00:00:02.26 Fr. Tom Bombadil In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 00:00:05.81 Kurt Crenwelge Amen. 00:00:06.84 Fr. Tom Bombadil Most high and glorious God, thank you for the gift of our minds and hearts. Thank you for blessing us with our imagination and the ability to create things in our mind that give you glory. 00:00:20.60 Fr. Tom Bombadil Please bless us as we use our minds and our hearts and let them always reflect your will for us and help us to see you in all things. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. 00:00:31.93 Fr. Tom Bombadil In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 00:00:35.57 Kurt Crenwelge amen 00:00:42.97 Kurt Crenwelge Hello and welcome to another month's exciting episode of Sidekicks and Sidequests, the best unofficial Dungeons & Dragons podcast in my humbly biased opinion. 00:00:54.79 Kurt Crenwelge I've got an awesome guest for you this month, a returning guest. You wonder who it could be. have to tease you, of course, with the first ad read. and insert here, transcription readers, when we talk about Plus One EXP and RPG Zine Club. If you're looking for new, independently produced TTRPGs to be playing at your dinner table or your get-togethers, you should check them out. 00:01:21.08 Kurt Crenwelge You get physical zines or digital zines, and they're from new and upcoming people. All sorts of cool, really neat games to help broaden your gaming digestive system. 00:01:32.62 Kurt Crenwelge palette and all that good stuff so go to rpgzine.club and plusoneexp.com use that code randolph save money on a beard balm or a lip balm or a beard themed rpg supporting them helps support me thank you so much and back to the episode All right. 00:01:52.12 Kurt Crenwelge So ah it is certainly a momentous occasion ah because not only is the time of recording May the 4th, I'm also speaking to someone from our earlier seasons. if i have to I'm looking through the guest list here. 00:02:09.59 Kurt Crenwelge ah This guest... from the annals of the the back catalog of of this podcast from season two, ah making his initial ah you know introduction to us as as a sort of Gandalf the Grey, but here and now returns to us in our hour of need as a Gandalf the White. And without further ado, would you care to introduce yourself, tell us who it is that you are and what is it that you do? 00:02:40.60 Fr. Tom Bombadil My name is Father Chris, known in a former life as Father Tom Bombadil, and I'm a Catholic priest. 00:02:49.18 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, that's awesome. ah You used to be ah more engaged on on the old ah Twitter website, which was ah called then called X, and and now you're just living your best life as a priest and not worrying about all the online Twitter drama, and you're just you're just doing the work. 00:03:10.68 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, yeah i as Gandalf passed through fire and through water and then was born anew, um passed through the dumpster fires of Twitter, and i felt like it was it was time to leave that old life behind and and continue on with other things God has for me. um so But i'm I'm always happy to dive into something nerdy like this. 00:03:36.06 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. And I'm i'm literally checking our our calendar. When we originally spoke, it was September 18th, 2021. 00:03:45.77 Kurt Crenwelge A whole other lifetime ago for me. 00:03:46.91 Fr. Tom Bombadil Oh, wow 00:03:48.90 Kurt Crenwelge I was like fresh with a brand new baby in my household and was... trying to find a place to live and now I have a house and life is good and has been good for the podcast as well. So certainly with this, you know, ah you know, asking the question of what it is that you do, I certainly want to catch up and, you know, in your own priestly vocation in your ministry with your parish and your flock that you attend to in your everyday life. 00:04:15.54 Kurt Crenwelge How have the last five years been? 00:04:18.87 Fr. Tom Bombadil ah it's It's crazy to think how it's been five years and the the time has flown by. um Life just keeps marching on and God has given me a lot of great ministry to do in my parish and people to walk with um in spiritual direction as a spiritual director. 00:04:37.82 Fr. Tom Bombadil And I'm God has drawn me closer to himself and helped me to see more what he has in store for me, not only in ministry, but personally, just as his son and his priest. And so every every year is another year ah trying to do God's will and ah receiving the blessings that he has for me in the life that he's given me. 00:05:05.88 Kurt Crenwelge and And, you know, ah it seems like, you know, the church in online spaces seems to be really kind of having this this vibrancy. Because, you know, five years ago, we had our beloved Pope Francis as the Pope. 00:05:21.75 Kurt Crenwelge And now we have Pope Leo the fourteenth the first American born from Chicago ah priest, ah you know, who obviously is an Augustinian and he did mission work in Peru and Now, and now everyone wants to like be his, ah you know, be his friend, be his buddy. 00:05:28.44 Fr. Tom Bombadil I mean... 00:05:40.24 Kurt Crenwelge You know, when all the the online drama starts, everyone's like, you know, I'm not even Catholic and I'm ready to throw down for Pope Leo or I haven't been to church in 20 years. 00:05:47.26 Fr. Tom Bombadil yeah 00:05:48.97 Kurt Crenwelge You know what? I think I'm going to go to mass this weekend. How do you think that's been in your ah local area? What you've seen online or just what you've seen in your pews? 00:05:58.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, i it totally caught me off guard back when Pope Leo got elected about a year ago. ah Nobody expected we would ever have ah an American pope, at least not in anywhere close to our lifetime. And there's just this interesting convergence of him being American, but also being a missionary and a religious as an Augustinian, and then a spending a lot of time in South America and then also working in the Vatican. 00:06:30.90 Fr. Tom Bombadil a i there's i certainly couldn't have predicted it, but it does sort of it it makes some sense in retrospect seeing how ah how many components there are to his background. 00:06:43.32 Fr. Tom Bombadil And um I'm very interested to see what he has to say to us, had what he has to say to the church and to the world as um as a successor of Peter, as a successor of the apostles, and um in a prophetic way, because that's something that the Pope is called to be, is to ah be a prophetic witness to the world, especially a a world that's increasingly divided and messy and painful. 00:07:10.20 Fr. Tom Bombadil We need the light of Christ. And that light which brings faith and hope that comes through hearing, as I believe St. Paul says in one of the letters, faith comes through hearing. And so we need people to preach the gospel. We need people to preach the good news. And in hearing that good news, that's where faith and hope are kindled. And it's the type of faith and hope that the world can't give and the world can't extinguish. 00:07:36.89 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so I'm looking forward to receiving more of that prophetic witness from the Pope and just, and from the ever all the people that are trying to do God's will wherever they're placed, whether they're clergy or lay people. 00:07:51.12 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah, no. and And certainly working to ah you know make sure we're we're staying on brand with the theme. I mean, of course, I make no apologies for being a Catholic on on this podcast. And I've been blessed to be able to do our second ever Parlays at the Platter series where we did like this intersesction intersection discussion on Tolkien Catholicism in D&D and how that's all been part of it. 00:08:16.98 Kurt Crenwelge And then, you know, having Father Chris and Father Blake Britton be guests on the the podcast and just more in the the zeitgeist and the discussion of the history. I can't I can't help but think of Pope Leo sort of in these D&D terms of like, oh, he's the cleric that's just ascended to like level 17. So he's like one of the highest level clerics that's out there in the world, like doing good, being the visible sign of a deity in a world where people are like, oh yeah, I guess the gods are real or, oh, I disregard the guards the gods. I don't believe in them at all. And then Pope Leo's out here dropping truth bombs and people are like, whoa, this guy's a mover and a shaker. We better pay attention to what this guy says. 00:09:01.17 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Well, and the world is capable of running on the fumes of Christianity for quite a while, but eventually those fumes do run out. And there's ways that I see American culture and just the culture throughout the world where it it once was more Christian and that has dwindled, but there's still kind of the, the after image left behind of Christianity in the culture that can carry the culture and its people for a while. 00:09:31.33 Fr. Tom Bombadil But eventually that does fade. um Because when you, when you cut yourself off from the vine, which is Christ, like eventually the the life does bleed out of you. 00:09:38.16 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:09:41.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so I think we're, you know, things that we used to be able to take for granted, even if you weren't especially religious or, or spiritual, yeah like that, 00:09:41.66 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:09:51.04 Fr. Tom Bombadil Virtues like patience and hope and kindness and forgiveness are to be taken for granted. um That's just no longer the case anymore. It's a lot harder to find people who are willing to not just love those who love you, but love even your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you and to forgive those who are your enemies like Christ did on the cross. 00:10:13.98 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so the the more that that those Christian fumes fade away, the more we we see how much we need not those fumes, we need Christ. We need the source of all of that back. 00:10:24.44 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:10:26.90 Fr. Tom Bombadil And my hope is that... seeing the difference between where we are and where we once were, it starts to wake people up and people start to turn to the only place that you're going to find any kind of lasting joy or peace or hope in in an otherwise troubled world. 00:10:45.37 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. Much like those, those high level campaigns of D and D that we hope to get to. it's like, we're seeing it happen in real time and it's just like, is he going to do it? Is he going to do it? Are we going to, are we going to get to the big, bad, evil guy? We're going to finally take him down and we're going see peace and prosperity return to the world. That sort of a story. 00:11:06.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. yeah the the if If the world we're in is is fundamentally a tragedy sort of story, a tragic story, that's tragic indeed. 00:11:19.24 Fr. Tom Bombadil But if the... 00:11:21.24 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:11:21.85 Fr. Tom Bombadil but if the If the difficulties and the pain and the suffering lead to something that that gives us hope, if it leads to something beyond them, if that's not the end of the story, then it it colors all of the stuff that we experience up to that point. It's like Tolkien's eucatastrophe, the word he coined for A sort of good catastrophe, a sort of unexpected, catastrophically good turn of events um that couldn't be predicted, but which change everything for the better. 00:11:54.45 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:11:59.70 Fr. Tom Bombadil and The story of redemption is ultimately a you catastrophe. and any Anytime we we welcome Christ into the world and we hold on to faith and hope that we we we're moving towards the ending to the story that God wants, which is that all things end up working together for the good ah as God plans it. 00:12:23.70 Fr. Tom Bombadil And that that should shape how we see our day-to-day life. When things are difficult in our life, in our family, in our work, when we look into the world and things are messy, 00:12:34.81 Fr. Tom Bombadil Where is Christ? Where is he now? And how will he bring us through? Even if we don't see it, like trusting that he will. 00:12:44.73 Fr. Tom Bombadil ah Trusting that he's a God is a good DM. He's not going to punish us. 00:12:48.95 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. He's the best DM, you know, the best DM who sent his only son to us to, uh, be a DM PC and take our place of suffering for us so we could continue the campaign of life. 00:12:53.46 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Yeah. 00:13:05.94 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Yeah. Like that for, for all the, you know, there's fantasy authors out there that, you know, want to write very gritty stories, very earthy real stories, they say. 00:13:15.96 Fr. Tom Bombadil And I think there's nothing wrong with showing tragedy and pain and even showing evil in stories, but, um, a world that doesn't have hope, a world where good doesn't ultimately triumph over evil is not a world that reflect it. 00:13:22.97 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Right. 00:13:31.46 Fr. Tom Bombadil That's not a world that God exists in. not Not the God as we know him. like is Is God just a force for good that can be overcome or can be ignored or can be overpowered? 00:13:44.22 Fr. Tom Bombadil Or is he the Lord? And I think there's ah there's a big difference between looking at the world and seeing the narrative of our our world play out and think that it it's ah fundamentally a losing battle versus one where God will, whether we know how or not, God will bring the story to a to a blessed conclusion. 00:14:08.44 Kurt Crenwelge Right. Right. Which I know I did a little article about for Altia back in the day, talking about, you know, bringing, bringing, you know, Catholicism, Christianity to the D and D table and yeah, kind of mentioning and mirroring some of those points of like, yeah, you know, it's like, God god is the best DM. He's out there. He's the master storyteller. We're all players. 00:14:30.07 Kurt Crenwelge Like Shakespeare said, we are all merely players on a stage and we have our parts to play, but ah kind of like a game of D&D, it's collaborative storytelling. And we've been given this incredible gift ah To be able to use our gifts, our talents, our stats, our bonuses, and ah and our tricks and kits and all that good stuff. 00:14:48.44 Kurt Crenwelge ah To be able to influence the story a little bit, all towards ah the good. And hopefully the best conclusion. And not anything that's going to um you know make us see a a a game over screen where we got the worst choice. The worst ending in Baldur's Gate 3, if you will. 00:15:06.68 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, it's, I mean, this analogy will fall short as all analogies do, but it it's all it's almost like the a story a story written where at the beginning of the story, yet the in the first chapters, you're you're hearing and reading how the story ends. 00:15:25.24 Fr. Tom Bombadil But you don't know how you got there. And you also, therere there are things you don't know about the end of the story. you know so I mean, we we literally have this in the book of Revelation, but then even just in the the general sense of how God's will will be done and he will accomplish his will and he will save those that he's called and he will bring creation to a state of renewal where all evil is cast out and everything is renewed in Christ itself. 00:15:51.90 Fr. Tom Bombadil But we don't know exactly what goes into accomplishing that. 00:15:56.20 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:15:56.25 Fr. Tom Bombadil and We don't know exactly what happens along the way. 00:15:56.30 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:15:59.70 Fr. Tom Bombadil and We don't know what it costs exactly. and We don't know where each of us falls in that. so We know where it's get where the story ends, but we don't know who's in the scene exactly or what they've exactly been through. 00:16:12.54 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:16:12.66 Fr. Tom Bombadil And that's that's the choice given to us in this life is you know what part of the story do we want to play? you know We don't get to choose it, but do we we choose to accept the role that God has given us? 00:16:25.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil um Even if it seems small and hobbit-like, knowing that like God can do great things through very simple actions of of love and humility. 