GMBC032 -From Graphic Novels to Gaming Tables: How Monstress Inspires Adventure
Marjoire Lui
Monstress
Speaker A
00:00:04.160 - 00:01:29.830
Welcome to the Game Masters Book Club where great fiction becomes your next great tabletop adventure. The fantasy horror graphic novel Monstrous is fused with Egyptian art deco inflected steampunk images as well as grotesque barley horror.
As Micah, a teenage girl who is possessed of a magical symbiote, struggles to survive past trauma, current political jeopardy and a dark destiny.
Martin Wilson, Rich Davies and Tom Watkins join us again from Australia to discuss how graphic novels affect our imaginations, why we love both talking cats and sexy warrior nuns, and how this book ties together themes from magical school books, 80s sci fi films and 60s cowboy classics. Let's get into the conversation. Welcome to the Game Masters Book Club and I am here back with our three game masters from Australia.
That's right, Tom, Rich and Martin are going to be joining us this week to talk about Monstress, the graphic novel series, specifically the first one. And they're also going to be talking to us about graphic novels in general and how they impact their creative process as game masters.
But why you want to listen to me talk about what they're going to talk about when they can just talk about it? Tom, do you want to lead off, tell people a little bit about yourself and about how the graphic novel works for you?
Speaker B
00:01:29.910 - 00:02:24.140
Sure. So, hi, I'm Tom. I'm from Perth, Western Australia.
Although I'm originally from Scotland, been Dming for a long time and I write the blog D and D at Work where I look at the connection between leadership and role playing games. Graphic novels.
I absolutely love graphic novels and comics in general and I'm a massive fan of Alan Moore and I just find that they tend to be a lot more out there than regular novels. There's a lot of crazy concepts in there and supported by the art. Absolutely love it.
The only thing I don't like about graphic novels is the fact that they're really.
You read them quite quickly so you don't get that sort of long, drawn out experience that a novel gives you, but it sort of hits you harder with some crazy stuff. So, yeah, massive fan, Alan Moore, the Bone series, why the Last Man Fables, all that good stuff. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker A
00:02:24.940 - 00:02:35.820
Oh, nice, nice. Recommendations all around. Yeah, fantastic.
Rich, do you, do you want to go next and talk about yourself and your gaming journey and your view on Graphic Node?
Speaker C
00:02:35.980 - 00:04:14.450
Yeah, sure.
I've been playing D and D since high school in the 1990s and so once I hit the 20s, I sort of had a, had a break and it wasn't until about 10 years ago, which I went back to Role playing.
It started off with DND and it's gone into all sorts of other things called Cthulhu, Mothership, Dungeon Crawl classics, and more recently Mythic Bastion Lands and Pirate Borg. And so really enjoy the sort of the environment, so to speak.
And in terms of graphic novels, jeepers, it's a sort of a similar sort of thing for, for me and role playing games and graphic novels. So I collected heaps of comics when I was in high school. So it's Iron Man, Spider Man, X Men, all those type of things.
I had a whole stack of them and collected them for years. But once I finished up and went to high school and went to uni, I gave them all away. And so I haven't been back to graphic novels for some time.
So that's kind of like the filter that I have for graphic novels is kind of like sort of a kids type of thing. That's how I associate with it.
But now obviously with monstrous and some of the other stuff that are floating around, it's more catered to adult, more grown up type of audience. And so that was a nice breath of fresh air.
Having the more interesting type of twist on things, anime or what have you as well, having more complicated, more interesting. The art is still fantastic.
And so yeah, looking forward to having a chat about that in a little bit more detail and how graphic novels inspire the sort of our gaming experiences.
Speaker A
00:04:14.700 - 00:04:23.380
Awesome. I'm very excited. But let's hear from Martin first. Martin, why don't you tell us about yourself and your gaming experience and graphic novels.
Speaker D
00:04:23.380 - 00:05:27.290
Yeah, yeah, My name's Martin, same as Rich and Tom probably. I've been playing since I was in High School. 14, 15.
Started out with second edition Dungeons and Dragons and then moved on to pathfinder and then 5th edition and then everything in between. Since then we've got quite a collection going on of different games and it's playing at the moment.
As for graphic novels, I collected Phantom comics when I was a kid. The Phantom, Tank Girl, Judge Dredd, and then sort of stopped again in my twenties, much like Rich, and never got back into them.
So this is probably the first graphic novel I've read since God knows when.
Yeah, I like Rich, loved the art in this book, but I much prefer reading because I have such a love for imagination and I think it's so important and I feel graphic novel railroad you a little bit, which is still a good experience. Much like sort of a 90s action movie which is just sit down and watch and not think about it. So I think it was A good experience.
Speaker C
00:05:28.010 - 00:06:03.029
That was an excellent point there, Marty. I completely agree with the whole thing about almost like railroading, you know, I mean, I hesitate to use that word, but in terms of like.
Yeah, sitting down, like you're sort of concentrating on the sort of. With the graphic novel, the pictures and the sort of what's happening there, the movement and the color, so to speak.
So your mind is taken up by those type of things. But as you read, as you read a novel, you don't have that investment, so to speak.
So your mind can sort of like almost wander in the background, like in your subconscious. Yeah, mine does as well.
Speaker D
00:06:03.110 - 00:06:16.800
Mine does as well. And sometimes reading, I find myself going on little tangents in my mind and think, oh, God, where was I in the book again?
Because I was thinking, ah, how cool is that? And so it takes me somewhere else for a second, which I missed in the graphic novels.
