Folklore with X Dialed Up to 11: Gross Selkies, Melancholic Santa, Queer Baba Yaga & Domestic Anansi

Transcript

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You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we play them at. Your DMs tonight and every

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night are Josh and Chris. You can find us on all podcast platforms or check us out at

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noplotonlore.com. If you like what you hear today, please rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've

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ever met. Welcome back to No Plotton Only Lore. This week brought to you by random

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folklore. Josh, what's your favorite folklore story of all time? That's a

0:36

good question. Um

0:42

I I know I'm not sure. Like none of Okay, you know what? Hey, I'm going to

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cheat. I think you could consider the Torah Jewish folklore. So that's that's

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my answer. the Old Testament. The Old Testament. Okay.

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I I I do want to preface that by saying like I I know that like we've alluded to

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the fact that like I am Christian on this podcast before. I don't literally think it's like fairy tales, but I do

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think folklore is like a broader term than than just, you know, the Brothers

1:21

Grim or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So, like folklore would be all of the the stories and the myths and the legends and the um

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characters and uh monsters and things that are passed down usually through

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oral tradition which for the vast majority of Torah's existence would have

1:41

been true. um that kind of define a culture or a

1:48

group and give you information about like their past and their practices and

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it it's it's an interesting and multifaceted thing. Um my personal favorite piece of

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folklore is one that may or may not have actually been true. Okay, which is the

2:09

pied piper of Hamlan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, the the pi

2:16

piper um comes in, sings all the rats out of Hamlan for some money. Uh the the

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legend that I read said it was going to be for a thousand gilders, and then the mayor of the town gives him 50 instead

2:30

and tells him to get the [ __ ] out of here. So, he comes back later and kidnaps all their children. Yeah.

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Um, we actually have some historioggraphic evidence of a

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large number of children leaving that city at a point. Um, usually around like

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the 1250s, which is about 50 years before the first recorded uh, instance

2:56

of pi piper. Okay. And uh, yeah. So, entirely possible. Some of the things

3:02

that I've read is that like it's one of those do you remember that guy from Pinocchio that like starts rounding up

3:08

kids to bring them to the terrible donkey island? Oh, right. Was uh No, I wanted to call him Fagan, but I think

3:14

that's the one from um Charles Dickens. Yeah. Anyway, like that guy's based on a

3:20

real thing, right? Like there were there were people who would collect children to go work in factories and like mines

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and things. Yeah. in the 1200s and just like you you you would send your kid to

3:32

go on an errand in the next town and then they would never come back. Yeah. I'd be like, "Hey, I or or even like you

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know poor families be like, "Hey, we have some extra kids. We can sell some or we could just like send them to work

3:44

in the factories cuz we got to pay for all these other kids somehow." How many

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kids do you have to have before you have extra? One. [Laughter]

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Uh, for our dear listeners, Josh has two kids.

4:04

Yeah. Listen, I'm not saying I have an extra kid. I'm saying any kids more than

4:10

the amount that you wanted is extra. So, you know, that starts at a pretty low number.

4:20

Someday, someday he's going to hear this episode. He knows he's my favorite.

4:29

Um, okay. So, the thing that I wanted to do today is folkloralore but with X turned up to 11.

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Yeah. which is we're going to pick I have a d20 and I have 20 pieces of

4:45

folklore and 20 things that we can play around with to make that different or

4:52

more interesting or possibly terrible. Um, and so I'm going to roll a die now.

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Okay. And the first number that I came up with

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is number two, which is selkies. Are you familiar with selkies? Uh, I have heard of selkies. They're like a water

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creature type thing, right? Yeah. It's an Irish myth about women who turn into

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seals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they like carry their seal skin around with them. And if you were able to steal it

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away from them, then you were able to trap them and maybe make them your wife or something. Cuz all those old folklore

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things are cute like kidnapping wives. So many old folklore things are turning

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monsters into wives. a weird number.

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Yeah, one is a weird number, but there's a lot more than that. Yeah, it's definitely a non-zero number. Yeah. Um

5:47

there's there's a lot of like if I trick someone into marrying me, then things will be great for a while and then

5:53

they're going to escape and then everything's going to be terrible. They must be just unbelievably hot.

