Interview - Naomi Clarke / Michael Ireland - The Secret of St. Kilda - Audio Drama

Today I talk with creators from the TTRPG Family who have come together to make the Audio Drama 'The Secret of St. Kilda' - Writer, Naomi Clarke and Director, Michael Ireland.

We discuss TTRPG projects, collaboration, the legend, lore and setting of St. Kilda, Kickstarter and much more.

You can find Naomi Clarke, Michael Ireland and all of their content via the links below.

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TheKilda
https://twitter.com/Naomithinksit
https://twitter.com/MickallisterYT
https://twitter.com/Power_Word_Roll
https://twitter.com/HaggisDragons

Website:
https://t.co/RFCS9WsOa4?amp=1

https://leisuregames.com/products/primetime-adventures-3e

Please leave reviews on ITunes to help us to learn and grow as a Podcast

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

~~~~~~~~~~

CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Naomi Clarke / Michael Ireland

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Edited by: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

~~~~~~~~~~

Website:
https://linktr.ee/snydersreturn
http://snydersreturn.squarespace.com

Buy us a TTRPG Source Book: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SnydersReturn

Support the podcast by joining our Patreon community where you'll gain access several hours of bonus episodes. At the "Celestial” tier you have the opportunity to submit NPC names and items to be used in the game!

Visit https://www.patreon.com/snyders_return?fan_landing=true

Are you on DISCORD? Come hang out in our server! https://discord.gg/QgU5UNf Join us in the Snyder’s Return Facebook Group!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Social Media:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ReturnSnyder

Instagram -  Snyder's Return (@snyders_return)

Email - snydersreturn@gmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

Snyders Return: 0:26

Hello, and welcome to snows return a tabletop role play podcast. Today we travel not to a fantasy or futuristic land, but to a place of isolation of ruins in history. Our journey takes us west northwest to an island on the very fringe of a nation's reach. What is to be found there will put your unease Have you searching for answers and unearthing secrets. Far beyond the Mainland's dragons and haggis running wild lies a drama about to be kickstarted into action. More than just powerful words are needed to escape your demons. But here to guide us through the Herta is ttrpg podcaster, writer of the secret of St. Kilda Naomi Clark, and the director Michael island of haggis and dragons productions. Welcome you both to the show.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:15

Hey, that was so good. I enjoyed your interview

Snyders Return: 1:20

all over yet.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:22

I apologise.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:24

That's all good. Yeah, that was nice. That was nice. Nice. Nice, right? Something like that. I mean, days just going over the paragraph, like how do we promote this? But no, that's really nice. Thank you very much.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:38

It's nice to be on.

Snyders Return: 1:39

Well, it's a pleasure to have you both especially the creative influences from both the the writing and the directorial side of things. Before we get into the success of St Kilda and your other projects. How did you guys meet? And how did you get into sort of podcasting and audio dramas? and so on and so forth?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:57

Um, well, I think that Max should probably tell his experience of meeting me and everyone else, cuz he kind of did it all in one fell swoop.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 2:07

Yeah. Okay, I can do that. And then we can just leave on to Naomi. So yeah, so this started from for me, and with the the tabletop aspect. For me, it started back in 2019. We're going to run a DND 5g campaign for the first time, myself and Paddy, the, the business manager of haggis and dragons. What we then decided to do is make a podcast around our 5g experience, the first time I've ever played 5g as well. And so I was like, I want to make this an experience. I was like, Yes, I can be a player. But I cannot help myself. But I want to do the sound design for things as well. So we had our players who are a bit hesitant gone, don't really I just want to play just want to play some some d&d man, like, don't put a microphone in my face. They've got over that now. They're happy to go along with it. But we picked up a fair bit of traction on our on off on our release back in October 2019. And decided from that point is that we wanted to kind of, you know, mingle with the people who have been listening to the show. So there was a pod, UK, I don't know if you've heard of it, but it has a lot of table top aspects to it, as well as audio fiction. So we, we signed up to go along for that we bought tickets and but my experiences in like television, and you know, just just doing creative things. So I'd message the organisers to go. I've I've done interviews at a lot of conventions before, I'm happy to do the interviews for this to help a you know, elevate this. So, got a press badge for that. And one of the one of the suckers on the table is Naomi here. And yeah, the first time we met Naomi, is we were interviewing for the convention. And yeah, that's that's how we kind of got into it. And I'll go a little bit further on that. About what else happened that pod, UK 2020. But that was February last year, right before all the good stuff happened at panorama. And yeah, that's how we met Naomi. That was our first interaction shoving a microphone on her face and saying, what do you do? What do you do? Tell me about your thing. So tell us about your thing. Naomi, with the points in your face.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 4:47

So I started playing RPGs I think just as I started university, I my family is is quite sort of creative. My mother's an artist, my great father likes to create tiny cartoons. And so we used to do sort of imagination games at the table as a sort of weird as that sounds. So I think that like RPGs was always something I was like I can, I can get into that. So I saw playing. And then when I moved to the UK, I was looking for like more people to play with. They went along to a cafe in Greenwich where someone's hosting a public game. And the game was okay, like it was all right. And then a lot of people got sick. This is pretty pretty. The panoramic. And so there was just the the four of us at the table, and we finished a session we were like, wow, that was like really good. We should. She's just playing with us. Maybe we don't, maybe we won't play with these other people again, but this was really good. And Conrad, who's a DM used to work in university radio. And I, I did like short films and that sort of thing beforehand. So I've always felt really strongly about like, good edited content. And I love audio as a medium of I'm a big podcast fan anyway. So when we decided, let's see if we can make this a podcast, we decided to edit it, and then create sort of like the radio play format. And then that sort of led, I think, to actually being able to do the script writing in the thing that we've created. So from being a point, turning two hours into, like, 230 minute episodes, has really taught me I know to like, create story from what is available. And then when I met Nick, it was when was it after that, that you got in touch with me? So I basically, I got, I got this is the like backstory, I got long COVID and I was very, very unwell. And I was like, I'm so bored. I'm in my bed. I can't do anything. I'm so bored. And I was like, I love to write a script. I've never done that before, but I can read the script. And so it's just literally like, is anyone on Twitter writing scripts that I can like learn from? and Mick just literally called me up?

