Dungeons and Dragonswas the first table-top role-playing game (TTRPG), but since its release, many people have put their own spin on the genre.Dungeons and Dragonshas also changed consistently since its debut, with tons of different versions and gameplay manuals to follow. Two people, Jude Valentin and Katie Mae Weber, are looking to make a difference in theDungeons and DragonsTTRPG world, and that change is coming in the form ofDeath2Divinity, an all-new 5e homebrew D&D campaign led by and featuring an all fat, all queer cast.

Death2Divinitywill run for fifteen episodes, each one taking place on Jude’s Twitch channel, MermaidRoyal. Jude will be part of the cast of PCs as Adrielle, while Katie Mae will be the GM. However, they both worked together to bring this project to life. In an interview with Game Rant, Jude and Katie Mae discussed the process of creatingDeath2Divinity, the impact they hope it hason theDungeons and Dragonsspace, and some tips on how to craft a broadcast TTRPG and keep players safe while doing so. This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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Question: What isDeath2Divinity?

Katie Mae:Death2Divinityis one of the first, we’re still finding out if we can find any siblings of our own, we think it is the first all fat, all queer live-streamedD&D5e show on Twitch, maybe of all time. It is featuring an all fat, all queer cast from both sides of the fat liberation and theDungeons and Dragonscommunity, so it is a beautifulreuniting adventure where some heroesare going to struggle against the Wildes . . . I don’t want to spoil anything because Jude is here!

[Jude takes off their headphones]

KM: Where our players will descend from their hometown in the sky and go down to the Wildes, the overgrown twisted version of the Fae Wild, and there they will pray for assistance from Divinity itself, which is our re-doing of the deity system forD&D5e [5th Edition] and it’s inspired by modern Arcana, modern Tarot. Eventually, along the way, theymight even decide that Divinityhas to die, we’ll find out. We’ll see if they can succeed or not.

[Jude puts their headphones back on]

KM: I know it’s weird like I will have session prep sessions where viewers will come in and plan the adventure with me, so they already know the spoilers. The only people that I’m trying to keep spoilers from are my five players.

Jude Valentin: Yeah, we’re just not going to be allowed to read the interview. I’m going to be allowed to post it to theDeath2DivinityTwitter, but I’m not going to be allowed to read it, which is fine. [laughs]

Q: How did you both get intoD&D? How long have you been participating inD&D/TTRPGs?

JV: So, Istarted playingD&Dback in Januarywith “Dusk til Dark,” which is aRhyme of the Frostcampaign that Vana (HavanaRama) GM’s over on her channel and it was my firstD&Dexperience ever and I took like a fish to water. I was like “Yes, I want to do all of this!” Because my background is in acting, I have a bachelor’s in acting.

Fun fact, Katie and I actually went to the same college but didn’t meet each other until years later because that’s how the universe works. But, with my fibromyalgia it’s really difficult for me to perform in that way,soD&Dgave me back that aspectof my life that I had lost for a little bit. I was like, “I want to make all the characters, I want to be in all the things,” and everyone was like, “Oh, you want to be in stuff? Here, you can be in stuff!” And it’s just been really fun.

KM: I, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I was taughtD&D3.5 in sixth grade by my father. I was at a table with all of my male cousins, I was the only femme-identifying person at the table. I actually didn’t play with anyone femme-identifying until I went to college, same college Jude did, andI was actually a comedy major. One of the few schools in the country that has a comedy major, and we were surrounded by overwhelmingly white male comedy art opinions and part of the way my close friends and I processed was by playingD&Dtogether and starting our own show. Finding space for us at tables that we made ourselves, which ended up being a very addicting thing and now I’m here.

Q: Are there anyD&Dnewcomers inDeath2Divinity? Or is everyone participating a seasoned player?

JV: We have two! Lyrica (LookItsLyrica) and Keda (kedapalooza) areboth very new toD&D. Lyrica was in Vana’s miniseries “Pull up a Sheet,” which is a series where Vana introduces new players to the hobby. And Keda has gotten a taste in home games, but got overwhelmed and just didn’t play, and then was in my one-shot of “Thirsty Sword Lesbians” and then I was like, “Hey, do you want to come playD&Dwith us? With like, all fat, all queer babes?” And she was like, “Yeah!” So they’re both very new toD&Dwhich is really cool and awesome and I’m just very excited for them to go through a full campaign and see what that’s like for them.