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Sis, I mean, I assume they just look like seals. I mean, like monsters in general. Oh. Um, I mean there's an

6:07

entire genre of erotic fiction that is just monster [ __ ] That's true. Anyways,

6:14

um, and just so you're aware, erotic is on this list. Oh, no.

6:20

So, sorry. Okay, so we've got our baseline sulky and now what? You're going to roll up a modifier? Yep. I have

6:27

rolled up a die and it is gross. We're going to take the idea of a silk key and

6:32

make it as gross as possible. Okay. So, uh, first thought, we move away from seals or well, we're in seals still, but

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we go all the way up to elephant seal immediately. Okay. I'm thinking that in order to

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change their shape between like the the cutesy seal, I mean, it's an elephant

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seal, so not super cutesy, but like between seal and girl, they have to like

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literally tear themselves out of that first form. Oh, yeah. I imagine them

7:05

actually sort of like bursting out like a like a a molting crab or something.

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Or just like seal vomit. A seal vomits up a girl and then dies. Yeah, that's

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pretty bad. I don't know if that's worse than tearing yourself out. Like I I feel like viscero should be involved somehow.

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Um, I like I like the physicality of having to peel the skin off of you to

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get out. Like imagine a skeleton trying to escape its own

7:39

body. Are you familiar with Thor Hall? I'm sure you are. Shorts are everywhere

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on YouTube. Long-haired guy does game development. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Uh, Pirate Software. Yeah. Yeah. Um he he he had a thing about um like your skeleton is trying to

7:59

hatch and I don't know why, but that wording specifically kind of got me. That's Yeah, that's awful.

8:07

You're welcome. Now you're going to know that forever as well. Um okay, so a girl

8:12

hatches out of a seal. Okay. And there's so many cool ways you could do that. Like you could have her

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like tear her like claw her way out of the belly. Yeah. And so you're just like

8:24

covered in intestines. Or you could also just have her like the back kind of like stretches and opens up and she like

8:31

pulls herself out of the top and is just like dripping grossness. I I kind of like the idea of this girl having to

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pull like a reverse Luke Skywalker and cut her way out of the tonton.

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Like she just has like incredibly long fingernails

8:49

or No. No. You know what? I c I like it better actually if she just has like

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normal human features and like has to like bite her way out like that's all

9:01

she's got. Yep. Yeah. Like she has fingernails but like you can tell that they like torn off in the effort to get

9:09

out of Yeah. seal form. Um Okay. And then the other gross thing that we could

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do is like turning back into a seal. I

9:20

I like imagining like a whale scenario. Oh, okay. Hold on. Give me your scenario

9:27

because I I think I had a slightly different idea. I'm imagining that she's just like doing like multiple in a row

9:34

mukbangs and just like putting on as much weight as she can in like the grossest, most visceral way possible

9:40

before jumping into the the ocean as an incredibly fat, engorged human. Oh,

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yeah. Okay. You've got some sort of like feeder fantasy where she then like flops down the hill into the No, no, no. See,

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I to my mind the process for each transformation is

9:59

identical. Uh oh. And the seal has to like claw it way out of the girl. You

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see you see the girl like growing and like like I don't want to say like

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fattening up, but like her body starting to bloat and Yeah. Then a elephant seal has to burst its way out of her rib

10:18

cage. I don't know why that's such a humorous

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mental image to me. Just this like again hatching, right? Like this elephant seal hatching out of a human.

10:30

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like part of the myth of the Selki is that when they're in the ocean, they

10:37

turn into a seal. So I'm also imagining that this is happening underwater. So you just have like this gross blood

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explosion. Yeah. Yeah. like my so like the transformation from like elephant

10:47

seal to girl is like slow and disturbing as you like see like the ripples through

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the belly like like uh like an alien as like this girl is like clawing away at the inside. But the opposite

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transformation is much much faster as like this impossible dimension of elephant seal has to like quickly fight

11:06

its way out of her body lest it be crushed by the forces and just

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fantastic. Okay, I I think we've made this sufficiently gross. Yeah, let's

11:17

let's move on to our next thing. I'm gonna I'm gonna roll a dieice. Okay. And I come up with number one. One of my

11:24

favorites, Baba Yaga. Oh, okay. Yeah. And the second thing we're going to do

11:30

is dialing up number 16. Uh, we got to make Baba Yaga queercoded.

