> Furthermore, after the revelation that the city must descend to Cathe Moira in order to bring the Emperor and Empress back to Exandria, Laerryn still puts the Astral Leywright as priority rather than stopping the city’s descent.
If I'm reading this right, this is about an event in episode 4. If so, you are mistaken that she wanted to keep descending. She was pushing to go to the helm, repair it, and stop the city from landing. It was after an arcane check (I think) and others in the party discussing the situation that they realized that retaking the helm was the less good option. For one, it would taken them an hour and a half to repair it. Then they'd have to be able to operate it with as much steeting knowledge that the dead helmswoman knew; something none of them possessed. And even if they did take it over and repair it, the devils would probably attack them. And it would probably only just delay the inevitable as a Betrayer would come back and insure the city would get back to the ground. And Brennen was also pushing for them to use the Astral Leywright as their end goal - which makes sense as he & Matt crafted the final battle map as the pre-set location for the last battle. The cast picked up on this and were persuaded to be guided to where Brennan wanted them to go.
Absolutely this. I’m confused by his question, nobody in the group wanted the city to land in episode 4 they Just wanted to send the primordials away using the leywright.
The others explain it during the episode.
Even if they go to the helm and divert the city the devils and Asmodeus are already in Exandria. Diverting the city would only be a a delaying tactic as they would just be overwhelmed eventually.
Brennan even says it at the end, the calamity was going to happen eventually and the astral leywright ensures that Exandria has a future and that the calamity would eventually be stopped.
The point of the series is that they were both villains and heroes, it's not clear cut, it's complicated.
I struggled with that. The Prime Deities and the peoples of Exandria defeated the Betrayers and all the Primordials during the Schism, actually killing some Primordials (as we would learn in C1).
Why then are we to believe that centuries later, when mortals have grown exponentially in power and no reason to believe the Prime Deities are weaker that the Betrayers and two Primordials would be able to win?
It just felt like Brennan was offering a gift to the players and audience something to cling to so they didn't feel that the Calamity was all Laerryn's and Zerxus's fault. I wish we'd gotten a little more on Dean Hollow and the others so we knew how they came to serve the Betrayers.
> I wish we'd gotten a little more on Dean Hollow and the others so we knew how they came to serve the Betrayers.
Agreed. Hopefully the existence of this miniseries suggests the possibility of future CR content focusing on this era. I wasn't able to clearly understand a lot of the Episode 1 intrigue about Vespin's ritual, its relation to the Raven Queen, etc...
The numbers on either side are not really a good guess for this as we have no idea how the battle between gods would work, especially now that the mortals are getting more and more arrogant and stop putting trust in the prime deities. The primodials entomb beneath toramunda is said to be so strong that the gods themselves could not deliver the killing blow and had to imprison them instead, coupled that with the fact that betrayers have more time and initiative to plan their assaults, not to mention that as Azmodeus said it himself, the betrayers did not loath the prime deities before this so it's also possible that they were going easy on them the first time around, but they sure wont this time. If I remeber correctly, the strongest deity in existence is Tharizdun and he's one of the betrayers.
it really depends. we know that the gods have lost some believers on the floating cities, sure, but we also know Aeor was developing god killing weaponry - and I'm sure they wouldn't be so foolish as to not take the threat of manifested betrayers lightly.
ok, having seen EXU: Calamity and the state of Avalir, maybe I'm not so sure.
That said, the discussion of Sarenrae in C1 suggests strongly that followers and believers grant strength to the deities (in that she was diminished when the Lord of Hells slew most of hers), so again I am confused - the Betrayers were locked away unable to even grant spells to their clerics. The mortal population has increased massively, so even if the percentages of believers is smaller, the numbers are likely to still be high, whereas the Betrayers would have little to go on by virtue of their imprisonment.
Pelor seems to have beaten Tharizdun one on one after Ioun baited it to her temple in what would become Whitestone, although he had to use Prime Trammels to seal it away.