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 7:05

Yeah, yeah, we had the idea for the secret of St. Kilda wasn't called by then didn't have a name. But yeah, we were we were writing a script. And I am the first to say that, even though I do a lot of creative work, I am not a writer. There's a lot of people who've tried to put all the eggs in that one basket to say I do this, and I do this, and I do this. I can do things. But I would not call myself a writer. So when Naomi was looking, I was just like, I've got an idea. You can give it a go. You know, let's, let's see what happens. So that's how it kind of started and that was September last year that we that we brought her on. So

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 7:50

then it was like a lot of late night discord calls. And very quickly, we had our first episode we were like, Hmm, this might be actually good. This might be good. Should we should do something with this? Yeah, you go.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 8:07

I was saying the idea was to create it as an audio fiction because but gone back to pod UK as well is that the other people that we interviewed, there were Alex Newell of rusty quill, who, you know, started from the Magnus archives and, you know, built the company around audio fiction. We spoke with Casey weyland, who has been doing audio fiction for the last 10 years with were alive. We had like these really in depth conversations about the creative aspects that go around the audio drama, rather than just the tabletop aspects so we we've we've explored the tabletop and it's a great thing for us to do but it's one of the things that we can go yes that's that's ours, but also for me to take off the creative need in terms of the given myself something with a bit of punch on there. That's not just a live recording. So we interviewed Alan virgin with the Amelia project, who's our lead and this. We also interviewed Alastair Stewart and Margaret Kenner Allister plays on the Rita. We've, yeah, we interviewed pretty much everyone that we could, at that the event, got a lot of knowledge from them and decided that I think we set up the company Two weeks later, after pod UK and so the the idea came from Ross, one of the players because haggis and dragons is like five of those guys at that point, and yeah, we'd always just kind of bounce ideas off each other and evolve them as much as we could. So when the secret St Kilda came about myself Ross where we'll look into a cult indoctrination and magical abilities. And we combine that with, we've got a The idea here and we had a premise of, of all the steps, we wanted to go through the whole series. So we had all the beats ready to go. We just didn't have any, any of the juice any of the, what would you call it Naomi?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 10:25

missing the vibes, the vibe.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 10:30

So we had the basis there, but that was all, you know, right before the pandemic. And then obviously, when the pandemic hit a lot of people, well, even ourselves, we kind of just recluse for a couple of months to try and understand what was going on. Because we couldn't meet up and do our RPG podcasts. And so there was a lot of things that we've done like streams and things like that. Don't was that the same for yourself, Naomi, how did you do? After that point?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 11:02

We we did it online for a wee while. So we did like it through Discord. But then basically, the entire cast fled home. So we had someone in Yorkshire, someone in Cambridge, and someone like him, sorry. And it got to the point where I was like, this is really it's, it's actually quite difficult to do this from a distance. So I think we basically were like, okay, we'll put it on hold. And then when we're ready, it's still there, and we can come back to it. So yeah,

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 11:33

the exact same for us. So I think that, I think that kind of helped with what we're doing here.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 11:42

We had a creative gap, and we were like, We shall immediately fill it with something else.

Snyders Return: 11:49

Here's an opportunity.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 11:50

Yeah. And I felt that we were able to take that opportunity as much as we could, because that was like September, so it was a good six months from when shit went down, or you don't like sweat. And so when things went down. And yeah, we just took it from there, because it was a couple of Airlie scripts that are still there. But it was like, very slow paced. And Naomi was like, I need that faster. I need a quicker

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 12:22

Well, it's very easy to look at someone else's script and be like, I'm wrong. So that was my job was coming in and be like, I don't, I didn't care about this. I want it. I want it more different and better. And with less. So yeah, we really sort of drove up a gear I think.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 12:39

Yeah, yeah, we we really punched it up because it was the beats from pretty much from inception, the beats are pretty much still there.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 12:50

But the characters have aggressively changed. There's more

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 12:53

characters did the characters have been put in there all human? Which is just bizarre, because like, I find reading scripts for me, it's been an issue in the past because everything's kind of fake. And that way, you know, I mean, like, it's just like, there's a forced conversation and doesn't have any meaning. And but with Naomi scripts, like everyone was human, everyone had to wait one dimensional, it was just everything was coming together. I was like, actually like these people that you're writing. So like, What is going on?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 13:29

They've got to the point where we, where we feel so strongly about the characters, like our cast keeps making like little little private, like fiction and had come about them. So you know, we've had discussions about what does each character drive and everyone's like, Oh, I know exactly what this character would drive. Oh, I know exactly what this character would drink. Oh, I know exactly what all this character would order at restaurant, which is really fun. It's I think we've we've done really well, because our cast is so invested. We've got quite lucky that they're all BFFs. And they're desperately competitive, which is, which is great. We started off trying to get people to schedule in recordings. And all we had to do is be like, the doodle is up. The first one to sign to fill it in is my favourite and then suddenly, it was like, the fastest I've ever had anything organised. It's like 10 minutes, and everybody's filled that in.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 14:16

That's amazing. Yeah. past of what, like 1520 people. Yeah, that's

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 14:21

26 parts total. Yeah.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 14:24

So there's a fair amount of people in for us to schedule a majority of those in just based on competition. Fantastic. And it's like it's not even like UK based. Like, we've got it literally every corner of the world. Yeah,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 14:39

so I mainly lives in Austria, no, Vienna, Vienna specifically. And then you guys are obviously in Scotland. I live in London. And we've got Sam who's joining us from Kuala Lumpur. And we've got

Unknown: 14:56

the Mila

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 14:57

Danilo from Brazil. So it's And my dad my dad asked her apart so he's like five lines from New Zealand you

Snyders Return: 15:06

don't make him audition

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 15:07

no no he was I told him about the thing that we're making he's like great so so what's my part and he went and bought Mike he's got a better mic than me he went and bought a mic and I was like okay I better find you I bought their way it works just fine

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 15:25

but yeah it's it's sorry one no no keep going I'll just say it's really nice to have like you know everyone all over the world but like we come together like as a family essentially like a coat on the on the discord where it's just like everyone does feel welcomed which is really really nice because it's our first project and we want to make sure that everyone does feel happy and welcome and open and you know and that's

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 15:53

been fun it's not been it's not been no work and no play it's there's been a lot of a lot of jokes and people I've really enjoyed I think getting to know each other and also it's really it's really good for everyone to know each other because then they also all get more work. So it's been a really like strong networking position of all of them as well.

Snyders Return: 16:11

That's amazing and pausing on your point about everybody getting to know each other before we get too much further in where can people find each of you and what you're associated with outside of this project, please

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 16:23

Okay, so I am at Naomi thinks that on Twitter and pretty much everywhere else on the internet and Clark is not a very good level surname fortune I'm deeply grateful. I'm also involved in power draw which is at power underscore word underscore role, which is a TT RPG podcast, and I do some charity work with gender and RPGs at an MD London MC, take it away.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 16:47

Thanks. A lot of my stuff is based on the haggis from Dragon so I utilise Twitter mostly which is just at haggis and dragons I've got my own one which is macalister white tea and at the kilda for the St Kilda related things so that's that's what I utilise most of my social media don't really use Facebook or all the other all the other good ones

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 17:14

he's you know he's he's too old now. He's too old to be on the social medias. We do have an app or killed of tik tok but as yet we've all been too afraid to actually like do any dances and get on it so we're just just not cool enough yet.

