The discussion begins with a deep dive into the enchanting realm of Daevabad, the mystical City of Brass, where court intrigue, magical beasts, and cultural conflicts collide in a richly woven narrative. The hosts, alongside their Game Masters, engage in a lively exchange about their favorite mythological settings, touching upon everything from Norse legends to American cryptids, showcasing the diverse inspirations that fuel their tabletop adventures. As they delve into the nuances of S.A. Chakraborty’s trilogy, they examine the depth of its characters and the intricate world-building that captivates readers and gamers alike. With a sprinkling of witty banter and insightful commentary, the conversation highlights how these mythologies can inspire unique gameplay dynamics, including the incorporation of magical ailments and curses that challenge characters in innovative ways. Listeners are invited to explore how these themes can be translated into their own role-playing games, making this episode a treasure trove for both fans of the series and aspiring Game Masters.

Takeaways:

1. In this episode, the hosts explore the intricate world of Daevabad, highlighting its rich tapestry of Middle Eastern mythology and court intrigue.
2. Listeners are introduced to the dynamic interplay between various mythologies, with each Game Master sharing their unique preferences for mythological settings in tabletop role-playing games.
3. The discussion reveals the depth of character development in the City of Brass, emphasizing how morally complex characters enrich the narrative experience.
4. The podcast emphasizes the importance of world-building, showcasing how S.A. Chakraborty's meticulous design allows for a multi-layered exploration of themes like colonialism and magical realism.
5. With a focus on game mechanics, the hosts suggest various tabletop systems that could effectively encapsulate the essence of the City of Brass's narrative and character arcs.
6. The episode wraps up with a plethora of media recommendations that resonate with the themes of the book, providing listeners with a treasure trove of related literature and games.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. Paizo
2. S.A. Chakraborty
3. Pathfinder
4. Hades
5. Marvel
6. Disney

Foreign.

Welcome to the Game Masters Book Club where great fiction becomes your next great tabletop role playing experience.

Today we journey to the mysterious Daevabad.

The City of Brass.

The Middle Eastern inspired setting is historically complex with court intrigue, magical beasts and cultural conflict.

Our Game Masters Rob Chimarco, Karen Ford and J.C. keighley talk about their own favorite mythological settings, magical ailments, the new Seven Seas Edition, and Rob's ducktale fan fiction.

Let's get into the conversation.

Okay, welcome everybody to another episode of the Game Masters Book Club.

We are back with Karen Forum, Rob demarco, Jason Keighley.

This time we're traveling to the City of Brass, the creation of Sh A and the first book in the David Bot trilogy.

This book explores an interesting Middle Eastern mythology.

So.

So I thought we'd start off this time by asking our Game Masters which mythology they like to explore in their games the most.

And we're going to start with Rob.

Rob, why don't you give everybody a quick introduction, tell them who you are and what mythology you enjoy playing around with in your TTRPGs.

Sure.

My name's Rob Trimarco, gamer since the ancient days of ancient times, you know, or early 80s, I guess for me.

Before the age of Suleiman.

Yeah, before the age of Suleiman, but before the oceans drank Atlantis.

I am a big fan of the Norse mythology, my friend.

Let me tell you.

I got a tattoo of Thor, I got a dragon on my arm, that is Jormun Yander.

At every possible opportunity I add Nordic sounding cool songs to my playlists that I'm listening to for gaming.

And I'm currently playing the Son of the Enchantress and the Executioner in our Marvel role playing game.

And they come from Asgard, so how about that?

That is a lot of Norse myths.

Remind me to send you some clips if you haven't already heard them.

There's a group called Voiceplay, they do a bunch of really cool Nordic acapella stuff.

Oh hell yeah.

Send me that.

Yeah, I love a band called Hailung which like their concerts are more like rituals.

They're very.

So you sing in their.

In the old language and it's the coolest you ever heard.

That sounds fantastic.

Okay, exchange of music scheduled.

Jason, why don't we go to you.

Tell us who you are and about your mythology.

Hello, I'm Jason Necktie and I am the.

I am a senior designer for the Pathfinder role playing game over at Paizo and a bunch of other nonsense that you can find out there.

On the Internet right now, there is a interview with me with the no Direction podcast that has the thumbnail of me like, screaming, check the content.

Go check that out.

