Web Video / Transplanar RPG

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Transplanar RPG is a D&D 5e and indie TTRPG Actual Play series starring an all-trans POC-led cast set in a homebrew non-colonial anti-orientalist multiverse. The series first began in June 2020 with the first campaign, "The Second Stranger," focusing on a cast of broken heroes helping broken Gods save a broken world. The first campaign spanned 120 episodes over eight total arcs with supplementary content in-between.

Three years later, the second campaign, "The Chaos Protocol" began in June 2023, now shifting focus to an inter-dimensional plane hopping team of strike agents named Strike Team Nova, as they travel to other worlds (represented by the settings of various TTRPGs) to enact the will of Fate herself and their journey of overcoming grief following a significant loss.

Co-produced by gamemaster Connie Chang and dramaturg Sea Thomas, the couple and their fellow castmates focus on narrative driven gameplay with dark themes, emotional character drama, and a unique setting and stories about queer love.

Aside from the main campaigns, there's a myriad of other series produced by Transplanar RPG, such as the holypunk two-player actual play podcast Godkiller: First Blood, and Professor Chang's Tabletop Workshop, where Connie discusses their processing and tips as a Gamemaster.

Sessions are live-streamed via Twitch, and on both Youtube and GM Connie's TikTok as of January 2024. Edited VODs are later uploaded to YouTube and podcast versions are released on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Cast members:

• Connie Chang as the Gamemaster
• Sea Thomas as Øka Hyen (Second Stranger) and Artemis (Chaos Protocol)
• Max Guo as Cardew "Dewey" Quurk (Second Stranger)
• Erica Fladeland as Vasanti "Vee" Nauchtsherzo (Second Stranger)
• Lyra Olsen as Manaia Waiura (Second Stranger)
• Hamnah Shahid as Jaran Kader (Second Stranger)
• Dare Hickman as Gentle Camellia (Second Stranger)
• quinn B. Rodriguez as Citlalli Goldheart (Second Stranger)
• Austin Knight as Abiku Ishtar (Second Stranger) and Hai Lin Amergin (Chaos Protocol)
• Valiant Dorian as Voska (Second Stranger) and Seir (Chaos Protocol)
• Samm Star as Lumiera (Chaos Protocol)
• Cai K as Xainan Esch (Chaos Protocol)

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Tropes across all series

• Bad Powers, Good People
  • Campaign 1 - Big Bad Oblivion is the embodiment of entropy and destruction, but they are deeply broken and lonely.
  • Campaign 2 - Seir's powers are inherently destructive, but despite constantly being belittled as the lesser twin of The Chosen One, he's a very diligent and kind person who deeply cares for the people closest to him.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Quite a few across both campaigns.
  • Campaign 2 - Lumiera and Sing, after much ship teasing for several sessions, finally share one towards the end of the latter half of Arc 1.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Connie has had some chilling moments of doing this to her players to mess with them in and even out of games.
  • Campaign 1 - Probably the most devastating moment for an arc finale was Connie revealing her opening monologue was actually the main antagonist addressing the rest of the cast. She then proceeds to screw the combat initiative order in the middle of a fight.
  • Campaign 2 - Just as the cast are wrapping up a session, Connie stops mid-outro and starts a cryptic monologue saying someone, we don't know who, is coming before looking straight at the camera to say, "Good morning, world. I'm almost ready."
• Cast Full of Gay: As the series is an all-queer POC-led show, the cast and their characters come in a wide variety of gender identities and sexual orientation.
• Control Freak: Fate.
• Crossover: The cast's first ever live show was a non-canon one shot of the Hounds of Mercy and Strike Team Nova fighting in a coliseum of queer chaos, watched over by Squeak the grung.
• Freudian Slip: As this is a live play series, quite a few of these tend to happen.
  • Campaign 2 - Abasi, in noticing Seir's grumpy mood at one point, compares his demeanor to saying that someone either ate his swords (his signature crescent blades) or... his sister. "In the bad way."
• Good Powers, Bad People: Fate, the embodiment of all creation, proves to be extremely egotistic when it comes to how she wants to run everything in existence as she sees fit.
• Meet Cute: Connie revealed in a Tiktok video how they invited their then crush, Sea, to play in a D&D game in an attempt to get closer with them. Sea had never played D&D before and for said game, they made a grave cleric kenku who constantly mimicked train whistle noises. The campaign didn't last very long, but the two did start dating and have been together ever since.
• Numerological Motif: The number "8" is a recurring motif across the entirety of the Second Stranger, as Andake has eight major deities and eight regions they represent. The series is also divided into eight arcs, which carried over into the Chaos Protocol as Strike Team Nova explore eight different worlds (game systems) each arc.
• Opening Monologue: Also known as the "Connie cold opener," a series staple for the beginning of each episode of both campaigns.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Quite a few instances occur in which cast members are called out or actively call out someone else, or even witness someone else do it.
  • Campaign 1 examples include:
    • Dewey's ex-wife rightfully chewing him out for not being there for her and their daughter.
    • During the final battle, Oblivion calls out Fate herself for being an ignorant coward. Some of the cast members are even shown to side with them on this.
  • Campaign 2 examples include:
    • Seir frustratedly blowing up at Lumiera because he felt abandoned and betrayed following their fallout with another strike team at T.R.A.N.S..
• Time Skip
  • Godkiller: First Blood has one very early on towards the end of Episode 2, as we flash forward 7 years after Rune kills the Devil.
  • Campaign 2 has a two-month time skip between the first two arcs as Nova deals with the fallout of Sing's death.

