Critical Role continues to expand their reach, adding the popular “Tales From The Stinky Dragon” to their roster of podcasts. Originally a Rooster Teeth production, “Tales From The Stinky Dragon” is a comedy actual play podcast debuting in 2021. However, when Rooster Teeth announced they were shutting down, the creators of the podcast were able to acquire the rights.
“Tales From The Stinky Dragon” has partnered with Critical Role for their third campaign “Kanon.” This new campaign follows a group of skilled soldiers caught in a war much larger than they can truly comprehend. With distant deities and under-dwelling devils in the midst of conflict, these soldiers may be the key to victory. However, a voice from the beyond calls to them; whether it is destiny or doom remains a mystery.
Critical Role has been delving into more family-friendly projects with their original podcast, “Re-Slayers Take,” and now the award-winning series “Tales From The Stinky Dragon.” The cast includes Game Master Gustavo Sorola leading players Barbara Dunkelman, Blaine Gibson, Chris Demarais, and Jon Risinger. Additionally, Ben Ernst serves as producer with Micah Risinger wearing many hats as composer, editor, and writer.
How Tales Of The Stinky Dragon Diverged From Rooster Teeth
Temple of Geek: Can you talk to me a little bit about taking “Stinky Dragon” in this new kind of more independent direction from where you were with the first couple campaigns?
Micah Risinger: We were obviously working for a different company at the time, Rooster Teeth. There was this brainchild idea of coming up with this D&D podcast with a couple of people that were familiar with improv, and they tried a couple different ways of doing it.
The pandemic hit, so it was kind of remote for a while with just cameras and virtual tabletop. Long story short, we started making it more like an audio podcast, more radio style with VO and sound effects and music. We wanted it to just be a really fun experience to listen in and feel like you’re immersed in this world. And maybe we were doing that for maybe a few years. Does that sound right too, Barbara?
Barbara Dunkelman: I think since 2021, if my math serves me correctly.
Micah Risinger: Yeah, we were, I think towards the end of our second campaign, so second season, and then we got the word that the company was going to shut down. So we just started thinking of ideas and one of the top front runners was, what if we did this on our own?
What if we got the rights, the creative rights to the show and just kind of made it our own? So we kind of went to work with recording and trying to get as much stuff as we could with the resources we had at the time. Eventually we did get the word that we got the rights, which was great, and decided to start putting the groundwork and foundations of making it an official company.
Barbara Dunkelman: Just to kind of echo what Micah was saying, I think we’re very lucky to be at Rooster Teeth at the time we were to be able to develop the fan base for the show during that time. Obviously there’s a lot of Rooster Teeth fans, but we were very lucky to also expand that and reach outside the Rooster Teeth bubble and kind hit that D&D target audience, which was great.
So the show was really growing, and I feel like it was starting a real great trajectory when Rooster Teeth was shutting down. So we were like, how do we keep this going? We love making the show. We love the audience and the community that we’ve developed for it, and as Micah said, we were lucky enough to be able to retain the rights to the show and take it independent, and it’s just been wonderful ever since.
Micah Risinger: Yeah, I feel like that’s a good note, Barb, it was really reassuring. You work with people and you enjoy working with them, but the fact that all seven of us were like, we want to keep doing this. We’re invested in this. That was really nice to hear and get to know that. Yeah, we’re all in on this. So it was cool.
Why Critical Role Was The Perfect Fit For Stinky Dragon
Temple of Geek: What was it about Critical Role and Beacon that spoke to you guys as well?
Barbara Dunkelman: Oh, I mean, it’s a no brainer, I think when you think of D&D, Critical Role is synonymous with D&D. They’re the biggest and the best in the industry. I think anyone who plays D&D or knows anything about D&D automatically knows Critical Role. We’ve all been fans of theirs for years and years and years. We’ve been lucky enough to work with some of them as well as on Rooster Teeth projects. People like Travis [Willingham] and Laura [Bailey] have done voices on some shows that we’ve done.
So there’s always been a little bit of a connection. When we started talking with Critical Role and we found out that they were interested in us, that was I think a very humbling and kind of mind blowing experience of just the biggest D&D show in the world knows us? Oh my gosh. So yeah, I think that was a huge inflation of our ego, which was great.It’s just been so wonderful to work with them. The team there has been incredibly welcoming and supportive and helpful and just enthusiastic about “Stinky Dragon,” which is really fun.
Micah Risinger: Yeah, they’re nice people. It’s great. That’s so nice to hear.
Barbara Dunkelman: Meet your heroes.
Micah Risinger: Yeah, exactly. It’s a dream come true. Yeah, honestly, it really is. It was a great time to feel that boost of encouragement and investment from someone else and from such a reputable company and organization and people that have been doing this for so long. It’s like, wow, we must be doing something right.