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Queeccooded. Queeccooded. Baba Yaga. I'm not entirely certain that she isn't already. Yeah, I

11:43

was going to say she's like halfway there already. Um like I definitely know

11:48

some like bug witch lesbians. Yep. Who would be perfectly happy living in a hut

11:54

with chicken feet and only coming into contact with humans if they plan to eat them later. Yeah.

12:02

Yeah. It's the like cottage core selfisolation that really points to like

12:08

like at the very least like I do you think she's like in the

12:13

neighborhood of like a arrow ace or is she like secret sappic kind of like I just don't fit in with the rest of

12:19

heterero society so I'm going to go hide in the woods. I'm going to go with demisexual.

12:26

Like she really needs to get to know somebody before she can get into like a sexual place with them. Okay. Um, and

12:33

like big on the romance books. Sure. Right. Like I feel like it's got to be like a a mental connection type thing

12:40

for Baba Yoga. But like let's Okay, let's pull back from the fact that we

12:45

know a lot of lesbians who are perfectly happy living in a bo hut. Um,

12:51

every lesbian. Every lesbian I've ever met. But let's go with like gay club queercoded Baba Yaga,

12:59

right? Like I I want spandex and sequins and big hair. Okay.

13:06

Would Baba Yaga be a drag king? Would Baba Yaga be a drag

13:14

queen? Uh I don't know how the math on that works. Are you allowed to be a drag queen when you're female?

13:21

I mean, she doesn't have to start that way. Oh, I see. I see. I see. So, the Baba

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Yaga is the drag character. Yeah. Yeah, you can do Baba Yaga as a drag character. Um, I'm imagining

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like you could probably do the chicken feet on Baba Yaga. I have seen renditions of her where she has chicken

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feet as well as her hut. Okay. Yeah. So, like you could do those as leggings,

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like hot leggings with like your toenails real done out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, actually

13:55

that that would hide in heels really well. It would. Yeah. And I'm trying to like imagine the the

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accutra that she would be bringing with her. Like she's got to have a big

14:06

spangly pot of some sort, right? Because that's what she flies around in. It's her big cauldron. Yeah. And she needs a

14:14

broom of some sort. So I'm thinking like a the firebolt from the Harry Potter series largely as like a [ __ ] you to JK

14:22

Rowling. Yeah. In fact, I could see her having like a bumper sticker on it that just says, "Fuck you, JK."

14:30

Like I I like in silver writing like emlazed on the side. It's just this is Harry Potter's broom.

14:36

[Laughter] Like [Laughter]

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fantastic. Yeah. I I don't know. She's she's a hard one to pin down on that.

14:52

that I think like you could do a lot with her as a drag character. Yeah. I think

14:59

like cuz like a a big black like spangly witch robe type thing is a direction you

15:07

could go with that. Would she maybe be beard drag?

15:12

Like would you would you keep the beard? Oh, if you're going to be a bog witch for sure. Yeah, I think you kind of have

15:20

to. Like in my mind, she's a bear in a dress with a smoky eye.

15:28

Yeah. And more sequins than your body has room for. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

15:35

Brilliant. I I'm I'm glad we did that exercise. Honestly, either one of those works a thousand% for me.

15:43

Just like she's already a lesbian in the in the bog.

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I think we can just leave her alone. Like in my head there's actually like I

15:54

can think of a real person who is like a step away from this version of the Baba Yaga. It's that's that's unkind. I don't

16:04

like this version anymore because I know people who are there. All right, we're we're going we're going spangly in

16:10

sequence. Yeah. For all right, rolling again.

16:15

Ah, we have number six. An Nansi. Ooh, the spider.