00:16:36.09 Kurt Crenwelge Right. And how, you know, like a DM, you know, introduces an interesting NPC in the scene, whether they're going to be quarrelsome, troublesome, helpful, quirky or whatnot. But then God goes beyond that because I've discovered my favorite word through this podcast, which is Sonder. and realizing that every person that you encounter is a fully actualized human being so um you know how the dm is meant to sort of like you know embody this npc which is what we're trying to model on this podcast but god's able to do it where in respect the free will and individuality of each person to be like you know what i'm going to move you here in this scene And so you two people can interact and let's see, let's see what happens there. Like what good comes out of this or what drama, what tension. Okay. You know, Hey, this didn't go well. That's okay. We're going to move on to the next scene. And you know, there's another chance. There's another opportunity ah for grace to invade and do the will. 00:17:34.15 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:17:35.16 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, God's very good at, he's very good at DMing. And even when we we insist on ah hijacking the story, or, you know, we we try to resist where he wants to take us, he just he's very clever about bringing things about that he desires for us. 00:17:40.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:17:54.33 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Orcs will attack. He'll turn that critical fail into falling forward into the next beat of the story. So nothing is ever truly game over for us. 00:18:05.12 Fr. Tom Bombadil That's right. 00:18:06.01 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And, and certainly, you know, before we move on to the next question, just cause I'm recalling and remembering how in speaking both with you and with father Blake, when he was on, you know, just talking about like, you know, your, your priesthood in general. And I, you know, If I recall at times of recording, you know, you know, both you and father Blake were like, oh yeah, we're relatively young priests. We're new in our priesthood. So obviously we've got at least like another five years, you know, under the belt and in and and in a decade in at least at this point. So, 00:18:39.33 Kurt Crenwelge And just thinking about Father Chris of five years ago and Father Chris of today, it's like, how have you felt yourself level up in those ways as a cleric, as a paladin of the Lord? How have you how have you seen yourself grown in change as time has gone on? 00:19:00.47 Fr. Tom Bombadil Some of it's subtle, um but it's still still meaningful and powerful. some Some things, it's it's continued growth in ways that God has been leading me already. a lot of growth in humility and trust and surrender. 00:19:19.86 Fr. Tom Bombadil Because without without him, we can do nothing. And so you know I see as my life goes on and my ministry goes on, God will send me situations where i I have to trust him. I have to lean on him because even though I want to take care of it all on my own strength, I can't. 00:19:40.08 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Hmm. 00:19:40.31 Fr. Tom Bombadil And sometimes that gets harder when you're doing work that you know is good or work that you know you know is at least associated with the Lord, if not directly his will. you know like i i try to do God's work. I try to do his will as a priest, but like I'm not a saint yet. And so... 00:19:58.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil you know it can there's still a trap where like, okay, but like i I'm doing priest stuff, I'm doing ministry. And then to kind of start sliding back to what well what I think that should be and what my priorities are, even if I'm trying to do God's will, it's i have I have a limited mind and heart. And so when I run into the my own limits, i'm I'm forced to make a choice. you know Do I do i get stay stuck where I am? Do I you know just kind of accept... 00:20:27.67 Fr. Tom Bombadil the you know defeat in a sort of despairing way? Well, I i can't do this. This thing won't work out. um Or do i do I trust in God that well even if it doesn't go the way I expect, that but ultimately this is this is God's endeavor. This is his work. 00:20:44.73 Fr. Tom Bombadil And I'm just, I'm one piece in that. And so i I've gotten a lot of practice, trusting God, surrendering, learning how to be resilient when the cross is heavy, when you know when working out in the vineyard of the Lord gets tiresome. 00:21:05.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil i'm 00:21:05.38 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:21:05.91 Fr. Tom Bombadil Because I love being a priest, but there's plenty of things that are not easy about it, both that go with priesthood itself, as well as just any Any person's life you know is is not easy. 00:21:18.81 Fr. Tom Bombadil But all of those have been invitations to trust more, to trust deeper, to deepen my faith, to not settle for how much I've loved God in the past or how much I've trusted him in the past, but to to go you know step up in the ways that God is calling me to to give myself more to him. 00:21:36.85 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:21:37.14 Fr. Tom Bombadil And you know as I've done that, mean I've seen God do more work in and through me. And i love seeing that. I love seeing God touch other people's lives through mine and seeing that um even though you know I'm not perfect and you know i I give my best and that's you know i I never know exactly how that will turn out. Seeing here and there the fruit of what I've offered. And it's that's a great thing to take back into prayer and give thanks to God that God is able to do what he does through me. um I'm really thankful for that. 00:22:15.27 Kurt Crenwelge That's awesome. I think it's important for us, you know, in having guests like Father Chris and and Father Blake to remember that, hey, priests are human too. ah You know, we are, we hold, ah you know, such treasures and earthen vessels. 00:22:30.47 Fr. Tom Bombadil you 00:22:30.47 Kurt Crenwelge And I just think it's really freshing refreshing, ah you know, to be able to speak ah like people, like, ah you know, take take an example from this whenever you have your, your your oh, I'm just the simple person cleric in the town. 00:22:46.65 Kurt Crenwelge But it's like, yeah, that simple cleric in town has also got to worry about like the sheep that keep breaking out of the paddock and they get into the you know the the geraniums at the at the at the at the temple and they're always eating the geraniums and he his blood pressure just goes up. 00:23:03.26 Kurt Crenwelge And he's like, he's trying to talk to the farmer about fixing that paddock good. 00:23:03.31 Fr. Tom Bombadil Mm-hmm. 00:23:07.00 Kurt Crenwelge And he's just like, I i can't bend down low enough to actually secure the the paddock gate well. So you know, it's, it's refreshing and it's good and it's very human. um you know, I'm, I'm recalling your answers, uh, that you, you previously shared with us we're going to get into those. 00:23:22.77 Kurt Crenwelge Certainly it'll be, uh, you know, uh, the, the, the, the human stories, the little minute, um, tales like Patrick Rothfuss tells in his novellas that you were, uh, that you're a fan of, like, you know, take those to heart in your games and, and make sure you humanize your NPCs. 00:23:34.41 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Yeah. 00:23:38.92 Kurt Crenwelge So they're not flat one dimensional characters. So. 00:23:45.02 Kurt Crenwelge So perfect as, ah as we're leading in and and continuing on and catching up, um, you know, father Chris, um, since the last time we spoke five years ago, have you had an opportunity to play any D and d or maybe some of this Diablo four or any old school Diablos or, or anything of, of the sorts? 00:24:05.91 Fr. Tom Bombadil So a strange thing happened somewhere around a year ago. I i started feeling this kind of this itch where like i i want to I want to do some some tabletop game playing. I want to do some D&D. And as I think I told you before, like I've got limited experience actually doing... 00:24:28.92 Fr. Tom Bombadil tabletop RPGs or D&D specifically, but like it had caught my interest to different parts of my life in the past. And, you know, when the thought would cross my mind, I'd be like, yeah, that's just, that just looks fun. 00:24:42.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil um Like I, sometime in the last year with the ah YouTube series came out i called Tales from Wood Creek, which is a really great, us um what's her name? 00:24:51.27 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:24:55.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil aye Deborah Ann Wool, who's an actress. 00:24:57.75 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, Debra Ann. 00:24:58.79 Fr. Tom Bombadil she yeah she She's the basically the DM and the storyteller, and they have some some people who are experienced playing D&D. 00:24:58.99 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:25:08.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil and they They sort of, over the course of a bunch of episodes, do something that's like a mix between like live action D&D and escape rooms. So just like a lot of a lot of storytelling, a lot of just like so like they go to locations and they kind of have a set. 00:25:16.34 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:25:22.62 Fr. Tom Bombadil um And that was really fun to watch. I really enjoyed, i mean, it was a great story and I i loved watching you know everyone get into character. um But also like they were they're literally playing D&D. 00:25:35.73 Fr. Tom Bombadil And d and even it was even a step up from some of you know the the series that you might find, like Critical Role or others, where like it's you you've got people who definitely have like an acting background doing this. 00:25:46.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil But this is like an even deeper thing where there are things that were unexpected and you get to watch these these actors like play out certain scenarios. 00:25:47.31 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:25:55.46 Fr. Tom Bombadil Like, okay, if there's a... there's a challenge. There's a puzzle you have to solve. Like, okay, well now it's an escape room. Go and like solve the the puzzle that came up in the story. So I was watching those episodes and that was getting this on my mind. 00:26:07.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil I'm like, Hey, you know what? I, I want to I want to I want to do something like this. I want to play a ah some D and d but it's hard to find time for that in my, in my schedule, in my, in my life. 00:26:19.16 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Ooh. 00:26:19.79 Fr. Tom Bombadil Um, And that took me to a very interesting sort of solution, at least for now, is I ah ran across a a solo dungeon crawler game called called Four Against Darkness. 00:26:35.03 Fr. Tom Bombadil um and it's ah it's designed to be played by yourself. um I think you you could adapt it to play with other people, but it's it's designed to to be like ah like a dungeon crawler. um It's got some RPG elements, but that's largely left up to you if you want to like add flavor to it. 00:26:52.02 Fr. Tom Bombadil But you create a party of four characters um and have certain basic stats, and it's you know It's such that you can you can manage four characters by by yourself. 00:27:03.34 Fr. Tom Bombadil But then like it's it's sort of a procedurally generated dungeon. 00:27:03.70 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:27:06.95 Fr. Tom Bombadil You roll dice to map out, oh, what's the next room in the dungeon? And what do you find there? And there's... is i I just kind of dove in and I got some copies of these books and I was able to start playing and it was really fun. I found it like just, it really sucked me in um because not only was just, it was fun to play a a dungeon crawler game and not, you know i didn't depend on other people to, to have a session. 00:27:32.92 Fr. Tom Bombadil But I i love to to fill in the gaps and start creating a story. you know i i I think I told you previously that I i love playing Skyrim, and that's one of my my all-time favorite games. And after playing it for many hundreds of hours you know over the past 12, 13 years been out, 00:27:51.51 Fr. Tom Bombadil that it's been out um you know I'd start playing the game again, but adding flavor by you know starting to craft a story. and I don't just want to play the game flat, but I'd like, okay, what but I want this kind of character, and this is the type of story we're going to go in and try to play. 00:28:05.89 Fr. Tom Bombadil and so i'd I'd impose limits on myself because it made it more fun. 00:28:06.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 00:28:09.61 Fr. Tom Bombadil and so When I'm playing Four Against Darkness, you know I sort of did that. like Okay, I've got got the warrior, and got the wizard, and the cleric, and the the rogue, but I decide, okay, well, what are they actually here doing? 00:28:20.79 Fr. Tom Bombadil And some of the random elements that came up in the game, like, okay, well, we ran across this major you know boss enemy. I kind of ticked some of those threads and ran with them. Like, okay, wait, no, why is that creature here? 00:28:34.67 Fr. Tom Bombadil that's odd. Maybe that's because there's something bigger. And i just kind of let that unfold as I, you know, as it would, okay, let's, let's gather more clues. And then I start to cobble a story together and that would kind of string one session to another. 00:28:45.70 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 00:28:49.02 Fr. Tom Bombadil And um'm I'm still in the middle of playing it. And I'm, Right now, my my party is they're visiting the tower of someone called the Blind One, because they've they've discovered and and an ancient tome with chaotic energy from it, and they need to figure out what it says and what it's for and Ultimately, they're hoping to stop some sort of like creeping, spreading blight, this kind of darkness that's kind of spreading through the land, but they're not sure where to go or what the solution is. And i kind of like that. 00:29:22.14 Fr. Tom Bombadil I like it. 00:29:22.13 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:29:22.74 Fr. Tom Bombadil like like I don't know how the story is going to go yet. We'll see what I come up with. 00:29:27.74 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that's amazing. I know that ah you know everyone wants to be like, oh, just go to one of these providers like startplaying.games or go to your local ah comic book shop, which I'm sure Father Chris stole ah strolling into the comic book shop, some people be like, wait minute, am I going to burst into flames? What's going on here? And it's like, no, I'm here to play D&D. I'm here. I've got this amount of time. my my my My phone's ready in case I need to get summoned to the hospital for an emergency blessing or last rights or something, but I've got my character. I'm here to roll up, but that's cool that you found, ah you know, a solo game that has allowed you to be creative and get to write your own story. 00:30:09.53 Kurt Crenwelge That's amazing. 00:30:11.16 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, yeah. It's a great, especially you know in adult life, you know whether you're a priest or otherwise, when the constraints of life get in the way of getting getting a group together to actually play you know a session of of a game. 00:30:25.79 Fr. Tom Bombadil It was great to find this where I can scratch that itch i by kind of diving into something creative, even if it's just on my own. 00:30:26.17 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:30:35.03 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Now that just had me think of a thought in my head, which would be like, man, if a dungeon master lived somewhere near a seminary and you wanted a captive audience to be in a campaign for you to run, maybe you should hit up the local seminary and be like, Hey guys, when you're done praying and studying, you need to blow some steam off. Let's, uh, I'll come by and run a D and D campaign for you. And, uh, I'll see, you know, good, good game this week. Okay. I'll come back next week and see you sort of a thing. 00:31:03.22 Kurt Crenwelge The seminarians would love it. 00:31:03.42 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 00:31:04.82 Kurt Crenwelge They'd be like, oh, this car Carl shows up and he runs a game for us. 00:31:05.50 Fr. Tom Bombadil Oh, yeah. 00:31:08.14 Kurt Crenwelge It's amazing. 00:31:09.34 Fr. Tom Bombadil Oh, absolutely. yeah 00:31:10.81 Kurt Crenwelge ah Perfect. And then as the the name of this podcast, of course, you know, being sidekicks and sidequests since the last time we spoke, have you come across any new or interesting sidekick characters or NPCs in various games or whatnot? And why is this new sidekick or or ah NPC kind of caught your attention? 00:31:34.07 Fr. Tom Bombadil So yeah, I have, although I'm going to kind of stretch the category a little bit. It's someone who I i suppose is technically an NPC, but ah not in not in the the usual traditional sense. 00:31:47.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil i I recently got into a PC game called Blueprints, which it it came out some sometime in the last year, um the last six months probably, I think. 00:31:54.65 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, I've never heard of this one. 00:32:02.12 Fr. Tom Bombadil um it's a It's a really intriguing game. it's a How do I describe this game? 00:32:12.50 Fr. Tom Bombadil It kind of ends up being like 100-hour escape room i And it's got a little bit of ah like an updated flair from like the old game Myst. 00:32:18.10 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:32:24.41 Fr. Tom Bombadil You start somewhere and it's ah like kind of it looks point and click-ish, like, okay, I'm going to wander around and you're in this large house. 