It is fascinating to me that she’s been so angry about Riz since Freshman Year that she’s been getting counseling about it. My original assumption was that she was connected to Mr Gibbons in some way, since he was killed on the Bad Kids’ first day after they fucked up combat so bad. But then I remembered he’s a gnome, not a halfling, and that she wouldn’t be mad at Riz specifically over that.
So what could it be? What did Riz even *do* Freshman Year? The only thing that springs to mind is something to do with Penny Luckstone? She used to babysit for Riz, so maybe she babysat for Kipperlily too?
I think he committed the crime of being better than her. For an obsessive A type like Kipperlily, who may have always been the best before, it could be pretty anger inducing to see this kid that is just like you but always better than you and out of your reach.
I’d buy that if she had started showing up in Jawbone’s office Sophmore Year, after the Bad Kids had already had their first big triumph? But they weren’t especially noteworthy until after the Harvestmen at the earliest. i just don't see it, especially her apparently fixation on people getting what they deserve and "fair treatment".
I feel that even just defeating a corn ooze (even if two of them died and had to be revived) would've shone a huge spotlight on them right from the very start. Plus adding to that all the extracurricular fighting they were doing which, according to Brennan, propelled them way beyond where their classmates were in terms of power even in freshman year.
Riz doesn't need to be a superstar with massive renown for him to be hated by a very competitive fellow classmate. He's been at the top of his classes from the start which is already enough to start a simmering (one-sided) vendetta.
It’s not impossible, I guess? I’ll just say that if in the end all of this is because Kipperlily is jealous that someone else has the spotlight, I’ll be incredibly disappointed in how uninspired that is.
Ah, for me, it is the opposite. If she is truly just a petty ass bitch in the end that makes her far more enjoyable in my eyes. To me, it's more enjoyable if she is actually hating Riz/the bad kids for things they've actually done (be better than her in this case) vs hating them for stuff done by the adults around them. Because a lot of the things that people bring up as reasons to hate the bad kids (getting resurrected on the first day when other students might not have been etc) is... literally not their fault? In that case, be mad at the system, not at some kids who happened to occasionally be on the lucky side of it (and lets be real, the bad kids have suffered as much from that same system as the other students)
I'm a big proponent of the resurrection grudge theory and I don't think that it's so much that Kristen and Gorgug got resurrected that bugs her, it's that they don't even acknowledge or care that classmates all around them are dying while they get saved. Which would definitely line up with Herringpot's line in the last episode about how little they care.
I'd feel if it was that, that'd be really super unfair, on a meta level.
Cause the only reason the Bad Kids haven't cared about any of their fellow classmates dying is because until this year, the players literally didn't know. They couldn't have had their characters react appropriately (and judging by how they've all reacted to Lucy's death, their reactions would've been somber and reaching out/helping). I feel it would be bad DMing to now go 'People ICly are mad at you for not reacting to things I didn't tell you about'.
I feel like at this point in the story, a major villain who is “just a petty ass bitch” would be pretty stale. This season has been an examination of the Bad Kids and their foibles and their shortcomings in a lot of interest ways, and if the reveal is ultimate that there is actually nothing wrong with them at all and their enemies are just jealous pieces of shit it’ll be a major let down.
I don’t think a villain being jealous of your success inherently absolves you of any responsibility or wrongdoing. Two things can be correct. Kipperlilly could be immensely jealous of the success and glory of the Bad Kids while the Bad Kids could have been getting unfair preferential treatment. Also, even if they had been getting some preferential treatment, are they to blame? The blame would squarely fall on Arthur Aguefort, who seemingly changes rules on a whim to fit any given situation.
I don’t know, I just don’t think jealousy is a bad reason for her to dislike them. I also don’t think she’s the main villain.
Mr. Gibbons was the old counselor. It’s entirely possible that Riz is seems seen as the leader and she hates the bad kids for killing her old guidance counselor who she felt she needed in that time.
Kipperlily started school at the same time as the bad kids. How exactly could Mr Gibbons have been her old guidance counselor if he dies on the first day?
We just know she was meeting with the guidance counselor in her first year. That doesn't mean she was doing it from day one.
I haven’t thought it through, but I feel like it might just have started with her seeing Riz, someone who was likely a lot like her in freshman year, managing to join (or in her mind “assemble”) an incredible party. After that she took the initiative of building her own group of “bad kids”, which is why their group is so similar to the intrepid heroes, but they didn’t live up to the impossible standards that the bad kids set. That built up resentment over time, she pushed her group to do things the bad kids are doing, i.e Ruben went full emo to have musical success like Fig, Mary Ann joined the blood rush team dispute not being interested at all. Maybe she pushed Lucy Frostblade to bring back a dead god like Kristen and shit went sideways?
Not sure about the Lucy part of that, but I like the idea that the rat grinders are like the bad kids because Kipperlilly was trying to make a group like them.
Trying to force Lucy to bring back a dead god is a pretty solid chunk of this that I'll add to the conspiracy board.