Tropes for Second Stranger

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Our heroes face many foes on their journey, from cunning manipulators, desperate murderers, even gods with superiority complexes... And then there's Adam, from Ohio, who is a bitcoin merchant.
• The Chosen Many: There are four Paragons and four Keepers chosen by the Gods of Andake to protect the world (or die trying.)
• Dark Is Not Evil: Oblivion is the Big Bad of Campaign 1, as they represent the end of all things, but they are also deeply broken, which the rest of the cast realizes by the finale the only way to stop them is to extend their kindness and talk them down.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: How does the final battle end for the series finale? Oka punches the embodiment of fate herself in the face.
• Holy Hand Grenade: After being told off by Oblivion for being a coward, Fate makes the sky explode.
• Light Is Not Good: Fate may appear to be a Big Good on the surface, but she is extremely self-centered in her attempts of running the universe by her will.
• The Power of Creation: Fate is a Precept, a natural law of the universe, who embodies the creation of everything in existence.
• Power of the Void: The Precept known as Oblivion is the embodiment of the end to all things.
• The Professor: Dr. Hitsagutan Oluso.
• Ret-Gone: Happens to an entire sister planet of Andake, Tungal, with its people and very existence becoming lost to memory.
• Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain: Oblivion is the embodiment of entropy and the end of all things, driven to annihilate all of existence simply because they were lonely. Fate is the embodiment of creation and the beginning of all things, has a massive ego, and willing to go to devastating lengths to keep the ways of the universe as she wants it.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Oblivion.

