MD 401 Toe-Based Space Wizards w/ Zach Cowan (aka Bat Alchemist, producer of the Mad Dungeon podcast)

MD 401 Toe-Based Space Wizards w/ Zach Cowan (aka Bat Alchemist, producer of the Mad Dungeon podcast)

Art: Tiger Wizard  Words: Steve Albertson

Story by: Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, Zach Cowan

Our guest this week is our Mad Dungeon producer, the Bat Alchemist himself, Zach Cowan, a location sound recordist and video producer located in Atlanta. We talk about what season four is all about: We’re making a zine of TTRPG content to use in your home games with each of our guests contributing a page or two, while continuing to utilize our ‘mad dice’ improv style of word play.

Andrew has his first child and talked about being a new father, working on lots of art including Pukeapocalypse, his job as the in-house game designer and editor at Exalted Funeral. 

Steve talked about the industrial music Mystic Punks adventure he wrote. He went to ShimpCon, a not-so-secret home con of Doug Kovacs (DCC, Inferno Road) where he played Dolmenwood and ran Mystic Punks in the Epic Levels’ Goblin Museum adventure where the PCs played a ska band. He also played Joyride: Survival of the Fastest (2024). They talk about Matthew Sargent’s College of the Third Wave: a Ska Bard Subclass for 5e.

Zach has been playing Mothership, and a combat-heavy D&D 5E game. Talked about how great both the Mothership Companion App and Warden Educational System – Basic Training Course are. Zach will be running Tiger Wizard and family through a campaign of Brindlewood Bay.

D8 Toe-Based Space Wizards

1. Wiggle Toe

Appearance: They have feet for hands and feet for feet, but that doesn’t matter because they levitate instead of walk. Their nose is a big toe.

Magic: They cast smelly spells, like stink bomb and unknown scent, by wiggling their toes. Wiggle Toe can’t smell the stank, but everyone else does.

2. Tough Toe

Appearance: This eight-foot tall, muscular brute’s head, arms and legs are all big toes.

Magic: They cast gravity-based crushing spells.

3. Blaze Bunion

Appearance: This metatarsal-phalangeal wizard is a giant foot with a head where the ankle would connect to the foot. Their hair is the tendons tentacling out.

Magic: They carry an oversized nail file magic wand that casts bunion, a spell that causes painful bony bumps to grow in a target’s joints, making them stiff.

4. Turf Toe-ny

Appearance: This gentle foot masseuse wizard wears flowing robe scrubs and twinkles around on their tippy toes.

Magic: They cast healing spells, particularly heeling, which causes sore feet to relax and become rejuvenated.

5. Split Nail

Appearance: This shadow ninja wizard’s fingers and toes are split down the center.

Magic: They cast cutting spells, and fire off adamantine toe nail projectiles that when hit causes the target’s nails to painfully split in half.

6. Flat-Arch Mage

Appearance: This tall, pro space ball player wizard is wearing a space ball jersey and shorts, has a high flat-top fade, and is wearing space sneakers that allows them leap great heights to dunk on you.

Magic: This high level space wizard casts spells that hinder your dexterity. Being hit by any of their spells causes fallen arches, and the target becomes flat-footed.

7. Crevice Pressure Witch

Appearance: This hunchy witch’s body is covered in writhing toes. She has a sweet tooth for toe jam and can be bribed.

Magic: She shrinks to go into small places, then grows back to full size to explode them. She particularly enjoys crevices of the body that are darker, moist, slimier and unwashed.

8. Toe Jam Courier

Appearance: This space postal worker wears the standard uniform of short-sleeved shirt, tie, shorts and brimmed hat with logo underneath their glass orb breathing helmet.

Magic: They pilot a space mech angel to deliver jars of toe fungus to beings who think it’s delicious. They have magic space cleats that: power the mech, allows them to walk on any surface regardless of gravity, and gives them a shredding force kick.

Appendix N: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Alien, Archie Comics, Mystic Punks, Spy Kids, Ant Man (Marvel), Archangel (X-Men / Marvel), Pulp Fiction, The Boys, Masters of the Universe, Conan.

Based on Epic Levels Mad Dungeon podcast episode MD401

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