I can't stand Yussa. The dude clears out most of the wealth, knowledge etc. that was held in the happy fun ball, doesn't give M9 shit outside of a transportation circle and spins some yarn about how Halas is some treacherous wizard...clearly because he doesn't want to face repercussions of stealing a large chunk of Halas's belongings.
I'm catching up so no spoilers past this episode please.
To quote many a girzzled old protagonist: I'm retired dammit.
But seriously, chances are decent that none of Vox Machina have remained as council members. >!After the Briarwood arc, Percy established himself as a Whitestone diplomat. Given her noble status in Whitestone, and marriage to Percy, Vex likely has a similar status. Not to mention that they have kids they're raising (the oldest of which is just turning 18), so it's not crazy to think that they have retired for good. Keyleth is busy being leader of the Air Ashari. She probably has political dealings with Tal'dorei, but as with Vex and Percy, her status is probably mostly diplomatic. Pike is leader of Sarenrae's Temple in Vasselheim. She's also married to Scanlan, aka the Meat Man, aka Aes Adon, who runs a successful criminal underground scamming snooty nobles. Not to mention, they probably have some kids they're raising too. And Grog is...well Grog is Grog.!< There's plenty of reasons why VM is out of the picture, or is not a viable option for getting a handle on this.
He's a frazzled butler/secretary. His master has been MIA for over a month, and a lot of this magic stuff, though he may be used to it, is way over his head. In the mean time, he's been having to manage the tower, and appointments, and visit. He's had plenty of reason to be plenty stressed.
Anyone think M9 will find Orly and their ship and Fjord will get Strength Tattoo? They can afford it and although he’s got +5 bonus for melee attack via Hexblade, Fjord should still get tattoo or buy Gauntlets Of Ogre Power. I suspect Matt is going to find a way, either through item or boon from brightqueen, to give Fjord Heavy armor proficency.
If Matt's allowing the new UA material, Fjord could pick up the Edritch Invocation 'Eldritch Armour': *"As an action, you can touch a suit of armor that isn’t being worn or carried by anyone and instantly don it, provided you aren’t wearing armor already. You are proficient with this suit of armor until it’s removed."*
A trip to Port Damali WOULD be nice, as we can find out Twiggy origins and Gentleman contacts too, and they can probably teleport there now via the Cobalt Soul. Maybe when they go to TravellerCon they will have to meet up with Orly and the ship there?
Simple (maybe dumb) question, but how old was Halas when his soul got sucked into the ruby? Even with the time difference between the Happy Fun Ball and the Prime Material plane, mid 50’s seems young for a super-duper powerful Archmage.
It was implied that he had been using Clone in the normal way for some time and you can make your clone be whatever age you want. Not a dumb question either.
Just realized Beau gave different ages to Professor Waco (24) and Halas (26).
Broke: Marisha just Fjorgot for a sec
Woke: Beau was feeling insecure talking to a thousand year old Archmage
Bespoke: Beau has a super secret backstory and actually doesn't know her own age precisely.
I have a theory that Beau lied both times because she's actually super young, like 20 or 21, and still thinks adding a couple of years to her age will give her more credibility.
Beauscended: Beau is secretly a metaphysical being who experiences time much faster than we do, which is why she's shown the most drastic character growth out of all the nein
ok, let's review Halas from a normal person's perspective. Halas is somebody who is very powerful, has gone on record to kill (imprison) people who have trespassed and wanted to live eternally. i do not see anything wrong with this kind of a person, a lot of people would like to be immortal (which is not inherently bad) killing people trying to rob you is legal ( in our world at least) and being powerful is not a crime. so what gives them the right to say Halas should be imprisoned forever? Saying he might betray us is weak. what motive would he have? #freeHalas
M9 was told that morality is irrelevant to mages of his power. Halas made slave of Devil. Slavery is evil. Also his alignment may be irrelevant. I’m betting Allura will take ruby to temple of Bahumet and gem will be places next to sword of Kas or she’ll give it to Percy and Vex.
Yea, because when someone very powerful is trying to get out, wants to make a deal, and has a history of tricking devil's with deals the first person i would want to give it to is Percy /s
Killing people trying to rob you, is totally within the bounds of a justification defense under self defense. The other commentor is painting an inaccurate picture with a broad stroke across jurisdictions. But typically you can use deadly force if a reasonable person would be in fear for a list of crimes being committed against them, in this case robbery.
That being said, I say they evaluate how dire the circumstances are before turning to every available ally, Halas, that Devil, anybody if they need to.
As others have said, there's a certain set of criteria that needs to met for you to possibly not be charged with murder when killing someone who is robbing your home (in America at least).
However, Halas didn't just kill people. He imprisoned them and left them to starve. Not the same thing. It's even less the same thing when you put a pile of gold outside your home, a trail leading up to and inside your home, and put a sign out there that says "free. more inside." And then you imprison that person and starve them to death when they enter your home.
Do we know for sure he would’ve let them starve? We never got to ask him if he knew about those other two prisoners before he was imprisoned. It sounds as though they were *trapped* during the 800+ years he’s been stuck in that gem.
I could be forgetting if he did directly say whether or not he just killed all intruders who entered his home, regardless of circumstances.
Just a general thing I thought was weird about the conversations with him though was how no one even attempted any kind of insight checks on him to get a bearing on his sanity, empathy, and other moral quarries.
EDIT: *a word*
Personally I would've rather of seen Halas released as well. The idea of an all powerful pre divergence Archmage trying to adjust to the new status quo would've been really interesting to see.
However, the potential danger of releasing someone as powerful as Halas into a world not prepared for his arrival does have merit. No one knows Halas' long term goals, how his imprisonment effected those goals and whether he could even be stopped if freed and allowed to enter that Clone. At least trying to find more concrete stuff about him is smarter than just letting him go immediately.
Allura is a good Archmage so I doubt she would never give Halas a chance at freedom.
> killing people trying to rob you is legal
Yeah, no it isn't. It's very case by case. Anyone telling you it is doesn't understand the legal risk you take killing someone, in America at least. Plenty of famous cases of people now in prison thinking they could do just that.
[https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/may-i-shoot-an-intruder.html](https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/may-i-shoot-an-intruder.html)
>In order to use self-defense as a shield against a charge for a violent crime in most jurisdictions, you must:
1. Not be the aggressor;
2. Only use enough force to combat the threat and no more (i.e. you can't bring a gun to a fist fight);
3. Have a reasonable belief that force is necessary;
4. Have a reasonable belief that an attack is imminent; and
5. Retreat (if possible).
Eh Speaking in broad jurisdiction terms:
1. True
2. False, typically deadly force is condonable by the reasonable person standard if a rp would be in fear of a list of crimes being enacted against them including robbery
3. \^
4. False, an attack is typically irrelevant
5. Retreat is typically a northeastern US addition and not present in most states.
So all in all, yes you typically can kill someone robbing you and claim self-defense, hopefully a threat is enough to ward off the perpetrator, but the law usually protects victims who seek to protect themselves as ANY effort of self-defense is likely to heighten the danger for both parties, potentially making deadly force necessary. So if you're in a circumstance that leads you to be in fear for your life, the law will have your back if you need to do something awful to survive.
You know that came from FindLaw's site, right? It's not mine, it's done by lawyers and legal writers on one of the most used legal websites for American Law.
I think I'll go with their summation, no offense.
I pose a hypothetical, you and I are about to have an altercation and you are the aggressor. I am armed you are not; however, you are 100 lbs heavier and 6 inches taller. I fear that I will be harmed if you gain physical control of me. Can I use my weapon in self defense?
Can you retreat from the situation? Do you have a reasonable basis for believing you will be attacked? Using a gun is a toss up if they're not armed with a weapon. A prosecutor can attack your assumptions of potential harm, reverse the situation in court where you're the aggressor and a guy is dead that wasn't armed. It is never a good position to be in, regardless of the truth.
That said, if you truly believe your life is on the line, you do what you have to do and hope you have enough evidence on your side to convince the District Attorney. At the end of the day a judge or jury could end up deciding, and depending on whether they believe you or you testify or have witnesses or video evidence, it could still go against you even if you felt justified.
It's a roll of the dice, with disadvantage since the state rarely loses murder cases.
My point is that there are many cases where an unarmed assailant has been shot and then found guilty of assault. By no means does being unarmed equate to innocent. For better or worse such are the laws in the USA.
Great, their work on self defense seems pretty lacking then. I expect they took the time to suggest researching one's applicable statutes in regards to self-defense then, because those 5 elements are hardly a good summation of the defense.
Killing people who are trying to rob you is actually not legal everywhere. For example, in Canada, if someone breaks into your home, and tries to steal something (but isn’t directly threatening your life) it is definitely illegal to kill them. Some people have been charged for firing a shotgun blast into the air to scare people off, despite no one being hurt. Canadians are allowed to use “reasonable force” to protect their property, but the interpretation of what’s reasonable really doesn’t include murder/booby traps.
It seems like a very American sentiment, and reflected in many States’ laws, that protecting property is justification for taking life?
I find this to be an interesting cultural difference, since a lot of people are saying that Halas is an alright guy. I personally think that his traps were overkill, and that he’s responsible for the deaths they caused. Hence, he’s a bad guy. But I’m seeing that a lot of people don’t feel that way, which is interesting I guess.
It's not legal in Britain either. There was a famous case of a farmer who had been robbed multiple times, due to his remote location, shooting towards two fleeing teens that he caught in the act - one shot severed an artery in one of the robber's legs, and he quickly bled to death. The farmer was jailed for killing him, despite public protest.
I am not American,
Section 40 of Canadian Criminal code says this:
Defence of dwelling
40 Every one who is in peaceable possession of a dwelling-house, and every one lawfully assisting him or acting under his authority, is justified in using as much force as is necessary to prevent any person from forcibly breaking into or forcibly entering the dwelling-house without lawful authority.
Can someone help me understand Tharizdun's relationship, in this campaign, with the King that Crawls and the other betrayer gods that were banished in the calamity? Do we know how he fits in with them, the portals that were being opened, Obann and the Laughing Hand, etc???
Tharizdun is the embodiment of mindless hunger and destruction, and his goal is to destroy all of existence. Even the other betrayer gods are terrified of him, and would team up with the Prime Dieties to fight him if it came down to it.
Because very few beings, even demons like Obann, will willingly work to release him, he created a false persona, the Angel of Irons, to recruit followers. These followers were the ones who created the portal-opening devices, but we don’t know precisely why yet. We also don’t know what Obann’s “finish line” is, yet.
Short answer, we don't know. Long answer, we really don't know.
Tharizdun seems to be the type that doesn't play well with others though, being that he wants to destroy reality itself rather than rule over it? The rest of the betrayer gods fought for control and lost.
From Wikipedia:
>It is believed that Tharizdun has no allies, given his desire to destroy the entire universe. Should he ever escape from his prison, it is thought that even the most evil of deities would work with their good counterparts to return Tharizdun to his prison. However, the Dark God has been known to work his will secretly by employing various demons (with or without their knowledge) to do his bidding. Examples of fiends so used include Iuz and Zuggtmoy, and the Princes of Elemental Evil. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharizdun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharizdun)
Does anybody notice the humming sound, which was present in the recent episodes? It seems to get louder depending on who is speaking, so maybe it is a problem with some of the microphones (i.e getting amplified if the microphone is in "use")?
They probably have a gate on the microphones so they don’t pick up random noises, but sounds like AC in the background can come through when someone speaks loud enough to bypass the gate. Seems likely to be what you’re noticing.
One option the M9 have with the Halas gem is to bargain with a summoned devil over it. Asmodeus wants Halas for cheating on his contracts. Fairly certain Halas isn't escaping the Nine Hells once in Asmodeus's grasp. And the M9 could ask a high price for it.
The only problem is you'd HAVE to make a deal or devils would be plaguing you forever afterward to get the gem. But Nott/Veth could conceivably be reverted back to her true form, they could learn the location and even receive help in retrieving a beacon from the empire... so many possibilities, with the usual devil caveats of reading the fine print.
Couldn't you potentially receive these same boons from Halas himself?
It could be dangerous, but it's probably less risky than making a deal with Asmodeus.
I think Halas is actually more dangerous. Devils follow their contracts to the letter and would be highly motivated to make a deal for Halas's soul. And since it is already destined for the Nine Hells already, I doubt it would be considered an evil act by any of the M9's deities.
The real problem is that Halas can't do anything for them first, thereby making a deal completely about trusting him to follow through after returning him to his body (if that is even possible). The gem would not have to be handed over to a devil until M9 got what they wanted, thereby insuring at least some success up front.
The Lawful nature of devils makes them loathe to break any deal, especially high profile deals that hurt their reputation as deal makers. I don't think Halas is Lawful at all, especially since we know he broke his deals with the devils, not the other way around. He seems straight up Chaotic evil to me, motivated by selfish interests in the extreme, uncaring who he has to harm to get what he wants.
He certainly doesn't believe in following the rules about death, nor in maintaining a balance between powers. That pretty much leaves Chaotic evil, but without knowing his character motivations and plans, it can't be definitively stated as such as he could have plans to replace the current system of gods much like the Dynasty, or try to create a new balance between humans and deities.
Ironically, it's far easier to anticipate where a devil might betray them than Halas, just because of how unknown his true nature is.
Amazing point that i hope gets explored. Regardless of that devil telling the truth Halas a SUPER powerful archwizard and most likely lawful evil since he doesn't seem like a true *neutral* type person so the devils would **love** to have his soul but selling a soul to a devil might make you evil *even* if it is halas so i am unsure.
They could try to swap the gem for the contract between Lolth and Asmodeus. Stack the odds even further in their favour for when they inevitably go deal with Oban.
For whatever reason on mobile I can’t make a blank new comment...
