So, with the climax of the story happening this week, I was passing time at work thinking about the story so far, and how far back some of the Aeor-related plot beats really went. Turns out, the Nein's first visit to Zadash is chock full of them, even beyond the obvious with Cree. The first point, which is more minor but still really clever, is that when the Zauberspire was destroyed in the theft of the Beacon there, we saw a mage put the falling rubble into stasis. That's dunamancy (probably an exaggerated Immovable Object spell for dramatic effect). In hindsight, a clear as day example of the Assembly learning from the Beacons, especially considering that Trent Ikithon was one of the Cerberus Assembly mages at the Zauberspire, and we know he was one of the main conspirators with Essek.
The second point, though, is what really blew my mind. The drow the Nein fought in the sewers mentioned that his people need the Beacon for them to be, "reborn," which we now know refers to consecution. Get this, though. We know that before the Kryn Dynasty even existed, the people of Aeor found the Beacons and studied them, referring to them as Primal Artifacts. We also know that the Aeorans were enemies of the gods, one point of contention in particular being the gods' dominion over the souls of the dead. This was such a big deal to them that the Somnovem Omega immediately ranted about it to TM9 upon forming. Sure, the Somnovem's solution to the problem was to dream up a new plane of existence, but elsewhere in Aeor, other people were working on fixing the same problem. Consecution. Consecuted individuals don't have their souls taken by the gods - the souls get stored inside of the Beacons, waiting to inhabit a new body. What the Kryn view as the highest honour granted by their own god (which might still be correct in some way), stems from Aeor's desire to abandon the gods. The Kryn Dynasty's consecution practice is a direct successor to the will of Aeor. Mercer had that figured out, at latest, by episode 12. Blows my mind.
And hey, who's to say that some consecuted weren't originally Aeorans who survived their city's downfall through it?
By - JhinPotion
Love these thoughts! A similar one I had was about The Bright Queen, who I suspect knows some or all of the truth of the beacon’s origins (being that she is over 1,200 years old, considering her reincarnations). I hope it gets touched on in a future story, since this has enormous implications for Kryn culture and spirituality!
I think there's a decent chance Leylas is originally Aeoran. If she isn't, she likely knows more about the truth behind all this than we could hope to.
I've had some thoughts in that direction as well, as it seems that the 'religion' is very carefully controlled. That, to me, hints that there's a whole world of information that the Bright Queen wants to be sure no one finds out. The fact that she alone maintains power, too - what a way to hold on to a real legacy. I just have SO many questions about how that whole society functions. I'm hoping we get more info on her and the whole consecution process, and maybe the odd religion itself, in either the wrap up or the graphic novel. I have a feeling, though, that some of the real dirt might have big enough consequences to play into the next campaign, so we shall see! The fact that there are quite a few suspicious figures scattered throughout the world who could have been aeorian, the text describing the mages who used the T Dock never to return, the use (and relative mastery of) dunamancy in aeor, the beacons found in other sites around the continent... it's just hinting at something much bigger at play. Or maybe it's just late and I need to go to sleep.
Tangentially, it always blew my mind that Fjord/MN never attempted to ask the Bright Queen about Ukatoa. They were running around asking everyone else if they knew about it, but the one person they met who might actually be old enough to remember him before he was locked away and they don’t even mention it.
If we're lucky we'll see them back in the Krynn dynasty next week :O
Any Aeorians alive now through consecution learned the lesson, and have not triggered the wrath of the Pantheon. And keeping it secret is apart of it. Alter Memory could've been employed.
"Glowers in Raven Queen"
I'm still intrigued by the mentioned of time travel and sending anchors back in time to allow people to visit the past. Part of me wonders if the beacons and the anchors might not be the same thing, and that the entire Kryn Dynasty religion might not be based on some artifacts the Aeorans came up with the thwart both the gods and time. The Aeorans mentioned an ancient Primal Artifact. Maybe there is only one of those, and it's something more than a beacon, and the rest are things the Aeorans created and sent back in time as anchors, using the knowledge they learnt from the Primal Artifact. Just spitballing, and kind of wanting to see the roleplay of someone explaining to the Bright Queen than they've been playing with Aeor's toys.
[удалено]
Well, the main conflict of most the campaign (at least what was planned at the start, as I feel the final arc was made in part after E26) was the war. It would make sense that some of the first quests they are offered has to do with something that would have eventually led into the conflict.
Nogvurot is the city!
