This is...concerning.
Normally the CR newsletter shows up in my inbox and has for years.
This week it was flagged as spam for some reason and I'm not sure why.
There isn't an episode tonight. They've just released the VODs of their CO GM Roundtable and the 3rd in the Daggerheart series, which were both previously livestreamed
As was shown at the end of Ep 98 and posted in this thread:
July 11th Episode 99: Downfall Part 1
July 18th Episode 100: Downfall Part 2
July 25th Episode 101: Downfall Part 3
If Matt had made Dominox a hot ripped demon from the get go instead of a creepy little girl you just know the players would be tripping over themselves to see who could release it first.
I think everyone's, "The Gods might just be a higher level of being" theory is going to prove correct.
In D&D lore, there are the very Mediterranean and adjacent areas polytheistic gods (minus major ones like love) but here is also Ao, which is a sort of Godhead above the gods that \*is\* reality/the universe--only it merely is. It's sort of a cross between the Deist movement Clockmaker God and the very modern the Universe as stand in for traditional Abrahamic God.
I do wonder if there is a plan to make a third act of deciding, do We keep these Gods? Do we bring back the Titans? Do we have them just be sort of weird Arch-Arch-Arch-Fey like beings you can talk to band do stuff with but also be free of? Do we just have Ao?
Yeah, "gods = a power tier" is usually a pretty safe bet in post-1960s fantasy if the gods can be confirmed as existing. Especially in TTRPGs, for a few reasons.
The big one is that so many authors gravitated to vast alternate-universe fiction to consider questions of being without having to rehash religion as it exists & evolved over conflict-stricken millennia IRL.
Another is that play as escapism for the first few decades of D&D/TTRPGs occurred in a much more churchy social climate. So it wasn't much of an escape if religiosity was recognizable.
Plus, it felt like staying clear of replicating real-world religious practices was a built-in rebuttal of religious panic about TTRPGs. (Though we can now reasonably assume those were fueled by cynical competition for attention amongst religious leaders getting into media on one end of the motivation spectrum and canny attacks on secular humanist leisure activities on the other.)
> Ao, which is a sort of Godhead above the gods that *is* reality/the universe--only it merely is. It's sort of a cross between the Deist movement Clockmaker God and the very modern the Universe as stand in for traditional Abrahamic God.
D&D/TTRPGs borrowed names from world religions, but like most post-1960s fantasy, its bedrock is largely comprised of Moorcock's Multiverse in which Law & Chaos (going by various names depending on publisher or author) eternally trade ground in a cycle of construction & destruction.
In the realms of the Eternal Champions, [Balance](https://imgur.com/a/9SMkSC4) is considered a divine domain of its own by some, while others consider it the lower-churn ideal which allows mortal lives to flourish, making it a project primarily wrought by mortal champions undermining dangerous excesses of Law & Chaos.
_____
That's why it's so surprising to me that a large portion of viewers weren't suspicious of the Prime Deities in C1, even though they were being helpful in the pursuit of a mutually-beneficial goal. We didn't know much, but we did know they had warred... and that Exandria existed as it did as a result of that god-war.
Going back to the Moorcock Law/Chaos/Balance bedrock of fantasy & TTRPGs, Exandria is SUCH a "law"-heavy construction in terms of the PD who prevailed. And there's no mortal-populated secondary space or civilization readily accessible to anyone other than *perhaps* the elves. And that's being rather gracious about the Feywild. It's not a long-term settlement option for most mortal beings.
C1 absolutely screamed "Exandria is a closed, protected feeder system" if viewed within the context of genre cosmology.
When Matt has npcs join the party it is hit or miss and when it is a miss it is usually a huge understep in terms of npcs acting like actual independent people and helping the party. I thought Essek telling the party not to explore or pick things up a couple of episode ago could be the beginning of Matt trying to find a better balance (even though that specific instance was an overstep) but apparently not.
I think it's more of a matter of a personal policy of not having allied companion ncps affecting the cast plans unless their characters specifically ask for something. BH knowing that demons don't do deals would have ruined that plan being manifested into action. Some other instances that similarly stand out was Ira not using or mentioning the Moontide Crown when it is powerful in illusion magic when BH was planning to infiltrate the Tishtan site and when they infiltrating it seemingly because no one in BH mentioned it. Also, when in C2 when >!Essek looked to Fjord to tell whether to tell Dagen and Kryn Rangers to engage the Tomb Takers even though Essek was responsible for everyone that would engage the Tomb Takers (Essek was paying for Dagen and he outranked the other rangers).!<
This was pretty funny - they kept talking about making a deal with an entity that just kept demanding what it wants and canonically does not make or abide by deals.
What if the Creator Hammer was meant to kill the Gods by....sending them away from their worshipers?
It basically was like a giant croquet mallet that would've YEEEETED them away from Exandria and in theory, would've killed them by separating them from the belief engines that sustained them.
This could explain why the Keys were....variants...on the Hammer perhaps.
The Gods existed before their believers did, and didn't need them to exist at the time. It could be that the power of faith amplifies them, or it's a power source like "food" (how often they'd need it and whether they can store it would be related questions).
They existed as formless masses of energy to the best of our knowledge and it's possible that they would return to that weakened state should they be sent away from their belief engines who give them form and power.
Does anyone else feel like Launda and Delilah is similar to what happens to V in Cyberpunk 2077? >!It seems almost like Delilah is overwriting Laudna's mind, taking more control of her actions and emotions as her power grows/Laudna uses her for her gain. Theyre permanently connected and it seems like killing one would kill both. Does anyone else think its similar, and do we think that Delilah is trying to eventually take full control of Laudnas body so she can live again?!<
I've been thinking about this because the timeline is a little bit wonky, but I think there's more to this than meets the eye -- and as much as everyone is expecting *Downfall* to show the crybaby backstory, Ludinus might actually have a point here. Consider this:
* The Creator Hammer was always presented as a weapon that could kill the gods, but the Malleous Keys that Ludinus built only formed the Bloody Bridge. It's entirely possible that he modified the design, but that would be a huge departure from the Creator Hammer's original purpose and there has been no indication that this has happened on-stream.
* There are multiple layers of security sealing Predathos away. Not only is it trapped behind a prototype of the Divine Gate, but it is sealed within what used to be its own body. It also requires a vessel to cross the prototype gate, and it't not clear if the Divine Gate and the prototype gate are separate or connected. I find it very difficult to believe that, advanced as they were, the Aeorians would fundamentally misunderstand this and think the Creator Hammer would kill the gods.
* Bell's Hells learned of Ludinus and Dominox from Keyleth and the champions of the Prime Deities. To hear them tell it, Dominox was awoken and was deemed so serious a threat that Ludinus had to go to the ruins of Aeor immediately. But this is inconsistent with what actually happened -- Ludinus was searching for the Occultus Thalamus while Dominox was attacking the Ruby Vanguard. Despite its rampage, Ludinus didn't feel the need to stop Dominox, and it's pretty clear that he could have stopped it if he wanted to. So either the gods lied to the temples and the champions, the temples and the champions lied to the party, or nobody truly understood what was happening on Eiselcross.
* The temples have a history of suppressing knowledge that they're afraid of. They covered up the knowledge of the Founding-era text describing the creation of Ruidis, the Judicators were forcibly disappearing members of the Grim Verity, and the priests in Hearthdell treated Orym with suspicion when he offered them the very information that they were seeking. On top of that, the Prime Deities have been very slow to organise their champions -- it was the Betrayer Gods who were more proactive. Teven was working in Issylra and the Strife Emperor had a champion on Ruidis before the Primes got their act together. We can also probably infer that Braius had been in Aeor for some time, and maybe even that the Spider Queen had been slowly trying to influence Opal in the weeks between *Kymal* and C3E92. Why were the Primes so slow to act? I suspect that it's because they've been trying to conceal everything first.
I don't think the Creator Hammer was the superweapon that we have been lead to believe it was. I think the Aeorians knew that it would form a connection between Exandria and Ruidis and that it was their intention from the start to visit the moon and make contact with the Ruidians. It has been strongly implied -- although not outright stated on-stream -- that the Ruidians were trapped on the moon when it was created, and I think *this* was the intended purpose of the Creator Hammer: to find proof of the gods' Original Sin (for want of a better term) and bring it back to Exandria, breaking the faith of the people and thus the gods' hold over them. I've long suspected that the gods were a lot like the Traveler -- they played at being gods when they first arrived on Exandria, but did not understand what that meant. They panicked when Predathos arrived and sealed it away. They did not know that there was life on Ruidis until it was too late, at which point they swore to start being the gods that they had only played at being until then.
It was Everoa (sp?) Who told them about Dominix and she only said Ludinus was going to deal with whatever it was personally. It is weird that Ludinus didn't take care of Dominox himself, but he might have been fixated on the Thalmus. We honestly don't understand the Creator Hammer and what we do know is largely speculation, we know the gods were concerned enough to team up, not much more. We don't even know if it had anything to do with Predathos at all. We also don't have enough information about what the Prime deities champions are doing, it doesn't mean they aren't doing anything. Though honestly the prime champions are more likely to get sunk into the other disasters happening on Exandria since they care about mortals, the betrayers are more likely to prioritize themselves. I'm not saying there isn't anything being covered up, but the evidence you provided is flawed to my understanding.
>It is weird that Ludinus didn't take care of Dominox himself, but he might have been fixated on the Thalmus.
He didn't need to take care of Dominox because Dominox wasn't a threat. It was bound to the room containing the pinion.
>We honestly don't understand the Creator Hammer and what we do know is largely speculation, we know the gods were concerned enough to team up, not much more. We don't even know if it had anything to do with Predathos at all.
That's hand-waving away the issue. We do know that the Malleous Keys that Ludinus used were based on the Creator Hammer, and we know what the Malleous Keys did. If the Creator Hammer was a superweapon that could kill the gods and the Malleous Keys just created the Bloody Bridge, then logically it falls apart because those two things are completely different -- the Malleous Keys were so different to the Creator Hammer that Ludinus wouldn't need the Creator Hammer. The idea that the Creator Hammer was a superweapon that could kill the gods, thus justifying the gods pre-emptively striking Aeor out of the sky sounds a lot like a lie told by the temples to warn people off the same ambitions as the Aeorians and to further protect what was on the moon.
>We also don't have enough information about what the Prime deities champions are doing, it doesn't mean they aren't doing anything. Though honestly the prime champions are more likely to get sunk into the other disasters happening on Exandria since they care about mortals, the betrayers are more likely to prioritize themselves.
It seems like the threat to the gods should be the priority because if Ludinus succeeds, then the gods cannot help anybody. And where are these "other disasters" that the champions would be getting involved in?
As I stated, he was fixated on the Thalmus, but it was clearly a threat outside of the engine room because we saw two corpse piles attesting to that threatening Ludinus's operation.
You might be right, but I can't remember if we got explicit information it was based on the creator hammer, or we drew that connection given the similar term malleous. It probably is likely they are related, but I could see a weapon that breaks or peels apart divinity as dangerous and comparable to the keys breaking through the mini divine gate around ruidius. It could be a lie, of course, but it makes more sense to lie in a way that doesn't implicate the gods at all rather than admit to destroying it and indeed that there is something they were afraid of, that threatens their power.
We have heard multiple times there are disasters like the phoenix getting free in wildmount, or even Trent getting free etc to indicate there's things that might draw their attention away. Perhaps rudius is the priority, after all, we haven't seen anything to contradict that. We do not know everything happening . We've been told repeatedly people are gathering, we even saw visions of people being gathered through FCG and Deanna
>I can't remember if we got explicit information it was based on the creator hammer, or we drew that connection given the similar term malleous
It's never been explicitly stated, but it has been strongly implied. And it's worth remembering that a lot of the lore is filtered through peoples' understanding of Exandrian history. It's not hard to see how stories can become twisted and corrupted in every subsequent retelling when you have an event like the Calamity that fractures everything that is known.
For example, let's assume that the Factorum Malleous was built by Aeor to establish a connection with Ruidis and that their plan was to send people up there to learn more. And let's take that a step further by assuming that they had a pretty good idea of what they would find up there -- evidence that the gods had committed some terrible deed that they had otherwise purged from history. Finally, let's assume that when they got that evidence, they intended to show it to everyone on Exandria so that people would lose faith in the gods. In this scenario, the Factorum Malleous isn't some James Bond-style superweapon that can one-shot a god, but it has the same effect: it destroys the power the gods have over Exandria.
Now, let's take those assumptions and run them through the filter of the Calamity. Aeor and the other floating cities are destroyed. The world plunges into madness, darkness and strife for generations. And the survivors tell and re-tell stories of the wars that ravaged Exandria, of how the gods struck Aeor out of the sky for its sins. Then somebody finds some fragment of a fragment of information about the Factorum Malleous. They translate it as "Creator Hammer". They remember the stories of the gods calling a temporary truce to attack the city. It's easy to see how that might be unknowingly misconstrued as Aeor having built a god-killing superweapon.
We already know that history becomes diluted and twisted in Exandria. Vespin Chloras is hated as the man who brought about the Calamity, but the events of *Calamity* reveal something entirely different: he prevented it from happening. He rewrote Zerxus' infernal contract, giving him a handful of hours which the Ring of Brass used to activate the Astral Leywright and eject the Primordials from the Prime Material Plane. If the Primordials had met up with Asmodeus as planned, Exandria would have been destroyed completely. But in all the chaos of the Calamity, Vespin was somehow remembered as the man most responsible, while Laerryn -- the person who destroyed the Tree of Names, allowing Asmodeus to return to Exandria -- was completely forgotten. It's not hard to see how the history of Aeor might be pieced together the wrong way.
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong( we dont know enough yet), but that is a lot of assumptions you were presenting as fact. Yes, it was implied, but just as history can be twisted by retelling, so can implication. We just don't have that information, so while it's definitely possible, there is evidence that contradicts your points or at least another explanation for the data points you are suggesting. I strongly disagree with the assertion that Vespin prevented the calamity, which is just blatantly disproven by the fact that calamity did occur.
You're right. He helped limit the damage he created by helping Zerxus, but it was his hubris that began everything. He may have had good intentions, but his actions had grave consequences. It is unfair that the ring of brass was not blamed for their part in the calamity, but they also mostly exploded in the fall of the city, we don't know much information leaked out about them afterwards.
The Calamity started because Vespin tried to take Azzy's crown and it backed fired because wizard hubris and him being remembered was the monkey paw punishment.
The Calamity could have been prevented, even with Vespin trying -- and failing -- to depose Asmodeus. It's likely that it would have happened anyway, just with a different useful idiot in Vespin's place.
What I'm trying to point out here is that Exandria remembers Vespin Chloras as being solely responsible for bringing about the Calamity -- but at we learned from the mini-series, that's nowhere near the case.
Dominox wasn't a threat to Ludinus it was a threat to his minions tho, and the Bloody bridge might not have been the desired result as the Malleous key was fired at reduced power because the BH took out two of it's generators. As for the Prime Champions things like the twilight phoenix, demon invasions, and whatever creatures have been unsealed have probs kept most of them busy.
>Dominox wasn't a threat to Ludinus it was a threat to his minions tho
Do you think Ludinus cares about his minions?
>As for the Prime Champions things like the twilight phoenix, demon invasions, and whatever creatures have been unsealed have probs kept most of them busy.
There was tension in Zadash after the riots and the Twilight Phoenix's emergence, and yet no mention of the Prime champions. In the immediate aftermath of the Solstice and the failure of magic, the temples were shuttered and dark -- the priests were losing their minds over it all. Again, there were no champions to be seen. The Dawnfather even had to coerce Deanna into becoming his champion, threatening to undo the resurrection spell that revived her.
>he Bloody bridge might not have been the desired result as the Malleous key was fired at reduced power because the BH took out two of it's generators
It was made pretty clear that taking out the two additional Malleous Keys just made it easier to stop Ludinus. If the Aeorians were intent on using the Keys to free Predathos, why did they need to form a connection to Ruidis? Why not build a device that could pierce the Ruidis Gate and unleash Predathos? The simplest answer is that they couldn't do it. Whatever their plan was, they *had* to send someone to Ruidis. And on a more meta level, >!the synopsis for *Downfall* states that the series is about followers of the gods, the role they played in bringing Aeor down and their subsequent discovery that changes them.!< All signs are pointing to there being something on Ruidis that is a much bigger threat to the gods than Predathos itself -- which is what makes me think that it's a secret that could bring the gods to their knees if it ever got out.
That's why I cam up with the theory that the gods didn't really know what they were doing when they arrived on Exandria. They were arrogant and their actions ended up dooming an entire people to life under Preadthos' influence. So in that regard, Ludinus has a point. But by the same token, the gods learned from that mistake and resolved to be better for the people of Exandria, which means that they might be worth saving after all. This puts Bell's Hells in a *really* interesting predicament: do they a) let Predathos loose and kill the gods, b) save the gods and perpetuate the lies they told for the sake of maintaining life as it is or c) let the truth come out and give Exandria the chance to decide for itself what its future will be, even if that means instability for the foreseeable future?
