Quests N’ Answers | Meet the Team Behind Sagas of Sundry: Goblin Mode

Summary

Summary of "Quests N’ Answers | Meet the Team Behind Sagas of Sundry: Goblin Mode"

Release Date: December 2, 2024
Podcast: Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry
Host: Graham Ehlers Sheldon

---

1. Introduction to the Episode

In this special "Quests N’ Answers" episode, Graham Ehlers Sheldon, the director of Sagas of Sundry: Goblin Mode, welcomes listeners to an in-depth discussion with the core team behind the current season. The episode serves as a behind-the-scenes look into the creative processes, collaborative efforts, and unique challenges faced during the production of this engaging RPG series.

---

2. Meet the Team

Graham introduces the key members of the production team:

• Clint Carney – Production Designer
• Cece Anderson – Makeup Lead
• Alex Winkler – Music Composer
• Rin Ehlers Sheldon – Story Producer and Writer
• Matt Karan – Head Editor

Each member shares their role and contributions, setting the stage for a comprehensive exploration of the show's creation.

---

3. Production Design with Clint Carney

Clint delves into the inception of the show's visual aesthetic. When initially approached by Graham, Clint began with concept art and sketches to capture the "goblin" vibe. A pivotal moment was the creation of the massive goblin mask:

Clint Carney [02:08]: "You know, I certainly didn't realize that it was going to be five feet tall when we were initially talking about it, but once I started going through the design, I realized it was only really going to work if it was at that large scale."

The mask evolved into a taxidermy-like mount, complete with illuminated eyes and Jolly Roger-esque axes, adding depth and character to the set.

---

4. Makeup Artistry with Cece Anderson

Cece discusses her dynamic role in bringing characters to life through makeup. Initially brought on board last minute, she quickly adapted to the evolving narrative and set design:

Cece Anderson [03:46]: "We really brought the world into, like, you know, they, like, immersed them in the world. And I just thought, Amy's like this really cool best friend host that's hosting this really great party."

Cece highlights the interplay between makeup and lighting, enhancing the storytelling by progressively amplifying Amy's goblin host persona with each episode.

---

5. Composing the Musical Landscape with Alex Winkler

Alex explains his approach to crafting the show's music, emphasizing a balance between epic themes and the personal growth of the characters:

Alex Winkler [05:53]: "I used mandolin, and I didn't hire a professional mandolin player. I played it myself. Now I'm not a good mandolin player. And that kind of actually was charming after a while because you realize, like, oh, it's about people who don't know their power yet."

This intentional imperfection adds a "homemade" feel, reflecting the ragtag nature of the protagonists. Additionally, Alex discusses the use of layered musical stems to adapt to varying intensities in combat scenes, ensuring the music evolves with the narrative.

---

6. Story Production Insights with Rin Ehlers Sheldon

Rin offers a deep dive into the collaborative storytelling process with DM Amy Vorpahl. She outlines the strategic planning and adaptability required to maintain narrative coherence while allowing players' choices to shape the story:

Rin Ehlers Sheldon [08:31]: "She's very focused on creating this wonderful game for them and being their referee. And then I'm also thinking a little more about the audience."

Rin emphasizes the importance of balancing player agency with audience engagement, ensuring that unexpected plot twists remain coherent and impactful.

---

7. Editing and Post-Production with Matt Karan

Matt discusses the complexities of editing live, multicam shows where audio and visual elements must seamlessly integrate to enhance storytelling:

Matt Karan [10:08]: "I'm just trying to do my best at harnessing all of that energy and those moments, and sometimes it's chaos, just pure chaos, just trying to highlight those and make sure that I can take that energy and bring it to the people watching the video."

He elaborates on the use of sound effects and visual cues to maintain immersion for both video viewers and podcast listeners, striving for a balance that enriches the experience without overwhelming the audience.

---

8. Director’s Perspective with Graham Ehlers Sheldon

Graham shares his vision and leadership style, focusing on collaboration and adaptability:

Graham Ehlers Sheldon [16:33]: "It kind of works out to some extent... I think that is what real collaboration is, is that everyone, very literally in this room has a seat at the table."

He highlights the importance of fostering a creative environment where team members feel empowered to contribute and innovate, ensuring that the show's dynamic energy translates effectively to the audience.

---

9. Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts

As the episode concludes, Graham reflects on the emotional journey of bringing Goblin Mode to fruition, thanking the team for their dedication and creativity. The crew shares final remarks, expressing excitement for future episodes and ongoing collaboration.

Graham Ehlers Sheldon [34:26]: "It's strange kind of walking onto this set with all of you as we were getting going here, you know, now that the whole season is in the can... I keep finding new stuff too."

