There and back again; a Neverending Tale. Neverending Nights

[Tawmis]

Episode 39: Confessions of a Blade!
Learn the origin of the Sword; and glimpse into the past as more hints are unveiled! And the evil Andrea leads her crew closer and closer to our heroes!

Part of my New Years Eve Resolution is getting back to knocking these out in their 1080p HD versions!

[Rath Darkblade]

Ah, it's good to see our bumbling twosome again!

"What? Vampires are real?!" / "So are werewolves". Well done, sword. Way to freak out Grayson.

Nice cut-scene... is this "Joe" a paladin? His lines certainly sound paladiny. "Fight for honour! Fight for freedom! Follow the light of the blade!" I REALLY hope that he won't say something about Uther Lightbringer, or I'm out of here.

Love Pawl's and Peter's reaction to Grayson talking to his sword. "He does this all the time!"

Something that puzzled me - why doesn't Grayson just sell the sword at the next market and buy a different one? One that doesn't talk to him and freak him out.

Also, does the sword have a name? 'Cos if it does ... that's a good sign to run away as quick as you can. You may as well hang a sign on the hilt that says "QUEST ALERT! QUEST ALERT! PICK UP THIS SWORD AND YOU'LL GO ON A QUEST!"

Love the ettin's "Duh" voice. "Pay with gold or pay with your li-ife!" Plus the way its heads argue with each other. Ah, it's an oldie-but-a-goodie meme - was it inspired by the three-headed knight from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"?

Alan the Outstanding has a point. It's kind of hard not to notice a blade on fire. (Then again, D&D has plenty of magical swords that <don't> have a fire-blade, cold-blade, acid-blade etc.; they're just magic swords and give you a +1 to hit, for instance. Or haste you. Or give you the power to see invisibile creatures like wraiths, shades and so on. Or...)

Love the kobolds argue whether it was a magic sword or a metal torch. "A metal torch wouldn't burn his hand either!"

Love the ending. I was expecting the ettin to say something like "Aw, they got us!" - but instead it's cut to credits, and <then> the ettin says it. Yup, you got me - but now I'm pretty sure that the ettin was inspired by the Monty Python three-headed knight! Am I right?

Another good chapter, Tawm. I hope it doesn't take a long time to re-create these in all their 1080p HD glory!

[Jules]

Aw man I need to get back in to watching these! Still bumming we don't have wi-fi... yet....

[Tawmis]

Ah, it's good to see our bumbling twosome again!

Despite fiery lungs, and spewing green liquid from my lungs the last few days, it was nice to get back to them!

"What? Vampires are real?!" / "So are werewolves". Well done, sword. Way to freak out Grayson.

We were hip about Twilight before Twilight was even Twilight!

Nice cut-scene... is this "Joe" a paladin? His lines certainly sound paladiny. "Fight for honour! Fight for freedom! Follow the light of the blade!" I REALLY hope that he won't say something about Uther Lightbringer, or I'm out of here.

There's definitely something special about this character... all will be revealed... soon!

Something that puzzled me - why doesn't Grayson just sell the sword at the next market and buy a different one? One that doesn't talk to him and freak him out.

Because deep down inside, he wants to do the right thing...

He just lacks the courage.

Also, does the sword have a name? 'Cos if it does ... that's a good sign to run away as quick as you can. You may as well hang a sign on the hilt that says "QUEST ALERT! QUEST ALERT! PICK UP THIS SWORD AND YOU'LL GO ON A QUEST!"

It does! I can't recall if it revealed it's name - or if it ever does - but in the script it's named "Pat" (which is actually an acronym for "Paul, Adam, Tawmis" - the name of the three voice actors of the main characters). The name will come to have a double meaning, but I can't reveal that without giving away spoilers. So when it happens (and it's coming up), I will mention it again.

Love the ettin's "Duh" voice. "Pay with gold or pay with your li-ife!" Plus the way its heads argue with each other. Ah, it's an oldie-but-a-goodie meme - was it inspired by the three-headed knight from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"?

More like mocking the idea that two heads are better than one.

Alan the Outstanding has a point.

That's Daniel the Destructive. Alan the Astounding was the original wizard, with the drinking problem.

Love the kobolds argue whether it was a magic sword or a metal torch. "A metal torch wouldn't burn his hand either!"

Goblins. You're as bad as Peter and Grayson at identifying humanoids.