KM: And I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again, I love new players, but I love new playerswho haven’t seenLord of the Ringseven more. Especially since I feel a lot of femme-adjacent people aren’t invited to imagine these grand adventures a lot of the time and they aren’t given a lot of the freedom and autonomy thatDungeons and Dragonsprovides a lot of the time. So a lot of times when new people are starting, you’ll see them asking for permission to make choices about their character, and as they get that freedom and autonomy in realizing thatDungeons and Dragonsand tabletop roleplaying games as a whole are a place for you to reclaim your wants and needs and your dreams, I love that moment for new players. I will always make space for new players because that’s one of my favorite parts.

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Q: Are there any fun ‘house rules’ included in the campaign’s design?

KM: Yes! We’re going to be playing with two rules that I’ve always wanted to play with and I think they’re really exciting. The first is actually really famous on the internet, basically the “I Know A Guy” rule. And I’m looking to give players a bit more say in world-building, I find as Icontinue to DMD&D5e moreand more because I do it a ton, I find myself wanting the players to have more and more say in the world around them and not just me. So the way the “I Know A Guy” rule works is if you are face-to-face with a certain problem, you may tell me, “Oh, well, I know a guy” and you may explain who that person is and your relationship to them and why you are going to them to help you with your problem.

Now, does that necessarily mean that it’s going to solve that problem? No, but it does mean that the player themselves, instead of meguessing what kind of relationshipsthey would want and hoping they like it, would be able to say, “I’ve chosen, this is the relationship I have to this person and they’re who I’m going to.” Now, I get to decide whether or not they do a good job and are convincing, but I think we’re going to play around with that rule a bit as well.

I am also, on the first episode, debuting my own personal take on the Hero Points system, which is in a lot of different TTRPGs in many different forms. But Hero Points are basically moments where heroes get to control the story through their sheer heroic actions for a few moments and we’re going to play with those as well. But, in theme withDeath2Divinitybeing all about a celebration of self and autonomy and bliss, I wanted to make sure the fun little home rules we’re doing with that promoted it as much as possible. So those are my two big focuses.

Q: What inspired the design of theDeath2Divinitylogo?

KM: Don’t make fun of me—I called it my Harley Quinn moment! [laughs] I was like, “Jude, I hope you like it,” because I sent two. I sent one that was super high fantasy and very basic and one that was a little bit wild. But Harley Quinn is the person who hits the realization in her toxic relationship that she’s built a life and society has built a life and decided on a life for her that she no longer wants and she rejects it and becomes a new person.

And that is going to be a very, very central theme of the campaign and seeing how our characters are molded and shaped by the world around them but also how… I know I keep saying the word “autonomy” but it matters so much these days. Being able to step into a world where you’re able to change it is one of the biggest things I can give people right now, just as a person. And so, that was why Igave it a Harley Quinn momentbecause I was like, “I want them to have that freedom of self as aggressively as she did.”

JV: I think there’s also something too with the “messiness” of the logo that’s really fun because femmes so often—because this is also an all-femme campaign—femmes so often are forced into boxes of being neat and proper and buttoned up and very much label on the package. But we’re very much like, “This is not what you’re getting when you come watchDeath2Divinity.”

It’s going to be messy and emotional and loud and things that a lot of feminine presenting people are often not allowed to be publicly. And we welcome that and we want that and we want that messiness, that chaos, that vulnerability, and the intrinsic value of being emotional and what that means. And ugh, I’m very excited. I love this campaign so much and I’m so excited for everyone to meet our characters but also I’m very excited to play as well.

KM: That’s part of the excitement is everyD&Dplayer, like every fat person has their own relationship to their fatness and what it means and what it’s been like for them. So I’m very excited to also genuinely see a campaign where every PC is fat and they have completely different experiences just because I feel like thatis almost never seen in mediawhere multiple fat people are having separate plot arcs at the same time, so I’m jazzed about that part.

Q: What inspired you to create an all fat, all queerD&Dcampaign?

JV: So, I tweeted a thing on Twitter and I said, “Wow it would be so weird if we had an all-fat campaign and Katie Mae DM’d it” because KM has done “Dungeons, Dice, and Everything Nice” and “Generation Fantasy” and is someone who, in my eyes, is very prolific in theD&Dworld. And as a fat femme in the space,has carved a space for themto tell their own stories with all of their friends. And to me, that’s so important in a GM, but also on a very human level, I look up to KM very much and I think KM is amazing and so I was like, “You know what? I want to pitch this campaign but I only want to do this campaign if KM GM’s it.” Like, if anyone else had said, “I want to GM this campaign,” I would have said no. Had Katie Mae not replied to that tweet, I would have just been like, “Oh well. We’ll try again later.”

