Grammarye Praise-God Winthrop, Teenage Witch - Acting Out with Juicy Garland (Monsterhearts 2e)

0:00 And no matter how powerful or perfect he becomes, I don't think that his family would ever recognize it. Oof. Mm hmm. Big oof. There's no audience. Like, no one wants to hear me ham it up when it's just four of us in a room. I apologize to all these cis straight men out there in the universe. I'm sure you exist somewhere. You'll find representation one day. Sounds like a hot mess. A hot gay mess, and I love it.

1:07 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 Juicy Garland. Juicy is a Boston area drag queen and super nerd. She's the original TTRPG drag queen, and she's on a mission to do big things with the Tabletop Talespinners Network. You can find her in All Our Faults, a Monsterhearts 2 actual play podcast, all around the internet at Juicy Garland and or performing in Boston and New Hampshire. Juicy, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm really excited to talk to you. I know that we have talked about it, but I am a huge fan of All Our Faults.

1:50 I think it's a wonderful, wonderful actual play and I highly recommend it to anybody who's listening, but also I did recommend it on the podcast a few episodes back, so. Oh, thank you. It's really great. Yeah. I actually just got done with the recording for all our faults before coming over here. Uh, just a little bit ago. I hope it wasn't too emotionally taxing. I cannot say I can neither confirm nor deny. In case anybody is wondering, Monsterhearts is a game about kind of teenage angst and the messiness of being a teenager, kind of growing into your body, and then also being a monster. Yeah, yeah, a lot of it is about sort of internalizing the struggle of having an identity that is developing and feeling strange in your own skin as you were figuring out who you are when you're young.

2:43 Yeah. And I love it for that fact. Yeah, it's really great at capturing, I think, the feeling of being a teenager. And, and feeling like someone who is othered, which I think everyone at that age is, right? Like, Even if you were the most normal kid, you feel like you're someone who's other. Yeah. No matter what. You never really feel like you're fitting in. Juicy, how long have you been playing TTRPGs? God, um, for a hundred years. It's been 84 years. Now, I have been playing since about 2004 or 5. I, when I first got to college, so, a lot of my friends long before then, We're playing D&D, usually 3.5, and I was so jealous my friends were playing this cool hip game, the Dungeons and Dragons, and I never got to play it.

3:37 And when my friends in college were playing D&D, I wanted in, so I finally got to play. And my friend, Sean, who is this huge neckbeard of a nerd, but a sweetheart, who I'm still friends with, now nearly 20 years later, my god, time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so, he introduced me to D&D 3.5, and I played lots of really effete half elves and half elf bards in particular. Who, uh, in my first excursion into D&D, he threw a small green dragon at us who, uh, murdered me and killed my first character, which, uh, died in a heap of fire and I would say glory if I wanted to be generous and I would say sadness if I wanted to be honest.

4:28 Oh, that's terrible. Was this like the first combat that your character was in? Uh, it was the first. Session, my character was in. Oh, no. And yet you came back. Yes, it definitely set up a love of failure that I carry to this very day, 20 years later. Yes. Yeah. When did you start playing games like Monsterhearts or games like Powered by the Apocalypse? I think you're a big Delta Green fan, right? Yeah, yeah, so I got a love of indie RPGs somewhere around 2010 to 2012. So I grew up in Western Massachusetts, particularly going to Northampton, and there was this comic book store which had a lot of indie RPGs, which has since closed, sadly.

5:14 But they aggregated a bunch of indie RPGs that I would collect, and they were games that I discovered there, like, Monsters and Other Childish Things, in particular, which I obsessed over for a long time. And that carried over to me once they closed, wanting to go down to Cambridge, I live north of Boston, over to other, like, game and hobby stores to find the indie RPGs that I could collect. And I have so many games right now that I would love to play that my friends ignore me about, because they're all jerks, and I hate them. And. I have basically turned to actual plays as a means of conning other people into playing indie RPGs.

5:55 And, uh, Tabletop Talespinners, of which I am part, has been conned by me into creating TTN Presents eventually. Which is a platform in which I'll be able to play a lot of these indie RPGs and to platform new games coming out. Where we will be able to showcase new GMs and indie RPGs in the field. Where we can just try new games and have fun with that. Yeah, I just obsess over new and interesting ideas within this space. Largely because I'm kind of bored of D&D 5e and the fact that there are such low stakes in that system. Hmm. What do you mean by that?

6:35 It's just really hard to die. It's so hard to die in 5e and I'm frustrated by that. Please, daddy, kill me. I was just actually talking to somebody about this. I'm like, if I don't go unconscious in a battle, I It's not hard enough. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just want stakes. I want to feel like my character has some kind of real serious threat to their life. I want to feel like when I am in battle or when I am fighting for something, that it means something. And if my character's life isn't threatened, I don't feel like it means anything like that combat is meaningless.