Speaker A
00:06:16.800 - 00:10:06.350
Hi, I'm Eric Jackson. I'm the host, and I've been playing D and D and a variety of other games for forever. Since the Pleistocene.
I absolutely agree with you guys that one of the great things about graphic novels is the art and the idea that it gives you a lot right up front that could be considered railroading. But I often find that it helps set the scene. Something that I struggle with as a game master to get people into the world.
I think the art does a really great job of getting me into the world very quickly. But I also agree that it's not as deeply imaginative as you guys are sort of pointing out.
Or at least I'm not as involved in the creation of the scene.
And I think that's why I noticed that you guys were like, oh, I read people talk about reading Bone or they talk about reading superhero comics or the Phantom. And I'm like, actually, the only place that I really enjoy reading horror is in graphic novels.
I don't like to read horror novels, you know, because I get scared. My own imagination gets me going way more than, say, like a graphic novel. And also to Tom's point, it's also rather short. So my exposure is.
Is both short and perhaps screened a little bit by the medium. That's the place where I do most of my horror reading is in graphic novels, like Chu and Hellboy and obviously Monstress.
I've read every issue of this series and I've really enjoyed it.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the book so that the folks at home know what we're talking about here, and they've got to be all Excited by now we've talked about graphic novels. What about this?
Graphic novel Monstress is the award winning dark fantasy graphic novel series created by writer Marjorie Liu, artist Sana Takeda and publisher Image Comics. Set in an alternate 20th century Asia in the aftermath of a devastating war between the human Federation.
By the way, just to throw this in here, they've used the Federation a couple of times and I kept hearing Star Trek Federation and it just did not. It just automatically did not click. I was like, oh no, this is not that Federation.
And the Arcanix, magical human animal hybrids which are reminiscent of the Fae. The human faction is led by the Koume, an order of magical nuns who gain power by consuming the Archonic's flesh.
Our protagonist, Micah Halfwolf, is a one armed archonic who can pass as human and allows herself to be captured by the Koume in order to infiltrate one of the Khuman strongholds as a slave. There she hopes to find out what happened to her mother, an archaeological researcher. Micah is not alone.
Within her is Zinn, an ancient destructive entity that she fights to control. Less gruesome violence results. While escaping the Koumay, she also picks up Khipa, a young fox child, and Master Ren, a talking cat necromancer.
Her journey uncovers the ancient history of old gods, deep political intrigue among many different factions and a potential world ending conspiracy that revolves around Micah and Zinn.
The world building is lush, dark and deep, supported by Takeda's art and occasionally the biased lectures from the cat scholar, Professor Tam Tam at the end of each issue. The books delve deeply into trauma and survival, both of those who suffered from war and intergenerational strife.
It also deals with racism, prejudice and the horror of the human condition. That's everything I could say about it, short as possible. Go ahead, Martin, you want to. Anything else I missed or you want.
Speaker D
00:10:06.350 - 00:10:11.310
To talk about side of sexy warrior nuns? No, not really. You wrapped it up really well.
Speaker A
00:10:14.509 - 00:10:22.430
Yes. If I haven't already said this, this may not be good for very young readers. I'm just gonna throw that out there as a comic book.
Speaker D
00:10:22.430 - 00:10:24.510
No, no, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A
00:10:24.510 - 00:10:36.160
Not only for this. For the occasionally graphic art content, gruesome mostly, although some other stuff as well. Some of the themes can be very disturbing. But also.
Sexy warrior nuns.
Speaker D
00:10:36.160 - 00:10:37.280
Sexy warrior nuns.
Speaker C
00:10:37.280 - 00:10:45.440
It certainly. I mean as we should list all those things, Eric, they pack in so much in just such a little volume here.
Speaker A
00:10:45.440 - 00:10:46.280
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C
00:10:46.280 - 00:10:48.840
There are so many things. It's so dense.
Speaker A
00:10:49.320 - 00:11:12.140
That's one of the things That I find when I was doing the reread for this series, that I could linger on a page.
You know, it's got like maybe a dozen, two dozen words on it, and yet I could spend 10 minutes on a page both looking at the art and thinking about what they're saying and trying and remembering what's happening in the series. And it is a very dense series. I agree.
Speaker D
00:11:12.300 - 00:11:24.020
Very start of the. The book really sort of chucks a lot of information at you. In the first, sort of. Probably quarter of the first book I found got a bit lost sometimes.
Oh, God, what's. What was that? And I've got to go back and then have a look and then definitely.
Speaker A
00:11:24.020 - 00:11:25.710
Does some info dumping. Agreed.
Speaker C
00:11:25.940 - 00:11:54.900
Yeah, that's right. And you know, you could go back. You mentioned Eric having a reread. You could go back several times. You pick up more bits and more of the detail.
I mean, I was just quickly preparing for tonight. I was just showing my wife what this novel was all about and she said, oh, isn't it interesting having this, all this Egyptian iconography.
I didn't really notice it, but then I started flicking through and it's all through this book. It's. Yeah, it's incredible. There's lots to absorb.
Speaker B
00:11:55.440 - 00:12:38.160
Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
There was, like the other guys have said, there was so much in it, but there was a lot you can take away from it in terms for games and things, which we'll talk about later. I didn't find it as fun as a lot of other graphic novels I've read in the past.
I think possibly the information overload at the beginning was a bit much for me. Compare it to, say, Watchmen, which is a very dense graphic novel, but the information is spread throughout it rather than being right at the front.