I'm going to change, flip the script a little bit and say the type of mythology that I like to use would be more.

I would consider American mythology.

Now, we all love our Cryptids, of course, our Bigfoots and our Mothmans, but I kind of lean a little bit towards more modern almost, you know, would say Internet mythology, creepypasta, that kind of stuff.

You know, I love me a Slender Man.

I love me a Jeff the Killer.

And I feel like this is fairly American ish, the concept of like infusing objects with a kind of like a mythology.

Mythology of their own.

So, like, oh my God, this was Babe Ruth's bat.

Now it's got mythical powers.

This was the first car that came off the production line for Ford, you know, so that makes it magic.

I. I enjoy that kind of.

Do you think that's because Americans feel like we kind of missed that fun, magical period and so we kind of have to make everything magical?

I mean, I don't know.

Some people do as a country, you know, we're relatively young compared to the Norse mythology compared to.

I know.

Whatever Karen is going to talk about.

You know what I'm going to talk about.

You already know.

I know.

I know exactly what you're.

I knew it.

The idea that we are creating new mythology now in recent times, the past, like 20, 25 years or so, is utterly fascinating to me.

Great.

Karen, would you care to reveal that?

Which apparently Mr. Necktie already knows about?

Karen, I'm a sock designer by day and a gamer slash GM by night.

Or some nights.

Big shocker to everybody since I showed up to our pre game late yesterday because I was playing.

Hades 2 is Greek mythology.

Actually, the gaming group that Hersey and I have in together for the past, like 20 years, we have actually had a Greek game that I think we've gone back to the universe like three times.

Yeah, yeah.

My husband actually started it.

Pre Hades came out and with the fate accelerated system where we each played the child of a God.

But then also everybody played one of the gods who was parent to one of the other people.

And you got to give them boons and whatnot.

And then I revisited it as a GM later, Pre Hades too, where I did the kind of reverse Hades where everybody had to sort of break their way down, save.

I don't remember what it was.

I think you had to save Hades or something.

Like that.

I don't remember what happened.

We were just kind of doing stuff down there.

Meeting all the people that you meet.

Yeah, exactly.

So yeah, Greek mythology.

Greek mythology.

That's the way to go.

My name is Eric Jackson and I'm the host of the show and here I am.

And I tend to gravitate towards much more world specific mythology.

I love reading a book like this where I can find a really super cool mythology.

I'm constantly rereading Lois McMaster Bujal Old's World of the Five Gods, which has the mother, the father, the son and the daughter and the bastard, which I think is really great.

You know, you count them out on your hands and all that great stuff.

But if I'm gonna be modeling my religions along something for most of my fantasy games, I'm generally going to be modeling off of the Celtic mythos.

That solid polytheistic nature, God and goddesses sort of thing with a very active other world of dead and especially hero cycles.

I really love a great like set of hero cycles.

I always know that if I giving it a little bit of a Celtic flare, it always feels solidly.

That feels in tune with the whole idea of heroes.

And that's what I like my characters to be.

So that's what I make my religions look like.

So like I said, if it's not a strictly homebrewed mythology, I will go Celtic and like Rob, I have a Celtic tree tattoo with a dragon on it.

Karen, do you have a tattoo of anything Greek?

I do not, no.

I've just got my Discworld, my avatar, the Last Airbender, my Lord of the Rings.

Should probably get a tattoo of the steam page that Hades 2 is on.

On.

Yep, just get it.

The whole page.

The whole page.

It's already burned into your.

You might.

So moving from our favorite mythology to.

To me talking about the City of Brass.

The City of Brass is the first book in a trilogy, the David Rod trilogy by.

By S.A. chakraborty.

And this story starts out, I guess a alternate second world Egypt that is taking place shortly after the French move in and from there move to this sort of mystical area of the City of Brass where all of these gin and there's all of this really interesting tribal sort of interactions and people playing for power.

And this all comes to a head.

Our two main characters who journey to this place sort of get embroiled into this and we definitely find out that everybody is in trouble.

That's my interpretation of the first book.

I know Karen would have more to say about this.

So go ahead, Karen, tell us what you think about it.

This is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time.

The characters are all so well done.

Everybody's got so much depth.

Like, the people who are quote unquote good have bad sides and the people that are terrible sometimes do good things.

