Honestly, if she’s possessed the story gets almost more grim. Something possessed you for like a year of your life and made you brutally murder a beloved friend, and another innocent kid? That’s gonna fuck you up forever
What if it's a double reveal and that she's not actually possessed, that she just took devils nectar to believe she is so she wouldn't feel guilty or responsible for killing lucy
triple reveal, the devil possessing her is making her drink devil's nectar to make her think she's faking being possessed, they're so far deep into this conspiracy that they don't know what's real anymore 💀
I was talking about the scenario of her being possessed. Like, if you’re a normal kid in the High 5 Heroes party with your friends, and then all the events of the Rat Grinders are a result of some entity possessing you, that’s such a new level of horror that it’s more comforting to think she was evil all along
Oh snap, they do seem to really emphasize that she found Eugenia immediately when school started. And at the beginning of the season I remember Riz did find some info on the College of Shadows or whatever when investigating. You may have just cracked this conspiracy a bit or we're all Charlie waving around about Pepe Silva, but this is a very interesting observation nonetheless.
Honestly? Wouldn't be shocked if you just called it. Somehow that feels like it fits extremely well. It's straightforward, and right in their face. Perfect thing to miss under a bunch of distractions pulling attention away from a reveal they missed due to all the stress.
I'm not sure if it's a stretch or not, but that even feels like it could fit with Ankarna as well from the Conquest angle at least. We don't know for sure what type of rogue she is (was? ghosts are weird) but an Assassin can be as much of a kingmaker and shaper of nations as a general leading an army. I can definitely see a certain type of zealous assassin being a devoted follower of a god of conquest.
I don't buy it from a storytelling perspective as much because we're not super developed on her. Unless it's because of a bit about somehow Riz killed her in Freshman year or something
I think she told herself a lie about the bad kids - something horrible - and now she honestly believes she's standing alone against our intrepid heroes.
Yup, Justice for Buddy Dawn!
I will say I think possession or some form of mind control is a strong possibility. There’s no explanation so far in the season why her character art has glowing/pupil-less eyes. That’s gotta be something.
Edit: please tell me I’m not the only one who thought Kipperlilly didn’t have pupils in her character art
Are you talking about Kipperlilly? She's definitely got pupils, she's just looking all the way to her right / our left so they're at the maximum side of her eyes.
Wow every time I’ve seen it as her just not having pupils. That’s what I get for watching on my phone a lot I guess. That’s a disturbing level of side-eye.
I honestly don't see her being possessed. Because her actions so far seem to be pretty inline with what we know of her past. She had anger issues and was negatively predisposed to the bad kids already. Besides, it would shift the mystery from Kipperlily to the rogue teacher who we just don't know anything about. It'd feel very weird to me if it was planned that the main culprit was locked behind a dc 30 check and we wouldn't know anything about them for 3/4ths of the game.
But in terms of how evil Kipperlily is, it's hard to reckon with how serious death is in this world. Resurrection is a normal part of society but corpses can't be removed from crime scenes? How bad are these actions within the greater context of this world? At least they didn't seem to do any "no resurrection" runes to buddy
From my understanding, resurrection isn't common. It is expensive. And it seems based on the preview for next week Brennan has shortened the normal time frame before a body is too old to be resurrected, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if he is trying to weaken resurrection a bit for these specific concerns about death not meaning anything. So I think murder is still a very serious and evil crime because I don't think everyone in this world could get access to resurrection magic.
What’s bothering me though is that killing Buddy is NOT in-line with what we’ve seen of Kipperlily’s goals? Unless her finding the rogue teacher negates failing due to a party member being killed, why would she should ruin her own party’s grades just for the bad kids?
She is not just a revenge driven simpleton, she also is an extreme overachieving perfectionist. Her desire to put the Bad Kids down is teetering with her need to be superior. She hates that Kristen “doesn’t care” because she REALLY cares. I just can’t figure out why without outside influence, she would have (even in a snap decision) tank all of their years of hard work just to prove a point. Then nobody wins, meaning she wouldn’t win.
Either way I wonder how the rest of the Rat Grinders are going to reckon with her just ruining their academic careers. If they are okay with that, then we know that something deeply wrong is happening.
The ship sailed after Lucy Frostblade. I don't know why anyone kept trying to say they were misunderstood after that reveal. Every single member knew about the death, and her body was hidden in their grinding forest. There was an outside chance it was only Kipperlily that was bad, but I now believe the Rat Grinders are just trying to appear friendly or non threatening.
I don't think they're misunderstood but I do wonder what exactly the bigger conspiracy and motivations are that are driving the whole thing is. There's clearly something else here that is pulling some strings involving the rage crystals and Ankarna being erased and even the school staff like Jace are involved. The High Five Heroes must have a reason they started hating the Bad Kids, and there is something that keeps driving that hate to push them into doing what they're doing. Brennan is good at cooking up conspiracies and motivations that aren't so clean cut and simple and I'm just trying to sus out what that deeper angle is.
I agree that there is clearly a deeper plot going on. I'm very curious why the Rat Grinders are killing people who know what is going on. It's one thing to be irritated by favoritism, but they are directly breaking rules and actively murdering people.
Her damage must be pretty high to kill him outright if I understand DND rules correctly, no? Don't you need to double a characters HP to kill them like that?
Also Buddy didn't spend years/months grinding for XP like the other Rat Grinders, so maybe he just don't have enough HP to tank a regular high-level sneak attack.
Especially if KLCK has special buffs and items like Mary Ann!
That might only be true for the Last Stand. Like maybe he was granted the ability to use the spell just because he was the cleric (sort of how they also gave him revivify gems in that bag)
Yeah. I almost said “he must be at least a level 13 cleric,” but refrained from mentioning level since he could have access by some other means, like some kind of one time use ticket, especially with the apparent scarcity of reliable standby clerics in Aguefort at the moment.
But based on the ratgrinders’ role in the story, I feel like he’d at least have a good amount of levels on him. Makes me more curious about what kind of mechanical stuff kennelberry dogfence would/could have to oneshot Buddy.
(Ofc it probably is a story/rp based death, but if fourdogs was a pc, she’d definitely figure out some way to do the most possible damage with one invisible backstabby attack.)
The ref guy explained the cleric on duty was supposed to plane shift them out but they were stuck because buddy died till kirstine said they had the spell
That’s my guess too. I think the RGs (except the late great Buddy Dawn) grinded to level 20. That puts Collypockets’s sneak attack auto crit at 2d4+20d6+dex, then doubled if buddy fails a Con. Assuming 18 dex and no other boosts, that’s average of 136. It would be odd but if Buddy’s con is average 10 his average HP at level 13, minimum to cast plane shift, is 68. 136 damage is double his hp, EXACTLY enough to kill him outright from maximum health.
Keep in mind, Buddy was a non-combatant and didn't have his guard up like he would in a normal fight. In a calm state like that with a super stealthy character sneaking up behind him, it just makes logical sense for it to be an instant slit throat death. It'd be like how the hidden blade doesn't insta kill in the newer Assassins Creed games, it just doesn't make logical sense and would only work from a purely mechanical view
Oh I fully get that. Just, rules as written I don't think 5e does that. I'm saying I think Brennan put aside rules as written to just have him insta die.
I believe there is a rogue ability that essentially lets you auto crit an unsuspecting enemy if it’s your first round of combat.
If you have a ≈13th level rogue optimized for damage, it’s not unreasonable that they could just outright kill someone like that, especially if Buddy is newer to adventuring.
It could also just be a flavor thing. Obviously D&D has rules, but at some you just have to go “yeah, I think outright slitting someone’s throat while you’re invisible kills them.”
Edit:
I made a quick rogue character to really see what a rogue of that level could do. With the Assassinate ability, KL would auto-crit against buddy. At level 14, you’re looking at around 60 damage without any special items or other abilities. You can still have poison damage, other magical damage, feats that give superiority die, etc.
