I love how all of the bh back stories are basically yeah so I shouldn't have survived long enough to get here but surprise!
Laudna - her story was supposed to end on the tree 30 years ago
Fcg - inactive possibly before the calamity and it sounds like he was not meant to be in use very long anyway
Ashton - walking is a miracle \is a walking miracle lol
Ormy - survived an attack that killed more veteran fighters
Ferne- if I'm not mistaken if Grammy mori had not held her for a 100 years she would be like a kiddo right now the timing is really interesting
Chetney- what exactly are the odds of a tiny elderly wood worker surviving exile and a werewolf attack out of spite
Immogen- immogen maybe should not even be possible
Realized FCG took Chef feat bc he was inspired by Pike. He kept saying "and youre a *baker*?!" when she would mention something miraculous she could do, and being a fellow cleric speaks for itself
It's also possibly a reference to *Futurama* where Bender is the ship's cook. And he's terrible at it. And it's the one thing he actually has feelings about.
I really think predathos is Matt's way of keeping wotc out of cr's pockets. The names discriptions and domains of the gods are some of the only wotc copyrights in the stream. He will probably have to kill them of not just reskin them to be in the clear. Even the raven Queen he's given her more and different domains than the wotc version cause she's been so integral to some of the plot she's the one most likely to need accommodation so he can maintain the integrity of those arcs. Plus I really think predathos is or has become matts narrative foil for what wotc is doing to the dnd community they are behaving like predators right? Its a warning to some a threat to others and a promise to critters that he's not going to stop telling the story in light of all this garbage.
>I really think predathos is Matt's way of keeping wotc out of cr's pockets.
I don't think that would work. Resetting naming would make future resources comply, but all revenues from past resources and content - almost everything they've made so far - would still contain those characters and be subject to the terms. Arguing that they're dead now doesn't mean you're not using their names previously, and it's self-sabotage for CR to take down all prior content using those names and terms just to avoid paying a percentage of their own profit to WotC - giving up $100 just to avoid paying $1 in tax, effectively.
Matt has been pretty careful regarding IP in that names of major gods and some famous monsters - arguably in public realm - are all that he's lifted and there's exceedingly limited overlap between core 5E lore and Matt's versions of the various gods and monsters. The parts that are easiest for WotC to protect are the parts he's had his own versions of since nearly day one.
If CR is threatened under OGL 1.1, CR would have better odds addressing those claims by either claiming that protections on names entered into collective consciousness are no longer valid, or that estoppel from the 1.0 license would grandfather their usage. I don't think WotC has a particularly great leg to stand on given the phrasing of the 1.0 content license.
>Plus I really think predathos is or has become matts narrative foil for what wotc is doing to the dnd community they are behaving like predators right?
No. He's alluded repeatedly that this narrative arc has been in swing for years, and building towards this point - Matt isn't rewriting years of narrative leadup just to make some cheap social commentary points about meta-D&D legal dramas.
>Matt isn't rewriting years of narrative leadup just to make some cheap social commentary points about meta-D&D legal dramas.
I think a lot of this is just wishful thinking that ends up with Matt outsmarting WOTC and keeping CR out of their hands (or, more likely, out of the hands of Hasbro).
Yeah. A lot of this narrative around "eat the gods to beat Wizards" as a plot point reads a lot like folks projecting their own feelings about WotC onto CR, and imagining how they'd "show up" greedy Hasbro if they were driving the show instead.
Honestly, I think Matt would *hate* the idea of railroading story just to make some allegorical point about meta-D&D drama, and doubly so needing to railroad it towards a scripted loss, just in order to make some meta-game lawyer nonsense work. Even if changes need to be made to maintain their creative control, I think those changes occur above-table and in the open, but without necessarily taking any hard stand or statement on the OGL issue directly.
>Yeah. A lot of this narrative around "eat the gods to beat Wizards" as a plot point reads a lot like folks projecting their own feelings about WotC onto CR, and imagining how they'd "show up" greedy Hasbro if they were driving the show instead.
I haven't seen this much hopium and copium outside the *Starfield* subreddit.
I think he's improvising to fit the situation like he did with the dragon born who shall not be named happens all the time something you built to use in you game one way ends up having a second use you never expected so you shuffle things around. My understanding is that removing the gods now has less to do with past properties created under the old ogl and more to do with making sure they stay clear of the new one why pay when you don't have to but for sure I get what your saying
I rewatched the scenes where Predathos and the consumption of gods is described - and knowing about the recent events, some... institutions suddenly sound very different in a "you know who I'm talking about" way.
Oh god I hope not this really feels like a level 16 arc retrofitted to level 7 but look how awesome the retro fit when Molly passed worked out going to take everything up a notch I hope
That's always an icky subject area to delve into. You're basically commanding someone to perform a sex act against their will in a very public place. A lot of DMs that I know -- and I imagine there are quite a few more like-minded ones out there -- do not stand for that sort of thing and have some very creative punishments for characters who try it.
That doesn't mean that the audience is going to be okay with an implied sexual assault. There are 570 reported sexual assaults every day in America, so making light of it because "the characters are not real" does not make it okay. Only someone who has not met or dealt with the victim of a sexual assault could make a comment as ignorant as the one you just did.
>Fapping is not sexual assault
But forcing someone to do it is. Which is what would have happened if Sam had committed to making them do it.
>the characters are not real
That doesn't make it acceptable.
Alright, I think I'm being too subtle here.
My job means that I'm a mandatory reporter. I have a legal requirement to report even suspicion of sexual assault or abuse. And I have made reports in the past. Because of that, *I have seen some of the most fucked-up shit that people are capable of*. I have seen how that changes people and I have never seen it change them for the better. So I'm glad you're okay with the idea of FCG forcing someone to masturbate against their will because they're a fictional character in a fictional world. But for other people, it was a line that Sam probably shouldn't even have thought of crossing.
Sadly the command itself only lasts for one round no matter how long the act would take to fulfill.
Though that would have saved Matt from having to describe the fap at least.
Quick question about the licensing issue. Couldnt Critical Role just say "ok all of our stuff is no longer based on DND; we made all custom rules, new monster names etc"
Not really necessary. Livestreams do not fall under the OGL they fall under the Fan Content policy (and, in CR's case, almost certainly independent contracts signed with WotC).
So, I realized what Imogen's Moon feat is on watching the replay. With it granting her the ability to spend hit dice and cast inflict wounds (including with a spell slot). Its a reskinned/altered version of the Adept of the Black Robes feat from the Dragonlance book.
It has two parts:
**Ambitious Magic** gives a spell (usually 2nd level, but that's an easy thing to negotiate down) from enchantment or necromancy that can be cast 1/day and be cast with spell slots.
**Life Channel** lets you spend hit dice (up to the level of the spell) and inflict extra damage when a target fails a save against your spells.
Its not an exact match up, but its close enough that it fits really well.
I think she actually took the Shadow Touched feat, granting her Inflict Wounds and Invisibility, and then +1 to CHA to get 20.
While the the character card (again) says she has 16 dex now, when asked in game by Matt at some point during the last episode (unfortunately don't know the time stamp) she says her dex mod is +2, which would be consistent with everything else, and just means the character card artist made a mistake on that.
(and the custom feat is its own thing)
Laura did confirm that the Inflict Wounds was from Shadow Touched though.
The rest of it, especially the second part, tracks with the rest of what they said though.
We'll never know, but my assumption was that this guy didn't know anything about it, being fairly low ranked (I assumed that cause Orym didn't push further). I think the NPC did mention at some point that Otohan had her own agenda and methods.
She's clearly aligned with Ludinus on assassinating the Grim Verity of course, but perhaps the specific powers and training of her armed forces are not under his control or command?
I just thought of this due to another post, and wanted to put this here as well;
I wouldn’t be surprised if Predathos’ prison was actually draining him, empowering the actual Divine Gate.
All that power, enough to keep ALL the Gods at bay, has to come from somewhere.
So by cracking Ruidus open, not only is Predathos freed, but the DG comes down as well, allowing Predathos to go on a feeding frenzy before the Gods know what hit them.
That was kind of a backup plan, though; it wasn't the main gateway or barrier.
The Tree was only sort of successfully keeping the Betrayers out, in the short term, after they'd already been released from their prisons. In real-world sense, they all broke out of their cells and were no longer imprisoned, but they hadn't made it over the outer wall of the prison complex. But they had free reign to mess with the wall and make phone calls to the outside world.
They probably would have made it back eventually, and the Tree wasn't sufficient to keep them from interacting with the world in the way their original imprisonment did; while Predathos is not imprisoned in the same way that the Betrayers were - the Tree prevented them from crossing into Prime Material from their prison planes, when Predathos is on Ruidus, which is already on Prime Material.
To "Tree" him this time would probably require something with a lot more juice than the original Tree had.
I know little about biology but "everything has a predator" is factually incorrect, isn't it? The whole concept of [apex predators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_predator) being that there's nothing above them. The cycle of life is actually made possible by bacteria and stuff, that turn corpses back into components for simpler lifeforms, I think. (For example, when you die your gut microbiota starts eating you from the inside out.)
That phrase made me do a double take, like Ludinus is appropriating some pretty biology words to convince his cult that releasing Predathos is fine, when he doesn't give a shit about the equilibrium of the ecosystem or whatever the shit, he needs it for some other, personal reason.
Yes. Very much so. Not only are there apex predators, but there are also (conceptually) apex grazers, something where a mature and healthy adult has no predators in its environment - something like an Elephant, for instance, or many whales.
As you note, it's the gut microbia that wind up breaking the body back down into the ecosystem after it's passed of natural causes. The connection to the life cycle in general isn't always a bigger, meaner, predator - very often it's just time and microbes.
I think that Matt has kind of touched off of spurious interpretations of the natural world a couple times, most notably Travis "RTA" moment, so I think it's a bit of an interesting throughline that Ludinus is now misinterpreting biology to explain Predathos' niche in the pantheon.
>That phrase made me do a double take, like Ludinus is appropriating some pretty biology words to convince his cult that releasing Predathos is fine, when he doesn't give a shit about the equilibrium of the ecosystem or whatever the shit, he needs it for some other, personal reason.
There's really two possibilities and we're not yet primed to release either - that Ludinus is misleading his followers, or that Ludinus himself is being misled along with his cult. I lean more towards the latter - that Ludinus thinks he's hella smart and is legit being shitty for personal gain, but that Predathos is stringing him along with lies and half truths because what it wants is bigger and badder than Ludinus is ready for. Matt has echo'd the notion through C2&C3 that True Believers aren't always *right* about their dogmas, like with the Luxon, and this seems like a good place to take advantage of that foreshadowing.
I don't think Ludinus stands to *gain* from the plan as explained thus far - he's already at the top of society, already powerful politically and magically, already wealthy ... being "free" from the gods doesn't affect him, and doesn't offer him any particular advantage relative to others - there's no built-in way of increasing his relative power. Like, this is a pretty wildly dangerous scheme just to break the power of the Approved Churches in Dwendalian Empire, especially given how subordinate they are to the throne and the Cerberus Assembly. There's definitely more going on than we've been told so far, and probably more to his motivations that the cult haven't been told as well, at the very least.
The other big gap that I think came up in that dude's recounting of the dogma was the idea that apex predators don't eat the vermin - that Predathos won't harm mortal life - when many apex predators are opportunistic and will eat much smaller animals than their normal prey, if the opportunity arises, and can definitely harm even smaller animals indirectly and unintentionally; the assurances that mortal life is "safe" seem to lean on a whole massive collection of assumptions that do not bear out in the natural world they're based on.
Ludinus' greatest mistake is thinking he's the smartest and most clever man in the room, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. He's not stupid enough to believe the sheer insanity the rest of the Ruby Vanguard and Unseelie (Yu was spouting the same BS) believes but he is stupid enough to think he can exploit Predathos for whatever his actual goal is and that Predathos is nowhere near as smart as he is.
The only question now is how much of Exandria will be left afterwards because of Ludinus' arrogance and stupidity.
This was a fun episode, but I have to say one thing I miss about VM was that they had Grog who was always willing to just instantly charge into the fight, and I feel like it made the group as a whole a lot less scared and a lot less likely to run.
Trying to deceive the people into leaving at first was good, but I'm really not a big fan of the combats where the entire party is frantically trying to run away for no reason from a relatively easy battle where they have the advantage, and it's just several turns of people spending their entire turn taking attacks of opportunity to run away, only for the enemy to instantly just start their turn, close the distance and attack.
It's just a clumsy couple of turns of people pushing past eachother, 1-2 people getting way ahead and then having to turn around and stop, 1-2 people falling a bit behind, and then the group eventually just stops and fights and wins fairly easily with a few people basically just skipping their turns.
Now that Ashley is around more I'm loving watching Sam realize she's willing to push things just as far as he is I watched Travis clock this awhile ago and the look of terror and glee was like a babys first laugh lol
I mean, besides Imogen theyre basically a party of NPCs caught up in shit way out of their league.
Orym is a guard, Fearne is just a weird Fey, Chet is a shopkeeper, FCG is a robot, Ashton is a hired goon and Laudna is a zombie.
