This podcast episode delves into the intricate realms of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), highlighting notable titles such as "Kids on Brooms" and "Die." We commence with an exploration of "Kids on Brooms," a game that encapsulates the whimsical essence of magical education, allowing players to embody students in a fantastical school setting. The dialogue transitions to "Die," a more profound and emotionally charged game, which juxtaposes the fantastical with stark realities, compelling players to navigate the complexities of their characters’ fates and emotions. As we traverse these gaming landscapes, we also touch upon the significance of resources like "Worlds at a Glance," which serve to enhance the narrative experience and streamline the DM's responsibilities. Ultimately, we aim to enrich our understanding of these games, while fostering a community of fantasy enthusiasts eager to engage in immersive storytelling.

The seventeenth installment of Rolling Into Fantasy presents a thorough exploration of current trends within the realm of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), pivoting from traditional literary discussions to a broader discourse surrounding fantasy-themed gaming experiences. This episode, characterized by its candid reflection on the podcast's sporadic release schedule, delves into the duo's recent experiences with two specific TTRPGs: Kids on Brooms and Die. The dialogue unfolds with an introduction to Kids on Brooms, a whimsical game imbued with the essence of magical schools and youthful adventure, wherein players assume the roles of students navigating their academic and mystical journeys. The hosts articulate the mechanics of the game, emphasizing its narrative-driven approach and the significance of character development, while also drawing parallels to popular culture phenomena, such as Harry Potter and other related media. The discussion transitions seamlessly into the darker themes presented in Die, a game that diverges significantly from the lightheartedness of its predecessor, focusing instead on the complexities of adulthood as characters grapple with their pasts and the repercussions of their actions within a fantastical context.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, we explored the distinct attributes of two tabletop roleplay games, Kids on Brooms and Die, emphasizing their unique gameplay mechanics and thematic elements.
• The podcast highlighted the complexities involved in transitioning from a traditional narrative structure to a more improvisational and collaborative storytelling approach in tabletop roleplaying games.
• We discussed the significance of character development within the context of RPGs, specifically how players navigate emotional landscapes and personal conflicts through their characters.
• Listeners were encouraged to consider the impact that fantasy roleplaying can have on real-life relationships and the ways in which storytelling fosters community engagement among players.
• We delved into the intricacies of game mechanics, illustrating how the structure of a roleplay system can shape player interactions and narrative outcomes.
• The episode concluded with an invitation for audience participation, urging listeners to share their experiences and insights related to fantasy gaming and storytelling.

Links referenced in this episode:

• worlds-at-a-glance

Sam.

Okay, and welcome to episode 17 of Rolling Into Fantasy.

It has been, I don't know, over a month.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I'm mostly to blame for that.

Oh, yeah, well, you know, it's.

It's apparently one thing we'll have to to work on is that frequency, which is apparently very challenging for us.

But on the good side, we're still here.

And for one thing, a bit uncomm or not as usual.

What we do, I think the focus will be not mainly on books, but on fantasy related topics, let's say.

So, I mean I do have one or two books I'd like to mention.

Not that I've read them, but I'd like to mention them.

And we'll be talking mainly about RPG related fantasy stuff.

All right, well, so let's start.

Sure.

All right, so I'll start us off with Scrolls of Initiative because I would love to talk about two new tabletop roleplay games.

Despite having a very, very busy schedule, I luckily still found the time to play a few tabletop roleplay games with my friends because I am fortunate enough to have a lot DM friends who want to test out a lot of different tabletop roleplay games and I am usually one of the players.

So that's really fun.

I would love to talk about Kids on Brooms and die.

I don't know why, but Kids on Broom it has an im.

I don't know it, but it has an immediate Harry Potter vibe to it.

Yes, the more I'll talk about it, the more you'll feel Harry Potter inspiration.

Okay, so what is Kids on Brooms?

It's a world of magical schools, misfit students and broomstick fueled chaos.

It's very focused on like spells, on having wands, brooms classes, that type of stuff.

