[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm bloodied porcelain. You may know me as the storyteller for Hunter, Wayfarer and psion apotheosis. What you're about to hear is what we call a hype train episode for our talk show after dawn. After Dawn is a show where the casts, storytellers and even artists are interviewed about their roles in bringing our shows to life. Hype trains, though, are dedicated to letting you, our listeners, know what to expect from an upcoming show. Hype Train episodes are always released to the public on day one, but our other after dawn episodes are only available on our Patreon for the first month before they're finally released to the public over on YouTube. So if you like what you hear and you want to hear more, please think about signing up for our
[email protected]. hallowed Haven Studios thanks. Now onto the Hype train episode for the bed of Roses season two.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Friends, witchers, countrymen, lend me your coffee spoons.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Welcome to after dawn, the show where we sit down to have a cup.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Of coffee with the cast, crew and.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Creators behind Hallowed Haven Studios Productions, I'm bookkeeper, one of your two mighty co.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Hosts, along with the indispensable latte.
[00:01:06] Speaker D: Hello. Today we're here to get a little bit of a preview into season two of the Witcher bed of Roses, premiering exclusively on HHS June 14. Joining us as our guide into this bygone world of monsters and morals is none other than the game master himself, Solomon.
[00:01:23] Speaker E: Wahahaha.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Imagine the crowd going insane now.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:01:35] Speaker E: Well, thank you for having me. It's again, interesting to be on this side of the table.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: My, how the turns have tabled.
[00:01:45] Speaker E: That they have.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: So I guess our first question, Solomon.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: How did you get to know the Witcher?
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Are you a books guy, a video game guy, a Netflix guy? Outside of running games of high stakes.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: And high drama, what's your experience with.
[00:02:01] Speaker E: These stories with the Witcher itself? It started off with the games because I really got into the Witcher back with the Witcher two, which was a rough game, but the story was so phenomenal that I was just like, well, I guess now I have to figure out what's more more about this since I was just like, there was a witcher one, when did that happen?
And basically I just went from Witcher two to Witcher three, tried Witcher one, didn't like it because it was cohooded with spaghetti, basically.
But then I went to trying to get into a few of the books that were translated not well, because I was going for ones that were not officially translated because I could. Because I was still learning on how to get english copies of non English, originally typed books.
And I just found myself really, really enjoying them, especially as I got later on in my life and I got more knowledgeable and in depth about how not black and white the stories were, because I was more used to more black and white fantasy where this is definitely good and this is definitely bad, and the Witcher is very much more nuanced, which I think helped to shape my preferences as they are now. Honestly, the.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: The critical question, at least for the. Our listeners who are following Netflix, is the big debate.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Are you.
Are you cavill? Or are you.
Are you. Are you with the. The new fellow, Liam?
[00:03:40] Speaker E: I have personally nothing against Liam but Cavill all the way, because Cavill had a deeper understanding of the. The lore and the books as they are. And I. I personally stick with him with wanting to. If you're going to make a story and say it's sticking closer to the books, keep it closer to the books. If you want to make something different, say that from the beginning and stick to that.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Is now after the question that his last name, Hemsworth, which, you know, everyone and their cousin knows, finally made its way back into my brain.
[00:04:10] Speaker C: So thank you for.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Thank you for knowing what I meant.
[00:04:13] Speaker E: Yep, yep, yep, yep.
[00:04:18] Speaker D: Saul in the bed of Roses season one, you had a tagline about the world not needing heroes as much as it needed professionals. Who are the professionals of season two, and how have they changed in your mind since the story started in season one.
[00:04:30] Speaker E: The professionals of season two are the same cast that we had in season one. The wonderful legacy playing Britain, Hilder, the witcher, bloody porcelain, playing Nienna, the mage, or, well, the sorceress. Specifically the elven sorceress, ireleth, the elven man at arms, played by the enigmatic overthinker Stabikens himself playing as Sigrun, the dwarven merchant. Specifically a spirits merchant, though delivered a lot more punches than spirits. And we can't forget, uh, Phoenix, played by, of course, our wonderful grizz. And he is a. Was originally seen thought as just being a human craftsman, but found out to be a werewolf craftsman.
Uh, the events of the first season, I think, really sort of brought in who they are beyond just the mask they put outward to the forefront, and I was really wanting to do that to sort of, like, have them all come together and be true about who they are towards one another as opposed to just trying to put on a front and be and treat this as another job despite them being professionals. And I think that it definitely helped to have them as ragtag a band as they are, really work to understand and want to build each other up and assist each other, even if they might disagree on certain things or have their own personal goals. Still, I especially think that Niena, especially with what's coming up in season two, has definitely gone from being a role where she was more advisor to the noble lord of the city that they're in, of Machina, to now being much, much more her own person, given what she'll be starting off season two with.
[00:06:41] Speaker C: That's not ominous at all.
[00:06:43] Speaker E: Totally not. Don't worry about it.
As termite says, don't worry about it. Everything's fine.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Now, I did have a mechanical question because it's something you don't see in a lot of rpg's, especially in, like, fantasy style rpg's.
[00:07:00] Speaker E: What.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: What sort of in game role does a merchant serve?
[00:07:04] Speaker E: The merchants are the ones that are kind of a face. They have a lot more skills with knowing what's going on in a city or, well, they can have a lot more skills of knowing what's going on in a city, getting better deals out of people and just being more persuasive and charismatic because it's kind of part of the job to want people to like you, so that way they'll pay more for what you're giving them.
