(Intro music: “Minor Apprehension” by Jackie McLean)
Grace: Hello, and welcome to Starting Tools, a Dungeons and Dragons podcast for fools. I’m your co-host, Grace.
Tom: And I’m your other co-host, Tom. Grace, this is our first episode where we’re not in the same room.
Grace: Yeah, we’re doing it remotely! Because I am at college.
Tom: Yeah. You’ll notice that the audio quality has probably dipped significantly.
Grace: Yeah, we’ll see how that audio sounds. We’ll see, we’ll see.
Tom: Um…however, we are using the good video sharing app, Discord.
(Laughter)
Grace: Tom…the way that you talk about computers—
Tom: (Overlapping) Is that what it’s called?
Grace: (Overlapping) —sometimes—the way you talk about computers, it sounds like an old man who’s just trying to figure it out.
Tom: (Overlapping) Fuck off! What’s this—now, now what’s this screen?
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): Now, I do notice, using Discord’s great, uh, screen-sharing feature, that you’re opened up to D&D Beyond, and there is—there is an ad.
(Laughter)
Grace: There is an ad.
Tom: (Overlapping) That your Adblock is not blocking!
Grace: No. Tom, I have Adblock, but they have not blocked the ad.
Tom: Inexplicably.
Grace: I’m gonna take a screenshot so I have it saved. This advertisement for a life-sized velociraptor from Amazon. I’m gonna click on it.
Tom: I’d like to mention—I’d like to mention, there is no Jurassic World branding on—
Grace: (Overlapping) Whoa!
Tom: (Overlapping) Oh, wait, now there is.
Grace: Jurassic-sized dinosaur statue! Well, this is—Tom! Look at the other thing!
Tom: Holy shit, it’s a whole—okay, now we’re going design—this is a whole new podcast.
Grace: (Overlapping) A yeti garden statue. Oh, this is awesome.
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: Welcome to our podcast—
Tom: Medium 21-inch.
Grace: Oh, man, that’s $92.46.
Tom: We could just have another podcast where we just go down the rabbit hole of this.
Grace: The internet is good.
(Laughter)
Tom: All right. None of these ads are blocked! What the fuck!
Grace: No, I have Adblock, but it’s not working on these velociraptor ads.
Tom: It says it’s blocking nine, I’m calling bullshit.
(Laughter)
Grace: I’m glad it didn’t, though.
Tom: So, Grace, I actually—um, I think—I’m gonna put you on the spot a little bit. This is our—we should explain what the podcast is, for our new listeners.
Grace: Oh, yeah, it’s—
Tom: As they grow—they grow by the week.
Grace: Sure, we got up to, like, two now, I’m pretty sure.
Tom: I think we have four followers on Twitter, and one of them is me.
Grace: And one of them is definitely, definitely a spambot. Um—
Tom: Yes. The other one is my friend.
Grace: Yeah. Woo! We got quite a following.
Tom: What do we do here, Grace?
Grace: But, um, in case you haven’t listened before: what we do is we use the D&D 5e character creation system to create some really, um, bad Dungeons and Dragons characters. All level one, all just the worst we can make them, really—
Tom: All playable!
Grace: Yeah, all totally playable. We don’t break the rules too badly. Um—
Tom: No, we kind of fucked it on the last one, but I think that, um, Li’l Sandy was playable.
Grace: Sure, sure. But who would want to?
Tom: By the way, I kind of forgot that we named him Li’l Sandy.
(Laughter)
Grace: It’s pretty funny.
Tom: It’s a good one. We’re funny.
Grace: I love humor.
Tom: All right, so, for this episode, I’m gonna put you on the hot seat, actually, if you’re okay with that.
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: I have been a busy boy, and I assume you’ve been busy as well. We both started school.
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: And I, actually, have not put a lot of thought into what our next character should be. So, um, could we just sort of go through some races real quick?
Grace: Yes, definitely. Um…
Tom: All right.
Grace: So, I’m scrolling through the page right now. Some that are jumping out right now—Bugbear, typically a villain, but we could play that. Centaur, Changeling, Dragonborn—Dragonborns are very fun—Tieflings, Firbolgs—love those—
Tom: (Overlapping) Uh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Grace: Yeah?
Tom: Are centaurs playable?
Grace: Yeah. Well, they’re Unearthed Arcana. But yes.
Tom: Okay, scroll—
Grace: Would you like me to open that in a new tab, maybe?
Tom: I would like you to open that in a new tab.
Grace: Okay. I hope—yes.
Tom: Now, when I see a centaur, I see a horse that’s just sort of loading.
(Laughter)
Grace: I think that’s true.
Tom: Do you understand what I’m saying?
Grace: It’s kind of like the middle image in an Animorphs book cover. Like, sort of that—
Tom: (Overlapping) Yes! That’s exactly—
Grace: (Overlapping) —half-horse situation.
Tom: So. So, Grace.
Grace: Yes?
Tom: Could we have—sorry, I’m playing with a zipper right now. That’s bad audio.
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: Uh, all right, zipper has been tossed. Um—could we maybe have a centaur who has a horse disguise so convincing everyone thinks he’s a horse
(Laughter)
Grace: And we found it! Sometimes it takes us a while to find it, but I think we found it right away.
Tom: No, this is it. A slam dunk.
Grace: Race: Centaur. And Tom—we’re going to play a character who has everyone fooled, kind of, right?
Tom: Yeah, no, he’s a Master—he’s like my favorite film, Master of Disguise.
(Laughter)
Grace: So, wait, are we playing this Dana Carvey-ass character? I think that—
Tom: Yeah, this is Pistachio Disguisey.
(Laughter)
Grace: No, we can’t! I won’t! Um—
Tom: Sorry, what were you—
Grace: I think that, um, for class, it makes the most sense for this guy to be a Rogue. Because they do have proficiency in disguise, and I think that—yeah.
Tom: Also, everything else about him. This fucker’s roguish.
Grace: Yeah. His roguish good looks, his roguish four legs…everything about him.
Tom: His roguish—
Grace: God.
Tom: I mean, so like—I’m sort of thinking about the technicalities of this disguise. Um, he’s gonna have to take some limbs off.
(Laughter)
Grace: No, Tom! Well, depends on how good the—
Tom: (Overlapping) We’re gonna have to get rid—
Grace: (Overlapping—depends on how good the disguise is, I guess. But, like…
Tom: Oh, well, he’s committed.
Grace: Maybe at least one arm should be…gone.
Tom: And then the other one is his massive horse dong.
Grace: Yes! Yes!
Tom: He had it attached.
Grace: Aw, this is awesome!
Tom: Yes!
Grace: Yes!
Tom: You’re gonna need to go write that down, in, um…I mean, it’s not a flaw…
Grace: (Overlapping) I’ll put that in “appearance” for now. So—he has one arm on his body, yes? Like, one arm?
Tom: And it’s not where you think.
Grace: Okay. But is this a usable arm? Like, could he use it to grab something? Could he have used some sort of—
Tom: It’s—it’s still fully functional, it’s just where his dong would be.
Grace: Did you say it is fully functional, or it isn’t?
Tom: Oh, it’s got a full range of motion.
Grace: Because, you know, we live in a magical world, where he could have gotten a wizard to do something to that dick arm.
Tom: Well…yes, yes, yes.
Grace: Cool.
Tom: Yes. I love where you’re at for this recording session.
(Laughter)
Grace: Um…I’m running on very little sleep right now, so…
Tom: (Overlapping) Because what I’m picturing is—yeah.
Grace: (Typing) One fully functional dong arm. The other arm, I assume, is gone?
Tom: I’d like you—motion to stop saying dong and start saying cock.
(Laughter)
Grace: I’ll say, uh…I’ll meet you in the middle and say penis.
Tom: Yes.
Grace: Um…
Tom: That’s—yeah. We’re a scientific podcast.
Grace: Yeah. I think it’s time to start taking this a little seriously.
Tom: All right, so…alignment?
Grace: Well, honestly…okay…
Tom: Chaotic Neutral.
Grace: I’m going to read what it says, because sometimes they have, like, suggested alignments.
Tom: Okay.
Grace: Centaurs are inclined towards neutrality. Like—so, for example, elves…
Tom: (Overlapping) Oh, okay.
Grace: …elves tend to be chaotic, and, you know, they say that orcs are evil, but I’ve…that’s bullshit. It’s racist fucking D&D Beyond fucking shit.
Tom: All right, all right, come back to me.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): Grace, Grace, come back to me?
Grace: Neutral.
Tom: Grace?
Grace: Yeah? I’m with you.
Tom: So, he’s Neutral, and I also think that, um…
Grace: (Overlapping) Wait, True?
Tom: …with him being—uh, I think he’s definitely Chaotic.
Grace: Yeah, that just makes the most sense. So Chaotic Neutral. Like, what other kind of beast are we thinking here—yeah.