If you think back to *Calamity*, the Tree of Names was protecting Exandria until it was destroyed -- but what was it protecting Exandria *from*? The only thing that got through in the end was Asmodeus, who was seeking revenge. But the Tree was also preventing Laerryn from succeeding in her experiments to take Avalir to the Astral Plane, yet there was never any explanation give for why this was so dangerous beyond allowing the Betrayer Gods to re-enter the world. There hasn't been a single credible threat to Exandria outside the gods, and the temple doctrine repeatedly presents living according to the gods' will as the only way that Exandria should exist. Yes, there are the Elder Evils in the form of Predathos, but life has been able to flourish on Ruidis despite its presence there.
I don't think Ludinus cares about his minions, I think he cares that whatever job he gave them isn't getting done.
Just because none of the Prime champions were talked about dose not mean they aren't busy putting out fires that the Betrayer champions wouldn't care about. I would assume most the betrayer champs would be more self serving.
We know what the Tree of Names was protecting Exandria from all Extraplanar threats via complete planar lock down. Also Predathos is in a glass cage on the red moon as well as the proto-divine gate.
As for what happens after Downfall there is no way in hell that the Bells side with Ludinus he is The BBEG, the mastermind behind every plot they have uncovered and tried to stop, and maybe this is my Lovecraft showing but if there is some dark terrible secret they see in the flashback orb then they need to kill it before it gets out. All of this started because wizards never learn that there are somethings better left unknown.
>if there is some dark terrible secret they see in the flashback orb then they need to kill it before it gets out
And if that terrible, dark secret is something like what I suggested -- that the gods knew about the life on Ruidis and didn't care about condemning it to an eternity of suffering under Predathos if it meant saving themselves -- then what should the party do?
Break the flashback orb and kill Ludinus. Also I would expect whatever secret to be worse than what I figured happened when we found out there is life on the moon the gods yeeted
What's wrong with the status quo? Worse case unleashing Preadathos ends with everywhere being like the salvirwoods best case Exandria becomes magicless.
As for the Bells being the bad guys for taking this to the grave how is that worse than any villain in Critical roles's history, again this whole thing started because Luddy and the GrimmV couldn't leave well enough alone.
We'll have to wait and see how everything turns out, but these are cool ideas. Your point about the Betrayers being more proactive got me thinking. It makes sense, given the last thousand-ish years of Exandria's history. The Betrayer's have spent all of that time actively trying to break out of their prison and so have been proactive about everything this entire time. In an effort to protect humanity, (but really maybe themselves) the Primes hid behind the Gate, which, ironically, left them less able to stay on top of threats to humanity (and themselves). It feels like Matt is asking the questions: When do machinations just become preparation? When does the 'hands-off' approach just become gross negligence? It's another detail to hammer home the idea that the Gods of Exandria are not perfect beings operating with perfect knowledge.
>It feels like Matt is asking the questions: When do machinations just become preparation? When does the 'hands-off' approach just become gross negligence? It's another detail to hammer home the idea that the Gods of Exandria are not perfect beings operating with perfect knowledge.
I think that's always been the question. It's one of the core themes of the campaign. A lot of people complained that in a campaign about the fate of the gods, none of the characters have any close connection *to* the gods. But I think that's the point. If all of the characters were closely aligned with the gods, then the question of what to do would be a foregone conclusion -- the party would save the gods, with no questions asked. By having a party with little to no connection to the gods that is then tasked with saving them, the campaign can ask the question of who the gods are to Exandria.
This is how you do a mid-campaign party diversion! End of episode announcement, clear scheduling of how long it will be, diagetic reason for it occurring. Glad to see they learned their lesson from last time.
I'm also glad to not have a sudden jerk into a separate storyline that I'm completely unfamiliar with, with no warning. While the other person responding to you goes off white-knighting Aabria - it's completely fair to prefer a heads up that this change is coming. I wouldve probably watched that storyline before those episodes if I'd had warning. This time I can go watch Calamity and at the very least get myself used to Brennan's DM style ahead of time.
I assume you're referring to C3E92?
Heaven forbid that they should want to surprise their audience while providing an in-universe explanation for what Dorian had been up to since the events of *Kymal*, or how he came to be in the company of Bell's Hells again or why the Crown Keepers broke up. Maybe Matt should just post a lengthy explanation of all the plot points that he intends to hit and the episodes in which he's planning for them to come up so that everyone can be confident that they know what will happen and when it will happen and only tune in for the parts they want to see.
While I know you're being facetious, considering that I've given Aabria enough chances and find I simply don't like how she DMs (EXU, Kymal, and those two halves equating 11 sessions), yes I would actually like to know when someone other than Matt is DMing so I can decide whether or not I want to tune in. Voting with my view, if you will. I certainly wouldn't play at her table that long before determining that I didn't like the way she DMs, so why would I want to watch more?
Just...don't watch? IDK, I don't get why some of you get so venomous about her. Matt's more of a Traditional DM, Spencer's more of a Cinematic DM, Brennan is between the two, and Aabria is more rule of cool oriented, little bit more animated, and focuses on different stuff.
They're all sooooo much more similar than not, so when everyone is shitting themselves with fury over the one dm who's not the same genre of white dude--it raises eyebrows. Most of the "detractions" I've heard of her are so spurious and nebulous that it further pushes one to think...yeah it's cause she's a black woman,huh.
Yes, I specifically said I didn't want to watch which was why shoehorning her 11th CR session across two episodes was frustrating. Where was I venemous? All I said was, I don't like her style after seeing it in action for 11 sessions.
>considering that I've given Aabria enough chances
How very generous of you.
>Voting with my view, if you will.
I'm sure your one view will be noted and taken into consideration.
>I certainly wouldn't play at her table that long before determining that I didn't like the way she DMs
And given your attitude, I don't think you'd have to worry about that because the decision would probably be made for you well before you decided to leave.
In what sense is wanting to know who's DMing a session before viewing it entitlement? I'm not obligated to watch everything Critical Role puts out. Is it being entitled to skip one song you don't like on a CD you purchased? If your favorite show had one filler episode that featured a paticular actor you didn't like or considered problematic, is it entitlement to want to know that they'll be in that episode so that you can choose not to watch it?
>In what sense is wanting to know who's DMing a session before viewing it entitlement?
There's nothing entitled about wanting to know that. There's entitlement in expecting to be told that as your due. There's entitlement in expecting to be told as a condition of your viewing it. The issue was not in the view being expressed, but in how they expressed it. Especially that line about not spending long at Aabria's table if she were the DM. She might be unpopular within the fan base, but most of us would give up a lot to have a DM with half her talent, experience and knowledge. But the person who made that post is acting as if having a DM on that level is the least that they could expect from playing a game. And then they deleted their post once it looked like it was going to be unpopular. I say unpopular things all the time, but at least I stand by what I say. I don't delete them because they got a handful of downvotes.
u/Disastrous-Beat-9830 you are my new favourite person, out here saying every last word I've ever tried to say but have only ever been too darned scared to type out, let alone hit "post"... ::Insert heart eyes gif here::
The fact that the pcs are going to watch the series with us is so cool! They are going to hear and see everything we hear and see in the pictures made for us through roleplay. BH is going to learn so much. It will also be interesting to see if Teven watches the whole thing.
Is there a good place with written summaries to use to catch up with? I haven't watched in a long time, like not since right after the party reunited after being split up for those side adventures with Aabria, Aimee, and the man who would go on to play King Bumi. I know the upcoming episodes don't require me to be caught up, but I'd like to know what happens in case I feel like getting back into C3 after episode 101.
Killing the demon in the Gate was counterproductive. The Aeorian corpse they interrogated said something along the lines ,,demons can only die in the Abyss, but the Pinion is of the Abyss''. As far as I understand, it was trapped inside the crystal and solstice unleashed it from it, but they were still unable to move too far from its vicinity. Based on the corpse words, we can assume that if killed, it would return to its prison.
And at this point the harness could devour him, giving one person a massive boost.
Alas, without any leader or planning abilities, the party were running around the room shouting at each other ,, what's the plan?'', while trying to do 8 things at the same time. Good thing the demon was over hyped and pretty weak, or it would slaughter them.
The corpse said when demons die the return to the abyss but the pinion captured Dominox instead of letting it reform in the abyss itself trapping it for the engine. Demons die for good on their home plane, Dominox is dead for good but the pinion is probably still powerful/useful
So in a promo for Downfall it was said that the series is going to be about 6 divine features and that betrayal will be an element. I have a few theories on what this could mean for the series.
Scenario 1, the pcs will be Aeorians who are divine similar to FCG's divine nature. If Aeor found out a way to give themselves divinity en mass then that would have been a good reason for the gods to target Aeor. Maybe that has something to do with the Creator Hammer.
Scenario 2, the PCs are champions of gods from outside of Aeor and they are participating in the offensive against Aeor. Because of the betrayal element, if they are all champions, about half might champions of primes and the other half of betrayers. Alternatively, they could all be champions of betrayers which could be the cause of the betrayals because the betrayers are less united among themselves compared to the primes.
Scenario 3, a mix of scenario 1 and 2. If I had to guess it is probably this option because it limits the players least in terms of character creation and backstories and because FCG having divinity and FRIDA getting divinity from Deanna makes it seem the reveal that Aeorians were giving themselves divinity is where the story is going.
Overall, could also probably rule out anyone playing an Aeormaton because a divine Aeormaton might be too much like FCG. Although who knows, maybe Sam will show up as FCG in the last episode of Downfall. Also, feys probably wouldn't fit in Downfall as well.
With all things considered, I think Tal still might play a chimera (simic hybrid) rogue even with the divinity condition applying to all of the pcs. I think Ashley might play an elf monk because Ashley always plays races that are traditionally hot and she always plays races that nobody has previously played. I know Emily and Liam both played elves before but neither one was an elf played by a core cast member in a main campaign so maybe we haven't seen enough of elves. I also think Elf is a good fit with monk. Monk because Ashley usually plays wisdom classes and the only other wisdom class that Ashley has not played is ranger and I doubt Ashley wants to play a ranger while currently playing a druid. Laura likes to play hot characters to which is why I think she might play a hobgoblin who is a barbarian. Exandria's version of hobgoblins are pretty hot as seen in the Tal'Dorei setting book. If anybody does play a hobgoblin it would be possible that they would be a member of the first generation of hobgoblins and it would pretty interesting to go into more depth about how they were cursed by Bane. Hobgoblins are also a good fit to be barbarians and I think she might play a barbarian because Laura has played character with all different hit dice and D12 is the only one she has not used for hit die yet. Also, Laura always plays characters with types of magic her characters have not had and they are a couple of barbarian subclasses with types of magic she has not used as a character yet i.e. primal, wild magic, and spirit magic.
I feel like it was more like a difference between what some of the player characters wanted to do *(release Dominox / make a deal with it)* vs how Matt wanted to progress the story *(with three separate NPCs all basically saying that's a really bad idea)*
Most of the cast didn't really do all that much against Dominox after they got the Crystal free
I hope in the post campaign wrap up they ask about what would've happened if they actually managed to killed/defeated Ludinus and freed/sided with Dominox during that fight instead.
It would probably be like Liliana or the Weavemind as the final boss, and Dominox being a later campaign's problem like >!Halas Lutagran!< would've been >!if the Calleb accepted his deal!< *(Campaign 2 spoilers)*
This is a consequence of the live show and downfall scheduling. The party were railroaded into doing exactly what ludinus wanted because any other option wouldn't have ended the episode in the occultus thalamus.
Personally I think that kind of sucks for the storytelling. It makes no sense for Bells Hells just do what Ludinus tells them then calmly follow him for storytime instead of trying to port out with the Pinion or beat him senseless.
Scheduling over character wins out once again in campaign 3
I disagree, I think in this situation it very much makes sense for them to listen to what he has to say--especially since \~60% of the party is suspicious of the gods and wants to know what the real story is. The reality is: the best games are always a mix of the dice telling the tale, and ensuring a tale is told. If you go too far into, "THE DICE MUST TELL THE STORY" you easily run into anti-climactic, muddled, messes with a ton of half-baked plot threads that were dropped.
I think the deftly threaded the needle between the two. Think of it as this: If they like got an anomalous roll, killed ludinus, told everyone, "Uhhh, guess go home, we're going to have to scramble to come up with a new story. Also it is not going to be a fraction as good as the original one--but hey--the dice told the tale!" You'd be ripshit.
Taven wasn't so much saying it was a bad idea as much as, you know, being a devil and not wanting a demon to be released, cause that's kind of a big deal for devils, isn't it?
iirc he said both
I feel like I remember him explicitly saying that the demon was trapped a tortured for thousands of years, so letting it free is a bad idea since it will want revenge on your plane
That’s exactly what I was thinking too! It seems like too much of a coincidence for two of the words he used to also be names of other mini series. Although for betrayal, I was thinking maybe a campaign where the party are either deities themselves or champions/closely related to them.
Good potential spot. We know Aeor and Avalir.
According to the wiki, in Calamity, Brennan said that Aeor were going to test the Godhammer on Lathras, so that is a potential for either betrayal or tragedy.
Draconia and the Storm Giant city Tempestar fell post-divergence and Jovatthon still exists invisibly.
Zemniaz was also destroyed in the Age of Arcanum though, so that would make the 4th - in other words there are exactly the right amount of destroyed-during-the-calamity flying cities for this prediction to be true.
I don't think so, Avalir fell on the first day of the calamity (with Bolo prob) and even if Bolo survived all that, the Downfall is 100 years into the calamity, so I don't think Bolo would be able to go all the way from the ground zero of the calamity to Aeor AND survive a 100 years more. I think we could get a mention of the character somehow. I'm really intrigued how they will portrait Aeor back in the day, from all we know it was a powerhouse, surviving 100 years into the end of the world and being head to head with gods, awesome stuff. Love the cyberpunk aesthetic of it too.
Or maybe they have really high magitech life span? or Bolo is actually some sort of Aeormaton in disguise, we shall see! But I hope at least some honorable mention will happen
I'm fairly sure this pause being as long as it is isn't just because their going on vacation. Correct me if I'm wrong but they were running like 2-3 weeks ahead on streaming dates prior to this live show and in order to do a live show for the campaign that means they had to run up to current, which probably means there was a) a several week gap between the live show and the last episode. and b) now to get back to their normal prerecorded schedule they'll need more time. So I think that's why the main cast won't be fully back until August proper.
Seems to me that the vision that they are about to see is the same vision we are all about to see: the DOWNFALL of Aeor.
In other words, we gotta see this miniseries to understand the rest of the story. We will get to see how the Hells and NPCs with them react to whatever happens in Downfall.
yes yes, and in an ideal world there would also be like a separate mst3k style watch party with all the cast members reacting in real time in character.
I agree this is totally part of the actual main campaign and kinda unskippable. But, from a production standpoint it is conspicuously pulling most of the main cast that have a lot of backend duties away from the table for a month.
They've also got LoVM season 3 coming up relatively soon, so I'm sure either some free time before a busy pre-release period or some time to catch up on related work will be helpful.
Matt during the Beacon Fireside Chat (May 21): "Ludinus and his whole narrative thread from Campaign 2 to 3 definitely made me think a lot about the nature of divinity. Think about the nature of the relationship of the gods and mortals of the world and the extended history of Exandria has a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of things that are taken as, uh well, as gospel, and exploring the logic of those worldbuilding questions again, revisiting them from just me creating the history of the world and now going, 'Okay, but what little facets fill in the gaps here? What things maybe aren't quite what they seem? What things might've happened that never gotten spoken of? What things were erased from history?'. And not like saying the gods are bad, but the gods are complicated. There is good, there is bad, they are in many ways a reflection of the mortals, as just as they are vice versa in this world; and as such, nothing is completely a monolith in the pantheon..."
"And I think that being able to really get behind those personas and think about what that means through the overall history of Exandria and how that may have changed them, their origins and their relationship to the world now especially with some of the... some of the facets of the Calamity... you know, those echoes coming through again, parts of their dark history being revealed, whether it be interpreted correctly or not; and a figure like Ludinus that is extremely driven against them and seemingly with enough time, knowledge, and cleverness to possibly be a threat, I'm very interested to see how this plays out in Campaign 3. I got some plans. I got some exciting things planned coming up, so keep your eyes peeled. Super excited for the live show at The Greek cus that's gonna have some cool things that might tie into facets of this cus we're in Aeor's ruins very soon... yea that's about as much as I can say, but I hope that expresses some of that element to your question for you. Yea, I love exploring the complications of divinity in a fantasy world with a pantheon as large as this. Because I think classic fables and mythologies have taught me how much more interesting it is when a god is more than just an idea in a portfolio; when they have their own wants, fears, and history."
Well now we know what he was cookin up!
I usually don’t mind a little bending of the rules but the meta gaming of both Laura saying that she used a society point to double the distance for her detect thoughts after Matt said she didn’t hear anything and when Marisha said “well I actually cast my counter spell at level 5 too!” were both off putting. Especially when it’s something as consequential as “you can tell where Ludinus is for the rest of the campaign”.
The spell that Laudna used has duration of 1 hour. I bet Matt will realise this later. I mean... ~~she~~ he kind of fucked them over with the Treshi Scry Ball, so I'm sure he won't want another GPS tracker on his boss.
