WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to Table Talk, a show where I chat with other creators in the TTRBG space about how they run their tables.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm DangerDanger's, the GM and host of D&DARC, and joining us at the table today is the GM and host of the Appalachian D&D-5E actual play podcast, cozy crypt, Olivia.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hi.
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[SPEAKER_01]: To get us started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your history with the TTRPG community, and about your show, CozyGript.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My experience with Dandy is a little on, I suppose, the more short-term side I have been playing for a very long time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been playing for probably
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[SPEAKER_00]: 10, 12 years now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's like not a lot compared to a bunch of people that I've met who've been playing since like high school middle school, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But funny story about this, I had actually most of my life had done a lot of like internet role playing without actually knowing I was doing it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of that whole like back and forth typing out the dramatic scene sort of thing, but it didn't actually know that that's what I was doing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I've
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[SPEAKER_00]: But when I was in high school, something got into my brain that said, nah, D&D is too nerdy for me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I got into my later years and my husband's co-worker had just been like, hey, I'm going to do a D&D, uh, kind of one shot of the minds of, minds of, for
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he was just like, do you want to try it?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And for a long, like, probably a week, I was like, nah, it's just not, it's not a thing that I'm going to be into, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And my husband finally convinced me we go to this thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I swear it was like one of those like moments where the heavens opened up in front of you and there was the holy grail god who's just staying there with a little paper mouth going back and forth being like, hello.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And now you have seen the light.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, this is magic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so at that point my husband was a brave man and it said he would be our DM and we just proceeded to play various campaigns for years with a bunch of other friends that we also wrote in and also thought it would be too nerdy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And now it's pretty much become our life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I am a certified dice goblin.
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[SPEAKER_00]: who owns an enormous amount of dice that I could probably swim in, like McDuck, and somewhere along the way, I had realized that I absolutely loved playing this because I've wanted to write stories, write books since I was about six years old, and I had always kind of struggled with self-esteem and being able to do that, but when I was at the table,
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[SPEAKER_00]: playing D&D, playing and doing collaborative storytelling.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was almost like every single chain that kind of held me down completely, just fell off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so at one point, I decided after my sweet husband had been a forever DM for the better part of 12 years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had been like yo.
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[SPEAKER_00]: it's my time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do it this time, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And me being who I am, which is a OCD type a personality person, I couldn't do anything half as.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of just running a campaign that existed, I was like, nah, I'm going to make my own completely from the ground up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And also, not just going to play it where from my friends, but also going to make it a podcast of which I have absolutely no experience doing that certainly is something that I can relate to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I brought this up on a couple of other interviews before, but what eventually turned into season one of D&D arc was originally going to just be a fun Halloween one shot that I was doing with a different table than the players that are the cast of D&D arc.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And basically the first five episodes were what I had put together as a one shot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And in the process of putting it together
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[SPEAKER_01]: It became immediately clear to me that I am not capable of keeping this at a small scale.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to expand on the story here and pull this out into a full-blown campaign.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then, yeah, I was convinced by some of my other friends.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've brought several times before a grace in who plays the invisible man, taught me into making a podcast out of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it just kind of spiraled out of control from there and consumed my life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun that you bring up Lost Minds of Van Delver being your immediate hook.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For me, it was kind of the opposite.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It took like three or four tries for TTRPGs as a hobby to really sink their teeth in me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I jumped around from a couple of different one shots.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think the first experience that I had was somebody running Lost Minds of Van Delver.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and it didn't really click for me at the time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It took two other tables of like different circles of friends popping up and being dragged into their various things for it to really cement in as something that I enjoyed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was always a big theater kid.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I did improv all through high school and college.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that kind of performance base and that kind of like communal group storytelling is something that I've always enjoyed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I loved improv when I was involved in that scene.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the big regrets that I have is not being able to devote more time and attention to doing improv.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've been out of the scene for quite a while now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I get a lot of the same.
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[SPEAKER_01]: to do TTRPGs and to do the show.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, it makes sense like an enormous amount of D&D isn't highly based around improv and a lot of the newer campaigns, even like leave a lot more up to you as far as like the DM to kind of just come up with something, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoy it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It scratches an inch for me, but I also understand that a lot of people have some complications with it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk a little bit about your home brew world and your show, cozy crypt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So your show takes place in a fictionalized version of the Appalachian region of the United States and focuses on cryptids.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us a little bit about what some of your considerations were in putting that story together and what your own relationship to the region and the subject is?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I had noticed whilst playing D&D for many years that most of the campaigns that I saw or took a part in had a lot to do with the kind of your basic medieval timeline kind of area with a lot of various monsters from a lot of European cultures, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was thinking to myself because I grew up in Appalachia.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in the mountains, I grew up with the stories.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have heavy roots in Georgia and the Carolinas and Tennessee area.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So when I was growing up, it wasn't a lot of the stories of Vikings or anything like that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was the stories of the Wampus cat in the region.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was the stories of the Buhag from the Gullah people in Charleston.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was all of those kind of things that I grew up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: hearing about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I had felt this desire that if I was going to create my own little story that I wanted a story that felt one a little familiar for me and also could kind of show the magic of this region that we don't really see very often.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, and I personally am deeply in love with this region.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It has its complications, it has its issues and it is not something that I in any way pull away from in my own story, but it also has this
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[SPEAKER_00]: interesting dichotomy of existing in a world that both embraces things like deep Christianity, but also deep folk magic, hatred, but also deep embracing of various cultures.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the Appalachian culture, which is widely different depending on where you are, but the Appalachian culture could have at any point, you know, a mixture of indigenous tribes of
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[SPEAKER_00]: African descent, you could have Scottish and German descent.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It just all depends upon where you are, but it is this fascinating space that is often overlooked because it often has a tendency be thought of as, to be frank, backwards, or thought of as being stupid in a lot of ways.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's an area of the world that is often very remote.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and a lot of people don't end up going to explore those things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that to me was where I wanted to start because I wanted to create a universe that was based in all these things that I grew up experiencing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I grew up literally having like I would get a granny woman who was going to be faith healing you, but also at the same time like giving you an herbal remedy that's been passed down through generations that its roots actually comes from like
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, it all is very beautiful as far as that goes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was one thing that really interested being in this region, but then the other thing that really interests me is that idea of the stories having an effect on you just even existing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I quite literally have very strong memories of my mother painting our deck.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Haint blue, a very specific color of blue because it was supposed to be able to keep away the boo-hag who was going to be able to crawl into your house and sit on your chest and ride you through the night.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, I have all these memories of that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, when I was creating cozy crypt, my brain was like, well, I want to combine those two things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I want to take the fascinating aspects of the region that I live in, but also take the fascinating aspects of
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[SPEAKER_00]: just what American people have created and seen in the world around them because to me, cryptids are this beautiful expression of human imagination.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And just having those stories around, I was like, you know what?
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[SPEAKER_00]: These two things feel like they could definitely go together, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I made.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then when it came to actually making cozy crypt, we came into my own
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[SPEAKER_00]: deeply into what I call cozy horror.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The concept that I like being in a space that feels comfortable, that makes you feel like you can settle down and have a nice time, but also at the same time might lead you into like a super dangerous space and make it so you might get, you know, like your soul snatched out of your body.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, and I feel like the Appalachian region and the Appalachian mountains specifically have this really pulling a lure that works really well for horror.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A thing that a friend of mine, Daniel, who plays the mummy, he's a history teacher.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A thing that he's brought up that he's excited to explore when we eventually dive into our season two and start exploring our cryptid season is he's brought up that geographically the Appalachian mountains are
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[SPEAKER_01]: a deceptively old land range, that in the formation of the continent, they predate a lot of the other land masses and are one of the older mountain ranges that exist.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a deceptive amount of history baked into their end.
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[SPEAKER_01]: the age of the region gives so many possibilities when it comes to pulling from a more horror perspective.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, a hundred percent.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There is an aspect of living in this region.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No one teaches you this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just something that you kind of feel.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You've heard probably the whole don't whistle in the woods.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If something calls your name, no, it didn't that kind of thing, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't teach each other this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just something that we learn from existing here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because there is this overall feeling when you are in those woods, when you are in those mountains, that the land around you is not just land it is alive in some way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it is this deep just feeling that you get from this space and these mountains are ridiculously old.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, funny, my opening line for cozy crypt is these hills are old.
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[SPEAKER_00]: because they are.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They want at one point where the same mountain range as the highlands in Scotland.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is ridiculous and they don't look at because they've been worn down by time, they're mostly like rolling hills.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But they are deceptive because they are incredibly wooded, incredibly overrun with underbrush and various dangerous animals.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is an interesting
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it is a fantastic area geographically like from a geological standpoint from a biostant like was a biodiversity because they have a biodiversity here that is more varied and just so unique there are animals here that exist nowhere else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: their animals here that legitimately their entire existence here can determine like just watching them can determine the health of like a water system.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is a salamander called a hellbender, look it up, it is very cool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, so I created this
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[SPEAKER_00]: podcast because I wanted my friends to be able to play with it because I wanted to be able to celebrate these interesting stories and cultures and creatures.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But also, I just, I love cozy horror.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, if you like the concept of being to like walk into danger, but that whole time your hand is being held, you're going to like it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Even if that hand that you're holding happens to be clawed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're creating your story and pulling from this folklore and this folk history, are you mostly going off of your own experience, hearing the story, second hand, are you researching based on written books, are you pulling from any particular sources of canon, or is it mostly just from a generalized experience of being in and of the region?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's both, and all honesty.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot of pulling, like I've mentioned the Boo Hag a few times now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot of information from that, from the fact that my mother was from Charleston, and she grew up hearing those stories because she was around the gulla people all the time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I heard a lot of that, but I don't feel right
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[SPEAKER_00]: representing a space that is so diverse without doing your research.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I myself have, it took me almost two years to write this campaign because I was doing an enormous amount of research the entire time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if I'm going to be talking about an area I want to make sure that I am respecting these real places and cultures that I draw from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, I have several books that I have referred to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I also, as far as like, there is an area in the space that I live called the Fox Fire Museum, which I've spent a lot of time with, where they have an entire series that goes back for generations that specifically talks about Appalachian culture and the people that lived in the mountains.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like how they lived, what stories were being spread, I spent a lot of time there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I also made it very much a thing that if I was going to be representing anything that had to do with the Cherokee people that I reached out to the sources to actually get information on that and also permission to use it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In particular, for me, the Wampus Cat was one of the stories that I grew up the most hearing from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing is, though, is the Wampus Cat, the
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it was very, very much something that I wanted to make sure that if I was going to be representing that, that it was going to be as in touch with the story that it came from as well as not pulling away from the things that, you know, the rich histories as well as like the histories that are not necessarily the most
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[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful in this region.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One of the episodes that I have with the Wampus Cat is her expressing the kind of that rage that exists in there because of the Dispursment of the Cherokee people and it was important to me that if I was going to be showing things like that that I was going to be doing it ethically I
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[SPEAKER_00]: and, you know, honourably.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So this story is not just a, I had some tales that I grew up with, and so I just made a whole thing from it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's more so I created a world based around them, but deeply, deeply rooted in an enormous amount of research.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And as far as the cryptids go, I research every single one, every single bit of the origin stories that I can get onto with them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I of course put my own little spend on them, but I don't think that something that exists
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, from the imagination of people just being in an area trying to understand an area should be over it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I always take that as being like they are created from the stories and I kind of put my own little spend on them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: is very commendable and especially your taking the effort to try to communicate with the tribes and get indigenous and authentic voices as part of the story is something that I admire and is something that is important to me in the process of setting up my next season.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've kind of got a rule of thumb.