You're going to a magical school and you're going to learn about magic.

Okay, so this is writt written by Jonathan Gilmore, Duke Levandowski and Spencer Stark.

And what is Kids on Brooms?

So it is a very light on rules ttrpg like I said, set in like this magical school setting and it's mostly inspired by stories like go figure, Harry Potter the Magic Magician.

Jesus the Magicians, Little Witch, academia and Sabrina.

So like very magical stories.

Okay, and where is the original angle then?

Well, none of those are TTRPGs.

It's kind of to really give you the feel that you are a student in this magical school.

Kind of like you see in all of those stories.

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

So it uses the powered by polymorph system from kids on bikes.

So it's narrative first and character driven gameplay.

So what are the mechanics of this game?

First of all, you have your stats, like dexterity, constitution, but instead of those, they use brains, brawn, fight, flight, charm and grit.

Okay.

And the thing that is very special about this, instead of, you know, rolling to see what your stats are and then adding the numbers to it, you have to assign a die to each stat.

Okay.

So you have.

You go from a D4 to a D20 and everything in between, and then you have to assign each stat a die.

Okay.

And that will kind of decide how good you are in a certain thing.

Okay.

And then the game master kind of has to decide how difficult your roles are, and he's going to decide that on multiple things, like how difficult is the spell?

Is this something that could happen in reality, or is this something reality break?

How many people affects this?

The timeline?

When should this happen?

Should this happen, like, right now or over time?

And all of these little factors will come down to a number.

So he can say, oh, to succeed, you must roll a 10.

Obviously, if you're rolling a D4, the chances of you winning are very, very, very slim.

Okay.

Though you think they're called affinity points or something like that.

I'm really bad with names.

I'm so sorry.

Anyway, you have these points that can help you with roles.

You can spend these points, for example, to use certain strengths, certain abilities that your character has to make certain roles easier.

Then the system, as I said, also uses wands and brooms.

I unfortunately can't say much about this because our DM decided to completely leave this out.

As in leaving out of the play, or just for now, completely leaving it.

Out of the campaign because he wanted to make it more of a spin of magic is evil.

And it only wants to influence teenagers because they're very easy to influence.

So it often sparks with troubled teens, and it's going to try and make you do use magic.

But using magic always has negative effects, and you don't necessarily need a wand to cast it.

You just, like in your mind, need to say what you want to happen.

Okay.

And then the magic will manifest.

It still has a very strong magic.

Yeah.

Potter vibe to it.

Yeah.

Okay.

But he flavored it more like, oh, you're going to a school that is specifically for troubled teens using magic.

Okay.

So it's all.

You also have the whole mentality aspect of it, because why are these teens so troubled?

What are their struggles?

And how will that create conflict between the teens and such.

And it's a really fun campaign so far.

Okay.

So apart from the magic, you also get to pick a familiar.

A familiar is just an animal and that is to teach the students to take care of something they don't really have a specific use.

There is one of the abilities that you could pick is psychic communication.

And that is a two way communication with your familiar.

Which is what I picked for my familiar because I picked a crow.

And it's like a spirit animal.

No, it is a physical crow.

It's an actual crow.

Oh, so that's why you have it.

To learn to take care of something.

Okay.

And I picked the physic psychic communication.

So I can kind of use it to.

To scout the area.

Every time we are doing something that we're not supposed to do, the crow is on lookout to signal on for like adults or something.

And he, no matter how far he is, he can always talk to me.

Okay.

Is one of the examples of an ability that you can have and how you can use your pets because they don't have to be completely useless aside from the fact that you have to take care of them.

Then the.

Like I said, the magic system, it's very open ended spell casting especially because we also left out the wand part.

It made it even more open because usually you have a lot of classes that you have to follow and then if you spend more time in one class, you you'll get better at the spells in said class.

We didn't do those.

Okay.

So we went for an even more open magic system.

So the DM can mess with us even more.

So the setting and the vibe is that you create your own magical school.

