Welcome to a bonus Character Creation Spotlight episode 15, everyone! This episode, we welcome Austin Taylor and Amanda Kahl, to learn about the game they are designing along with Banana Chan, Deimos Academy, a horror RPG set in a spooky boarding school that is played with a coloring book and paper dolls! This episode we learn about the game, figure out some details about our school, and make our supernaturally powered students returning for a mysterious 15 year reunion!
Welcome to a bonus Character Creation Spotlight episode 15, everyone! This episode, we welcome Austin Taylor and Amanda Kahl, to learn about the game they are designing along with Banana Chan, Deimos Academy, a horror RPG set in a spooky boarding school that is played with a coloring book and paper dolls! This episode we learn about the game, figure out some details about our school, and make our supernaturally powered students returning for a mysterious 15 year reunion!
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Ryan Boelter 0:20
Welcome to a special bonus episode of character creation spotlight everyone in this bonus segment will be shining a light on some current or upcoming games to keep an eye out for I one of your hosts Ryan and today we are welcoming Austin Taylor and Amanda call to talk about demos Academy, a horror rpg that lets you explore a creepy boarding school through a coloring book with paper dolls. Welcome to characterization spotlight. It's really great to have you all here.
Austin Taylor 0:49
Happy to be here.
Amanda Kahl 0:50
Thanks so much for having us.
Ryan Boelter 0:52
Austin, can you go and start us off with telling us a bit about yourself? What sort of projects you have going on?
Austin Taylor 0:58
Yeah, I'm Austin. My pronouns are he they she I am a podcaster Narrative Designer and game performer because I love to be busy, I guess. Stuff I have going on right now. I'm a cast member on transplant RPG, which is an actual play. I'm a designer on this and they must Academy. Every few things on aren't officially announced yet, but I'm writing for. And I think that's it that I'm like, actively working on some stuff I've worked on before I worked on our con. And I've worked on bring quid. So those are some things I worked on recently that are banquets out. I don't think our commas out just yet. It's hard to keep track of stuff. Yes, like a writer and not the designer because they kind of like heavy, right? And they take it and they're like, all right. And you're like, Okay, and that's kind of it. So you get an email with your pdf copy.
Ryan Boelter 1:58
Absolutely. Yeah, you're in a lot of stuff. Yes. Like I see my plate is full. And then and then I see what you do online. And I'm like, Oh, that's a full plate.
Austin Taylor 2:10
I am officially at the saying no staying. Yeah, I told Amanda and banana the other day when people asked me of like, I if I say something I won't have time for stuff I'd like to I want to do that is like just myself. Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 2:25
exactly. Wonderful. Amanda, how about yourself?
Amanda Kahl 2:30
Hi, I'm Amanda call she her. I am an artist in the tabletop gaming world. I am was the artist for damos Academy and, and kind of like art director. I'm in charge of like all the visual stuff for this game. I do a lot of other illustration for different tabletop games, and including, like Skirmisher publishing Fairlight games. I like so many I can't think of them all right now. And I'm also a comic artist, I have my ongoing webcomic age of night. And I'm also in the middle of working on a graphic novel right now, which should be coming out later this year.
Ryan Boelter 3:08
Oh, very cool. Wonderful. Well, thank you both for being here. Since this is an abridged version of our normal format, we'll just be sticking to the highlights of the system with a special focus on character creation. So without further ado, how about we find out what this game is all about? What's in a game? So could you start off by telling us a bit about the core concept for damos Academy?
Austin Taylor 3:33
Yeah, I can do that. So they must Academy is a as you said Stop horror coloring book RPG which is a mouthful of things. So you are essentially you are an alumni returning to the school for a reunion. I say for question mark, like a map or the writer you're returning to school for a union and you get there and stuff is a little freaky. Oh, there's no one there. The doors are all locked and you can't get out. You're just left to explore.
Ryan Boelter 4:13
Oh boy, that's it sounds like a very great bang so so it feels like that's kind of the setting that we're playing with. Right? Is there any other details about the setting that you want to go into? Like like what what what's what's special about this spooky school?