KM: You baited me with a single tweet and I fell for it. laughs Meanwhile, at the same time I had a dream where we were playingDungeons and Dragonswith Nicole Byer—Nicole Byer, open invitation—

JV: Come be a guest anytime! Come be our NPC for any time for any amount of time, my email is open, my DMs are open—

KM: And I came into your Twitch stream and you were doing other things and I was like, “Hey, I had a dream,” because I couldn’t DM you, your DMs were closed on Twitter so I was like, “I had a dream where we were…” and then it spiraled from there. But I’d had this realization and I think the reason I had this dream is because I hadset up to doMythic Odysseys of Theros, which is on theD&DTwitch channel, and I was setting up my new character and I’d realized I’d been in this scene since I was a sixth-grader.

So if I’d been fat since I was a sixth-grader and I’d been playing D&D since I was a sixth-grader, why had I not made aD&Dcharacter that looked like me? And I got really sad, so I ended up making a fat character for that campaign and I had the first experience of asking an artist to draw a fat person for the first time, which is its own vulnerable experience, and it genuinely happened sitting on my brain a whole lot. Because fatphobia is the most predominantly accepted phobia that exists right now.

And it’s pervasive, it exists in more than if you are not attached to it, more than you would ever think about.Just the phrase “swimsuit body"is fatphobic. There’s so much there and I realized I couldn’t even fathom a world where fat people got to exist without that. And then the second question was, “Well then why the heck haven’t you made it, then?” And that’s how we got here.

Q: I think that’s where autonomy comes in too, like you were talking about, because in the world we’re in now, fat people often don’t get to control how people see them and fatphobia is the most acknowledged and “accepted” type of phobia. So having the chance to control how people see these characters and even how the story goes for different fat people and their own relationship to fatness is important.

KM: Fat people are going to be desired in this show. Like, fat people will be desired and desire others, which is not allowed. Like, the NPCs on the show would never fetishize them or be afraid to introduce them to their friends. Every tiny thing, theseD&Dcharacters aren’t going to have to stop and wonder if they’re sitting in a way that makes them look fat. It’s none of it. Just full permission.

JV: Like, we just get to go to parties and balls and eat what we want and not worry about it and not worry about people making snidecomments about what we’re eating, how we’re eating it, how we look, how we’re being perceived, at least in that way. Which to me is so liberating but also really sad because it’s just, for so long in a world that’s made up—D&Dis made up! It has rules but it’s made up!—and we drew the line at people being fat. Like, I just need everyone to like, think about that, and sit in that because very often in high fantasy worlds there are not fat people.

And it is an omission that is purposeful because the only femme-presenting people or just people in general that are allowed to exist in high fantasy worlds are people that are conventionally attractive. Wesee this also with racism and abilityand not having visibly disabled characters and so on and so forth. And fatphobia stretches out into all of that, fatphobia and anti-fat bias stem from anti-blackness and if you don’t know about that, you should read any article that’s onWe Are Your Voiceabout fatphobia and anti-fatness and how it ties into anti-blackness and how it ties into systemic oppression and how medical fatphobia is awful for people who are fat, but even more so who are People of Color and Black folk as well.

KM: Fatphobia is often, unlike many other phobias, a weapon used to further oppress marginalized people. It absolutely is a weapon all of the time. And that’s the thing is fat people, disabled people, People of Color, are constantly told, “You are taking up too much space. You have already taken up too much space. You have angered me because you have taken up so much space already.“And that’s the thing aboutD&Dis I ask you to take up as much space as you can. And that’s it, that’s the difference.

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Q: Did everyone come up with their characters individually, or was it more of a collaborative process?

JV: I would say that it’s a little bit of both. We had our own separate things, but I will say that Katie Mae did something that I’ve never had to do before, which I think is really cool, and it is you must have one link to two other players before the session begins, like a relationship with two other players. And that had us all work together, and not force us because we all like spending time together and we all love each other very much already, but made us think aboutthis world we’re building togetherand also think about who would our characters be friends with or have relationships with.