7:17 Yeah. That's why I love Delta Green because ultimately at the end of the day, my character is on a slow downward spiral to death. Or insanity or both, uh, if I'm lucky. That's why I love that game because you fight in the face of failure. You find meaning in the face of meaninglessness. And I think that is something that I want to be able to find in the real world, and sometimes it's really hard to, but when you're put in front of these absurd circumstances, I think it's easier to find that meaning because it's sometimes so cartoonish when you're in front of a massive tentacle beast, or you're faced with a creature that wants to shove its tentacle down your mouth so it can reproduce as it takes over your brain.

8:05 Those kinds of horrible things are so ridiculous that you can kind of cartoonishly find hope. And I, I love that hope in the face of wild, horrible meaninglessness. Wow, that's really profound, I'd say. I think that's a really interesting thing to take about games into your life, a lesson that you take. I don't know, I, I gravitate to those kinds of contrasts, always have. That's why I've always loved Lovecraft's writing, that's why I have so many, sort of, Elder God tattoos. I like the contrast of the horrible scale of Lovecraftian horror and the meaninglessness of the human experience.

8:49 And I like contrasting those to defy those odds. And find a way to find meaning despite them. Yeah. Well, let's get into your character. Yeah! Juicy, who are you bringing to the table today? Okay, so, I have many characters that I have sort of written and wanted to play in games and then those games cancel. This is one of those. So, I, of course, am in All Our Faults, which is a Monsterhearts game, but I also sometimes, when I can rarely find the opportunity to have personal games, have those. This was for a personal game of Monsterhearts that fell through. And this was a witch skin.

9:29 So for those who don't know, in Monsterhearts you don't have classes, you have skins. And in Monsterhearts you play teens or young adults who have a monstrosity or a factor of them that they keep secret. And this was a witch. I have never been able to play the witch, but that skin seems so interesting to me. And this character's name is Grammarye Praise-God Winthrop. That's quite the name. Can you tell me more about it? Yeah, so I really wanted to go to, like, I'm such a New Englander, I don't generally like outsiders, I will give you the coat off my back if I find you freezing, but I will also call you a jerk at the drop of a dime because I don't like the way you go slowly in a queue.

10:16 Like, that's just who I am, right? I'm deeply impatient, but also, like, It's the difference between California and Massachusetts. California is nice but not kind, Massachusetts is kind but never nice. Grammarye Praise-God Winthrop comes from an old blood family in Massachusetts. Their family, this young, mask presenting, sort of non binary boy with a shock of white hair, pale skin, and sad boy eyes. He or they comes from an old, Puritan family. Thus, the Praise-God Winthrop, as the middle and last name. And Grammarye, because they come from a family of witches.

10:58 And there is so much just cyclical family trauma built into this character. And that's really what fueled the, like, interest for me, was, I think, with the witch skin, there's so much built into our idea of what a witch is. But, I think that What makes a witch interesting is history. And, for me, what I wanted to build into this was that familial history, that cyclical trauma that never leaves, as the sort of emotional fuel for this character. So, Grammarye, Is kind of the black sheep of the family, because the Winthrops have a vendetta.

11:42 The Winthrops have a vendetta because they have an ancestor who was killed during the Salem Witch Trials. Hmm. And I think it was Sarah Winthrop. If I went through my notes here, Sara Winthrop was hung, or hanged, as a witch, and this family has held a vendetta against the judges of those trials since the 1600s. Wow. And they have carried on this vendetta and their magic ever since. And Grammarye as the scion of this family has felt ill at ease with this vendetta that the family has carried, because since he was born, it never really made sense to him.

12:24 How did the vendetta present in his family? How much did he know about it? Was he expected to carry this on? I think that everyone speaks of the other families against whom they had the vendetta. So there is the Stoughton family, a famous family in Massachusetts, one of whom was a, a judge in the trial in Salem. You have other family names. Whom Grammarye would recognize, but these are abstractions because they're 400 years ago. And they mean so much to Grammarye's mother. But they're meaningless to him.

13:06 Yeah, I was gonna say, carrying a grudge for, god, like 400 years? Mm hmm. Why haven't they killed them yet? Why haven't they completed their mission against these families? I think there's a natural tension between the satisfaction of ending the vendetta And the delight of carrying it forward. I think that there's a recognition that they all delight in maintaining the Vendetta. It gives them a purpose. If they ended the Vendetta, there'd be no reason to still exist. Hmm. Why is that? Because then there's an emptiness. If you satisfy the vendetta, if you end, say, the Stoughtons, then suddenly that hatred has to dissipate and go away.

13:55 There's nothing carrying the family forward. So the family then becomes meaningless. The family only has meaning because of the vendetta. So in that case, I think that they can't end it. If they ended it, they'd have no purpose. So. There's like an infinite cycle where they have to continue the hatred without ending the hatred. Do they go against the families in other ways, like undermine their businesses or something like that? Yes, I think there's a desire to prolong their misery ad infinitum, but in, I think, classically in the old New England WASPy way, through passive aggressive misery ways, right?

14:38 You, like, ruin their holidays, you make them unhappy, you cut them off in traffic. The small miseries, not the big ones. I love that. So for Grammarye, who doesn't find purpose in the vendetta, what is their family to them? Disappointment. And that's part of it is that there was one connection in the family who was a positive connection, which was Grammarye's grandmother. But Grammarye's grandmother Prudence died and left behind a book. A book that Grammarye cannot read, but must decode. Hmm. And that's kind of Grammarye's present mission is to decode the book because maybe within the book there is validation within the family.

