GMBC ep50 - How the Atwaters' A Matter of Execution Rekindles Airships, Heists, and Aether
A Matter of Execution
Nicholas and Olivia Atwater
Speaker A
00:00:05.760 - 00:00:09.720
Welcome to the 50th episode of Game Masters Book Club where we read and.
Speaker B
00:00:09.720 - 00:00:14.000
Discuss great fiction with game masters and figure out how to bring those worlds.
Speaker A
00:00:14.000 - 00:00:18.000
To the tabletop role playing space.
My name is Eric Jackson and I've.
Speaker B
00:00:18.000 - 00:00:20.160
Been privileged to host all 50 episodes.
Speaker A
00:00:20.240 - 00:00:58.860
I've spoken with dozens of game masters and authors, but today I am super excited to discuss the book that I think will bring steampunk fiction back.
The book is a manner of execution by Olivia and Nicholas Atwater.
Both Nicholas and Olivia are gamers and game masters and they're going to be joining Michael St. Air and Roger Alex Goudreau, game masters who have made frequent appearances on the show.
We talk about the Atwater's interesting takes on fairies, the magic of oaths, the influence of lies of Locke Lamora on the writing of this book.
It's not what you think.
And the glory that is the animated movie Treasure Planet.
Let's get into the conversation.
Speaker B
00:01:00.140 - 00:01:39.640
My name is Eric Jackson and I am here with some amazing games masters and authors today as we're going to be talking about a matter of execution by Nicholas and Olivia Atwater.
And they are here, which is very exciting and they're also gamers, which is also very exciting.
And we are talk to them in just a second.
But first we're going to introduce our other game masters.
We're going to start off with Michael.
Michael, why don't you tell the folks about yourself and since we are going to be talking about a world that is built around magical technology, after you tell people about yourself, tell them about the time when you've used magical technology in your gaming.
Speaker C
00:01:40.120 - 00:02:09.440
So I've been gaming, as we discussed earlier for a very long time.
Started out in sixth grade.
I play as much as possible just like everybody else.
There's scheduling and what have you.
Magical technology in a game.
I would have to say that it was a time that unfortunately went wasted.
I developed a particular thermatological inhibitor in Shadowrun for a player who never did anything except fireball.
Fireball.
Sleep.
Fireball.
Speaker B
00:02:09.680 - 00:02:11.520
Aw, I'm so sorry.
Speaker C
00:02:11.760 - 00:02:17.600
I spent months working on this thing to make it fair.
He got wind of it and said I quit.
Speaker B
00:02:17.600 - 00:02:21.440
Roger, perhaps you have better outcome with magic and tech in your group.
Speaker D
00:02:22.560 - 00:04:28.090
I think so.
So.
Hi everyone, I'm Roger.
Alex Godro.
I've been gaming since 1980.
I started with basic D and D, have played every version of D and D and about two dozen other games along way.
I'm recently learning to love indie role playing games and have had some experience with that in terms of magic and technology, I've been running D and D campaigns set in Eberron since it came out over 20 years ago.
I was originally, you know, sort of not excited about it, and then I read about some of the ideas, you know, like lightning powered trains and halflings on dinosaurs, which was actually something I was going to do for my own homebrew campaign, but Keith Baker beat me to it.
So because I've been gaming in Eberron for so long, one of my favorite aspects of that setting is what's called Eldritch machines.
They're large, complex, unique devices that channel magic in strange ways, to do things that frankly break the rules.
And I've used them in a couple of campaigns to explain giant sort of campaign secrets.
In one campaign, an eldritch machine that had been created by the giants was responsible for the fact that Dalcor, the dream Realm, was stuck in nightmare status.
It was this giant eldritch machine pumping necrotic energy into the dream realm to keep it dark.
The PCs found that and broke it and they flipped the.
Flipped the age there.
I also, in my recent, most recent campaign, used a massive eldritch machine to explain the day of Mourning, which created the Mournlands and the PCs basically also channeling the power of nightmare to create a barrier during the last war.
And it went awfully.
And, you know, not only did it wreck the country, but then it imprisoned everyone who was within the country in a nightmare.
And so the PCs got to learn that truth, dismantle the machine.
And now they've been running around frantically trying to wake everyone up.
So magic and technology in my games, I tend to make it big.
Like really big.
Campaign secret, big campaign secret big.
Speaker B
00:04:28.170 - 00:04:44.010
All right.
And that brings us to our very special game masters who are calling us from across the waters and across the great authorial divide.
This is our authors of our this week's book.
It is Nicholas and Olivia Atwater.
Whoever wants to go first can go first.
Ready, set, go.
Speaker E
00:04:44.730 - 00:04:46.250
Ladies first, I say.
Speaker F
00:04:46.250 - 00:04:59.380
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I'm Olivia Atwater.
I am a second generation gamer.
My parents met playing D and D. How romantic.
I know.
It really isn't.
Speaker E
00:05:01.220 - 00:05:02.940
It was for us though.
It was for us.