Austin Taylor 4:29
Oh yeah, so there's an ad lib at the start when you're in creation actually and working new characters where you kind of ad lib about what the school focused on while you were while you went to the school before were kind of thing the boarding school specialized and like it was an art boarding school was it like a prep school for college, etc. Okay. And the other thing that links you in all the characters because you all have supernatural powers, so whereas assumingly other students did not. Okay, that's kind of up to you and the other players to decide because of this GM list is not like a one person leading the narrative. Yeah. So it's kind of in turn, like you and your friends had these weird powers that you hid from people because you seem no one else did. But that's kind of other people that are not
Ryan Boelter 5:16
well, that's interesting, because like, you know, they could, but they're, they might just be hiding it too,
Austin Taylor 5:20
huh? Yeah, exactly. I love that was something I didn't think about until literally just now doing that.
Ryan Boelter 5:27
That's pretty cool. I love the mystery aspect of that, too. That's, that sounds really fun. So what what sort of materials do we need? I know, we said it was a coloring book. And there's paper dolls
Amanda Kahl 5:38
involved? Yeah, so the game comes with, it's actually like two separate books. The first one is your rulebook that explains like how you play the game and how you run through everything. And the other guy, the other book for the game is your materials. And so that is coloring sheets, which are all the different rooms of the school that you can explore. And so there's lots of copies of different ones. And you have options to visit different ones. Each time you play through, there's like a dozen different rooms, but each play through you'll play probably only visit three or four of them. And so you have a lot of replayability that way, but you'll have a whole bunch of them. You use those as like your coloring sheets, where you explore the rooms with your characters and interact with different objects in the room in order to have your prompts for your roleplay and how the game plays out. You do also have paper dolls, those also come in that coloring, second coloring book of consumables. And they're pretty simple as far as you have like nine different things ended up with nine. Yes, I say is if I didn't draw them all. Who are we? What did we do? What are we doing here? You have nine different characters to choose from. So you have a lot of variety. And then they are just like blank outlines. So you can color them in however you want. Or you can draw extra stuff on them. Oh, yeah. And they're just a very simple cut out in 10 fold and then they stand up and then you get to move them around the rooms as you interact with them. You do also have an element of gameplay where there is clothing that can be added to the paper dolls to but that's bad. That means that means things are going badly if that's
Ryan Boelter 7:18
so interesting. I don't think I've seen a an RPG that has that sort of craft element. Before I'm sure it exists. I'm sure there's others kind of like that out there. But this sounds really intriguing. I like it.
Amanda Kahl 7:33
I've heard of a couple of other like coloring based RPGs. I haven't played any of them. But I am not familiar with any others that also involve like the paper dolls and the coloring and it's just like arts and crafts time. And also creepy boarding schools horror.
Ryan Boelter 7:52
Absolutely. So what sort of characters can people make in this game? Then?
Austin Taylor 7:58
Honestly, your imagination is the limit. There's no I can't think of any kind of mutation we put on character creator. Besides, you're all, you're all come back for the singer union. So you were all in the same grade. And y'all graduated the same year, you can decide what year that is together if you like graduated in like 1984 or we graduated in like 2011. Or if you want it to be like the union union is in 2022, or whatever you want. Um, other than that, I mean, it's pretty freeform, we have some tables, if you can think of like personality traits or there's a trade there's a section for like, what's the talent you had when you're at the school? What's something you like, have now to use some tables for that I feel like can't think of anything that you could just like roll on like, I don't know, I love random tables. But other than that, you can really be anyone you want just with the same caveat of like, at some point you are friends with the other people here you may not be friends now we've we've done play tests where like, one of the people is like, no one likes to talk to you anymore. But you were friends at some point. Okay, so the only thing is like you're someone who for some reason would agree to go to this to Union so you're to be at playing this game not necessarily constraints of like other games was kind of like you have to be want to be with the people because it's more of like, you have to want to be at the reunion. You're going to get trapped with these people. That's all we're setting right? We have to like them. You're just trapped alone. Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 9:34
Oh, that makes sense.
Amanda Kahl 9:36
Yeah, the only other prescriptive part of character creation is that the character that you choose the only thing that's like already preset on the character sheet is whatever your supernatural power is. Right. So that's kind of like your I would be like kind of analogous to your class and some of their systems so like you get you choose to be the telekinetic or the Clairvoyant or whichever one of those That's pretty much the only thing that's already decided for you. And you just pick one of those options.
Ryan Boelter 10:06
Oh, lovely. Okay, that makes that makes a lot of sense, then. Very cool. Well, I'm wondering, would we be able to walk through a character creation right now?
Amanda Kahl 10:18
Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Let's make some people. Alright, you're gonna, you're gonna have to edit out some clicking while like open one up.
Ryan Boelter 10:27
That's perfectly fine.
