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Hey! Welcome to the Handful of Gold tier! Including the regular episodes, you'll also get Squawkbacks and Dodoboners!
Wowie, wowie, what a day.
Rowan:Wowie, wowie, what a day.
Isaac:Wow, just me and Rowan here in the studio.
Rowan:Oh, yeah. Definitely. Just us.
Daniel:The two
Isaac:of us. How was your day, Rowan?
Rowan:Oh, you know, it's very good. I I spent an entire day book hauling, and then took a nap and then had another thing and then
Isaac:Wow.
Rowan:Shot some espresso at dinner so I could be up for this 09:00 recording.
Isaac:Oh, PM. I went to I went to QuillCon and something crazy happened. You see, we got there and oh, what? What's that? What's this?
Isaac:Who just burst in through the window?
Rowan:Burst in. Hello? Hi. Oh, no. There's shattered glass everywhere.
Isaac:Oh, no. Someone has to clean this up.
Rowan:Who's got the shattered glass? Who's this? Hello? Who are you?
Daniel:Hi, everyone. It's your local neighborhood composer, arranger, and friend of the pod, one Daniel Buchan.
Rowan:Daniel Buchan. Standing ovation. Yeah.
Isaac:It's a squawk back. Cue the music. Wait. That was the music. Fuck.
Daniel:Woo hoo.
Isaac:That's right, everybody. We have special guest special guest on the pod. The Fifth Voice, You know him, you love him, you hear his music, possibly every episode at this point. Probably. Yeah.
Isaac:Setting the vibes and giving the tunes. Daniel is in the house today. And not only did he just burst through this window and shatter it into a million pieces, he also had so many instruments on his back.
Rowan:In fact, he had you know that guy from Legend of Zelda that has just like a giant pack on his back?
Isaac:Yeah. The Happy Mask Salesman?
Rowan:No. I was thinking more like Beetle who gives you Beetles with a bunch of instruments. And we have live music. So That's right. This is gonna be
Isaac:a special episode today, guys. I'm
Daniel:excited. Yeah.
Isaac:Oh my goodness. So that episode though, like, wow. Am I right?
Rowan:Yeah. This episode that we're talking about this time is
Isaac:Two point one six point one.
Daniel:Oh.
Isaac:So by the time we hit the last one, it will be fully out of order in all directions.
Rowan:Hold on. Excellent. Wait. How did it get out of order, Isaac?
Isaac:Well, because there are sometimes when you have an episode that's a two parter.
Rowan:Uh-huh.
Isaac:And I think lesser creative would just make the number go up. Right?
Rowan:Right. Right.
Isaac:But then you have me, an intellectual, who I knew what the best way to split an episode in half is to just not change the number. Oh. And so I didn't change the number because giving myself more work is more fun in the long run. And so
Rowan:That's okay.
Isaac:If you recall our downtime episodes and then this one is also a part two. But anyways, I'm really excited to have you in the studio today because
Rowan:Well, I'm happy to be here. Oh, thank We're happy to have you.
Isaac:Yeah. Especially because I feel like this particular one, I spent the most time on music. And that means that with the exception of the little jazzy thing that I put in there from myself telling people what the rules are, this is Mhmm. 100% Danny b music. And boy, oh boy, is it like, okay.
Isaac:Sometimes when I'm GMing, when I'm prepping stuff, there's like a song that I hear in my head for that's what I want the finale to feel like. Right?
Rowan:Right.
Isaac:Because I remember for our long standing D and D campaign, it was color wheeled by Arc Echo. Oh. Which if you wanna hear which is basically very similar to the Azriel fight in Undertale. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Isaac:And so when I'm doing when I'm editing this, and I've got like so much good music that we haven't used yet. There was a lot of tracks in there Yeah. That were from the beginning of season two Yeah. That hadn't been that hadn't had the right time yet. And this was it yeah.
Isaac:Yeah.
Rowan:I kinda wanna go into seeing because again, we've had some of the tracks and I do not edit, so I have not heard a lot of this until this episode. So Danny, tell us about your thought process when it comes to creating the music, Like, any sort of themes that you have? I wanna deep dive into your musical brain in our podcast.
Isaac:Yeah. Tell me about Battle Royale and Powerful Magic. Oh. Good and Evil Version.
Daniel:Boy. Okay. So a lot of it comes from, like, my incredibly encyclopedic knowledge of just video game and film music in Hell yeah. Because at the core of things, you know, I am a gamer. I I whether it's tabletop, video, or otherwise, I just, you know, that's that's my bread and butter and that's where like I, you know, feel most at home aside from probably musical theater, has its influences
Rowan:here and there on the So
Daniel:a lot of the things that I take inspiration from are from film and video game music. And then also a little bit of classical music because, well, I'm a
Rowan:Classically trained.
Daniel:Classically trained.
Isaac:Classically trained.
Rowan:Classically trained.
Isaac:Just like Lady Gaga.
Rowan:And trumpetist and saxophone player and and
Isaac:Yeah. You have a lot of instruments on your body. And yeah.
Daniel:Yeah. Yeah.
Rowan:Right
Daniel:now. I actually play this really obscure instrument called a sheng, s h e n g. Yeah. It's this giant so the best way I can describe it
Rowan:Isn't it like a giant Chinese pipe organ that also has, like, 14 or 15 pipes that stick out of it? Yeah. I asked because it was yeah. It's Chinese mouth pipe organ Yes. Which his man had delivered to my house so that his parents didn't find it.
Rowan:How many years ago?
Daniel:Like I ten don't even fifteen years
Rowan:ago. Yeah.
Daniel:I I was very obsessed with this instrument. Still am a little bit.
Rowan:Maybe a lot.
Daniel:It's basically the Chinese equivalent of an accordion, but instead of, like, pushing bellows in and out, you blow into a pipe that shoots air into a bunch of reeds.
Rowan:Right.
Isaac:Why is it do you, like, hold it like this?
Daniel:That's for the small version you do. There are larger versions that have this giant like little tube that you breathe into, and then there are others that are so big that you have to like put on a table.
Rowan:Oh. Just for the audio listeners, Isaac held his hands like he was holding a box. Like, you know how you gesture to the waiter that you need a box with two hands on either side? That's about what he did for this.
Isaac:Okay. Yeah. Straight blinding.
Rowan:Straight straight blinding.
Daniel:When I get descriptions of things that are gonna be happening, especially for things involving the manor, that was a very specific audible image. I had a very specific sound in my head for what the vibe of that was supposed to be. It came from like, you know, I once I get the description, I listen to things like Bach, Mozart, and then things like Undertale, Steven Universe, a really hodgepodge mess of things that like I just take from sound palettes.
Rowan:Mhmm.
Daniel:This is gonna be a really, really deep cut, but there's actually a moment in I think it's Wandering the Manor Halls. It's like the music when everyone's going around the halls. There's a very specific part in there that references a very specific scene in a educational video game called Carmen San diego. I think it's like Where in the where in the world is Carmen San diego? Where in the world is And Carmen San it's like there's this very specific scene where you're like in this English manner.