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[SPEAKER_01]: anything that is rooted in a culture that I am an outsider to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If I can't get an authentic voice to be a part of that story, then it's a story that I will not be telling.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a fair amount of Indigenous folklore that I'm interested in telling a story with, but
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[SPEAKER_01]: If I can't get an authentic member of that tribe to weigh in, make sure that I'm doing it respectfully and correctly, and to be a part of and participate in it, then it is not my story to tell.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure, plus I mean, like, if you don't get that kind of insight, it can be certain things like you might stumble into doing more harm than good, you know, like I see a lot of people who talk about things like JK Rowling using the skin walkers and her other stories and
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[SPEAKER_00]: how that was so harmful because she framed it as if they were good things, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But they are not.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And they are an active part of these people's beliefs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is not just a story to them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's very much one of those things that you're crossing lines at that point, you know, there are many of what we would consider cryptids that I will never touch because of that whole thing is that if it is something that is a active part of a culture that I am not a part of that there is no good for me putting my hands on it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, to that end, where do you personally draw the line with how many creative liberties you are willing to take with given cryptids?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Does it vary based on where they come from?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it just kind of a static rule?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It definitely does vary based upon where they come from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If they are a part of an indigenous background or of a marginalized community, I'm most of the time I'm not going to mess with that in any way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be like, I'm going to take what you have and I will expand through that, but everything that I do with that character or that creature is going to be through those eyes of the story that it came from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: when it comes to other cryptids, of which there are many in America that have very, very small things about them, like for instance, as is becoming more popular these days, we have the Fresno night crawlers who are these weird little pants guys.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of consider anything tied to UFOology is kind of fair game.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes it is.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it's like you have things like that where it's just like there's not a whole lot of information about them and those guys I take and I run with they are my favorite presently that I have that I play in the podcast is a tiny little dude.
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[SPEAKER_00]: who is, I believe, from New Hampshire.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There is only one story about him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He is called the dairy fairy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the only story that we have about him is one man who said that he stumbled upon this thing that had long rabbit ears, no hands are feet, and he tried to capture it, and it screamed and ran away.
22:22.021 --> 22:22.602
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's it.
22:23.002 --> 22:24.685
[SPEAKER_00]: And that little story,
22:24.665 --> 22:48.698
[SPEAKER_00]: to me was an invitation to create a deeply troubled and incredibly hilarious character that not only is a exploration of his story, but also how that one little story could have caused him to have trauma that then he was going to express through becoming essentially a cryptid mob boss.
22:48.678 --> 22:53.424
[SPEAKER_00]: I create stories when there is very few things of lore behind them.
22:53.704 --> 22:59.391
[SPEAKER_00]: I am going to make it as being like, that story is still their origin.
22:59.511 --> 23:00.492
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where they came from.
23:01.052 --> 23:04.396
[SPEAKER_00]: But everything after that, why are there no more stories about them?
23:04.517 --> 23:06.198
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are there no more sightings?
23:06.699 --> 23:10.704
[SPEAKER_00]: And that to me is a time in which I can say this is where I get to play.
23:11.324 --> 23:14.348
[SPEAKER_00]: And my internal chaos goblin comes out.
23:14.598 --> 23:15.219
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
23:15.339 --> 23:24.716
[SPEAKER_01]: To that end, are there any other cryptids like the dairy fairy that your personal relationship to them has changed as a result of the show?
23:24.736 --> 23:26.639
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there others that you appreciate more?
23:26.679 --> 23:30.566
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there others that you now hate as a result of the show?
23:30.586 --> 23:32.269
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything like that?
23:32.890 --> 23:34.774
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a great question.
23:34.814 --> 23:48.942
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure that there's a need that I hate because I love every single one of them, but I have developed a deeper appreciation for several, as far as like, we have the squunk.
23:48.922 --> 24:13.697
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the squunk because the squunk is this weird little dude who his entire story is about how he thinks he's ugly so he cries all the time and if you try to capture him he turns into a puddle and so I love him like no one's business because my brain heard that and decided instead of it just being that he sat all the time he's going to be adorable he's sad and also he's now going to be essentially a cryptid pokeyman
24:13.677 --> 24:22.076
[SPEAKER_00]: So I at some point decided I will appreciate him if everybody around him thinks he's cute, but he actually thinks he's ugly.
24:22.197 --> 24:26.106
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like this whole thing where we as a people can adore this thing.
24:26.126 --> 24:27.128
[SPEAKER_00]: I love him.
24:27.469 --> 24:27.970
[SPEAKER_00]: He's great.
24:28.150 --> 24:29.754
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the classic public mentality.
24:29.834 --> 24:31.939
[SPEAKER_00]: It's exactly he's a park.
24:34.012 --> 24:42.200
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, I love him, I love the dairy fairy because he is my opportunity to just be unhinged.
24:43.081 --> 24:50.569
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also have developed an appreciation for the stories that we have in our country that repeat in multiple ways.
24:50.829 --> 24:57.776
[SPEAKER_00]: If there is one cryptid that I have developed a lot of appreciation for in this podcast, it is your classic big foot.
24:58.277 --> 25:02.601
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you think of him as being like the
25:02.581 --> 25:13.152
[SPEAKER_00]: But he is fascinating because of the fact that there are so many stories and variations of him across the entire country, not to mention across the entire world.
25:13.393 --> 25:15.780
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone has a big foot, everyone has a Nessie.
25:15.963 --> 25:17.144
[SPEAKER_00]: everyone does.
25:17.245 --> 25:17.605
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
25:18.086 --> 25:26.857
[SPEAKER_00]: And so just being able to play with his story and the kind of experiment with just why there's so many of them.
25:27.397 --> 25:34.726
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a very cool thing and just because what I do in cozy crypt is it's not the players are not playing the cryptids.
25:35.207 --> 25:39.152
[SPEAKER_00]: They are playing people that get powers from the cryptids.
25:39.132 --> 25:45.258
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it ends up being that I end up being the voice for all of these cryptids.
25:45.739 --> 25:59.112
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, I get to explore them as being more than just stories, but being living stories, being stories that evolve, being stories that become more and more real and rich as it goes on.
25:59.172 --> 26:01.314
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know.
26:01.514 --> 26:02.595
[SPEAKER_00]: I have written love them.
26:02.615 --> 26:04.057
[SPEAKER_00]: I love all of them.
26:04.097 --> 26:08.481
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love squunk because he is a sad
26:08.731 --> 26:09.995
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand that entirely.
26:10.275 --> 26:17.295
[SPEAKER_01]: My relationship with so many of the classic universal monsters changed entirely over the course of doing D&D arc.
26:17.496 --> 26:23.753
[SPEAKER_01]: I developed so much more of an appreciation for count or loss for those for A2.
26:23.733 --> 26:28.942
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of a running joke among my friend group that Oralok was my favorite character for a while.
26:29.663 --> 26:30.465
[SPEAKER_01]: He never was.
26:30.765 --> 26:33.711
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just a fun comic relief character for our show.
26:34.312 --> 26:48.677
[SPEAKER_01]: But the fact that there is basically this variation on the classic vampire story, and is in a way, true, or to the original text of Dracula, that's a lot of what Dracula has become.
26:48.657 --> 26:55.248
[SPEAKER_01]: just because the Bellalagosi movie was so influential that it reshaped a lot of how people perceive Dracula.
26:55.788 --> 27:06.025
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of what the genetic difference between Nosepharatu and Dracula comes down to is what does the vampire represent?
27:06.987 --> 27:07.307
[SPEAKER_01]: And
27:07.777 --> 27:15.469
[SPEAKER_01]: count or lock in adaptations of nose for ought to specifically is an embodiment of plague and pestilence.
27:16.110 --> 27:25.404
[SPEAKER_01]: And so tends to take on a much more hideous and horrific visage even if the romance aspect of the story stays intact.
27:25.885 --> 27:30.392
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a much more morbid and
27:30.372 --> 27:43.928
[SPEAKER_01]: like disgust is kind of baked in because he is a living embodiment of plague compared to Dracula where because of the Bella Legosi movie he has only gotten sexier over time.
27:45.190 --> 27:52.819
[SPEAKER_01]: The romance became a big part of it and a lot of where he is kind of shifted to is an embodiment of class.
27:52.799 --> 28:10.572
[SPEAKER_01]: And as like an interesting thing to explore, one of the things that I was most interested in exploring in regards to Dracula was sort of that social class parasitism and like the vampirism of wealth and the elite.
28:10.552 --> 28:21.483
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like the differences between those and the nuances of that were things that I never really appreciated until I was living in the story for three and a half years.
28:21.843 --> 28:24.546
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I had so much to pull from with that.
28:25.006 --> 28:34.936
[SPEAKER_01]: I read not all but most of the books involved with the characters watched all the movies had so many different things that I could pull from and draw inspiration from.
28:34.996 --> 28:39.681
[SPEAKER_01]: On the flip side to that
28:39.661 --> 28:50.008
[SPEAKER_01]: in adjusting from that set up in theme to shifting over to cryptids is that everything is more folklore.
28:50.048 --> 28:51.912
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little more free form and loose.
28:51.932 --> 28:55.662
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not necessarily a hard baked cannon in that.
