GMBC ep20-Navigating Magic and Romance: The Allure of The Sundered Realms by Casey Blair
Intro
00:00:08.400 - 00:00:38.220
Welcome to the Game Masters Book Club where great fiction becomes your next great tabletop role playing experience. I'm the host, Eric Jackson.
And today Chris Grannis and David Clarkson return along with our newest game master, Scott Legault to transport us to the Sundered Realms, written by Casey Blair, filled with spies, spellcasters and a pair of hyper competent magic nerds in love. Our discussions of the book cover the definitions of romantasy, the proper way to speak dwarvish, and plenty of media recommendations.
Let's get into the conversation.
Eric Jackson
00:00:40.300 - 00:01:36.830
Okay everybody, welcome to another episode of Game Masters Book Club. We've got one brand new game master, two veterans, and of course, as we've mentioned earlier, Craig, our fabulous recorder. Thank you, Craig.
Always good to see your handsome bear face. Moving on, we're going to be talking about the Sundered Realms, a fantasy book by Casey Blair.
But before we get into talking about the book, let's get into talking about our Game Masters and their game mastering Journey.
And our question this week in particular, given the Sundered Realms, which is a realm that is full of gates, magical gates that lead to all different types of places, we're going to ask our Game Masters about how they've used gates in their games. And we will start with our brand new Gates guest, D.M. Scott. Tell the people who you are, your gaming journey and all about gates.
Scott Legault
00:01:37.310 - 00:02:05.180
Hey everybody, My name is Scott Legault. I have been a gamer since 1978. I've been running games since around the same time.
I currently am the con chair at Rising Phoenix Game Con in Massachusetts in April. This will be our fifth year this year. And before that I ran Doc Phoenix events where we did events all over New England for folks.
So been GM in for a long time. That's a little bit about me. What else can I tell you?
Eric Jackson
00:02:05.420 - 00:02:09.180
Oh, a little bit about how you use gates. Magical Gates campaign.
Scott Legault
00:02:09.500 - 00:02:56.830
Sorry. Okay, so as to gates, very interesting. I read this book and there's been a lot over the years. I'm an avid reader.
I've probably read probably about almost 5,000 books in my life, it brought me back to first of all, Charles de Lint's book where they fight over the gates to a world.
In addition to that, in my homebrew campaign, which is called Dockland, which has been going since the late 80s, we had a major war where one side used the gate to gate a army basically halfway across the world to attack a neighboring nation. And there was a big fight over that and the majors were able to actually close the gate back down. And shunt them back.
And in doing so they basically broke the world and we ended up with an area of the world called the Shattered Realms now.
Eric Jackson
00:02:56.910 - 00:02:57.310
So.
Scott Legault
00:02:57.630 - 00:03:02.750
So, yeah, gates have been a bit prevalent in my own games here and there.
Eric Jackson
00:03:02.750 - 00:03:10.270
Fantastic. Okay, returning game masters, specifically. Dave, say hi to the folks and tell them about Gates.
David Clarkson
00:03:10.430 - 00:04:18.809
Hello, this is David Clarkson. I don't know how to operate a microphone, but I do know how to run games.
I've been running games since 1980, so that about when cavemen first started rolling dice. I also worked with Scott on running the Rising Phoenix game con.
Very happy to be heading into our fifth year and looking forward to it when it comes to Gates. As I was reading the Sundered Realms, I was thinking of how the gates actually worked metaphysically.
And I came to the realization that I've been running Ravenloft and the Domains of Dread since they came out in second edition and enjoying the heck out of it and realizing that this is a very similar sort of metaphysical setup. It's a way to get to another realm that that's the only way to get to the other realm.
It's always made an interesting plot device so that you can both control the journey of the characters and also help them kind of dabble in some sort of larger magic. And I've been able to run some sessions where they've actually had to deal with how these gates connect to other realms.
So it's always been a fun little piece of fantasy and I really do enjoy it when I do put it into my games. Thanks. Thanks, Eric.
Eric Jackson
00:04:19.209 - 00:04:30.489
No, no problem. I think gates really are terribly interesting and one of the best tropes of fantasy.
Mr. Grannis, please talk to us about your gaming journey and about magical gates.
Chris Grannis
00:04:30.729 - 00:04:44.300
Hi, Chris Granis here and I am, you know, obviously the young one here in the, in the group, since I've only been gaming since 1983. So I think, oh my God, so barely old enough to play these.
Scott Legault
00:04:44.300 - 00:04:46.100
You're not a grognog, you're just a grog.
Chris Grannis
00:04:46.580 - 00:05:51.950
Exactly, exactly. I run games at Rising Phoenix, have nothing else to do with it other than, you know, listening to Dave and Scott talk about it.
But I am a longtime gamer, dictionary nerd and designer and layout artist for several role playing games as well as many books. As for using gates in my games, it'll come as no surprise to anyone who's listened to any of the other podcasts with me.
