#reasons 5794749273973293 that robbie should come back: dorian needs to save his halfling

[critgoblin]

y’all want some post-ep.14 orym/liam meta? b/c i've got a whole lot of it. 

has anyone else noticed that orym is off the beaten path for liam? not completely out of his wheelhouse (*slaps orym’s tiny forehead* this little halfling can fit SO much trauma in him) but the way orym plays is not what i would’ve anticipated from liam. because liam is a character-driven player. by that, i mean he is one of those d&d players who is mostly in it for the inter-character role-playing. if travis is at one end of the spectrum with characters designed to drive the plot and the party forward, liam is at the other, with characters who would be content to spend an entire campaign in one setting developing relationships with the party and digging deep into the history and lore. 

it makes a lot of sense then, that liam’s previous pcs would serve as emotional catalysts for their campaigns. caleb and vax were reactive characters. they felt things, and those feelings drove them to make rash and impulsive decisions. vax had a habit of thinking only with his heart. he did what his instincts told him was right, and even when he got the literal and metaphorical shit beaten out of him for it, he never wavered in his dedication to his own (dubious) moral compass. caleb reacted on a hair-trigger instinct built out of a life of suffering and trauma. someone with that kind of damage can only ever respond with gut feeling--he made choices in self-defense, in fear, and in vengeance. his motivation was never from a sense of right and wrong, only what he saw needed to be done to keep himself and his teammates safe. 

they caused their respective parties a whole lot of trouble and grief. impulse draws consequence, and the choices they made in those snap decisions caused lasting aftershocks on both their individual character arcs and on the campaign as a whole. they developed complicated and emotionally-charged relationships with every member of their party, and in fact, entered the campaign already deeply entrenched with another pc--a bond that would define much of their character arc and growth. everything vax did usually came back to keeping vex safe--he died for her, he committed to a god he hated for her, he gave up control of his fate and his life and his purpose all for her, for his sister. and caleb... caleb built himself back up on the foundations veth laid for him. everything he became was in the image of what she wanted him to be, what she believed he already was. caleb remade himself into a better man for veth, even when that meant giving up everything he’d sacrificed for, because she knew he could. 

caleb and vax were created to fuck up constantly and to be taught to be better by the people who loved them. they were built so liam could dig deep into emotional turmoil to tell stories about death and grief and rebuilding. they were messy, invested, broken characters who were made whole again by their loved ones, who defined themselves through their connections, and who were made all the better for their mistakes and convictions. 

orym is not like either vax or caleb. orym isn’t a reactive character. he was built to be a support character, to exist on the outskirts of the party and provide protection and defense when asked. where caleb and vax were messy creatures of instinct and gut reaction, and whose active participation in their environment provoked fate and pushed the narrative along, orym is a study in control. you can see it in the way liam holds himself when he’s playing orym--tense. alert. hyper-vigilance disguised as poise and grace. matt summed it up pretty well in episode 14: “orym is doing the thing that he’s been doing for most of the night, which is paying attention.” orym is a soldier, and he is very, very good at it. he knows what his duty is. to watch. to observe. to get involved when there is blood on the line, to take the hits when it is expected of him, and to die at his teammates’ feet. he does not engage actively with the party unless specifically called upon, and he does not reveal personal information about himself ever. he checks in on his teammates, he prioritizes their health and wellbeing, he offers advice and comfort, he speaks softly and takes them seriously. but he does not engage. there is a boundary that he has set up between himself and the rest of the world, and he tends to it carefully. everything stays inside that line where it belongs, and he does not step over it. 

the truth is, we don’t know what happened in zephra. we have theories based off a tweet from almost five years ago, but we don’t know anything for sure because orym hasn’t told us. hasn’t told anyone. he hasn’t breathed a word about the attack other than to explain exactly what happened when prompted. clinical. rehearsed. a soldier reading a report, he says almost the exact same thing every single time. this is a pretty far cry from vax, who told his sister - and therefore, the audience - everything, and caleb, who revealed pretty early on that he had murdered his family and even earlier revealed that he was a tortured soul convinced of his own damnation. liam is not playing orym as a character seeking connection and rebirth, he is not playing a character intending to invest himself in other people. yes, it’s still early on in the campaign, but the other pcs have come pretty clean about their pasts. the details might be vague (looking at fcg/sam here) but we’ve got at least the scope of everyone’s backstories. we don’t know anything about orym except that his home was attacked six years ago, and that there is something deep and painful lurking inside of him. i have so many questions about his past, about what he’s been doing for the six years since the attack, about what happened to him, but i don’t see any end in sight to this purposeful obfuscation. because it’s not a matter of trust, or respect, or friendship. orym does trust his team. he likes them, and he’s certainly willing to die for them. and if he’s not waiting for trust, then i don’t know what else he’d be waiting for, unless he isn’t waiting for anything and he’s planning on walking right into his own grave with all of himself still wrapped up inside. 

the one exception to that rule, i think, might have been dorian. dorian was different. i don’t know if we’ll ever know why, but orym was different around dorian. not because he opened up to him, but because it seemed like he wanted to. like there were all these things that he was inches from blurting out. there was an element of engagement orym took with dorian that he hasn’t taken with anyone else. it was still filtered through that barrier of his, but between the flower and the sending stone and that goodbye - for the company -  it’s the most of orym we’ve ever gotten. little pieces of what orym might look like if he did talk about himself. if he did reach out. if he wasn’t such a good soldier. if he wasn’t so obviously soaked in grief and guilt and duty, if he wasn’t so fixed on whatever it is his goal is--vengeance, maybe? justice? death? 

i am heartbroken over losing dorian and losing robbie, and i am afraid of where it has left orym. our little murder halfling, with so much contained violence strung up inside of him. who is really just a walking, talking tragedy, so intent on going to his own destruction utterly alone. there was so much potential between them for something real and meaningful. for maybe the first real connection orym has had in six years. and orym wanted it, you can tell orym wanted it so badly. he was distraught over dorian’s departure, the heartbreak was all over his face. and now that dorian is gone, the one connection orym’s tried to foster in six years, what happens? we don’t know what’s waiting at the end of the road for orym, but it’s probably not a warm hearth. probably not connection. probably not a family. it probably looks a whole lot like an empty grave. like a waiting stillness. like a promise of an end to the agony he carries around like a live grenade in his chest. and why would orym bother, then? why would he build something new? why would he nurse a connection to life, if all he’s banking on is oblivion? 

the thing is, we don’t know anything about orym. but we do know liam. we know his themes, and we know the kind of characters he plays. and maybe orym isn’t like vax or caleb because he doesn’t reach out for connection and purpose. but they’re alike enough, and liam doesn’t do anything by accident. 

will the halfling live? or will the halfling die?