Podcast / Doomsayers

"...and fear not the Doomsayers."

— George's Catchphrase, signing off on each episode

Doomsayers is a UK-based Actual Play Podcast for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, currently focused around The Enemy Within campaign, starring George (the podcast operator and GM), Callum (currently playing Ebenezer Gütte), Sez (currently playing Seraphina Esmerelda Honeycakes), Steve (currently playing Nornghal Varrskrati) and Tish (currently playing Stör Sumpfläufer).

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This podcast provides examples of:

• The Alcoholic: Josef's cheerful heavy drinking is contrasted with Gottri's status as a pitiful drunken tramp.
• Altdorf Gangster: Ebenezer.
• Ambiguous Gender: Stör. Characters variably refer to Stör with male, female and neuter pronouns, and terms of address: "mate", "love", "sir", "mein Herr", "meine Frau", "madam", "lad"; Stör answers to them all.
  • Exaggerated when it's revealed that even Stör's uncle isn't sure about their gender.
• Ambiguously Bi: Stör gets upset when a handsome young man leaves their sight, but also agrees to take part in a joust on the promise of pretty girls.
• Angrish: Ebenezer gives grumbled, half-strangled rants when he's annoyed.
• Annoying Arrows: Nornghal gets skewered with a crossbow bolt, but owing to his ridiculously high toughness he can basically ignore it.
• Anti-Hero: Every main character, with the exception of Stör, is either morally shady or a straight-up criminal. The opening episode's description describes them as a "motley band of misfits, hustlers and thugs".
• Appeal to Force: Franz calmly tells the characters they can keep his secrets, or be beaten up and drowned in a sewer. Ebenezer promptly agrees.
• Attention Whore: A huge chunk of the plot revolves around Ebenezer's desire for recognition and acclaim.
• Bar Brawl: These frequently occur; justified in that this is a violent world with constant alcohol consumption. An occasional brawl is seen as a bit of fun as long as nobody draws steel.
• Bawdy Song: Most Imperial songs seem to be this. People gather around buskers to clap in time and "shout out the last rude word of each stanza".
• Becoming the Mask: Ebenezer believes that if he maintains the pretense of nobility long enough, he might as well be a noble himself.
  Ebenezer: How do you think the nobles got enobbled [sic] in the first place?...You just have to, you know, fake it till you make it.
• Berserk Button: Don't mess with Ebenezer's plans. Justified, in that he spends almost every waking hour plotting to improve his lot.
• Big Eater: Seraphina, who stands 3'11", eats and drinks more than the average human.
• The Big Guy: Stör.
• Big Stupid Doo Doo Head: A furious Stör calls Nornghal a "horrible little Dwarf".
• Bonus Material: Episode 9.5, featuring Ebenezer and Seraphina at a business dinner.
• Book Smart: Seraphina, the only member of the party who can read fluently, possesses three Lore skills, three intellectual Trade skills, and speaks several langages.
• Bounty Hunter: The party get chased by one.

• British Accents: Some of the various accents of the Empire are represented by these: working Altdorfers and other town bred Reiklanders speak with Cockney accents, country Reiklanders with neutral "Estuary English" accents, Middenheimers with gruff North London accents, Averlanders with Welsh accents, Stirlanders with Gloucestershire accents, Hochlanders with Scottish accents, Mootland Halflings with thick West Country accents, and so on and so on.
• The Brute:
  • Fat Gunther and Dugbog.
  • Rein and Rein.
• Buffy Speak: All the characters are subject to this: Ebenezer because he's trying to explain concepts he doesn't understand, Nornghal and Stör because they can't find the right words, and Seraphina because she's trying to speak as fast as she thinks.
• Butt-Monkey: Everyone, depending on the episode.
• Clandestine Chemist: Seraphina, an apothecary, is heavily implied (and on occasion outright stated) to make most of her income by dealing drugs and peddling poison.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Nornghal and Stör both fill this role sometimes.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Every single member of the podcast does this from time to time.
• Combat Medic: Seraphina fights capably and is the main party healer.
• Content Warnings: George issues one at the start of each episode, warning of violence, discrimination, and bad language.
• Cool Boat: The Berebeli, Josef's super-sized river barge full of wine.
• Country Matters: Nobody is shy about using foul language.
• Covered in Gunge: Characters end up soaked in mud, vomit, raw sewage and other unpleasantness almost every session.
  Random Altdorf woman: Look out below!
  Seraphina: It's piss, isn't it?
  [The woman tosses the contents of a chamberpot out of the window, drenching the characters.]
• Crapsack World: Nearly everyone is immoral or amoral, and nearly everything is difficult, dangerous and physically unpleasant.
• Culture Clash: Between everyone.
• Depraved Bisexual:
  Tish[explaining Stör's sexual orientation]: I'm looking for a very particular woman, but absolutely any man.
  George: This is pansexuality in the sense that if you're a man, you can literally look like a pan.
  Steve: Or like you've been hit with one.
• The Determinator:
  • Everyone will go through whatever's required for their characters' motivations.
  • Out of universe, towards the last part of the first season, George is audibly very ill but records anyway.
• The Dragon:
  • Dugbog, to the Boss.
  • Rein and Rein, to Franz.
• Dump Stat: All the charaters have their own.
• The Dung Ages: Emphasis on the dung.
• Emergency Weapon: Seraphina and Ebenezer both use crossbows as their primary weapons, but also each carry a club and two daggers in case of emergency.
• Fake Aristocrat: Ebenezer.
• Fantastic Drug: "Pipe-weed" is readily available for sale, while tobacco is a rare and expensive luxury.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • People automatically assume that Seraphina is a thief as she's a Halfling.
  • Reiklanders apparently like to beat up Elves for fun.
  • Deconstructed by Gottri, who claims that he's being discriminated against for being a Dwarf, whereas as a matter of fact he brings all his misfortune upon himself.

