GMBC ep39 - From Steampunk to Supernatural: The Game Masters' Guide to Soulless and the Parasol Protectorate
Gail Carriger
Soulless
Speaker A
00:00:04.160 - 00:01:12.090
Welcome to the Game Masters Book Club where great fiction becomes your next great tabletop role playing experience. Today, Rob, Karen and Jason hop on an airship and travel through the Aether to the Parasol Verse of Gale Carragher, where we discuss soulless.
We talk about vampires versus werewolves, octopus racism, soulless playbooks with sex moves, stock mad scientist characters, and Rudy Giuliani as the necromancer of New York City. Let's get into the conversation. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Game Masters Book Club.
My name is Eric Jackson and I am here with three GMs who you have heard from before. I'm going to be here with Rob, Karen and Jason. They're going to talk to you about a steampunk classic, the Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carragher.
But you don't need me to tell you about these nice people because they're going to tell you all they can about themselves.
And since we're going to be talking about the Parasol Protectorate, which is filled with vampires and werewolves, they're going to tell you about their favorite experiences with vampire and werewolves in their tabletop role playing games. Karen, we're going to start with you today. Karen, do you want to tell the folks a little bit about your gaming journey and the paranormal?
Speaker B
00:01:12.650 - 00:02:02.140
Yeah, sure. Hi, I am Karen. I have been gaming and GMing for possibly longer than some of you listeners have been alive.
When it comes to supernatural and gaming, the thing that comes first to mind is a game I ran in Monster of the Week that was a spin off from a monster hearts game that my husband had run. He ran one that was very much a Buffy style high school supernatural fighting game.
And then we decided, decided to do sort of an angel type thing where a couple of those characters ported over and went to college in New York and got to have their own monsters. Hersey's character, Simon, Simon Marsh, who is the son of. You were the son of like people who summoned Cthulhu or maybe were Cthulhu's.
I don't remember.
Speaker C
00:02:02.540 - 00:02:04.860
Yeah, they were just. Yeah, cultists, basically.
Speaker B
00:02:05.340 - 00:02:05.900
Cultists.
Speaker C
00:02:06.060 - 00:02:09.980
I think I, at one point I made up the name, the name of the God that they were cultists of.
Speaker B
00:02:09.980 - 00:02:10.380
You did?
Speaker C
00:02:10.380 - 00:02:12.780
Vaguely. It was obviously very Lovecraftian, but I can't remember.
Speaker B
00:02:12.860 - 00:02:33.890
Yeah, I don't remember.
I actually looked at some of the character sheets earlier to go through, but it was Simon and Paula's character, who was a ghost by choice, went off to college in New York and befriended a mad scientist, possibly part robot, who drank a lot of Zima. Because it was the 90s. Child of the mole people who lived in the subways named Brenda Gators and Rip Van Winkle. Just. Just Rip Van Winkle.
Speaker D
00:02:34.290 - 00:02:36.130
A ghost by choice. Like suicide?
Speaker C
00:02:36.610 - 00:02:39.330
No, she just didn't pass on. She. She.
Speaker B
00:02:39.330 - 00:02:40.490
Yeah, she decided to stay.
Speaker C
00:02:40.490 - 00:02:44.490
She decided to stay ghost. She could have moved on, but she decided to stay a ghost.
Speaker D
00:02:44.490 - 00:02:47.730
I see the choices whether not pass on or hang. Okay.
Speaker C
00:02:47.730 - 00:02:48.010
Yeah.
Speaker D
00:02:48.010 - 00:02:48.930
Okay, good. Okay.
Speaker B
00:02:49.730 - 00:02:56.510
And all you guys were fighting to stop Rudy Giuliani from summoning a demon to bring order to New York City. Yeah, Much appreciated.
Speaker D
00:02:56.510 - 00:02:57.750
Sounds very much like him.
Speaker C
00:02:57.750 - 00:02:59.070
Yeah, right?
Speaker A
00:02:59.150 - 00:03:00.670
Yes, she would definitely do that.
Speaker B
00:03:00.750 - 00:03:02.430
You remember him as mayor in the 90s.
Speaker A
00:03:02.750 - 00:03:04.590
The future has proven you correct.
Speaker C
00:03:04.750 - 00:03:05.870
Yeah, I know, right?
Speaker A
00:03:05.950 - 00:03:07.990
That is what Rudy Giuliani would have done.
Speaker C
00:03:07.990 - 00:03:08.750
This was a bit better.
Speaker D
00:03:08.830 - 00:03:15.550
Any of our politicians in New York look like fucking decrepit necromancers. It's definitely Giuliani.
Speaker A
00:03:15.630 - 00:03:16.670
Go ahead, Rob. And.
Speaker D
00:03:16.670 - 00:03:35.600
Go ahead, Rob. Hey, it's me. Go ahead, Rob. Welcome to the podcast.
I am now welcome to my podcast, which is the podcast inside of a podcast where we take over the podcast. What's up? It's me, Rob. Like, subscribe anyway, back to. Back to Eric's podcast. Okay. Hello, I'm Rob. What do you need me to talk about? Me?
Speaker C
00:03:35.600 - 00:03:36.560
Who the hell are you?
Speaker D
00:03:36.800 - 00:03:39.400
I'm Rob. All right, let me just tell you. I'm from New York.
Speaker A
00:03:39.400 - 00:03:39.920
I love.
