Interview - Ellen Dalina - Birdhouse Mysteries Podcast

Today I talk with the Birdhouse Mysteries Podcast GM, Content Creator, Podcast Editor, Ellen Dalina. We discuss the Savage Worlds Game System, Podcasting, Ravenloft, and the process for GM/DMing.

You can find Ellen Dalina and all of the Birdhouse Mysteries Podcast content via the links below.

Website:
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Twitter:
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https://twitter.com/BirdhouseMyst

Twitch:
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Dice:
https://twitter.com/_dancinglights

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Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

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CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Ellen Dalina - Birdhouse Mysteries Podcast

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

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Transcript

Snyders Return: 0:27

Hello, and welcome to snows return a tabletop role playing podcast. My guest today is the brilliant gm of the birdhouse mystery podcast where a group must negotiate a savage world of cold kidnappings, tears in reality, anthropomorphic dogs, and most recently, object reading, stepping out from behind the screen and into the gothic horror savage world of ravenloft. My guests must survive all this and still do editing on a Friday, the warmest of welcomes to Ellen delina Ellen, welcome to the show.

Ellen Dalina: 0:59

Thank you so much. Thank you for that very nice intro.

Snyders Return: 1:03

It's a absolute pleasure. I've been sort of looking to get you on the show for a while and it was good that we managed to get this sort of set up and organised. So yeah, the warmest of welcomes, um, before we go into the boathouse ministries. And the other thing is you're sort of associated with, would you like to tell us a bit more about yourself and how you going to do without role playing games, please?

Ellen Dalina: 1:26

Sure. I got into TT RPGs about I think five years ago, so it was after college, which is unfortunate because I really think I would have enjoyed it quite a lot during college. So unfortunate timing there. But I've been playing for about five years. I've been dming or dming for about probably two years at this point. I'm all told. I started with fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons. I got into ttrpg is because of things like critical role and the adventure zone that I was listening to. And I wanted to give it a try. And so my family was also listening to those things at that time. And we, you know, got together and got some friends and I have a home game that I've been playing in since 2016. We just played last night. And that's been going strong. And about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, I was introduced to savage worlds. And the first thing I played in savage worlds was dead lands, which is a wild west horror, throwback setting with where the Civil War kind of lasted longer because of different technological advances that occurred in a supernatural fashion and savage worlds is a setting or is a system Rather, that you can play with any setting. And so we decided that we wanted to use it for fantasy for our game, the birdhouse mysteries, but it can also be used for any kind of supernatural sci fi. Like I said, Wild West. All kinds of things.

Snyders Return: 3:21

Yes, definitely sounds versatile. And I'll come on to how, how it links into your podcast shortly but your home game, is that d&d, or is that savage worlds?

Ellen Dalina: 3:31

That's d&d? Yeah, a bunch of a bunch of people who have only ever really played d&d. So that's what we're doing. And my brother actually runs that one. He's also in the podcast.

Snyders Return: 3:45

He is I was gonna get into that shortly as well. So I'll stick to your home game to be a little bit intrusive. What character do you play then?

Ellen Dalina: 3:54

Um, I originally played a tabaxi cleric named gold clover. She was an Knowledge cleric, I within the last five or six sessions that we've played, I switched over to a different character a monk, just because I wasn't a satisfied playing clover. And so now I am playing a monk named tier. She's a half elf. She is a Kensei monk. So she uses a bunch of weapons. And last night, I got to use stunning strike against the boss that we were fighting and it was awesome and did a lot of damage and enabled us to win that fight. So it was really fun. I really enjoy i i savage worlds is my main system that I play, but I really do enjoy some aspects of fivey still

Snyders Return: 4:40

not as fair enough and it sounds very exciting being able to stand astride the the big bed is always a satisfying thing, unless you're the dungeon master in that instance when it and maybe Yeah, poses its own challenges. Anyway, so you said about not being satisfied. But you satisfy countless listeners to your podcast. Could you tell us a bit more about birdhouse mysteries? How it sort of how it formed and why? Why it is what it is, if that makes any sense?

