#and imogen ending it with the meteor swarm

[piratespencil]

God, Orym bringing Dorian back to consciousness, holding him and telling him he needs him, only for him to immediately go down right in front of Dorian... That was rough.

[ludinusdaleth]

"I think back to the vision we watched of the Arch Heart, calling down the meteor swarm to destroy Aeor [...]

You're mine."

Imogen gets the HDYWTDT of campaign 3.

-Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 120, "The Red End"

[toaarcan]

I'm not wading into CR God Discourse this week, shit seems especially angry this time around and I've made my thoughts on that pretty clear already (no, the needle hasn't moved any). But man... I do not vibe with Predathos as an individual at all.

Like, the fights themselves were fantastic. Possessed Imogen was great, Imogen's escape leading to it turning into a more monstrous form was great, its evolution into an N64 "Head and Hands" monster for Phase 2 was great, and the fight in E120 was immaculate, I had so much fun watching it.

But man does Predathos itself, as an entity, disappoint.

Like, we have this eldritch monster from beyond all living memory, that's been imprisoned for thousands of years. It's been trying to find a way out ever since then. But all it does once it does get out is roar and attack things. Its characterisation can be summed up with "Hungy."

The campaign's earlier episodes present it as a terrible, horrifying thing, that the gods and primordials united to imprison. Its presence created the Ruidians, not by artifice but because being in its presence heavily mutated everything on the moon. They used to be regular Exandrian mortals and now they're not! And when Ludinus first made contact with it, it destroyed and permanently blighted an entire city. But apparently now it's no danger at all to anyone else. The Primordials were just doing the gods a favour by imprisoning it, I guess.

And the way it's been presented in these last two episodes is just inconsistent between story and gameplay. "It doesn't see mortals, it only sees the gods" but it has no issues having a full two-phase boss battle with a group of mortals, where it makes strategic and deliberate moves against them. "The Ruiner flees at the mere sight of it within Imogen, and the gods and all their celestial creations are helpless against it" but Braius can smite it and the Matron's boons can turn the tide and the Arch Heart's bottled Meteor Swarm is used to kill it.

Gameplay!Predathos can see mortals well enough to fight them, and has no trouble eating them. Lore!Predathos can't see them at all, and only wants to eat the gods. Gameplay!Predathos can be blasted with divine power and divine weapons and divine magic and it will be beaten. Lore!Predathos is totally immune to divine anything.

Predathos doesn't feel like a coherent character design for a game, it feels like a plot device designed to result in the exact end-stage scenario of E120. The gods can't fight it, so they and their followers have to do whatever BH says, because the alternative is them dying anyway. It has no desire to eat mortals so that there's no negative consequences to releasing it, just ignore Molaesmyr and how dramatically it's mutated the Ruidians (reshaping pre-existing life is only bad if the gods do it I guess). But none of this factors into the actual fight with it, where it has no problems seeing and eating mortals, and it can't no-sell divine power. And the fight was fun as hell, but Predathos' mechanics as an RPG Final Boss Monster do not reflect Predathos' in-lore role as the consequence-free invincible deicide machine.

[utilitycaster]

Wizard Breakdown Tracker: Downfall part 3

Ultimately, I associate the Wizard Breakdown Tracker with Aeor; I began it during the middle of the Nein's Aeor arc, and even bringing it back for the Nein reunions feels like it's missing something. That thing, it turns out, is a city of Wizard Hubris.

There are no wizard PCs so we can dispense with the formalities. For the purposes of this post, while The Raven Queen is an ex-wizard, Emhira isn't and is counted as a warlock, and The Raven Queen is counted as just a straight up god. As always, in no particular order, and if a wizard is not mentioned it's because I didn't have anything funny nor serious enough to say about them.

Calamity-era Wizards

Adamar: literally no idea. I think he was stressed but he got vaporized by Meteor Swarm (completely within the realm of mortal achievement btw; Imogen Temult could take it in 4 levels) before things really broke bad. Like 7/10; he was in pitched combat but he had 3 dragons and a bunch of demons on his side.

Primarch Selena: There are going to be a few wizards in this who truly do embody a more profound breakdown than anything we've seen before. Selena is one. What does it mean to be so good at creating a mortal-made form of life that the god of beauty chooses to reside in this when picking a vessel? What does it mean to realize in the same instant that your life's work is what doomed you and its target is standing in front of you and now holds your life in their hands? In the end, she doomed her city twice while also actively repenting; it's not just gods who contain multitudes and conflict. But also 10/10.

