#d20 ongoing

[threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat]

worldbuilding excuses Brennan has taken to put a bothersome french fry man in a D20 campaign

A Crown of Candy: everyone's food

Tiny Heist: everyone's small

Never Stop Blowing Up: nothing matters what's the point

[sea-buns]

idk about y'all but i hate when the world tells me to always keep sucking down

[thepringlesofblood]

All The Fix Facts

thank u hank green for my autistic rights

also god bless the fine folks that put up episode transcripts on the d20 wiki so I can copy-paste these lengthy quotes directly

Ep 1

For every snake in the world, there is 1 snake dick/Every snake that has a dick has 2 dicks.

Bonus Brennan Facts:

komodo dragons are actually not poisonous, but the bacteria in their mouth is so powerful that it acts like a toxic venom

Ronnie shows The Fix a drawing he did of "a diagram of the indentations on a snake's lip that lets it detect heat signatures."

Ep 2

eyes can't be itchy. "The membranes around the eyes are innervated with itch receptors and pain neurons, whereas the eyes themselves only have pain neurons because, of course, evolution is strongly incentivized to prevent you from scratching your cornea with your fingernail. So your eyes are never actually itchy."

"The "tails" on a swallowtail butterfly serve no aerodynamic purpose. They're there because birds need something to grab onto when they're trying to kill a butterfly, and they are designed to capture the attention of a bird. The bird will grab onto that tail, and it will break off, and the butterfly is free."

Ep 3

the urethra contains taste receptors/tastebud-like structures

"when eagles grip onto something, they have to flex a muscle to un-grip... So an eagle can hold onto something so hard that even after it dies, it never lets go."

most of the pyramids on Earth are in Sudan

pelicans have 3 stomachs- one of them's just for bones

"it's really easy to detect an acid. But it's not easy to detect the presence of oxygen or carbon dioxide. But when carbon dioxide meets water, like it does in our blood, it creates carbonic acid. That means that our bodies can detect the presence of carbon dioxide, but not the presence or absence of oxygen. So as we move through our lives, if we are deprived of oxygen, we have no idea that that is happening as long as we are breathing out carbon dioxide. But if we are not breathing in oxygen, we just go to sleep and we die. But if we allow the CO2 to build up, we panic. We flail. We break. Until finally, we die."

Ep 4 (folks, we were FED tonight!)

"did you know...that people can have constipation so bad that it will back up and impact their vagus nerve? And as they are finally eliminating that impacted stool, it can have a effect on the nervous system so great that they forget who they are, called constipation-related amnesia. A woman in Tokyo forgot who she was for eight hours" [I just had to fact-check this one, I could only find the one article but still jfc]

"Bones are actually living, and do you know that the reason we produce blood inside of our bones is because it's one of the places that's safest from UV radiation?"

"There are also some birds that can produce a kind of nutritious substance that they'll, that instead of regurgitating their own food, they will produce a kind of milk. It's almost like lactation, but it evolved separately. It was a case of convergent evolution. Pigeons do it."

"There are some salamanders that feed their babies their own skin."

Bonus Brennan Bird Facts

"...there are some species of birds that have a secondary pouch in their esophagus or in their digestive tract where they actually contain, referred to as a craw that has stones or other hard material to help break up food matter before it passes into the rest of their digestive tract."

"Did you know that woodpeckers have a tongue bone called a hyoid bone that wraps around their brain because...it needs to protect their brain from the impact...of...smashing into the wood of the tree to, you know devour their common meal items, which of course are grubs and larval insects."

Ep 5

you can't hum while blocking your nose

Some reptiles have a light-sensing organ on top of their head so they can sense shadows from potential predators

the bootlace worm is the longest animal in the world (not a reptile though rip)

Bonus Brennan Snake Facts!

The black mamba has been clocked going as fast as 12.5 mph, meaning it could outrun even some of the fastest humans, and since its resting speed is 7.5 mph, it would have the stamina to catch up even after a long time, since most humans run around 6 mph

the reticulated python is the longest snake in the world: not the biggest, that's the green anaconda, but the longest.

[thank u brennan for creating a personification of my special interest in snakes and repeatedly including him in things]

Ep 6

some organisms in the ocean glow when disturbed so that if they get eaten, the thing that ate them glows and is eaten. (hank says it way better, I think the ones he was talking about were dinoflagellates?)

"Did you know that the North Pole is actually a South Pole, because when you look at a compass, it points north. But the north pole of the compass is what's pointing north, and north poles point to the south poles. So when we go to the North Pole, it's actually the South Pole." (as i think siobhan said, i don't think i'm smart enough to understand that just yet, so I transcribed his exact words)

Bonus Brennan Fact (from Pasha!)

Diners came to be because people would take old decommissioned dining cars from trains and turn them into stationary eating establishments.

Bonus adventuring party facts under the cut!

Ep 1

the snake dicks are called "hemipenes"

"it's more like the penis branches at the base...they're forked dicks. But you can't see the fork at the end"

Brennan: "Some snakes breed...in a big knot"

Siobhan: "echidnas have a four-pronged penis."

Siobhan: "Kangaroos have heat-sensing penises, 'cause they have to get real deep in there...[and] wobble around in there"

Hank adds "[to] find the right path" and then says "The multipath vaginal canal is like, are you fucking kidding me?" implying that kangaroos have multipath vaginal canals

Siobhan: "Pythagoras was a communist who ran a math cult...that murdered a guy because he gave away the secret of perfect numbers."

Brennan, Danielle, and Trapp all have things to say about the invention of the chocolate chip cookie

Dan: "a staggering amount of what we consider canonical American desserts are inventions by corporations to sell flour...key lime pie is a complete marketing invention."

Ep 2

look idk if it was a joke or not, but Hank did say "It's definitely true that if you cum in space, it'd push you backwards."

(yes, I know the original quote is from the McElroys)

Ep 3 - no facts, but a cool quote from Antonio R. Damasio - "We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think."

Ep 4 - no facts, but soft confirmation of Elias being neurodivergent!