Amanda Kahl 10:29
I used to get to my Google Drive and open one at 40.
Austin Taylor 10:33
Yeah, it was like, Wait, let me mute my mic.
Ryan Boelter 10:38
I can see. Oh, I'm looking at. Gosh. Okay. So I see, I see there is a, for lack of a better word, the class. So like the telepath. And then there's the consumed telepath? Oh, what are the differences there?
Amanda Kahl 10:57
Yes, so consumed. That's the the bad thing that can happen. So you, you, as a player are trying to escape the school that you are trapped in, you are also interacting with the school as you're going through and gathering these like memories of your time when you were attending as a teenager. But that can through the roles that you're making there that can go badly. And basically, the school can kind of start winning you over to its side of whatever it's terrible evil is you also kind of describe what the manifestation of the evil of the school is. Through gameplay. That's another thing that we do not have as prescriptive. That's something that you come up with collaboratively as you play. But yeah, if you're doing poorly, or if you're playing to lose, because that sounds fun to you, then you get to be taken over to the side of the evil and your abilities change a little bit at the end. And in like the final confrontation where everyone is making the final bid for escape, you can actually be working against them. Oh, fun. So
Austin Taylor 12:07
you, uh, if I remember, right, because I'm not on layout stuff, but like you flip you like we just flip the sheet.
Ryan Boelter 12:16
Yeah, cuz it looks like it folds. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. I like that. I'm getting kind of a House on Haunted Hill, a vibe to that. At the end,
Amanda Kahl 12:30
yeah, there's definitely an element of that kind of in there too. Like, Yeah, cuz we were kind of like, well, what happens if you like if you lose, if you do end up doing poorly, like, what's the consequence going to be for doing poorly, and we don't want the game to just end we don't want you to just not get to do anything for the rest of the game. So it's like alright, well, you're you're bad now.
Ryan Boelter 12:54
Is it possible for everybody to go bad?
Austin Taylor 12:57
Uh huh. After roll pretty bad I think it's because it's a it's a D sixes. It's a 2d 2d six one decent 1d Six 1d Six you get there's ways you can get to That's right. But it's a 1d six system. So it's a pretty that that gradient. Yeah, people are pretty used to for like D six Pass Fail system. So but you I mean, I guess the whole table could have really bad.
Amanda Kahl 13:26
It's statistically unlikely but possible.
Ryan Boelter 13:28
Yeah. Oh, that would be fun, though. All right.
Austin Taylor 13:34
I mean, yeah, that would be cool. Because then you can talk about like, alright, well, how do we go out and just get more people? Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 13:41
Just Just go on a recruiting binge for the Z comes.
Austin Taylor 13:49
Like evil. Evil school recruiters. Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 13:53
Well, that sounds awesome. Um, yeah, let's let's go ahead and make a group together if we could. So we've got it looks like six medium clairvoyant. Astral traveler, telekinetic telepath. Yeah, so there's five different classes to choose from, it looks like so it is this game where you want to fill that particular niche. Everybody can only pick different classes or different character types or powers. I guess you could call it. Where can you have or can you have to to telepaths in the group and just have fun with?
Austin Taylor 14:35
No, I don't think we've talked about or made a rule around that. I think it matters,
Ryan Boelter 14:40
okay. I know in a lot of like, powered by the apocalypse style games, it's like this is your niche, and only your character fills that niche. So it is kind of cool that you can have the same same abilities. I like that thought I like the thought of two telepath just like messing with each other telepathically while nobody else can Hear them? That sounds fun. Okay, so I guess we'll see we each want to create a character quick. What do we have to do first?
Amanda Kahl 15:11
So pick whichever archetype you would like whatever your power would like to be. I'll be a medium I will talk to ghosts.
Ryan Boelter 15:22
I am, I'm between telekinetic cuz I've always wanted to move things with my mind, or astral traveler. Because that sounds amazing to you.
Amanda Kahl 15:33
That is a fun one.
Ryan Boelter 15:34
Ah, you know, I think I'll go telekinetic, because that's just more a nice visual. I think.
Austin Taylor 15:44
I'll be a national traveler.
Ryan Boelter 15:45
Ah, sweet. All right. So we've got our powers. Astral traveler, kinetic, telekinetic and medium. Perfect. All right, so what's next on the list?
Austin Taylor 15:57
Next, you would want to do your name pronouns. And then we were talking about what year we graduated the school.
