Episode 1

Episode 1 is now live.

Echoes in the Black is my own humble contirbution to the narrative story merged with solo tabletop role playing following in the steps of Tale of the Manticore and Me Myself and Die amongst others.

I have big plans for the podcast and this campaign in particular, that is called 'The Crown Below'. I do not yet know what that title means, but the dice will whisper fate and hopefully you'll come along with me to find out.

I've recorded 3 episodes so far with the fourth due to be recorded this week. The release schedule will be likely 3 epsiodes a month, dropping on the first, second and third Sunday of the month at 8pm GMT.

I'm very old, and was there at the beginning of the role playing story, starting in the late 70's. I have played most of the games that you'll all know from that time, mainly the TSR line. Unfortunately I do not still own the majority of them, due to the vagaries of a life lived to the full. I am trying to collect them again, but the second hand market can be prohibitive. 

Echoes in the Black is a Shadowdark campaign. I'm loving the themes, feel and ethos of Shadowdark. I've been consuming as much Shadowdark material and content as I can to immerse myself in the game and I'm loving every minute.

Echoes in the Black episode 1 is a scene setter and we meet 3 of my 4 characters. Rosalin is a priest of Ord seeking redemption for reasons not yet revealed. Jin is a witch, young, possibly reckless and from mystical origins. Rowan Calsea is a fighter, returned from the wars (which wars...not sure yet!). My fourth character, Ziraak, a half orc/half elf Knight of St Ydris comes into the story in epsiode 2. 

I've already grown rather attached to these characters, having worked on each of them to build a background, personality and story. Of course, the irony is that with Shadowdark being an OSR game and particularly deadly for low level characters, and any one, or all of them, could die at any point. My core principle for the podcast is that the dice will tell the story. No one will be protected from whatever the dice decide. 

I have other characters who may turn up at any point as characters to replace any of the four, but I am really rooting for them and have already winced, barely daring to look at the dice, fearing the worst for one of them.

This blog will feature art, some backstory and my own thoughts on how the campaign is going. There will be no spoilers until a week after release of a particular episode. I'll add chacater sheets for the characters very soon - i.e. when I can work out how to add them.

Each episode will have a blog entry for attributions, speaking of which, here are the ones for episode 1.

All sounds and music for Episode 1 of Echoes in the Black are sourced from the following links:

Freesound

pixabay

Maestro Tlakaelel - Jesse Gallagher

Mer-Ka-Ba - Jesse Gallagher

Lord of the Dawn - Jesse Gallagher

Spotify link for Jesse Gallagher

Lots more to come. Stick around as hopefully this will be a long term campaign telling some great stories!

More soon...