15:23 Maybe if Grammarye can understand the book, Grammarye can then find power in a way that the family will respect. And that's what Grammarye, I think, seeks is validation. Do you think that Grammarye would get the validation that he seeks were he to decode this book? Oh, never. Yeah. That's the problem, is that Grammarye can seek validation, and no matter how powerful or perfect he becomes, I don't think that his family would ever recognize it. Oof. Mm hmm. Big oof. Yeah. Yeah.

16:04 A question comes up for me talking about somebody who has actual magical powers, right? The witch skin actually does have some sort of magical powers, correct? They have the hexes. Yes, they're hexes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And the two starting that I, I chose to have Grammarye possess were wither and illusions. So with wither, Grammarye could choose to use this hex to have someone, a target, lose their hair or teeth and have them like start to fall out over time. And then they could be effectively bald or their skin could be spotty over time. And then illusions is the other hex in which the subject would see snakes or bugs or demonic visions or false prophecies and they would see this everywhere for a time and I would have no control over those exact manifestations, but it would be whatever the GM or MC would see.

17:04 So, those two kinds of things were what I envisioned Grammarye really having, simply because I kind of wanted to lean into the negative aspects of witch practice. Sort of projected in The Craft. Yes. I was going to say, this is really the touchstone for me. I'm like hair falling out, bugs and snakes. Yeah. So completely The Craft. Yeah. Yeah. I was really thinking of The Craft as well. When I was putting this character together, I was thinking classic old New England plus The Craft. I think it's interesting to put actual magic in the context of the Salem witch trials, because obviously, historically, they're not actually witches, but they were deemed such by kind of this patriarchal system in power And the social mores.

17:56 Right? Right. Exactly. But instead, you're saying in your character's history, that they did have magic. At least one of them did. And, like, in my mind, if you've seen The VVitch, right? Have you seen that film? I love that film. It's beautiful. Oh, yeah. It's so good. Also, I want to say, I love that you call it The VVitch because that's what we call it. Yes. That's how it's written, right? The two VVs, yes. The VVitch. But, I like to think of which magic of that period, in that mode of this dark, caustic force with the allure of Black Phillip as, like, the goat slash Satan, drawing in innocents, and then corrupting them, and those corrupted innocents finding the ecstasy of that hellish delight.

18:55 I love that. So I imagine that Sarah Winthrop really delighting in this sort of orgiastic hellish delight, and then her being cast down by society because she was an outsider ultimately, and then the family, the Winthrops, all deciding to take her side and having a vendetta against the judges, not against Sarah, but against the judges for destroying Sarah. And that, that whole dynamic is so fascinating to me. And then through bitterness and just spite, which is the strongest force in the universe, like that's the fifth force is spite.

19:41 And And that alone, just carrying through the family is just so interesting to me. Yeah, it definitely, of all of the negative feelings, has the most longevity. Mmm, it gives people longevity. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It does. Those people live the longest. So would you say that magic has been a negative influence or a positive influence in the family's life? I would say it has been an acrid one. I would not say it's been negative or positive, but it has been acrid. How does Grammarye see magic? Useful, but dangerous, right?

20:23 And I don't think Grammarye, being so young, I imagine Grammarye is like 15 or 16, not quite understanding the full grasp of signing the book in blood. Giving one's soul to Satan, like, truly signing away your eternal spirit, what that truly means. I can't imagine that most teenagers would have a good grasp of that. No, no, your prefrontal cortex is not there, right? So, How could you possibly weigh that kind of decision? Mm hmm. And Grammarye hasn't done it yet and hasn't considered it fully yet.

21:04 Do you think that they will do it? I don't know, but Grammarye has the book from his grandmother and does have a familiar, a raven. Mm. There's power there already. I think that Grammarye Is hungry for power, but smart enough to be cautious. Does Grammarye's family practice witchcraft openly within the family? Was Grammarye raised learning how to do hexes? Yes, yes. So within the family, yes. Outside the family, no. So, it is a family secret, where the pressure is on Grammarye to be the scion of the family, but outside the family, they do not talk about it.

21:49 So, was their mother the person that schooled them, or was it their grandmother? It was ultimately their grandmother, because since a very young age, they were just black sheeped within the family. So, their grandmother Prudence was the one to whom they had the deepest connection very early on, and they maintain that until Prudence dies. And the rest of the family ostracizes them, ultimately. So why is that? Why does the family ostracize them? I think it's that Grammarye does not quite conform to expectations in so many ways. Grammarye ultimately is, if that, is not the gender conforming scion of the family that they wanted.

22:34 But I also think that the magic practice is not what they expected. I think they expected someone who was more competent, automatically. Someone who did not need study, but could just perform. And Grammarye requires study within the book left by their grandmother. The irony in my own, like, headcanon is that the book actually possesses far more power than the rest of the family understands. And that study pays off far more than raw natural power ever could, but that takes time, and the family is impatient. Why are they impatient? Because despite the fact that resolution of the vendetta would remove purpose, the family is always hungry and impatient for vengeance.