Ryan Boelter 16:03
Okay, let's see, are we in? Are we in modern times? Or what? What sort of boarding school are we coming from?
Austin Taylor 16:14
Well, and that's so that's something that will usually in the if you look in the sidebar here, there's the alumni letter. And that's like the ad lib I talked about. Very cool. So that's where you decide like the year you decide, like, why they're having him in union, when it is where it is. And that's kind of when you would want to talk about like, what kind of school it was.
Ryan Boelter 16:39
Okay. i It seems like this might be a pretty quick process. Do we want to go through this real quick? Sure.
Amanda Kahl 16:47
Yeah, so the the alumni letter because you do basically like creating the school is also kind of part of character creation almost. Is a character we just do this like?
Ryan Boelter 16:59
Absolutely. Collaborative.
Austin Taylor 17:01
Relationship sheet. Yeah. Okay.
Amanda Kahl 17:05
All right. So the alumni letter begins with dear esteemed alumni It is year, whichever year we want it to be the perfect time for a 15 year reunion. Some of us haven't seen each other since graduation. So What year do we want it to be? Now as the game is being played?
Ryan Boelter 17:20
Oh, a near future? Like 2050?
Austin Taylor 17:25
That's really weird. That's the year I was thinking.
Amanda Kahl 17:29
That I guess it's 2050. Right? If it was 2015. That means we would have all graduated in 2035. Yes. Alright. So the reason we are hosting this reunion now is because and then there are three options. First option, we've received a large donation and we'd like to offer it to any alumni who return option two, we'd like you to speak with prospective students. Option three, we're being interviewed by press and they want to know about your experience,
Austin Taylor 17:58
because this can also help you think about character creation like which you didn't like a person who would be enticed by one of those choices.
Ryan Boelter 18:04
Yeah, exactly. And And honestly, the first one sounds super like sinister. Is a school ever given me money? Exactly. Come have some free money. No strings attached. Hmm. I kind of want to pick that one because that is
Amanda Kahl 18:27
that sounds that sounds good. I guess it is suspicious. We've received a large donation and we'd like to offer it any alumni who return all right. The letter continues we have arranged a day of celebration starting at 11am on date, so we can just choose like what time of year this is happening basically. So what are we thinking? Season summer falls winter spring
Austin Taylor 18:53
is seven February 29.
Ryan Boelter 19:02
The 20 50/25 pitch I don't think it is it's gonna be multiple for it.
Austin Taylor 19:09
It's a leap year now that's all you
Ryan Boelter 19:11
know, it is now science added an extra day this year because it's 2050 and they needed to readjust some calendar calculations on
Austin Taylor 19:21
February 29. We all said what and you took out your phone and like Look at that 29 late exists.
Ryan Boelter 19:28
I'm pretty sure that was a bear.
Amanda Kahl 19:30
Alright, it continues as you all know, the academy is located at place so now we get to choose the location where is day most Academy
Austin Taylor 19:41
and it can be broad it could be like Pacific Northwest or it could be like very specific like Michigan.
Ryan Boelter 19:48
I want it because I like the whole like adult I like that small town sort of vibe that Stephen King kind of latches on to a lot. Yes. Like, like East northeast of the US or so. Might be a good place. Yeah.
Austin Taylor 20:07
So say northeast.
Amanda Kahl 20:09
Yeah. Do we do we have a specific state in the Northeast? We want to.
Ryan Boelter 20:12
It's gotta be Maine.
Amanda Kahl 20:14
It's got to be Maine. Okay.
Ryan Boelter 20:16
Super northeast.
Amanda Kahl 20:17
I actually live in Maine. So there you go. So do you do you want Rocky? Do you want rocky Gothic coast? Or do you want a spooky pine trees?
Ryan Boelter 20:29
Oh, can we have a little bit of both? Okay, a little bit. Okay, we can we make up?
Amanda Kahl 20:35
Shirt? We'll put it on the rial,
Ryan Boelter 20:39
dear aisle. Oh, that sounds okay. And that sounds super spooky. So
Amanda Kahl 20:43
it's on deer. I mean, that is a basically just a pine covered mountains sitting off the coast.
Ryan Boelter 20:50
Oh, fantastic. Ever bad happens on an island off the coast.
