Honestly I'm not a big Lovecraft guy. Like I read synopses of his stories and impressionable nerds being driven mad by wacky weirdo shit seems like extremely my thing, but reading actual stories is like pulling teeth. Maybe he was just that bad of a writer or maybe I don't know English well enough to enjoy his verbose nerdy prose...
In some ways, Sangfielle is what I always wanted Nightvale to be when I was listening to it. In a lot of ways it's more serious and thought-out (though it's still very funny a times). But there are also significant differences.
For the most part, once they switch to their main game system, it takes a few arcs for it to hit its stride. But the very first arc is them using a different game to establish the world- I'd recommend that your partner listen to that first arc (The Curse of Eastern Folly) and see what they think.
Thank you for the tips! We'll have a listen together when we're bumming around on our phones in the living room and trying to avoid going to bed.
I really hope you like it, this is one of those podcasts I want everyone to listen to because it's just fantastic.
If you're interested in a sci-fi mecha Actual Play podcast that examines the effects of empire, their previous season, Partizan, is probably even better than Sangfielle (Crunchyroll half-jokingly called it the best mecha anime of 2020), and they're currently preparing to make a season that's a direct sequel to it
EDIT: I feel like being extra, so here's the intro
spoiler
It is the year 1423 of the Perfect Millennium, and the galaxy has been conquered by the Divine Principality. At the center of this empire, the only place where its five Great Stels meet, there is a moon beating where a heart should be. The moon of Partizan.
Abetted by immortal, machinic gods called Divines, and the legions of Hallowed mechs which extend their terrible reach, the Principality spent millennia sharpening itself on its rivals. What it could not devour it obliterated. What it could not obliterate, it simply outlived. It was an empire, unshakeable.
Until now.
For the first time in the Principality’s long history, two of its five Stels have gone to war with one another, each guided by a ruler with sound claim to the title of Princept, leader of All Divinity. For five years, they have fought to a standstill, while equivacators and scavengers find profit in rubble.
But historical crises do not only serve crass opportunists, they revive opportunity itself. Under the shadow of this war you find yourself wondering: For how long will there be empires? For as long as we breathe? Longer? Will the categories of our conquest outlast us, or could there come a day for something else.
We once dreamt that breaking free from our ancient home in the cosmos would allow us to escape the mass and pull of tyranny and trauma. We failed then, but perennial chaos offers us another chance: Can we launch with such speed that we glide, graceful or imperfect, beyond war and pain? Or is the truth more damning that: Might we carry our own gravity with us?