"this sudden moment of someone who you say a fact to, and they say a fact back, and you suddenly go, wait a minute. Which feels very, that's not how every mind works, but it's how Elias's mind works, right? For this guy, this is the thing." (Brennan)

Ep 5

From Brennan & Danielle: Paralegals don't present in court, but rather review documents and speeches and information. Maybe not a new fact to y'all, but I didn't know that!

Trapp: the "hedonic treadmill" is a term describing the way that people are always returning to sort of a base state of happiness, always looking for the next thing that will make them more happy.

[thisisnotthenerd]

got a little too bored today and started tallying up d20 cast appearances for the intrepid heroes (and brennan). this is only off of the top of my head so if i forget something don't get on me about it.

Intrepid Heroes D20 Cast Appearances, including sidequests (and BLeeM), ranked from highest to lowest:

Brennan Lee Mulligan with a total of 17/19 seasons that he has appeared in; dm/gming for 14 of those seasons. 7 of those are main cast/intrepid heroes, so assume they each have a baseline of seven.

next up is mister Lou Wilson, with a total of 10 seasons; 3 sidequests, all with guest gms. the man is a combination of dnd knowledge and commit to the bit. great with any season, but has always sidequested with brennan.

tied at nine, we have zac oyama and ally beardsley; ally featured heavily in 2021 sidequests while zac has been more recent in '22 and '23.

tied at eight we have the lovely ladies emily axford and siobhan thompson! i'm so glad siobhan has joined the ranks of intrepid heroes in sidequests, it feels like they just have a lot of fun on the shorter runs.

and in last place, mr brian 'murph' murphy. i know he's busy with naddpod but only intrepid heroes seasons? 7/19? please come on a sidequest my guy. i promise it's fun.

halfway through this process i've decided that guests are also being included now.

Guest Cast D20 Appearances, ranked from highest to lowest:

at the top of the guest list, the effervescent aabria iyengar, with 5/12 sidequest seasons! 2 seasons of gming, 3 seasons as a player, all 3 of which are in established d20 worlds e.g. spyre and calorum. assuming we have an intrepid heroes season coming up at some point in the future, murph can get a bit of a lead, but if aabria's coming on to guest more there's a very real potential that she will outcompete him. i look forward to the day.

next up: erika ishii with 4 seasons. they came on in the first sidequest and have had a steady stream of appearances since. always some kind of mage--tends towards druids/nature magic. 2/3 of her dnd appearances have been druids with an eye for creepy crawlies and the darker side of nature. he's got an aesthetic that he sticks to, and i admire that. real commitment, and not just to the bit.

tied with three we have rekha shankar and matthew mercer. ooh four-syllable names. sorry i got distracted. anyway. very excited to see rekha in desiquest, though she's a fantastic player on d20. big swings, fun character choices, a good balance of support for narrative and spotlight. and then we have matt--one season gming, but for the seasons he's played? some truly cringefail guys who learn to believe in themselves and break out of their personal depression to deliver an asskicking in their finale episode. man likes his themes.

now for the team of two (not the 2 crew) in chronological order of first appearance: mike trapp, ify nwadiwe, lily du, carlos luna, danielle radford, and izzy roland. just enough to make an average d20 table! i'm getting my fill of trapp and danielle in the current season, but seeing a table of these players together? it has potential.

and for the full list of one time appearances on d20 in chronological order of first appearance (only full seasons, not including oneshots atm):

amy vorpahl

justin mcelroy

clint mcelroy

jessica ross

griffin mcelroy

travis mcelroy

marisha ray

krystina arielle

b. dave walters

katie marovitch

sam reich

raphael chestang

grant o'brien

becca scott

persephone valentine

gabe hicks (gm!)

dani fernandez

jasmine bhullar (gm!)

omar najam

oscar montoya

surena marie

anjali bhimani

monét x change

alaska thunderfuck

bob the drag queen

jujubee

alex song-xia

freddie wong

hank green

i've devoted entirely too much thought to this. and i still have more thoughts. too many thoughts and not enough time. can't wait to see who comes on in the future! don't know if i'll edit this or make a new one. probably just edit this.

[crunchycrystals]

id start the adventuring party if i wasnt busy crying on my couch rn

[frecklenog]

take me down to warehouse city where it's 3 am and the girls have their hearts in the right place but are going about their goals in ways that are ultimately detrimental

[thespoonisvictory]

Hey guys. did you know it’s three am in a warehouse. in los angeles

[lovevalley45]

i have done the mathTM on my fictober prompts so far n compared them to last year and. this year i've only done 7 fanfics for the 27 prompts so far, when i did 19 for the whole month last year and that is wild to compare to

[emailgremlin]

went back to my first love, caron simply soft, and started a blanket bc i have at least 14-15 skeins of it

[probablybadrpgideas]

This monstrosity (normal D20 for scale) recently arrived in our house as part of an ongoing family meme war.

a classic of the weird dice genre

[phoenixdragon1258]

Shout out to the dream I had last night where I was supposed to be playing dnd with the cast of Dimension 20, specifically the Intrepid Heroes and like 2 of my irl friends but I kept falling asleep and missing out

[mccoyquialisms]

More bits from the 1st night of the London D20 live show that brought me joy:

The little “ooooohhhhHHHH” bit everyone in the atrium did as they were rolling the bingo cages for their characters

How NUTS everyone went when Lou got Fabian and everyone started chanting “hoot growl”

A second, just as loud cheer when Siobhan got Adaine and her and Lou ran around the stage together

Siobhan, unprompted: “GIVE ADAINE A GUN!”

Emily has apparently named a stray cat after Plug <3

Sydney straight up eating the ground (it’s ice cream, she’s fine. Sort of.)

“It’s a smell so counter to everything human life needs, in a way that almost kills you, but also, only in a way someone from New York can understand, makes you proud.”

The party refusing to call the candy wyverns anything other than “bugs”

Zac interrupting the ongoing banter to announce Skip is already boarded and sucking on the saddle of the wyvern

“I throw a flash grenade.” “I turn into a giant pigeon.” “I cast unseen servant to untie him.” “I shoot a guard.” “Okay, so everyone decides to do something SUPER SUBTLE.”

