Transcript
WEBVTT
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I lived my life in my twenties, like I wouldn't see 30.
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And now that I'm in my fifties, my body's like, Hey, remember those checks you wrote?
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Yeah, insufficient funds, my friend.
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If you're a new DM or storyteller, don't be afraid.
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We'll see how something got broken.
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We'll talk about how to fix it with a rule so that it limits what things can do.
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And then I immediately create a trait that helps kind of skirt that.
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And so I leaned back on the horse and this piece of wood is sticking out of me.
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Everybody thought that I got impaled and it was great for the show.
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Hello, friends.
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Welcome to Characters Without Stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled.
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I'm Star.
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This episode, I'm joined by Stephan, a retired fitness professional and theater nerd who has channeled his optimism into creating TTRPGs and redefining masculinity.
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Stephan is the mechanics guy at 13thmoongames.com and works there with his wife, daughter, and son.
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Stephan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
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Thank you so much for having me Star.
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I appreciate it.
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So I'm going to give you a chance to plug your projects at the end of the episode, but do you have anything you want to share with listeners about yourself?
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Well, I've been playing tabletop games since I was nine, and that was back in the late 1900s, you know, 79, all that good stuff.
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So I've been playing for quite a while, and it's just been a tremendous journey to be able to start producing, writing and creating them.
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Uh, if my 13 year old self could look at me now, he'd be extremely happy.
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That's awesome.
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So where did you get started with TTRPGs?
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Did you start with D&D like a lot of people or?
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I did.
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It was the, uh, red and blue boxed basic and expert set.
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It was a birthday party in a friend's basement over the weekend.
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That's, I played that and was hooked immediately.
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Started that and then never looked back.
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When did you start getting into other TTRPGs besides D&D?
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I would say toward the end of high school, I had a couple of friends, which is amazing that I'm still chatting with them.
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In fact, I chatted with them this morning on Discord, that I started learning about them through them being very proactive about trying things other than D&D.
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And it was pretty cool.
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Things like Gamma World, things like Boot Hill, Champions, stuff like that.
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I'm so glad you found your way and that you're making your own games now.
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That's amazing.
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Thanks.
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So, Stephan, who are you bringing to the table today?
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Oh, today I am bringing Lance, also known as Lancelot.
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Uh, he is a martial artist from the world of Coven and Crucible, which is set in modern day Chicago.
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This is your game.
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So if you could give me the elevator pitch, kind of what you use to sell the game to people.
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Absolutely.
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The inspirations.
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I like to say that if you were to take the movies, the John Wick series and The Last Witch Hunter, and imagine that they got together and had a really pretty baby, this game would be it.
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So why do you say pretty baby?
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Is it because of the art or anything like that?
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Absolutely.
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It is because of the art.
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My daughter is the art goblin.
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She's done all the art for the books and it's just beautiful.
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That's so cool.
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I love that it's a family business.
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Thank you.
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So what is the play like for the game?
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It's really designed to be more RP based, roleplay based, and experiencing essentially modern day witchcraft, and what if witches were still a thing, and were very active, and if there was a magical world that's kind of a part of this world, where magic is just another skill, like computer programming, or welding, or something like that, or accounting, I like to say, because a lot of people can do math, But they leave the taxes to the experts, right?
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So that's so a lot of people could possibly do magic, but it takes practice and effort and intention.
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So they leave that to the experts.
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That's really cool.
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I love it when there's a modern world and there's a magical system either set beneath it and kind of hidden or kind of set on top and just like, this is normal.
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Everybody is used to witches and things like that in the world.
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Why did you decide to make a modern game like that rather than setting it in more of a traditional fantasy?
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That.
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See, I, here's where we break into the, uh, the job descriptions of this, because I'm the mechanics guy.
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I wrote the mechanics for the game and how to get things from the role, play through the action, make it gritty and fun, and then get'em quickly back to the role play.
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My wife, she's the one.
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Came to me and proposed this and so she did a lot of the world building and she wanted and I agreed That we wanted to set it in something that we're all familiar with we can recognize and acknowledge and like, okay This would be really really fun in this setting and we wanted to stay close to our inspirations like the movies So that was the main motivation.
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She came to me Thanksgiving a few years ago and said would you like to take our relationship to the next level?
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And I having no, no concept of whatsoever what she was asking immediately said, yes, because that's what I do.
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And then she said, well, I want to make a game for you.
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And so then we started making it originally something for me to play because I'm the forever DM.