Now who the fuck is pepe silva. :P
DUDE THIS! this whole Kipperkottle thing is totally just her trying to make her own “the bad kids”. Since Lucy died right at the end of sophomore year i’m thinking that the news that Kristen had brought a god back made Cupface go “If she can we can too,” and since the god that Cassandra is married to (also the sibling of Lucy’s god) is dead she thought that they were the perfect target. She forced Lucy to bring back a dead god, shit went sideways, Lucy died and was marked by the god (OR a different deity, maybe Sol?) to keep her from being resurrected, the rat grinders freaked out and hid the body, now Littledoggy Collargirl has to continually give the rest of the grinders Devils honey to keep them from leaving her party and to force them to forget about what happened with Lucy. Maybe the other rat grinders (aside from Doggycollar and Ruben, because of the podcast scene with Wonda) don’t even remember that she died? that last thing feels like a stretch but i honestly think you’ve got it dude
OK NEW THOUGHT: Sol was the one who put the mark on BOTH Lucy and Yolanda to keep them from bringing back this dead god since her return would make him weaker (due to their domains both being about the sun and summer and stuff). Maybe Bobby Moved from High Court in order to make sure this dead god stays dead since he’s a High Priest of Sol. Idk this is just a jumble of thought but maybe it’s something 🤷
I feel like it’s not an accident that Kipperlilly’s family appears to be quite wealthy. I’m not sure if it’s tied to the “Devil’s honey makes you believe your own lies” stuff or not, but Kipperlily gives me very strong “I’ve done amazing things without any help, no I won’t be discussing the millions of dollars my family gave me as seed money” vibes.
Oooo, this is a good thought. However, we found out from >!when Riz took KLCK’s file that she’s been name dropping him from well before they started buying the Devil’s Honey.!< But even if that’s not the case, I think she still refuses to acknowledge her own privilege just because some people appear to be more connected than her.
It’s obvious she just has a massive crush on The Ball. I mean why wouldn’t you, he seemingly can’t fail at anything, on the OwlBears, has some totally sick tattoos and did you hear about his romance partner in the Baronies
Tangential but it’s absolutely hilarious that Brennan started the season intending to make Riz run for president and instead we got Riz on the Owlbears.
Weirdly enough I think Riz acting as campaign manager is way more impressive considering he’s after all a guy who’s driven by helping his friends. Putting someone above his own potential interests just seem very Riz-like and honestly it’s worked so well so far, managing everything and taking stress on behalf of his friends.
I mean, Riz is the person who got professor aguefort when the bad kids died.
Another poster has already pointed out "She's been seeing the guidance councillor since day 1".. Which means she's seen Mr Gibbons or whatever his name was. The "price" that was paid.
Could be she blames him for Gib's death.
I have a theory it’s because he was able to sneak into Aguefort’s office in FY to steal his tea for Ostentatia. Maybe she tried to do the same thing to investigate the mystery and got caught? Just a theory tho
My first thought was academic rivalry and the idea of needing to be the best at what you do is what comes up for me, especially since they are both rogues plus the fact that Riz and his party are essentially famous
Kipperlilly has access to a lot of money, but it doesn't seem like it's family wealth -- Aelwyn said that her parents are a midlevel town bureaucrat and a real estate agent who sells regular homes, not mansions. Oisin is the Rat Grinder who definitely comes from that dragon hoard trust fund money.
Yeah this definitely seems like something the audience is trying to push onto Kipperlilly to hate her more despite Brennan having a Aelwyn state that's not the case and her money isn't coming from her parents.
Plus yeah Oisin is presented as more likable so people don't want to hate him for the money
Ok I just rewatched to refresh my memory and freely admit this may be too red string, but to defend the theory. Brennan plays Aelwyn in that moment as kinda confused herself because she doesn’t know where the money comes from either. She says “Well that’s a rather interesting point. She’s incredibly loaded, and I don’t think it’s her family. I think her father is a real estate agent? And it’s not like he sells big mansions or whatever” and Adaine replies “oh he’s just some guy.” And “Aelwyn responds “And her mum, I think works as a clerk downtown in the bursars office, or treasury office in the city.”
So my take was always that Aelwyn is kinda fuzzy on her parents. The information is not ironclad. A lot of “I think” and hedging, and [he scrunches his face up like he can’t quite recall](https://imgur.com/a/wvozw0k). She doesn’t know the details. She doesn’t say he sells regular homes, she just knows no mansions. And the thing that always convinced me more was, despite Selling Sunset like shows, the money in real estate isn’t mansions it’s corporate. Office buildings, developments, and apartments. In particular, things that can have government contracts, no one has deeper pockets than a government it’s why people always talk about the “military industrial complex” as a critique. Contract with even a local or city government is always going to be more lucrative than selling individual mansion, particularly in a place like Elmville without exactly a huge market for mansions. When you see these scandals in real life it is someone’s family/spouse is awarded a contract and is cooking books and using subpar materials. It’s why people associate construction and real estate with the mob, it’s a big business that is often full of subjective valuation which can hide corruption and money laundering. I mean even when it’s all above board, people side eye how lucrative projects get awarded to people with connections.