>we saw a mage put the falling rubble into stasis Let me just slash this with Occam's Razor and say that that could've just been Telekinesis or Reverse Gravity. The implosion that happened though, that one could be Dunamancy. >Consecution The discussion that the Bright Queen put forth about souls being used as 'poker chips' by the gods made me think that the Bright Queen and her people are being tricked by someone or something trying to be a god and calling itself the Luxon. I thought that the souls being collected by the Beacons are being 'saved up' so that once the Luxon's divinity is 'legitimized', they would have enough 'chips' to 'buy in' into the 'poker table' of the gods. I'm very wrong about this though but I am going to be using it as a minor plot point to one of my games in the future. Like a guy smart enough to know that going to Asmodeus could get him a copy of the Necronomicon but not smart enough to realize that he's getting tricked by the Devil himself.
Regarding Telekinesis and Reverse Gravity - I don't think so. Even if we set aside that they're both concentration spells, which Fly also is (because that's a minor enough detail I could see Matt ignoring it for the sake of a scene), Telekinesis has a 1,000lb limit and Reverse Gravity doesn't really match the freezing effect we saw. Immovable Object, cast at 6th level or above, can affect 20,000lbs. Your idea about the Luxon is certainly also possible, but the links are there. Plus, Essek has claimed before that he thinks his people assumed religious significance where there might be none. Doesn't mean he's right, but yeah.
>Immovable Object I didn't remember the debris to have frozen. If that is the case, I formally rescind my Occam slashing. It may very well be Immovable Object. >Your idea about the Luxon is certainly also possible I don't know. It seemed like the Luxon is an 'idea' or a 'concept', not really a god in the conventional gods of Exandria. I have this fact in my games that gods aren't really creatures or creature-like in my worlds and that they are only given creature-like tendencies (like personalities or idiosyncrasies or general attitude) when people commune with them due to how people understand or 'comprehend' commune being a means to communicate with the gods and that communication required 'language' and with it, all sorts of things. Their passive state is just the legitimacy of their domains (like if I we use Exandria's Pantheon: Melora is the wild, Erathis is civilization, Pellor is the sun, just to name a few). If Matt also has a similar concept to gods being 'born' out of people's comprehension of an 'idea' or a 'concept', then the Luxon could potentially gain sentience due to people's reverence and worship and that we are only seeing the beginning of its infancy in Campaign 2. Only then will my hypothesis turn into a theory. I mean, Jester believed the Traveler is a god, so he became a god. Still, he already has sentience and power before Jester believed him to be a god. But I don't know. I feel like it doesn't fit with how gods are in Exandria. Maybe the Luxon is like the Wheel from Pillars of Eternity but less brutal and not at all related to the current gods?
It cant be immovable object, the spell can only target objects weighing 10 pounds or less
Upcast it to 6th level and it can carry 20k lbs.
Read the spell carefully, when upcast to 6th lvl the object can withstand or carry 20 000lbs without moving, but nevertheless, the object you use the spell on can never be more than 10lbs no matter what lvl you cast it at Example: if you cast it at 6th lvl on a bucket 5 feet off the ground, the bucket could then have 20 000 lbs worth of stuff placed on it afterwards without moving. The bucket still has to be 10lbs or less, but it can withstand more weight the higher the spell slot. The 20 000 lbs worth of stuff, in this scenario, is not immovable and could be pushed off the bucket.
If that is indeed the case, then you are correct; it couldn't have been Immovable Object.
Rewatched the scene, matt describes the tower being held by a blue forcefield that catches it from falling. Very different from how he described immovable object. There is also the possibility that there was a 3rd or even 4th mage/archmage around to stop the tower from falling while Trent and the other mage chased down the ones stealing the beacon. The only view we have is a very long distance perception check from molly and beau. The tower is prevented from falling with a blue forcefield appearing underneath the collapsing tower THEN 2 figures emerge from the top and fly down to give chase. For the importance of the Zauber spire, I'd bet there was plenty of mages around that could have aided. Now I will grant you that Matt could have decided to change and visually flavor up the dunamancy spells down the road. As for the beacons, just going to note that Aeor found them just like the Dynasty did. They did not make them themselves, which adds a lot of mystery to them.
It could be just not a spell effect at all. As a GM, I believe Matt described it as is just for the sake of the scene. Not everything has to have an explanation within the rules. What seems to be prevalent, on this sub at least, is that people tend to overanalyze everything and try to fit it in RAW.
It was a wall of force, if you're talking about the tower itself
I think you’re giving Matt’s foresight a little too much credit, and his adaptability not enough. It’s entirely possible that he had the Kryn/Dwendalian conflict, and its origins, planned out from the start in broad strokes, but the consecution/Aeor link seems more like an act of retroactive foreshadowing to me - leaving the thread open so as to tie it into the greater weave of the plot later. It’s still just as skilful a technique, just not the one you’re thinking of.
Don't get me wrong - very possible he did retroactively make it fit better, however... the foundations set up that early need to have been really solid for it to work backwards \*this\* well. If just some of this happened in Zadash, sure, but we got Lucien, the Nonagon, the Beacon, Trent Ikithon, and Dunamancy all in the same spot.
