In Other Worlds
Every other week, your host Jess will be sitting down with the authors and audiobooks narrators that bring the litrpg, gamelit, and fantasy genre to life.
In Other Worlds
What If The Dungeon IS The Good Guy?
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We talk with Aaron Michael Ritchey about Shadowcroft Academy for Dungeons and its spin-off Dungeon Accountant, exploring why dungeons are the good guys, how silverware jokes became lore, and why an audit team can save worlds with data and heart. Along the way, we dig into writing speed, co-authoring, and the craft choices that keep high-concept ideas grounded and fun.
• Shadowcroft’s isekai hook and world-soul node stakes
• Logan’s fungaloid build and the underdog progression
• Found-family dynamics and humor that carries weight
• Dungeon Accountant’s audit squad and design fixes
• Ethics of dungeoneering guilds and redemption arcs
• Building dungeons from tropes to systems
• Silverware lore as Q-style gadget payoff
• Favorite dungeons across both series
• Community feedback, outlines, and collaboration
Find Aaron: aaronmritchey.com, shadowalleypress.com, and Facebook under Aaron Michael Ritchey
Find us: iowpod.com, YouTube @ iowpodcast, and Patreon @ iowpod
“As always, keep leveling up”
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Welcome everyone to In Other Worlds, the Little RPG Gamelet and Fantasy Podcast. My name is Jess. I'm the host, and today we have Aaron Michael Richie. Aaron, how are you?
SPEAKER_02:Dude, we're doing this thing. I'm super excited.
SPEAKER_03:I feel live calling you Aaron. I, for some reason, I always just want to call you Aaron Neville Richie.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. That's right. It's branding. I like the whole thing. It's branding, Jessica. It's branding.
SPEAKER_03:I like the way it's loaned better than just calling you Aaron.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Aaron Michael Richie. Boom. You're not alone. I'm a three bird. I tried to fit my name into two names, but big personality didn't fit. So I need a third name.
SPEAKER_03:That's why. That's why.
SPEAKER_02:A little, a little bonus, a little little, I need a little little extra-dimensional space. That's what, like a, like the, it's like the Michael is the is the is the is the bag of holding for the personality. If you remove the Michael, I would feel like 98% less. So okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. There we go.
SPEAKER_02:Michael Richie.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. So you have published. Gosh, what? You've written what 70 books at this point?
SPEAKER_02:83.
SPEAKER_03:83. That is so many books. Uh, we are not gonna talk about all of them.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. Yes, we are. Every single one of them. Publish and unpublished. I have 13 books that I haven't published. 13.
SPEAKER_03:But we will talk about your two most recent uh series. Yeah. So we've got Shadowcroft Academy for Dungeons.
SPEAKER_02:Amen to that sister.
SPEAKER_03:Which is a fantastically wacky, really, wholesome series. Wacky. And I loved it.
SPEAKER_02:The the the the work of my life you're calling wacky. It's a it's a meditation on the importance.
SPEAKER_01:I can't say it wasn't wacky.
SPEAKER_02:It's a meditation on the importance of silverware in dungeons. Um which we are gonna talk about at some point. And twine. It touched it covers everything. So if it gets additional anyway, Shadowcraft Academy for Dungeons.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, and Dungeon, the Dungeon Accountant series.
SPEAKER_02:Dungeon Accountant.
SPEAKER_03:So give us a little rundown on each of these uh books.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Oh, we're just diving in.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we're I I don't go around.
SPEAKER_02:Shadowcraft Academy for Dungeons is the story of a guy who um he finds like a discount gaming machine in like a thrift store, and he played and there's one game, and it's like how to build it's like a dungeon, uh, you know, building your own dungeon game. So he builds he loves this game. So he plays it, he beats the game, and when he beats the game, the the console is actually a mimic, comes alive, grabs him with tentacles, pulls him in, and like eats him, like he feels his flesh shredded, he gets isokai, and he winds up in the world of Shadowcroft. And basically he's like, Wait a minute, did you last starfighter me? And he's like, Yeah, we did. Yeah, did we which which last starfighter is probably not a good reference? We probably should have done Ender's Game. Did you Enders Game Me?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, also as time goes on, less and less people are gonna get that reference, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_02:So anyway, so yeah, so we got Last Starfighter. So the p so this is a recruiting tool that the uh Shadowcraft that the dungeon, and there's not just the Shadowcraft Academy for Dungeons, but basically it's a um it's a university system that uh takes people and it trains them how to be lethal dungeons. Because in our world, the dungeon, the the dungeons are the good guys because they're because every world is connected to the tree of souls with a node, and their job is to protect that node while evil dungeoneers come. So they do if they destroy the node, they get a bunch of like um apothos, which is our magic like man or whatever, and then they drain the world, they kill the world, but then they become like gods, right? So, yeah, like I've just committed genocide, but I you know I get to be a god now, so you know it all it all works out in the end. Um and so the dungeons are there to protect these nodes, and so the university system is literally saving worlds one by one by teaching people how to be a dungeon. So our guy, Logan Murray, has to get a class, but of course, Earth doesn't have a lot of magic because you know you just listen to the news, and um, that's very apparent, like you go outside, and so he doesn't have a lot of like natural apothos, and so he doesn't get like like he doesn't get a dragon or he doesn't get like the cool right, he gets he gets like a like a putred rattling, and he's like, I don't want to be a putrid rattling, he could be a slime dungeon, he's like, I don't want to be a slime dungeon, and they're like, Well, you could be a mushroom, but they fall apart, they don't have a lot of they don't last very long. So Logan Murray stoically spends a lot of time getting dismembered in these books, but it's all done and fun. So he becomes a mushroom, he comes a fungaloid, um, and uh, and it's like an underpowered class, and so he has to like figure out like he doesn't have a lot of power, and so he has to figure out really how to um get his powers. So that so then the book is him, his freshman year at the Shadowcroft Academy for Dungeons. He he hooks up with a bunch of other kind of like um a wacky like a like a wacky, like there was like this gnome uh uh treacle glimmer happy who's uh who's a huge minotaur, but he was like this candied, like like gnome who loves he didn't like candy. He didn't he came from a candy.