Snyders Return: 17:31

I doubt that but I mentioned the discord is is your community going to have a public discord group or is that just for your performance and your your team

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 17:41

docs so we have a discord but if you want access to the discord you're going to have to support us because we because discord can be such a positive space when used properly and it can be quite negative space when people want to make it a negative space we kind of made the decision that we wanted to make a only the faithful discord for people who back the Kickstarter and then Patreon subscribers to basically keep that really fun and really enjoyable. And we're talking about doing a weekly q&a on there with the cast which is gonna be really fun. So

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 18:18

yeah, it's not released yet we're still trying to make that and especially with asuran that you know it's a safe space for everyone. We're making sure that all of our policies are all up to date and ready to go and we've got the the moderators ready

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 18:35

as being good creators Yeah. So much as we can Yeah, so we just want to make sure that the the by the time the sun's out this it will probably be open

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 18:47

yeah, hopefully so hopefully so and so it's something that will keep our eyes on but the discord that we've got is a at the moment for the for the cast and crew is all just workload stuff to make sure that the workload and

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 19:00

means there's a lot of things

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 19:05

so yeah, there will be a semi public con Yeah.

Snyders Return: 19:09

supporter public.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 19:11

Public Yeah. Yeah. Which

Snyders Return: 19:13

is which is great. And as you mentioned, you're doing a q&a Now you've gone into the the inception, the conception a little bit of the beats and and everything that the timeline effectively of the generation. One thing we we haven't actually got to yet is what is the secret of St Kilda? Not necessarily the revelation? What is the show you're making?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 19:37

So I just like to throw in a personal anecdote here. I have a friend who has now decided that what is the secret of St Kilda? The question is actually its own joke. And anytime that I say anything, she says is that the secret of St Kilda? So I we had her around for dinner and I think it was 12 times within like half an hour. So you know, that is the secret of St Kilda is there clarinets very very irritating. The show itself is a thrilling audio drama set in the island of St Kilda which is like a tiny island just off the coast of Scotland. It's hasn't been inhabited since like the 1930s it was kind of a crazy place to live it's got lots of weird history, but we kind of take the in an alternate timeline What if people never left because they knew something that the rest of the world did not and so we have a Alan plays the lovely Locky, who is a con man fleeing from his past and he meets a strange crew of weirdos that live on St Kilda and he deals with horror of not only deep dark secrets but also only having one shop

Snyders Return: 20:50

or the prices must be through the roof not not to dealing with with small island economy we'll put that to one side so with the the secret and and Lucky's internal struggles. Is this going to be sort of dark and moody as they're going to be times for liberty? What sort of what uh, what are you looking to bring us over the arc of the story?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 21:13

So I personally feel that you can't really do dark and terrible unless you like have those happy, like balanced moments. So there are some scenes which are so deathly funny that we have cried ourselves laughing but it is it is dark. It's not for babies. It's not for the faint of heart. It's definitely on that horror scale. But you'll laugh you'll cry it'll change your life It's wonderful.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 21:42

Yeah, I would say it was dark I think when I read the finale for season one I didn't talk to Naomi for like two days

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 21:52

yeah we had quite an interesting time of like watching our actors they were like yeah, I'll get to the script and they would read the last episode and then just be like this barrage of messages that we would get being like how could you so yeah, the there's a lot in there and I think each episode stands quite on its own with things happening in secret some folding and i think it's it's it's a mystery but it's also just about you know what it's like to live in a small town which is one of the horrors that I personally despise

Snyders Return: 22:26

there was more of that pre recording but we're not going back to that so with this you mentioned section there that you you know, the purview of wanderley wonderfully described what we can expect when when we go in and support the show by downloading it but but what about the support building up to where we are now that the Kickstarter, how is that been? troubled? That that support from the community it has

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 22:51

been kind of insane? Not gonna lie? Yeah, we were lucky. We have a we have a lovely young, she, they called Chloe, who basically turned up to us out of the blue, like a child on our doorstep at a nunnery and was like, I would like I would like to be involved in the thing. And we were like, okay, yeah, sure. You know, we're just like three guys, right? Like, we're not we're not fancy. But they've just been, like revolutionary in the research that they've been doing with us. And also all the basically all of the content so then they've been managing our social medias. And it's been really fun to kind of help other people discover the weirdness that isn't is St Kilda. And watch we will engage with it, and then make do on talk about the Kickstarter.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 23:41

Yeah. So the the Kickstarter was something that we, we, we knew that we were going to go down that route to start with, because we want to do to do it justice, because that the first thing that I said to the guys involved is that I'm aiming high, like, like, this is something that, you know, we could just do by ourselves, just friends reading it, but I was like, Nope, I want to make sure that the people that are one involved are going to be involved. So the Kickstarter was kind of was ready to go, essentially, from I think it was like February is when I really wanted to look at launch net, bought a LAN and more and more. We wanted to do it right. The thing that was all we kept coming back to was, we've got one shot to meet to do it, right. We can't, we can't play about here. So we've got a lot of research we've we actually brought in a Kickstarter consultants. That wasn't the intention. It was just, we'd already picked our sound engineer that we were going at. And he was like, oh, that they were there. They said that the thing that they do is they do a Kickstarter consultancy. I was like, right, we need to do for one. And so we organise that but like they talk us through how each step would work. work and what we need to do to prepare for it,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 25:02

and how to praise the algorithm as well. There's a lot of praise in the algorithm and Kickstarter work I'm not gonna lie.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 25:08

Yeah. And the yet that the biggest push forward is was a wonderful moment as well as hate month. And so we had like competition throughout the run up for the month before the Kickstarter goes live to pre launch. And it's where the all the cast or the crew could have a bit of fun. And talk about the characters talk about the show a little bit without giving any spoilers away. But just a lot of creation throughout Chicago wrote three songs in the space of a space of that month because his girlfriend was away. So he wrote three folk songs and

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 25:50

also wrote hundreds of hikers. Yeah, lots of people write limericks and like design secrets. And we wrote the cocktail recipes that we're putting out at the moment. Yes, it's been a lot of fun.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 26:03

Yeah. And then that led to the Kickstarter. So by the time that we done that hype month, the Kickstarter went live on the third of September. And by the next morning, it was already funded, fully funded. Which we did not expect. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay, this is nice. And yeah, it's just such a big praise from everyone involved in the power of marketing from from