You can completely decide the vibe of your school.

Hence why RDM went with like more troubled teens kind of school.

So you can go dark.

Academia, cozy fantasy, chaotic teen drama.

It's up to you.

He went for the chaotic team.

Sure.

Team.

Of course Drama.

Because that's very fun.

And honestly overall it's a very light and easy to understand ttrp.

Like it's really, really basic.

Okay.

To understand it's not that difficult.

I do think that it also depends on your dm.

Because it's so open.

The DM will have to decide a lot has to do a lot of improv.

So you kind of have to be good at that in order for it to succeed.

I feel because it doesn't have any full on written campaigns, full on written NPCs or schools.

Most information is on how to create a character and how the magic system works.

And for the rest, it's like, oh, you know, go make your own school, go make your own NPCs.

How we did it for our campaign is the NPC making and the rules is something that we work on together.

So as a player I can say, oh, I'm going to go talk to my roommate.

Okay.

So I'm creating a new character.

What is the name of this npc?

Why are they your roommate?

What is your roommate like?

And then we also get to create a few rumors and a few facts about said npc.

Okay.

But the game master has liked any traditional similar game, a storyline and with an open, let's say, I would say an open ending, but at least you know enough open possibilities.

Very similar to a dmv.

They have to create their own storyline because like I said, they don't have any campaigns written.

Okay.

So you have a setting, but it's up to the DM to create a storyline with it.

Okay.

But RDM is using it in a very collaborative way.

So we get to make rules that the school has.

We get to create NPCs so we really feel like we're creating this world together while the DM is kind of leading the story for us.

Okay.

Okay.

And you've played it how many times or just.

I think I've had two sessions so far and I think next week I have a third session of it.

It's.

I really, really love playing it because it's really silly.

You get to play like this dramatic teen.

It's just dramatic teen shenanigans and it's so funny.

Okay.

But I'm really excited for next session because thus far we've only played with characters that are teens.

But, but next session a new player is joining us and they're going to play a staff member because that's also possible.

You can also, you can play like a first year student, a second year student or a staff member.

So I'm really excited to see how that dynamic will work out.

But it's overall it's very fast and easy to learn how to play.

How long does it session lasts?

Honestly, as long, as long as you want.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Up to the players and the dm.

Usually we play about like four hours, but it's more like based on feeling like, oh, do we want to continue playing?

Do we still have time to continue?

Or does this feel like a good point in time to end the session?

Okay.

It's more on feelings like, oh, where do we want to end this session?

Okay.

But it's Also great for, like, short campaigns.

And one shots.

Like, this does not have to be a very long campaign because it's not really built for a lot of leveling up.

Okay.

So it's perfect for one shots as well.

So it's finite.

All right.

Exactly.

And then the second one, I've only had one session of this campaign, which.

Was yesterday, but that's a totally different game, right?

A totally different.

Okay.

Because the previous one was really, to me, it sounded like young adults.

I'm not sure whether I would enjoy it.

I don't think it would be your vibe.

It's very young adult focused.

Okay.

It's very easy focus.

I think this one you'll really like, though.

This is going to be your cup of tea.

100%.

So what is the name of this TTRPG?

It's called Die.

And this is written by names Kieran Gillen and Stephanie Hans.

All right.

Okay.

Where the author, Kieran Gillan, had the idea of what if we.

Yeah, you told me about this.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then two years later, traumatized, they find their way out.

Now, 20 years later, they're pulled back in, and we compare their teenage fantasies with the adult realities.

So that is the comic that he.

So that.

That was an actual comic series.

That is an actual comic series.

But then he felt like, you know, I don't want to leave it at this.

It wasn't just an ID for a comic.

It was also an ID for an rpg.

It had to be both for Kieran.

Okay.

And thus, Die was born, the rpg.

So, as I said, it's about how this magical set of dye pulls you into your RPG campaign.

It does have, and I think I already mentioned this in our previous talks, it a certain Jumanji.

Yeah, it definitely does.

