Showing posts with label video essay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video essay. Show all posts

Friday, July 18, 2025

Mr. Nowhere Talks About Radio Free Fae in This Latest "Changeling: The Lost" Video Essay

There are those among us who have been to a world that doesn't exist... a place mentioned only in fairy tales. A place ruled by petty tyrants and mad gods, most never get the chance to escape... those who do, and who manage to make their way back to the real world, find themselves changed. With their transfigured forms and broken minds, they have become something else... something other. These Lost band together, though, and they fight for themselves and their communities.

The voice of these communities, though, often comes from the members of the Winter Court. An irony for the Silent Arrow, they use secretive broadcasts to help keep others like them infored. Known as Radio Free Fae, these broadcasts are the early warning systems of many freeholds.

And this week, Mr. Nowhere finally breaks his wall of silence to tell you all about this operation.

Welcome back, my friends and fellow travelers on the trods...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

A Glimpse Into What's Coming For Windy City Shadows


For folks who've been watching my videos over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, you've likely heard me talk about my upcoming Windy City Shadows podcast project. And while I talked about it a while back in Ask Me Anything About "Windy City Shadows" A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast, the general gist is that season 1 is going to be what you'd end up with if John Wick was a changeling.

But the host of the show who handles our intro and outro is the Radio Free Fae DJ known only as Mr. Nowhere... and if you haven't heard his previous broadcasts, he's the voice of the latest video essay that just dropped on the channel!


While I'm still elbow-deep into writing season 1 (working on episode 4's script at the time of writing), I've wanted to start dropping occasional pieces of lore, and to give listeners a preview of some of the characters they're likely to meet as the season unfolds... and I thought I'd start with this simple video essay featuring our first host.

And if you want to help me keep making videos like this, while also revving us up so that I can get this podcast off the ground, please do the following things:


- Watch this video essay, upvote it, and stay until the end for the secret outro, and leave the suggested message in the comments section

- Share this blog entry, and/or the video, on your own social media! Particularly on Facebook, as the site has made it exceedingly difficult for me to actually share links to anything

And, lastly, if you want to catch a few more glimpses of Mr. Nowhere in some published work I've put out, I'd recommend picking up the Changeling supplements 100 Mourning Cant Dialects, Phrases, and Meanings as well as 100 Strange Sights To See in The Hedge.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!


That's all for this week's Table Talk. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue SkyFacebookTumblrTwitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Monday, July 1, 2024

Video Essays on The World and Chronicles of Darkness... What Would You Like To See?

For the past year and change I've been putting out regular episodes of the show Discussions of Darkness over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel. However, while I've spent 27 episodes talking about the setting and giving advice for how to breathe life into it around your table, I recently got a bee in my bonnet over a particular topic. Rather than just holding forth in my traditional format where I talk to the camera, though, I wanted to do something a little special. A little different.

That was why I sat down, wrote out an actual script, and made a video essay entitled The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost... and judging from the reaction some folks have had, this is a direction at least folks would like to see me take more in future releases.


As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Where Would You Like Me To Explore Next?


While the video has just over 160 views at time of writing, there have also been a surprising amount of comments left both on the video itself, as well as on social media regarding it. The response has been pretty positive overall, and while I'm hoping the views keep climbing on the video, I did have a couple of other topics up my sleeve in the event the audience wanted to see more stuff in the same vein.

So, what can you look forward to if I expand some of this?

As a for instance...

One of the ideas I've been mentally combing through is something I'm tentatively titling, "The Problem With Pentex, And The Historical Figure That Could Fix It". As folks know, Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries is something I put a lot of work into, and while I was doing research for that supplement I went back through the canon origins for Pentex as an antagonist... and found that it only goes back to the 1800s. This seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon, where to us a century is a really long time, but in a setting as old as the World of Darkness, I feel this overlooks a lot of additional juice you could add into this antagonist. Which is why I'd like to go through capitalism as a force of evil (in the game, of course), its origin, some other mercantile atrocities that feel like they should have been added into Pentex's history, and finally taking it back to a figure that I feel would make a truly bizarre addition to some of the historical persons that have become supernatural members of the setting.

Two of the other ideas, which are more in-line with the format of the first video (and may receive preference as a result of that), deal with viewing these particular games in ways we don't often think about, or which can fade into the background. For example, one video would be The Existential Horror of Vampire: The Requiem, and how the undead are largely left with no hard answers as to why they exist, what their purpose is, and how they're staring down the barrel of eternity... a condition that the human mind was never meant to grapple with. The second idea in this format is The Cosmic Horror of Mage: The Awakening. Given that the game brings many aspects of gnosticism into the setting, and it deals with the hubris of mages themselves, it can stretch the mind in directions it was never meant to go, and leave mages changed after their experiences. This can lead to them losing their humanity in ways that are very different from other characters in the setting... especially given how powerful mages can be, even in the throes of their madness.

What I Need From You, As Viewers


A lot of you know the drill by now, but if you don't it goes like this:

- Subscribe to the Azukail Games YouTube channel. Hit the bell for extra points!

- Watch The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost if you haven't. Leave comments and upvotes on it if you have! Bonus points for sharing the video on your own social media to boost the signal.

- Leave comments on this post (or on social media) regarding which topics you'd like to see me cover in future videos. If you'd like to see something other than one of the three options I mentioned, make sure to include that in your comment!

It's a simple, three-step process. The content I make (and which is accepted/put out by Azukail Games) is driven by you. Your views, your purchases, your likes, upvotes, comments, and follows all have an effect on what I work on, and what gets released... so use your power, raise your voice, and let me know what you want to see more of!

And, lastly, if you want to help me keep the lights on and the bills paid, consider grabbing some of my World/Chronicles of Darkness supplements from Storyteller's Vault! There's 36 of them at time of writing and (fingers crossed) I'll be able to add at least a few more to that list in the near future!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!


That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on FacebookTumblrTwitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!