February 21, 2022 • 36 mins
Read the transcript and get more from the show:
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Meet my guests:
Jessica Marcrum: https://twitter.com/angrynerdgirl
David Markiwsky: https://twitter.com/DavidMarkiwsky
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/382873/Uncaged-Goddesses?affiliate_id=1485089
Music by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lucas (00:00):
Hey, it's Lucas,
quick word of caution.
We say a naughty word in this
episode and we say it a lot.
So if that is a problem for
you or anyone else under the
sound of my voice, skip ahead.
Past about the 15 minute mark
Jessica Marcrum (00:12):
You are in Roothold,
which is in the plane of elemental chaos.
And after a lot of adventuring, tunneling
through sheet rock, you arrive at
an enormous hall made of onyx, ruby
quartz, and glimmering star sapphires.
Sitting on the throne is a
hulking, muscular man carved of
(00:34):
rock with dancing gemstone eyes.
He laughs as he braids the hair
of the goddess lounging in his
lap (00:40):
Luthic, the Blood Moon Witch.
Her body, though hardened from
battle is relaxed into his,
her face radiating sheer joy.
That is of course, until she notices you.
Lucas (00:54):
Welcome back to Making a Monster.
This episode, I'm bringing on some guests
I've been hoping to reach since day
one of the project, believe it or not.
Uncaged (01:02):
Volume One released to the
DM's Guild, D&D's online storefront for
user-created content in June of 2019.
Each adventure subverts tropes around
a female mythological creature,
including hags, harpies, and medusas,
and it was a sign that D&D players
were hungry for nuanced, thoughtful
explorations of RPG monsters, and the
(01:22):
marginalized myths that inspired them.
And that volume has since
sold more than 5,000 copies.
The team is now working on their fifth
volume of Uncaged anthologies, this time
focusing on goddesses and that volume
is set to be released on February 22nd.
So with me are Jess Marcrum writing
director and adventure author
(01:44):
for Uncaged, and David Markiwsky,
producer and project manager.
Welcome to the show, guys.
Jessica Marcrum (01:48):
Hey,
thanks for having us.
Lucas (01:50):
So tell me a little bit
about you how long have you
been playing Dungeons & Dragons?
David Markiwsky (01:55):
Yeah, I
started playing D&D just at
the tail end of fourth edition.
About, I got about six months into
a campaign and then realize that
fifth edition was a little faster
to run since swapped over to that.
And much ever since.
Jessica Marcrum (02:10):
I got halfway
through character creation for 3.5.
And then game ended up not happening.
And then I didn't play again until
I was almost 30 and, got into
role-playing and not with D&D actually
(02:31):
with tunnels and trolls of all things.
And, then started playing some dark
sun and didn't really look back.
Lucas (02:40):
I haven't heard the
name Dark Sun in a long time.
That's one of those settings
that didn't really make it to
fifth edition officially, did it?
Jessica Marcrum (02:47):
No, but I wish, I hope
that it can, there's a lot of fun there.
Lucas (02:52):
When did you guys make the switch
from playing the game to writing for it?
Is this a part of what
you do in your day job?
Jessica Marcrum (02:59):
I'm a social worker
slash trauma therapist and my day job.
The first thing I ever wrote for game
design was actually Uncaged Volume One.
And now I have two full-time jobs.
David Markiwsky (03:13):
I think I had
been DM-ing for about four months
before I started writing something
for DM's Guild started off with
little pay-what-you-want adventure.
I think it was in 2016 or
2017 was when I wrote it.
Jessica Marcrum (03:30):
Oh, so experienced David.
Lucas (03:32):
That would have been right
after the DM's Guild went live here.
You're on the vanguard.
David Markiwsky (03:38):
then after that,
I think Gimble's Guide to the
Feywild was my next big thing.
And the last thing that I wrote
before getting in with Uncaged.
Lucas (03:46):
And you guys are just a small
part of a team by the time we're
now working on volume five, how
many people are involved in this?
David Markiwsky (03:54):
So in goddesses we
have just over 70, I think we have 72,
add all of our sensitivity readers,
artists, editors, proofreaders.
I think the original volumes
were about 150 people total.
It sounds about right.
Cause I think we only had like 30
artists for all four of those volumes.
Jessica Marcrum (04:13):
which is bananas to me.
Lucas (04:15):
That's
David Markiwsky (04:15):
Well, it's
more bananas that we have that
many artists for goddesses.
Jessica Marcrum (04:21):
Yeah, it's true.
Goddesses has such good art though.
Lucas (04:24):
Who's the core team I've
spoken on a previous episode to Ashley
Warren, and I corresponded briefly
with Gwen Bassett setting this up.
Is there anyone else in kind of the core
creative team whose name I might know?
David Markiwsky (04:37):
Yeah.
So, Gwen Bassett and I are the
project managers on Goddesses.
Jess has the writing director we
also have an editor director as well.
Laura Evans who kind of managed
and coordinated all of our
editing and proofreading efforts.
Jessica Marcrum (04:52):
And Ashley's
kind of our producer emeritus.
David Markiwsky (04:56):
yeah, exactly.
Ashley hasn't been as much
involved in like the nuts and
bolts of creating the fifth volume.
We kind of took that on from
her, but she's been here to
guide us through everything.
Lucas (05:07):
Can you guys break down for me, how
you put this set of adventures together?
David Markiwsky (05:13):
Yeah.
So, it started mostly
with the pitching phase.
We got over 200 pitches, I
think 221 pitches total is how
we got.
And we were originally only planning
on having 20 adventures in the book.
And we ended up adding
an extra one on there.
Just because we got so many good
ones, but part of what our we had a
(05:34):
team of people to review the pitches
because there were so many of them and
each one was over three or 400 words.
So we had eight different people that
were kind of scoring the pitches.
one of the things that were criteria
we scored on was how much does this
sort of align with what Uncaged
is about, how "Uncaged-y" is this?
(05:54):
Then that of into like feminist
representations and twisting on
tropes and representing things
that aren't normally represented.
All that kind of got in there.
Jessica Marcrum (06:05):
And can like, if this
is an evil can they still have good
reasons for being evil without it being
like surprised they were good all along.
Lucas (06:15):
Ha!
David Markiwsky (06:16):
Exactly.
And I think that, like, we really
especially tackle that in the next phase.
Once we kind of our pitches and
brought all the authors on board.
We had everyone write outlines and
Jess in particular, but also rest
of the admin team spent some time
going through all the outlines and
offering that kind of feedback on like,
(06:37):
okay, well, we'll need to push this
a little bit more in this direction,
a little bit more in that direction.
And then once we got into the
actual writing, then I think
Jess got into the nuts and
bolts , of some of the adventures.
Jessica Marcrum (06:50):
Our tagline
for this was basically.
Just because she's evil doesn't
mean she doesn't have her reasons
or something it was phrased nicer,
but that, that's kind of how it was.
David Markiwsky (07:00):
Every
villain has her reasons.
Jessica Marcrum (07:02):
There we go.
Thank you.
And just like how Uncaged's thing was,
every monster has her story kind of thing.
And so we really wanted to
stick with their villains, but
they also have their reasons.
And our team that David mentioned to
review pitches was us on the admin team,
(07:23):
but also a diverse group of people who
had been involved with uncaged before,
like previous writers and artists on it.
And then also people who had not
been involved with on cage before,
but were very familiar with it.
So like people who have run a million
adventures from uncaged we could.
(07:46):
Like people who knew what we were
looking for and have a good idea of what,
sounds like a fun adventure for you?
Lucas (07:53):
Yeah, fantastic.
And I guess in the spirit of continually
editing down I know we've chosen
one monster in particular for today.
And I suppose I should pause to
kind of address the phrasing here.
I'm using the word monster in the sense in
which Dungeons & Dragons uses it that is
anything with a stat block, I'm going to
be conflating goddess and monster in this
(08:15):
conversation, and I don't think there's
anything I can really do to avoid that.
