Dustwalker: A Science-Fantasy Audio Drama

While Episode 7 is baking in the oven, I'd love to present the trailer for Witchpunk -- a cyberpunk epic from Citeog Podcasts. Its entire first season is out now and I highly recommend checking it out! If you like the themes, worldbuilding, and sound design in Dustwalker, you'll probably love Witchpunk.

Listen to Witchpunk by searching for the show on your podcatcher of choice, or follow the link here: https://pod.link/1890465291

Witchpunk is a dystopian, cyberpunk, science fiction audio drama. 22nd Century America is crumbling from relentless climate change, collapsing supply chains and recurrent pandemics. Brash cities like New New York are built inland from their flooded originals. The Mid-West is militia-controlled as civil war 3.1 plays out, and the South belongs to the extremist Dominion. Corporations struggle for ascendency while new quantum technology has leaked onto the streets and been repurposed by street witches ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”). Large swathes of the population have been reduced to nomadic status, migrating in their RV’s from one Park and Work to another, while the wealthy watch from the orbitals overhead.

For the crew of the semi-legit landship, the Strega, it’s the first job since the death of their captain, Devereaux, and they had hoped this job would be an easy one - get the cargo from Mexico City to St Louis and a data package to flooded Manhattan. But there’s something very odd about the cargo and the strain is beginning to tell on them. Season One follows the crew of the Strega as they navigate ambushes, hurricanes, betrayals and corporate warfare, en route to old New York. What are they carrying? More importantly, have they been set up and will they make it all the way?

Henry, their pilot, seeks to step up into the captain’s role while secretly still looking for Devereaux, not convinced she is dead. Alice, their combat witch, is torn between the family life she has built for herself and her need for the thrill of violence. Franklin, ex-corporate gunman, brings the firepower but is acutely aware that he is getting too old for the job. Roya, an escaped con, will join the team as their hacker, mainly because she doesn’t have any other plan to survive.

The Eye is no longer safe. Has it ever been?

Content Warnings: This episode contains distant explosions from 0:03-0:05, discussion of human experimentation, references to a past abusive relationship, and contains several instances of high-pitched shrieking. Timestamps are listed below. Listener discretion is advised.

Shrill screams interspersed between 51:44-53:02

Episode transcripts available at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yEaSAC7SjgbMT3VxG2ojYeeBhVDYexot?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yEaSAC7SjgbMT3VxG2ojYeeBhVDYexot?usp=drive_link

Duststone Theme by Teala Torres, heard at the end of the security hearing.

In this episode, you heard:

Jayde Violet Hampton-VanSant as Kove

Nyx Calder as Arius Rosemund

David John-Bores as Deveraux Menzi

Dylan Nguyen as Orator Tuân & additional voices

Luiza Mendes as Senator Dahlia

Adam Robinson as Archjudge Runo

Edwyn Tiong as Security Advisor Sunn

Nina Nikolic as Counselor

Little Lobstrosity as Senator

Althea Walmisley as Senator Lysander

Trenton Butt as Jean the Reporter

Moe Finch as the Voice of the Credits

Dustwalker screams curtesy of Savy Des-Etages.https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yEaSAC7SjgbMT3VxG2ojYeeBhVDYexot?usp=sharing

Crew:

Executive Producer, Writer, Director: Bren McQuillan

Sound Designer, Primary Mix Engineer, Co-Mastering Engineer: Bren McQuillan

Secondary Mix Engineer & Co-Mastering Engineer: Aaron Paolucci

Additional Music Credits:

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in E Major, Op. 8 No. 1, RV 269 "Spring": II. Largo e pianissimo sempre, performed by Michelle Ross, Eric Jacobsen, Odyssey Orchestra

Mozart: Violin Sonata in E minor, K. 304 I. Allegro, performed by Conway Kuo, Blair McMillen

Marker 0 by Luba Hilman

Jordskred by Anna Dager, Hanna Ekström

Insanity Unleashed by Stefan Ekström

SFX and additional music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Cane SFX courtesy of Maddie Cooper on Freesound.org.

Episode art by Bren McQuillan.

Website

I’m very excited to present the trailer for The Twelvelms Conspiracy, a fantasy mystery audio drama by Eira Major, the creator of Remnants, Not Quite Dead and Spirit Box Radio. It’s one of my favorite shows at the moment — intriguing, disturbing at times, and filled with well-thought-out magic and mythology. If you’re enjoying the worldbuilding and intrigue of Dustwalker, you’ll probably love Twelvelms.

Set in a magical world hidden just out of sight, it’s a story fraught with social and class tension, exploring what it means to belong, and what it means to live with the legacy of terrible decisions made generations ago, whose consequences have shaped everything around you.

Cyan Goodman does not belong at twelvelms and everyone knows it. Especially him. The university has trained the finest mages in magedom for centuries, but Cyan only found out it existed two weeks ago. Out of his depth, with nowhere else to go, Cyan is allowed to enroll at Twelvelms under one condition; that he keeps the circumstances under which he was admitted completely secret.

To make things more complicated, the only reason he was given a space at the school at all is because another boy has gone missing, under extremely mysterious circumstances. It seems like there’s a much bigger problem lurking just out of sight at Twelvelms, one which reaches far beyond Cyan’s secrets and into the foundations of magedom itself.

Cyan narrates his story years after these events, and his circumstances have become even stranger...

Find out more at [https://hangingslothstudios.com/twelvelms/ ](

Maybe there's more to Arius than meets the eye.

Content Warnings: This episode contains cursing, depictions of heavy drinking, discussion of an unwanted pregnancy, references to a past abusive relationship, and distant explosions from 1:11:03 through 1:11:40. Not intended for kids. Listener discretion is advised.

Episode transcripts

In this episode, you heard:

Jayde Violet Hampton-VanSant as Kove

Nyx Calder as Arius Rosemund

Kit Paterson as Young Arius

Kadecia as Romina

Amy D. Davis and Katelyn Martin as Coriander

Trenton Butt as Sterling

Kirsty Woolven as Cirrus

Moe Finch as the Voice of the Credits

Additional Voices:

Althea Walmisley as Student

Savy Des-Etages as Woman

Additional music credits:

Duplicity by Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen and Karoliina Gabel

Crazy Blues and Mem'ries of You, Mammy by Mamie Smith, heard during the tonic scene

Eleven Steps Ahead by Stefan Ekström

Dauntless by Hanna Ekström, heard during Arius' memory sequence

Unconventional Wisdom by Howard Harper-Barnes

Epilogue by Hanna Ekström and DEX 1200

Decomposed by Philip Ayers

Crew:

Executive Producer, Writer, Director: Bren McQuillan

Sound Designer, Primary Mix Engineer, Co-Mastering Engineer: Bren McQuillan

Secondary Mix Engineer & Co-Mastering Engineer: Aaron Paolucci

SFX and additional music courtesy of Epidemic Sound.

Episode art by Bren McQuillan.

Support the show on Patreon

See more behind-the-scenes content at patreon.com/dustwalkerpod