Listeners are encouraged to watch or listen to Sagas of Sundry: Goblin Mode to experience the culmination of the team's hard work and creative synergy.

---

Key Takeaways

• Collaborative Creativity: The success of Goblin Mode lies in the seamless collaboration between diverse departments, each bringing unique skills to the table.

• Adaptability: The team emphasizes the importance of flexibility in storytelling and production design to accommodate the dynamic nature of actual play RPGs.

• Immersive Storytelling: Through meticulous design, makeup, music, and editing, the team creates an immersive experience that captivates both video and podcast audiences.

• Audience Engagement: Balancing player-driven narratives with audience expectations ensures that the story remains engaging and coherent.

---

This episode offers a comprehensive glimpse into the intricate processes behind Sagas of Sundry: Goblin Mode, showcasing the dedication and ingenuity of the geekandsundry team in crafting an enthralling RPG experience.

Transcript

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Bingo Blitz rules. If your bingo has ads in it.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

That'S not a bingo.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

If it doesn't have the coolest tournaments, mini games, and the most breathtaking design.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Nope, not a bingo.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

If your bingo moment makes you feel so excited that you just want to burst in joy and scream out loud, bingo.

[Unknown]

Sorry.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

So you're playing Bingo Blitz.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Now that's a bingo. Cover a world of excitement with Bingo Blitz, the number one free bingo game. Download Bingo Blitz and play for free.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Now that's a bingo. Want to shop Walmart Black Friday deals first. Walmart plus members get early access to our hottest deals. Join now and get 50% off a one year annual membership. Shop Black Friday deals first with Walmart plus see [e-mail] hello everyone. Welcome to a very special Question Answers Crew edition. My name is Graham Ehlers Sheldon. I am the director for season one of Sagas of Sundry Goblin Mode. And I am surrounded by really some of my favorite people. These are some of the department heads, a cross section. It's not everybody. Of the season one of Sagas of Sundry Goblin Mode. And why don't we go around the table, tell the people who you are and what you do. Starting with you, Clint.

[Clint Carney]

Hi, I'm Clint Carney. I'm the production designer.

[Cece Anderson]

I'm Cece Anderson. I'm the makeup lead for Goblin Mode.

[Alex Winkler]

I'm Alex Winkler. I'm the music composer for Goblin Mode.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

My name is Rin Ehlers Sheldon and I'm one of the story producers and a writer.

[Matt Karan]

And I'm Matt Karan. I'm the head editor for Goblin Mode.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

So why don't we start in production order? I guess that might mean with you, Clint, with production design. You're one of the first people that we called when we started thinking about Sagas of Sundry Goblin Mode. Walk me through from your perspective some of those initial what did we talk about?

[Clint Carney]

Well, first you told me what the show was. I thought it was a cool idea. And then you talked about kind of what you would like to see in the show. So we started out by doing some concept art, some sketches, and just kind of going back and forth to get the vibe that you were looking for.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

With this set, with this incredible set that we're sitting in right now. And I remember right off the bat, Clint, you pitched me a mask, which almost undersells it a little bit, but this incredible mask that's right behind my head right now. So you said, you know, wouldn't it be cool if we had a goblin mask? And then you kind of went from there. Did you have a specific inspiration for this?

[Clint Carney]

You know, I certainly didn't realize that it was going to be five feet tall when we were initially talking about it, but once I started going through the design, I realized it was only really going to work if it was at that large scale. And then I thought, well, if we're going to do a Goblin, why not do him as almost a taxidermy mount? You know, that's why he's got the mount with the kind of the Jolly Roger esque positioning of the axes there. And. Yeah, and then I think the light up eyes came about too, just as I was getting into the build. And then I thought, you know what would be cool? If his eyes light up. And I pitched it to you. You liked it, and that's what we did.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, you've done a great job just making this set feel rugged. You know, Goblin built in a way. It's just been very cool to see. So, CeCe, why don't we hop down the line to you? I mean, the makeup this season has been such a huge part of the story, and I wish in some ways I had sort of conceived of that going in, but you surprised me in the best possible way with the whole cast, but especially with Amy. Talk about just the makeup story and how you approach this.