Even the side characters feel like fully fleshed out characters.

It's amazing.

And the two main, main characters, Ali and Nahri, are.

I love them both so much.

Not least because they're both such big nerds as both of them, Percy and Rob attest to.

When I make a character in role playing game, I am always the person that's like to the library.

And both of them just, like, they love books and they love finding out new knowledge and new things and they're.

They're wonderful.

So, yeah, I highly recommend the full series.

And then there's also a fourth book that is Short stories are prequels during the series and then also wrap things up really nicely.

This trilogy is just like the definition of epic, right?

If you want to read an epic fantasy novel and you're tired of your western, Game of Thrones is and stuff like that, this is something to read because it goes into so much magic and fighting and political intrigue and romance, and it's just got everything in it and it all.

It's all done so well.

I've read the whole trilogy as well, and they're chunky.

If you like a big chunky book.

They're detailed and in depth.

It's also fun.

Just.

I don't know.

I didn't know a lot about Middle Eastern mythology, so these books inspired me to look so many things up.

Just from the geography.

I was comparing the front of the book map to, like, what is actually there in our world, to looking up all the different types of fashion because they talk about a lot of silhouettes that people are wearing and also wet weapons that people are using that are not things that I'm familiar with.

Though some of them, yes, from Diablo we've picked up.

So, yeah, it just really made me want to learn more the whole time.

Yeah, I started out going, I don't know if this book's for me.

But then like, oh.

Oh, boy.

And like, by the end, I was like, oh, this is great.

It was so terrible.

Revelations, like, all these.

Oh, my God.

Oh, that's.

Oh, that's terrible.

I love it.

Like Game of Thrones level terrible.

But, you know, just wait, Rob.

Keep going.

Just waiting.

It's gonna be so much stuff.

Yeah, it gets worse, but it Also gets better.

There's definitely some character torturing going on in this, no question.

And yeah, I suspect we're gonna lose some really exciting people before this is over, so.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, boy.

You gotta put your characters, like, through the fire to really temper them and bring them out as, you know, heroes and.

Or good villains or what have you.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Absolutely.

Now we have to work in air, water and wood into the conversations we just had.

Fire and metal.

So those are the.

Those are the six elements.

Would you kindly explain to us what sort of game system you think would be great to put these characters through this level of development and through this process of hardening into these fantastic characters?

Sure, sure, sure.

So I'm going to be a bit of a shield and talk about Pathfinder 2nd ed.

Like the, the filter here.

There are like half genies, right?

Essentially, you know, you humans and genies sort of getting together and the different types of genies, you know, the, the Marids and the ifrits and whatnot.

So, like, Pathfinder 2nd Edition has a versatile heritage kind of system in your ancestry.

So you could be a dwarf who's half ifrit, or you could be a.

An elf who's half married or whatever.

So I would definitely use that and, and sort of like ensure that people are playing.

You'd have to do a little more restrictions on.

There are no goblins in this book.

There are no, you know, cat people in this.

So, you know, a lot of restrictions on what you can take and maybe, maybe a little bit restrictions on like some of the classes and Pathfinder, but starting there and maybe adding some sort of.

To have the Zulfikar weapon, someone's going to have to be wheeling that at some point.

You'd have to make some prestige archetypes, essentially, you know, for this game to really model it.

I'll always throw out a sort of a generic system as well that that could possibly work.

And like, I think Cipher would be pretty fun to be like, because, you know, you got those little different dices.

Some people are, you know, maybe, you know, Nari kind of doesn't start out not so good at healing.

Maybe that's like a D6, but then it becomes a D10, D12 her when she learns all the magic.

So, you know, having that kind of a system where you can get better and switch around what you're good at, what you're back.

I mean, sure, Nari does her con artist and thief stuff later on, but she sort of focuses less on that.

So a system that kind of lets you switch up stuff would be.

That is one thing that is really cool that you do definitely see characters switch over from one sort of kind of character to another kind of character.

And that is something that as much as we enjoy the.

The Pathfinder system, that isn't necessarily the best for that.

That particular part.

Yeah.

Rob, did you want to talk next about systems?

Sure.

I have played Seventh Sea second edition for a bit, like a couple of one shots at a con and I bought the books.

I kick started it a while back.

They did a very good job of this kind of huge alternate history world called Theia.

