This week’s guest is Dragon Warrior and Tiger Wizard’s forever dungeon master Joshua Therrien. We talk about game mastering, preparing to run campaigns and deep diving into world building his campaign settings for The Scouring Campaign, The Wasteland Campaign and The Malagorn Campaign.
A series of catwalks look down into the Idea Pool, where aquatic alien creatures swim through cosmic liquid infinity, the psychic aether that binds us all. Elias Thugburger is a carnival barkin’ salesman in a tweed suit, dixieland hat with hooks in it, and carries a cane. He stands on a dias of discarded religious iconography from ideas left behind. The game is rigged, but he’ll tell you the rules. Pay him a meaningful memory that you lose forever, and in exchange you may put together a fishing rod and cast it into the Idea Pool. The memory you put in influences what you pull out.
“Step right up. Introducing the World-Ending Fishing Rod! What will you believe from now until the end of days?”
World-ending fishing rod: Assemble your rod from the following tackle pieces by choosing one rod, reel, hook and bait. Each piece of tackle has a numeric value. Add up the combined four items for a total score from 4-12. Here’s the result: 4) World-enhancing idea creating a utopian era. 5-8) Banal idea. “All cheese must be free,” or “shoes should be tied.” 9-11) World-changing idea that spawns a new religion and a religious relic appears. 12) World-ending idea that begins a dystopian armageddon.
There are 81 possible combinations:
Rods (east wall): Corn stalk (1), Obsidian harpoon (2), Orc Spine (3)
Reels (north wall): Snail shell (1), Celestial hair ball (2), Cow hoof (3)
Hooks (west wall): Molten plasma (1), Kraken beak (2), Superglued toenails (3)
Bait (south wall): Gummy worms (1), Old boot (2), Photo of your best friend (3)
Cast your line into the Idea Pool, and pull out a talking fish who whispers the idea in your ear. You cannot unhear it. Once put into the world, this idea is and spreads like a virus. When you speak the idea, it gets stuck in someone else’s head, passing sonically, from mouth to ear to brain, and it never leaves one’s brain.
On a wall are two conspiracy boards with yarn linking different combinations of fishing rod possibilities. The Pope of Fate is working on the world-enhancing fishing rod board, and an evil cultist is working on the world-ending fishing rod board. They were in a race, but now they’re all out of memories, and are sitting near the boards nearly comatosed, unable to speak. They’re a cautionary tale of what can happen if you become obsessed with this.
Art: Tiger Wizard Words: Steve Albertson
Story by: Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, Joshua Therrien
Appendix N: David Lynch, Twin Peaks, The Bible, Lovecraft, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Hellraiser, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Pepe Silvia).
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Epic Levels is hosting a Best Dwarf Drawing Contest! The winners will be selected by our host of celebrity judges, all accomplished Dwarf Drawing champs! David Hoskins, Erol Otus, and Tiger Wizard!
We chatted about doing this on our Old-School Essentials episode, and so, we’re really doing it! The contest will be open for submissions through August 31st 2023. You may submit a Dwarf you’ve already drawn, or draw a new one. You must be the author and owner of the Dwarf Drawing, and be okay with us sharing it along with your name on our social media. You can submit any kind of Dwarf you like. Warhammer mohawk Dwarves, Gimli’s, Silly named Snow White Dwarves, Heck! Even Dark Sun Mul (Dwarf Human Hybrid) will be acceptable!
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We’ll all be partying at Dragon Con in Atlanta Aug 31 – Sep 4 . Dragon Warrior will be running games.
Sat 9:00 AM – Old School Essentials: Mad Dungeon Rooms
Sun 1:00 PM – Old School Essentials: Mad Dungeon Rooms
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We’ll be podcasting live at Gamehole Con in Madison on Oct. 19th- 24th. Dragon Warrior will be running games. Sign ups are now available. Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 10:00 AM CST – Old School Essentials: Mad Dungeon Rooms
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Our physical adventure map for The Heal World is now available for purchase at Exalted Funeral, with art from our guest Brian Colon of Vast Grimm. This is the true story – of you visiting a planet that’s also a living god – trapped in a time loop – working together to stop a violent demagogue from committing deicide – to find out what happens when people stop being polite – and start getting healed: The Heal World. BUY IT HERE.
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Thanks for listening to Season Two of the Epic Levels Mad Dungeon podcast, where D&D hip hop group Epic Levels and a guest create a system-neutral, playable dungeon room using improv, comedy, and lifetimes wasted on roleplaying games.
You can support us via Patreon for early episode releases, bonus map content, extra art, access to our discord server, and lots of other exclusive goodies.
Get nerd merch and stay up to date with socials: HERE
Mad Dungeon is hosted by Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, and produced by Zach Cowan.
Theme song by Epic Levels and beat by Mason Grant.
© 2023 Epic Levels. All characters in this adventure–even those based on real people–are entirely fictional.