Ellen Dalina: 5:15

Sure. Um, well, it all started in February of this year. My brother and I were talking, we really enjoy savage worlds we have we had a group of friends who we have played individually games with before, but never all together as a group. And so Originally, we had reached out to my sister and her boyfriend and the plan was to be us for playing, but their schedules were so hectic that we had to go with other people. And so I contacted two of my friends, Maggie and Tess, and he contacted his friend Chris, and it just became the perfect mix of people. And pretty much I was just like, Hey, we want to have Make a podcast. And essentially, that just means for the care of the players that they need to show up and play every week. And they do they do a little more than that. Tess does our transcripts for the podcast, they do a great job. And we put those up online for anybody who would like to read the podcast if they are not able to necessarily listen to it. We are interested in accessibility and everyone else does a few other tasks too, but I decided that I would take the main task of running the game and also editing the podcast.

Snyders Return: 6:43

Alright, well, yeah. So sorry, go on. I think I interrupted you there mid flow.

Ellen Dalina: 6:50

No, no, you're good. Yeah, cool. Yeah, I didn't really it just kind of kind of came together. Essentially, we wanted to do more You're playing, and we almost were a five v podcast. If you listen to the first couple of episodes, we refer to things like tieflings and furballs, and stuff like that. But we move away from that very quickly once we get deeper into savage worlds. But our original concept was five E, and then somewhere in the design process, my brother and I were like, it'd be really fun to play savage worlds and do a savage world podcast because there really aren't that many of those out there. And we love the game. And so we wanted to introduce that game to our friends and to other listeners who maybe haven't played it before.

Snyders Return: 7:41

Well, yeah, and it's I I enjoy your podcast, I have to say and I'm new to savage worlds. So taking the opportunity to learn a new system being played so well by yourselves. It's it's a real, real treat. So in case people have, you know, you've picked the years and intrigued a few people. Where can they find you? birdhouse mysteries and your content if they want to follow a link?

Ellen Dalina: 8:07

Oh, sure. You can find me most days on twitter at Ellen underscore delina Da Li Na, and the birdhouse mysteries at birdhouse missed ny St. And in both of those Twitter's there is a link tree that will take you to the podcast episodes, the transcripts, our discord, everything.

Snyders Return: 8:34

Oh, well, I will make sure links to all of those are in the description below this podcast. So, Ellen, you mentioned that your players by name But who do they play? What world do they inhabit and how do they sort of portray themselves in in this world the savage world podcast you've created?

Ellen Dalina: 8:55

Well, our world is called agenda is completely homebrew. made by me The only thing that isn't homebrew are some magical items that come from the savage worlds fantasy companion from the previous edition of savage worlds. And so you'll hear them occasionally go to a magic shop and pick up an item and that will come from that book are characters starting with my brother Brian he plays Beatty, who is a Half Genie sorcerer more or less. He has powers that he is not entirely sure where they come from. They seem to come from within and his own fiery heritage. And he is a con man and very, very, very funny and gets them into a lot of trouble but also gets them out of trouble sometimes to my friend tests, they play every l who is a half celestial woman who has As a greater destiny, she has heard the voice of her father, an angel in her head when she doesn't concoct potions to keep them out of her head. And she is just trying to kind of avoid her destiny while also carrying out helping save the world. Then we have my friend Maggie, who plays FIA, who is a forest half giant, she is about eight feet tall and she's able to smash everything. She She has a parry of I want to say 10 and a toughness of 11 or something like that. So it's very difficult for me as the GM to get things to hurt her. She has built her character to be an absolute tank, but FIA is besides the intimidation and being a tank in combat. She's kind of gentle and she loves the forest and she loves her girlfriend. And then last but not least, Chris plays third, who is a canid, a kind of anthropomorphic dog who is a thief, he is missing his eyes. something mysterious happened in his past, where his eyes were turned into crystal and gems, and he has three little glowing magical orbs above his head that allow him to see. But his physical eyes were taken from him in a mysterious fashion and he loves to eat, literally anything that he can't fit in his doggie bag. So that was our that's our party. They are a motley crew and I love them dearly.

Snyders Return: 11:45

I can hear the love for them in your voice and again, listening to them throughout their adventures. And in the most recent, I say the most recent episode 29 I think you've just saw an episode 30 as we were recording

Ellen Dalina: 12:00

Coming to be coming out Monday. There you go.

Snyders Return: 12:03

So a time of recording Episode 29 you guys are in. I did write it down a Risha and you've been to a magic shop and all that sort of stuff so we're are not giving too much away in case they listen but we're in in the plotline in the story thread are the group.