I have run a long term changeling game and those changeling games use quite a number of gates to get into and out of the dreaming. As a matter of fact. Previously one of the games that I've run recently, I think, I think Eric was in it.
We used gates for time portals going back and forth through the time and spaces throughout our setting. I think the coolest portal used in my game was that of a lighthouse.
So when the lighthouse's light traveled across a certain point in the water, it became solid and a gate to another dream realm.
Eric Jackson
00:05:52.110 - 00:06:58.950
Wow. That is pretty cool. Awesome. And yes, that was an awesome game. So thank you again. My name is Eric Jackson. I'm the host.
I have been playing since the Pleistocene and I really enjoy the idea of moving players around with magical gates. I can tell you that I use them in almost every campaign once characters get to a certain level.
But my favorite instance of using a gate was there was a group of Dark Fae who were trying to bring their fellows into the world. There were two of them. They were relatively large, like giant sized dark elves.
And they were both standing, holding, literally holding open the gate so that their fellows could march in. And my beloved spouse Amelia said Can I use my mage hand to tickle him underneath the arm and get him to drop the gate?
And then she rolled a 20 and he failed to save. So that became the infamous tickle bullet episode which took down the entire Dark Elven army.
Speaker E
00:06:58.950 - 00:07:02.070
So what is the save versus tickling?
Eric Jackson
00:07:04.710 - 00:07:30.980
I don't remember what I picked at the time. It was one of those. Sure, if you can make a blank roll, let's go for it.
And you know as soon as you say that, the players instantly always make nat 20k. Yes. So yes. Yeah, probably Khan. Maybe Will. I don't know. Could have been any of those things. It was.
I'm pretty certain that was the fourth edition, so it might have been a will save anyway.
Speaker E
00:07:31.540 - 00:07:32.100
Makes sense.
Eric Jackson
00:07:32.100 - 00:09:15.450
Anywho, no tickle bullets were used in the Sundered Realms, which is the book that we're going to be talking about today, which is by Casey Blair. This is the first book in a series. There will be more books coming out.
The Sundered Realms starts with Lyris, a newly minted elite spy that has been sold out by her government. She escapes the trap that they put her in only to end up in Lord Vanor's hands.
As one of the most talented caster in all the realms, Vanir offers Lyris a deal. Help him defeat a sorcerer who's made pacts with demons.
The very same sorcerer who Lyris taught an ancient language to that makes his spells nearly unstoppable. To anyone who doesn't understand the language. Spoiler alert. She's the only other one who knows that language.
And if she does this, she becomes a citizen of his kingdom. If she doesn't do this, she goes to jail as a spy. Taking the deal.
Lyris and Vanor travel the sundered realms, so named because ancient magics shattered the planet. But various land masses still exist in kingdoms that are connected by magical gates. All this traveling is to stop the evil sorcerer's schemes.
And during this time, they realize that their partnership is not just about saving the world and duty and honor, but about their feelings for each other and their eventual love. Lyris and Vanar are adventurous, hyper competent nerds in love. The magic system is as much a character as the fantastical people in places.
And I like a book that takes the freedom of choice and consent seriously, because consent is sexy. What did I miss?
Speaker A
00:09:15.690 - 00:09:16.490
Yeah, that was.
Speaker D
00:09:16.730 - 00:09:17.370
Nailed it.
Speaker C
00:09:17.450 - 00:09:17.890
Yeah.
Speaker E
00:09:17.890 - 00:09:30.810
That was a very good summary. I did like the fact that they made the realms distinct and different.
They made them, say, minor characters and they mattered when they traveled from one place to another. The cultures, the conventions, things like that.
Speaker A
00:09:31.050 - 00:09:33.290
Yeah. And different systems of government.
Speaker C
00:09:34.080 - 00:09:43.280
Definitely a game master's dream. Like, yes, okay, I can make a whole other society here and we can do this, and I can make this happen. So. Really did like that.
Speaker E
00:09:43.760 - 00:10:05.920
But part of my introduction and what the question that did come up is how those gates work. The way they describe them were first, I assume the usual big spinning portal in the middle of a field or something like that.
But now I realize that you can't go far in that realm without passing through a gate. You can't get anywhere outside of there. It's a closed door that unless you have the magic to go through it.
Speaker A
00:10:05.920 - 00:10:10.800
True. And they're all invisible how I read them, so. So you have to know that they're there.
Speaker D
00:10:11.120 - 00:10:21.120
Yeah.
I think the gates themselves actually existed in certain places in the realms and you had to be able to first of all see them to access them and then be able to actually open them.
Speaker C
00:10:21.360 - 00:10:32.820
Yeah. She finds that initial gate, the one that she uses to escape, which I thought was really cool. Anybody else? Other things?
You want to talk about the book before we leap into mechanics other than.
Speaker A
00:10:32.820 - 00:10:35.820
Our argument was whether it was a romantasy or not. Fair.
Speaker E
00:10:35.900 - 00:10:36.380
Yes.
