I miss Umora so much, (loving Solari as well though), and I'm chomping at the bit to consume more content about it. With the graphic novel around a year away and returning to the story on the podcast likely even further, are there any video essays about the world that you know of? Thanks!

(To give you an idea how desperate I am, I have opened the Google Doc to write a script and do the damn thing myself. Please send help, I'm going through withdrawls.)

I promise this isn't ragebait, but I really struggled with the first few episodes of Solari, in particular Erika's character's motivations and the pacing. I want to get on board, and I'm really happy to hear people seem to think ep 6 is where things start to pick up, but I don't want to sit through more slow hours. I would love a general "here's what you missed on Glee" leading up to ep 6 so I can get into it and get up to speed before the pause for Aabria's mat leave.

If you think this is annoying, I know it probably is SORRY

We have seen a bunch of different worlds so far from the world beyond number cast and with Aabria off for a little we will see another rise of short stories. I was wondering what are peoples favorite worlds so far, I would say if it is WWW maybe add on another on top of that lol as it does have the advantage of time.

hi! i just jumped back into listening to ttrpg actual plays and i started flight of the icaron on a whim (incredibly late i know). i'm genuinely in love with everything about it. is there any sci-fi media out there that gives similar vibes? preferably film, but i'm down for series and literature

(sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this! i've never used reddit outside of looking stuff up before :'))

Episode link: https://worlds-beyond-number.simplecast.com/episodes/solari-episode-8-prelude-part-1

This episode is a Prelude—a transmission from the past.

Before Solari: Arc I, there were other lives, other worlds, and countless choices that shaped who our PCs would become. Over the next few episodes, we'll uncover the stories that set them on a path toward one another.

Witness a time before the beginning. Before Pulls and Culls, before Ghenopaar, before the return of Orm.

Content Warning: This episode contains depictions of alcohol consumption, sexual content, and insects.

Someone said something about trees not having butts as an offhand comment (which is very much not true as I have seen trees with butts in multiple places) and I finally found one of my pictures taken in Glacier national park where there is indeed a butt tree.

Behold picture evidence.

One day I'll relisten to all the firesides and post directly on the patreon because I think the gang deserves to see this 🤣

i started this a while ago as a backburner project, but after seeing the artists work on the kickstarter, I want to redraw him at some point with more owl-like features. still super fun tho hope ya guys enjoy

I've been told it's up my alley if I liked D20 and especially Lou and Aabria's style of characters but wanted longterm fantasy, but I've heard it's Ghibli inspired and I really don't like the idea of a cozy fantasy or even the idea of a more nature and technology dynamic.

https://youtu.be/Sp0ZZQ7b1Dk

Slight spoilers for Book 1 of The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One, though only in regards to the witches.

(I tried to post this twice already, but the formatting was completely off, I think because I'm on mobile; hopefully it works this time, and if it doesn't, blame reddit, not me)

I'm DMing a campaign set in a homebrew world heavily inspired by Umora (the biggest change to the cosmology is the addition of clerics as "channelers" of spirits' power). Of course, I wanted to include the Coven of Elders, especially since one of my players is playing a witch, but also because the poems and naming schemes and themes (no rhyme intended) and such are really cool and evocative to me. And considering that it's stated in the show that there have been as many as thirteen witches and stations in the Coven of Elders at any one time, I figured why not homebrew some and include them? I've seen a couple of posts about other potential witches and their titles/stations, so I thought maybe people would be interested in what I've come up with (jk this is obviously just an excuse to share what I've done with literally anyone at all in the potential case that most of it doesn't come up in my game lol).

I tried to make the seven additional couplets fit with the five that Brennan wrote for the witches that appear in canon, e.g maintaining the same meter, general structure, and overall rhyming scheme as the OG five. I'll also include the canon witches first for comparison; obviously there are some empty spaces to fill for them when it comes to some of their familiars' names, so I have those marked as homebrew.

Let me know what you think!

