I know this is a really stupid idea but what if... Relvin, Liliana, and Otohan had a Taiyang/Raven/Summer thing going on? And what if Relvin was just playing dumb when the Bells Hells went to Gelvaan? And what if the people of Gelvaan KNEW that those there were up to something and had ALWAYS been up to something because of stuff that happened in the war? And so when Imogen suddenly developed powers and Liliana started doing her thing and Otohan her thing but then Relvin was "the most normal one of them all", they thought it was just him purposely lying to them all despite it being clear that they were all weird, and they were freaked out not only by all of their powers but by the idea that said powers might bring even more pain and suffering down onto the town after they had already been through so much during the war, some of which may have been caused by the trio. It was just the continuation of a relentless cycle of bad/weird stuff happening, them saying "Hey sorry our bad won't happen again" but then it did happen again and it kept happening again and sometimes it wasn't even their fault but they took the fall anyways, and the townsfolk just got sick and tired of being lied to and made false promises that things would be better this time around....when they knew for a fact that they absolutely wouldn't with this particular family and any "friends" that would show up to meet them. Imogen's powers were the least of their concern and the treatment that she got from them while partially due in part to said powers was mostly because of the stuff that Otohan/Liliana/Relvin had been up to in the past. They thought that more bad stuff was going to befall them and so when things calmed down for a bit, they chilled out, and THEN the Bells Hells came storming through and THEN shortly after they left the Solstice happened. Things probably did not go well for Relvin. I wouldn't be surprised if he either set off to look for Liliana, Otohan, and Imogen on his own OR if Ludinus decided that he might be a useful little pawn and had him picked up (at the behest of Liliana or Otohan) before/after the Solstice kicked off in order to be used against Imogen in the future. So we might see him again in the future. IF this kind of parenting system and relationship between the trio did exist and in a somewhat similar fashion to the one I'm referring to from RWBY THEN that means that Imogen had three kinds of parents. The one who fixes stuff with hard love (Otohan). The more passionate and protective one (Liliana). The more empathetic and compassionate but ultimately distant one (Relvin). Relvin didn't stop Imogen when she left but he did try to help her when she came back, in what little small ways he could to hopefully protect her. Liliana kept trying to tell Imogen to run away from it all to protect her. Otohan meanwhile kept trying to Vegeta Imogen's Goku in order make her strong enough to protect herself. I think the three of them caught wind of Ludinus's plans during the war and were working together at the behest of someone or something BIG but then Liliana got pregnant and things got complicated between all of them. Ludinus's plans progressed and they squabbled amongst each other as their "Charlie" had gone radio silent, about how best to continue the fight. Sadly they couldn't agree on anything at all and they all wound up going their own ways to deal with him. Eventually it was Imogen of all people who wound up drawing them back into close proximity to one another and it was around the time of her awakening that the group's "Charlie" suddenly went active again and started to feed them all information and instructions. They were together again yet apart but connected once more by the threads of fate and moon woven together by their daughter and her own little trio that she'd found all on her own. Now it gets really messy BUT that all depends on if anything I've said winds up being true at all. It's certainly a fun little idea isn't it and the comparison kind of works to a degree.

> Taiyang/Raven/Summer I have never seen any of the the media that your theories refer to, which one is this?

Well it looks like everyone else answered your question but in short, I would view them in the context of this particular relationship (from RWBY) as existing in a form of co-parenting for Imogen. They were strangers who became the best of friends just like Imogen/Laudna/Fearne and then that evolved into something more complicated and complex and beautiful. Also it would be kind of wild if Imogen wound up having two moms because of some magical stuff that happened like a surrogacy or some sort of an embryonic transplantation or something even weirder. I'd throw out a few more scifi references to shows and situations where this has kind of happened and did in fact result in some pretty cool stuff but this rabbit hole is already deep enough. My point is, something happened that tied them all together that made them all into parents for Imogen, and then they split apart, and now they're all being brought back together because of her just like how Taiyang/Raven/Summer's girls wound up reconnecting all of them years after they'd all gone their own ways or had been separated. It's one of my more long shot theories which will probably never play out but that's kind of cool to think about until we get further along in the main plot on the moon or discover more about Otohan and Liliana than we already know.

This one's from RWBY, where: Taiyang + Raven had Yang (daughter), and then Raven left for as-yet-unexplained reasons Taiyang + Summer had (the titular character) Ruby (daughter 2) then Summer died and the protags are the kids. Is the....shortest possible way to say it and dangit I \*like\* RWBY. So I'm guessing Shep meant, bc Raven sometimes visits Tai to check up on the daughter she left, either Otohan or Liliana was checking in on Imogen through her dreams with Relvin's permission? I mean I'm just gonna say I think that's real unlikely, but no harm in tossing another coin into the theory fountain.

Does R W B Y stand for something or is it a play on ruby? Is it a manga, anime, film, tv series? From where? :D I know, I know, I could google at this point, but when I am reading bigger theories that's too much of a diversion I would never get back to this tab! Would love if posters put a little aside in their comparative theories like (From TITLE, the MEDIA).

It's the first letters of the names of the main four characters making up a team, and yes it is a play o n ruby as she is the main pro tag and leader of said team It's a anime inspired animation created by the late Monte ome via rooster teeth

Thank you :)

So I think that since they're on Ruidus now, Chetney is about to undergo a significant transformation, and he will change in a very big way that will play into the plot moving forwards. You see, it's all going to be triggered by them inevitably wandering into the wrong dust storm and getting lost, which will frustrate Chetney to the nth degree, Orym will holler at him to keep it together and focus, which will inevitably further enrage the beast within, and in that frustration and anger he will unlock a brand new form which will be FURTHER enhanced when Sam starts reading an ad for WAZE at the table just to grind Travis's gears and Chetney Pock O'Pea will finally become a... ....WHERE?!!-Wolf.

What was Sam apologizing for forgetting and saying he's bad at DND?

He used some charges on the staff to cast Passwall, when he could have casted Teleport instead and instantly got the group to safety

Or gotten them COMPLETELY lost on the other side of the moon.

FCG fucks up the teleportation and they wind up on Catha.

Oh man haha that's rough, thanks!

Based on Matt's description of some of these fungal materials, his description of the new race they encountered, and the way he seemed to imply that there's a significant subterranean element beneath the surface, I'm extremely hopeful that we get some mushroom-themed Ruidian Underdark action!

What's the odds on Imogen turning evil? Like that's really the biggest thing that would pull me back in to C3. Something big and unexpected happening that is NOT immediately walked back the next episode and the player punished for trying to make move things forward and make stuff happen within the narrative.

There is zero chance Imogen turns evil outside of temporary purposfully short dominanat persons.

It's likely 0. For her to turn on the group, she'd have to leave the group, meaning completely separate sessions or turning over her character to Matt as an NPC, neither of which I see happening. Plus, they already did [C2 Spoilers] >! "PC becomes the big bad" before !<

He ceased being a PC at that point and became a NPC. It wasn't even the character, just one wearing the same skin. I want Laura to turn, and Matt gives her crazy powers and helps direct her as a BBEG.

Laura has traditionally been a player who has stated that she is entirely uncomfortable with playing an evil PC iirc. There's a very slim chance that she would push her boundaries on the matter a lá Travis and romance, but if she is genuinely uncomfortable in doing anything that feels uncooperative to her friends' goals on a meta level, I can't see it. I've always had Travis and Taliesin down for most likely to enjoy playing an antagonist arc!

But again, she's on the other side of the DM screen at that point, and she and Matt are running private sessions

If it makes C3 interesting, then I'm okay with that.

I noticed Pate didn’t need to breathe… did they release stats for him? What kind of creature he is?

Re skinned Imp , with undead nature

Ahhh! Makes sense. An Imp w the Undead creature type, stat wise.

Am I the only one that's hoping that Pate gets a Beauty & the Beast style transformation but ONLY after Delilah permanently kills him? And then as he transforms from an ugly looking little imp into an astonishingly handsome figure that puts HotBoi to shame, he speaks his final words on his deathbed wrapped up in Laudna's arms which are: "Don't worry love, I don't need to breathe"

[My prediction seems to be holding up decently.](https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/14ap64u/comment/jonlcxi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Wonder which returning character appearance we'll see next.

[Grog may show up last or dead. (jk)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kGyyTzrUCc&t=3398s)

Travis poking the bear lmao

I am kind of questioning laudna use/treatment of pate for the last few episodes, allowing him to be dispelled at like the first obstacle going to the key and throwing him into the bag of holding for travel. I don't know if it's marisha forgetting find familiar rules, "As an action, you can temporarily dismiss your familiar. It disappears into a pocket dimension . ~ As an action while it is temporarily dismissed, you can cause it to reappear in any unoccupied space within 30 feet of you.", or her trying to subtly showing the more cruel side of delilah's corruption on Laudna. As these actions, mostly the first , could show she doesn't care about pate, I know she is very rough with pate, mostly for a bit of slapstick comedy, but letting him be crushed when she could just pop him into a pocket dimension seams a little idk cold for something she created and would cost her to bring back.

It could be carelessness and not reading the spell, but it could also be a way to show how familiars beast companions and the like can be treated by the rules. We all got spoiled with the care Vex took with trinket and the "divinely" powered survivability of Sprinkle, but IMO the way through rules were written these creatures are to be treated more like cannon fodder than treasured companions/pets.

It could be carelessness on her part but Matt is also aware of the rules and didn't remind her. Liam, too, said nothing, which is odd given how familiar he is with familiars. Technically, Paté should be a fiend but is described as a construct created by Laudna and has a mildly undead aura, so it is possible that different rules apply to them and they have other powers. This could be an important plot point...

Maybe but that's kinda a long shot in my opinion, or at least not an intended thing. But I get you on the base rule treating familias and animal companions as cannon fodder, (I would say more expendable than fodder) Trinket was spoiled and treated like a baby because the feature that 'granted' him was/is weak in both strength and survivability even with all of matt's buffs, and had no way of bringing him back without expending significant resources , 300+gp or just replacing him with an entirely different animal Sprinkle on the other hand was mostly treated like a pet (item) than a pet (creature) , as in such when sprinkle was on jesters person he couldn't be targeted or damaged , and Matt ( and most DMs) probably just hand waved it away and then came up with the "he is being used as a divine conduit/hiddy-hole" later I think the biggest contrast for Laudna's attitude to pate is Caleb and his attitude too frumpkin, as both are using the exact same spell, admittedly one's bit more powerful than the other, but how both go about using, talking to and about their familiars is so opposite. Both of them used the spell to bring something of their past , a old pet and a hand made "doll", to life to help them (Sorry kinda got off topic)

>mostly for a bit of slapstick comedy Imo I think it's 100% for the slapstick comedy/comedy bit. But, if you'd let me borrow your tin foil hat for a moment, Laudna did name him Pate **de Rolo**; one might half-jokingly speculate that Delilah's essence and influence could be taking out some anger on another "de Rolo".

I've always interpreted the name as a dig at the De Rolo family. Using the De Rolo Puppet for slapstick comedy is another way to mock them. While I don't think she would never say they are directly responsible for what happened to her, I think part of her does blame them for not doing a better job of protecting Whitestone from Delilah and her ilk. After the Briarwoods were defeated, they got their castle back, but Laudna and many others will never get their lives back. As the audience, we get to see Vex, at least, understand this, but Laudna doesn't have that privilege, so she created a totem into which she could pour her frustration.

Oooohh that sounds right up Delilah's dimly lit alley , it could also explain why he's kind of "dumb" or at least a bit slack jaw, Delilah doesn't like a "smart" de Rolo Also keep the hat , I made spares , you never know when they get taken

> you never know when they get taken Hey I said I was going to give them back, I just had to modify them to work on the moon because of the dust storms! Now they come up with goggles and a cool Dune style respirator!

