Hello, and welcome to snyder's return at tabletop roleplay podcast My guest today are a guiding or should I say gilding light in the ttrpg community, they bring a strong bond and sense of family wherever we may find them. Charitable with their time they are storytellers, Dream weavers and dungeon masters. If you have been lured in by their siren song, then let it not be a battle of wills, but a time to make a song and dance about it. Let inspiration wash over you and drive you to be the best through oration, gesticulation or interpretation. I urge you to spread the word on the world of their creation Salvata. It's an absolute pleasure to welcome to Satine Phoenix and Jameson Stone. Welcome to the show.
Satine/Jamison:Oh my gosh, that was one of the things I've ever heard. That's fantastic, wonderful writer. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here.
Snyders Return:Thank you so much. All I've done is turn your own work your own hard work, a combination we may say, of your own work, and just rephrased it back to you. Because, you know, you put in so much hard work. Before we get into the Kickstarter in the things that I sort of alluded to in the intro there, which was telling us how each of you got into ttrpg, please, in case for some unknown reason someone has not heard of you. Sure.
Satine Phoenix:Yeah. I've been playing d&d since I was eight since 1988. And I found a basically the red box. And yeah, I started playing by myself until I found out that some of my friends and theatre were playing and then I forced my way. And because there was no way I was not going to play this game, I'd been assessment. And yeah, I've been doing that forever. And I was in a web series called I hit it with my axe in 2008. And then was the like, No, no, the Broodmother of the d&d group in Hollywood, California at meltdown comics since 2010, and was working with Keith Baker, who is the creator of Eber on for a charity event called celebrity charity 20, where we had this wild idea to videotape our games and put it on the internet. Back then that was like, wow, why would you do that live? And so yeah, that's how I got into all of like this community. So it's been a lifelong love of mine. And yourself, James.
Jamison Stone:Yeah. So I started playing ttrpg is in grade school I had by far the best babysitter ever. Her name was joy, and her boyfriend's name was Dylan. And they would come over and we'd play video games, we play ttrpg. So we did a lot of LARPing. He was really big into the Nero LARPing scene in New England where I grew up. And I just I looked up to him so much. And then when I went to junior high school and in high school, I started playing a lot of Vampire the Masquerade mages the ascension werewolf Shadowrun, and just fell in love with with gaming later than became a published author, both for a fantasy science fiction novel called Remi apprentice, and then published a graphic novel called the last Amazon. And basically, in the past, probably about seven to 10 years have built a community and team where we create games. And yeah, it's been going quite well. Our last project was called to read opera. And that's a warlock campaign in setting book set for fifth edition. And now obviously, we're doing sirens, Battle of bards. So we just love to create worlds, tell stories, play games, and share our games with other people. And it's, it's a real pleasure to be now able to work on this project with the team, my wife, and have all of her years of experience as a game master and game designer. And bring, you know, bring her in part of
Satine/Jamison:the team is so much fun.
Snyders Return:Yeah. That's amazing. Each of you such a varied and rich story of how you stepped into up to where we are now. And Luke sort of sticking with that point. Where can people find we'll do the plug first and then we'll talk on to where can people find yourselves and where can they find your products like the read opera and and other releases that you've done?
Jamison Stone:Yeah, so our studio is called apotheosis studios. And so people can go to a path USA studios Comm. If they're interested in graphic novels, they can go and this is all housed under the apotheosis studios website, but they can go to the last Amazon that's our near near future sci fi post apocalyptic graphic novel, it's super exciting set. In kind of this post, world war three Cold War era between the Denver denizens and the azureus islands of Hawaii of last two remaining cities was a super fun project. We're actually turning that into an RPG right now. So that'll be hopefully a project that comes out sometime next year. For those who are interested in warlocks and currently available campaign in setting that's called the red opera. It's a really fun project to work on we're really super proud of it and our physical books are actually going to be launching in about a month PDF is available now we're sending out all of our cool Kickstarter goodies. We have our campaign coins or dice towers, our level of dice. And our minis Yeah, and those those are all shipping out right now actually. And so people can still pick that up at the read opera calm, amazing.
Snyders Return:I you substitute. Where can we find you online?
Satine Phoenix:You can find me at sateen Phoenix everywhere. You can find all the wild videos I've been on for a TT RPGs interviews and all the live streams that I do on sateen Phoenix COMM And we have a stream about four days a week now on twitch.tv slash sateen. Phoenix, we do a lot a couple things. Yeah, basically, we spent all of our time together. And so we're like, why don't we stream and do that. So Monday nights we play baldurs Gate three. And on Tuesdays, we play couples d&d, Wednesdays we, oh, I do Game Master tips. I was the host of Game Master GM tips on Geek and Sundry, and dungeon Master's guide on Dungeons and Dragons. And then storytellers guide. So now I've brought it back to my own channel and doing that. And then Fridays, we have sirens. And this is a live stream that we did, you know, seven years ago. It's on it technically season four, but we kind of give it a whole refurbishing. So it's called siren song of sell Vata and that's on Friday, six to 10pm
Jamison Stone:and it's in it's set in the same city and settings of sirens battle apart. So it's fun to have the whole sirens cast who will be NPC characters in the setting book actually playing in that world. And it's kind of cool because it's all actually canon. So whatever happens on the show is going to be then brought into the actual world and the campaign Yeah, so we've already had some crazy things happen and myself into Tina's as the as the CO creative directors and lead writers on the writing team. We're like, oh, gosh, okay, we gotta we got to make it. We got to incorporate this into the lore of the city. Now
Satine Phoenix:somebody drew a beat. I was Fenway she threw a bean from the bag of beans. And she threw it in a giant pyramid popped up and destroyed the
Jamison Stone:underground fight in an underground magical UFC fight ring. Yeah, it destroyed the entire venue. Because the GM allowed her to have a bag of beans. Like I never
Satine Phoenix:thought yeah, so sirens is it started out as an all barred band, all girl barred band, and then Jason Charles Miller, musician, voice actor, actor. He was like, how would I play with you guys? And I couldn't say no one, right.