Ellen Dalina: 12:25

They are still in the relative beginning at the time of publishing. We are about we Episode 29 is out we probably have another 30 episodes recorded, but not yet ready for publishing, just because we play every week. And we just got so far ahead of where episodes were published, because we just can't stop playing. We enjoy each other and we enjoy the game. So we get together every week if we can make it and we'll be playing again tomorrow. So at the time of publishing, they are still in the beginning, I would say, quarter of the story at the time of recording as of now, which would come out probably December, January area. They are at least a third through the story. So they have made some significant advances and arisia that change stuff up and made an impact on the world and it's very exciting and I can't wait for people to hear it.

Snyders Return: 13:30

I can't wait to hear it myself, to be honest, and I I know what it's like to have. God knows how many episodes I've got recorded. I've still got to edit so I can feel your pain there. You've mentioned there in a few in the description. Maybe if Maggie's character there some game mechanics sort of stuff. So how how does savage worlds work in comparison to say, cyberpunk or Call of Cthulhu or d&d.

Ellen Dalina: 14:00

Well, it's, I think it's a pretty simple and fast system to pick up and play. The nice thing about it is you weren't at once and then you can apply it to any number of settings. And there are tonnes of settings out there published for the system. So there's really any kind of game that you would want to play. You can play it with savage worlds. But the basics of it are, when you create a character instead of rolling for stats, you're essentially buying a die type for that trait or skill. And so you start off with five points with a default and everything. Spirit smarts, agility, vigour and strength. And those are your your basic attributes, and you get to choose which die type, you increase. And once you make that choice, that's the dye you roll anytime you make a roll. So instead of rolling A d 20. Or call Cthulhu is d 100. Right? Yes, remember? Yeah, yeah, you are rolling a wild die, which is a D six, if you are a main character and you are rolling whatever that trait die is. So if you wanted to make like third is good at agility. So his agility is I want to say like a D 10 or something. It's from a D four to a D 12. And anytime you make a roll, you roll those two dice together and you take the higher result unless you're doing damage, which is usually strength plus the die type of the weapon, and you add those together. But um, so it's, I enjoy it because you get to roll a dice and I'm a dice fiend. I love rolling dice. So I enjoy it for that aspect. It's just fun to hear them go click clack, and roll. But other things about savage worlds, you have at the start of every game, something called a Benny you have three of them. And it's short for benefit. And you can use those Benny's to reroll roles. If you are not satisfied with the result, the typical target number or DC and something like DMD is a four. So even if you are rolling a D four, it's pretty easy to meet that target number because you're rolling a D four and a D six, so your chances are not not too bad. Depending the GM can like increase or decrease the target number based on circumstances, but typically it doesn't ever go above eight. So you just need to beat an eight which is sometimes harder than you think. Sometimes it's hard to get even a four on your roles and the players will tell you that but um Overall, I think it's a little more forgiving for both the players and the GM, because you're not doing as much arithmetic while you're playing, because the numbers are smaller, usually unless you get aces, which is another thing about savage worlds when you roll the highest number on a die, so the six on a D six, or the eight or on a D eight, you get to reroll it and add that total together. And so that makes for some really fun roles. I ran a one shot earlier today for some of my fellow podcast gems for different fivey podcasts. And this was their first time doing savage worlds for most of them. Hmm. And they were just delighted anytime they would Ace and I think the highest roll we got was like 24 or something and that was just on a D six. So you just keep getting sixes and you can get really high up there.

Snyders Return: 17:57

Sounds great. I've interest now. Now you've piqued my curiosity and that when does when do we get to hear that? Or is that just a private thing?

Ellen Dalina: 18:06

Oh, no, that will be coming out in December. I'm in a group of a, I want to say 13 podcasts, that we're all friends and we've met and we've discussed podcast things together. And we decided to do a pod swap event where each person is jamming a game, and the other dmws or gems come and play in that game and everybody gets a chance to be a player for once. And so we will be releasing those as a, what's our name for it one second 10 tabletop tails, and that will be coming out throughout December. We will each be releasing those.

Snyders Return: 18:52

I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that. That sounds that sounds great fun. So but you're you're not constrained to Just been you mentioned there the the tabletop 10 tails. I hope I got that right. But you also get to play in a, shall we say a variation of the sort of the curse of strahd ravenloft setting, is that correct?

Ellen Dalina: 19:15

Yes. Yes, we have stolen ravenloft and taking it for savage worlds.

Snyders Return: 19:21

Would you mind telling us a little bit more about yourself and your character? Marta? Is it?