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 26:31

the day I think that we we got lucky in that we have some really talented actors and because they, because they love the show, and they love each other. They're really involved in like promoting each other's stuff and like getting involved so when any, anyone makes a joke everyone else wants to jump on and like put the punch line in. So like weirdly enough, that's actually been the power of, of the, of getting the reach out. It's just having our own crew be so excited. And so invested, I offered I offered the price the person who did the best promotion. So obviously that competition immediately kicked in from people being like no, I don't know if I'll have time to do it. And then I was like, right, it's on it's on this wall. This is what I will tweet so hard.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 27:19

But I'm not saying as well none of it was mandatory. Like we said, Do what you feel like you can do if there's anything and they pulled out the bag it was phenomenal to

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 27:29

see everyone just got swept up in it really.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 27:31

Yeah, it was a really really good time. For that I was just so happy with how everyone a day put the effort in folders and it's worked out really well but it's still going just now probably not the time that that they say this gets aired but we want at least 150% of our original goal. So we've been able to get some a fee music commission as well we've been able to pay the actors more which is something that we really really wanted to do. But that Kickstarter has just been fantastic and yeah all the support from everyone we didn't realise this it had so many funds and Laura that I'm gonna say it's gone to the cast, the crew, especially Chloe as well Chloe has just been amazing.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 28:17

She's stellar, she were like this. We don't know what to do if if you hadn't been here we would have we would have never got this far you're our favourite intern she's not an intern she's been an intern but

Snyders Return: 28:32

you get the approximation. Just a short time of recording I think there were four days left of the Kickstarter for people to sort of jump in and support I'll tweet that out to make sure people come on and continue to support you until the Kickstarter closes but

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 28:47

great tweeting out already I have noticed I back

Snyders Return: 28:51

to two because I believe in it. So I'll just double down on how awesome you guys are as a whole team but so you've got approaching 300 backers, you're approaching eight and a half 1000 pounds. I'm not converting that to dollars. It's about 10 I think nine but there you go. So you know massive swell support the people. Are you able to do sort of late pledges or? Yes. Sorry, go on. Yeah,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 29:20

yeah, so we've got a ko fi that's up and running. And we've also got a Patreon. Both of those are at the kilda where you can pop as a wee bit of cash, and there is a store on the site that we'll have much when it is released. So there'll be plenty of ways to get in touch with us and support us. It really helps us continue to make the thing that we love.

Snyders Return: 29:40

So links to that Kickstarter might be too labour links to your website will be in the description below this podcast please scroll down, follow those links support these these wonderful individuals, their individual products and projects and this St Kilda as a sequence that killed a production as a whole please don't Good things can only come from this rewinding slash sidetracking slash tangent you mentioned each of your respective shows went on a bit of a hiatus. And within that hiatus you you filled the gap with this incredible project that we're discussing now. Are we expecting your projects to come back on line as it were, what's happening?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 30:22

We're currently recording we're recording our backlog at the moment and doing all the edits. So power word roll is back. I can reveal that it is going to be a homebrew, which is set in the land of sway via which as sort of is which as is likely to happen with Conrad is a deeply anthropological, heavily researched version of the Black Forest in Germany. So lots of spooky trolls. I'm currently playing an orc barbarian whose children keep getting eaten by wolves. The lovely Shogo from the podcast has come on to plate gorod of Iceman, who is a an airheaded, beautiful haired young man. And Henry is playing Samuel, who's like an old grizzled cleric from the order of the rose a secret society, and it's the end of the world. There's winter is being held back by a smote of magic, and it's always fall. And we have to save the world. Bah, bah, bah, bah.

Snyders Return: 31:26

A lot to unpack and look forward to there for sure.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 31:29

You can even catch

Snyders Return: 31:31

on No, it's all stay in. And that was amazing. What about yourself, Michael?

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 31:36

I don't know how I followed that. But uh, yeah, behaviours and dragons team. We've recorded about four episodes of Ford four nights worth of content, which in the same way, power withdrawal, which gets heavily edited down, so like, you never had a dice roll in our games.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 31:55

I sometimes keep the flavour but like, the max bet that people want people like, what's the d? 12? That goes, Yeah,

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 32:02

yeah. That that all goes. So our our content is well, half an hour for about a two hour session. And I think it seems with yourself now. We recorded four nights. But the issue was is that we record that in when there's a little break in the in the pandemic last summer. And then we don't want in January. And then we're done another one in July this year. So over the space of a year, we've we've got like, four recordings that we've got there. So that's still to get recorded, we just need to make sure that things are lining up. There's a lot of moving parts just now there's a lot of life stuff with Yeah, the lot of things that we need to kind of work around. But that doesn't have a timescale on what the secret of St Kilda things have just been pushed back a little bit and least until we can finish the recording process because we are in production at this point, going into post production. So there's a fair bit of work for myself, that still needs to be done at this point. So yeah, once that's done, and and things start moving up,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 33:14

then we'll start working on season two.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 33:17

Yep. I mean, yeah, it's gonna be like three years straight with this, but but like, obviously, the writing part is your best so I can start going on to

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 33:30

do stuff now. But now that we're in production, I'm just like, whoo, my job's done. I can do other things

Unknown: 33:37

now. ledro

Snyders Return: 33:38

Yeah. Extra Oh, yeah. That's like it.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 33:42

So let's see. It's our roles on defined by one thing. Our roles are so flexible, like, Naomi is also the scheduler for everyone and the assistant director. So like she does have roles during the recording.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 34:00

I like to just think of it as like friendly micromanaging that's that's like oh, that's my nose in where it does not belong. Yeah, that's a that's a give me like can I get away with saying this on this podcast or I'm gonna regret it later.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 34:19

That's the role of assistant director. I like it when you get to talk to all the cast as well because it just helps. So much having that that that friendliness to it. I can be all business sometimes. And Naomi's like I am too laid back for that.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 34:39

I think we had in our first episode where one of the classes running late, they'd go pick up someone from an airport midway through the recording so we had this like break and immediately we're like after Brexit you're only allowed four types of pastor which pastor do keep and everyone bonded over the fact of like which of the of the pastors is allowed? And does that mean flavours and then are you like which ravioli is the best? So yeah, my I have quite a different management style than Mac I would say, more carbohydrate based management style.

Snyders Return: 35:13

Okay. Maybe substitute. interesting use of word substitute carbohydrate for complimentary Srisailam. Yeah, met each other's management styles.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 35:24

We do, I think the benefit is, is that we're both night people. I am not a morning person. And we're both quite online. So it's good to be like, No, I'm having this thought. And it's like three in the morning and be like, I'll call MC. And just paste the room while I'm like, I don't I don't know if this character choices, right? Is this character choice, right? So we've had a lot of like late night conversations. And we have a lot of fun, and we work really well together. I'm quite as you can tell I'm quite vocal processor. I quite often need to chat to get the ideas working. And MC has been just so good at just being like, Uh huh, uh, huh. Yeah, no, that sounds that's not it. What about this?