It definitely does.

We also compare it often to Jumanji, but here is the difference that in, for example, in Jumanji, when one of the players dies, you can't get out anymore.

Okay.

So it's final.

Yeah.

Here it's.

Every one of the players need to say they want to leave the game, but if one of them dies, that doesn't matter.

Then all the remaining players need to say they want to leave, and they still get to leave.

Obviously, the person that died is also dead in Real life, though.

Oh, okay.

And all injuries that you.

That your character has when you get pulled out again, you also have now.

Okay, for example, there was a character that was missing an arm and had like, like this cool cyber synaptic arm.

They were missing their arm in real life.

Okay, so it's a character in a game playing a character in a game.

Exactly.

Okay, so that is also when we were making our characters.

We had to create the character that is in.

In real life playing an RPG character.

And then we had to make the RPG character.

And then there are five classes or paragons in this game.

And everyone had to pick a different character.

We have the dictator.

And this is all about emotional manipulation, controlling people with words and feelings.

It's like if you were to take a bard but make it manipulation instead of performing, then you have the fool.

And this is all about tricksters with a powerful artifact.

Chaos and luck that kind of define them.

It's all about gambling, basically.

Then you have the emotion knight.

And this paragon is fueled by their own emotion, and they weaponize this.

So the more that they feel the emotion that they picked, the stronger they become.

Okay, so if you have, for example, in the comic, it's the grief night.

The more grief that they feel, the more grief they experience, the stronger they become.

But you can also be like a happy knight.

And then the happier you are, the stronger you are.

I would go for that one.

Then you have Neo.

And Neo is a techno mage who believes in the future.

It's very futuristic, think like cyberpunk type of vibe.

Vibe that is also like, for example, the sister in the comic is the little sister of the dm and she really wanted, I think it's the sister really wanted like this cyborg kind of character, and that has like a cyborg arm.

And then when they got back, she missed her arm because her character did not have a left arm.

So in real life, she also missed her arm when they got back.

So all injuries carry over to the real world.

Okay, then we have the Godbinder.

And they are the type of class who make deals with gods to get power.

It's very similar to like a warlock or a paladin, for example.

Okay.

And then last but not least, we have the master.

And the master, obviously is the dm.

Because this class gets to cheat.

Oh, they as they get to cheat, they get to create their own game.

They can kind of mess with the world to kind of fit it to what they want it to be.

Often this is also the player who does not want to go back to the real world.

And that's kind of the person you have to defeat to get back.

Okay.

And also, what's so unique about all these paragons is each paragon has a single die assigned to them because obviously you got pulled into the game by this magical set of die.

So everyone had to take one die, and that is assigned to your paragon.

So a dictator is a D4, a fool, a D6, grief knight, a D8, Neo D10, Godbinder, D12, and a master, a D20.

And throughout the game, you will actually only be rolling with a D6, but you can always, for certain actions, add your.

Your own die to it to get a little bit more power up to see if you succeed.

This, unlike Kids on Brooms, has a very, very dark tone to it because it's the.

The sole focus on.

This is what happens to you when you experience what you usually put your characters characters through.

Because in TTRPGs, we often tend to traumatize our characters a lot.

They go through a lot of traumatizing stuff.

But now you're the person going through all of that.

And what does that to you?

Especially if you.

Then after you go through all of that, you get pulled back to the real world and obviously your body has changed.

The injuries your character has are now visible to you.

Mentally, you're fucked.

What happens to you?

What if your character gets pregnant?

Do you become pregnant in real life as well?

I'm just wondering.

I don't know.

I'd argue yes.

Wow.

Okay.

But that possibility has not really been explored.

See, you need me in the game for these guys.

I don't want to know, Dad.

I don't want to know.

I also don't want to know how the baby comes out then.

Especially if you are a guy and whose character is a woman who gets pregnant and then you go, stop.

That's interesting.

It opens perspectives there.

See, that's how I would play it.

Interesting.

But you're only one.

One.