Jessica Marcrum (08:18):
If it has a
stat block, it can be killed.
Lucas (08:21):
Yep.
Jessica Marcrum (08:22):
Which is why some of the
goddesses in this don't have stat blocks.
The ones you encounter in their
room, some of the authors were
like, You cannot kill her here's
things she can do to you though.
Lucas (08:36):
interesting.
So, so does I'm going
to spoil a little bit.
Does Luthic have a statlock then?
Or are we operating in this kind of
non-mechanical, non-combat space?
Jessica Marcrum (08:46):
She has
a big, chunky stat block.
She has two full page stat block.
Lucas (08:52):
My gosh.
Jessica Marcrum (08:53):
She is CR 30.
She does a lot of things.
Lucas (08:57):
When you were building Luthic, is
she a conversion from an older edition?
Does she appear elsewhere in D&D
lore, or was she spun out of whole
cloth for Uncaged anthologies?
Jessica Marcrum (09:08):
So she, despite having
a lot written about her, I could not
find any stats her in previous editions.
There's just a lot of lore over
five editions that describe what
she can do and how she does it.
(09:30):
And so I took all of those powers
and put them into her step block.
So her big things are that she
has claws that can extend to be
10 feet long or eight feet long.
She.
Lucas (09:45):
geez.
Jessica Marcrum (09:47):
Bore through solid rock.
can fly.
She can cause blood rain that,
weakens her foes and insight a
frenzy that strengthens her wounded
allies that makes them stronger.
can inflict terrible diseases
on others and make everyone
around her vulnerable to disease.
(10:09):
And she can heal wounds as long
as she's touching the ground,
because her boyfriend, whose home
she is at, is the God of earth.
She also can't be paralyzed,
petrified, blinded, or deaf.
And if she is touching the ground,
Lucas (10:25):
naturally.
Jessica Marcrum (10:26):
of course.
So I gave her a lot of stuff to
do that, you know, ties into that.
Plus just stuff you get from being a god.
Lucas (10:34):
What role did she generally
fill or rather, where did you
find her in these older stories?
Jessica Marcrum (10:41):
Luthic gets really poorly
treated in a lot of the lore because
she does all of this really cool stuff.
She gives the orcs like visions of
the blood moon, which incites them to
battle and makes them into warriors.
She's there when every orc is born,
she's there when every orc dies.
(11:01):
yet she's really ignored by most
orcs just seen as like Gruumsh's wife
and disregarded by the rest of the
pantheon, most of which are her children.
So her husband and her children all
treat her like trash and the orcs,
except for like her clerics who are
(11:23):
called the orc Claws of Luthic, all
also kind of are like, whatever about
her, but it's canon that she's like the
smartest person in the pantheon and the
only one who's good at battle strategy.
She's also the only one who
knows how to heal apparently.
So, you know, she, she does all
(11:43):
this and doesn't get any credit.
And so this adventure is her acknowledging
that she needs a little bit of credit.
Lucas (11:49):
Let's talk about Luthic as a
goddess because D&D has a particular way
of handling divinity, assigning them
to domains, which is not something that
every religion has done nor the ones
that do consistently throughout history.
If we were to assign Luthic a
domain, how would you do that?
And what would you say
falls within her purview?
Jessica Marcrum (12:11):
She has to actually
she's the life domain on the nature
domain, but for our purposes in
the book, she's in the life domain.
When we were working on the book,
we looked at all of the neutral and
evil goddesses, and most of them
fell into life, death and trickery.
(12:31):
Is that right?
David Markiwsky (12:33):
kind of interesting.
In like the previous Uncaged books the
adventures were broken up by tier,
but since this time they're all tier
four, we couldn't really do that.
And especially because the difference
between level 17 and level 19, isn't
very apparent in a tier four adventure.
so level ranging them.
Wasn't great.
so we ended up breaking the
whole book into domains.
(12:55):
And what we found when we were doing that,
was that a lot of the domains that get
assigned to the gods or the goddesses,
always a hundred percent makes sense.
They kind of go like anything this
goddess has ever done is trickery?
Oh yeah, they tricked somebody?
They must be a trickery domain.
Oh, they grew something
(13:15):
or they healed somebody?
They must be life domain.
Jessica Marcrum (13:18):
It's so weird.
David Markiwsky (13:21):
Like, the Great Mother,
the primordial beholder goddess, is one
of the ones that appears in the book.
assigned like the life domain, the war
domain, there were a few random ones for
it that just of didn't really make sense.
Lucas (13:36):
What does that tell you about D&D?
Jessica Marcrum (13:38):
Well, at one point, I did
go look and see how many of the goddesses
had an ephithet that had bitch in it.
And.
It was a lot.
And was sad that Luthic didn't have one.
So I originally gave her
one in the bad ending.
And so many editors were
like, this is terrible
because I guess if you don't know that,
(13:59):
like over half of the goddesses have "the
bitch whatever", like "the sea bitch",
"the storm bitch", "the rage bitch",
"the night bitch", then, you know, just
calling a goddess, "the something bitch",
people are going to be like, wow, harsh.
But it's like, no, she, she gets
to be with all of her friends now.
Lucas (14:18):
I didn't even know that.
And I've spent way too much time
doing this kind of research.
David Markiwsky (14:23):
It's the type of quality
research that goes into Uncaged books.
Jessica Marcrum (14:27):
I think that was
Ashley's original, like what pushed
her to want to do Goddesses was
seeing that Umberlee had two of them.
It was like "the bitch queen" and "the
sea bitch," and she was like, we need
a Goddesses book to redeem Umberlee.
David Markiwsky (14:41):
That was the genesis
of the Uncaged (14:42):
Goddesses book
was what, three years ago in the
Uncaged discord, when were talking
about Umberlee being called bitch.
And we were like, we need to do a book
of Uncaged goddesses, and then it kind of
fell under the radar for a few years until
we dredged it back out of the sea again.
Lucas (15:03):
What did you want players
to, to pull from this encounter?
What did you want them to feel
or to understand in a new way,
just after having met Luthic?
Jessica Marcrum (15:12):
So, none of
them fought her in the fight,
Lucas (15:15):
Yeah.
Jessica Marcrum (15:16):
which is why I
had David uh, run three different
versions of her, I think.
But yeah, that seems to be a very
Uncaged thing actually, is that you
get to the big monster and players tend
to like have a conversation instead.
Although I did set a thing so that like,
if you really want to fight, Luthic will
(15:36):
fight you and you don't have to kill her.
She is very hard to kill.
But I just wanted it to be a fun fight.
Like one where her actions kind
of work together like so she can
it rain, blood that makes you
(15:56):
more weakened to necrotic damage.
And then some of her other things
do necrotic damage and she can
spell cast, but doesn't really
need PSEO, but she can, if.
For whatever she can call on
allies who were in the throne
room to fight on her behalf.
Cause there's people worshiping her
and her boyfriend and there, and she
(16:17):
can give them advantage on the attack
role because that's, you know, part
of her thing to buff her allies.
And you get her down weak enough, she has
one of those mythic actions from Theros
and she turns into a big cave bear.
David Markiwsky (16:35):
Yeah, that was probably
one of my favorite little editions
was that cave bear, mythic action.
Lucas (16:40):
Is she connected in some
way to sort of the cave bear idea?
Jessica Marcrum (16:44):
They're one of
her sacred animals and she is
known to transform into cave bears.
So initially I had her starting the
fight as a cave bear, but then after
David was running it a bunch, we agreed
that it was a, I think it was David's
suggestion, actually, it would be more
fun if once you get her down to zero hit
points, she regains 200 and is a bear now.
David Markiwsky (17:07):
Yeah.
And like the, that whole kind of
fight with her the, probably the best
part about running it, at least as a
DM and that all the players really,
I don't know if enjoyed would be
the word was that Luthic was super
mobile and just chased people down.