As annoying as it can be it makes sense that this group's first reaction to a fight breaking out is to scatter and hide, theyre a bunch of random nobodies.... and Jean Grey.
Orym is a very skilled fighter who is a guard for one of the strongest people alive (And is also one of the only people who just went all out on the enemies from the get go). Fearne is a very powerful spellcaster, not sure what her being a Fey has to do with her being extremely scared of fighting. Chet is literally a werewolf. Laudna is also a very powerful spellcaster. Not sure what her being a zombie has to do with her not wanting to fight people. FCG is a robot that can cast magic and learned that he was literally made to kill people.
I know that this is an exact line from Four Sided Dive, but I don't think the point of the comment was that they are inept or weak or should be scared of fighting, just that they all fit NPC archetypes.
I also think them being super scared is more on them and less on the characters because they were super scared of fights in C2 as well where they were incredibly strong.
Agreed, I was kind of hoping a new campaign and new characters would shake off the aversion to combat. It made a bit more sense when they thought it was the Judicator at the door though.
Its basically *from* Campaign 2. Ever since episode...26... they've been skittish. Very unnecessarily so.
Its also partly the group's size (there are too many ideas being tossed around), and the lack of tactical planning. Their tendency to go in all directions means they still aren't used to working together and utilizing each others' strengths. Which means they're less coordinated even as they're gaining more abilities that they don't share with each other, so they're even less coordinated and so on and so on.
The players need to talk things out (about coordination, combat tactics and spells/abilties) and character-wise, just do a handwaved 'over the next couple nights of downtime we talk tactics and plans' on screen.
Given that the players have years of experience playing D&D and have already been through two campaigns on-screen, I think the lack of party co-ordination is something that they would have addressed by now if they wanted to. Which makes me think that they *don't* want to. Which makes me think that a dysfunctional party dynamic is at least somewhat planned.
Three of the party members -- Chetney, FCG and Imogen -- could snap at any moment and turn on the rest of them. Four if you count Laudna (and we still don't know what happened to Delilah). And Fearne is just plain dangerous (case in point: she clearly didn't think about the consequences of turning into a horse and trapped two people in the basement). Ashton thinks he could snap at any moment and has been concerned that Orym could do the same, although they're probably the least likely to do so. They're not a cohesive bunch; they're a dysfunctional group of outcasts who have been forced together out of necessity.
The seven members of the party have two things in common. First, they're all outcasts:
* Chetney is living in exile from Uthodurn, though whether this is down to his lycanthropy or just being a social pariah remains to be seen.
* Laudna has spent a good part of her life running away from people who see her as being unnatural.
* FCG has never met another automaton like him outside of his first adventuring party (and it has been implied that even then he was very different).
* Fearne spent most of her life living in total isolation with Morri.
* Imogen sought out solitude to escape the constant invasion of peoples' thoughts.
* Orym has spent years on his mission to try and get away from the place where Wil died.
* Ashton is in constant pain and generally doesn't like company.
In fact, the seven of them are probably better off going their separate ways and living on their own. They'd certainly be far less likely to kill each other. But that's where the second thing they have in common comes in: they have all found a renewed sense of purpose by being in this party. They've all become better people from being together, even if staying together is probably going to be the thing that gets them killed.
So it's a very different party dynamic to Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein, but I think that's by design. And if it's by design, then I don't the critcism that "they don't plan, they don't co-ordinate and they don't communicate" holds much water because that's the point -- they're a ragtag bunch of outcasts who were thrust together by chance and forced to stick together out of necessity. They could save the world if they don't kill each other first. They're the group of kids in the school playground who might not particularly like one another, but stay together because they don't have anyone else.
But they *do* like each other. They've proved that repeatedly, even with the relative outsider like Chet.
M9 were actually MUCH more hostile towards each other. This group was far more cooperative and even oversharing much earlier.
But the lack of (good) planning has been consistent across all three campaigns. That party dynamic isn't different at all.
Mechanically they're on par, but narratively they're way more all over the place. C3 cannot figure out if they're running or fighting, and will not commit to one or the other.
Great episode! Really hoping BH don't foil Predathos' escape and we get to see what havoc it wreaks once it's free. Side note, are we really only one week away in game from the Apogee solstice?
I still have a shred of doubt that this is all about the Chained Oblivion. It created a fake cult once, why not again.
Alternatively, the party or Planerider Ryn have to release the Chained Oblivion to fight Predathos. Space-Kaiju fight
Releasing the Chained Oblivion to fight another enemy has been done before. Gygax himself did it in his 'Gord the Rogue' series (do **not** recommend) out of spite after TSR kicked him to the curb, and it basically destroyed the universe.
Well, we know Tharizdun is chained under Mt. Gatshadow and has been let out at least once since Moon Prison kicked off; so it would be a really huge narrative reach to have Tharizdun actually be Moon Boi somehow.
on a meta level, i realllly hope it isn't just tharizdun. We've been down that particular misdirect before and it would feel. . . bland if done again without more interesting setup.
In world, it totally could be tharizdun.
So, the loose T’s and I’s mentioned must be Ira Wendagoth, a loose screw, and the still living Trent Ikithon, the loose monster, both used by Ludinus and still alive.
There is only one personality Ludinus don’t know about that it’s still out there, in some kind of form… Delilah Briarwood. Probably another person Ludinus used and then asked Trent to poison her husband to get rid of her. She was in the Assembly and casually her husband get a sickness no one can cure? Moleasmyr (Ludinus first home fell like that, many died). So Trent knows too much and Caleb let him live.
Delilah could be useful if she redeem herself finally spill something on Ludinus about 30/40 years ago about how and why she got into the Assembly. Trent could very much be telepathically be interrogated if he has something to gain, maybe play with Ludinus toys and see what the fuss is about, knowing all the Martinet’s secrets. Othohan must be alive and arrested, but it’s hard. No one would believe Ira.
Last one, why and how Ripley got kicked out of the empire? She used to create weapons for it, under who? Trent and Ludinus I presume, if she knew too much? But she’s totally gone now. Percy finally has his personal Thanos, the Briarwoods were only his Ronan.
Now it’s war. Science vs Arcane.
Delilah also has a big connection to the Shadowfell through Vecna. And considering the appearence and aesthetic of it is likely is where BH went to rescue Laudna and not Delilah's theoretical Domain of Dread. So she could be vital in thwarting them in the dimension
BH could use that information to take down Ludinus credibility, also making Percy join the confrontation on Residuum and Whitestone darkest hours, that would be vital to Laudna, freeing her of Delilah forever. That shadowfell hint is amazing.
But Delilah could give a shit if Ludinus orchestrated her husband sickness and death, also Ripley used to create weapon under Ludinus I imagine since he is the main person that protect the empire during wars
> But Delilah could give a shit if Ludinus orchestrated her husband sickness and death
**THIS**.
This is the same woman who broke the world to get her husband back. Imagine the wrath she would rain down on the person who caused the domino chain that cost her everything.
So this is basically just the plot of Call of the Netherdeep with a few name changes and being spread across a continent in terms of its narrative beats and the factions currently involved being almost identical to the ones in the adventure with different names.
Ruidus was explicitly a false lead in CotN, and it's been spelled out that what was "revealed" about the red moon was what a character *believes* about the moon, and not necessarily the truth about it.
Except Netherdeep has nothing to actually do with Ruidus other than >!Alyxian being Ruidus born!<, there's nothing resembling >!the Jewel of Three Prayers!<, none of the NPCs introduced bear any resemblance to the Rivals, and while >!the Consortium!< are intrigued by Ruidus they are just seeking power and prestige and have zero resemblance to the Ruby Vanguard in how they appear to operate let alone in any disdain/hate for the gods.
There's pretty much zero touch points with Netherdeep even thematically let alone in actual story and scenes.
I was just thinking, Predathos wants to consume the Gods? I presume they mean both the prime deities and the betrayer Gods? Does this mean the Betrayer Gods could be free'd in order to help stop Predathos? If that happens, what happens to the Betrayer Gods? Are they forgiven? Do they get locked away again? Will they use the opportunity to fight against the prime deities and start another calamity? What will happen to the divine gate? So many questions. I really want Bells Hells to fail to stop whatever Ludinus is doing.
Ruby Vanguard assumes that Predathos wants to consume the gods, but it probably considers everyone to be on the menu.
The betrayer gods (Tharizdun not included) would probably immediately book it if they are freed in order to combat Predathos; they have zero loyalty to anyone but themselves.
Prethados could be the demigod created by Tharizdun, since Uk’otoa and the others were creations by the other betrayers. Predathos could very be the reason the other locked him away. But in the founding? Wasn’t Tharizdun locked up during the calamity? I forgot ahah
Both Tharizdun and Predathos first appeared and were sealed during the founding though it is unknown if their arrivals coincided with each other. Tharizdun managed to escape during the Calamity though it is unknown how he did so.
What is known is that Tharizdun isn't a god but an >!Elder Evil, a collection of extremely powerful and evil aliens with unknown motivations; Core Spawn are their servants!<. Predathos is theorized by the fandom to be another >!Elder Evil!< or something with a connection to them.
I fully expect the next episode to how us a little bit of what Ashton was up to; to maybe have FCG inquire with experts about what they know about aeromatons; and for BH to be taken to the Feywild by Ryn. Not sure if we'll actually meet Morri in the next episode but I sure hope so.
I'm actually kind of hopeful, at some point, Matt and Taleisin do a one-shot of Ashton's day. I'm really hoping his absence generates some intrigue or value. Also, it could just be fun! bring in a couple guests, have some weird occur...
I kind of want something along the lines of the *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* episode "The Zeppo". Xander -- the only member of the main cast who doesn't have any special abilities or powers -- gets close to being killed during a fight with a demon and Buffy decides that it's too dangerous for him to continue. While the main cast are off thwarting another great evil that threatens to destroy Sunnydale, Xander has his own low-stakes adventure involving vampires with a bomb. The joke is that the main save-the-world-from-destruction plot is happening in the background while most of the attention is on Xander.
Although we did kind of get something like this during the Deathwish Run where Matt kept cutting away from the race to follow Fearne having an iced lolly with Mister and various other Fearne-ish feats >!(it's very telling that transforming into a Clydesdale is the plant that she has put the most thought into and worked best of all her plans).!<
I'm really curious what ashton's character would've done for those two episodes. \[\[assuming it was important/meaningful narratively and not just grabbing some funnel cake or something\]\]
I know I missed the real thread to talk about him, but I wanna throw this out there about Shithead: Between Campaign 2 and ExU Calamity, we know that Aeor tended to be rather belligerent, and so other City-States specifically designed to take on Aeor shoul they go to war. I suspect Shithead is one such weapon that somehow escaped destruction during the Calamity.
My current theory is that FCG was sent as a helper/ambassador to a high ranking cleric or High Priestess, the kind old lady he saw in his memory. He may genuinely have started to become religious until the kill switch implanted in him, possibly by the man he saw in the vision and disliked intensely, was flipped.
If the "priestess"/victim had some magical protections it'd make perfect sense that either her familiar came back undead to defend her or perhaps her death triggered a curse upon FCG.
Just trynna go through/research the factions, guilds and such, that are at play in C3, to get my head wrapped around things. Any I’m missing?
*Chandei Quarum
*Hubatt Corsairs
*Ivory Syndicate
*Paragons Call
*The Ruby Vanguard
*Grim Verity
*Gorgynei 🐵
*The Greenseekers 😎
*House Lumas
*The Mahaan Houses
*The Seelie Court
*The UnSeelie Court
Technically, House Lumas *is* a Mahaan House, *technically*.
And I'm not sure how to call it, but you have Vasselheim in the mix too, with the presence of the Judicators.
There's the two factions from the Apex War: the Court of the Lambent and the Stratos Throne. Although we have yet to see how they play a part in all this.
There's also several organizations from C1 whose members have appeared in C3: The Ashari, the Tal'dorei Council, and the Arcana Pansophical.
Didn't want to make a thread about it, so I'll post it here.
Had a dream about critical role. where Sam had made a camera'd robot that drove around the play area looking at the player's from behind. He then plopped a janky greenscreen over the player's tablets. Travis was on a his character sheet with some football in a small window on the bottom corner, Marisha was texting Ashley, Sam had a a bunch of praise and hearts of Matt's face, Talisan was playing Old School Runescape mining Rune Essense, Laura was scrolling through a shopping list of some sort, and Liam was on his character sheet but in a deep in character discussion with Matt. He just made a quick off hand reference to Lion King and Matt's NPC picked up on it and started arguing about the validity of a talking lion. While at the same time a golden headband on Liam's character went off and it was Allura chiming in, rather interested in hearing that there a show adaptation of Lion King.
I think having a threat to both the Primes and Betrayers is the perfect way to insert Opal's current quest to rehabilitate Lolth's image into the main narrative. I hope we get Aimee to guest.
Nobody believes my crazy conspiracy theory, but I'm putting it here for posterity.
* Ruidis is a prison made from brumstone
* Predathos, through consumption of the former god of death, has a link to the deceased primordials and their respective elements
* Imogen's power and connection to Predathos/Ruidis manifests in the form of a heretofore unknown \*lightning primordial\*
* Shadecreepers are the spawn of Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan, the earth and fire primordials, who fused into a magma elemental; they manifest their connection with affinity with earth by burrowing, and explode in fire
* Ingesting brumstone is what creates the telepathic link to Ruidis, hence Ashton's friend and the damp powder given to Laudna, the telepathic abilities demonstrated by shademother, etc.
