Tryp, a Newborn Hive Mind - Containing Multitudes with Wes Ascolese (The Wildsea)

Tryp has this ability to navigate a world in a way that they did not previously understand or even know was possible. They were a bunch of bugs, and then they got together one day and realized that, hey, I can be more than that. Maybe we just don't know bugs well enough. Well, haven't you seen that documentary, A Bug's Life? Exactly. Yeah. That's actually a lot of how I play characters in games. Is be soft, but be ready. Hello, friends. Welcome to Characters Without Stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm Star. This episode, I'm joined by Wes. Wes is a leftist TTRPG collector and enthusiast, amateur bookbinder, and obsessive knowledge seeker. Wes, I'll give you a chance to plug your projects at the end, but right now, do you want to tell listeners a little bit about yourself? Uh, sure. Thanks for having me on, by the way. I think you covered most of my various facets, but also I am a aspiring TT RPG writer as well. I have one published project, but got a couple other things that I'm working on. That's kind of why I collect as much as I do so I can do as much research as possible. So, Wes, who are you bringing to the table today? So we have Tryp here, Trypoxylus, which is the genus name for, I think genus, I don't remember. Anyway, it is one of the scientific names for the Japanese stag beetle, which is important to the character. Okay. Why? Yeah, yeah, why? So the game that they come from is called Wildsea. In Wildsea, there is a species. Not really species because they can be sort of any hive of something, but they are a hive mind that creates a shell of a humanoid body around themselves. The default is a group of spiders, which is interesting because generally, spiders aren't a hive species. These creatures are called the Tzelicrae. They kind of encourage you in the book to make any sort of hive that you want. You can do anything from the standard spiders up to something as weird as a hive of squirrels, which I briefly thought about for a moment. I settled on stag beetles just because I think they're neat and Have a lot of interesting things about them, how they have evolved in nature to have these massive weapons on their heads that they don't use to hunt or to necessarily kill, they're definitely mating displays. And actually I watched a documentary at one point, maybe it was a YouTube short, about quote unquote weapons on animals heads. And most of the time it is not for even self defense. They're almost purely for mating displays, which I. I find quite interesting. Yeah, that's very interesting. I, they come in so many different shapes too. There's just so many interesting variations on the form. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Japanese stag beetle is sort of like a generic term and there are hundreds and probably thousands of variations. So I find that particularly interesting to the character as well. This is for a game called Wildsea. Can you tell my listeners about the game? Absolutely. So it is a solar punk setting, which I'll explain as well because it's not one of the main things, but solar punk is a future setting usually on earth, but it doesn't have to be, but a planet that is earth like. And usually some sort of catastrophic event has happened, so it is post apocalyptic in a sense, but it comes in at a time when nature has sort of reclaimed the land, and everything is plant powered, solar powered, some sort of magic that has to do with those things. So Wildsea is the catastrophic event was the nature reclaiming everything is called the Verdening. I believe something silly like that, some sci fi mumbo jumbo, essentially giant plants engulf the earth and various creatures became what are called Titans, I believe. They basically just get huge and like a way that is not possible. So something has fundamentally changed the world around it. And then. It's also a game about sort of this layered past of various collapsed empires and lost knowledge. And so for me, as you stated, I am a knowledge seeker. I found it very intriguing to be able to have this sort of playground of, well, what can my character discover? Why do they want to discover things? All that good stuff. So what is the gameplay of Wildsea like? The Wildsea is very narrative It is a a d6 dice pull game and essentially you always have one die And then if you have a skill that is appropriate you can get up to three More and then you can have up to two advantages, which is 5e players and Know that an advantage is sort of a nebulous thing in which a game master can give you a bonus to a various event in which you have a narrative advantage. And so you can have up to six dice. It's really quite nice and easy. All you need to do is roll all your dice. You count your highest die. And if you have a three or four, it is sort of like a partial success. And then a five is a regular success. And then a six is a success plus, and you only have to have one and nothing really cancels it out, which is nice. However, if you roll doubles on your dice, you get what's called a twist, which can be beneficial or detrimental. It's really up to the situation, but it's very narrative. What is character building like in the game? Character building is very involved and everything is very cool. So you have a lot of choices and a lot of weird choices. So essentially you have your species, your, for D& D terms, your race. I think they call it dynasty or something like that. You have your biological species and then you have your class, for lack of a better term, and then you have your background. So very D and D like in that sense. However, each one of those pieces gives you a, an aspect pull in which you can choose things from. I'll just break down Tryp real quick. Tryp is a Tzelicrae, the hive species. And then he is a screw, which is his class, which means he's ferrokinetic magnetism powers. And then he is a, Oh, I can't remember what it's called now. Essentially he comes from a, a type of city that is completely vertical. And most of the beings have a way to traverse that verticality so that there's lots of flying and lots of bird themes. But again, in Wildsea, they kind of consistently want to give you choice and give you various ideas. I mean, you can kind of make anything do anything. Tzelicrae is any species of kind of hive creature. Is that how that works? Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a hive creature, it just has to be a creature that is small enough that can create a hive within a humanoid sized body. The default is spiders, and they create a silken sort of exoskeleton to give them humanoid form so that they can interact with the world around them. I'm kind of curious about that. Are there humans in this world? Yes, which I find very interesting. They're called the Ardent. So we spent a good four hours making characters because we were just so in shock and awe of the choices that we could have. But we're like, none of us are playing this human. There's no way. There's too many weird races. There's too many weird things. But that's kind of the neat thing is you could be an Ardent and then still have all of these characters. I could replace Tzelicrae with Ardent and still have a fairly interesting character in my mind. And I think humans get a bad rap in fantasy games. Everyone's always like, well, why would I play a human, et cetera, et cetera. I agree. Yeah. I, I think, yeah, I think humans get a bad rap too. And I personally, I love the idea of being this kind of. Squishy, not powerful character in a fantasy world with people who have magic and amazing abilities. And you're like, yeah, I'm just a dude. You're just some person. Yeah. Just some guy. Yeah. I think that's a good sci fi trope. A lot is humans are the ultimate, they have the ability to overcome anything. They have sort of the ultimate tenacity and actually not to go off on too much of a tangent, but. We're both on TikTok. So we know the rabbit hole in which we can fall down. There's a Reddit theme of humans are actually like this terrifying alien species that when other aliens come in contact, they freak out and don't know how to handle it because, because we're actually pretty scary. As it turns out with the whole persistence hunting, we don't have any natural weapons. We have small teeth. We don't have any claws. We're not remarkably strong in any sense, but we have more stamina than any creature that we would hunt ever by droves. So I'm not sure if you're familiar, but basically we would run our prey to death. You would run after a gazelle or whatever, it would get away, and it would be tired because it expended all this energy, and then it would think it was fine, and then here we come trotting up behind it, and it's like, oh no, I have to leave again, so it does the same thing. And over and over again and they tend to not be able to regulate their body heat as well as humans can. And also, we just kind of trot along. We don't sprint after them. And then they just die of exhaustion. Or we run them off a cliff. The true horror. Of humans. Yeah, I remember visiting a place, gosh, I can't remember exactly where it was, like Montana or something? Sounds right. Called Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump? You ever been there? No. What a wonderful name, though. It's amazing. It's an amazing name. I think I was 14 or 15 or something when we went and I was so just delighted with it. I was like, I have to get a t shirt or something with this on it. What an incredible name. Yeah, but it's basically the place where they would drive the buffalo off the cliff. Incredible. Very good. So yeah, like you were saying, like humans get a bad rap, but we know the most about humans. So I think that there's a lot to explore as sci fi setting as Wildsea is, because like you said, you're the odd person out. You don't have any special powers. Maybe you have some magic or psychic abilities or something like that, but you're not at. A hive mind of stag beetles or a, uh, a sentient mushroom person or a moth person. There's very alien races as, as you might imagine in Wildsea. I see the attraction both approaches of being the kind of I'm putting normal and air quotes. You can't see it because this is an audio format. Sure. So normal being being the normal option in a sea of weird, but then there's also that pull to I think exploring a really alien mind, right? We don't know how moths think or how fungi think or how a hive of beetles think in this world where those are, have a form of sentience that we can communicate with. It's a really interesting idea to explore what other species might think about the world. What do you think a hive of beetles is like in terms of kind of their consciousness? So that's the wild thing that drew me to the Tzelicrae was that, one, how does a hive mind function? And this is not a hive mind in the traditional, well, I say traditional, in the sci fi sense of most of the time an alien hive mind is off world, there's some big queen or emperor or whatever that is controlling all these drones that go out and do the bidding of the hive, much like an ant colony. Or a bee colony. However, in the case of the Tzelicrae, they're just trying to function in this world that is not made for them, but they are using the advantages of it being a nature based world to essentially force evolve themselves. Because, It's kind of unclear how they become sentient and that's why there can be such a variation of species within the Tzelicrae. It's not that these spiders are like special Tzelicrae spiders, it's just the weirdness of the Wildsea and the sort of innate arcane energy that's just sort of Flowing around giving one bug is like, Oh, maybe if I get some buddies together, I can make a body. I like to approach it as a, they have these advantages and they know their strengths, but they also understand that they are not all powerful. They're not any more powerful than any other race. So in Wildsea, it's all very, we're all in this together. We're all trying to survive. Some people are going to be unsavory and some people are going to help me out and I need to figure out how to navigate that. I think the biggest challenge for a Tzelicrae is sort of the social aspect because as you might imagine it, a hive mind has innate