Welcome to the second episode of our The One Ring series, everyone! This series we have Stef Midlock and James Pierson from the Athrabeth Podcast joining us to discuss and create characters for The One Ring 2nd Edition, the official Lord of the Rings RPG by Free League Publishing! This episode we finish creating our characters and establish our own fellowship!
Welcome to the second episode of our The One Ring series, everyone! This series we have Stef Midlock and James Pierson from the Athrabeth Podcast joining us to discuss and create characters for The One Ring 2nd Edition, the official Lord of the Rings RPG by Free League Publishing! This episode we finish creating our characters and establish our own fellowship!
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Music: Traveler by Alexander Nakarada
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Ryan Boelter 0:01
Welcome to part two of our other one rain series everyone. This game was a thrill to create a group for with Stefan James and a week come up with a really solid group of characters. That has a lot of great story potential events as well myself. But before we get to the episode, here's what's coming up and our call to action after the show.
Amelia Antrim 0:26
After the show, join us back here for some thoughts about the episode. We will also go over our standard of asking for reviews as well as asking you to support us on Patreon. And we will have a sneak peek of another bonus episode coming to our Patreon relatively soon. We do need your help in order to help cover the costs of the show, especially at this point in time, you can head over to patreon.com/character creation cast if you'd like to check out the Patreon and take a look while listening to the episode. We are about 1/3 of the way to our goal for each month. So every little bit helps, but in the meantime, thank you so much for listening and enjoy the show.
Ryan Boelter 1:42
On the last episode of Character Creation Cast, Steph was creating a habit. James was creating a dwarf. Amelia was creating a man of brie and I was creating an elf of Linden. were picking up right where we left off last time. Enjoy.
James Pierson 2:04
So after we've recorded our combat proficiencies The next step is choosing distinctive features. So there should be right underneath combat proficiencies in your culture, distinctive features. And for instance, for the dwarf I get to choose to from this list coming fierce lordly proud, secretive, stern, wary or willful and distinctive feature.
Stef Midlock 2:26
It goes up at the tippy top under your name.
Amelia Antrim 2:29
Oh, under the thing that says features?
Ryan Boelter 2:32
Yeah. They're listed on page 67 in the book. Okay,
James Pierson 2:38
thank you. And mechanically distinctive features are useful, because when making a skill check if you can invoke a distinctive feature, like come up with a reason why your distinctive feature would impact your skill check you get to make you get what's called Inspiration, which is different in this game than in other games. But essentially, it gives you an extra success die when spending hope. So normally when you spend a point of hope you get one extra D six, but if you can invoke a distinctive feature you get to Okay,
Stef Midlock 3:08
I'm going to choose keen eyed for my habit. Because I think that seems like a good thing. You got to be able to see you know the food and Ale around the place. Yep, see your crops. See all the village gossip that's happening. Kenai. Yeah. All right. So we get to pick.
Amelia Antrim 3:28
I feel like I'm gonna go with Oh, shoot. You're right. Cutting. Feeling that makes sense with my, your wedges sharp and you're ready to use it to your advantage. I feel like that goes with my riddles.
Stef Midlock 3:38
Totally. Yes.
Ryan Boelter 3:40
That's great. All right, I'm going with Mary. Oh, of course.
Stef Midlock 3:46
Mostly gonna go with inquisitive because I feel like that's good. Yeah.
James Pierson 3:49
I'm really leaning into my my big dumb dwarf here. So I'm going with fierce and proud.
Stef Midlock 3:55
Oh, I love it. Nice.
Ryan Boelter 3:58
I think I'll go with Mary and fair. Oh, I love that. Yeah. So I'm attractive even for an elf. And Mary, I am. My spirit is not easily discouraged. I can find light in the darkest of shadows.
James Pierson 4:17
Oh, that's great. That's
Stef Midlock 4:19
lovely. And like, even that you can that's a great example of the language that was very deliberately done in this book. Like that's like that sounds like it's directly out of the Lord of the Rings. Right? That's so beautiful.
James Pierson 4:31
So did you mention the thing that friendship that Francesco said about the attributes?
Stef Midlock 4:36
No, I did. I wasn't sure we were gonna talk about it at the end. But let's let's talk about it now. So the strength heart and wits thing comes. You know, those are your attributes. And we watched a little interview with nerd of the Rings, which is a really excellent YouTube channel, if you're interested in talking stuff that he did with Francesco net patello, the writer, the creator of this game, and and Francesco said that he chose these as the attributes very deliberately. Strings, hearts and whips based off of a quote that Gandalf said, it's from the Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring right after like when they're sitting in Bobo's house after Bilbo is gone. And Gandalf is telling Frodo like you need to destroy like the ring needs to be destroyed in the cracks of Mount Doom. And poor Frodo is like freaking out and he says, Why was I chosen? And Gandalf says such questions cannot be answered, said Gandalf, you may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess. Not for wisdom at any rate, but you have been chosen. And you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have. And so like that is beautiful. It's taken directly that Yeah, it's so cool. It's so intentional, like I love when
Amelia Antrim 5:53
games are so like, thoughtfully designed like that. It's not just like, Oh, no. String. Sounds good. Strength is the thing. Right? Yeah. Yeah, people are strong tension. Great. Yeah. I love that.
James Pierson 6:10
Alright, so now that we've gotten our distinctive features, the next step and the last step that comes from your culture is your name, name and age.
Amelia Antrim 6:18
Bless this book for putting names in here. Yeah. Love it.
James Pierson 6:26
Yeah. And as a GM, whenever I need to come up with an NPC name, I just go to the culture and I just grab a name from the list and it makes things so much easier. I have yet to make an elf named lab MC. Desk face.
Amelia Antrim 6:37
So this is great.
Stef Midlock 6:42
No, okay. Oh, these are great names. I'm gonna use. I'm gonna use names from from here because I think that's fun,
Ryan Boelter 6:49
too. Elves get last names. Yes.
Stef Midlock 6:52
Yeah, else. I'm sure Jude has a whole episode on this. They have like mother names and father names and then they have a name that they get like later in life that describes kind of something cool that they did. So like there's a lot of names you can choose from. Okay.
Ryan Boelter 7:07
Yeah, that's interesting. Because when I was looking through I saw the hobbit have a family names, which makes sense, you know, Bill of Bagans and whatnot. And, and I know family and whatnot is super important to the hobbit culture, and everything but like exactly, and then the men at Bri have family names listed there too. But all the other ones do not which is really interesting. Yeah,
Stef Midlock 7:34
I think like I think the the way that elven names work is that like your mother name is sort of used at a certain part of your life and then your Father name is sort of used at a certain part of their lifespan and then they're kind of assumed name is used let you know what I mean. So changes so I think like you depending on the age of your elf, right, like what what age of Tolkien's land were you you know, when are you a super old L for you kind of a newer URL? You can you can choose that for yourself, which is kind of neat if you want to. I'm these names for the hobbits are charming. A F. I'm going to be called really good body. That's perfect.
Amelia Antrim 8:16
Well, I think I'm gonna go with not better toes. So.
Ryan Boelter 8:19
Oh, my God. That's amazing. I'm going with a Laura Lynn for my elf.
Stef Midlock 8:30
Oh, that's cool. I love that. I Oh, yay.
James Pierson 8:34
I had picked one. I'm actually going to change it. My dwarfs name is
Stef Midlock 8:39
responding to our face.
James Pierson 8:42
So I decided I decided I wanted to make a female dwarf so I originally picked a male name, but I'm gonna choose a female name. It's that's my dwarfs name is Teresa.
Stef Midlock 8:52
Perfect. Oh, we're about to see our first female dwarf in the Amazon series, the Rings of Power. Who's actually from who is a real cannon character named DISA? Which is dope. So that's Oh, boy. You're excited. Did you say your name is Laura Lynn
Ryan Boelter 9:10
Laureline. Yep.
Stef Midlock 9:12
Oh, that's so cool. That's one of the names of the two trees. If the afterbirth logo has these two trees and the gold one is named Laura Lynn and that is where the sun comes from solid. That's a perfect name for your shiny beautiful Oh lovely dwarf. Yeah. Or sorry, not dwarf elf.