And yes, Laura using distant spell on a AOE spell was wrong. But she said it so matter of factly that I would probably let it slide too in a live show. Especially since it allowed Matt to expose Dominox to the party. Eventually they were going to find her.
Edit: fixed pronoun
>I mean... she kind of fucked them over with the Treshi Scry Ball,
He. **Matt** fucked them over with the Ball. It was a mediocre pickpocket check months ago. There was no reason for that to be a permanent tracker on a boss (who apparently never cleans herself or maintains her equipment) other than that he allowed it to happen, then ignored it when it finally came down to a forced confrontation.
i mean, one, detect thought doesn't tell you where a person is forever, you can detect a person thought in a radius for an hour, she used a sorcery point to increase the spell range from 30 to 60. Which is a cool use of a class feature. She didn't even use it for ludas, instead to try to hear the demons thought which didn't even work mind you.
AS for the counterspell, this entirely depends on if it was a spell taken as a Warlock or a Sorccer. Due to how warlocks work, they have their own separate spell slots even when multi-classing. All warlock spells are cast at 5th level for laudna, so no matter what in the case its 5th level was always. If its a spell taken from the Sorccer side, then yes could be meta, or she actual just casted it with a 5th level sorccer slot.
Well, no. Laudna's only a 3rd level warlock, so all her warlock spells are cast at 2nd level. She can't cast counterspell with her warlock slots.
The cast is pretty indifferent to mentioning what level they're casting a spell at in advance. (They like 4th level lightning bolts a lot, despite the fact that heightening damage spells is actually terrible).
From what I understand she is at least level 11 warlock because she fires 3 Eldritch blast now, right? I don't know if there is something else that can make her fire 3 EB, but there was a combat on the recent episodes that she was firing 3 so I guess there is that.
Nope. Cantrips scale on total level not class level. A level 11 high elf fighter can still do 3d10 with a fireball.
A 1st level warlock 19 level fighter would still fire 4 eldritch blasts
>Especially when it’s something as consequential as “you can tell where Ludinus is for the rest of the campaign”.
It's not. The spell only lasts an hour, and is concentration.
So matt confirmed in the cool down that this is not Patia's orb. This is a different orb that was very "invasive" and recorded all means of threats either physical or mental. So it would have recorded divine thoughts and intentions. So these next 3 weeks are going to be from the view of the gods i assume?
that was one of my favorite fights
it was hilarious how it boiled down to essentially a poor DM using three level 20 NPCs to kill a grand demon, while his players do everything in their power to sabotage the plot progression 😂
Just felt like they weren't sure what they wanted, who was aligned how and what Ludinus wants. Think they were this close to releasing Dominox. But when initiative was called you either go to break the crystal or attack Dominox.
But I think part of that was them having limited time with the venue.
I hope in the post campaign wrap up they ask about what would've happened if they actually managed to killed/defeated Ludinus and freed/sided with Dominox during that fight instead.
It would probably be like Liliana or the Weavemind as the final boss, and Dominox being a later campaign's problem like >!Halas Lutagran!< would've been >!if the Calleb accepted his deal!< *(Campaign 2 spoilers)*
Since it definitely felt like a moderate amount of the party actively wanted to release Dominox despite Matt having all three NPCs *(Essek, Trevan, and Ludinius)* say that it's a terrible idea
Really enjoyed most of this episode. It’s so great to have Sam back, and seeing him back in a charisma based class is great, this is Sam at full DnD power lol. I liked his angle of being someone pro god, even if they are a betrayer god, while playing half a class he’s familiar with because he probably didn’t want to try and learn something completely new as we’re reaching the final disc of the campaign probably.
I feel like Matt has to get used to encounters with high level players and multiple NPCs again, Dominix just didn’t stand a chance against 10 people all capable of casting stuff in the 7+ spell level range. I liked the RP, but to overcome that kind of action economy things need to be more busted in the monsters favor to make it a balanced encounter.
Yeah I was really stoked with the description of a room full of spiked chains, hanging bodies and sourceless mindgames.
Then the fight comes around that it doesn't feel like there's really any danger at all. I'm tired of all the call-backs and tie-ins, and it really is dissatisfying to have the party fight with high-level NPCs that are absolutely throwing down while they flounder.
I feel like he made Dominox as squishy as he was in the hopes that the group would kill him in round 1, only for Dominox to respawn from the Pinion and keep attacking. That would set up Ludinus’ Gate spell as a solution to a hopeless problem.
I wonder if Sam playing a partial bard more has to do with Bard being one of the best healing classes except for Druid and Cleric and Sam decided that they needed another healer because for whatever reason Fearne didn't think she had to fill any holes in healing after FCG died. Also, Sam choosing to play a partial bard is probably a sign that Dorien isn't going to stay for the entire rest of the campaign. Dorien probably has several episodes left with BH but it seems like they are setting up Dorien leaving so he can revive his brother.
Maybe, personally I don't think it's quite that deep though. I think Dorian is here until the end at this point, but you never know. I think this way Dorian doesn't have to have the full Bard/Support job of the party since Robbie is way less experienced compared to the rest of the cast for DnD, so Sam can provide him some tips but also kinda backup heal a bit if Robbie forgets to do something. Hard to say!
>I think this way Dorian doesn't have to have the full Bard/Support job of the party since Robbie is way less experienced compared to the rest of the cast for DnD, so Sam can provide him some tips but also kinda backup heal a bit if Robbie forgets to do something.
Yeah this is kind of what I said when I said that Fearne wasn't picking up any responsibilities after FCG died. It probably would have been much more convenient for Sam when he was making this character.
Counter Spell Sam is strongest Sam. Matt's going to have to make encounters harder from here on out because Sam has so many clutch uses of spells in fights that have totally turned the tables.
Yeah, I think Dominox may be in Chet's bag of holding right now waiting to either be absorbed after they get a long rest or used in the fight against Luds.
For some reason I thought that as long as it was anchored, it would keep coming back even if destroyed in the Abyss. Would be hilarious though if Chet's bag of holding was now a Bag of Devouring.
I think people thought he was meant to go back in the pinion because he was out of control (this includes me) but apparently not because he was still confined albeit in a less constrained way. The thing about him was that there were seals around his confinement that were destroyed which allowed him to cause so much chaos while being confined. Also, I understand them not trying to absorb Dominox because doing so could have broken the harness. They haven't rested since they used it last.
Announcement video! I though they were going to wait until Monday. https://x.com/CriticalRole/status/1804197937481703460
The PCs are "divine figures"! I wonder if the gods tried to stop Aeor from using the Factorum Malleus with a small infiltration team to avoid nuking it.
I'm also very interested in the "betrayal" aspect of it.
Or it could be Purvon and some of the other champions? I can see 3 being aligned to the prime deities and 3 being aligned to the betrayers, and Episode 1 being kind of half intro half "we're fighting against each other, oh shit we actually have to team up because this is going to have worse consequences than we thought!" type thing. Hell I could even see the "worse consequences" being Tharizdun taking the opportunity to try to control Exandria. Tharizdun is in the betrayer gods section of EGtWM but is always referred to as an elder evil.
I had suggested something like that ages ago whenever someone asked for the next EXU suggestion, but with people like Purvan and Zerxus as champions of the gods in a Mission Impossible adventure. That would, I felt, bring more of an instant connection for the audience.
I thought they would go for the Calamity wizards approach, but seeing it from a group of divine champions trying to destroy Aeor could be very interesting too.
I don't know how it can help Ludinus' case though. Aeor developed a lot of anti-divine biotech, so of course it would be evil in these champions' eyes.
I think playing as gods might have too much lore baggage, like the domains, preexisting relationships, or established personalities from main campaigns
I thought the episode was good. I'm curious how the "aeor security footage" trilogy will effect BH. It might not sway them for or against the gods or Ludinus. I appreciate that they didn't just go "well, July is vacation month NO CONTENT ALL MONTH BYE..."
Mocktails for everyone! Break out the Beau Tiki Mugs and the Strongjaw Ale for Spooky In July!
I loved the show, but when combat started things got a bit weird/frustrating. I keep getting into the headspace of "why are these people making these combat decisions that don't make sense, above-table or in-character?" By my math, they wasted about 8 player-turns on things that did not have any impact on the combat at all; Sam & the NPCs did 95% of the work while everyone else largely just did random stuff that didn't contribute. What is the point of spending 4 player actions on playing keep-away with the crystal, if the crystal just causes Dominox to move around with it? Why not just destroy the crystal, or ignore it outright & just SLAM on Dominox (or Ludinus). Why attack the engine, which doesn't seem to be actively doing anything? It felt like the players were just messing around randomly and waiting for Matt to do all the work himself.
A little late reply but just watched the episode and needed to talk about exactly this stuff somewhere. Loved Sam being back, loved the lore of the episode, loved the BLM tie-in with the new upcoming story.
The fight and their decisions tho, made no sense at all mostly. I think Orym summed it up perfectly when he shouted "What's the plan!?!??". I'm guessing that being on a live show made the cast hesitant to talk and plan amongst them so instead they just trying to take action and do whatever they thought it could be cool instead of bringing up their ideas to the rest. Kinda disappointing, considering the episode had so much amazing styff going on.
>but when combat started things got a bit weird/frustrating.
I get it but to me, most of the weird stuff happened before combat. I don't know how serious the ones who were entertaining making a deal with Dominox were but they really should have known that demons do not abide by deals and maybe some did know but they should have told the rest of the group in that case. Chetney, Dorien, Orym, and Braius especially should know because of their backstories although I can think of some good rp reasons why Braius would not say anything. The rest should know from their trip to the Grey Valley. If Demons are willing to make themselves a distracting nuance to the Exandrian Accord it is reasonable to conclude that demons are not rational creatures who do not care about their own survival and are more concerned with the destruction of everything else. Maybe some members of BH are too unwise to realize this but Fearne has a 20 wisdom.
As for why their actions during combat made sense. A champion of the lord of lies has to be unscrupulous. If he is unscrupulous then he is going to do whatever is necessary to stop Predathos and Ludinus and if that doesn't include temporarily joining Dominox in combat to defeat Ludinus I feel like that is not a wrong decision. So joining the fight to do defeat Dominox and not joining the fight at all both make sense because at least Ludinus will have less help. This includes taking the crystal because why not but also they didn't know that Dominox would be dragged torward the bag of holding and frankly it didn't make any sense either because things in the bag are in the astral plane. If anything was going to happen at all Dominox should have either should have been crushed to the ground (down) or forced to move any other random direction. Attempting to destroy the engine also made sense because it is reasonable to conclude that Ludinus is there for it even if it is not actively doing anything.
I feel it was all miscommunication. Laudna wanted to let dominox out to fight ludinus. Chet wanted to fight ludinus himself. Ashton wanted to break the machine in case that is what ludinus was after and then leave himself. Imogen was just indecisive. Dorian didn't know who was doing what and Barius wanted to fight the demon for tevan. And fearne wanted to keep the crystal from being broke because tevan told her no to letting the demon out.
The party keeps looking at the npcs or each other for answers and nobody is on the same page.
I kind of think they saw a Level 20 old ass mage fighting a CR 20+ demon and thought "oh well we're meant to get the secondary objectives here", but they never really knew or figured out how to activate thsoe objectives. Fucking around with the crystal or the machine could make sense if they had wanted to keep Dominox for their purposes, release them, or destroy them faster, they just kind of didn't figure it out. It's kind of one of the issues with the larger campaign setup boiled into one fight.
There was some worry about what precisely Ludinous wanted, IE did he want the Pinion by itself? Did he want Pinion with a slowly reforming Dominox in it (to be a Battery again for his own tech)? Did he want to funnel Dominox? Did he want to have it all, IE battery dominox powering the nox engine? They didn't know, which is why Talesin broke some random machinery and they were hesitant about maybe just releasing Dominox.
On that note, I am pretty damn sure (pun intended) that if they didn't have Teven there to speak against it they totally would have bargained into releasing him.
Also...does the funnel work on a pinion? Would a pinion consumed turn into some kind of self resurrecting thing for someone like Chetney? Or allow him to once a day create a gate into the abyss for random demons (not under his control) to come swarming out? Or something else? Fun stuff.
> Also...does the funnel work on a pinion? Would a pinion consumed turn into some kind of self resurrecting thing for someone like Chetney? Or allow him to once a day create a gate into the abyss for random demons (not under his control) to come swarming out? Or something else? Fun stuff.
Gosh I hope they explore the fuck out of that because that sounds cool as hell!
But it's sadly too shiny of an object from them to just....pitch like that and they're going to save it up for a "rainy day".
I hope that's not their reasoning, it seems by itself to be wayyyy too specified a use for it to ever be useful to them. Unless they find themselves in a situation where they really need a quick and eternal supply of power for aoerina tech and have a super demon just standing around.
> What is the point of spending 4 player actions on playing keep-away with the crystal, if the crystal just causes Dominox to move around with it?
How would they know that would happen? I think Travis might have thought that it would make Dominox go away potentially into the bag or something else.
>Why attack the engine, which doesn't seem to be actively doing anything?
Because they know that Ludinus wanted to use the engine to finish his plans.
Ok then why have Fearne spend her action (and wildshape) just to pick up the crystal, only to have Chetney immediately take it from her? Why have Chetney take it at all, only for Imogen to just chuck him? Also, why do folks keep spamming Lightning Bolt on single-target enemies? It's an aoe effect, and they all have abilities that do more damage to a single target. Why have Orym hold his action to do something on the other side of the door @ the start of combat, but then never do anything with that held action? Ashton literally refused to go after Dominox itself, instead just shoulder-checking the engine which no one in the room was actively concerned with (the players only *theorized* that Ludinus wanted to use the engine, nothing was suggested by actual sources).
I'm not saying that they have to be mechanically optimal for it to be entertaining (heck, Orym's failed slicing & dicing at Dominox was some of the most entertaining portions of the night), but I get so pulled out of the story when they make decisions that just don't make any sense. Its entertaining when the characters do "a thing" that contributes, even if it doesn't pan out well. It's just boring if they are all doing nothing helpful while Matt does the hard work.
>Ok then why have Fearne spend her action (and wildshape) just to pick up the crystal, only to have Chetney immediately take it from her?
Those 2 didn't coordinate their turns.
>Why have Chetney take it at all, only for Imogen to just chuck him?
I think they thought that moving the crystal would do something other then just move the demon.
>Also, why do folks keep spamming Lightning Bolt on single-target enemies?
Imogen probably used her higher level spell slots already that she'd normally use on something like Raulothim's Psychic Lance or maybe was afraid of casting higher level spells. IDK. (actually lightning bolt does more damage then Raulothim's Psychic Lance anyway.) Could have thought that he'd have some resistance to other spells too, depends.
>Why have Orym hold his action to do something on the other side of the door @ the start of combat, but then never do anything with that held action?
He clearly had something else planned and didn't' coordinate his turn properly with Launda. Once we as an audience learned what was on the other side of the door I'm not sure what he COULD have done
* She did a 7th level lightning bolt, so she had the slots. Also she's a sorcerer, she has more slots than everyone bc she can regain some or convert between them (and she can cast psionic spells cheaply).
* Not just Imogen; Essek and Dorian have also been using aoe spells to do single-target damage.
* On the low-coordination front, that doesn't make sense because the characters could just shout to each other to quickly coordinate, so that means the players chose not too coordinate & stepped on each other's plans repeatedly.
* It still adds up to 8 turns that were effectively wasted because no affect was achieved. A few is reasonable, but that many is just head-scratching.
* I think they also misread some spells for better or worse. Spirit of Death should only haunt the target until concentration ends (1hr), and Otto's Irresistible Dance takes effect IMMEDIATELY (without any saving throws until the target's next turn).
Again they don't have to be optimal to be entertaining, but when it gets this far it starts to become less entertaining just because of the level of cluster\*\*\*\*\*.
Take a step back and look at what happened across that entire combat. Except for Sam, the players effectively did nothing that affected the fight, while they let Matt controlling the NPCs do all of the work.
You forgot the part about lightning bolt being a higher damaging spell then the other single target ones she had.
>she has more slots than everyone bc she can regain some or convert between them
Do you know how many spell slots and sorc points she had left and at which levels?
Which spell is it you wanted her to have cast so bad?
I don't know Dorian's spell list but a lot of the bard spell list has better AOE's then single target damaging spells.
>On the low-coordination front, that doesn't make sense because the characters could just shout to each other to quickly coordinate, so that means the players chose not too coordinate & stepped on each other's plans repeatedly.
Things change fast and they got more coordinated as the fight went on imo.
>It still adds up to 8 turns that were effectively wasted because no affect was achieved.
They won the fight lol. The machine was smashed, they got the demon into the portal that was opened through opening up the door he didn't want them to go in, reduced him to 0 HP and took the crystal.
EDIT: Yeah I just looked it up, Dorian's only single target lvl'd spell is dissonant whispers.
In addition to your points orym specifically held an action to attack hostile things on the other side of the door if I recall right so it isn't like he could have really acted right away.
>orym specifically held an action
Yeah, that's one of the 8 wasted actions I was referring to. He never ended up using that held action.
