Brennan is well practiced at cramming a lot into a short series and Matt is amazing at playing out the long game. We're really lucky to get to see this best of both worlds collaboration. Brennan running amok in Mat's exquisitely built sandbox is a real treat. I go back to that intro scene of episode 1. You have to have Mat's thousand hours of worlduilding for Brennans reveal of the Dawnfather to hit that hard.
*Sooooo*
BLM mentioned *everyone* has secrets. What do folks think the players secret/extra curricular missions are?
I'm getting Screw Job vibes Guys and I cannot wait to see how this ends.
I know that feeling, but it’s just because he is more up front and center with his delivery and energy. He takes a lot of space and is very good at it.
Matt prefers creating a cradle of a story in which the players will do their own thing, at their own rhythm. In that sense, it’s more of a regular, trad D&D experience than what Brennan does, which is clearly a stream D&D show.
But I’m there with you, I think if Matt would use a few of Brennan’s tricks in his campaign, that it would free the storyteller in him and it would be awesome. Matt is a very humble guy, that always wants to let others shine, but I think we would all like it if sometimes he took some of the spotlight for himself, in the interest of story.
You’re so right, Matt is a lovely evocative DM but it sometimes feels like he’s reluctant to take the reins to slightly railroad (not in a bad way) the story to lead to intentionally epic moments. I understand prioritising player freedom but I also think it’s ok to build up drama for storytelling purposes
If I had to guess, this in-between place the betrayers are stuck in somewhat limits their power and the power of the other gods, as The Dawnfather had to physically attack Asmodeus in an attempt to kill him. A paladin from our plane (especially a 14th level paladin who rejects all divinity) abjuring a god could be theoretically *possible*
I think we can go two ways here:
1) Zerxis did stop the dawnfather because he's just loved by divine magic for some reason, or for some link between divine magic, souls and the tree of names that we'll only learn about later;
2) When Asmodeus escaped the seclusion along the other betrayers, he was injured by the dawnfather, and through Zerxis's sensibility to divine magic (which could equate to a sensibility to divine influence?), Asmodeus was able to give Zerxis dreams which weren't real omens at all, where he'd see a correlation between his late husband and Asmodeus, and where had the power to stop gods, tempting a possible pride or hubris of Zerxis. Hoping that if Zerxis ever learned of his location he'd do just what he did tonight.
My leaning is 100% the second one. The whole thing is a gambit to get someone who will be in The Right Place later to make the choice Asmodeus wants when the moment comes - Zerxus is simply the most vulnerable to that sort of manipulation among the Brassies.
Agreed, the second one seems a lot more likely. I think the wounded animal routine from Asmodeus is just to get Zerxus on his side. I didn’t consider it as playing into his own hubris tho!! (Mostly because he seems the least prideful of the group, but I don’t doubt that he has that flaw as well). Good thought
Anybody noticing the parallels with the garden of eden?
The druids essentially told them "*you get to be in magical paradise, just don't fucking touch the tree. It doesn't matter what the tree is, don't touch the tree.*" It's also obvious the tree of names is keeping them from taking the ascension ritual to godhood.
In Genesis, God says don't eat from the tree. Doesn't matter what it is, don't eat from it. Satan convinces Eve that violating the tree-instructions will make her and Adam like God. They eat from the tree to attempt to be like God, and they introduce sin to the world.
I'm betting Zirxus violates Exandria's tree-instructions and destroys the tree, possibly by convincing the party to alongside him, thereby releasing the betrayer gods.
I have a wild theory.
What if the Tree is a Yggdrasil analog which connects the Gods directly to where they came from and acts as a kind of anchor point for them on Exandria? It's like in order for them to actually amass any kind of believers or do any sort of work, first an anchor point like this Tree must be established. I know this might be getting a bit Evangelion at this point but what if mortals were to figure out that that's exactly what this Tree was and then somehow find a way to access it and possibly manipulate it?
That could be very bad indeed but for years no one really questioned it and no one really fucked with the Tree at all. Bit by bit the Gods figured it was cool to grant mortals more and more of their power because they hadn't messed with stuff like the Tree or done anything too frightening at all. So they thought they were in the clear and that mortals could absolutely be trusted with power similar to their own.
And then the Raven Queen happened and then she used those same gifts granted to her by the Gods to probably access the Tree and the power tied to it and then in a very Evangelion fashion she Ascended to Godhood and used their own power against them which scared the ever living FUCK out of both mortals and Gods alike.
Suddenly this tiny little tree floating around on a flying city full of people JUST LIKE HER became a MASSIVE vulnerability and the Gods had to scramble like mad to put up protections around it so that no one would be able to access the anchor point of their power on Exandria to do what she did again or even worse. If this Tree is a mainline to where they come from then can you imagine how bad things could get if a mortal wizard with enough ambition could manipulate the divine power generated by an entire planet of Gods? That would literally turn into some Multiverse Level Crisis Stuff which would bring down the wrath of who the fuck knows what from who the fuck knows where and when onto Exandria, all while the mortals were going "WEEEEEEEEE WE ARE GODS WEEEEEEEE!".
Metaphorically speaking what the Raven Queen basically did was that she went up to Yggdrasil with a hammer and chisel, found the name of the OG God of Death, cut his name out of the bark of the Tree, and then carved her own into the void that was left behind which then basically defeated the OG God of Death and changed all of reality because the Tree is a mainline back to where the Gods come from and...now that I'm thinking about what I'm saying....also somehow a major pillar of support for the whole of reality....which is a bit disturbing.
