divergence that are a static stat block. But that tide that they have is great. So, did not mean to be confusing. We are not in the next arc going to have a Charlton Heston moment where you guys see Whitestone and go, what did you do? You were not confusing in any way. Look, I've so worked up about it. I saw the same thing online and I was screaming in my phone. It was like, he was so clear. It's not actually a message of divergence. Doug, you cannot use capitalized terms. People are... They're going to get psyched, man. Everyone who got psyched, I see you, I understand. In the future, I will not use searchable terms. But the analogue being just that it will grow with me, correct? I'm very excited about that, especially because it's got some pretty emotional... I'm feeling pretty awakened myself. And there's a couple questions on here just regarding the knife. So, I'll lump them together. Catigan, Robbie, why was Catigan so aggressive about tyranny stealing the knife? Can a bitch live? Bitch, none of your business. I really thought that we were going to get an answer. No, it was just... Thank you. I have theories. I'm sure you do. What's your theory? Spill it. I don't want to because what if I get it right and Robbie was like, no, you'll reveal my backstory right now. Who would then Robbie change his backstory that they did on Lost? I do, I'm curious. No, I did not expect the reaction to be that visceral either. I just go back to our earlier point. I just love to yell at women. I do. It's true. Such a trap to play a demon and then be like as a woman. Really, Jimane? Who's a new lovable fan favorite that I can yell at? This will endear me to them. No, there is this theater idea, which is this peripheral acknowledgement of the audience's existence. It's the reverse of a willing suspension of disbelief. It's where we're in the audience and we watch the thing and we know it's not real, but we can still invest in it. It's the same thing that happens in really good acting and theater when you're in the moment and enjoying it. If you don't think there's a tiny voice in the back of my head screaming, oh my god, you're yelling at her. Oh my god, they're going to hate you. I loved it. I loved it. But I didn't really just, it felt right and it came from a place, I'll tell you this. I'll answer your question this way. It came from a place of honesty and morality for lack of a better word that I don't feel bad about. But the idea that he handled it and that I handled it in that moment poorly is just fine. Because people aren't good at those things especially. They're not always. They're going to fail. They're going to be overly aggressive. They're going to behave in ways that, and if we're scared of portraying those kinds of emotions. You have to let characters fail. 100%. And it probably wasn't the right way to handle that situation. But the thing that was done was right and the way that he did it was poor and I'm okay with it. Well, it was so effective because it was the first time we really got to see like, oh, Cadogan's got some really, he's got a really strict moral compass. And it matters to me. It matters to me. It matters to him. I'll say this. The improv teacher in me knows that Cadogan's reaction is what Whitney as a storyteller was looking for. Because if you come out and do something that's like, Whitney's making a choice to do something demonic to be like, oh my God, you love that. I have to take that. And if we, if everyone at that table was like, cool, like, nice job. And then Whitney would go, Whitney would go, you've made me look like you all think I'm an idiot. You're like, guess Whitney thinks stealing's okay. Leave it unremarked on. And then move on. You really throw your scene partner under a bus by you going, not okay. Then the person who made the demon choice gets the reaction that a demon should get. Right? That like you have that moment where you go like, oh, that's unacceptable. And you're like, yeah, great. And then the next moment is acknowledging, right, that I, like, and especially for Cadogan to do it, who hadn't had, who you, I think that was the first moment too, where you see this guy's like, oh, like, I showed up in the, in Dolmaki. And then for him to be like, unacceptable. He's like such a swing from him that it fleshed out tyranny and Cadogan at the same time. Yes. He's so devil may care until that moment and devil do care. It would be like Han Solo being like, the chore wheel is not being. People are fucking up. But a lot of people at the table in that moment, like we're protesting and not, I think you had said something actively about like, what are you doing? Don't do that. But then like, you don't want to suppress another player's choices, you know, so it's a tough spot to be above table too. So yeah. In that moment, Cadogan became tyranny's father and I love that. And then that was reinforced much later. Not daddy, okay? I'm choosing the language. And to your point, it's so correct that, like, if you want to watch a story where people articulate their feelings explicitly and plainly, watch a Wes Anderson movie. Like, watch anything besides D&D because it's not, no one in the world is perfect. And you make character choices. Wes Anderson D&D campaign. Yeah. Actually, no. The mouth is like, very, very perfect little rose. The same. Our healing potions evenly. We agree to that. All of them. This is also, I'll just say this quickly because I feel like we spent a lot of time on the knife. For me, what did tyranny feel getting the knife from Cadogan and how did she feel stealing it? I mean, listen, she's learning that she gets a thrill from certain things and they're not good and they're in direct defiance