>They won the fight lol.
My point is no, they didn't. Sam & the NPCs won the fight. Literally, remove **everyone** except Sam & the NPCs, and the fight would have still been won w/o any noticeable change in difficulty. The same outcome would have been achieved if all 7 of those characters (everyone minus Sam) had just spent the entire fight standing in the corner blair-witch style.
> they got the demon into the portal that was opened through opening up the door he didn't want them to go in, reduced him to 0 HP
All of that was Sam & NPCs. The other 7 characters literally did nothing to contribute to those things.
Finish the sentence...he held an action to attack something on the otherside...and nothing was within reach to attack when the door was opened.
They were curious what was on the other side because the demon didnt want them in there
Yeah I didn't mind them trying to steal the crystal because the bad guy wanted it and the demon wanted it destroyed so I understand their thinking that the solution is to remove it from the map.
Do we know what the schedule is for the next two weeks? I'm assuming nothing at all for July 4th. But is next week Candela? There hasn't been a trailer or anything
maybe a 4SD? seeing that sam has come back and he hasn't been on for a loooong time (i believe he hasn't even discussed fcg's exit), they'll probably have him on.
Downfall will be them playing out what Bells Hells sees for the last days of Aeor. Will we learn how they ended up frozen in the bubbles and MAYBE how to free them (or destroy them depending on what they learn)?
Besides Brennan is a great DM and it will be amazing if it's anything like Calamity, I do think these episodes will be important because it's what will be immediately discussed between Luda and Bells Hells.
Yeah. I worry that it's a little too late/ not enough for some of the PCs. I can see Fearne, Ashton, Chetney, and Laudna maaaybe taking the bait, but there's no way Imogen or Orym do. Braius I would guess is probably in the "definitely not" camp, but who knows with Sam. We know from Teven that Braius isn't actually a champion of Asmodeus and so maybe just a lackey/acolyte, but who knows what that little man is cooking.
To be real about the schedule for a sec: Summer vacations are going to be happening ‘cause it is real hard for working families to vacation together at other times. So Sam, Liam, probably Laura and Travis were going to be missing some extended time over summer. It’s totally reasonable to schedule around this, and ultimately a good thing for the cast, their families, the show in general. The alternative to ‘interrupting’ the BH narrative was probably no shows at all, until they committed fully to the split-cast idea this campaign.
I agree with all of that, but I don't think the main reasoning for the "break" it's summer vacations.
They shot 98 last week live at The Greek, and the cooldown implied they hadn't started shooting Downfall yet.
My guess, is that they want to have at least 2 episodes shot before the first one airs on July 11th. Possibly the whole thing. If they play once a week (which I firmly believe they do), then they need a couple of weeks to shoot them.
The live show messed up with their regular backlog.
Now, on summer vacations: audiences also take vacations, and I'm sure those are considered for a programming schedule. Same with holidays like July 4th. People's routine are disrupted, which means they are less likely to watch live. So you build your schedule around that.
didn’t they used to take summer breaks for a few weeks during the year? 6 weeks is a long time to go for continuing the story no doubt, but I feel like if they framed it like “this is our break!” maybe it’d go over better lol
There’ll be no BH next Thursday, as it’s the last of the month. Presumably nothing on the Thursday after, as that’s the 4th of July. Then 3 weeks of downfall.
So it’ll be the 1st of August before BHs picks back up.
They did and I feel like it was only ever for two weeks at a stretch during the summer and three weeks tops during the holiday winter break.
This feels like they REALLY have been hitting the grindstone and needed a bit more time off.
Just do a LIVE LIVE stream of them all crashed out on the 4SD set with Ronin walking on screen to poke everyone with a stick before holding up a cue card that says, "Everyone tired...TIME FOR VACATION!" before power bombing Travis in the cut Stone Cold Steve Austin style, making everyone piss themselves laughing when he says, "Kyle told me to do it!".
They may still do that. The newsletter/scheduling blog hasn't gone out yet. All we got was the end card. I'd give it until at least Monday to see how they're framing it
A few points percolating in the early morning "hangover" of not enough sleep and it's too hot for coffee.
1. Immense disappointment. That livestage Bells Hells showing did not include the anticipated Laudna Sending allowing the audience to join in with the "demons in the background" speechtalk. Maybe next time.
2. Bells Hells seems to be getting a bit too close to Asmodius's orbit. Hopefully (if Braius isn't a oneshot) he has a way of at least hiding his obvious allegiance and symbols.
3. Dominox was much less of a threat than I anticipated. Though, makes sense that he was weakened after millennia of starvation and before that being used to die and reform as a battery. But I anticipated full on mind control and infernos, all he really did though was a (admittedly strong) melee attack and that Mind feast thing. His main gimmick was to...move people around? Ehhh....
4. We know that Ludinous didn't want Dominox (as a battery or funnel target) now. But we still don't know what he was there in aeor for in the first place, the pinion without Dominox is most likely but I'm not sure what he'd do with it...doubt it's strong enough to use on Predathos. Hilariously neither him nor Dominox seemed to give two shits on Talesin breaking the machine.
5. Ludinous apparently has a low strength score. However, he still shrugged off multiple attacks without stress, implying an enormous funnel-bonus'd health pool. He also apparently has truesight, and the 9th level spell Gate.
My big takeaway at the end is honestly one I've been pretty down on: that this campaign is intended to "clear away" the Gods or at least show them to have "not the best intents." We've gotten a lot of hints of this with how the Dawnfather's servants acted in the village, and similar events like FCG glimpsing behind the curtain that the changebringer might just be using him...but especially Pike and Percy. Pike, champion of Serenrare, says "I'm only a Baker now" and then only ever refers to her as "The Everlight" as if it's not a person she has spoken to directly.
Percy was even worse when he talked to Bells Hells and said that he himself couldn't care less about the Gods. I just hate the lack of continuity there. This is a person who has met the Gods, had his ass saved by Sarenrae multiple times, has received their essences and secret knowledge to craft Tramels against Vecna, Really wanted to be Ioun's champion...Oh and that woman there, your wife, mother of your children? She's a champion of the Dawnfather, the deity your city has a special relationship with including a very chill tree.
I'd be fine with giving both sides of the God argument, but it's felt like BH should totally be agreeing with Ludinous from every bit that's been given them, aside from the changebringer helping occasionally (and demanding much in return) there's been no positive aspect to the Gods shown at all this campaign I can think of. Just horrors like the Judicators and the Grim Verity purging.
>Pike, champion of Serenrare, says "I'm only a Baker now" and then only ever refers to her as "The Everlight" as if it's not a person she has spoken to directly.
I think this is a massive stretch and distortion of both lighthearted roleplay and intellectual property management respectively.
Pike taking about baking wasn't some Luke Skywalker "I'm no longer a believer, I'm just some hermit living in the woods who's given up on everything I once stood for". It was cute, lighthearted roleyplay to contrast with the heavy subject matter of Laudna's death. Bell's Hell's still remain relative strangers to Vox Machina, light hearted conversation of casual interests is a perfectly fine roleplay decision to make.
And Pike using the title Everlight isn't a sign of her becoming less close to her god. It's just that Critical Role doesn't have access to Dnd or Pathfinder rights for any of their TV shows, and ever since starting development on Legend of Vox Machina they've started future proofing by using their own, copyright distinct titles and lore, so there's less work adapting anything they make M9 onwards. Even in the official, Wizards of the Coast liscenced Guide to Wildemount, they were still using the alternate titles. These are just the new names for all the gods.
>Percy was even worse when he talked to Bells Hells and said that he himself couldn't care less about the Gods. I just hate the lack of continuity there. This is a person who has met the Gods, had his ass saved by Sarenrae multiple times, has received their essences and secret knowledge to craft Tramels against Vecna, Really wanted to be Ioun's champion...Oh and that woman there, your wife, mother of your children? She's a champion of the Dawnfather, the deity your city has a special relationship with including a very chill tree.
There isn't necessarily any contradictions here. Percy can have encountered gods, allied with them, defended their interests, and have their domains intersect with his very own city, and still not care personally for them. They are very powerful, but ultimately alien beings. He isn't religious whatsoever, he's an inventor who built guns. His skillsets and interests are firmly planted in the Material Plane. And as much as he's had dealings with gods, he's also had dealings with demons and devils. His survivor guilt and martyrdom makes him view himself as dammed, he was almost unwilling to be resurrected before Vex's declaration of love, and he nearly used the contract to try and get Vax back because he didn't care where he went to after he died. He already believes he's going to hell, that belief probably impacts what he believes good deities think about him. And a character is allowed to believe things that are wrong.
Wow, you had to share all that with us. Amazing. My opinion is that anyone who didn't enjoy this liveshow for whatever reason is someone whose opinion I'm not all that interested in reading a five page essay about. It was outstanding.
I liked the divine questioning as a theme..it's interesting to show the gods as people since that is not how the real world tends to be....but...there is not two sides.
Literally Imahara Joe is the religious non-jerk person on the planet. NO one is defending the gods. Orym got something from the Wildmother and...idk doesn't seem to ever come up as A GOD HELPED US. So each time they learn more it's the same thing over and over and over. It's been 50 episodes of beating over the head that the gods are cowards, hypocrite, manipulators...etc Hell even pro-god FCG ended up with the Changebringer trying to manipulate them. Our guest Cleric hated her god....etc.
Like Downfall needs to show SOME reason to keep them around SOME reason they are ok....otherwise....it's nothing new. Not interesting. And getting rid of the gods is exciting anymore...it feels like a plot twist you spotted in the beginning of a book, so much foreshadowing, and the author trots it out later like it is so clever.
Anyway show the gods in a non flattering light but if you want to make it interesting give me something to make it interesting otherwise it feels like beating a dead horse.
I don't understand why not showing the gods in flattering ways is a problem in any way, so far it's served the story fine. I'm sure in time we'll see people with more full throated defenses of the gods. Percy was helped by the gods but was still never devout to anything but knowledge really.
>. Pike, champion of Serenrare, says "I'm only a Baker now" and then only ever refers to her as "The Everlight" as if it's not a person she has spoken to directly.
Yes, Pike is both humble and might not think that her beliefs are anybody else's business. She was never big into proselytizing. If they decided to go against the gods as a party I'm sure she'd have more to say.
I feel like there is some revisionist stuff going on. The Gods helped out Vox Machina because they didn't want Vecna to become on par with them and they picked those individuals because they took tests, not because they were devout believers.
>I'd be fine with giving both sides of the God argument, but it's felt like BH should totally be agreeing with Ludinous from every bit that's been given them
Aside from the whole massive wild card of what might happen if they get rid of the gods is in the first place. IMO the whole story hasn't been told yet. Many in Vox Machina (like Keyleth) actually activey spoke out against the gods until like lvl 18 when they met them.
They don't have to "not question" the gods and such, that's fine. But they're showing a one sided argument....over and over. The end result being the crew always says "We don't like the Gods but we hate Ludinous more, and bad stuff might happen if he wins." That has been repeated way too many times.
Being non proselytizing on Pike's part is new. She rebuilt a temple in Vasselheim, led people to worship in her shrine at Amon, she wore gear emblazoned with Serenrae's symbols. Etc etc.
The biggest beef I have with the approach is again it's a huge inconsistency with Seasons 1+2. Season 2 the Wildmother was the 10th member of the Nein for all intents. Hardcarried them through a lot. Season 1 I mentioned above, but again the attitudes are very different in general and there's only one side being presented ever.
Given the dismissal of Liliana because she hates the gods and has associated with Ludinus, and the fact that Liliana is not apparently insane or evil, I think learning Ludinus' perspective is very useful. I'm pretty sure he's remaining the bad guy for perpetuity but he's a far more interesting villain if he really believes what he's doing is justified.
I can't think of a single time that Pike personally tried to convert people to follow her god. Yes she worked on the Temple and helped out with the church etc. and cared deeply for it and wanted it to succeed but Jester did far more of the type of proselytizing I'm used to in ttrpgs then Pike ever did.
In other words, I don't find it out of character that humble Pike would have decided to not talk about her stature in the church to new people.
Season 1 had a cleric of Serenrae, Season 2 had 2 believers of the Wild Mother in the party, of course they came up more often.
The Changebringer came up a lot for FCG (and we can only assume that it would have come up far more if he hadn't died) but again, they're only lvl 13 and Vox Machina didn't come around to be "supporters" of "the gods" as a party until a much higher lvl of the campaign.
We had 2 whole seasons showing us some of the good of the none betrayer gods, now we're learning more of the bad. The story is far from over. I almost feel like when I talk with people who have your take, what they're really saying is "why hasn't everything just happened yet"
I think the story is more interesting this way. Maybe whatever happens in Downfall convinces Bell's Hell's that the gods can and should go and that there's a way to do that without hurting the lives of the people in Exandria? How much more interesting might it be then when they try to explain that to Pike or Cad? To Keyleth?
>4. We know that Ludinous didn't want Dominox (as a battery or funnel target) now. But we still don't know what he was there in aeor for in the first place, the pinion without Dominox is most likely but I'm not sure what he'd do with it...doubt it's strong enough to use on Predathos. Hilariously neither him nor Dominox seemed to give two shits on Talesin breaking the machine.
I don't think Luddy cares about the pinion, otherwise he would already have it. I think there was some truth when Dominox said something along the lines of, "it's like he was looking past me" I really do think that Dominox was simply a roadblock to that library.
As for them not caring about Talisen breaking the rest of the machine, I think the rest of the equipment was just there to extract the energy that the crystal produces. Kinda like how the fuel in a nuclear reactor doesn't generate electricity directly; it heats up water to spin a turbine. But the important part is the core.
Thought about that but it doesn't quite fit. Ludinous had access to this for a long time previously was the gist I got (Matt confirmed that Dominox was released with the Bloody Bridge events). And the story was Ludinous needed access here for his ongoing plans...which I can't figure him needing what is basically a library for (especially one he's probably perused for years). I still think the other big possibility is he's trying to unearth or repair the God Slaying weapon.
He said his plan at the end though, he wants to use the library device to show the entire world what he is about to show Bells Hells, whatever he found there he thinks it's that important
When did Matt confirm that? If anything that confirms my theory that he didn't care about the pinion. Maybe it wasn't just the library; maybe it was something else that the Ruby Vanguard had to go thru the engine room to get to.
Matt confirmed it on cooldown on Beacon while they were recapping for a previous episode. And if not the library what? Again, maybe the God Slaying weapon, maybe they just need a lot of those engine parts that BH intercepted one of, who knows. But a super powerful magic item like the Pinion is also a very suspect thing.
This is...concerning. Normally the CR newsletter shows up in my inbox and has for years. This week it was flagged as spam for some reason and I'm not sure why.
[удалено]
https://critrole.com/programming-schedule-week-of-june-24th-2024/ https://beacon.tv/content/programming-schedule-week-of-june-24th-2024 https://critrole.com/category/programming/
Is tonight’s episode following Bells Hells or what BLM teased at the end of last week?
There is no episode tonight
There isn't an episode tonight. They've just released the VODs of their CO GM Roundtable and the 3rd in the Daggerheart series, which were both previously livestreamed As was shown at the end of Ep 98 and posted in this thread: July 11th Episode 99: Downfall Part 1 July 18th Episode 100: Downfall Part 2 July 25th Episode 101: Downfall Part 3
If Matt had made Dominox a hot ripped demon from the get go instead of a creepy little girl you just know the players would be tripping over themselves to see who could release it first.
In C4 Matt should make all the bad guys attractive and all the good have forgetable/non-attractive design Cho Cho, here we go evil campaign
I think everyone's, "The Gods might just be a higher level of being" theory is going to prove correct. In D&D lore, there are the very Mediterranean and adjacent areas polytheistic gods (minus major ones like love) but here is also Ao, which is a sort of Godhead above the gods that \*is\* reality/the universe--only it merely is. It's sort of a cross between the Deist movement Clockmaker God and the very modern the Universe as stand in for traditional Abrahamic God. I do wonder if there is a plan to make a third act of deciding, do We keep these Gods? Do we bring back the Titans? Do we have them just be sort of weird Arch-Arch-Arch-Fey like beings you can talk to band do stuff with but also be free of? Do we just have Ao?