And I think I prefer that sort of drip feeding of the information as you sort of delve into the story. But, I mean, I still really enjoyed it and it was a very different graphic novel than I usually read. It was.
Yeah, it was good to try something different.
Speaker A
00:12:38.800 - 00:12:56.470
Speaking of games, let's move on to our discussion of how if we wanted to run some, if we wanted to run in the world of Monstress, what sort of system, what sort of mechanics do we think would be useful to evoke the feeling of this particular series? Martin, do you want to get started?
Speaker D
00:12:56.630 - 00:13:49.660
Yeah, sure. So for me, I struggled a little bit with what to adapt this into until I stopped thinking about playing on the side of the main character.
And I thought it would be quite fun to Play on the side of the nuns. That's right. The Koume witches. I'd like to play them.
Do a sort of an adventurers with the Dark Heresy or the Imperium Maledictum rules the Warhammer 40,000 which is already quite a dark universe. And you're playing a group of inquisitors to hunt down the chaos infected Micah, half wolf. So I think that'd be quite fun turning it on its.
On its head a little bit. Playing as the bad guys hunting down Micah and even Keeper I think is a perfect sort of servitor Cherub who follows Micah.
I think that was probably what turned me on to the Dark Heresy to start with.
Speaker A
00:13:49.740 - 00:13:56.940
That's fantastic. I haven't spent a lot of time in. In that particular universe. I do need to spend. I gotta spend some more time there.
Speaker D
00:13:57.260 - 00:13:59.180
I love it. Yeah, absolutely love it.
Speaker A
00:13:59.420 - 00:14:00.460
Tom, you want to continue?
Speaker B
00:14:00.620 - 00:14:58.490
Yeah. So something I liked about the graphic novel was the fact that there's so many monsters in there. So you've got the main character who is.
It's got a symbiotic monster living in her. You've got the vampires. I think there's. There's sort of like anthropomorphic creatures in there. There's all sorts of things.
There's magicians, you name it. So I was like what sort of system would capture all of these things?
And of course the obvious answer to me was the Vampire, the Masquerade and the World of Darkness Systems by White Wolf. Because you've got all these books for very specific things like werewolves, vampires, mages, changelings and they're all compatible with each other.
So I think that would be a really good system to. You can and choose and you could then get people playing all of the. The whole gamut of creatures that are alive in this world.
And I think that could capture it really well. And I don't think it would take too much in the way of changing the system to be able to capture that sort of feeling.
Speaker A
00:15:00.010 - 00:15:29.100
I think you're right. Particularly Changeling where you've got a lot of the. I think a lot of the Arcanics have that Fae feel. So that's.
That would be a definite way to go about it. I played a modified version of the World of Darkness a couple of times.
I have a good friend of mine, Chris Grannis, he's actually been on the show and he runs changeling games all the time. And actually he runs a vampire game, but that's mostly funny. He runs that based off of the. What we do in The Shadows game,.
Speaker D
00:15:29.420 - 00:15:34.580
What we do at the. Yeah, yeah. It's such a good show and movie, isn't it? Yeah, I love it.
Speaker B
00:15:34.580 - 00:15:39.620
And definitely reminiscent of a role playing group rather than people taking it too seriously.
Speaker C
00:15:39.620 - 00:17:46.220
I had a bit of a head scratching moment as well for this one because it wasn't obvious of the type of system I would use with this. And I had to think about Maker and how powerful she was.
And looking through the sort of the novel you'd see all these other like the warrior nuns and all these other demigod type of things, winged creatures and things like that. She would still lay waste all of these. And so I sort of got sort of like a sort of a silly vibe to this. As in it's just Mika was undeniably powerful.
And so I haven't played any superhero RPG's because that sort of leapt out with me and also with my association with comics and graphic novels back in the 90s. And so it got me thinking about Mutant Crawl classics.
So this is kind of like a spin off of Dungeon Crawl classics and it's kind of like a 1970s post apocalyptic science fantasy setting. And it's a little bit wild and silly and gonzo. And I'll completely acknowledge that it's different to what they was prepared for. Monstrous.
The tone that was meant for that. But I thought it would be interesting from the MCC point of view because they have characters there.
Your player character in fact can be randomly mutated and so some of these mutations not powerful at all. So you could lose a body part.
You could have thin skin, you could have stunted wings, you could have maybe one of your legs shift so it's pointed backwards, it's pointed the wrong way. As opposed to some of the other mutations which are verging on godlike or incredibly powerful.
So you have life force drain, magnetic control, holographic skin.
And so that sort of struck a chord with me because I sort of thought that I could imagine Maker using like she could have this life force drain ability with her enemies surrounding her. She just sort of activate this ability and they all just fall to pieces.
Even though these other characters around her were powerful in their own right. I just thought that would be sort of a twist on the superhero very powerful nature there was shown in the graphic novel.
Speaker A
00:17:46.220 - 00:17:48.020
Yeah, no, that sounds. That sounds great.
Speaker D
00:17:48.020 - 00:17:48.460
Nice.
Speaker B
00:17:48.940 - 00:17:49.820
Can I just add something?
Speaker A
00:17:49.900 - 00:17:50.620
Sure, of course.
Speaker B
00:17:50.860 - 00:18:38.940
So one thing I liked about the main character is that she. She was incredibly powerful, as Rich has just said. But there was a price. You know, there was this sort of symbiotic creature trying to take her over.
And in one of our games back in the day, Rich's character was bitten by a werewolf and became a werewolf. And although that gave them quite a lot of power, whenever the full moon came up, there'd be all sorts of crazy shenanigans going on.