28:55.642 --> 29:12.807
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything is more interpretive, is that compared to something that is more canonized, something that you personally have found a lot of enjoyment and freedom from, or is that kind of freedom more daunting and enough rope to hang yourself with?
29:14.305 --> 29:18.430
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can see how it would be incredibly daunting.
29:18.470 --> 29:25.519
[SPEAKER_00]: I myself and someone who, as I said earlier, I've been making stories since I was about six years old.
29:26.060 --> 29:37.174
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I looked at these guys, when I was just like, oh, there's very little here to go on, I looked at that and it kind of went at it from the you very American hold my beer standpoint.
29:37.154 --> 29:47.229
[SPEAKER_00]: And I look at it, and I'm like, these are some little Lego pieces that I'm going to honor and constantly keep as being informative to the rest of their life.
29:48.011 --> 29:53.258
[SPEAKER_00]: But if these are creatures that did exist, then they've existed since their story began.
29:53.279 --> 29:57.485
[SPEAKER_00]: So after that story started, what did they do?
29:58.086 --> 30:03.494
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, that was such a great playground to kind of hang out in.
30:03.594 --> 30:05.457
[SPEAKER_00]: Was the concept
30:05.437 --> 30:10.024
[SPEAKER_00]: it wasn't just going to be, you know, they're just bound to what they're bound and that's what it is.
30:10.104 --> 30:15.271
[SPEAKER_00]: But that they have evolved with time, they've evolved with their story.
30:15.311 --> 30:19.237
[SPEAKER_00]: They just can become full people.
30:19.978 --> 30:26.668
[SPEAKER_00]: So like I made it really important to myself because I created mechanics for my own game that don't exist in D&D.
30:26.648 --> 30:38.120
[SPEAKER_00]: I created a mechanic specifically upon the idea of honoring both a cryptid's origins and its story that it came from and honoring all the weirdness that I added to it.
30:38.741 --> 30:43.766
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have things like my characters as they are bonded to cryptids for their magical powers.
30:44.246 --> 30:55.558
[SPEAKER_00]: I created something that is literally called a boon bond, which essentially means that you can do something that can make it
30:55.538 --> 31:11.874
[SPEAKER_00]: or even do things that might be against their origin story or against who they are and as like a character and so it can actually get worse and that's like an open wound that will all start making a problem between you and this thing that's supposed to be your helper or your friend.
31:12.394 --> 31:22.744
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have giant lists for every single one of the cryptos that I have in this that are quite literally being they like these things because this is how their origin made them.
31:22.724 --> 31:28.153
[SPEAKER_00]: And what if that is their origin, then what could have possibly added to that as time went on?
31:28.614 --> 31:38.290
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have huge things, like, you know, Mothman isn't a big fan of bridges, kind of thing, which obviously comes from his origin, right?
31:38.711 --> 31:48.748
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also have things like, Mothman is technically a man that people envision as a moth, so he also has a probiscus and likes to chew on fabric.
31:48.728 --> 31:58.322
[SPEAKER_00]: So when it comes to was it daunting, it's daunting in a way that, you know, you're free forming all over the place.
31:58.943 --> 32:07.075
[SPEAKER_00]: But that also to me is an amazing area to hang out in because not only is it that
32:07.055 --> 32:11.801
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting to shape these creatures into being more than just their stories.
32:11.881 --> 32:14.564
[SPEAKER_00]: They end up becoming full characters.
32:15.104 --> 32:24.095
[SPEAKER_00]: But also from the interactions that they get to have with my players, they get to evolve further and further into that and become more.
32:24.736 --> 32:30.142
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, to me, it was just a great opportunity to create something very weird.
32:30.182 --> 32:32.725
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very proud of.
32:32.772 --> 32:54.027
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny that you mentioned that detail about Mothman because as you said earlier with how your players are drawing their powers from the cryptids, kind of the gimmick of our show, at least with season one and that we're carrying over into season two and will probably remain for the full seasons that IGM at least is that the party is the famous monsters.
32:54.067 --> 32:55.810
[SPEAKER_01]: So my party are the cryptids.
32:55.790 --> 33:04.158
[SPEAKER_01]: And, Mothman, as one of our player characters, has the exact opposite feeling about ridges, where they are very, very important to him.
33:04.178 --> 33:06.420
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
33:06.660 --> 33:11.584
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny the different perspectives that you can take on that same kind of source material.
33:12.385 --> 33:22.054
[SPEAKER_01]: So, in the different things that you've explored and in the episodes that you've put out, I believe at this point your most recent episode is episode 15 at the time of this recording?
33:22.454 --> 33:23.395
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes it is.
33:23.836 --> 33:25.257
[SPEAKER_00]: We are a baby podcast.
33:25.473 --> 33:51.396
[SPEAKER_01]: So, of those 15 episodes that you've done, do you have a particular favorite that stands out to you as a strong point or highlight, or are there any that you think, obviously the beginning generally most people point to, oh, start from the pilot, but are there any particularly good on ramp episodes for new fans that you feel especially highlight the strengths of what your show does?
33:51.545 --> 33:52.247
[SPEAKER_00]: Great question.
33:52.287 --> 34:01.147
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, yes, because we are a narrative podcast and it builds you want to start from episode one because, you know, otherwise you get a little bit confused.
34:01.327 --> 34:09.165
[SPEAKER_00]: However, the episode that I think shows the best representation is episode three.
34:09.145 --> 34:12.911
[SPEAKER_00]: Because episode three is when the characters meet their cryptids.
34:13.431 --> 34:15.434
[SPEAKER_00]: It is when they become bound to these things.
34:15.875 --> 34:18.239
[SPEAKER_00]: So we get to see their first interactions.
34:18.299 --> 34:22.625
[SPEAKER_00]: We get to see how it is that their personalities mesh.
34:22.645 --> 34:29.736
[SPEAKER_00]: We also get to see a little bit of the creepiness that has the tendency to show up in the region that they're in.
34:29.716 --> 34:42.216
[SPEAKER_00]: So you get these sort of like areas where you get to see like the personalities of my players and how they are going to respond to these things that are going to kind of be their sidekicks for the rest of the campaign.
34:42.276 --> 34:52.652
[SPEAKER_00]: But we also get to see where they start, how they're going to be helping each other, what is it that's drawing them to each other?
34:52.632 --> 35:00.548
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get to mess with them so much and so you get to see how we play off of each other as long time friends.
35:01.269 --> 35:10.267
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a very good episode because it also you get to see how Olivia does accent.
35:11.309 --> 35:13.493
[SPEAKER_00]: And
35:13.473 --> 35:19.623
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how that goes, because in that episode, we have I am a surfer boy.
35:19.663 --> 35:26.134
[SPEAKER_00]: We have I am a creepy little demon creature that's all scraggly sounding.
35:26.755 --> 35:37.894
[SPEAKER_00]: We have I'm a sexy cat lady sound and then we have essentially what my players called Vandolf, which is if I combined vampire and Gandolf into one.
35:37.958 --> 35:41.642
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this sounds like a pretty varied collection of characters.
35:42.362 --> 35:43.103
[SPEAKER_01]: It's unique.
35:43.123 --> 35:43.924
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll say that.
35:44.624 --> 36:02.502
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the process of exploring these ideas, doing this show, I know you said that you've been doing TTRPGs for a solid 10 years or so before doing cozy crypt, has your approach to tabletop games and projects changed as a result of cozy crypt?
36:02.582 --> 36:07.206
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you find that there are some lessons that you've learned
36:07.186 --> 36:20.311
[SPEAKER_01]: impacted the way that you approach the table or things outside of the table other writing projects or acting projects and stuff like that have your other creative endeavors been shaped by your experience doing cozy crypt.
36:20.331 --> 36:29.008
[SPEAKER_00]: In a way, yes, I will say for this having been my first time actually fully GMing, I have respect for the GM like I have never had before.
36:28.988 --> 36:40.245
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a certain level of patients that I have now developed and also highly, highly respect just how much you have to fly by the city or pants.
36:41.027 --> 36:42.769
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is fantastic.
36:42.849 --> 36:46.575
[SPEAKER_00]: So if anything, it is one, it is made at the anytime I see anyone
36:46.555 --> 36:48.477
[SPEAKER_00]: who dares to GM.
36:48.537 --> 36:51.540
[SPEAKER_00]: I just look at them and I'm just like one, you are a brave soul and two.
36:52.421 --> 36:59.589
[SPEAKER_00]: I am going to be just the most helpful that I can be because you are, you are doing so much right now.
37:00.109 --> 37:01.771
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is really definitely been a thing.
37:01.811 --> 37:15.145
[SPEAKER_00]: It is also reinforced how important collaboration is to me because of that whole mindset with TTRBGs, the fantastic thing is that we all play off of each other.
37:15.125 --> 37:27.645
[SPEAKER_00]: It is if anything and it's just kind of opened that value of human connection, it is made it so that like you can see how important it's communicating with each other is.
37:28.226 --> 37:33.054
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see how important it is to learn about people's stories from various points of view.
37:33.074 --> 37:39.023
[SPEAKER_00]: It's made things like when I go out and I'm like talking to somebody.
37:39.003 --> 37:44.650
[SPEAKER_00]: Now to be fair, I am like this because I work in the mental health world, so I am the person who looks at someone.
37:44.670 --> 37:47.433
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, yes, you know, you are a book.
37:47.953 --> 37:58.085
[SPEAKER_00]: I could learn all about you, but you know, I understand that if I'm going to tell somebody about cozy crypt outside of here, there's a chance that they will know absolutely nothing about cryptids.
37:58.525 --> 38:08.537
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's perfectly fine because at the end of the day, I can be like, you know what, you like stories, and you are a story,
38:08.517 --> 38:12.361
[SPEAKER_00]: It also, I am somebody who has had a deep love for nature.
38:12.421 --> 38:15.544
[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably ingrained to me and being where I'm from.
38:15.584 --> 38:22.710
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have more than anything found through making cozy crypt.
38:23.271 --> 38:37.444
[SPEAKER_00]: Finding the connection between human stories, human innovation, human bonding, and how much of that is surrounded around the environment that we live in, and the world how it affects us.
38:37.424 --> 38:44.600
[SPEAKER_00]: It is been something where I look at it and I can be like, ah, yes, you have that response because of the region that you grew up in.
