Silent and Still

Hi folks, 

Wishing you the very best for the coming week from everyone at Rusty Towers!  

A massive thank you to everyone who filled in our survey last week! More than 300 of you completed it, giving us some really interesting insights into how long some of you have been members and your favourite pieces of bonus content that’s available on our Patreon!  

If you haven’t really explored our back catalogue of bonuses, here’s a few that many people in the survey recommended!  

• The Magnus Archives Fluff episodes – we ran a competition for Patreon members to write their own “oops, no horror” episodes of The Magnus Archives, and recorded a few of our favourites! (Knights+) 

• Outtakes and Bloopers – pobody’s nerfect, not even our talented cast and crew (Knights+, with some Nobles exclusives) 

• The Magnus Archives Deluxe Statements – Statements from the first season of The Magnus Archives as the Archives employees might have seen them, including handwritten notes from The Archivist (Nobles) 

• TTRPG one-shots and specials – Cast and crew from all of our shows taking a break from the main story and playing some TTRPG one-shots! (Knights+, with some Nobles exclusives) 

Meanwhile, in this week’s episode of The Magnus Protocol, Sam goes on a fieldtrip. As always, the episode will be available to our early access supporters on Tuesday at 4pm BST, or on the public feed on Thursday at 4pm BST. 

Finally, this week we are very excited to announce that the creators of Wake of Corrosion have launched a brand-new show: Hollow Disciple, a dark, science fiction podcast. Both Wake of Corrosion and Hollow Disciple are on the RQ Network.  

In the vast abyss of dying stars lurks a forsaken vessel. Silent and still. Stumbling upon it, the scavenger crew of The Elpis begin an ill-fated rescue mission, convinced they have hit the jackpot. But when the scouting party stops responding, their luck takes a dark turn and the sinister nature of their prize becomes all too apparent. 

We spoke to the creator of Hollow Disciple, Shaun Pellington, to find out more about the show. 

Tell us who you are and a bit about Hollow Disciple?  

My name is Shaun Pellington and you may already know me from the audio drama Wake Of Corrosion. Over the past five years I’ve been honing my craft of creating audio drama content whilst balancing being a teacher and spending copious amounts of my free time hiking or in a lake somewhere! I’ve voice acted in many other shows and even written for The Magnus Protocol, which was a real honour.  

I’m really proud to present to you my next show: Hollow Disciple. It’s a dark, sci-fi thriller that takes inspiration from the sci-fi classics. I grew up on these and I’ve always wanted to tell a story in that sort of world. This is very much the product of that and hopefully it’ll really strike a chord with you.  

What got you into the horror/thriller genre?  

I’m an enormous fan of horror, I love and hate the way it makes me feel and that’s all I ever really want from a story. I’m also a massive fan of TTRPGs. Obviously Dungeons and Dragons is the cornerstone of that, but I’ve played a lot of different TTRPG systems such as Call of Cthulhu, Traveller and Aftermath. No matter what system I’m playing though, I’m always eager for that darkness to creep in. It’s those settings, whether I’m telling the story or one of my friends is weaving that web, that really lend themselves to this genre. There’s nothing better than when your players (or perhaps you) are questioning every move, every decision and are painfully aware that something may be lurking around every corner. That’s what got me into creating content for this genre. That feeling of anticipation, the unknown and ultimately dread.  

What are you most proud of about Hollow Disciple?  

The world, without a doubt. I think you could easily listen to Hollow Disciple a few times over just to pick out all of the information that’s hidden in there about the world that it’s set in. I’m really proud of the rich tapestry of organisations, factions, people, places and planets that are woven into the story.  

In some stories, especially sci-fi, I find that all the places, names and extensive technology can be overwhelming and detract from the story. I like to think that I’ve avoided this pitfall in Hollow Disciple and whilst there’s a lot of depth to the world-building, the fundamentals of the story remain the same and the question at the root of the story is clear: When does the price outweigh the prize?  

The first two episodes of Hollow Disciple are out now, wherever you find podcasts or at the links below:  

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7kFzRdrbnk2t6VT9l7fO6M?si=1072ed24d5e04307 

• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/hollow-disciple/id1801807379  

• Acast: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/hollow-disciple  

If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving a rating or review, as this is the best way to support a new show.  

Here is our full schedule for this week: 

Tuesday 19th August 

The Magnus Protocol 48 – Temporary Positions (Patreon & Kickstarter Backers) (4pm BST) 

Thursday 21st August 

The Magnus Protocol 48 – Temporary Positions (Public) (4pm BST) 

Have a good week all! 

The Rusty Quill team