Shaker

"Bard who as a girl was cursed to have snakes and toads spill out of her mouth every time she spoke, which she leaned into for being "metal as fuck."" - Making Up Adventurers, Cohost, 2024

Excerpt from an interview with Briarthorn Blacktongue, the lead singer of Toadmother, in the Bardic Quarterly issue of the 235 Imp. Winter

BQ: I don't think I've ever seen a troupe quite like yours. How did you all find each other?

BB: Oh, yeah, haha, I'm sure. Most people with our condition get locked up or die in the woods or shit like that. (As she speaks, a large centipede crawls out of her mouth. she absently wipes her chin but otherwise makes no notice of it.) So like, you know how this happens, right? the usual fairytale shit, right? Some magic bitch wandering around and whenever she runs into a house with two daughters, she curses one and blesses the other. So like, my mom fucking sucks, right? She was always playing me and my sister off of each other, and that week I was 'her favorite'. But my sister was being "the good sister" and when she talks to the lady at the door, bam, next thing you know - blessing. Jewels every time she talks. And mom's too stupid to see what's coming, so she marches me out and has me demand the same, and I get this. (She spits, a black beetle that flies lazily away.) Guess who's the favorite now, right?

BB: Anyway like, me and my sister, we work it out between us eventually, she's cool now... She paid my way through bardic college, I couldn't ever have done it without her. Mom turned me out into the streets though, she can get fucked. Anyway. While I was in school I was collecting tales about people like me, and I find out this same fairy fuck wandered through like THREE different villages in our province! Can you believe that shit? And after graduation I went looking, and I found four girls, almost word for word same story. I was too late for the fifth one, she... it was pretty bad. But yeah, like, I taught the girls how to play, and next thing you fucking know, Toadmother.

BQ: What sort of reaction did you get when you first started performing?

BB: Oh my god, people HATED us! Like you wouldn't fucking believe! Not just because they weren't used to amplified sound, like, even if we went acoustic and accapella people, they were NOT into the- th- ohfuck- (she holds up her hands and waves our interviewer off as she retches and coughs out a large adult bullfrog, followed by a salamander) -jesusfuckingchrist, that was a bad one. I hate the bullfrogs, fuck. But like, they would freak out. We stopped just performing in the squares or whatever, started looking for... you know, OUR people. Finding our audience. Doing shows for black masses, covens, shit like that. They couldn't get enough of us! And we kinda spread from there, normal people started hearing our sound and liking it... and shit took off. It took years though. Might have gone a little faster but I was also doing quests and shit, because I have to make sure the girls are taken care of. They don't all have good relationships with their sisters, so I wanted to be sure they can be all right on their own even when we aren't working. Without having to rely on anyone but each other, you know?

BQ: That's generous of you.

BB: Hell no it isn't. They're my family, even if we've got different parents. We're all the same. We all know what it's like, and we can count on each other. (She spits out a small blue lizard, beautiful and gemtoned, catching the damp creature in her palm). Even if something happens to me, Toadmother will keep going, and they'll have each other, and everything we've built. (She releases the lizard into the grass.)

BQ: Do you all have anything big planned for this upcoming year?

BB: (Grinning) We're going on tour. We're taking the show to all five Realms, especially the Fae, and ending with a performance before the Summer Court and the Queen of the Sidhe. We're gonna show them just how... grateful we are, for the very special gift they've given us. We'll show them real fuckin' good.

(She leans towards the interviewer and opens her mouth, revealing a black serpent perched on her tongue, which slithers partway out and hisses - before retreating, being swallowed again.)

BB: We're gonna knock em fucking dead.