Tom: Um, yeah.
Grace: Uh, zero experience…
Tom: Now, Player Name—I feel like you’re doing a lot of heavy lifting here, can we make this one you?
(Laughter)
Grace: Yeah, sure.
Tom: I feel like you’re leading the charge. You’ve said “dong,” I’d say, an equal amount of times as I have.
Grace: Yeah, definitely. I’m feeling really into this guy so far.
Tom: So…let’s get our basic rolls in. Right?
Grace: Oh, right!
Tom: We’ll focus around background…
Grace: Yeah, that’s a good idea. I can start to, um—
Tom: Wait, we should have a theme song for this part.
Grace: Basic rolls? Wait, I need to get a piece of paper during this part. How about you, um, brainstorm that while I take out my headphones and get a sticky note?
Tom: All right. (Singing) Now it’s time—
(Banging sounds)
Tom (cont’d): Jesus. Now that’s audio.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d, still singing, overlapping with keyboard sounds): Now it’s time for basic rolls! We’re making elves and orcs and trolls. What will we do? We’ll roll the dice!
(Laughter)
Grace: And right there we’ll put a dice rolling sound! Tom, that’s awesome!
Tom: Sweet Jesus.
Grace: Tom, we just made art! Tom, that was beautiful!
Tom: I’m kind of—
Grace: Tom, that was perfect!
Tom: Are you crying?
Grace: Yeah!
(Laughter)
Grace (cont’d): Okay. As you know, I will roll, um, a d6 four times, drop the lowest score, and then do that six times. So. Um—what are you thinking, what kind of build do you want for this guy? Do you want a Strength?
(Dice rolling sounds over the next few minutes?
Tom: I feel like just in order to fit into this disguise, he should probably be kind of thin.
Grace: Mm-hm. Yes.
Tom: But that dong arm has gotta be strong, doesn’t it?
Grace: Yeah. Plus rogues aren’t necessarily known for their prolific strength.
Tom: Yeah, so he could—yeah. We’re making a lot of slippery boys, but, like…
Grace: Yeah. They are very dextrous and intelligent, are their two, um, um, saving throws.
Tom: Okay. The rogues?
Grace: Yeah. For rogues.
Tom: Okay, cool. Um…yeah. So, this is—I love sound.
(Laughter)
Grace: Yeah, it’s really loud. I think it’s louder than the one at—my desk at home. Um…
Tom: Yeah, no. We’re working on a firmer material.
Grace: (Overlapping) Two…three…wow, Tom, I’m rolling great today, just letting you know.
Tom: (Overlapping) So—oh, well, this guy is probably going to be the best and least playable character we’ve made.
(Laughter)
Grace: Uh—yeah. Can you tell me more about the build you were thinking for this guy, while I add these up?
Tom: I think he’s a strong horse, but a weak man.
Grace: Oh, wow.
Tom: Like, the horse part is fucking shredded. Like, this guy pulls carts, he does tricks, he’s probably won a couple races, but…oh, man, he is, like, weak in—in the human torso part.
Grace: Oh, cool, cool, cool. And maybe that’s why he relies so much on his disguise, you know?
Tom: (Overlapping) But I think that—yeah, I also think that that could be by design. Like, he knows that he has to—like, he does a lot of—he never skips leg day, but he skipped arm day for three months in a row.
(Laughter)
Grace: He got really into the character. Well, Tom, also he has one functional arm, and it’s—it’s a penis. It’s…
Tom: It’s a, it’s a penis. It is a penis.
Grace: I have the ability scores…
Tom: (Overlapping) I notice you’re on…
Grace: What?
Tom: Yeah, okay, lay them on me.
Grace: Yeah, I have the ability scores added up. Um, I’m just going to type them in here so you can see them as well.
Tom: Okay.
Grace: They’re a 13, we have two—whoops, I typed 31. So that’ll go into Dexterity.
(Laughter)
Tom: Oh, God.
Grace: We have 13, we have two 12s, we have one 16, one 14—
Tom: Oh my God!
Grace: Yeah! And one 8.
Tom: This is a power—oh. That’s below average, isn’t it?
Grace: It is below average. It’s a negative one. Um, but that’s only one of those, whereas all of these are pretty much above average.
Tom: I feel like…while I think he’s smart, I don’t think he’s wise.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): So pop that 8 into the…
Grace: Into Wisdom. I like that.
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: Um…and what do you want—
Tom: Intelligence?
Grace: Yeah, what do you want to be his highest stat?
Tom: His highest stat? I want to say Dexterity?
Grace: Dexterity? Yeah, that’s good. We need it for sleight-of-hand checks.
Tom: But I feel like that’s boring, people are going to get bored.
Grace: Well, I will say this: if you want to be using a disguise all the time, that is an Intelligence-based…
Tom: (Overlapping) Okay, so we—
Grace: (Overlapping) Like, if you’re going to say—
Tom: This is the master of disguise.
Grace: He is the master of disguise! And, like, let’s say you want to use a disguise to get past a guard, your DM would tell you to make an Intelligence check, you know? Or Intelligence-based check.
Tom: Are you talking about an additional disguise?
(Laughter)
Grace: Well, Tom, here’s the thing: this guy has a disguise on at all times, which means he’s gonna need to, like, be mindful of that, you know?
Tom: Is he gonna have to make a check every single turn?
(Laughter)
Grace: I think everyone around him is going to need to make, um, Perception checks. Or no, he’s going to need to beat their Passive Perception.
Tom: Okay. Um, I’d like you to put…this just sort of, um, birthed itself in my mind…I’d like you to put “oats” in his bonds.
(Laughter)
Grace: I think that’s good. He does like oats.
Tom: Horsey’s gotta have his oats!
(Laughter)
Grace: Okay, let’s deal with the rest of these ability scores. So we have 13, two 12s, and a 14.
Tom: Yes. We’re gonna get a boost for Dexterity already, so put a 12 in there. I want this to be a balanced boy.
Grace: 12…plus one.
Tom: You think a 14?
Grace: 14 in Dexterity? Yeah, sure.
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: So that’s a plus two.
Tom: Because, you know, he is dextrous. Um…Constitution.
Grace: Uh, you said he’s not super strong. Do you want to put a 12 in there?
Tom: Yeah. I should have good Charisma, right?
Grace: Yeah, that would be a good idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom: Everybody loves a horsey!
Grace: So that’s a 13? Yeah. I like that.
Tom: Yeah. And then 12s in Strength and Constitution.
Grace: Strength and Constitution are both 12s. Plus ones.
Tom: He’s not too strong.
Grace: But don’t forget the racial bonuses you get to this, as a centaur…let me just check on those real quick. Um, um…oh, your Strength increases by two, and your Wisdom increases by one. So…
Tom: Whoa! Also, I’m a fast boy!
Grace: Yeah, you’re now a 14, or a plus two, and your Wisdom is a 9, which is still a minus one.
Tom: I’d like to bring up how fast I am.
Grace: Oh, your speed?
(Laughter)
Tom: It’s 40.
Grace: (Singsong) Your speed is 40 feet! I am so happy.
Tom: Fast horse.
Grace: Tom, that’s awesome.
Tom: Who’s a good horsey? Who’s a good horsey?
Grace: (Overlapping) God. This is so dope. Goddamn. Okay, cool.
Tom: Plus two initiative. I’m unstoppable.
Grace: Yeah, you really are. Fuck. Um…
Tom: Um…
Grace: Let’s see.
Tom: What do we got?
Grace: Yeah, let’s get through all the centaur stuff. You, um…well, we can get through age and stuff later. Your size is Medium. This is—
Tom: Oh, I got Hooves!
(Laughter)
Grace: This is—
Tom: HOOVES! There’s a whole section—
Grace: (Overlapping) There’s a trait—
Tom: —of D&D Beyond, called Hooves—
Grace: —our sponsor—
(Laughter)
Tom: Can you read what it says, please?
Grace: Tom, this is so awesome. (Sigh) This is all unofficial material, just gonna say. So. “Your hooves are natural melee weapons, with which you’re proficient. If you hit with a hoof, the target takes bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 plus your Strength modifier.” This is so fucking cool.
Tom: Holy fuck!
Grace: This is so awesome. I’m gonna put that under Weapons.
Tom: (Still laughing) I’m so strong!
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d, still laughing, losing his mind): Can you read the thing below it?
(Laughter)
Grace: This is “Equine Build—”
Tom: (Overlapping) You just need to—
Grace: Tom, you need to cool the fuck out. So. Equine Build—
(Laughter)
Grace (cont’d): —Equine Build says: “You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push or drag.”
Tom: (Overlapping) Yeah, I do!
