Kiwi comedians bring to life a rich, and vibrant fantasy world, which they must save from evil empires, demons, and even gods

Fate of Isen is a D&D podcast set in a homebrew fantasy world, created by the myself, Brad Zimmerman.

The show is renowned for having a serious world and serious story, that is not taken even remotely seriously by the players.

Our listeners tend to be fans of other TTRPG shows, and also silly improv-heavy shows like Hello from the Magic Tavern.
 

I listen to a lot of podcasts, primarily silly or funny ones.

I've been running D&D games set in the world of Isen for a number of years, and all the storylines are happening in tandem.

In 2018, I thought starting a podcast would be a good way to put all the many wonderful stories and characters out into the world, for others to enjoy.

The first episode was a big learning curve, and took about three months to get out. After that, we've been pretty consistently releasing something each week.
 

We aim to release an episode every week, but sometimes life gets in the way. The earlier episodes took about 4 hours each to edit, but more recently the average is about 12 hours.

Finding time after my day job, and after the kids are in bed at night, is very difficult, and the podcast has made me really appreciate (and miss) the concept of "free time".

We spend a few hundred dollars a year on the podcast, and it's all paid for by our generous Patreon supporters. The early costs were all funded by me.
 

We're open to sponsorship, but only for brands that all the group can agree on.

We have been approached by a few potential sponsors, but only one was an okay fit. Unfortunately, we didn't meet their download criteria at the time, so nothing came of it.

The major benefit that myself and my co-hosts have experienced is the podcasting and ttrpg gaming communities that have been opened up to us. We are all constantly meeting new people and forming bonds with fantastic, kind, and loving people.
 

We started all around a table with a single Blue Yeti microphone, but when one of us moved to another part of NZ, we had to look at remote options.

We eventually settled on Squadcast, which is expensive, but very very good. We each have Blue microphones, and get top-quality audio on our own individual tracks.

Preparation is all done by me, as the dungeon master, getting the story ready, including characters, monsters, environments, etc. that the players might encounter.
 

We perform live shows every year, and those we market on Facebook.

The rest of the time, our marketing is either word-of-mouth from our listeners, or one of our players will spread the word and hand out business cards at gaming conventions.
 

Noise reduction is your friend. When you start recording, always have a small patch of silent "room noise" to give your editing software's noise reduction function something to work with.

Collaborate. Collaborate. Collaborate.
 

We have a website http://fateofisen.com which has fanart, cast profiles, links, and the extensive Isen world wiki.