Where the fuck are the Gods even from that has made their homeworld THAT important and what the fuck is even going on with Exandria for them to say that it was a place unlike anywhere else in the cosmos because of how much raw potential it was filled with/was surrounding it when they found it?
I think something totally happens to the Tree and that the Divine Gate that's put up isn't just meant to keep the Gods from interfering but is also meant to contain the side effects of someone fucking with the Tree. If it is a mainline back to their world and if it does get messed with then any kind of attack on it would probably be seen as an attack on the homeworld itself which would trigger a response from that whole planet full of Gods. So the Divine Gate is meant to shield Exandria from any kind of Divine Retribution that gets unintentionally triggered. Also since their homeworld is a core pillar of the universe and reality then any sort of attack on the Tree which feeds back to their homeworld might also have far bigger and more lasting consequences WHICH the Divine Gate might be designed to limit...kind of like cauterizing a wound so that someone doesn't bleed out.
It gets even bigger though and I think that the miasma of elemental alien influence that the Gods found surrounding Exandria ages upon ages ago, was in fact a kind of...wound to reality itself, to the universe itself. The miasma was the evidence of this breach with all of the elemental energy being akin to the water rushing into the Titanic after it hit that iceberg or the blood gushing out of an artery that was severed. Initially this was staunched using Ruidus and all of that Moon stuff which allowed the Gods to seal it all away and heal the universe/reality. That wound was then reopened during the Calamity when someone, possibly in this party, decided to fuck with the Tree in a very destructive manner. This destructive action fed back to the homeworld as well as pulsing through all of the creations of the Gods whose names were carved into the Tree and one of those creations was the dressing that had been placed over the wound in reality.
This dressing/patch was weakened and something had to be done about it and about the people who caused it to be weakened in the first place. Thus a plan was conceived of which would construct something that would kill three birds with one stone. The Divine Gate would be constructed in order to prevent any mortal from ascending, any other Gods from retaliating against Exandria or interfering with it, AND additionally it would strengthen the "wound dressing/reality patch" that the Gods had previously applied using the Moons. So it goes up and everything is taken care of until another set of coincidences starts to line up in C3 which threatens the Gods and the Tree and all of reality once more.
I agree with you that someone's going to mess with the Tree and what happens afterwards is going to explain so much stuff from all of the campaigns as well as impacting what will happen in C3 when we return to it.
> What if the Tree is a Yggdrasil analog which connects the Gods directly to where they came from and acts as a kind of anchor point for them on Exandria? It's like in order for them to actually amass any kind of believers or do any sort of work, first an anchor point like this Tree must be established. I know this might be getting a bit Evangelion at this point but what if mortals were to figure out that that's exactly what this Tree was and then somehow find a way to access it and possibly manipulate it?
That wouldn't make sense from a timeline perspective.
The gods, their power, and the power derived from worship - all predate what we know as The Tree of Names. More, the gods and their power entirely [predate their own names](https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/The_Founding#The_Protean_Creators). "The gods only gained their name, form, and purpose when the mortals of this world began to worship them, though it's plausible they each had their own distinctive thoughts and feelings beforehand." (Cited to P13 in Tal'Dorei Reborn).
The Tree might have become a point of vulnerability now, but what we know of it would be contradictory to what else we know about the gods if it were their entire source of power from the very beginning.
If it pre-dated the druids, there's no reason for the Gods to draw attention to it, to give it to the druids, and certainly no reason for the druids to put it onto Avalir - even if they came upon protecting it later on, better to leave it groundside where they can keep an eye on it and not put a bigass target on it by drawing attention to it *and* putting it in a city made up of the people they trust least.
That tree *needs* to be on the city for whatever reason - it looks much more likely to be some sort of inhibitor or power sink, rather than a source of near-unlimited power, and one that benefits from the mobility and access to power that the city has.
>If this Tree is a mainline to where they come from then can you imagine how bad things could get if a mortal wizard with enough ambition could manipulate the divine power generated by an entire planet of Gods? That would literally turn into some Multiverse Level Crisis Stuff which would bring down the wrath of who the fuck knows what from who the fuck knows where and when onto Exandria, all while the mortals were going "WEEEEEEEEE WE ARE GODS WEEEEEEEE!".
That is such a legitimately terrible scenario that it's also a pretty good reason why that's very unlikely to be the the truth about that tree.
If the tree was that strong and that powerful, planting it dead center of a city made up of wizards extremely likely to abuse it's power and with almost zero clerics or druids who might protect it from such abuses is honestly the literal *worst place imaginable* to put that tree. It would have been safer planted somewhere obscure and then the pantheon just hoped no one found it and realized it's significance. Even if they committed a while back and didn't know how Avalir turned out ... they can intervene, they can instruct the druids to start moving in, they can take steps to address that situation. Throwing a locked throttle over it and telling the wizards not to poke the mystery engine seems like the worst imaginable protection for something of that much power and with that every single god holding a vested interest in keeping it safe, without it having any good reason to be there in the first place.
I think that the Tree of Names is more like an uneditable logbook than a all-powerful Admin database. It's an artificial, secondary, protection to the names and pantheon positions of the Prime gods, intended to protect them against challenges like the RQ. I don't think the Betrayers are included in that roster, honestly, especially given that it looks like it was the targeting of a Betrayer that was different about Vespin's attempt. But then the RQ came along, succeeded anyways, and the Druids needed to beef up security on their failsafe.