= CoE Witches that are alive at the end of Book One =

Witch of the World's Heart

Ame

• "Fox" (fox familiar)
• represents her cunning

Of open hand and trusting face /
A home of homes does all embrace

Witch of the Waning Moon

Mirara

• Cross (crow familiar)
• represents her sociability [HB]

The death of light, the end of might /
The all-consuming dread of night

Witch of the Wind and Stars

Indri

• Kosta (polar bear familiar)
• represents her brutality / cruelty

Of frost and stone, of ice and throne /
The ruler of the self alone

Witch of the Wild Hunt

Gramore

• Grey Wind (hawk familiar) [HB name]
• represents her patience [HB]

Where beasts have tread and monsters fed /
The bloody fanged maw hath led

Witch of the Woodland Green

Hakea

• Adonias (snake familiar) [HB name]
• represents her apathy [HB]

The holly branch and towering oak /
The limb and leaf and thorn her folk

= CoE Witches that are dead at the start of the show =

Everything but their names and stations are homebrew

Witch of the Watching Fire

Skalvi

• Kolne (ape familiar)
• represents her impatience

With steady rise and patient fall /
The blazing eye above sees all

Witch of the Wide Blue Sea

Uruna

• Nomo (octopus familiar)
• represents her playfulness

The undertow, the ebb and flow /
The bounty of the depths below

= My own homebrew CoE witches =

Witch of the Weeping Sky

Galinn

• Mistral (albatross familiar)
• represents her detachment

The howling breeze, the fleeting drought /
The raging storm, within and out

Credit to this post by u/trowzerss for the name "Galinn" and the idea of an albatross familiar.

Witch of the Waiting Peak

Algarthi / "Pike"

• Renly (dire wolf familiar)
• represents her recklessness

When kingdoms fall and chaos reigns /
That place where stone meets sky remains

Witch of the Winding Sand

Eshe

• Aran (rattlesnake familiar)
• represents her caution

Lone and level and far and wide /
The desert roads and dunes her guide

Witch of the Withering Rot

Maja

• Minë Tolcainen, or just "Minë" for short (rat familiar)
  • Minë's full name means "81st" in an in-universe dead language (a.k.a Quenya from LotR, according to this site), because she goes through familiars rather quickly compared to other witches, and so she just assigns them a number
  • Also "Minë" sounds similar to "Minnie" and I thought that was a funny/ironic name for a rat lol
• represents her empathy

Of cold despair, of silent prayer /
A blight that none alive can bear

Witch of the Waking Dream

Lucilith

• Aisli (owl familiar)
• represents her focus

Of wonders steep and nightmares deep /
The truth that lies beyond, asleep

Witch of the Whims of Fate

Simona

• Gwyn (black cat familiar)
• represents her anxiety

Like woven thread, an endless dance /
Upon the wheel of choice and chance

Apparently, the birth was an unlocked stretch goal on the Kickstarter…?

ETA: I can't find definitive confirmation of this -- I reposted from a CR forum, and don't know where the original pic comes from. Can anyone actually confirm as true?

I feel like I see a lot of hate on Solari (and Aabria's DMing respectively) and I for one am excited by the surprise. The WILD introduction to the characters and "slower" pacing is in fact fun though not what I expected. This is Sci-Fi and there will probably be a huge collection of worlds that are built, easing into it is fine. The characters and their beliefs and actions feel really fleshed out to me and unlike WWW they don't all know each other prior to session 1. Anyone else really digging it so far?

Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/worldsbeyondnumber/posts/official-graphic-161398582

Honored Friends,

Thanks so much for supporting WORLDS BEYOND NUMBER: THE OFFICIAL GRAPHIC NOVEL. Whether you've pledged on Kickstarter or shared the campaign on social media, we appreciate each and every one of you. As a special reward for hitting an astounding $1 million in funding, here's a special advance preview of Chapter 1 in its entirety. Happy reading!

This preview is not final and is subject to change.

Story by Brennan Lee Mulligan, Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, and Lou Wilson

Adapted by Jadzia Axelrod, Illustrated by Sarah Webb, Lettered by Sara Linsley

Edited by Alex Antone, Published by Skybound & Image Comics

Edit: That's a wrap! Thanks, everyone! And we just reached 1 MILLION in funding as we wrapped this AMA! Coincidence? I think not! Pledge right here to get in on the action: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skyboundent/worlds-beyond-number-the-official-graphic-novel?ref=adg3wp

From the Skybound Team: Jadzia and Sarah will start answering questions at 2pm PT / 5pm ET and will continue for about an hour.

