Like I know it’s been said already that the Real Villain Of This Brennan-DM’d Campagin Is Late Stage Capitalism Yet Again but I am genuinely BOWLED OVER by how poorly thought out the Astral Leywright Interdimensional Funtimes plan is.
I mean
Leaving off the fact that we the audience know the apocalypse is kicking off in like two hours, just imagineif Vespin Chloras and the Calamity hadn’t/weren’t going to happen and this unhinged scheme actually got to play out.
It’s bad enough that the “heroes” of this miniseries are a literal oligarchy of six privileged dickheads running an entire government with no public oversight or accountability, but this plan was cooked up by literally threeof them. Three people! On their own! Have decided it’s a great idea to shift their entire city-state to other planes of reality!
I know they said the purpose of Avalir was exploration and research and knowledge but! This is not a research station! This is a city! You know! A place where civilians and kids live! Even if the world wasn’t about to end, what were they going to do when people started objecting to relocating their kids and families to other dimensions that may or may not even be HOSPITABLE to life from the Prime Material Plane!
They have no idea what’s out there! They’re doing this BECAUSE they have no idea what’s out there! And they’re just going to shift their floating mountain city-state full of kids and civilians into literal parts unknown!
It’s like if the Royal Society circa 1800 pointed to the city of London and said “guess what everybody, every single one of you is relocating to an exotic foreign locale! which exotic foreign locale? fuck if i know, we just spun a globe and picked at random! here’s hoping we don’t wind up at the bottom of the ocean!”
Jesus H fucking Christ the hubris on these people is glorious and even without Betrayer Gods gunning for humanity’s ass it’s still so clear that this could only ever end in tragedy.
I’m crying. I’m laughing. These people are fundamentally awful and selfish. i love them so much. I’m going to fiddle while they burn.
Obviously, Asmodeus is extremely intelligent, that’s like saying water is wet, but watching him play Zerxus was so damn interesting. He knowsZerxus has no respect for the gods, Betrayer or Prime, and adjusts accordingly. He knows he starts on an even playing field, with Zerxus not having an affinity for either set of deities, but something bordering on loathing or disrespect at the least for both. He employs sympathy, empathy, and garners pity to sway Zerxus to his side, a play at human emotion. His face is a mask designedto lure Zerxus in. And even though he starts at a lower level, being dying until Zerxus heals him, even as he regains his strength, he’s careful never to surpass Zerxus in his attitude. He does not take a godly stance of being “above,” he talks to Zerxus like an equal, or even like Zerxus could be his savior. It’s sosmart and I hate him.
All the wizards and sorcerers were brought to their downfall in the Age of Arcanum by their pride and arrogance. This is known, this is clear.
Zerxus is being brought to his downfall by the same.
By the thought that he can be such a force of light that he can turn this devil from darkness. And instead walking directly into the trap of Asmodeous and kneeling before him.
The way that every PC in ExU: Calamity feels like they’re in a different genre is so, soperfect. Because isn’t a tragedy more tragic when no one knows they’re in a tragedy until too late?
Cerrit thinks he’s in noir detective fiction; crack the case, solve the crime. Loquatious thinks he’s in a comedy featuring bitter divorcees. Patia thinks she’s in a political intrigue drama. The only person who seems even vaguely aware that they’re in an apocalyptic tragedy is Zerxus, and even he seems like he’s walked out of a high fantasy novel, what with his starlight griffon and shining armour.
And isn’t that the nature of so many tragedies? Think of Romeo, laughing and making crude jokes with his friends, getting married, all the things a comedy hero does, before everything goes to hell. Brutus acting like the protagonist of a history play, about to change the world. They have no idea what story they’re really in.
And neither do the Calamity PCs… but they will. Oh, they will. And it’ll be so much more painful, because this wasn’t how their story was supposed to go.
Whatever you do, don’t think about Quay as a precursor for Artagan coming to Exandria and making his first real friend and eventually performing his first genuine act of love under the Moonweaver’s gaze as he lets his friend go to save her. And also not as a precursor to Fearne stumbling out from a door in the woods to Exandria and meeting not one, but two groups of people who love and accept her for her eccentricities and she cares about them back. Just like… don’t think about it, okay?