knowledge of all of its parts. And so I kind of approach it as a, they get frustrated that they can't feel what others are feeling immediately. So I find that an interesting angle. They can't feel what people outside of their hive mind are feeling. Because they're so used to just being aware of everybody around them. Right. This is such a fascinating concept, and it just really sparks a lot of ideas and thoughts in my mind. And one of the things that came up for me is, when we say species, when we're talking about, you know, the way that we classify, the taxonomy, it's based on a bunch of kind of shared biological traits. And The Tzelicrae sound a lot less like a species, at least in the way that we use the word, and a lot more like an approach? Yes, absolutely. Several different kinds of creatures can take this same approach and be considered the same race or the same type. Do Tzelicrae think of themselves as Tzelicrae and do they identify, like if they're a bunch of stag beetles, do they identify with a squirrel Tzelicrae? I think that's an incredibly interesting question that I sort of asked myself, because you're going into uncharted territory from the book. It says that you can do these things, there's apparently a lore precedent for it, but there's no explanation. So I like to think That sort of the Tzelicrae operate in these sort of clans or tribes, et cetera, that while there is this shared knowledge, so say we'll take indigenous people in America, there is this sort of shared culture. Of existing in a similar place and having a similar timeline, et cetera, et cetera, but the similarities sort of stopped there. And then, so you have to learn to navigate other customs without offending or without, uh, disrespecting anything else. So I find That's sort of my mental approach for Tryp, is that while he may encounter many spider Tzelicrae, they are in fact a beetle Tzelicrae, for lack of a better distinction. And so, what they think is important may not be important to the other person. I agree with you that it is not sort of a species. Especially with the way it's described in the book as these aren't special spiders, these aren't special beetles or what, what have you, it's sort of something that happens to them. And there's another race in the book, quote unquote, bloodlines, that's what they're called, which also still isn't quite accurate either, but we'll go with that. There is a bloodline called the Ironbound. And they're basically these ghosts, but they're made up of stuff, just like detritus. It's interesting, and again, you're not born a Ironbound, just as you aren't born a Tzelicrae. It's something that happens to you. And so, obviously, as a human in the real world, it's hard for me to wrap my brain around how do these beetles think of themselves. And I think by and large, most of the hive, as it were, just sort of exists much in the way that your cells exist in your body, like your blood cells and things like that. They're just programmed to do a job and keep your body alive. But at the same time, they all have a link to the personality. So it's, it's really hard to say, honestly, I do like this line of thinking though. You have opened my eyes a bit, something that was on the surface, you scratched it, and now, now that's all I can think about is. The other thing that came up for me is, why would they choose a humanoid shape when it seems like the world is just full of all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures. My thinking on that is that they are a, the humanoid shape has seemed to propagate amongst several bloodlines, several groups of creatures in a world that is quite hostile. So it seems that there's some advantage that may be unknown to the player. For being human shaped, obviously as from a game design standpoint, this is just so that you don't have to explain like role playing a nebulous cloud of insects, but, but also. I like the idea that, so something I touched on earlier is that normally a hive mind is separated from its, say, drones. I think this is much more of a hive in a, it's like a self contained society kind of way. Humanoid shape may not be necessary. However, there are plenty of other humanoid shaped things. So there, Is technology and transportation and other things that are available to them if they take the shape. One thing about Wildsea is it's a very dangerous place. The namesake of the game is the Wildsea and that is because there are these sort of currents of energy that ships can float on. But if a person or a being goes out into the Wildsea they can get ripped apart. There are some that are more able to traverse the waves. as they call it, but it is not an inherent ability of all creatures in Wildsea. And also there are things like the Leviathan, I called them Titans earlier, but they're called Leviathan that I think if they were any bigger than a humanoid sized person, they would become quick prey for Leviathan and other there's tons of just giant creatures that aren't quite as big as the Leviathan, but obviously eat things. So when you're humanoid shape, you also have access to shelter, you know, all of the fun things that we have access to. What is Tryp's vessel or, or shell made out of? Yeah, so that one was kind of hard because Japanese stag beetles don't really build anything, but I liked the idea of it being sort of this woven carapace of both leaves and some perhaps wood. But the main thing I like the idea of is it being the discarded bodies of the deceased stag beetles. Because, like, I think they're just so pretty design wise. I think it would be cool to have this sort of, like, iridescent, multicolored body that has all these weird protrusions off of it, could hang things from them and, because that's another thing is, like, if you had a body that you made, you could, like, weave things into it and, just like humans tattoo themselves, I think you would have much more options and things like that, so. Right. I like thinking about that. Yeah. Like they could arrange the different carapaces into patterns and things like that. I love that. I think that's such an interesting and evocative mental image. What was the spark that