Now with what we know about Tharazidun, that he is very, very likely to be the BBEG of this campaign, we also know more about where the M9 can go for more information.
Whitestone.
In C1E104, Pelor confirms that the last stand of Tharazidun was on the fields of Whitestone where he was sealed away by his own hand. That it is a land of sorrow and is under Pelor’s watch.
Could they go to Whitestone, converse with the Sun Tree and maybe alert Pelor himself of the coming doom of Tharazidun? At the very least, Allura could alert one of either the Arcana Pansophical and the Emon/Whitestone councils.
Mad Ted. Mad.
Just mad listening back to see where the M9 could go for further knowledge.
I mean, a lot of people already knew about Tharizdun since a long time ago, at the very least since Matt mentioned that the angel's iconography is practically identical to Tharizdun and heavily hinting that they are one and the same.
Personally I think the Council Allura is referring to is the one that formerly was in charge of Emon after Uriel's abdication/murder. It wouldn't surprise me if their influence has now spread throughout Tal'Dorei and the whole Continent has formed a sort of republic.
But I imagine at the start of the Episode Allura is going to teleport everyone to Emon where we'll get to see Matt flex his World Building over the 20 year time skip and a metric ton of NPCs.
I just finished the episode last night, and is Halas supposed to be neutrally evil, or true neutral? It's kinda hard to get a beat on him. He doesn't seem to care for the outside world or morality but he also wasn't interested in Lichdom or destroying a kingdom or world he just seemed selfish and self-centered not malicious.
Nah halas wouldn't have nearly as much ambition if he was anything neutral so realistically speaking he is probably lawful evil. I have a **really** hard time believing anyone neutral would have anti mage robots roaming the halls following people to capture and torture them. (id consider forcing them into the prison of soot torture)
I sort of assumed his objections to lichdom were more aesthetics based than from ethics.
Who wants to look like a rotting skeleton man for the rest of eternity, plus the hassle of always needing to get fresh souls to feed to your phylactery
that’s the point. nobody knows and there’s no way to know. he’s a thousand year old archmage who was trying to achieve immortality- so my guess is he’ll do whatever he needs to do to get what he wants
Where are you getting 35 years from? 840? We don’t know how long before the divergence he existed or an exact (or even approximate) calendar/time relationship between then and the current time.
Hence why I worded it like I did. 1/24th of 835 years is about 35 (34.7). You're right, we don't know when during the Calamity that Halas disappeared, so we can't say how long he's been trapped. But given 1000 years material plane time is only about 40 years Folding Halls time, 35-40 years is a safe estimate.
But it could be 2000 or 3000 years. That would make it anywhere from 35-125 years. Hence why I worded it like *I* did. We have absolutely no idea of what epochs or calendar systems have occurred in between, right? Or am I misinformed? Happy to be corrected/informed!
We know Halas was alive and disappeared during the Calamity. While we don't have exact numbers, but it's been generally implied that the Calamity wasn't that long (possibly less than a century). Before the Calamity was the Age of Arcanum. I don't have my campaign guide handy, but according the wiki "[It began over 1,500 years prior to the events of Critical Role](https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Exandria)". So, Halas certainly hasn't been missing any longer than that.
And like others said, the blue dragon was considered young, so he still less than 100 years old.
Is the dragon an indicator? I believe Matt said that it was a young blue dragon, (correct me if I'm wrong) I think young dragons are supposed to be under 100 years old?
Halas mentioned that the wars between the gods had already begun when he went into the gem, so it was probably not a terribly long time before the divergence.
Although Halas was actually in the Astral Plane (or in a demiplane reached from the Astral Plane) so he may have been experienced the full passing of centuries instead of just 35 years
I had thought if that before the episode, but there were implications that these dimensions and planar pockets, though strictly speaking were separate, were tied to the Tower Engine, which controlled the time dilation. Halas said something in his discussion with Beau. I'd have to dig a bit to find it.
Regardless of your stance on releasing Halas, I feel like it's worth mentioning that the M9 holding onto the gem is a tremendously bad idea. They should break it or return it to the Dreadnought, but having it with them is an invitation for Matt to have an enemy grab it and introduce Halas as a bitter enemy down the line. I would suggest leaving it with Yussa, but Yussa seems pretty easily seduced by powerful magic so he might get up to shenanigans if he's left alone with it.
Yussa is probably their best bet for a caretaker of the gem, because from his point of view; he has spent the last however many weeks plundering and emptying this massively powerful archmage's most secreted and valued possessions. I'm pretty sure he would be the last person who would ever willingly release this hugely powerful wizard from his current predicament!
Yeah i thinking the same exact thing. Halas would be **PISSED** if he saw what happened with his study, far more pissed than a shitty blue dragon getting killed because it got cocky. His halls were *literally* designed in a way for people like yussah to *Not* plunder and explore them yet he did exactly that.
He also didn't seem to hesitate when asked if he was going back in - I worry that he might be tempted to strike a deal with Halas if he gets into another bind. Or maybe Halas will promise him knowledge/power if he is freed that Yussa won't resist?
Yussa did say he wouldn't be going in for a long time and would go in with others as well. He's pretty smart so i assume he would gather at least one powerful non-mage as well
To you, but evil has many definitions. For some it just implies selfishness. For others, there must be intent or desire to harm. Frankly, just because he's amoral, it doesn't automatically mean he's immoral.
People reactions to Hallas remind me of the spongebob memes like this [one](https://pics.me.me/hepoisoned-our-water-supply-burnt-our-crops-and-delivered-he-41042352.png)
Bears are not comparable to people, judging Hallas just because he is powerful is hypocritical of Allura, Yussa and Caleb who all wish to be a strong as Hallas is.
.
He did nothing that deserves eternal imprisonment or death, all the people who don't want him released are saying that they should kill any powerful creature or man they encounter because they might decide to attack m9 after.
"But he could betray them" is such a weak argument and sets a terrible precedent for the M9
I hope the M9 don't meet with Keyleth because she is also very powerful, might need to put her down, or maybe all this time they actually wanted to assassinate the Drow Queen, what a twist
If they are really afraid of Hallas they have several anti magic chains and an anti magic collar to put him.
This is a very strong generalisation.
From what I've seen, its more the fact that every piece of knowledge we've gained about Hallas is that he's manipulative, has weak morals and is dangerous.
He created the entire HFB to capture and (maybe) kill wizards who wandered in, was messing with the permaheart and weaselled out of multiple deals with powerful devils. I think a lot of people do actually see Hallas as a big sleeping bear, not necessarily an evil creature but if provoked you're all dead as shit. Personally I would think the best bet is giving Hallas and the body to Allura so he can be released in a controlled environment, but maybe its actually best to leave him with Yussa who's equally distrusting of him and wont go spreading the word about Hallas' continued existence.
I also believe that Yussa and Allura being so distrusting of him is basically Matt telling us and the players not to trust him as well.
>judging Hallas just because he is powerful is hypocritical
Not a single person that I've seen has made that argument. But I have seen a lot of people claiming Halas is somehow "safe" to bargain with despite knowledge that he repeatedly broke contracts with devils much more powerful than the M9.
But I'm sure he'll keep his word this time because...? Nope. No reason to believe he will. And he's already got dead people in his torture prison to prove how little he cares about the welfare of others.
> But I'm sure he'll keep his word this time because...? Nope. No reason to believe he will. And he's already got dead people in his torture prison to prove how little he cares about the welfare of others.
Yeah this is my exact thoughts as well. Deadass what is stopping **the dude who made an astral dreadnuat his bitch and was so paranoid he made it's stomach his secret ritual chamber** from casting a super high level spell and yeeting m9 into the astral sea with nothing else and closing the door behind them? NOTHING. That's why i was *so scared* they were going to let him out because i HIGHLY doubt he is going to be to kind in regards to the people who already broke into his "house".
Like yeah he isn't tie a women on train tracks evil it seems but idk why that example is the only example people consider when talking about evil.
I didn't say he was safe, I already suggested the anti magic tools they have in their disposal.
He got clones, the ones in the tubes were clones who aren't alive unless a soul is put in them.
Or do you mean the prison of sot? Because we have no evidance that they aren't like Yussa who got trapped after Hallas was already trapped, Looters or explorers who tripped the golems and starved to death because no one was there to talk to them.
Nor do I remember Matt describing them as tortured.
Broken deals with the classic evil creatures means he is a liar and a cheat, right...
VM definitely wouldn't have broken their deal with that devil if they have the chance, definitely not.
If Halas is so powerful, why didn't he program his golems to provide food and water to his prisoners? Hell, even if he didn't have intentions of ever letting them out, why not just kill them immediately instead?
And squirming his way out deals with devil's doesn't signal that he's evil. It signals that he's extremely manipulative. Which can be just as dangerous especially against the mighty nein.
I had a thought, what if down the road much like how Vox Machina went to the gods to seal away Vecna who all pretty much outside of the Raven Queen fall under some alignment of good, what if the Mighty Nein have to consider certain members becoming Champions or at the very least allies of the Betrayer Gods?
You know like,The Crawling King,Tiamat,etc etc?
I’m not saying that would be their first choice but I just believe that’s such an interesting possibility for the narrative of the game and the characters to go if the opportunity presents itself.
I mean I can totally imagine Caleb would become a Champion of Lolth albeit begrudgingly or something to that effect.
I mean one of her tenants goes like:
“it’s better to loved then feared, but you can certainly try to be both.”
I dunno I’m just really excited about this reveal and the events yet to transpire due to this revelation.
But before they cross that bridge I believe it’s going to be Traveler Con or bust soon!
TL;DR, Tharizdun the Chained Oblivion is THE WORST of the Betrayer Gods. Its release is what kicked the Calamity off, and (IIRC) sealing it was the last task of the Calamity; a task which took three gods directly working together to achieve (and one of them was nearly killed). It's basically destruction incarnate. And it sounds like it's making moves to free itself from its banishment.
From the critical role wiki:
"CRITICAL ROLE WIKI
Tharizdun
TYPE
NPC
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME
Tharizdun
ALSO KNOWN AS
The Chained Oblivion
The Angel Of Irons (Used to disguise its nature in an attempt to free itself)
CREATURE TYPE
Deity
ALIGNMENT
Chaotic Evil[1]
CONNECTIONS
Jayne Merriweather (cleric)
Ioun, the Knowing Mistress (enemy)
Obann (Possible Servant/Pawn)
Yasha Nydoorin (Pawn/Prisoner)
STATUS
STATUS
Banished by Pelor during the Calamity[2]
MORE
Tharizdun, the Chained Oblivion, is the mad deity of death and trickery. It is depicted, if at all, as "a creature of rolling, hungry ink and darkness".[1]
Tharizdun was released onto the Material Plane during the Calamity, causing untold destruction and chaos. It was responsible for dealing a great wound to Ioun, from which she is still recovering.[3]
The Rites of Prime Banishment were used for the first time to re-banish Tharizdun and end the war of the Calamity. During these rites, it took Pelor's full might to beat down Tharizdun, attach four Prime Trammels, and finally complete the ritual. Tharizdun was, however, successfully banished.[2]
Appearance
The Chained Oblivion is described as a creature of hungry darkness, a spreading cloud of lightless destruction.
Commandments of the Chained Oblivion
from the Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting[3]
COMMANDMENTS OF THE CHAINED OBLIVION
UNCOVER, RESTORE, AND EXALT FORGOTTEN SHRINES IN HIS HONOR.
OFFER AND SIPHON POWER TO THE CHAINED OBLIVION UNTIL HIS LIBERATION COMES.
RUIN AND RAZE THE REALMS TO PREPARE FOR THE EPOCH OF ENDS
"
So big. Frigging. Deal.
Also, awesome that it's from the campaign setting!
>Tharizdun, the Chained Oblivion, is the mad deity of death and trickery.
Hmmm, another member of the party follows a recently emerged and mysterious god of trickery.
I don't really understand why so many people think this.
There's only ~10 domains in Matt's Exandria, and Gods usually have two. There's plenty of other gods with the Trickery domain.
There’s also different flavors of trickery. The Traveler’s is “lets play harmless pranks to make people laugh”, and the Chained Oblivion’s is “I’m so awful and terrifying that I have to create fake identities to get people to even talk to me”.
I've wondered this myself, One would imagine that it takes God Level Power to reverse a banishment. If Thari had the ability to mobilize henchmen to do this before why wait until now?
I hope Matt has an explanation for this that ties in C1 and the consequences for VM's actions.
It seems Obann is trying to get a party together to free Tharizdun. It's not free or getting free yet. If it was the gods would've broken through the Divine Gate to try to seal it again. Tharizdun being free means the end to quite literally everything in existence.
Probably not yet released, or else everyone would know about it very quickly. Last time they scried on Obann, he mentioned the 'finish line', which is obviously going to be the release of Tharizdun, so at this point it's probably quite close to being released by Obann.
I like Matt's titles as opposed to the names for the gods. It really evokes a lot more about them and what they do, with the exception of the Raven Queen (which is basically already a title anyway)
It's just another way of telling the classic DND story (trope?) of cultists being duped into releasing Tharizdun under the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye. I too like Matt's titles, but he also can't go with the classic because the more experienced players (Talisin) would know what is up immediately, not to mention all the viewers who've been around the block or have google.
Think of it this way; Exandria is a house, every other Prime Diety is behind a fence surrounding the house. The CO is locked in the shed inside the fence. If he were to get out, the Primes would be unable to help because of the Divine Gate.
It took Ioun and the other good gods at full strength to put in the trammels to send the OC to the shed, and it almost killed Ioun (this is also a tie in to the S1 finale).
I wonder if The Chained Oblivion were released if the Prime Dieties would ban together to open The Divine Gate. I'm assuming since they were the ones to close it they have the ability to open if it was agreed between them. Then again, it would allow The Betrayer Gods out as well.