00:32:24.66 Kurt Crenwelge okay 00:32:31.61 Fr. Tom Bombadil And the house's rooms, like what room you go into, changes from day to day. and You have like an initial story where you have to try to get to like the this this house. 00:32:42.35 Fr. Tom Bombadil you are told your Your uncle who has passed away has left you this house as as an inheritance. and You only get to inherit the house if you're able to find the secret forty sixth room in the room estate. 00:32:56.34 Kurt Crenwelge ah Oh, okay. 00:32:56.98 Fr. Tom Bombadil and so like Okay, but how are there rooms in a room house? And so that that's where you start. And you're you're this young kid and you're exploring and you've things are unexpected and the the house is kind of strange and you you find items and pull levers. 00:33:12.98 Fr. Tom Bombadil But there's ah there's a layer on top of that, you know a story in the background that you pick up as you go, which kind of reminds me in some ways to that the type of story that I liked with that Pat Rothfuss wrote with his his two books in the Name of the Wind series, where you have like one story and then if you're paying attention, there's another story going on in the background. 00:33:18.86 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. Mm. Mm. 00:33:32.94 Fr. Tom Bombadil and There even is a third story in back of that. um So like if you keep going deeper, you find that there actually is more there. So when I'm playing this game, Blueprints, you start picking up scraps about like who I am and who my uncle is and who my family is. And you you quickly discover, like, okay, wait, where is my mom? 00:33:54.55 Fr. Tom Bombadil And it's a question that's deliberately kind of brought to the surface soon in the game, in the lore. It's like, okay, wait where is my mom? what What happened to her? She apparently went missing. 00:34:08.60 Fr. Tom Bombadil where Where did she go? Why did she go missing? And as the game goes on, you could just you end up kind of going further and further down the rabbit hole. 00:34:12.46 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 00:34:17.04 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so the the NPC of of ah Mary Matthew Jones, who is the mother of the player character Simon Jones, she is very fascinating to me because you um i won't say whether you ever interact with her or not. 00:34:29.33 Kurt Crenwelge Mmm. 00:34:34.36 Fr. Tom Bombadil But you get through newspaper clippings and dialogue with other people. 00:34:34.67 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:34:40.70 Fr. Tom Bombadil You start getting pictures and bits and pieces of what's going on in the background. And you start to figure out, like there's a bigger story that my mom in this game is is caught up in. 00:34:51.51 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:34:51.83 Fr. Tom Bombadil And the more that i you know dove deeper into that next layer of the story, you know um at some point forgetting the initial reason I started playing the game, like the the initial type of game it is kind of fades to the background and you start realizing you're playing a different game altogether. 00:35:08.06 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:35:08.21 Fr. Tom Bombadil And ah the more that I started to learn about this next level of the story and who... who the player character's mother is, like it's i i really and like I love the sort of character that she is shown to be. 00:35:22.88 Fr. Tom Bombadil and I won't say much more than that, but just i it's it's fascinating seeing not just something kind of mysterious that is uncovered, but um there's some depth to it. 00:35:25.48 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:35:33.94 Fr. Tom Bombadil ah The things that a mother is willing to do for her son. And, uh, you know, what sacrifices she's willing to make, um, even if they're ah great sacrifices, but for the sake of her son and for the sake of something bigger. 00:35:47.51 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 00:35:49.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so I just, I'm playing through that myself. Um, and even watching let's plays on YouTube of just watching other people go through the same thing. Like, Oh, I i wonder when they're going to figure this out. It's, uh, I don't know. There's a, there's a cool community around the game that I've discovered. And, uh, it's overall, it's just, it's a great, it's great storytelling. 00:36:08.28 Kurt Crenwelge I was going to ask, have you had a chance to play any Baldur's Gate 3? Because I was sure. 00:36:12.80 Fr. Tom Bombadil I have not, no. 00:36:13.94 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, cause i was because when I first picked up Baldur's Gate 3, I couldn't help but be reminded of you, Father Chris, because you know your camp helper that just like stays in camp the whole time is Withers. 00:36:21.59 Fr. Tom Bombadil o 00:36:27.13 Kurt Crenwelge who's like, who's he's a revenant. He's like an undead dude who just hangs around in your camp. And, you know, he's very mysterious. And like, the more I interacted with him, it's like, ah it's like I don't know, where was Larian like listening to our podcast episode as they were developing the game? Because like all the major notes were there. Like, and there's a greater story with him and people have broken it down on YouTube to be like, well, you actually know who Withers is actually supposed to be, right? He's not just supposed to be like a oh, I'm a mysterious dude you find in ah in a tomb, and then I just come hang out at your camp. like There's a real reason why he's here in the story. But yeah, just seeing Withers and thinking of Axios, and I'm finally doing a second playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3, and so I'm playing a version of Sonya. 00:37:12.89 Kurt Crenwelge And so she's starting off as a barbarian, and then when I get high enough level, I'm going to have her switch over to be a paladin, and I'm going to have my in-game... story of being like oh she's so inspired by withers she's gonna like you know team up with you know withers or withers is gonna be her mentor as she's exploring more and more of her paladin story as she's also trying to deal with this cult of the absolute and save balder's gate and fight all these mind flayers and stuff like that so 00:37:41.22 Fr. Tom Bombadil That sounds awesome. I I've not had a chance to dive into boulderscape, but I've, I've heard good things about it. And i mean, it sounds like it's something right up my alley. 00:37:50.04 Kurt Crenwelge Oh yeah. And the voice acting, it's great. Yeah. You got JK Simmons being one of the the bad guy lieutenants. It's great. Great stuff. And then, you know, same thing since the last time we spoke, what's been a new interesting B plot element or side quest that you've come across and any, any bit of media that you've consumed over the last five years and why? 00:38:12.76 Fr. Tom Bombadil I mean, this is a little bit of a repeat of what I just said, um but it's they're kind of tied together is is in playing blueprints. um The fact that the game ah has some interesting character development in a way that you don't expect for the type of game it is. You don't expect there to be character development. 00:38:30.20 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:38:30.26 Fr. Tom Bombadil um 00:38:30.34 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:38:31.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil And the fact that there's more than one game going on at the same time and more than one story going on at the same time. i i love hunting down bits of lore and finding out, like filling out pieces of the world. And so there's a bunch of that in blueprints that I've enjoyed, even stuff that isn't part of the main course of the story. Just I want to i want to know why. Like, why why exactly did it turn out that way? Like, why um why are like the the as strange as I might say, like when you learn about the the political situation in the world the game is set in. um 00:39:05.98 Fr. Tom Bombadil like you You play the entire game in one location, like on on the estate that you're inheriting, but like the game manages to bring you in the story to many other locations, even though you don't actually leave this one place. 00:39:20.95 Fr. Tom Bombadil um 00:39:21.24 Kurt Crenwelge Right. 00:39:21.69 Fr. Tom Bombadil So I find myself one like kind of wandering out into this world that is rather fleshed out. Like, okay, well, exactly how did that war start? And like we' like my my my mom's family, like where did they come from and how did they end up here? Yeah. 00:39:38.52 Fr. Tom Bombadil You know, who when when will there be a... um like this there's ah There's a character that appears named... I guess this would be another candidate for interesting NPCs. 00:39:50.36 Fr. Tom Bombadil um Someone named Alzara, who is a seer. um And he he gives these visions that... 00:39:54.27 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, 00:39:57.72 Fr. Tom Bombadil um it he you You encounter him in a room in your house that's like a like an arcade room and something like one of those like old-timey like fortune-telling... 00:40:06.36 Kurt Crenwelge oh okay. 00:40:09.30 Kurt Crenwelge Zoltan. Yeah. 00:40:10.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, one of those, like just kind of andmate animatronic like like wizard or sorcerer. And you put a coin in the machine and then it starts like prophesying to you and it gives you these visions. 00:40:22.46 Fr. Tom Bombadil And it's like, oh, that that's eerie. um 00:40:27.02 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:40:27.42 Fr. Tom Bombadil But that's... an avenue for world building and for communicating bits of the story. um So he's kind of an interesting character. Like, okay, well, how what's his deal? Why is he here? Why is why is this machine in my house? um You learn something about the background of the Alzara that this machine was fashioned after. Like, well, where what's his deal? And why... 00:40:53.59 Fr. Tom Bombadil What's his connection to my family? What's his connection to the place that I'm at? um so not So I'd say not ah not a specific side quest, but just kind of the many little side quests that make up like learning about a place that has a lot of ah verisimilitude. 00:41:09.48 Fr. Tom Bombadil a lot like just It's got the ring of truth to it. 00:41:10.01 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 00:41:11.80 Fr. Tom Bombadil you can You can go wander down side streets in the world and you find there's something there, as opposed to you just find a dead end. Yeah. in the world. and so i yeah, I love finding, discovering that these, these in imagined worlds have more than I expected in them. 00:41:30.81 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, it's nice when a game and the developers take time to add little bits and bobs, ah you know, not just collectibles for the sake of, well, we know gamers are trying to get the most out of their games, so let's just throw in some collectibles. But when they actually take the time to, you know, world build through the little things that you can find, like obviously, you know, you mentioned it before Skyrim. And all the various books and letters you can find. Same sorts of things in the Fallout series, which I like, which you can find like various scraps of notes in places or just holotapes. And you go around and you hear, you know, these recordings of people doing like, you know, inane things in their everyday life or like their moments of like, oh, no, the apocalypse is here. 00:42:13.66 Kurt Crenwelge People in the post-apocalypse like reporting on what was going on at the time before they dropped this holotape. And now you found it sort of a thing. 00:42:22.46 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 00:42:23.80 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And then the way, of course, that we're going round out the personal interview section. Father Chris, what new passions or hobbies have come into your life and why are you finding yourself and enjoying them? He's now five years later. 00:42:39.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil So what one of them i I mentioned already in passing is is finding a way to get my feet wet in some RPG, tabletop, dungeon crawl type games with four against darkness. 00:42:52.50 Fr. Tom Bombadil um And, you know, i yeah it's probably true for for anyone, regardless of their state in life or their job or their vocation. But, you know, the, when you, when you're focusing on work and ministry that has a lot of weight to it. 00:43:12.67 Fr. Tom Bombadil ah you know There's a seriousness to it. there's it's It's significant in ah in many ways. 00:43:16.36 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:43:18.45 Fr. Tom Bombadil It's nice to have something that balances that out. um It's nice to have something that's just lighthearted and joyful, something that gets to you know stretch your creativity and and use your imagination. and um Like Tolkien talked about in his essay on fairy tales, on fairy stories, I i think the the imagination and fantasy, um that's not just a child's thing. It's not just a childish thing. It's... um it's a form of art that can be very beautiful and in fact can reflect the glory of God. Like when we, when we use our imaginations in a way that shows good and beautiful and true things, um that's a way of being, as he called sub creators, participating in God's role as, as the creator. And so even just in a little way, like getting to play a, play a little fantasy game and in my downtime by myself, like that's, 00:44:16.66 Fr. Tom Bombadil It's getting to tap into a side of myself that is good in itself. And the more of that, like the more goodness that I can experience in my life, the better of a priest I'll be. 00:44:27.79 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Mm-hmm. 00:44:27.96 Fr. Tom Bombadil um Not just because, oh, that will refresh me and so I have more energy to go out and do more work, but the more good that we experience, like the the richer our hearts and our souls are. 00:44:29.17 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:44:37.50 Fr. Tom Bombadil and so When you enjoy beauty, when you enjoy good things of any kind, it it fills yourself out and you take that richer, fuller self into wherever you go. Yeah. 00:44:51.63 Fr. Tom Bombadil that's That's what I've been trying to do is you know balance you know with all the ministry that I have and the work that I'm doing to make sure that I'm taking care of myself and and doing that not just as a means to end. Like, okay, well, i got to kind of fill myself back up so I can get back out there and do more work, um even when it's ministry, um because ultimately it's it's it's God's work. It's not mine. 00:45:13.32 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 00:45:13.40 Fr. Tom Bombadil So I'm trying to remember that. ah Not only can I not give what I don't have, but God wants me to take care of myself like because because I have value in myself and not just for what I do. 00:45:19.65 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:45:27.45 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 00:45:28.16 Fr. Tom Bombadil So kind of rediscovering that in in in my my own personal life. 00:45:34.39 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. As I joked with Father Blake, ah you mean you don't just live at the church and only appear ah when it's time for a mass? Like you're not doing life like the rest of us? 00:45:46.49 Fr. Tom Bombadil so Some people have not quite figured that out. It is a surprise to some people, but yes, yeah we we are real, actual humans. we We do have real lives. We should have real lives, I'll say. Not every priest has a real life, but we should. um Yeah, and ah life life life is an adventure. 00:46:08.12 Kurt Crenwelge Indeed. And with that, i think it's time we head into some NPC creation. 00:46:21.14 Kurt Crenwelge And NPC creation is brought to you by you, the podcast audience and our patrons from Patreon. So now's the time of the show where we give a shout out and a loud hurrah to our comfortable patrons and above. So answer Jablinski and good old mom and dad. We say cheers. 00:46:38.14 Fr. Tom Bombadil Thank you. 00:46:38.66 Kurt Crenwelge Uh, these folks I named are awesome. They donate at least $2 or more a month. They're technically all wealthy tier patrons, $4 a month. Um, so that means they get to introduce an element of chance to our random tables and we might get to hear some of their responses used here today. So if you want to learn more about all the different reward levels that we got on Patreon, please. 00:47:00.09 Kurt Crenwelge We even have the free tier. If you just want to hang out, that's cool. We love you. We appreciate you, your support. um But, you know, if you can do dig a little deeper, I know times are tough, but a dollar, two dollars, four dollars, ten dollars. 00:47:13.82 Kurt Crenwelge Real crazy over here. But um yeah, you know, any support you can lend on there or Kofi is great. And if you want to learn more, just go to the podcast notes below. ah Go to the podcast website. 00:47:25.66 Kurt Crenwelge Or just go directly to patreon.com forward slash sidekicks and sidequests. Find out more about what we got going on. Help us to grow and build and expand our operations of the levitating platter in this demi plane and worlds beyond. 