Ryan Boelter 9:31
close and close enough. That some feathers in no fandom I mean, dwarf is so so just for my record. Stefan, Amelia, what are your names again?
Amelia Antrim 9:49
Now I'm Heather toes. How could you forget?
Stef Midlock 9:55
And my name is Gilly good body.
Ryan Boelter 9:58
Oh, these are such good names. I love this knob. Was that with the silent key?
Amelia Antrim 10:05
No and OB knob?
Ryan Boelter 10:08
Oh, amazing. Even better.
Stef Midlock 10:10
It's in the book. Yeah, you pay the letter. We don't need asylum. What's your name again, James.
James Pierson 10:18
So my daughter's name is Teresa. And I'm actually going to add so one of the things we know from, you know, like Bollin, son of Freunden that they're big into, like, this is my name. And then instead of having a last name, it's here, this person's kit. So it's Drea foot daughter of geese law. Oh, awesome.
Ryan Boelter 10:36
Nice.
Stef Midlock 10:38
Nice. Nice. I'm writing that down. Just in case I need to contact case law about any bad behavior that we see along the road.
Ryan Boelter 10:47
So we're talking a bit about age as well here. And elves are immortal. But this particular batch of elves if seems, well, first of all, they they quote unquote, reach adulthood within the Elven society at the age of, you know, the sprite age of 100. Right. And you don't see many adventuring elves of Lyndon. Because after 300 years of age, they have a mighty need to travel west, out across the seas. Right. So I was thinking, I don't want to be close to 300. But I want to be close to 100 either. So 200 of this. No, 16 like, like 147 Great. Yeah, 14 and
Amelia Antrim 11:44
169. So, no, I
Stef Midlock 11:46
mean, you can go you can even go harder if you want so carried on. You're like the boss of Lyndon. I think around the time of Lord of the Rings. He was like 7000 years old. Remember, you can live like 1000s of years if you want to so but I liked the idea of you being like a baby elf. Yeah, like an elf born in the like, the twilight of the Third Age is so fascinating. Because they don't know they won't like there's Yeah, you may not you haven't maybe felt that call yet. I like that. You're still very much planted in Middle Earth. Right. That's cool. Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 12:20
exactly. And and probably would explain why she is going out to sea, Middle Earth before. You know that calling hits. Yeah.
Stef Midlock 12:32
I love that. Yeah.
James Pierson 12:34
That was the thing from the books, right? Like, isn't there a part where Legolas is like, Oh, crap, I heard seagulls. Now. I need to go. No, I have this unquenchable desire to go west. Right? Isn't that the thing?
Stef Midlock 12:45
It's a thing. There it is. There's different I mean, you know, there's different like chi without going too far into the weeds. There's different kinds of elves and different kinds of elves based on like when they woke up and whether they came back and did the thing and went over here and bladder blue. But what one thing that it says about one group of health that I wonder if you could kind of say for all things is that the sound of the whole world Tolkien's entire world the universe was created when the God when God quote unquote, whose name is arrow elevada made this music right. So he made this fancy music and from the music sprung the universe in the world of art and everything. So they It is said that the purest way for you to hear the music of arrow is to listen to the sounds of water, because that's where that's where those that song still lives. And so a lot of elves or at least specifically that Tulare, but other elves I feel like as well, you could argue you know, are hearing that's the closest they can be to their, to their God, right is hearing the waves and, and sailing back to Valinor in the West. So maybe, yeah, so maybe that's where that comes from. That's very cool. So imagine then think about carried on as a character. Remember, his job was to make the ships that the elves used to sail over the sea, right and back to to their land of Valinor. So he is literally like on and like Lyndon, the Grey Havens is on the coast. So that guy is a million billion years old. He's like, lost a lot of his friends, right by the end by this point in the Third Age, and he's constantly being called home, but he won't leave. Because he wants to make sure that everybody else can get home first. And like, that's so beautiful, and sweet and touching. And I just think that's great. Yeah, I think then you positioned Laureline your character Ryan like in that. Wow, that's that's really cool. I love that. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 14:44
absolutely. I love cute.
James Pierson 14:47
I know. I just got I just felt a little Pang. Like I got a little emotional when you were talking about him being you know, the last one that's really Yeah, it's pretty. Token I don't know. He just gets Yeah.
Stef Midlock 14:59
Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's part of the reason why I'm very excited for this Amazon show coming out it because it is going to expand the world so much. And there are so many wonderful stories to tell and characters that are just waiting for everybody under the surface, like in the Legendarium that now everyone's gonna be, you know, be able to see and be more accessible, which I think is great.
Amelia Antrim 15:18
Has ah, what else do we have? Okay, so
Stef Midlock 15:23
I think I've done all my thing. Yeah, what do we do next? Well,
James Pierson 15:25
the next thing. So now that we've done that, the next step, so we've essentially built from our culture, the basics of this character. So the next thing that we add on top of this is the calling. A calling is basically your starting drive. The reason that pushes you out of your comfort zone to become an adventurer. It's, I'm reading this right out of the book. It's not meant to represent a profession or a trade, but the sum of their ambitions and aspirations that put them on the road. So you can kind of think of it a little bit like a d&d class, but rather than like cleric, where it's like, I am a priest, and I do you know, blah, blah, blah, this is this is the, the calling the thing that drives your character. Rather than like, this is my job.
Stef Midlock 16:07
And so there, what are the choices? Yeah,
James Pierson 16:09
so there are six callings listed in the book. They are captain, which is, you know, essentially, like a leader of people. I think a great example from the book would be, you know, Aragorn, I think would fall into this.
Stef Midlock 16:25
Or even born merit? Well, no, absolutely, maybe
James Pierson 16:29
champion, which is somebody whose focus is, you know, opposing the shadow, you know, by strength of arms, like a warrior, you know, somebody, you know, something like that. Messenger. This is somebody who is driven by connecting the people, like you're driven to connect the people of the free people of Middle Earth, it's your duty to travel to distant lands, carrying tidings and warning people with the coming danger scholar, which is, you know, relatively self explanatory. This is a person who's driven by the desire to get more, to learn to get more information to collect songs, and tomes and things like that. Treasure Hunter, somebody driven by wanting to get the story to treasure of old that is out there in the world. And then Warden, which is somebody who's driven to protect those who can't protect themselves,
Stef Midlock 17:29
how is that different than champion?
James Pierson 17:31
So it's, so a champion is somebody who is you know, a warrior who is driven to proactively go out and fight against the forces of darkness. A Warden, I think the this from their description, this sounds like it's perhaps a little bit more geared, or would typically be more geared towards somebody playing like a ranger who's sworn to, you know, give up civilized society to go out into the wilds and protect the people who, you know, who, who are out there who may not even know they're in danger. I think that from what they're writing here in the book, it sounds like, you know, the the rangers who are guarding the borders of the Shire. The hobbits don't even know that they're being protected. But you know, they would those ranges, which sort of fall into this, this calling.
Stef Midlock 18:21
Cool. I like that. That makes a lot of sense. A champion is more like I'm here doing a thing for you. You're welcome. Yeah. And award and it's like, I'm just in the background. I'm don't even don't even look. I'm just here. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And I wonder what I should be as a habit. I mean, it could be anything, I guess. Yeah. Beat more. What are you going to do is to work to you know,
James Pierson 18:45
I mean, the easy choice would be just to go something like champion just keep just stay on the dumb, you know, like, charging into battle aspect.
Stef Midlock 18:55
Oh, yes, sir.
Ryan Boelter 18:56
I've got one in mind for myself.
Stef Midlock 18:59
Who would What are you thinking?
Ryan Boelter 19:03
I was between messenger and warden. And I think Warden would be more interesting. Oh, yeah, totally. I love that. Yeah. Because then I can I can pick two things that I was kind of looking at before as favorite skills and that'll be interesting. Plus the whole like, like kiss so the wardens like yeah, the protection against the shadow. So you kind of know more about the shadow than other people.
Stef Midlock 19:35
Totally. That makes perfect sense. I like that. Ooh. Morden is such a cool idea. I love that someone in the shadows like yeah, taking care of business every day. I'm not sure what I will choose. I want to choose lessons. I want Amelia to be able to choose first. So many good options. I know what are you going to do Amelia do now.