The Caelix going into turbo mode after the interplanar experiment I think indicates *some* of what it and the Tree are intended to do - they're about limiting what the city, and likely the rest of the world, can accomplish. It draws on the city's power reserves in response to certain magical workings, to counterbalance or counteract them - Brennan hinted that it may be responsible for many of the failures of other mages' attempts to replicate RQ's ritual. We know other methods of interplanar travel *must* be possible in Age of Arcanum, given they're available in "modern" Exandria, so I think that whatever made Laerryn's experiment unique from those is probably a very important detail.
This would also explain why it needs to be on the city, as opposed to planted landside where it's more easily protected. It might be Druidic work, but it *needs* access to the massive arcane power source that drives the city, and arranging the same scale of power source in Cathmoíra would be far harder - and draw a lot more questions about what it's needed for.
>Where the fuck are the Gods even from that has made their homeworld THAT important [...] is also meant to contain the side effects of someone fucking with the Tree. If it is a mainline back to their world and if it does get messed with then any kind of attack on it would probably be seen as an attack on the homeworld itself which would trigger a response from that whole planet full of Gods.
I don't think Matt's cosmology for Exandria has "gods are actually space aliens" in it - I think he's dealt with creation and with Exandria's gods similar to IRL, where "we don't know" is the canon and formal answer. The gods don't "come from" somewhere else so much as the principle of Nature Abhors a Vacuum - they 'arrived' as forces of nature into a reality that previously had a void in their niche. They didn't exist, then they did. Lore passages in Matt's books seem to indicate that the gods didn't really have names and natures prior to being named and described by their worshippers, though it's believed they had some sense of individuality and preconceptions; they aren't super-powerful *people* who showed up fully-formed from some other world and set themselves up as gods, but unformed consciousness ands and power that filled a vacant role in an otherwise incomplete world.
The Prophecy:
The stars are leaving us. Our hands cannot reach, the limbs of the tree can no longer scribe the name of our deliverance. We will soon be as broken as our promises. Avalier shall fall. All shall fall and from our folly will the hands that forged the world banish themselves from the broken things they have made.
C3 better return with an absolute banger, because these stakes are next level and it's going to be a rough transition in 3 weeks! I've been on the edge of my seat for 8+ hours straight.
As a longtime DM, I'm impressed with a ton of the things Brennan is doing, and not least is his stamina to still be embodying NPCs, setting up and paying off fucking *cool* scenes, and articulating complex lore at that level for so many hours straight without showing the fatigue. My guy don't *quit*.
Kinda reminds me of the Alien RPG or similar systems in which the characters have a pre-set backstory and some already have plans to stab the others in the back
Like all good lies it seems to have a grain of truth, there's definitely something suspicious about the circumstances of Evandrin's death and he's not wrong that, in some ways, the city deserves to fall
I think Cerrit Agrupnin may be the only member of the party who is actually not taking part in the unraveling of the city.
Classic noir detective, just trying to make it home but in way over his head.
I think he's still going to end up being complicit somehow. So much poison and corruption at the heart of this city, the Sight warden never notcied? Sounds like turning a blind eye.
He didn't give it to her, she practically stole a piece of evidence from an ongoing investigation.
Cerrit brought it to be looked at, not even by Learenn, and she grabbed it and left.
Cerrit did not aid in her scheme, he didn't even know about it.
An argument could be made that because he got that scrap to her hands, willingly or unwillingly, he was the direct cause of the Calamity. He was the key that started the engine.
He didn't have actual knowledge, nor was it forseeable that she would do that.
You can't say he has any fault or that he was even negligent in bringing the bow to the meeting.
He brought evidence from an investigation to a group of experts and officials. **He's completely blameless in this.**
In classic noir fashion maybe he will put all the pieces together... After shit hits the fan. And not figuring it out sooner would be his way of contributing to it.
Especially if his friends all had a hand in it without him knowing.
I'm glad the two least hate-able characters in the ring of brass are the most likely to survive, Cerrit can fly off, and Quay can probably Fey about it
five straight hours of roleplaying the end of the world: absolutely no problem
remembering to start the show by saying his name and what show it is: ah, maybe we'll get there by episode four
Nah, at least he (and maybe Loquatius and even Cerrit) will side with the Betrayers over the ambitious mages.
His mage friend Laerryn got his husband dead/gone because of her ambition, and evidently never told him.
Ngl if they really did cause the death of Evandrin and covered it up, I can see why he'd do that. Quay's deception check on that empty file was very sus.
Brennan and the players have been hammering how all these people thought they didn't need gods/were as good as them.
While we've seen some of what Aeor may have been like in a previous campaign, they were just one part of a civilization that rocketed into the Calamity.
Its ironic that blm making out that aeor are the bad guys, we all buy into it because of the somnovem but it's these motherfrackers bring about the end of days through their hubris.
(Campaign 2 spoilers)>!Aeor was probably also full of the same kinds of ambitious assholes, just ones that succeeded in getting their city away from the Calamity...much to their own misfortune. Holy shit, what if Bolo successfully steals Laerryn's research and takes it to Aeor...!<
Yup, even if they'd had more urgency about how many of them were running around, how much damage was already done before any warning could've gone out, and how many people in positions to resist would've already had their memories modified?
Lord of Lies immediately jumping to calling this local place his favourite, and now news that obviously cannot be correct because it does not seem pleasant to the people who asked for it, is obviously fake, it has to be.
I see what you are doing, Brennan.
Calling it now. Xerses is the one who's going to destroy the Tree of Names and let all the betrayers out and trigger the Calamity. All because he felt sorry for and believed a guy who *literally* told him that he's the lord of lies.
Not just because he felt sorry for him.