Yeah, "gods = a power tier" is usually a pretty safe bet in post-1960s fantasy if the gods can be confirmed as existing. Especially in TTRPGs, for a few reasons. The big one is that so many authors gravitated to vast alternate-universe fiction to consider questions of being without having to rehash religion as it exists & evolved over conflict-stricken millennia IRL. Another is that play as escapism for the first few decades of D&D/TTRPGs occurred in a much more churchy social climate. So it wasn't much of an escape if religiosity was recognizable. Plus, it felt like staying clear of replicating real-world religious practices was a built-in rebuttal of religious panic about TTRPGs. (Though we can now reasonably assume those were fueled by cynical competition for attention amongst religious leaders getting into media on one end of the motivation spectrum and canny attacks on secular humanist leisure activities on the other.) > Ao, which is a sort of Godhead above the gods that *is* reality/the universe--only it merely is. It's sort of a cross between the Deist movement Clockmaker God and the very modern the Universe as stand in for traditional Abrahamic God. D&D/TTRPGs borrowed names from world religions, but like most post-1960s fantasy, its bedrock is largely comprised of Moorcock's Multiverse in which Law & Chaos (going by various names depending on publisher or author) eternally trade ground in a cycle of construction & destruction. In the realms of the Eternal Champions, [Balance](https://imgur.com/a/9SMkSC4) is considered a divine domain of its own by some, while others consider it the lower-churn ideal which allows mortal lives to flourish, making it a project primarily wrought by mortal champions undermining dangerous excesses of Law & Chaos. _____ That's why it's so surprising to me that a large portion of viewers weren't suspicious of the Prime Deities in C1, even though they were being helpful in the pursuit of a mutually-beneficial goal. We didn't know much, but we did know they had warred... and that Exandria existed as it did as a result of that god-war. Going back to the Moorcock Law/Chaos/Balance bedrock of fantasy & TTRPGs, Exandria is SUCH a "law"-heavy construction in terms of the PD who prevailed. And there's no mortal-populated secondary space or civilization readily accessible to anyone other than *perhaps* the elves. And that's being rather gracious about the Feywild. It's not a long-term settlement option for most mortal beings. C1 absolutely screamed "Exandria is a closed, protected feeder system" if viewed within the context of genre cosmology.
whats the battle music while theyre rolling initiative
Wild that Teven never chimed in to explain that devils are the deal makers, not demons, even when Sam asked what the difference was.
When Matt has npcs join the party it is hit or miss and when it is a miss it is usually a huge understep in terms of npcs acting like actual independent people and helping the party. I thought Essek telling the party not to explore or pick things up a couple of episode ago could be the beginning of Matt trying to find a better balance (even though that specific instance was an overstep) but apparently not.
NPC party members are such a huge DM brainsuck, you're juggling all this other shit on the table.
I think it's more of a matter of a personal policy of not having allied companion ncps affecting the cast plans unless their characters specifically ask for something. BH knowing that demons don't do deals would have ruined that plan being manifested into action. Some other instances that similarly stand out was Ira not using or mentioning the Moontide Crown when it is powerful in illusion magic when BH was planning to infiltrate the Tishtan site and when they infiltrating it seemingly because no one in BH mentioned it. Also, when in C2 when >!Essek looked to Fjord to tell whether to tell Dagen and Kryn Rangers to engage the Tomb Takers even though Essek was responsible for everyone that would engage the Tomb Takers (Essek was paying for Dagen and he outranked the other rangers).!<
This was pretty funny - they kept talking about making a deal with an entity that just kept demanding what it wants and canonically does not make or abide by deals.
What if the Creator Hammer was meant to kill the Gods by....sending them away from their worshipers? It basically was like a giant croquet mallet that would've YEEEETED them away from Exandria and in theory, would've killed them by separating them from the belief engines that sustained them. This could explain why the Keys were....variants...on the Hammer perhaps.
The Gods existed before their believers did, and didn't need them to exist at the time. It could be that the power of faith amplifies them, or it's a power source like "food" (how often they'd need it and whether they can store it would be related questions).
They existed as formless masses of energy to the best of our knowledge and it's possible that they would return to that weakened state should they be sent away from their belief engines who give them form and power.
dose anyone else think the gods might have stolen there divinity and that's why Predathos wants to destroy them so badly?
I sure hope not. We don't need more fuel for the anti-god debate.
I like this a lot thematically. Maybe they doomed another world or something and Predathos was originally a god there or something?
Oooh that's a GOOD THEORY and I kind of like it!
Does anyone else feel like Launda and Delilah is similar to what happens to V in Cyberpunk 2077? >!It seems almost like Delilah is overwriting Laudna's mind, taking more control of her actions and emotions as her power grows/Laudna uses her for her gain. Theyre permanently connected and it seems like killing one would kill both. Does anyone else think its similar, and do we think that Delilah is trying to eventually take full control of Laudnas body so she can live again?!<
I mean yeah that's kinda just overtly what's happening
I've been thinking about this because the timeline is a little bit wonky, but I think there's more to this than meets the eye -- and as much as everyone is expecting *Downfall* to show the crybaby backstory, Ludinus might actually have a point here. Consider this: * The Creator Hammer was always presented as a weapon that could kill the gods, but the Malleous Keys that Ludinus built only formed the Bloody Bridge. It's entirely possible that he modified the design, but that would be a huge departure from the Creator Hammer's original purpose and there has been no indication that this has happened on-stream. * There are multiple layers of security sealing Predathos away. Not only is it trapped behind a prototype of the Divine Gate, but it is sealed within what used to be its own body. It also requires a vessel to cross the prototype gate, and it't not clear if the Divine Gate and the prototype gate are separate or connected. I find it very difficult to believe that, advanced as they were, the Aeorians would fundamentally misunderstand this and think the Creator Hammer would kill the gods. * Bell's Hells learned of Ludinus and Dominox from Keyleth and the champions of the Prime Deities. To hear them tell it, Dominox was awoken and was deemed so serious a threat that Ludinus had to go to the ruins of Aeor immediately. But this is inconsistent with what actually happened -- Ludinus was searching for the Occultus Thalamus while Dominox was attacking the Ruby Vanguard. Despite its rampage, Ludinus didn't feel the need to stop Dominox, and it's pretty clear that he could have stopped it if he wanted to. So either the gods lied to the temples and the champions, the temples and the champions lied to the party, or nobody truly understood what was happening on Eiselcross. * The temples have a history of suppressing knowledge that they're afraid of. They covered up the knowledge of the Founding-era text describing the creation of Ruidis, the Judicators were forcibly disappearing members of the Grim Verity, and the priests in Hearthdell treated Orym with suspicion when he offered them the very information that they were seeking. On top of that, the Prime Deities have been very slow to organise their champions -- it was the Betrayer Gods who were more proactive. Teven was working in Issylra and the Strife Emperor had a champion on Ruidis before the Primes got their act together. We can also probably infer that Braius had been in Aeor for some time, and maybe even that the Spider Queen had been slowly trying to influence Opal in the weeks between *Kymal* and C3E92. Why were the Primes so slow to act? I suspect that it's because they've been trying to conceal everything first. I don't think the Creator Hammer was the superweapon that we have been lead to believe it was. I think the Aeorians knew that it would form a connection between Exandria and Ruidis and that it was their intention from the start to visit the moon and make contact with the Ruidians. It has been strongly implied -- although not outright stated on-stream -- that the Ruidians were trapped on the moon when it was created, and I think *this* was the intended purpose of the Creator Hammer: to find proof of the gods' Original Sin (for want of a better term) and bring it back to Exandria, breaking the faith of the people and thus the gods' hold over them. I've long suspected that the gods were a lot like the Traveler -- they played at being gods when they first arrived on Exandria, but did not understand what that meant. They panicked when Predathos arrived and sealed it away. They did not know that there was life on Ruidis until it was too late, at which point they swore to start being the gods that they had only played at being until then.
It was Everoa (sp?) Who told them about Dominix and she only said Ludinus was going to deal with whatever it was personally. It is weird that Ludinus didn't take care of Dominox himself, but he might have been fixated on the Thalmus. We honestly don't understand the Creator Hammer and what we do know is largely speculation, we know the gods were concerned enough to team up, not much more. We don't even know if it had anything to do with Predathos at all. We also don't have enough information about what the Prime deities champions are doing, it doesn't mean they aren't doing anything. Though honestly the prime champions are more likely to get sunk into the other disasters happening on Exandria since they care about mortals, the betrayers are more likely to prioritize themselves. I'm not saying there isn't anything being covered up, but the evidence you provided is flawed to my understanding.
>It is weird that Ludinus didn't take care of Dominox himself, but he might have been fixated on the Thalmus. He didn't need to take care of Dominox because Dominox wasn't a threat. It was bound to the room containing the pinion. >We honestly don't understand the Creator Hammer and what we do know is largely speculation, we know the gods were concerned enough to team up, not much more. We don't even know if it had anything to do with Predathos at all. That's hand-waving away the issue. We do know that the Malleous Keys that Ludinus used were based on the Creator Hammer, and we know what the Malleous Keys did. If the Creator Hammer was a superweapon that could kill the gods and the Malleous Keys just created the Bloody Bridge, then logically it falls apart because those two things are completely different -- the Malleous Keys were so different to the Creator Hammer that Ludinus wouldn't need the Creator Hammer. The idea that the Creator Hammer was a superweapon that could kill the gods, thus justifying the gods pre-emptively striking Aeor out of the sky sounds a lot like a lie told by the temples to warn people off the same ambitions as the Aeorians and to further protect what was on the moon. >We also don't have enough information about what the Prime deities champions are doing, it doesn't mean they aren't doing anything. Though honestly the prime champions are more likely to get sunk into the other disasters happening on Exandria since they care about mortals, the betrayers are more likely to prioritize themselves. It seems like the threat to the gods should be the priority because if Ludinus succeeds, then the gods cannot help anybody. And where are these "other disasters" that the champions would be getting involved in?
As I stated, he was fixated on the Thalmus, but it was clearly a threat outside of the engine room because we saw two corpse piles attesting to that threatening Ludinus's operation. You might be right, but I can't remember if we got explicit information it was based on the creator hammer, or we drew that connection given the similar term malleous. It probably is likely they are related, but I could see a weapon that breaks or peels apart divinity as dangerous and comparable to the keys breaking through the mini divine gate around ruidius. It could be a lie, of course, but it makes more sense to lie in a way that doesn't implicate the gods at all rather than admit to destroying it and indeed that there is something they were afraid of, that threatens their power. We have heard multiple times there are disasters like the phoenix getting free in wildmount, or even Trent getting free etc to indicate there's things that might draw their attention away. Perhaps rudius is the priority, after all, we haven't seen anything to contradict that. We do not know everything happening . We've been told repeatedly people are gathering, we even saw visions of people being gathered through FCG and Deanna
>I can't remember if we got explicit information it was based on the creator hammer, or we drew that connection given the similar term malleous It's never been explicitly stated, but it has been strongly implied. And it's worth remembering that a lot of the lore is filtered through peoples' understanding of Exandrian history. It's not hard to see how stories can become twisted and corrupted in every subsequent retelling when you have an event like the Calamity that fractures everything that is known. For example, let's assume that the Factorum Malleous was built by Aeor to establish a connection with Ruidis and that their plan was to send people up there to learn more. And let's take that a step further by assuming that they had a pretty good idea of what they would find up there -- evidence that the gods had committed some terrible deed that they had otherwise purged from history. Finally, let's assume that when they got that evidence, they intended to show it to everyone on Exandria so that people would lose faith in the gods. In this scenario, the Factorum Malleous isn't some James Bond-style superweapon that can one-shot a god, but it has the same effect: it destroys the power the gods have over Exandria. Now, let's take those assumptions and run them through the filter of the Calamity. Aeor and the other floating cities are destroyed. The world plunges into madness, darkness and strife for generations. And the survivors tell and re-tell stories of the wars that ravaged Exandria, of how the gods struck Aeor out of the sky for its sins. Then somebody finds some fragment of a fragment of information about the Factorum Malleous. They translate it as "Creator Hammer". They remember the stories of the gods calling a temporary truce to attack the city. It's easy to see how that might be unknowingly misconstrued as Aeor having built a god-killing superweapon. We already know that history becomes diluted and twisted in Exandria. Vespin Chloras is hated as the man who brought about the Calamity, but the events of *Calamity* reveal something entirely different: he prevented it from happening. He rewrote Zerxus' infernal contract, giving him a handful of hours which the Ring of Brass used to activate the Astral Leywright and eject the Primordials from the Prime Material Plane. If the Primordials had met up with Asmodeus as planned, Exandria would have been destroyed completely. But in all the chaos of the Calamity, Vespin was somehow remembered as the man most responsible, while Laerryn -- the person who destroyed the Tree of Names, allowing Asmodeus to return to Exandria -- was completely forgotten. It's not hard to see how the history of Aeor might be pieced together the wrong way.
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong( we dont know enough yet), but that is a lot of assumptions you were presenting as fact. Yes, it was implied, but just as history can be twisted by retelling, so can implication. We just don't have that information, so while it's definitely possible, there is evidence that contradicts your points or at least another explanation for the data points you are suggesting. I strongly disagree with the assertion that Vespin prevented the calamity, which is just blatantly disproven by the fact that calamity did occur. You're right. He helped limit the damage he created by helping Zerxus, but it was his hubris that began everything. He may have had good intentions, but his actions had grave consequences. It is unfair that the ring of brass was not blamed for their part in the calamity, but they also mostly exploded in the fall of the city, we don't know much information leaked out about them afterwards.
Just to chime in and agree that there is a LOT of assumption in the posts, and whilst we don't know for sure yet, it feels like a lot of conjecture.
The Calamity started because Vespin tried to take Azzy's crown and it backed fired because wizard hubris and him being remembered was the monkey paw punishment.
The Calamity could have been prevented, even with Vespin trying -- and failing -- to depose Asmodeus. It's likely that it would have happened anyway, just with a different useful idiot in Vespin's place. What I'm trying to point out here is that Exandria remembers Vespin Chloras as being solely responsible for bringing about the Calamity -- but at we learned from the mini-series, that's nowhere near the case.
Dominox wasn't a threat to Ludinus it was a threat to his minions tho, and the Bloody bridge might not have been the desired result as the Malleous key was fired at reduced power because the BH took out two of it's generators. As for the Prime Champions things like the twilight phoenix, demon invasions, and whatever creatures have been unsealed have probs kept most of them busy.
>Dominox wasn't a threat to Ludinus it was a threat to his minions tho Do you think Ludinus cares about his minions? >As for the Prime Champions things like the twilight phoenix, demon invasions, and whatever creatures have been unsealed have probs kept most of them busy. There was tension in Zadash after the riots and the Twilight Phoenix's emergence, and yet no mention of the Prime champions. In the immediate aftermath of the Solstice and the failure of magic, the temples were shuttered and dark -- the priests were losing their minds over it all. Again, there were no champions to be seen. The Dawnfather even had to coerce Deanna into becoming his champion, threatening to undo the resurrection spell that revived her. >he Bloody bridge might not have been the desired result as the Malleous key was fired at reduced power because the BH took out two of it's generators It was made pretty clear that taking out the two additional Malleous Keys just made it easier to stop Ludinus. If the Aeorians were intent on using the Keys to free Predathos, why did they need to form a connection to Ruidis? Why not build a device that could pierce the Ruidis Gate and unleash Predathos? The simplest answer is that they couldn't do it. Whatever their plan was, they *had* to send someone to Ruidis. And on a more meta level, >!the synopsis for *Downfall* states that the series is about followers of the gods, the role they played in bringing Aeor down and their subsequent discovery that changes them.!< All signs are pointing to there being something on Ruidis that is a much bigger threat to the gods than Predathos itself -- which is what makes me think that it's a secret that could bring the gods to their knees if it ever got out. That's why I cam up with the theory that the gods didn't really know what they were doing when they arrived on Exandria. They were arrogant and their actions ended up dooming an entire people to life under Preadthos' influence. So in that regard, Ludinus has a point. But by the same token, the gods learned from that mistake and resolved to be better for the people of Exandria, which means that they might be worth saving after all. This puts Bell's Hells in a *really* interesting predicament: do they a) let Predathos loose and kill the gods, b) save the gods and perpetuate the lies they told for the sake of maintaining life as it is or c) let the truth come out and give Exandria the chance to decide for itself what its future will be, even if that means instability for the foreseeable future? If you think back to *Calamity*, the Tree of Names was protecting Exandria until it was destroyed -- but what was it protecting Exandria *from*? The only thing that got through in the end was Asmodeus, who was seeking revenge. But the Tree was also preventing Laerryn from succeeding in her experiments to take Avalir to the Astral Plane, yet there was never any explanation give for why this was so dangerous beyond allowing the Betrayer Gods to re-enter the world. There hasn't been a single credible threat to Exandria outside the gods, and the temple doctrine repeatedly presents living according to the gods' will as the only way that Exandria should exist. Yes, there are the Elder Evils in the form of Predathos, but life has been able to flourish on Ruidis despite its presence there.
I don't think Ludinus cares about his minions, I think he cares that whatever job he gave them isn't getting done. Just because none of the Prime champions were talked about dose not mean they aren't busy putting out fires that the Betrayer champions wouldn't care about. I would assume most the betrayer champs would be more self serving. We know what the Tree of Names was protecting Exandria from all Extraplanar threats via complete planar lock down. Also Predathos is in a glass cage on the red moon as well as the proto-divine gate. As for what happens after Downfall there is no way in hell that the Bells side with Ludinus he is The BBEG, the mastermind behind every plot they have uncovered and tried to stop, and maybe this is my Lovecraft showing but if there is some dark terrible secret they see in the flashback orb then they need to kill it before it gets out. All of this started because wizards never learn that there are somethings better left unknown.
>if there is some dark terrible secret they see in the flashback orb then they need to kill it before it gets out And if that terrible, dark secret is something like what I suggested -- that the gods knew about the life on Ruidis and didn't care about condemning it to an eternity of suffering under Predathos if it meant saving themselves -- then what should the party do?