Satine/Jamison:That's awesome.
Satine Phoenix:So now they're just on tour through all the realms, and we brought the sirens into our world that we're creating so that we can play with them forever.
Snyders Return:That's, that's amazing. I've firmly firmly Junsu Jasper's game. Yeah. time of recording earlier this week, last week, you both took part in the Jasper's game day and amazing charity. So glad to see such as yourself getting behind that. What's it been like to sort of take part in those charitable events?
Satine Phoenix:Oh, wow. So I've been mentoring Fenway for about four years. And I remember when her her friend passed away when he committed suicide, and it was actually the second suicide of one of her friends. And this person was at her, you know, just was gaming with her for so long. And it really, really affected her. And so together, we came up with a way to kind of make a difference in the world. So she was, she did Jasper's for the first time I actually got I made the logo, Jasper's game day logo for her to encourage her, you know. And so the game shop she was at, they had this whole big event. I flew out there and it was great. And then the next year, it was bigger, and the next show is bigger. And now this is
Jamison Stone:for def Jasper's game week.
Satine Phoenix:Jasper's game two weeks, two weeks. And also she has it where Jasper's Game Day is a multiple events internationally throughout the year. And as her mentor, I am so proud of her. You know, she's the she's on the youth board of the national Suicidology Association, and I've got to go out and she last time she did the keynote speech, and I just cried. I mean that there's nothing better than to see this young woman just really be in her power supported by so many people. And now she's just turned 18 this year.
Jamison Stone:Yeah, it's really it's really impressive actually, to see that hurt still as an adolescent. Now, I guess legally an adult but you know, as a young woman really set up into a leadership role to do some really great work. I know there are a lot of other people in that age demographic, and I've mentored a lot of adolescents as well. That there That's not where their focus is and to have her really trying to make a positive impact and then blend in something that she loves, which is gaming, and the being able to bring other people into that is really awesome. So yeah, we're really proud of her she and she's doing a fantastic job.
Snyders Return:Yeah, absolutely. And as part of the sirens, I think it's only fair that if people aren't now intrigued by the world that you've created, so varta, would you mind sort of taking us into the journey of the Kickstarter and through what the Kickstarter is and present to, to those backers, such as myself?
Jamison Stone:Yeah, absolutely. So, again, her party's history, as we consider ourselves, world builders, we just love creating new worlds and settings. And that can be something for a new gamer, if they want to, you know, experience a new world A new in a new campaign, a new story, or someone who's been gaming for 2030 years, that are looking for a new place either to bring in a pre existing party that maybe they've been gaming with for a long time, which could be high level characters, or you know, tier two characters, or even level one characters, if they so, you know, so desire, Louis suggest around level, you know, four to six is a good good entry place. And so, this particular project sirince Battle of bards is for us kind of the highest evolution of our team and our growth. So we're super proud of it. It's set in the city of silvassa, which is an artistic city. So our last project, the city was called young cop, and it was a warlock ruled city. So it's very dark and brooding. There's our arch fe and you know, fiend patrons, and you know, elrich entities and great old ones floating around. But it this is a city of light, and a city of artists and creation. And so, with that beautiful, bright lights of creation, there's very deep and dark shadows. And so beneath the veneer of beauty, we have fiends lurking in the shadows, wearing the masks of the Emerald cabal, which is a kind of age old nemesis of the sirens from, you know, citians sirens, live stream. And so it's been really fantastic to build this setting and to weave in Bart. And so we wanted to create a city what what would it be like, if a bunch of bars over 1100 years, that's how long the city's been around, created a city and within their own vision of artists, musicians, architects, you know, people building beautiful statues and mosaics that kind of Herald through time the, you know, the feats of both the feats and the failures of their forebears, and then what things such as fiends and other other, you know, agents of corruption would be attracted to this, this bright light, they would then come and trying to, you know, manipulate the city for themselves. And so it's a fantastic place where we have both light and beauty and very deep darks. And so the players are kind of thrown into this crucible, where they get to decide and really have player agency to steer the story, you can either be the hero and you know, fight fight the fiends, or you can take a little bit more of a selfish pact and potentially try and overthrow the Emerald cabal, which are the villains and become the new leader of the Emerald cabal, or even ally yourself with the themes and the Herald and potentially try and control you know, that that malesan era, the malign entity, and we really want to lean into how do players themselves want to experience the story instead of just you know, writing a fantasy novel, it's fun, and it's, you know, beginning to end and it's on rails. But the cool thing about ttrpg is, is that you get to co create that experience and co create the outcome with your table and your GM. And so we give the tools for the GM and the players to be able to do that. And looking through the there is a downloadable sort of, I want to say quick look quickstart release that I highly recommend people go out and download while the kickstart is running. The artwork is fantastic. You both make stellar appearances as
Snyders Return:genre, and what's it been like to see yourselves and this wall sort of brought to life in in such a vivid and exciting way?
Satine Phoenix:Yeah, I've been I created Vanya when I was 12. And I've played her many iterations and she's grown with me and I'll be 41 this year. So she's quite old. And yeah, she's hundreds of years old this at this point. I cosplay her and so I've been playing her and other Dungeons and Dragons live games for many, many years. As a matter of fact, you can actually play her in idol champions along with my cat, which is her familiar RPG. And yeah, she was the kind of the Charlie and the Charlie's Angels of the siren show, kind of the the quest giver for the sirens. But she's also a spy master Bard, and a wizard. So she has this overall view of everything. So she makes sense to have as a, you know, call to adventure in this book, and that's what she does. She is he please come and help us with the city. And, you know, Jamison's studio is amazing. The artists or writers, it's just like, you have an idea and they bring it to life in ways that you would never imagine it would be. You know, we've for the the video for the Kickstarter, we worked with Jason Charles Miller, and I've been wanting to work with him for years, we've been friends for like 10 years. And now with Jamison, he's been able to bring that dream to life. And the three of us sat down on a Saturday and, and, like, wrote out the lyrics. And, you know, with David, grand Joe and Carlos, they brought not only this idea of the Emerald cabal to life and my character Vanya to life, but they made it there. It lives and breathes it's really beautiful. It's awesome. It is an honour to and it's like it is the ultimate adventuring group IRL style.