Daniel:And I was just like, I don't know what it is, but it's like, that's it.
Rowan:That's it.
Daniel:That's it. That's that's it right there.
Rowan:That's it.
Daniel:And I mess mess with some of the chords a little bit and then boom. There we go. Oh my god.
Rowan:So how do you write the music? Is it like you sit there on like the piano or any other thing or how do you how does it become accepted in your mind?
Daniel:So I have in my lap right here a fancy little device called an iPad. You may have heard of it.
Isaac:Woah. Woah.
Rowan:I didn't see that in the instrument box.
Daniel:Yeah. It's it's newfangled device that all is it's all the rage these days. Oh. I have a program on here, on my iPad called Staff Pad, which is basically a digital version of staff paper here, where I can plug in a bunch of different instruments and it just scrolls by here.
Rowan:So Danny is showing us on his iPad, there's a bunch of different clefts and sheet paper, and it seems like he can put a specific musical instrument on each one.
Daniel:Yeah. And so this is is kind of the default thing that I've fallen in love with composing right now, because there are a bunch of sound packs that you can buy here. And as somebody who has been composing a range of music for forever Mhmm. One of the things that, like, has been difficult is to try and find, like, a synthesized orchestra that sounds realistic. Yeah.
Rowan:Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel:It's really hard to get, like, that real sound, you know? Mhmm. And I thought it was impossible until I discovered these bunch of sound packs that were sampled from none other than the Berlin Philharmonic. Oh. And so as soon as I heard them, I was just like, yeah.
Daniel:I'm just gonna dump 40 and buy all five
Rowan:of these because
Daniel:I am kidding you not. It sounds real. It sounds like so freaking real. And so that's why I really love working with this gear. And so that's kind of been that's like where where I do the work.
Daniel:As far as like how I do the work, it it depends. Sometimes some of the tunes just come right into my head. I remember there's a Oh, Heist. You know the one that's like that's the track that's very like persona. Quite
Isaac:possibly my favorite audio gag I've ever done is the start of that into Yeah.
Daniel:That one that one I just like it just it just came to me and I was like, you know, in between piano lessons, I'm like, yeah, I'm just gonna write that jazz tune out. And then boom, it it it just happened. Just happened like that. Other times, I kind of have to think about it more intensely and where I'm like, okay, does this tune, like, match, you know, this person? If it's not, like, totally sounding right, what are some things I can do to tweak it around?
Daniel:And I wanna give listeners of this particular squawk back a little bit of a, I don't know, minor spoiler, if you will. Because I don't think this track has been used yet. I don't think this one has been used yet. Which one is it? Which one?
Daniel:So it's a pistachios theme, actually.
Rowan:Oh, pistachios theme hasn't been used yet. Yeah.
Isaac:That's true.
Daniel:Because
Isaac:because most of the time, we have one that's the Droop family farm. Mhmm. Both night and day, and that's what ends up getting used a lot of times.
Rowan:Oh, I see.
Isaac:So, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah.
Daniel:So we haven't used this one yet. And this one has a really interesting origin story. So I'm gonna give your listeners a quick music theory, like crash course
Rowan:for a Yeah. But
Daniel:trust me trust me when I say it's so cool. So a lot of the times I do what's called melodic inversion. So basically think about music being on an X, Y axis. So your X being your time and Y being your pitch, okay? Right.
Daniel:Oftentimes what I'll do is I'll find little melodies for inspiration and do what's called melodic inversion where I find a fixed point, usually the first part of a melody, and then flip it around on its head. So to give you an example, so if I were just to go C, D, E, that's like the melody. If I'm rotating around C, it suddenly goes down to like C, B, A, okay? That's a melodic conversion, right? That's just one of a couple of bags of tricks that composers use all the time.
Daniel:And there's a very famous video game tune that I was playing around with one day, and some really interesting things happened. So you may know this tune from one Final Fantasy 10. Alright. So that's like the the main theme from from Yep.
Rowan:Yeah.
Daniel:Final Fantasy 10.
Isaac:I'm playing Final Fantasy 10 right now, so I recognize it.
Rowan:Yeah. You're write both. So that
Daniel:tune starts on an e natural. Okay? So we have a e going down, going
Rowan:up, going up, going up, going down,
Daniel:going down. Okay? And so what I'm doing is our I'm keeping all the e's the same, but I'm flipping everything else. So if something went up, it goes down. Something goes down, it goes up.
Daniel:And some really cool things happen when you start doing that over, like, long, long melodies. And so the Final Fantasy 10 theme here is, like, very clearly, like, minor. But when you start inverting it, it changes the relationship between different notes. And so I played around with this inversion, and suddenly we get this, like, really cute major theme here. Okay?
Daniel:Cute. And so that's basically the same note relationships just flipped around. And one thing led to another, and all I did was change, you know, a couple of the rhythms to, you know, make it a little bit more jolly, little bit more appropriate for Pistachio, and then we get something like this. Except in the real version, it's gonna be played by this gorgeous English horn solo, which so cute. I really wanted to associate with Pistachio because I felt like that's the kind of timbre that that character best suited.
Daniel:And I just wanted something lighthearted and spirited, much like Pistachio.
Rowan:So Yeah. You were talking about Steven Universe. And I know in Steven Universe, they talk, like, each specific character has, like, a a musical instrument that's associated with them. Do you do that similarly here with, like, different characters?
Daniel:For a couple. Some were very, very easy to figure out. Like, one tune that I'm particularly really proud of is Aj's theme. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Daniel:Yeah. That one was pretty obvious because the trope of a devil violinist has existed for, like, hundreds of years at this point. So, like, that was that was like, okay. Yeah. This is gonna be a violin concerto.
Daniel:Yeah.
Rowan:Yeah. Easy.
Daniel:Easy peasy. Others, I play around with the tune a little bit, and then I realize, okay, what instrument sounds better with this? And the one of the cases that that end up happening was with Scarlet's theme, actually. Yeah. Which was one of the first ones that I finished.
Daniel:And one thing led to another, and then one day I realized, oh, the the beautiful cello line. That's Oh, yeah. That's her.
Rowan:Full bodied, rich, curvy, just like Scarlet.
Isaac:Yeah. And what's fun about it is that I love a good leitmotif. I love a theme. Like when I'm GM ing, I will often if a character is gonna be in the forefront of the scene, I will have a specific song in mind for them. And sometimes this works really great because if I have say a villain who is of a fungal entity and I play the theme-
Rowan:Primordial chaos.
Isaac:From Hades, I then make someone have a full body response to every time
Rowan:in Hades they go to chaos.
Isaac:Because every time that starts, it's a warbly high pitched thing. And so whenever it's a great moment where as a GM, you can stand there and say, and then you click a button and it plays music and everyone in that moment knows what's about to happen. And so and so having people have different themes and have different music that means different things. Like one I've gotten a lot of mileage out of. Has recently because of sort of the way that the story went was a combination of Crank's theme and Adrian's magic.
Daniel:Oh, Yeah.