Ellen Dalina: 19:26

Yes, absolutely. I love her. I love the game. I love the GM and the other players. The GM is CFT RPG on both Twitch and Twitter and actually also YouTube where he puts up the recordings. So if you are interested at all in Curse of straud but in a different system, you can check out Savage ravenloft. I am playing a character named Marta gloomhaven She is actually a Peruvian, whereas the other three players are rich. From London rippers is a savage world setting where monster hunters are part of a secret organisation that goes around the world solving monster problems by ripping different monster parts out of monsters bodies and putting it into their own and it's called Reaper tech. And so that is used to enhance otherwise human abilities in order to fight monsters better.

Snyders Return: 20:36

It sounds wonderfully mccobb To be fair,

Ellen Dalina: 20:38

Yeah, it is. And it meshed together very well with ravenloft because represents traditionally like a Victorian England kind of setting. Yeah, so they were pulled from London will actually Transylvania at the time that they were pulled to burrow via by my character, actually. I didn't know that was going to happen until it happened in the game. I didn't know it was going to be my fault. But my character has a dark mysterious past. All of the villagers, most of the villagers in the village of raffia appear to fear and Miss trust her. And they aren't afraid to tell the rest of the party tall tales about her, such as she killed her beloved, and she works for straud and stuff like that. So they have heard those things from other villagers in BRAVIA. But she has some mysterious, dark, magical power that the others are a little suspicious of, and she herself is unsure of the depth and the exact origin of this power. And so it's interesting to actually For that while we play

Snyders Return: 22:02

I, yeah, it sounds it sounds great. And I love I'm running kosis drive for my home game at the moment and I love the setting, but never on but that's a totally different conversation. So, what some, if people want to jump across now and say listen to or watch the episode, most recent today? What would be where would the the characters be and what's sort of happening in the story at the moment.

Ellen Dalina: 22:32

Um, the most recent episode was Wednesday this past week. It was our third episode we're doing every other Wednesday just to keep everybody's schedules a little more sane, instead of doing every week, so there are only three episodes to catch up on. And most recently, we have decided to enter the Durst manner, which I personally meta knowledge The only thing I know know about it is that it's called the death house. I don't know anything else about it, but that is very ominous. But we are headed there because Marta has been given Intel and apparently some information regarding dark rituals and things of that nature could be researched there that would help her in her own personal goals. And the other things we did during this last session, where we helped ease mark and iryna take their father to buried at the church. And then we rather gruesomely handled the situation of the father's a

Snyders Return: 23:54

situation. Yell fun, yes. Not to give too much much indeed. Oh, you'll enjoy the dust manner. I think you'll you'll enjoy your experiences in there. Depending on how it plays out. Should we say that that sounds that sounds great, a great twist on an iconic sort of setting and property. Definitely. So you You must be almost non stop to be fair. You have described yourself as a semi professional dice Goblin. I stole that from Twitter. I think it's why is it what's what's your favour Sara Dyson, I want to start you're going professional.

Ellen Dalina: 24:43

My favourite set of dice I'll have to post a picture I think I have a picture if you dig back on my Twitter. There is a set that I commissioned from underscore dancing lights. I don't remember if it's dancing lights dice. Let me Google that real fast. I want people to show her because she's amazing. The set that she made is beautiful and I love every time I use it. It is underscore dancing lights on Twitter. Her name is Christine and she is a fantastic dice maker. She has 315 followers and she should have like 8 million times that

Snyders Return: 25:32

should be one more after this interview. Don't worry about that

Ellen Dalina: 25:35

perfect. But the set that she made is kind of a white base with holographic glitter in it. And she used rose gold paint for the numbers and it's just, it's beautiful. I'll have to post another picture of it and I'll tag you in it but it's just a beautiful set. I love it.

Snyders Return: 26:03

They it sounds or they sound as a set. They sound amazing. So moving back into the maybe the more technical side of things, how did you find it going from sort of homebrew into podcasting? And what sort of difficulties, shall we say have you come up against and overcome. Um,

Ellen Dalina: 26:29

I'll say that essentially, running a podcast is no different than just running a game except you record it and then you have to edit it, and then you have to put it up and you have to make sure that people engage with it. But that part is all just like fluff. I mean, it's not fluff because it's all a lot of work and a lot of podcasters that you know, how difficult it is and how much time you put into it, but compared to the time that I spend actually with the world and with plotlines and making sure that each character gets their day in the spotlight and stuff like that. I think mostly creating a ttrpg podcast is like 90% 90 95% just being a good GM and 5% everything else.