And so there was definitely this price to pay for having the power, and I think that was reflected in the graphic novel. But I think that's an important thing in games, is to have someone is. Has got a lot of power.
There has to be some sort of price for it so it doesn't get completely out of control. There's. There's some price to be paid for having all those extra abilities. And I think that that's reflected. Well. Yeah. In Monstrous.
Speaker C
00:18:38.940 - 00:18:43.340
Yeah, Tom, that's an excellent point, because her body was literally being consumed.
Speaker B
00:18:43.820 - 00:18:44.300
Yes.
Speaker C
00:18:44.700 - 00:19:05.900
Eaten away by this God. Yeah. It was incredible. In a graphic novel, it's perfect because you could see that so easily. Whereas in. Maybe in a.
Like a regular novel that isn't as present, you know, you can't describe that in every page or every interaction that that person, the protagonist, has. Whereas if the graphic novel, it's always there just about whenever the characters are seen.
Speaker A
00:19:06.140 - 00:20:34.480
Yet one of the advantages of that visual media there. I'm going to just throw in my mechanics here because I know you guys, I can hear it in your voices.
You want to start talking about some of the things you want to add to your games. But the last mechanic that I want to throw in is from a game called Unknown Armies. They have different stress meters. They call them shock gauges.
And they are based around things that the character has experienced like helplessness, isolation, violence, the unnatural. And all of these things are things that are happening constantly in the Monstrous game. They're eight notches and. And you harden as you go higher.
That's the term that they use. And some abilities that you have improve as you harden. So as you become more abused or more isolated, your ability to lie or dodge becomes better.
Whereas if you don't go up on those and you. You remain closer to the base, you are better at connecting with people.
You're not suffering physical ailments as much, and people have a greater respect for you.
And so all of that is really tied into a lot of what happens to Micah, as well as a lot of what's happening in this political intrigue world where there's a lot of trauma. That's why I was. I was like, okay, this is a system from Unkn armies, I think would give that feeling the best possible chance of coming through.
Speaker B
00:20:34.800 - 00:20:35.960
Oh, cool, good.
Speaker A
00:20:35.960 - 00:20:47.840
And now that we've covered that and I got my little piece in, we can get right down to the cool stuff because obviously there is a ton of cool stuff that's portable from these graphic novels and can put into our games. Martin, do you want to go first?
Speaker D
00:20:48.320 - 00:21:36.010
Yeah, sure. So the first things is the city, which they start off in the city of Zamora with the slave auction. I loved the art of that and I'd love to put the.
Something takes some of that and put it in a game with the dungeons and then the opulent sort of, you know, you said they were Egyptian iconography, rich. I'm not sure what I was sort of even thought they were, but I loved the sort of.
Everything was gold filigree and red carpets and I absolutely loved that sort of imagery. So I'd love to chuck something like that in the giant gods that roam the world. I loved that as well.
They're not necessarily interacting with everyone and people are wondering what they are and why they're there. I love, loved that. That's a great thing to chuck in a game. Just as almost set dressing, I think, and setting up intrigue.
Speaker A
00:21:36.090 - 00:21:41.610
Yeah. You see a giant skeletal creature with snake hair and you're like, what's going on there?
Speaker D
00:21:42.090 - 00:22:04.070
Yeah, all right, what are we doing about that? And. And that's again, something interesting.
Playing Dungeons Dragons with students, you say, oh, you know, there's this giant creature in front of you. What do you want to do? And they instantly say, I'll attack it. And, you know, some players do the same thing, but not necessarily.
You don't necessarily want to go and attack everything that's roaming the land, I think.
Speaker A
00:22:04.070 - 00:22:11.750
Yeah, definitely. Like how you give separation between small children and player characters. That's very kind of you.
Speaker D
00:22:11.750 - 00:22:14.390
Well, some player characters don't do it.
Speaker C
00:22:15.750 - 00:25:05.010
I would like to talk about Professor Tam Tam. And so I thought it was a wonderful segue through the graphic novel. From time to time, they'd have like a two page spread of a lesson.
Professor Tam Tam would be explaining to his students or the reader. It would just give a bit of a bit of information, some background on why the world was like it was. And so in particular, there was.
There was one sort of just describing very briefly the different species in the story. So you have the humans, the cats, the ancients, the old gods and the arcanics.
And I thought that that was such a good little thing because although I was reading all this Stuff right up until that point, it didn't really coalesce or didn't sort of form till obviously I was explained to providing by Professor Tam Tam. And so I thought that was really good. That little, little quick little information burst.
It didn't provide all the details obviously, but it just provided enough. A little bit more aware of what was going on and then kind of almost like refresh to start again back into the rest of.
Now that I knew a little bit more. I kind of like the way that they provided this burst of information or lore dump. It's. That's a pretty ugly term.
But for the teachings for my games, I'm quite sensitive about these having these sort of lore dumps, so to speak.
These longish monologues from the dm, I'm weary of maybe boring the character, the players, or maybe going through something at length that we don't actually go through in the scenario. So with my games, I don't really spend any time doing these sort of bursts of information, so to speak.
I'd rather spend my time listening to the players and then building off what they have to say. Or if there is something, I'll just very quickly describe some things or set the scene and off we go again.
I think just by looking at what this Professor Tam Tam sort of experienced, what I might just sort of pull back a bit in terms of providing a picture or maybe a map or maybe describing a scene that the characters, although not experiencing, maybe would be useful for them to know, to add some flavor or some depth to the sort of the world building. I know this is kind of like obvious, you know, most dms would know like having a prop would be useful, but I kind of have forgotten gotten that.