23:25 What other ways does Grammarye not live up to his family's expectations? I think that Grammarye is often oppositional by nature, and therefore rejects the pressure by default, and that is in many ways a coping mechanism. So, when the family applies pressure for Grammarye to be perfect, for Grammarye to conform, the response then is to do the opposite, and the response is then to choose to fail. The response is then to be more him or themself, depending on the day. And I think that is why in, like, school, Grammarye comes off as quiet and withdrawn and effete and strange.

24:14 How are they different at home? I don't know that they're necessarily so different. I think that they're simply quieter and less communicative. So you said that they are seeking validation, but it sounds like they're also rebelling. I know those can often be conflicting things happening in the same mind, but why are they still seeking this validation? I think that they still yearn for love from their family, right? They had this warmth and care from their grandmother that they didn't get from the rest of the family. The rest of the family was cold. And when Prudence, the grandmother, dies, I think that Grammarye is still seeking that warmth and that care, that comfort, and it doesn't exist anymore, but they still crave and need it.

25:06 Hmm. They still want that with the rest of the family and seek that through validation. Do they have friends or other people in their life that can give them some of that love and care? No, it's hollow relationships. Because it is Monsterhearts, there's a sexual relationship component, and Grammarye has sought out those kinds of relationships in probably unhealthy places, and That has done nothing to help. Yeah, interesting. So, why do you think they turned to, I'm assuming you mean like, meaningless sex, or just promiscuity? Yeah, promiscuity, like, not at high school, but like, on Grindr, faking an age.

25:49 Mmm, okay. Seeking partners randomly. Yeah. Why is it that they seek that particular release valve for these feelings? Because there's a sense that someone values them. That someone doesn't necessarily care, but wants them. Mmm, I can see that. And at least, if they can't get the warmth and the love that they had from their grandmother, and if their family is going to ignore and or ultimately give them coldness, they can find a kind of warmth somewhere else. Yeah, maybe not warmth, but heat. Yes. So you were really drawn to exploring this New England history, and I'm kind of curious why in particular and why personally you were drawn to that.

26:40 I grew up in New England. I find the regional history particularly fascinating. I found the myth of New England history fascinating. I think that we have mythologized American history, and in particular, New England history, in an interesting way. Because, for example, the Salem Witch Trials. I live close to Salem. The Salem Witch Trials become this cartoonish, grossly mythologized thing that is fun every fall. Yeah. I like to sort of reflect on that occasionally, and I think that it's interesting to take that idea and sort of dig into how the humans who were treated in that time were, like, really impacted and how they really felt.

27:32 And if, say, someone really did have magical powers within the sort of mode of the witch skin in Monsterhearts, how that could translate to how someone in the present day would be impacted. So that is how I thought of Grammarye, and then, like, of course, I tend to think of things aesthetically when I create a character, so I had that idea, I, I thought of Grammarye as this amalgamation of, like, Wednesday Addams aesthetically, and, oh god, what is her name in The Craft? Fairuza Balk? Yeah, Fairuza Balk, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Her. With the, like, dark hair, the hyper pale skin, the goth makeup.

28:14 Is it Nancy? Nancy. Yes, yes. Thank you. I was like, I had to think of, I bind you, Nancy, from doing harm. Mm hmm. I literally saw the name Nancy with Fairuza Balk's image in that movie yesterday on the twitters.com, but Grandma forgot. Mm hmm. Anyways. Yeah, like Wednesday plus a little bit of Nancy plus a little bit of my own like weird teenager as a like 15 year old in high school in Western Massachusetts running around the woods that all jumbled up in a mixer shaken up and poured out that's kind of who Grammarye is and I really wanted to focus on the Salem witch trials as a touchstone aesthetically but also intellectually for how Grammarye could be as a witch within the framework of the game.

29:04 So you say that part of your inspiration for Grammarye is yourself as a teenager. So what are the through lines between yourself as a teenager and Grammarye as a character? Well, I was a young gay teen, so that's part of it, and that being a component of the sort of romantic rules within the game applied to sort of what I see within the witch skin. I also was, for a brief time while I was also an altar boy in a Catholic church, a witch for a time in high school, a practicing witch. That sort of overlays onto this as well, so I try to apply a little bit of that knowledge to at least try to give it some color.

29:44 That all sort of gets jumbled up as well, and I mean, you put yourself into every character you make. Oh, absolutely. I think that my own closeness to my grandmother gives warmth to Grammarye having closeness to his own grandmother, right? I think that, that adds a humanity to a character who otherwise would just be just horribly beat down all the time and totally negative. I think that every character needs a little light in them, even when either they're horrible monsters or they're just super sad all the time. Yeah. I think there needs to be a little warmth and lightness in there. And I think that giving Grammarye that connection, even if Prudence is dead, I think is important. That adds nuance and it adds emotional layers that are critical to making Grammarye more human and not just torture porn.

