Brief Hiatus

Hi everyone!

No new episode of Lantern Cove today. The true BBEG, scheduling, has been assailing Lantern Cove for quite some time, and it’s brought us to a point where we no longer have a backlog to rely upon.

We’ll be skipping our episode this week due to this, then we’ll be back on the 22nd with more Lantern Cove. Things are getting heated up, folks!

I don’t know exactly how many episodes are left, but we’ve rounded the corner towards the end.

I hope you’re still enjoying our little horror adventure!

Sera

The Chapters of Lantern Cove

When I was planning out the game, I knew quickly that it was going to be three chapters.

The first chapter would be introducing everything, establishing the danger, going through dreams, and it would end with the confrontation of the serial killer.

The second chapter would be for information gathering, moving from reaction to action, getting to see the bigger threat that loomed before them, and it would end with the reveal of the meanings behind their original visions.

And the third chapter? That’s there to give the players a chance to win.

This is a horror game. Winning is not a given. Even if the players do win, it will come with a cost. But I must admit, I want them to win. I love these characters. I’m their biggest fan. I want at least some of them to survive.

But it’s not going to be an easy chapter, folks.

It’s going to hurt.

Sera

Tropes are Good Actually

Found family is one of, if not the most, popular tropes in TTRPGs. It is almost built into prototypical party dynamics. Unless you are playing a family of adventurers, a hired group that hates each other or some such other niche game. PCs end up becoming closer to the party than most blood relatives.  TTRPGs also make this trope so easy to find at tables because of how players tend to write back stories. Whether it’s the orphaned rogue or paladin who watched their parents hang or wizard whisked away to an academy at a young age, many players have little to no family in the picture. So, particularly for long form campaigns, this dynamic develops naturally.  

In the larger story telling picture it looms nearly as large across all fantasy. From Wheel of Time to LotR. It is a trope so powerfully resonant that it transcends fantasy and is found in genres like romance and historical fiction. Staying with TTRPGs though, when looking at the player base, it becomes clear that it is just not mechanically or narratively convenient that this trope arises. In so-called “nerd” or “geek” spaces there has always been an over representation of neurodivergent individuals. In the last 10-15 years there has been a significant increase of LGBTQIA+ people in these same spaces. And many more who identify with both. 

The kind of individuals who often suffer from loneliness and feelings of estrangement or disconnection from their peers and often even their family. The trope of found family is almost a way of meta gaming. The closeness of the party is a direct reflection of the bonds at the table. A sort of magic that is greater than the sum of its parts, defying even laws of physics. When players care about each other and the story something truly special happens. It creates a feedback loop where greater investment in the game results in a deeper connection with your fellow players at the table. Thus resulting in each player wanting to do more and do better, for the table. Leading others to do the same. This feedback loop however loses no capacity or capability on each transference. Instead growing and strengthening the bonds and improving the experience exponentially. 

Actors play TTRPGs. Writers play TTRPGs. Software engineers, busboys, and stay at home dads play TTRPGs. All for different interests and reasons but almost all of us long for what I described in the above paragraph. And despite the fact that our little family is more forced than found, I am so glad to be a part of the very special game that is Lantern Cove. These people have become a part of my life forever. Wherever I go, whatever I do, no matter if I keep playing forever or stop when Sera stops recording on our last episode, I will always look back fondly at this time and feel a warmth in my heart. And it won’t just be because of Raw Dawg. These people are more than my fellow cast members and friends. They are family. 

David

Raw Dog

Sometimes you carefully craft NPCs, give them histories and stats and all that jazz. And then other times you go, ‘It’d make sense if there was a homeless guy at the bunker, I’ll have them encounter him and then if they decide they actually want to interact with him I’ll just improv stuff, no biggie.’

Such was the way with Raw Dog. I didn’t expect him to be more than a silly one-off at best… I mean, I had him sleeping in a urine stench, for Pete’s sake! His name came off of the top of my head; I hadn’t bothered to prepare one. His personality was just what I’ve experienced with some of the houseless camping folk I’ve met, that sort of boisterous friendliness.

But that encounter was so polarizing—everybody either loved or hated Raw Dog very enthusiastically—that it couldn’t remain a one-off thing, it just couldn’t. I had to bring him back, had to have him connected to the bigger picture somehow. And as it happened I had a role in the plot that needed filling, so Raw Dog became something more than a random encounter with a homeless guy.

And I love that about the way the creative process works when you’re doing a collaborative work like an RPG. Because Lantern Cove is more fun and memorable with Raw Dog in it, and if it were just me creating it, that would never have happened. It’s a good reminder for me that ‘Yes, and’ can lead to some wonderful places.