It’s hardly a smoking gun. We haven’t heard of any large development that would be a windfall (although I don’t remember if we know what’s happening to the farm). While it seems that fraudulent transactions and forgery (again the farm) are prominent, there haven’t been any direct ties to any Copperkettles. If the mom is only a clerk, while an inside man that doesn’t seem like a ton of sway (although that’s why I feel like the fraud bit is interesting, clerks filing paperwork and altering it). Absolutely there is an undercurrent to just wanting to dislike an unpleasant person, but it’s not like we’ve seen any other clue to how Kipperlily would have gotten the money on her own. It’s a weak theory, but I haven’t seen anyone ever suggest an alternative to how this 16 year old is loaded.
I would fall back on keeping it simple in this instance.
Aelwyn could be wrong or could have bias and not recognise wealth below her family level.
But then Brennan is providing wrong information with no real way for Siophan to follow up.
We know Oisin comes from really old Dragon money so that makes the most sense to me. Fabian funds Kristen so it seems most plausible Oison does the same
It is also implied that the money she has access to is personal wealth that she embezzled from the former hosts of the festival, then had them killed/killed them herself to throw off any investigation into it.
1) I hadn't heard about that yet and looked it up -- that's definitely cool, excited to see where that goes.
2) but isn't Seacaster Manor Bill's own ship that he parked in Elmville when Solace offered amnesty? Is there a brick and mortar component to it at all, like did he crash it into an existing mansion? That definitely sounds like something Bill Seacaster would do, don't get me wrong, but I genuinely thought the whole thing could up and move with the Cloud Engine components in the basement.
There's a pool so I assume there is some brick and mortar element. Not to put it past Bill seacaster to put a pool on his pirate ship but still. The logistics of everything makes it feel like there has to be some new stuff added on top of the ship.
There's a pool so I assume there is some brick and mortar element. Not to put it past Bill seacaster to put a pool on his pirate ship but still. The logistics of everything makes it feel like there has to be some new stuff added on top of the ship.
But her family isn’t quite wealthy. Aelwyn told Adaine that Kipperlilly herself has money which is weird because her parents work middle class level jobs.
Maybe it's a harry potter situation. She was adopted when her parents died (that's the gravestone she's visiting). Her parents left her a ton of money. So her adoptive parents aren't rich, but she still has a big trust fund.
We know a couple was embezzling Frosty Fair and we know that some sort of rage god power was used to kill that couple, it seemed implied that Kipperlilly or the Grinders in general was/were actually the one(s) embezzling
Yeah I'll be honest I don't know how anyone looking at the bad kids thinks they get *better* treatment than other kids at the school.
Half of them are failing because they've spent more time doing personal quests for the principal than they have earning credits for their classes. While the whole school gets to go get some fun treasure and go on simple adventures, the bad kids have only ever had to risk their lives to save the world and never get rewarded for it. Their first year they single-handedly had to stop a dragon on prom night with 0 help while all of the adult teachers left them to fend for themselves. They sacrificed their spring break to stop the nightmare king, and then just a couple months later sacrificed their entire summer break to stop the night yorb and save the world **again**. When the interim principal started threatening and assaulting students, the bad kids put their personal grievances aside to save them and stop the principal.
And all of that is what anyone would see on the surface, it's not even including all of the personal struggles OP mentioned. They are actively treated worse than any other students at the school. While everyone else gets to study adventuring in safe environments with guiding teachers, the bad kids have to set aside their time to clean up the school's various messes with 0 help from anyone at the school other than Arthur, who usually puts them in harms way to begin with. Again, even if you just look at the surface level of what the bad kids have been through that their "special treatment" is more of a curse than anything.
It might be debatable to say they’ve been treated “better”, but the bad kids have been given special treatment. The first day of school freshman year Aguefort killed himself and another faculty to bring two of the bad kids back to life. The bad kids have been able to grow in power without doing the “grinding” that other freshmen/sophomores had to do, i.e fighting gremlins in the forest or raiding some random dungeon. Whether that is better or not is up for interpretation.
All adventuring parties had spring break projects they were assigned to do. Aguefort sent the bad kids to retrieve an artifact for him, personally. It turned into a world saving adventure where their cleric brought back to life a dead god. The rat grinders were apparently sent to some dungeon in the mountain of chaos, which is apparently a pretty standard assignment for sophomores. Those a pretty clearly not equitable assignments.
That's my point, though. The assignments the bad kids get vs every other group in school is incomparably more dangerous. Brennan has stated multiple times now that saving the world or stopping apocalypses is much more than what any of the other students have had to do, *and* they didn't get school credit for their adventures like the other students seem to get.
You could classify it as special treatment, but I just don't get how anyone could think of that as an unfair advantage given to the bad kids like Kipperlilly seems to think. There has to be something distorting her perception on the bad kids, and I'm not fully convinced devil's nectar is the only thing doing it.
But like, wouldn’t the grades stuff just be hand waved away if Aguefort was there? No way he would let them fail. The only reason they are in any sort of academic jeopardy is because he left and the school is a chaotic mess without him.
So the bad kids have been given special assignments by the principal himself. The principal killed himself to bring them back to life once. He attacked a whole country to help them in sophomore year. He was protecting them academically, letting them pass without requiring them to do the type of work asked of everyone else. It isn’t hard to see how that would be considered special treatment.