SPEAKER_03:We saw a hurt of stomach.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's it's terrible for you. Um he's like a man, he's like a depressed minotaur, and then you have Inga, who is this brilliant birdwoman who becomes a uh butterfly, because they have their bodies, right? They have their their dungeon uh uh guardian bodies. Um Logan is our uh our mushroom guy, and then his best friend is Marco, who is a Seder, who is a prince. He's like this rich prince who accidentally it's a long story. Drinking was involved. He I he becomes a satyr, and so we when we meet Marco, he's slate, he's there in the like the cafeteria and he's sliding through beer on the floor because he has hooves, and he's like, I love having hooves. Hooves is the greatest thing in the world. Don't have to wear shoes, don't have to deal with socks. Dude, you know, hooves are great.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So drinker with a satyr problem. I don't know if I'm a drunk. I don't know if I'm a goat with a drinking problem or a drunk with a goat problem.
SPEAKER_03:Ah, Marco. That phrase right there is like him the entire series.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That's just classic Marco.
SPEAKER_02:There's good pathos, and so James is convinced that he's like Logan, and then I'm a self-insert for Marco, but that is not true. I I I disagree. I'm very different than Marco. Marco's a lot more carefree. I'm not carefree. Uh and I don't drink, I don't drink at all. Like, no alcohol for me.
SPEAKER_03:So well, definitely John to Marco then. Well then book three. He cuts back.
SPEAKER_01:He cuts back.
SPEAKER_03:He does cut back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:He has he has a lot of other stuff to do. Yeah. In book three. Book three.
SPEAKER_02:Book three is okay. So so okay, so do we want to talk more about Shadowcraft or do we want to pivot to Dungeon Accountant?
SPEAKER_03:So I uh we well we'll put it to Dungeon Accountant, but my questions are gonna kind of go back and forth.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, because there it's a spin-off series. So Nathan Amy, and if you haven't read um Fae Nexus, it's genius. Um Black Dawn. Uh there's dice rolls, so it's game, it's lit, it's game lit with dice rolls. Like so, some people liked it, some people didn't. So Nathan, Nathan and I, he's a Shadow Railway press author. And so Nathan and I were talking, and he had this great idea for like a dungeon, like um like a glow-up, like a like a like go in and you like you figure out what's wrong with the dungeon, like like a uh home and garden show, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so uh we got the flip houses, like a flip houses, like a dungeon flipper.
SPEAKER_02:And so I was like, I was like, um, and I I I I want and so he had this great idea and he wanted to write books with me. And so I'm like, um, and Nathan's great, and so I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't do another because I was working in Shadowcraft and like work, I can work on multiple projects at the same time, but like they have to be extremely different or they have to be the same. So I'm like, Nathan, I can't do it. I I have to stay in the Shadowcraft universe because I can't like do a different project. So can we put this in the Shadowcraft universe? And he agreed. And so then we came up with the idea of a dungeon accountant who goes in and um their job is to they audit dungeons. So here you have the fate of worlds, like, right? And so you get an education, but like there's no sort of or there, there's no like, hey, go save a world. So right, so the the the dungeon of the department of universal dungeon efficiency was created. Which was a mentor nothing about the wrong dude, dude, dude, the department of universal dungeon efficiency, and and they go in and they audit dungeons and they're like, here, let me help you, like, you know, let me help you like make your dungeon more lethal so you don't die, right? Right, and so and your and your dungeon is good, and so you can save worlds, right? Because that's why you know cal can it's a looter, who's a homely elf. He's like, I in in the my like me and Nathan went back and forth on this. In my mind, like Cal has an overbite, he has like a big nose, he has like ears aren't very pointy, so he kind of looks human-ish, and so he's a homely elf. And so he and he loves spreadsheets. And one of the other things I wanted to do with the with Dungeon Accountant was I really wanted to show the Shadowcraft universe from the point of view of the dungeoneers, because in Shadowcraft, it's all about the dungeons, you know, killing the dungeoneers. I really wanted to show the universe from the other side, and so Calcanis and his um his team of misfits is uh their former dungeoneers who were who were destroying nodes in their quest for you know godhood, and then they realized what they were doing was terrible and they changed, and then they wanted to they wanted to imp they wanted, you know, they wanted to start helping the dungeons because those dungeons were the good guys in Dungeon Accountant. We get more of the guilds, there's these dungeoneering guilds who get together to destroy dungeons, and there's all the justifications, right? Of like all these people, like, well, if you destroy a node, you know, it doesn't really affect the world, right? It's not like we're destroying worlds, and then other people just don't care, and they're like, Yeah, I mean, there's how many worlds are there in the multiverse? There's a million, so so what if a couple worlds, you know, if you want to not if you want to make an omelet, you gotta break a couple legs. And so Cal and his group of misfits are working for dude, but none of their co-workers trusts them, right? Because they're the bad guys, and their boss hates them and wants them to fail. And cal is, I love Cal. Cal is one of my favorite characters because he is so like ardent, he like he knows what he's doing is good, he loves data, he loves to go in and he can go in and like see how the apothos working and like all of the stats. I mean, and he just loves it. And then you have Helga Kneebash, who's uh who's our barbarian home designer, so she's a halfling, so she's this tiny little like Nebash, right? That's and these are all Nathan's characters. So when Nathan pitched me the idea, he came up with all these characters. I'm like, oh my god, these characters are great. So Helga writes a goat named Hurricane, and Helga is like a berserker, but who also like has an eye for home decoration, right? So the jokes write themselves. Then you have the structural engineer who's Guinevere Copperblade, who uh who kind of still wants to be a dungeoneer. She's like, yeah, she's kind of our cynical, kind of snarky, no, very snarky. She kind of goes back and forth. Um, she's a great character to write too, because you always want to have that kind of like that. Uh and uh there's a spoiler I won't give away, but she has very specific connections to the dungeon world. And then last but not least, you have our trap springer and our all-around just kind of goofy guy. He's Kronk, Sir Kronk, and all the trolls have an E, a silent E.
