The Mana Pool

The dorks (except Mike) get together to discuss what we've been playing lately along with a bit of personal nonsense. You know how it is, we're dorks and we're just chatting!

Come join us in the future! The show is live on Thursdays around 8pm(ish) Eastern time on Twitch.

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

Since it's Halloween time the dorks thought they'd get into the spirit of things by telling you all about some spooky stories. These come from folklore, our childhood, the bookstore, and the internet, and all of them spooked us, or unsettled us, or at the very least just stuck with us, and we want to share them with you. We also got several suggestions from the TMP Discord, which you should totally join too!

Come join us in the future! The show is live on Thursdays around 8pm(ish) Eastern time on Twitch.

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

Intro & Outro Music: Diamond by Swift – https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vAs5HIBkUPbuoN5b5GWTE

Welcome to Supply Lines, a running feature here on TMP where the dorks will be looking at resource management in games. What games? All games, because Chewie is convinced that they're all just different styles of resource management dressed up in genre pants.

This is the second Supply Lines episode, after starting with Magic: The Gathering (for obvious reasons) in episode 723. For this one we decided to go to one of the most hardcore examples of resource management in games, Dungeons & Dragons! Chewie has been playing Baldur's Gate 3 and the other dorks actually play D&D, so they've all got stuff to say. This episode focuses on all the resources you have to manage for character creation, which is surprisingly a lot to the point it can be absolutely overwhelming to new players. We'll discuss every aspect of it we can think of and cover why the limitations and restrictions are good actually. Along the way we'll get sidetracked several times, as is our wont.

Let us know what's your favorite part of character creation, and yes, tell us all about your favorite character you've ever made. Just this once we'll allow it.

Supply Lines MTG: https://youtu.be/pmxl27XMHS8

Come join us in the future! The show is live on Thursdays around 8pm(ish) Eastern time on Twitch.

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

Intro & Outro Music: Diamond by Swift – https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vAs5HIBkUPbuoN5b5GWTE

On this fictional episode of The Mana Pool, the dorks are taking a look at books that don't actually exist. Whether they're macguffins that drive the story, plot points that provide exposition or power to the protagonists (or antagonists), or a self-referential meta thing that makes your head hurt, fictional books have been important in fiction across all kinds of genres and mediums, and we're going to talk about a whole mess of them!

What's your favorite fictional book, whether we did or didn't cover it in the episode?

Come join us in the future! The show is live on Thursdays around 8pm(ish) Eastern time on Twitch.

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

Intro & Outro Music: Diamond by Swift – https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vAs5HIBkUPbuoN5b5GWTE

The dorks dive back into the Spider-Man (and the Through the Omenpaths digital nonsense version) Magic set to pick out a mess of cards to talk about. As usual with Universes Beyond stuff, we're talking about what the cards do and what they represent from the source material. Radioactive spider blood!

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

Intro & Outro Music: Diamond by Swift – https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vAs5HIBkUPbuoN5b5GWTE

The dorks swing over to both the Spider-Man set and the Arena non-Spidey version at the same time to discuss what the new set looks like.

Spider-Man mechanics article - https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/spider-man-mechanics

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

Intro & Outro Music: Diamond by Swift – https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vAs5HIBkUPbuoN5b5GWTE

The dorks called an audible this week, so here's the Dorks Just Chatting that resulted. We're all over the place this week, talking about Weird Al, how AI art isn't art and how AI just sucks in general, Brian's long-forgotten first RPG waaaay back on the NES, how Chewie has been playing two classic game compilations, a few weird combat encounters in games new and old, the release of Silksong after all this time, and ACL repair. Hope you all enjoy as much as we did!

Come join us in the future! The show is live on Thursdays around 8pm(ish) Eastern time on Twitch.

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

The dorks take on the existence of creatures that science doesn't support, known as cryptids. We're picking out some of them to talk about in a bit more depth, explaining what they are and why they probably don't exist. If there are any more weird stuff topics you want us to talk about be sure to let us know!

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

Intro & Outro Music: Diamond by Swift – https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vAs5HIBkUPbuoN5b5GWTE

The dorks head back into the Edge of Eternities gallery, poking around at cards in the set that are neat and tripping into tangents along the way. After a while we pause our gallery perusal and start discussing some of the potential ramifications of EoE and its setting and mechanics. Will we be coming back to the Edge in the future? Will spaceships (or other things to Station) become as ubiquitous as vehicles? Does this mean more sci-fi Universes Beyond will be coming up? It's just a good old-fashioned dork discussion, so let us know what you think!

Edge of Eternities Gallery - https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/edge-of-eternities/card-image-gallery

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]

Intro & Outro Music: Diamond by Swift – https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vAs5HIBkUPbuoN5b5GWTE

The dorks return to take their first (and possibly only) look at Edge of Eternities! Because of real life we haven't actually seen terribly much of the set, so a lot of this will be our first reactions to some of the more spicy cards that Twitch chat suggested.

At the end, Mike & Chewie sorta forgot they hadn't ended the episode and moved to the Odds & Ends, so you get a good amount of Baldur's Gate 3/D&D talk. And we're not sorry!

Edge of Eternities mechanics - https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/edge-of-eternities-mechanics Edge of Eternities Gallery - https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/edge-of-eternities/card-image-gallery

Come join us in the future! The show is live on Thursdays around 8pm(ish) Eastern time on Twitch.

Become a Lifeguard on Patreon! – patreon.com/themanapool Podcast RSS Feed: themanapool.libsyn.com/rss YouTube: youtube.com/TheManaPool The Deep End: youtube.com/@TheDeepEndTMP TMP Streams Archive: youtube.com/@TMPStreams Twitch: twitch.tv/themanapool Discord: discord.gg/7da7T6s BlueSky: themanapool.bsky.social Instagram: TheManaPool Threads: @TheManaPool Email: [email protected]