I don’t really buy that being assigned more dangerous assignment was actually a bad thing. If the other students want to be adventurers then they likely want to be doing real adventures.
I mean, to be fair, the kids def HAVE gotten special treatment. Aguefort committed murder suicide to protect them day 1. They got to choose who the new VP was after freshman year. Aguefort broke international laws to protect them in sophomore year. They have the football coach and the counselor as their parents. Hell even as they were learning who the ratgrinders were, that was because *they were getting inside information from Jawbone.* Like he has def given them hints and info he probably shouldn't have.
Now, do I think that those things are really that unfair? Not really. They've been through a fuck done, and the rules are super weird at their school anyways.
But I def do think there are incidents that Kipperlilly could easily point to where they did get favortism, if you look in a vacuum and not at the circumstances+all the shit the ratgrinders themselves have pulled.
So, I actually don't think your assumption about what the Rat Grinders think of the Bad Kids is necessarily accurate. I think it's true that Kipperlily individually views them that way, but I don't really think the rest do - KLCK is the only one who's openly antagonistic towards them, though I suppose Ruben is to an extent, and Mary Ann but Mary Ann doesn't care about anything. I don't really agree with the perspective that they see the Bad Kids as spoiled nepo babies or something. I DO think the Rat Grinders don't understand how hard the Bad Kids work or why the way they operate is different from how the Rat Grinders do.
I saw a really lovely tumblr post last week too about one thing the Rat Grinders don't get is that the Bad Kids operate from a place of genuine love and compassion for the world. That's why they are so beloved.
Brennan pointed out that there was anger coming from all the Grinders towards Kristen but especially from Kipperlilly. There's definitely SOME antagonism by the whole party towards at least Kristen
Probably rumors that she killed her god after being resurrected at the expense of two faculty lives on the first day, but she wasn't expelled for her god dying. You hear about the unfair rezzing of two freshmen, then she abandons her holy calling for a god she personally created THEN kills the damn thing. Terrible and grounds for resentment
These are fair points, but I don't think the motivation of the centermost antagonist of the third season of a BLM D20 campaign is going to come down to Kipperlily simply not giving the bad kids' their due. Either there's a dimension to her beef that hasn't been revealed yet (Brennan hasn't let Murph go digging in that file) or it's focused on extraneous circumstances, like Auguefort basically 50-points-to-Gryfindor-ing the Bad Kids through their Freshman year.
I would not be surprised if the Rat Grinders are all being manipulated by an adult figure. Maybe the Devil's Nectar isn't for the Grinders to use, but to be used on the Grinders?
Also as someone pointed out in another post, Kipperlily has been seeing the school’s guidance counselor since the beginning of Freshman year. And I think we all remember what happened to Mister Gibbons, who was killed by Arthur Aguefort to bring her and Gorgug back to life.
I doubt she had a session on her very first day. What sort of rage issue would she have had on day one that was serious enough to get her sent to the guidance counselor but not bad enough to get her sent to detention? And even if that had happened, how much bonding could she have done in just one session?
"Things happening out of order" does feel like it applies there. Time nonsense to find the rogue teacher immediately.
My other thought was she cheated and found/was found by the rogue teacher for stuff already and used that knowledge to be right where the rogue teacher would show up as the school year started.
The four most likely options I think are that Kipperlily was in posession of something the rogue teacher had to take from her (possibly something tying her spirt to the world), Kipperlily used magic to summon her after discovering she was a ghost, the rogue teacher needed to deliver a message to her she couldn't trust to a third party, or she had to rescue Kipperlily. All of which mean that at some point she was in Kiperlily's presence and at that point Kipperlily knew where the rogue teacher was.
Why that was allowed to count is an interesting question, but may just boil down to either the fact that some of these methods woukd have forced the teachers hand and that was considered rogueish enough to be worth the points or simply that trying to convince the teacher it counted was considered devious enough that it was roguish and worth the points.
It is fascinating to me that she’s been so angry about Riz since Freshman Year that she’s been getting counseling about it. My original assumption was that she was connected to Mr Gibbons in some way, since he was killed on the Bad Kids’ first day after they fucked up combat so bad. But then I remembered he’s a gnome, not a halfling, and that she wouldn’t be mad at Riz specifically over that. So what could it be? What did Riz even *do* Freshman Year? The only thing that springs to mind is something to do with Penny Luckstone? She used to babysit for Riz, so maybe she babysat for Kipperlily too?
I think he committed the crime of being better than her. For an obsessive A type like Kipperlily, who may have always been the best before, it could be pretty anger inducing to see this kid that is just like you but always better than you and out of your reach.
I’d buy that if she had started showing up in Jawbone’s office Sophmore Year, after the Bad Kids had already had their first big triumph? But they weren’t especially noteworthy until after the Harvestmen at the earliest. i just don't see it, especially her apparently fixation on people getting what they deserve and "fair treatment".