30:32 Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think that's very important is to have a little bit of light or, conversely, a little bit of darkness if you're playing a very happy go lucky character. What about the family dynamics? Does any of that resonate with you in terms of this kind of coldness and not really having that love and care? Uh, not really. I had loving parents, fortunately, who were fairly warm. They didn't always get me, but they were warm. I was loud and very gay, and, uh, they were loud but not very gay, so, um, they got half of me but not all of me, which I think is every teen's experience anyways. We had very loud personalities, so we conflicted a lot, but I did not feel a coldness from them, no.

31:18 Well, I mean, that's good to hear. I'm glad. That's good. Hey, I'm Ben and I play Bert Ransom. A team that's had a brush with death trying to protect the world of the living on All Our Faults, a new Monsterhearts 2 actual play podcast from the Tabletop Talespinners Network. Follow our story of traumatic love and violent mystery as I and my fellow teens struggle to survive both supernatural forces and high school drama.

32:05 New episodes drop every two weeks on Wednesday on your favorite podcasting app. May your hearts be safe. In Monsterhearts, sexuality is a big part of the character, and you said that you're, you know, you're personally gay, you're creating a character that's gay, so that's something that you have to consider. Most of the time when I ask people about their character's sexuality, it's something that they haven't even really considered. It's something that they always want to discover in game, but I think in Monsterhearts you have to be a little bit more intentional about it. So what was the thought process, and, and I'm not even sure, I'm, I'm calling Grammarye gay, but maybe they're, you know, pansexual or something.

32:52 No, I actually envisioned Grammarye explicitly gay. I actually have a hard time. This is funny. I had a realization back in October that I have a hard time making a character not gay regardless of their gender. And it was because I explicitly tried to make a straight female character and could not. I keep trying to make like straight women. Can't. They all end up lesbians. I do sometimes try to make straight men. Don't do it. It just doesn't happen. I apologize to all these cis straight men out there in the universe. I'm sure you exist somewhere. You'll find representation one day.

33:34 I just can't do it. It's just beyond my acting capacity. So you often play women? Yeah, I do actually, yeah. For example, I played an Old Gods of Appalachia TTRPG stream. We did several episodes. I played a woman, Evangeline, who I loved playing. I actually got stuck on that character for a long time. Just, I loved her so much. And that was a wonderful, wonderful time. I play women occasionally. As a drag queen, I sort of bounce between gender presentations frequently in performance, and I'm not married to one gender presentation or another.

34:15 And I do love playing both men, women, and somewhere in between. And it's funny, yeah, if I play masc, I will play a character who tends to favor, appeal to men. And then if I play women, I end up being a lesbian. I cannot play someone who likes the opposite sex, I don't know what it is. It's a strange phenomenon that I have noticed and have been unable to evade. Are they ever bisexual? You know, I don't think I have ever managed to play a bisexual and I apologize for the bisexual erasure to all my bisexual friends. So let's talk about how Grammarye first started.

34:57 What was the kernel or the spark that got the ball rolling for creating this character? Yeah, so this was for a personal game, and I really wanted to pick a skin that I normally wouldn't play that I hadn't played yet. I hadn't played a ton of Monsterhearts, and I hadn't played the witch, but it was interesting to me because it was different than what I might normally play. I tend to be attracted to the more monstrous. I like exploring horrible human traits and in ways that are interesting. That's why I like the vampire and the werewolf. And the witch is different because it plays more on social tropes and presuppositions, I feel.

35:38 I wanted to make a character there. And when I looked at the skin, I thought of the image of the character before I thought of the story of the character first and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do But I knew I wanted to evoke the Salem Witch Trials somewhere So I looked at Puritan names and I saw the name Grammarye And once I had the name the whole picture came to fruition and I knew exactly who this person was. Did you ever look up the meaning of that name? Oh, yeah, I know what a grammary is. Sorry, I don't know. Maybe this is a New England thing that I am not familiar with. A grammary is a book of spells.

36:21 Oh, oh, I've always heard of it as a grimoire. That's another word for it, yeah. And also just like the last name Praise-God Winthrop was just so perfect. Yeah. I looked at different Puritan name generators and things like that and lists. And just, Praise-God Winthrop was just so perfect. Oh my god, I have a lot of New England ancestors, and the names are killer. I gotta steal them from my family tree. Same, yeah, I have like ancestors who came on the Mayflower. My grandfather, when he was alive, was so obsessed with that. Yeah. Now it's the dark family secret.

37:02 So you said that you started a little bit with the aesthetics of it. You had some vision in your mind's eye. Can you describe Grammarye a little bit more? You mentioned sad boy eyes and all of that, but maybe go in some more detail? Yeah, I imagined this shorter, very slender, almost waifish, young man, 15 to 16, with incredibly pale, almost white, blonde hair, long, his face, fine boned, effete, with pale, grey to blue eyes, and I imagined him in dark clothing, evoking, you know, the mid 90s, with like, a high waisted, black shirt, goth ish, dark pants, kind of staring flatly at you, the viewer.

37:50 Why the staring flatly? I just think that he having such a cold family is so jaded, even at his young age. There's a kind of 10,000 yard stare. Yeah. Does Grammarye have any quirks? He always seems to have a hyper awareness of his space, and part of that is because there's always a raven in the distance. And when Grammarye is alone outside, the raven will occasionally come, and he will speak to the raven. And people say weird things about that. What is a familiar? What does that mean? Or is there a mechanic around that?