Eric Jackson
00:10:36.540 - 00:11:00.140
Yeah, fair. I think this book actually came out, this novel came out in 2024, so that is firmly within the Romantasy era. I suppose it must be a romantasy.
Although, as we argued earlier, I think this Is really just a fantasy book with a romantic element. And somebody who's marketing the book decided if we put the word romantasy on it, it's going to sell better.
Speaker A
00:11:00.640 - 00:11:05.200
And let's. Let's put one chapter with a. With a sex scene in it. And that's. Yeah.
Eric Jackson
00:11:06.400 - 00:11:41.260
To be fair, when I read romance novels, and I read quite a few of them, when I read romance novels, I'm not. The sex scene isn't what makes it for me, but the romance and romance. I like a long, drawn out, let's figure out how this is going to happen thing.
And then I don't care if . For me, if the sex is off page, that's fine. So for me, I'm like all of that lead up. And I guess the technical term is I like a slow burn.
And this was definitely slow burn. So I could see where if you weren't into that, it could have been a little frustrating. It wasn't. The main part of.
Speaker E
00:11:43.300 - 00:11:53.420
Was useful to see how those feelings mattered. The things that she thought and then said and did. It gave it a little bit of a character study. But you're right, it was a minor part.
Speaker D
00:11:53.960 - 00:12:14.200
I also thought that their feelings affected their actions in the fact that both of them were always worried about offending the other one when they were doing things, which was both irritating as a reader, but it was true. Like, he was like, oh, is she gonna be upset that I said this thing?
Speaker C
00:12:14.200 - 00:12:14.440
Or.
Speaker D
00:12:14.440 - 00:12:25.480
And then she'd be like, oh, is he gonna be upset? I. I didn't look at him. You know, it was a little bit. I don't know, a little much for me, But I did think a lot of that affected their actions.
Speaker A
00:12:26.280 - 00:12:38.280
I agreed. I think that the problem is it went on a little too long.
They resolved it and then unresolved it and then resolved it without there being any action involved or impact on it. So.
Speaker D
00:12:38.280 - 00:12:44.760
Right. Coming back up, I think, you know.
Speaker A
00:12:45.000 - 00:12:45.480
Yeah.
Speaker E
00:12:45.560 - 00:13:13.540
And I was gonna say one of the interesting things that I noticed was lacking for most of the book. I didn't see any of feelings matter in the magic. A lot of fantasy that comes up, oh, if you have love, if you have happiness, it flavors the magic.
That didn't seem to be a factor until close to the end where I saw some dialogue that spoke to that. But most of it seemed to be the language. The language was what decided and your feelings weren't the important part.
Speaker D
00:13:13.540 - 00:13:17.260
And that was very interesting. The language thing was actually very interesting.
Speaker E
00:13:17.260 - 00:13:18.740
Yeah. Oh, very, very.
Speaker D
00:13:19.280 - 00:13:24.080
That was the key to magic in general. Not just the gates, but all the magic.
Speaker C
00:13:24.160 - 00:13:37.280
So, yeah, it was definitely much more of a nerd plot than a romance plot. As I said, I love a hyper competent couple and they were definitely a hyper competent couple.
Like, they were just the best of what they do and hyper competent.
Speaker A
00:13:37.280 - 00:13:42.440
Except when they were going, well, maybe I don't love him, maybe he doesn't love me. What am I going to do?
Speaker D
00:13:42.440 - 00:13:43.120
Oh, my God.
Speaker C
00:13:43.520 - 00:14:13.340
Now that we've gotten through our romance discussion, it's probably time to give the people what they really came here for, which is mechanics.
And if they like this book, the Sundered Realms, if they want to play in a world where there's interesting nerdy gate magic, what system do you think is going to work for that? And that's what you guys, as the master game masters that you are, are going to answer.
And I'm going to start with Dave and have Dave talk to us about his choice for the mechanics of the Sundered Realms.
Speaker E
00:14:13.980 - 00:15:04.950
Okay, my choice, if I was going to run Sundered Realms, I would want to use a generic system, a system that's very modular. And my choice of a more modern version of generic systems, which there are plenty of them.
GURPs, Hero Systems, but they're a little older and way more crunchy. Cortex prime. That's what I've used in the past.
It does require a bit upfront work, but it allows you to bake in the concepts of the game, like language mattering and magic and people's relationships to each other. You could even work that into the attributes and the specific abilities that matter in the mechanics.
And I do like the fact that the mechanics would support the story as opposed to they just be on the side. You'd just be rolling some D20s and looking for 15s or something.
You know, it really makes a big difference when those features are part of the mechanics that you'd use for the game. And so that would be my choice for this.
Speaker C
00:15:04.950 - 00:15:07.230
Awesome. Chris, would you like to go next? Sure.
Speaker A
00:15:07.310 - 00:16:20.380
Actually, I have a couple of suggestions. One sort of little addendum though, my is I would go for Spelljammer.
I would even, you know, use the 5e books that support Spelljammer for the world building itself. So, you know, it is the traveling from different world to different worlds. So you can have different fantasy setups in each world.