That's something I don't do generally. And so I think what I might do is start building those little vignettes of little informations that I can provide to the characters.
Something some prop or something they can use and have a look at and that'll help flesh out the world a little bit more. Rather than having just me and the players talking about what's going on, it just adds a little bit more of a. Some diversity.
Speaker A
00:25:05.010 - 00:25:34.610
Oh yeah, absolutely. Props to my current dm, John Corbett.
We're playing in the Eberron system and on our first adventure he had created Lightning Rail tickets for everybody. So as we got on the as. As we got on the Lightning Rail, he handed us tickets and it was just like, oh, like we're getting on the train. There we go.
It's fantastic. So yeah, Just any, any small prop like that, or anytime you can show players a map or do stuff like it always makes me feel super excited.
Speaker C
00:25:34.770 - 00:25:57.600
And, you know, it's the classic thing about a picture paints a thousand words. And so if you have like a picture of an npc, they've got a particular mood or a sort of like a tone you want to set.
You could just sort of show that to the players and they'll pick it up instantly. And so that can sort of help, really frame very quickly what you want to. The DM wants to create for a particular scene.
Speaker B
00:25:57.840 - 00:26:22.320
One word of warning on that, and I've made this mistake, is if you're going to show a picture of an npc, do it while you're introducing the npc. I made the mistake of describing an NPC and then next session bringing a picture.
And everyone already had in their head what they thought the NPC was like. So when I brought out the picture, they're like, oh, I didn't think you looked like that. So I was like, ah, yeah, missed opportunity there.
So just like, yeah, a tip for. Tip for players, that one.
Speaker A
00:26:22.320 - 00:26:47.660
My big tip is that, as I was saying, my buddy who's our game master right now, he's also actually a graphic artist. He's amazing at drawing things and putting things together. This is the reason why I don't often have props is because I am a horrid artist.
I am a stick figure guy, so I could never really. I. I want to show people. I'm like, oh, I have this picture in my head. And I'm like, well, no, there's no way it's getting out.
I'm just gonna have to use my words.
Speaker D
00:26:47.820 - 00:27:24.020
That's all I got in saying that as well. We recently played Cloud Empress and one of our friends drew some pictures of his character growing up and he posted them on our Discord thing.
And I thought, oh, gee whiz, did he get his kids to draw that? That's really good. And then we said, oh, they were really good, Kirk. And he said, oh, yeah, no, I drew them and I thought, oh, God.
But they were perfect for the. Do you know what I mean? For the setting and the character. I thought it was absolutely fantastic.
So I don't think you should be scared of the fact that you're not a great artist. Chuck it up there and it's going to be amazing no matter what I.
Speaker C
00:27:24.020 - 00:27:47.730
Think when there's like a battle mat out and I need to help with the, you know, describe a particular scene, I can't draw, but I can. Well, I can draw stick figures.
So that often comes out in terms of like whether it's a small stick figure or a sort of a large horse shaped type of thing. It helps clarify what's going on. Even though it might not very interesting or attractive.
Speaker D
00:27:48.370 - 00:27:49.890
Yeah, absolutely. Yep.
Speaker A
00:27:49.890 - 00:27:59.170
Well, thank you all for the confidence boost. Now I'll have to give it a shot and see what happens. Tom, did you already talk about stuff?
Speaker B
00:27:59.170 - 00:29:06.710
No, I haven't talked about it yet. Cool. So there were two things I liked that I thought I could take into my games straight away and these were locations.
First one is, I thought it was called the City of Zamora, but I don't think it is. It's another village that's right on the border between the two factions, the human faction and the arcanists, I think.
And the thing I liked about this, it was, it was neutral ground, but you had to get in there, you had to be smuggled in. They, they hid in a cart and there were like soldiers hunting them through the cart, you know, hunting through the carts, trying to find them.
And it gave me this real sort of Cold War Berlin type feel.
And I've always wanted to run a game and in a city like that, a fantasy game probably where there's all these sort of intrigues going on between two empires and you've got this sort of Cold War being fought out in the streets of the city. So Rich and Marty, cover your ears because I've been thinking about that.
So I think that that's a really cool location that you can port into almost anywhere. It could be cyberpunk, it could be fantasy, or you could even do it in, in Cold War Europe.
Speaker A
00:29:06.710 - 00:29:16.070
Yeah, I do think you're right though. Tom Zamora is. It's near the Shield Wal and it separates the Human Federation and the Silent Lands.
Speaker B
00:29:16.230 - 00:29:16.790
That's right.
Speaker A
00:29:16.790 - 00:29:18.870
I think, I think that's the place you're talking about. So.
Speaker B
00:29:19.030 - 00:30:37.340
Okay, cool. Yeah, I got it right. That's good. The second one is in the second book and they go to this island which is surrounded.
First of all, it's surrounded by ghosts, so it's hard to get in there.
And secondly, the island, the reason it's so weird is a one of these big gods that Marty was talking about earlier has died and landed on this island. And so there's this huge, huge skeleton, absolutely mega sized skeleton on there.
And then the, the rotting of the, the God's corpse has really polluted this island and created all sorts of strange and trippy psychedelic effects and captured ghosts and strange monsters. And I think as an adventure setting, particularly in a fantasy type campaign, it's absolutely perfect.
It's a place for the adventurers to voyage to and it's completely different to anything they've been to before. The strange ecosystem that they find there is explained by this dying God and it's. Or this dead God, a rotting God.
