Colin Meloy and Chris Funk from The Decemberists to stream their weekly Dungeons & Dragons games
Hey, it’s 2021 and liking nerdy stuff is cool, right? Superhero movies are still the biggest thing in the world? More people are doing puzzles than at any time in history since Herman T. Jigsaw invented the modern puzzle? Everyone still has an opinion and wholly imaginary digital currencies that simultaneously mean nothing and everything? Okay, good. Otherwise, we’d feel a little self-conscious about discussing something as crushingly nerdy as Colin Meloy and Chris Funk from The Decemberists announcing that they’re going to start streaming their weekly Dungeons & Dragons game on Twitch, because holy cow, a thing like that is just pocket protectors and calculator watches from top to bottom. (And we say that with nothing but love, because The Decemberists are cool, Dungeons & Dragons is cool, and streaming things on Twitch is cool.)
Meloy and Funk’s campaign also features game designer Keith Baker, Charlie Chu from indie comic book publisher Oni Press, and Dungeon Master Han Duong, and each episode will involve a call for donations to a rotating selection of organizations and charities (starting with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network). Called Fugue State, Meloy says the campaign involves his party trekking across “the frozen wastelands of Icewind Dale to undo Auril’s cursed rime” while also working to “expand Northern Lights Hospitality LLC’s franchise of exclusive inns, hotels, and adventure experiences.” The first thing is some D&D lore stuff, but that second part sounds like pure wacky fun—though we should point out that the Northern Light is the name of an an actual in-universe inn in the town of Caer-Konig, located in the frigid realm known as Icewind Dale. So that’s also some lore stuff, which actually makes it cooler because nerdy stuff is cool now.
You’ll be able to watch the Fugue State streams at this link, and if you’re eager to see what this whole thing is all about, there’s already a multi-hour test stream you can watch where they give some backstory about how long they’ve been playing together and make self-deprecating comments about how nobody is going to watch or care about what they’re doing. (Which seems unlikely.)