Isaac:Which, especially in this last episode to bring it to Cassius Belly, which for those who don't know, and for those, you know, obviously all of our episodes start with A. In my mind, Cassius Belly is act of war. Yeah. So it made sense. Isn't that fun?
Rowan:Shout out to Fai who figured that out.
Isaac:Who called my ass and was like, they don't actually have definite articles, so it doesn't start with a. And I was like, you're you're mostly right actually.
Rowan:Fai and Ice. That was just a fantastic thing to watch.
Isaac:Shout out to Fi also for last week's theme. Yeah. Last week's theme. But so in this one, having Craig's theme and having Adrian's magic kind of being happening at
Rowan:the same time. There's one I'm really proud of in this last one where, obviously, Crank
Isaac:as Adrian talking to Pleiades because they are friends.
Rowan:Mhmm.
Isaac:And is at this point that like, the main characters know what's up. Right?
Rowan:Right.
Daniel:Mhmm.
Isaac:And so y'all are like, Crank, what are you doing? And so then I can I had Crank's theme playing there, and I slowed and pitched it so that it just slowly died off? As Adrian saying, I'm not Crank. Yeah. I'm Adrian.
Isaac:And then I and then Adrian's magic is very much just like a like a soft piano notes going up. Mhmm. Which was also at the end of the scene where Adrian fully takes over. That's the that's the theme that's playing there in the end.
Rowan:Mhmm. I think somebody called that too and was mentioning that, like, emotional moment that it brought back to them because that was the theme that you had played again at the end, which
Isaac:That's why I love having, like, this music that I can pull from because then it's like, not only is it just the music itself that's coloring the scene, it's also what's come before too. Yeah. So having those themes for me is so huge.
Rowan:It's definitely that music part of your brain that like, it is it's stored in a different part of your brain if we're talking neuroscience. It's not the frontal part where it's like in the basal brain where the music will sit in your memory. And so, yeah. That's why it brings up that sort of emotion over and over again.
Daniel:And that's also one of the reasons why there are a lot of really commonly used devices and themes in film scoring in general. Yeah. You'll note and I say film scoring because that's where it happens the most. And I do use it in a couple of tunes here. The high strings, for example, like things that are just going Yes.
Daniel:Like, just even like on a single note, like nothing nothing much going on. There's something about that specific band of frequencies that like taps into like, depending in context, like a bit of, you know, on edginess, if you have.
Isaac:Yes. Yeah. The tensions.
Rowan:The tensions.
Isaac:Tensions one, two, and three are like, we get so much mileage out of those solely because it's so good.
Rowan:Oh my gosh. Yes.
Isaac:Also, have a question because you were talking about those packs that you bought with those vocalists. Is that what's in the church music?
Daniel:Oh, yeah.
Isaac:Because I was gonna say, like, most of the time whenever I hear voices, I'm like, this is so vocal. This is Haksoonimiku in my
Rowan:ears. Haksoonimiku.
Isaac:But that I was listening to it the first time. Was like, did you, like, get some people to sing this for you? No.
Daniel:That's all that's all Voxos. All Voxos in my iPad.
Rowan:Okay. You told us this when you were creating. Or you may have told me this. I don't know if Isaac does. The the word say something, right, in Latin.
Daniel:Oh, okay. Okay. So so here's the one limitation of that program. I actually wanted to write it with actual Latin lyrics. So what was the phrase?
Daniel:For the nine. I know it's like a very common or by the nine Yeah. Is a very common phrase in the church here. And roughly translated in Latin is per novim. And so I tried so hard to get, like, this exact syllables out that I wanted, but my program glitched out when I tried to, like, do things over, like, these long legato lines.
Daniel:Yeah. And so I was just like, dang it. I guess it's just gonna have to be all ooze. So that I will need to get an actual car to sing with actual words. But And
Isaac:if we hit 1,000 subscribers
Rowan:If we hit 1,000 We subscribers We'll get those. People.
Isaac:We'll fly those thousand people out. Yeah. So because this one starts. So talk a little bit about the episode is we started this at this was a long I just wanna say, this was a long session when we did it. And I will say, I can hear my voice giving out by the end of this was whole like
Rowan:four hours long. It was a
Isaac:four hour session, and I hadn't done a four hour session in a long time.
Rowan:Yeah. It was long.
Isaac:But the way that we started it is I wanted to do a bit of a flashback to the church. Daniel sent us a message like a couple weeks before we started editing this. I was like, hey. So like, you know, it sounds like the church is really involved. Do you wanna like anything church?
Isaac:And I was just like, how in the world did you know? You don't mind? Absolutely. We're gonna have an intense walking down walking down a church hallway with stained glass as someone gives some young recruits into a secret church society. And I love procing things.
Isaac:I love preparing people for things. So if there's like a big plot point that's gonna happen that I have planned, I really try and make sure that something has been said about it previously. That, like, we've had something to where people will be able to listen back and be like, oh. Mhmm. Which is why I'm telling you, like, we're season five is gonna roll around.
Isaac:You're gonna go back to season one and be like, oh, yeah. Because I prep. I have a lot of things foundation. It's all coming together.
Daniel:It's all oh, yeah.
Isaac:But that was an example where, like, I needed I needed it to not come out of nowhere. Yeah. And so and you'll see this especially in season two, how things from that very first flashback come into play. Things in this one start to make a little bit of sense as well because you have, you know, certain things happening. So
Rowan:Yeah. You have certain things happening. Some, like, bad things happening.
Isaac:Yeah. You've got you have them talking about who we all know in the flashback that is
Daniel:Zagan.
Isaac:Charles Zagan.
Rowan:Yep.
Isaac:Zagan Charles, who is talking about the experience that he had with the Ashen Bow, which is another one of the relics, and how he is marked by it. Mhmm. And then in the fight between him and Yuri, you see some great glowing light. And so it's like very clearly, this guy has a lot more power than he was letting on. Yep.
Isaac:If he was just over there and his blade is glowing gray, you're like, oh, he's doing some magic shit. No. Because you know a little bit about the past, then you know a little more. And this was also, I have to say, I did cut out a lot of I just I just wanna come clean for a second about this combat, which is for those GMs I hear, you will understand how sometimes you prep things. Maybe a little too much?
Isaac:Yep. And I was accused of perhaps having too many characters and too much going on in this one. And I would I would say the finale is worth that, but I did cut out maybe thirty minutes worth of me explaining the mechanics that wasn't necessary by the end of the Because I don't know what it is about finales. I don't know what it is, but I can prep. I can look at the math all I want.
Isaac:I can prep it and figure out numbers. But at the end of the day, y'all are gonna crit on my hands
Daniel:so much. Yeah. Let's talk about much. Another one. Thank you.
Rowan:Joe just fucking crit you all much. Oh my god.
Isaac:He's just like, well, it's truly and that's the thing. There's nothing you can do to plan for the swinginess of the map. And so it's like, okay. The so I got a lot of mechanics because it was like, basically, the way it worked is I wanted two things going on that fed into it. And one of them was the duel between Yuri and Charles Zagan.
Isaac:Zagan Charles. Where if Zagan Charles goes down, okay, now Yuri's in the fight with y'all and Yuri tough.