And one of them is the Crescent Empire.

And it's pretty decently fleshed out region area.

It is more like historically oriented, but you know, it's swashbuckling adventure with some magic and creatures and things.

So it's an easy port, I think, to immerse somebody into a more fantastical version of that world.

But not by much.

You know, it doesn't take much.

It's a fun system and I think it would work pretty well for this.

You know, I want to ask something.

Swordsmanship and with some extra sort of tweaks here and there.

Do you think Fortune's Full will be kind of fun to play with this and like, especially for torturing and putting characters through the.

Yeah.

The old days.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Oh, oh.

100.

Like Jason and I a little earlier.

On in the history of the world where, you know.

We also focused on an alternate historical version of the world with a lot of magic and.

Yeah, yeah.

Celtic goblins.

Yeah.

Races were more nationalities, you know, Russian dwarves, Russian Orcs and you know, Middle Eastern dwarves.

The base of goblins from Europe.

It was a tarot based system, Celtic goblins.

Right.

Things like that.

So it was very.

And you would pull some things really, really unlucky and you got a little.

Wow, guys, that sounds cool.

Yeah.

Karen, do you want to go ahead and tell us about your gaming system?

I'm taking DND because I think this is very easy thing to port right over.

Honestly, while reading these books, I can picture what everybody's character class is while you go along.

Like Nari's obviously the thief who changes professions.

Yes.

Or character classes.

Ali is like a paladin Mundadir, I guess is some kind of sex bard, but he's got those kind of like silver tongue powers.

But it works perfectly.

Kind of classic system.

They have a lot of the monsters.

I mean, you know, you've got the genies in there already and whatnot but you can also add new ones, like the Carcadon.

I don't think that's in the monster manual.

I was trying to search through for some stuff.

It's got fun magic items, it's got cursed magic items.

And also the idea of going from like regular world into where like, you know, a hidden city is, it's sort of a different interpretation on like going to fairies.

You know, you can take your adventuring party off into a different world.

Well, all of a sudden there's new rules for everything.

So I thought it'd be fun.

I remember the Carcadon stuff because I was at the time sort of working on something like that.

It could be considered like a unicorn type of thing.

I think people have thought of that in the past, but only because.

Yeah, or rhino.

Right.

Only because it is in fact a rhinoceros.

It's like the questing beast was essentially a giraffe.

But the Carchodon is like what people didn't know.

Well, didn't know, but that's what their name for what it was.

Oh my God.

It's a one horn horse with skin like armor.

I'm like, okay, well, you think about that.

Yeah, it's a rhino.

But yeah, I mean, the one in the book is terrible and huge and only 20ft tall.

That's a dire rhinoceros, if anything.

Yeah, it's awful.

Dire rhinoceros.

Oh my God.

So for mine, I. I went digging to find something.

This isn't something that I've played, but I did find Carfanum, which is a Middle Eastern game that is set after the Third Crusade, which has lots of major cities in it.

So you could steal one of those to be City of Brass.

Rob, when we talked about this beforehand, I.

This game has what's called the Dragon Die, which is the special eye that you get because you're a player.

You said that was similar to another game.

Probably then based a lot on that because it's definitely has that there.

One of the things I really liked about the background in it is that it has your background is your blood spends a lot of time talking about bloodlines who are related to people and all that sort of thing.

So I think that's great.

It also has a very free form magic systems.

The interesting thing about it is that your character needs to learn the right magic words and that's how you progress by learning these specific magic words.

And when they were talking about magic, at least in the first book, they spent a lot of time talking about.

Well, you don't have to say it all the time.

But at the beginning, say the word out loud.

Healing and passion and all that stuff.

And I was like, oh yeah, that is definitely what this Car Fanum is hinting at in their magic system.

And finally the other two parts of player development are you have to have a heroic virtue and that heroic that gets played against you as well as for you.

And that definitely happens in the first book for sure.

And then there are archetypes like again like rogues and paladins and loyal sons.

So between the really cool dragon die and the neat character development and the setting, I think this Car Fanum is a great place to start.

But once again haven't played it.

My recommendation without having played it and only read it unfortunately accounts for a number of the game systems that I own.

The vast pile of things that I have read and never got.

Everybody turns, looks at their shelves and goes there you are, Bunnies and bones.

