Magic, mischief and mayhem (Patreon)

Hi folks,

We hope you are all have had a fantastic week!

Today we are very much looking forward to an upcoming recording of some brand-new bonus content for the Magnus feed! Something that was unlocked during the Kickstarter campaign for The Magnus Protocol were three TTRPG specials, and the first of these will be recorded very soon.

The special is being GM’d by co-creator of The Magnus Protocol, Jonathan Sims, with players Anusia Battersby (Gwen Bouchard), Lowri Ann Davies (Celia Ripley), Ian Hayles (Trevor Herbert) and Pip Gladwin (who has guested in Protocol as a taxi driver, but you may know him better from his roles in Chapter & Multiverse, Wooden Overcoats and much more). They will be playing using Monte Cook’s The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game – we’re very much looking forward to showcasing this award-winning game on the Magnus feed for very first time.

The special will be set in the Magnus universe (although it won’t be canon), so you can look forward to some horror adventure fun!

This Magnus-themed TTRPG special will be released on the public Magnus feed in December, and as always, will be available 48-hours early for our Knights and Nobles!

Meanwhile, in some news from the RQ Network, today we are hosting a feed drop on the Magnus feed from The Program Audio Series. The Program is a dark science fiction anthology set in a distant future where Money, State, and God have become fused into a single entity known as the Program. Creator, IMS, uses this setting to explore contemporary topics and issues, seen through the lens of ordinary people in the future. This featured episode, Overclocking, is a fantastic first introduction to the series. It follows a group of people in a disintegrating simulation who embark on a journey to the literal end of the world.

You can listen to the first part of Overclocking on The Magnus Archives feed now at the following link, or find the whole episode on The Program Audio Series feed. You can listen to The Program Audio Series wherever you find podcasts.

Finally, we are so pleased to announce a brand-new show joining the RQ Network! You may already be aware of the amazing creator, Eira Major, at Hanging Sloth Studios from their many great shows including Not Quite Dead, Spirit Box Radio, Remnants, and more! On Sunday, they launched a new show: The Twelvelms Conspiracy. Set in a magical world hidden just out of sight, it’s a story fraught with social and class tension, exploring ideas about what it means to belong, and what it means to live with the legacy of terrible decisions made generations ago whose consequences have shaped everything around you.

(Image description: Podcast artwork for The Twelvelms Conspiracy. A digital illustration in purple tones, featuring a graphic of a tree with many branches, surrounded by constellations. At the top is a tag line: “Mischief. Mayhem. Madness. Magic.” Below this is the title: “The Twelvelms Conspiracy”.)

Cyan Goodman does not belong at Twelvelms and everyone knows it. Especially him. The university has trained the finest mages in magedom for centuries, but Cyan only found out it existed two weeks ago. Out of his depth, with nowhere else to go, Cyan is allowed to enroll at Twelvelms under one condition; that he keeps the circumstances under which he was admitted completely secret.

To make things more complicated, the only reason he was given a space at the school at all is because another boy has gone missing, under extremely mysterious circumstances. It seems like there’s a much bigger problem lurking just out of sight at Twelvelms, one which reaches far beyond Cyan’s secrets and into the foundations of magedom itself.

Cyan narrates his story years after these events, and his circumstances have become even stranger…

We spoke to the writer and creator of the show, Eira Major, to find out a bit more about the show.

Tell us who you are and a bit about The Twelvelms Conspiracy

I'm Eira, and you might already know me from my other shows, including Remnants and Not Quite Dead! I'm a Manchester-based writer and audio drama creator and this will be my fifth audio drama. The Twelvelms Conspiracy is a dark fantasy mystery centring around Twelvelms University, an institution dedicated to teaching and sculpting the minds of the future. The show's protagonist, Cyan, does not belong at Twelvelms; its elite, close-knit community isn't used to newcomers. As well as trying to navigate a whole new world in which magic exists, Cyan is also keeping a lot of secrets, so although it's a little lonely, there's an upside to everyone keeping their distance. Twelvelms has a lot of secrets of its own, though, and before long Cyan finds himself tangled in a knotty conspiracy whose threads spin back centuries.

What got you into podcasting? 

I'd been a big listener of nonfiction podcasts for years, but it wasn't until my friend and housemate Alex suggested listening to Limetown, The Magnus Archives, and The White Vault during the first COVID lockdown that I thoroughly explored the medium's potential for fiction. I fell in love with the intimacy of audio storytelling and decided to try my hand at adapting an existing story into this format. I made a deal with myself that if I could write three episodes that I felt happy with, I'd start releasing the show and see what happened. I started airing Clockwork Bird in June 2020. I'm now 210 episodes deep and nobody's stopped me yet!

What are you most proud of about The Twelvelms Conspiracy? 

TTC has a lot of overlapping, interlocking storytelling elements that were very complicated to weave together. Constructing a good-faith mystery - which is a story with a mystery at its heart that you can solve alongside the characters - is one of my favourite storytelling approaches, and TTC has several that overlap and twist together. The show also draws heavily on British folklore, and I've love the way this enriches the world, characters, and story overall.

You can listen to the first two episodes of The Twelvelms Conspiracy now, wherever you find podcasts, or on the Rusty Quill website. If you enjoy it, please consider leaving a rating or a review, as this is the best way to support a brand-new show.

Have a good week all!

The Rusty Quill team