Daniel:Yuri's
Rowan:Yeah. There's no way that I think we would have like she's so scary. She's so scary.
Isaac:Yuri is called the fourth. She smiles in a way that seems serene, but is also sinister. And she called herself the fourth, said that the third had personal stake in this, which should tell people who the third is.
Rowan:Ash. Probably. Right?
Isaac:You know
Rowan:who It's Ash. It's Ash. Is Ash Grace? Or
Isaac:Well, I'll tell you this much.
Rowan:Or can I?
Isaac:I'll tell you this He's purple. I'll tell you this much. The church and the what did I call it? The inquisition. I can't remember now.
Isaac:It's left my anyways, the church the society well, that the church and the society that Zagan is with
Rowan:Okay. Gotcha.
Isaac:Is different than the vigil, which Ashe in this individual Yuri and Pleiades are with. Okay. They work on very distinct, different ways, but they're also very similar. And one thing is that both of them have had moments. Well, actually I won't say that.
Isaac:Nevermind. Cut that part. They're very similar in that clearly they work around these relics. They have work around these relics. They seem to be able to not be pulled in by them either.
Isaac:Mhmm. But other than that, they are very different. And so I will say that the Yuri and Naj do not work in the same kind of rules as the church does. So you can imagine that all the seekers of the church have a specific relic that they have either been touched by or are seeking.
Rowan:Interesting.
Isaac:And the vigil is a little different.
Rowan:They seem to also have something. Because I would assume that the Vermillion blade is blade. Right?
Isaac:Is it a little on the nose of me to make The Vermillion saber Blade, which is it's those cards are red to make a red sword and call it basically the equivalent of red sword and make it fancy with Vermillion Sabre. Yeah. I could I figured if I didn't make it a sword, I would be being a little ridiculous.
Rowan:And then then the pale bow is like, you know, bone and then Pale
Isaac:bow and then you have the chase
Daniel:so poignant that this is a point of conversation because it just so happens that one of the next tunes I'm writing is called Saber's
Rowan:Edge. Shout out. Shout out.
Isaac:But yeah, each of the
Rowan:And then Midnight, I guess, is the Eben
Isaac:Eben scepter?
Rowan:Scepter? Yes.
Isaac:We have also heard the name of another one, which I don't know. A lot of people probably didn't pick up on it because a lot well, actually, not a lot was going on, but it was very emotionally charged. Oh. Adrian references the Palatinate Wand.
Rowan:Yes. Yes. The Palatinate Wand. Okay.
Isaac:Yeah. So you have a couple of them. You have a couple of them.
Rowan:Interesting.
Isaac:Yeah. So there's a you know, it's fun. Again, wrapped within the story of this is a bit of a MacGuffin chase.
Rowan:Yeah.
Isaac:But the thing the thing is the chapters are not broken into you and going and getting the MacGuffins. Because that's very, like, JRPG style. This is more you're continuing to live on your lives and going about doing your things. But the nature of the story is such that the greater war and the relics that are a part of it are wrapped into your story.
Rowan:Right.
Isaac:So which means I can play around with like, here's the Vermillion Sabre. Clearly, Yuri uses the Vermillion Sabre, is not using it right now, but it's still dangerous with a sword.
Rowan:Yeah.
Isaac:Oh, and back sorry. Back to Yuri. Back to the mechanics of the environment.
Rowan:Sorry. We got off on this. I need I I have more thoughts. Continue.
Isaac:And so the rule the rules of that were the equivalent of death saves. So Yuri and Father Charles are going back and forth. I had you roll your hope dice. I rolled my fear dice. If Hazel had stayed with father Charles, you would have added a d six to every roll.
Rowan:Right.
Isaac:Turns out you didn't even need it, but Yep. That was still
Daniel:the rule.
Isaac:And it basically meant that Hazel could make sure this succeeds.
Rowan:Yeah.
Isaac:But if not, then Hazel is an ally that helps y'all out.
Rowan:Yeah. Which I was very in between. Because I think, like, Pistachio would have been like, oh, well, like, don't wanna keep Hazel with us because there would be, like, some dangerous things. But also, Hazel is gonna be in danger no matter what. So I think Yeah.
Rowan:I think it ultimately made sense that the dice told me. The dice convinced me to have Hazel with us.
Isaac:It's true. And then on the other side was Ingeborg and Callie. And I got to do my favorite thing to do in a session, which is it is very easy to forget, like, the relations between NPCs that you have, right, and how you treat them. Mhmm. And so whenever I am, especially in the future, gonna have an NPC make a choice, Instead of making that choice for them, I set a DC based on how they were treated.
Isaac:I've done this a lot of times, especially in home games.
Rowan:Yes.
Isaac:Where sometimes I'll even ask the person, what is the DC that this person needs to beat for this to happen? In this one, I was just thinking back on like, how have you interacted with this NPC? What choices have you made?
Rowan:Right.
Isaac:Which, you know, Daniel, I do I do have to ask as someone who hasn't GM'd Daggerheart as much as I have. Mhmm. Did you find the portion of the episode when I was explaining mechanics to be boring and snore fest?
Daniel:Not at all.
Isaac:Okay. Thank you. That's all I needed. Thank you
Rowan:so much.
Daniel:Not at all.
Isaac:Thank you. Correct answer. Thank you. Yeah. Correct answer.
Isaac:Not only did I cut out a bunch, I also then went back and rerecorded me summarizing everything, because I was like, there was a lot there. I need to make sure it's very clear what's happening.
Rowan:Yeah.
Isaac:And so I really
Daniel:If want anything, I need to get you some GM explainer music. Oh.
Isaac:I mean, it's true because the one I do have The one I do have is a couple of jazz chords that a TikTok once showed me. I'm like, basic jazz chords. And so then I just use it and every time the little melody comes in, I'm
Rowan:like, I feel a little too. I realize this is
Isaac:very good. I learned because I've I have been in music for a long time, not in the same level, but like playing at a church and being in different musical things. You learn that a lot of people probably don't notice as much as you do. Yeah. But I notice every time, and I'm sure Daniel notices.
Isaac:He's like, no. No. No. It's a little flat.
Rowan:I don't notice anything. Yay. I don't know. It's okay. Daniel's smiling right now.
Rowan:Daniel's just like shrugging.
Daniel:He's got
Rowan:a little, like, he notices. He notices. He notices.
Isaac:But yeah, we need to we need to
Rowan:yeah. Do you have to think?
Isaac:Which and I'm so thankful that you're doing this with us because it not only is it so fun, but like it it really adds a lot, I think.
Rowan:And, you know, it is and it's a fun thing
Daniel:to do. It's I write music and arrange music like all the time for work. And that's like, I still, and no matter in what setting, I still love to do it. But because this is, I don't know, it's just more chill. Like, we're just all having fun here.
Daniel:Yeah. And I get to do this in a way that is just a little bit different than what I would do for my day job. Yeah, yeah. It's fun, it's fun. There are days where I come home from a long day of teaching and I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I'm so overstimulated.