Speaker D
00:03:39.920 - 00:04:03.780
I love a good vampire. I don't mean good alignment. I mean, you know, a good vampire game story, whatever. I've been. I've been played. I played White Wolf since inception.
I love an urban fantasy setting where the magic and mystical mixes with modern day things. I played many games, run many games of those types in my life. And these books that we're reading are.
Speaker A
00:04:03.940 - 00:04:06.580
That was good, you know, it was fine.
Speaker C
00:04:08.500 - 00:04:09.740
We'll get to that. We'll get to that.
Speaker A
00:04:09.740 - 00:04:19.580
Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Criticisms are coming. Okay, great. Jason, do you want to talk a little bit about yourself and vampires or werewolves?
Speaker B
00:04:19.580 - 00:04:19.780
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:04:19.780 - 00:05:07.589
Yeah. Hi, I'm Jason Keeley. I am a senior designer at Paizo where I work on the Pathfinder role playing game. And unlike the two of these, I actually.
I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I came to gaming a little later than a lot of people out there. I was like 20 or something before I met these two. I was asked to enjoy.
This is like actually my first, kind of my first real role playing game experience. I sort of like, read the. Read D and D when I was in high school and whatever. But like this is my first actually playing.
I was invited to a group with a friend, with a college friend of mine. And she had met all these people that she had known from the Renaissance Fair, these actor, actory types.
And I was invited and they were in the middle of a campaign, a vampire based campaign. It wasn't vampire. The Masquerade was a home system. This was Jay, Rob, this is Jay.
Speaker D
00:05:08.550 - 00:05:09.390
Jay and Kate.
Speaker C
00:05:09.390 - 00:06:24.840
Jay and Kate and our good friend Matt. So I got invited and they didn't tell me to make a character or anything.
They just brought me in and then they started playing a little bit and I was kind of like, okay, I know how it works. I know what's going on. And I did a lot of improv and theater in college. So we're just kind of messing around with that.
And they're like, okay, do you want. We're gonna have you. Here's the thing. You're playing this other Timothy's friend, Timothy.
His character is younger brother, but he's a vampire and you're not yet. And I'm just this, this like nine year old kid. And violence happens at a club somewhere where we were.
My character is, my character, this, this, this character is dying basically that I'm sort of Vanessa play. And then like Timothy's like, I cut my hand and I make him drink the vampire blood, turn him the vampire.
And they were, everyone's like looking at me And Jay, the GM's looking at me blood. And I was like, gonna be like, oh yeah, no, I don't drink the blood. I let this little kid die and never play with you.
And I walk out and don't play this game. Of course I drink the blood and become a nine year old vampire. Like that's hilarious. I'll be stuck as 9 year old for the rest.
And then like we played that for a little bit longer and that was always the joke. I was like, oh, nine, nine years old. I can't do anything. I'm just.
But I, but I have the, the somehow the wisdom of ages because I'm a vampire and have seen some, you know, seen some. So that was like sort of basically my first experience with vampires in role playing games.
Speaker A
00:06:25.070 - 00:06:27.470
That's the kid with the eyes that don't match his age.
Speaker C
00:06:27.790 - 00:06:29.710
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker A
00:06:29.870 - 00:07:22.510
Okay, so I'm Eric Jackson and I've been playing since the Pleistocene. And this is my podcast. Despite what Rob said, I don't really have a favorite vampire or werewolf thing. That's happened to me in gaming.
I would say that my favorite thing that I've done recently with vampires is I read this book and I love the idea that when you're a new vampire in this book, it's like gauche to point out that you have a lisp because you can't talk around your teeth yet. I just found that that was just a very amusing sort of amusing thing and probably the coolest vampire like trivia thing.
Like, how do you learn how to talk? Because I do have a pair of vampire fangs that I've worn a couple of times and it is hard to talk in those. It's really weird.
But actually what I realized I should have done and I'm going to ask you all this right now is like pirates versus Ninja. I'd like you all to make the choice. Werewolf versus vampire. Jason, go.
Speaker C
00:07:22.750 - 00:07:23.790
Okay, werewolf.
Speaker A
00:07:23.790 - 00:07:24.590
You're going to tell us why?
Speaker C
00:07:25.150 - 00:07:26.270
No, I don't know exactly.
Speaker A
00:07:26.590 - 00:07:27.630
Okay, that's fine.
Speaker C
00:07:27.790 - 00:07:38.990
I'm a. Well, no, I'm. I am a dog person instead of a cat person. So I think werewolf. I'm a werewolf person instead of a vampire person. I think there's.
It's the same choice. Basically. Cats are vampires and dogs are werewolves.
Speaker A
00:07:39.070 - 00:07:40.590
Okay, good to know, Rob.
Speaker D
00:07:40.590 - 00:07:58.220
I also like werewolves more than vampires only because I guess influenced by a lot of the gaming I've done, like the white wolf stuff has been very good thematically and, you know, super combat monster. Wolves are always fun, always great.
Speaker A
00:07:58.220 - 00:07:59.540
Agreed. Karen.
Speaker B
00:07:59.540 - 00:08:08.700
I'm gonna have to also say werewolf and mainly because I spend years reading and rereading all of Discworld and it's always going to be angua over any vampire acting like a dick.
Speaker A
00:08:08.700 - 00:08:13.560
Nice. Okay, fantastic. I am the. I am the only vampire in the group. Okay, fantastic.