Amanda Kahl 20:59
Alright, so please dress appropriately for the weather. Lunch, Dinner and light beverages will be provided. Please register at your earliest convenience. All expenses have been paid for children's significant others and any other guests are not allowed. We will be expecting just to you. See you there sincerely. And then your options are whether this came from I think it's it got cut off here for some reason, but I think it was the class president the from the year we graduated are the current headmaster or there was someone else. I can't remember what the other one was.
Austin Taylor 21:31
Yeah. It's like It's like headmaster, President President, or, like, alumni rep or whatever. Something like
Amanda Kahl 21:42
that. So whoever this came from,
Ryan Boelter 21:45
okay, let's go class president just because why not?
Amanda Kahl 21:49
All right. And our former class president has sent this out. Okay, so that is the little alumni letter. Yeah. That sets this up. Alright, so now if you wanted to go back to your character sheet, so now we have an idea of like, what this place is what this is like?
Ryan Boelter 22:11
Absolutely. So let's see, it's the near future. I'm sure names won't have changed too much. By then. Um, gosh, they be. They be just starting school about a couple years ago. This point? Yes. late, late teens. Yeah. Okay. That's wild.
Amanda Kahl 22:35
Yeah. Yeah, my, my kids are, like, going to be graduating class of 2031 and 2033. And I'm like, what?
Ryan Boelter 22:46
Yeah. And my son just started kindergarten this year. So super, super fun to think about him graduating. 2030s Yeah.
Amanda Kahl 22:58
So if your son just started kindergarten, then he'd be graduating class of 2035.
Ryan Boelter 23:04
Wild? Yeah. He doesn't go to Deimos Academy.
Austin Taylor 23:08
Hopefully. You get a letter, you know, they just break.
Ryan Boelter 23:13
Yeah, we're back with that.
Amanda Kahl 23:17
So I think my mediums name is going to be Helen she her pronouns. And we established graduated 2035 Wonderful. Do you have a name for your Astral traveler? Austin.
Austin Taylor 23:31
Yeah, Steve, Steve. Okay. Nice. And go like really mundane names.
Ryan Boelter 23:38
There you go. Let me go with Arthur. He him pronouns.
Amanda Kahl 23:43
All right. The next prompt reads Where did your parents live while you were at the school? So this is kind of to establish like, Are you local to the school? Are you coming in from other states? Are you coming in from another country and kind of also can help give a little bit more background for where your character is coming from?
Ryan Boelter 24:03
Okay, because this is a boarding school so it could be across the coast. It could be right whatever. Okay, I'm just gonna go with what I know. Wisconsin. Maybe go Mr. Nice, Midwestern boy.
Austin Taylor 24:19
Uh, oh, probably be I'll just be local, I guess. Like local isn't them like New England?
Ryan Boelter 24:27
Yeah. They're pretty close together over there.
Amanda Kahl 24:30
They're pretty close. My character is going to have come from Virginia. Alright, so the next section the next prompt is what was your reputation in high school? Now this one it there's a couple of boxes next to it because there's the opportunity of if you are reminded of your reputation while you are in the game if for something for some reason, something in the game reminds you of this This is something that you can draw on as irrelevant experience and roleplay it out, you're able to alter your role twice per game. So you can enhance or again if you're playing to lose make your role worse.
Ryan Boelter 25:16
And now, I'm reading ahead a little bit. Do we define our, like, in high school? Did we have our powers or not? Or up to us?
Austin Taylor 25:30
You did? We
Amanda Kahl 25:31
did. Yeah, that is okay. That we did wonderful. Okay, this
Austin Taylor 25:35
is it's establish. That's on the sheet. Like, I think everyone has their own question about like, you discovered your, like, situation and how, yeah, so it is established. It's really up to you how much you did or didn't use your powers then. Okay, are now.
Ryan Boelter 25:55
Absolutely. Um, so my reputation in high school. Um, I'm gonna say prankster because if you can move things with your mind, that's, that's perfect for pranking. I guess. If you're in high school,
Amanda Kahl 26:09
I definitely feel like that's a solid concept. Alright, so let's see. I'm gonna say my reputation was the overachiever.
Austin Taylor 26:22
I think I'm a I was a burnout.
Amanda Kahl 26:25
Okay. All right. So what's our next prompt? Our next prompt now is how do you define yourself now? Alright, so what so this is where you can also set up kind of like how your, your character has grown or changed over the years? Like, if there is any dissonance between the person you were in high school versus who are now or if you're kind of very much still on that same track? Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 26:48
I think my character's grown up a bit, and left their prankster life behind for the most part. But like, I think that got into doing practical special effects for somebody like Disney or something like that, and, and utilizes their telekinesis to do certain things that no other special effects artist can do. Nice. But then, like, tells people Oh, yeah, I've got this special, you know, rigging that only I know how to use. It's a trade secret. The trade secret? Yeah. Not even the company that pays my bills knows. But I get good results. So why not?
