What's Making Me Happy Today: Cloudward, Ho! ep. 1

[delphi]

Cloudward, Ho! is the newest Dimension 20 campaign of actual-play D&D with its classic cast of comedy improvisers. This one is an aeronautical adventure set in a steampunk universe, about a motley crew who set out on a quest in search of a lost continent and the expedition that disappeared before them. The first episode just came out yesterday, and I really enjoyed it!

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I am a sucker for a good "getting the veteran team back together" story, so I was delighted that this is where the episode went. We open with an introduction to the player characters and a couple of important NPCs, then immediately skip ahead twenty years. That leaves the main cast split between two characters who were children then and are now in their twenties, embarking on their first big adventure, and four characters who are now more in the realm of forty to eighty and getting dragged back into things after retiring to other pursuits.

Given my fondness for older characters, I am all about this. I'm especially enjoying Daisuke "Pappy" Bucklesby as played by Zac Oyama.

The setting's fun so far, and the quest itself and the older character's feelings about it are interesting. I also really appreciate getting a trans character whose conflict with her parents is about wanting to leave home to go adventuring (when her father obviously has feelings about being left by his adventuring mother) rather than about her transition, but where there's also a little thread of "Here at home on the farm, we've made our own rules about how we live—but once you go out into the world, other people are going to try to tell you what to do in all sorts of different ways."

I'm looking forward to seeing where the campaign goes from here! Anyone else watching or planning to watch?

Comments

[muscle_wizard]

I plan on watching soon, admittedly I didn't know how up my alley this campaign was going to be but knowing there are much older characters makes me much more excited to check it out!

Happy to hear about continued queer characters from the intrepid heroes c:

[delphi]

I hope you end up enjoying it! The older characters are definitely a big part of the appeal for me, both on the characterization front and because it's cool to have some veteran adventurers with solidly high stats in the mix being very good at what they do.

[yalumesse]

I've been watching! Only got halfway through the first episode (to Zac's intro and initiative) because I started dozing off, but I plan to watch the rest soon. I love this cast and this is looking to be a good season.

It's been forever since I watched something at the same time as literally anyone else, so I look forward to chatting with you about it as interesting things happen :)

[delphi]

I'm looking forward to that too! And I hear you—the run times are a little long for me to keep up with sometimes, especially if you throw in the Adventuring Academy episodes, but I'm hoping to keep up with this one, and I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts.

[yalumesse]

I finally finished it! And while it was a pretty standard Dimension20 introduction episode, that's a good thing, because they do it well.

I think I like Marya best, though it's hard not to given Emily always does such a phenomenal job.

It's going to be fun to see where this goes!

[delphi]

I'm really liking Marya too! I like the conflict of her carrying the traumatic loss of a crew with her as she goes back to the sky, and also, nothing is funnier to me than someone trying to be whimsical and doing it terribly—so the toy shop scene cracked me up.

[yalumesse]

The toyshop was a clever way of showing how Marya was both trying to move on and entirely failing to. And it gave so much material for the others to play with, that must have been intentional.

Also I'm 100% certain that at some point down the line there'll be a scene where Brennan describes the approach of her nemesis bird and Emily's face will just LIGHT UP. And it'll be awesome.

[delphi]

Yes! And maybe there will even be the terrible conflict of having to choose between avenging her old crew and saving her new one. :D

[yalumesse]

Knowing this show? Very likely.

[walgesang]

I've already squee'd about this to you but extra yaaaaaaaaaaaaay! :D

[delphi]

Seconding the extra yay! <3

[scintilla10]

Ooh, fun!! Thank you for posting about this! I actually have a hard time watching D20 seasons as they air (the episodes are so long!), but this one seems so fun -- I didn't realize that the premise is getting the team back together again after so long, what a great trope. :D

[delphi]

Oh man, I hear you on that. It's like committing to a long movie once a week, which some weeks I am not up for. But I'm going to do my best with this one!