The all the casters of the party when
(17:29):
I was running it, we're constantly
trying to get away from her.
And she was just pursuing them
and like all the way back and
forth across the throne room.
No matter if they threw up
walls, no matter if they threw
up spells, she would just chew
through it, trying to get at them.
So that like bringing that cave bear in.
(17:50):
When you think you finally got her
down is like, oh, is finally over.
Oh, wait, no, the chase is not okay.
Jessica Marcrum (17:56):
Yeah, she has
50 foot move speed, 50 foot fly
speed, and a burrow speed, 50 feet.
Lucas (18:03):
don't mind.
Gosh you cannot hide from Luthic.
That's incredible.
David Markiwsky (18:08):
In play testing,
that was very much like you can't
hide was definitely the theme.
Cause we'd have wizards.
They would throw up a wall of force
and she would burrow underneath it.
You'd have like the teleport
away and she'd do a bonus.
Like there was a bonus action
for a pursuit, I think.
Jessica Marcrum (18:24):
Yeah.
She tunnels and knocks
everybody around her prone.
David Markiwsky (18:28):
I think it was
a legendary action actually.
But yeah.
Anyways, she would, every time
they'd try and get away, she'd
be right on their heels again.
So it was definitely a
theme of play-testing.
Jessica Marcrum (18:39):
Yeah, that's fine.
And she can also choose to just
ignore spells because she's
high enough level to do that.
Lucas (18:46):
I should ask before we move on from
this particular point I think there's only
one officially published CR 30 creature.
I could be wrong about that,
but only one comes to mind.
Jessica Marcrum (18:57):
The tarrasque.
Lucas (18:58):
Yeah, that's yeah, the big one.
This kind of specifically designated
as a world ending catastrophe the,
the point of reference for all
other difficulty curves in the game.
So when you were designing for a
challenge rating that high what did
you have to, what did you have to do
to occupy this space at the very
top of the games, difficulty curve?
Jessica Marcrum (19:21):
Oh, there's a couple.
Now Tiamat is also CR 30, as is aspect
of Tiamat and aspect of Bahamut.
David Markiwsky (19:28):
Yeah.
The Tiamat one was one of the uh, so
like one of the things that I did was
kind of go through all the, the avatars,
goddesses, anyone that got a stat block
and try and measure where they were.
And Tiamat was actually the, the measuring
stick she's pretty much one of the only
goddesses that has a stat block currently.
(19:51):
So was kind of like the be a little
bit higher, can be a little bit
lower, but should be somewhere
around this amount of stuff.
But it was also where we, lot of
the, the extra features that ended
up making their way into most of
the goddess stat blocks come from.
So things magic immunity
(20:11):
and stuff like that.
Jessica Marcrum (20:12):
Yeah, I know we took
it wasn't just us, but like Tiamat
and Sul Khatesh from Eberron were
two that I think a lot of people
used as references possibly Xariel
too, for some of the more undead.
(20:33):
I know I looked at Orcus for a
couple of things just to kind
of figure out how Orcus works.
Lucas (20:38):
And just for context Tiamat and
Bahamut being the forgotten realms, sort
of yin and yang of draconic deities.
Jessica Marcrum (20:45):
Xariel's the Archduke
of Avernus from Descent into Avernus.
Sul Khatesh from Eberron "one of the
great overlords who holds dominion over
the world of fear, war, and death."
Lucas (20:59):
What were some of those things
that mechanically belonged only to
goddesses that, definitely let players
and DMs know that that is the caliber
of creature with, which we're working?
David Markiwsky (21:09):
Yeah.
Like limited magic immunity
is the one that came.
I think it's directly
on Tiamat stop block.
And all the different goddesses
have some form of magic, resistance
or magic immunity to them.
The weapons, anything they do is going
to be a magic attack another one.
Jessica Marcrum (21:28):
Also disincorporation
is a big one that's in Tiamat, but it's
like, if they drop to zero hit points
and die, they don't actually die.
They travel back to their domain and
then reincorporate at some point.
David Markiwsky (21:41):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think pre yeah, everyone would have
legendary actions, but also the resistance
to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing.
I'm pretty sure appears in
every single goddess as well.
Jessica Marcrum (21:54):
Yeah.
I think they all have some kind of absurd
immunities and truesight is a big one
that everybody has in various degrees.
I remember you made me shrink
Luthic, cause it was hurting all
of your casters because I gave
her truesight and tremor sense.
And you were like, she can't
have this much of both.
Lucas (22:14):
Yeah, that's, that's
an interesting interaction.
And a lot of this, a lot of those
particular mechanics are our account
are encompassing a lot of really
interesting literary tropes as far as
what they can see and what they can feel.
And the penetration of illusions.
And there's something to be said
here about the continual falling
off of illusion as a school
of magic relative to the rest.
(22:34):
But that's a different podcast.
I think.
David Markiwsky (22:37):
Yeah.
And like, I think that's a, it's
probably a good point that there's
actually like this weird, in tier
four, things like true sight and
tremors, hands, blind sight, they're
all a little bit more common, right?
Once you get into higher level monsters.
But there's like a weird intersectionality
of them where they're okay on their own.
But yeah, start stacking them up,
(23:00):
they start to remove so many options.
That was something that I think we kind
of figured out in the first round of
play testing where it wasn't the fact
that something wrong with a monster
having tremor sense and true sight.
But that when you have them both
together, eliminate all the options.
Like there's, there's no way to kind
(23:22):
of trick your way past it once you
start stacking them over each other.
Lucas (23:26):
You're kind of also bumping
against the sort of "rocks fall
and everyone dies" trope where
"you're dead because I say so".
You're on the razor's edge between
having something that you can
interact with meaningfully in a combat
position and something that's just
beyond your ken as an adventure.
David Markiwsky (23:44):
Yeah.
absolutely.
And it really comes to that, like sure.
It makes sense.
A goddess should be able to see
through your tricks and like most of
them, but there should still be a way.
Right?
And I think the tremor sense one was
because during play testing I had two
players and one of them was trying to go
(24:05):
in with a disguise and got saw through
and the other one was like, well, then
I'll go underground and like turn it
into an earth elemental and earth glide!
Well, with tremor sense
she could see that too.
So it kind of like, we, I think we went
through a checklist together of like,
these are all the ways that someone
might try and approach trick their way
through this (24:26):
will any of them work?
Some of them probably should work.
Jessica Marcrum (24:31):
Yeah, we really
wanted, not just for Luthic, but
for all of the encounters in this
to be possible, but difficult.
And especially when you're at tier
four and you have, I mean, that's ideal
for any encounter, but at tier four,
when you have so many options at your
disposal, the last thing you want is a,
(24:53):
well, you can't do that cause I said so.
Lucas (24:55):
If the tagline for this
is every goddess has their
reason, what is Luthic's reason?
Jessica Marcrum (25:00):
Oh, I mean, that's
kind of what you find out over
the course of the adventure, but
Lucas (25:04):
Oh, no.
Have I asked for spoilers?
Jessica Marcrum (25:07):
No.
And this, I mean, I, I talked about in
the author's notes, how it was kind of
very loosely inspired by the Russian
folktale of how the sun was brought
back to the sky and also the nineties
classic, How Stella Got Her Groove Back
because Luthic is kind of fed up of being
(25:27):
ignored and mistreated by not just her
pantheon, but all of her worshipers and
just decides to not one day and leaves
and goes to her hot young boyfriend's
house and has no intention of returning.
And so if adventures are like,
no people are dying, you have
to come back and do your job.
(25:49):
Then there might be an
altercation if they're less
than friendly in their approach.
'Cause you know, she doesn't just quit.
She, she like middle fingers up releases
the escape hatch on the airplane and
fires two guns in the air before leaving.
She, she sends a blood rain
plague on everybody as she
(26:11):
quits her job in epic fashion.
Lucas (26:13):
That's incredible.