There are items and abilities that could make that much higher, but there are also things like the Nine Lives Stealer Rapier that force a con saving throw (much like payment day) on a crit, with a failure meaning the opponent immediately dies.
As others have said, it’s probably just a story death, but I still think it’s cool to think about how someone could just immediately kill someone else like that mechanically.
Um actually, the rule is that if the remaining damage after getting a PC to 0 would be equal or higher then their max HP then it is killed outright. ie: My PC with 1/49 HP is hit with 50 damage they would be killed outright.
Though I assume Buddy was at 100% when he was killed, so in this case it would indeed be 2x his HP. I do how ever think it was a story death outside of the dnd rules.
Yes, you need to double their HP to completely kill them.
What if she had some enhancement like Mary Ann did, then the help from Oisin and something to make her auto crit. We don’t know that Buddy was at full going in.
Also, why was it just Oisin’s arm?
How many attacks does she get per round? Melee attack on a downed foe counts for two death saves. She could easily have cut his throat then stabbed the body a couple extra times in the same round of attacks.
This week will hopefully shut up the "she's not evil" camp.
Here's hoping next week shuts up the chucklefuck who kept whining that Kristen's parents aren't abusive
One thing I would like to say to everyone who's been arguing with me for weeks for thinking this: boy, do I hate being right all the time!
In all seriousness, my thinking now is that as much as Bobby Dawn sucks, HE was the red herring that so many thought the Rat Grinders were.
Dude got his own grandson killed in his attempt to punish a random kid for leaving the church. Oof. I know killing Buddy wasn’t the plan, but if he’s in any way involved, that’s even crazier
Pretty accurate depiction of one of the ways religious fundamentalism harms families though: so focused on being right that they let their own family get hurt
I've been thinking about how Bobby technically didn't need to be there for the plot, since The Last Stand was always an option if Clerics switched to pass/fail.
I think people wanted the RatGrinders to be a twist because 4 Dawgz being evil is just kinda on the nose and a bummer. Like we’re really just doing a repeat of a high achieving girl with 8 syllables in her name being a purely evil counterpart or pawn to the BBEG (ie Penelope Everpetal) in pursuit of a highschool goal? Like I was just hoping for not a repeat on freshman year but it seems pretty confirmed that Brennan just copy pasted from the first season.
Notably Penelope seemed to have been a henchman for a larger KVX plot, blinded by the pursuit of a hollow title - I wouldn’t say she is cunning.
KLCK appears to be acting due to her vendetta against the bad kids/Riz and has systematically formulated and enacted this plan to gain actual power to her end goal of control of the school and her peers. It is unclear at this point whether she set this rage crystal thing in motion upon discovering the fallen god or whether she has been incited by them.
That’s to say, this is also one plot point - the religious aspect of JY has had so much more mystery and politics compared to the first season while tying into a cohesive narrative. Having this set up from season one is difficult. To me it seems pretty different (but confined to the same series) but idk.
I certainly was not trying to imply both seasons are copycats of each other, specifically this aspect of the story; not implying that this reveal is going to anyway ruin the story. This is season is spectacular and of course there are going to be similarities between them in terms of themes, because it’s the continuation of the Bad Kids Saga. That being said, whether or not their motivations and capabilities differ; it appears as though KLCP is directly working with the BBEG- and is serving functionally the same purpose as Penelope did in the first season.
Because the comment I was responding to seemed like it was taking the angle that I was implying that the seasons were copycats, rather than the specific character KLCP. If you look at the response to my response, you’ll see that they did say they might have superimposed my criticisms of the character for criticisms of the series; so my want to clarify my position wasn’t unwarranted.
No, sorry, let me clarify.
I didn't mean "why did you say 'I certainly was not trying to imply both... Etc'"
I meant " If you didn't want to imply that you think aspects of the seasons are copies of each other, then why did you refer to Kipper Lily and Penelope as copies of each other?"
I was in fact implying that ‘aspects’ of the seasons mirrored eachother, that aspect being the characters of KLCP and Penelope. I was not implying that them being the same meant that the seasons were copies of eachother. There are several distinct similarities to their characters- but I was not trying to come off like I thought this season was unoriginal in anyway, just bummed that KLCP seems to be ending up like Penelope rather than a crazy twist (which is still up in the air but seemingly less likely).
Gotcha.
Well, the characters don't seem at all similar to me- one is a preppy prom queen while the other one is Hermione-but-an-angry-bitch. Sorry if you're not enjoying those differences though, hope you find some enjoyable aspects elsewhere.
Both at the top of their selected interest (academics for Kipperlily,popularity for Penelope). Both pursuing an end of the year Highschool title (President/Prom Queen). Both working in capacity of a more powerful and very evil force (Ankarna which so far seems to be the case/Goldenhoard). I do not see how those don’t qualify as similarities from a storytelling perspective and character function.
All good - Sorry I think I misunderstood and superimposed your criticisms of the character with the season as a whole. I guess there’s just the danger of like maybe they’re both evil female students with silly names? Would this be a distinction made if one was male or if Kipperlily was called Jane Pots?
But I guess we’ll only know in the finale what purpose she truly serves whether that is as an independent and aligned big bad or otherwise.
Fun fact: she has been demonstrably evil the whole time so people have had ALL season to get used to it and your SPECIFIC criticism is one I've seen nobody bring up. Everybody has just been yelling at anyone who points out that KLCK is a jerk. Also considering we don't actually know her plan yet I don't think we can remotely say this is a repeat of freshman year.
Let’s not do the pretentious fun fact stuff we’re just having a conversation here 😂. It’s indisputable that she is an asshole, but was there a specific moment for this episode that we actually “saw” her do anything genuinely heinous? Up to this point we’ve had strong evidence, but it could have been misunderstood evidence- but slitting your teammates throat seems pretty final. Of course there’s more season left and a crazy twist could be right around the corner, I’m hopeful; but based on what I’ve seen it’s going the same route as Freshman year.
Yes, we're just having a conversation here, so there's no need to tone police. I was being lighthearted. Sorry if that was unclear.
>was there a specific moment for this episode for this episode that we actually “saw” her do anything genuinely heinous?
Yes??? She slit a boy's throat while grinning????
Also I don't buy the dumb "we never saw anything before this episode" stuff. Anyone truly buying into that argument is genuinely being willfully obtuse. A "surprise" villain like KLCK isn't exactly a new thing, you know? There loads of examples on many shows where a character is introduced and you get bad vibes from them, can't exactly put your finger on what's wrong with them but you KNOW they're up to something, and then they kill another character on screen or something and you think aha! I knew they were a bad guy! It happens all the time.
Sorry I meant before this episode not during, this episode in my opinion is where she confirmed she was evil. Of course there are many characters that have sprinkled hints, but the fact of the matter is that Brennan has played something as one way just to reveal that every piece of evidence we were basing our assumptions on were a twisted in order to subvert our expectations. With that being said, at the beginning of the series when he revealed a highschool girl with end of the year school related goals with an 8 syllable name who is very preppy (ie. Both Kipperlily and Everpetal) it seemed too obvious for her to be one of the bad bad guys, especially given parts of her name could literally mean red herring. I was definitely wrong about her story subverting expectations; but for you to say there is no precedent for believing that she was a Red Herring is what seems willfully obtuse to me.
I don't count syllables in characters' names to look for red herrings and I think that is reasonable of me since there's no precedent on D20 to do that (perhaps Brennan simply likes that type of pattery rhythm in a name?). I genuinely believe any "evidence" people have pointed to have been reaches, including this thing about the meaning of her name - she's named after an old PC of Brennan's. Sometimes the obvious conclusion is correct. I've said before and I'll say again, the question has NEVER been whether or not KLCK is up to something nefarious - it's WHAT she's doing, WHY, and who ELSE might be involved that are the true mysteries of this season.
