[00:00:39] Speaker A: Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to winterlude 109 B.
Yeah.
Oh, this is going to be a very raw, unedited intro, and I want to do that for a couple reasons. You're going to hear all my pauses and everything like that as I try and figure out the words to express how incredibly amazing I feel about this show.
It's December 30, and so, of course, today I'm looking back at the past year like a lot of people do.
And let's be honest, 2021 was no picnic for anyone.
But I really, really love what this show has done for me over this past year.
And sure, it's a little selfish to say that, but this show, despite the stress it induces on me sometimes, despite the hours that I spend trying to get an edit over to Matt and Haya, who then spend more hours cleaning and polishing and soundscaping these episodes to get them out to you guys every Thursday.
You know, despite all of that, this show really helped me get through 2021.
I'll be honest. I'll pull the curtain back a little bit. There are certain times this year where my real life job was uncertainty. My company had been bought and sold a couple times, so, you know, how I continued to pay rent or a mortgage or any of that stuff was up in the air sometimes, but this show always.
But this show has always brought me back and grounded me.
There was a clear objective and goal to release an episode every week, and we did pretty well, I think.
We also went through a cast change early, early in the year, and that was rough.
But we had Rob and Heidi join the cast, and honestly, I could not be happier with them and how the show has changed and evolved and become Matt Haya, Christine. They've been here since day one with me, and they've been through all of the ups, all of the downs, and I just can't imagine going through this show without them and how much I love and appreciate everything they've done for the show.
So I want to say thank you to them, to anyone who's ever listened to our show, to anyone who's ever been involved in the show, I want to say thank you.
This show has become very personal to me.
I grew up performing and doing theater, and, you know, I. I chased that dream. I moved from Hawaii where I grew up, to Vegas to go to college, to the east coast to New York to pursue a dream of theater and performance.
And honestly, I failed in that dream.
I stopped performing. I stopped auditioning. I stopped doing all of it. I was fed up with it. I didn't want to do it anymore.
But I still had that bug of wanting to perform and wanting to somehow perform and bring in one of the biggest loves that I've had in my life, which is gaming.
Gaming since 2000.
It got me through high school.
It made me my best friends that I have.
I love gaming and trying to figure out my love of gaming and my need and want to perform. I had no clue.
So right around Gen Con 50, I started listening to an actual play podcast. And that actual play podcast let me reconnect with some friends that I hadn't talked to for a while, and that was Haya.
And I told Haya about my insane idea to do an actual play podcast.
And Haya encouraged me and said, hey, I have one person who would do it with us for sure. I was like, great, I have someone and we have a four person cast. That's great. We need a couple more. Found some other people that I had met through this podcast that wanted to do an actual play with us that was Anwar and richest.
And so we had the original cast come together. We were going to do a first edition, and then we learned about second edition Pathfinder coming out, and we just wanted to jump on that. And that's where the show started.
And that show is the Crack Die podcast now. And that show brought my love of performing back, and it also included my passion for gaming.
And because of that, throughout all of 2020, 2021, when life was in complete turmoil, when the world was in complete turmoil, this show brought me back and grounded me.
And if it wasn't for people listening to the show, if it wasn't for the people who sprung up and told us we injured, they enjoyed the show. With the reviews that were left in Apple podcasts back in the day, iTunes, whatever they're calling it this next week, I don't know. But with those, with that feedback, it inspired me to do want to do more and more and more. And now with 2022 looming around the corner, I can't wait. And the prospects of this show, with the help from the people who have joined our Patreon, with the help of the people in the Patreon who have provided feedback right as the episodes go live or right after an episode goes live, their help and their contributions have made this show so much more. And with the prospect of 2022 and all of the things that we potentially will be able to do in 2022 because of that support, because of people listening, is just phenomenal.
And I'm very excited.
I can't wait.
You know, in two days it will be January 1, and yes, we will be having a Twitch show of Absalom in order at Twitch TV. Crackdie, if I didn't promote it, that would yell at me. But I can't wait. The fact that we have two shows going is amazing. It's phenomenal. It's incredible. And the fact that we've been able to donate money to charities because of the generosity of the people watching on our twitch, because of the generosity of the people on our Patreon, we are able to go out there and use this show for good. And I'm so proud of that. I'm so proud that we can donate to causes that we find important.
I guess all this rambling is just to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has listened to us, who will listen to us, and thank you for taking your time and energy to listen to the show. And thank you for helping this person that you have no relationship to, no connection to, other than the voice you hear coming out of your speech. Speakers who chased a dream stumbled, but now has a whole new dream that they're chasing. And with your help, and just by listening and downloading the show, you have made this person's dream come true. So thank you so much for everything.
And now let me throw it over to the episode. I'll stop rambling. Happy new year. Happy 2022. We'll see you on January 1 for Absalom in order, and then we'll see you on January 6 for our standard episode release.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Dust.
Lots of dust.
That's all I've seen for a few nights now, but the travel is over. The family, or what's left of them, have made it to the quarry.
Tonight, we will talk with our contact and get set up.
The group that killed part of the family will pay. They'll pay dearly. How dare they?
Dare they? The time for revenge has come. While they're out there chasing the invisible monsters of slavers, the family will be truly fighting for what is right.
Everyone should just relent to fight and let his benevolence be released from the dead vaults below and allow the rough beast to reclaim his throne.
This will be the ending that they get. They deserve much, much worse. However, once these pests have been swatted, the real work will begin.
Recovering the spawn of the rough beast, the Armageddon engine, the fire bleeder. Both will be brought back. Then, and only then, will the leader, the father of the family, be happy.
The fire bleeder twitches and is close to returning, but. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
We must take care of the thorn in the family side. We must crush them.
Perhaps they're heading to the tower now.
Maybe we could send some family there to deal with them ahead of time. I know that father said we should remain here and see if the gnoll and her followers can take care of the issue.
But why not help them? Yes, help the gnoll. Then father will see us taking the initiative.
Yes.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Then he will replace that wretched elf and human that he brought in.
They're so clumsy, and they've been nothing but problems since they joined us. What help have they been? None. Just a waste of resources and time.
No. No, they must stop thinking like that.
Distrusting the father like this is a bad idea.
When the cage crumbles, God will die, and the two who don't belong will wither away.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: The gnome begins to doodle in the dirt of the quarry, creating a rough worship area for their goddess. They begin to pray to the unmaker.
As dawn begins to crest the mountains, the gnome begins to fall asleep.
As they dream, they see a six legged creature with untold rows of fangs and numerous eyes crawl and writhe in a cage, slowly chewing and spitting out small brown and red scorpions. These scorpions lash out with their stingers again and again at the cage, and finally, a small hole appears. Through that hole, the gnome begins to fall, hearing the beastly cackling of the monster, clacking its mandibles as the gnome falls into its mouth, slowly being devoured by the creature, its numerous teeth gnashing and grinding the gnome into nothingness, unmaking the gnome.
As night falls, the gnome awakens from their dream, their nightmare perhaps a vision.
As they awake, they begin their normal routine, plodding around, waking the other members of the family that they have brought with them.
However, something feels off for them, a strange itch at the back corners of their mouth.
Something in them has changed.
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