Arcadia Cerenvetorix: Well, she got tricked by Asmodeus and stuffed in a bottle. Asmodeus did a good job of imitating her too which, as a deity of truth and knowledge cannot feel great, to know that Guy Whose Thing Is Lying has your number even if he is technically lying and therefore in his wheelhouse in pretending to be you. Then she gets let out having been saved by SILAHA, who as a result of saving her, cannot stop Selena. I have to imagine this series of consequences drives some of her decision making in the very end, although at that point she is technically not a wizard and therefore out of the scope of this post. Anyway, 9/10; she did almost die.

Cassida Previn: There's no option for this other than 10/10. Her revelations were delivered with far less kindness than even Selena's; we see her break. She has time to consider that her good intentions have doomed Aeor as well as find the deity she's risked execution to serve is a more complicated being than what she expected and does not approve of her greatest act of service. And that's before we consider that the Society of Primes is implied to have not been successful (we don't know, since the Factorum Malleus is never fired, so it could be a bluff; but the Primes are heavily indicated to be in just as much danger) and that's also before her final moments are being presumably tortured by Asmodeus. I don't know if she really renounced The Everlight; Asmodeus lies, but it's not an unexpected consequence. As The Everlight says, it doesn't matter; she was well within her rights to feel however she felt in those last moments and it does not erase all that she did before. If she didn't it was a lie from Asmodeus, and if she did, she is forgiven entirely.

Those guys who were dragons for a hot second: Honestly? What a way to go. I wouldn't even be mad. 6/10.

The Wizards In The Cognouza Ward: THEY LEFT SO EARLY. AND FOR WHAT. Like, yes, yes, you want to show the moment so you have to do it pretty early on because you won't have the viewpoint of the divine entities later on since they'll be in the Genesis Ward, but COME ON MAN. It really is like...you could have been The Ring of Brass to Aeor. If you wanted to sound the early warning you could have done some strategic teleporting of as many people you could get onto Exandria, despite the storm, and hell, you could have taken a long rest and planeshifted the next fucking day if you had to go to the Astral Plane so badly but nooooo you had to fuck everyone else over. I mean does anyone deserve a millennium of madness and horror as Cognouza eventually became? no. But like, maybe a few years for this bullshit. 5/10 because it isn't bad yet because they jumped the fucking gun. and again. for what.

843 PD Wizards watching this or just hanging out elsewhere

Essek Thelyss: I imagine he is like those pictures of the math lady except he fully understands the math. Absolute mind blown. Trying to figure out the Luxon's relationship to Tengar if there is one. Wondering why Aeor was working on Cognouza and the Factorum Malleus and not their various Luxon experiments. Trying to figure out if the gods used the same principle as consecution. Trying to reconcile the image of Lolth as weirdly adorable with the horrors he knows his people escaped. Also he has been watching a movie for like 13-ish hours but I wonder if floating means his legs haven't fallen asleep. 6/10.

Allura Vyesoren: I really like to imagine she messaged one of Bells Hells and they were like "can I call you back later we're watching a movie" and she is just like I am getting too old for this shit. 4/10 in like, the relative sense of all wizards in this 843 PD narrative are dealing with an existential threat but like within that context, 4/10.

Caleb Widogast: I feel like the Nein would be best deployed to Ria'Doin but he might be on some other weird mission given that Essek was sent to Aeor in his place, and hopefully, we get a one-shot out of this. For me. Anyway though for practical reasons he did just hear from Essek recently and Trent seems gone for good so, within the broader "Ludinus Da'leth is fucking over existence" context, also like a 4/10.

Yussa Errenis: Really hard to tell! What unhinged fuckery that doesn't require physically leaving the house is this small bastard (affectionate) up to. Is he on the moon? Is Nicodranas on a nexus point thus sending him to some far-flung region of Exandria? Did he try to question Halas and get trapped in the gem? Is he just ignoring Iva Deshin? Anyway given his track record I am going to say 9/10 and he is in some kind of peril that is low-key his own fault, but it's anyone's guess.

