#I think predathos being good or neutral or apathetic is the most interesting *for me personally*

[towards-toramunda]

Back on my BUT WHAT IF PREDATHOS IS A GOOD OR NEUTRAL ENTITY HUH????

WHAT THEN???????????

WHAT IF LUDINUS IS ONLY TRYING TO RELEASE PREDATHOS SO HE CAN USE HIS MORE ADVANCED HARNESS THAT HES HAD HUNDREDS OF YEARS TO DEVELOP TO EAT THE GOD EATER AND THEN HE’LL BE ABLE TO EAT THE GODS????????????????????????

WHAT IF THE BELL’S HELLS DISCOVER THAT PREDATHOS EATS GODS “NOT BECAUSE OF MALICE, NOT BECAUSE OF MURDEROUS INTENT, BUT BECAUSE SOME THINGS HAVE TO EAT AND SOME THINGS HAVE TO BE EATEN” (QUOTE FROM MATT MERCER IN EPISODE 71 WHEN THEY WERE IN THE SHATTERED TEETH THAT I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO STOP THINKING ABOUT)??????????????????????

ALL CAMPAIGN WE’VE SEEN THE GOOD SIDE OF “BAD GUYS” LIKE WITH NANA MORRI OR THE NIGHTMARE KING OR BOR’DOR OR EVEN THE PCS THEMSELVES LIKE THEY’RE ALL TEXTBOOK VILLAIN NPCS (except orym thats my father right there)

WHAT IF THAT WAS ALL TO LEAD US TO PREDATHOS ACTUALLY BEING A FINE DUDE??????

Okay but all caps is hurting my eyes so lets discuss:

- we haven’t seen predathos and presumably they’re either asleep or in some sort of dormant state and have been since nearly the beginning of recorded history so there is no record of their form, true power, personality, etc. all we know is they (presumably, but lets be real yes they did) ate two gods

- Predathos was said to create “twisted life” but so far what we’ve seen from the life on Ruidius is just… *different* life. Red and spindly and alien, but not necessarily bad. Yes we’ve seen some reilorans siding with ludinus in the fight near the lava a few episodes back, but we also know that reliorans called by imogen have to do what she says so how do we actually know these ones were working on their own volition/weren’t misguided like bor’dor was?

- Quite a few times in this campaign we’ve been shown the theme that bad things are often not evil or malicious, (and evil things can be useful shoutout to Teven Klask). As mentioned earlier and by many people throughout this campaign: these PCs are easily the villain NPCs in any other dnd campaign

- When they went to the shattered teeth Matt said “You are uncertain who is who, but you get the sense that many innocent creatures have met their end in this land violently, not because of malice, not because of murderous intent, but because some things have to eat and some things have to be eaten.” And ever since I heard him say that I keep wondering if THAT is gonna be who predathos is! Because gods may meet their end to predathos violently, not because of malice, but because *some things have to eat and some things need to be eaten*

- And NOW with the introduction of ludi’s old harness and seeing just how powerful and dangerous it is I absolutely think that Ludinus has been working on a new one since he left molaesmyr and my *theory* is that he’s only trying to release predathos so he can suck in his power (maybe he’ll be the one controlling imogen’s powers then and YIKE) and have the ability to devour the gods/become one himself.

- Imagine how JUICY and INTERESTING it’d be if the hell’s realize that predathos is actually not a bad being, but a being who has been treated badly and then BAMB LUDINUS COMES IN WITH AN UPDATED HARNESS AND SUCKS HIS POWERS INTO HIMSELF?? HOW BATSHIT WOULD THAT BE?????? LIKE??????? COME ON

(This is all speculation I hate when I speculate on this hellsite and someone claims I’m trying to pretend I have a crystal ball that can see into the future with 100% certainty: I’m trying to have fun calm down)

[utilitycaster]

So, not gonna lie, I’m having trouble understanding this arc and what story the cast is telling, I’m hoping you can help me understand a little bit, are the gods good or bad? Should we be against them? Or is it a thing of “even the gods can make mistakes, their not above criticism and analyzation. And this is humanizing them.” I don’t know, I’m confused.

Hi anon,

If I may, you cannot know the exact story that’s being told by an ongoing improvised show until it completes, and stories for adults often do not have a clear good/bad split but rather encourage you to draw your own conclusions. As a result, I think it is impossible to answer the question that was asked, but I can try to provide some insight.

In Exandria, there are both good and neutral-aligned gods (Prime Deities) and evil-aligned gods (Betrayer Gods), and these gods explicitly oppose each other; they have only rarely come together as when, along with the primordial titans (post-Schism, loosely allied with the Betrayer Gods) they sealed Predathos. The Ruby Vanguard is against all of the gods, whether Prime or Betrayer, and in favor of Predathos. In the past, most heroic characters we’ve seen have been affiliated with either the Prime Deities or with entities who are neither, and most villainous characters we’ve seen in the past that were associated with a god were associated with Betrayer Gods.

During this arc, we’ve seen a lot of people’s opinions on the gods, and we’ve seen the actions of various people, affiliated and unaffiliated, with the gods. But we’ve actually only quite briefly seen the gods themselves, during FCG’s two castings of Commune, and the Dawnfather’s visitation upon Deanna. So, in the interest of guiding people towards developing their own conclusion on the gods: Would you form an opinion based solely on the opinion others have about something? Or would you take into account their biases, their reputations, and the structures of their arguments, and if possible, go straight to the source?

The Ruby Vanguard and Paragon’s Call, as well as people who have found meaning in Ludinus’s speech, have fallen into three broad categories:

Some, like Tuldus or the people of Hearthdell, have suffered at the hands of those who worship the gods. Whether this is the will of the gods or not is unconfirmed.

Some, like Liliana Temult, and possibly Ludinus Da’Leth, have suffered in life in general, and see this as a failure of the gods. This in fact touches on the question of theodicy (“if there is a god, why does evil exist/occur”) which has been a core question of religious philosophy in the real world for at least four millennia. I do not think we are going to be the ones to answer that definitively.

Some, like the various underlings at the Tishtan site, are merely apathetic. The gods don’t mean anything, good or bad, to them, and they are getting paid to help build and protect the key, so who really cares what happens.

The player characters we’ve seen this campaign have, with the occasional exception of Imogen (whose opinions fall weakly towards the middle category), either been in favor of the gods; apathetic but have not been given any incentive towards releasing Predathos; or apathetic/neutral but have suffered at the hands of those who worship Predathos. Indeed, one can argue that everyone except Deanna and FRIDA have suffered in some way at the hands of those who worship Predathos by being teleported at random. Certainly all of Bells Hells has by being attacked and in some cases murdered.

Now: I think that the point of this exercise is to help you make your own decisions, but I’ll reveal my bias. I think the most consistent message of this arc is what Ashton, Orym, and Laudna have been saying the entire time: regardless of whether the gods are good or not, as individual entities or as a greater system of power, people have always had free will. And regardless of whether the gods are good or not, Ludinus, Otohan, and other members of the Ruby Vanguard have slaughtered innocent bystanders without a second thought. I think the most important takeaway is that the primary source of both good and evil in the world of Exandria is, and always has been, mortals. The gods of the story are real within the story, but from the perspective of an outside viewer? This seems almost purely metaphorical to me. If things are less than ideal - if parts of complex systems have at times perpetuated harm, perhaps - should we introduce an unknown force with its own unknown potential to do harm to destroy them? Or should we work to address the issues within the existing system and at the very least gather considerably more information before asking something that might be even worse to rescue us?