Barbara, what was your character creation process going into campaign 3?
Barbara Dunkelman: This is our third campaign in which means I’ve already developed two other characters and a couple little one shot characters here and there. I always want to do something different every campaign I play. Whether it be a different personality, a different type of class or race or anything like that. I always want to try to stretch my D&D abilities since I am still a new player. I really want to experience a wide range of things in D&D. So the character that I made for campaign three, his name is Dug, and I always love having a character that is unexpected.
He’s a Bugbear, so he’s really big, and you would think he’d be strong or a barbarian type, but I had him be an artificer and really kind of stack up my intelligence and wisdom on him. Which is a very rare trait in our party in general. So just playing a very kind of quiet, he doesn’t like to be violent. He’s more smart, likes to invent things, but he’s this big kind of scary looking, beefy guy. I love playing characters that are kind of unexpected in that sense. And so Dug is one of those.
Micah, can you talk to me a little bit about your role in “Tales From the Stinky Dragon?” Because one of the things that stood out to me was not only do you create the music, but the writer aspect as well.
Micah Risinger: Yeah, I feel like it’s something unique to our show in that there’s kind of a council of DMs behind the show. I’m the writer and editor and composer for the show. And then we have our actual Dungeon Master Gus, who’s in the recordings. And then we have a producer Ben, who’s also sort of a DM. He’s a big nerd in D&D as well. We’re constantly on Slack during recordings, just like, Hey, what about this? What if we did this? But I think my entrance into the show was they wanted to start making it into an audio podcast. My brother is on the cast, John.
I had written a one shot for them for a charity event at one point, and then they were looking for someone to write modules and ventures for them. So I said, I could do that. We started doing that, and right as we started making the show, our audio editor was going on paternity leave. And so I said I could do that too. I started editing the audio and adding sound effects. I mentioned that I can compose music, made music for Rooster Teeth, for jingles and stuff like that. It’s a dream come true to compose music for a show. So that’s one of my dream goals in life. I started doing it for full time and just really went with it and really enjoyed it and tried to make it unique to other D&D shows out there.
Barbara Dunkelman: I will say this a million times over, Micah is 100% why “Stinky Dragon,” I think, is the show that it is. His writing is phenomenal, but all the touches he puts on the sound design, the sound effects, the music, obviously the original composing with everything he does. It’s such a polished and beautiful and fun project that I don’t think anyone else really has the ability to do like he does. So I’ll sing his praises until the end of time.
Why Campaign 3 Is More Of A Sandbox With The Story In The Player’s Hands
Temple of Geek: Going into your third campaign, what did you learn from your first two campaigns that kind of helped bring this to the next level?
Micah Risinger: Lots of things. It’s been a work in progress since day one, since episode one with just figuring out, I mean, how to write a module for someone else. Typically if you’re home brewing a campaign for D&D and the friends and stuff, you’re writing it yourself or using someone else’s work and you kind of make it your own. In this case, I’m writing for one particular party and one particular DM, which is very unusual. Usually if you’re writing something, you write it for the masses.
So it’s been a work in progress of what kind of material did I put in there? What works for this cast in particular? How much is too much? How much is too much information? Also just formatting, what is easy to reference in a document that wasn’t before? Even beyond the logistics of all that stuff, I’ve changed the way that I make adventures now.
The first two campaigns were very narrative based, very rich in a story and what’s happening in the world. That’s still the case. There is a narrative and there is story, and there is a world, but I wanted to make it more sandboxy this time. Instead of this is the narrative that you have to stay on. Not necessarily that I was always railroading them, but this is much more like the story’s in your hands a lot more now.
Barbara Dunkelman: It’s so intimidating.
Micah Risinger: I have things that I like to happen, but it’s really up to the players to see where it goes. I think it’s scary and it’s fun and it’s new.
Talk to me a little bit about the storyline for this third campaign and how it stands out from the other campaigns you’ve done?
Micah Risinger: Yeah, so the first campaign was kind of, I like to think of it as my take on fantasy and kind of the odd weirdness of fantasy world with different creatures and lands and stuff. Second season, I wanted to go into the more Victorian horror mystery detective kind of vibes.
Then the third campaign, I wanted to start digging into a sort of dystopian big pantheon, almost militaristic kind of type of campaign. Throw the players into an army and say, you have a war you’re fighting now. It’s mixed up with devils and demons and deities. There’s something else going on that they don’t quite understand either. I really love mysteries. I don’t know if you know that, but I really love mysteries. I like to throw a little bit of cliffhangers on every episode. That’s kind of the vibes that I kind of put into this third campaign.