Grace: “In addition…” Uh, let’s see…
(Laughter)
Grace (cont’d): Oh, no, I was just gonna skip past—
(Laughter) (Mostly from Tom)
Grace (cont’d): “In addition, any climb that requires hands and feet is especially difficult for you because of your hooves. When you make—when you make such a climb—” Tom, you need to cool the fuck out—
Tom: (Laughter) It’s so fucking good. “Each foot of movement costs you 4 extra feet, instead of the normal 1 extra foot.”
Grace: And finally, “A Medium or smaller creature can ride on your equine back—”
Tom: (Shouting) YES!
Grace: “—if you allow it. In such a situation—”
Tom: (Shouting) YES!
Grace: “—In such a situation, you continue to act independently, not as a controlled mount.” I’m gonna add all three of these—oh, and there’s another one called Charge, which is, uh, uh…
Tom: Holy shit.
Grace: Oh, man. “If you move at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hit them with a melee weapon on the same turn…” Roll the weapon’s damage dice twice, add them together. Great! Cool. So, Charge.
Tom: That’s great, Grace, but I can be an independent mount.
(Laughter)
Grace: You sure can be. So, like—
Tom: Hey, Grace? Is that my name?
Grace: Independent Mount?
(Laughter)
Grace (cont’d): (Typing) Independent…
Tom: You just spelled “indepent.”
Grace: Indepent Mount. Independent Mount. We can call him Mounty, for short!
Tom: (Overlapping) That’s a placeholder, at least.
Grace: Mounty. (Singing) Mounty, the centaur friend.
Tom: (Overlapping) Well, that’s cute. What kind?
Grace: What? Oh, I’m just calling him Mounty as a nickname.
Tom: He’s not a centaur!
Grace: Yeah, he is!
Tom: Mounty the normal horse.
(Laughter)
Grace: (Singing) Mounty, the normal horse. You can ride on him.
Tom: Yeah. Nothing— “I’m not a centaur, what are you talking about?”
Grace: “Ride on me!” (Whinnying sound) “Horses! Hooves!”
Tom: “I love eating…carrots!”
Grace: I’m just gonna add Hooves to our attacks, real quick. Um…melee weapons…
Tom: That’s so ominous.
(Laughter)
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: Just Hooves and Equine Build.
Grace: Hooves. I’m proficient in these! Let me get uh…a plus two.
Tom: Attack bonus?
Grace: Damage type is 1d6, plus two, because they’re strength, um…what is it? Bludgeoning?
Tom: B-L. Well, it’s gotta be—it’s not piercing, Grace.
(Laughter)
Grace: Unless you tie knives to your hooves.
Tom: I don’t have—holy shit, no, He’s already too strong.
Grace: 1d6 plus two piercing. God, this is so great. And then Equine Build—
Tom: (Overlapping) Wait, did you write—is it piercing?
Grace: Yeah. (Pause) Oh, God—
Tom: (Overlapping) Shit, it actually is?
Grace: (Overlapping) Sorry, no. Bludgeoning.
Tom: Are you fucking—
(Laughter)
Grace: Man.
Tom: He doesn’t have a shoe knife.
Grace: I wish. Well, we can—we’ll get to that with Weapons. Okay, so—God, I’m afraid to scroll down the centaur page, because I am so delighted.
Tom: Hybrid Nature. “You have two creature types—” Grace, read it to me!
Grace: Aww. Humanoid and Monstrosity.
Tom: Aww. I’m not a monstrosity, I’m a normal horse!
(Laughter)
Grace: So just monstrosity. So you can be affected by a game affect if it works on either creature type. Not really sure…
Tom: Uh, it looks like I can, like, read and write a horse language, which is pretty good.
Grace: No. Sylvan is not a horse language.
Tom: Fuck!
Grace: But you can read, write, and speak Common and Sylvan. Maybe we’ll check out your background and stuff, and see if you can get a horse language, maybe. Um…
Tom: I’d love a horse language.
Grace: Yeah. And you also get proficiency in the Survival skill. So you—
Tom: Now, you just wrote—oh, I thought you were just going to write “Hybrid.”
Grace: You kind of are.
Tom: Prius. He’s a Prius horse.
Grace: Survival proficiency. Yeah. So, what kind of—
Tom: Oh, this guy’s a survivor.
Grace: Yeah. So, knowing that, like…that he has experience in survival, what kind of background do you see this guy having? What kind of background do you see Mounty having?
Tom: Um…is there something, like, where he was in a circus or something, and he became very good at disguises?
Grace: Yeah, yeah!
Tom: Something with disguises.
Grace: That’s my favorite background, actually. Entertainer is the best background. In my opinion.
Tom: Oh, that’s him!
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): And we get Acrobatics and Performance.
Grace: Yeah, I’ll add those real quick.
Tom: All right. Overview. I’ll read this while you add those?
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: Oh, wait, I can’t—
Grace: No, you can’t see.
Tom: Aw, nuts.
Grace: What were they, again? Performance and…Persuasion? No, Acrobatics and Performance.
Tom: No, Acrobatics. So, the overview here: “You thrive in front of an audience. You know how to entrance them, entertain them, and even inspire them.”
Grace: Sorry, I keep on clicking away.
Tom: No, you’re all good. “Your poetics can stir the hearts of those who hear you—”
Grace: (Overlapping) Oh, shit!
Tom: “—awakening grief or joy, laughter or anger. Your music raises their spirits—” Grace, does he play music?
Grace: He can. “…or captures their sorrow. Your dance steps captivate, your humor cuts to the quick. Whatever techniques you use, your art is your life.” And his art, um—I think just check out the pr—check out the prool—blegh, oh my God. Just check out the tool proficiencies to see what his art is, because it is “disguise kit” and “one type of musical instrument.”
Tom: I’d like this horse to play the saxophone.
Grace: Hell yeah. (Singing) Saxophone…that’s a proficiency. (Speaking) And you also get, um, a saxophone—how do you spell—?
Tom: You don’t know how to spell saxophone.
Grace: I sure don’t.
Tom: That’s right, yeah.
Grace: Saxophone is what you’re proficient in, as well as a disguise kit. Um…and I’ll just put “horse” in parentheses next to that.
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: And in your equipment, I’m going to put “saxophone” as well as “horse disguise.”
Tom: (Singing) Horse disguise!
Grace: And you also get—oh, Tom, you can get the “favor of an admirer,” a costume, and a belt pouch containing 15 gp, but this is—we get to roll for a trinket. Um, because the favor of an admirer can be…
Tom: Wait, but also—aw, man, I was gonna go for that lock of hair, but—oh, wait, Grace! D100!
Grace: Yeah, I get to roll a d100.
Tom: It’s a mummified—
Grace: Wait, what?
Tom: The first option is a mummified goblin hand!
Grace: Oh, God, please let us get a one, please let us get a one, please let us get a one…
(Dice rolling)
Grace (cont’d): 23. 23, which is…
Tom: All right, let’s figure it out.
Grace: …“a brass orb etched with strange runes.” We can also roll again, if we don’t want to.
Tom: Yeah. That’s too serious for this guy. Oh—plug in your Mac.
Grace: Oh, hold on. We’re going to stop the recording for a second—well, not actually, we’ll just edit it out—I gotta go plug in my computer. Hold on. Stay tuned. Vamp, vamp, vamp.
Tom: (Singing) What are we gonna do. Well, what are we gonna do? Charge the Mac! When are we gonna do it? Charge the Mac. What’s the— (Speaking) Oh, there is a lot of shuffling going on over here.
(Shuffling sounds)
Grace: Okay, I’m back. Did you say anything funny?
Tom: Oh, no, no, I, like, kind of sang a song. It wasn’t good.
(Laughter)
Grace: Cool, okay. We’ll edit it out.
Tom: Can we, uh, roll it again? I don’t like that one.
(Dice rolling)
Grace: Definitely. I mean, there’s 99…oh, 95. “A petrified mouse.” Cool.
Tom: I’d, uh…I’d like that.
Grace: Yeah, I think we’d all like that. Hey, this is our second mouse guy.
Tom: I like the fact that an admirer gave that to me.
(Laughter)
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: Oh, by the way—uh, Longman “Urkgub” Good didn’t have a mouse, he had a ferret.
Grace: Oh, fuck, you’re right.
Tom: He had a fucking ferret. A ferret. Get it right.
Grace: Two rodents, still. Two rodents.
Tom: Two rodents. One of them is dead.
Grace: Does the mouse have a name?
Tom: Um…Small…Small Horse.
Grace: Oh, I love that. He thinks that all animals are just horses.
(Laughter)
Tom: Oh. No, he’s too smart for that. He just loves the scam—loves the grift. He’s just trying to trick someone.
Grace: And we also get a bonus costume, as well as the disguise. Well—I guess the disguise kit—um, allows us to disguise ourselves as more—we could also just get a costume. And fifteen gold pieces.
Tom: I’d like the horse to have—Grace, I know what I want the horse to have.