SPEAKER_05:It's a fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:It's it's a thing. And so he's our good, he's a paladin, and so paladins have high charisma, and he does have high charisma if you're a troll. If you're not a troll, he is he is not a handsome man. Um, troll. And so he worships but the trollings love him. Troll it, he's very popular with the troll, and there's another troll who hates him, is jealous of him because he's so and Kronk just has a heart of gold, he loves cookies. The the dungeon account books are just so like, and the first one's called Audit Team Six, which is fantastic. The second one's the Omega Audit, because they go and they audit a planet that's dying. Man, this is this book is so good, and then the first, the last one is it's pronounced controller, but I like to say comp troller because there's the P. But Comp Troller Carnage, where the the the dud, there's like at their home office, there it's a lot of office dungeon. Their home office becomes a dungeon and there's hijinks, and it's like a diehard. It's kind of like it's actually exactly like it's diehard. We do diehard in the dungeon world, so nice.
SPEAKER_03:Um, I'm gonna have to add dungeon accountant to my list because I haven't I haven't read that one. I've just done the Shadowcroft, uh, which I read all three of the books fairly quickly, and I think it's been my favorite read of 2025. Huh? Was the Shadowcroft Academy books. Yeah, I I stayed up way too late reading them. I was very tired the next few days. That's what we wanted here. I just kept reading and reading and reading. They were so funny. That's awesome. What made you so for the Shadowcraft books, what made you pick a mushroom? Like why mushroom?
SPEAKER_02:So so James and I Okay, so this is the story of me and James writing. It's I I will say this all of you fans of Discount Dan, the reason why Discount Dan is so unhinged, I take full responsibility. Shadowcroft had to walk so Discount Dan could run. No, James watched that documentary. There's a documentary on Netflix on mushrooms, and he was like, Oh my god, mushrooms are so cool. And so, yeah, and mushrooms are so cool. And the fact that right now we have like fungal things in our bodies, and like I'm breathing spores right now, and I'm in a basement and I know I have black mold. Uh, I'm hoping it gives me superpowers. The fact that and it's like this archaic form of life, right? Like origin, like that was one of the first kind of like this kind of like I don't know, fungal funguses are just so interesting.
SPEAKER_03:And so the I think it's the mycelium underground where they're all kind of interconnected, and yeah, you can have a mycelium growth as you know, an entire forest wide, and everything is connected.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, mushrooms are wild. Earth's largest organism is a mushroom in Oregon. Yeah, but no, no, so mushrooms are super cool, and then you kind of get into the mushroom powers, and so and all the things you can do with mushrooms and yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Book three was wild. And then even this teacher, even the teacher of the mushroom class on book three was like, Don't dig into this. Don't do it. When did you bring into this? Just leave me to go.
SPEAKER_02:Dude, I love that. Was one of my favorite there's so many so I like book one. Uh I like book two as well, cuz because cause there's just so much fun. Um, the kitchen gasp, Melvin. I loved Melvin, my lady.
SPEAKER_03:I was convinced the whole time that he was the bad guy. Well, he was the bad guy.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no, it's a red hair. Spoiler, red hair, yes, Melvin could be the bad guy, and probably is. I was convinced through the whole book that he was. Oh, Melvin was great.
SPEAKER_03:I was like, ooh, this guy. Okay, that's kind of a little awkward.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02:And it's frustrating because you want the best book to be like book one. Because I love he goes, he leaves Shadowcroft, he goes to Nightfall University. I think it's Nightfall University, and and he goes to the class, and and I we use the whole like breakfast club, like there's all like all of these like super duper, because it's like a it's like a focused class on being a fungaloid, but all these people are just like kind of like not very powerful, and they're kind of like quirky and odd and yep, um the professor.
SPEAKER_03:He's almost like the celebrity, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:He's a total celebrity, right? Yeah, because they're like it's like you know, it's like Madonna going to like a singing class, right? Or or more karaoke or something, right? Because he goes in there, he's like saved the world a couple times, and like you know, it's a big name, and they're like, Oh, Logan Murray, I can't believe and they're like they're like still like a C class. I think they're D and E class, like they're just and the professor is like, I you know, you know more than me. I love the professor because he's talking with his dead wife. Oh my god, but you don't know that until like the end, because he's like with just like okay, I'm getting there, don't nag, come on. He's like, What is going on with these? And then there's a guy who leaves, and he's just like, he's like, I don't need to sit with you losers anymore. And he leaves, but then he comes back, and then every time, and then at the end, he's like, You're my real.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my god, oh my god, those books, those books, and so I'd fine, they really are they they're good, they're good. Definitely not live action.
SPEAKER_02:You couldn't do a live action Shadowcroft.
SPEAKER_03:No, no, you'd have to do these were so much fun to read. It'd be animal. I'm like, it's just it's not even one of those books that's could do some books that are very serious. And no, I've read a few that I really have to push myself to get through. These were just fun, just a fun, wholesome read.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, fun, fun and like light, like funny, you know, the bet, you know, there's not I mean, there's some pathos, right? I mean, you know, the friendship and that spirit of camaraderie, the esprit decor.
SPEAKER_03:Nice. So that there are so many different dungeons in these books. How did you guys come up with the different kinds of dungeons? Because you've got like a candy world. It's hilarious. So sharp when he had his mushrooms or their mushrooms had to lift them to become sharp, which was funny. So sharp.
SPEAKER_02:It was like god image. Surprisingly sharp, like you think a candy cane, surprisingly sharp.
SPEAKER_03:Um they do get very sharp, but I'm just I was picturing in my head all the mushrooms up there like lifting all these candy queens, just as frantic little records.