Sera

How bad I am at running Fate

I love running Fate. I think it’s a fantastic game that’s got a lot of great mechanics that both simplify and enhance the play of just about any genre of game.

But just because I love it, doesn’t mean I’m good at it.

Don’t get me wrong, give me a good group of players and some Fate dice and we’ll all have a tremendously good time. I’m a pretty good GM, and Fate is my weapon of choice for a lot of games.

But there are a lot of things that Fate does, awesome things, that I just don’t do well. I forget them, or ignore them, or just use them insufficiently. My play style doesn’t fit some of them.

Take Aspects. Fate is built around Aspects. In Fate, everything has aspects. The PCs, the NPCs, the game itself, the scenes, everything. When you succeed with style on something (which just means getting a result on your roll several shifts better than you needed to—if you didn’t know what that was, it’s because I rarely ever use it) you can add a temporary aspect to what you’re acting on, called a Boost. A lot of the game is about discovering and applying aspects.

Now me, I give the scene aspects if I’ve prepared for the scene in advance, and the PCs have their aspects of course, but other than that? You barely see them. Because I just don’t think about things that way, and so I don’t use them that much.

And Fate Points. They’re used for so much! For invoking an Aspect, yes, but also you can gain them by having an Aspect of yours compelled, i.e. used against you. But do I ever think of that? Well, if you’ve been listening to Lantern Cove you know that I do not. Fate points are also used to declare something about the setting - like, ‘I spend a Fate point to have there be construction on the road the bad guys are escaping down,’ or something like that. But that doesn’t work too well with the horror genre in my opinion, because part of what separates horror from adventure is that in horror the characters never really have the advantage, or if they do then that advantage is going to turn out to be a negative in some way later on. So Fate Points aren’t the exciting dynamic in my games that Fate makes them out to be, and it’s something I’ve come to accept.

But all that said, I love Fate and I will probably continue to use it for more games in the future. Possibly not as well as it could be used, but that’s life.

Sera

Prom

I never went to prom during my high school years. My reasons for this included not having a date, not knowing how to dance, being generally terrified of large gatherings of my peers, and being too cheap/poor to get the proper clothes and such. All of which I covered up with a sort of sneering contempt of high school activities like dances and such.

Yes, I was that kid.

So when I ran a game full of high schoolers, you can bet there was no way I was going to miss giving them a prom experience. And sure, it was a prom experience full of danger and horror, but it was a prom experience nonetheless.

I wanted to make sure we focused on everyone’s outfits, the way the different characters expressed themselves through fancy clothing (Gus surprised me with his, did he surprise you?) including hair and makeup and all the little things that one fiddles with to try to make their prom outfit perfect.

I wanted to make sure there were opportunities for dances and flirting and spiking the punch and all the assorted stuff that, pop culture has assured me, goes along with the prom experience.

I had the intention of putting in a scene of a crying girl in the bathroom (her date ignored her in favor of asking Jess to dance) but those plans fell by the wayside when my players (as my players tend to do) forced me to jump forward with things. I’m still a bit regretful that I missed out on putting that scene in, as I feel it would have enhanced the whole prom experience and made the episode a little bit better.

But that’s cooperative storytelling for you. You don’t always get to do the cool stuff that you plan to do, even if you’re the GM. Instead, everybody gets to stir the pot with their own spoon, and all in all I think the result is much better on the whole that way.

Sera

Gaming as a Podcast

Lantern Cove is my first attempt at a podcast, and it’s the first time I ever did gaming as entertainment.

It’s interesting to me to think about how different the process of gaming is when you’re doing it not just to share a story with your friends, but to share it to a larger audience. And how not-different it is.

The first thing that jumps to mind is how it affects scheduling. Trying to get seven people together at the same time is really quite difficult, more especially so if it’s a necessity that everyone be there every time. Now combine that with a publishing schedule. I went into the project with the intention that I would get 10 episodes in the can before I started putting the podcast out, and I’m really glad I did that, because the gap between now and when we run out of episodes in the can keeps narrowing. I think we’ll get to the end of the story before we have to put a gap in the publishing schedule, but I’m not 100% on that.

Another way that the podcast influences the game is that we have to try to express everything through audio. Making faces and gestures just doesn’t cut it when you’re wanting to tell the story to others via sound. It sounds like a trivial consideration, but you might be surprised how often we have to adjust for it. For instance, some of us use a Discord bot for dice rolling, and everyone can see the result of those rolls, but we have to say them out loud anyway or listeners won’t know what’s going on.

