Play By Podcast

They had been in worse situations, hadn’t they? After all the time Bazeen had known her, known any of them really, he wasn’t so sure.

It doesn’t get much worse than this, he thought.

They’d managed to skid out of plenty of scrapes before. Worse for wear? Sure, but never anything like this. Not even Glasstown was like this.

He was there in the Bazaar, standing next to Coleraine of all people. They looked down on Sierra’s makeshift sickbed, close enough to watch over her, but too far away to do anything useful. There was little else to be done now.

As his best friend wheezed and bled and fell unconscious once more before them, Bazeen realized he hadn’t left that spot since the Bazaar had started rolling toward Lockstock.

In today’s episode, we take some time to unpack all the things that happened during our last episode. While the Bazaar crew rushes Sierra to Lockstock to find a medic, we check in and find out how are our favorite Wanderers are doing after the battle in the Emerald Firth. We take a perfectly good bird and give her anxiety, discuss the necessity of violence with a former farmboy, and make Leon cry. Sorry, Leon.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 19: Decompression

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

A white flare. The signal was supposed to be a white flare. Streaking into the night sky over Lockstock while the soldiers below stood sentinel along the walls.

That was when the Deviants among them would turn their coats. When the revolt would begin.

But the signal never came. The sun sank and the soldiers of Lockstock, the Deviants among them, went about their tasks with only the faintest hint of a traitorous edge.

In the night of pondering that followed, the morning of uncertainty, and the meeting in secret, it was determined that those assembled had been played for fools. Their fear, inexperience, and uncertainty bent and twisted for aims they now realized were the ideals of the truly deluded and the brazenly selfish.

The revolution, it appeared, was over before it began.

*

In today’s episode, it’s an action-packed show as the battle against the Deviants begins! Who comes out on top? Who ends up six feet deep? Whose life is forever changed? Listen in for the answers to these questions, and more! We get called out, leave a bird hanging, and buffalo through.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 18: We’ve Been in Worse Situations.

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

As most things often do, Coleraine's arrangement with the Deviants had started as a simple one.

They'd cornered him at a dive in Sandbar. A popular spot he'd heard that a particular Salamander Warf had passed through. He intended to have words with her, and instead, that night he found himself face to face with one Bumprhy Hogart.

The former Privateer Captain and her posse of Deviants could have killed him right there. He was lucky, she had said, that his reputation as a Wanderer-killer had preceded him. If not for that their little gang would have torn him apart on sight without a second thought.

But she had come to offer him something. An out. A quick and dirty agreement. A place among the ranks of those who hated him and those like him.

"It takes a Wanderer to hunt Wanderers, Mister McDougall," she told him, "and your abilities are second only to a few. You can keeping killing, but you'll do it on my order, when I say. Is that clear?"

At the time it was clear as a crystal, but there were facets to this jewel he could never have foreseen.

*

In today’s episode, the Wanderers and the rest of their Bazaar crew are just about to complete their long journey to the fortress settlement of Lockstock! But what’s this? A checkpoint? Something definitely doesn’t seem right here. We’re reunited with some familiar enemies, puzzled by our new allies, and ready to throw down with some Deviants once and for all.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 17: A Grand Restructuring

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

DeGrasse. A week and a half has passed in your journey from Oxbow to Lockstock and a few more weeks are ahead of you still before you reach your destination. You have no idea what awaits you in that faraway town, or who might be moving against your party at this very moment.

With plenty of time to move about the cabin of Bazeen’s Bazaar, or not, you’ve had a long while to mull things over in-between meal conversations, sleep, and road games with your new friends.

Your mind wanders back to your old life, your old home. A strange place to you now in your new life, though it has changed it seems, almost as much as you have.

Your homestead, now a haven for Miasma folk, a fledgling foothold for an entirely new species of being. How did you find yourself here, at only 17? Where did this all begin? Before the college. Before the almanac.

It began, you recall, with a Mage, a Maze, and a Monster.

*

In today’s episode, we bring you the second and final entry in our exploration of the origins of our group of intrepid Wanderers with another dungeon-crawling one shot! Trapped in a strange and sinister maze beneath the earth, how will our three heroes band together and face the labyrinth’s ultimate challenge? You’ll have to tune in to find out. Payoffs and callbacks, accidentally obliterating your teammates, and a brush with death that will change everything you think you know about a certain Immolator, all straight ahead...and maybe to the left.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 16: A Mage, a Maze, and a Monster

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

The Shard scientific community’s stance on the idea of a “King Aberration” is that such a thing does not exist, nor has it ever. Reports of such a creature are often rationalized as a mislabeling of a particularly large Knight by a young research assistant, or just as often laughed off completely and attributed to delirium.

To the general population, the King Aberration is a legend. A modern myth. A bedtime story particularly cruel parents tell their children to keep them from sneaking out at night.

It’ll get you, they say, It’s waiting out there.

For Wanderers, the myth of the King Aberration is, though unfounded, a clear and present source of dread. It could come bounding over that far hill at any moment, it could be slumbering inside that long-abandoned library, or, as is the case with our heroines, it could be right in front of them, a beast of legend made flesh and stone and smoldering acid. A wink of red light closing the distance. It’ll get them, alright.

It’s waited long enough.