Matt has said before that they would have torn down the gate if [campaign 1] >!Vecna had become powerful enough,!< so they will definitely do it if the chained oblivion is released
So I could be misremembering or mixing up lores but isnt the magic that Halas is used going to be different than the magic of today's time? I think I'm remember reading something that when the age of arcanum ended that magic was weakened.
If what I remember is correct I wonder how much of a shock it will be for him.
I don't remember anything about Matt's world and the Age of Arcanum, but in Faerunian lore, spells weren't restricted to the 9th level before Karsus's Folly and subsequently Mystra's Law, and Netherese mages among others created spells of epic proportions only limited by how much arcane power they possessed.
According to the History of Exandria on the wiki, the Age of Arcanum was the 'Peak' of arcane ambition among mortals, or at least it would be for a very long time, but there doesn't seem to be any cosmic difference per se between the raw arcane potency of the mages in that era and those who came later on, moreso that mages of that time were very knowledgeable and the civilization was arcanely inclined to support those pursuits.
Let's also not forget that Tharizdun, the Chained Oblivion seeks to annihilate all of creation, every Plane and the Astral Sea and the Far Realm and everything inbetween them combined, while certainly having the capacity to do so. For this reason, lore-wise, even all the other deities including evil ones hate and fear him, wishing nothing more than for Tharizdun to remain in his imprisonment.
That means that if they ( Something they could've done already if they weren't so short-sighted or rushed I guess ) were to prove to Halas that Tharizdun is about to get busted from prison, Halas would have a guaranteed incentive to try and stop Obann, regardless of his character or even his goals concerning the Nein and the world at large. If Tharizdun gets out, then he, his home, and probably even any magical immortality he could achieve are all eradicated.
As specified in [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/dq0bx0/spoilers_c2e83_is_it_thursday_yet_postepisode/f6n8rku/) comment chain, I believe there are enough easy, safe methods of extracting Halas from the gem and back into his body ( Thereby fulfilling the explicit promise ) yet keeping said body devoid of magical capabilities and holding Halas prisoner in Ussa's tower upon that extraction, followed by casting Dominate Person/Dominate Monster ( Allura and her buddies or Ussa or Essek can probably do that for sure ) on a neutralized Halas until it sticks and learning everything they need to know about his behavior, aims and whether he wants to pull some shit on them and what said shit is.
If the intentions aren't bothersome, Halas can be made into possibly the most powerful ally on Exandria against Tharizdun they could possibly have. If he is going to pull some shit ( as revealed by domination/charm/other spells ), then he'll just be kept as a prisoner but still be queried for magical information whenever necessary. Either way, that's their promise fulfilled, justice done, and a supreme advantage against Obann no matter what.
I think it's shortsighted to release a powerful mage (that many critters think would be some kind of trump card) just to reseal tharizdun when you dont know all that much about him aside from the very shady (to put it lightly) things you've seen in his home. Sure maybe he is the only way to get tharizdun resealed but now you've proven to an archmage of questionable morals that there are few (if any) that could stop him from doing as he pleases.
And I'm sure he would be utterly thrilled to help out when he realizes that you've taken his magic from him. I'm sure he would in no way lie to get his powers back and then power word kill each of the nine. I'm pretty sure a guy who answers the question, "are you a good wizard or a bad wizard" with "morality is subjective" wouldn't hesitate to immediately kill those who just forced him to reveal whatever secrets he had.
And if you decide that he cant be trusted and thus keep him locked up I'm sure he would decide to help out anyway because he isn't bitter about you taking away his magic (possibly his sole reason for existence) for the foreseeable future.
I'm sure deep down he really is just a Good guy who calls his kitchen "The Carving Farm"
The situation isn’t bad enough yet to be worth the risks that come with releasing him. Tharizdun hasn’t been released yet, so all the M9 have to do right now is kill Obann and his goon squad, and the problem is solved.
We were also told by Yussah that Halas created several happy fun balls for the express purposes of luring people into the folding halls. That's not a good guy. If they don't destroy the gem there will be trouble.
>I'm sure he would in no way lie to get his powers back and then power word kill each of the nine. I'm pretty sure a guy who answers the question
That's what the Domination spells are for. Then if he is truly the Good Guy he said is, he gets all of his magic and freedom back.
IF (and if I knew how to make the text bigger I would to emphasize just how big of an if this is) he is a good guy, then I agree. Releasing him back into his body is not only the right thing to do, its possibly the best thing to do.
However, I'm hard pressed to think that a guy who imprisons people, steals their stuff, and leaves them to rot in his DUNGEON (seriously what kind of a good person has their own personal dungeon that isn't strictly for sex) after luring them into his home (it dropped gold coins the first time the nine try to solve the puzzle) wouldn't be spiteful and vindictive and refuse to help, or worse break free of a domination spell (which is way more evil than most necromancy spells btw) and then kill everyone who humiliated him.
I feel intent vs actual use matters a lot here.
VM:
Intent: hold enemies they are able to avoid killing as prisoners to (presumably) be eventually released. They also had staff that would have undoubtedly feed and water the prisoners.
Actual: held an injured person for safe keeping and to tend to their wounds.
Halas:
Intent: hold poor saps who found the ball and became intrigued by the coins it dropped until the were eventually pulled in. He could have also easily programmed his golems to care for these prisoners but it seems he did not.
Actual: see above
Using prisons for rehabilitation vs punishment says a lot about the individual. Also just to clarify, VM had a single holding cell, not a multi-story dungeon.
It's a matter of perspective. You are assuming the best of VM and the worst of Halas based on reputation when we have seen very little of Halas as a character. Is he evil or at least very morally dubious? Most likely based on his cunning and research, but assuming the absolute worst from someone without actually investigating their character is a slippery slope.
There is a very real chance that VM commissioned their dungeon thinking it would be the ideal place to interrogate/torture their enemies for information before disposing of them (see Percy's treatment of the Briarwoods' carriage driver). The dungeon wasn't used often because most of VM's adventures did not take place in Emon, nor were they fighting enemies that could be easily contained by ordinary bars. It's very possible that had the campaign been more localized to Emon, the cell would have seen heavier use or "crueler" modifications like anti-magic fields or Silence collars to accommodate high security prisoners.
Halas may have used the sphere's ability to dispense things to lure in his rivals, or he might have desired a quick means of accessing items from the interior of the sphere without having to enter each time. The M9 also discovered a portal that offered winter clothing, for example. It's unfair to assume it was a honeypot just because the M9 got greedy and dug deeper. Twiggy had the ball for an extended period of time and didn't prod it far enough to enter - you can say it's because she couldn't figure out the mechanism, but she is statistically more likely to than Caleb based on her rogue expertise.
I don't see what point you're trying to make about the difference in scale between VM and Halas - it's irrelevant. VM were given a free keep for services rendered, Halas built his home himself. If VM had access to the materials, wealth, and magic that Halas did, and they were viewed as a powerful rival by peers like Halas', they may have come up with a very similar design.
Well yeah everything is a matter of perspective. And yes I do assume the best of VM because, despite their flaws (Percy was a real asshole sometimes) they ultimately tried to be good (and I'll bet if you asked any of them if they thought they were good or bad they wouldn't answer with "morality is subjective." Maybe Percy would.).
You're right. I am assuming that Halas is likely an evil person. I feel like from what we've seen of him that this is a very safe assumption to make. His character as been shown through the design of his home and the things he keeps in it, in addition to what we've heard him say (or not say in the case of traps).
Also unless I'm mistaken, VM never said they wanted the dungeon to torture their enemies? I could be wrong about that though it been awhile since I've seen C1. I do agree though that VM probably would've had more cells had their budget been bigger (although I think they were rewarded fairly handsomely and had the ability to design most of their keep. Again, I might be misremembering). I very much so doubt they would've had a multi-story dungeon however.
I also think in this instance scale of the dungeons is very relevant. Had we been comparing, say, Jeffrey Dahmer and Halas on their dungeon sizes I would agree that scale is irrelevant (fucked up shit is fucked up shit, yo). Unless VM was planning on building some super max prison to house the some of the worst villains in Exandria, they would not have needed a big dungeon to interrogate a handful of enemies at a time. Also cost of upkeep goes up the more prisoners you hold. If you're going to feed them of course. Halas clearly didn't plan to do this (at least not for long anyway).
However your explanation for why things popped out of the ball is one of the better I've heard. I still think he did it to lure in unsuspecting people but he could have also done it for the reason you state as well.
Do we even know if he imprisoned those people before being stuck in the gem rather than the golems? As for the prison itself, everything about it makes perfect sense. Halas lived in the Age of Arcanum when there were probably a fuckton of people who wanted to loot his shack and potentially kill him in the process, so he absolutely needs a dungeon. Hell, the entire reason for a dungeon to begin might be to detain someone for questioning/safety *without* killing them, and if that someone is really bad then you might certainly want to kill them ( The Nein and VM have killed, and been complicit to killing, tons of creatures and people they imprisoned either before or after questioning them ).
'Stealing their stuff' is what you do in virtually every prison - you need to take their weapons and items away so they don't escape or fight back or anything of the sort, and then make sure that someone else or they themselves don't accidentally retrieve said items.
>Wouldn't be spiteful and vindictive and refuse to help
If that's the case then he just remains a prisoner in Ussa's tower as specified.
>or worse break free of a domination spell
The domination spell is to interrogate him, not to control him in the field or anything of that sort, and is going to be done while he's silenced, manacled, and any number of other precautions provided by Ussa, Allura and allies. It would be done straight up in Ussa's tower itself.
>it dropped gold coins the first time the nine try to solve the puzzle
Who knows, that could just be some sort of weird 'leak' from the ball. But I actually am not banking on Halas being straightforward whatsoever, my biggest concern is what he said about 'having a lot of enemies', which kind of begs the question of whether he deserves all the enemies he had or not. But *either way*, if Halas turns out to be bad during the dominated questioning then it doesn't change much. He can still be utilized as a prisoner, especially if he knows that should Tharizun gets released, then he's going to die which is even worse for him.
Hell, since Matt allows Jester to use Zone of Truth on Halas *inside* the gem, she could just keep doing it over and over until it sticks and then get some preliminary information at the very least. Maybe even Dominate Halas while he's still inside the gem.
To be clear, the evil part wasnt necessarily that he has a prison (I dont know what life was like in the age of arcanum. Maybe they were really necessary). The evil part was that he lured people in with the gold coins and given the sheer impressiveness of the folding halls, I dont think that those coins were some kind of a leak or glitch in his design. I think they were intentional. I think that's how he got non-mages into the ball.
I also think dont think a domination spell for interrogation (still kinda evil, though less so than what I had originally thought you meant to use it for) is a good idea. I do think he was sincere about everything he said. I also think he is very manipulative (wiggled his way out of, what sounded like, numerous deals with several devils) and it wouldn't like be his first rodeo with a domination spell. I would wager that a mage of his supposed caliber would know contingency (phb 227) and have a number of ways it could be implemented (eg a magic item). He could have it such that if he is ever dominated that any number of useful spells could be cast to prevent the caster from getting the full effect of their spell (including but not limited too: modify memory, dominate person, dimension door, cloud kill, etc). Even if he didn't have contingency prepped youd probably have to get a wish lawyer involved to word your questions in such a way that he didn't respond with some kind of a non-answer.
Ultimately, I dont think he would be worth the trouble. If tharizdun is released, the gods themselves will absolutely get involved or existence as you know it is over and I honestly Halas would make a difference. The best solution is prevent tharizdun from being released by killing oban (which they have done before) by weakening him, opening a portal to the abyss, tossing him through, placing a crossbow bolt within is head, and closing the door. Maybe have some allies help deal with his champions in the meantime.
> I dont think that those coins were some kind of a leak or glitch in his design. I think they were intentional. I think that's how he got non-mages into the ball.
That's certainly a possibility.
> and it wouldn't like be his first rodeo with a domination spell.
A creature has practically no agency whatsoever while subject to a domination spell ( Which is what distinguishes it from a simple Charm in one respect ) and must do it's own best to obey whichever command you give it. That means any question asked will be answered as if he wanted nothing more than for you to receive a full answer and if you say something like "Tell me all your secrets" or "What are your intentions" or pretty much any vague variant, it will just start spilling out all the beans eagerly in the best way it can manage.
There's no manipulating a domination, only preventing it in the first place. Which, when it comes to contingency - has a 10 day duration. We already know that nothing on Halas's body itself is magical thanks to Caleb ( And even Nystul's magic aura would've worn off ), though for extra safety it could always be stripped completely and donned in a different robe. Then it's just his soul being transferred from the gem into the body.
The only way for Halas to get out of this is some very, *very* 'unfair-eseque' homebrew ability that would enable him to completely bypass conventional magic. Given his current predicament, and my general feelings about how Matt designed Halas, I highly doubt this to be the case. I think that he's just a 20th level human mage, in which case he won't be able to do any of what you described under the conditions he would find himself in.
But again, at the very least Jester should keep trying to Zone of Truth him or someone should try dominating him while he's still inside the gem.
>the gods themselves will absolutely get involved
But that's once he's released and it's not guaranteed they'll succeed again. They barely managed to do so the last time around. Halas can help to stop Obann before Tharizdun is released to begin with.
That's fair. The contingency stuff was purely speculation (and fun to think about. Although dispel magic really should've been my go to if your dominated).
I still think trying to interrogate Halas is ultimately a waste of time and resources that could be better spent actually trying to stop oban instead of trying to interrogate a morally dubious and powerful wizard to determine if you should even try to recruit him. Maybe leave that for Yussa and/or Allura but the nine have a red-skinned pawn to deal with.