[Cece Anderson]

Thank you. So when. And I got brought in sort of last minute, and we were on. I was on a shoot with Amy, and she goes, hey, how would you like to work on this next show that I'm doing? And I said, I mean, yeah, of course. Because, like, we have a long working relationship. We've done some really incredible photo shoots. We did a porcelain doll shoot where I turned Amy into this living doll in my living room. She's brought me in for other kind of creative shoots of hers. We have worked together on Nerdist News in the past, and when I saw this set and I was like, it's so inspired because really, it's just a round table tabletop game. And we really brought the world into, like, you know, they, like, immersed them in the world. And I just thought, Amy's like this really cool best friend host that's hosting this really great party. And I just saw her in the center of the table, and then I was like, oh, okay, I get it. Like, we can build a story with the makeup as well and bring it into this kind of world building. And every episode, the makeup gets a little bigger. And if you look, there is sort of a hint at what the episode might be about. So we had a lot of fun on the show. Yeah, for sure.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

I mean, getting to see that. Cece, honestly, one of my favorite things is when different departments start surprising me. Right. You mentioned you saw Clint's production design, and that informed what you were doing. And then perhaps the lighting played a part in that as well.

[Cece Anderson]

Oh, totally. I mean, because it's lit the way that it's lit, and the set is the way that it is, I was like, oh, we could do some cool stuff with some light catching gems. And you'll see some of her looks, they just get bigger and bigger. And by the end of it, I think she just looks like this Goblin rockstar host that's here with all her Goblin friends to build this world, this amazing world around them. It's definitely one of the most fun parts of storytelling through makeup for me, is. Is being able to create characters.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Alex, you were someone else who surprised me in a good way on this show. I'm trying to remember. Maybe take us back to those initial conversations, just like we did with Clint, that we had about the music for the show. Just that initial back and forth. What was that like for you?

[Alex Winkler]

Yeah. The thing that was interesting is you wanted something that wasn't just purely epic, like pure Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, because we've heard those.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Kinds of fantasy themes before.

[Alex Winkler]

Yeah, right. And that it's not always this big, bombastic epicness. Sometimes it's about the ragtag element of heroes that don't know their heroes yet, and so they're going on a journey to discover that power. And so we kind of did that with the music, where it starts off a little bit more humble, more of a jaunty feeling, and then it explodes into this epic climax. And so that's supposed to sort of mirror what happens to these characters throughout the story.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Remember, we also talked about the imperfection of this group of characters. You know what I mean? Trying to introduce different clanks and some noises that you might not expect from just your classic sort of instrumentation. Right.

[Alex Winkler]

It's funny because you say imperfections are part of the process. That was pretty fun to work with because I used mandolin, and I didn't hire a professional mandolin player. I played it myself. Now I'm not a good mandolin player. And that kind of actually was charming after a while because you realize, like, oh, it's about people who don't know their power yet. So it kind of gave it sort of a homemade feeling.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Oh, I love that.

[Matt Karan]

I love it.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Bizzy. Might be playing. I'm pointing at you. This is where Bizzy sits. Normally, if you've been watching the show, it's like Bizzy's kind of playing the mandolin or something. As a bard. Absolutely. That's so, so cool to me. Moving along to Rin. Hello. You are a story producer and a writer on this show, so folks at home might not know. How does that work in the context of a D and D campaign like this? What does a story producer do?

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, mostly what I'm doing is supporting Amy, and she is making giant decision trees. If someone doesn't know how one DMs. She's trying to guide the story to a place that she hopes they'll go. But Amy, in particular is a really generous dm. And so even on days where we had planned for them to go somewhere specific, but they chose to go somewhere entirely different, I'd say, well, you know, like, we could just kind of, like, fudge the geography and put that place in the way of where they want to go. And she'd be like, no, I honor their decisions. So together, we would try to build exciting challenges for the characters and also give them rewards and gifts and definitely try to figure out what motivates each one. So I don't know. Does that answer your question?

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

It does. You know, the decision tree side of it is a very interesting and I think, good way of thinking about it. It's sort of a classic sort of game design. You know, decision A plus decision B equals decision C or and on and on and on. You can see how that becomes sort of a tre. But I loved how you guys have specifically been very pro players, in a sense. You're like, no, no, no. This is where they want to go.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Right.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Which can be a little teeny bit stressful. Luckily, I don't have to sit in this chair, but Amy pivots perfectly when needed.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, and it's also, for me, I'm thinking about. She's very focused on creating this wonderful game for them and being their referee. And then I'm also thinking a little more about the audience. Like, what does the audience know? What do they not know? What do they need a little bit more of? And then together, we try to strategize with, well, we know that this character tends to not take this kind of bait, so what kind of head fake can we give him or her to maybe go in the direction that we need them to go?

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, I want to come back to more of the surprise element in a moment here, but I didn't realize this. We're kind of going in a. A little bit of a circuitous route around the table from pre through post production. That was completely by accident, but also very cool. So, Matt, you are editing so many incredible hours of content, so maybe we start there. So you're the editor of the show. You're also head of post as well at Geek and Sundry. We can say, yeah, I just try.