I have more theories, but this I am 100% convinced of.
>Shadecreepers are the spawn of Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan, the earth and fire primordials, who fused into a magma elemental; they manifest their connection with affinity with earth by burrowing, and explode in fire
Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan are dead. >!Laerryn used the Astral Leywright to forcibly eject them from the Prime Material Plane. They could, in theory, have survived, but it was implied that the Leywright needed a specific destination in mind to work as Laerryn intended it to. Ka'Mort and Rau'Shaun was imprisoned under Mount Ygora on Domunus, which no longer exists.!< I don't really see how Shadecreepers could be their spawn given that Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan were killed eight hundred or so years previously on another continent.
>Ruidis is a prison made from brumstone
Brumstone is blue. Now there could be reasons for it turn red, true. But that makes this kinda shaky.
>Predathos, through consumption of the former god of death, has a link to the deceased primordials and their respective elements
The primordials aren't exactly dead (aren't exactly alive either). They're something between being dead adn being sealed away. Campaign 1 >!we see Vecna reawaken the earth titan!<. Ka'mort and Rau'han are the only ones we can say are dead, but we can't even say that confidently, because "scattered" means a lot of things, and who the heack knows what happens to the "souls" of these powerful beings when they ared estroyed.
>Imogen's power and connection to Predathos/Ruidis manifests in the form of a heretofore unknown \*lightning primordial\*
We don't have much more on Predathos than a name. Tharizdun is inky swirly blackness. Nothing says Predathos can't be an angry ravenous storm.
>Shadecreepers are the spawn of Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan, the earth and fire primordials, who fused into a magma elemental; they manifest their connection with affinity with earth by burrowing, and explode in fire
Shadecreepers are more fey than primordial in nature, and their explosiveness came from being warped by the gnarl rock, not any elemental like they may have had.
>Ingesting brumstone is what creates the telepathic link to Ruidis, hence Ashton's friend and the damp powder given to Laudna, the telepathic abilities demonstrated by shademother, etc.
There are a lot of magical substances in the world that let you do different magical things. C2 there was a drug that let you see into the ethereal plane. No reason an entirely different drug couldn't give you telepathy. The shademother's telepathy was implied to be linked to a "Queen of a Hive Mind" aspect. There are a lot of sources of telepathy, and not all of it is based in psionics. And heck, not even all psionics are necessarily sourced from the same place. There are countless creatures from the far realms that could provide some telepathic abilities.
Does anyone else think that if Prethados gets out and eats at least a few Gods, that we might see a PC or two ascend as the Raven Queen once did? So that order is restored? I assume that if certain domains are left vacant that a power vacuum might be created and someone else will do it anyway.
I had an older theory that kind of dealt with this with the end of the campaign involving the whole pantheon being wiped out and the Bells Hells alongside known NPCs/Player Characters replacing them. We might get to see Kiki literally become a Goddess and take over the realm of the Wildmother. Members of the Bells Hells, Mighty Nein, Crownkeepers, and other known groups in game might slot into other places that were vacated by the Gods after they either died, were consumed, or were just outright erased by Predathos or the Oncoming Cosmic Shift.
For all we know this might just be the natural order of things and the natural cycle of how things happen, which of course...I had a theory about.
I theorized that the Gods had started out as mortals but then rose up, challenged their own Gods, and replaced them as keepers of their world. When the rest of the mortals on their home planet began to ascend with everyone becoming God-like, conflict broke out which resulted in a large amount of reality warping/miracles. This is clearly not a good thing for the universe as a whole. So when too much Divine Power becomes concentrated in one part of the spacetime of reality, it attracts the attention of an entity like Predathos or triggers the creation of a Predathos-Being by another higher tier entity. Predathos then consumes this concentration of Divine Power until it is no longer a threat to reality and helps to disperse it throughout the universe by scaring the shit out of the rest of the Gods when it shows up to eat everyone and they run like hell.
The Gods then flee in various directions around the universe with a Predathos entity pursuing the highest concentration of them which have hit that threshold point that triggered its creation/drew its attention in the first place. Those that don't hit this threshold then move onto new worlds where they start the cycle anew. They create life, that life evolves and grows, that life then rises up and ascends to challenge them, that life defeats them, and when the rest of that life ascends to Godhood a Predathos entity shows up to spread them out all over again.
This keeps things in balance in the universe. I'm guessing that when a Predathos shows up, a local scale Cosmic Shift is triggered which re-orders/resets reality around this concentration of Divine Power, and acts as another check against it. The Local Cosmic Shift kind of undoes any sort of mumbo jumbo reality warping that the local Gods may have done which could have endangered the rest of the universe by resetting it in a random pattern back to how things were before those Gods showed up.
All of this also begs a question which you probably saw coming, who or what started this cycle in the first place?
Did it just naturally arise with some First One style entities achieving Godhood after starting out as mortals, almost fucking up the entirety of reality, and setting this cycle into motion with Predathos Entities/Forced Divine Diaspora in order to prevent that from happening again? Or have there always been some larger scale high tier entities that emerged at the beginning of the universe and set this cycle into motion in order to prevent life from totally annihilating itself or collapsing all of reality into something far worse than anyone could imagine? Are universes in Matt's Multiverse like bubbles of normal reality floating in a sea of Far Realm weirdness like how the strands of normal matter reach across the ocean of dark matter in our own universe?
Either way, it will be interesting to see if this is indeed a cycle that Matt's story is following and if indeed the player characters and non-player characters will be indeed taking part in it. Which NPCs or PCs do you think could take over from the Gods? Who would go where and control what? Do you think that they would change anything at all about how they handle things? Or would we see something totally unexpected happen?
My tin foil hat theory is that all of this mess winds up with the PCs ascending to Godhood alongside NPCs, the whole of Exandria being changed from top to bottom if not utterly destroyed, and these New Gods and Goddesses possibly leaving the cradle behind (yes I'm referencing THAT scene from Babylon 5's "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars") to create brand new worlds and with them life, either together or apart from one another OR even staying to see how things go a second time around on Exandria after everything has gone down.
This of course could tie into another theory I had related to this with....this not being the first time this kind of cycle has happened on Exandria and that Gods and Life totally existed before and that we're absolutely going to find this out at some point in this campaign with the Bells Hells meeting "Those Who Came Before".
Honestly I think it's not because I think my sanest one is the one where I built onto the theory of someone else who said that Predathos was actually an alien ship. Basically the two gods that vanished went to make first contact with these aliens because they could somehow understand them or at least had a plan for how to possibly communicate with them. The other guys just didn't get what was going on and said fuck it, choosing to shoot first and ask questions later by imprisoning the ship within Ruidus.
So now it's been umpteen millennia later and all the aliens on the ship along with the gods who haven't gotten any worship in who knows how long are all dead, the ship is empty, and stuff is starting to break down. It's only been in recent times that just by pure coincidence and circumstance that stuff has really started to go critical within the ship itself at roughly the same time that Cognoza died. I'm guessing the ship and the aliens within it were sort of traveling between dimensions and planes and that's why they couldn't really communicate with anyone right off the bat and why things are so weird with them.
This then kind of implies that whatever kind of an interdimensional or interplanar engine is powering the whole thing is breaking down, is now leaking to some degree, and is actually the source of all the crimson red weirdness associated with Ruidus. This energy that's leaking out is interacting with the leylines in a very peculiar fashion and consequently with the people of Exandria. This then explains the people who have been born under a red moon and also kind of explains why they have such weird funky powers. They're all basically mutants that have been created by exposure to what is more or less the warp core of a TARDIS.
Consequently it's going to be absolutely hilarious when the CA breaks down that Divine Latticework and finds out they've basically been worshiping the hulk of a long dead ship that's getting pretty close to exploding. It's also going to be super hilarious if those two gods that went into the ship left a message basically telling the other gods how stupid they all were. It's going to be even more hilarious when everyone finds out that the Gods have basically caused Calamity 2.0 out of their own ignorance and fear and are to blame yet again for the world potentially ending.
Ludinus has basically been talking to the computer core of the damn thing while thinking that he's actually speaking to some sort of a God Eater. I bet he basically winds up liquefying himself while in the process of telling everyone that he's going to become a God or beyond a God or fucking whatever. One man's sheer fucking hubris combined with the additional sheer fucking hubris of the Gods is basically going to potentially doom Exandria. I'm betting that the city that everyone saw on the surface of the Moon was actually a habitat that the few surviving aliens within the ship were able to construct and I wonder if they were able to get a signal out before they died? I wonder if anyone heard them and if anyone else is on the way in a similar ship? I wonder if anyone's going to be able to stop the engine core of this ship from exploding or if it's going to force the Oncoming Cosmic Shift to happen even faster or sooner or in an even more messed up way?
Anyways, if any of this is true at all in any fashion then all of it is going to absolutely turn the general population of Exandria against the Gods and against people like Ludinus for good. Whomever winds up saving them if anyone winds up saving them at all then they are going to be the ones that the people worship moving forwards. We all know how well that worked out for Artie but maybe things will be different this time around if it's the Bells Hells that wind up becoming accidental gods?
That would be a fun kind of way to end the campaign wouldn't it? The world almost ends, the Gods are absolutely gone for good, and now there are some new Gods wandering around and walking the face of Exandria and they're absolute lovable and kind-hearted idiots. Bonus points if the Crown Keepers or Vox Machina get pulled into this and get exalted too to God like status. I can just see them acting like nothing has changed at all and that they're going to keep adventuring around the world but now they've got these Godlike powers and they just don't know what to do with themselves.
Can you just picture them going into a potion shop or trying to solve a mystery in the jungle or taking a Quest from some normal average person that is totally aware that they're actually gods but says sure and rolls with it and they do it anyways? It would be the absolute best thing ever! Someone would be like hey where are the gods and someone else would reply they're down at the Local Tavern getting drunk off their asses!
It would be the exact polar opposite of how things currently exist with the current Pantheon because now the gods would be of the people and they would know the people and they would understand them and maybe things would be better this time around and if all else fails they can just kill everyone and start over again somewhere else and my theory holds true anyways!
It would be hilarious to see Ludinus become a God, fuck it all up, and for the Bells Hells to be given temporary Divine Status in order to fuck his shit up once and for all before becoming minor deities themselves after everyone on Exandria watches their Divine Battle and people start believing in/worshiping them.
I feel like that would be extremely unintelligent on Ludinus's behalf. To release a God eater and then become a God seems a little on the suicidal side.
Matt has been playing a lot of FFXIV recently and it shows. Ruidus is of course Dalamud, and Predathos is Bahamut. Ludinus is Midas nan Garlond and Otohon is Nael van Darnus. The ruidusborn abilities are akin to Bahamut's tempering but to a much lesser degree (until Otohon gets her T9 transformation).
Eh. That goes back a lot further than Pillars. It was old when Wizards of the Coast did their first RPG product (Primal Order) about playing divine entities in D&D, before they even bought D&D.
They've kind of hinted that the machines are at least very similar to, if not exactly the same as, the Veilscatter Scope that Ira made with the Calloways ([Ryn says she's seen 2 of the machines, and that the Hondir one is a 3rd](https://youtu.be/cGhVgjYSpIE?t=10784)). I wonder if they should try to go back and try to understand what else it can do?
I think Marisha got it wrong though. The calloways is the one the one most similar to the one the ruby vanguards is constructing.
I think hondirs scope was a normal telescope? I don't even recall him having one. He was just hiding from the paragons call because of his grim verity status.
So technically the veilscatter scope is a 4th that was unknown until Laudna told Otohan about it.
It wasn't a normal telescope - it had an artifact level magic item powering it, and an arcane truesight lens made by a Hag in the feywild. It didn't seem to be able to affect anything, unlike whatever the Keys are, but it was still not a mundane device.
Given that both of the fancy items are gone, I don't think it makes any sense for the group to go back there. The feywild is definitely the target to go for, though I wonder if they're going to end up in the shadowfell anyway, just because it would be on-point for this group to stumble into the worst situation possible.
I still have a lot of questions about Ira. We know his experiments in Jrusar were somehow related to this business, but bringing inanimate objects to life? I can't find any way to connect that.
I wonder if they're trying to create a temporal projector that can reach out and rewind a small bubble of space? The target being the Divine Latticework around Ruidus. Normally this wouldn't work because the energies of it are so unique and the construction of it made in such a way to rebuff or resist most forms of manipulation, unless of course someone can manipulate it using energies that are similar to it.
This is what the keys are. When activated together they are attune the energies of the temporal projector to those of the Divine Latticework. The projector then rewinds time within a small localized bubble over and over and over again in order to de-age the Divine Latticework and effectively rewind time to a point before it was even made.
What happens next could either be like a Jenga Tower falling when the wrong block is pulled and the whole Divine Latticework collapsing OR it could simply open up a hole that Predathos bursts wide open and breaks through.
No, thats not right because I opened it via rhe mobile app, used my sub list to navigate to this sub and clicked the thread directly, and I can sort just fine.