00:47:40.28 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So as we talked before we hit the all the record buttons, you know, last time you brought us an idea of a character and we kind of walked through it. And then I think this time with physical dice or virtual dice, whichever ones you're going to use, you have an idea, but you also want to do some random chance elements. So are we going to do a mix and match where you've got some ideas and then for things that you're like, let's just roll a dice. That's that's what we're going to do today. 00:48:07.86 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, that that sounds like a good plan to me. 00:48:11.06 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. All right. Well, I've got all my tables here. You've got your dice at the ready and we begin with the name of the character. 00:48:16.41 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes. 00:48:21.21 Kurt Crenwelge So do we have a name are you wanting to roll for that? 00:48:25.11 Fr. Tom Bombadil So i've I've got a name. ah The name of this character is Wendell. 00:48:27.19 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:48:31.16 Kurt Crenwelge Wendell. Okay. And is that a, is that just a standard W E N D E L? l 00:48:38.04 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes. 00:48:39.55 Kurt Crenwelge Wendell alright and then let's see next question what is the ancestry of Wendell. 00:48:48.42 Fr. Tom Bombadil I'd be like, this is a place we could roll the dice, but i I have a real strong feeling of what would suit where we're going with this. um 00:48:58.20 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. 00:48:58.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil I think this character probably should be a halfling. 00:49:03.07 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, a halfling. All right, cool. I dig that. um Okay, so wendell Wendell the halfling. All right. And then ah the next thing we get to determine is what is the job role in society, the occupation of our fair Wendell? 00:49:20.19 Kurt Crenwelge Do you have that or would you like to randomly generate that? 00:49:21.78 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. well so So this is kind of where I actually started. um It's Wendell is a mail carrier. 00:49:30.65 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, interesting. okay 00:49:32.38 Fr. Tom Bombadil yeah He is a he is a a member of the Mail Carriers Guild. He is a courier. he He is part of a ah a network that is built by this this guild of delivering delivering letters, packages, items um to different parts of whatever world that he happens to exist in. 00:49:55.67 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, brilliant. And, you know ah you know, since we're having a bit of ah a blast from the past, um I can't help but recall the first time that ah our guest Kay Laird appeared on the podcast and her character, Esther Van Missive, was also a halfling courier. 00:50:16.02 Kurt Crenwelge um so I'm wondering... 00:50:16.66 Fr. Tom Bombadil but I didn't know that. No, i i didn't realize that. 00:50:18.62 Kurt Crenwelge No, that's awesome. That's awesome. So they could belong they could potentially belong to the same guild, maybe in different locations, maybe in the same location. Who knows? But we hope people are using these NPCs. 00:50:31.77 Kurt Crenwelge ah But that's fascinating. That's awesome. 00:50:33.37 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Well, so i I would be willing to play with this for the sake of filling it out, either you know sticking with a halfling who is a courier or doing a different race. um But then like i just for something I don't know how the bug got in my ear, but just the the idea of... 00:50:51.90 Fr. Tom Bombadil in a world of like dungeon crawling and, and high level spells and, you know, power creep and all these things. Like there being somebody who is really, really earnestly dedicated to delivering packages, something about that just seemed very silly in a heartwarming way. 00:50:59.35 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 00:51:08.76 Kurt Crenwelge yeah yeah 00:51:11.42 Fr. Tom Bombadil Um, but I, i and so like halfling seemed the, what suited that the most, but I could, I'd be curious what sort of character they would be, even if they were a different race. 00:51:21.21 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, if you would like to roll and and see and change it here and now, you're certainly more than welcome to. But I'm i'm not i'm not opposed to another halfling carrier. i can't We have like five or six blacksmiths on the podcast, but that's not going to stop us from making blacksmiths. 00:51:33.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil Okay, you know let's what? what's Let's stick with the halfling. Wendell is a halfling mail carrier, and then we're we'll so we'll see what else it goes. Because the likely they are part of the same guild. um But ah there's the the world it's a wide world out there, and there's room for many... 00:51:50.46 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. a wide world of The wild, wide world of sports, for sure. 00:51:51.88 Fr. Tom Bombadil and 00:51:55.19 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, and there's there's room for many a mail carrier, and they i exactly what brings someone to that guild is going to vary. 00:52:04.31 Kurt Crenwelge And as long as you don't run into Matthew Perry in a checkered suit telling you that the game is rigged from the start, then I think you'll be fine. 00:52:12.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 00:52:13.96 Kurt Crenwelge Alright, so we got the job, name, ancestry, job. Okay, the next thing is the age range of the of the character. So do you know how old Wendell is, or do you kind of want to randomize this? 00:52:22.62 Fr. Tom Bombadil No, let's roll. Let's roll. let's roll 00:52:24.41 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, so this is just D8. 00:52:26.49 Fr. Tom Bombadil Okay, I got a here. I rolled a six. 00:52:31.48 Kurt Crenwelge ah Elder. So Wendell's an old man along the roads. 00:52:35.26 Fr. Tom Bombadil Okay. Okay. So is an elderly chap. 00:52:41.21 Kurt Crenwelge Yes, and Alder, he's still got a spring in his step, but ah maybe not as fast as he as he once was. 00:52:41.50 Fr. Tom Bombadil um 00:52:48.95 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, so he's been at this job for quite a while, i don't ah depending on how old he is in in halfling years. 00:52:49.14 Kurt Crenwelge ah 00:52:55.51 Fr. Tom Bombadil But he's he' i he's definitely put in his time. um 00:53:00.82 Kurt Crenwelge Who knows? 00:53:01.08 Fr. Tom Bombadil hidden 00:53:01.22 Kurt Crenwelge Maybe he could have even reached his one hundred and eleventieth birthday. 00:53:04.95 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. um i'm I'm unsure. I'm thinking about this. I wonder whether he is like near retirement and he's like just trying to finish up his time before he can retire. It's possible, though, he is like he's staying on because he loves the job. 00:53:15.23 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:53:21.82 Kurt Crenwelge Ah, they're trying to find excuses to get him to retire, but he's like, no, no, no, I've got this. 00:53:23.32 Fr. Tom Bombadil He's definitely. some 00:53:27.56 Kurt Crenwelge I've got this. 00:53:28.38 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, I think he's Wendell definitely loves being a mail carrier. He loves being a courier. 00:53:32.94 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. Okay. And then, ah all right. So as we've got those details in mind, ah you know, we know Wendell and he's a halfling and he's a courier, mail carrier, and he's an elder. So he's on in his ears. Can you describe the physical appearance of this chap? 00:53:50.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil So um drawing from Tolkien's description of halflings, I'm going to say he's he's got some some curly gray hair. um He wears some glasses. um I'm thinking these might be kind of like... 00:54:05.27 Fr. Tom Bombadil like rectangular specs, something like that. 00:54:08.36 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, okay. 00:54:08.95 Fr. Tom Bombadil He's probably wearing something like ah like an olive green jacket, um some brown trousers. He's got bare feet because he doesn't need shoes as a halfling. 00:54:20.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil um He's got some kind of like ah a mail sack, or like some kind of a backpack, something he keeps the letters and packages in. 00:54:27.66 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, like a handy haversack, which I'm pretty sure is like an extra dimensional backpack that he could have that he literally just sticks all the letters and packages inside. 00:54:30.07 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 00:54:37.11 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, so it serves as his inventory, but i mean he's never without it. So that's that's kind of part of his... That's what you see when he shows up. 00:54:48.18 Kurt Crenwelge Okay, cool. Yeah, a walking stick or something like that, maybe? 00:54:52.54 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, i well it ah depends. I have a thought about that. like it's he He's quite happy to travel on foot. i mean he's He's a sturdy fellow, um but he does not always travel by foot. 00:55:05.24 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, really? does he have Does he have friends that just kind of like give him lifts and stuff like that? 00:55:07.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes. 00:55:12.28 Fr. Tom Bombadil So I think that he has... a bicycle that he rides a lot. 00:55:19.43 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:55:19.47 Fr. Tom Bombadil And this bicycle is, I don't know whether he would have engineered, or maybe it's this is like a gnome thing playing with race tropes. 00:55:26.90 Kurt Crenwelge Oh. 00:55:28.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil like i I think it's been kind of engineered to be able to transform, to like traverse different types of terrain. um I don't know that it flies. I'd be open to that. 00:55:38.61 Fr. Tom Bombadil I don't know that it flies, but I think at very least it can like kind of turn into some kind of spider mech-ish looking thing. it's It's not gigantic. But like it can it can transform from regular bicycle-looking thing, which might look a little rickety, to something that can kind of like walk and can kind of like even climb up a little cliff or some so you know steep, rocky places. 00:55:46.11 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:55:58.32 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh. 00:55:59.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil um So it has it it's got an off-roading ability to it. 00:56:04.92 Kurt Crenwelge Interesting. Yeah. This ah ah previous guest of our of our podcast, Mark Thompson, is famous because they developed the ah the combat wheelchair rules for D&D. And if I recall off the top of my head, um for the the artificer had the ability, I think, to have like a basically ah to transform their particular combat wheelchair. So it could be like bipedal. It could be like quick. 00:56:31.91 Kurt Crenwelge quadrate quad legs um or it could go like into like you wheels mode so you know maybe kind of borrowing on that same sort of concept of like okay an artificer is like well here's a combat wheelchair but you're not necessarily you're old but you're not necessarily you know ah impaired to need a wheelchair but you know maybe we could get to that later if you get too old but ah here you go like here's a ah modified combat wheelchair that just you know, does the the legs for when you're in more ah rougher terrain or it can like turn into like a a wheeled ah contraption that lets him kind of like zip down the road sort of a thing. 00:57:03.05 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 00:57:12.86 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. And he's, ah we'll we'll kind of get to his personality a bit, but like he, it's, he's not just automatically using like the fastest or the the coolest looking thing. Like he, he, he's not, he just pedaling. 00:57:25.56 Fr. Tom Bombadil You'll often see him just pedaling right along. you know, if if, the road is good enough, I mean, it's why, why make it more complicated? 00:57:28.23 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 00:57:34.04 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Yeah, kind of like ah ah was is the the Father Brown, right? ah The detective G.K. 00:57:39.76 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yep. 00:57:41.08 Kurt Crenwelge Chesterton priest detective story. And it's like you always see the BBC image of like, oh, I'm just Father Brown on a bicycle riding on a country lane. And oh, no, there's a murder. I have to go investigate sort of a thing. 00:57:51.22 Fr. Tom Bombadil it yep 00:57:54.04 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. ah Yeah, and you talked about ah describing the character. you know What three adjectives do you think best encapsulate Wendell? 00:58:03.86 Fr. Tom Bombadil I would say dutiful, resilient, and single-minded. 00:58:12.31 Kurt Crenwelge m Okay. good Good adjectives. 00:58:14.39 Fr. Tom Bombadil he yes he he He's been a man he's been ah a member of the Mail Carriers Guild for for many decades. He's worked his way up the ranks. 00:58:25.74 Fr. Tom Bombadil He's he's earned himself a good pension in the end, but he's he's not retired yet. and um you know you The way you climb yourself up the ranks is just by being ah you know being successful and faithful in delivery of packages. and so it's It makes sense for a halfling, ah for a hobbit, even though that's not the only people employed in the guild. 00:58:47.35 Fr. Tom Bombadil um 00:58:47.46 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 00:58:48.02 Fr. Tom Bombadil but to just you know he's he He's always had the sense of i my responsibility is to get to get these letters to the person, you know, if some, some sailor needs to send a letter to his beloved or someone needs to deliver ah you know, an important tome to a colleague or an yes so an item from dungeon crawling, you know, he needs to bring it from one place to another. um He, he is going to be his duty to be 00:59:18.65 Fr. Tom Bombadil a successful male mail carrier, successfully bringing the items from point A to point B. He takes that very seriously. and um as long as he's He's not an immoral person. 00:59:25.62 Kurt Crenwelge Mm. Mm. 00:59:28.78 Fr. Tom Bombadil so As long as it does not involve anything that would be immoral, like he's he's just going to he is focused on what is the next delivery. i'm you know and he's He's not the strongest or most powerful, but he he's resilient. He will keep going. 00:59:44.82 Fr. Tom Bombadil and i he's ten He's got a a quiet tenacity to him. and he will Even when he finds obstacles in his journey, he will slowly but surely find another way around or a third or a fourth until he makes that delivery. 01:00:02.20 Kurt Crenwelge and you And you quite rightly said, no, immoral deliveries. um But i I just can't help but remember the earliest history of the United States Postal Service when you hear these stories of like, 01:00:14.23 Kurt Crenwelge oh yeah, I have my kid, but I want to send them to go to grandma's house. Let me ah slap a ah postage stamp on their forehead and be like, will you take my child to my parents' house? 01:00:26.59 Kurt Crenwelge And they're like, well, I mean, there's no law saying we can't do this yet. So and then you know so you're not going to find Wendell with like like little ducklings, like children in tow that are like, all right, well, let's get you through the dangerous forest and all that stuff. 01:00:38.02 Fr. Tom Bombadil No, he is not involved. Yeah, yeah there's he is not involved in human trafficking. Yeah. 01:00:45.05 Kurt Crenwelge Good, yes. good The good kind or the bad kind. 01:00:48.02 Fr. Tom Bombadil Right. 01:00:48.18 Kurt Crenwelge So that that's good. 01:00:48.50 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. It's the Mail Carriers Guild has ah has a strict code. um And they they're, I mean, people don't think of the Mail Carriers Guild as a ah something, you you don't think honorable and glory when you think the Mail Carriers, but like they they take their job very seriously. And so they have a they have rules that they will follow to to a T. 01:01:12.28 Kurt Crenwelge who Perfect. and And as I like to say at this part, and now we get to go back to some potential dice rolling. Sounds like we've maybe got some of it already figured out, but what's going to be a valuable item, piece of lore, secret, or or ideal or concept that Wendell would ascribe to? So obviously he's got this artifice contraption that he sometimes employs to help him on his journeys, but are you interested in randomly generating some sort of valuable item or concept. 01:01:44.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes, yes I am. 01:01:45.94 Kurt Crenwelge Okay. So then it's going to be a D four for the category and then a D six for the particular thing. 01:01:53.02 Fr. Tom Bombadil Okay, let's see here. 01:01:57.14 Fr. Tom Bombadil So we got a three, the d4 rolled a three. 01:02:01.03 Kurt Crenwelge Ooh, a secret. 01:02:03.27 Fr. Tom Bombadil A secret, okay, and now for the d6. 