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Darcie

Darcie Little Badger

(playing Wren, a human rogue)

Darcie Little Badger is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Elatsoe, was featured in Time Magazine as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. Elatsoe also won the Locus award for Best First Novel and is a Nebula, Ignyte, and Lodestar finalist. Her second fantasy novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, received a Nebula Award, an Ignyte Award, and a Newbery Honor and is on the National Book Awards longlist. Her third book, Sheine Lende, is the prequel to Elatsoe and was a USA Today bestseller. Darcie is married to a veterinarian named Taran.

Kathleen

Kathleen De Vere

(playing Galabas, a human paladin)

Kathleen De Vere is a performer, writer, and editor for LoadingReadyRun. She appears on Crossing the Streams, AFK, LoadingReadyLIVE, Checkpoint, CommodoreHUSTLE, and Crapshots. She also appears in much of LRR's Magic: The Gathering content, including LRRMtG, Friday Night Paper Fight, TapTapConcede, Elder Dragon Social Club, Friday Nights, and at Pre-Prereleases. She was crowned the champion of Game Knights Live at MagicCon Vegas in 2023, after winning the qualifying Game Knights Live round at MagicCon Minneapolis earlier that year. Kathleen is one of the more "Spiky" Magic players on the crew and favors blue-black mill decks, plus any card with a cat on it.

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Mur Lafferty

(playing Granny Vaunea Stormfearing, a Goliath who sometimes rages)

An inaugural inductee of the Podcast Academy’s Hall of Fame, Mur Lafferty began podcasting in 2004 and later built her writing career from her work as a science fiction podcaster.

As of 2026, Mur has written ten novels, eight novellas, and one nonfiction book that are available in stores, online retailers, and through her own site. Her work has ranged from Star Wars to superhero fiction to afterlife fiction to paranormal fantasy to space murder–plus one book supporting writers based on her award winning podcast.

After winning the 2013 Astounding Award for Best New Writer (formerly the Campbell Award), her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Parsec, Philip K. Dick, Manly Wade Wellman, and Podcast Peer Awards. Her podcast Ditch Diggers, with Matt Wallace, won the 2018 Best Fancast Hugo Award.

As an editor, Mur was the first editor of Pseudopod and Mothership Zeta, and is currently the co-editor of Escape Pod (with Valerie Valdes), eight-time finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine.

Her nonfiction work has appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table, and on the podcast The Dragon Page. In 2014, she received an MFA in popular fiction from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine.

She lives in Durham, NC, with her husband. She likes video games, tabletop games, murder mysteries, and dogs.

paul

PrinceJvstin—GM

Paul “Princejvstin” Weimer is a Hugo and Ignyte award-winning fan writer who focuses his craft on reviews and analysis and discussion of science fiction and fantasy. Born in New York City, Paul now calls the North Star State of Minnesota home. There, Paul engages in science fiction and fantasy writing, in photography, podcasting, and of course tabletop roleplaying games. He has run a Play by Email Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game since the mid-1990s, as well as numerous other campaigns, scenarios and more. He is also addicted to the Civilization game franchise.
You can find him podcasting primarily with The Skiffy and Fanty Show (where he also does reviews) as well as other places from time to time such as The Incomparable. You can also find his fan writing at the award-winning Nerds of a Feather blog, pieces at File 770, and elsewhere. You can find him and all of his work on Patreon and on social media like Bluesky, Mastodon, Instagram and more, as Princejvstin. But he really is just this guy, you know?

Trish

Trish Matson

(playing Meandera, a Dragonborn druid)

An award-winning former journalist, currently a freelance editor (text and audio), Trish Matson is a channel moderator here and is also frequently seen and heard at The Skiffy and Fanty Show, a Hugo and Ignyte award-finalist fan community, where she co-hosts podcasts, writes reviews of speculative fiction, and edits the blog. She's also on Bluesky @pematson and on Mastodon @[email protected]. She's a lover of games, music, audiodramas, wordplay and more.

The 13th Icon Preview

By Greg Wilson | August 17, 2026
Posted in

A new podcast coming soon!