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 36:08

You know, I do a lot of logistics, like Emily. Like, let's let's try and think realistic. Yeah.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 36:15

And also, that timeline doesn't work. Why is that character seven, and then 20? Yeah. Maybe? Maybe, maybe not.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 36:27

But yeah, it does. It does really complement each other. And I think with Naomi and I like the, because obviously, Naomi came up here in August. Obviously, we hadn't spent that much time together

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 36:40

at pod, UK and then talk over Discord. And that's like, I'm coming to your house. Hope that's cool.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 36:46

Yeah, so Naomi stayed with me for a week. And it was a hard week like my cat died while she was here. So it was

Snyders Return: 36:56

two things on

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 36:57

the knob. But it was just like, it was like such a bad time. And I was just like, I felt so bad, like having to hear while I was like mourning. But she was great at being there. As a friend as well as a, you know, a colleague.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 37:14

Now, yeah,

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 37:15

so if we put it off with each other for like, seven straight days, without any break from each other for more than a couple of hours. And yeah, it worked really well. And we were just, yeah, we just I think we really complement each other because we're, we're at that point now where we can be honest with each other and Blake, right. things need to change or don't like that idea. Yeah. And we take it on the chin and we we both improve it for the benefit of the podcast.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 37:44

Yeah, I think that we're both relentless improvers, but we're we also we're not we're not super egoist, about, like protection of ideas. You know, this is, this is a team job. And it's better because we work as a team. Like if one of us was like, No, this is my thing, I think we would produce a much worse product. But because we can just be like nothing that sounds stupid. Like, it really works. Just be like, yeah, fair enough. I was thinking that. So

Snyders Return: 38:12

we're excited to hear all your hard work for sure. Hello, download at the same day or something, you'll probably get used to it first. So you spoken there about your teamwork management styles, working together, your individual project projects, your individual sort of shows and commitments and things like that. So if someone would happen to be I'm sure they will be rightly inspired by secrets and kilda or your individual shows and outputs. What sort of advice would you give someone looking to move into the or produce something in the ttrpg actual play space, or even an audio drama, like you're producing with the secret of St Kilda,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 38:57

my like recording tip for like doing your making your first podcast is get a close, awesome throw a duvet cover, because it is the cheapest sound battling that will ever exist. And the amount of difference that may sound while we were starting out was extreme. As far as like, from a writing perspective. I think one thing that we both feel really strongly about is just being vicious with your editing. There's a lot of things that you do and you're like, I really like this. But the truth is, is that if it doesn't serve the story, it's got to go you know if if the story can get by without it, then it should get by without it, you know that it has to has to be worth it because every minute especially like in a podcast, the most successful podcasts are like 20 to 30 minutes long. And that is that's not a lot of time, like it's people's commute. And to keep their attention you need to make sure that you're providing like good solid content and not like fluffing. I think A lot of people are just like, Oh, you know, I'll just record it and then upload it. But I don't as a as a functioning adult, technically, I don't have time in my life for like three and a half hour episodes. You know, once a week, that's a lot. That's a lot. You know, I'm a busy lady, I got stuff to do. I want my content, streamlined and fed to me on a silver spoon. And the other thing is, is if you're like, interested in writing is read a lot of books. I bought, like heaps and heaps of books about radio drama, and radio play and script writing. And I'm still like working my way through like a large stack of books every time I like open a book. It's not, it's not that I am like, I found every single piece of this useful. But every single one has something I'm like, oh, that that makes a big difference to the way that I think about writing or the way that I write. Yeah, going back. Yeah,

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 40:54

I was just kind of add on to to what you were saying there as, as well with what you're talking about. For the story aspect. You also do that with your editing as well for our word role, is that a lot of the story is told in the Edit. So

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 41:11

I think even if I hadn't been an editor for powered role, I would not be as good as script writers I am now toot my own horn here. But learning to be like, this is funny, but it doesn't add to the story just really teaches you to pick out that stuff and be like, now it's got to go in the bin.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 41:28

Yeah, I agree. Because when less than to tabletop games, as you said, where you know, if you look at critical role, for example, there's no chance I'm going to get to listen to that for an hour episodes, and there's like 400 of them or something. I ain't gonna do that even ever listen to them every single day. There's not a chance. But obviously with the that now you're doing on on power withdrawal, very similar approach that I've got on hags and dragons. But I think that's that a big part of that is understanding the story. And understanding the flow, because it can help you in tabletop. If you're a DM, for example, you can understand which parts are going to work which parts aren't if you're looking at encounters and things like that, what's going to add to the story, what's going to ramp it up another level for, for the characters. For myself that the biggest kind of advice that I've got is work as a team. Essentially, like myself and Naomi, we, when we were doing the world when we are doing our podcast as individual ones, a lot of that work is just us going through that. The biggest difference I have found with a secret St Kilda even though it's not tabletop stuff talk about a tabletop as it is because it's a common interest that we've got on board. The fact that the work is haft with myself and Naomi because we can bounce ideas off each other. And that can work for tabletop as well. You know, the plays in the DM if you're working together, you can understand you don't have to go or my character is going to do this this episode or want to do this. Like Where could the DM give the DM ideas, you know, take ideas from the DM a terms of what it is don't be afraid to even ask for help. Because one of the one of the biggest worries I had coming into tabletop as well was I've not played d&d before. And I've always just played homebrew and I've just done my own thing. But obviously five E's got its own rules. And I need to make sure I'm following that. I just went with their a d&d beyond as as my template because then that just felt the easiest where no one had to explain the maths to me, I didn't have to have the pencil on paper ready to amend everything. I'd rather have it there and utilise those tools, and utilise the knowledge from everyone else around me, I was able to kind of just work into it. And then and then push myself forward. But working as a team is always always beneficial.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 44:01

It's so much nicer.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 44:02

It's much better. Yeah, because you build up a trust and like, as you've had throughout like Naomi, can, Naomi, or the two things that I was thinking of before, I've even mentioned to us, like, Oh, can you do this show that I did on it. So it's like we're already on the same page. And that's something that's really benefited our relationship over over the last year. And I feel like you can you can implement that into any scenario.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 44:30

Yeah, I think it's finding people who are who have the same sort of like motivations as you. So Mike and I both feel really strongly about providing good content. We both feel quite strongly about, you know, good quality audio, good sound effects, you know, I feel very strongly about vibes, you know, and I think that one of our benefits is is because we work the same way. We've really like We're acting a little bit as one as one human being, which is weird and upsetting to everybody involved. But it's been it's been a blessing. And I don't think I don't think that this product would be as good as it was. If it wasn't for like the relationship that mechanised built over creating it, you know, as to people who didn't really know each other apart from like, an interview where Nick was behind the camera, like, he didn't talk to me, just so we're clear, like, yeah, that's funny. It was funny, he was doing the shot, and I didn't, I didn't talk to me at all. Like, maybe, I think He only said maybe three words during the entire conversation. And then just be like, Hey, we're gonna create a thing. And now we talk multiple times a day, multiple times a day, it's not, it's not like once it's a lot.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 45:51