led to you creating Tryp? Ooh, part of it was just nailing down a choice because I wanted to be sort of one of everything. There's lots of cool choices in Wildsea, but largely the, the hive aspect of Tzelicrae. I mean, we keep talking about it, but it really is the most interesting thing about the Tzelicrae. And so, I'm gonna go on a bit of a trail here. No worries. I'll get to the point, is what I'm saying. But, uh, their hive is so important and integral to their character that obviously it needs to be a reason why you choose them. And so, well, what's interesting about a hive? Well, again, they don't know anything outside of themselves. They weren't born into this world. They didn't grow up in it. At least not as they are now. And so I find that interesting and actually parallels my life in some ways of figuring out that I'm non binary and that the world operates differently for me now. Maybe not terribly differently because I still present rather masculine and I'm not incredibly picky about my pronouns. But the world kind of opened up for me in a pretty interesting way. And so I think that's where Tryp came from is that Tryp has this ability to navigate a world in a way that they did not previously understand. Or even know what's possible, they were a bunch of bugs and then they got together one day and realized that, Hey, I can be more than that. And that's also another, I just touched a point in my brain that I hadn't previously thought about, but I'm always looking in my day to day life, how to make a difference and. It's often hard for me because a lot of my interests and hobbies and focus tends to not be outwardly focused. However, I do have this really strong sense of altruism. I want to help people. I really do. And so I think that's somewhere where Tryp came from as well is how can I do anything of meaning if I am all of these single small beings? And so I sort of come together and make a difference because while there's plenty of merit in being a single stag beetle, being able to have magnetic powers and potentially save people or find new and interesting locales or Unlock hidden knowledge, all would not be possible as a single beetle. So again, opening up possibilities and opening up opportunities. Yeah, it's interesting when we talk about people, often we talk about containing multitudes or, or just having so many kind of different and often competing. Or just varied interests and thoughts and, and kind of selves within ourself. And this is taking it in a very kind of literal direction, allowing this kind of feeling of being many things at once and not having necessarily to choose one that, that you can contain all of them and that together, those kinds of aspects can accomplish things. Absolutely. And actually just sort of sparked another thing in my brain is that. Yes, you contain multitudes, but also when you come together for a singular purpose, you can focus those multitudes at once. So that comes in with my, I have pretty severe ADHD. At one point I was thinking I was fairly disabled because of it, which it is a disability, but I've found a place in life in which I can, can operate. But anyways, obviously we play role playing games to sort of explore ourselves. And so being able to play a character that has all of these multitudes, but then being able to sort of align them in a specific purpose, uh, was very attractive to me, uh, obviously subconsciously until, until just now, but that's the fun thing about doing, doing things like this. You know, that, that's what I'm here for. I should, I should pick up a second job as a therapist. You're right. I did see an interesting post about tabletop role playing games in therapy. Oh, I was like, Hmm, that could probably work for some people. If you had like a licensed therapist, they're hanging out. It would be very interesting, for sure. Yeah, to be clear, I do not actually think I should be a therapist. Oh, sure. No, I got you. Yeah, no. I do not want to denigrate a very noble and important profession that requires extensive training and a very dedicated, committed person. Yeah. I just mean that a lot of times people come on my show And I asked them about their characters, and they realized that there's something about their character that draws out something within themselves. Yeah, for sure. And I think that's just a very universal way that people interact with TTRPGs. Why did you want Tryp to have these ferrokinetic powers? Ooh. Initially, just cause it's neat. Okay. I mean, yeah. Brass tacks. It's a cool power that I've always looked at. I was like, Magneto's a pretty cool guy from X Men, but the more you look into it, ferrokinesis is both a tool, you have the ability to build things and the ability to deconstruct things and see the insides of them and metal has always been this sort of complex material for humans. I mean, there's a whole period of time. So everyone knows about the bronze age. And then the iron age, et cetera, et cetera. But something that doesn't get talked about a lot is there's sort of two bronze ages. We got very advanced with bronze very quickly and then something happened that no one has much idea on and we lost all of the knowledge on how to work and manufacture bronze. So we got sent back to the stone age, literally quite fascinating. And I really need to read more on that. And so obviously. There are some, some things that people do not know innately about metal. And so the ability to control it with your mind just makes the possibilities become endless. I mean, you know, it on a physical level and maybe you don't know it scientifically, but at that point it doesn't matter. You can mix and match and take things apart and put them together. And so this is all a very long way of saying. It is both a utility skill, a helpful skill, but also you can use it for destruction. And no matter how much I move away from my teenage boy self, there's always that violent video game, a little bit of like, yeah, I do want to mess this guy up now. I just kind of focus it into people who maybe not deserve. People who I think deserve to get messed up, or I tend to break things that around the people rather than the