Like, spoilers, if you don’t want spoilers, one of the PCs is an ex of my PC because queer drama is important to me, so we’ve all kind of been working together. We’ve been having what Katie Mae likes to call vibe sessions where we’ll sit in a video chat and vibe together and talk about our PCs and ask questions if we need to. A lot of us have made notion boards with our backgrounds and bios and stories that include the other characters, so it’s been very collaborative in a really cool way. And some of us have made playlists involving our relationships with other PCs, so I have a heartbreak playlist for my character and the character that is my ex andit’s a very heartbreaking playlist, it’s a very good playlist, but that’s really cool and I’ve never had to do that before.

KM: I think that’s the part of my version ofDungeons and Dragons[that] is going to be different from my father’s version ofDungeons and Dragons, right? I don’t understand how they do an eight-hour dungeon crawl with no hot NPCs around, I fundamentally don’t get it. But [my] dad’s like, “What doyou mean you made six Spotify playlistsabout one scene?” So there is almost like, queerDungeons and Dragons, so I try to encourage that as much as possible. Like, thirty minutes for an outfit change, sure, tell me about your outfits, let’s hear it.

So, this is the gritty answer for DMs who are looking for really solid advice for how to let characters build naturally in a campaign: what I do is I do safety first, so we run through a safety tools checklist and we talk about that, we talk about consent, we talk about whether things like “mind control magic” are going to be a thing at our table, which are often included in usual safety rule checks, so we go through that. And then I basically pitch to the playersthree basic campaign premises, each with really strong, different themes. So one premise may be a very political-heavy premise, one may be a very outdoor-prevalent premise. So I give them three different themes and then I ask the whole group which theme resonates the most with them.

Not that this would be the plot for their campaign, but which one resonates with them as a player the most. So I collect that information, it’s a really easy and simple way to collect playstyles which is what I’m secretly doing. I collect the playstyles and then I ask them, “Hi, is there anything onyourDungeons and Dragonsbucket list? Is there anything you’ve ever wanted to do duringD&Dbut haven’t been able to?” I personally have never been able to fight a dragon duringDungeons and Dragons, I think it’s a crime. And I find that a lot of people actually have those, so I always ensure to ask for the bucket list.

And then when all that is done, I say, “Okay, let’s talk about concepts” and that’s when we start developing concepts, because at that point we’re all in agreement about themes, we’re all in agreement about safety, we all have heard each other’s wants and needs and we can begin building together. And you’ll find usually by that point your players will do most of the work for you.

Q: If you’re getting together a group of people that don’t know each other that well, that seems like a good icebreaker.

KM: This is actually Jude and I’s first project—our first ever time meeting each other was to talk about this. And Molly (Bearzerky) is my ride-or-die because we were the two only fat people inthe otherD&Dshow that I runand we just had this unspoken “fat promise” that we would take each other on the ride, so I was like “Molly, get in, it’s happening!” So it was my first time meeting all but one player and I genuinely teared up a little when we first all got in the room together because I realized it was the first time I had been in a Zoom call with all fat, queer people in my whole life.

I’m 25 and that was the first time I had been in a room with all fat queer people and it was immediate, it was magical; it was everything my young little middle school heart who was crying for it hoped it would be. It just makes the fact that we get to tell stories together so much more vulnerable and magical and important.

JV: And here’s one thing I will say if you arerunning a group ofD&Dfor peoplethat don’t know each other and some people are new toD&D, make a Discord group. And I say this because you won’t always be in meetings with each other, but if you have a general channel, a text channel, an announcements channel, and a memes channel, someone’s going to post in that memes channel, it’s going to happen!

Now our Discord is very expansive because I keep making channels because I like things to be separated, and that’s just how I personally like to run things. Point is, if you give people a place to communicate and talk to each other and you’re going to be telling stories together, nine times out of ten they’re going to end up talking to each other. Someone is going to break the ice and be like, “Hey, so I found this thing for my character, is it fine?”

KM: I think that it’s very hilarious to me that Jude, theking of setting up safe spaces, just literally walked everyone through how to create a safe space. I think it’s very good.

JV: I think it’s important, I think it’s still important, and especially forD&Dwhere a lot of the times it’s not safe for queer people.D&Dinherently is still very gatekeep-y and is gatekeep-y to the point where there are people who are POC, who are fat, who are queer, who are disabled, who still do not feel like they have space at tables. AndI remember making a Twitter posta few weeks ago about safety tools and how important they are, and people out of nowhere who did not follow me were like, “Well, if you need safety tools then you shouldn’t playD&D.” I think a lot of the time it’s the same people who are like, “Well if you need trigger warnings then don’t consume media.” And it’s like, it doesn’t work that way. That’s not how the world works.