16:24

I am like weirdly familiar with Anansi or sorry because of um like somehow

16:32

Canadian children's TV had that dog that talked about uh Oh, Wishbone. Yeah,

16:38

Wishbone. And Wishbone Wishbone was great. Wishbone had a whole episode where Wishbone was the spider.

16:46

Fantastic. That's super sensitive to all sorts of things, but that's okay. Um, it

16:53

exposed me to African folklore, which is great. Uh, and we're going to take a Nansi and make him

17:00

domestic. Okay. So, my my first instinct with this

17:07

is um there are a few anime that have been coming

17:13

out lately that are about criminals, Yakuza or

17:21

hitmen who are retired and become dad.

17:26

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Like like Despicable Me, right? A little

17:32

bit. Despicable Me and like um like Sakamoto Days is the one that I'm thinking of where like there there's

17:39

a professional hitman. He's the best at what he does and then he retires because he meets the woman of his dreams and he

17:44

gets really fat and he runs a convenience store. Okay. Um and he's still an incredible assassin. Like he's

17:51

still very good at what he does. He's just old and fat now. Um what's that movie?

17:57

Nobody. I haven't seen it. Oh, I've heard good things though. Yeah, very good. Um, yes,

18:04

kind of a I I can't remember if it's that he's like retired or so deep

18:09

undercover that he's gotten kind of bad at it, but yeah, similar idea like, hey,

18:15

I was a force of nature before. Now that's kind of hidden and I'm maybe not as good as I was before,

18:21

but I'm still a problem. Yeah. Like John Wick, if you take a whole swack of the competence out. Yeah.

18:29

Yeah. Well, and that's that was what was kind of brilliant about the movie is that he does fumble a lot and screw

18:34

things up, but then you see the like every once in a while like the muscle memory comes back and you're like, "Oh,

18:40

right. If he wasn't like kind of old and fat, like this would be insane,

18:47

right?" So, that's kind of what I'm imagining here is like So, so we have a Nazi and like I've seen a lot of media

18:55

that has a Nazi both as like a spider form and a human. Yeah. He is a shape shifter. He is a trickster. So I'm

19:01

imagining like old school Anansi was very like black silk suit, perfectly

19:09

like tied tie. Yeah. Like the the line on the hair was

19:15

immaculate, right? Like just a a very

19:20

gentleman con artist. Yeah. Like gentleman con artist, but you would never assume that he's a con artist

19:26

because he's so smooth. Yeah. right? Um, who is now in an

19:34

apron at home with two kids. I'm trying to think of an

19:41

analogy in my head about someone like that. I just can't. I I I can mentally

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picture like the prim proper put together borderline butler dad with an

19:53

apron, but I can't think of a specific character. No, I've got one that's even

19:59

better. Okay, I thought that was good. I thought that was good, but I just came up with something that's even better. He is just bandit healer.

20:06

Okay. And he he is using his powers to entertain his children. Okay. All right.

20:12

So like all of the games that they're playing are just like a little bit magically infused. Yeah. Right. He's

20:18

he's got a lot of trickster energy in there and like conning his kids into

20:24

learning life lessons. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm I'm down with

20:30

that. It's like a a more restrained Loki type character.

20:37

Yeah. I I find it weird that we don't actually maybe it's not weird but like

20:42

because role playinging games have such a like focus on adventure and fantasy

20:50

because they came out of Dn D which came out of Lord of the Rings, right? Like we don't have a lot of domestic role

20:56

playing game options, right? Which is weird considering how many stories are

21:02

told in the home. Yeah. Right. And like some of the earliest role playing games

21:07

that people play is House.

21:13

Yeah, I guess. But the on the other hand, also one of the earliest role

21:18

playing games you play is like Cops and Robbins. Like Oh, for sure. Yeah. Like there there's definitely the call to

21:24

adventure is definitely a big part of like that. Don't get me wrong, I think

21:29

early on it's a lot closer to 50/50 and then as the role playing stuff comes

21:37

out, it winds up skewing towards adventure. And I don't know if that's

21:43

because of like the a gender bias in the games and who

21:48

play them or what. I don't think so because like my tables have always veered towards

21:56

[Music] fairly like even or more women than men.