01:02:07.83 Fr. Tom Bombadil A five. 01:02:09.72 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Your answer was provided to us by our Patreon supporter, my good old mom. Thank you, mom. And ah the answer that my mom submitted says, ah whenever they read aloud, their voice lulls you into hypnosis and produces the suggestion spell effect. 01:02:32.74 Fr. Tom Bombadil Ooh. 01:02:33.43 Kurt Crenwelge So tell us tell us more how Wendell seemingly has this ah this ability. Is it due to his age? Is it ah like leftover magical radiation from something that he delivered and now he just sort of has this ability? Or or what do you think? 01:02:50.74 Fr. Tom Bombadil Okay, so I think that the way that this works first is that I don't think Wendell knows he has this ability. 01:02:58.43 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:02:58.65 Fr. Tom Bombadil So the sort of person he is i don't like that's not on his radar. 01:02:59.25 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. 01:03:02.41 Fr. Tom Bombadil like his One of his great values in life is delivering mail successfully. like He's not a person seeking power and glory. um In fact, one of the things he's fond of that he carries with him is just the the badge that he was given when he was first commissioned as a member of the Mail Carriers Guild. 01:03:14.29 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:03:22.45 Fr. Tom Bombadil And it's old and kind of... 01:03:23.00 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:03:24.14 Fr. Tom Bombadil It's all faded around the edges, but like he just he still wears that because that that is the sign that he is he has been entrusted with this this duty. um so how However he has this power, I don't think he knows that he has it. 01:03:40.57 Fr. Tom Bombadil um And I think other people don't necessarily know he has it either because he's going to be like an older an older gentleman and he's going to talk and he's going to kind of drone on a little bit. But instead of that just kind of making people tune out or get annoyed at him, like... 01:03:58.71 Fr. Tom Bombadil the the the carefully like the The person who pays careful attention would notice that... like but so Wendell doesn't make lots of demands on people, but like he it it so happens that if someone was paying attention, people tend to... Oh, people are people really go along with what Wendell needs. they kind of like If he needs something, they just step up. and Maybe it's because he's just such a likable person. 01:04:22.71 Fr. Tom Bombadil um 01:04:22.78 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:04:24.38 Fr. Tom Bombadil i you know and I'm kind of curious about where this comes from, whether this is an innate quality or if there's something that he gained, something that happened to him or something that he has that gives this. 01:04:29.75 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:04:33.94 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:04:35.59 Fr. Tom Bombadil I'm not sure. 01:04:36.47 Kurt Crenwelge I kind of like the Spider-Man approach. and Maybe not that he was necessarily bitten by a radioactive spider, but, ah you know, being a mail carrier, he has magical items that he's transporting. Some wizard needed him to transport some radioactively arcane materials ah to another city but the wizard was lazy and didn't want to do it so it's like oh the the guild can handle it oh sure i've lined the box with lead it should be fine um but there was just enough of a crease that like when wendell was handling it it kind of like suffused into him and now he just kind of has like this spell effect to his voice as he finds as he's gotten older it's just like you know listening to um you know 01:05:20.18 Kurt Crenwelge Sir Ian McKellen or Sir Patrick Stewart sort of talking and like bringing you in as they're as they're telling a story or he's reading aloud and like something simple of like he's reading a proclamation but like everyone's hanging on to his every word because they're like we love your voice and he's just like oh I'm just a you know a simple man i just read a thing and it's you know he's so he's reading them instructions and you know the suggestion spell you know most commoners would fail it And so it's like, ah, so we should all do our part to pick up all the trash along the road. 01:05:52.41 Kurt Crenwelge And then like people are like, yeah, we should go pick up all the trash along the road. That's right, Wendell. 01:05:55.90 Fr. Tom Bombadil Thank you. 01:05:56.46 Kurt Crenwelge We should go do that. And then he's just like, wow, that's so great that like everyone just, you know yeah, is real go-getter. And they he doesn't know and they don't know that like his voice is hypnotic and does this suggestion spell effect thing. 01:06:10.84 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, i think I think Wendell probably has some rose-colored glasses metaphorically that he wears. he just kind of Not only because of he's the sort of person that highly values ah successful mail delivery, but also just the fact that people just seem to be so affable and go along with it. 01:06:28.32 Fr. Tom Bombadil He doesn't run into lots of conflict because once he starts very, he thinks, you know Once I carefully explain myself in the situation, people just understand and they they step up and help. 01:06:40.90 Fr. Tom Bombadil and I really appreciate when people do that. 01:06:41.56 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 01:06:43.70 Fr. Tom Bombadil so I think he he doesn't he barely notices it. 01:06:43.70 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:06:46.78 Fr. Tom Bombadil He just kind of thinks, oh, well, you know this world ain't so bad. 01:06:50.62 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I think, you know, it strikes me that he's certainly the kind of individual because he is very proud of his job. He probably has like a handbook on his person at all times that he's reciting rules because the stipulation of the secret is, is that whenever he reads aloud, it's when that happens. 01:07:03.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, I think so. 01:07:09.61 Kurt Crenwelge So if sure, maybe naturally, know, you know, ah you know as a as a as a bleed over effect like you know people like hearing him talk but it that's not necessarily the suggestion thing it's when he reads from something so if he's constantly pulling out his little handbook for the the the guild and he's quoting things or like oh here's like a fine piece of poetry i came across the other day or like oh here's a notice um you know, illiterate people come up to him and they ask him like, oh, Wendell, you have such a lovely voice. 01:07:40.93 Kurt Crenwelge Could you read this for me? I'm just, I'm having trouble reading. He's like, oh, not a problem. And he reads the thing. And, you know, so whatever, whatever thing comes out of his mouth, it's like a suggestion spell going off. 01:07:51.08 Kurt Crenwelge So um yeah, fascinating. 01:07:53.80 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 01:07:54.06 Kurt Crenwelge Sure. 01:07:54.55 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. So he, and that, that comes in handy for him because he, there are times that even if it's he's not participating in anything immoral, he also, you mean, he, he sees he, he, he's very so like studiously impartial and does not get involved in politics or just, I'm here to do my job. And as long as I'm not ah following the rules, then that's fine. 01:08:19.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil so But that that means he he does end up in some some rough country sometimes. He has to make deliveries in in strange places and he wouldn't automatically be welcome. 01:08:27.62 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:08:29.59 Fr. Tom Bombadil But when he pulls out the rule books and he reminds people, like i I have a right to pass here. um you know i am displaying you know i am displaying on my person the the badge of of my guild. 01:08:42.69 Fr. Tom Bombadil The such and such. like that When he he explains things, people just seem to... They they they understand his logic. and so he Even... 01:08:51.80 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Bandits, leave them alone. you know, any marauding tribes of some sort of creatures are just like, oh, naturally. Yeah. Like Wendell's, yeah. Wendell's clearly doing the rules. So like, we should have a great day. Wendell will see you later. Sort of a thing. 01:09:06.55 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Yeah. and And later on, some of those same people might still be kind of like, oh, that guy was so pesky or whatever. But like somehow in ah in the moment, it just kind of seemed different to them. 01:09:17.78 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 01:09:19.67 Fr. Tom Bombadil And Wendell appreciates how many how how often people will see to reason when he just carefully explains things. 01:09:19.86 Kurt Crenwelge I just like, 01:09:25.37 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, yeah. Like the the guild is like, you know, we lost like three carriers on this route, ah but we'll send Wendell. Wendell never seems to have any problems. So like Wendell's fine. 01:09:34.97 Fr. Tom Bombadil yeah 01:09:36.47 Kurt Crenwelge It's like the other three that we thought were super fast are the ones that got like the slow. It's like they're like that. You know what? That adage was right. You know, the the slow and steady one's the one who wins the race sort of a thing. 01:09:49.69 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yep. yeahp no one No one expected that Wendell would would last this long, especially with the types of jobs he sometimes got landed with. 01:09:50.84 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:09:58.68 Fr. Tom Bombadil um But he just kind of plotted his way through and then he'd get back and he'd sit in the break room and eat his sandwich like he always does. 01:10:11.69 Kurt Crenwelge I'm just trying to think of like the most interesting halfling sandwich that would be if it's something like egg whites and tuna or I don't I don't know crazy sandwich combinations just what's striking you just offhand curious what kind of sandwich would he enjoy 01:10:28.15 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, I think so like some kind of like roast chicken and some garden herbs. 01:10:35.26 Kurt Crenwelge good choice good choice 01:10:35.64 Fr. Tom Bombadil Like good, like earthy, like like sensible, but but delicious and homegrown, that sort of thing. 01:10:42.46 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, perfect. Well, of course, ah we're going to stick Wendell in our game and we want Wendell to have a bright gold exclamation point over his head to indicate that he's a side quest giver. So what's going to be the quest or job that Wendell is going to be able to offer to a bunch of hero characters or player characters? So you could roll for this randomly with a D12 or if you've got an idea, you can lay it on us. 01:11:07.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil I mean, so my my first thought had been that like Wendell was going to enlist some player characters to help him make a delivery that was particularly difficult. 01:11:17.92 Fr. Tom Bombadil And that maybe still can come about, but as we've discovered Wendell's character and discovered that he has this hypnotic suggestion ability, I feel like that that fits him a little less. 01:11:29.41 Fr. Tom Bombadil um So I'd like to roll the dice and see what we come up with. 01:11:29.88 Kurt Crenwelge o 01:11:32.85 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, let's see. The 01:11:35.85 Fr. Tom Bombadil D12. Where is my there we go. 01:11:42.49 Kurt Crenwelge the classic soccer ball that like I like to call it. 01:11:49.59 Fr. Tom Bombadil All right, here we go. 01:11:53.98 Fr. Tom Bombadil That's 10. 01:11:56.22 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Let's see. Ooh, interesting. This one is from our previous guest, ah the illustrious B. Dave Walters. And this one says, this person was an adventurer in their younger days. 01:12:12.63 Kurt Crenwelge They don't have a relationship with their three kids. He's near the end. Being an elder, that makes sense. They need you to go find the kids to have them come home one last time. 01:12:24.21 Fr. Tom Bombadil Hmm. Okay. So how I think this would fit with Wendell's character. So yeah, i mean, he's definitely, he's't he's he's an elderly chap. 01:12:35.16 Fr. Tom Bombadil And you know what? I i guess it seems that like he's been so dedicated to his work that like you know he he forgets some of the other important things in life. He's a very dutiful person. Yeah. 01:12:48.41 Fr. Tom Bombadil And that sometimes means that he relationships in his life have have fallen by the wayside because there's always another piece of mail that needs delivering. 01:12:56.64 Kurt Crenwelge Hmm. 01:12:59.25 Fr. Tom Bombadil There's another package. There's another special item that was you know taken from some ancient ruins and some... If I don't bring it, no one else is going to do it, especially because you know we lost three guys the last time they tried to transport that artifact. 01:13:12.76 Fr. Tom Bombadil So he he always he he's a hard worker and he steps up and he's selfless, but he where he's been weak is realizing where... 01:13:12.85 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:13:22.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil the people already in his life have needed him to step up and they don't, they don't need him to do a job for him. 01:13:25.90 Kurt Crenwelge Uh... 01:13:28.57 Fr. Tom Bombadil They just really wanted him around. And he, he didn't quite get that for a lot of his life, but in his later days, he's, he's, he's realizing, you know, like, He kind of you know is bicycling to the to the ridge of you know the top of a ridge um because you know even though he's old, the he's got a really good bike. So he's kind of pedaling his way up there and you know he kind of stops to catch his breath and is looking out over things. And kind of strikes him like, man, like i've I've seen things that most people don't ever see. And by golly, this is kind of amazing. 01:14:07.93 Fr. Tom Bombadil And i it occurs to him that he, he, he actually would love to be able to share some of that with some people, but he lives a very solitary life and almost like it's as if he's forgotten those people that he does care about, but he just, 01:14:24.11 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Always talking about his kids and his grandkids. 01:14:27.19 Fr. Tom Bombadil yeah oh he's ah Yes, he is, but he's just always been focused on his job. um But something starts to dawn on him eventually later in his life, and he realized that it's it's in they've always been important, but he's realized that he needs to he needs to do something to reconnect with them, because the way things go, and he's going to just keep delivering mail and i He's going to run across the paths of many unique and strange people in the world, but he's probably not going to randomly run across his family. 01:15:01.88 Fr. Tom Bombadil So he would like to enlist the help of somebody to go ay to be a courier for him. 01:15:07.94 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Oh my gosh. This is hitting me in the heartstrings for sure. 01:15:09.37 Fr. Tom Bombadil bring Yeah, he Wendell has got a ah letter of his own that he needs to be delivered, but he he knows that he can't be the one to deliver it himself. 01:15:20.09 Kurt Crenwelge And as far because it says three kids and then, you know, possibly that, you know, those three kids have their own kids. And so they have their own families and their own lives and that sort of thing because he's an elder. So he's a grandpa at this point. So. 01:15:33.40 Kurt Crenwelge I don't know, just kind of curious any, you know, ah you know we we all know the stories. We all know the dynamics. Not that you're, certainly you're not calling out any parishioners or anything like that, but I'm sure your heart is like, I know a couple of parishioners who are like this, that they could really use to listen to this episode sort of a thing. 01:15:51.00 Fr. Tom Bombadil i I can neither confirm nor deny anything that you are suggesting. 01:15:51.23 Kurt Crenwelge of 01:15:54.49 Kurt Crenwelge Anything that is said in the confessional is under the seal of of of that sacrament. It will not be revealed on this podcast. 01:16:00.15 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes. i Yeah. 01:16:02.46 Kurt Crenwelge um 01:16:03.16 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. But i I think, yeah, if if we're pulling this this backstory thread, I think, yeah, it means that Wendell Wendell was probably, he was married. um He either got divorced at some point or his wife died and either, you know, drifted away from and got divorced from her because he got absorbed in his job and his duties. 01:16:20.65 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:16:27.79 Fr. Tom Bombadil Or if his wife died, then it was in his grief to kind of stuff that down. He just threw himself into his job and focused on that. um And he always had a sense of it being valuable to him. 01:16:37.88 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:16:39.95 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so that was a way of not face. I kind of like that second one better. is he he like he's He's not a... 01:16:44.57 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. He's working for his kids. Like to him in his mind, he's like, I'm happy doing this because this is where I have my value. 