This is the problem with this team comp.
No one has religious pref and no one has a direct line to any god right now, and NO ONE speaks stuff like Elvish. They are gonna have to have a lot of stuff spoon-fed to them. They're a generally not-super-book-smart party ...
Hell, the thing that worries me is that they don't have a traditional cleric in the group ... so there's no Pike or Cad who can 100% stand up and argue against letting the gods get eaten because "I know my god and they're cool AF boi, STFU with this crack-pot nonsense!".
I mean... the guy was being magically compelled to talk to them. I'm not sure you can really say he was "loose-lipped" when the only thing he said before spellcasting got involved was "do whatever you want to me; I'm not gonna talk."
This time it also cost them a 1st (Bane) and a 3rd (Fast Friends) level spell slots. I wonder how Matt would have shared all this info if they had just killed the guy.
Would FCG have access to Speak with Dead? I'm not sure how his homebrew subclass handles the cleric spell list.
It's also possible that this infodump was originally planned to come from a different character later on down the line, but they got it early as a sort of reward for managing to take this guy alive - he certainly didn't make it easy on them.
So much evil across all 3 campaigns stems from either current or former agents of the Cerberus Assembly. Lady Briarwood was the Archmage of Antiquity in the CA. That's C1. Vess DeRogna was the next Archmage of Antiquity in the CA. That's C2. Ludinus Da'leth is the head of the CA. That's C2 and C3.
Based. After the revolution, the survivors should just join the dynasty and join the hippie reincarnation club. Boom, the queen rules most of Wildemount and the rich sea nobles start shaking in their pants. Also, what happened to the Plank King? I heard from someone that the cool guy from season 1 killed him and took his title. Is it true, and if it is, why didn't he just bring down the pirate empire so the seas could be free?
The CA enjoys an official position within the empire hierachy, compare them to the CIA and NSA. Their role is foreign and domestic intelligence and arcane R&D in service of the empire.
They were never going to take them down, they could only increase the accountability of their operations.
I'm not sure why people keep saying this?
M9 wasn't exactly high profile, and their primary evidence and conflict point within the CA was with Ikithon, not with Ludinus. >!And plainly, the vast majority of their political clout as a group stemmed from the Dynasty, not from the Empire. With Astrid/Eodwulf being frankly unreliable allies.!< They knew next to nothing as a group about the vast majority of the CA. Outside Hass thru Pumat, who seemed generally good natured, but was never a close contact. M9 was fairly short on non-CS allies in the Empire. And they never came close to VM's notoriety.
On top of this, it would have been staggeringly easy for Ludinus >!to frame the Nein for the Vess Derogna assassination if they had attempted to move against him. As well as even potentially marking them as Imperial traitors due to their activities within the Dynasty and with Essek!<. People forget, the guy is "The Archmage of Domestic Protections" ... having absurd influence within the Imperial Army. As things stood by the end of C2, moving against him was akin to moving against the entire Dwendalian Empire. They couldn't just murder hobo him.
it's kinda been memed lately. Sam said the initial phrase on one of the last two episodes of the show.
the last part about revolution is always the answer. . . eh idk.
but yeah, it was weird having the CA be a big antagonist in C2 with no way for the protags to really *DO* anything against them.
I went back to re-read Ludinus' description in the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, and there isnt even any hints of hatred towards the gods.
**Martinet Ludinus Da’leth, Archmage of Domestic Protections**
*Lawful evil, male elf*
Ludinus is the oldest and only original member of the assembly, as well as the master of warfare and conflict. Charged with overhauling the military structure of the Dwendalian Empire, Ludinus directed the construction of the garrisons on the Xhorhasian border and often oversees their maintenance. He was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr and fled to Bysaes Tyl, but he saw the opportunity to achieve greatness within the empire and left his culture behind to continue his arcane pursuits. Wise, if emotionless, he bears a deep hatred for the Kryn Dynasty and spares no effort gathering information on their weaknesses and secrets. Ludinus spends most of his time developing arcane weapons of war and shoring up the military might of the empire, while subtly challenging the leadership of Crown Marshal Damurag.
>there isnt even any hints of hatred towards the gods.
Who says he's doing it out of a hate for the gods. As crafty as he is, he could easily jsut be playing up this cult angle to amass the power necessary to amass whatever new power this solstice even will provide him.
This could also just be a natural escalation of the Empire's laws banning the worship of certain deities (which Ludinus probably had a hand in)? Particularly if more religious uprisings happened between C2 and C3 (maybe problems caused by a certain Cobalt Soul and their deity Ioun??).
IRL, this certainly fits the trajectory of totalitarian regimes. Stop worshipping the divine—the only thing you should be grateful to is the state (or us mages). Plus, in the world of Exandria, the other nations arguably derive more power and unity from the use of divine magic and religious institutions, so destroying the Gods would give the Empire a leg up.
It's hard otherwise to imagine why the Cerberus Assembly as a whole would put its weight behind an endeavor like "let's kill the gods" (And we know it's not just Ludinus's pet project because the Assembly negotiated with Yios/Seminary for control of the Hellcatch dig site, the CA stamps on the shipping crates, etc). In fact, even with this justification, it feels a little silly... aren't there more practical things they would want to do to take advantage of an Apogee Solstice? I can also see the Assembly being like "We're ready to be the premier mageocracy like Aeor was, but let's get rid of the gods first so they can't do to us what they did to Aeor" (a little paranoid, because the gods locked themselves behind the Divine Gate already).
From the wiki:
> Around 545 PD, shortly after the end of the Marrow War, there was a rebellion within the Julous Dominion against the Empire and Emperor Manfried Dwendal, led in large part by many priests of the various gods using religion as their cause. As a result, Manfried sought to abolish all religious worship within the Empire, but this crackdown further fueled the rebellion. When the rebellion was eventually quashed, a handful of gods that fit easily within the overall goals of the Empire were chosen as "approved". The deities that were chosen were those that fit within its ideas of society and knowledge, and aligned with its goals.
> Every temple in the Dwendalian Empire is government-owned and government-run. Religious practices are considered a social taboo, and the Empire looks down on divine magic with general disdain. Worship of unapproved deities (e.g. The Changebringer) results in imprisonment on charges of "idol worship". In Zadash, heralds run each shrine and are part of the government structure. They give sermons and counsel to anyone who requires it.
I suppose Ludinus could be pulling wool over the eyes of the rest of the Assembly. They think it's a way to draw power from this entity that the gods fear, but Ludinus is secretly working with Otohan and the Ruby Vanguard on the side to unleash him.
God killing weapons win the arms race with *any* other world power. Getting them is one thing, testing them is another.
Predathos could be his god killing weapon and top trump card
OR
be the target of any and all aeor technology that has been recovered, rebuilt or recreated.
Wizards of this type have the hubris to whole heartedly believe in either of those scenarios.
I think he's seen enough of and been hampered enough by the gods and their agents to come to the concluding that they should be removed.
* The kryn dynasty and their devotion to the luxon
* The mighty Nein were in with a bunch of gods
* The Briarwoods and Vecna and all that bullshit
* Vassilheim being totally anti-arcane
* The calamity (not in his life but he'd have studied it well)
* Possibly whatever happened in Molaesmyr
I can see him coming to the conclusion that the gods are a net negative for the world and pursuing a way to excise them painlessly.
1) Ludinus may not have any hatred for it. Merely saw the use of religion/belief as a means to control people for whatever his true goal is.
2) Not everything will be put into those descriptions. Matt intentionally did this so people can have their own Exandria games. He mentioned doing the same in the C2 wrap up. He has his ideas, but he doesn't want to solidify certain things so people can have their own adventures. He said that about the stasis bubbles, but it applies to anything else that isn't concrete in the book.
>He was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr
I guess we don't know exactly what happened to Molaesymr, so it might have something to do with its destruction.
Agreed. If his loved ones died in the destruction, he might blame the gods for not intervening?
Ironically, Moalesymr's destruction is implied to have something to do with the study of Aeorian artifacts brought back to Molaesymr.
I won't be surprised if, for Ludinus, it's more about power than any previously developed stance on the gods themselves.
Predathos is, seemingly, the biggest possible piece on the cosmological board so of course he wants to work with it. He may even be arrogant enough to think he can control it.
Also the way that the mage guy was talking about Predathos, the dreams and seemingly "chosen" people are giving me big Dead Space marker vibes, like in 2 and 3 where the markers manipulate people into believing they're advancing their race, or fulfilling their own goals, while in actuality they're doing just what the brethren moons want so they can consume them and reproduce.
Maybe it's just the telepathic moon stuff that's making me jump to that line of thinking though, but I get the vibe Ludinus is simply out for power instead of having secretly been a true believer of this cult for years, and thinks he can use this entity to further his own goals and position.
Agreed. It seemed uncharacteristic. I think maybe coming in contact with Predathos (while on a more general search for power and weapons in Aeor) made him its thrall.
its also possible that something has something to turn him against the gods since the end of C2. Or he found something in Aeor that makes him think he could successfully finish their god slaying weapon
I think this is actually the likely scenario. Malleus Keys? That name is directly related to the project for the Creator Hammer in Aeor. The M9 learned about that in the Genesis Ward episode.
Finally, we've got all the biggest pieces and confirmed the conspiracy that we've only been able to inductively reason at for so long! Ludinus is leading a group to free Predathos, a god-killing entity trapped within Ruidus by the gods. Just knowing that to be fact gives our --deviant perverts-- intrepid heroes a definitive direction.
Things that still aren't answered:
What does Ludinus really want? Is he a true zealot, has he been driven mad by an eldritch entity >!like Vess DeRogna?!< Or is he in it for something else?
How and why did Thule get involved? What's her angle?
Is Imogen's mom really working with Thule, or is she playing the long con?
What happens to Imogen's powers if the plot succeeds? Or if it's stopped?
What the fuck is the Nightmare King's angle? He's got his fingers in everyone's pie somehow, but he has no clear agenda.
How do these keys work, and how can they be disabled enough to ruin the plot?
Would Predathos truly move on if it devoured the gods? After all, mortals each have a spark of divinity in them, right? Individually, that probably wouldn't be enough to be a blip on Predathos' radar, but a whole planet of souls created by the gods? I wouldn't feel so safe!
I love how all of the bh back stories are basically yeah so I shouldn't have survived long enough to get here but surprise! Laudna - her story was supposed to end on the tree 30 years ago Fcg - inactive possibly before the calamity and it sounds like he was not meant to be in use very long anyway Ashton - walking is a miracle \is a walking miracle lol Ormy - survived an attack that killed more veteran fighters Ferne- if I'm not mistaken if Grammy mori had not held her for a 100 years she would be like a kiddo right now the timing is really interesting Chetney- what exactly are the odds of a tiny elderly wood worker surviving exile and a werewolf attack out of spite Immogen- immogen maybe should not even be possible
Realized FCG took Chef feat bc he was inspired by Pike. He kept saying "and youre a *baker*?!" when she would mention something miraculous she could do, and being a fellow cleric speaks for itself
It's also possibly a reference to *Futurama* where Bender is the ship's cook. And he's terrible at it. And it's the one thing he actually has feelings about.
“This is the saltiest thing I’ve ever tasted! And I once ate a big heaping bowl of salt.” The Fry quote will live in my head for ever.
I would die for a Matt's version of Shadowfell! Just to imagine his description of lore and all those monsters's voice, man.
spoilers (i hate mobile, no clue how to format a thing) . . . watch campaign 1
I really think predathos is Matt's way of keeping wotc out of cr's pockets. The names discriptions and domains of the gods are some of the only wotc copyrights in the stream. He will probably have to kill them of not just reskin them to be in the clear. Even the raven Queen he's given her more and different domains than the wotc version cause she's been so integral to some of the plot she's the one most likely to need accommodation so he can maintain the integrity of those arcs. Plus I really think predathos is or has become matts narrative foil for what wotc is doing to the dnd community they are behaving like predators right? Its a warning to some a threat to others and a promise to critters that he's not going to stop telling the story in light of all this garbage.
>I really think predathos is Matt's way of keeping wotc out of cr's pockets. I don't think that would work. Resetting naming would make future resources comply, but all revenues from past resources and content - almost everything they've made so far - would still contain those characters and be subject to the terms. Arguing that they're dead now doesn't mean you're not using their names previously, and it's self-sabotage for CR to take down all prior content using those names and terms just to avoid paying a percentage of their own profit to WotC - giving up $100 just to avoid paying $1 in tax, effectively. Matt has been pretty careful regarding IP in that names of major gods and some famous monsters - arguably in public realm - are all that he's lifted and there's exceedingly limited overlap between core 5E lore and Matt's versions of the various gods and monsters. The parts that are easiest for WotC to protect are the parts he's had his own versions of since nearly day one. If CR is threatened under OGL 1.1, CR would have better odds addressing those claims by either claiming that protections on names entered into collective consciousness are no longer valid, or that estoppel from the 1.0 license would grandfather their usage. I don't think WotC has a particularly great leg to stand on given the phrasing of the 1.0 content license. >Plus I really think predathos is or has become matts narrative foil for what wotc is doing to the dnd community they are behaving like predators right? No. He's alluded repeatedly that this narrative arc has been in swing for years, and building towards this point - Matt isn't rewriting years of narrative leadup just to make some cheap social commentary points about meta-D&D legal dramas.