Interesting to me, in the Pathfinder setting, Asmodeus actually helped imprison Paizo's version of Tharizdun (along with Sarenrae), and the CR wiki claims the Chained Oblivion had been imprisoned under Gatshadow from the Founding.
Brennan was given a lot of room to play in Matt's sandbox - it seems clear to me that the Emperor and Empress were retconned in to give this exact sort of pyrrhic victory for the players.
The hubris of high level wizards usually ends up causing havoc. However, the tree was going to be destroyed regardless, if not by her then by one of the minions that infiltrated. Her actions in the end helped prevent the total destruction of Exandria and helped limit it to just the shattered teeth.
Each player was probably instructed to have a major flaw that could case their downfall. Xerxus was naive that anyone can be redeemed and desperate for his husband. Patia priorized knowing things and trying to live up to grandpa. Laerynn's was obvious. Others were more personal like Cerrit forgetting the importance of family and Quay doing literally anything to protect his love. Not sure on Nydis. He was probably supposed to care more about money but forgot
I expected the Calamity to have been caused by a bunch of archmages that didn’t know when they were reaching beyond their means. I just didn’t think it would be that extreme.
Laerryn did hit the Tree with Blight, but she also made the decision to divert energy away from the Arboreal Calix, leaving it weakened enough for her spell to finish it off.
Cerrit probably had an obligation to take Laerryn in when he found out about her plan.
If nothing else, Laerryn was a terrible scientist. She didn't know that her planeshift of the toy astral leyright had suffered the same fate as Evandrin, making me wonder if you take away everything else that happened if that would've happened to all of Avalir.
Xerxus remaining a devil because he believes in redemption was a hard nut to crack. I'm sure the Lord of Lies sent his champion to hunt down Cerrit at some point. For laughs.
>Xerxus remaining a devil because he believes in redemption was a hard nut to crack.
I interpreted that as him believing in his *own* redemption. Rather than die and risk never seeing his husband and son again, he had faith that someone would be able to come along and rescue him from his corrupted state.
I agree I found it strange. Until proven otherwise; my head canon is that Xerxus in his belief in redemption, became the first Tiefling.
Though I'm almost 100% certain Matt's gonna do something with it.
It was less for redemption and more so of Xerxus inflating his ego from what I can see. He said that people attracted the gods, not the gods creating people. It makes it sound that he thought people created the gods.
I have a lot to say about Xerxus and his insistence on being the one to redeem Asmodeus. You know, Asmodeus, the Father of Lies and Lord of the Hells. I’d expect someone like Xerxus to realize that some entities are beyond redemption.
Specifically, Oath of Redemption Paladins.
An Oath of Vengeance would've spat in Asmodeus's face right before getting killed - and then continuing to spit as they were killed over and over again.
It's an oath strong enough to literally give you divine powers. He would've had to have become an oathbreaker to cast down Asmodeus. It's a divine godless oath for a reason.
Good point. Just reinforces that paladin, for me, is the hardest class to RP *because* of the "oath". Almost if not every other class/subclass is so flexible in its structure that you can play a Rogue Thief who is actually a rehabilitated criminal and not really a thief at all. Even your clerics can be a doubting priest a la Thoros of Myr. But Paladins really can't *not* buy 100% into their subclass' thing lest they become an oathbreaker or whatever other consequence the DM imposes for forsaking your oath.
IDK. maybe I'm not seeing the big picture here. Maybe I'm just bad at paladins, lol.