Speaker C
00:08:13.560 - 00:08:14.040
Okay.
Speaker A
00:08:14.520 - 00:10:10.570
I like staying up late at night and I love the concept of being able to be alive for hundreds of years reading books. I think that'd be great. And I just love that whole concept.
And I'm not really much of a. I'm not much of a brawler as a general attitude, but I do have five cats. So Jason, there may be something to do with the whole dog cat dichotomy there that could be happening.
All right, that ties up our vampires and werewolves. So let's get in talking about our preternatural and talk about Alexia Tarabani and Solas.
Solas by Gav Carragher is a paranormal urban fantasy set in Victorian London with vampires, werewolves and ghosts who have too much soul. And our protagonist, Alexa Body, who has none and can cancel out their powers by using her touch and she's called a preternatural.
Solas is also a steampunk book as it features dirigibles, steampunk contraptions and mad scientists with a cephaly methodic bent.
Solas is one of the founding books in a genre called Manners Punk, which riffs on the Austonian tradition of snarky social commentary through the foibles of the aristocracy. Soulless is a romance novel, a romantasy before such a term existed.
Lord Maan, Chief Werewolf falls for the overly analytical but strong willed and half Italian gasp Spinster Alexia.
And Solas is all of these things and it is and it is only the first of a series of five books and a spin off YA series with of another four books called the Custard Protocol, featuring a finishing school for female assassins and budding mad scientists. In short, Solace has a lot to offer game masters. So let's talk about it. I know you guys were generally kind of like, meh, not my favorite book.
But hopefully it had enough things in it to keep us interested for the rest of this discussion.
Speaker C
00:10:10.970 - 00:10:11.850
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B
00:10:12.090 - 00:10:58.790
Oh, definitely. Yeah.
Honestly, my main problem, if I'm allowed to say with this and I read a ton of romance, like I love romance and it can be cheesy and whatnot, is just it didn't feel earned in this. And that is rough for me. They were kind of telling, not selling. It was just sort of like boom. All of a sudden we're in love.
Even though like two pages ago we said we hated each other, but there was no actual tension buildup. You kept talking about a hedgeh incident that I like. I would have liked you to tell me or show me what that actually was.
It kind of felt like mediocre fanfiction, which I read a lot of. I love a good fanfic, but in a fanfiction you already have a background for characters and here I didn't.
That being said, the world and the concepts and everything else around that was a lot of fun.
Speaker C
00:10:59.830 - 00:11:16.720
You mentioning just sort of like you become supernatural because you have too much soul is something that I kind of forgotten until you'd re mentioned. I was like, hey, oh yeah, that's. That's kind of neat. That's a neat little sort of trick. Why that is why that happens. You just get.
You're too much, you're too full of life. You become undead after you've died. Right?
Speaker A
00:11:16.720 - 00:11:19.480
Like, yeah, you've just got more to to do.
Speaker C
00:11:19.480 - 00:11:19.920
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:11:20.160 - 00:12:34.420
I will say that there is in fact a short story that is called Meet Cute M E A T C U T which was much. Which was written much later, which is the Hedgehog incident. So if you are actually interested in finding out, that all happens.
And I will say that Gail has grown as a writer since the writing of that first initial book, which was in 2009. So I think if you're looking for that romance to be a bit more earned, that's a good place to look.
And I would also suggest Gail has a number of other really great romance books. The most recent one was a sci fi one that she wrote called the Fifth Gender, which is the Ticket Star series.
And that one is about a universe wide Eurovision kind of thing. But it's all. It's pretty cool stuff and it's got a bunch of different romance things in it and it's a lot of fun.
So I again agreed that it may not be her best romance, but I do think it's really interesting.
But for now, let's talk about if we wanted to run something in this world, if we wanted to run something in the world of Parasol Protectorate, what gaming system would we use in order to sort of bring out the best parts of this? We're going to start with Jason. What do you think is going to evoke the Parasol Protectorate?
Speaker C
00:12:34.420 - 00:13:51.630
Yeah, yeah. Unsurprisingly, I'm going to talk a little bit about the Buffy and Angel role playing games from several decades ago.
I haven't read them in a bit, but what I remember is that, you know, one player could be the Slayer and that kind of was a mechanical package that you took that gave you some combat buffs and whatnot. But it also kind of gave you less story points. And then sort of the Xanders and the Willows got more story points. And I.
And with angel, you know, you can play a vampire as well. You probably know that there's probably supplements out there for werewolves because they're werewolves in that genre.
And just sort of taking that concept and of that package and sort of applying that is for alexia and her soullessness and just like, oh yeah, you, you know, just tweak that a little bit mechanically and then set the whole dang thing.
And you know, Victorian London stores at least once, at least one or two groups out there have used the Buffy and Angel systems to play something in Victorian London with times. Yeah.
The only time I ran that game I did a, a riff on sort of Norse mythology where the, the, the two main characters, twin brothers and sisters and she Got all the combat stuff, but he got the sort of visions that the Slayer gets, which is pretty fun. And I called the whole thing Ragnar. Rock and roll high school puns.
Speaker A
00:13:52.020 - 00:13:58.100
Karen, did you want to go next and tell us about what game system has the right tone for a Parasol Protectorate tabletop role playing game?
