#wbn Patreon

[yeehawpim]

The Great Ham Mess (@worldsbeyondpod fireside shenanigans)

thank you for all the glorious mustards out there taking up the job of bit janitor

[queerlyvictorian]

I love the first Interlude, “Twelve Brooks,” on the WBN Patreon for so many reasons, but the most interesting one is that in a lively, pastoral setting with truly awe-inspiring levels of fantastical whimsy, Brennan managed to fold in another reason for me to hate and distrust the Kehmsarazan Empire.

Mark my words, the Saraz Imperium will pay for what they did to the Grenoe (sp?) and to Buckles especially. Not only did they essentially orphan a seven or six year-old child, but they also separated him from his people, who could have guided him through his beautiful magical gift in his own time. Truly the dick-est moves of all dick moves.

The real tragedy that I keep coming back to is the imperialism of terminology. Prof. Salmón knows what the Empire and the Citadel would call someone like Buckles — a cambion, which Brennan definitely pulled from European mythology about the offspring of a human and a demon — but he has to look through an ancient library in a dipalitated castle overtaken by bullfrogs and fucking fireflies to learn what Buckles’s own people would call him. Something about that makes me incandescent with rage.

I fucking hate empires so much.

[xeansicemane]

NO WAIT EVERYONE SHUT UP

(Brain is hot with Worlds Beyond Number Spoilers)

WHAT IF THE STATION OF THE WORLD'S HEART ISN'T AS OLD AS WE THINK IT IS?

Think about it - the Keep of the World's heart is specifically mentioned to be small and on the outskirts of the Castle of the Wind and Stars, it could easily be a late or recent addition to the structure.

The fixation was the heart - the heart of a spirit amalgamated into the bones of a man.

Folks what if we weren't seeing A heart - what if we were seeing The heart.

There was something real fuckin' juicy (magically speaking) under the Cottage - and I think we just saw what it was.

[darewitchstr]

I know Taylor Moore and Brennan go way wayyyy back cause they sound exactly the same. And I don’t mean just their voices but the speech patterns, the vocabulary, EVERYTHING it was eerily and I love it

[deadhawke]

There is. Truly nothing funnier on this planet. Than listening to Aabria and Erika describe omegaverse to Brennan and Lou. I have not cry laughed this hard in years.

[dimension20stuff]

The most beautiful woman in the world is wearing the largest glasses you've ever seen by the LA river

[brainrockets]

Since ALL of the Worlds Beyond Number content is accessible at the $5 level on Patreon AND the first arc of The Witch, the Wizard and the Wild One has just completed, folks could sub for 1 month and listen to:

The Childrens' Adventure

The full first arc of the main campaign

All of the Fireside Chats

A County Affair (and upcoming Firesides)

And Cram Daniel

And then unsubscribe til the Second Arc is completed.

They've said right in the FAQ that they won't be mad if folks do that.

So, if you have some time to listen to some stellar content and five dollars (there may be taxes or patreon fees that are very nominal idk, this is not sponsored), you can access ALL the content that currently exists!

Learn Brennan Lore!

Access cool magic items!

Be in on the inside jokes from the Fireside

Find out how Aabria keeps track of characterization

Cram Daniel!

Music stuff

Try and tell Brennan and Taylor apart

World building stuff

And More!

[stone-stars]

the part in the wizard: then&now where aabria goes “when i remember this part, this is the regret” fully and utterly destroyed me jesus CHRIST

[chungledown-bimothy]

I am here to break arms and kill dogs, and I have made no bones about it, okay?

-Brennan "The Bit Janitor" Lee Mulligan

[not-my-digital-footprint]

is there a place to listen to the wbn/wwwo ost? like is it on the fireside or smth

[yeehawpim]

ame teaching her pals how to grow beans

[secretlyofthefeywild]

erika eating the cake w their hands, aabria spraying the food spray paint in her mouth (again), lou decorating a cake, and brennan completely zoned out,,, yea this all checks out

[xeansicemane]

Re: Worlds Beyond Number Fireside

Hey what the fuck (continued under the cut)

We were constantly told it was the Citadel that made that desert but DID THE FUCKING WITCHES DO IT?

SHE WAS FOCUSED ON THE CROWNED PANTHER'S HEART - THE CITADEL IS A BLADE IN THE WORLDS' HEART

Help me friends of the fireside I'm theorizing over here.

Also jesus fuck they were not kidding about the gore warning

[hoarding-stories]

We love a good pivot from the phrase "shooting up the club with a nerf gun full of cum" to an in-depth interesting conversation about media's portrayal of sex, how it is impacted by culture and politics, and how people see it dependant on those things

[hellishfig]

i missed the worlds beyond number birthday stream because i was playing dnd

then i went to my friend's house and hung out for a few hours before returning home and immediately starting the vod

it is currently 4:21 in the morning and i just finished watching the stream a few minutes ago

i will never be the same

[utilitycaster]

You commented on not being a fan of non-pc pov scenes in ap, something that Aabria used in the first go of exu (which was one of the main things that put me off of it, tbh). Do you have any thoughts on how this is applied in EXU compared to WBN?

So for EXU there's some parts that are better, and some that are worse. The good thing is that they're very brief snapshots vs. the one in WBN that was like, an extended several-minute scene. I also actually kind of like the ones for Ted, since that makes sense; we know it's impossible to really get Ted's perspective otherwise and you can kind of handwave it as being related to Opal and floating about in her unconscious.

The ones for My'ratta and Poska on the other hand, while again, brief, sort of underscore their lack of development. We did not know what Myr'atta wanted until episode 93 of Campaign 3, and as I've said before I literally could not tell you what the goal of the Nameless Ones or Poska is. They serve no purpose narratively except as a ticking clock and shadowy threat to get the Crown Keepers to leave a place quickly.

I mentioned Otohan in my original post on this topic as an example of an underdeveloped antagonist, something Brennan mentioned as something he hoped to avoid, and Myr'atta, Poska, and Otohan are all ultimately cut from the same cloth: cool aesthetic, cool abilities, and a severe lack of in-game development. I don't know what motivates them (or in Myr'atta's case, didn't while they were an ongoing part of the story) and so they all bore me. They are flat, dull villains who say threatening shit that means nothing because I don't know what drives them. I don't want to keep getting into it because it kind of derailed my original point anyway but what frustrates me the most is how people keep saying "oh but I'm sure they have a motivation." Like yeah bitch. I'm sure they do. The GM has a responsibility to convey that in-game. And they can do so subtly! Believe me, I am glad to do the work of unpicking motivation from allusions or what is carefully unsaid; this is what makes Ludinus and Liliana (and Lolth in EXU) interesting! But it's telling that whenever I'm like "what the fuck does this character do other than serve the purpose of a Plot Device to either threaten or move the characters", no one ever like, explains their motivation to me; it's always "give it time! I'm sure the GM has something in mind." Well, both Myr'atta and Otohan died before we got that (we still don't have it for Otohan) so I think we can safely say the waiting game is for suckers. Like, if you like characters based on aesthetic alone that's valid as a choice, but I'm not taking your meta or arguments seriously because that's a superficial judgment.

It's also frustrating because it's like...the GMs and the fans who keep insisting to be PATIENT long after a boring antagonist has worn out their welcome for me are simultaneously like "the audience will not remember this guy if I don't shove them in their face in a stilted cutscene" and also "clearly, the audience will infer that this boring-ass antagonist MUST have something deeper going on and therefore they will extend credit indefinitely." It's the absolute opposite of what they should be prioritizing. Instead of trying to jingle the antagonist in front of me like keys while still doing nothing to develop their personality, maybe have the party...idk, have a vision. find a letter. learn something secondhand from someone talking in a bar that sheds light on their motivation.

In WBN it's actually a totally different problem. The scene is 100% unnecessary. We know what the Man in Black wants. We know what's going on with him. We know his goals and his allies. We saw him only a couple episodes ago and he's been a topic of discussion throughout a good chunk of the arc. Hell, we even know how dope-ass his aesthetic is. This is just showing something the party doesn't know and can't act on, for several minutes of Brennan talking to himself, and I think it actually destroys what would be a gut-punch of undead Sir Curran showing up on the opposite side of Eursulon, whose entire deal is being inspired by him.

So: The EXU scenes are less intrusive for their brevity, the fact that the Ted ones are pretty good, and that at least they don't spoil a moment, but at the same time they still don't solve the problem of an underdeveloped antagonist for Myr'atta and Poska. The WBN scene meanwhile drags on, and actually does too much by taking what could be an unbelievably devastating reveal and having it happen when Eursulon isn't even there to respond. I couldn't tell if this actually spoiled it for Lou, since they record well in advance, but if it did that's such a missed opportunity.

Anyway I think my point is that (with the exception of the very first scene of a campaign that is setting the stage, before the PCs are introduced) these cutscenes only work if they are extremely short and purely for vague flavor. I think if you want to have a scene with no PCs present, you should perhaps write a book or a screenplay instead of playing D&D.