I mentioned it before but it’s SO good: “the DC is 500. Only a Nat 20 will do it.” Beardsley: [rolls a Nat 20 first try] [pandemonium in the arena]

“Have you seen Succession?”

The gabagool 🤌

“Adaine, we have saved the world multiple times. These are the scariest people we have ever met.”

Lou losing it at Sydney’s grenade having 1 point of poison damage in addition to all the bludgeoning damage

Skip gives Fabian a laser gun. He does not know what it is until he shoots Calroy with it

“Adaine, this gun thing you’re on? I get it.”

Cocaine Bear

“I YEETED YOU!”

Pete and Skip instant besties. Pete and Fabian instant enemies.

“You named him Anus and now I just have to do it the rest of the show!”

“I absolutely hate to add insult to injury…” “THEN DON’T!”

Adaine passing her wisdom save by 1 point to prevent Kugrash’s polymorph spell from turning her into a rat

The absolute ROAR that went up when Skip transformed into Lapin

“Anus?” “Not today.” “Not today WHAT?”

“I thought I was just on another planet starting a revolution I don’t intend to stick around for.” “America!”

Ally confidentially declaring Lapin and Aguefort have swinger vibes

“Do you want to just take him?” “Do you mean in the biblical sense?” “Another exciting use….”

[croaky voice] butterfly in the skyyyy

Pete opening 6 different flavors of seltzer while the rest of the party does kublacaine

Elaine Lee in the house!!!

Kugrash the greatest chaperone who ever lived

Lapin and Aguefort…and they were roommates…..Lapin’s “how do I look?” before they go into the egg fortress lmao

Syd’s perfume missile dealing 68 points of damage to Fabian and instantly knocking him unconscious. “Are you rolling D20s for damage???”

“I’m going to use my tides of chaos to reroll….worse.”

Tina the butterfly familiar that everyone totally remembers

“Well shit, any house where we kill the people in it becomes our house.”

Pete dissing Fabian so hard he feels the toxic masculinity coming back

Lapin requesting an exam extension for Adaine and Fabian from Arthur via dating app

The collective psychic damage everyone took from the “yar har har” scene

“Pete just starts dancing with a scarf in a way no one else has seen before.” “That’s my fucking thing!!!”

Sydney just enabling every pvp encounter alsdkghsdg. Giving Fabian unlimited capacity to his gun as he’s shooting Pete, with Fabian hitting twice and criting once.

“I can pleasure you or throw grenades, you gotta pick one.” “The first one, obviously!” “Okay!”

Lapin, Adaine and Kugrash chain smoking in the corner suffering through the pain of existence while the rest of party goes nuts around them

Murph incorporating the words “come/coming” as much as possible into Kugrash’s farewell speech while Brennan mimes Gilear’s enormous dick behind him. Not even Fabian’s battle sheet is enough to conceal that hog

“That’s right, I’m the king. And then I jump into the dumpster.”

GILEAR…MY…..OLD FRIEND………Aguefort and Gilear fwb real

“Not another person with their penis frozen to the walk in!”

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

HI ITS ME gvxzggsgjfh ok look this is. i know this is a weird one it is SO specific and so obviously something i should just write myself if i want it👏but👏but👏BUT i decided to shoot my shot when a perfect chance has arisenderised for you to pick and choose from anything you like AND in any form, and to see if this one maybe by any chance just so happens to spark anything fun in u too xD

ssssssssssoooooooooooooooooooooo RANDOM EVENT ROLL D20 mc gets bitten by a werewoof or some other kind of "contagious" monster species (....cant really think of anything else other than vampirs, now that i say it) but WAIT THERES MORE because. what if mc insisted that they dont want any potential existent cures, they just wanna stay monstery >:3 JVDTHGLN who's considering it, who would absolutely go in the "its either me or this" direction, who's enthusiastic🤣 this is silly as hell but in the case it sparks joy id love to hear ur any and all thoughts because this idea has been haunting me for forever lmao honestly the best way ive imagined it is like one of your own selfinsert pieces youve posted before where its just all of them together bickering heeheehee💘💕🩷💞💖

love u have fun!!

The Arcana Drabble: MC transforms into a "monster"

In the spirit of things, I though a long drabble/short oneshot would work best to keep the madness going XD

Asra's getting stuck in their "one focus and one focus only" mode and right now that focus is making sure you're okay. He'll decide how he feels later, which isn't being helped at all because Julian keeps calling on him to help him slow down the process and get you to think about this a little more. However, it's hard to tell what exactly Julian wants your decision to be because in between him trying to get Asra to make you think about it some more, he's having all kinds of medical epiphanies about how your anatomy is adjusting to the new monster form:

"MC, let's think about some more, shall we? I'm sure Asra agrees with me - don't you, Asra? Asr - oh, whats this?! Your finger's joints are rapidly adjusting to accommodate for - I need a pen and paper -"

"Right here, Ilya." It's Portia's dismissive tone as she digs a small notebook and pencil out of her pocket that keeps you grounded. Not for long, though, because she can't wait to see what happens next. "Accommodate for what, anyways? Are you growing another joint?? Are you going to get claws??? Talons???? Show me!"

Between Julian jotting down unintelligible notes while he studies your elbow's range of motion, Portia's excited exclamations, and Asra's attempt at soothing touch as they rub your shoulders and ask how you're feeling, it's a miracle you can notice Muriel's quiet mumble in the background. He's clearly overwhelmed and very concerned that the physically-altering substance in general got to your brain first, making you so seemingly okay with turning into a monster.

"MC, do you remember your name? Do you need to take a nap? You don't have to be okay with this -"

"I believe this may warrant far more than a nap to recover from." Nadia's doing her best to keep Lucio calm, holding him back from tackling you much like she might grasp a leash. You can practically see the headache building behind her eyes. "We have yet to determine what the extent of this transformation is and therefore whether our dear MC is even capable of fully agreeing to the current process. MC, darling, did the source of this transformation give you any indication of what the end result would be?"

You'd try to respond, but Lucio's excited yelling is too noisy to shout over. He's fumbling at the fastenings on his cape, distracted by your ongoing changes, and very annoyed at Nadia's interference.