people themselves in games now. I find them having to deal with their consequences much more satisfying than being judge, jury, and executioner. Yeah, definitely. The world of Wildsea is this kind of dystopian, overtaken by nature. How does that work with ferrokineticism? Because there's I feel like there's going to be less metal around. Yeah. Yeah. You would think there's not a lot of metal. Yeah. Surprise. There's a ton of it, um, but it's because, uh, the other part of Wildsea is that everything, basically the overgrowing of all this nature and things like that causes these civilizations to appear and disappear rapidly. So when a civilization gets to its height and then eventually falls or, or what have you, it gets swallowed up by. The jungle forest, excessive greenery, but a big part of Wildsea is exploration. So these things are found. And then also I touched on the Ironbound earlier, who are ghosts made of things. I need to read more on them because I'm not quite sure how they work, but yeah, they're generally made of metal, stone, wood, etc. So it's at least prevalent enough that an entire bloodline of characters can exist. So I think it's nobody's making metal or at least very few people are making metal, but also they talk about the ability to use metal or like within rocks and things like that. And so I think that's part of it as well. Does that mean that a ferrokinetic character Could control an ironbound? That would be interesting. The thing is though, I don't think as far as I know, the Ironbound, their body shape doesn't super matter. Like they're not a robot. If you take a piece out, they don't fall apart, it might hurt them, but I feel like it would just piss them off and I don't want to make a ghost mad. I don't know that I would inherently do that On the positive side. You could be a ferrokinetic Ironbound hairdresser. Yeah, absolutely. And actually, in the one little bit of character building, I got to do in the session that I briefly got to play. Is that there was an Ironbound that was stuck inside of a building and they seemed relatively content to just be in there, but it was like, let me fix your door. So I made this sort of half hearted roll to widen the door and I got a triumph, which is a success. And I was like, oh, I'm. I make them the most lavish doors so that they can leave and come back whenever they want and I just found it very, uh, heartwarming to use my, to get a very good role on something that was relatively mundane and had not at all necessary. But you made someone's day better and that's worthy. Yeah. So it sounds like in this instance, you just kind of read something in the book and you were drawn to it and you wanted to explore it. Is that an approach that you often take when choosing a character? Oddly, yes. Most of my friends and my history in D& D and stuff like that, everyone always has these really grandiose ideas of what they want their character to be. And I've always felt left out of that sort of, like, people who just have these rolodexes of characters that they just have in their pocket. And I have a lot of characters, but they all come from looking what my options are, and then seeing how I can shift those narratives. And I think that comes from my writing style as well, is I tend to like to subvert the narratives just because I'm a little cliched like that, but it's also just, it's, it's fun. Cliches are fun. Tropes are fun. And reversing a trope is, is always fun. That also probably comes from not to self diagnose myself, but. I'm fairly sure I'm autistic in some capacity, and so I find not that this is true of all autistic people or anything like that, but in my particular case, I have trouble not emulating people or emulating things that I've seen. It is hard for me to have sort of a raw and real emotion sort of naturally, while I am quite emotional as a person, it's all very centered on myself. And so while I find myself to be very empathetic, I think it's more of a intellectual empathy. Like I intellectually understand people's troubles and trials and tribulations. This is all to say being able to look at a quote unquote build can really get me in the headspace of. Asking questions about this character, much like this podcast. That's how I approach character building is I start with a concept. I go, okay, well, why, why are they like this? Why do they do this? Why do they do that? Why do they do that? Whereas I find other people have the approach of, I want this, and I have all the answers, now I need to make the mechanics fit or find a reason why those mechanics fit. I know other people who operate like this, and so I've found more of a, a group that I can latch onto and relate to in recent years, mainly by playing other RPGs that, that aren't D& D. It's really fascinating to me. I would love to be able to just be like, I have this original character that I've thought about since I was 12 and I do have some of those, but not nearly the amount that all these new D and D players have and people who love like dimension 20 and critical role and things like that. I love that they can do that. It's really fascinating. Yeah, I would say. I'm often somewhere in between. I think for me, building a character often starts with kind of a what if question. What if there was a correspondence school wizard, for example? What does that look like? I think it's interesting because you're kind of looking at the, well, I don't know if they're called playbooks in this system or classes. Yeah, but. Yeah, essentially. Whatever you call it. Post. Post? Okay. Is the weird word that they use for classes, which I, I think it's cause it's all, it's all ship based. So they have a real on brand thing. Right. Yeah. It's role based. Your role on the ship. Yeah. Yeah. On the ship, yes. Yeah. Interesting. You looked at the Tzelicrae and you said, well, what if this was my character? What would that look like? What kind of questions were you asking yourself building this character? From a mechanical standpoint, I immediately asked, okay, well, in a narrative game, what are my advantages for being a hive mind? And I don't necessarily mean Well, how can I win a situation? But I mean, what are my role playing advantages? What are the strengths of being this hive mind that doesn't relate to a lot of the other species in the game? And then I start to look at, okay, well, those are my advantages. And what sort of lore advantages does my species, race, bloodline have for me in the story itself? And so, Tzelicrae deal with something called whispers, which is a whole nother thing that I could talk about, but we'll keep it, basically, they're magical words that you can whisper, say, or shout. They trade them like commodities. Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah, it's, the game's fascinating. Uh, I think it, it really needs more hype. The system is fine, but the, world is beautiful. And then I found that I don't really want to, I don't like that aspect of them. I think it's a cool aspect, but not for this character. So then I was like, okay, well, Tzelicrae can be any creature. So maybe it's just the spiders Tzelicrae that deal in whispers. And that's why they're the main ones that Appear in the book, et cetera, et cetera. And so then I'm like, okay, well, what do beetles Zellicrate do? And I thought to myself, well, they want to be impressive. I mean, even female beetles of a species are visually impressive. Obviously not as insane as having a weapon that is the size of you on the end of your face. Beetles are interesting. So then they want to adventure. They want to be out doing things that make them interesting, make them impressive, which is something that I would never do in real life. So I like that aspect. That's always been a fun thing for me. tabletop role playing games is to explore things that I would not do in real life. I kind of went from there. I kind of, okay, there's going to be some bravado, but also some timidness because they don't know how to navigate this world. And so then you get into the nitty gritty of this person's interpersonal issues and social aspects and things like that, which I think is important for a narrative game. Yeah, you've already built in a kind of a push pull between this desire to have this kind of bravado and to make your mark on the world and then, like you said, the timidness. Do you often just kind of build the flaws directly in from the start? Almost always. I know a lot of people struggle with making their character flawed and so it's like the last thing they get to. The funny thing is, that is my strength. That is my strength, is looking at flaws. Me as a person, I am the eternal pessimist. I see the bad in everything. Which is funny because I do my best to not tell people the negatives, and I try to be really positive for other people. But for myself, it's always doom and gloom. And so flaws come naturally to me, one of my longtime D& D characters, big, powerful demon slayer, half orc has all of this spiritual might and confidence. But then this comes from a very early thing in their childhood where they had to fend for themselves, not because their parents left or died. But because their father was very important in the sect of the church or whatever. And so just not a lot of parenting time. It's easy to build in parental issues. I think those are sort of what people fall back on. But that was one of my main things is fiercely independent, but also doesn't know how to exist in a family group. And it worked out really well because The group of people I was playing with are a bunch of LGBTQIA plus members that they all loved the found family trope. And so, it became a very close knit group of adventurers, and there was lots of struggle with that character of, Do I let this person in? Do I know how to let this person in? Yes, I tend to build flaws in from the ground up. I usually try to make them antithetical to their strengths, because I find that fun when you're not writing a book about someone. If they're more nuanced, it's hard to get that across in a four hour session. So, if you make it really clear and bold, it can be to your benefit. Besides the timidness, does Tryp have any other flaws? Tryp doesn't know anything about the world. I think that's a fun and easy, sometimes it's a cop out, but Fun and easy way to build a character in a system in which you are not intimately familiar with the lore is play them stupid or play them naive, but I viewed them as a newly formed Tzelicrae. So the timidness makes sense. But also there's a fun, naive nature that you can play with. That's always also fun to use as sort of bait for enemies is you have this naive character who's playing stupid and then turns out they know something. But maybe they don't know everything. So it's always a push and pull. Push and pull is, like, the best part of TTRPGs is the give and take between all the storytellers and the ability to create these really interesting moments. Being newly formed, it's almost like they're a child. I bet they have to grow up pretty quick. Right. I don't ever play child characters or characters that are, I guess, young in a human sense. Cause they don't feel comfortable doing that. No shade to anyone who has children or likes children. I am a person who does not like children. I'd hate to say it. And there are children I do like, but like by and large, please keep them away from me. I do not have the mental capacity to deal with them almost all the time. I find myself really in a sticky situation if I have to play a child character. But if I can play a character that has the mental capacity and the emotional strength of an adult. Not that all adults are emotionally strong, but you know what I'm. Caveat caveat. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes. Tons of asterisks. But speaking generally, I find having the ability to sort of act naive or truly be naive. In a situation and have someone understand why you might be naive is a really strong role playing opportunity. It can teach you a lot about the social structures of. The world you're in, it can teach you a lot about the sort of expectations that may be on you for being the way that you are. That's another thing is Tzelicrae, obviously completely alien to me as a human, they're a little hard to wrap your mind around. So being naive allows me to understand how others may view me. Letting yourself be vulnerable, I think is always fun in a role playing game. It's a safe place to do so for the most part. So you mentioned in your bio that you're a knowledge seeker and you talked earlier about using characters to discover things about the lore within the game. Are you playing a naive character or a character that has little knowledge of the world? Is that a way for you to explore the lore as a player along with your character? Yeah, because I find that if your character knows, then there's no motivation for anyone to tell you anything. You just, you just, you can be like, okay, would my character know that and the DM says yes, and then you move on instead of having this little conversation of, well, why is it like that? Sometimes that's fine because you need to get through a scene and it's not really important lore and you as a person can read it. But that's also another thing is I have a pretty hard time reading dyslexic, ADHD, all of these other sensory input disorders, et cetera, et cetera. So sitting down and reading a book, I'm not going to learn anything from it. I might, I've adapted in my adulthood to do so. But learning things on the fly in the moment is much more impactful for me. And I tend to remember things better. Stag beetles are flamboyant and how you describe Tryp that they have this bravado about them that they're colorful and just so interesting to look at how does their personality match up does Tryp have a larger than life personality as well. No. Well, so they don't until the moment arrives. So they're sort of, and this is kind of how I operate in, in real life is don't make yourself a spectacle until absolutely necessary. I think that comes a lot from not to discover yet another thing about myself, but that comes from I'm six, two and 350 pounds. I am a large person. And so my entire life has been, don't break anything, take up as little space as possible, et cetera, et cetera. But I found a way to use that to project kindness and softness and a welcoming nature that generally had I not been told that as a child, while it was incredibly harmful, helped me. Later in life to use it to my advantage and that I want people to be comfortable around me and I find that people are I want animals, especially to be comfortable around and I find that they are and that's not by making myself smaller, not taking up space, at least not physically, but spiritually or emotionally. Until either someone's in danger or someone needs you to stand up for them. And I find that to be a really important part of my life as a person. And that's actually a lot of how I play characters in games is be soft, but be ready. Also, that comes from being in the LGBTQIA plus and, and having a lot of friends in that sphere, especially trans friends and things like that, that are in physical danger, you know, I find that I can use my inherent masculinity and size to an advantage. I don't mean in a violent way or in a. A physical way, necessarily, but in a, I am a visual deterrent. Well, and then on top of that, it's like being a spy. Um, people think that I'm going to have a certain way of thinking, especially with beard, and I wear a lot of Norse stuff. And I think I said this in our mutual Discord server the other day that I get to pull the, I am the manager card when they start talking about pronouns or things like that. And I'm like, actually, I use they them. What now? And it's very fun. And honestly, very impactful and useful, I've found. Tryp isn't necessarily limited to a certain size or taking up certain dimensions. I mean, really it all depends on how they build their body. Do they change their size or their shape often, or do they prefer to keep a rather standard shape and size? As the rules say, they can't change their exoskeleton quickly, they have to build it. I would love to think that they had changed it as much as possible, because I would love to be able to do that as a person. Yeah. Like, today I feel like being short. I'm going to be short all day, and tomorrow I shall be tall again. Or just like you were saying, in the moment, being like physically imposing. Yeah, yeah. And I think at one point I was thinking of more of like a, a pile of bugs. And so I was like, Oh, cool. I can go under doorways and stuff like that. I read a little bit more and like, Oh no, I can't quite do that. But there's nothing to say. I can't stack all the bugs on the outside of me and make myself look big and intimidating if I needed to. That might be fun. You're talking about these interesting body shapes within stag beetles being a mating display, not actually being a threat, but a way of attracting mates. Does Tryp have interest in that? It seems interesting to me because you have all these individual bugs with this, with this thing going on, but then as a whole, what does that look like? And so that was sort of like one of the things where I was like, okay, stag beetles aren't generally a hive. So how do they operate as a hive? And I came to the conclusion that sexuality and to some extent, romance wasn't really on the table for Tryp and not to get incredibly personal here, but that's sort of where my life is at. I used to be much more of a sexual being much more of a romance person, that type of thing, and I found myself just not really interested in that in my current state. And so. Much as most other people do, if it's not interesting immediately or interesting in like theory, then I tend to not add it to my characters. So currently sexuality and relationships are just not, at least romantic relationships are not important to Tryp. So I usually ask my guests about their character's childhood and upbringing and that's not really applicable in this situation because Tryp is recently awakened. What was the awakening process like? Do they remember it? I like to think that they don't because it's hard for me to parse an insect brain because Insects operate on a very well, as far as I know, I don't know, I haven't talked to any insects lately, but as far as I know, they, they operate on a very mechanical standpoint. They're doing things to stay