SPEAKER_02:And Mariah Carey, we we named a mushroom with a high pitched voice Mariah Carey.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um How did you come up with Hollywood Ever in Dungeons and Worlds?
SPEAKER_02:Um Well, a lot of them we planned out. One of my favorite ones is the uh is the is like it's like a undeaf dead dungeon. Uh like uh in book one, they do a field trip to oh, what's his name? I have my I have the world bible up.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I shouldn't remember it. He's like a ghoul. He was surprisingly nice.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, he was so nice. Kavandry Spencer, who I named after Pinhead, the actor who played Pinhead. He's a bl he's a blade ghoul. So he's this like ginormous, like like undead. He has like, I think he has like like like knives in his face or whatever. Rotten leather overalls, like a 19th-century level pro butcher, mercifully covered some of the bloat because he's a big, huge fat guy. Instead of a left hand, he had a collection of knives sprouting from his wrist. He was bald with terrible slashes across his scalp. His ears look like they've been severed off with a chainsaw. Oh, rusty barbed wire had been round around his head and covered his eyes. So he is like, like, like nightmare fuel, right?
SPEAKER_01:But he has a cup that says it has a mug, so he's sipping coffee, and he it says, You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.
SPEAKER_02:And he's like, he's like a dungeon core, but he's like, and he's like a good attitude, but he's like horrific. Super nice. And he has like all the undead tropes. So in that sense, I think we came up with like, okay, we need an undead dungeon, right? And so, okay, what kind of undead dungeon are we gonna have? And so then it kind of, you know, and then so we he we would spitball ideas and kind of like say, okay, what kind of dungeon? And then we would like like go through the dungeon and like, you know, um, so a lot of this is planned out, and so and we just kind of use kind of the trope of an undead dungeon. I think. Do we have um in book three? We have because it's all wrestler-based, so we have like the roller derby. Well, it's like a five-layer dungeon. The dungeons get bigger and bigger and bigger as we go, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, yeah, there was the roller derby, there was the wrestling rink, there was the circus, yeah, with the trapeze everywhere.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. Well, they're like you like, like, and in Dungeon Accountant, we did a water slide dungeon. Matt Dinneman, yeah. So Matt Dinneman was like trying to come figure out the next one of his dungeon levels, and somebody suggested a water water slide, not based on not of dungeon accountant, but just like, you know, so you you kind of look at different stuff, like like in book four, we're gonna have like a 7-Eleven dungeon, so like a convenience store dungeon, and it kind of writes itself, right? Because you know you're gonna you want to have like a slurpey area with like slurpey monsters and processed meats. You could do something like with hot dogs and the taquitos, and there you go. There you go. The hot dog, like right. I mean, so you kind of like okay, what would a 7-Eleven dungeon or a convenience store dungeon have? And you're like, oh, okay, right.
SPEAKER_03:And it kind of like horrible scary bathroom.
SPEAKER_02:It you see, Jessica, you got it. Well, that's kind of what we did, and we had to have a candy dungeon, and so we're like, okay, what is the candy dungeon? We did oh, the carnival dungeon with the saw. It starts off with the little guy on the tricycle. That was in book two, because that was the cool one. So in book two, we introduced the idea of dungeon versus dungeon. So yeah, the dungeon duels. So then you could have like, so you can like create this interdimensional space that connects your entrance to your dungeon to the entrance to this dungeon, and then we also introduced Jisoo, which was one of my favorite characters. She was great, because my daughter loved she's a nine-tailed fox. Um, and we named her Jisoo after one of the women from Blackpink, and she is vicious, and I like because she's because people are terrified of her. She's so nice. Hello, guys. She's like, And then she kills you because you're bad, and she hunts down like rogue dungeons, not to be confused.
SPEAKER_03:She takes her job very seriously.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, she's great.
SPEAKER_03:She's full of Logan when she's like Logan.
SPEAKER_02:Because she knows fungaloid.
SPEAKER_03:She knows. She knows what they can do eventually.
SPEAKER_02:She Su makes an appearance in Dungeon Accountant 3.
SPEAKER_03:Very important.
SPEAKER_02:She's a very, very important character in Dungeon Accountant.
SPEAKER_03:I can't wait to read that series.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Dungeon Accountant 3 is my favorite.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna pick them up. It's it's gonna be probably I'll probably read them in early 2026. My TDR just keeps growing.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. And people keep writing books.
SPEAKER_03:These people, it's never ending.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Uh, I do have a question from one of my Patreon members, uh, Brandon Bernard. Yeah. Hi, Brandon. Hi, Brandon. Uh, he wants to know what unspoken part of yourself do you think you will put in your protagonists?
SPEAKER_02:Man.
SPEAKER_03:It's a tough question.
SPEAKER_02:Um I I'm a very negative person, right? Uh I've I'm I look at the world like treacle glimmer happy naturally. Um he's not he's not happy. Um he's not. So I think the unspoken part of myself is that me striving to be positive, and like that kind of like having a good attitude and a positive attitude. So I kind of cosplay it in my in my main characters, and uh like it teaches me um to bounce back from adversity, and I think that's one of the great joys of books is that we get to be shown how to be heroes, right? Um and I really like Cal because Cal Cal loves his job so much, and he and he and he cares so deeply, and he's like fully invested. I'm a big fan of um Twin Peaks, and one of the reasons I love uh special agent Dale Cooper because he's so like a Boy Scout. He's so that kind of like, and that's why I like the new Superman, because there's that like I want to be helpful and I want to have a good attitude, and I wanna I wanna I wanna be durable. So I think that's and being a writer, so I've been doing this for a long time. Um and there's that it it can get kind of, you know, some people get huge success, and I've been successful, but I've not had that, like, you know, the Matt Dinnerman, they're making movies, people are cost like right. I mean, this it's just as it happened to me, and then I get sad, and I'm thinking, well, it's never gonna happen, and then that's untrue. I don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, the Denver Broncos are like one of the best teams in football. I did not see that happening, especially with the way they've been playing. Um, you never know. So you just don't know. So I think that's that would be the answer to that question, and so both like Logan is has that stick to it-diss and that like um, and always lessons to learn. So I also believe fiction is a way. I mean, so I'm a fan of Save the Cat, um, Blake Snyder's, it's a it's a screenwriting, and I I kind of like I use it for my books, and she he calls story as being change engine. So you have a character who's this way, things happen to them, they change, they grow, and they're able to overcome adversity. And that's that's I like to I like that story. I like writing that story because I believe life is hard, right? And we have adversity.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's not always happy, not always happy.