Yeah.

So one session in.

Right.

My first session was basically what happened in our campaign.

Somewhere around that era, we were in the campaign for three years, but in real life time, that was like two hours.

Oh, okay.

And we are a podcast kind of group as well, who are livestreaming all of our sessions, and all of that happened right before a session.

So after we finally leave the campaign, we're seen seated around the table, and the DM is just acting as if nothing happened while everyone else is just shell shocked.

Clearly we're not fine because suddenly we have all of these scars that the viewers obviously recognize as the scars or char usually have.

And they're like, oh, is this some weird kind of cosplay thing?

And then the live stream ends when one of the players tries to kill the dm and then there is a time jump to four years later and the DM is released from prison.

One of the players kind of does this meetup at their home, which was my character to be like, yo, what, what are we going to do now that our DM is released?

How do we feel about this?

And then lo and behold, the DM shows up and a conflict comes up and he pulls us back in into the world.

Okay, that's where we stop the session.

Wow.

Okay.

It does seem like definitely a more complex approach to the previous one.

It's a lot more complex compared to Kids on Broom Brooms.

It has a lot more game mechanics.

It.

It works with a skill tree as well.

So you have the emotion aspect.

It works a lot with emotions and how to weaponize that and how to use it in like a magical sense.

But also it has a skill tree.

So the more you level up, the.

The stronger you become, the stronger your emotions become.

I think one skill tree has like 19 level up possible level ups that you can pick.

So it's also a thing built for to level up till level 20.

Because at level one you don't get anything from the skill tree though you can also just use it for a one shot or a shorter campaign.

It's a little bit more difficult compared to Kids on Brooms.

It does sound like that it is.

More tailored to longer campaigns and very emotionally heavy.

It has a very darker tone compared to Kids on Brooms.

Okay, well, interesting.

Yeah.

But is it something that is bound to last indefinitely or is there some quest that you need to reach within a certain time frame?

Yeah, I feel like this is more the goal of the end for at the end of the campaign is getting out again.

Okay.

So it's like a maze.

It's sort of you.

It kind of explored the world of your campaign, trying to find the master, trying to find a way to get out back to the real world.

That is at the end of the day, the goal of your party.

Or at least that should be the goal.

Yeah, but sometimes that's just not the case.

Sometimes one of the players also doesn't want to leave.

But I do feel this is also more roleplay focused than it is combat Focused.

Okay.

And with how many real life players would you recommend to be.

You have to be with five, because every class needs.

Including the dm.

No, so it's.

You have.

Hold on.

You have the Dictator, the Fool, the Grief, the Emotion Knight, the Neo and the Godbiner.

So you have to have those five.

You have to have those five.

Okay.

Because every class needs to be filled and then you have the master and that's your dm.

So you have to be with six total.

Okay.

There's.

I don't think it's possible to do it with less or with more people.

You really have to be with six.

Okay.

So compared to kids on brooms, it really doesn't matter with how many you are here.

It does really matter because every, every role has to be filled.

And you can't have doubles.

You can.

I think it's easier to miss a class than to have doubles.

Okay.

But I would recommend six people for sure.

Okay, fair enough.

All right, well, if that's you done with presenting, it does sound like a cool.

I would indeed be more inclined to.

I really think you would enjoy that.

Honestly, I really think you would enjoy the die rp.

Well, staying a little bit on the same RPG topic, one thing that I encounter, and actually I did encounter over the past few weeks or months even, I did see it show up.

And it's actually a Belgian initiative.

They launched it through Kickstarter.

But I think they definitely reached their goal.

And I mean they have a very nice site up where you can order all their stuff.

What is it?

It's called Worlds at a Glance.

So it's also a TTRPG or what is it exactly?

It's not a game in itself.

It's more all the tools, like physical tools you would want to use being a dm.

So what does it entail?

It has, I think their cornerstone product is a book.

Very fancy and very shiny looking book.

It's called Worlds at a Glance and it's towns and villages.