38:45.302 --> 38:55.585
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm also an analyzing brain, so I have a tendency to look at people and I'm just like, yes, I will, I will understand everything where it comes from because of your past.
38:56.122 --> 38:56.623
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
38:56.643 --> 39:16.905
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if anything, it has just made me value more where the stories come from and the influences that I have grown up with, like their origins and how it all comes down to people wanting to, if anything get closer to each other or get closer to the world around them.
39:17.726 --> 39:18.467
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
39:18.953 --> 39:19.814
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that 100%.
39:20.696 --> 39:32.194
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the big lessons that I've learned with doing D&D arc through not just GMing the main show, but being a player in some of the bonus campaigns that we've done and GMing a few other things.
39:32.735 --> 39:34.498
[SPEAKER_01]: The way that I
39:34.478 --> 39:42.013
[SPEAKER_01]: approach collaborative storytelling has loosened quite a bit and a lot of that was just kind of getting comfortable with the medium.
39:42.574 --> 39:53.196
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can definitely say that I am much more willing to relinquish control now than I ever have been in regards to the storytelling.
39:53.311 --> 40:05.869
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a better respect for the pacing and for the laws where things slow down and we can really get more character introspection, those are always some of the best moments of the show.
40:06.490 --> 40:16.264
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've really grown to appreciate those a lot more and my approach for season two is from the ground up a lot more collaborative than it was for season one.
40:16.244 --> 40:32.970
[SPEAKER_01]: A big thing that I've done this season that I'm so glad that I did because it's also really helped my understanding of our game world is I made a character journal for everyone and this is an idea that I stole from one of my players who was jamming a home game.
40:32.950 --> 40:56.764
[SPEAKER_01]: I made a character journal for everyone that basically details aspects of the world that their character would have prior knowledge of, which largely just kind of amounts to in our case, these are the other cryptids that you know the general just about because they operate in a similar category in space to you.
40:56.744 --> 41:08.543
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you already know these details and this information about them so that that way when they show up in the game you can do the exposition and I don't have to.
41:09.873 --> 41:15.140
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, that basically comes to the end of the questions that I had for you.
41:15.500 --> 41:18.604
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we wrap up, I want to give the opportunity to throw this back at you.
41:18.644 --> 41:22.849
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there any miscellaneous things that you would like to add?
41:22.969 --> 41:29.738
[SPEAKER_01]: Any topics you would like to bring up in broach or things that you want to make sure don't get left unsaid?
41:29.802 --> 41:48.459
[SPEAKER_00]: If anything, I would say that I can't speak more highly enough about the relationship that shows in the show between me and my players and not just me and my players, but me, my players and my players interactions with each other.
41:48.499 --> 41:57.447
[SPEAKER_00]: There is very clearly a fondness, there is very clearly a trust,
41:57.427 --> 42:08.685
[SPEAKER_00]: not just hilarious improv moments, but also deeply emotional, deeply story compelling and sometimes like drama slash trauma moments.
42:09.245 --> 42:17.919
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is not only one of those things that I think is great, but I just have so much respect and love for my players.
42:17.979 --> 42:23.788
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like I need to express that because they, you know, our fan base is
42:23.768 --> 42:31.680
[SPEAKER_00]: fairly quiet and I need them to know that I love our fans and I love them, but I love my players so much.
42:32.381 --> 42:39.451
[SPEAKER_00]: They're great people and they're just, they know how to make a story, the story that I created.
42:39.491 --> 42:40.833
[SPEAKER_00]: They know how to make it richer.
42:41.394 --> 42:45.760
[SPEAKER_00]: And if anything, I just need to say, hey, come listen to them because they're great.
42:45.740 --> 42:59.172
[SPEAKER_00]: Because at one point, they decided, by the way, this is not spoiling anything, it shows up in episode 3, but they heard me doing my spooky mothman voice, and they just decided you know what would make this greater if we echoed it.
42:59.592 --> 43:06.698
[SPEAKER_00]: So now mothman as a character has his shadows who just echo him or talk to him at various points.
43:07.659 --> 43:14.785
[SPEAKER_00]: And they just did that on their own, and it was beautiful, and I love
43:14.765 --> 43:16.607
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fantastic.
43:16.747 --> 43:23.414
[SPEAKER_01]: Having a solid table and party foundation is something that really can't be overlooked.
43:23.454 --> 43:30.282
[SPEAKER_01]: It's incredibly important and I'm very happy to hear that you've got such a tight-knit relationship with yours.
43:30.782 --> 43:31.843
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks.
43:31.863 --> 43:32.724
[SPEAKER_00]: I like them a lot.
43:33.085 --> 43:33.705
[SPEAKER_00]: They're pretty cool.
43:34.066 --> 43:34.806
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't let them know.
43:34.827 --> 43:37.009
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
43:37.049 --> 43:38.871
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this has been a great conversation.
43:38.911 --> 43:40.633
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you again for coming by to chat with me.
43:40.853 --> 43:44.637
[SPEAKER_01]: And before you head out, can you let our listeners know where they can find your show?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
43:45.641 --> 43:50.889
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can find us on Spotify, Apple podcast, Amazon music.
43:51.150 --> 43:52.392
[SPEAKER_00]: We are pretty much anywhere.
43:52.432 --> 43:53.533
[SPEAKER_00]: You can listen to podcasts.
43:53.573 --> 43:56.218
[SPEAKER_00]: We're even on YouTube, RSS.
43:56.718 --> 44:02.127
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to interact with us, we're on TikTok and Instagram.
44:02.147 --> 44:05.031
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a discord at cozy crypt D&D.
44:05.572 --> 44:09.358
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, just come
44:09.338 --> 44:15.387
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, all of those links will be in the description, so thank you one more time for swinging by the chat.
44:15.407 --> 44:19.012
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a great time and I hope you had as much fun as I did.
44:19.212 --> 44:19.553
[SPEAKER_00]: I did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me, Dan.
44:21.235 --> 44:23.659
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, and thank all of you for listening.
44:24.099 --> 44:24.941
[SPEAKER_01]: One more time, everybody.
44:25.161 --> 44:28.446
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Danger Dan Jers, the GM and host of D&D arc.
44:28.886 --> 44:35.015
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been speaking with Olivia, the GM and host of cozy crypt, and this has been table talk.
44:35.496 --> 44:38.400
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope you enjoyed what we brought to the table.
44:41.890 --> 44:50.327
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Table Talk, created hosted and edited by myself, danger to adgers, with artwork by Jordan Nelson.
44:50.787 --> 44:54.735
[SPEAKER_01]: Our guest this episode was Olivia, from cozy crypt.
44:54.755 --> 44:56.799
[SPEAKER_01]: Links to our work can be found in the episode description.
44:57.240 --> 45:04.354
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested in being a guest on the show, reach out to us at dndarkpodcast at gmail.com.
45:04.334 --> 45:07.341
[SPEAKER_01]: Our theme song in Outro was created by Jeremy Volucci.
45:07.361 --> 45:11.351
[SPEAKER_01]: Check out more of us on Instagram at Jeremy Volucci underscore wreck of time.
45:11.852 --> 45:12.835
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening.
45:13.296 --> 45:16.183
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we'll see you next time we have a guest take a seat at the table.
00:05.819 --> 00:14.111
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to Table Talk, a show where I chat with other creators in the TTRBG space about how they run their tables.
00:14.672 --> 00:26.370
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm DangerDanger's, the GM and host of D&DARC, and joining us at the table today is the GM and host of the Appalachian D&D-5E actual play podcast, cozy crypt, Olivia.
00:26.790 --> 00:27.912
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
00:27.892 --> 00:28.533
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi.
00:28.573 --> 00:36.522
[SPEAKER_01]: To get us started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your history with the TTRPG community, and about your show, CozyGript.
00:36.542 --> 00:47.514
[SPEAKER_00]: My experience with Dandy is a little on, I suppose, the more short-term side I have been playing for a very long time.
00:47.554 --> 00:49.917
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been playing for probably
00:49.897 --> 00:51.379
[SPEAKER_00]: 10, 12 years now.
00:52.000 --> 00:57.889
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's like not a lot compared to a bunch of people that I've met who've been playing since like high school middle school, right?
00:58.450 --> 01:06.842
[SPEAKER_00]: But funny story about this, I had actually most of my life had done a lot of like internet role playing without actually knowing I was doing it.
01:07.303 --> 01:14.714
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of that whole like back and forth typing out the dramatic scene sort of thing, but it didn't actually know that that's what I was doing.
01:14.994 --> 01:16.917
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've
01:16.897 --> 01:22.845
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I was in high school, something got into my brain that said, nah, D&D is too nerdy for me.
01:23.346 --> 01:24.187
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
01:24.728 --> 01:43.815
[SPEAKER_00]: I got into my later years and my husband's co-worker had just been like, hey, I'm going to do a D&D, uh, kind of one shot of the minds of, minds of, for
01:43.795 --> 01:46.257
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was just like, do you want to try it?
01:46.518 --> 01:52.924
[SPEAKER_00]: And for a long, like, probably a week, I was like, nah, it's just not, it's not a thing that I'm going to be into, right?
01:53.524 --> 01:56.547
[SPEAKER_00]: And my husband finally convinced me we go to this thing.
01:56.607 --> 02:08.158
[SPEAKER_00]: And I swear it was like one of those like moments where the heavens opened up in front of you and there was the holy grail god who's just staying there with a little paper mouth going back and forth being like, hello.
02:08.218 --> 02:10.240
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you have seen the light.
02:10.700 --> 02:13.363
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, this is magic.
02:13.343 --> 02:29.732
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so at that point my husband was a brave man and it said he would be our DM and we just proceeded to play various campaigns for years with a bunch of other friends that we also wrote in and also thought it would be too nerdy.
02:29.772 --> 02:33.339
[SPEAKER_00]: And now it's pretty much become our life.
02:34.240 --> 02:36.364
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a certified dice goblin.
02:36.344 --> 03:02.132
[SPEAKER_00]: who owns an enormous amount of dice that I could probably swim in, like McDuck, and somewhere along the way, I had realized that I absolutely loved playing this because I've wanted to write stories, write books since I was about six years old, and I had always kind of struggled with self-esteem and being able to do that, but when I was at the table,
03:02.112 --> 03:05.919
[SPEAKER_00]: playing D&D, playing and doing collaborative storytelling.
03:06.099 --> 03:12.350
[SPEAKER_00]: It was almost like every single chain that kind of held me down completely, just fell off.