Austin Taylor 27:29
Nice. That's good. I think. I think I'm, I'm like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say a burnout. But I'm still kind of a burnout. I'm like, I found a way to like channel that very carefree. Like loose energy. I think I do like, what sort of looking for like life coaching. But I'm like, I'm not like because I feel like some life coaches are like, very prim or upper people. I'm like the cool life coach. And everyone else said The Life Coach agency is like, super annoyed by me. But my clients give me the best reviews.
Ryan Boelter 28:10
Love it. Is that like, kind of a Chris Farley? Sort of from the old SNL living in a van down by the river?
Austin Taylor 28:23
You know, I don't get that right. Oh. I know who Chris is.
Ryan Boelter 28:29
Yeah, this very famous skit on SNL where he was a life coach. But he was just this like, hyped up on probably cocaine. I'm guessing this super hyper. And like, very talking about I'm living in a van down by the river. And if you don't get your life together, you're gonna be living in a van down by the river.
Amanda Kahl 28:53
So good. Very intense. Yep. Gotcha. All right. I'm gonna say that Helen is now a like, small time politician. Like she's been on city council for a few years and she's trying to work her way up to like, like state legislature. And so she's just constantly in that like campaigning and schmoozing zone.
Ryan Boelter 29:15
Yeah. Okay.
Amanda Kahl 29:17
Alright, so the next prompt says, you discovered your powers, whichever, whatever they are, when you were in a scary situation. How did you find your powers?
Ryan Boelter 29:27
So I think Arthur found his powers. There was a big storm in his freshman year at at the Academy, and somebody had gotten caught out off the island and the boat capsized and they were in trouble and Arthur was just happened to be around, but he was scared to swim out there. He was he was an okay swimmer. But he was scared to swim out But then, like, somehow this unlocked bit is telekinesis pulling the student to shore which shocked him. So he ran away so the student never figured out that key use telekinesis to all them to shore nice.
Austin Taylor 30:21
I think mine i ration protection, ease. I think I was in I was like, out after curfew like snuck out of my room and I was like, messing around in the school I was just like messing around but I was just like out wandering the school and I was supposed to be. And I I think I literally saw something that is unknowable and indescribable. That was so frightening. I thought I died. And it was the first time I like projected my spirit. Oh, I think I like collapsed and was like, and like saw my body and I was like, Am I dead? Like, you know, I feel dead. This seems like I'm a ghost. I'm castering right now. And the thing like came up to my body, and then like walked away from it because it seemed dead. And then I just like went back in and was like, I'm Casper. That's it. I like it.
Amanda Kahl 31:21
I love that. So I'm gonna say that. Helen at one point had actually tried to sneak out of the school, like at night and was just trying to get out in a way and got lost on the island. And like just lost and all of the like craggy rocks and pine trees and everything and couldn't see the lights of the school couldn't find our way back. And then just saw another kid around her age walking through the woods and followed her back to the school. And when she got back to the school, the other girl just disappeared. Oh, wow, that was a ghost. Yeah, that would
Ryan Boelter 31:59
be freaky.
Amanda Kahl 32:00
Alright, so the next prompt says this made you scared of something what is your fear? And this doesn't necessarily have to be directly related to the story that you told we also do have like a random chart for this where you can just roll for random fear and sometimes those are great.
Ryan Boelter 32:17
Oh yeah. I have one in mind but I want to roll on the chart
Amanda Kahl 32:22
Sure. Go ahead and roll 2d Six and I'll let you know it comes up on the chart right because that's in a different place that's in the rulebook I have it pulled up though
Ryan Boelter 32:35
four and a one
Amanda Kahl 32:36
a four and a one is a V undead
Ryan Boelter 32:42
ba that's a lot better than than what I was thinking big storms but like the undead
Amanda Kahl 32:49
dead are pretty great. Cuz you know what your fear will come into play at some point. Yeah, the game so
Ryan Boelter 32:55
I guess I can kind of justify that with you know, saving somebody that was near death. And then like, just being like seeing them lay on the on the ground and start to get up after after I pulled them to shore and then running away from that. Yeah, that's pretty nice.
