Previews
Coming soon to the internet
I made some decent progress on things since last time, but there isn’t a ton to show for it outside of the cooking department. Let’s get into it.
Video Progress
In case you need a recap, the upcoming feature presentation will be a strange mix of VSauce and Xavier Renegade Angel wherein I address the heinous accusation alleging that I am a “VTuber.”
I was going to use B-roll of actual VTubers for a couple of shots but I thought it’d be way funnier to make semi-convincing fakes. I’ve concocted two characters for this purpose but I want to leave their designs and such a surprise. I will, however, share their main sources of inspiration.
Both take from Dominions 6 Pretenders and Transformers (which funnily enough also has characters classified as Pretenders, but for completely different reasons), with the second design additionally pulling from ReBoot.
The first false VTuber is based off of the Demiurge and Dirgegun (from the Japan-only Beast Wars II).
Meanwhile the second one is based off of the Carrion Dragon, the Quintesson Judge, and Hexadecimal.
So how do these disparate sources coalesce into coherent character designs? You’ll just have to wait to find out!
Dave The Depressed Demilich - A Short Story
I’ve been working on a short story for the Newgrounds Lit Portal Collab currently titled Dave The Depressed Demilich. It’s set in the same world as my previous short story, Mystery of The Memoryhole Monastery Pt. 2, and my TTRPG system Table Knight (to be released eventually).
I’ll link the new story and the collab in a future newsletter, but for now I’ll share a couple of excerpts from the draft.
Ten years ago Dave had taken out a massive mortgage on the equally massive, twelve-story Gothic citadel that he partly called his own. The Debtomancer owned the rest, on paper anyways. Well not really on paper per se, but you don’t have to worry about those details right now.
Dave’s mortgage agreement had shackled his soul to the world of the living whether he liked it or not. That mortgage was unfinished business, and he couldn’t die until he felt he was finished with all his business. This had nothing to do with him being a Demilich. The natural magic of the world is just funny like that. It works because people believe it works, thus making it work.
“You sure that thing’s working?” Cannon Knight nudged the Arcana Counter in Brick Knight’s hands like an annoying brother.
Brick Knight turned a crystalline knob on the stone PDA and pointed it at the cannon that Cannon Knight was using like a skateboard (it had wheels). It beeped.
“It works.” Brick Knight bluntly retorted. He re-tuned the Arcana Counter and aimed it around again until he heard a low-pitched beep. The two Knights continued down the barren hallway of the castle they had spent the past half hour scrounging through.
“I dunno, something still feels off. Doesn’t this place seem a bit too empty?”
“It’s an abandoned castle.”
“No, the town around it was abandoned. Those buildings were trashed and then some. I mean yeah, it’s dusty in here but there’s nothing else. You’d think monsters would’ve started squatting in here or something.”
“The magic thing in here could be repelling them.”
“How much is that worth?”
The duo stopped. Brick Knight pulled a dense, leatherbound, gemstone-encrusted shopping catalog out of his backpack and started flipping through it.
“There it is!” Cannon Knight proclaimed, jamming his finger onto a page. Behind their visors, the Knights’ eyes lit up like fireballs of ionized gold.
The Debtomancer was one bad day away from quitting. Having to deal with adventurers and Mages daily was one thing. Having to deal with their finances was another, much, much worse thing. It seemed like nobody in those lines of work knew the first thing about fiscal responsibility, except maybe Economic Mages and Wizards. But they all worked for The Economancer (as did he). The Economancer didn’t take kindly to fiscal irresponsibility. Merely witnessing him cast Power Word: Audit on some poor soul was enough to scare you into straightening out your financial situation.
As the only Wizard working in the Loans Division (The Repomancer retired last year and there hadn’t been a replacement yet), The Debtomancer was personally responsible for collateralizing and repossessing magic items. Lesser Economic Mages weren’t nearly powerful enough to handle some of the more dangerous situations The Debtomancer often found himself in.
Just last week he had to take a microplastic golem from a Hazmat Mage in a castle full of noxious gasses. Another time it was a Bag of Endless Rubber Chickens from Clown Knight, who put up a fight. Yesterday it was an experimental Staff that could turn inanimate objects into kitchen countertops (and back). It was called Counter Spell. There were also vast swaths of less interesting things like enchanted swords, rings, and amulets.
Sure, they were valuable on paper (and according to The Endless Catalog of Majicks) but they just didn’t sell very often. The weird stuff even less so. The Debtomancer was quickly running out of space. He was running out of patience exponentially faster.
Pizzas, Pastries, and Protein
Ah yes, the three major food groups.
From first to last we’ve got a couple marinaras, bbq chicken, chicken pesto, and another marinara.
In this corner we have a couple of chocolate chip cookie slabs and some pancakes. I tried whipping up the eggs in the pancakes which turned out quite well. I recently found this video covering a different kind of pancake recipe that’s kinda like a meringue. I tried my hand at that earlier today but you’ll have to wait till next time to see the results.
And here we’ve got a bulgogi-ish ground beef bowl, some more proper bulgogi, and finally some grilled chicken thighs (given a dry rub of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika) that I used for some wraps.
In a previous newsletter I had talked about how I was gonna do a future video on making chocolate chip pancakes but those plans may very well change. I’ve had two friends express interest in a hypothetical video on my pizza making procedure so I might do that instead. We’ll see.
Speaking of seeing, I’ll see you again next time with another newsletter.
Have a good one,
-Hydro