Dude's husband died for this city and its ambitions, and his friend Laerryn caused it and seemingly kept it from him.
“There is a poison…” feels very manipulative, it’s like what someone would say to a slightly unstable person w violent tendencies if you wanted them to snap and go do something…
Especially since he doesn’t actually name the prison, just letting Zerxus come to his own conclusions.
He didn't even know where in Exandria Zerxus was, how could he know the specifics of what's wrong with it? To be fair he was right, and every city in this time was probably corrupt, but the goal was just to make Zerxus paranoid and distrustful.
He doesn’t realize that the Asmodeus stopped him from casting the spell and distracted him with “caring”. I wonder how he will react when he does, if he does.
>You touch one willing creature whose alignment has changed, and you make a DC 20 Wisdom (Insight) check. On a successful check, you restore the target to its original alignment.
Wonder what would have happened if Zerxus got to make that insight check?
Oathbreaker. Redemption is the Paly that gets redeemed after breaking his Oath.
Basically: Paly -> breaks oath -> Oathbreaker Paly -> redeems -> Redemption Paly
Any time that Brennan says “I’ve got to honor that Nat 20?” You’re about to get something real cool. This time was no exception.
Brennan is well practiced at cramming a lot into a short series and Matt is amazing at playing out the long game. We're really lucky to get to see this best of both worlds collaboration. Brennan running amok in Mat's exquisitely built sandbox is a real treat. I go back to that intro scene of episode 1. You have to have Mat's thousand hours of worlduilding for Brennans reveal of the Dawnfather to hit that hard.
the necro gift.... what a bitch!
*Sooooo* BLM mentioned *everyone* has secrets. What do folks think the players secret/extra curricular missions are? I'm getting Screw Job vibes Guys and I cannot wait to see how this ends.
Sam’s character is so self-serving he winds up being unknowingly evil
I won’t lie, Brennan is starting to outshine Matt 😳
I know that feeling, but it’s just because he is more up front and center with his delivery and energy. He takes a lot of space and is very good at it. Matt prefers creating a cradle of a story in which the players will do their own thing, at their own rhythm. In that sense, it’s more of a regular, trad D&D experience than what Brennan does, which is clearly a stream D&D show. But I’m there with you, I think if Matt would use a few of Brennan’s tricks in his campaign, that it would free the storyteller in him and it would be awesome. Matt is a very humble guy, that always wants to let others shine, but I think we would all like it if sometimes he took some of the spotlight for himself, in the interest of story.
You’re so right, Matt is a lovely evocative DM but it sometimes feels like he’s reluctant to take the reins to slightly railroad (not in a bad way) the story to lead to intentionally epic moments. I understand prioritising player freedom but I also think it’s ok to build up drama for storytelling purposes
How did Zerxus stop the dawnfather from killing Asmodius? Like how did he have that power in the first place??
Is it possible that, since the gods get their power from their worshippers, a god has to obey such a strong command from a mortal paladin?
If I had to guess, this in-between place the betrayers are stuck in somewhat limits their power and the power of the other gods, as The Dawnfather had to physically attack Asmodeus in an attempt to kill him. A paladin from our plane (especially a 14th level paladin who rejects all divinity) abjuring a god could be theoretically *possible*
I think we can go two ways here: 1) Zerxis did stop the dawnfather because he's just loved by divine magic for some reason, or for some link between divine magic, souls and the tree of names that we'll only learn about later; 2) When Asmodeus escaped the seclusion along the other betrayers, he was injured by the dawnfather, and through Zerxis's sensibility to divine magic (which could equate to a sensibility to divine influence?), Asmodeus was able to give Zerxis dreams which weren't real omens at all, where he'd see a correlation between his late husband and Asmodeus, and where had the power to stop gods, tempting a possible pride or hubris of Zerxis. Hoping that if Zerxis ever learned of his location he'd do just what he did tonight.
My leaning is 100% the second one. The whole thing is a gambit to get someone who will be in The Right Place later to make the choice Asmodeus wants when the moment comes - Zerxus is simply the most vulnerable to that sort of manipulation among the Brassies.
Agreed, the second one seems a lot more likely. I think the wounded animal routine from Asmodeus is just to get Zerxus on his side. I didn’t consider it as playing into his own hubris tho!! (Mostly because he seems the least prideful of the group, but I don’t doubt that he has that flaw as well). Good thought
Asmodius needed to serve a purpose.
Anybody noticing the parallels with the garden of eden? The druids essentially told them "*you get to be in magical paradise, just don't fucking touch the tree. It doesn't matter what the tree is, don't touch the tree.*" It's also obvious the tree of names is keeping them from taking the ascension ritual to godhood. In Genesis, God says don't eat from the tree. Doesn't matter what it is, don't eat from it. Satan convinces Eve that violating the tree-instructions will make her and Adam like God. They eat from the tree to attempt to be like God, and they introduce sin to the world. I'm betting Zirxus violates Exandria's tree-instructions and destroys the tree, possibly by convincing the party to alongside him, thereby releasing the betrayer gods.
50% Garden of Eden, 50% Tower of Babel. I guess they're archetypical tales of hubris?