[Matt Karan]

To keep the videos coming and going and nothing falls in the cracks.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Okay. All around. Post guru, it's fair to say. Sure.

[Matt Karan]

I talk of all trades that, yeah, I just want to make sure the videos get made and that they look great.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, how do you approach a show with this kind of scope? Just what are you thinking about out of the gate?

[Matt Karan]

Oh, sure. I mean, it's definitely a unique type of show. It being unscripted and it being a round table discussion and you're at the same time telling a story. And with all the amazing things that everyone here at the table has brought to the production as well as the players, the cast and the dm, you know, I'm just trying to do my best at harnessing all of that energy and those moments, and sometimes it's chaos, just pure chaos, just trying to highlight those and make sure that I can take that energy and bring it to the people watching the video. And yeah, it's just trying to make a fun story and enhance the story that's already happening.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

But you're wearing a lot of different hats too, in terms of the medium where this is going. So this is hopefully, you know, by now also a podcast as well. So you sort of have a podcast hat on. You have a visual, you know, digital video hat on. Are you kind of keeping those things both balanced as you go, trying to make it satisfying for listeners and watchers?

[Matt Karan]

Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of lucky in that, like, I'm taking a lot of my experiences from when I was younger. I grew up listening to a lot of radio plays with my dad and I'm also a musician. So I'm trying to make sure that this works as audio and that you can picture while you're listening to the show, you can picture exactly what's happening in the imaginations of the players in the dm. So taking that and then at the same time enhancing the video to have a lot of the same similar cues that you would be hearing in just.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

The audio, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about this tapestry. Clint. Incredible.

[Clint Carney]

Thank you.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

I hope people at home are I hope you can see enough of this tapestry to understand that there's real story happening here on my left. Talk about this tapestry.

[Clint Carney]

Well, that all came from Amy. She came up with. I mean, she created the story for the show. And so when we had initial discussions about the tapestry, she had an idea kind of for what would exist within each panel. And then it was my job to interpret what these strange characters would be and, you know, illustrate them accordingly. And that's pretty much how it came out. So, yeah, did a few revisions and a few drafts, and Amy had some notes that were spot on to create what you see here.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

I just love it. Hopefully future Matt will put some B roll right here of the initial sketch that Amy made. It's very cool. You see the searing, you see the bad guys, you see some sundari. I mean, it's very cool. And you took that initial concept and you just ran with it, and this. I mean, other than the mask, this might be one of my favorite parts of this set. I keep finding new stuff, too.

[Clint Carney]

Thank you.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

So incredibly cool. Cece, for you, was there a favorite Amy look for this season or one that you planned the most or that you were looking forward to?

[Cece Anderson]

Honestly, we did it a little bit episode to episode, because some of the things that initially we had planned ended up not quite working because the story took a turn. So we ended up having to be very creative on the fly. And that's actually really fun, too, especially when you have people that are game and down for anything. And Amy is very much, you know, she's down to dress up, and she's down to role play and do kind of whatever. So I think initially my most inspired look was one of the first ones was the pirate. Can I say it?

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah.

[Cece Anderson]

The pirate look from. I think it was episode two. And, yeah, she sent me some inspiration, and I was just like, yeah, I love this. I was like, can I do this? Is this a thing that I can do on this show? And she goes, anything you want. And I was like, what a dream.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Cece, I remember you. You maybe texted me, you asked me, you said, hey, what's the lighting going to be like for this X episode? And the answer is, truly, I am not fully sure all the time. There's some level of planning that goes into this. But we're also, like Rin mentioned, living a little bit on the seat of our pants, just trying to support however we can. But, I mean, I'm able to put us in moonlight if we have to.

[Cece Anderson]

Yeah, that's so cool.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Or we can go into combat, but you were very willing to roll with the punches, which I very much appreciate on this.

[Cece Anderson]

It's so helpful to have a director and producer and everybody who is so game to work with each other and really create the world. Also, I have my right hand, Edwin Monzon, who creates the looks for Danielle, and he's got really creative ideas, and he's brought in a lot of cool thoughts when it comes to the makeup and how we can work with kind of a very stationary, kind of stagnant set and create movement and create story in visual ways, because really, it's a round table. And when you have a lot of action in film, you know, it's, like, very easy to kind of get immersed in the world, but it's a little. It's more challenging when it's stationary.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, it's been so nice to have the makeup be, you know, take center stage literally right here. I mean, the rest of the cast, too, but especially, as I said, Amy's looks a killer.

