It's the triumphant return of Machine Learning!  No time has passed since the last time we did one of these, so let's jump in the "not far back at all" machine to recap some episodes from near the end of book 2, when absolutely nothing bad happened specifically to Vaargas.
 
BIG SPECIAL THINGS
Our Hopefinder Third Party Kon game with special guest GM Jason Bulmahn drops today!  The creator of Pathfinder 2e and Hopefinder (a Pathfinder 2e hack) will be running the game he made through a one-shot he wrote on 2/19 at 2:00 EST (and whatever that time correlates to for you.  Wherever you are.)  We'll have a podcast version of it up later...but you're going to want to see this on the big screen.  Or the small screen.  The screen part is the thing I'm emphasizing.  Check out https://www.pf2events.com/schedule for more details, and all the other great events that are going to be part of this convention, and maybe check out some of the independent, third party content that's going to be showcased there!
Jeff and Sam will be joining Steve and Griffin from Hideous Laughter Productions on The Zone of Truth on 2/27!  They'll be talking Iron Gods, taking questions from the audience, and probably not revealing how many cats Sam has.  Hop into the Hideous Laughter discord server to pose your questions, and check out the episode on their main feed next week.
ALSO!
Network Against the Machine Patreon slash Ko-Fi are changing for the be better.  Last year we hit a couple big goals, attaining self sufficiency for podcast expenses, and opening up the aforementioned bonus games, which have really rattled some peanuts.  This year, we’re going to turn things up a bit.  More benefits, basically—more reasons to support the pod and network that fights against machines so you don’t have to.  Thought, I mean, you still have to fight against the Machine, probably.  But that’s for later, you know, when the revolution comes.  In the mean time: fun podcast stuff!  We want to make sure that we’re providing value to those of you who are willing and able to support us on a month-to-month basis, but we also want to make sure that we’re not unduly locking people out of content they might enjoy because of their economic circumstances.  There’s a needle to thread here—and we are always open to hearing feedback on how we’re doing.
 
$2 – The Glaucite tier
When you join this tier, you already get access to original music on our crowdfunding sites, plus Discord role access, but now you’re also going to get a thank you on our website—you know, since we thank you for supporting us.  But the biggest change here is that we’re adding a Patreon podcast feed, and it’s going to be available to everyone who supports us.  Well, what’s going to be on this feed?  The Story Machine.  We’re going to start releasing a Story Machine on this feed every month, starting with our first multi-part story, “Foul and Fair,” beginning at the end of March.  We’re going to have a new crowdfunding goal to up that rate to every other week in the future.  If you can’t afford to join in on our crowdfunding, don’t fret!  We don’t want to lock you out of these stories—transcripts of them are still going to be available on our website.
 
$5 – The Adamantine tier
You get all of your existing benefits, including The B.R.I.A.N. Identity maps, the stuff described in the previous tier, and the new benefit: you’re going to get a chance to name characters and places in new Story Machine arcs, and/or Gootube flavors.  Here’s how this is going to work: for the first part of Foul and Fair, for instance, we have eight character slots and two places up for names.  Have a PC name you’d like to see immortalized in audio and text form, or a brilliant idea for a tavern, a shop, that sort of thing?  If you’re at the Adamantine tier and above, send it over to us via Discord or email or the built-in messaging thing in Patreon, however works for you.  We’ll work as many names as we can into the stories, and when they appe