Grace: Yeah?
Tom: The blue suit from Austin Powers, tailored for a horse.
(Laughter)
Grace: I don’t know what that looks like.
Tom: Grace, can you pull up a—oh, you know what it looks like.
Grace: Oh, hell yeah. Oh, yes.
Tom: (Singing Austin Powers theme song)
Grace: (Overlapping) (Singing Austin Powers theme song)
Tom: (Overlapping) (Still singing Austin Powers theme song)
Grace: Oh, hell yeah, dude. Oh, hell yeah.
Tom: Yeah, baby!
Grace: Blue—
Tom: (Austin Powers accent) Yeah, baby!
Grace: (Austin Powers accent) Yeah, baby! Blue suit from Austin Powers!
(Laughter)
Tom: (Quietly) It’s so bad. You sound like you’re fucking melting.
Grace: (Worse accent) I’m Mike Myers.
Tom: (Still a worse accent) I’m Mike Myers. Please help me.
Grace: (Worse) Groovy, baby.
Tom: (Worse) I wanna be free of the pain.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): (Worse) Shagadelic! (Normal voice) Oh, I just saw Mike Myers Roblox. All right, we gotta close that tab.
Grace: Yeah. It’s funny how, like, you can really scroll down the Google Images search for two seconds and see the most upsetting shit. It’s incredible. They gotta fix that. Um…do you have an idea of what you want his routine to be? In the past?
Tom: Well, I do see “fire-eater” as an option.
Grace: Yeah. We can roll a d10 to get an entertainer routine, or we can just sort of make up our own.
Tom: Um, I think—well, he is an instrumentalist.
Grace: Oh, yeah, he does already play his saxophone. Instrumentalist.
Tom: (Singing riff from “Careless Whisper”)
Grace: Was that, like a kazoo? Or was that just your own voice?
Tom: That way my voice.
Grace: Was that your own voice, Tom?
Tom: I’m the entertainer. Fuck.
Grace: That was incredible. It sounded like a kazoo.
(Laughter)
Grace (cont’d): I’m shaking.
Tom: I think it’s also how shitty my mic is.
Grace: I’m shaking over here.
Tom: (Riff from “Careless Whisper” again, more kazoo-like)
(Laughter)
Grace: No, don’t do it again.
Tom: Closer to the mic.
Grace: So, a feature that you get—
Tom: (Overlapping) Oh, um—
Grace: —is “By Popular Demand.”
Tom: By Popular Demand.
Grace: Let’s say that you and your party—if you’re traveling with a party—are stopping in an inn for a night? You can—if you perform there, you’ll get free lodging and food. So.
Tom: Oh, I am always in demand.
Grace: Yeah. So, By Popular Demand.
Tom: “Did you see that horse that always plays saxophone?”
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): “It’s fucking nuts.”
Grace: Yeah, I don’t see how that could not be in demand. I’m not even sure if their lips work that way.
Tom: What if, like—Grace, can I tell you what I think about this?
Grace: Yeah?
Tom: What if he’s wearing the horse costume…
Grace: (Overlapping) Mm-hm?
Tom: …and he plays it with his dong arm?
(Laughter)
Grace: Tom, this is so excellent. This is such a fucking dumb podcast. This is so good.
Tom: It’s a really good podcast, actually. And we’re good for doing it.
Grace: Yeah, so he can kind of, hold it up with one of his hooves, and play the keys with another—with his dong hand? And play it with his mouth, obviously. Yeah. I love this.
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: Um…
Tom: Uh, that’s gonna have to be a pretty long arm.
Grace: Yeah. Pretty long arm. And they’re like, “Wow. That’s guy’s playing it with his—with his cock.”
Tom: Can you get a lot closer to the mic and say “cock?”
Grace: To his, uh… (Closer to mic) Cock.
Tom: Oh, God.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): That just hit my, like, frontal lobe, and snapped something. My nose is bleeding.
(Laughter)
Grace: Yeah, that—
Tom: “Man, did you see that horse? He really—” (Closer to mic) “—tickled the keys with his big schlong.”
(Laughter)
Grace: Tom, who is this podcast for? Who are we—
Tom: No one.
Grace: Who is this—because it sure ain’t for God, and it isn’t for me, because that was really unpleasant to hear. It isn’t for you, because I’m sure you didn’t like hearing me say cock that loud. Who is this—who is this for?
Tom: No I think this is group therapy. Like, we’re just purging our, like…just getting it all out.
Grace: I need group therapy after this.
(Laughter)
Grace (cont’d): Oh, man. We’re taking a long time with this one, just because I think there’s so much penis talk to get through. But I—do you want to power through to Suggested Characteristics?
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: Want to make a song for this one, too?
Tom: Yeah. (Singing) Time to roll for Suggested Characteristics! Ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. What are gonna do? Roll for—
(Dice rolling)
Grace: I rolled it. Um…
Tom: Fuck!
Grace: It’s a seven, which is “I’ll settle for nothing less than perfection.” And of course, we get our other—
Tom: Yeah, this guy wants—wait, but I, I like it, but—
Grace: Of course we get another, um, we get another characteristic as well. Do you want to do another one?
Tom: So, um…yes. Roll for it.
(Dice rolling)
Grace: Three. “I am a hopeless romantic, always searching for that—” In quotes—“‘special someone.’”
Tom: She’s gotta be a horse.
(Laughter)
Grace: She’s gotta be a horse!
Tom: Gotta be a horse!
Grace: I love that. God, this is excellent.
Tom: Do you?
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): Always searching for that special someone—and if you could just pop, in parentheses, “Horse.”
(Laughter)
Grace: Perfect.
Tom: Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool.
Grace: Ideals.
Tom: Ideals, right?
Grace: That’s a d6, yeah. So… (Dice rolling) “People. I like seeing the smiles on peoples’ faces when I perform. That’s all that matters.”
(Laughter)
Tom: I don’t think there’s a lot of smiling faces.
Grace: They smile when they see that nasty, nasty schlong hand working it.
Tom: God.
(Laughter)
Grace: I like it. Do you have any other ideals that you like?
Tom: Playing “Yakety Sax” with his fucking cock!
(Laughter)
Grace: Um, do you have any other…
Tom: (Overlapping) Jesus.
Grace: …ideals that you prefer, or are you good with that one?
Tom: Um…no, I think that’s a good one for him.
Grace: Cool.
Tom: He does—he is— (Laughter) I do like what you’ve highlighted. “I’m only in it for the money and fame.” But that’s not him. He just loves to play tricks and be a horse.
Grace: Horses…yeah, they have no need for money. They like sugar cubes and hay and that’s fucking it. And, um, girl horses. Um…
Tom: Yeah. “Dude, I swear to God I’m not a centaur!” What if, like…I think that he doesn’t think that he’s a horse, but he also…uh, this could be a backstory thing, where, um—oh, Grace. Grace.
Grace: Yeah?
Tom: Grace. Um—when he was a child, people saw him with this joke horse costume that he bought, and they thought he was a horse, and now he’s scared to tell people that he’s not.
(Laughter)
Grace: I. Love. Everything about that. Maybe he—I know we’re delving into backstory stuff—but maybe what he did is he, um, like, he found the circus. And they thought he was a horse. And they were so unbelievably smitten with this idea of a horse performing, he could not let that go. He could not stop.
Tom: Yeah. And now, quite frankly, he doesn’t feel comfortable without the horse costume on.
Grace: No. He doesn’t—
Tom: It’s like he’s nude. That doesn’t explain the cock arm.
Grace: Uh…it explains certain things.
Tom: We’ll get to the—we’ll get to that.
Grace: So, for Bond. We already have “oats,” but do you want to try to revamp that with something else in here?
Tom: Yeah.
(Dice rolling)
Grace: We can always replace one of it with oats. “I want to be famous, whatever it takes?” I want to be…oats, whatever it takes.
Tom: You just opened up, uh—some sort of—
Grace: “Somebody stole my precious oats, and someday, I’ll get it back?”
Tom: I’ll get them back. Yes. “I want to be have oats, whatever it takes.”
(Laughter)
Grace: What?
Tom: I want to be have oats, whatever it takes.
(Laughter)
Grace: I want to be have oats, whatever—yes! (Typing) I want to be have oats, whatever it takes.
(Laughter)
Tom: That’s my favorite Neutral Milk Hotel album.
(Laughter)
Grace: Oh, and his flaw…
Tom: I am become oats—
Grace: —destroyer of worlds. Um…
Tom: “I’m a sucker for a pretty face.”
Grace: “I’m a sucker for a pretty horse.” Yeah, let’s do that one.
Tom: I’m a sucker for a pretty horse?
Grace: I’m a sucker for a pretty—in parentheses, horse—face. Cool. So, that’s all the background stuff. Now what we can actually do it get into his rogue character that we’ve, um…
Tom: Yes!