Speaker F
00:05:02.940 - 00:07:20.730
Yeah, we also met playing D and D. But no, my mother's character suffered a lot whenever my father happened to be annoyed with her, so that became a thing.
But yeah, I've played God, just about everything, at least a little bit.
I've run a lot of games.
I've run a lot of.
A lot of Convention games.
I've run larps, I dabbled in.
Let's see, I. I started with D and D first edition, did second, then third, then 3.5.
Now we're mostly on Pathfinder first edition.
First edition, yeah, Pathfinder first edition, lots of World of Darkness, both first and second edition, and a whole bunch of indie games.
So for, gosh, magic and technology in my games, one of my very favorite games that very few people actually have heard of is something called Orpheus, which is a niche World of Darkness game that doesn't really play well with any of the other World of Darkness games.
You could probably shove some vampires into it if you really tried hard, but I don't think it would work very well.
And it's a horror kind of game, I would say even more so than the rest of the World of Darkness games.
And it's kind of about like the creeping realization of we have dabbled in things that we thought we understood and actually it turns out we don't.
Things men wasn't meant to do with technology sort of thing.
And I feel like Orpheus really straddles that nice line between technology and fantasy and horror because science fiction and science fiction, like the whole basis is the idea that, you know, some company has figured out that if you put people in cryo they can project and become equivalent to ghosts for a short period.
Flatliners was a huge inspiration for the game, but as it goes on you get into a lot of esoteric stuff that's clearly not explicable by technology.
And I just really love that theme of slowly realizing that the tech isn't really tech or that there's something else going on under the surface and you can't put it all into neat little boxes anymore.
So yeah, I would say that's like my favorite mishmash of tech and magic that I've messed with in my games.
Speaker B
00:07:21.370 - 00:07:23.090
Awesome.
Nicholas?
Speaker E
00:07:23.090 - 00:08:02.330
Yes, Hello, I am Nicholas Atwater.
As far as authorial creds, I'm the author, fellow co author of A Matter of Execution and Echoes of the Imperium, which are steampunk, aetherpunk high fantasy books in the series Tales of the Iron Rose.
As far as my GM credentials, well, I've been gaming since mid high school and very early on set myself as the GM for everyone and spent well over a decade as the forever GM until I met my lovely wife and now we split the difference every now and again.
Speaker F
00:08:03.450 - 00:08:06.890
That's really why we got married, so we would each have a GM at all times.
Speaker E
00:08:06.890 - 00:08:07.930
That's True, Yeah.
Speaker B
00:08:07.930 - 00:08:10.930
You have the option to not have to.
Gm.
Fantastic.
Speaker E
00:08:10.930 - 00:10:20.150
Exactly, exactly.
As far as game systems, I cut my teeth on D and D 3.5.
That was the first one I ever got introduced to.
And so when Pathfinder First Edition came along, it really was just like 3.51.
And I found as crunchy and as rules heavy as it can be, sometimes it just kind of harkens me back to, you know, my childhood days.
And I'm just very familiar with it.
I've run and played in Fate games, the Dresden Files games.
I've done World of Darkness first editions such as Changeling the Dreaming and A Bit of the Ascension.
Yeah, those are mostly.
Those are mostly they.
As far as magic and technology, Olivia and I have had a lot of fun with the Pathfinder setting and very much making it our own.
We really got a taste of kind of Magitech in the Empire of Cheliax, which is the lawful evil devil worshipping country, because in one of the campaigns they have something called Infernal Engines, which are essentially a magical kind of prison device that traps an incredibly powerful devil and they use it to fuel stuff.
And that kind of helped inspire taking the Pathfinder setting and actually putting it into different time periods.
So rather than typical fantasy, medieval fantasy, I've dabbled in one region that was western fantasy.
So we, you know, replaced a couple of wands with, you know, pistols of magic, missile, things like that.
Tried a gothic kind of Victorian era in the necromantic region.
So.
So we've dabbled with changing the time period and seeing how it affects things on a larger level.
And so like introducing an industrial revolution in, you know, the necromantic country that's recovering from its 600 year slavery to a powerful lich.
What does that mean?
So it's been, it's been a lot of fun doing that.
Speaker B
00:10:20.630 - 00:10:32.590
I'm very jealous that you are.
Actually.
I'm very sad that you are over in, over in Europe, because that means it'd be kind of tough to get to your table.
Although with all the VTT things these days, that maybe not so much.
Speaker E
00:10:32.670 - 00:10:35.470
I mean, I spent a few years running it on Discord.
I'm just.
Speaker A
00:10:35.790 - 00:10:36.430
There you go.
Speaker B
00:10:37.390 - 00:11:55.680
My name is Eric Jackson and I'm the host of the show and I've been playing since the Pleistocene.
And my favorite thing to talk about as far as magic tech is concerned is I once talked to somebody and said that all dwarves actually are male.
And I decided I would take the reproductive technology from Lois McMaster Bouchild's Vorkosikin series, which has a uterine replicator.
And I gave it to the dwarves.
And so they just make more dwarves out of tech.
And that's how they reproduce.
And they are all male and they all make their own, and they all make their own children out of these uterine replicators.