Daniel:Need this seconds to bury my face into something and then one thing leads to another and then I'm on my couch scribbling out Pistachios theme. Or some scene music for if you're going through a forest or something. By the way, I don't know if any of your if any of any other listeners catch on to this, but there are many, many different references to video games.
Rowan:Yeah. I saw
Daniel:Not just the ones I talked about. There's there are some deep cuts
Rowan:in I saw I think it was Muscles who shouted out like a Twilight Princess theme or some sort of Legend of Zelda theme.
Isaac:Oh, there's Zelda's Lullaby in there.
Rowan:There's Zelda's Lullaby in there.
Daniel:Okay. Yes. Yes. And there's also like there's a very there's a very specific there's a very specific moment in like a combo of Final Fantasy thirteen and fifteen that I fused together in some very specific scene music about it's called an idyllic scene. So Yeah.
Daniel:Like string quartet, piano, and that was when I was just like, okay, I need a little bit of this in here. I need a little bit of that special square e That mix special sauce. I think it
Rowan:fits very well our show in general. Because we do have a little bit of reference. Obviously, we're millennials, if I have all of our references. So I think the fact that we do just have a little bit of musical references to it does, I think, just round the whole thing out. Oh, yeah.
Rowan:Have you ever played a game called Chrono Trigger?
Isaac:Do you know Chrono Trigger? I do. Okay. That's good. We're gonna talk later.
Rowan:Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. Great.
Daniel:There's a
Isaac:specific I'll just let y'all I'll just let y'all in on a little secret. A little secret for the patrons is that, season 2.5.
Rowan:Season 2.5.
Isaac:Which may or may not be what it's called. Actually, it was pointed out to me that if we do 2.5, that's gonna mess up all the numbering because then we're gonna have two point five point one. And that would be really bad. So it's probably not gonna be cool,
Rowan:but Might be just season three mini series or something like that.
Isaac:But yeah, we're going to a different part of the world. We'll be in Polaris.
Rowan:We'll be in Polaris.
Isaac:Which is very magic city coded. And so there's a specific kind of there's a specific song in Chrono Trigger Mhmm. That has been in my mind the entire time. So I'll be curious to hear your thoughts when we talk about
Rowan:it a little I'm very excited. Also, shout out patrons. You got a sneak peek of what's coming next.
Isaac:Sneak peek of what's coming. Polaris, a little side. Probably gonna be like a d side. It's gonna be similar to a d side. A little longer than the last one, but
Rowan:Yeah. But it'll be fun. I'm excited about it.
Isaac:Polaris.
Rowan:Polaris.
Isaac:Which is a very different identity than Vol'Dan. So I'm excited
Rowan:to get the plane.
Isaac:Anyways.
Rowan:Daniel. Mhmm. Speaking of more music stuff, I have lots of questions that I have been banking up for you. Of them okay, Who is your favorite NPC that you have and haven't done music for? And who would you want to make who what theme have you been waiting to make for the longest time?
Rowan:Oh. It's a good one too.
Daniel:Oh, okay. Okay. So let me let me start with the NPC one. Let me start with the NPC one. Aj.
Daniel:Aj was Yes. I I I thought about, like, it was I thought, is this gonna be a no. That one that one was the one I had the most fun with. Yeah. Because, like, that one comes from, like, so many different, you know, places of inspiration.
Daniel:There's, like, there's a tiny bit of video game music in there, but, like, also I listened to a bunch of Shostakovich music, which is very Shostakovich is a Russian composer that's, like, very angular, very brutalistic in the way that he writes. And so I took a little inspo from him. And also that one scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the movie where the bird is like flying through the Oh, the hapaper?
Rowan:No. It's in it's in
Daniel:this, like, this one scene where a bird is flying through the Whomping Willow, and it's, like, this crazy complicated flute solo. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is this is inside of the Okay. All the different places I get my stuff my ideas from.
Daniel:So yeah, Azra's was the most fun to to write so far. NBC who I haven't written for yet. I think
Rowan:It's a thinker. I'm I'm at times such a stinker.
Isaac:At least you're not
Rowan:Percival and Echronicisms. Percival. Who did show up at the end of this fucking thing. Oh my god.
Daniel:I have a feeling he's gonna get some something.
Isaac:I have
Daniel:a I have feeling.
Rowan:I have a feeling.
Isaac:I have
Rowan:He's a little shit. I have never wanted to punch an punch a gnome so far. I hate that gnome. He's a little guy. He's an I hate him.
Rowan:Hey. What's up? That's what's
Daniel:Evil comes in large or small packages.
Rowan:I I love to hate him. I love to hate him. Pistachio. Just showed up. He just
Isaac:got here, guys.
Rowan:He's no. Hate that guy. Oh, no. Nope. Mm-mm.
Rowan:Gold hands.
Isaac:You know, the Squawk Pack probably is gonna come out after the second episode.
Rowan:Oh, that's true. So we can talk
Isaac:about it. We actually can talk about it. I just remembered. I just realized.
Rowan:Yeah. Okay. Well Yeah. With the Amy Sagan, Charles giving the words to fucking Hazel because she was gonna date it.
Isaac:Well, you know, it's one of these things where so okay. Look. We had seen Hazel being trained by
Rowan:Mhmm.
Isaac:Zagan. Mhmm. They were going to a situation that likely had the relic and was divine energy.
Daniel:Mhmm.
Isaac:So just to clear my man Zaget, he probably did not set her up to fail. Uh-huh. But since she was gonna join this and be a part of it and potentially be in a dangerous situation
Rowan:He told her the words.
Isaac:He would have said, like, here's what you need to know. Here's the oath you need to understand for this.
Rowan:Just in case something happens. Like, I don't know, personal alachronisms fucking bamps the pistachio off and puts fucking Hazel on the staff.
Isaac:Which which because you have heard snippets of it.
Rowan:So you largely Daniel largely knows what happens. But
Isaac:did I set them up for failure? I would say no. Because I just wanna I just wanna make something very clear.
Daniel:I wanna
Isaac:make something. In fact, I even had my little smarty in the room say the things, which was, yeah. You know, there's a lot of things on here. There's a full body on the circle that's sparking. You could take that guy off.
Isaac:You could remove you can try to remove the sword. Yep. You could probably take that person that's sitting in the chair off. You could even hit the blue thing. So, like, there was plenty to play around with.
Isaac:Yes. Which is why these things got described twice because, if it was like, is there anything I could do to stop it? If the question was is do I think that there's anything that I can do to, like, stop this? Then the answer would have been like, oh, absolutely. Like, you see these things sparking, blah blah blah.
Isaac:You can go punch pleaties in the face.
Rowan:Mhmm. Mhmm. It's just pistachio was too in the moment. Pistachio was too in the moment and could not think. And also, I couldn't think because it was after 10PM.
Isaac:It was also it was way after ten. We were in, like, hour three and a half.
Rowan:So it was like and
Isaac:in fact, you if for the eagle eyed listeners out there will probably hear my voice change a little bit throughout the episode, and that's because vocal exercises are very important.
Rowan:And so by the end of this episode
Daniel:It's true.