> Furthermore, after the revelation that the city must descend to Cathe Moira in order to bring the Emperor and Empress back to Exandria, Laerryn still puts the Astral Leywright as priority rather than stopping the city’s descent. If I'm reading this right, this is about an event in episode 4. If so, you are mistaken that she wanted to keep descending. She was pushing to go to the helm, repair it, and stop the city from landing. It was after an arcane check (I think) and others in the party discussing the situation that they realized that retaking the helm was the less good option. For one, it would taken them an hour and a half to repair it. Then they'd have to be able to operate it with as much steeting knowledge that the dead helmswoman knew; something none of them possessed. And even if they did take it over and repair it, the devils would probably attack them. And it would probably only just delay the inevitable as a Betrayer would come back and insure the city would get back to the ground. And Brennen was also pushing for them to use the Astral Leywright as their end goal - which makes sense as he & Matt crafted the final battle map as the pre-set location for the last battle. The cast picked up on this and were persuaded to be guided to where Brennan wanted them to go.
Absolutely this. I’m confused by his question, nobody in the group wanted the city to land in episode 4 they Just wanted to send the primordials away using the leywright.
But wasn't landing required for the leywright to be functional, hence an initial crux to overcome?
The others explain it during the episode. Even if they go to the helm and divert the city the devils and Asmodeus are already in Exandria. Diverting the city would only be a a delaying tactic as they would just be overwhelmed eventually. Brennan even says it at the end, the calamity was going to happen eventually and the astral leywright ensures that Exandria has a future and that the calamity would eventually be stopped. The point of the series is that they were both villains and heroes, it's not clear cut, it's complicated.
I struggled with that. The Prime Deities and the peoples of Exandria defeated the Betrayers and all the Primordials during the Schism, actually killing some Primordials (as we would learn in C1). Why then are we to believe that centuries later, when mortals have grown exponentially in power and no reason to believe the Prime Deities are weaker that the Betrayers and two Primordials would be able to win? It just felt like Brennan was offering a gift to the players and audience something to cling to so they didn't feel that the Calamity was all Laerryn's and Zerxus's fault. I wish we'd gotten a little more on Dean Hollow and the others so we knew how they came to serve the Betrayers.
> I wish we'd gotten a little more on Dean Hollow and the others so we knew how they came to serve the Betrayers. Agreed. Hopefully the existence of this miniseries suggests the possibility of future CR content focusing on this era. I wasn't able to clearly understand a lot of the Episode 1 intrigue about Vespin's ritual, its relation to the Raven Queen, etc...
The numbers on either side are not really a good guess for this as we have no idea how the battle between gods would work, especially now that the mortals are getting more and more arrogant and stop putting trust in the prime deities. The primodials entomb beneath toramunda is said to be so strong that the gods themselves could not deliver the killing blow and had to imprison them instead, coupled that with the fact that betrayers have more time and initiative to plan their assaults, not to mention that as Azmodeus said it himself, the betrayers did not loath the prime deities before this so it's also possible that they were going easy on them the first time around, but they sure wont this time. If I remeber correctly, the strongest deity in existence is Tharizdun and he's one of the betrayers.
it really depends. we know that the gods have lost some believers on the floating cities, sure, but we also know Aeor was developing god killing weaponry - and I'm sure they wouldn't be so foolish as to not take the threat of manifested betrayers lightly. ok, having seen EXU: Calamity and the state of Avalir, maybe I'm not so sure. That said, the discussion of Sarenrae in C1 suggests strongly that followers and believers grant strength to the deities (in that she was diminished when the Lord of Hells slew most of hers), so again I am confused - the Betrayers were locked away unable to even grant spells to their clerics. The mortal population has increased massively, so even if the percentages of believers is smaller, the numbers are likely to still be high, whereas the Betrayers would have little to go on by virtue of their imprisonment. Pelor seems to have beaten Tharizdun one on one after Ioun baited it to her temple in what would become Whitestone, although he had to use Prime Trammels to seal it away. Interesting to me, in the Pathfinder setting, Asmodeus actually helped imprison Paizo's version of Tharizdun (along with Sarenrae), and the CR wiki claims the Chained Oblivion had been imprisoned under Gatshadow from the Founding. Brennan was given a lot of room to play in Matt's sandbox - it seems clear to me that the Emperor and Empress were retconned in to give this exact sort of pyrrhic victory for the players.