03:13.312 --> 03:20.004
[SPEAKER_00]: And so at one point, I decided after my sweet husband had been a forever DM for the better part of 12 years.
03:20.464 --> 03:21.927
[SPEAKER_00]: I had been like yo.
03:21.907 --> 03:22.768
[SPEAKER_00]: it's my time.
03:23.149 --> 03:24.911
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do it this time, right?
03:25.833 --> 03:34.645
[SPEAKER_00]: And me being who I am, which is a OCD type a personality person, I couldn't do anything half as.
03:35.186 --> 03:43.898
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of just running a campaign that existed, I was like, nah, I'm going to make my own completely from the ground up.
03:44.030 --> 03:59.963
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, not just going to play it where from my friends, but also going to make it a podcast of which I have absolutely no experience doing that certainly is something that I can relate to.
03:59.943 --> 04:17.332
[SPEAKER_01]: I brought this up on a couple of other interviews before, but what eventually turned into season one of D&D arc was originally going to just be a fun Halloween one shot that I was doing with a different table than the players that are the cast of D&D arc.
04:17.953 --> 04:23.542
[SPEAKER_01]: And basically the first five episodes were what I had put together as a one shot.
04:23.863 --> 04:26.507
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the process of putting it together
04:26.487 --> 04:32.115
[SPEAKER_01]: It became immediately clear to me that I am not capable of keeping this at a small scale.
04:32.135 --> 04:37.704
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to expand on the story here and pull this out into a full-blown campaign.
04:37.764 --> 04:41.389
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, yeah, I was convinced by some of my other friends.
04:41.509 --> 04:47.418
[SPEAKER_01]: I've brought several times before a grace in who plays the invisible man, taught me into making a podcast out of it.
04:47.719 --> 04:55.971
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just kind of spiraled out of control from there and consumed my life.
04:56.626 --> 05:00.713
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun that you bring up Lost Minds of Van Delver being your immediate hook.
05:00.933 --> 05:02.515
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, it was kind of the opposite.
05:02.736 --> 05:09.947
[SPEAKER_01]: It took like three or four tries for TTRPGs as a hobby to really sink their teeth in me.
05:09.987 --> 05:13.673
[SPEAKER_01]: I jumped around from a couple of different one shots.
05:14.334 --> 05:20.524
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the first experience that I had was somebody running Lost Minds of Van Delver.
05:20.504 --> 05:23.852
[SPEAKER_01]: and it didn't really click for me at the time.
05:23.872 --> 05:37.703
[SPEAKER_01]: It took two other tables of like different circles of friends popping up and being dragged into their various things for it to really cement in as something that I enjoyed.
05:37.683 --> 05:39.905
[SPEAKER_01]: I was always a big theater kid.
05:40.085 --> 05:42.428
[SPEAKER_01]: I did improv all through high school and college.
05:42.908 --> 05:48.774
[SPEAKER_01]: So that kind of performance base and that kind of like communal group storytelling is something that I've always enjoyed.
05:48.794 --> 05:53.078
[SPEAKER_01]: And I loved improv when I was involved in that scene.
05:53.138 --> 06:01.146
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the big regrets that I have is not being able to devote more time and attention to doing improv.
06:01.166 --> 06:02.988
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been out of the scene for quite a while now.
06:03.388 --> 06:07.572
[SPEAKER_01]: But I get a lot of the same.
06:07.552 --> 06:10.496
[SPEAKER_01]: to do TTRPGs and to do the show.
06:10.877 --> 06:26.900
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, it makes sense like an enormous amount of D&D isn't highly based around improv and a lot of the newer campaigns, even like leave a lot more up to you as far as like the DM to kind of just come up with something, right?
06:27.480 --> 06:28.101
[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoy it.
06:28.242 --> 06:34.150
[SPEAKER_00]: It scratches an inch for me, but I also understand that a lot of people have some complications with it.
06:34.248 --> 06:39.094
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk a little bit about your home brew world and your show, cozy crypt.
06:39.474 --> 06:47.323
[SPEAKER_01]: So your show takes place in a fictionalized version of the Appalachian region of the United States and focuses on cryptids.
06:48.004 --> 06:59.277
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us a little bit about what some of your considerations were in putting that story together and what your own relationship to the region and the subject is?
06:59.375 --> 07:00.116
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
07:00.836 --> 07:22.758
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had noticed whilst playing D&D for many years that most of the campaigns that I saw or took a part in had a lot to do with the kind of your basic medieval timeline kind of area with a lot of various monsters from a lot of European cultures, right?
07:23.619 --> 07:28.504
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was thinking to myself because I grew up in Appalachia.
07:28.484 --> 07:32.249
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in the mountains, I grew up with the stories.
07:32.810 --> 07:37.797
[SPEAKER_00]: I have heavy roots in Georgia and the Carolinas and Tennessee area.
07:37.857 --> 07:44.827
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I was growing up, it wasn't a lot of the stories of Vikings or anything like that.
07:44.847 --> 07:48.673
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the stories of the Wampus cat in the region.
07:48.733 --> 07:53.359
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the stories of the Buhag from the Gullah people in Charleston.
07:53.399 --> 07:57.445
[SPEAKER_00]: It was all of those kind of things that I grew up.
07:57.425 --> 07:58.448
[SPEAKER_00]: hearing about.
07:58.508 --> 08:15.349
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had felt this desire that if I was going to create my own little story that I wanted a story that felt one a little familiar for me and also could kind of show the magic of this region that we don't really see very often.
08:15.329 --> 08:19.919
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, and I personally am deeply in love with this region.
08:19.939 --> 08:30.503
[SPEAKER_00]: It has its complications, it has its issues and it is not something that I in any way pull away from in my own story, but it also has this
08:30.483 --> 08:44.484
[SPEAKER_00]: interesting dichotomy of existing in a world that both embraces things like deep Christianity, but also deep folk magic, hatred, but also deep embracing of various cultures.
08:44.905 --> 08:59.747
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the Appalachian culture, which is widely different depending on where you are, but the Appalachian culture could have at any point, you know, a mixture of indigenous tribes of
08:59.727 --> 09:03.111
[SPEAKER_00]: African descent, you could have Scottish and German descent.
09:03.712 --> 09:20.995
[SPEAKER_00]: It just all depends upon where you are, but it is this fascinating space that is often overlooked because it often has a tendency be thought of as, to be frank, backwards, or thought of as being stupid in a lot of ways.
09:21.696 --> 09:26.562
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's an area of the world that is often very remote.
09:26.542 --> 09:30.205
[SPEAKER_00]: and a lot of people don't end up going to explore those things.
09:30.966 --> 09:40.734
[SPEAKER_00]: So that to me was where I wanted to start because I wanted to create a universe that was based in all these things that I grew up experiencing.
09:40.854 --> 09:56.548
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I grew up literally having like I would get a granny woman who was going to be faith healing you, but also at the same time like giving you an herbal remedy that's been passed down through generations that its roots actually comes from like
09:56.528 --> 10:01.075
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it all is very beautiful as far as that goes.
10:01.836 --> 10:13.274
[SPEAKER_00]: That was one thing that really interested being in this region, but then the other thing that really interests me is that idea of the stories having an effect on you just even existing.
10:13.294 --> 10:19.684
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I quite literally have very strong memories of my mother painting our deck.
10:19.664 --> 10:31.037
[SPEAKER_00]: Haint blue, a very specific color of blue because it was supposed to be able to keep away the boo-hag who was going to be able to crawl into your house and sit on your chest and ride you through the night.
10:31.898 --> 10:34.481
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I have all these memories of that.
10:34.561 --> 10:39.426
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when I was creating cozy crypt, my brain was like, well, I want to combine those two things.
10:40.007 --> 10:47.275
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to take the fascinating aspects of the region that I live in, but also take the fascinating aspects of
10:47.255 --> 10:58.829
[SPEAKER_00]: just what American people have created and seen in the world around them because to me, cryptids are this beautiful expression of human imagination.
10:58.869 --> 11:05.377
[SPEAKER_00]: And just having those stories around, I was like, you know what?
11:05.718 --> 11:08.541
[SPEAKER_00]: These two things feel like they could definitely go together, right?
11:08.982 --> 11:09.943
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I made.
11:09.983 --> 11:15.810
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when it came to actually making cozy crypt, we came into my own
11:15.790 --> 11:18.454
[SPEAKER_00]: deeply into what I call cozy horror.
11:18.514 --> 11:39.182
[SPEAKER_00]: The concept that I like being in a space that feels comfortable, that makes you feel like you can settle down and have a nice time, but also at the same time might lead you into like a super dangerous space and make it so you might get, you know, like your soul snatched out of your body.
11:39.162 --> 11:50.137
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, and I feel like the Appalachian region and the Appalachian mountains specifically have this really pulling a lure that works really well for horror.
11:50.157 --> 11:54.483
[SPEAKER_01]: A thing that a friend of mine, Daniel, who plays the mummy, he's a history teacher.
11:54.883 --> 12:08.882
[SPEAKER_01]: A thing that he's brought up that he's excited to explore when we eventually dive into our season two and start exploring our cryptid season is he's brought up that geographically the Appalachian mountains are
12:08.862 --> 12:25.456
[SPEAKER_01]: a deceptively old land range, that in the formation of the continent, they predate a lot of the other land masses and are one of the older mountain ranges that exist.
12:25.476 --> 12:29.605
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a deceptive amount of history baked into their end.
12:29.585 --> 12:39.038
[SPEAKER_01]: the age of the region gives so many possibilities when it comes to pulling from a more horror perspective.
12:39.305 --> 12:40.327
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, a hundred percent.
12:40.868 --> 12:43.693
[SPEAKER_00]: There is an aspect of living in this region.
12:43.713 --> 12:45.657
[SPEAKER_00]: No one teaches you this.
12:46.278 --> 12:48.442
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just something that you kind of feel.
12:48.482 --> 12:51.468
[SPEAKER_00]: You've heard probably the whole don't whistle in the woods.
12:51.749 --> 12:54.454
[SPEAKER_00]: If something calls your name, no, it didn't that kind of thing, right?
12:54.975 --> 12:56.758
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't teach each other this.
12:57.399 --> 13:00.385
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just something that we learn from existing here.
13:00.365 --> 13:11.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there is this overall feeling when you are in those woods, when you are in those mountains, that the land around you is not just land it is alive in some way.