KM: Which, at that point, Games and Online Harassment Hotline is a really great charity resource foranyone who has been harassed onlineand needs help. I always attempt to get that in because it is, it’s part of being a visible queer or fat or Person of Color. It’s part of the game. Unfortunately, I am wildly desensitized to it, and I can only assume you are too, Jude.

Well, I mean, what otherD&Dshow do I have to sit down and be like, “Okay, what thing am I writing up to give to all of my cast members to make sure they stay safe?” Like, I’m having to think about, “Do I make sure everyone’s DMs are closed if they need to be? And everyone’s Twitter settings are on the right way, and make sure that your personal information isn’t on Google, do I need to make sure? Do I have to double-check all of those things before the campaign starts?”

Like that’s the thing, there is a lot we’re having to do on top of just being a funD&Dshow. Jude, Samantha (TheVerbalThing), and I are sitting down and writing primers on fatphobia and ableism and stuff that we can give to anaudience who may be old toD&Dbut new to unlearning these very important things. It is a crossroads we’re very passionate about, but it is also a crossroads.

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Q: For the number of players included, is there any consideration for balancing which classes they’re able to play, or balancing the world around them to keep things challenging?

KM: This is an interesting question because I have a really bad habit of making things very challenging from the get-go. laughs So now I’m finally at a place in my life where I’m like, “Oh, so they might be able to handle it.” That’s the thing with more players, you just have to pull out more tricks. Like, “Ooh, I’m excited to split that party,” like I’m excited to add more enemies, more politics, it just means more intrigue and stuff. Which is very exciting.

Here’s my pro-tip: keep the HP, double the damage. If you want your campaign fights to go faster, keep the HP, double the damage. Seriously though,for stream shows where you don’t havethe liberty of everyone wanting to sit through a four-hour combat, you, unfortunately, do have to think of inventive ways to make combat feel immersive and vibrant and it will definitely be one of our big challenges as we sit down to play, especially since there are new players. But we’re going to be using Rule 20 which is nice, so that’s going to take away some of the hardship, and also maybe I’ll make a few little fun initiative order thing to keep it spicy. I just like takingDungeons and Dragonsand making it very weird and different.

JV: I’m just very excited because we didn’t all naturally pick spellcasters. There are three of us that are spellcasters andtwo of us that are martial class, so I feel like on our own we were like, “We want to play these characters!” And we were just like, “Okay, cool!” And even our spellcasters have weapons, like really cool weapons, so it’ll be fine.

Q: There’s been lots of teasers, but how much of the lore are you willing to divulge aboutDeath2Divinityright now?

[Jude takes off their headphones again]

KM: Yeah, I can do a basic run-through. So, our players are all in the floating city of Kyrthys which is one of the few remaining governments post the Fae Wilde escaping from the Fae Wilde. I wanted to imagine the world they were in had previously beena much more traditionalD&Dworldwith its own plain of Fae Wildes and its own Shadow Fell Realm or whatever we’re calling it this year. I think a very long time ago the veil between the material plane and the Fae Wilde ripped open and I think it was after a long time of mortal beings disregarding both Divinity and nature itself—two incredibly powerful forces.

And the Fae Wilde’s main source of magic in this universe is Essences, so Essences to me is kind of a revamped magic system. Magic is made up of two very specific things here—Essences, which is the truth of being able to really know something, what is the pure Essence of it, and Determination, which isobviously anUndertalereference. Basically what this magic system is, is how Determined you are to use the Arcane, which is magic, to change the Essence of things around you. And to do that you would truly have to know the Essence, and so the thing that Fae and the Wildes feed on are Essences. So the material plane was completely devoured as the Fae ate all the Essences of the material plane and the beings who were left escaped to the sky.

So at this point, our heroes have never known the ground, never known the Earth, they also don’t know the harm that they’ve caused and the legacy of beings behind them. They also don’t know they will be the definers of the legacy after them. So the campaign is very much going to be about them being able to come down from Kyrthys, this floating city in the sky, to the ruins of a society that messed up. Which I think is very relatable to people right now, andhow do you be okay with the damagethat has been caused by people like you and navigate damage that is being caused to people like you and also save the world. Just this little old thing that’s snuck in there at the end!