Speaker B
00:13:58.100 - 00:14:44.370
Absolutely. I would take this in one of two directions. First off, just going right back to Monster of the Week or Monster Hearts.
Either way, if you want to maybe do a lighter game set in this universe, you could make it teenagers, Victorian teenagers running around in this world dealing with vampires and werewolves, either killing them, being them, whatever, or if you wanted to go kind of a more serious bent and be vampire or maybe werewolf hunters. I would say knights, black agents would be a lot of fun there.
In the Gumshoe system, which is a super fun system to run, you kind of don't have bad roles. There's a lot of story going for it. And then also because in this book there was like the Royal Society that was kind of the anti vampires.
It might be fun to sort of be a member of like the Royal Society of Scientists going after the supernatural within the system.
Speaker C
00:14:44.620 - 00:14:52.260
Yeah. Monster of the Week is. Is. Is a good. It's a. Definitely inspired by Buffy and Angel and supernatural, that kind of stuff.
Speaker B
00:14:52.260 - 00:14:53.580
And it's got sex moves in it.
Speaker C
00:14:53.580 - 00:15:05.340
Doesn't have to be just works perfect. Wait, no, that's only. That's my. That's Monster Hearts. Monster Arts has the sex moves. Monster of the Week is. Is. Yeah, it does it.
Straightforward situation. You could make a soulless playbook for my.
Speaker B
00:15:05.340 - 00:15:06.140
Absolutely.
Speaker C
00:15:06.140 - 00:15:13.980
I imagine too. Like as. Then just be like, what's your sex move? I touch them and they turn to human. So we can get a little naughty.
Speaker A
00:15:14.510 - 00:15:22.670
Rob, what game system do you think you would like to set the world of Alexia Terra Body in?
Speaker D
00:15:22.830 - 00:16:24.070
Yeah.
So there was a game by Cubicle seven called Victoriana, which has in it all of it steampunk, multiple fantastical races, including, you know, vampires and werewolves. You can certainly downplay the races and the technology.
You don't necessarily want to involve like they also had, you know, steampunk limbs and a little magic which was waning and technology was taking over type of a setting. I think it would work pretty well for that. And there was also a Victorian version of the white wolf.
Like they had put out a supplement which also could have be used, you know, play in that world with vampires, werewolves during that era, which less steampunk in that one. Just mostly, you know, you. You being a Monster on the fringes of society, preying on whoever need to be preyed on, blah, blah, blah. Right.
But I think Victoriano will be a. A decent job at that. I played it once at a con, it was okay.
Speaker C
00:16:24.230 - 00:16:30.390
Did you do the first edition or the second edition? The cubicle. So you said the cubicle seven. That's the second edition. One sec.
Speaker D
00:16:30.390 - 00:16:56.120
Yeah, it was. I was second or third? I don't remember. It wasn't the first thing. It's a D6 system with exploding D6es and your skills and stuff. And you know, it's.
Honestly, it's. They're very good at setting. The system is good and fine. But I think I like what their.
Their pre published adventures were very good and a lot of their setting stuff is very flavorful, so I think it could easily fold into the world of the book.
Speaker A
00:16:56.120 - 00:18:40.940
Okay, my pick for this is going to be Good Society, which is Jane Austen role playing game by the Story Brewers. Role playing folks, I like this because it does a lot of Regency era drama through social rather than physical mechanics.
So there's a lot of talking and you have resolve tokens for conflict. You have reputation trackers.
It actually has an epistolary, a letter writing part to it where you literally between games, you're supposed to like write letters to each other so that you can. So that it emulates the whole Regency society.
And letter writing, it's not great for cons because it has these sort of like drawn out long, different things that are going to happen. Keep trying to get one of these set up. A very short, not obviously full version of this which I played and I did like the.
The various combat moves which were actions like gossiping or wooing or. I liked it a lot since I've played it.
There is also a new expansion called Practical Magics, which is obviously designed for a fantasy sort of bit, but you could take that and just swap out the fantasy for steampunk and you could be right here with what's happening. It has ghosts and it has. And it has, you know, magical items which could obviously just be steampunk items.
You could have like little magical teapot or whatever it is and all that sort of thing. I think Good Society would be the best way to emulate this social drama, which is what most of this is.
There is some fighting, but that's mostly just to be like, yep, because there's Lord Macan and he's big and strong and yay good. So. But. So that's where I would go with that.
Speaker C
00:18:41.020 - 00:18:43.260
I have two Important questions for you about that.
Speaker A
00:18:43.260 - 00:18:43.900
Hit me.
Speaker C
00:18:44.750 - 00:18:47.150
First one. Is practical magic spelled with a K?
Speaker A
00:18:47.470 - 00:19:01.310
It is not. And it is in fact, it is in fact practical magics. No, no Z or anything, but it is practical magics.
So it's like they're doing things that are practical with magic.
Speaker C
00:19:01.870 - 00:19:09.230
Myth magic. Yeah. Like, it sounds like a good society might like, work pretty well. Unlike a Discord server.
Speaker A
00:19:09.230 - 00:19:11.310
It absolutely would. You know, now that you've said that,.
Speaker C
00:19:11.390 - 00:19:20.590
You could have the super excited session normal and, and then.
And then have everyone just sort of be like, okay, if we have time between the next session, use this channel to write a letters to each other and stuff like that.
Speaker A
00:19:20.590 - 00:19:41.440
Yeah, I. I hadn't even considered it. And now I'm like, oh my God, now I can get everybody to play because I can do it remotely. Because it's.