Snyders Return:It's amazing. And you mentioned that Vanya is a bard and it was so looking at the Kickstarter and the world from a mechanical a game mechanic says, What are you offering to new players and gems to really bring the world to life and expand on, you know, already existing, say, bardic colleges, for example?
Jamison Stone:Absolutely. So we wanted to kind of re envision and kind of go go to the roots of what is a bard at its core. When we think of a bard, at least kind of the more tropi version of a bard, we think of kind of a minstrel, and someone who you know, cast inspiration but really much more of a singer, you know, with with a lute, something of the sort. And those bars can still be, you know, wildly fun and entertaining. One of my favourite characters of all time actually, is dandelion, from the Witcher series of books and and the video game. I'm a huge fan of Witcher two and three, which are one but enjoy two and three a lot. And then obviously, the Netflix series is fantastic. And I think that's, that's like a trophy bar done done really well. But we wanted to say okay, what is a bard at its at its root, and it's really an artist as someone who uses art to evoke emotion. And it can also be combat oriented to you can also be an artist and, and be deadly on the battlefield. Those are not mutually exclusive. And so by looking at that we've taken Okay, me leaning into the the different schools and colleges, and re envisioned and we are kind of releasing several of those ideas now. And many were kind of holding tight to our chest. So when the book comes out, people can really dive in and full details. But by having two different colleges that we talked about now, the College of anatomy, I'll talk about that one, and then you can talk about one of the others. Looking at what if someone, an artist really understands the anatomy of the human body, not only then can they sculpt, paint, draw those things well, but then they actually understand how they function from a very practical perspective. And so usually birds are obviously charisma based, and there's nothing wrong with that. But we wanted to be able to have people take a subclass in part and not be bound by the Christmas stat. And so for example, a martial artist, someone who is a text based character, the College of anatomy, they might lean towards actually having dexterity being their primary attribute. And so a bard, you could have a bard subclass for a martial artist. I mean, you could do it for a sorcerer to like, Alicia Marie has a fantastic character in science that does this. But by understanding specifically how the human body operates, you can then be very deadly. I'm a martial artist, by trade, I used to be a former professional martial artist. And it can be a very beautiful art form where you can entertain crowds, and then snap your fingers and you know, you can subdue an opponent. But by truly knowing the anatomy of your opponent and your own anatomy, you can make sure that you yourself are not injured when you are attacked. That's called being bouquet or receiving and taking Ooh, Timmy, which is by falling appropriately and not not hurting yourself. But then also when you're in a conflict, you know, not not truly damaging your opponent potentially grounding them in a non lethal way or a way that doesn't hurt them at all. And so by re envisioning what a bard can be at its core root, we can really avoid a lot of the tricky things from a bard, and learn and lean clean into things that are a little bit more artistically based, inspiring base, but still really fun to play and also combat base because I enjoy combat as well.
Satine Phoenix:And merging that with like, what, how can you be a dancer, right? So you can be a dancer and use your body and, you know, also other deck space types of classes. And for this specifically, we wanted to not be held back by needing certain components to cast your spells. So you don't need verbal components. This is somebody who's a master at their physique. So maybe and a lot of people are introverts. They actually don't want to say anything when they're performing. And yeah, that we're really leaning into that. So you got your deck space barred. No verbal components. And then we also have the College of geometry. And that's someone who celebrates the art of math and sacred geometry. And if you're looking at our Kickstarter, you can see there's a lot of sacred geometry on that the entire city of salvato is created by an architect or grand architect. It's the largest magic item I've ever seen, you know, the Chancellor has created the kind of revision and created parts of the city to function as a battery for the magic that the gods breathed down on it and the district 10. And where the campaign takes place, that is kind of the moment and it's really beautiful that you can be an intelligence based Bard, who is more about crafts and intelligence and puzzling their way through things, we really want to showcase different kinds of art and art styles. And sometimes you're there and you're pulling as an architecture pulling, you know, buildings and fractals out of the earth in order to form to protect or, you know, attack. But you can also do things kind of like an artificer does, where you're preparing stuff ahead of time to unleash it. And yeah, we're looking at these classy subclasses as ways to merge them with people who are bringing their characters in. And so you can multiclass and have something to blend with. Or you can just take this as its own class, and also really lean into, like that job that you would do. And then we have the college, the University of silvassa. And these, these are just two of the many courses you could go down and it's designed based off of art school. So I went to art school for five years 3d animation, 2d animation, stop motion, sculpture, and then illustration. And, you know, you go to the sculpture department, but you're not just going to be a sculptor, you're able to do all these different jobs with that skill. And that's what we were hoping that people can do is they're like, Oh, I want to be a bartender, or I want to be a tattoo Bard. Well, you can take one of these courses, you know, and become a master and one of these get your master's degree and the college itself or the University of salvato. And, yeah,
Jamison Stone:I really met your character in a fun way. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things just really quick to add, for our last project, the warlock book, The red opera. Not everyone had played a warlock before. And it's kind of I think, an underappreciated class. So we wanted to give people the opportunity to take a patron pact in young costs due to this thing called the will of souls that allow you to communicate with patrons a lot easier. And so because of that, you could take a barbarian you could take a wizard, do anything you wanted, and take a new patron pack, even if it was only temporary for the campaign, just to give people a taste of what it's like to be a warlock. And we really are trying to do something very soon, you can take a full full blooded Warlock to if you want just a solo Warlock class, there's nothing wrong with that. I've enjoyed playing a warlock, myself, it's fantastic. But to give that opportunity to new players that haven't had that yet, so they can understand honestly, how fun it can be. So we've done the exact same thing with Bart's. If people either don't want to be a fully fledged Bard or just kind of lukewarm on the idea, they can take one of these sub classes, play around with it, have fun, and if they want, they can then relinquish that subclass when they're done with a campaign or keep it or roll a whole new character, but just give people a taste and a flavour. So they can have fun and augment their, you know, current characters in a fun way.