And that was my favorite.
That's my favorite piece of magic tech and that shapes that entire.
There's reasons for it in my little homebrew and all that great stuff, but that's my favorite application of a piece of technology and adding magic to it.
So that's what I did.
But my stuff is only scraping the surface here.
As far as all of the magic that is inside.
A Matter of Execution.
There are tons of things in here.
But before we get into talking about how we would play it and all the great things that you as game masters can glean from it, I thought I would ask our authors to give us a quick summary of the book.
Please, Nicholas, Olivia, step forward and tell us about A Matter of Execution.
Speaker E
00:11:55.680 - 00:12:48.790
Absolutely.
So A Matter of Execution is a prequel novella to the Iron Rose series.
Captain William Blair is a goblin airship captain who has found himself arrested for the crimes of another goblin.
He begins our story in the back of a wagon being led to his execution, where he comes across the one other sole person inside the wagon who's a fellow criminal.
And they decide they really don't want to die today.
So after a exciting jailbreak with a number of the members of Captain Blair's plucky crew, they manage to strike a deal with this mysterious person that helped Captain Blair escape, which is to go back from the city, go back to the city that they had just escaped from, to go to a very, very elegant high society party from the person who just tried to kill them so that they could jailbreak someone important to this mysterious figure.
Hijinks ensue.
Speaker B
00:12:49.110 - 00:13:06.820
Excellent.
And a great description.
A fantastic heist and a fantastic heist story.
One of my favorites.
That was my takeaway from it.
I'm a big fan of the Ocean's Eleven movies and I like all kinds of heist films from various eras.
And I was very.
This really scratched that itch, so thank you.
Speaker E
00:13:07.130 - 00:13:13.410
It was our beloved homage to things like Leverage, which is one of our favorite, absolute favorite TV shows.
Speaker B
00:13:13.410 - 00:13:19.210
Fantastic.
Michael, were there any themes that you felt really strongly drawn to from the story?
Speaker C
00:13:20.090 - 00:13:37.850
It felt like a very comfortable world to me, a world that I could slip into and just have fun in.
Most of the tropes in it are things that we play with the outcasts, the pirates, the doing the right thing, maybe for the wrong reasons kind of thing.
Speaker B
00:13:37.850 - 00:13:39.810
Yep.
Fantastic.
Roger.
Speaker D
00:13:40.050 - 00:14:43.030
I was really stuck, struck rather by the recurring theme of redemption that I saw in the book.
You know, this would have been a wonderful, fun, light, you know, heist story in an aethermancy world.
But the added layer of character impact.
Right.
The character depth in this book was honestly, I didn't expect it.
So thank you, Nicholas and Olivia.
I loved the Captain William Blair and his.
He was in this state of having done terrible things in the war and now regretting them.
Right.
And so he found himself again and again sort of tempted to just do the expedient thing, but instead choosing to do the right thing.
And then that is reinforced with the whole.
The oath aspect of the story.
Oaths and how they have.
They appear to have spiritual weight and you can see when people break them and so on and so forth.
So that's.
That.
That redemption theme was one I really liked in the book.
Speaker B
00:14:43.750 - 00:14:49.350
Nicholas, Olivia, anything you want to point out about your own book before we move on to mechanics?
Speaker F
00:14:53.190 - 00:16:25.790
I really enjoy this.
So I write historical fantasy when I do books on my own.
And I'm really into the social history stuff and kind of the interactions between different classes and economic levels and empire and things like that and how it's all tied together.
And so I really enjoy, in particular in this world, figuring out the implications of certain magical things on the social fabric.
And like, odes were actually one of my favorite parts of world building for this book.
And I think it comes across more in book one than in this book.
But I think.
I think definitely there should be by the end of this book a little bit of a question about whether oaths are a good way to assess someone's goodness or moral character.
Because, of course, sometimes you take an oath that's probably not a good oath to take, and then, in which case not breaking the oath would be immoral and vice versa.
And so you have this assumption in the society, just because there are magical effects of breaking an oath, which are, you know, people can feel them off you, they get supernaturally uncomfortable around you.
And that clearly has an impact on how people feel about it.
But also, that doesn't mean you're a bad person.
You might have broken an oath for a really good reason.
Speaker B
00:16:26.470 - 00:17:00.270
Everybody, we're going to take this.
We're going to talk about this world that these lovely people have created, and we're going to figure out how we can put it into an actual game Session.
What mechanics are there out there in the world that can really evoke the feelings that are here in this hijinks, heist, yet redemption oriented story.
All these complexities are there.
So there are different mechanics that may work for each part that we want to emphasize.
Roger, do you want to start us off and talk about how you would execute a matter of execution?
Speaker C
00:17:00.590 - 00:17:00.990
Sure.
Speaker D
00:17:01.710 - 00:18:07.790
The first game that comes to mind is Blades in the Dark.
Being a game which is all about small crews pulling jobs of various types.
It's really easy to put together a heist crew.
And the setting has a strong ethermancy tone to it.
The only thing I would say is sort of change the tone of the.