38:31 Or is it just that he met a raven and gave it enough shiny things and it became a friend? There's no mechanic for it in the game. What I decided is that this raven basically showed up when his grandmother died and it can communicate with him. It can avoids communicating with anyone else, and it's effectively the only family member now who he can relate to. And I think basically because of how my brain works, I kind of liaise on it to a Delta Green Bond, where it's like the one relationship that buoys his sanity. The Raven basically keeps watch over him. And also kinda babysits him 24/7 and will observe what's going on and fly down when no one else is around to have conversations.

39:21 And I also see it as an opportunity for the GM to also bother me and get in my way because the Raven can come down and interrupt what I'm doing. Does the raven actually talk or how does the raven communicate? Oh, it talks, but I imagine no one else can understand, but that's really up for the GM to decide. Whenever I get to use this character, I'm going to leave that open ended for the GM to determine. We'll talk about it. But, this raven being non mechanical could either be a full on delusion, or it could be a fully speaking raven that other people could hear.

40:02 And I don't know which it is, I'm open to both. I like both answers. They could both be very interesting. Yeah. So you talked about leaving some space in this portrayal of the raven, but I know that a lot of people like to write out a very detailed backstory. It sounds like maybe you're of the more, you know, leaving some space in their approach. Like, how detailed do you get when you're building a character? I tend to get the feels of a character very specific for me, but the backstory itself, I try to leave as open ended as possible. To find along the way, because I love emergent storytelling, and I love finding that stuff as I'm making a collaborative story.

40:48 So, then I can, yes, and new details. as we're telling a story together, that I, I feel is more important. And I would rather leave that stuff open for it to be able to happen rather than to close it off and have an over detailed story from the beginning. So that's what I like to do. Do you have certain boxes that you always check off when you're building a character, like having a motivation, having a particular amount of family members or people in their life or kind of a detailed physical description? Like what's most important to you? I need a clear aesthetic sense of who this person is, and at least one strong need or hate.

41:31 I need to feel who this person is. I need to have a sense of their voice, their sound, their texture. Then I can be this person. I can make choices as them. But I also need to know what they want, what they yearn for, like what they hate. If I can have a sense of that, then suddenly I can make choices as them. But I need a few of those touchstones, and they need to be real strong choices for me to be able to move forward. Otherwise, I'm kind of at a loss. And it's hard to make fun choices in roleplay as a character if I don't have those touchstones. So what does Grammarye want? Grammarye wants to be loved, but he has no clue what that means.

42:15 So he's looking for love in all the wrong places? He's looking for it anywhere, because he has no idea what that means. How aware is he of this need? I think he's too aware, and he will seize upon it when he thinks he has it, whether or not he really does. Have there been times where he's thought he's had it? Not yet. Which is why he's so desperate. Yeah. So going to the other side. What does he hate? The quiet. Tell me more about that. Because it means he's alone. When it's quiet, when it's perfectly still, it means he's alone. Given that his family is so cold and distant, he cannot stand for the quietude.

42:58 He needs noise to fill that space, because otherwise he has to face the emptiness left by the void of his family. Do they listen to music or anything else to kind of assuage that loneliness? Yes. Grammarye listens to music. Strings. Classical music. Hmm. Why that choice? That's what his grandmother used to listen to. That's sweet. I like that. What would you say Grammarye's flaws are? A lack of self awareness, and despite being intelligent, an inability to see two steps ahead. Grammarye is a bad chess player.

43:42 Those both seem typically teenage flaws, right? Oh, yes. Yes. Is there anything about him that is a flaw that isn't necessarily tied to youth? I think there's a distinct rashness that's not attributable to youth. How has that manifested for him? As a short fuse, quick to anger, quick to distrust, particularly quick to distrust, quick to push people away, there's a defensiveness. Does Grammarye get into fights at school or are these mostly verbal arguments? There's an avoidance.

44:23 I think of conflict. So rather than getting into fights, there's a hypervigilance, which then leads to being in the back of the room, a withdrawal when there are bullies, a quietness in the back, that's how Grammarye behaves in school. To me, I think, for somebody who's angry, a lot of the time, like, you kind of have to have a place to put anger. If you don't, it just kind of simmers in you. Is there a place that Grammarye puts it, or is Grammarye just kind of constantly simmering and, like you said, acrid with the family? I think that Grammarye is taking that time to energy and putting it into trying to understand that book left by his grandmother.

45:10 Pouring that energy into decoding it, because that's where the validation could be. That's where he can learn something to make them all respect him, to make them all pay. Does he have plans for revenge then? Not yet. It's too cloudy and amorphous, but I think that there's a future where there could be. Hmm. Revenge against his family or as part of the family vendetta? Vaguely revenge. I think more likely it's the jerks at school, right? I think it's more personal, more present. Grammarye doesn't care about a 400 year old bit of nonsense that parents care about because they're jerks.