There's there's so much here.
I don't think I expected nineties
coming of age to match Russian
folktales, but here we are.
Oh gosh.
The Uncaged Anthology actually got
a lot of press in its early days as
kind of the feminist D&D adventure.
It seems to me, that's something you
guys are fairly comfortable with.
So like in the context of what you're
trying to do with Uncaged, bringing
(26:34):
someone like Luthic into this, what
does she contribute to that conversation
that none of the other goddesses do?
David Markiwsky (26:42):
I think that
all of the, the goddesses.
and Jesse, you can speak
to Luthic in particular.
But bringing a goddess in, especially
a goddess that has, is like canonically
evil kind of gives you a different
perspective that like, feminism in
terms of an adventure doesn't just
encompass "take these things that are
evil and make them good" or "remove
(27:04):
their reason for maligning them",
that you can still have those, your
own motivations still tell a story
that's still that's centered on them.
Jessica Marcrum (27:14):
Yeah, I think with
all of the goddesses, lot of, most of
our writers went really deep into the
forgotten rooms lore, which the original
uncaged books didn't so much, some
of them did, but a lot of the uncaged
adventures were taken directly from
fairytales and it was flipping fairytale
and mythological tropes because these are.
(27:37):
D&D goddesses they're taken
straight from their lower and
addressing issues in their lore.
So with Luthics, it's that she's
super powerful and super smart
and doesn't get any credit.
So her adventure is kind of like,
why am I putting up with this?
(27:58):
It, her acknowledging her own
worth and kind of forcing everyone
to reckon with that, right?
Like what if you have a really
attentive mom who just decides
to stop momming one day?
Like what happens?
Some of the other adventures deal
more with trauma that goddesses have.
(28:22):
Undergone and reconciling their
relationships with other deities or with
their own family, with our Pantheon.
And some of them who had less lore
about them the authors got to get a
little more creative and either invent
something cool for them to do, or kind
(28:44):
of just explore like what their domain
could be and aspects of how it works.
That was very long-winded.
Lucas (28:53):
No, that's what I'm here for.
What are you hoping that this
particular adventure with Luthic
is going to contribute to people's
understanding of their daily lives?
Jessica Marcrum (29:04):
I hope that basically
everybody who has had to put up
with misogynistic nonsense at their
work at their home sees that they
have value because they might see
themselves in lieu thick a little bit
(29:25):
and realizes that they have value and
they don't have to put up with it.
They can just leave if they want,
or if they want to go back and make
things better, they can do that too.
Lucas (29:36):
Yeah, I know I've asked for
probably a master's level thesis that we,
that we could be writing on this kind of
material, but thank you for weighing in.
Orcs have had kind of a troublesome
history over the course of, of D&D
and especially in Forgotten Realms.
There was an errata that came
out recently that altered some of
the lore that had been published.
It's kind of changed going into
(29:57):
new editions of the game or new
printings of some of these monsters.
Is there something that you about
Luthic that contributes to the
conversation around orcs that you
would want to make sure we cover?
Or is that something that you'd
rather leave to uh, to someone else?
Jessica Marcrum (30:10):
I had concerns
writing about orcs as a white writer.
And that was one of the first things
that I flagged for sensitivity reading
was to have at least one person review
the adventure to make sure that I
wasn't getting in into like tropey
things with the depiction of the orcs.
(30:35):
And like I've always loved orcs
because I, I'm a tall girl and any
time I see other tall buff women,
I'm like, "Yes, we are the same!"
But there so much more than that.
Uh, So yeah, I, we got really lucky honey
and dice sensitivity read for this one.
(30:57):
She read for a lot of our adventures
and was just really lovely.
And having her insight on
this was really helpful.
So that was, that was really great.
Lucas (31:09):
Did that process change the way
you think about orcs to sort of expand
it beyond this sisterhood of tall girls?
Jessica Marcrum (31:15):
I think, I mean the big
thing was just depicting them as, you
know, a full people in a full culture.
And that's really hard when you also
want to focus the goddess herself and
you have only 3000 words and our limit.
So, what I tried to do with this is put
in like little bonus things that orcish
(31:38):
players, not orcish players, or just
characters might know, or people who
grew up around orcs, but also people
who worship Luthic, or are really into
religions so that it wasn't just like,
oh, this is just an art or culture thing.
Like, nobody else knows this,
but you know, also if you know,
(31:58):
religion, you might know this.
The other ties were like, but if your
character is an orc, they might actually
know people who are being harmed by what's
going on to have that kind of tie there.
Like you might run into some
family the way to make it feel
more personal to them, but yeah.
And showing multiple types of NPCs so
(32:22):
that it's not depicting a monolith.
So it's less, orcs are like this and more.
This ORC is like this.
David Markiwsky (32:29):
We did try and
like bring a lot of that same sort
of care to all the adventures that
we went through her in the book.
And like having sensitivity
readers is something that's
been important throughout.
All of, not just on caged, but
Jess and I have worked on together.
I'm pretty sure.
(32:50):
So we did in sensitive
sensitivity, readers, wherever
we thought they might be helpful.
Even in cases where we were like probably
doesn't need it here, but we'll do
it better, better to do it than not.
So like, I think altogether we
had 12 or 14 of the 21 adventures
(33:10):
required sensitivity readers
for one thing or another.
And not just for like the issues with
orcs, but anything that that might
be or might require more sensitivity,
or maybe even in like in the case of
the Luthic adventure where having an
additional perspective might enhance the
(33:31):
adventure or broaden the scope of what the
writer would be able to kind of commit.
Jessica Marcrum (33:37):
Yeah, we had a couple
goddesses in this who their whole thing
is specifically dealing with illusion or
things that play with your mental health.
So we had a lot of mental
health reading for that as well.
Lucas (33:50):
Yeah, that is also another podcast.
And I hope, I hope you guys will come back
because the, the door and there's so much
in uncaged, that's like very much in line
with what I want to do with this show.
So what's the best way to to make sure
I get a copy of Uncaged when it drops?
Jessica Marcrum (34:08):
Follow
David and Gwen on Twitter.
David Markiwsky (34:10):
So yeah, Uncaged:
Goddesses comes out on February 22nd.
So which is Tuesday coming out digitally
and in print the DM's Guild You
can follow either me or Jess or our
other project lead Gwen on Twitter.
And we'll be about it over the
next week or, and into perpetuity.
(34:35):
Yeah, Probably longer.
Jessica Marcrum (34:36):
And yeah, if you
go to uncagedanthology.com, we'll
have a link to it there as well.
mind's still kind of blown with
all of the amazing artists and
writers that we got this who want
to be a part of our little book.
David Markiwsky (34:51):
Yeah.
Especially some of the artists I'm like,
what do you mean you on Baldur's Gate?
Jessica Marcrum (34:57):
Yeah.
We
David Markiwsky (34:58):
What do you mean?
Jessica Marcrum (34:59):
gate artists.
We have, one of our writers is an original
Fallout dev and writes for Star Trek.
And I'm like, what are you doing here?
David Markiwsky (35:09):
Well, that's like
when I, I didn't realize Ivory wrote
for Larry and on divinity to handy,
they wrote an adventure for us
We were like, are you
sure you mean to be here?
You do know it's revenue share.
Are you, sure?
. every adventure got their
own border and that was,
Jessica Marcrum (35:26):
and David did it.
David Markiwsky (35:27):
that was
me.
Lucas (35:28):
man.
Jessica Marcrum (35:31):
Yeah.
is no stock art in this book.
It's it's all David.
Lucas (35:35):
Incredible.
Incredible.
That's it for episode one of
season four of Making a Monster.
And thank you for listening.
If you like what you've heard and you
want to support the show, please share
it with the people you play games with.
Your recommendation goes a long
way to helping people trust me
with their time and attention.
And it's a real gift to me
and the creators I feature.
