* Author : Taryn Frazier * Narrator : Dani Daly * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Eric Valdes * Discuss on Forums PodCastle 801: Point of Order is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 Point of Order by Taryn Frazier   Behind his screen, the game master cracks his knuckles. “OK, folks. This is session zero of a shiny new campaign, so let’s go around and introduce your characters. Bob, since you’re hosting, how about you start?” Bob scratches his belly through his “This is how I roll” t-shirt. “Bork is a barbarian half-orc with heavy weapons mastery and a halberd.” He spins around in the office chair he’s pulled up to his dining room table. “Simple, yet elegant.” “And Bork’s background?” the GM prompts. Bob coughs. “Um, he’s a . . . soldier?” Across the table, Amanda snorts and dumps her dice out of a tooled leather pouch. “Let me guess, you pulled his character build from a Weddit post.” She flips her blue braid over her shoulder. “I’m playing Azmandia, an elven wizard who wields a staff of bloodsteel. After being ostracized from her clan, she has roamed the wasteland alone, a law unto herself. She has a weasel familiar and enjoys moonlit —” Bob makes a snoring sound, and she breaks off to glare at him. The GM closes his eyes. “Remember the rules.” “No sniping,” Bob and Amanda mutter together. “Indeed. Saanvi, your turn.” Saanvi straightens her glasses. “Saanjh is a dragonborn paladin who —” “— carries a war hammer and was tragically orphaned at birth,” chorus Amanda and Bob. “They’re sniping again,” Saanvi whines. The GM shrugs. “You do play the same character every campaign.” He jots down a note, then says, “Last but not least is Dan. Tell us about D’nath, your bard.” Dan stares down at his character sheet for a long minute. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Loosens his tie. Clears his throat. “You OK, Dan-Man?” Bob asks, joggling his elbow. “Yeah. No.” Dan scrapes a hand down his face. “Isobel left yesterday.” Silence reigns, then Saanvi asks, “Like, she left-left?” A shaky exhale from Dan. “Yeah.” Another pause, then Saanvi asks, “Who will paint our minis now?” She catches the dagger-like glares from the rest of the party. “I mean, that sucks, dude.” “I’m so sorry,” Amanda whispers. She reaches a tentative hand toward Dan’s where it rests on the table, then pulls back. Bob throws an arm around Dan’s shoulders, but Dan forces a smile and shrugs him off. “Let’s just play Everdeep. This world sucks.” He pours himself a shot of whiskey. The GM adjusts his screen. “If you’re sure . . .” He places one hand on the map in the middle of the table and the other over the players’ four miniatures. “OK, here we go.” He mutters a string of words, guttural and strange. The players around the table close their eyes, and the violent oranges and greens of Bork’s cluttered dining room run like watercolors, taking the adventurers with them. The colors resolve into grim shades of gray and black, and the four adventurers stagger on their new footing, a merciless field of flints. A voice booms from on high: “Castle Everdeep clings to the side of an obsidian cliff overlooking the Sea of Oblivion. Your adventuring party has heard rumors of the great wealth hidden there, but also of the terrible dangers that await trespassers. You stop at a village at the foot of the cliff to —”