We recorded our second Blackfyre Rebellions episode yesterday afternoon, continuing our progress towards the Redgrass Field. Normally we are able to release the episode to Patreon/donators the same day, but we had tickets to the Season 5 early premiere in Atlanta and that took up our evening. So editing is occurring right now, and early release folks will get the episode starting by tonight most likely, then throughout the week.

Full release will be late Sunday the 4th/early Monday the 5th!

We had Steven Attewell of Race for the Iron Throne on as a guest. He’s extremely knowledgeable about ASOIAF, medieval history and in particular the Blackfyres because he just wrote a 4 part essay series on Tower of the Hand called “The Blacks and the Reds” (part 1 here).

We were able to do more free form discussion on the topic, since Steven has plenty of podcasting experience on top of his expert level grasp of the material. So this episode has a hybrid, half-scripted/half-discussion feel to it. We had to rush a bit at the end as we’re not used to timing unscripted discussions and we ran out of time before getting to everything. But surely, like some other things, we will get better with experience. The stuff we cut at the end will simply be moved to another one of the Blackfyre Eps. I knew in advance there was a chance this would happen, so it was a simple adjustment. Ashaya is not in it, though it has nothing to do with the illness she had last time. She was scheduled to not participate in this one, and will be back for the next episode. We talked a lot about Dorne, the Great Bastards, the two Baelors (the Blessed and Breakspear), how awkward it was to be Aegon the Unworthy’s son and even Crusader Kings II and Telltale Games.

So overall it was pretty smooth and I’m happy with how the episode came out. I love that there is so much excellent material to play with before we even get to the rebellion itself.

-Aziz