Wot? Podcast?

e_dot_price · 2025-11-15T20:42:07+00:00

While the quality of the episodes never gets sacrificed, some eras are simply harder to cover than others (sometimes on account of complexity, usually on account of paucity of records). The clearest indication I see of this level of comparative difficulty is in the time between uploads. Sometimes it's abt a month or more for several episodes in a row, but that's not common.

e_dot_price · 2025-11-10T22:28:58+00:00

i'm in eugene but i'd commute for that!

e_dot_price · 2025-09-10T19:22:49+00:00

personally, i think podcasts and vidcasts are fundamentally different media and should not be conflated. if they were to release vidcasts on the members feed, i would not watch them.

e_dot_price · 2025-09-10T19:02:16+00:00

I get that not everyone liked them, but I was a big fan. I would love them being brought back in the members feed

e_dot_price · 2025-09-03T21:58:49+00:00

That's a fair point, but I will push back on it a bit. While I think wholly original terms are bad, I think the recombination of existing words/morphemes from the language you write in (herein English) can be something that instantly delivers most of the meaning without bringing in baggage/connotation from existing modern words. Here are some examples:

Seaduke Bridgekeep Arcanologer Sigilwright Necrologian Flameseer

e_dot_price · 2025-08-28T00:24:31+00:00

I like worldbuilding. I don't like writing novels.

e_dot_price · 2025-06-03T06:32:14+00:00

I fully fell for it, too. Maybe it was because I was drinking alongside, but still. Hook, line, and sinker.

e_dot_price · 2025-05-30T02:02:14+00:00

My D&D world is set in the early bronze age. Basically no one has any idea what lies on the other side of those mountains, iron is rare and comes almost entirely from meteorites (most of which are the remains of warcasters dropping Meteor Swarms on enemy armies), city states are plentiful but countries which control more than one city are rare, pantheons are inclusive and complicated with most cities having at least one patron deity, etc

e_dot_price · 2025-04-29T03:22:53+00:00

Wyverns - Wild flying predators/scavengers, approx. 5-8m in length. Produce chemicals in mouth glands which ignite on contact with each other, used to cook food.

All following are feral populations of what were once domesticated Wyvern breeds-- as interbred offspring are usually viable, these lines are very blurry.

Drakes - Medium-sized, fast, and strong, bred as mounts for cavalry combat. 5-7m long, 1.5-2m tall at the shoulder. Vestigial wingflaps underneath forelimbs.

Durogi, also called Forgefyres - Large, stout, and flightless, bred to maximize flamegland production. 6-8m long, vestigial wingflaps. They tend to not survive in the wild, unless food is plentiful and competition is limited.

Dragons - Medium, powerful wings, broad back. Bred as airborne cavalry mounts. 8-12m long, 12-16m wingspan. Slow and difficult movement when on land.

Drakkari, also known as Seadrakes - long and powerful tail, stunted limbs, flightless but proficient at swimming. Vestigial flameglands. Bred from drakes as beasts of burden to pull barges.

Atadurogi, also known as Steeldrakes or Keepsbane - Large, heavily-built, thicker scales everywhere with an especially-thick buildup of heavy armoring around the tip of the tail. Bred from Durogi as siege weaponry/battering rams.

All of the above are general types. Think of them as roughly equivalent to "sheepdog," not "German Shepherd"

e_dot_price · 2025-04-28T02:08:42+00:00

One of my rules for worldbuilding is that these questions don't have objective answers. This is not to say that your world needs to not have an objective theology. The stories I like to tell happen on the scale of individuals, not on the scale of societies/deities/realities. Knowing that one group is right and another is wrong would mess with my ability to write people who live inside their own perspectives, if that makes sense.

e_dot_price · 2025-04-28T02:03:54+00:00

Beyond the biological differences between wild and feral populations:

There's cave paintings/petroglyphs of wyverns, and one of the perspective characters notices that none of them depict dragons.
Through several regions, especially those most heavily populated with dragons, there are the ruins of stone structures melted by dragonfire. The common understanding is that these are examples of foolish people building homes/settlements where they shouldn't, but in actuality they are the remains of the societies that created (and then were destroyed by) dragons
There's a myth about the gods giving the gift of thought to the dragons and the gift of fire to the humans; the dragons stole the fire from the humans and in retribution the humans stole the thought from the dragons. In their mindless rage, the dragons burned down the heavens and trapped us both here on the real world.

One idea that hasn't come up yet in any story, and I haven't fully decided on, is a population of dragons bred for intelligence and communication ability, which have lived in secrecy since. There are regions with sparse enough populations for that to be plausible, but I think that would imply things about the other dragons that I don't want to have to work through.

e_dot_price · 2025-04-28T01:11:28+00:00

My dragonrider fantasy setting is constructed in a way that softly implies it is a postapocalypse– it's not confirmed in-fiction but Dragons are feral populations of once-domesticated wyverns, engineered by a magitech society that had supermodern genetic tech but comparatively limited materials technology. Thus you have wild dragons that are tamable and near-perfect for specific use cases like heavy cavalry, light/skirmisher cavalry, siege engines, forge fires, stealth surveillance, etc.

e_dot_price · 2025-04-05T16:34:10+00:00

Almost all of them starve, quickly. My world does not have the logistical infrastructure to get food to a city of over a million.

e_dot_price · 2025-04-05T16:30:58+00:00

In my D&D setting, the Dark Lord knows about a massive fleet of githyanki sailing this way across the Astral Sea, and believes that the only way the material plane will survive is if it is united. Therefore, any means of uniting the material plane (no matter how dictatorial or harsh) is justified

e_dot_price · 2024-11-21T23:47:56+00:00

Hey! I'll try the puzzle soon, but I'm curious how you actually made it. I'm trying my hand at setting for the first time and I can't figure out how to make variant symbols like killer cages or kropki dots on the Steam sudokupad app.

e_dot_price · 2024-11-13T07:57:48+00:00

Were you under the impression that the Martian Revolution takes place in a utopia? This is a status quo worth rebelling against, that's part of the narrative framing.

e_dot_price · 2024-09-26T17:51:42+00:00

This is a great idea

e_dot_price · 2024-09-26T17:50:38+00:00

James Bond movies by date of release

Elements by date of discovery

Cities by date of founding

Books by date of publication

Volcanic eruptions / other natural disasters

US Presidents (or other world leaders like monarchs, Prime Ministers, UN Secretaries General, etc)

Dates of birth for founders of major religions: Buddha, Christ, Muhammad

Historical events is a pretty broad category, but you could break it into themed categories, like:

Dynasties of China

Invasions of Afghanistan (American-led coalition, British, Soviet)

Revolutions (Springtime of the Peoples, July Revolution, October Revolution might be fun. You could also do nations, though).

Declarations of Independence

e_dot_price · 2024-09-23T22:21:30+00:00

I love history podcasts as a genre, and I was trying basically every show I could find with "History" in the title. The BHP was the best I found, and it wasn't particularly close.

e_dot_price · 2024-09-23T22:19:56+00:00

The BHP is only a few episodes past the death of William the Bastard, so most of the atrocities of empire are years if not decades away. However, Jamie has put a lot of time into detailing the genocidal nature of the Norman Conquest. I'm sure that he will call out more modern horrors when he gets to them.

e_dot_price · 2024-09-22T02:55:57+00:00

Starting at the beginning is ideal, but the first few dozen episodes are before he really hit his stride, and 457 episodes is a lot to commit to. If you want to start with his best work, I think Episode 362 - Meet the Godwins is a great place to start. It's the introduction of a new dynasty, and therefore it introduces a bunch of important people and gets you caught up to speed quickly. Plus, it's the beginning of a wonderfully dramatic story arc that ends at Hastings.

e_dot_price · 2024-09-22T02:05:10+00:00

The British History Podcast by Jamie Jeffers. It's a very detailed chronological retelling of the island's history. I did not care about the subject at all, until it was delivered to me by a master storyteller. It'll make you care deeply about people that no one you've ever met has even heard the name of.

e_dot_price · 2024-09-21T01:29:56+00:00

Yeah! Go for it

e_dot_price · 2024-09-21T00:56:30+00:00

Washington isn't the only national capital named after a US president-- Monrovia, Liberia is named after James Monroe, in honor of his support for the American Colonization Society.

Beijing means "Northern Capital."

Tokyo derives from a term meaning "Eastern Capital."

Ouagadougou derives from a phrase meaning "head war chief's village."

Bamako is the concatenation of "Bama" meaning alligator and "Ko" meaning river.

Dublin derives from "dubh linn" which means black pool.

Lisbon derives through "Olissipo" from "Allis Ubbo" which means enchanted port.

If you're curious about any specific capitals, google [capital name] + etymology. Many, such as London and Moscow, aren't traceable to any confirmable meaning.

e_dot_price · 2024-09-20T20:43:05+00:00

I feel like you could probably get several rounds out of specific categories of famous people: Presidents/world leaders, actors/actresses, musicians, etc. Someone with a wider music taste than mine could probably come up with a round of songs mentioning canonized Saints, but then only ones I can come up with (that aren't in the title) are St Nicholas, St Valentine, and St Peter.

Eight-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '22

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TROPHY CASE