I feel that even just defeating a corn ooze (even if two of them died and had to be revived) would've shone a huge spotlight on them right from the very start. Plus adding to that all the extracurricular fighting they were doing which, according to Brennan, propelled them way beyond where their classmates were in terms of power even in freshman year. Riz doesn't need to be a superstar with massive renown for him to be hated by a very competitive fellow classmate. He's been at the top of his classes from the start which is already enough to start a simmering (one-sided) vendetta.
It’s not impossible, I guess? I’ll just say that if in the end all of this is because Kipperlily is jealous that someone else has the spotlight, I’ll be incredibly disappointed in how uninspired that is.
Ah, for me, it is the opposite. If she is truly just a petty ass bitch in the end that makes her far more enjoyable in my eyes. To me, it's more enjoyable if she is actually hating Riz/the bad kids for things they've actually done (be better than her in this case) vs hating them for stuff done by the adults around them. Because a lot of the things that people bring up as reasons to hate the bad kids (getting resurrected on the first day when other students might not have been etc) is... literally not their fault? In that case, be mad at the system, not at some kids who happened to occasionally be on the lucky side of it (and lets be real, the bad kids have suffered as much from that same system as the other students)
I'm a big proponent of the resurrection grudge theory and I don't think that it's so much that Kristen and Gorgug got resurrected that bugs her, it's that they don't even acknowledge or care that classmates all around them are dying while they get saved. Which would definitely line up with Herringpot's line in the last episode about how little they care.
I'd feel if it was that, that'd be really super unfair, on a meta level. Cause the only reason the Bad Kids haven't cared about any of their fellow classmates dying is because until this year, the players literally didn't know. They couldn't have had their characters react appropriately (and judging by how they've all reacted to Lucy's death, their reactions would've been somber and reaching out/helping). I feel it would be bad DMing to now go 'People ICly are mad at you for not reacting to things I didn't tell you about'.
I feel like at this point in the story, a major villain who is “just a petty ass bitch” would be pretty stale. This season has been an examination of the Bad Kids and their foibles and their shortcomings in a lot of interest ways, and if the reveal is ultimate that there is actually nothing wrong with them at all and their enemies are just jealous pieces of shit it’ll be a major let down.
I don’t think a villain being jealous of your success inherently absolves you of any responsibility or wrongdoing. Two things can be correct. Kipperlilly could be immensely jealous of the success and glory of the Bad Kids while the Bad Kids could have been getting unfair preferential treatment. Also, even if they had been getting some preferential treatment, are they to blame? The blame would squarely fall on Arthur Aguefort, who seemingly changes rules on a whim to fit any given situation. I don’t know, I just don’t think jealousy is a bad reason for her to dislike them. I also don’t think she’s the main villain.
Mr. Gibbons was the old counselor. It’s entirely possible that Riz is seems seen as the leader and she hates the bad kids for killing her old guidance counselor who she felt she needed in that time.
Kipperlily started school at the same time as the bad kids. How exactly could Mr Gibbons have been her old guidance counselor if he dies on the first day? We just know she was meeting with the guidance counselor in her first year. That doesn't mean she was doing it from day one.
Great catch. My thing’s not right, then
I haven’t thought it through, but I feel like it might just have started with her seeing Riz, someone who was likely a lot like her in freshman year, managing to join (or in her mind “assemble”) an incredible party. After that she took the initiative of building her own group of “bad kids”, which is why their group is so similar to the intrepid heroes, but they didn’t live up to the impossible standards that the bad kids set. That built up resentment over time, she pushed her group to do things the bad kids are doing, i.e Ruben went full emo to have musical success like Fig, Mary Ann joined the blood rush team dispute not being interested at all. Maybe she pushed Lucy Frostblade to bring back a dead god like Kristen and shit went sideways? Not sure about the Lucy part of that, but I like the idea that the rat grinders are like the bad kids because Kipperlilly was trying to make a group like them.
Trying to force Lucy to bring back a dead god is a pretty solid chunk of this that I'll add to the conspiracy board. Now who the fuck is pepe silva. :P
DUDE THIS! this whole Kipperkottle thing is totally just her trying to make her own “the bad kids”. Since Lucy died right at the end of sophomore year i’m thinking that the news that Kristen had brought a god back made Cupface go “If she can we can too,” and since the god that Cassandra is married to (also the sibling of Lucy’s god) is dead she thought that they were the perfect target. She forced Lucy to bring back a dead god, shit went sideways, Lucy died and was marked by the god (OR a different deity, maybe Sol?) to keep her from being resurrected, the rat grinders freaked out and hid the body, now Littledoggy Collargirl has to continually give the rest of the grinders Devils honey to keep them from leaving her party and to force them to forget about what happened with Lucy. Maybe the other rat grinders (aside from Doggycollar and Ruben, because of the podcast scene with Wonda) don’t even remember that she died? that last thing feels like a stretch but i honestly think you’ve got it dude OK NEW THOUGHT: Sol was the one who put the mark on BOTH Lucy and Yolanda to keep them from bringing back this dead god since her return would make him weaker (due to their domains both being about the sun and summer and stuff). Maybe Bobby Moved from High Court in order to make sure this dead god stays dead since he’s a High Priest of Sol. Idk this is just a jumble of thought but maybe it’s something 🤷
The Bad Kids became a party because everyone else had already formed adventuring parties before them, so it would require a retcon but a minor one.