SPEAKER_02:These books are happy though, so these books are happy, but there are the dark moment, like in every book there are a couple, but there are a couple. But it's like it's like it's not like anime dark moments, man. I've been watching anime and I love anime because it's everything is turned to 11, and I like that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. What's uh so I've written a ton of books. I've been in in many, many genres. What is your favorite and least favorite genre to write in? Or do you have favorites and least favorites?
SPEAKER_02:I like fantasy science fiction. These books don't have romance, my pen name who I can't talk about till after 10 p.m. That's probably my favorite is I don't write I I I don't write romanticy per se, but my favorite is that like like fantasy, like fantasy or science fiction or like like some sort of like speculative fiction elements with a heavy focus on romance is really my favorite thing to write. And I like gamelit, right? I like I like having that progression and I like showing it, right? Rather than like I like showing it and having the progression and and that. So my least favorite, but I like everything. I'm I I can I I like watching the Oscar movies, like the movies that are very serious and like and I like, and then I like watching 80s schlocky post-apocalyptic, like like chainmail bikinis, right? I like like you know, so I like everything. I like story, I like characters, I like setting.
SPEAKER_03:I there's a time and a place for everything.
SPEAKER_02:Time and a place for everything. One thing that I don't, but it's not my if I if I got to choose, I would rather do epic fantasy than urban fantasy. I'm not a huge urban fantasy guy. I'm working on a pri that, but that's not true because I'm working on an urban fantasy now that I'm really enjoying. But most of the time I like building that other world. I like the tropes of epic fantasy. Uh I'm a huge Tolkien person. That's that's the answer to that question.
SPEAKER_03:And a lot of your books are co-authored. What got you into co-authoring? How does that process work?
SPEAKER_02:My first co-authoring experience was bad. We became like I wrote a couple of romances.
SPEAKER_03:I see, I would always worry about that.
SPEAKER_02:It it it didn't it didn't start off bad, and we're good now. Um, I wrote books, um, I wrote some romances with a friend. I've written so many books alone. I'm now officially taking a break from co-authoring after I finished book four, because I'm I'm I've done a lot of I did I did books with James Hunter, I did books with Nathan Amy, I did books with DJ Butler. I like co-authoring because one of the funnest parts of co-authoring is you get to like spend time with your friend and it's just playing pretend, right? It's just playing pretend and it's going back and forth and the ideas, and I love it. Like, um, I love that process. And it's a way of like, you know, we live in a world where um having more books out is better financially, and so it's a way of getting more books out faster, and and I just like the whole thing, and I've done it so much that I kind of understand kind of what needs to happen, and I understand one of the biggest things having an outline, agreeing on the outline, and not uh uh straying from the outline is important. Also, some person has final say, so if there is conflict, it needs to be set up beforehand. They're like, Okay, you have final so James had final say, so in one of our books, I had an undead Icarus with swords for arms and swords for legs, and as James said no, he said no, we are not doing undead Icarus, too much, but my Tor Amino, so a minotaur has like body of a man, so a Torumino has the body of a bull and the head of a man, and he also had a tail that's that like the fired lava. I did not get undead Icarus, but I did get the Torumino, so it all works out in the end.
SPEAKER_03:How much ring search did you have to do on silverware?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, there was a throwaway line uh about silverware. So I was writing it's the it's the super boring professor. Oh, what's his name? What's his name?
SPEAKER_03:Is it uh Bertrand?
SPEAKER_02:I think so.
SPEAKER_03:Nechbet or something?
SPEAKER_02:Neckbet, yeah. Bartholomew Neckbet.
SPEAKER_03:Bartholomew, yeah, Bartholomew Neckbet. And he says she loves his neckwaddle.
SPEAKER_02:Because her hey, neckwaddle does it for because she's a birdwoman, right? Because she grew up like her new so before she was Issahide, uh, she was a birdwoman, and so then she became a butterfly woman. So it was a throw. He's so Professor Neckback, paunchy birdman monsters, so dry and boring, boring, and he has a crush on him, big vulture head with big waddle. It's so red, my god, the waddle on him, and those feathers, so sleek, and she is so spitten by him, and then and then she's like, Bart, I I I call him like I call him Bart, but not to his face. Uh, Bart and I were talking, and throwaway line about uh, and I'm looking at my notes of the world bible, wrote a travelogue called The Butter Knives of Eritreus. And Eritreus is kind of like the big, huge, like richest. It's like the opposite of Earth, right? Earth doesn't have a lot of magic. Eritreus is like like 15 different nodes, all like it's like at the center of like the whole dungeoning world. And so I there's a throwaway line that I I don't know what comes out of me, right? I'm like, I was writing, I was like, what is the what is the most boring travel log you could think of? And the butter knives of Eristrius. And so then we were talking, and we were like, we kind we and we both like, why butter knives? And then we're like, what if there's this whole silverware thing, and then it's spiraled out of control, and then um James likes to talk about the Q factor. So in in when he when he comes up with the book, he thinks, okay, what is so in James Bond? James Bond is always given a Q from the Q brand. She's always giving these little like gadgets, and then one of the gadgets at the end helps him save the day, right? And so James was like, What kind of Q gadget could we give him? What kind of Q gadget? And so we have all these silverware jokes, and we committed to the bit. One thing about me and James, we commit to the bit, and so Inga becomes obsessed, and that's one of the I think that's one of the lessons that Inga learns is like, you know, interest is good, and like, but you have to control your obsessions, and it's you know, when you're really smart and getting into some, I mean, and so we wrote so the silverware plays a role at the end in act three, plays a role in the book. And I would just come up with like like I come up with like strawberry spoon, and I think I liked it, but like if you think about it, like you wouldn't really have a strawberry spoon, you'd have a fork, and then but that's true. I'm like, a spoon, like yeah, Eritrian strawberry spoon. Yeah, it's a 14th century. They like like the full complement of silverware for the Eritrian table dinner table and dungeon accountant, more silverware jokes. And actually, oh my god, Nathan wrote this whole thing about a conspiracy, and anyway, book three, I wrap it up, and I am so I'm very proud.