Tropes for Chaos Protocol

• 42: Strike Team Nova's rank in the Syndicate is Rank 42. After the end of Arc 1 with their first successful mayday mission, it's been bumped up to Rank 40.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Xiaocheng's goose companion is simply named "Goose."
• Arc Words
  • Overall - "Trust in her will." This is the strike agents' credo of T.R.A.N.S. to affirm their loyalty to Fate.
  • Arc 1 - "Oil, ash, and flame."
  • Arc 2 - "Mask" and "hunger" are brought up frequently.
• Bilingual Bonus: For the second arc, which takes place in the City of Heaven and is heavily inspired by xianxia, the channel's socials started posting the message "相信命运" which translates to "Trust in her will," referring to the strike agents' devotion to Fate.
  • When the group first meets Hun Xiaocheng in the City of Heaven, they are speaking Mandarin (aka the tongue of gods in their world.) While in-character, none of Nova can understand them, Seir's player Valiant is the only other person in the group who knows the language, noted by his burst of laughter when Xiaocheng's first spoken lines are...
  "Brother Goose, do you not like me or not?!"
• Birthmark of Destiny: Both Sing and Seir have sun marks on their chests, signifying their connection to Fate.
• Bittersweet Ending: Arc 1 ends with Strike Team Nova succeeding in helping the Scion's save the Wildsea and defeat Auregnis, but Sing dies by the end of the battle.
• Blatant Lies: In Arc 1, when Fate is addressing the members of the Syndicate and talking about the infinite struggle against fellow Precept Oblivion, she cheerfully announces that the two have "worked things out." Anyone who knows about Campaign 1's finale knows this isn't true.
• Casting a Shadow: Yǐng Hè's powers revolve around this.
• The Chosen One: Sing was quite literally crafted by Fate herself to fulfill a very specific purpose... What that is, however, nobody knows. Not even Sing herself.
• Divine Parentage: Seemingly implied as Artemis during part of her monologue in the finale for Arc 1 calls Lumiera "child of Chronos," aka the Greek god of time.
• Famous Last Words: Sing's last words after her Heroic Sacrifice continue to haunt the members of Nova long after her death.
  "She was right."
• Five Stages of Grief: Confirmed to be a major theme of Campaign 2 as each arc will explore the player characters' coping with a significant loss. Arc 1 is the event itself with Sing's death, while Arc 2 begins the grieving process with denial.
• Fun with Acronyms: Transplanar Reification and Nourishment Syndicate, aka T.R.A.N.S., is the base of operations for Strike Team Nova and other multiverse strike agents who serve the Precepts.
• Genius Loci: The Wildsea itself is revealed to be this, as the entire world is actually a sleeping dragon.
• Heroic Sacrifice: During the final battle, Sing protects Princess Amergin from getting hit with a wayward piece of debree from the exploding Auregnis, dying in the process before her team's eyes.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Goose's honking. Xiaocheng regularly carries a conversation with it, and eventually most of Nova (sans a confused Seir) is listening intently as Goose tells a dramatic campfire story.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Despite Sing's position as Fate's Chosen One, she is virtually unaware of what destiny she's meant to fulfill, people put her on a pedestal while belittling her twin Seir, and the pressure of it all temporarily strains her relationship with said twin during their first mayday mission. If that wasn't bad enough, it turns out that her destiny was to die in the Wildsea to motivate the other agents of T.R.A.N.S. to garner hatred towards Oblivion.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: There's a chance new viewers coming into the series after the end of the first campaign will know that Fate isn't all she seems and not fully trust her.
• Living Shadow: The people of Zhīguāng live alongside their shadows, save for Yǐng Hè, whose powers of manipulating shadows prevents her from having her own.
• Loose Lips: Distressed after getting separated from Nova, the Oracle appears before Xiaocheng and proceeds to divulge everything about T.R.A.N.S. and Nova's journey up until this point.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The false City of Heaven the gods are trapped in is a dream world, and something has corrupted the Mist to keep them there and slowly turning them into monsters.
• Marked to Die: The opening monologue of Arc 1 basically tells us that Sing is going to die.
• Memento MacGuffin: Lumiera carves the name of her forgotten home Tungal into her pocket watch.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Xiaocheng's breakdown in arc 2 episode 19 as their actions to prevent the possibility of Emperor Long Du's assassination instead trapped them in a dream world inside a magic gourd.
• Mythology Gag: For the City of Heaven setting, Connie combines the mechanics of the original City of Mist system with her own Godkiller system, updated for a xianxia inspired setting.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, Strike Team Nova's mission on Earth (yes, our Earth) isn't remembered quite fondly.
• Rapid Aging: Lumiera does this purposefully to kill the Baron in the Wildsea. However, this also begins occurring to herself as she keeps using chronourgy irresponsibly. In the City of Mists, when trying to reverse time to avoid an oncoming attack from the corrupted stone-lion beast, she ages forward 8 years. Xiaocheng manages to help counteract this by instead removing 8 years from Lumiera's lifespan.
• The Scapegoat: In Arc 2, when addressing the Hands of Fate after Sing's death, Fate declares that it was the fault of Oblivion.
• Seers: Seir is this, as one of his powers is getting visions or "omens."
• Sole Survivor: One of the biggest revelations in the premiere of Arc 2 is that Lumiera is the lone survivor of the lost planet Tungal.
• Time Master: Lumiera is slowly learning how to use time magic.
• The Unchosen One: Seir, Sing's twin brother, is basically belittled by everyone as "the less cool brother of The Chosen One." Despite the Angst this provides him, he doesn't stop trying to better himself.
• Wistful Amnesia: Lumiera suffers from this as she struggles to recall her home Tungal that was erased from existence.
• Whole Episode Flashback: The interlude episode "The First Mission" is framed as a Prequel episode of Strike Team Nova's first mission as a team. The Stinger monologue at the end reveals Sing is telling this story to an unseen third party in the Beyond.

Tropes for Godkiller: First Blood

• God-Eating: Cannibalism amongst the divine occurs in the setting.
• Kill the God: Literally the name of the game.
• Tarot Motifs: The pantheon of gods in the game's setting are embodiments of the Major Arcana tarot cards.