Dissonant Whispers: A DnD Actual Play Podcast
During the Age of Magic, the Signal is Chaos.
The Planar Vanguard set out to investigate portals to other realms, insidious cults, corrupt leaders, and more in a chaotic and deadly Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign set within a homebrewed Forgotten Realms world of Ephearea.
Join this actual play RPG group comprised of Einar, Drax, Drukin, Delphine, Oleander, and Roald as DM Stu endeavors to challenge, confound, and traumatize our players in this twice a month Actual Play D&D podcast of martial prowess and magic.
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Dissonant Whispers: A DnD Actual Play Podcast
Delving Deeper: Roald Grimble
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Welcome to Delving Deeper with Oleander Hawthorne, where we have meta game discussions about our characters, events in the game, the world, or even just to demand of someone "What the hells were you thinking!?"
In this episode we chat with he who shall not be trusted with magical items, and stealthy survivor with a bone to pick: Roald Grimble.
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Welcome to Delving Deeper, a series where we have a metagame discussion about our characters, events in the game, the world, or just demand what the hell were you thinking of our fellow characters? Or ourselves in some cases. I'm Oleander Hawthorne, and today I have with me Rold Griswold? Grimble. Grimble? Not Griswold, okay. Wrong world. Okay. Anyways, we're gonna ask him a little uh a few questions just to get to know him a little bit better. First of all, at the very beginning of the campaign when we started, what kind of character were you trying to build?
SPEAKER_02What kind of character was I trying to build?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't think I'd really even gotten that far. It was sort of I just decided, hey, I'm gonna play an archer build, just because you know, honestly, I don't think I ever have. And uh so I just went that route and then started on my backstory. I was like, oh okay, I guess he's an archer, but I don't know. I just decided to go sort of both rogue and fighter, so uh then I just sort of built the backstory around that, and uh yeah, essentially that's where I went.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I believe that you and I build characters the exact opposite way. I have a character and a story in mind, and then I build based on that, and then you have the build and then build a story around it.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, I don't know, yeah, exactly. Because uh well, yeah, exactly. I think I thought of the character first, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of neat different perspectives on how to build things. Um as we went on in the game, how has your character deviated from your original plan?
SPEAKER_02Well, I guess it would have had to have a plan in the first place, so uh I don't know if you can really say he's deviated, but uh honestly I think he's actually stayed fairly true to his roots. I don't know, technically I think I changed my alignment, but that's that's beside the point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Which I forgot myself.
SPEAKER_01I'm the most lawful good character that there ever been.
SPEAKER_02Well, I was lawful neutral to start with, thank you. But apparently I'm chaotic good now when I woke up on character sheet.
SPEAKER_01I I don't know, I think I feel like you're leaning towards evil. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, not even close. Not even close. No.
SPEAKER_01I know. Selfish sadistic? Is there a is there?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, there's interpretations, but is there an alignment called selfish sadistic? Maybe you just don't understand my uh, you know, where I come from, so that's okay.
SPEAKER_01Definitely not, which is kind of fun. Is there anything from your background, backstory, um, anything that you want to tell people about that has been revealed prior to recording, or just aspects of your um character that has that affects your choices, but never really comes about in the gameplay that is just fair but never discussed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I don't know, I guess it's hard to remember. I'll probably have to just start my backstory to be honest, just because uh, you know, ultimately I I can't recall exactly what has and hasn't been described, but uh, you know, Rold was uh even just like as a young child, he got taken by orcs, and then he was living in uh essentially an orcish mine as a canary for years and years, and watched the depravities that uh orcs would get into. Um so he has he's seen awful things from both orcs and what you know horrible conditions can do to the human condition as well, you know, to survive. So that that's sort of the main ones that uh you know that made him um I don't know, I guess we can keep going. He eventually escaped. You know, he was uh fairly adept, fairly agile. You know, he tried to escape a couple times, got hurt pretty good, but uh eventually he uh did get out, and he was with an elpine tribe for a few years, and then uh unfortunately, you know, sort of got involved the orcs and uh found and his tribe unfortunately got wiped out. They really underestimated how strong the orcs were. You know, Volve obviously had something to do with that. He wanted the orcs to be attacked, but anyways, that's sort of where he came from.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. And within the recordings, we get a lot more of his back story at the at the beginning of the recordings, so that's kind of fun to uh introduce the beginning of the podcast episodes with. And so if you already listened to those, then you're a little more aware of uh your great nemesis.
SPEAKER_02Sure, yeah, exactly. Who I think is Colin. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What is your favorite game moment prior to recording that affected your character's choices?
SPEAKER_02I don't think I can answer that question. You're gonna have to give me more.
SPEAKER_01Can you can you not answer? Okay, what's your favorite game moment pre-recording period?
SPEAKER_02Oh, pre-recording period? Oh jeez. Well, there was a pretty awful session. I I don't know if it was my favorite, but I think everyone laughed pretty hard. There's been a couple though, actually. No, I think my favorite moment, it was definitely uh when Theron and Delphine had their fight. By far that was the most humorous thing that I've seen. Yeah, I I don't know. The other one I'm not talking about was essentially uh, what was his name? Drax ultimately uh dressed me as a woman and then we infiltrated a club. So that one was a little sketchy. Well we'll I think everyone else liked that one.
SPEAKER_01We all loved that one.
SPEAKER_02Sorry.
SPEAKER_01Stop banging the table. We all loved that one. Roldina is what we referred to her as. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Drax rolled a Valley girl.
SPEAKER_01That was perfect. We decided because Drax rolled a 20 on uh disguising you, that you were just perfectly disguised as the most attractive woman that there ever could be, and then we all went bar hopping.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, essentially. So those were the probably not my favorite, but uh I was devastated. It was a little awkward for me.
SPEAKER_01No, I was I wasn't even in person for that session, I was video chatted in due to weather, and I would yeah, I was so sad that I didn't get to actually be here. It was it was pretty great, even though you know, even over video though. Uh, what is your goal or aspiration during this campaign?
SPEAKER_02You know, I don't think I really have direct goals. Um I think really it's about I guess creating a family and actually seeing the those around me uh not, you know, ultimately become good people. Uh, you know, how things have gone I don't know if he even really trusts a lot of the group, um, because they're all infected with uh various things like vampirism and uh just other things like that. Funnily enough, Drax is probably the one, even though you know he certainly does some interesting things, uh Him and probably Delphine, I guess, would be the ones he trusts the most. Uh actually that's not really true, as well as uh the cleric as well. So, anyways. Now who's the But he wants to see the other people be get help and be healthy because he's seen what happens when uh things become dark.
SPEAKER_00So Who's the only character that's killed a uh hostage?
SPEAKER_02Uh I think both Dirac and I have done that. But that was an orc, to be very clear. It was an orc, and uh I hate and I have uh little hatred for orcs. I've seen the atrocities that that clan committed, and who knows, my character might even recognize that guy and knew that he was certainly not innocent and deserved everything he got.
SPEAKER_01Uh, what are some internal or external struggles that your character deals with?
SPEAKER_02Uh, I think it was sort of mentioned. Definitely uh the external struggles is you know, he wants to see Oleander and Einar be made whole again so they don't turn to their evil because they are infected by vampirism. And uh yeah, you know, he he wants the the group to actually be healthy and not, you know, eventually succumb to evil because he's seen it happen throughout his life.
SPEAKER_01Alright. Now, I mean you didn't really have much of a home life, so asking you about that is he was his home life was a cave.
SPEAKER_02My home life was a cave.
SPEAKER_01With a bunch of other prisons.
SPEAKER_02I would try and scrounge for food. Yeah. I would uh try and stay alive through the beatings and and whatnot. Like, you know, orcs wouldn't have been very nice if you think about it. So it was more about survival than anything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now how how do you how do you feel Rolde fits into the world?
SPEAKER_02I don't think he really does fit in that well. He feels like an outsider most of the time, but that's sort of why he's constantly seeking, if you will, a family. He found it in the elves, and they uh ended up dying, and uh, I think that's really his goal, family. And uh, you know, ultimately that that's why he does care about these people, because at least he sees them doing good, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Is there anything else that you want to add that um from in any information pre-recording, or that doesn't give spoilers at least, that you'd like to mention about your character.
SPEAKER_02So I don't think there's anything specific. I don't really have any of these neat little things that everyone else has. The only other thing that's happened to me is I happened to, I don't know, I I I decided to pull a card from the deck of many things and got really, really lucky, but that's about it. You m I could have died. I'm gonna be honest, I rationalized it and I saw, oh, okay, those aren't actually that strong. Uh so you know I had a chance of losing everything, or you know, just having my character die, but it happens.
SPEAKER_01Now, okay, for your guys' parties, if you end up having somebody randomly pull a card out of the deck of many things, is this a group decision? Is this a one-off surprise motherfuckers?
SPEAKER_02Somebody gave me a deck of cards, and uh albeit, albeit, you know, uh apparently I was told in-game. I I honestly didn't recall that, but uh I thought I was just pulling a card from a deck of cards in my character's mind.
SPEAKER_01I want to know what has happened with your guys' campaigns when anybody has or has not uh successfully pulled a card out of the deck. So, you know, fun stuff. Anyways, thank you for joining us for delving deeper. If you enjoyed this, please like, follow, or share, or drop a comment if you have any questions for Rold or his player. Thank you guys very much.
SPEAKER_02Awesome thanks to the video.