(35:56):
If you want to go deeper with the show,
get stat blocks behind the scenes,
content and other monstrous perks.
You can support me on Patrion
at patrion.com/scintilla studio.
That's S C I N T I L L a studio.
You can find a full transcript of this
episode on my website, scintilla.studio
slash monster very, you can also use
(36:18):
D&D to make a difference in animal
conservation and the preservation
of habitat by checking out book
of extinction, it's a BC three of
extinct species brought to life
again for Dungeons and dragons.
We've got a three monster
preview out already.
So you can see if it's a match
for your table and learn about the
stranger than fiction stories these
animals encountered in real life.
Hey, it's Lucas,
quick word of caution.
We say a naughty word in this
episode and we say it a lot.
So if that is a problem for
you or anyone else under the
sound of my voice, skip ahead.
Past about the 15 minute mark
Jessica Marcrum (00:12):
You are in Roothold,
which is in the plane of elemental chaos.
And after a lot of adventuring, tunneling
through sheet rock, you arrive at
an enormous hall made of onyx, ruby
quartz, and glimmering star sapphires.
Sitting on the throne is a
hulking, muscular man carved of
(00:34):
rock with dancing gemstone eyes.
He laughs as he braids the hair
of the goddess lounging in his
lap (00:40):
Luthic, the Blood Moon Witch.
Her body, though hardened from
battle is relaxed into his,
her face radiating sheer joy.
That is of course, until she notices you.
Lucas (00:54):
Welcome back to Making a Monster.
This episode, I'm bringing on some guests
I've been hoping to reach since day
one of the project, believe it or not.
Uncaged (01:02):
Volume One released to the
DM's Guild, D&D's online storefront for
user-created content in June of 2019.
Each adventure subverts tropes around
a female mythological creature,
including hags, harpies, and medusas,
and it was a sign that D&D players
were hungry for nuanced, thoughtful
explorations of RPG monsters, and the
(01:22):
marginalized myths that inspired them.
And that volume has since
sold more than 5,000 copies.
The team is now working on their fifth
volume of Uncaged anthologies, this time
focusing on goddesses and that volume
is set to be released on February 22nd.
So with me are Jess Marcrum writing
director and adventure author
(01:44):
for Uncaged, and David Markiwsky,
producer and project manager.
Welcome to the show, guys.
Jessica Marcrum (01:48):
Hey,
thanks for having us.
Lucas (01:50):
So tell me a little bit
about you how long have you
been playing Dungeons & Dragons?
David Markiwsky (01:55):
Yeah, I
started playing D&D just at
the tail end of fourth edition.
About, I got about six months into
a campaign and then realize that
fifth edition was a little faster
to run since swapped over to that.
And much ever since.
Jessica Marcrum (02:10):
I got halfway
through character creation for 3.5.
And then game ended up not happening.
And then I didn't play again until
I was almost 30 and, got into
role-playing and not with D&D actually
(02:31):
with tunnels and trolls of all things.
And, then started playing some dark
sun and didn't really look back.
Lucas (02:40):
I haven't heard the
name Dark Sun in a long time.
That's one of those settings
that didn't really make it to
fifth edition officially, did it?
Jessica Marcrum (02:47):
No, but I wish, I hope
that it can, there's a lot of fun there.
Lucas (02:52):
When did you guys make the switch
from playing the game to writing for it?
Is this a part of what
you do in your day job?
Jessica Marcrum (02:59):
I'm a social worker
slash trauma therapist and my day job.
The first thing I ever wrote for game
design was actually Uncaged Volume One.
And now I have two full-time jobs.
David Markiwsky (03:13):
I think I had
been DM-ing for about four months
before I started writing something
for DM's Guild started off with
little pay-what-you-want adventure.
I think it was in 2016 or
2017 was when I wrote it.
Jessica Marcrum (03:30):
Oh, so experienced David.
Lucas (03:32):
That would have been right
after the DM's Guild went live here.
You're on the vanguard.
David Markiwsky (03:38):
then after that,
I think Gimble's Guide to the
Feywild was my next big thing.
And the last thing that I wrote
before getting in with Uncaged.
Lucas (03:46):
And you guys are just a small
part of a team by the time we're
now working on volume five, how
many people are involved in this?
David Markiwsky (03:54):
So in goddesses we
have just over 70, I think we have 72,
add all of our sensitivity readers,
artists, editors, proofreaders.
I think the original volumes
were about 150 people total.
It sounds about right.
Cause I think we only had like 30
artists for all four of those volumes.
Jessica Marcrum (04:13):
which is bananas to me.
Lucas (04:15):
That's
David Markiwsky (04:15):
Well, it's
more bananas that we have that
many artists for goddesses.
Jessica Marcrum (04:21):
Yeah, it's true.
Goddesses has such good art though.
Lucas (04:24):
Who's the core team I've
spoken on a previous episode to Ashley
Warren, and I corresponded briefly
with Gwen Bassett setting this up.
Is there anyone else in kind of the core
creative team whose name I might know?
David Markiwsky (04:37):
Yeah.
So, Gwen Bassett and I are the
project managers on Goddesses.
Jess has the writing director we
also have an editor director as well.
Laura Evans who kind of managed
and coordinated all of our
editing and proofreading efforts.
Jessica Marcrum (04:52):
And Ashley's
kind of our producer emeritus.
David Markiwsky (04:56):
yeah, exactly.
Ashley hasn't been as much
involved in like the nuts and
bolts of creating the fifth volume.
We kind of took that on from
her, but she's been here to
guide us through everything.
Lucas (05:07):
Can you guys break down for me, how
you put this set of adventures together?
David Markiwsky (05:13):
Yeah.
So, it started mostly
with the pitching phase.
We got over 200 pitches, I
think 221 pitches total is how
we got.
And we were originally only planning
on having 20 adventures in the book.
And we ended up adding
an extra one on there.
Just because we got so many good
ones, but part of what our we had a
(05:34):
team of people to review the pitches
because there were so many of them and
each one was over three or 400 words.
So we had eight different people that
were kind of scoring the pitches.
one of the things that were criteria
we scored on was how much does this
sort of align with what Uncaged
is about, how "Uncaged-y" is this?
(05:54):
Then that of into like feminist
representations and twisting on
tropes and representing things
that aren't normally represented.
All that kind of got in there.
Jessica Marcrum (06:05):
And can like, if this
is an evil can they still have good
reasons for being evil without it being
like surprised they were good all along.
Lucas (06:15):
Ha!
David Markiwsky (06:16):
Exactly.
And I think that, like, we really
especially tackle that in the next phase.
Once we kind of our pitches and
brought all the authors on board.
We had everyone write outlines and
Jess in particular, but also rest
of the admin team spent some time
going through all the outlines and
offering that kind of feedback on like,
(06:37):
okay, well, we'll need to push this
a little bit more in this direction,
a little bit more in that direction.
And then once we got into the
actual writing, then I think
Jess got into the nuts and
bolts , of some of the adventures.
Jessica Marcrum (06:50):
Our tagline
for this was basically.
Just because she's evil doesn't
mean she doesn't have her reasons
or something it was phrased nicer,
but that, that's kind of how it was.
David Markiwsky (07:00):
Every
villain has her reasons.
Jessica Marcrum (07:02):
There we go.
Thank you.
And just like how Uncaged's thing was,
every monster has her story kind of thing.
And so we really wanted to
stick with their villains, but
they also have their reasons.
And our team that David mentioned to
review pitches was us on the admin team,
(07:23):
but also a diverse group of people who
had been involved with uncaged before,
like previous writers and artists on it.
And then also people who had not
been involved with on cage before,
but were very familiar with it.
So like people who have run a million
adventures from uncaged we could.
(07:46):
Like people who knew what we were
looking for and have a good idea of what,
sounds like a fun adventure for you?
Lucas (07:53):
Yeah, fantastic.
And I guess in the spirit of continually
editing down I know we've chosen
one monster in particular for today.
