Hellllllloooooo, everyone!
Welcome, welcome, welcome! I am very proud to announce that today is the beginning of a new podcast, that's been in the works for a VERY long time.
Honestly, it all started somewhere around 1995, when I discovered that we had a computer disc in our basement for the old TSR Dungeons & Dragons computer game, Curse of the Azure Bonds. I didn't know anything about DnD at the time- I wouldn't get into the game for another seven or eight years- but I loved the sword & sorcery theme, I loved the artwork, and I loved the music (what little of it our home computer could render at the time). Almost ten years later, after I'd gotten into the RPG scene proper, I was browsing a gaming store in a nearby town and imagine my surprise when I found out there was a paperback module of this game I played so many years ago! Naturally, I bought it immediately- and then realized everything inside was greek to me, since I didn't know what THAC0 was or how I was supposed to read any of the statblocks contained within. (And, to be honest, I didn't even know very much of the story just from playing the computer game, so beyond the appeal of that striking artwork, I didn't really have much motivation to actually read the module I had bought.)
Fast forward another seven or eight years. I was in a used book store, and I was perusing the fantasy section when my eyes came across the familiar words- Azure Bonds. I had been vaguely aware that this computer game I'd loved was based on a book- or was a sequel to a book? I didn't know. That all changed when I actually read said book. I loved the story- a mercenary named Alias woke up with five magic tattoos on her arm, and had to travel with a wizard, a halfling, and a dinosaur to figure out how to get rid of them. By this point I was well familiar with the Forgotten Realms (it had been many years since my favorite character, Ichi the Undead Slayer, walked the Realms) but this book re-ignited the fire in me.
Again, we fast forward. Inter-Party Conflict, my first (and to date, longest) foray into podcasting was coming to an end, and I knew I wanted to make an Actual Play podcast- not only to make something people would want to listen to, but also to prove to myself I could do it. I had a couple other ideas in the hopper but eventually there was only one inevitability: I had to run Curse of the Azure Bonds for myself.
It's been an ordeal. Nearly three years as of this writing, and it's still not done. Literal hundreds of hours' worth of work on my end alone. So many setbacks I've considered scrapping the entire thing on more than one occasion (and one time, I literally did start over from scratch). But, with this posting, the first episode has finally gone out to the public. And over the next year, I promise the rest of it will follow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apologies for all of that preamble. Curse of Radiance (the name changed for SEO purposes) is a labor of love created by me, Gabe Kleinert, as well as the wonderful people who have helped me make this dream a reality. In the first episode, meet our players- Jay, Chris, and Alan- and then hop into the world of the Forgotten Realms as their characters- Torunn, Ildana, and Fennec- wake up in the town of Tilverton, after being ambushed on the road. They discover their arms have been branded with five magical tattoos, and thus begins their search for information- what are these tattoos depicting? Who created them? What is their purpose? And as the party learns more about these tattoos, the most important question pushes to the forefront: how the hell do they get rid of these things?
Thank you all for listening, and please send any questions or comments to InterPartyConflict@gmail.com!
Chapter 1, Episode 1: The Five Tattoos
RSS Feed Link
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curse of Radiance is a member of the Uncharted North podcast network. For more of their shows, check them out at UnchartedNorth.ca!