[Cece Anderson]

And I hope that when there's new episodes coming out, people get excited to see the look as they're listening to the podcast, so it'll just be a clue that there's a new one coming out.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah, you know, I mean, you bring up an interesting point. I hope people, you know, watch a couple episodes and then maybe listen to a couple episodes. I think it would be cool if that's how the viewership ends up, but we shall see. You guys always will surprise us.

[Cece Anderson]

You'll catch different things.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

But, Graham, you haven't talked about your own work as the DP and the director.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, I showed off a little lighting. Remember, combat mode? There we go. Ooh, combat. Little combat.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Talk about your approach when. Because I think on its face, if you said to a director, like, I want you to make a show out of three people sitting at a table or four people sitting at a table, they might kind of go, oh, you know, like, maybe there's not a lot to do there. So, like, what is the strategy for you in your approach to the style of the show?

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

You know, for me, I sort of know if I bring together. This is not just because you're all sitting here, a cohesive group of very talented people, some of which I've worked before, some of which I haven't worked before, which has been an amazing discovery. It kind of works out to some extent. Obviously, I'm trying to sort of guide the ship, and I'm never sort of aiming for 100% because A. I think that's kind of impossible. I'm aiming for like 80s or 90% right of executing the vision that really, I mean, Dan Casey, executive producer, sort of bestowed on me to help execute very, very early on. But you need to allow yourself, I think, to be a little bit surprised on a case. Happily surprised, ideally by the people around you. Because I think that is what real collaboration is, is that everyone, very literally in this room has a seat at the table. By the way, there's a few folks, actually that aren't able to sit here right now because they are mission critical to recording this right now. So shout out to Alex first, AC Grant, who's over there, who's a legendary digital intern, and then Jim, who's over there mixing audio right now. Grab a pic of the guys over there. There they are. Very often it's just about bringing together a team of people who are smarter than you. I mean, I don't want to make you feel like that's a cop out, but there's definitely a moment, though, where you sit down, I'm talking about the players and Amy, the dm, where you're like a few minutes into the episode, I don't know if you feel this. We're like, are we cool? Is this dynamic going to work? Because you think about a cast and casting this group of people around this table and it can all look real good on paper, but when you add the group together and they start playing off of each other in these incredible ways and then you're like, ooh, I could do this with the lighting or we could do this with the music, or the makeup could become this. That's when my heart feels just incredibly big. Because that's the dynamic that works. And if the dynamic between the players and the crew works, then we have something pretty special.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

I know you don't want to toot your own horn, but talk a little bit about what you're actually doing.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Oh, like on a day to day basis while we're filming this thing, While.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

The players are playing.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

What all you're overseeing because it is quite a lot.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, so I'm liaising with Siobhan Edward Howard, our story producer. I am talking to you, our other story producer and writer. I'm talking to Matt often, like, hey, something just happened in this episode. And very often Matt is actually watching the stream live, for example, right around the ethereal plane. You were like, what if we did a plate? We'll see if this is in the edit. What if we did this plate where we were able to add in some layers of mist. So that's kind of amazing when you think about a live multicam show like this. Getting feedback from the department heads who aren't in the room and are watching the stream is kind of incredible. So I'm talking to all of you guys as we're shooting, trying to plan for the future, trying to plan for this moment in post, trying to land a story beat with Pekara Pekora. And I'm also running lights live to some extent. So a little bit, I guess, how we do the lighting in here. So there's this foreground piece that is lighting all of our faces and I have independent control over that. And then we also are using an image based lighting system. Shout out to Kevin Stiller for helping me figure this one out. And we're piping in real video content into the background. So when a portal opens, you'll get the flashes as the portal opens. And also, since we're talking about image based lighting, shout out to the De Soli brothers who made some of the very cool images that are on this television in front of us right here. So in some instances, the players will enter an environment, they'll see a representation of it here, and maybe we'll go full screen to it in the edit for a moment so that everyone at home can see that environment. And that same environment is also being piped into the lighting to some extent. So it's just this cohesive way of sometimes, you know, okay, well, perhaps combat is happening here, but I still want it to feel like they're in a haunted moonlight realm or something like that and those pieces play together. So, yeah, I'm hitting lighting buttons and I'm talking about story stuff and also just along for the ride, which has been an absolute incredible journey.

[Clint Carney]

So when you first called me about this project, it seemed to me that you already had a very clear vision for what this show was going to be. And then my job became to execute on your vision, try to get it as close to what you wanted. Like, I think you're selling yourself a bit short in terms of, I think, at least to me, it feels like you already have it in your head. And then our job becomes to execute what you've envisioned. At what point in time does it click for you? Like you know what the show is going to be or you just discover it as you go along?