Amelia Antrim 19:58
I kind of I'm kind Feeling messenger? Hmm. Yeah,
Stef Midlock 20:03
that makes a lot of sense for a person from Bree. Lots of road access and people passing through even messages get messages.
Amelia Antrim 20:13
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Yeah, cool. That sounds good.
Stef Midlock 20:16
All right, I'm gonna go for treasure hunter then because I feel like a hobbit. I'm like shiny things.
James Pierson 20:23
Yeah, yeah. And I'm just gonna keep going straight forward. No nuance champion. Okay,
Ryan Boelter 20:29
so we got one person that knows how to fight.
Amelia Antrim 20:35
Thank goodness. All right. So
James Pierson 20:39
from your calling, we get a few things. So you get two more favorite skills, there should be a list of ones to choose from you pick two from that list and mark them as favorite. Oh, like for the champion, I get to choose between athletics and hunting. And then mark this is favorite.
Ryan Boelter 20:56
Okay. And it looks like for boarding I can choose between awareness, healing and insight. And I have zero points in Insight right now. So I kind of just chose healing and awareness healing because I wanted it. I got one point in that. So this will help me heal better anyway. And then awareness, because I've already got two points in it. So I figured I might as well be really good at it.
James Pierson 21:22
That makes sense. Now one thing I will say if you have zero points in a skill, you can still make a roll for it, you would just then roll only your feet die the D twelves. And even if your target number is higher than than a 10 you can always roll a Gandalf rune on the feet die, which is an automatic success. So it might sometimes pay to mark a skill that you don't have anything. Any points in as favorite because then you double your chance of hitting Gandalf. Oh, that's fair.
Amelia Antrim 21:50
So I can choose between courtesy song and travel. Oh, I don't know. I think so. This character is somebody that like, doesn't really want to go anywhere. So I don't think I'm gonna pick travel. I think I'm gonna pick courtesy Actually, I already have three there, but I'm gonna go ahead and pick it anyway.
Ryan Boelter 22:10
Super courteous,
Amelia Antrim 22:11
very courteous.
Stef Midlock 22:13
For mine. For the treasure hunter you choose between explorer scan and stealth. And I already have stealth as a favorite skill from my hero culture. So I'm gonna go ahead and choose explore and scan. Even though I have no Datsun scan, so that means as you just said, James, I would get to have the feet die. Yes. Okay, cool. Cool. Cool.
James Pierson 22:36
You will take the higher Yeah, right? Yeah, and scan is an interesting one. I mean, the scan basically in this game sort of takes the takes the place of like an active perception role scan is you deliberately looking for something? Versus I think there was another awareness, which is your sort of passive perception. Oh, that's
Stef Midlock 22:57
good to know. Yeah. So physics so so searching stuff out is scamp. Gotcha.
James Pierson 23:02
Yeah, important for treasure hunter. Cool. So after Oh, and then yeah, so for me I got to choose between athletics and hunting and I chose athletics and off just continuing to lead directly into my no nuance warrior character.
Stef Midlock 23:16
Love it. Oh, as as a cool one because it's like evoking respect your first impression? Wonder or fear right. So that's kind of cool for a dork. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
James Pierson 23:29
We also from your calling, get an additional distinctive feature. So this will give you this should give you three total distinctive features.
Stef Midlock 23:35
Mine is burglary. He I'm gonna pick biking, pickpocketing lock picking and other shadowy ways to get a hold of positions from others. Ooh.
Amelia Antrim 23:48
Minus folklore. Oh, that's cool. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 23:51
I love that.
Ryan Boelter 23:53
I've got shadow lower. Which you have a recognize that there is a hidden thread unifying most what is malicious, dark and terrible in Middle Earth. The thread is thickening year after year. Oh, spicy. A quality shared by the whys of the lane. The truth behind this knowledge is becoming clearer as time passes. That's wonderful.
James Pierson 24:21
Yeah, that's really that's a that would be that's a great hook to to pull your character in, you know? Yeah. And then I think my distinctive assault for the champion, the distinctive feature is enemy lore, which means I get to choose from a type of enemy that it applies to, and I know more about that. So this one is really interesting because you it kind of gives a little bit like of background to your character depending on which enemy you choose as your, your sort of enemy that you know the most about. You can choose from evil men, Orcs, spiders, trolls, wargs, and the undead. And each of those I think really sort of says okay, well in the past As you were doing something really interesting, and very different. I'm going to choose trolls as my as my enemy lore.
Stef Midlock 25:09
Huh? That's dope. Yeah, yeah, that's great.
James Pierson 25:14
So right off the bat, I have a hook now to figure out why my character would would have you been dealing with trolls.
Stef Midlock 25:19
Oh, I love that. Yeah. What capers did you get into? I feel like as a mountain person and someone traveling along the trails of the mountains and then the forest you're likely to run into like a cave troll or or Well, yeah, right or, or even another kind of troll forest whatever. Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 25:37
those those persnickety Bell ROG trolls.
Stef Midlock 25:41
Oh, that's really bad you definitely don't want to see one of those boys
Ryan Boelter 25:46
too hot and then the then the really annoying forum trolls
Stef Midlock 26:01
turn them all to stone
Ryan Boelter 26:03
I would be like horrible to play with if I had that as my like thing that I knew a lot about because it'd be like are they trolling us master all the time do I know anything about them? Because they're trolling us
Stef Midlock 26:21
oh the pawns.
James Pierson 26:24
And then the last What is this? Yeah, so the last thing we get from our calling is the shadow path. And basically the shadow path is like a suggestion of how like based on you see remember your calling is what has driven your character out on an adventure as the shadow capital as Shadow has more sort of impact on them. The Shadow path is a suggestion for for what direction they would take as they succumb to the shadow. So you know for the champion for instance, my shadow path is curse of vengeance. So because I'm Drew like so the champion is driven to you know, they believe that the way to face to defeat the shadow is to go out there and fight it head on. As they become more corrupted by the shadow by the darkness of the world their like their desire to use their strength to combat the shadow also becomes just using their strength in ways that are that are harmful and are ways that are hurtful.
Stef Midlock 27:21
Yeah, in the baton in the later parts of the blog is not even that later but yeah, there's ways to use flaws. So you can go and look up your, your shadow path and like I write and then find like, ways of using it. I mean, obviously you can do whatever you want but just to give you some ideas. So like for mine my one is Dragon sickness, which is you know when it's such a cool one Yeah, you know when your it turns all gold to ash, right. So like something that so it's suggesting that I can become grasping like if you become grasping, you seek to accumulate gold and precious items above all else, just for the sake of possessing them or I can become mistrustful or deceitful or or thieving. So I love that as well. That's really helpful. Yeah,
James Pierson 28:09
take a look at Thorin from the end of The Hobbit for a great example yes.
Stef Midlock 28:13
Oh perfect example Yep.
Amelia Antrim 28:17
Mine is wandering madness. Oh, traveling far might be the duty chosen by a messenger but it carries the risk of never finding a place to fight for the road goes on and on. It's true but whether that
James Pierson 28:31
Oh, that's awesome.
Ryan Boelter 28:31
Nice. Yeah. Oh
Stef Midlock 28:33
good.
Ryan Boelter 28:34
Yeah, and for mine I've got shadow path the path of despair. So self doubt is often the way that the shadow chooses to reach the heart of those who oppose it for they know that the enemy has strong internal bone and those that they protect are too naive or weak to fend for themselves every day they ask themselves well my strength be enough to prevail or will they drag down the innocent in defeat Yikes. Oh my god.
Stef Midlock 29:01
I love that. That's so sad. Oh don't be sad
Ryan Boelter 29:09
you're so happy normally because it's just a mask I hope not
Amelia Antrim 29:15
I believe in you. I want you to believe in you too.
James Pierson 29:19
You have to try our Tech's
Stef Midlock 29:24
dare you just all of us Millennials got super traumatized.
Ryan Boelter 29:30
content warning. I know to Savar Indian story. Yep.