of this community she's building and that's a tough spot to be. But getting the knife from Cadogan was such a lovely affirming, like, oh, maybe I do belong here, although, you know, don't get your hopes up, you know? That's the thing. It's such a, it was such a great conversation to me because you're like, you have such, you have autonomy in deciding the type of person you want to be. And do I? Mmm. We'll find out. I don't know. We'll find out. Let's see. You're doing great. Thank you so much. I'm running this show and answering your own questions. Could you also answer Travis's questions? There's none on here for Travis. Oh. That's why he didn't come tonight. Sam. He was going to come but there was no questions. And then we're like, nobody cares, son. You're 86, sorry. Sam, Travis died. For the record, I did write Travis's questions. What's happening right now? And then found out he wasn't coming, which was frustrating. Sorry. Thank you, the Lord. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. What's the name of the first episode of this show going to be? Does it have one? Of the tailgate? Yes. Okay. Tailgate, episode one. Robbie, you're the king of a mysterious backstory. Can you give us a hint as to what's going on with the doe? It's a man and a wolf. Come on. The dog? Oh, the dog. I just said the dog. I know. I just said the dog. The dog. I just said the dog. The dog. Addicted questions. The way you just sprayed that for a second, every gear in my brain shut down. Because it's like, what's with the dog? And you're like, it's a man and a wolf. As though like, man and a wolf can never throw that dog 10 out of 10 towels. Okay? You know what a man and a wolf can never do, it's hucking dogs. I don't know, man. I don't know. He saw something he didn't like and he made him angry and sad. I have a question. Are you ever going to reveal your backstory? No. I don't know if it's necessary. I don't know if it's necessary. It hasn't become necessary. Are you in the next game that we play, can you just role play a little bit like, catting in goes in a corner and writes some stuff down on a piece of paper. And then just. That way, if you die and we don't hear your backstory, we can go through the body and be like, there's a letter. There's a letter. Are you talking about me dying in real life, Robbie Damon? No, you're all dying. Because I gave my backstory to Brett. I just could die at any moment all the time. And then we won't know, our characters won't know, but if we find a letter on his dead body that explains who he is and what he was. That's not how life works. That's not how life works. But I want to know. If I'm a lone man, if I die, my secrets go with me. It's sad, right? That's not true. There's a wolf. We could figure it out. Yeah, we can talk, speak with that. Kill the wolf and then speak with that. If Tyranny, or Thimble, or Wick finds out the catagant chucked that doll, are you going to reprimand him like he did for the night shift? Okay. Don't worry, the internet reprimanded me in this. For retconning Brennan's beautifully pristine dolls. And they're like, well, you're being one of them's rotten. It's wood. They're 25 years old. It's probably one is let me have a one RP moment. I have no problem with you grabbing narrative reins there. If you want to make a rotten doll in that home, that's your business. I say yes and motherfucker. I'm saying for a guy who's out here chucking dolls left and right, he came over the top hard on the night. He found something. That's why I did it in secret. I think you can make it. I think you can commit to it. Every time we see any dolls or anything small, just throw them. You can't stand in trouble. Okay, speaking of Laura being in trouble segue, what was it like losing a memory of The Ozzie? She doesn't know. And also Robbie didn't know. And then he said, yeah, I'm going to remind you and then you just never said it again. I don't have it. You could die tomorrow. I have it planned out. If it's apropos. Then I'll have to look in your pockets. You're a bunch of satisfaction junkies. You watch your backstory and your memories right out of the game. You know the memory she lost? Yeah. Yeah, she told me. We said it out loud. I was saying it out loud and then she took it. As it was happening. Yeah, I have it. That's so sad. So sad. Are you so cruel and mean? The audience is more endeared to characters going through hard times than easy times. So it's not my fault. It's actually the viewer's fault at home. Wow. I didn't think of how stories work. That's on us. That's on us as a species, really. Okay, I've got a question for Sam and Laura. Wick and Thimble had a difficult working relationship, you could say, during these travels. That is a way to put it. How are they feeling towards each other now? And how are you guys feeling towards each other? I think Wick thinks that everything's fine. They made up. No, honestly, I think Thimble is realizing that Wick's intentions are pure. Even if the things that come out of his dumb mouth are dumb. Yeah, I mean, good intent doesn't get you a lot if your head is on the chopping block. If you're being stalked and pursued by enemies. Sure. But it's rare, I think, in her past life to find anybody that, with everything that her enthiasi did, to find someone that is pure of intent, that actually wants to do good and be good. Yeah. It's like, oh, that's why. It's like, you can't possibly, that can't be real. And she's realizing, oh, that's real. I think Wick around Thimble is just like, you know, when you, in high school, when you talked to the super popular girl or whatever, not that he's like in love with her or obsessed with her. Are you secretly aware? No, I