SPEAKER_03:We committed to the bit, and so and it was a huge part of book two. Yeah, it was a huge part of book two, and then you have to keep it going. Yeah, so once you put it in there like that, you're stuck with it. You're stuck with it. I don't know. See, there only is there only gonna be four books?
SPEAKER_02:Four books.
SPEAKER_03:And that's uh what about the dungeon accountant series?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's done at three.
SPEAKER_03:What what was your favorite part about writing the dungeon accountant series? I mean you would look at a dungeon account series and be like, oh really? Oh accounting?
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, but it's but it it's it's accounting, but it's also like like the dungeon flip, right? It's that it's it's that same scratch of like improvement, right? Uh in the first book, there um the dungeon is a hoarder, but he's a slime dungeon. So all of his slime pits are covered with like cardboard boxes. And I wrote this from personal experience. My father-in-law was a hoarder, uh, and we had to clean out his house. It's super gross. And so, and so it's that feeling of improvement, right? It's like going in and it's funny. And Cal, like, and be and accounting and like auditing and like going in and like what's good and what's bad, right? And taking stock and and and that whole thing. It was just so much fun. Um, and the characters are just so outlandish. I mean, you know, Cal is like the straight man, but then you have Helga who has anger issues, and like it has a she her weapon is a two-handed crowbar, and so she demolishes things, and like I mean, the characters are so much fun to write. My favorite part of of books of of Dungeon Accountant was book three.
SPEAKER_03:What's your favorite dungeon?
SPEAKER_02:Dude, uh I will tell you, it's in the There's a lot of good. There's a lot of good ones, but my favorite oh I really like I really like the the the Blade Ghouls, um, Cavandry Spencer's Dungeon. Because I like I'm a I'm a big fan of horror, of horror movies. So I think like a horror movie themed dungeon, I really liked. Oh, see, there's a lot. This is a hard question because there's so many. I I really liked in book three of uh of Dungeon Accountant, we we did too many dungeons, right? We just we did too many dungeons.
SPEAKER_01:We did like no do book two, the book two dungeons.
SPEAKER_02:Actually, all of the dungeons, actually the better dungeons, because because I had dot I had not read, you know, I'd read Dakota Kraut's uh Divine Dungeon books, um, which are kind of more of a straight-up dungeon, or at least um, yeah, they're more of a straight-up dungeon. These are not the wacky factor. And so I I create a bunch of dungeons with James for Shadowcroft, but then I got into that idea, and I think I like the dungeons in the dungeon accountant books better. I really liked um Otis's dungeon, he's the the slime person in book one. I really in book two, they guard Mimi's dungeon on this dying world, and and it's kind of this ant, it's kind of like you know, like I always thought ant farms are super cool. They are and so it's like an ant farm dungeon, so you could like it's like open. There's like a like a like a abyss. Oh so it's like an open face dungeon, so you can kind of see the different levels and as they go through, yeah, down to the bottom. Uh Mimi's dungeon is super good in um in the Omega Audit. And all of the different dungeons in book three of Dungeon Accountant, the controller dungeons, because we had five layers of dungeons, and so we have we have a high school dungeon, which is no, I just realized my favorite dungeon. My favorite dungeon is the dungeon in book three of Shadowcroft that they make because they call Googazon, and they make a dungeon that's like a like a like a they make a they make fake one on top of the real. That's my favorite dungeon. I love that we introduced because I'm like, James, we can't put googas on because that like open like world building wise, it opens up all of this. Like, why didn't they talk about it in book one? He's like, No, no, it'll be fine, don't worry about it. And then Marco's like, because like Logan asked, like, because when you have like when you Break your world, you have to like hang a lantern on it because people know, right? People are like, Well, why didn't you have right? It's like, well, the eternals, why didn't the eternals, you know, help stop um the Chitari in Marvel? It's you just gonna hang a lanter on it. So Logan's like, wait a minute, there's a delivery service where you can order stuff, and Marco's like, Yeah, but we don't really use it because we don't like to support big tech.
SPEAKER_03:But also when Logan gets isekai into this world, he didn't have any money. He hasn't money. I bought any of that. You know, and everything's taken care of at the school, like they supply the food and the rotting food that he keeps under his bed.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that rotting chicken, man. It starts doing green, it starts really smelling. Oh, it just gets so good.
SPEAKER_03:It's digestion picks, it's digestion, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Ah, curdled milk is also really good. So the go-ga's on dungeon, when they order it and it's just like paper mache, like Halloween spiders, and oh my god, that was so funny. So funny.
SPEAKER_03:It was really good.
SPEAKER_02:That's my favorite dungeon, is the Googason dungeon of book three.
SPEAKER_03:I I liked the um the Wonka-esque dungeon when they did the candy world. I the the very beginning entrance to the dungeon, they had Inga's, I think it was Ruraboy, who was at the desk like the receptionist. That was book two, right? It was book three. I think it was no, it was the candy dungeon.
SPEAKER_02:In book three?
SPEAKER_03:And so that would have been book boy. Well, it would have been him and India, the second the second part of the tournament.