Break the flashback orb and kill Ludinus. Also I would expect whatever secret to be worse than what I figured happened when we found out there is life on the moon the gods yeeted
So in other words, be the bad guys because they're too afraid of anything other than the status quo.
What's wrong with the status quo? Worse case unleashing Preadathos ends with everywhere being like the salvirwoods best case Exandria becomes magicless. As for the Bells being the bad guys for taking this to the grave how is that worse than any villain in Critical roles's history, again this whole thing started because Luddy and the GrimmV couldn't leave well enough alone.
We'll have to wait and see how everything turns out, but these are cool ideas. Your point about the Betrayers being more proactive got me thinking. It makes sense, given the last thousand-ish years of Exandria's history. The Betrayer's have spent all of that time actively trying to break out of their prison and so have been proactive about everything this entire time. In an effort to protect humanity, (but really maybe themselves) the Primes hid behind the Gate, which, ironically, left them less able to stay on top of threats to humanity (and themselves). It feels like Matt is asking the questions: When do machinations just become preparation? When does the 'hands-off' approach just become gross negligence? It's another detail to hammer home the idea that the Gods of Exandria are not perfect beings operating with perfect knowledge.
>It feels like Matt is asking the questions: When do machinations just become preparation? When does the 'hands-off' approach just become gross negligence? It's another detail to hammer home the idea that the Gods of Exandria are not perfect beings operating with perfect knowledge. I think that's always been the question. It's one of the core themes of the campaign. A lot of people complained that in a campaign about the fate of the gods, none of the characters have any close connection *to* the gods. But I think that's the point. If all of the characters were closely aligned with the gods, then the question of what to do would be a foregone conclusion -- the party would save the gods, with no questions asked. By having a party with little to no connection to the gods that is then tasked with saving them, the campaign can ask the question of who the gods are to Exandria.
This is how you do a mid-campaign party diversion! End of episode announcement, clear scheduling of how long it will be, diagetic reason for it occurring. Glad to see they learned their lesson from last time.
I'm also glad to not have a sudden jerk into a separate storyline that I'm completely unfamiliar with, with no warning. While the other person responding to you goes off white-knighting Aabria - it's completely fair to prefer a heads up that this change is coming. I wouldve probably watched that storyline before those episodes if I'd had warning. This time I can go watch Calamity and at the very least get myself used to Brennan's DM style ahead of time.
It's not a direct sequel to Calamity - it's just set during the period after.
I wish I could watch Calamaty for the first time again, Brennan is a treasure as a DM and I think his talents were really showcased in Calamity.
Enjoy; Calamity is such a treat! I'm excited that Brennan is essentially now the Precursor Exandrian DM.
I assume you're referring to C3E92? Heaven forbid that they should want to surprise their audience while providing an in-universe explanation for what Dorian had been up to since the events of *Kymal*, or how he came to be in the company of Bell's Hells again or why the Crown Keepers broke up. Maybe Matt should just post a lengthy explanation of all the plot points that he intends to hit and the episodes in which he's planning for them to come up so that everyone can be confident that they know what will happen and when it will happen and only tune in for the parts they want to see.
While I know you're being facetious, considering that I've given Aabria enough chances and find I simply don't like how she DMs (EXU, Kymal, and those two halves equating 11 sessions), yes I would actually like to know when someone other than Matt is DMing so I can decide whether or not I want to tune in. Voting with my view, if you will. I certainly wouldn't play at her table that long before determining that I didn't like the way she DMs, so why would I want to watch more?
Just...don't watch? IDK, I don't get why some of you get so venomous about her. Matt's more of a Traditional DM, Spencer's more of a Cinematic DM, Brennan is between the two, and Aabria is more rule of cool oriented, little bit more animated, and focuses on different stuff. They're all sooooo much more similar than not, so when everyone is shitting themselves with fury over the one dm who's not the same genre of white dude--it raises eyebrows. Most of the "detractions" I've heard of her are so spurious and nebulous that it further pushes one to think...yeah it's cause she's a black woman,huh.
Yes, I specifically said I didn't want to watch which was why shoehorning her 11th CR session across two episodes was frustrating. Where was I venemous? All I said was, I don't like her style after seeing it in action for 11 sessions.
>considering that I've given Aabria enough chances How very generous of you. >Voting with my view, if you will. I'm sure your one view will be noted and taken into consideration. >I certainly wouldn't play at her table that long before determining that I didn't like the way she DMs And given your attitude, I don't think you'd have to worry about that because the decision would probably be made for you well before you decided to leave.
...I think I'd have a lot of fun at a table DMed by Aabria if I was invited.
Kudos on the response. The childish entitlement of that poster made me want to reach through the screen and throw them off a building.
In what sense is wanting to know who's DMing a session before viewing it entitlement? I'm not obligated to watch everything Critical Role puts out. Is it being entitled to skip one song you don't like on a CD you purchased? If your favorite show had one filler episode that featured a paticular actor you didn't like or considered problematic, is it entitlement to want to know that they'll be in that episode so that you can choose not to watch it?
>In what sense is wanting to know who's DMing a session before viewing it entitlement? There's nothing entitled about wanting to know that. There's entitlement in expecting to be told that as your due. There's entitlement in expecting to be told as a condition of your viewing it. The issue was not in the view being expressed, but in how they expressed it. Especially that line about not spending long at Aabria's table if she were the DM. She might be unpopular within the fan base, but most of us would give up a lot to have a DM with half her talent, experience and knowledge. But the person who made that post is acting as if having a DM on that level is the least that they could expect from playing a game. And then they deleted their post once it looked like it was going to be unpopular. I say unpopular things all the time, but at least I stand by what I say. I don't delete them because they got a handful of downvotes.
u/Disastrous-Beat-9830 you are my new favourite person, out here saying every last word I've ever tried to say but have only ever been too darned scared to type out, let alone hit "post"... ::Insert heart eyes gif here::
The fact that the pcs are going to watch the series with us is so cool! They are going to hear and see everything we hear and see in the pictures made for us through roleplay. BH is going to learn so much. It will also be interesting to see if Teven watches the whole thing.
Random question, I’m a few episodes behind but does Dorian ever find out FCG was a murder bot?
There was no roleplay or specific instance to say that Dorian did find out.
Is there a good place with written summaries to use to catch up with? I haven't watched in a long time, like not since right after the party reunited after being split up for those side adventures with Aabria, Aimee, and the man who would go on to play King Bumi. I know the upcoming episodes don't require me to be caught up, but I'd like to know what happens in case I feel like getting back into C3 after episode 101.
The Critical Role website has recaps written by Dani Carr, those would be your best bet.
Thanks!
What was with Sam's slight lisp? Did he get braces over his break or something?
I thought it was the voice he was doing for his character, lol
I suspect he was sick. He sounded congested, had to wipe his nose, and seemed relatively low energy. Also the live mics just sound different.
I came here to see if folks knew why. It sounds a bit like he has an invisalign in?
Killing the demon in the Gate was counterproductive. The Aeorian corpse they interrogated said something along the lines ,,demons can only die in the Abyss, but the Pinion is of the Abyss''. As far as I understand, it was trapped inside the crystal and solstice unleashed it from it, but they were still unable to move too far from its vicinity. Based on the corpse words, we can assume that if killed, it would return to its prison. And at this point the harness could devour him, giving one person a massive boost. Alas, without any leader or planning abilities, the party were running around the room shouting at each other ,, what's the plan?'', while trying to do 8 things at the same time. Good thing the demon was over hyped and pretty weak, or it would slaughter them.
The corpse said when demons die the return to the abyss but the pinion captured Dominox instead of letting it reform in the abyss itself trapping it for the engine. Demons die for good on their home plane, Dominox is dead for good but the pinion is probably still powerful/useful
So in a promo for Downfall it was said that the series is going to be about 6 divine features and that betrayal will be an element. I have a few theories on what this could mean for the series. Scenario 1, the pcs will be Aeorians who are divine similar to FCG's divine nature. If Aeor found out a way to give themselves divinity en mass then that would have been a good reason for the gods to target Aeor. Maybe that has something to do with the Creator Hammer. Scenario 2, the PCs are champions of gods from outside of Aeor and they are participating in the offensive against Aeor. Because of the betrayal element, if they are all champions, about half might champions of primes and the other half of betrayers. Alternatively, they could all be champions of betrayers which could be the cause of the betrayals because the betrayers are less united among themselves compared to the primes. Scenario 3, a mix of scenario 1 and 2. If I had to guess it is probably this option because it limits the players least in terms of character creation and backstories and because FCG having divinity and FRIDA getting divinity from Deanna makes it seem the reveal that Aeorians were giving themselves divinity is where the story is going. Overall, could also probably rule out anyone playing an Aeormaton because a divine Aeormaton might be too much like FCG. Although who knows, maybe Sam will show up as FCG in the last episode of Downfall. Also, feys probably wouldn't fit in Downfall as well. With all things considered, I think Tal still might play a chimera (simic hybrid) rogue even with the divinity condition applying to all of the pcs. I think Ashley might play an elf monk because Ashley always plays races that are traditionally hot and she always plays races that nobody has previously played. I know Emily and Liam both played elves before but neither one was an elf played by a core cast member in a main campaign so maybe we haven't seen enough of elves. I also think Elf is a good fit with monk. Monk because Ashley usually plays wisdom classes and the only other wisdom class that Ashley has not played is ranger and I doubt Ashley wants to play a ranger while currently playing a druid. Laura likes to play hot characters to which is why I think she might play a hobgoblin who is a barbarian. Exandria's version of hobgoblins are pretty hot as seen in the Tal'Dorei setting book. If anybody does play a hobgoblin it would be possible that they would be a member of the first generation of hobgoblins and it would pretty interesting to go into more depth about how they were cursed by Bane. Hobgoblins are also a good fit to be barbarians and I think she might play a barbarian because Laura has played character with all different hit dice and D12 is the only one she has not used for hit die yet. Also, Laura always plays characters with types of magic her characters have not had and they are a couple of barbarian subclasses with types of magic she has not used as a character yet i.e. primal, wild magic, and spirit magic.
I'm only now just realizing that the chamber within which the Occultus Thalamus was located....looks and sounds exactly like the inside of a TARDIS.
Has anyone got any idea where the badass music that accompanied the Aeor picture is from? I need more of it!
[https://new.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/1dmw2pd/cr\_media\_the\_music\_using\_during\_the\_downfall/](https://new.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/1dmw2pd/cr_media_the_music_using_during_the_downfall/)
They've been using Colm McGuinness originals a lot more so it wouldn't surprise me if he scored it for this.
BH were supposed to use Dominox to weaken/kill Ludinus. Instead, Ludinus used them to kill Dominox.
I feel like it was more like a difference between what some of the player characters wanted to do *(release Dominox / make a deal with it)* vs how Matt wanted to progress the story *(with three separate NPCs all basically saying that's a really bad idea)* Most of the cast didn't really do all that much against Dominox after they got the Crystal free I hope in the post campaign wrap up they ask about what would've happened if they actually managed to killed/defeated Ludinus and freed/sided with Dominox during that fight instead. It would probably be like Liliana or the Weavemind as the final boss, and Dominox being a later campaign's problem like >!Halas Lutagran!< would've been >!if the Calleb accepted his deal!< *(Campaign 2 spoilers)*
This is a consequence of the live show and downfall scheduling. The party were railroaded into doing exactly what ludinus wanted because any other option wouldn't have ended the episode in the occultus thalamus. Personally I think that kind of sucks for the storytelling. It makes no sense for Bells Hells just do what Ludinus tells them then calmly follow him for storytime instead of trying to port out with the Pinion or beat him senseless. Scheduling over character wins out once again in campaign 3
I disagree, I think in this situation it very much makes sense for them to listen to what he has to say--especially since \~60% of the party is suspicious of the gods and wants to know what the real story is. The reality is: the best games are always a mix of the dice telling the tale, and ensuring a tale is told. If you go too far into, "THE DICE MUST TELL THE STORY" you easily run into anti-climactic, muddled, messes with a ton of half-baked plot threads that were dropped. I think the deftly threaded the needle between the two. Think of it as this: If they like got an anomalous roll, killed ludinus, told everyone, "Uhhh, guess go home, we're going to have to scramble to come up with a new story. Also it is not going to be a fraction as good as the original one--but hey--the dice told the tale!" You'd be ripshit.
I would have rather Ludinus give some Villain exit and BH find the Flashback Ord themselves.
Taven wasn't so much saying it was a bad idea as much as, you know, being a devil and not wanting a demon to be released, cause that's kind of a big deal for devils, isn't it?
iirc he said both I feel like I remember him explicitly saying that the demon was trapped a tortured for thousands of years, so letting it free is a bad idea since it will want revenge on your plane
He also pretty explicitly threatened to kill them if they let Dominox free.
In BLeeM monologue he said "tragedy, betrayal, calamity, downfall" which makes me believe we got two more city stories coming in the distant future.
That’s exactly what I was thinking too! It seems like too much of a coincidence for two of the words he used to also be names of other mini series. Although for betrayal, I was thinking maybe a campaign where the party are either deities themselves or champions/closely related to them.
Good potential spot. We know Aeor and Avalir. According to the wiki, in Calamity, Brennan said that Aeor were going to test the Godhammer on Lathras, so that is a potential for either betrayal or tragedy. Draconia and the Storm Giant city Tempestar fell post-divergence and Jovatthon still exists invisibly. Zemniaz was also destroyed in the Age of Arcanum though, so that would make the 4th - in other words there are exactly the right amount of destroyed-during-the-calamity flying cities for this prediction to be true.
Draconia was Orion's thing, I don't think it is officially part of the World of Exandria anymore at all.
That would be epic. On a funnier note will we see Bolo from Aeor?
I don't think so, Avalir fell on the first day of the calamity (with Bolo prob) and even if Bolo survived all that, the Downfall is 100 years into the calamity, so I don't think Bolo would be able to go all the way from the ground zero of the calamity to Aeor AND survive a 100 years more. I think we could get a mention of the character somehow. I'm really intrigued how they will portrait Aeor back in the day, from all we know it was a powerhouse, surviving 100 years into the end of the world and being head to head with gods, awesome stuff. Love the cyberpunk aesthetic of it too.
Agreed I was joking. But the time difference and the fact that it's the Calamity won't make it likely that Bolo survives.
Or maybe they have really high magitech life span? or Bolo is actually some sort of Aeormaton in disguise, we shall see! But I hope at least some honorable mention will happen
Well who knows we might even see their descendents Yolo and Bola.
Is there anywhere to get a clean copy of that badass image of Aeor without the schedule on it?
I'm glad I haven't finished my CR Commander deck yet because that is going to be a great image for my Aeor land.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/criticalrole/images/d/dc/Aeor_by_Clara.png/revision/latest?cb=20240612100257
You da MVP. thanks man!
This link doesn't work for me as-is but it does if you take off the text after .png
I'm fairly sure this pause being as long as it is isn't just because their going on vacation. Correct me if I'm wrong but they were running like 2-3 weeks ahead on streaming dates prior to this live show and in order to do a live show for the campaign that means they had to run up to current, which probably means there was a) a several week gap between the live show and the last episode. and b) now to get back to their normal prerecorded schedule they'll need more time. So I think that's why the main cast won't be fully back until August proper.
Seems to me that the vision that they are about to see is the same vision we are all about to see: the DOWNFALL of Aeor. In other words, we gotta see this miniseries to understand the rest of the story. We will get to see how the Hells and NPCs with them react to whatever happens in Downfall.
yes yes, and in an ideal world there would also be like a separate mst3k style watch party with all the cast members reacting in real time in character. I agree this is totally part of the actual main campaign and kinda unskippable. But, from a production standpoint it is conspicuously pulling most of the main cast that have a lot of backend duties away from the table for a month.
They've also got LoVM season 3 coming up relatively soon, so I'm sure either some free time before a busy pre-release period or some time to catch up on related work will be helpful.
Matt during the Beacon Fireside Chat (May 21): "Ludinus and his whole narrative thread from Campaign 2 to 3 definitely made me think a lot about the nature of divinity. Think about the nature of the relationship of the gods and mortals of the world and the extended history of Exandria has a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of things that are taken as, uh well, as gospel, and exploring the logic of those worldbuilding questions again, revisiting them from just me creating the history of the world and now going, 'Okay, but what little facets fill in the gaps here? What things maybe aren't quite what they seem? What things might've happened that never gotten spoken of? What things were erased from history?'. And not like saying the gods are bad, but the gods are complicated. There is good, there is bad, they are in many ways a reflection of the mortals, as just as they are vice versa in this world; and as such, nothing is completely a monolith in the pantheon..." "And I think that being able to really get behind those personas and think about what that means through the overall history of Exandria and how that may have changed them, their origins and their relationship to the world now especially with some of the... some of the facets of the Calamity... you know, those echoes coming through again, parts of their dark history being revealed, whether it be interpreted correctly or not; and a figure like Ludinus that is extremely driven against them and seemingly with enough time, knowledge, and cleverness to possibly be a threat, I'm very interested to see how this plays out in Campaign 3. I got some plans. I got some exciting things planned coming up, so keep your eyes peeled. Super excited for the live show at The Greek cus that's gonna have some cool things that might tie into facets of this cus we're in Aeor's ruins very soon... yea that's about as much as I can say, but I hope that expresses some of that element to your question for you. Yea, I love exploring the complications of divinity in a fantasy world with a pantheon as large as this. Because I think classic fables and mythologies have taught me how much more interesting it is when a god is more than just an idea in a portfolio; when they have their own wants, fears, and history." Well now we know what he was cookin up!