I think that's just really evocative. So I think there's something. Something there again that might well pop up in a future campaign. I think it's.
Yeah, the imagery and everything is fantastic and then the num. The amount of horror you can add to it and also the traps and terrifying monsters that can come from it is. Yeah, there's lots to work with with.
Speaker A
00:30:37.340 - 00:32:00.650
Yeah, agreed. All those. All the settings are fantastic. Even if you. As you read on, they continue to be these really great settings that can be used.
You absolutely could just take all of this whole cloth and just drop these various places into. Into your campaign. It's just amazing. My final piece is. I really like the cats. I. I have cats here in the house. I just do. I really like the cats.
I like the idea of talking cats. I like the idea of. Of the Asian mythological creature cat that has multiple tails to show how much power it has.
They also do this with the foxes and a couple of other. The arcana creatures. I just. That Asian influence on top of a. What often feels like a Western piece is also portrayed in the art here in. In Monstrous.
It has a. It is. It isn't quite manga and it isn't quite Western art. And I like that about the cats and the whole setting.
It was this real mashup of these two pieces, which is something I think you can really do in a. In a lot of role playing games as well. You can take influences from various cultures and put them together to create something new and interesting.
And that's what I really liked about this. And I think the cats are the best example of that, so. And also cats.
Speaker D
00:32:00.810 - 00:32:01.290
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:32:02.410 - 00:32:05.770
Want to throw something else in before we move on to media recommendations?
Speaker B
00:32:05.930 - 00:32:18.730
Just that you'd get on very well with our player who plays with us on a fortnightly basis. Carol, who absolutely loves cats and always plays the backsy and that sort of thing. I think that would be completely aligned with her.
Speaker A
00:32:18.810 - 00:32:30.170
Well, you should tell her if she comes to the States on a monthly basis, I run a. I help do fundraising for a local cat cafe who do cat adoptions and we run all Tabaxi games.
Speaker D
00:32:32.890 - 00:32:37.810
Oh, man, she would absolutely Froth that.
Speaker A
00:32:37.810 - 00:32:44.490
Yeah, the crew of the. The Tabaxi ship Pandora would welcome her at any time.
Speaker B
00:32:45.610 - 00:32:48.090
Brilliant. That's gonna make Carol's day.
Speaker A
00:32:48.810 - 00:33:15.990
All right, we've talked about how we would run a game in Monstress and we've talked about what we would take from Monstress and put into our own games. If you're going to be looking for further inspiration, media that evokes the same feeling as Monstress.
I know we talked in the pre game that, at least for me, this is a fairly unique piece of work. But if you wanted to try and find something that was related to it, what would you pick? Tom, do you want to lead us up?
Speaker C
00:33:16.710 - 00:33:17.030
Great.
Speaker B
00:33:17.030 - 00:33:44.810
Thanks, Eric. It was very unique. So the things I've chosen are a little bit oblique. So coming back to the.
The town being between the two empires, I thought a great example of this is Babylon 5. Probably the best science fiction series to be produced, in my opinion. So it was in. All right.
Speaker A
00:33:44.810 - 00:33:50.970
Okay, hold on, guys, hold on. Let him get through. Have the argument.
Speaker B
00:33:51.130 - 00:35:39.570
I might have to retract. Retract that statement. I really loved it, though. It's. It's like a space station set between lots of different factions. You've got Earth.
I can't remember the names of them all, but there's like three or four different alien empires all butting up against it. And this is meant to be the place of peace and you've got that sort of cold war being fought on the. On the space station.
So I think it's really a fantastic way of taking that concept and. And putting it into a science fiction setting. The second one is even more oblique, but having monsters in society. So this is something.
A book called Carrying Comfort by Dan Simmons, which was written in the 80s, so it's very 1980s horror book. But it's got this sort of. These horrific.
They're not like normal vampires, they're sort of these horrific vampires living amongst humans not quite in plain sight. And I thought that was reminiscent of. Of some of the monsters in. In Monstrous.
And then lastly the Venom comics, which my cousin was really into when we were living together in. In London.
And the whole parasitic symbiotic nature of Venom and its host, whose name I can't remember, is very reminiscent of the main character in Monstrous. And she's got this creature living so inside or insider or alongside her and trying to take her over.
And that sort of play between the two characters inhabiting one body. Not only that, but the. The sort of Venom art is. And that's sort of the, the way it reaches out of the.
Of the human host and things was very reminiscent to. To monstrous. So those are three pretty oblique representations of monstrous. But I thought that, yeah, they were quite fitting read.
Speaker A
00:35:40.050 - 00:35:46.330
Although apparently not everyone agrees with your first statement of this science fiction thing.
Speaker B
00:35:46.330 - 00:35:49.650
But that's how I remember it. That's how I remember it. I'm sticking to it.
Speaker A
00:35:49.650 - 00:36:04.770
It isn't as apparent in the first book, but if you continue to read the number of factions and the political intrigue that takes place really has that Babylon 5 feel. So I 100% am on board.
Speaker B
00:36:05.020 - 00:36:08.380
Tom, Brilliant. Thanks, Erica. I knew I could count on you.
Speaker A
00:36:08.940 - 00:36:18.540
Yeah, there you go. You got this. Rich, what types of media do you think would help evoke the same feeling as Monstrous?
Speaker C
00:36:19.500 - 00:38:41.769
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there, the feeling. So I went for sort of like the vibe that came through for me reading this.
