Gather round, friends

So normally the newsletter is about books and writing and how my creative life works, but today's newsletter is about something I love, entirely unapologetically and with huge gusto. I am getting my fan on, without any restraint whatsoever.

Basically? BRACE YOURSELF.

As a massive nerd who adores fantasy, comedy, collaborative storytelling, unexpected narrative and hanging out with my friends, of course I love actual play podcasts. I basically listen to only three kinds of audio narrative content: lectures about pre 19th century history; non-fiction books about textiles; and hilarious people playing table-top role-playing games.

Of the last, my favourite by a good margin is Spout Lore, the brainchild of Canadians Shawn O'Hara, Abdul Aziz, Paul Oppers, and Jessica Tai.

Here's the theme song:

The Spout Lore characters are living through a slow apocalypse. 90 years ago the wizards and their magic were expelled from the world, and ever since, everything has become incredibly unstable. Old gods wander, the fae realm is restless, and the frog people are getting kind of violent. Into this drama walk three absolute idiots - a huge barbarian, a half-elf druid, and a nine-year-old* halfling thief, escorting a shifty meat salesman to the Hot Dog Festival in Mudlark.

Over ten seasons and counting, they cause and solve more problems than most of us could imagine in a lifetime, regularly stumbling over world-ending scenarios that they avert by being outrageously stubborn, absurdly gifted, doggedly loyal, and occasionally (more than occasionally) downright disgusting.

If you are not a fan of dick jokes, don't listen to this podcast. If you are a fan of dick jokes, boy, do I have a show for you.

Personally, I love dick jokes, and if you like the humour in my books, you might share my sense of humour, which is frequently tickled into a belly laugh by these relentless comedy gremlins. The show has crudity, lewdness, puns that aren't terrible, and an astonishing, intuitive understanding of the ridiculous and sublime.

It also has truly collaborative worldbuilding (the GM frequently asks the players what they think is in the space, which I find a lovely change of pace from more inflexible D&D set-piece prep), excellent character growth, and improv where players encourage and support each other. I think most of all they're just really generous listeners. I've lost count of the number of times a throwaway remark becomes a major plot thread or vital part of the setting.

Oh, and the editing!! The editing is so punchy! If you've ever listened to Critical Role and thought "I like this, but there's an awful LOT of it," then Spout Lore will burst upon your ears like a 3-minute pop punk song after a 40-minute prog rock symphony.

Am I biased? Oh, yes. How big a fan am I? Well, let's see. I've written (multiple) fanfics. I made a slideshow to talk a friend into watching (it worked). I learned how to make stuffed animals so that I could make toys of the animal companions (of course there are animal companions) and send them to the players.

FAN FOR LIFE. FAN EMERITUS.

This week, Spout Lore is relaunching on the Fable and Folly network, and I think that if this is at all likely to be your jam, you should join the rest of the cool kids and start listening wherever you get your podcasts (for free! No ads!). You can start at the beginning, but if that doesn't vibe for you, I recommend starting with Season Three - the editing and audio quality have solidified, the storytelling gets more complex and layered, and Abdul has recovered from bronchitis, losing the uh let's say divisive Batman-flavoured voice.

(Apple podcasts fan? You got it: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/spout-lore/id1307373953 )

PLUS, you get introduced to maybe my favourite setting in the entire fictional world: the Highspear Mall, the setting of the crew's second series, which is currently Patreon only, but is also going to be released for free on Fable and Folly (August 26th).

Mall Brats, which takes place 40 years before the main series, is maybe the one show I like more than Spout Lore, though it's a close call. It's the 80s, kind of, and two young teens and a feral child have been abandoned in the enormous, increasingly decrepit Highspear Mall by their various parents (remember, slow apocalypse).

Abandoned mall kids are so common that there are established kid gangs - the tough Hot Meat Boys, the glamorous Pixie Stix, the shadowy Study Group - with rules, hierarchies and potential graduation into the adult gangs. They're fed and clothed by a rough combination of charity and theft, but otherwise they mostly fend for themselves.

The Cool Treat Kids comprise alchemist Clover (addicted to corndogs, nursing a forbidden love for Seamus of the Hot Meat Boys), dancer (and brawler) Franklin, who would like to fight your dad, and the permanently chocolate-smeared Fenton, who isn't so much lying as continually restructuring his very loose understanding of reality. They live in an old candy factory and make sweets, while also negotiating the complex social currents of the mall and taking on threats like corrupt Mall Security officials and the Wine Moms, the Queens of the Food Court.

If you think about this setup for any length of time, it is desperately tragic, but in the hands of these comedians it's very funny, very touching, and only occasionally grim. The kids form a found family, intensely co-dependent and supportive, and gather others around their dysfunctional nucleus. You get the impression that they might actually be better off.

Also, they do crimes.

Mall crimes.

You want two kids in a trenchcoat? That would be Mister Gilbert, Fenton's grown alter-ego, who gets access to adult-only spaces much more often than he should. You want teen girl social warfare? You haven't lived until you've heard Clover take on Kesserin Ropes, snotty scion of the Ropes family. (Rick's Ropes! You need ropes? We got ropes!) You want kids framing other kids for the great Eggnog Flood of Charles Eve, conducting heists at a My Alchemical Romance concert, sabotaging their crush's date with a hated rival by pretending to be their own ghost, or leading a bike convoy of desperately needed chocolate supplies through the wilds of Burrito Canyon?

Of course you do.

I haven't even discussed the cast of secondary characters (Jace and Tana, the teen information brokers! Doris, supportive proprietress of Schitty Foods! Corb Green, halfing detective! BORBO!) but trust me, they're all great, and they're all Shawn O'Hara, who is perhaps one of the most talented voice improvisors I've ever heard.

The little counter at the bottom of this post says I've written a thousand words in this newsletter, and I could fully keep going for twice that. But it comes down to this: Here's a thing (two things) I love. I hope you might love it too.

And regardless, I hope you have a really great week, also enjoying something you love.

*Might be a good idea to wonder how long he's been nine.