Destroying the thing that is stopping you from achieving your life’s work is a reasonable response.
Destroying the thing that is hurting your best friend and your husband is a reasonable response.
Destroying the thing that is keeping your friend trapped in what could only be agony - even if he’s not in pain is a reasonable response.
Destroying the thing that is taking energy, that was put there without your consent, which you haven’t been allowed to learn about, which you don’t know the purpose of only that it is taking. It’s taking. It is hurting you. And your city.
Something that is this well guarded, that there are this many secrets around, that no one will let you get close to must be for someone else’s gain and your loss. It must be evil. The druids must have some power, something their working on, they want to stop you, they want to stop progress.
It’s a reasonable response.
And your reasonable response to your pain and your dreams and your love - is the end of the world.
Loquatius creating this crystal, a message, a time capsule with a final lie on it, crystallizing Laerryn as a hero, Loquatius as a villain, Loquatius resigning as herald of Avalir. Loquatius creating this doomed message for a doomed city, one last act of protection for a doomed love.
All Laerryn has ever wanted was to leave her mark,
and Loquatius is going to make sure its a beautiful one.
(except he can’t, except he can’t make sure, except we know the history books don’t speak about Laerryn, except this hidden act of love in a falling city seems doomed to only be heard by him,
jesus i am suuuuper fucked up over her tiny “vax?” as she tentatively starts to hug him back,,,the initial vehement rejection of the possibility that he could be alive that comes from a place of self-preservation, a place of knowing that she Won’t survive if she gets her hopes up and loses him for a second time,,all swiftly and inevitably replaced by this naive, uncontrollable hope that it’s real and that she somehow got her brother back
This is perhaps a hot take but I picture Beau as the kind of note-taker who has color codes and charts and structured, ruler-aligned indented hierarchy lists, with perfect handwriting and proper capitalization and grammar for peak clarity…..
And Caleb as the kind of note-taker where everything is loose-leaf, he writes in shorthand and/or all lower case, his handwriting is absolutely atrocious, and notes about different topics are all jumbled together on the same papers.
(Beau of course hides all her notebooks and would deny the organization until her dying day, while Caleb doesn’t understand why no one else can follow his “system.”)
The longest part of the three way study session for the Transmogrification spell was Caleb attempting to explain his notes to Veth and Essek
Beau learned to take notes as part of business: ledgers, accounts, a system that can be referenced back to as needed, handed over to someone to work out of. Double entry book keeping with a second set of documents you hand off to the tax collectors to hide your graft.
Caleb remembers EVERYTHING, so his notes are completely inscrutable without studying his entire library shelf, the secret code he and the other prodigies made up to pass notes (and the changes they made to it over years) and his personal notations for theoretical arcane concepts that exist only in his head after thinking about them for years.
I am really fucking tired of people calling Imogen a sad boi. She’s not a sad boi for the SAME REASON that Caleb and Vax (and Percy, etc.) are also not sad bois.
They CANNOT be a sad boi if they have actual trauma. Trauma automatically disqualifies from sad boi hours. Sad bois are melodramatically sad for no reason. Stop calling them sad bois! It’s annoying!
Also, a character with a little angst to their story fills out the emotional palate of the party the same way that something acidic like vinegar or lime juice brings out the flavour profile of a meal. People who are complaining that Imogen’s story being one that might deal with *gasp* uncomfortable emotions and mature themes feel like they’ve confused the cliche of the edgy sadboi with the notion that a character might not be a quipping marvel hero badass all the time.
Likewise, Jester was sugary on SO many levels is it any wonder Laura wants to play someone to contrast that?
I’ve been seeing quite a few interesting meta posts about Zerxus and Asmodeus, and how Zerxus’ actions towards Asmodeus are signs of equally deep compassion and arrogance in thinking he personally can fix the lord of the hells by being kind. But what I’m surprised not to have seen is discussion of how the same character trait can be either positive or negative depending on the narrative.