"Where did it go? I want to see if it can give me powers too - OW! Dammit, Noddy, I'm trying to help here! You're keeping me from finding the monster and getting it to give me cool - I mean, getting it to tell us more about what's happening! Don't you want that? Don't you want to help MC, Noddy?! Let me go -"

It's with a loud RIP and subsequent "that was velvet, you know!" that Lucio finally breaks free and sprints off in the direction of your new monster friend. You can feel yourself slowly settling in to your new form as the process shows signs of slowing and reaching completion.

Nadia's facepalming. Portia's looking at you with eyes shining in wonder. Julian's still trying to nag Asra into reversing this as he takes notes. The magician in question is still ignoring him as they ask you how you feel for the nth time. Muriel's eyeing the nearby closet in hopes of taking a nap and waking up to it all being a dream. Lucio's a distant, spiky golden speck at this point.

Faust is quietly trying to sneak her knife into your hand, for crimes.

[thepringlesofblood]

An Incomplete Collection of Calorum Etymology Shenanigans

A Crown of Candy has a LOT of food puns, and with more presumably on the way with The Ravening War, I don’t think it’s possible to catalogue them all.

However, if we take the ones in plain English as given, (e.g. Oliver Onionpatch is an onion, Primsy Coldbottle is a bottle), that lightens the load significantly enough that a catalogue of Calorum wordplay becomes possible.

This will be a (non-comprehensive) list of characters, place names, and more that have hidden meanings or food-related etymology

spoilers for ACOC and TRW, naturally. 

disclaimer: I am not an expert on words, but I do know a lot of weird nerd shit, as well as a decent chunk of ancient Greek and Latin as I’m majoring in classics (the study of the ancient mediterranean). I might not get everything right, but I’m doing my best. verify your sources, kids

I actually made a post like this before, but it was mostly place names, so I’m sorting this one into categories

Locations

A Crown of Candy

PCs 

NPCs

Etc.

The Ravening War

PCs

NPCs

Etc.

LOCATIONS

Ceresia - this is the one that genuinely impresses me the most. Ceres is the Roman goddess of wheat, the harvest, and agriculture. English has her to thank for the word “cereal”. Each nation is clearly themed for a specific real-world country, with Ceresia being Italy. So, Brennan used the Roman version of the goddess (w the Greek version being Demeter). That’s dope as hell. 


Calorum - you probably can associate this with the word “calorie” but it goes deeper. The word “calorie” refers to the unit of energy, and derives from the Latin calor, caloris meaning “heat” or “warmth”

-orum is the genitive plural in latin - so, calorum lit. translates to “of heat [calories]”, but you could totally translate it as an adjective meaning “made of heat [calories]”

TLDR: the name of the food land is “made of calories” in Latin, that’s AWESOME

Fructera - kind of obvious, but if you want to know the Latin, this is from fructus, fructus which can mean many things, including “produce” “crops” and “fruit”

Dulcington - dulce, dulcis is a word for sweets/a sweet drink in Latin

Sucrosi - sucrose is a main chemical compound in sugar, w the word deriving from the French word for sugar, sucre.

Glucian Road - from glucose, a simple sugar that’s in most living things statistically.

Frucian Road - from fructose, a very similar simple sugar present mostly in fruit. I think it’s kind of cool that the crossroads of the road to Fructera and the road to Candia emphasize the thing they have in common - sugar.

Pangranos - “pan” is bread in several languages, and the “gran” part likely alludes to words derived from “grain,” like “granary.”

then the -os ending recalls ancient Greek naming conventions and grammar (think “Alexandros” or “Mykonos”) many of which carried over into Roman times (though many were also changed to -us for alphabet reasons, hence why we normally see “Patroclus” “Dionysus” and “Hephaestus” instead of the more literal spellings “Patroklos” “Dionysos” and “Hephaistos” it’s a big ol fuckin controversy in ancient Greek translation)

Lacramor - here’s the thing. we all know lactose is in milk (coming from the Latin lac, lactis for milk). but lacrimal means tears, or related to tears (coming from the Latin lacrima, lacrimae for tears).

(update: I went DEEP in the paint on this one, and there’s a protein called lactoferrin that exists in all human secretions (gross) including milk, tears, and saliva. intriguing…)


(updatier update: fuck. he probably just meant amor like Spanish & Latin for “love” so the milk city is called “love of milk.”)

Carn - a more obvious one, especially if you speak Spanish or any of the other romance languages that use this word - carnis, carnis in Latin and carne in Spanish mean “meat”

Uvano - they’re. they’re grapes. and. uva is grape. both in Latin and Spanish. nice one

Comida - the Spanish word for food. it will forever irritate me that they pronounce it like it’s an English word (COM-ih-duh) not the Spanish word that it is (coh-MEE-da) but it makes sense - Brennan mentioned in a

n interview that it’s an allusion to how colonizers (specifically the English) would bastardize local place names until the original pronunciation is lost.

The Verduran Forest - straight up a location from pathfinder. also, “verdure” is an English word meaning “growing vegetation”, or the color of it, or the condition of health and liveliness it implies. comes from old French verd (green) by way of Latin viridis (green). Spanish also has a hand on this ball with verde (green).

The Sangre - Blood! sangre is blood. In Spanish. And French.

Gristlemar - “mar” is a Latin root used in a lot of things to mean the ocean (deriving from mare, maris = sea/ocean), so it’s a sea of gristle. gross! I love it!

Saprophus - likely either from “saprophyte”, something that feeds off the dead, or “saprophagus”, an adjective meaning “feeding on decaying matter”

Greek roots!

sapros- = rotten, putrid

-phyton = plant/“that which is grown”

-phagos = eat/consume 

A CROWN OF CANDY

PCs

The Rocks Family - One thing that’s not Latin exactly but is really cool is that almost everyone in the Rocks family is named after an actual rock - like, a gemstone - and most of them are rock candy (or of course poprocks in Amethar’s case)

Archmage Lazuli - pretty obvious, lapis lazuli is a beautiful blue gemstone

Sister Citrina - citrine is a yellow gemstone

Princess Sapphria - sapphires are usually blue but can come in a bunch of other colors which i didn’t know! fun fact

King Jadain - jade - a lovely green gemstone

King Amethar - amethyst - p obvious, he’s purple and all (credit to Lou!)