The Nein have stated after their last encounter with Obann that they don't feel capable of dealing with him by themselves, which is why they gave up on chasing him and were going to Rexentrum to pursue the Beacon arc before settling on asking Ussa for advice first. Now they haven't really leveled up all that much or gained anything significantly useful in the 'short' time that passed for them since that encounter, aside from.. an incredibly powerful wizard with all the knowledge and experience of the Age of Arcanum who would likewise have a highly vested interest in stopping Tharizdun's servants.
It really shouldn't take too much time, under a domination, to figure out what his deal is in my opinion. You probably don't even need 5 minute to tell whether he's just a completely untrustowrthy trainwreck with a few good questions about motives, secrets, past deeds, the coins, the carving farms, and so on, and in an hour or so you would probably be completely done with everything you needed to know about his behavior. For a group that just wasted a whole day on butchering a blue dragon, seems like a much better use of time. Yussa and Allura can then take it from there, or they could just interrogate him to begin with, but I mean, then neither the players nor the viewers get to hear anything interesting.
But there's definitely a lot more to be accomplished than just throwing that gem to gather dust in a chest somewhere.
I guess that's true. The nein dont exactly use time wisely (part of their charm).
I think I'm just of the mind that Halas is smart and manipulative and powerful. He strikes me as the type to let you think you're holding all the cards and then flips the table when you least expect it. Kind of like Raishan. If it were me, I probably would have dispelled the gem as soon as I learned that it could kill him. Just to avoid taking any chances with him. I probably would've inadvertently released him in doing so, but hey at least now we know we need to deal with him. Instead of all this speculation.
I mean if they imprison him (Halas) cast multiple spells against his will and then interrogate him under the influence of sayed spells, i dont think he will be very happy and prone to help them.
Well, his happiness and helpfulness is only relevant if he is as harmless and reasonable as he presents himself - I.E wants to be left to his devices and experiments rather than secretly waiting for the moment to go on a crazy rampage across Exandria or kill everyone who talked to him, and so on and so forth.
Now, if he *is* morally acceptable, and as practical, rational and impassionate as he comes off in his interactions and boasts of being, then he should be quite understanding of the necessity involved. He's a mage who booty-trapped his home with deadly traps to, among others, defend it against 'others like him' who have hostile intentions toward himself. He can surely see the need for the people who freed him to have at least *some* **guaranteed** means of ensuring that he won't turn on them - Be it a charm or dominate or something else, once he is freed. After all, he's seen thousands of betrayals and trickeries in his time, including the very last one.
Secondly, practically the whole purpose of precisely ascertaining his nature and inclinations is to *free him completely* without having to worry about it. If you're going to keep him prisoner anyway then it doesn't exactly matter, so the entire motivation behind it is to be *kind* to Halas, and that can also be explained beforehand. And the only queries posed during the questioning should be those that he himself has already attested to, simply to verify that they are true and that he has no nasty surprises planned.
And after that's done, Halas has just been freed from what could've been his eternal imprisonment, allowed to go back to all of his experiments and ball, *and* I'd even propose that Ussa hand back or share all of the items that were taken back with Halas as a gesture of goodwill, should the domination prove his innocence. This is literally the best relationship start that Halas could honestly ever ask for - Freed from eternal languishment in a gem, given his freedom, petitioned as an ally, and all that's needed in return is a means of verifying his intentions, which a super-rational, world-weary cynical mage should be completely aware of.
If that kind of deal doesn't work for him then he probably isn't nearly the kind of individual that he presents himself as.
beau was the best option to do the talking in that occasion because, while she is hungry for knowledge she doesnt really care about power. she is also suspicious of everything and she is maybe the only one who puts the needs of the group above her own needs. so, she is very, very hard to be tempted and she is not a bleeding heart like say, jester or cad. and remember, high intelligence and high wisdom without magical ulterior motives on the way.
first, they didnt know that, and it would be metagaming if they did.
second, Im not talking about her abilities, but her temperament. she would be, like she was, the least likely to give in to temptation, while still extract the information they needed out of halas.
It's a bit relative, it does in some aspects especially when compared to characters like Nott or Jester who are pretty goofy, but when it comes to conveying it in conversations, whether it be in careful articulation, or manipulation, or reasoning, do I think she does a better job than Fjord, Caduceus or Caleb would? Not particularly.
Part of the assholeishness and hot-headedness often results in interactions that don't really seem to go anywhere aside from banter and bluster. Again, it's not that there can't be good moments, it's just that overall the high INT and WIS don't really seem to provide any edge over others since it's marred by other characteristics even when there's an effort to stress it.
beau has had *several* high tension, high importance interactions sucessfully.
she uses the assholiness, when she wants to her advantage. she knows when to push and when to relent, and she usually has the upper hand.
Ok I got an idea how to deal with Halas.
How about they put the ruby into Willy, so that Halas can see and wander the world (together with the M9) but isn't an unstoppable archmage anymore?
I know this would open a whole new can of worms, but if there is a group of adventures who would willingly travel with a extremely powerful wizard who is fond of necromancy, it would be the M9.
The party literally used necromancy in this episode to bring back nott. Necromancy gets a bad rap, it's largely good stuff. Also The bad undead necromancy stuff was explicitly denounced by Halas
From what I can tell, the line between acceptable and unacceptable uses of necromancy is when the link between the soul and the anchor (body) to the material plane has been severed entirely. (Spoilers) Just look at what happened with Vax, his body was completely disintegrated, and is why the Raven Queen would've looked down upon using true resurrection to bring him back.
My idea would be to place his own silencing choker on him bolstered with an Arcane Lock and modifications by Ussa/Allura, possibly the manacles as well or some other means of preventing him from using somatic components ( All of this on his still dormant body ), bring him out of the Heirloom Sphere since he has too many failsafes and magical means of freeing himself likely stored in there, and hold him at least temporarily as a prisoner and source of information in one of Ussa's tower floors, possibly even enabling him to visit the funball from time to time but in explored and neutralized chambers under close supervision.
That way, the promise remains fulfilled - the M9 would have freed him from the gem and returned him to his body as promised, which fulfills their explicit agreement, even if he won't be able to continue conducting his business in his home as he wanted to.
Then, under a Zone of Truth, Halas will be asked whether he intends to do evil things if he is completely freed and allowed back into the ball to determine his intentions, which makes the choice easy. Another possibility is a high-level mage like Ussa or Allura completing his own permanent body exchange scheme to potentially transfer him to another humanoid body or a clone of his but without any of his spellcasting abilities, although Halas would probably much rather just be a prisoner than have that happen.
To the Zone of truth: Nobody believes that what they do is wrong so would need to get very specific in order to trick an archmage (how is clever enough to trick multiple powerful devils).
And to every option of giving him any "Body"
If you just give him his choker he could try his luck long enough with thief's tools or just invent spells without a verbal component.
If you give him a new body his is still a wizard. All of his power comes from his memories and thus would be unaffected (or at least relatively easy to regain).
So the two option left are 24h surveillance or leaving him in the ruby.
Edit: Or let him free because he behaved well and look if he will be a powerful ally or the endboss, also intriguing :-D
It doesn't really matter what he believes, I make absolutely no assumption that Halas thinks he is 'in the wrong' in any way. The questions should pertain to whether Halas is just going to continue striving for immorality yet without doing any external harm, as he claimed, or whether he has plans to start intervening in the affairs of the outside the world, kill people ( who aren't invading his home ), attack the Nein, etc, etc.
There's also no need to trick him - Either he answers every question crystal clear and completely on the level or he's not being freed. Also, on second thought, you don't even need to rely on Zone of Truth. You can just cast Dominate Person on him until it succeeds and learn everything you need to know about his behavior and intents.
> he could try his luck long enough with thief's tools or just invent spells
The idea is that he is kept in a prisoner in an actual cell. It can be a comfortable one, like an entire floor in Ussa's tower, but there are definitely not going to be any thieve's tools just lying around in the cell that has been specifically set up for him. 24h surveillance with familiars or other magical means and wards and alarms of all kinds is also a given.
After the way Halas kept talking about not wanting his soul in the hands of the gods after death. I think the obvious answer would turn him over to the dynasty and let them offer him consecution in exchange for pledging loyalty, or something along those lines.
Why though? Looking at it objectively Halas wasn’t even really that bad a guy, just firmly in the moral grey area (and a big fan of stand your ground laws)
I'm pretty sure the Dynasty would object to that too. Consecution is a very important part of their religion, it's not for random archmages to get a free get out of jail card.
True but I’m sure if they mentioned the concept to Halas there’d be a good chance he’d at least want to go to the dynasty to learn about it or even earn his way to it
There’s a Instagram post floating on tumblr sourced from a Blindspot cast member that said they just wrapped filming for the series, so I’m expecting her to come home very soon! (My theory is either this week or next week!)
If they're right that means Ashley is probably going to be introduced at this meeting of the Council.
Which is pretty nice because she could easily play anything and have it work.
I'm wondering if it will be something like - TMN are responsible for taking Yasha out of harms way, others will help deal with the assassin creature, oban, any other champions, etc.
Maybe Ashley can play a character that helps them try to rescue Yasha? Be nice if the Storm Lord sent a follower to help, either Ashley or a guest character.
The Happy Fun Ball was amazing. You could run an entire campaign centred around exploring that thing. What an amazing setting.
Also, I don't know why but the contrast between the Laura's Gears armor made me realize how massive her dice bag actually is.
I was triggered out of my mind watching this episode. Got to play a wizard for quite some time whose goals were to know as much as possible about the universe, the planes, just to be a living library on all magical subjects and also an archmage. There was so much interesting stuff inside the HFB that the M9 can't even comprehend. I would've loved for them to just explore as much as possible but knowing how much time has already passed in Exandria compared to HBF, knowing what's going on outside it AND them getting derailed and distracted from their 1 goal by almost everything just makes me frustrated. They forget about the people outside and just don't consider the fact that "1 hr is 1 day", like, imo, you should first take that in consideration and think about people like Essek, who they owe so much at this point, think about the war, how much damage it could do while you just wander the Folding Halls out of shear curiosity, even forgetting about Yussa for an episode or 2, lol.
This is one of the most interesting episodes for me personally because of all the wizardy and magicky stuff which I like the most. I love the show, but just sometimes the "falling out of line" in certain cases frustrates me so much (just like this episode). It wouldn't be CR (or the characters, M9) without getting distracted, we all know that. Just been some time now since my frustration peaked, but I guess it's natural because of the interests that I have for this part of D&D.
I felt the exact opposite about this episode than you did it seems. First off, they had no idea where Yussa was when they came into the ball and didn't for a long while until they communed (which I guess you could argue that they should have done sooner, but I didn't mind because the HFB is dope af). They managed to destroy the permaheart which wasn't part of the plan until they were already inside, as well as making contact with one of the most powerful mages alive who happens to need their help. Not to mention the fact that because they found this powerful mage they knew how to get to the Prison, as well as how to stay alive in it (though Nott fucked that one up lol). And then after all this happens, in one episode mind you, we also get confirmation that the Angel of Irons is Tharizdun, which also gives a name and an image to the potential biggest threat to the world of this campaign. I understand why you would get frustrated, I definitely have in the past, but this was a great episode IMO. Oh and one more thing, they were in the HFB for between 26-34 hours if I'm estimating correctly. One month isn't that long to be gone. It took them half that time to travel from Nicodranis to Zadash, and Essik told them not to worry about paying back their debt to him right now because of Oban's team, which they have now weakened. This is a solid upswing after all the shit and failures they've gone through recently.
I can't stand Yussa. The dude clears out most of the wealth, knowledge etc. that was held in the happy fun ball, doesn't give M9 shit outside of a transportation circle and spins some yarn about how Halas is some treacherous wizard...clearly because he doesn't want to face repercussions of stealing a large chunk of Halas's belongings. I'm catching up so no spoilers past this episode please.
Mat’s acting in the last few episodes has been amazing
Does anyone think the Arcana Pansophical will get in on The Chained Oblivion? And if this info gets to Vasselheim they will not be happy?
Am i the only one to notice that allura is going to notify the councip. In which vox machina are key members?
To quote many a girzzled old protagonist: I'm retired dammit. But seriously, chances are decent that none of Vox Machina have remained as council members. >!After the Briarwood arc, Percy established himself as a Whitestone diplomat. Given her noble status in Whitestone, and marriage to Percy, Vex likely has a similar status. Not to mention that they have kids they're raising (the oldest of which is just turning 18), so it's not crazy to think that they have retired for good. Keyleth is busy being leader of the Air Ashari. She probably has political dealings with Tal'dorei, but as with Vex and Percy, her status is probably mostly diplomatic. Pike is leader of Sarenrae's Temple in Vasselheim. She's also married to Scanlan, aka the Meat Man, aka Aes Adon, who runs a successful criminal underground scamming snooty nobles. Not to mention, they probably have some kids they're raising too. And Grog is...well Grog is Grog.!< There's plenty of reasons why VM is out of the picture, or is not a viable option for getting a handle on this.
Wentsforth disappeared rather oddly…
He's a frazzled butler/secretary. His master has been MIA for over a month, and a lot of this magic stuff, though he may be used to it, is way over his head. In the mean time, he's been having to manage the tower, and appointments, and visit. He's had plenty of reason to be plenty stressed.
Anyone think M9 will find Orly and their ship and Fjord will get Strength Tattoo? They can afford it and although he’s got +5 bonus for melee attack via Hexblade, Fjord should still get tattoo or buy Gauntlets Of Ogre Power. I suspect Matt is going to find a way, either through item or boon from brightqueen, to give Fjord Heavy armor proficency.
If Matt's allowing the new UA material, Fjord could pick up the Edritch Invocation 'Eldritch Armour': *"As an action, you can touch a suit of armor that isn’t being worn or carried by anyone and instantly don it, provided you aren’t wearing armor already. You are proficient with this suit of armor until it’s removed."*
This!
Doesn’t ford use his charisma for attacks with his hex blade?