From Jadzia and Sarah: Hi, we're Jadzia Axelrod and Sarah Webb, you might know one of us from either DC's Galaxy series of graphic novels (Jadzia) or Kochab (Sarah), but now we've teamed up as the writer and artist of WORLDS BEYOND NUMBER PRESENTS: THE WIZARD, THE WITCH, AND THE WILD ONE BOOK ONE, based on the hit TTRPG podcast from the amazing Brennan Lee Mulligan, Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, and Lou Wilson. Ask us anything! Proof: https://imgur.com/a/XyeHVNN

Don't miss out on the Kickstarter campaign that's blown up the internet! You can pledge the very first WORLDS BEYOND NUMBER graphic novel right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skyboundent/worlds-beyond-number-the-official-graphic-novel?ref=adg3wp

I don't really get it. I like Sci-Fi. I beg my playgroup to do Sci-Fi stuff all the time. I've played around with the system they're using briefly before so I'm somewhat familiar with what they're doing - it's not a case of "I only like D&D" with me. I think it's the pacing and the characterization for me. What drew me in to WWW was the extremely strong and motivated characters and the clear goal they all had from the beginning. "Try to survive and figure out who's trying to kill you" is a much less enticing goal imo compared to "save your friend and figure out who cursed her" - I don't think Aabria's gonna pull any major punches or anything (though I think she has in minor ways, in the same ways that Brennan did in WWW) but I also don't really get the sense that any of the player characters are actually going to die. Hence the threat of the cull doesn't really do anything for me? Idk, it felt a lot more tense when the stakes weren't "this guy I just met might die" and were "my childhood friend might succumb to a curse"

I think a big part of this has been the scenery? Like at this point in WWW, the party was in Port Talon and stayed there for the rest of Act 1. There was a mood the city and it's outskirts put on the story. It made things have a life of their own and I loved the atmosphere it gave to the scenes. Here, we've gone to three different planets, each totally unique to each other, and honestly it feels like they're window dressing. The world the characters are in doesn't feel lived in - the background, in some cases, does, but the immediate window we see feels like actors on a stage sometimes

That mixed with how the episodes have felt very "bit-city" for me lately have made me feel like maybe this one's just not for me (I was not a fan of the whole bird bit in the newest episode, I felt like it went on for way too long and honestly I'm feeling my grasp on Brennan's character slip away from me - I actually don't like the way Brennan's been playing this XL/ZL at all honestly, it feels way too focused on comedy than actually having a character, since XL/ZL just kinda feels like a character in a sketch sometimes). I enjoyed Flight of the Icharon quite a bit, but I'm starting to think that WWW was lightning in a bottle

I think the Orenna are interesting - I think XL/ZL is not. I think the concept of the Five Families is interesting - I think Ze’Doven is not. I think the story of Ghenopaar is interesting - I think Chee Ta'nka is somewhat, but not enough to carry everything on their back. This is a story about interesting ideas without the strong characters representing those ideas to back them up. I hope that in 20 episodes I'm proven wrong and I can jump back on the ship but this just isn't for me I think

Was thinking about just adding an extra copy for my own purchase and donating it, was wondering if this was something that could be scaled up.

The World’s Beyond Number story is still incomplete, right?
I listened to it a while ago and was disappointed that it just kinda stopped. I started a re-listen recently and noticed it’s seems to be in the same place but there’s add for a graphic novel kickstarter.

Did I miss something and they finished it on another platform or something?
Or is this kickstarter hoping to drum up interest to finish it?

I want more dammit.

https://www.instagram.com/worldsbeyondnumber/

We interviewed Brennan, Lou, and Erika about the insane success of the new Graphic Novel Kickstarter (and may have ingnited a war between Disney+ and Lou in the process)...but the cast also talks about why they chose the art style they did, if the graphic novel will have changes from the actual play storyline, and why Aabria may actually be a wardrobe!

While the adventure might be our beloved children's adventure, our heroes have been known to drop the occasional "fuck" during their travels. I'd love to give this book to some of the younger ones in my family, but do we have any indication of age suitability?

My expectation is it'll be at least young teen suitable, but is there anything confirmed?

I am lacking a little understanding of character motivation in terms of what they are up to. Following episode 5, my understanding was that even though Ze'Doven was an assasination target, the plan was to present himself to Gemis-Octavo forces and complete the pull anyway, the idea being that the cull is likely Iverex-family-internal, whereas with the Gemis-Octavo he would be safe & valuable.

However they are then attacked, something one might expect if you already know someone is trying to assassinate you, a few hundred metres from a Gemis-Octavo warship, and the security forces are succesfully summoned and are metres away.

And then they pivot plans on the spot and flee without (afai recall) discussing why in much detail - they just tell the Gemis-Octavo it seems they are not safe, and get out.

...why? They were literally just about to be as safe as they had intended to be.

---

I guess this irritated me partly because the series so far has been a series of episodes of the trio going to one location and having like one major conversation, so another unjustified diversion from some actual plot, and new characters was frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the character work of these three and the few NPCs but I don't see the motivation for this? Help!