SPEAKER_02:Because we did the tournament, that's right, that's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so the first one he was on his own. Second one he was with Inga, and then the third round he was able to bring everyone. So second one, they got stuck because it was a random random John, and they got stuck with the candy like sucrose or sucrose world.
SPEAKER_02:Sucrosia is the candy world. Yeah. Does can does sugar rot? Not sure. Twilitia is a gloomy world full of shadow creasers. Uh what's the difference between a ghost and his shadow creatures? Shadow creatures poop. I know that for a fact. Oh my god. Oh my god. Your notes are hilarious. Um I'm looking for the name of it. What was the name?
SPEAKER_03:It was like Raleigh Wonko's or something, or Wally Wonko.
SPEAKER_02:It was Wally Wanko's murder factory.
SPEAKER_03:Wally Wanko.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, because we couldn't do Willy Wonka because we don't want to get sued, so we called it Wally Wanko. Okay. Yes. And they had the soda pop room with the candy blade fans. Okay. Alright, alright, alright, alright.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that was the one with the candy canes.
SPEAKER_02:And the candy canes.
SPEAKER_03:My own was just hilarious.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, Mariah looked dubious. She sweaks suspiciously. Mushrooms not growing on the ground tend to suffer from vertigo. I prefer to vertice stay. Oh my god, that's terrible.
SPEAKER_03:The puns. The puns were great.
SPEAKER_02:Ah, I'd like to thank Dakota Crow for every single pun I've ever written.
SPEAKER_03:I kinda want to ask you about your guitar. How how easily accessible is your guitar?
SPEAKER_01:Oh no, I couldn't. Jessica. Oh, it's so far away. I really couldn't.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I just can't. Okay. All right. Maybe I'll find it. Maybe I'll find it a little bit. Maybe. It should be in tune, except I don't know if that helps or not. So this is the world premiere of Dungeon Crawler Carl Blues.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Now, James did not like this song because he said it was sad. So I went to my guitar teacher and I was like, my my my friend my friend thought my Dungeon Crawler Carl Blues song was sad. And my teacher was like, So your song that's the blues is too sad for your friend. And I was like, you're right, he's he's dumb. Okay, you ready? This is called the Dungeon Carler Carl Blues.
SPEAKER_00:Dungeon Crawler Carol. Always makes me cry. Dungeon Crollo Carol Always makes me cry. And if I can't write a book like that, I'll lay down and die. Oh Lord. Help me. Oh that Matt Dinner. Write that book so well. Oh that Matt Dinnerman. Write that book so well. And if I can't write a book like that, damn my soul to hell. Oh no, hold on. Oh, Princess Dona. The character is so good. Oh, Princess Dona. The character is so good. Guess I'll keep on writing my own books. Like every writer should. Thank you. Good night.
SPEAKER_02:Here I am to talk about my own books. And who am I talking about? Matt fucking Dinnerman. And that happens. Like, people are like, oh, you write Lidar, oh, like what's Lid RPG? You know, oh, you're a writer. What do you write? I read Lid RPG. Oh, holy, I've not heard of that. And then I say, Oh, yeah, you should read Dungeon Carla Carl. Matt doesn't need my help. He's a world famous bassist. I've seen Matt Dinneman's band Digging for Change. I'm not kidding. He's he's very talented. So yeah, we love Matt Dinneman. We love Dungeon Carla Carl. I I read a ton of books and I just read the first one to kind of get a sense. And I couldn't, I I had just I had to read, I've read the first five, so I'm behind. So yeah, and here we are.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for me it's the audiobooks for that one.
SPEAKER_02:And that's what I'm doing. I'm gonna listen to book six on audio. So because I've not heard any of the audiobooks, so this is you'll never go back. The Jeff Hayes. You'll never go back. Yeah. Yeah. So all right.
SPEAKER_03:I have one final question for you.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, yeah. Hit me.
SPEAKER_03:If you had a stat or a skill, what would your main stat or skill be?
SPEAKER_02:Uh writing books fast. Like if there's like a like a skill level, like I can write but I can write books fast. So the fastest book I've ever written was 10 days.
SPEAKER_03:What? Now, but is that like normal?
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_03:Normal novel length or low RPG novel length? Oh, those are two different things.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, this was normal novel length. This isn't like like because your typical the your typical lit RPG now is like 125, 150.
SPEAKER_03:Ah, it's too much. Yeah, it's it's way too long.
SPEAKER_02:And this is the reason why the shadow crop books are so long, is that you can have story, and me and James wouldn't plan for the stat and like the the the the the cultivation stuff and also the um you know like like going through your stats and upgrading and you know you know getting experience points and like right? I mean like all of the character sheet stuff that we didn't plan for and so we put it in. So like so yeah, so you get both. You get both story and stats. So so yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It was it I I'm not typically a huge fan of overly crunchy stat heavy books. This one was just enough. It was just enough.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_03:It wasn't it you laid out all the stats and the upgrades, but I didn't find myself just skipping ahead of it like I do in soundbooks.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I loved uh James wrote a lot of the of the stats stuff, and I loved it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he's really good at that.
SPEAKER_02:Really good at that, and he's only gotten better, right? Discount Dan and like the whole magic system of Discount Dan is genius.
SPEAKER_03:I it is, yeah, he gives you just enough to keep you interested, and not so much that I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna skip past this.
SPEAKER_02:He's for real. And when he pitched backgrounds for me, when he pitched at Discount Dan, I was like, Okay, we're gonna write it together, and he's like, No, and I was crushed because I loved the idea. I love I couldn't talk about it. Then he would like, hey, come and help me brainstorm, and I'd be like, No, I can't. You broke my heart, Jameson.
SPEAKER_03:Do it, not unless you let me help.
SPEAKER_02:No, so no, those books are so good, they're so good.
SPEAKER_03:They are good, they're so good. They are good. Was there anything that I didn't talk about that you wanted to bring up?