James Pierson 29:36
So now that we've so that's what you get from your calling the next step so this is your so pretty much at this point. You know you we've kind of got our bog standard characters you've got what you get from your your culture, you've got what you get from your calling, and where someone else to pick the exact same culture and calling they would have almost the exact same character as you. So the next phase is to get is to use is to spend experience that you've got from your pre ves life experience. So this is the phase where it denotes, you know, the things that you were doing before now have shaped your character, and you have 10 experience points to spend to raise skills and combat proficiencies to represent that. So if you go to page 46, in the book, there are two tables, there's skill costs, and combat proficiencies costs. And basically you have 10 points to spend to raise skills based on the based on the costs in those tables. Okay, this represents, you know, the previous stuff that your character did that has, you know, given them the skills or proficiencies
Stef Midlock 30:36
I feel like my hobbit has not had a lot of time to use combat proficiencies. So probably not gonna do too much with those. But yeah, there are some interesting skills in here could raise up, I definitely gonna give myself one scan, or maybe I'm gonna give, I'm gonna go from one, zero to one, which was one point and then one to two, which is two points, I'm going to use three points to get my scan going. I feel like as a burglar, I'm going to need that.
Amelia Antrim 31:07
Yeah, my does same thing for lower. I don't have anything in the war. So nice.
Ryan Boelter 31:11
Yeah,
James Pierson 31:12
yeah. So I raised my axis proficiency from two to three to really represent, you know, being that being that warrior. And then I spent one point to raise my awareness because I think that passive awareness of everything that's going on is important for warrior. And then I spent three points to raise my heart and to because I kind of want this character, even though they're, they're just like a straightforward, like, Warrior, I kind of want them to be a little bit of the sort of Gimli Comic Relief dwarf a little bit too. So it's, you know, to be mindful of the emotional states of the rest of the party, even if they themselves don't have much emotional maturity.
Stef Midlock 31:48
Okay, that sounds that's cool. I like in Heartland as a skill, that idea of inspiring others. Right? I can also see that as like a cat. Yeah. Like the, as you say, the champion or the captain or something like that. Yeah, be really useful. I'm going to take my persuade from two to three, which is another three points. Because I don't know sounds like a good plan.
Amelia Antrim 32:15
Because because why not? Why not?
Stef Midlock 32:18
Because I'm not often right. But if you can persuade people into thinking, you're right, it's fine. Everything's fine.
Ryan Boelter 32:28
So I went with, I moved my son, up to three from two. So that was three points. And then I moved healing from one to three. Oh, so that was five points right there, which put me up to eight. So that means I had to spend two points elsewhere, I was debating between one point and a couple of skills or something else. But then you were talking about in hurtin, and I'm like, that sounds like what I want to do for my character. So I went from one point to two and in hurtin as well. So that way, I'm better at that. And that should be 10. altogether.
Amelia Antrim 33:11
I spent my points, but I don't remember what I did. I just marked some boxes, and I counted, I did give myself some swords. Oh, I think I got some more hunting, because that seemed important. That is great. And then some other stuff that I don't remember, because I didn't use a different color to mark it off. All right.
Stef Midlock 33:36
I'm also going to take one in travel because I'm metagaming. I know that it's helpful to have one at least one of your party to have one in travel or something. Because that's one of the you know, we talked about during the journey phasers, the different roles you take on one of those is travel. Another one is hunting Amelia. So that's, that's great. Maybe your character is more close to hunting or whatever.
James Pierson 33:59
All right, so the next step now that we've done, our previous experience, is choosing our starting gear. Basically, like they're from our culture, we get a standard of living but there's not really a sense of having gold to spend to get gear in this game. Basically, you a starting hero can choose one weapon for each combat proficiency, they have a rating in and then your and then you also can choose your sort of favorite selection of armor helmets and shields. You just get this essentially for free as as part of being an adventurer.
Amelia Antrim 34:33
That's great. I love games where you don't have money and then you forget to buy pants and then like you you spend it all and then you show up everybody's like what are you wearing are like
Stef Midlock 34:47
Amelia The Pantsless you're coming, it's foretold and her legs are very cold. So alright, so I just gotta take it sword I guess right because I have swords stick a wee wee sword.
Amelia Antrim 35:04
It does say here spear can be thrown. Nice to answer that question.
Stef Midlock 35:10
One thing awesome.
James Pierson 35:11
One thing to bear in mind so you can choose whatever armor you want for your character at this point. But keep an eye on the load rating for all of your your
Ryan Boelter 35:24
encumbrance,
James Pierson 35:26
you can, it's not really it's sort of incumbrance you can only take a load up to your endurance score. And if your endurance drops below the load that you're carrying, you become weary, which is like a capital W query. And essentially what wearI means is that when you roll a success die one of the D sixes if you roll a one, two or three, that count is zero, which is kind of a pain in the butt.
Stef Midlock 35:48
Okay, yeah, up. Yeah, exactly. That happens. I have a character who has a lot of armor. And I always have to like put my helmet down. Because I get to winded all the time. I just It's I don't I don't really I didn't know if I will I got I would look at that again, because I am always weary man. Life is weary on the road. So you can take whatever army you want. If I just like take like a leather shirt. That's cool. Yeah. Cool.
Amelia Antrim 36:14
One weapon for each combat proficiency.
Ryan Boelter 36:19
Okay, so I need a bow and a sword.
Stef Midlock 36:23
Are you gonna name it? Tolkien loves to name weapons, right?
Ryan Boelter 36:28
It would have to be a magical sword. Right? Yeah. I don't think I could start with a magical sword off the bat.
Stef Midlock 36:35
There. Yeah, let's see what do they have shortsword sword long sword, sword sword sword.
James Pierson 36:41
There is. So we haven't gotten there yet. But one of the things that we'll do shortly is you'll get something called the reward. Everybody gets a starting reward, one of the options there is to sort of improve your weapon. So you could potentially have like a nicer sword, depending on what you choose later. So bear that in mind.
Ryan Boelter 37:00
Okay, so I'm going to go with a great bow. Because you gotta you gotta have a great bow, thank ya, has a load of four. And then a long sword, because long swords are just cool when you're an out load of three, I think.
James Pierson 37:19
So in addition to the war gear that you get, which are the weapons and armor that you have, your character also just gets travelling gear, this doesn't like this is just basically like your traveling kit, it doesn't need to be written down, it doesn't add any load. But this is just like, you know, your normal clothes, you traveling clothes, blankets, you know, the usual traveling stuff that you would have. And then in addition to that, your character also gets useful items, you get a number of useful items, depending on the standard of living of your culture, there's a table that basically tells you sort of what standard of living of living each culture has. And these are useful items, which your character has, which basically, if you can come up with, like when you make a skill check. If you can say a reason why this item would assist you in that skill check, you get an extra, you know, one die, you know, could be like, Oh, I have elven rope. I'm going to make a climbing you know, I'm going to make it an athletic skill check to climb down from this cliff. Because I'm using my elven rope. I got one extra D six, when I make that roll.
Stef Midlock 38:22
So do we choose a useful item? Or do we wait? Or is that prescribed by?
James Pierson 38:27
So based on your culture, you get a number of them. So for the elf for the elves, they get one because their their standard of living is frugal, hobbits and men of Bri get to because their standard of living is common. And dwarves get three because their standard is prosperous. Okay. Oh, nice.
Stef Midlock 38:49
I love gear. Yeah,
James Pierson 38:50
there's a list of like, examples on page 50. But it can be any useful item you can think of.
Ryan Boelter 38:57
Oh, interesting. Oh, okay. Yeah, cuz I think else have a standard of living of frugal. That's right. So that means I get a one for something. Yes,
James Pierson 39:12
you get one useful item,
Ryan Boelter 39:13
or one useful item. Okay. And does that have anything to do with the armor because I was looking at the, the male shirt. And that said, C standard of living requirements on page 100. But then I looked at page 100. And there wasn't anything there. Except for another table of what?
James Pierson 39:36
Okay, I'm looking at page 100. That too. Oh, okay. On page 100 E, there's an armor table and it says the minimum standard of living so if you want to pick a male shirt, your minimum standard of living must be common. And if you want
Ryan Boelter 39:49
to see there, okay, a code of mail. You got an encoded mail is prosperous, so
Amelia Antrim 39:53
you can't have that.