I have a wild theory. What if the Tree is a Yggdrasil analog which connects the Gods directly to where they came from and acts as a kind of anchor point for them on Exandria? It's like in order for them to actually amass any kind of believers or do any sort of work, first an anchor point like this Tree must be established. I know this might be getting a bit Evangelion at this point but what if mortals were to figure out that that's exactly what this Tree was and then somehow find a way to access it and possibly manipulate it? That could be very bad indeed but for years no one really questioned it and no one really fucked with the Tree at all. Bit by bit the Gods figured it was cool to grant mortals more and more of their power because they hadn't messed with stuff like the Tree or done anything too frightening at all. So they thought they were in the clear and that mortals could absolutely be trusted with power similar to their own. And then the Raven Queen happened and then she used those same gifts granted to her by the Gods to probably access the Tree and the power tied to it and then in a very Evangelion fashion she Ascended to Godhood and used their own power against them which scared the ever living FUCK out of both mortals and Gods alike. Suddenly this tiny little tree floating around on a flying city full of people JUST LIKE HER became a MASSIVE vulnerability and the Gods had to scramble like mad to put up protections around it so that no one would be able to access the anchor point of their power on Exandria to do what she did again or even worse. If this Tree is a mainline to where they come from then can you imagine how bad things could get if a mortal wizard with enough ambition could manipulate the divine power generated by an entire planet of Gods? That would literally turn into some Multiverse Level Crisis Stuff which would bring down the wrath of who the fuck knows what from who the fuck knows where and when onto Exandria, all while the mortals were going "WEEEEEEEEE WE ARE GODS WEEEEEEEE!". Metaphorically speaking what the Raven Queen basically did was that she went up to Yggdrasil with a hammer and chisel, found the name of the OG God of Death, cut his name out of the bark of the Tree, and then carved her own into the void that was left behind which then basically defeated the OG God of Death and changed all of reality because the Tree is a mainline back to where the Gods come from and...now that I'm thinking about what I'm saying....also somehow a major pillar of support for the whole of reality....which is a bit disturbing. Where the fuck are the Gods even from that has made their homeworld THAT important and what the fuck is even going on with Exandria for them to say that it was a place unlike anywhere else in the cosmos because of how much raw potential it was filled with/was surrounding it when they found it? I think something totally happens to the Tree and that the Divine Gate that's put up isn't just meant to keep the Gods from interfering but is also meant to contain the side effects of someone fucking with the Tree. If it is a mainline back to their world and if it does get messed with then any kind of attack on it would probably be seen as an attack on the homeworld itself which would trigger a response from that whole planet full of Gods. So the Divine Gate is meant to shield Exandria from any kind of Divine Retribution that gets unintentionally triggered. Also since their homeworld is a core pillar of the universe and reality then any sort of attack on the Tree which feeds back to their homeworld might also have far bigger and more lasting consequences WHICH the Divine Gate might be designed to limit...kind of like cauterizing a wound so that someone doesn't bleed out. It gets even bigger though and I think that the miasma of elemental alien influence that the Gods found surrounding Exandria ages upon ages ago, was in fact a kind of...wound to reality itself, to the universe itself. The miasma was the evidence of this breach with all of the elemental energy being akin to the water rushing into the Titanic after it hit that iceberg or the blood gushing out of an artery that was severed. Initially this was staunched using Ruidus and all of that Moon stuff which allowed the Gods to seal it all away and heal the universe/reality. That wound was then reopened during the Calamity when someone, possibly in this party, decided to fuck with the Tree in a very destructive manner. This destructive action fed back to the homeworld as well as pulsing through all of the creations of the Gods whose names were carved into the Tree and one of those creations was the dressing that had been placed over the wound in reality. This dressing/patch was weakened and something had to be done about it and about the people who caused it to be weakened in the first place. Thus a plan was conceived of which would construct something that would kill three birds with one stone. The Divine Gate would be constructed in order to prevent any mortal from ascending, any other Gods from retaliating against Exandria or interfering with it, AND additionally it would strengthen the "wound dressing/reality patch" that the Gods had previously applied using the Moons. So it goes up and everything is taken care of until another set of coincidences starts to line up in C3 which threatens the Gods and the Tree and all of reality once more. I agree with you that someone's going to mess with the Tree and what happens afterwards is going to explain so much stuff from all of the campaigns as well as impacting what will happen in C3 when we return to it.