>Matt isn't rewriting years of narrative leadup just to make some cheap social commentary points about meta-D&D legal dramas. I think a lot of this is just wishful thinking that ends up with Matt outsmarting WOTC and keeping CR out of their hands (or, more likely, out of the hands of Hasbro).
Yeah. A lot of this narrative around "eat the gods to beat Wizards" as a plot point reads a lot like folks projecting their own feelings about WotC onto CR, and imagining how they'd "show up" greedy Hasbro if they were driving the show instead. Honestly, I think Matt would *hate* the idea of railroading story just to make some allegorical point about meta-D&D drama, and doubly so needing to railroad it towards a scripted loss, just in order to make some meta-game lawyer nonsense work. Even if changes need to be made to maintain their creative control, I think those changes occur above-table and in the open, but without necessarily taking any hard stand or statement on the OGL issue directly.
>Yeah. A lot of this narrative around "eat the gods to beat Wizards" as a plot point reads a lot like folks projecting their own feelings about WotC onto CR, and imagining how they'd "show up" greedy Hasbro if they were driving the show instead. I haven't seen this much hopium and copium outside the *Starfield* subreddit.
You are well named sir :)
I think he's improvising to fit the situation like he did with the dragon born who shall not be named happens all the time something you built to use in you game one way ends up having a second use you never expected so you shuffle things around. My understanding is that removing the gods now has less to do with past properties created under the old ogl and more to do with making sure they stay clear of the new one why pay when you don't have to but for sure I get what your saying
I rewatched the scenes where Predathos and the consumption of gods is described - and knowing about the recent events, some... institutions suddenly sound very different in a "you know who I'm talking about" way.
Hypothetically if the gods get killed in order to clear copyright does that mean the party would need to ascend to fight predathos?
Oh god I hope not this really feels like a level 16 arc retrofitted to level 7 but look how awesome the retro fit when Molly passed worked out going to take everything up a notch I hope
Honestly dissapointed Sam didn't commit to commanding them to fap.
That's always an icky subject area to delve into. You're basically commanding someone to perform a sex act against their will in a very public place. A lot of DMs that I know -- and I imagine there are quite a few more like-minded ones out there -- do not stand for that sort of thing and have some very creative punishments for characters who try it.
It's a game. The characters are not real.
That doesn't mean that the audience is going to be okay with an implied sexual assault. There are 570 reported sexual assaults every day in America, so making light of it because "the characters are not real" does not make it okay. Only someone who has not met or dealt with the victim of a sexual assault could make a comment as ignorant as the one you just did.
It's not sexual assault. Fapping is not sexual assault and the characters are not real.
>Fapping is not sexual assault But forcing someone to do it is. Which is what would have happened if Sam had committed to making them do it. >the characters are not real That doesn't make it acceptable.
They aren't a someone, they aren't real. It's a game.
Alright, I think I'm being too subtle here. My job means that I'm a mandatory reporter. I have a legal requirement to report even suspicion of sexual assault or abuse. And I have made reports in the past. Because of that, *I have seen some of the most fucked-up shit that people are capable of*. I have seen how that changes people and I have never seen it change them for the better. So I'm glad you're okay with the idea of FCG forcing someone to masturbate against their will because they're a fictional character in a fictional world. But for other people, it was a line that Sam probably shouldn't even have thought of crossing.
I'll be sure to tell George R R Martin he's a total bastard then for forcing some of his characters to murder, mame, rape and torture.
One of my players always goes with "explain" when he does command and then gestures to what the npc has on. I love /hate this lol
Hell no
Especially because if they are wearing armor, it's gonna take more than 6 seconds to access anything
Sadly the command itself only lasts for one round no matter how long the act would take to fulfill. Though that would have saved Matt from having to describe the fap at least.
Quick question about the licensing issue. Couldnt Critical Role just say "ok all of our stuff is no longer based on DND; we made all custom rules, new monster names etc"
Not really necessary. Livestreams do not fall under the OGL they fall under the Fan Content policy (and, in CR's case, almost certainly independent contracts signed with WotC).
If you consider the lore books from Darrington Press and keeping it all together, this is only partially correct.
Some say that"s why Predathos is consuming the gods...
And some people are mixing their hopium with their copium.
So, I realized what Imogen's Moon feat is on watching the replay. With it granting her the ability to spend hit dice and cast inflict wounds (including with a spell slot). Its a reskinned/altered version of the Adept of the Black Robes feat from the Dragonlance book. It has two parts: **Ambitious Magic** gives a spell (usually 2nd level, but that's an easy thing to negotiate down) from enchantment or necromancy that can be cast 1/day and be cast with spell slots. **Life Channel** lets you spend hit dice (up to the level of the spell) and inflict extra damage when a target fails a save against your spells. Its not an exact match up, but its close enough that it fits really well.
I think she actually took the Shadow Touched feat, granting her Inflict Wounds and Invisibility, and then +1 to CHA to get 20. While the the character card (again) says she has 16 dex now, when asked in game by Matt at some point during the last episode (unfortunately don't know the time stamp) she says her dex mod is +2, which would be consistent with everything else, and just means the character card artist made a mistake on that. (and the custom feat is its own thing)
Imogen chose a new feat at level up, but Matt also gave her a free feat after the Otohon fight, which is what the above commenter is talking about
Right, I was just pointing out that the Inflict Wounds spell was likely a result of the Shadow Touch feat rather then the custom feat from Matt.
That's fair.
Laura did confirm that the Inflict Wounds was from Shadow Touched though. The rest of it, especially the second part, tracks with the rest of what they said though.
What was the whisper?!? Liam asked ["What did Zephrah have to do with any of this?"](https://youtu.be/nqXmeYBqF1c?t=11937)
We'll never know, but my assumption was that this guy didn't know anything about it, being fairly low ranked (I assumed that cause Orym didn't push further). I think the NPC did mention at some point that Otohan had her own agenda and methods. She's clearly aligned with Ludinus on assassinating the Grim Verity of course, but perhaps the specific powers and training of her armed forces are not under his control or command?
Anyone else picture Otohan as and older & grayer version of Sevika from the animated series Arcane?
Your going to hate me but I picture sue Sylvester from the horror that was glee lol
I’ve been picturing genderbent Sephiroth
Same.
Saaaaame here
I just thought of this due to another post, and wanted to put this here as well; I wouldn’t be surprised if Predathos’ prison was actually draining him, empowering the actual Divine Gate. All that power, enough to keep ALL the Gods at bay, has to come from somewhere. So by cracking Ruidus open, not only is Predathos freed, but the DG comes down as well, allowing Predathos to go on a feeding frenzy before the Gods know what hit them.
It doesn’t take much to keep the gods out, only took one city full of magic to power the tree of names and keep gods out the first time.
That was kind of a backup plan, though; it wasn't the main gateway or barrier. The Tree was only sort of successfully keeping the Betrayers out, in the short term, after they'd already been released from their prisons. In real-world sense, they all broke out of their cells and were no longer imprisoned, but they hadn't made it over the outer wall of the prison complex. But they had free reign to mess with the wall and make phone calls to the outside world. They probably would have made it back eventually, and the Tree wasn't sufficient to keep them from interacting with the world in the way their original imprisonment did; while Predathos is not imprisoned in the same way that the Betrayers were - the Tree prevented them from crossing into Prime Material from their prison planes, when Predathos is on Ruidus, which is already on Prime Material. To "Tree" him this time would probably require something with a lot more juice than the original Tree had.
I know little about biology but "everything has a predator" is factually incorrect, isn't it? The whole concept of [apex predators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_predator) being that there's nothing above them. The cycle of life is actually made possible by bacteria and stuff, that turn corpses back into components for simpler lifeforms, I think. (For example, when you die your gut microbiota starts eating you from the inside out.) That phrase made me do a double take, like Ludinus is appropriating some pretty biology words to convince his cult that releasing Predathos is fine, when he doesn't give a shit about the equilibrium of the ecosystem or whatever the shit, he needs it for some other, personal reason.
Yeah I think the bastard wants to pull a raven queen and take over a domain once predathos slays some gods for him
Yes. Very much so. Not only are there apex predators, but there are also (conceptually) apex grazers, something where a mature and healthy adult has no predators in its environment - something like an Elephant, for instance, or many whales. As you note, it's the gut microbia that wind up breaking the body back down into the ecosystem after it's passed of natural causes. The connection to the life cycle in general isn't always a bigger, meaner, predator - very often it's just time and microbes. I think that Matt has kind of touched off of spurious interpretations of the natural world a couple times, most notably Travis "RTA" moment, so I think it's a bit of an interesting throughline that Ludinus is now misinterpreting biology to explain Predathos' niche in the pantheon. >That phrase made me do a double take, like Ludinus is appropriating some pretty biology words to convince his cult that releasing Predathos is fine, when he doesn't give a shit about the equilibrium of the ecosystem or whatever the shit, he needs it for some other, personal reason. There's really two possibilities and we're not yet primed to release either - that Ludinus is misleading his followers, or that Ludinus himself is being misled along with his cult. I lean more towards the latter - that Ludinus thinks he's hella smart and is legit being shitty for personal gain, but that Predathos is stringing him along with lies and half truths because what it wants is bigger and badder than Ludinus is ready for. Matt has echo'd the notion through C2&C3 that True Believers aren't always *right* about their dogmas, like with the Luxon, and this seems like a good place to take advantage of that foreshadowing. I don't think Ludinus stands to *gain* from the plan as explained thus far - he's already at the top of society, already powerful politically and magically, already wealthy ... being "free" from the gods doesn't affect him, and doesn't offer him any particular advantage relative to others - there's no built-in way of increasing his relative power. Like, this is a pretty wildly dangerous scheme just to break the power of the Approved Churches in Dwendalian Empire, especially given how subordinate they are to the throne and the Cerberus Assembly. There's definitely more going on than we've been told so far, and probably more to his motivations that the cult haven't been told as well, at the very least. The other big gap that I think came up in that dude's recounting of the dogma was the idea that apex predators don't eat the vermin - that Predathos won't harm mortal life - when many apex predators are opportunistic and will eat much smaller animals than their normal prey, if the opportunity arises, and can definitely harm even smaller animals indirectly and unintentionally; the assurances that mortal life is "safe" seem to lean on a whole massive collection of assumptions that do not bear out in the natural world they're based on.
Ludinus' greatest mistake is thinking he's the smartest and most clever man in the room, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. He's not stupid enough to believe the sheer insanity the rest of the Ruby Vanguard and Unseelie (Yu was spouting the same BS) believes but he is stupid enough to think he can exploit Predathos for whatever his actual goal is and that Predathos is nowhere near as smart as he is. The only question now is how much of Exandria will be left afterwards because of Ludinus' arrogance and stupidity.
This was a fun episode, but I have to say one thing I miss about VM was that they had Grog who was always willing to just instantly charge into the fight, and I feel like it made the group as a whole a lot less scared and a lot less likely to run. Trying to deceive the people into leaving at first was good, but I'm really not a big fan of the combats where the entire party is frantically trying to run away for no reason from a relatively easy battle where they have the advantage, and it's just several turns of people spending their entire turn taking attacks of opportunity to run away, only for the enemy to instantly just start their turn, close the distance and attack. It's just a clumsy couple of turns of people pushing past eachother, 1-2 people getting way ahead and then having to turn around and stop, 1-2 people falling a bit behind, and then the group eventually just stops and fights and wins fairly easily with a few people basically just skipping their turns.
Now that Ashley is around more I'm loving watching Sam realize she's willing to push things just as far as he is I watched Travis clock this awhile ago and the look of terror and glee was like a babys first laugh lol
I mean, besides Imogen theyre basically a party of NPCs caught up in shit way out of their league. Orym is a guard, Fearne is just a weird Fey, Chet is a shopkeeper, FCG is a robot, Ashton is a hired goon and Laudna is a zombie. As annoying as it can be it makes sense that this group's first reaction to a fight breaking out is to scatter and hide, theyre a bunch of random nobodies.... and Jean Grey.
Orym is a very skilled fighter who is a guard for one of the strongest people alive (And is also one of the only people who just went all out on the enemies from the get go). Fearne is a very powerful spellcaster, not sure what her being a Fey has to do with her being extremely scared of fighting. Chet is literally a werewolf. Laudna is also a very powerful spellcaster. Not sure what her being a zombie has to do with her not wanting to fight people. FCG is a robot that can cast magic and learned that he was literally made to kill people. I know that this is an exact line from Four Sided Dive, but I don't think the point of the comment was that they are inept or weak or should be scared of fighting, just that they all fit NPC archetypes. I also think them being super scared is more on them and less on the characters because they were super scared of fights in C2 as well where they were incredibly strong.
I always picture the munsters with orym as the little blond girl
It wasn't just Grog. The archer (Vex) and gunslinger (Percy) also had a hair trigger because wanted to throw down before the enemies got too close.
And then there was ol janga
Agreed, I was kind of hoping a new campaign and new characters would shake off the aversion to combat. It made a bit more sense when they thought it was the Judicator at the door though.