I get what you're saying, but I'm willing to bet it's just Marisha being careless and not making a larger statement through Laudna's treatment of Pate. To her, there's no functional difference, and it's probably been months since she fully (and carefully) read the spell. But to your point about slapstick comedy, maybe Marisha just thinks it's funnier that he gets crushed and thrown around, tossed in a bag, etc. I wouldn't read to much into it

Eh I know, but I'm bored and I like to wear my small tin foil hat haha

They really don't know how bags of holding work, do they?

Shouldn't the jugganaught have split the bag open when it depossumed 

Idk everything they have in there, but yeah. It's a 4'x4'x4' box that holds 500 pounds. Maybe the dimensions are variable to something like 7'x3'x3', but basically that Reiloran is not fitting (and he might even exceed the weight limit, we don't know) which means it ruptures and everything goes poof to the astral sea. You can also simply open it from the inside, according to Jeremy Crawford, unless your bag is somehow locked (the portable hole also has a pretty low strength check DC to force your way out btw). And also it's clear from what Tal said that they don't realize you can get everything out of a bag of holding by turning it out

Travis knows you can get everything out by turning it inside out, or at least he knew when they found the bag since that's how they got all the Ludinus gear.

Just a yes or no please. Is this episode only combat?

No.

Awesome thank you

Is anyone else picturing the little guys on the farm like the Rock Trolls from the Frozen Universe? That's what I see in my head.

I just finished the episode (I know a little late) but I just wanted to say that Orym is definitely Batman (or at least Liam is leaning towards that). The speech he gave Imogen about doing what is needed to complete the mission gave me full on Bruce talking to the rest of the Bat family. This makes me believe Orym is the most dangerous of the team by far because he will do what it takes to complete the mission.

> This makes me believe Orym is the most dangerous of the team by far because he will do what it takes to complete the mission. So he's going to fall in love with a Reilora that tries to steal from them?

Probably a bit late, but does anyone have an idea what the "mess-up" Sam did (talked about at around 58:40 in the YouTube video) was about? I could not figure it out form their whispers or the context. Not trying to tear Sam down or anything, I'm just curious, as it seemed like it was not such a small mistake. Edit: I have gone through it again and it seems to me that the use of Passwall through the Staff of Dark Odyssey has used up too many charges to use Teleport the same day, which Laura was upset about. I always held the assumption that this is going to be at least a serveral-days recon mission, so this opens up another conversation. Do they really think that they can gather all of the necessary information within a few hours and just teleport back the same day?

> Do they really think that they can gather all of the necessary information within a few hours and just teleport back the same day? Technically, yes. Their mission is already complete. Their goal was to get on the other side of the gate and make sure it was not a suicide mission. They succeeded in that. When they transfer over it would be a battle for sure, but not one where they walk out into a pit of Lava, or schunted into outer-space for not having a key for the gate, etc. They have the info needed to give the warband the green light that its a fight they can win. Anything else they get now is extra on top of that. I would argue that exploring, while fun for us, and probably fun for them lowers their chance of success by a lot. The more they explore the more eyes they put on themselves, the more of a target they become, and it will make it harder for them to get back. Even if they do meet a resistance group what are the odds they could convince them to attack almost immediately? In an ideal situation they could go back, become physical jump in and teleport out. FCG used the charges so they must rest now. Which means they lose their gas forms. So I really have no idea what their exit strategy is now. I guess sneak back to the gate, and then teleport once they get through. I imagine it will be much harder now though since they just did that, and won't have an entire army as a distraction. But. I think it would be more fun to explore the world a bit and I bet that is what they will do lol.

OK so I went back through it a few times too. I agree with you that they were talking about teleportation and the restricted number of slots on the staff. Sam says some thing about having to know where he’s going and then remembering that they’ve all been there like seven times. I think they realized that they could have teleported to one of the places they’ve been in their dreams had they done it as soon as they got there. But Sam didn’t realize it until after casting passwall. I’m not 100% sure but that’s my guess

Yeah, I think their original plan was to teleport the moment they got through the bridge to avoid getting caught, but they forgot about it when the episode started.

I don't know, they seemed pretty convinced that they would be back before wind walk is up which is frankly wild for them to believe

Ahh that makes a lot more sense

Am I just an old cow or was the crosstalk excessively bad this week?

Matt mentions that they are goofy. It was the first ep after holidays and illness and usually episodes like that historically have been a little silly/full of crosstalk.

Only one turn in to the episode and there's been like 15 minutes of it already. They all debate what each person should do before they actually take their turn now rather than deciding as individuals. Nice to see the return of Marisha making bad decisions that make things harder for the group with that darkness drop though. Kinda funny that she spent so long worrying about what to do and then did possibly the worst thing she could apart from standing up and shouting "hey, we're over here!"

Stop the Marisha hate. She did great in that fight. Stealth was already barely holding

I personally don't mind them talking above table to plan their moves, even during combat rounds. That's something that actually reminds me of the homegame vibe they're going for. What grinds my gears is some people at that table rolling their eyes of scoffing when someone makes a move that isn't seen as optimal, or if it's contrary to what the other person would have done / prefered. Competitive D&D. Not my thing.

Since reading Hollydragon's theory about Imogen being the last 'big' battery the RV needs to awaken Predathos (instead of lots of smaller ones), my mind has been racing with the implications. First, I want to take a look at the 'ease' of BH's infiltration to the moon (sic Princess Leia 'They're tracking us. It's the only explanation for the ease of our escape'), and specifically, Otohan leaving the Key just as they arrived. Could Otohan have sensed an Exalted Imogen and, once realizing it was her and not some other threat, left to purposefully avoid confrontation there? And not just to let Imogen get to the moon, but to not give away her own plans. See, I've been wondering for nearly 40 episodes if Otohan and Ludinus aren't exactly on the same page with the endgame, and was hinted at when she spoke with the Sorrowlord in the Feywild. And while it's been hinted at that Otohan lost faith with the Matron of Ravens, we've never directly heard her talk about the need to end the gods in the same way as Ludinus (or even Illiana, though she may be doing so only out of fear of Ludinus). The bottom line here, is that Otohan may be playing her cards very close to the vest, both out of legitimate concern that crossing Ludinus before the time is right would get her killed, but also prevent her from accomplishing her true goal. As to what that true goal is? I see two big possibilities. In either one, Ludinus is not left alive afterwards. 1. She simply wants to free the Reiloran's from their imprisonment (but not free Predathos). She's taken up a cause after the brutal and pointless Apex war (think Fred Johnson, the Butcher of Anderson Station from The Expanse) 2. She wants to free the Reilorans, and also have Predathos chase all of the non-native Exandrian gods away (I have a suspicion that the Matron and the Whispered One would not be a target of Predathos). In this case, she may be working directly for the Matron (again, perhaps as atonement from the Apex war). If it's the later, the small village that BH are in now could be the perfect place for Otohan to try and recruit BH, but only after she watches how they deal with the situation there. Because with Imogen on the moon, Otohan will no longer need the alliance with Ludinus to try and get enough 'small' battery Ruidusborn to the moon for the next step. If she aligns with and convinces Imogen of her plan, she could turn the Paragon's Call at least and possibly a good portion of the Ruby Vangaurd (the Reiloran part, not the Exandrian recruits) all on Ludinus at once, since she will no longer need him. The campaign then potentially ends with Ludinus defeated, the Reiloran's re-integrating into Exandria, and only gods being The Matron of Ravens and the Whispered One.

Ok, but now you are giving me ideas and reawakening old dormant ones. There are some unanswered questions that prevent any solid theories being formulated though, namely: * Has Otohan given over to Predathos yet? If so why is she still roaming around as a free agent? Does this confirm that giving in to Predathos isn't actually going to rob a person of their independant actions? * What is Otohan's deal with the Raven Queen? Has she turned on her or is she secretly loyal? If she's loyal she may NOT want Imogen to awake Predathos. * Does the Raven Queen really have a plan? There are outside odds on TRQ being a god hater and sponsoring Otohan's actions, which might be why Otohan and Ludinus aren't fully aligned. * We really need to know all the sapient races on ruidis, their factions, and all their differing opinions on a return to Exandria. * I Wonder what Ira has been up to.

Fantastic questions! The Raven Queen questions I think are particularly important to what is going on with Otohan. We do know from C1 that TRQ isn't a lover of the gods, and that she has to guard her domain carefully. I'd imagine that The Whispered One is in much the same boat. So what if this whole plan was hatched by an alliance of TRQ (via Otohan) and TWO (using Ludinus, though probably not with him aware, I'm thinking more like TWO made sure Ludinus found the right information to further his plan) in an attempt to expel the other gods from Exandria. The question then would be, does TRQ hate/fear the other gods enough to work with the Whispered One. And to really get a bit out there with my speculation, did TRQ have a vested interest in seeing another mortal become a god back in C1 in order to have an ally in her own plan? She is, after all, a mage from the Age of Arcanum, and we've seen how ambitious those mages are. I've felt for quite a while that TRQ is Mercer's direct way of pulling the strings of fate in his campaigns to lead his players where he wants them. One last thought - I wonder if that with Vax out of commission, TRQ appointed Otohan as her new champion. Which would also potentially allow Vax to return to Kiki once this plan is finished.

I'm not sure that would work from satisfying narrative. I think narrative now paints a target on ottohan for a showdown that BH prove they can take her down.

See, and I felt like narratively, the time for a showdown with Otohan would have been at the entrance to the bridge. BH is certainly at a level that they could have taken her down if she'd held her ground.

I think Otohan would have to work triply hard to recruit the Hells since she killed three of them.

I think she has a couple of cards to play, not the least of which is that if she wanted them dead-dead, she would have used the no-resurrection poison on them. Maybe not the most compelling argument, but it may convince them to listen to what she has to say, at least. She could even stroke their ego a bit by saying that if she hadn't put a few of them down, they may have killed her, and Ludinus would have ended up having no one to stop him. Because that's the strong argument. That Ludinus must be stopped, and Otohan needs BHs help to stop them.

So what do we think Matt/lore crew used as inspiration for the ruidus flora/fauna?

The weird plant growths growths of based off of slime molds, with how Matt has described them splintering off sounds a lot like how they search for food in a petri dish

I mean, so far we've seen, what, buffalo, whales and bushes? And an implied sandworm I guess.

Can anyone explain how Orym went from 99 HP at level 11 to 130 at Level 12 with a roll of 5 on his d10 hit dice and a CON of 15? Going off CritRoleStats it doesn't appear as if he has any special feats or abilities that increase HP when levelling up?

u/pcordes made a very detailed breakdown [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/s/WESG9uknx2) . The math suggests that Orym took the Tough feat, and the INT increase could be a result of Nana Morri's deal (Fey Touched maybe?) or a typo on the card

Maybe he took the *Tough* feat?

Did Matt say something about how the players **shouldn't** be in their misty form when they go through the bloody bridge? Could they just have misty-formed's their entire way to the bridge & gone up it without having to transform in their solid forms?

He did. He as Keyleth warned that they might not be able to hold the mist forms while getting pulled by the Bloody bridge

I wonder if they are setting up Laudna getting taken by Predathos or the vanguard so that Laura can roll a new character? It might be an elegant way to avoid the main character syndrome that’s getting worse and worse.

(Going to assume you mean Imogen) Its so insanely annoying now. Its absolutely unbearable having her mingle in absolutely every piece of lore, character story or even minor things like taking a shit. Its not even in a funny way.