Isaac:Yeah. By the end of this episode, I'm like, and you see this. Like, I sound uninterested. And I need to get
Rowan:through a box
Daniel:of throat coat.
Isaac:Honestly, well, I have since learned. I have learned some vocal warmups
Rowan:Yeah.
Isaac:That do help on the drive. For two here, I am doing them. Yep. But I had but yeah. So it's it was a long episode and that is that is kind of the downfall of doing these long things.
Isaac:And by the end of it, you're tired. Maybe you're not making the best decisions. Yep. But I knew here's the thing. I did such a love for failure because
Rowan:No. Wait. Wait.
Daniel:Hold on.
Isaac:The meanest thing I possibly could have done because the thing about direct damage is that you cannot use an armor slot to drop it.
Rowan:Which
Isaac:means that if you deal one point of direct damage to everybody
Rowan:Each time.
Isaac:And I think there are some abilities that let you mitigate that, but each each time that they fail it, now it's a different story. Now it's and now it's a war of attrition. And I made sure the reason I did that was twofold. One, it also killed the little guys. Yep.
Isaac:So whenever it would happen, it would, you know, hurt the enemies to make it so clear how dangerous this is. Mhmm. Two, the thing I learned from the Braggon Road burning is that
Rowan:I just need to make y'all lose stuff to make it dangerous.
Isaac:Because the format of the actual play is y'all are not often getting into resource draining fights.
Rowan:Yep. I'm also not a GM that enjoys resource draining fights,
Isaac:which means I have to come up with ways that are not unfair, but are also not easy. Right. So so I knew you were gonna go for the staff. I knew you were gonna go for the staff. I knew you couldn't touch the staff.
Isaac:Yep. I knew you were gonna still try and touch the staff.
Daniel:Mhmm.
Isaac:But so that doesn't mean that I just kill someone. That doesn't mean you die immediately.
Rowan:You don't die immediately. But you are gonna take my favorite NPC away
Isaac:and
Rowan:and hurt me real bad.
Isaac:For a little while. For a little while. Here's the thing. We will see them again. Yeah.
Isaac:We will see them again. You have now seen in a similar function what happened to Sagan. Yeah. Not to give the game away, but at this point,
Rowan:you could imagine Hazel is going to come back in a similar role that Zagan is in. Oh.
Isaac:And that that is sort and so that was the thing. It was like, if you didn't touch the staff and you did all
Rowan:those
Isaac:things, Hazel has a different story. Hazel probably still trains under Zagan, but it's not, like, this huge event. And and the thing is, even if Cappy had touched the staff, I knew in my head the best way to hit Cappy where it hurts would to be to go after Pistachio.
Rowan:Which means Hazel was gonna Which means Hazel gonna get it. I don't know
Isaac:Listen, Hazel Hazel had had some death flags up a 100%, and Hazel's gonna probably get it either way. There was an option where, like, if Callie was a little more involved.
Rowan:Yeah. Where Callie would have been it. But I think it I think it's actually really good for a couple of reasons. One, I know it ultimately sucks for Hazel because of generally what it is. But now Hazel's special and powerful too, and she wanted that.
Rowan:So that's That's
Daniel:what she wanted.
Isaac:She wanted to be free. Because I asked y'all what do you think Hazel would want?
Rowan:She wanted to be free.
Isaac:She wanted to be free. And that was not to not to give more of the game away, because even Percival kind of mentions it, but that's very important, what they want when this occurs. Yep. You can imagine for people that are kind of thinking also about the Zagan story and the parallels, if Zagan was fighting these people
Rowan:He would want to save the people.
Isaac:He would have wanted to would he have wanted to save the people or would he have wanted to destroy the threat?
Rowan:Oh, yeah.
Isaac:And if it was destroy the threat, you can imagine that if he wakes up to a field of bodies in a rain of arrows
Rowan:Oh, yeah.
Isaac:You can imagine the result of what you are wanting when this happens to you. It's a
Rowan:Oh, interesting. Yep.
Isaac:Yeah. So it's a minor thing. And also the thing I will explain, which will probably get explained a little more is what exactly was happening. So edict, very curious thing that we've learned about. You have the Vermillion Sabre
Daniel:Mhmm.
Rowan:And you have the Jade Staff. Mhmm.
Isaac:The previous, what we're calling Divine Imolate, the previous mayor of Bracken Road wanted prosperity for the town. Right. So he got prosperity for the town in the fact that the trees of Bracken Road grew these apples
Rowan:that were very good apples, basically put them on the map.
Isaac:It was like the only thing in the town. It was huge. Bracken Road apples couldn't be grown anywhere else.
Rowan:Right. Even those little palmologists there trying to figure out how to grow these apples, the relics involved. Anyways. Yeah.
Isaac:Typically sage, when I'm thinking of
Rowan:sage in nature, it's about life.
Isaac:Right? When I'm thinking of a sword, a sword you can call a sword whatever you want, whether it's just a tool or a weapon. Violence is typically what is at the end point of a sword.
Rowan:Right.
Isaac:Right. And so you can essentially think of this as what they were doing is a bit of a lot of magic mumbo jumbo that is combining these two things with enough power to level of city.
Rowan:Oh Jesus.
Isaac:And so just thinking of what the stakes were, if that countdown had hit zero.
Rowan:We were gonna have a nuke go off.
Isaac:Essentially, it was going what it was going to do is kind of take that what does the person want, co opt it. The plan is the person that they've had imprisoned all this time likely wants to go home. Oh, no. And so you can imagine from there what that would've looked like. So Clover of Towers would've been gone.
Isaac:Oh, no. And it basically would've looked like whether it went towards Justane or whether it went to where this individual was going, which was Polaris, either way, a war has started. And
Rowan:Oh
Isaac:my WB Walter Balthazar, a j a k a major Balthazar gets what he wants.
Rowan:Jesus. Oh, that's so terrible. Oh, great.
Isaac:So and I realized after this whole episode, that was a little tough. That may have been a little tough to parse. Oh my gosh. But that's it. Yeah.
Isaac:So that was what y'all were able to stop. Whoo. With a couple of intense crits, which is also why because those stakes were so huge to bring you into it, Daniel. Mhmm. You provided us some musical powerful magic Mhmm.
Isaac:Both good and evil. And whenever it is y'all's turn and y'all are creating and y'all are killing people, we are listening to Powerful Magic, the good version.
Rowan:Mhmm. Oh.
Isaac:When fear happens and now it's the enemy's
Rowan:Powerful.
Isaac:Now it's powerful magic evil version. Mhmm.
Rowan:And that that was I think the highlight of editing these two episodes.
Isaac:So it's just having this such good like because I because most of the time my my impetus of having music in this is most of time the scene will start with that music.
Rowan:Mhmm.
Isaac:And after it has played enough time to sort of have the emotional setting, then it'll fade out. But I feel like in this one, I kept them going for a long time. Because it just it's not only the phrasing of the music fits so well to what was going on
Rowan:Mhmm.
Isaac:Which I really got to play
Rowan:with a lot.