45:59 Right, that's meaningless, but those football pricks who wanted to shove him into a locker, that feels more present. Yeah, definitely more of a Nancy situation. Yeah, it is. What would you say Grammarye's morals are? Do they have a moral code or kind of a way of acting? Do they have boundaries on the revenge or the hexes that they might take? I think it's a sliding scale. I think that with calm state of mind and being, Grammarye probably would adhere to a reasonable moral scale in which you would not outright hurt someone terribly for a reasonable action.

46:50 And I think that, you know, that threefold rule of the harm you do comes back threefold. You recognize that you would avoid hurting anybody unless they were a reasonably necessary cause, but I think that. Grammarye is likely easily clouded by emotion, especially if it comes to being pushed by anyone who's going to trigger those sensations of, like, invalidation. The feeling of being ignored, that, who's going to evoke the feeling of, like, coldness and rejection that Grammarye's parents evoke.

47:32 More than likely going to trigger a bigger reaction and therefore something harsher. If you believe that everything returns to you threefold, what does it mean to do a hex then? Oh, well that's up to the GM. Isn't it? Yeah. Is there any fear about that? For me, the player, a little bit, but I also embrace the chaos as a chaos goblin. For the character, there would be, if he were in a calm and sensible state of being, if he were angy, he'd be a little less afraid of it. I was looking at the book and one of the things that stood out to me was the darkest self.

48:20 Mm hmm. What is the darkest self? Yes, so in Monsterhearts, when you are pushed to your emotional limit, When you experience significant trauma, depending on your skin, you may be pushed into your darkest self. The darkest self is representative of your skin's worst features and them at their most extreme, sort of, mood. For the witch, the darkest self says, "the time for subtlety and patience is over. You're too powerful to put up with their garbage any longer. You hex anyone who slights you. All of your hexes have unexpected side effects and are more effective than you were comfortable with. To escape your darker self, you must offer peace to the one you have hurt the most."

49:03 It sounds like Grammarye would be in danger of going into the darkest self considering the volatile nature of their emotions. It sounds a lot like Nancy in The Craft. And yes, it sounds like Grammarye would cause a lot of pain to the people that they care about the most. And then a lot of people would be hurt and they'd have to offer peace to the one they hurt the most, which sounds like a hot mess, a hot gay mess, and I love it. Of course. It's the drama generator in Monsterhearts. We love it. I know that Monsterhearts is a Powered by the Apocalypse game.

49:47 So when it comes to building a character, it's actually pretty simple. It's really choosing the skin, and then you're choosing a few powers for the witch. It's hexes. What other choices did you make when building your character? Yeah, so you have to choose the abilities that you have. There are two options for how your abilities are stacked, and that really is it. between the hexes you opt for and the witch moves you get. And that's really it. It's very simple. And that is honestly great for getting into a new game. Ultimately, there are four abilities in Monsterhearts.

50:29 Hot, cold, volatile, and dark. They represent how sort of appealing you are, how emotionally resilient you are, How aggressive you are and then how spooky you are. That would be a hot, cold, volatile, and dark respectively. And then you have, uh, for me as the witch, there are which moves and then hexes. You automatically get two Witch Moves, one of which is Hex Casting, and then that gives you an option between Hexes, and then I took the two Hexes I mentioned earlier. That then lets you sort of navigate in gameplay, and then there are Basic Moves everyone gets access to. And every time you opt for one of the Basic Moves or one of your Witch Moves, you roll 2d6, add those together, plus the applicable Ability Score that I mentioned earlier, and that's how you play Monsterhearts.

51:18 What are Grammarye's Ability Scores? Yeah, Grammarye is, uh, plus one hot, minus one cold. minus one volatile and plus two dark. Grammarye is extra spooky, a little hot, but he's not particularly good at either maintaining his emotions or getting aggressive. Interesting. That's kind of surprising to me, actually. Oh yeah? I kind of would have expected cold because He's withdrawn and volatile because of this, like, simmering anger that you spoke of. With the witch ability options, I felt like having the extra dark made the most sense.

51:59 Mm hmm. And I thought of him as being alluring, which is why hot I wanted the bonus on. When you build characters, do you make them physically attractive? Sometimes. I actually really like literal goblins in, like, fantasy style games, or, uh, gnomes. I tend not to think of my characters as being particularly sexual or attractive. But for this character, I thought of him as being as a witch, because I think of witches as being alluring. As alluring and dark, which is why like Hot and Cold made sense to me as choices. And then sort of the personality on top of that that I've discussed kind of goes with the aesthetic I was thinking as well.

52:42 You mentioned earlier that it's important to you to find the character's voice. Is that literal, in terms of you use a voice, a specific way of speaking, or an accent, or is that more metaphorical? It's usually very literal, especially for an actual play. For this, which was intended to be like a personal game, this wasn't as literal. I don't have a specific voice literally in mind for Grammarye, although this is a backup character for me at this point for say, All Our Faults. If I were to lose Michael in All Our Faults, which is a possibility, I might bring in Grammarye and I would have to find a voice for him that is very different.