Satine Phoenix:Yeah, and all that said, we've actually designed this campaign, so nobody has to be,
Jamison Stone:have to be a part of
Satine Phoenix:you, everybody at the table can say I do not want to be a part. But by you know, by answering the call to adventure, you are agreeing to being a part of launius spy network. And she has a spy network where people either are performers of some sort, or artists, or pretending even just pretending
Jamison Stone:under the guise. And that's how they infiltrate the city is to be one of one of these new bands members for the great invocation. But it can completely be a guy's just to get in the front door and then do the campaign. You don't have to be
Satine Phoenix:at all. So in the book, we actually have a section. It's broken into several books in this one book. So one of the books is, you know, the subclasses for players. And one of the books is tips and tricks for game masters to get people to work together to form a band even with or without bards. But it's really about cooperation and buy in and imagination, because this entire campaign, so 10 core chapters, but then we also have 10 side quests as well, but the entire thing takes place in about a 10 day. It's an event that's happening that has different contests. So it's incredibly, incredibly high player agency. The world lives and breathes around the players. So Whether they do something or not things are happening and you'll be able to see it throughout the world. We're really excited that the story encourages people to be a part of a group. You know, usually when you're in a d&d game, your your mercenaries, or one of your mercenaries that are also abandoned. You know, what does that look like? And, and how are you okay with it. So we're teaching game masters how to do this with their players without leaning on performance. It's a thing I see all the time. Anytime a bard wants to do anything, it's always performance. So we're, I'm really excited about the geeking out on the mechanics when we can start sharing.
Snyders Return:It sounds amazing the ability to sort of fill the shoes of a body even for a short time. Just to serve that purpose. I mentioned there are a couple of key words building and tears and things. For someone that hasn't looked at the Kickstarter, and love the sound of the city of salvato and want to take that acceptance from Vanya. What is the structure of the city itself?
Jamison Stone:Absolutely, yeah. So originally 1100 years ago, out in the desert, a bunch of bards and Druids came upon an oasis, they were absolutely overjoyed at this Oasis and the life giving waters that they found in the middle of the desert, and they gave thanks to the gods. And the gods answered and said, Well, well, you're welcome. Thank you for thanking us. We created this, we thought it was beautiful, and we're so glad that you liked it too. And they bless the waters a second time then, with this magical essence called cassava. cassava plays very prominently in our story. The farmers in the druids blood this enhanced all their magical abilities. And so they built kind of a little makeshift, you know, town and village. They're almost like akin to Burning Man, and every 100 years, and it's happened during a grand Eclipse. And every 100 years, they came back and did another invocation. And the gods once again re blessed the the sacred oasis. And so they built a disc above the actual Oasis itself, to be close to those sacred waters. And then every 100 years, they did a million vocation and they built another disc and another disc on the third, third time around that and the 300 year anniversary. However, the gods weren't really impressed by the invocation.
Satine Phoenix:Same old, same Old,
Jamison Stone:yeah, wasn't wasn't good enough. And so they did not bless the waters that year. And the bards came in said, okay, Druids, listen up guys, we are performers, let us entertain the gods, we will take this on ourselves. And so every 100 years, Henceforth, they had this grand in vocation. And they built up these discs, one after another. And so this is really a generational city that has been built on the successes and the failures, heralding both ideas through failure that we learn what this city is and what it represents. And there's beautiful artistry in the city. And again, when you have such fortified power of this case, Saba in the water, which actually shoots up through and anti gravity, reverse gravity wells called the grand syphon, and then trickles all the way down to each of the disks. You have people coming in to covet that power. And so the Emerald cabal, kind of our nefarious group, our secrets underground secret society, featured from sirens, the live stream has come in and started hoarding that and infiltrated the higher you know, the ruling caste system within the city and started hoarding that case out for themselves, which has created a profound degree of unrest and actually there's a very vibrant resistance now in the lower discs trying to usurp the higher disc and they're they're very tight fisted grip on this case, Saba, and so on the this 10th 10th year so it's technically 1100 years, but this is the 10th actual invocation of successful invocation Cal ratha grand Chancellor. It was told to him by the gods, okay, this party has been great. This is the last time we're not just going to keep hearing to keep doling out, you know, divine energy for you guys. This is it. And so Cal wrath over 300 years, devised a plan to actually build a capping stone that would create the city in and of itself to be a battery self charging, so it didn't need to be recharged. And he put all of his attention to focus on that. So the city could live in perpetuity while still maintaining its magical essence, the ammo cabal whoever is going to try and use this opportunity to call something much more fiendish than then they all would like and they have their own purposes. And so lasagna has come to try and hopefully turn the tides towards returning the energy of the gods instead of a fiendish energy. But we have other characters such as vydra, who although being a noble, good demon hunter, he would very much like for a demon to actually come into the city so he has his own his own plans for this team to I don't want to get into too many spoilers, but There's a lot of a lot of potential paths for the players to go. And I think a lot of great avenues for player agency where people can really decide how they want that city to look when it's done. If they if they succeed in their endeavours.
Snyders Return:Yeah, absolutely. And and you mentioned they're not wanting to get into too many spoilers if someone downloads the sort of the the Quickstart pack, is there something in there to sort of kickstart their imagination, something they can play through, to give them a little bit of experience?