Because getting people together, that's the fun part, right? Like it's getting people. Or rather I should say, not only is it the fun part, but it's also the hard part, right? It's that.
That's always what gaming is about, just trying to get people to the table. The ultimate BBEG is the calendar.
Speaker B
00:19:41.520 - 00:19:43.120
Now, I want to run a game like that.
Speaker A
00:19:43.360 - 00:20:05.670
So we've talked about what sort of game mechanics might help evoke this particular story. But what would you want to take from it? What are the portable pieces that you'd like to take from the Parasol Protectorate?
That's a lot of peas for me to be punching. So whenever I think of punching, I think of Rob. So, Rob, what would you want to take from this book and drop into a game that you were playing?
Speaker D
00:20:06.060 - 00:20:20.380
Yeah, I like the. The hierarchy, the societal rules around being in a vampire hive or a werewolf pack or do they call it pack or tribe? I forgot.
Speaker A
00:20:20.780 - 00:20:21.940
It is. It is a pack.
Speaker D
00:20:21.940 - 00:20:22.540
Pack, Right?
Speaker A
00:20:22.620 - 00:20:23.700
It's packed. Yep.
Speaker D
00:20:23.700 - 00:20:53.170
And you know how they. Oh, well, you know, the head vampire doesn't do this in this territory or.
Oh, dear, you know, there is this very particular and very elaborate rules for such things to exist and how they behave and how. And how other countries handle it differently or, you know, at all, you know, and also this whole science society that studies them. Love that.
As a sort of MAD Scientist villain, I would, I would bring that in, you know.
Speaker A
00:20:53.970 - 00:21:27.420
Yeah, the Hippocrates Club. Yeah, that's actually. Yeah, that's what I was going to talk about.
I was going to talk about like, the idea of like, gadgets and gadgeteers and mad scientists are just such a great trope to play with. And Also, if you're obsessed with octopuses. Octopi. Octopuses, sorry, that is the correct plural. The. The octopus obsessed society. They have.
They just have. There's a bunch of really great stock characters there that you can just pull right out.
You've got the Paramore of Alexia, who's the guy who's in love with her, but apparently loves science a little bit too much. The American. Yes, a little bit of American dissing happening there.
Speaker B
00:21:27.580 - 00:21:30.050
The American who's courting the Italian. Ew.
Speaker A
00:21:30.210 - 00:22:31.240
Yeah, I know. Just social pariahs, all of them. It's just the worst. Oh my God.
And then you've got Mr. Siemens, who's your wild eyed fanatic who wants to eradicate supernaturals and is clearly like the. The blueprint of like a Nazi scientist, but. But set in Victorian and the whole like. And you got that going on.
And then you got Dr. Neebs, who's the scientist who doesn't give a crap about ethics and is like, oh, cool, I get to cut open more bodies. Fun. They're all great. They're all. They're all fabulous. Really odd that I like that these characters exist in this book because.
Because this is a steampunk book. And one of the real big things about steampunk aesthetic is that science is considered good. Like the progress and the things that science brings.
It's. It's always at least part of a theme.
Even if eventually you find out, oh, the science is bad, but it's almost always about, oh, these, look at all the cool things that science can do. And yet here they are reflecting the bad things. So I. That's. I think that's a great thing to have in your campaign.
Speaker C
00:22:31.480 - 00:22:44.640
Also, sort of speaking of the Hippocrates society, when the octopus. I was waiting for that to be like a Cthulhu reveal in some fashion. Maybe that happens in later books. But no, sorry to disappoint.
Speaker A
00:22:44.640 - 00:22:53.750
There isn't actually an evil Cthulhu thing hiding in it. It's just that octopuses are cool. It's really all it is. They're just.
Speaker C
00:22:53.750 - 00:22:54.230
Yeah.
Speaker B
00:22:55.190 - 00:22:55.950
Which they are.
Speaker C
00:22:55.950 - 00:23:01.750
Fair enough. It was. I mean, very, very Hydra esque cephalopods.
Speaker A
00:23:02.230 - 00:23:07.830
Generally evil is what we basically. I think it's a little cephalopod racism happening there.
Speaker B
00:23:07.830 - 00:23:08.910
Yeah, it's a little rude.
Speaker C
00:23:08.910 - 00:23:09.910
Just because they're smart.
Speaker A
00:23:10.150 - 00:23:11.430
Yeah, it's just because they're smart.
Speaker C
00:23:11.750 - 00:23:45.990
Yeah. Jason, I've been talking a lot, but I'll tell you what I want to point.
I like a good, fun side character, especially as a gm when I get to be, you know, sort of like found information, but I get to do a fun accent or a fun character, whatever. So Lord Akhildama or Lord Akodama is the, you know, the foppish gay vampire who's Alexia's sort of contact and friend.
The kind of thing I would, I would like to steal from, from books like this. This is not super close related, but following the first Discworld campaign I ran with Lady Palm just doing a fun stupid French accent because.
Why not?
Speaker B
00:23:46.310 - 00:23:46.870
Why not?
Speaker C
00:23:47.270 - 00:24:02.550
Yeah. And she, she was fun to play. So someone like the, you know, just sort of like imagine just sort of like, oh, oh dear, you're. I'm. I'm. I'm.