SPEAKER_02:No, we've we've this is there's nothing left. I could talk about my childhood and like we could get like no my stat. Yeah, write books fast, right? And the love of it, right? I mean, you can't really that's not really a skill. A skill is writing books fast, right? And finishing. Yeah. That's a yeah, that's a sk that's a buff and a debuff is finishing. That's like that's like it's great to have unless I'm working on something like like I had to finish book six of this series that didn't sell well. So it's there's a shadow side to it, right? So yeah, but like if I like like that'd be fun to like come up with this like like the skills and stats of a perfect writer. So good constitution. I take my health very seriously. That's good because I can't write books about I'm sick or dead, and so no, um back, like like and I take care of my back because it's a lot of sick, and I can't, man. I tried dictating. That would be a skill. Like, if I could like, if somebody was like, if I got like a glute box and they're like, you know, pick a skill, I would think dictating, dictating is like super, super, super powerful. And I've tried, it's just I like I like my but I'll tell you, my fingers, like I'm losing, like every year I lose my like carpal tunnel, my carpal tunnel goes a little my hands and wrists. So, but I'm I now switch keyboards and I and I take a lot of breaks. And so anyway.
SPEAKER_03:Good. Do some hand arms, do some hand stretches, like I need to do more hands, some rotating and I need to do that more.
SPEAKER_02:So when I when I get like a couple 10,000 days word days back to back, I I ice my I feel kind of badass because I ice my wrists and my hands. I'd be like, that's that's hardcore. I'm kind of digging that. Yeah, heel spell. Like if I could find a heel spell.
SPEAKER_04:Ooh, yeah, that would be good too. Yeah. No, yeah. That's fun. That's fun. And this is why Yeah, I think that's a good spell though.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, do fin like like finishing, finishing books. When I start a book, I finish. And also, I like to write, right? I like to I like to get in that world and like I don't know, it's fun. I was bored to do this. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing with my life.
SPEAKER_03:So you know what? And that's absolutely fantastic. Like it's always great to find that thing that you were meant to do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I wanted to be a writer all my life. So, like I read in in the third grade, I read Princess of Mars, Igor Ice Burroughs, uh, which is romanticy. I mean, and that's what drew me to it, because I like the other world, and there's this big love affair between John Carter and Deja Thoris. Have you seen the movie? No, no, it's it's past its time, man. It's for old people. So I want to be a writer since the third grade, and so I get to do I get to be a writer and I get to do what I love. And it's hard, it's not easy, right?
SPEAKER_01:So that's why I write the blues, because I'm like, how come I don't have Matt Beniman's career? Why God, why?
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, focus. I mean, you focus. I like my days, I like what I'm doing, I like my books. I love my books. As you can see, I love talking about my books. So I've not always this is new, Jessica. I was not always like this. So I used to not be able to talk. It was a I wouldn't tell anybody I was a writer, I couldn't talk about my books. Like, no, no, super personal. This is my secret dream.
SPEAKER_03:So Yeah, I can see that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this is this is I've come a long way.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, especially if it's at the beginning of your writing career, could you do it as a writer? Like you put your heart and soul and and everything of of who you are into books, and it's a very uh it's very fragile and yes, and that's one of the nice things about me like I'm doing I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna do this no matter what.
SPEAKER_02:And so I've been posting stuff on Royal Road, and I get I've got very few negative comments. And when I do, I'm like, is this one random person gonna make me not write books? I'm like so. I'm gonna do this regardless. And if you know no one's reading them, I mean, oh well, I'm just gonna keep doing it. Somebody's gonna read them sometime. Yep. So someone somewhere I'll read it. And I love I love the back, and uh this is also new. I didn't think I love the back and forth between the commenters and people commenting and like thanking me for the chapter, and I thank them, and there's this we're just happy. We're just all happy, like people reading my stuff, like oh no, and this I that helps with the motivation. Yeah, I don't I but I would do this anyway. Um, I just I'm very surprised that I like it so much. I've like I and I fought it, I'm like, there's no way I'm ever gonna do that. And then I'm like, let me try it. And I've loved it. I've loved it, I've loved it. It's so much fun. Good, so much and good comments, like people like find stuff, and they're like, no, no, no, this doesn't make sense, or like, like, no, it's so much fun. So I'm and thank you, Jessica, for doing this. Thank you for spreading the word of LidRPG and Game Lid and Shadowcraft Academy for Dungeons. This is what I like doing. So this is great. So we're all like the world is a good place right now. Right now.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, right now, for the most part, right those seconds right now in my office. The world is a good place. All right, where can people find you if they want to find your books?
SPEAKER_02:Uh, Aaron Michael, uh, dude, if you want to take a trip back and back into the back in time, go to my website, aaronmrichie.com, and you will see a world before now. My website's so old. It's really old. Um, a better place to go is shadowwally press.com. It's a much better website. You can find all the Shadow Alley Press books there. I really like Facebook, which I know you're not supposed to, but I really do. And those are the two major places. So and I'm on Facebook all the time under Air Michael Richie.
SPEAKER_03:I always link to people's socials and their websites uh in the uh podcast notes and on YouTube. So I will like people to be a website.
SPEAKER_02:But I do have an Air Michael Richie Patreon, but I'm not I'm gonna be more active there, especially next year, because we're doing the big re-release, and like so I'll be more active there.
SPEAKER_03:So nice. All right. Awesome. Well, as always, lovely. You can find me at iowpod.com. You can find me on YouTube, I have my Patreon, uh, which uh my subscribers will get a newsletter every month with the upcoming LitRPG books for the month, as well as reminders when episodes come out. Thank you so much, Aaron Micah Witchie, for coming on. Thank you, Jessica.
SPEAKER_01:This has been so much fun.
SPEAKER_03:I absolutely loved it. Thank you, everyone, for uh sticking with us. And thank you, Jennifer, for being my editor. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you. Uh as always, keep leveling up.
SPEAKER_02:Leveling up