The Critshow and a Live show! (Patreon)

Hi folks,

It’s hard to believe that it’s just over a week until the release of From the Library of Jurgen Leitner! If you would like to pre-order a copy, check out rustyquill.com/novel for links! We’ll be hosting a celebratory livestream on 30th October – more information to come soon.

We’re very pleased to say that we’ll once again be attending MCM Comic Con in London on Sunday 25th October! Jonathan Sims and Alexander J Newall will be taking to the Live Stage at 1pm to chat all about The Magnus Archives and From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, followed by a meet and greet! Both the panel and the meet and greet are included in your MCM ticket, which can be purchased on the MCM website.

We’ll also be attending the London Boardgame Show on Sunday 24th January 2027! Joined by the voice actor of Gerry Keay, Jon Gracey, we’ll be doing a live play session of The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game – definitely not to be missed! To find out more and to purchase tickets, head to the London Boardgame Show website.

As a quick reminder, don’t forget we’re currently running our Rusty Fears horror writing competition! Find out more by heading to our dedicated post: https://www.patreon.com/rustyquill/posts/rusty-fears-8-172245621

This week in The Magnus Protocol, it’s Harvey’s first day. As always, the episode will be available in early access on Tuesday at 4pm BST, and on the public feed on Thursday at 4pm BST.

Finally, we’re pleased to welcome The Critshow to the RQ Network! The Critshow is an actual play podcast where a group of friends use TTRPGs to walk the line between humour, horror and heart. Featuring a variety of systems, The Critshow is focused on engaging, character-driven storytelling. To find out more about the show, we spoke to producer Rev, in an exclusive interview for our paid members.

Tell us who you are and a bit about The Critshow

I’m Rev, the host and GM of the first six seasons of The Critshow, a story arc we call The Other Side of the Coin. In those 6 seasons we follow the member of the IPT (Indiana Paranormal Taskforce) as they try to deal with supernatural threats while staying out of the public eye. The world of the game is very much our own, with a little magic thrown in. As the story goes on, they find themselves going to other dimensions to acquire the tools they need to deal with their Big Bad, and each dimension is a different Powered by the Apocalypse game. In each world the characters find themselves with new abilities but also facing new threats.

Season 7 is a stand-alone season where we use FATE to play though the Clockwinders Fate Setting – in which a small group sets out to repair the clockwork machines that physically keep the world from spinning out of control.

Season 8 launches soon – and tells the story of the Epicopeia, a secret team who act as body doubles for the royal family when a situation seems too dangerous for the royals to appear in person themselves – for that we are using Dungeon World 2.0

What got you into podcasting?

I’m an actor by trade and have spent a lot of time on the road driving from one job to another, and I’ve always listened to audiobooks when I drive.  One summer I found myself missing TTRPGs in my life – so a friend suggested I listen to a podcast they were a fan of. I started listening to this actual play, and it had this effect of making me feel like I wasn’t alone on those long drives – made me feel like I was sitting at the table with friends.

Jump to a year or two later and we found this game we really liked and I wanted to try and create something that would do what that initial podcast did for me – give me the feeling of sitting at the table with friends, while telling a story we all cared about.

What are you most proud of about The Critshow

We do a lot of Let’s Plays for indie and newly launching games – and so people find us because they’re googling how do I play x game or going on to reddit to ask for suggestions on where to listen to a game so they can feel more comfortable running it – and we didn’t start with the intent of teaching the games as we played them, we were doing it out of necessity – but once we saw how many people were looking for just that, it became part of our mission statement – to teach the games we play as we play them, but in a way where it doesn’t slow down the action of the story and you don’t feel like you’re being taught.

The other thing I’m really proud of is the community that has been created around the show –it’s amazing to see people meet on our discord due to a mutual love of the show – then see them planning trips together, having book clubs and movie nights, baking contests – just all these little things that make a strong and supportive community.

You can listen to The Critshow wherever you find podcasts, or on the Rusty Quill website. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving a rating or a review, as this is the best way to support your favourite podcasts.

Have a good week all!

The Rusty Quill team