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Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful week and weekend. We've got a lot to cover this week — I actually tried to record this twice and the first one ran 40 minutes, so I did my best to condense it. Let's get into it.
Quick note: I recorded this on Saturday since Monday is going to be packed with work. So by the time you're hearing this, the first Whisperwood test session should already be done!
The Big Meeting — June 3rd
We had our major internal meeting on Wednesday June 3rd and made a lot of big decisions. Here's everything I can share.
Hulkykrow's Arc & Rotgrind
Hulkykrow is going to be away for a while, and we had to be honest with ourselves about what that means for Rotgrind. We looked into getting him a mobile recording setup, but the more we dug into it the more it was clear it just wasn't going to work — the audio quality wouldn't be good enough, the environment wouldn't be right, and it's just not fair to his arc. This is his arc. It was built for him. I'd rather pause it and do it right than rush out a shoddy episode just to have one.
So Rotgrind goes on hold while Hulkykrow is away. He'll be back around September 16th, and then we continue into Hulkykrow's arc, then Baldrick's arc, and we wrap it up this year. That is still the goal.
In the meantime we're filling the schedule with other content — more on that below.
Warhams Second Edition — Confirmed: Imperial Maledictum
We officially confirmed it with the whole crew: after Rotgrind wraps, we're doing Imperial Maledictum for Warhams Second Edition. Thurston will be Game Mastering. The player lineup will be me, Hulkykrow, Odo, and SpeakerD.
Same production approach as Rotgrind: custom story, custom art assets, custom everything we can do for it. I also want a proper animated intro — not as long as the Rotgrind one, but something really well crafted with a good song and real care put into it. We'll workshop our characters a lot more, practice a lot, and do a bunch of Patreon exclusive content of us prepping for it before the campaign officially kicks off.
For the trial sessions where we learn the system, we'll go through the starter kit together — that goes straight to Patreon for you guys exclusively.
The Campaign in the Interim
Between Rotgrind ending and Imperial Maledictum starting, we need something in the middle since Maledictum takes a lot of production work to set up. We discussed several options:
Starfinder 2nd Edition — specifically Murder in Metal City, which is a detective murder mystery. This is still being proposed rather than confirmed, but it's the leading candidate for the interim slot for July/August. No guarantees yet as it still needs to be discussed more. This too would be audio only as we fill in the gaps.
Warhammer Fantasy — this one is actually confirmed for further down the line. Multiple of us have been wanting to play Warhammer Fantasy badly. We're going back to Empire Within, the campaign we had to stop abruptly before, and we are restarting/finishing it. No ifs, ands, or buts. That campaign gets finished. I don't care what happens — we are getting through it. The lineup for that will be me, Odo, SpeakerD, and Hulkykrow.
Call of Cthulhu — SpeakerD wants to run it, so if we can find a spot to fit that in, we will.
Lancer / BattleTech — we all really want to do mech content badly, but we want to make sure we can present it properly before we commit. If we can't put the production quality into it that we want, we'd do it as Patreon exclusive content instead.
New Campaign Structure — Going Forward
We also agreed on a new policy for how we approach campaigns, because we keep getting blindsided by life events cutting things short and it's been genuinely frustrating for everyone. The new structure:
We plan and commit to up to 12 episodes per campaign run. A proper beginning, middle, and end. Good structure, room for roleplay, room for the story to breathe. Then at the end of those 12 episodes we assess: are the numbers good? Are the interactions good? Do we internally feel like there's more in the tank? If yes to all of that, we continue. If not, we end it cleanly and move to something new.
This means no more abrupt endings. No more campaigns just disappearing. Every show we put out will have a satisfying ending point built in, and if it earns a continuation it gets one. Chaos Odyssey is actually already being run this way as a test of the structure. Season of Ghosts will still be a long running campaign, but all players have understood that and agreed to it for the long haul.
June & July Schedule — What We're Doing While Hulkykrow Is Away
Here's what the next couple of months look like:
Pathfinder Beginner Box (New Edition) Kab, SpeakerD, Odo, and Hulkykrow will be joining me to run through the brand new Pathfinder Beginner Box — not the old one I've run a hundred times for VTubers, the new one. We record the first session this Monday, then Wednesdays from June 17th onward. This runs through July 1st and July 8th. All offline recordings, audio only since our artists are at capacity. Goes straight to the Patreon exclusive tier.
Dungeon Crawl Classics One-Shot Thurston is running Dungeon Crawl Classics on June 15th. Locally recorded, audio only, Patreon exclusive tier first then YouTube audio later. Should be a fun one.
Black Crusade Continues as normal. We do have a break week around June 15th, but nearly every other week has a recording scheduled. Wednesday June 8th (this week) we're recording Black Crusade since we had to swap some days around.
Possibly Starfinder 2nd Edition Once Hulkykrow is fully away and Thurston is at Gen Con, I'll propose Starfinder 2nd Edition — Murder in Metal City — to whoever's available. Not confirmed yet, just proposed.
Whisperwood
Test session #1 — June 6th (already done by the time you're reading this!)
Test session #2 — June 13th
June 20th is my birthday and I'm taking it off.
First official episode recording and live stream — June 27th
After the 27th we start the weekly recording block to build our episode bank, then move to biweekly recordings and biweekly releases from there.
Gen Con
I won't be at Gen Con this year — all the budget is going to the team. But Thurston will be at the Paizo booth as usual because of his job. If you're going, go say hi to him! He's the short guy with the white beard. He usually wears a NarDec shirt. He'll love seeing you.
Thank You
I know it's been a lot of schedule shuffling and I know it hasn't always been a smooth ride. I'm not happy about everything that's happened either — a lot of it just got dropped on us with no warning and we had to scramble. But we're making the most of it and genuinely excited about what's coming.
Your patience has meant everything. This exclusive content going up for the paying tier is our way of saying thank you for sticking with us through all of it. Without you we don't exist — and I mean that every single time I say it.
Love you all. I've got a Whisperwood test session to prep for and I am very excited. See you next week!
— Zoran & the Narrative Declaration Team