You know, the Blades in the Dark is, as you might guess from the name, kind of dark and gritty.
And the tone I got from A Matter of Execution is much higher fantasy, much more heroic, and so with a little bit of tone polish, I think Blades in the Dark would be a great chassis on which to run a game set in this world.
And then, though I have rarely said D and D in the past, in the episodes I've been on, I actually think the Eberron setting, given its focus on artifice, the artificer class, you know, I would use 5e using the 5e rules, the optional rules for firearms added in.
I think that would actually be a really good way to present matter of execution to players.
Speaker B
00:18:07.950 - 00:18:12.830
Fantastic.
Michael, would you like to tell the folks how you would make this fantastic story happen?
Speaker C
00:18:13.230 - 00:18:33.930
Oh, way, way, way back in the wayback machine and AD&D second edition Planesc, it has the psionics and the magic already built into it.
It already has mechanics set up for flying ships.
It just felt like that would be a good place.
I could dump that and run with it.
Speaker E
00:18:33.930 - 00:18:38.530
I hadn't even thought about psionics kind of being a parallel with aethermancy.
Speaker C
00:18:38.530 - 00:18:46.400
That's so true for me.
It was more the faeries talent for that.
Speaker F
00:18:46.800 - 00:18:50.840
I. I also, you know, in that vein, I think the lady of Pain is very fey.
Speaker E
00:18:50.840 - 00:18:51.680
Oh my God.
Speaker C
00:18:52.560 - 00:18:53.040
Yeah.
Speaker B
00:18:54.160 - 00:19:27.540
I'll throw my piece in.
Before we let the, the true experts take a shot at this, my main contribution here is going to be Daggerheart.
This is because the story does spend a lot of time talking about Fae who have a strong emotional effect on our characters.
So rolling with fear or rolling with hope is definitely a big part of, of what I see in this story and I think would help, help evoke some of that.
Captain William Blake in particular is deeply motivated by hope and many of the things he does seem to be many of the things he does with the.
The lady of Fools.
Am I correct?
Right?
Did I get that right?
Speaker C
00:19:27.540 - 00:19:28.020
Yes.
Speaker B
00:19:28.740 - 00:19:41.740
For the lady of Fools all does seem to be based on a hope, a wing and a prayer.
So I am very.
I think that perhaps something like that would be the way to go about it.
How about you folks though?
You.
You're game masters and this is your book.
And how would you run it?
Speaker E
00:19:41.740 - 00:20:13.800
Well, I've already run a couple of one shots for some very close friends who were beta readers of some of the books.
And so I gave them the opportunity at a convention to run a little one shot for them.
I called Shore Leave, where they all picked a member of the crew that they could play.
I made character sheets and had them go through shenanigans on a shore leave session, which is all done on fate specifically.
I believe it's the original first edition that the Dresden Files original role playing game is based off of.
Speaker F
00:20:13.960 - 00:20:17.640
They've come out with fate accelerated.
Since they've come out with accelerated Fate accelerated.
Speaker E
00:20:18.280 - 00:21:07.990
I like the original one.
But the fun thing with Fate, it's a little rules light.
It's more collaborative based storytelling.
The majority of the mechanics are all based on aspects which are these one line phrases that you guys create that can be used for good or for ill. For example, William Blair could have the trouble aspect Damn My Shiny Heart of Gold, where he just can't help but try to help people when they need them, whether it's useful or not.
So he could spend a fate point whenever he's helping someone, even though he really shouldn't.
And then a GM can be like, oh, you're absolutely going to help them, aren't you?
And not be looking out for the thing you should be looking at and offer the player a fate point.
So the compels the collaborative storytelling.
A lot of the wit that comes through at the table with the right group of folks feels really in keeping with the spirit of the books, I find.
Speaker F
00:21:08.530 - 00:21:56.060
Yeah, you definitely have to have the right group to take advantage of fate as a system, though.
It's something that people have to get used to if they're moving over from something that's incredibly crunchy like D and D maybe because it really relies a lot more on the players having ideas or kind of tossing those ideas at the GM and saying, hey, what about if?
And the GM going, yeah, that.
Sure, that makes sense.
Let's go with that.
Because, you know, you can walk into a fancy party and you can say, well, you know you said this was a fancy party, so I'm going to declare that there's a lot of aether around.
I bet we could use that for something.
And the GM goes, you know, I did mention that.
Sure.
There's some aether over there, you want to steal it.
So it works really well for just kind of bringing your players into the game and letting them almost write a little bit of the story.
Speaker E
00:21:56.860 - 00:22:04.220
It's also very good for a heist when you know, a player can spend a fate point and go, ah, but I planned for this.
Speaker F
00:22:04.460 - 00:22:05.420
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker B
00:22:05.800 - 00:22:28.040
Oh goodness, yes.
That is absolutely the best for that.
You're already in there and you're in your world.
And the next thing that we usually talk about are the things that are portable.
And I know that the rest of us have things that we're absolutely going to be moving into our campaigns from your book, but before we do that, why don't you guys talk to us about what moved from your campaigns into this book?