53:26 I haven't necessarily thought of what it would be, but I do have an idea. I think Grammarye would have a softer voice and he would definitely be a little halting. And withdrawn. Oh, now I'm getting into Michael. Shoot. Shoot. Darn it. It's tough. No, I'd have to avoid that. Oh, now I don't know. Shoot. That's the thing, is it's tough sometimes to not go into other voices you're already doing. Yeah, I feel that. Darn. I'd have to think about it more. So you perform a lot. You're a drag performer. You do a lot of actual plays, but you're talking about this being a little different because it was built for a home game.

54:06 So. Are you playing drastically differently when you're playing on an actual play? Not drastically, but I do play differently. When I'm playing in a home game, it's not for an audience, so the way I play the character isn't as big, right? Because when you're playing with your friends, the voice and presence you use doesn't need to be as large. And it tends to actually annoy the people you're playing with. You want to share the table in a different way. For example, I actually play every Monday in a personal game with my partner and his brothers and our nephew.

54:46 And that I play a character that I would happily use in an actual play. But I don't play that character in the same way I would, even though he is as big a character as I would ever play in an actual play. He's absurd. But, that character, who I adore, I will use a voice for. That character is a gnome, uh, Briggle Braggle Knit Willikins Esquire the Third. He is a cleric of Abadar, the free hand of the market. And, uh, he does many things, including, he will write contracts, review your agreements, and, uh, circumcisions. He's from New Jersey, you understand.

55:27 I love him. He has an aunt or an uncle in every city and a story for every one of them. But that character, I don't play as big and goofy as I might in an actual play. And that's just because, you There's no audience. Like, no one wants to hear me ham it up when it's just four of us in a room. Or like, you know, playing on Zoom. That's all. That's just, it's different. Yeah. How do you ham it up for an actual play? It's a performance, so I'm getting deeper into the character. I'm speaking as the character more. I'm putting more of myself into it, into that character. Experiencing more of the time like we're playing as that character.

56:08 Whereas, if I'm playing a home game, we're talking more about the rules of the game or the game itself. There's more of a meta conversation rather than speaking as the character themself. Interesting. Do you prepare for that more as an actor would prepare in terms of getting into that kind of preparation, or would you prepare the same way as you would for a home game? It depends. For some games, kind of, I will prepare for the character in that I will listen to certain music as a cue to help me get into the headspace, just because the headspace is more intense. So, for example, in All Our Faults, where I play Michael, that's a fairly intense headspace I get myself into.

56:54 To play that character. And to do that, part of what I do is, I will actually play a specific playlist I have. Which is, it gets me into a more aggressive headspace than I would normally be just playing a game. And that allows me to get into the headspace of Michael more easily. To stay there more easily. So that way while we are interacting, I can sort of hop into that character more rapidly while we're chatting as ourselves and then entering into character play. Mm-Hmm. It helps me stay into that space. Yeah. And other characters are not as hard to do that with, so I don't need as much prep or as much aid, but Michael is such an intense headspace that I, I do.

57:41 Grammarye, what character traits do you most respect in other people? I suppose, honesty? Is there a particular reason why that's important to you? Well, I know where I stand. Are you worried you don't know where you stand most of the time? I don't like the ambiguity. You would rather somebody honestly be up front about disliking you rather than lie about it? Every time, yeah. Have there been people who have been dishonest with you? Of course. Doesn't that happen to everyone? Any important people? Yes. Do you want to tell me about it? What do you want to know?

58:22 Can you tell me about a time that somebody important was dishonest with you? Well, I mean, everyone tells lies. It's just a matter of when. Juicy, thank you so much. for joining me on the podcast and for sharing Grammarye with me and with my listeners. Thank you for having me. Of course. I really want people to check out All Our Faults, check out your social media. It's been a lot of fun getting to know you and thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything you'd like to share with my listeners? Check out All Our Faults, which is a Monsterhearts 2 actual play podcast. We do all sorts of gay chaos and other stuff, and it's a great time.

59:02 I love being part of Tabletop Talespinners, which is a small network that is growing, that is making all sorts of awesome content. Check us out whenever you can and you can find me on social media at juicy garland or at juicy dot garland Just check one of those you'll find me wherever I would be happy to find you. Thank you For my recommendation this episode I'd like to introduce you to a podcast called Wait, Roll That Again! Wait, Roll That Again! follows the host Alex's journey in building their first game with conversations with game designers like Jay Dragon giving sage advice along the way Give it a listen. I also want to congratulate former guest Sam Dunnewold for his nomination for the Emmy Awards for his podcast Dice Exploder.

59:50 Best of luck, Sam. I started a newsletter. If you'd like to get a behind the scenes peek at the podcast, follow my other projects like my current all woman actual play, and be notified when a new episode drops. You can find the signup form in the show notes or on my website. Please share the podcast with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners. Your recommendations help me immensely. Thank you to all my listeners spreading the word. I'm so grateful. You can find me on TikTok at StarMamaC or on Threads, BlueSky, Instagram, and Facebook as Characters Without Stories. You can also listen on YouTube at Characters Without Stories or follow the link in the description.

1:00:35 My submissions are currently full. I'll announce on the podcast when I'll be accepting more submissions, so keep your ears open. Thanks for listening and may all your characters find their stories.