You could obviously use Gates in just regular 5e, but it's much more flavorful that you're traveling back and forth world to world via, you know, spell ships and such. That's Where I would see easiest way to do it again, you know, it is a fairly standard fantasy novel with a very cool spell system based on language.
You certainly could make all of your spell components somatic and such verbal rather. So yes, that would be my main piece there.
However, I would like to put in an honorable mention just for the magic system, not for the actual game itself. But Changeling has a wonderful way to do counterspells. In almost all other role playing games I have seen, counterspells is kind of dull.
Speaker C
00:16:20.860 - 00:16:23.340
It's just a nerf like, nope, you can't do it.
Speaker A
00:16:24.140 - 00:17:10.580
It's like you can't do it. With the Changeling magic system. There is a very robust counterspelling functionality. With your cantrips you can cast spells on spells.
So for example, when a rival wizard is casting a spell to turn you into a newt, you can cast a spell that will hopscotch that spell and bounce it up over to the next person over. You can, you know, unweave it in different and creative ways depending on what you have at your disposal in your magic.
So it makes these sort of wizards duel counterspellings much more interesting and effective. The world building there totally different. Wouldn't use that for the world there, but for the magic system. It's a cool magic system.
Speaker C
00:17:10.740 - 00:17:19.460
Awesome. That sounds great. Scott, what advice do you have for folks if they were going to try and recreate the sundered realms in their ttrpg?
Speaker D
00:17:19.460 - 00:18:17.060
Yeah, I'm going to jump in with Chris and the fact that you need a fairly broad based system that you can do a lot of counterspell stuff because there's a lot of that in the book, you need a kind of like a free flow magic system.
Years ago, when I did my campaign in high school and in college, like a lot of people did, we wrote our own system and I have a system called Doclan, which was where it was basically seven different types of magic. And you built your spells on the fly, something like that. So I out of the published stuff around, I'm gonna take pick Ars Magica.
Ars Magica has a pretty broad ability to cast magic and their counterspell issue is very interesting. They use nouns and verbs to make two word counter spells. And I think that's kind of interesting.
I haven't played Ars Magicker literally in years, but I would have to pick that just for that pop. The fluidity of the magic I think would buy into this.
Speaker C
00:18:17.620 - 00:18:29.300
I love this system and I think it's very thematically compatible because you're right, you're making the form is kind of the noun and the technique is kind of the adjective. And so it's very language based.
Speaker D
00:18:29.700 - 00:18:37.220
I think it's a good tie in to the actual book too. So since they use language, a specific language, as the basis for all this.
Speaker C
00:18:37.620 - 00:20:17.350
I steered away from the magic and went for the romance that isn't the romance.
I thought that the Blue Rose rpg, currently being published by Green Ronin Press, uses the the age system, like Dragon Age and Modern Age game engine. It's a little lighter than 5e but still has a decent number of dice. And that system has a whole lot of stuff about relationships.
Those relationships are built up over time.
They can be positive or negative, and depending on the intensity rating that these get, you can have more bonuses that allow you to do other other things in game. It's also important that it's not just a romantic set of relationships. It can be everything from familial bond or professional admiration.
And it's also incredibly LGBTQ inclusive. So if you wanted to do the romance of the book, even though it's not necessarily this, we're not going to necessarily call this one a romance.
If you wanted to do the romance of the book, I think Blue Rose RPG would probably work super well for that.
Like I said, it's not on the super crunchy side, but it does have some interesting tactics that can be used both in physical combat as well as spell combat. So all of those little bits and pieces, I think would make it a nice matchup for the sundered real. There's still tons to talk about this book.
And Dave, we're going to start with you and have you tell us if you weren't planning on running this as a whole game in and of itself. But you read this book and so you probably found something that you'd like to put inside your own game.
So what would be portable that you could just lift out of here and drop into your own home campaign?
Speaker E
00:20:17.590 - 00:21:16.670
Absolutely. I do believe theft is a high art form for gm, so I endorse it thoroughly.
Yeah, I've always enjoyed a good magic system that makes sense and makes it interesting to play magic.
And so I was drawn to the idea that this was the counter spelling that went on and a lot of the abjuration magic, there was a lot of, you know, I'm trying to dispel your magic because I'm smarter and I have a better technique and I'd want to steal that.
And if the stealing doesn't have to stop, I would want to then steal the rolling keep system from dueling and seventh circle, which was nice and intricate and it had a good back and forth. If you did this maneuver, this would work better this way, so on so forth.
And I would just re skin it with counterspelling so that I could have wizards and sorcerers and other magic practitioners really thinking about if I try this one, then this will happen. Whereas I try this one, then this will happen. It makes kind of a little mini game in the game.
Speaker C
00:21:16.830 - 00:21:23.320
And that is definitely something that you, as a veteran wizard player, really enjoy. I know from watching.
Speaker E
00:21:23.320 - 00:21:26.840
I do, yes, I do like the magic stuff. Absolutely.