• Foreshadowing: Characters are mentioned who appear in later episodes.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Ebenezer is the Optimist, Seraphina is the Cynic, Nornghal is the Realist and Stör is Conflicted.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Ebenezer is sanguine, Nornghal is choleric, Seraphina is phlegmatic and Stör is melancholic.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: After the UK, the primary audiences for the podcast are Australia and Central Europe.
• Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Everyone is fond of these; a big one kick-starts the plot.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Played with when Seraphina loots a purple-dyed suede jerkin from a cultist who was tailing the group. She thinks it looks "well smart", but in actuality it fits her like a tabard, and Seraphina's anything but graceful.
• Groin Attack: The party's first kill.
  Sez: What a way to die.
  Steve: Clubbed in the nuts.
• Gratuitous German: Technically gratuitous Reikspiel, but German words crop up on a ridiculously frequent basis.
• Guile Hero: Ebenezer likes to think of himself like this.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Ebenezer starts off with a club. As soon as he can, he exchanges it for a just-as-effective but higher status sword.
• Houseboat Hero: Uncle Josef.
• Idiot Ball: Passed between the characters at blinding speed.
• I'll Kill You!: Ebenezer calmly informs Stör that he'll slit her throat if he doesn't receive a fair cut of the party purse.
• Improvised Weapon: Boathooks, crowbars, bottles and buckets have all been used to impressive effect.
  • Burning diapers, not so much.
• Intoxication Ensues & Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Stör, Nornghal and Josef's drinking competition.
• Iron Butt-Monkey: Nornghal suffers the most wounds and other negative consequences from the party's adventures, but doesn't slow down.
• It's All About Me: Ebenezer's motivations revolve almost entirely around self-preservation and self-betterment.
• Johann-of-All-Stats: Seraphina, who not only has a wide range of intellectual, social and dexterity skills but is also surprisingly tough and effective in combat.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: The party tends to disintegrate into splinter groups on a frequent basis, because while they're well aware that they are better off together than apart, they get on each other's nerves.
• Lovable Rogue:
  • Franz, though he has a very nasty streak as well.
  • Ebenezer thinks of himself like this, though the others don't much agree.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Stör Sumpfläufer: Strong Swamprunner.
  • Nornghal Varrskrati: Barrenskull Seascavenger.
• Mock Millionaire: Ebenezer tries.
• Motor Mouth: An Informed Attribute of Seraphina's - it's established that she speaks very quickly, as Halflings tend to do in-universe, but this is deliberately downplayed for the purposes of intelligibility during the recordings.
• Near-Miss Groin Attack: In a wrestling match, Nornghal tries to kick his opponent in the nads.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Everyone's reaction when they realise Dugbog's absence has resulted in the Boss's death and Ebenezer's subsequent servitude.
• Nephewism: Seraphina was raised by her uncle Theophilius, while Stör was raised by an extended network of relatives including their Uncle Josef.
• Nice Guy: Stör.
• Nobody Poops: Averted. Averted so much.
• No Budget: An ongoing source of humour. The podcast is released on a small scale, without funding, using equipment and software already owned by the members. George handles all aspects of editing and disseminating the podcast in his free time.
• No Social Skills: Fellowship is Nornghal's Dump Stat. Steve plays him as abrupt, unsubtle and asocial rather than vile, but he has a hard time getting people to heed or like him.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Ebenezer regards Nornghal as a complete and utter moron, which allows Nornghal to cheat him on more than one occasion.
• Obligatory Swearing: In this rough-and-tough world, people don't sugar-coat things.
  • This doesn't quite justify things for the members of the podcast rather than the characters they play, all of whom are amazingly foul-mouthed from time to time.
• Only Sane Man: Shared between Seraphina and Ebenezer. Seraphina's the most rational; Ebenezer's the smartest.
• Overly Long Gag: The title of the seventh episode.
• Passionate Sports Girl: In Middenheim, Seraphina fell in love with the sport of Middenball - essentially hyper-violent rugby.
• The Paranoiac: Ebenezer. Entirely justified.