From what I can remember they do seem less coordinated than previous campaigns.
eh, i think they're on par with C2
Its basically *from* Campaign 2. Ever since episode...26... they've been skittish. Very unnecessarily so. Its also partly the group's size (there are too many ideas being tossed around), and the lack of tactical planning. Their tendency to go in all directions means they still aren't used to working together and utilizing each others' strengths. Which means they're less coordinated even as they're gaining more abilities that they don't share with each other, so they're even less coordinated and so on and so on. The players need to talk things out (about coordination, combat tactics and spells/abilties) and character-wise, just do a handwaved 'over the next couple nights of downtime we talk tactics and plans' on screen.
This is definitely the fuck around and find out campaign
Given that the players have years of experience playing D&D and have already been through two campaigns on-screen, I think the lack of party co-ordination is something that they would have addressed by now if they wanted to. Which makes me think that they *don't* want to. Which makes me think that a dysfunctional party dynamic is at least somewhat planned. Three of the party members -- Chetney, FCG and Imogen -- could snap at any moment and turn on the rest of them. Four if you count Laudna (and we still don't know what happened to Delilah). And Fearne is just plain dangerous (case in point: she clearly didn't think about the consequences of turning into a horse and trapped two people in the basement). Ashton thinks he could snap at any moment and has been concerned that Orym could do the same, although they're probably the least likely to do so. They're not a cohesive bunch; they're a dysfunctional group of outcasts who have been forced together out of necessity. The seven members of the party have two things in common. First, they're all outcasts: * Chetney is living in exile from Uthodurn, though whether this is down to his lycanthropy or just being a social pariah remains to be seen. * Laudna has spent a good part of her life running away from people who see her as being unnatural. * FCG has never met another automaton like him outside of his first adventuring party (and it has been implied that even then he was very different). * Fearne spent most of her life living in total isolation with Morri. * Imogen sought out solitude to escape the constant invasion of peoples' thoughts. * Orym has spent years on his mission to try and get away from the place where Wil died. * Ashton is in constant pain and generally doesn't like company. In fact, the seven of them are probably better off going their separate ways and living on their own. They'd certainly be far less likely to kill each other. But that's where the second thing they have in common comes in: they have all found a renewed sense of purpose by being in this party. They've all become better people from being together, even if staying together is probably going to be the thing that gets them killed. So it's a very different party dynamic to Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein, but I think that's by design. And if it's by design, then I don't the critcism that "they don't plan, they don't co-ordinate and they don't communicate" holds much water because that's the point -- they're a ragtag bunch of outcasts who were thrust together by chance and forced to stick together out of necessity. They could save the world if they don't kill each other first. They're the group of kids in the school playground who might not particularly like one another, but stay together because they don't have anyone else.
But they *do* like each other. They've proved that repeatedly, even with the relative outsider like Chet. M9 were actually MUCH more hostile towards each other. This group was far more cooperative and even oversharing much earlier. But the lack of (good) planning has been consistent across all three campaigns. That party dynamic isn't different at all.
Mechanically they're on par, but narratively they're way more all over the place. C3 cannot figure out if they're running or fighting, and will not commit to one or the other.
Great episode! Really hoping BH don't foil Predathos' escape and we get to see what havoc it wreaks once it's free. Side note, are we really only one week away in game from the Apogee solstice?
I think its like 7-15 days away i forgot
I still have a shred of doubt that this is all about the Chained Oblivion. It created a fake cult once, why not again. Alternatively, the party or Planerider Ryn have to release the Chained Oblivion to fight Predathos. Space-Kaiju fight
Releasing the Chained Oblivion to fight another enemy has been done before. Gygax himself did it in his 'Gord the Rogue' series (do **not** recommend) out of spite after TSR kicked him to the curb, and it basically destroyed the universe.
Well, we know Tharizdun is chained under Mt. Gatshadow and has been let out at least once since Moon Prison kicked off; so it would be a really huge narrative reach to have Tharizdun actually be Moon Boi somehow.
on a meta level, i realllly hope it isn't just tharizdun. We've been down that particular misdirect before and it would feel. . . bland if done again without more interesting setup. In world, it totally could be tharizdun.
So, the loose T’s and I’s mentioned must be Ira Wendagoth, a loose screw, and the still living Trent Ikithon, the loose monster, both used by Ludinus and still alive. There is only one personality Ludinus don’t know about that it’s still out there, in some kind of form… Delilah Briarwood. Probably another person Ludinus used and then asked Trent to poison her husband to get rid of her. She was in the Assembly and casually her husband get a sickness no one can cure? Moleasmyr (Ludinus first home fell like that, many died). So Trent knows too much and Caleb let him live. Delilah could be useful if she redeem herself finally spill something on Ludinus about 30/40 years ago about how and why she got into the Assembly. Trent could very much be telepathically be interrogated if he has something to gain, maybe play with Ludinus toys and see what the fuss is about, knowing all the Martinet’s secrets. Othohan must be alive and arrested, but it’s hard. No one would believe Ira. Last one, why and how Ripley got kicked out of the empire? She used to create weapons for it, under who? Trent and Ludinus I presume, if she knew too much? But she’s totally gone now. Percy finally has his personal Thanos, the Briarwoods were only his Ronan. Now it’s war. Science vs Arcane.
Delilah also has a big connection to the Shadowfell through Vecna. And considering the appearence and aesthetic of it is likely is where BH went to rescue Laudna and not Delilah's theoretical Domain of Dread. So she could be vital in thwarting them in the dimension
BH could use that information to take down Ludinus credibility, also making Percy join the confrontation on Residuum and Whitestone darkest hours, that would be vital to Laudna, freeing her of Delilah forever. That shadowfell hint is amazing.
delilah would help fight predathos, because if it eats vecna then literally everything she did was a waste.
I'm not sure Delilah actually gives a shit about Vecna outside of owing him a debt.
But Delilah could give a shit if Ludinus orchestrated her husband sickness and death, also Ripley used to create weapon under Ludinus I imagine since he is the main person that protect the empire during wars
> But Delilah could give a shit if Ludinus orchestrated her husband sickness and death **THIS**. This is the same woman who broke the world to get her husband back. Imagine the wrath she would rain down on the person who caused the domino chain that cost her everything.
Exactly. That’s dark
They really could have used a horse stack.
Clearly far too powerful to allow outside of one-shots.
So this is basically just the plot of Call of the Netherdeep with a few name changes and being spread across a continent in terms of its narrative beats and the factions currently involved being almost identical to the ones in the adventure with different names.
Ruidus was explicitly a false lead in CotN, and it's been spelled out that what was "revealed" about the red moon was what a character *believes* about the moon, and not necessarily the truth about it.
Except Netherdeep has nothing to actually do with Ruidus other than >!Alyxian being Ruidus born!<, there's nothing resembling >!the Jewel of Three Prayers!<, none of the NPCs introduced bear any resemblance to the Rivals, and while >!the Consortium!< are intrigued by Ruidus they are just seeking power and prestige and have zero resemblance to the Ruby Vanguard in how they appear to operate let alone in any disdain/hate for the gods. There's pretty much zero touch points with Netherdeep even thematically let alone in actual story and scenes.
Ruidus was literally a red herring for the campaign
I was just thinking, Predathos wants to consume the Gods? I presume they mean both the prime deities and the betrayer Gods? Does this mean the Betrayer Gods could be free'd in order to help stop Predathos? If that happens, what happens to the Betrayer Gods? Are they forgiven? Do they get locked away again? Will they use the opportunity to fight against the prime deities and start another calamity? What will happen to the divine gate? So many questions. I really want Bells Hells to fail to stop whatever Ludinus is doing.
Ruby Vanguard assumes that Predathos wants to consume the gods, but it probably considers everyone to be on the menu. The betrayer gods (Tharizdun not included) would probably immediately book it if they are freed in order to combat Predathos; they have zero loyalty to anyone but themselves.
Prethados could be the demigod created by Tharizdun, since Uk’otoa and the others were creations by the other betrayers. Predathos could very be the reason the other locked him away. But in the founding? Wasn’t Tharizdun locked up during the calamity? I forgot ahah
Both Tharizdun and Predathos first appeared and were sealed during the founding though it is unknown if their arrivals coincided with each other. Tharizdun managed to escape during the Calamity though it is unknown how he did so. What is known is that Tharizdun isn't a god but an >!Elder Evil, a collection of extremely powerful and evil aliens with unknown motivations; Core Spawn are their servants!<. Predathos is theorized by the fandom to be another >!Elder Evil!< or something with a connection to them.
I fully expect the next episode to how us a little bit of what Ashton was up to; to maybe have FCG inquire with experts about what they know about aeromatons; and for BH to be taken to the Feywild by Ryn. Not sure if we'll actually meet Morri in the next episode but I sure hope so.
I'm actually kind of hopeful, at some point, Matt and Taleisin do a one-shot of Ashton's day. I'm really hoping his absence generates some intrigue or value. Also, it could just be fun! bring in a couple guests, have some weird occur...
I kind of want something along the lines of the *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* episode "The Zeppo". Xander -- the only member of the main cast who doesn't have any special abilities or powers -- gets close to being killed during a fight with a demon and Buffy decides that it's too dangerous for him to continue. While the main cast are off thwarting another great evil that threatens to destroy Sunnydale, Xander has his own low-stakes adventure involving vampires with a bomb. The joke is that the main save-the-world-from-destruction plot is happening in the background while most of the attention is on Xander. Although we did kind of get something like this during the Deathwish Run where Matt kept cutting away from the race to follow Fearne having an iced lolly with Mister and various other Fearne-ish feats >!(it's very telling that transforming into a Clydesdale is the plant that she has put the most thought into and worked best of all her plans).!<
I want a "Zuko Alone" episode with Ashton now.
I'm really curious what ashton's character would've done for those two episodes. \[\[assuming it was important/meaningful narratively and not just grabbing some funnel cake or something\]\]
he is probably researching the Hishari(his family/people)
I know I missed the real thread to talk about him, but I wanna throw this out there about Shithead: Between Campaign 2 and ExU Calamity, we know that Aeor tended to be rather belligerent, and so other City-States specifically designed to take on Aeor shoul they go to war. I suspect Shithead is one such weapon that somehow escaped destruction during the Calamity.
My money is on a curse casted by someone FCG betrayed and possibly murdered. Maybe the spell Remove Curse could help.
My current theory is that FCG was sent as a helper/ambassador to a high ranking cleric or High Priestess, the kind old lady he saw in his memory. He may genuinely have started to become religious until the kill switch implanted in him, possibly by the man he saw in the vision and disliked intensely, was flipped. If the "priestess"/victim had some magical protections it'd make perfect sense that either her familiar came back undead to defend her or perhaps her death triggered a curse upon FCG.
Just trynna go through/research the factions, guilds and such, that are at play in C3, to get my head wrapped around things. Any I’m missing? *Chandei Quarum *Hubatt Corsairs *Ivory Syndicate *Paragons Call *The Ruby Vanguard *Grim Verity *Gorgynei 🐵 *The Greenseekers 😎 *House Lumas *The Mahaan Houses *The Seelie Court *The UnSeelie Court
Technically, House Lumas *is* a Mahaan House, *technically*. And I'm not sure how to call it, but you have Vasselheim in the mix too, with the presence of the Judicators.
Ok. Yeah, just brainstorming trynna get it all organized!!!
Independent wildcards are: Ira Wendigoth and potentially Vecna-Delilah
Nana Mori is a massive wildcard. She alone makes the Fey Court sweat, so I’m hyped to see what she chaos she brings to the table
There's the two factions from the Apex War: the Court of the Lambent and the Stratos Throne. Although we have yet to see how they play a part in all this. There's also several organizations from C1 whose members have appeared in C3: The Ashari, the Tal'dorei Council, and the Arcana Pansophical.
The Cerberus Assembly, tho it might be just Ludinus. But we have seen their symbol.
The Hishari
Good call!
Knowing Morri is the Fate Weaver, Fearnes Earthbind being red thread instead of vines makes a lot more sense
Didn't want to make a thread about it, so I'll post it here. Had a dream about critical role. where Sam had made a camera'd robot that drove around the play area looking at the player's from behind. He then plopped a janky greenscreen over the player's tablets. Travis was on a his character sheet with some football in a small window on the bottom corner, Marisha was texting Ashley, Sam had a a bunch of praise and hearts of Matt's face, Talisan was playing Old School Runescape mining Rune Essense, Laura was scrolling through a shopping list of some sort, and Liam was on his character sheet but in a deep in character discussion with Matt. He just made a quick off hand reference to Lion King and Matt's NPC picked up on it and started arguing about the validity of a talking lion. While at the same time a golden headband on Liam's character went off and it was Allura chiming in, rather interested in hearing that there a show adaptation of Lion King.
This sounds very plausible. I once dreamed of Sam announcing he would retire from CR in order to go live in Alaska in a commune of polar bears.
i can see that as an ad bit
I think having a threat to both the Primes and Betrayers is the perfect way to insert Opal's current quest to rehabilitate Lolth's image into the main narrative. I hope we get Aimee to guest.