Austin Taylor 33:16
Uh, I think I am afraid of specifically dark corners and rooms. I think that the school has a lot of corners that shouldn't be dark that seemed to never illuminate
Amanda Kahl 33:30
Yeah, I don't like that. I'm gonna say that Helens actually afraid of ghosts even no one helped her. No, she sees she sees them all the time and every time it's like
Austin Taylor 33:46
I know it's a horror game but I enjoy the idea of like, you're like a politician. Right? So you're like input like officers like people for sure have died. Right? Right. And there's just like, some goes like, Hey, how's it going? Oh my god, they're like, are you gonna do that every time there's someone at the front gate I was just letting you know. Especially
Amanda Kahl 34:04
cuz like most like public service buildings are like old old buildings like most town halls and public legislatures and staff are like really old buildings with a lot of history and ghosts in them. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 34:16
it's great. It's great. And they're
Austin Taylor 34:18
just like, most of them are just like normal people right? Like the mat like evil spirits. They're just right. Yeah, I hung out here too long. Are you going to scream every time I walk into a room because I'll just go to a different room.
Amanda Kahl 34:33
The answer is yes. Yes, I am. Alright, a final prompt. Why do you decide to go to the reunion? And we also do have like a whole relationship like thing where we get to establish Yeah, what our interactions are with each other, both in the present and in the past. Which I don't know if we depending on the type situation if we want to go through that I know we're getting close to, because that one's a little bit longer.
Austin Taylor 35:05
It is longer. But that's like another aspect of like, the creation is like you make the school. You, you do the characters like you do like what we've done, and then you do your relationships, and then you are sort of ready for the game right after that after relationship sheet and like, the reason why you're going, then you would start like, the game, and there's a whole kind of ad libbing intro to that depends on like, who gets there first? Yeah, then you're just ready. Yeah.
Amanda Kahl 35:35
So if you wanted to, you can basically just answer we can each just answer Why did our character decide to go to, to this reunion?
Ryan Boelter 35:45
Yeah, we can go through that. Gosh, because we're being enticed by money. You know, I guess my character is going. Arthur's going based on curiosity. Like, why? Why is the academy and you know, free money? And who who's the one that donated it? And is, is this you know, too good to be true. So he's coming in, like, curious and also cautious. As
Amanda Kahl 36:15
I'm, I'm gonna say that Helen is going partially because she thinks it will look good. Get some photo ops in this old prestigious academy that she used to attend. And hopefully some of the other alumni from her graduating year also have made a name for themselves so I can get some nice photo ops. And also, yeah, the money would be nice. You know, running a campaign for state legislators not cheap. No, it's true. I got to print up those little lawn signs.
Austin Taylor 36:48
I think I'm going because I'm still curious about those rooms with the corners I want to eliminate.
Amanda Kahl 36:57
I should have mentioned at the start that Austin is really good at making this very creepy every week. They always turn the creepy up to the Mac.
Ryan Boelter 37:08
Ah, you know, you know, there's gonna be eyes in one of those corners one of these days. Why is there two lights in the corner? Oh, no. No. Amazing. So yeah, we did it. We created some characters. Is there anything else that we needed to do? To finish up the characters at all? You would you would select your paper doll but obviously that doesn't work in a audio format.
Austin Taylor 37:40
Exactly. You take you get a paper doll. You cut it out. If you're like me, you can't cut it out for you. Can't cut things out to see my life.
Amanda Kahl 37:48
Yeah, as much or as little time coloring it as you like.
Ryan Boelter 37:52
Yeah, absolutely. And I see there, they do have the the little uniforms and stuff that you can get. That's very telling of why it's bad. That's very cool, though. I like this. Wonderful. This, this is delightful. Um, is there anything interesting that you want to point out about the Kickstarter that we want to highlight that we haven't gone over? Any fun stretch goals that you have in mind that that'll be kind of there at first or just gonna hold hold on to things and see how things go first?
Austin Taylor 38:29
I don't think we have anything to share. Yeah, yeah. We're still we're still working out the finer details and the Kickstarter in that way. As of this recording. I let we're getting some of the printing done. I know of people over in China, and they were out for the New Year recently. So yeah, we haven't we haven't gotten back some quotes. So we haven't been able to finalize, like some goals because depends on depends on like, what it costs.
Ryan Boelter 38:58
Yeah, absolutely. But it sounds like things are brewing at least so Yeah, sounds good.