So firstly I'd like to sort of suggest Sailing to Sarantium, which is a Guy Gabriel K novel released in the 1990s. And so essentially it's set in Roman like times. The first book of a two book series.
And it describes the journey of Crispin, who is mosaicist, who's traveling to the capital city and is there to decorate the grand dome or the sort of the cathedral that's been commissioned by the emperor.
And I thought Monstrous sort of reminded me of parts of the journey of Crispin because in the wilderness along the sort of the road and the forest and as he passed by he, Crispin became aware of the dark powerful presence. These beings that were not visible but would definitely have their presence known as. He sort of made his journey towards Sarantia.
And I thought from just a regular traveler you wouldn't be able to detect it. But once you became aware of this, this presence, this darkness is foreboding and it's real. And he got really scared.
And so I guess in that sort of way that would sort of reflect the sort of these elder Gods that we were talking about earlier, just sort of lurking around this world in Montferis. And my second recommendation is True Grit by Charles Portis. In 1968 it was release. So that was the novel, of course.
And then there was a movie starring John wayne in the 1969. And in 2010 the Coen brothers made a movie of the novel as well and that starred Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon.
And essentially this is in set in the 1870s, follows a 14 year old girl, Maddie. Essentially she is seeking justice for the murder of her father.
And the reason why I'm picking that one out is because Micah is kind of like a young girl who's tough, determined, single mindedness and is able to really work through so much trauma, danger, chaos, and is able to work through all of those with some little help from her friends. And that essentially what happens to Maddie as well.
Speaker A
00:38:41.770 - 00:38:42.170
So.
Speaker C
00:38:42.250 - 00:39:09.410
So she's a 14 year old like I said mentioned before, but she is determined and she's out to seek justice for her father and she's able to get had the help of two quite unusual characters, Rooster and lebeef and they're able to find, go and search for a father's killer. And so I, I thought there are some strong parallels to these, these girls who were able to really accomplish so much in such dark times.
Speaker A
00:39:10.050 - 00:39:22.310
Okay, that again, this book is full of many, many, many themes and this is just another example of that. There's a ton to talk about. Go ahead, Martin, what do you got?
Speaker D
00:39:22.390 - 00:40:40.510
So as soon as you said True Grit, Rich, I can't agree more. Not only an amazing movie, but absolutely True Grit I think is, is a phenomenal pick. Yeah, really like that one.
But for me the first thing that came to mind was the Guyver, the 90s anime the Guyver and there was made into a movie in the early 90s I think think where he's got a same sort of thing, he's got a symbiote attached to him that sort of takes control randomly and then he slowly learns to control it to fight demons, monsters. So that was the first thing that came to sort of surface thing that came to mind.
And then second for me was another movie from the early 2000s called Final Fantasy the Spirits Within. It was like one of the first CGI movies, full CGI movies ever made. Just the giant spirit gods that were in the background of that movie.
I, I absolutely loved and this, they were one of my favorite things in the graphic novel as well.
So and then as we were just talking love, death and robots where there's a bunch of robots going through the world that's been deserted only to discover that cats were the reason the world was destroyed. I think as, yeah, as we're talking about sentient powerful cats, that's that popped into mind.
Speaker A
00:40:40.510 - 00:43:54.070
Like I said, there's so much that we can pull from this and, and be like, oh well if you want to, we want this part of it, you can do this. If you want this part of it, you can do this.
Along those lines, Saga is another graphic novel series, long running, award winning, really Great stuff. Written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples.
Just not a similar art style but a similar kind of story of political intrigue and people trying to deal with things in hard times. I think that that would be a nice matchup. So saga and then another graphic novel, Pretty Deadly, which has a western mythic kind of feel.
I'm sorry, American cowboy Western. The tagline is blood soaked fables whispered through gun smoke and starlight. That's not min. That's, that's, that's the copy title.
But it was, it really does. I know, it's just fantastic.
So that one also has, that, it has a lot, that one's a lot more horror involved in it and, and has a little bit more of that grow almost grotesque feel that we definitely get out of a lot of the things that come from monstrous. But the book that I like the most and I think is the closest to trying to get these things into one place is the Scholar man series by Naomi Novik.
This is a novel, this is a magical school book which isn't like this, like, isn't at all like what's happening here, but it is in this world. There's these creatures that are called malefactoria. They're often referred to as mals and they are creatures that devour magic.
And we have creatures and obviously we have wizards. So what's their favorite snack? Wizard children. Because they can't defend themselves.
So they take all the children and they place them in this school so that they can be protected. But things go horribly wrong and the children now get. There's no one in the school to protect them. And some of the creatures can find their way in.
And then when they graduate they have to go through this tunnel of, of these mouths, these maleficaria who are waiting to eat them because the kids get forcibly pushed out of the school at the end of the school year. So it's, it's a terrible, horrible, traumatic kind of thing.
But it's also like Harry Potter and a school book all rolled together into this novel that is just fantastic. Actually it's three novels. If I were going to pick something.
If you wanted to read something that was as close as possible, I would go with Naomi Novik's Skull man series. I think it's a great series of books. Wow.
Yeah, I mean we went from the Guyver to True grit to Babylon 5, back to the Wild west and then to Harry Potter. We were everywhere, man. I mean, you know, we were, we were all over the. And I think that's Testament to this particular series.
I think it's got a lot, like I said, it's got a lot in it. So you can, you can find all kinds of great stuff, including sexy warrior nuns.
Speaker D
00:43:54.150 - 00:44:00.870
You just can't go wrong. You know, 15 year old me love them and 42 year old me loves warrior nuns just as much.