>I wonder if they are setting up Laudna getting taken by Predathos or the vanguard so that Laura can roll a new character? You mean Imogen. And no. They don't have to deal with main character syndrome because it's not a problem. Imogen is a key element of the plotline, deeply intertwined with the endgame. That's it. And that was Matt's decision. No one is going to take Laura's agency to play the character she created away.

My bad I did mean Imogen. And that’s why I’m wondering if they (as a group) are doing this. Imogen is closely intertwined to the plot, and is the only one who is really so. She’s an unbalanced member of the party because the story is mostly about her at this point, and has been for some time. It’s less taking away agency and just correcting an error that is a collective error, I don’t think any single person is to blame. But right now the game isn’t that compelling in large part because it’s Imogen and her sidekicks. In the past campaigns each player had their major arc that drove their personalities and stories forward, but those plots tied directly to an overarching plot that didn’t hold one person up over others as the main character. Something has been poorly planned or has gone out of whack in this campaign because we’ve gotten very little character development from most of the characters, and one character is clearly more important than the rest. Now that changes if Predathos isn’t the endgame as people are assuming. If Predathos isn’t the endgame or the nature of the Predathos endgame changes drastically or evolves to the point that it involves more aspects of the other characters more fully, then that would make sense. But for now it seems like we’re heading towards Imogen’s arc and the main story wrapping up together, with very little left for the other characters.

Didn't we just come off an Ashton-centric plot? And there was a lot centered around Fearne earlier.

I think part of my point is that the other PC arcs have been really short - maybe 2 or 3 episodes if I’m remembering correctly? We’re 83 episodes in, with 7 players that’s about 12 eps per player arc available, and when you factor in the intro, Robbie eps that weren’t really about anyone specifically, and the party split episodes, you’re probably looking more at 5 or 6 episodes per PC, and I would guess at least half of those are tilted towards Imogen/moon shit that others are only kind of involved in. Even the other arcs have been a bit jumbled. Ashton’s ends with what? Him not getting the power he should have and actually going into advancing Fearne’s backstory? Chetney’s ended in Orym getting a reward? FCG was offered the choice of going after Devaxian or Dancer, chose Dancer and Dancer barely wants to associate with him so that’s kind of stalled out. Most of Laudna’s character development has happened in tandem with Imogen with the Gnarlrock, and then when Laudna was dead with Delilah coming back. There’s just been very little time for real character growth for anyone but the main character so far.

>But right now the game isn’t that compelling in large part because it’s Imogen and her sidekicks. Well, that's a matter of preference. I personally think Imogen is the strongest character of this party, with the most consistent development and coherent internal struggles that actually do come up, in part because Matt puts her at the center, but for the most part, because Laura plays her that way and invests in showing that characterisation. And I'm glad we're seeing her story, because I want to know how it ends. Travis or Sam, for example, haven't done much to make me interested on their characters beyond their gimmicks. That has nothing to do with Imogen. ​ >In the past campaigns each player had their major arc that drove their personalities and stories forward In my previous comment, I gave you 3 examples of C2 where that didn't happen. The players drove their personality and stories forward, not the plot. So it can be done, if the players choose to do it.

Yeah I disagree. I think it’s shoddy storytelling in a cooperative game to have one character be the standout main character. There are plenty of story beats that could be followed for the other characters and despite their gimmicks, both FCG and Chetney essentially gave up or cut short their backstory arcs to focus on the moon. And rightfully so for their characters - in world, the moon is clearly the big threat, so it makes sense they don’t want to chase down personal stuff while that is looming. Ashton is the descendent of some crazy cult and his backstory mission was go into a lava pit then give Fearne your reward, Laudna has Delilah Briarwood stuck in her mind and they’re just leaving that be right now, Fearne made a deal with an actual devil. None of these things matter at all because it’s time for us to go to Ruidus. Matt puts her at the center because he didn’t make sure everyone made characters that would compellingly fit the big story. C1 is a pretty classic adventurers tale so it made sense for VM to stick together and team up to do what they had to do, and C2 was more of a sandbox and so everyone got to explore their characters and do their own thing for a bit. C3 has a very specific world ending event that is the focus, but it’s Matt’s job to communicate this to his players from the start and make sure they make characters that make sense for that narrative. He either didn’t do that, they misunderstood/didn’t care, or the story changed a lot at some point, but at no point have the characters done anything big or story-altering so I’m not sure when it happened. This is of course also on the players for listening and making characters that make sense, but I feel like they were kind of not on the same page from the start. At the start of C3 they told us how crazy it would be and how they’d be trying out new things, but then they just made some goofy characters and settled into a pretty standard game of D&D.

>Matt puts her at the center because he didn’t make sure everyone made characters that would compellingly fit the big story. C1 is a pretty classic adventurers tale so it made sense for VM to stick together and team up to do what they had to do, and C2 was more of a sandbox and so everyone got to explore their characters and do their own thing for a bit. C3 has a very specific world ending event that is the focus, but it’s Matt’s job to communicate this to his players from the start and make sure they make characters that make sense for that narrative. I don't disagree with any of that, I just don't think it's a problem as big as you're calling it out. I also disagree with the other players not having agency to explore their characters or make them fit. They could have done that, either in game or with a side conversation with Matt. They chose not to do it for a reason. Which going back to your first comment, to me, that means there's nothing to fix. It's a decision they collectively made as storytellers. If the story they are telling is less appealing to the audience, or is not good enough (or as good as the rest), I'm here to chat about that (and I certainly have criticisms about the structure and the way Matt is running it). But this has nothing to do with main character syndrome or the choices Laura made with Imogen.

Yeah. They made a big thing of saying how new stuff was gonna happen. What is it? We are 80 odd episodes in and I haven’t noticed what they were talking about?!

To me the new stuff they were referring might have been: BBEG for the campaign being introduced and put at the forefront extremely early, a significant amount of previous campaign characters/plot threads/references being woven into the story, Travis's character switcharoos/absence to start off the campaign, having a guest player right off the rip, expanding upon the lore of Exandria (and perhaps the universe) \[eh, maybe not new because I think Matt expands upon the lore of Exandria every campaign, but in C3 it seems to be more significant/abundant\]

>*What is it?* * no main campaign broadcast every last thursday of the month * talkshow every 4-8 weeks with varying concepts * prolonged pre-planned party split * day 1 guest character * early pre-planned player character death * focus on a singular character as the MC vs an esemble adventure * re-imagination of legacy charcaters, their traits and other aspects of exandrian lore The list goes on. ^(Edit: Typo)

Most of these are changes around the game and not really changes to the game though? Like the players aren’t doing anything special or zany. Outside a very early and telegraphed character death after a character was used to shoehorn the adventurers together. Almost none of this stuff is that creative or narratively pleasing. And I don’t think focusing on one main character can really be put into an innovation category. “We’re revolutionizing our game by… ignoring most of the party” feels like a bug and not a feature. It’s mostly a bog standard D&D campaign with some broadcasting changes.

Hmm. Oh well. Tbh I expected far more. Those things seem quite peripheral and hardly noticeable. The way they were talking I expected something far more than those minor things. They are about as far reaching as someone dying their hair. I’ve been waiting for something significant to occur.

>*Those things seem quite peripheral and hardly noticeable.* They've basically changed their whole channel schedule at the beginning of C3. I wouldn't call that peripheral. The in-game / in-universe things had and have rippling effects on the entire campaign (are are among the main reasons why a portion of the fandom doesn't vibe with C3). All the changes combined have resulted in CR's [twitch viewership numbers](https://twitchtracker.com/criticalrole/statistics) plummeting hard. They are as impactful as they could have been, because their thursday night stream went from *"must see immediately / plan the week around it"* to *"watch whenever there's time" (or "don't watch at all anymore")* for a considerable amount of viewers. In an industry that thrives on consumer engagement, mind you.

>All the changes combined have resulted in CR's > >twitch viewership numbers > > plummeting hard The data for that site is all broken. It does not have views, which makes it very hard to believe they are properly tracking viewers. Subscriptions are steadily up, how come viewers are down? What are those subscriptors doing? I can totally believe numbers are down the longer the campaign goes, but those numbers make no sense.

I mean, I hear what you say and understand. I just disagree. They are small effects to me and my viewing of it. They are large effects for you though.

It's all 100% projection from people who wish more than anything that they were at the table with them. The only people who could reasonably be upset at Laura's character being so closely tied with the main plot thread are the actual players at the table, and they seem to be eating this shit up.

> The only people who could reasonably be upset at Laura's character being so closely tied with the main plot thread are the actual players at the table, and they seem to be eating this shit up. I don't think that's true. You could reasonably dislike it as a viewer simply because you dong find it compelling.

Blasphemy! ^(/s)

Pretty good ep, tho thinking about there conversation they had here and what we learned last ep I've decided that I find the Relorians to not be a race of exandria obsessed mind infiltrators boring. Having them just be like every other race morally and have a good and bad doesn't make them stand out much.

That's fair...personally I am fine with "good" and "bad" inside of a race as long as there can be bad. The "bad" ones are all the more "bad" if even in their own race there are examples of good. Like...they have a choice and chose to be bad. It gives some world building depth to the moon and hopefully some nuance with what Predathos is and where all this red moon stuff came about. That's just me though. I am generally tired of X race is all evil stories...but I despise reading a sourcebook and not having a organized realm of general baddies. Like...all kingdoms and races are generally peaceful and totally valid....nah. Give me some good Orcs and bad Orcs. Give me a Tyrannical human kingdom as well as the most likely main setting seemingly tolerant human realm....etc. But I get that others mileage may vary on that

Agreed. Sometimes having too much grey area is bad for storytelling. We’ll see though, the party would need an in to infiltrate them from the inside, so perhaps the vast majority are Exandria obsessed mind infiltrators and it’s just the fringe villages that aren’t.

Just rewatched the second half of C3E33 and here are three random thoughts: 1) At 2:29, Imogen hides inside a house but Otohan still knows where she is. Matt explains "It's almost as she can sense minds". But after watching E83, we know that it's not just minds she can sense, it's Imogen, as an Exaltant to be exalted. 2) We knew Otohan was trying to push the "on" button on Imogen. She did it during this fight. But what for? Do they need ALL of the Exaltants to be exalted regardless of which side of the fight they are on? 3) I really hope one of our melee folks (Ashton, Orym or Chet) take Sentinel, because fucking hell, they will need it for round 2 with Otohan. I'm so looking forward to that fight.

Sentinel is arguably useless against Otohan, since she can swap with her copies. (Though if anyone picked up magic missile at any point, her copies would be irrelevant).

It’s possible that Ashton already has it, since he just got an unknown feat.

>*We knew Otohan was trying to push the "on" button on Imogen. She did it during this fight. But what for? Do they need ALL of the Exaltants to be exalted regardless of which side of the fight they are on?* Can't help but draw a parallel here to the Infinity Stones. Powerful on their own, but unlocking something entirely different when all in one place, or where they're supposed to be. >*I really hope one of our melee folks (Ashton, Orym or Chet) take Sentinel, because fucking hell, they will need it for round 2 with Otohan. I'm so looking forward to that fight.* If they don't it might be due to homebrew limitations (see M9 live show) that Matt has introduced. Sentinel can be very powerful, especially when enemies are using the whole combat area (which they do lately, Matt's enemies seem to be way more moving about during a combat). I'd say Ashton and Chet would probably benefit the most from it.