And I suppose I should pause to
kind of address the phrasing here.
I'm using the word monster in the sense in
which Dungeons & Dragons uses it that is
anything with a stat block, I'm going to
be conflating goddess and monster in this
(08:15):
conversation, and I don't think there's
anything I can really do to avoid that.
Jessica Marcrum (08:18):
If it has a
stat block, it can be killed.
Lucas (08:21):
Yep.
Jessica Marcrum (08:22):
Which is why some of the
goddesses in this don't have stat blocks.
The ones you encounter in their
room, some of the authors were
like, You cannot kill her here's
things she can do to you though.
Lucas (08:36):
interesting.
So, so does I'm going
to spoil a little bit.
Does Luthic have a statlock then?
Or are we operating in this kind of
non-mechanical, non-combat space?
Jessica Marcrum (08:46):
She has
a big, chunky stat block.
She has two full page stat block.
Lucas (08:52):
My gosh.
Jessica Marcrum (08:53):
She is CR 30.
She does a lot of things.
Lucas (08:57):
When you were building Luthic, is
she a conversion from an older edition?
Does she appear elsewhere in D&D
lore, or was she spun out of whole
cloth for Uncaged anthologies?
Jessica Marcrum (09:08):
So she, despite having
a lot written about her, I could not
find any stats her in previous editions.
There's just a lot of lore over
five editions that describe what
she can do and how she does it.
(09:30):
And so I took all of those powers
and put them into her step block.
So her big things are that she
has claws that can extend to be
10 feet long or eight feet long.
She.
Lucas (09:45):
geez.
Jessica Marcrum (09:47):
Bore through solid rock.
can fly.
She can cause blood rain that,
weakens her foes and insight a
frenzy that strengthens her wounded
allies that makes them stronger.
can inflict terrible diseases
on others and make everyone
around her vulnerable to disease.
(10:09):
And she can heal wounds as long
as she's touching the ground,
because her boyfriend, whose home
she is at, is the God of earth.
She also can't be paralyzed,
petrified, blinded, or deaf.
And if she is touching the ground,
Lucas (10:25):
naturally.
Jessica Marcrum (10:26):
of course.
So I gave her a lot of stuff to
do that, you know, ties into that.
Plus just stuff you get from being a god.
Lucas (10:34):
What role did she generally
fill or rather, where did you
find her in these older stories?
Jessica Marcrum (10:41):
Luthic gets really poorly
treated in a lot of the lore because
she does all of this really cool stuff.
She gives the orcs like visions of
the blood moon, which incites them to
battle and makes them into warriors.
She's there when every orc is born,
she's there when every orc dies.
(11:01):
yet she's really ignored by most
orcs just seen as like Gruumsh's wife
and disregarded by the rest of the
pantheon, most of which are her children.
So her husband and her children all
treat her like trash and the orcs,
except for like her clerics who are
(11:23):
called the orc Claws of Luthic, all
also kind of are like, whatever about
her, but it's canon that she's like the
smartest person in the pantheon and the
only one who's good at battle strategy.
She's also the only one who
knows how to heal apparently.
So, you know, she, she does all
(11:43):
this and doesn't get any credit.
And so this adventure is her acknowledging
that she needs a little bit of credit.
Lucas (11:49):
Let's talk about Luthic as a
goddess because D&D has a particular way
of handling divinity, assigning them
to domains, which is not something that
every religion has done nor the ones
that do consistently throughout history.
If we were to assign Luthic a
domain, how would you do that?
And what would you say
falls within her purview?
Jessica Marcrum (12:11):
She has to actually
she's the life domain on the nature
domain, but for our purposes in
the book, she's in the life domain.
When we were working on the book,
we looked at all of the neutral and
evil goddesses, and most of them
fell into life, death and trickery.
(12:31):
Is that right?
David Markiwsky (12:33):
kind of interesting.
In like the previous Uncaged books the
adventures were broken up by tier,
but since this time they're all tier
four, we couldn't really do that.
And especially because the difference
between level 17 and level 19, isn't
very apparent in a tier four adventure.
so level ranging them.
Wasn't great.
so we ended up breaking the
whole book into domains.
(12:55):
And what we found when we were doing that,
was that a lot of the domains that get
assigned to the gods or the goddesses,
always a hundred percent makes sense.
They kind of go like anything this
goddess has ever done is trickery?
Oh yeah, they tricked somebody?
They must be a trickery domain.
Oh, they grew something
(13:15):
or they healed somebody?
They must be life domain.
Jessica Marcrum (13:18):
It's so weird.
David Markiwsky (13:21):
Like, the Great Mother,
the primordial beholder goddess, is one
of the ones that appears in the book.
assigned like the life domain, the war
domain, there were a few random ones for
it that just of didn't really make sense.
Lucas (13:36):
What does that tell you about D&D?
Jessica Marcrum (13:38):
Well, at one point, I did
go look and see how many of the goddesses
had an ephithet that had bitch in it.
And.
It was a lot.
And was sad that Luthic didn't have one.
So I originally gave her
one in the bad ending.
And so many editors were
like, this is terrible
because I guess if you don't know that,
(13:59):
like over half of the goddesses have "the
bitch whatever", like "the sea bitch",
"the storm bitch", "the rage bitch",
"the night bitch", then, you know, just
calling a goddess, "the something bitch",
people are going to be like, wow, harsh.
But it's like, no, she, she gets
to be with all of her friends now.
Lucas (14:18):
I didn't even know that.
And I've spent way too much time
doing this kind of research.
David Markiwsky (14:23):
It's the type of quality
research that goes into Uncaged books.
Jessica Marcrum (14:27):
I think that was
Ashley's original, like what pushed
her to want to do Goddesses was
seeing that Umberlee had two of them.
It was like "the bitch queen" and "the
sea bitch," and she was like, we need
a Goddesses book to redeem Umberlee.
David Markiwsky (14:41):
That was the genesis
of the Uncaged (14:42):
Goddesses book
was what, three years ago in the
Uncaged discord, when were talking
about Umberlee being called bitch.
And we were like, we need to do a book
of Uncaged goddesses, and then it kind of
fell under the radar for a few years until
we dredged it back out of the sea again.
Lucas (15:03):
What did you want players
to, to pull from this encounter?
What did you want them to feel
or to understand in a new way,
just after having met Luthic?
Jessica Marcrum (15:12):
So, none of
them fought her in the fight,
Lucas (15:15):
Yeah.
Jessica Marcrum (15:16):
which is why I
had David uh, run three different
versions of her, I think.
But yeah, that seems to be a very
Uncaged thing actually, is that you
get to the big monster and players tend
to like have a conversation instead.
Although I did set a thing so that like,
if you really want to fight, Luthic will
(15:36):
fight you and you don't have to kill her.
She is very hard to kill.
But I just wanted it to be a fun fight.
Like one where her actions kind
of work together like so she can
it rain, blood that makes you
(15:56):
more weakened to necrotic damage.
And then some of her other things
do necrotic damage and she can
spell cast, but doesn't really
need PSEO, but she can, if.
For whatever she can call on
allies who were in the throne
room to fight on her behalf.
Cause there's people worshiping her
and her boyfriend and there, and she
(16:17):
can give them advantage on the attack
role because that's, you know, part
of her thing to buff her allies.
And you get her down weak enough, she has
one of those mythic actions from Theros
and she turns into a big cave bear.
David Markiwsky (16:35):
Yeah, that was probably
one of my favorite little editions
was that cave bear, mythic action.
Lucas (16:40):
Is she connected in some
way to sort of the cave bear idea?
Jessica Marcrum (16:44):
They're one of
her sacred animals and she is
known to transform into cave bears.
So initially I had her starting the
fight as a cave bear, but then after
David was running it a bunch, we agreed
that it was a, I think it was David's
suggestion, actually, it would be more
fun if once you get her down to zero hit
points, she regains 200 and is a bear now.
