# Between Two Cairns - Jan 2nd 2025 - I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City
**URL:** https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596
**Category:** Inspiration
**Created:** [January 6, 2025, 3:14am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596 "2025-01-06T03:14:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tonytranrpg](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/tonytranrpg)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 3:14am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/1 "2025-01-06T03:14:21Z")
# 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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cook_(game_designer))
- [Patreon episode link](https://www.patreon.com/posts/i1-dwellers-of-118319566?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_fan&utm_content=web_share)
- [Drivethru RPG link: I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17046/i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city-1e)
**[Yochai](https://newschoolrevolution.com)** & **[Brad](https://bsky.app/profile/bradkerr.bsky.social)** are joined by **[Sam Mameli](https://betterlegends.com)** to review [I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17046/i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city-1e) by [David Cook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cook_(game_designer)), and answer a mailbag question.
- Mailbag: How do you organize your work?
* * *
## Cold open:
- **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:
- **9.00:** Weird Medieval guy by [Olivia Swarthout](https://x.com/tochterzwiebel)
- **9.25:** Hieronymus Bosch video game: [Hieronymus](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2518790/Hieronymus/?beta=1)
- Unknown Bosch novel from Brad
- Wi-fi Dishwasher - all of the worlds problems solved; while Sam cleans his dishes with oil and scraping them down with sea shells.
- Sam and partner are getting cats for Christmas; Yochai #Giftfreelife but he does support spontaneous gift giving.
- **14.11:** - One other element missing: A page of links; Contest for the most excited fan.
* * *
## 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?"
- **16:16:** Sam answer: Walgreens or a drug store.
[Walgreens binders](https://www.walgreens.com/search/results.jsp?Ntt=binder)
[Walgreens Notebook](https://www.walgreens.com/search/results.jsp?Ntt=notebook)
- [Kettlewright](https://kettlewright.com/login) for Cairn character sheets / Dice rolling
- **19:22:** Compendium books listed:
- **19:55:** (Yochai) Doesn’t use any! But will use:
- **21.38:** - _“No dog your not drowning, your waving”_ - Brad (Possible fanart/Merch idea)
- [Sam / Skullboys patreon](https://www.patreon.com/c/better_legends/home)
- **22.11:** - Brads answer
- **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.
- **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](https://cottonbureau.com/p/UVSZ8E/shirt/d4-white-apes-white-on-dark#/27618739/tee-men-premium-lightweight-vintage-black-tri-blend-s) (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](https://necroticgnome.com/blogs/news/looking-ahead-to-2025))
## 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)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Nails)
- With I1, around the same time [Jennell Jaquays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennell_Jaquays) also released [Dark tower (1981)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Tower_(module))
- 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
- 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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiend_Folio)
- **34.48** Genesis of:
-
- [Yuan Ti](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Yuan-ti) - [Aboleth](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Aboleth) - [Mongralmen](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mongrelfolk) - [Tasloi](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/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](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/) 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`
- This is all I got up to!
- 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.
- **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.
---
### Author:  [@Joseph\_Krausz](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/Joseph_Krausz)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/2 "2025-01-06T03:26:02Z")
As an example of a fan recap of podcast material that might be less onerous to do, I’d point to Recommendation Station, which collates the media recommendations from the Jeselnik and Rosenthal Vanity Project podcast. (Long ago, I used to listen to it.) It’s only part of the podcast, but it’s an easy way for fans to flick through and find things.
Basically, I’m kind of suggesting making this an Excel/Sheets file with little notes, so you don’t go insane with the work, if you do want to do it.
[https://jrvprecommendationstation.com/](https://jrvprecommendationstation.com/)
---
### Author:  [@tonytranrpg](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/tonytranrpg)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 3:38am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/3 "2025-01-06T03:38:53Z")
Noted thanks! I do like this tagging system for quick reference / organisation.
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### Author:  [@elmcat](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/elmcat)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 8:24am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/4 "2025-01-06T08:24:28Z")
Yes… ha ha ha… **YES!**
This is what we sickos need.
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### Author:  [@yochaigal](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/yochaigal)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/5 "2025-01-06T13:14:15Z")
This is insane why would you do this to yourself
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### Author:  [@cobb.land](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/cobb.land)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 1:33pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/6 "2025-01-06T13:33:44Z")
This is amazing. Honestly, knowing someone out there might be doing something like this (or even just collecting links to everything mentioned) could potentially save me from a car accident as I fumble with the voice search functions on my phone to look up a mentioned book or game while I’m driving. (I really should stop doing that…)
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### Author:  [@Skullboy](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/Skullboy)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 1:39pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/7 "2025-01-06T13:39:41Z")
Oh man this is way more in depth than I was expecting. My basis for comparison here is the Insert Credit podcast- just a list of links to anything thats mentioned and linkable. But listen, if you want to become a sort of Between Two Cairns illuminated scholar I wont stop you
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### Author:  [@AndrewClark](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/AndrewClark)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 4:16pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/8 "2025-01-06T16:16:00Z")
Clearly gunning for that Gen Con back rub
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### Author:  [@laesquinadelrol](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/laesquinadelrol)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/9 "2025-01-07T01:44:04Z")
Wow, I appreciate you doing this, but how much time do you spend making these notes?
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### Author:  [@tonytranrpg](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/tonytranrpg)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2025, 3:32am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/between-two-cairns-jan-2nd-2025-i1-dwellers-of-the-forbidden-city/1596/10 "2025-01-07T03:32:19Z")
Hm… I would say about an 50ish odd minutes for the 28 minutes done.
Though the time spent was me navigating what was the right amount of information to capture, picture gathering/editing.
_I choose the method equivalent to [Knights of the round](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Knights_of_Round_(Final_Fantasy_VII))._
As intensive as it seems. In theory, it should be faster once the format has been shaped.
_In theory… famous last words._