Snyders Return: 27:23

Fair enough, fair enough. So moving on from sort of that conclusion as it were. If you were to to offer some advice to someone who is looking to pick up savage was or maybe become a DM or GM or game mother or whatever the short position is master of ceremonies, depending on the game, or vice would you give gift to them?

Ellen Dalina: 27:50

Um, my best advice for any GM is to well, just for anyone who's looking to do it, just Jump in find some players, you're never going to have a problem finding players because usually players have a hard time finding a GM. It's usually the other way around. So, but when it comes to GM, the best advice I ever received was to create things that are going to happen regardless of what the players do. Because you can only plan so much for what players are actually going to do once they encounter your setting and your characters and your encounters. And all of that comes down to improv and how well you think on your feet, and how well you can set your characters or your players up for success or failure as it were, which can also be delightful. But the best advice is just to know what's going to happen regardless of what your characters are. Doing, because that way you have a handle on what's happening in your world. And the story, such as it is without the player interaction and you can be prepared once they are asking questions about your world, and hopefully you have engaged players who are doing that. But speaking of failures being delightful, I just wanted to say, also, don't be afraid to let your players fail. Sometimes, we just had in our recording, like two or three weeks ago, a moment that was a big failure for the whole party. And in terms of drama, in terms of the podcasts and the story. It's amazing and we all we debriefed after that game just because it was a little intense. And everybody agreed that it was a great story beat and it was absolutely a loss for the place. But it's a win for the podcast and the game. Hmm. So don't be afraid to let your players fail. I know, I struggle with that a lot, because I don't want. I don't want people to not be having fun. And usually people are having fun when they're succeeding.

Snyders Return: 30:19

Yeah.

Ellen Dalina: 30:21

But sometimes that that failure can be really good and really poignant as well.

Snyders Return: 30:26

Peel back the plot arm a little bit maybe?

Ellen Dalina: 30:29

Yes,

Snyders Return: 30:31

definitely, I think come good preparation, which doesn't necessarily mean long preparation or super in depth, preparation, but good preparation. I know everybody prepares differently. It's certainly certainly good advice that that you've given there and I appreciate you sharing that with me and with us. So you, you do a podcast you're in other podcasts you play you collect dice. What do you do for downtime? What do you do have time away from a microphone?

Ellen Dalina: 31:08

I do might may not seem like it based on my tweeting habits but I do. I play video games and I read sometimes but when it comes to TT RPGs like even though it's to a degree it is work. It is something that I have to work at. I enjoy it. So sometimes I get everybody gets burnout. But the fact that you can just go and play in a game and get recharged and refreshed, especially when you are playing with other players and gems that are amazing. Like my every other Wednesday crew with Savage ravenloft it's just so easy to gain that energy from what other players are bringing to the table. So, I do, I do occasionally step away from the mic separately from the dice. But it's at the end of the day you're playing games. And if you can entertain people while doing that, it's all the better.

Snyders Return: 32:15

Well, yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. So sticking with the dice theme and playing so you've played savage worlds you played d&d five years or another system you've sort of looked at maybe I don't know drive through or your friendly local gaming store or or wherever it is you purchase your your TT RPGs or books and things and thought that that's the system I want to try just once maybe once or twice. Let's give it a give it a gamble and see what happens.

Ellen Dalina: 32:50

Um, I have to confess that I am not well played as you know, terms of being well read. I'm not Well played, I have not played a plethora of systems via but

Snyders Return: 33:07

that's that's kind of the point of the question. You know, I'm I'm almost exclusively fivey so I know where you're coming from. But is there a system that maybe someone else has spoken about and you thought, like with savage worlds where you've moved into that? Have you thought? Maybe I'll try that system that that one's caught my eye?

Ellen Dalina: 33:24

Yes, absolutely. There are two. I think this Kickstarter ended on one and the Kickstarter is currently still active on the other, but to indie RPGs. Recently, one is called wander home, and the other is called arium. And those two have both really caught my interest. Wander home is like a pastoral RPG, where it's more focused on building and collaboration rather than fighting and destruction, that sort of thing. And that just is very fascinating to me. And then arium is a game in two parts. The first part is all about bringing a table together to collaboratively build a world. And then tell the stories that come from that. And I hope I did those two systems justice with those descriptions. But that's those are the way I understand the games. And I have backed both of them. And I'm very excited to receive the books for both of those. I can't wait for them to come out and play them. I don't know if you've heard of either of them.