Speaker C
00:21:27.320 - 00:21:27.800
Chris.
Speaker A
00:21:28.440 - 00:22:36.140
I would steal, much like Dave, I like the magic system, but I would steal the linguistic element to the magic system. Making the words that you use in a spell matter and making the language that you use in the spell matter to change things.
One of the things that I have used in my games just really as a prop previously, is I've worked on a dictionary for many, many years. The dictionary of Indo European roots gives you linguistic bits to put together that that means something in this proto language that they created.
So it sounds like a magic language, but isn't. And that's what reminded me of the super magic language they had there.
So I would steal that idea using a more fluffy system than D and D or possibly like in a mage game sort of thing. The what you say, when you say it magically matters. And if you can use a different language for your magic, you get bonuses and such.
So that's where I would steal it for the flavor.
Speaker C
00:22:36.140 - 00:23:35.750
Absolutely. I really like the idea of languages in the game. Unfortunately, a large part of role playing is communicating with other people.
And at some point I really need to find the absolute best way to incorporate different languages in the game without everyone being like, say trilingual. Because there's only so much that you can do when you're writing it and you can imagine there's a foreign language there, that's one thing.
But when you're performing it, not that we perform per se, but when we're in game and going through that, trying to get into that flow state that we try to when we're playing the game, not being able to communicate breaks that flow. And that makes it feel weird.
But I think within this context, when we're talking about spells, and that's just in that little sort of spell mini game like as Dave described it, I think we can afford to go and really get into that kind of detail that you're describing, Chris.
Speaker A
00:23:35.910 - 00:23:49.650
It could even be as down There as I'm going to use the goblin word for sm, which has different connotations and it means smash here for a goblin involves fruit.
Speaker C
00:23:50.130 - 00:23:53.330
So everything's gonna like be covered in jelly when it's all over.
Speaker A
00:23:54.130 - 00:23:55.730
Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker E
00:23:56.210 - 00:24:01.570
What is the specs. You guys are trying to boost sales of dictionaries with your modifications to the role playing system.
Speaker A
00:24:02.530 - 00:24:10.050
I. I don't. Yes, yes, that's true. However, I will point out that I no longer have any financial interest in that.
Speaker C
00:24:10.370 - 00:24:12.030
So just nerd interest?
Speaker A
00:24:12.190 - 00:24:13.630
Just nerd interest.
Speaker C
00:24:13.950 - 00:24:36.910
I will mention that the only successful time I've ever been able to portray a foreign language that I could not speak. I was working with one of my high school groups and nobody in the group had taken Dwarven as a language and they ran into a group of Dwarves.
And the way that I represented the Dwarven language was to go, beard, beard, mustache, mustache, mustache, Beard, mustache, beard, mustache. That's how dwarves talked around everybody. That's what it sounded like to them all.
Speaker A
00:24:36.910 - 00:24:39.430
And that seems like canon to me.
Speaker C
00:24:39.430 - 00:25:05.790
Yeah, I like that I still have former, former game people who I run into who will walk up to me and go, oh, hey, Mr. Jackson. Mustess much as beard, you know, so it definitely went pretty well. That could be really fun.
It's sort of like, okay, if you're going to represent each group, what would you pick as the, like, the three words that everything sounds like, right? Like is it berry, berry, leaf, berry for elves or what? You know, like the kind of a thing.
Speaker D
00:25:05.790 - 00:25:06.520
It's funny.
Speaker A
00:25:07.950 - 00:25:12.190
That's certainly. Those are certainly the dwarf languages for elves.
Speaker C
00:25:12.750 - 00:26:45.760
All right, well, off of the language piece and onto the last piece of portable stuff that I'd like to take out of this game. Or actually I have two. The first one is continuing with the counterspelling thing.
I love that the demons are all anti magic so often, particularly in D and D. Like, demons have spells and they have all these spell casting abilities and they can do all these things and they're basically like little wizards. Even the low ones have like cool magical abilities they can do. But in this book they're demons and you just can't hurt them with magic.
And they're also basically immune to most weapons too. So they're just, just nastily indestructible.
And I love the idea that, like, they would be at least mostly magic resistance in almost everything and that they drained magic out of the world. Which hearkens back to the Dark sun campaign, right, where like, if you cast spells, like, it sucks life out of the planet.
That's what that reminded me of. And the other thing I liked was there was a neutral priesthood. They were definitely neutral, and they were like sort of loan sharks.
And if, you know, we will help people, but at a price.
But yeah, but everyone was allowed to talk to them, which made for a really great place for characters who don't just want to go into the dungeon and smash things and maybe actually want to try and figure out, how do I actually get to talk to the evil overlord or his minions before we go in and smash them? Like, is there a way?
Speaker E
00:26:46.000 - 00:26:48.640
I love a good morally ambiguous character.
Speaker C
00:26:48.640 - 00:26:49.360
Oh, yeah.