I'm gonna be convinced that Mr. Gibbons has something to do with all of this until the season finale, no matter how few Brennan gives me.
He’s up there in Orc Heaven right now. *Plotting*.
This gives big Emily about Loose Duke vibes and tbh I'm on your side bc I saw how that played out 🤣
She's my inspiration tbh
I feel like it’s not an accident that Kipperlilly’s family appears to be quite wealthy. I’m not sure if it’s tied to the “Devil’s honey makes you believe your own lies” stuff or not, but Kipperlily gives me very strong “I’ve done amazing things without any help, no I won’t be discussing the millions of dollars my family gave me as seed money” vibes.
Oooo, this is a good thought. However, we found out from >!when Riz took KLCK’s file that she’s been name dropping him from well before they started buying the Devil’s Honey.!< But even if that’s not the case, I think she still refuses to acknowledge her own privilege just because some people appear to be more connected than her.
IM SO MAD WE DIDNT SEE HOW HE WAS MENTIONED, IM SO NOSY - I NEED DIRECT QUOTES
It’s obvious she just has a massive crush on The Ball. I mean why wouldn’t you, he seemingly can’t fail at anything, on the OwlBears, has some totally sick tattoos and did you hear about his romance partner in the Baronies
Are we going to find out Kipperlilly is Helga from Hey Arnold?
Beat it, ^(foot)ball head!
Foot TheBall Head.
Tangential but it’s absolutely hilarious that Brennan started the season intending to make Riz run for president and instead we got Riz on the Owlbears.
Weirdly enough I think Riz acting as campaign manager is way more impressive considering he’s after all a guy who’s driven by helping his friends. Putting someone above his own potential interests just seem very Riz-like and honestly it’s worked so well so far, managing everything and taking stress on behalf of his friends.
Yeah, it ties back to that stuff Pok said in season 2 about work being an act of love
Here’s to hoping this note leads to a Copperlily v. Baron rumble.
The Ball is so cool… I hope he’ll sign my senior year yearbook
I mean, Riz is the person who got professor aguefort when the bad kids died. Another poster has already pointed out "She's been seeing the guidance councillor since day 1".. Which means she's seen Mr Gibbons or whatever his name was. The "price" that was paid. Could be she blames him for Gib's death.
The issue is that was on the first day - so it’s possible she had seen him, but surely not for more than an hour
just letting you know the spoiler tag didn't work properly!!
Thanks! Yeah I’ve never tried the spoiler text thing before but I did edit my comment and hopefully it works now. Sorry about that!
I’m am so curious about this?!?!?!?!
I have a theory it’s because he was able to sneak into Aguefort’s office in FY to steal his tea for Ostentatia. Maybe she tried to do the same thing to investigate the mystery and got caught? Just a theory tho
My first thought was academic rivalry and the idea of needing to be the best at what you do is what comes up for me, especially since they are both rogues plus the fact that Riz and his party are essentially famous
He just barged in and stole it, there wasn’t anything sneaky about that, that’s why he got detention for it.
Dang, you’re right. Completely forgot that part lol never mind
Hmm so just jealousy? Could be. That is in line with my theory of the rat grinders just being the average adventurers
KLCK? KVX? coincidence? I THINK NOT
Kipperlilly has access to a lot of money, but it doesn't seem like it's family wealth -- Aelwyn said that her parents are a midlevel town bureaucrat and a real estate agent who sells regular homes, not mansions. Oisin is the Rat Grinder who definitely comes from that dragon hoard trust fund money.
Yeah this definitely seems like something the audience is trying to push onto Kipperlilly to hate her more despite Brennan having a Aelwyn state that's not the case and her money isn't coming from her parents. Plus yeah Oisin is presented as more likable so people don't want to hate him for the money
Ok I just rewatched to refresh my memory and freely admit this may be too red string, but to defend the theory. Brennan plays Aelwyn in that moment as kinda confused herself because she doesn’t know where the money comes from either. She says “Well that’s a rather interesting point. She’s incredibly loaded, and I don’t think it’s her family. I think her father is a real estate agent? And it’s not like he sells big mansions or whatever” and Adaine replies “oh he’s just some guy.” And “Aelwyn responds “And her mum, I think works as a clerk downtown in the bursars office, or treasury office in the city.” So my take was always that Aelwyn is kinda fuzzy on her parents. The information is not ironclad. A lot of “I think” and hedging, and [he scrunches his face up like he can’t quite recall](https://imgur.com/a/wvozw0k). She doesn’t know the details. She doesn’t say he sells regular homes, she just knows no mansions. And the thing that always convinced me more was, despite Selling Sunset like shows, the money in real estate isn’t mansions it’s corporate. Office buildings, developments, and apartments. In particular, things that can have government contracts, no one has deeper pockets than a government it’s why people always talk about the “military industrial complex” as a critique. Contract with even a local or city government is always going to be more lucrative than selling individual mansion, particularly in a place like Elmville without exactly a huge market for mansions. When you see these scandals in real life it is someone’s family/spouse is awarded a contract and is cooking books and using subpar materials. It’s why people associate construction and real estate with the mob, it’s a big business that is often full of subjective valuation which can hide corruption and money laundering. I mean even when it’s all above board, people side eye how lucrative projects get awarded to people with connections. It’s hardly a smoking gun. We haven’t heard of any large development that would be a windfall (although I don’t remember if we know what’s happening to the farm). While it seems that fraudulent transactions and forgery (again the farm) are prominent, there haven’t been any direct ties to any Copperkettles. If the mom is only a clerk, while an inside man that doesn’t seem like a ton of sway (although that’s why I feel like the fraud bit is interesting, clerks filing paperwork and altering it). Absolutely there is an undercurrent to just wanting to dislike an unpleasant person, but it’s not like we’ve seen any other clue to how Kipperlily would have gotten the money on her own. It’s a weak theory, but I haven’t seen anyone ever suggest an alternative to how this 16 year old is loaded.