Oh yeah, no, now that you mention.

It, we saw these guys last year, I think it was.

Or even.

Yeah, it was 20.

2024.

We also sell these books in our game store.

Really?

Yeah, they're very shiny, very thick book.

Yeah, I've seen them multiple times laying in our store in the Dungeons and Dragons section.

Which is really funny because the person who created this.

Yep.

We met them a year ago.

That could be.

They're apparently a friend of my.

One of my co workers.

Well, there you go.

So we.

We should have him or her on the show because I have a few questions.

What are you interested about?

I mean, I'm a fool for these kind of books and I haven't had the book yet in my hand so I cannot tell.

But going through what I've seen on their website and videos, it's very detailed, but it seems like a much more.

What's the right word I'm looking for convenient and more effective or efficient way to quickly browse through all your NPCs or the setting of the towns and villages.

You don't have to create all the NPCs or the town that they sell.

It's just right there.

It's right there.

But what the power is at, as far as my understanding goes, is as your story unfolds and you know how this goes, people take decisions or make decisions and, and your story changes very much.

And you know, you have to improvise.

You know, not everyone has that, you know, to improvise on a continuum basis.

And, and even if you have that creativity, having some kind of resource where you can just flip through very quickly and say, okay, we're in this kind of village and I need three NPCs.

Boom.

Boom.

And it is really well researched, well organized and as I said, it looks like a very efficient tool.

Although it is a book but you can flip through different sections and combine stuff.

And also I know that there are also like add ons like shop cards and town ledgers to help you keep track of your NPCs.

Exactly.

And stuff of like what exactly do they sell and how much does it cost and stuff like that.

Exactly.

To make it even more easy to keep track.

Yep, yep, yep.

So it's, it's out now.

So they definitely did reach their, their Kickstarter goal.

And as you already mentioned, so you have the, the Worlds at At Glance, which is a really big book and it also comes with, when you purchase it, apparently you also have the PDF version and the audiobook, whatever that might be.

That's something I have to figure out.

But yeah, you mentioned also the shop card, but there a notebook.

I'm not too certain about the notebook because although it looks cool and again very practical, I'm not always keen because it comes even with stickers.

I'm never keen on stickers.

No, no, I'm keen on stickers, but not, you know, putting them on your material.

It's cool.

Or even scribbling on pages in a book.

I'm not a big fan of those.

I do prefer because I don't want.

To mess it up.

That's why.

And you know, I don't want to mess up the paper.

I absolutely am a paper fan.

But if I need to make updates and I need to keep track, like you mentioned, I prefer to do it digitally or even taking just some paper that I can recycle and just write.

But not in a book, right?

Not in a book that I purchased.

I mean, that's just me.

But anyway, since you have some kind of ties, it would be kind of interesting to see whether they would be this post to join us on a.

On a session.

I can always ask.

Okay.

Because they're again, very similar.

Like we mentioned several times on the.

The Belgian authors, which we will have still on.

On the show.

But it became clear that it'll be more practical for them around, let's say, summer, summer period.

You know, it'll be bit.

It'll be a little bit easier for them to free up some time.

So that would be more the period where we hopefully will have them on the show.

But I have also some questions for the creators of this book.

You know, where the inspiration comes from, obviously.

And you know, how do they still see the added value or the potential of physical tools, you know, in this digital age of virtual tabletop giving?

And.

And I mean, I see it, but I really want to hear their take on this.

Exactly.

And also, what role does sustainability play in the production?

True.

As much as I love digitalizing everything for my characters as a player, I always just put it on my computer while I'm finally slowly stepping into the DMing world.

Oh, dear.

And for my campaign, I do prefer having all the physical books instead of having it on my computer.

Oh, and just to be complete, because I forgot to mention it so the book.

And I'm just glancing through their webpage as we speak, and I really remember we met them.

They had a little booth.

Oh, dear God.

I don't.

It was where.

It was, I think, in a castle.

Yeah, we were there because I do remember there was this little outside market, very small, not the big one.