And Sigrun plays a lot of that, but they also play a lot more of the person who, like all the urchins go to because they know that they can pass on information and get a few coins out of it. Like playing sort of the merchant, but also the kind of a spy master, as it were, not like officially trained spies, but like street urchins who will keep an eye and ear out for any goings on.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: I think I hear some of Witcher's cyberpunk DNA in that.
[00:08:02] Speaker E: Yeah, it is very akin to a fixer, honestly.
Which is. Which is, of course, makes sense because the Witcher TTRPG was developed by the same people that made the Cyberpunk 2020 and Red RPG's.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: So cool now.
[00:08:27] Speaker C: Okay, so season one sees our heroes or our professionals deal with everything from.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Rival witchers to the ridiculously dangerous gaunter Odim that I'm still amazed they survived.
What can we expect to see as this new season unfolds?
[00:08:43] Speaker E: Well, season one focused a lot more on conflict with other people who have their own kind of machinations and goals. And while season two will be continuing on with the discoveries that the group made in season one, especially about Niena and the kind of blood that runs within her veins, as well as dealing with now, the fact that now they have all of these children that are connected because they are magically gifted running around the city. Now, I'm also going to be hoping with season two to show a little bit more about the side of Witcher. Well, that everyone really focuses on when it comes to the games, usually the monsters, the being a mon, a professional monster killer.
Now, what I did a little bit of that in the first one season with biggen the rock troll, and also having them fight some drowners and of course, dopplers that were being used as basically infiltrators and shock troops. But I want to have more of like an investigative element when it comes to a specific few monsters that I have in mind with season two, especially ones that would play into more of what's happened to Brynhilder. Because while Brynhilder was very helpful and very important in season one, season two, I really want to play more into the long life of a witcher who now basically has less of a job to do given that monsters are less prevalent, but they're still there.
So I'm going to be playing a little bit more into what happened with Brynhilda up to this point and what is next for her.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:10:30] Speaker D: Doing our best to avoid spoilers. What's the thing you're the most excited for the audience to experience in the new season?
[00:10:40] Speaker E: I'm very excited for two things. One, them piecing together the investigation with the players, because I always love seeing the audience interactions with them, spitballing ideas towards each other about what's going on in the game and what things could be. But I also am really excited to have them see who we're going to be bringing in as an SPC and what character they're going to be playing.
[00:11:15] Speaker D: Ominous.
[00:11:16] Speaker E: I love it very much. So.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Have you ever had a moment where player speculation overtook the plot you already had planned? Like, no. I like that better. I'm going to do that. It's much worse.
[00:11:33] Speaker E: Absolutely. I will fully, freely admit that in season one, I was working to sort of figure out exactly who I wanted to be the mastermind behind all of this going on. But it kind of happened that Niena had a spell that literally ripped information out of the mind of the person they were interrogating. So I had to, as a like, immediately on the spot, decide, because she's the one that did it, I'm going to make it her lover that is the mastermind behind all this. And it snowballed out from there spectacularly, I think. But still.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: You did this to you.
[00:12:20] Speaker E: Well, I wasn't expecting her to just have fucking Philippa Alhart's fucking mind destruction spell. Basically.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: No one expects the magic inquisition.
[00:12:35] Speaker E: No one except for anyone who actually interacts with Philippa Eilhart.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:12:45] Speaker D: You mentioned Saul. You mentioned that you wanted to really showcase the monsters in this season. Are you.
Are you a big fan of the menagerie of living nightmares in the Witcher universe?
[00:13:02] Speaker E: Oh, I love the monsters in the Witcher universe because they're all so unique. They're such different takes on the sort of things you expect from fantasy. Like, instead of just regular goblins that are, like, little weird green dudes that have their own little tribal societies, there are what are called neckers, which are these sort of burrowing, like, almost akin to trolls that just run around with razor sharp claws that look not so threatening. But the thing is, it takes a witcher to take them down because they are only really weak to, I believe, since they're ugroids, meteorites, steel, and anyone else trying to fight them will just get their ass handed to them by just these little weirdos. Even on, like, one on one, it won't go well. And I just love the menagerie of different types of spirits and ghosts and demons that all have similarities but are just so weird and wild. Like, my favorite is the idea of the noon wraith, which is a ghost that only comes out during the middle of the day, which is very weird because you. In most western society, ghost stories always happen at night.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: Go away.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: We're busy today.
[00:14:17] Speaker E: Exactly. I'm trying to take my lunch break. Go away.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: All right, well, this has been the hype train, so that wraps it up.
[00:14:34] Speaker C: For this episode of after dawn. Thank you so much to Solomon for this preview of what to expect in season two of bed of roses.
If you want more of this over caffeinated and under medicated, dive into the people and plots of our HHS stories. After dawn comes out every Thursday.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: If you want that buzz while it's.
[00:14:54] Speaker C: At its freshest and piping hot, come find us on Patreon.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: On. For the cost of a cup of coffee, just $5. You'll get all our monthly episodes of.
[00:15:01] Speaker C: After dawn just as soon as they're ready to go. They will appear on YouTube about a month later.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: I have been bookkeeper, and I've been, latte.
[00:15:10] Speaker D: See you next sunrise for the latest after dawn.