Jamison Stone:Absolutely. And what we again, we love player agency and choices, we think that choices and then also having repercussions for yeses. That's what makes choices so kind of valuable and potent. The first chapter includes a bunch of introductory text about the city, a lot of the main NPCs, several the factions as well, it has a three act adventure. So it has a full full, full adventure with three acts. And the third act, there's actually two different versions of our third act depending on player agency, of which which way the players want to go. And if they go, we'll just call it route a. Route a has certain boons from it and certain drawbacks, and route B has certain boons, who had certain drawbacks, and those effects will be felt throughout the remainder of the campaign for the nine main quest chapters. And we also have 10 sub quests as well. And so if you choose a, that, that will have reverberations and ripples throughout the entire campaign, and we have a faction tracker, and a fame tracker, that allows the GM two very quickly and concisely because again, we are also professional GM. So we know things need to be organised very, very quickly and easily for quick reference. Otherwise, it gets too too complicated to be able to help the GM make mark of what the players have chosen and how that should affect the overall campaign. And then how other factions should react to them how the environment should react to them, whether they are famous or infamous as well, this they could become an infamous group. And that's totally fine. And yeah, so I could go on and on and on and talk about this forever. But we're excited for people to play it themselves. Yeah.
Snyders Return:What Yeah, and and I'm excited for to get the chance to play yourself, along with other people. So if people and I'm sure I can hear a stampede across the internet to get going back this, which I highly recommend people do, what sort of tears? What sort of things can they get for backing your your incredible project? Yeah,
Satine Phoenix:we're really excited about this. So when we were developing this as a team, it's like, oh, we can make a book. Oh, we should also have a PDF. You know, what people are playing virtually we should also have multiple v TTS virtual tabletops. And also what what do we love, we're collectors, you can see the audience camp. But this is one of our libraries. We have a lot.
Jamison Stone:So but a bunch of nerdy stuff.
Satine Phoenix:You can't even see what's on the show is a bunch of so we wanted like, Okay, what do we really want? Well, I want a game screen. Because I need a GM screen that makes sense to me. I've got over a dozen Game Master screens that don't make any sense to me, because why would you have this in it and not have this in it? And so we're designing a game master screen. You know, I've had a lot of worked with Wormwood and level up dice and campaign coins before and so as Jamison, so we're like, well, let's just do get all the things and put them in to this campaign. so other people can get the same experience that we want to have when we're gaming to the point of you know, you can we have awesome minis that are fully printed and have translucence. In that fully coloured and translucent. I don't even understand how mixed dimensions does that we have two different add ons that are Wormwood and one is a more affordable one. That's cherry and then we have the superset team Deluxe luxurious ridiculous is the Purple Heart with a brass inlay. And we have a master vault that has a brand new design to hold our very special dice, which I'll explain in a moment. We also have the personal trays, they printed in full colour and these personal trays, the city of sell Vata and then we're you know, we've got a daughter, so we're both into puns and dad jokes. So we're really excited to roll into the city with our friends by literally rolling
Jamison Stone:into the dice tray.
Satine Phoenix:Yeah. So we've got level up dice as a partner and we have these beautifully, beautiful, elegant dice. We've got the hard edge polyhedral that are clear with white wisps and gold that also mimics the design of our city. And then we have these really custom ones that nobody's ever done before and I'm so proud of them. I think they're getting shipped here right now so I'll be able to show them online next week. But you can see images of them on our Kickstarter there. loot D for skewed books for the D six a microphone for the D 20. For your mic drop, you've got the ink pen and ink well for the percentile. So you know exactly Oh, there's, there's my 10s you pick them up, you roll them and, and they're shaped based on the level ups unicorn dice design, which actually roll because they're tapered, they roll in a circle, and then they stop. It's remarkable. So because those are uniquely shaped, we have them in resin and an aluminium for the Super gold, you know, aluminium gold collector, that we have the made the dice holders be able to fit the minis, the very uniquely shaped dice, and our campaign coins. And then to level it up even more, we have siren scape with a full soundtrack like we already actually have a full orchestral soundtrack. And on top of that siren scape has music for every level with sound effects for the chapters. And we're recording audio of our characters so that, you know if you're playing with your friends, and you know, you can read the box text or you push the button. So we have that we've got different tiers that are groups of things. So you can get the book Standard Edition, you can get the special edition, which is this hammered metal x tungsten with foil print where we love it so much. It's just so elegant, thank you. And also I'm in magenta and gold on the covers. And that makes me feel really good. And then the special edition, I'm sorry, the the limited edition is a slipcase with cell Vata on it. And then the game master screen and the book go in there. And I also sign those. And in each one of these tiers, you can get the PDF and the map pack as well. We have an awesome Map Maker called that bar there have another Bard in our group. And they're putting together really, really cool maps that are unique and kind of I don't know how they can translate the weird encounters that we come up with. But they really do and it's awesome. And we also have two tiers that are if you want to be all the way involved, I mean, like all the way involved if you want to NPC in this game, there's a tier for that it's near the bottom, if you scroll down on the tears, and we do art for them.
Jamison Stone:Yeah, so this, this was something that we did for the read opera that people really, really love. Yeah. And so people could either in the read up or create a patron or create your actual character in the world. And so we brought it back for sirens, Battle of bards. And we also now we're including people that want to have their own side quest. And so that's another tip. Yep. And that's that's that's the other tier and so these are for people who either want to immortalise their characters or immortalised
Satine Phoenix:their adventuring
Jamison Stone:group. That's what we had someone do for the read opera Warlock Book Day, we had a GM that actually brought in their characters and had a story referencing the exploits of their characters in the actual book. And they then had that as a surprise for their players. So when they actually encountered it, they will then you know, they then were surprised, like oh my gosh, we're in this campaign, like our actual carrier here. And so we're really excited to do that again, with sirens. Yeah, for people who just really want to be part of the project.
Satine Phoenix:It's really interesting. So recently, Kickstarter did something new which is you can do add ons inside of your Kickstarter campaign. Previously, there were tears and then you had to wait till backer kit in order to add on all the goodies. But now we have a tear. If you want to do all Ella car and you just want to pick and choose the things that you want. You go to that $1 tear as a second one down, click that and you can just pick and choose wait.