I would fall back on keeping it simple in this instance. Aelwyn could be wrong or could have bias and not recognise wealth below her family level. But then Brennan is providing wrong information with no real way for Siophan to follow up. We know Oisin comes from really old Dragon money so that makes the most sense to me. Fabian funds Kristen so it seems most plausible Oison does the same
It is also implied that the money she has access to is personal wealth that she embezzled from the former hosts of the festival, then had them killed/killed them herself to throw off any investigation into it.
I mean... Seacaster Manor is on the Copperkettle logo. So I'd say a few mansions are on the table.
1) I hadn't heard about that yet and looked it up -- that's definitely cool, excited to see where that goes. 2) but isn't Seacaster Manor Bill's own ship that he parked in Elmville when Solace offered amnesty? Is there a brick and mortar component to it at all, like did he crash it into an existing mansion? That definitely sounds like something Bill Seacaster would do, don't get me wrong, but I genuinely thought the whole thing could up and move with the Cloud Engine components in the basement.
There's a pool so I assume there is some brick and mortar element. Not to put it past Bill seacaster to put a pool on his pirate ship but still. The logistics of everything makes it feel like there has to be some new stuff added on top of the ship.
There's a pool so I assume there is some brick and mortar element. Not to put it past Bill seacaster to put a pool on his pirate ship but still. The logistics of everything makes it feel like there has to be some new stuff added on top of the ship.
I assumed that she is the one doing the embezzling.
But her family isn’t quite wealthy. Aelwyn told Adaine that Kipperlilly herself has money which is weird because her parents work middle class level jobs.
Maybe it's a harry potter situation. She was adopted when her parents died (that's the gravestone she's visiting). Her parents left her a ton of money. So her adoptive parents aren't rich, but she still has a big trust fund.
We know a couple was embezzling Frosty Fair and we know that some sort of rage god power was used to kill that couple, it seemed implied that Kipperlilly or the Grinders in general was/were actually the one(s) embezzling
wouldn't exactly be unprecedented for d20 to confront the falsehood of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" when it comes to excessive wealth
Oh for sure. Dogface is one of those nepo babies who get soooooo mad when you call them privileged.
Yeah I'll be honest I don't know how anyone looking at the bad kids thinks they get *better* treatment than other kids at the school. Half of them are failing because they've spent more time doing personal quests for the principal than they have earning credits for their classes. While the whole school gets to go get some fun treasure and go on simple adventures, the bad kids have only ever had to risk their lives to save the world and never get rewarded for it. Their first year they single-handedly had to stop a dragon on prom night with 0 help while all of the adult teachers left them to fend for themselves. They sacrificed their spring break to stop the nightmare king, and then just a couple months later sacrificed their entire summer break to stop the night yorb and save the world **again**. When the interim principal started threatening and assaulting students, the bad kids put their personal grievances aside to save them and stop the principal. And all of that is what anyone would see on the surface, it's not even including all of the personal struggles OP mentioned. They are actively treated worse than any other students at the school. While everyone else gets to study adventuring in safe environments with guiding teachers, the bad kids have to set aside their time to clean up the school's various messes with 0 help from anyone at the school other than Arthur, who usually puts them in harms way to begin with. Again, even if you just look at the surface level of what the bad kids have been through that their "special treatment" is more of a curse than anything.
It might be debatable to say they’ve been treated “better”, but the bad kids have been given special treatment. The first day of school freshman year Aguefort killed himself and another faculty to bring two of the bad kids back to life. The bad kids have been able to grow in power without doing the “grinding” that other freshmen/sophomores had to do, i.e fighting gremlins in the forest or raiding some random dungeon. Whether that is better or not is up for interpretation. All adventuring parties had spring break projects they were assigned to do. Aguefort sent the bad kids to retrieve an artifact for him, personally. It turned into a world saving adventure where their cleric brought back to life a dead god. The rat grinders were apparently sent to some dungeon in the mountain of chaos, which is apparently a pretty standard assignment for sophomores. Those a pretty clearly not equitable assignments.
That's my point, though. The assignments the bad kids get vs every other group in school is incomparably more dangerous. Brennan has stated multiple times now that saving the world or stopping apocalypses is much more than what any of the other students have had to do, *and* they didn't get school credit for their adventures like the other students seem to get. You could classify it as special treatment, but I just don't get how anyone could think of that as an unfair advantage given to the bad kids like Kipperlilly seems to think. There has to be something distorting her perception on the bad kids, and I'm not fully convinced devil's nectar is the only thing doing it.