Princess/Bastard Ruby - i don’t have to explain this one to you (credit to Siobhan!)

Princess/Bastard Jet - I was surprised to find out that Jet is actually a type of lignite - it’s like coal, but so compressed it becomes a gemstone. hence the phrase “jet-black” (credit to Emily!)

the exceptions to this are Cumulous (which like, that’s a cloud and he’s a cotton candy man, makes total sense) and General Rococoa - I can’t fault Brennan for the pun there, and technically Rococo is a style of jewelry (among other things) that can include a lot of different gemstones so there’s a loose connection there.

Queen Pamelia Rocks was Fructeran and from House Pomegrana originally so like. she gets a pass from the rock puns.

however...you ever wondered why its “Pamelia” instead of the way more common “Pamela”? they actually changed it in TRW so that “Pamela” is one of her nicknames bc straight up no one calls her Pamelia at the table.

2 thoughts, one more likely than the other

1. this is Brennan making fun of George RR Martin for minutely altering a common name to make a Fantasy Name, which he’s done before, e.g. Belizabeth, Bonathan.

2. the ancient Greek μέλι, μέλιτος (meli, melitos) and the Latin mel, mellis both mean “honey” or, when used as an adjective, “sweet”, usually translated as “honey-sweet”, famously the adjective used to describe the pomegranate seed that Hades gives Persephone. hehe pomegranate

so. th.there’s strength in sweetness amiright fellas?

update: thank you to @trans-leek-cookie for the info that "pomegranate” and “garnet” share a few root words! in fact, it’s possible that the gemstone was named because of its resemblance to the fruit!

pomegranate etymology

Latin granatus, granata, granatum = an adjective meaning “containing many seeds”, used in conjunction with pomum (fruit) to mean “pomegranate”, which later leads to:

Medieval Latin granatum, granati = pomegranate (a fruit with many seeds in it)

garnet etymology

Old French grenate, gernatte, granate = garnet/of a dark red color

which comes from the same Medieval Latin granatum used as an adjective to describe something dark red like a pomegranate seed

conclusion: you are not immune to rock puns just bc you’re a fruit

Chancellor Lapin Cadbury - bet you didn’t think this was anything, right? Lapin is the French word for rabbit. Hence, why it’s pronounced la-PAN not LAP-in. And of course Cadbury, like the chocolate brand that is primarily famous for its eggs & rabbits & easter stuff. (credit to Zac!)

Sir Theobald Gumbar - as far as I can tell, the only funny bit here is the whole gummy bear = gumbar bit. I will say that he is a knight of North Gumbia, which is likely a reference to Northumbria, a medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. (credit to Murph!)

update: thank you to @sanguidge​ for pointing out the Theo - Theodore - Teddy - teddy bear connection! to borrow Gooey’s words, Sir Theo is in fact a big soft squishy bear. 

Liam Wilhemina - Wilhemina is a brand of peppermint from the Netherlands ^v^ (credit to Ally!)

Queen Saccharina Frostwhip - references the word “saccharine” meaning “overly sweet” from the Latin saccharum meaning “sugar” (credit to Emily!)

Cumulous Rocks - we mentioned it earlier, but “cumulous” refers to a kind of cloud that is very puffy and fluffy and white and looks, tbh, like white cotton candy. hell yeah. (credit to Zac!)

NPCs

Commander Constano Grissini - grissini is literally the Italian word for breadsticks (not the big soft olive garden ones, the thin crispy ones). Constano is a very ancient Roman name, which fits.

Pontifex Belizabeth Brassica - refers to the genus (Brassica oleracera) that broccoli belongs to
, and “Pontifex” is a Roman title, given to basically a high priest who is the political and religious power and representation of the gods will - they’re the ones who make sure everyone’s worshipping the right way, sort of like the pope but for ancient Rome.

Basha Myaso - myaso is Russian for meat, though the Meatlands are supposedly based off of ancient Celts. Much like with Belizabeth & Bonathan, Brennan likes to change one letter of a common name to make fun of George RR Martin. This could easily be him changing “Sasha” to “Basha”

Sir Keradin Deeproot- that fuckin carrot. so you’re probably thinking huh that sounds like keratin, the stuff our hair and fingernails are made out of, right? guess what. “keratin” and “carrot” share a common root word - keras, the Greek word for “horn” that’s a DEEP cut, brennan. 


Dracoria Azucar (aka Cinnamon) - azúcar is Spanish for “sugar” which is cool bc Cinnamon is inspired by Mexican hot chocolate. then draco = dragon in Latin, like the constellation

Spearia Mentha - its spearmint. mentha = the genus for the mint plant.

this one’s a stretch and probably not intended but just for funsies: mentha is from the Greek μίνθα, which comes from an interesting not very well-known myth about a nymph/naiad named Minthe.

nymphs and naiads are representations of nature, naiads being spirits of water and other nymphs represent trees, plants, and other organisms in nature, which to me really evokes Spearia’s whole vibe. there’s other stuff with Minthe and non-monogamy but not in a particularly positive way :/

ETC.

“Senator” and “Imperator” being used for Ceresia parallel the Roman system of government - as does the country swinging b/w ineffective democracy and destructive imperatorship lol.

Plus Senator Ciabatta being a war hero turned senator who then got popular enough to make himself emperor/tyrant/imperator is extremely Roman - that shit happens ALL THE TIME in ancient Roman history.

This might be nothing, but I think it’s funny that the Concord was founded by a grape. You know, like Concord grapes?

update: like a year after posting this I finally figured out what the Ramsian Doctrine and the Prophidian Heresy are from. 

“Ramsian” is a reference to Gordon Ramsey, a popular TV chef who famously promotes the use of fresh, farm-to-table ingredients.

“Prophidian” is a shortening of “pro-ophidian”, with “ophidian” meaning “snake-like” or “relating to snakes”. The Christian devil is often represented as a snake, due to the myth of the Garden of Eden, and the Hungry One is Calorum’s version of the devil, so it’s basically “pro-Hungry One” because the Prophidian Heresy states that the Hungry One is as powerful as the bulb.