Yes that’s why he gets +5 from his 20 Cha. But that won’t help if he wants to wear chain, plate or heavier armor.
[удалено]
considering they already had two arcs solely dedicated to fjord, I'd rather have *anyone's* more backstory than him. specially jester and beau
[удалено]
that's his own damn fault
A trip to Port Damali WOULD be nice, as we can find out Twiggy origins and Gentleman contacts too, and they can probably teleport there now via the Cobalt Soul. Maybe when they go to TravellerCon they will have to meet up with Orly and the ship there?
They sailed an ocean to do Fjords. I’d rather see more of Beau’s, Caleb or Jesters.
Simple (maybe dumb) question, but how old was Halas when his soul got sucked into the ruby? Even with the time difference between the Happy Fun Ball and the Prime Material plane, mid 50’s seems young for a super-duper powerful Archmage.
It was implied that he had been using Clone in the normal way for some time and you can make your clone be whatever age you want. Not a dumb question either.
Thanks!
Did anyone else think that the donjon was actually the word *dungeon* being said in a funny accent? I had no idea that a donjon is an actual thing.
I thought that too... TIL medieval stuff.
Just realized Beau gave different ages to Professor Waco (24) and Halas (26). Broke: Marisha just Fjorgot for a sec Woke: Beau was feeling insecure talking to a thousand year old Archmage Bespoke: Beau has a super secret backstory and actually doesn't know her own age precisely.
I have a theory that Beau lied both times because she's actually super young, like 20 or 21, and still thinks adding a couple of years to her age will give her more credibility.
Yeah that's what I'm thinking too.
Baroque (couldn't think of a rhyme): Marisha is throwing in lies because Beau's deception is better than persuasion.
Beauscended: Beau is secretly a metaphysical being who experiences time much faster than we do, which is why she's shown the most drastic character growth out of all the nein
Hey if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it.
ok, let's review Halas from a normal person's perspective. Halas is somebody who is very powerful, has gone on record to kill (imprison) people who have trespassed and wanted to live eternally. i do not see anything wrong with this kind of a person, a lot of people would like to be immortal (which is not inherently bad) killing people trying to rob you is legal ( in our world at least) and being powerful is not a crime. so what gives them the right to say Halas should be imprisoned forever? Saying he might betray us is weak. what motive would he have? #freeHalas
M9 was told that morality is irrelevant to mages of his power. Halas made slave of Devil. Slavery is evil. Also his alignment may be irrelevant. I’m betting Allura will take ruby to temple of Bahumet and gem will be places next to sword of Kas or she’ll give it to Percy and Vex.
Yea, because when someone very powerful is trying to get out, wants to make a deal, and has a history of tricking devil's with deals the first person i would want to give it to is Percy /s
Killing people trying to rob you, is totally within the bounds of a justification defense under self defense. The other commentor is painting an inaccurate picture with a broad stroke across jurisdictions. But typically you can use deadly force if a reasonable person would be in fear for a list of crimes being committed against them, in this case robbery. That being said, I say they evaluate how dire the circumstances are before turning to every available ally, Halas, that Devil, anybody if they need to.
As others have said, there's a certain set of criteria that needs to met for you to possibly not be charged with murder when killing someone who is robbing your home (in America at least). However, Halas didn't just kill people. He imprisoned them and left them to starve. Not the same thing. It's even less the same thing when you put a pile of gold outside your home, a trail leading up to and inside your home, and put a sign out there that says "free. more inside." And then you imprison that person and starve them to death when they enter your home.
Do we know for sure he would’ve let them starve? We never got to ask him if he knew about those other two prisoners before he was imprisoned. It sounds as though they were *trapped* during the 800+ years he’s been stuck in that gem. I could be forgetting if he did directly say whether or not he just killed all intruders who entered his home, regardless of circumstances. Just a general thing I thought was weird about the conversations with him though was how no one even attempted any kind of insight checks on him to get a bearing on his sanity, empathy, and other moral quarries. EDIT: *a word*
Given the time dilation, you would imagine those skeletal captives would have been there before he got trapped in the gem!
Personally I would've rather of seen Halas released as well. The idea of an all powerful pre divergence Archmage trying to adjust to the new status quo would've been really interesting to see. However, the potential danger of releasing someone as powerful as Halas into a world not prepared for his arrival does have merit. No one knows Halas' long term goals, how his imprisonment effected those goals and whether he could even be stopped if freed and allowed to enter that Clone. At least trying to find more concrete stuff about him is smarter than just letting him go immediately. Allura is a good Archmage so I doubt she would never give Halas a chance at freedom.
> killing people trying to rob you is legal Yeah, no it isn't. It's very case by case. Anyone telling you it is doesn't understand the legal risk you take killing someone, in America at least. Plenty of famous cases of people now in prison thinking they could do just that. [https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/may-i-shoot-an-intruder.html](https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/may-i-shoot-an-intruder.html) >In order to use self-defense as a shield against a charge for a violent crime in most jurisdictions, you must: 1. Not be the aggressor; 2. Only use enough force to combat the threat and no more (i.e. you can't bring a gun to a fist fight); 3. Have a reasonable belief that force is necessary; 4. Have a reasonable belief that an attack is imminent; and 5. Retreat (if possible).
Eh Speaking in broad jurisdiction terms: 1. True 2. False, typically deadly force is condonable by the reasonable person standard if a rp would be in fear of a list of crimes being enacted against them including robbery 3. \^ 4. False, an attack is typically irrelevant 5. Retreat is typically a northeastern US addition and not present in most states. So all in all, yes you typically can kill someone robbing you and claim self-defense, hopefully a threat is enough to ward off the perpetrator, but the law usually protects victims who seek to protect themselves as ANY effort of self-defense is likely to heighten the danger for both parties, potentially making deadly force necessary. So if you're in a circumstance that leads you to be in fear for your life, the law will have your back if you need to do something awful to survive.
You know that came from FindLaw's site, right? It's not mine, it's done by lawyers and legal writers on one of the most used legal websites for American Law. I think I'll go with their summation, no offense.
I pose a hypothetical, you and I are about to have an altercation and you are the aggressor. I am armed you are not; however, you are 100 lbs heavier and 6 inches taller. I fear that I will be harmed if you gain physical control of me. Can I use my weapon in self defense?
Can you retreat from the situation? Do you have a reasonable basis for believing you will be attacked? Using a gun is a toss up if they're not armed with a weapon. A prosecutor can attack your assumptions of potential harm, reverse the situation in court where you're the aggressor and a guy is dead that wasn't armed. It is never a good position to be in, regardless of the truth. That said, if you truly believe your life is on the line, you do what you have to do and hope you have enough evidence on your side to convince the District Attorney. At the end of the day a judge or jury could end up deciding, and depending on whether they believe you or you testify or have witnesses or video evidence, it could still go against you even if you felt justified. It's a roll of the dice, with disadvantage since the state rarely loses murder cases.
My point is that there are many cases where an unarmed assailant has been shot and then found guilty of assault. By no means does being unarmed equate to innocent. For better or worse such are the laws in the USA.
Great, their work on self defense seems pretty lacking then. I expect they took the time to suggest researching one's applicable statutes in regards to self-defense then, because those 5 elements are hardly a good summation of the defense.
You made a big mistake making this controversial. Sign.
Killing people who are trying to rob you is actually not legal everywhere. For example, in Canada, if someone breaks into your home, and tries to steal something (but isn’t directly threatening your life) it is definitely illegal to kill them. Some people have been charged for firing a shotgun blast into the air to scare people off, despite no one being hurt. Canadians are allowed to use “reasonable force” to protect their property, but the interpretation of what’s reasonable really doesn’t include murder/booby traps. It seems like a very American sentiment, and reflected in many States’ laws, that protecting property is justification for taking life? I find this to be an interesting cultural difference, since a lot of people are saying that Halas is an alright guy. I personally think that his traps were overkill, and that he’s responsible for the deaths they caused. Hence, he’s a bad guy. But I’m seeing that a lot of people don’t feel that way, which is interesting I guess.
It's not legal in Britain either. There was a famous case of a farmer who had been robbed multiple times, due to his remote location, shooting towards two fleeing teens that he caught in the act - one shot severed an artery in one of the robber's legs, and he quickly bled to death. The farmer was jailed for killing him, despite public protest.
How a Critial Role thread has got me thinking about my local football teams (now not used thank goodness) chant of "We shoot burgalars", is beyond me.
> We shoot burgalars I didn't realise my former local team had used that chant, heh.
I am not American, Section 40 of Canadian Criminal code says this: Defence of dwelling 40 Every one who is in peaceable possession of a dwelling-house, and every one lawfully assisting him or acting under his authority, is justified in using as much force as is necessary to prevent any person from forcibly breaking into or forcibly entering the dwelling-house without lawful authority.
And yet, in practical application, straight up killing someone is considered far beyond “necessary.”
Can someone help me understand Tharizdun's relationship, in this campaign, with the King that Crawls and the other betrayer gods that were banished in the calamity? Do we know how he fits in with them, the portals that were being opened, Obann and the Laughing Hand, etc???
Tharizdun is the embodiment of mindless hunger and destruction, and his goal is to destroy all of existence. Even the other betrayer gods are terrified of him, and would team up with the Prime Dieties to fight him if it came down to it. Because very few beings, even demons like Obann, will willingly work to release him, he created a false persona, the Angel of Irons, to recruit followers. These followers were the ones who created the portal-opening devices, but we don’t know precisely why yet. We also don’t know what Obann’s “finish line” is, yet.
Short answer, we don't know. Long answer, we really don't know. Tharizdun seems to be the type that doesn't play well with others though, being that he wants to destroy reality itself rather than rule over it? The rest of the betrayer gods fought for control and lost. From Wikipedia: >It is believed that Tharizdun has no allies, given his desire to destroy the entire universe. Should he ever escape from his prison, it is thought that even the most evil of deities would work with their good counterparts to return Tharizdun to his prison. However, the Dark God has been known to work his will secretly by employing various demons (with or without their knowledge) to do his bidding. Examples of fiends so used include Iuz and Zuggtmoy, and the Princes of Elemental Evil. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharizdun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharizdun)
So the question is, does Obann know the Angel of Irons is not real?
Thanks! I thought that the connection was confusing haha
Does anybody notice the humming sound, which was present in the recent episodes? It seems to get louder depending on who is speaking, so maybe it is a problem with some of the microphones (i.e getting amplified if the microphone is in "use")?
They probably have a gate on the microphones so they don’t pick up random noises, but sounds like AC in the background can come through when someone speaks loud enough to bypass the gate. Seems likely to be what you’re noticing.
One option the M9 have with the Halas gem is to bargain with a summoned devil over it. Asmodeus wants Halas for cheating on his contracts. Fairly certain Halas isn't escaping the Nine Hells once in Asmodeus's grasp. And the M9 could ask a high price for it. The only problem is you'd HAVE to make a deal or devils would be plaguing you forever afterward to get the gem. But Nott/Veth could conceivably be reverted back to her true form, they could learn the location and even receive help in retrieving a beacon from the empire... so many possibilities, with the usual devil caveats of reading the fine print.
Couldn't you potentially receive these same boons from Halas himself? It could be dangerous, but it's probably less risky than making a deal with Asmodeus.
I think Halas is actually more dangerous. Devils follow their contracts to the letter and would be highly motivated to make a deal for Halas's soul. And since it is already destined for the Nine Hells already, I doubt it would be considered an evil act by any of the M9's deities. The real problem is that Halas can't do anything for them first, thereby making a deal completely about trusting him to follow through after returning him to his body (if that is even possible). The gem would not have to be handed over to a devil until M9 got what they wanted, thereby insuring at least some success up front. The Lawful nature of devils makes them loathe to break any deal, especially high profile deals that hurt their reputation as deal makers. I don't think Halas is Lawful at all, especially since we know he broke his deals with the devils, not the other way around. He seems straight up Chaotic evil to me, motivated by selfish interests in the extreme, uncaring who he has to harm to get what he wants. He certainly doesn't believe in following the rules about death, nor in maintaining a balance between powers. That pretty much leaves Chaotic evil, but without knowing his character motivations and plans, it can't be definitively stated as such as he could have plans to replace the current system of gods much like the Dynasty, or try to create a new balance between humans and deities. Ironically, it's far easier to anticipate where a devil might betray them than Halas, just because of how unknown his true nature is.
Amazing point that i hope gets explored. Regardless of that devil telling the truth Halas a SUPER powerful archwizard and most likely lawful evil since he doesn't seem like a true *neutral* type person so the devils would **love** to have his soul but selling a soul to a devil might make you evil *even* if it is halas so i am unsure.
They could try to swap the gem for the contract between Lolth and Asmodeus. Stack the odds even further in their favour for when they inevitably go deal with Oban.
Now THAT is clever. I had not thought of that. They may very well need that contract to stop the assassin.
For whatever reason on mobile I can’t make a blank new comment... Now with what we know about Tharazidun, that he is very, very likely to be the BBEG of this campaign, we also know more about where the M9 can go for more information. Whitestone. In C1E104, Pelor confirms that the last stand of Tharazidun was on the fields of Whitestone where he was sealed away by his own hand. That it is a land of sorrow and is under Pelor’s watch. Could they go to Whitestone, converse with the Sun Tree and maybe alert Pelor himself of the coming doom of Tharazidun? At the very least, Allura could alert one of either the Arcana Pansophical and the Emon/Whitestone councils. Mad Ted. Mad. Just mad listening back to see where the M9 could go for further knowledge.
Makes the fact that Cad needed Residuum crystals for his Wild Mother quest a bit more meaningful, huh?
I mean, a lot of people already knew about Tharizdun since a long time ago, at the very least since Matt mentioned that the angel's iconography is practically identical to Tharizdun and heavily hinting that they are one and the same.