But I'm personally bad at being really catty and that kind of, that kind of character. But I would. If I had time to study it and write down, I would.
Speaker A
00:24:02.950 - 00:24:07.910
I love all of his food nicknames for her. Or. Or no, were they flowers? I forget it's one of those.
Speaker C
00:24:07.910 - 00:24:11.590
But it's like my little pansy. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker A
00:24:11.590 - 00:24:12.870
It's a great, It's a great gimmick.
Speaker C
00:24:12.870 - 00:24:17.350
Food. Food makes sense because always. The vampires are always considered eating other people. So. Yes.
Speaker B
00:24:17.670 - 00:24:23.750
His love of gossip, which was amazing and also like plot relevant. Like it works so well to use that as like an npc.
Speaker A
00:24:23.990 - 00:24:29.030
Yeah. And it makes sense for a. For a vampire who's seen everything, at least the gossip keeps changing.
Speaker B
00:24:29.430 - 00:24:30.150
Exactly.
Speaker A
00:24:30.390 - 00:24:37.350
It's one of the few things to keep what it was. It's. It's gossip and fashion, they're always changing. So he's always on top of that.
Speaker D
00:24:37.930 - 00:24:38.250
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:24:38.250 - 00:24:42.090
Okay. Karen, you stuff you'd want to take from this, from this novel.
Speaker B
00:24:42.570 - 00:25:37.200
Yeah. So obviously, I mean the preternatural idea which we talked about when discussing the role playing games that we'd run is just super fun.
The whole idea of not being able to be affected by the supernatural and the way it was done where it doesn't break the book and it wouldn't break the game. I especially like the whole idea that you sort of need to be touching the thing for it to activate. I think that would lead to a lot of fun scenarios.
And also I really, really enjoyed that the Queen has supernatural advisors.
And I think that would be so fun to spin it off into like maybe like a political type game where maybe there's different types of supernatural creatures advising rulers from different countries.
It could be creatures that are specific to those regions, how they have to deal with in the different governments either to like manipulate things or maybe banding together to save the bunch humans from themselves, etc. Etc.
Speaker C
00:25:37.360 - 00:25:47.520
We kind of, while we're talking about this beforehand we had talked about you know, a Baba Yaga kind of being sort of akin to the Russian. I wonder if like the American government has like a Sasquatch.
Speaker B
00:25:47.680 - 00:25:48.760
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C
00:25:48.760 - 00:25:50.400
Advisor. That'd be funny.
Speaker A
00:25:50.800 - 00:25:56.440
Like Americans, you know that, that whole puritanical thing that runs through it's. That's true.
Speaker C
00:25:56.440 - 00:26:03.370
That's true in this book. But you know, we, we. If you do, if you pull it out to a different game entirely, you could do. Americans could have whatever.
Speaker A
00:26:04.170 - 00:26:34.600
Like I said when we were talking in the pre game, I thought yeah, like Russia would be great. And we actually, when we started talking about how different cultures handle their, their magical creatures differently.
Jason, I think you brought up Temeraire the temporary series and how the. When if we're doing something like that with dragons. Right. That, that was really good and small plug for the Kickstarter that's going to start soon.
They're going to be doing a Temeraire rpg which means we will not get to do it on this show. So I figure I should at least mention it here always.
Speaker C
00:26:35.080 - 00:26:56.400
Like I'd been thinking, I've always been thinking about that a little bit since reading Temeraire and wondering how to do it where. Well, you know, you can play the guy who's on the. Who's riding the dragon, but you can play the dragon. Like, like. Oh, that would be.
You know, it's basically like playing the starship in a, in a Star Trek game, for instance. Right? Like how do you do that? And I'm curious to see how they managed to do that.
Speaker A
00:26:56.640 - 00:27:15.280
If folks are interested though, on how to run a Dragon Rider game. We did cover Dragon Riders Pern on this show so you can go back and check that episode out. Little internal plug there, get going to media.
Okay, fantastic. Let's do that. Karen, why don't you start? You're the big Austin fan in the group, so I'm interested to see what you have to say.
Speaker B
00:27:15.440 - 00:29:06.600
Since you mentioned that, I will start off with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Graham Smith. I'm a huge fan of Pride and Prejudice book movie series, all of them. I've read it so many times and this is just so fun.
With a supernatural mixed in with proper Regency era fiction. You get all the horror fun along with a. An incredibly well plotted out and developed romance because it is legit.
Just Pride and Prejudice, one of the greatest romantic stories written of all time. I would also suggest, which I know was suggested on a Previous episode that hasn't aired yet, but will be because I just guest starred on it.
Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Fairies by Heather Fossett. It this is set also in kind of an alternate Victorian time where fairies exist and there's a whole, like college of people studying them.
It does an amazing job with the whole concept of supernatural going on during normal Victorian times. It's got amazing characterizations, it's got really good neurodivergent rep, it's got an incredibly earned romance.
And one of my favorite representations of the Fae where they're just legit creepy and weird and otherworldly and inexplicable. Also My Lady Jane by a trio of authors. It's Cynthia Hand, Brody Ashton and Jodi Meadows.
It's a YA fantasy slash historical fiction retelling of sort of the fight for their Tudor throne, which also has people that morph into different animals. Werewolf like. But it can be all different animals.
And it kind of gives poor Lady Jane Grey another chance because she sort of had a shit turn at life. And then finally, just for the vampire versus Werewolf vibes, and also my Discworld, love either the Fifth Elephant or Thud, both by Terry Pratchett.