(personally I’ve always thought snakes got the short end of the stick here, they’re very chill and interesting creatures and the whole devil iconography thing kind of ruined their reputation. I am personally Prophidian in that I am pro-snakes. snake rights!)

update: forgot about backup PCs lol

Sir Amanda Maillard - the Maillard reaction is the name for the reaction food does when in contact with heat where it gets crispy and good - like smores, like she is. 10/10

Bitternight Darknibs - since her thing is she sold her sugar for power and is thus unsweetened cacao, the “darkness” theming alludes to how we rate chocolate according to how “dark” it is based on how much sugar and milk is added.

chocolate with 0 sugar (aka baking chocolate) is “100% dark” and is not good to eat with your mouth, being very bitter. hence, “bitter” “night” and “dark”

“nibs” alludes to chocolate in an less processed form - cocoa beans get roasted and cracked open to create “nibs”, which get ground up and melted and separated and recombined and things are added to make chocolate (this is where it makes a difference how much sugar you add).

Murdo Brer - our molasses necromancer has “Brer” most likely as a reference to the brand Brer Rabbit Molasses. the fact that he’s a necromancer who lives in a swamp is also interesting to me.

cw: discussion of dead bodies, enbalming, & mummies in the links

swamps are extremely good at preserving dead things, which is a little like necromancy, which I think is cool.

for some reason I had it in my head that putting a dead body in molasses preserves it really well, but when I went to get sources I couldn’t find shit. maybe I was conflating the great molasses flood with how honey has historically been used in enbalming? lmk if you know what I’m thinking of, I was like fully convinced of this fact until I went to find info on it.

murph’s bubblegum monster wasn’t named sadly :/

THE RAVENING WAR

PCs (I went through some of this in another post but that was in reaction to the trailer before episodes started actually coming out lol)

Colin Provolone - Provolone is a kind of cheese. Colin is a name of Irish/Scottish origin. It’s nice to have one simple one. I will say I’ve seen several people point out that provolone goes really well on a pastrami rueben (which our boy below is!) so that’s fun! (credit to Zac!)

Thane Delissandro Katzon - Thank you @blueaerin (among many others) for your post about how this is most likely a reference to Katz’s Delicatessan, a famous deli in NYC! I never would’ve know that. I’m also told they specialize in pastrami rueben on rye, which we now know is what Deli is, since Lou’s description in the first episode! Then we have “thane”, which in Anglo-Saxon culture, is a title of a landowner, specifically someone who was gifted land by a king. y’all who read Macbeth know this one! (credit to Lou!)

Bishop Raphaniel Charlock - the scientific name for wild radish is Raphanus raphanistrum, so that’s probably where Raphaniel came from. wild radish has two other names - “jointed charlock” and “white charlock”. So there we go. Your typical red radish (as Brennan described his character to look like) is a subspecies of Raphanus raphanistrum called sativus. but! even MORE interesting! you know what order and family radishes are in? the order Brassicales in the family Brassicaceae! This could be 100% unintentional, there’s a LOT of vegetables in the family Brassicaceae, but I remain optimistic. also thanks to @tenoroutoften for the info that Raphael Warnock is a senator & religious leader in Georgia rn! (credit to Brennan!)

Lady Amangeaux Epiceé du Peche - She is a mango! French for mango = la mangue. Amangeaux  = sounds like “a mango”, and does contain the French word for “I eat” (mange). Epiceé  = spicy (can be used as slang for y’know. spICY) and du Peche = of peach (her house prior to marrying King Cardoon) (credit to Anjali!)

Karna Solara - we know now (thanks @quiddie!) that “Karna” refers to her being a Carolina Reaper pepper! For her last name, chili peppers do come from the order Solanales in the family Solanaceae. there’s also solar -> sun, which makes for some interesting implications, given that generally The Bulb = the sun and her power is extremely not Bulbian. lots of fun sun imagery this campaign! (credit to Aabria!)

NPCs

King Arthur Cardoon - Cynara cardunculus, also known as the artichoke thistle or the cardoon, is a flowering plant from which the artichoke is cultivated. people eat cardoons too though.

also, his name being Arthur could be an allusion to his wife being unfaithful (see: the whole Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot love triangle of Arthurian legend), as well as being alliterative with the word “artichoke” itself.

Ja’Crudite/Jacques Crudites - it’s spelled both ways in the subtitles in different episodes. Crudités = French appetizers that are mostly raw vegetables, sometimes sliced or cut, usually with dip. Carrots feature prominently, but usually as carrot sticks, not the whole carrot, in an interesting departure from other carrot-based characters in Calorum. Also interesting since carrots are traditionally Vegetanian and his French name implies that he’s Fructeran.

if it is “Ja’Crudite”, it’s probably a pun off of the phrase “J’accuse!” which is French for “I accuse!”

Dammit, now I’m curious - does Ja’Crudite have “hair” (leaves) like Keradin and the infamous zealot from TRW e5, if he’s a carrot stick rather than a full carrot?

Senator Enzo Carbano, Tribune of the Fusilli

Enzo - Italian name

at first I was like ‘wait is that a pasta?’ nope I was thinking of orzo

Carbano - likely derived from pasta carbonara, or from “carbohydrates” in general.

Fusili - a twisty noodle. Not famous for carbonara but you can very much use it that way

Tribune - another ancient Roman government title. typically, a tribune is a representative of the plebeians, sometimes from a specific area. It’s usually a way lower ranking role than senator, mostly bc it was one of the only ways a plebeian could get into goverment. seems like they combined it so each senator gets a little area to rule over represent - v cool!

Senator Ariana Gemelli, Tribune of Triscutia

Ariana - Greco-Roman name

Gemelli - another fun twisty pasta

Triscutia - could be referring to Triscuits. if you’re wondering about the Latin, a scutum is a kind of shield, so with the tri- bit, maybe thrice-shielded? I think it’s the Triscuits.