Because do you know who Zerxus reminds me of? Jester.
Jester knew the Gentleman was a liar and a crime lord and generally bad news. She knew Artagan had decieved not only her but all his followers about being a god. She knew Essek started a war. And despite having been hurt and risking being hurt again, she stood by all of them.
And she was right. Her unconditional love was part of the reason all three of these idiots came to grow some morals. The Gentleman stepped away from crime and got back together with Marion. She stood up to a literal god for Artie and he saved her from its wrath rather than selishly letting her share his punishment (thereby unkowingly also saving himself). Essek risked his life to fight Lucien and Trent by their side.
In the narrative of campaign 2, Jester made the right choice to extend trust to the untrustworthy. But Calamity is by definition a tragedy, and we all already know Zerxus is making a mistake for which the whole world will pay dearly. But he doesn’t know, can’t know, because no one knows what kind of narrative they are in until it has reached its end. We all must simply choose our actions and see what happens.
And this is a tragedy. Kidness or cruelty, compassion or evil, action or inaction, nothing can change that. Zerxus’ choice was kindness. And so, this time, kindness will be our downfall.
Now that Fjord’s become a paladin, I think it’s a good time for me to lay out all my thoughts about Fjord and the idea of “Chosen”-ness.
I think Travis has said before, in Talks, that part of why Fjord was so reluctant to break with his patron wasn’t just the sheer power that Uk’otoa gave him (though that’s part of it), but this idea of having been “chosen,” that Uk’utoa picked him and he didn’t want to let go of that. He’s also said he specifically made Fjord in his 30s because he wanted him to be a fully-formed adult with a life and an identity before this thing HAPPENED to him and he became an adventurer and got magic powers and such - that we’re so used to this story happening to kids and teens and very young adults, but he wanted Fjord to be an adult.
I think Fjord’s had this feeling that, if he was ever going to be special, he’s missed his chance - and we all know that feeling, don’t we? It’s what you all felt the day you turned 11 and no hogwarts letter showed up to tell you that really, your life is a wonderful adventure. it’s how you felt when you realized that you’re past the age when narnia would be closed to you, past the age where peter pan would ever whisk you off to neverland, too old, somehow, for magic. for adventure. for chosen-ness.
(Caleb’s also a deconstruction of this narrative, but in the opposite direction, looking at the problems of beinga Special Chosen One as a kid, which is one reason I think their interactions are so interesting to me.)
And here’s Fjord, an unwanted, unloved orphan who always stuck out as unique but only in all the worst ways, working his ass off every day on board a ship and thinking this is what his life is and he’d better suck it up and get used to it. And then he’s in this awful situation where he nearly dies and suddenly this immensely powerful being is telling him he still has potential. And it wants him. He’s pretty sure everyone else aboard that ship that night is dead. It could’ve saved any one of them, but it picked him.
Fjord wants that so much. He wants it so much he pops the second lock on Uk’otoa because he didn’t want to lose the chance to have the same kind of special gift that Avantika got. He wants it so much he keeps up his bargain long after he is made aware of just how awful his patron is. He wants, so badly, to believe that he’s special. Not that Uk’otoa madehim special, though he feels that, too. But the idea that Uk’otoa picked him in the first place makes him feel like maybe he was already somehow Good Enough to bepicked.
I think it’s part of why he’s so unsettled when he realizes that Vandren had the sword before him, and I think it’s what’s driving him the night at the forge when he presses the blade to his own chest. “You need me more than I need you.” He’s trying to bluff a demigod, but he also just wants it to be true. He wants to be important to Uk’otoa, not just a tool he made and can discard at will. That’s why he couldn’t throw the sword away until Uk’otoa made it clear that, no, he wasn’t going to intervene to stop Fjord from hurting himself. No, he’s not thatimportant. He’s useful to Uk’otoa, but he’s ultimately expendable. Fjord can’t keep pretending to himself that he’s a capital-c Chosen One to Uk’otoa. (He throws away Vandren’s accent that same night, because Jester reached out and it turns out Vandren’s doing just fine without him, so he can’t keep pretending to himself that he’s a capital-C Chosen One to Vandren anymore, either.)