Obviously it's got a lot to say about vampire and werewolf politics in Uberwald.
Speaker C
00:29:06.680 - 00:29:08.040
Not Carpet Juggulum.
Speaker B
00:29:08.120 - 00:29:09.240
That's just vampires.
Speaker C
00:29:09.240 - 00:29:09.880
That's just vampires.
Speaker B
00:29:09.880 - 00:29:31.090
And that is great also. Yeah, no, I mean carpet juggling. I actually just reread that. It is also wonderful.
But I. I really like the whole Fifth Elephant with like Angua's family, Lady Margalata and all of their sort of machinations with the whole like dwarven throne type thing is so good. And then you've got in Thud, you've got Angua and Sally the vampire cop.
Speaker C
00:29:32.130 - 00:29:33.730
Oh, I forgot about that. I haven't read.
Speaker B
00:29:33.730 - 00:29:34.810
Yeah, yeah. With all their like.
Speaker C
00:29:34.810 - 00:29:39.090
I think I only read that one like once. And as compared to like eight times with every other book.
Speaker A
00:29:39.490 - 00:29:42.370
So first, talking about media, Jason, why don't you go next?
Speaker C
00:29:42.530 - 00:30:53.660
I got two book series here. One is the starts with the Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter. It's a little bit like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. If all the.
All the league of all those Extraordinary Gentlemen were extraordinary young women. It's like Dr. Jekyll's daughter and her half sister, Dr. Mr. Hyde's daughter, the bride of Frankenstein.
One of the people from the island of Dr. Monroe is a. Who used to be a puma. And now she's writing this book.
It's very Victorian The Sherlock Holmes ends up being in it and the, you know, it's basically quote unquote monsters in it. And I think some of the. It's just.
It's a series and I think one of the later ones has some vamp, some Dracula stuff in it and like a pull from she, which is by a traitor. Haggard. Yes, it's pretty good. I enjoyed it. A heck of it.
It's written in a fun way too in that like it's being written and then the other characters are kind of like occasionally sort of pop in and be like, well, Catherine, you know, that's not exactly how it went. And just oh my dear. That's how we have to write it for the novel. You know, so fun stuff like that. That's by Theodora Goss. Check that out.
And then there's another sort of romantasy series starts with Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher and Rob. This is the one I think you'll like because the main character is a paladin, a berserker paladin who's.
Speaker D
00:30:53.660 - 00:30:54.140
Whoa.
Speaker C
00:30:54.380 - 00:31:32.360
Yeah, who's. Because they're a paladin of the God of battle and their God dies basically at the beginning and then it's like seven years later.
So him, he and all these other paladins can tap into this berserker rage still even though their God is dead. But they, but because their guys dead, they don't like, it's impossible. It's very hard for them to end their berserker rage.
So he's always worried about like going too far and getting too mad. So they're. And they're all working basically for another. For a church for another God. And it ends up being he meets a.
A woman who's humor and she's got a backstory and they kind of like have a. They're. They're meat cute as him stopping like people from murdering her in the street.
Speaker D
00:31:32.520 - 00:31:34.040
Oh, okay.
Speaker C
00:31:34.360 - 00:31:58.820
They kind of fall in love and it's very, very rom comy in that sense of like, oh, does she like me? Just, you know, she's like, oh, we'll never work it out. And he's very much like, I can't be. I can't fall in love.
What if I go crazy and kill everybody? And she's like, I can't be in love. I don't deserve love because my ex husband was an. But then it also, it's also a murder mystery. Like people are.
There's beheadings going through the city at one point it kind of turns into a Weir courtroom drama. It does a bunch of stuff and it's great. I enjoyed it.
Speaker B
00:31:58.820 - 00:32:00.980
It sounds great. And also like Trial and Terror.
Speaker C
00:32:01.700 - 00:32:39.660
Yeah, exactly. Which is a sort of free role playing game that I. I worked on. Me and a few other friends of ours. This is a whole series in which the.
Each book focuses on a different one of these paladins. So once you know these two, you know, fall in love. At the end of this we switch to another paladin who's like, I'm throwing a bonus one.
A bonus thing here. An old, old video game called Arcanum of Steamworks and Magic Obscura.
It's a classic isometric RPG from like, oh God, when is it from the 90s, basically. And it's got, you know, obviously it's got steam, steampunk and magic all sort of mixed in and I think it's on steam.
Speaker A
00:32:39.980 - 00:34:40.110
The first book that I'm going to recommend is I'm going to recommend Sorcery and Cecilia by Caroline Stevener and Patricia Reedy. It's the result of an epistolary, a letter writing game between the two authors. They started out out by writing letters to each other.
These two women in this world that they just built by writing letters to each other. And they eventually took the first dozen or so of those letters and they realized, hey, this sounds like a book.
It's one of the first magical Regency books. It is one of the first manners punk book that I mentioned earlier.
Manners punk being like just playing with that or that Regency idea and adding in either fantasy or something else. So it fits solas really well. I also highly recommend Caroline Stubbermir's A College of Magic series.
If you're going to do steampunk, you should always, always, always do Girl Genius by Phil and Casiofoglio. Foundational steampunk text.