alive, reproduce just because that's what they know to do much like most animals when you get into mammals and things like that, it's. More clear that there are family units and things like that, but maybe we just don't know bugs. Well enough. Well, haven't you seen that documentary A Bug's Life? Exactly. But yeah, so as I see it, as I was able to parse, it's almost as if they didn't exist before they awoke and it's almost like being born. You know, you don't obviously, maybe you do, but I don't remember being formed in the womb, right? Like you don't remember growing and largely you don't even remember the first year. Two years of your life. Obviously, that's a bit accelerated when you are being thrust into a fully capable body and mind, but I like to think not having that sort of relationship or experience plays into that naive nature, being able to ask sort of probing questions to other people to get some really interesting social interactions. For a stag beetle before it has been awakened into Tzelicrae, the primary motivation is survival. What is Tryp's primary motivation? Ooh, I don't know that I have thought about that other than the exploration. I guess their initial focus is definitely going to be knowledge. Figuring out How the world works, why it works that way, how can I help it? And how can it help me probably in that order? I don't know that I really thought about that. That's something that also I struggle with, with character creation is motivations. A lot of people have these 20 page, I'm going to get revenge on my demon father for doing X, Y, or Z and sort of clear cut motivations. And I'll have some of those, but generally they're very short sighted and. Very much tasks that need to be done rather than this big emotional arc or of anything. I think that also comes as everything in characterization comes from me as a person. I struggle with long term motivation. If it is a task that can be completed, especially in a day, I will excel with flying colors. If it is a long term plan that is six months and requires me to sort of keep up with it, I will fall apart and I will not exceed expectations on that. I might still get it done, but I can't imagine that Tryp came into being fully formed with an idea of what they wanted to do it on this earth anyways. For this character in particular. It's something that I think would have to at least be partially discovered in play. Not that that's not the case for a lot of characters, but this one in particular. No, but, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Tryp, do you love or hate being alone? Well, I'm never alone. I'm always with myself, but I like to be around other people, other beings. So I'm never, never alone, but I would say I hate being with myself. I prefer to be with other people. Why do you hate being with yourself? Because I don't have any answers to questions. I don't know what to do. Before this body was made, the pieces of me just did what they needed to do. And having the ability to choose can be paralyzing. So others help bring focus. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and for sharing Tryp with me and my listeners. No problem. It was a blast. Well, thank you so much. I had a lot of fun talking about Tryp. It's a really fascinating, just so many questions that come up when talking about playing. A hive mind, it's a really interesting concept. So I, I really enjoyed it. Is there anything you'd like to share with my audience? Any projects, uh, any social media that you want to share? I definitely look for me on Twitter at Wes Ascalise and then also at Spooky Bell Games is where a lot of stuff will be posted. One project that I wasn't directly involved with, but spooky bell games, which is the company that we're using the hard light dynamic. It is a adventure for cyborg, which is an OSR game based on Morkborg and tell you all about it. Ask me any questions. I will gladly answer you on Twitter, Instagram, et cetera. It's always at Wes Askleys or at Spooky Bell Games. I have both on everything. But Hard Light Dynamic, really cool adventure written by Chris Koger and Joshua Harper. I also helped edit some stuff and give ideas, so I'll probably have a credit in there somewhere. At least as a play tester. So look out for the Hard Light Dynamic. What about your zine As you so eloquently put my, you mean my book? It was originally supposed to be a zine. Okay. Anyway, uh, beyond deep, um, it's a Mork Borg adventure. If you like old gods of Appalachia, which is a horror anthology podcast that heavily inspired beyond deep. If you like exploring workers rights and having a. Boss that you can physically assault with no repercussions because he is actually an evil necromancer. Definitely pick up Beyond Deep. It's available on DriveThruRPG for print on demand, PDF. It is also available on Exalted Funeral. Or if you just email me, wesascolese at gmail or spookybellgames at gmail, I will definitely get you a copy. Probably for cheap, uh, depending on how cool you are. It just depends. Make your case when you write the email. I made all the money I needed to make. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, but yeah, pick up, uh, Beyond Deep where those things are found. Highly recommend it. It's a really wonderfully designed and interesting book, and I love the setting, and who doesn't identify with the fantasy of killing your boss? You can find me on TikTok at StarMamaC or on Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, or Facebook as Characters Without Stories. and characterswithoutstories. com. You can also listen on YouTube at Characters Without Stories, or follow the link in the description. Please share the podcast with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners, and your recommendations help me immensely. And if you can drop a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you to all of my listeners spreading the word. I'm so grateful. I'm currently accepting submissions, particularly for non D& D characters, so if you'd like to share your character, you can go to the submission form at characterswithoutstories. com. 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