David Markiwsky (17:07):
Yeah.
And like the, that whole kind of
fight with her the, probably the best
part about running it, at least as a
DM and that all the players really,
I don't know if enjoyed would be
the word was that Luthic was super
mobile and just chased people down.
The all the casters of the party when
(17:29):
I was running it, we're constantly
trying to get away from her.
And she was just pursuing them
and like all the way back and
forth across the throne room.
No matter if they threw up
walls, no matter if they threw
up spells, she would just chew
through it, trying to get at them.
So that like bringing that cave bear in.
(17:50):
When you think you finally got her
down is like, oh, is finally over.
Oh, wait, no, the chase is not okay.
Jessica Marcrum (17:56):
Yeah, she has
50 foot move speed, 50 foot fly
speed, and a burrow speed, 50 feet.
Lucas (18:03):
don't mind.
Gosh you cannot hide from Luthic.
That's incredible.
David Markiwsky (18:08):
In play testing,
that was very much like you can't
hide was definitely the theme.
Cause we'd have wizards.
They would throw up a wall of force
and she would burrow underneath it.
You'd have like the teleport
away and she'd do a bonus.
Like there was a bonus action
for a pursuit, I think.
Jessica Marcrum (18:24):
Yeah.
She tunnels and knocks
everybody around her prone.
David Markiwsky (18:28):
I think it was
a legendary action actually.
But yeah.
Anyways, she would, every time
they'd try and get away, she'd
be right on their heels again.
So it was definitely a
theme of play-testing.
Jessica Marcrum (18:39):
Yeah, that's fine.
And she can also choose to just
ignore spells because she's
high enough level to do that.
Lucas (18:46):
I should ask before we move on from
this particular point I think there's only
one officially published CR 30 creature.
I could be wrong about that,
but only one comes to mind.
Jessica Marcrum (18:57):
The tarrasque.
Lucas (18:58):
Yeah, that's yeah, the big one.
This kind of specifically designated
as a world ending catastrophe the,
the point of reference for all
other difficulty curves in the game.
So when you were designing for a
challenge rating that high what did
you have to, what did you have to do
to occupy this space at the very
top of the games, difficulty curve?
Jessica Marcrum (19:21):
Oh, there's a couple.
Now Tiamat is also CR 30, as is aspect
of Tiamat and aspect of Bahamut.
David Markiwsky (19:28):
Yeah.
The Tiamat one was one of the uh, so
like one of the things that I did was
kind of go through all the, the avatars,
goddesses, anyone that got a stat block
and try and measure where they were.
And Tiamat was actually the, the measuring
stick she's pretty much one of the only
goddesses that has a stat block currently.
(19:51):
So was kind of like the be a little
bit higher, can be a little bit
lower, but should be somewhere
around this amount of stuff.
But it was also where we, lot of
the, the extra features that ended
up making their way into most of
the goddess stat blocks come from.
So things magic immunity
(20:11):
and stuff like that.
Jessica Marcrum (20:12):
Yeah, I know we took
it wasn't just us, but like Tiamat
and Sul Khatesh from Eberron were
two that I think a lot of people
used as references possibly Xariel
too, for some of the more undead.
(20:33):
I know I looked at Orcus for a
couple of things just to kind
of figure out how Orcus works.
Lucas (20:38):
And just for context Tiamat and
Bahamut being the forgotten realms, sort
of yin and yang of draconic deities.
Jessica Marcrum (20:45):
Xariel's the Archduke
of Avernus from Descent into Avernus.
Sul Khatesh from Eberron "one of the
great overlords who holds dominion over
the world of fear, war, and death."
Lucas (20:59):
What were some of those things
that mechanically belonged only to
goddesses that, definitely let players
and DMs know that that is the caliber
of creature with, which we're working?
David Markiwsky (21:09):
Yeah.
Like limited magic immunity
is the one that came.
I think it's directly
on Tiamat stop block.
And all the different goddesses
have some form of magic, resistance
or magic immunity to them.
The weapons, anything they do is going
to be a magic attack another one.
Jessica Marcrum (21:28):
Also disincorporation
is a big one that's in Tiamat, but it's
like, if they drop to zero hit points
and die, they don't actually die.
They travel back to their domain and
then reincorporate at some point.
David Markiwsky (21:41):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think pre yeah, everyone would have
legendary actions, but also the resistance
to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing.
I'm pretty sure appears in
every single goddess as well.
Jessica Marcrum (21:54):
Yeah.
I think they all have some kind of absurd
immunities and truesight is a big one
that everybody has in various degrees.
I remember you made me shrink
Luthic, cause it was hurting all
of your casters because I gave
her truesight and tremor sense.
And you were like, she can't
have this much of both.
Lucas (22:14):
Yeah, that's, that's
an interesting interaction.
And a lot of this, a lot of those
particular mechanics are our account
are encompassing a lot of really
interesting literary tropes as far as
what they can see and what they can feel.
And the penetration of illusions.
And there's something to be said
here about the continual falling
off of illusion as a school
of magic relative to the rest.
(22:34):
But that's a different podcast.
I think.
David Markiwsky (22:37):
Yeah.
And like, I think that's a, it's
probably a good point that there's
actually like this weird, in tier
four, things like true sight and
tremors, hands, blind sight, they're
all a little bit more common, right?
Once you get into higher level monsters.
But there's like a weird intersectionality
of them where they're okay on their own.
But yeah, start stacking them up,
(23:00):
they start to remove so many options.
That was something that I think we kind
of figured out in the first round of
play testing where it wasn't the fact
that something wrong with a monster
having tremor sense and true sight.
But that when you have them both
together, eliminate all the options.
Like there's, there's no way to kind
(23:22):
of trick your way past it once you
start stacking them over each other.
Lucas (23:26):
You're kind of also bumping
against the sort of "rocks fall
and everyone dies" trope where
"you're dead because I say so".
You're on the razor's edge between
having something that you can
interact with meaningfully in a combat
position and something that's just
beyond your ken as an adventure.
David Markiwsky (23:44):
Yeah.
absolutely.
And it really comes to that, like sure.
It makes sense.
A goddess should be able to see
through your tricks and like most of
them, but there should still be a way.
Right?
And I think the tremor sense one was
because during play testing I had two
players and one of them was trying to go
(24:05):
in with a disguise and got saw through
and the other one was like, well, then
I'll go underground and like turn it
into an earth elemental and earth glide!
Well, with tremor sense
she could see that too.
So it kind of like, we, I think we went
through a checklist together of like,
these are all the ways that someone
might try and approach trick their way
through this (24:26):
will any of them work?
Some of them probably should work.
Jessica Marcrum (24:31):
Yeah, we really
wanted, not just for Luthic, but
for all of the encounters in this
to be possible, but difficult.
And especially when you're at tier
four and you have, I mean, that's ideal
for any encounter, but at tier four,
when you have so many options at your
disposal, the last thing you want is a,
(24:53):
well, you can't do that cause I said so.
Lucas (24:55):
If the tagline for this
is every goddess has their
reason, what is Luthic's reason?
Jessica Marcrum (25:00):
Oh, I mean, that's
kind of what you find out over
the course of the adventure, but
Lucas (25:04):
Oh, no.
Have I asked for spoilers?
Jessica Marcrum (25:07):
No.
And this, I mean, I, I talked about in
the author's notes, how it was kind of
very loosely inspired by the Russian
folktale of how the sun was brought
back to the sky and also the nineties
classic, How Stella Got Her Groove Back
because Luthic is kind of fed up of being
(25:27):
ignored and mistreated by not just her
pantheon, but all of her worshipers and
just decides to not one day and leaves
and goes to her hot young boyfriend's
house and has no intention of returning.
And so if adventures are like,
no people are dying, you have
to come back and do your job.
(25:49):
Then there might be an
altercation if they're less
than friendly in their approach.
'Cause you know, she doesn't just quit.