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, from a design perspective, I mean, some of the things I initially mentioned to you and that I mentioned to Alex and then eventually Cece we started talking about are the rough Hewn elements. You know, goblins and skeletons and undead folk are not minions. Henchmen are not perhaps great at construction. You know, obviously you're good at construction, but toning that down, removing some of the angles, you know, not having a lot of 90 degrees. We're also, you know, a little behind the scenes where a lot of Nerdist is filmed. A lot of geek and sundry videos are filmed. So breaking up that set that you've seen quite often on a lot of other episodes in Nerdist News, for example, making it feel like, okay, there are wood paneling elements that feel like something that's very geek and sundry, but we're adding a lot of different skeletons. And especially actually, while I'm here, Clint, can you tell me what this is without looking at it too much?

[Clint Carney]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. So that is a.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Because that's from your personal collection.

[Clint Carney]

Yeah, yeah, it's something. I'm a weirdo. I collect skulls and things like that.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Oh, I thought you're awesome. Like, continue.

[Clint Carney]

Just a bunch of weird parts. So that is a saber toothed tiger skull with a gorilla jaw and then deer antlers mounted. So cool.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

And we have to. We gotta give that back to you after this.

[Clint Carney]

I hope so.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Okay. Yeah. So, you know, Yeah, I knew those elements, like rough hewn, like goblins built this, skeletons built this. And I knew who we had and I knew for our cast and I had seen some of the vision, especially from the great world building docs again from Dan and Amy Radcliffe. So I knew a little bit about where we were going and we knew enough to construct this tapestry early on. We had enough of those world building elements to figure that out as well. But, you know, did we have it all figured out? No. You know, we don't want to lock ourselves into all of these decisions upfront. And, you know, there's places from your story that unfortunately we're never going to get to see. We didn't get to see in this season. Maybe some future season. Fingers crossed. And there's also elements, you know, that the Destolli brothers put together that we also didn't get to see because the players just never decided to go there. Alex, back to you. One of my favorite of your original pieces has to be the combat theme. So I remember during our original conversations, I didn't give you very much upfront feedback other than what we previously discussed. But I want stuff to be kind of hummable. And if I catch myself humming a tune later in the car, I think that's a win. And the combat song. Well, a. Why don't you go into the complexity of that? Because there's a bunch of different stems, and we can use it in different ways. So dive into the combat piece of music. Yeah.

[Alex Winkler]

When I think of combat music, I think of sort of the paradigm is games, video games. Because throughout a video game, you could fight a boss for 30 minutes, and you might be at different levels of intensity. You might be fighting his minions, and then you might fight the main guy. And so you need different levels of intensity. And so for that, we used a stem approach, which means every instrument family, like the strings, the brass, and the percussion, they're all in different tracks. And that way in post, the editing team can actually piece that together. And in lower intensity moments, maybe just have some percussion. And then once there's real threat, you put in the brass, you put in the strings. So that was something I knew we could do creatively as a workflow. But the thing I wanted to do is, again, keep it hummable a little bit. You mentioned, like, the main theme we had. You were singing in the car. And so I wanted to have some twisted version, a battle version of our theme in there. And so we basically just adjusted the scale. If anyone's a music person, it's no longer minor or major. It's more like octatonic. It's way more dangerous, way more strange. And so that sort of keeps you off balance and off kilter.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah. And there's part. There's different stems, if you will, within there. That's kind of. It's like, oh, what are they gonna do next? Or, oh, this was a big hit. And my mind was instantly connecting those stems with a part of combat that I was seeing live as we were shooting the show. Which means, you know, I think you're killing it if I'm making those connections. I wish I could play music live as we're recording this, but little complicated for Samoa.

[Matt Karan]

We can add it in post Tunisia's helmet for us.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah, right here. Rin, why don't we go back to the story for a moment? So you touched on this a little bit working with DM Amy Vorpal. But can you dive a little deeper into that relationship? Like, what are the kinds of things you guys are discussing?

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

We have a lot of meetings. Originally. She created a lot without me, and then I came in to support her about two weeks before production.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, I should also mention that thanks to Dan Casey and Amy Radcliffe, who did a lot of initial work on the world building documents that then sort of was transferred over to you and Amy to kind of take the ball and run with it. So.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Yes, yes. And then Amy got sort of the trajectory of the campaign, as she sort of hoped, with about the first half of the episodes more specific with different beats, and then the second half very loose because we had no idea what they were going to do. So that could all just change. And you don't want to just write a bunch that you're never going to use. I mean, we did use quite a bit that we never used, which is actually.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Is that a bummer? Can I just ask?