Ryan Boelter 39:55
Right. Mark, I guess love their course set it is, of course ours at courcelette. Course. Of course, of course lit
James Pierson 40:06
leather course that is a difference.
Amelia Antrim 40:07
It's a very different thing.
James Pierson 40:10
That's, that's part of your traveling gear.
Ryan Boelter 40:14
I'm pretty sure I have one. That's fine.
Stef Midlock 40:16
All right, I'm choosing a wind proof lantern. Because that's great. And I like that it's wind proof. That's helpful. And that will help my skin and I'm also choosing a fine pipe to find comfort from insight. Because you know, you and it says you libations and whatnot, all devices, helps you feel good. Because I get to because I'm common. And that's why I chose to noise. We haven't calculated load, right? No, not yet.
James Pierson 40:47
Not yet. Although you can do that. At this point. Because you've chosen your weapons and armor you can calculate your load. There's nothing else that goes into that. Treasure would but you as a starting adventure. You don't have any treasure.
Stef Midlock 41:00
I mean, what about the memories I carry with me he
Amelia Antrim 41:03
made along the way is very heavy. Yeah. So many friends.
Stef Midlock 41:14
So I don't say oh, wait, my load is only three I don't under oh wait no. And three from my load Usher. So six total. That's it. Yeah. I'm traveling light. Just to put it into perspective. My my warrior from bro Han has a load of 22 cues. Wow, that's quite different. All right.
James Pierson 41:35
I think a lot of that came from your armor, right? Yes. Yeah.
Amelia Antrim 41:39
Yeah, mine's 14.
Stef Midlock 41:41
So yeah, definitely keep your eye on that as you play. I got a lot of weapons. Weapon.
Ryan Boelter 41:48
I'm between two things for a useful item. I only get one. So that doesn't help but either something to help my son or something to help my healing. Oh, man.
Amelia Antrim 42:01
Well, I grabbed something to help my healing. So you should probably
Ryan Boelter 42:05
help yourself. I should help my song. Yeah.
Amelia Antrim 42:08
That seems important to your character.
Ryan Boelter 42:11
Maybe like a like a tuning fork. A pitch
James Pierson 42:14
pipe? Oh, yeah. Oh,
Stef Midlock 42:17
I love that.
Ryan Boelter 42:18
Yeah, that sounds good. When I put that under rewards and for cheese or
James Pierson 42:23
Gear Up in the upper right here, okay.
Stef Midlock 42:26
Yeah. Wait, what do you mean? upper right hand I'm on the lower right hand traveling here. That one character
Ryan Boelter 42:38
different.
Stef Midlock 42:39
Sorry. I'm on the paper one. Okay. I know you're traveling gear. Yeah.
Amelia Antrim 42:44
Perfect. Yeah, that one has like some more spots on this one. But that's okay.
James Pierson 42:48
Yep. Yeah, for my one worries I chose. I got three because dwarves apparently are prosperous. So I chose chose door flicker, which I figured can be used for in hearten. Compass for travel, and then cleats to be worn one like cotton when she climbs up and down rocks for athletics.
Ryan Boelter 43:09
Nice,
Stef Midlock 43:10
smart. Oh,
Ryan Boelter 43:11
so here's the part where we calculate our load. Yes. So I just add up my load from my stuff that has load values. Yes. So 13 I don't think I need a shield.
James Pierson 43:27
Yeah, shields are interesting in this game, instead of so armor gives you protection shields add to your parry which makes it basically harder for the enemies to hit.
Ryan Boelter 43:38
You can do I need a helmet?
Amelia Antrim 43:42
I did not because it's heavy.
Ryan Boelter 43:45
It is pretty heavy, isn't it? So loaded. Up lay heavy
Amelia Antrim 43:48
and out look good in hats.
Stef Midlock 43:53
We don't want to cover up that beautiful face. Fair.
Amelia Antrim 43:58
person.
Ryan Boelter 44:01
I don't think Laura Lynn would wear a helmet.
Stef Midlock 44:04
That's fair. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. To beautiful.
Ryan Boelter 44:09
Yeah. I don't think I don't think she sees herself as a warrior type. Yeah, I'm more like a I'm in over my head. But I need to do this because I need to help people because the shadow is coming. Yeah. And I may be good with a bow. But Goodness gracious. Don't put you on the frontlines. What do you do?
Stef Midlock 44:35
Okay, oh, that's great. Yeah, I'm
Amelia Antrim 44:37
very much like my mom gave me a list and said go to the store and just got swept up along the way.
James Pierson 44:48
Okay, so after we've added our useful items and war gear, we do our load, which we just did. Okay. Oh, this is the This is cool. Based on your standard of living, you may or may not get a horse. If you the horses in this game are like obviously horses are a big part of Tolkien, but they have a mechanical a built like they have a mechanical impact. They basically can carry treasure for you. And when we go on a travel, they reduce the amount of fatigue that you take. If you are if your standard of living is poor or frugal, you can't afford a horse. So sorry, Ryan.
Ryan Boelter 45:27
Oh,
James Pierson 45:27
if you're coming oh, you bring an old horse or half staff pony. And if you're prosperous, you bring a decent, a decent horse.
Stef Midlock 45:35
Where do I write horse down? I'm gonna put an old Can I have an old pony? I don't want a half starved pony. But I also don't want a horse because I'm too short. So can I go for an old pony?
Ryan Boelter 45:48
I think you definitely can. miss the old family pony.
Stef Midlock 45:52
Oh yeah. I'm gonna name her pumpernickel I'd love to hear me to Lee seem gentle and slick. Or maybe ornery? Who knows?
Amelia Antrim 46:07
Maybe this one doesn't have nightmares. Ryan.
Stef Midlock 46:13
Did you guys have offers one night we
Amelia Antrim 46:14
did we did. When we did Dead Lands, you had to like roll to give your like to get my horse a flaw of some kind. So my horse had nightmares.
Stef Midlock 46:28
Adorable.
James Pierson 46:33
All right. So the next thing and we're almost we're almost through here but the next thing is you're starting. You're starting valor and wisdom. So valor is basically like your reputation. It's your status as a doer of great deeds. And wisdom is your character's understanding and compute capability for good judgment. As you advance your character through the game you can spend points to raise your valor and your wisdom. But as a starting character, you start with a one in valor and a one in wisdom. And every time you get a point of Valor or wisdom you get either a reward or a virtue. When you increase your valor you get rewards and when you increase your wisdom, you get virtues. Rewards are basically like good gear like higher level gear. So remember before I was saying well, you could have a named sword if you take a reward that gives you an improvement one of your weapons it could be that because your weapon is nicer it has a name. virtues are unique abilities and special talents which are gained when you gain wisdom. So if you go to page 51 In the book, because you get one valor and one wisdom you guys each also get one starting reward and one starting virtue and they're listed in the tables there on page 51.
Ryan Boelter 47:45
So we just choose one of these right?
Unknown Speaker 47:48
That's right.
Amelia Antrim 47:50
Are there six so you could roll Kudrow?
Stef Midlock 47:53
Oh, wait what start at one each?
James Pierson 47:56
Yeah, one reward and one virtue and the rewards being you know, like close fitting armor. armor that's like made in such a way that it reduces its load rating fell on your electric fell quality on your weapon, which raises the injury rating of the weapon or grievous, which raises the damage rating, or Keane, which makes it easier to score a piercing blow, which is a mechanic in this game that basically like instead of doing damage, like endurance damage, when you do a piercing blow, you can you can potentially inflict a wound on an enemy, which for lower level enemies is immediately fatal. Or you can improve your shield. And the starting virtues that you get that you can get our stuff like confidence, which raises your hope. There's one you know, that lets you add to the damage that you inflict from your weapon or raises your endurance stuff like that. Basically, at this level, they're sort of generic improvements to your character.
Stef Midlock 48:51
Okay. Think I'm going to take clothes fitting armor, which adds to to the result of a protection roll for my reward, and then my virtue I'm going to choose hardiness, raise my endurance by 200 I'm
Amelia Antrim 49:11
gonna go mastery. Choose two skills and make them favored.