Snyders Return: 34:38

I haven't, but it's certainly something now you've mentioned them that I may have to sort of have a look online for and see what information I can find. Definitely.

Ellen Dalina: 34:46

Yeah. Oh, I'll get the links. And I'll make sure I send them to you so that we can have that reference.

Snyders Return: 34:51

Yeah, I'd appreciate it. That'd be brilliant. And that's just throw me off while I was gonna ask you next sorry. All right. All right. So, obviously we've spoken for a little bit of time. And so would you like to remind everybody where they can find you your content and links to your podcast please?

Ellen Dalina: 35:12

Sure. You can find me on Twitter at Ellen underscore dolina and the podcast at birdhouse missed and why St. And we are on pod bean. You can find the links to pod bean in our link tree on my Twitter and the podcast Twitter. So that'll all be linked. You can find me every other Wednesday on Savage ravenloft playing March gloom haven it's a fantastic game and I this is our off week coming up and I just foaming at the mouth. I just want to keep playing I want to play more. Every time we finish.

Snyders Return: 35:51

As I say links to to your content and everything else sort of relate to you in the birdhouse. That was what I was gonna. Good. Last question. Now, but links to everything will be in the description below. As a GM for the birdhouse mysteries, I haven't actually established what a birdhouse is, and where your inspirations come from.

Ellen Dalina: 36:13

Yes, the players have not delved into that history, but I know at least some of the history some of it, I still need to flush out. But essentially, the birdhouse is an organisation across the world. There are me, I'm having my OneNote open here. Let me look and see how many I have one last bit of a lifesaver. Oh my gosh, I I rely on it entirely. Turn around 1213 1415 1617 1819 2120 220-340-5367. Okay, so there are 27 birdhouses across the world. Usually in major cities. I think all of them are pretty major cities. The only one that Might not be is nowhere and nowhere is a decently sized city, but it's in the middle of a desert. It's difficult to get to that was our starting city for our campaign. But the reason that there's a birdhouse there is because there's nowhere is unique in that there are seniors in that city who are able to reliably see the future. And so that means that was a good place to have a bird house and have a roost master there who is a seer. So the bird house is essentially an organisation that allows the common folk to hire adventurers to do jobs that they would not necessarily be able to pay for on their own. So there's a lot of, they do a lot of things they most birdhouses sell some sort of service or good and they make their money that way. In order to kind of subsidise adventures, like the fees for adventures, and they each have a noticeboard and so the reason that birdhouses are so prominent and well known throughout the world is because around five around 600 years ago, I think it's 581 Yes, it's 581 after the union after the avian union, there was a time of great turmoil and war. And this league of avions kind of came together to create this idea of this colloquially known as the birdhouse now because it's run by aliens. But this union formed 581 years ago, and all throughout the world, these towers, these birdhouses were created. In order to provide respite for adventures and also opportunity for the common folk to have people help them with problems that might get overlooked because nobility owns the guards or the guard system in a certain town is just not very good. any number of reasons that could prevent the common folk from being able to have access to help. So that's the idea behind the bird house. And each bird house has a roost master who is usually an Eric non airacobra that's what it is in d&d and avion. Um, and sorry, I lost my train of thought lots All right. Um, oh, each roofmaster usually has some kind of skill set to offer. So Calcutta the roastmaster in Nowhere is a seer and is able to see the future of The party and also any number of people who come by to have their fortune sold. The verse master and arisia. Amara is an enchanter and so she is a master at creating magical items, and to be seen later in the podcast, but the players have already met him. The roofmaster inventa and norham is his name is too loose, and he is a blacksmith. So we have all kinds of different trades that these first masters take up in order to offer help to the common folk and to adventures.

Snyders Return: 40:40

All right, well, you're the roofmaster in arisia drives a hard bargain if you listen to Episode 29. Just to clue you in there. So that's what a birdhouse is and how they were formed. But what is what is the inspiration for young for the podcast?

Ellen Dalina: 40:58

That was the question But

Snyders Return: 41:00

that's right for the adventure, not just the podcast, but for the adventure in your world.

Ellen Dalina: 41:06

Um, I am a big fan of a band called They Might Be Giants. I don't know if you've ever heard of them

Snyders Return: 41:14

the soundtrack for Malcolm in the Middle.