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah, it's a bummer because now that the show is over, they watched all the episodes. There was a scene that I was really excited about where they were in the airship and they were going to interrupt two mating dragons and piss them off. And it never got to happen because they got into a battle with Palacius, who's this air elemental.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

And me being a Final Fantasy nerd, I'm a huge airship guy. So all the airship stuff, I was like, more airship?

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah. So what would happen? So we did some initial planning sessions, and then a lot would be. Amy would present me with an idea for the episode, and then I would say, oh, awesome.

[Unknown]

How?

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

And who's this? And wait, how are they connected? And so a lot of times when you're playing with your friends at home, you can skip some of those things. But when you have an audience watching, you do have to paint a more thorough picture or think about the story as a show and not just the game that you're setting up for your friends. So that's kind of where I would come in. And then sometimes I would just pitch her wild ideas, and she was very generous in indulging me in some of them. But then we would always have sort of a postmortem after every single episode of, okay, like, this is what worked, this is what didn't work. So we're clearly throwing out this whole storyline, or we're gonna kill off this person, or this character seems a little bit too woe begotten. And how are we going to resurrect this? Because we cannot sustain this for multiple episodes because then it's tedious for the audience and they're not invested anymore. So it's a lot of those types of conversations. And then the night before the episode, then we kind of strategize for what do we really want to hit what's very, very important because of what's coming for the next 10 episodes or two episodes.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Now, I overheard A little bit of one of your initial planning calls with Amy, which, by the way, last a couple hours. And I was immediately.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

We were friends.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah, yeah. Which. True. Yeah. I'm not knocking that. You know, it's a lot of work. But I was very quickly like, oh, I just need to stay out of this and let this happen. Cause this is going really well. Well.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

And we also, a lot of times we just are imagining something and we build out something that's really full and then we're like, oh, no, we can't do that because they actually don't have that yet. Or, oh, we can't do that because then that deflates this other thing that's coming up next.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

It's also partially like a classic continuity job in a way. Right. Just knowing who has what items win and which NPCs are with the party win.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Yes. And that's another thing, is that when the episode is shooting, our other story, producer Siobhan Howard and myself, we're watching and if they happen to make choices that actually don't check out with what has already happened, we would be like, stop, stop, stop, hold. Like you don't have that anymore because you left that in the cave. Or excuse me, where is Pakara? Where is Pakara?

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Pokora Pakara. Okay.

[Cece Anderson]

I appreciate that though, because it gives us a chance to jump in and do touch ups.

[Matt Karan]

Oh, what?

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Glad to know that.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah. Because it's hard for me sometimes. Like, I don't want to stop the momentum of something that's happening. And then usually it's one of Tippy's hairs is like Mind in its Own, I feel like. Which is good for his character. That makes sense, right?

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah, that's right.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yeah. To you, Matt, with your job, how do you think about pacing something like this? Are you kind of following them into combat and you want it to feel a little bit more twitchy? Are you trying to let moments breathe? What's your process like when it comes to pacing something like this?

[Matt Karan]

Well, for episodes of the scale that we're doing, it's kind of already convenient that they are like almost feature length stories in each episode. So that already lends itself to a certain type of structure that it's just like, okay, cool. I know by this point in the episode, this is the recap of what we've just seen. Or here's some exposition that Amy is setting a new scene or setting that, oh, cool, I'm gonna put in a music cue. Or especially when you do a lighting change, that inspires me to Do a little more sound design or slow down the pace, something like that. Anything that makes this more cinematic and lends itself more to the theater of the mind that everyone at the table is experiencing. That's just to translate what is happening here in the energy of the table into the video or the podcast.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

You know, I've been trying to mind meld with you sort of mid shooting. I hope you've been feeling it, but there's a moment where say the airship is overhead during the heist and you're feeling the rotor blades and the lighting I hope is kind of accentuating that. And I'm like, oh, Matt, please have a helicopter SFX in here.

[Matt Karan]

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's just like any new element that comes in. It's just like you want the audience to feel it just as much as the players are in the moment. You could very easily just be watching people sitting at a table talking about something that's happening. But there needs to be that level of engagement that locks the viewers into the players seats right then and there.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Well, now I'm looking at the clock and I have to wrap things up fairly quickly here. But last question. I'll leave it for you, Matt. Graphics. What's the role of graphics in something like this? Because you can get to a certain level of crunchiness when it comes to the game mechanics or you could try to pick a middle ground, which I think you're more of the middle ground right. When it comes to showing these things.