I have yet to get someone to play the Bunnies and burrows watershed down role playing game yet.

Someday, someday it will happen.

Just because Rob mentioned the cool books in Seven Seas, there is actually in another game that I have played before.

Ars Magica has a whole series of books.

I think the book is the Cradle and the Crescent which has a whole djinn based set of magics there.

The Cradle and the Crescent, like all Ars Magica magic systems has adjectives and verbs and nouns and it's all very word heavy construction.

So if you're looking for something that has magical words like this book does, I would definitely recommend Ars Magica.

Okay, so let's move on to our portable section and we're gonna move to you Karen first because I know this is your favorite book and I'm looking forward to hear what your favorite parts of this book are.

Okey doke.

What I really especially like in this time reading through were all the like weird magical ailments and curses that Nahri had to deal with.

Like there are things like oh, someone's hand got turned into flowers or you got iron poison or you got turned into an apple.

And then there were like weird ass cures for all of them in the second book.

And this is like it's not a spoiler because it's kind of a throwaway.

There's the shapeshifter that has to keep coming back to Nahri because he has rock growths on his organs because he won't stop turning into a statue and she's like just stop turning into a statue.

And he's like no, it's so peaceful.

I don't want to stop.

So I feel like taking this and combining with the fact that I've been binging the pit recently, maybe making some kind of game where it's.

It's, you know, a magical pit or er, where the player characters are trying to solve all these medical mysteries in a very short period of time and calling in, like, ten cc's of unicorn blood.

Or I need you to go grab me this, like, weird iris from the top of the mountain.

Yeah.

Kind of stuff.

I think it could be fun.

And also at the same time, they kind of talked about in the first book, it's used later healing magic being used as a weapon.

If you take the flip side, like people being able to break bones from far away or stop someone's heart or stop them from breathing or whatnot, I think that is such a cool mechanic to have for a villain in a book.

Jason, you found a game that was.

It's in the chat.

It was called Blood Clot, a Gothic horror medical rpg.

Yeah, I don't know anything about it.

I just found it on itch and it looked wild.

So, you know, I'll have to.

I might check that out at some point because, I mean, the idea of.

Yeah, just sort of the idea of going, like, just basing adventures.

You could do it in almost any system.

Being like, oh, I need you to go here to get a thing that it will be curing something else.

You know, that's.

That's great.

That's a great idea for a quest and.

Or just do, you know, just doing that over and over again.

But I also really like the idea of putting together a medical drama game set in a fantasy world.

I think that would.

Yeah, that could be very interesting.

And it isn't something that I've done before.

Maybe that's gonna have to be our next book.

We'll have to find a medical book and see if we can't figure out.

How we're gonna turn that into a tabletop.

I don't see.

Okay, Jason, why don't you tell us about your portables from the City of Rats?

Yeah, I mean, I enjoy the concept of the City of Rats itself is basically hidden from human eyes.

And I just love the.

Anyone who knows me knows the stu.

Secret world beneath the world is always a trope that I like to play with.

And a lot of campaigns and so, you know, just the idea of this.

This hidden city, it's not exactly a Brigadoon where it disappears and it's not there.

It's there.

If you're not allowed to see it, you don't see it.

So you could always just sort of be like, in any campaign, like, bringing in, like, oh, that big empty plane, you know, hey, this part of the map that maybe you guys weren't paying any attention to.

Oh, there's actually a city there full of a bunch of people who are spying on you or whatever.

And you were just.

Magic was just keeping it cloaked in, invisible.

Similarly, like a city out of time city that's like, does actually appear because it was frozen in time for a long time, I think.

Didn't World of Warcraft do something like that, Rob?

There was that one city that was just basically frozen in time for forever, and then it came out of time.

Yes, yes, you can interact with them now.

It's there.

Right?

Like, you would watch them replay history over and over as it rewound itself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But now it's.

Now it's blame.

Now it's here, and all the people who are in it are back to normal.

And what do they have to do?

You know, obviously that's nothing.

It didn't happen in this book.

But, like, you know, this sort of secret hidden city is always something I like.

Rob, you want to continue on and give us your portables?

Yeah, I love the high fantasy action adventure.

Punch them up, sort them up.

Right.

But this had a lot of social ramifications to those things, right?

Sword fights?

Not just a sword fight.

Right.

You.