13:12.377 --> 13:20.165
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is this deep just feeling that you get from this space and these mountains are ridiculously old.
13:20.225 --> 13:26.912
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, funny, my opening line for cozy crypt is these hills are old.
13:26.892 --> 13:27.793
[SPEAKER_00]: because they are.
13:27.814 --> 13:32.481
[SPEAKER_00]: They want at one point where the same mountain range as the highlands in Scotland.
13:33.042 --> 13:40.715
[SPEAKER_00]: It is ridiculous and they don't look at because they've been worn down by time, they're mostly like rolling hills.
13:41.416 --> 13:50.871
[SPEAKER_00]: But they are deceptive because they are incredibly wooded, incredibly overrun with underbrush and various dangerous animals.
13:51.452 --> 13:53.676
[SPEAKER_00]: It is an interesting
13:53.656 --> 14:13.572
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is a fantastic area geographically like from a geological standpoint from a biostant like was a biodiversity because they have a biodiversity here that is more varied and just so unique there are animals here that exist nowhere else.
14:13.552 --> 14:23.255
[SPEAKER_00]: their animals here that legitimately their entire existence here can determine like just watching them can determine the health of like a water system.
14:23.295 --> 14:26.924
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a salamander called a hellbender, look it up, it is very cool.
14:27.505 --> 14:30.312
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, so I created this
14:30.292 --> 14:38.321
[SPEAKER_00]: podcast because I wanted my friends to be able to play with it because I wanted to be able to celebrate these interesting stories and cultures and creatures.
14:38.902 --> 14:41.925
[SPEAKER_00]: But also, I just, I love cozy horror.
14:42.326 --> 14:49.955
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, if you like the concept of being to like walk into danger, but that whole time your hand is being held, you're going to like it.
14:50.495 --> 14:54.139
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if that hand that you're holding happens to be clawed.
14:54.199 --> 14:55.641
[SPEAKER_00]: So
14:55.621 --> 14:56.682
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
14:56.702 --> 15:20.532
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're creating your story and pulling from this folklore and this folk history, are you mostly going off of your own experience, hearing the story, second hand, are you researching based on written books, are you pulling from any particular sources of canon, or is it mostly just from a generalized experience of being in and of the region?
15:20.647 --> 15:22.330
[SPEAKER_00]: It's both, and all honesty.
15:22.390 --> 15:27.479
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot of pulling, like I've mentioned the Boo Hag a few times now.
15:27.499 --> 15:38.518
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot of information from that, from the fact that my mother was from Charleston, and she grew up hearing those stories because she was around the gulla people all the time.
15:38.979 --> 15:44.308
[SPEAKER_00]: So I heard a lot of that, but I don't feel right
15:44.288 --> 15:49.615
[SPEAKER_00]: representing a space that is so diverse without doing your research.
15:50.256 --> 16:00.450
[SPEAKER_00]: So I myself have, it took me almost two years to write this campaign because I was doing an enormous amount of research the entire time.
16:00.490 --> 16:08.220
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if I'm going to be talking about an area I want to make sure that I am respecting these real places and cultures that I draw from.
16:08.200 --> 16:12.626
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I have several books that I have referred to.
16:12.646 --> 16:31.550
[SPEAKER_00]: I also, as far as like, there is an area in the space that I live called the Fox Fire Museum, which I've spent a lot of time with, where they have an entire series that goes back for generations that specifically talks about Appalachian culture and the people that lived in the mountains.
16:32.051 --> 16:37.718
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like how they lived, what stories were being spread, I spent a lot of time there.
16:37.698 --> 16:52.098
[SPEAKER_00]: I also made it very much a thing that if I was going to be representing anything that had to do with the Cherokee people that I reached out to the sources to actually get information on that and also permission to use it.
16:52.238 --> 16:58.847
[SPEAKER_00]: In particular, for me, the Wampus Cat was one of the stories that I grew up the most hearing from.
16:59.247 --> 17:03.553
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing is, though, is the Wampus Cat, the
17:03.533 --> 17:23.652
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was very, very much something that I wanted to make sure that if I was going to be representing that, that it was going to be as in touch with the story that it came from as well as not pulling away from the things that, you know, the rich histories as well as like the histories that are not necessarily the most
17:23.632 --> 17:25.594
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful in this region.
17:25.634 --> 17:48.357
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the episodes that I have with the Wampus Cat is her expressing the kind of that rage that exists in there because of the Dispursment of the Cherokee people and it was important to me that if I was going to be showing things like that that I was going to be doing it ethically I
17:48.337 --> 17:50.620
[SPEAKER_00]: and, you know, honourably.
17:50.741 --> 17:59.334
[SPEAKER_00]: So this story is not just a, I had some tales that I grew up with, and so I just made a whole thing from it.
17:59.814 --> 18:09.349
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more so I created a world based around them, but deeply, deeply rooted in an enormous amount of research.
18:09.987 --> 18:18.909
[SPEAKER_00]: And as far as the cryptids go, I research every single one, every single bit of the origin stories that I can get onto with them.
18:19.410 --> 18:27.169
[SPEAKER_00]: I of course put my own little spend on them, but I don't think that something that exists
18:27.149 --> 18:34.911
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, from the imagination of people just being in an area trying to understand an area should be over it.
18:34.931 --> 18:42.171
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I always take that as being like they are created from the stories and I kind of put my own little spend on them.
18:42.151 --> 19:01.616
[SPEAKER_01]: is very commendable and especially your taking the effort to try to communicate with the tribes and get indigenous and authentic voices as part of the story is something that I admire and is something that is important to me in the process of setting up my next season.
19:01.757 --> 19:03.619
[SPEAKER_01]: I've kind of got a rule of thumb.
19:03.599 --> 19:10.234
[SPEAKER_01]: anything that is rooted in a culture that I am an outsider to.
19:10.274 --> 19:17.510
[SPEAKER_01]: If I can't get an authentic voice to be a part of that story, then it's a story that I will not be telling.
19:17.871 --> 19:23.363
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a fair amount of Indigenous folklore that I'm interested in telling a story with, but
19:23.343 --> 19:37.015
[SPEAKER_01]: If I can't get an authentic member of that tribe to weigh in, make sure that I'm doing it respectfully and correctly, and to be a part of and participate in it, then it is not my story to tell.
19:37.433 --> 19:57.383
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure, plus I mean, like, if you don't get that kind of insight, it can be certain things like you might stumble into doing more harm than good, you know, like I see a lot of people who talk about things like JK Rowling using the skin walkers and her other stories and
19:57.363 --> 20:03.875
[SPEAKER_00]: how that was so harmful because she framed it as if they were good things, right?
20:04.015 --> 20:05.859
[SPEAKER_00]: But they are not.
20:05.999 --> 20:10.127
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are an active part of these people's beliefs.
20:10.427 --> 20:12.992
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not just a story to them.
20:12.972 --> 20:34.137
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's very much one of those things that you're crossing lines at that point, you know, there are many of what we would consider cryptids that I will never touch because of that whole thing is that if it is something that is a active part of a culture that I am not a part of that there is no good for me putting my hands on it.
20:34.201 --> 20:34.963
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
20:34.983 --> 20:44.287
[SPEAKER_01]: So, to that end, where do you personally draw the line with how many creative liberties you are willing to take with given cryptids?
20:44.327 --> 20:46.774
[SPEAKER_01]: Does it vary based on where they come from?
20:46.814 --> 20:49.982
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it just kind of a static rule?
20:50.047 --> 20:53.251
[SPEAKER_00]: It definitely does vary based upon where they come from.
20:53.291 --> 21:03.903
[SPEAKER_00]: If they are a part of an indigenous background or of a marginalized community, I'm most of the time I'm not going to mess with that in any way.
21:03.964 --> 21:16.138
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be like, I'm going to take what you have and I will expand through that, but everything that I do with that character or that creature is going to be through those eyes of the story that it came from.
21:16.118 --> 21:34.907
[SPEAKER_00]: when it comes to other cryptids, of which there are many in America that have very, very small things about them, like for instance, as is becoming more popular these days, we have the Fresno night crawlers who are these weird little pants guys.
21:35.368 --> 21:40.756
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of consider anything tied to UFOology is kind of fair game.
21:40.957 --> 21:41.818
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes it is.
21:42.339 --> 21:43.020
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
21:43.000 --> 22:00.908
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's like you have things like that where it's just like there's not a whole lot of information about them and those guys I take and I run with they are my favorite presently that I have that I play in the podcast is a tiny little dude.
22:00.888 --> 22:03.091
[SPEAKER_00]: who is, I believe, from New Hampshire.
22:03.131 --> 22:05.535
[SPEAKER_00]: There is only one story about him.
22:05.595 --> 22:07.078
[SPEAKER_00]: He is called the dairy fairy.
22:07.919 --> 22:21.580
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only story that we have about him is one man who said that he stumbled upon this thing that had long rabbit ears, no hands are feet, and he tried to capture it, and it screamed and ran away.
22:22.021 --> 22:22.602
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's it.
22:23.002 --> 22:24.685
[SPEAKER_00]: And that little story,
22:24.665 --> 22:48.698
[SPEAKER_00]: to me was an invitation to create a deeply troubled and incredibly hilarious character that not only is a exploration of his story, but also how that one little story could have caused him to have trauma that then he was going to express through becoming essentially a cryptid mob boss.
22:48.678 --> 22:53.424
[SPEAKER_00]: I create stories when there is very few things of lore behind them.
22:53.704 --> 22:59.391
[SPEAKER_00]: I am going to make it as being like, that story is still their origin.
22:59.511 --> 23:00.492
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where they came from.
23:01.052 --> 23:04.396
[SPEAKER_00]: But everything after that, why are there no more stories about them?
23:04.517 --> 23:06.198
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are there no more sightings?
23:06.699 --> 23:10.704
[SPEAKER_00]: And that to me is a time in which I can say this is where I get to play.
23:11.324 --> 23:14.348
[SPEAKER_00]: And my internal chaos goblin comes out.
23:14.598 --> 23:15.219
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
23:15.339 --> 23:24.716
[SPEAKER_01]: To that end, are there any other cryptids like the dairy fairy that your personal relationship to them has changed as a result of the show?
23:24.736 --> 23:26.639
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there others that you appreciate more?
23:26.679 --> 23:30.566
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there others that you now hate as a result of the show?
23:30.586 --> 23:32.269
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything like that?