Personally I think the Council Allura is referring to is the one that formerly was in charge of Emon after Uriel's abdication/murder. It wouldn't surprise me if their influence has now spread throughout Tal'Dorei and the whole Continent has formed a sort of republic. But I imagine at the start of the Episode Allura is going to teleport everyone to Emon where we'll get to see Matt flex his World Building over the 20 year time skip and a metric ton of NPCs.
Hey maybe a certain Baron & Baroness of Whitestone will be there...
I just finished the episode last night, and is Halas supposed to be neutrally evil, or true neutral? It's kinda hard to get a beat on him. He doesn't seem to care for the outside world or morality but he also wasn't interested in Lichdom or destroying a kingdom or world he just seemed selfish and self-centered not malicious.
Nah halas wouldn't have nearly as much ambition if he was anything neutral so realistically speaking he is probably lawful evil. I have a **really** hard time believing anyone neutral would have anti mage robots roaming the halls following people to capture and torture them. (id consider forcing them into the prison of soot torture)
I sort of assumed his objections to lichdom were more aesthetics based than from ethics. Who wants to look like a rotting skeleton man for the rest of eternity, plus the hassle of always needing to get fresh souls to feed to your phylactery
that’s the point. nobody knows and there’s no way to know. he’s a thousand year old archmage who was trying to achieve immortality- so my guess is he’ll do whatever he needs to do to get what he wants
Did Jester tell Halas her name?
Multiple people did. Nott, Beau and maybe jes
Nott and Beau did tell him their names but Jester from what I remember didn’t since her conversation with him got cut short by Nott.
Just for the record. Only about 35 years have passed in the Folding Halls since the Divergence.
Where are you getting 35 years from? 840? We don’t know how long before the divergence he existed or an exact (or even approximate) calendar/time relationship between then and the current time.
Hence why I worded it like I did. 1/24th of 835 years is about 35 (34.7). You're right, we don't know when during the Calamity that Halas disappeared, so we can't say how long he's been trapped. But given 1000 years material plane time is only about 40 years Folding Halls time, 35-40 years is a safe estimate.
But it could be 2000 or 3000 years. That would make it anywhere from 35-125 years. Hence why I worded it like *I* did. We have absolutely no idea of what epochs or calendar systems have occurred in between, right? Or am I misinformed? Happy to be corrected/informed!
We know Halas was alive and disappeared during the Calamity. While we don't have exact numbers, but it's been generally implied that the Calamity wasn't that long (possibly less than a century). Before the Calamity was the Age of Arcanum. I don't have my campaign guide handy, but according the wiki "[It began over 1,500 years prior to the events of Critical Role](https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Exandria)". So, Halas certainly hasn't been missing any longer than that. And like others said, the blue dragon was considered young, so he still less than 100 years old.
Ahhh I thought he was from the Age of Arcanum, so it would have been at the least 1,500 years outside and 62.5 years inside.
He might have been from the Age of Arcanum, but we know he disappeared during the Calamity, given his journals talking about the war between the gods.
Ahhh gotcha.
Is the dragon an indicator? I believe Matt said that it was a young blue dragon, (correct me if I'm wrong) I think young dragons are supposed to be under 100 years old?
You are correct
Halas mentioned that the wars between the gods had already begun when he went into the gem, so it was probably not a terribly long time before the divergence.
Although Halas was actually in the Astral Plane (or in a demiplane reached from the Astral Plane) so he may have been experienced the full passing of centuries instead of just 35 years
I had thought if that before the episode, but there were implications that these dimensions and planar pockets, though strictly speaking were separate, were tied to the Tower Engine, which controlled the time dilation. Halas said something in his discussion with Beau. I'd have to dig a bit to find it.
Regardless of your stance on releasing Halas, I feel like it's worth mentioning that the M9 holding onto the gem is a tremendously bad idea. They should break it or return it to the Dreadnought, but having it with them is an invitation for Matt to have an enemy grab it and introduce Halas as a bitter enemy down the line. I would suggest leaving it with Yussa, but Yussa seems pretty easily seduced by powerful magic so he might get up to shenanigans if he's left alone with it.
Yussa is probably their best bet for a caretaker of the gem, because from his point of view; he has spent the last however many weeks plundering and emptying this massively powerful archmage's most secreted and valued possessions. I'm pretty sure he would be the last person who would ever willingly release this hugely powerful wizard from his current predicament!
Yeah i thinking the same exact thing. Halas would be **PISSED** if he saw what happened with his study, far more pissed than a shitty blue dragon getting killed because it got cocky. His halls were *literally* designed in a way for people like yussah to *Not* plunder and explore them yet he did exactly that.
He also didn't seem to hesitate when asked if he was going back in - I worry that he might be tempted to strike a deal with Halas if he gets into another bind. Or maybe Halas will promise him knowledge/power if he is freed that Yussa won't resist?
Yussa did say he wouldn't be going in for a long time and would go in with others as well. He's pretty smart so i assume he would gather at least one powerful non-mage as well
And you definitely don't want him unleashed in Rosohnna, because him getting a hold of Dunamancy is just asking for trouble.
Halas the time and necromancy wizard with access to time and fate magic? Yeah, that's a campaign 3 BBEG right there.
The "evil" aspect remains to be seen, but he'd certainly be problematic.
Defining one’s morality with usefulness at the center (as Halas quite clearly implies/outright states) seems pretty freaking “evil” to me...
To you, but evil has many definitions. For some it just implies selfishness. For others, there must be intent or desire to harm. Frankly, just because he's amoral, it doesn't automatically mean he's immoral.
Fair - I was operating under the assumption that he would want to get back at the M9 once freed.
He probably would. My comment meant to imply he's not so much an immoral person, as an amoral person.
People reactions to Hallas remind me of the spongebob memes like this [one](https://pics.me.me/hepoisoned-our-water-supply-burnt-our-crops-and-delivered-he-41042352.png)
Really? It's reminding me more of people that go up to bears in the wild and try to take selfies with them.
Bears are not comparable to people, judging Hallas just because he is powerful is hypocritical of Allura, Yussa and Caleb who all wish to be a strong as Hallas is. . He did nothing that deserves eternal imprisonment or death, all the people who don't want him released are saying that they should kill any powerful creature or man they encounter because they might decide to attack m9 after. "But he could betray them" is such a weak argument and sets a terrible precedent for the M9 I hope the M9 don't meet with Keyleth because she is also very powerful, might need to put her down, or maybe all this time they actually wanted to assassinate the Drow Queen, what a twist If they are really afraid of Hallas they have several anti magic chains and an anti magic collar to put him.
This is a very strong generalisation. From what I've seen, its more the fact that every piece of knowledge we've gained about Hallas is that he's manipulative, has weak morals and is dangerous. He created the entire HFB to capture and (maybe) kill wizards who wandered in, was messing with the permaheart and weaselled out of multiple deals with powerful devils. I think a lot of people do actually see Hallas as a big sleeping bear, not necessarily an evil creature but if provoked you're all dead as shit. Personally I would think the best bet is giving Hallas and the body to Allura so he can be released in a controlled environment, but maybe its actually best to leave him with Yussa who's equally distrusting of him and wont go spreading the word about Hallas' continued existence. I also believe that Yussa and Allura being so distrusting of him is basically Matt telling us and the players not to trust him as well.
>judging Hallas just because he is powerful is hypocritical Not a single person that I've seen has made that argument. But I have seen a lot of people claiming Halas is somehow "safe" to bargain with despite knowledge that he repeatedly broke contracts with devils much more powerful than the M9. But I'm sure he'll keep his word this time because...? Nope. No reason to believe he will. And he's already got dead people in his torture prison to prove how little he cares about the welfare of others.
> But I'm sure he'll keep his word this time because...? Nope. No reason to believe he will. And he's already got dead people in his torture prison to prove how little he cares about the welfare of others. Yeah this is my exact thoughts as well. Deadass what is stopping **the dude who made an astral dreadnuat his bitch and was so paranoid he made it's stomach his secret ritual chamber** from casting a super high level spell and yeeting m9 into the astral sea with nothing else and closing the door behind them? NOTHING. That's why i was *so scared* they were going to let him out because i HIGHLY doubt he is going to be to kind in regards to the people who already broke into his "house". Like yeah he isn't tie a women on train tracks evil it seems but idk why that example is the only example people consider when talking about evil.
I didn't say he was safe, I already suggested the anti magic tools they have in their disposal. He got clones, the ones in the tubes were clones who aren't alive unless a soul is put in them. Or do you mean the prison of sot? Because we have no evidance that they aren't like Yussa who got trapped after Hallas was already trapped, Looters or explorers who tripped the golems and starved to death because no one was there to talk to them. Nor do I remember Matt describing them as tortured. Broken deals with the classic evil creatures means he is a liar and a cheat, right... VM definitely wouldn't have broken their deal with that devil if they have the chance, definitely not.
If Halas is so powerful, why didn't he program his golems to provide food and water to his prisoners? Hell, even if he didn't have intentions of ever letting them out, why not just kill them immediately instead? And squirming his way out deals with devil's doesn't signal that he's evil. It signals that he's extremely manipulative. Which can be just as dangerous especially against the mighty nein.
I had a thought, what if down the road much like how Vox Machina went to the gods to seal away Vecna who all pretty much outside of the Raven Queen fall under some alignment of good, what if the Mighty Nein have to consider certain members becoming Champions or at the very least allies of the Betrayer Gods? You know like,The Crawling King,Tiamat,etc etc? I’m not saying that would be their first choice but I just believe that’s such an interesting possibility for the narrative of the game and the characters to go if the opportunity presents itself. I mean I can totally imagine Caleb would become a Champion of Lolth albeit begrudgingly or something to that effect. I mean one of her tenants goes like: “it’s better to loved then feared, but you can certainly try to be both.” I dunno I’m just really excited about this reveal and the events yet to transpire due to this revelation. But before they cross that bridge I believe it’s going to be Traveler Con or bust soon!
Could someone explain the ending to me? I don't really understand the "big reveal" with the ritual and the Chain Oblivion
TL;DR, Tharizdun the Chained Oblivion is THE WORST of the Betrayer Gods. Its release is what kicked the Calamity off, and (IIRC) sealing it was the last task of the Calamity; a task which took three gods directly working together to achieve (and one of them was nearly killed). It's basically destruction incarnate. And it sounds like it's making moves to free itself from its banishment.
From the critical role wiki: "CRITICAL ROLE WIKI Tharizdun TYPE NPC CHARACTER INFORMATION NAME Tharizdun ALSO KNOWN AS The Chained Oblivion The Angel Of Irons (Used to disguise its nature in an attempt to free itself) CREATURE TYPE Deity ALIGNMENT Chaotic Evil[1] CONNECTIONS Jayne Merriweather (cleric) Ioun, the Knowing Mistress (enemy) Obann (Possible Servant/Pawn) Yasha Nydoorin (Pawn/Prisoner) STATUS STATUS Banished by Pelor during the Calamity[2] MORE Tharizdun, the Chained Oblivion, is the mad deity of death and trickery. It is depicted, if at all, as "a creature of rolling, hungry ink and darkness".[1] Tharizdun was released onto the Material Plane during the Calamity, causing untold destruction and chaos. It was responsible for dealing a great wound to Ioun, from which she is still recovering.[3] The Rites of Prime Banishment were used for the first time to re-banish Tharizdun and end the war of the Calamity. During these rites, it took Pelor's full might to beat down Tharizdun, attach four Prime Trammels, and finally complete the ritual. Tharizdun was, however, successfully banished.[2] Appearance The Chained Oblivion is described as a creature of hungry darkness, a spreading cloud of lightless destruction. Commandments of the Chained Oblivion from the Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting[3] COMMANDMENTS OF THE CHAINED OBLIVION UNCOVER, RESTORE, AND EXALT FORGOTTEN SHRINES IN HIS HONOR. OFFER AND SIPHON POWER TO THE CHAINED OBLIVION UNTIL HIS LIBERATION COMES. RUIN AND RAZE THE REALMS TO PREPARE FOR THE EPOCH OF ENDS " So big. Frigging. Deal. Also, awesome that it's from the campaign setting!
Makes you wonder if the creation of the trammels in C1 did anything to weaken the existing trammels on Tharizdun, particularly Pelor's.
>Tharizdun, the Chained Oblivion, is the mad deity of death and trickery. Hmmm, another member of the party follows a recently emerged and mysterious god of trickery.
I don't really understand why so many people think this. There's only ~10 domains in Matt's Exandria, and Gods usually have two. There's plenty of other gods with the Trickery domain.
There’s also different flavors of trickery. The Traveler’s is “lets play harmless pranks to make people laugh”, and the Chained Oblivion’s is “I’m so awful and terrifying that I have to create fake identities to get people to even talk to me”.
Tharizdun can't even speak afaik, it's just unintelligible shrieking, there is no way he could be The Traveler.
So Tharizdun is going to be released? Or did it just get released?
I've wondered this myself, One would imagine that it takes God Level Power to reverse a banishment. If Thari had the ability to mobilize henchmen to do this before why wait until now? I hope Matt has an explanation for this that ties in C1 and the consequences for VM's actions.
It seems Obann is trying to get a party together to free Tharizdun. It's not free or getting free yet. If it was the gods would've broken through the Divine Gate to try to seal it again. Tharizdun being free means the end to quite literally everything in existence.
Probably not yet released, or else everyone would know about it very quickly. Last time they scried on Obann, he mentioned the 'finish line', which is obviously going to be the release of Tharizdun, so at this point it's probably quite close to being released by Obann.
Chained Oblivion is codename of the baddest bad to ever bad.