*

In today’s episode, we continue our look back at the early days of our Wandering trio, and finish the tale of the meeting of Lyra Greyfeather and Sierra Scorchskin. While exploring the Cairn the dynamic duo has managed to stir up some trouble, and unearthed one of the Interdependency’s most terrifying urban legends: the King Aberration. We dodge energy beams, execute a dynamic entry, and finally pay off all that rock throwing.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 15: The Cairn and the King Pt. 2

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Laura Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

Lyra,

Bazeen’s Bazaar pulls away from the Tillfield Homestead. As it makes its way through Oxbow proper and starts out onto the open road, you settle in for what will surely be a weeks long journey to Lockstock. You have no idea what awaits you in that faraway town, or who might be moving against your party at this very moment. In the meantime, there is downtime.

Some of your companions you look forward to spending time with. Others, you’d rather avoid. For now, you go to your quarters. There, you find a small book of as-yet-unreadable poetry, collected some time ago.

Your eyes wander from the pages, out the window to the Grasslands beyond the boundary of the Miasma. The same Grasslands where once you met a very peculiar Salamander.

*

In today’s episode, as the Wanderers move toward Lockstock and prepare to face their toughest challenge yet, we look back and take stock of a time before. How did Lyra and Sierra meet? Is throwing rocks really a viable solution to trap-finding? What does a thousand bad rolls sound like in audio format? We run a dungeon-crawling one shot to find answers.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 14: The Cairn and the King

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@KeepCalmKlingon), and Laura Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

The old farmstead, now overtaken by the fog of the Miasma, had been abandoned by its previous owner years ago by the look of it. Empty barns, a derelict farmhouse, crops limp and dying in fields overgrown with wildflowers, the rotted wood along the perimeter fence. Whatever caretakers this place had seen were long gone, and the gate of that self same fence had been left open.

To him, this seemed quite the portent.

His companions felt much the same, and so the whole lot of them set down in that farmhouse. After a few nights spent roaming the property he had the thought that maybe, just maybe, they should stay here instead of roaming, instead of heading further into the Miasma, instead of following that voice like all the others who’d roamed with him before they...changed.

He could still hear that voice. The one who had brought them into the Miasma. He was almost positive that they all could. He could not risk bringing them closer to her. He knew what that would do to them all, slowly but surely, as it had the others.

For now everyone was fed, rested, and happy. And that was enough.

*

In today’s episode Degrasse returns to his old homestead with the rest of the Wanderers in tow for one last hurrah. The implications of what he finds there will stretch far beyond even the boundaries of Shard, and bring the Wanderers closer to something big. We check out some good bad dogs, charming mutants, and learn the extent of squatters rights.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 13: A Nice Enough Sunset

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@KeepCalmKlingon), and Laura Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

The Interdependency as it is now owes everything to Oxbow, the breadbasket of Shard. Oxbow was, along with Boon and Summit, one of the original three settlements, and farmers flocked from all around to stake their claim on the vast tracts of arable land surrounding the small township.

In the days of the fledgling Interdependency, it fell to the farmers of Oxbow to produce all the fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats that would sustain the whole of Shard. Many flourished in this challenge, but none so much as the families of Sod, Manore, and Tillfield.

As the land began to die, choked by the poison Miasma, the yield of Oxbow began to diminish. Disease whipped through the town in a seemingly unending blight. The survivors clung to what little hope they had and they made do.

In spite of these hardships; the disease, the downturn, the strife, to this day, from Nomad’s Heights to Port ‘o Plenty, there is always food from Oxbow.

*

In today’s episode, a stop off in Oxbow digs up a past of painful memories and deep-seated blood feuds. It’s the Harvest Festival, and hometown boy DeGrasse wishes he were anywhere else. We dance with a paterfamilias, meet a rat named Bocephus, and eat entirely too much oatmeal.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 12: An Especially Hard Day

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@KeepCalmKlingon), and Laura Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

The skirmish that came to be known in the following days as the Battle of Port ‘o Plenty, while thought of as an outlier in the everyday experience of life in Shard, did leave a particular mark on the Interdependency’s populace. Something sparked by a repeating of apocalyptic events, seemingly with the same lack of reasoning as the first cataclysm.

Though the cause of the disturbance, one errant Jaxx engineer, was eventually discovered, a thought unconsidered for the past 120 years was brought back to the forefront of everyone’s minds:

The Miasma could begin its encroachment again at any time, anywhere. The apocalypse could indeed start again, and this time it would come for all of them.

All who heard the stories of the battle found themselves victim to this pervasive intrusive thought. This one strong, shared emotion. From the Sea of Sandedge to the Singestone Peaks, a fear began to spread.

An almost familiar kind of panic unique to those within the Interdependency. The jarring sense that something in your periphery was suddenly right in front of you.

Beyond the boundaries of the Miasma, something fed off of this shared fear, and grew more powerful for it.

*

In today’s episode, the Wanderers try to turn the tide of battle in the accidental surprise attack on Port ‘o Plenty. Standing in their way? One extremely large Rook. Will Sierra keep her promise to Europa? Will Lyra’s wits and weapons be enough to get her through this? Will Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” signal a horrible fate for DeGrasse? These questions and more, this episode.

This week on Play By Podcast: The Interdependency Shuffle 11: The Battle of Port ‘o Plenty Pt. 2

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@KeepCalmKlingon), and Laura Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)

Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)

Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)