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And then here we are, we decided to take it, publish it.
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It's been a rocky road, but we are starting on that uphill climb again of being a bit more successful than we were last month than the month before.
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In Coven and Crucible, what is character building like?
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I like to say that you want to make a specialist, that there is no such thing as min maxing because there's no possible way to be good at everything.
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Uh, when you make a character, you come with a concept very much like, I'm going to play a hitter, I'm going to play a hacker, I'm going to play a thief.
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I'm going to play a protector, a hexer, an alchemist, a forger, something like that.
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You come with a concept and then.
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The idea is to come with a concept, because it's not intended for individual play, it's intended for group play, where you're part of a team or circle of witches.
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And so, you come with that in mind, and then we go from there to the system of, you have attributes, you have skills, you have sub skills, and you have traits, and you define all those things.
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Those are the things that define your character.
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And then, hopefully, after maybe 20 minutes to half an hour, you have a character ready to go that you're really super excited about.
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So, does the game use something like playbooks, for example, like in Apocalypse World, or is there more like classes, like D&D, or?
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There's no classes.
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Everything is free form, for the most part.
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The biggest choices that you need to make are if you belong to a house, and if you belong to the coven.
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Houses are groups of witches that are of like mind and like goals, and they'll have rules and things to ascribe to, kind of like choosing a group to belong with.
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But then there's the coven.
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The coven is like a corporation.
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It's a group of witches that is run by a board of directors and a CEO that will help witches who belong to them, their members, help intervene on legal matters, help give them support, training, things like that.
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As long as you're a member of the coven, you're good.
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If you're an independent witch, well, the coven doesn't really step in much at all.
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Are witches in this world persecuted or feared or anything like that?
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That's a really good thing that we're exploring in the playtest now.
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We've been playtesting for over two years.
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Yes, they, there are groups that are antagonistic toward witches, like the witch hunters, the unseen, and those are threats to characters.
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But for the most part, the average person walking down the street would not recognize a witch unless they were a Merlin.
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By a sight.
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You wouldn't even know that a witch is sitting next to you and a lot of magic isn't obvious.
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Your character is named Lancelot.
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I'm assuming that you took inspiration from the round table because where else are you going to get that name?
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Right.
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Why was that your inspiration for the name?
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Well, that goes to, uh, the lore of House Merlin.
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House Merlins, they're not flamboyant, but they are very colorfully expressive and dressed.
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You will see them all wearing literal wizard robes and pointy wizard hats and big, big bushy beards.
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And there's a reason for that.
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And when you join the Merlins, you forgo your birth name and you take on a name that is synonymous with Arthurian legend.
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Generally, it's not so pompous as like Lancelot or Arthur or Gawain, but sometimes it is depending on who the character is and what they do.
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And so this character, because his father was a Merlin, it was suggested that Lancelot be it, because he is unique in the House of Merlin because of his ability to be martial.
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So they're taking on the role of kind of that classic knight, would you say?
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Exactly.
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His motivation and goal is to help the Merlins because he believes in them, and he believes in what they're trying to accomplish, even if he doesn't know what that is.
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You know, he is a martial artist, but also blind, which the circumstances around him being blind is interesting in and of itself.
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He's been blind since birth.
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The whole point of Merlins is misdirection.
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They present a very comedic persona so that people will underestimate them or think them incapable or inept because they're dressed ridiculously like Merlin from, you know, everyone would think.
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You know, big bushy beard, robe, hat.
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Yet they're actually quite capable at the certain things that they choose to do.
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And in this case, Lance a lot is.
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Extremely good at fighting, being martial and divination as well.
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He's a seer, even though he's blind.
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What is the conception in the rest of the non magical world about Merlins?
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It sounds like if their idea is misdirection or pretending to be incompetent might be a strong word, but pretending not to be the powerful wizards that they are.
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How does that work?
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Are they a secret society?
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Are they presenting in a different way?
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Not really.
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So, if people know About this misdirection.
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How does it work?
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It's not entirely common knowledge.
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They're not secret, but the fact that you don't know what they're good at, modern society sees them as these kind of bumbling, very extravagant and very almost hilarious in how they deal with things in the outside world.
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So modern people, normal people and non witches are like, Oh, look, it's a Merlin.
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Okay, whatever.
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Look, Ren Faire must be in town or something.
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Or maybe there was a play or something, who knows.
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So they generally will think, like, as if they saw someone walking down the street normally, downtown Chicago.