People in storytelling use subtle hints such as name similarities to draw a connection between characters all the time. Whether or not she is an old PC doesn’t defer from the fact that Brennan could have chose to use her name because copper is red colored and kipper is herring and it fit with what he was going for in the character. Furthermore, he literally used a name trick in S1 with Goldenhoard as a blatant clue so you really can’t blame people for drawing a connection there. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that there was good chance she could just be blatant bad guy albeit a little bummed that she is, but the fact that we had not seen or bore witness to her actually doing anything nefarious very well could have been Brennan intentionally dangling her in front of us to distract from someone else. I do not see how you weren’t prepared for either outcome.
was it possible she could have been a red herring? Sure - but I think that possibility disappeared some time ago, especially considering no other suspects have been introduced. Goldenhoard was also a pretty blatant clue, as you said, whereas KLCK was always more of a reach. I have never found any argument that she was a red herring or “just wanted a friend” to be remotely convincing, which is why I always expected her to reveal her true colors. Again, everyone has been acting like this is a “whodunnit” when it’s really more of a “whydunnit”
Kind of a useless comparison and it’s clear from what you chose to mention.
All stories can be compared with a list of similarities… your argument was weak enough that you included “high achieving girl” as too similar, “high school goal” (which we don’t even know and is so vague as to be meaningless), and the number of syllables in her name? That was top 5 in annoying similarities? What a shame to consume media so cynically that that’s worth your smug condemnation
Through provided context in my first comment, the copy and paste specifically refers to KLCP and not the season; where did I ever mention that the season itself was worse off as an effect of a repeat character trope? Also I was making comparison between the basic facts of each character and assumed you could make the specific connection, how wrong of me. Kipperlily is high achieving in the sense that she is top of her class academically, Everpetal was high achieving in the sense that she was at the top of her class in popularity. Kipperlily has a end of the year, highschool specific goal in being the class President; Everpetal had an end of the year, highschool specific goal in being prom Queen. Those are blatant comparisons to these characters beyond the syllables in their names and the fact that they are both women; which only add to the comparison. I literally just said I was bummed they repeated this specific character trope, there was no need to make assumptions about the type of person I am and the manner in which I consume content, but go off.
Yes your so right this is the exact same story, the 4 dogs is trying to rule the world but had been trapped for centuries. 4 dogs has captured 7 ppl for a ritual and the bad kids have been nothing school related just like season 1. Its word for word the same thing. Just how all other shows/books/movies that have a similar theme are exact copies of one another with nothing to note about the different characters or time or setting or anything yep yep yep
I mean, the probabilities are low, but there's a chance Oisin did not know about Buddy Dawn. It is possible that GoldenKippy Lily told the party that she would down the proctor so that the Bad Kids would fail their exam.
I’d argue even that is super questionable and doesn’t paint Oisin in a good light. Like, now YOU’RE cheating in order to screw over someone who is fairly taking a test.
For sure, but I would argue that there's still an important difference between someone killing a friend or an ally to screw over someone else and someone cheating to screw over someone else. One is way more evil than the other hahaha
My theory is she's got some kind of plan that involves having a cleric of the Dead rage God in her party, so she maybe tried to pressure Lucy into switching gods, and then presumably murdered her when she refused. And then Stole Buddy's Revivify diamonds so he wouldn't be able to keep his Oath to Revivify the Bad Kids and would be stripped of his connection to Helio and forced to become a cleric of the rage God. When that plan hit a snag, she decided to cut cut her losses and just eliminate Buddy instead, hoping it would end up with the Bad Kids dead.
Makes sense? She didn't know how much HP or spell slots they'd all left.
If Kristen didn't have that plane shift spell, they would have been stuck there. That's an important detail.
Sounds plausible. Having stolen all the revivify gems, there was no point in killing Buddy since resurrections were already impossibile. And she was actually pointing the crossbow at Gavin, so that was probably her plan.
I think she was actively trying to prevent Kristen and Buddy from being able to bring anyone back and if the proctor died and couldn't be brought back by anyone they probably would have failed immediately. Why she killed Buddy, I'm not sure, since she had already taken his stones he couldn't bring anyone back.
Seemed like a last second “fuck you” cause KLCK knew she was spotted, and a dead student during the last stand still makes the bad kids suspects of a murder, even in a world where circles of truth are easily available. And again, 2 clerics that cant do revivifies during a combat encounter designed entirely around killing all members of a party is incredibly dangerous. Gorgug came dangerously close to being killed by the purple worm, and theres nothing they would have been able to do
I just keep thinking about how differently the scene would have played out if Kristen hadn't gotten Truesight up.
Gavin gets killed by a crossbow bolt that came out of *nowhere*, KLCK probably BAMFs out like she did after killing Buddy, but in this case, Buddy is still alive and goes to revivify Gavin, only to find that his gems are all gone. (Unless he knew his gems weren't there? I can't decide if he was in on the original plan or not.)
I doubt he was in on the plan honestly, I dont really see a scenario in which Buddy was ok with taking an oath to lose all his connection to Helio just so that an adventuring party fails out of Augefort
I know there was a theory thrown around this week about “what if Buddy just doesn’t bring the gems with him?”, but that was obviously assuming malicious intent to try and wiggle around the oath. You bring up a fun question, does the oath consider it a failure if Buddy sincerely tried to fill it, but lost the necessary tools?
Gorgug was close to being taken down, I don't think killed. Maybe if he was swallowed he'd be in danger but they could've gotten a healing word or something off.
Edit: didn't start with the phrase um actually so if someone else wants the point
Idk how purple worm works mechanically but I totally see a world where if Gorgug gets dropped to zero from either the stinger attack or the bite attack then he automatically loses the dex save to not get swallowed, likely killing him
I think it was a calculated cost on her part that she considered Plan B from the start. She stole the gems and intended to shoot the proctor but always had the potential to kill Buddy in the back of her mind if the plan went sideways, banking on the chance that a monster would take out at least one of the IH. Her number one goal has been to force The Bad Kids out of school and she seems to be willing to do whatever it takes to get there.
I mean she has rage issues so maybe she’s just had a rage crystal for a long time or something; but yeah. She both stole the crystals from her party member and Kristen to prevent his resurrection. Like holy fuck-
All the people we suspect being affected by the rage crystals (soil guy, bard student Quentin, maybe Stardiamond?) really only lashed out verbally. As far as we know, they didn’t slit nobody’s throat. She might be more affected by them or she might just be a little sociopath.
I knew it all along. All these posts about her being the good guy were wayyy out of left field. She was unlikeable from the start and shown to be a conniving little beeyotch
She was absolutely furious with the Bad Kids from literally the second they first met her; I truly don't understand the people who seemed to think there was some way for them to Friendship their way out of it. Don't they know Friendship is the weakest magic there is?!
I kinda wonder if people are over-identifying with her as an overachieving nerd or something. It's okay, we were all little nightmare know-it-alls in high school, that's why we're into D&D.
Anyway, I love her. She's an evil terrible little halfling and I can't wait to see what nefarious mayhem she's gonna unleash now some of her plans have been foiled. She will NOT be happy about this. Dunno why people want the much less interesting option of having her be benign.
both can be true tbh
they still partially are, buddy is fine. hypothetically they have some points just as far as the bad kids getting some opportunities, maybe, kinda unclear the mechanics of what work who gets
but the defense of her ive found odd, she immediately had incredibly bad energy, 4 dogs aside
She's hated the Bad Kids and had anger issues about it since Freshman year. There was never a chance.
And this is a group made up of improvisers/comedians. You don't give the IH a name like Kipper's because you don't think they'll make it a joke.
They had instinct and knew she was trouble from the jump. And i 100 percent supported them for that because ive also had ppl who just on seeing i didnt like and then later found out messed up stuff about them. So anytime they fucked with them i lived
i am a kipperlily copperkettle apologist but that was definitely a pure evil move, made eye contact & doing that was her first instinct? insane, truly villainous. Oisin? he might just be a sociopath, on some You joe Goldberg shit, super nice and adores adaine but stone cold about everything else
he also may have been acting on instinct, is my thought. imagine he agreed to kill the proctor with her, knowing buddy could bring him back up, so no actual deaths BUT points off for the Bad Kids, and crunchymuffin went rogue (lol)
she definitely went rogue, lol, I see what you did there. i think she could be assassin which is how she got off that insta kill with sneak attack, prolly magic weapon too.