Sir Allium Goldring, Knight of the Burning Basket - I included the burning basket bit bc it implies an order of deep-fried veggie knights, which is hilarious. “Allium” is the name for a genus of plants including onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, chives, etc.

If you’re thinking “but wait, isn’t that a flower?” you are correct, another name for the allium flower is “ornamental onion”. it’s one of those classifications that applies to a bajillion things, like Brassica.

ETC.

they don’t mention “Pontifex” as a religious title in the ravening war.

The highest ranking Bulbian church official we run into is the Archbishop Camille Colliflour. Which is interesting, considering that we run into a whole bunch of Archbishops in ACOC (Alfredi, Onionpatch, Radicca Rutabaga who you probably forgot about), all of who seem to be high-ranking but nowhere near the level of the Pontifex

But what’s interesting about that, is. “Pontifex” is a very Roman title. and the church doesn’t start using until a. they grow more powerful and b. Vegetania allies with Ceresia under Imperator Focaccia during the war. So it’s a Roman loan-word bc Ceresia = Rome = Empire. fuck dude.

update: thank you to @trans-leek-cookie for pointing out a brief mention of the Pontifex in ep 1!

Colliflour mentions consulting the Pontifex about Tomaté’s claim to the throne, and Tomaté himself mentions the “plight of the Pontifex and his followers” earlier on in the episode while talking to Raphaniel.

so there is a Pontifex, but we know extremely little about him, except that he is a him, and doesn’t seem to be very involved in the goings-on of the Ravening War. it probably became a more important position post-war as the Bulbian church rose to power.

update: forgot about backup PCs lol 

Lady Melys of House Manuka - like I said before, the ancient Greek μέλι, μέλιτος (meli, melitos) and the Latin mel, mellis both mean “honey”, and manuka honey is a special type of honey from the manuka (or mānuka) tree in New Zealand. mānuka is a Māori word, hell yeah, break the chokehold that romance languages have on food puns!

Zhyr Kaban - another rebel against romance languages, in the BTS Brennan mentions that this means ‘boar fat’ in Ukrainian (жир кабан), and as far as I can tell, he’s right! dope

Kahfeer Activian Balfour - “kefir” is a kind of probiotic yogurt drink (though pronounced like keh-FEER), and he a yogurt man. in the BTS Lou mentions they weren’t sure if he could be named Activia like the yogurt brand, so they had a backup last name “Balfour”, which may allude to Balfour farm dairy in Maine, which sells yogurt and cheeses (though not kefir).

Granny Pom and Flaky Smuthers are pretty straightforward etymologically speaking, though excellent names in their own right of course.

hmu if you can think of any other fun ones or if i fucked up anything or if any of the links are busted on this monster of a post lol

[utilitycaster]

@rowzeoli replied to your post “Do you think part of the D20 journalistic bias...”:

I rarely go on tumblr so sorry if you see me spamming your posts tonight, but I really enjoy your perspective and thoughts! I think I'm the journalist you're referencing in regards to the Fantasy High Junior Year article and unfortunately 1) journalists only get access to interview subjects at very specific junctions (usually press day before the series goes out or halfway through) 2) most publications are honestly Going Through It and cutting freelance rates and just not paying to cover AP

​So I'll be totally honest - I post on Tumblr because I assume it is far more unlikely to be seen and so I can vent freely (hence the fairly harsh tone of the criticism in the original post), but I guess this is a chance to clarify. I don't expect anything to change, nor do I expect you to respond; indeed, I wouldn't blame you if you block me after this. But if readership is down (and who knows? maybe it's not and I'm the outlier), this may be illuminating.

The issue with your specific article - which I brought up relatively tangential to the larger point of "at this point I think Polygon's AP/TTRPG coverage is a waste of time to read" isn't really that it's only an early look at the series; and because Fantasy High Junior Year is at this time ongoing, it's honestly entirely valid that there hasn't been a follow-up. It's, well, the "surface-level and factually wrong" issue.

Dimension 20 was by no means the pioneer of remote recording as you claim in your article; that had long been the default of smaller recorded AP shows well before pandemic lockdown for the simple reason that if you're not a media company the overhead is very low - no need to have a dedicated space or even cameras beyond decent laptops. Burrow's End's puppetry? Critical Role's Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace did shadow puppets in 2019. They had diagetic audio on the main campaign as early as 2016. I don't even like Kollok, but that's had complex set design since 2019. Meanwhile premise of the article is yet another rehash of Polygon's "Dimension 20 is CHANGING THE GAME" constant drumbeat, while your actual pull quotes from Brennan Lee Mulligan are him musing that this is simply an entry in an ancient tradition of storytelling and isn't, in fact, terribly novel. The interview fails utterly to back up your point and indeed contradicts it; I get that the timeline was probably tight but this is outright incorrect in multiple places and your argument isn't just unsupported; it's outright dismissed by the very person you claim is proving it. If the premise came before the interview, it needed to be reworked afterwards, and if it came after the interview…I'm not sure what to say, really.

This isn't your article, and I'm putting it here to illustrate that this has been a pattern for Polygon's AP coverage specifically. This article about Worlds Beyond Number is perhaps my favorite example of "this is not serious journalism:" Rusty Quill Gaming, The Adventure Zone, Friends at the Table, and NADDPod are all theater of the mind long-running podcasts (RQG's campaign lasted a whopping 7 years of real time) and that's just off the top of my head; the idea of a long-running edited audio podcast being novel is laughable. RQG and TAZ both started at level 1; I'm not personally familiar with Friends at the Table. I don't actually think starting at level 1 vs. 2 is terribly important in storytelling in the first place other than that a few D&D classes pick their subclass at L2 and that choice can be narratively relevant, which it was in TAZ; however, some classes pick a subclass at L3 so you can still achieve this with a level 2 start (as Critical Role's second campaign does). Both Emily Axford of NADDPod and Griffin McElroy of TAZ have long been composing their own music and RQG is heavily sound designed. These are not obscure pulls, either; these are some of the more well-known names in the space.

At this point, Polygon AP/TTRPG articles - by multiple different writers - simply feel like madlibs: "(actual play show) is groundbreaking in its (thing that other shows have been doing for 5+ years); I especially liked (visual effect) and (incorrect understanding of TTRPG mechanics)."