mean, no, that's not what I meant to say. Oh, God. But I think he just doesn't know quite how, he keeps messing up around her. He doesn't know how to, every time he tries to make it better, he makes it worse. Makes it worse. She's so intimidating. She's like the captain of every team. Deep? Like the Lookross team. She's just. It is daily life pre-campaign, beginning shenanigans that Wick would be one to be surrounded by like sycophants and. He was only put in situations where he could succeed, I think. Like he was, you know, if there was a big sermon event or whatever, other people would do the first 56 minutes of it and he would be brought out for the last three minutes to just say. His speech and everyone would applaud. During combat, people are just like, oh, oh my God, you're so strong. Wow. But a punch. He was never put in a position where he could really fail. So, yeah, this is all new. There's also, I think, something really beautiful on Wick's journey, which we're seeing right away, which is that it takes a tremendous amount of moral character to reject something that is very dear to you. If you're like, oh, this thing that I thought was true is a lie. Well, I have to reject it on principle. And that's fine. But there are other forces than just ideology that compel a person to do bad things or stay in a bad organization. And I think some of what we see with Wick is it's like, okay, my Candescent Creed was made up by my grandmother, the Faux Tartt, and this is all manipulative and bad and we're hurting people out here. Okay. I need another organization that will let me come in at the top because that's all I know how to do. And you go, there is none. And you're like, I don't have any other skill set or any other where to, and what do you mean everyone's going to dislike me and distrust me? Everyone in the bad place is nice to me and says I'm a good, good boy. If I join the good guys, you're all going to look at me what, with suspicion? This is awful. You know, like, you see what, like, that those, that D programming, for lack of a better word, is that the ideological part or the conviction or the principled part is just step one. Step after that of, okay, I'm a house cat. Where do I go now? I have to learn to be in the rain on the ground. Like, this is fucking awful. So it really is, I think, as Kudas to Sam as a, as a player and as a storyteller for taking this arc to go on this big adventure and still have Wick go, oh, I've taken this first heroic step and taking the first step means the door is right here still. Like, this is a journey of a thousand miles and I'm just getting started. It's awesome. It's really cool. Yeah. Well, speaking of Wick, I've got a, that queued me up for a great one because he's had a lot of new experiences with his body. You could say it is sort of a second, puberty is happening. Nice. How does he feel? You could say that. How does he feel about all the magic, magical things that are happening to him? Is he intrigued? Is he scared? Well, boy, he is going through some changes. I think he is, I think he is very conflicted. He is happy to be able to do some of these new things with his magic and with his abilities to help people and to help his new friends and stuff like that and to protect hopefully Tyranny and the others. But at the same time, he knows that these powers now sort of come from a dark place, a bad place. And so I think with every spell that he casts, especially ones that hurt people, he's like, I'm using magic that isn't mine, that has been stolen and it's bad magic and I'm using it to hurt people. And yes, it's sort of for a good reason, but it comes with guilt. There's a lot of Catholic Mormon Jewish guilt in everything he does, which he'll just have to get over or get past. I love the way you danced around it in the Wraith fight by doing color spray to mark the undone. Yeah, but trying not to hurt anybody the whole first 11 episodes. It's really impressive. It's great. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Is his faith growing or waning? Faith? Oh boy. Just in the world? I think in the creed. Oh, I mean in the creed it's definitely waned, but like I said as we were playing, there's nothing out there that I think if there's nothing to believe in, then he's dead. He's got nothing. If there's nothing to believe in, why are these miraculous things happening to you? I know. I think that's deep down in his heart of hearts. He does believe that there's something to believe in. He just doesn't quite know what it is anymore and thinks that maybe there's clues in what he's learned or clues out there that he can find, but there's something true in the world. He just has to find out what it is. This is a great segue to a question for Brennan that I see on here, which is how difficult is it to balance showing the good and bad of the Candescent Creed's work? I loved the candle feast and just sort of getting the, well it's not all bad, like there's people need something to believe in, so what was your process like discovering that balance? I think that, well that's a really lovely question. Showing moral nuance is how you make sure that, I think that the point of storytelling or the point of any kind of art in general is to try to talk about your experience of life in the world as faithfully as possible. I do sort of subscribe to the first moment you misrepresent the feelings or argument of your opponent is where you slip into making propaganda. In other words, if there's something you disagree with and you start to reframe it and strawman it and go like, let's make a less compelling version of their argument or let's make a less compelling version of this other ideology, I think that