Every day for the last year, pretty much unless obviously, we need our little mental health breaks or physical breaks all the time. But that's something that that's also a big thing for as well as that we respect how each other's feeling. But that's something that's really came in because Naomi and I have gone out on a physical limitations, especially, you know, long COVID is a real thing. And I've got a physical disability. So sometimes, yeah, sometimes we do need our own little space to kind of escape some things, but like, it's having that understanding to we don't pressurise Shut up. It's not like, you know, you've been offline for two days, where are you kind of thing gets? It's an understanding that, yes, there's going to be times where we were not going to be able to talk, and that's fine. You don't have to explain yourself. And we'll just continue that conversation when we get the chance. You've not missed anything, because it's one of those things that we would always do in something for each other anyway, if someone's got to take a break, you're the first and fulfilling for that. So it's, it's a it's a really good thing that we've got, and it's helped build a friendship as well, which I'm really happy with. Yeah.

Snyders Return: 47:04

Amazing. So three things I'll take from that trust, respect and support. That'd be fair.

Unknown: 47:11

Yeah, yes. Yeah.

Snyders Return: 47:14

You know, we spoke about securing your individual projects and everything. Is there anything we haven't touched on yet? You would like to just sort of bring up before we close out this interview?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 47:24

Do you want to talk about inspirations for setting the scene? Or do you want to roll off

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 47:30

that? I'm fine. I know we haven't talked about our inspirations. I would like to know a little bit more about yourself, because when you broke them down, you've got the DK right and they're the one

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 47:42

that's my favourite movie. It's my favourite movie with the worst title. Yeah, but it's also sound small Scott Charlotte's are like,

Snyders Return: 47:51

you know, saying

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 47:52

Do you think that like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put this on an island, and then ship it there, because the original idea was just somewhat in the highlands, somewhere remote, myself and rush looked at using St Kilda for a tabletop game. Okay, because it was so remote, but we kind of just put on the back burner, because they often will happen with with COVID. And then, when we brought Naomi on, we were like, add someone in the highlands somewhere nice, which we need to find somewhere remote. So we would like scour through the scotch highlands of the perfect place. That kind of wood would fit the scene because there was, you're telling us about a cult in New Zealand Naomi,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 48:33

yeah. GLORIA Val. It's it's really wild. I would just it's on Amazon, you can see a documentary it's insane.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 48:41

Yeah, so we were looking for somewhere similar to that because that's it. It's got doesn't have the same vibes, but it's just, you know, there's not that many Western cults that are that heavy into their religion.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 48:57

Yeah, I think so when when we were talking about writing it initially, I was like, there needs to be a bridge. Because I feel to create this miniature universe where the rules are not the rules that you and I experienced life under, there has to be a barrier. And so initially, it was it was a bridge that sort of dictated when we were leaving the area of strangeness and going back to the real world, but I really felt like doing on an island really, it dials up that sort of isolation and us versus you know, the mainland. And I think there is a there is a really nice thing about I like boats, I like the sea. I don't like submarines, but like boats. And it's, it's the visuals of St Kilda and also using a place that's not currently inhabited. As a writer sort of frees me up from having to worry too much about history or offending people or people being like, Oh, it's not like that. It's not like that. So using somebody that's that's not currently inhabited full time and doesn't have a resident population really sort of freed me up to not have to think about like actual physical geography. You know, like, there are definitely some historical things I have taken from the island itself because it is fascinating that the history of it is entirely buck wild.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 50:25

Yeah, we found out after the fact because when when we were looking for places the only mentioned was about St Kilda ham, because obviously it's something that myself and and Ross, the calculator, we already looked at that for a tabletop setting and we were familiar with the the kind of wildness of it so it was just like Yep, that is a great idea. Let's put it there. And then a Naomi so yeah, Naomi we we we asked what we didn't even ask Chloe to em to research the free her life's work Chloe, our social media manager she said she I think she's read every book on St Kilda. At this point she's read

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 51:05

every book on St Kilda on its history going back to the 1700s. So they're working their way back from modern day essentially. I've read i've i've tried not to read everything on St Kilda because I feel like I'll hamstring myself by knowing too many things. But there is so there was a there was a lady whose husband was a politician. And he was involved in Jacobite rebellion and she threatened to expose him so you know what he did he had her kidnapped and taken St Kilda and put in like a stone heart and just like guarded there until she died. Wow. And like nobody ever came looking for her and there was like post once a month. So she just lived there like in a miserable hole in St Kilda despite being quite a prominent public figure and having children just disappeared and then her husband This is the fun likes and kill the twist. He was the only person to vote that we should not get rid of the rules banning witchcraft because which is a real so the idea of being like, I can't trust my wife I'm sending her a remote location and then just being like, no everybody which is a real and that destroying your political career. After everyone's like maybe we should get rid of the witches thing. Everyone's kind of agreed the witches aren't real. is just it's such a St Kilda flavour and experience. It's wild.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 52:30

Yeah, and that's just a real thing killer. So yeah, I was kind of takes it up a little bit of a notch. And we've we've kind of added our own spin around it. Yeah. Like it's got it's got the same vibes, but it's, it's very different. And obviously, no one's been there for 80 years at this point. And

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 52:52

except for Rangers and conservationists, the Ministry of Defence briefly.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 52:58

Yeah, obviously, Jenna was at the set up shop because it's like 50 miles, like into the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Scotland. So it's kind of a really nice little look out for anyone that might want to pop over. JOHN, one of the wars. So yeah, that's kind of been there. And for my inspirations is like the best thing about this is that Naomi has like not seen or heard any of these.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 53:28

We both we both experienced these from each other, like, for the first time right here right now.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 53:33

Yeah, so like this. There's so many things that Naomi's just like I've not seen that. I've not heard of it. I've not read it. I don't know what it is. So like, she can't be inspired by that. But like the plot stuff for me, is inspired by it. So the works from a Damon Lindelof specifically lost

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 53:51

I don't know how many times I wrote something and then Mick was like, that's just like something that happened on last and I was like, I swear to God I will crawl through this desk on call I swear to God,

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 54:02

but but that's a good thing. Because you know, that's something that I've caught that people would make a reference to, you know, with an island in the middle of nowhere, no one knows where that one is. And people are gonna laugh,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 54:15

but you know, it's not lost, it's fine.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 54:19

I do love loss, but this is very different. So like, if obviously if I've seen like plot points or you know, storylines that are similar, I'm just like Naomi, this has been done. I enjoyed how it was done, but like, I think it could be done better. So we will actually branch off with our story to make it more unique towards them all around the characters there. So it's a good point, something that we are noticing, but yeah, the last is something I've loved for years. But your favourite TV

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 54:49

show is the leftovers. Which he made me watch while I was up there and I was like, this is fine.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 54:55

She watched like half an episode and she's like, Don't do that to me again. It's quite heavy. The emotion is quite heavy on there. It's got a very structured season it's only like 30 episodes long. three seasons it's rarely

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 55:11

I was never going to watch all of it it's

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 55:13

just never Oh I know that like sometimes I just watching some be Naomi did not for you.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 55:21

I love when you have guests over and you're just like, watch like 30 episodes of my favourite TV show. That's cool, right? You're just chill.