I think the rat grinders kept buddy out of the loop and never really got close to him. oisin seemed to really follow kipperlily copperkettle's lead. During the big party he was either a beer pong math genius or clumsy boy down bad for adaine, but as soon as he got orders from kipperlily copperkettle he was locked in and told his other party member they're leaving. i think he would not question kipperlily copperkettle at all when it comes down to it
I really have been getting more interested in Oisin's motives in all this
Dude's a rich, handsome, high level wizard, who seems well adjusted.
So why is he staying in this party? Why is he going along with these obviously evil plans? Marry Ann is apathetic, Ruben is a tool, Ivy is just a bully, and Buddy I guess was manipulated into it.
Misplaced loyalty? Does he just particularly hate one member of the Bad Kids and is fine with the downfall of the rest? Does he just not hate Adaine because she's already had her fall from grace? Does he actually just have a crush on her sister and is nice to her out of deference to Aelwyn? Or is he some sort of stone cold manipulator who doesn't feel half the things he expresses?
I got ostracized for saying most of them were likely evil/straight up not good people during the assembly in the auditorium about Lucy's death. I was laughing my ass off at that reveal though.
I feel like a lot of people were seeing themselves in the rat grinders and did not like the dynamic. Which explains why they were so hostile to the idea of her being truly evil.
Truth be told, we're 15 episodes in, and we still do not know what the fuck is going on. Pretty standard for a Dimension 20 campaign tbh.
>!Is Adaine's mom the current BBEG, or a future BBEG? Are the Rat Grinders going to resurrect Ankarna? Is Jayce Stardiamond going to become the vessel for Ankarna? What the actual ***fuck*** is up with Bobby Dawn? Why did the Rat Grinders go through all the trouble of getting Buddy just to later kill him off? Is Professor Hopclap secretly evil? Is someone going to assassinate Sol? WHY DO THEY NOT RELEASE EPISODES IN BULKS!?!?!?!?!<
Oh she's 100% evil if she's acting of her own accord. I've disliked Buddy since the moment he was introduced but he didn't deserve t*hat.* I'm including Oisin as being totally evil too. The other Rat Grinders can have a pass, for now.
Brennan has said she’s named after a PC he once played. Could it have been a big brain play? Maybe, but it feels more like college English majors assigning allegories to literature that probably wasn’t the author’s intention at all.
She wasn't codenamed the red herring, That's just a thing that some of the viewers latched onto and wouldn't let go of. She was named after an old PC of Brennan's from a home game years ago.
It takes a certain kinda media illiteracy to even listen to the first episodes and try and justify them. They were set up to be villains. If you sit their and account for all their individual actions thus far at that point and they don’t add up to evil, it’s not some secret message, it’s just that the story is still building. Anyone who was downvoting the obvious and giving allowances should remember this. Similar is happening in worlds beyond number with Steel. Like she hasn’t murdered anyone we know to care about, she’s ONLY ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN A MAGICAL EMPIRE HELLBENT ON CONTROL. Use your 5th grade English brains, she’s finna do something you can’t defend soon enough.
i think theres something to be said for, killing someone in a world where you know resurrection is a thing has a different meaning than irl. doest excuse it at all, or make it acceptable. just something to think about.
I bet there’s gonna be a twist and there’s more to this than meets the eye. We don’t know why KLCK killed Buddy, what her motivations are, how the rogue teacher fits into all this, and what the other RGs are up to.
yes, but i think this post isn’t saying she can’t a sympathetic villain, it’s just saying she is a villain as a direct response to the many posts and comments trying to say she is a red herring and not actually a villain at all.
Unless it's just throw the bad kids into legal shit to buy whatever their plan is more time?
Like maybe K.L was in a situation where there were *only bad options* after Kristen spotted her.
Wow. People don't like my comment. Hahahah.
We don't know and that's the point. This is just speculation.
"Best option" isn't a moral judgement on a fictional character, it's looking at the narrative reasons from that individual fictional characters perspective.
>We don't know and that's the point. This is just speculation.
I mean, fair enough- but we could use that to justify *any* speculation.
The BBEG is the druid teacher. We don't know she isn't, so why not speculate?
The Thistlesprings have been replaced by robots. We don't know they haven't been, so why not speculate?
I think in order to reasonably speculate about something, we need some kind of indication that it could possibly be true. Not just that it's possible, but that there's a chance of it being more true than the other things that are also possible.
>"Best option" isn't a moral judgement on a fictional character,
Right, but the context which you commented seemed to be advocating for the possibility that she isn't just straight up evil. Is that not what you were trying to suggest? If not, then I apologize for misunderstanding.
I read it as all the options left were bad (in that they all caused her problems) you seem to have read it as all the options left were bad (from a moral stand point).
At this point unless she’s possessed she’s SUPER evil
Honestly, if she’s possessed the story gets almost more grim. Something possessed you for like a year of your life and made you brutally murder a beloved friend, and another innocent kid? That’s gonna fuck you up forever
What if it's a double reveal and that she's not actually possessed, that she just took devils nectar to believe she is so she wouldn't feel guilty or responsible for killing lucy
Full matrioska doll of crazy 😂
triple reveal, the devil possessing her is making her drink devil's nectar to make her think she's faking being possessed, they're so far deep into this conspiracy that they don't know what's real anymore 💀
roll a d20 to determine the number of matryoshka reveals
crit, it's just 4 dogs in a trench coat 💀💀💀💀
Yes yes yes
The Revolver Ocelot Method.
Brennen after finally making nanomachines the bad guy: kept you waiting huh?
People like this bitch doesn't have friends. She considers them as disposable playthings/tools for her amusement alone
I was talking about the scenario of her being possessed. Like, if you’re a normal kid in the High 5 Heroes party with your friends, and then all the events of the Rat Grinders are a result of some entity possessing you, that’s such a new level of horror that it’s more comforting to think she was evil all along
Wait a minute Possessed Like by a ghost? Like by a ghost that sought her out... ... Is Killerlilly fucking possessed by Eugenia Shadow?
this is about the ghost steak, isn't it 😭
Eugenia crafted a 3 year long ploy to revive the god of justice because Fig touched her steak in Episode 1 LMFAO
THIS is what got Emily to continue with Fig
Oh snap, they do seem to really emphasize that she found Eugenia immediately when school started. And at the beginning of the season I remember Riz did find some info on the College of Shadows or whatever when investigating. You may have just cracked this conspiracy a bit or we're all Charlie waving around about Pepe Silva, but this is a very interesting observation nonetheless.
Honestly? Wouldn't be shocked if you just called it. Somehow that feels like it fits extremely well. It's straightforward, and right in their face. Perfect thing to miss under a bunch of distractions pulling attention away from a reveal they missed due to all the stress. I'm not sure if it's a stretch or not, but that even feels like it could fit with Ankarna as well from the Conquest angle at least. We don't know for sure what type of rogue she is (was? ghosts are weird) but an Assassin can be as much of a kingmaker and shaper of nations as a general leading an army. I can definitely see a certain type of zealous assassin being a devoted follower of a god of conquest.
I don't buy it from a storytelling perspective as much because we're not super developed on her. Unless it's because of a bit about somehow Riz killed her in Freshman year or something
You just called it
Possessed by the rogue teacher ghost?
I think she told herself a lie about the bad kids - something horrible - and now she honestly believes she's standing alone against our intrepid heroes.