Stef Midlock 49:16
That's awesome. So am I gonna pick?
Ryan Boelter 49:20
Yeah, I was thinking about that one too. But I was also thinking about Provis.
James Pierson 49:24
Yeah, that could have a big impact. You reduce your an attribute target number by one.
Stef Midlock 49:29
Yeah, well, yeah. Because there really no other options to do that. And this character creation, right. That's kind of Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 49:37
yeah, I think maybe I got prowess. Nice. Um, reduce my heart. From 16 to 15. So no, 15 across the board.
Stef Midlock 49:47
Oh, nice. Yeah, that's awesome. I like that.
James Pierson 49:51
Yeah, I picked keen for my axe, which means I have a piercing blow on a nine plus. And I took prowess and I reduced my strength target number by one. So my strength target number is now 12. Yeah,
Stef Midlock 50:06
super strong, super strong. Still 17 I'm with you, I'm with you almost 16. So I feel you will stay the back was back in school.
Ryan Boelter 50:19
All right, I chose close fighting armor because I got to show off the curves.
Amelia Antrim 50:26
I was cutting make so I could reduce how heavy my things are.
Stef Midlock 50:30
Yeah, that's so smart.
Ryan Boelter 50:32
I mean, the protection is the protection, right?
James Pierson 50:37
So at this point, that's the last step of individual character creation. Now we have what I think is one of the cooler parts. So we've done all that now we get to do the company creation, which is where we like, talk about our group, which is cool. So there are four things that happen. In company creation, the first thing that we do is we choose a patron. Patrons are characters in the world who have who like, pay attention to like, who take take notice of our group sometimes will give us quests, patrons work with the heroes from time to time, they may have their own agenda. Like for instance, if you were to choose Gandalf as your patron, he's probably going to send you on quest, he may not tell you why he's sending them on quest and sending you on quests. But they're probably quests that are intended to combat the shadow versus other patrons, which may have not like which may not have an ulterior motive, but you know, if you just have sort of resources that they give you, over the course of gameplay, you can get other patrons like just through interacting with characters in the world. But there are, there are six starting patrons that we have to choose one of okay. And basically, each patron has will give you more or less fellowship points, we'll talk about fellowship points in a minute. They give you an advantage, they give everybody in the party an advantage. And each patron has an agenda, which sort of is what they're interested in. And we can use. Like if we have sort of an idea of what kind of things we're interested in doing. We can pick a patron that sort of aligns with the goals that we have as a party. Okay, so the the starting patrons listed in the book are ballin, son of Freunden. So this is a dwarf one of one of thorns company from The Hobbit. And his agenda is we're reclaiming lost strongholds, eliminating enemy lieutenants, etc. The next patron is Bilbo Baggins, and his agenda is recovering lost lore and lost things. The next one is carried in the ship right? And his agenda is rekindling hope preserving the lore of the and preserving lore of the ages. Next is Gandalf the Grey. His agenda is warning the free peoples and inspiring them to action. The next one is Gil rain daughter of deer hail, which I believe is stuff correct me if I'm wrong. This is Aragon's mom. Yep. Correct. And her agenda is fighting the enemy and defending the weak. And then the last patron is Tom Bombadil. And Lady gold bury. Her agenda is protecting the land and finding and preserving what was buried. So do any of those sounds interesting to people?
Ryan Boelter 53:20
Why can't I remember who Tom Bombadil and Lady Goldberg were?
Stef Midlock 53:23
Yeah, sort of Tom Bombadil. It's it's he's a tough one. Because he was they took him out in the movies. But he is this kind of very unknown weird character who lives kind of outside the Shire in the woods. And the hobbits in the books come across him and his wife, Lady gold Berry, who is like a river basically call her the river daughter. She's like a weird spirit. And they are, like, lovely, but also weird and creepy. And they help the hobbits escape the barrel whites. Like some scary ghosts that they find in the hills. Tom Bombadil is a either you love him or you hate him. Even in Aftermath, like Jude hates him, and I love him, and he talks like Oh, me Bolton, but do I am talking? Like talks to horses? He is like your he is like your weird nature hippie. Yeah.
James Pierson 54:21
Yeah, he's either a hippie, or he's an incredibly powerful ancient god.
Stef Midlock 54:26
Right? That's the thing we you don't know. And Tolkien didn't really know either. So it's amazing people people debate what he is, Is he is he a god? I don't know. Because he can handle the ring and doesn't isn't affected by it, which I love. I love
Amelia Antrim 54:43
He's great. He's great. It's just like, there's like all this serious stuff happening. And then there's also Tom. I mean, it's like clear why he's not in the movies because like, tonally, he's just like doing his own thing. But I think we all somewhere in our lives. I've met a Tom Bombadil somewhere online and he's just, he's just relatable like, I get him. I get him.
Stef Midlock 55:07
I love that. That's great.
James Pierson 55:10
Stuff, correct me if I'm wrong, but like didn't Tolkien create Tom But Bob Adele is like a children's story that he would like tell them his kids and then he like inserting him into the
Stef Midlock 55:20
Yeah, he definitely Yeah, he definitely has that sort of fairy fanfiction. Like just old man in the forest kind of vibe going on. Yeah, he was definitely like, sort of, for him, like a nod for his children. And so I think like, I feel like in the appendix, Appendix of Peter Jackson's movies, we hear them saying that they sort of took elements of Tom Bombadil and some of his like, more beautiful lines from the books and gave it to, like Treebeard the end and other people who kind of are on the same wavelength, which I like to sell. Yeah, so unfortunately, he's not in the movies, but he is a really weird character in the books. It's great.
Ryan Boelter 55:55
And this this patron that we're choosing is the patron for all of us, right?
James Pierson 55:59
Yes, this is a patron for our company. Okay.
Amelia Antrim 56:02
Yeah. Which is like that means that there's not really a clear because of all the other choices that we made it doesn't feel like there's like a clear like, obviously this one
Stef Midlock 56:10
Yeah. Anyone
Ryan Boelter 56:13
here in the we've got one that favors two callings the champion and warden but there's also warden and treasure hunter. And those are the only two so it's Guillory and daughter of Dariel and Tom David Ellen Levy, kilberry. Those the only two that have matching callings with for the most people in our group,
James Pierson 56:40
to either have their agendas speak to speak to what we're interested in.
Stef Midlock 56:44
I mean, I think so I would say don't worry as much about the favorite callings. Because I feel like in our own games, like I've never, maybe we're not doing it right. But I've never really used that or even really heard of that. So I mean, there's it's really more of a framing device. Right?
James Pierson 57:01
Yeah, there's, I don't think there's a mechanic there. I think it's basically to say, like, you know, ballance on the front end has captain and champion as his favorite Collins Collins because I think that he's a little bit more of a straightforward, more martial character. You know, versus like Tom Bombadil. Who is, you know, Forrest hippy. So Warden, you know, protecting behind the scenes and treasure hunter. Makes sense. In those cases. Yeah. I think these are all just sort of intended to you know, if guide you guide the party and in the direction.
Ryan Boelter 57:29
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So basically, what do we want to do as part of our adventures?
Amelia Antrim 57:34
Right? I mean, I feel like if some of us are like, not super into fighting and stuff like that. Why are we doing this? You know what I mean? Like, what? Like, what important thing happened that made us be like, Okay, I guess I have to. Yeah,
Stef Midlock 57:51
exactly. I mean, I think I feel like Gandalf is a very good catch all warrior free peoples and inspire them to action. That's like a that's kind of how
Amelia Antrim 58:00
we feel like if Gandalf comes and tells you to do something, you kind of like.
Stef Midlock 58:07
You know, like, I
Amelia Antrim 58:08
don't think that you really get a whole lot of Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 58:12
it would be it would be cool to have Gandalf as a Patron if we were to play this because then you get to interact with Gandalf a lot. salutely.
James Pierson 58:19
Yep. Yeah,
Amelia Antrim 58:21
I think is what we should go with. I think that makes no sense. That sounds good. Let's
Stef Midlock 58:23
do that. Perfect. Okay. Yay.
Ryan Boelter 58:27
Let's Let's sneak into Gandalf chamber and steal his notes on the rain and
James Pierson 58:36
you go to Mount Doom and just get this whole thing settled. Right? Yeah.