Snyders Return: 55:28

Just just sit there and enjoy and be polite as a guest. Yeah,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 55:33

that's not really my style really, as

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 55:34

well. We watched one episode that was I thought I was allowed before. I don't like this Please stop it. But yes, the leftovers for me not for any, like, specific plot points. Just how the the deal with the the juxtaposition of a what is good, what is evil? what is religion, essentially. So a lot of that, that work has kind of been really good for me to have the understanding because I am not a religious person. So meek and that those vibes from fiction are i t handy. So it's, it's something that kind of inspired me in the mystery that's related to the leftovers acts, a lot of what Damon Lindelof does is that it doesn't give all his information away, he doesn't give you all the answers when you expect them, give them when you want. When he wants sorry. And so you know, it's more in control of the Creator rather than pandering to the audience, which a field still pays off, especially with our story because you feel like you're like, right, I want it now I want it now. And then when the actual payoff comes, it's it's a lot more impactful. Which, you know, sadly to say, not from a from a disappointing point, but from, from the heartbreak and stuff that I've read in the in the series from Naomi's writing, she's really nailed that, that vibe.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 57:09

Yeah, I think one of the first pieces of advice I read while I was reading all of my script, writing books was I think a lot of articles I read like a lot of online articles, I was like, I'm gonna write a script, I don't know how to do that to go go was that you should figure out what your secrets are ahead of time. And then basically release them one at a time in in importance from least to most important. And so I think basically what we've done is we've we've created a secret per episode. So each episode you're learning more and more and more, but the stakes, keep raising. It's really fun. It's really fun.

Snyders Return: 57:50

It sounds a lot of fun, it sounds like and I'm sure it will be an absolutely fantastic show when it is released. For people to come in and enjoy your, your, your show, and support you guys

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 58:04

do I get to talk about my inspirations, my life is that time,

Snyders Return: 58:08

there's always There's always time for inspiration.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 58:11

So the way that same way that Mick did not grow up in a religious household, I grew up in a religious household. So my grandfather was a pastor. He had a little church My parents are married in it my parents actually met on a Christian holiday package in Austria skiing wild so like that was always kind of part of my growing up. So I remember like my parents had cell group which is where like other adults come over and they talk about you know, religion things in your house. And like our conservatory when I was a kid was entirely built by other church members. I think the people that my parents socialise with almost entirely other church members. So like I really remember as a kid growing up in that sort of like community where you're like, I have to move house and you don't have to bribe anyone with pizza, like everybody just comes to help because that's like the contract that you have. And you see everybody every week and like for me growing up in that is is kind of like quite a positive memory. But I know for a lot of people that their experiences religion can be quite divisive and quite unpleasant. For me I'm no longer religious myself, but it's something that I I wish that I could be still like entrenched in that sort of like binding community and I think that that one of the things about St Kilda is it offers you what what that's like, you know what it's like to be in a place where everybody's always got your back all the time. You know, there's a reason that cults are very seductive, and it's because they provide that community you know, at it, but it always comes at a cost. So, for me, like, I think maybe six months before St Kilda started. My grandfather who Pastor, he got Parkinson's and he passed away. And so I think for me writing something set in Scotland, which is where my grandfather is from his from Port Glasgow, my mum used to live in Greenock where MC lives now because the world is very weird, and it's kind of like having a chance to, I don't know if it's like honour or like explore that side of what religion is, like my experience of it, but through the eyes of like, what it might have been like for my grandfather and my mum. And so we have a we have a character we marry, who is actually named after my grandfather's best friend. So when, when my grandfather was going to church camps, he had a little friend that he used to basically they prank each other in the way that only you can do at a Christian camp in, in the in like just after the war. So one time he jumped out at her while she was carrying a large pan of boiling water. And she got covered like in scalding water. So she was taken back to to caravan to be patched up by the doctor. And my grandfather decided the immediate thing that he needed to do was find some socks, because he didn't bring any with them. So he he went around, got a sock, and then he spent the afternoon like so sewing button eyes, so that he could come up and apologise via sock puppet. And like we Mary used to, like steal his shoes all the time. So he would like get out of places and then suddenly realise he didn't have any shoes when it was raining. And they used to have this sort of like pally pally yet slightly irritating friendship built on built on just making fun of each other and wanting each other up. So when we were building this the first character that like I built to put in it was we Mary is like the, the the fun side of what it's like to live in a small community where there's somebody who's just that like for the jokes, like they're just having a good time. And they're they're fun to hang out with. And so lucky has this like really fun relationship whether we marry. And I think that like creating that experience, but then getting to push that then into horror narrative is like really fun, like horror is I think horror is easier to write. Because we all know the things that we are scared of like, before, before we started this podcast, we were talking about submarines, deathly terrified of submarines. No, thank you. I don't like the idea of being at the bottom of the ocean, in a tube that's got limited oxygen, it's not my vibe. I also hate spiral staircases. They're just they're slippy they're badly designed. I don't have a handrail, so rubbish. And so like that, those are both very specific things. But they both come under the idea of being like, trapped somewhere. Being in the dark with no escape. And those are all very, like, visceral, obvious fears that I think everybody can relate to. And so basically taking the the idea of having a really lovely community, and then smashing it together with these fears that we all have. Basically, my whole job is to create something you love, and then rip it away from you.

Snyders Return: 1:03:21

I feel emotionally scarred by this conference.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:03:25

Which is this is this is what it's like. This is this is why I didn't talk to you after two days from reading the last episode and season one is because she broke my heart with

Snyders Return: 1:03:38

one hand to give us one taketh away. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, punches you several times in the gutter by the sounds of it.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:03:47

I just, you know, I think I think that I, I like to watch a lot of movies. I like Guillermo del Toro, who writes a lot of horror. But it's sort of bittersweet. And I think better sweet. Sad. Horror is kind of like where I like to sit. You know, part of being a human being is about catharsis, you know, experiencing these emotions with other people. And not having to live through them in our real lives. And I think we've all been, I don't know about you, but like the last few years, I've been a little bit sad, like, stuff has been tough. And having, you know, having that experience where you can be like, wow, I'm having feelings. I just want to inflict that on everyone else. I have too many feelings. I just want everybody else to suffer with me. That sort of is. So

Snyders Return: 1:04:36

you want to kind?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:04:39

Yeah, can't wait to get yelled out on Twitter. It's gonna be great.