Jamison Stone:Folks just want to pick up a copy of the transportation dice the special bardic dice. I know that there are some people that just you know just like to click dice. Yeah, we were minis Yeah, we're minis and we want them to be able to have the option of just you know, grabbing what they want. Yeah, yeah. And for people who want to maybe try something else, again, as you mentioned, to having the free PDF so people can literally try our first adventure. If people have never used siren scape before we have a free you know, the free first chapter, first sound pack of siren scape. And if they've never tried to VTT before, we have the shard tabletop and Foundry VTT, both for free as well for the first first chapter in introductory Yeah, I guess
Satine Phoenix:we actually have tears that are VTC tears. So they're all individual. We have foundry VTT shard fantasy grounds and roll 20
Jamison Stone:Yeah, yeah, it's fine. I'm working with them now our creative team, by giving them the assets they need to actually build out the whole campaign. It's really fun to be able to offer people, you know, our story and our setting, you know, on the preferred platform that they like, we don't want to tell people how to play but really meet them where they're at. So they can you know, enjoy your entire material. We're just We're gamers to so we just want to share stuff with fellow gamers. Yeah, absolutely.
Snyders Return:And you mentioned their creative team, and you brought in some exceptional creative writers to help you on this project. And they're still question marks on a few of the boxes, like bringing these these creative writers in to help.
Satine Phoenix:Oh, it's really awesome. So many of these actually, I think all of them are close friends of mine, and I've known them for years. They're all amazing game masters and writers. And this is just another way to hang out. You know, and having them as a part of it getting to showcase their creativity with the world. You know, some of these folks are their actors and streamers, but nobody's seen them make adventures before but I've played in adventures that they've written. So this is just artists lifting up artists.
Jamison Stone:Yeah, it's really awesome press we basically get to kind of set the framework or you know, set the playground of the sandbox for them. And then they get to build within that you know, something that is absolutely beautiful. And it's a real honour and we're working with you know, people who have made really
Satine Phoenix:Keith Baker Hebron, which is my favourite. Until now, because this is you know, we get to create our dream setting. Oh, yep.
Jamison Stone:Yeah, for me to you know, to be able to work with Keith Baker, and you know, it, it's, it's just an honour. So it's, it's, it's gonna be nice to feel good. Okay, Keith, what do you want to do?
Snyders Return:is amazing. And I meant to mention when you mentioned that the rolling into town, if people do want to see them in action, your Instagram has a fantastic video presented them as they come out of the box. They look amazing. From Wormwood. Amazing I think you're you're so busy with charitable work this Kickstarter, you're streaming, what does it YouTube? How do you relax with
Satine Phoenix:talk about what's in between all the things that we will we work out, we work out a lot. And you know, the Kickstarter has us not working out as much, but that is our Hangout time. And now during quarantine, like we've done date nights where we just work out extra in the gym and hang out and we'd be dance while we're working out. We're kind of a spectacle and just as a couple. And we have a hot tub there is that as well.
Jamison Stone:Yeah, so we hang out in the hot tub. I look forward to it again. We live now in Boulder County in Colorado, so I mean, avid hiker and camper, and we've not had time to do that. And it's finally spring now so it's gonna be fantastic. actually get outside leaver
Satine Phoenix:from LA and I'm just outside all the time every day go walking for a couple hours since we moved here in December. He's like spring is going to be great. This is going to be awesome because I love going out into the mountains. And I see that Yeah, I see out the window. And I'm like, honey, when is it going to stop being winter? When can we goes Oh, it's like next week and then all of a sudden snow
Jamison Stone:it is spring now though. There's there's flowers and birds. We just can't enjoy it yet. Because we're working so much. Yeah. Soon. So
Satine Phoenix:the Kickstarter ends on my birthday. And that's going to be a big event. And it's going to be like 50 people involved in this event. And then my birthday present is I want to go camping. So elves in the forest. That's all I want. I want my husband to wear some elf ears and I want to go hiking for like three days.
Snyders Return:Sounds it sounds amazing. And I really appreciate you one sharing that that sort of rather intimate wish for your birthday. Happy birthday in advance because and sort of sharing the spoken a lot about the Kickstarter and all the amazing work of charity based and your personal projects. Is there anything we haven't mentioned just yet that you would like to, to sort of bring to the fore and highlight?
Satine Phoenix:Yeah, you know, convention season's coming up. And we're really excited to be doing stuff. I know that we're scheduled to do d&d in a castle and so if you know anyone wants to do d&d Castle reach out to us and we'll be able to give information on that. I'm excited to be showing Jamison all the the cool stuff in Europe and just travelling again. I know that we're going to a couple conventions. We have a an apotheosis studios team meeting about convention soon. So I don't want to say which ones are definitely going to. But we want to, we want to welcome everybody and this you know, I've been doing this live show for four years. And getting together we're like, let's just make a book that's kind of has that good feeling and everything I do, I try to be uplifting. I want to showcase people working together and cooperating and not just carrot people playing at a table with their character sheet in front of their face, but really reacting to one another and going through an adventure and overcoming obstacles and coming out on the other side holding each other's hands. So that is what This book is to us. And hopefully we'll be able to travel and run game so that other people can play in this world and play in a very uplifting, you know, an uplifting campaign. That said, I really mean Dungeon Master. We play couples d&d. I'm the dungeon master and he's like, why are you doing this to me? Once you get over these obstacles, it's really hard and the fights are so hard, but it's going to be so much fun, then you're going to get to level five Honey, I believe.