All of this is why I think it’s so important that Fjord’s elevation to paladin by the wildmother happens the way it does. She lays it right out for him - “You found my gaze through chance. Through deed. Through company.” He wasn’t always, inherently special (the way Vax was, for instance), but he’s caught the attention of this goddess by being Fjord. And sure, some of it is down to luck, and some if it is down to her already favoring Caduceus, but part of it is through deed. Something Fjord has done has made him important enough for a goddess to sit up and take notice. I think this is very much what Caduceus means when he says he believes in fate, but that free will is an important part of fate. They can’t do it for him - Fjord has to choosethe Choosing.
Like I know it’s been said already that the Real Villain Of This Brennan-DM’d Campagin Is Late Stage Capitalism Yet Again but I am genuinely BOWLED OVER by how poorly thought out the Astral Leywright Interdimensional Funtimes plan is.
I mean
Leaving off the fact that we the audience know the apocalypse is kicking off in like two hours, just imagineif Vespin Chloras and the Calamity hadn’t/weren’t going to happen and this unhinged scheme actually got to play out.
It’s bad enough that the “heroes” of this miniseries are a literal oligarchy of six privileged dickheads running an entire government with no public oversight or accountability, but this plan was cooked up by literally threeof them. Three people! On their own! Have decided it’s a great idea to shift their entire city-state to other planes of reality!
I know they said the purpose of Avalir was exploration and research and knowledge but! This is not a research station! This is a city! You know! A place where civilians and kids live! Even if the world wasn’t about to end, what were they going to do when people started objecting to relocating their kids and families to other dimensions that may or may not even be HOSPITABLE to life from the Prime Material Plane!
They have no idea what’s out there! They’re doing this BECAUSE they have no idea what’s out there! And they’re just going to shift their floating mountain city-state full of kids and civilians into literal parts unknown!
It’s like if the Royal Society circa 1800 pointed to the city of London and said “guess what everybody, every single one of you is relocating to an exotic foreign locale! which exotic foreign locale? fuck if i know, we just spun a globe and picked at random! here’s hoping we don’t wind up at the bottom of the ocean!”
Jesus H fucking Christ the hubris on these people is glorious and even without Betrayer Gods gunning for humanity’s ass it’s still so clear that this could only ever end in tragedy.
I’m crying. I’m laughing. These people are fundamentally awful and selfish. i love them so much. I’m going to fiddle while they burn.
so i spent that entire scene between zerxus and mr. lord of the hells screaming at our pally there to stop literally making a deal with the devil but honestly the thing that really gets me is that it’s completely in line with what we know of zerxus’ character for him to act as he did??
like i think someone’s already written a very good meta on this but it makes sense that, in this time, gods aren’t seen as the powers we know them to be in exandria. i mean we talk of hubris (and don’t get me wrong, there IS terrible hubris) but the fact of the matter is that the ascension to godhood has been shown to be possible. why wouldn’t people then draw the conclusion that godhood is just another attainable level in the cosmic hierarchy? it’s a logical conclusion, just like how atheism is very much a logical conclusion to draw from the science in our world
and for zerxus, who already has zero reverence for the gods, who knows how to tap into divinity by being a champion of the people he’s sworn to protect, who is overall a kind person, an empathetic person… what else could he do when confronted by this broken, broken being in front of him (who has the incredible pain and genuine gentleness that brennan injects into his voice, who is wearing his husband’s face) but to reach out?
and god, that’s a STRENGTH of his! to be so compassionate and earnest among a city of egomaniacs that he can’t even bring himself to be intimidating to get what he wants and instead reaches out with sincerity, that he extends understanding to a paladin of a goddess that he and all his peers scorn, that when seeing his friend with tear tracks down her face and clutching a locket from his dead husband, his very first instinct is to comfort her. and it’s going to be his downfall. and it may be everyone’s downfall. and i’m still screaming