Right.

But a smaller one.

And actually they were, I think, the same booth that had 3D printed out little tools.

And I think they're my.

My dragon egg.

Oh, was that from like The D and D1 shots?

Yep, yep.

I don't.

I don't remember the name of the event.

Yeah, it's a bit of a blur.

Apologies for that.

But anyway, we met them because now everything comes comes back to.

To memory.

So anyway, in the book, it has over 30 locations, you know, as Mentioned, you know, shop markets, guilds, castles, hideouts, blah blah, blah, and over 300 unique NPCs and over a thousand shop items.

I mean, this is really a huge resource, right?

Oh yes, definitely.

So anyway, that is something I, I really want to, to dive into because I'm, I'm a fool for these kind of things.

But I, I see the, the advantage and the coolness of this and heck, you know, it's a Belgian product.

How many times can we, can we say, can we say that, you know, and, and add it to, to the realm of gaming, you know, fantasy inspired gaming.

So that's.

Anyway, that's something I wanted to to at.

On a totally different note, I still want to talk about some books, although I didn't, I did read a lot, but it doesn't fall into fantasy.

You know, now and then I have to take a break from, from fantasy, unfortunately.

I just do not have the time to read right now.

No, no, I miss my books.

Well, I've, I'm in the middle of historical biographies.

Yeah, but it's so cool.

And two, two major.

I mean they're like huge names in, in French history being Louis xiv, you know, the Sun King, very interesting person.

And then another very famous French and a well, charismatic person.

Some say he's more like an demon of history, but others are like no, no, no, no.

I mean he did so much for our countries for Europe being Napoleon, because there's a lot, you know, of that.

So I mean we're talking about two different eras definitely.

But I mean, anyway, I've been reading that so nothing really fantasy related.

However, I did jot down some, some books that, that are still on my to be read list.

And I would say number one by far is a recently published book.

I don't have it yet because I mean it was published beginning of this month and it's the Devils from Joe Abercrombie.

I already mentioned this in at least one of our previous things, but it is, you know, as the back cover really nicely depicts the story, you know, it's, you know, how to work sometime, you know, when holy work is to be done.

Sometimes it require unholy deeds.

And I like that.

You know, and it's really, it's a dark fantasy because it's all about what you would say.

Yeah, demons needing to work together.

Needing to work together.

Yeah.

But you know, it has everything.

It has demons, it had elves and I mean we covered this already, but again, it's, it's a big book.

I think it's almost 600 pages.

Okay, that's.

That's a heavy one.

And you're.

It's right next to you right now, right?

No, no, no, no, this isn't.

No, because I don't even have it.

I don't even have it.

I'm sure.

What are you doing?

Why don't you have it?

Yeah, well, back to the bookstore.

I was reading none non fantasy books.

But anyway, I have to go back to the bookstore.

Yeah.

Because I completely forgot that.

That Katavas is out now.

Oh my God, I have to go back to the bookstore.

I haven't been there in ages.

I need more books, so I will have to do that as well.

But one that, that did came, well several weeks ago now, but I'm really happy to have it physically.

Here is also a book that I mentioned or that we mentioned on our previous edition is finally the combined classic dragonlance stories and it's called the Dragonlance Chronicles.

So it's nothing new because, I mean, this was written.

Oh my God.

It's quite.

Let me just flip through the original.

I think it was the 80s.

Yeah, see, 84.

Exactly.

Okay, so these are stories by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman and it combines Dragons of Autumn, Twilight, Dragons of Winter, Night, Dragons of Spring, Dawn.

So just a lot of dragon stories.

Yeah, yeah.

This.

Is it.

Like they follow each other up or they're completely different.

No, no, no, these definitely are entwined.

And I would say, as already mentioned in one of our previous episode, this has been definitely the inspiration for many tabletop games, many other fantasy books.

So it's quite a masterpiece, I would say.

In its own league.

Right.

So let's not forget it was written in the 80s.

But anyway, so I have that.