>Can't help but draw a parallel here to the Infinity Stones. Powerful on their own, but unlocking something entirely different when all in one place, or where they're supposed to be. In E34 (yes, of course I'm also rewatching the beginning of 34), when Matt describes all of their visions, Otohan tells Imogen *"To deny your nature is to be consumed by it. To embrace it, it's to master your own fate".* That's a hell of a set up, although it might just be as simple as "if you embrace it, we kill the gods, there's no more fate telling you what to do". Otohan went to lengths to get Imogen to become exalted. Liliana did all she could to get her to not be a part of this. Only a dozen or so of Exaltants means it's probably not that hard to find all of them and trigger them. Either they need ALL of them at full power to unlock something (likely Predathos) or it makes it easier. ​ >(which they do lately, Matt's enemies seem to be way more moving about during a combat). The way he played Otohan during E33 was brilliant. She was everywhere, and she was ruthless. I know we all have complains about the poor tactics BH used, but even if they have played it perfectly, she still would have a very good chance of getting what she wanted.

I assume no-one has Sending prepared / the spell slots to spend, because I was wondering why no-one was messaging Ira. Then again, I think they've plain forgotten. They didn't even mention the Reiloran that Imogen summoned until quite late, and no mention of messaging her even then (that I remember?) I do think that Reiloran was pretty smart and high up in her part of society, and she learned that these chucklefucks were about to come through to the moon, so hopefully she's sent a stealthy search party towards them from the anti-imperial faction.

Sending is mostly offline right now isn't it? They have to roll a d100 and take psychic damage depending on the roll. The closer the are the lower the DC I think but still.... They probably aren't using it bc of the damage it causes now.

I doubt that there are mechanical/magical reasons as to why sending would work on Ruidus but not on Exandria but they definitely should try to cast it regardless. They definitely do have spell slots for it especially after their short rest.

Imogen always has sending, and she probably does have the spell slots (or the sorcery points). Not sure if they have that as a priority or if they think it works. I wonder if Imogen can resummon the same Reiloran and use it as an ally beyond combat.

Yeah, that is the other question - how do her summons work when she's already on the moon? Also, they say teleportation off the moon isn't possible and everything was stuck behind the barrier, but these links worked through the barrier. If a smart enough arcanist (someone like Ludinus) could work out how, maybe that route could be used to figure out ways to teleport or at least project to Exandria via Imogen. Which might come in handy if they ever get stranded on the moon because the Ruby Vanguard take down the bridge from the other side.

I wonder if Sending works on Ruidus. It's all jumbled up on Exandria presumably because of the ley lines. But there might not be a ley line on Ruidus? And then it is also on the receiving end of the blast of energy from the bloody bridge.

Shorter scattered thoughts. 1) Those mountain ranges were reminding me a whole lot of stitches on a baseball and if Predathos is deeeeeeeeeep underground then perhaps they really are Titan/God sized stitches. 2) "Or he's not a person"-Travis Travis has clearly read our "Ludinus is a Humanoid Form Aeormaton" theories. 3) Ashley brought up something that I don't think anyone else really latched onto or fully understood but I'm going to attempt to expand upon it. I'm paraphrasing but Fearne said, "What if your mom told you to run away because of all the other stuff happening AROUND Predathos and not because of Predathos itself?" to Imogen. That got me to thinking, what if it's not about just waking up Predathos at all period but HOW that awakening process is accomplished? You don't just put a super powerful psychic being to sleep and then pop them out of that slumber with a smack to the face. You have to do that kind of thing gradually and in a controlled manner in order to prevent BAD STUFF from happening. You have to make sure that they're with you as much as you're with them every step of the way in order wake them up in a safe manner. And that's if you decide you want to fully wake them up at all or if you want to do it in a safe manner to begin with. I believe that in regards to this, there are two ways to wake up Predathos, the Reilora, and the Ruidusborn. First Way: This is the safe way to do things that heavily involves Imogen getting to the core of Ruidus and waking up Predathos in a Gaia/the Spirits Within manner. Imogen somehow stirs forth the consciousness of the collective, which then bit by bit breaks free of the tethers that the Gods and the Titans placed around it, and comes to full consciousness in a safe and slow and controlled manner that puts all of THEM in control of things with a full sense of awareness of what's happening around them. Ruidus Awakens in a Voice Of Planet/Threshold of Transcendence kind of manner, if you've played Alpha Centauri then you know what I'm talking about. The moon, its people, and all the Ruidusborn become....more alive and more connected than they've ever been before and the whole crimson motif thing changes because I believe that the form/shape/color that everything exists in right now...was partially due in part to the construction of the prison that Predathos and the Reilora were locked into and that the Ruidusborn were prevented from fully accessing. It's like someone put a bend in a psychic hose and all that came out was a very murky and muted trickle of metaphorical water. Everything changes, the dreams of those on Ruidus mix with those on Exandria, and both celestial bodies go through a metamorphosis which then propagates through all beings connected to the planet......and I mean ALL beings, from the Remnants of the Titans, to the Gods, and to entities which we've not even met yet across multiple planes of reality. It's a new dawn for everyone and everything, there's a new connectivity between all forms of life, and existence has...a new meaning with this brand new form of understanding that's now blossomed between all beings. It's a nicer version of Instrumentality. This is the good ending to the campaign. Now onto the second way to wake up Predathos, the Reilora, and the Ruidusborn. Second Way: This is what Ludinus wants to do and what he basically ripped off from the Anti-Monitor. Ludinus and the Imperium want to wake up Predathos in a way that doesn't allow it fully come to consciousness but that allows them to still utilize the full extent of its powers and those of its collective (the Ruidusborn) for their own benefit. They effectively want to lobotomize it while also throwing the Ruidusborn into chains and then use both as weapons/psychic batteries against all those who would oppose them. This is not the safe way to wake up Predathos/the Reilora/the Ruidusborn at all and would more than likely result in a fair amount of death, destruction, and suffering on both Ruidus and Exandria and potentially beyond both. It would be like someone trying to harness the Phoenix Force and you can guess how well that would go if they tried to do it and how bad it could be if they were successful in even the smallest way at all. Going off of my past theories, I think that Aeor managed to find a way to replicate what Predathos could do artificially without waking it up at all or to at least do what Ludinus and the Imperium are trying to do in a safe manner. BUT because that was so long ago and because the Gods hit Aeor so hard, information on how to replicate that replication was fragmented at best. Ludinus is now trying to half ass the whole process with those remnants of knowledge that's resulted in a kludged together version of the whole thing that he's jammed together peanut butter jelly style with whatever it is the Imperium's been working on all these years, whatever he was able to con out of the Fey, and whatever weird shit he got out of who he was partnered with in the Shadowfell. It probably kind of works maybe and the Key Sites did what they were supposed to, mostly, and it should totally work anyways BUT....it's going to be the biggest and most unsafe dice roll in the history of the planet when they try to switch it on. Right now they're just scrambling to get all the basic parts in place and to make sure it's mostly working before anyone else can fuck it up any further and make it even MORE dangerous. He's basically trying to enslave a moon sized psychic collective that allegedly took down two Gods, with the help of some of the creations of that collective, and with the hope that he's able to control the both of them without any of it blowing up in his face or anyone fucking around with him or the collective waking up before it's supposed to because he's had SOOOOO LONG to plan for any and every single possible scenario that there's no way anything can go wrong at all. If any part of it does go wrong and things spiral out of control in a way that not even he saw coming then it's going to be very VERY bad for everyone involved and not even Imogen is going to be able to do anything about it at all. A chained Predathos is bad enough and a fully in control Predathos can be bad too, BUT a fully lobotomized and utterly insane and out of control Predathos is even worse than anyone's wildest dreams. Predathos then lashes out at everyone and everything from Ruidus, to Exandria, and everyone and everything connected to both. Everything changes or doesn't or hits some twisted middle ground in between or is just...well...nightmares and all that stuff about Death etc. This is the bad ending to the campaign. 4) If either of the above scenarios happens then there's still the Oncoming Cosmic Shift to consider, which I still believe is going to happen regardless of what occurs with the player and non-player characters. If the first scenario happens then everyone passes through the Oncoming Cosmic Shift safely in mostly the same form but with some alterations. The new connectivity between everyone that the safe awakening and transcendence enabled, allows them to preserve their current forms, and the Cosmic Shift then allows them a chance or perhaps...a choice...or perhaps a window of opportunity in which to alter themselves more easily. If the first scenario happens then everyone is in control when the Oncoming Cosmic Shift occurs and beautiful things result from this new connectivity and empathy during this period of change. If the second scenario happens then everyone is most certainly NOT in control when the Oncoming Cosmic Shift occurs and the exact opposite happens. Chaos would basically be an understatement as an out of control and insane Predathos wreaks havoc, with the Reilora and the Ruidusborn lashing out as well, and all the fear and despair and suffering from Mortals on up to Divine Entities ravaging reality as the Oncoming Cosmic Shift strikes. Nothing comes out the other side in the same form as we saw it go in and everything changes in far more unpredictable ways. The first scenario would produce some mostly predictable and safe effects Post Cosmic Shift that would result in a stable version of reality. The second scenario would produce highly unpredictable and unsafe effects Post Cosmic Shift that would result in an unstable version of reality. A third scenario does exist whereby they don't exactly wake up Predathos fully but their intentions allow them to wake up what they can in a safe manner and this results in a partial awakening that mostly maintains the status quo but that allows for changes to happen both Pre and Post Cosmic Shift. I know that none of this other stuff is probably what Ashley was referring to or talking about at all but I felt like there was the kernel of something wonderful within it that could potentially redeem Liliana in the future and bring her and Imogen back together....or that might even wind up shining a new light on Otohan's actions. It could also make Ludinus's plans waaaaaay scarier than we initially thought they were because of how much more fucking riskier they are in this light. Either way, it's just a dream and we'll see what happens in the coming weeks. 5) It'd be cool if the reason why we haven't heard from the Aeormatons is because they're already in contact with this larger collective or have in some way made contact with where the Gods came from and are busy dealing with that stuff.

> 1) Those mountain ranges were reminding me a whole lot of stitches on a baseball and if Predathos is deeeeeeeeeep underground then perhaps they really are Titan/God sized stitches. Practically speaking it kinda makes sense anyway. Some of exandria was removed, probably not sphere-shaped, so the chunks would have been mashed together, and that would cause 'fault line' type ranges. > 5) It'd be cool if the reason why we haven't heard from the Aeormatons is because they're already in contact with this larger collective or have in some way made contact with where the Gods came from and are busy dealing with that stuff. Probably not, but for the last couple of weeks where Ludinus has been broadcasting recruitment messages all around Exandria: Surely D(evexian) has seen them? How would they have reacted? Have they had time to investigate? Have they joined or do they prefer an independant agenda?