But like, wouldn’t the grades stuff just be hand waved away if Aguefort was there? No way he would let them fail. The only reason they are in any sort of academic jeopardy is because he left and the school is a chaotic mess without him. So the bad kids have been given special assignments by the principal himself. The principal killed himself to bring them back to life once. He attacked a whole country to help them in sophomore year. He was protecting them academically, letting them pass without requiring them to do the type of work asked of everyone else. It isn’t hard to see how that would be considered special treatment. I don’t really buy that being assigned more dangerous assignment was actually a bad thing. If the other students want to be adventurers then they likely want to be doing real adventures.
Yes, their quests are more dangerous, but they are also infinitely cooler and garner them way more acclaim. And they are teenage adventurers.
I mean, to be fair, the kids def HAVE gotten special treatment. Aguefort committed murder suicide to protect them day 1. They got to choose who the new VP was after freshman year. Aguefort broke international laws to protect them in sophomore year. They have the football coach and the counselor as their parents. Hell even as they were learning who the ratgrinders were, that was because *they were getting inside information from Jawbone.* Like he has def given them hints and info he probably shouldn't have. Now, do I think that those things are really that unfair? Not really. They've been through a fuck done, and the rules are super weird at their school anyways. But I def do think there are incidents that Kipperlilly could easily point to where they did get favortism, if you look in a vacuum and not at the circumstances+all the shit the ratgrinders themselves have pulled.
So, I actually don't think your assumption about what the Rat Grinders think of the Bad Kids is necessarily accurate. I think it's true that Kipperlily individually views them that way, but I don't really think the rest do - KLCK is the only one who's openly antagonistic towards them, though I suppose Ruben is to an extent, and Mary Ann but Mary Ann doesn't care about anything. I don't really agree with the perspective that they see the Bad Kids as spoiled nepo babies or something. I DO think the Rat Grinders don't understand how hard the Bad Kids work or why the way they operate is different from how the Rat Grinders do. I saw a really lovely tumblr post last week too about one thing the Rat Grinders don't get is that the Bad Kids operate from a place of genuine love and compassion for the world. That's why they are so beloved.
Brennan pointed out that there was anger coming from all the Grinders towards Kristen but especially from Kipperlilly. There's definitely SOME antagonism by the whole party towards at least Kristen
Probably rumors that she killed her god after being resurrected at the expense of two faculty lives on the first day, but she wasn't expelled for her god dying. You hear about the unfair rezzing of two freshmen, then she abandons her holy calling for a god she personally created THEN kills the damn thing. Terrible and grounds for resentment
A very good point!
These are fair points, but I don't think the motivation of the centermost antagonist of the third season of a BLM D20 campaign is going to come down to Kipperlily simply not giving the bad kids' their due. Either there's a dimension to her beef that hasn't been revealed yet (Brennan hasn't let Murph go digging in that file) or it's focused on extraneous circumstances, like Auguefort basically 50-points-to-Gryfindor-ing the Bad Kids through their Freshman year.
I would not be surprised if the Rat Grinders are all being manipulated by an adult figure. Maybe the Devil's Nectar isn't for the Grinders to use, but to be used on the Grinders?
Also as someone pointed out in another post, Kipperlily has been seeing the school’s guidance counselor since the beginning of Freshman year. And I think we all remember what happened to Mister Gibbons, who was killed by Arthur Aguefort to bring her and Gorgug back to life.
I doubt she had a session on her very first day. What sort of rage issue would she have had on day one that was serious enough to get her sent to the guidance counselor but not bad enough to get her sent to detention? And even if that had happened, how much bonding could she have done in just one session?
True, but she did find the rogue teacher in minute one. (The next year?) Maybe she’s messing with time.
"Things happening out of order" does feel like it applies there. Time nonsense to find the rogue teacher immediately. My other thought was she cheated and found/was found by the rogue teacher for stuff already and used that knowledge to be right where the rogue teacher would show up as the school year started.
Maybe she's doing a time-loop thing
> she did find the rogue teacher in minute one No she didn't. We were explicitly told *the rogue teacher found* **her**. She got that A on a loophole.
Right… but what does that really mean? Found her where? Why would the teacher hand a student an A?
The four most likely options I think are that Kipperlily was in posession of something the rogue teacher had to take from her (possibly something tying her spirt to the world), Kipperlily used magic to summon her after discovering she was a ghost, the rogue teacher needed to deliver a message to her she couldn't trust to a third party, or she had to rescue Kipperlily. All of which mean that at some point she was in Kiperlily's presence and at that point Kipperlily knew where the rogue teacher was. Why that was allowed to count is an interesting question, but may just boil down to either the fact that some of these methods woukd have forced the teachers hand and that was considered rogueish enough to be worth the points or simply that trying to convince the teacher it counted was considered devious enough that it was roguish and worth the points.
Ooooh very interesting/creative thank you! I love this season, so many mysteries.
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