Speaker B
00:26:49.440 - 00:26:57.840
Naruthkar, Priest of the Forgotten, an order that cropped up in the shadiest of places to ostensibly offer solace to people who have none.
Speaker D
00:26:57.920 - 00:27:00.800
Yeah. That was a very cool character.
Speaker A
00:27:00.800 - 00:27:03.040
Cool concept for a religious order.
Speaker E
00:27:03.040 - 00:27:03.440
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:27:03.520 - 00:27:17.550
And easily portable to almost any campaign you're working with. Absolutely not. Married to this whole fabulous nerdy word system that we've been talking about here.
All right, anybody else have other items that they want to lift from the sundered realms?
Speaker A
00:27:17.710 - 00:27:29.070
They had a neat idea for that half demon sister. She was a. A fascinating character who is portable as well, because she didn't belong in this book.
Speaker C
00:27:29.630 - 00:28:00.580
Yeah.
And I think I told you guys in the pregame that our Priests of the forgotten and the half demon sister person are the subject of the second Forgotten Realms book. There is no scheduled date for it yet, but it is planned.
So you will get to see both of those characters, who were definitely scene stealers, get their own book coming up. That being one of the really good things about romance novels is whenever there's another pair of people we can pair up, we get another book.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker D
00:28:00.580 - 00:28:00.980
Absolutely.
Speaker E
00:28:00.980 - 00:28:24.520
And I'm going to predict that they're going to flip the whole demon thing because it was, you know, the demons were very vaguely defined, and they're gonna. You're gonna see it from the point of view of people like the.
The priest of the forgotten and the half demon, you know, adopted sister, that suddenly the demons are actually people from other realms that are, you know, just opposite or something like that. There's gonna be something like that where the demons are gonna have more relevance. It's my guess.
Speaker A
00:28:24.760 - 00:28:26.600
Be a neat, neat twist.
Speaker C
00:28:26.920 - 00:29:02.190
All right.
Now that we've started talking about other books besides Casey Blair's other books, of which she has many, one of which I read, which was the Tea Princess Chronicles, which. Of which there are four books, and I know. I know what it sounds like. I really Liked it. This was a cozy, political, diplomatic thriller.
It involves magic tea, baby dragons, and found family while making the world a better place. One cup of tea at a time. That's the tagline.
Speaker E
00:29:02.190 - 00:29:03.390
That sounds very nice.
Speaker C
00:29:04.080 - 00:29:39.820
It is. It's very nice. There are four books. There are also dragons that are trapped in mists. There's another magical apocalypse in this book. There's.
There's magical flamethrowers going on. There's. There's interesting royalty. So other than that, Casey Blair, one of Casey Blair's other books.
I would like to hear if you guys have other things to recommend about books, stories, media that feel like this book and would help other GM sort of like get into the same headspace. Chris, do you want to start?
Speaker A
00:29:40.220 - 00:31:00.110
Okay, so I'm going to go a little off beat with mine. First of all, the video game Disco Elysium. For the broken world feel of things. You play a broken character as well.
So the characters that you're playing there are very, very much not like the ones in this, but the world itself is a fractured one and you can see the gnawings at the edge of the. At the edges. There's, as you know, chaos is taking over, is.
Is destroying literally everything other than these islands that are floating together that have been connected. So it's a fascinating video game that I would definitely recommend. It is also deeply funny in a disturbing way. So. Okay, solid recommend there.
And just to piggyback on, Dave want four, the demon versions being outside and having their own worldview and thinking themselves the old series of books by Robert Aspirin. The myth series starting with another fine myth. It's a. It's a great old comedy fantasy series with some.
Some nice world hopping and some wild differences jumping from universe to universe or dimension to dimension. Demon mean meaning just dimensional traveler.
Speaker E
00:31:00.350 - 00:31:04.650
So they just look bad to our. That's. They're not bad.
Speaker C
00:31:04.650 - 00:31:07.930
Yeah, just scaly. And they look.
Speaker A
00:31:08.410 - 00:31:11.730
They look bad to you. To the other ones, they're quite attractive.
Speaker E
00:31:11.730 - 00:31:12.250
Yeah, sure.
Speaker C
00:31:12.810 - 00:31:16.170
Did you guys ever see the comic for Myth Adventures?
Speaker D
00:31:16.250 - 00:31:16.730
Yes.
Speaker A
00:31:16.890 - 00:31:17.610
Oh, yes.
Speaker E
00:31:17.690 - 00:31:18.730
Phil Foglio.
Speaker A
00:31:18.810 - 00:31:20.250
Phil Foggio. Yeah.
Speaker C
00:31:20.250 - 00:31:30.090
Yeah, yeah, That's. I just want to make sure. Always, always plug for Phil Foglio. Ian Kaja are just great people and great stuff.
Scott, you have some media recommendations for us?
Speaker D
00:31:30.670 - 00:31:59.190
Yeah, I actually have three. I'm gonna go back again to Riddle the Wren by Charles Delin. It's kind of a YA book, but it's written in the 70s.