Speaker E
00:22:28.280 - 00:22:51.130
Well, we definitely had some of that.
There were a couple of named NPCs that our full fledged characters, antagonists, question mark, that show up in the novella, of which there are four powerful Aethermancers in this one particular city.
Three of them are actually NPCs from our tabletop games.
One of them.
Speaker F
00:22:51.370 - 00:22:53.730
No, one of them was a PC.
One of them was my PC.
Speaker E
00:22:53.730 - 00:24:08.300
Oh, that's true, that's true.
So the two NPCs, one of them was Gordian Ferrik, who was an NPC in my war for the Crown tabletop game, which is a Pathfinder campaign sort of political intrigue.
He was just a very, very dumb, very macho man knight, very Labrador coated and well, we ported him over.
A little bit of a prick and.
A little bit of a prick.
Yeah.
Just toxic masculinity in a patriarchal society.
Who knew it could turn guys into jerks, but he didn't see it that way.
He was a man's man, a hero, a hero of the war, a knight.
And so we kind of dialed that up to 11 with his portrayal here.
Less of a lovable idiot and much more of a menace.
And the other character was Warden Lorek Ravenel, who was an NPC in our Kingmaker campaign, which was another Pathfinder campaign that I ran for Olivia.
He was one of the sword Lords of Brevoi, and we definitely took a lot of the same characteristics that he had and kept those intact.
In fact, the last name Ravenel is a nod to one of the regions In Pathfinder that we've played in before.
Speaker F
00:24:09.420 - 00:24:10.260
Spelled differently.
Speaker E
00:24:10.260 - 00:24:16.300
Yeah, yeah.
And Jasmine Albright was actually one of Olivia's characters.
Speaker F
00:24:16.780 - 00:24:34.280
Yes, she was my swordlord.
But a Bravo.
Yeah, she was a bravo.
She had to work her way up because no one thought.
No one.
She was Kellid, actually, and came into Brevor and was like, I want to be a sword Lord.
And they were, no, wait, you're a barbarian.
Speaker E
00:24:34.280 - 00:24:34.560
What?
Speaker F
00:24:34.560 - 00:25:36.290
You don't need a.
No, we're not gonna give you a sword and teach you how to.
How to be a sword Lord.
And so it was.
It was very much about the, like, proving yourself in this different society kind of thing.
But I definitely shifted her in the book a lot because I can't really put in my player characters into books directly.
I really have to add a lot more shading and nuance to them if I'm gonna put them in a book.
And so, you know, I consciously divorced myself from the character some and said, well, great, okay, she's a woman in a man's world, but also she's kind of racist, too.
Like, it's.
I thought it was very interesting to explore the idea that this character who is very, you know, rightfully angry about being discriminated against, is also discriminating against other people and sees absolutely.
No, doesn't see the parallels.
So obviously, I wasn't playing that part of the character in a D and D game, but, you know, stuff happens when you port characters into.
Into stories.
You got to give them a bit more flavor.
Speaker B
00:25:36.450 - 00:25:57.170
Absolutely.
Okay, fantastic.
There's some of the great characters.
Those.
Those warden characters are very well fleshed out and feel.
And feel very real.
So it's.
It's not surprising that they have a history that goes beyond even.
Even the book to a certain extent.
Roger, since we've read the book and we didn't write it, we get to steal stuff from these nice folks.
So if you're going to port something over into your campaign, what would it be and why?
Speaker D
00:25:57.250 - 00:26:11.410
So I mentioned earlier how much I loved the oath broken element of the story and totally vibe with what Olivia said about how just because you broke an oath doesn't mean you're a bad person.
Speaker C
00:26:11.730 - 00:26:12.010
Right.
Speaker D
00:26:12.010 - 00:26:29.300
And that's.
There's a little bit of that in this book, and I'm looking forward to reading the first book of the series to see more about it.
I would love to bring that into a campaign as a foundational element because it's independent of class, mechanics or whatever.
Speaker B
00:26:29.300 - 00:26:29.620
Right.
Speaker D
00:26:30.900 - 00:27:18.530
It's a part of the fabric of the setting and being able to introduce that role playing quandary.
When you meet someone who is oath broken or isn't right, how much do you lean on that determine how you interact with that person?
I think that would be a lot of fun.
And then of course this book is littered with Aether tech, fun hardware and effects.
And if I were playing cipher system, I would drop Aether tech in by the fist, load as ciphers or in a lot of magic items.
You could take a lot of sort of standard magic items from D and D and Ether, tech them up and really, really drive that, really drive that flavor.
That's what I would do.
Speaker B
00:27:18.530 - 00:27:23.810
All right, fantastic.
Michael, what is it that you would want to take into your campaign from this great book?
Speaker C
00:27:23.890 - 00:27:51.410
The way you have created and manipulate the Fae.
They're not humanoid always.
They're an interesting take.
As well as their abilities to control or affect the emotional space around them, that, that, that has some very interesting consequences that I would like to deploy on people.
Speaker B
00:27:51.410 - 00:28:17.980
It's really cool how the fae have that.
They do have a really interesting position in this world.