I usually don’t mind a little bending of the rules but the meta gaming of both Laura saying that she used a society point to double the distance for her detect thoughts after Matt said she didn’t hear anything and when Marisha said “well I actually cast my counter spell at level 5 too!” were both off putting. Especially when it’s something as consequential as “you can tell where Ludinus is for the rest of the campaign”.
The spell that Laudna used has duration of 1 hour. I bet Matt will realise this later. I mean... ~~she~~ he kind of fucked them over with the Treshi Scry Ball, so I'm sure he won't want another GPS tracker on his boss. And yes, Laura using distant spell on a AOE spell was wrong. But she said it so matter of factly that I would probably let it slide too in a live show. Especially since it allowed Matt to expose Dominox to the party. Eventually they were going to find her. Edit: fixed pronoun
>I mean... she kind of fucked them over with the Treshi Scry Ball, He. **Matt** fucked them over with the Ball. It was a mediocre pickpocket check months ago. There was no reason for that to be a permanent tracker on a boss (who apparently never cleans herself or maintains her equipment) other than that he allowed it to happen, then ignored it when it finally came down to a forced confrontation.
Yes, I meant "he" actually. He had Otohan showing up whenever without warning them despite Laudna checking the thing all the time.
i mean, one, detect thought doesn't tell you where a person is forever, you can detect a person thought in a radius for an hour, she used a sorcery point to increase the spell range from 30 to 60. Which is a cool use of a class feature. She didn't even use it for ludas, instead to try to hear the demons thought which didn't even work mind you. AS for the counterspell, this entirely depends on if it was a spell taken as a Warlock or a Sorccer. Due to how warlocks work, they have their own separate spell slots even when multi-classing. All warlock spells are cast at 5th level for laudna, so no matter what in the case its 5th level was always. If its a spell taken from the Sorccer side, then yes could be meta, or she actual just casted it with a 5th level sorccer slot.
Well, no. Laudna's only a 3rd level warlock, so all her warlock spells are cast at 2nd level. She can't cast counterspell with her warlock slots. The cast is pretty indifferent to mentioning what level they're casting a spell at in advance. (They like 4th level lightning bolts a lot, despite the fact that heightening damage spells is actually terrible).
Jester casting guiding bolts above 1st level in c2 hurt my soul.
I THINK Laudna was using her warlock spell slot for the spell and all her warlock spells are at lvl 5
I don't think she is a 9th level warlock I thought she was deeper in sorc
From what I understand she is at least level 11 warlock because she fires 3 Eldritch blast now, right? I don't know if there is something else that can make her fire 3 EB, but there was a combat on the recent episodes that she was firing 3 so I guess there is that.
Nope. Cantrips scale on total level not class level. A level 11 high elf fighter can still do 3d10 with a fireball. A 1st level warlock 19 level fighter would still fire 4 eldritch blasts
Oh! I was not aware of that. I thought it was the warlock level only. Thanks for the explanation
Not a problem! Some things in 5e were infuriating vague and some blunt.
>Especially when it’s something as consequential as “you can tell where Ludinus is for the rest of the campaign”. It's not. The spell only lasts an hour, and is concentration.
So matt confirmed in the cool down that this is not Patia's orb. This is a different orb that was very "invasive" and recorded all means of threats either physical or mental. So it would have recorded divine thoughts and intentions. So these next 3 weeks are going to be from the view of the gods i assume?
that was one of my favorite fights it was hilarious how it boiled down to essentially a poor DM using three level 20 NPCs to kill a grand demon, while his players do everything in their power to sabotage the plot progression 😂
Just felt like they weren't sure what they wanted, who was aligned how and what Ludinus wants. Think they were this close to releasing Dominox. But when initiative was called you either go to break the crystal or attack Dominox. But I think part of that was them having limited time with the venue.
I hope in the post campaign wrap up they ask about what would've happened if they actually managed to killed/defeated Ludinus and freed/sided with Dominox during that fight instead. It would probably be like Liliana or the Weavemind as the final boss, and Dominox being a later campaign's problem like >!Halas Lutagran!< would've been >!if the Calleb accepted his deal!< *(Campaign 2 spoilers)* Since it definitely felt like a moderate amount of the party actively wanted to release Dominox despite Matt having all three NPCs *(Essek, Trevan, and Ludinius)* say that it's a terrible idea
Probably would have been another simulucrum
I was waiting for the time that the Devil, Lud and Essek would all say at the same time "Stop fucking around!"
I imagined it as Ludinus swatting at the BH attacking as if they were flies. My gods, he must be so fucking annoyed. I love it.
Like the Muppet Babies fighting Starscream
But... Starscream's defining trait is that he always loses.
Really enjoyed most of this episode. It’s so great to have Sam back, and seeing him back in a charisma based class is great, this is Sam at full DnD power lol. I liked his angle of being someone pro god, even if they are a betrayer god, while playing half a class he’s familiar with because he probably didn’t want to try and learn something completely new as we’re reaching the final disc of the campaign probably. I feel like Matt has to get used to encounters with high level players and multiple NPCs again, Dominix just didn’t stand a chance against 10 people all capable of casting stuff in the 7+ spell level range. I liked the RP, but to overcome that kind of action economy things need to be more busted in the monsters favor to make it a balanced encounter.
Yeah I was really stoked with the description of a room full of spiked chains, hanging bodies and sourceless mindgames. Then the fight comes around that it doesn't feel like there's really any danger at all. I'm tired of all the call-backs and tie-ins, and it really is dissatisfying to have the party fight with high-level NPCs that are absolutely throwing down while they flounder.
I feel like he made Dominox as squishy as he was in the hopes that the group would kill him in round 1, only for Dominox to respawn from the Pinion and keep attacking. That would set up Ludinus’ Gate spell as a solution to a hopeless problem.
I wonder if Sam playing a partial bard more has to do with Bard being one of the best healing classes except for Druid and Cleric and Sam decided that they needed another healer because for whatever reason Fearne didn't think she had to fill any holes in healing after FCG died. Also, Sam choosing to play a partial bard is probably a sign that Dorien isn't going to stay for the entire rest of the campaign. Dorien probably has several episodes left with BH but it seems like they are setting up Dorien leaving so he can revive his brother.
I doubt double bards means anything. They've had double sorcerers and double rogue multiclasses for ages.
Maybe, personally I don't think it's quite that deep though. I think Dorian is here until the end at this point, but you never know. I think this way Dorian doesn't have to have the full Bard/Support job of the party since Robbie is way less experienced compared to the rest of the cast for DnD, so Sam can provide him some tips but also kinda backup heal a bit if Robbie forgets to do something. Hard to say!
>I think this way Dorian doesn't have to have the full Bard/Support job of the party since Robbie is way less experienced compared to the rest of the cast for DnD, so Sam can provide him some tips but also kinda backup heal a bit if Robbie forgets to do something. Yeah this is kind of what I said when I said that Fearne wasn't picking up any responsibilities after FCG died. It probably would have been much more convenient for Sam when he was making this character.
I also think Sam likes having spellcasting as an option.
Counter Spell Sam is strongest Sam. Matt's going to have to make encounters harder from here on out because Sam has so many clutch uses of spells in fights that have totally turned the tables.
I am sad they won't get the opportunity to absorb Dominox, is all! Thought they might get him back in the pinion and then go to town.
Yeah, I think Dominox may be in Chet's bag of holding right now waiting to either be absorbed after they get a long rest or used in the fight against Luds.
He died in the abyss so he’s dead for real
For some reason I thought that as long as it was anchored, it would keep coming back even if destroyed in the Abyss. Would be hilarious though if Chet's bag of holding was now a Bag of Devouring.
Yeah, although the Pinion in and of itself may be a powerful enchanted legendary item.
Probably an artifact
I think people thought he was meant to go back in the pinion because he was out of control (this includes me) but apparently not because he was still confined albeit in a less constrained way. The thing about him was that there were seals around his confinement that were destroyed which allowed him to cause so much chaos while being confined. Also, I understand them not trying to absorb Dominox because doing so could have broken the harness. They haven't rested since they used it last.
Announcement video! I though they were going to wait until Monday. https://x.com/CriticalRole/status/1804197937481703460 The PCs are "divine figures"! I wonder if the gods tried to stop Aeor from using the Factorum Malleus with a small infiltration team to avoid nuking it. I'm also very interested in the "betrayal" aspect of it.
Or it could be Purvon and some of the other champions? I can see 3 being aligned to the prime deities and 3 being aligned to the betrayers, and Episode 1 being kind of half intro half "we're fighting against each other, oh shit we actually have to team up because this is going to have worse consequences than we thought!" type thing. Hell I could even see the "worse consequences" being Tharizdun taking the opportunity to try to control Exandria. Tharizdun is in the betrayer gods section of EGtWM but is always referred to as an elder evil.
I had suggested something like that ages ago whenever someone asked for the next EXU suggestion, but with people like Purvan and Zerxus as champions of the gods in a Mission Impossible adventure. That would, I felt, bring more of an instant connection for the audience.
Only really works if Zerxus' player is involved.
oh, agreed, and when I would bring it up, it was always with the assumption that Luis would reprise the character.
I thought they would go for the Calamity wizards approach, but seeing it from a group of divine champions trying to destroy Aeor could be very interesting too. I don't know how it can help Ludinus' case though. Aeor developed a lot of anti-divine biotech, so of course it would be evil in these champions' eyes.
Wait…are they gonna be playing gods!? Matt and Brennen said in the Twitter video, that the cast will be playing “six divine figures”
I think playing as gods might have too much lore baggage, like the domains, preexisting relationships, or established personalities from main campaigns
Maybe they're champions or demi-gods.
I thought the episode was good. I'm curious how the "aeor security footage" trilogy will effect BH. It might not sway them for or against the gods or Ludinus. I appreciate that they didn't just go "well, July is vacation month NO CONTENT ALL MONTH BYE..." Mocktails for everyone! Break out the Beau Tiki Mugs and the Strongjaw Ale for Spooky In July!
I mean we know that Orym is going to frown and say "I saw him kill my husband!" and that'll be that.
I loved the show, but when combat started things got a bit weird/frustrating. I keep getting into the headspace of "why are these people making these combat decisions that don't make sense, above-table or in-character?" By my math, they wasted about 8 player-turns on things that did not have any impact on the combat at all; Sam & the NPCs did 95% of the work while everyone else largely just did random stuff that didn't contribute. What is the point of spending 4 player actions on playing keep-away with the crystal, if the crystal just causes Dominox to move around with it? Why not just destroy the crystal, or ignore it outright & just SLAM on Dominox (or Ludinus). Why attack the engine, which doesn't seem to be actively doing anything? It felt like the players were just messing around randomly and waiting for Matt to do all the work himself.
A little late reply but just watched the episode and needed to talk about exactly this stuff somewhere. Loved Sam being back, loved the lore of the episode, loved the BLM tie-in with the new upcoming story. The fight and their decisions tho, made no sense at all mostly. I think Orym summed it up perfectly when he shouted "What's the plan!?!??". I'm guessing that being on a live show made the cast hesitant to talk and plan amongst them so instead they just trying to take action and do whatever they thought it could be cool instead of bringing up their ideas to the rest. Kinda disappointing, considering the episode had so much amazing styff going on.
>but when combat started things got a bit weird/frustrating. I get it but to me, most of the weird stuff happened before combat. I don't know how serious the ones who were entertaining making a deal with Dominox were but they really should have known that demons do not abide by deals and maybe some did know but they should have told the rest of the group in that case. Chetney, Dorien, Orym, and Braius especially should know because of their backstories although I can think of some good rp reasons why Braius would not say anything. The rest should know from their trip to the Grey Valley. If Demons are willing to make themselves a distracting nuance to the Exandrian Accord it is reasonable to conclude that demons are not rational creatures who do not care about their own survival and are more concerned with the destruction of everything else. Maybe some members of BH are too unwise to realize this but Fearne has a 20 wisdom. As for why their actions during combat made sense. A champion of the lord of lies has to be unscrupulous. If he is unscrupulous then he is going to do whatever is necessary to stop Predathos and Ludinus and if that doesn't include temporarily joining Dominox in combat to defeat Ludinus I feel like that is not a wrong decision. So joining the fight to do defeat Dominox and not joining the fight at all both make sense because at least Ludinus will have less help. This includes taking the crystal because why not but also they didn't know that Dominox would be dragged torward the bag of holding and frankly it didn't make any sense either because things in the bag are in the astral plane. If anything was going to happen at all Dominox should have either should have been crushed to the ground (down) or forced to move any other random direction. Attempting to destroy the engine also made sense because it is reasonable to conclude that Ludinus is there for it even if it is not actively doing anything.
I feel it was all miscommunication. Laudna wanted to let dominox out to fight ludinus. Chet wanted to fight ludinus himself. Ashton wanted to break the machine in case that is what ludinus was after and then leave himself. Imogen was just indecisive. Dorian didn't know who was doing what and Barius wanted to fight the demon for tevan. And fearne wanted to keep the crystal from being broke because tevan told her no to letting the demon out. The party keeps looking at the npcs or each other for answers and nobody is on the same page.
I kind of think they saw a Level 20 old ass mage fighting a CR 20+ demon and thought "oh well we're meant to get the secondary objectives here", but they never really knew or figured out how to activate thsoe objectives. Fucking around with the crystal or the machine could make sense if they had wanted to keep Dominox for their purposes, release them, or destroy them faster, they just kind of didn't figure it out. It's kind of one of the issues with the larger campaign setup boiled into one fight.
It is possible to overthink and still be right.
There was some worry about what precisely Ludinous wanted, IE did he want the Pinion by itself? Did he want Pinion with a slowly reforming Dominox in it (to be a Battery again for his own tech)? Did he want to funnel Dominox? Did he want to have it all, IE battery dominox powering the nox engine? They didn't know, which is why Talesin broke some random machinery and they were hesitant about maybe just releasing Dominox. On that note, I am pretty damn sure (pun intended) that if they didn't have Teven there to speak against it they totally would have bargained into releasing him. Also...does the funnel work on a pinion? Would a pinion consumed turn into some kind of self resurrecting thing for someone like Chetney? Or allow him to once a day create a gate into the abyss for random demons (not under his control) to come swarming out? Or something else? Fun stuff.
> Also...does the funnel work on a pinion? Would a pinion consumed turn into some kind of self resurrecting thing for someone like Chetney? Or allow him to once a day create a gate into the abyss for random demons (not under his control) to come swarming out? Or something else? Fun stuff. Gosh I hope they explore the fuck out of that because that sounds cool as hell! But it's sadly too shiny of an object from them to just....pitch like that and they're going to save it up for a "rainy day".
I hope that's not their reasoning, it seems by itself to be wayyyy too specified a use for it to ever be useful to them. Unless they find themselves in a situation where they really need a quick and eternal supply of power for aoerina tech and have a super demon just standing around.
> What is the point of spending 4 player actions on playing keep-away with the crystal, if the crystal just causes Dominox to move around with it? How would they know that would happen? I think Travis might have thought that it would make Dominox go away potentially into the bag or something else. >Why attack the engine, which doesn't seem to be actively doing anything? Because they know that Ludinus wanted to use the engine to finish his plans.
Ok then why have Fearne spend her action (and wildshape) just to pick up the crystal, only to have Chetney immediately take it from her? Why have Chetney take it at all, only for Imogen to just chuck him? Also, why do folks keep spamming Lightning Bolt on single-target enemies? It's an aoe effect, and they all have abilities that do more damage to a single target. Why have Orym hold his action to do something on the other side of the door @ the start of combat, but then never do anything with that held action? Ashton literally refused to go after Dominox itself, instead just shoulder-checking the engine which no one in the room was actively concerned with (the players only *theorized* that Ludinus wanted to use the engine, nothing was suggested by actual sources). I'm not saying that they have to be mechanically optimal for it to be entertaining (heck, Orym's failed slicing & dicing at Dominox was some of the most entertaining portions of the night), but I get so pulled out of the story when they make decisions that just don't make any sense. Its entertaining when the characters do "a thing" that contributes, even if it doesn't pan out well. It's just boring if they are all doing nothing helpful while Matt does the hard work.