It's a great book for any of you that have children in the you know, early teen, mid teen ages. You know what, I enjoyed it well as an adult too. Great book about. It's a little tokenesque in some ways.
You know, there are the Balrogs and the equivalent of orcs and things like that.
Speaker A
00:31:59.270 - 00:31:59.790
And it's.
Speaker D
00:31:59.790 - 00:33:30.920
But it's all about this young woman who's trying to basically save the world. You know, epic adventure with a group of people. Very cool. Riddle of the Wren. I highly recommend that it ties into this. There's a lot of gates in it.
And the. The next one I'll say is Barbara Hambly's the Walls of Air. It's also part of a series about a isolated group of people.
So basically they've lived in these giant redoubts that have been been trapped hundreds of years and generations come and go. They come out and they realize that the demons are able to actually gate in and there's a big fight. So there's three books, very good series.
Last only because the main character in this, the wizard, we'll call him a wizard or the sorcerer. He was pretty powerful and so was she. She learned to be almost just as powerful as he is because of that. There's a book, the Coal fire series by C.S.
friedman. I think the black first one's called Black Sun Trill. It's Black sun trilogy. It's about a guy who's immensely powerful as a wizard, as a mage.
What he comes up against that's much more powerful is him. I don't remember there being a lot about gates in it, but it gave me a similar feel. Although it's a much darker book if you are going to read it.
It's not light and fluffy like this was dark and full of malice. But very interesting and good series as well. Cold fire series by C.S. friedman. And those are the three I have.
Speaker C
00:33:31.000 - 00:33:31.560
Dave?
Speaker A
00:33:32.360 - 00:33:32.840
Yes.
Speaker C
00:33:33.320 - 00:33:36.040
Would you care to give us some media recommendations? Sorry.
Speaker E
00:33:36.040 - 00:34:35.090
I would be happy to give you some media recommendations. I anticipated this was coming up. Somehow when I read this book I was really drawn into of course the. The use of the gates. Big factor.
And also it made me think of games I've run and things I've seen that involve seeing other identities.
So I was brought to thinking of two television shows, Sliders and also Fringe because the characters were viewed through a different lens when they were in a different place.
I even ran a short lived campaign with my good dear friend Donald C. Foley where we took full advantage of the old hero system which allowed you to create characters that could have laser guns and magic powers. At the same time, and people would go through gates and then suddenly they'd be translated into their version that fit into that world.
And suddenly they'd have to come to deal with the fact that their identities were a little bit different in that world. And I kind of like that factor of a traveling game. So it really made me think of those television shows which I really did enjoy watching.
Speaker C
00:34:35.330 - 00:36:43.030
Just to wrap things up. I know I've already given up one of mine, so.
So I would say if you're looking for something that's as close to a match as possible, and this one is called the Shattered Realm, by which is very similar to the Sundered Realm.
It's by Michael Reeves and it is about a planet that gets blown up and there are floating islands where people can be and everyone has to travel by dragon bone ship. But this relic from the late 80s is definitely interesting and wonderful and has lots of great side characters.
So the Shattered Realm is definitely in that same sort of milieu. I would also recommend a more recent book, Babel by RF Kuang, if you really want to do nerdy language spell casting.
This book is all about like how you get magic by translating from one language to another language. It is a little academic and it is also definitely anti colonialist and deals with that problem on part of its major plot points.
So not a fluffy book, but the magic system is really terribly interesting and worth the read just for that. Also, I think it won like a bunch of awards. So if you're into that kind of book award thing, that's great.
But as a game master, ooh, that's an interesting magic system there. And then finally, for world traveling and Gates, I have to recommend much as Scott did, a YA book, the Crestomancy series by Diana Wynne Jones.
It starts off with it's their six books, starts off with Charmed Life and goes on. There's a bunch of really great books.
You may recognize the name Diana Wynne Jones from Howl's Moving Castle as well as the Tufts Guide to Fantasyland and the Dark Lord of Dirkholm.
Diana Wynne Jones is a just a consummate YA person and her take on traveling between realms is terribly interesting and I think would be a good complement to the Sundered Realms. We all good gentlemen?
Speaker E
00:36:43.350 - 00:36:43.830
I think.
Speaker C
00:36:43.830 - 00:36:49.270
So ready to wrap this up and say good things about each other and things that are happening?
Speaker A
00:36:49.510 - 00:36:51.430
Oh, we have to say good things about each other.
Speaker C
00:36:52.150 - 00:37:14.740
There's a compliment duel at the end of this one. How will I deal with that? I know that there is and Chris actually mentioned it and I didn't in my intro.
So I also have run games at Rising Phoenix and we obviously have two of the creators and runners of that con. So, gentlemen, do you want to say wonderful things about your con so that everybody knows where to go and how to go play?
Speaker D
00:37:14.820 - 00:39:00.470
We would love to. Rising Phoenix Game Con. We're going into our fifth year. It's going to be a special year for us.