Isaac:Especially the beginning of part one when it's setting up. That's actually not Powerful Magic. That's Battle Royale. Right. Yep.
Isaac:And it's the and it was so great. I don't you have impeccable timing. And I don't know whether it's just that we have such similar minds.
Daniel:Well, okay. It's funny funny that you mentioned that. So my process for writing tunes for the pod has kind of changed a little bit Yeah. As the as season two has gone on. So initially, what I tried to do was try to be a little bit like a film composer where, like, I was getting the raw audio and, like, actually getting certain cues in the music to time to specific vocal Yeah.
Daniel:Cues that y'all were doing. And that's fun and that's great and I love doing that, but it also is also incredibly time consuming. Yes. Because you're listening to the same thing over and over again trying to like, okay, I need to adjust the tempo by like, point five beats per minute. Try to get like, get to the lineup to say on this, like, one word this person's saying, and because I am a busy teacher, that gets really not very possible to do.
Daniel:Yeah.
Rowan:So Community director and also like a musical theater and like a bunch of things.
Isaac:And also a breaking and entering phenom.
Daniel:The sheer tower of hats I am wearing is it is a it is a heavy perk.
Rowan:There are a lot of hats on top. There is in fact, like, is half of your bag is just hats. It's just like all the way to the ceiling.
Daniel:It's hats all the way up. It's dunked
Rowan:and ba domed
Daniel:And like a thing to so after a while, I had to kind of revert to a little bit more of an old school style of composing where, like, I was writing, you know, just, you know, a kind of I don't wanna say generic, but, like, writing themes that were not specifically timed to certain beats or certain words and certain actions in the pod. But by then, I kind of just got so used to everyone's pacing and like the editing of the pod that I kind of intuited like, okay, this probably has to be about minute and a half, add a repeat, do a second take and do this, and bizarre, it usually works.
Isaac:And I'm not even kidding you. The amount of shifting I had to do to make the things I was saying and the beats we were having to Battle Royale was so minimal that I was like, how is this possible? Like, it would literally like, there'd be a moment where, like, I would say something, and you'd hear, like,
Rowan:bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum I'm like, how is this possible?
Isaac:But that first method you mentioned, that's what y'all did for episode two Mhmm. Of it. You and Joe were going back and forth. I was in that group chat. I was like, this is incredible.
Isaac:Yeah. Y'all y'all really like nailed it down. Yeah. And I don't know if I have that level of chops in me to be able to accomplish to know. So I'm glad Joe
Rowan:did that with you. But I
Daniel:I will say that, like, that level of like, you know, being able to do this, I'm sure I was saying that some of the things I wrote in undergrad, they were let's let's just say there are many un premiered things that will not
Rowan:see the light of day. Look,
Daniel:every single
Rowan:artistic process, there's a you gotta make a lot of You gotta try first. You gotta start somewhere, and then it gets honed and honed and honed through years of craft. Uh-huh. And that's, like, part of the reason that, like, I started with you in high school. And I remember you making stuff.
Rowan:And then when we were doing this, you were, like, the first person I thought of, because I've been working with you for, like, fifteen years and seeing how you've grown. Yeah. And that's wild. Oh my god. 15 freaking freak.
Rowan:Jeez. Okay. Fake.
Daniel:Freak. Is like a
Isaac:part of being creative, feel like. There's a weird gap where it's like you know enough to know what's good.
Daniel:Mhmm.
Isaac:But you haven't done it enough to make it good. So you're making stuff you know it's not good, but you're still making it. That's the hardest part
Rowan:of it. Mhmm. And I think that's the most important part about being a creative too. It's like, you gotta be bad first, and you gotta be okay with making bad stuff.
Isaac:Do it bad.
Rowan:Do it bad. Preach. That's the whole thing. It's like, if you do it bad and you do it bad long enough, it is gonna become good.
Isaac:Mhmm. Yeah. Because that's that's how I was with painting minis.
Daniel:Right.
Isaac:Because when I when I got into painting miniatures, I was like, this is terrible.
Rowan:Right.
Isaac:But then I realized there's some fucked up monsters out there. You could just slap some shit on it and it looks correct. Do it bad. And then And then you learn how to do the bad hair, which I never I wouldn't just would cry.
Daniel:I'll add on to that. Learning from, you know, a variety of sources is like a godsend. Yeah.
Rowan:Yeah.
Daniel:One of the things that, like, at the time, I absolutely detested in undergrad, because I studied composition in undergrad, I absolutely detested it a lot of the times in the moment. But looking back, I'm like, wow, I'm really glad they actually made me do that.
Rowan:Right.
Daniel:My professors would make me write in a certain style that was like this very post tonal, like, 12 use of 12 tone sets and a whole bunch of, like, twentieth century compositional tools that are just, like seem more like math than they are music. Right. And it's really even as somebody who's been doing this for twenty years, still to this day, I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around that. But there's some really cool music that is born from these twentieth century compositional techniques. That, and also being forced to listen to a bunch of these different styles of music, different composers.
Daniel:You'll learn really cool things that, what does this particular sound effect in strings look on paper, and then what's the resulting sound?
Rowan:Right.
Daniel:I would've never gotten that if I didn't constantly have to do weekly listening logs of this piece and listen to this composer and do all that. So
Rowan:So shout out to that foundational knowledge. It sucks, but it's worth it.
Isaac:Yeah. Mhmm. Push it through. You push through. Do it bad on purpose.
Rowan:Do it bad purpose. Do it bad on purpose. You learn a lot of things that way. I think we're mostly through what I wanted to talk about. There two last things about this episode that I wanted to talk about, which was one, the dodo pangolin.
Rowan:The look okay. Daniel, have you seen the
Isaac:video of Benedict Cumberbatch trying to say the word penguin?
Daniel:I don't think I have
Rowan:no. Penguin. I stand alone on an island.
Daniel:Although, I will look it up after this.
Rowan:You should.
Isaac:It's hilarious. This Sherlock himself can't say the word penguin. Love making references that at this point, I know at the table, no
Rowan:one no one is picking up on.
Isaac:I've said this thing. No one is laughing. But now I know deep in my heart that, like, someone out there will pick up on
Rowan:it. Yeah. Yeah. It was very funny because I did I did a wild sea game the day before the finale. And Barb Bamooch and Muscles and And I were Barb had picked that we were on a giant pangolin.
Rowan:And that was my first time ever learning what a pangolin was. Oh, yeah. So I put that in there specifically for Barb. Shout out, Barb. Shout out, Barb.
Rowan:And thank you for teaching me what a pangolin is. And now everybody else knows what a pangolin is. And also, now I know the Benedict Cumberbatch penguin scene. Yep. So shout out to that.
Rowan:And the last one, of course, is the Clover of Towers reveal and pistachios.
Isaac:Clover of Towers.
Rowan:Yes. Telegraphed it in the beginning of the, I guess, the last previous episode.
Isaac:Yeah. The finale. In the finale, I had I think in if Clover of Towers had gone different, I think I got that conversation between you and Cerulean. But I'd the fact that Cerulean has to fawn over over Clover of Towers for the statue, I don't get it. I will see.