And I having been the one person who has read ahead, obviously besides the people who actually know the entire plot.
And I'm very jealous of them for knowing it all because.
And I'm desperate for them to finish it.
But there is a, there is a decent amount more talk about what the fae, how the fae relate to the rest of this world and oh my God, you're going to be so excited about it.
Speaker C
00:28:17.980 - 00:28:18.820
I can't wait for you.
Speaker B
00:28:19.140 - 00:30:39.900
As far as myself, I'm interested, I'm always interested in the way that magic is sometimes, particularly in a.
Particularly in something like Aether tech or where magic becomes technologicalized.
It feel like we lose some of the.
Well, I feel like we lose some of the mystical flavor of it.
But one of the things I really like about this book is that it also.
There's also some consequence to working with this Aether.
It washes everyone out.
It takes away color.
You know, everyone presents in black and gray and white and oh boy, is that really some fun subtext that we can get into when I'm excited to see coming up.
But yeah, I really like this idea that magic has a physical effect on the people who, who use it.
And this color washing was just a perfect example of that.
And that is something I will almost assuredly steal at some point in one campaign or another.
Coming up.
Now that we've had a chance, we've all had a chance to sort of talk about the Portables and things that we're going to take into campaigns and we've talked about the mechanics.
Let's talk about other inspirations or things that are the same vibe.
I'm going to go first on this one and talk about the fact that I am a huge steampunk fan.
And one of the things that I absolutely, really liked about this book was that it.
It really, I felt like, to me, like it was the first.
Steampunk was really popular about.
About 10 or 15 years ago, and there were a ton of novels that were out there, and then it kind of died out and it really wasn't a lot coming out.
And then I read this and I was like, steampunk has returned.
It was just like, yes, this is it.
So I have a lot of things that I enjoy.
We on the podcast, a podcast that isn't out quite yet, but will be out by the time you listen to this.
The Arenauts Windless by Jim Butcher.
We did the Black God's Drums by Pjeli Clark, which also has airships in it.
So it's not like we haven't talked about pirates or airships or things like that before.
So both of those are really great.
Some other books that I would recommend are Retribution Farms, the Iron Duke, yes, Dread Nation, and Agni park for some music there.
Abney Park's Airship Pirates was playing in the back of my head every time I read this book.
So it was just right there feeling like, oh, here we go.
Oh, the airship Pirates.
So all of those are great, fantastic things.
But I am going to say that I think you guys have done it the best so far.
Speaker E
00:30:40.540 - 00:30:41.340
Thank you very much.
Speaker B
00:30:41.660 - 00:30:45.100
Roger, do you want to talk about what you think would vibe with this short story?
Speaker D
00:30:45.890 - 00:31:29.180
Yeah, so I was gonna say the Aeronauts Winless.
Right.
And its sequel, the Olympia, the Olympian.
There's a book I.
That I was taking a look at that I haven't read yet, but looks like it might be a good mix.
Something called Eclipse Horizon, which looks like it would be a nice complement to what we've read here.
Media that I'm familiar with that sort of jumps out at me, though, is in the visual spectrum.
So the arcane animated series really, I think, is like this book on my TV screen, particularly in the city of Piltover, where everything is all Magitech.
And the movie Treasure Planet would be.
Speaker B
00:31:29.260 - 00:31:32.540
Another one to look at a steampunk voice of a generation.
Speaker E
00:31:32.860 - 00:31:37.500
Oh, yeah.
A literal cornerstone that inspired this entire series.
Speaker B
00:31:37.970 - 00:31:41.770
Michael, what is it that you find vibes with this particular book happened to.
Speaker C
00:31:41.770 - 00:32:05.450
Be that I took a break from reading Kate Locke's Immortal Empire to read this book, which also has a goblin main character and has some steampunky stuff.
It does not do much in the way of magic.
The vampires, werewolves and goblins all came about because of a mutation of the Black Plague, which Eric knows all about.
Speaker B
00:32:05.450 - 00:32:24.970
Yes, I do.
My wife and I have a small writing credit in that we wrote the scientific paper that particular disease is based on as a fun thing.
It was just a fun thing we did over a weekend and we had met Kate Locke at a con and it was just.
Absolutely, just a hoot and a half to write and I can't believe it ended up in the book.
It's so cool.
Speaker E
00:32:24.970 - 00:32:25.930
That's fantastic.
Speaker C
00:32:26.010 - 00:32:37.660
I mean, the only real other one that I would come to, but again, it's.
It's older steampunk, so there's not really any magic in it.
But there are vampires and weres.
The Parasol Protectorate series.
Speaker F
00:32:37.660 - 00:32:44.820
Oh, actually I. I love that series.
I'm not far enough in it.
I really should read more of it.
But I loved solas.
Speaker C
00:32:45.300 - 00:32:49.380
They're very important to us.
My wife and I are the main couple.
Speaker B
00:32:51.220 - 00:33:35.270
I would agree with that 100%.
I would actually agree, Lord Bakan.
That is absolutely where you.
Where it is there.
Fantastic.