Stef Midlock 58:43
Don't even get a start.
Ryan Boelter 58:46
Alright, so a point.
James Pierson 58:50
Patron. So the next thing we choose is our safe haven. This is a location that works as like our starting base of operations. And potentially if we're playing a game that sort of localized in one area, where we will return to after our adventures to recover and rest and so to do our fellowship phases. One of the places that they suggest is, you know, in like, Embree, the Prancing Pony is a great option or someplace in breed because breed is a very central location that area door which I think makes sense for this party. But you know, if we want it to be something different or unique, we can you know, obviously choose something, something else.
Stef Midlock 59:25
And the Prancing Pony for those who might not be super Tuscany is you've seen it, you see it in the movies, that's where the hobbits go in Brea, and that's where they meet Aragorn. And the scary Nazca will come to find them. Very scary. What just like a nice and I mean, that totally works for me. I like that it works with Amelia being from Bree. And it's also at the crossroads. So it'll fast travel us to certain places.
Ryan Boelter 59:52
And Amelia, you said your character doesn't want to travel that much. So like,
Amelia Antrim 59:58
I feel like this is where I would be
James Pierson 1:00:00
Yes, yeah,
Ryan Boelter 1:00:01
that makes a lot of sense. And we
Stef Midlock 1:00:03
know Gandalf knows where it is right? He's no stranger to the Prancing Pony. So that's perfect. Let's do that.
James Pierson 1:00:10
Okay, perfect. And then there are two sort of mechanical aspects of our company. So the next one is the fellowship rating. Basically, the fellowship rating is a numerical value, which gives us a pool of points, which we all share, which we can use each session to regain hope, we can spend a point of fellowship to recover a point of hope, essentially, these refresh every session, so it sort of incentivizes us to use hope, because we know that we'll be able to recover it. And then, you know, next session, we'll have our fellowship rating restored, so we can have points of hope to spend them. And basically, the fellowship rating is calculated by counting the number of players that we have, and then adding any bonus we get from our patrons. So four players, plus a plus two from Gandalf. So our fellowship points are six. That's our fellowship six. That makes sense.
Stef Midlock 1:01:00
Does that go under fellowship score than in the sheet? Yes. Okay.
James Pierson 1:01:05
And then in some cases, there are virtues or cultural blessings, which may add to our fellowship bonus, but I don't think any of us have anything that does that at this point. And then the last thing is the fellowship focus. And the fellowship focus will be somebody that each of us has, and it's basically another person, another character in the party that we feel a particular bond with. It could be a best friend bond, it could be a romantic bond, it could be a bond of respect, you know, for somebody who looks up to another character, but basically, it's we're all tied together as part of this company. But each character has another person in the party with whom they feel a particular affinity. When a player hero does mix a support, action, like give support to their fellowship, focus, their fellowship, focus, basically, at any point, we can use, if we have an appropriate skill, we can support another player making a skill check. That gives them an extra one D six, but if you're supporting your fellowship, focus, they get an extra lay, they get to do six to their role. But if your fellowship focus is wounded, suffers a bout of madness, or otherwise seriously harmed, we you will you gain a point of shadow that you can't get. So basically like when your buddy gets when your buddy gets stabbed, you feel it too. It darkens your your Outlook
Stef Midlock 1:02:31
move. The book says to I really liked this part for your fellowship focus, it can also be someone who it's like a an empathy thing where it's like someone you sort of pity if they're like, way weaker than you like someone you feel yet to take care of. So it could be like a positive friend, but also sort of like, oh, this weak link needs me. thing. Like, yeah, now do you share James, do you say who your fellowship focus is? Or do you keep it secret? What do you do?
James Pierson 1:03:00
I don't think it says one way or the other. I think it makes sense to say who our fellowship focuses are and why we would have a focus like why they would be our fellowship focus,
Ryan Boelter 1:03:08
especially since we're not going to be playing these characters.
Stef Midlock 1:03:12
To to to to share. Although we should we should do we should do a one shot and have it on after bath where you play these characters. I'm gonna choose if it's okay. I would like to choose Amelia because I feel like a someone from Bree. And I'm from not far off and Hobbiton we probably have known each other a while yeah, and I think I think I think also, you know, you're not really wanting to go out and I've hobbits are the same. So I feel like we're kindred spirits.
Amelia Antrim 1:03:41
I was gonna pick you too. So I feel like that makes sense. Oh. I forgot what is your character's name?
Stef Midlock 1:03:49
Her name is Gilly good body she hurts. knob, my phone.
James Pierson 1:03:59
And players are free to choose anybody as their their fellowship, focus, even someone who's already been chosen by someone else. So if we like, you know, so that's fine.
Ryan Boelter 1:04:08
So whose character wants to be my secret crush?
Stef Midlock 1:04:14
Oh. Man,
Ryan Boelter 1:04:19
because, like any of you three would be like, amazing in different ways.
Stef Midlock 1:04:25
I feel like almost it has to be the door because elves and dwarves has a giant kind of Yo, yeah, yeah, I don't think it would be so lovely. I feel like your, your, your gal is so Gen Z like open to everything. Like we can do it. We're gonna you know, Yay, we're gonna do the world. So that would be great. So forward thinking to lovin Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 1:04:47
but she keeps it secret because, you know, there's that traditional Altdorf head butting. So so like her culture is ingrained in their brain and She's gotten kind of conflicted feelings about that. Yeah.
Amelia Antrim 1:05:04
She's now to her family.
James Pierson 1:05:07
Right. And I think I think that grief is so my character is fellowship focus would be Laureline because she has completely friend zoned. Laura Lynn. Is not when she does not have romantics that she's aware of that she's aware of.
Ryan Boelter 1:05:27
Oh, amazing.
Amelia Antrim 1:05:31
Amazing. I love it so much. Oh, my heart.
James Pierson 1:05:37
All right. And so now having chosen our fellowship focuses, we have essentially completed character creation. Like that was the last time
Amelia Antrim 1:05:45
we did it. Wonderful. School team.
Stef Midlock 1:05:50
Y'all, y'all. It's not, it's not super complicated. Crunching things
Amelia Antrim 1:05:57
and but like you still end up with, you know, something really satisfying. Even just picking things from lists like yeah, and varied.
Ryan Boelter 1:06:05
Yeah, I've got a really good handle on who this person is. I like it. Yay. Amazing.
Amelia Antrim 1:06:15
Thank you both so much for joining us for the One Ring character creation episodes. This was so much fun.
Stef Midlock 1:06:22
Thank you, this has been the best you You guys are so fun. I'm, it's such an honor to be on your show. I love your show. And this is just like, I could not be more stoked to be here. So thank you.
Amelia Antrim 1:06:34
I'm really sad that we're not gonna get to. We're not gonna get to do anything. I say that every time like, I'm sad that we don't get to like play with these characters. But maybe someday.
Ryan Boelter 1:06:42
We'll have to Ringo Judas.
Amelia Antrim 1:06:46
Because he didn't make a character. Yeah, yeah. Let's start with stuff. Do you want to remind everybody where they can find you online and what you're up to? Sure. Yeah.
Stef Midlock 1:06:56
So I'm again, I'm Steph midblock. I am from the Athabasca podcast. You can find us on the web at podcast dot Astra beth.com. And you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at afterbuzz underscore cast. So come here for all your Tolkien jokes and Duncan on characters that we think are lame. It's really fun. And you can find me if you're interested in myself. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at the North for fo you are and my co host Jude is arithmetic dude.
Amelia Antrim 1:07:27
And James, where can people find you and what are you up to?
James Pierson 1:07:30
Yeah, so I can be found on twitter at J Pearson p i e r s o n. I can be found editing aftermath and jamming. I think we're going to do a third Halloween episode for this October. So I'll be gene jamming that one. And I'm also an early pre production on an actual play podcast. So keep an eye on my Twitter for when that drops.
Amelia Antrim 1:07:51
Oh, very cool. And in your spare time being married to stuff.
Ryan Boelter 1:07:55
Oh yeah. Well, thank you again. And thank you to everybody for listening. Please join us on the next episode for our discussion bloc. Call to watch.
