First expanded show notes of Between Two Cairn
With links! By Excited fan(s).
Reward: Back rubs at Gencon, in the middle of the convention - Allegedly co-signed by Brad and Sam (bringing the oil and seashells).
Post notes:
I started a few of these show notes as a personal project - keeping track of what was said in past episodes for future reference, but never got around reviewing them or expanded them further. So took this episode as a bat signal to make it a reality.
I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City
By David Cook
Yochai & Brad are joined by Sam Mameli to review I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City by David Cook, and answer a mailbag question.
- Mailbag: How do you organize your work?
Cold open:
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1:20 - 6:20: Yochai Story time:
Grandma, Vegenaise, Kid Yochai lost in 1996 (presumed dead by the police), Hand gestures -
5.55: Picture of what they were talking about:
- “Italian for pasta is really good” - Sam
- Israel gesture for hold on/wait
Source: Alamy
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9.00: Weird Medieval guy by Olivia Swarthout
Source: Cover - readings.com.au
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9.25: Hieronymus Bosch video game: Hieronymus
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Unknown Bosch novel from Brad
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Wi-fi Dishwasher - all of the worlds problems solved; while Sam cleans his dishes with oil and scraping them down with sea shells.
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Sam and partner are getting cats for Christmas; Yochai #Giftfreelife but he does support spontaneous gift giving.
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14.11: - One other element missing: A page of links; Contest for the most excited fan.
Source: Shadow drop exclusive Between 2 Cairns reward
Mailbag
(15:04)
Note: This was hand transcribed, did my best but might not be verbatim
J wilton says:
"Hi Brad and Yochai, my question is: When writing adventures, towns worldbuilding notes, etc. How do you organise your work? I’ve been using a physical mix of physical note taking and digital tools for the past few years and wondering if you have any tips from your experience? Do you keep anything in a notebook, a word doc or something all together different? Thanks I love the show
PS: Would you consider doing a run of T-shirts, custom D6 with a Drukk head as the “1” Maybe? or perhaps even an occasional pamphlet as reward for future patreon tiers?"
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16:16: Sam answer: Walgreens or a drug store.
Walgreens binders
Walgreens Notebook- Put stickers, then make a tower of binders, pack it in a backpack, forget the backpack, and use your dome.
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Kettlewright for Cairn character sheets / Dice rolling
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19:22: Compendium books listed:
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19:55: (Yochai) Doesn’t use any! But will use:
- Index cards (Temporarily) + google docs (Brief outline on folder structure)
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21.38: - “No dog your not drowning, your waving” - Brad (Possible fanart/Merch idea)
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22.11: - Brads answer
- For publishing:
- High level concept, vibe, theme, go down from there.
- Switch to paper; doodling helps reveals ideas that words cannot.
- For Home game - little planning
- Notebook, towns name, majors names, 3 squares for buildings and a lake. That’s it.
- Holes: Trouble with names - Frogo an Carl Jr
- For publishing:
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24.40 - Yochai’s method of names: Think of the description of the person in X language, then convert and bash together names together when converting into english.
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25.38 - Yochai advice on NPC/People:
“I just see people as objects in my games” Yochai
“Yeah that makes sense” Brad
“They have properties…” “It sounds much worse than it is”
“What do they want, what’s unique about them, what are their weakness, what are they facing - generating randomly is always an option”
- 27:20 - Sam’s Angel Stat allotments: High visual.
- Sam mentions merch - d4 White ape shirt (It’s Alive!)
- 28.26: Congrats to Brad on (??? - Listen to find out)
- 29.25: Necrotic gnome new - WIP OSE starter kit: Dungeon of the undermoon (Working title) (Info to announcement)
Main Review
(30:40)
- 31.33 - Sam explains what the K mean’t in CYMK; Also re: What is a keyline.
- 33.10 - Originally created for a tournament module.
- 33.27 - Sam’s historical overview
- Game was made to plop it, to any of your campaigns.
- David Cook’s homage to the short story Conan: Red Nail (1936)
- With I1, around the same time Jennell Jaquays also released Dark tower (1981)
- Started as a setting in David’s Cook home game; also a writing sample for TSR.
- Which led to writing:
- Expert D&D set
- Slave pits of the under city
- Isle of Dread
- Temple of death
- Conan the Barbarian
- Crime fighters
- Oriental adventures
- AD&D (2nd Edition)
- Planescape
- Which led to writing:
- Also contributed to Video games:
- Fallout 2
- City of Villains (Lead designer)
- Elder scroll online (Content designer)
- More on the Adventure:
- Has a lot of Fiend folio monsters
- 34.48 Genesis of:
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Yuan Ti - Aboleth - Mongralmen - Tasloi
To be continued (34.55)
Update log:
Jan 05 - Drafting
- I have a spare day to do this (so I thought). I’ll pop this into the RPG Cauldron Discourse as seems like a fitting home for it. Originally wanted to do a quick HTML site but… I’m not that excited. yet.
- Still a work in progress on formatting, but it does lean towards minutes at the moment. Probably trim the fat in time … or this could be the last of I do of this kind? who know?!
- Using the episode description as a base and then expanding from there.
Enjoy the links. - (Hmm… might bring this whole section down after I finalise this post; so the title/show notes is priority.)*
Jan 06 2025 - UPDATE
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This is all I got up to!
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Much longer process than I imagined, as I did more than linking, and more minutes style. Gave up on providing images on each link, but might revisit it. Leaving this for the weekend or small chunks throughout the week. Posting it half-baked now, else I never will.
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Upcoming expanded notes for:
00:30:40 Main Review
00:38:08 Art Talk
00:49:04 Reviews
1:01:12 Deep Dive
Jan 09 2025 - Here we go again!
- Added a few more notes.
- Moved all these update notes to its own section so it’s less of a travel to find the show notes.
- Small chunks of updates seems manageable - hopefully no limits.
- Added monster art that’s in the book.