23:32.890 --> 23:34.774
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a great question.
23:34.814 --> 23:48.942
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure that there's a need that I hate because I love every single one of them, but I have developed a deeper appreciation for several, as far as like, we have the squunk.
23:48.922 --> 24:13.697
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the squunk because the squunk is this weird little dude who his entire story is about how he thinks he's ugly so he cries all the time and if you try to capture him he turns into a puddle and so I love him like no one's business because my brain heard that and decided instead of it just being that he sat all the time he's going to be adorable he's sad and also he's now going to be essentially a cryptid pokeyman
24:13.677 --> 24:22.076
[SPEAKER_00]: So I at some point decided I will appreciate him if everybody around him thinks he's cute, but he actually thinks he's ugly.
24:22.197 --> 24:26.106
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like this whole thing where we as a people can adore this thing.
24:26.126 --> 24:27.128
[SPEAKER_00]: I love him.
24:27.469 --> 24:27.970
[SPEAKER_00]: He's great.
24:28.150 --> 24:29.754
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the classic public mentality.
24:29.834 --> 24:31.939
[SPEAKER_00]: It's exactly he's a park.
24:34.012 --> 24:42.200
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, I love him, I love the dairy fairy because he is my opportunity to just be unhinged.
24:43.081 --> 24:50.569
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also have developed an appreciation for the stories that we have in our country that repeat in multiple ways.
24:50.829 --> 24:57.776
[SPEAKER_00]: If there is one cryptid that I have developed a lot of appreciation for in this podcast, it is your classic big foot.
24:58.277 --> 25:02.601
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you think of him as being like the
25:02.581 --> 25:13.152
[SPEAKER_00]: But he is fascinating because of the fact that there are so many stories and variations of him across the entire country, not to mention across the entire world.
25:13.393 --> 25:15.780
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone has a big foot, everyone has a Nessie.
25:15.963 --> 25:17.144
[SPEAKER_00]: everyone does.
25:17.245 --> 25:17.605
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
25:18.086 --> 25:26.857
[SPEAKER_00]: And so just being able to play with his story and the kind of experiment with just why there's so many of them.
25:27.397 --> 25:34.726
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a very cool thing and just because what I do in cozy crypt is it's not the players are not playing the cryptids.
25:35.207 --> 25:39.152
[SPEAKER_00]: They are playing people that get powers from the cryptids.
25:39.132 --> 25:45.258
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it ends up being that I end up being the voice for all of these cryptids.
25:45.739 --> 25:59.112
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, I get to explore them as being more than just stories, but being living stories, being stories that evolve, being stories that become more and more real and rich as it goes on.
25:59.172 --> 26:01.314
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know.
26:01.514 --> 26:02.595
[SPEAKER_00]: I have written love them.
26:02.615 --> 26:04.057
[SPEAKER_00]: I love all of them.
26:04.097 --> 26:08.481
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love squunk because he is a sad
26:08.731 --> 26:09.995
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand that entirely.
26:10.275 --> 26:17.295
[SPEAKER_01]: My relationship with so many of the classic universal monsters changed entirely over the course of doing D&D arc.
26:17.496 --> 26:23.753
[SPEAKER_01]: I developed so much more of an appreciation for count or loss for those for A2.
26:23.733 --> 26:28.942
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of a running joke among my friend group that Oralok was my favorite character for a while.
26:29.663 --> 26:30.465
[SPEAKER_01]: He never was.
26:30.765 --> 26:33.711
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just a fun comic relief character for our show.
26:34.312 --> 26:48.677
[SPEAKER_01]: But the fact that there is basically this variation on the classic vampire story, and is in a way, true, or to the original text of Dracula, that's a lot of what Dracula has become.
26:48.657 --> 26:55.248
[SPEAKER_01]: just because the Bellalagosi movie was so influential that it reshaped a lot of how people perceive Dracula.
26:55.788 --> 27:06.025
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of what the genetic difference between Nosepharatu and Dracula comes down to is what does the vampire represent?
27:06.987 --> 27:07.307
[SPEAKER_01]: And
27:07.777 --> 27:15.469
[SPEAKER_01]: count or lock in adaptations of nose for ought to specifically is an embodiment of plague and pestilence.
27:16.110 --> 27:25.404
[SPEAKER_01]: And so tends to take on a much more hideous and horrific visage even if the romance aspect of the story stays intact.
27:25.885 --> 27:30.392
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a much more morbid and
27:30.372 --> 27:43.928
[SPEAKER_01]: like disgust is kind of baked in because he is a living embodiment of plague compared to Dracula where because of the Bella Legosi movie he has only gotten sexier over time.
27:45.190 --> 27:52.819
[SPEAKER_01]: The romance became a big part of it and a lot of where he is kind of shifted to is an embodiment of class.
27:52.799 --> 28:10.572
[SPEAKER_01]: And as like an interesting thing to explore, one of the things that I was most interested in exploring in regards to Dracula was sort of that social class parasitism and like the vampirism of wealth and the elite.
28:10.552 --> 28:21.483
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like the differences between those and the nuances of that were things that I never really appreciated until I was living in the story for three and a half years.
28:21.843 --> 28:24.546
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I had so much to pull from with that.
28:25.006 --> 28:34.936
[SPEAKER_01]: I read not all but most of the books involved with the characters watched all the movies had so many different things that I could pull from and draw inspiration from.
28:34.996 --> 28:39.681
[SPEAKER_01]: On the flip side to that
28:39.661 --> 28:50.008
[SPEAKER_01]: in adjusting from that set up in theme to shifting over to cryptids is that everything is more folklore.
28:50.048 --> 28:51.912
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little more free form and loose.
28:51.932 --> 28:55.662
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not necessarily a hard baked cannon in that.
28:55.642 --> 29:12.807
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything is more interpretive, is that compared to something that is more canonized, something that you personally have found a lot of enjoyment and freedom from, or is that kind of freedom more daunting and enough rope to hang yourself with?
29:14.305 --> 29:18.430
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can see how it would be incredibly daunting.
29:18.470 --> 29:25.519
[SPEAKER_00]: I myself and someone who, as I said earlier, I've been making stories since I was about six years old.
29:26.060 --> 29:37.174
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I looked at these guys, when I was just like, oh, there's very little here to go on, I looked at that and it kind of went at it from the you very American hold my beer standpoint.
29:37.154 --> 29:47.229
[SPEAKER_00]: And I look at it, and I'm like, these are some little Lego pieces that I'm going to honor and constantly keep as being informative to the rest of their life.
29:48.011 --> 29:53.258
[SPEAKER_00]: But if these are creatures that did exist, then they've existed since their story began.
29:53.279 --> 29:57.485
[SPEAKER_00]: So after that story started, what did they do?
29:58.086 --> 30:03.494
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, that was such a great playground to kind of hang out in.
30:03.594 --> 30:05.457
[SPEAKER_00]: Was the concept
30:05.437 --> 30:10.024
[SPEAKER_00]: it wasn't just going to be, you know, they're just bound to what they're bound and that's what it is.
30:10.104 --> 30:15.271
[SPEAKER_00]: But that they have evolved with time, they've evolved with their story.
30:15.311 --> 30:19.237
[SPEAKER_00]: They just can become full people.
30:19.978 --> 30:26.668
[SPEAKER_00]: So like I made it really important to myself because I created mechanics for my own game that don't exist in D&D.
30:26.648 --> 30:38.120
[SPEAKER_00]: I created a mechanic specifically upon the idea of honoring both a cryptid's origins and its story that it came from and honoring all the weirdness that I added to it.
30:38.741 --> 30:43.766
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have things like my characters as they are bonded to cryptids for their magical powers.
30:44.246 --> 30:55.558
[SPEAKER_00]: I created something that is literally called a boon bond, which essentially means that you can do something that can make it
30:55.538 --> 31:11.874
[SPEAKER_00]: or even do things that might be against their origin story or against who they are and as like a character and so it can actually get worse and that's like an open wound that will all start making a problem between you and this thing that's supposed to be your helper or your friend.
31:12.394 --> 31:22.744
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have giant lists for every single one of the cryptos that I have in this that are quite literally being they like these things because this is how their origin made them.
31:22.724 --> 31:28.153
[SPEAKER_00]: And what if that is their origin, then what could have possibly added to that as time went on?
31:28.614 --> 31:38.290
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have huge things, like, you know, Mothman isn't a big fan of bridges, kind of thing, which obviously comes from his origin, right?
31:38.711 --> 31:48.748
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also have things like, Mothman is technically a man that people envision as a moth, so he also has a probiscus and likes to chew on fabric.
31:48.728 --> 31:58.322
[SPEAKER_00]: So when it comes to was it daunting, it's daunting in a way that, you know, you're free forming all over the place.
31:58.943 --> 32:07.075
[SPEAKER_00]: But that also to me is an amazing area to hang out in because not only is it that
32:07.055 --> 32:11.801
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting to shape these creatures into being more than just their stories.
32:11.881 --> 32:14.564
[SPEAKER_00]: They end up becoming full characters.
32:15.104 --> 32:24.095
[SPEAKER_00]: But also from the interactions that they get to have with my players, they get to evolve further and further into that and become more.
32:24.736 --> 32:30.142
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, to me, it was just a great opportunity to create something very weird.
32:30.182 --> 32:32.725
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very proud of.
32:32.772 --> 32:54.027
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny that you mentioned that detail about Mothman because as you said earlier with how your players are drawing their powers from the cryptids, kind of the gimmick of our show, at least with season one and that we're carrying over into season two and will probably remain for the full seasons that IGM at least is that the party is the famous monsters.
32:54.067 --> 32:55.810
[SPEAKER_01]: So my party are the cryptids.
32:55.790 --> 33:04.158
[SPEAKER_01]: And, Mothman, as one of our player characters, has the exact opposite feeling about ridges, where they are very, very important to him.
33:04.178 --> 33:06.420
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
33:06.660 --> 33:11.584
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny the different perspectives that you can take on that same kind of source material.
33:12.385 --> 33:22.054
[SPEAKER_01]: So, in the different things that you've explored and in the episodes that you've put out, I believe at this point your most recent episode is episode 15 at the time of this recording?
33:22.454 --> 33:23.395
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes it is.
33:23.836 --> 33:25.257
[SPEAKER_00]: We are a baby podcast.