you betray your own faith in your own notions of the world. If you think that you're right, you shouldn't have to misrepresent what people you disagree with are saying. I think that within the Candescent Creed as something that's like within the world of Araman, there are certain like constants that feel true to life to me, which is that any large enough institution will have tremendous privilege and power for the people at the top and therefore people who as a core tenant of their personality seek position, privilege, and power will be drawn to that. Life is very complicated and there's lots of different kinds of people everywhere, but if you're pressed for time being skeptical of people in powers, not a bad guideline to go by. As like, hey, there might be a degree of moral nuance here, but I only got 10 minutes, so you might be up to something. It's not a bad way to go through life and I think that there's a certain degree of life. If I had a whole year to get to know you maybe, but you seem pretty fucking bad. I think within the Candescent Creed, a lot of it is what brings people to that ideology and if you look at the core of Wix's immediate family, we haven't really gotten to spend any time with Iris, but the one memory we saw of Iris of her comforting, it's also Iris is the one person that's not actually blood related to Yannessa that we've met, right? You and Zabani, your sister, and Goddard, your father are all directly... I'm a family better than I do. So it's such a wild move to make a whole holy book and then be like, I don't watch our show. Be like, here's the holy book, Brennan, your problem. But then looking at the common stuff too, you go like, yeah, the people that are saying, forget the fairies are actually building these anti-zombie walls. What do you do with that level of complexity? The zombie walls are good and the killing the fairies is bad and it's the same people doing both. And you know, it's like that just feels like... We haven't heard the zombie side of the story though, Brennan. We haven't! There's a zombie out there being like, when you destroyed the Wraith Tree. All right, we only have like a couple minutes left, but I want to ask everybody a question and then we go on to Beacon Bits. Oh, last question it says. Listen, I'm going to ask everybody a question and it's going to be rapid fire. Sam, where is Wick putting his faith now? It's in his butt. Great question. Robbie, how do you describe Kedigan's relationship with Wolfrick and how was meeting the hands of the king? That's my dog, those were other dogs. Okay, great. Laura, were you expecting Thimble to be such a stone cold killer and does it feel right to her? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. You're build fucking rules. There is a lot of... I mean, I like put it together in my head, I was like, wait, a flying swashbuckler? Oh no! Wait, that's an option? That's a bunch of power. Question for me, why am I doing Disguise Self? Brennan recommended it and it sounded cool. Why did I choose the form of a young girl? Honestly I wanted to get a reaction from Kedigan because I think he lost his daughter. I was trying to be... But then I like the idea of her being sort of like never having gone to have a childhood. And Brennan, my iPad stopped scrolling so what was the inspiration for the Dogs of Timony? Oh, the Hounds of the King! I really love the idea of a big part of the old path being reincarnation and the idea of what you do, a big part of Araman's lore is all about the loss of these afterlives, the seven shapers each had an afterlife that souls would go to and that the underworld expands with these souls because it's people who anticipated getting to be themselves forever. I don't have to reincarnate or have to move on. And thinking about how Druids would try to ease people through to this idea of like, no, we come back over and over and over again. And thinking about these different ways of meeting in the middle, of having a bunch of knights that were like, I swore an oath to serve in realms beyond to be ever loyal to my king. I understand that that can't happen anymore because we've overthrown the gods, but how do I keep this promise? And the idea of these Druids finding this way to keep this promise in a new way and being like, we can have you come back. And it's me, we didn't get into it on the show, but the idea of like why Hounds is A, Hounds have a specific meaning to the people of Timony just as a symbol, but also specifically to King Augustus, who was raised by a kennel master. And the idea of something about the loyalty of Hounds being a vessel that could call out to the souls of these knights. Yeah. I mean, a fan favorite for sure and definitely a highlight for us. We love those doggies. I love dogs. We love dogs. Well, that brings us to the end of our time here at Tailgate. If you're watching on YouTube or Twitch, thank you for having some tea with us and we'll see you again very soon after the Seekers arc. But if you're watching us on Beacon, don't go anywhere. Don't get up to pee. We're heading straight into the nightcap where we can open up the conversation to our Beacon bits on our exclusive Beacon Discord. Sam's going to show whole. We'll see you there. That's all for this festive frivolity. Thank you so much for being here today. You're cordially invited to our exclusive after party. Head over to beacon.tv for the nightcap and hear the cast answer questions directly from our Beacon bits. Have something you'd like to ask our adventurers? Become a Beacon member at beacon.tv and join us live for the next tailgate to get your burning questions answered by the cast themselves. We'll see you next time. The tables turn.