Then I have a few other books.

I have no clue whether it would be my thing, but.

But it kept on popping up, being on my radar and I'm not even sure whether it's something that I would like, but for some reason it just keeps on popping up.

And I mean, I even haven't read any of these or even previous editions because this, like, probably you might know this, it's called Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost, the Enchanting and Romantic Magical Academia Phenomenon.

And it's already the third book.

And honestly, I mean, yeah, it's like, like I said, the third installment of the Enchanting Light Academia Emily Wilde books.

Oh.

I mean, it didn't ring a bell, but you know, for some reason the.

Image when I. Yeah, I.

You know, from Heather Fawcett.

I know it okay, I'm not too certain about that.

And then another one that kind of kept on popping up as well is the Incandescent by Emily Tesh.

Does that ring a bell?

Sorry, say that again.

It's the Incandescent by Emily Tesh.

No clue.

No clue.

Okay, again, it has some link to your first game, I'd say, because it's a new word in this era of this area of literature.

I hadn't heard about scholomance.

You know, scholars, Romance scholomance.

Okay, okay.

But I mean, it's a Scholomance series and yeah, it's.

It's Sapphic dark academia fantasy by author Emily Tesh.

I mean, Reeves are raving apparently.

It's.

It's dark academia.

I should have told that.

Dark academia fantasy.

And let me see if I can come up with anything about it.

Okay, so Dr. Walden is director of Magic at Chetwood Academia and one of the most powerful magicians in England.

So I like the setting because it's set in England.

It always works for me.

And her days consist of meetings, teaching a level invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth former's, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.

Okay, so.

And, and this character Walden is really good at her job.

No, Walden is great at her job, but demons are masters of manipulation.

So it's her responsibility to keep her school with its 600 students and centuries old legacy, safe.

I do feel like those two books, like the Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales and the other one.

Exactly.

Are very, very cozy.

Yeah.

Instead of like epic fantasy.

Yes.

And that's less my.

My thing.

Yeah, I've never really gotten really into cozy fantasy books.

No.

No, neither have I.

So.

And that's why when I really want to take a break, then I go just to.

To non fiction or.

Or historical fiction.

Not fantasy.

Cozy fantasy is.

I don't.

I don't.

I don't know.

It's okay.

It's okay.

It's.

I mean, I get it that people enjoy this.

Oh yeah.

It's another form of escape.

Exactly.

It's.

It's all good.

It's like for.

It's like romance books, but for fantasy lovers.

Yeah, basically.

But I always have hated romance books and cozy books overall.

I need conflict.

I need.

I know, things to think about.

I need to have something going on and have me really root for the characters.

And with cozy books, it's just.

Oh, you're just going through your daily life.

That's cool, I guess.

Yeah.

Well, but anyway, we might one day have to invite a reader or an author of said books definitely.

And see what we're missing.

Perhaps, you know.

Yeah, I mean, I get it that people enjoy the.

That it's just.

It's never been for me.

No, fair enough, fair enough.

But with what we've covered, I think we, we came more or less to the end of our topic topics list that we wanted to cover.

But having said that, we're going to add some more names.

Excuse me, some more names or people that we want to include on the show.

And I, I think having, you know, to extend that idea of having Belgian authors or Belgian fantasy artists related.

I.

Really think that we should reach out to the creators of Worlds at a glance.

And especially, I mean if they already made or their products made their way to the store in which you work, we definitely should cover it.

So exciting things to see.

And we'll definitely, at least, I know I will.

I will have read at least one fantasy book.

List.

I'll try.

Yeah, I have no clue.

I'm making no promises anymore on when our next episode.

But we'll do our utmost best to limit the waiting period.

And let's not make it a month till our next episode, but until then, you know, keep in touch, do send us your questions or suggestions or comments and we'd love to hear you next time.

So until next time, bye bye.

Bye.

This concludes our episode.

So until next time, stay enchanted, stay.

Curious and keep the fantasy alive.

Ram.