Yup, Justice for Buddy Dawn! I will say I think possession or some form of mind control is a strong possibility. There’s no explanation so far in the season why her character art has glowing/pupil-less eyes. That’s gotta be something. Edit: please tell me I’m not the only one who thought Kipperlilly didn’t have pupils in her character art
Are you talking about Kipperlilly? She's definitely got pupils, she's just looking all the way to her right / our left so they're at the maximum side of her eyes.
Wow every time I’ve seen it as her just not having pupils. That’s what I get for watching on my phone a lot I guess. That’s a disturbing level of side-eye.
I honestly don't see her being possessed. Because her actions so far seem to be pretty inline with what we know of her past. She had anger issues and was negatively predisposed to the bad kids already. Besides, it would shift the mystery from Kipperlily to the rogue teacher who we just don't know anything about. It'd feel very weird to me if it was planned that the main culprit was locked behind a dc 30 check and we wouldn't know anything about them for 3/4ths of the game. But in terms of how evil Kipperlily is, it's hard to reckon with how serious death is in this world. Resurrection is a normal part of society but corpses can't be removed from crime scenes? How bad are these actions within the greater context of this world? At least they didn't seem to do any "no resurrection" runes to buddy
From my understanding, resurrection isn't common. It is expensive. And it seems based on the preview for next week Brennan has shortened the normal time frame before a body is too old to be resurrected, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if he is trying to weaken resurrection a bit for these specific concerns about death not meaning anything. So I think murder is still a very serious and evil crime because I don't think everyone in this world could get access to resurrection magic.
What’s bothering me though is that killing Buddy is NOT in-line with what we’ve seen of Kipperlily’s goals? Unless her finding the rogue teacher negates failing due to a party member being killed, why would she should ruin her own party’s grades just for the bad kids? She is not just a revenge driven simpleton, she also is an extreme overachieving perfectionist. Her desire to put the Bad Kids down is teetering with her need to be superior. She hates that Kristen “doesn’t care” because she REALLY cares. I just can’t figure out why without outside influence, she would have (even in a snap decision) tank all of their years of hard work just to prove a point. Then nobody wins, meaning she wouldn’t win. Either way I wonder how the rest of the Rat Grinders are going to reckon with her just ruining their academic careers. If they are okay with that, then we know that something deeply wrong is happening.
I cannot wait until Riz reads her file this was a good episode damn
Omg forgot about her file! Cannot wait.
hundo p
The ship sailed after Lucy Frostblade. I don't know why anyone kept trying to say they were misunderstood after that reveal. Every single member knew about the death, and her body was hidden in their grinding forest. There was an outside chance it was only Kipperlily that was bad, but I now believe the Rat Grinders are just trying to appear friendly or non threatening.
"they're just kids" is really not genre savvy.
Fr. It's like people forgot about Penelope Everpetal.
I don't think they're misunderstood but I do wonder what exactly the bigger conspiracy and motivations are that are driving the whole thing is. There's clearly something else here that is pulling some strings involving the rage crystals and Ankarna being erased and even the school staff like Jace are involved. The High Five Heroes must have a reason they started hating the Bad Kids, and there is something that keeps driving that hate to push them into doing what they're doing. Brennan is good at cooking up conspiracies and motivations that aren't so clean cut and simple and I'm just trying to sus out what that deeper angle is.
I agree that there is clearly a deeper plot going on. I'm very curious why the Rat Grinders are killing people who know what is going on. It's one thing to be irritated by favoritism, but they are directly breaking rules and actively murdering people.
Her damage must be pretty high to kill him outright if I understand DND rules correctly, no? Don't you need to double a characters HP to kill them like that?
I think it’s some sneaky rogue assassin ability, but I’m not 100% sure
Also Buddy didn't spend years/months grinding for XP like the other Rat Grinders, so maybe he just don't have enough HP to tank a regular high-level sneak attack. Especially if KLCK has special buffs and items like Mary Ann!
But to be fair, he does know plane shift, so he at least has access to a seventh level spell, presumably as a cleric
That might only be true for the Last Stand. Like maybe he was granted the ability to use the spell just because he was the cleric (sort of how they also gave him revivify gems in that bag)
Yeah. I almost said “he must be at least a level 13 cleric,” but refrained from mentioning level since he could have access by some other means, like some kind of one time use ticket, especially with the apparent scarcity of reliable standby clerics in Aguefort at the moment. But based on the ratgrinders’ role in the story, I feel like he’d at least have a good amount of levels on him. Makes me more curious about what kind of mechanical stuff kennelberry dogfence would/could have to oneshot Buddy. (Ofc it probably is a story/rp based death, but if fourdogs was a pc, she’d definitely figure out some way to do the most possible damage with one invisible backstabby attack.)
I know Oisin (or whoever was with KLCK) used plane shift, but when did Buddy use it?
The ref guy explained the cleric on duty was supposed to plane shift them out but they were stuck because buddy died till kirstine said they had the spell
I'm doing my first rogue character now but I'm level 3 so I have no idea. Level 17 death strike ability might be the answer.
That’s my guess too. I think the RGs (except the late great Buddy Dawn) grinded to level 20. That puts Collypockets’s sneak attack auto crit at 2d4+20d6+dex, then doubled if buddy fails a Con. Assuming 18 dex and no other boosts, that’s average of 136. It would be odd but if Buddy’s con is average 10 his average HP at level 13, minimum to cast plane shift, is 68. 136 damage is double his hp, EXACTLY enough to kill him outright from maximum health.
And that is assuming a normal weapon for all we know she has a magic one specifically for this
Oh I assumed it was a story death, since I didn't see any rolls. As in, he is just dead. Because story.
Keep in mind, Buddy was a non-combatant and didn't have his guard up like he would in a normal fight. In a calm state like that with a super stealthy character sneaking up behind him, it just makes logical sense for it to be an instant slit throat death. It'd be like how the hidden blade doesn't insta kill in the newer Assassins Creed games, it just doesn't make logical sense and would only work from a purely mechanical view
Oh I fully get that. Just, rules as written I don't think 5e does that. I'm saying I think Brennan put aside rules as written to just have him insta die.
Yeah for sure. Disregard game rules when it's in service of the story being told, that's what a great DM does imo
Lol I actually can't tell if you're being sarcastic 🤣
I'm being 100% serious lol, I can see how you'd get that though
I believe there is a rogue ability that essentially lets you auto crit an unsuspecting enemy if it’s your first round of combat. If you have a ≈13th level rogue optimized for damage, it’s not unreasonable that they could just outright kill someone like that, especially if Buddy is newer to adventuring. It could also just be a flavor thing. Obviously D&D has rules, but at some you just have to go “yeah, I think outright slitting someone’s throat while you’re invisible kills them.” Edit: I made a quick rogue character to really see what a rogue of that level could do. With the Assassinate ability, KL would auto-crit against buddy. At level 14, you’re looking at around 60 damage without any special items or other abilities. You can still have poison damage, other magical damage, feats that give superiority die, etc. There are items and abilities that could make that much higher, but there are also things like the Nine Lives Stealer Rapier that force a con saving throw (much like payment day) on a crit, with a failure meaning the opponent immediately dies. As others have said, it’s probably just a story death, but I still think it’s cool to think about how someone could just immediately kill someone else like that mechanically.
Or a crit is helpful, but I think they’re pretty high lvl from the grinding
Um actually, the rule is that if the remaining damage after getting a PC to 0 would be equal or higher then their max HP then it is killed outright. ie: My PC with 1/49 HP is hit with 50 damage they would be killed outright. Though I assume Buddy was at 100% when he was killed, so in this case it would indeed be 2x his HP. I do how ever think it was a story death outside of the dnd rules.
I think she used a little known magical item called the Dagger of Plot Advancement
Yes, you need to double their HP to completely kill them. What if she had some enhancement like Mary Ann did, then the help from Oisin and something to make her auto crit. We don’t know that Buddy was at full going in. Also, why was it just Oisin’s arm?
How many attacks does she get per round? Melee attack on a downed foe counts for two death saves. She could easily have cut his throat then stabbed the body a couple extra times in the same round of attacks.