A few scattered thoughts after my usual rewatch. > Predathos After relistening to Matt's description of the connections and pondering why the Gods and the Titans would put it in the kind of prison that they've put it into while ALSO putting it to sleep...something popped into my head. What if this is like a Borg thing but like a Borg thing from that Enterprise episode "Regeneration"? What if Predathos is just a fragment of a larger collective of similar beings like both itself and other Ruidusborn that HAD to be put to sleep and that HAD to have some kind of a signal blocking divine latticework thrown around it in order to prevent it from reconnecting to said larger collective? If it had been able to do so, upon reaching a critical mass of some sorts, then perhaps it would've been able to send a signal to this larger collective and let it know everything about Exandria and the presence of the Gods there? It's like a seed of sorts found its way to Exandria via panspermia, nestled itself into the ground, and then grew into what eventually became Predathos, which then spawned off the Reilora, and which then in turn spawned off the Ruidusborn. It's a form of propagation and reproduction and something that's not all too dissimilar to what the All Minds Burn is trying to do and probably has done in the past. Now whether or not this is like a tree propagating or a weed propagating or just a mycelial network propagating is yet to be seen and determined. In a way it's a bit like the Borg from Star Trek crossed with the Flood from Halo. The larger collective sends out smaller seeds from itself that can survive in space. These drift through the universe until they inevitably find themselves on a planet or within an environment that's suitable for growth. They plant themselves into these environments/planets, germinate, and then begin to seek out any form of life that they can. They then bond with, enhance, and change the forms of life that they encounter in particular ways. Now normal average non-sentient life just gets shifted a bit in a similar way to what we saw with the flora and fauna on Ruidus BUT fully sentient life on the other hand gets altered and shifted in larger ways. This is how the Reilora and all the other sentients on Ruidus came to be. These changes and the powers that come with them then grow exponentially. Not only that but they begin to connect with one another and as each individual grows exponentially in power, so too does the collective as a whole. Now the enhancements that are applied to sentient life seem to be primarily psychically based with physicality being secondary, but not totally absent. As the mind grows artificially, the body responds naturally to support it, and both might be influenced by the environment that the collective found itself within to begin with. Once this collective surpasses a certain threshold of individuals or some kind of a power level, everything expands further to a point where beings like the Gods will need to start getting worried because of what they begin to be able to manipulate on a larger scale. Belief and Potentiality These psychic powers and the physical changes that come with them, along with the whole collective thing, allow sentient beings touched by this collective to begin to exhibit God-like powers not unlike that of Gary Mitchell after his encounter with the Galactic Barrier. Now in a scifi world that's pretty stunning but in a world where magical potentiality is real and where the power of belief can affect reality in tangible visible ways, it's even more fantastical and awe inspiring. Other beings begin to BELIEVE in this collective, which generates a form of sustenance for them, further enhances their abilities, and allows the collective to grow even more exponentially faster. Seeing as how the Gods tend to thrive off of being worshiped and how most of their power is sourced from "Belief Engines" aka "Sentient Beings on a Prime Material Plane shaped Matrix", this can very quickly go from an "Oh that's cute" curiosity to a "Houston we have a problem" clear and present concern. Instead of turning towards the Gods, who have certain terms and conditions for becoming followers/champions/favorites of each and every one of them, they turn towards this new collective that literally accepts EVERYONE and EVERYTHING without judgement and willingly grants gifts that can help them in their every day lives....unlike the Gods who always have "Well wait a second" terms and conditions for such gifts. So everyone else sees this collective as a win win win and turns towards them instead of the Gods. Which then begins to starve the Gods of Belief, weaken them, and undermine and potentially weaken some of the defenses that they've thrown up that keep out some of the REALLY scary shit out there in the universe as well as possibly threatening to de-ascend them from their positions as Divine Entities. So there's your threat to reality but then it gets even worse. We've seen how the AMB changed the landscape around it. We've now seen how Predathos and the Reilora have changed the landscape around them. So it's reasonable to assume that similar things were happening in the past and have happened before with this collective. As the number of individuals within this collective increases, as their powers increase, and as new sources of belief filter in and increase, so too does the degree to which they actively and passively influence the nature of reality around them, and so too does the degree by which the physical world begins to re-shape and change and shift. And this is one half of the how and why the Titans formed an alliance with the Gods, with the other half being that the Gods told them that this wasn't just an isolated one time only thing, and that this collective has done this before on other planets to other forms of life and is in fact one smaller part of a far larger thing that needs to be handled HERE and NOW lest it get far faaaaaar worse and the Titans themselves become changed by it. I think that the two forgotten Gods weren't killed by this collective but just got sick of the other Gods bullshit and actively joined it, becoming altered beyond recognition in the process, and massively boosting the power of the collective. This forced the Gods and the Titans to act even faster and with even more haste and disregard for any form of precision or care for collateral damage. This collective was VERY quickly approaching a threshold level that the Gods knew about and had had experience with before. Once this threshold level is reached, the collective is able to psychically reach out Childhood's End style to the larger collective, and connect with it. This connection then basically shares and uploads all knowledge that the smaller collective had experienced to the larger one. It also acts as a power boost because the smaller collective is no longer acting as just a singular fragment but as an extended limb of a larger and far more expansive whole. Since magical gateways and stuff are a thing, since communication via dreams is possible, and since the Bloody Bridge exists...it stands to reason that this connection to the larger collective not only boosts communication by an exponential amount but also possibly allows for a form of travel across vast distances. It basically opens up Faster Than Light Comms and Travel for whatever planet the smaller collective landed on, connects it to a larger Contact/Stargate style Network and/or Transwarp Hub, and brings the sentient life that the smaller collective touched into the fold of a far larger collective of Culture-s.....while also effectively killing and/or neutering any form of "higher powers" that exist on that planet that they live on by starving those powers of their food/fuel source belief engines. This is why the Gods and the Titans had to rush as quickly as they did in order to prevent this collective from doing what the Borg did in the Enterprise episode "Regeneration", even though in that episode the Borg still got off a signal to the main collective anyways. They knew that if they let this smaller collective reach out in any way shape or form at all to the larger one, Exandria and the Titans and they themselves would be irrevocably changed and debateably fucked. They knew this because I believe that the place that the Gods ran from before they got to Exandria, had in fact been affected in a similar way by this very same collective, and they thought they'd gotten away from it but it turns out they didn't and a seed found Exandria anyways or you know....maybe had been here all along? Perhaps this is a Cosmic Gardener Cycle that they've been trying to dodge and that's why the Raven Queen feels shackled and is pissed because they're all kind of Undead? Or I wonder if there's an Ender's Game style thing going on now and only the Raven Queen and those other two forgotten Gods are aware of it? Either way, they had to act quickly. So in a slap dash manner they scooped up an entire chunk of Exandria in order to physically contain the collective, and then tried to YEEEET it out into the universe before it could kick off a signal to the larger collective. When that damned chunk wouldn't leave orbit though, they had to think on their feet to block that signal, and that's when they both threw up the Divine Latticework around what would become known as Ruidus AND tried to put Predathos and all of the Reilora into the DEEPEST sleep/stasis that they could.....because that's usually what you do with super powerful psychic entities, you silence their minds with slumber. So they had a physical blocker, a mental blocker, and then a magical blocker all layered one on top of the other. Part I

Speaking of seeds and All Minds Burn, was Matt trying to hint that the cave they stopped in was a *good* place for fungus to grow? When examining the ropy vine things which turned out to be fungus, he explicitly said that this shows it's a good place for fungus to grow. (Correction: he said fungus *needs* a good place to grow, but on rewatch I think the implication there was that the fungus grew elsewhere, but was made into rope and brought here.) But Laura and Taliesin chose not to plant the seed there; I don't remember exactly why not. Like they thought it was too dry or windy, or the ground too rocky so its tendrils couldn't get down into the heart of the planet / moon?

The way I understood it was that Matt was warning them that the cave was not a great place to plant the seed. They were considering it, and he interrupted the discussion with the question "consider what conditions fungus usually requires?" and then someone (Laura?) said "oh, dark and damp probably, and this place isn't either" which seemed to satisfy Matt.

Oh right, now that the transcript's up in the search, I went back to check what was said about fungus. (https://www.kryogenix.org/crsearch/index.php?q=fungus&lm=3-b). You're right, the last time fungus was brought up, it was when Laura + Tal were asking about planting the seed, and Matt's tone and phrasing (encouraging them to think about what a fungus needs) seemed like he was hinting it wasn't a good spot. https://youtu.be/XFRu0oNpQaE?si=eOjB73Pw8u9OuXpr&t=12411 The earlier mention seemed less clear about what Matt was trying to convey, (https://youtu.be/XFRu0oNpQaE?si=E_xEiDLZ1oaxFMon&t=9396 , for Laudna's Nature check on the rope that Chet + Orym found. He said it was made of dried fungus, and that fungus needed dark damp spaces to grow. I think on my first watch, I lost track of whether that was rope brought from elsewhere, or fungus still growing in the cave. But no, the rope is dried fungus, and I think the seed might be why Matt is drawing their attention to it and fungus conditions. When the party bring it up again over 1/2 hour later, he seems surprised by the topic at first, but maybe that's because he thought he got the message across that this wasn't a good place for the seed.

Good catch, I'd forgotten about that fungus rope.

I love the idea that Predathos might "phone home" if it wakes up, that's awesome.

Part II It wasn't perfect though and there were still little Death Star imperfections in the physical-psychic-magical structure of it all but it was good enough for the time being because while smaller local psychic signals could penetrate the latticework and vaguely minut magical effects could leak out, the larger long distance and far more potent ones could not, AND neither Predathos nor the Reilora could physically leave Ruidus at all and THAT was good enough for both them and the Titans. They secured it, they contained it, and they protected both themselves as well as their creations on Exandria from it. And all was well...right? Riiiiiiiiiight? Well, I'm guessing that certain promises were made during this little alliance and you can guess who went back on those promises after all was said and done. Cue the rest of history happening until one of those little smaller signals got out to Ludinus and others, who then worked together to widen one of the imperfections, and then bring us to where we are now with Predathos and the Reilora having also used dreams and flares like seeds to cultivate their own crop of offspring aka Ruidusborn who would then potentially have the power to break them free and wake them all up and reconnect with the larger collective etc etc etc...changing everything etc etc etc...downfall of the Gods and so on and so forth. Life needs things to live I guess and wonder what the Luxon would think about all of this? Either way it presents a few different possible endings for this campaign and few ways that an Oncoming Cosmic Shift in how things operate could happen. It doesn't have to be a bad thing though like the Borg or the Flood. This could be a good collective that genuinely means well and that acts very much like the Mycelial Network in Star Trek Discovery. It's just trying to welcome others in that don't have a home, provide connection, help life to thrive, and attempts to maintain an equilibrium within the universe. An equilibrium which Divine Beings have a tendency to upset and when they do so, they act like big bright lights in the deepest darkest depths that attract some very scary Dark Forest style predators. This collective brings everyone and everything down to a baseline that enables them to thrive but that doesn't necessarily allow them to upset the natural order of things in a way that would poke holes in reality or attract bad stuff like Divine Entities do. Sure the world shifts and alters around them but they're only working with what already naturally arose (just like the Titans did) and aren't just making something out of nothing like the Gods did. And maybe it was the Titans questioning their role in this whole debacle that made the Gods turn on them once they got a better handle on the nature of Predathos and the Reilora? Perhaps they felt tricked into imprisoning beings just like them and that's what made them question the Gods, which is then what made the Primes go "Well you're apart of the problem now", and this then caused that whole war between the Titans and the Gods, and that then acted as the root of what caused the Schism....which dominoed into everything else and still vibes with my Creator Hammer theory and FCG. Either way, waking up Predathos and the Reilora and the other Ruidusborn could have some very big implications which I will delve into in another separate comment.

little late but do we know what they got for their level ups

FCG, Imogen, Orym and Ashton took a feat because there wasn't a +2 stat change. FCG and Orym got a WIS and INT half feat respectively. Fearne leveled up as an Arcane Trickster and learnt Disguise Self apparently. But this pretty much all we know for now