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But the witches, the witch world, while they know that Merlins are generally about misdirection, they don't know what they're good at, and they don't know what that means.
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So that way, it keeps them guessing, and that's kind of what the Merlins really hope to accomplish with that.
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To what end?
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To make people underestimate them and to keep them guessing as to what they're actually doing, what their actual goals are.
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Because a Merlin might go out and approach a group of a circle of witches, let's say the player characters, and ask them to do some sort of task for them and pay them in Pentacles, which is the witch currency, but it won't explain why and generally wouldn't explain why.
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And so the circle would, you know, go and do this task or not, depending, but they wouldn't know why or what the goal was.
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They would see this person as, oh, this is a source of income.
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It could be from anyone really, but a Merlin does it.
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They're like, there's some era of mystique because they don't know the goal is or who they're aligned with because of that presentation.
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Lancelot is also the name of a betrayer.
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He betrayed King Arthur.
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Is there anything about that part of the name that resonated for the character?
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Absolutely.
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The reason that I chose it for, obviously it was in the story, his backstory, it was suggested and he accepted.
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But the reason I chose that is because the Merlins are nefarious and they sometimes have, you know, And they certainly have in the playtest group, earned an enmity from some of the, the players.
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So I believe that Lance himself is noble of heart and he wants to do the right thing.
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And if and when he discovers something that is, that he does not agree with, that is dissonant with his perception of what the Merlin should be doing or his own personal goals that could cause conflict.
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And so that was part of that motivation.
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Is Lancelot part of a coven?
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He is part of the coven because all the major houses, there are nine of them, all the major houses are all part of the coven and they all have representation.
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You can choose as part of the house to not be part of the coven, but for the most part, by joining the house, you accept that you are part of the coven and he did align with that.
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So he is a coven member and he is a house member and so he did choose to align himself with the coven and that is another level of, if he ever finds out what the coven is up to, if it's nefarious, then he, he might be at odds and that might cause him concern with the house.
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And of course, drama, which is what this game is all about.
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Who doesn't love drama?
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Right?
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In this world, is magic something that you have from birth, is it something awakened within you at a different point in your life?
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Is it something that results from accident or circumstance?
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That's a very good question.
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And a lot of times it's what's asked, one of the first things that people ask about the game.
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No, there's not some mystical, I can or can't do it.
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It is, I choose to or I choose not to.
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It's a skill.
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Everyone has the potential because everyone has a magic attribute, whether or not you choose to develop that or choose to explore that option and to what degree is up to the person creating that.
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There are people in our playtest that aren't, aren't spellcasters or aren't witches at all.
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But there's no, there's no mystical origin of whether or not you can and can't do magic.
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It's whether or not you choose to.
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There are some people, some witches, who are witches that are good at, they're witches first, but good at, say, computers.
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But there are also, computer specialists who are somewhat good at magic.
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So it can be both ways, and there's a difference, and sometimes there's people who don't do it at all.
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Since Lance is a martial character, you describe them as a martial artist, do they not use magic, or is magic part of their martial tradition?
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Oh, that's an excellent question.
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Yes, it is part.
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He uses magic constantly in his martial endeavors.
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Being a diviner, there is potential for him to be able to sense, using divination, what's about to happen with his opponents and in the combat itself.
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And so he can then use that to his advantage in the next round of combat.
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With blind fighting, which is an actual subskill, that's what he uses on his daily basis, just to be aware of his surroundings.
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But you can then use magic to enhance that, so he has an awareness that is a bit more than what a normal seeing person can accomplish.
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Was he motivated to learn these magical skills, the divining, the blind fighting to overcome the blindness or was it a completely separate motivation?
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Absolutely to overcome the blindness and to be able to use his blindness to his advantage.
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What got him started on that path?
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Did he start at a young age?
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Was there like an awakening moment or a moment where he made a decision?
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Yes, there was a moment in time in his life.
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In his childhood, where he attended school normally, he hadn't been practicing magic, so he didn't have those skills, but he did have the natural aptitude for it, and so things would develop as normal.
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Because magic is about intention, there aren't spell slots and there aren't spells, so he didn't, like, learn to cast a spell.
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It's that he concentrated on something and it happened for him.
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He put his intention forth when he was in grade school.
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He was in 3rd grade and someone in 2nd grade was getting picked on and people left him alone only because nobody would want to pick on the blind kid, which is whatever, but there was a 2nd grader who was being picked on and he stepped in and in that moment realized that he might have overstepped his case, but he knew he had to do something because this poor kid was getting bullied.