Snyders Return: 1:04:44

In a positive supportive, but we'll see how we were playing.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:04:48

I'll tell you I can get it's fine.

Snyders Return: 1:04:52

Fair enough. So do you have anything else you want to bring up?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:04:56

No, we could keep shouting

Snyders Return: 1:05:00

that's a that's a conversation for another time I

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:05:03

one trauma per episode that's the limit that's

Snyders Return: 1:05:06

see got released those secrets slowly. Yes. lowest grandest.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:05:14

No.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:05:18

But yeah, there's nothing much else there.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:05:20

We could do we just pass the time.

Snyders Return: 1:05:25

I'll ask you one more question relatively quick depending on how you answer it and then we'll try and be quick. Get your plugs again and then we'll, anyway, so you have an evening off St Kilda, you're having an evening of ttrpg outside of d&d what systems do you enjoy playing?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:05:45

I am well known for my love of lasers and feelings, lasers and feelings is the best system all our systems are garbage. Don't bother. Just Just play lasers and feelings. No matter what you want to play. There's a lasers and feelings hate for it. You just have one stat, and you've got to roll under or over it. It's kind of based on Star Trek. So you're either a feelings person like Kirk or your laziest person like Spock. It aggressively pushes people to play to type. And it gives me a lot of freedom because as a DM, my like, dm style is to turn up 10 minutes before and write some notes on a napkin. And just be like, the Burger King is Nolan. Thank you. Okay, let's go. I'm not a prep heavy person. I just want to see things happen. And I really enjoy the freedom that that gives me MC I like fate. Fate is also very good. Fate is fate is not a system though. Fate is a system for it's not a system for roleplay. It's a system for arguing with your GM to let you do things. It's a bargaining system more than anything else like no, but it does say I'm a hot shot. And you're like, Why? Why does the Hot Shot make you better at fixing a clock? And they're like, cuz it's deep. I'm not sure that that's Yes. It's a lot of bullying your gym?

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:07:06

Yeah, like that. Yeah, the reason why I enjoy that one is because of the it's kind of like storyboarding. Yeah, is that you? It's a game, can you give me that freedom to do a little bit of writing without all the juice that you put in, and then just go right, I can add live, the rest here and an interest obviously justify, and give rationale for any action in between. So I think fate is like one of the only games that I've run, and what you

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:07:35

would love, you know, what's a great system, Primetime adventures, prompt. overdentures is a great system and more people should play it. It's you create a TV series, essentially. And that can be whatever you like, I think we did a I've done a small town where your aliens trying to fit in, which was very enjoyable. And then I've, I've been in one which was like a teen High School cheerleader drama, you can create whatever characters you like. And then you basically learn to spotlight so everybody gets a chance. It's like, this is my episode. And it is quite a really good way to think about like writing episodic content. It's a good way to practice and it's also very, very fun, very fun because you you understand the world that you're working in because everybody knows what a TV series should look like. Like it's it's quite enjoyable that way.

Snyders Return: 1:08:26

Alright. One to check out and if I can, where are they available? I know that fate

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:08:33

is evil hat lasers and feelings is freely available over the internet. There are many hacks that are also available. And primetime adventures I think you can probably get on Drive Thru RPG

Snyders Return: 1:08:44

if I can find it, I will put a link to it. Speaking of links, where can we find secrets and kilda and each of you and your respective productions please?

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:08:55

So you can find the St Kilda everything about the secrets and killer you can find at CU TT dot L y slash the Gilda catch dot L y slash the killer. And then me You can find me at Naomi thinks that and I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram, I'm on everything and you can just find me there.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:09:14

You can find us everywhere. The killer thing does that cutely not take us cheated? Uh,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:09:20

it does currently but when we finished the thing, it will take us somewhere else.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:09:24

Hopefully. Yes. So yeah, do I need to figure that out? That's my job. Yeah, so the kilda everywhere. You can find me at McAllister whitey on Twitter, or haggis and dragons. I'm usually logged into either one on there but yeah,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:09:44

having one Twitter account is for babies now. Like guys you got to have at least three to manage. It's fine.

Snyders Return: 1:09:51

Plus a discord and Patreon. Yeah. And

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:09:57

yeah. I would advise getting a social Do you manage to

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:10:02

find yourself a Chloe and then hold on to them with like a death grip?

Snyders Return: 1:10:06

I will make a note find a Chloe, not sure

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:10:08

not all Chloe please. Okay, it's

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:10:10

not our Chloe place

Snyders Return: 1:10:12

too much professional respect for you guys to headhunt in that respect, but it has been an absolute pleasure to have you both on the show speaking about this fantastic show you guys have made and is coming up for generalise

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:10:26

in the next 12 weeks Well, before the end of 2021,

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:10:30

you can find our release date will be on at the kilda. So if you check us out on Twitter, the release date will be there. So at the moment because we're just finishing all of our production, but it will be there you'll see it, you'll see it. We're pretty active.

Snyders Return: 1:10:44

Well while we wait for some kilda and even afterwards, if there's an opportunity to have you guys back on the show, either for a follow up interview or one shots or anything like that, it'd be great. I

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:10:54

want to run primetime adventures. Our feelings are feeling amazing.

Snyders Return: 1:11:01

Michael is the invitation of course it's extended to yourself as well. And

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:11:05

now he's not allowed to come on. We won't play together. We don't play nice.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:11:11

I don't think we've ever played tabletop together.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:11:13

No, we did play werewolf and I was very unpopular.

Michael Ireland - Haggis and Dragons: 1:11:16

So yeah, popular my axe I enjoyed it.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:11:21

Apparently just pointing at people you don't know in saying die is not socially acceptable. But I mean, it works. It's a strategy. Okay. It's been lovely. I love coming on this podcast. I've always had a lot of fun here. And I will definitely be back. So put that in your pipe and smoke it sounds like I'm gonna be back. If you don't like it.

Snyders Return: 1:11:45

It's happening.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:11:47

I love this podcast. And that is a threat that is threatened.

Snyders Return: 1:11:56

Thank you, Michael, for for coming on. It's been such a pleasure to speak to you both. So thank you so much for taking time out of your days, evenings, whatever time it is now for joining me. So thank you very much.

Naomi-PowerWordRoll: 1:12:11

Thank you. It's been an honour.

Snyders Return: 1:12:14

But thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to WWW dot Snow'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 alpha for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you