“Call me Darkblade.”
If you recognize this recurring gag, you know exactly where I’m going with this blog post. Yes, it’s Favorite Geek Podcasts part 2. In all fairness, I am learning that the podcast community is infectious. One will likely lead you to another, to another, to another, like the zombie apocalypse or attending cons or getting tattoos. It’s very rarely a one and done thing.
Drunks and Dragons Podcast
I posted a blog in June about my favorite geek podcasts, which were very much a chain reaction. Through our friendship with authors Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine, we found their podcast, The Shared Desk. They were guests on Joe Hogan’s Geektitude podcast, which also had Mandy from the Wekk podcast as a guest, and then Joe was on the Average Geek Show podcast. Needless to say, they all made the list. Well, now I am posting about another podcast I discovered from the Wekk podcast. It is the aptly named Drunks and Dragons podcast, and it is absolute comedy gold for anyone who has ever played Dungeons & Dragons.
No surprise here, but as a major geek, I first played D&D way back in 3rd grade. (It was 2nd edition. The Dieties and Demigods book still had Cthulu mythos. The Fiend Folio wasn’t even published yet. I digress…) I played D&D and other RPG’s all through my teen years and still have an on and off campaign (that you will hear more about soon.) That led to the love of computer RPG’s like Bard’s Tale. Years later, that led to MMORPG’s like Asheron’s Call (Long Live Thistledown!) and D&D Online and Lord of the Rings Online.
D&D lovers will celebrate the Drunks and Dragons podcasts. The campaign is DM’ed by a guy named Thrifty who is the ultimate comedy straight man to the players. The initial characters are Aludra the female dwarf, Tom Dragonborn, Junpei Iori who is a genie race that I can’t spell or pronounce, and the halfling rouge, Tum Darkblade. Their banter and adventures are absolutely ridiculous, as many of the extended-into-the-wee-hours-past-sleep-deprivation campaigns that my friends and I played. Thrifty throws in many memorable non-player characters, but the podcast works best when he simply feeds the foursome bits of information and they run with it (usually in four different directions.)
The series has over 170 episodes each averaging around 90-120 minutes. Here’s the wonderful bonus. These podcasters have gone back and made abridged versions of the podcast, with episodes averaging 10-20 minutes. Want to test it but don’t have 2 hours to invest? Fine. Go the abridged route. Fall in love immediately? Go back and listen to the longer episodes. (I listened to the first handful on the flight back from Montreal and I know the folks around me thought I was insane for laughing out loud more than a few times.) The show is an absolute riot and a great reminder of way too many senseless nights of tabletop RPG with friends.
The Melting Potcast
The Melting Potcast is a bit of a different animal. Hosted by A.F. Grappin, Erin Kazmark, and sometimes Theo Kazmark, the show is meant to serve as a coming together point for all types of different writing contributors. Writing prompts are routinely posted to the show’s website, and writers are encouraged to send in submissions that match those prompts, and to be as creative as possible. As the tagline suggests: “A little bit of everything, from everyone, everywhere.”
I’ve had the opportunity to listen to about four hours worth of podcasts from this team, and they are an absolute delight. A.F. and Erin are incredibly upbeat and positive, and several segments are released without editing, showing just how much fun the crew has with their work. I have listened to author interviews, panels from Balticon, and regular episodes in the series. A highlight is the mystery meal, in which the crew read aloud a work of classic fiction that has had the Mad Libs treatment. The Mad Lib version of “A Christmas Carol” is particularly good.
I discovered this podcast in a completely different manner. The lovely (and WAY talented) author K.T. Bryski was hosting a Facebook gathering for her birthday, and I was fortunate enough to chat with Grappin during this time. He led me to the podcast and I was hooked from the get go. Give these folks a listen, and if you are a writer, send them stuff!
Do you subscribe to geek podcasts? Any I missed? Let me know!
One Love,
nK