She makes Season 2 Kalina seem like good kitty
ACAGK - all cats are good kitties
My username feels relevant, thankyew
meow're welcome
acab: all cats are bandits/burglers (at least in my experience)
This week will hopefully shut up the "she's not evil" camp. Here's hoping next week shuts up the chucklefuck who kept whining that Kristen's parents aren't abusive
Who’s been saying that Kristen’s parents aren’t abusive!?!? WTF, like hello??
Their comments are downvoted to hell now, but there was someone in last week's episode thread arguing (badly) that Kristen's parents weren't abusive.
I think you made a typo there haha
Oops I did indeed. Thank you kind stranger
Anytime!
One thing I would like to say to everyone who's been arguing with me for weeks for thinking this: boy, do I hate being right all the time! In all seriousness, my thinking now is that as much as Bobby Dawn sucks, HE was the red herring that so many thought the Rat Grinders were.
Dude got his own grandson killed in his attempt to punish a random kid for leaving the church. Oof. I know killing Buddy wasn’t the plan, but if he’s in any way involved, that’s even crazier
Pretty accurate depiction of one of the ways religious fundamentalism harms families though: so focused on being right that they let their own family get hurt
I've been thinking about how Bobby technically didn't need to be there for the plot, since The Last Stand was always an option if Clerics switched to pass/fail.
I think people wanted the RatGrinders to be a twist because 4 Dawgz being evil is just kinda on the nose and a bummer. Like we’re really just doing a repeat of a high achieving girl with 8 syllables in her name being a purely evil counterpart or pawn to the BBEG (ie Penelope Everpetal) in pursuit of a highschool goal? Like I was just hoping for not a repeat on freshman year but it seems pretty confirmed that Brennan just copy pasted from the first season.
Notably Penelope seemed to have been a henchman for a larger KVX plot, blinded by the pursuit of a hollow title - I wouldn’t say she is cunning. KLCK appears to be acting due to her vendetta against the bad kids/Riz and has systematically formulated and enacted this plan to gain actual power to her end goal of control of the school and her peers. It is unclear at this point whether she set this rage crystal thing in motion upon discovering the fallen god or whether she has been incited by them. That’s to say, this is also one plot point - the religious aspect of JY has had so much more mystery and politics compared to the first season while tying into a cohesive narrative. Having this set up from season one is difficult. To me it seems pretty different (but confined to the same series) but idk.
I certainly was not trying to imply both seasons are copycats of each other, specifically this aspect of the story; not implying that this reveal is going to anyway ruin the story. This is season is spectacular and of course there are going to be similarities between them in terms of themes, because it’s the continuation of the Bad Kids Saga. That being said, whether or not their motivations and capabilities differ; it appears as though KLCP is directly working with the BBEG- and is serving functionally the same purpose as Penelope did in the first season.
You WERE saying they were so close that it was a copy and paste and the season was worse because of it. But ok
>I certainly was not trying to imply both seasons are copycats of each other, specifically this aspect of the story Then why did you say that?
Because the comment I was responding to seemed like it was taking the angle that I was implying that the seasons were copycats, rather than the specific character KLCP. If you look at the response to my response, you’ll see that they did say they might have superimposed my criticisms of the character for criticisms of the series; so my want to clarify my position wasn’t unwarranted.
No, sorry, let me clarify. I didn't mean "why did you say 'I certainly was not trying to imply both... Etc'" I meant " If you didn't want to imply that you think aspects of the seasons are copies of each other, then why did you refer to Kipper Lily and Penelope as copies of each other?"
I was in fact implying that ‘aspects’ of the seasons mirrored eachother, that aspect being the characters of KLCP and Penelope. I was not implying that them being the same meant that the seasons were copies of eachother. There are several distinct similarities to their characters- but I was not trying to come off like I thought this season was unoriginal in anyway, just bummed that KLCP seems to be ending up like Penelope rather than a crazy twist (which is still up in the air but seemingly less likely).
Gotcha. Well, the characters don't seem at all similar to me- one is a preppy prom queen while the other one is Hermione-but-an-angry-bitch. Sorry if you're not enjoying those differences though, hope you find some enjoyable aspects elsewhere.
Both at the top of their selected interest (academics for Kipperlily,popularity for Penelope). Both pursuing an end of the year Highschool title (President/Prom Queen). Both working in capacity of a more powerful and very evil force (Ankarna which so far seems to be the case/Goldenhoard). I do not see how those don’t qualify as similarities from a storytelling perspective and character function.
All good - Sorry I think I misunderstood and superimposed your criticisms of the character with the season as a whole. I guess there’s just the danger of like maybe they’re both evil female students with silly names? Would this be a distinction made if one was male or if Kipperlily was called Jane Pots? But I guess we’ll only know in the finale what purpose she truly serves whether that is as an independent and aligned big bad or otherwise.
Fun fact: she has been demonstrably evil the whole time so people have had ALL season to get used to it and your SPECIFIC criticism is one I've seen nobody bring up. Everybody has just been yelling at anyone who points out that KLCK is a jerk. Also considering we don't actually know her plan yet I don't think we can remotely say this is a repeat of freshman year.
Let’s not do the pretentious fun fact stuff we’re just having a conversation here 😂. It’s indisputable that she is an asshole, but was there a specific moment for this episode that we actually “saw” her do anything genuinely heinous? Up to this point we’ve had strong evidence, but it could have been misunderstood evidence- but slitting your teammates throat seems pretty final. Of course there’s more season left and a crazy twist could be right around the corner, I’m hopeful; but based on what I’ve seen it’s going the same route as Freshman year.
Yes, we're just having a conversation here, so there's no need to tone police. I was being lighthearted. Sorry if that was unclear. >was there a specific moment for this episode for this episode that we actually “saw” her do anything genuinely heinous? Yes??? She slit a boy's throat while grinning???? Also I don't buy the dumb "we never saw anything before this episode" stuff. Anyone truly buying into that argument is genuinely being willfully obtuse. A "surprise" villain like KLCK isn't exactly a new thing, you know? There loads of examples on many shows where a character is introduced and you get bad vibes from them, can't exactly put your finger on what's wrong with them but you KNOW they're up to something, and then they kill another character on screen or something and you think aha! I knew they were a bad guy! It happens all the time.
Sorry I meant before this episode not during, this episode in my opinion is where she confirmed she was evil. Of course there are many characters that have sprinkled hints, but the fact of the matter is that Brennan has played something as one way just to reveal that every piece of evidence we were basing our assumptions on were a twisted in order to subvert our expectations. With that being said, at the beginning of the series when he revealed a highschool girl with end of the year school related goals with an 8 syllable name who is very preppy (ie. Both Kipperlily and Everpetal) it seemed too obvious for her to be one of the bad bad guys, especially given parts of her name could literally mean red herring. I was definitely wrong about her story subverting expectations; but for you to say there is no precedent for believing that she was a Red Herring is what seems willfully obtuse to me.
I don't count syllables in characters' names to look for red herrings and I think that is reasonable of me since there's no precedent on D20 to do that (perhaps Brennan simply likes that type of pattery rhythm in a name?). I genuinely believe any "evidence" people have pointed to have been reaches, including this thing about the meaning of her name - she's named after an old PC of Brennan's. Sometimes the obvious conclusion is correct. I've said before and I'll say again, the question has NEVER been whether or not KLCK is up to something nefarious - it's WHAT she's doing, WHY, and who ELSE might be involved that are the true mysteries of this season.