In other ways, though, it affects things less than I thought it would. I thought that perhaps having an audience would affect the way we play, but nah. We’re already playing for an audience of the other people participating with us, and I think that remains primary in our minds in Lantern Cove, despite the podcasting.

Sera

Clark Fairchild

I think it’s fitting that Clark’s alter ego is a web-spinning hero, because Clark does so much to hold the group together that it puts me in mind of that scene where Tobey Maguire stops the train from crashing. You know the one.

You know how sometimes you have that one friend that’s totally ‘ride or die’? Clark is that, but for the whole group. Clark’s got everybody’s backs, and I think that when the other members of the group aren’t stuck in their own heads, they know that he does. I think that’s the source of a lot of the strength that the group has when it’s running smoothly, and I hope he understands that at some point.

I keep thinking I should include a car chase scene at some point, to give Clark a moment where everyone’s fate is in his hands. If an opportunity arises I definitely will.

One thing I’m grateful for about Clark is his crush on Ashley Marco. It gives me a chance to throw in some cute high-school-romance scenes that lighten the mood… and to emphasize how strange and horrid the world that our heroes are in is, to a more ‘normal’ teen.

Sera

Freyja Bell

Freyja.

Mother of Crows.

In the beginning, I was worried about Lyra’s investment in the game, because they were quieter than the others. That’s why I made Molly the first dreamer they encountered, was to make sure they had a solid reason to be actively involved.

Seems to have worked. Freyja is a solid part of the team, and a favourite among the players. Among other things, Freyja is someone that Gus can connect to in a way he doesn’t with the others. I’ve enjoyed watching their connection deepen as the game has gone on.

Freyja is one of those characters that’s a deep ocean, if that makes sense. Here, let me try to explain. Most of the time she’s quiet on the surface. But lurking under the surface is a whole other world of ideas just waiting for their moment to rise and be known. You know, like the ocean. Look, I’m not good with similes, alright?

So far, Freyja has not been seriously imperiled, but given the way she is carelessly willing to put herself in danger, she gets my vote for ‘character most likely to get themselves killed by game end.’

Not that I’m planning anything. Don’t look at me like that.

Freyja’s relationship with corvids is something I hope we get a chance to explore more. Probably we will; there are an awful lot of crows about.

Sera

Atticus Dutch

Oh Atticus, Atticus, Atticus.

Our insecure little shit-starter, Atticus.

There’s something very noble and inspiring about Atticus. He’s deeply flawed, yes, but he sees his flaws and tries to get better. Sometimes he backslides, but over the scope of the game I think that change is visible.

Atticus’s habit of lashing out when he’s hurt, of striking out at weak points in other peoples’ emotional armor in order to strengthen his own, is the cause of much drama, especially with Chris.

As I think I mentioned before, Chris and Atticus are much alike, with similar backgrounds and troubles. But the way that they deal with their traumas and the way that they face the world are very different, and as a result the Atticus / Chris conflicts are probably the most prominent conflicts in the story.

I kind of feel like every active leftist knows an Atticus. Someone whose politics are sound and their heart is in the right place, but they just don’t have the maturity to match and it causes them to be kind of toxic. In Atticus’s defence, he’s only 17, and shouldn’t be expected to be fully mature yet. Unlike the people I’m comparing him to.

Atticus’s alter ego was fun to make. His sociopolitical views and his love of a certain Nazi-punching hero led to Captain Anarchism (Not Captain Anarchy; that’s already a Marvel character) being born. I love that it puts Atticus into a more helpful point of view, I love the way his ‘utility belt’ is full of stuff like first aid equipment, hydration, all the stuff that’s actually important when involved in resistance action.

Sera

Gus Gabara

Oh Gus, my big awkward boy.

The hardest decision I faced in reviewing character ideas was in choosing whether to push back on Cam’s choice for Gus’s alter ego (he didn’t know it would be an alter ego at the time, I just asked all of them about a media figure their character particularly aspired to or identified with.) Because while everyone else chose someone powerful in their own way, a powerful witch from a sitcom show was something else entirely. If I were to emulate the powers of Aunt Zelda in any satisfying way, I would be giving one of my players a phenomenal amount of power. I had to consider all sorts of things - what would this level of power do to the game experience, to the group dynamic, to the plot in general?

In the end, I decided to go with it. The possible advantages outweighed the disadvantages, for me. So far, I haven’t regretted it.

I love Gus. I love his literal approach to the world, I love his cleverness and the way he tackles problems. I love how sensitive he is while appearing so matter-of-fact. I think that the whole group loves Gus, each in their way, despite the difficulties they sometimes have with communication.

Playing Gus’s family - his loyal and loving, if kind of distant brother Erik, his amazing almost-sister Nikki, and the unpleasant old Nana - has been one of the many delights of running this game. It’s an unusual family dynamic, to be sure, but a very wholesome and enjoyable one.

Sera

Olive Wright

Where would we be without Olive?

If our little group of high schoolers was a wheel, Olive would be the spokes that connect it and keep it from collapsing under pressure. That’s how I see her.

During character creation, Olive was connected to both Chris and Atticus, and as we’ve seen by now, sometimes she’s the only thing keeping those two from clashing. But really, Olive connects to everyone. Throughout the story, no matter what struggles or conflicts they go through, I don’t think any of the group ever have cause to doubt that Olive cares about them. And that’s a big deal for anyone, but for a group of teenagers experiencing traumatic events and feeling isolated from their peers? That’s everything.

When it came to alter egos, the media role model Laura presented me with was a Shakespearean character, which was a curve ball for me. I barely remembered having seen Much Ado About Nothing, and so I had to dive into examinations of the play and the character of Beatrice in particular to figure out how to make that character’s particular traits function as empowering under the Fate rules. I’m pretty proud of the stunts I came up with for her, given my unfamiliarity with the character.

I identify with Olive in several ways. I’m familiar with being tall and awkward and not wanting to be seen. I’ve spent my time as a people pleaser as well, and I know the curse of being unable to see one’s own value. And I’ve seen a few anime in my day.

In the end, if there were a Lantern Cove character I would want to point to and say, ‘That one there. I should try to be more like that one,’ I would have to go with Olive. Through everything, she supports her friends with caring and empathy, even when they’re being difficult to connect with, and I think that’s admirable.

Sera

Chris Cunningham

The first time I saw Bastion’s proposal for Chris, he was an asshole and a bully. His dream alter ego was going to be based on Jigsaw from the Saw movies. Take a moment to imagine how different the story of Lantern Cove would have been with that kind of Chris. I don’t know about you, but I think the group would have fallen apart.

Fortunately, Bastion changed his mind and went with a kinder, gentler Chris - still with anger issues, fight clubs, and an abusive father, but not turning that outward in such a toxic way.

Chris’s resilience, amiability, and team spirit have done as much to hold our little group of teenagers together as anything else has. In a way I feel like his and Atticus’s energies kind of oppose each other in a weird sort of balance, which could be because they have some key similarities in background.

Chris’s alter ego, King, has interested me from the beginning. The choice to make him silent has definitely had an effect on our dream sequences that I didn’t expect, and I love it. It’s funny, when I was working out the parameters of the game back in the beginning, it never even crossed my mind that someone might choose a character in a fighting game - an RPG, sure, but a fighting game? I love it when players throw curve balls at me like that.

Having Chris in the game meant I had to learn about lacrosse, a game I have never seen played in my life. So I proceeded to read Wikipedia articles, watch videos, and generally throw myself into learning about it - an endeavour which I spectacularly failed at. I understand lacrosse just about enough to kind of fake actually knowing about it, and fortunately that has been enough. It’s been cool adding that aspect to things, doing scenes at Chris’s games, that sort of thing. I think it adds flavor to the game.

Sera

Mistakes of Lantern Cove

Overall I’m very happy with Lantern Cove and how it’s gone, but there are a couple of things I’d go back and correct, for sure.

The first is that period of time where I just… forgot that Fate had a Deceive skill, and in my brain’s struggle to figure out what someone would roll to deceive others, just went with Rapport. For like an entire episode. I remember doing the audio editing afterwards and listening to myself, and suddenly remembering that Deceive exists and realizing I’d been a very silly GM.

I’m happy to say that the players have never let me forget that for a moment. Any time we’re taking a moment to think of what skill to use for something, they pipe up with ‘Rapport!’

The second thing is, I don’t know where the name Molly came from. Looking back at what Lyra gave me before we started playing, I see that Freyja did indeed have a good friend, also into poetry and such… named Mary. Somehow when I set things up for the first dream episode, Mary turned into Molly and I completely forgot there had ever been a Mary. In fact, if I’m remembering right I later made the librarian’s first name Mary instead. (call me out on that if I’m misremembering.) So where the name ‘Molly’ came from I’ve no idea. I don’t even know anybody named Molly in real life.

Happily, Lyra never got upset about it - they just went with it, and it’s been Molly ever since.

Sera

Dream Warriors of Lantern Cove

That was the original working title of this game/podcast/awesome excuse for having fun with my friends. I quickly changed it to just ‘Lantern Cove,’ as the original was a bit too clunky and also made me think too much of that one Nightmare on Elm Street movie.

But it’s a great title for this particular entry, wherein we talk about the characters and their alter egos. So sit back, grab a mug of the hot beverage of your choice, and let’s have that talk.

The idea for having each character be empowered by their favourite media characters did not come from that one Nightmare on Elm Street movie, but was part of one of the brainstorming sessions I had with my partner about the game. There’s a running undercurrent to the game about the power and importance of consciousness, and that was the sort of mental space I was in. I got to thinking about teenagers and their developing sense of self, and how we use role models, both real and fictional, to empower us to grow into the people we want to be. The idea of the characters becoming some form of their role models from media just sort of jumped at me at that point, because not only did it fit, it meant that each character could be tackling the difficulties of the dream from a totally different paradigm, and that sounded interesting to me from a storytelling standpoint.

So when I went into setting up character creation for my players I had them pick some world of media and an empowered character in that setting that they felt a connection with. I then set back and waited for the ideas to roll in, having no idea what wildness I was going to get. And did I ever get some good ones!

From Olive, the otaku, I was expecting some wild super-powered anime character, but I got Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. I’ve only seen Much Ado once (the Joss Whedon version, for those curious,) and I barely remembered it, so I had to dive into research about the character to find how best to express what was special about her.

With Clark, I was expecting a comic book hero, and I wasn’t disappointed there. It did make me wary, though, since the character picked is such a popular media figure in comics, television, and movies. When it comes down to it, the players aren’t playing these characters, they’re playing teenagers who look up to these characters in their dreams, but even so I got worried about putting out a podcast where it could be misinterpreted that my player was playing a familiar friendly neighbourhood wall crawler, so I did the (possibly silly) compromise of calling him Arachno-Guy, “An original creation, just like Rickey Rouse or Monald Muck!”

Atticus also gave me a famous comic book character, but this one was easy to modify, as I couldn’t see Atticus identifying with America, so he became Captain Anarchism (as Marvel already has a character with the easier-to-say name of Captain Anarchy that came to mind first.) He still has a cool shield but otherwise there’s not much resemblance to the character, so it didn’t give me the worries that Arachno-Guy did.

Freyja gave me Frankenstein’s Monster, a character long since bestowed into the public domain, so that was an easy one. My biggest challenge was letting go of all the strange adaptations of the character I’ve seen in my life and to go back to the original story, which is where Freyja would be seeing the character from.

With Chris, the popular sports kid, I was at a loss as to what I was going to get. I thought maybe a big pro wrestling character, or something from a mainstream movie series like The Fast and the Furious or something. A character from a fighting video game certainly never occurred to me, but that’s what I got. Not one I’d played either, so I got to do a little dive into Tekken lore to learn what I could about King. Fortunately, there are an abundance of websites detailing his story and abilities, which made it easy for me.

And finally Gus. I don’t know what I expected from Gus, but a magical aunt from Sabrina the Teenage Witch certainly never entered my mind. With Aunt Zelda I had a problem, and that was, to imitate the power of this character is to hand my player the ability to do essentially whatever they want, and what would that do to my ability to guide the story, and would that sort of inequality of power amongst the players even work? In the end I went with letting the character have these massive, reality-bending powers in the dreams, and just focused a bit more on making the formats and goals of the dreams be things that aren’t necessarily matters of power, but of understanding and communication. I think that has worked out pretty well so far.

Sera

The Story of Lantern Cove

Welcome to Lantern Cove, a small New England town that hides terrible secrets. Who better to defeat the evils in the Cove than a group of misfit teenagers? And who better to enjoy their angst-filled struggles than you and I?

I first got the idea for Lantern Cove when I was listening to Champions of the Earth, a sadly now-defunct podcast about a group of teens given powers to defend the earth, and at the same time listening to The Infinite Bad, a happily now-complete podcast about a group of people struggling to unearth and defeat a terrifying Lovecraftian menace. ‘What if,’ I thought, ‘I combined these two ideas into one? A group of high schoolers given power and put into a position where they can protect the world—only it’s not an adventure story, it’s a thriller where terrible things can happen?’

Another heavy influence on the deeper worldbuilding behind Lantern Cove was the amazing Lychford series of novellas by Paul Cornell, which gave me several ideas that I’d love to tell you all about, but I’m afraid it would be too much of a spoiler for later on in the story.

All of this sort of swirled around in my mind for a while. I knew I wanted to do it as an RPG, I knew I wanted to share the story as a podcast because it was the kind of story that excited and interested me, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it.

A lot of research, some experimenting with different RPG systems, and the finding of talented and dedicated players later, I realized I was ready. And it’s been a wild ride ever since.

Sera