Astrid Becke: Imagine being screwed over so hard you have to go undercover in retail. I think that fantasizing over who gets to land a killing blow in D&D Actual Play is not terribly interesting; what happens happens, and such fantasies are usually a dull slog of "who is wronged most" which is never good. With that said I don't think she is the most wronged, if that's even a metric one can know; and also I know this is not going to happen given her very tangential nature as a minor NPC in the story being told here; and I don't think I am speaking about a just or kind world in this fantasy; but in a world that aims for justice but lands in pettiness, she would get the final blow on Ludinus Da'leth. 7/10.

Ludinus Da'leth: There's a tumblr-famous post in which someone makes a lot of wild-ass claims about the status of, iirc, women who spun thread in medieval Europe and then when people were like "I don't think that's right" posted a fuckload of links and the phrase "*steeples fingers*" and then someone actually clicked on the links and was like "uh none of these back up your point, actually; most of them have little to do with it and what few do address it either contradict what you are saying, or are similarly unsourced from non-experts." Anyway I think we can all see the value in checking the citations and vetting your sources here, a lesson The Martinet seems to have failed to internalize. He is however either at a 3/10 or an 8/10 depending on precisely how up his own ass he is and whether he realizes he showed footage far too complicated to make but a single easy argument.

[stormisamoth]

yapping about c3e120 (spoilers)

I know I say it every week but I just can't get over how fucking epic these maps look

suddenly hit with the desire to draw ashton third wheeling imodna movie date

the look of relief on Robbie's face after orym escapes being eaten 🥰

dorian embracing the fact that he's royalty and a badass despite how afraid and insecure he feels I'm so proud of my boy

holy shit a seventhnintheighth level spell

over 170 damage is actually insane

oh fuck fearne is unconscious

oh fuck nat 1 on the death save oh fuck

imogen convincing braius to heal fearne by showing him her titty. close enough welcome back vex and scanlan.

aw that laudna painting is gorgeous

oh fuck both dorian and braius down

LIAM DONT SAY THAT DONT START BEING ALL IM GLAD WE HAD A RELATIONSHIP BEFORE THE END HES NOT GONNA DIE DONT MAKE ME CRY

fuck now Imogen's down

fuck I think this is the roughest final fight they've had, like 3 down and almost all their healers gone. like I think fearne is the only one with healing left

man this fight is STRESSFUL I feel like at least one of them isn't coming out alive

fuck the amount of fear orym is probably feeling at potentially losing another partner to this fight

NOT HIS CAL TO HEAL UP DORIAN MIRORING HIS SENDING TO REUNITE WITH HIM AFTER FCG DIED I AM CRYING

FUCK AND NOW ORYM IS DOWN

fuck that is half the party down holy shit

STRESSED

not fearne rolling a 1 again on the death saves

genuinely this could be a tpk and I will cry

Travis and Laura such a beautiful relationship

FUCK YEAH METEOR SWARM

Abubakar coming in clutch

oh shit they gonna get smote

I love how bitchy the hells are in face of authority I love it so much

fuck that was such an insane episode

[thebloodredroses]

There's something strangely ironic in me watching the final Bell's Hells vs Predathos fight today, after our Pathfinder campaign ended in a tpk last night, and seeing Imogen cast Meteor Swarm to stop Predathos while last night Meteor Swarm royally fucked us over by oneshotting our cleric. Not relevant to anything, just weird

[utilitycaster]

"At what level does an entity lose the right to defend themself against threat of death?" I have been very weirded out by arguments that talked about the level of innate power being the reason they need to go. Especially in a campaign with sorcerer supreme Imogen and Laudna. We've seen imogen blow up a city block becuz of how she was born. She will be able to get timestop and meteor swarm soon. When do we cut her off? Does she need to fundanentally change to live? This is what bothers me abt c3.

So here's the thing, I have in the past pointed out that high level characters, particularly casters, can do an immense amount of damage and cause untold harm, and so the rhetorical question can be made into a practical one; but it does work best rhetorically. When do we decide someone is no longer a person, and why? Most of the arguments against the Prime Deities in Critical Role end up becoming a condemnation of identity (god) and a method (violence), never one of intent (not dying/freeing prisoners) nor victims (Strife Emperor worshipers running a forced labor camp) and therefore never one of outcome (freeing prisoners from the forced labor camp and giving them a chance to escape). It's worth interrogating; it's a deeply conservative approach, in the end.