#and how the moon card only has catha in the sky but has catha and ruidus in the reflection..... idk if that means anything but!!! intriguin

[piratespencil]

Listening to c2e90 and Matt just starts dropping lore about meteors full of rare odd metals that are rumoured to be falling from Ruidus???

(Every time we get some Ruidus lore in c2 my c3 brain goes wild...)

[12pt-times-new-roman]

initial thoughts on the lore drops from 3x17:

Laudna was Vex's body double who the Briarwoods hung from the Sun Tree. Vindication. And veeeery interesting that Delilah has decided to inhabit her head, given that Vex was the one who killed her twice.

Ashton's skin wasn't always made of stone — it started changing when they were 11-12. I'm not versed enough in genasi lore to know whether this is something that usually happens, but it could be, and it makes me very interested to know what their lineage is.

Orym's husband, Will, died in the attack on Zephrah, which is part of why he's so invested in finding out what happened. He has a tattoo of the moons to represent him — "big moon, little moon." Interesting that Orym uses Ruidus to represent himself, indicating that he doesn't really view the moon as an ill-omen but rather as just another satellite like Catha.

According to Milo, FCG has "long, long accumulated buildup" in their joints. Which basically confirms that FCG was built in Aeor, not two years ago. But from what we know, and given that they were found in the Oderan Wilds, I think it's more likely that Dancer was an explorer who found FCG, repaired them, and brought them back to the wilds. If FCG was repaired and then given a directive that was contrary to their original programming, could that be why they're having such cognitive dissonance? And what the fuck is up with them vibrating? Is that what those "two points" were, some kind of arcane buildup of energy?

The last post card that Fearne got from her parents was from Aeor. So her parents had some kind of reason to go to the ruins in search of something. And the Wilds appears to have a significant fey presence. What if Fearne's parents were the ones who found FCG and woke them up, then brought them back to the wilds to investigate/deal with whatever's drawing the fey to the jungle? What if one of Fearne's parents is Dancer?

Imogen.... honey..... I'm so afraid for you. And again with the stone feeling so much like a beacon. It being in her hand, offering her a "different path," the storm explicitly being described as "hungry," her mother warning her away from the storm but the stone calling her to face it... and we really get to see a side of her that we haven't yet: she is afraid. She's afraid of losing control, of taking a chance that could lead to that loss, even in the alluring face of being free from her nightmares.

We also saw FCG's memories, their sense of belonging with their troupe and Dancer, and then their deaths — "a figure darting off into darkness." Not into the night, but darkness — so possibly the darkness of a dense jungle, or of a cave/mineshaft. Also, they were "bloodied" — but automatons don't bleed, do they? So they would've had to have been pretty damn close to the blooded members of their party. I'm starting to lean into the idea that FCG and their automaton buddies were the ones who killed Dancer, and then began to kill each other until only FCG remained.

Honestly, I love the mutual detect thoughts thing. I don't know if that's a homebrew of Matt's, or if it's in the RAW somewhere, but I'm 100% integrating that into my games. And I'm super curious about what would've happened if FCG failed that initial roll and they felt like they were being drawn into an ouroboros loop of thought. Laudna should also have access to Detect Thoughts, since it's a sorcerer class spell, so if she decided to prepare it she literally could see Imogen's dream like she said she wanted to.

FCG is taking a lot of necromancy spells. Like. Mx?? Why?

Ruidus is about a month away from its zenith. That's the third time Matt has mentioned that. Like, sure, in astronomy "zenith" just means "highest point in the sky," but......

(Also, given given that we know the current date, two approximations of Ruidus' orbit (either 11 or 12 Exandrian months), how far away it is from its zenith, and exactly where the party is on the globe, one could, in theory, create simulations to reverse-engineer where Ruidus would be in its orbit at any given point in time with reasonable margins of error.)

(I may or may not be working on this. Updates will be provided.)