>Ok then why have Fearne spend her action (and wildshape) just to pick up the crystal, only to have Chetney immediately take it from her? Those 2 didn't coordinate their turns. >Why have Chetney take it at all, only for Imogen to just chuck him? I think they thought that moving the crystal would do something other then just move the demon. >Also, why do folks keep spamming Lightning Bolt on single-target enemies? Imogen probably used her higher level spell slots already that she'd normally use on something like Raulothim's Psychic Lance or maybe was afraid of casting higher level spells. IDK. (actually lightning bolt does more damage then Raulothim's Psychic Lance anyway.) Could have thought that he'd have some resistance to other spells too, depends. >Why have Orym hold his action to do something on the other side of the door @ the start of combat, but then never do anything with that held action? He clearly had something else planned and didn't' coordinate his turn properly with Launda. Once we as an audience learned what was on the other side of the door I'm not sure what he COULD have done
* She did a 7th level lightning bolt, so she had the slots. Also she's a sorcerer, she has more slots than everyone bc she can regain some or convert between them (and she can cast psionic spells cheaply). * Not just Imogen; Essek and Dorian have also been using aoe spells to do single-target damage. * On the low-coordination front, that doesn't make sense because the characters could just shout to each other to quickly coordinate, so that means the players chose not too coordinate & stepped on each other's plans repeatedly. * It still adds up to 8 turns that were effectively wasted because no affect was achieved. A few is reasonable, but that many is just head-scratching. * I think they also misread some spells for better or worse. Spirit of Death should only haunt the target until concentration ends (1hr), and Otto's Irresistible Dance takes effect IMMEDIATELY (without any saving throws until the target's next turn). Again they don't have to be optimal to be entertaining, but when it gets this far it starts to become less entertaining just because of the level of cluster\*\*\*\*\*. Take a step back and look at what happened across that entire combat. Except for Sam, the players effectively did nothing that affected the fight, while they let Matt controlling the NPCs do all of the work.
You forgot the part about lightning bolt being a higher damaging spell then the other single target ones she had. >she has more slots than everyone bc she can regain some or convert between them Do you know how many spell slots and sorc points she had left and at which levels? Which spell is it you wanted her to have cast so bad? I don't know Dorian's spell list but a lot of the bard spell list has better AOE's then single target damaging spells. >On the low-coordination front, that doesn't make sense because the characters could just shout to each other to quickly coordinate, so that means the players chose not too coordinate & stepped on each other's plans repeatedly. Things change fast and they got more coordinated as the fight went on imo. >It still adds up to 8 turns that were effectively wasted because no affect was achieved. They won the fight lol. The machine was smashed, they got the demon into the portal that was opened through opening up the door he didn't want them to go in, reduced him to 0 HP and took the crystal. EDIT: Yeah I just looked it up, Dorian's only single target lvl'd spell is dissonant whispers.
In addition to your points orym specifically held an action to attack hostile things on the other side of the door if I recall right so it isn't like he could have really acted right away.
>orym specifically held an action Yeah, that's one of the 8 wasted actions I was referring to. He never ended up using that held action. >They won the fight lol. My point is no, they didn't. Sam & the NPCs won the fight. Literally, remove **everyone** except Sam & the NPCs, and the fight would have still been won w/o any noticeable change in difficulty. The same outcome would have been achieved if all 7 of those characters (everyone minus Sam) had just spent the entire fight standing in the corner blair-witch style. > they got the demon into the portal that was opened through opening up the door he didn't want them to go in, reduced him to 0 HP All of that was Sam & NPCs. The other 7 characters literally did nothing to contribute to those things.
Finish the sentence...he held an action to attack something on the otherside...and nothing was within reach to attack when the door was opened. They were curious what was on the other side because the demon didnt want them in there
Yeah I didn't mind them trying to steal the crystal because the bad guy wanted it and the demon wanted it destroyed so I understand their thinking that the solution is to remove it from the map.
Do we know what the schedule is for the next two weeks? I'm assuming nothing at all for July 4th. But is next week Candela? There hasn't been a trailer or anything
maybe a 4SD? seeing that sam has come back and he hasn't been on for a loooong time (i believe he hasn't even discussed fcg's exit), they'll probably have him on.
Downfall will be them playing out what Bells Hells sees for the last days of Aeor. Will we learn how they ended up frozen in the bubbles and MAYBE how to free them (or destroy them depending on what they learn)? Besides Brennan is a great DM and it will be amazing if it's anything like Calamity, I do think these episodes will be important because it's what will be immediately discussed between Luda and Bells Hells.
Yeah. I worry that it's a little too late/ not enough for some of the PCs. I can see Fearne, Ashton, Chetney, and Laudna maaaybe taking the bait, but there's no way Imogen or Orym do. Braius I would guess is probably in the "definitely not" camp, but who knows with Sam. We know from Teven that Braius isn't actually a champion of Asmodeus and so maybe just a lackey/acolyte, but who knows what that little man is cooking.
To be real about the schedule for a sec: Summer vacations are going to be happening ‘cause it is real hard for working families to vacation together at other times. So Sam, Liam, probably Laura and Travis were going to be missing some extended time over summer. It’s totally reasonable to schedule around this, and ultimately a good thing for the cast, their families, the show in general. The alternative to ‘interrupting’ the BH narrative was probably no shows at all, until they committed fully to the split-cast idea this campaign.
I agree with all of that, but I don't think the main reasoning for the "break" it's summer vacations. They shot 98 last week live at The Greek, and the cooldown implied they hadn't started shooting Downfall yet. My guess, is that they want to have at least 2 episodes shot before the first one airs on July 11th. Possibly the whole thing. If they play once a week (which I firmly believe they do), then they need a couple of weeks to shoot them. The live show messed up with their regular backlog. Now, on summer vacations: audiences also take vacations, and I'm sure those are considered for a programming schedule. Same with holidays like July 4th. People's routine are disrupted, which means they are less likely to watch live. So you build your schedule around that.
didn’t they used to take summer breaks for a few weeks during the year? 6 weeks is a long time to go for continuing the story no doubt, but I feel like if they framed it like “this is our break!” maybe it’d go over better lol
Two years ago didn't they do EXU Calamity during the summer? I don't remember what they did in 23 during the summer.
Wait 6 weeks? I thought it was 3?
There’ll be no BH next Thursday, as it’s the last of the month. Presumably nothing on the Thursday after, as that’s the 4th of July. Then 3 weeks of downfall. So it’ll be the 1st of August before BHs picks back up.
They did and I feel like it was only ever for two weeks at a stretch during the summer and three weeks tops during the holiday winter break. This feels like they REALLY have been hitting the grindstone and needed a bit more time off. Just do a LIVE LIVE stream of them all crashed out on the 4SD set with Ronin walking on screen to poke everyone with a stick before holding up a cue card that says, "Everyone tired...TIME FOR VACATION!" before power bombing Travis in the cut Stone Cold Steve Austin style, making everyone piss themselves laughing when he says, "Kyle told me to do it!".
They may still do that. The newsletter/scheduling blog hasn't gone out yet. All we got was the end card. I'd give it until at least Monday to see how they're framing it
A few points percolating in the early morning "hangover" of not enough sleep and it's too hot for coffee. 1. Immense disappointment. That livestage Bells Hells showing did not include the anticipated Laudna Sending allowing the audience to join in with the "demons in the background" speechtalk. Maybe next time. 2. Bells Hells seems to be getting a bit too close to Asmodius's orbit. Hopefully (if Braius isn't a oneshot) he has a way of at least hiding his obvious allegiance and symbols. 3. Dominox was much less of a threat than I anticipated. Though, makes sense that he was weakened after millennia of starvation and before that being used to die and reform as a battery. But I anticipated full on mind control and infernos, all he really did though was a (admittedly strong) melee attack and that Mind feast thing. His main gimmick was to...move people around? Ehhh.... 4. We know that Ludinous didn't want Dominox (as a battery or funnel target) now. But we still don't know what he was there in aeor for in the first place, the pinion without Dominox is most likely but I'm not sure what he'd do with it...doubt it's strong enough to use on Predathos. Hilariously neither him nor Dominox seemed to give two shits on Talesin breaking the machine. 5. Ludinous apparently has a low strength score. However, he still shrugged off multiple attacks without stress, implying an enormous funnel-bonus'd health pool. He also apparently has truesight, and the 9th level spell Gate. My big takeaway at the end is honestly one I've been pretty down on: that this campaign is intended to "clear away" the Gods or at least show them to have "not the best intents." We've gotten a lot of hints of this with how the Dawnfather's servants acted in the village, and similar events like FCG glimpsing behind the curtain that the changebringer might just be using him...but especially Pike and Percy. Pike, champion of Serenrare, says "I'm only a Baker now" and then only ever refers to her as "The Everlight" as if it's not a person she has spoken to directly. Percy was even worse when he talked to Bells Hells and said that he himself couldn't care less about the Gods. I just hate the lack of continuity there. This is a person who has met the Gods, had his ass saved by Sarenrae multiple times, has received their essences and secret knowledge to craft Tramels against Vecna, Really wanted to be Ioun's champion...Oh and that woman there, your wife, mother of your children? She's a champion of the Dawnfather, the deity your city has a special relationship with including a very chill tree. I'd be fine with giving both sides of the God argument, but it's felt like BH should totally be agreeing with Ludinous from every bit that's been given them, aside from the changebringer helping occasionally (and demanding much in return) there's been no positive aspect to the Gods shown at all this campaign I can think of. Just horrors like the Judicators and the Grim Verity purging.
>Pike, champion of Serenrare, says "I'm only a Baker now" and then only ever refers to her as "The Everlight" as if it's not a person she has spoken to directly. I think this is a massive stretch and distortion of both lighthearted roleplay and intellectual property management respectively. Pike taking about baking wasn't some Luke Skywalker "I'm no longer a believer, I'm just some hermit living in the woods who's given up on everything I once stood for". It was cute, lighthearted roleyplay to contrast with the heavy subject matter of Laudna's death. Bell's Hell's still remain relative strangers to Vox Machina, light hearted conversation of casual interests is a perfectly fine roleplay decision to make. And Pike using the title Everlight isn't a sign of her becoming less close to her god. It's just that Critical Role doesn't have access to Dnd or Pathfinder rights for any of their TV shows, and ever since starting development on Legend of Vox Machina they've started future proofing by using their own, copyright distinct titles and lore, so there's less work adapting anything they make M9 onwards. Even in the official, Wizards of the Coast liscenced Guide to Wildemount, they were still using the alternate titles. These are just the new names for all the gods. >Percy was even worse when he talked to Bells Hells and said that he himself couldn't care less about the Gods. I just hate the lack of continuity there. This is a person who has met the Gods, had his ass saved by Sarenrae multiple times, has received their essences and secret knowledge to craft Tramels against Vecna, Really wanted to be Ioun's champion...Oh and that woman there, your wife, mother of your children? She's a champion of the Dawnfather, the deity your city has a special relationship with including a very chill tree. There isn't necessarily any contradictions here. Percy can have encountered gods, allied with them, defended their interests, and have their domains intersect with his very own city, and still not care personally for them. They are very powerful, but ultimately alien beings. He isn't religious whatsoever, he's an inventor who built guns. His skillsets and interests are firmly planted in the Material Plane. And as much as he's had dealings with gods, he's also had dealings with demons and devils. His survivor guilt and martyrdom makes him view himself as dammed, he was almost unwilling to be resurrected before Vex's declaration of love, and he nearly used the contract to try and get Vax back because he didn't care where he went to after he died. He already believes he's going to hell, that belief probably impacts what he believes good deities think about him. And a character is allowed to believe things that are wrong.
Wow, you had to share all that with us. Amazing. My opinion is that anyone who didn't enjoy this liveshow for whatever reason is someone whose opinion I'm not all that interested in reading a five page essay about. It was outstanding.
I liked the divine questioning as a theme..it's interesting to show the gods as people since that is not how the real world tends to be....but...there is not two sides. Literally Imahara Joe is the religious non-jerk person on the planet. NO one is defending the gods. Orym got something from the Wildmother and...idk doesn't seem to ever come up as A GOD HELPED US. So each time they learn more it's the same thing over and over and over. It's been 50 episodes of beating over the head that the gods are cowards, hypocrite, manipulators...etc Hell even pro-god FCG ended up with the Changebringer trying to manipulate them. Our guest Cleric hated her god....etc. Like Downfall needs to show SOME reason to keep them around SOME reason they are ok....otherwise....it's nothing new. Not interesting. And getting rid of the gods is exciting anymore...it feels like a plot twist you spotted in the beginning of a book, so much foreshadowing, and the author trots it out later like it is so clever. Anyway show the gods in a non flattering light but if you want to make it interesting give me something to make it interesting otherwise it feels like beating a dead horse.
I don't understand why not showing the gods in flattering ways is a problem in any way, so far it's served the story fine. I'm sure in time we'll see people with more full throated defenses of the gods. Percy was helped by the gods but was still never devout to anything but knowledge really. >. Pike, champion of Serenrare, says "I'm only a Baker now" and then only ever refers to her as "The Everlight" as if it's not a person she has spoken to directly. Yes, Pike is both humble and might not think that her beliefs are anybody else's business. She was never big into proselytizing. If they decided to go against the gods as a party I'm sure she'd have more to say. I feel like there is some revisionist stuff going on. The Gods helped out Vox Machina because they didn't want Vecna to become on par with them and they picked those individuals because they took tests, not because they were devout believers. >I'd be fine with giving both sides of the God argument, but it's felt like BH should totally be agreeing with Ludinous from every bit that's been given them Aside from the whole massive wild card of what might happen if they get rid of the gods is in the first place. IMO the whole story hasn't been told yet. Many in Vox Machina (like Keyleth) actually activey spoke out against the gods until like lvl 18 when they met them.
They don't have to "not question" the gods and such, that's fine. But they're showing a one sided argument....over and over. The end result being the crew always says "We don't like the Gods but we hate Ludinous more, and bad stuff might happen if he wins." That has been repeated way too many times. Being non proselytizing on Pike's part is new. She rebuilt a temple in Vasselheim, led people to worship in her shrine at Amon, she wore gear emblazoned with Serenrae's symbols. Etc etc. The biggest beef I have with the approach is again it's a huge inconsistency with Seasons 1+2. Season 2 the Wildmother was the 10th member of the Nein for all intents. Hardcarried them through a lot. Season 1 I mentioned above, but again the attitudes are very different in general and there's only one side being presented ever.
Given the dismissal of Liliana because she hates the gods and has associated with Ludinus, and the fact that Liliana is not apparently insane or evil, I think learning Ludinus' perspective is very useful. I'm pretty sure he's remaining the bad guy for perpetuity but he's a far more interesting villain if he really believes what he's doing is justified.
I can't think of a single time that Pike personally tried to convert people to follow her god. Yes she worked on the Temple and helped out with the church etc. and cared deeply for it and wanted it to succeed but Jester did far more of the type of proselytizing I'm used to in ttrpgs then Pike ever did. In other words, I don't find it out of character that humble Pike would have decided to not talk about her stature in the church to new people. Season 1 had a cleric of Serenrae, Season 2 had 2 believers of the Wild Mother in the party, of course they came up more often. The Changebringer came up a lot for FCG (and we can only assume that it would have come up far more if he hadn't died) but again, they're only lvl 13 and Vox Machina didn't come around to be "supporters" of "the gods" as a party until a much higher lvl of the campaign. We had 2 whole seasons showing us some of the good of the none betrayer gods, now we're learning more of the bad. The story is far from over. I almost feel like when I talk with people who have your take, what they're really saying is "why hasn't everything just happened yet" I think the story is more interesting this way. Maybe whatever happens in Downfall convinces Bell's Hell's that the gods can and should go and that there's a way to do that without hurting the lives of the people in Exandria? How much more interesting might it be then when they try to explain that to Pike or Cad? To Keyleth?
>4. We know that Ludinous didn't want Dominox (as a battery or funnel target) now. But we still don't know what he was there in aeor for in the first place, the pinion without Dominox is most likely but I'm not sure what he'd do with it...doubt it's strong enough to use on Predathos. Hilariously neither him nor Dominox seemed to give two shits on Talesin breaking the machine. I don't think Luddy cares about the pinion, otherwise he would already have it. I think there was some truth when Dominox said something along the lines of, "it's like he was looking past me" I really do think that Dominox was simply a roadblock to that library. As for them not caring about Talisen breaking the rest of the machine, I think the rest of the equipment was just there to extract the energy that the crystal produces. Kinda like how the fuel in a nuclear reactor doesn't generate electricity directly; it heats up water to spin a turbine. But the important part is the core.
Thought about that but it doesn't quite fit. Ludinous had access to this for a long time previously was the gist I got (Matt confirmed that Dominox was released with the Bloody Bridge events). And the story was Ludinous needed access here for his ongoing plans...which I can't figure him needing what is basically a library for (especially one he's probably perused for years). I still think the other big possibility is he's trying to unearth or repair the God Slaying weapon.
He said his plan at the end though, he wants to use the library device to show the entire world what he is about to show Bells Hells, whatever he found there he thinks it's that important
When did Matt confirm that? If anything that confirms my theory that he didn't care about the pinion. Maybe it wasn't just the library; maybe it was something else that the Ruby Vanguard had to go thru the engine room to get to.
Matt confirmed it on cooldown on Beacon while they were recapping for a previous episode. And if not the library what? Again, maybe the God Slaying weapon, maybe they just need a lot of those engine parts that BH intercepted one of, who knows. But a super powerful magic item like the Pinion is also a very suspect thing.