You draw that weapon, you better have a real good reason and a real good perspective on it.

You know, people viewing what you're doing need to understand why you're doing it.

Someone goading you to hit them or hurt them maybe have an ulterior motive to making you do that.

You may have heard him say something terrible, some truth about you or that enemy that you need to stab them for.

But that's the king's son.

Why is he drawing a blade on the king's son?

And that's all the onlookers see, is you drawing a blade on the king's son.

It doesn't matter what he said.

They don't know what he said.

Only you do.

So you may have gotten yourself a moral victory by cutting him, but now you're hated, right?

Your social standing is now in deep jeopardy for what you've done.

So that sort of social aspect to a fight matters.

So there's.

I want to pull that out of that setting and use it, you know, in another game.

Like, I think Burning Wheel does social Combat like that pretty well.

But the Dune RPG by Modiphius also has an interesting way of combat and social being very intermixed.

And I think that's.

That's a.

That's a great aspect to pull into a game.

Yep.

It's more difficult when you've actually got civilized rules that's.

You actually have to follow all the.

All right, high praise for Chakraborty's world building.

I really feel like everything is.

It's archaeological in the layers that that occur there.

I love layering of history that's there.

It's a perfect world thing.

The island that the City of Brass is on was originally a Merit island, sacred to them.

And then the Deva come there and they end up being there.

And then from there, the current establishment takes over from the Daeva and the idea that that group is sitting on a Deva throne that's on a Merit island, and yet they're the ones who are in charge.

And do they know all the secret things?

And do they really understand why there's a married boat that can get the only Devas off of the island?

That kind of a thing.

I. I was.

Oh, that was just all built into everything that was happening.

That's a sign of a great world builder, and that's what I try and do when I'm building my worlds.

And so this was really like, oh, yeah, perfect.

This is the perfect way to kind of look at that.

Also, anytime I can get flying lions, I'm on board.

Like, just.

It's like Shadu statues that come to life when the true bloodline reveals itself.

That was so good.

We all did great.

So that's it for us.

All right, so we've covered the mechanics to make a TTRPG and discussed what would be portable into our own games.

Time to talk about media, media with similar vibe to give ourselves additional inspiration to help create things like the City of Brass.

Aaron, do you want to lead us off on this one?

As usual, I have way too many.

I'll start off with the Golem and the Genie by Helene Wecker, which is a wonderful book.

And them having to deal with the world both supernaturally and in a mundane sense.

And if you're like me and like New York City history, there's a lot in there that you can just learn about.

Kind of like the time period.

I didn't even know that there was like a little Arab section in downtown New York that was real.

And I had no idea because they bulldozed it.

Yeah, sure.

Of course they.

Also, I would recommend Jingo, because I can't get through something without recommending a Discworld book.

In this one, it is in the Watch or Guard series, Terry Pratchett manages to sort of hilariously parody a mix of A Thousand and One Nights, Lawrence of Arabia, and the JFK assassination.

But, like, all while delivering hard truths about racism and colonialism.

It's wonderful.

It's so good.

And then finally, Shan Chakraborty actually has a huge list of recommendations on her page.

If you like her Daevabad series, she has a bunch of fiction and nonfiction from there.

I read the Pasha of Cuisine by Sagan Ersin, which is amazing.

The premise is that, like, a chosen one is born with the gift of, like, natural gastronomy every once in a while.

And the main character is going on all these adventures to sort of hone his cooking skills in all these culinary disciplines and then, like, somehow use that to save his girlfriend from the imperial harem.

And I actually took from this for the Strix Haven campaign I was running for Rob and some other people.

The mad fishmonger Bayram from there, who is the fish and seafood master and has, like, the best fish soup in the world with 22 ingredients.

Rob's character had the choice to go study with him, which I don't think you did, but I think.

I think I did.

No, I think you went with actually my old player character from a different D and D campaign.

Oh, maybe.

Yeah.

Okay.

Rob, do you want to give us your media choices?

Yeah.

I would like you to play the Tales of the Arabian Nights board game because it's hilarious, fun, completely chaotic, but based on all the myths from that region.

You know, you move around the board, and then you'd have to roll on multiple charts, and there's a whole giant book of charts.

And if nothing else, when I play games of Karen, we have to involve multiple at least.

And if we don't, they're not in the game.