Ellen Dalina: 41:17

That is true and that is usually the touchstone that I have for people who are not familiar with them otherwise. But they are my favourite band, and they have a song called a very popular song for them called birdhouse in your soul. And that I kind of ripped the name birdhouse from that song. They sing about a lot of very topics. And like that song in particular is about a nightlight, singing about its history and how it couldn't have been as good of a lighthouse as lighthouses. In ancient times and stuff like that, and there's they have a song about a thermostat, they have a song about metal detector, they have a song about what happens if the woman you're dating is actually an angel. They have all kinds of very strange and wonderful I mean strange in a good way. topics for their songs. And so I get a lot of inspiration from music from that band. And that was where the idea for the birdhouse originally came from, from that song. Other places I get inspiration from include, for the rift storyline, the tears and reality that comes from both Elder Scrolls Oblivion, and the Legend of Korra, the second avatar cartoon I don't know if you're familiar with either of those.

Snyders Return: 43:00

Yes, yes. Yes. They'll both popular in their own right. So yeah, absolutely. I know where you're coming from.

Ellen Dalina: 43:07

Yes. And then everything else is just a little bit of everything that I've picked up over the years. Just through osmosis, cultural osmosis with things. I've read things I've played and watch. But those are the main, the main things that I can think of, at least that I consciously have taken inspiration from.

Snyders Return: 43:32

Mm hmm. Sounds good. It sounds good. One, maybe not a final question. But the question I'd like to lead on to the you've been running this adventure and you've said you've got stuff recorded. A lot of stuff recorded. I'll put it that way. Is there been a moment, a moment with a character or within the world that has ever touched you or if To you, on a maybe even on a personal level, but a moment where you've had to stop and, and just soak in the moment for a moment.

Ellen Dalina: 44:11

I'm going to try to answer this question without spoilers, because there's no, no, there absolutely is a moment that I can think of. And it happened very recently that it's also that that last that failure that I referred to, yeah, happened like three or four weeks ago in game when I engage in our sessions. And it involved a player and their character, making a choice that benefitted the whole group at their detriment. Like they're very extreme, very obvious detriment. And so this choice led to that character, no longer being played in The game because of where they are now. And what happened, I'm not going to say whether it was like a death or anything like that. No, but um, they made an exit from the story. And that player is now playing a different character, and just the way that it happened and the way that it was a selfless decision on behalf of the party. It really did affect me. And that's also why I said we had to take a moment to debrief and talk about the session and how it went and how we were all feeling after that because it was it was very heavy emotionally, and you grow attached to your characters and you grow attached, the players grow attached to their own characters, and you get attached to your party. So making a change that that's, that is that significant. And that large, really was something that I still feel And came to mind instantly when you ask that question.

Snyders Return: 46:04

Well, sorry, I've taken you back there and made you feel a little bit caught off guard maybe by the question but it's it's certainly something that I'll keep listening to the story and when when it lands should we say I'll I'll definitely remember this this this moment in our in our conversation. So yeah, I will keep my subscription to the podcast going and keep enjoying the episodes in your adventures because it's fantastic. You guys do such a great job.

Ellen Dalina: 46:37

Thank you so much. I it's it's amazing when we started about seven months ago now at this point, we didn't know if anybody was going to listen. So the fact that even hearing one person and we hear in the discord somebody else was like, Oh, yeah, I'm caught up. It's just amazing to hear that people are listening to something that we produce. It's just us goofing around playing every week. And it's just amazing to hear that you enjoy it. It's really, really touching. Thank you.

Snyders Return: 47:14

It's It's a pleasure. And it has been an absolute pleasure to have you giving some of your you're busy time to, to speak to me today. I appreciate your time. And it's been great.

Ellen Dalina: 47:25

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on.

Snyders Return: 47:28

I mean, I'd love to have you back on the show, maybe in the new year or see how the story's progressed. Or, or whenever, really, if, if you'd be interested.

Ellen Dalina: 47:39

Yeah, absolutely. That'd be great.

Snyders Return: 47:42

All right, well, I'll let you get back to editing or recording or whatever is next on the long list of things to be done. And all I can say is thank you once again. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to WWW dot Noise return.squarespace.com Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter. At Return Snyder, you have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to support us, come and join us over on Patreon and we also have a Discord server. Please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve the channel and provide better content alpha for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you