01:16:47.80 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes. 01:16:52.49 Kurt Crenwelge This is how I'm supporting my kids because my kids were robbed of their mom. 01:16:54.84 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 01:16:56.81 Kurt Crenwelge And so I have to be the one to sacrifice and put their needs before my own sort of a thing. 01:16:59.86 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes. 01:17:03.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, so he's he's seeing this as, well, my kids need me to step up, and I'm willing to sacrifice you know even by going to the ends of the earth for them. 01:17:13.16 Fr. Tom Bombadil um he And he does. 01:17:13.67 Kurt Crenwelge hmm. 01:17:16.38 Fr. Tom Bombadil And his kids are better off for it, but he also doesn't quite realize that there's other ways of going to the ends of the earth for them, which involve him sticking around. 01:17:25.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Mm-hmm. 01:17:26.33 Fr. Tom Bombadil So he he eventually starts to realize that, um but lots of time has passed, and... im I'm not sure. Maybe he's not sure. It could be he doesn't know exactly where they are, or it also could be that there's maybe his kids are you know are angry with him for having spent so much time away. and so Either he needs help finding them, or maybe he he needs somebody to be an intermediary to help bridge the gap and warm them up to receiving him back. 01:17:55.99 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:17:59.16 Kurt Crenwelge I mean, I could, you know, obviously a dungeon master is happy to take this side quest idea and kind of run it however they will. But, you know, kind of like things, you know, things come in three. So it'd be interesting if it'd be like, well, he knows, you know, the one that he sort of has the best relationship with too, because that's like pretty close to where he lives. 01:18:17.04 Kurt Crenwelge Cause that's probably the daughter. 01:18:17.68 Fr. Tom Bombadil Mm. Mm. 01:18:18.70 Kurt Crenwelge the daughter is the one who got stuck with like, well, I still go over to dad's house and I i check on him and make sure he's alive. 01:18:19.90 Fr. Tom Bombadil Mm. 01:18:25.30 Kurt Crenwelge And that, you know, he says, you know, that, you know, I check on his health and all that stuff. You've probably got the other brother, ah who's like, you know, maybe the academic went off to wizard school and now is like in the big city doing the big life stuff. 01:18:40.32 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, I don't have time to check in on dad. I'm too busy doing time magic and stuff like that. And then the third brother ah or daughter, um you know, probably is an adventurer. 01:18:46.71 Fr. Tom Bombadil m 01:18:52.17 Kurt Crenwelge You know, maybe that's the one that's more tricky to find because they're busy being an adventurer, rat catcher out in the world and making a difference. 01:18:54.17 Fr. Tom Bombadil no 01:18:59.45 Kurt Crenwelge Like, you know, kind of got the bug like dad, but went a whole different direction. to're Like, well, I'm not going to do this boring, caring male thing. I'm actually going to go see the world. Maybe they're a bard. Maybe they're a sword for hire or whatever it is. 01:19:11.92 Kurt Crenwelge And it's like, yeah. Uh, smell you guys later. Shire peace. I'm off to go have my grand adventure sort of a thing. 01:19:20.12 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, that that sounds right. i think that makes sense. There's the three kids in three different places and increasingly more distant. um And so Wendell will need more help and different kinds of help to find and actually reconnect, not only to locate, but just to to reconcile, depending on exactly where each of them is. And um going down the rabbit hole a bit. 01:19:44.60 Fr. Tom Bombadil I can almost imagine it would make a good story in any case. And that's what I care about is I could, I can imagine a version of this where maybe with the last kid, the adventure, who's got quite a chip on, on her shoulder or his shoulder about 01:19:48.54 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:19:56.06 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:20:00.89 Fr. Tom Bombadil ah dad having to her abandoned them. And so she's gone off, you know, she's going to take care of herself and she's very strong. um She also got that from, from her dad, um even though he's, ah he's got a very different personality from her. She's kind of fiery. um 01:20:18.04 Kurt Crenwelge That was her mom. 01:20:18.17 Fr. Tom Bombadil But they've, Yes. Yeah. And, but they, but her, her, her dad gave her that, that resilience, that sturdy adventures, resilience and endurance. 01:20:20.50 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:20:29.62 Fr. Tom Bombadil And I can see a version of this where like down the road, if ever all the, if the stars align and things work out for the people involved, like dad ends up reconnecting with her, but before they're reconciled, she's still bitter. 01:20:42.49 Fr. Tom Bombadil And he ends up helping her on a quest of hers. And, 01:20:46.30 Kurt Crenwelge a 01:20:47.48 Fr. Tom Bombadil His resilience comes in handy where she thinks that he's kind of someone just holding her back, um perhaps even because of the fact that he has this this hypnotic, suggestive voice. 01:20:59.46 Fr. Tom Bombadil and so 01:21:00.16 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:21:00.73 Fr. Tom Bombadil what he like His ability to just make obstacles from people kind of melt away um and make a way forward, like that's Something that would take his daughter a whole lot of effort and ah charging in and and bravado. like He just kind of like, oh, this this is this is a nothing. 01:21:22.65 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, that'd be very funny if like she's in the middle of her own drama and, you know, he tags along and then he just reads the thing and it's the suggestion that succeeds against the bad guy. The bad guy's like, oh, I've been wrong this whole time. 01:21:37.53 Kurt Crenwelge I guess I need to go to jail and go serve my time. All right, go ahead and take me away. And then she's like, I can't believe that actually worked. Dad, you're a genius sort of a thing. 01:21:47.16 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, so she she starts to see things that she admires in him where she had she had reason to be upset and angry with him, but she also it started to color everything that she saw in him, and she stopped seeing him she stopped seeing even the good sides of him. 01:22:04.85 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so them doing a little bit of adventuring together starts to show... 01:22:08.31 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, especially since he was an adventurer in his younger days. 01:22:11.99 Fr. Tom Bombadil yeah 01:22:12.22 Kurt Crenwelge So it was the fact that his wife died because of sickness. You know, if we're kind of borrowing from um Dungeons and Dragons, Honor or Among Thieves, you know, he was an adventurer. He got a little greedy and the bad guys took it out on his wife. 01:22:26.20 Kurt Crenwelge And so his wife paid the price for his hubris. And so as a way of punishing himself, he's like, well, I got to sacrifice for my kids. No more adventuring for me. Just a safe mail route. 01:22:34.87 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 01:22:36.32 Kurt Crenwelge That's what I can do because I still want the open road, but I can't be doing dumb, stupid stuff now from now on. 01:22:43.42 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, but it's it's it's kind of like a bit... ah It reminds me of the the movie The Equalizer. like yeah like this This guy who just has the same routine, he's an older guy, he goes to the diner every night and reads the same paperback book, but he actually... He's a retired assassin. like like went like The people that know Wendell most, they didn't realize that he was an adventurer in his younger days, and so they're like, oh, that's that's Wendell. and Sometimes it strikes someone as odd. like It's weird that he... 01:23:12.44 Fr. Tom Bombadil like It's weird he has the luck that he has you know with obstacles and such, but like it's weird that he even takes that aside. 01:23:15.21 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Mm. 01:23:18.62 Fr. Tom Bombadil It's weird that he takes such arduous jobs in the first place. like Why would he do that? and Part of it's his sort of his reparative guilt trying to make up for stuff in the past, but also it's like he he actually has experience doing that, and none none of the people in his... 01:23:33.62 Fr. Tom Bombadil his a little provincial town actually know what his past is. They just, they just know that Wendell at 12, 12 o'clock is always going to eat his chicken sandwich with roasted herbs um and make small talk. 01:23:36.98 Kurt Crenwelge now 01:23:44.93 Fr. Tom Bombadil They didn't know that they didn't, they didn't know who he was back in the day. 01:23:45.53 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:23:48.70 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, his handy, his handy, ah his Heward's handy haversack not only has all the mail, but it's also got like all of his old magic items and gear that he needs. So when he's on this route, he knows like, oh, throw this stink bomb over there. 01:24:02.92 Kurt Crenwelge That'll distract them so I can get through or like, oh, at this time, if I shoot, if I shoot that knock in the tree, then that'll cause that trap to go. And then that'll you know delay the troll from coming in and charging at me. 01:24:16.46 Kurt Crenwelge So he's actually got all these tricks. 01:24:17.09 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 01:24:18.62 Kurt Crenwelge He's still happy and merry, but he's like still doing adventure moves off to the side. And if you're not paying attention, you don't notice that he's doing all that stuff as he's on his route. And then last suggestion, e you know, his last resort, he just pulls out the handbook and he reads the rule. And, you know, it's like, OK, I guess you said so. so that's the thing we're going to do now. 01:24:40.28 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yep. Yep. There's way more to Wendell than meets the eye. 01:24:44.44 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And so as Wendell is contemplative and giving you this side quest, we, of course, need to consider, ah you know, the the rewards and the consequences. So how is Wendell going to reward the party when they help him get back in contact with his three kids and his grandkids and his and his extended family, as it were? 01:25:06.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil So because Wendell has an extensive adventure past and has collected a whole lot of odds and ends in his haversack over the years, um I'm sure that there is something down there in the bowels of that sack that he would be able to... Some rare trinket, some rare consumable item, something that... like and i've just I've got just the sort of thing that he picked up on his travels that is is hard to come by, but um you know he even though he's had a hard time showing it a lot of parts of his life, his family means the world to him. 01:25:32.24 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. 01:25:40.79 Kurt Crenwelge who 01:25:43.94 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so in return for helping him reconnect with his kids and his grandkids, he's willing to give treasures, not... tre treasures not Treasure is useful. It's not something he really clings to. And so he's happy to give it, um not to any old person. He doesn't want people to get greedy. um but But someone who does him this kind of service, he's happyly happy to give away something of great value. 01:26:11.51 Kurt Crenwelge So is it kind of like Galadriel and like goes down the line of the party and is like, you know what I saw, I saw you and I thought of this. And like, so it's your way for your DM to be like, okay, what's the, what's the shopping list of everyone's dream sort of item. What's the fun, nice, wholesome way that I can have a sweet old man. 01:26:29.91 Kurt Crenwelge who has ah a secret past as an assassin now a mail carrier ah to be able to give them something that's not um like a clear Brennan Lee Mulligan reference joke where it's a ah halfling carrier pulling a mo ah lit Molotov cocktail out of the mailbag and throwing it to start some anarchies. 01:26:49.56 Kurt Crenwelge No, like, no, here's a wholesome thing. Like, here's a a potion of fire breath because, ah you know, of your your fiery tempo, temper and word, you know, maybe this potion will serve you. 01:26:52.22 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 01:27:00.91 Kurt Crenwelge And, you know, oh, you look like a paladin. i just happen to have a holy Avenger. So here you go. And, you know, someone else gets their dream item and stuff like that. Goes down the line and rewards everyone to thank them for helping him to reunite with his family. 01:27:16.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, yeah he's he he's he pays attention to the people he's with, and so he, especially for having given him such a great service, he you will give them ah gifts, that rewards that are that are suited to them. 01:27:30.26 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And then, you know, we have to consider the opposite. What's going to be the consequence of failure or refusing the call to the adventure? So Wendell goes out of his way to ask for help. 01:27:42.90 Kurt Crenwelge The party refuses him or, you know, they're just not, they don't make it in time to all the siblings or something has happened to a sibling or i don't know what's going to be the consequence in either of those sort of branches. 01:28:02.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil I don't think... I mean, it would be funny to consider Wendell as, like, sort of someone who would, like, lash out if you, like, rejected what he looks, but I don't think that that's the sort of character we found. 01:28:12.38 Kurt Crenwelge Like a taken sort of situation. 01:28:14.04 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, like, i it'd be funny to imagine that, but, like, I don't think that that's really what he's like. um 01:28:19.13 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:28:19.96 Fr. Tom Bombadil i But it isn't... So, like, I think if if people refused, he'd simply just... He'd carry on like he'd been doing, um you know it just kind of in some ways stuck in the only life he knows how to how to live at this point, just doing the next doing the next job, um you know on the lookout for a chance you know to find something that's more meaningful, you know connect with his kids. 01:28:37.81 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:28:47.59 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 01:28:48.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil But if it if it doesn't work out, then it's okay, well, that's that's life. um And he kind of keeps on going. but i The idea of thinking of like, not just what if people refuse, but what if they fail? 01:29:04.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil That's interesting. And that feels also more tragic. And I'm not sure in, I'm not sure what, in what way exactly yet, but I imagine some version of fit, like if something happened, like if he finds out, like if, if, if the adventurers go searching and they find like that something tragic has happened to one or more of his children or grandchildren, um, 01:29:08.47 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:29:13.91 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:29:28.27 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:29:31.03 Fr. Tom Bombadil That would be heartbreaking to Wendell. But I think i think the like it would be a similar sort of reaction. It's like, well, the only thing I can do, the only thing I know how to do to deal with grief and pain and difficulty is just do the next job in front of me. 01:29:48.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil And so he would keep on doing his thing. 01:29:48.84 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:29:49.94 Fr. Tom Bombadil But like I think if if something tragic happened or like if there was a rejection, if there is... 01:29:54.90 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:29:55.96 Fr. Tom Bombadil you know um it might have to be rejection in a very serious way. Cause I mean, he's a, he's a, he's a tough person, but like if, if there was some, if, if the story took a tragic turn in one form or another, i think that that would, that would really weigh on him with sorrow. 01:30:02.50 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 01:30:12.22 Fr. Tom Bombadil um And he may, it it may affect like maybe when he event, like he might retire earlier than he normally does. Cause just like, you know, like some of the spirit that he had has just kind of gone out of him. And I could see him kind of, 01:30:28.25 Fr. Tom Bombadil not knowing exactly where he's going and also having a a bit of a natural compass where he's going to sort of amble his way back towards where he kind of knows or has a feeling... 01:30:40.