Being on East and editing West 1 and 2, I do want to say that the teams sticking together for one more season turned out super good and we have a lot of character development from the start. Also crying. Hope y’all like tearing up when West 2 goes up.
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Summer 02 - East Patrol’s Summer Vacation
Last season’s crew of Tander, Francisca, and Marx has reunited once more, with another mission for the newly-forming town of Wildseed. With the wind blowing softly and the summer sun shining bright, East Patrol finds themselves on a lovely, leisurely trek to Shorestone to pick up some refugees.
Francisca is played by Riley. Marx is played by Gnome. Tander is played by Drakkel. And our Games Mouse is Grant.
Music performed by Thylacinus. Today’s episode was edited by Gnome.
If you’re listening to this episode today, Sept 2nd starting 10am Central, Grant will be part of a 24 hour Extra Life charity stream, happening right now! Hop on over to Gextra.life and check it out! You can come back to the mice later, they aren’t going anywhere.
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For reasons about which I can elaborate when I am less tired and more articulate, the piece that starts playing around 18:48 in this episode means a lot to me. I like the piece so much I documented the lead part as tablature here: “Variations on a… why is the Mint Gelato theme in Mouse Guard?” The whole piece is based around that part in the tablature played on either classical or acoustic guitar, or as I did it in the actual recording, baritone ukulele.
There’s a couple places where it’s not entirely accurate as I improvised a chord change or two, but it’s 99% good. So, if anyone is learning guitar or bari uke and needs something to practice or play along with, there you go.
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I feel like this group keeps getting put into situations where there is just too many mice for them to handle. This is bigger than the initial caravan and we had six mice on that group.
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Summer 03 - West Patrol’s Strong Hearts
Zeke’s past has caught up to him, and he’s determined not to let it catch up to anyone else. As determined as he is to leave the patrol, others are equally determined to see him stay. How strong do the bonds of friendship hold?
Lily is played by Eliza. Sable is played by Arden. Isolde is played by Poor Weather. Zeke is played by Devious Vaccuum. And our Games Mouse is Grant.
Music performed and scored by Thylacinus. Today’s episode was edited by Riley.
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The relief in everyone’s voice when Zeke started angrily delivering mail was perfect.
After this episode, I really want the owl to fuck up someone who isn’t Zeke. If this is his reaction to the owl being spotted, I really want to see how he reacts to someone actually being hurt.
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Honestly no clue how the grudge-owl fits into the weasel cold war concept, but I am now super eager to find out! Also looking forward to finding out more about Isolde. I get the feeling she has a rich internal life we haven’t fully seen yet.
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I kind of want to see diary entries from Isolde, which much like internal angry sable would be funny.
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… Okay so the moment a song about the power of friendship was mentioned my mind immediately jumped to We Can from Sonic Heroes, the most blatant power of friendship song in existence.
Then after getting that song stuck in my head and I had to do my best not to cry on a train. I’m glad this mouse family is getting along and I hope the owl respects their bond of trust.
Raise your hand if you cried, or almost cried, at the end of this episode 
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Tonight, on a very special episode of Mouse Guard…
I enjoy the silly antics of the Lther patrol, but really West Patrol best patrol.
It’s great to see such engagement with this one, we knew we had something special here as soon as we wrapped up. So special, I tacked that cliffhanger on the end rather than drop it in after Lily’s letter and spoil the mood. The most incredible thing is how much of it came from complete coincidence. People will probably never believe how little of it was planned ahead of time.
Eliza wrote Lily’s letter at the beginning of the session, back when they got their assignment. She never touched it again, and had no way of knowing what would come up in the meantime. Some things Zeke said to Sable seemed perfectly suited to parts of her backstory that DVac had no idea about. Arden had only come up with it a few days before and hadn’t told anyone but me yet. You’ll know what I mean when the next West ep goes up, but her conversation with her dad has some hints.
I’m just to proud of this session as what happens when you trust your team. I knew an owl would be sighted, and that the crew was interested in getting more of their stuff out in the open, on-mic. How that all shook out, and so many perfect moments, were totally emergent.
E: I should make clear, it’s not like we bumbled into this by accident. It was an emergent moment that came from hard work from everyone, and a discussion of our goals for this session. Like I said, Lily’s letter had specific resonances that Eliza didn’t know at the time, but she was aiming for waterworks and she knew what she was doing. I don’t want anyone to think I was sidelining anyone’s contributions, just surprised and proud at how well it all came together.
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I really thought we were going to lose Zeke here. All of that felt so real and emotional. I always listen on my way to and from work and I had to pause for a bit before going in to work to just process what had all happened.
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I have never felt a weird combination of happy and cry my eyes out from an editing job ever before. This campaign is pure magic, y’all.
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Summer 04 - East Patrol Plans Ahead
Now that they’ve arrived in Shorestone and scouted the place out, the East Patrol finds they have a lot of work to do, and not a lot of time to do it. As the sun begins to set on the camp of refugees, our heroes make some preparations for the job ahead of them.
Francisca is played by Riley. Marx is played by Gnome. Tander is played by Drakkel. And our Games Mouse is Grant.
Music performed by Thylacinus. Today’s episode was edited by Gnome.
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Poor Marx. Just hits his element, and then sickens himself trying to solo a latrine. I’m sure this adversity will only lead to great character growth! and probably lots of suffering. I can’t imagine trying to walk all day while sick. Ick.
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Looking forward to you all completely messing with the timeline, as this game keeps going. Maybe when you get to the end of next year, you’ll be able to act on that legend Francisca’s been hunting down, hm?
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Guide to the Territories pt7: Swords & Strongholds
When we meet Francisca and Tander at the beginning of Summer they’re spending quality time together over a board game. This is a game you can actually play yourselves. It looked a little like this:
Since the first volume, David Petersen had been putting a board game in the comics as something mice do in their downtime. He had no idea of how it’s played, but he drew it to have a board, a small number of mouse-shaped pawns, and a deck of cards. Then, in 2014, Luke Crane designed a simple strategy game around those materials, and launched a Kickstarter to fund the initial run of Swords & Strongholds.
The rules work like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2UbvdWnEwc
And it turns out Tander’s just kind of a natural at it. Swords & Strongholds is a great example of an element in a story being fleshed out in a way that makes the world more coherent, and also gives readers a way to connect to it. And, since there’s a real game to reference now, when it shows up in the pages it looks more like this:
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Summer 05 - West Patrol Investigates Crimes
West Patrol, exhausted from last night’s emotional ordeal, is approached by a red mouse named Loomis. He has a lot to worry about - his best friend is on trial for murder, and only the Mouse Guard can help find the truth!
Lily is played by Eliza. Sable is played by Arden. Isolde is played by Poor Weather. Zeke is played by Devious Vaccuum. And our Games Mouse is Grant.
Music performed and scored by Thylacinus. Today’s episode was edited by Grant.
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Slowly the mystery of Isolde is unraveling. Woo!
Also lawyers are in that weird category with accountants and sex workers for me: they exist in basically any society of more then a few hundred people, but I don’t really think about them in alot of settings. Like LoTR. Literally never thought of LoTR lawyers before just now. Can’t wait to see the super-lawyer!
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