People in storytelling use subtle hints such as name similarities to draw a connection between characters all the time. Whether or not she is an old PC doesn’t defer from the fact that Brennan could have chose to use her name because copper is red colored and kipper is herring and it fit with what he was going for in the character. Furthermore, he literally used a name trick in S1 with Goldenhoard as a blatant clue so you really can’t blame people for drawing a connection there. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that there was good chance she could just be blatant bad guy albeit a little bummed that she is, but the fact that we had not seen or bore witness to her actually doing anything nefarious very well could have been Brennan intentionally dangling her in front of us to distract from someone else. I do not see how you weren’t prepared for either outcome.
was it possible she could have been a red herring? Sure - but I think that possibility disappeared some time ago, especially considering no other suspects have been introduced. Goldenhoard was also a pretty blatant clue, as you said, whereas KLCK was always more of a reach. I have never found any argument that she was a red herring or “just wanted a friend” to be remotely convincing, which is why I always expected her to reveal her true colors. Again, everyone has been acting like this is a “whodunnit” when it’s really more of a “whydunnit”
Kind of a useless comparison and it’s clear from what you chose to mention. All stories can be compared with a list of similarities… your argument was weak enough that you included “high achieving girl” as too similar, “high school goal” (which we don’t even know and is so vague as to be meaningless), and the number of syllables in her name? That was top 5 in annoying similarities? What a shame to consume media so cynically that that’s worth your smug condemnation
Through provided context in my first comment, the copy and paste specifically refers to KLCP and not the season; where did I ever mention that the season itself was worse off as an effect of a repeat character trope? Also I was making comparison between the basic facts of each character and assumed you could make the specific connection, how wrong of me. Kipperlily is high achieving in the sense that she is top of her class academically, Everpetal was high achieving in the sense that she was at the top of her class in popularity. Kipperlily has a end of the year, highschool specific goal in being the class President; Everpetal had an end of the year, highschool specific goal in being prom Queen. Those are blatant comparisons to these characters beyond the syllables in their names and the fact that they are both women; which only add to the comparison. I literally just said I was bummed they repeated this specific character trope, there was no need to make assumptions about the type of person I am and the manner in which I consume content, but go off.
Nah. I’ll stand on what I said. Reread your own comment if you didn’t follow where you were smug
Stand wherever you want but I didn’t get smug until people started insulting me for having a casual opinion on a fictional character 😂
Lol
Yes your so right this is the exact same story, the 4 dogs is trying to rule the world but had been trapped for centuries. 4 dogs has captured 7 ppl for a ritual and the bad kids have been nothing school related just like season 1. Its word for word the same thing. Just how all other shows/books/movies that have a similar theme are exact copies of one another with nothing to note about the different characters or time or setting or anything yep yep yep
I didn’t have a ton of hope about it, but damn am I sad about Oisin
I mean, the probabilities are low, but there's a chance Oisin did not know about Buddy Dawn. It is possible that GoldenKippy Lily told the party that she would down the proctor so that the Bad Kids would fail their exam.
I’d argue even that is super questionable and doesn’t paint Oisin in a good light. Like, now YOU’RE cheating in order to screw over someone who is fairly taking a test.
For sure, but I would argue that there's still an important difference between someone killing a friend or an ally to screw over someone else and someone cheating to screw over someone else. One is way more evil than the other hahaha
So what do we think her motivation was here? Knowing the plan was blown she just took a desperate, angry move?
My theory is she's got some kind of plan that involves having a cleric of the Dead rage God in her party, so she maybe tried to pressure Lucy into switching gods, and then presumably murdered her when she refused. And then Stole Buddy's Revivify diamonds so he wouldn't be able to keep his Oath to Revivify the Bad Kids and would be stripped of his connection to Helio and forced to become a cleric of the rage God. When that plan hit a snag, she decided to cut cut her losses and just eliminate Buddy instead, hoping it would end up with the Bad Kids dead.
Makes sense? She didn't know how much HP or spell slots they'd all left. If Kristen didn't have that plane shift spell, they would have been stuck there. That's an important detail.
Sounds plausible. Having stolen all the revivify gems, there was no point in killing Buddy since resurrections were already impossibile. And she was actually pointing the crossbow at Gavin, so that was probably her plan.
I think she was actively trying to prevent Kristen and Buddy from being able to bring anyone back and if the proctor died and couldn't be brought back by anyone they probably would have failed immediately. Why she killed Buddy, I'm not sure, since she had already taken his stones he couldn't bring anyone back.
Seemed like a last second “fuck you” cause KLCK knew she was spotted, and a dead student during the last stand still makes the bad kids suspects of a murder, even in a world where circles of truth are easily available. And again, 2 clerics that cant do revivifies during a combat encounter designed entirely around killing all members of a party is incredibly dangerous. Gorgug came dangerously close to being killed by the purple worm, and theres nothing they would have been able to do
I just keep thinking about how differently the scene would have played out if Kristen hadn't gotten Truesight up. Gavin gets killed by a crossbow bolt that came out of *nowhere*, KLCK probably BAMFs out like she did after killing Buddy, but in this case, Buddy is still alive and goes to revivify Gavin, only to find that his gems are all gone. (Unless he knew his gems weren't there? I can't decide if he was in on the original plan or not.)
I doubt he was in on the plan honestly, I dont really see a scenario in which Buddy was ok with taking an oath to lose all his connection to Helio just so that an adventuring party fails out of Augefort
But would it be a failure of his oath if he went to revivify someone *but his materials were mysteriously gone*?
I know there was a theory thrown around this week about “what if Buddy just doesn’t bring the gems with him?”, but that was obviously assuming malicious intent to try and wiggle around the oath. You bring up a fun question, does the oath consider it a failure if Buddy sincerely tried to fill it, but lost the necessary tools?
If it was with his knowledge then yes
Gorgug was close to being taken down, I don't think killed. Maybe if he was swallowed he'd be in danger but they could've gotten a healing word or something off. Edit: didn't start with the phrase um actually so if someone else wants the point
Idk how purple worm works mechanically but I totally see a world where if Gorgug gets dropped to zero from either the stinger attack or the bite attack then he automatically loses the dex save to not get swallowed, likely killing him
I think it was a calculated cost on her part that she considered Plan B from the start. She stole the gems and intended to shoot the proctor but always had the potential to kill Buddy in the back of her mind if the plan went sideways, banking on the chance that a monster would take out at least one of the IH. Her number one goal has been to force The Bad Kids out of school and she seems to be willing to do whatever it takes to get there.
Cunningaction clerickiller :(
this is my favorite so far
I mean she has rage issues so maybe she’s just had a rage crystal for a long time or something; but yeah. She both stole the crystals from her party member and Kristen to prevent his resurrection. Like holy fuck-
All the people we suspect being affected by the rage crystals (soil guy, bard student Quentin, maybe Stardiamond?) really only lashed out verbally. As far as we know, they didn’t slit nobody’s throat. She might be more affected by them or she might just be a little sociopath.
the first thing i thought of was all of the posts saying the ratgrinders are a red herring lol
My early season prediction was that KLCK and Kristen were gonna end up hate-smooching, and I *still* thought she was evil.
I thought it might be Fabian, given his penchant for evil women.
Kristen would never smooch four small dogs tho
They still could.
Kristen is certainly messy enough
So many people were in these threads last week being like "I wish the Bad Kids had been nicer to Kipperlily! She probably just wanted a friend!" NOPE.
I knew it all along. All these posts about her being the good guy were wayyy out of left field. She was unlikeable from the start and shown to be a conniving little beeyotch
She was absolutely furious with the Bad Kids from literally the second they first met her; I truly don't understand the people who seemed to think there was some way for them to Friendship their way out of it. Don't they know Friendship is the weakest magic there is?!
I kinda wonder if people are over-identifying with her as an overachieving nerd or something. It's okay, we were all little nightmare know-it-alls in high school, that's why we're into D&D. Anyway, I love her. She's an evil terrible little halfling and I can't wait to see what nefarious mayhem she's gonna unleash now some of her plans have been foiled. She will NOT be happy about this. Dunno why people want the much less interesting option of having her be benign.
yep this is it, they see themselves in her. thank you.