She, she like middle fingers up releases
the escape hatch on the airplane and
fires two guns in the air before leaving.
She, she sends a blood rain
plague on everybody as she
(26:11):
quits her job in epic fashion.
Lucas (26:13):
That's incredible.
There's there's so much here.
I don't think I expected nineties
coming of age to match Russian
folktales, but here we are.
Oh gosh.
The Uncaged Anthology actually got
a lot of press in its early days as
kind of the feminist D&D adventure.
It seems to me, that's something you
guys are fairly comfortable with.
So like in the context of what you're
trying to do with Uncaged, bringing
(26:34):
someone like Luthic into this, what
does she contribute to that conversation
that none of the other goddesses do?
David Markiwsky (26:42):
I think that
all of the, the goddesses.
and Jesse, you can speak
to Luthic in particular.
But bringing a goddess in, especially
a goddess that has, is like canonically
evil kind of gives you a different
perspective that like, feminism in
terms of an adventure doesn't just
encompass "take these things that are
evil and make them good" or "remove
(27:04):
their reason for maligning them",
that you can still have those, your
own motivations still tell a story
that's still that's centered on them.
Jessica Marcrum (27:14):
Yeah, I think with
all of the goddesses, lot of, most of
our writers went really deep into the
forgotten rooms lore, which the original
uncaged books didn't so much, some
of them did, but a lot of the uncaged
adventures were taken directly from
fairytales and it was flipping fairytale
and mythological tropes because these are.
(27:37):
D&D goddesses they're taken
straight from their lower and
addressing issues in their lore.
So with Luthics, it's that she's
super powerful and super smart
and doesn't get any credit.
So her adventure is kind of like,
why am I putting up with this?
(27:58):
It, her acknowledging her own
worth and kind of forcing everyone
to reckon with that, right?
Like what if you have a really
attentive mom who just decides
to stop momming one day?
Like what happens?
Some of the other adventures deal
more with trauma that goddesses have.
(28:22):
Undergone and reconciling their
relationships with other deities or with
their own family, with our Pantheon.
And some of them who had less lore
about them the authors got to get a
little more creative and either invent
something cool for them to do, or kind
(28:44):
of just explore like what their domain
could be and aspects of how it works.
That was very long-winded.
Lucas (28:53):
No, that's what I'm here for.
What are you hoping that this
particular adventure with Luthic
is going to contribute to people's
understanding of their daily lives?
Jessica Marcrum (29:04):
I hope that basically
everybody who has had to put up
with misogynistic nonsense at their
work at their home sees that they
have value because they might see
themselves in lieu thick a little bit
(29:25):
and realizes that they have value and
they don't have to put up with it.
They can just leave if they want,
or if they want to go back and make
things better, they can do that too.
Lucas (29:36):
Yeah, I know I've asked for
probably a master's level thesis that we,
that we could be writing on this kind of
material, but thank you for weighing in.
Orcs have had kind of a troublesome
history over the course of, of D&D
and especially in Forgotten Realms.
There was an errata that came
out recently that altered some of
the lore that had been published.
It's kind of changed going into
(29:57):
new editions of the game or new
printings of some of these monsters.
Is there something that you about
Luthic that contributes to the
conversation around orcs that you
would want to make sure we cover?
Or is that something that you'd
rather leave to uh, to someone else?
Jessica Marcrum (30:10):
I had concerns
writing about orcs as a white writer.
And that was one of the first things
that I flagged for sensitivity reading
was to have at least one person review
the adventure to make sure that I
wasn't getting in into like tropey
things with the depiction of the orcs.
(30:35):
And like I've always loved orcs
because I, I'm a tall girl and any
time I see other tall buff women,
I'm like, "Yes, we are the same!"
But there so much more than that.
Uh, So yeah, I, we got really lucky honey
and dice sensitivity read for this one.
(30:57):
She read for a lot of our adventures
and was just really lovely.
And having her insight on
this was really helpful.
So that was, that was really great.
Lucas (31:09):
Did that process change the way
you think about orcs to sort of expand
it beyond this sisterhood of tall girls?
Jessica Marcrum (31:15):
I think, I mean the big
thing was just depicting them as, you
know, a full people in a full culture.
And that's really hard when you also
want to focus the goddess herself and
you have only 3000 words and our limit.
So, what I tried to do with this is put
in like little bonus things that orcish
(31:38):
players, not orcish players, or just
characters might know, or people who
grew up around orcs, but also people
who worship Luthic, or are really into
religions so that it wasn't just like,
oh, this is just an art or culture thing.
Like, nobody else knows this,
but you know, also if you know,
(31:58):
religion, you might know this.
The other ties were like, but if your
character is an orc, they might actually
know people who are being harmed by what's
going on to have that kind of tie there.
Like you might run into some
family the way to make it feel
more personal to them, but yeah.
And showing multiple types of NPCs so
(32:22):
that it's not depicting a monolith.
So it's less, orcs are like this and more.
This ORC is like this.
David Markiwsky (32:29):
We did try and
like bring a lot of that same sort
of care to all the adventures that
we went through her in the book.
And like having sensitivity
readers is something that's
been important throughout.
All of, not just on caged, but
Jess and I have worked on together.
I'm pretty sure.
(32:50):
So we did in sensitive
sensitivity, readers, wherever
we thought they might be helpful.
Even in cases where we were like probably
doesn't need it here, but we'll do
it better, better to do it than not.
So like, I think altogether we
had 12 or 14 of the 21 adventures
(33:10):
required sensitivity readers
for one thing or another.
And not just for like the issues with
orcs, but anything that that might
be or might require more sensitivity,
or maybe even in like in the case of
the Luthic adventure where having an
additional perspective might enhance the
(33:31):
adventure or broaden the scope of what the
writer would be able to kind of commit.
Jessica Marcrum (33:37):
Yeah, we had a couple
goddesses in this who their whole thing
is specifically dealing with illusion or
things that play with your mental health.
So we had a lot of mental
health reading for that as well.
Lucas (33:50):
Yeah, that is also another podcast.
And I hope, I hope you guys will come back
because the, the door and there's so much
in uncaged, that's like very much in line
with what I want to do with this show.
So what's the best way to to make sure
I get a copy of Uncaged when it drops?
Jessica Marcrum (34:08):
Follow
David and Gwen on Twitter.
David Markiwsky (34:10):
So yeah, Uncaged:
Goddesses comes out on February 22nd.
So which is Tuesday coming out digitally
and in print the DM's Guild You
can follow either me or Jess or our
other project lead Gwen on Twitter.
And we'll be about it over the
next week or, and into perpetuity.
(34:35):
Yeah, Probably longer.
Jessica Marcrum (34:36):
And yeah, if you
go to uncagedanthology.com, we'll
have a link to it there as well.
mind's still kind of blown with
all of the amazing artists and
writers that we got this who want
to be a part of our little book.
David Markiwsky (34:51):
Yeah.
Especially some of the artists I'm like,
what do you mean you on Baldur's Gate?
Jessica Marcrum (34:57):
Yeah.
We
David Markiwsky (34:58):
What do you mean?
Jessica Marcrum (34:59):
gate artists.
We have, one of our writers is an original
Fallout dev and writes for Star Trek.
And I'm like, what are you doing here?
David Markiwsky (35:09):
Well, that's like
when I, I didn't realize Ivory wrote
for Larry and on divinity to handy,
they wrote an adventure for us
We were like, are you
sure you mean to be here?
You do know it's revenue share.
Are you, sure?
. every adventure got their
own border and that was,
Jessica Marcrum (35:26):
and David did it.
David Markiwsky (35:27):
that was
me.
Lucas (35:28):
man.
Jessica Marcrum (35:31):
Yeah.
is no stock art in this book.
It's it's all David.
Lucas (35:35):
Incredible.
Incredible.
That's it for episode one of
season four of Making a Monster.
And thank you for listening.
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