22:02

Yeah. Okay. And that has never been the case at my tables. I'm I'm going to take

22:08

the devil's advocate position on this one that your tables are a more of a representation of you as a person than

22:15

the roar playing community as a whole. Okay, I will I will accept that. Yeah.

22:21

I am a weirdo. I get it. No, I'm not saying you're a weirdo. I'm saying you inhabit spaces that wind up being more

22:28

friendly to like women and um the etc

22:34

part of the spectrum than is typical in like the traditional nerd hobby spaces.

22:41

Now, don't don't get me wrong. um games like Dn D and and more more so like

22:48

tabletop games these days are like aggressively and actively courting a

22:53

broader demographic than they ever have been. But as someone who is like in the

22:59

industry and sees the breakdown of the players on a weekly basis, like I'm

23:07

sorry, but you're not like you're not the status quo. Not typical. No, I I get it. And like even in the space that I

23:14

did run, like that was not necessarily like a

23:21

stated goal, but I did want to be as like open and accepting to all who came

23:26

in as possible. And so I I don't just inhabit those spaces. I also generally

23:32

try to create them where possible. Yep. Um, so yeah, I get that I am a bit of an

23:37

outlier on that front, but like having having been in a position where I am at those tables and have a large number of

23:45

like female and non-binary players, I don't see a trend

23:52

towards like more domestic type situations. Okay.

23:57

Um, if anything, I would say that it goes a bit in the opposite direction of like, [ __ ] yeah, we swatch Buckland

24:04

now. Yeah. Okay. Um, but no, I I I know that there's been

24:10

some like recent developments in like mystery stuff that is a little bit more like homegrown and close to the ground.

24:17

Yeah. But I don't see a lot of domestic stuff. Maybe maybe there's space for that. game designers make me a cool

24:23

domestic role playinging game where I get to do Bluey as a game. Yeah. Well,

24:28

and and I can't help but wonder how much of this quote unquote problem is just because of how much of the mental real

24:35

estate Dungeons and Dragons and things that are very very similar to it take up in what the idea of a role playing game

24:43

is to people. Um, yeah. You know, like, yeah, because like that there's an

24:48

expectation of play flow, right? That you're going to do exploration, that you're going to have combat, and you can't you can't do that in a a domestic

24:56

game. If you have combat in a domestic game, you've [ __ ] up. Yeah. Well, there's a story to be told there,

25:02

but I mean, there there's there's play wrestling and things like there there's stuff that you can do, but you don't

25:07

need a whole [ __ ] combat system. Yeah. Yeah. Or do you Well, I was going

25:13

to say we don't want to take your domestic role playing game to a dark place. So, I mean, that's a little bit

25:19

what we're doing right now. True. Skewing some weirdness. All right. So, I've got number 16. Okay. Santa Claus.

25:26

Oh, Santa Claus. We have to talk about him again. Okay, we got to talk about Santa again, but we're going to do

25:31

something weird with him. He got his phone. Whatever. Give me weird.

25:38

Okay, so I got gross again, so I'm rolling again. Let's go melancholic.

25:45

Oh, melancholic. Santa. Santa [Laughter]

25:52

Claus. Oh, you're fired. The podcast is over. Pack it up, kids. We're going

25:58

[Laughter] home. Okay. Um, there was crap. God damn

26:06

it. Neil Gaiman. Son of a [ __ ] Not him again. Yes, him again. He wrote

26:14

a really fantastic 100word story about

26:19

Santa Claus that was in my mind kind of melancholic. It was also like existentially

26:25

terrifying of just like Nick was tired. The elves forced him back onto

26:33

the sleigh to deliver their like horrible gifts down the chimneys one more year. Yeah. and he just wants to

26:39

die. Yeah. Right. And like so there's definitely room for a

26:45

melancholic Santa. I have the mental image of like a

26:51

passive resistance Santa Claus who has just decided to go limp and the elves

26:57

are forced to roll him into the sled. and they just slap the autopilot

27:04

on that old [ __ ] and they're like, "Listen, you're not coming back for 24

27:09

hours, so, you know, might as well just participate." I'm also imagining like

27:16

that maybe it's just more scenes than like an actual character out of it. But

27:22

I'm imagining like a kid trying to sneak down to see like Santa put gifts under the tree and instead of being met with