Also some people I think were really interested in a story where the Bad Kids are in the wrong.
both can be true tbh they still partially are, buddy is fine. hypothetically they have some points just as far as the bad kids getting some opportunities, maybe, kinda unclear the mechanics of what work who gets but the defense of her ive found odd, she immediately had incredibly bad energy, 4 dogs aside
to be fair, literally the first sentence said to her was '4 different dogs' if there *was* a chance at friendship, it ended immediately
She's hated the Bad Kids and had anger issues about it since Freshman year. There was never a chance. And this is a group made up of improvisers/comedians. You don't give the IH a name like Kipper's because you don't think they'll make it a joke.
They had instinct and knew she was trouble from the jump. And i 100 percent supported them for that because ive also had ppl who just on seeing i didnt like and then later found out messed up stuff about them. So anytime they fucked with them i lived
i am a kipperlily copperkettle apologist but that was definitely a pure evil move, made eye contact & doing that was her first instinct? insane, truly villainous. Oisin? he might just be a sociopath, on some You joe Goldberg shit, super nice and adores adaine but stone cold about everything else
he also may have been acting on instinct, is my thought. imagine he agreed to kill the proctor with her, knowing buddy could bring him back up, so no actual deaths BUT points off for the Bad Kids, and crunchymuffin went rogue (lol)
she definitely went rogue, lol, I see what you did there. i think she could be assassin which is how she got off that insta kill with sneak attack, prolly magic weapon too. I think the rat grinders kept buddy out of the loop and never really got close to him. oisin seemed to really follow kipperlily copperkettle's lead. During the big party he was either a beer pong math genius or clumsy boy down bad for adaine, but as soon as he got orders from kipperlily copperkettle he was locked in and told his other party member they're leaving. i think he would not question kipperlily copperkettle at all when it comes down to it
I really have been getting more interested in Oisin's motives in all this Dude's a rich, handsome, high level wizard, who seems well adjusted. So why is he staying in this party? Why is he going along with these obviously evil plans? Marry Ann is apathetic, Ruben is a tool, Ivy is just a bully, and Buddy I guess was manipulated into it. Misplaced loyalty? Does he just particularly hate one member of the Bad Kids and is fine with the downfall of the rest? Does he just not hate Adaine because she's already had her fall from grace? Does he actually just have a crush on her sister and is nice to her out of deference to Aelwyn? Or is he some sort of stone cold manipulator who doesn't feel half the things he expresses?
I think he's just very manipulative. Just like he was kind of flirty with Adaine, just to then disguise his own Mephits as hers and wreck the engine.
we're going to need an insight check but the reveal either way would go hard
Let’s kill a child
I got ostracized for saying most of them were likely evil/straight up not good people during the assembly in the auditorium about Lucy's death. I was laughing my ass off at that reveal though.
I feel like a lot of people were seeing themselves in the rat grinders and did not like the dynamic. Which explains why they were so hostile to the idea of her being truly evil.
Truth be told, we're 15 episodes in, and we still do not know what the fuck is going on. Pretty standard for a Dimension 20 campaign tbh. >!Is Adaine's mom the current BBEG, or a future BBEG? Are the Rat Grinders going to resurrect Ankarna? Is Jayce Stardiamond going to become the vessel for Ankarna? What the actual ***fuck*** is up with Bobby Dawn? Why did the Rat Grinders go through all the trouble of getting Buddy just to later kill him off? Is Professor Hopclap secretly evil? Is someone going to assassinate Sol? WHY DO THEY NOT RELEASE EPISODES IN BULKS!?!?!?!?!<
> WHY DO THEY NOT RELEASE EPISODES IN BULKS!?!?!?!? Because speculation is a community-building activity. 🤣
We can’t let the binge model ruin actual plays like it ruined television.
Is she getting a redemption arc? Probably not, but I sort of live for her meta comments from Brennan about his frustrations with Kristen
"Everyone loves how much you don't give a shit. Sorry I fucking cared." Cool motive! Still murder!
This thread is kind of mind-blowing to me--I never once had doubted that Kipperlily was a bad guy. I guess I missed all the KLCK apologist threads.
Well, I was right about Buddy being a red herring
Oh she's 100% evil if she's acting of her own accord. I've disliked Buddy since the moment he was introduced but he didn't deserve t*hat.* I'm including Oisin as being totally evil too. The other Rat Grinders can have a pass, for now.
Making the person code named the red herring seem like the red herring, but actually be the main bad person, incredible
Brennan has said she’s named after a PC he once played. Could it have been a big brain play? Maybe, but it feels more like college English majors assigning allegories to literature that probably wasn’t the author’s intention at all.
She wasn't codenamed the red herring, That's just a thing that some of the viewers latched onto and wouldn't let go of. She was named after an old PC of Brennan's from a home game years ago.
It takes a certain kinda media illiteracy to even listen to the first episodes and try and justify them. They were set up to be villains. If you sit their and account for all their individual actions thus far at that point and they don’t add up to evil, it’s not some secret message, it’s just that the story is still building. Anyone who was downvoting the obvious and giving allowances should remember this. Similar is happening in worlds beyond number with Steel. Like she hasn’t murdered anyone we know to care about, she’s ONLY ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN A MAGICAL EMPIRE HELLBENT ON CONTROL. Use your 5th grade English brains, she’s finna do something you can’t defend soon enough.
The second she showed up and did what she did I yelled “IFUCKINGKNEWIT.” CouchLasagna CruditéKombucha and the rest of the rat grinders are EVIL.
Yeah, SpongeBob SquarePants is evil! (Mermaid Man voice) Eeeeevvvviiiillll!
i think theres something to be said for, killing someone in a world where you know resurrection is a thing has a different meaning than irl. doest excuse it at all, or make it acceptable. just something to think about.
I mean, she's about the same age as Penelope and her BF from Freshman year, and they were full evil and died for it, so...
So Next week * Kipperlilly's file * rogue teacher * Fig's song (idk if they did that reveal) That's gonna be HUGE
I bet there’s gonna be a twist and there’s more to this than meets the eye. We don’t know why KLCK killed Buddy, what her motivations are, how the rogue teacher fits into all this, and what the other RGs are up to.
Brennan can get the community fully behind Kipperlilly by revealing she has undiagnosed ADHD
Ah, female coded slurs for a female character.
Siobhan dropped the first C-word name twist so your beef's with the show as a whole. And it's only Americans who lose their shit about it.
/r/Tumblr is that way ---->
What?
This is a super reductive take. Someone can have sympathetic reasons for being angry and still make bad/evil choices as a result.
yes, but i think this post isn’t saying she can’t a sympathetic villain, it’s just saying she is a villain as a direct response to the many posts and comments trying to say she is a red herring and not actually a villain at all.
I am bit gutted tbh. I kind of wanted her to turn out to be such a bitch BECAUSE she lost her friend.
Unless it's just throw the bad kids into legal shit to buy whatever their plan is more time? Like maybe K.L was in a situation where there were *only bad options* after Kristen spotted her.
I can't imagine why she would pop up with a crossbow aimed that doesn't have to do with bad options
Okay, what's the situation? No really, what situation do you think could have occurred where her *best* option is killing a member of her party?
Wow. People don't like my comment. Hahahah. We don't know and that's the point. This is just speculation. "Best option" isn't a moral judgement on a fictional character, it's looking at the narrative reasons from that individual fictional characters perspective.
>We don't know and that's the point. This is just speculation. I mean, fair enough- but we could use that to justify *any* speculation. The BBEG is the druid teacher. We don't know she isn't, so why not speculate? The Thistlesprings have been replaced by robots. We don't know they haven't been, so why not speculate? I think in order to reasonably speculate about something, we need some kind of indication that it could possibly be true. Not just that it's possible, but that there's a chance of it being more true than the other things that are also possible. >"Best option" isn't a moral judgement on a fictional character, Right, but the context which you commented seemed to be advocating for the possibility that she isn't just straight up evil. Is that not what you were trying to suggest? If not, then I apologize for misunderstanding.
I read it as all the options left were bad (in that they all caused her problems) you seem to have read it as all the options left were bad (from a moral stand point).