Drawn from the Undertow

🎶 0 - The Fugitive's First Dance by Max Knightley 🎶

🪲 Threadspinner GLOW 🪲
Lexi as The Master Thief: Stan Stickley, aka Denny Deciduous, aka Benny Bonsai, aka Lenny Leafless
Molly as The Mixologist: Heiress, Discarded Queen of the Golden Haven
Mike as The Fae: Velnias

GM: Luke
Editor: Mike

In the walls of the Threadspinner's Guild exists an entire miniature world unto itself, a vast civilization of insects and other small creatures that have been touched by the magic of Thread. A part-time bartender with royal blood, a lord of thieves, and a sentient fungus explore this secret kingdom. Their quest is easily overlooked, easily forgotten, but will carry consequences that will reverberate throughout the entire Wake.

Threadspinner GLOW is the third campaign of Threadspinner Playtest, and takes inspiration from the Hollow Knight series. GLOW will run for approximately 20-25 episodes, released once every three weeks.

Mike and Luke sit down with Crystal for an interview about their recent miniseries! They discuss their favorite miniseries, their approaches to GMing, and their preferred types of narratives! Plus, they share their goals for Threadspinner Playtest!

Edited by Crystal

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🎶 17 - If It's Not Your Lucky Day, At Least It's Always Someone Else's by Max Knightley 🎶

⚡️ Threadspinner SPARK ⚡️
Crystal as The Dream Interpreter: Reverie, the Waking Dreamer
Morgan as The Blade Magician: Love the Uncut
Zoe as The Divinity: Magnolia Kane

GM: Luke
Editor: Luke

In the heart of The Wake stands Mother-of-All, the capital city governed by the Threadspinners. Peoples of all places and ages populate its crowded streets; turn down this alley and you will find yourself in a lost city of legend, while that thoroughfare will take you to a district built with technology not yet invented in your time. A young film starlet, her bodyguard, and a disgraced Threadspinner seeking to write her biography dive deep into the city's endless layers of secrets and subterfuge.

Threadspinner SPARK is the second campaign of Threadspinner Playtest, and takes inspiration from Bloodborne and Lies of P. SPARK will run for approximately 20-25 episodes, released once every three weeks.

Zoe and Iris sit down with Crystal for an interview about their recent miniseries! They discuss their creative development over six years of Drawn from the Undertow, and evaluate each other as players and GMs! Zoe and Iris played in each others' miniseries, so they also ask each other plenty of questions!

Edited by Crystal

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🎶 13 - Death Beyond Death by Max Knightley 🎶

🔥 Threadspinner FLAME 🔥
Iris as The Hero: Syr Violet, Knight of the Coiling Vine
Maxie as The Executed: Thistle, the Bastard Daughter
Tyberius as The Conjurer: Xalatan, Sage of Wind and Shadow

GM: Luke
Editor: Iris

To tame the endless chaos of the Wake, the Threadspinner's Guild recruits three undead adventurers to explore the spirits of long-dead kingdoms: a paladin of love and creation, a wizard seeking primordial power, and an executed traitor whose chains compel supplication.

Threadspinner FLAME is the first campaign of Threadspinner Playtest, and takes inspiration primarily from Elden Ring and the Dark Souls franchise. FLAME will run for approximately 20-25 episodes, released once every three weeks.

Crystal and Maxie sit down for a candid discussion about their recent miniseries! They discuss their creative influences, GMing techniques, proudest moments, and lessons learned. Learn the secrets behind your favorite series, and listen to Crystal and Maxie philosophize on what it means to be an adult!

Plus, since Maxie is our composer, we talk about the miniseries themes, and the upcoming music for Threadspinner Playtest! Remember to pick up the Official Soundtracks at undertow.cards!

Edited by Crystal

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The podcast formerly known as Eidolon Playtest is now Drawn from the Undertow!

Welcome to Undertow Update, your monthly newsletter describing what awaits you in the next month of Drawn from the Undertow. This month, we've got a lot!