27:28

like a jolly fat man, there's just this like depressed, skinny Adrien Brody

27:34

character. It's just like Adrien Brody does kind of have the perfect face for that. But this

27:41

is this is modern cinema, so you know it's going to be Pedro Pascal. Oh, for sure. Yeah. He's like gazing

27:49

longingly into the fire that he just had to dodge to get into the house. And like he doesn't even care that the kid is

27:54

looking at him. He's just like, "Look, kid. I know you asked for a PlayStation 35, but all you're getting is a game

28:04

boy." Like, wait, I just Okay. Did you ever see uh what was the name of that

28:10

movie? Like the the the massive the sorry, the massive weight of incredible talent or or something like that? No,

28:18

you have to watch this movie. It's Nicholas Cage uh and Pedro Pascal.

28:25

Pascal. And like the the face like I'm sure

28:31

you've seen the meme of the two of them in the car, but that's kind of Nicholas Cage's face the whole movie. If that was

28:38

Santa Claus and Oh my god. And you just like he's standing by the fireplace with

28:46

a the sack just kind of like slumped out of the side of his hand. He's skinny. There's a cigarette hanging out of his

28:52

mouth. And he just kind of like drops a present and like kicks it across the

28:58

room under the tree. There's like a rattling breaking sound.

29:04

Yeah. Inside the box. It's like you can tell his feet hit the ground at the bottom of the chimney. And that's as far

29:11

as he was willing to go. There was no more effort to be had. He's just going to kind of like rugby punt them across

29:16

the room and hope to get close to the tree. I think like the first half of the whole thing has to be him just like

29:23

talking to the elves being like, I don't even really see the point anymore, right? Like kids don't believe in Santa

29:30

Claus anymore. They don't believe in Santa. and just like going through the his own

29:36

existential crisis of like, do I ex do I believe in Santa? I don't believe in

29:41

Santa. Yeah. All right, one one more real quick

29:48

one. Okay, last one. Yeah. All right, we got number six. That's Anansi again. So,

29:54

I'm going to roll again. I got number eight. Uh, the Chupacabra. Can I just

30:00

point out that you've had horrific rolls all night? Yeah, it's been weird. Uh, I'm using like a a semi-precious stone d20, so

30:08

it's it's not a not a great one. Okay. Okay. And I got number one, so I just

30:14

rolled a natural one. We're going to do a cutesy chupacabra.

30:19

A cutesy chup. Oh my god. Cutesy chupacabra. A cutesy cutie. Carnivorous crypted.

30:28

Yes. I recently watched an anime that's all

30:34

about band. Okay. And like doing band practice

30:40

things. And one of the girls in that anime nicknamed her Tuba. Tuba Cababra.

30:46

Okay. All right. I'm on board again.

30:51

And that that's admittedly been stuck in my head for a little while. Like Tupa.

30:58

That's all right. So, so his theme song has to be like

31:03

tuba um poka music.

31:11

[Music] No, no, no, no, no. It's It's

31:16

scar. It's just scar. It's not everything can be scar. Josh, you've

31:23

got to give me one. You got to give me one. You can you imagine the joy in

31:29

someone's life when this like big eyed fluffy chupacaba comes around the corner. It's

31:35

like that just real big fish and the money boss toes and five iron frenzy.

31:41

Like it'd be great. Oh, it's just it's it's like snuggling a stuffed goat. Here

31:46

I am looking older all the time. Come on. Just like nibbling on his ear. Yeah.

31:53

Yeah. Okay. It ties you in to the inherent joy of the Tony Hawk Pros Skater soundtrack. So, I think I think

32:01

we got a winner there. Hey, thanks for making it all the way through this episode of No Plot Only Lore. If you're

32:08

looking for more, you can always find us at noplotonly.com and on all the very best podcast

32:14

platforms. If you like what you heard today, please share, rate, and review the show to feed my never- ending need

32:20

for attention and validation.