We also have done an episode on Solas with another group, so that will be another thing for people to listen to on the podcast.
So keep an ear out for that.
That'll be great.
Although I think the Custard Protocol, which is the YA book is a little more.
Is a little more close to this only because it's on airships all the time.
Whereas the Parasol Protectorate Tents is a little bit more on the ground.
Well, we've put it off, but let's be honest, the folks who wrote this probably know what is this book is based on.
So, Olivia, Nicholas, you guys want to tell us about your inspirations and what you think goes well with your book?
Speaker E
00:33:35.270 - 00:34:03.840
Oh, absolutely.
Like I said before, one of the pillars of this.
This entire series and inspiration was absolutely Treasure Planet.
There's.
There's a little bit of that.
Changeling the Dreaming and Changeling the Lost were tabletop games that help inspired a lot of the things to do with Oaths.
The Fae.
A lot of the more having a Fae run or Fae centric society in Pantheon is also inspired from that.
Speaker F
00:34:04.080 - 00:34:23.270
I think.
I would say actually in that vein.
Pan's Labyrinth.
This is really.
I would say obviously this book is a lot lighter than Pan's Labyrinth.
But the tiny bit.
Yeah, but if you want a good idea of what the fae are like in this world, that movie is spot on.
Speaker E
00:34:23.910 - 00:34:25.670
And hey, a little bit of fascism too.
Speaker F
00:34:25.750 - 00:34:46.070
Exactly.
No, no.
And honestly, like the.
The themes of it are very parallel.
You know, using fantasy to dig into some of this stuff.
It's just that we're not quite as depressing about these.
Look, no, no, Shade.
I cried at the end of that movie and I.
It's just I. I can't watch it again.
So.
Speaker E
00:34:46.950 - 00:35:27.800
But you know, there are other things.
Like Star Wars.
The.
The original Star wars was absolutely a bit of an inspiration.
As you know, that was a swashbuckling space adventure with laser swords and magic swords and space magic and so, you know, space wizards.
Space wizards.
So we did a little bit of that, except we gave it the Final Fantasy 6 treatment for Magitek.
Giant robots.
Okay.
Escaflowne Gundam Wing.
There we go.
Which, by the way, if I would recommend a book series.
The Cataphract Oath by Mark Edmund Best, fantastic, light hearted, very much in keeping with the tone of A Matter of Execution.
So I would highly recommend that book.
I know the second one is out.
I haven't read it yet, but it is on my reading list.
Speaker F
00:35:27.960 - 00:35:50.190
I will say.
Yeah, I would say specifically for A Matter of Execution, the novella.
It was a reaction to.
I enjoyed the Lies of Locke Lamora, but I got the impression reading the blurb that it was going to be a heist book and it kind of forgot about the heist partway through and turned into like mafia politics and stuff.
Speaker E
00:35:50.190 - 00:35:52.950
Turned into Game of Thrones meets Sopranos.
And that was not.
Speaker F
00:35:53.190 - 00:36:01.110
It wasn't what I was expecting.
So I got to the end of the book and I was like, I really want what I thought this book was going to be.
Speaker E
00:36:01.270 - 00:36:03.190
But where were the heists and shenanigans?
Speaker F
00:36:03.350 - 00:36:04.950
Heist to last the whole book.
Speaker B
00:36:05.910 - 00:36:11.630
And thus the great writer's prophecy, which is if I can't find the book that I want to read, I shall.
Speaker D
00:36:11.630 - 00:36:14.630
Write it occurs every time.
Speaker B
00:36:14.870 - 00:36:52.630
Okay, folks, we all have had a chance to talk about some of the vibes, so now it's down to promotions.
Michael and I are going to be at Rising Phoenix Game Con coming in April and Michael will be handling the recording.
So if you have.
If you are in the New England area and need to record something cool and geeky, you should talk to michael@saintair.com and I am super excited that he is working with me on that.
So thank you, Michael.
Roger.
I know you have writings, but we're not sure when they'll be occurring.
So any, any small tips you can give the the world on what's.
What's coming next?
Maybe.
Speaker D
00:36:52.630 - 00:37:13.830
I invite folks to keep an eye on my website@RogerAlexGaudreau.com where I will always post information about anything new that's coming out from my little imaginary corner of the universe.
I am deep in revision on my novel, although I think people have probably heard me say that for eight or 10 episodes now.
It's a slow process.
Speaker B
00:37:13.830 - 00:37:25.750
It's all good.
It's all part of the process, man.
You got this.
And now, of course, Nicholas and Olivia.
What do you guys tell us about what's coming up, both in the world that we're of a matter of execution as well as with you folks in general.
Speaker F
00:37:26.470 - 00:37:40.490
So we actually have a full draft for book two, which is going to be called the Winds of Fortune.
But book one changed so much in editing that we're basically going to have to restart book two and rewrite the whole thing.
Speaker E
00:37:40.650 - 00:37:41.610
But it will be better.
Speaker F
00:37:41.610 - 00:37:52.010
But yes, it will be much better because we nailed a lot of stuff down in book one when we finalized it, and that's going to continue to roll on and make things better.