So they’re going to get down there, there are these massive Colossyls which are inspired byBreath of the Wildthat are sort of these massive creature-monsters that I’m designing and really excited about who are roaming over the plains and they will be actively hunting our heroes as they attempt to fulfillthe prophecy before the Fae devourall the Essences of the Plain. And maybe at that time do some things about Divinity, I’m trying to be very quiet about Divinity’s place in this until the campaign starts. But that’s the basic teasers that I can give now.

[Jude puts on their headphones again]

KM: Our Patreon is very heavily inspired by Glass Beach Band’s Patreon, which is an incredible band run by people I admire very, very much. The way they run their Patreon is if you donate any amount of money, you get access to what is behind the Patreon wall. So there’s that minimum, but basically, you pledge your level, and no matter what, each pledge level represents something that is being unlocked. But once you’ve paid for that pledge for that branch, all of the content is unlocked for you.

You are choosing what you want to support but youare gaining access to everything. I personally do not want to hold content behind paywalls, that is philosophically antithetical to the space I want to create and I think that most people feel that way. So basically the way we’ve done it is, “Hey, any money unlocks the content, you are paying so that other people with less access than you get that content too.” You’re contributing as much as you want to help foster that space, but we’re not going to keep anything from you.

So after every episode, there’s going to be a talk-back episode that corresponds with that episode so if you have questions about episode one you can ask those questions and we will answer them as a group and then put that up asa separate but conjoined podcast. The reason I wanted to do that is highly inspired by “Dimension 20.” I wanted to do it becauseDeath2Divinityis so fascinating in all of the themes and the lore that people are going to have questions and I know that people are going to have questions about our PCs because they’re all so interesting already and nothing has happened. There’s also behind-the-scenes stuff, so if we have meetings or session zeros or if people are making more playlists or Katie Mae ever wants to do GM diaries or stuff like that.

KM: Any stat blocks or monsters that I make will end up on our Patreon as well.

JV: I am going to probably atsome point make a YouTubefor us, that’s to be decided on how many energies I have. But I do want to put our show on YouTube so we have a space for those VODs to go and if people aren’t a fan of podcasting but do want to watch the VODs they do have a place to go. I will probably also put “Mysteries Behind Divinity” also on that YouTube as well. Like, I want as many people to see the show as possible because the thing of it is, there are fat queer people everywhere, they aren’t just on Twitch. So my goal as our marketing person is to make sure that as many people see this show as possible because it could change someone’s life.

Fundamentally, it could change someone’s life and that’s what I’m in it for. The other thing is monthly AMAs with the cast that don’t necessarily have to pertain to the show, but just AMAs in general because I think they’re fun. So if you want tostart a war about pineapple on pizza, Patreon is the place to be to ask those questions. Patreon is essentially going to go back into the show and also into us as well. Like, the more support we get on Patreon, the more show things we can produce. So now our first goal is 100 Patrons, and once we reach 100 Patrons we will do a side quest, like a one-shot in someone’s backstory.

KM: With maybe Nicole Byer—again, Nicole, I’m here.

JV: I’m just saying! But yes, we are going to be creating those milestones as time goes on, but the first milestone is creating a one-shot based in the backstory or just a side quest that’s not in our main questline because I think those are fun. I think allowing us to explore the stuff that’s in our backstory more heavily solidifies who our characters are and how those things impacted them.

It’s one thing to write your backstory, butit’s another to experience that backstoryand have to play it out with other people and maybe some things change based on the decisions you make, like ugh, wild! Patreon’s going to be really fun and I’m really excited. This is going to be the first project that I have taken point on marketing and producing for, and so it is like me and Katie Mae’s little child.

KM: The first project where I don’t have to do my own marketing so I get to sit in the little corner and write more lore! I am just so continuously lucky that I get to tell stories with incredible people that incredible people want to watch. I love putting my heart into it. Truly, telling stories means the world to me and I’m really excited to tell this one.

JV: I messaged Katie when we first started doing this and I was like, “I feel in my bones that this is going to change a lot of thingsand open a lot of doorsand do a lot of good.” And I still feel that way, and again we haven’t started so I’m very excited to see what happens once we start playing and performing and telling stories.

KM: And that’s the thing is it’s already radically changed so much for me. I talked about sitting in that room for the first time with only other fat and queer people and how fundamental that moment was.I got to spend the pandemicin this last year consciously deciding what I did and did not let into my space. So I spent a year in this bubble; I was finally able to begin unlearning fatphobia and really how much of it was ingrained in my system.