33:25.473 --> 33:51.396
[SPEAKER_01]: So, of those 15 episodes that you've done, do you have a particular favorite that stands out to you as a strong point or highlight, or are there any that you think, obviously the beginning generally most people point to, oh, start from the pilot, but are there any particularly good on ramp episodes for new fans that you feel especially highlight the strengths of what your show does?
33:51.545 --> 33:52.247
[SPEAKER_00]: Great question.
33:52.287 --> 34:01.147
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, yes, because we are a narrative podcast and it builds you want to start from episode one because, you know, otherwise you get a little bit confused.
34:01.327 --> 34:09.165
[SPEAKER_00]: However, the episode that I think shows the best representation is episode three.
34:09.145 --> 34:12.911
[SPEAKER_00]: Because episode three is when the characters meet their cryptids.
34:13.431 --> 34:15.434
[SPEAKER_00]: It is when they become bound to these things.
34:15.875 --> 34:18.239
[SPEAKER_00]: So we get to see their first interactions.
34:18.299 --> 34:22.625
[SPEAKER_00]: We get to see how it is that their personalities mesh.
34:22.645 --> 34:29.736
[SPEAKER_00]: We also get to see a little bit of the creepiness that has the tendency to show up in the region that they're in.
34:29.716 --> 34:42.216
[SPEAKER_00]: So you get these sort of like areas where you get to see like the personalities of my players and how they are going to respond to these things that are going to kind of be their sidekicks for the rest of the campaign.
34:42.276 --> 34:52.652
[SPEAKER_00]: But we also get to see where they start, how they're going to be helping each other, what is it that's drawing them to each other?
34:52.632 --> 35:00.548
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get to mess with them so much and so you get to see how we play off of each other as long time friends.
35:01.269 --> 35:10.267
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a very good episode because it also you get to see how Olivia does accent.
35:11.309 --> 35:13.493
[SPEAKER_00]: And
35:13.473 --> 35:19.623
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how that goes, because in that episode, we have I am a surfer boy.
35:19.663 --> 35:26.134
[SPEAKER_00]: We have I am a creepy little demon creature that's all scraggly sounding.
35:26.755 --> 35:37.894
[SPEAKER_00]: We have I'm a sexy cat lady sound and then we have essentially what my players called Vandolf, which is if I combined vampire and Gandolf into one.
35:37.958 --> 35:41.642
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this sounds like a pretty varied collection of characters.
35:42.362 --> 35:43.103
[SPEAKER_01]: It's unique.
35:43.123 --> 35:43.924
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll say that.
35:44.624 --> 36:02.502
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the process of exploring these ideas, doing this show, I know you said that you've been doing TTRPGs for a solid 10 years or so before doing cozy crypt, has your approach to tabletop games and projects changed as a result of cozy crypt?
36:02.582 --> 36:07.206
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you find that there are some lessons that you've learned
36:07.186 --> 36:20.311
[SPEAKER_01]: impacted the way that you approach the table or things outside of the table other writing projects or acting projects and stuff like that have your other creative endeavors been shaped by your experience doing cozy crypt.
36:20.331 --> 36:29.008
[SPEAKER_00]: In a way, yes, I will say for this having been my first time actually fully GMing, I have respect for the GM like I have never had before.
36:28.988 --> 36:40.245
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a certain level of patients that I have now developed and also highly, highly respect just how much you have to fly by the city or pants.
36:41.027 --> 36:42.769
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is fantastic.
36:42.849 --> 36:46.575
[SPEAKER_00]: So if anything, it is one, it is made at the anytime I see anyone
36:46.555 --> 36:48.477
[SPEAKER_00]: who dares to GM.
36:48.537 --> 36:51.540
[SPEAKER_00]: I just look at them and I'm just like one, you are a brave soul and two.
36:52.421 --> 36:59.589
[SPEAKER_00]: I am going to be just the most helpful that I can be because you are, you are doing so much right now.
37:00.109 --> 37:01.771
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is really definitely been a thing.
37:01.811 --> 37:15.145
[SPEAKER_00]: It is also reinforced how important collaboration is to me because of that whole mindset with TTRBGs, the fantastic thing is that we all play off of each other.
37:15.125 --> 37:27.645
[SPEAKER_00]: It is if anything and it's just kind of opened that value of human connection, it is made it so that like you can see how important it's communicating with each other is.
37:28.226 --> 37:33.054
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see how important it is to learn about people's stories from various points of view.
37:33.074 --> 37:39.023
[SPEAKER_00]: It's made things like when I go out and I'm like talking to somebody.
37:39.003 --> 37:44.650
[SPEAKER_00]: Now to be fair, I am like this because I work in the mental health world, so I am the person who looks at someone.
37:44.670 --> 37:47.433
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, yes, you know, you are a book.
37:47.953 --> 37:58.085
[SPEAKER_00]: I could learn all about you, but you know, I understand that if I'm going to tell somebody about cozy crypt outside of here, there's a chance that they will know absolutely nothing about cryptids.
37:58.525 --> 38:08.537
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's perfectly fine because at the end of the day, I can be like, you know what, you like stories, and you are a story,
38:08.517 --> 38:12.361
[SPEAKER_00]: It also, I am somebody who has had a deep love for nature.
38:12.421 --> 38:15.544
[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably ingrained to me and being where I'm from.
38:15.584 --> 38:22.710
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have more than anything found through making cozy crypt.
38:23.271 --> 38:37.444
[SPEAKER_00]: Finding the connection between human stories, human innovation, human bonding, and how much of that is surrounded around the environment that we live in, and the world how it affects us.
38:37.424 --> 38:44.600
[SPEAKER_00]: It is been something where I look at it and I can be like, ah, yes, you have that response because of the region that you grew up in.
38:45.302 --> 38:55.585
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm also an analyzing brain, so I have a tendency to look at people and I'm just like, yes, I will, I will understand everything where it comes from because of your past.
38:56.122 --> 38:56.623
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
38:56.643 --> 39:16.905
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if anything, it has just made me value more where the stories come from and the influences that I have grown up with, like their origins and how it all comes down to people wanting to, if anything get closer to each other or get closer to the world around them.
39:17.726 --> 39:18.467
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
39:18.953 --> 39:19.814
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that 100%.
39:20.696 --> 39:32.194
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the big lessons that I've learned with doing D&D arc through not just GMing the main show, but being a player in some of the bonus campaigns that we've done and GMing a few other things.
39:32.735 --> 39:34.498
[SPEAKER_01]: The way that I
39:34.478 --> 39:42.013
[SPEAKER_01]: approach collaborative storytelling has loosened quite a bit and a lot of that was just kind of getting comfortable with the medium.
39:42.574 --> 39:53.196
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can definitely say that I am much more willing to relinquish control now than I ever have been in regards to the storytelling.
39:53.311 --> 40:05.869
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a better respect for the pacing and for the laws where things slow down and we can really get more character introspection, those are always some of the best moments of the show.
40:06.490 --> 40:16.264
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've really grown to appreciate those a lot more and my approach for season two is from the ground up a lot more collaborative than it was for season one.
40:16.244 --> 40:32.970
[SPEAKER_01]: A big thing that I've done this season that I'm so glad that I did because it's also really helped my understanding of our game world is I made a character journal for everyone and this is an idea that I stole from one of my players who was jamming a home game.
40:32.950 --> 40:56.764
[SPEAKER_01]: I made a character journal for everyone that basically details aspects of the world that their character would have prior knowledge of, which largely just kind of amounts to in our case, these are the other cryptids that you know the general just about because they operate in a similar category in space to you.
40:56.744 --> 41:08.543
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you already know these details and this information about them so that that way when they show up in the game you can do the exposition and I don't have to.
41:09.873 --> 41:15.140
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, that basically comes to the end of the questions that I had for you.
41:15.500 --> 41:18.604
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we wrap up, I want to give the opportunity to throw this back at you.
41:18.644 --> 41:22.849
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there any miscellaneous things that you would like to add?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Any topics you would like to bring up in broach or things that you want to make sure don't get left unsaid?
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[SPEAKER_00]: If anything, I would say that I can't speak more highly enough about the relationship that shows in the show between me and my players and not just me and my players, but me, my players and my players interactions with each other.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There is very clearly a fondness, there is very clearly a trust,
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[SPEAKER_00]: not just hilarious improv moments, but also deeply emotional, deeply story compelling and sometimes like drama slash trauma moments.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it is not only one of those things that I think is great, but I just have so much respect and love for my players.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like I need to express that because they, you know, our fan base is
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[SPEAKER_00]: fairly quiet and I need them to know that I love our fans and I love them, but I love my players so much.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're great people and they're just, they know how to make a story, the story that I created.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They know how to make it richer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if anything, I just need to say, hey, come listen to them because they're great.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because at one point, they decided, by the way, this is not spoiling anything, it shows up in episode 3, but they heard me doing my spooky mothman voice, and they just decided you know what would make this greater if we echoed it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So now mothman as a character has his shadows who just echo him or talk to him at various points.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And they just did that on their own, and it was beautiful, and I love
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's fantastic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Having a solid table and party foundation is something that really can't be overlooked.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's incredibly important and I'm very happy to hear that you've got such a tight-knit relationship with yours.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I like them a lot.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're pretty cool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Don't let them know.
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[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this has been a great conversation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you again for coming by to chat with me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And before you head out, can you let our listeners know where they can find your show?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you can find us on Spotify, Apple podcast, Amazon music.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We are pretty much anywhere.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can listen to podcasts.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're even on YouTube, RSS.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to interact with us, we're on TikTok and Instagram.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We have a discord at cozy crypt D&D.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, just come
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[SPEAKER_01]: All right, all of those links will be in the description, so thank you one more time for swinging by the chat.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This was a great time and I hope you had as much fun as I did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me, Dan.
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[SPEAKER_01]: All right, and thank all of you for listening.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One more time, everybody.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Danger Dan Jers, the GM and host of D&D arc.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've been speaking with Olivia, the GM and host of cozy crypt, and this has been table talk.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope you enjoyed what we brought to the table.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Table Talk, created hosted and edited by myself, danger to adgers, with artwork by Jordan Nelson.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our guest this episode was Olivia, from cozy crypt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Links to our work can be found in the episode description.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested in being a guest on the show, reach out to us at dndarkpodcast at gmail.com.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our theme song in Outro was created by Jeremy Volucci.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Check out more of us on Instagram at Jeremy Volucci underscore wreck of time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then we'll see you next time we have a guest take a seat at the table.