Speaker A
00:44:01.350 - 00:44:20.960
I actually, I wouldn't even get a chance to mention this. One of the things that I actually also like about the world and the world setting is that it is incredibly matriarchal.
There's a lot of very strong women characters involved in this, you know, which makes it very modern and enjoyable. So it's. And a great perspective.
Speaker D
00:44:21.200 - 00:44:32.400
But it's not just the main characters either. Just about everyone in the. Well, at least the first book is, is female. The guards are female. The travelers, they meet a female.
It's a very female, Very, very female.
Speaker A
00:44:32.400 - 00:44:33.520
Centric, which is awesome.
Speaker B
00:44:33.520 - 00:44:34.000
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:44:34.320 - 00:44:42.240
So I know at least Tom would like to plug something. So we'll start with Tom and then we'll head on to Richard Martin.
Speaker B
00:44:43.040 - 00:45:31.160
Great, thanks, Eric. Yeah, I'd like to plug.
I did it last time my blog dnd at work and this is where I just investigate and explore the connection between leadership and Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games. There's a lot to be said for the experience of role playing and playing games like this. Your memory treats them as real memories as being real.
And I think it's a brilliant way to get experiential learning without having to be thrust into an actual leadership position and sort of struggle. You can try these things out by playing the game. So that's the sort of thing I explore. And yeah, I've been doing it for a couple of years now.
And yeah, if, if any of your listeners are interested, pop over and have a read. Thanks.
Speaker A
00:45:32.200 - 00:45:54.330
Yeah, absolutely. I follow Tom on LinkedIn, by the way, for this, which I know it doesn't.
You know, we sometimes think of that as just all business, but as a learning designer, that's what I do do for a living. I love Tom's articles to help me understand how I can create better learning experiences through the hobby that I love. So thank you, Tom.
I just wanted to make sure that I got that in there.
Speaker B
00:45:54.490 - 00:45:56.090
Thanks, Eric. Cheers.
Speaker C
00:45:56.330 - 00:46:17.530
Yeah, absolutely. I'd just like to say as well that, I mean that that blog's one of my.
That's my regular thing I do every Friday morning once I'm on the train to work, I'll have a read of the blog and so I'm always impressed and inspired. But what you can write and what you grab out of the. Our gaming sessions as well that end up in the articles. Very interesting.
Speaker B
00:46:17.530 - 00:46:19.010
Oh yeah, lots of inspiration.
Speaker A
00:46:20.690 - 00:46:24.450
Martin, do you have anything that's coming up that you want to plug people for?
Speaker D
00:46:24.690 - 00:46:51.000
No, I don't have anything coming up, unfortunately. I would love to give a plug just simply to reading.
I work in a school, in a junior school, so I think reading is something so important to get our young younger kids into. And yeah, just if you have got kids or have nieces, nephews, give them books.
If you're going to give them anything for Christmas, give them books, give them something they can get their teeth into, get their reading skills up and get them.
Speaker A
00:46:51.080 - 00:47:05.380
Yeah, I want to plug Martin for being the game master. Who's game mastered the most people I have ever heard of. We were talking about this before we got online. What was it?
It over 300 students you game mastered today?
Speaker D
00:47:05.780 - 00:47:11.540
Yeah, well our school has 330 something kids so in total. So all of them. Yeah.
Speaker A
00:47:11.540 - 00:47:12.500
That's insane.
Speaker D
00:47:12.660 - 00:47:32.140
In eight in eight half hour session.
Yeah, a very paired down sort of Dungeons and Dragons that I designed myself and eight half hour sessions for a reward day that our school ran and it was a roaring success. If I do blow my own horn. Everyone had an absolute great time.
Speaker A
00:47:32.140 - 00:47:37.830
So what a fabulous way to kick off the holidays. Right. We're recording this around Christmas.
Speaker D
00:47:37.830 - 00:48:03.190
Just Dungeons and Dragons is such a great way to give kids especially who don't often get wins in life that have bad home lives or aren't necessarily great at school work and then they can roll the dice and become the hero. And it's great to give kids like that a win and they, they really love it. They really get into it.
I find our high tier kids absolutely love D and D. Rich boy.
Speaker A
00:48:03.190 - 00:48:07.030
It'd be hard to come up with something to top either of those. But you got anything?
Speaker C
00:48:07.750 - 00:48:19.350
No, I don't have anything to plug. Plug for Christmas. We got it coming up very soon. Looking forward to that. Looking for the forward to the holidays and hopefully a lot of gaming.
But yeah, that's battle.
Speaker A
00:48:19.670 - 00:49:45.750
That's a perfect way to end off. All right. Fantastic. And that was monstrous. The graphic novel series Series by Marjorie Liu with the fantastical art of Santa Takeda.
Thanks again to our amazing game masters, Tom Watkin, Martin Wilson and Rich Davies for their wisdom and insight on this episode. Join these three when they return to uncover the secrets of Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb.
And join us in two weeks when the podcast welcomes author Rami Stott and her fellow Game Masters Josh Newman and Chad Banks as we explore her supernatural horror novel Nothing in the Basement. You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our podcasts@k squareproductions.com GMBC.
You can learn about upcoming episodes on our social media on bluesky at gmbookclub bluesky Social, on Facebook at Game mastersbook Club, on Mastodon at Game Masters Book Club and on Instagram at Game Masters Book Club.
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Later gamers and to paraphrase the great Terry Pratchett, always try to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising angel.