The people I allude to in the post you responded to as having egregiously uncharitable and sanctimonious takes on Daggerheart (within, again, hours of its publication) are a frequent Polygon contributor and a Rascal editor and they further my mistrust of those publications: There is this constant insistence that everything they like be "groundbreaking" and "innovating" and they will claim this even when it's demonstrably not the case, as the above examples note. As Mulligan says in your article "it’s important to keep new artists with new experiences and backgrounds flowing in," and yet by focusing intensely on high production values (difficult for smaller indie upstarts to have) and by incorrectly claiming that a well-established media company within the space like D20 invented a number of things it flat out did not, this journalism is actively, if unintentionally, working against that goal. As I put it elsewhere, Polygon's bizarre pedestaling of Dimension 20 and simultaneous putdowns of Critical Role (which turn into wild contortions when D20 mainstays like Mulligan or Aabria Iyengar collaborate with CR; for that matter others besides me have observed that Polygon acts like Spenser Starke is two different people, the genius who created Alice is Missing and the knuckle-dragging moron who put out Candela Obscura and Daggerheart) coupled with the obsession with production values over story has the whiff of claiming they're the champion of the little guy for sticking it to the 700 lb gorilla in the space and then focusing on 500 lb gorillas while making it impossible for smaller monkeys to compete because most brand new shows without the name recognition of someone like Mulligan involved can't exactly hire Rick Perry to do their models or Taylor Moore to do sound design.

I suppose a good way to put this, since I've run into this in many spaces, not just AP/TTRPG or even journalism, is that bias on its own in a subjective medium isn't inherently bad; but if something is so nakedly biased against something I love, I will, naturally, turn to it with a far more critical eye, and if its arguments are not ironclad I'm going to start noticing every structural issue in every argument and every tiny mistake. Sure, as a fan of Critical Role, and as someone who feels that Kollok was nigh-unwatchable and that Burrow's End was promising in parts but deeply flawed, I disagreed with Polygon's nonstop mud-slinging towards the former and glowing, verging on fawning reviews of the latter two. But that's not entirely damning on its own; I do get that not everyone will like Critical Role and that some people will love Kollok or Burrow's End for valid reasons. What's damning is the journalism itself is riddled with factual errors and the analysis is so weak that to call the arguments a flimsy house of cards would be generous. The opposite is also true; if Polygon's lead editor were out here repeatedly misspelling the name of one of the main characters in Worlds Beyond Number (note: this has since been corrected) but the articles had compelling arguments, even ones I disagreed with, I'd be far more forgiving, but as is? It's offering me absolutely nothing: it's poorly researched, it's poorly structured, it's poorly written, it's poorly copy-edited, and it shits on things I like seemingly just for clicks. I'm done giving clicks.

I am deeply sympathetic to the pressures facing digital journalism and media and the arts in general; as someone who is fortunate enough not to personally face those pressures and has the income to be a patron, I would love to help in my small way (and I do, at least, financially support a number of the AP shows I love). But the quality of some of this journalism is truly so bad that I can't bring myself to support the institutions putting it out; it's "dead dove do not eat" until such time as someone whose analysis and opinions I do trust cites them (or, perhaps, until there is a sea change of lead editorship). I know that this won't help the crunch, and may make it worse, but I just can't because the quality is so poor. I don't have a good solution to how to write about something that takes a lot of time to watch and process and about which the articles pay very little in return, but the current strategy of bouncing between uninformed provocateur and utter sycophant depending on the show and creators; of drooling over such surface features as shiny production and falsely claiming everything is "groundbreaking" while getting the most basic facts wrong has driven me away.

[operationslipperypuppet]

I've never listened to/Watched naddpod, not yet anyway, and it sounds good like all the dnd stuff out there. Is it multiple campaigns with different people, or how does it work?

Oooh my favorite type of question!

So NADDPod has long campaigns with the same players and DM plus a few bonus campaigns where the same four people which roles (like who DMs)

Murph is the DM for the main campaigns and Emily Axford, Jake Hurwitz, and Caldwell Tanner are the players. There are three main campaigns at this point, campaign 1 started in 2018 and ended in 2020 and has 100 episodes, campaign 2 started in 2020 and ended in 2021 and has 41 episodes, and campaign 3 started in 2022 and is ongoing, currently with 50 episodes.

Caldwell DMed a mini campaign that spanned several months and was then part of the break between c1 and c2, which is called Trinyvale and has 22 episodes. Emily DMed a mini campaign that was also during the c1 to c2 gap with 7 episodes called the Mavrus Chronicles. She’s also the DM of the 4 episode mini campaign that is starting to drop today and will come out between this week and next week.

There are guest PCs in campaigns 1 and 2. Lou Wilson, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, and Brennan Lee Mulligan have all guested and been part of arcs in the campaigns.

In a similar way to D20, it’s a comedy show that kinda focuses on comedy first and dnd second sometimes. It will also hurt you a bit, like all good stories can.

It’s also entirely theater of the mind, because it’s a podcast, but Murph manages to create insanely complex and visual encounters in every campaign and it’s truly so much fun to listen to every time.

If you’re planning to listen (and I hope you are, it’s a wonderful show), the hardest part can be wondering where to start. I personally started with campaign 1, and I do recommend that to people personally because you can miss some inside jokes and they are learning 5e at the beginning so if you’re big into mechanics it can be easier to listen to the parts where they’re not exactly getting things right all the time first. However, you by no means have to! As long as you’re starting with an episode 1 (c2e1, c3e1, trinyvale e1) you won’t miss out on anything and you can move through the campaigns in any order! (C3 does take place in the same world as c1, 200 years after c1 ends, but if you listen to it first you can absolutely consider c1 to be a prequel).

And because I’d be remiss to not mention it anytime I recommend this to someone, sooner than you’d think possible in c1e1, there’s a conversation about dragon pussy. If you think it’s a funny good time, you’ll love the show. If you hate it, the show might not be for you.

Anyway, thanks for the question and everyone should start listening wherever their pods are cast!