Love the ending. I was expecting the ettin to say something like "Aw, they got us!" - but instead it's cut to credits, and <then> the ettin says it. Yup, you got me - but now I'm pretty sure that the ettin was inspired by the Monty Python three-headed knight! Am I right?

You did watch past the credits?

Aw man I need to get back in to watching these! Still bumming we don't have wi-fi... yet....

The beauty is, when you do get wi-fi I might finally be done doing this in 1080p.

[Rath Darkblade]

Ah, it's good to see our bumbling twosome again!

Despite fiery lungs, and spewing green liquid from my lungs the last few days, it was nice to get back to them!

Oh, no! That sounds like a flu or cold ... drink lots of hot tea to burn away those bugs, add a teaspoon of honey to soothe that nasty fiery feeling, and slice of lemon (or a teaspoon of berry jam!) because both lemons and berries are full of vitamin C and antioxidants - just the stuff against bacteria and viruses.

I hope you feel better soon!

"What? Vampires are real?!" / "So are werewolves". Well done, sword. Way to freak out Grayson.

We were hip about Twilight before Twilight was even Twilight!

Ack!! Please don't mention that abomination "Twilight". I don't care how much money Stephenie Meyer earns or how many movies she makes. "Twilight" is the worst book - and movie - that involves vampires. EVER.

It's worse than "Bloodrayne" (which has no plot, full of clichés, and silly dialogue).
It's worse than "Dracula: The Dark Prince" (where everyone behaves like 21st century teenagers instead of 10th-century adults).
It's even worse than "Vampire in Brooklyn" (with Eddie Murphy as a wise-cracking Caribbean vampire - who doesn't bother to have a Caribbean accent).

I'm sorry, but "Twilight" is an abomination. The sooner it collapses like the pile of shit it is, the better off the human race will be. Sparkly vampires - ffs. Even "Dracula: Dead And Loving It" is better than "Twilight".

(Thanks for reading my rant. And now, back to our scheduled programming).

Alan the Outstanding has a point.

That's Daniel the Destructive. Alan the Astounding was the original wizard, with the drinking problem.

Whoops, my mistake.

Love the kobolds argue whether it was a magic sword or a metal torch. "A metal torch wouldn't burn his hand either!"

Goblins. You're as bad as Peter and Grayson at identifying humanoids.

Whoops again!

Love the ending. I was expecting the ettin to say something like "Aw, they got us!" - but instead it's cut to credits, and <then> the ettin says it. Yup, you got me - but now I'm pretty sure that the ettin was inspired by the Monty Python three-headed knight! Am I right?

You did watch past the credits?

Yeah! Didn't I say so? I know that after the credits, the ettin did say "Aw, they fooled us!" or similar. You got me.

[Tawmis]

Oh, no! That sounds like a flu or cold ... drink lots of hot tea to burn away those bugs, add a teaspoon of honey to soothe that nasty fiery feeling, and slice of lemon (or a teaspoon of berry jam!) because both lemons and berries are full of vitamin C and antioxidants - just the stuff against bacteria and viruses.
I hope you feel better soon!

Me too, been calling myself Raistlin Majere the last few days...
Just... without the evil... or the power.
Just the worse parts. The white hair, the racking cough, weak body.

Ack!! Please don't mention that abomination "Twilight". I don't care how much money Stephenie Meyer earns or how many movies she makes. "Twilight" is the worst book - and movie - that involves vampires. EVER.
It's worse than "Bloodrayne" (which has no plot, full of clichés, and silly dialogue).
It's worse than "Dracula: The Dark Prince" (where everyone behaves like 21st century teenagers instead of 10th-century adults).
It's even worse than "Vampire in Brooklyn" (with Eddie Murphy as a wise-cracking Caribbean vampire - who doesn't bother to have a Caribbean accent).
I'm sorry, but "Twilight" is an abomination. The sooner it collapses like the pile of shit it is, the better off the human race will be. Sparkly vampires - ffs. Even "Dracula: Dead And Loving It" is better than "Twilight".
(Thanks for reading my rant. And now, back to our scheduled programming).

You were not the target audience.
My wife read, and enjoyed the books. She took me to the movies, because I always drag her to super hero movies.
I will say that they did Werewolves right - for the first time in ANY movie - with Twilight.
(Though I suppose they're not really werewolves? They're shifters or whatever?) But the fact that they were immensely large, in wolf form, was fantastic.
Never understood why in every single other werewolf movie, when the human transforms into a werewolf - they're the size of my dog, Odin.
Where did all of their body mass go?