[Matt Karan]

Yeah, I'm definitely very engineered brained for.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

This kind of stuff.

[Matt Karan]

And I like a lot of the crunchy things in tabletop game playing modifiers and the actual dice numbers. I'm just trying to bring what are the elements that are specific to role playing games that do rely on some of the visuals that if you're watching this as a movie, or sorry, if you're watching this as a video, you do get the same type of visual cues that the players are getting. And then at the same time, when you're listening to it as a podcast, if someone rolls well, oh, I have this wonderful little sound effect that's like a nice little magical shimmer. Or if they roll really badly or really poorly, it's just almost like a well, you fell in the dirt kind of sound. So anything like that is I think just enough to keep the viewers and listeners engaged as if they are playing the game. But I'm also not trying to overload them with too much information that's just going to bog them down or be confusing because Then no one likes to.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Read the rule book.

[Matt Karan]

We like to play the game. We just don't like to read the rules.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Yes, I am exactly that kind of gamer, so I feel you. Well, look, you know, it's strange kind of walking onto this set with all of you as we were getting going here, you know, now that the whole season is in the can, as we say, I was getting a little emotional. It's just we've seen these characters go on such an incredible journey right here. I mean, you know, Clint, there's some energy to your little mountain peaks here. That's just been very cool to experience, if only for a little bit of time. So thank you all for your incredible work on this season.

[Clint Carney]

Thank you.

[Cece Anderson]

Thank you for having me.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Why don't we leave it there? Thank you so much at home for watching the work of all of the people at this table and the people back there behind the cameras. Don't forget, I hope you've watched Sagas of Sundry Goblin Mode Season one. But if you haven't, go back and look at all the episodes or listen to them. As you know, Dan Casey would say, wherever fine podcasts are served. Thanks for watching, everybody. Cool. All right.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

Hey, hey.

[Matt Karan]

I already have a pickup request.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Oh, okay.

[Leroy Luna]

Buffet brawlers. Glory holes gone wrong. Cannibalistic castration cabins. Public poopers. These are just a few of the crazy topics you'll hear covered on Excuse Me, that's Illegal, the pettiest podcast around. Whether you need a break from all that murdery true crime stuff or just enjoy hearing hilarious stories told in a unique way, I got what you need. I'm Leroy Luna, your fearless host chauffeur. So come hop in my minivan and let's go for a ride. I promise you probably won't be disappointed. Excuse me, that's Illegal is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, basically everywhere you consume podcasts, with new episodes dropping on the 10th, 20th, and 30th of the month. Baby.

[Unknown]

Nothing is as it seems in liminal London. Hidden amongst everyday people are werewolves.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

You'll be the werewolf then. Yeah.

[Cece Anderson]

Megs.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Wizards Montgomery, Archibald Barker at your bloody service.

[Unknown]

And those cursed by the fey monarchs of the city.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

That can be Canon PI. He has quite a large pair of antlers growing out of his forehead.

[Unknown]

Join the unlikely misfits of liminal London as they work to take down the powers that claim to rule the city.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

I think the queen doesn't like you very much.

[Unknown]

With incredible guest players like Johnny Chiadini.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

You say there's sludge yeah.

[Unknown]

Sludge.

[Clint Carney]

Yeah, I'm the sludge boy.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

F ing love.

[Cece Anderson]

Sludge boy.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

No, again, I'm not that sludge boy.

[Unknown]

Grant Howitt.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

Isaac Newton didn't study in F Putney, did he?

[Leroy Luna]

Who's Isaac?

[Clint Carney]

Oh my God.

[Unknown]

And Sharmini Bundell.

[Graham Ehlers Sheldon]

There's a magic community.

[Alex Winkler]

There is.

[Cece Anderson]

Yay.

[Rin Ehlers Sheldon]

I'm in a magic community.

[Unknown]

Go to realmspod.com or search realms of Peril and Glory wherever you listen to podcasts to find this mysteriously magical actual play series.

Listening to a podcast should be time well spent, and I promise it will be if you'll give this podcast a try. It's called Something you should Know. I'm the host, Mike Carruthers, and in every episode I talk with leading experts on topics I know you will find fascinating from why people can't keep secrets, what your favorite music says about you, why your pet acts in strange ways, and so much more. Something you should Know is designed to give you information you can use in your life and give you great intel that you can share with others. I'm told it's a binge worthy podcast and with over a thousand episodes, there's a lot to binge on. Something you should Know has been ranked in the top of the Apple podcast charts consistently for a long time. I know you're going to like this. I just need to get you to try it. Something you should Know. It's available wherever you listen to podcasts.