Yeah, technically, we do have a draft.
Speaker E
00:37:53.530 - 00:37:55.610
We might be able to save some of it.
Speaker F
00:37:55.690 - 00:37:56.330
Some of it.
Speaker E
00:37:57.530 - 00:37:58.330
It'll be fine.
Speaker F
00:37:58.330 - 00:38:21.790
Yeah.
And then by the time this runs, my second book in the Victorian fairy tales will be out, which is called Rosemary and Time.
The first one was called the Witch Would not.
And it's, you know, it.
I will say it's.
It's a gothic fantasy and it definitely has a lot more of the scary fairy type stuff in it.
So it's not steampunk, I wouldn't say, but.
Speaker E
00:38:22.030 - 00:38:22.750
Gas lamp.
Speaker F
00:38:22.830 - 00:38:25.870
Gas lamp, yeah.
Creepy fairies.
Speaker E
00:38:26.190 - 00:39:08.320
Yep.
As for myself, well, by.
By this point in time, it'll be hard to say whether it's out or not.
But I am working on a cozy fantasy book by the name of An Assassin's Guide to Early Retirement that has to do about a party's rogue assassin who is befouled by an unfortunate cockatrice curse and once healed, is left with lingering chronic pain that forces him to early retirement.
And so him having to learn how to juggle in a Joe Schmo now in a cozy little village while grappling with those problems of chronic pain and illness and his pain in the butt magic dagger.
That really doesn't like all of this.
Speaker D
00:39:08.320 - 00:39:21.480
I just want to say that as I, you know, I'm not too far away from my 60th birthday.
A book about a person retiring and putting up with pain and dealing with that is right up my alley.
So I am looking forward to reading that book.
Speaker E
00:39:21.480 - 00:39:42.780
It shouldn't be shocking, but it has been.
The number of people that I've talked to about this project who have expressed that and having had to live through chronic pain and undiagnosed something, it's good to hear that there are other people who understand this and who go through it.
Speaker D
00:39:43.180 - 00:40:01.300
There are so many books out in the world with young and younger protagonists that I increasingly am looking out for books that focus on older characters.
As you know, no surprise, as I approach 60, I want to read more about people like me who are dealing with later life issues.
Speaker E
00:40:01.380 - 00:40:23.970
That's part of why some of the crew members like Lady Navi or God Holloway Finch to some extent.
Finch to some extent.
Well, he has the spirit of an 80 year old man.
Yeah.
And you know Ms. Brighton and a bunch of the Gunnery ladies.
That was expressly for folks who want more characters like that.
This adventure is not only for the young, damn it.
Speaker D
00:40:24.050 - 00:40:25.570
Indeed.
And you did a great job with that.
Speaker B
00:40:25.570 - 00:40:43.610
So with that I want to say thanks to everybody here.
Once again, thank you to Michael and Roger who have been on the show before and especially thank you to Olivia and Nicholas who called in and also dealt with time travel issues.
So thank you so much for that and thank you so much for being on the show.
This is amazing.
Thank you for talking to us about your book.
Speaker E
00:40:43.610 - 00:40:44.690
Well, thank you for having us.
Speaker F
00:40:45.480 - 00:40:45.960
Thank you.
Speaker A
00:40:47.160 - 00:40:50.800
And that was a matter of execution by Olivia and Nicholas Atwater.
Speaker B
00:40:50.800 - 00:40:52.320
Thanks so much the Atwaters for coming.
Speaker A
00:40:52.320 - 00:40:54.160
On the show and I suspect we.
Speaker B
00:40:54.160 - 00:40:55.480
Will have them back on soon.
Speaker A
00:40:55.800 - 00:41:02.520
Also thanks to both Roger and Michael for their analysis, comments and all around support for this and all of their other episodes.
Speaker B
00:41:02.680 - 00:41:03.960
You folks are awesome.
Speaker A
00:41:04.520 - 00:42:12.850
Next episode, Michael Sanier returns with Rick Steck and Mauricio Condero to discuss wizard of the Pigeons by Lucius Shepard, aka Robin Hobbies.
So how did you like episode 50?
What's your favorite steampunk aetherpunk story?
Leave your book recs in the comments.
It really helps to make the podcast more visible to reach more gamers.
You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our podcasts@k-square productions.com GMBC.
You can learn about upcoming episodes on our social media on Blue sky at GMBook Club, BlueSky Social on Facebook at Game Masters Book Club, on Mastodon at Game Masters Book Club and on Instagram at Gamemasters Book Club.
If you've enjoyed the show, please like subscribe and comment on our episodes in your chosen podcasting space and be sure to share those episodes with your gaming community you've been listening to the Game Masters Book Club brought to you by Me, Eric Jackson and K Square Productions.
Continued praise and thanks to John Corbett for the podcast artwork and Otis Galloway for our music.
Later, gamers and to paraphrase the great.
Speaker B
00:42:12.850 - 00:42:14.690
Terry Pratchett, always try to be the.
Speaker A
00:42:14.690 - 00:42:27.920
Place where the falling angel meets the rising apartment.