Jamison Stone:That was the thing I was I was gonna add, it's been really fantastic for us actually to be on Twitch. And again, we're streaming now I think nearly four nights a week. And two of them are relatively casual. When we're playing baldurs Gate three which is obviously a video game by Laura lert Laurie Larian Studios they've done so I'm a huge gamer I love games. They've done such an amazing job. I I believe Divinity Original divinity The first one was a Kickstarter project made? I think so I don't quote me on I, I think I think it was and then I don't know if Divinity Original Sin The second one was or not, I think they no longer utilise Kickstarter for that. If I'm remembering correctly, it might not be. Regardless, they've done a fantastic job. And it's been really awesome for us to actually to play that video game and have it be set with fifth edition, the fifth edition rule sets and to be able to have the chat in and actually help us play the game. So they've integrated twitch in such a way that people can help us select the dialogue options, and which is so fantastic. So we basically had to play video games with like 2000 of our best friends. Really fun. And so that's that's a real real joy and pleasure. And so if people like literally want to come and hang out play video games with us, that's on Monday nights on city, Phoenix is twitch channel. And then on Tuesdays, we play a couple of d&d, and it's a really great way. A lot of times when I play d&d, I'm like, super serious and really in it, but when it's just 16, and I and all of our, you know, twitch friends were like metagaming,
Satine Phoenix:our meta games so hard. And that's my number one roll with all my other tables is Don't you dare Medicare. And he's got rerolls from what
Jamison Stone:I know. So we're doing rerolls I'm doing all sorts of crazy stuff that you can never really get away with. Because we have these rerolls. But it's really just a fun. Like, I don't want to say casual because it's not casual. But it's a very fun experience. It's a community based experience. And I look forward to it. Honestly, I've
Satine Phoenix:actually talked to the chat.
Jamison Stone:Yeah, we just hang out with the chat, which is really funny. Because we work we work so hard. We work so many hours it is it's it's I think a lot of people don't necessarily know they don't see that the back end, but like we're just kind of all we do. And so this is our time to relax and we happen to also be relaxing with our friends online. Yeah.
Satine Phoenix:And so for not doing that we have we both have discords that are now linked together. I think so apotheosis studios discord and gilding light Discord. We have an affiliate affiliate.
Jamison Stone:Yeah. Between the two disparate, yeah squirts and have to
Satine Phoenix:Yeah. And it's fun. Because they're two, they're totally different. But they have the all the same people.
Satine/Jamison:A lot of the same people. Yes, yeah.
Satine Phoenix:So they go back and forth. Like, oh, they want this experience and building like they want this experience over on apotheosis. But, you know, that is another way for us to relax. It's we go and hang out with everyone. We go to the different channels, we like chat people up, and we share memes. And it's like, we've built our own game store. Virtually.
Jamison Stone:Yeah, I remember being a gamer in junior high in high school. And it was like really not cool to be a gamer. And it didn't matter what type of games you know, if you play ttrpg didn't matter if you play video games didn't matter. And so my group of friends we were gamers is all I did was gaming, martial arts. That was it. And it's so cool now to be able to kind of reset the stage and allow that to be a good positive thing and no longer frowned upon.
Satine Phoenix:You are my dream nerd. nerd, I've always wanted to hang out with martial artists gamer. Yeah, I'm glad
Jamison Stone:to meet you. So we get to share that with other people, which is a lot of fun. Yeah, it's a it's an honour honestly, for me to be able to create an environment for other gamers to come together and hang out and spend time.
Snyders Return:You touched on it, though, we haven't really sort of dove into it. Would you mind giving a brief insight into what gilding light is and who it's for?
Satine Phoenix:Yeah. So I wanted to create a production company that showcases the community. You know, Geek and Sundry was awesome. That was really, really fun. But they don't they have very specific shows. And they couldn't allow just anybody to be a part of it. So that you know, there was this very small crew of actors that we all worked on each other's projects. And I was like, Okay, what if it was something like Geek and Sundry and also a cable access? I am so blessed that Geek and Sundry let me do my own show. And it really helped my career. So that's basically what I did with gilding light gold. Light is now completely run by the community, our discord community. And you can go to guilding light.tv. You know, we're doing this Kickstarter, and they have created I think there's eight shows every week now. And I just love seeing them all the dungeon masters, there's a character creation show on Fridays at like 10am with Lucas. And it's to me all the content is so unique, and I think six of them are is called the road to battle of the bards. And so they've created like a series of shows, showcasing different the different ways the people in our community are bars or have bars in their game or have music theme or what is so everything is so different. And it all leads up to the May 22, big event. And the day before May 21. They're actually doing something like what we're doing, which is, each show is going to be running a game that day in different time slots. I am so proud of them. And you get to see it, you get to see people who, you know, they've always dreamed about dungeon mastering or they always dreamed about playing in a live game. And this is their chance to get to do it. nobody's saying no. And so you know, as long as you can show up regularly, as long as you are a team player, and you actually want to be a part of the community. And you're not like some people come in like, yeah, I want to show it's like, but do you love the community? Are you a part of this, and they're like, Oh, those people get weeded out pretty fast. And you know, that's not what we built in this community. But you get to see it on stream. Everybody loves working together, they're proud of each other, they lift each other up. And it's everything that it just makes my heart so big, because I don't want it to be the sateen show. There's, it's this is like the charity part of me. It's always about them. Even sirens I'm the dungeon master, but it's about the sirens. It's about their the wild exploits. And so this is a more meta, I feel like I've gained mastered a production company. You know, and the our team Grey Ghost girl dc lasserre ash Benson and Calamity Jane they are. And also Diana, who is a graphic designer for both of our companies. They are like the masterminds behind the web that is gilding light, and I hope everybody likes so we actually have you might know him from Gen Con But Peter Atkinson with his company called data, they have a show on building light called actor okie. And it's like this massive production that he's made where they have actors like they do, they run a game, and then they script it. And then they have an another day that is him going through as a director with different actors who are going off of that script. And then the third week is actors acting out the roles and making a film out of it. It's so wild and beautiful and unique. And the cool thing about this that you don't get on places like you can sundry is, you know, they're always looking at numbers they're looking at like we need, we can only do stuff that's gonna make us a whole lot of money. It's like, but what about all the creative things that happen when people get to do what they want? And maybe it doesn't work, and maybe it does work, but they need to be able to practice and try. Because, you know, my first graphic novel, I did three graphic novels. The very first one, I did the whole thing, and I trashed it, and it started over. And but you need to be able to have that okayness like, Alright, I tried this season one was okay, how can I learn from this. And by allowing people to do that, you get to see how they become better. And they're all so they're so encouraging of one another, we actually have a discord chat with all the game masters, and they are just so excited to talk to each other. It's very fulfilling for me.