Still a free webcomic online@girlgeniusonline.com Mad science is more important than the vampires, though later on in the series there are werewolves and vampires and bots and witches and sentient trains. And what that book is, that is a great series. There is already a tabletop role playing out for it. So I cannot.
We're not going to do it for the show, but another great one. And then the third one is the Jane Austen in Space book. Like I didn't want to make it all about the fantasy and the Victorian.
So if you like this idea of, of a manners punk Regency sort of thing where in this case they have psychic abilities and interstellar adventure and space opera, but with a Jane Austen sensibility. I recommend the Liadin series by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. It's a fantastic book. There are over 36 novels and probably just as many short stories.
So it's a huge commitment. But boy, if you want a backlog, that is a. It is a great backlog and some very nice writing there. Okay, Rob, give us your media.
Speaker D
00:34:40.770 - 00:35:42.530
So the two things. There's a book from 1990 called Vampires with the S is a dollar sign. It's purely a vampire hunting thing.
They alluded to, I think, other supernatural creatures, but they were mostly hunting and fighting vampires, you know, with big giant kids, swing set sized crossbows and things like that. So I dug it.
Had a kind of a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe where everyone's this wacky character and it's kind of like a real laugh em up for a while until it ain't, you know, that sort of stuff.
And also there was a movie with Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston called Only Lovers Left Alive and they talk about and show flashbacks of different times where they were together up to the modern age and how things are changing being a vampire, you know, in the age of cell phones and things.
And how, you know, in Tangiers it was so much easier to just meet someone for a night and they love you and then you just, you know, eat them, you know.
Speaker A
00:35:43.010 - 00:35:44.210
Ah, the good old days.
Speaker C
00:35:44.450 - 00:35:51.730
And could you imagine what we do in the Shadows prequel? Like set in Victorian London.
Speaker B
00:35:52.130 - 00:35:52.930
Oh my God.
Speaker D
00:35:53.090 - 00:35:57.250
Oh, please. That would be great. Oh, oh my God. Laszlo would be.
Speaker B
00:35:57.250 - 00:35:58.930
That's right when they turn. Laszlo, right?
Speaker C
00:35:59.010 - 00:36:00.250
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B
00:36:00.250 - 00:36:01.250
Oh, so good.
Speaker C
00:36:01.570 - 00:36:07.160
I only mentioned that because Tilda Swinton, that one episode of what we do in the Shadows as her character from that movie. Yes.
Speaker A
00:36:08.120 - 00:36:15.240
Okay, that wraps up media, so we're gonna move on to promotions. Jason, do you want to take it and tell us about what's happening with you?
Speaker C
00:36:16.040 - 00:36:43.610
Yeah, there's always stuff out there. Go and check out Paiso's stuff. I think gonna have some stuff written in a. In a Starfinder book that's gonna be out about now. Ish.
That book is just called Absalom Station and check that out. And I'm sure we have some. I mean, if you want to. I mean, we talked about dragons earlier. This book is already out. It's been.
Will have been out for a while. But there is a book called Draconic Codex that I have lots of fun dragon stuff in it.
Speaker A
00:36:44.170 - 00:36:47.610
All right. And Karen, I know that you have a standard promo.
Speaker B
00:36:47.610 - 00:37:11.570
I've got my standard promo. As always. I am plugging the Crime Victims Treatment center where I volunteer as an advocate for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence.
They have lots of amazing services for survivors, from counseling to legal help, all of it free. And if you want to donate or help or even volunteer, if you're in the New York City area, you can go to cvtcnyc.org I think that's it, right, Rob?
Speaker A
00:37:11.570 - 00:37:13.010
I don't have anything. Do you have anything?
Speaker D
00:37:13.250 - 00:37:17.010
No. I mean, I'll plug, you know. How about bread? You like bread? I do.
Speaker A
00:37:17.330 - 00:37:17.810
Bread.
Speaker B
00:37:18.130 - 00:37:18.810
Who doesn't love.
Speaker D
00:37:18.810 - 00:37:20.530
It's for eating bread.
Speaker A
00:37:20.530 - 00:37:21.290
It's for eating.
Speaker C
00:37:21.290 - 00:37:26.640
All right, man. Man. Rob is in the pocket of big wheat.
Speaker D
00:37:27.040 - 00:37:28.520
Oh, yeah, I am. I am.
Speaker B
00:37:28.520 - 00:37:30.000
He is in the pocket of big wheat.
Speaker A
00:37:32.560 - 00:37:33.600
For big grain.
Speaker C
00:37:37.280 - 00:37:38.480
All. All grains.
Speaker A
00:37:38.480 - 00:37:51.210
Can I just say that I absolutely had a blast and that I. That's my plug is that everybody should come back and listen to you guys talk about anything else again.
Because every time you talk about any book, it is always just a ton of fun. So thank you so much.
Speaker B
00:37:51.210 - 00:37:51.810
Thank you.
Speaker A
00:37:52.370 - 00:39:03.500
And that was Soulless by Gale Carragher. Thanks so much to Karen Form, Rob Chimarco and Jason Keighley, who are not actually octopuses in disguise, but real, actual people.
Join us in two weeks when Jonathan Mazur, Shaun Murphy and John Corbett blast off into the space fantasy world of the graphic novel saga by Brian K. Vaughn. You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our 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 Gamemasters Book Club, on Mastodon Amasters Book Club, and on Instagram @GamemastersBookClub. 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 Terry Pratchett, always try to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising G.