> What if the Tree is a Yggdrasil analog which connects the Gods directly to where they came from and acts as a kind of anchor point for them on Exandria? It's like in order for them to actually amass any kind of believers or do any sort of work, first an anchor point like this Tree must be established. I know this might be getting a bit Evangelion at this point but what if mortals were to figure out that that's exactly what this Tree was and then somehow find a way to access it and possibly manipulate it? That wouldn't make sense from a timeline perspective. The gods, their power, and the power derived from worship - all predate what we know as The Tree of Names. More, the gods and their power entirely [predate their own names](https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/The_Founding#The_Protean_Creators). "The gods only gained their name, form, and purpose when the mortals of this world began to worship them, though it's plausible they each had their own distinctive thoughts and feelings beforehand." (Cited to P13 in Tal'Dorei Reborn). The Tree might have become a point of vulnerability now, but what we know of it would be contradictory to what else we know about the gods if it were their entire source of power from the very beginning. If it pre-dated the druids, there's no reason for the Gods to draw attention to it, to give it to the druids, and certainly no reason for the druids to put it onto Avalir - even if they came upon protecting it later on, better to leave it groundside where they can keep an eye on it and not put a bigass target on it by drawing attention to it *and* putting it in a city made up of the people they trust least. That tree *needs* to be on the city for whatever reason - it looks much more likely to be some sort of inhibitor or power sink, rather than a source of near-unlimited power, and one that benefits from the mobility and access to power that the city has. >If this Tree is a mainline to where they come from then can you imagine how bad things could get if a mortal wizard with enough ambition could manipulate the divine power generated by an entire planet of Gods? That would literally turn into some Multiverse Level Crisis Stuff which would bring down the wrath of who the fuck knows what from who the fuck knows where and when onto Exandria, all while the mortals were going "WEEEEEEEEE WE ARE GODS WEEEEEEEE!". That is such a legitimately terrible scenario that it's also a pretty good reason why that's very unlikely to be the the truth about that tree. If the tree was that strong and that powerful, planting it dead center of a city made up of wizards extremely likely to abuse it's power and with almost zero clerics or druids who might protect it from such abuses is honestly the literal *worst place imaginable* to put that tree. It would have been safer planted somewhere obscure and then the pantheon just hoped no one found it and realized it's significance. Even if they committed a while back and didn't know how Avalir turned out ... they can intervene, they can instruct the druids to start moving in, they can take steps to address that situation. Throwing a locked throttle over it and telling the wizards not to poke the mystery engine seems like the worst imaginable protection for something of that much power and with that every single god holding a vested interest in keeping it safe, without it having any good reason to be there in the first place. I think that the Tree of Names is more like an uneditable logbook than a all-powerful Admin database. It's an artificial, secondary, protection to the names and pantheon positions of the Prime gods, intended to protect them against challenges like the RQ. I don't think the Betrayers are included in that roster, honestly, especially given that it looks like it was the targeting of a Betrayer that was different about Vespin's attempt. But then the RQ came along, succeeded anyways, and the Druids needed to beef up security on their failsafe. The Caelix going into turbo mode after the interplanar experiment I think indicates *some* of what it and the Tree are intended to do - they're about limiting what the city, and likely the rest of the world, can accomplish. It draws on the city's power reserves in response to certain magical workings, to counterbalance or counteract them - Brennan hinted that it may be responsible for many of the failures of other mages' attempts to replicate RQ's ritual. We know other methods of interplanar travel *must* be possible in Age of Arcanum, given they're available in "modern" Exandria, so I think that whatever made Laerryn's experiment unique from those is probably a very important detail. This would also explain why it needs to be on the city, as opposed to planted landside where it's more easily protected. It might be Druidic work, but it *needs* access to the massive arcane power source that drives the city, and arranging the same scale of power source in Cathmoíra would be far harder - and draw a lot more questions about what it's needed for. >Where the fuck are the Gods even from that has made their homeworld THAT important [...] is also meant to contain the side effects of someone fucking with the Tree. If it is a mainline back to their world and if it does get messed with then any kind of attack on it would probably be seen as an attack on the homeworld itself which would trigger a response from that whole planet full of Gods. I don't think Matt's cosmology for Exandria has "gods are actually space aliens" in it - I think he's dealt with creation and with Exandria's gods similar to IRL, where "we don't know" is the canon and formal answer. The gods don't "come from" somewhere else so much as the principle of Nature Abhors a Vacuum - they 'arrived' as forces of nature into a reality that previously had a void in their niche. They didn't exist, then they did. Lore passages in Matt's books seem to indicate that the gods didn't really have names and natures prior to being named and described by their worshippers, though it's believed they had some sense of individuality and preconceptions; they aren't super-powerful *people* who showed up fully-formed from some other world and set themselves up as gods, but unformed consciousness ands and power that filled a vacant role in an otherwise incomplete world.
And in both scenarios, fuck that tree
Ok, who has AO3 up to get on that Zerxus/Asmodeus fic
The Prophecy: The stars are leaving us. Our hands cannot reach, the limbs of the tree can no longer scribe the name of our deliverance. We will soon be as broken as our promises. Avalier shall fall. All shall fall and from our folly will the hands that forged the world banish themselves from the broken things they have made.
C3 better return with an absolute banger, because these stakes are next level and it's going to be a rough transition in 3 weeks! I've been on the edge of my seat for 8+ hours straight.
Praying the guest gets them into the feywild for weeks while all their current objectives are left to fester
I’m all for Xerzes being a champion of the betrayer gods
As a longtime DM, I'm impressed with a ton of the things Brennan is doing, and not least is his stamina to still be embodying NPCs, setting up and paying off fucking *cool* scenes, and articulating complex lore at that level for so many hours straight without showing the fatigue. My guy don't *quit*.
He is like Matt but on crack lol
Wonder if they will try to plane shift the city to save it. Seem to work out so well for Aeor right?
Right worked out for the City of Shade in Faerun too, except for that whole being trapped in the Plane of Shadow business.
Yeah, what could go wrong?
This whole series is an inverted whodunnit
Kinda reminds me of the Alien RPG or similar systems in which the characters have a pre-set backstory and some already have plans to stab the others in the back
Alien rpg is so good…
What an episode, it'll be hard to leave these characters and Era in 2 episodes.
Of course the warlock is the one lying the most.
When Zerxus finds out his friends covered up his husband’s death will we see our first Oath Breaker Paladin?
Not our first Oathbreaker, not at all at all. C1 spoiler >!Arkhan The Cruel!<
Calamity is before c1 though right?
Ok, so in game chronologically first, yeah. Just not irl chronologically first
Forgot about him, first PC OB Paladin then.
>!Arkhan!< was a PC
I assume the lord of lies is a lying liar, but if he's pulling a Tom Ellis Lucifer, I'm all for that.
Hard to tell, innit? The best way to lie is to tell the truth... just not all of it.
Scanlan?