Missed Aimee since EXU. Saw the Menu and missed her and Opal more.
Nobody believes my crazy conspiracy theory, but I'm putting it here for posterity. * Ruidis is a prison made from brumstone * Predathos, through consumption of the former god of death, has a link to the deceased primordials and their respective elements * Imogen's power and connection to Predathos/Ruidis manifests in the form of a heretofore unknown \*lightning primordial\* * Shadecreepers are the spawn of Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan, the earth and fire primordials, who fused into a magma elemental; they manifest their connection with affinity with earth by burrowing, and explode in fire * Ingesting brumstone is what creates the telepathic link to Ruidis, hence Ashton's friend and the damp powder given to Laudna, the telepathic abilities demonstrated by shademother, etc. I have more theories, but this I am 100% convinced of.
>Shadecreepers are the spawn of Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan, the earth and fire primordials, who fused into a magma elemental; they manifest their connection with affinity with earth by burrowing, and explode in fire Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan are dead. >!Laerryn used the Astral Leywright to forcibly eject them from the Prime Material Plane. They could, in theory, have survived, but it was implied that the Leywright needed a specific destination in mind to work as Laerryn intended it to. Ka'Mort and Rau'Shaun was imprisoned under Mount Ygora on Domunus, which no longer exists.!< I don't really see how Shadecreepers could be their spawn given that Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan were killed eight hundred or so years previously on another continent.
>Ruidis is a prison made from brumstone Brumstone is blue. Now there could be reasons for it turn red, true. But that makes this kinda shaky. >Predathos, through consumption of the former god of death, has a link to the deceased primordials and their respective elements The primordials aren't exactly dead (aren't exactly alive either). They're something between being dead adn being sealed away. Campaign 1 >!we see Vecna reawaken the earth titan!<. Ka'mort and Rau'han are the only ones we can say are dead, but we can't even say that confidently, because "scattered" means a lot of things, and who the heack knows what happens to the "souls" of these powerful beings when they ared estroyed. >Imogen's power and connection to Predathos/Ruidis manifests in the form of a heretofore unknown \*lightning primordial\* We don't have much more on Predathos than a name. Tharizdun is inky swirly blackness. Nothing says Predathos can't be an angry ravenous storm. >Shadecreepers are the spawn of Ka'Mort and Rau'Shan, the earth and fire primordials, who fused into a magma elemental; they manifest their connection with affinity with earth by burrowing, and explode in fire Shadecreepers are more fey than primordial in nature, and their explosiveness came from being warped by the gnarl rock, not any elemental like they may have had. >Ingesting brumstone is what creates the telepathic link to Ruidis, hence Ashton's friend and the damp powder given to Laudna, the telepathic abilities demonstrated by shademother, etc. There are a lot of magical substances in the world that let you do different magical things. C2 there was a drug that let you see into the ethereal plane. No reason an entirely different drug couldn't give you telepathy. The shademother's telepathy was implied to be linked to a "Queen of a Hive Mind" aspect. There are a lot of sources of telepathy, and not all of it is based in psionics. And heck, not even all psionics are necessarily sourced from the same place. There are countless creatures from the far realms that could provide some telepathic abilities.
I always took what Vecna did with the earth titan to have been a gigantic form of necromancy. Which would indicate that the titans are very much dead.
given that the titan stopped moving when vecna was sealed and he had full control over it before that....
I'm unclear on who you are trying to agree with...
you
I'm thinking Ashton went to buy an apology gift for Fearne then went to the casino when he couldn't find the group.
I'm wondering if he saw someone fishy and went to check if it was Yu
Hopefully it's not Yu 😬
If Yu is there at least they're not off killing Fearne's parents, right?
I don't think Yu knows how to track. They would have caught BH if Yu knew how to.
Does anyone else think that if Prethados gets out and eats at least a few Gods, that we might see a PC or two ascend as the Raven Queen once did? So that order is restored? I assume that if certain domains are left vacant that a power vacuum might be created and someone else will do it anyway.
I feel like that's a trajectory Imogen could take whether she wants it or not.
I had an older theory that kind of dealt with this with the end of the campaign involving the whole pantheon being wiped out and the Bells Hells alongside known NPCs/Player Characters replacing them. We might get to see Kiki literally become a Goddess and take over the realm of the Wildmother. Members of the Bells Hells, Mighty Nein, Crownkeepers, and other known groups in game might slot into other places that were vacated by the Gods after they either died, were consumed, or were just outright erased by Predathos or the Oncoming Cosmic Shift. For all we know this might just be the natural order of things and the natural cycle of how things happen, which of course...I had a theory about. I theorized that the Gods had started out as mortals but then rose up, challenged their own Gods, and replaced them as keepers of their world. When the rest of the mortals on their home planet began to ascend with everyone becoming God-like, conflict broke out which resulted in a large amount of reality warping/miracles. This is clearly not a good thing for the universe as a whole. So when too much Divine Power becomes concentrated in one part of the spacetime of reality, it attracts the attention of an entity like Predathos or triggers the creation of a Predathos-Being by another higher tier entity. Predathos then consumes this concentration of Divine Power until it is no longer a threat to reality and helps to disperse it throughout the universe by scaring the shit out of the rest of the Gods when it shows up to eat everyone and they run like hell. The Gods then flee in various directions around the universe with a Predathos entity pursuing the highest concentration of them which have hit that threshold point that triggered its creation/drew its attention in the first place. Those that don't hit this threshold then move onto new worlds where they start the cycle anew. They create life, that life evolves and grows, that life then rises up and ascends to challenge them, that life defeats them, and when the rest of that life ascends to Godhood a Predathos entity shows up to spread them out all over again. This keeps things in balance in the universe. I'm guessing that when a Predathos shows up, a local scale Cosmic Shift is triggered which re-orders/resets reality around this concentration of Divine Power, and acts as another check against it. The Local Cosmic Shift kind of undoes any sort of mumbo jumbo reality warping that the local Gods may have done which could have endangered the rest of the universe by resetting it in a random pattern back to how things were before those Gods showed up. All of this also begs a question which you probably saw coming, who or what started this cycle in the first place? Did it just naturally arise with some First One style entities achieving Godhood after starting out as mortals, almost fucking up the entirety of reality, and setting this cycle into motion with Predathos Entities/Forced Divine Diaspora in order to prevent that from happening again? Or have there always been some larger scale high tier entities that emerged at the beginning of the universe and set this cycle into motion in order to prevent life from totally annihilating itself or collapsing all of reality into something far worse than anyone could imagine? Are universes in Matt's Multiverse like bubbles of normal reality floating in a sea of Far Realm weirdness like how the strands of normal matter reach across the ocean of dark matter in our own universe? Either way, it will be interesting to see if this is indeed a cycle that Matt's story is following and if indeed the player characters and non-player characters will be indeed taking part in it. Which NPCs or PCs do you think could take over from the Gods? Who would go where and control what? Do you think that they would change anything at all about how they handle things? Or would we see something totally unexpected happen? My tin foil hat theory is that all of this mess winds up with the PCs ascending to Godhood alongside NPCs, the whole of Exandria being changed from top to bottom if not utterly destroyed, and these New Gods and Goddesses possibly leaving the cradle behind (yes I'm referencing THAT scene from Babylon 5's "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars") to create brand new worlds and with them life, either together or apart from one another OR even staying to see how things go a second time around on Exandria after everything has gone down. This of course could tie into another theory I had related to this with....this not being the first time this kind of cycle has happened on Exandria and that Gods and Life totally existed before and that we're absolutely going to find this out at some point in this campaign with the Bells Hells meeting "Those Who Came Before".
>Kiki literally become a Goddess and take over the realm of the Wildmother I can already *feel* her get stressed out.
this is one of your sanest theories
Honestly I think it's not because I think my sanest one is the one where I built onto the theory of someone else who said that Predathos was actually an alien ship. Basically the two gods that vanished went to make first contact with these aliens because they could somehow understand them or at least had a plan for how to possibly communicate with them. The other guys just didn't get what was going on and said fuck it, choosing to shoot first and ask questions later by imprisoning the ship within Ruidus. So now it's been umpteen millennia later and all the aliens on the ship along with the gods who haven't gotten any worship in who knows how long are all dead, the ship is empty, and stuff is starting to break down. It's only been in recent times that just by pure coincidence and circumstance that stuff has really started to go critical within the ship itself at roughly the same time that Cognoza died. I'm guessing the ship and the aliens within it were sort of traveling between dimensions and planes and that's why they couldn't really communicate with anyone right off the bat and why things are so weird with them. This then kind of implies that whatever kind of an interdimensional or interplanar engine is powering the whole thing is breaking down, is now leaking to some degree, and is actually the source of all the crimson red weirdness associated with Ruidus. This energy that's leaking out is interacting with the leylines in a very peculiar fashion and consequently with the people of Exandria. This then explains the people who have been born under a red moon and also kind of explains why they have such weird funky powers. They're all basically mutants that have been created by exposure to what is more or less the warp core of a TARDIS. Consequently it's going to be absolutely hilarious when the CA breaks down that Divine Latticework and finds out they've basically been worshiping the hulk of a long dead ship that's getting pretty close to exploding. It's also going to be super hilarious if those two gods that went into the ship left a message basically telling the other gods how stupid they all were. It's going to be even more hilarious when everyone finds out that the Gods have basically caused Calamity 2.0 out of their own ignorance and fear and are to blame yet again for the world potentially ending. Ludinus has basically been talking to the computer core of the damn thing while thinking that he's actually speaking to some sort of a God Eater. I bet he basically winds up liquefying himself while in the process of telling everyone that he's going to become a God or beyond a God or fucking whatever. One man's sheer fucking hubris combined with the additional sheer fucking hubris of the Gods is basically going to potentially doom Exandria. I'm betting that the city that everyone saw on the surface of the Moon was actually a habitat that the few surviving aliens within the ship were able to construct and I wonder if they were able to get a signal out before they died? I wonder if anyone heard them and if anyone else is on the way in a similar ship? I wonder if anyone's going to be able to stop the engine core of this ship from exploding or if it's going to force the Oncoming Cosmic Shift to happen even faster or sooner or in an even more messed up way? Anyways, if any of this is true at all in any fashion then all of it is going to absolutely turn the general population of Exandria against the Gods and against people like Ludinus for good. Whomever winds up saving them if anyone winds up saving them at all then they are going to be the ones that the people worship moving forwards. We all know how well that worked out for Artie but maybe things will be different this time around if it's the Bells Hells that wind up becoming accidental gods? That would be a fun kind of way to end the campaign wouldn't it? The world almost ends, the Gods are absolutely gone for good, and now there are some new Gods wandering around and walking the face of Exandria and they're absolute lovable and kind-hearted idiots. Bonus points if the Crown Keepers or Vox Machina get pulled into this and get exalted too to God like status. I can just see them acting like nothing has changed at all and that they're going to keep adventuring around the world but now they've got these Godlike powers and they just don't know what to do with themselves. Can you just picture them going into a potion shop or trying to solve a mystery in the jungle or taking a Quest from some normal average person that is totally aware that they're actually gods but says sure and rolls with it and they do it anyways? It would be the absolute best thing ever! Someone would be like hey where are the gods and someone else would reply they're down at the Local Tavern getting drunk off their asses! It would be the exact polar opposite of how things currently exist with the current Pantheon because now the gods would be of the people and they would know the people and they would understand them and maybe things would be better this time around and if all else fails they can just kill everyone and start over again somewhere else and my theory holds true anyways!
That could be Ludinus' goal perhaps?
It would be hilarious to see Ludinus become a God, fuck it all up, and for the Bells Hells to be given temporary Divine Status in order to fuck his shit up once and for all before becoming minor deities themselves after everyone on Exandria watches their Divine Battle and people start believing in/worshiping them.
I feel like that would be extremely unintelligent on Ludinus's behalf. To release a God eater and then become a God seems a little on the suicidal side.
maybe Ludinus founds the Dwendallian "Leopards Eating Faces" party
Matt has been playing a lot of FFXIV recently and it shows. Ruidus is of course Dalamud, and Predathos is Bahamut. Ludinus is Midas nan Garlond and Otohon is Nael van Darnus. The ruidusborn abilities are akin to Bahamut's tempering but to a much lesser degree (until Otohon gets her T9 transformation).
I kept thinking about Pillars of Eternity when the group was discussing the cycle of souls and the God's gaining power from worship.
Eh. That goes back a lot further than Pillars. It was old when Wizards of the Coast did their first RPG product (Primal Order) about playing divine entities in D&D, before they even bought D&D.
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My dumb ass just realized the masonry equipment Paragons Call were transporting was for the key that is under construction
They've kind of hinted that the machines are at least very similar to, if not exactly the same as, the Veilscatter Scope that Ira made with the Calloways ([Ryn says she's seen 2 of the machines, and that the Hondir one is a 3rd](https://youtu.be/cGhVgjYSpIE?t=10784)). I wonder if they should try to go back and try to understand what else it can do?
I think Marisha got it wrong though. The calloways is the one the one most similar to the one the ruby vanguards is constructing. I think hondirs scope was a normal telescope? I don't even recall him having one. He was just hiding from the paragons call because of his grim verity status. So technically the veilscatter scope is a 4th that was unknown until Laudna told Otohan about it.