Jamison Stone:Yeah, it's a great community, it gives us an opportunity to I think a lot of these shows if they did their own independent twitch channel, they wouldn't really have any exposure. And so people can kind of come into it knowing Hey, this is you know, maybe a new show and it's not new, totally polished yet, like many shows are even I remember the first season of my favourite show of all time of Star Trek The Next Generation, you go back and rewatch Season One of that. It's like, like, Oh, God. It's just it's kind of rough. But then obviously, as the seasons progress, it's my favourite show of all time. And it's funny watching Season One of that but to have a following of people already who are fans of killing light to then get excited about a new show and then also give feedback to that show so they can help grow and evolve. And then sometimes people say hey, you know, that show was fun. We were gonna try something else and then they use that time slot for it. Different thing, and the time slots don't ever conflict with each other. And so you can always add more to different time slot, I think is a really wonderful way to build a community. So, yeah, again, we're just really proud of everybody there.
Snyders Return:Absolutely. So, you know, from from progression and building and discoverability loop back to, to where people can discover you and your content, please.
Satine Phoenix:Yeah, so I'm all over the internet as at sateen Phoenix on sateen, Phoenix calm and my professional Dungeon Master, I'm a story coach, a live streamer. I'm an actress, or a comic book, Illustrator and author. And I'm like, everywhere that there's anything to do with Dungeons and Dragons. And of course, the Bard book, calm, everything's pointing at the Bard book, calm. This is where our heart lives. We're getting to put everything that we've dreamed about all my 33 years of gaming experience, putting it all the way into this book. So definitely go to the BB book calm.
Jamison Stone:Yeah. Again, my name is Jamison stone. You can find me on the Internet at stone Jamison. The best way though, to find about where my content is apotheosis studios.com. And that's our studio. We have a large team there. David green chose our art director, Rick Hein is our is our writing director. We have a bunch of other team members and so all of the works there other than Rooney dependents, which is the fantasy novel that I wrote myself, everything else there has been a collaborative project of all of our artists. Again if you really enjoy warlocks or Warlock campaign setting book is the read opera you go to the read opera calm and if you like, near future sci fi graphic novels the last Amazon is where to go for that so the last name is on.com
Satine Phoenix:Yeah, my my books are on there too.
Snyders Return:Yeah, I
Satine Phoenix:think that's the only place you can get a couple of my books
Jamison Stone:and all of your books are available there too at apotheosis calm
Satine Phoenix:Yeah, we merged it feels so good.
Snyders Return:exclusivity
Jamison Stone:Yeah, absolutely. And again, right now the Bard book calm that is the that is the the book of the hour and so the shining beacon Exactly.
Satine Phoenix:Technically this like this this whole project is we're workaholics Of course in the best way. And this is kind of our wedding present to each other it's let's make something awesome. Yep. And then share it with other people. Yeah, exactly. And get our friends to be aware of it
Jamison Stone:and shared for free that was that was a really important thing for me and we did it for read opera too but i i i as a gamer i can i always use myself as my own best to target target potential target audience member of like Okay, do I like this? Would I buy this? And for someone who may be you know, isn't super wild about bards or warlocks? We're not really sure. I really hate here's a free sample you can check it out run the first adventure or even just read through it see if it's interesting. And you know, when people read through that first adventure of sirens battle birds, they will very clearly understand You do not have to be a bard to enjoy this is epic is epic, AF
Satine Phoenix:and I'm a mean Dungeon Master.
Jamison Stone:So the campaign that the city and I co wrote for the red opera is called tentacles in the deepest the epilogue for the red opera, and it kind of pays pays his homage to how city and I met on the live stream show of red.
Satine Phoenix:She met on his Kickstarter
Jamison Stone:on my last Kickstarter on on our show, which was really funny. And so we co wrote a we covered an adventure in the epilogue, and it is it's, I think, the most challenging the most challenging epic encounter Haha, there's multiple stages of this, you're fighting this absolute, I don't want to give it away cuz people who enjoy the read out but they got to go, they got to go check it out. But it weaves in vydra weaves into a lesser degree, a character that we all know it's called the mother of mirrors that's based off as a teen and also ties into Vanya, to I don't want to give any spoilers but and then ties in characters for bringing the apprentice my first fantasy novel. It's just fun. We again, this is this is the stuff we make the things that we enjoy. And knowing that as gamers, other gamers will enjoy them too.
Snyders Return:This has so many levels wedding gift birthday celebration happening in the Colorado. I will make sure that our links in the description of the podcast below. So if you haven't done already, please scroll down and click those links and go and support this. Not just supported back it. This Kickstarter from these amazing traitors. Thank you both so much, certina. And yourself Jamison for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure learning more about the Kickstarter, and about yourselves. Thank Yeah, it's
Jamison Stone:a pleasure to be here. Yeah. It's always super fun to hang out and chat and talk and connect. And yeah, and
Satine/Jamison:you're wonderful. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Snyders Return:Thank you. Well, just a guy with a microphone. But I'd love to have you back on the show. Once you've got back from camping and maybe in the future when you're not. Yeah, just busy. But yeah, I'd love to invite invite you back for another interview or other opportunities, if you
Satine/Jamison:absolutely, absolutely consider done.
Snyders Return:I will get in contact with her. She has been phenomenal. A nice shout out to ash Benson who has helped facilitate all of this wonderful person.
Satine/Jamison:Yeah, she's superhero.
Snyders Return:She asked me if this is true. So I terribly close the interviews, but it's been an absolute pleasure. And we will speak again. Thank you so much.
Satine/Jamison:Thank you. Bye, everybody.
Snyders Return:Thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to WWW dot Snyder's 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 out for for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you