Grace: You know. Yeah.
Tom: Now we’re really…we’re on Roll20, um, our sponsor…
Grace: Yeah, Roll20, our sponsor…if you’re a new listener, they’re not actually. We’re just, um, romancing them at the moment.
Tom: We’re going to do it. We’re going to say they’re our sponsor until they sponsor us.
Grace: Yeah. That’s kind of how it works. Our hit points—
Tom: Does Roll20 have money?
Grace: I think so. I assume so. I mean, they’re a big website.
Tom: All right.
Grace: Um…oh. So our hit points are 1d8 plus our level, or at first level, it’s just eight plus our Constitution. So we have nine hit points.
Tom: Oh, that’s not great.
Grace: One of these days, we’re going to play a barbarian, and we’re going to be so fucking strong. I love…yeah.
Tom: House. Just a house.
Grace: Yeah. They get a d12. Did you know that? It’s pretty dope.
Tom: Oh my God.
Grace: Okay. So. As a rogue, uh, uh, uh…armor—we have Light Armor. Weapons—we have Simple Weapons, and Crossbows, Longswords, Rapiers, Shortswords. And our tools—our starting tools—we have thieves’ tools.
Tom: I like, uh…
Grace: Hold on, I’m just going to pop these into proficiencies and languages. But keep on talking.
Tom: I’m doing a little thinking—I’m thinking about, um, what I want my weapon to be. And I think that it only makes sense with his arm situation to do a ranged weapon sort of guy.
Grace: Love that.
Tom: I think a crossbow would be a really good fit.
Grace: Love that. We’ll get to that soon. Uh, but you also need to choose four skills. Four skills, which is—because you’re a rogue, and you’re fucking awesome. Choose four skills from Acrobatics—
Tom: (Overlapping) I already have acrobatics.
Grace: —Athletics, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation—
Tom: (Overlapping) Deception! Deception, please.
Grace: —let me finish—Perception, Performance, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth. Yes, Deception, you’re right.
Tom: Deception. If I don’t—actually—Sleight of Hand, probably. Because I am doing some stuff with my hand.
Grace: Sleight of Hand. Good idea.
Tom: Pulling a quarter out from someone’s ear with my cock arm.
(Laughter)
Grace: Nope. No.
Tom: Grace. Yes.
Grace: (Sigh) Two more.
Tom: Two more episodes.
(Laughter)
Grace: Two more fucking episodes. Two more seconds of this.
Tom: Till we’re fucking done. Till we go to jail.
Grace: How about, uh…
Tom: Performance?
Grace: Performance, is what I was gonna say, yeah. Performance. Oh, we actually already have that!
Tom: Oh. Uh…Persuasion. Because, “I swear to God, I’m not a human. I would not lie to you guys.”
Grace: Oh, good, good, good, Persuasion’s really important.
Tom: He really doesn’t want to let these guys down.
Grace: Do you want something strong, like Acrobatics or Athletics? Acrobatics is good, because you have, uh, uh…no, I guess they’re equal.
Tom: Acrobatics? He is a performer.
Grace: And I just realized you already have Acrobatics, as a performer, so do you want to do Athletics?
Tom: Yeah. Athletics. Because we did say—he’s kind of a strong horse.
Grace: Yeah. Plus two to strength is nothing…nothing, small, you know, whatever.
Tom: Nothing to sneeze at.
Grace: Exactly. Um…starting equipment. You can get a rapier or a shortsword. I’m going to open these tabs so you can see, um, what’s going on…
Tom: Uh…probably the longer one?
Grace: Yes. I think that rapiers are longer. Right? I don’t know anything about this.
Tom: Yeah. Because it doesn’t have “short” in the name.
(Laughter)
Grace: That’s fair, that’s fair.
Tom: Hey, Grace? Yeah.
Grace: Rapier. Let’s get that into attacks.
Tom: I think he should have…that.
Grace: Yeah. So that’s 1d8, um, piercing damage plus your—well, you can do Dexterity or Strength, but they’re the same, so it doesn’t matter.
Tom: This guy’s gonna be…
Grace: Um…1d8…
Tom: I doubt he’ll do a lot of sword fighting, but it’s good to have.
Grace: Yeah. Well, in battle…you know how it is. You can also get—
Tom: Yeah, but it’d have to—he could just, like, hack at their ankles.
(Laughter)
Grace: You can also get a shortbow or a shortsword. And I heard what you were saying about a ranged weapon, and I’m thinking uh…
Tom: Shortbow, yeah.
Grace: Fucking shortbow, yeah. Shortbow…piercing damage…you also get 20 arrows to start out with. I’ll put that into your equipment.
Tom: Oh, yeah. I want 30 arrows.
Grace: Well, you can’t, because we’re not using the buy weapons method.
Tom: Graaaace…………………
(Laughter)
Grace: Don’t talk to me in that fucking voice.
Tom: I want 30 arrows………..
(Laughter)
Grace: I’ll murder you.
(Laughter)
Tom: Hurty arrows.
Grace: I think I closed out of the rogue background.
(Laughter)
Tom: Grace—oh, fuck. Grace closed out of all her tabs and hung up on me.
(Laughter)
Grace: You also get leather armor, two daggers, and thieves’ tools, which we already know…do you want—is there a list of—
Tom: Thieves’ tools—I think I remember at least one, which is a lot of ball bearings.
Grace: Yeah, what are they?
Tom: Oh wait, fuck, that’s not—this is a different one.
Grace: (Overlapping) That’s, like, a thieves’ kit, or something. Uh, I don’t remember exactly.
Tom: Oh, yeah. Thieves’ tools are fine.
Grace: Basically, thieves’ tools are what you use—I don’t know, do thief stuff. Your DM might have you do a lockpicking check. Unless, I don’t have, I don’t know, if you already have a lockpecking—lockpicking kit. Uh, leather armor—
Tom: Lockpecking.
Grace: Lockpecking.
Tom: Yes.
Grace: That is 11, plus our Dexterity, which is 13. That’s our starting equipment…two daggers…
(Typing)
Tom: Pretty excitable there.
Grace: Yeah, I typed daggers in all caps. DAGGERS! Uh, proficiency bonus is two…
Tom: What else we got? I got thieves’ cant!
Grace: Yeah! So, I want to—we’ll actually get to that, I just want to go in chronological order. Um, at first level, choose two of your skill proficiencies—this is Expertise, which is a rogue thing—two skill proficiencies, or one of your proficiencies and your proficiency in thieves’ tools—and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make with…um, for any of these that uses either of your chosen proficiencies. So let’s say you want to be really good with Performance. Generally, you would have your Charisma modifier plus, um, your proficiency bonus, because you’re proficient, which would be three.
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: So you’d have three added. Now you’d have five, because you doubled the proficiency bonus. Yeah. So do you have any—do you have two skills you want to choose for?
Tom: I—uh, probably, uh, Performance—or, Persuasion—no, what is it?
Grace: Deception?
Tom: Deception and Performance.
Grace: Sounds good. So I’m just gonna—I’ll do these right now. That is a four plus…five. And you said Persuasion?
Tom: Um, yes.
Grace: Great. So you have Expertise—
Tom: Oh, no, Performance, Performance.
Grace: Performance. Great. Um, you have Expertise in Performance and Deception. Which is pretty important.
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: You also—
Tom: Because this guy has the longest con I’ve ever seen.
(Laughter)
Grace: It’s a pretty long con.
Tom: Pretty long bit.
Grace: You also get a thing called Sneak Attack, which is…once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage per creature hit with an attack, if you have advantage on the attack roll. It has to be a finesse or ranged weapon, which you have…uh, and you don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy is within five feet of it. So, Sneak Attack—
Tom: Sorry, I just love the idea…
Grace: Yeah?
Tom: I love the idea of a horse sneaking up on someone.
(Laughter)
Grace: Out of the corner of your eye.
Tom: “Where’d he go?! Where’d he go?!”
Grace: Here he fucking comes. 800 pounds of meat. Hybrid Nature Equine Build, and he’s got a goblin on top of him.
Tom: Can we make that a mandatory thing? Like, we want as many people to play these sheets as possible, but you must have a small man in your party.
Grace: Oh, good, good, yeah. You must have a small man. Which is good, because there are lots of small men. Halfling, Dwarf…
Tom: That’s required.
Grace: Yeah. Uh, and this is—
Tom: Oh, wait, Grace—you should probably put in Flaws, “I’m hiding a big secret.”
Grace: Oh, I like that. No, that’s a really good flaw, yeah.
Tom: I mean, that’s—that’s just good for world building, too.
Grace: I’m going to delete “I’m a sucker for a pretty (horse) face—”
Tom: (Overlapping) Yeah.
Grace: —and write “I have an enormous secret.”