We make a chart.

Yeah.

Before the game.

So, like, as a random example, we played in a.

In a.

Like a weird.

Is it Swedish game that Matt ran where I was.

We were all ducks.

Oh, God.

What?

Yeah, right.

It was like, dnd, and we're all ducks.

Yeah.

Like, it's a very serious race in the game.

And, like, you know, it's elves, dwarves, and ducks.

Don't ask any questions.

Okay.

They're ducks.

And they have like an anger problem because I guess they really loved Donald Duck.

And before the game, I wrote a list of like a hundred names to pick for your character and they were all duck based.

So I'll put that in the chat.

If I'll find it.

I'll put it in chat.

Anyway, yeah, like a, like a first name.

Quacksworth Webbington, you know, things like that.

Right.

So anyway.

Oh yeah, that's all.

I just, I just compiled it for moment.

The Tales Arabian Nights board game is fun.

Like, you know, you open, it's a weird trap.

Might happen on a, you know, on a roll or you meet this gin.

What happens?

Make a wish.

What does that wish you up, probably.

Or maybe not.

You know, turns you into a beast and you can't win the game.

Right.

That's what it.

Or yeah, it could definitely completely just ruin the game.

It's like Talisman, if you've ever played that game.

But possibly even worse.

It's great.

Yeah.

You get forced to be married against your will and you have.

Then you have to like every three turns return to this one town.

That's where your wife is, you know, your spouse.

You're like, okay, okay.

This is gonna be impossible for me to win this game now.

Okay.

I am stunned.

It's fantastic.

Jason, you want to tell us about what kind of vibes you're media is going to give us?

Guess what I found?

I don't think it's necessarily going to be very good.

I just found it accidentally when I was looking at the novels wiki.

Unrelated or related?

It's on, it's unrelated.

It's procedurally, it's Arabian Nights themed stuff.

But it, I don't think it has anything to do with the.

The City of Brass is almost mythological thing.

I think from the like elemental like listen, like D and D stuff.

It's like the.

It's in the elemental plane of fire.

It's where the Fire Genies come, you know, live and whatever.

So if it's any good, don't worry about that.

Here's another game that maybe you.

Is only vaguely related but is old and just probably very problematic.

Which is of course Quest for Glory 2, Trial by Fire, very also Arabian Nights themed.

But I was talking about a game more or less because all the recommendations Karen gave it on the.

On the novel's, you know, web page are probably way better than anything I could talk about.

So a video game that kind of gave me semi similar vibes.

Is a point and click adventure called Unavowed.

It's by Wajitai Games and it sort of takes place in New York and it talks about this hidden mysteries of the sea and there's all sorts of weird nonsense going on.

Ghosts and demons.

And you basically character you play was possessed by a demon and you wake up and you're like, oh, I did a bunch of terrible stuff when I was possessed.

And I don't remember any of it.

Any like murders and, and cults and stuff like that.

And it's like, oh, I was being.

I was terrible.

And then you have to kind of unlock.

Then you get this.

Unavowed is this.

This unavowed society, which is a bunch of people who fight back against all these things.

Some of them are a little bit immortal and they give us like a pyromancer from the 16th century or something like that.

He's like, really?

And I think one of the characters is basically a genie of some kind or this or the daughter of a genie.

So that's pretty fun.

I enjoyed that.

I enjoyed the heck out of that.

But for reading, I would say tangentially related, there's a brief comic book series called 8 Billion Genies.

And the premise of it is, what if suddenly, just like on the same day at the same exact time, every person on earth gets their own genie.

You're allowed to make one wish with that genie.

Comic book talks about the apocalypse that would occur if everyone got one wish.

It does this very interesting thing that goes like, the first volume is like eight seconds after it happens.

The second volume is eight minutes and then it goes eight hours, eight months, eight weeks, eight years, eight centuries, like, you know, eight decades later.

So you see like how the world changes because people are wishing for superpowers, people wishing for all the money, you know, stuff like that.

And like some people are saving their wish because they don't know what to do with it.

And so they're.

And the genies are just little ghost guys that kind of float around.

They're just.

And they're like, like, what's going to happen?

I don't know.

They're vaguely great gazoous kind of imps in a lot of ways.

So.

But that was a fun read.

So check that one out.

Cool, I want to try that.

Yeah, those all sound good.