Amanda Kahl 39:04
And most of the stretch goals for the most part are just things like adding extra content to the game itself in the form of guest writers and adding like some more options for characters are like more
Austin Taylor 39:18
options. There's nothing like another. We haven't done anything. That's like another thing. Yeah. Okay, but who knows? We could get on a call Banana Banana can have a new grand plan. They're incredible. They're not here, but their incredible designer mastermind. Absolutely. Every time we meet we're like, yeah, that's how did you come you came up with that this afternoon?
Ryan Boelter 39:44
Absolutely. And when does the Kickstarter go into effect? When does tester is there a solidified date or general that?
Amanda Kahl 39:53
It's like jello solid and that's March 15.
Ryan Boelter 39:57
mid March, we'll say Okay, so, Amanda and Austin, thank you so much for joining us to talk about demos Academy. This is really fun. Yeah, thanks
Austin Taylor 40:08
so much. I'm happy to be here.
Amanda Kahl 40:10
Yeah. Thanks for having us. I had a lot of fun making characters.
Ryan Boelter 40:13
Yeah. Can you remind everyone where they can find you online?
Amanda Kahl 40:19
Yeah, you can find me online. My webcomic is at age of night.com. Ag e o f ni ght.com. You can find me on Twitter at age of night and on Instagram at Amanda call art.
Austin Taylor 40:31
You can find me over on Twitter at Sailor Scout Boston it's at sailor a CT Austin. That's really it. That's where you can find like a website or anything cool just yet. I don't want to put on it when I just write like you. I can't show you what I wrote. Go buy the game. Yeah. But that's where I'm at. Right now. You can find me on Twitter. And that's where I I tried to let people know what I'm up to.
Ryan Boelter 40:55
Absolutely. Wonderful. Well again, thank you so much for joining us for this special bonus episode of character creation spotlight. And thanks to everyone for tuning in. Don't forget to check out damos Academy Kickstarter which is coming out very soon. And we will see you next time.
Ryan Boelter 41:22
Character Creation Cast is a production of the One Shot Podcast Network and can be found online at www dot character creation cast.com. Head to the website to get more information on our hosts this show and even our press kit. Character Creation Cast can also be found on twitter at creation cast or ON OUR DISCORD SERVER at discord dot character creation cast.com I'm one of your hosts Ryan boelter and I can be found on twitter at Learn Neptune or online at Lord Neptune calm. Our other hosts Amelia Antrim can be found on twitter at ginger reckoning. Music for this episode is used with a Creative Commons license, or with permission from the podcast they originated from. Further information can be found within the show notes. Our main theme music is hero remix by Steve combs, and it's used with a Creative Commons license. This podcast is owned by us under Creative Commons. This episode was edited by Ryan boelter. Further information for the game systems used and today's guests can be found in the show notes. If you'd like to leave us a rating or review. We have links to various preview platforms out there including Apple podcasts in our show notes. Also check the show notes for links to our other projects. Thanks for joining us. And remember, we find that the best part of any role playing game is character creation. So go out there and create some amazing people. We will see you next time.
Amelia Antrim 43:09
Now we got to read some show blurbs show blurbs show show by the show blurbs.
Ryan Boelter 43:15
Character Creation Cast is hosted by the One Shot Podcast Network. If you enjoyed our show, visit one shot podcast.com where you will find other great shows like all my fantasy children
Amelia Antrim 43:28
each week Aaron criticize and Jeff Stormer take a listener submitted prompt and using some of their favorite tabletop RPGs create an original fantasy character along the way they share laughs stories verbal hugs and populate a shared universe one story at a time.
Ryan Boelter 43:45
He got some waveforms going. Oh no. Yeah,
Amanda Kahl 43:51
there. It's going now.
Ryan Boelter 43:52
Is it go? Is it is it like, just add zero right now?
Amanda Kahl 43:56
No, no, I'm at nine seconds.
Ryan Boelter 43:59
Oh, so you're about nine seconds behind? Yeah. 10 seconds behind. I'll fix it and post it. Sorry.
Amanda Kahl 44:06
Sorry, I was gonna have this. It's okay. New computer would do it.
Ryan Boelter 44:11
I've had I've had one guest before that that has happened as well. And it happens. It's fine. It's easy to fix. Okay, as long as it doesn't like, you know, destroy the audio as well. I hope. Well, that's why we have backups. Yep. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. So that's it so we can go ahead and stop the recordings.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai