Mexico City Wrap-up

0:00 Daniel's Dread Tales is a show for grown-ups. It may contain adult language and adult themes. Please check the episode description for content warnings. Hey everybody, it's Daniel's Dread Tales and we're here. Hello. And we're dreadful. Hi. Hi, it's. Awesome. No, you're dreadful. We're awesome. OK. This wig is itchy.

0:41 Don't acknowledge the wig. That's just your hair now. Yeah, exactly. Yes, absolutely. Miss Piggy never says she's wearing a wig even. She's obviously my my role model in all things. I don't know if this has come up. That shows. But The Muppets are this piggy the best. That really shows. God, now we can't include this either. Or maybe we can't. Hey everybody, it's Daniel's dread Tail. This. Is great content. Content. God I hate content. I hate the phrase content. Welcome to the show. We're talking about Mexico City but like not real Mexico City. A made-up Mexico City from the 1930s that's full of a poorly run nectar cult.

1:29 Yeah, and birds. Yeah. And and evil birds that really only attacked you that one time. They still did some awful things. They did? Yeah. That, that one guy exploded into birds. Yeah. I. Hate someone? Yeah. Or had someone fed to them. Yes, several, many people were fed to. I, I recently looked at the, the description of of episode 27 and I think it was episode 27 and noticed that one of the triggers we put in was for bird splosion, which Yep. I yeah, I I guess that's. I don't know what other trigger you would put in there. Yes. Yeah, no, fair enough.

2:11 Let's just. I had to. I had to feed the birds at my friend Andrea's house while she was out of town and usually my wife does the bird. The birds, they were aggressive. Well, mostly the parent, but parents are. Asking. That's karma. Well. You know, so anyway, this is our special wrap up episode for our Mexico City arc as we move towards the end of our Eternal Lies campaign. We did this after some of our other stuff and because it's not going to be edited nearly as much, we thought we'd do it on video. So if you're on YouTube, you're seeing us in video form.

2:55 If you're listening to us on a podcast, use your imagination or go to our YouTube channel to see us. It's. Yeah, then you could. Then you could listen to this twice. Come check out this shirt Nathan is wearing. That's that's a really cool shirt. I like it. I'm I'm wearing my Colombo shirt. Nice. Oh, that's good. It's got Colombo on it. I'm. Wearing my Scott hasn't seen Godzilla shirt, it doesn't make sense. I will spare you explaining inside jokes from other podcasts, but it's Godzilla with a. Got it. I'm wearing. A shirt from a podcast too. What does it say? Bill, oh, who might. Yeah, I I'm reading it now.

3:35 I see now. I see now you wouldn't get it. It's from my. They left their shop open longer than the podcast. Yes, the shop were made-up for our old show. Because the. Movie is still up. I think it might still be up. Yeah. I who knows where that well, I know where that money goes. It's not going to the assault show. That money's going to T public or whatever. Jesus Christ. OK, The show that we're doing right now is called Daniels Red Tails, and we're going to be talking about Mexico City and we're going to be answering your questions, but we only got a couple of them, but that's OK. Hatch. And by your questions, we mean Russell's questions. Well, no, we have one person who asks us questions, too.

4:16 Hi, Hatch. So, Russell, you usually take the lead on these things, right? With questions? Did you do that this time? Or am I blathering? I haven't done it this time. Oh, you haven't? Oh no. But I haven't taken the lead yet, is what I mean. Oh, you have? Taken the. Yeah, OK. So let's, let's start with the listener questions then. I've got this in no particular order, but I'm thinking there was questions about the Tibet armor of the cult. Oh yeah, yeah. And maybe we could go into why we're skipping that. So it's not Tibet, it's Tibet.

4:56 Tibet. No. No. Bangkok. Bangkok, yes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we didn't even spend one night in Bangkok. I mean, we could go to Bangkok. It is an option that is available. But to be perfectly honest, this campaign's going on for quite a while. So we're thinking that maybe Bangkok could be something that exists sort of on the periphery as we move towards the ending. I sort of distributed the clues around so that you don't necessarily need to go everywhere to get what you need to, to stop the final cult. So while there are some, you know, tantalizing hooks leading towards Bangkok, we may not get there and that that's totally fine.

5:43 They might come free. But I mean. I mean, have you seen Hangover too? You know I haven't. I ain't going to Bangkok. OK. And at the same time too, all of the most interesting Lovecraftian stories usually have some loose ends at the end. Yeah, what you'll have to do is look me up and I'll just run the entire campaign for you. What other way? And it'll go differently the next time I. You can send Daniel an e-mail at danstreadtails@gmail.com. Yeah, send me an e-mail, we can discuss payment options. I'll I'll run it for you. I'll handle the payments, no worries. I'll do the doxing. But yeah, As for the Tibet thing, Tibet is where is where you would need to go to go to the Himalayas, which is where, you know, the body of this monster that you're fighting, devouring, no.

6:38 Do we know that? Yeah, I'm not sure we know well. As far as we know. Yeah. As far as we've been able to put together as PCs, that's basically where it is. And like I kind of figured that was going to be where it was when it when it was initially mentioned, like when the Himalayas was initially mentioned. But that's just because, like me as Damien, I've ingested a lot of Lovecraftian like stories and there's more than a couple that feature the Himalayas. Yeah, but it's, you know, you'll go there and they'll be gone.

7:21 You could beat that guy, so it's fine. Like once you kill whatever that thing is, the cult will be destroyed because they want of a God to worship anywhere. So you just got to kill a God. It's fine. Get some dynamite right? Yeah, exactly. It's worked. It's worked thus far. In the mountains. Yeah. You're going to need to haul up some, you know, couple grenades and also you have to be there when the sky is clear. But you do know a ritual to clear the skies. Maybe you don't remember this, but that was a thing that was established. It has been a while. It's in the we'll. Go over all hang. On hang on, have we agreed on taking dynamite to the mountains? Because the more I hear about it, the less of a good idea it seems.

8:02 It's always a good idea. Especially in the mountains. It's never failed us. We haven't been to the mountains yet. That's true. Well. Maybe you'll get buried alive. Here in the Yucatan Peninsula, there's theoretically a power enough to, you know, do all sorts of things here. Dynamite. No, I mean, they have dynamite all over the place. I actually don't know if they're going to have any dynamite. Perfect. But yeah. That sounds like a Venn problem. So that's one question. Was there another question? Not that was. That was it. That was that vague Tibet thing. Vague. Tibet. OK, Good night everyone. Yes, I mean so. I wanted to actually, I said Tibet when I was more referring to the the Himalaya.

8:46 The the that is what is going to be close to the end game for you. I don't know if it will truly be the end game, but but we'll see. But we got one more detour first, unless you guys really want to go to bed. All right. Or that other. Part. Yeah. You do have to. There is also that mouth in Los Angeles. Theoretically you could go back and try to get that it's. We need more dynamite. Edgar job there. We could Job is still out. There. Job is still, well, not out there. Job is still you know. Yeah, he's supposed to be in there. Yeah, he is in. He is in asylum, probably for the rest. Yeah, definitely.

9:31 I'm I'm sure he doesn't have anything to. Do with so our next question. Yeah, Yeah. Go ahead. Our next question was, was Gomez under the effects of Nectar when his head exploded? It's. A little unclear. It's a little unclear, isn't it? Yes, yes, he was under the effects. That's why they're asking. I I will say yes, but I'm also going to say who knows how it all works. It's a little weird. I maybe stole that image from a book I read, except he the book John dies at the end. There's a cop who shows up at one point who's like trying to save them.

10:16 And then it's just like, oh, OK, maybe this is going to be good. And then his head explodes into spiders. And I was inspired by that image. This seemed a little familiar, yeah. In the movie, the cop is trying to kill them. In the book, the cop is trying to save them. David Pardon's book see he wrote under J no Jason Pardon he wrote under the name of David Wong for a moment. But yes, the. The idea was that the nectar responds to the music and the birds are tied to the nectar as well. Unfortunately for the cult, they couldn't quite get it all working.

10:59 Somebody kept making their saves and not drinking nectar and exploding it. Yep. Probably for the past. That would have been an awful way for JP today. Yeah, what's funny is I was not making my saves. Many of my many of the saves I made were other people get down, Mr. President, Secret Service tackling me to the ground before I could do anything. That's also true, A healthy way to deal with it. Speaking of stability tests, the next question and the last listener question we got is, was the stability test for wanting to immediately take Nexter just for JB or was that for anyone who heard the song? It was for oh gosh, did I not make you guys make your checks? No, because most of you guys.

11:45 We made our checks, but we succeeded. If anybody hears it, there's they want to consume nectar if it is around if anybody hears it. There you go. Which was going to be a very useful way to spread the drug around. Like that was the whole point of the they was going to brainwash people to wanting to take the drug. And then when you take the drug, you go even more under the the thrall of the song at all of that. OK. Has risen from his slumber, apparently. Oh yes, children will do that. Well, so she goes. What did we think overall about Mexico? What, what do we got thoughts on how that went? How do we feel about our I mean, I guess here's the idea. We got a new character joining us this time. How?

12:29 How do we feel about that? Oh, Smalls. Yeah, I was getting confused about which arc we were talking about. Oh yeah. Yeah, 'cause there's only one newish character we've had, yeah. 'Cause Reggie's he's floating in space somewhere or chatting with an elder God? We're not 100% sure, probably. Probably. Well, Smalls is an interesting character. He's real intense. That's the word I'm looking for so hard to. Read hard to read. Oh, it's like I said, Smalls had me forever. When you know he sees, he's getting followed and waves.

13:11 Yeah. That was that was amazing. Yes, that that that really threw off the guys that were trying to spy on you. There were people watching you throughout Mexico, but it seemed like they had trouble actually inflicting damage. Well, so one of the things with Smalls and I don't know how successfully I've been portraying it, is he's slightly arrogant. He thinks he's he does at the like at the core of his being. He kind of thinks he's better than most people. So like him waving at the dude who's like, obviously watching him is like, yeah, I, I nice try.

13:52 Try again when you've gotten better. Yeah. But now we've seen some stuff, so and buddy, you're going to see some more stuff very soon. You're going to see some stuff. Capital S. Oh yes, especially with what's happened now. I think technically his most recent sanity loss was technically after what we're covering here. But yeah, it that's going to be interesting with how that shakes out. Yeah, as I told my players, while this next little bit is going to be a fun little detour, it might be the most dangerous. Don't realize it yet.

14:40 I remember that. Well, you can't really say we don't realize it when you've told us multiple times. Well, your characters. Don't read. OK, There you go. Yeah. I also just want to put it out there in advance so that like, when one of you dies almost unexpectedly, you're not going to be like, hey, Daniel, like is being mean to us again. I would never. Well, I won't say that. Renee on the other hand. Yeah, yeah. You know what if J BS head just exploded like that, just you know, these things might happen, OK? I I can't see that coming back again.

15:20 Nah, it's like a one time thing. Honestly it's close to a one time thing because the the singing part of the cult has now been dealt with. It's true the bloodsport part of the whole stir out there though the. The one thing I am gonna say, just as a final thing for smalls, is it has been slightly amusing being able to use the alien as the CSI technique randomly. Hey, I'd like to use forensic analysis. Do you have forensics? No, but I haven't.

16:01 That's honesty and it's just as good and. Then I sigh, and then I tell you about the place. Yep. Works every time. I do like how in the description for that ability, it's like, yeah, you might want to remind your storyteller of this because they will forget. The other thing I wanted to mention was maybe the the romance that is building up between JB and Kearns, though admittedly Renee is dealing with the child, but I guess we could ask one person about it. Yeah, yeah, it just happened. Yeah.

16:42 Like this does just seem to be the way for whenever I do romance in a in a tabletop game is that I I never plan to do it. It's just something that comes up with the situation. It's part part of it is that I'm physically incapable of playing a of playing anyone but a bisexual. So. So I always have the options. OK. Well, it's like someone said in a improv game that I thoroughly trounced everyone in at a Halloween event years ago. An improv Everyone's bisexual. I suppose, yeah. I mean, I just thought that every every character that you play is a self-portrait in some way. Yeah.

17:29 That's what that's what I think you got to pull on some part of you to at least that's what I think. But I'm not. This is why I'm not an actor. So I don't know. I'm no Daniel. I believe I mentioned at one point that the part of Colin, or part of me that is in Colin is the love of accounting. Yeah, I do apologize. The accounting has not truly been the most important skill for this whole thing. It's it's been used a lot more than I think you're realizing. It has been used very. Important It is very important to analyze the money. What are you going to use to distract everybody in this encampment?

18:09 Oh, I know exactly what I'm going to use, Daniel. Well, I asked a couple of questions. What what do we think? Any other thoughts there, Russell? We got some questions. Oh, I've got more questions. We could probably talk about the Mexico City a bit more if we want. Yeah, that's I just, I don't know what to to say necessarily. High highlight of the arc for everybody. Oh yeah, that's a good one. Highlight of the arc. Let's start with not me because I just pulled that out of my ass and I have not thought about. It yet we'll let your ass recover. Thank you. No. Problem head of the arc.

18:49 It's a good question. But he loved it. I'm come on, man, I'm. Kidding, I'm. Kidding. You know what? This is going to sound weird, but like having actually like a competent, helpful ally was really nice and refreshing. You know, like I don't know if that's ever happened before, which I knew marked our our poor friend for horrible bird death. But like, at the same time, it was so nice, so nice while it lasted. Yeah.

19:31 I think this is the first arc that, well, yes, we were being surveilled, we were being tailed. There were people after us. The people that were coming up to us weren't all, you know, antagonistic in some form or another. They were actually helpful. The rest of them at least 50%. There were there were friendly people in Mexico City, definitely. Now I will note there was a guy who was watching you in Ethiopia who ended up being a good guy, but you beat the shit out. Yeah, OK, He knows what he did. Fair enough. He was acting. Shake, I see what you're saying. There was also, I guess Nathan didn't feel this person was as helpful because they were busy being tortured at the time, but there was that old crusader monk guy as well.

20:22 He also preoccupied. Yeah, you're preoccupied. And also I don't know how useful he actually was. He well, he knows for sure that the guy you've been fighting is never laugh at time. You're good to go. For sure. He gave us, isn't he the one who gave us the flamethrower? The one that killed Kay it. Was in his one. That killed Kay, Yes, that is. He's so not that helpful. In the grand scheme of things, no, not so much. No, I didn't think he should have had a flamethrower, but people told me he should have a flamethrower and then, you know, fucking choke on it. But no, I had fun playing competent police force in this one, which goes against my moral code, to be perfectly honest.

21:11 But you know. Yeah. I mean, yeah, but. It was also just the Mexico Colt was again, you never there was a little bit more info you could have covered if you had gone clubbing actually, which we never quite got around to and that was fine. But even what you saw the Mexican cult very disorganized. They don't fucking know what they were doing. They were a bunch of morons. They were deadly. They had killer birds of like a crazy mouse shit and whatever. But they they were like people traded three ways from Sunday and all this stuff. Yeah. Dangerous and intelligent are not always.

21:52 Yeah, yeah, you can give a dog a knife and it's dangerous. I Where would the dog hold the knife? And in its maw. His mouth, I guess, or. You could just like, tape it to its tail. Oh, that'd be scary. That would be dangerous. Have you played Dark Souls dance? I mean, I've played Dark Souls. Yes, I know about the dog you fight. Yeah, yeah, the dog would wield the knife the way Sif wields that sword. Just, you know. I don't, I don't know Dark Souls lore that well. I didn't. Is that in the DLC where you fight the dog back in time and fight the dog? No, that's in the main game.

22:33 The DLC you buy and don't tell you how to even get it. So you buy the DLC and you're just like and if if you did the wrong stuff, you can't even get to the DLC even though you've already bought it with real money. Yeah, welcome to Dark Souls. Get good. Yeah, that it is. Sounds like Dark Souls. Oh, I think. Oh yeah, go ahead. I was about to say it's a highlight, but it's more important. Than you do important might be generous. I think a highlight for me was the attack by bird scene. Oh yeah, yeah, obviously you got you know spooky bird attack and the agony of trying to find as many bird sounds as I needed for that.

23:17 But the party immediately splits. I come up with a a daring plan that was like, oh, that's, that's great, it's going to work. I got one hand, oh, this isn't going to work that. Was good. The stuff in the kitchen was all a lot of fun with that, yeah. Yeah, it's nice having a a confident plan, but also framing it in a way that makes my character look like an idiot. Yes. That is pretty good. For myself, I'm going to have to say I like the, I guess the, I guess the best way to say it is I kind of like the chase in this one. The way that the investigation was laid out, I think was like the pace of it, how like for, you know, including stuff like the bird attack and stuff like that.

24:08 I think that was well done and sticks out them as far as what I like the most about this one. Yeah, it played a little differently than some of the other. I also, I don't talk about this a lot, but again, this is adapted from a published product. The Eternal Lies is a published book, but this Mexico 1 I changed up a lot. I know some people online have said that the Mexico 1 is maybe the weakest chapter in the the published adventure, so I did a lot of change. Well, fair enough. Props to your changes because I thought this was quite strong. Yeah, I thought it was. Yeah. You know, there was. There's like a Mary Sue like girl character who knows a different song that you could sing to counteract the music of the mouths and then you're supposed to get thrown into a doesn't and I know that might sound slightly gross.

25:00 Doesn't. You know, I mean, I could see. Although you were gonna run into her if you had gone to the club, but she wasn't gonna be as important of a character. Yeah. Like I can see having like a counter song that you could find, but like, yeah, that doesn't sound like the way it's published doesn't sound. Yeah, she was gonna, you know, she's supposed to come with you and you're supposed to fall in love with her and blah, blah and all this stuff. And it's very railroady in a weird way. And it's like if you'd run into her, she would have taught you a counter song. My favorite? I kind of wish we'd have done that because then I could just see Colin being the one to learn the song, which would make it so Russell would have to sing it.

25:40 I like dumb. Actually great. This is stupid, but a tiny little moment that I liked it. Maybe you guys won't care for this is when you're descending into the Colts stronghold. I'm like OK, so is there anything else you need to do to prepare? Anything else you want to do before you want to prepare? After asking you several times, I can establish you didn't have. Any question, I wasn't mad at you, I was mad at myself for forgetting. I liked in that one you said Nope Nope. I gave you an extra long time because I didn't remove a pause in that That was all 2 seconds.

26:24 Whoops, I asked you several times. Yep, there were hints. I get it. I was pretty nice about the earplugs working most of the time anyway. Yeah, yeah, it is crazy Cthulhu magic, so. I'll just, I'll just have a cannibal cult. What? What that's I'm lying. That's not cannibals. That's exactly what you would say if. Yeah, that it. That is, if it were Hannibal. That is a little racist, actually. No, that's fair. I mean, to be fair, this whole thing about like, there's, there's weirdness about all of this stuff, but that's Lovecraft maybe. Yeah, Yep. Yeah, yeah. That reminds me of a point I was thinking of a while ago.

27:06 Jerry's still out on whether Daniel hates women or not. Eternal Lies definitely hates women. Why do you say that? Let's see. OK so taking out all the player stuff, we've got a woman whose breast is maimed and it got taken out of this one because of red card X card lines and veils. But Della Luz was supposed to be pregnant when it's like why? Why is eternal lies massacring women in this way or maiming women in their woman this? It is. It's a choice.

27:46 That all of the almost all of the male villains that the game has are just dudes by and large. Yeah. I will say the leader of the Bangkok cult is a kick ass woman who has no weird gender stuff about her. But you are correct, there has been some. There's definitely mixed it up. Yeah. And I'm not going to lie, you know, maybe I am partially. I have leaned into some of that a little bit because, you know, maybe I play too much Silent Hill, even though, like, I picked up the most recent Silent Hill game, Silent Hill F, And, you know, you run into the first monsters and I was like, oh, wow. Is it a sort of this grotesque female form whose sexuality is kind of intimidating but also alluring? Oh, wow.

28:35 Who would have thought this would be a villain in this horror game, In this Silent Hill game? Never changed. Silent Hill, wasn't there a but yeah, wasn't there a villain, a female villain in Malta who was just a lady? Yeah, she was actually. You didn't really. Yeah, she was the one who was actually sort of in charge over Donnie. Yeah. Yeah, Donovan. She fucked my shit up if I recall correctly. Yeah, she did, Yeah. Although if you want to talk about women getting killed, daughter that did sacrifice his wife. Yeah, I was going to mention that one. Yeah, that's the yeah. Great, great sacrifice grades, great power.

29:18 I want you all to remember that. Write that down on like a card. Think about that. It's going to be important for the. Future I remember it. Are you actually telling people to kill women now? Renee's back you. Got Renee's back. I heard that you guys were hating on Daniel, hating women, so I had to appear. It's like my mating call basically. Now. Now, largely, we were hating on eternal lies. Hating on women, yes. But I have leaned into something. Actually, stop talking over me. Sorry. Do women actually feature in Lovecraft in any meaningful way? Meaningful way.

30:01 No, not. That I would call it really No, probably in the. Background somewhere. Just like existing. I presumably. I don't in like my favorite Lovecraft story, Bounds of Madness. I'm pretty sure there are no women. I don't think there is a single woman in that Arctic. Exit. Oh, is that why it's your favorite? Of course, in In Dance Defense, I'm going through every single Lovecraft story I've read and I can't think of a single female character. Yeah, I'm. So. Like no consequential characters, not that I can think of even in the like Lovecraft being stories that weren't written by Lovecraft. There is one where the antagonist character is frustrated that they didn't have a daughter or a son or a grandson because they wanted to steal their body.

30:54 That's the only one that pops into my mind. I remember, I remember what? Half woman, half ape. Oh yeah, yeah, I I do remember that one, Yeah. Yeah, he received her body in the coffin and he went insane. With. The horror of realizing that he was related to this creature that was half woman, half primate. I had to. Look up, you know, oh buff craft had some issues with women and minorities and. Some. Everyone, yeah, he's kind of a piece of shit, yeah.

31:36 They there's a Miss Tilton who is like a a curator of a like the Historical Society who provides a lot of useful information to the protagonist. We got one, we got one. Done with your. Family in it. Presumably there are women in that. Anyway, now that Renee's back, we can ask her some of the things that from the questions that you missed. For starters, our characters started romancing each other. That happened to this arc. It did.

32:16 Yeah, I've. Been enjoying this greatly. As have I. Have I? Have I? Have I told people that I am, what's the word, a hardcore shipper and the slash writer in the past? Can confirm. Yeah. I respect it, yeah. Yeah, I'm one. I'm one of those women who enjoys thinking about male characters having romantic relationships and or dirty wild sex. Hey, I'm one of the men who enjoys thinking about men doing that, so you know. There you go.

32:59 It is what it is. And. What it is, is beautiful. No, no, fujoshi is the derogatory version of that term. You call somebody a fujoshi if they're an asshole about it. Oh, I just thought fujoshi, you're just women who like men that kiss each other. I didn't realize that it was a. Yeah, no, I've never heard fujoshi. In. A. In a positive manner. Ever. Oh, OK, I I've. Never heard that word, period. It's it's anime shit. Yeah, there you go. I have heard. I have heard it in reference to St. Joshi, the foremost living expert on HP Lovecraft.

33:40 OK OK my my first ever fanfic was on Shut Up. I'm sorry, I was blown away. I was still being blown away by the SD Joshi joke. It was taking me a moment to really appreciate it. I just have to give Russell the props for that. I'm sorry that I talked over you, but I just, that's a very good bit. Continue. I'm sorry I told you to shut up. I was just about to like open up here and you started talking over me again, so I'm sorry I overreacted. Anyway, continue my first ever fanfic I wrote on Leo Tolstoy War and Peace. It was Pierre and the other male man person and it was very short and it was very bad.

34:34 But I still remember it very fondly because I mean, come on, cut me some slack. I was like 13. Yeah, it's. Fair enough. Short, bad, and very fond experience is the ideal first fanfic. Exactly. And like, I just watched that basically internationally made movie from different filming crews and different actors from different countries, and that's when everything kind of made sense and people were kind of coexisting peacefully with each other. So it was very cute and very pure, at least in my mind, in my adolescent mind.

35:17 My first fanfic was a Daria fanfic, but we don't need to go and. Yeah, I. I didn't have anything except pen and paper for too long, so I never wrote any fanfics, but if I'd had a computer I absolutely would have. Yeah, my first fanfic was a oh God, I'm about to telling myself something fierce. A pen and paper Homestuck fanfic. Yes, there you go, Homestuck. Baby because Homestuck was big when I was in middle school, and that was when I was getting into writing. So jeez, I remember when that started and I was still an adult. Yeah, I'm, I'm too old for Homestuck. I don't know what that is. Did you make did you have a troll? Yeah, those everybody has their trolls for Homestuck. That's the thing, right?

36:04 I did not I did not have a troll Sona I I I did not make. I learned a new word today. All right, anyway, before I dig myself any deeper, Renee, was there a highlight of the arc for you? In my first pan pick or. No, no, no. We're talking about the Mexico. City, we're back to the going back to Mexico. That question while you were with Jake. Yeah, yeah. OK, the, the whole, you know, yeah, okay. It was. It was me turning into human Shield basically for two entire episodes. That.

36:48 Was incredible, taking so much damage. There were so many bullets in me. They all got pulled out. If there was any question of whether we were doing a more purist or more more pulpy Lovecraft adventure, I think it's been established firmly that this is some bulb level shit. Yeah, I, I honestly, I don't think our group would make a really good purist group. We are a little too off the wall. Yeah, yeah. The very first adventure we did where you guys were worms and that that would well, not everybody was in that.

37:28 Not everybody here was in that one that that was kind of, well, no Doctor moron over here was kind of made it a little. Silly but. Married and it still counts. Would you still love me if I was a worm? No, no, there are a lot. Of question to that dance of the blood. But that is definitely a story where the question would you still love me if I was a worm? Should come up face. If you haven't heard it, you should listen to that episode. But we kind of spoiled it. Yeah, it's isn't it like our wasn't it like our first episode it?

38:11 Was our first episode and then it got rehastered at some point. The first episode of it got rematched. The first it was three parts. Gotcha. OK, can we go back to how awesome and hot I am? Sure. What? Oh yeah. I mean both answers work like. Thank you. I don't see the issue here. Nathan, you're a sweetheart. Anyway, yeah, this, this whole thing was awesome. Taking all of the damage and saving all the people. That was nice. Yeah. Yeah. Also romancing JB. Yeah, there you go.

38:53 Yeah, I think overall Mexico was kind of a victory for you guys. Like, you know, it wasn't, it's never super pleasant, but y'all came out alive at the end and just stopped the cult here and you found important information. Like I think all of that, like this has been probably the most successful 1 you did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, thinking about it now, after informing Gomez what was going on, we probably could have just left and it would have taken care of itself. Like it did in LA? No better than that. Because. You're an optimist, yeah. We we still had to firebomb the place.

39:34 Yeah. The the that was Gomez. You are right. Gomez did show up. Yeah, I guess he didn't like the dynamite. So, you know, Yeah. Stole his kills, Yeah. Yeah, this is reminding me of, gosh, I played, I played a Star Wars campaign a while back. It went on for a while with my friends and they were like scoundrels and like criminals and whatnot. And one of the things they kept doing was, and I had to eventually tell them we have to stop doing this. They would just call The Imperials on the other criminals and just be like, hey, get them. They're they're criminals. They're bad. You go get. Them Russell had that idea.

40:18 And they say there's all you wanted. To sick the fascists on the cult, yeah. Yeah, sick the fascists on. Your stuff, yeah, we did consider trying that. Yeah, I don't. Know, I mean, we, we don't know it yet, but fascists did a lot worse later on, a lot worse stuff. Yeah, continue to. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Mm hmm. We don't call them Nazis anymore. Maybe in our world that we're doing, maybe after you stop this lying thing, maybe that will end up making the world a better place. Maybe Hitler will shoot himself early. I don't know.

40:58 This is the timeline where Kearns kills Hitler. Heartache. The movie Terminator is based on Kearns. That made it into an episode. Oh yeah. Remember that? Yeah, cut takes. Kearns invented pro wrestling. Pro wrestling exists before the 1930s, but sure. And Kearns invented, I think. It's yeah, Hang on. I think it's called Greco Roman something combat wrestling, Where basically it's 2 two. Yeah, that.

41:39 There you go. Where? Two naked oil men, you know, sodomites, I mean, antagonize each other. And Kerns came up with that. Not the Greeks or the Romans. Kerns just decided to call it Greco Roman Wrestling. No, Kerns decided to call it pro wrestling. He's the one who turned it from Greco Roman to Pro. That that was, that was Kerns. Sure. I remember now. OK, so Kerns has to survive this adventure in order to stop Hitler. No, I'm. I'm invulnerable. Daniel can't kill me. No. OK, you can't keep saying.

42:19 Try as you might. Let's not push our luck though. You can't kill me. I've got a. Half like I. Understand. I mean misogynist. It it could lead to interesting story development for JB. Yeah, I'll kill a woman. Well, I guess I wouldn't really be killing a woman because I'd be killing a man to further a man's story. You know the. Keep telling yourself that. I've invented neo non bad fridging now. It's still bad. No, that's not fridging, that's bury your gaze. That's just.

43:05 As bad. Is that a sex thing I'm not familiar with or? No, it's a trope you do like when you have gay characters, they're the ones who get killed off. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, OK. Often. Often I knew that, I just didn't know the word for it. Yeah, yeah. It's it's what they did with Castillo and Supernatural. Big time. Instead of the Super hell. Didn't they kill him? Immediately as he confessed his feelings for Dean. Yeah. I've not watched that show but I've been told multiple times that that guy got sent to super hell as soon as he said that he loved the man Is that? Correct.

43:49 That is exactly what happened and it happened in this what happened, they actually the show got to go. To heaven though the car got to go to heaven. My brother watched that show. Of course it was a good car. Every, every series, every piece of media out there, whoever decides to portray a queer relationship should follow the example of Hannibal. Brian Fuller's Hannibal, that is. It is so good I'm writing a paper on it. Yeah, hell yeah. And it's a good paper for everything you've shown me. So anyway. Right, The Prof I I got 93 out of 100 for the research proposal.

44:33 I think that we may have gone off she. Said it's a fantastic. Topic this. Is great Talk about Russell, did you have any more questions about the show that we wanted to answer? Several. Oh. OK, so I started thinking about this a while ago when I put an interruption in an episode and I thought, have that started as a bit because of all the stupid names we came up with for the city in low places. And the show's, you know, grown and changed as we have learned how to do stuff and function as a group. So the question is, what's something the show has picked up along the way that you can't imagine we never had or did? Me. I was gonna say, like, Renee's kind of a core part of the group now, like. Yeah, but like.

45:21 In terms of like other things that are not an actual human person. I would say one of the things that's definitely, I think it's, it's very simple, but it's a good thing to do is when we're getting a little bit too goofy, you just say this is sort of the interruption thing that you're talking about. You just do the quick like static sound and then you get back to doing what we're talking about. Like that's just a little bit of a thing that didn't exist before. We either cut it all out or let it ramble on for too long. But now it's you could be very cool, like, OK, no, we're enough here. Yeah. For anybody who's listening, all of the rambling gets left in the Patreon kit. It's kind of fun for me 'cause I can have the We Are Complete Morons cut for Patreon and then something a little more dramatic for the main feed, no?

46:10 You're complete morons. Yeah. I am fabulous. Sure, Any other thoughts on stuff that got added? So my answer for this one is kind of more of a less of a like what we've added on the technological or editing side of things and more what we've gained as a group. We can all play off each other a lot better if we were to compare like, you know, the current arc of eternal lies to, you know, our first episodes Let's we we understand how each of us plays a little bit better than we did then. And I think that only adds to what we do here as. That's a good one.

47:05 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I feel like in the beginning a lot of Nathan's panic was just dealing with new people instead of what was going on in the event. I I plead the 5th. Well, that Nathan ran that whole campaign very well for a while, though again, the trick is yeah, yeah, that was a good one. Low places. No, finish that thought, Dan. I'm I'm curious. Wait, what did did I not finish my thought? I was just saying that was the, you didn't seem nervous for that one though. I guess it was the same people after a while, but you know. Yeah. That's all. That and I think. And I did, he did specifically bring in like 2 people who I've worked with for years as a thing so and. I don't know, I was about to say I I think Nathan was more flabbergasted than anxious through that one. You guys did a lot to flabber my ghast that is for sure. I promise to never say that again. I mean, another thing that changed was like originally we didn't do campaigns like.

48:24 That. Yeah, yeah, that's big. That's big. Yeah, which is, you know, to be fair, it's not how I usually envision the podcast, but I'm having a good time with them anyway, so. Same here. Oh, if anybody's curious about why we changed that, it's because running the campaign gives people a reason to keep listening. Yeah, nothing wrong with one shots. We all like one shots. We're gonna run more. Yeah, yes. But bit of continuity. Exactly, I missed we could do more of everybody being Dex Raymond. Yes, we got it. Yes. We have at least have to have Damien be dictionary. Yeah, I still, I still haven't been in DAK, but that was because I chose.

49:09 Damien gotta do. It yeah, I chose the the other option rather than Dax Raymond given. Oh, it's all good. Oh God, I remember that one in the show notes. I was like, in this one we discover how many times we can describe women's clothing is bad. That's a weird one for that. There you go. Whatever. We're not. We're not beating the allegations anytime soon, are we? No, people are writing Lovecraft adventures. It's all them. Right. Yeah, we're, we're playing. I don't know the context so I'm not going to say anything. The next one, do you want to?

49:51 Yeah. Do you have anything to add? No. OK, on to the next one then. What appeals to you about the audio podcast medium as opposed to others? I could start on this one. Please do. All right. I don't. I have no reason to get my face on the Internet. Just no, it's OK. And the fact that I can actually play around with sound effects in the order of things, although, you know, I keep it more or less honest for the show. I just, I just like being able to do that. Yeah, yeah. Hey, yeah. Hey, look at me. Look at me right here. You watching this right here. Look. Look at my eyes. Fuck video podcast.

50:32 No, I think it totally. Works to say that. But I don't, I think especially for actual play, I think it's no good. I think it definitely establishes a sort of vibe that like, look, if we had like producers who are getting paid a bunch of money and whatnot, we could edit the video. Because let me tell you, editing is what makes a good actual play podcast. It needs to be edited down to become a thing. That is my opinion anyway. Some people like it all loosey goosey. I think that's trash. I think everything needs to be edited to be made better.

51:15 And when you guys are watching your Dimension 20s, don't you think that they're not editing that? OK, They're editing out a lot of that stuff, but. Yeah, they mentioned 20, yes, absolutely. But but Legend of Evantress is doing something right because they yes their sessions are like 3 hours long and yes there's a lot of like strange random noises and shit but their stuff is great. So many cans opening. So many cans opening, just just laughter for minutes at a time, you know, and. That's. But that's Go. Ahead, sorry.

51:57 That's kind of what I like about the video medium because like we we like, yes, Russell does an amazing job with the editing and the sound effects, but with the video I think we could play off of each other better 'cause we would like watch for facial cues. I for one have a very expressive face. Now one thing I can say with that is we could still use video for that and just record an audio, which is something I was actually gonna probably suggest when we sit down and talk next cuz that for that exact reason Renee is it would help us playoff. I will probably be looking at my.

52:39 Notes the whole. Time, but sure. Yeah. No, we don't need to see you. We did that once or twice and then a couple people got sick at the same time, so we didn't want to be on video and then we just never did it again. I should. Go back to video. Yeah, for the record, while I don't care for video podcasts, obviously podcasts out there who do good stuff, just like Renee was funny, I just, you know, be I like to take strong positions. I'm over here saying Dark Souls 2 is the best 1. You know, stuff like that. Oh boy, time. Time for another one of Daniel's hot takes from the podcast, Daniel's Hot Takes, where Daniel shares all of his hot takes. Anyway, let's talk about Final Fantasy 16 anyway. Final Fantasy 16.

53:31 But it's. The worst Final Fantasy and it's not even close. OK, moving on. Sorry, I'm gonna kill you anyway. What appeals to me about D? And D is the best. What What appeals to me about audio mediums is that I think I'm a decent voice actor. It's pretty much the long and short of it is I do think I am a pretty solid voice actor. I haven't been doing a lot of good voice acting in this podcast in particular, but even still, that aspect is something that I really enjoy about podcasts.

54:11 I think when you're in the zone, your acting is amazing. Thank you I. But but also you're, you're, you're delightful to look at. You're very cute. Seeing you just puts a smile on my face. Thank you. So I would say the video is very nice. The main way that I listen to podcasts is like, I'm at work and I can't really be looking at a screen when I'm doing that. So the video of it all is wasted on me, especially because I sort of came up on podcasts when there wasn't real. So I just truly, it does not even occur to me for there to be video part of podcasts, whereas other people are just like, Oh yeah, podcasts.

54:54 That's where you watch a video of two guys talking to each other. Like, it's just, you know, times have changed. Or for people imagining things for four hours. Yeah, what if video recordings can go on Patreon? A lot of shows do that, yeah. I think we don't need to plan that during our yeah. Yeah, true. OK, OK. For I don't know. I just came up with an idea. Yeah, yeah. Fair enough from. David, what were you saying? From my Part I, it's on the technical end of things, I kind of prefer doing the audio format for a lot of the reasons that are like one of the reasons that Daniel just said. Most people that listen to this sort of podcast or this sort of content listen to it rather than watch it. And when looking at like the hierarchy of importance and stuff like that, on technical end of things, audio is more important than video for various reasons, mainly because people listen more than they watch.

56:02 But as far as like actually doing it, what appeals to me is it, I think it adds a certain something to this format and that being the imagination of because as much as we can describe our how our characters look and it'll give a basic description of the person listening, they're the ones who are filling in the the details. And I think it helps them engage more. I know it does with me when I'm listening because like I like to listen to like audio and it helps me engage because I can then. OK, So yeah, they're the characters described like this, but you know, maybe it had they have these embellishments that aren't necessarily mentioned or are a tool.

56:52 Yeah, yeah. Do we have one more question there, Russell, or was that the last one or is there even? More. Oh, I've got three more, but we could probably wrap up. Yeah. So I'm going to skip skip two of them and go to What's something from the show that sticks in your head in the same way as a perfect comeback does? Something you wish had done differently? For example, I discovered I had something for Desert Winds in the final minutes of editing the last episode in the Ethiopia arc. What do you mean you had something for desert winds? A sound effect. Oh yeah, sound effects and stuff. Oh, it's like all that desert times, like completely no sound effects. Just just be like, sure is hot out here in this desert that we're in. Something that sticks with me that I wanted to do. I never did do an episode of Low Places about the wet web. Yeah, yeah.

57:50 That sounds like a bit. It has genuinely haunted me since the end of Low Places because I was like, shit, I really want to do something with that. Yeah. It sounds so unappetizing, I'm kind of glad you didn't. We are a horror podcast. Technically, yeah. I mean I think it wasn't exactly up to me, it was up to the dice roller thing on roll 20, but I really wish I hadn't rolled the one when I was on Full Auto. Yeah, attractive. That that was such a for the.

58:30 Audience at home. You. Heard in everyone's voice was real. Yeah, Yep. Genuine. Honestly, God despair. Yeah. I'm not doing the sanity and stability. Such a kick in the balls. That's that's my thing. I feel like I'm not keeping you guys honest enough. I'm not, I'm not hitting your sanity enough. And maybe you think that I already am, but I'm truly not doing enough of them. I feel like I haven't truly driven you insane. Like I should be in the system I'm being maybe a little bit and like that's fine, I guess, but like it's Lovecraft. You guys should be more insane. I mean, there's still pie. Do you actually want us to be able to do things though, like move the plot forward in any reason, like meaningful way, you know?

59:18 That is a fair question. Or. Welcome to the balance of all of this stuff, since Sandy Peterson just said that this should be the role-playing game that we do, you know? Yeah, well, what the fuck do they know? I I know nothing about Sandy Peterson, so. His Doom levels suck. Yeah, he he worked on Doom. Which one? Doom and Doom 2, the original he worked for it the first one. Yeah. Damn. Yeah, he also helped make Age of Empires, and then he also wrote he was the chief author of Called Anyway. That's quite interesting change. Yeah.

1:00:00 Also he's a right wing crank so that's less. OK, there it is. Less interesting. All right. But also summer, that level is not very good. In Doom 2, all of your levels are bad. Sandy Peterson, the Doom heads know what I'm talking about. But my point? Is campfire card now? I guess we could do that. My the thing I was just going to say, despite blaming Sandy Peterson, it is the eternal problem of the Lovecraft game where you want to drive people crazy, you want things to happen. Yeah. Yeah. Anything stuck in your head, David? Anything stuck in your craw?

1:00:43 Not really like, that's fine. I I kind of wish, like I kind of wish that I would have saved a little bit more stability on Reggie so that I didn't have to take him out exactly the way I did. But I mean, it's how the story played out and I'm not dissatisfied with it, so. Yeah, So Renee has suggested we do a Campfire card. This, these. Oh, that doesn't work. Yeah, apparently. It's just yeah, so that. Didn't work, no. Anyway, ultimate RPG campfire card deck. It's from James D'amato who does the one shot podcast and campaign Skyjacks.

1:01:29 Oh, I guess he doesn't do one shot anymore. He doesn't do one shot replacement. That's true, yeah. They aren't paying for paying us for them, but they are. I think good. That's one of these are questions for. Independent Show. So these are questions for our characters then? Yeah. OK. So I will, I will watch. Yeah, yeah. One of the things I like about doing an independent show is that we can talk about or not talk about whatever we want. Yeah, exactly. We don't get a pass. This is true How? About one of these three. All right, what do you consider your most useless talent to be, and what makes you think it's useless? Or our character, and these are these are for our characters. Yes, Yep.

1:02:16 So if you stuck around this long, it's in. Canon content. Here actual in character stuff. I'm going to look at my character sheet on roll 20. Yeah, makes you think, doesn't it? Well, while you're thinking, I just want to mention Icon of Sin. Really terrible boss fight. Sandy, what are we doing is. That one quake, no. No, that's the and boss of Doom 2. Though Sandy did do a couple Quake levels as well. Yeah. I think Colin would consider his most useless talent to be disguised. There's no reason he picked that up. He's really excited to have had a couple chances to use it during this whole thing. Yeah.

1:03:02 All right. And he also picked this up before he got into detective work, so it was even more useless as an accountant. Yeah, I can see that. I would have to say for small you know what it would be his knowledge of Latin Like sure it comes up in like medical texts and stuff like that and you know knowing some Latin words is handy but useful not so much. There's a tiny chance it might have been useful in Malta or other places in Europe, but where you are now there's not a lot of written down Latin.

1:03:46 Yeah, no, I don't suspect there will be either. OK, so I know Latin. I know Latin. And you told me that it was completely useless in Malta when I tried to, like, read something. I think that was K, actually, yeah. You know what? Because. You're trying to substitute it for the actual language. Yeah. Oh, so it's not because Daniel's a huge misogynist. No, it's because you thought you would be able to speak the language. Look, I studied Romance languages and I can read instructions, say in Italian. So like. Reading. Could be useful.

1:04:26 I've heard from some Chinese folks that they see a lot of Western languages as just different dialects of Latin. You know, all the Romance languages are just different dialects. Like people say there are a bunch of different Chinese dialects. And over here we're just like, no, they're separate languages. Our language is like, no, maybe they're just all dialects. You don't have to ask the Chinese folk to, you know, tell you that any linguist worse, worse there, you know, salt can tell you that. My point is the distinction of what's a dialect versus a separate language. That's all I'm saying. Yes, obviously they're all related to to Latin anyway. We don't need to get.

1:05:08 Into JB has a lot of points in electrical repair and mechanical repair and these have come up exactly now so. There was once in Malta where it might have been handy, but we didn't have the right people there. That is true. That is true. So. So that gets my. Value messing with the new electricity at Donovan's right. Yeah, 'cause you never actually ended up breaking into Donovan's house. Yeah, right. And I wasn't current back then. Yeah, I didn't know all that stuff. OK. I think I know how to tie like 3 different kinds of sailor's knots. That's good.

1:05:52 That's a good Kurds fact. I mean, that is a super useful skill in the right circumstances. Especially with JB as your boyfriend. OK, good night, everybody. That's all for the show. Nothing. Wrong with. Little ship by. Sandy, the Castula Wars Kickstarter was not fulfilled correctly. We have so thoroughly established that JP is a freak at this point. It's true. It's true. That is the one thing in eternal life that we know absolutely is true. The ball gag. It was the ball gag actually I think. Anyway.

1:06:33 Kearns might be pretty vanilla so. That is a OK. With that. Everyone useless, but I boy am I about to be surprised. Hey, thanks. For listening to Daniel's Dread Tales, perhaps our loosest episode we have ever done. Will this be listenable? I hope so, because you just listened to it. If you got this far into it, thanks for listening everybody. We'll. See you in two weeks. Yeah, we'll see y'all in two weeks. Or at least you'll hear us. I've never seen you. I don't have webcams in your house. Stay dreadful.

1:07:15 Bye. That's how we sign off now. Thanks for listening. Daniel is our GM, Renee plays Franklin Kearns, Damian plays Donovan Smalls, Nathan plays JB Falk, and Russell plays Colin King, in addition to mixing, mastering and music in the episode. Our album art is by Trinity the Tea Time Witch, and our main theme is by Claire LW. We have a Patreon at patreon.com/dreadtails and we do a live stream the last Sunday of the month. You can find links to these and other things on the link tree in the show notes. Again, thanks for listening and until next time. Sandy, your Cthulhu Wars Kickstarter was not fulfilled correctly.