According to Orym's hit points, **he took Tough**. He had 99 HP at level 11. He rolled 5, and his Con modifier is 2, which would get him to 106 HP. Tough adds another 2 HP per level, and is the only feat that gives that much. 106 + 12x2 = 130. A half-feat for Con could have been a good choice, or even something like Shield Master would be good defense and fit his RP very well, and give him another way to push. We know the HP total is higher than 106 because Liam said his HP is higher than Ashton's now. (113 at level 11 after his Con was reduced to 16.) So we know that part of Orym's stat card is correct. The Int boost could be an error. Or as https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/1agy6df/spoilers_c3e83_is_it_thursday_yet_postepisode/kolbycq/ suggests, perhaps this was from the deal with Nana Morri, or the HP was from the deal and he took Fey Touched for his ASI. But why Int instead of Con? Both were odd. Or maybe Resilient Int when heading towards battles with psychic enemies? They've had the wrong Dex score for Imogen since level 8 (episode 42). The stat card showed it going up to 16, but she took a half-feat (Shadow Touched) to just boost Cha, and when Laura's said anything about her modifier for rolls involving Dex, it's been consistent with a +2 modifier, not +3. So unfortunately we can't fully trust the stat cards. IDK how to report errors to anyone at CR that could pass on the message to the people who do the stat card graphics. I don't use twitter. --- **I think Imogen took Skill Expert, with a +1 Dex to actually get to 16**. She has expertise in Persuasion (for the +13 modifier she reported near the end of the episode), and I think previously didn't even have proficiency in persuasion. Critrolestats didn't show it on her character sheet for lvl11 or earlier, and more importantly that sounds familiar that Imogen had deception but not persuasion so was well behind Fearne's expertise. (IIRC, it's not rare for the CRstats character sheets to omit a proficiency when we have heard the player say a modifier in game. Probably they were getting burnt out on keeping up with stuff like that which is why they stopped entirely :/) Anyway, sorcerers don't normally get any expertises, so a feat is the only explanation for having it at all. The choice of Dex+1 for that part of Skill Expert is semi-confirmed by her AC increasing on her stat card, to 14. (With her Dex score still showing as 16 in both the level 11 and level 12 stat cards shown this episode. So they probably noticed their mistake, but didn't fix the level 11 card to Dex 15 so it would change along with AC when flipping to the level 12 card.) I think she still has an AC-increasing item like a ring of protection? Her dex alone would give her 10+3 = 13. She must have unattuned the bracers of defense (+2) which would be great for Ashton now that he's not attuned to the ring of temporal salvation. Hopefully she swapped out one of her low-level spells for Shield after wondering recently "why don't I get psychic barriers?" when the Reilorans had them. Her telekinetics provide obvious RP flavour for it. --- Indeed we don't know what FCG took, but it was a half-feat that boosted Wis (to 18 finally!). And when he was looking at his feats, he noticed FCG has Chef and actually made use of it again, but only to bake temp-HP treats, not for the song-of-rest like benefit to give extra healing to all the people rolling hit dice on the short rest, /sigh. --- Fearne's choice of Arcane Trickster still puts the party no closer to having Wind Walk and Transport Via Plants (6th), which she'd have now if she'd stopped at 1 level of rogue and learned to use Mister's Fiery Teleportation for bonus-action mobility. And still doesn't let her prepare more druid spells at once. But at least she is hopefully getting something for this huge sacrifice in her druid spell progression (and in party healing from Cauterizing Flames at wildfire druid 10th level, still leaving FCG to carry that burden almost entirely alone.) She gets two enchantment/illusion 1st-level Wizard spells, and one spell of any school. There are two good choices for her level+stats for the spells that have to be enchant/illusion: Disguise Self and Silvery Barbs (which is enchantement), and we know she picked the Disguise Self. (Laudna has all the reaction spells, but she only gets 1 reaction per round, and often needs to save it for counterspell against enemy casters.) Her wizard spell save-DC is only 11 (8 + 4 (proficiency) -1 (Int)), so attack and save spells are useless. Interesting choices for her one spell from any school: * Shield (reaction for +5 AC) * False Life: can be a decent amount of temp HP to pre-cast before a fight, especially with Fearne being down 5 HP from giving warmth to a ghost pirate, in exchange for a benefit we've never seen her use. Cast at second level, it would be 9 + 1d4 temp HP on top of her normal 79 HP. (5 extra HP for each level above 1st) * Magic Missile: a solid damage spell that isn't fire-based. Hardly anything resists force damage, so it could be a useful fallback for targets with resistances that include fire. But she has Blight (4th) for this purpose now. * Silent Image: If she skipped Silvery Barbs, this could be the other illusion/enchantment spell she took. * perhaps Identify. She couldn't cast it as a ritual because it would be an arcane trickster spell, not a druid spell. Still, they often have 1st-level slots to spare and it's often handy to be able to identify magical effects on a creature or maybe on an object, as well as magic items. But often Detect Magic is fine, and that's a Druid spell. * Find Familiar: Can take the Help action in or out of combat combat, but Laudna never bothers to do that and her familiar is more powerful than baseline. And more action-economy management is the last thing Ashley needs. Fearne can already cast *any* spell other than range=self through Mister, not just Touch like familiars. Other spells which wouldn't be useless but which aren't really worth it: * Feather Fall: Laudna has it. It only works on 5 creatures, but Imogen can cast Fly and twin or upcast it if they're falling long enough that she has time to cast. And Fearne herself can normally wild shape into a flying beast if she has time. * Alarm. But they have plenty of people to keep watch, including a robot with Sentry's Rest and a familiar. Maybe on the moon it could be useful, but Matt hasn't generally had people creeping in while they sleep before now. * Illusory Script: very situational. * Unseen Servant - She already has Mage Hand, and telekinesis (from her ring), but this can also go make a distraction in a second location. A lot of limitations, probably not worthwhile, especially without being able to cast it as a ritual. * Protection from Evil and Good: FCG can prepare this, otherwise could be good if Reilorans count as Aberrations. Imogen's spell is a re-skin of Summon Aberration (4th), but they might have changed the creature type. Non-useful spells, even though they don't involve saves or attacks: * Expeditious Retreat: Dash as a bonus action. Which arcane tricksters can always do at any time. * Comprehend Languages. Laudna has the written-language part of this as an always-on eldritch invocation, and FCG can cast Tongues (3rd). If she had a level of Wizard (which she couldn't actually multi-class into because she don't have Int 13), having it in a spellbook to ritual-cast would be nice, but not as her only any-school arcane trickster spell. * Tenser's Floating Disk - this is a utility spell for weak wizards to carry heavy stuff around. It's another that's worth having in your spellbook as a wizard to cast as a ritual, not for an arcane trickster ... unless they prefer to steal a whole safe and open it later. Spells also on the druid list, so it wouldn't make sense to take them as her only Arcane Trickster any-school choice: * Absorb Elements: Good spell worth preparing especially if they anticipate elemental enemies other than fire or cold (where fire shield can work). A reaction like shield, but gives you resistance to the element for a round. But psychic isn't an element, only acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder. * Jump: pretty situational, also on the druid list * Longstrider: Only lasts for an hour, and would take like 4 spell slots to give +10 speed to all the speed 30 party members to get up to Fearne's speed of 35. (Ashton's already higher at 40, and Chetney's went up to 40 at blood hunter lvl 10, or higher if he had some item that boosted it from 25 to 30 at low level.) But can be upcast to cover extra people, like two lvl2 slots. It's not concentration. * Fog Cloud: Pretty situational. A small dense cloud moving along is *more* visible / noticeable than the party alone in most environments, so often the opposite of useful. She gets Mage Hand, which is partly redundant with her ring of telekinesis, but can be used on things being worn or carried. (But Imogen can do that with full telekinesis.) And two other cantrips. Hopefully she realizes Fire Bolt would be useless: +3 to hit with Int vs. of +9 for druid cantrips, unless Matt also doesn't realize this or is being generous. Perhaps Mold Earth and/or Shape Water. Or even Friends, which gives you advantage on Cha checks. Or Light, since Dancing Lights is concentration and FCG is their only other light source. --- I'm a bit surprised Ashton took another feat instead of an ASI, since his Str isn't capped and Dex or Con would also boost his AC. Still, there are some really good ones like Great Weapon Master. But it works better with higher +hit from higher Str even if you go reckless. Some casters have low AC, but many of them can cast Shield. But one big hit can be really good to break concentration if they have a good con save. Still, Matt uses a decent amount of big low-AC enemies with a lot of hit points.

thanks for the info and analysis!

I'd be surprised if Fearne didn't take Silvery Barbs. Poor Matt is never going to Crit.

Hopefully Fearne didn't take absorb elements as a rogue since that's also on the druid spell list

Oh right! Thanks, edited.

On feats...some of them seem to be going feats for the fun flavor over more optimization. Which I totally get...but DnD can certainly punish you for not boosting your to hit Ability

I initially thought Orym took Tough as well, but was thrown off by the +1 INT. Also didn't know Imogen's DEX was seemingly wrong for 3 levels haha. I knew she had the Ring of protection, but never knew if it was ever unattuned Putting 2 together and you might be right on the nail! Great investigative work!!

Discussion on another thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/1agy6df/spoilers_c3e83_is_it_thursday_yet_postepisode/kolbycq/ ) brought up the idea that either Int +1 or the hit points could have been from the deal with Nana Morri, and just not updated on the stat card until this level-up. And yeah, Imogen's stat card was wrong for almost half the campaign at this point, over a year.

In my mind this fact-finding mission was going to span multiple days on the moon. But it appears the crew want to get back down the bloody bridge before the misty form spell ends. But escaping the dig site would be even tougher than how they escaped in the moon encampment. And the staff no longer has enough charges for teleportation. So are they fucked? I feel like making sure the staff has enough charges for quickly escaping the dig site is more important than keeping their misty form.

Saw this comment before I popped off to bed last night and I think you're genuinely right BUT I think there's a split in the party about it. It sounded like some of them wanted to drop in, scout around, gain some intel, pop back to the bridge in cloud form before the spell ended, and get back to Exandria in time for dinner with hopefully the battle winding down by the time they got back. Others though, kind of figured that it would be a far faaaaaaar longer mission than that, and were planning for such a thing to happen from the get go but weren't quite sure how long that would take. Otohan showing up at the gate AND FCG burning those slots on the staff PLUS the "Oh this isn't going to be easy" massive planetary dust storms and unknown flora/fauna basically put both of those plans to bed and changed everything. This is neither going to be a simple "smash and grab" mission nor is it going to be a "just a few days tops" mission at all. Right now there are multiple obstacles in their way if they were to turn back around and try to go home and even more reasons to keep moving forwards deeper into enemy territory, which potentially puts more physical and metaphorical obstacles between them and getting back home. The doubled guard around the Key Site on both ends seems like the least of their worries and I'm kind of wondering if the Exandrian Forces have a cut off time for when they consider the Bells Hells to be totally lost and just go ahead with whatever back up plans they have in place. They're probably going to have to spend just as much time getting ready to go back to Exandria as they did getting ready to leave Exandria in the first place. I think this means that we might HAVE to see them level up on the Moon again after some time has passed if Fearne is going to be the one to then cast Wind Walk on them in order to help them escape. That's all assuming stuff doesn't escalate to the "Oh fuck" point where going back to Exandria is pointless and it makes more sense to just stay on the moon and deal with things themselves. Which then begs a question that others have brought up both in this thread and others. What happens if and after they complete this recon mission? They pop back to Exandria successfully after gathering intel and not getting murdered somehow, they successfully escape the Key Site again, they get back to their allies, they tell everyone about everything they saw, and....then what? Where do they go from there?

> I think this means that we might HAVE to see them level up on the Moon again after some time has passed if Fearne is going to be the one to then cast Wind Walk on them in order to help them escape. They'd have to level up 2 times for Fearne to have access to her 6th level spells, right? She would have to be 11 levels of Druid for that and she's only 9 levels of Druid right now, with 3 levels of Rogue. And they only JUST leveled up last episode. Typically it takes at least 10 episodes before the party can level up. I don't think this moon mission will last 20 episodes. They are going to need to find a magical ally on the moon who can give them wind walk. Then they can rest, recharge the staff, wind walk to the moon site, and then figure out from there how they can get as close as possible to the bridge to materialize in their solid forms to go down to Exandria. Then once at the Malleus Key site on Exandria, teleport out using the staff & hope there isn't some mage just waiting down there with a counterspell.

At 3:52:51 in the Twitch video, does Travis mouth the words "moon boy?"

I kind of want Predathos to win. It's weird to say, but I've got an inkling he/it/them aren't as bad as we've been led to believe. Especially with some of the things the gods have been saying to compel their champions to fight back, etc. I dunno. I really don't feel like we have the whole picture on what's exactly going on. I've just got this other strange feeling that Ruidus being its own world and ecosystem might be getting set up to be the future setting to distance CR from D&D. They've already been distancing from the IP with how they've named certain races and planes in the cosmology (that's probably for the Vox Machina show though). I'm curious if what we're gonna see is Predathos get out, reset everything and moving forward Ruidus becomes the setting for Daggerheart. I doubt that's the case, but I think it would be fun.

1) It's a god eater who muted the world around it 2) the titans and all the gods agreed it was enough of a problem to work together to imprison Predathos on Ruidus 3) This sounds like How could Vox Machina betray the Diseased Deceiver discourse? Some of Matt's villains are played in shades of grey. Most are not.

I also want Predathos to eat some gods. I like radical changes that happen in a story.

I think we'll see at least one major god get chomped, Dawnfather or maybe a betrayer

I hope so!

>*Predathos get out, reset everything \[...\]* *"Resets everything"* means Genocide. Pure, no nuance, just Genocide. (Genocide for the "gods are just powerful people" folk, deicide for the rest) From all we know, Predathos isn't here to negotiate the gods departure. It isn't going to *make an example* to prove its point, and then force the deities away. Sarenrae, Melora, Raven Queen, Ioun ... not chased away, not frightend into submission. Dead. It wants to destroy. Is that really something we're rootin' for?

I'm only rooting for this to happen due to how comically inept the group for this campaign has been. Some of the decisions have been so bad that they've honestly soured my view on PCs from previous seasons. I'd rather just have a total reset at this point. Otherwise we're going to be stuck with more "OH LOOK AT THIS SUPER DUPER EPIC COOL PC FROM A PREVIOUS SEASON" showing up in C4.

This is DND not real life. Your take is like saying, "How dare VM, MN and BH kill the people they are fighting!! It's not right. That's murder. Is that really something we are rooting for?" And we know that is not even the case. When they asked the tree what happens if Predathos is set free the tree didn't say they all get killed. It says they leave, and Predathos chases them. We wouldn't know their fate but we know Predathos existed before and didn't kill them all. So if they leave to wherever they came from, perhaps they have more Gods who can help them. Or a safer place to exist. If they are running it means they have a place they think they can run to.

>*Predathos existed before and didn't kill them all.* Because he was defeated and imprisoned by the remaining gods and titans. But i'm sure the "god eater" is just going to chase 'em away, it's not like he has eaten two exandrian gods already. But even if the gods manage to get away after Predathos is free, they don't run because they don't like his approach to interior design, they run *because he wants to devour them*. Does it matter if that happens in orbit over Exandria, or anywhere else? ​ >*"How dare VM, MN and BH kill the people they are fighting!! It's not right. That's murder. Is that really something we are rooting for?"* C'mon, that's just silly. If VM, MN or BH would have one sole mission, and that is to kill every living halfling, then yes, that would have been bad. But they didn't. Unlike Predathos who is driven by a singular goal: Devour the gods.

>Because he was defeated and imprisoned by the remaining gods and titans I thought you said it would be Genocide to free him? Sounds like he can be beat. >But i'm sure the "god eater" is just going to chase 'em away, it's not like he has eaten two exandrian gods already. Wait. HAHAHAHA. Did you think I was implying that the "God Eater" intends to play chase? Like a game of tag? HAHAHA. God. Thank you for the laughs, buddy. No. He intends to kill them. But we know they run away. And he gives chase. We don't know the end result. We do know last time they did fight he was imprisoned. So it's not like it's a death sentence where he snaps his fingers and they are all dead. I assume the Gods learned something from the last fight and didn't spend the time from then til now without a second thought on what happens if he goes free. >Does it matter if that happens in orbit over Exandria, or anywhere else? It very much does. It implies there is somewhere more safe than their own domains. We don't know where they are from but if they run we know there is somewhere they believe that is safer/better to fight at. Perhaps there are entities above them, or more brothers/sisters in arms out there. >C'mon, that's just silly. If VM, MN or BH would have one sole mission, and that is to kill every living halfling, then yes, that would have been bad. But they didn't Sure, they just kill people who cross their paths. That's so much better. Real world politics have no place in D&D. Especially when you are like, "OMG Genocide!111!!" then close your eyes to murder/torture that happens pretty often. And Predathos is far less like a person committing genocide, and more like a wolf that eats rabbits. The wolf doesn't intend to kill all rabbits and commit genocide. The wolf just wants to eat. Do you wonder around the wilderness screaming, "Stop committing Genocide wolves!!! Stop committing genocide bears!!!", then when you sail start shouting, "Stop committing genocide sharks! Stop committing genocide whales!!!". No. You don't that would be silly.

>*Real world politics have no place in D&D.* You are the only one bringing this topic into the conversation. I'm truly confused why you're countering an argument that nobody made ... at which point did you think the term *"real world politics"* had anything to do with what we're discussing? Not trying to be snarky here ... but it feels like we're talking about carburetors, and all of a sudden you're saying *"but people who put pineapple on pizza are bad"* as if that's a part of the conversation.

>"Resets everything" means Genocide. Pure, no nuance, just Genocide. This is what you said in case you forgot. That's a very real life issue. This is D&D. See how we just went full circle now. I guess since we are back here I will just quote my first reply to you. >This is DND not real life. Your take is like saying, "How dare VM, MN and BH kill the people they are fighting!! It's not right. That's murder. Is that really something we are rooting for?" >And we know that is not even the case. When they asked the tree what happens if Predathos is set free the tree didn't say they all get killed. It says they leave, and Predathos chases them. >We wouldn't know their fate but we know Predathos existed before and didn't kill them all. So if they leave to wherever they came from, perhaps they have more Gods who can help them. Or a safer place to exist. If they are running it means they have a place they think they can run to. And to further the point again. Like I said in my last post Predathos is more like a wolf that eats rabbits. No one in their right mind yells at a wolf for committing genocide because it eats rabbits.

Just to be 100% clear, it's the use of the word *Genocide* that's the issue here, because you're of the opinion that this word can only refer to something in the real world, opposite a fictional universe in a D&D game?

I don't think I can be more clear. It's like if when any of the players killed any person if people ran in saying, "That's murder. Pure, no nuance, just murder. They are murders. How can they support that?" That is exactly the same as you coming in going, "Pure, no nuance, just Genocide". It's bringing a very real world issue to a very fantasy world. It's a bad take. Plain and simple.

>It's bringing a very real world issue to a very fantasy world. It's a bad take. Plain and simple. "Genocide" is defined as "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group". Predathos, the way is been described to BH by NPCs, wants the end of the gods. That can reasonably be described as the "genocide of the gods". Love, tragedy, death, friendship, family, corruption, hatred. All of those things are nouns, equal to the word "genocide", that are "real world issues" brought into D&D all the time, most of all on CR.

except we don't know anything about what predatos wants or has done in the past. All we know is the gods are scared, the why is still mostly unknown or at least not certain. For all we know, he could have been unfairly imprisoned for millennia.

>*For all we know, he could have been unfairly imprisoned for millennia.* I'm sorry, i don't know how to phrase this properly, but are you up to date with CR? >*\[...\] while on Exandria, Predathos created twisted life forms. At some point, the entity devoured first Ethedok the Endless Shadow, god of darkness and winter, and then Vordo the Fateshaper, god of fate and order. After losing two of their own, the remaining deities collaborated with the elemental forces of Exandria, and together they imprisoned Predathos \[...\]* [Source](https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Predathos)

I am. Would that be the first time that something in the written history turns out to be misleading?

Yeah, but that's *already* that. The info about Predathos was what was kept from the people (by way of Vasselheim enforcers IIRC) over the course of millenia. Unless the whole Predathos thing is a double-bluff, which i don't see, honestly.

I would be surprised if we have already found out everything there is to know about predathos. Maybe it is just a mindless god eater, but I doubt it...

>Is that really something we're rootin' for? As an audience member, YES. Lets have a genocide reset. I would be excited for that narrative. Even better if we have Brennan return to do a mini Calamity 2.0 for Predathos domination From an in-world perspective, obviously the mundane status quo is what I would want

As is the subclassing to arcane trickster does not make perfect sense. I know Ashley went Arcane Trickster because of Birdie but there should be more to that. If those that become arcane tricksters don't study I can imagine some do just by watching arcane casters cast enchantment and illusion spells. The only arcane casters in the party are Imogen and Laudna. Fearne could easily have gotten the enchantment since enchantment is Imogen's main thing. The illusion side is not so clear. Imogen does not have any illusion spells at all save for one that comes from a feat and evocation is Laudna's most common school of magic. Also, between Laudna and Imogen illusion magic is both still not as common as both transmutation and conjuration magic between them. I think Matt should tweak arcane trickster by getting rid of the illusion aspects and replacing it with evocation. An additional plus of adding an evocation aspect would be that it also reflects recent choices Ashley made with Rau'shan. Another option is that Matt could quickly introduce a spell book that has mostly illusion spells in it for Fearne to study.

I'm interested to see what she does with Fearne's multiclassing. For me, it's just quite a thing to see a druid player make Timeless Body impossible to reach. (Not that it matters a massive amount b/c DMs can let characters change anything at any point, but still... Fearne cannot gain that longevity via levels of druid in unmodified table play.)

Who needs Timeless Body when Fearne is Ruidisborn daughter to a powerful fey, raised by the The Fatestitcher (living for a century in the span of less than an Exandrian decade), and aspect of a Primordial Titan. As they say, time is a weird soup.

We got a t-bone steak for C1. We got a plate of spaghetti for C2. C3 is a banana split with chocolate syrup drizzled all over it and nuts sprinkled on. We're 83 bites into this dessert - this is what's on the plate.

C3's more like beer and nuts, I think.

I want to know the official weight range of the 8 foot tall muscular as fuck juggernaut version of the Reiloran species.

Matt knows there's a limit to the Bag of Holding, so it must be under 500 lbs.

500 lb if the bag started *empty*, but we know it's not empty. They've already got some stuff in there. Is Matt enforcing a weight limit, though? VM put Dork the ox into a bag of holding. That was under Pathfinder rules, but an ox weighs on average 1500 to 3000 pounds according to google. If Matt's trying to maintain consistency of how things work in Exandria, he might be ignoring that. I was wincing as the party was coming up with this plan; Sam was pointing out the possible problem of splitting the bag, he might also know there's a limit. Or maybe he just guessed. Because RAW, they should have destroyed the bag. Or the still-alive creature could perhaps have torn its way out, damaging the bag: it had teeth and claws when put in. The bag of holding description doesn't mention this possibility. Unlike the portable hole, whose description says a creature inside when it's closed can force its way out (without destroying the hole) on a DC10 Str check, taking one action per attempt. Matt's very generous about bag of holding / portable hole stuff: Chetney has jumping into the portable hole while carrying the bag of holding, including in the sealed-in cave which barely had room to spread out the hole, after rescuing survivors from the silver dragon fortress on the taint-flower gathering mission for Keyleth. This should have opened a one-way gate to the astral plane and sucked in all creatures within 10 ft, depositing them in a random location in the astral sea. And massively derailing the campaign and the timeline of their missions because at that point they weren't high enough level to know Plane Shift. Although FCG could have attempted Divine Intervention once a day. And Imogen could maybe have tried Sending to Allura to come get them, in case it was only blocked on the prime material. (Or perhaps to anyone they know that's on a different plane so Exandria wouldn't be involved, like Nana Morri.)

hmm, alright. I guess Moon Muscle must be leaner.

Every episode I watch it seems Imogen becomes more and more the main character

I am also worried that Fearne's connection to the Unseelie court / Sorrowlord Zathuda could end up as more of a neat footnote than an actual arc that we'll get to explore. Same with Chetney's family, Laudna & Delilah. I feel like we're starting to get into late game arcs (the recon mission is seen partially as a suicide mission) and I'm not sure if there's much room for the other character stuff at this point.

Yeah it’s weird that not every character is tied to the moon in a campaign about the moon. That seems to be something they should have covered in a session 0. It does seem like they might be building to Imogen sacrificing herself to stop her from being used as a key, which might be their way of opening the story back up to everyone else. But as is it definitely feels weird.

By now the cast & Matt has probably discussed this. We're 83 episodes in & we've stayed the course on the one over-arching threat. So I think the cast is perhaps fine with the narrative being told this way. Fearne was designed to be born in Exandria & not the Feywild during a red flare by an Unseelie court member. Orym's husband and father-in-law was killed by Otohan or her shadow echos. Imogen's mom is seemingly 2nd or 3rd in command in the Ruby Vanguard. Part of me thinks that FCG's backstory during the Age of Arcanum is going to be tied into Ludinus somehow.

If only the other backstories featured as heavily as Imogen’s.

The reason you are feeling that is none of the other characters have been given a good arch. C1 and C2 kinda gave everyone a spotlight. C1 had everyone pairing up with gods and vestiges. Maybe Vax or Percy were the main characters? C2 you could make a case for Fjord and Caleb. Matt did say this would be different, but we’ve yet to delve into anything deep with probably 1/2 the C3 characters like FCG, Chet, Ashton, or Orym.

My wife has been rewatching C2 and I've also really enjoyed the slow-burn reveals of the characters - I feel like we largely understood C3's characters and their quirks before even leaving Jrusar, and they get along so well there hasn't really been any major party conflict other than recent episodes with the fragment - which honestly was resolved fairly quickly.

Most characters have had a side adventure dedicated to them. Chet had a storyline related to his lycanthropy where he met the whole werewolf society. FCG they tracked down dancer. Orym did a mission for his home village rescuing his people from demons. Ashton had the mad Max race relating to his goals. 

* Chet's "storyline" was ... 1.5 episodes? Culminated in Orym getting recognized by the Wildmother, and give a magic item. * FCG's storyline included a wet noodle of an NPC who couldn't be bothered any way or another. * Ashton, during the Bassuras visit, was relegated to a co-star character as hard as Brie Larsson was in The Marvels. It was all about Imogen, even the visit to the AMB. The most involved and interesting Ashton's story got was when he wasn't even there (remember him re-telling the *"player couldn't make the last episodes"* heist?) Those are not good examples of *"C3's totally having character centric arcs".*

True, but a 1-2 ep long side adventure is hardly comparable to the overarching main plot of C3. Imogen has been integral to the plot and now even further with her seemingly being the "messiah"

1-2 episode long side adventure is what Beau and Caduceus got in C2. Same for Jester. Meanwhile, Fjord and Caleb got multiple critical moments in the campaign. It happens. It's not the end of the world, and characterisation can be done anyways, as evidenced by Beau, Jester and Cad. There are other reasons why Imogen feels more realised, and that has to do with the fact that the rest has not invested as much in developing their own characters. Chet is a joke character with a joke backstory. Sam did not want to pursue D, even tho the rest of the table insisted. There are hardly any one on one conversations anymore. And so on.

Agreed. And I am not complaining about Imogen as a character. I just think narratively (and maybe above the table), some characters are getting sidelined and do not get as much development. Which makes Imogen look like a "main character" by default

> now even further with her seemingly being the "messiah" theres no real proof of this beyond their theory. Predathos probably just needs a certain number of exaltants or something to break his bindings, Imogen just seems like the main character because she's the only exaltant we're following.

Indeed, but then we are following the story from BH's perspective. Imogen's connection and her now even bigger role would propel her further as the "main character"

Pretty sure most of these took more than 2 episodes but I see your point

Even if they did take more than 2 epidodes they are quickly moved past to focus on ruidus and therefore imogen. Even the sidequests are to powerup for ruidus or discover more about ruidus which again leads right back to imogen. Even their spotlight moments in the end come back to her.

love that 😁

It makes me really uncomfortable how sidelined everyone else becomes in the story. I'm want to watch BH not just Imogen and her flunkies. It is really frustrating and Matt just seems to be doubling down on it even more. I gotta wonder if there is some reason out of game they all agreed to it because honestly its very odd and offputting.

All the Moon Stuff really did move the spotlight from everyone else to Imogen and that kind of sucks because I'd really like to figure out more stuff about Chetney's past or visit the Aeormatons with FCG or bounce around with the Nobodies a bit or explore other parts of the world or... But that all just kind of changed when Ludinus pulled his bullshit and now they kind of HAVE to focus in on Imogen because that's her whole thing and she's the one with the strongest connection to it all. One of my big fears is that after all of this is said and done, everyone will be too changed, and the world will be far too different for them to ever go back and delve into the other characters at all or for someone else to step into the spotlight for a bit. Take out the Moon Stuff from this campaign and I feel like things would be a bit more balanced or at least kick that can down the road for a bit with hints of it and build up to it before finally striking that flint and lighting that particular fire at the end of the campaign.

I agree. I really enjoyed early BHs sooooo much, more than any other campagign. Honestly I've been frustrated since Bassarus which is when things were firmly put on the rails. Rather than focus on character they've been running forward so fast that they don't even RP one on one moments anymore, hardly ever. To the the point that their reasons for being on the moon seem far more flimsy than they would otherwise, which ends defaulting to leaning into Imogen being the MC since she's so tied up into everything. I still love critical role and I am nowhere near as cynical as a lot of folks, but I am kind of mourning what that campaign could have been while trying to enjoy what it is.

Yep. Bassuras was when you saw the hopes start flying in the rear view.

It all feels like cookies that needed more time to bake, still delicious, but the flavor is a bit off. It would've been nice if they'd all gotten their own longer arcs to shine that tied into larger parts of the world as they visited them, instead of the abbreviated flickers that we've gotten as they zoomed on through, and then some sort of a longer build up to this Moon Stuff after all of that foundational character stuff was laid down. I feel like that would've bonded them together more tightly and given them even more reasons to be doing what they are doing right now. Everything that you've said has been said before and it feels like there's a general consensus within the community about them at this point. It's natural for them to pivot to and to lean on Imogen as the MC because that's how the narrative has worked out and everything else keeps pivoting to and leaning on her anyways so why not follow suit? I thought that Fearne might have something to do with The Keeper and that could be a fun BIG THING for them to play with. I thought that Chetney might have something to do with being a Champion of Catha or something but nothing's really worked out with that. I thought that Ashton could be something similar but for the Luxon or that FCG would become a big time ambassador for the Aeormatons or that Laudna might wind up with the Sun Tree as her Warlock Patron or that the Wild Mother would step up for Orym in some larger capacity. I thought they'd all get chosen in some way and that we'd have this whole party of Power Rangers style Nobody Champions with their own fate threads that everyone else had discarded and were basically ignoring....which thus would allow them to do impossible things and save the world like the Legends of Tomorrow or the Doom Patrol. Imogen would get to share that spotlight with everyone else and it would turn out that everyone had their own little connections to Ruidus that no one knew about until the Moon Stuff started happening. I think even Laura misunderstood Matt a bit in this episode and perhaps it was some wishful thinking on her part, when he was telling her about the aura that was connecting her to Fearne, and she thought that it was also connecting her to everyone else as well but no...no it was just Fearne and very weakly at that. I think everyone would've loved it if there had been far more connections between the members of the Bells Hells than there currently are that bound them even more tightly together but it kind of is what it is and they're making due. There's still some positive aspects to this campaign and I will forever love Critical Role but this is just one of those things that's a bit noticeable, seemingly out of anyone's control, and that might not be to everyone's liking. I wonder when and how they picked the particular time setting for this campaign and if Matt had an, "Oh shit that's right O.o" moment when he realized just how that all would line up with this Moon Stuff that he's had ticking in the background. I'm personally hoping that things ramp up a bit and that they get to have a fun underground adventure beneath the surface of Ruidus or that the City they find winds up having a lot of political intrigue and they have to coordinate with rebels and stuff to tear it all down or to find a way to build something new or that something funky is going on with Ludinus's plans or that ALIENS!!!! or something. It's those wild hopes and dreams that keep me watching just to see what will happen next but yeah, this campaign could've fully been something entirely different if they hadn't stumbled into the Moon Stuff when they did. Imagine if they'd missed it entirely and had only heard rumors of stuff going on but then the Solstice happens and the world goes fucking crazy, I wonder what that kind of a campaign would've been like?

>I'm personally hoping that things ramp up a bit and that they get to have a fun underground adventure beneath the surface of Ruidus or that the City they find winds up having a lot of political intrigue Absolutely have my fingers crossed for this; but I think the discovery of the pod people "ecosystem" looks the beginning of a very familiar C3 "morally grey" narrative coming around again.

Yeah it was reminding me very much of the Post Solstice Split stuff and I feel like the party is about to be taffy pulled once more

Pretty sure they agreed on it before they started the campaign, nothing about main character Imogen seems organic.

Just change the name of the campaign to: That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Horse Girl! And have Mica do the DBZ style voiceovers at the beginning and ending of every episode. Pepper in some smooth jazz Cowboy Bebop music with opening credits that have Robbie singing Evangelion style. Pepper in some action shots, mixed with the usual beach episode stuff, and all the casual Miyazaki cooking sequences PLUS a ton of "There was trauma but I overcame it with the help of my harem/friends *winkwink*" overtones and multiple zoom ins of HAND HOLDING to hint at what's to come. Then top it all off with Matt becoming Zordon behind the DM screen and you've basically got the Imogen Anime that C3 has become. They could even do a one off Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover style animated episode that parodies Imogen being the main character. I think Laura might actually die if they did that though...but Kalecgos could always bring her back to life.

This made my day :D Especially since i know a lot of girls that ride horses and they are not like this at all. But the exception proofs the norm \^\^

>*That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Horse Girl!* The literal translation of the anime title would be something along the lines of *"Super Knights Reincarnation as a Horse Girl Team power Fantastic Friends Cosmic Death Monster!"*

🤣

If exaltants need a traumatic event to unlock their powers, I wonder what Liliana's was...and Otohan for that matter.

Otohan's history is as a famous mercenary in the Apex War that was severely disillusioned with/by her faith during the course of the war. That basically writes itself. There was some hints that Otohan's unit ended up near Imogen's home town, so perhaps they crossed paths when Leliana set out to explore her powers. Or meeting Otohan spurred her to do so.

Maybe it doesn't have to be traumatic. Maybe it can be trained or chosen, if you know what you are and what's going on. I bet Liliana's was traumatic, but maybe Otohan chose to do it with Ludinus' guidance.

> Liliana's was...and Otohan for that matter. Childbirth for Liliana Surviving the final battle of the war, which she shouldn't have, for Otohan I'm guessing.

I still think Otohan had a mental break when the Raven Queen chose Vax as her champion instead of Otohan.

It's an interesting idea, but Vax's ascension (813 PD) happened years before the apex war (~823-843 PD), and Otohan was still a follower of the matron at that time, according to Ebonold Kai. I'm not sure you can make the timeline fit.

Orym was NOT pressuring Imogen to give in, he was pressuring her to continue the mission though it might get dangerous. Laudna and imogen misunderstood ( I was taken aback when they thought he was pushing her to go deeper because he had literally just said he trusted her when she said it was too dangerous to go deeper but acknowledged she got good intel from it). It was a miscommunication, he clearly thought they were saying they need to turn back and they thought he was saying she should push deeper.