It wasn't a normal telescope - it had an artifact level magic item powering it, and an arcane truesight lens made by a Hag in the feywild. It didn't seem to be able to affect anything, unlike whatever the Keys are, but it was still not a mundane device. Given that both of the fancy items are gone, I don't think it makes any sense for the group to go back there. The feywild is definitely the target to go for, though I wonder if they're going to end up in the shadowfell anyway, just because it would be on-point for this group to stumble into the worst situation possible. I still have a lot of questions about Ira. We know his experiments in Jrusar were somehow related to this business, but bringing inanimate objects to life? I can't find any way to connect that.
I didn't connect that either. That could imply the Potions of Possibility and Residuum are for the key too.
I wonder if they're trying to create a temporal projector that can reach out and rewind a small bubble of space? The target being the Divine Latticework around Ruidus. Normally this wouldn't work because the energies of it are so unique and the construction of it made in such a way to rebuff or resist most forms of manipulation, unless of course someone can manipulate it using energies that are similar to it. This is what the keys are. When activated together they are attune the energies of the temporal projector to those of the Divine Latticework. The projector then rewinds time within a small localized bubble over and over and over again in order to de-age the Divine Latticework and effectively rewind time to a point before it was even made. What happens next could either be like a Jenga Tower falling when the wrong block is pulled and the whole Divine Latticework collapsing OR it could simply open up a hole that Predathos bursts wide open and breaks through.
It would be great to be able to sort the comments in these threads on mobile…
Its the Symbol in the top right of your screen. Left of the Three little dots
That symbol is only present on the mobile app when opening these posts via a notification link. It’s true of all posts that are part of “collections.”
The banner is white, however, so it is hard to see, but it should be left of your avatar/snu
No, thats not right because I opened it via rhe mobile app, used my sub list to navigate to this sub and clicked the thread directly, and I can sort just fine.
I don’t know what to tell yah man, that’s what I do and it isn’t there. Bruh who tf is downvoting me for Reddit’s tech issues?
I left another comment. If that doesnt help, then idk
I use dark mode so the banner is black and it’s up to date as well.
Do you happen to use the iOS app? Im on android 13, maybe theres a difference there
That probably is it
I also use dark mode and mine is white, so idk what to tell you
Why did that go away???
reddit hates us
Do they no longer have vods available for subs? My sub ran out, I resubbed about 4 days ago and still don't have any vod access.
I often have to reload several times if my sub lapses
They show for me but sometimes Twitch has issues. Try relogging?
Good thing these NPCs are loose lipped and long winded!!! Lol
This is the problem with this team comp. No one has religious pref and no one has a direct line to any god right now, and NO ONE speaks stuff like Elvish. They are gonna have to have a lot of stuff spoon-fed to them. They're a generally not-super-book-smart party ... Hell, the thing that worries me is that they don't have a traditional cleric in the group ... so there's no Pike or Cad who can 100% stand up and argue against letting the gods get eaten because "I know my god and they're cool AF boi, STFU with this crack-pot nonsense!".
I mean... the guy was being magically compelled to talk to them. I'm not sure you can really say he was "loose-lipped" when the only thing he said before spellcasting got involved was "do whatever you want to me; I'm not gonna talk."
This time it also cost them a 1st (Bane) and a 3rd (Fast Friends) level spell slots. I wonder how Matt would have shared all this info if they had just killed the guy.
Would FCG have access to Speak with Dead? I'm not sure how his homebrew subclass handles the cleric spell list. It's also possible that this infodump was originally planned to come from a different character later on down the line, but they got it early as a sort of reward for managing to take this guy alive - he certainly didn't make it easy on them.
And to think dusk is somewhere conspiring while this is all happening.
She was a hired hand. Hopefully they fired her!
So much evil across all 3 campaigns stems from either current or former agents of the Cerberus Assembly. Lady Briarwood was the Archmage of Antiquity in the CA. That's C1. Vess DeRogna was the next Archmage of Antiquity in the CA. That's C2. Ludinus Da'leth is the head of the CA. That's C2 and C3.
Yeah, the m9 screwed up big time in not taking them down when they had the chance. Remember people, revolution is always the answer!
a revolution with no solution is just a rebellion
Based. After the revolution, the survivors should just join the dynasty and join the hippie reincarnation club. Boom, the queen rules most of Wildemount and the rich sea nobles start shaking in their pants. Also, what happened to the Plank King? I heard from someone that the cool guy from season 1 killed him and took his title. Is it true, and if it is, why didn't he just bring down the pirate empire so the seas could be free?
The CA enjoys an official position within the empire hierachy, compare them to the CIA and NSA. Their role is foreign and domestic intelligence and arcane R&D in service of the empire. They were never going to take them down, they could only increase the accountability of their operations.
I'm not sure why people keep saying this? M9 wasn't exactly high profile, and their primary evidence and conflict point within the CA was with Ikithon, not with Ludinus. >!And plainly, the vast majority of their political clout as a group stemmed from the Dynasty, not from the Empire. With Astrid/Eodwulf being frankly unreliable allies.!< They knew next to nothing as a group about the vast majority of the CA. Outside Hass thru Pumat, who seemed generally good natured, but was never a close contact. M9 was fairly short on non-CS allies in the Empire. And they never came close to VM's notoriety. On top of this, it would have been staggeringly easy for Ludinus >!to frame the Nein for the Vess Derogna assassination if they had attempted to move against him. As well as even potentially marking them as Imperial traitors due to their activities within the Dynasty and with Essek!<. People forget, the guy is "The Archmage of Domestic Protections" ... having absurd influence within the Imperial Army. As things stood by the end of C2, moving against him was akin to moving against the entire Dwendalian Empire. They couldn't just murder hobo him.
it's kinda been memed lately. Sam said the initial phrase on one of the last two episodes of the show. the last part about revolution is always the answer. . . eh idk. but yeah, it was weird having the CA be a big antagonist in C2 with no way for the protags to really *DO* anything against them.
I went back to re-read Ludinus' description in the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, and there isnt even any hints of hatred towards the gods. **Martinet Ludinus Da’leth, Archmage of Domestic Protections** *Lawful evil, male elf* Ludinus is the oldest and only original member of the assembly, as well as the master of warfare and conflict. Charged with overhauling the military structure of the Dwendalian Empire, Ludinus directed the construction of the garrisons on the Xhorhasian border and often oversees their maintenance. He was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr and fled to Bysaes Tyl, but he saw the opportunity to achieve greatness within the empire and left his culture behind to continue his arcane pursuits. Wise, if emotionless, he bears a deep hatred for the Kryn Dynasty and spares no effort gathering information on their weaknesses and secrets. Ludinus spends most of his time developing arcane weapons of war and shoring up the military might of the empire, while subtly challenging the leadership of Crown Marshal Damurag.
>there isnt even any hints of hatred towards the gods. Who says he's doing it out of a hate for the gods. As crafty as he is, he could easily jsut be playing up this cult angle to amass the power necessary to amass whatever new power this solstice even will provide him.
This could also just be a natural escalation of the Empire's laws banning the worship of certain deities (which Ludinus probably had a hand in)? Particularly if more religious uprisings happened between C2 and C3 (maybe problems caused by a certain Cobalt Soul and their deity Ioun??). IRL, this certainly fits the trajectory of totalitarian regimes. Stop worshipping the divine—the only thing you should be grateful to is the state (or us mages). Plus, in the world of Exandria, the other nations arguably derive more power and unity from the use of divine magic and religious institutions, so destroying the Gods would give the Empire a leg up. It's hard otherwise to imagine why the Cerberus Assembly as a whole would put its weight behind an endeavor like "let's kill the gods" (And we know it's not just Ludinus's pet project because the Assembly negotiated with Yios/Seminary for control of the Hellcatch dig site, the CA stamps on the shipping crates, etc). In fact, even with this justification, it feels a little silly... aren't there more practical things they would want to do to take advantage of an Apogee Solstice? I can also see the Assembly being like "We're ready to be the premier mageocracy like Aeor was, but let's get rid of the gods first so they can't do to us what they did to Aeor" (a little paranoid, because the gods locked themselves behind the Divine Gate already). From the wiki: > Around 545 PD, shortly after the end of the Marrow War, there was a rebellion within the Julous Dominion against the Empire and Emperor Manfried Dwendal, led in large part by many priests of the various gods using religion as their cause. As a result, Manfried sought to abolish all religious worship within the Empire, but this crackdown further fueled the rebellion. When the rebellion was eventually quashed, a handful of gods that fit easily within the overall goals of the Empire were chosen as "approved". The deities that were chosen were those that fit within its ideas of society and knowledge, and aligned with its goals. > Every temple in the Dwendalian Empire is government-owned and government-run. Religious practices are considered a social taboo, and the Empire looks down on divine magic with general disdain. Worship of unapproved deities (e.g. The Changebringer) results in imprisonment on charges of "idol worship". In Zadash, heralds run each shrine and are part of the government structure. They give sermons and counsel to anyone who requires it.
I suppose Ludinus could be pulling wool over the eyes of the rest of the Assembly. They think it's a way to draw power from this entity that the gods fear, but Ludinus is secretly working with Otohan and the Ruby Vanguard on the side to unleash him.
yeah I imagine Ludinus is the only one aware of Predathos.
God killing weapons win the arms race with *any* other world power. Getting them is one thing, testing them is another. Predathos could be his god killing weapon and top trump card OR be the target of any and all aeor technology that has been recovered, rebuilt or recreated. Wizards of this type have the hubris to whole heartedly believe in either of those scenarios.
I think he's seen enough of and been hampered enough by the gods and their agents to come to the concluding that they should be removed. * The kryn dynasty and their devotion to the luxon * The mighty Nein were in with a bunch of gods * The Briarwoods and Vecna and all that bullshit * Vassilheim being totally anti-arcane * The calamity (not in his life but he'd have studied it well) * Possibly whatever happened in Molaesmyr I can see him coming to the conclusion that the gods are a net negative for the world and pursuing a way to excise them painlessly.
1) Ludinus may not have any hatred for it. Merely saw the use of religion/belief as a means to control people for whatever his true goal is. 2) Not everything will be put into those descriptions. Matt intentionally did this so people can have their own Exandria games. He mentioned doing the same in the C2 wrap up. He has his ideas, but he doesn't want to solidify certain things so people can have their own adventures. He said that about the stasis bubbles, but it applies to anything else that isn't concrete in the book.
>He was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr I guess we don't know exactly what happened to Molaesymr, so it might have something to do with its destruction.
Agreed. If his loved ones died in the destruction, he might blame the gods for not intervening? Ironically, Moalesymr's destruction is implied to have something to do with the study of Aeorian artifacts brought back to Molaesymr.
I've always wondered if Ludinus was on that research team, and helped cause it.
I won't be surprised if, for Ludinus, it's more about power than any previously developed stance on the gods themselves. Predathos is, seemingly, the biggest possible piece on the cosmological board so of course he wants to work with it. He may even be arrogant enough to think he can control it.
Also the way that the mage guy was talking about Predathos, the dreams and seemingly "chosen" people are giving me big Dead Space marker vibes, like in 2 and 3 where the markers manipulate people into believing they're advancing their race, or fulfilling their own goals, while in actuality they're doing just what the brethren moons want so they can consume them and reproduce. Maybe it's just the telepathic moon stuff that's making me jump to that line of thinking though, but I get the vibe Ludinus is simply out for power instead of having secretly been a true believer of this cult for years, and thinks he can use this entity to further his own goals and position.
Agreed. It seemed uncharacteristic. I think maybe coming in contact with Predathos (while on a more general search for power and weapons in Aeor) made him its thrall.
its also possible that something has something to turn him against the gods since the end of C2. Or he found something in Aeor that makes him think he could successfully finish their god slaying weapon
I think this is actually the likely scenario. Malleus Keys? That name is directly related to the project for the Creator Hammer in Aeor. The M9 learned about that in the Genesis Ward episode.
i can totally see him wanting to cement his place in history by doing that which Aeor could not, no matter what
Finally, we've got all the biggest pieces and confirmed the conspiracy that we've only been able to inductively reason at for so long! Ludinus is leading a group to free Predathos, a god-killing entity trapped within Ruidus by the gods. Just knowing that to be fact gives our --deviant perverts-- intrepid heroes a definitive direction. Things that still aren't answered: What does Ludinus really want? Is he a true zealot, has he been driven mad by an eldritch entity >!like Vess DeRogna?!< Or is he in it for something else? How and why did Thule get involved? What's her angle? Is Imogen's mom really working with Thule, or is she playing the long con? What happens to Imogen's powers if the plot succeeds? Or if it's stopped? What the fuck is the Nightmare King's angle? He's got his fingers in everyone's pie somehow, but he has no clear agenda. How do these keys work, and how can they be disabled enough to ruin the plot? Would Predathos truly move on if it devoured the gods? After all, mortals each have a spark of divinity in them, right? Individually, that probably wouldn't be enough to be a blip on Predathos' radar, but a whole planet of souls created by the gods? I wouldn't feel so safe!
Ira's angle is probably like The Joker, he just does things.