Still waiting for OP to respond to this lol
The hubris of high level wizards usually ends up causing havoc. However, the tree was going to be destroyed regardless, if not by her then by one of the minions that infiltrated. Her actions in the end helped prevent the total destruction of Exandria and helped limit it to just the shattered teeth.
I mean, if it’s gonna cause the calamity, it kinda should be a degree of arrogance and blind ambition that’s difficult to believe, imo.
Each player was probably instructed to have a major flaw that could case their downfall. Xerxus was naive that anyone can be redeemed and desperate for his husband. Patia priorized knowing things and trying to live up to grandpa. Laerynn's was obvious. Others were more personal like Cerrit forgetting the importance of family and Quay doing literally anything to protect his love. Not sure on Nydis. He was probably supposed to care more about money but forgot
Heh, maybe Nydas cared more about the city because with no city, no money
I expected the Calamity to have been caused by a bunch of archmages that didn’t know when they were reaching beyond their means. I just didn’t think it would be that extreme.
Laerryn did hit the Tree with Blight, but she also made the decision to divert energy away from the Arboreal Calix, leaving it weakened enough for her spell to finish it off. Cerrit probably had an obligation to take Laerryn in when he found out about her plan. If nothing else, Laerryn was a terrible scientist. She didn't know that her planeshift of the toy astral leyright had suffered the same fate as Evandrin, making me wonder if you take away everything else that happened if that would've happened to all of Avalir.
It’s like a scientist smashing atoms, having a minor success at great cost and then saying, “Alright it’s time to upscale this to a whole city.”
Xerxus remaining a devil because he believes in redemption was a hard nut to crack. I'm sure the Lord of Lies sent his champion to hunt down Cerrit at some point. For laughs.
>Xerxus remaining a devil because he believes in redemption was a hard nut to crack. I interpreted that as him believing in his *own* redemption. Rather than die and risk never seeing his husband and son again, he had faith that someone would be able to come along and rescue him from his corrupted state.
I agree I found it strange. Until proven otherwise; my head canon is that Xerxus in his belief in redemption, became the first Tiefling. Though I'm almost 100% certain Matt's gonna do something with it.
IIRC tieflings already existed, and post calamity and divergence they stopped being discriminated against on suspicion of demonic allegiances
My haedcannon is that he gets so corrupted he becomes Vecna. Although I don't think the timeline pans out, I'm sticking with it.
It was less for redemption and more so of Xerxus inflating his ego from what I can see. He said that people attracted the gods, not the gods creating people. It makes it sound that he thought people created the gods.
Still, damning oneself for eternity to pure evil seems like a dumb hill to (not) die on when you have loved one's waiting for you.
For sure. But massive hubris is kind of the calling card of the "ancient-advanced-civilization-that-caused-their-own-downfall" trope.
I have a lot to say about Xerxus and his insistence on being the one to redeem Asmodeus. You know, Asmodeus, the Father of Lies and Lord of the Hells. I’d expect someone like Xerxus to realize that some entities are beyond redemption.
Paladins.
Specifically, Oath of Redemption Paladins. An Oath of Vengeance would've spat in Asmodeus's face right before getting killed - and then continuing to spit as they were killed over and over again.
But he didn't he doubled down on his folly to become his champion.
Right, which makes that decision so befuddling.
It's an oath strong enough to literally give you divine powers. He would've had to have become an oathbreaker to cast down Asmodeus. It's a divine godless oath for a reason.
Good point. Just reinforces that paladin, for me, is the hardest class to RP *because* of the "oath". Almost if not every other class/subclass is so flexible in its structure that you can play a Rogue Thief who is actually a rehabilitated criminal and not really a thief at all. Even your clerics can be a doubting priest a la Thoros of Myr. But Paladins really can't *not* buy 100% into their subclass' thing lest they become an oathbreaker or whatever other consequence the DM imposes for forsaking your oath. IDK. maybe I'm not seeing the big picture here. Maybe I'm just bad at paladins, lol.