Amelia Antrim 1:08:16
Yeah, like that? I don't know. Did you get a chance to watch the One Ring rings up during the power?
Ryan Boelter 1:08:24
hour we saw the first episode and the mention of Lyndon like, right away. I was like, I know about that. I know about these elves crossing the ocean.
Amelia Antrim 1:08:34
I heard about that.
Ryan Boelter 1:08:35
I heard about that.
Amelia Antrim 1:08:37
Nice. Nice. I did. So it's, um, there'll be a new one out now by the time this episode comes out because they call them Fridays? Fridays. Yeah, but I really enjoyed them. It had you know, like it was it was a lot of what I liked about the movies. I'm really intrigued to see see what happens to see.
Ryan Boelter 1:08:59
I'm very interested in seeing where it goes. And I I am watching the movie now while also thinking about like how to implement these characters in this game. So it's like okay, well I've we've got all types of Linden we've got you know, the the dwarves and we've got these these new flavor of Hobbit which I'm really enjoying.
Amelia Antrim 1:09:21
Yeah, it's really exciting to like see parts of it that just aren't, you know, aren't the usual like, I don't know. I don't want to be like, the same stuff as always because it's I mean, like there's a lot going on. But it is cool just to see some of the like sort of lesser trodden parts of the of the legendary, I'm enjoying it. I also like a huge Tolkien nerd. Yeah, but
Ryan Boelter 1:09:45
I can easily see a lot of people getting inspired by this show. To actually want to play the game and from from what we're hearing like the wandering the especially this version is like one of the best systems to play. Yeah, this sort of, you know, adventure in these sorts of characters. And that makes me even more excited wanting to actually dive into play this. So
Amelia Antrim 1:10:12
yeah, yeah, it was a perfect timing for this game. So
Ryan Boelter 1:10:16
absolutely. We put we planned that for real.
Amelia Antrim 1:10:22
We did actually a little bit we actually like we're a little bit on top of it. But yeah.
Ryan Boelter 1:10:27
It just landed in the right place at the right time it did. Absolutely. But before we let you go for the week, we do have some calls to action. First up, our review bin is empty at the moment, I keep checking. Nothing new has been there for a while, we would love to hear what you think about the show, I have been actually seen that we've been trending in various countries around the world, including pretty consistently the Philippines, South Korea lately as well. Canada, of course, Austria is a name that's up there now a Spain. And recently we hit number three in the games category in South Africa. And I think we're still doing pretty well in that category in South Africa. Cool, which is really cool. So welcome to all your amazing listeners from around the world. It's actually really exciting to see that there's enthusiasm for our show outside of the US. And we would really love to hear from you. You know whether you want to leave a review in English or not, we'd still be thrilled. We do see reviews from all countries on Apple podcasts. So don't worry, it's most us not catching it. We'd absolutely love to hear from you. You can also leave reviews on podcast addict if you're on Android or pod chaser from pretty much any device with a browser. Every review helps us out and really makes our day whenever we come across to do one.
Amelia Antrim 1:12:02
I mean, we could also attempt to read reviews that are in other languages, we could we could try there in Spanish, I can for sure read them. Well, there you go. Other possible ways of helping us out and we are in definite need of some people to pick this option for us would be backing us on Patreon, we've been a little bit slow in adding extra bonus content lately. Thank you to everyone who is still backing us anyway, I have been undergoing medical procedures for the last six weeks. undergoing some anesthesia three times a week. It's super fun. It's my favorite new hobby. It's not I don't like it. But hopefully that will make me feel better. Which will mean that we can put things out more regularly. And we'll be able to have more bonus content for you on a regular basis, higher quality content, because I will not feel like garbage all the time. I'm really looking forward to being done with us. It's gonna be great, absolutely nowhere to go but up. But because of that personal stuff is winding down, we should be able to get more stuff in there. So for those of you who are backing us at the $5 and up level, you will have access to all of that bonus content as part of our secret archive. So that has bonus recordings that we do. Sometimes it's Ryan and I playing micro games. Sometimes it is early release episodes, as Ryan edits them. Sometimes it is bonus outtakes that is for everybody at the $1 and up level. So all kinds of good stuff in there that we're hoping to get more and more of now that I am feeling like a human. So absolutely check out our Patreon at patreon.com/character creation cast. If you have the ability to spare a little bit toward helping us afford me all the added costs of making this super awesome show that we're very passionate about. One of the perks too, is that we will thank you personally right in one of our closings. Like right now like we're gonna do right now. This this part right here.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:14
I'm ready. You too.
Amelia Antrim 1:14:15
You too could be a part of this. We would love to add your name to the list. So you know, just think about it. What would it sound like if my favorite podcaster read my name out loud on every episode? Well, it would sound like this. If this was one of your names. Thank you, Lieutenant for your continued support as our first ever patron.
Ryan Boelter 1:14:35
And Eric bunch thank you as well for your continued support.
Amelia Antrim 1:14:40
Yes, Eric, I saw your photos of your family at Bretton Ferro this last weekend and you all were adorable and I just want you to know that it's my very personal call out. You all looked very cute. David and Kay to grant a Soros thank you so much for your support.
Ryan Boelter 1:14:57
Matt Newton. Thank you as well. Hi,
Amelia Antrim 1:15:00
Darryl Holliday the second thank you for your support
Ryan Boelter 1:15:04
Shittim cabal a thank you as well,
Amelia Antrim 1:15:07
to the shyest barbarian. Thank you so much for all of your support,
Ryan Boelter 1:15:11
Benjamin Sweeney. Thank you,
Amelia Antrim 1:15:14
Larkin McGinnis, thank you so much,
Ryan Boelter 1:15:17
Rob Fletcher. Thank you so much.
Amelia Antrim 1:15:20
And Kevin Brown, thank you so much.
Ryan Boelter 1:15:24
And thank you to all of our future patrons, we wouldn't be able to make this show as easily without your assistance. And we truly appreciate your generosity. Coming soon, we'll actually have another bonus actual play of the both of us playing a game called Summer break where we play as kids fighting a monster from our own tree fort. This one was really Yeah, this one was super delightful. Just just a fun, quick game that I think I would I would play again. It was cute. I loved it. I liked it a lot.
Amelia Antrim 1:16:03
That is all we have for today's episode. Next week we get into our discussion with with Steph and James and some really phenomenal fanfic as usual. It's a really good episode. These things are just so much fun to record. So until then, stay safe everyone drink some water, relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw, take some deep breaths. Keep making those amazing people. We'll see you next time.
Amelia Antrim 1:16:51
Character Creation Cast is a production of the oneshot 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 be found on twitter at creation cast or ON OUR DISCORD SERVER at discord dot character creation cast.com And one of your hosts Amelia Antrim and I can be found on twitter, at ginger reckoning, or on my other podcast garbage of the five rings. Our other host Ryan boelter can be found on twitter at Lord Neptune or online at Lord neptune.com music for this episode is used with a Creative Commons license or with permission from the podcast it originated from. Further information can be found within the show notes. Our main theme music is hero remix by Steve combs, and is used with a Creative Commons license. This podcast is owned by us under Creative Commons. This episode was edited by the absolutely fantastic Ryan boelter. Further information for the game system used in today's guests can also be found in the shownotes. If you'd like to support our show, find us on Patreon. Get access to bonus episodes, extra outtakes and much much more at patreon.com/character creation cast. Thanks for joining us. And remember, we find the best part of any role playing game is character creation. So go out there and create some amazing people. We'll see you next time.
Amelia Antrim 1:18:37
We got to read some show blurbs show blurbs. Show bad show blurbs.
Ryan Boelter 1:18:45
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 campaign
Amelia Antrim 1:18:56
campaign sky Jack's takes place in an original setting inspired by folktales and classic adventure fiction. James D'Amato leads Liz Anderson John Patrick Cohen, Tyler Davis, Johnny O'Meara, and in recent episodes, Nathan blades as they tell a tale of daring sky pirates, giant birds, and the terror of Cursed see. It's funny, dramatic and at times emotionally devastating. Search for campaigns sky jacks or James D'Amato on iTunes Google Play or your favorite podcast app.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai