Still in the flashback to their first adventure in Phlan, the heroes have located both keys they need to progress. But an encounter with the tomb's hungry shadows leaves them drained, and they're about to find out that they were woefully mistaken about the nature of this dungeon...
Folks, I need to take a moment and step away from the typical episode blog post. This has been a rough week for me, and really a rough whole year. Those of you who know me personally probably already know about all of this but I'm still working through it so please bear with me.
This week in particular started off really good, actually. Let's focus on that for a moment. After basically three years of production (the very first day I recorded an episode was 8/15/22) this week marks the final session of primary recording for this podcast. Scheduling has been a nightmare for the past six months or so- we had literally a three-month-gap between two episodes a little while ago- but I had this week off from work and had enough advance notice to make sure we had a few days everyone was available so we could finally knock out the last few encounters. It went great, and now I've got like six months to get these episodes edited. (I still need to get with each player individually to record an epilogue, but otherwise, the campaign is done. It still doesn't feel real.)
In addition to finishing the podcast, I had a really cool opportunity to record an interview with someone involved in the computer game that this campaign is based on! (It'll eventually go out on the Inter-Party Conflict podcast feed, so keep an eye out. It'll have its own blog post when it goes live.) So that was really exciting. I also got some friends over and played an in-person RPG off-mic, which I haven't done in years. So that was cool too.
But... it's not all good.
If you follow me on any other social media or if you've heard Inter-Party Conflict then you almost definitely know about my dog, Super Hans. He just celebrated his ninth birthday last month (which is pretty old for a great dane) but has spent most of this year battling some persistent health issues. We found out last year he was diabetic, he went blind in January with cataracts (although we were able to get him surgery to restore his sight in June, albeit at great cost and requiring a constant medication regimen to recover from), and we also learned in June that he most likely had some kind of sinus tumor that caused him long-lasting discomfort and breathing issues. But, of course, he's our boy, and we would do whatever it took to keep him happy and healthy.
Well, this week, he passed away. He started having seizures one night (likely due to the growth of the sinus tumor) and by the next morning they had gotten so bad we had no choice but to put him to sleep. It's been so difficult coming to terms with this in the days since- was there nothing else we could have done? How do you move on after losing something that was such a big part of your life for nearly a decade? How do I even walk around my house without expecting to see or hear him around every corner? And... how do I move on, without feeling like I'm turning my back on his memory?
It's been tough. The whole year has been so stressful, with all of his health issues and my own stresses at work. Releasing this podcast has simultaneously been an escape from the stresses of my life, and also a source of more of that stress as I panic over the last-minute revisions and quality checks I require of myself now that it's gone out to the public. I love this podcast with so much of my being but damned if it hasn't been a massive, massive burden I've willingly taken on.
Anyway.
This week marks the end of an era in several different ways, and I sincerely hope that the coming weeks will allow me the time to rest and recover.
Thank you all for listening, and reading, and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
And if you have any pets, please go give them an extra hug today. And tomorrow.
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Chapter 3, Episode 4: Prologue - Shadows
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Curse of Radiance is a member of the Uncharted North podcast network. For more of their shows, check them out at UnchartedNorth.ca!