And I’ve only just started—I’m going to be unpacking it for the rest of my life, but just the start, like I wish I could take your hand and say, “Hey, come hang out in this show. Come do this, we’re going to spend three hours and the whole time you’re not going to have to worry about eating too much in front of your friends and it being a weird thing. You’re not going to have to worry about looking weird when you order something at the dinner table. You’re not going to have to worryabout being asked to go shoppingwith your friends and knowing they’re only going to straight-size stores. You’re not going to have to experience any of that.”

And you would be amazed how different it feels when you can go a whole day without hating your fatness. Like, if you can’t go a whole day without hating your fatness, just come hang out for a while. I want to show you that things can be better than that.

JV: Yeah, it’s possible. And I say all the time, “Your body is the least interesting thing about you.” Bodies are allowed to be bodies, and that’s okay. And if you don’t feel one hundred percent about your body, that’s also okay. You don’t have to love your body to respect it. Here are a few things I used to say all the time when I used to do body liberation stuff all the time. One: Thinness is not an accomplishment. Two: Health is not a prerequisite. And three: Thinness is not a prerequisite to respect.

You deserve respect no matter whatyour body looks like, no matter the abilities of your body, no matter how much space you do or do not take up, no matter how much you eat, no matter what your diagnoses are; you deserve respect period because you are a human being that exists on this Earth. Your body is the least interesting thing about you and the sooner you learn that and the sooner you learn there are so many wonderful, incredible things you have to offer that can not include your body, the sooner you can get to the really cool stuff of, like, fighting dragons.

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Q: What was most difficult about assembling the group forDeath2Divinity?

JV: Samatha’s schedule. [laughs]

KM: Oh, see, I have a completely different answer and it’s that I couldn’t keep saying yes to people.

JV: Oh, that’s true, too. I always like to pick on Sam a little bit. Just kidding, Sam, I love you very much!

KM: I just, oh my god, just the amount of beautiful fat queer people who were like, “This sounds beautiful, put me in coach!” And I want to be like, “Yes, I will have six tables and they will all be fat and queer,” and then I was like, “No, I have a full-time job.” [laughs] That is the sad part, but hopefullyif we make an amazing spacefor this, then we can start getting guests in and we can start more body types, more perspectives on fatness and queerness, and more incredible, interestingD&Dcharacters because that’s when they’re most interesting.

JV: MakeDeath2Divinityreally big so we can make a production house/co-op and have all the games. That’s the dream for me. The dream for me is to be able to make a space where we’re able to tell all these stories and additional, adjacent stories and give people the opportunity to play at tables where they feel seen and respected, and heard.

Q: What are you most excited about viewers getting to see?

JV: I’m excited for the Divinity system, I think that assomeone who is Pagan and a witchand uses Tarot in a lot of their day to day, it’s going to be very interesting for me to have a campaign about Divinity and the Divine and things like that. And I know that it’s going to kind of send me on a self-assessment journey personally, which is going to be really fun.

I always love playingD&Dbecause ofthe moral quandary ofD&Dof like, “Are we the bad guys?” like that’s my favorite part. My favorite part is messing up a guy and killing him and then being like, “Are we the bad guys?” The thing I’m most excited about though, however, is figuring out how Lyrica’s character transforms into a shark and how that works in our world.

KM: I am excited for love triangles, I am excited for betrayal and angst. What I’m genuinely most excited for the whole audience to see is genuinely just,a group of fat queer peoplemaking space for themselves. That on top of I make all my players cry, so that’ll probably happen. I’m really well-known for my betrayals.

JV: I’m excited for all the shenanigans that I get to pull. I am the type of player, if you’ve never watched me playD&D, I’m the type of player that looks my DMs in the eye and tells them to get wrecked, like that’s just who I am as a person and it’s with love, it’s with peace and love. I’m also really excited about combat, I think that combat for me is probably one of the most interesting parts ofD&D. Like, I love roleplaying and I think improv is fun, but I really love combat and the mechanics of combat soI love figuring out the mechanicsof a game, solving puzzles, figuring out how to defeat the enemy and doing it in such a way that is not what’s “supposed to” happen.

JV: Listen, I’m very excited.

[End.]

Death2Divinitypremieres on July 16 at 8:00 p.m. EST on the MermaidRoyal Twitch channel.

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