We are in Milford, Massachusetts at the Doubletree right off of 495. The convention is in April. This year it's running from the 24th to the 26th. It's a full size con.
We have RPGs, we have board games, we have a 400 plus board game library. We have a catan tournament, we have panels, we have seminars, we have special guests. We have a slew of great vendors.
We have all kinds of fun stuff to do for the kids. We continue every year to bring more and more stuff that we think that people will like.
Last year we had yoga in the mornings to limber up before your games. We've had in the past we had a sword troupe come and do a show. We really try to be a kind of a cross between a ren faire and a game con.
When you come, you will feel that you are at a convention. You will not feel like you're at a hotel and there's a bunch of other stuff going on there. You'll feel like you're home, you are in the environment.
Our goal is diversity and inclusion. We are very adamant about that. Please come and join us. All are welcome. It's a safe place to come and game and we would love for you to join us.
You can check us out at www.risingphoenixgamecon.com. we will go live for badges in November of this year. This being our fifth year, we've got some special stuff planned.
I'm not even going to talk about it yet, but some cool stuff coming up. All right, so we hope to see you there. Last year we had about 420 events. So we had 625 people last year.
So we're hoping to do a little better this year.
Speaker E
00:39:00.470 - 00:39:09.950
Do the compliment thing. Scott did an excellent job of covering everything that our con does. And please do come to the con.
We do look forward to seeing you next year in April 2026.
Speaker C
00:39:10.270 - 00:39:13.790
Fantastic. Chris, didn't you have something coming up as well?
Speaker A
00:39:14.270 - 00:39:28.110
I do have a couple things I just want to, you know, for the compliment, I would like to thank Dave and Scott for putting the convention on for my birthday since every year it's been, it has been there and it has been a wonderful experience for me.
Speaker D
00:39:28.350 - 00:39:32.750
Chris, I'm making a note so there will be something this year. Maybe we'll knight you or something.
Speaker A
00:39:33.310 - 00:39:46.390
All right then. But yeah, I will be running games at that con. I don't know exactly which ones they are going to be, but I have a good idea.
I always run a comedy vampire game in the Vain Vain.
Speaker D
00:39:48.950 - 00:39:49.990
Tip you waitress.
Speaker A
00:39:50.630 - 00:40:18.010
Of what we do in the Shadows and probably a changeling and sci fi game as well throughout the weekend.
Speaking of sci fi games, I just want to promote my friend Peter Michaud game the Cosmos Sci Fi RPG which we're hoping will have an expanded edition next year. I do the design and layout for that book and it came out for the first time last year and it it had its debut printed debut at Rising Phoenix.
Speaker D
00:40:18.010 - 00:40:23.530
He did. He did very well. Yeah, yeah, nice quite happy guy. Great idea. I liked his system.
Speaker C
00:40:23.850 - 00:40:42.600
Very cool to continue the compliments.
Also, I wanted to thank you guys for allowing me to do our first live broadcast for the podcast at Rising Phoenix and hopefully we will be back again. Very excited to have the Game Masters Book Club be at rising Phoenix in 2026.
Speaker D
00:40:44.440 - 00:41:07.250
Always welcome my friend and I wanted to say thank you for for inviting me to this. This was fun. One of the other things about Rising Phoenix, we're all about literacy. That's very important.
I think the the future of of gaming in general comes from literacy. I think a lot of us all started young reading. I think it's very important. Feed your head. It's good for you.
Speaker A
00:41:07.970 - 00:41:08.570
Please read.
Speaker C
00:41:08.570 - 00:41:09.490
Read more books.
Speaker A
00:41:09.490 - 00:41:10.450
Read more books.
Speaker B
00:41:13.890 - 00:41:16.210
And that was the Sundered Realms by Casey Blair.
Speaker C
00:41:16.210 - 00:41:18.290
Thanks again to David Clarkson, Chris Granis.
Speaker B
00:41:18.290 - 00:41:31.890
And new to the podcast, GM Scott Legalt for reviewing this language nerd fantasy book with me. You folks are the best. Join this trio again when they review Sterling E. Ler's Hero's Journey in March of 2026.
Speaker C
00:41:32.370 - 00:42:18.060
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 Gamemasters Book Club and on Instagram Instagram at Gamemasters Book Club.
If you've enjoyed the show, please like subscribe and comment on our episodes in your chosen podcasting space and be sure to share those episodes with your gaming community. You've been listening to the Game Masters Book Club brought to you by me, Eric Jackson and K Square Productions.
Continued praise and thanks to John Corbett for the podcast artwork and Otis Galloway for our music.
Speaker B
00:42:18.220 - 00:42:31.430
Join us again in two weeks when author and tabletop enthusiast Marissa Wolf, Casey Azell and Melissa Olthoff explore one of the classic speculative fiction settings, Pern as we review Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight.
Speaker C
00:42:31.670 - 00:42:38.390
Later, gamers and to paraphrase the great Terry Pratchett, always try to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising acre.