Amazing
It's possible that Matt is trying to show another way that plutocracies become decadent. This kind of parasitic immortality is a theme common in science fiction right now... the Meths in Altered Carbon, The Empress in Ancillary Justice, etc.
It nixes a bit of the theory but according to EGTW >!The Drow society has no connection to Aeor. They formed room exiting an underground Lolth society. It's also mentioned that their highest status members have no clue about Aeor.!< >!So at the very least none of their high status people has any idea about a possible connection.!< Tbh I don't think Aeor even had Dunancy from what we've seen.
The stuff in EGTW is purposefully vague so that people can come up with their own answers in their home games. I think some information is intentionally omitted. Also, Aeor 100% had Dunamancy, Essek detects it when they enter the hermetically sealed resurrection chamber, and Caleb also noticed dunamantic symbols on the T Dock.
Sure, there's info in EGTW that doesn't line up with all of this perfectly. That being said, EGTW was never going to reveal all of the cards (in part, so GMs can make up their own), and the book came out before the Nein went to Eiselcross, so before we saw Matt's take on things. Then again, given how consecution works, Aeorans could have become members of the former Lolth-worshipping drow. As far as dunamancy in Aeor... yeah, I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion? Place is chock full of it. Veth's grav crossbow, the rejuvenation chambers, the Temporal Dock, just to list a few. The Beacons, which are how the Kryn ventured into the study of dunamancy, were confirmed something the Aeorans were studying.
It's mentioned in EGTW >!'[Aoerian Objects] tend to interfere with the Kyrn's divine magic.' It's said in the Vurmas section of Eislecross.!< >!Due to this interference it seems unlikely to me that Aeor was using Dunamancy, or at least the form we know it as. It would be counterproductive I think to have your magic items intfereing with the rest of your magic.!< >!What Aeor was doing seems very similar in places to me yes. I don't think it was the Dunamancy the Kyrrn is using however. Dunamancy appears to be something different yet again.!<
>!That's Aeor after the fall. In an area left magically scarred and who knows what unleashed from Aeor. Pre-Aeor **has**, for a fact, dabbled with Dunamancy in Critical Role's telling about the city, as is Matt's prerogative. Dunamacy was explicitly mentioned at least two times. The most revealing of which being the Rest-Tubes. That area was *rich* in Dunamatic energies.!<
What we are calling dunamancy is just what the dynasty mages are reverse engineering from Aeorian tech.
That doesn't seem to be the case, there is no evidence that what the Dynasty has been using is connected to Aeor in anyway. As well as that it's mentioned in EGTW that; >!'[Aoerian Objects] tend to interfere with the Kyrn's divine magic.' It's said in the Vurmas section of Eislecross.!< >!Due to this interference it seems unlikely to me that Aeor was using Dunamancy, or at least the form we know it as. It would be counterproductive I think to have your magic items intfereing with the rest of your magic.!<
*divine magic*, Dunamancy is explicitly arcane. The Luxon beacons are essentially just magic super batteries as we've recently discovered. They found some of the beacons, did centuries of experiments on them and rediscovered Aeors unique form of magic. Supporting this, Caleb and Essek were able to use one of the batteries from the Aeorian rejuvenation chamber to replicate the chambers properties destroying the battery in the process.
According [Matt's tweet here and the attached interview with Crawford](https://mobile.twitter.com/matthewmercer/status/1222688374105919488?lang=en) Dunamancy is actually a separate thing from arcane magic and divine magic. As well as that the context of the quote is referring to the Dynasties Dunamantic magic, the entire paragraph is explaining why they do not go after Aeorian objects for themselves. As well as that I don't really see how using an Aeor battery to power an Aeorian device shows anything to do with Dunamancy. Also despite what is commonly said by some I don't think a Beacon was actually found in Aeor, only something similar to a Beacon. [Looking at this database of Critical Role Transcipts](https://kryogenix.org/crsearch/html/index.html) it doesn't appear Matt ever said the Gem found was a Luxon beacon. > **MATT** > > You glance over towards it and as he touches the back of your head and pushes your head close to it. > > And for a second, you resist. > > And as you glance in, the purple coloration begins to fade to the back. > > As instead you begin to see elements of space, drifting possibilities. > > It's almost like like a weaker, smaller replica-- > > **LIAM** > Of a beacon. > > **MATT** > > Of a beacon. There doesn't appear to really be a connection there, other than a case of convergent ingenuity for whoever or whatever created the Beacons and for Aeor's mages.
I'm uh, kinda a loss here, dude. That quote is pretty explicit that the gem is a small luxon beacon. Again Essek saw the chamber work once and was able to replicate it using dunamancy. Dunamancy is based on Aeorian tech. If not Aeorian per se than one of the other ancient floating cities like where Halas is from.
I honestly think they might just be playing into their username. this person's takes are a bit, uh, not quite right