And sorry, Blackula and Vampire in Brooklyn are both exceedingly worse than Twilight.
By miles.

[Rath Darkblade]

Well, all right. All I can say is that I've seem much, much better actors playing vampires: Sir Christopher Lee, for instance. Vincent Price. Even Tom Cruise, in "Interview with the Vampire", and I don't think much of Cruise's acting ability - but he was still a better actor than anyone in "Twilight". (At least in my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions).

I'm not so concerned about werewolves and their body mass; I'm usually concerned about the fact that usually, when a human transforms into a werewolf, the werewolf is still wearing pants (and sometimes a shirt). Um ... excuse me? You'd think the transformation would rip their clothes to shreds, because werewolves are so much bigger than people! (The scale was absolutely right in Dragon Age: Origins - e.g. this, where you can see how much bigger they are than you).

Hence a seldom-known werewolf trait: always know where you left your pants (for when you transform back into human).

And yes, there are plenty of really bad vampire films. All the same ... vampires sparkle in the sunlight? I don't think so!

[Tawmis]

And yes, there are plenty of really bad vampire films. All the same ... vampires sparkle in the sunlight? I don't think so!

People have all kinds of ideas.

For example, this is Smaug from the recent Hobbit movie:


That's a dragon right? Smaug is a dragon? We all know that?

Did you know that people were upset about this?

Because he's "not a dragon" in the movie because his hands are connected to his wings. People are crying that he's a "Wyvern" like this. There's long rants about it too. I am not even kidding.

To me, it's fantasy. I don't like it with his hands attached to his wings; but it's fantasy. So. Freaking. What.

So in what's her name's world - Vampires were not your traditional vampires that can only come out at night. And they sparkle in sunlight (and really, it was ONE freaking scene). So be it.

But that's just me.

[Tawmis]

Hold up - what's this now? ANOTHER NEW EPISODE?!?!?!

Episode 40 (HD) - Something's Not Quite Right...
Grayson talks with Peter about the voices he hears inside his head; and he thinks he's figured out the source. Meanwhile, Andrea leads her small battalion of followers into Gnollmaw Mountain and seems to be hot on the heels of Peter and Grayson! How will our heroes escape?

[Rath Darkblade]

And yes, there are plenty of really bad vampire films. All the same ... vampires sparkle in the sunlight? I don't think so!

People have all kinds of ideas.

For example, this is Smaug from the recent Hobbit movie:


That's a dragon right? Smaug is a dragon? We all know that?

Did you know that people were upset about this?

Because he's "not a dragon"... *snip*

So in what's her name's world - Vampires were not your traditional vampires that can only come out at night. And they sparkle in sunlight (and really, it was ONE freaking scene). So be it.

But that's just me.

All right. I don't know any vampires (apart from the ones in "Twilight", which is fan-fiction wish-fulfillment anyway) who sparkle without becoming BBQ right away. My objection isn't just that the vampires sparkle - it's that they survive sunlight. That's like saying that us humans can survive being set on fire from a flamethrower.

In TF2? Maybe. In real life? No. Fudging. Way.

When did a vampire - a menacing creature of darkness - become "Mr Sparkle"?

[Rath Darkblade]

Hold up - what's this now? ANOTHER NEW EPISODE?!?!?!

Episode 40 (HD) - Something's Not Quite Right...
Grayson talks with Peter about the voices he hears inside his head; and he thinks he's figured out the source. Meanwhile, Andrea leads her small battalion of followers into Gnollmaw Mountain and seems to be hot on the heels of Peter and Grayson! How will our heroes escape?

Hum, the two gnolls sound like Peter and Grayson...

Love their discussion about why the ettin isn't a good guard.

The gnolls are as bad at identifying humanoids as I am. They're goblins, not kobolds.

But the kobolds return the favour and call the gnolls "orcs". "And that does not kick rocks!"

OMG... Peter talks to Grayson about puberty. What's next - the birds and the bees talk?

"You're crabby." / "I am not crabby!"

"I think he's lost it now."

Oh-oh... I can see the blue tip of Daniel's staff behind them...