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And so he stepped in, and then he wanted to help protect this kid, manifested that intention as a form of protection, in that he would step in and block any kind of pushing or shoving.
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And he did, and he ended up helping that kid, and then that kid became a friend of his throughout grade school.
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And that's how he started.
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And then when he approached his father about this, his father said, Okay, I think it's about time we get you into this avenue.
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Introduced him to a monastery that was local that helped him train him in martial arts.
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And then, or I say monastery, I should say dojo, uh, and then got him on that path.
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His father was supportive of his desire to learn magic.
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Was his father also skilled in magic?
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Oh, yes.
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His father was a Merlin, also.
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Merlins aren't allowed to marry once you enter the Merlin house, you're not allowed to marry.
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So Lance was born, obviously, from a relationship that wasn't formed from marriage.
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His mother was an independent witch and his father was a Merlin.
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And so his father was very supportive of that and his mother was obviously more than supportive, just very caring and compassionate.
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He had a great childhood.
00:18:10.599 --> 00:18:21.609
Once he started establishing a sort of protective stance on anyone that was being picked on or bullied, he didn't have that traumatic childhood other than navigating through a world that he couldn't see with his eyes.
00:18:22.288 --> 00:18:26.019
Is it more of a technical thing about the marriage?
00:18:26.028 --> 00:18:28.409
They're still together, but not married.
00:18:28.628 --> 00:18:29.449
They were never married.
00:18:29.479 --> 00:18:34.929
And it was more of a, you know, this is a thing that happens and you were expected to support this as a Merlin.
00:18:35.289 --> 00:18:39.375
Merlins are very big about personal responsibility and repercussions of actions.
00:18:39.625 --> 00:18:46.355
So he was obligated, but he was also, you know, his dad was a caring person and not a cold, heartless person.
00:18:46.384 --> 00:18:48.484
So he did, you know, take care of that.
00:18:48.494 --> 00:18:54.325
There was no marriage and they are still in communication, but they aren't together anymore because they're not allowed to be.
00:18:54.375 --> 00:19:04.779
Once news about that came out, the Merlins were like, look, you either have to leave the Merlins and marry this woman, if that's what she wants, or you need to step away from that.
00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:08.849
And, and that's, we took the other option, but they still communicate and they're still on good terms.
00:19:08.849 --> 00:19:10.779
It's not at all chaotic at all.
00:19:11.439 --> 00:19:15.819
You mentioned that, uh, the Merlins may have nefarious purposes.
00:19:16.109 --> 00:19:21.099
How involved is his father in those nefarious purposes?
00:19:21.109 --> 00:19:23.878
Is there also that conflict within his father?
00:19:24.329 --> 00:19:36.259
His father took the name Alder, like an alder tree, which is a bit also pompous, but he is, and I say nefarious, he is involved with some things that perhaps Lance would be opposed to.
00:19:36.720 --> 00:19:46.250
One of the major goals of the Merlins is to reconstruct Camelot, find it, reconstruct it, and to resurrect Merlin, essentially.
00:19:46.328 --> 00:19:52.959
So they do a lot of things in order to accomplish those that might be frowned upon in polite society.
00:19:53.089 --> 00:19:56.169
They use a lot of coffin nails, which are Materia Magica.
00:19:56.170 --> 00:20:03.954
They do a lot of ritual summoning of ghosts and things that also may not look well upon the people who do so.
00:20:03.974 --> 00:20:17.523
They divine, which divination can be absolutely a breach of privacy and trust to find information and they enlist the aids of circles so they don't get fingered for doing a crime when these others.
00:20:17.534 --> 00:20:20.974
So the circle goes and like, steals and a grimoire or notebook or something.
00:20:21.265 --> 00:20:24.424
What is the aim of resurrecting Merlin?
00:20:24.424 --> 00:20:26.565
What do they hope to accomplish by doing that?
00:20:27.194 --> 00:20:34.904
By resurrecting Merlin, they hope to help facilitate the either discovery or the reconstruction of Camelot.
00:20:35.125 --> 00:20:40.424
Camelot is this beautiful, safe place that is like the ideal place.
00:20:40.713 --> 00:20:51.494
And so they really, really want to bring that back because not only is it a goal that they want to take a part of, but also then it kind of establishes their hierarchy in the witch world.
00:20:51.854 --> 00:20:52.773
Look, Merlin.