Tom: Yeah. We all know this guy is horny. That’s not the issue, like…
Grace: That ain’t a flaw. “If it were to be discovered, all would be lost.”
Tom: Yes. And then, in parentheses, “I’m not actually a horse.”
(Laughter)
Grace: Oh, God, this is so good. That is right beneath, by the way—I forgot about—
(Laughter)
Grace (cont’d): “—I want to be have oats, whatever it takes.” I can’t believe…
Tom: He wrote that with his hooves.
Grace: I can’t believe our Intelligence is our highest stat.
Tom: Look. He’s smart, but, like, the horse he role-plays isn’t.
Grace: Smart for a horse—oh, yeah, that’s right! You have to be smart to role-play a horse. So, okay.
Tom: No, he’s smart—he’s pretty smart, for a horse.
Grace: He’s so awesome.
Tom: This guy is—can I say it? Like, honestly, I got mad with the guy we made last week. What a scumbag. But, like, this guy—
Grace: Mounty? My very good friend, Mounty?
Tom: I feel like we gotta change the name.
Grace: (Overlapping) Yeah, we’ll come up with something soon.
Tom: (Overlapping) I read that as Morty.
Grace: Ooh. Independent Morty.
Tom: Uh-oh. Rick and Morty. His name is Rickandmortyfan…
Grace: …Fan…69. That’s a placeholder.
Tom: I’m gonna need you to delete—
Grace: That’s a placeholder!
Tom: Yeah, sure.
(Laughter)
Grace: Um, so, this is what you were saying—Thieves’ Cant? Thieves’ Cant is a code that you can use to communicate with other thieves around the city. And it can be written, and it can also be spoken.
Tom: Okay, yeah. I’ve played rogues before.
Grace: Cool! Do you know about the spoken part, which is my favorite part, and I can’t fucking believe they put this in the game?
Tom: No, lay it on me.
Grace: So—it’s a language that sounds kind of like Common, but it takes four times as long to convey, and it just doesn’t make any sense. So, like, it would make sense if—I’m just delighted by the idea of a language that takes four times as long, and, like, people are vaguely aware that they’re saying something, but…yeah.
Tom: Yeah. It’s like, sneaky, though.
Grace: Yeah. I love it. Thieves’ Cant. God, why don’t I play rogues all the time? Rogues are the best.
Tom: Wait, Grace.
Grace: Yeah?
Tom: I do have an idea. Because I want to get that placeholder name out of there as far as—as soon as possible.
Grace: Oh, you mean Rickandmortyfan69?
Tom: Yes. I mean Rickandmortyfan69. You know how all the—all horse racing horses have really fucking stupid names?
(Laughter)
Grace: I love where you’re going with this. Yes.
Tom: This guy—yeah, he—
Grace: We can pull up a list of Kentucky Derby names right now.
Tom: Kentucky Derby winners. And then we’ll just make them a little more fantasy.
Grace: Yes. God. I am so excited. Every Kentucky—“2018 Kentucky Derby Names Ranked.” “Good Magic.” That was—that’s number 20, by the way!
(Laughter)
Tom: That’s…fucking dumb!
Grace: Oh, Tom. Promises Fulfilled.
Tom: Prom—
Grace: Justify. Flame Away. Instilled Regard.
Tom: That’s—oh. That sounds like a fucking skill.
Grace: I like, um—
Tom: Lone Sailor. Lone Sailor!
Grace: I like Audible, because maybe we could get Audible dot com to sponsor us. Oh, Enticed!
Tom: Oh, Jesus.
Grace: Enticed?
Tom: Enticed.
Grace: Uh…Magnum Moon. My Boy Jack!
Tom: Vino—
Grace: (Overlapping) Vino Rosso.
Tom: (Overlapping) Vino Rosso.
Grace: Free Drop Billy. Combatant.
Tom: Free Drop Billy. Oh my God, fucking Bolt D’Oro.
Grace: Bolt D’Oro. Bolt of Gold.
Tom: Fucking king. Uh, look up, like…
Grace: “109 Greatest Kentucky Derby Names of All Time.”
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: This sounds like the list for me.
Tom: Okay, that’s…
Grace: Four and Twenty. Whopper.
Tom: Okay, I see one named Burgoo King.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): Burgoo King, from 1932.
Grace: Who are you? This is B-U-R-G-O-O King. 1932.
Tom: Okay, that’s his name.
Grace: Who are you? Wh—who…?!
Tom: His name is Burgoo King the Real Horse.
Grace: Burgoo King Real Horse. What if his last name is Realhorse? His name is Burgoo…
Tom: Burgoo Realhorse.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): What the fuck. Okay, it’s from 1930, can we look up Burgoo and make sure it’s not, like, racist?
Grace: Oh, good idea, good idea. Burgoo stew.
Tom: Whoops.
Grace: Um…no. It is a spicy stew, similar to Irish or Mulligan stew, served with cornbread or corn muffins. Okay.
Tom: (Sigh) Thank fucking God.
Grace: Thank God. Tom, what if we were just saying, like, a horrific racial slur on our podcast?
Tom: Yeah. Man, our one fan would be pissed.
Grace: Oh, man, they’d be mad. I’m just scrolling down this list of fun names now.
Tom: Okay, you gotta log out.
Grace: Secretariat, of course.
Tom: Oh, Mucho Macho—
Grace: What?
Tom: Secretariat. Uh, I just noticed Mucho Macho Man from 2011.
(Laughter)
Grace: That’s awesome. I love horses, Tom.
Tom: Horses kick ass. That’s why we’re making one, Grace.
Grace: (Overlapping) Horses kick ass. The hooves…
Tom: Burgoo Realhorse…
Grace: Burgoo Realhorse.
Tom: Oh my God, I’m so fucking relieved it wasn’t racist.
Grace: That was a good call, Tom. Good call.
Tom: Anything from, like…well, let’s be real, before 2018…
Grace: (Overlapping) Anything. Any word.
Tom: Anything at all! Any word! Especially with horse racing, which is probably the most racist sport. If I had to wager.
Grace: Hey, listeners! What do you think is the most racist sport? Weigh in using the #ToolsCast.
Tom: #ToolsCast! We have gotten zero interactions.
Grace: I don’t like water polo! Actually, Tom, do you know what I’m going to do? This is just a fun interactive game. I am going to tweet “I don’t like water polo” and then use our hashtag. You want to do that?
Tom: Okay. Let’s do that.
Grace: I’m gonna do—yeah.
Tom: Am I also tweeting?
Grace: No, because I’m in control of our Twitter account. Actually, yeah, Tom, you could do it on your personal account, if you like! Just, you know, get the heat going. I…“water polo should be abolished. #ToolsCast.”
Tom: “Who’s coming to my place for burgoo?”
(Laughter)
Grace: So, if you’re listening, uh, tweet along at home. What sport do you hate?
Tom: Oh, I just got the tweet notification!
Grace: We gotta move this along.
Tom: Hold on. I’m just tweeting, um—“horse…horses be…”
Grace: Horses be shopping.
Tom: “Horses be like…” And then I’m going to just pull up a GIF of a horse.
Grace: I like that, I like that.
Tom: Oh, it’s—I got a picture of a horse yelling.
Grace: That’s so awesome.
Tom: That’s fun. Man, I love going on the Internet.
Grace: Twitter is a good website.
Tom: Twitter is absolutely not. It is chock-a-block filled with Nazis.
Grace: Um…
Tom: “ToolsCast.” I’m surprised it’s not popping up automatically. Okay, tweet sent.
Grace: Tweet sent. It’s not showing up, Tom. I’m reloading—I’m refreshing your Twitter page like crazy right now, trying to understand—oh, here it is.
Tom: God, stop refreshing—get off my Twitter.
Grace: Hell yeah.
Tom: Oh, is it not loading?
Grace: No, it loaded. Okay. So, Tom, we have, uh—we have got an awesome guy right here, Burgoo Realhorse, and we have got all the mechanics down.
Tom: (Overlapping) So let’s get to that backstory.
Grace: (Overlapping) And I’m going to be honest with you, we have made a kickass character here.
Tom: No, honestly, I love him.
Grace: He’s really good. Do you want to move on to Appearance and stuff?
Tom: Yes. Burgoo Realhorse.
Grace: Age. How old is this guy, do you think?
Tom: Um, I’d say he’s, like, forty.
Grace: Forty. I like it. Because they age at the same rate as humans.
Tom: (Overlapping) Just, like, a normal guy. Yeah, he’s just a dude.
Grace: Just a bro.
Tom: Height?
Grace: How tall is a…?
Tom: Probably, like, seven—seven-six, because you’ve got the horse body, right?
Grace: Well, you measure them in hands.
Tom: That’s dumb.
Grace: It is dumb, but I want to be accurate.
Tom: How many hands is a horse?
Grace: So…uh, a horse that measures sixteen inches high is fifteen hands high. So that’s about five feet. So let’s say this guy is like—
Tom: (Overlapping) So the conversion is like—
Grace: (Overlapping) Maybe about twenty hands? Twenty hands high?
Tom: Twenty hands. Okay, you just said “2o hads.”
(Laughter)
Grace: How much does a horse weigh?
Tom: A ton, right?
Grace: I’m gonna—actually, close your eyes, close your eyes—I’m going to guess…
Tom: (Overlapping) Okay. I already saw.
Grace: (Overlapping) …800 pounds.
Tom: Uh…
Grace: Uh…well, I’m not looking for kilograms. (Typing) Kilograms…to…pounds…a thousand kilograms…
Tom: Jesus, it does not matter!
Grace: It really matters. A lot to me.
Tom: It does not matter.
Grace: Holy shit.
Tom: Holy shit. 2,204 pounds.
Grace: (Overlapping) Holy shit. A thousand kilograms is over 2,000 pounds.
Tom: (Overlapping) Powerhouse.
Grace: This is so awesome. This is so kickass.
Tom: Let’s just say “heavy enough.”
Grace: “Heavy enough,” but we’ll know it means…a thousand kilograms…
Tom: “Heavy enough to kick your ass.”
Grace: Eyes. We’re talking about—so, is he wearing a mask? Or can we see his real, soulful eyes?
Tom: Yes. Plastic.
(Laughter)
Grace: Eyes: plastic. Skin—
Tom: Eyes—uh—not believable.
Grace: Not believable.
Tom: Skin—
Grace: Hair? Horse.
Tom: Uh, it’s a, it’s a mane, yeah.
Grace: Okay. Um—
Tom: Allies and Organizations?
Grace: Well, we—
Tom: Yeah, we’ll focus on that, but—
Grace: We’re usually at the character appearance?
Tom: Right. Let’s do character appearance. We already have one fully functional dong arm.
Grace: Right. I mean, that says it all, really.
Tom: A visible seam where his costume starts.
Grace: What? Oh, yeah, where does his costume start?
Tom: I’d say there’s, like, a visible…uh, well, it’s at the point where human skin starts. So there’s just this gigantic head.
(Laughter)
Grace: So—
Tom: Like, papier-mâché.
Grace: Papier-mâché.
Tom: And that’s—his whole torso, head, and arm…where his arms were.
Grace: Were. Yeah. So it goes, like, down to his waist.
Tom: Sorry, can you just change that—
Grace: Change to where?
Tom: Yeah.
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: You wrote papier—
Grace: Yeah, pap—that is how you spell it. It’s a weird spelling. (Googling) Yeah.
Tom: Oh, really? That’s dumb.
Grace: Yeah. Tom, I literally spelled it correctly. P-A-P-I-E-R M-A-C-H-E.
Tom: (Overlapping) Oh, you don’t need to prove—you don’t need to prove anything.
Grace: (Overlapping) And it’s got the special things over it, the special accents, but I didn’t know where they went, so I just went for it. But I’ll add them in now.
Tom: Oh, you don’t need to, bud.
Grace: No, I—I like to feel smart. (Typing)
Tom: Oh my God—
Grace: Just keep on talking, just keep on talking.
Tom: Just adding a bunch of a’s. Okay, it seems like Grace is just adding a capital A—
Grace: I can’t add accents in (slurred) Abdobe.
Tom: Abobe?
(Laughter)
Grace: Cool. Are we good on appearance?
Tom: That’s fine. That’s fine. Yeah, no, he’s a horse. Like, how do you describe it? Let’s do…treasure?
Grace: Treasure. Yeah, does he have any—?
Tom: He knows—um, he knows the saxophone solo for “Baker’s Street.”
Grace: I’ll put that in Additional Features and Traits.
Tom: He knows—he knows how to play “Who Can It Be Now.”
Grace: For…Baker’s Street, and then you cut out, sorry, what was it?
Tom: For Who Can It Be Now. Who Can It Be Now.
Grace: I’m gonna add “Careless Whisper,” as well.
Tom: Oh, yes, of course, I’m sorry. (Singing “Careless Whisper”)
Grace: Tom, your voice literally sounds like a saxophone, and it’s blowing my mind right now.
Tom: I’m a fucking witch. Um…if we think of more good sax songs, we’ll add them.
Grace: Oh, what’s a good Billy Joel song?
Tom: Actually, we should—we should leave that open, because as he learns more songs—
Grace: (Overlapping) Oh, yeah, this is level one, this is level one! Tom, we should have made this guy a bard, but it’s fine.
Tom: No.
Grace: We definitely, definitely just made a bard.
Tom: No. He’s a rogue.
Grace: He’s definitely a bard.
Tom: He’s a rogue.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): He’s a rogue and he’s an entertainer.
Grace: Mm.
Tom: Would a bard be this crazy—okay, Grace, backstory.
Grace: Tom. Yes. Okay, backstory.
Tom: May I remind the listeners: this is the point where I just talk and Grace types everything.
Grace: Yes. This is the point where it’s backstory time and we just go wild. And I type it word for word.
Tom: (Singing) Backstory time! (Speaking) Okay. As a child—what’s this guy’s name?
Grace: Burgoo! Burgoo Horseman. [A/N: No. No, that’s not his name.]
Tom: Burgoo’s stupid parents bought him a papier-mâché horse head as a joke. Um—wait, Grace, question?
Grace: Yeah?
Tom: Um, did a human have sex with a horse, or did a centaur have sex with a centaur?
Grace: That’s a good question. I wonder if it, uh, says anything about that…I’m pretty sure it’s just—
Tom: Oh, we don’t need to Google it, I’ll just say that a human had sex with a horse.
Grace: Uh…Tom, guess what I just found out upon looking at this beautiful page.
Tom: Oh, lay it on me.
Grace: “Centaurs’ given names are passed down through family lines. The name given to a new foal is typically the name of the most recently deceased family member of the same gender, keeping alive the memory—and, the centaurs believe, some shard of the spirit—of the departed.”
Tom: Anyway, Burgoo…
(Laughter)
Grace: Okay. So—his parents bought him this as a joke.
Tom: Yeah. Um, he put it on, like the little rascal he is, and went out to play. But then he got lost in the woods.
Grace: (Overlapping) Mm. Unfortunate, because centaurs live in the woods.
Tom: —until a circus found him. He got lost in the…not-woods. In the not-woods.
Grace: Yeah? Yeah?
Tom: They were like, “Look at this horse!”—wait. The boy was playing his saxophone with his arm that was cursed upon him.
Grace: Whoa! Do we have a cursed saxophone!
Tom: No, with his cursed arm.
Grace: Okay, okay.
Tom: Yeah. This is really—not legible. But, um, they were like, “Look at this horse that’s playing saxophone! He melts!”
Grace: Whoa!
Tom: “This guy needs to be in our circus!” And before he could say “Oh, I’m actually a centaur with a mask,” they had already, um, brought them into the circus tent—brought him into the circus tent—and, um, uh, signed him up to be a circus boy.
Grace: Oh.
Tom: He stayed close friends with a lot of his circus people, even after he left the circus, and so he has to keep up the act, as to not betray their trust.
Grace: (Soft, knowing) Ohhh. Wow. This is a really good backstory.
Tom: It’s not! At all! It’s like—it feels like a Disney channel original.
Grace: Yeah! If Disney channel invisible—whoa. If a Disney channel original involved kidnapping a centaur from his parents, and also a hand that was also a cock.
Tom: Like, Disney’s done darker shit. They made Avalon High.
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: And that fucking sucked.
Grace: You ever watch The Color of Friendship? That was a good movie.
Tom: That…was a fine movie.
Grace: It was a good movie.
Tom: It was shot like a workplace sexual harassment film.
(Laughter)
Grace: I think there were multiple lessons in that movie.
Tom: And a kickass shopping montage.
Grace: Oh, it really did.
Tom: But—they really did that. What else. Additional Features and Traits? Um…
Grace: Yeah, Tom, I just want to clarify real quick. Is Burgoo—I just want to get into character motivation—is he upset that he was taken from his parents?
Tom: Yes. He’s trying to find his parents.
Grace: Oh, this is wonderful.
Tom: And find himself, after the circus.
Grace: Yeah. Because they really did force this identity upon him. And he couldn’t say no.
Tom: He was just a horse.
Grace: This is a real coming of age story.
Tom: Yeah, I know—
Grace: He’s forty years old.
Tom: You ever seen that movie Boyhood?
Grace: Oh my God, this is Boyhood!
Tom: You ever seen that movie Boyhood?
Grace: Tom, we just wrote Boyhood.
Tom: But the guy’s forty, and he’s still recovering, and he’s just like, “I’m not sure if I’m ready to re-enter the centaur community, because I’ve been raised as a horse so long.”
Grace: Literally, Richard Linklater who? This is fucking awesome.
Tom: Jesus. Yeah. And now he really likes horse food, so people feed him carrots and stuff—
Grace: (Overlapping) Oh, yeah.
Tom: —and he likes it, and he’s like, “I feel like I’m losing the part of me that was human.”
Grace: Yeah, yeah, am I a man or am I a muppet, you know? This is really good.
Tom: I’m a s—ho. [A/N: I don’t know what he was trying to say here. I don’t think he did, either.] But, you know, I think the reason he tries to convince everyone he’s a horse is because he’s scared to come back.
Grace: Yeah!
Tom: He truly is. It’s fear, Grace. Whoa. I’m gonna start crying
Grace: Yeah. And that fear is really what controls him. His flaw is that he has an enormous secret, and if it were to be discovered, all would be lost, because he relies so much on his friends, you know?
Tom: Yeah. Oh—Allies and Organizations—best—his best friend is in the circus.
Grace: Oh, good, good, good. Who’s his best friend, Tom? What’s his name? Do you want me to pull up the, uh…
Tom: His name is…
Grace: Wait, is his best friend human or horse?
Tom: Uh…a human that taught him—that handled him.
Grace: Oh, great! A jockey!
Tom: And they were like, “A talking saxophone horse?!”
Grace: Oh, he talks?
(Laughter)
Tom: Yes! No, he has to defend himself!
(Laughter)
Grace: This is awesome.
Tom: Grace, I thought it was implied that he talked.
Grace: No!
Tom: He’s a talking saxophone horse.
Grace: It’s a Mr. Ed situation! Oh, this is awesome. I love it. Um…
Tom: And, like, he wisecracks with the jockey, but the jockey is like, “Man, if you were a human, we would hang out all the time.
Grace: Ooooh.
Tom: And he’s like, “Ohhh.”
Grace: I love that.
Tom: Yeah, but, like, they still keep in close contact after they left the circus…
Grace: (Overlapping) That’s good.
Tom: (Overlapping)…and they, like…
Grace: (Overlapping) Yeah, this friend can give him…
Tom: (Overlapping) He’s just scared—
Grace: (Overlapping)…some outside news.
Tom: (Overlapping)—scared to lose his link—the best friend is his link to the human world.
Grace: Yeah. God, that’s awesome.
Tom: But also the one that’s keeping him—keeping him within the world of the horse.
Grace: So cool. What’s his name?
Tom: Grace—
Grace: The human jockey? I can get back on these Kentucky Derby sites if you want.
Tom: Uh—no, I don’t—oh, does the jockey also have a horse name?
Grace: I’m just saying, I don’t know very much about jockeys…um…Die Hard. Foolish Pleasure. Mr.—Tom, Mr. Frisky? Mr. Frisky? Mr. Frisky?
Tom: I—okay, his name is Mr. Frisky. His name is Mr. Frisky and he’s very good.
Grace: His name is Mr. Frisky and he’s good as hell.
Tom: (Overlapping “Mr. Frisky”s)
Grace: Cool.
Tom: Grace, get very close to your mic and say Mr. Frisky?
(Shuffling)
Grace: (Deep breath) Mr. Frisky. (Mouth sounds) Just making some mouth sounds for ASMR.
Tom: Table for two… (Unspeakably close to mic, distorted) Burgoo and Mr. Frisky.
(Laughter)
Tom (cont’d): I think we’re done.
Grace: Tom, this is great. We just made such a good character.
Tom: I don’t want to be done with this guy, but I feel like we’ve achieved—
Grace: Tom, I want to play a longhaul campaign with Burgoo Realhorse. [A/N: There it is.]
Tom: If one of your characters in your real campaign dies…
Grace: Yeah! Literally, this is my backup character.
Tom: You know where to go.
Grace: God, this is so awesome. Okay.
Tom: Yeah, no, this is a good guy. Are you gonna give him Inspiration?
Grace: Oh, yeah. Ooh, yeah, baby.
Tom: I think he deserves a little…”ooh, yeah, baby” in tiny font.
Grace: I tried to type “ooh, yeah, baby,” but it wouldn’t let me, so I just got “ooh yeah.”
Tom: “Ooh yeah” is fine. Can you give him oats, actually? Because that’s what he’d really want.
Grace: Oh, good, good, good. Oats. Yeah. Equipment: Oats. And I think we’re done.
Tom: Yeah. Um, well, I tell you what, that was…
Grace: That was…
Tom: This is probably the one that I’d be most excited to play.
Grace: Yeah, this is a real doozy of an episode. Um…
Tom: Yeah. Honestly, I feel like last one was a real downer—this is a story where you root for the character.
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: You want him to be happy, and find his parents, and find himself.
Grace: Exactly! Exactly. That’s something we can all take away. Um…something else we should all take away is, uh…we got a…we have a Twitter account. Um.
Tom: Nice. Nice transition.
(Laughter)
Grace: Thanks. It was really fast, is my favorite thing about it, is how fast it went.
Tom: I like how you didn’t pause.
Grace: Yeah, it was really cool. So, we do have a Twitter. It is twitter.com/ToolsStarting. You can also use the hashtag #ToolsCast to talk about it. And we have a website where you can listen to these episodes—
Tom: We have the two tweets on it.
Grace: We have, like, five tweets on it now.
Tom: Wait, hold on, let me check if there’s—if there’s anything on the #ToolsCast hashtag, other than this.
Grace: Cool.
Tom: No. We are the first.
Grace: First! Oh, that’s awesome. We also have a website. You can find us at starting.tools—I finally figured out how to use WordPress, and got that thing out of the way. So it’s starting.tools—the old links still work, it’ll just take us to our cool new place now. Um, that’s where you can get the new episodes—
Tom: Also, Grace is an overachiever…
Grace: Yeah.
Tom: And she transcribed the first episode of Starting Tools, because we want this to be accessible.
Grace: I am very close to—getting very close to having the second one up—well, I guess by the time this one posts, the second transcript will be up, so, uh, check that out.
Tom: And I am doing very little.
(Laughter)
Grace: Well, you’re in high school. You gotta, like, apply to colleges and shit.
Tom: Ugh. Fine. But, um, I’d like to mention that this is our longest episode by a pretty wide margin.
Grace: Ooh, yeah. This’ll be a long one.
Tom: This’ll be a long one, and also a pain in the ass to edit, so shoutout to Grace.
Grace: It’ll be good, it’ll be good. I’m very excited to listen to this one again.
Tom: Oh, also—I’m not sure about this one—has iTunes said yes yet?
Grace: iTunes has not said yes, at least by the time we’re recording this, which is September 9th. Keep an eye out on iTunes, we will definitely tweet when we’re available on Apple Podcasts and stuff.
Tom: I am going to be very excited. Because, we get it, going to WordPress can be a pain in the butt.
Grace: Yeah, the audio is, like, pretty good, though.
Tom: A real pain in the tusche.
Grace: A real pain in the tusche. You know how it is.
Tom: No, audio’s fine. It’s a pain in the tusche.
Grace: Oh! Before I forget this: our intro and outro music is Minor Apprehension by Jackie McLean. Um, it’s a cool jazz song—it’s also, like, seven minutes, so if you want to get more than the chaotic beginning and end, listen to that.
Tom: It gets pretty smooth at some points.
Grace: Yeah. Um—cool! And I think that’s all we gotta say about this centaur man.
Tom: Yeah. I gotta say, I’ve had a smile on my face this whole time. I love this guy.
Grace: I know. I love him. Please play him.
Tom: I love him so bad.
Grace: Horses—yeah.
Tom: Also, fanart? I’m very excited to see if anyone does fanart on this one.
Grace: I would desperately love some fanart. I would love somebody to…
Tom: I will draw it if no one else does.
Grace: Yeah, yeah, yeah. God, this is so cool.
Tom: Like, oh my God.
Grace: All right!
Tom: So, I give this guy Inspiration and oats.
Grace: Yeah. Inspiration, ten out of ten, lots of oats, and…I think we can all just take away that he will be have oats, whatever it takes.
Tom: Great.
Grace: Great.
Tom: Thank you for listening to Starting Tools.
Grace: Yes, thank you for listening to Starting Tools—
Tom: (Overlapping) I’m Tom.
Grace: We’ve been the tools. Uh—I cut you off. Do you want to say your name again?
Tom: No, I kind of forgot how we close this show.
Grace: Say it real close to the microphone. Both of us. Come on.
Tom: (Close) I’ve been Tom.
Grace: (Close) Grace.
Tom: (Normal again, sort of disappointed in self) Oh.
Grace: (Normal) Thanks for listening! See you around!
Tom: See you. Goodbye.
(Laughter)
(Outro music: “Minor Apprehension” by Jackie McLean)
Starting Tools 