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil these, you know, his children or grandchildren are, and whatever the situation is, either he kind of looks from afar, but they've rejected him, or like if somebody's died, um you know, ends up like he he slowly but surely, instead of just delivering packages, like he hunts down like, okay, where did they die? Where were they buried? 01:30:58.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil um Maybe it's unsure, but he find he he sooner or later does find it, and then 01:30:58.84 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:31:02.78 Fr. Tom Bombadil he, you know, every once in a while will always stop by and he will, you know, leave something at their grave or something like that. I can imagine him, thank you some of, some of his strength. 01:31:11.64 Kurt Crenwelge yeah Or I definitely see another scenario as you like, you know, kind of like random encounters on the road based on how you've treated him or how you've delivered news to him. 01:31:23.26 Kurt Crenwelge He's like, you know, he's like, you know, maybe less friendly or courteous on the road. 01:31:27.10 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 01:31:27.42 Kurt Crenwelge Like it's making him more bitter or he's having the, the toll of the guilt and the weight on him is just making him slower and slower. 01:31:27.48 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 01:31:35.86 Kurt Crenwelge So then to the point of like, you know, he's kind of like, uh, you know, the, you know, it's the It's the parable of like the Samaritan on the road. ah you know like you know here is he Here he is. He's like bruised. 01:31:50.00 Kurt Crenwelge He's beaten and defeated. And like other people have passed him by. It's like, well, now you've come across him again. And now he he's here. He's at his lowest low. Are you just going to are you going to leave him here? Or what are you going to do Sort of a thing. 01:32:04.25 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, I i think if if we don't get to the tragedy, but just its refusal to help, like, I mean, he he gets around. And so, like, if the adventurers get around, too, and they run into him, like, he's he remembers people, and he's he's not going to he's not ever ever going to be unfair to them, but, like, he's not going to be willing to just... 01:32:23.45 Fr. Tom Bombadil he He's not going to be very flexible in wanting to offer help because you know they they treated him that way too. So he'll still be courteous, but he's probably going to be colder. 01:32:33.82 Fr. Tom Bombadil um But if if there's tragedy that happens, 01:32:34.33 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Or if they if he if they ask him to do a delivery, then maybe he's like, you know, he has to like, oh, I'm sorry, that's going to be in a more difficult area. I have to charge more than normal. You understand these sorts of things. But normally he would just do it for like, you know, the basic cost of delivering a parcel. It's like, well, you know, it's dangerous territory. So unfortunately, i'm going to have to like raise my rates a little bit or or something like that. 01:33:01.21 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, it like depending on how you want, if you wanted to take the story in a different direction, um like i it you could make it where something less heavy, but like because he's well you know he's been a longtime member of the the Mail Carrier's Guild, like 01:33:05.43 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 01:33:15.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil if your reputation goes down in his eyes, like he kind of can spread the word and like everyone is allowed to use the mail carriers guild. 01:33:23.26 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:33:23.39 Fr. Tom Bombadil Cause that's part of the, part of the law and the rules, but um you just, it's going to be, it's going take more persuasion. It's not going to get it. Like it's, it's going to be a colder reception because he's kind of spread the word. 01:33:32.54 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:33:33.35 Fr. Tom Bombadil Like, nah, these, these aren't good people. Like they're not, 01:33:36.28 Kurt Crenwelge Oh yeah, for sure. If you have town criers and, you know, it's a, however you deal with literacy in your, your game worlds of like, are, are you assuming most people are literate or are they hearing their news from the, the, the couriers who come through town, the merchants who spread the rumors and the news that they hear on the road and, And the and you know and and the town criers and all these sorts of folks. And so if Wendell's a part of that network that most people get their information from, ah then for sure Wendell could do serious quote unquote damage. 01:34:09.85 Kurt Crenwelge If like he knows that like, oh, these rat catchers, like I asked them to do like something simple for me and they just don't. They like practically spat on me for even suggesting something to them. It's like, don't do business with these guys. Like they're bad news sort of a thing or like, oh, these guys are great. Like they help me. They'll help you too. And helps to give the party more side quest leads or or something or clues on their their big thing of whatever they're doing. Yeah. 01:34:38.49 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, it's he he's he doesn't strike an impressive figure, but it turns out he's not somebody you you want to be have as an enemy. 01:34:49.59 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, he's part of the established infrastructure, the boring infrastructure that is how information spreads and works in the world. 01:34:57.43 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes. 01:34:58.36 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. All right. So then with all these things ah that we've discovered and learned about Wendell, ah do we have any other any other optional questions to consider? Are you ready to roll on to the next section? 01:35:12.47 Fr. Tom Bombadil i think we've I think we've filled out a pretty good picture of him. um I feel like we've we've kind of covered a lot of the the space that he... that he we've We've uncovered a lot of who he is, um and some of it has surprised me, but I i think i think we've got a good clear picture of of Wendell now. 01:35:25.40 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:35:31.67 Kurt Crenwelge Perfect. And with that, we're going to throw Wendell into a random encounter. 01:35:44.28 Kurt Crenwelge And final bit here to read for you transcription readers. It's Zencaster, the sponsors of this segment who help to be able to get me to record stuff and all the, all the good things you like to do podcasts. Well, then you should use my code side KQ podcast at Zencaster.com forward slash pricing to get started on your own paid plan of a Zencaster subscription to do an awesome podcast. I love them. 01:36:13.72 Kurt Crenwelge Thanks Dane and Benjamin over at Dispel Magic for showing me the service. It's done wonders for the podcast. So ah and without further ado, let's get back to the show. 01:36:26.20 Kurt Crenwelge All right. So this is the part of the show, of course, where we do a vignette, a scene, a play, me thinks, with the character that we've created here today. So Father Chris is going to do fantastic being an elderly halfling mail carrier. 01:36:41.26 Kurt Crenwelge But the question becomes, who am I going to be in the scene? 01:36:41.69 Fr. Tom Bombadil Thank you. 01:36:44.38 Kurt Crenwelge Is it going to be a return of Sonya? Is it going to be Duncan? Or is it going to be Chrisley or Korak or Orion or Agape or even Life Spell or Amblin Mithril Shaper? We've got a whole cast of characters. 01:37:02.23 Kurt Crenwelge um to choose from, or if none of them sound good, we can make up another one, or maybe it's even someone closer um in Wendell's life. Maybe it's the conversation with the daughter who near who lives nearby, or another member of the guild, or I don't know. What kind of scene are you interested in showing off Wendell in? 01:37:23.68 Fr. Tom Bombadil Jeez, well, i as we've been talking about Wendell, I'm um already getting very interested in seeing him in a lot of different scenarios. um I think we got to we got to go with some type is an scenario that's really going to show, like that makes him shine. Like not not that he's seeking that, but just for us as the the players, us as the those following the story, like I want to see ah where like Wendell really shines for what he's got. um So um' i'm kind of whoever whoever you think would would be would be good for that sort of thing. 01:37:53.46 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 01:37:59.83 Fr. Tom Bombadil um he's he's got he's on He's on his mission to deliver something, um and it doesn't matter if he's got to if he's got to get past guards, or if he has to convince people of things, or if he's got to go into rough territory. 01:38:00.31 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:38:11.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil or like he he will He will take on the burden, and he will just do his thing. 01:38:17.72 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I'm just wondering because last time you spoke with Sonya when she was in barbarian mode and then thanks to Axio, she took her paladin ah oath as well. So I'm just kind of curious, you know, if you're looking for somebody to bounce off of that's really going to make Wendell shine. I mean, you certainly can't go wrong with Duncan because he's the happy-go-lucky guy that's going to know no task too daring, no feet too small sort of a guy. So he's going to go to the ends of the earth just as much to make something happen. So If you want to meet Duncan or any of the other characters, you know, up up to you. 01:38:52.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, let's go with Duncan. 01:38:53.94 Kurt Crenwelge All right. And would you care to set the scene or shall I set the scene? 01:38:59.00 Fr. Tom Bombadil You know, Wendell ends up in all sorts of places and he he doesn't he doesn't pick where he ends up. So I'd like you to set the scene. 01:39:07.45 Kurt Crenwelge All right. Where we last left our hero, Duncan, ah he had found himself back from the Feywild and had made his way to the nearest major city. 01:39:18.90 Kurt Crenwelge And of course, what do you got to do when you stop at the major city? Well, you got to stop at Zigster's. You got to get yourself a Ziggy Piggy and a plate or like five Ziggy Piggies and a plate. 01:39:29.37 Kurt Crenwelge And then ah Zigster gave ah Duncan the job to go hunt for some griffin meat. So Duncan has been out and about in the mountains. 01:39:40.06 Kurt Crenwelge And he's bagged himself a couple of Griffins, got them all field dressed and prepared just the way that Zixter wants them. And so we're probably on some mountain roads. 01:39:51.13 Kurt Crenwelge And ah it's interesting because, you know, Duncan is like on his journey. He's got everything, ah you know, properly prepared, got the parts ah that he wanted to keep and properly in a good ecological way, spread the remains that he's not keeping. 01:39:58.76 Fr. Tom Bombadil Thank 01:40:05.19 Kurt Crenwelge So all the other animals have something to eat. But as he's coming down the mountain paths, um you know, and like in a scenic overlook, I think that's where he catches this interesting scene of where he's going to kind of like stumble across Wendell. So what is Wendell doing kind of like at the scenic overlook here on the mountain pass as Duncan is actually making his way down and Wendell seems to have stopped for the time being and Duncan slows down to observe. 01:40:36.92 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, well, I think Duncan probably, you know, he's he's got a view and he's taken things in. um And he first kind of hears like a squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. And it's that is not a sound that I'm used to hearing up in the mountains, in the wilds. And he kind of looks and like off in the distance, he sees something moving. it's like squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. 01:41:01.27 Fr. Tom Bombadil And what that is is Wendell just pedaling his way on his on his bike, you know, like, it first of all, on a bike in the mountains, but that just like, you know, wending his way through through a little mountain pass in his place, and eventually he kind of stops to to kind of take a breath and kind of... 01:41:20.79 Fr. Tom Bombadil you know pulls out his map and his compass and makes sure like, okay, where where am I going? So I think Duncan like so you know hears him and then like identifies the source of the sound and and is is really surprised at what he finds um as Wendell is stopping and kind of figuring out where you know where he goes next. 01:41:41.82 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, and I think Duncan as ah is looking over at Wendell, and he rolls a history check, and he does well, and he remembers, and he's like, Oh, the same, it's the same guild. 01:41:55.00 Kurt Crenwelge And because he's, he's flashing back and remembering his previous time with Esther van missive. um And so he start, he, he approaches, maybe he says some like phrase of the guild that like, he remembers Esther teaching him like quite a while ago. 01:42:11.19 Kurt Crenwelge So he just kind of hails over to Wendell and he says something akin that's like, ah you know, through rain or shine, the postal service, you'll not deny sort of a thing. 01:42:22.14 Kurt Crenwelge So as a, as a hail, 01:42:22.42 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Yeah. and Wendell, Wendell looks up and Wendell's not, not easily startled. I mean, he, he pays close attention to his surroundings, but he goes all over the place. And so he's not easily started. 01:42:35.48 Fr. Tom Bombadil So he, he notices Duncan and then notices that familiar phrase. So he, he's put at ease that that Duncan is not a threat. So he kind of gets on his bike and, and kind of pedals his way over. Hello there. 01:42:50.87 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, hello nice to hello. Nice to meet your acquaintance. You know, Duncan is a human, so he's like a good amount taller. And so he's like, ah, nice to... I remember. Yes, the guild. 01:43:00.95 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. Another of your fellows, Esther Van Missive. Yes. Yes, i helped I helped her on her... So you go out this far, really? Up the mountains? Really? And he like looks around at these imposing peaks. 01:43:10.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil Oh, yes. Oh, yes. 01:43:12.53 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yeah. 01:43:14.17 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yes. And I remember Esther very well. I was part of one of the people who trained her and I am very proud of the work that she does. 01:43:20.41 Kurt Crenwelge You were! 01:43:22.53 Fr. Tom Bombadil She she she's a good and faithful civil servant. 01:43:23.54 Kurt Crenwelge Ah... 01:43:27.19 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, yes, yes, she is. Yes. Lots of brothers and sisters, she tells me. I remember from her from her journey with me. Yes. And ah so Duncan's happy to like go on a whole ramble and a tangent. Kind of like the thing of like, you know, you you stumble across someone in the supermarket parking lot and you're going to like hijack them for a bit and start telling them all sorts of of stories when it's like clearly it's like, oh, I've got something to do. But like I am kind of enjoying the conversation. So it's just like you know shooting the breeze a little bit ah back and forth. And ah you know how is how is Wendell taking this all in as Duncan has halted him and like carrying on a jovial conversation? 01:44:08.69 Fr. Tom Bombadil I Wendell Wendell is ah he spends a lot of time alone. So he you know, he doesn't mind some some friendly conversation. i mean, he always does have in the back of his mind like, oh, well, I I've got something I had to move on. I got to keep going with my work. I don't want to dawdle too much. 01:44:24.86 Fr. Tom Bombadil um But it's it's so it's refreshing. He wasn't expecting to meet a ah friendly face up here in in the mountains. um 01:44:31.74 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:44:32.41 Fr. Tom Bombadil So yeah he's enjoying conversation with this this young chap and ah he e kind of you know does like, oh, I see. you know he he goes along with the conversation. 01:44:43.06 Kurt Crenwelge And as Wendell is talking, um there's like this interesting arcane feedback loop that's starting to happen that Duncan is not noticing because the deerskin loafers that Duncan is wearing are made were made by um rock and folio who were a an interesting duo but to you know to say to say the least um these deer skin loafers are cursed in that it makes him more susceptible to the command spell but i've kind of ruled like anything sort of adjacent it makes him like more sympathetic to so as you know maybe not necessarily wendell is reading anything aloud for duncan to hear but just naturally listening to his voice. 01:45:30.22 Kurt Crenwelge It's kind of like a a resonating chamber that's like sort of working to amplify the the the vibes a little bit. 01:45:34.30 Fr. Tom Bombadil Mm-hmm. 01:45:36.73 Kurt Crenwelge So Duncan is just kind of feeling himself more pulled in to conversation with Wendell. like He can't break himself from like leaving this conversation. and just So it's just like Duncan is so singularly focused on wanting to make this old man's life the best that it could be. 01:45:54.46 Kurt Crenwelge and uh you know at at a break in the conversation he just like you know Duncan like looks out ah over the scenic overpass here and he's just like you know by the gods you know this is you know this is a great country and it's it's good to be out here I was just hunting griffin for zigster over in the city and um you know it's just good uh to be here and uh he looks over at Wendell And he rolls an insight check. 