&&* Pirate: Nornghal's Career.

• Precision F-Strike: A specialty of Steve.
• Previously on…: Each episode begins with a recap of the previous episode from one of the players, in character.
• Produce Pelting: A Dwarf who makes friends with Nornghal is subject to this while sitting in the stocks.
• Punny Name: This is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. What did you expect?
  George:...and the von Saponatheim family.
  Tish: Very good.
• Rags to Riches: As the party travel and gain money, their living standards and clothing improve.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The party is openly described as this.
• Real Time: An out-of-universe example. Typically, Actual Play podcast episodes last between one or two hours. Minus cuts for breaks and recording issues, each Doomsayers episode is as long as the session it was recorded from, meaning that episode length varies quite dramatically, currently between just shy of two hours and well over four hours.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Stör's sensible, quiet use of force versus Nornghal's particular love of violence.
  • Ebenezer's hyperactive, greedy, law-breaking nature and street-smarts versus Seraphina's calm steadiness, preparedness, fondness for taking calculated risks, and book-learning.
• Rousing Speech: Ebenezer tries to make these to "inspire" the party to do what he wants.
• Sanity Ball: Generally held by Seraphina (the most rational member of the group) or Stör (the most morally upright), although Ebenezer (the most intuitive) and Nornghal (the most determined) all catch hold of it sometimes.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Ebenezer likes to try this.
• Set Swords to "Stun": A troop of Roadwardens break up a brawl by wading through a tavern hitting people with the flats of their swords at random.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: When the characters manage to clean up, shave, and acquire new clothes at the end of a long journey, they're all impressed at how good they look.
• Shout-Out:
  • Callum gets a double one: to Ebeneezer Goode by The Shamen, and to A Christmas Carol, given his character's stingy, penny-pinching, money-grubbing attitude.
  • To Stuart Hogg, Exeter Chiefs and Scotland fullback, during a vicious game of Middenball.
  • To "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, with Crusher's finishing move.
  • To Only Fools and Horses, when Dirk "Delberz" Trötte arrives.
  • To A Knight's Tale, with the title of the sixth episode: "It's Called a Lance, Hello?".
  • To [[Gorillaz]], when a fortune-teller informs Stör and Nornghal that "you don't see with your eyes, you perceive with your mind".
• Slipping a Mickey: The party deal with Gottri like this.

• Sophisticated as Hell:
  • In-universe, Seraphina has the largest vocabulary of any character, and curses like a sailor.
  • Out of universe, all five members have broad vocabularies and swear a lot.
• Speech Impediment: George speaks with a mild but noticeable lisp.
• Street Urchin: Ebenezer was raised like this; the Boss is one of these, and the streets are full of them.
• The Stoner: Seraphina makes full use of her species' ability to get high on tobacco.
• Team Mom: Seraphina and Stör share this duty.
• The Dog Bites Back: Fed up of Ebenezer's rudeness and self-centredness, Stör shoves him. Stör's much bigger and stronger than Ebenezer, so the shove causes him to fall over, breaking his ribs. Stör totally breaks down.
• The Teetotaler: While it's almost impossible to avoid alcohol entirely in the Old World, Ebenezer keeps his drinking to the bare minimum.
• Uncool Undies: Stör apparently wears long johns.
• Verbal Tic:
  • "At this/that point," from George, when something occurs that breaks the flow of an in-character action or conversation. The other players occasionally use this too.
  • "Okay," with an upward inflection from George, as play changes topic or scene.
  • "Right," from Ebenezer.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Nobles in the Empire apparently like to puke on commoners.
• White-Collar Crime: Ebenezer is a big fan of fraud, long cons, and peddling stolen property.
• With Friends Like These...: The other party members frequently complain that while Ebenezer claims to be trying to make them all rich, all he's managed to do so far is to cost them money and endanger their lives.

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