Barbara Dunkelman: I think that’s also one of my favorite things of doing the show. Obviously, the cliffhangers and the mysteries, I love, like Micah, mysteries in general. Being able to figure out all these clues that eventually has a really incredible payoff. But also just I love watching our community try to figure it out too. Seeing all the theories and what they’re speculating and they figure out things before we do. So sometimes I try not to look at it. Like as player, I don’t want to know if they end up figuring it out. But it’s always fun to see everyone’s speculations.
Barbara, as a voice actor what for you is the most fun aspect of bringing those skills into D&D with the improvisation element?
Barbara Dunkelman: That to me is almost as important as making my character, is coming up with a voice for my character. I feel like it’s fun to get to create your own character because typically with voice work, you’re given a character. Okay, this is what they look like. This is their personality. You just have to find a voice that fits them. Rather than I could do whatever I want and come up with a voice that I think is going to be really fun to do for potentially a few years, which is always fun.
We make references to it all the time on the show about how the first maybe 5 to 10 episodes, our voice will sound completely different than the rest of the campaign as we kind of settle into it. But yeah, I feel like to me it’s a lot more easy to get into a character and to improvise as a character if I have a voice that I could just pop into and I feel like a separate person.
“Who Knew That Puppets Were The Gateway Drug To D&D Podcast?”
Temple of Geek: I love too that this is kind of described as all ages. It isn’t something that you necessarily have to be 18 or over to listen to. Why was that an important part for both of you?
Barbara Dunkelman: I don’t even know when we were starting “Stinky Dragon” that it was a conscious effort. I think we just made a decision within the first few episodes of like, okay, maybe let’s not swear. None of us are really into very adult themes in general with our storytelling. I think because we were doing a D&D show, which tends to skew maybe sometimes a little younger because it’s adventures and gaming and stuff like that.
I think we just were like, okay, let’s just try to keep it PG because we didn’t really make any shows with Rooster Teeth that were PG. This could be something that could connect with a different audience. Then it just kind of worked in our favor. We’ve heard so many stories of families listening to this together or kids who enjoy to get their parents into it or vice versa. So that’s always really cool. Meeting young fans as well is always really special.
Micah Risinger: I just echo that. It was nice to hear home places like Reddit. People were like, yeah, I can have my kids listen to this. I have a couple of nieces myself. I have friends that have kids and it’s fun too, that they can listen to this together. You don’t always find free time as an adult when you have people that are dependent upon you. It’s nice that you can go on the car, go ahead and run the dishwasher, whatever you’re doing, and listen to this show. So I hear people doing all kinds of things when we listen to the podcast. So it’s nice that we have such a wide ranging audience that can be involved in it.
Barbara Dunkelman: Yeah, it’s also I think, really exciting for us being with Critical Role, how this potentially could be a show that Critical Role fan’s kids or young siblings or cousins or anything could get into. As they get a little older eventually then they could start to get into Critical Role’s, more adult type content. Stuff that they might be a little too young for now, but could get interested in, D&D via our show, which is a really exciting opportunity.
I’ve seen you guys have the little animation shorts and the puppets and those pieces. Can you talk to me about those aspects of “Tales From the Stinky Dragon“?
Barbara Dunkelman: I’ll tell you the whole story of how it started in a very brief summary. We started doing “Stinky Dragon,” and because it’s an audio only podcast, it was really difficult to figure out how to promote it or do any sort of social media content for it. Serendipitously, Micah and his brother John, whois on the show too, their mom sent us these little dolls of our characters that she made just as a gift from the first campaign.
We had the idea that we should take these dolls, take a clip from our podcast, like a 60 second or less clip and act it out with what we call puppets now. Obviously the people on our team, so creative, so talented, they made it into this whole highly produced production. I just was thinking I would pick up an iPhone and act it out, but they put it over the top, which made it look amazing, high production value.
We just started putting them on social media and they blew up. A ton of people started discovering our podcast via those videos. We have so many people to this day tell us, Hey, I discovered you guys via this puppet video I saw on Instagram, and now I’m like 80 episodes in and I love this show. So, we started also doing animations in that same vein of having these little short clips from the podcast itself that people could get a good taste of the show because we were so confident in the product that we knew like, oh, if you just hear 60 seconds of their little clip, I think you guys will be hooked. And it worked.
Micah Risinger: Yeah. Who knew that puppets were the gateway drug to D&D podcast?
About Tales From The Stinky Dragon Campaign 3
“Campaign 3: Kanon (current) follows “a team of trained soldiers caught in the middle of a war between distant deities and under-dwelling devils. As they turn the tide of this celestial crusade, a voice beckons them from the beyond—destiny or doom?””
“Tales From The Stinky Dragon” is available on on your preferred podcast platform and the Tales From The Stinky Dragon YouTube Channel with new episodes every other Wednesday. Also, Beacon subscribers can listen early with new episodes debuting every other Monday.