01:46:20.28 Kurt Crenwelge And, you know, surprisingly, he does pretty well. 01:46:20.45 Fr. Tom Bombadil Thank you. 01:46:23.28 Kurt Crenwelge So with this insight check, as Duncan's trying to kind of like sense that motive or like what's what feelings can like Duncan sense, like what's the vibe that he's getting from Wendell as he's carrying on this conversation? 01:46:36.85 Kurt Crenwelge He can't quite help himself, but be pulled in by Wendell's words. 01:46:42.51 Fr. Tom Bombadil Well, something that Duncan said as he's you know rambling in his conversation, something that he says triggers a memory in Wendell. And and it's Wendell kind of starts to grow wistful as he remembers ah his kids um and where they where they used to live. um So I don't know what it was that Duncan said, maybe so something, a particular feature the landscape or something, a story Duncan was just telling from another adventure. And it may even just be tangentially related, but it just kind of... 01:47:18.33 Fr. Tom Bombadil connected something in Wendell's mind and it made him once again think of of his kids. and He started to kind of you know feel that that old heaviness on him again. and so that That causes him to to turn to to Duncan and it's funny you should mention you know, it's funny you should mention the the Griffins. You know, there was a tavern near where I used to live named, named the the two Griffins and, uh, used to go there with, with my children. And, um, it's been a, a long time since I've seen them. 01:48:01.08 Fr. Tom Bombadil And, uh, 01:48:03.80 Fr. Tom Bombadil i I don't know exactly where they are. I think the last time i heard, one of them was was off in the city. you know i I suspect he always talked about going to the Pursuer Career in Magic. um But the others, I don't know. But I've i've always... and In my old age, I see that I... 01:48:33.34 Fr. Tom Bombadil Nothing's more important than family, and I wish I had more time to spend with them. 01:48:40.06 Kurt Crenwelge Oh, oh my goodness. Well, is there anything that I can do help, to help in this? Like, 01:48:47.95 Fr. Tom Bombadil Well, so i I would like to go... eventually leave all of this work behind. I've been a mail carrier for 97 years. 01:49:01.96 Fr. Tom Bombadil And much as I love that, um I want to see my grandchildren. 01:49:03.10 Kurt Crenwelge wow 01:49:10.04 Fr. Tom Bombadil And I want to see where my children have ended up. And I'm... I'm willing to retire if it means that I can spend more time with my children. And so I i really could use some help reconnecting with them because I need... There's one, at least one of them, I'm not sure where they've got to. And i if I'm honest with you, It's... 01:49:39.58 Fr. Tom Bombadil it's they They may have some, some resentment for the time that I've spent away, um, working hard to provide for them. Um, done the best that I can, but, uh, it, you know, I understand that, that people, they, they want to see their father more often. 01:50:00.44 Fr. Tom Bombadil I want to see them too. So, um, I've, I've written this letter that, uh, It expresses that I want to reconnect, and um I'm hoping that they would be willing to reconnect with me too. 01:50:15.96 Fr. Tom Bombadil um And i I'd very much like if you could go and bring this letter to them so that they know my intentions and know that I'd be willing to go and retire from this life if I can go and spend more time with them now. 01:50:33.24 Kurt Crenwelge I think, you know, you haven't read anything again, but it's like the suggestion, the command, the just the sim, the sympathetic harmonizing vibrations of the magic alone. 01:50:45.71 Kurt Crenwelge It's enough to make like, you know, through that sense of the Feywild, it's almost as if like in Duncan's mind, he's hearing like this soaring somber orchestral soundtrack going on you know it's like the the highlight of like a dramatic movie is like wendell's facing it's the go you know it's the golden lighting of like the day on his face as he's looking out on nature and it's just like it's everything that you want in a hollywood movie shot and it's just like duncan is just like 01:51:03.04 Fr. Tom Bombadil Thank you. 01:51:16.76 Kurt Crenwelge crying He can't help himself. He's crying for how pure and beautiful and wholesome and so vulnerable this little man has been that he's just like, absolutely. He just agrees to it. He's just like, yes, I will help you find your children. 01:51:32.54 Kurt Crenwelge your grandchildren, you Wendell, you deserve this. You understand you, you deserve this. And he's just like, Duncan is so serious about this. Like he believes in nothing more right now than like seeing to get this done for Wendell. 01:51:49.29 Fr. Tom Bombadil Well, Wendell is is not somebody who expresses his emotions very much, but he does he does get a little all choked up and he's he's he composes himself, but he's like, thank you. you know i I do appreciate that. and um you You very much have my gratitude if you are able to if you are able to find them and convey my letter to them. 01:52:12.89 Kurt Crenwelge and And Duncan is happy to take the letter and he he gets the names and he like gets the descriptions of like who all the kids are. And he's just like, well, you know this one, you know your your son, you said it was in the city. And he like points way off in the direction of like where the big city is. He's like... 01:52:28.41 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, yeah. Like the Griffin meats for Zigster. You know, he wants to cook with this Griffin meat for Griffin burgers and we can do it. We can make this happen, man. And he's like getting excited, like trying to, you know, he's trying to be mindful of like not shaking an old man. 01:52:42.88 Kurt Crenwelge But like that's the intensity of like he wants to shake him like. yes, we can do this. 01:52:47.22 Fr. Tom Bombadil thank 01:52:47.32 Kurt Crenwelge But like, he's being very mindful to not rough an elderly person. um he's He's, you know, he's chaotic good. He's like, you can tell in his body, he's he's restraining himself to a great degree. But he takes the letter and he's like, well, I have no time to waste. And he's like happy and he's and he he just dashes. He uses the dash action. He's just going to run straight down the mountain if he can. 01:53:12.95 Kurt Crenwelge to get back to the city. And so as the as the as the camera shot pans back on Wendell as he's now in the aftermath of this meeting with Duncan, who's now taking this very important, valuable letter, and he's going to go find his son, and then that's going to start the rest of the side quest to find the other siblings. 01:53:30.36 Kurt Crenwelge What's Wendell thinking? What's going to be like the last moment we get before the DVD goes to the next chapter? 01:53:37.94 Fr. Tom Bombadil So he he watches Duncan go, um and he's got an expression on his face that if you watch if you' if you've watched him if you've watched his him long enough, you would know that he's he's definitely feeling some emotions inside, but he he's trying to just kind of keep himself composed, even though no one's around. um So he kind of lingers watching him go, even though he doesn't have to, just because he's feeling... 01:54:07.59 Fr. Tom Bombadil He's feeling a little so so so little surge of hope and longing. umm But he knows that it's still got to wait and see, and he doesn't know what to expect. so And in any case, he's got a job to do. So kind of kind of exhales and then gets on his bike and ah then pedals his way off down the path through the mountains. 01:54:37.98 Kurt Crenwelge And scene. So we did it, Father. how do you How do you think we did? 01:54:40.76 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. 01:54:41.90 Kurt Crenwelge We made it through the mountain pass, as it were. 01:54:44.54 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was cool. I liked, ah liked seeing that unfold. um Yeah. Just see, getting to see, see Wendell, you know, in action, playing with what he, how he would actually respond to things and how people would respond to him. 01:54:58.20 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. 01:55:02.89 Fr. Tom Bombadil It's really fun to see. 01:55:04.86 Kurt Crenwelge It was i think Duncan was the best choice as fun as it would be for you to get to interact with Sonya again and see her in this light as being like the warrior woman who then committed to teaming up with Axios and becoming this paladin who serves a god who wishes to redeem the undead, which, of course, if you go through the episodes and you listen every one where Sonya has been more of a paladin as well as a barbarian. um you know that would have been fun you know for for you to get to listen but i think you know with all the various hijinks that duncan has been on since the very beginning of the podcast um yeah no the the sympathetic this the arcane uh you know feedback loop uh symbiosis with the ah with the deerskin loafers that make him susceptible to the command spell and 01:55:51.06 Kurt Crenwelge this guy's voice when he reads things or at least when he talks is like even so yeah, Duncan was like the perfect guy for the side quest scene for sure. 01:55:58.42 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah, it sounds like it. I think i think that was a ah good fit. 01:56:02.78 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. And so, yeah, as we're here in the final thoughts section, you know, ah certainly a great long lengthy conversation we had, but how do you think it was getting to return to the podcast, getting to make Wendell and ah you know, all those good things, your feedback and your check in your critiques and all that good stuff. 01:56:21.43 Fr. Tom Bombadil This is a lot of fun. i i i love I love getting to see a story unfold, especially when when I get to be a part of it and and when it's not just the work of one person. 01:56:34.33 Kurt Crenwelge Yes. 01:56:34.36 Fr. Tom Bombadil It reminds me of when I, um back when I was in college, I was a i was a camp counselor. And as a camp counselor, you need to know how to fill time with kids and occupy them and just kind of flex your creative muscles. And ah we used to sort of do impromptu storytelling just to kind of fill time. And it was something I actually really enjoyed doing. um Just like, okay, we've got time to... So like, now I'm just still start telling a story. And I just... Like whatever crosses my mind, i just kind of... And then that then then happens. And sometimes I would do that with another counselor and we would just kind of weave together a story and... 01:57:16.47 Fr. Tom Bombadil we wouldn't necessarily even finish it. we're just like, okay, well, and now we got to move to the next thing. So you don't know what happens. But um I always had a lot of fun telling stories um and telling stories with other people and playing off of what they bring to the table. 01:57:26.07 Kurt Crenwelge Mm-hmm. 01:57:30.34 Fr. Tom Bombadil So this was this was a fun chance to do that again. 01:57:33.72 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, I love doing this podcast. I love all the the characters we make and the backstory and the bravado we get to install instill in each and every one of them to make them like a fully actualized NPC, not just ah Officer Jenny in town this or you know Nurse Joy in town that or, oh, here's the baker again. It's like, oh, we have Wendell, you guys. You don't understand Wendell. 01:58:00.33 Kurt Crenwelge It's the level that like 01:58:00.78 Fr. Tom Bombadil Wendell's seen some stuff. 01:58:02.88 Kurt Crenwelge Wendell has seen some stuff. Let me tell you, you know, when we get to the, the, you know, the wiki, the wiki multiverse of this podcast and how it gets to the level, maybe one day of like Skyrim wikis or even Baldur's Gate three wikis, or it's like, Oh, you this one obscure NPC you don't realize is super important for the whole reason of stuff that happens in act two or act three or whatever it is that you mean in the beginning of the game, sort of vibe 01:58:32.75 Fr. Tom Bombadil Yeah. Yeah. I, and, and should somebody successfully aid Wendell in, in something that means so much to him? I mean, it's, One can only guess at how game-changing it will be to receive from his from his travel sack ah such a ah rare artifact or item or potion or something like that, that only someone who's been to the strangest corners of the earth over many years could provide. 01:59:01.65 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah. Yeah. 01:59:02.14 Fr. Tom Bombadil so Who knows how much of a game-changer that could be in someone else's story, just because they decided to help in an elderly postman who 01:59:02.81 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:59:06.71 Kurt Crenwelge yeah 01:59:11.70 Fr. Tom Bombadil put a little too much time into his work when he really wanted to focus on his family. 01:59:16.89 Kurt Crenwelge Yeah, for sure. And we've definitely, I think, reached the end. So, you know, this is the part normally where I'm like, and now the stage, the soapbox, the microphone and the platform are yours. So I know you're not on Twitter anymore, but if you want to be found on social media, 01:59:32.98 Kurt Crenwelge If you want people to come check out your parish or or just the church in general, if you have a pitch for that for people or just anything that's on your heart that you want to share with our audience today, let us know. What what what do we need to know? What's the skinny? 01:59:48.86 Fr. Tom Bombadil I don't have any anything really special to promote. um I would ask for your prayers because I can always use prayers from anyone. i Priests are people, and we're on the road to heaven, hopefully. And so ah i I pray for many people, and it's my joy to do so, but I also appreciate prayers from others. And a thing that's been on my mind that I'll share is... um 02:00:15.83 Fr. Tom Bombadil When things are difficult, take time in prayer to ask God how he sees things. 02:00:23.48 Fr. Tom Bombadil when ah When a situation is weighing you down, is making you frustrated or angry or anxious or sad or or anything like that, or maybe there's there's some person in your life, there's someone in your family, there's something that happened at work or at school, um Ask God how he sees it. Ask God how he sees that person. 02:00:50.68 Fr. Tom Bombadil If there's a person that you you feel bitterness towards or anger towards, whether for good reasons or not, or or a mix of both, um one really helpful way of like moving past, ah getting stuck in bitterness or stuck in anger or stuck in fear or any number of things is, Lord, what what do you see in this person? What do you see in this situation? 02:01:13.18 Fr. Tom Bombadil Because it... As it turns out, i God tends to be way more loving than I am, you know hard as I might try. God's more forgiving. He's more patient. 02:01:23.74 Fr. Tom Bombadil He sees good in people when I might have a harder time seeing that. When something that happened or something that someone said or did might make it harder for me to see their good because I'm stuck on that thing, 02:01:39.29 Fr. Tom Bombadil remembering and to ask like, Lord, what, what do you see in them? I've found that to be a really helpful, like a way to pray a prayerful reset where you're essentially asking God to make your heart and mind like his. 02:01:53.91 Fr. Tom Bombadil So, um, the more people that are asking God to make their minds and hearts like his, the better. 02:02:03.47 Kurt Crenwelge couldn't say it any better myself for sure um and and i think i've done this uh whenever we've had father chris and and father blake on um i think the way to end this podcast episode uh could you just could you just take us out in prayer before before we go 02:02:20.41 Fr. Tom Bombadil Absolutely. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 02:02:26.10 Kurt Crenwelge Amen. 02:02:27.40 Fr. Tom Bombadil Heavenly Father, thank you for the lives that you've given to us, whether they are complicated in our own eyes or simple, whether they're mundane or exciting, 02:02:43.06 Fr. Tom Bombadil Thank you for the simple good things. um and thank you even for the the crosses that we carry, even though that's painful. Thank you for the ways that you give us to grow in virtue and the ways that we can be more like you in selfless love and selfless service. 02:03:03.54 Fr. Tom Bombadil Bless us, bless our families and our loved ones. Help us to be more like you. Give us minds and hearts that are more like yours and help us to, Bring your light to people who are in darkness so that they so that they would have the hope and the strength and the peace that you wish for them, especially those who are in the dark and have lost sight of where the light is. 02:03:30.90 Fr. Tom Bombadil Fill us with your light and fill the world with your light. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 02:03:40.40 Kurt Crenwelge Amen. Father Chris, thank you so much for being a guest on this podcast. I can't wait to have you back on making even more interesting NPCs. 02:03:51.22 Fr. Tom Bombadil Thank you. It's been a pleasure.