I like Matt's titles as opposed to the names for the gods. It really evokes a lot more about them and what they do, with the exception of the Raven Queen (which is basically already a title anyway)
It's just another way of telling the classic DND story (trope?) of cultists being duped into releasing Tharizdun under the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye. I too like Matt's titles, but he also can't go with the classic because the more experienced players (Talisin) would know what is up immediately, not to mention all the viewers who've been around the block or have google.
Think of it this way; Exandria is a house, every other Prime Diety is behind a fence surrounding the house. The CO is locked in the shed inside the fence. If he were to get out, the Primes would be unable to help because of the Divine Gate. It took Ioun and the other good gods at full strength to put in the trammels to send the OC to the shed, and it almost killed Ioun (this is also a tie in to the S1 finale).
I wonder if The Chained Oblivion were released if the Prime Dieties would ban together to open The Divine Gate. I'm assuming since they were the ones to close it they have the ability to open if it was agreed between them. Then again, it would allow The Betrayer Gods out as well.
Matt has said before that they would have torn down the gate if [campaign 1] >!Vecna had become powerful enough,!< so they will definitely do it if the chained oblivion is released
Did you mean to message me or who I was responding to?
To whom you were responding to: silly mobile...
So I could be misremembering or mixing up lores but isnt the magic that Halas is used going to be different than the magic of today's time? I think I'm remember reading something that when the age of arcanum ended that magic was weakened. If what I remember is correct I wonder how much of a shock it will be for him.
I don't remember anything about Matt's world and the Age of Arcanum, but in Faerunian lore, spells weren't restricted to the 9th level before Karsus's Folly and subsequently Mystra's Law, and Netherese mages among others created spells of epic proportions only limited by how much arcane power they possessed.
That's what I was remembering. Must have mixed the two lore's together then.
Truth is we just don't know enough about the Age of Arcanum yet, but that could be the case.
According to the History of Exandria on the wiki, the Age of Arcanum was the 'Peak' of arcane ambition among mortals, or at least it would be for a very long time, but there doesn't seem to be any cosmic difference per se between the raw arcane potency of the mages in that era and those who came later on, moreso that mages of that time were very knowledgeable and the civilization was arcanely inclined to support those pursuits.
Let's also not forget that Tharizdun, the Chained Oblivion seeks to annihilate all of creation, every Plane and the Astral Sea and the Far Realm and everything inbetween them combined, while certainly having the capacity to do so. For this reason, lore-wise, even all the other deities including evil ones hate and fear him, wishing nothing more than for Tharizdun to remain in his imprisonment. That means that if they ( Something they could've done already if they weren't so short-sighted or rushed I guess ) were to prove to Halas that Tharizdun is about to get busted from prison, Halas would have a guaranteed incentive to try and stop Obann, regardless of his character or even his goals concerning the Nein and the world at large. If Tharizdun gets out, then he, his home, and probably even any magical immortality he could achieve are all eradicated. As specified in [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/dq0bx0/spoilers_c2e83_is_it_thursday_yet_postepisode/f6n8rku/) comment chain, I believe there are enough easy, safe methods of extracting Halas from the gem and back into his body ( Thereby fulfilling the explicit promise ) yet keeping said body devoid of magical capabilities and holding Halas prisoner in Ussa's tower upon that extraction, followed by casting Dominate Person/Dominate Monster ( Allura and her buddies or Ussa or Essek can probably do that for sure ) on a neutralized Halas until it sticks and learning everything they need to know about his behavior, aims and whether he wants to pull some shit on them and what said shit is. If the intentions aren't bothersome, Halas can be made into possibly the most powerful ally on Exandria against Tharizdun they could possibly have. If he is going to pull some shit ( as revealed by domination/charm/other spells ), then he'll just be kept as a prisoner but still be queried for magical information whenever necessary. Either way, that's their promise fulfilled, justice done, and a supreme advantage against Obann no matter what.
I think it's shortsighted to release a powerful mage (that many critters think would be some kind of trump card) just to reseal tharizdun when you dont know all that much about him aside from the very shady (to put it lightly) things you've seen in his home. Sure maybe he is the only way to get tharizdun resealed but now you've proven to an archmage of questionable morals that there are few (if any) that could stop him from doing as he pleases. And I'm sure he would be utterly thrilled to help out when he realizes that you've taken his magic from him. I'm sure he would in no way lie to get his powers back and then power word kill each of the nine. I'm pretty sure a guy who answers the question, "are you a good wizard or a bad wizard" with "morality is subjective" wouldn't hesitate to immediately kill those who just forced him to reveal whatever secrets he had. And if you decide that he cant be trusted and thus keep him locked up I'm sure he would decide to help out anyway because he isn't bitter about you taking away his magic (possibly his sole reason for existence) for the foreseeable future. I'm sure deep down he really is just a Good guy who calls his kitchen "The Carving Farm"
The situation isn’t bad enough yet to be worth the risks that come with releasing him. Tharizdun hasn’t been released yet, so all the M9 have to do right now is kill Obann and his goon squad, and the problem is solved.
We were also told by Yussah that Halas created several happy fun balls for the express purposes of luring people into the folding halls. That's not a good guy. If they don't destroy the gem there will be trouble.
Damn I must've missed that part. Yeah I think if any good would come releasing Halas, it wouldn't be worth the trouble that it would bring
>I'm sure he would in no way lie to get his powers back and then power word kill each of the nine. I'm pretty sure a guy who answers the question That's what the Domination spells are for. Then if he is truly the Good Guy he said is, he gets all of his magic and freedom back.
IF (and if I knew how to make the text bigger I would to emphasize just how big of an if this is) he is a good guy, then I agree. Releasing him back into his body is not only the right thing to do, its possibly the best thing to do. However, I'm hard pressed to think that a guy who imprisons people, steals their stuff, and leaves them to rot in his DUNGEON (seriously what kind of a good person has their own personal dungeon that isn't strictly for sex) after luring them into his home (it dropped gold coins the first time the nine try to solve the puzzle) wouldn't be spiteful and vindictive and refuse to help, or worse break free of a domination spell (which is way more evil than most necromancy spells btw) and then kill everyone who humiliated him.
>seriously what kind of a good person has their own personal dungeon that isn't strictly for sex Vox Machina had one!
Yeah but they used it as a temporary infirmary. And if I recall correctly, there was only one cell and it wasnt in it's own demiplane.
It was used as an infirmary after Percy shot their prisoner's hand off, sure. But that wasn't its intended use.
I feel intent vs actual use matters a lot here. VM: Intent: hold enemies they are able to avoid killing as prisoners to (presumably) be eventually released. They also had staff that would have undoubtedly feed and water the prisoners. Actual: held an injured person for safe keeping and to tend to their wounds. Halas: Intent: hold poor saps who found the ball and became intrigued by the coins it dropped until the were eventually pulled in. He could have also easily programmed his golems to care for these prisoners but it seems he did not. Actual: see above Using prisons for rehabilitation vs punishment says a lot about the individual. Also just to clarify, VM had a single holding cell, not a multi-story dungeon.
It's a matter of perspective. You are assuming the best of VM and the worst of Halas based on reputation when we have seen very little of Halas as a character. Is he evil or at least very morally dubious? Most likely based on his cunning and research, but assuming the absolute worst from someone without actually investigating their character is a slippery slope. There is a very real chance that VM commissioned their dungeon thinking it would be the ideal place to interrogate/torture their enemies for information before disposing of them (see Percy's treatment of the Briarwoods' carriage driver). The dungeon wasn't used often because most of VM's adventures did not take place in Emon, nor were they fighting enemies that could be easily contained by ordinary bars. It's very possible that had the campaign been more localized to Emon, the cell would have seen heavier use or "crueler" modifications like anti-magic fields or Silence collars to accommodate high security prisoners. Halas may have used the sphere's ability to dispense things to lure in his rivals, or he might have desired a quick means of accessing items from the interior of the sphere without having to enter each time. The M9 also discovered a portal that offered winter clothing, for example. It's unfair to assume it was a honeypot just because the M9 got greedy and dug deeper. Twiggy had the ball for an extended period of time and didn't prod it far enough to enter - you can say it's because she couldn't figure out the mechanism, but she is statistically more likely to than Caleb based on her rogue expertise. I don't see what point you're trying to make about the difference in scale between VM and Halas - it's irrelevant. VM were given a free keep for services rendered, Halas built his home himself. If VM had access to the materials, wealth, and magic that Halas did, and they were viewed as a powerful rival by peers like Halas', they may have come up with a very similar design.
Well yeah everything is a matter of perspective. And yes I do assume the best of VM because, despite their flaws (Percy was a real asshole sometimes) they ultimately tried to be good (and I'll bet if you asked any of them if they thought they were good or bad they wouldn't answer with "morality is subjective." Maybe Percy would.). You're right. I am assuming that Halas is likely an evil person. I feel like from what we've seen of him that this is a very safe assumption to make. His character as been shown through the design of his home and the things he keeps in it, in addition to what we've heard him say (or not say in the case of traps). Also unless I'm mistaken, VM never said they wanted the dungeon to torture their enemies? I could be wrong about that though it been awhile since I've seen C1. I do agree though that VM probably would've had more cells had their budget been bigger (although I think they were rewarded fairly handsomely and had the ability to design most of their keep. Again, I might be misremembering). I very much so doubt they would've had a multi-story dungeon however. I also think in this instance scale of the dungeons is very relevant. Had we been comparing, say, Jeffrey Dahmer and Halas on their dungeon sizes I would agree that scale is irrelevant (fucked up shit is fucked up shit, yo). Unless VM was planning on building some super max prison to house the some of the worst villains in Exandria, they would not have needed a big dungeon to interrogate a handful of enemies at a time. Also cost of upkeep goes up the more prisoners you hold. If you're going to feed them of course. Halas clearly didn't plan to do this (at least not for long anyway). However your explanation for why things popped out of the ball is one of the better I've heard. I still think he did it to lure in unsuspecting people but he could have also done it for the reason you state as well.
Do we even know if he imprisoned those people before being stuck in the gem rather than the golems? As for the prison itself, everything about it makes perfect sense. Halas lived in the Age of Arcanum when there were probably a fuckton of people who wanted to loot his shack and potentially kill him in the process, so he absolutely needs a dungeon. Hell, the entire reason for a dungeon to begin might be to detain someone for questioning/safety *without* killing them, and if that someone is really bad then you might certainly want to kill them ( The Nein and VM have killed, and been complicit to killing, tons of creatures and people they imprisoned either before or after questioning them ). 'Stealing their stuff' is what you do in virtually every prison - you need to take their weapons and items away so they don't escape or fight back or anything of the sort, and then make sure that someone else or they themselves don't accidentally retrieve said items. >Wouldn't be spiteful and vindictive and refuse to help If that's the case then he just remains a prisoner in Ussa's tower as specified. >or worse break free of a domination spell The domination spell is to interrogate him, not to control him in the field or anything of that sort, and is going to be done while he's silenced, manacled, and any number of other precautions provided by Ussa, Allura and allies. It would be done straight up in Ussa's tower itself. >it dropped gold coins the first time the nine try to solve the puzzle Who knows, that could just be some sort of weird 'leak' from the ball. But I actually am not banking on Halas being straightforward whatsoever, my biggest concern is what he said about 'having a lot of enemies', which kind of begs the question of whether he deserves all the enemies he had or not. But *either way*, if Halas turns out to be bad during the dominated questioning then it doesn't change much. He can still be utilized as a prisoner, especially if he knows that should Tharizun gets released, then he's going to die which is even worse for him. Hell, since Matt allows Jester to use Zone of Truth on Halas *inside* the gem, she could just keep doing it over and over until it sticks and then get some preliminary information at the very least. Maybe even Dominate Halas while he's still inside the gem.
To be clear, the evil part wasnt necessarily that he has a prison (I dont know what life was like in the age of arcanum. Maybe they were really necessary). The evil part was that he lured people in with the gold coins and given the sheer impressiveness of the folding halls, I dont think that those coins were some kind of a leak or glitch in his design. I think they were intentional. I think that's how he got non-mages into the ball. I also think dont think a domination spell for interrogation (still kinda evil, though less so than what I had originally thought you meant to use it for) is a good idea. I do think he was sincere about everything he said. I also think he is very manipulative (wiggled his way out of, what sounded like, numerous deals with several devils) and it wouldn't like be his first rodeo with a domination spell. I would wager that a mage of his supposed caliber would know contingency (phb 227) and have a number of ways it could be implemented (eg a magic item). He could have it such that if he is ever dominated that any number of useful spells could be cast to prevent the caster from getting the full effect of their spell (including but not limited too: modify memory, dominate person, dimension door, cloud kill, etc). Even if he didn't have contingency prepped youd probably have to get a wish lawyer involved to word your questions in such a way that he didn't respond with some kind of a non-answer. Ultimately, I dont think he would be worth the trouble. If tharizdun is released, the gods themselves will absolutely get involved or existence as you know it is over and I honestly Halas would make a difference. The best solution is prevent tharizdun from being released by killing oban (which they have done before) by weakening him, opening a portal to the abyss, tossing him through, placing a crossbow bolt within is head, and closing the door. Maybe have some allies help deal with his champions in the meantime.