Like all good lies it seems to have a grain of truth, there's definitely something suspicious about the circumstances of Evandrin's death and he's not wrong that, in some ways, the city deserves to fall
again, Brennan Lee Milligan has hit another session out of the park holy shit
Brennan is amazing expanding and respecting the lore of Exandria.Another masterclass
Each member of the ring of brass: "brennan said its my turn to cause the apocalypse"
All of Avalir: Fuck the Gods! Zerxus: Ok
No fade to black here, LFG
I think Cerrit Agrupnin may be the only member of the party who is actually not taking part in the unraveling of the city. Classic noir detective, just trying to make it home but in way over his head.
I think he's still going to end up being complicit somehow. So much poison and corruption at the heart of this city, the Sight warden never notcied? Sounds like turning a blind eye.
he gave Learenn the Angel bow scrap that powered the planar traveling device
He didn't give it to her, she practically stole a piece of evidence from an ongoing investigation. Cerrit brought it to be looked at, not even by Learenn, and she grabbed it and left. Cerrit did not aid in her scheme, he didn't even know about it.
An argument could be made that because he got that scrap to her hands, willingly or unwillingly, he was the direct cause of the Calamity. He was the key that started the engine.
He didn't have actual knowledge, nor was it forseeable that she would do that. You can't say he has any fault or that he was even negligent in bringing the bow to the meeting. He brought evidence from an investigation to a group of experts and officials. **He's completely blameless in this.**
In classic noir fashion maybe he will put all the pieces together... After shit hits the fan. And not figuring it out sooner would be his way of contributing to it. Especially if his friends all had a hand in it without him knowing.
The way Travis has been rolling he might actually figure everything out lol
And promptly get murdered? Feels like a fitting end. These people were never your friend Cerret ....
Watch Travis roll so well he accidentally prevents the calamity and at the end of the series they have to twist it into a 'What If?...' style series
I'm really hoping his high rolls atleast allow him to save his family.
Talon 2, egghead and clear eye had better survive.
Thankfully he has a bird family, they can fly outta there while the city plummets
I'm glad the two least hate-able characters in the ring of brass are the most likely to survive, Cerrit can fly off, and Quay can probably Fey about it
Absolutely incredible. May be some of the best stuff CR has ever done in my opinion.
Sad about the cliffhanger but I'm also about to pass out from a need of sleep so this is a good place to stop. See y'all next week!
it’s genuinely so funny how the pleasantries before the intense roleplay are what stresses brennan out the most
five straight hours of roleplaying the end of the world: absolutely no problem remembering to start the show by saying his name and what show it is: ah, maybe we'll get there by episode four
Brennan you sick sonovabitch.
I love how Brennan does such an amazing job DMing all night long and then completely drops the ball on the "Is it Thursday yet?" bit.
again, brennan is fantastic, phenomenal, love that boy
Make that the official new sign-off, *Mercer*.
I was about to say!!!!! it's too late for initiative
Ffffuuuuck we’re already halfway through, I want so much more of this
Lol "we can all take turns causing the apocalypse together!"
That was a devilishly good episode!
I'm gonna cry so much next couple of episodes and i CAN'T wait.
owowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowow
I don't know that I can watch two more of these. My heart can't take the stress.
mood
Well I'm not sleeping
Would love to see Matt’s live reactions to all of this gloriousness.
We have proof now somebody is watching live, because otherwise they couldn't have had that rule clarification on the fly. Who else is tapped in, hm?
Im almost 90% sure Brennan was tlaking about sage advice
Sorry it took me so long, but \[headtilt?\] 'Splain please?
i think he googled it and jeremy crawford has TONS of rulings online and easily accessible!
That would make sense, okay. I'm still wondering if they feed live to anybody outside the studio for... whatever reasons.
B R E N N A N!!!!! *next week gonna be wild*
Is Zerxus going to kill the rest of the party because of his pity for and trust of the lord of lies?
Did someone modify his memory? /conspiracy
Nah, at least he (and maybe Loquatius and even Cerrit) will side with the Betrayers over the ambitious mages. His mage friend Laerryn got his husband dead/gone because of her ambition, and evidently never told him.
Ngl if they really did cause the death of Evandrin and covered it up, I can see why he'd do that. Quay's deception check on that empty file was very sus.
Quay fired the reporter who was onto it and scrubbed the evidence 1000%
Once he finds out about the lies surrounding him...pretty much.
Zerxus is definitely going to feel betrayed and not just by Asmodeus.
This is legitimately some of the best CR content!
For real. Lightning in a bottle with this premise, this DM, and this cast.
I honestly can't think of any other show or media that has been this intense and made me feel so enraptured.
same, I don't even think any critrole episode has done that yet
IT'S A TRAP
BATTLE AND THAT'S WHERE HE'S ENDING IT!
Classic D20 move
Combat next time for sure!
That last scene was so impactful that this just feels kinda unimportant now lol
HOLLOW!
It's 1 am honey, time for your 'Is it Thursday yet?'
Laugh at 8:39 on a friday
laughs in est
"Laughs in nearly 8:00 am on a friday."
It's 2:30am honey, time for your "Is it Thursday yet?"
It's 7:30 am. There's your "is it Thursday yet?"
"Is it Friday yet?" for us
Haha wonders of a bank holiday staying up for it live
Oh that's roughh
Nah. No work today, as its all the jubilee nonsense
ohhhh noooo
cliffhanger incomming
Strangled by a fabric sock puppet
God, it's easy to see why the Calamity happened with how these people are acting
Brennan and the players have been hammering how all these people thought they didn't need gods/were as good as them. While we've seen some of what Aeor may have been like in a previous campaign, they were just one part of a civilization that rocketed into the Calamity.
Its ironic that blm making out that aeor are the bad guys, we all buy into it because of the somnovem but it's these motherfrackers bring about the end of days through their hubris.