Er... I didn't get Pawl's last line. Grayson says: "I am not crazy! I got all the pieces, but I can't put them together yet." Pawl says: "Yep! And that is [unintelligible]." What is it?

[Tawmis]

All right. I don't know any vampires (apart from the ones in "Twilight", which is fan-fiction wish-fulfillment anyway) who sparkle without becoming BBQ right away. My objection isn't just that the vampires sparkle - it's that they survive sunlight. That's like saying that us humans can survive being set on fire from a flamethrower.

It's funny; I literally (less than 10 minutes ago) finished watching Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - and wouldn't you know it? Vampires that walk freely in sunlight.

[Tawmis]

Hum, the two gnolls sound like Peter and Grayson...
The gnolls are as bad at identifying humanoids as I am. They're goblins, not kobolds.
But the kobolds return the favour and call the gnolls "orcs". "And that does not kick rocks!"

That's the running joke!
The goblins: Albert (is Grayson), Bob (is Pawl), Charlie (is Peter), Dink (is Daniel) and Ellen (is Andrea).
The next humanoids (Mind Flayers): Frank (is Grayson), George (is Pawl), Hank (is Peter)
The next set of humanoids (Bugbears): Isiah (is Grayson), Jake (is Peter), Ken (is Pawl; actually possessing him)

They are literally represent their counterparts (with what weapons they wield). And just like Peter, Grayson and Pawl; they're HORRIBLE at identifying other humanoids.

And if you look at their names (the humanoids), it's going down the letters of the Alphabet (A)lbert, (B)ob, (C)harlie, (D)ink, (E)llen, etc etc.

When I was coming up with names of the humanoids (originally the goblins), I was like, "I am just going to use names that start with A, B and C..."

As we wrote in other representations of Peter, Grayson and Pawl, I continued that naming theme.

Love their discussion about why the ettin isn't a good guard.
OMG... Peter talks to Grayson about puberty. What's next - the birds and the bees talk?
"You're crabby." / "I am not crabby!"
"I think he's lost it now."
Oh-oh... I can see the blue tip of Daniel's staff behind them...
Er... I didn't get Pawl's last line. Grayson says: "I am not crazy! I got all the pieces, but I can't put them together yet." Pawl says: "Yep! And that is [unintelligible]." What is it?

The last thing Pawl the Dorf, er, Ken the Gnoll says is: "Yep, the lad has gone daft."

[Rath Darkblade]

All right. I don't know any vampires (apart from the ones in "Twilight", which is fan-fiction wish-fulfillment anyway) who sparkle without becoming BBQ right away. My objection isn't just that the vampires sparkle - it's that they survive sunlight. That's like saying that us humans can survive being set on fire from a flamethrower.

It's funny; I literally (less than 10 minutes ago) finished watching Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - and wouldn't you know it? Vampires that walk freely in sunlight.

Sigh. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is the death of two genres that I love - history and fantasy ...

"Honest Abe" many remarkable things in his life. Why not make a film about some of them?

As for vampires who walk freely in sunlight, well - you know what I think about that ...

I like the vampire system in the "Elder Scrolls" games: set foot outside during the day time, and your blood boils in your veins (-25% health). In real life, of course, that would mean that any vampire stupid enough to do this will be barbecued.

But that's not good for Hollywood, of course, because it would be a very short film with no possibility of a sequel. Pfft. Hollywood vampire movies suck. (Pardon the pun).

I really like Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, for instance, because they make sense. A screenwriter came to Terry once to ask about filming "Mort", a book in which the Discworld's Death (the Grim Reaper) comes to the Disc to find an apprentice. On the Discworld, by the way, Death is not nasty, just very good at his job. People kill animals and other people; Death just takes over from them on.

Anyway, the screenwriter wrote the script and Terry approved it. The writer then sent it off to various Hollywood studios.

All of them replied with something like: Guys, we love the idea! It's high concept! Just lose the Death angle, okay? He's a downer.

So Terry and the screenwriter said "Fine", and the whole thing came to nothing.

So yeah, Hollywood sometimes sucks...

[Tawmis]

Working on Episode 41... when I originally did this, Season 2 ended with Episode 42...

So Episode 41 has a lot of things coming together...

To set up the cliff hanger of Episode 42... though episode 41 had a pretty nice cliff hanger too...

Oh - and be sure to listen as the credits roll for some extra fun...

In the meantime, some sneak peeks...