I'm going to recommend the Throne of the Crescent Moon, which is a book we're actually already doing on the podcast.

So that one was super easy.

That's cheating.

It is a little cheating.

I've already Recorded that one.

So you guys recording it second.

So it is set in a city, but that city is human.

And there aren't djinn, but there are ghouls and there are some other minor magics, but there isn't the big magic that you see in this book.

So in that regard, it is not the same that it's written by Saladin Ahmed.

He's written a bunch of Marvel comics, which is very disappointing because this book is supposed to be the beginning of a series.

And then he got hired by Marvel and now he doesn't have time to write the rest of the book.

This is a closed story.

I don't want to.

Don't want to scare anybody away from the book.

So the Throne of the Crescent Moon by Salilamed, absolutely on theme for what we're doing here.

The next one is A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark, which has djinn and has.

It takes place in Egypt around the same time, except the jinn are integrated into the society.

And just because it is one of my favorite books of all time, I recommend Harun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie.

That is a fantastic book.

It is vaguely Arabian themed, but that doesn't matter.

Talk about a magical world on the moon.

And so you are going away to someplace else.

And it is.

It has the good storyteller feel that I think this book has.

And a lot of really good Arabian books have that.

The idea that you're being told this story by a master storyteller and that respect for story is here in Sa Chakraborty's Very well Told story.

All right, let's move on to promotions.

Does anybody have one actually want to recommend the podcast?

What should I read next?

Because the reason I read this book was I was a guest on that show and she recommended this to me.

So it's awesome to listen to.

They're also always looking for guests, so I recommend listen.

If you want books randomly recommended to you, fill out their little form there.

And Ann Vogel is so freaking spot on.

Yeah.

With exactly what you want to read.

Every book she gave me was exactly what I wanted to read.

I mean, I read this book because of that podcast as well, but because it was recommended to Karen.

I'm afraid to go on that because I'm afraid I just get recommended the same books you got recommended.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, she won't.

And I talked to her afterwards and she'll recommend me like other books.

And she's always spot on.

Very good.

Okay, fantastic.

Always looking for new books.

That's part of what this podcast is about.

So that's fantastic.

Anybody else?

Else Promotions?

I mean, I just got an email from Jason's company, Paizo.

Oh, man.

I was gonna say something about Paizo.

Well, this is.

What are you gonna say it was called?

Power Word Meal.

It's a charity to feed children.

Yeah, yeah, charity.

It'll be over by the time this airs, of course.

Well, whatever.

I'm sure you can still donate the kids to food.

You sure can.

But the.

The promotion that we're kind of doing right when we're recording this is that we're also in the process of a backer kit.

Kit for a board game that's called Pathfinder Quest, which has a little bit in common with Tales of the Arabian Nights, because it has a book where you read from it when you make your make decisions and there's different things.

You know, whether you succeed or fail at a roll, you get some different decisions.

So it's got some of that vibe in it.

Right now we're like a half a million bucks, so that's pretty great.

But every donation to that.

We're also giving a meal to this Power word meal.

Powered meal.

Right?

I was going to say Power World Eat Power Word Word food.

Power Word gourd.

Power Word snack.

Like something that you cast.

Me.

I'll put a link in the.

The flips cord.

Save lives with the TTRG community.

It's very nice.

Yeah, there's a lot of also other people donating to this as well right about now, so it's pretty great.

Get listen to this way too late.

Go check it out anyway and see if you can't give it a donate.

Sounds like a plan.

This was super fun again.

Yeah, I always love it again and.

It continues to be fun, so I'm very excited.

And that was the City of Brass, the first book in the Sa Chakraborty's Daevabad trilogy.

Thanks so much to our game masters of myth and legend, Karen Ford, Jason Keighley and Rob Chimarco.

They'll be back to explore Victorian steampunk London when they discuss Solas, the first book in the Parasol Protectorate by Gale Carriker.

Next episode, Oren and Ari Ashkenazi of the Mithreans podcast, along with our own Chris Grannis, discuss Jim Butcher's steampunk adventure, the Aeronauts Windless.

You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our podcasts@k-square productions.com GMBC.

You can learn about upcoming episodes on our social media, on bluesky, at gmbookclub bluesky Social, on Facebook, at Game masterspace 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 Way 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 game.