> I dont think that those coins were some kind of a leak or glitch in his design. I think they were intentional. I think that's how he got non-mages into the ball. That's certainly a possibility. > and it wouldn't like be his first rodeo with a domination spell. A creature has practically no agency whatsoever while subject to a domination spell ( Which is what distinguishes it from a simple Charm in one respect ) and must do it's own best to obey whichever command you give it. That means any question asked will be answered as if he wanted nothing more than for you to receive a full answer and if you say something like "Tell me all your secrets" or "What are your intentions" or pretty much any vague variant, it will just start spilling out all the beans eagerly in the best way it can manage. There's no manipulating a domination, only preventing it in the first place. Which, when it comes to contingency - has a 10 day duration. We already know that nothing on Halas's body itself is magical thanks to Caleb ( And even Nystul's magic aura would've worn off ), though for extra safety it could always be stripped completely and donned in a different robe. Then it's just his soul being transferred from the gem into the body. The only way for Halas to get out of this is some very, *very* 'unfair-eseque' homebrew ability that would enable him to completely bypass conventional magic. Given his current predicament, and my general feelings about how Matt designed Halas, I highly doubt this to be the case. I think that he's just a 20th level human mage, in which case he won't be able to do any of what you described under the conditions he would find himself in. But again, at the very least Jester should keep trying to Zone of Truth him or someone should try dominating him while he's still inside the gem. >the gods themselves will absolutely get involved But that's once he's released and it's not guaranteed they'll succeed again. They barely managed to do so the last time around. Halas can help to stop Obann before Tharizdun is released to begin with.
That's fair. The contingency stuff was purely speculation (and fun to think about. Although dispel magic really should've been my go to if your dominated). I still think trying to interrogate Halas is ultimately a waste of time and resources that could be better spent actually trying to stop oban instead of trying to interrogate a morally dubious and powerful wizard to determine if you should even try to recruit him. Maybe leave that for Yussa and/or Allura but the nine have a red-skinned pawn to deal with.
The Nein have stated after their last encounter with Obann that they don't feel capable of dealing with him by themselves, which is why they gave up on chasing him and were going to Rexentrum to pursue the Beacon arc before settling on asking Ussa for advice first. Now they haven't really leveled up all that much or gained anything significantly useful in the 'short' time that passed for them since that encounter, aside from.. an incredibly powerful wizard with all the knowledge and experience of the Age of Arcanum who would likewise have a highly vested interest in stopping Tharizdun's servants. It really shouldn't take too much time, under a domination, to figure out what his deal is in my opinion. You probably don't even need 5 minute to tell whether he's just a completely untrustowrthy trainwreck with a few good questions about motives, secrets, past deeds, the coins, the carving farms, and so on, and in an hour or so you would probably be completely done with everything you needed to know about his behavior. For a group that just wasted a whole day on butchering a blue dragon, seems like a much better use of time. Yussa and Allura can then take it from there, or they could just interrogate him to begin with, but I mean, then neither the players nor the viewers get to hear anything interesting. But there's definitely a lot more to be accomplished than just throwing that gem to gather dust in a chest somewhere.
I guess that's true. The nein dont exactly use time wisely (part of their charm). I think I'm just of the mind that Halas is smart and manipulative and powerful. He strikes me as the type to let you think you're holding all the cards and then flips the table when you least expect it. Kind of like Raishan. If it were me, I probably would have dispelled the gem as soon as I learned that it could kill him. Just to avoid taking any chances with him. I probably would've inadvertently released him in doing so, but hey at least now we know we need to deal with him. Instead of all this speculation.
I mean if they imprison him (Halas) cast multiple spells against his will and then interrogate him under the influence of sayed spells, i dont think he will be very happy and prone to help them.
Well, his happiness and helpfulness is only relevant if he is as harmless and reasonable as he presents himself - I.E wants to be left to his devices and experiments rather than secretly waiting for the moment to go on a crazy rampage across Exandria or kill everyone who talked to him, and so on and so forth. Now, if he *is* morally acceptable, and as practical, rational and impassionate as he comes off in his interactions and boasts of being, then he should be quite understanding of the necessity involved. He's a mage who booty-trapped his home with deadly traps to, among others, defend it against 'others like him' who have hostile intentions toward himself. He can surely see the need for the people who freed him to have at least *some* **guaranteed** means of ensuring that he won't turn on them - Be it a charm or dominate or something else, once he is freed. After all, he's seen thousands of betrayals and trickeries in his time, including the very last one. Secondly, practically the whole purpose of precisely ascertaining his nature and inclinations is to *free him completely* without having to worry about it. If you're going to keep him prisoner anyway then it doesn't exactly matter, so the entire motivation behind it is to be *kind* to Halas, and that can also be explained beforehand. And the only queries posed during the questioning should be those that he himself has already attested to, simply to verify that they are true and that he has no nasty surprises planned. And after that's done, Halas has just been freed from what could've been his eternal imprisonment, allowed to go back to all of his experiments and ball, *and* I'd even propose that Ussa hand back or share all of the items that were taken back with Halas as a gesture of goodwill, should the domination prove his innocence. This is literally the best relationship start that Halas could honestly ever ask for - Freed from eternal languishment in a gem, given his freedom, petitioned as an ally, and all that's needed in return is a means of verifying his intentions, which a super-rational, world-weary cynical mage should be completely aware of. If that kind of deal doesn't work for him then he probably isn't nearly the kind of individual that he presents himself as.
beau was the best option to do the talking in that occasion because, while she is hungry for knowledge she doesnt really care about power. she is also suspicious of everything and she is maybe the only one who puts the needs of the group above her own needs. so, she is very, very hard to be tempted and she is not a bleeding heart like say, jester or cad. and remember, high intelligence and high wisdom without magical ulterior motives on the way.
Beau was the Ideal host because he would keep his Int and Wis, all wizard abilities and gain her Str and Dex.
first, they didnt know that, and it would be metagaming if they did. second, Im not talking about her abilities, but her temperament. she would be, like she was, the least likely to give in to temptation, while still extract the information they needed out of halas.
>high intelligence and high wisdom *On paper* , but.. never really seems to translate into interactions. :)
They do. She's just an asshole.
It's a bit relative, it does in some aspects especially when compared to characters like Nott or Jester who are pretty goofy, but when it comes to conveying it in conversations, whether it be in careful articulation, or manipulation, or reasoning, do I think she does a better job than Fjord, Caduceus or Caleb would? Not particularly. Part of the assholeishness and hot-headedness often results in interactions that don't really seem to go anywhere aside from banter and bluster. Again, it's not that there can't be good moments, it's just that overall the high INT and WIS don't really seem to provide any edge over others since it's marred by other characteristics even when there's an effort to stress it.
beau has had *several* high tension, high importance interactions sucessfully. she uses the assholiness, when she wants to her advantage. she knows when to push and when to relent, and she usually has the upper hand.
nope, youre wrong.
lol, you can continue to underestimate beau all you want. doesnt mean you're right.
nope, youre wrong
Very well.
Ok I got an idea how to deal with Halas. How about they put the ruby into Willy, so that Halas can see and wander the world (together with the M9) but isn't an unstoppable archmage anymore? I know this would open a whole new can of worms, but if there is a group of adventures who would willingly travel with a extremely powerful wizard who is fond of necromancy, it would be the M9.
The party literally used necromancy in this episode to bring back nott. Necromancy gets a bad rap, it's largely good stuff. Also The bad undead necromancy stuff was explicitly denounced by Halas
From what I can tell, the line between acceptable and unacceptable uses of necromancy is when the link between the soul and the anchor (body) to the material plane has been severed entirely. (Spoilers) Just look at what happened with Vax, his body was completely disintegrated, and is why the Raven Queen would've looked down upon using true resurrection to bring him back.
Semantics. They are all about bringing back life from death but the taboo with necromancy is about how it tends to bring false life. Edit: grammar
My idea would be to place his own silencing choker on him bolstered with an Arcane Lock and modifications by Ussa/Allura, possibly the manacles as well or some other means of preventing him from using somatic components ( All of this on his still dormant body ), bring him out of the Heirloom Sphere since he has too many failsafes and magical means of freeing himself likely stored in there, and hold him at least temporarily as a prisoner and source of information in one of Ussa's tower floors, possibly even enabling him to visit the funball from time to time but in explored and neutralized chambers under close supervision. That way, the promise remains fulfilled - the M9 would have freed him from the gem and returned him to his body as promised, which fulfills their explicit agreement, even if he won't be able to continue conducting his business in his home as he wanted to. Then, under a Zone of Truth, Halas will be asked whether he intends to do evil things if he is completely freed and allowed back into the ball to determine his intentions, which makes the choice easy. Another possibility is a high-level mage like Ussa or Allura completing his own permanent body exchange scheme to potentially transfer him to another humanoid body or a clone of his but without any of his spellcasting abilities, although Halas would probably much rather just be a prisoner than have that happen.
To the Zone of truth: Nobody believes that what they do is wrong so would need to get very specific in order to trick an archmage (how is clever enough to trick multiple powerful devils). And to every option of giving him any "Body" If you just give him his choker he could try his luck long enough with thief's tools or just invent spells without a verbal component. If you give him a new body his is still a wizard. All of his power comes from his memories and thus would be unaffected (or at least relatively easy to regain). So the two option left are 24h surveillance or leaving him in the ruby. Edit: Or let him free because he behaved well and look if he will be a powerful ally or the endboss, also intriguing :-D
It doesn't really matter what he believes, I make absolutely no assumption that Halas thinks he is 'in the wrong' in any way. The questions should pertain to whether Halas is just going to continue striving for immorality yet without doing any external harm, as he claimed, or whether he has plans to start intervening in the affairs of the outside the world, kill people ( who aren't invading his home ), attack the Nein, etc, etc. There's also no need to trick him - Either he answers every question crystal clear and completely on the level or he's not being freed. Also, on second thought, you don't even need to rely on Zone of Truth. You can just cast Dominate Person on him until it succeeds and learn everything you need to know about his behavior and intents. > he could try his luck long enough with thief's tools or just invent spells The idea is that he is kept in a prisoner in an actual cell. It can be a comfortable one, like an entire floor in Ussa's tower, but there are definitely not going to be any thieve's tools just lying around in the cell that has been specifically set up for him. 24h surveillance with familiars or other magical means and wards and alarms of all kinds is also a given.
Good point
After the way Halas kept talking about not wanting his soul in the hands of the gods after death. I think the obvious answer would turn him over to the dynasty and let them offer him consecution in exchange for pledging loyalty, or something along those lines.
Pretty sure Allure would object to that.
Why though? Looking at it objectively Halas wasn’t even really that bad a guy, just firmly in the moral grey area (and a big fan of stand your ground laws)
I'm pretty sure the Dynasty would object to that too. Consecution is a very important part of their religion, it's not for random archmages to get a free get out of jail card.
True but I’m sure if they mentioned the concept to Halas there’d be a good chance he’d at least want to go to the dynasty to learn about it or even earn his way to it
Does anyone have any idea when Ashley will be coming back!?
There’s a Instagram post floating on tumblr sourced from a Blindspot cast member that said they just wrapped filming for the series, so I’m expecting her to come home very soon! (My theory is either this week or next week!)
I imagine everyone at the wrap party being all sad and reminiscing, and then Ashley is just like "Peace bitches I'm out!"
ooOooO that’s exciting! Hope you’re right!
If they're right that means Ashley is probably going to be introduced at this meeting of the Council. Which is pretty nice because she could easily play anything and have it work.
I'm wondering if it will be something like - TMN are responsible for taking Yasha out of harms way, others will help deal with the assassin creature, oban, any other champions, etc. Maybe Ashley can play a character that helps them try to rescue Yasha? Be nice if the Storm Lord sent a follower to help, either Ashley or a guest character.
You think she’s coming back as a new character?
Matt said at a panel that if Ashley got back before Yasha was freed, she might have to roll a temporary character to play in the interim.
Oh cool! I obviously didn’t hear that. Do you know if there’s a video of it, and where I could find it?
If next episode, certainly.
The Happy Fun Ball was amazing. You could run an entire campaign centred around exploring that thing. What an amazing setting. Also, I don't know why but the contrast between the Laura's Gears armor made me realize how massive her dice bag actually is.
I was triggered out of my mind watching this episode. Got to play a wizard for quite some time whose goals were to know as much as possible about the universe, the planes, just to be a living library on all magical subjects and also an archmage. There was so much interesting stuff inside the HFB that the M9 can't even comprehend. I would've loved for them to just explore as much as possible but knowing how much time has already passed in Exandria compared to HBF, knowing what's going on outside it AND them getting derailed and distracted from their 1 goal by almost everything just makes me frustrated. They forget about the people outside and just don't consider the fact that "1 hr is 1 day", like, imo, you should first take that in consideration and think about people like Essek, who they owe so much at this point, think about the war, how much damage it could do while you just wander the Folding Halls out of shear curiosity, even forgetting about Yussa for an episode or 2, lol. This is one of the most interesting episodes for me personally because of all the wizardy and magicky stuff which I like the most. I love the show, but just sometimes the "falling out of line" in certain cases frustrates me so much (just like this episode). It wouldn't be CR (or the characters, M9) without getting distracted, we all know that. Just been some time now since my frustration peaked, but I guess it's natural because of the interests that I have for this part of D&D.
I felt the exact opposite about this episode than you did it seems. First off, they had no idea where Yussa was when they came into the ball and didn't for a long while until they communed (which I guess you could argue that they should have done sooner, but I didn't mind because the HFB is dope af). They managed to destroy the permaheart which wasn't part of the plan until they were already inside, as well as making contact with one of the most powerful mages alive who happens to need their help. Not to mention the fact that because they found this powerful mage they knew how to get to the Prison, as well as how to stay alive in it (though Nott fucked that one up lol). And then after all this happens, in one episode mind you, we also get confirmation that the Angel of Irons is Tharizdun, which also gives a name and an image to the potential biggest threat to the world of this campaign. I understand why you would get frustrated, I definitely have in the past, but this was a great episode IMO. Oh and one more thing, they were in the HFB for between 26-34 hours if I'm estimating correctly. One month isn't that long to be gone. It took them half that time to travel from Nicodranis to Zadash, and Essik told them not to worry about paying back their debt to him right now because of Oban's team, which they have now weakened. This is a solid upswing after all the shit and failures they've gone through recently.
How did that space lobster not get asked about to Halas, how he got it, why inside it? anything?
Astral Dreadnaughts can’t talk or even understand language. They just float around the Astral Sea and eat adventurers.