Threadspinner is now ready for a full playtest, and we're going to do it in not one, not two, but three long-form campaigns that will serve as the backbone of this podcast for the next year and a half:

Threadspinner FLAME
Players: Iris, Maxie, Tyberius
GM: Luke
Editor: Iris

Threadspinner SPARK
Players: Crystal, Morgan, Zoe
GM: Luke
Editor: Luke

Threadspinner GLOW
Players: Lexi, Mike, Molly
GM: Luke
Editor: Mike

May is going to be a transitional month between Eidolon and Threadspinner, where we will look back on the latest round of Eidolon miniseries while rolling out details about Threadspinner Playtest, which will officially debut on May 25th! The full schedule is below:

Monday, May 4: Eidolon ISLAND/FLASHBACK/ADULT GM Postmortem with Crystal and Maxie
Wednesday, May 6: We will reveal the cover art, opening music, and premise of Threadspinner FLAME!

Monday, May 11: Eidolon ROMANCE/+MACHINE GM Postmortem with Crystal, Iris, and Zoe
Wednesday, May 13: We will reveal the cover art, opening music, and premise of Threadspinner SPARK!

Monday, May 18: Eidolon TOOL/PROTO GM Postmortem with Crystal, Luke, and Mike
Wednesday, May 20: We will reveal the cover art, opening music, and premise of Threadspinner GLOW!

Monday, May 25: Threadspinner FLAME Session #0
Monday, June 1: Threadspinner SPARK Session #0
Monday, June 8: Threadspinner GLOW Session #0

Morgan is joining as a permanent cast member of Drawn from the Undertow! Everyone loved her performance in Eidolon ADULT, and we're lucky to have her as part of Threadspinner SPARK!

We're not playing EIDOLON in the near future, so "Eidolon Playtest" isn't really accurate. But we're also not done with EIDOLON forever, and more RPGs will come in the future, so "Threadspinner Playtest" would only be temporarily accurate. Instead of changing the name over and over, we're using a permanent name that is inclusive of EIDOLON, Threadspinner, and everything else that we do: Drawn from the Undertow.

In the past, we split our 9 non-GM players into groups of 4 and 5. We noticed that the 5-player groups consistently struggled to keep up the pace and give each character equal spotlight. For the recent round of Eidolon miniseries, we experimented with 3-player groups and found that they reliably avoided the frictions of larger groups. In addition, 3-player groups are easier both to schedule and to edit.

With 3 players in each campaign, FLAME, SPARK, and GLOW will be smoother and more consistent productions than our previous long-form series. We're also using these three campaigns to showcase the thematic diversity that Threadspinner can offer. We hope that each one has a different style and dynamic!

Our heroes, newly reunited, at last confront the heart of The Machine, learn its true purpose, and fight for the future of the human race.

🎶 This city now will fade away
It's crying out, it's much too late
This city now won't last the night
Don't let it die without a fight 🎶

CREDITS:
Molly Rhinebeck as Cascade Incursion
Iris Christianson as Tacit Dragoon
Crystal Zaslavchik as WiFi X
Luke Varner as The GM

Edited by Luke Varner
Music by Max Knightley
Cover Art by Tavish Buchanan

Content Warnings: Authoritarian oppression, dismemberment, body horror, dissociation, gaslighting.

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Mike sits down with Molly and Crystal to talk about their all-time favorite band and the inspiration behind Eidolon TOOL, the seminal prog-metal band Tool! The Long Song Pervert has logged on and they will not be logging off!

Listen to the playlist here!

Edited by Iris

This episode is possible thanks to all $3 and up Patreon subscribers! If you're listening to the 5-minute preview of this episode, then you can listen to the full episode by subscribing today!

This month, we work on filling in some gaps that we left out of Draft 1 of Threadspinner, since making it ready for Session 0 was more important than getting every single aspect of it finished. Specifically, we further build on what it takes to develop an Artifact, and work up elevator pitches for the 22 types of Devils that players can encounter when they allow their Malaise to climb too high.

Edited by Luke

This episode is possible thanks to all $3 and up Patreon subscribers! If you're listening to the 5-minute preview of this episode, then you can listen to the full episode by subscribing today!