Rowan:Then it's like No. Holy shit.
Isaac:If I had talked to you earlier, I was like, hey, so like Clover of Towers is gonna happen. And something I would often do is ask my players to describe what does this person look like? I said, in my head, I want this individual to just be,
Rowan:a hot androgynous nine bear non binary person. Oh my I mean, honestly, work. Emma DiArce. Emma DiArce.
Isaac:Emma Di and I was like, I need the person who said the Negroni Spacliano with Prosecco. Exactly. I don't know who that is, but that's the person in my head.
Rowan:Emma DiArcy. Yeah. Hot as shit. And I to me, like, I was like, okay. Perfect.
Rowan:So then Pistachio is going to immediately fall in love with this person. I'm like My
Isaac:favorite animal.
Rowan:Like Oh, I just I just love a kid. Especially, it
Isaac:was emotional of an episode as a
Rowan:hit at that point. I just have Pistachio just like not like just like I I think it needed just a little bit of and you know what? It might be a tonal shift, but I think it was funny at that point. We needed something like
Isaac:It's also runs in the family.
Rowan:It also runs in the family.
Isaac:Especially with Hazel being a little little Dilullo over Cali.
Rowan:Yeah. And now, Pistachio gets to be Dilulu over Clover, which I think is really funny because to me, it's from the similar place. Right? Yeah. Because Pistachio has never really seen a lot of they come from a small town, they don't see a lot of non binary, not a lot of androgynous people.
Rowan:So not a lot of people that look like them. So this is a combination of both a crush and gender envy. Mhmm. It's both like, hey, I wanna be that, as well as, do I like that? And it's confusing and hitting them all at once, because I don't think they've ever seen that anywhere.
Daniel:And you know what? That's actually part of the reason why I picked the English horn as Really? As as the main instrument for Pistachio. Because for, you know, the longest time, things like femininity and masculinity were often described by, like, pitch registers. So, like, things that were, like, traditionally, like, higher pitched are gonna be more traditionally feminine, things that are lower pitched
Rowan:Yeah.
Daniel:More traditionally masculine. And the English horn, I don't know if anyone's familiar with it. If you know an oboe, it's like a slightly larger oboe, basically. It's played kind of the same way. But it sits in
Rowan:it's the it's sits in
Daniel:this very particular register that's, like, not particularly high but also not particularly low either. It's very like middle and that's part of the reason why I was just like that's pistachio because again, comes back to the whole representation of gender through sound.
Rowan:That is so cool. I that's that's beautiful. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Rowan:Maybe an inappropriate time to get a crush, but, you know, with everything else going on. But don't worry, guys. Y'all get a comic that will get your emotional juices for what you want for that liveness.
Isaac:I also feel like that was very Dodo born to
Rowan:have a Yeah. Was very Dodo.
Isaac:To my sisters. My sister will she'll come she'll come back and be like, oh, my sister. Oh, hello. What's your favorite? A kitten?
Isaac:I'll turn it to a kitten for you.
Rowan:Yeah. You want a kitten? Oh, yeah.
Isaac:It's also great because, again, Cerulean has so been this, like not that Cerulean has not been in conflict with y'all because Cerulean simply existing around Craig has created conflict with
Rowan:Right. You and Gappy.
Isaac:But I like having an NPC sometimes not like y'all. And now Cerulean, I get to play with Cerulean being just immediately jealous of you. Yep. And on NPC being jealous about another NPC taking their place is possibly one of my favorite things to do with NPC.
Rowan:Yes. So
Isaac:Like, I distinctly remember in Descent Into Avernus, our D and D game, you had the holophant.
Rowan:Oh my god. Lulu.
Isaac:Lulu. And I just didn't remember when you brought a character and you had like, oh, yeah. I have a little familiar here that like does stuff. And immediately I played Lulu like, well, what the fuck's that thing doing here?
Rowan:It was my character, character, Sylvia, in their little Hoggle, which was like a little flying pig, which is really
Isaac:A little flying pig.
Rowan:Little flying pig.
Daniel:With the little
Isaac:flag elephant. Being like, what the what's with this? Who's this guy? What are you doing here? Get out of here.
Rowan:Like, who do you
Isaac:You think you're better than me? I could blow sparkles out my nose. What do you do? And that was really because until then, Lulu had been like, oh, just a source I'm of
Rowan:a little guy. And now we get that with Cerulean. I'm so
Isaac:excited. Cerulean gets to be just a little jealous.
Rowan:I am so excited. But anyways, that will happen, I guess, season three after season two point five, maybe.
Isaac:After Decides.
Rowan:Decides. Yeah. Daniel, I have any closing thoughts on music or anything?
Daniel:Thank your music teachers in high school and middle school and beyond because they do the good work. Yeah. Listen to all types of music. Even things that you may not like or you think you may not like. Because chances are you only think you don't like it.
Rowan:Hell yeah. Hell yeah. And is there ever places that they can find you on the internet and maybe Yeah.
Isaac:Anything you wanna plug?
Daniel:Yeah. Yeah. So the music from season two right now is on my Bandcamp page. I believe it's just daniel bukin at bandcamp dot
Rowan:com. Link I the
Daniel:description below. Yeah. But one of the things that I am going to I was hoping to try and get it done by the season two finale, but that's not happening now at all. So it'll happen sometime in the near future, is that once season two wraps up and I've been able to make final edits on things, terms in of music, maybe even get some extended cuts on certain tracks that like we don't get to hear in the pod, but I wanna showcase. I'm gonna try to get all of the music from season two on streaming platforms like, you know, iTunes, Spotify,
Rowan:all that
Daniel:sort of stuff. Yeah. Once that goes out, I would it would be awesome if you all could go check that out.
Rowan:Yeah. We will
Daniel:put the
Rowan:crap out
Daniel:of that. When that's gonna happen, I can't really say for sure right now. But that's one of my goals for the very near future. So hopefully by the summer,
Rowan:something like that. Yay.
Isaac:That'll be awesome.
Rowan:That'll be awesome. Fantastic. Oh my god.
Isaac:This has been great. Thank you so much, Dana, for coming in. Thanks for having me. And
Rowan:can you fix the window on your way out?
Daniel:Yeah. No problem. Oh,
Rowan:yay. Look.
Daniel:Nice. The window's clipped.
Isaac:You boarded up the window, but we still
Rowan:have all this glass on the ground. Oh, no. What are we gonna do? Oh,
Isaac:Rowan. Wow. A glass vacuum?
Rowan:Yeah. A glass vacuum. Where'd you get
Isaac:the glass vacuum?
Rowan:From the glass factory. Wow. Alright. That's And see you. Thank you so much for joining us on this season two.
Isaac:Yes. Thank you so much. Shout out. And expect a season two overall squawk pack for patrons in the future.
Rowan:Yes. If you are listening to this now, there is a q and a section on our Discord. Please ask your questions there that you want us to talk about on this season two look back.
Isaac:That's right. Season two look back. Squawk back on three. One, two, three.
Daniel:Squawk back.