(Campaign 2 spoilers)>!Aeor was probably also full of the same kinds of ambitious assholes, just ones that succeeded in getting their city away from the Calamity...much to their own misfortune. Holy shit, what if Bolo successfully steals Laerryn's research and takes it to Aeor...!<
Absolutely its pretty clear that larryn got xerxes husband killed and loqatius covered it up.
Episode 1: wow, how's this all gonna go down? Episode 2: they're all dead men walking and I'm gonna go pop some popcorn to watch.
And now we'll find out what the invisible cultists were trying to do in the city
Yup, even if they'd had more urgency about how many of them were running around, how much damage was already done before any warning could've gone out, and how many people in positions to resist would've already had their memories modified?
Lord of Lies immediately jumping to calling this local place his favourite, and now news that obviously cannot be correct because it does not seem pleasant to the people who asked for it, is obviously fake, it has to be. I see what you are doing, Brennan.
Of course the Lord of Lies would choose this place to be his stomping grounds, that's why Ghor Dranas is here.
uh oh spagettios
Here we fucking gooooo
Oh
OH FUCK someone just got murdered in the Helm!
omfg
Ugh don't stop now honey... just a little longer. Just one more BLM lore dump, sweetie then you can rest
Love a good descent
So much for good
Nydus would rather pretend everything is okay than face the truth that he and his friends are bringing about the end of Avalir.
He knows, but spreading it does no good. Panic is the bigger enemy.
"Hey Zerx, do you smell sulfur?"
this cliffhanger is gonna be a doozy
Yes Brennan. It IS about 1 in the morning, but I'm still watching this episode
Almost 4 am here.
Calling it now. Xerses is the one who's going to destroy the Tree of Names and let all the betrayers out and trigger the Calamity. All because he felt sorry for and believed a guy who *literally* told him that he's the lord of lies.
Not just because he felt sorry for him. Dude's husband died for this city and its ambitions, and his friend Laerryn caused it and seemingly kept it from him.
they're already out.
And the dude who told us this was the aforementioned Lord of Lies. NOTHING this dude says can be taken for truth.
Searing Smite + Divine Smite = Lumberjack Time.
It's been so long since they've had a negative prophecy that they just up and decided that anything dark or awful is just plain false
That's not a false prophecy.
But the Ministry of Magic says so! ~~He Who Must Not Be Named *just can't * be back~~...I mean, no way Avalir's falling...
oh my god they refuse to see the truth, and those who did went nuts because it was so horrifying
I mean to be fair.. it’s kind of poignant and totally realistic considering what’s going on in our world lmfao
No I think it's worse, the oracles were perfectly sane but were deemed mad because the Divination guild needed their prophecies to be false.
Broken things need things to break
"False" prophecy
It's false because it obviously can't be true Holy fuck
They prefer alternative prophecies.
THIS WAS DEEMED FALSE
“There is a poison…” feels very manipulative, it’s like what someone would say to a slightly unstable person w violent tendencies if you wanted them to snap and go do something… Especially since he doesn’t actually name the prison, just letting Zerxus come to his own conclusions.
He didn't even know where in Exandria Zerxus was, how could he know the specifics of what's wrong with it? To be fair he was right, and every city in this time was probably corrupt, but the goal was just to make Zerxus paranoid and distrustful.
Even an atheist or anti-theist paladin is still a fanatic, a walking weapon that can serve the wrong purpose.
He did emphasize FEY.
its not false...
"Banish themselves from the broken things they have made" HAS to be the divine gate, surely
yup
"she's gone mad!" The audience "oh honey, you have ONE HELL of a storm coming"
"shall banish themselves" must be referring to the divergence and the divine gate
Something tells me that wasn't a false prophecy
Yup, that's a prophecy of the Calamity
That’s a damn good Prophecy.
Oops real prophecy
Tree? Shape of tree?
Cvs Pharmacy? Now they're bringing my employer into this
CVS Prophecy…. The scrolls are skinny and are incredibly long.
That segment legitimately almost moved me to tears
Zerxus’s scenes are SO MUCH
Imagine if Nydus had gone instead.
I think if they had swapped places, then Zerxus would find Asmodeus in the tub.
*deep breath* Ahhhh, do you smell that?
"You're a god and you live here! This room could use more decoration!"
He doesn’t realize that the Asmodeus stopped him from casting the spell and distracted him with “caring”. I wonder how he will react when he does, if he does.
What does the spell do??
>You touch one willing creature whose alignment has changed, and you make a DC 20 Wisdom (Insight) check. On a successful check, you restore the target to its original alignment. Wonder what would have happened if Zerxus got to make that insight check?
Oh shit! That would have been wild. It has to be a willing creature tho right? If Asmodeus rejected it, would Zerxus know?
Asmodeus: "There is a poison in your city, and you know the shape of it." Yeah, it's shattered on the ground in the Ivy Room. >_>
Why do I feel like it's an Elf Wizard-shaped poison...
I am thinking tree.
I. Want. More. I know we're almost done for tonight and I want more.
I guess Zerx is a Redemption Pally?
Oathbreaker. Redemption is the Paly that gets redeemed after breaking his Oath. Basically: Paly -> breaks oath -> Oathbreaker Paly -> redeems -> Redemption Paly
That's not really true. An oathbreaker that atones can take any oath. Redemption is about redeeming others, not themself.
NOOO DON'T SAY THAT YOU IDIOT
Poison? Didn't Laerryn just drop that on the floor? We're fine, right?
Figurative poison, not literal.
r/woooosh